Jeffrey Thomas is a California-based artist and character designer. He plays with pop culture in twisted and amusing ways, such as his latest series on eleven of the Disney Princesses. Pictured above is an Ariel more sinister than the one in The Little Mermaid.

Link via GearFuse

Artist’s blog

The Israeli town of Kirvat Yam is offering a hefty sum to anyone who can provide proof of the existence of the mer-people (meeple?).

“Many people are telling us they are sure they’ve seen a mermaid and they are all independent of each other,” Kirvat Yam town council spokesman Natti Zilberman told Sky News.

“I was with friends when suddenly we saw a woman laying on the sand in a weird way,” he said. “At first I thought she was just another sunbather, but when we approached she jumped into the water and disappeared. We were all in shock because we saw she had a tail. At least five of us saw it and we all couldn’t believe it.”

The town council, which is offering the reward, insists that the mermaid mania is not just a marketing ploy to attract tourists, though it does hope tourists will come out to try their luck at the $1 million prize.

Link – via arbroath

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by coconutnut.

Disney isn’t always the Happiest Place on Earth. The parks sometimes harbor deep, dark secrets – and we’re not talking the Haunted Mansion or the Tower of Terror. Below are a few sinister secrets Mickey doesn’t want you to know about.

Deaths

We’ve all heard the rumors that no one has ever died at a Disney park because Disney has paid officials to refrain from declaring injured or ill people dead until they hit a hospital outside of Disney property. But it’s not true. There are several incidents where the victims were reported to have died at the scene.

In 2007, a Spanish teenager died while she was riding the Rock ‘N’ Roller Coaster at Disneyland Paris. Her friends noticed she was unconscious when the ride stopped, according to the BBC, and park medics immediately rushed to the scene. There was nothing they could do, though, and she was pronounced dead by the time an ambulance could get there. Photo from DLPInfo.

In June of both 1973 and 1983, 18-year-old boys drowned in the Rivers of America. Both had stayed in the area when they weren’t supposed to – the incident in ‘73 occurred when a boy and his brother decided to stay in the park after closing and the ‘83 incident happened when a boy capsized a rubber emergency raft he had stolen from a cast-only section of the park.

In 1984, Dollie Young was riding the Matterhorn Bobsleds at Disneyland when her seatbelt became unbuckled. To this day, it’s not known how Dollie fell out of her car, but she did. She fell to the track and was hit by another car, then caught under its wheels and dragged for a bit before the ride came to a stop. She was pronounced dead at the scene due to massive head and chest injuries.

And, of course, there was the infamous “America Sings” death of 1974. An employee named Debbi Stone was working as the hostess to the show one evening when her fellow cast members were alerted to the fact that she was missing. Some reports say they noticed at some point during the evening; other reports say a guest heard Debbi’s screams and immediately told cast members. Either way, by the time she was found, Debbi had been crushed to death between a rotating theater wall and a permanent theater wall; she definitely didn’t make it to a hospital first. Photo from Yesterland.

Ashes

Even when people aren’t dying at Disney, they want their mortal remains to be forever interred at the Happiest Place on Earth. Disney doesn’t like to talk about it, obviously, but sometimes cast members spill the beans to inquiring reporters. David Koenig, author of Mouse Tales: A Behind-the-Ears Look at Disneyland, says that the Haunted Mansion has definitely been the site of a quickie memorial service at least once. A cast member told him that she had been working the ride when a group requested extra time on the ride to say a quick goodbye to a little boy who had died and loved the Haunted Mansion. She agreed, but then spotted one of the guests emptying grey ash out onto the ride. The ride was shut down so it could be cleaned up.

In 2007, a guest alerted cast members at the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction that she had seen another woman sprinkling some sort of a powdery substance into the water, and the Los Angeles Times reports that the ride was shut down the same year when a group of people managed to leave a pile of ashes in the Captain’s Quarters section of the ride.

Hidden Messages

I’ve done it, and I bet a lot of you have done it as well: pausing and rewinding and going frame-by-frame to catch hidden messages or images in certain Disney films. Some of them are really there and some of them are just products of our active imaginations. Here’s the lowdown:

Aladdin does not tell children to take off their clothes in Aladdin. It’s a scene where “Prince Ali” is trying to get up to Princess Jasmine’s room to talk to her when he comes across her tiger, Rajah. The tiger growls at him menacingly, and Aladdin says, “C’mon… good kitty. Take off and go!” while shooing the feline away with his turban. The captioning supports this argument. However, the line is whispered and not enunciated well, and in addition, it seems to be edited poorly. Snopes http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/aladdin.asp says that the same bit of dialogue seems to have been inserted twice, so the whispered line is doubly garbled. Because it was so close on the heels of The Little Mermaid controversy, people heard what they wanted to.

Speaking of which, The Little Mermaid did not contain any sexual images on purpose. There were two issues that concerned the public: first, that artwork for the movie contained a phallic images as part of a castle in the background, and second, that the priest officiating over the wedding scene near the end of the movie seems to get an erection right in the middle of the ceremony. Neither is true, according to Snopes. The phallic image was unintentional and was not drawn in by a disgruntled employee who had recently gotten laid off (the artist didn’t even work for Disney) and the “erection” is actually the priest’s knees.

So what is true? Well, there’s definitely an image of a topless woman in the 1977 movie The Rescuers. And Disney fully admits it. In fact, the image – which is a photograph, not an animated bit, and was clearly intentionally placed in the movie – was basically pointed out to the public by Disney themselves. The image occurs so fast in two single, non-consecutive frames, that a viewer would have to know exactly where to pause the movie in order to even see it. The movie was recalled in 1999 after Disney discovered the image was there; they claimed it must have been inserted in post-production. Photo from Snopes.

One that’s maybe true: Jessica Rabbit going commando in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. There’s a scene in the movie where Jessica and Eddie Valiant are thrown from a car, causing her dress to flip up very briefly. It goes fast, but people who have slowed the movie to frame-by-frame say that the way the coloring was done suggests that mischievous animators may have drawn Jessica without any undergarments. However, the coloring, which is darker than the rest of Jessica’s skin, may also suggest underwear.

And here’s a not-so-hidden image you can check out for yourself the next time you’re at Disney World – there’s a Nazi “hidden” in plain sight in a mural at the Grand Floridian resort. In the book Sabotage in the American Workplace, the artist who painted the piece says that Disney hired him to create a Great Gatsby-esque mural for the ballroom in the upscale hotel. He decided to paint a Nazi in the background of the mural to “comment on what was happening in the rest of the world while the Great Gatsbys where whittling away their hours with cocktails.” Photo from Snopes.
There are definitely more dark Disney tales – in fact, we could probably turn this into a series! What weird and/or disturbing rumors have you heard about the House of Mouse? Share in the comments, and maybe we’ll investigate for future posts.

Pink Tentacle has a roundup of the different types of mummies found in Japan. There are the monks who mummified themselves in order to attain Nirvana, mermaid mummies made from parts of different animals, and supernatural creatures from ancient legends, such as the three-faced demon shown. Link -via Digg

When she was a child, Nadya Vessey’s legs were amputated below the knee due to illness.  One time, another child asked what happened to her legs, and she replied that she was a mermaid. 

She couldn’t get the mermaid idea out of her head, so she wrote to the company that created the special effects for the Lord of the Rings movies as well as King Kong and The Chronicles of Narnia. 

Her request:  Will you make me a mermaid tail? 

The company, Weta Workshop in Wellington, New Zealand, agreed.

Two years later, she now has a fully functioning mermaid tail with an attached suit, making her look like a real mermaid. 

Link

(image credit: Stuff.co.nz)

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Marilyn Terrell.

Gudrun Enger has a friend who works in Disneyland, and whenever she visits the park her friend comes along and acts as a tour guide, and usually shares a few secrets.  Here are some you might not know:

The drawbridge to Sleeping Beauty’s Castle really works.  It’s been raised only twice: once on opening day, and once in the l980s when Fantasyland reopened.

The crest above the drawbridge is the Disney family crest.

It took only 364 days to build Disneyland.

Main Street represents Walt’s home town, Marceline, Missouri, in 1901, the year he was born.

The organ that was in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea now lives in the ballroom of the Haunted Mansion.

In the early years of the park, the Rivers of America were stocked with catfish and visitors were allowed to fish off the docks of Tom Sawyer Island.

When Disneyland launched its original Submarine Voyage ride, it included Weeki Wachee-type mermaids swimming among the submarines.  Here’s a video of them.

Photo of Tom Sawyer Island by Gudrun Enger

Link

More posts about Disney on Neatorama:

- 10 Cool Secrets About Disneyland

- Happy Birthday, Walt!: 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Walt Disney

- 6 Attractions You’ll Never See Again at Disneyland

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Marilyn Terrell.

Regardless of where you believe to be the true “Happiest Place On Earth” is, you have to admit, Disneyland is at least pretty magical. It’s so magical, in fact, that even after 50 years and over 500 million of visitors, there are still tons of secrets hidden in and about the Magical Kingdom.

1. Disneyland was expected to fail.

Opening day was such a disaster that pretty much every press organization that attended the celebration had predicted the park’s failure within one year.

It opened on a day that was 101 degrees and the street asphalt still wasn’t dry, leading to it sticking to shoes. By the end of the first day, all but 2 of the 48 Autopia cars were crashed and about half the rides were broken.

Despite all that, park visitors loved it and attendance continued to grow day by day.

Source (Photo: ThomasFredrick [Flickr])

2. Need a real drink?

While many Disney fanatics may already know this one, others may find it surprising to know there is exactly one place in the entire park that serves alcoholic beverages.

The place is called Club 33 and it is a very exclusive club to get in. To gain entry, there is a ten year waiting list and admission is at least a thousand dollars. Supposedly, the food is good though.

Source (Photo: emmyboop [Flickr])

3. Tomorrow Land is so outdated.

Or at least, the first version is by now. The only Tomorrow Land ride that still exists in its original state from the opening is Autopia, and even it was changed to fit with Cars the movie. Actually though, there is one major change in Autopia from how it was on opening day -there were originally no guide rail to keep people on track. Sometimes Disney was a little too trusting of the good of humans.

Source (Photo: Frikitiki [Flickr])

4. There’s a Disney Underground.

Photo: lwr [Flickr]

It’s not quite as exciting as it sounds though. Despite rumors, the area under the park isn’t a massive underground city. There are many underground basements though, where cast can relax, change in and out of costumes and eat lunch in peace. Think of it like a few really big break rooms.

Disney World on the other hand, was built late enough that they have a full city underground.

Source

5. Olympic sports anyone?

Photo: Frikitiki [Flickr]

Just walking around the park over and over again is exercise enough for most people, but employees have the option of working out in the Matterhorn. Surely you didn’t think that huge mountain was only used for one little ride did you? No, the Matterhorn is officially classified as a gym and has a full basketball court inside. In 1984, it was even certified as an official Olympic Stadium.

Source

6. It’s safe, but not 100% safe.

Photo: videocrab [Flickr]

Despite persisting urban legends that claim no one ever died in the park, people have. At least 12 people have died there, reports vary as to whether some additional death tales are true or not. All things considered though, 12 deaths in over 50 years isn’t that bad. Keep in mind, aside from dangerous rides, there is also a notable amount of gang violence at other Southern California amusement parks that doesn’t occur as frequently at Disneyland.

Source

7. Ever feel like you’re being watched?

You might be. There are cameras everywhere. Aside from average security brigades, they even have special tasks forces with only a handful of things to focus on.

There are at least two special forces at the park, one dedicated to catching people using drugs at the park, and another dedicated to catching people who flash or flip off the cameras during the photo parts of the rides. If you’ve ever gotten a message saying your photo isn’t available when you got off the ride, there’s a good chance someone either flashed some breast or flipped the bird to the camera.

Source

8. A ghostly Hazmat problem.

Photo: major_clanger [Flickr]

There are many reports of people trying to spill the ashes of loved ones in the Haunted Mansion. As nice of a thought as it is, there are plenty of ghosts in the Mansion already and if everyone dumped their ashes here, then the whole thing would be covered in dust. So, every time it happens, the Mansion needs to be closed and a hazmat team cleans it.

Source

9. A pirate’s life for Jack.

We all know that Johnny Depp is dang sexy, but just the character of Jack Sparrow? Apparently, a lot of women still think he’s just as good as Depp. In Pirate’s Booty, an ex-actor at Disneyland confessed how many women would try to hump him just for playing the character. The stories range from flirting to receiving napkins with naughty offers.



(Photo: Locket479 [Flickr])

10. Words from beyond.

Ever notice the telegraph clicking at the New Orleans’ train station? It’s ticking out the speech Disney gave out on the park’s opening day. Traces of Disney are all over the park, my favorite one though is his old apartment over the fire house on Main Street. They always leave the light on in his memory. Not only is it cute, but it’s also rad that he got to live in the park.

Source (Photo: Mysteryofmaps [Flickr])

A few other fun tidbits:

• Steve Martin used to work in the magic shop here.
• There used to be live girls dressed like mermaids in the 2000 Leagues Under the Sea pool.
• Did your balloon pop? Just show any balloon seller your popped balloon and they’ll give you a new one.
• The Imagineers put special touches everywhere. The Haunted Mansion features faces of a few of the early Imagineers and has tombstones written with inside joke references.
• Coke gives the park free soda to eliminate competition in the park and for the advertising.
• Hidden Mickeys are spread all over the park and there’s at least one in every ride.

Source and Source

The California Raisins Who They Are: The Marvin Gaye-crooning, raising-selling, 1980s-defining claymation rock band that became the ultimate in fad-driven ad icons. They first appeared in 1987 and became an immediate hit. They quickly landed a CBS Christmas special, their own Saturday morning cartoon, and even TV ads for takeout pizza. (After all, nothing tops a pizza quite like clay raisins.) Who They Shill For: The California Raisin Advisory Board, which, not surprisingly, reported a spike in raisin sales in the late 1980s and early 1990s. You May Not Know: Raisin creator and claymation pioneer Will Vinton won an Academy Award in 1975 for "Closed Mondays," a short about a drunk walking around an art museum. Amazingly, this isn't the only Oscar won by a fruitspokesperson pioneer. Fruits of the Loom People dressed up as Fruits of the Loom characters, costumes by Pierre's Costumes in Philadelphia. Who They Are: First appearing in 1975, the fruits of this loom included humans dressed as oversize produce - two grape clusters, a fig leaf, and an apple. (The gooseberries in the actual logo are left out.) Who They Shill For: Fruit of the Loom underwear - a company owned by no less a genius than Warren "the Oracle of Omaha" Buffett, the billionaire famed for rarely making a poor investment. You May Not Know: F. Murray Abraham, the widely lauded actor who won an Oscar for his role as Salieri in "Amadeus," played the original Fig Leaf. But you probably do know what the creators of the ad clearly don't: A fig leaf is not a fruit. Mr. Peanut Who He Is: With his dapper top hat, cane, and monocle, Mr. Peanut screams sophistication. Who He Shills For: The Planters Company, which was founded in 1906 by Italian immigrant Amedeo Obici and brother-in-law Marion Peruzzi. Today, it is still owned by a hard-working, mom-and-pop company known as Kraft Foods North America. You May Not Know: In 1916, Planter's held a contest in search of an advertising mascot. THe winner, 13-year-old Antonio Gentile, submitted a prototype Mr. Peanut, for which he was paid five whole dollars. nbsp; Miss Chiquita Banana Who She Is: The fruit equivalent of a mermaid or satyr, Miss Banana was originally a cartoon drawing with the legs of a woman and the body of, well, a banana. Her initial job was to teach Americans about "exotic" fruit through song ("Bananas like the climate of the very, very tropical equator / So you should never put bananas in the refrigerator"). Who She Shills For: Chiquita, once known as United Fruit. More than a little political, the company used its ships to help overthrow the Guatemalan government in 1954 and provided support for the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961. You May Not Know: The original Miss Chiquita was drawn by Dik Browne, who created the comic strip "Hägar the Horrible." The syndicated stirp, starring an irascible, rotund Viking, manages to appear in 1,900 papers every day, even though it's the only comic less funy than "Hi and Lois." Of course, Browne created that one, too. (Image: TV Acres)

The article above was published in the July - August 2006 issue of mental_floss magazine, reprinted here on Neatorama with permission. Be sure to visit mental_floss' extremely entertaining website and blog!

Would a jackalope be kosher? How about a dragon?

In honor of upcoming holidays like Passover, I thought I would ask Jeff’s better half, Ann VanderMeer, editor of Weird Tales and a practicing Jew, to give us an idea of which fantastical animals and beings would be kosher and which would not be kosher, in terms of gnawin’ off a bit o’ that. Answers below… – Evil Monkey

The list includes sea monkeys, mermaids, Sasquatch, Chupacabra, and Hobbits, among others. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend

I know, I know, the song is an infectious earwig and you’re going to spend the rest of the day cursing me for even bringing it into your realm of thought. But bear with me.

photo by Stacy Conradt

The ride is currently under major renovations at Disneyland, and while I admit it’s not one of my favorite rides, I was disappointed that my sister-in-law didn’t get to experience it on her first-ever Disney trip last month. And now, she may never get to experience the original World’s Fair version that has resided in Fantasyland for the past 40 years.

Disney says that the main change is a change of boats, but according to insiders in the know, it’s actually going to be much more. We’ll get to that in a second.

The original IASW is based on the idea of world peace. No, really. Walt Disney attended a conference held by President Eisenhower in 1956 about promoting world peace and cultural understanding through world travel. Inspired, Disney recruited Mary Blair to design the attraction, Marc and Alice Davis to design the scenes and the doll outfits respectively, and Joyce Carlson to design the dolls. At first, the ride included the national anthems of all of the different nations represented, but Disney decided he needed one uniting song. Robert and Richard Sherman wrote the now-famous tune and that was that.

photo from feministJulie on Flickr

A couple of quick facts:
• The attraction debuted at the 1964-65 World’s Fair in New York.
• Major themes of the boat ride include Europe, Asia, Africa, Central/South America, South Pacific Islands, the Finale and the Good-bye Scene.
• Throughout your 10.5 minute boat ride, you’ll hear the repetitive song in Spanish, French, and Japanese, to name a few.

And now the changes: The changes are going to see the rainforest scene – a really detailed, colorful and innovative representation of Mary Blair’s artwork – replaced with a massive “Hooray for the U.S.A.” scene. Right now, the only American characters represented are a cowboy and an Eskimo. This might seem like the U.S. isn’t very well represented, but when you consider that the point of the ride is to explore other cultures, it makes sense.

Another big change is that Disney is going to stick its characters in scenes where they “belong”. So you might see the Hunchback of Notre Dame in the France section, Simba and Rafiki in the African section and Ariel with the gurgling mermaids at the beginning of the ride (at Disneyland, not Disneyworld). Commercialism at its worst, I guess. I get that it’s Disney and its bread and butter is its characters, but the original IASW was not designed to sell Disney product. Walt himself commissioned it with the idea of promoting global understanding, not global marketing.

photo from Re-Imagineering
I guess I’m torn – I can understand the need to update and improve the ride, but maybe not to the lengths they are going. Can’t they up the America factor by adding a few more characters instead of destroying an entire classic scene? And what about subtly putting Disney character references into the ride instead of the actual characters themselves, which won’t match the dolls in the rest of the ride? For instance, make one of the French dolls wear the simplistic blue-and-white Belle dress and carry a book. Give one of the mermaids red hair. I think it can be done in a way that doesn’t rip the integrity of the original design away.

What do you guys think? Horrible updates, or is Small World long overdue for some modernization?

They certainly don’t make alphabets like this anymore! The ‘A’ above is an excellent example of ornamental typography, as designed in 1730 by Mauro Poggi in his book ‘Alfabeto di Lettere Iniziali‘:

The capitals are elaborated with scrolls and flourishes and then inhabited by satyrs, mermaids, Medusa heads, birds, cats, dogs, snakes, and other creatures. The letters were designed by Poggi, drawn in ink by Andrea Bimbi, and engraved by Lorenzo Lorenzi.

BibliOdyssey has more (from Poggi and other 18th century designers) : Link

Can a woman’s hair really support a man’s weight, as in the story of Rapunzel? Can a carpet ever fly? And how would you steal someone’s voice, like Ursula does in The Little Mermaid? It turns out that some of that magical stuff is actually possible -except for that “happily ever after” part, of course. Link -via Bad Astronomy Blog, where you’ll find some more suggestions for this topic.

One could lose hours gazing at the various fantastic collections of vintage medical equipments at one of my favorite websites: Phisick Medical Antiques.

We’ve featured the website before (in one of few first What is it? games, actually), but I just have to share with you their neat collection of ear trumpets and horns.

The one to the left is the Grand Opera Dome Ear Trumpet by Rein, an ornately detailed 19th century silver plated ear trumpet. The Queen Conch shell was said to be the musical instruments of mermaids, though it’s not clear whether the piece was functional or just meant to be a conversation piece!

Link

You can buy it here. And you can find more of my Etsy finds here.

Also, I know some people were disappointed that the Mermaid t-shirt I mentioned last week sold out. There’s another one on sale here.

Available for purchase at Etsy (one in stock as of this moment). You can see more of my Etsy finds here, and more t-shirt finds here. And here’s more Mermaid posts.

Link to LifeLeak Video

Shiloh Pepin of Kennebunkport, Maine was born with Sirenomelia or Mermaid Syndrome. The condition is as rare as conjoined twins and results in the congenital deformity of lower limb fusion. The condition is usually fatal due to abnormal kidney and bladder and development function.

Shiloh is one of only three persons living with the condition. She triumphs over what others would consider a debilitating handicap with a spirit as enchanting as the mythical creature her condition is named after.

Update: Shiloh requires a second kidney transplant and the family is accepting Paypal donations through their official website.

Link

In the comments for the item about “basketball girl” Qian Hongyan, who is training to be a competitive swimmer, some people speculated about the possibility of swimming prosthetics, so this item really caught my eye.

Double amputee swimmer Nadya Vessey of New Zealand will soon test a prosthetic mermaid fin designed to help propel her through the water. The article says the tail was designed by “the same special effects team behind blockbuster Lord of the Rings and King Kong,” which has to be Weta Workshop {wiki}.

Link -via Gorilla Mask

Photo: Eriko N. Bond

That’s Takeshi Yamada in front of his 6-feet long Fiji Mermaid, a creative taxidermy project shown at the Sideshow Gallery in Brooklyn, New York in 2006:

I was particularly inspired by the series of artworks on display at the circus sideshow tents, which are called “gaffs”. “Gaffs” are man-made objects simulating artifacts of wonder and oddities (some are completely fictional, such as “Fiji Mermaid” and “Jackalope”), with details great enough to fool the eyes and mind of the audience as real things at the circus sideshow tents behind the vividly painted large banners.

More on Takeshi Yamada’s creative taxidermy art (he created over 250 gaffs, including the Fiji Mermaid, Jackalope, and Chupacabra): Link

James Joyce [wiki] was nearly always seen wearing an eye patch, which was not mere accessorizing: He suffered from glaucoma throughout adulthood and eventually went completely blind. In fact, he dictated much of his latest book, Finnegans Wake, to his research assistant, Samuel Waiting for Godot Beckett.

But Joyce sometimes wore five wristwatches on one arm, which was mere eccentric accessorizing. He also asked his wife, Nora Barnacle, to sleep with another man so he could understand the feeling of being cuckolded, which seems a bit odd. (Nora declined.)

***

Nineteenth-century French poet Charles-Pierre Baudelaire [wiki], who besides being quirky was addicted to opium, once famously wrote, "If you would not be the martyred slave of time, / Get drunk! …" He wasn’t kidding about making the most of his time: In his house he kept a clock with no hands that bore the inscription "It’s later than you think." Incidentally, the positively batty Baudelaire also happened to own a pet bat, which he’d captured at (where else?) a graveyard.

***

Charles Dickens [wiki] could not sleep unless his bed was aligned in a north-south position. Also, he habitually touched certain objects three times "for luck."

***

When he was 29, George Bernard Shaw [wiki] lost his virginity to a widow 15 years his senior. Apparently it wasn’t all that good, because thereafter Shaw rarely, if ever, had intimate physical relationships – not even with his wife, to whom he was married for 45 years.

***

Although Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie [wiki] did not like the taste of brussels sprouts (as would befit a boy who never grew up), he often ordered them at restaurants. Why? "I cannot resist ordering them. The words are so lovely to say."

***

"Little Mermaids" and "Thumbelina" author Hans Christian Andersen [wiki] was so intensely afraid of being buried alive that he left a note by his bed each night that read, "I only appear to be dead." Andersen was right to feel anxiety around sleeping, incidentally: In 1875, he died as a result of injuries sustained falling out of bed.

***

Although Emily Dickinson [wiki] was not quite the utter recluse that she is often made out to be, she was unquestionably eccentric: She wore white from head to toe, exclusively, for the last several years of her life.

______

From mental_floss’ book Scatterbrained, published in Neatorama with permission.

Be sure to visit mental_floss‘ extremely entertaining website and blog!

Cincinnati and Seattle have the Pigs, Norfolk has the Mermaids, many cities have the Cows, …. New Braunfels has Giant Steins! Check out these humorous, artsy, giant steins: Link

Minchi’s a japanese artist who draws – as you can already see – interesting artwork. Link