When I travel, my favorite souvenirs are the small, overlooked items, particularly those sporting liminal, anonymous graphics.  Here, for example, are some of the salt packets I collected on a trip to Buenos Aires last year.  I particularly like the first.  It’s Attic salt! (Posted by Doug Skinner)  

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The “Little Blue Books” were published by Emanuel Haldeman-Julius, of Girard, Kansas, from about 1919 to 1947.  They were small, cheaply made, and sold for a nickel or dime.  The covers were originally blue, but other colors were pressed into service if the card stock was cheaper.  By the time the company crumbled, they had […]

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Step inside. Some friends who, like me, frequent that bane of productivity, Facebook, alerted me to a piece recently published in the New York Times, about the short-lived Greenwich Village Bookshop and its very special door. The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas has created a wonderful website for this relic, so that […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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