Cool Obscure Facts

I’m a research fiend. I admit it. I love the hunt for obscure facts, the thrill of discovery… far more than the tedium of actually writing the stuff down. So I spend ages sorting through ephemera on tangential subjects that will never actually imbed themselves anywhere but inside my brain…

Have you read this yet? A new uncensored edition of Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray has been released. What I find particularly amusing is the reasoning behind the censoring in the first place – the editor “Decid[ed] that the novel as it stood contained “a number of things which an innocent woman…

I honestly love our local news: Police responded to five large pigs stopping traffic on Main Street. Two cruisers and Lt. Bob Hazelwood joined the effort to return the pigs to their pen. It wasn’t easy. “One of those pigs is over 400 pounds,” Hazelwood noted. Nor are pigs easily…

Hidden History of Salem available for Pre-Order on Amazon!

Today in Salem History: On April 24, 1792, Abraham Solis advertised “Haerlaemer Oil” with “Dutch explanations of its use” in the Salem Gazette. This was probably Haarlem Oil, a diuretic made in Holland since 1672 and still in demand in the early 20th century. So popular was this remedy, practically…

In my role as pop culture maven, I am here to explain to you why so many of your friends are wishing you a happy 420 today. Your friends aren’t saying that?  It’s just mine?  Well, whatever. Four-twenty as a denotation of belonging to the “cannabis subculture” began, according to…

Here is another interesting historical document. Again with a feminist theme. Or anti-feminist. Also anti-romance. Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to read Sappho. Who actually wrote poems, not a novel. Unless they mean this…. They probably meant this.  (It was first published in 1888.) Yet again, romance will…

This is the bedroom where Lizzie Borden allegedly took a hatchet to her step-mother. (And you can actually stay here in this room – the house is a bed & breakfast now.) I’ve long known about the infamous axe murder of her parents and the fact that Lizzie was generally…

Have you ever wondered why Americans switch hands to eat with their fork, but Europeans don’t? Yes you have. You lie awake at night, in the cold early morning, pondering life, the universe, the number 42, and why Americans eat with a zig-zag fork pattern. Admit it. Well, now there…