August 2023
August 31, 2023
You do the dishes
Performance artist Brian Feldman is selling tickets to a new performance — one in which you (the attendee) is the performer.This is what you get for the $17 admission price:
Each performance is an exclusive event. Just you and Feldman.
To be fair, he promises to pay you back the admission price. So the event ends up being free. But he still gets you to wash his dishes for him!
More info: eventbrite
Posted By: Alex - Thu Aug 31, 2023 -
Comments (2)
Category: Performance Art
Artwork Khrushchev Probably Would Not Have Liked 52
I must confess to a slight divergence with this entry. All previous ones have featured artwork from within Khrushchev's lifetime, stuff he could have theoretically seen and reacted to. (He died in 1971.) But this one postdates the man.That is all.
Full info here.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Aug 31, 2023 -
Comments (0)
Category: Animals, Statues and Monuments, Public Indecency, Europe
August 30, 2023
Linemen training
I assume bucket lifts have now made pole climbing a thing-of-the-past for linemen.
Popular Science - Feb 1951
Posted By: Alex - Wed Aug 30, 2023 -
Comments (4)
Category: Jobs and Occupations, 1950s
1969: A Record of the Year
I think every year should have its own vinyl LP. What soundbites would we start to compile for 2023?Meanwhile, take an aural timetrip back to 1969, via the player below.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Aug 30, 2023 -
Comments (1)
Category: History, Vinyl Albums and Other Media Recordings, 1960s
August 29, 2023
Clipboard Gun
The justification for this clipboard gun was that it would allow police officers to approach stopped vehicles looking as if they were holding a clipboard, not a gun.The problem that I see is that it wouldn't take long for the public to realize that the clipboards were actually guns. In which case, even if a police officer was genuinely only carrying a clipboard, everyone would assume it was a gun.
More info: Patent No. 4,016,666
Posted By: Alex - Tue Aug 29, 2023 -
Comments (2)
Category: Police and Other Law Enforcement, Patents, 1970s, Weapons
Red Hill Jr.‘s Niagara Falls Plunge
Once a common trope, the voluntary plunge over Niagara Falls seems to be extinct. This list at Wikipedia records the last such try as occurring in 2017. Would authorities even allow such an attempt these days?Wikipedia entry for Hill Senior and Junior.
Posted By: Paul - Tue Aug 29, 2023 -
Comments (1)
Category: Daredevils, Stuntpeople and Thrillseekers, Death, Lakes, Ponds, Rivers, Streams, Swamps and Other Bodies of Fresh Water, North America, Twentieth Century
August 28, 2023
Miss Garbage Disposal
Miami News - June 5, 1951
I couldn't find a picture of Mary Gleason as Miss Garbage Disposal, but below is a picture of her from the same month that she gained the title. It looks like the photo was taken at the theater where she was performing.
Binghamton Press and Sun-Bulletin - June 10, 1951
I also found reports stating that in 1946 Shirley Halloran was named "Miss Automatic Garbage Disposal," but I couldn't find any pictures of her.
Posted By: Alex - Mon Aug 28, 2023 -
Comments (0)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, 1950s
Follies of the Madmen #574
Just in case you can't parse what's happening in the top panel of this ad, the woman has been inundated by the spill out of a gigantic dirty clothes hamper, like the one in the second pic.Source of ad.
Posted By: Paul - Mon Aug 28, 2023 -
Comments (0)
Category: Domestic, Enlargements, Miniatures, and Other Matters of Scale, Hygiene, Advertising, Clothing, 1940s
August 27, 2023
Hot Testicle Hypothesis
Elephants rarely get cancer. This seems odd because one would think that, elephants being larger than us and thus having more cells, they should be more prone to cancer than we are, not less.Oxford professor Fritz Vollrath has proposed the "Hot Testicle Hypothesis" to explain this mystery.
The gist of the hypothesis is that elephants have unusually hot testicles for a mammal. Their hot testicles result in more mutations in their sperm. So the elephants have evolved more mutation-suppressing mechanisms in their cells. In particular, they have more copies of "p53 encoding genes" than we do, and these genes play a role in repairing damaged DNA.
More info: technologynetworks.com
Posted By: Alex - Sun Aug 27, 2023 -
Comments (1)
Category: Animals, Science
Harrison Dyar, Amateur Tunneler
Earlier this year, I posted about THE MOLE MAN OF LONDON, an eccentric British fellow who liked to dig tunnels. Well, the USA can hold its own in this category, thanks to Harrison Dyar of Washington, DC. Wikipedia gives a short account of his habit. This long account is much richer.Dyar told the Washington Star that the urge started when he dug a flowerbed for his wife around 1906. "When I was down perhaps 6 or 7 feet, surrounded only by the damp brown walls of old Mother Earth, I was seized by an undeniable fancy to keep on going."
Posted By: Paul - Sun Aug 27, 2023 -
Comments (2)
Category: Eccentrics, Caves, Caverns, Tunnels and Other Subterranean Venues, North America, Twentieth Century
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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 |
