Bill Kirby shares interesting stories about Augusta, Georgia history. Here, he discusses Lulu Hurst, a local teen girl who wowed audiences by overpowering any man who dared to accept her strength challenge. Read the rest
Start your own odditorium by spending $15,000 on "Mike & Ike - they look alike," a purportedly real two-headed calf taxidermy mount that was previously part of the the Museum of Lost Arts – International Historical Exhibition. Only available for local pick up in New Castle, Pennsylvania. From the eBay auction description:
This is a real life-size two headed black and white calf mount cow in great condition with some light fur around the heads and body due to age and exposure to sun and light. The mount measures 40” long from the tip of the nose on the longer head to the back tail and 35” high from bottom of hoofs to top of ears and 39” high from bottom of wheels on the base to top of ears. A superior mount by a professional taxidermist. Genuine oddity taxidermy mounts like “Mike & Ike – they look alike” are exceptionally rare. This unique mount is a full size black and white calf with fully developed heads and complete facial characteristics along with it’s long necks is an extreme rarity in two headed calves. The mount was purchased by “The Museum of Lost Arts” at a farm estate auction many years ago in Ellwood City, PA where the calf was born. The provenance (history and origin) and physical attributes to support the fact that it is entirely genuine and this coupled with the strong market for well executed oddities in taxidermy, makes it especially desirable and rare.
Sofie Dossi, a finalist in this season of America's Got Talent, "is a self-taught contortionist and hand balancer. She became captivated at age 12 after watching an online video. Having been a competitive gymnast and dancer, she had a great foundation of strength and flexibility and advanced her skills using YouTube videos as her teacher, combined with disciplined practice at home."
Katherine Dunn, the author of the incredible macabre comedic novel Geek Love, about the strange shenanigans in a circus sideshow, has died at age 70 from lung cancer. From a Los Angeles Times profile of Dunn at the time of the book's release in 1989:
As Dunn's tale goes, Aloysius Binewski, proprietor of a traveling circus called Binewski's Fabulon, gets the notion to breed mutant children who will perform as sideshow freaks. His theory is that, along with boosting business, he will be bestowing upon his children "the inherent ability to earn a living just by being themselves..."
Dunn said she got the idea for "Geek Love" in 1979 while she was walking in the experimental rose gardens in Portland. Admiring the hybrid roses, she conceived Papa Al and his hybrid children.
She was thinking about her son at the time and the whole issue of "the things we do to our children--most of the evil in the world is not done with bad intentions but with the best intentions ever," she said.
Dunn said "Geek Love" also reflects her concerns with "the volcanic and terrifying possibilities of genetic mutation and the whole issue of the cult." (In the book, flipper-boy Arty starts a cult in which converts have their arms and legs amputated so they can become more like their leader.)
At first, Dunn was shocked by her own terrifying characters. Now and then she'd read a passage to her son, who invariably shook his head and responded: "Weird."
"Katherine Dunn has died; the 'Geek Love' author once took the world by storm"
The Warriors of Goja Bir Khalsa, a Sikh performance troupe, performed an astonishing strongman/bed of nails routine on India's Got Talent, a spectacle of extreme stunts involving a lot of glass eating, being run over by cars, hit by sledgehammers, bending iron bars with their Adam's apples, and so forth. The judges' performance -- dramatic expressions of shock and horror -- matched the performers'.
India Talent Show - Warriors of Goja AMAZING
(Thanks, Fipi Lele!) Read the rest
