Streamliner Trains that Oozed the Elegance of Old World Travel

Say, can I get that train pamphlet in a framed poster? That’s not something you’re likely to wonder about any of the marketing coming out of today’s rail travel industry. I found this gorgeous vintage pamphlet design by Union Pacific Railroad and it sent me on a cyber hunt for more memorabilia from a glittering era in train travel between the 1930s to the…

Before Björk, There Was the Last Incan Princess

She claimed to be the final descendant of the last Incan Emperor, Atahualpa — a claim the Peruvian government backed in 1946 — and she allegedly learned to sing from “the creatures of the forest.” Yma Sumac didn’t just hit octaves. She knocked them out of the park with a growl, and took them for…

The Stylehunters of Soviet Russia

In communist Russia of the 1950s, members of a provocative subculture put their own original twist on street style. Labeled “Stilyaga” or “Stilyagi” (plural) by disapproving outsiders – a name that literally translates to stylehunter – a group of dandy youngsters dressed up in colorful American-inspired get ups to meet on Leningrad and Moscow’s main…

The Tokyo Subculture of 1950s Rockabilly Gangs

They say rock’n’roll never dies, but there’s one slick-back haired subculture in a corner of Tokyo, Japan that’s making damn well sure of it. Suited up in full-leather gear and greased with obscene amounts of hair gel, the Tokyo Rockabilly Club has been gathering every Sunday in the city’s famous Yoyogi Park near Meiji-Jingumae station…

A Kitschy Weekend Guide to the Australian Outback

We’ve got that itch for a little road trip once again, and this time it’s taking us to the Land Down Under, specifically, to the town of Broken Hill— no sandy beaches, no respite from a sun that (literally) shines longer and brighter than most places on earth, but it’s the keeper of some of…

Now That Is How You Fall in Love with LA

There’s nothing more LA than trying to be a million things at once. In one afternoon, Angelinos can go from a kitsch “Casablanca” to Canter’s Deli; grab a Cuban cocktail at “Versailles” and end up at a dentist’s office that would be much better as a discotheque. It’s a wonderful, borderline perverse eclecticism that has…

From Frida to Shakespeare, the Amazing Things They Did whilst “Social Distancing”

In around 1603, a poet had a decision to make. With a plague underway in England, he could choose to answer to fear, or answer to the muse. Luckily for us, the writer – one Mr. William Shakespeare – decided to put pen to paper (quill to parchment?) and turn out one of his greatest…

This 1930s Quartet Didn’t Know It, But They Were Rap’s First Recorded Artists

Turns out, almost a century ago, a special group of men was spitting verses about Noah’s Ark, Ezekiel’s wheel, and every other juicy anecdote in the Bible. These days, we call it “Gospel rap,” and hail it as a genre pioneered by a 1930s US gospel group, “The Jubalaires,” who paved the way for 1990s…

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…

Cruising the Past & Future of the Retro Shopping Mall

It’s a weird time to be a consumer. Emerging from lockdown, folks around the world are gauging the risks of doing something as seemingly simple as stepping outside, let alone step inside a shopping mall – an aspect of American culture in particular that is entering a new era. On the hand, we can look…