Buck LeClere, Gold Prospector

He spent 61 years searching for gold in Ouray, Colorado, slowly digging a tunnel further and further into the mountainside, until he died in 1947, never having found any gold.

Knoxville Journal - Apr 27, 1947

His efforts sound Sisyphean:

Wilmington Morning Star - Apr 27, 1947

Posted By: Alex - Wed Mar 12, 2025 - Comments (3)
Category: Eccentrics | Mining

Pope Pius IX and His Evil Eye

The Wikipedia page for the phenomenon known as the Evil Eye mentions:

The wielder of the evil eye, called the jettatore, is described as having a striking facial appearance, high arching brows with a stark stare that leaps from his eyes. He often has a reputation for clandestine involvement with dark powers and is the object of gossip about dealings in magic and other forbidden practices. Successful men having tremendous personal magnetism quickly gain notoriety as jettatori. Pope Pius IX [1846-1878] was dreaded for his evil eye, and a whole cycle of stories about the disasters that happened in his wake were current in Rome during the latter decades of the 19th century.

Could this be true? Well, we learn elsewhere...




And in this volume, we learn:

Posted By: Paul - Wed Mar 12, 2025 - Comments (0)
Category: Death | Religion | Supernatural, Occult, Paranormal | Europe | Nineteenth Century

Reality Alternate, or the Expandaverse

In Nov 2015, Daniel H. Abelow was granted US Patent 9,183,560 for what he called "Reality Alternate." This was "a reality alternative to our physical reality, named the Expandaverse, that includes multiple digital realities that may be continuously created, broadcast, accessed, and used interactively."

I have no idea what he meant by this, or how he obtained the patent. His patent runs to 701 pages, including over 300 pages of cryptic diagrams detailing things such as "Discontinuous Stages of History and Consciousness" and "Stages and Cycles of Discontinuous Evolution."

Some research reveals that Abelow was associated with a patent-trolling company called Lodsys, LLC that sued companies such as Canon, Hewlett Packard, and Motorola for patent infringement.

Perhaps the "Reality Alternate" patent was an attempt to create a patent so broad and open-ended that it would allow Abelow (via Lodsys) to sue pretty much anyone for patent infringement.

Posted By: Alex - Tue Mar 11, 2025 - Comments (2)
Category: Patents | 2010s

Unauthorized Dwellings 35

The Wikipedia entry on Harshaw, AZ, explains:

In 1963, Harshaw ran afoul of the U.S. Forest Service. By this time, the town housed about 70 inhabitants, and consisted mostly of collapsed buildings, abandoned cars, and run down shacks. The only well-maintained structures in town were the Roman Catholic Church, and a small school.[6][16] The borders of the Coronado National Forest, established on July 1, 1953,[5] included the town of Harshaw, and because most of the residents never actually gained titles to their land, which could have been done starting in the 1880s, the government's property included the town.[29] Because no titles existed, and the land was then owned by the federal government, the residents were labeled as squatters. Further, once the National Forest was formed, obtaining titles to the land was no longer an option. Harshaw's rundown landscape proved to be an irritant to the Forest Service who, in 1963, tried to work with the residents to facilitate a plan to relocate the remaining families and clean up the town site.[6][16] The relocation efforts were not successful, however, as a few residents remained in Harshaw at least into the 1970s.[2]

Posted By: Paul - Tue Mar 11, 2025 - Comments (1)
Category: Regionalism | Unauthorized Dwellings | Ruins and Other Abandoned or Shuttered Structures | Nineteenth Century | Twentieth Century

One-Legged Jeans

Luxury brand Coperni is selling one-legged jeans for $440. Or was selling them. They're temporarily sold out.



The brand Blikvanger also sells one-legged jeans, and theirs go for only $433. So a $7 savings. Plus, they have the opposite leg missing. Combine together the Coperni and Blikvanger jeans and you'd have both legs.

Posted By: Alex - Mon Mar 10, 2025 - Comments (3)
Category: Denim

Glass Houses

Some real far-out, bad trip, weird scene, jive-talking, heavy raps in this anti-drug PSA.

Posted By: Paul - Mon Mar 10, 2025 - Comments (0)
Category: Drugs | PSA’s | 1970s

Shirt by Dries Depoorter

About a year ago, Belgian artist Dries Depoorter began selling black t-shirts. They have the word 'shirt' embroidered on the front, followed by a number. The number indicates the order number. So the first shirt he sold had number 0001. The second was 0002, etc.

The gimmick is that he sold the first shirt for 1 euro, but the price increased by one euro with each successive order. Within a week he was at shirt 0172, so it looked like he was doing pretty well.

Now, a year later, a new shirt will cost you 185 euros. This suggests he hasn't had many sales in the past year.

More info: driesdepoorter.be

Posted By: Alex - Sun Mar 09, 2025 - Comments (0)
Category: Art | Fashion | Overpriced Merchandise

Freakish Accidents No. 2

Posted By: Paul - Sun Mar 09, 2025 - Comments (0)
Category: Nature | Surgery | 1950s

Heidi Fleiss Macaw Sanctuary

Recently, after spending a day taking in the sights at Death Valley National Park, my wife and I spent a night in Pahrump, Nevada... Pahrump being the closest place where we could find reasonably priced accommodation. While there, I was looking at Google Maps, trying to find somewhere to eat dinner, when I noticed that our rental was only a few blocks away from the Heidi Fleiss Macaw Sanctuary.

I wondered if that was the same Heidi Fleiss who gained fame/infamy in the 1990s as the "Hollywood Madam." Some googling revealed that it was. Fleiss now describes herself as "a retired Hollywood Madam turned active Macaw patroness."

image source: google maps

Google maps showed opening hours for the macaw sanctuary, which led me to believe that it must be open to the public. So the next morning we drove over to check it out.

Turns out it's definitely not open to the public. As you drive up you're greeted by several very large "KEEP OUT" signs, so we turned around and drove away. Though we were able to see a macaw on the property, sitting on top of a trellis.

I'm guessing that Fleiss must initially have intended to make her macaw sanctuary open to the public, but after several of her macaws were shot, she's decided to keep it private.

More info: wikipedia, Daily Mail ("an intimate glimpse inside her remote $1 MILLION 'bird house' in the Nevada desert")

Posted By: Alex - Sat Mar 08, 2025 - Comments (0)
Category: Animals | Birds | Celebrities

Miss Paper Cup

Posted By: Paul - Sat Mar 08, 2025 - Comments (1)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues | Contests, Races and Other Competitions | 1950s