Category:
Books

New Trends in Table Settings

By Lucy Staley from Hearthside Press. 1968.

This is the book to get you up to speed on the exciting art of table setting. From the review in The Bradenton Herald (Dec 22, 1968):

It seems almost impossible that such a wealth of information covering all aspects of table-setting has been condensed in this one book. The novice who usually pales at such terms as balance, dominance, rhythm, proportion, etc. can relax — it's all here but in a manner easily understood.

You can get it on loan from archive.org.



"Table for a Hawaiian luau"



"Easter dessert table"



"Strutting cocks from Spain frame an arangement in a basket"

Posted By: Alex - Mon Aug 30, 2021 - Comments (0)
Category: Boredom, Kitsch and Collectibles, Books

Who’s Nobody in America

Back in 1979, when being in Who's Who still had some kind of cultural cachet, Derek Evans and Dave Fulwiler decided to create an anti-Who's-Who, which they called "Who's Nobody in America." To acquire entries, they placed the following ad in newspapers:

AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE TO NOBODY

Will your name be omitted from the 1980 edition of Who's Who?

Nobody Press is currently compiling the 1980 edition of Who's Nobody in America. This handsomely bound and widely distributed reference work will, for the first time, provide a comprehensive list of American nobodies.

If you think you might be a nobody, or know of one, at no cost or obligation, complete the attached request for applications."

Applicants included:
  • A woman who complained she had been seeing her psychiatrist monthly for eight years and he often called her Evelyn. Her name was Mildred.
  • An entire American Legion post in Newport, Ky.

More info: Washington Post



Posted By: Alex - Sat Aug 28, 2021 - Comments (1)
Category: Clubs, Fraternities and Other Self-selecting Organizations, Success & Failure, Books, Satire

The Power of Prayer on Plants

According to the Rev. Franklin Loehr, prayer could supercharge the growth of plants. Pretty much any prayer would work. He detailed his argument in his 1959 book The Power of Prayer on Plants.

When Richard Nixon was told of Loehr's results, he reportedly said, "That sounds like a good kind of thinking to me."

However, in 1961, a group of Harvard students tried to replicate Loehr's results and failed to do so. In fact, in their experiment the plants that weren't prayed for at all grew better than plants that were prayed for by either skeptics or believers.



More details from Newsweek (Apr 13, 1959):

Prayer Food

Can prayer make plants grow faster and bigger? Skeptics think it laughable, scientists find it irrelevant, and farmers tend to rely on more mundane methods to increase their crops. But the Rev. Franklin Loehr is convinced that the answer is yes, and has just written a book, "The Power of Prayer on Plants," to tell why.

After five years and 900 experiments, the 46-year-old Presbyterian minister reports he and 150 members of his prayer group found that prayed-for wheat and corn seeds grew into bigger seedlings than ones which got no prayer or outright negative prayer. Commenting on their methods last week in his Los Angeles home, Mr. Loehr explained that they used every kin of prayer and found every one effective to a degree.

"There were silent and spoken prayers," he continued, "those to loved ones, and the humble prayer straight to God. But mostly people just talked to the plants, loved them, or scolded them. First I tried buddying up to them, and then I observed that the people getting better results were approaching the plants on their own level of consciousness."

Picking up a copy of the book, he pointed to the jacket, which shows a lone, stunted shoot on the no-prayer side of an experimental seedbed. "He wasn't supposed to be there," explained Mr. Loehr, "so we blighted him with three bursts of negative command."

Mr. Loehr dropped the experiments two years ago, having persuaded himself, at least, of their validity. He is now concentrating on "soul dynamics" prayer for people—not, of course, to make them grow faster and bigger. "The fact is," he concluded, "we used plants to test prayer just as the artificial heart is tested in dogs instead of humans."



Along similar lines, see our previous post "Does holy water help radishes grow better?"

Posted By: Alex - Fri Aug 06, 2021 - Comments (2)
Category: Religion, Experiments, Books, 1950s

Octogenarian Teetotalers

Published by the National Temperance League of London in 1897. It contained 113 portraits of teetotalers who were over the age of 80.

Unfortunately, there was no companion volume of Octogenarian Tipplers.



image source: Bizarre Books

Posted By: Alex - Thu Jul 29, 2021 - Comments (2)
Category: Elderly and Seniors, Inebriation and Intoxicants, Books

A Dummy Goes to Africa

Unfortunately, the book is not digitized, and original copies go for big bucks. But you can see more pics and read an account of the tale at the link.



Posted By: Paul - Wed Jul 21, 2021 - Comments (0)
Category: Puppets and Automatons, Religion, Books, 1960s, Africa

Fifty Years in the Magic Circle

Life for a Victorian magician wasn't always easy, with the audience using live ammunition.

Read the whole thing here.









Posted By: Paul - Sat Jul 17, 2021 - Comments (0)
Category: Magic and Illusions and Sleight of Hand, Books, Nineteenth Century

Banvard’s Folly

I am halfway thru reading this book and can testify to its greatness, and to its allure for all WU-vies. I have already learned about so many hoaxes, weirdos and charlatans I never knew about before.

Here's how the book opens:




Posted By: Paul - Thu Jul 01, 2021 - Comments (8)
Category: Frauds, Cons and Scams, History, Historical Figure, Hoaxes and Imposters and Imitators, Inventions, New Age, Supernatural, Occult, Paranormal, Books, Goofs and Screw-ups

The Boy Fancier

Published in 1912, the title of this book really hasn't aged well. Although even in 1912 I imagine the title could easily have been misconstrued.

Looking up the word 'fancier' in the dictionary, I found that it means: "a connoisseur or enthusiast of something, especially someone who has a special interest in or breeds a particular animal." I hadn't known that the word had this association with animal breeding.

Nature offered this review of the book:

FROM his professional training as a member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, the author of this well-illustrated volume is thoroughly qualified to give sound and trustworthy information with regard to the general care, feeding, and treatment in illness of animals kept as pets, or, like poultry and goats, reared for profit. And although the work before us is primarily intended for the benefit of young persons, it will be found equally valuable for those of more mature age, who, for purposes of pleasure or profit—or both combined—devote their attention to the keeping and rearing of dogs, cats, goats, guinea-pigs, rabbits, squirrels, poultry, pigeons, cage-birds, &c.

Posted By: Alex - Wed May 26, 2021 - Comments (5)
Category: Animals, Books, 1910s

Profit in Potato-Digging

Undated. I'm guessing it's late 19th Century. From OddBook.ca:

A small well-produced agricultural sales brochure for the Acme Potato Digging Attachment of the Potato Implement Co. of Traverse Mich.

Maybe I should give up this blogging gig and start digging potatoes!



Posted By: Alex - Thu Apr 01, 2021 - Comments (2)
Category: Self-help Schemes, Books, Vegetables, Nineteenth Century

The Wicked Bible

An edition of the Bible printed in 1631 came to be known as the 'Wicked Bible' because it omitted one, important word — the word 'not' from the seventh commandment. This made the commandment read, 'Thou shalt commit adultery'. More details from The Guardian:

One thousand copies of the text, which also came to be known as the Adulterous or Sinners’ Bible, were printed, with the printing error only discovered a year later. When it was uncovered, the printers Robert Barker and Martin Lucas were summoned by order of Charles I to court, and found guilty. They were also fined £300, and their printing licence removed, with the entire print run of the offending text called in, and the majority destroyed.


There's still debate about whether the omission was accidental, purposeful, or sabotage.

Only ten copies of the Wicked Bible are known to exist today. The current going price for one is around $100,000.

More info: wikipedia

Posted By: Alex - Sat Mar 13, 2021 - Comments (10)
Category: Religion, Books, Seventeenth Century

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Who We Are
Alex Boese
Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes.

Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.

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