Conrad Lycosthenes
Conrad Lycosthenes was an Alsatian humanist and encyclopedist. He belongs among the numerous polyhistors of the 16th century. He mastered Latin and Greek and was particularly fond of curiosities.
Alain Delon cigarettes
Alain Delon is a French brand of cigarettes, currently owned and manufactured by Altadis. The brand name refers to the French actor Alain Delon. The brand is popular in Asia, especially in Cambodia, due to the fact that the film Zorro was the first foreign movie to be played in China. Alain Delon cigarettes are sold in Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam as well. The brand is, or was also sold in Russia and Hong Kong.
The Ashley Book of Knots
The Ashley Book of Knots takes us back to a time when knots saved lives and put dinner on the table. Whether out at sea or in a pioneer cabin, knots were a part of daily life, one that is nearly lost today. But in this attractive, well-organized archive of more than 3,900 different knots the art of knot tying lives on, both as a historical reference and a reservoir of handy knowledge.
Luther Blissett
Luther Blissett is a multiple-use name, an "open reputation" informally adopted and shared by hundreds of artists and social activists all over Europe and South America since 1994. In Italy, between 1994 and 1999, the Luther Blissett Project (an organized network within the open community sharing the "Luther Blissett" identity) became an extremely popular phenomenon. An example: January 1995, Harry Kipper, a British conceptual artist, disappears at the Italo-Slovenian border while touring Europe on a mountain bike, allegedly with the purpose of tracing the word 'ART' on the map of the continent. The victim of the prank is a famous missing person's prime-time show on the Italian state television. They send out a crew and spend taxpayers' money to look for a person that never existed. They go as far as London, where novelist Stewart Home and Richard Essex of the London Psychogeographical Association pose as close friends of Kipper's. The hoax goes on until "Luther Blissett" claims responsibility for it.
Midnight magazine
Midnight is an extremely scarce, early, bedsheet, crime magazine that initially featured a mixture of fiction, true confessions, and exposes, but later became all fiction under the names Midnight Mysteries and Midnight Mystery Stories. Some of the early issues were destroyed by court order as being too risque.
Wombles
The Wombles are fictional pointy-nosed, furry creatures that live in burrows, where they help the environment by collecting and recycling rubbish in useful and ingenious ways. Wombles were created by author Elisabeth Beresford, originally appearing in a series of children's novels from 1968. The characters later became nationally famous in the mid-1970s as a result of a popular BBC children's television show using stop motion animation. A number of spin-off novelty songs also became major hits in the British music charts.
Undulatus asperatus
Undulatus asperatus is a rare, newly recognized cloud formation, that was proposed in 2009 as the first cloud formation added since cirrus intortus in 1951 to the International Cloud Atlas.
Starchild Skull
The Starchild skull is an abnormal human skull which was found in Mexico. It is primarily known through paranormal researchers' claims that it represents evidence of extraterrestrial contact. DNA recovered from the skull establishes that it is human.
The Thousand-hand Bodhisattva dance
Thousand Hand Guan Yin is a dance created by Chinese choreographer Zhang Jigang. This dance describes the legend that Bodhisattva Guan Yin has one thousand hands. Thousand Hand Guan Yin dance became one of the most popular Chinese dance in the world.
Zocchihedron
Zocchihedron is the trademark of a 100-sided die invented by Lou Zocchi, which debuted in 1985. It took three years for Zocchi to design his die, and three more years to get it into production.