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We do love a good plunge into worlds apart – filled with secret society conspiracies and folks living off-grid or on the fringes of society. The latest curious collective to pique my interest...
https://www.messynessychic.com/2024/09/06/mostly-this-secret-masonic-order-just-wants-to-have-fun/
1. Pasta in Bed Pasta-inspired bedsheets, unfortunately only available in the AI-universe for the moment. Created by Paul Octavius. Check out his salad sheets here.
https://www.messynessychic.com/2024/02/05/13-things-i-found-on-the-internet-today-vol-681/
For hundreds of years, the term “computer” was a job title for a human before machines took over the job, and in the late 19th century, computers weren’t just human, they were mostly wome...
https://www.messynessychic.com/2021/11/02/human-computer-the-forgotten-womens-profession/
Years before the Paris Métro opened, there was another subterranean transport system rattling away beneath the city streets. Instead of messages floating around in the internet ether of apps a...
In Physiopolis, life was better in the buff. Or at least in a bikini, which was as close as one could legally get to public nudity in 1930s Paris. It was here, on an isolated sun-baked island o...
https://www.messynessychic.com/2019/05/10/wet-hot-parisian-summer-a-lost-1930s-nudist-utopia/
They’ve been increasingly antagonised over the last century, reduced to nothing more than a plague upon Midtown Manhattan, Trafalgar Square, Notre Dame (we could keep going). But today at Me...
https://www.messynessychic.com/2019/01/03/the-secret-world-of-pageant-pigeons/
They crusaded with horns sprouting from their heads, and rifles slung across their backs. Legend has it they decreed the virtues of the Holy Bible in one hand, and a torch in the other. They we...
https://www.messynessychic.com/2018/08/28/how-to-make-an-american-anti-hero/
There’s a curious expression used in Provence by pétanque players. “Embrasser Fanny” or to “kiss Fanny”, is a small recompense for making a fool of oneself to put it simply. But wher...
https://www.messynessychic.com/2017/05/12/the-art-of-kissing-fanny/
“Thomasson: noun to-ma-son a preserved architectural relic which serves no purpose”. We’ve all come across an example at one time or another– probably didn’t give it too much thou...
https://www.messynessychic.com/2017/01/18/the-inexplicably-fascinating-secret-world-of-thomassons/
A few years ago, a worldly friend who’s always in the know posted something to her Facebook wall that went something like this: Mudlarking on the Thames is the best way to spend a Sunday morn...
If you were living in Paris during the years that followed World War II and liked to party, you’d better have known Boris Vian. In 1950, he wrote the original guidebook to bohemian Paris a...
https://www.messynessychic.com/2016/12/20/i-wish-i-couldve-partied-with-the-prince-of-saint-germain/
I had been curious about what was behind the door of No. 6 Rue Gît-le-Cœur in Saint Germain for quite a while before I decided to Google it, half expecting to be disappointed by news that it...
https://www.messynessychic.com/2016/10/13/inside-a-time-capsule-fencing-club-of-paris/
Over half a century ago, change was brewing in Paris. Right outside my window in the Latin Quarter, from where I write this post to you, violent street battles were turning the city upside do...
https://www.messynessychic.com/2016/05/18/the-art-of-the-1960s-paris-riots/
In 2023, the global shampoo market had an estimated value of $32 billion. But deep in the mountains of southern China’s Guangxi province, the women of Huangluo Village won’t be contributing...
https://www.messynessychic.com/2015/11/05/the-chinese-village-of-long-haired-rapunzels/
There was a time when these floating hotels that have rested on the lakes of Kashmir since the 1800s, were host to movie stars, artists, writers, famous musicians and wealthy western travellers...
https://www.messynessychic.com/2015/05/27/the-forgotten-houseboat-hotels-of-kashmir/
The weekend is fast approaching, we’re looking forward to letting our hair down, maybe go dancing, listen to some music and have a glass or two. In early 20th century Harlem, New York, these ...
https://www.messynessychic.com/2013/03/15/you-are-invited-to-a-harlem-rent-party-circa-1944/