Sepia and Spiders

[Haystack]

The spot for vintage books, movies, art, ephemera, antiques and other artifacts that you’ve turned up in digital collections, estate sales and elsewhere.

[Haystack]

The Saddest Photo in the World

He’s staring at the camera, she’s staring at the coin.

[Haystack]

Spirit Photographs

[Haystack]

Obligatory Masturbation Ephemera (click for full image)

[ChickieD]

Do I have a book for you! My friend, the very talented novelest Robert Anthony Siegel wrote it.

Amazon.com: All Will Be Revealed eBook: Robert Anthony Siegel: Kindle Store

[teknocholer]

Why did no one tell me? WHY?

[Archon]

(and @Haystack)
Odd that most of these bear more resemblance to various untreated venereal diseases than «friction burns and lack-of-sleep».

19th century Physician, heal thyself?

[Haystack]

Odd that most of these bear more resemblance to various untreated venereal diseases than «friction burns and lack-of-sleep».

Now that you mention it, that makes total sense. Nice one, Archon.

[LearnedCoward]

Odd that most of these bear more resemblance to various untreated venereal diseases than «friction burns and lack-of-sleep».

Growing up in the Midwestern US, I’ve heard them all. You’ll get hairy palms, you’ll go blind, you’ll… give yourself syphilis This is simply an illustration of that last urban legend.

Female masturbation has totally different and even scarier urban legends of its own, mostly involving stuff getting stuck up there, or various creepy crawlies laying eggs, or being impaled to death on something or another. Similar to the various horror stories about ass play.

[Chaz1]

My favorite: Mom hidden to keep baby still during long seating.

[LearnedCoward]

Horrifying

[ChickieD]

There’s a whole genre of these hidden mother photos.

Hidden mothers in Victorian portraits

[ChickieD]

oh, woah, turns out those might be post-mortem

More hidden mothers in Victorian photography

"I see dead people": Victorian post-mortem photography

[Haystack]

https://archive.org/details/b21526552

It is admitted, that it is very hard for a young person to be consulted about any thing, however, trifling, by ladies of rank and fashion, without feeling a good deal of vanity. Perhaps it is not in human nature not to feel a little of this, under the circumstances. The difficulty is to conceal it when you do feel yourself to be of a little consequence; but if you can succeed in so far subduing your looks and manner as not to appear flattered by the condescension of your superiors, no bad consequences can arise from a mere feeling. It is, indeed, more the showing of it, and appearing elated and conceited which will do you injury. [pp. 44-45]

[teknocholer]

[ChickieD]

Max Klinger: A Glove Series - McMaster Museum of Art

[Haystack]

The anatomist Frederik Ruysch made perverse dioramas out of fetal skeletons and various human organs. Only their engravings now exist.

Frederik Ruysch: The Artist of Death

The centrepiece of every cabinet was an anatomical still life placed on a bed of bladder-, kidney- and gall-stones, from the midst of which rose ‘trees’ of dried blood vessels filled with a red wax-like substance. Among these stood tiny foetal skeletons. They still delivered their grave message to the visitor, but by now they did it with a sense of humour.

'Dialogue Between Frederick Ruysch and His Mummies' by Giacomo Leopardi (1827)

Leopardi has the piece open with Ruysch’s “mummies”, having come alive at night, singing in chorus. An awoken Ruysch watches through a crack in the door and, after overcoming his initial fears, ends up asking one of them for a brief description of what they felt when they were at death’s door. They assure him that dying is like falling asleep, like a dissolving of consciousness, and not at all painful. They declare that death, the fate of all living things, has brought them peace. For them, life is but a memory, and although they are not happy, at least they are free of old sorrows and fears.

[PatRx2]

A little multimedia: Hans Erich Apostel and Alfred Kubin.

A site with a considerable number of Kubin’s works.

[Haystack]

A really cool reading/performance of The Prophet, if that’s been on your list.