15 49.0138 8.38624 both 0 bullet 0 4000 1 0 horizontal https://www.messynessychic.com 300 4000

Category / People / Icons / Muses

The Tik Tok Generation Needs a Movie about The Abernathy Kids

In 1910, two boys, Louis and Temple Abernathy decided to cross America by horseback without adult supervision, from Oklahoma to Manhattan. They were just 10 and 6 years old. To get back home, they bought a car and drove it while their horses returned by train. This true but forgotten little adventure story struck me…

He was Meant to Be Bigger than Bowie

He was the first openly gay rock musician to be signed to a major record label, declaring himself “glam rock’s truest fairy” to slack-jawed media critics and listeners alike. Touted as America’s successor to David Bowie, he was signed to Elektra Records for $500K and for a brief New York minute in the early 1970s,…

The Art of Homemaking in a World War Dugout

It all started with one photograph that caught my interest, and then through the course of today, I think I’ve easily gone through about 10,000 photographs, searching through various archives for another glimpse into how soldiers made a home for themselves on the front line. Above: A French WWI dugout called “The Chalet” (c) Denise…

Dollhouses of Death that trained America’s Detectives

I always found the game of Cluedo fell a bit flat. I wanted more from the murder mansion’s one-dimensional floor plan, and really, how were we ever supposed to solve crime with a cast of suspects crafted into tiny plastic tokens? But it turns out, around the very same time that the iconic American board game was being developed in…

The Travelling Troupe of Giant Marionnettes

It’s the biggest show on earth– literally. No theatre is big enough for the troupe that transforms entire towns and cities into its stage. From the South of France to Morocco, Cameroon to China, New Zealand to Mexico, Royal de Luxe has become a street theatre company of epic, almost mythical proportions since it all began…

All the Different Ouija Boards you Never Knew Existed

We all had a Ouija phase, didn’t we? Or at least most of us saw The Exorcist and know what can happen if you don’t say “Goodbye” to the spirit world before putting away the board. But did you know there are hundreds, maybe thousands of different talking boards out there? And not all talking boards…

The Wild Baroness of Greenwich Village Who Was the Real Artist Behind Duchamp’s Urinal

Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven had a life as rich as her name was long. She became the belle of New York’s bohemian scene in the early 1900s, donning feather crowns and bras made of tomato cans, making incredible art and befriending cutting-edge Dadaists like Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp. Then, she kind of faded into history…

Remembering Robert De Niro, one of the “Strange Great Secret Painters of America”

In chapter five of Jack Kerouac’s timeless 1960 travelogue, Lonesome Traveller, the great American novelist takes us to New York to meet the inner circle of bohemian artists and beatniks in Greenwich Village: “Let’s go see the strange great secret painters of America and discuss their paintings and their visions with them — Iris Brodie…

Parisian Woman and a Cat in her Cannabis Garden: A Short Story Challenge

It’s amazing to see how our minds can wander in different ways; how many variations of a story can come from a single picture. We recently proposed a challenge for our readers to become the storyteller, prompted by a historical found photograph with a brief caption as the only clue: “Parisian Woman with her Cat in…

Hedonist Hollywood’s Lost Garden of Allah

Before James Dean moved into the Chateau Marmont and made it a Hollywood landmark and go-to spot for stars to get up to no good, there was the far more notorious, but now long-forgotten Garden of Allah. The hotel’s ambrosial name certainly had no reflection on its reputation as the never-ending house party on Sunset…

NEWER POSTS 1 … 40 41 42 … 83 OLDER POSTS