The Condenser

On The Construction of a "Trumpet Rat"

2011-11-28T22:13:00.001-05:00

It's not exactly a Human Centipede, but it's certainly reminiscent - and perhaps just as unlikely. From Francis T. Buckland's Curiosities of Natural History (1856), quoting a case presented in an unnamed French newspaper:

"The trumpet rat, he tells me, is not a supernatural thing, it is an invention due to the leisure moments of the Zouaves. This is how they make them: you take two rats; you tie their paws firmly on a board, the nose of one close to the end of the tail of the other; with a pen-knife or a lancet you make an incision into the nose of the rat which is hindermost, and you graft the tail of the first onto the nose; you tie firmly the muzzle to the tail, and you leave the two rats in this position for forty-eight hours.
At the end of the time the union has taken place, and the two parts are grown together; then you cut off the tail of the rat which is in front to the required length, and let him go, but still keep the other tied to the board but with his head loose, and you give him something to eat. At the end of a month or more the wound is perfectly healed, and the eyes of the most curious scrutators would not see a hint of the grafting."

It's worth noting that the above excerpt doesn't even scratch the surface of this deliriously rambling, almost relentlessly bizarre book - expect to see a lot more from Mr. Buckland's masterpiece in the coming months.

Toulouse-Lautrec's Absinthe Recipes

2011-11-12T16:07:00.007-05:00

We're half-way through The Observatory's "Decadent Paris Weekend" and it got off to a great start with last night's Grand Guignol lecture with Mel Gordon. Tonight's lecture is Absinthe and Other Liquors of Fin de Siecle Paris. To get you a little in the mood - and maybe a little tipsy - I thought I'd share a couple of Toulouse-Lautrec's absinthe cocktails I found reading Explosive Acts by David Sweetman. Lautrec loved absinthe so much that he kept some in his hollowed-out cane, so he was bound to get a little creative with its preparation.

-tremblement de terre (the earthquake) - absinthe with cognac

-absinthe minuit (midnight absinthe) - absinthe with white wine

-absinthe de vidangeur (scavenger absinthe) - absinthe with red wine

Image source

Who is Redbook's Demographic Here?

2011-10-31T12:17:00.012-04:00

Also, check out the NRA logo on the left.

source

Scottish Halloween Traditions

2011-10-29T11:42:00.004-04:00

If you've spent any time reading up on European and British folk traditions, you're probably familiar with the myriad ways in which you're supposed to be able to catch a glimpse of your future spouse. Finding out who you were going to marry - whether it was seeing their face in a mirror, or over your shoulder, or reading their name in the tea leaves - was such a massive preoccupation of pre-modern westerners, in fact, that we Condensers typically gloss right over them. Crack open any book of folk-practices, and you'll likely have a hard time finding any spell or conjuring trick that doesn't end with your fiance-to-be popping up behind you.

It is, however, interesting to see some Halloween-specific ones, so we're bending our no-spouse-conjuring rule today to give you some interesting Scottish variations - plus some fun bonfire and childbirth items. Taken from Curiosities of Superstition, and Sketches of Some Unrevealed Religions by William Henry Davenport Adams (1882).

...The Halloween customs which still survive may be traced back to a hoar antiquity. For instance, various kinds of divination are practised, and chiefly with apples and nuts. Apples are a relic of the old Celtic fairy lore. They are thrown into a tub of water, and you endeavour to catch one in your mouth as they bob round and round in provoking fashion. When you have caught one, you peel it carefully, and pass the long strip of peel thrice, sunwise, round your head; after which you throw it over your shoulder, and it falls to the ground in the shape of the initial letter of your true love's name.

As for the nuts, they would naturally suggest themselves to the dwellers in mighty woods, such as covered the land of old. Brand says it is a custom in Iceland, when the maiden would know if her lover be faithful, to put three nuts upon the bar of the grate, naming them after her lover and herself. If a nut crack or jump, the lover will prove faithless; if it begin to blaze or burn, it's a sign of the fervour of his affection. If the nuts named after the girl and her swain burn together, they will be married.

In Strathspey, a lass will steal away from the kitchen fire, make her way to the kiln where the corn is dried, throw a ball of thread into it, and wind it up slowly, while uttering certain words. The form of her future lover will take hold of the end of the thread, and reveal itself to her. The most arduous part of this charm is, that no speaking is allowed either on the outward journey or the return.

Children born on Halloween were formerly supposed to be gifted with certain mysterious endowments, such as the power of perceiving and conversing with the "dwellers on the threshold," the inhabitants of the World Invisible.

Once upon a time, all over Scotland a bonfire was lighted on every farm; and often the bonfire was surrounded by a circular trench, symbolical of the sun. Every year these bonfires decrease in number; but within the recollection of living men no fewer than thirty could be seen on the high hilltops between Dunkeld and Abergeldy. And a strange weird sight it was, worthy of the pencil of a Rembrandt,—the dusky figures of the lads and lasses dancing wildly around them, to the hoarse music of their own voices! Miss Cumming writes that in the neighbourhood of Crieff, the balefires, as the people call them, still blaze as brightly as ever; and from personal observation we can assert that they are still lighted in many parts of Argyllshire.

Image found at this site

Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages

2011-10-25T22:03:00.006-04:00

Sometimes, seeing the annual parade of Halloween revelers decked out in Transformers, Dora The Explorer or Sexy Frog costumes makes us feel like the spirit of the season is getting a little diluted. It's all just so darn commercial. If you're looking for something with a little more soul - that old-time religion, so to speak - then look no further than Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages, a wonderful Swedish silent film from 1922.
The picture examines witchcraft from a surprisingly modern perspective; its hypothesis is that the behavior that lead to people being killed as witches was, in fact, the result of psychological disorders and not supernatural interference. Sounds like that would make it kind of a downer, huh? Hardly! It becomes quickly apparent that the filmmakers were having a lot of fun portraying scenes of occult perversity, and their thesis only occasionally intrudes on the merriment. The special effects are truly remarkable, the art is gorgeous and several of the scenes are still rather disturbing. Watch it with the lights out, and try substituting your own music -- we found the soundtrack of the Criterion edition, though period-accurate, to be relentlessly jaunty.

Oh, and best of all? It's currently streaming for free over at YouTube.

The Devil As Lousy Cook

2011-10-15T16:53:00.004-04:00

While you're off bobbing for apples and gorging on candy this Halloween, spare a thought for the poor witches. From an account by Alphonso de Castro (1547):

There are tables placed and drawn up, and they sit and start to eat of the food which the demon has provided, or which they have themselves brought. But all who have sat down to such tables confess that the feasts are all foul either in appearance or in smell, so that they would easily nauseate the most hungry stomach. ...They say that there is plenty of everything except bread and salt.

Ok, so the food is disgusting - but that would make sense, I guess, if your party is catered by Satan himself. But what's this about "or which they have themselves brought"? Nice to know witches are so self-deprecating. Oh, this? It's nothing. Really. It's gross; don't even eat it.

From an account by Sister Madeleine de Demandolx (1611):

The drink which they have is malmsey, to provoke the flesh to luxurious wantonness... the meat they ordinarily eat is the flesh of young children, which they cook and make ready in the synagogue, sometimes bringing them thither alive by stealing them from the houses where they have opportunity to come. They have no use of knives at table for fear lest they should be laid across... they have also no salt, which figureth out wisdom and understanding; neither know they the use of olives or oil which represent mercy.

And there you have it - a boozy, meat-heavy, stingy-with-the-bread meal with lots of kids running around. If it weren't for the lack of salt, you'd think you were at Chili's.

Both accounts taken from the indispensable Encyclopedia of Demonology and Witchcraft (1959) by Rossell Hope Robbins.

Halloween Approaches

2011-10-15T15:40:00.004-04:00

With Halloween nearing, we thought it might be a good time to do a little posting blitz. Get ready for some rapid-fire posts on ghosts, ghouls, witchcraft and Halloween traditions leading up to the big day - something like what we did last year, sans corny name (Condenser Maga-ween? Really, what were we thinking?) Hope you enjoy!

And to kick it off, here's a clipping from Sharpe's London Magazine (1846) regarding Irish Halloween traditions:

" Every house ... abounds in the best viands they can afford; apples and nuts are devoured in abundance; the nutshells are burnt, and from the ashes many strange things are foretold : cabbages are torn up by the roots; hemp-seed is sown by the maidens, and they believe that if they look back they will see the apparition of the man intended for their future spouse : they hang a smock before the fire on the close of the feast, and sit up all night concealed in a corner of the room, convinced that his apparition will come down the chimney and turn the smock: they throw a ball of yarn out of the window, and wind it on a reel within, convinced that if they repeat the Pater Noster backwards, and look at the ball of yarn without, they will then also see his sith or apparition. These, and many other superstitious ceremonies, the remains of Druidism, are observed on this holiday."

Image via this site, which also offers a bunch more great vintage card graphics.

A Guide to New York's Seamier Side

2011-01-28T12:43:00.000-05:00

Between hearing that our favorite NYC dive, Mars Bar, is soon to close, and watching Wal-Mart's relentless push for a Gotham location, you might forgive us for feeling that our dear city is getting a little bland. To see just how far we've come, check out this New York Times article on a brittle old 1870 brothel directory in the possession of the New York Historical Society. Best of all, they include scans of the entire volume and even a map of the mentioned locations. Who knows - you might discover that your own address is hiding a sordid history!

The Next Wave of Collecting: Books as Decor?

2011-01-07T12:25:00.008-05:00

If you're a frequent reader of antiquarian book blogs, and also enjoy being consumed with righteous outrage, you should probably head right over to the New York Times and read this article on the rise of the books-as-decor industry. There you'll find harrowing tales of casual book lovers, the kind with plenty of money but no time to build their own collections, purchasing dozens - hundreds! - of volumes, some of them rather old and valuable, with little thought to serious book stewardship.

Rows of volumes sawed in half to fit a shelf! Entire collections thrown together solely for the color of their bindings! And let's not forget Restoration Hardware, selling stacks of old books bound together with twine as decorative objets.

As passionate book enthusiasts, we should be furious, right? After all, we're already battling the Kindle and Nook, devices that dare to leave the printed word floating in cyberspace, displayed on a cold screen and surrounded by buttons. Why, we appreciate the feel of a proper book in our hands - the pages fringed in yellow, the rich illustrations, the leather bindings, the appearance of a stately row of books on a shelf...

Which begs the question: In the age of Google Books, are we really all that different from those collectors in the Times? Pretty much any book is available somewhere online, most of them - particularly the old ones - for free. We might be buying our books individually, with an eye toward subject as well as binding, but in the end the goal for many of us is a great-looking library. You can't really frame the conflict in terms of readers vs. non-readers, either; there are plenty of proper book collectors who rarely sit down and open a tome at the beginning, and this very blog wouldn't exist without a lot of skimming and perusal, not to mention some heavy Google Books usage.

So what this is really about, if it's about anything at all, is preservation. It's easy to imagine a wealthy fashionista, bored with the enormous library of antique books she only recently purchased through a decorator, tossing them out when they no longer match the wallpaper. If those are only a bunch of Danielle Steele novels, newly bound in matching covers, it's no great loss - but anything rarer is a hard thought to bear. Fortunately, it's a pretty unlikely scenario, and the forces of the market tend to keep the most valuable tomes out of the hands of bulk buyers. So let's try to keep the positive aspects of this trend in perspective - people are excited about owning attractive books, finding interesting new ways to show them off, and maybe - just maybe - cracking one open occasionally.

A Gift Recommendation from the Condenser

2010-12-15T14:14:00.005-05:00

Still hunting for a few last-minute holiday gifts? It's ok; we don't judge. In fact, we're here to help! Books make great gifts - they're attractive, personal, useful... and if you give someone enough of them, it will make moving such a chore that they're guaranteed never to leave.
One of our favorites this year is Pictorial Webster's, a collection of images from various 19th c. Webster's dictionaries, compiled by Johnny Carrera. We love the subject juxtapositions and detailed engraving, and even the binding itself is quite handsome.
And whichever books you choose to give this year, remember to support your local bookseller!

Questionable Thanksgiving Behavior

2010-11-24T19:48:00.008-05:00

If you're looking for something to be thankful for tomorrow, you can always give thanks that you're celebrating Thanksgiving with better company than the colonial Governor of Rhode Island and Connecticut and his ilk. Account of the worst dinner party ever taken from Curiosities of Popular Customs, by William S. Walsh (1898)

In pioneer Thanksgiving times in Rhode Island and Connecticut, however, venison or bear's meat rather than turkey was the centre of the festal board. In a newspaper published in Connecticut in colonial times is to be found an account of the feast spread before the Governor and Her Majesty's Commissioners on Thanksgiving Day, 1713, from which it appears that, before the company fell to, the announcement was made that the venison had come from a deer which had been shot "on ye Lord's Day." Thereupon the entire company refused to eat, and it was decided that the Indian who had shot the deer should receive thirty-nine stripes and should restore to the purchaser the price paid for the meat. Then, having inflicted a "just and righteous sentence on ye sinful heathen," the company (with the exception of one member, whose conscience was not satisfied) fell upon the venison and devoured it.

Image of a far more composed Thanksgiving via, naturally, the State Department.

The Condenser Bijou Theatre Presents: Trixie Friganza's "My Bag O' Tricks" (1929)

2010-11-23T10:40:00.009-05:00

If you told me to play the double bass, I'd probably play it like this as well. The actual sketch is about 10 minutes long and on the special features of The Jazz Singer on DVD.

Folie en Famille: A Case Study

2010-11-22T10:04:00.000-05:00

The phenomenon of folie en famille is a form of group psychosis that can be categorized somewhere between the more famous folie a deux, a delusion shared between two people (exhibited famously in the bizarre case of Sabina and Ursula Eriksson), and what is commonly called mass hysteria. Below is a disappointingly curt summary of an instance of family hysteria from Brain: A Journal of Neurology, Volume 10 (1888):

Last year, in France, a whole family, consisting of six persons— the father, mother, two sons, and two daughters—were simultaneously attacked with demonomania. Dr. Lapointe, who reports the circumstance, states that they were orderly people, economical, temperate, and were generally esteemed. They were, however, hypochondriacal, and possessed of mystical ideas. They gradually came to believe that they were poisoned by sorcerers; the devil was in their clothes; they constantly saw him. They desired to be freed from his presence by exorcism; they regarded themselves as lost, and gave themselves up to many eccentric practices. At last they became dangerous, wandered about, and attacked the peasants, so that it became necessary to place them in an asylum. At the end of a fortnight they were discharged from the asylum, apparently recovered. During two years they resided on the farm which they cultivated. Then, suddenly, the mother gave the signal of an attack, and the same ideas were reproduced in all the members of the family. It became necessary to place them once more in an asylum. It may be added that another member of the family, a son, being from home, was by this means saved from an attack of insanity.

The accompanying image is William Hogarth's The Rake's Progress, found on the Tate website.

Fashion Advice From Lord Henry

2010-11-19T11:37:00.006-05:00

A quote from a little-known book called The Picture of Dorian Gray. This isn't actually fashion advice to women, but advice for Dorian on which women to avoid. Considering the 1890s (when this was published) was called the Mauve Decade, there were a lot of women Lord Henry didn't trust.

Ordinary women always console themselves. Some of them do it by going in for sentimental colours. Never trust a woman who wears mauve, whatever her age may be, or a woman over thirty-five who is fond of pink ribbons. It always means that they have a history.

Return of the Morgan Three Wheeler

2010-11-16T13:37:00.000-05:00

If you're the kind of vintage auto enthusiast who's quicker to strap on a pair of goggles than a seatbelt, you'll no doubt be delighted to hear that the legendarily stalwart British manufacturer, Morgan, is reviving its incredible Three Wheeler. Though outwardly a near-exact reproduction of the 1909 original, the new model is outfitted with an air-cooled Harley Davidson V-Twin and a 5-speed Mazda manual.
Don't think the three-wheel layout is just an attempt at quirkiness, either - the Three Wheeler was a formidable racing machine, and was produced until 1953. Its diminutive contact patch and svelte form also meant that the original could best 50mpg - no word yet if the new model will achieve a similar feat.

More info:
Autoblog
Morgan

On The Keeping of One's Ape

2010-11-15T14:10:00.001-05:00

A passage on the proper care of your own great ape, rich in scientific Victorianisms, from Richard Lynch Gardner's Gorillas and Chimpanzees (1898):

From my own observation I assert that all of these apes can undergo a greater range of temperature than they can of humidity. This appears to be one of the essential things to the life of a gorilla, and one fatal mistake made in treating him is furnishing him with a dry, warm atmosphere, and depriving him of the poison contained in the malarious air in which he spends his entire life. Both of these apes need humidity. The chimpanzee will live longer than a gorilla in a dry air, but neither of them can long survive it, and it would appear that a salt atmosphere is best for the gorilla. I believe that one of these apes could be kept in good condition for any length of time if he were supplied with a normal humidity in an atmosphere laden with miasma and allowed to vary in temperature.

...The rule that visitors or strangers should not annoy or tease them should be enforced without respect to person, time, or rank. No visitor should be allowed on any terms to give them any kind of food. The reasons for these precautions are obvious to any one familiar with the keeping of animals, but in the case of a gorilla their observance cannot be waived with impunity.

I'd like to think that Gardner's realization about the teasing of gorillas only came to him after a failed attempt at, perhaps, a zoo where annoyance privileges were handed out based entirely on time and rank.

Image from the excellent Victorian London

We're Back!

2010-11-14T22:49:00.008-05:00

When you hear statistics about how many blogs there are out there, you have to remember that the vast majority of them are "ghost ships" - forgotten, abandoned projects that remain floating around indefinitely, long after their authors have lost interest and moved on. One of the most common killers of blogs is a change in the life of its author, or authors - a move, a career change, maybe a marriage.

But what happens when a blog's two authors marry each other?

We're happy to announce that things are going to be quite different here at the Condenser. We've been offline for a while - certainly long enough for the cobwebs to start forming and at least a few readers to drop us from their usual rounds - but we're back, hitched, and ready to get this site back on track. There's been a lot of behind-the-scenes talk about where the Condenser is heading, and it's exciting stuff - we want to make the blog more dynamic, broader in focus, with more frequent updates, but still rooted in the topics we love.

You'll see some changes in the coming days, and even more in the coming months. Check back often, or add us to your RSS reader. We can't wait to show you the things we've found.

Dave + Meg

The State of the Condenser

2010-06-25T11:42:00.003-04:00

Things have been pretty quiet around here lately. We're very happy to report, however, that this has less to do with bloggers' malaise and more to do with the fact that the Condenser's two core contributors, Dave and Meg, are engaged! Posting will therefore be sporadic at best until November, when our lives will hopefully return to some degree of equilibrium. In the meantime, we'll try to post when we can.

Here's a very entertaining Talk of the Town article from the New Yorker on a presentation of famous marginalia at the New York Public Library - enjoy!

Antiquarian Book Fair This Weekend

2010-04-09T16:01:00.004-04:00

Just a reminder that the New York Antiquarian Book Fair started today, and tomorrow we'll be visiting and posting our thoughts on our Twitter feed - just follow @condensermag.

For a cool searchable database of sellers' wares, click here. It's where we discovered the intriguing-sounding 1621 tome The Anatomy of Melancholy: What it is. With all the Kindes Causes Symptomes Prognosticks and several Cures of it...., available for a paltry $45,000 from Thomas A Goldwasser Rare Books. The text itself is available on Google Books here, but it's just not the same when read through a computer screen, is it?

For more info on the show, you can visit this site.

Aleister Crowley in Billboard Magazine

2010-04-05T10:00:00.002-04:00

Today's post isn't even long enough to warrant transcription, so we'll simply include an image of the text. We're not sure why Crowley's obituary would have appeared in Billboard in the first place - perhaps just a careless misunderstanding regarding his use of the word "magician"? Who knows; maybe Crowley was sawing women in half on the Vegas Strip on the side.

Peacocks on the Strand

2010-04-02T11:53:00.000-04:00

The classic bon mot mentioned in the excerpt below would be worth pointing out on its own merits, but even more so considering that it was spoken by a figure who frequent readers of this blog will recognize as the charismatic perpetrator of the infamous Berners Street Hoax. Taken from "Week-Day Living, a Book for Young Men and Women" (1882) by Samuel Pearson.

Image of Hook via Wikipedia

I HAVE sometimes wondered whether men or women were more vain in matters of dress. At certain periods of life it is quite common to see a young fellow strutting along the street as proud as any peacock. Theodore Hook met such a one in the Strand, and stopping him, asked with an impressive air, "Excuse me, sir, but are you any one in particular?" Such a question has often crossed my mind when I have sauntered along some fashionable lounge. The unexceptionable attire, from the crown of the hat to the sole of the patent leather boots, the band-box associations which clung round the whole get-up, the enormous outlay of starch suggested—these things would be startling if they were not ridiculous.

April Fool's Day

2010-04-01T10:13:00.003-04:00

An appropriate post for April Fool's day, as well as an interesting reminder of the mostly forgotten Fast Day holiday that was once observed across New England - taken from "Curiosities of Popular Customs and of Rites, Ceremonies, Observances, and Miscellaneous Antiquities" (1897) by William Shepard Walsh.

There is a story current that one April the governor, in the absence of his secretary, intrusted the drawing up of a Fast-Day proclamation to his messenger. The latter, being a bit of a wag, instead of penning a stately and pious document, wrote out the following:

"Having consulted my Council and learned that none of them has an engagement to dine on that day, and feeling fully assured that I shall receive no invitation to dine out until the high school graduating exercises begin and field strawberries get down to eight cents a quart, I do hereby appoint Thursday, the 17th day of April, as a day of public humiliation, fasting, and prayer. While the scoffers in our sister State are holding horse-races, playing base-ball, and gorging themselves with forbidden food, let us thank our stars that we know when we have enough, and feel grateful for the empty stomachs and clear heads we shall have the morning after. Though I am unable to say what the Council will do on that day, for myself I shall attend church if I can find a minister who will stay long enough to preach to me. Given in the Council chamber," etc.

The messenger, having made a rough draught, copied it on a new sheet in an engrossing clerk's handwriting, and took it to the governor, who signed it without reading a line. From here the messenger carried the proclamation down to the secretary of state, who tried to affix his signature, but could not do so on account of a bad pen. While he waited for a clerk to bring him a box of new pens he cast his eyes down the sheet, discovered the unusual phraseology, and read the document from beginning to end. Then he gave the messenger apiece of his mind, telling him it was bad enough to make light of Fast-Day, but when he began to trifle with the feelings of the chief magistrate, who was also commander-in-chiuf of the army, no State could endure such an outrage The messenger argued that it was nothing but an April joke, and the bigger the man it hit the better the joke was. This remark led the secretary to look at his calendar, and when he found it was April 1 he forgave the messenger, who retained his job through the administration.

The 50th Annual New York Antiquarian Bookfair

2010-03-30T10:40:00.000-04:00

Spring is upon us, and we find our thoughts turning to The New York Antiquarian Bookfair. It's the 50th anniversary of the fair this year, and it'll be at the Park Avenue Armory from April 9-11th. About 200 vendors will be present, with offerings covering every corner of bibliophilia.
Personally, we're particularly looking forward to seeing Vladimir Mayakovsky's "New Measures," a work printed on six Soviet caramel wrappers.

We'll be making use of our Twitter account during the show, so make sure to follow us @CondenserMag to get updates and see our thoughts from the floor.

For more info on the show, you can visit this site.

Fern Seeds; their Uses in Discovering Buried Treasure

2010-03-26T15:02:00.005-04:00

From The Gentleman's Magazine (collected volumes of 1907) comes an entertaining overview of European superstitions associated with fern seeds, including a daunting ritual for gathering them. For the really, er, practical uses of the seeds, make sure to click through.

Image of a treasure-hunter via Wikipedia

A belief lingers in most parts of Europe regarding the virtues of fern-seed gathered on Midsummer Eve. Our ancestors thought it could only be found on that night, and said that, as it was so small as to be almost imperceptible, it gave the power of becoming invisible, a superstition mentioned by Shakespeare and other Elizabethan dramatists. For instance, Beaumont and Fletcher, in The Fair Maid of the Inn, mention " the herb that gives invisibility." The custom of going to gather fern-seed at midnight on Midsummer Eve is not quite extinct yet in some parts of our Isles, but nowadays it is rather observed as a bit of fun than from any faith in its mystic powers. Those who go to seek the seed are to start alone, and time themselves so as to arrive at the ferns by twelve o'clock. They must on no account turn their heads, no matter what they may see or hear en route, and the spirits of the wood and heath were formerly said to do all in their power to induce them to turn, placing obstacles in their path, and whisking round their heads, as Aubrey asserted that the elves did to a person who went to gather fern-seed in the West Country in his time.

Reaching the cluster of fronds from which they mean to gather the seed, they should hold a white napkin, paper, plate or box, under the fronds till midnight tolls out from the village belfry, and at that moment the seed is said to fall of its own accord into the plate or cloth, but the frond must not be shaken or even touched. On the way home the fairies will try to throw the bold mortal down, so that the treasure may be lost. And often when he has reached home in safety, it has been found that the packet was empty—not very surprising, when we think how minute the fern-seed is!

One story is that, precisely at midnight on Midsummer Eve, the ferns put forth a blue flower, which ripens at once into the magic seed, and the mortal who sees this event may obtain his heart's desire, and have the power of finding buried treasure and precious minerals. In the Tyrol fern seed is said to shine like gold on St. John's Eve, and those who gather it can discover treasure by scattering the seed on the ground, when fiery lines, will mark the spot where the precious ore lies. In Russia, too, people go on St. John's Eve to look for the azure blossom of the Paparot, or fern, for the finder can ever afterwards do exactly as he likes. Grimm says that at Thiers the fern gathered at midnight on St. John's Eve is thought to bring luck at play, a superstition connected in Ireland with a four-leaved shamrock gathered on St. Patrick's Day. In England, Wales, and the Isle of Man the fern which produced this marvellous seed was said to be the common male or shield fern, but in the Green Isle the magic species is "the fairy-fern," the pretty asplenium tricomanes, which is thought to be a special favourite with "the good people."

But did they figure on the Japanese?

2010-02-26T13:47:00.004-05:00

A paragraph that would make the engineers at GM, Tesla and Fisker swell with pride, were it not written over 100 years ago. From Appletons' Popular Science Monthly (collected volumes of 1900).

In so far as artistic effect is concerned, our manufacturers of
electric vehicles have little to learn from Europeans, although the
industry here is much younger than abroad. As to the operative merits, all that can be said is that the American carriages run so well and possess such endurance that it is probable that they are not second to any in these respects.

Image of an early American electric car taken from the same article.

The Great Berners Street Hoax

2010-02-25T16:04:00.008-05:00

From The Handy-Book of Literary Curiosities (William S. Walsh, 1893), an account of a well-turned practical joke. Make sure to click through for the full item.

Image at left, of an unrelated agitation, courtesy of this site.

Theodore Hook was a famous practical joker, and once, at least, he perpetrated a jest that disturbed all London and amused all England. This was the famous Berners Street hoax. Berners Street in 1810 was a quiet street, inhabited by well-to-do families, and even people of social importance, as the Bishops of Carlisle and of Chester, Earl Stanhope, etc. On the morning of November 26, soon after breakfast, a wagon-load of coals drew up before the door of Mrs. Tottingham, a widow lady living at No. 54. A van-load of furniture followed, then a hearse with a coffin, and a train of mourning coaches. Two fashionable physicians, a dentist, and an accoucheur drove up as near as they could to the door, wondering why so many lumbering vehicles blocked the way. Six men brought a great chamber-organ; a brewer sent several barrels of ale; a grocer sent a cart-load of potatoes. Coachmakers, clock-makers, carpet-manufacturers, confectioners, wig-makers, mantuamakers, opticians, and curiosity-dealers followed with samples of their wares.

From all quarters trooped in coachmen, footmen, cooks, housemaids, and nursery-maids, in quest of situations. To crown all, dignitaries came in their carriages,—the Commander-in-Chief, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chief Justice, a Cabinet minister, a governor of the Bank of England, and the Lord Mayor. The latter—one among many who speedily recognized that all had been the victims of some gigantic hoax—drove to Marlborough Street police-office, and stated that he had received a letter from a lady in Berners Street, to the effect that she had been summoned to attend at the Mansion House, that she was at death's door, that she wished to make a deposition upon oath, and that she would deem it a great favor if his lordship would call upon her. The other dignitaries had been appealed to in a similar way. Police-officers were despatched to maintain order in Berners Street. They found it choked up with vehicles, jammed and interlocked one with another. The drivers were infuriated. The disappointed tradesmen were clamoring for vengeance. Some of the vans and goods were overturned and broken; a few barrels of ale had fallen a prey to the large crowd that was maliciously enjoying the fun. All day and far into the night this state of things continued, meanwhile, the old lady and the inmates of adjoining houses were in abject terror. Every one soon saw that a hoax had been perpetrated, but Hook's connection with it was not discovered till long afterwards. He had noticed the quietness of the neighborhood, and had laid a wager with a brother-wag, a certain Henry Higginson, who afterwards became a clergyman, that he would make Uerners Street the talk of all London. A door-plate had furnished him with Mrs. Tottingham's name, and he had spent three days in writing the letters which brought the crowd to her door. At the appointed time he and Mr. Higginson had posted themselves in a lodging just opposite, which he had rented for the purpose of enjoying the scene. He deemed it expedient, however, to go off quickly into the country and there remain incog, for a time. Had he been publicly known as the author of the outrageous hoax, he might have fared badly.

Obscura Day

2010-02-25T10:26:00.000-05:00

Our friends over at Atlas Obscura have undertaken the herculean task of organizing a global event on March 20th that they're calling, naturally, Obscura Day. On what we can only hope will soon be declared a national holiday, Obscura enthusiasts from around the globe will flock to locations of mystery and interest in their home cities for special tours, lectures and socializing.
A staggering number of cities and towns are included, so you're sure to find something exciting right in your own back yard - here's the link you've been waiting for: Obscura Day
If you choose to take the morning tour of the Atlantic Avenue subway tunnel in Brooklyn, you may even find yourself spelunking alongside a Condenser contributor or two...

Superstitions in Meiji-Period Japan

2010-02-24T14:12:00.004-05:00

Japanese culture blog Pink Tentacle has had a fantastic series on superstitions running for a while now. Their most recent installment focuses on the Meiji period (1868-1912), when Japan was experiencing rapid technological advancement, and there are some real doozies.
As is often the case, misconceptions about electricity figured prominently in folk fears of the time. This is such a common theme that we can't help but wonder if anyone has ever compiled a master list of the world's electrical superstitions - done right, it could be a great read. Click here to check out the whole article.

Matthew Goodman at the Observatory

2010-01-29T12:10:00.006-05:00

If you're still looking for something to do on a chilly Friday night, we strongly recommend considering tonight's talk at the Observatory, hosted by Curious Expeditions - Matthew Goodman, author of The Sun and the Moon, a study of one of the greatest hoaxes of all time, will be delivering a lecture, answering questions and signing books. No less than The Economist named the work one of the "best books of 2008", and we're inclined to agree. If you enjoy New York history, pathological astronomy and the culture of hoaxes, you'll surely be entertained. Now go!

Details at ObservatoryRoom.org

Satan and Santa Collide at the Observatory

2009-12-18T11:34:00.004-05:00

Our friends at the Observatory have a fantastic holiday event planned for tomorrow night - a lecture and party combination worth a snowy trek. In their own words:

How the Lord of Misrule became a Bourgeois Tool (And Still Managed to Enrage the Religious Right)
An illustrated lecture with cult author and cultural critic Mark Dery

Date: Saturday, December 19th
Time: 8:00
Admission: $7

Lecture, followed by an Observatory Holiday party, complete with lovely alcoholic beverages, themed snacks, and live music as performed by Brooklyn’s own Ruprecht and The Birch Switches, who will perform your favorite Krampus Carols.

In Satan and Santa: Separated at Birth?, Dery, a cultural critic and book author, takes a look at the Jolly Old Elf’s little-known role as poster boy for officially sanctioned eruptions of social chaos, as well as his current status as a flashpoint in “the Christmas Wars”—cultural battles between evangelicals, atheists, conservatives, and anti-consumerists over the “true” meaning of Christmas. Along the way, Dery considers New Age theories that Santa is a repressed memory of an ancient Celtic cult revolving around red-capped psychedelic mushrooms; Nazi attempts to re-imagine Christmas—a holiday consecrated to a Jewish baby, for Christ’s sake—as a pre-Christian invention of tree-worshipping German tribes, in some misty, Wagnerian past; and the suspicious similarities between Satan and Santa, connections that have fueled a cottage industry of conspiracy theories on the religious right.

www.observatoryroom.org

The Condenser Bijou Theatre Presents "The Man Who Has A Cough and Just A Cough And He's Fine" from "That Mitchell And Webb Look" (2008)

2009-12-13T23:37:00.005-05:00

This is a newer clip than we usually have on this blog, but it makes fun of a common device in period dramas: the cough to indicate that a character is going to die. Of course sometimes a cough is just a cough.

You can see the rest of this sketch after the jump.

Big Murray and the "Calf's Head Debacle"

2009-12-05T14:44:00.001-05:00

Poor Big Murray. He's not too bright. His head is "too much taken up with birds, and squirrels, and bees' bykes, and animal life of all sorts." When he finally does something right - or so he thinks - it turns out his boss messed up the directions. To be honest, it took me a couple of reads to really figure out what was going on in this excerpt from More Bits from Blinkbonny (1885) by John Strathesk, but the subject of "head singeing" and the dialect was too good to pass up.

Shortly after the scene between the butcher and the dog, Murray committed another mistake, indirectly concerning Mrs. Spowart again, which, whether he was entirely to blame or not, produced his dismissal from Wallace's. "Tak' a' thae heads to the smiddy an' get them singit first; then tak' the calf's head to Spowart's, and bring the sheep's aues here," were the master's orders.

The sheep's heads and the calf's head were in one basket,—a calf's head was a new thing to Jamie,—and he left all with the smith, with instructions to have them singed, and he would come back for them; but to do the calf's head first, for he had to take it to Spowart's.

The singeing of a sheep's head is peculiar, I believe, to Scotch cookery, and is done by the blacksmith, partly on the fire, partly by a rod of red-hot iron; the object being to take all the woolly hair off, without burning or at all scorching the skin. The process is sometimes called "singin'," and many a Sunday dinner in Blinkbonny consisted of a "singit" sheep's head and trotters. Glorious broth it made, dotted with "blue pat peas," turbid with barley brae, and accompanied by a bit of a pease bannock; a snuff o' the "singe" in it was not objectionable, and the head and trotters went "far," in housekeeping phrase, backed up as they were with turnips, carrots, and roasted potatoes. "We've seen the day."

"Singe a calf's head?" said Archie Dawson, the smith,—"singe a calfs head ? Ye're wrang there, my man; I never either did that, or heard o' ony ither body doin't."

"The maister telt me that I was to take a' thae heads to the smiddy to get them singit first; then I was to take the calf's head to Spowart's."

"Spowart's?" said the smith. "There's nae accountin' for what thae English folk'll eat; a calf's head is for ord'nar plottit, but if ye say this ane's to be singit I'll do it, but mind dinna blame me. So here goes!" and a sharpened poker was driven into the nose, and the head singed in a few minutes.

Big Murray meantime had gone to get his bite,—it could hardly be called a dinner,—and he was back in the smithy as soon as the calf's head was cold enough to carry. He took it to Mrs. Spowart's, and, finding the kitchen door open, laid it on the floor, cried, "Here's yer calf's head!" heard the answer, "All right; just leave it," and was back at the smithy for the sheep's heads, which he brought to the shop.

He had not been long there before Mrs. Spowart's servant, carrying a queer-looking brown paper parcel, and accompanied by Mrs. Spowart herself, entered the shop, which smelt strongly of the late arrival of the sheep's heads.

"The very same smell!" said Mrs. Spowart sniffingly. Then confronting the butcher she said angrily, "Whatever do you mean, Mr. Wallace, by sending me such a calf's head?"

"I never sent a better to anybody," said Wallace firmly. "What's the matter with it?"

"The matter, Mr. Wallace?—the matter? It has been burned to a cinder;" and, pointing to the sheep's heads, " If an accident had occurred to it such as these have had,—for the calf's head has precisely that smell, and is as black as these,—you should not have sent it."

It dawned upon Wallace "that that big blockhead Murray had"—but the opening of the brown paper parcel converted dawn into day, for there was the calf's head blackened with soot, and redolent of singed hair.

"This is more than mortal can stand!" said the furious butcher, storming at Murray. "You monstrous idiot, you—you"—for, despite Mrs. Spowart's presence, his tongue was uncontrollable, "whatever put it into your fozy skull to gang an' get the calf's head singed?"

"You telt me to get a' the heads in the basket singit first, an' then to tak' the calf's head to"—but here he was interrupted by the perspiring, "comflusticated" butcher, who shrieked,—.

"Get out o' my sicht if ye respect your life !" and as Murray disappeared, he flung the calf's head after him, saying, "There's mair sense in that dead calf's head than in yours, ye dooble docus."

Image courtesy of this website.

"It'll Shoot Your Eye Out"

2009-12-03T11:20:00.007-05:00

It sure is no Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle, but it'll do just fine.

Image via Adrants

Helena Blavatsky and the Mystery in the Soap

2009-12-01T11:33:00.006-05:00

Perhaps no one person has contributed so much to the archetype of the shrouded, thickly-accented Eastern-European mystic as Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. She was a founding member of the Theosophical Society, a great force in the late 19th-century spiritualist movement and author of countless books and articles. We've recently picked up a few books of her writings, excerpts of which will no doubt soon grace these, er, pages. In the meantime, we've found from another source a concise account of a pleasantly simple, almost mundane, bit of magic. The narrator here is the Countess Constance Wachtmeister, F.T.S. (Blavatsky seems to have had a policy of surrounding herself with only the most exotically-named), writing in "Reminiscences of H.P. Blavatsky and the Secret Doctrine", 1893.

I recall a curious incident which happened to me in connection with one of these walks. I was walking in one of the most frequented parts of the town, and, as I passed a perfumer's shop, I saw some soap in a glass bowl in the window. Remembering that I required some, I walked into the shop and chose a piece from the bowl. I saw the shopman wrap paper around it, took the parcel from his hand, put it in my pocket, and continued my walk. When I returned to my apartment I went straight to my room, without first going to see H.P.B., and took off my hat and cloak. Taking the parcel out of my pocket, I began to unfasten the string and pull off the wrappings, and, as I did so, I perceived a small sheet of folded paper inside. I could not help thinking, how fond people are of advertisements, they even stick them on a cake of soap! But then I suddenly remembered that I had seen the man fasten up the parcel, and that he assuredly had not inserted any. This struck me as strange, and, as the paper had fallen to the ground, I stooped down and picked it up, opened it, and there found a few remarks addressed to me from H.P.B.'s Master in His handwriting, which I had often seen before. They were an explanation of events which had been puzzling me for some days past, and gave me some directions as to my future course of action. This phenomenon was peculiarly interesting to me as having taken place without H.P.B.'s knowledge, and independently of her, for she was writing quite unconcernedly at her table in her writing room at the time, as I ascertained later on.

Image of Madam Blavatsky taken from Theosophist

The Condenser Bijou Theatre Presents "The Circus" (1928)

2009-11-14T21:17:00.004-05:00

Nothing quite terrifies/fascinates me more than a daring tightrope walk - well, except maybe giant squids. In The Circus, the Tramp fills in for the tightrope walker hoping to win the affection of a young acrobat. Naturally, with the help of some monkeys and a faulty harness, hilarity ensues. And if you don't want the ending of the movie spoiled for you, stop this clip around the 6:00 mark.

Viewing Rare Book Collections

2009-11-03T12:25:00.003-05:00

An interesting article on the viewing of rare books, from the New York Times. A lot of seemingly private resources, particularly at schools and universities, are in fact accessible to the public- often it requires nothing more than to ask in advance. Remember to bring your white gloves!

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-31T13:58:00.006-04:00

Well, here we are - and we still have plenty of material for you! We'll just have to sneak it into our posts over the next year. Below is a collection of Halloween traditions from Current Superstitions, Volume 4 (1896) by Fanny Dickerson Bergen and William Wells Newell. There's a lot here, so make sure to click "Read More" and check out everything after the jump. It's been a great Condenser Maga-Ween, but we'd be lying if we said we weren't looking forward to leaving that pun behind us. Have a great Halloween!

303. A Halloween custom is to fill a tub with water and drop into it as many apples as there are young folks to try the trick. Then each one must kneel before the tub and try to bite the apples without touching them with the hands. The one who bites one first will marry first. Alabama.

304. On Halloween hang an apple by the door just the height of the chin. Rub the chin with saliva, stand about six inches from the apple, and hit the chin against the apple. If it sticks to the chin, you will be married, and your true love will stick to you.

St. John, N. B.

305. A girl goes to a field on Halloween at midnight to steal cabbages. The first one whom she meets on her return will be her husband. Boston, Mass.

306. On Halloween at midnight a young lady in her night-dress walks backward into the garden and pulls up a cabbage. She will see her future husband over her shoulder.

Eastern Massachusetts. 307. I wind, I wind, my true love to find,

The color of his hair, the clothes he 'll wear,
The day he is married to me.

Throw a ball of yarn into a barn, old house, or cellar, and wind, repeating the above lines, and the true love will appear and wind with you. To be tried at twelve o'clock at night, on Halloween.

Maine.

308. Shortly before midnight a pure white bowl is procured, that has never been touched by any lips save those of a new-born infant. If it is a woman whose fortune is to be tried (and it generally is) the child must be a male. The bowl is filled with water from a spring-well, after which twenty-six pieces of white paper about an inch square, on each of which must be written one letter of the alphabet, are placed in the bowl with the letters turned downward. These must be dropped in as the clock strikes midnight, or all will faiL All being ready, the maiden interested repeats the lines: —

Kind fortune, tell me where is he
Who my future lord shall be;
From this bowl all that I claim
Is to know my lover's name.

The bowl is then securely locked away, and must not be disturbed till sunrise the following morning, when she is placed before it blindfolded. She then picks out the same number of letters as there are iu her own name. After these are all out the bandage is removed from her eyes, and the paper letters spread out before her. SllS manages them so as to spell a man's name as best she can with the letters at her disposal. The name thus found will be that of her future husband. Trinity and Catalina Bays, N. F.

309. On Halloween a girl is to go through a graveyard, steal a cabbage and place it above the house-door. The one on whom the cabbage falls as the door is opened is to be the girl's husband.

Massachusetts.

1IO. On Halloween walk backwards from the front door, pick up dust or grass, bring it in, wrap it in paper, put it under your pillow, and dream. Pennsylvania.

311. On Halloween put an egg to roast before the fire and leave the doors and windows open. When it begins to sweat a cat will come in and turn it. After the cat will come the man you are to marry, and he will turn it. If you are to die unmarried, the shadow of a coffin will appear. Chestertownf Md.

312. On Halloween go upstairs backwards, eating a hard boiled egg without salt, and looking in the glass. You will see your future husband in the glass, looking over your shoulder.

St. John, N. B.

313. On Halloween go down the cellar stairs backward, carrying a mirror into which you look. A face will be seen over your shoulder which will be that of your future husband.

General in the- United States.

Halloween and other Festivals. 57

314. On the last night of October place a mirror and a clock in a room that has not been used for some time, and at a quarter to twelve take a lighted candle and an apple, and finish eating the apple just as the clock strikes twelve, and then look in the mirror and you will see your future husband. Alabama.

315. On Halloween put a ring in a dish of mashed potatoes, and the one who gets the ring will be married first. Boston, Mass.

316. On Halloween mash potatoes and conceal in the mass a ring, a coin, and a button. Divide it into as many portions as there are persons present. The ring denotes marriage, the coin riches, and the button misfortune. Massachusetts.

317. " Silent Supper." On Halloween set a table as if for supper, with as many seats at the table as there are girls, each girl standing behind a chair at the table. The one you are to marry will come in and take the chair in front of you.

Chestertown, Md.

318. On Halloween write names of three men on three pieces of paper, roll them into balls, put these into balls made of Indian meal (wet so as to roll up), put the balls of meal into a basin of water: whichever one rises to the top bears the name of the one you 'll marry. Salem, Mass.

319. On Halloween, girls place three saucers beside each other, two filled with earth and water, in the other a ring. They are respectively death, cloister or unmarried life, and marriage.

On Being Comfortable In One's Skin

2009-10-28T09:27:00.001-04:00

There's nothing quite like an intriguing footnote. The example below is taken from a chapter on Haitian superstitions in The Journal of American Folklore (1888); the French introduced the people of Haiti to the loup-garou, or werewolf, and it is to their nation of origin that the featured aside takes us:

Dogs, in France, have also an especial hostility to loup garous. A rustic tale relates how the mistress of a household asked a young girl in her service why the dogs made such a clamor on a certain night. "Oh," she said incautiously, "we were in our skins." Being urged, she confessed that her family were in the habit of wandering at night in the shape of beasts. To satisfy curiosity, she changed herself into a wolf, and her mistress was too frightened to effect the re-transformation in the manner directed. After this the evil grew worse, but was finally cured by a bullet of consecrated lead from the roof of a church, any other charge being a waste of ammunition. These nightly rovings are called courir le loup-brou. (Laisnel de la Salle, Croyances et Ltgendes du Centre, i. 182-189. Paris, 1875.)

Image of the Beast of Gevaudan (1764) courtesy of Getty Images.

The Condenser Bijou Theatre Presents "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (1920)

2009-10-26T20:34:00.005-04:00

Here at Condenser Magazine, we feel that in order to completely enjoy a clip from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, you must see all of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. So here it is. The whole movie. You're welcome.

A Multitude of Ghost Sightings from 1654

2009-10-23T12:29:00.005-04:00

Richard Baxter's 1654 tome "The Saints' Everlasting Rest" is a thorough argument for the existence of an afterlife, made through a variety of means. Of course, it could be inferred that the evidence of a malevolent supernatural world would also imply the existence of a more righteous one - and with this connection made, Baxter takes the opportunity to deliver a breathless series of almost gossipy retellings of encounters with ghosts and the Devil. Give us the goods, Richard!

Many deny that the soul of man remaineth & liveth after death, because they see nothing go from him but his breath: And they come to that impiety, tht they laugh at all that is said of another Life. But we see not the Devils; and yet it is clearer than the Sun, that this air is full of Devils; because besides God's Word, experience itself doth teach it....
Luther affirmed of himself, that at Ceburge he oft-times had an apparition of burning Torches, the sight whereof did so affright him, that he was neer swooning; also in his own Garden the devil appeared to him in the likeness of a black Boar, but then he made light of it. Sozomen in his Ecclesiastical History writes of Apelles a Smith, famous in Egypt for working Miracles, who in the night, while he was at work, was tempted to uncleanness by the devil, appearing in the shape of a beautiful woman...
...Among the savages in America, nothing is more common than to hear and see Spirits in such shapes both day and night.
...Yea, godly, fober Melacthen affirms that he had seen some such Sights or Apparitions himself, and many credible persons of his acquaintance have told him that they have not onely seen them, but had much talk with Spirits; Among the rest he mentions one of his own Aunts, who sitting sad at the fire after the death of her husband, there appeared unto her one in the likeness of her husband, and another like a Franciscan Frier: the former told her that he was her husband, and came to tell her somewat; which was, that she must hire some Priests to say certain Masses for him, which he earnestly besought her; then he took her by the hand, promising to do her not harm; yet his hand so burned hers, that it remained black ever after, and so they vanished away.
...So Sleidan relates the storey of Crefoentius the Popes Legate, seared into a deadly sicknes by a fearful Apparition in his Chamber. Most credible and godly Writers tell us, That on June 20, 1484 at a town called Hammel in Germany, the Devil took away one hundred & thirty children that were never seen again.

Almost completely unrelated image of Macbeth seeing a ghost taken from ETC

A Slice of Halloween Doggerel

2009-10-22T10:00:00.010-04:00

Here at the Condenser, our eyes rarely stray from the nonfiction stacks - and yet there is something intriguing in the almost blunt simplicity of this little poem from Alvin Lincoln Snow's Songs of the White Mountains, and Other Poems (1892). It appears, does its job, and leaves, establishing a classic Halloween cliché without bothering to add any twist or quirk of its own. A nice little artifact from a time when, perhaps, the idea of a haunted house was still fresh enough to stand on its own.

THE HAUNTED MANSION.

Gloomy, but grand, it rises nobly high,

Amid huge emerald circumambient trees.

Fair vines, whose beautiful blossoms scent the breeze,

Clamber till on its very roof they lie.

Proudly its cupola points to the sky!

Round it lie lawns as smooth as summer seas;

Nature and Art are there combined to please,

But none will dwell within those walls or nigh.

All there seems dead till midnight's solemn hour,

And then (so gossiping villagers declare)

A mysterious light at one high window gleams;

And by that light a form is seen to cower

Like one in mortal terror or despair,

Then fade away—like those beheld in dreams.

Incidentally, if you're a lover of bad poetry, keep an eye out for a copy of The Stuffed Owl: An Anthology of Bad Verse, recently reissued by the New York Review of Books - it's one of our favorites.

Image taken from www.housemouse.net

Counting Down the Days: Condenser Maga-Ween

2009-10-21T17:34:00.004-04:00

Ah, October - that month when the library starts to feel less like a prison and more like a refuge, the leaves fall from the trees, and thousands of children abandon hope that the school year thus far might have been just an unusually vivid dream.

Best of all, it's capped off with one of our favorite holidays. This year, we're celebrating by doing what we do best - publishing as many posts on the macabre, grotesque and supernatural as we can find. Not exactly a departure, mind you, but an opportunity for our readers to enjoy the fruits of the Condenser when they are, well, in season. Halloween posts will feature the logo you see above, as well as the Halloween tag for easy reference. Enjoy!

On the Art of Conjuring

2009-10-20T15:06:00.001-04:00

From the Journal of American Folklore, Volume 13 (1900), we get a solid introduction to the placing of curses, also known as conjuring, in the American South. This account was taken from an interview with Braziel Robinson, a 75 year old freed slave with some interesting information about graveyard dirt. We may be seeing more from this fellow as Halloween approaches...

People gits most conjured by giving them snake's heads, lizards, and scorpions, dried and beat up into powder and putting it in the food or water they drink, and then they gits full of the varmints; I saw a rootdoctor cut out of a man's leg a lizard and a grasshopper, and then he got well. Some conjur ain't to kill, but to make a person sick or make him have pain, and then conjur is put on the ground in the path where the person to be conjured goes, it is put down on a young moon, a growing moon, so the conjur will rise up and grow, so the person stepping over it will git conjured. Sometimes they roll it up in a ball and tie it to a string and hang it from a limb, so the person to be conjured, coming by, touches the ball, and the work's done, and he gits conjured in the part that strikes the ball, the ball is small and tied by a thread so a person can't see it. There are many ways to conjur, I knew a man that was conjured by putting graveyard dirt under his house in small piles and it almost killed him, and his wife. The dirt made holes in the ground, for it will always go back as deep as you got it, it goes down to where it naturally belongs.

Image via www.luminarium.org

An Account of the Descent into Madness

2009-10-06T13:39:00.000-04:00

From the July-December 1890 volume of Current Literature: A Magazine of Record and Review. While aspiring to be a "Radish King" might be a little eccentric, perhaps a knowledgeable reader can help us understand the apparent link between wanting to farm radishes successfully and being labeled insane. Personally, I would have waited until the cat-biting incident to pass judgment.

How it Feels to be Insane—From Pearson's Weekly

I was once insane, and I often muse over my experience. There are, of course, many kinds of insanity. Some mental disorders take place so gradually that even the closest companions of the victim are at a loss to remember when the trouble began. It must have been this way in my case. One evening, after an oppressively-warm day, a day when I experienced more fatigue from the heat than ever before or since, I sat in my porch fanning myself. " This arm that is now in motion," I mused, " must one of these days be dust. I wonder how long' will the time be." Then I mused upon the evidence I had of immortality. I could do things that other people could not accomplish. I had gone through battle after battle, and though bullets sang and struck around me as thick as hail, yet I remained uninjured. I had passed through epidemics of yellow fever. My idea gained strength as I mused, and I was convinced that I should live forever. No, this cannot be, for death follows all men alike. Yes, I am to die like other men, and I believe that it is my duty to make the most of life; to make money, and enjoy myself, and to educate my children. I wanted to be rich, and I began to study over an imaginary list of enterprises. At last I hit upon radishes. People must have radishes. They should be in every shop. They could be dried, and sold in winter. I would plant fifty acres with radish seed, and people all over the country would refer to me as the "radish king." I would form a radish syndicate, and buy up all the radishes, and travel, and be admired. I hastened to the house to tell my wife that she was soon to be a radish queen. At the breakfast-table I said: "Julia, how would you like to be a radish queen?" "A what!" she exclaimed. I explained my plan of acquiring great wealth, and during the recital she behaved so curiously that I was alarmed. I feared that she was losing her mind. Finally she seemed to understand. She agreed with me, but told me not to say anything more about it. After breakfast I saw her talking earnestly with her father, and I know that she was explaining to the old gentleman how she intended to pay his debts when I became known as the radish king. The old man approached me with much concern, and told me that I needed rest and that I must not think of business. He was old and sadly worried, and I promised him that I would not think of business. Pretty soon I went out to inspect my radish kingdom. Looking round I saw the old man following me. From the field I went to the village. I approached a friend, and I told him how I intended to become rich. He seemed grieved, and I saw at once that he was contemplating the same enterprise. It seemed mean that he should take advantage of me, and I told him so. He tried to explain, but he made me so angry that I would have struck him if my father-in-law had not come up and separated us. I tried to calm myself, but could not. Those who had been my friends proved to be my enemies, and I was determined to be avenged; but before I could execute my will I was seized by several men. My father- in-law did not attempt to rescue me, and I hated him. I was taken to prison. My wife came to see me, but she did not try to have me released.

I demanded a trial, but no lawyer would defend me. Then I realized that the entire community was against me. I became so wroth that my anger seemed to hang over me like a dark cloud. It pressed me to the floor, and held me there. Men came after a long time and took me away, I thought, to another prison. One day a cat came into my cell, and I tried to bite her. She made the hair fly, but I killed her. I don't know how long I remained here, but one morning the sun rose and shone in at me through the window. It seemed to be the first time that I had seen the great luminary for months. A mist cleared from before my eyes. My brain began to work, and suddenly I realized that I had been insane. I called the keeper, and when he saw me he exclaimed, "Thank heaven!" and grasped my hand. I was not long in putting on another suit of clothes, and turning my face toward home. A physician said that I was cured, and everybody seemed bright and happy at my recovery. I went home. My wife fainted when she saw me, and learned that I had recovered my mind. I asked for my little children, and two big boys and a young lady came forward and greeted me. I had been in the asylum twelve years.

Image taken from this site.

The Infamous Exploding Mule Experiment

2009-09-30T13:31:00.008-04:00

From Gizmodo, of all places, comes a pretty interesting account - with illustrations - of how in 1878 Charles Bennett demonstrated his newly-invented gelatin dry plate emulsion process, which allowed for high-speed photography, by blowing the head off a live mule with dynamite. Progress!

I've always preferred the bullet through the apple, myself.

Originally via Stereoviews , where you can also see the resulting photograph.

The Mystery of Edna Dorr

2009-09-30T10:45:00.001-04:00

More mysterious goings on from Current Literature: A Magazine of Record and Review (collected issues of 1890), this time reprinted from the New York World.

The Mystery of Edna Dorr—From the New York World

A famous specialist in nervous diseases recently spent an evening with me. I asked him if he had ever come into contact with mental phenomena that science could not explain. He answered: Yes, I had a very curious experience not long ago. I was on my way to Washington, and had made the acquaintance in the smoking compartment of two cultivated men, whose conversation was extremely entertaining. The talk turned upon mind-reading, and one of my companions proposed an experiment. I left the compartment, and walked to the other end of the car. On my return my friends informed ,me that they had chosen a woman's name, and would will me to guess it. We took hold of hands and sat silent for a time. Gradually my mind became a blank. I could not concentrate my thoughts, and a nervous twitching affected my muscles. Pretty soon a name came into my head. I glanced at my companions. They were eyeing me attentively. As though influenced by an irresistible power I faltered out "Edna Dorr." "That's it! " they cried in chorus. "That was the name we had selected." On my return to New York I found the name of Edna Dorr constantly in my mind. I had never heard it before, and did not know whether it was the name of a living being or simply the product of the experimenters' fancy. Whatever it was it haunted me. I really felt annoyed at my weakness. I began to fear that I had overworked myself and was in danger of nervous prostration. One night last week I was called to examine a critical case at a well-known hospital. I found that the patient, a young woman, had been fatally shot in a low resort on the Bowery. She was dying when I reached her side. Her face bore the marks of refinement and beauty, but a life of dissipation had almost obliterated them. I bent toward her, for I saw that her end was at hand. "What is your real name?" I asked, knowing that in death she would tell the truth. "Edna Dorr," she answered. In another moment she was dead. That is the case. Who she was or how my companions happened to select her name I knew not. Queer, wasn't it ?

Image of an unrelated mind-reading session found on Flickr

19th Century Film - In Color!

2009-09-29T15:20:00.005-04:00

The endlessly fascinating Blog About History posted a remarkable YouTube video today - a short film from 1899 in which every frame was individually colorized. It was the work of those crazy Lumiere brothers, of course, and needless to say, it didn't exactly catch on. We don't want to steal our fellow blogger's thunder, so by all means - head over there to check it out!

On Clouds

2009-09-28T16:46:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow evening, our friends at the Observatory will be presenting a cloud-themed multimedia double-feature. In their own words:

At 8:00pm artist Klara Hobza will present The Cloud Maker, a thirty-minute performative lecture and projection that employs science, pseudo-science, culture, history, and art to introduce the audience to the myths and realities of cloud making. Her work can be seen at http://klarahobza.com/

After a short break we'll watch the video Opera for Migrant Clouds, a collaborative project of artists Catriona Shaw and Pauline Curnier Jardin. Intending to embody and capture a singular moment in the constant metamorphosis of clouds, Opera for Migrant Clouds is primarily a sound piece, a collection of vocal recordings performed by anyone inspired by the beauty (or mediocrity) of a cloud of their choosing. The artists have compiled these recordings as a short opera, also reinterpreting them as drawings that are presented here as a slideshow forming a poetic backdrop to accompany the possible songs of clouds.

Admission $5

More info: www.observatoryroom.org

Vanity Defeats the Corset

2009-09-24T10:56:00.005-04:00

Arguments against the wearing of corsets were a dime a dozen in the 19th century. So much ink was spilled in attacks on the constrictive garment that it seems almost incredible that most people of the era were still, er, supportive of the item. Much of the opposition focused on the detrimental effects of the corset on its wearer's health, and many had a decidedly feminist bent. Of course, there would inevitably be a few times when an author's attack on the corset wasn't exactly a tribute to the feminine intellect, either...

From The Omaha Clinic, Volume 1 (1888)

We all know there is nothing will so appeal to the women of the present day as art, and since they will not listen to argument, you can attack their artistic inclinations. Every girl and lady should be shown, in their drawing lessons at school, copies of the Venus de Medici, and the Venus de Milo, and it should be impressed upon their minds that these possess female beauty in all its perfection, and I think this would accomplish more than all argument. Their mothers and grandmothers have been painted on canvas, and they have always seen them and heard them talked of as the reigning belles of their time, and I think that taking it from an artistic standpoint and educating them in that direction, would accomplish more than any other means. The ladies of the present day all paint flowers, and some other things. We should get them to draw these figures, and impress upon their minds that these possess the highest type of beauty. In this way we may accomplish great good.

Image of a corset advertisement (including corsets for babies!) via this site.

Photographing a Spirit

2009-09-23T13:45:00.000-04:00

From an 1874 issue of The Spiritual Magazine.

THE FIRST SPIRIT-PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN MANCHESTER.

Mr. F. Silkstone, 76, George Street, Hulme, Manchester, in a letter, dated October 23rd, to the Christian Spiritualist for November, gives the following particulars respecting the first spirit-photograph taken in Manchester:—

Elizabeth Ann Williamson, a little girl of 12 years, small for her age, but apparently full of life and health, residing with her parents at 2, WilBngton Street, Lower Ardwick, Manchester, went at the commencement of the present month to have her portrait taken to Mr. Thomas M. Waters, photographer, 105, Hyde Road, Manchester. Her likeness was taken as requested, but at a stance where she was present during the following week, it was communicated by knocks through the table that in the process the photographer had rubbed out a spirit-face, which he in his ignorance of the whole affair considered a defect. She was instructed through the table to go again to the same photographer, and the spirit would appear a second time on the plate. She accordingly went, accompanied by her father, on the 10th October, 1874. A few questions were asked the photographer, and he acknowledged having erased, on her previous visit, some figure he could not understand. He was requested, should anything appear except the little girl, to let it remain untouched. The result was that a shadowy face, with features, however, quite clear, distinct, and well-defined, appears by the side of the girl. The forehead is broad and high, the beard and whiskers short, but plentiful. It is decidedly one of the beat spirit-photographs I have seen; and this opinion is shared by many Spiritualists who are competent judges. The spirit is one of the guides of the young medium, to whose name great interest will now be attached; and many warm hopes will be excited that this innocent, guileless child will be the means of our obtaining in the future striking phenomena, which shall establish in our midst the certainty of our continued existence. The guide who was thus photographed gave his name at a stance as a Dr. Pearson, of London, who practised when in earth-life on the Surrey side of the water. He is entirely unknown to any Spiritualists in Manchester.

Spirit photograph taken from this site. And you thought the ghost would be the scary one...

The Amoeba, Homeless Wanderer

2009-09-21T12:06:00.004-04:00

Poetry in the microscope, from a delightfully florid article in the Friends' Intelligencer, 1867.

Another interesting animal belonging to this class, and found like the Amoeba in our jar, is the Difflugia. Its body is exceedingly minute and jelly-like, too; without a trace of separate organ; but has the ability to cover itself with a beautiful little house, in shape like a Florence flask, but spangled all over, except one orifice, with brilliant points and reflecting surfaces. Through that orifice its finger-like processes are protruded, either as means of locomotion or in quest of food. We have observed no difference between this animal and the Amoeba, except one is permitted to live in a house ornamented with beautiful designs and cunning tracery, while the other is a homeless wanderer, groping about among the obscure shadows lying between animal and plant life.

Image of a Victorian den of microscopy courtesy of this site

Liber Novus

2009-09-21T11:25:00.004-04:00

The New York Times site currently features an article about Carl Jung's Red Book, the account of a bizarre and fantastic journey he took through his own subconscious in 1913. It has been kept closely guarded by Jung's family over the years, but they've finally been persuaded to allow an edition to be published. What should make this volume particularly interesting to bibliophiles and oddity enthusiasts are the illustrations, done by Jung himself, along with calligraphy and decoration that make the book resemble an illuminated Medieval manuscript more than the work of a 20th century psychotherapist. Look for it in bookstores next month, published by W.W. Norton. We can only hope they manage to put out an edition with the beauty and weight- both intellectual and material- of the original.

On Difficult Journeys Concluded

2009-09-15T17:44:00.007-04:00

We're back! Allow us to take a moment, dear reader, to commend you for the fortitude it must have required to maintain your faith in the Condenser over the last month, as the days stretched into weeks and you surely wondered more than once if you'd ever lay eyes on another post again. And for those of you seeing this on your RSS readers, where you've been happily gorging on the fruits of other blogs and allowing the joys we once provided so frequently to slip into the deep recesses of memory, well, we suppose you were there too.

It's been a difficult month, but we've emerged with a new apartment and a renewed passion to continue our beloved blog. Our library is nearly settled in its new home, and already we're on the hunt for something interesting to share. And with long journeys and dubious planning already top of mind, we can't help but offer up an excerpt from an account of Captain Fremont's exploration of the Rocky Mountains in Chambers's Edinburgh Journal (Volumes 5-6, 1846) - an experience which in many ways mirrored our own recent intra-Astoria caravan.

Image of Fremont, at what one can only assume was a more fondly remembered moment, via this site

At an elevation of more than 9000 feet ... they were gladdened with the sight of the Bay of San Francisco and the fertile valleys of California. The difficulties of the descent were, however, greater than had been anticipated. The howitzer, and a large portion of the baggage, were abandoned; numerous valuable packs were lost on the backs of the animals that fell over the slippery precipices; and many horses and mules were killed to supply food for the daring adventurers. Some of the men became light-headed, and wandering off into the woods, were not recovered for several days. Mr. Freuss, who had strayed from the right track, was missing for nearly a week. He kept himself alive by eating ants, and a few roots, which he dug from the rocky ground, and at length rejoined the party in a state of great weakness and exhaustion.

Encounters with the Fauna of Costa Rica, or The Toad Befriended

2009-08-23T15:47:00.008-04:00

The casual tone with which an English explorer might describe his harrowing adventures has certainly become a well-known cliché. Regardless, it can be truly delightful to take in a little of the real thing. So put on your smoking jacket, pour a snifter of brandy, and settle down in a wingback chair by the fire - Arthur Stradling has a tale to tell of his trials in the Costa Rican jungle, courtesy of an 1890 issue of Longman's Magazine.

Image of some dare-we-say-typical 19th c. explorers courtesy of Wikipedia

Go and live there; inhabit that picturesque adobe dwelling for twenty-four hours, either with or without jungle fever, and your enthusiasm will possibly be considerably modified. The breeze, tepid and languorous, brings little refreshment to the heavy steaming atmosphere, charged by blazing sunshine in brief alternation with torrents of rain; deadly miasms from the rot-laden lagoon steal like ghosts through the moonlit night; and every type of winged and creeping abomination that earth produces there teems and swelters in luxuriant virulence. Great hairy tarantula-spiders, centipedes a foot long, and scorpions like miniature lobsters had their being in the banana-leaf thatch above me; land-crabs burrowed up through the fungus-grown floor to visit my couch; huge toads and venomous reptiles came frankly in at the door. Alligators and enormous serpents infested the lagoon hard by and might be expected at any moment. I did not see an anaconda while I was there, but a blow from the tail of an alligator struggling with some creature it had captured actually broke away some of the wall of my hut one night. Beastly bats sailed in occasionally, and were found by daylight pendent and pugnacious overhead, while more than once a yell, a scuffle, and a rush proclaimed the disturbed intrusion of some unidentified delegate of the cat tribe. Respiratory air seemed to have acquired a third constituent in addition to its normal oxygen and nitrogen in the stifling clouds of mosquitoes which filled the darkness— and a Central American mosquito is as merciless an organism as any of its accursed kind found outside the Arctic circle, which is saying a good deal. Strange things whizzed and buzzed and boomed through the obscurity, dropping with a sharp thud as though shot, or alighting with sticky feet, reluctant of dislodgment, on one's face; all night long there was a rustling and a crackling and a creeping suggestive of unseen invertebrate horrors all around; walls, floor, and roof crawled and were horrent with hideous animation. I am a naturalist by instinct, and can love and cherish the meanest reptile, but I would not voluntarily of forethought and design choose a hut in a Costa Rican swamp as a shelter for my sick-bed during the delirium of intermittent fever.

If you care to see a sample of my companions at this halcyon period of my career, go to the London Zoological Gardens and inquire in the Reptile House for Ambrose; and you will Cud him in the third glass case in the lobby, a giant toad who fills a soup- plate, and who took up his quarters in a corner of that den of mine and did good service by snapping up vast quantities of insects, rats, and other minor objectionable fauna. He and I became close friends, and I brought him home with me, after prolonged wandering to and fro.

The Condenser Bijou Theatre Presents Eva Tanguay's "I Don't Care" (1922)

2009-08-08T19:08:00.005-04:00

Sometimes we don't play moving pictures in our theatre. Today you'll be serenaded by the "girl who made vaudeville famous," Ms. Eva Tanguay. It really is unfortunate we don't have film of her performances, because her act consisted of erratic dancing, extravagant costumes, out-of-tune singing, and generally insane behavior. Incredibly, this made her one of the highest paid performers of her day, earning $3,500 a week (and that's 1910 money!).

The Dying Engineer's Vision

2009-07-31T12:41:00.004-04:00

An interesting story from Current Literature: A Magazine of Record and Review (collected issues of 1890), reprinted there from the New York Dispatch.

Some years ago in the town of Garrett, in Northern Indiana, the headquarters of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Chicago Division, there lay sick an engineer named Boardman. He was wildly delirious and his ravings took a serious aspect at times. One evening he was told that Engineer Moses had been called to take out his engine, No. 712, on an extra run, following No. 5. Engine 712 was the pride of the road and of its engineer, then so seriously sick. It had not been sent out before, the foreman of the round-house wishing to gratify the wishes of its engineer, but on this occasion it was necessary, as a special train containing an opera company had to make Washington in twenty hours, a run of 853 miles from Chicago, and no other engine on the Chicago Division was equal to the speed demanded by the company.

Boardman, lying in his bed, was suddenly gifted with a supernatural power, and in his ravings would say : "Hicksville! Ha! How she spins! Runs up the St. Joe grade like the wind! Twenty-two miles; one stop for water, one stop for railroad crossing, and thirty minutes gone!" Then he would be quiet as the grave for a moment. "Holgate! Listen at her spin! She's got the crossing. There she goes. Defiance to Holgate was like a step to her." His watchers looked at one another. Could he have the power of second-sight to watch the movements of the train? One of the boys was sent to the dispatcher's office, but a few blocks away. Before he returned Boardman had called out a water station, and said: " Four minutes lost. Why couldn't she do without water? Ah, ha! Watch her pound sand now. Isn't she a beauty? " The man had returned from the telegraph office and, in a whisper, told the other watchers that he had followed the train correctly.

A feeling of awe came over the boys. The sick engineer was in a seeming trance. His breath came slower and more laborious. The boys crowded nearer and were about to raise him in the bed, so that he could catch his breath easier, and the family were called, when he sat erect, looked wildly about him, and cried: "Tiffin! Red light! Stop for orders! My God!" [Here he held up his hand, as if reading an order.] " 'Train No. second five, engine No. 712. Prepare to meet thy God. O. K. Cockrell.' " Then he sank back in the bed, dead. The horrified boys stood amazed and speechless. It was a presentiment. One rushed forth to the dispatcher's office and cried to the east-end man: " For God's sake, Dixy, stop second five at Republic." Quick over the wires the call went and was answered, and then this message: "Stop second five." There was a wait of breathless anxiety, when the news came back: "Second five is stopped. Conductor wants to know what for." By this time the story was known in the dispatcher's office, and the answer was sent to Republic: "Had a terrible presentiment. Tell conductor to proceed cautiously to Chicago Junction.'' Hardly had the answer gone when Attica called up and said: "Stop second five at Republic. First five ditched a mile west of here; engine and three cars off. Cow on track. Engineer killed by jumping." And the man who had saved probably five score of lives lay a corpse at his home, with his sorrowing family. The opera company made up a purse, which, together with the life insurance he had carried, made the engineer's family independent for the rest of their lives.

Aleister Crowley Under Review

2009-07-27T11:17:00.003-04:00

In the decades following his death, Aleister Crowley's legend has grown to such a degree that it can sometimes obscure the less mystical aspects of the man himself. He may have been a master of the occult and the shadowy world of secret societies, but he wasn't immune to a middling literary review. From The Bookseller, February 3, 1899.

Jepthah, and other Mysteries, Lyrical and Dramatic. By Aleister Crowley —Mr. Crowley is a master of colour, if a little deficient in form and accuracy of outline. It would be easy, no doubt, to pick out place after place where the grammar is shaky, the meaning obscure, and the choice of epithet and noun determined more by the exigencies of rhyme than by natural appositeness; but where one recognises a certain reality of power in a writer, such extravagances may be passed over. When he condescends to leave his "mystic" heights and the enigmata that belong to those altitudes, Mr. Crowley composes well indeed. What could be better—in the Shelleyan vein—than this ?

Sing, happy nightingale, sing ;
Past is the season of weeping;

Birds in the woods are on wing,
Lambs in the meadow are leaping.

Can there be any delight still in the buttercup sleeping.

Much more also of the same quality, were there only the necessary space for further citation.

Formless Lumps of Intelligent Flesh

2009-07-24T09:16:00.002-04:00

An unusual ode to the sea lion, from an 1890 issue of Harper's Magazine.

On one of the most charming of the many wonderfully picturesque little beaches on the Pacific coast, near Monterey, is the idlest if not the most disagreeable social group in the world. Just off the shore, farther than a stone's-throw, lies a mass of broken rocks. The surf comes leaping and laughing in, sending up, above the curving green breakers and crests of foam, jots and spirals of water which flash like silver fountains in the sunlight. These islets of rock are the home of the sea- lion.

This loafer of the coast congregates here by the thousand. Sometimes the rocks are quite covered, the smooth rounded surface of the larger one presenting the appearance at a distance of a knoll clotted with dirty sheep. There is generally a select knot of a dozen floating about in the still water under the lee of the rock, bobbing up their tails and flippers very much as black drift-wood might heave about in the tide. During certain parts of the day members of this community are off fishing in deep water; but what they like best to do is to crawl up on the rocks and grunt and bellow, or go to sleep in the sun.

Some of them lie half in water, their tails flouting and their ungainly heads wagging. These uneasy ones are always wriggling out or plunging in. Some crawl to the tops of the rocks and lie like gunny bags stuffed with meal, or they repose on the broken surfaces like masses of jelly. When they are all at home the rocks have not room for them, and they crawl on and over each other, and lie like piles of undressed pork. In the water they are black, but when they are dry in the sun the skin becomes a dirty light brown. Many of them are huge fellows, with a body as big as an ox. In the water they are repulsively graceful; on the rocks they are as ungainly as boneless cows, or hogs that have lost their shape in prosperity.

Summer and winter (and it is almost always summer on this coast) these beasts, which are well fitted neither for land nor water, spend their time in absolute indolence, except when they are compelled to cruise around in the deep water for food. They are of no use to anybody, either for their skin or their flesh. Nothing could be more thoroughly disgusting and uncanny than they are, and yet nothing more fascinating. One can watch them—the irresponsible, formless lumps of intelligent flesh—for hours without tiring. I scarcely know what the fascination is. A small seal playing by himself near the shore, floating on and diving under the breakers, is not so very disagreeable, especially if he comes so near that you can see his pathetic eyes; but these brutes in this perpetual summer resort are disgustingly attractive.

Nearly everything about them, including their voice, is repulsive. Perhaps it is the absolute idleness of the community that makes it so interesting. To fish, to swim, to snooze on the rocks, that is all, forever and ever. No past, no future. A society that lives for the laziest sort of pleasure. If they were rich, what more could they have? Is not this the ideal of a watering-place life?

Image via GraceGalleries.com

The Snake of Fire

2009-07-21T13:00:00.000-04:00

An account of a fantastic reptile, excerpted from the Chicago Inter-Ocean in an 1890 issue of Current Literature: A Magazine of Record and Review.

The Snake of Fire—From the Chicago Inter-Ocean

Among the Indians of New Mexico there are told many legends of a nature so weird that the blood of the white listener often runs cold at the recital of them. Among them all there is probably not another so startling as the tales they tell of the culebra de lumbre, or snake of fire. This reptile, according to the natives, overcomes its enemies by emitting from the mouth a long, thin streak of fire, which pierces the vitals of the being against whom it is directed, and actually scorches the life out. Many persons, say the Indians, have been seared by the flames, and in nearly every instance death ensued instantly. It was the good fortune of a member of the United States Geological Survey, who was recently transferred to a post on the California coast, after having spent many years in New Mexico, to meet with an aged Indian who maintained that such a reptile really existed in years gone by, and who related the circumstances of personal encounters had with the serpents. The narrative of the Indian is presented below exactly as the official referred to wrote it down:

The members of the Geological Survey who were with me in New Mexico were encamped one night in a canon close to the bank of a river. There had been a fire in the underbrush not many yards from where our tents stood, and no man in the party was able to give a plausible explanation as to its origin, and the discussion of the subject was about to cease when an explanation of the mystery came from a source whence we least expected it. " Maybe it was the culebra de lumbre." Everybody turned toward the person who had spoken. It was Pablo, squatting in his usual corner, with his knees drawn up so that his chin could rest upon them, while his hands were clasped around his shins. Pablo was a patriarch among the Indians of New Mexico, but he was also an excellent cook, and that accounted for his being one of our party. Just how old Pablo was nobody—not even himself— could tell, but it is a fact that he was a man before the eldest of those who surrounded him was born. '' The snake of fire," said I, who had never heard of it; " what do you mean, Pablo ? " " Then the senor does not know of culebra de lumbre," ejaculated the aged Indian, as his eyes opened with wonder. Certainly I knew nothing of it. Then Pablo told us it was a serpent whose species existed only in that immediate vicinity—a reptile which at full growth was about ten feet long and several inches in diameter, wonderfully quick in movement, whose color was a vivid scarlet, from whose skin, when enraged, there diffused a yellowish glow, while from its mouth it would emit long lightning-like streaks of living flame. Its breath meant death to anything it touched, and where it writhed its way along the ground there was left a trail scorched as though by fire. At our looks of incredulity Pablo merely shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, amigo mio," said he, " there is a curse upon this land, but its blight is passing away, for with each year the number of these serpents grows less. But when I was young I have seen them out there in the grasses, these snakes that spit fire, many of them. Many of the Indians call them culebra colorado." Pablo ceased talking, but we were interested and questioned him closely, being rewarded with the information that these luminous snakes were dreaded even more than rattlesnakes. They were aggressive, climbed trees, ran on top of the brush as well as on the ground, and would attack a man or other animal, and pierce with the flame. He had seen them many times, when the moon was hidden by clouds, squirming over the grass and through it, casting a phosphorescent glow around them, while at short intervals fire would flash from their mouths, searing the herbage around, and causing living things to hasten from the vicinity in terror. That their existence was well known to the older natives, Pablo said, was attested by the fact that many rocks in the vicinity have crude pictures of the serpent, and he knew of rocks the pictures on which must have been drawn by ancient tribes years ago. I can attest the truth of this last statement, for I have seen pictures such as Pablo described, and often wondered what they meant. Pablo was asked if he had ever had an encounter with one of the snakes, and, with a shudder, he nodded affirmatively. Then, lifting his long black hair from his face, the old Indian exhibited a scar which was undoubtedly caused by a burn. "It was twenty years ago," he said, by way of explanation. "I, with a number of followers, was riding down the cafion. We had with us a large dog, which had drawn badgers, and killed in short combat many wildcats and coyotes. He was running on ahead of the horses, when suddenly I heard him yelp, saw him rise in the air, and then fall over sideways and lie quite still. It was strange, I thought. He could not have been bitten by a rattlesnake, because they do not cause instant death. I spurred forward until I came to the dog, when, stooping down. I placed my hand upon him. He was limp and lifeless. As I rose to my feet I was conscious of a sickening odor permeating the atmosphere. I was becoming dizzy, and strength was leaving me, when suddenly I saw in the grass a few feet from where I stood what appeared to be a long line of fire. With a great effort I vaulted on to my mustang, and just as I gained his back I saw that line of fire spring through the air toward me. Instantly my mustang commenced to rear and snort, and looking down I saw curled around one of his forelegs a large specimen of the culebra de lumbre. Suddenly the mustang plunged forward, and I, already very much unnerved, was thrown to the ground. As I touched the earth I was conscious of a blinding flash of light, a sensation as though a burning brand had been thrust into my face, and then my senses left me. Nearly five hours later I awoke to find myself with the others of my party around me. They had seen me thrown and rode quickly forward. Disappearing through the grass, they knew I had been scorched by the deadly breath. Luckily for me, the flame struck me in the face instead of in a vital part, and after much work they succeeded in restoring me. That flame, however,had seared its way through my face, and when the wound healed, as it did after many months,"this scar was left. Where the snake had twined itself around the mustang's leg the flesh had been burnt away and the bone was exposed. Once I saw one of the snakes stretched on a limb of an oak tree, its brilliantly-colored body and copper-colored head causing it to be visible from quite a distance. Another time while hunting I had occasion to pass through a thick patch of chapparal. Suddenly, while resting, I saw a bright flash overhead, and looked up in time to see a scarlet snake gliding over the top of the brush fully four feet above me, and vanish in an instant. At the same time a cotton-tail rabbit brushed past me, and, dodging about with every evidence of fear and bewilderment, darted into a small opening not more than twenty feet from me. Again I saw the scarlet gleam, then the yellowish flame, and all was over with the cotton-tail. To those who know nothing of the snake of fire it is a source of much surprise and mystery whenever a fire sweeps the prairie or burns over. hundreds of acres of brush and timber land in the mountains. Still the fires frequently burn, and are particularly noticeable during the hot, dry months of July and August. Old Indians believe they are caused by the awful snake of fire."

Voodoo in 1870s Louisiana

2009-07-17T10:39:00.015-04:00

Meg and I have recently returned from a short jaunt to New Orleans, and it seems only fitting that we announce our return with an article on that most southern branch of mysticism, Voodoo. The passage below is taken from an 1877 issue of The Catholic World-- a world which was gripped, if our excerpt is to be believed, with perpetual racist hysteria.

This might also be a good time to point out our new 'Read More' link at the bottom of the post, which lets us post particularly long excerpts without taking up the whole front page of the blog. So go forth, reader, and read more!

The voodoo rites have been kept up in Louisiana from the commencement, and the power exercised by the priests and priestesses of this horrible creed is very great. Working in secret, with all the terrors of mystery and threats of bodily harm, it is just suited to the negro mind, and has spread over much of the South. As in Cuba and St. Domingo, the white children in many cases learn of it from their negro nurses, and the weak, as they grow tip, never shake off its hold on their imagination. Human sacrifices are certainly offered in their infamous rites, and the escape of an old negro doomed to the sacrificial altar drew down upon the voodoos the police of New Orleans only a few years ago.

The Abbe Domenech—whom we should hesitate to cite, were not his accounts here in conformity with numerous others—represents voodooism as having not only spread through Texas, but into Mexico where, in a depraved border community, its horrid rites and secret poisonings are carried on. His details as to the mode of worship in New Orleans—the nudity, the use of serpents, the dances—correspond with the accounts given from Cuba. Reports from Mobile attest its existence there with similar features.

Image via Wikipedia

Where voodooism prevails it has not only its adepts and votaries, but a large class who, full of terror, buy at exorbitant prices from voodoo priests charms against its spells.

The late war has given the negroes opportunities for education and a future, but the new prosperity has not broken the power of voodooism. Of a thing kept secret and hidden, which many will deny and more be ashamed of, it is not easy to get precise data or details. Yet from time to time revelations are made attesting its vitality. A negro member of the Louisiana Legislature, and a minister in one of the Protestant denominations, was reported within a few years as undergoing certain rites to free himself from the spell of a voodoo priestess. We may therefore easily infer that the negroes, being not only self-governing, but governing the whites in many parts by force of numbers, are not likely to be influenced so much by whites as by the crafty and aspiring among themselves. They will concentrate, and in their concentration this voodoo power cannot but increase and all vestiges of Christianity disappear. The field upon which it can work —the vast colored population of the South—is ready for it. Some may think the whole matter a shallow imposture that will soon die out before the effulgence of newspapers ; but it really shows no signs of decline, and, if no cases have been unearthed which show such frightful enormities as those in Hayti, it is certainly attended with ceremonies which, for their very indecency and pampering of the worst vices, should cause it to be rooted out, even by those who would regard the direct worship of the devil as something with which the state cannot interfere.

Tonight at the Observatory: Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot

2009-07-17T10:22:00.005-04:00

Looks like a delightful way to spend this evening.

July 17, 2009
7:30 and 9:00 at The Observatory

Phantasmaphile Presents: Layered Orders: Crowley’s Thoth Deck and the Tarot (a personal narrative by Jesse Bransford)

A deck given to his brother by his mother in 1986 sat in Jesse Bransford’s childhood bedroom from the early 90’s until recently, delivering itself into Bransford’s possession at an opportune moment…

The Tarot in general and Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot in particular represent a miasmic confluence of image and thought into a single structure that is both liberating and overwhelming in its scope. In creating the deck, Crowley (in collaboration with painter Lady Frieda Harris) sought to integrate the mythological structures of the major mystical systems of both Western and Eastern occult traditions and to bring them into line with contemporary scientific thinking. The symbolism of the cards blends Kabbalah, Alchemy, Astrology, Egyptian mythology, quantum physics and even the I-Ching in ways that are at the same time clear and utterly confounding.

More information, plus directions, at ObservatoryRoom.org

Oh, Sorry. I Was Just Playing My Conclusion

2009-07-06T13:20:00.010-04:00

zzxjoanw (shaw). Maori, 1. Drum. 2. Fife. 3. Conclusion.

For many years, logologists assumed that zzxjoanw (sometimes pronounced ziks-jo'an) was an actual word, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary - not the least of which being that the Maori language only uses the letters AEGHIKMNOPRTUW. Nor is it entirely clear why the Maori would choose one word to describe two completely different musical instruments and a conclusion. In fact, the more zzxjoanw is examined, the less it makes sense.

The truth is, zzxjoanw is the final entry in the dictionary section of Rupert Hughes' The Musical Guide (1903), and is completely made up.

You can read more about the zzxjoanw on Wikipedia.
Picture found on this website.

Thar She Blows!

2009-06-29T17:59:00.020-04:00

Modern day shoulder-mounted rocket launchers are typically employed in times of war. However, the history of the Rocket Propelled Grenade includes an interesting appearance on the creaky boats of the North Atlantic. These rocket-propelled harpoons even came equipped with a circular blast plate to protect the individual from the rocket's exhaust. This cutting-edge technology report is taken from the February, 1870 issue of Harper's Magazine.

The rocket-harpoon gun, for capturing and killing whales, invented some years ago by an American captain, is now used with great success in the Greenland and Iceland fisheries. By this apparatus a steady aim may be taken at the whale to be attacked; and by pulling a trigger a harpoon is discharged with unerring precision into the body of the animal, the rocket bearing a shell, which explodes immediately on penetration, causing death almost instantaneously. The harpoon may be sent to a distance of nearly a hundred feet—much further than an ordinary harpoon can be thrown by the arm of the stoutest whaleman. The rocket-harpoon has been used successfully in the capture of the sulphur-bottom whale, a species proverbially difficult to secure, as well as extremely dangerous when attacked at close quarters, so much so that very few of even the most experienced whalers ever undertake to kill them. These whales generally require to be hauled up from the bottom after being killed.

Image via Solar Navigator

Kit Burns' Rat Pit

2009-06-22T11:21:00.008-04:00

Today, the name Kit Burns means nothing to all but the most historically-minded New Yorkers. In the middle of the 19th Century, though, he was a notorious figure known across the continent for his establishment at #273 Water Street, near the approach to the Brooklyn Bridge. Referred to by locals as Kit Burns' Rat Pit or, occasionally, Kit Burns' Dog Pit, it was in fact both. I'll let James McCabe elaborate, in his The Secrets of the Great City (1868).

In walking through Water street, you will notice a plain brick building, rather neater in appearance than those surrounding it. The lower part is painted green, and there is a small gas lamp before the door. The number, 273, is very conspicuous, and you will also notice the words over the door, rather the worse for exposure to the weather, "Kit Burns", "Sportsman's Hall."

The ostensible business of Kit Burns, is that of a tavern keeper, and it is said that his house is well kept for one of its class. The bar does a thriving business, and is well stocked with the kind of liquor used in Water street. Attached to the tavern, however, are the principal attractions of the place to those who frequent it. These are the rat and dog pits.

THE RAT PIT.

Rats are plentiful along the East Eiver, and Burns has no difficulty in procuring as many as he desires. These and his dogs furnish the entertainment, in which he delights. The principal room of the house is arranged as an amphitheatre The seats are rough wooden benches, and in the centre is a ring or pit, enclosed by a circular wooden fence, several feet high. A number of rats are turned into this pit, and a dog of the best ferret stock is thrown in amongst them. The little creature at once falls to work to kill the rats, bets being made that she will destroy so many rats in a given time. The time is generally "made" by the little animal, who is well known to, and a great favorite with, the yelling blasphemous wretches who line the benches. The performance is greeted with shouts, oaths, and other frantic demonstrations of delight. Some of the men will catch up the dog in their arms, and press it to their bosom in a frenzy of joy, or kiss it as if it were a human being, unmindful or careless of the fact that all this while the animal is smeared with the blood of its victims. The scene is disgusting beyond description.

Image of Kit Burns' establishment via Terrierman.com

The Forme of Cury

2009-06-19T11:48:00.006-04:00

The John Rylands Library in Manchester is in the process of digitizing its collection, and the recent addition of a 15th Century cookbook, the Forme of Cury, to their online library has caught the eye of the BBC - if only for the book's inclusion of a recipe for porpoise. It looks like you'll need an account to view the book in the Rylands collection, but you can freely peruse an earlier copy at this site.

Image via, of all places, the official blog of Cabot Cheese.

The Condenser Bijou Theatre Presents "Princess Nicotine" (1909)

2009-06-19T11:15:00.004-04:00

Well, after all the onanism we've had on the blog, I could sure use a smoke. What's that? A fairy is hiding in my tobacco pipe, you say? Well, clearly you - and our old friend J. Stuart Blackton - are smoking something else entirely.

Krafft Singles: Case 41

2009-06-17T12:30:00.003-04:00

Case 41. K., aged twenty-five, merchant, applied to me in the fall of 1889 for advice concerning an anomaly of his vita sexualis, which made him fear invalidism and impossibility of future happiness in marriage.

Patient came of a nervous family. As a child he was delicate, weak and nervous. Healthy except for measles; later on he became more robust.

At the age of eight, while at school, he saw the teacher punish the boys by taking their heads between his thighs and spanking them with a ferule. This sight caused the patient lustful excitement. "Without any idea of the danger and enormity of onanism," he satisfied himself with it, and from that time often masturbated, always calling up the memory-picture of a boy being punished.

Thus it continued until his twentieth year. Then he learned the significance of onanism, was terribly frightened, and tried to overcome his impulse to masturbate; but he fell into the practice of psychical onanism, which he regarded as innocuous and morally defensible, and for which he made use of the memory-pictures of boys being whipped, previously mentioned.

Patient now became neurasthenic, suffered with pollutions, and tried to cure himself by visiting brothels; but he could not induce erection. Then he sought to obtain normal sexual feelings by means of social intercourse with ladies; but he recognised that he was entirely insensible to the charms of the fair sex.

The patient was an intelligent man, normally developed, and of aesthetic taste. There was no inclination to persons of his own sex. My advice consisted of means to combat the neurasthenia and pollutions; interdiction of psychical and manual onanism; avoidance of all sexual excitants ; and, possibly, hypnotic treatment to ultimately induce a return of the vita sexualis to its normal condition.

Doctor, That Isn't Sweat

2009-06-17T00:40:00.009-04:00

Modern medicine may have come to the conclusion that chronic masturbation is a symptom of mental illness and not the cause of it, but in the 19th century, medical diagnoses of the problem were quite the inverse. Here we have a description of something called "chronic dementia" --which has a definition vastly different from that of contemporary usage--published in Excessive Venery, Masturbation and Continence (1889).

On entering an asylum for the insane, especially if it be one receiving patients from the middle as well as from the lower class of society, there is one group of inmates which may arrest the attention of the visitor from the contrast presented to the excited persons around him, on the one hand, and to those who are convalescent on the other. Engaged in no social diversion, the patients of this group live alone in the midst of many. In their exercises they choose the quietest and most unfrequented parts of the tiring grounds. They join in no social conversation, nor enter with others into any amusement. They walk alone, or they sit alone. If engaged in reading, they talk not to others of what they may have read; their desire, apparently, in the midst of numbers, to be in solitude. They seek no social joys, nor is any wish for fellowship evinced.

The pale complexion, the emaciated form, the slouching gait, the clammy palm, the glassy or leaden eye, and the averted gaze indicate the lunatic victim to this vice.

Apathy, loss of memory, abeyance of concentrative power and manifestation of mind generally, combined with loss of self-reliance and an indisposition for or impulsiveness of action, irritability of temper, and incoherence of language are the most characteristic mental phenomena of chronic dementia resulting from masturbation in young men.

As in diseases of an exhaustive nature, we find that the cutaneous secretion is poured forth abundantly, so in the cases occupying our attention the perspiration breaks forth on the slightest exertion. This relaxed condition of the perspiratory system is especially marked in the palms, and the exception is to find these dry on a masturbator, for generally a damp, cold clammy perspiration is constantly present, and makes it particularly disagreeable to take the hands of one of these persons.

Image via Eastern State Penitentiary

The Skull That Won't Stay Buried

2009-06-12T13:46:00.006-04:00

From the Irish Monthly (collected volumes of 1882), we find an account of a taphephobic skull residing outside Manchester. Fortunately, a skull that won't stay buried is not necessarily a skull that won't stay hidden behind a door. Out of sight, out of mind?

Just as one is surprised to find picturesque effects in the midst of the most commonplace scenery, so is there a certain charm about unearthing a ghostly tale close to the busy, bustling haunts of a latter-day manufacturing capital; and Lancashire, with all its cotton-spinning and other matter-of-fact occupations, finds time for cherishing some as startling legends and weird superstitions as could be found in the most romantic and unapproachable regions. At Wardley Hall, for instance (near Manchester), one of the ancient dwellings we have alluded to, we are seriously assured there is, and has been since the time of Charles II., a terrible skull which will not allow itself to be buried. The skull is preserved, and treated with a sort of fearful respect by the family residing in the house, who reluctantly submit to the tyranny of its presence.

Standing in a small woody glade, Wardley Hall was originally almost surrounded by a moat, and is a black and white, half-timbered building of quadrangular form, constructed of ornamental wood and plaster, and entered by a covered archway opening into a courtyard in the centre. It was erected in the reign of Edward IV., and in later times it had for master, Roger Downes, a man who is described as "one of the most abandoned courtiers of Charles II." The story runs that on one occasion this graceless person rushed forth from among his roistering companions, swearing he would kill the first man he met, and that meeting a poor tailor coming out from his work he stabbed him to the heart on the spot. Soon afterwards he was killed himself in a riot, by a watchman on London Bridge, and his head, having been struck off by a billhook, was picked up and sent packed in a box to his sister at Wardley Hall. Being buried, it refused to stay in the ground, and returned to the Hall. Again and again it was deposited deep in the earth, and occasionally sunk to the bottom of rivers and ponds, but all to no purpose; the skull positively refused to make itself at home anywhere except in a most prominent position in its own house. The spot it chose for itself was a niche in the wall above the staircase, which opens out of the great hall, and behind it a window which must always be left unglazed, or the skull becomes unruly, and disasters fall upon the inmates of the house. A door has been made, covering the ghastly spectacle from everyday view, and it is kept carefully locked up in its lonely and airy recess.

Image via Wikipedia

Atlas Obscura

2009-06-06T13:56:00.005-04:00

We're very excited to hear that Atlas Obscura, a compendium of the world's bizarre and curious locations and a joint project between Dylan of Curious Expeditions and Josh of the Athanasius Kircher Society, has launched. It's still in beta, but already offers articles on an enormous variety of strange places, from Czech bone churches to the world's largest tesla coil.

Best of all, the Atlas is designed to be user generated site. Don't see your favorite location listed? Go ahead and add it! The Atlas will surely become- if it isn't already- a major resource for people like yourselves, dear readers, and it's getting there through user contribution.

If at First You Don’t Succeed…

2009-06-04T14:50:00.004-04:00

From the Essenes of ancient Judaism to the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide in the 20^th century, doomsday cults might be one of the most basic indicators of human fallibility. In the 1840’s, William Miller, a former atheist, began a religious sect based on the notion that the end days were just around the corner. But what does one do when the set day of reckoning has come and gone? In Miller's case he simply moved the apocalypse to a later date, all the while amassing a small fortune from the sale of “ascension robes” to his gullible followers. The resulting pandemonium from these "Millerites" led to some fascinating and absurd accounts of chaos and disorder. These descriptions are taken from 1910's A History of the People of the United States: From the Revolution to the Civil War.

[I]n 1842 there was not a city and scarcely a town in the Eastern and Middle States in which Millerites were not anxiously awaiting the coming of Christ on the twenty-third of April, 1843. As that day drew near the leaders of the sect became all activity. Meetings were held in old churches, in public buildings, in the fields, and in great tents with which the preachers traveled from city to city. One such circular tent was put up in New York, in August, 1842. At Hartford and in the country round about people began to dispose of their property and settle their worldly affairs, that they might devote their lives and turn their thoughts to other than selfish interests.

...

At New Haven excitement ran so high that when a near-by paper mill took fire one winter night and the flames, reflected by a blinding snow storm, illuminated the streets, the Millerites were sure the end of the world had come and rushed from their houses. When March came the results of the teachings of Miller took a serious turn. Suicides became common, and scores of people were made crazy. At Augusta four lunatics from one town were brought to the State Hospital in one week. At Portsmouth, a Millerite was in such haste to see the coming of the Lord, that, clad in his ascension robes, he climbed a tree, attempted to fly into heaven, fell to earth and broke his neck. Eleven persons, driven insane by attendance on Millerite meetings, were committed to the Worcester Hospital. In Massachusetts a farmer cut his wife's throat because she would not be converted to Millerism, and a mother poisoned herself and all her children.

...

On the appointed day great crowds abandoned their houses, left the cities and towns, and in their ascension robes, betook themselves to the fields in the full expectation that the Saviour would come with His angels to receive them and set the world afire. When the day passed and nothing happened it might be supposed the delusion would end. Not so; the preachers then became more active, the believers more ardent, and a new date, October twenty-third, 1844 was chosen for the end of things earthly.

...

At Boston, October tenth had been chosen as Ascension Day, and when it came the Tabernacle was crowded with men, women, and children. Four o’clock was the hour fixed on for the coming of Christ. But just before that time it was announced that another error had been detected and that Ascension Day would be October twenty-second

...

On complaint, lodged with the Baltimore County Court, a Millerite preacher was arrested for disturbing the peace, but was released till after the time fixed by his sect for the coming of the Lord. His preaching had led the heads of several families to abandon their vocations and give their property to the Millerite cause. Many preachers had urged their followers to sell their property and scatter the proceeds.

...

The Selectman of Meredith, New Hampshire, applied to the Judge of Probate for guardians over ten persons who had neglected their business and let their property go to waste to run after Miller. An order was issued. Other towns notified the farmers to gather their crops or be treated as idlers and spendthrifts. At Kingston a printer and publisher went insane. At Newington and at other places the apple crop was left to rot on the trees and corn stood ungarnered in the fields. In the Brattleboro, Vermont, Asylum, there were twenty six insane Millerites. At Black Rock a young man threw himself into the Niagara River and was swept over the falls.

...

When Monday, the twenty-first of October, came, large parties left Philadelphia and went outside the city to camp. Some went over to Camden and other New Jersey towns. A great crowd repaired to Darby, where a large tent was pitched, and with prayers and singing awaited the coming day. Before evening the tent was so crowded that the children were forced into the fields where they ran about crying, exposed to a pelting storm. A second tent was put up on Tuesday. This was to be the last day, and as it dragged along the suffering from want of food became dreadful. When nothing came to pass despondency set in, and toward daylight the crowd of cold, hungry, and weary Millerites began to disperse. Some, however, waited all day Wednesday and then walked back to the city sadder but no wiser than before. In a Millerite camp near Phoenixville two children were found dead. The misery caused by the neglect of trades and callings and the foolish waste of property was long felt by many thousands of the deluded followers of Miller.

Image of Saint Joseph of Cupertino descending from the heavens courtesy this site.

Krafft Singles: Case 37

2009-06-03T10:52:00.004-04:00

Krafft Singles is a recurring series in which we post individual case studies from Richard Krafft-Ebing's landmark 1886 tome Psychopathia Sexualis. Needless to say, your great-grandparents may have been stranger than you could imagine.

Case 37. A man in Vienna regularly visited several prostitutes only to lather their faces and then to remove the lather with a razor, as if he were shaving them. He never hurt the girls, but became sexually excited and ejaculated during the procedure.

My Fifty-Two Billion Dearest Friends

2009-05-28T10:00:00.001-04:00

As inane predictions go, nothing quite beats this gem from an issue of the journal Notes and Queries, published in 1905. One can only wonder what use could be gleaned from an estimate of the world's maximum population based on, apparently, the number of people that can physically fit in a square mile. And with no consideration for agriculture, much less wildlife, it's safe to assume all 52,000,000,000 of us will be eating a steady diet of Soylent Green. Standing up.

The World Full In 2250. Mr. J. Holt Schooling, in an article, " When will the World be Full ? " in The Cosmopolitan for July, 1901, of twelve columns, illustrated, sums up his investigations and researches that in 2250 the world will be full. The following is his summary and forecast:

As there are 52,000,000 of square miles of land on the earth, and as we are to consider 1,000 persons to each square mile as the equivalent of the world as being full, it follows that we want a world population of 52,000,000,000 of persons to fill the condition. A glance at the above statement of growth in the world's population shows that the necessary growth from 1,600,000,000 in the year 1900 to the 52,000,000,000 in the year 2250, almost 350 years ahead of the present time, when, as the illustration suggests, it may be necessary to hang out a notice to the effect that the world is full to the utmost limit.

At the present time the density of population in the world is about one and one-half times that of the United States. In the year 2000 the density of the world population will still be considerably under the present density of China or of Spain; in the year 2100, however, this density will be on the track of Germany's present density of population, and will have passed the present density of France; while in the year 2200, the density of the world population will have gone beyond the present high density of Belgium's population; and in the year 2250, there will be 1,000 persons to every square mile of land on the earth, and the world will be full.

Image from Victorian Shopping

The Condenser Bijou Theatre Presents "By A Waterfall" from "Footlight Parade" (1933)

2009-05-26T22:59:00.004-04:00

Whenever I feel that life is too whimsical and carefree, that I'm much too happy and need to come back down to Earth, I rely on the hardened realism of a Busby Berkeley number to set me straight. Tell it like it is, Buzz.

He Otter’ve Had Some Foresight

2009-05-25T00:09:00.008-04:00

This bittersweet tale of love and regret comes to us via the March, 1838 issue of the New Yorker literary and news journal (not to be confused with that other New Yorker). Had this poor sap known that feral woodland creatures made great pets he would have had a real corner on the market. With the exception of pelt hunters and the seven Native Americans still left in the region, I don’t think anyone else paid much mind to those round bellied rascals. Is it possible that this man sowed the sinister seed that is to blame for the utter evaporation of the creatures in the once otter-rich New York metropolitan area?

The Sussex County Register says that M. Meacham, of that place, caught an otter in that vicinity three weeks since, which he has succeeded in rendering perfectly docile and obedient. It follows him like a dog, and a child may handle it with entire impunity. He killed its mate and its mother; but he is now confident that if he had not done so, he could have made a business of rearing otters for market.

The Delightful Vocabulary of Torture

2009-05-23T15:28:00.002-04:00

With the ethics of torture a major topic in the news, it seems like a good time to reexamine some of the more traditional methods for extracting unreliable and inaccurate confessions from prisoners, witches, and anyone else who might have something to hide. Waterboarding? I'll take the thumbikens and pilniewinks, thank you very much.

From the Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany, Volume 1, August - December 1817.

The thumbikens, as the name imports, was an instrument applied to the thumbs, in such a way as to enable the executioner to squeeze them violently ; and this was often done with so much force as to bruise the thumb-bones, and swell the arms of the sufferer up to his shoulders. The thumbikens used in torturing Principal Cantares was an iron instrument fastened to a table with a screw, the upper part of the instrument being squeezed down upon the thumbs by means of another screw, which the executioner pressed at the command of his employers.

The torture of the boots occurs at an earlier period in our history than that of the thumbikens ; and is mentioned in conjunction with some other torturing instruments, of which we have not been able to find any description in the writings of our antiquaries. Thus we read, that, in 1596, the son and daughter of Alison Balfour, who was accused of witchcraft, were tortured before her to make her confess her crime, in the manner following : "Her son was put in the buitt, where he suffered fifty-seven strokes ; and her daughter, about seven years old, was put in the pilniewinks.' In the same case, mention is made, besides pilniewinks, pinniewinks or pilliewinks, of caspitaws or caspicaws, and of tosots, as instruments of torture. Lord Hoyston, in his manuscript notes upon Mackenzie's Criminal Law, conjectures, that these may have been only other names for the haitt and thumbikens; and thus much seems certain, that in those times, there was some torturing device applied to the fingers, which bore the name of pilniewinks; but it will immediately appear, that the most authentic accounts assign the introduction and use of the instrument known by the name of thumbikens, to a much later period.

On the Infant's Digestive System

2009-05-22T00:31:00.009-04:00

I’m not one to criticize bad parenting; lord knows I am a product of benign neglect and I turned out just fine. However, when one sincerely questions whether or not violently throwing an infant child around is dangerous, Ye Olde Child Welfare Services should probably step in.

Fortunately for us Dr. Pye Henry Chavasse‘s 1839 parenting guide Advice to Mothers on the Management of their Offspring clears up any ambiguity on the subject. Chavasse also supplies us with a perfectly sensible recipe for eliminating infant flatulence in lieu of the common quack's recommendation that mothers administer opium to their farting children.

Q: Do you approve of tossing an infant much about?
A: Violent tossing of a young infant should never be allowed it only frightens him and has been known to bring on fits. He should be gently moved up and down not tossed such exercise causes a proper circulation of the blood promotes digestion and soothes to sleep. He should be always kept quiet after taking the breast if he be tossed directly afterwards it interferes with digestion and is likely to produce sickness.

…

Notwithstanding these precautions if the infant should still suffer from flatulence a little aniseed may be added to the food. Take three drops of oil of aniseed or oil of dill and two lumps of sugar rub them well in mortar together. Then add drop by drop three tablespoonfuls of spring water a teaspoonful of this may be added to each quantity of food or two or three teaspoonfuls of carraway seeds may be boiled in a teacupful of water for ten minutes and then strained one or two teaspoonfuls of the carraway tea may be added to each quantity of food or a dose of rhubarb and magnesia may be occasionally given. Godfrey's Cordial and Dalby's Carminative are frequently given in flatulence but as most of these quack medicines contain opium in one form or another and as opium is a most dangerous remedy for infants all quack medicines should be banished the nursery. Although I strongly object to the internal administration of opium yet its external application frequently gives an infant labouring under pains of the stomach and bowels from flatulence instant relief

Image of dapper doctors doing something undoubtedly important and groundbreaking courtesy The National Library of Medicine

The Condenser Bijou Theatre Presents "Those Awful Hats" (1909)

2009-05-19T14:03:00.005-04:00

Welcome to the Condenser Bijou Theatre. Sorry I haven't updated in awhile, but I was visiting my great-grandmother who just turned 100. In honor of her, I will be playing a film from 1909, the year of her birth. Our feature is Those Awful Hats, directed by D.W. Griffith, a film that expresses the displeasure of having a person with a ridiculously large hat sit in front of you in a theatre, a common problem even today. Enjoy.

Electric Girl a Sham!

2009-05-18T23:14:00.006-04:00

Our dear Electric Girl, Angelique Cotton (sometimes Cottin)-- she who flings chairs across rooms, attracts pieces of paper and detects true north through the tingling of her fingertips-- was declared a hoax by the Academy of Sciences in 1846. Her only authentic ability, according to the Academy, was in causing the chair upon which she was sitting to shake and move - leaving the Condenser to wonder if, perhaps, she suffered from nothing more than a mild case of hyperactivity. Fortunately, her routine was good enough to keep her making the rounds on the drawing room circuit even after her unfavorable review.

So if Angelique in fact had no powers, why would she submit to a careful examination? And why, in those circumstances, would she abandon her usual tricks? Please discuss.

From Meteorological Essays (1855) by François Arago:

At its meeting of the 16th of February last, the Academy received from M. Cholet and M. le Docteur Tanchon two notes, respecting the extraordinary faculties, said to have developed themselves for about a month past, in a young girl of the de- partement de l'Orne, named Angelique Cottin, of about fourteen years of age. The Academy, conformably to its usual practice, named a commission to examine the alleged facts and report the results. We will acquit ourselves of this duty in very few words.

No appreciable effect of this kind was witnessed by the Commission.

In the accounts communicated to the Academy, it is said that under the influence of this young person's arm, a magnetised needle first vibrated rapidly, and then came to rest at a considerable distance from the magnetic meridian.

In the presence of the Commission, a delicately suspended magnetic needle did not experience under these circumstances any displacement, either permanent or momentary.

M. Tanchon thought that Mademoiselle Cottin possessed the faculty of distinguishing the north from the south pole of a magnet, by simply touching the two poles with her fingers.

The Commission assured themselves, by varied and numerous experiments, that this young girl does not possess the supposed faculty of distinguishing the poles of a magnet by the touch.

The Commission will not pursue further the enumeration of failures; its members content themselves with declaring, in conclusion, that the only one of the announced facts which was realised in their presence, was that of the sudden and violent movements in chairs in which the young girl sat. Serious suspicions had arisen as to the manner in which these movements were produced, and the Commission determined to subject them to an attentive examination. The Commissioners announced, without disguise, that their examination would be directed to discover what share certain skilful and concealed manoeuvres by the hands and feet might have had in the effect witnessed by them. From this moment it was declared that the young girl had lost her attracting and repelling faculties, and that whenever they should reappear we should be apprised. Many days have since elapsed, and the Commission has received no such intimation. We know, however, that Mademoiselle Angelique Cottin is still daily presented in drawing-rooms, where she repeats her experiments.

Having weighed all these circumstances, the Commission is of opinion that the communications presented to the Academy on the subject of Mademoiselle Angelique Cottin ought to be set aside, or regarded as not having taken place.

Image of some highly investigative research (being performed on, remarkably, an entirely different electric girl) courtesy of The Telegraphic and Electrical Review, 1891

On the Sound of a Meteor

2009-05-16T10:00:00.000-04:00

The following is an excerpt from an article by John Pringle in the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions, Volume 51, 1759. While he goes into great detail around all aspects of meteors, his description of the sound - and the way an observer in the 18th century would perceive the sound - seems particularly interesting.

The hissing noise, taken notice of by some while the meteor passed them, was a deception of that kind, which frequently connects sound with motion; and is the case of those who fancy they hear something, when they see the shootings of the aurora borealis; I say a deception, because if the meteor, during its course, really made any noise, so great was the distance of that body, and so short its continuance, that this sound could not have been heard till some minutes after the return of darkness. But the final report, so frequently mentioned, not only heard by those who saw the light, but by others who knew nothing of what had happened, was a real sound, and immensely greater than any we are acquainted with. For, at the distance of 70 miles and upwards, it was compared to loud thunder, the report of heavy artillery, the fall of the gabel-end of the house the person was in, and to a musket fired off in the garret. If this noise was produced when the body threw out those masses of burning matter (by the observers called sparks of fire, the bursting of the tail, and delineated in Fig. 5. as balls of a smaller size in the train itself), we shall find, that at this time the meteor, by being more than 41 miles high, was in a region where the air is three thousand times rarer than on the surface of the earth; that is, about six times rarer than in a common exhausted receiver, where sonorous bodies are not heard, and even where gunpowder and the pulvis fulminans take fire, and are exploded, but without noise. Hence I would infer, that the separation of the elastic matter must have been performed with a velocity exceeding all imagination.

1833 engraving of a meteor shower courtesy of this blog.

A Mystical Prank?

2009-05-13T22:51:00.000-04:00

From "Superstition and Knowledge," printed in The London Quarterly Review, 1823, we get an interesting Middle Eastern recipe guaranteed to annoy the neighbors. If you thought filling your dorm with shaving cream last year was a laugh, wait 'til they get a load of this one.

Gather the herb which the Latins call Salvia, but which, in the Chaldee tongue, bears the name of Colerican, and bury it in a vessel of glass, and a wonderful serpent, Albertus assures us, will be generated by the decaying herb. If the reptile is cast into the fire, the loudest thunder will he heard to roll: place its ashes in the lamp, and the delusive light will fill the dwelling with more monsters than ever crawled in the Libyan desert.

Image via this site.

A Night of Submarine Cinema

2009-05-12T14:45:00.003-04:00

On Sunday, May 17, Brooklyn's own Secret Science Club and the Criterion Collection will be hosting an evening of films by Jean Painlevé. If you enjoyed our post about Le Vampire a while back, you won't want to miss seeing some of his best underwater work. There's something about grainy black and white film that makes undersea creatures seem even more otherworldly.
The event will be held at Bell House at 7pm - click here for more details.

Image of Painlevé via this site.

Birth of an Island

2009-05-10T11:45:00.003-04:00

The following passage is taken from Petralogy: A Treatise on Rocks (1800) by John Pinkerton.

On the 23d of May 1707, after an earth- quake that happened the night before, the last mentioned island was discovered early in the morning by some seamen, who, taking it for a wreck, rowed immediately toward it; but finding rocks and earth instead of the remains of a ship, hasted back, and spread the news of what they had seen in Santorini. How great soever the apprehensions of the inhabitants were at the first sight, their surprise soon abated; and in a few days, seeing no appearance of fire or smoke, some of them ventured to land on the new island. Their curiosity led them from rock to rock, where they found a kind of white stone that cut like bread, which it nearly resembled in its form, colour, and consistence. They also found many oysters sticking to the rocks; but while they were employed in gathering them, the island moved and shook under their feet, upon which they ran with precipitation to their boats. With these motions and tremblings the island increased, not only in height, but in length and breadth; yet sometimes while it was raised and extended on one side, it sunk and diminished on the other. Our author observed a rock to rise out of the sea, forty or fifty paces from the island, which, having continued four days, sunk, and appeared no more; but several others appeared and disappeared alternately, till at last they remained fixed and unmoved. In the mean time the colour of the surrounding sea was changed: at first it was of a light green, then reddish, and afterwards of a pale yellow, accompanied with a noisome stench, which spread itself over part of Santorini.

...

In the night between the 19th and 20th of July, flames began to issue with the smoke, to the great terror of the inhabitants of Santorini, especially those of the castle of Scaro, who were not above a mile and a half distant from the burning island, which now increased very fast; large rocks daily springing up, which sometimes added to its length, and sometimes to its breadth. The smoke also increased, and, there being no wind, it ascended so high as to be seen at Candia, and other distant islands. During the night it resembled a column of fire, fifteen or twenty feet high; and the sea was then covered with a scurf or froth, in some places reddish, and in others yellowish, from which proceeded such a stench, that the inhabitants throughout the whole island of Santorini burnt perfumes in their houses, and made fires in the streets to prevent infection. This, indeed, did not last above a day or two; for a strong gale of wind dispersed the froth, but drove the smoke upon the vineyards of Santorini, by which the grapes, in one night, were parched up and destroyed. This smoke also caused violent headaches, attended with retchings.

Image of the Santorini volcano via Travel to Santorini

The Condenser Bijou Theatre Presents "The Enchanted Drawing" (1900)

2009-05-04T13:34:00.005-04:00

J. Stuart Blackton directs and stars in this week's feature, considered to be one of the first films to use animation. Before he was a director Blackton was in vaudeville, performing under the name the "Komikal Kartoonist", where he would draw up "lightning sketches". The camera adds a fantastic twist to Blackton's vaudeville talent. I guess you can say he started a movement.

The Condenser Bijou Theatre Presents "Willie the Operatic Whale" (1946)

2009-04-27T17:43:00.005-04:00

This week's presentation is a two-parter with an intermission if you so desire. Willie the Operatic Whale first appeared in the Disney feature Make Mine Music (1946) under the title The Whale Who Wanted To Sing At the Met (yeah, I think I like the other title better) with Nelson Eddy providing most of the voices. It was later released as a short by RKO in 1954. Enjoy!

Current Events

2009-04-23T14:24:00.001-04:00

With part II of the Electric Girl saga forthcoming, it seems like a perfect time to build the tension with another electrical post. And just in case you think this kind of accident is a thing of the past, keep in mind that every year a couple people are electrocuted by touching sidewalk grates or lampposts that have become electrified through faulty wiring. Watch your step! From the endlessly disturbing Accidents from the Electric Current by Philip Coombs Knapp (1890)

A couple of horses attached to a cart were driven against a trolley wire of the West End Company's electric system, at the corner of Boylston and Dartmouth Streets, yesterday forenoon at about eleven o'clock, and were thrown to the ground. The wire, it is said, had been torn from its fastenings on the overhead cross-wire by a pile-driver loaded on a team, and had sagged down to within a few feet of the ground. The driver of the cart drove on without noticing the wire, with the result above stated. The horses were on the ground several minutes, but were finally unharnessed and pulled out, apparently not much injured, but trembling in every limb. On February 15, 1890, I was told by a man employed at the stable that the horses had been sick and good-for-nothing ever since; being stupid, weak, and unfit for any work.

1890 lightning photograph courtesy of George Eastman House.

The English Actor, Slow of Comprehension

2009-04-22T09:15:00.002-04:00

It's one thing to criticize unnecessary or ill-placed applause from an audience, but to complain about a lack of derision? That takes a true critic. By the time our dear reviewer gets around to skewering the whole of English acting, I think he's overshadowed the performance itself. From a review of a performance of Offenbach's Blue Beard, in The Atheneum (1870), by Charles Wentworth Dilke.

Such a representation, for instance, as was given of King Bobeche, by Mr. Stoyle, is as pitiable as it can possibly be rendered. Mr. Stoyle, who deserves the unenviable reputation of being the most offensive actor on the lyric stage, fills his part with interpolations of the most objectionable kind. As a curiosity in theatrical records, the fact may be chronicled that a man who is allowed to sing at our best theatres inserted in the dialogue of the most sparkling writers of the day such "gag" as "Pickles at a shilling a bottle!" and other like vulgarisms, and escaped without a sound of disapproval from the more fashionable parts of the house, and with a roar of applause from the gallery. Wherever in the original a joke is suggested or implied, by vulgar word or gesture, Mr. Stoyle thrusts it upon the audience, and at the close of one of the acts he throws himself upon the ground in his kingly robes, and entertains the spectators with a mimicry of the actions of Punch in the raree-show. We should not dignify with so much attention this pitiable exhibition did it not exemplify, somewhat over- strongly perhaps, a radical weakness in English acting. The actor in England, uneducated himself, and slow of comprehension, will not believe that the hint he can scarcely take tells fully with people of quicker apprehension. He accompanies it, accordingly, with a gloss of speech or gesture which is entirely fatal to the delicacy and beauty of the humour. This vice is seldom carried to so deplorable an excess as has now been exemplified, but its presence is constantly manifested.

Image of a riot at the Astor Place Opera House, 1849, incited by William Macready's toffee-nosed performance in Macbeth, from this site.

The Condenser Bijou Theatre Presents Jean Painlevé's "Le Vampire" (1945)

2009-04-20T16:00:00.000-04:00

Welcome to another night at the Condenser Bijou Theatre. We apologize for the delay of this week's special feature, but we hope that you will be no less entertained. Our feature presentation is Jean Painlevé's Le Vampire, a heart-warming love story between a vampire bat and a guinea pig and the forbidden kiss they share, co-starring a seahorse, some worms and an ugly fish. Enjoy.

Onward and Upward

2009-04-18T21:41:00.003-04:00

We've recently made some changes to the site, in something of an ongoing process of expansion and improvement. Without the luxury of proper beta testing, we're asking our readers to drop us a line if something seems odd in their particular browser. Just send an email to thecondenser@gmail.com to report a bug or make a suggestion for something we should add. Hopefully the result will be a better, more user-friendly Condenser.

This might also be a good place to give a plug for our infinitely talented and patient developer, Shannon Mosley, of Mosley Graphics.

Image of the construction of the Crystal Palace, a task just marginally more demanding, via VictorianWeb.

Avast!

2009-04-17T12:15:00.004-04:00

With piracy again a hot topic in the news, it seems a good time to reflect on how virtually unchanged the practice been for hundreds of years. The account of coastal piracy below concerns the treacherous waterways of southeast Asia, a region that still rivals East Africa in the daring - and desperation - of its pirate gangs. From The Indian Archipelago (1853) by Horace St. John.

When brought to close conflict, they fight with determination; but when their inferiority of force is obvious, they seek refuge in flight to retreats only accessible to them. Little groups so surrounded by sunken patches of coral reef as to be almost unapproachable, serve them as places of security. From the midst of these they emerge and attack, not only native boats but European traders, profiting by calms, contrary winds, or the weakness of those whom they assail. When no prospect appears of gaining by the sale of their prisoners, or there is a chance of detection, they kill without mercy, not only the men, but the women and children who fall into their hands — or sometimes this is done to revenge an obstinate resistance. Occasionally, one of the captives is released to procure a ransom for the rest; and the pirates boldly await his return at some appointed rendezvous — perhaps in the vicinage of a commercial settlement.

Image of a pirate's capture in a Tonkinese village in 1886 courtesy of Wikipedia

The Electric Girl: Part 1

2009-04-14T22:00:00.002-04:00

Angie Cotton was certainly a remarkable person - but considering the phenomena associated with her, she probably should have been known as the Magnetic Girl. The account below is from The American Review, 1846, and shows just how powerfully electricity held the public imagination at that time. There is, unfortunately, a slightly more, er, grounded follow-up article which we'll publish soon. In the meantime, enjoy the mystery - it does make for a wonderful story.

ANGELIQUE COTTON, THE ELECTRICAL GIRL. Wonders multiply upon us so fast in this age of mesmerism, &c., that we know not what next to anticipate. That "Burnam's wood should come to Dunsinane," would not be more amazing than some of the things of which we now daily read. A recent number of Galignani gives a strange account of a young female called the Electric Girl. It seems Angelique Cotton is thirteen, a native of the department of the Finisere, where she was employed in a thread-glove manufactory as a winder. One day, whilst at work with her companions, the reel on which she was winding thread was suddenly projected from her. The circumstances excited surprise, the reel was replaced, when the same effect was renewed. It was then evident that Angelique herself was the cause. The affair made a noise in the village, and the cure was called in. It was supposed by them that she was possessed, and an exorcism was had recourse to, but no devil came out. After the priest, the doctor was applied to, but he was as unable to effect a cure as the cure had been. Another doctor then visited her, and witnessed the same effect as the other had seen, but being a sensible man, he made no attempt to cure an affection which he did not understand. This gentleman induced the mother of Angelique to send her to Paris, and accompanied her. A few days ago, she was taken to the Observatory, where Messrs. Arago, Mathieu, Laugier, and Goujon, witnessed the following experiments ; — A piece of paper, placed upon the edge of a table, was immediately attracted by the left hand of the girl. She then, holding her apron in her hand, approached a gueridon, which was pushed back, although the apron scarcely touched it. The next experiment was to place her in a chair with her feet on the ground. The chair was projected with violence against the wall, while the girl was thrown the other way. This experiment was repeated several times, and with the same results. M. Arago laid his hand upon the chair to prevent its moving, but the force was too great for his resistance, and M. Goujon, having seated himself on a part of the chair, was thrown off as soon as Angt'liqu1' had also taken her seat. Such, said M. Arago, were the facts witnessed, and he had seen nothing to justify an opinion that any deception had been practised. Sincethen, other experiments have been performed by Dr. Tauchon. This gentleman had the chair in which Angelique was seated held by two powerful men. In this instance it was not driven away, but broke in their hands. A table, a gueridon and a heavy sofa were projected by the mere contact of the girl's clothes. Dr. Tauchon ascertained that the chair in which she sits is first attracted, anb next repulsed. When Angelique is isolated from the ground by a glass stool, oiled silk, or any other nonconductorof electricity, the projections do not take place. A loadstone being placed near the left hand, which alone is magnetic, she experienced different sensations, according as the north and south poles were applied, and could tell with which pole she was in contact. She is repulsed by the north pole. She experiences violent commotions, when the electric discharges take place, and suffers greatly from them. It is in the evening, between seven and nine, about an hour after she has dined, that her electrical power is most strongly developed. Her pulse then beats from 105 to 120 per minute.

Image of Tesla's laboratory from this site.

The Condenser Bijou Theatre Presents Annie Oakley (1894)

2009-04-11T16:41:00.008-04:00

Wild west heroine Annie Oakley was the subject of this week's American Experience on PBS. In the program, they mentioned that Thomas Edison had filmed Oakley performing some of her shooting stunts. Unfortunately, the more impressive parts of her performance weren't recorded, likely because of the space limitations in Edison's early studio. Still, any video documentation is better than none at all.

Doing a Hard Job Prettily

2009-04-07T22:52:00.008-04:00

If you really love what you do, why let the law get in the way? An interview with a rather earnest pickpocket, from Masters of Their Craft in McClure's Magazine, April 1903.

"Why did you do it?" I asked him.
"Well, I'll tell you," he said. "I simply couldn't help it. I'm no kleptomaniac. It isn't the stealing I like, but the fun of doing a hard job prettily. This is the second turn I've made. The first was like this: I saw a rich, fat man in a crowd, and I noticed that his watch was hung in a new way, hard to break. My fingers itched, not for the watch, but to break it off. I moved up, lifted the watch, walked away with it, and then went back and hung the thing on the chain again. This second time was something like that. I saw a delicate job, tried it, got the watch, and just then the fellow happened to look for the time. He hollered, and a detective nearby pinched me. I think I'm what you'd call a natural thief, but I like to work with my fingers and I like the excitement of stealing."

Image via the remarkable Victorian London

Your Aeroplane Won't Save You... From Christ

2009-04-05T20:42:00.008-04:00

If you were alive in the 18th century, and planned on devising a flying machine that would allow you to escape the flames of Revelation with your vices intact, you might have found the following passage disconcerting. Time to start work on a submarine, perhaps. From The Female Spectator (1771), by Eliza Fowler Haywood.

I Have, indeed, heard of some people foolish enough to maintain, that there "will come a time in which the ingenuity of man will invent machines to carry him through the air, with the fame ease as we now pass the seas;" which, they cry, seemed doubtless as impracticable at first as this does at present.
...

Could the regions of air, indeed, afford any shelter from that all-devouring fire which, we are told, shall consume the earth, there might be some little shadow of a hope, that the race of man might be preferred a second time by means no less surprizing than the first: But of what advantage would it be for us to fly, even tho' we had the wings of an eagle, or could soar with the king of birds, at a time when the heavens themselves, at least what we call so, shall be shrivelled up like a parchment; when the sun, and moon, and stars shall be dissolved, and all become one general conflagration.

And just in case you thought a spaceship could be your ticket to freedom:

But granting even all their wild imaginations can suggest: —supposing that some carriage could really be found out to bear us through the air from kingdom to kingdom, or to whatever place we pleased of the globe, we still should be able to discover as little of any other world as we do now standing upon the earth.

Every orb has its own impenetrable atmosphere; —a boundary, which nothing that is mortal can over-leap or pass through; and whether, even when we have thrown off this clog of flesh, the soul will receive any gratification of its enquiring nature in this point, lies only in the power of Him who gave it to determine.

Image courtesy of Paleo-Future

The Condenser Bijou Theatre Presents "The Skeleton Dance" (1929)

2009-04-03T15:14:00.003-04:00

Skeletons: they're so in right now. Because of the current love of all things pirate and Jolly Roger, it's finally socially acceptable to be into skeletons. And so, I present to you the The Skeleton Dance, the first in Disney's Silly Symphonies series. It was animated by Ub Iwerks and music is by Carl Stalling. The cartoon is just skeletons doing what skeletons do: dance, beat up owls, play each other like a xylophone, play cats like a double bass. You know, normal stuff. Enjoy.

Baboons: Perfectly Incorrigible

2009-04-02T15:00:00.003-04:00

Just because you happen to be an animal, don't think you can just get away with any crass behavior. And if you're a baboon, well, the Count de Buffon has some particularly sharp words about the way members of your species choose to conduct themselves. Now stop that! Honestly. From Natural History, General and Particular (1785).

He is insolently salacious, affects to show himself in this situation, and seems to gratify his desires, per manum suam, before the whole world. This detestable action recalls the idea of vice, and renders disgustful the aspect of an animal, which Nature seems to have particularly devoted to such an uncommon species of impudence; for, in all other animals, and even in man, she has covered these parts with a veil. In the baboon, on the contrary, they are perpetually naked, and the more conspicuous, because the rest of the body is covered with long hair. The buttocks are likewise naked, and of a blood red colour; the testicles are pendulous; the anus is uncovered, and the tail always elevated. He seems to be proud of all those nudities; for he presents his hind parts more frequently than his front, especially when he sees women, before whom he displays an effrontery so matchless, that it can originate from nothing but the most inordinate desire. The magot, and some others, have the same inclinations; but, as they are smaller and not so petulant, they are taught modesty by the whip. The baboon, however, is perfectly incorrigible, and nothing can tame him.

Image taken from the text.

New York Antiquarian Book Fair

2009-04-01T21:03:00.002-04:00

If you're a bibliophile in the New York area, you probably don't need to be reminded of the New York Antiquarian Book Fair this weekend at the Park Avenue Armory. Admission is a little steep, but then, so are prices for the books themselves. More info here.

In Iceland, Death Laughs at You

2009-03-30T22:44:00.004-04:00

One of the few facts everyone seems to know about Iceland is that belief in elves and gnomes is still widespread among its inhabitants. Jon Arnason's Icelandic Legends (1866) is full of examples showing that their fascination with the supernatural runs deeper than expected - but it doesn't come without a strong sense of irony.

Men who are clear-sighted, or ghost-seers, can tell, by walking into the churchyard on New Year's night, how many will be buried in it during the ensuing year. If they themselves are amongst the ghosts that they see in the burial ground, they do not generally perceive the identity of their own double. A strange story is told of a second-sighted man in the East of Iceland, who died some years ago. He was very clever, and almost infallible in foretelling the death of other people. But concerning his own decease, he always said: "I am not clear about my death; it is for ever veiled in smoke." And he died suffocated by smoke, in 1832.

Image taken from this site.

The Social Solitarian

2009-03-28T11:25:00.006-04:00

As this is the Condenser's 50th post, we've chosen to highlight an account of a man who, like your tireless authors, has chosen to forsake friendship and human contact in pursuit of an honorable purpose. A Swiss hermit living in seclusion in the mountains, toiling endlessly, living an ascetic lifestyle, and finally passing on... while hanging out with friends? From Smith's Wanders, excerpted in The Cabinet of Curiosities (1833).

About three miles from Fribourg in Switzerland is a hermitage, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen, and situated among woods and rocks, in the prettiest solitude imaginable. It has been described by several travellers, particularly M. Blainville and Mr. Addison, who both saw it about the beginning of the last century, when the hermit was still alive. He had wrought out of a rock a pretty chapel, with an altar: sacristy, and steeple; also five chambers, a parlour, refectory, kitchen, cellar, and other conveniences. The funnel of his chimney, which pierces from his kitchen to the top of the rock, slanting all the way, is 90 feet high, and cost him so much toil, that he was a whole year about it, and often despaired of completing his design. The chapel is 63 feet in length, 36 in breadth, and 22 in height; the sacristy, or vestry, is 22 feet square, and the height of the steeple 70 feet; the chamber between the chapel and the refectory is above 40 feet long, the refectory itself is 21, and the cellar U 25 feet long, and 10 feet deep. But the hall, or parlour, is particularly admired, being 28 paces in length, 12 in breadth, and 20 feet in height, with four openings for windows, much higher and wider than those of our best houses. At one end of this hall was the hermit's cabinet, with a small collection of books, and other curiosities; and to add to the pleasantness of his habitation. He had cut the side of the rock into a flat, and having covered it with good mould, had formed a pretty garden, planted with several sorts of fruit trees, herbs and flowers; and by following the veins of water, that dropped from several parts of the rock, he had made two or three fountains, which supplied his table, and watered his little garden. This hermit, whose name was Jean du Pre, began his laborious undertaking at the age of thirty, and said he was twenty-five years in completing it, having had no assistance from any person except one servant. He intended to have carried on his work still further, but was drowned in 1708, as he was crossing a neighbouring river in a boat with some company that came to visit him. His place is supplied by a priest, who subsists by the generosity of strangers that come to see the hermitage, and he generally entertains his yisiters with bread and wine, and a nosegay.

Image via the Cleveland Museum of Art

The Condenser Bijou Theatre Presents A Woman Disrobing on a Trapeze (1901)

2009-03-27T15:06:00.005-04:00

Today's feature film is short and racy, but simple it is not. Is it a vaudeville performance or a burlesque performance? The suggestive material leans more toward burlesque: it's a woman stripping on a trapeze while two men watch in a balcony and occasionally fight over her corset. But she really only strips down to the standard acrobatic leotard that many other performers wore on vaudeville stages. And even though vaudeville was advertised as clean entertainment, the occasional bawdy act would slip in. I'll let you decide. Enjoy!