Have you ever heard of a tussie-mussie? Spellcheck certainly hasn’t. Before cities had adequate fresh water and sewers, when horses filled the roads, the air was full of the foul smells of body odor and worse. A tussie-mussie was a fancy container that 18th- and 19th-century ladies could carry sweet-smelling flowers in to fight the ambient stench. Collector Irene Deitsch, who wrote Tussie-Mussies: A Collector’s Guide to Victorian Posy Holders, tells us about them.     

In her book, Deitsch organizes her tussie-mussies by their materials—sterling silver, silverplate, gold, ivory, glass, porcelain, mother-of-pearl, straw—as well as their styles—handheld vs. lapel pin, bosom bottle vs. three-legged tripod. While some of these objects may be admired for their beautiful enameling or intricate etching, many are also windows into the courtship customs of privileged young ladies during the Victorian Era, particularly in England. “Some have flirting mirrors on them,” Deitsch says, “so a young women carrying a tussie-mussie could see who was behind her.” Others sport small flat surfaces holding thin sheets of ivory, upon which the names of gentlemen desiring a dance would be written.

Learn more about tussie-mussies and how they were used, and see a gallery of lovely examples, at Collectors Weekly.

"Maybe I am a mess. Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I'm out of my mind! But, God help me, I will keep these lights up until the day I die if I think there's a chance that Will's still out there!" #strangerthings #dragoncon2016 #strangerthingscosplay

A photo posted by Ingrid Tjahyadi (@happyingli) on Sep 4, 2016 at 9:20am PDT

The most topical costumes for Halloween 2016 include the presidential election, Harambe, Suicide Squad, and Stranger Things. The Netflix show has several characters you could portray but the most iconic image from the series is the wall of lights. The costume above was spotted at Dragon Con. It’s the most elaborate of the many Stranger Things wall costumes in a list at Buzzfeed. The others would be much easier to pull off.

(YouTube link)

When any TV show ends a successful run, the suits behind it salivate over the thought of a spin-off show. People like the characters, so why not re-use them? Those spin-off shows can be big hits or disappear quickly. And there are even more proposed spin-offs that never happened for one reason or another. Those reasons can be fascinating, as we learn on this this week’s episode of the mental_floss List Show.

We enjoy our hi-tech world until something goes wrong, then you wish things were built just a bit simpler. For example, it’s nice to push a button to roll down the car window until it stops working. Once upon a time, you could remove the door panel, see what the problem is, and fix it. You didn’t even have to know auto mechanics to do that, but back then parents taught their kids how to fix their own cars anyway. It’s useless these days, since so many parts of an automobile are controlled by computers. A story about a British tea drinker follows the same line.

Mark Rittman is a data specialist and no stranger to tech. He has a new wifi-enabled tea kettle, and set about brewing a cup at 9 AM yesterday. Three hours later, it still wasn’t working.

A key problem seemed to be that Rittman’s kettle didn’t come with software that would easily allow integration with other devices in his home, including Amazon Echo, which, like Apple’s Siri, allows users to tell connected smart devices what to do.

So Rittman was trying to build the integration functionality himself.

All that is completely over my head, but Rittman kept working on it, sharing every step on Twitter. Every time he solved one problem, another would pop up. Eleven hours later, he finally got his first cup of tea of the day.

My work is done. And now onto everything else I meant to do today, after that first cup of tea. pic.twitter.com/bJPuJ85TCT

— Mark Rittman (@markrittman) October 11, 2016

Commenters who followed the story on Twitter wondered why Rittman didn’t return the kettle to the store, which would have taken much less time. Hey, it was a challenge for the tech guy, and made a great (if long) story in the end. Read the short version at the Guardian. Or you can see the long string of Tweets that chronicled Rittman’s day, although he says he will condense the story on his blog, once he gets caught up on everything else he didn’t do yesterday. -via Metafilter

Update: Rittman's account of the tea kettle saga is up at his blog.

After fame in The New Yorker comics and 1960’s TV, the creepy, kooky Addams Family went to the big screen in 1991. A new generation got to know The Addams Family. The casting of Raoul Julia, Angelica Huston, and Christopher Lloyd was inspired. But was Lloyd’s character Uncle Fester really an Addams? That question fueled the plot, and changed during the production.

8. THERE WAS AN ACTOR REBELLION, LED BY 10-YEAR-OLD CHRISTINA RICCI.

The actors were concerned about the ambiguity of the big Fester storyline in the script. Initially, it was going to be unknown if Gordon, the man suffering from memory loss that looked just like Uncle Fester, was actually Fester. The actors nominated Wednesday Addams herself, Christina Ricci, to give an impassioned plea to [producer Scott] Rudin and [director Barry] Sonnenfeld two weeks before shooting that Fester should not be an imposter. Sonnenfeld remembered that the only actor to not care was Christopher Lloyd, the man playing Fester.

10. HUSTON HAD TO GO THROUGH A LOT TO GET INTO CHARACTER.

''Morticia has a shape only a cartoonist can draw,'' Sonnenfeld told Entertainment Weekly, ''so we lashed Anjelica into a metal corset that created this hips-and-waist thing I've never seen any woman have in reality.'' The role also required Huston to get gauze eye lifts, neck tucks, and fake nails daily. ''Come afternoon, I could be prone to a really good headache from my various bondages,'' she told EW. ''And because I couldn't lie down (in the corset) or rest, it was fairly exhausting.''

Read more of what went into the production of The Addams Family at mental_floss. 

Have you ever noticed all the birds in the Alfred Hitchcock movie Psycho? Sure, when they mention them, but if you start looking, there are way more than you first realized. And the placement of every one of them is significant. Mind blown.

(YouTube link)

Hitchcock was really big on framing and designing each shot, as well as symbolism and foreshadowing. It’s possible I overlooked the presence of so many birds because I saw the 1963 movie The Birds before Psycho. ScreenPrism sets that right with a closeup on all those creepy birds. -via Digg

The horror of potatoes! Watch the trailer for the film Peeled: The Potato Resurrection. While the premise is silly, there are moments of real terror.

(YouTube link)

Of course, after you’ve seen Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, you’ll believe anything can be made into a movie. I actually checked IMDb to make sure this wasn’t a feature film. It’s a horror film parody trailer, written and produced by Katrina Naficy (who also stars) and directed and edited by Nick Massey. Well done, just like my potatoes. My apologies if YouTube makes you watch a real trailer before the potato trailer. -via Laughing Squid

Before Christian Bale was Batman, he was Bateman, the psychopath in the 2000 movie American Psycho. He’s attractive, wealthy, and smart, but it doesn’t take long to see that he’s the kind of person you’d want to avoid at all costs. The movie makes you wonder about everyone around you. It was a horror/comedy/satire that thrilled and confused the audience. If you liked the movie, you’ll want to learn some of the things that went on behind the scenes.

Christian Bale based his performance of Patrick Bateman off of a 1993 Interview that Tom Cruise did on The Late Show with David Letterman. Bale said that he saw “this very intense friendliness with nothing behind the eyes.”

Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt, Ewan McGregor, and Leonardo DiCaprio were all set to play Bateman before Christian Bale took the part.

Christian improvised his little dance that he does when he starts playing “Hip to be square.” Director Mary Harron said that she “collapsed in laughter” when he caught her off guard with the moves.

Read the rest of the 30 facts about American Psycho at Unreality.

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.

Quite possibly, along with The Wizard of Oz, it is the single most beloved film of all-time. This American classic is the first color film to win a Best Picture Academy Award (1939). Okay, let's take a look at a few lesser-known facts about the immortal film Gone With The Wind.

1. Despite the fantasies so many women have about getting kissed by Clark Gable, actress Vivien Leigh did not actually enjoy kissing Gable. She claimed his dentures smelled bad.

2. The smokingest leads in movie history? Vivien Leigh smoked four packs of cigarettes during the filming of GWTW. And Clark Gable was a lifelong three pack-a-day smoker. That's seven packs of smokes a day- that's a lot of nicotine (cough cough hack hack)!

3. In one of the biggest "cattle calls" in Hollywood history, over 1,400 actresses were considered for the female lead role of Scarlett O’Hara. Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Jean Arthur, Lana Turner, Barbara Stanwyck, Claudette Colbert, Susan Hayward, Katharine Hepburn, and Lucille Ball (!!!) were all in the running. Another candidate was Carole Lombard, the real-life great love of Clark Gable's life. Tallulah Bankhead, a real-life southern belle, was actually a major front-runner, but her unsavory personal life made producers reluctant to cast her as Scarlett.

4. Although 1,400 actresses were considered for the role, only 400 were given actual readings. Of the screen tests, only Vivien Leigh and Paulette Goddard were given their tests in color.

We’ve had several articles about strange creatures described by explorers, often from accounts handed down instead of direct observation, and illustrated by artists who never saw the real thing. A tale that was a bit easier for people of the times to understand was that of the Cynocephali, a term meaning humans with the heads of dogs. This particular description of unknown groups of people came from all over the world, over a period of thousands of years.

In around 400 BC, the Greek physician Ctesias wrote an intriguing and detailed account of the Cynocephali of the mountains of India, which was at the time known as Indica. In his account he describes a tribe of people with the heads of dogs, who used a series of barks and snarls to communicate, although they could understand the language of humans, and who subsisted on raw meat. They were said to have teeth that were longer than those of dog’s, as well as nails that were long, curved and rounded. The tribe is reported to have lived by hunting, roasting their kills in the sun, as well as raising flocks of sheep and goats. They are also told of being fond of the fruit of the Siptakhora, and were known to cultivate this fruit for the purposes of trading it for bread, flour, and cotton, as well as swords, spears, bows and arrows.

Such people were also described hundreds of years later by Alexander the Great, Marco Polo, and even Christopher Columbus, although they may have just passed along legends they heard. Artists illustrated these tales along the way. Read about the Cynocephali through history at Mysterious Universe. -via Boing Boing

Sarah was at PetSmart in Raleigh, North Carolina, a few days ago. Banfield Veterinary Hospital was also there with pets to adopt at the same time. One of them was this tiny kitten, who was picked up during the rains that hurricane Matthew brought to the region. Someone made him a tiny little sweater to keep him warm -out of a sock! It certainly flatters him.

Sarah considered adopting him, but a family with children snapped him up immediately. He and his sweater went to a nice warm home. You can read her account of the kitten in several images of text at Twitter. -via Buzzfeed

(Images by Sarahfu via Twitter)

Coyote Petersen (previously at Neatorama) says he doesn’t want to wiggle his fingers, and then wiggles his fingers to illustrate. This video is full of contradictions. He goes to the Steve Kroschel Wilderness Center in Haines, Alaska, to interact with an animal that was raised in captivity. The short-tail weasel is supposed to be a terribly ferocious animal, yet it is tiny and adorable and avoids human contact.

(YouTube link)

In this episode of the web series Breaking Trail, Peterson acts as if a weasel will rip his flesh, but the cutesy music tones down the sense of danger. It’s easy to be startled by the jumpy little creature, though, especially once you’ve heard its reputation! -via Laughing Squid

In the past, you may have known Trumpkin as a character in The Chronicles of Narnia. It’s lately come to be a term for Trump supporters. But this is Halloween season, so get ready to see plenty of Trumpkins, meaning pumpkins carved to resemble Donald Trump. Yan from Geeks Are Sexy saw the Trumpkin above at the Montreal Botanical Garden yesterday. Here’s another view of it from Redheadwithoutacause.

It’s not the only one. Redditor xMeta4x posted this one.

The idea is not all that new.

There are plenty of problems associated with space travel and exploration, but there are also many minds working hard to solve those problems. Every day, NASA and its partners (which include many universities and corporations) are coming up with innovative ways to do what we want to do -and now, so are private space exploration companies. For example, we may soon be able to see much farther into the past than every before with NIRCam.

NIRCam stands for Near Infrared Camera, which refers to a collaboration between Lockheed Martin and the University of Arizona to come up with an instrument capable of capturing images from billions and billions of years ago. While this can sound rather unbelievable, it is important to remember that heat was being generated throughout the universe at the time, which in turn, meant light shooting off in countless directions from countless places.

Combined with the limited speed of light as well as the continuing expansion of the universe, this meant that it is still possible to capture images from billions and billions of years ago so long as a camera is sensitive enough to pick up on that light as well as shielded from other light that can obstruct it from performing its intended function. Should the NIRCam prove to be a success, it could provide scientists with an incredible amount of information about the early universe, which remains one of the most mysterious and thus one of the most interesting periods known to us.

But that’s just the beginning. Read about other space exploration technologies you might not be familiar with at Money Inc.

100s of cars trapped flooded underground car pk. Some crushed by sodden insulation raising road by 6ft.@LondonFire pic.twitter.com/VklcvHEU6A

— Paul Wood (@PaulWood1961) October 9, 2016

A broken 24-inch water main caused flooding in the Crayford neighborhood of southeast London in Sunday. While thousands of homes were without water service, the streets were flooded. An underground parking garage took on so much water that a floor expanded and rose several feet-  far enough to crush cars against the ceiling!

A number of vehicles crumpled after polystyrene insulation under the floor appeared to float or swell, forcing them into the concrete ceiling above.

Flood water rose several feet at the newly-built car park below a block of flats in Crayford, south-east London.

Residents said they had been warned if any of the cars were removed too hastily it could result in gas explosion.

No one was injured, but more than a dozen cars are thought to be affected, some badly enough to be considered totaled. Can anyone explain why a parking garage has several feet of polystyrene insulation in the floor while the ceiling is concrete? You can see a news report on the flood here. -via Arbroath