“Those of us who are about to die salute you,” runs the caption on the banner of this macabre illustration. The skeleton in the foreground sits upon a grave, its arm bent with hand upon skull in a pensive gesture. This image was the cover for the Twelfth Annual Report of the Thirteen Club, whise […]
The Thirteen Club, Fighting Superstition in Turn-of-the-20th-Century U.S. Read More »
Catoctin Mountain Park — situated right next to Cunningham Falls State Park, is in north-central Maryland and is run by the US National Park Service. Its 5,120 acres overlook the Monocacy Valley. Back in 1935, the area was put under the CCC to be fostered as a public recreational area. Cunningham Falls State Park has
Catoctin Mountain Park and Cunningham Falls Read More »
It was ’round about this time of the year — near the Fourth of July — nearly eight decades ago that a rancher from New Mexico called W.W. Brazel brought a bunch of mysterious-looking debris he had found on his property to the local sheriff, who was situated about 80 miles southeast in the small
The Roswell Incident Read More »
Tobyhanna State Park was formed out of state lands that had been on a large artillery range that preceded Tobyhanna Army Depot. It has 5,540 acres of land surrounding Lake Tobyhanna, which is named after an American Indian term meaning “a stream whose banks are fringed with alder.” Today I saw a lot of birch
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The Range Trail is a winding path that traverses across swampy and rocky forest in the Tobyhanna State Park, established in 1949. As you can see from the third slide, the area was used by the U.S. military as a live-artillery training ground during both World Wars. I didn’t see any shell remains on my
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Here are some photos of Gouldsboro State Park, established in 1958. The human-made lake you see here, as well as the park it was named after, get their nomenclature from Jay Gould (1836-1892), a rich industrialist from New York who at one point owned ten percent of all the rail tracks in the United States.
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Making string figures is a dying cultural practice. It was done by people all over the world for who knows how long (because string decays quickly and most writers of history didn’t care about the varied designs made out of string using different hand motions). One of the most complex catalogues of string figures comes
Inuit String Communication Read More »
Here you are looking at the compound microscope developed by Robert Hooke (d 1703), a Renaissance scientist more famous for dabbling in academic fields as disparate as physics and palaeontology than a particular discovery. Nevertheless, his microscope allowed him to illustrate things he included in _Micrographia_, which utterly captivated his British audience. Samuel Pepys the
Victorian Accoutrements: the Mustache Cup and the Welsh Wig Read More »
This painting, _A Disaster at Sea_, by Joseph Mallory William Turner (made around 1835), renders a shipwreck in a storm with abstract brush strokes — the clouds and waves crash with hectic fury into each other and the boat, as the frenzied white foam takes over both sea vessel and the lower third of the
The Wreck of the Amphitrite, a Women’s Prison Ship Read More »
Tales of shipwrecks are often sad, but I’d bet money that this one is the most macabre and gruesome in history. The sea vessel _Essex_ sailed from Nantucket to waters off the coast of South America in search of lucrative whales. 20 men were on board the boat, which ended up rounding Cape Horn and
The Shipwreck of Essex and the Resort to Cannibalism Read More »
According to rentechdigital.com, there are 3,615 Pilates studios in the US as of July 14, 2023. And even if your town doesn’t have one, your local gym might offer Pilates classes — it’s an exercise style with a lot of staying power, and it was started by this guy here: Joseph Hubertus Pilates (1883-1967). Pilates’
Hubertus Pilates and the Exercises He Developed While Imprisoned in a War Camp Read More »
“We in the West are the first generation in human history in which the mass of the population has to deliberately exercise to be healthy.” — so wrote Jeremiah “Jerry” Morris towards the end of his 99-year life of remarkable scholarship about the effects of disease and physical movement. Or really, the lack of physical
Jerry Morris and the Discovery That Exercise Is Good for You Read More »
She looks wide-eyed in this picture to me, but Milunka Savic was the opposite of an ingenue. This 20th-century Serbian fought in the Balkan Wars and the First World War, and in World War II spent time in a Concentration Camp. She cleared these hurdles with chutzpah to spare and is the most decorated female
Mikunka Savic, Serbian Warrior Read More »
It is both St Patrick’s Day and Women’s History Month, so I thought it might be appropriate to feature one of Ireland’s most prolific composers, Ina Boyle. Never heard of her? Even in her lifetime, as she was churning out chamber music, choral pieces, concertos, and symphonies, most of her work was never performed, so
Ina Boyle Ireland’s Most Prodigious Musical Composer Read More »
The National Park at Acadia is a jewel among the United States natural lands. The movement to make trails and preserve the area for posterity and enjoyment got going in the 1800s. Even though many of the civic groups who galvanized these measures cut both women and people of color out, women were among the
Acadia Eliza Homans Read More »
https://chrissysenecal.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/PXL_20230807_185351865-1.mp4 Acadia National Park received its name in 1919. The biodiversity of New England’s only National Park is unusual, stemming from its past history of glaciers. Here you see some glacial domes on top of Mount Sargent. At 1,373 feet above sea level, one can see for miles around.
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This view on top of the Beehive Trail in Acadia is enjoyed by hundreds of people every summer day in the national park. As one follows the adjoining Gorham Mountain and Bowl trails (in the picture the pond is the Bowl), the plaque on the fourth slide appears, dedicated to a “Waldron Bates” (d. 1909),
Acadia Waldron Bates Read More »
“Snake Oil” earned the connotation of being a huckster’s fake medical treatment in the early 20th century thanks largely to the efforts of one Clarke Stanley, whose infamous product is featured here. However, the actual origins of snake oil as a medicinal product have a different and more legitimate background in Chinese traditional medicine. Clarke
Origins of Snake Oil Read More »
This quote has risen in the public consciousness since the premier of _Oppenheimer_, the film. The father of the atomic bomb recalled this phrase turning in his mind as he witnessed the first nuclear bomb explode at the Trinity test site on July 16, 1945. It turns out, Robert Oppenheimer was extremely well versed in
Oppenheimer and Philosophy Read More »
This is the July 31, 1978 cover of Time magazine, heralding the origin of in vitro fertilization which had been made possible in the previous years with the efforts of Robert Edwards, Patrick Steptoe, Barry Bavister, and Jean Purdy. Purdy had been the one to actually create the first human embryo through IVF, and held the
