"...we should pass over all biographies of 'the good and the great,' while we search carefully the slight records of wretches who died in prison, in Bedlam, or upon the gallows."
~Edgar Allan Poe

Friday, September 26, 2014

Weekend Link Dump


Strange Company is always glad to see the cats devoting themselves to literature.



Ernie's currently studying Shakespeare.  Next week he moves on to Schopenhauer and Newton's "Principia."

Here are the links, hot off the presses:

What the hell are these beached green mystery eggs?

What the hell is The Buzzer?

What the hell is hovering over Portsmouth?

What the hell is hovering over Florida?

What the hell is sailing in Chaleur Bay?

Watch out for those Butterflies of Doom!

Watch out for Mad Jack Churchill when he's got his bow and arrow out!

The Finsbury Murder:  An alcohol-laden tragedy from 1870.

Martin Van Butchell, who turned his wife into a conversation piece.

Remember that old line about how a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged?  Well, an anomalist is a skeptic who's been mugged by The Weird.

Some lesser-known but remarkable ancient artifacts.

Well, other than that, her story was true...

Arson and Homicide, the cats who helped keep New York City safe.

Pig-Faced Lady Mania.

The ghost ships of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Devil dogs!  With quotes!

The 15th century investigation of a royal assassination.

Phrase of the week:  "Horseless-carriage face."

Feeling Louzy in the Early Modern Era.  Do not click this link unless you want to feel itchy for the next day or so.

Jealousy and the Scotch Giantess.

A contemporary description of the East End of London, 1766.

Back to the beard?

Want to be a true Regency beauty?  Get out the bullock's gall and raw veal.

Your science "Oopsie!" story of the week.

"Touring With Towser": a sweet little slice of dog/automobile history.

Perhaps some souls are better off not being reincarnated.

The case of the ancient monastery, the locked library, and the mysteriously missing books.

Pirates in fact and fiction.

The Literature of Laughing Gas.  It all reads pretty much the way you'd think it would.

Scared to death by a medical devil.

A series of vicious home-invasion murders in Long Island, 1883.

This link provides a bit of a blast from my personal past.  Back in the day, my father was a Hell's Angels, and my mother was the classic "biker chick."

Yes, I'm serious.  Now, stop laughing until I finish my story.  Anyway, my mother still has a copy of this "Life" article, because although she didn't appear in the magazine, she knew many of the people in it.  It gave her a good chuckle.  (Incidentally, you should see her annotations to Hunter Thompson's book about the Angels.  She insists the book is a bunch of sensationalist crap.)

The Language of Beer!

A farewell to Hamish, the handsome king of a Scottish town.

Meet Sylvester, our badass cat of the week:

And, finally, let's get the weekend rolling with my favorite love song. (Warning: It contains one rather NSFW but utterly hilarious punchline.) I remember the first time I heard this one. My best friend Marcy and I were listening to the old KROQ ("the ROQ of L.A.!") when this came on. We laughed like mad through the whole thing, and at the end agreed that there was nothing for it but to go out that very day and get copies of the record. (Young 'uns, this was back in the prehistoric era when you had to spin big plastic pancakes on things called "turntables" in order to hear music.)

This helps explain why we were known as the Weird Sisters of our school.

Ah, memories.



See you all on Monday, when I'll be discussing arsenic for fun and profit.

4 comments:

  1. I feel sorry for Mary van Butchell, being preserved like that. But I suppose she probably expected something along those lines, having lived with her husband...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tonio K! Wow; that made my Monday. Glad I stopped by to catch up.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I had the good fortune to see Tonio K. perform live in SoCal back in the late 70's. Great shows. Both times he closed the show with this song.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I saw him play at the Whisky-a-Go-Go. He flipped pancakes from a hot plate into the crowd.

      Oh, the good old days.

      Delete

Comments are moderated. Because no one gets to be rude and obnoxious around here except the author of this blog.