Weekend Conversation Starters

[Messy Nessy Chic]   Back to normal. That seems to be the mentality at this time of year. Plenty of people feeling like the excitement of summer has ended and we're back to the humdrum of the everyday. Well, if you feel this way. Leave it to a Francophile to set you straight. Here's one of my favorite quotes, which I feel is especially relevant on Friday September 1st. “The year does not begin in January. Every French person knows that. Only awkward English-speakers think it starts in January. The year really begins on the first ... of September. This is when Parisians get back to their desks after their month-long holiday and begin working out where they’ll go for the mid-term break in November.” –Stephen Clarke, author, Francophile, and needless to say, kindred spirit. So go out and enjoy the start of your year! [Nessy]   [Don’t be a Tourist in Scotland: The MessyNessy Road Trip Guide](  [wes-scotland]( When you have the French Riviera just a train ride away, why would you choose Scotland for your summer vacation? That’s what most of my fellow Parisians heading for the beach were probably wondering when I shared my own holiday plans. Sure, they might have thought it sounded quirky, but they weren’t convinced. And to tell you the…  [Continue Reading](   [Abercrombie’s Abandoned New York Castle is For Sale](  [249-Croton-Dam-Road-5]( Abercrombie & Fitch– that slightly irritating brand for college kids whose preferred choice of footwear is flip flops all year long. But thanks to this historic house recently hitting the market, I’ve discovered there’s a slightly better story behind Abercrombie & Fitch. David Thomas Abercrombie was a true adventurer. Born to Scottish immigrant parents, he first…  [Continue Reading](   [Tale of the Human Firecracker’s Hotel](  [eljobean-house-badgley]( Maybe you’ve heard of Gibsonton (aka Showtown), the winter haven for carnival performers near Tampa, Florida, home to side-show performers like Priscilla the Monkey Girl and the Alligator Man, where post office counters were lowered for the convenience of little people. Less well-known, though, is El Jobean, which catered more to circus folk—and required an…  [Continue Reading](   [Pre-War Germany’s Buried Art Nouveau Magazine](  [jugendmnc]( A magazine like Jugend was never going to survive Nazi Germany. A monthly art periodical created in Munich in the late 19th century, it featured many Art Nouveau artists on its cover, and effectively launched the art movement in Germany. They called it Jugendstil, literally “youth style” in German. This period of art and design is still…   [Continue Reading](   [Found in an NYC Junk Shop: Forgotten Postcards between Two Haiku Masters](  [haiku1]( Found at the bottom of an old mailbox in a New York antiques store, what’s written on the back of these postcards perfectly captures the iconic arts scene in New York’s early 1960s– a city that was hosting the likes of Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, Jack Kerouac and countless more forgotten artists, jazz musicians and poets of…  [Continue Reading](   [Scotland’s Sleeping Castle](  [Processed with VSCO with c9 preset]( She’s been asleep for over half a century. Cocooned by a forest, half swallowed by nature’s encroaching fingers. A forgotten castle in the Scottish Highlands, waiting for its story to continue or find an ending. Such places do exist, you just have to be curious enough to find them.  [Continue Reading](   [The Brothel Boss Lady who Helped Build Seattle](  [parlor]( Like many West Coast settlements, Seattle is a city built on sin. As a logging town and port city their main industry might have been lumber, but the businesses that kept them competitive were the ones that could keep the sailors and other labourers entertained. Madame Lou Graham was a businesswoman through and through, and while…  [Continue Reading](   [Lost Cowboys of the Congo](  [kinshasa-cowboys-congo]( We’ve met the dapper dandies of the Congo, but today let’s discover yet another subculture from the same corner of Africa, forgotten in the folds of time. In the 1950s, when the Congo still belonged to the Belgium colonialists and the capital of Kinshasa was known as Léopoldville, it was a difficult place to be a kid to say the…  [Continue Reading](   [The Depraved Dance Marathons of the 1930s You Didn’t Know About](  [dancemarathoncover]( In a stifling gymnasium in Anywhere, America dozens of couples shuffle around the cramped space clinging on to each other for dear life. Spectators in stands cheer on their favourite couples, watching their aching legs barely hold up their exhausted bodies. Some have mastered the art of sleeping on their partners shoulders; as long as…  [Continue Reading](   [13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. CCL)](  [0111 (1)]( 1. This Sunken 200 year-old Swedish Cabin (for rent on Airbnb) In the early 1800s a man named Little Jon lived in this so called earth cabin (swe. ‘backstuga’) … In Sweden earthen cabins was common in the forests from the 1600s until the late 1800s and was inhabited by poor, old or sometimes criminal people… During the…  [Continue Reading](  Interested in Becoming a MessyNessyAmbassador? [Get Your Ambassador Link And Start Sharing!](    [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( [LinkedIn]( [Blog]( [To ready more from MessyNessyChic visit the Blog]( and make sure you keep getting these email by adding contact@messynessychic.com to your address book or whitelist us. 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