collyer’s mansion or messie-syndrom

In Germany, the rather inelegant received translation for a compulsive hoarder is a “Messie,” which neither sounds very clinical nor sympathetic, but this terminology is certainly to be relished by our source that bought us the fascinating and tragic archetypal tale of the brothers who cultivated a dangerous drive for acquisition and an unwillingness to part with anything.
Though by all accounts, at the turn of the century the Collyer family was of the finest pedigree (Columbia-educated, mother an opera-singer and father a gynaecologist and descended from Mayflower-stock) and their two sons were promising in their respective fields, both ended up in 1947 entombed in some one hundred and forty tonnes of junk stuffed to the ceiling of their Harlem brownstone. By inheritance and volition, the sons, Homer and Langley jointly occupying the family home after the death of their parents, began obsessively collecting books, furniture and musical instruments as the two began to withdraw from society, having grown suspect of their neighbourhood during the Great Depression (though never suffering from deprivation) and owing to Homer’s failing eye-sight. Probingly, Langley began saving old newspapers for his brother to catch up on once his sight had been restored—consulting one of the fifteen thousand medical reference books found in the apartment included in the manifest and created a warren—notably booby-trapped, for them both, tunnels and chambers nested within the nearly impenetrable strata of garbage and treasure. Many of the recovered artefacts—many more than were ever catalogued—became curios for other collections (possibly inspiring the same) and after being condemned as unsuitable for habitation, the Collyer’s mansion was razed and transformed into a neatly corralled public garden.

highlights reel

As much as we’d like to forget sometimes and be done with these petty tyrannies and apolitic apoplexies, the Daily Dot—for the benefit of those playing along at home—has slogged through the first six months of Dear Leader’s regime to bring us the one hundred eighty-nine highlights of the past one hundred and eighty-one days.
From his controversial appointments of individuals not only dangerously unqualified but also antagonistic to the positions of public-trust that they’ve been given, to imagined massacres, die Lügenpresse, blaming the previous administration for all his failings with increasing paranoia, Russian connections and an unending fount of lies, gaffes and embarrassment, it’s all laid out there, but I should imagine that even these omnibus formats might themselves grow unwieldly pretty soon—if they haven’t already. A lot of the sideshows are left out as it is, plus recall—incredible and as distant and academic as it may now seem that the release of the Dear Leader and Billy Bush Access Hollywood incidental recording from 2005, Obama’s warning that Russian agents were meddling in the US election and that Dear Leader’s family were Kompromat and the data-dump of Clinton campaign manager John Podesta’s emails by Wikileaks all happened on the same day—and we at PfRC were asleep at the wheel.

superstation or dateline: land of the lost

Before it was home to the CNN Center, the anchoring attraction of the downtown extension of the Omni Coliseum in Atlanta, Georgia was fleetingly the World of Sid & Marty Krofft—one of the first all-indoors amusement parks.
Despite some of the frenetic, psychedelic rides and attractions, including a multi-storied, variegated carnival atmosphere and a colossal pin-ball game and appearances by signature television characters like the Banana Splits, Witchiepoo and HR Pufnstuf (whose fungibility prompted possibly the intellectual-infringement lawsuit ever with the Krofft’s franchise taking RonaldMcDonaldland to court) plus musical interludes, the park tragically did not prove the drawn that the producers and backers had hoped for—the whole experience could be taken in in just a few hours and after initial positive reception, families questioned whether it made sense to make a trek to a less than reputable section of downtown for less than a full day’s commitment.
Besides, the city’s zoo and aquarium were close by and cheaper alternatives and other amusement parks were cast out into the suburbs—with ample parking. Only six months after its grand opening in May of 1976, the park closed and it wasn’t until a more than a decade later when Ted Turner occupied the complex in 1987. Not many traces remain of the original arcade—other than, that is, the monumental, free-standing escalator (still the largest one in the world) that formerly delivered park guests to the highest levels of the Krofftian universe and are still part of the cable news network headquarters tour.

frau holle/mother hulda

Fancy Notions presents a wonderful vintage, stop-motion adaptation of the Brothers Grimm morality-, work-ethic tale Frau Holle—or as it’s sometimes rendered in English, Mother Hulda from Cornet studios (1976—purveyors of many fine instructional films as well, as featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000) called The Magic Well. With elements of the Cinderella story (Briar Rose), a studious, hardworking young girl is abused by her step-mother and expected to do all the household chores (whilst her biological daughter is pampered) and spin wool into yarn the rest of her hours until her fingers bled from the effort.

The story was told to Wilhelm Grimm by one interview subject named Henriette Dorothea Wild who lived near Kassel but came from Huguenot roots (famously members of the family accounted for other fairy tales like the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg, Rumpelstiltskin, the Cat and Mouse in Partnership, etc.) whom the collector of fables later married. One day, spinning as was her custom outdoors near the well—she pricked her fingers and dropped the spindle while trying to dab the blood away. Fearful of the punishment that would ensue for having lost their chief means of livelihood down the well, the girl launched herself after it. The girl awoke to find herself in an enchanted land and did small kindnesses to some nearly over-baked breads and an over-burdened apple tree she encountered along her way to meet Frau Holle—a kindly old woman she served loyally without stint, cooking for her and making her bed—shaking her bedclothes caused the snows to come in Hesse—central Germany. Frau Holle ist für die Schneemenge im Winter verantwortlich, denn je gründlicher sie ihre Betten ausschüttelt, desto mehr schneit es auf der Erde. The girl leads a charmed life but does eventually grow homesick—to which Frau Holle gladly releases her and restores her to the cottage in the woods with the spindle and an abdundance of gold as if no time had passed at all. Seeing her step daughter so arrayed with gold, the conviving widow tosses the spindle back down the well, pricks her favourite daughter’s finger on a rose thorn and throws her down, rather fearlessly after. To learn more about etiquette, superstition and ephemera and how the other daughter fares, please visit Fancy Notions at the link above.