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Introduction

Are you Curious?

Site Logo, weird creature playing his horn mouth.

Welcome to CuriousRascal.com! My name is TeeTee Ella and I’ll be curating some Free Whimsical Amusement for you! All you need to do is be curious! The rascal part is optional.

Need more details and particulars?

Free refers to the content featured on this site being in the Public Domain, Creative Commons, or generally open to the public. Unless otherwise stated.

Whimsical represents things you don’t see often – rather it is something very old or very weird. Maybe an illustration of a sloth with a man’s face or a fever dream of a video.

Amusement. Welp, I can’t guarantee this site will tickle your fancy. You might not even be ticklish or have a fancy. Just know I’ll try my best to make you feel better than you did before finding CuriousRascal.com!

Oh, and one last thing you rascal(allegedly). I, TeeTee Ella, am human(allegedly). Humans make mistakes, it is kind of our thing. Spelling mistakes are but a drop in the sea of writing errors you are about to endure. The important part is we are in this together – both suffering my grammar blunders.

Categories
17th Century

17th Century Sloth Art

Sloth with a creepy human face

The illustration is by Antonio Tempesta, and it is part of a series called “Nova collection of the most curious animals in the world”. There is no information as to why the sloth has a human face. It could be that like many older artists – Tempesta drew an animal he had never seen with his own eyes.

The caption includes two words that I think reference: Asclepius and primate. The first usage of the word primate originates from 1200. I was unable to find the first reference of a sloth being a marsupial versus a primate. Although, I do not think it would be unheard of for sloths to be mislabeled as a primate in the 17th century.

The next question is – How do sloths and the God of Medicine relate? That I have no answer for. And I looked into this way longer than I should have.

The image is from the Rijksmuseum and is under Public Domain License. Information is from Wikipedia(CC BY-SA 3.0).

Categories
20th Century

Digging Graves as a Hobby – From 1916

This picture is of Mrs. Josephine Smith, aged 84 at the time, whose hobby was digging graves. Part of a collection of images taken by Jim Fitzpatrick called ‘Drouin town and rural life during World War II”. Drouin was a typical little farming town with around 1,100 people. I wonder if there was a surplus of open graves there thanks to Mrs. Smith.

Mrs. Josephine Smith, a grave digger hobbyist.

Image is from the National Library of Australia and is under Public Domain License.

Categories
19th Century

The Icebergs (1861)

Random fact: This is the largest painting of icebergs that Frederic Edwin Church did – 5.4 by 9.4 feet.

Various icebergs and a damaged piece of a ship.

Image is from the Dallas Museum of Art and is under Public Domain License.

Categories
19th Century

Samurai With Sword From 1860

Posing armored Samurai with a sword and dagger. The photographer was Felice Beato, who was one of the first people to take photographs in East Asia and one of the first war photographers.

Samurai photograph in black and white

Image is from Wikimedia Commons and is under Public Domain License. Information is from Wikipedia(CC BY-SA 3.0).

Categories
20th Century

Vintage Glass Eye From 1901

This is not the first or last glass eye I will be sharing on here. They are just so rad looking!

“Glass was the obvious material for artificial eyes in the early 20th century. This eye is hemispherical and remarkably lifelike. It was made by eye maker Gustav Taylor. He prided himself on the natural appearance of his artificial eyes. Taylor handcrafted them within an hour for customers while they waited. He also invented eyes with dilating pupils. maker: Taylor, Gustav Place made: London, Greater London, England, United Kingdom.” – Image source.

Glass eye in a protective box.

Image is from Wellcome Collection and is under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

Categories
17th Century

Natural History Ensembles (17th Century)

Check out the source for more images! These illustrations are attributed to the following people: Anselmus Boëtius de Boodt; Elias Verhulst, & Jacob Hoefnagel.

flowers with bugs around it.
flowers with nuts and bugs.
flowers with a spider, onion and more assorted bugs.
flowers, insects, including a snail. Also a cute frog.
various plants and insects.

Images are from the Rijksmuseum and are under Public Domain License.

Categories
20th Century

Sleigh Dogs Circa 1920

Cute hardworking pups! They adventured on the ship named ‘Maud’ and traveled to the Artic!

cute hardworking sleigh dogs.

Image is from the National Library of Norway and is under Public Domain License.

Categories
17th Century

Shell filled with Life (1652)

By Wenceslaus Hollar. Kind of hard to distinguish what is what in this image – looks kind of alien!

hard to visually tell what is going on. A mess of shell and tentacles.

Image is from Rijksmuseum and is under Public Domain License.

Categories
20th Century

Retro NASA Concepts for Space Habitats

The Stanford Torus

The is called the Stanford Torus, and it was introduced in 1975 as a proposed design for a space habitat. The Stanford Torus got its name from the proposal being discussed at Stanford University, and the design including a torus – a doughnut shaped ring. mmm Space donut

Exterior View, art by Don Davis. Source
Exterior View, art by Don Davis. Source

The ring rotates once per minute creating artificial gravity from the centrifugal force. Stanford Torus was designed to house 10,000 to 40,000 permanent residents. Sunlight was provide to the interior via solar mirrors.

Cutaway View, exposing the interior, art by Rick Guidice. Source
Cutaway View, exposing the interior, art by Rick Guidice. Source

The torus would require nearly 10 million tons of mass! Construction would have to use materials extracted from the moon or asteroids. Luna soil would be used as a radiation shield.

The Bernal Sphere

This space habitat was first proposed in 1929 by John Desmond Bernal. It was described as a hollow non-rotating spherical shell with a 10 mile diameter, filler with air. It was to hold 20,000 to 30,000 people.

Interior view looking out through large windows, art by Rick Guidice. Source
Interior view looking out through large windows, art by Rick Guidice. Source
Cutaway view of Bernal Sphere, art by Rick Guidice. Source
Cutaway view of Bernal Sphere, art by Rick Guidice. Source
Exterior View, art by Rick Guidice. Source
Exterior View, art by Rick Guidice. Source

Images are from NASA on The Commons and are under Public Domain License. Information is from Wikipedia(CC BY-SA 3.0).