Founded in 2017, Strange Times is a twice-monthly newsletter that explores the weirdest news of 1921, one day at a time. To get free games and the original PDFs of every article that runs in Strange Times—plus stories that didn’t make the cut—back me on Patreon.

Things I Like

The world is an angry stomach churning with acid and dissatisfaction. Here are three things that have given me mild relief:

1. Aftermath! The reader supported, subscription based video game website—think Defector for games—has been one of my daily reads since its founding. This piece from last week about what it’s like to make video games for companies whose C-suites are increasingly obsessed with AI is my favorite thing they’ve ever published. It reinforces things I’ve thought for years: creativity is not a problem for AI to solve and brainstorming is not something to skip past on the way to making art, but is an essential part of art itself.

2. Total Playtime! Sticking with a theme, this nominal video game podcast from two-thirds of Rock Paper Shotgun’s old Electronic Wireless Show—the podcast that got me through pandemic grocery shopping—is silly and sharp and fun. Host Alice Bell also happens to be an excellent mystery novelist. Her Grave Expectations is one of the best mysteries I’ve read in the last few years.

3. Cherry Blossoms! Philadelphia is awash in pink and white and perhaps your town is too. Go have a stare before the spring rain washes them away.

Today’s issue brings a cursed car, a pantsless prisoner, and two more things that I can’t think of alliterations for. Steal a whole damn orchard on…

August 7, 1921

• The Soviet famine is made worse by the total breakdown of the nation’s train system, with rail traffic between Moscow and Kiev down to an average of one train a week.

• The Immigration Bureau confers with steamship companies to find a solution to the problem of immigrant steamers racing into New York harbor in the first minutes of each month in an attempt to discharge their passengers before that month’s immigration quota is reached.

• 22-year-old Marjorie Irwin, described as “petite and pretty,” is arrested by the Pittsburgh police and charged with being the “brains” of a five-man hold-up gang responsible for many daring robberies over the last six weeks.

• The Weather: Showers today; fair and cooler tomorrow.

Is this actually about a curse or just a sign that wealthy Germans in 1921 drove like they didn’t care who they ran over? They should move to modern day Philadelphia—they’d fit right in.

BERLIN, Aug. 6.—Like the curse of the Hapsburgs, the curse of the Hohenzollerns seems to have arisen. The latest curse takes the form of deaths through accident, either to the owner of an automobile formerly owned by a member of the Hohenzollern family or to pedestrians who were unfortunate enough to get in the way of the ill-starred machine.

One of the former Kaiser’s sons during the war ran over and killed a child while driving his automobile. The Prince, who was superstitious, immediately sold the car. A Baron, who was the second owner of the motor car, ran over and killed a man. He offered the car for sale. However, the car found a ready market, as it bore the royal monogram.

A chauffeur bought it for a taxi and he ran over and killed a man and then sold it. The fourth owner was a Cologne business man, who shortly after acquiring it was killed in an accident.

The automobile has been repaired and again offered for sale, but now there are no buyers.

I’m happy to say that, despite his misfortune, the pantsless prisoner continued to look on the bright side. (At least according to the last graf.) Rudolph Browner is an inspiration to us all.

Rudolph Browner, who conducts a restaurant at Fifty-fifth Street and Third Avenue, celebrated the departure of some of his friends for Germany yesterday and a result was that he was locked up last night in the East Fifty-first Street Station, charged with having been drunk and disorderly. His journey from his place of business to the station was noisy and strenuous, for he fought several policemen every step of the way, to the admiration of more than 1,000 persons.

Browner was arrested in front of his restaurant by Policeman Michael Ronam, who said he found him surrounded by a crowd and acting disorderly. On the way to the station Ronam was assisted by several other policemen. When Browner stood before the police bar, Lieutenant Murray ordered: “Search the prisoner!”

Ronam started to do so. “Good heavens,” he said in surprise. “He’s lost his pants!” And so he had. Torn and unsupported, they had slipped off in the struggle with his captors.

The policemen were puzzled, when the door of the station was opened cautiously and the lost trousers were slipped through the opening. In them were more than $400 in bills and a gold watch.

“I certainly am lucky,” said the prisoner, and his captors agreed with him.

Some killer ‘20s slang here, along with a firm warning that cat-calling is not cool in this century or any other. In 1921, though, the city did not put up with that shit.

“We’ve got rid of the Broadway lounge lizards, and no we are going to clean up the new species, the taxicab and motor lizards,” declared Magistrate Francis X. Mancuso yesterday in the Essex Market Court in sentencing Sam Young, 21 years old, a taxicab chauffeur of 304 Cherry Street, to five days in the Workhouse on charges of “mashing.” Mrs. Frances Knapp, 22 years old, of 71 Willet Street, was the complainant.

Mrs. Knapp was waiting for her husband at Delancey and Norfolk Streets Friday night, according to testimony, when Young drove up his taxicab in front of the curb, and, addressing her, said: “Say, Cutey, how about a long ride?”

Mrs. Knapp failed to answer, she testified, and Young jumped from his driver’s seat and embraced her, saying: “Come on in, dearie. A ride to Van Cortlandt Park will do you good. There’s a lot of fresh air there.”

A friend of Mrs. Knapp came along and gave Young a beating. He was rescued from further mauling by a patrolman.

“This taxicab flirtation business has to stop. I’ve seen it myself, and you fellows are pretty conspicuous in demonstrating your amorous methods,” said the Court. “There is going to be a stop to this, and pretty quick. Five days in the Workhouse may make you act like a gentleman.”

August 7, 1921, was a Sunday, which meant that the Times was over 100 pages long. I waded through about 60 of them without finding anything worth a damn and I was starting to get nervous when I saw this absolute beauty of an article and knew we’d be all right. Then I found the three prior stories in quick succession—on Sundays, they often buried the best stuff deep in the rag.

HAMILTON, Ohio, Aug. 6.—The police are looking for a thief who stole a fruit orchard consisting of 150 trees. They were new trees, set out a day or so ago.

The farmer who had an orchard yesterday and didn’t have one today lives in Morgan township and refuses to let his name be used.

The only clue police have is a criss-cross of footprints in the places where the saplings were.