2014 – Page 3 – Museum of the Weird

Posted on October 10, 2014 by MOTW Admin

The Weird and Wonderful Sideshow Art of Fred G. Johnson

If you’ve been to The Museum of the Weird, and we hope by now if you’re reading our blog you’ve at least looked into it, you know we’re pretty into the aesthetic of the classic sideshow. The trick was always to come up with a bunch of freaky looking art with exaggerated claims and proportions to entice the marks, er, customers, into a tent or series of tents to see a whole series of ‘freaks’, curiosities, and performers for one price. Sideshow banners festoons the walls of The Museum of the Weird (by Mark Frierson) and we even have original art in the classic style for our exhibits that you can buy in postcard or poster form. But where did this style begin?

The lurid and colorful banners meant to draw in the unwary were the most prominent form of visual art found in circuses in the first half of the 20th century. In America, from the 1870’s to the end of the sideshow era in the 1960s, the banners were almost ubiquitous. First used in England during the 1800s they are the oldest surviving form of fairground decoration.

Recently the style has been re-examined as a form of folk art painting, being featured in publications such as Folk Art, Connoisseur, and Applied Arts Magazine. The original works have since entered the art world as a valuable collectible for enthusiasts for early folk art.

One of the most sought after sideshow banner creators was Fred G. Johnson who worked for 65 years creating banners for circuses from the tiny to huge, from small traveling shows to Ringling Brothers. Like most of these artists, he came from no traditional art background, having learned in his spare time from an artist he was doing odd jobs for. Now his works hang in major museums and have been auctioned off at Sotheby’s in New York. Quite a voyage for the work of a man who started out cleaning out paint pots.

Go check out a huge archive of his works at Cult of the Weird…

Posted on October 9, 2014 by MOTW Admin

Healer Licks Eyeballs to Cure Patients

There’s no shortage of ‘miracle healers’ out there. None are given much credence by the scientific community. As the American Cancer Society has stated, “available scientific evidence does not support claims that faith healing can actually cure physical ailments.” But that doesn’t stop folks who have been seeking miraculous cures from the blessed for centuries upon centuries. Generally speaking it’s referred to as ‘the laying on of hands’. But one woman in Bosnia lays on her tongue. On eyeballs.

Hava Cebic lives in a small village in northern Bosnia, is 77 years old, and folks come far and wide to have her lick their eyes. She claims she can cure about anything with her ‘golden tongue’, that she hopes will be preserved after her death (which probably isn’t that far away; she’s 77) to keep helping people.

When Hava was a little girl, she discovered she had the power to help when her brother complained of dry eyes, and jokingly she held them down and licked them. When he claimed he could see better after that, she knew she had a strange gift. Trying it with others (that would have been an interesting conversation to be a fly on the wall for) she found that her lick could cure allergies, dry and tired eyes, conjunctivitis, ocular hypertension and could even relieve the effects of other more serious eye conditions.

“Now, whenever anyone has something stuck in their eye or whatever, they come to me,” said Hava. “They come from different towns and villages and in a minute or two, their problem is solved. But I always make sure I wash my tongue in alcohol before or after an eye lick.”

Hava never asks for anything for her help but people give sizable donations anyway. But I gotta ask: if the cure is the tongue, why does it specifically only seem to work with eyes? Did she try licking other body parts? I’m not trying to be risque or anything, but seriously, even though the scientific method is clearly not involved in this situation, a little trial and error seems like it would have been called for. Still, it’s all kind yuck. I’d have some about of trepidation letting a 77 year old woman lick me anywhere much less my eyeballs. Just not my kind of kink.

Posted on October 6, 2014 by MOTW Admin

Budapest had a Smile Club to Stop People From Killing Themselves

Depression is a powerful thing. Those who deny, or go with the old chestnut, ‘why can’t you just decide to be happy?’ don’t really understand. I didn’t, for a long time. But it’s crippling for many and for the city of Budapest, Hungary, which was devastated by World War I, it was an epidemic that led to huge waves of suicide. But they came up with a really weird (and kinda freaky) solution: Smile Clubs.

According to a newspaper article at the time: “A “Smile Club” has been inaugurated to counteract the suicide craze it was originally begun more as a joke by Professor Jeno and a hypnotist named Binczo, but somehow it caught on. The organisers have now a regular school and guarantee to teach the Roosevelt smile, the Mona Liza smile, the Clark Gable smile, the Dick Powell smile, the Loretta Young Smile, and various other types, the rates varying according to the difficulties encountered. Jeno says the methods employed at his school, aided by better business conditions in Budapest are making smiling popular and before long it is hoped that the name of Budapest will be changed to the City of Smiles.

There actually has been numerous studies over the decades, even recently, that forced smiling can actually enhance someone’s mood, find comedy funnier, and the like. I can only guess that this was the impetus behind this plan that not only taught students how to give different kinds of smiles, but actually had them wear apparatus to either simulate a smile, as above, or force their faces into a smile using medical tape.

Yeah, that is creepy. And for the record, I think we all learned from The Joker, that it can have some nasty psychotic side effects as well. Although, you gotta admit, it’s not often you saw The Joker in a bad mood.

Posted on October 5, 2014 by MOTW Admin

We Will Live Forever…or at Least our Virtual Twins Will

I’m ready for immortality. Much to my girlfriend’s chagrin, I’ve publicly let it be known I’m willing to be put in a robot body, turned into a vampire, you know, whatever it takes. Well, except healthy eating and exercise, but I’m not a masochist, ya know? But now, the future is almost here, the Singularity, as famous futurist Ray Kurzweil has put it (who, btw, is now the Engineering Director for Google).

The idea behind the Singularity, is that the rapid and exponential increase in technology will lead to a snowball rolling downhill effect where Artificial Intelligence becomes more powerful and more in control than human intelligence causing a radical change in civilization…or the end of it. Skynet, anyone? I think we better start hard-wiring Issac Asimov’s laws of robotics into all our home computers now just to be safe.

I hate to say it, but I might just be one of those who lead to the downfall of everything. As I said, I’d like to live forever and I realize that’s probably not going to happen in this meat sack I wear around. So what’s the solution for those of us who don’t necessarily think consciousness when separated from our grey matter means the loss of the hypothetical ‘soul’? Virtuosity baby. And it all begins…REEEEEAL soon. At least according to futurist John Smart.

“When you and I die, our kids aren’t going to go to our tombstones, they’re going to fire up our digital twins and talk to them,” says Smart. These ‘digital twins’ will exist during our own lifetimes as well, scheduling appointments, carry on conversations with others for us…pretty much the next stage in personal assistant apps like Siri or Google Now. Only when we die, they’ll be designed to have incorporated so much of our personality, quirks, and knowledge into them, that they can console our bereaved loved ones. Hell, a supercomputer has now finally beaten a human chess Grandmaster at a championship, and IBM’s Watson supercomputer won on Jeopardy…baby.

Imagine the algorithms that can do these things, taking all our writings on a computer, all our likes and dislikes on fb, all our emails, tweets, games we like to play, running all this stuff through a program designed to simulate consciousness, and really, ya know, kinda…becoming us. It’s not even vaguely far-fetched anymore, and in fact, predictive technology has become the major thrust of the majority of software development.

This is the first (big) step towards Kurzweil’s prediction that in just over 30 years, humans will be able to upload their entire minds to computers and become digitally immortal. Like Johnny Depp in that movie “Transcendence” but hopefully more entertaining. Hmmm, 30 years huh? I might need to reexamine that whole healthy living thing to make that timeline.

Posted on October 4, 2014 by MOTW Admin

Woman Can Only Feel Free When She’s a Horse

I’m thinking we should really up the danger meter to Brony Defcon 2 (because Cloppers are already Defcon 3) because it’s only a matter of time before they hear about this story and start selling “My Little Pony” branded versions of this equipment. But who am I to judge this lady?

This is Leanne, a normal seeming enough, rather introverted, 40 year old woman from Australia who makes her living as a website designer. Like most people, she needs a way to unwind after a stressful day. Whereas yours truly makes do with a craft beer and a good flick. Leanne has more specific (and expensive) needs to truly feel relaxed. She becomes a horse. Named Shyanne. Erm.

Now Leanne isn’t a were-horse (although that’d be supah-cool). She owns multiple horse costumes, that cost between 8-16,000 dollars each, and pulls her friend behind her in a specially made carriage. “When I’m in the pony gear, I feel freer,” she said. “It’s about who you are, it’s about expressing yourself. I become me.” I wouldn’t even know how to respond to that. But Leanne says people react generally pretty well: “I think when the world looks at me as a pony, they see something that makes them think ‘Oh my God, that’s amazing.” Leanne, I think you might be mus-interpreting those looks.

To be fair, it’s not like she’s harming anyone or herself (aside from probably getting some weird calluses) and I see more harmful stuff people do to themselves almost every day that Leanne’s hobby. Sexologist and sociologist Dr. Carol Queen says about it, “It is very understandable that a shy person might love animal play,” said sexologist and sociologist Dr. Carol Queen. “Taking on a new identity or even just new garments can take you out of the cage of your own shyness. There’s something about the way she must feel in her pony finery with her mane and her tail and her ears and her beautiful bridle, the whole nine yards, that liberates her and gives her a more fabulous field in which to gallop.”

“For me, it’s spiritual,” Leanne says. “It’s a different realm. You’re not worried about bills, you’re not worried about going to work. I’m very introverted and I do express through being a pony girl. And that’s a wonderful place to be for somebody. That’s a great place to be.” If nothing else, I now feel less awkward about my nightly visits to downtown Austin as Batman. Thanks, Leanne. You keep on trotting.

Posted on October 3, 2014 by MOTW Admin

The Tick That Will Force You to Become a Vegetarian

The ironically named “Lone Star Tick” (because God knows, we love our red meat in Texas), scientifically named Amblyomma americanum, has a bite that can make its victim deathly allergic to red meats…for life. Don’t laugh….as a Texan I can tell you we need to declare war on these pests RIGHT NOW.

Like most ticks, this bug, local to the southeastern United States and the eastern half of Texas, carries any number of nasty diseases with it, but it’s this substance it carries called alpha-gal, a carbohydrate found in non-primate mammals. We digest this carbohydrate all the time with no problem with digestion, but when it enters the bloodstream via the tick, our body freaks the heck out. Antibodies are created to protect against it and they stay in the system. So what happens is, the next time you ingest meat from a mammal…wham, pow…extreme allergic reaction. And to make it worse, in some cases, the reaction gets worse in each case where the person infected is exposed to alpha-gals.

The allergic reactions that have been recorded vary greatly, but have been found to in some cases be dangerous, even fatal. From an article published in Science Daily: “The allergy can cause hives and swelling, as well as broader symptoms of anaphylaxis including vomiting, diarrhea, trouble breathing, and a drop in blood pressure. Persons with the allergy can go into a delayed anaphylactic shock four-six hours after eating red meat.” Doctors advise that if you are infected, carry an EPI pen just in case. But that’s about all they know what to do because this condition, according to what we known about food-based allergies, shouldn’t even exist in the first place. Most allergies are protein based and alpha-gal is a sugar, making it the ONLY sugar-based allergy known.

The real fear for me? That some crazy folks from PETA will make a tick bomb or something and let it loose on the streets of Austin. I mean, you can still eat fish or chicken, but I do like a tasty burger. I wonder what vegetarian terrorist tastes like?

Posted on October 2, 2014 by MOTW Admin

Chow Down on a Burger That Tastes Like Human Meat

You gotta ask yourself: how bad-ass do you want your Walking Dead premiere party to be? How far are you willing to go? Would you serve human flesh canapes? Then you should be arrested, but a collaboration between chefs in London have created a burger that has been carefully engineered to taste like human being.

Studying the testimonies of famous cannibals. the expert chefs designed a patty that might taste like, in the words of journalist William Seabrook (who’ve actually has had it): “…good, fully developed veal, not young, but not yet beef. It was very definitely like that, and it was not like any other meat I had ever tasted. It was so nearly like good, fully developed veal that I think no person with a palate of ordinary, normal sensitiveness could distinguish it from veal. It was mild, good meat with no other sharply defined or highly characteristic taste such as for instance, goat, high game, and pork have. The steak was slightly tougher than prime veal, a little stringy, but not too tough or stringy to be agreeably edible. The roast, from which I cut and ate a central slice, was tender, and in color, texture, smell as well as taste, strengthened my certainty that of all the meats we habitually know, veal is the one meat to which this meat is accurately comparable.”

And here I always thought we were supposed to taste like sweet pork. Isn’t that why our meat has popularly been referred to as ‘long pig”? Maybe the islanders of Polynesia, where the term originated from, have a different taste.

Eventually, the culinary adventurers decided on, with the help of taste-testers, a mix of pork, veal, chicken livers and bone marrow, which presumes that other accounts of cannibals must have had some amount of variation to them. And what they handed out free to 250 contest winners in a restaurant in London was, to all accounts, a very tasty burger. Maybe the Donner party was onto something after all.

Posted on September 22, 2014 by MOTW Admin

Man Wakes From Coma Speaking Fluent Mandarin Chinese

Ok, so those of us searching for real-life super-human abilities have comes to terms with the unlikeliness of it. I mean, since irradiating oneself (or getting bitten by something irradiated) has disappointingly proven to only lead to fatal tumors instead of wall-crawling or smashing abilities, we must face the facts that comic books have lied to us. No super-powers for us.

…

...but wait, what’s this?

Meet Australia’s Ben McMahon. Ben was just your everyday High School student until one day he was bit by a radioactive car crash…well, ok, he was IN a car crash. After spending a week in a coma that doctors were unsure he would pull out of, Ben woke up…changed. Even though a native English speaker, Ben woke up unable to speak anything but very fluent Mandarin Chinese.

“Most of it’s hazy, but when I woke up seeing a Chinese nurse, I thought I was in China,” said McMahon. “It was like a dream. It was surreal. It was like my brain was in one place but my body was in another. I just started speaking Chinese – they were the first words that left my mouth.” It took Ben a few days but his English came back to him. However, he didn’t lose a whit of his new ability.

Ben has gone on to conduct Chinese tours of Melbourne, hosts a local Mandarin TV show, and now is attending University in Shanghai. While he briefly studied the language in school, it wasn’t anywhere near enough of a study to explain his new verbal skills. And Ben isn’t the only one.

Multiple people in the past have woken up from brain injuries with new fluency in a language, musical or mathematical prodigy skills or even super-strength and the ability to fly.

Ok, not those last two. But here’s hoping. I’m going to go home and construct my catapult next to my brick wall now in prep. Anyone out there good at sewing spandex?

Posted on September 20, 2014 by MOTW Admin

Columbian Con-Man Lives Like a King as an “Ambassador” for Several Months

Jeison Neck Jair Garcia is far from the first to assume a false identity to live a life of luxury, but he further illustrates just how easily duped we all can be. Much like the famous Frank Abagnale that Steven Spielberg’s film “Catch Me if You Can” was based on, Jeison took advantage of how trusting people can be by asserting with some fake documents that he was actually a diplomat from Lebanon.

Using only two pieces of documentation, one identifying him as Ambassador of the Republic of Lebanon, and the other issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Colombia, Jeison kept up the facade for several months, only coming under suspicion when an Army Commander Colonel heard him speak perfect Spanish and wondered why someone from Lebanon could speak so natively.

Until the game was up, he was put up in the best hotels, had dinner paid for at expensive restaurants, presented himself for lectures at Universities, had honored meetings with dignitaries from various cities, and was part of talks on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with other real diplomats and honored guests. “I came to the city in February and last year he had already come up with his false identity as an alleged specialist in human rights,” said the Colonel who discovered the ruse. “He gave talks at universities, municipalities, and the government. He presented himself as a minister of Lebanon and participated in conferences on the Arab conflict. His accent generated many questions, so with support from the Criminal Investigation Task Force, we started an investigation.”

Jeison defended himself saying that he hadn’t really hurt anyone and a judge agreed: he was later released. Considering this was his second time to pull an identity con and get off scott-free (he posed as a relative of a famous Colombian musician to get special treatment) I suspect this might not be the last scam we’ll see from Mr. Garcia. But he’s got about six more identities to assume before he can approach Abagnale’s record of 8. Myself. I’m hoping he does. I always wanted to see a sequel to “Catch Me if you Can”.

Posted on September 19, 2014July 29, 2024 by MOTW Admin

Possessed Microwave Terrorizes Family

Mechanical devices being affected by the supernatural isn’t exactly a new thing. There’s probably scads of reportedly possessed cars out there and I’ve even heard tell of some computers and TVs. But a microwave is new.

But hey, whatareyagonnado? A man needs his Hot Pockets in the morning, heated up by the flames of hell or not.

“It started with random beeping. One time it went off like the food was done, and when I looked over, the damn thing was still going and said 6:66,” says home owner Bill Michaud, of the oven that has been freaking out his family in Louisville, Kentucky. “It turns on by itself. It turns off by itself, too. It’s like it’s messing with me,” added his wife Betty. “No matter how many times I popped the door shut, the minute I leave the room it pops open again. One night, really late, I walk into the kitchen and I’m about to open the fridge, and the microwave door flies open, lighting the whole kitchen up in a horrible, scary lightning-blue color. It’s like it wanted to electrocute me.”

The family found the microwave in the attic of the house when they moved in and although it seemed to work fine at first, soon it started having these spooky problems. So what do you do with all that frozen food? How do you deal with the ghost in the machine?

The family contacted the Kansas Ghost Hunter group. led by founder Kevin Young, who quickly confirmed the problem, “The Michauds didn’t want to go without a microwave, or risk upsetting the spirit by taking it out of the house. We obtained permission to stay the night and study the phenomena in its natural environment,” said Young. “My wife, who is also on my squad, is highly empathic. As we warmed up TV dinners in the microwave, she sensed a presence. As soon as she mentioned it, the microwave started beeping repeatedly. The door flung open, and my Hungry Man dinner went flying across the room. We pressed the off button. We unplugged it. It beeped several times after we cut off the power. Of course our digital recording became corrupted, which often happens when there is such strong energy.”

So it was time to call in the big guns…

No, not dear, departed Zelda Rubenstein, but paranormal investigator, and self-proclaimed authority on mechanical-possession, Carl Richards: “I followed the situation that the Michauds were facing from the beginning, as they posted their disturbances on Facebook. I keep an eye on all local ghost-hunter hobbyists and groups,” said Richards. “The EMF readings confirmed this supernatural manifestation is a poltergeist. I have seen poltergeists occupy washers, TVs, electric heaters, but this is the first time I have seen microwave possession first-hand.”

Richards affirmed that getting rid of the microwave wouldn’t solve their problem either (although I probably would have gone there first before called paranormal investigators) as “the malevolent presence does not strictly ‘live in’ the microwave. Getting rid of the machine will not solve the problem. It has the ability to travel throughout the electrical wiring in the house.” So what was his solution?

Ignore it.

“It is best not to engage the being,” continued Young. “Try not to be fearful. Always remain calm. If you’re facing a poltergeist in your kitchen devices, just ignore its outbursts, and it will not be able to feed off your energies.”

The family still uses the microwave, “Now we just ignore it like we would ignore a child’s temper-tantrum, and it still randomly shuts off or zaps from time to time, but nothing really serious. It still heats up our leftovers like a champ, too.” I think I’d switch to a conventional range. And I’d DEFINITELY ask for my money back. I mean, if you pay an exterminator to get rid of cockroaches and they say, “Hey, just try to pretend like they’re not there” and then handed you a bill, I’d be pissed. Call the damn Pope or something. Or at least Bill Murray.