Bizarrism is a collection of strange-but-true tales, featuring a grand parade of eccentrics, visionaries, crackpots, cult leaders, artists, theorists and outsiders of every stripe. First published in 1999, this new, fully revised and expanded edition revisits a host of unique individuals, including:
- William Chidley, who believed that, when it comes to sex, we’ve all been making a terrible mistake;
- Arthur Cravan, who combined poetry with boxing;
- Slim Gaillard, jazz singer and dispenser of ‘vout’;
- William Lindsay Gresham, author of the classic noir novel Nightmare Alley;
- Rosaleen Norton, Australia’s most notorious witch;
- Harry Crosby, poet, sun worshipper and the best looking corpse of 1929;
- Reginal Levgiac, author of the mysterious pamphlet Drugs Virus Germs.
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In writing their stories, Mikul does not judge, but instead celebrates these characters for their fabulous weirdness. For him, they are the “beacons of shining if erratic brilliance in a world of sensible conformity”. The world would be a poorer place without them.
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