Hi and welcome to ‘a handful of history’, my fortnightly sharing of real-life stories from around the world. All the narratives I pick are rooted in history one way or another, yet I feel that most of them carry themes and happenings that seem very present day-like. I create this blog out of love and curiosity for the field of human history and culture, and I’m happy that you find it interesting too. My blog and newsletters are free; if you want to help me keep it going, please join my newsletter. THANK YOU. Thanks for being here - let's dive in. Enjoy! Majken xx
Japanese Monsters
A creature with a bulging eye on the back of its head and a claw on its one-fingered hand. A sea monster with a cow's head and the body of a giant spider or crab. Oh my, you gotta love these strange beings. Or Yokais as they are named.
According to professor of folklore Michael Dylan Foster, a Yokai is “a weird or mysterious creature, a monster or fantastic being, living on the edge of town, or in the mountains between villages, or in the eddies of a river running between two rice fields.” Yokais often appear at twilight, Foster explains, when the familiar seems strange and faces become indistinguishable. Some of their favourite occupations are to haunt bridges and tunnels, entranceways and thresholds.
In the Japanese painted scroll - known as the Bakemono Zukushi - an unknown artist has painted a handful of Yokais, probably sometime during the 18th or 19th century.
Bike Trip
Sometime back in the 1990s, a couple - Tom and Hilde - drinks a beer. Only one beer, and it makes them dizzy. What was in that beer? - they wondered. The next day they decide to take out their bicycles and go all the way to the brewery to ask about the ingredients. The thing is…it’s a 500 mile (804 km) long trip, so why didn’t they call the brewery instead? Well, if they had done just that, they would have missed out on all the fun stuff that happened to them along the way. And besides, this cute hand-drawn cartoon movie telling about the trip would never have seen the day.
“Bike Trip” is a tribute to doing things that, on the surface, make no sense - but you have a lot of fun while doing it. I’m a big fan of “silly” acts like this. It’s interesting how they often end up being the most memorable things in your life.
Chanel No. 5
The iconic actor Marilyn Monroe famously said in an interview in 1952 that she wore "five drops of Chanel No. 5" and nothing else in bed. "I don't want to say nude," she said, "but it's the truth."
“Witness History” tells how the famous fragrance was invented. It all began in the 1920s when a wealthy client hired the French fashion designer Coco Chanel to produce a perfume, and it had to be just as astonishing as her design.
Her lover at the time, a well-off duke with connections to people in high places, paired her up with a fragrant maker who had worked for the Russian Tzar family and Chanel decided to go and meet him. She asked him to create a scent that would reflect her personality. Something abstract and unique. It took several months to perfect a new fragrance, but eventually, he came up with 10 products he then presented to her. No 1-5 and 20-24. Chanel picked no. 5.
The history goes that this particular fragrance resulted from a laboratory mistake. Assistants had added quantities of aldehyde in an amount never used before, and smelling no. 5 was indeed out of the extraordinary and very powerful. “It was what I was waiting for, a perfume like nothing else. A woman’s perfume with the scent of a woman”, Chanel later revealed.
It is said that today a bottle of Chanel No. 5 is sold every five seconds.
My 'Handful of History' is going on summer vacation. ☀️
I'll be back SEPTEMBER 1, 2022.
- See 'ya! ;-)
Thanks for reading! If you have any questions or comments I'd love to hear from you! Just go here and send me your message. Thank you - Majken xx
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