🇺🇸 United States
Oddlets from United States.
The Queen of the Mist
What kind of woman test-drives a Niagara Falls barrel by sending a cat over first?
The Man Who Painted the Dead
How do you paint a wild bird at exact life size without it moving?
This Way to the Egress
He painted a sign over the back door reading THIS WAY TO THE EGRESS, and patrons walked through it expecting a beast.
The Rope
What do you call a woman who wouldn't cross the lawn for Emerson, but rigged a rope from her window for children she refused to greet at the door?
Paint Sacred Art
What does a 59-year-old Baptist preacher do when a face appears in a smudge of paint on his fingertip and tells him to start painting?
The Stripper at the Typewriter
What was the headlining stripper at Minsky's doing at the dinner table with Auden, Britten, and McCullers?
Peace
He fed three thousand people in an afternoon, banned the word "hello" because it contained "hell," and quietly let his followers know he was God.
The Man Who Bought the Hotel So He Wouldn't Have to Leave
What does a billionaire do when the hotel manager tries to evict him from the suite he refuses to leave?
The Lady Must Go Home
What kind of master criminal steals a Gainsborough, then sleeps on top of her for twenty-five years?
What For
In 1926 a twenty-year-old swam the English Channel faster than any man alive — and her trainer spent the worst hour of it begging her to quit.
The Man Who Would Not Be Seen
What does the richest man in America do when a photographer finally catches him on the street at age 80?
Ten Hours, Ten Seconds
He calculated that ten hours of punching holes produced ten seconds of music, and he kept punching for forty years.