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Category / How to start a subculture

Oh, Just Harvesting Edible Mushrooms inside an Abandoned Water Park

We don’t hear enough follow-up stories about abandoned places that find happy endings, but today I came across a familiar derelict site from my archives that has secured itself a bright future. The last time I stumbled upon the old Tropicana water park in Rotterdam, it looked as if the mould was making itself quite comfortable around the edges…

What became of America’s Drive-Thru Fotomat?

Remember these? Once upon a time, in an era when mankind had to wait an unimaginable 24 hours to see how holiday snaps and selfies had turned out, there was … the trusty Fotomat. A bright and compact little kiosk easily recognisable by its pyramid-shaped gold-coloured roof, usually positioned in a large parking lot outside a…

Who wants to Help Build the Largest Art Car in Burning Man History?

Who wouldn’t want to ride into America’s largest occult festival on the biggest, baddest float in town? Better yet, what if you could say you helped build it? This week in completely average volunteer recruitment news, a non-profit organisation is calling for volunteers to come and join them in the Mojave Desert to help create the largest art car in…

The Tin Can School ‘Buses’ of India

You may be used to seeing the big yellow buses that bring kids back and forth before & after school everyday, but in India the daily commute to school has its own unique little mode of transport. Each day primary school children, from as young 4 years old cram into these makeshift school buses composed of not much…

Forgotten Glamour at Mermaid City

Girls would come from as far as Tokyo to audition for the chance to be a Weeki Wachee mermaid in the 1960s. They performed to sold-out crowds; half a million people a year came to watch their dazzling underwater shows, including the King himself, Elvis Presley. They took etiquette and ballet lessons and they were treated…

The Interwar Gender-Bending Glamour of the Beach Pyjama

Before the bikini, fashionable ladies donned “beach pyjamas” all along the world’s most stylish coastal towns. The swishy palazzo-like pants and jumpsuit styles shocked the public in the interwar years, while we, on the other side of the second millennium, find some serious beach-going inspiration. But what made the “beach pyjama” so shocking? As with…

The Coziest Bus Stop in Britain, Made by a Mystery Guerrilla Homemaker

For the residents of a small village in Dartmoor, England, the universally-dreaded morning commute to work is now very much something to look forward to. Last summer, the village of Walkhampton woke up to find their grim and graffiti-covered bus stop had been transformed into a welcoming living room, complete with an armchair, pillows, framed pictures, potted…

The Obscure World of Kitschy Christian Vinyl

Bob Dylan nearly crossed over to the Christian music industry in the late seventies. He had just announced his conversion to Christianity in ’79 and proceeded to release a total of three albums based on his newfound faith. He spent several years touring and preaching from stage, but was never fully accepted by Christian music fans…

French Swag on Stilts

I assumed the impossible practice of walking on stilts was solely for the circus or a merry band of vagabond street performers. Alas, these ‘impossible’ contraptions were extremely valuable methods of transport to the French shepherds of Landes in the south-western farmlands. Believe it or not, until the beginning of the 20th century, stilts were actually used…

Marilyn Monroe’s Forgotten Hollywood Sorority

If you had knocked on the door of room 334 at the Hollywood Studio Club on Lexington Avenue in 1948, a 24 year-old struggling actress going by the name of Marilyn Monroe would have answered with eyes full of hope. Marilyn was one of over 10,000 girls who were housed at the Hollywood Studio Club during its sixty year history, providing film studios…

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