Cool Weird Awesome with Brady Carlson

Today in 1880, the birthday of Helen Keller, the activist, author, speaker, and, on one occasion, a pilot. Never mind what randos on social media have claimed, here's the real story. Plus: Wimbledon is getting underway, and players who want to swear beware: the umpires have studied curses in multiple languages.  Did Helen Keller Fly a Plane? (Snopes) Do Wimbledon Umpires Learn Curse Words in...

This week in 1951, Life Magazine had a feature story about a guy with an unusual hobby: he rehearsed his own funeral. Plus: this weekend in Littleton, Colorado, it’s the Unicorn Festival! Jim Gernhart, the living corpse (Weird Universe) Unicorn Festival   Long live our Patreon backers

For National Typewriter Day, some of the stories that helped bring this device to life, including a guy in Italy who was trying to help a blind countess write letters. Plus: a giant typewriter in San Francisco about a century ago? It happened.  Typewriters Were Originally Created To Help The Blind (Dictionary.com) a curious story of the 14 ton Underwood Master Typewriter… (Red Letter Day zine...

A family in rural Kentucky with a rare blood disorder had blue complexions for decades - until a doctor found a way to treat it. Plus: June is Great Outdoors Month, and in Norway, there’s a great spot outdoors that might exhilarate you - or might make you turn green.  The True Story of the Blue People of Kentucky (How Stuff Works) Kjeragbolten (Futility Closet) Join our Patreon backers and ma...

Summer is here in the Northern Hemisphere, and a lot of people are looking to keep themselves and some of their foods and drinks cool. That's what the storage building known as the yakhchāl did thousands of years ago. Plus: a guy in Munfordville, Kentucky built his own Stonehenge. Yakhchāls, Āb Anbārs, & Wind Catchers — Passive Cooling & Refrigeration Technologies Of Greater Iran (Persia)...

Today in 1863, West Virginia became a state - though back in the 18th Century, there were several efforts to meld this land with parts of Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Maryland and create an entirely different entity called Vandalia or Westsylvania. Plus: if visiting Stonehenge for the solstice is too much of a trek, why not head to western Nebraska and see Carhenge?  Westsylvania: The Fourteent...

This week we're replaying some of our favorite episodes about music that sounds a little different. In this episode from April 2020, music scholars at Cambridge University studied musical manuscripts without modern notation and reconstructed what they would have sounded like. Plus: in 1982 Key West,  Florida declared independence from – and war on – the United States. For not very long. First...

This week we're replaying some of our favorite episodes about music that sounds a little different. In this episode from April 2020, it's the story of the American Beetles - a knockoff band that toured South  America, without quite telling everyone they weren't the genuine article. Plus: Spanish artist Bichopalo is not only making beautiful music, he's making beautiful musical instruments, to...

This week we're replaying some of our favorite episodes about music that sounds a little different. In this episode from September 2020, we look at an organ in Germany that is, for more than 600 years, trying to play a John Cage score the way he wanted it to be played: "As Slow As Possible." Plus: a YouTuber trains his cat to put out fires, sort  of. John Cage musical work changes chord for f...

This week we're replaying some of our favorite episodes about music that sounds a little different. In this episode from August 2020 we look at the Oomphalapompatronium, a creation of Boston-area musician,  composer and inventor Len Solomon. And it definitely fits the name.  Speaking of words that fit with what they describe, did you know about  the word "aptronym"? Meet the Guy Who...

This week we're replaying some of our favorite episodes about music that sounds a little different. In this episode from April 2019, we visit Organ Piper Pizza in Greenfield, Wisconsin. As you eat, an organist plays an enormous  Wurlitzer organ, which also controls stage lights, disco balls, a mechanical gymnast and a family of singing ducks. Plus - a story that's, amazingly, not an April Foo...

It’s Portugal Day, and no doubt there will be celebrations across the country, including the capital city, Lisbon. Though there was a time in the 19th century when the capital of Portugal was not only outside Lisbon, it was outside Portugal. Plus: Today in 1972, the number one song on the Billboard pop chart was “The Candy Man” by Sammy Davis Jr. He recorded it in just two takes, convinced the son...

This past Monday was National Day in Sweden, but it's Thursday that the real fun gets underway, because that’s when people eat pea soup and pancakes. Together. Plus: graduating seniors at Basha High School in Chandler, Arizona celebrate the end of the school year with the Paper Toss.  PEA SOUP AND PANCAKES – SWEDEN’S THURSDAY FAVOURITE (Routes North) Basha High School end of year paper toss v...

Today in 1867, Frank Lloyd Wright was born. He would go on to design some of the most striking buildings ever built, from houses, to museums, to office buildings to... gas stations. Plus: some of Wright's many other designs were never built, though now they’re being brought to life in virtual reality thanks to 3D rendering.  Lindholm Oil Company Service Station (FrankLloydWright.org) Three un...

Firefighting is dangerous work, in part because of the exposure to dangerous chemicals. Researchers are learning more about those exposures thanks to a simple silicone wristband. Iceland’s new tourism program sets the country’s horses to work on giant keyboards, sending out-of-office emails to your bosses and colleagues so you don’t have to. How a $1 wristband could help track firefighters exposur...

Today in 1933, Camden, New Jersey became the site of the very first drive-in movie theater. Here's the story of Richard Hollingshead, who brought movies outside so people could drive right up to the picture. Plus: a new watercraft that sure sounds like it’s out of a movie.  June 6, 1933: The Era of Drive-In Movies Begins (Newspapers.com) All Aboard the Party Submarine (UrbanDaddy) We want to...

Fried dough cakes have been around seemingly forever, but for National Doughnut Day, we have the story of an innovation that helped make this treat the icon that it is today: the invention of the doughnut hole. Plus: this weekend in Chittenango, New York, east of Syracuse, it’s Oz-stravaganza, a celebration of the Wizard of Oz in the town where author L. Frank Baum was born.  The Maine Ship C...

The Paper House of Rockport, Massachusetts has a wood frame, but otherwise owner Elis Stenman made the place almost entirely out of old newspapers. And you can still read the stories in the walls today. Plus: this weekend in northern Indiana, it’s the Mentone Egg Festival, celebrating an area that’s been called the “Egg Basket of the Midwest.” The Paper House—made of 100,000 newspapers—has a worki...

Today in 2012, the birthday of Amy Jones-Elliott of Glenmore, County Kilkenny, Ireland. But it wasn't the birthday of her twin sister, Katie. The two hold the world record for twins with the largest amount of time between their births: 87 days. Plus: ExitReviews can tell you not just whether a product works well, but how long it'll last and what parts might break on it first.  First day at sc...

Washington State University has developed a high-tech wearable (I guess you call it a wearable?) to make it easier to take care of a very important test for some babies: a smart pacifier. Plus: the Doomsday Alarm Clock app will scare you out of bed with one of several end of the world scenarios. Smart pacifier developed to monitor infant health in hospitals (Washington State University) The Doomsd...

For Memorial Day, we look at what's become an annual tradition at this time of year: an exhausting CrossFit workout in honor of a Medal of Honor winner and Navy SEAL who gave his life while serving in Afghanistan. His full name was Lieutenant Michael P. Murphy, but he's also known far and wide today as Murph, the namesake of the "Murph Challenge."  How Murph Became the Most Legendary Fitness...

When there's road work to be done, crews put up cones, barrels and fences to keep workers safe. Now a "smart work" zone system being tested in Virginia could make those spaces even safer. Plus: if you need a road trip destination, how about a New Mexico museum about a key part of many of those road trips?  Virginia Tech Transportation Institute researchers to deploy smart work zone in Wise, V...

We now have some 750,000 miles of internet cable on ocean and seafloors. A research team found a way to use those cables to measure seismic activity, without installing anything extra. Plus: “London’s Invisible House” got its name because nearly all of its exterior is covered in mirrors. A breakthrough in fiber optics turned an undersea cable into 12 seismographs (Interesting Engineering) Richmond...

It's the day in 1977 that Star Wars first showed in movie theaters. Props and costumes from the Star Wars movies have shown up in museums, and a few have had stranger afterlives, including an original model of the Death Star. Plus: a statue first put up in the old Soviet Union was repurposed in more recent times to join the Star Wars universe.  SAVING THE DEATH STAR: HOW THE ORIGINAL MODEL WA...

Today in 1854, the first sitting of the parliament of New Zealand. And there’s an interesting story about that lawmaking body that involves a very special biscuit tin. Plus: for those still working remotely, the YouTube channel Everything Is Hacked presents the Zoom Pants Filter! Biscuit tin democracy: the humble start of New Zealand's most progressive laws (The Guardian) Zoom Pants Filter (The Aw...