A cabinet of lovable weirdos
Tiny true stories,
lovingly odd.
Weird science, forgotten history, and human quirks — each one true, each under a minute, each a little stranger than you’d expect.
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Ferdinand Cheval
The Postman Who Built a Palace
He tripped on a stone in 1879 and spent the next thirty-three years building a palace out of the ones he found on the way home.
He spent twenty years on the outer walls alone. The finished palace is twelve meters high and twenty-six meters long. He built it from stones he picked up on his mail route, working by oil lamp after dark, copying temples and shrines from postcards — places he'd never been. When he couldn't be buried in it, he built his own tomb instead. He was seventy-eight when he started. Ferdinand Cheval: the man who tripped on a stone and couldn't stop.
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The Man Who Stabbed a Bible
A century before the Civil War, a four-foot-seven cave-dweller in a military coat walked into a Quaker meeting and sprayed fake blood on every slaveholder in the room.
The Man Who Plucked the Chicken
Plato defined a human being as a featherless biped, and someone showed up with a chicken.
The Man Who Walked Into His Own Secret
He kept his route secret so no rival could reach the city first. More than a hundred people have since died trying to find him.
