Weird Universe Archive
July 2012
July 18, 2012
July 17, 2012
Exhibited as a Wild Man
I've never been able to find any further details about the strange tale of William Lacey beyond the short article below from a 1901 newspaper (The Fort Wayne News, Nov 9, 1901). However, Lacey wasn't the only person during this period who was exhibited as a "wild man." Ota Benga is probably the most famous example of the phenomenon.BERLIN. Nov. 9 -- After seven months of captivity as a wild man from Borneo, during which time he was hauled all over Europe in an iron cage with a ring in his nose, William Lacey, a Virginia negro, 30 years of age, visited the American consulate in Berlin yesterday and told a remarkable tale of alleged brutality and suffering. Lacey says that he came to Germany on a tramp steamer last March and became stranded in Hamburg. There a bogus circus manager offered him 10 marks a month to impersonate a wild man with a traveling show. He took the job and discovered a few days afterward that he constituted the entire circus and menagerie. He was compelled to live in a cage, bedded in straw, and take his food through the iron bars. During exhibition hours attendants prodded him with pitchforks to make him execute weird dances to the accompaniment of ghoulish yells. A fortnight ago the proprietor of the show died and the negro awoke one morning to find himself deserted and the cage door unlocked. The consulate provided Lacey with transportation to Hamburg.
Posted By: Alex - Tue Jul 17, 2012 -
Comments (7)
Category: Racism
Cascade
Cascade from Timothy LaPointe on Vimeo.
And what exactly did you ingest before venturing into the woods?
Posted By: Paul - Tue Jul 17, 2012 -
Comments (4)
Category: Nature, Pop Art, Surrealism
July 16, 2012
Wash ‘Em
This will be winning MTV Awards and Grammys, I'm sure.
Posted By: Paul - Mon Jul 16, 2012 -
Comments (8)
Category: Hygiene, PSA’s
George Kotolaris, Seattle Eccentric
George Kotolaris (1929-1990) is remembered in Seattle for two reasons. First, he was notorious for crashing funerals, weddings, anniversaries, parties, and any other event he could get into. Second, he kept a strange record of his life and interests by filing documents with the legal records department of Washington State. Shortandhappy.com explains:George discovered that, due to a quirk of the law, anyone who pays the nominal per-page fee (currently $7) can record anything they want as a "title deed." So George immediately began using this recording system for purposes that were never even envisioned, much less intended, by the county planners who had instituted it.
Beginning in 1968, he and Pansy [his mother] traveled to the courthouse almost every business day with newspaper clippings, church programs and other items they wanted preserved. These early recordings are vague, but they establish some of George's major obsessions: Catholicism, abortion, cremation and urban renewal.
The nature of the recordings changed after Pansy suffered a stroke in the early 70s and was placed in the Columbia Lutheran Nursing Home. The newspaper clippings are replaced by what appear to be letters and notes to whoever will listen, documenting George's struggle to get Pansy out of the nursing home, and asking for help...
As time went on, George's recordings grew more sexually explicit, and officials at the courthouse censored many of them by placing sheets of paper over his text when they filmed it. Because of this, the last years of his life are maddeningly vague.
Beginning in 1968, he and Pansy [his mother] traveled to the courthouse almost every business day with newspaper clippings, church programs and other items they wanted preserved. These early recordings are vague, but they establish some of George's major obsessions: Catholicism, abortion, cremation and urban renewal.
The nature of the recordings changed after Pansy suffered a stroke in the early 70s and was placed in the Columbia Lutheran Nursing Home. The newspaper clippings are replaced by what appear to be letters and notes to whoever will listen, documenting George's struggle to get Pansy out of the nursing home, and asking for help...
As time went on, George's recordings grew more sexually explicit, and officials at the courthouse censored many of them by placing sheets of paper over his text when they filmed it. Because of this, the last years of his life are maddeningly vague.
Here are some pictures of George taken around 1978.
Posted By: Alex - Mon Jul 16, 2012 -
Comments (5)
Category: Eccentrics
July 15, 2012
Never Give Up
If you have ever had a car stolen, never give up on getting it back!
Posted By: Alex - Sun Jul 15, 2012 -
Comments (9)
Category:
Mayor Stubbs
Talkeetna, Alaska's Mayor Stubbs is the cat's meow!
Posted By: Alex - Sun Jul 15, 2012 -
Comments (11)
Category:
Clone Medals
The ban against cloned horses competing in the Olympics has been lifted. None of the currently existing clones are old enough or well trained enough to compete yet but they will get there eventually. Someday in the distant future will there be a cloned Michael Phelps, Kerri Strug, or Jesse Owens competing in the Olympics. If so, what country will they represent? The country the original was born in, the country that clones them or the country that is the highest bidder. But I am getting ahead of the story, for now its just the horses.
Posted By: Alex - Sun Jul 15, 2012 -
Comments (5)
Category:
The Nakedness Solution
Naked SolutionsJuly 15, 2012
It must serve some purpose, or it wouldn't so often be the reaction of first resort. All from July. (* Too Much Information)
Port Orange, Fla.: David McDonald, 37, walking around a woman's yard naked, happy, searching for an ending. WKMG-TV (Orlando)
Anaconda, Mont.: Mary Corley, 42, DUI and naked, rammed her boyfriend's car. Associated Press via Helenair.com (Helena)
Knoxville, Tenn.: Lindsay Stevens, 46, clearing trees in his yard with a chain saw, naked, 3 p.m. Knoxville News-Sentinel
Red Bird, Tex.: Arthur Walker, 35, drove his pickup truck through Southwest Center Mall, naked, 7:30 a.m. (Bonus: When he came to Champs Sports, he started dressing himself in the gear.) WFAA-TV (Dallas-Fort Worth)
St. Croix Falls, Wis.: Michelle Knutson, 56, found passed out naked, legs spread, at 6 p.m. at her front door, visible from the street. St. Paul Pioneer Press
St. Augustine, Fla.: Jeremiah Haughee, 22, naked and biting people. First Coast News (Jacksonville)
Gwinnett County, Ga.: Marvin Bolick, 51, pants down at a McDonald's. Why? he was asked. "It's hot." WSB-TV (Atlanta)
Scottsdale, Ariz.: John Brigham, 45, involved in a traffic accident, exited his car and . . took his clothes off, of course (and then jacked a car, and he was off). AzFamily.com (Phoenix)
Athens, Ga.: *Lonneshia Appling, 26, was indicted for assaulting employees of a Piggly Wiggly who tried to thwart her shoplifting move. (Bonus, By The Numbers: Total value of shoplifted items, $88.27; Total weight of Appling, 340.) Appling did not strip during this confrontation but did while fleeing an earlier shoplifting, in January. Athens Banner-Herald
Plus: Daniel Leer got naked, but only to show off at the expense of the London Olympics, when he ran in front of the torch procession in Henley. And Joe and Cindy Wagner got naked in Cocoa Beach, Fla., but only because they're always naked and last week got a page-one splash on USA Today for turning a failing motel into a chance-to-survive nude resort (Fawlty Towers). BBC News /// USA Today
Thanks to John McGaw and Sandy Pearlman and to the might NOTW Board of Editorial Advisors.
Posted By: Chuck - Sun Jul 15, 2012 -
Comments (6)
Category:
Mike Grost, Supergenius
This child is Mike Grost, as he appeared in a 1965 article in Life magazine. At the time, he was said to have an IQ of 200+.
Whatever happened to Mike? A 2005 interview from the MSU State News had this to say:
Michael Grost was only 10 when he began at MSU in 1964.
Grost declined comment for this story, but in a 2002 interview with The State News, the Southfield
resident described his life in college as similar to having "40,000 brothers and sisters."
Grost held his first job on campus working with computers his freshman year, which propelled him into
software design after his 13-year college career - five of which were spent at MSU. He also attended
Yale University and U-M, earning a doctorate degree in mathematics at age 23. Grost currently is a
system architect at a computer company in Detroit.
"I really owe (MSU) a lot for the huge chance they took on me as a kid," Grost said in the 2002
interview.
Gee, I don't know. Kinda underwhelming. Shouldn't he be a Silicon Valley zillionaire by now?
Even his home page is kinda lackluster.
Oh, well--maybe as a certified genius he knows that material success is a sham.
Posted By: Paul - Sun Jul 15, 2012 -
Comments (11)
Category: Children, 1960s, Natural Wonders, Brain, Child Prodigies
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction books such as Elephants on Acid. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Chuck Shepherd Chuck is the purveyor of News of the Weird, the syndicated column which for decades has set the gold-standard for reporting on oddities and the bizarre. Our banner was drawn by the legendary underground cartoonist Rick Altergott. Contact Us |
