Conducted under the auspices of the famous and fabulous United House of Prayer for All People, whose founder was "Sweet Daddy Grace," as depicted below.
I heartily endorse any institution whose leaders inherit the title of "Sweet Daddy."
On July 4, 1935, Dr. Walter G. Kendall, 81, drank a glass of water. It was the first glass of water he had drunk in 25 years. He reportedly "suffered no ill effects," and followed it by several cocktails.
In addition to being famous for abstaining from water, Kendall was also a well-known dentist, bicyclist, and horticulturalist. That's him in the pictures below. [image source: here and here]
In 1939, Kent Knowlton of Randsburg, CA, assembled a curious meal of petrified food for his amusement and that of others.
We have a record that it was still being exhibited a year later. Then, the "Original Rock Dinner" vanishes from history--until this very year!
An article on the "ghost town" of Randsburg features what appears to be a photo of the petrified food, nearly 75 years after its debut. I'd recognize that "cauliflower" anywhere!
The YouTube user who goes by the handle "Mr. Teenagedreams" has nearly 2000 rare TEEN AND WHITE DOO-WOP videos up at his channel. Some of them are delightfully weird and demented, but all are utterly captivating glimpses of a strange and remote, now vanished era.
Even in this current age of celebrity chefs, no one has thought to impersonate a foreign Rajah in order to attract publicity for his restaurant, like "Prince Ranjit" did a century ago.
I'm always fascinated by scientists who are also bonkers about the supernatural. Even Isaac Newton dabbled in the occult, which was more understandable for his era.
But here's a twentieth-century fellow who led such a double life: Edgar Lucien Larkin.
I'm sure you will want to read all 366 pages of his masterwork to be found here.
Category: Art, Avant Garde, Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Eccentrics