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.

To Kill a Cook

Everybody wants books but god knows nobody wants to pay for them, which is why the generous folks at Putnam have arranged to give away ten gorgeous galleys for To Kill a Cook over on Goodreads. Enter the contest here. If you win, message me and we can see if there’s a way to get me to sign it.

If you’d rather not trust your luck, click the below image to preorder the book:

Things I Like

1. And Then! A beautiful new children’s book from a friend in New York City, And Then gives kids a chance to make up the endings to their own stories. It reminds me of both Press Here and If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler and those are two wonderful things to call to mind. Click here to order a copy for the creative little people in your life.

2. Bugonia! It’s a nasty, weird little movie and I liked it a lot. I had some quibbles with the script, which I thought could be a little tighter, but it was fun to look at and I’ll be thinking about it for some time.

3. Tomato soup! Here’s how you make the best tomato soup you’ve ever had. Saute an onion in olive oil. Add two teaspoons of dried thyme, a tablespoon of tomato paste, and salt and pepper. 30 seconds later, dump in a big can of diced tomatoes. Simmer for 10 minutes, puree, then add the best stock you’ve got until the consistency is how you like it. Correct seasoning and eat with good bread.

Today starts with a woman arrested for vamping and goes downhill from there. Comfort your knobby knees on…

August 21, 1921

• In Lakehurst, New Jersey, an airdrome is completed whose enormous hanger—large enough to “hold two ocean liners with plenty to spare”—is designed to provide safe mooring for the world’s largest dirigibles.

• Seventeenth Street skirt manufacturer Max Cohn is accused of using his factory to manufacture bootleg gin.

• The Weather: Fair today; Monday fair and cooler; fresh north and southwest winds.

Vamping meaning, of course, acting as a seductress.

GOSHEN, N.Y., Aug. 20.—Tongues were wagging freely today in Colden Hill, an Orange County hamlet, over the arrest of Miss Alice Tenburg, 18 years old, accused by Mrs. Frederick Snyder of going motoring with her husband. To use the expression of Judge Henry L. Wiley, who heard both sides in his court in Walden, the girl was accused of trying to “vamp” Snyder. Technically, she was charged with violation of Section 43 of the general code.

Mrs. Snyder made no charge against her husband. She testified that Miss Tenburg came to Colden HIll from New York a month ago, and complained that she found Miss Tenburg out motoring with Snyder. “They were laughing and seemed to be enjoying themselves,” she explained. Beyond that she had nothing more serious to charge except that she thought Miss Tenburg had designs upon her husband.

Miss Tenburg denied being particularly fond of Snyder, who is twice her age. She said that she had to go to Walden shopping, and that Snyder had given her a “lift” in his automobile. She told Judge Wiley that hereafter she would not ride in Snyder’s car. The Judge paroled her and adjourned the hearing for two weeks. Snyder returned home with Mrs. Snyder, and the village gossips are waiting for the next chapter to be told when the case comes up again in two weeks.

Do you think Overseer Voliva had knobby knees?

CHICAGO, Aug. 20.—The Board of Aldermen of Zion City is split over a new ruling by Overseer Voliva, setting forth that the trunks of men’s bathing suits must extend below the knees and a skirt flapping over the thighs must be worn.

It’s a comforting style for citizens with knobby knees and lean shanks. But for swimming, the Zion suit is little better than armor.

“Might as well jump in the lake with your clothes on,” says Alderman A.E. Hueneryager, who is leading the fight against the new regulation.

For the time, it has been decided, the bathing suit ordinance will stand. Daring women may expose their necks as far down as their collar bones.

One twelfth of an inch doesn’t sound like much but I looked up a picture of copra bugs and I wouldn’t want to be on a ship with one of them, let alone thousands.

Copra bugs, one-twelfth of an inch long, and river pirates, of the bold New York type, are the chief reasons why Captain Andrew Thompson, skipper of the Grace Line freighter West Norris, wants to have nothing more to do with either Singapore or New York.

It was at Singapore that the ship took on a cargo of copra and with it the bugs. Captain Thompson, who said he had not had a drink for some time, stated that there were hundreds of millions of insects, and life aboard for the officers and men, from the time the ship left the British island, June 10 last, was unbearable. The bugs got into the food, hair and clothing of the men and could not be exterminated.

Then the river pirates. They climbed the side of the West Norris early Friday morning and, apparently unmolested by the bugs, made off with a watch and $110 in currency from Captain Thompson’s cabin while the skipper was asleep.

The last episode in the miserable voyage was furnished by customs inspectors when she arrived at Pier 44, South Brooklyn, yesterday. Inspector Albert G. Hakensen and his squad climbed aboard the boat and down into the hold. An attack was made by a small band of the copra bugs, but this was not sufficient to force a retreat. The men searched the hold and say they found fifty bottles of liquor, a quantity of salversan and considerable jewelry which did not appear on the ship’s manifest. Furthermore, no owner announced himself.

A thirst-quenching con!

PORTLAND, Me., Aug. 20.—Twelve Portland men are said to have seven barrels of water for which they paid $2,300 under the impression that they were buying whisky.

According to a story told here today, a committee of five of the purchasers met in an old farmhouse in the Stroudwater district last night and in a second-floor room, lighted only by the rays of a flash lamp, tested whisky that was apparently siphoned from each of the barrels, and which they considered well worth $6 a quart.

They have now reached the conclusion that the liquor was produced in much the same way as a magician would have done it, from a little hose connected with a bottle concealed in the clothing of the salesman. The latter was a stranger here until a week ago, but he proved a convincing talker.