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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Grandma Moses
Ribbons for the Jam
At the Cambridge Country Fair, Anna Mary Robertson Moses entered her paintings alongside her preserves, and won ribbons for the jam.
At seventy-six, arthritis ended her embroidery, so she took up painting — house paint on Masonite, glitter for snow. She entered canvases beside her preserves at the county fair and won ribbons for the jam. Her name was Anna Mary Robertson Moses.
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The Friar Who Kept Flying
What happens when a monk so incompetent he nearly wasn't ordained starts doing something no one can explain or contain?
The Divine Sarah's Menagerie
What do you feed an alligator you keep in a Paris apartment above a bedroom draped in black velvet?
Vogel Stahrl, 34 Kreuzer
What does a composer owe a shop bird that whistles his six-week-old concerto back at him, holds a fermata he never wrote, and sharpens a single G?
The Man Who Refused to Lose a Thought
What does a Victorian mathematician invent when he refuses to lose a single thought to the dark?
The Nanny Who Never Looked
What if one of the twentieth century's great photographers spent her whole life making pictures she never bothered to look at?
My Name Is Shackleton
He emptied his pockets of gold into the snow, then told the meteorologist to keep the twelve-pound banjo.
The Half-Sovereign
What do you do when the greatest engineer of the Victorian age inhales a gold coin during a magic trick for his children?
The Man Who Chased His Own Equation
What do you do when the blackboard you've been chalking equations onto turns out to be a moving cab?
The Chair That Would Not Let Him Eat
What does a Renaissance physician discover when he rigs his dining chair to yank the table away the moment he has eaten his ration?
The Man Who Let Gravity Draw
What kind of architect designs a church by hanging it upside down from a shed ceiling?
The Formosan
How did a blonde Frenchman convince 1700s London he was from Formosa?
The Queen of the Mist
What kind of woman test-drives a Niagara Falls barrel by sending a cat over first?