Tag: Strange Things I Like

The History that Never Happened: Kymaerica & Dueling Postal Services

In the lower courtyard where Star Provisions/Bacchanalia are, there hangs a bronze historical plaque. It tells of how the city got its start.

“Adalanta Desert

When the Tehachapi incised the Adalanta Desert with two great sphaltways, a settlement at their junction was inevitable. Martha Pelaski’s small trading post that became the great city was built here…”

At first I couldn’t find this plaque. I went to Star Provisions and the nice Brazilian counter guy offered to show me where it was. After leading me to the plaque in the lower courtyard he asked me to explain it to him. He was pleased to be working in a place of historical merit and wanted to know more.

I had to tell him that it was a complete fiction, part of a country-wide project that imagines the North American continent not as it is but as a place full of alternative history. Plaques like this are scattered around the country. Cabinet Magazine’s interview with Eames Demetrios details the people that made up his world.

“There are over 5,000 zones or quasi-nations in Kymaerica. Each one has its own story. For example, there is the Tehachapi, which is the great road building culture in Kymaerica, and they built most of what we now think of as the interstate highways. There are the people who were the original Samurai who were blown off course and settled what we now call Santa Barbara (which they named Hizurokoro). There are the People of the Wind who make buildings totally out of air and who believe that what we call hills are actually depressions in the sky, and what we call valleys are actually hills in the sky. In the area that is present day linear San Diego there is something called the Sandafuegan Fire Cult which puts out valuable possessions and then sets fire to them.”

So, it was in Atlanta/Adalanta that a bit of that historical fiction took place.

Discover Kymaerica
Kymaerica Plaques – a photoset on Flickr

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For another bit of alterna-history, there this bit of cryptic graffiti in a Georgia Tech elevator.


The “muted trumpet” is symbolic of a long-standing war between rival postal factions. Taxis was symbolized by a trumpet, the Tyrstero a muted trumpet showing its rival silenced. All of this stems from Thomas Pynchon’s short novel The Crying of Lot 49. While the Tyrstero faction was imagined by Pynchon, Franz von Taxis actually founded the first Italian postal service in the 16th century. Pynchon’s broad and arcane conspiracy appeals to me so it was nice to see a little bit of it in the real world at Georgia Tech.

For additional info: Thurn und Taxis on Wikipedia

Cabinet Magazine, Wundercabinets & Athanasius Kircher

I’ve discovered that my appreciation for anything (music, books, website, etc,) has this cyclical tendency, on-again-off-again. I listen/read/visit, and then I get distracted and put down the pursuits. But often these interests reappear because I’ve found something else that compliment and reinforce something I liked at one time. More times then not I find that I am not alone in my appreciation of what ever has caught my interest.

Cabinet Magazine is one of those things. The magazine issues are collections of arcane facts and stories about people, places and ideas. And being a successful magazine, it must mean I’m not the only one reading about strange and unusual things. Like…

  • King C. Gillette (1855-1932), creator of the disposable razor published a book The Human Drift advocating the creation of a Utopian city near Niagara Falls. Why the Falls? A perfect source of power for his new society.
  • An article on “the Miniature Book Society, an organization whose interests extend only to printed works three inches or smaller.”

  • And much, much more.

Last Monday, I called their NY office and ordered all of their back issues, the most current and got a 1-year subscription. Wednesday all the issues arrived! This is my attempt to surround myself with reading material that will capture my interest and keep me focused. A problem I’ve been having lately. I’m going to continue to attempt to get the remaining issues that were sold-out to complete my collection.

The magazine is influenced by the Wunder cabinet (also Wunderkammer or cabinet of curiosities) . A precursor to museums (which means to excite the Muse) these cabinets or rooms were private collections of natural oddities, things, etc, that individuals would display on their homes. “Wundarkammern; cabinets of curiosities, which proliferated in the 16th and 17th centuries. These were usually collections of natural history specimens—skeletons, stuffed animals, fetuses. Sometimes they were ethnographical artifacts, brought from distant lands. Gathered magpie fashion, these cabinets were eclectic, unsystematic and sometimes a bit gruesome.” The Getty Museum in LA has a book, Devices of Wonder, that includes the topic of curiosity cabinets in it.

And lastly, the 17th century Jesuit polymath who much of this oddness orbits around. From the Chronicle of Higher Educations article, Athanasius Kircher, Dude of Wonders…

“…The consensus is unambiguous: Athanasius Kircher was, indeed, very cool. A dude of wonders, even. Even a partial catalog of Kircher’s accomplishments tends to make one’s jaw drop. A German-born Jesuit priest, he served as a professor of mathematics at the Jesuit training institute in Rome. Nicknamed ‘the master of a hundred arts,’ Kircher also knew dozens of languages, including Chinese and Coptic. His scientific writings — studied with rapt interest by scholars (Roman Catholic and otherwise) around the world — included works on acoustics, astronomy, chemistry, mineralogy, and optics. He also published some of the earliest scholarship on ancient Egypt…”

Itching for a Trip: The West, Abroad, and Chicago

Me and the missus are wanting to do some travel. The cruiseship work is bringing in some decent bank so a trip may be happening after school ends. The discussion ranges from “The Great American Road-Trip, Part 2” or in an aeroplane over the sea (Everywhere else in the World.)

I’d love another trip to the strange American West to see places like…

The Cabinet National Library in Cabinetlandia, Luna County, NM

Cabinetlandia National Library
Originally uploaded by Sean F.

“Cabinetlandia is located 10 miles east of the town of Deming in Luna County, New Mexico, off Interstate 10 heading east.” – Cabinet Magazine Online –

Official Center of the World, Felicity, California, Felicity, AZ

Center Of The World – 010
Originally uploaded by Homer-Dog.

Center Of The World 2007 – a photoset on Flickr

Salvation Mountain, Niland, California, near the Salton Sea

Salvation Mountain
Originally uploaded by CharlieChu.

As for global travel, as long as being white Americans doesn’t mean immanent danger anything goes. Spain, South-East Asia, India, Croatia, Black Sea, etc. Chances are a cheap airfare to someplace will determine where we go.

As for Chicago, well that’s a long shot. But The Boring Store would be destination #1.


The Boring Store
Originally uploaded by ScanTheVan.

The store is a combination spy-shop/after-school education program founded by novelist Dave Eggers who also started McSweeney’s Magazine. Read this article for pictures and commentary on what may be the coolest place that “is not a spy store.”

A Few Pictures Taken While out in Atlanta

Yesterday I went to to Youngblood Gallery to see the Ernesto Cuevas Jr. show. Bought a copy of Cabinet Magazine in their boutique store and took a couple of pictures in the neighborhood.

You Know Who Is Very Wrong…

Kevin Smith.

Yes, it was an evening with Kevin Smith. Caught “Clerks II” today. After that it was drinks and bad service at the Highlander.

And after that it was wandering inside a neighborhood house that was for sale and being gutted. No one was home and the doors were wide open. So, there you go.

Westfield XI: More Things I Want But Will Never Get

Do I want a reproduction of a Lotus 11 for less than most econo-cars or do I want a Messerschmitt micro car replica that gets 75 miles per gallon?

“…Pre-orders for the Westfield XI are being taken with prices starting from US$17,995.” Manik Technologies, LLC – North American Distributor for the Westfield XI

With the exception of a lack of cargo space, I can’t think of the reasons not to get… both!

Thank you Retro Thing for showing me more things to covet.

Parenting Advice From Adult Swim: Dr. Venture Says…

“…if you have a clumsy child you make them wear a helmet, if you have death-prone children you keep a few clones of them in your lab.”

Love The Venture Brothers. Season 2 has arrived!!!! Thank you [adult swim].

Cool Rooms: '30's Cartoon Style for Kids, Mario Bros. for Guests

For your decorating consideration, two bedrooms.

Vintage Cartoon




Link (via Boing Boing)

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Super Mario Bros.




Link (via Cartoon Brew)

Tick Tock, Crazy Clocks

I love when there is an intersection of function and art in machines. Three examples, from 1410, the 1870’s and one from 1999.

First, is the Orloj Astronomical Clock in Prague.

Secondly, The Historic Engle Clock at The National Watch and Clock Museum in Columbia, PA.

And lastly, The 10,000 Year Clock from the The Long Now Foundation

“The idea to build a monument scale, multi-millennial, all mechanical clock as an icon to long term thinking came from computer scientist Danny Hillis…”

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Fat Asian Baby’s comment (see comments section) got me hunting for the Strausbourg Astronomical Clock.

Gorgeous. Also found while hunting for the Strausgourg Clock…

The astronomical clock of Besancon

Carillon clock with automata, by Isaac Habrecht