First and foremost, thanks to everyone who already bought our first print issue! They’re swiftly on their way and will be trembling in your arms soon enough. Now I need to know – what do you see below? A comb? Binoculars? A fishing reel? You may need to guess again!

BBC News has a charming quiz up that tasks the reader with a serious mission – figure out the intended purpose of Victorian devices on display this week at the British Library. While some of us suffer from a rather unhealthy gadget-love, not all of these contraptions are as obvious as one might assume! Take the quiz here, and after [only after!], see another small gallery of the exhibit, here.

[Thanks, Lucinda and Jerem]

Criss-crossing America’s interstates on shoestring music tours, my bandmates and I see scores of battered roadside billboards. They advertise ramshackle sculpture gardens, art brut outposts, World’s Biggest Fill-in-the-Blanks, rustic museums, and obscure historic landmarks. Such attractions are usually located in quiet little towns only a short distance from the highway. More often than not, we make a point to stop, stretch our legs and explore. These spontaneous jaunts expose us to beauty and knowledge we would never have discovered otherwise.

Possibly the most delightful surprise on this last stint with Faun Fables was a visit to the Top of Oklahoma Museum, housed in the somewhat dilapidated (but still glorious) Electric Park Pavilion on Main Street in Blackwell, OK (population 7,700). A grand, white structure with a large central dome, the Pavilion was built in 1912 to celebrate the advent of electricity in Blackwell. Its design takes after styles exhibited at the famous “White City” of the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893. Its lights, which originally numbered over 500, could once be seen for miles across the windswept prairie.

These days, the Pavilion could use some serious TLC. Multiple leaks in the dome have endangered the museum’s contents. Plastic tarps enshroud several exhibits. Many items bear marks of water damage. One of the kindly septuagenarian docents who works there followed us from room to room, clucking over the holes in the roof, the rusty stains. These senior preservationists take a lot of pride in their charge, with good reason. The “TOOM” is a sprawling treasure trove of turn-of-the-century ephemera, railroad memorabilia, articles of Cherokee life, hand-carved walking sticks and pipes, dioramas, dollhouses, baby buggies, hobbyist’s taxidermy, antique musical and medical instruments, Victrolas, zinc smelting documentation, delicate handmade lace, linen and clothing, exceedingly creepy dolls, sewing machines, china, vintage propaganda, picture books, elaborate quilting, and countless other keepsakes left behind by the city’s first brave citizens.

Judging by these artifacts, early non-native residents of Oklahoma were hardy, determined folk who struggled to eke out a life on America’s frontier. How they maintained such an unshakable air of dignity and refinement is beyond me, but Blackwell is a true, sparkling diamond in the rough. For me, nothing symbolizes the spirit of its citizens better than the following portrait, unceremoniously presented on a torn, water-stained bit of pasteboard in the museum’s “School Room”: ”

Who were you, Lola? Whatever became of you?

The girl’s name was Lola Squires, and she was a student enrolled in Blackwell High, graduating class of 1916. That’s all I know. Her gaze knocked me back several feet. Once I finally stop staring at her, I realized that there were countless other flint-eyed and bow-bedecked young beauties on the walls nearby. I must have spent well over an hour in that one room, moving from portrait to portrait, documenting as much as I could, just stunned.

One technique from the book “The Art of Kissing,” published by Hugh Morris in 1936, lends itself well to some sort of steampunk re-imagining:

“Some few years ago, a very peculiar kissing custom arose which deserves mention here because, from it, we can learn how to adapt the method to our modern devices. At that time, when young people got together, they held, what was then known as, “electric kissing parties.” Young people are ever on the outlook for novel ways of entertaining themselves. In fact, when ether was first developed as an anesthetic, the young bloods of the town used to form “ether-sniffing” parties in which they got a perfectly squiffy ether “jag.” But to return to the “electric kisses.” An excerpt from a contemporary writer will, perhaps, give us some idea of what happened: ‘The ladies and gentlemen range themselves about the room. In leap year the ladies select a partner, and together they shuffle about on the carpet until they are charged with electricity , the lights in the room having been first turned low. Then they kiss in the dark; and make the sparks fly for the amusement of the onlookers.’ The same sort of experiment could be performed nowadays, on cold, dry nights when the air is overloaded with electricity.”

You can read the rest of the experiment here. It starts off gently, suggesting that you generate static electricity from the carpet in order to make a spark fly between yours and your lover’s lips. Then things take a more dramatic turn! “Once you have practiced this for some time, you will become so innured to the slight shock that you will seek more potent electric shocks. These can be obtained with the use of an electric vibrator or in fact, any device that is worked from a battery and a coil which steps up the weak 3 volts of the battery.” You can see where this is leading… read on.

The image above — this is what I imagine a successful electric-kissing experiment might look like — comes from a book of alchemical collages by artist Max Ernst called “A Week of Kindness”, which was published only two years before “The Art of Kissing,” in 1934. Coincidence? I also want to mention that I searched high and low for this particular image for maybe 10 minutes before finally finding it on Mer’s Flickr Page. Even while she’s off adventuring in the American Wild, Mer finds a way to contribute to the blog. Mysterious forces are at work.

Laibach takes over Legoland, found here, via Paul Komoda.

Fun fact! Laibach’s original concept for the Kapital record was that it would be a collection of love songs. The idea was to parody romantic pop melodies and how pathetic most of them are, but that album never happened. Instead, they ended up releasing the more enigmatic Kapital that we all know and love, which proclaimed that the economy is dead and memorably included a hip-hop song about astrophysics. Laibach released three different versions of the album, each with a different mixes of the songs; one on CD, one on tape and one on vinyl.

Buried deep within the vinyl and tape versions of Kapital, one song from the lost album of love ballads survived! That song is Steel Trust, and it’s performed by the beautiful Anja Rupel, who also sang Laibach’s cover of Across the Universe and performed in their subgroup, Germania.

And someone uploaded this song (no video) on YouTube. Here it is, in all its Euro-disco glory. Enjoy!

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/oJHGD0gGjmU" width="400" height="330" wmode="transparent" /]

“The only real depression is a depression of individual ingenuity.” -George Daynor

The exploits of George Daynor read like the synopsis of a Coen Brothers flick. As the story goes, Daynor was a former gold prospector who’d lost his fortune in the Wall Street crash of 1929. Hitchhiking through Alaska, he was visited by an angel who told him to make his way to New Jersey without further delay. Divine providence had dictated that Daynor was to wait out the Great Depression there, building a castle with his bare hands.

Daynor had only four dollars in his pocket when he arrived in Vineland, NJ. He used the money to buy three swampy acres of land that had once been a car junkyard. For years he slept in an abandoned car on the mosquito-infested property, living off a steady diet of frogs, fish and squirrels while he built his elaborate eighteen-spired, pastel-hued Palace of Depression out of auto parts and mud. His primary objective? To encourage his downtrodden countrymen to hold onto their hope and stay resourceful, no matter what. Daynor opened his homemade castle to the public on Christmas Day, 1932, free of charge (he started charging an entrance fee after someone made fun of his beard), and proved an enthusiastic, albeit eccentric tour guide.

“The Palace Depression stands as a proof that education by thought can lift all the depressed peoples out of any depression, calamity or catastrophe; if mankind would use it. The proof stands before you my friends. Seeing is believing.”

Daynor held back his wild red hair with bobby pins, wore lipstick and rouge, and enjoyed dressing alternately as a prospector or a Victorian dandy. Legend has it he kept his common-law wife, Florence Daynor, locked up in one of the Palace’s subterranean chambers during visiting hours. He offered his “living brain” to the Smithsonian for experiments (they declined). His Palace of Depression, a.k.a The Strangest House In the World, quickly became a popular tourist destination for folks on their way to Atlantic City.

I’m more than halfway through The Bad Popes by Eric Russell Chamberlin. Oh, it’s a knee-slapper, to say the least. Plenty of illicit sex, violence, greed, avarice, conspiracy, etc. Chamberlin denudes the nasty personal habits and dirty professional deeds of various popes throughout history. Short of The Name of the Rose and Memoirs of A Gnostic Dwarf*, it’s the most earthy and entertaining book I’ve read relating to the papacy.

Pope Formosus and Stephen VII [sic] by Jean-Paul Laurens, 1870.

Ever heard of The Cadaver Synod? Pope Stephen VI, consecrated in 896, ordered the rotting corpse of his predecessor, Pope Formosus, be exhumed and put on trial for various crimes against the church. Poor bastard was nine-months dead when they dug him up. Stephen dressed the ripe stiff in papal robes, propped it up in a chair, and proceeded to scream unintelligibly at it for several hours in front of a rapt audience. Afterwards, Formosus was declared guilty and his body was dragged through the streets of Rome, then thrown into the river Tiber. Not suprisingly, the morbid spectacle turned public opinion against Stephen. Rumors spread that the dead pontiff had washed up on the banks of the Tiber and was performing miracles. Stephen VI was eventually deposed and strangled to death in prison.

Left: Early tarot card depiction of Pope Joan. Right: La Papesse as Antichrist, wearing a jaunty tiara.

Chamberlin also addresses the origins of good old “Pope Joan“, that legendary, likely imaginary Papesse who supposedly reigned from 855 to 858 (Protestants used to loooove bringing her up as proof of their moral superiority to Catholics). As the story goes, she was an Englishwoman who fell in love with a Benedictine monk, disguised herself as a dude and joined his order. Eventually she moved to Rome where she impressed everyone with her vast knowledge, becoming a cardinal, and then pope. (In earlier, juicy versions of this fable, Joan was already knocked up at the time of her election, and actually squeezed one out during the procession to the Lateran!) Chamberlin hypothesizes that these tall tales stem from accounts of The Rule of Harlots: a period of the papacy where various popes were either the progeny of dastardly, influential aristocratic women, or boinking them. In doing so, he has introduced me to my favorite new word… Pornocracy.

Chamberlin eschews a bland professorial style in favor of fairly plainspoken writing, and his dry sense of humor about the subject matter reminds me of Alice K. Turner’s approach to The History of Hell, yet another well-researched, highly entertaining read that deals with some of the sillier and more political aspects of Christian dogma. Highly recommended.

*Incidentally, Memoirs of a Gnostic Dwarf gets my vote for Most Jaw-Droppingly Disgusting Opening Paragraph Ever Written. Even better than the ejaculatory beginning of The Dirt. Must read.

In the times of psychic creeps like Chris Angel and John Edward, it’s nice to reflect on the olden days of paranormal research. Back when invention ruled and tools of the trade had names like Telekinetoscope and Shadow Apparatus, and mad genius Harry Price was causing waves of awe and skepticism with his unorthodox methods in the field.

Harry Price’s Telekinetoscope

One his greatest discoveries was Stella Cranshaw, later called The Electric Girl. She earned this title by occasionally producing strange flashes of light and underwent 5 years of study by Price, demonstrating extraordinary abilities in which she, oddly, showed little interest. His seances, which he called “sittings” exhausted her and after 13 of them she refused further study, got married and soon disappeared entirely.

Dorothy Stella Cranshaw

Stella’s telekinetic powers were significant nonetheless, at least to Harry, who took great pride in his work with her. During his meticulously orchestrated sittings room temperature lowered, furniture levitated, and much more. Every outrageous detail was documented and later published as “Stella C – A Record of Thirteen Sittings for Thermo-Psychic and Other Experiments”. These studies are online in full – I’ve been reading them in pieces all day here. His methods, tools and prose are fascinating and endearing, if not always awe-inspiring and make for excellent entertainment. An excerpt and links, below.

A photo from one of General Tom Thumb’s successful tours in Europe.

Charles Sherwood Stratton was born today in 1838. His birth weight was a hearty 9 pounds, 2 ounces. For the first 6 months of his life, Charles continued to develop normally. Then, quite suddenly, he stopped growing. On his first birthday, the boy’s chagrined parents realized he hadn’t grown an inch or an ounce in half a year. They took him to a doctor, who told them it was unlikely their child would ever reach a normal height (he mostly likely suffered from pituitary gland malfunctions). Charles was a little over two feet tall and weighed 15 pounds.

Left: a playbill featuring the General’s many talents. Right: Stratton as a young child.

The embarrassed Strattons muddled along with their tiny son for four years until P.T. Barnum heard tell of the boy and negotiated with them to exhibit Charles on a trial basis in Barnum’s own NY museum. The family was paid a princely sum of 3 bucks a week plus room, board and travel expenses for Charles and his mother.

a befuddling coroner’s photo of retired doctor John Bentley, 1966

Dear diary, today my heart leapt when Agent Scully suggested spontaneous human combustion…
-Agent Fox Mulder

Ho hum, the good old days. Pluto was still a planet, Nessie, Big Foot and leprechauns frolicked unfettered among us and the theoretical possibility of true Spontaneous Human Combustion seemed feasible. Well, to me, at any rate. I’m not really sure what’s to blame for that. (Repo Man? Krook from Bleak House? My unhealthy childhood obsession with Brad Dourif?) In any case, Ablaze! was required bathroom reading in my apartment for many years. Until quite recently, I clung to my hope that there was a chance, albeit remote, of my asshole ex being inexplicably reduced to a pile of ashes with feet.

Alas, thanks to a series of informative scientific articles and National Geographic specials, believers must face facts: SHC is a most likely myth.

Warehouse 23 is a really simple HTML site that hasn’t changed much in the past 10 years; you go there and you open different boxes, and find strange things inside. I opened up three boxes for this post and here are the last three items I’ve found there:

A small hamster, seemingly healthy. There is a small shaved patch on its back with a tattoo that says “Intel Inside.”

A small birthday candle in a small metal lantern, lit. It cannot be blown out or extinguished by any means and never seems to consume itself. A package of similar candles is in the crate, labeled “Everlast… the trick Birthday Candle by Il Lumens, Ltd.”

An old, yellowed copy of the San Jose Mercury-News. The headline story is about the assassination of the current president during his tour of a Silicon Valley firm. Several reassuring quotes from the vice president (now president) are included. The paper is dated the 27th of next month.

Go open a random box for yourself and see what you find! You can also add an item to the Warehouse (just stay away from the phrase “seemingly ordinary,” for the love of Bob!), or – and this is my favorite – dig through the dumpster, where you find items submitted to Warehouse 23 that didn’t quite make the cut, but were just too weird to ignore.