Category:
Books
Books
The Electric Pencil
Sounds pretty much like prime fodder for WU-vies.
"Around the year 1910, a patient at State Lunatic Asylum No. 3 in Nevada, Missouri, who referred to himself as The Electric Pencil, executed 280 drawings in ink, pencil, crayon and colored pencil. These beautiful drawings of animals, people and buildings were executed on both sides of 140 ledger pages, each bearing the name of the hospital in official type across the top, thus dramatizing the interface of the institutional and the creative. The Electric Pencil's drawings were sewn into a handmade album of fabric and leather, which shortly afterwards was lost--for a century."
Posted By: Paul - Tue Mar 29, 2016 -
Comments (5)
Category: Cult Figures and Artifacts, Eccentrics, Books, Twentieth Century, Mental Health and Insanity
Ad - Buy Paul’s Books
Buy one book on Amazon .. get Emails to buy others. Found this in my inbox while drinking my coffee.
For anyone wanting a list here is what he has written I've purchased.
Strange Tides
Cosmocopia
Shuteye for the Timebroker
The Emperor of Gondwanaland and Other Stories
Joe's Liver *Paul is looking for a donor liver?*
Roadside Bodhisattva
Harsh Oases
Little Doors
The Steampunk Trilogy
Spondulix
Ribofunk
A Princess of The Linear Jungle
Stink Lines
Seeing is Believing
iCity
Flesh Flowers
The Paul Di Filippo Megapack
any to add Paul ?
Posted By: BrokeDad - Sat Feb 20, 2016 -
Comments (3)
Category: Books, Paul
True Legend
Andres Ruzo grew up with the story of the boiling river as told to him by his grandfather. Later, as a geoscientist, he decided to try and validate the legend. The Boiling River: Adventure and Discovery in the Amazon is the story of how, as a man, he proved the legend that captivated him as a boy.
Posted By: Alex - Wed Feb 17, 2016 -
Comments (5)
Category: Geography and Maps, Science, Books, Myths and Fairytales
The First Do-It-Yourself Novel
Composition No. 1 by Marc Saporta was the first-ever do-it-yourself or interactive novel. It was published in French in 1962, and an English translation followed a year later. The novel came in a box, as a set of looseleaf pages. Readers were instructed to "shuffle them like a deck of cards" before reading, so that chance would decide the order of events in the narrative.
image source: Newsweek - Oct 28, 1963
In 2011, Visual Editions came out with an elegantly boxed new edition of the work (available on Amazon). As well as an iPad version of it that automatically shuffles the pages.
Jonathan Coe, reviewing the new edition for the Guardian in 2011, offered this summary of the book's plot:
The story is a flimsy wisp of a thing, really no more than a jumble of fragments. The setting is Paris during the German occupation. The central character is little glimpsed and never named. He has a mistress called Dagmar, a depressed wife (I think) called Marianne, and a young German au pair whom he rapes during the course of the novel, before being injured in a serious car accident.
Coe noted that the British Library had two copies of the original novel, "both, I'm sorry to say, diligently bound by over-zealous librarians (though at least each copy has the pages bound in a different order)."
Posted By: Alex - Fri Nov 20, 2015 -
Comments (1)
Category: Literature, Books, 1960s
Fox Tossing and Other Sports
This new book by Edward Brooke-Hitching looks like a good read (Amazon link), and potentially of interest to WU readers. From the publisher's blurb:
Have you ever wondered what people did for fun throughout history? Edward Brooke-Hitching began to wonder the same thing while flipping through an eighteenth-century German book on hunting, and found a bygone sport in which German nobles launched foxes into the air. This random discovery of a game that slipped through the mainstream historical cracks led him to wonder: how many other sports have been left out of modern history accounts?
It looks like it was released first in the UK with the title Fox Tossing, Octopus Wrestling, and Other Forgotten Sports. But for the US release, the publisher dropped the "Octopus Wrestling" from the title. Why? I think the longer title is better. Perhaps they thought the idea of octopus wrestling was too weird for us Americans. Or perhaps they figured that Americans don't read much, so we need a shorter title.
Posted By: Alex - Tue Nov 17, 2015 -
Comments (4)
Category: Sports, Books
Kaz’s Underworld Collection
[Click to enlarge]
Please be sure to watch out for the new collection of one of my favorite comic strips. A great Weird Xmas Gift!
Posted By: Paul - Sat Nov 14, 2015 -
Comments (2)
Category: Comics, Books
How to Cook Husbands
Alas, I wanted this 1898 book to be a tract by an angry feminist cannibal, but it is not--as you can see for yourself, if you go here.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Oct 22, 2015 -
Comments (4)
Category: Cannibalism, Feminism, Food, Books, Nineteenth Century
John Duval Gluck: Santa Claus Con Man
The story of this Xmas scammer--as summarized in this article--strikes me as eminently weird, and is detailed at length in the book linked to below. I trust an author whose other publication is the "Weird-o-Pedia."
Posted By: Paul - Sun Oct 04, 2015 -
Comments (1)
Category: Holidays, Scams, Cons, Rip-offs, and General Larceny, Books, 1910s
The Embalmed Head of Oliver Cromwell
This historical fiction book follows the real history of Cromwell's head through 300 years of posthumous journeys across England (1661-1960), all told from the head's perspective. Imagined anecdotes complement the true historical notes, which include many real historical characters and events, such as the rise of Spiritualism, phrenology, the Elephant Man, surgeon John Hunter, and a lot more.
Not only is it the first memoir of an embalmed head, but it is also, I believe, the first book to come with a theme song. It was written and performed by singer/songwriter/pianist Stephie Coplan, whose song, “Hey Oliver Cromwell!” is now available on iTunes and Spotify, and here on Soundcloud [below].
The cover was fully illustrated by Brooklyn artist Vi Luong.
Not only is it the first memoir of an embalmed head, but it is also, I believe, the first book to come with a theme song. It was written and performed by singer/songwriter/pianist Stephie Coplan, whose song, “Hey Oliver Cromwell!” is now available on iTunes and Spotify, and here on Soundcloud [below].
The cover was fully illustrated by Brooklyn artist Vi Luong.
More details at the publisher's site: CuriousPublications.com.
Posted By: Alex - Mon Jul 20, 2015 -
Comments (3)
Category: Literature, Books
The Bible Diet
The spiritual nourishment was too rich for this boy's system.
Source: Florence Morning News - Jan 9, 1926.
More in extended >>
Posted By: Alex - Mon Jul 13, 2015 -
Comments (6)
Category: Food, Religion, Books, 1920s
| Who We Are |
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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, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. 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. Contact Us |