I sometimes neglect the fact that few people know really what I have written, in total. Today, for example, a young man emailed me with this message: “How many books have you done Loren? I have only come across two.” Well, I can forget myself, often, for many reasons. It happens. Ha ha. Memory and lists of things-to-do aside, one reason is that there are many ways to count the unfolding of my life that occurs via my modest library of written works. You can look at “how many” in terms of various editions, revisions, and reprints. Or you can [...]
Once In A Blue Moa
Did a young girl from a pioneering Fiordland family have the last human encounter with a moa? It has gone down in history as one of the most puzzling rare-bird sightings and it happened in the remote south-west corner of New Zealand. What was the big blue bird that pioneer Alice McKenzie saw at Martins Bay, 30km north of Milford Sound, in 1880? Experts are still debating nearly 130 years later. Did a species of moa, such as the little bush moa, survive human predation and live on in the Fiordland wilderness 400 years after they were thought to be [...]
FeeJee Mermaids & Other Gaffs
The easiest pseudocryptozoological exhibition items to have, of course, are often the gaffs and hoaxes. Among those in most cabinets of curiosities are the Feejee mermaids and the furred trouts, both taxidermy fakes. I have my share. I use them to let people know these objects are often shown as “almost real” specimens. Most honest sideshow owners displaying them often merely only ask “What is It?” or “Is it Real?” But slowly the drift has been, perhaps due to eBay, for people to present these items as cryptozoological, from “unknown animals.” For cryptozoologists, we need to be aware of this [...]
Crookston Sasquatch Sightings
In 1990, Wisconsin taxidermist and artist Curtis Christensen created the “world’s most unique Bigfoot in existence,” above, and kept it to himself in his barn for a few years. When I talked to Christensen in 2004, he shared that he merely wished to create the model because he had an interest in doing so and he wanted to see how big it would be. (His model stands 8 feet tall and weighs nearly 500 pounds.) In June 1995, Crookston, Minnesota, based on a series of local sightings, declared itself the “Bigfoot Capital of the World.” Badger State taxidermist Christensen heard [...]
Can I Be A Cryptozoologist?
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So you want to be a cryptozoologist?
Wunderkammer
Musei Wormiani Historia, the frontispiece from the Museum Wormianum depicting Ole Worm’s 17th Century cabinet of curiosities. Boing Boing co-editor and Cryptomundo correspondent David Pescovitz wrote a wonderful piece speaking of the chambers of wonders, the cabinets of curiosities, to wit, der Wunderkammer, which was published on New Year’s Day. As Xeni Jardin notes, his response was to the question: “What are you optimistic about?” David’s essay’s wonder-filled title is “We’re Recognizing That the World Is a Wunderkammer“, and some extracts from his thoughts spell out what I consider happening at Cryptomundo, The Anomalist, Boing Boing, and similar websites. David [...]
Maine Mutant #6 in 2006
An automobile travels the sparsely used Route 4 through the Turner, Maine, area, little knowing what it will meet around the next corner. It wasn’t a Stephen King novel, but a real-life incident that captured the media, first in Maine, then more globally last summer, into early fall. Lewiston, Maine’s Sun Journal published their 2006 year-in-review on the first day of the new year. Route 4′s “Mystery Animal” (a/k/a “Maine Mutant”) was on their list. Monday, January 1, 2007 Top stories of 2006 Tragedies dominated the tri-county news in 2006, with young people dying in car accidents, plane crashes, the [...]
Maine’s Mystery Beast Banner
The Maine Mystery Beast banner remains safely in the Pine Tree State! Rogier van Bakel, his wife Debbie, and their two delightful daughters (one shown above) came by over this Christmas weekend to drop off the unique Paul Szauter sideshow art, entitled the Maine’s Mystery Beast banner. Van Bakel is a well-traveled, well-spoken journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Wired, Christian Science Monitor, Wall Street Journal, and other publications. We had a good talk about all matters of cryptozoology and Forteana, and I showed them some of the items around my in-house museum. Of [...]
“Cryptozoology” Makes Another Top Ten List
The entryway’s Bigfoot at the Kansas City exhibition was photographed by Professor Hex. On Sunday, December 24, 2006, The Kansas City Star art critic Alice Thorson has produced a list for her “Year in Review: 10 Highlights in Visual Arts.” Entitled “Wise Visions, Decisions: These artists and institutions made a difference to KC in 2006,” Thornson writes: We close 2006 with visual arts kudos to 10 individuals and institutions that this year demonstrated vision, backbone and generosity. Out of Thorson’s list of 10, she has noted the exhibition “Cryptozoology: Out of Time Place Scale” as number 3: Animal magnetism: Raechell [...]
Top Ten List of Cryptomundo’s Top Ten Lists of 2006
1. The Top Ten Cryptozoology Stories of 2006 2. Top Ten Bigfoot Stories of 2006 3. Top Ten Creepy Fossil Finds of 2006 4. The Top Cryptozoology Books of 2006 5. The Top Cryptofiction Books of 2006 6. Top Ten Cryptozoo Mystery Photographs of 2006 7. 2006′s Passings of Cryptozoologists and Others 8. 2006 Cryptoholiday Gifts 9. 2006′s Top Ten White & Black Squirrels’ Hot Spots and Yahoo: Salt & Pepper Squirrels #1 10. The Top 50 (10 x 5) Cryptids From Around The World for 2006 Plus Two Collections of Various Lists Top Thirteen Most Credible Cryptids and Top [...]
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