Crowd pleaser

Philadelphia Inquirer, November 26, 1895. I like the notion of a “surfeit of suicides.” It’s the opposite of a suicide shortage, I suppose. How do we know when we’re looking at a suicide sufficiency?
Anyway, as performer, this Wunner fellow strikes me as the art brut/outsider version of a more conceptually sophisticated chap we met last fall. I should have thought people would have seen what was coming next, given the prevalence of razor-based suicide at this time. Though maybe they did and approved: It doesn’t seem to have been a terribly refined audience. Nearly cutting your own head off is no mean feat. I tried to find some stats on suicide by razor, but all I found was this medical journal abstract: “Suicide by incising one’s own throat without hesitation marks remains a rare, and only few cases have been reported in the forensic literature.” Seems to be a word missing after “rare,” but what? “Treat?” I’m thinking office Curry may have been a tad bipolar.

Funny money

Ballou’s Dollar Monthly, March 16, 1862. I reckon some watchmaker or other skilled machinist must have made these, either for fun or as a premium to give to customers, and then someone accidentally put them into circulation. Either that or it’s the work of an early and unsung conceptual artist. Anyway, you can acquire a starter kit for your own set of nesting coins here.

The only good performance artist–

American Register, January 1, 1817. Turns out the entire concept was efficiently exhausted nearly two centuries ago by this anonymous Italian sailor.

Stand in the place where you are

New York Herald Tribune, September 11, 1904. The shrewd thing to do today would be to spraypaint this guy silver, put a hat at his feet, and drop by three times a day to collect your earnings.

Razzmatazz from Jazz Merazz

San Francisco Chronicle, November 10, 1916. Truer words were never typeset. “Jazz Merazz,” you long-dead proto-beatnik wiseass, I love you.
This won’t be the last item I poach from The People’s Safety Valve, but I don’t expect to surpass it.