Over the years, people have gone to truly extraordinary lengths in pursuit of fashion. A catalog of peculiar gowns would fill several volumes, even without getting into bizarre hats, wigs, gloves, codpieces, shoes, eyeglasses, and all manner of other demented accessories, and I will not so tax the reader except to mention a few highlights.
Dresses of strange materials are not uncommon. Among the oddest were the mycorrhiza gown of Milicent von Pratt, a wrap of finest fungal threads. This sensational outfit required almost two weeks to put on, requiring Lady von Pratt to paint herself with an agar and compost growth medium and lay prone in a f
Echo birds are as common as muck, and about the same color. They’re found only in San Axolotl, where they scurry along the paving stones and under the tables of the street cafes, through trash-clogged back alleys and down the walks of rooftop gardens, looking for scraps and seeds. Once you leave the city, though, the echo bird population tapers off within five miles, and the only specimens anywhere else in the world have glass eyes and are wired to their perches.
Echo birds are not mimics. There are all kinds of mimics in the bird kingdom, from the pygmy mynah to the rare and savage Cassowary Macaw, whose repertoire generally consists o
