Category:
Hobbies and DIY

Coal Mining as a hobby

Are these coal miners? Not exactly. They're coal-mining hobbyists, who spend their leisure time down in mines shoveling coal.



In her book Hedonizing Technologies: Paths to Pleasure in Hobbies and Leisure, historian Rachel Maines notes:

Any technology that privileges the pleasures of production over the value and/or significance of the product can be a hedonizing technology. One would intuitively suppose that some technologies would resist hedonizing—coal mining and air traffic control, for example, and ironing and darning among domestic activities—but one would be wrong. All of these work algorithms have their counterparts among hedonized activites.

Translation: what is work for some, is a pleasure activity for others.

You can check out the website of the coal-mining hobbyists at undergroundminers.com.

Posted By: Alex - Thu Jul 25, 2019 - Comments (6)
Category: Hobbies and DIY

The Suitcase Junket

Hipster musician features homemade instruments, such as in the video below: silverware and cooking pot percussion.



His YouTube channel.

His homepage.

Posted By: Paul - Sat Apr 27, 2019 - Comments (0)
Category: Eccentrics, Bohemians, Beatniks, Hippies and Slackers, Hobbies and DIY, Music

Birds of South Vietnam

It wasn't the subject of this book that made it weird, but instead when it was published: in 1968, at the height of the war in Vietnam. Not a time when a lot of people were going to Vietnam for bird-watching.

The British author, Philip Wildash, didn't even mention the war, except to obliquely refer to it in the first sentence by saying, "Vietnamese ornithology has long been rather neglected."

Amazon link: Birds of South Vietnam.


Minneapolis Star Tribune - Oct 6, 1968

Posted By: Alex - Tue May 22, 2018 - Comments (2)
Category: Animals, Hobbies and DIY, War, Books, 1960s

The Manly Art of Knitting

Written by Dave Fougner and published in 1972. Recently back in print. Available from Amazon.


Dave Fougner is six-foot-two, plays tennis, raises horses and shows them, teaches fifth and sixth grades at Steele Lane School, has real estate and air plane pilot licenses, is married and has a family. His hobby? Knitting!... Dave, a big, genial, friendly man of 28 says, "I like to knit in bed watching television."

Jennifer, his blonde wife, and Christa, their three-year-old, sat in on the interview at the Fougner (pronounced foe-gner) home on Loch Haven Drive. Jennifer laughed and added, "I don't knit."

On a marble table near me (the couple also collects antique furniture, refinishing it when they have some free time) lay a copy of Dave's book, "The Manly Art of Knitting," a picture of him astride Jennifer's beautiful registered Palomino quarter horse, Fore's Dandy, on the cover. You have to look twice before you realize that he's knitting atop the horse...

"One reason I wrote the book was to encourage men to try knitting. There's a doctor in town who knits. It's amazing how many men do but are afraid to admit it..."

And knitting was primarily a man's job before the Industrial Revolution, he said. "Knitting was an art. An apprentice knitter served six years."

The Santa Rosa Press Democrat - Apr 8, 1973

Posted By: Alex - Mon May 21, 2018 - Comments (3)
Category: Hobbies and DIY, Gender, Men, Books

Bed of Nails

Back in 1975, eleven-year-old Mark Harman of England made headlines by becoming a practitioner of the art of lying on a bed of nails. He was reported to have been taught by an "expert" and practiced by lying on the bed for half an hour each day.

I guess it's definitely not a typical hobby for a boy his age. I can't find any follow-up stories about him, so don't know if he continued the hobby later in life.





Corsicana Daily Sun - Feb 13, 1975

Posted By: Alex - Tue May 08, 2018 - Comments (2)
Category: Hobbies and DIY, 1970s

23-mile paper chain

Butch Baker of Four Oaks, North Carolina began making a paper chain in 1979. The chain is now 23-miles long, weighs 2300 pounds, and takes up much of his living room. And he’s still working on it. (He knows it's length because he's been measuring it as he makes it.)

The problem is, Butch is 78 and doesn't know what will happen to the chain when he dies.

More info: news observer

image source: Four Oaks Journal - Feb 2016 (pdf)

Posted By: Alex - Thu Apr 12, 2018 - Comments (3)
Category: Hobbies and DIY, World Records

Riding Table Saw



What could possibly go wrong?

Original article here.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Feb 25, 2018 - Comments (3)
Category: Death, Hobbies and DIY, Chindogu, 1950s

Extra Milers

The Extra Miler Club is a group of people whose goal is to visit every county (and equivalent jurisdiction) in every state of the United States. That's 3,143 counties. Indian reservations don't count, although some visit them anyway. Parishes do count, as do independent cities.

If you finish the goal, you're called a "county completer." Only 51 people have joined this elite group, and they're all listed here.

More info: boston.com

Posted By: Alex - Sun Jul 09, 2017 - Comments (1)
Category: Clubs, Fraternities and Other Self-selecting Organizations, Hobbies and DIY, Travel, Collectors

Follies of the Madmen #301



The birth of the selfie generation.

Posted By: Paul - Wed Jan 18, 2017 - Comments (6)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Family, Hobbies and DIY, Movies, 1950s

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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.

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