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Category / How to start a subculture

Being Bad with the Bouzingos: The First and Naughtiest of the Bohemian Subcultures

To be a Bouzingo was to be a part of a counter-culture group that wouldn’t go down in history, but would give birth to bohemianism as we know it. A mere footnote of the Belle Epoque, and yet this group of young and wild creatives of late 19th century Paris defined and changed the avant-garde…

What the Hell is a Zine anyway? A Counterculture Crash Course Guaranteed to Make You Cooler

Let’s say you’re at a party, the air is thick with smoke and some cool cat on the couch looks at you funny and asks, “hey dude, do you even know what a zine is?” Don’t panic. Lean in close, clear your throat and remember: zines are whatever you want them to be and that’s…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. 670)

1. The Last Lighthouse Keeper in America Sally Snowman is the last official lighthouse keeper in America. Boston Light, which was opened in 1716, was the first lighthouse in the American colonies. Snowman, 72, is set to retire in December. When she does, the profession will go dark. Read the article on The New Yorker.…

This guy collects Do Not Disturb signs from Hotels around the World

Don’t I always say you can find absolutely anything on the internet? Well, I said it to someone recently. Anyhoo, I came across a collection of “Do Not Disturb” signs from hotels around the world and as far as hotel collectibles go, the doorknob signs seem to have gone largely unnoticed, despite being pretty interesting design-wise.…

New York’s Real-Life Handmaid’s Tale

Revivalist sects, polyamorous communes and radical experiments in communal living – America was rife with it all in the mid 19th century – but not exactly where you might expect. Forget the Bible Belt. In western New York state, so many religious revival groups seemed to be popping up in and setting it afire with…

Rocky Horror Picture Show in the Paris Catacombs

For our latest adventure on the Don’t be a Tourist in Paris web series, we go 30 feet beneath the city to discover the subculture of iconic midnight movie The Rocky Horror Picture Show just in time for Halloween. Below ground, we’re in the subterranean cinema of Alexander J E Bradley a photographer, filmmaker and catacomb-dweller (aka. cataphile).…

Magical & Macabre Spell Ingredients to throw in your Cauldron this Halloween

We’re looking for a most powerful spell this year. Forget the “eye of newt” and “wool of bat” – to get in the spirit of Halloween, we’ve trawled our favourite curio corners of the net to find some alternative oddities to get our cauldrons a’ bubbling this year. In the tradition of rare and macabre…

The First Birth Control Handbook, Written by a Group of Teenagers in 1968

So it turns out, the famous “free love” movement of the 1960s, wasn’t so free – what with a total lack of information and availability of birth control. With the youth movement came a dramatic rise in unintended pregnancies. Abortions were illegal and carried a life term in prison; the birth control pill was only…

Tune into the Forgotten Dial-a-DJ Jukeboxes of Yesteryear

Isn’t she a beauty? I had one of those hallelujah moments while browsing the collectible pages of Ebay today when I came across this seldom seen “Empire State Building” jukebox circa 1935. Invented by Ken Shyvers, the same guy who invented pinball machines, the Shyvers Multiphone is about 50cm tall with a 19cm square base and…

Inside the Real Noah’s Ark buried on an Arctic Island

In the event of Armageddon, I think I know where I’ll be headed now. Buried 390 feet deep inside a sandstone mountain on an island between Norway and the North Pole, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, also known as the doomsday vault, is home to the millions of seeds that could save a post-apocalyptic world. These are the…

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