On July 28th, members of the Ullage Group took a field trip to Bannerman Castle, organized by Dr. Mamie Caton.

 
 
 
 
 
For train passengers, a partial and too-brief view of Bannerman Castle can be had just south of Beacon, NY.  The castle is situated on a small island once called Pollepel (renamed Bannerman’s Island), now part of […]

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Cacio e pepe (cheese and pepper) is the simplest of dishes: boil and drain pasta; mix in grated cheese, ground pepper, and a bit of the cooking water; and serve.  It’s a standard dish in Rome; traditionally, it’s made with pasta secca (usually spaghetti) and pecorino romano.
It’s not the most nutritious supper (I suggest a […]

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Bobby Edwards (seen here in a self-portrait from 1917) gave his own history of the “Greenwich Village Epic” in that quintessential Village journal, The Quill, in the November 1917 issue:
“Down in dear old Greenwich Village,” or, as the Bard sings, “Way Down South in Greenwich Village,” originated in Polly’s about four years ago.  Lucy Huffaker, […]

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“The Greenwich Village Epic,” aka “Way Down South in Greenwich Village,” or “Down in Dear Old Greenwich Village” is often quoted in books on the Village.
It’s usually credited to a famous Village character of the ’20s, Bobby Edwards, “the troubadour of Greenwich Village.”  (I’ve been assembling material on him, by the way; I hope to post it here soon.)  […]

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Ancient coral or ancient ladies’ swimming cap?
On the first day of spring, which in New York City was particularly welcome and unseasonably warm, I took a long walk on the sands of Dead Horse Bay, a quiet inlet tucked away not far from Floyd Bennett Field (the City’s very first airport), now abandoned to wildlife, […]

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There are many reports of Alien Big Cats (ABC’s, as their devotees like to call them) in the fortean database.  This one, which I found in the French daily Libération (July 25, 1994), and passed along to the INFO Journal at the time, seems to have been overlooked.  I was unable to find a follow-up, […]

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The speaking statue may be a uniquely Italian custom.  At any rate, I don’t know of any elsewhere.
By a speaking statue, I don’t mean one that actually talks, but one that serves as a bulletin board for diatribes, slogans, and satirical verse.  An essential part of the tradition is that the statue becomes a character, […]

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You can find la Porta Magica in Rome, on the Piazza Vittorio.  It’s what remains of the villa of Massimiliano Palombara, a 17th century occultist.
There are at least two competing stories about it.  One is that an archetypical mysterious stranger visited Palombara, and asked for funds and a room to test his alchemical know-how.  Palombara agreed; the stranger locked […]

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The Star Lodge, or Summer Palace, outside Prague, is another of those curious buildings that dot the Czech Republic.  The Letohradek Hvezda was designed and built in 1555 by Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol; it was supposedly a hunting lodge, but the fact that it’s shaped like a six-pointed star, with four stories, each keyed to a […]

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I made this sketch of that curious old building, the Faust House, on a trip to Prague a few years ago.  I post it here for whatever pleasure it may trigger.
The Faust House, for those unfamiliar with it, sits on Charles Square; it houses the Faculty of Medicine of Charles University, and is not open to […]

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