Carlos Díaz Ballesta dressed up like Queen front man Freddie Mercury and put on a show for his neighbors from his balcony in Spain. He threw on Mercury’s iconic jeans, undershirt, and mustache and lip-synced to Queen’s 1984 song, “I Want to Break Free.”
In the video, Ballesta dances with a vacuum cleaner, an homage to the song’s video. In the “I Want to Break Free” video, members of Queen dressed in drag as characters from the British soap opera “Coronation Street.”
While the video was a hit across the world it was a dud in America where no one knew what the band was lampooning.
“All around the world people laughed and they got the joke and they sort of understood it,” Queen guitarist Brian May told NPR Radio. “I remember being on the promo tour in the Midwest of America and peoples’ faces turning ashen and they would say, ‘No, we can’t play this. We can’t possibly play this. You know, it looks homosexual’.”
In a small village in Pwani, a district on Tanzania’s coast, a massive dance party is coming to a close. For the past two hours, locals have paraded through the village streets, singing and beating ngombe drums; now, in a large clearing, a woman named Sheilla motions for everyone to sit facing a large projector screen. A film premiere is about to begin.
It’s an unusual way to kick off a film about gender bias, inequality, early marriage, and other barriers that prevent girls from accessing education in Tanzania. But in Pwani and beyond, local organizations supported by Malala Fund and funded by Pura are finding creative, culturally relevant ways like this one to capture people’s interest.
The film ends and Sheilla, the Communications and Partnership Lead for Media for Development and Advocacy (MEDEA), stands in front of the crowd once again, asking the audience to reflect: What did you think about the film? How did it relate to your own experience? What can we learn?
Sheilla explains that, once the community sees the film, “It brings out conversations within themselves, reflective conversations.” The resonance and immediate action create a ripple effect of change.
MEDEA Screening Audience in Tanzania. Captured by James Roh for Pura
Across Tanzania, gender-based violence often forces adolescent girls out of the classroom. This and other barriers — including child marriage, poverty, conflict, and discrimination — prevent girls from completing their education around the world.
Sheilla and her team are using film and radio programs to address the challenges girls face in their communities. MEDEA’s ultimate goal is to affirm education as a fundamental right for everyone, and to ensure that every member of a community understands how girls’ education contributes to a stronger whole and how to be an ally for their sisters, daughters, granddaughters, friends, nieces, and girlfriends.
Sheilla’s story is one of many that inspired Heart on Fire, a new fragrance from the Pura x Malala Fund Collection that blends the warm, earthy spices of Tanzania with a playful, joyful twist. Here’s how Pura is using scent as a tool to connect the world and inspire action.
A partnership focused on local impact, on a global mission
Pura, a fragrance company that recognizes education as both freedom and a human right, has partnered with Malala Fund since 2022. In order to defend every girl’s right to access and complete 12 years of education, Malala Fund partners with local organizations in countries where the educational barriers are the greatest. They invest in locally-led solutions because they know that those who are closest to the problems are best equipped to solve and build durable solutions, like MEDEA, which works with communities to challenge discrimination against girls and change beliefs about their education.
But local initiatives can thrive and scale more powerfully with global support, which is why Pura is using their own superpower, the power of scent, to connect people around the world with the women and girls in these local communities.
The Pura x Malala Fund Collection incorporates ingredients naturally found in Tanzania, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Brazil: countries where Malala Fund operates to address systemic education barriers. Eight percent of net revenue from the Pura x Malala Fund Collection will be donated to Malala Fund directly, but beyond financial support, the Collection is also a love letter to each unique community, blending notes like lemon, jasmine, cedarwood, and clove to transport people, ignite their senses, and help them draw inspiration and hope from the global movement for girls’ education. Through scent, people can connect to the courage, joy, and tenacity of girls and local leaders, all while uniting in a shared commitment to education: the belief that supporting girls’ rights in one community benefits all of us, everywhere.
You’ve already met Sheilla. Now see how Naiara and Mama Habiba are building unique solutions to ensure every girl can learn freely and dare to dream.
Naiara Leite is reimagining what’s possible in Brazil
Julia with Odara in Brazil. Captured by Luisa Dorr for Pura
In Brazil, where pear trees and coconut plantations cover the Northeastern Coast, girls like ten-year-old Julia experience a different kind of educational barrier than girls in Tanzania. Too often, racial discrimination contributes to high dropout rates among Black, quilombola and Indigenous girls in the country.
“In the logic of Brazilian society, Black people don’t need to study,” says Naiara Leite, Executive Coordinator of Odara, a women-led organization and Malala Fund partner. Bahia, the state where Odara is based, was once one of the largest slave-receiving territories in the Americas, and because of that history, deeply-ingrained, anti-Black prejudice is still widespread. “Our role and the image constructed around us is one of manual labor,” Naiara says.
But education can change that. In 2020, with assistance from a Malala Fund grant, Odara launched its first initiative for improving school completion rates among Black, quilombola, and Indigenous girls: “Ayomidê Odara”. The young girls mentored under the program, including Julia, are known as the Ayomidês. And like the Pura x Malala Fund Collection’s Brazil: Breath of Courage scent, the Ayomidês are fierce, determined, and bursting with energy.
Ayomidês with Odara in Brazil. Captured by Luisa Dorr for Pura
Ayomidês take part in weekly educational sessions where they explore subjects like education and ethnic-racial relations. The girls are encouraged to find their own voices by producing Instagram lives, social media videos, and by participating in public panels. Already, the Ayomidês are rewriting the narrative on what’s possible for Afro-Brazilian girls to achieve. One of the earliest Ayomidês, a young woman named Debora, is now a communications intern. Another former Ayomidê, Francine, works at UNICEF, helping train the next generation of adolescent leaders. And Julia has already set her sights on becoming a math teacher or a model.
“These are generations of Black women who did not have access to a school,” Naiara says. “These are generations of Black women robbed daily of their dreams. And we’re telling them that they could be the generation in their family to write a new story.”
Mama Habiba is reframing the conversation in Nigeria
Centre for Girls' Education, Nigeria. Captured by James Roh for Pura
In Mama Habiba’s home country of Nigeria, the scents of starfruit, ylang ylang and pineapple, all incorporated into the Pura x Malala Collection’s “Nigeria: Hope for Tomorrow,” can be found throughout the vibrant markets. Like these native scents, Mama Habiba says that the Nigerian girls are also bright and passionate, but too often they are forced to leave school long before their potential fully blooms.
“Some of these schools are very far, and there is an issue of quality, too,” Mama Habiba says. “Most parents find out when their children are in school, the girls are not learning. So why allow them to continue?”
When girls drop out of secondary school, marriage is often the alternative. In Nigeria, one in three girls is married before the age of 18. When this happens, girls are unable to fulfill their potential, and their families and communities lose out on the social, health and economic benefits.
Completing secondary school delays marriage, and according to UNESCO, educated girls become women who raise healthier children, lift their families out of poverty and contribute to more peaceful, resilient communities.
Centre for Girls’ Education, Nigeria. Captured by James Roh for Pura
To encourage young girls to stay in school, the Centre for Girls’ Education, a nonprofit in Nigeria founded by Mama Habiba and supported by Malala Fund and Pura, has pioneered an initiative that’s similar to the Ayomidê workshops in Brazil: safe spaces. Here, girls meet regularly to learn literacy, numeracy, and other issues like reproductive health. These safe spaces also provide an opportunity for the girls to role-play and learn to advocate for themselves, develop their self-image, and practice conversations with others about their values, education being one of them. In safe spaces, Mama Habiba says, girls start to understand “who she is, and that she is a girl who has value. She has the right to negotiate with her parents on what she really feels or wants.”
“When girls are educated, they can unlock so many opportunities,” Mama Habiba says. “It will help the economy of the country. It will boost so many opportunities for the country. If they are given the opportunity, I think the sky is not the limit. It is the starting point for every girl.”
From parades, film screenings to safe spaces and educational programs, girls and local leaders are working hard to strengthen the quality, safety and accessibility of education and overcome systemic challenges. They are encouraging courageous behavior and reminding us all that education is freedom.
Experience the Pura x Malala Fund Collection here, and connect with the stories of real girls leading change across the globe.
In a compilation that has resurfaced and gone viral (yet again) on social media, a 101-year-old woman named Alice is seen meeting a gaggle of young children, all eager to see the world through the lens of her long life.
The group is called HiHo Kids, and they’re part of an online content platform that features children learning and playing. Their Facebook page emphasizes the importance of embracing youth: “Every kid – including the one inside each of us – needs imagination and curiosity about the world. HiHo promotes empathy through play.”
No question is too big, too silly, or too small for Alice. The young tikes are, as children tend to be, truly earnest, and Alice seems happy to share what her life has been like for more than a century. In a montage, various children sit across from her. One asks, “What are we here to talk about?” Alice answers with honesty and humor: “Well, I think it might be how old I am.”
This is, of course, followed by the question, “How old are you?” Alice replies, “I’m in my 101st year.”
After a brief discussion about where Alice grew up, a boy named Micah asks about life back in the old days. Alice answers, “We didn’t have radio. No television. We didn’t have telephones when I was a little girl. There were not any trucks. They had wagons, and horses pulled them.”
What was the world like?
One young girl asked whether the world was in such turmoil. “Back then, did you see any wars?” Alice maintained her honest approach. “I did, and I was in a war. I was in the Second World War. We worked on decoding and encoding machines. Very secret work. The officers had guns, and they said if you told any of the secrets, they would shoot you dead.”
Micah looks a bit nervous, so Alice reassures him. “But nobody got shot.” He seems relieved. “Good,” he says, smiling and nodding.
To lighten things up a bit, a young girl asks, “What did you do for fun?” Alice fondly recalls, “I had dolls and blocks. But I really liked ‘boys’ things.’ Marbles and tops. And I thought boys were much luckier than girls. We had to wear skirts and stockings, even in the coldest weather.”
Clara questions this: “Girls couldn’t wear pants?” Alice affirms, “That’s right.” Clara concludes that it’s simply not fair.
Favorite insect
Though Alice is now retired, she lights up when talking about her past work as a biology professor. “If you look at my shirt, you’ll see some of the things I taught about.” She points to a few insect brooches on her pale blue button-down, including a spider. When asked about her favorite insect, Alice doesn’t hesitate: “Ants. I did research on ants.”
Clara could talk about ants all day. She explains that although they’re tiny, they’re incredibly strong. “They can carry something big, like a banana. Even three of them can, even though they’re this tiny.” Alice is impressed by her knowledge. “You’re very good—and you’re only six years old!”
Micah asks what Alice likes to do for fun. “Well, right now I’m watching the Olympics. I write books, and I do puzzles. I enjoy email. I write to a lot of my friends. I even play Scrabble. Also, I try to get exercise every day.”
She tells the kids she’s grateful to still have a working mind and body. “Some old people aren’t very well anymore. Some of them can’t remember things. Some of them have to have somebody help them. But I can do everything myself.” Micah exclaims, “That’s good! That means you’re really old, but you’re really good at it.”
The rest of the conversation is quite moving. Alice is asked what the hardest part of getting older is. “You miss people. And especially when you live over 100 years. Most of the people I ever knew, and in my family, are dead.”
Not afraid of dying
This leads to a beautiful question: “Are you afraid of dying?” Alice is most certainly not. “No, I’m not afraid of dying. I feel very healthy and happy. My doctor said, ‘Maybe you’ll just die in your sleep.’ So I’m not afraid, because I have a good life.”
Finally, quite possibly the most important question of the session: “What is the secret to living a long life?” Alice answers, “Being happy, working hard, getting exercise, doing things for yourself, not expecting other people to do everything for you. Those things help you live a long time.”
The comments under the Facebook reel, where this was also posted, are full of praise.
One commenter wrote, “As a geriatric nurse, Alice’s brain is freaking amazing for 101. Shoot, it’s amazing for most of my 70-80 year olds. Amazing.”
Another agreed with Alice’s life: “She was a freaking decoder! These kids don’t even know the titan they’re sitting across from them. This is so cool!”
And of course, people loved Alice’s interactions with the sweet children. “You can tell she loves to teach,” a commenter wrote. “She’s absolutely magical with the children. What a gift to introduce these kids to Alice.”
If you’ve ever perused photographs from the 19th and early 20th century, you’ve likely noticed how serious everyone looked. If there’s a hint of a smile at all, it’s oh-so-slight. But more often than not, our ancestors looked like they were sitting for a sepia-toned mug shot or being held for ransom or something. Why didn’t people smile in photographs? Was life just so hard back then that nobody smiled? Were dour, sour expressions just the norm?
Most often, people’s serious faces in old photographs are blamed on the long exposure time of early cameras, and that’s true. Taking a photo was not an instant event like it is now; people had to sit still for many minutes in the 1800s to have their photo taken.
Ever try holding a smile for only one full minute? It’s surprisingly difficult and very quickly becomes unnatural. A smile is a quick reaction, not a constant state of expression. Even people we think of as “smiley” aren’t toting around full-toothed smiles for minutes on end. When you had to be still for several minutes to get your photo taken, there was just no way you were going to hold a smile for that long.
But there are other reasons besides long exposure times that people didn’t smile in early photographs.
Mona Lisa – Photo credit: Public domain
The non-smiling precedent had already been set by centuries of painted portraits
The long exposure times for early photos may have contributed to serious facial expressions, but so did the painted portraits that came before them. Look at all of the portraits of famous people throughout history prior to cameras. Sitting to be painted took hours, so smiling was out of the question. Other than the smallest of lip curls like the Mona Lisa, people didn’t smile for painted portraits, so why would people suddenly think it normal to flash their pearly whites (which were not at all pearly white back then) for a photographed one? It simply wasn’t how it was done.
A smirk? Sometimes. A full-on smile? Practically never.
Algerian immigrant to the United States. Photographed on Ellis Island. Photo credit: Augustus F. Sherman via William Williams/Wikimedia Commons
Smiling usually indicated that you were a fool or a drunkard
Our perceptions of smiling have changed dramatically since the 1800s. In explaining why smiling was considered taboo in portraits and early photos, art historian Nicholas Jeeves wrote in Public Domain Review:
“Smiling also has a large number of discrete cultural and historical significances, few of them in line with our modern perceptions of it being a physical signal of warmth, enjoyment, or indeed of happiness. By the 17th century in Europe it was a well-established fact that the only people who smiled broadly, in life and in art, were the poor, the lewd, the drunk, the innocent, and the entertainment […] Showing the teeth was for the upper classes a more-or-less formal breach of etiquette.”
"Malle Babbe" by Frans Hals – Photo credit: Frans Hals via Public domain
In other words, to the Western sensibility, smiling was seen as undignified. If a painter did put a smile on the subject of a portrait, it was a notable departure from the norm, a deliberate stylistic choice that conveyed something about the artist or the subject.
Smiling simply didn’t work well in old portraits
Even the artists who attempted it had less-than-ideal results. It turns out that smiling is such a lively, fleeting expression that the artistically static nature of painted portraits didn’t lend itself well to showcasing it. Paintings that did have subjects smiling made them look weird or disturbing or drunk. Simply put, painting a genuine, natural smile didn’t work well in portraits of old.
As a result, the perception that smiling was an indication of lewdness or impropriety stuck for quite a while, even after Kodak created snapshot cameras that didn’t have the long exposure time problem. Even happy occasions had people nary a hint of joy in the photographs that documented them.
Another reason why people didn’t smile in old photos is that dental hygiene wasn’t the same as it is today, and people may have been self-conscious about their teeth. “People had lousy teeth, if they had teeth at all, which militated against opening your mouth in social settings,” Angus Trumble, the director of the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra, Australia, and author of A Brief History of the Smile, said, according to Time.
Even wedding party photos didn’t appear to be joyful occasions. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
Then along came movies, which may have changed the whole picture
So how did we end up coming around to grinning ear to ear for photos? Interestingly enough, it may have been the advent of motion pictures that pushed us towards smiling being the norm.
Photos could have captured people’s natural smiles earlier—we had the technology for taking instant photos—but culturally, smiling wasn’t widely favored for photos until the 1920s. One theory about that timing is that the explosion of movies enabled us to see emotions of all kinds playing out on screen, documenting the fleeting expressions that portraits had failed to capture. Culturally, it became normalized to capture, display and see all kinds of emotions on people’s faces. As we got more used to that, photo portraits began portraying people in a range of expression rather than trying to create a neutral image of a person’s face.
Changing our own perceptions of old photo portraits to view them as neutral rather than grumpy or serious can help us remember that people back then were not a bunch of sourpusses, but people who experienced as wide a range of emotion as we do, including joy and mirth. Unfortunately, we just rarely get to see them in that state before the 1920s.
In a moment when most people might respond with anger and discipline, one Philadelphia woman chose instead to lead with compassion.
On March 6, Bernadette Williams noticed a stranger across the street near a neighbor’s porch. As seen on Williams’ doorbell camera, a woman with a partial face covering appeared to reach for a delivered package. It was the kind of scene that immediately raises alarm, and Williams responded without hesitation.
‘What are you doing? Put that back! Put that back!’
The woman quickly dropped the package. For a brief moment, the situation hung in the balance. It could have turned into a confrontation, a threat, or a call to the police. But then Williams made a choice that shifted the entire tone of the encounter.
“I said, ‘She’s in trouble. How can I make a bad situation better?’ You have to be a part of the solution,” she later told WPVI.
Rather than continuing to call out the woman, Williams began speaking to her in a completely different way. As her voice softened, her message changed from warning to encouragement.
“You better than that. Get some help. I love you. God loves you,” she told the woman.
Then came the offer that has stayed with so many people who have heard the story. Reaching into her pocket, Williams told the stranger, “I’ll give you some money. Here’s $7, here’s $7.” It was all she had, and she gave it up willingly.
As WPVI reported, the woman apologized and thanked her before leaving. Williams said she could see something had shifted in her expression.
“Her eyes of ‘I’m sorry.’ That was in her heart, and that’s what I read. I hope that she will be fine, and I have faith that she will be fine.”
For Williams, the decision was not about ignoring wrongdoing, but about recognizing what might be underneath it. Instead of seeing a thief, she saw someone who might be struggling.
“She started realizing ‘I am somebody,’” Williams said. “She started realizing that ‘There is somebody out here that cares.’”
That perspective comes from years of living in the same neighborhood and feeling connected to the people in it. Williams believes that communities are shaped by how people choose to respond to one another, especially in difficult moments.
“We are a part of this community, and we can make our community better,” she told WPVI.
The big takeaway
There’s a common assumption that accountability must come with harshness. This story shows that it doesn’t always have to. The would-be thief is held accountable while maintaining everyone’s dignity, making a different choice in the future far more likely.
While it’s impossible to know what happens next for the woman in the video, what remains is the example Williams set by actively choosing humanity when most would not.
As AI plays an increasing role in our world, questions about its appropriate use abound. There’s no doubt that technology has the potential to improve our lives dramatically. But the way we choose to use it can also impact us in ways we may not fully appreciate.
For instance, how might AI impact our relationship with human creativity? Ethan Hawke was asked about the idea that “AI is the future of art,” and how he would argue that human creativity matters. People are loving his thoughts.
“Nature is reality,” he said. “And when you get away from reality, you get lost. Human creativity is nature manifest in us. It is happening in us.”
Then he gave an example of why AI art will never be able to replicate a piece of art created by a human.
“AI could make an amazing portrait of the Sundance Film Festival, and it’ll be incredible,” he said. “Or my 14-year-old could color her impression of it. And the thing about my 14-year-old’s is it’s not perfect. It’s hers. It’s unique to a moment in time and a place. And it’s inimitable because it’s coming from her, and she is beautiful. And it’s not the painting; it’s the energy behind the painting.”
“We are celebrating people, not AI. Animation is more than a prompt, it’s an art form that needs to be protected.”
“What makes a poem great is not this collection of words,” he continued. “It’s the energy behind the poem. Dance can be…you see people who can barely dance, and you can cry at the joy happening with the music. Because they’re alive right now and they won’t be forever. And when we start making things being about perfection, you’re just belittling the experience of life. You’re just totally ceding your humanity.”
Hawke concluded, “It makes me sad, but it also makes me excited, because I don’t want to do that. I’m not going to do that.”
So many people resonated with his response in the comments:
“This is so beautiful and so true ~ everything he says is so profound and I’m here for this thinking…. we’ve become a weird world of social media perfection.”
“I love how he got 🥲 talking about the imperfections created by hand from his daughter. What a beautiful way of describing creativity.”
“Can he just write a philosophy book already? We all know we’d read it.”
“@ethanhawke always saying what the world needs to hear. Thank you sir! Thank you for defending the magic of NATURE and defending the MAGIC of humanity. More of this ENERGY and CONSCIOUSNESS ❤️❤️❤️.”
“This feels less like an anti-AI take and more like a pro-human one.”
AI isn’t going anywhere, time to choose the role it plays in society
That last comment hits the nail on the head. Whether you love it, hate it, or aren’t sure how to feel about it, AI is here. The conversations we have about it, and how we consciously choose to engage with it, matter. There’s a lot to consider on that front, ethically, educationally, environmentally, and more.
But one thing those considerations are forcing us to do is to examine the value of human creativity. Not the dollar amounts we can assign to it, but the inherent value of the energy behind an artist’s unique expression. Generative AI will never be able to replace human creativity, no matter how “perfectly” it may replicate it. The real beauty of art is the singularity of the human spirit and the unique energy an artist brings to it.
As Hawke said, we can choose not to cede our humanity in the age of AI—and we can be excited about that choice because the beauty of human creativity is absolutely worth celebrating.
No one can resist a good mystery, least of all when love is involved. One woman recently captivated puzzle enthusiasts when she posted a juicy brainteaser in the form of a mysterious Valentine’s card she received in 1993.
In a viral post on Threads, Sarah Snop explained how she received the card on Valentine’s Day more than 30 years ago. The card was, to say the least, extremely bizarre.
The card was a blank-inside design from the German company GRUSS GmbH. That’s strange in and of itself, since Snop was living in the United Kingdom at the time. Inside, one side of the card featured a hand-drawn ace of hearts, with the central heart marked by a peculiar arrow.
The other side featured a cryptic, nonsensical, and likely encoded note:
“Dear Sarah I wish you quite a few unsloppy kiss es to the space where your head is. i hope that you enjoy to-day and to-morrow, and don’t forget to eat the broccoli on the shorts. (And dear V-alentines day two) … Bestwisheslovefromgetwellsoonyours.”
Other strange words and scratchings appeared around the edges of the card, and the copyright information on the back was scratched out, except for the word “HAPPY.”
What could it all mean?
“I kept it all these years because I have never figured out who sent it to me,” Snop wrote in the post. “It intrigued me as I always felt it was in some form of code that I just couldn’t crack.”
For all these years, she’s had no leads or clues. Snop told Upworthy the card must have come from someone at her college, as it was secretly slipped into her bag while she was on campus. Other than that, she didn’t recognize the handwriting or any references to inside jokes with her friends.
And no one ever came forward to claim responsibility.
The challenge
Not to worry—hundreds of amateur Internet puzzlers were more than eager to take on the challenge.
More than 400 users chimed in with observations and attempts to solve the puzzle, taking a multitude of approaches.
Some fed images of the card into AI chatbots like ChatGPT to spot patterns. ChatGPT “identified” an elaborate cipher in the note—a coded message that uses a key, or secret instructions, to encrypt and decrypt information.
“The line ‘Unsloppy kisses to the space where your head is’” was the “key clue,” it said. The AI tool was eventually able to extract a scrambled message from the note, which, when unscrambled, read: “Hi Sarah, I hope you enjoy today and tomorrow. Don’t forget I adore you.”
Adorable, but it doesn’t do much to identify the secret admirer. And for such an elaborate cipher, the hidden message isn’t all that fascinating—hardly worth going to such great lengths to conceal.
Another user chimed in with a much more interesting theory:
“Ok. FAITHFULL could be a columnar cipher key: after writing the letters in a grid under it, if you reorder the columns alphabetically according to the letters in the keyword then reading down the correct vertical column after reordering reveals the hidden name DAVID, and the rest of the letters form LOVE FROM DAVID. Does that make any sense?”
Others took a more human approach, looking for clues in the card, the drawing, and the handwriting itself.
“From the writing, the level of thought that went into it, neatness, I’d be pretty sure this is from a girl,” one user wrote.
Some speculated that, since the card was from Germany, the sender must have been as well, which might help explain the odd phrasing.
A few others didn’t have any codebreaking skills to contribute, but still got a kick out of the mystery.
“So much to unpack… the spacing and arrangement of the letters, the arrow next to the heart, the all one word ‘bestwishes…’, the bordered words, Faithfull … this is zodiac level,” one user marveled.
“Get the swifties on this STAT!!” someone else joked.
Sadly, Snop had to break the news to everyone following the post that she didn’t recall knowing anyone named David or Faith, or anyone who had spent significant time in Germany. For now, at least, the card remains a mystery—but a few dedicated cryptographers are still on the case, with plenty of new leads to pursue.
A fascinating tradition
Secret admirers and coded love letters are a fascinating tradition that dates back hundreds of years.
The Marginalian‘s Maria Popova writes of a gentleman in the 1850s courting a woman with an overprotective father. Knowing his letters would be read first, he brilliantly encoded them to avoid arousing suspicion. Secretly, they contained messages expressing his longing for the daughter:
“The young bachelor cleverly engineered his language so that the letter could be read two ways — line by line, as the unsuspecting father would, which renders the text a contemptuous disavowal of romance, or by skipping over all even-numbered lines and reading only the odds, which transmogrifies the message into a passionate declaration of love.”
In the Victorian era, the placement of a postage stamp on a letter could reveal the sender’s secret intentions. Edwardian Promenade‘s Evangeline Holland writes:
“They say that when a stamp is inverted on the right hand upper corner it means the person written to is to write no more. If the stamp be placed on the left hand upper corner and inverted, then the writer declares his affection for the receiver of the letter. When the stamp is in the centre at the top, it signifies an affirmative answer to a question, or the question, as the case may be; and when it is at the bottom, or opposite this, it is a negative.”
Even Julius Caesar is said to have written secret love notes to his mistress, which she kept concealed in a wooden chest.
When you combine encoded messages with a secret admirer, the titillation is irresistible. Snop’s old Valentine may be a forgotten and slightly strange piece of paper tucked among her belongings, but to the rest of us, it’s a fascinating, multilayered puzzle we can’t help trying to solve.
Since the 1980s, one particular phone number has earwormed its way into pop culture’s collective memory. That number? 867-5309 (which you probably just sang in your head). Today, however, that memorable number doesn’t belong to Jenny anymore. Thanks to Tommy Tutone’s frontman, dialing it now connects cancer patients to a support group.
Tommy Heath, the lead singer of Tommy Tutone, teamed up with the Cancer Support Community to secure the number for its free support helpline. In an exclusive interview with People, Heath shared how cancer has affected him as he’s gotten older, noting that he is dealing with “minor” skin cancer himself.
“I have some family members who are struggling with cancer,” he told People. “I’m out on tour with a lot of bands and suddenly somebody’s not there.”
The song’s prank-filled past
The song “867-5309/Jenny” reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1982. However, its catchy, memorable chorus led to a wave of stories beyond music. It also sparked years of prank calls, with people asking for “Jenny” whenever they dialed the number—both during the song’s heyday in the 1980s and decades later.
The Cancer Support Community’s hotline provides expert support from trained specialists who offer personal guidance, information, and a listening ear for cancer patients. Having such a recognizable phone number helps ensure people know exactly which number to dial for help. After learning this, Heath stepped in, wanting to give back after getting so much from the number that made him famous.
“I need to give back to the community, the people who have supported me all these years,” he told People. “I’m going to do what I can…I’d be happy if this was an enduring legacy, and made people smile and give them hope.”
Now, when someone dials the number using the 272 area code (or “CSC,” for “Cancer Support Community”), it connects them to a professional who can help people with cancer.
At 78, Heath is still going strong, performing live. And yes, he still happily plays and sings “867-5309/Jenny” for the crowds that support him.
If you need additional or specialized support in your battle against cancer, visiting the American Cancer Society’s website can help. Searching for and connecting with professionals there can provide patients with additional resources, including in-person, local support.
On the outside, Fiesta Fresh Market looks like just another neighborhood grocery store in New Castle, Delaware. Inside the produce section, however, customers can listen to local bands perform their latest songs live and in person. These “Mercadito Sessions” have since evolved from a simple community offering into a full-fledged live music event.
While grocery stores and live music don’t typically mix, at Fiesta Fresh Market, it’s part of the family. The Aguilar Garcia family, who run the store, have music in their roots—especially co-owner José Luis Aguilar Garcia, who works in the music industry.
In the hope of helping Mexican American bands gain more exposure, José and his family offered their produce section as a space for Latin musicians to perform for customers. They were inspired by National Public Radio’s “Tiny Desk Concerts,” which feature artists performing live in a confined space.
These produce section mini-concerts, dubbed “The Mercadito Sessions,” initially puzzled customers. Over time, however, shoppers came to welcome and enjoy the live music, with some even visiting just for the performances. Then, posts on the store’s social media featuring the bands began to go viral.
“The idea is to highlight independent artists from the area,” José told CBS Philadelphia. “Because it’s getting more attention online, people are excited. They’ll ask when we’re doing the next one.”
Commenters on the store’s Instagram celebrated the market’s concert concept:
“This is so cool. Not everyone wants to go to bars and/or have to stay up late to hear live music. I love this so much.”
“Honestly this is the absolute coolest thing ever.”
“Amazing music scenes going on everywhere, love the magic being shared.”
“We need this right now in the world…Real humans doing real human things.”
While the Mercadito Sessions showcase Mexican regional music, they are open to any genre. As the series gained attention online, many bands reached out to Fiesta Fresh Market to get booked. Several acts have come to perform and record as customers pick out fresh fruits and vegetables.
Concerts for the community, by the community
Musicians and customers alike say these concerts provide a sense of community among Latin Americans living in Delaware. They not only celebrate their culture, but also showcase it to others in New Castle.
“It gives us a platform to portray who we really are,” musician Jesús Beltran Méndez told CBS Philadelphia. “There’s a lot of misconceptions about who we are. There are bad people. There are good people. We are just human.”
Demand for the music has grown so much that the grocery store is now hosting and promoting a full-fledged concert event. What was once a place to buy groceries has become a spotlight for the community—all by offering a small space in an aisle.
One of the most striking things about real-life footage of Americans from the advent of the camera until around 1970 is that nearly all men, and many women, are wearing hats. In footage from the 1940s, for example, men boarding the subway to go to work are almost always seen in fedoras, trilbys, or homburgs. Earlier clips show them in bowlers and top hats.
It’s as if, before TV turned color, Americans were a nation of conformists who all dressed the same way. So how did men across the Western world go from wearing hats every day for decades to suddenly going bareheaded? Preston Schlueter of the Gentleman’s Gazette outlines four reasons in a YouTube video with more than 2 million views.
Four reasons why men stopped wearing hats
1. Climate control
“One of the biggest reasons for the loss of hat-wearing is likely that we now have better control over our indoor climate than we used to,” Schlueter says. “This is also why men can now go in and out of doors wearing sometimes fewer than two layers of clothing, and why things like gloves and scarves aren’t as popular as they used to be.”
2. Social class
“Social class was an incredibly important aspect of Western society, and people were absolutely expected to know their place,” Schlueter says. “But, after the horrors of war brought every social class just a bit closer, we began to focus more on the individual, rather than on the class in which they resided. As a result, then, the practice of wearing clothing and, particularly, hats to signify yourself as part of a distinct group has become largely extinct.”
Back in the day, when transportation consisted of subway cars, trolley cars, horse-drawn buggies, or horseback travel, there was plenty of headroom, even for someone wearing a top hat. However, with the advent of the automobile, headroom in vehicles changed drastically.
“Look up at the ceiling in your own car. How much headroom do you have there? The answer is probably not much, perhaps even for a relatively soft or short hat style,” Schlueter says. “Simply put, modern cars aren’t built to accommodate the hat styles of old.”
“In the last decade and a half or so, hats like the fedora and trilby have gained an increasingly negative reputation thanks to Internet memes from websites like 4chan, Reddit, and Tumblr,” Schlueter says. “Indeed, for some younger members of our audience, when we mention fedoras, they might first think of the infamous ‘tips fedora’ meme. Because there are now thousands of these easily spreadable memes all over the Internet, the fedora, in recent years, took on a decidedly less-than-cool reputation.”
Hats are due for a comeback
In the end, there are many reasons people stopped wearing fancy hats every day. It appears to be a confluence of historical events, technological progress, and social pressures that influenced this major shift in fashion. But that doesn’t mean the era of the hat is gone forever. If one thing is certain, what goes out of fashion is always bound to come back.
.jpg){kind=link}
