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

1. Julia Margaret Cameron! A pioneering 19th century photographer, Cameron got her first camera at 48 and promptly got down to creating thousands of gorgeous, hazy, haunting portraits of friends, artists and famous folk who drifted through her studios on the Isle of Wight and in London. Yesterday I saw an exhibition of her work at the Morgan Library and my god it made me excited for when my darkroom is up and running again.

2. Death Valley! It’s too damn hot to watch anything but Love Island and upbeat mysteries and my wife and I have been enjoying the huge tranche of quirky British detectives lately dumped onto Amazon via BritBox. Along with Luther, already recommended in this space, the best of the bunch is “Death Valley,” an incredibly sharp comic procedural starring the Gwyneth Keyworth (who’s goddamned hilarious) and Timothy Spall as a cop and an iconic actor who, y’know, solve crimes.

3. Bootblacks! Their new album, Paradise, slays. Moody 80s synth + sexy sax. I mean, just look at these goofballs. What more could you want?

Today we have more on Jack Brown plus a couple of animals who aren’t helping at all. Lie down with a very horsey headache on…

August 12, 1921

• Captain Emmett Kilpatrick, an American prisoner newly released from Soviet prison, says that the famine there is not being caused by drought but by Communist seizure of last year’s grain crop, seeds and all.

• The President’s father, 76-year-old Dr. George T. Harding, elopes with his longtime nurse, 52-year-old Alice Severns. (One Harding biographer described Dr. George as “a small, idle, shiftless, impractical, lazy, daydreaming, catnapping fellow whose eye was always on the main chance,” which is both a spectacular description and a hell of a way to live.)

• A British expedition planning to climb Mount Everest completes a survey of the mountain’s base without finding signs of a practicable route to the summit.

• Painted black and rigged in a style that’s 20 years out of date, a new mystery ship, possibly a rumrunner, has been spotted 100 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras.

• The Weather: Showers, probably thunderstorms, today; Saturday, probably fair

Hyman Lisker went up against Magistrate Edgar V. Frothingham. Hyman Lisker lost.

Hyman Lisker, 40, of 129 Livingston Place, a peddler, arrested by Patrolman William Kelly of the Clinton Street Station, at Washington and Livingston Place, was arraigned before Magistrate Edgar V. Frothingham in Essex Market Street yesterday charged with peddling from a pushcart without a license.

“I gotta license, Judge, your Honor,” said Lisker, handing a paper to the Magistrate.

“This is a license to peddle from a wagon with a horse, not from a pushcart,” said Magistrate Frothingham. “Why didn’t you have your horse out yesterday?”

“The horse had a headache, Judge, your Honor,” said Lisker.

“Pay $2 fine to the clerk over there,” directed the Magistrate.

Another entry in the continuing story of Jack Brown—I will not subject the man to scare quotes, as the Times insists on—in which we learn that Jack has gone on the lam. Godspeed, sir—I kind of hope this is the last we hear of him, because if there’s any more news it will probably be tragic. I just want Jack to find somewhere to work and live and love and be happy!

MONTICELLO, N.Y., Aug. 11.—No doubt remained today that “Jack Brown” really was Lena Schimeck. Last night Thomas Walsh, an officer, and the proprietor of the boarding house where Lena had worked as “Jack,” became convinced of the misrepresentation after an interview with her. This morning only the trousers that she had worn, a shirt and other male attire greeted the officer who went to arrest her. All day officers have scoured the country for Mary Holdowanetz, her “fiancée,” in the hope of finding Lena.

When “Jack Brown” came to Monticello this Summer he was asked what had become of Mary, his sweetheart of last Summer, and he told Kutcher, the boarding house owner, that she was married. Kutcher liked both “Jack” and Mary, and when he was told that “Jack” was not “Jack,” he said: “That cannot be.”

“‘Jack Brown’ was one of the best ‘men’ we had on the farm,” said Kutcher. “He could dig ditches with the rest of the men, and milk the cows, wait on the table and do chores about the place. There was not another like him on the farm. At night he slept with the rest of the men. Of course, nobody knew. The men and women all liked him, and many of the women fell in love with him.”

From one Jack to another! If you thought today’s first item felt like column filler, wait’ll you get to this baffling story about a parrot who knows how to speak the language…of revenge!

Jack O’Brien, a big green parrot, was one of a consignment of 100 birds on the Booth liner Justin during a trip from Manaos, Brazil, 1,000 miles up the Amazon, which ended at this port yesterday. Jack was made a pet by those on board, and he accumulated a whole bag full of tricks. One day when the vessel had headed north from Barbados, her last port of call, Jack took offense because one of the officers shooed him out of his room when the bird interfered with the making out of a report.

For a day Jack brooded, spending his time with the Chief Engineer. Early the next morning the parrot went to the cages of the other birds and liberated at least a score of them. This caused consternation among the negroes of the crew, for parrots kept popping out at them from dark places and screeching in their ears when not expected. Finally all the birds were recaptured.

The officers were responsible for the story that Jack at 11:45 o’clock every night, when the watch was changed, would mount the bridge and shout: “Change watch.”