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Category / Nostalgia

Color Snapshots of Paris in another Era

I found some rare autochrome photographs of Paris at the turn of the 20th century and thought you might like them. I was curious to compare each photograph with how it looks today so I’ve provided a link to most of them on Google Street view. Although much of Paris is still “old Paris”, not…

French Pacific Island Vanishes (Oops)

When a group of Australian scientists went on a a voyage to study plate tectonics (?) in the Pacific Ocean, the world map indicated that they would be passing an uninhabited island on their way called Sandy Island. When the boat approached the island’s coordinates, the captain prepared all the safety stops to make sure…

What makes Paris look like Paris? (According to Google)

Most Parisians can recognize a picture of Paris pretty instantly. From the Haussmann facades to the way the cobblestones are patterned in the street and the look of the drain pipes. But scientifically, what makes Paris look like Paris? Five scholars from Carnegie Mellon and the École normale supérieure have tried to answer this using…

Flying Cars and Underwater Croquet: France in the 21st Century

According to some artists’ predictions of the future in the late 19th century, France is way behind. A series of futuristic drawings set in the year 2000 by Jean-Marc Côté and other French artists were published at the turn of the century in France on cigarette boxes and postcards. Two things to note. 1) The…

10 Photos of the Caribbean Pompeii

This is the caribbean island of Montseratt in the West Indies. In the 17th century, Britain colonized the island and held on to it ever since. But the British didn’t consider the consequences of building their paradise around a volcano (probably because they were too busy benefiting from the sugar and rum economy they built…

Meet North Korea’s American Film Star

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il was a known film enthusiast, or what we might call a ‘movie-buff’. He especially loved the kind of movies that portrayed America as the evil imperialist devil– but there weren’t too many of those floating around Hollywood. So to take matters into his own hands, Kim poured a whole load…

Meet the London Club Kids Who Made Punk Go Pop

Sex, drugs and lots of black eyeliner. Just a regular Tuesday night at the Blitz Club. At the turn of the 1980s, London’s teenage squatters, outcast art school kids and disillusioned punks all descended on a barren Covent Garden in search of a good night out. By simply living out their wildest and wackiest fantasies,…

The Circus is in Town

A troupe of elephants and a zebra walk down 33rd Street in Manhattan in 1968 to mark the arrival of Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. What a sight that would have been. As a great animal lover, the idea of the circus makes me all kinds of uncomfortable. But then again, the things…

Wait, they Hung Out?

As deeply disappointing as it is that someone at TIME Magazine obviously forgot to add Messy Nessy Chic to the list of best blogs of 2012 (sniffle, there’s always next year, eye of the tiger), I’m a good enough sport to recognize a few that made the cut. In particular, my favorite new discovery thanks…

The Bond Villain’s Lair: Skyfall’s Abandoned Island

Nearly forty years after people, the Japanese island of Hashima is lifeless, sagging and absolutely uninhabitable to man, unless of course you’re a crazed nemesis of James Bond, plotting to take down the British secret service. If you managed to get past the round-the-block queues outside of cinemas this weekend to catch a screening of…

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