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Sewage Horrors for William Henry Harrison? All presidents are to be pitied in one way or another, but perhaps the most tragic of them all is our utterly forgettable ninth president, William Henry Harrison. He ascended to the presidency in a relatively undiscussed era between the (dare-we-say) exciting early years of the nation and the turmoil of the Civil War. And—more importantly—he served for only one month before dying in 1841. All that fundraising, campaigning, slogan-ing (ever heard of "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too"?), debating, mud-throwing and mud-receiving, for one lousy month? What an unlucky soul.
It’s long been believed that poor Harrison died from pneumonia resulting from his exceedingly long Inaugural Address delivered in freezing, rainy weather. After said fundraising, campaigning, baby-kissing, etc. Harrison wanted to relish in his victory—and wanted to look dapper while doing it!—thus forgoing a coat, hat, or gloves. But an author of medical diagnoses, Philip Mackowiak, and colleague Jane McHugh have revealed a new theory, and it isn’t pretty.
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Fairies? Aliens? Who knows! It ain’t easy being green, especially when the strange villagers who find you find you next to a pit once used to trap animals. They look at your weird clothes (perhaps fashioned out of leaves and meadowgrass) and hear a foreign language completely different from their provincial English. Coupled with your green skin and general bewilderment, there's little chance that they would take you for a human creature.
In the 12th century, the legendary Green Children of Woolpit found themselves in that same predicament when they were discovered on the outskirts of Woolpit in Suffolk, England. The folklore surrounding the Green Children of Woolpit began either during the reign of King Stephen or Henry II. The town's modern name derives from a linguistic corruption of the original name (“Wolfpittes”), stemming from the ancient pits that people used to capture wolves when they still inhabited England. The two unusual children (one girl and one boy) were disoriented and crying from starvation and confusion. Fortunately, Sir Richard de Caine of Wilkes gave them a home. Despite being famished, the children refused to eat anything the adults tried to feed them. As options dwindled, Sir Richard's servants presented the children with freshly-reaped beanstalks. The children instantly brightened and lived off of beans from thereon. The girl eventually welcomed the foreign foods the adults introduced into her diet and lost her green skin. But her brother couldn’t diversify his diet and retained his green complexion. He grew more melancholic and depressed with each passing day until he died. Yet his sister lived on to learn English and assumed the name “Agnes Barre." She also married a royal ambassador and lived with him in Norfolk. Rumor has it that their neighbors thought that Agnes Barre’s behavior was "wanton." The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
A Witch's Tit Isn't As Cold As You'd Think Nipples are related to genitals. Genitals are kind of important when it comes to sex. Over time, humankind has become gradually more enlightened about how our sex organs function. We no longer accuse wombs of wandering or believe that testicles are connected to the vocal chords, causing the voice to deepen when they descend.
What’s colder than a witch’s tit? Before today, I would say an Arctic blizzard or the bottle of whiskey waiting in the fridge. Now, I’d have to say that the blood of accused witches and people who thought it was kill someone because they had a third nipple. Witch-hunters in medieval Scotland and England believed that witches received a complimentary nipple at their first meeting with Satan. From then on, the little devil-dandy or imp (known as a “familiar” or assigned magical helper) can get icy blood on tap for nourishment. If the imp wanted something warmer, they’d just go suck some boring milk-bearing nipples. “Witch-prickers” specialized in examining these alleged witch tits. Their professional consultations included fool-proof testing methods. If the accused party felt pain or drew blood when witch-pricker jabbed the supernumerary nipple, then their chances of surviving the trial increased. In the witch-pricker's expert opinion, both bleeding and crying out were symptoms of innocence. I guess they figured that if the accused was actually using the nipple to suckle an impish attendant from hell, it would be probably be dried out and numb from incessant gnawing. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Highway to the Soul By John C. Kojak QuailBellMagazine.com My father didn’t leave much behind when he left this world, at least not anything of monetary value, but he did give me one thing that has been invaluably important in my life: a deep love and appreciation for blues music.
Some of my earliest memories are of him sitting in the den at night and listening to his records. We children were not allowed to disturb him while he was in there, but I always had a sense that something very profound was happening. I was young, and like any son I wanted to bond with my farther, so I began to ask him who these musicians were and why their music was so important to him. He seemed to approve of me taking an interest, and I loved it when he would sit me on his lap while he flipped through the albums and told me stories about the people on the covers and the meanings behind their songs. Bands like The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, and Led Zeppelin, were his favorites, but he said that they all got their sounds, and a lot of their songs, from listening to an earlier form of music called the blues. His words would become hushed as he spoke about these old black musicians who had come out of the Mississippi Delta region in the 1920s and '30s. He called them bluesmen, and whispered their names with a reverence I had never heard him use before…Robert Johnson…Son House…Muddy Waters…It was if he was speaking of kings. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Why Are There Two Carolinas and Two Dakotas? Ever wonder why we have two Carolinas and two Dakotas? Did the state name-creators simply run out of ideas? Nope. Turns out in both cases the territories split due to riotous behavior, incompetent governance and a touch of bureaucratic jockeying. A Tale of Two CarolinasEarly French settlers to the Carolina territory were immediately driven out by Native American tribes. The English swooped in, but faired not better: the area was subject to open rebellion, corrupt officials, malaria and smallpox epidemics, and the despicable pirate Blackbeard, who prowled up and down the coast tormenting the landlubbers. (Incidentally, his ship was recently discovered off the coast of North Carolina.) After some failed attempts by British aristocratic family to get the colony under control, King Charles II passed the land off to a different, and equally ineffectual, club of British aristocracy—the Lords Proprietors—who ruled from 1663 to 1729. The Lords Club fought constantly and were unable to make coherent decisions ranging from the role of church, to dealing with the two Indian tribes not keen on British encroachment. The governors they appointed were either deposed by locals, or banished from the territory for alleged crimes. It was a gritty time in the heart of the South. Finally, to make the unruly territory more manageable, the Proprietors focused on governing the northern section—dubbed North Carolina. The two regions were officially recognized as separate colonies in 1729, from which point there was smoother sailing. A Tale of Two DakotasThe bitter winter cold and gruesome violence between White settlers and Sioux Indians made the Dakota territory an unappealing area before the 1874 discovery of gold. At this point, prospectors started pouring in—creating squalid camps, decimating the Black Hills for mining, and escalating hostilities with the Sioux. Railroad construction quickly followed, encouraging a surge of new settlers in the northern part of the territory. Problem: the capital of the time—Yankton—was in the south. Sh*t was getting real in the north, the remote capital was unable to govern effectively, and so northerners declared their own capital—Bismark. Congress capitulated, but still wanted to recognize the authority of the south. So they cut a line dividing the territory into two. But there’s a twist! Newly-minted president and republican, Benjamin Harrison, helped sway Congress to allow the split. Why? To create not one . . . but two Republican majority states. So many historians feel the real reason Congress accepted a division of the Dakotas was for redistricting (still an issue constantly at play today). Because what’s a good story of intrigue without an element of political numerical maneuvering? Image: ThinkStock #Real #Ravishly #HighOnHistory #States #Carolina #Dakota Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
A Cottage Full of Wicca By Sarah Schwister QuailBellMagazine.com Last May, I ran through the fog and storms of the Dartmoor of Britain, barefoot. I studying abroad through a two-week program my school offered, and this book geek took a trip that led through her through a world of fairy tales, literature, and wonder. Like any good story, the trip brought its own shock and astonishment in unlikely places, such as Bocastle, Cornwall’s very own Museum of Witchcraft, which boasts the world’s largest selection of witchcraft relics and artifacts in the world.
Rain flickered against our red floral umbrella as we walked through Bocastle, a beautiful town nestled between jarring mountains covered in garish grass. The creek muttered in the freezing rain, and my group was shivering from our wet trekking of Tintagel. Despite previewing every trip location in class the previous semester, the white cottage tucked outside of town made our jaws drop. It was, of course, the Museum of Witchcraft. A rather distant woman halfheartedly welcomed us in, as some of the other students cautiously wandered in. Discomfort floated around the group as some students were just plain not okay with this portion of our trip. The museum itself was stuffed as thick as the text in a dictionary. The first thin hallway that led us into the bowels of the house almost seemed self-mocking. It was full of kitschy Halloween decorations, medieval depictions of witches, and more than one nod to the witches of Macbeth. The museum's founder, Cecil Williamson, had met his fair share of witch skeptics, and tried to coax an open mind out of every visitor the moment they step into his museum. Starting off with the familiar helped accomplish that. Though the museum opened in 1959, the year the ban on the practice of witchcraft was lifted (before later moving to its current location in 1960), it wasn’t Williamson's first attempt at curating a collection and telling the story of witchcraft. Initially, he tried to open a museum in 1947 in Stratford-Upon-Avon (the birthplace of William Shakespeare) but was met with local opposition and was forced to abandon those plans. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Girls Gone Green! Remember that Victorian illness “hysteria” and how it could only be cured by the vibrator-wielding skills of a trained Victorian medical professional? I mean, I guess I can sort of see what they were getting at since the curative powers of orgasms have been well-documented by science. What I don’t understand about that extinct diagnosis is why they thought it was caused by a “wandering womb," implying that all it needed was an orgasm to be put in its place. Just think, an orgasm a day could keep the doctor and the blues away! (So long as she didn’t do it herself, that is.)
According to the Victorians, orgasms not only kept the blues away, but they also kept the greens away. Women with green-tinged skin and a fiesty attitude were actually in dire need of relieving themselves of the excess “female sperm” building up inside of them. The Victorians thought that overwhelmed "blue" ovaries caused green skin in women. The blockage caused fatigue, a lack of menstruation, increased appetite, indigestion, headaches, and all of the other symptoms that are caused by hypochromic anemia. Oh, and let’s of course not forget insanity, the very same thing that the medical world said comorbidly occurred with regular menstruation as well. The Victorian definition of female “insanity” included being disagreeable, outspoken, rude, alcoholic, senile, highly emotional, or any other behavior that deviated from how they thought women “should” act. Even today, a lot of mental illness is culturally defined in this manner. When a woman “went green,” medical professionals claimed that it was caused by celibacy that would normally be relieved by a lawfully wedded husband. Thus, the treatment options were marriage, prescribed masturbation, pelvic massages, or clitoral surgery that the family kept under wraps to protect the young woman’s reputation and chances of getting married. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
America's Most Womanizing PresidentIf asked to conjure the image of a lustful U.S. president, most of us would probably picture one William Jefferson Clinton. But soon-to-be-released letters remind us that Slick Willie is practically a monk compared to our 29th president, Warren G. Harding. He died in office in 1923, after serving just over two years in the office. But Harding seems to have made the most of his short time—at least in terms of presidential hanky panky. A Sordid Presidency Harding was no stranger to scandal. Having won the 1920 presidential race with the largest popular vote margin in presidential history—based on a Republican platform of moderation and independence from European affairs (which didn’t pan out for too long)—Harding wasted no time getting embroiled in controversy. His repertoire includes a number of high-profile cases of corruption and bribery. When not involved in sketchy political scenarios, Harding was apparently busy accruing a long list of mistresses. About a thousand pages of love letters from Harding to one of his lovers will be released next month by the Library of Congress (got to give it to him, that’s some serious extra-marital dedication). The library received the letters from the president’s nephew, who insisted on a 50-year period of secrecy that has finally expired. A String of Women Harding’s affair with the letter’s recipient (and friend of Harding’s wife), Claire Phillips, began in 1905 and endured through the next 15 years of his time in politics. Though the relationship reportedly ended just before Harding’s ascension to the presidency, he was back to his old tricks once in the Oval Office. A former campaign director for Harding alleged they got it on in a variety of patriotic places, including a White House coat closet. And Harding is thought to have had at least two other long-term mistresses, as well as “assorted other flings” including a newspaper employee, chorus girls, and “a string of ‘New York Women.’” How did he find enough hours in the day? As for the object of those (hopefully) juicy letters? Phillips made out alright in the aftermath of the affair, successfully blackmailing the Republican Party and winning a monthly stipend and jobs for relatives. Which makes her decidedly savvier—if also more depraved—than poor Monica Lewinsky. ***This piece first appeared in Ravishly and was republished here with permission. *** #Real #Ravishly #HighOnHistory #History #Feminism #President #Harding #Clinton Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
It's not the merkin that's evil; it's how you use it. Ah, the days of Queen Victoria…the pre-Romantic era romanticized through the lens of modernity, shrouded in its own mystique of a signature culture so different from our own. The most radical contrasts between then and now lies within the realm of beauty ideals and sexuality, namely female sexuality. Rumors about the Victorians' paradoxical prudishness still abound: Society at large condemned masturbation as unhealthy and sinful unless performed by a trained professional, someone who knew how to properly operate a vibrator.
Still, despite publicly stigmatizing female sexuality, the Victorians also secretly reveled in it and regularly produced porn extreme even by today's standards. While I believe in the healing power of orgasms, the Victorians probably would’ve been better off doing the job themselves instead of forcing their genitals into contraptions that would qualify as torture devices today. Embracing DIY masturbation might have rescued them from the perils of turning to one of the most flourishing industries of that day: prostitution, the kind of sex work that flourished outside of a medical office with a dildo-wielding doctor and regularly returned people to it. Although the media glamorizes Victorian women as though they were animated versions of the sophisticated portraits of their time, the reality was quite different. Most women didn’t resemble the elegant subjects of oil paintings. Women didn’t tend to wear much makeup. Shaving wasn’t much of a part of their beauty norms. If you were a woman, your pubic garden was free to blossom. That is, if you weren’t a sex worker. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Hot and Heavy in 19th-century England Victorian slang is, even by today's standards, versatile, colorful, and covert. Sexual slang was especially clandestine so that gentlemen could discuss taboo matters without drawing undue attention. Since sex in general was a touchy subject, Victorian people got quite creative when devising these terms. Some of those very words still linger in our vernacular today.
So just how much did Victorians beat around the bush? Keep in mind that these were the people who arranged a nuanced form of communication based on flowers. They used “floriography” in order to express feelings that they would have otherwise hidden from society. These are the people who referred to lady parts as the “fruitful vine” because supposedly, they both fruited every nine months and “flowered” on a monthly basis. The only “flowers” I think of in reference to a vagina are orchids (for obvious reasons). I got a whole bouquet of them from my relatives when I got my first period. The world of Victorian prostitutes was a generous segment of the population and therefore ripe with slang. An estimated one out of every twelve women was directly involved in prostitution, a statistic that only applies to unmarried, pubescent women. Much like today, prostitution was multi-leveled. There were the common punks who walked the streets and rich courtesans alike. If a rich man wanted to have sex with a woman who wasn’t his “lawful blanket”(legal wife), he would pursue sexual asylum in a “wife in water colors” or mistress, a “prostitute” whom only serviced one man. If the man was rich enough, he could provide her with housing, mostly for his own convenience. Why was a mistress painted in water colors? Because their “engagements easily dissolved” like water paint. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
20th-century Fashion Accessories As WeaponsSexual harassment is the pits. And as it unfortunately turns out, the deviant desire to cat call, taunt, grope and generally act like a miserable misogynist reaches across time and place. Women have tried various strategies to fend off such behavior through the ages, but one trend during the turn-of-the-century reveals a creative, and sometimes overzealous, tactic for literally sticking it to lecherous men. The so-called “Hatpin Peril” led ladies to use their own decorative accessories to fend off unwanted advances. In the Victorian era, female decorum and reliance on men were de rigeur. But by the cusp of the 20th century, some women were done with the antiquated expectations. Increasingly, ladies came to the conclusion that the time for a stiff upper lip when encountering “mashers”—period slang for predatory men in public—was over. Newspapers across the country started reporting physical retaliations against the skeezes. As the Smithsonian summarizes: A New York City housewife fended off a man who brushed up against her on a crowded Columbus Avenue streetcar and asked if he might “see her home.” A Chicago showgirl, bothered by a masher’s “insulting questions,” beat him in the face with her umbrella until he staggered away. A St. Louis schoolteacher drove her would-be attacker away by slashing his face with her hatpin. Victorian temperance be damned! In addition to their frequency, news reports covering these encounters were notable for their approving tone. While a woman attacking a man had previously been considered comical (silly, silly women!), these female fighters were now praised as heroes with the righteous ability to defend themselves. Social mores, they were a’changing. Working women and suffragists co-opted the phenomenon into their broader call for women’s rights, including the ability to break out of the confines of parents' or husbands' homes, ditch chaperones, and move alone and unharassed in public. At this point, one might expect serious push-back from harbingers of tradition. But surprisingly, most people seemed to see the writing on the wall for women’s increasing freedoms. Instead, detractors focused on deriding the most high-profile mechanism of lady self-defense (or in some cases, probably misguided assaults): the hatpin. Both unconfirmed and verified stories of hatpin-peril abounded. Innocent men were accidentally stabbed by careless women. A hundred female factory workers wielded hatpins at police officers who had arrested two of their coworkers. A woman and her husband’s mistress even circled each other in a high-stakes hatpin duel until police broke it up. One woman’s tool of self-defense was another woman’s weapon. By 1910, the situation (weirdly) looked not unlike the current gun-control debate. City councils in Chicago, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, New Orleans and even as far away as Sydney, Australia, started passing ordinances to regulate hatpin length. Many women rebuffed such interference, with some opting to go to jail rather than pay fines for their pins o’ protection. Who knows how the hatpin controversy may have continued to escalate, had World War I not swooped in to distract social preoccupation and inspire new fashion. Yes, the menacing hatpin was laid to rest as bobs and cloche hats became the new trend—probably for the best. Happily, women remained generally able to move independently in public, though sexual harassment has endured. Perhaps it's time to bring back the bad-ass hatpin? ***This piece first appeared in Ravishly and was republished here with permission. *** #Real #Ravishly #HighOnHistory #History #Feminism #SexualHarrassment #Weapons #Fashion
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A Cursed AttractionBy Kontra QuailBellMagazine.com I arrived at the ghost town of Two Guns just a few minutes before sundown. This, for some reason, seemed appropriate. At first, the forgotton city appears to be just another abandoned gas station area; there is a disused silo, a ruined convenience store, another small, gutted building of indeterminate purpose. But nearby are the almost century-old brick ruins that rest along the rim of Diablo Canyon, marking what might be the most cursed area in all of Arizona.
In 1969 a book called The View Over Atlantis popularized the New Age idea of “ley lines," invisible strands of energy that criss-cross the globe. The intersection points of these lines are supposedly points of great magical importance—places where strange things happen. Neil Gaiman, in his Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novel American Gods, proposed that the unusual energy at these ley lines convergences often influences people to build strange roadside attractions. If such places exist, one of them almost certainly lies about 30 miles east of Flagstaff in the area of Diablo Canyon. It is here that the roadside attraction of Two Guns was erected in the 1920s, literally atop a massacre. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Rumblings of HonorBy Papa Quail QuailBellMagazine.com Rev 'em up! We're going to the Wall—the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, that is. Rolling Thunder Run to the Wall is an annual motorcycle rally that takes place the Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend. This year about 400,000 motorcyclists rode from the Pentagon parking lot in Arlington, Virginia to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. The rally, which has taken place every year since 1988, represents the participants' continued demand to find Prisoners of War and Missing in Action service men and women from past U.S. conflicts. The event is less commonly known as the Ride for Freedom. Quail Bell Magazine's Papa Quail attended this year's Rolling Thunder and took a few pictures with his smartphone: #Nostalgic #RollingThunder #MemorialDay #VietnamVets #WWIIVets #WashingtonDC #WashingtonMemorials #USA Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
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Over the River and to Mill MountainOpened in November 1927, Roanoke, Virginia's Walnut Avenue Bridge lets cars and pedestrians get over the railroad tracks and into the residential neighborhood at the foot of Mill Mountain. Who cares about Mill Mountain, you ask as a non-Roanoker. Mill Mountain is the site of the city's famous star. It's really just a huge star that lights up at night but it sure is pretty. It even has its own camera. But going back to Walnut Avenue Bridge: It goes over the Roanoke River and has some rather rundown (but entrancing) old buildings for company. Consider these pics iPhone evidence. #Roanoke #Virginia #WalnutAvenue #MillMountain #RoanokeStar #StarCity #StarCam #SouthwestVA Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
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Menhir in MacedoniaPhoto: Ljucho Ilievski. Believe it or not, there's good reason for the woman pictured in the photo above to be hugging that rock. In his paper “Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult and Its Mediterranean Relations,” published in 1901, Sir Arthur Evans wrote: “In the course of some archaeological investigations in upper Macedonia I heard of a sacred stone at a Turkish village called Tekekiöi, between Skopia and Istib...It was an object of veneration not only to the native Muslims, but to many Christians from the surrounding regions, who made it an object of pilgrimage on St. George’s Day. I visited the spot and found that the stone was contained in a two-roomed shrine under the charge of a Dervish." Evans also made a drawing of the room. (Mad skills.) In recent years, a group of researchers belonging to Macedonian Research Society and led by Gjore Cenev managed to locate the village and to find the Secret Stone. Today the village is called Tekia (in Macedonian Tekija) and is located a few kilometers northwest of Skopje, the capital city of the Republic of Macedonia. By the mid-20th century, the Turks inhabited the village, but then they migrated to the Republic Turkey. Today, Macedonian Christians who come from distant villages of Northeast Macedonia inhabit the village. The research team found that the two-roomed shrine has been taken down and the sacred stone is located in an open space. The area is fenced, and the head is located near the fence. Near the Sacred Stone, there is a tree that is believed to be sacred, too. In fact, the whole area around the stone and the tree is considered as a sacred space and the local inhabitants refer to it with great respect. Despite major changes in the area, the Sacred Stone and Sacred Tree cult are regularly performed even today, especially on St. George’s Day. For a proper performance of the cult, an elderly woman called Head of the Stone takes care. Administering the Sacred Stone has been passed through the female line from ancient times. This is how the cult performance has been preserved, even at a time when the Turkish inhabitants start their migration. At that period a Muslim woman that was Head of the Stone transferred her admin duties to a Christian woman. The new population that came accepted the cult and continued to respect the stone, which today they address by the name of St. George. In its basic form, the ritual consists of going around the stone three times, embracing and kissing it. The Sacred Stone supposedly helps in the realization of wishes and with the treatment of many diseases, but it mostly helps women who were previously unable to conceive. It is interesting that even today many Turks are familiar with the Sacred Stone and come to pray there. That folklore sounds solid. Rock on. ***This post was originally published on the Megalithic Portal and was re-posted with permission.***. #St.George'sDay #AncientHistory #Turkey #Mystical #Magical #SacredStone #StoneCult #Tekia Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
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Continuous Loss and Eternal LongingBy Quail Bell Editors QuailBellMagazine.com "Being smart was all right, but was it enough? A new world was coming, people said, and Mary Bet tried not to think of it with fear but with hope. A world in which the railroad was no longer king, a world where unmarried women weren't pitied and humored as eccentric aunties, a world of peace and electricity. But now there was a great war in Europe, and everyone prayed and hoped that it would end soon." -Chapter 21, 1916-1917 In rural North Carolina, the period between the Civil War and World War I was a time of waiting. For Mary Bet, the youngest of nine children and the main character in John Milliken Thompson's novel Love and Lament (Other Press), it is also a personal era marked by death after death. As various family members meet their fates, Mary Bet must grow up and decide her own fate as the one who lived. And as if grieving the loss of so many loved ones were not enough, Mary Bet has the burden of being an independent, free-thinking woman in a community that disapproves of just those qualities. Love and Lament is a beautiful book of coping and almost love stories. It is a book of poetry written in prose. It is slow paced, literarily matched to the pacing of its setting. And, really, it's a book about everyday life in a recovering South. #LoveAndLament #BookPick #SouthernLiterature #Reconstruction #CivilWar #WW1 #OtherPress #NorthCarolina Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
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The Little-known Lives of Famous PeopleBy Quail Bell Ponderer QuailBellMagazine.com Wandering around Barnes & Noble today, I passed by a book of Abraham Lincoln's writings. The book sat with a bunch of other gold-leaf titles called “American Classics.” I picked up the book and flipped it over, but there was no blurb. Since it was shrink-wrapped, I couldn't discern much else about the book. Though I kept walking, seeing the book made me wonder once again what we really know about famous historical figures. For instance, I had no idea Abe had written enough to publish such a tome. When I think of American presidents who moonlighted as literati, I think of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Even in the case of those two men, I don't know that much and certainly even less about whom they actually were. Presidents, like all well-known historical figures, become legends. The myth is larger than the man.
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The Old Stone House This clip is a single cycle of a video art piece projected and played on loop at the Edgar Allan Poe Museum's April 2014 'Unhappy Hour.' Hotel X, a jazz/world music group, performed live in the foreground. More at PoeRichmond.com #PoeMuseum #VideoArt #HotelX
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Two Pro-fairy Siren SistersThe Washington State Fairies are a comedy singing duo that you can find entertaining at events and celebrations all over the Pacific Northwest. The Fairies are sisters, as all fairies are. Kalakala and Klahowya-Tahlequah, are our names. And Northwesterners may recognize those names as boats on The Washington State Ferry line. What a delightful coincidence, don't you think?
We also have a couple other characters we call on, when the time is right. The Famous Filson Sisters are an identical twin sister lounge act from Ft. Lauderdale, in their sequined '70s dresses. And The Prim Family Professional Prom Planners, Penny and Priss are a delight in their poufy '50s dresses and giant blond beehives. We write custom songs for our events. Our very favorite is one we called "Christine, Queen of Our Hearts." It was a musical love letter to Christine Gregoire, Washington's governor, thanking her for her support of marriage equality in Washington. We are, as you might imagine, pro-fairy. We also happen to be founding members of NAFTA, National Association of Trolls, Fairies and Assorted. As far as our own sparkly brand of magic and merriment—I would say it's a little fancy, a little irreverent, and always very intimate. We love to really engage with our audience, and bring them into the action. Our costumes are perhaps our favorite piece of this magical pie. The fairies' costumes are inspired loosely by the Golden Age of Hollywood. It's a fun combination of fluffy tulle, fancy corsettes, and bright red lips. All balanced by a Northwest fairy staple: pointy red rubber clogs. Very practical in our rainy climate. We have a USO look and a Navy look version of the costumes, too. We simply adore pinup hair, too! We just adore vintage looks. We so enjoy diving into some glamorous part of our fashion history. We're grateful we don't live in a time of everyday girdles and pantyhose, but thank goodness for the opportunity to play dress up. #Fairies #SingingTelegrams #Performance #Vintage The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
One Community's Struggle for Memory In a film and multimedia oral history, Memoria Presente tells the story of a community trying to deal with its past in order to change its present. Check out the Indiegogo campaign here. #CrowdSourcing #DocumentaryFilm #Interviews #Argentina
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Put All the Racist Monuments in MuseumsBy Shawn Everett Jones QuailBellMagazine.com If you had a nutshell and you just had to put the history of America in it, the bare essence, the most basic way to describe the history of America would be: Civilization had been thriving in America for millennia, then the white man came and killed off that civilization with the help of enslaved Africans. But history is written by the victors, the invaders. So that turns the story into: A brave explorer discovered a new land where all could come and live and farm and find treasures and own plantations and prosper. The progress of American culture has depended on the enslavement, oppression, genocide and ruthless aggression towards many peoples of many races, cultures and religions. I once had a housemate who painted a portrait of Hilter. To everyone's chagrin, he hung it in plain sight in the den. Everyone hated it and wanted to take it down. At my Halloween party, the portrait raised a lot of questions from guests and later I would try to explain, Well, I didn't want to be a Nazi and take it down. I imagine that the reason he painted it and hung it was that he just wanted to have discussions about Hitler and all things related to Hitler. Maybe I was naïve, but that is the way I thought of the situation. But when we had a German couch-surfer come through, everyone in the house definitely wanted the painting gone, so I just put it in our housemate's room. In Richmond, Virginia, where I lived for years, there is a monument of Christopher Columbus. There is solid proof of Columbus' terrible deeds in his very own journals, plus the journals of others. We have this man who is a symbol of American conquest because of the lies told in history books. What is standing in Richmond, too, is a monument to a person who killed, tortured and abused many people. Not unlike Hitler's holocaust was the genocide of the native people. (In fact the holocaust was fashioned after the U.S. Government's genocide of Native Americans). Yet there is a statue for him and no one has yet taken it to hide in the artist's room. Take, too, the Rebel flag. I used to work at a museum of art and history. Part of the building's rich history was that it was the last Capitol of the Confederacy. We had rooms full of Confederate items including the Confederate flag. A museum is the exact place such relics should be. Keep the history by all means, I believe in that. Because even though I began with a simple version of the history of our country, the reality is that it is never as simple and is always more complex than we can imagine. I mean, we don't hear much about the Gullah Wars, we don't hear about the intense slaughter of natives that were happening during the Civil War. We hear the simple version from the victors. And although Southerners have the right to appreciate, respect and honor their heritage and ancestors, they don't really have a right to belong to hate groups that murder and bully. Such Southerners are so wrapped up in their commotion that they don't know or care that the Rebel flag symbol to some is the same as a swastika to others—or, well, I guess they wouldn't care about that either. I guess to them burning a Confederate flag would be what it is like for some to see the same flag raised high on a pole. Except the Confederate flag can be seen in public and even on government institutions all over the South. There are more Confederate flags billowing in the wind than there are burning on the ground. I think it is time to put all the monuments in museums. Take them off of the streets and create a historical sculpture garden. In Richnond, Tredegar Iron Works right by the James River would be a good place to put them. But please get them out of my face. Now we are on the verge of disrupting a slave burial ground with a baseball stadium, right on a place that is sacred to many people all over the world. Of all the places in Richmond, why there?! Why not put the stadium on top of Hollywood Cemetery. That wouldn't go over very well, would it? Or, hey, remember that time VCU moved a house across the street and then paved over a historical stop on the underground railroad that existed under that house? We have to honor and respect all Americans history, we need to keep and preserve all of OUR history. It is what it is. From all perspectives come the truth. And as a people who live together we should live more neighborly in all respects and at least respect that all have their sacred history and the very special rights to not be oppressed by your history. #Racism #AmericanHistory #RVA #VCU
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A Train Runs Through It #Trains #Railfanning #Locomotives #Film #Documentary #History #DMV
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Being the Dual Authority and Breezy Fun ReadBy Jennifer Rohrbaugh Nesossis QuailBellMagazine.com I am 34 years old and I am currently the programs officer at the Virginia Historical Society. I graduated from the University of Virginia in 2002, where I double majored in Anthropology and Archaeology and minored in Biochemistry. I received my MA in Art History with a concentration in Museum Studies in 2007 from Virginia Commonwealth University. While I was attending VCU, I began working at the VHS as a work-study student in the education department. In 2005, I was hired as a full-time outreach educator and traveled across Virginia taking history programs into classroom, libraries, community and retirement centers. In other words, I was a traveling history teacher. In 2011, I transferred to the publications department. Today I also spend time working with the web and digital resources department on video and podcast projects, our recent website redesign and managing the VHS Facebook page. In 2007, a former colleague and I created the VHS MySpace page and brought the VHS into the world of social media. Since then, I have been involved in social media at the VHS. When writing for the VHS Facebook page, I keep in mind that the page is a representation of the VHS as an organization. Some of our Facebook followers will never be able to visit our physical building and our digital platforms may be their only connection to the society. I know that people see hundreds of posts in their Facebook feed so I try to keep my posts short and include images and links whenever appropriate. Since people see the VHS as an authority on Virginia history, I want to be educational and informative. I try to not be too formal and I aim to have a casual, personable, and at times humorous voice. While working on the VHS website redesign, many of our stakeholders and visitors kept mentioning how much they value the work that the the VHS staff. With this in mind, I highlighted the VHS staff a holiday cover photo. I am in the early stages of planning a Meet the Staff series of posts that will highlight participating staff. I really like the idea of highlighting VHS staff to our Facebook followers because it puts a face with a name and will help show off the great work and projects that staff work on behind the scenes. Since not all of our followers are able to visit us in person, I like to show what is going on around our campus. I really enjoy creating new graphics for our page. One of my favorite cover photo graphics was for Black History Month where I listed the names of famous African Americans from Virginia in the background. I received a lot of compliments about this graphic because it was able to inform our audience about events taking place at the VHS, but was also educational at the same time. I think everyone enjoys learning and reading about random factoids. I am always looking for Virginia history related facts that I can include in our "On This Day" series. I spend a lot of time at night and on the weekends following current events and reading about social media trends, so sometimes I will come up for an idea to post about from something that I heard on the radio, saw in the news or is a trendy topic at the moment. I like to inform our Facebook followers about events taking place at the VHS or history related events and programs that might interest them. I also use the VHS collection as inspiration for posts and will highlight relevant items from the collection (for instance, a post about Valentine's Day cards in the VHS Collection in early February or asking who everyones favorite woman in Virginia history is and highlighting those women). If you're managing a Facebook page for a major cultural institution, have fun! I always look forward to spending time creating posts, designing graphics, and helping answer questions from our Facebook followers. Always be on the lookout for great content and how you can use current events in your posts. Have a social media plan and comment policy. Continue to review these. Social media does not only happen between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., and requires working outside of these normal business hours. Managing social media for a major cultural institution requires a lot of commitment and investment to make it succeed. Keep track of your analytics. Your analytics will help you learn about your audience and track your performance to show you what type of post is working and what is not working. Set social media goals. Some social media goals could be trying to post X number of posts per day or trying to drive more traffic to your website. #Interview #Facebook #VirginiaHistoricalSociety #History #SocialMedia
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He Played Pooh Sticks in Forest Hill ParkI had a good phone voice, folks told me. You should try narrating audio books for children, more than one friend had said. Since high school, I had found myself cupping the receiver a few thousand times. Two stints on a magazine call center alone had given me enough phone time to rival an operator. And yet that Wednesday morning, my voice temporarily vanished. I stared at the computer screen and picked at the split ends in my curls. A website that probably hadn't been updated since 1998 stared back at me. It was the official online presence for a one-hit wonder 1950s doo-wop group. There was no email address anywhere, only an address with a P.O. box located in a Southern city I had never visited. It was a Southern city I probably never would visit—and I say this as a charitable Southerner. I had to figure out the home phone number for the band's only surviving member. If my time as a reporter has taught me anything, it's this: WhitePages.com tells you much more than it should. I typed the singer's name into White Pages and guessed that he might be living near that P.O. box. His name popped up. It appeared that more than one man by his name was living in the same city. No problem because White Pages always gives you approximate ages for each search result. I chose the only person, biologically and historically speaking, who could be him. Then I did what I was supposed to do two weeks ago: I dialed. My voice is on the softer, more feminine side. When I'm scared, it gets too high. When I'm terrified, it disappears. As soon as the man answered the phone, I recognized his voice. I paused so long that he might've hung up if I hadn't suddenly recovered and introduced myself. Too squeaky and too fast, I explained that I had recently produced a short film that would be shown at art galleries and submitted to festivals. My director wanted permission to use his band's hit song. On our shoestring budget, we could not offer a royalty unless the film won a cash prize at a festival. “Why I'm flattered,” the man said, his voice wavering a little. “It's nice to think that after all these years, that song still means something to somebody, especially at 9 a.m. on a weekday.” The song had recently played on a major television show, but we didn't discuss that. Despite his age and famosity, he said that he was pleased that we wanted the song, that of course we could use it, and that my call was “one for the archives.” I chuckled, relieved. I asked if he would sign a release form, but he told me it wasn't “necessary for something like this.” As my confidence swelled, so did my voice and it became deeper and richer than normal. I started to tell him about the project, but he seemed more interested in where I was based. He interrupted me out of excitement: “You know, my whole mother's family is from there, the south side, across the river. I remember that much. I lived there when I was really young.” Then he paused. “Are you familiar with the Winnie-the-Pooh stories?” “Yeah, Christopher Robin?” “Right. You know the game Pooh Sticks? I used to play it in the park there. That's where I learned it.” I laughed, enchanted by the thought of this elderly man as a five-year-old throwing sticks in the creek and watching them float downstream with another tiny child. A park I knew from college adventures had been his Hundred Acre Woods. After I reconfirmed that we had permission to use his song, I thanked him and hung up the phone. But Pooh Bear remained on my mind for the rest of the morning. #WinnieThePooh #ForestHillPark #ChildhoodMemories #Nostalgia
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Two Silent Film Actors Live On à la FacebookBy Paisley Hibou QuailBellMagazine.com The Quail Bell Crew was wondering who ran the Facebook fan page for silent film actors Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. So we asked. The answer? Mary Moreland, a wife and mother living in the Pacific Northwest. She grew up watching classic films and, as an adult, started her own collection. Here is what Moreland had to say about administering this cyber hub for Pickford and Fairbanks aficionados: What inspired your love for Pickford and Fairbanks? My interest in silent film began several years ago. I became fascinated by Mary Pickford, along with Douglas Fairbanks, for their contributions to film, and the part they had in the early years of filmmaking. They both capture your attention on film. Pickford and Fairbanks were Hollywood’s first power couple and were welcomed wherever they went as Hollywood royalty. What are some of your favorite Pickford and Fairbanks films? It is very hard for me to choose my favorites. My favorite Mary Pickford film is probably Stella Maris (1918). Mary played two roles in this film: the beautiful Stella Maris, and the not so beautiful Unity Blake. Taking on the part of Unity Blake was rather surprising at the time. Mary was known as “America’s Sweetheart” and “Little Mary," and to play a part unlike this stereotype was a questionable move on her part. She performed brilliantly in both parts and the film is known as one of her best today. As for Douglas Fairbanks, The Thief of Baghdad (1924) would have to be my favorite film. Known for his swashbuckling films, Fairbanks brings that into this Arabian fantasy to make one unforgettable film. What inspired you to start this Facebook page? I started my Facebook page, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, because I wanted to share my love for them and silent film. I am surprised at how many people have not even heard of Pickford and Fairbanks! I hope to somehow help the public become more familiar with them and aware of their films. They had an integral part in the formation of the early years of Hollywood. Pickford and Fairbanks, along with Charlie Chaplin and D.W Griffith, founded the film studio United Artists in 1919. They were also two of the 36 founders of The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Where do you find your images? I am constantly building my collection, and the images that I use come from various sources. The internet is a wonderful resource for images and historical documents. What do you suggest for someone trying to get into watching silent films? My advice for someone who is new to silent film would be to just jump in! There are silent films to interest everyone. Some people feel like silent films are an acquired taste, and in a way, they’re right. We are so used to talking, sound effects, music, and just plain noise in our films today. Silent films are so visually stunning that they do not need sound. Cinematographers used lighting and angles in a way that brought so much emotion and feeling to a film. In recent years we have seen a revival in silent film with such movies as The Artist. This sparked an interest in the classic silent films from the 1920s and earlier. I hope that we can keep these early films alive, and share them with the people of today along with the generations to come. #SilentFilm #Cinema #Facebook #Fans #MaryPickford #DouglasFairbanks #ArtHistory |
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