"too many beavers in all the wrong places"

Back in the 1940s, Idaho’s Fish and Game Department had a problem: too many beavers in all the wrong places. So they devised a plan to parachute those unwelcome beavers into new habitats. And now somebody has found footage of those parachuting beavers, and it’s wonderful. (via)

beaver parachuting around the 7-minute mark, but there's not much need to skip any of this.

leon bridges - coming home

(via)

abandoned smoky mountain stuff

yesterday, huffpo misleadingly posted a story about a hiker "discovering" an old abandoned town in the great smoky mountains of east tennessee. today, the tennessean snarkily responded that everybody who knows anything is aware of this place, which was a vacation resort before the area became national park'd.

regardless, i want to spend a night there.

old timey vols

Yes … Look here RT @Chris_Said_it: @Vol_Football What colors did UT mostly wear before Orange jerseys? Black? pic.twitter.com/wrCLuLk5fc

— Tennessee Football (@Vol_Football) September 23, 2014

what it's like.

govies island, before-times

gothamist has a collection of photos from governors island before the city bought it back for us. it had a burger king and everything.

have we ever talked about the ether dome?

jicydak, the ether dome is an old-timey surgical amphitheater at mass general, and is widely regarded as the birthplace of modern surgical anesthesia.

it was featured in the opening of a recent radiolab, which painted a pretty gruesome picture of what kind of stuff happened in there before some random dentist showed up with a bag full of ether.

The Ether Dome event occurred when William Thomas Green Morton, a local dentist, used ether to anesthetize Edward Gilbert Abbott. John Collins Warren, the first dean of Harvard Medical School, then painlessly removed part of a tumor from Abbott's neck. After Warren had finished, and Abbott regained consciousness, Warren asked the patient how he felt. Reportedly, Abbott said, "Feels as if my neck's been scratched". Warren then turned to his medical audience and uttered "Gentlemen, this is no Humbug".

anyway, i've always thought it was pretty creepy and would love to go to there. they even have a mummy!

old timey UT

knoxville & the university of tennessee in the jazz age.

old new york

The Atlantic has some fun old photos of NYC recently released by the Municipal Archives.  You can go here to see the full gallery.  But good luck getting it to load; it's totes overwhelmed right now.

beats antique

I'm trying out blogging from the airplane on my iPhone. is it working?

used to be.

manhattan bridge, 1914. a funeral following the battle of veracruz.

this humpday has been awesome

because i have been listening to pitchfork's top 500 tracks of the 2000s playlist on spotify.

it's been a whole day of "holy s, i forgot about this song!!"

nerd alert: time capsule

The MTA is shutting down the 7 train at Court Square for construction on Saturday. The stop is integral for both my and keekers commute.  I have thought and said some pretty hateful things about the MTA since I heard the news. Two days ago however, I received a sort of going away present. They have stripped the maps and adverts off the walls of the platform to reveal remnants of the days when graffiti writers wrote with relative impunity. When the MTA put up the maps and advertising boards, they didn't bother to paint over what was there, leaving these tags in a time capsule to be opened two decades later. As I was shooting these photos a train came into these station and the conductor called out to me, "That really is a blast from the past!"

plantation house | slave market

the new york times' DISUNION blog brings us a tour of the abandoned civil war-era architecture across the south:

Perhaps the most famous house of 1861 was, by July of that year, no longer standing. The home, called Spring Hill, belonged to Judith Henry, an invalid widow, and stood on a hill overlooking Bull Run. In the battle that engulfed the fields around Spring Hill on July 21, Henry was killed and her home destroyed, save for a few remnant beams and a section of chimney.

Over the next four years of war, countless thousands of homes, from grand mansions to decrepit shacks, would be damaged or destroyed. Many others were simply abandoned by fleeing families, never to be reclaimed. What was left behind was a landscape of human ruin, some of it still standing today, 150 years later. (via)

truth.

thx carly!

creepy abandoned amusement park

(via)

spirit animal

via

old-timey gchatz w/ joel

while searching my gmail for an answer to the age-old question, "do you remember which one of our friends' cat committed suicide by jumping from a balcony?", i found this:

Joel: want to help pick out a puppy for my mom
me: yes please
(dated 09/30/08)

omg KISMET!

(the answer was gururas, btdubs, although i could've sworn it was adrienne.)

history!

as you probably already know, the city is currently tearing up fulton street, in some sort of effort to make things better. while digging, they recently uncovered at old-timey well from the 17th-century farm of new york's first native-born mayor, stephanus van cortlandt. they also found a bird head about some old dutch teapot pieces. you can read all about it here.

bonus link: the development of a new urban farm in the battery

this story is remarkable.

though i'm not totally convinced it's true.

Five thousand years after he died, the first known gay caveman has emerged into the daylight.

According to archaeologists, the way he was buried suggests that he was of a different sexual persuasion.

The skeleton of the late Stone Age man, unearthed during excavations in the Czech Republic, is said to date back to between 2900 and 2500 BC.

During that period, men were traditionally buried lying on their right side with the head pointing towards the west; women on their left side with the head facing east.

In this case, the man was on his left side with his head facing west. Another clue is that men tended to be interred with weapons, hammers and flint knives as well as several portions of food and drink to accompany them to the other side.

Women would be buried with necklaces made from teeth, pets, and copper earrings, as well as domestic jugs and an egg-shaped pot placed near the feet.

The ‘gay caveman’ was buried with household jugs, and no weapons. (via)

i do know that thomas wilhelm sleeps on his left side, with his head facing west, and all his pots and pans in bed with him.