Lemurian Congress

The New Yorker was in a tizzy about humanism throughout 1930, as the philosophy had suddenly come back into vogue and gained national atten...

The P. Lorillard Company advertised these "little cigars" with an amusing ad campaign. While the name "Between the Acts"...

Something just occurred to me: how did people transmit their musical requests to orchestras? Think of it: You're at a swank supper club ...

Reading old issues of The New Yorker clarifies a lot of things about life in the '20s and '30s, but it also raises new mysteries. It...

I understand that '30s periodicals were not particularly sensitive -- offenses against God and Country excluded -- but I'm a bit sur...

As annoying as Penn and Teller's " Bullshit! " program can be, one of their comments has really stuck with me. During a progra...

This morning I was invited to attend rehearsals for the upcoming " 60 Dances in 60 Minutes " show, which will be performed Novembe...

My mother told me horror stories about cleaning the kitchen window yesterday, and I saw her pile of blackened paper towels, but it wasn'...

Not only was there a Player Cornet , there was also an Automatic Saxophone! Note that the sax comes with an attractive crank, unlike the cor...

Here we thought that 1920s inventors just invented useless stuff like radio, and talking pictures, and automatic toasters. But no! They also...

For a few weeks this summer my workplace has had to deal with a street person's leftovers. This person would sleep overnight in one of o...

I previously explored the obtuse mystery of a 1929 "Caviarette" advertisement. If you'll remember, the REAL mystery of the ad...

I read this New Yorker advertisement once. Then I read it again. I read it a third time and I STILL didn't know what the hell it was sup...

I just got the weirdest telephone survey. Most of it was normal and seemed to center around my usage of Interac ("Also called Debit...

When you're hiring a tree surgeon, according to the March 23'29 New Yorker, you don't want to hire some lazy guy from the gutter...

The 1920's New Yorker was glutted with full-page advertisements from The Pittsburgh Press. These advertisements were meant to prove...e...

I love the little house in the wilderness, the one tiny house which has withstood all efforts of the Big Insurance Company to buy it. The B....

Alright. Even if we eventually figure out what " broad-jumper's pants " were, will we ever understand the concept of a "m...

It took me forever to figure out what was going on in this picture. Eventually I realized that the two old ladies were laughing at the man b...

Today I'm in the bathroom at work and I'm staring at the wall -- for reasons you can guess -- and I notice a little point of light. ...