Old is the New New

“The definitive token of worth, money is intrinsically worthless.” Nice little article on hobo nickels.

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With a title like that, you know I’m linking to this post: how a 19th century suicide song migrated from Leadbelly to the Bristol Rovers.

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“The Titanic sinking, the Galveston flood, John Henry driving steel … This was the news that I considered, followed and kept tabs on.”

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Martyn at Old Roads: “There is always an ‘old, weird [insert nation here]’ history waiting to be written.” Old, weird France. Ancient, mysterious Germany. Old, weird Uganda?

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A land of “giants, cannibals and sexually insatiable females…” The Library of Congress unveils its $10M treasure: the map that named America.

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Ben Franklin’s ghost tapped John Murray Spear to build an electrical messiah and save the world. Who was using who?

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The Believer on “the visual erotics of mini-marriages”–staged weddings, that is, between children, stuffed kittens, dwarfs, and other small things.

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The posthumous adventures of Benjamin Franklin.

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Actionable Offenses, a collection of indecent and illegal phonograph recordings from the 1890s, recovered from the Edison Archives and now available on CD. (Edit: I scooped the New York Times!)

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In which our hero goes looking for the roots of roleplaying games, and finds the Lost Tribe of Israel instead.

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IM N UR COLONY GOIN 2 CR0T04N!!! The original old, weird America.

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The Wichita, Kansas Public Library in 1952 was probably the last place on Earth you’d expect to get your mind blown.

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Both the phrase and the spooky world of semi-buried Americana it denotes are having their Elvis moment.

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Technology and democracy in the golden age of the American eccentric.

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What Batman, beefcake, birth control, and bootleg liquor have in common. Plus: Spicy Man!

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