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.
A programming note: I’m talking to the folks at Patreon about migrating my email list over there, so that this newsletter can be integrated into what I’m already doing on that platform. If this works, it should be seamless. All of you will be added to the free list for my Patreon, which will get you the newsletter and the occasional other post. It won’t cost you any money but it will make things much easier on my end. Stay tuned!
Things I Like
Climbing Mount Everest! No, I’m not recommending the actual activity. I’m a big fan of terra firma and sea level oxygen, so climbing mountains is not the hobby for me. But this weekend I watched the 1922 documentary made by the second Everest expedition, restored and set to spooky modern ambient music, and enjoyed it despite its extremely rough edges. (Note to the late John Noel: it’s spelled “siege,” not “seige.”) The film of the 1924 expedition is also available, in much higher quality.
Menace! Earlier this spring the squad-based tactics wargame Menace was released in early access and reviewers I trust said it was very good. I have played it and can now confirm that it is, in fact, very good. (Although I am too much a Millennial to approve of its title being in all caps, as it’s rendered on the store page. Titles should be in title case, dammit!)
Mushroom Terrine! Last week my wife and I went to the extremely popular Philly vegan restaurant “Charlie was a sinner,” where the food was exceptional despite the restaurant being too dark and too loud. (And, again, titles in title case! Please!) The best thing we ate was the mushroom pâté, which tasted creamy and tangy and lovely and vile in all the ways that pâté made from the livers of abused animals does. It was so good that I wanted to replicate it, and I found this recipe which came damn close. (I subbed in veggie bacon for the smoked bacon and added a dollop of miso paste for umami and body, plus a couple of caramelized onions because what’d they ever hurt?) Just like real pâté, it looks like cat food, it smells like cat food, but it tastes like heaven.
Today we’ve got three tales of Jazz Age fatphobia! Steal for candy or steal candy on…
September 8, 1921
Half of all liquor seized by the government was produced in just three states: Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania.
After being accused of abusing his wife, New Jersey farmer Wesley Smith is abducted by five masked men, who drag him behind a car before covering him with tar and leaving him by the roadside.
Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, wife of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, loses a mule race to Mrs. J. Griswold Webb at the Dutchess County Fair.
A Dallas woman accuses her husband, “a prominent local physician,” of binding her hands and feet to his each night for fear of her deserting him.
The Weather: Fair today and probably Friday; moderate temperature; gentle, variable winds.
I want to know what poor abused Joseph R. White was stealing to buy candy. Wouldn’t it be easier to just steal candy?
Justice Robert J. Wilkin in the Children’s Court, Brooklyn, yesterday sent Joseph R. White Jr., 15 years old, of 186 Bergen Street, to the Berkshire Industrial Farms at Canaan, N.Y., on the complaint of his father. The boy has a craving for candy and he has resorted to stealing to obtain this luxury.
Probation Officer Boyd told the Court that the boy said he hate $2 worth of candy a day and that he had to steal to obtain funds to supply him with these sweets. The boy weighs 201 pounds.
See, the unnamed taxi driver gets it. Cut out the middleman and go straight for the chocolate cream.
Mrs. Elinor Abbott, painter and illustrator of children’s books, would like to find the taxicab driver who thought more of her last chocolate cream than of $250 in bank notes, her rings, and other more or less valuable contents of her handbag. She was so pleased at his driving back to her hotel and handing her the bag that she gave him several of the bank notes and forgot to ask his name or number. When Mrs. Abbott reexamined the bag and found everything in place except the lone chocolate cream, she remembered about his name.
“I think that his employers ought to know that they have one taxi driver, who, although he has a sweet tooth, can resist the lure of money,” said Mrs. Abbott. “Besides, I’m ready to load him with five pounds of anybody’s best candy and he can do what he likes with it. A New York taxi driver like that deserves to be rewarded.”
Mrs. Abbott lives in an artist colony in Rose Valley, near Philadelphia. She was on her way home from a week-end in Hartford and took a taxi at the Grand Central Terminal to the Colborne in Washington Square. She had a kit bag, a handbag and a pocketbook. Mrs. Abbott paid the driver and a few minutes later found that the handbag was missing. She hastened to notify the police and “Information” at the Grand Central. Just then the elevator girl reported that the taxi driver who brought the lady fare from the Grand Central would like to see her. He handed Mrs. Abbott the missing bag. Inside was the money, the rings, several sketches and other valuables. Mrs. Abbott gave him $25 and he drove away.
On looking the bag over again to make certain that all was in order, Mrs. Abbott found that the bonbon box containing one last chocolate cream was missing.
“I remembered it,” she said, “because the chocolate cream had a tin foil wrapping and I disliked to eat it, it looked so expensive.”
But the $250 was in plain sight, and the rings just where they belonged. The only thing missing besides the chocolate cream was the taxi driver’s name, and that Mrs. Abbott is anxious to learn.
This sounds like madness, but who knows? Perhaps if it had gone through, hyperinflation would’ve been avoided. Although considering the effects of the war on German food supplies, I doubt many waistbands went far behind that first “superfluous inch.”
BERLIN, Sept. 7.—It will no longer be “Watch your step” for the Germans, but “Watch your waist line,” if a new taxation project which has been submitted to the Finance Ministry is accepted.
If the proposed measure goes through, persons with waist lines exceeding normal will be required to pay for every superfluous inch, paying 500 marks for the first inch, 1,000 marks for the second, and so on.
The backers of the move hope that this not only will save the finances, but will improve the beauty of the citizenry.
