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

1. Two Victorian Women building a snow woman, 1892 Found on The Gilded Age Society. 2. A Different Kind of Christmas Soundtrack, 1969 3. A Salesman’s suitcase of Christmas lightbulbs, 1960s Found on Pinterest. 4. Christmas in New Orleans Bucket listed. 5. A living Christmas Tree, 1971 Living Christmas Tree: carolers singing massed on stepped…

Let’s Go Gift Shopping in the ’80s

The 80s have been coming back in a big way in the past few years. Stranger Things became the most-watched Netflix show, 80s blowouts made their way down the fashion week runways again, as did fanny packs, oversized blazers and scrunchies. We even found a Saved by the Bell themed Airbnb. So while you’re sitting…

Moonlight Etchings of the Forgotten Artist who Taught Edward Hopper

Martin Lewis died in obscurity in 1962; a retired art teacher who had found some success in his early career, but was largely forgotten after the Great Depression took away the demand for his craft, leaving Lewis to spend his last three decades teaching other people how to etch. History chose Edward Hopper, but Martin…

Oh Me Oh My, Check out Every Room in this Gilded Age Dollhouse

You just never know what talent your next door neighbour might be hiding. Michael Guidry is a florist from Finleyville, Pennsylvania who has built a palatial Gilded Age dollhouse to rival the Queen of England’s. For Mike, this is a hobby, which he acquired when his father first made his sister a dollhouse as children. He began…

A Brief Compendium of Captivating Fairytale Grottos

You know how there’s always one room at a party where the action is really going down? The Greeks and Romans saw grottos as a place for sensual, Dionysian desires to unfold; the stage of Venus, goddess of love. In contrast, these mystical chambers also became shrine-like places of feverish religious worship for Roman Catholics.…

Greetings from Pioneer Camp, Soviet Russia

Did you hear the one about the Soviet school children who gifted a US Ambassador with a plaque of the United States seal as a gesture of friendship in 1945? It hung in his Moscow office for 7 years before the Americans discovered it was bugged with a listening device. True story. The school children involved in…

How the Last Great American Flower Factory Still Blooms Over Midtown, NYC

Once upon a time, a woman needed a parrot tulip. Not just any tulip. “She started with something like this,” explains Adam Brand, heir to his family’s 4th generation flower factory business, M&S Schmalberg. He picks up a few flat, flower shaped layers of fabric. “Then we took some little poofs, some hibiscus, all different…

This Guy Knits ‘Ugly Sweaters’ for Every Place He Goes

Not all heros wear capes. Sam Barsky, for example, wears sweaters. Nearly 200 of them at this point. The Baltimore, Maryland native has taken the internet by storm recently with his talent for knitting sweaters of, well, everything, from the glory of Stonehenge to the streets of Baltimore; an incoming tram, or the Hollywood sign.…

The Curious Career of Being a Human Crash Test Dummy

If there’s one thing Messy Nessy’s editorial team has in common, it’s that we’ve never quite been able to keep a normal 9-to-5. Which is why we love to learn about the ins-and-outs of the oddest jobs out there; the gigs behind the everyday things we may take for granted. Like your drive to the…

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

1. Mystery £50m Gustav Klimt masterpiece found hidden in a wall A Gustav Klimt painting stolen 23 years ago from the Ricci Oddi modern art gallery in Italy might just have been discovered in the unlikeliest of places—inside the walls of the gallery itself. A gardener was recently clearing ivy from the building’s walls, the…