Annette Kellerman was a very famous and important woman in the Modern era. A native of Australia, Kellerman was born July the Sixth of 1887, of a very musical stock of parentage. Few, if any, might have imagined young Annette Kellerman, crippled by a curious Victorian ailment and unable to walk without steely leg braces, would be destined for such greatness. But in fact, a teenaged Kellerman would (figuratively) burst from these constraints, and many more as well, becoming the first of the greatest girl-swimmers.

Kellerman set world records for her swimming prowess and was the first woman to swim the English Channel in 1905. She would even dive from a height of sixty feet into a pool of crocodiles. Her swimming became a spectacle in fact, and her vaudevillian performances and groundbreaking work in synchronized swimming would be captured in the early Twentieth century on film, most notably in the now-lost A Daughter of the Gods. This film was not only the first film to feature a nude woman (Annette Kellerman, of course), but was also the first film the exceed one million dollars in production costs, and was shown accompanied by a full orchestra.

Some would agree that the title of that film could be used to describe Annette Kellerman, who was declared the “perfect woman” in a 1908 study. And who could argue that Kellerman pioneered our modern conception of femininity with her invention of modern women’s swimwear? Prior to this, women were required to swim in full-length gowns. But not Annette Kellerman, trail-blazing swimmer, health enthusiast and feminist. She had a vision of a world of health and beauty and elegance, where such constraints as full-length gowns had about as much of a place as a flaccid mole in a wack-a-mole game.

Annette Kellerman also wrote several books and, a longtime vegetarian, ran a health-food store in California, before her death on November the Sixth 1975.

In the field of breakfast, the rubric of the “breakfast cereal” has become such a point of saturation that its history is never given the slightest consideration. It’s merely taken for granted that in a spectacular spread of orange juice, milk, toast, butter, eggs, and so on, the center piece will be a bowl of cereal, a ceramic or plastic half-orb filled with processed grains submerged in milk, with a perfect silver arm protruding outwards, a sort of bridge between food and mouth. It’s assumed that this is all part of some timeless tradition, dating back perhaps to antiquity. And yet, prior to the American Civil War, this dish was unheard of.

The chronicles of the breakfast cereal begin with one Dr. James Caleb Jackson, a prolific New Yorker born in 1811, who had worked as a farmer, abolitionist, journalist, and hydrotherapy pioneer. In fact, prior to his first receiving hydrotherapy, Dr. Jackson suffered poor health himself, to the detriment of his many pursuits. Thus it was not until the midpoint of the nineteenth century that his vision would become nascent. Alongside his trailblazing work in hydrotherapy was a staunch advocacy of a new vegetarian diet, which arguably may have led to the establishment of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. The robust cornerstone of this diet was in grains. But how to get these grains from the fields and into our bodies? The answer was one of the most visionary revelations of modern invention: Granula, a cereal composed of coarse nuggets of Reverand Graham’s flour, so stout it required overnight soaking, so rich in bran it was unlike anything else in creation. Granula, invented in 1863, was the first breakfast cereal, and the forefather of modern-day Grape Nuts.

Described as “gorgeous girl with gorgeous hair” and “absolutely stunning…” this person is one of the most mystical secrets of all Ohio. Jessica Firestone is the singer and the everything in the group Mam’selle, wherein we first discovered that aura. That angelic-seeming voice, golden as her hair, amidst such otherworldly music as computers make, conspire to an effect not unlike the one achieved by Julee Cruise. We can even imagine one of Remedios Varo’s contented-looking alchemists composing these songs from pure atmosphere, or some other elemental. In fact, this music is often precisely what I would imagine to accompany such fantastic imagery. It may come as a surprise to some that such a tiny girl could have so much talent, but those people would be of low intellect, because indeed that has no bearing on talent.
But that’s not all. Jessica Firestone even looks like a 1960’s fashion star. Her hair is combed into such immaculate styles, and possessing the deepest of blue eyes. It is no surprise then that Jessica Firestone is a famous hairdresser, and with such grace, we can imagine a former gymnast in addition. Sometimes, too, she looks precisely like an actual deer! Also, she is a proponent of healthy-eating and reading and the animals.

Rose McDowall invented the group Strawberry Switchblade with Jill Bryson in 1980’s Scotland. This group would go on to be one of the best things ever. After that, Rose McDowall continued to make music in such groups as Sorrow, Current 93, Psychic TV, Felt, Death in June… So much!

It may seem odd to consider that Strawberry Switchblade, the most successful (and my fav) of her musical inventions, is so obscure today, especially when one compares them to other pop groups from the period. The music of Rose McDowall expresses a mood for which there isn’t one word to describe very aptly. It is no large portion of our populace. But if your demeanour is such that you are afflicted, you will know it upon hearing the music. The music describes it so well, just like a poem does. You may be thoughtful, prone to bouts of melancholy, conflicted. Maybe you were a punk rocker when you were small, but now you’ve grown big. Or perhaps you frequent libraries and wish Art Nouveau had never ended. Imagine a sad smile, as opposed to a glaring grin or pitiful pout. Strawberry Switchblade is the sad smile.

My absolute Fav tracks are Deep Water and Being Cold. Also Trees and Flowers, the most beutiful song about Jill Bryson’s agoraphobia. Boris Williams of the Cure even played the tippy tappy drums on Strawberry Switchblade’s first and only album! I don’t know what the tippy tappy drums are but it sounds so good. This group was also the most visually-stunning group ever around. In every picture extant, they are attired most gorgeously, like galaxies of polka dots, two tiny dazzling solar systems. This group also calls to mind the Japanese theatre of puppetry, Bunraku. It is no surprise that they enjoyed great success in that country. Also it must be noted that Rose McDowall is precisely five foot tall!!

We may wonder just what Rose McDowall would think of such museums of personalities and wonders as this. In an April 1985 interview conducted by Mick Sinclair, Rose exclaimed:

I went to Madame Tussauds because I wanted to see if they were any good. It’s a bloody rip-off, the amount of money they charge.

Bear in mind, however, that the Paper Blogseum is free of charge.

Welcome to the Paper Blogseum! This internet blog is like a wax museum, except the figures are made of paper instead of wax, and are shown in the format of a popular internet site, rather than the traditional museum format of a structure.

You are viewing a paper mannikin of the founder of the Paper Blogseum, who’s name is me. I am an art historian in addition to being the Director of the blogseum. Because my interests are so central to the Paper Blogseum, there isn’t much of a point in describing this person. But know that my interests are sundry!

I wanted to work in a wax museum when I was a small boy, but instead I didn’t. So I am using the magic of internet technology and my talents in collage assemblage, coupled with my skill in essay-writing to create a museum of many facts and personalities.