Author Anne Rice passed away 4 years ago this date, December 11, 2021.

Anne is best known for her work "The Vampire Chronicles" which contains 13 novels centered around the vampire Lestad. The first novel in the series was probably the most famous - 1976's "Interview with the Vampire."

Anne Rice sold over 100 million books during her lifetime.

Metairie Cemetery, New Orleans, Orleans Parish, LA.

 

Ed Kemper will be 77 on December 18th. I'm sharing this information because I read that he has had a few strokes, is in a wheelchair and suffers from Alzheimer's disease now. I was curious about what his life has been like. Apparently, he still gets hundreds of letters a week. He's still considered a high risk to reoffend.

In the California Medical Facility, Kemper was incarcerated in the same prison block as other notorious criminals such as Herbert Mullin and Charles Manson. Kemper showed particular disdain for Mullin, who committed his murders at the same time and in the same area as Kemper. He described Mullin as "just a cold-blooded killer... killing everybody he saw for no good reason." Kemper manipulated and physically intimidated Mullin, who, at 5 feet 9 inches (1.75 m), was a foot shorter than he. Kemper stated that "[Mullin] had a habit of singing and bothering people when somebody tried to watch TV, so I threw water on him to shut him up. Then, when he was a good boy, I'd give him peanuts. Herbie liked peanuts. That was effective because pretty soon, he asked permission to sing. That's called behavior modification treatment."

Kemper remained among the general population in prison and was considered a model prisoner. He was in charge of scheduling other inmates' appointments with psychiatrists and was an accomplished craftsman of ceramic cups. He was also a prolific narrator of audiobooks for a charity program that prepared material for the visually impaired; a 1987 Los Angeles Times article stated that he was the coordinator of the prison's program and had personally spent over 5,000 hours narrating books with several hundred completed recordings to his name. Kemper was retired from these positions in 2015 after he experienced a stroke and was declared medically disabled. He received his first rules violation report in 2016 for failing to provide a urine sample.

While imprisoned, Kemper has participated in a number of interviews, including a segment in the 1981 documentary The Killing of America, as well as an appearance in the 1984 documentary Murder: No Apparent Motive. His interviews have contributed to the understanding of the mind of serial killers. FBI profiler John E. Douglas described Kemper as "among the brightest" prison inmates he interviewed and capable of "rare insight for a violent criminal." He further added that he personally liked Kemper, referring to him as "friendly, open, sensitive, [and having] a good sense of humor." However, Kemper's discussions with Robert Ressler changed how the FBI conducted interviews with serial killers. According to Ann Burgess, Kemper told Ressler at the end of one of their interviews, "The guard isn't coming back. They're on change of shift. He's not going to be here for 30 minutes. In that time, I could snap your head and leave it on the table. I'd own the prison then. I killed an FBI agent." After the guard came back, Kemper said he was joking. Regardless, FBI agents were required to conduct interviews in pairs and could no longer do this alone.

Kemper is forthcoming about the nature of his crimes and has stated that he participated in the interviews to save others like himself from killing. At the end of his Murder: No Apparent Motive interview, he said, "There's somebody out there that is watching this and hasn't done that—hasn't killed people, and wants to, and rages inside and struggles with that feeling, or is so sure they have it under control. They need to talk to somebody about it. Trust somebody enough to sit down and talk about something that isn't a crime; thinking that way isn't a crime. Doing it isn't just a crime; it's a horrible thing. It doesn't know when to quit, and it can't be stopped easily once it starts." He also conducted an interview with French writer Stéphane Bourgoin in 1991.

Kemper was first eligible for parole in 1979. He was denied parole that year, as well as at parole hearings in 1980, 1981, and 1982. He subsequently waived his right to a hearing in 1985. He was denied parole at his 1988 hearing, where he said, "Society is not ready in any shape or form for me. I can't fault them for that." He was denied parole again in 1991 and in 1994. He then waived his right to a hearing in 1997 and in 2002. He attended the next hearing in 2007, where he was again denied parole. Prosecutor Ariadne Symons said, "We don't care how much of a model prisoner he is because of the enormity of his crimes." Kemper waived his right to a hearing again in 2012. He was denied parole in 2017, and after declining to attend a parole hearing in 2024, Kemper was denied parole again. He is next eligible in 2031. Following his 2024 parole hearing, it was reported that Kemper was wheelchair-bound and suffered from diabetes and coronary heart disease. A psychiatric evaluation conducted in April 2024 classified him as a "high risk" to reoffend.

 

This 1903 Photo of a Girl Holding Grandma’s Hand Seemed Happy — Until Restoration Exposed the Truth...

 

In March 1903, in a modest Victorian parlor in Springfield, Massachusetts, a professional photographer captured what appeared to be a tender family moment. 7-year-old Catherine Rose Miller sitting beside her beloved grandmother, Ellanar Miller, holding her hand and smiling sweetly at the camera.

The photograph radiated warmth, love, and the simple joy of a child with her grandmother. For 118 years, this photograph remained in the Miller family's possession, passed down through four generations as a cherished memory of Catherine and Ellanar's special bond.

But in 2021, when Catherine's great-great-granddaughter had the photograph professionally restored and digitized, the restoration specialist noticed something that had been invisible in the aged, faded original print.

Something in Grandmother Ellanar's appearance, something in her posture, her skin tone, her eyes, something that revealed a heartbreaking truth about what was actually happening in that parlor in March 1903. Subscribe now because this photograph isn't a happy family portrait. It's something far more tragic.

And the truth has been hiding in plain sight for 118 years. The photograph arrived at Jennifer Walsh's restoration studio in Boston in February 2021, submitted by Emma Richardson, a 34year-old graphic designer who had inherited boxes of family photographs from her grandmother's estate.

Emma wanted several important images professionally restored for preservation. The 1903 photograph showed a formal Victorian parlor, ornate wallpaper, heavy curtains, a velvet upholstered chair. In the center sat a woman approximately 65 to 70 years old, Ellanar Miller in an elaborate wooden chair.

She wore a formal black Victorian dress with high collar, gray hair styled in a neat bun. Beside her, on a small cushioned stool, sat a young girl, Catherine Rose Miller, age seven, wearing a white dress with lace details and ribbons in her dark curly hair.

Catherine was turned toward her grandmother, her small hand holding the older woman's hand, her face showing a genuine smile. The photograph was heavily faded with significant water damage, cracks, and yellowing from 118 years of aging. The back bore faded ink.

Ellanar and Catherine, March 1903. Jennifer had restored thousands of Victorian era photographs during her 15 years in the business. She began her standard process, scanning the original at 15,000 dpy, then working digitally to restore contrast, remove damage, and recover lost details.

As Jennifer worked on restoring the contrast and sharpness, she focused first on the faces, standard procedure, to ensure the subjects looked their best. She enhanced Catherine's face. The bright eyes, genuine smile, childlike joy were beautifully preserved. Then she began working on Grandmother Ellanar's face, and she stopped... Grandmother, Ellanar, was, in fact, deceased.

 

Memento mori, "remember you must die." 

 

 

 

The conscience of the world is dead, and humanity has gone away.

 

 

Fais de beaux rêves, sweet dreams are made of this, beautiful and glorious Golden Gate Bridge at night

 

We were born of the universe, we are compelled to explore and search our origins. It draws us homeward.

 

 

Katherine Knight’s case remains one of the most disturbing crimes in Australian history. Before the murder, her relationship with John Price had been filled with volatility, breakups, and repeated warnings from friends and authorities about her escalating behavior. Despite this, Price allowed her back into his home shortly before the tragedy, hoping to keep the peace.

In February 2000, tensions between the two reached a breaking point. Price expressed fear for his safety, telling coworkers that Knight had become unpredictable and dangerous. He even attempted to end the relationship, but her threats and emotional manipulation made it difficult for him to fully distance himself. Those who knew him later said he seemed exhausted and anxious in the final days of his life.

One night, after another argument, Knight attacked Price in his own home. The assault was brutal and fatal, shocking even seasoned investigators. What followed was behavior that authorities later described as “beyond comprehension,” revealing the extent of Knight’s psychological instability and her capacity for extreme cruelty.

When police entered the home the next morning, the scene was unlike anything they had encountered before. Knight had staged parts of the house and prepared food using Price’s remains, seemingly intending to serve it to his family. This discovery stunned the entire community and quickly became one of the most infamous criminal cases the country had ever seen.

Katherine Knight was arrested, declared fit to stand trial, and ultimately became the first woman in Australia sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Her case is frequently cited in discussions of domestic violence, mental illness, and the warning signs that often precede extreme acts. Even decades later, it continues to serve as a grim reminder of how dangerous an unchecked spiral of abuse, obsession, and rage can become.

 
 

 

 Our souls sparkle brightly with Creative Energy, our beings are as complex as the universe, and at the same time we help make up a higher Body of Energy.

She lay in her coffin in 1903 Deadwood, South Dakota, the wild woman finally still after a lifetime spent outrunning bullets, whiskey, and grief. Martha Jane Cannary — the same girl who rode dispatch through blizzards, who hauled wounded soldiers from ambushes, who drank harder than most men could dream — looked almost gentle under the lamplight. Folks crowded the small parlor, whispering stories of the chaos she carried and the kindness she never bragged about. They said you could measure a frontier town by how many times Calamity Jane saved it.

Even in death, her rough edges clung to her like dust from the plains she’d crossed a thousand times. She’d ridden for the Army, scouted for wagon trains, and nursed the sick when cholera swept through Deadwood. But beneath all that grit lived a woman chewed up by loneliness — burying friends, burying children, burying the parts of herself she never talked about. She fought through every loss, every winter, every heartbreak with the same ferocity she used to face down gunfire. Survival was her trade long before fame caught her name.

When they closed the lid, the town fell quiet in a way it hadn’t in years. They laid her beside Wild Bill Hickok, honoring the bond she swore was real, whether the world believed her or not. And as the night wind swept over Mount Moriah Cemetery, one question hung in the cold Dakota air: after a life lived on the edge of danger and mercy, what peace finally found Calamity Jane?

 

“In our world," said Eustace, "a star is a huge ball of flaming gas." Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is, but only what it is made of.” ― C.S. Lewis T

 

 

"There are people who bring a darkness so great to those around them, that even after they have left this world, the dark remains."

 

 

At times, I am haunted by ghosts, and demons when I sleep, my unconsciousness awakens, to what I buried so deep.

 

Sometimes, the biggest sign that life is changing is the sudden discomfort of a situation once tolerated. The gentle pulling to somewhere that feels better, and whispers softly, "welcome back."
 

Beautiful tomb in the Czech Republic. No additional information on child's spectacular grave.
 

 The void is the ultimate mystic doorway. It allows you to disappear into non-existence against the backdrop of eternity.

 

And the universe went on . . . Exactly the same as it always had, and always will for all eternity.

 

 

 

 Today we visited the final resting place of Debbie Reynolds and her daughter, Carrie Fisher, two legendary figures whose contributions to film, music, and popular culture spanned generations. Debbie Reynolds rose to fame in the 1950s with iconic musicals such as Singin’ in the Rain and The Unsinkable Molly Brown, building a remarkable six-decade career as an entertainer and businesswoman. Her charm, talent, and determination made her a beloved figure in Hollywood and beyond.

Carrie Fisher followed in her mother’s footsteps, beginning her acting career as a teenager and achieving worldwide fame as Princess Leia in the Star Wars films. Beyond her iconic role, Fisher was an acclaimed writer, sharing candidly about her struggles with substance abuse, bipolar disorder, and her complex, loving relationship with her mother.

Tragically, the pair passed away just one day apart in December 2016. On December 23, Carrie Fisher suffered a cardiac arrest following a collapse on a flight from London to Los Angeles and died four days later at the age of 60. The very next day, Debbie Reynolds suffered a stroke at her son’s home, shortly after expressing her wish to be with Carrie, and passed away at the age of 84. While Reynolds was laid to rest, Fisher was cremated, with part of her ashes placed alongside her mother.

Visiting their resting place is a reminder of the extraordinary legacy of two women whose talent, resilience, and love for life continue to inspire generations of fans and artists around the world.

Rest in peace, Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher. Your artistry, courage, and indelible mark on entertainment live on forever.

#fblifestyle #DebbieReynolds #CarrieFisher #StarWars #PrincessLeia #HollywoodLegend #GraveTour #FilmHistory #EntertainmentLegacy #MotherAndDaughter

She was 22 years old when she stepped off a plane into hell — and discovered that wearing mascara in a war zone wasn't vanity, it was survival.

In 1965, while most young women were choosing wedding dresses or college majors, Grace Lilleg Moore made a different choice: she joined the Army Student Nurse Program. The deal was straightforward — finish nursing school, serve two years, and save lives wherever they sent you.

They sent her to Vietnam.

Grace graduated in 1966, trained at Fort Sam Houston in Texas, and spent her first year at Reynolds Army Hospital in Oklahoma. She was skilled, confident, and completely unprepared for what came next.

In May 1968, her orders arrived: Vietnam.

When the plane landed at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Grace walked into air so thick with heat it felt like breathing through a wet towel. She was assigned to the 12th Evacuation Hospital near Cu Chi — a facility that would treat over 37,000 wounded during the war. But calling it a "hospital" was generous. It was quonset huts and canvas tents held together by determination and prayer.

Grace worked the ICU, then became head nurse of the orthopedic unit. At twenty-three years old, she was making life-or-death decisions every single day. The injuries were beyond anything her textbooks had prepared her for — limbs blown apart, bones shattered beyond recognition, wounds that seemed impossible to survive.

But here's what almost destroyed her, and what ultimately saved her:

These weren't just soldiers. They were boys. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old. Terrified. Crying for their mothers. Dying thousands of miles from everyone who loved them.

"We didn't just take care of their physical wounds," Grace later said. "We were their mother, their wife, their girlfriend. We were everything they needed us to be."

That's why the mascara mattered.

Grace and the other nurses fought to look put-together even when they were running on two hours of sleep and coffee that tasted like gasoline. These dying boys needed to see something familiar — someone who looked like the girl next door, like their sister, like home. In a place where nothing made sense, that small gesture of normalcy was a lifeline.

The cost was devastating.

Grace held soldiers as they died in her arms. She wrote final letters home for boys whose hands shook too badly to hold a pen. She worked until her body shut down, then kept working. The emotional weight nearly crushed her. She questioned her faith, her strength, whether she'd make it home with any part of herself still intact.

She survived by leaning on her fellow nurses — women who understood because they were living the same nightmare. She wrote letters home. She focused on the next patient, the next procedure, the next life she might be able to save. And somewhere in that crucible of suffering, she discovered something unbreakable inside herself.

"I don't know what kind of nurse I would have been if it were not for Vietnam," she said years later. The war shattered something in her, but it forged something stronger in its place.

Grace came home in December 1968 after seven months in-country.

There were no parades for nurses. No welcome ceremonies. No recognition at all. Just a quiet return to civilian life and the expectation that she'd simply forget and move on.

She couldn't. So she chose not to.

Grace joined Vietnam Veterans of America. She became Pennsylvania Coordinator for the Women's Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. — the monument that finally acknowledged what 11,000 military women endured in Vietnam. She began speaking at schools, veterans' events, anywhere people would listen.

And sometimes, miraculously, former patients found her — men who remembered the nurse who held their hand in the worst moment of their lives, who promised them they'd survive, who wore mascara in hell because small gestures of humanity matter most when everything else is falling apart.

Grace Lilleg Moore is retired now, but her mission continues. She still speaks. She still honors the nurses who never made it home. She still reminds America that women went to war too — and came back forever changed.

Her legacy isn't just measured in the lives she saved, though there were many. It's measured in the memory she refuses to let die, in the truth she represents: that service doesn't end when you take off the uniform. It's a calling that echoes through a lifetime.

To Grace and every nurse who served in Vietnam: You were healers in the darkest places. You were light when there was only darkness. You were strength when everything was breaking.

Thank you doesn't feel like enough. But it's what we have.

So thank you. For your service. For your sacrifice. For your courage. And for remembering when the world tried to forget.

#VietnamNurses #WomenWhoServed

~Weird Wonders and Facts

 

 

Jim Meads was a photographer living in Hatfield, Hertfordshire near the Hatfield aerodrome in 1962. A pilot friend notified him on September 13th of that year that he would be test flying an English Electric Lightning F1 XG332 if he would like to come take some photos. Happy to get shots of the only British built fighter capable of Mach 2 speeds, he set out toward the airfield hoping to get photos of his children with the F1 landing in the background. The photo he ended up getting would become famous.

As he and his family walked up, a grounds keeper for the airfield approached them in a tractor to tell them to leave the area. That’s when the plane went out of control at a very low altitude with the pilot ejecting at the last possible moment, setting up an incredible, one of kind shot (especially for the time). As it turns out, the pilot was not Mead’s friend, but another test pilot named George Aird. He landed on a tomato greenhouse nearby, crashing through the roof and breaking both legs on the way down. The story is well documented by Aird, Meads, and Mike Sutterby, the tractor bound groundskeeper who was only 23 at the time.

 

She inherited America's largest mansion 250 rooms, 125,000 acres, unimaginable wealth. Then she walked away from it all to finally become herself.

April 29, 1924. Asheville, North Carolina.

Five hundred guests filled All Souls Church while thousands lined the streets outside. The press called it "the wedding of the century."

Cornelia Stuyvesant Vanderbilt—sole heiress to the Biltmore Estate, America's largest private home—was marrying British aristocracy. She wore a gown worth more than most families earned in years. She smiled for photographers. She played her part perfectly.

The world watched a fairy tale.

But no one tells you what happens when the princess realizes the castle is a cage.

Cornelia was born in 1900 into wealth most people can't imagine. Her father, George Washington Vanderbilt II, had built the Biltmore—a 250-room French Renaissance château on 125,000 acres of North Carolina mountains.

Indoor swimming pool. Bowling alley. Library with 23,000 books. More square footage than entire towns.

When George died suddenly in 1914, thirteen-year-old Cornelia inherited it all.

Every photograph. Every appearance. Every decision—analyzed by a society that saw her not as a person, but as a living symbol of American royalty.

The pressure was crushing. The expectations were suffocating.

But she did what was expected.

She married well in 1924. John Francis Amherst Cecil was British nobility—handsome, appropriate, approved. Their spectacular wedding reinforced everything the Vanderbilt name represented.

For a few years, Cornelia played the role. She lived at Biltmore. Hosted society events. Had two sons. Maintained the facade.

But something was breaking inside.

The mansion that symbolized ultimate privilege had become a prison of predetermined identity.

By 1932, Cornelia couldn't breathe anymore.

She moved to New York, ostensibly to study art. Then Paris—the city where lost souls went to find themselves in the 1930s.

There, surrounded by artists and expatriates who didn't care about the Vanderbilt name, something extraordinary happened.

Cornelia Vanderbilt began to disappear.

She divorced Cecil in 1934—scandalous for someone of her standing. She immersed herself in bohemian culture, exploring art and a lifestyle that would have horrified the society matrons who'd attended her wedding.

For the first time in her life, she was choosing her own identity rather than inheriting one.

The American press tracked her with fascination and judgment:

"VANDERBILT HEIRESS GOES ROGUE"

Society whispered: What a waste. What a scandal.

But Cornelia was finally free.

She remained in Europe through the tumultuous 1930s and 40s, navigating World War II while maintaining her distance from everything Biltmore represented.

She married again in 1949—Captain Vivian Francis Bulkeley Johnson, a British war veteran. That marriage lasted until his death in 1968.

In 1972, at age 72, she married for a third time William Goodsir, 26 years her junior.

By then, she'd been away from Biltmore for nearly forty years. She lived quietly in London and Oxford, rarely photographed, almost never interviewed.

The woman who'd once been America's most famous heiress had successfully vanished into private life.

But here's what matters:

She didn't abandon her sons.

George and William grew up at Biltmore with their father. She stayed connected to them throughout her life, even from an ocean away.

And as adults, those sons did something remarkable.

They transformed the Biltmore Estate from a struggling private mansion into a thriving tourist destination and historical landmark.

Today, Biltmore attracts over a million visitors annually. It remains privately owned by Cornelia's descendants—a legacy she made possible by letting go.

She didn't reject her family. She rejected the performance required of her because of her family name.

When Cornelia died in 1976 at age 75 in Oxford, England, obituaries struggled to capture her story.

Was she a rebel? A tragedy? Someone who squandered privilege?

Or was she simply a woman who realized that inheriting a 250-room mansion doesn't mean you have to live in it?

Think about what she actually did.

She looked at extraordinary wealth—advantages most people will never know and recognized the invisible chains that came with them.

Expectations. Scrutiny. Predetermined roles. A life mapped out before you're old enough to choose.

She said: No.

She walked away from an empire to discover who she was without the Vanderbilt name.

That took a different kind of courage than staying would have required.

The Biltmore Estate still stands today magnificent, imposing, breathtaking.

Tourists walk through its 250 rooms, marveling at the excess, imagining what it must have been like to live there.

But Cornelia knew what it was like.

And she chose differently.

She chose Paris over Asheville. Freedom over propriety. Herself over symbol.

What Cornelia Vanderbilt proved:

Sometimes the bravest thing you can do isn't accepting what you've been given—it's walking away to discover what you actually want.

Privilege can be a gift. But it can also be a cage.

The world expected her to be a princess in a castle, preserving a legacy.

She became herself instead.

When she died, her sons—raised with her independent spirit even from a distance—had transformed that massive estate into something sustainable, something that serves the public, something that honors the past while looking toward the future.

Maybe that's the real legacy.

Not the mansion. Not the wealth. Not the fairy-tale wedding.

But the courage to walk away from what doesn't fit, even when the whole world is watching.

Even when what you're walking away from is everything most people dream of having.

Cornelia Stuyvesant Vanderbilt: Born 1900, died 1976.

Heiress to America's largest private home.

The woman who inherited everything and chose herself instead.

Sometimes that's not running from something.

It's running toward yourself.

#ChooseYourself #CorneliaVanderbilt

Old Photo Club

 

Bill Marx, son of Harpo Marx: "By the time he settled down with my mom and started raising a family, he was in his fifties and financially secure enough not to have to work every day. And so he spent a lot of his time playing with... and getting to know... his kids. And this became his 'second childhood.'"

"My dad was the most child-like adult I've ever known. Not 'child-ish' - an unattractive quality that suggests a certain selfish insensitivity. That wasn't Dad at all. No, he took the world in the way a child does - with lots of wonder and very little judgment.... with the delight of someone for whom everything is new and delightful. The great comedy parodist of song, Allan Sherman, wrote in his autobiography, 'A Gift of Laughter,' 'Harpo Marx had the good sense to never grow up.'"

"Dad once told a friend he wanted to have as many kids as he had front windows in our house on Canon Drive in Beverly Hills... so that he could see them waiving at them when he got home from work. It's still a nice image."

"My mom remembers waking up one night to find herself alone in bed. She searched the house to find out where my dad was. She looked into my 4-year-old sister, Minnie's room and found him in there, on the floor, playing jacks with her. He had insomnia, needed some action and decided to wake her up and play with her (Despite the fact that it was 3 in the morning, she was delighted)."

"In Dad's autobiography, 'Harpo Speaks', he mentions a list of rules we Marxes lived by. It wasn't a gag - Dad really did live by those rules and expected us to do the same. It wasn't that hard - his rules were all about being true to yourself and doing what was best for yourself."

Harpo Marx Family Rules

1. Life has been created for you to enjoy, but you won't enjoy it unless you pay for it with some good, hard work. This is one price that will never be marked down.

2. You can work at whatever you want to as long as you do it as well as you can and clean up afterwards and you're at the table at mealtime and in bed at bedtime.

3. Respect what the others do. Respect Dad's harp, Mom's paints, Billy's piano, (son) Alex's set of tools, (son) Jimmy's designs, and Minnie's menagerie.

4. If anything makes you sore, come out with it. Maybe the rest of us are itching for a fight, too.

5. If anything strikes you as funny, out with that, too. Let's all the rest of us have a laugh.

6. If you have an impulse to do something that you're not sure is right, go ahead and do it. Take a chance. Chances are, if you don't you'll regret it - unless you break the rules about mealtime and bedtime, in which case you'll sure as hell regret it.

7. If it's a question of whether to do what's fun or what is supposed to be good for you, and nobody is hurt whichever you do, always do what's fun.

8. If things get too much for you and you feel the whole world's against you, go stand on your head. If you can think of anything crazier to do, do it.

9. Don't worry about what other people think. The only person in the world important enough to conform to is yourself.

10. Anybody who mistreats a pet or breaks a pool cue is docked a month's pay. (HarposPlace.com)

Happy Birthday, Harpo Marx!