Neatorama

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• Two-Faced Mogwai - Gizmo's Got His Work Cut Out For Him With This One!
• 9 Artists Design Bookcases to Promote Libraries
• Redditors Reveal Their Most Cringeworthy Accidentally Sent Texts
• Batman V Superman (1949)
• Did High School Students Die Because They Were Hypnotized By Their Principal?
• "Wealth Therapy" Provides Counseling for the Rich
• Tracking Down the Most Dangerous Letters in the World
• 29 Giant Version of Your Favorite Foods
• <i>Star Wars: The Force Awakens</i> Official Trailer
• Quebec City Comiccon Cosplay
• Terrifying Video: Shark Attacks Kayaker
• Shikaka - The Sound Of One Man Solving Pet Related Crimes
• Argument: Jabba the Hutt is a Good Guy
• Actor Shot During Tombstone Reenactment
• If Disney Movies Were Faithful To Their Fairy Tale Source Material
• The House of Eyes
• "Father" Of Austrailan Politics Is Introduced To Snapchat
• How Salt Lake City’s Quirky Liquor Laws Lead to Unique Cocktail Menus
• An Art Show About Nothing
• Tiny Hamster's Halloween
• The Ten Different Types of Fallout Players
• Whodunit: Dead-End Stoolie
• Urban Playmobil Heads
• Thomas Jefferson’s Hidden Chemistry Lab Discovered
• Photographer Removes Mobile Devices in Photos to Prompt Reflection on Their Usage
• Deacon's Double Life

Two-Faced Mogwai - Gizmo's Got His Work Cut Out For Him With This One! Posted: 20 Oct 2015 04:00 AM PDT Two-Faced Mogwai by DrLupo A strange ancient form of magic gave birth to the cute little creatures we call Mogwai, and their wicked counterparts the Gremlins are there to keep the energy in balance and remind us that having something magical in our lives requires hard work and dedication. But if you ever encounter a two-faced Mogwai, well, that's probably just a creepy little Gremlin cosplaying as the Batman villain. Turns out those little monsters love trick-or-treating just as much as we humans, and they're even willing to get along with us for a night if it means hauling home bags of candy! Show the world how the Gremlins cosplay with this Two-Faced Mogwai t-shirt by DrLupo, it's the freaky way to scare up smiles wherever you go! Visit DrLupo's NeatoShop for more delightfully devilish designs: Thirteen Fish Life Angry Lighter Unexpected Visitor View more designs by DrLupo | More Movie T-Shirts | New T-Shirts Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

9 Artists Design Bookcases to Promote Libraries Posted: 20 Oct 2015 04:00 AM PDT This is Nautilus, a sculpture by Katie Hudnall. It’s made of reclaimed wood and filled with books that you can check out from the Indianapolis Public Library. It’s one of 9 unique public book repositories designed by artists for that public library system in a program called The Public Collection. Users across Indianapolis who are drawn to them can find books inside. These sculptures are sharing stations that are both works of art and functional libraries. You can see photos of the other sharing stations at Colossal.

Redditors Reveal Their Most Cringeworthy Accidentally Sent Texts Posted: 20 Oct 2015 03:00 AM PDT Image: Feureau How bad can a mistakenly sent text message to the wrong person get? Who would be able to supply you with multiple answers better than Redditors? As you can imagine, when one asks for cringeworthy submissions on just about any topic, the Reddit community has cringeworthy covered.  The linked thread requested Redditors' mortifying stories with regard to accidentally sent text messages. Here are some SFW examples:  “Texted ‘Get Chipotle’ to my bedridden grandmother.” - JarlBarker “Texted a woman I work with “Come upstairs to bed, I miss you” instead of my wife.” - ThrakkerZog “About a year ago, a friend of mine accidentally sent a d*ck pick to our varsity football coach with that caption “You want? ;)”. Coach casually responded with a no and left it at that.” - BrothaBudah "‘Yeah get the boat ready, I just told my boss I was sick and won’t be in today.’ To my boss. It is worth noting that my boss was cool about it and responded with ‘bass fever huh?'" - Rottinguy See more awkward texts sent by accident on this Reddit thread. (Many answers are NSFW.) Via Uproxx

Batman V Superman (1949) Posted: 20 Oct 2015 02:00 AM PDT What happens when too much power goes to a hero’s head? You send in another superhero! The upcoming movie Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice pits the two comic book icons against each other. They’ve been in movies for so long that you could put together such a movie just from old serial footage. Which is exactly what Vulture did. (YouTube link) Watch Superman smash chairs for no reason! Watch him push Lois Lane’s car off a cliff! Watch Batman come to the rescue! In a ragtop sedan! And a parachute! This is a movie I’d want to see.

Did High School Students Die Because They Were Hypnotized By Their Principal? Posted: 20 Oct 2015 01:00 AM PDT (Image Link) Hypnotism's validity is still widely argued in the scientific community, where they can't seem to decide whether people can truly be hypnotized or not. But whether you believe hypnotism really works or is nothing but pseudoscience doesn't really matter in this instance, because students in a Florida town are dying due to their belief in hypnotism. A high school principal named George Kenney used students and faculty from North Port high school as guinea pigs, practicing hypnotism on them without a license or much training, and at least three students are dead as a result. The students were said to have received hypnotic "treatments" to help them deal with their problems but were instead left feeling a bit strange. A few years later three of the students hypnotized by Kenney died within weeks of each other, one in a car accident and two by suicide, and Kenney was found guilty of a misdemeanor, practicing hypnosis without a license. But was Kenney responsible for altering the brain chemistry of these teen students, or is the whole thing the result of overactive young imaginations? Read more about these Students Who Died After Hypnosis here

"Wealth Therapy" Provides Counseling for the Rich Posted: 20 Oct 2015 12:00 AM PDT (Photo: Steve Hockstein/Harvard Studio/Clay Cockrell) This is Clay Cockrell. He used to work on Wall Street. Now he's a therapist in New York City. He's found a unique specialty: the needs of the very wealthy. The Guardian quotes him: “We are trained to have empathy, no judgment and so many of the uber wealthy – the 1% of the 1% – they feel that their problems are really not problems. But they are. A lot of therapists do not give enough weight to their issues.” This is because, in part, American popular culture teaches that it's okay to hate people--so as long as they're rich: Traeger-Muney, who moved to Israel six years ago, runs a global firm and specializes in working with inheritors, who often get a bad reputation in the press. […] “Sometimes I am shocked by things that people say. If you substitute in the word Jewish or black, you would never say something like that. You’d never say – spoiled rotten or you would never refer to another group of people in the way that it seems perfectly normal to refer to wealth holders.” Wealthy people are often very isolated. They have trouble forming close relationships. This sometimes happens because wealthy people go through the same problems as non-wealthy people, such as grief over the loss of a loved one or a failed relationship. But non-wealthy people are often dismissive of those struggles if the person going through them is loaded: “I don’t think it’s healthy to discount your problems. If you are part of the 1%, you still have problems and they are legitimate to you. Even when you say: ‘I don’t have to struggle for money’, there are other parts of your life. Money is not the only thing that defines you,” he said. “Your problems are legitimate.” -via Marginal Revolution

Tracking Down the Most Dangerous Letters in the World Posted: 19 Oct 2015 11:00 PM PDT Postal memorabilia collector Dale Speirs has done extensive research on mail bombs and even wrote a book about them. He tells us about the different sorts of mail bombs used through history, and the different types of people who used them, like Ted Kaczynski, the Unibomber. Kaczynski was caught after 17 years of mail bombings that killed three and injured many others. Still, according to Speirs, a glaring loophole has persisted long after Kaczynski was incarcerated, and even after heightened anti-terrorism measures were put in place by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security post-September 11, 2001. The loophole concerns packages weighing more than 13 ounces, which must be presented to a retail postal clerk rather than being dropped in a street-corner letterbox, even if they have proper postage. “The idea was to force a face-to-face meeting with a postal clerk or letter carrier,” Speirs says. Unfortunately, postal customers who ignore this rule, or who are simply unfamiliar with it, routinely receive their parcels back in their own mailboxes marked “Return to sender,” as many legitimate USPS patrons have found out. For Speirs, this raises a troubling prospect: “Mail bombers obviously do not put their real return addresses on a package” he says. “The Unabomber used this method to aim at two targets with one bomb; if his package was not delivered, then it would be ‘returned’ to another victim.”   Read an overview of the history of mail bombs at Collectors Weekly. (Image credit: The Wreck & Crash Mail Society)

29 Giant Version of Your Favorite Foods Posted: 19 Oct 2015 10:00 PM PDT This Halloween, give out Mars Bars in this size and your home will be the most popular stop in the neighborhood. Ann Reardon shows you how in this video. She’s made all sorts of inventive confections, including a cake that looks like the Instagram logo and a cake that looks like a pile of spaghetti and meatballs. This is 1 of 29 giant versions of your favorite foods rounded up by BuzzFeed. They include a truly enormous Ding Dong, a Ferraro Rocher candy the size of a baby’s head, and a hamburger that could feed an entire family for a day.

<i>Star Wars: The Force Awakens</i> Official Trailer Posted: 19 Oct 2015 09:00 PM PDT YouTube Link As Miss C. said in her post about the official poster, just released this evening is the official trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I present this baby without comment. What do you think? The much awaited film is set for release on December 18 of this year.

Quebec City Comiccon Cosplay Posted: 19 Oct 2015 08:00 PM PDT Yan Fortin from Geeks Are Sexy got to attend a convention in his own backyard (relatively) during the Quebec City Comiccon over the weekend. It’s the second year for this con, and cosplayers came out in droves. Patrick-Michel Dagenais took plenty of pictures. The artistry, variety, and attention to detail in the costumes is quite impressive. See dozens of them in two galleries at Geeks Are Sexy: part one and part two.

Terrifying Video: Shark Attacks Kayaker Posted: 19 Oct 2015 07:00 PM PDT Last month, Mark McCracken was fishing out of a light open kayak off of Santa Barbara, California. Suddenly, at the 1:03 mark in this video, a hammerhead shark rammed his boat. He didn't fall out of the kayak, but the hammerhead kept on coming. McCracken hit the shark over and over again with his oar as it charged him. He paddled back to shore with the shark staying close behind him. After beaching his kayak, he saw the the shark was still hovering in the surf, distressed at the one who got away. (Video Link) My advice to McCracken: get home as fast as you can and don't answer the door if you hear a knock. -via Gifsboom

Shikaka - The Sound Of One Man Solving Pet Related Crimes Posted: 19 Oct 2015 06:00 PM PDT Shikaka by Mos T-Shirts He didn't earn the title "Ace" by solving all kinds of pet murder cases and making the world a safer place for petkind. No, Ace is actually his name, but you can call him Mr. Ventura if you're nasty. Ace Ventura is the leading authority on pet related crimes in Miami, Florida, but that doesn't mean he's a two-dimensional dude. For there's a lot more to Ace's life than just pet rescue- he's a master impressionist, fashion consultant for Don Ho's band, and one heck of a good dancer thanks to the lessons he received from a cockatoo he once rescued from the jaws of a hungry crocodile. And when you hear someone yelling "Shikaka!" you know that's Ace coming to turn the place upside down! Get wild with your wardrobe by bringing home this Skikaka t-shirt by Mos T-Shirts, it's way more comfortable than a Hawaiian shirt and it's sure to inspire people to show you their best Ace Ventura impressions! Visit Mos T-Shirts's Facebook fan page, official website, Twitter and Tumblr, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more geek-tastic designs: I Am Divine I Know I'm Human Dirty Diana Jurassic Land View more designs by Mos T-Shirts | More Funny T-shirts | New T-Shirts Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

Argument: Jabba the Hutt is a Good Guy Posted: 19 Oct 2015 06:00 PM PDT (Video Link) I've long been sympathetic to Jabba the Hutt. Despite objections to Leia's slave outfit in Return of the Jedi, it's Jabba who is the most sexually exploited character in Star Wars. Take note: he's completely naked throughout the entire series. In this video, Gabriel Pacheco goes even further. He argues that although Jabba isn't a hero, he's clearly a good guy trying to do right for his community. Jabba employs a vast number of artists who would otherwise be processing womp rat carcasses for minimum wage. His palace is the most culturally and racially diverse community that we see in any of the movies. He also cares for the natural environment of Tatooine by preserving endangered species, such as the sarlacc. I'd like to add to Pacheco's arguments. The movies, which are written from the perspective of the Old Republic and the Rebel Alliance, tell us that Jabba is a gangster. But all governments, even one as pathetically weak and corrupt as the Old Republic, describe competitors as criminals. They need to support their claim that Jabba is some sort of crime boss. Watch the whole thing. Content warning: foul language. -via Dorkly

Actor Shot During Tombstone Reenactment Posted: 19 Oct 2015 05:00 PM PDT A group called the Tombstone Vigilantes reenact Old West gunfights three times a month in the streets of Tombstone Arizona. This past weekend, they were involved in the annual Helldorado Days festival. During the gunfight in front of the OK Corral on Sunday, group member Ken Curtis was shot by a real bullet and had to be airlifted to Banner-University Medical Center in Tucson. One of the reenactors had live bullets in his gun! An investigation by the Tombstone Marshal's Office revealed the actor, Tom Carter, was late to the show and his weapon was not checked before the reenactment. He fired a live round during the gunfight and hit Ken Curtis, who is another actor. The show was immediately stopped to care for Curtis. He is undergoing surgery Sunday night to remove the bullet. Carter's weapon was checked after the incident. Investigators found that there was one live round in the cylinder with five expended casing, which indicates the gun had held six live round before the reenactment. Curtis is in good condition after surgery to remove the bullet, and will be released soon. A spectator, Debbie Mitchell, was grazed in her neck but refused medical treatment. A couple of other bullets were found to have hit buildings. The mayor of Tombstone has suspended further gunfights until safety issues are addressed. -via John Walkenbach  (Image credit: The Tombstone Vigilantes/Facebook)

If Disney Movies Were Faithful To Their Fairy Tale Source Material Posted: 19 Oct 2015 04:00 PM PDT We all know classic Disney cartoons put a gentle spin on classic fairy tales, replacing the blood and death with song and dance segments to keep the content as close to G rated as possible. But if you take a look at the original fairy tale source material you'll see that Disney chose some disturbingly violent stories to adapt. And now, thanks to Paul Westover, illustrator extraordinaire for CollegeHumor, you can really see what they would look like if Disney Movies Were Faithful To Their Source Material, in a word- bloody. You've been warned! See If Disney Movies Were Faithful To Their Source Material here (contains NSFW material)

The House of Eyes Posted: 19 Oct 2015 03:00 PM PDT Christine McConnell (previously at Neatorama) went all out in decorating her parents’ house for Halloween! It involved covering up some windows, but worth it for a couple of weeks of frightening the neighborhood children. The eyes and teeth are painted foam board. An album at imgur has photos of both the process and the finished product. Don’t miss the nighttime picture, where it’s all lit up in green! -via reddit

"Father" Of Austrailan Politics Is Introduced To Snapchat Posted: 19 Oct 2015 02:00 PM PDT Some older folks don't know what to make of that Snapchat app the young folks are crazy about these days, wondering how an app that lets you chat with your social world via pics and short videos could cause such a stir. But just because they don't get it doesn't mean they won't happily jump on board once they're introduced to Snapchat, and according to the "father" of Australian politics Philip Ruddock the Lenses are the best feature. Philip was introduced to what he calls "Snapshow" by a young whippersnapper from BuzzFeed Australia named Mark Di Stefano, and now Mark has to explain to Mrs. Ruddock why Philip keeps sending her these strange selfies: -Via Buzzfeed

How Salt Lake City’s Quirky Liquor Laws Lead to Unique Cocktail Menus Posted: 19 Oct 2015 01:00 PM PDT The Mormon majority in Utah makes it a particularly difficult place to own a bar. The liquor laws are unlike those anywhere else. One Salt Lake City restauranteur opened what became a very popular restaurant and closed a little more than two years later -because the restaurant had always been a place-holder until a liquor license became available and the originally-planned bar could be launched. And that’s just the beginning of the quirky alcohol restrictions.     Whether it's served neat, on the rocks, or in a cocktail, hard liquor is restricted to a 1.5-ounce serving. But in a cocktail, you can use 2.5 ounces of spirit in total, as long as the other ounce comes from a secondary spirit. "The one thing I always try to explain to our guests is, 'If you're looking for a stiff drink, you need to go after a cocktail, not just something neat to sip on,'" says Copper Common beverage director/bar manager Maureen Segrave-Daly. "I can't pour you two-and-half ounces of bourbon, but I can make you a bourbon cocktail with an ounce and a half of bourbon and an ounce of something else." Theoretically, you can order an ounce-and-a-half of bourbon with a one-ounce chase of something else. You just can't have two servings of the same spirit, and the 2.5 ounce limit means there's no way to serve a "double" even if you could. "What's more difficult than anything else," says Segrave-Daly, "is explaining to someone why he can't get a double scotch, even though the person next to him has a scotch cocktail that's twice the size of a neat scotch." Those restrictions mandate some creative cocktail recipes and constant experimentation. Read about more of the strange Utah liquor laws enacted by people who don’t drink alcohol at Eater. -via Digg (Image credit: David Newkirk/Copper Common)

An Art Show About Nothing Posted: 19 Oct 2015 12:00 PM PDT Here at Neatorama, we're pretty big fans of Seinfeld, which is why I couldn't be more excited about Gallery 1988's "An Art Show About Nothing."  If you love Jujyfruits, Junior Mints, Kenny Roger's Fried Chicken, pretzels that make you thirsty and soup Nazis, then you'll inevitably love the delightfully silly and whimsical art based on the long-running series. If course, having looked at the art on the website and over at Flavorwire, I can't tell you if there's any triangle art there, but there does seem to be plenty of other great referrences in the show.

Tiny Hamster's Halloween Posted: 19 Oct 2015 11:00 AM PDT Watch Tiny Hamster (previously at Neatorama) and his friends go trick-or-treating and gobble up delicious pumpkins. (YouTube link) If you were a cutting-edge internet star -and a hamster- it only makes sense to trick-or-treat as the Pizza Rat! That’s almost as funny as Bunny Trump. And the guinea pig gets to go as the airplane scene from Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation. -Thanks, Jake!

The Ten Different Types of Fallout Players Posted: 19 Oct 2015 10:00 AM PDT The Fallout video game franchise stays true to the roleplaying game genre by allowing players to fully customize their character as they see fit, and the series made the transition from turn-based RPG to first-person shooter RPG smoothly. This flexibility means everybody plays Fallout their own way- choosing different tactics, weapons and perks, meaning there are hundreds, if not thousands, of different character options. But for the sake of brevity let's just say there are ten core types of Fallout players. Julia Lepetit drew up graphic depictions of the 10 Types Of Fallout Players for Dorkly, and it seems I'm part Hoarder, part Cartographer when I play (dull, I know). What kind of Fallout player are you?

Whodunit: Dead-End Stoolie Posted: 19 Oct 2015 09:00 AM PDT The following is a Whodunit by Hy Conrad.  These mysteries are from The Little Giant® Book of Whodunits by Hy Conrad and Matt LaFleur. Can you solve the mystery before you read the solution? (Image credit: Tony Webster) It was a cloudy Sunday, with the skies threatening rain all morning and showers anticipated in the afternoon. So Detective Wilson didn't really mind when he was called in to work. A tourist had gotten himself lost in an industrial section of town. At the very end of a dead-end alley, the poor visitor came across the body of Vinny the Fish, a stoolie who'd been supplying Detective Wilson with information on several ongoing mob investigations. "Both kneecaps busted," the on-scene officer said as he pointed to the corpse crumpled up against the blank wall. "Chest cavity was crushed in, too. We'll know more when the medical examiner arrives." Wilson didn't wait for the M.E. Instead, he looked up the addresses of three of Vinny's associates and drove off to see them. Someone had found out about Vinny's cooperation. Wilson felt he owed it to the stoolie to find his killer. Gummy Moran was on the street in front of his modest brick row house, washing his car. Gummy shrugged off the news of Vinny's death and kept chewing his ever-present wad of gum. "He probably got mugged. Don't waste your time on this loser. Go back to catching mobsters." And he laughed. Wilson found his second suspect at the clubhouse the mob had built for the neighborhood baseball diamond. Ricky Fricker was in the equipment room, checking bats for cracks and oiling gloves. "It's volunteer work," he said smugly. "You should try it. Look, I'm sorry about poor Vinny, but I barely knew the guy." Sean Monahan was a little harder to find, but Wilson eventually tracked him to the Oak Shillelagh, an Irish restaurant. "My sources tell me old Vinny bought the farm," he said as soon as Wilson walked in. Wilson knew all about Monahan's sources, some of whom were probably inside Wilson's department. "Why are you wasting time on Vinny's death. Was he stooling for you?" "Don't worry about my time. I know how to concentrate my energies. There's only one suspect I'm really interested in." Whom does Wilson suspect? And why? Show Answer The stoolie had been found against the wall of a lonely, dead-end alley. Detective Wilson left the crime scene before the murder weapon had been determined. But the unusual behavior of one of his suspects led him to a theory of how Vinny met his death. It had been threatening rain all day. And yet when Wilson approached Gummy Moran, the mobster was washing his car. No one washes his car when rain is expected—not unless he wants to remove evidence of a vehicular homicide. The whodunit above was provided by American mystery fiction author Hy Conrad. In addition to his work in mystery and crime puzzles, Hy was also one of the original writers for the groundbreaking TV series Monk. Currently, Hy is working on mystery novel series "Abel Adventures" as well as the Monk series of novels, starting with Mr. Monk Helps Himself (published by Penguin, order from Amazon here) Check out Hy's official website and Facebook page - and stay tuned for more whodunits puzzlers on Neatorama from the master of whodunit mysteries himself!

Urban Playmobil Heads Posted: 19 Oct 2015 08:00 AM PDT (Photo: Lêla Vianna Valério) Rodrigo Pereira calls his street art "urban interference." He's particularly fond of the forms of Playmobil toys and realized that the concrete road barriers in Rio de Janeiro look just like Playmobil heads--once he adds a bit of paint. He composed these in 2010. -via Recyclart

Thomas Jefferson’s Hidden Chemistry Lab Discovered Posted: 19 Oct 2015 07:00 AM PDT The University of Virginia (UVA) was founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819. He designed the curriculum to be heavy on science, and also designed the school’s rotunda. The rotunda is undergoing a renovation, and Matt Scheidt of the historic preservation firm John G. Waite Associates made a peculiar discovery. "I was laying on my back looking up inside this little space. I saw that there was a piece of cut stone which is very unusual to have in this location. You could see that there was a square cut in the stone and that there was a finished space around that with plaster and painted walls," Scheidt said. Upon further investigation, he realized he uncovered a piece of history. A chemistry lab designed by Thomas Jefferson and built in the early 1820s, toward the end of the Rotunda's construction. The lab was bricked up in the 1850s, and then forgotten until now. There were few academic chemistry labs in existence in the 19th century, and even fewer of them survive today. Read the history and description of the lab, and see pictures, at UVA’s website.  -via Buzzfeed (Image credit: Dan Addison/UVA)

Photographer Removes Mobile Devices in Photos to Prompt Reflection on Their Usage Posted: 19 Oct 2015 06:00 AM PDT As a culture, we're so accustomed to seeing people engaged with phones and tablets as we walk around in public, we don't give these frequent sights a second thought. Artist and photographer Eric Pickersgill decided to provoke people into giving these familiar scenes a second look by photographing them and removing the electronic devices. This seemingly insignificant photo editing tweak gives the images just the right "jolt" needed for the viewer to reflect on the true oddity of the situation. Pickersgill's resulting photo series, some of which is pictured here, is called Removed.  The photographer's inspiration was a sight he saw at a diner one day. He wrote of the scene, "Family sitting next to me at Illium café in Troy, NY is so disconnected from one another. Not much talking. Father and two daughters have their own phones out. Mom doesn’t have one or chooses to leave it put away.  She stares out the window, sad and alone in the company of her closest family. Dad looks up every so often to announce some obscure piece of info he found online. Twice he goes on about a large fish that was caught. No one replies. I am saddened by the use of technology for interaction in exchange for not interacting. This has never happened before and I doubt we have scratched the surface of the social impact of this new experience. Mom has her phone out now." See the entire photo series and read more of Pickersgill's thoughts at his website.  Via Refinery 29 | Images: Eric Pickersgill

Deacon's Double Life Posted: 19 Oct 2015 05:00 AM PDT The following is an article from the book Uncle John's Canoramic Bathroom Reader. Deacon William Brodie has been largely forgotten, but he was as notorious in his day as the stock swindler Bernie Madoff is today. He was also the inspiration for one of English literature’s most infamous villains. See if you can guess which one it is. FORTUNATE SON William Brodie was born in 1741 to one of the most prominent carpenters and cabinet makers in Edinburgh, Scotland. His father, Francis Brodie, was a leader, or “deacon,” of a guild of skilled tradesmen, a position that also gave him a seat on the city council. Francis’s standing in the community brought him access to the highest social circles, and examples of his handiwork could be found in many of the finest homes in the city. (Image credit: John Kay/CC) When young William was old enough, he began to learn his father’s trade. Like his father, he rose in his profession until he, too, was a deacon of his guild and a member of the city council. His status, profession, and family connections should have been enough to ensure a comfortable life for the rest of his days… except for the fact that there was one way that he didn’t take after his father: William was, at heart, a scoundrel. SPLIT PERSONALITY During the day, Brodie was to all appearances a morally upright citizen and a pillar of the community. But at night he prowled the worst neighborhoods of Edinburgh feeding a compulsive appetite for vice. He frequented a seedy tavern in a back alley called Fleshmarket Close, where he consorted with criminals and gambled at dice and on cockfights. He wasn’t very good with dice, even when he played with his own crooked pair. He wasn’t good at picking winning roosters, either, and lost huge sums of money at both. Brodie had two mistresses that historians know of, and fathered five children by them. To his credit, he supported both his families (neither of which knew about the other), but the expense of maintaining their households plus his own, when added to his substantial gambling losses, was more than he could afford. MAKING AN IMPRESSION At some point in the 1760s, Brodie began stealing from the customers of his cabinetry business to support his lifestyle. His modus operandi was simple: in those days it was common practice in private homes, businesses, and even government offices to leave the key to the front door hanging on a nail next to the door. When Brodie was building cabinets in someone’s home, he’d quietly case the premises while pretending to go about his work. Then, when no one was looking, he’d take the key from its nail and quickly press it into a wad of putty that he kept in a small metal case in his pocket. He’d return the key to its hook and later use the impression to make a duplicate key. Weeks or months afterward, when enough time had passed for him to avoid suspicion, he’d return with the duplicate and burglarize the home. (Image credit: Kim Traynor) SEEING IS (DIS) BELIEVING Brodie pulled off one such break-in after another for nearly 20 years. Twice he robbed homes that he believed would be empty but, in fact, were not. One belonged to a friend, who recognized Brodie even though he was wearing a mask. Perhaps because in those days burglary was punishable by death, the friend never turned him in. The second case involved an old woman who was sick in bed at a time when she should have been at church. On that occasion Brodie was, ironically, saved by his good name, as William Roughead related in his 1906 book Trial of Deacon Brodie: [The old lady] was alone in the house— her servant having gone to church— when she was startled by the apparition of a man, with a crepe [mask] over his face, in the room where she was sitting. The stranger quietly lifted the keys which were lying on the table beside her, opened her bureau, from which he took out a large sum of money, and then, having locked it and replaced the keys upon the table, retired with a respectful bow. The old lady meanwhile, had looked on in speechless amazement, but no sooner was she left alone than she exclaimed, “Surely that was Deacon Brodie!” Although the Deacon was recognized, no action was taken.… The old lady preferred to doubt the evidence of her senses— a striking proof of the advantages conferred by a respectable reputation.   THINKING BIG A few cases of (un)mistaken identity aside, Deacon Brodie had a pretty good thing going. He might have kept it going even longer than he did, were it not for one thing: he wanted to pull even bigger jobs, and for that he needed help. Since he was already a fixture at some of the seediest establishments in Edinburgh, he had no trouble finding three accomplices: George Smith, a crooked traveling salesman with experience as a locksmith; Andrew Ainslie, a compulsive gambler; and John Brown, a convicted swindler on the run from the law. (Image credit: John Kay/CC) The gang pulled its first job in October 1786, when it broke into a goldsmith’s shop and made off with the gold. Burglaries of hardware stores, tobacconists, jewelry shops, grocers, silk merchants, and other businesses soon followed. At each location the gang stole money and any goods they could lay their hands on that were valuable and easy to fence. Tea was a rare, pricey commodity in those days, and in one burglary of a grocer they made off with more than 350 pounds of the stuff. When they broke into the library at the University of Edinburgh in October 1787, they took the school’s ceremonial silver mace. TAX COLLECTOR In early 1788, Brodie planned his biggest burglary yet: robbing Scotland’s General Excise Office of its tax receipts. He’d done work there and was familiar with the layout. And like other visitors to the office, he’d noticed that even in a building supposedly as secure as this one, the key to the front door was still hung on a nail next to the door. Brodie had no trouble distracting the cashier at the front desk while George Smith took the key from its nail and made a quick impression in some putty he had in his pocket. But the burglary didn’t go as well as the gang’s earlier heists had. All they managed to find was £16 worth of banknotes (around $1,600 today), missing the £600 (almost $60,000) hidden under the cashier’s desk. Then, when a tax official unexpectedly entered the building while they were burglarizing it, the thieves panicked and fled rather than pounce on any intruders as had been planned. (The official didn’t even realize there were burglars in the building; he only learned about the heist when someone told him about it later.) TURNCOAT (Image credit: Kim Traynor) By now there was a £250 reward (nearly $25,000) for the identification and capture of the burglars, plus the promise of a king’s pardon for any of the criminals who informed against their accomplices. John Brown, already a wanted man, decided to take the deal. He figured (correctly) that the prosecutor would agree to pardon all of his crimes, even the ones he committed before joining up with Deacon Brodie, in exchange for his testimony. As soon as Brown collected his £4 cut of the General Excise Office burglary, he marched straight to the sheriff’s office and ratted out Ainslie and Smith… but not Brodie, whom he hoped to blackmail. Brodie naturally assumed he had been implicated, and when Ainslie and Smith were arrested he fled to Holland, where he hoped to catch a boat to America. He never made it. After both Ainslie and Smith implicated him, he was tracked to Amsterdam, arrested, and hauled back to Scotland for trial. THE END(?) The evidence against the gang was overwhelming. A search of Brodie’s home turned up more duplicate keys, a metal case filled with the putty they used to make impressions, plus several lock picks and other burglary tools. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Ainslie joined Brown and turned King’s evidence against Brodie and Smith. Both men were found guilty and were sentenced to death by hanging. On October 1, 1788, in front of a crowd of some 40,000 people, the largest ever for a hanging in Edinburgh, Brodie and Smith were executed… or were they? There was little doubt that Smith met his maker, but rumors abounded that Brodie had bribed the executioner for a “short drop,” or shortened length of rope, to prevent his neck from breaking when the trapdoor on the gallows was sprung. Different versions of the story had him wearing a metal band around his neck, a harness under his clothes, or a silver tube in his throat to prevent choking. A doctor had supposedly hidden nearby to revive him as soon as his family claimed the body. “If this succeeded,” William Roughead relates in Trial of Deacon Brodie, “the Deacon was to lie quiet in his coffin, exhibiting no signs of life, till such time as it could be safely removed to his own house…. Whether or not this remarkable program was ever carried out was never recorded.” BY ANY OTHER NAME Regardless of whether Brodie survived, his legend certainly did, thanks in no small part to his day job as a cabinet maker. After his double life was exposed, the cabinets, chests and other furniture he’d made became instant conversation pieces. For years afterward, people in many of the finest homes in Edinburgh delighted in showing off Deacon Brodie’s handiwork as they told his story to friends. One such man was a lighthouse engineer named Thomas Stevenson. He had one of Brodie’s cabinets in the nursery of his home, and his young son, Robert, never tired of the nanny telling the story of the man who was one person by day and another by night. Robert —whose full name was Robert Louis Stevenson— would grow up to become an excellent storyteller in his own right. He wrote his first play about Brodie in 1864 when he was only 14, and returned to the story repeatedly over the years. In 1882, when he was in his 30s, he and a friend brought a version titled Deacon Brodie, or the Double Life to the stage. But Stevenson’s most famous story inspired by Deacon Brodie came about in 1885, when publisher Charles Longman asked him to write a ghost story for Christmas. Legend has it that much of the plot, about a doctor who invents a potion that turns him into a homicidal madman, came to Stevenson in a dream, that he wrote the story in only three days, and that when his wife didn’t like it, he threw it on the fire and rewrote the story in another three days. First published in January 1886, the novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has been in print ever since. _______________________________ The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John's Canoramic Bathroom Reader. The latest annual edition of Uncle John’s wildly successful series features fascinating history, silly science, and obscure origins, plus fads, blunders, wordplay, quotes, and a few surprises Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. If you like Neatorama, you'll love the Bathroom Reader Institute's books - go ahead and check 'em out!

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