crisp advice

Recently I read Quentin Crisp’s Manners From Heaven, a slim and delightful book which advise the reader how to glide through life without behaving like a cad.

One should never introduce a sexual element into a relationship if none is intended, if you do, you cannot claim to be surprised  if someone tries to seduce you. If you have misled someone into thinking you are available, if you have accepted gifts and shown no concern where such generosity might lead, then instead of protesting when The Pounce comes, you should acknowledge responsibility and accept the consequences. In most cases, an act of sex is no more bother than being vaccinated. With good manners you can avoid having to make this sacrifice, but should you find yourself in a situation of your own making, you should stop defending your virtue and start worrying about your maturity. It will give you something to think about while the savage pumper bangs away.

Advice to gentlemen readers

“When you have actually kissed her and she has not squeaked, run away or hit you, you may assume you can proceed further but with caution. A man should treat a woman’s feelings with all the acute respect he would have for nature when shooting the rapids in a wild river. You proceed tentatively in Braille with your seduction, the less said the better.

Later, when the beast-with-two-backs has finished its lowly task and reverted to its separate selves, and the woman is musing over the mystery of life and you are contemplating the meaninglessness of existence, whilst the two of you are sharing a post-coital cigarette in an effort to boost your mood after so much anxiety and strain, as you lie exhausted after the ritual of compulsive excitation and hollow release, you may well wonder if it was all worth it

When an affair is over

There is probably no polite way of ending an affair except by constantly putting obstacles in the way of further meetings between your unstable self and the man foolish enough to believe he loves you. A man should take three consecutive refusals to meet him as a definite sign that an affair is over. As a general rule in our modern times a man must accept that when the cock cries thrice and is thrice denied it is time to take his erection elsewhere.

unadulterated delicacy

Alain Delon goes fishing for fugu

Regular readers know that nursemyra loves exotic food and I’m always keen to try something new. I’ve never had the opportunity to sample fugu but Adam Platt has and he tells us about eating a certain part of it here

Art by Chen Fei

With the possible exception of the illicit liver, no part of the fugu creates quite the same flutter of excitement among blowfish lovers as the fugu sperm sac. The literal translation of shira-ko is “white babies.”  The appeal of the dish, according to Chef Masa, comes in part from its pure, milky texture (“It’s smooth,” he says, “like Brie cheese”) and its obvious overtones of virility. But the dish’s most enticing quality is its extra touch of lethality. It’s the only edible part of the fugu innards, and when not fully engorged, the sperm sac looks uncannily like a set of the deadly fugu ovaries. “If you eat fresh ovary by mistake,” says Hashimoto, “then you die.”

Presently, Hashimoto returns from his little kitchen with what looks like two glistening plastic bags of condensed milk. He wants us to see the real thing, the raw, unadulterated delicacy, before he starts preparing his dish. The shira-ko are as white as snow, bouncy to the touch, and disturbingly large, about the size of a pair of healthy water balloons. As we examine them politely Shinji’s eyes light up. “That’s a really nice sperm sac,” he says.

Another dish I’ve never tried is Eskimo Ice Cream.

The native people of Alaska have a distinct version of ice cream. It’s not creamy ice cream as we know it, but a concoction made from reindeer fat or tallow, seal oil, freshly fallen snow or water, fresh berries, and sometimes ground fish. Air is whipped in by hand so that it slowly cools into foam. They call this Arctic treat akutaq, aqutuk, ackutuk, or Eskimo ice cream.

Akutaq can also be made with moose meat and fat, caribou meat and fat, fish, seal oil, berries and other Alaskan things. Traditionally it was always made for funerals, potlatches, celebrations of a boy’s first hunt, or almost any other celebration. It is eaten as a dessert, a meal, a snack, or a spread

Here in Australia we also eat unusual foods like the ubiquitous Vegemite, kangaroo steaks (delicious and low in cholesterol) and an Aboriginal favourite – witchetty grubs

Witchetty grubs are traditionally eaten live and raw. Their meat is rich in protein and makes for a highly nutritious snack if you’re tramping through the bush. Raw witchetties have a subtle, slightly sweet flavour and a liquid centre.

Barbecued, witchetties are often eaten as an appetizer. They are cooked over a fire on pieces of wire, rather like shasliks or satays. It takes about two minutes each side for the meat to become white and chewy and the skin crusty. Barbecued witchetties taste quite like chicken or prawns with peanut sauce.

turn over a new moon

Why would anyone change their name from Henry Moon to Henry Smith? Especially if they were a magician and an escapologist?

Henry was imprisoned in a New Brunswick jail for horse stealing. During his incarceration he feigned illness and escaped though was recaptured shortly afterwards.

This time he was forced to wear handcuffs and neck and leg irons. These were connected to each other and attached to an iron ring in the wall, so he couldn’t move at all. The iron collar was made of a flat bar of iron over an inch wide, but Smith managed to twist it from his neck and broke it in half.

One night the jailer investigated a noise coming from Smith’s cell. At first he found nothing. But then he noticed that the bars of the cell had been practically sawn through and that the prisoner had somehow freed himself completely from his chains. On another occasion, despite new window bars and heavy-duty door locks on his cell, the prisoner was discovered with a woman kneeling at his bed. It was an extraordinarily convincing figure of his wife, and the magical scene was made in the pitch dark from scraps of cloth and straw, and a three-foot wooden trough that had contained his drinking water. He was chained with heavier irons, but next morning was found to be free again. After a thorough search a minute saw was found that Smith had made by cutting microscopic serrations in a steel watch spring.

image by Araki

One morning the jailor found that Henry had again freed himself from his chains. The links were found to be separated, but they had been somehow broken and not cut. Thinking they had some kind of magican on their hands they replaced these chains with seven feet long ox chains stapled to the floorboards, which Henry also managed to break into pieces.

Later, again handcuffed in total darkness and without any tools, he made an entire troupe of full-size puppets using straw, rags, burnt wood and his own blood for colour. The incredibly life-like group consisted of ten players – men, women and children – who danced with motion, ease and exactness. Word spread and Smith soon had visitors for his extraordinary magic show from all over; there was even one gentleman from Ireland.

Ann Pennington (click photo to make Felix dance with Ann)

Smith also seems to have had the ability to make fire at any time, and proved it by starting fires in his cell with no apparent means. Telling fortunes using tea-leaves was another of his skills. He left the jail a free man, but a few months later, was arrested again. Apparently he’d crept into a young lady’s bedroom and stolen one of her earrings as she slept.

When this term of imprisonment was up, he presented his prison keeper with a pocket knife, into the handle of which he’d set a tiny watch which kept perfect time.

watch found here

use puppies or the gills of a cock

Gould and Pyle have some fascinating things to say about early skin grafts.

Rodgers reports the case of a white man of thirty-eight who suffered from gangrene of the buttocks caused by sitting in a pan of caustic potash while intoxicated.  Rodgers used grafts from the under wing of a young fowl, as suggested by Redard, with good result.

Vanmeter of Colorado describes a boy of fourteen with a severe extensive burn. Grafts were taken from two young puppies of the Mexican hairless breed, whose soft, white, hairless skin seemed to offer itself for the purpose with good prospect of a successful result.

Two beautiful Mexican puppies found here

Masterman has grafted with the inner membrane of a hen’s egg, and a Mexican surgeon, Altramirano, used the gills of a cock. Fowler of Brooklyn has grafted with the skin from the back and abdomen of a large frog.

rooster and frog found here

Leale remarks that as common warts of the skin are collections of vascular papillae, admitting of separation without injury to their exceptionally thick layer of epidermis, they are probably better for the purposes of skin-grafting than ordinary skin of less vitality.

Ricketts remarks that the prepuce of a boy is remarkably good material for grafting. There is recorded an instance in which the breast of a crow and the back of a rat were grafted together and grew fast. The crow dragged the rat along, and the two did not seem to care to part company.

rat’s ass t shirt worth crowing about found here

unmasked

Last week the Gimcrack sent nursemyra on a Senior First Aid Refresher course where I was given my very own take home blow up doll

The instructor told us all a story about the doctor who developed mouth to mouth resuscitation having a daughter named Annie who died, saying CPR Annie was modelled and named for her. This is not actually true as the face used was that of a French girl who drowned in the Seine

Death masks were common in the 18th and 19th century and were kept for the purpose of identification of unknown corpses before photography was invented. Many writers and eminent scientists also had their features recorded for posterity in this way.

Death masks of Keats and Tesla found here

Another kind of mask with an interesting history is the gas mask.

One such design began as a “Safety Hood and Smoke Protector” invented by Garrett A. Morgan in 1912, and patented in 1914. It was a simple device, consisting of a cotton hood with two hoses which hung down to the floor, allowing the wearer to breathe the safer air found there. Morgan won acclaim for his device when in 1916 he, his brother, and two other volunteers used his device to rescue numerous men from the gas and smoke-filled tunnels beneath Lake Erie in the Cleveland Waterworks.

Excellent collection of gas mask photos here

Masks of this type have also been eroticized as a fetish. If that’s your thing you’ll find a lot of photos here

Stephen cast the faces of several of his artist friends for an exhibition in 2004 called Cosmos. You can see some examples here at the New Zealand Chartwell Collection website.

corset friday 6.11.2009

Here’s a special treat for underwear aficionados. Ms. Mysterious, whom I have never met in person, sent a photo of herself in a very chic pink striped corset, taken, I believe, by her devoted husband. She also gave me permission to publish it on Corset Friday!

Spinach Pie did an excellent job last weekend, she not only took the photographs for today, she donated the cute little flip skirt I’m wearing

So a big thanks to Ms. Mysterious and Spinach Pie for making this weeks’ corset friday extra special. I love you gals…..

nursemyra

Ms. Mysterious

mad as a hatter

Australia has had its fair share of home grown murderers. Back in 1942, we imported one named Leonski from the good ol’ US. He would become known as The Brownout Strangler as his killings were all perpetrated during the wartime “brownout” at night.

On May 3, 1942, Ivy Violet McLeod, 40, was found dead in Albert Park, Melbourne. She had been beaten and strangled, and because she was found to be in possession of her purse it was evident that robbery was not the motive.

Ivy Ling Po not Ivy McLeod

Just six days later, 31-year-old Pauline Thompson was strangled after a night out. She was last seen in the company of a young man who was described as having an American accent.

Pauline Bonaparte, not Pauline Thompson

Gladys Hosking, 40, was the next victim, murdered on May 18 while walking home from work. A witness said that, on the night of the killing, a disheveled American man had approached him asking for directions, seemingly out of breath and covered with mud. This description matched the individual Pauline Thompson was seen with on the night of her murder, as well as the descriptions given by several women who had survived recent attacks.

Gladys Zender not Gladys Hosking

These survivors and other witnesses were able to pick 24-year-old Edward Leonski out of a line-up of American servicemen who were stationed in the city during World War II. A Private in the 52nd Signal Battalion, Leonski was arrested and charged with three murders.

Edward Munster not Edward Leonski

During the investigation, police found that all three of the women had sung in choirs or professionally at concerts. Detective “Bluey” Adams, who was not assigned to the case, happened to be sitting in a bar one night where Leonski, not yet under suspicion, was drinking with friends. Bluey watched the soldier swallow a mixture of beer, whiskey and hot sauce and then walk on his hands along the top of the bar.

Bluey not Bluey Adams

He turned to his colleague and said “That bloke’s as mad as a hatter. And look at his hands – they’re the hands of the Brownout Strangler”

Handstand image by Philip Greenspun found here

Decades later when William Nagle was writing a movie screenplay about Leonski’s crime, he noticed an odd coincidence in the names of the murderer and his victims.

The victims were McLEOd, ThompsoN and HoSKIng…….

not to be sneezed at

In the 70s and 80s many gay men used to advertise their various kinks through the handkerchief code. By wearing colour coded bandannas in the back pocket of their jeans they could let others know what turned them on.

In its early manifestation the code of a dozen or so colours was manageable. But after a while yellow for water sports or red for fisting wasn’t specific enough for some tastes.

Andrejkomasky lists over 80 variations but please don’t confuse your fuschias with your magentas unless you’re particularly into spanking armpits…..

There’s also a fine (nonsexual) history of the handkerchief over here

In the 18th and 19th centuries, handkerchiefs were used mostly by men. Many feature common male interests, such as grand industrial projects; sport (horse racing, pigeon shooting, cricket and boxing); railways; mapping; and, especially during the Napoleonic wars, the great naval and military encounters of the day.

Another stylee is the handkerchief joke that folds to produce a punchline. One illustrates the “Eastern Question” (the conflict with Russia over the Ottoman empire). It shows portraits of four of the chief rivals: a Russian hero of the Crimean war, Prince Gorschakoff; Germany’s chancellor Otto von Bismarck; and the Turkish foreign minister, Safvet Pacha. If folded across the diagonals, the portraits morph into a single head-that of Benjamin Disraeli, the British prime minister, who lorded over them all

Dicksuckle Day

We Aussies have always liked a good practical joke, and no one knows this better than Dick Smith. According to wikipedia, Smithy is an entrepreneur, a businessman and an aviator. But there’s much more to our Dick than that.

photo by Trevor Dallen found here

“Remember the day in 1978 when he hoodwinked Australia with a sheet of white plastic and a mountain of foam?

In a clever piece of self-promotion, the then budding 34-year-old electronics entrepreneur pulled off an imaginative April Fools prank: the great Sydney Harbour iceberg hoax.

What’s more, it cost him only $1200, for the hire of a barge, and the purchase of a big sheet of white plastic and lashings of fire-fighting foam.

Several dozen cans of shaving cream – used to complete the Dickenberg One, as it was dubbed – had been provided free by a manufacturer.

Cindy Crawford covered in shaving cream found here

At 3am a fellow inventor and collaborator, Hans Tholstrup, towed the barge out through the Heads, and, secretly under cover of darkness, the iceberg was built.

Two hours later, as Mr Smith boarded the iceberg, 300 of his employees started ringing local radio stations and newspapers.

“‘What’s that thing coming through the heads?’ they asked. ‘It looks like an iceberg.”‘

Mr Smith was approached by several boats demanding chunks of ice, or “Dicksicles” as they were called.

tentacle image found here

Dick Smith also introduced the microdot Pric (a PRinted Integrated Circuit) that when attached to speakers and doused with lemon juice became a radio. In the early 1980s he served as the conductor aboard a London double decker bus which jumped 15 motorcycles. The bus, driven by Hans Tholstrup, was a humorous poke at Evel Knievel who had visited Australia in 1979 and jumped his motorcycle over buses.

image found here

calming engine

In 1863 Dr Walter Lewis wrote a report on the dangers of train travel.

“Railway travel, if not too excessive,  has little injurious effect on healthy, strong well-built people, but persons who take to habitual rail travel after the age of 25 are more easily affected than those who begin earlier. The more advanced in age a traveller is, the more easily he is affected by locomotion.

Weak, tall, loosely-knit persons are very unsuited for habitual train travelling and should avoid it unless absolutely necessary.”

The enterprising Dr Lewis went on to devise a cure for people in those high risk categories. His patent traveller’s calming engine was, he said, the only certain palliative for the potentially severe health effects induced by high speed locomotion.

This “cure” was a wooden box containing a bottle of smelling salts, a bottle of brandy, a cap that came down over the eyes and an instrument which looked like a giant pair of scissor handles with two flat pads instead of blades.

The handles were squeezed together which pushed the pads down hard on the unfortunate sufferer’s  temples. This pressure, together with the smelling salts and a swig of brandy was purported to provide an instant sense of calm and renewed vigour…….

Thankfully road and air travel took off soon after this and Dr Lewis’ calming engine for train travel was no longer needed…..

image found here