Hobsession Podcast
1) LIGHTS! KIM DYNASTY! ACTION!
The late North Korean despot Kim Jong Il was a massive cinema buff. When he took control of the local film industry, he planned to produce propaganda that had all the glitz and action of Hollywood. Je...Show More
2) Hyping the Mona Lisa
Was the Mona Lisa always seen as an iconic masterpiece? Who decides which images become iconic and why do they become part of the collective consciousness? In this episode we take a look at the Mona L...Show More
3) Mary Toft and the Sinister Rabbits
If anyone remembers Mary Toft at all, it’s as the woman who hoaxed some of the most powerful men of 18th century England into believing she could give birth to rabbits. This is not a cute story about ...Show More
4) Moe the Chimp and the Tragic Birthday
St James and LaDonna Davis of West Covina, California, had what they considered to be the perfect family. Unable to have children, the couple doted on their pet chimpanzee, Moe. To the Davises, Moe wa...Show More
5) A Light Supper With The Breatharians
Is it possible to live without food or water? A group of New Age extremists called the Breatharians claim that the human body can survive for years on nothing but air and sunlight. Heidi and Becki she...Show More
6) The Basement Music of The Shaggs
Helen, Betty and Dot Wiggin had no interest in being pop stars. Their dad, however, shaped his life around his mother’s psychic predictions, and she had said that the girls would grow up to be rich an...Show More
7) Are You Bridget Cleary?
Bridget Cleary wasn’t like the other girls in her rural town in Tipperary, Ireland. It was the late 19th century, and Bridget was in many ways a modern woman - ambitious, independent and secure in her...Show More
8) The Obsessions of Hans Christian Andersen
It was 1857 and the last thing Charles Dickens and his family (who were in a state of upheaval) needed was a houseguest. They especially didn’t need a neurotic, self-absorbed and tactless houseguest l...Show More
9) The Haunting of Humpty Doo House
It was the late 90’s in the small Northern Territory town of Humpty Doo, a place of sweltering heat, humid storms, crocodiles and hardworking people. The house at 90 McMinns Road and it’s inhabitants ...Show More
10) The Eternal Supermodel: Lizzie Siddal and the Feminine Muse
Lizzie Siddal was a young working class woman in Victorian London who longed for more. Desperate to be accepted as a poet and a painter, Lizzie found her way into the art scene by becoming the main mu...Show More