From “Boorstein’s Out & About in NYC”… page 41…

… Ah yes... the famously infamous St. Bernice Workhouse For Wayward, Willful, and Woebegone Children. Opened in 1831 and referenced loosely by Ebenezer Scrooge in A CHRISTMAS CAROL, it was a place where society dumped their unwanted offspring for discipline, prayer, hard labor, gruel, stale crackers, and soiled underpants. It was converted into luxury duplexes for the mega-rich under Rudy Giuliani some time in the 90s.

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From “Boorstein’s Out & About in NYC”... page 12...

… Ah, yes... the famously, infamous third story window where the Comtesse de l'Artichaut Puant last looked out at the departing figure of her young, handsome lover, Biff Lustica in the Fall of 1932. Her fortune manufacturing croquet wickets had finally been wiped out as the Great Depression worsened, and people found it less and less diverting to play lawn games. In despair, she invested what little she had left on her invention of linoleum croquet for indoor, night-time, and bad-weather croquet, but that too failed. She watched both her dreams and her lover vanish before her very eyes as he rounded the corner on East 10th And University Place, and, with a hoarse cry to the Heavens and a shaken fist, she threw herself to the pavement below. Interestingly, the police were only called because Mrs. Maria Abatangelo who lived below (windows shown in the photo thought the "awful Carrother children" were throwing watermelons off the roof again.

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*Tour-ette from a little garden... and a reflection on "the meaning of it all"... 8/20/2021

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Sybil Bruncheon's "Inadvertent Inventions and Their Inventors... Henny Hiebel"...

Little known fact… In 1921, Austrian actress Henny Hiebel, after years of failed attempts to break into the big time, and a string of unsuccessful plays, failed silent films, trained dog acts, vaudeville magic shows, hootchy-kootch parlors, and burlesque skits finally gave up and joined the carnival circuit as a gypsy fortune teller with “her magic metaphysical turban”... It was on a hot August night during a break in her shift that she accidentally set fire to her turban while making some popcorn in her tent… her descendants to this day continue to make millions of dollars off her Jiffy-Pop patent… and keep her ashes in an aluminum foil bubble-urn…

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Sybil Bruncheon's "On This Day in Yesteryear!"... August 16th.

... in 1743, Champion of England titleholder Jack Broughton publishes 'Rules of the Ring', the earliest boxing code. Prior to this, all boxing was done in heavily padded clothes until Broughton suggested that it might be more fun in the nude. Interestingly, Broughton was also the British champion at strip-poker which he hosted at all-male retreats along with Naked Croquet at his estate, Flouncy Farm.

... in 1943, Czar Boris III of Bulgaria visits Adolph Hitler for a friendly luncheon and treaty-signing, but realizes that a career in show business might be more appealing in the long run. He contacts Rocky and Bullwinkle, his former classmates from the University of Frostbite Falls, and becomes a contract player along with his wife, Natasha.

... in 1969, the second day of the Woodstock Festival in Bethel, New York; performers include Santana, John Sebastian; Mountain, Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Janis Joplin, Sly and the Family Stone, The Who, and Jefferson Airplane. The Guinness Book of World Records declares it to be the largest number of unwashed people in one place at one time... and just one week later, the smell resulted in the deaths of thousands of livestock in surrounding farms for over a hundred miles...

... and that's what happened on this day in yesteryear.

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Sybil Bruncheon's Fabulous & Fantastic Flea Market Finds!...

True story... this carved "statue" was the property of Liberace and was placed prominently in front of the Ice Cream Parlor that he built adjoining the piano-shaped swimming pool at his Los Angeles home. He had Biff Lustica, his body-builder "soda-jerk" and former Mr. California make banana splits for guests. Biff claimed that he modeled for the statue "where it counted"... Interestingly, Liberace could never decide whether the statue was... um... circumcised or not... (Do YOU have a flea-market find or some unusual treasure in your attic that you'd like our team to research? Please feel free to submit your photos to our experts!)

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Sybil Bruncheon's Fabulous & Fantastic Flea Market Finds!...

... True story... this chair was the property of Gypsy Rose Lee... and could indeed get its tassels going in opposite directions. Sadly, it would become airborne... and ended up injuring three of Madam Rose's "Tore-Adorables" in a corn-field crash-landing... The cow-head was a complete loss. (Do YOU have a flea-market find or some unusual treasure in your attic that you'd like our team to research? Please feel free to submit your photos to our experts!)

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From Sybil Bruncheon's "My Merry Memoirs!"... chapter 12. Pulp novels and B pictures...

Here's the cover of a "ladies' noir novel" from the 1940s which was later made into a nudie/singing nun/lady-detective monster movie that I starred in; UNLUCKY IN LOVE BUT FORTUNATE IN HAIR-DOs (1948), co-starring Beverly Garland, Narda Onyx, Faith Domergue, Betty Furness, Pinky Lee, and Herve Villechaize as the newborn baby from Uranus. Directed by Ed Wood... good times... ah, good times.

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*Tour-ette from a somewhat neglected garden in Cherry Grove! HOT AS HELL! 8/11/2021

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Sybil Bruncheon's Summer Suspenseful Reading Suggestions!... "The Grapefruit Spoon Slayer" by Pilburt Gnadley!!!

Based on the true story in the Waltham Gazette from 1934 about the infamous and slightly dyslexic Beatrice Crenwinkle. She killed a confirmed 39 people, and was suspected of another 42 more! All in the Pilgrim's Progress Luncheonette on the corner of Standish and Bradford over the span of 18 years.... her trademark was to leave a maraschino cherry in the middle of the forehead of each victim supposedly because she had been raised in an abusive Presbyterian orphanage in India until she was 11… or perhaps because she was just allergic to curry. Massachusetts toyed with the idea of outlawing grapefruit spoons for the following decade, but settled instead on just banning red food dye #1 and jarred cocktail fruit.

Not recommended for young or impressionable readers because of its fairly graphic and lurid passages, especially the descriptions of what she did with the victims before she'd leave their bodies at various roadside fruit stands or in the fresh produce aisles in local grocery stores. Chilling!! Thoroughly chilling!!

(The paperback version has additional illustrations, color photographs, and a centerfold!… but is only sold to adults! Jack & Jill Magazine is contemplating publishing a child-appropriate edition. With a connect-the-dots and paper-doll cut-outs!)

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