The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “bizarre”

A Brief Visual History of Robots in a Matrix of Creepiness & Intelligence
A Brief Visual History of Robots in a Matrix of Creepiness & Intelligence

What Louis XV has to do with H.G. Wells and the hazards of mechanical animation.

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Made in Russia: Vintage Curiosities of Soviet Design
Made in Russia: Vintage Curiosities of Soviet Design

What the 1980 Olympics have to do with IKEA and medieval helmets for modern role-playing games.

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Albertus Seba’s Amazing Cabinet of Natural Curiosities
Albertus Seba’s Amazing Cabinet of Natural Curiosities

Getting a private viewing of the King Bird of Paradise, or how to set the exchange rate for flying squid.

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Fuzz & Fur: Japan’s Peculiar Subculture of Fur-Suit Mascots
Fuzz & Fur: Japan’s Peculiar Subculture of Fur-Suit Mascots

What ancient Japanese castles have to do with costumed gadget-sellers and the legacy of anime.

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Sentimental Value: Shopping for Human Stories on eBay
Sentimental Value: Shopping for Human Stories on eBay

What social psychology has to do with Victorian romance and the official White House gift wrapper.

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Asylum: Inside the Haunting World of 19th-Century Mental Hospitals
Asylum: Inside the Haunting World of 19th-Century Mental Hospitals

What straitjackets have to do with Eames chairs and the mutations of policy ideals.

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Kooky Cookery: Retro Recipes for Culinary Frankensteining
Kooky Cookery: Retro Recipes for Culinary Frankensteining

Betty Draper’s favorite tomato aspic, or what boiled bologna has to do with marshmallows.

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Of Lamb: A Children’s Classic Retold for Contrarians
Of Lamb: A Children’s Classic Retold for Contrarians

What baseball player Manny Ramirez has to do with the fourth-best-selling poetry book in America.

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Spomenik: Eerie Retrofuturistic Monuments of the Eastern Bloc
Spomenik: Eerie Retrofuturistic Monuments of the Eastern Bloc

The ghosts of communism, or what alien architecture has to do with societal memory and Serbia’s mountains.

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Arthur Conan Doyle, Psychic: Rare Footage from 1930
Arthur Conan Doyle, Psychic: Rare Footage from 1930

What the world’s most analytical detective has to do with exploring the fringes of spiritual life.

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