Followers of the Spiritualist faith believe that the soul continues to exist after the death of the body, and that believers can communicate with the dead. Spiritualists believe that the deceased can continue to grow and evolve in the afterlife, and as such we can learn a lot from communicating with them.
In a quiet corner of Georgetown in Washington, D.C. you'll find a Spiritualist house of worship, the Church of Two Worlds, referring of course to the spirit world and our Earthly realm. Housed in a former Methodist church building, it is the oldest Spiritualist church in the district, dating back to 1906.
The first thing you notice about the Church of Two Worlds are the stained glass windows. Coupled with the tan brick exterior and lofty wooden doors, it looks like your typical local church. But the Church of Two Worlds is far from typical.
Spiritualism reached its peak between the 1840s to the 1920s, reaching some 8 million followers at its height, mostly from the upper class. Today it is considerably more niche: Though the front doors of the Church of Two Worlds lead to a grand, spacious hall, the small audience means meetings are often held in a smaller room in the back.
Church attendees receive a book of Spiritualist hymnals which are read from throughout the service. The church also offers healings, a type of Spiritualist ritual, group meditation, and literature on how to build your own private altar at home. Spiritualists believe in the power of their faith to cure diseases and will gladly share advice with visitors. Though it is far from a requirement, attendees sometimes recite mantras and reach out to spirits during a visit to church.
Reaching this mystifying destination requires a three-hour drive, taking you down a dangerous and hidden road befitting a journey to the City of the Dead.
The village of Dargavs, or the City of the Dead, has an ancient cemetery where people that lived in the valley buried their loved ones along with their clothes and belongings. The valley stretches for 17 kilometers, and the cemetery contains almost 100 ancient stone crypts.
Ossetians say that the cemetery helps them understand of how people lived 400 years ago. Archeologists, also, are very interested in exploring the site more completely, as there have been interesting items found that have attracted some scientific attention.
It is a very mysterious place with a lot of myths and legends. It was once believed that if anyone tried to get to the city they would never emerge alive.
Local legends have it that in the 18th century a plague swept through Ossetia. The clans built quarantine houses for sick family members, who were provided with food but not the freedom to move about, until death claimed their lives. People who did not have any remaining family members to bury them would just wait in the massive cemetery until their death. It was a very slow and painful way to go, and in the City of Death they stay.
It attracts tourists from nearby as well as all over the world, although due to the difficulty in finding or traveling to the location there are not a lot of tourists at any given time. The local superstitions probably have little to do with the lack of popularity, although they do still linger.
Locals bemoan the young generation's attraction to bright cities, contending that the young are missing out on a lot. Russia has a lot of truly unique places to offer but these historic sites do not attract much attention. If, however, one spends some time in North Ossetia, they say it's possible to feel the ancient vibes around the city and its surrounding area.
Once you get to the city you will find what at first appear to be lots of little white houses but are actually stone crypts, the oldest dating back to the 16th century. In front of every crypt there is a well that was used to tell if a person made it to heaven. Visitors drop a coin into the well, and if the coin happened to hit a stone at the bottom of the well, it was said to be a good sign.
Since 1997, Peruvian law has protected the haunting Chauchilla Cemetery, a Nazca burial ground where mummified corpses were laid to rest until the ninth century. Prior to 1997, it was ravaged mercilessly by Peruvian grave robbers. For many of these ancient corpses, it was the second time they lost their heads.
Scattered among the many full-bodied mummies at Chauchilla Cemetery are a number of mummified heads. Many of the heads have been specially prepared with holes drilled into the backs of their skulls, and in some cases rope has been threaded through the mummified head. This is possibly so they could be worn as a necklace or as a jaunty charm hanging off of a belt. Though originally believed to be "trophy heads" taken in battles, recent evidence shows that the heads actually came from the same population as the rest of the mummies, suggesting the heads may not have been taken in battle after all. The exact nature and use of the heads remains distinctly unclear.
Despite the fact that the burial grounds have not been utilized since the ninth century, the human remains are astoundingly well-preserved. The Peruvian Desert's dry climate is of course a factor in the preservation, but burial practices also contributed to the condition of many of the corpses, some still hanging on to their hair and skin over 1200 years after their demise.
Clothed in cotton and painted with resin, the deceased were placed in mud-bricked tombs. Wooden posts that were once assigned by archeologists to the category of religious use are now thought to be drying posts for the dead, which would explain the added step needed for such an impressive example of mummification.
Discovered in the 1920s, the remains and artifacts were spread across the area, picked over by nefarious pilferers. The burial ground has been restored to as close to its original state as possible, with the bones, bodies, heads, and artifacts either returned to tombs or showcased in displays.
Johann Konrad Dippel was rumored to create potions, perform electrical therapies, and partake in gruesome experiments involving stolen body parts from the graveyard. Born in the Castle Frankenstein in 1673, it’s disputed whether or not he was the inspiration for Mary Shelley’s mad scientist of the same name, who did some cadaver experiments of his own.
What is sure about Dippel is his colorful career as an alchemist. He attached his name to Dippel’s Animal Oil, which he discovered from the destructive distillation of animal parts and claimed as a universal medicine. The animal oil came at the end of a wave of popularity for Iatrochemistry, which had moved alchemy from the search for creating gold to finding new medicines. The unpleasant taste and smell, as well as the progression of medicine, made Dippel's oil fall into disrepute by the end of the 18th century.
Dippel later helped set up a laboratory in Berlin for making gold and, at one point, he ended up in prison on a Danish island for seven years due to political activities. In 1734, he finally had a stroke and died at the Castle Wittgenstein near Berleburg, although his friends claimed he was poisoned. By his own hand or that of another, it is unclear.
The Castle Frankenstein is now in ruins, with only two towers, a restaurant and a chapel remaining. However, the perhaps mythical connection to Mary Shelley’s novel "Frankenstein" keeps it a popular destination, especially for Halloween. A popular annual party was started there by American soldiers stationed near the castle in World War II. Until it was deactivated in 2008, the US Army's 233rd Base Support Battalion in Darmstadt conducted an annual Frankenstein Castle run which finished at the tower. The castle was featured in an episode of "Ghost Hunters International" which aired in February of 2008.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has characterized his comments about grabbing women by genitals, caught on tape 11 years ago, as "locker room talk." Where did this concept come from? The phrase "locker room talk" has its origins in the '20s and '30s, and, in the beginning, it mostly seemed to be about golf. It wasn't until the '80s that locker room talk came to be associated, publicly at least, with sex and the objectification of women.
Here is a short selection of the content of "locker room talk" over the decades.
1929: Gossip About Golf
"Is the gentleman in knickers so weak minded that he cannot take his stance unless death silence prevails? .. funereal tees and hushed greens would indicate that he is… locker room talk and golf clothes only help to strengthen the evidence!" (New York Life, 1929)
1937: Still About Golf
"There was locker room talk of a possible "sit-down strike" by some of golf's older heads should the committee reverse its early ruling, but the treat subsided when it was announced the ruling stood" (Boston Globe, 1937)
1943: Teen Fashion
"We'd like to know what fads are sweeping your crowd—overalls and big plaid shirts, straw farmer hats and pigtails braided with daisies—and all the rest of the things that drug store-locker room talk." (Chicago Daily Tribune, 1947)
1947: Labor Strife
"The strikes the took place after VJ Day...develop from a different set of roots...First the feeling on the part of management that the time had come to put unions back where they were in 1922. A drive similar to the one following World War I was in the locker room talk of more than one top executive. (The New Leader, 1947)
1961: "Unconscious Murderous Impulses"
"By contrast, in the locker room after a match there fewer social restriction and the facade of politeness is removed. Her the intense competitive spirit of each player is revealed. It is especially interesting to note the terms used to describe defeat: "It was murder." "He slaughtered him." "he killed him."... In the fantasy of the player, the match was the "killing" expressed in locker room talk.(Psychoanalysis and the Psychoanalytic Review, 1961)
1963: Still Golf
"Locker room conversation usually reflects the playing conditions of the course. Proper equipment in reliable running order is essential to good playing condition." (Golf Superintendent, 1963)
1983: Sex and Makeup
"Men have been talking about sex in locker rooms since they were 14. While women were discussing 'feminine' things — makeup, relationships, feelings —men were doing the manly things — counting conquests, keeping score." (Redbook, 1983)
1991: Women as Objects
"Conversations that affirm a traditional masculine identity dominate, and these include talk about women as objects, homophobic talk, and talk that is very aggressive and hostile towards women." (Sociology of Sport Journal, 1991)
After a tape surfaced last week of Donald J. Trump, the 70-year-old Republican nominee who has long been accused as having very short fingers, bragging in 2005 about grabbing a woman's "pussy," he repeatedly dismissed the lewd comments by invoking a phrase used as shorthand for sexually explicit male communication. It was nothing more, he said, than "locker room talk."
"Locker room talk" has a long history—one which, it should be said, hasn't usually included sexual assault—and that history includes another presidential campaign, and another female candidate.
The year was 1984. Vice President George H.W. Bush was debating Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman on a major-party presidential ticket. Their debate was judged to be mostly a draw, though Bush afterwards, in a candid moment caught on tape, apparently left the stage feeling pretty optimistic.
"We tried to kick a little ass last night," he told a longshoreman on the campaign trail.
The remark caused an uproar, with the New York Timesreferring to it as a "locker-room vulgarity," while a campaign official for Ferraro said Bush had "gone beyond decency."
But Bush defended it, saying that it was an "old Texas football" expression, and an aide called the criticism "utterly ridiculous."
The episode soon blew over, and Bush and President Ronald Reagan later went on to defeat Ferraro and her running mate Walter Mondale in one of the biggest landslides ever.
And while Bush's remark seems a bit quaint these days, other comments that year might not be as surprising spoken in 2016.
On the day of the debate, for example, Bush's press secretary said Ferraro was "too bitchy," for voters, while Bush's wife, Barbara, also got in the mix.
From the New York Times:
Mrs. Bush, while bantering with reporters on Monday, characterized Mrs. Ferraro as a ''four-million-dollar - I can't say it, but it rhymes with rich.'' Mrs. Bush later apologized and said she had not meant to suggest Mrs. Ferraro was ''a witch.''
She definitely meant to say "witch." Looks like women have locker rooms, too.
(Iceland is Not Impressed by this attempt. In a Reykjavik Grapevine piece last year, former food editor Ragnar Egilsson mocked Bourdain's complaints. "Celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain famously called 'hákarl' the worst thing he had ever eaten," Egilsson wrote. "This may have been coloured by an overall miserable visit to Iceland or by the fact that Anthony Bourdain is a huge sissy.")
But, getting past the stunt food, there's plenty of reason that we should talk about terrible tastes.
The biggest is this: Sometimes, hiding in that terrible taste might be something so important that it can change the world in a noticeable way. In fact, there's a really terrible flavor that's hiding all over your home. Why haven't you tasted it yet? Well, let's just say that, if the flavor does its job right, you never will.
In 2007, Aqua Dots, a toy manufacturer, had a bit of a disaster on its hands when it was discovered that at least some of the beaded toys it produced were coated with a chemical so dangerous that, when it metabolized, it turned into the "date-rape" drug GHB.
Beads are small, and they're edible. So you can imagine what happened. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission quickly recalled more than 4.2 million toys in an effort to control the problem.
But eventually, these toys came back on the market in a different form, under a different name. And when they did, they were covered with another kind of chemical—this one designed to prevent kids from eating the beads.
Aqua Dots, a toy that was recalled after the manufacturer discovered that parts were coated with a chemical that, when ingested, metabolizes to the "date rape" drug GHB. (Photo: Anathea Utley/CC BY 2.0)
That chemical, denatonium benzoate, goes by the brand name Bitrex, and it's been around since the 1950s. It's currently used in substances as diverse as antifreeze, perfumes, household cleaners, and pesticides. Only recently has the chemical come to the world of toys. But it packs a hell of a punch—a single molecule of Bitrex can make a million molecules of water taste horrible.
If that level of bitterness sounds like fodder for a series of YouTube-style challenges, YouTube is already way ahead of you. Here's a G-rated taste-test from a radio-station morning show crew that was put up to it by a nonprofit organization; here's an R-rated test from a guy who runs a YouTube channel dedicated to eating weird things.
Other methods for turning the enemy's food into untouchable junk were highlighted in the patent, but none were quite as memorable as Bitrex.
"This compound is several magnitudes more bitter, and the bitter taste persists in the mouth for a considerable time," the patent stated. "Rice which is contaminated with this chemical in amounts of 0.10 pound per ton is inedible. The bitter taste was so nauseating that no one who tasted the boiled rice was able to consume as much as a teaspoonful."
The incredibly potent flavoring of Bitrex didn't have a ton of uses at first, but eventually, it proved handy for a problem that arose in the early '80s, when reports of children being hospitalized for accidentally ingesting household chemicals became commonplace.
The logic is simple. If you make dangerous chemicals taste bad, kids won't eat or drink them.
The sensible answer, then, is to make these household chemicals taste so repellant to a child that its immediate reaction if it puts some in its mouth is to spit it out. What is required is a compound so vile in taste that it cannot be tolerated. There are, in fact, several such substances, both natural and man-made, but one that stands out above all others is denatonium benzoate, or Bitrex, as it is commonly known. This white, non-toxic powder, which is soluble in both aqueous and organic solvents, is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the bitterest substance known. Adding just one teaspoon of powder to a tankerful of water would make the water undrinkable.
Problem was, it wasn't a given that household cleaner manufacturers would use this substance, particularly in the U.S.
That's where the hard work of an Albany, Oregon, woman named Lynn Tylczak came into play. Tylczak heard about Bitrex getting used in cleaners made in Europe, but found out that the issue was getting ignored in the U.S.
In the 1980s, well before the days of email, she started a letter-writing campaign—first with chemical manufacturers, then with politicians, neither of which she had much luck with. She had a much better track record, however, when she and 20 of her neighbors started reaching out to the media and various consumer groups about the problem.
Bitrex is added to household cleaners so that they taste bad. (Photo: Mike Mozart/CC BY 2.0)
"I wrote to about 20 of the big newspapers, then I wrote to consumer groups, magazines, health magazines, insurance magazines, the people I thought would pick it up," Tylczak told the Los Angeles Times in 1989.
The media notice worked; soon, the politicians (including New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, then a member of the House) were knocking on her door pledging support. Noted consumer advocates, like Ralph Nader, were singing Tylczak's praises, and the National Safety Council quickly called on manufacturers to add Bitrex to their products.
As it turned out, at least one company, Procter & Gamble, already had. After doing market research in the early '80s, the company added the chemical to two varieties of laundry detergent after it was found that children were more susceptible to drinking those kinds of detergents over others. But its comments highlighted the fact that resistance lingered.
''We don't advertise the use of Bitrex because we don't want to communicate the notion that our products are not safe if they don't have Bitrex,'' company spokeswoman Jennifer G. Bailey told The New York Times. ''All of our products contain an emetic that would induce vomiting.''
She recalled in comments to The Giraffe Project: “One major antifreeze manufacturer saw the Poison-Proof Project on CNN and decided to use bittering agents. His comment was, ‘It would cost us more to fight this than to do it.’ Doesn’t anybody just plain want to make a safe product?”
These days, Bitrex is commonly used in all sorts of products you shouldn't drink. So if you accidentally have a toxic chemical in front of you and you feel like taking a swig, you can thank Lynn Tylczak for ensuring that you spit it out almost immediately. (Not that you should even try to drink a toxic chemical. That's stupid.)
Bitrex's discovery may have a bit of accident, but the world of chemical production doesn't have a monopoly on terrible-tasting things. And, as any foodie knows, "bitter" doesn't necessarily mean "terrible." Author and chef Jennifer McLagan, for example, wrote an entire cookbook playing up the appeal of bitter foods. In an interview with Publishers Weekly, she emphasized that the decline of human taste buds actually does adults a favor.
"As we age, we don’t have as many taste buds, and we can get used to bitter flavors," she explained. "As we experience more bitter flavors, we are more likely to crave and appreciate the digestive powers of bitter, which can, for example, balance fatty foods."
One food writer, Richard Sterling, describes the smell as "turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock. It can be smelled from yards away.”
Smithsonian magazine, in a piece on the bizarre fruit, says that scientists have analyzed that smell, in an attempt to nail down why it's so pungent, and have found a situation unlike that with Bitrex. It's not a single chemical compound—but numerous ones, each evoking different kinds of smells. At least 50 different ones, many of them things you wouldn't want to smell individually, let alone mashed into one super-smell.
If you truly wanted to mess with someone, obviously, you would put Bitrex on a durian. Sounds like an endurance test I'd watch on YouTube.
A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail.
Your bones can be repurposed into this ceramic bowl. (All Photos: Morgan Capps and Ash Haywood)
Every day, Justin Crowe pours himself a cup of coffee in the same mug. While the wide-brimmed cup’s ghostly white color and glassy glazed finish may look like any ordinary piece of ceramic ware, it is made from something more macabre. When he takes a sip, he is drinking from the bones of 200 people.
The 28-year-old artist and potter crafted the human bone mug about a month ago in his studio in Santa Fe, New Mexico as a part of an art dinnerware series called “Nourish.” Crowe started the project in the summer of 2015. He purchased 200 human bones from a bone dealer, crushed them into a fine powder, distilled the bone ash into the glaze of functional plates, cups, bowls, and then hosted an unusual dinner party—the guests eating off of repurposed human remains.
“It’s kind of an anonymous way to fold these people into everyday life and memorialize them,” Crowe says. “In my opinion, it’s way less creepy than having a jar of ashes.”
Crowe's coffee mug made of human bone ash.
Finding bones in ceramic and pottery recipes isn’t uncommon. As early as the 1600s, porcelain fine china from China had become a high-priced, royal treasure in Europe, causing a rise in production of imitation ware. English potters experimented with a variety of techniques to get red clay to look like the beautiful translucence of porcelain, which led to the invention of "bone china."
In 1748, Thomas Frye, owner of the Bow porcelain factory in East London, got the idea to use cow and oxen bones from the nearby cattle markets and slaughterhouses of Essex, creating the first iteration of white bone china. Bone china consists of approximately 33 to 50 percent burnt animal bone, which is mixed directly into the clay. The added ingredient makes the china much more durable, and gives it a high mechanical strength and chip resistance.
A set of Crowe's "Nourish."
Instead of incorporating the bone ash into the clay like the English bone china potters, Crowe mixes it into the glaze of his pieces. However, he isn’t the first to come up with the idea of using human bones. Crowe has heard of potters having their ashes thrown into wood kilns after they die, their cremated remains coating pots and pieces.
“Within the pottery community, it’s always this kind of thing that’s joked about,” he says. “Then, it’s really beautiful because everyone who loves them then gets to take a piece out of the kiln and have a piece of that person in their home, and in their life.”
Care to drink a glass of wine from a cup glazed with human ash?
The inspiration behind “Nourish” stemmed from the death of his grandfather. Crowe began thinking of his own death, mortality, and memorialization conventions on a daily basis as he watched someone he loved die, he says. His grandfather had passed away in his home, which was a place that held a lot of his childhood memories.
“It was also a place that was really average, but at the same time really sacred,” he says. “I had experienced mortality in a really unexpected place which had an ultimately positive impact on my outlook.”
Cheers!
To create “Nourish” as a symbol of death and mortality, Crowe wanted to represent the lives of hundreds of individual people. At first, he put an ad on Craigslist in Santa Fe to purchase human ashes—asking for about two cups of ashes for $35. Within a day of posting the ad, he had received three responses, two which reacted on two extreme ends. One was from a man who was looking for interesting things to do with his best friend's ashes, having already used some to create a diamond. The second was from a woman who threatened to have Crowe investigated. She wrote that he was going to hell and quoted the Bible.
“That was really good for me,” says Crowe. “Not just to understand what a sensitive issue, but what a polarized issue it was. People who react really negatively keep me conscious of how I’m approaching this.”
Each of Crowe's pieces are handcrafted.
After running into barriers obtaining human ashes, he turned to bone dealers. Typically, bone dealers sell specimens to hospitals, medical students, or collectors. The dealer that Crowe worked with had a box of unsellable fragments, broken and deteriorating abandoned bones that were perfect for his project. He purchased 200 bones, each piece belonging to an individual person with an individual story, Crowe says.
Crowe then pulverized the bones into a fine powder and used it in his glaze recipe. While he hadn’t ever handled bones before, working with the human remains felt like working with any other art medium, he says. “It was really kind of average,” he says. “I looked at them very preciously. I wasn’t wasting them or disrespecting them, but at the same time they were just this pile of fragments that had this massive idea within it.”
A photo posted by Justin Crowe (@justincrowestudio) on
The chemical makeup of the human bone ash causes a second type of glass to form in addition to the glaze glass, but it’s not something that can be seen on the finished product. The complete “Nourish” dinnerware is a simple, but beautiful white and tinted-blue set of plates, bowls, cups, mugs, and whiskey glasses.
Guests at Crowe's dinner party.
About two weeks ago, Crowe gathered a group of six brave friends to dine on his repurposed human bone creations. Crowe prepared the meal himself, serving wine, asparagus, quinoa salad, and pork loin topped with blueberry sauce (after learning that pork meat is supposedly the closest to human meat). “You wouldn’t look at [the meal] and think gross, but within the context of where it was there was an unsettling feeling that’s kind of questioning this meat and questioning what you’re eating off of,” he says.
Crowe specifically chose pork because of its semblance to human meat.
The guests knew what the dinnerware was made of, which caused the conversation to be filled with a slew of death puns and thoughts on mortality, he says. Surprisingly, the guests felt that the party and the meal felt mundane in comparison to how powerful it was to have dinnerware made of human bones. In other words, the meal felt normal.
A quality meal on beautifully designed bone dinnerware.
Crowe is in the process of developing a short video that captures the bizarre dinner party, and is also focusing on expanding the art series into a cremation business, called Chronicle Cremation Designs. The company will accept a loved one’s ashes and use it to coat a variety of ceramic objects from an intricate art piece to coffee mugs. It’s an alternative service to the traditional cremation urn, he says. As far as he knows, Crowe is the first to attempt to commercialize human bone ceramics.
People will be able to send human ashes to Chronicle Cremation Design to commemorate deceased loved ones.
“I definitely want to make this a new, novel, and different way to memorialize people, integrating and folding their memories into everyday life in this beautiful way,” he says. “If you use a coffee mug every day that represents your mortality, does it normalize the idea that you’re going to die someday?"
Object of Intrigue is a weekly column in which we investigate the story behind a curious item. Is there an object you want to see covered? Email ella@atlasobscura.com.
Al Hugon was lying on the carpet of his vacation home in Santa Cruz, California, staring up at a bookshelf. It was late summer, 1997, and news coverage of Princess Diana’s death was the only thing on TV. Hugon, who ran a printing business in the Bay Area, was gently pestering his girlfriend to move onto his 50-foot sailboat with him.
When Hugon had purchased the boat seven years earlier at an auction, a piece of plywood covered a hole in its hull. Lumber was piled on the deck. But despite its sorry shape, Hugon says the boat “just felt right. It smelled good and it felt right.”
He bought it for $2,500, then spent $8,000 swapping out rotten planks, the rudder, and hinges. He rebuilt the engine and replaced the water tanks. Once, while the yacht was dry-docked, an old-timer asked if he’d found any bullet holes in the hull—there were rumors the boat had been fired at during the Korean War—but Hugon never spotted any. He did notice that the stairs, the archway, and the original planks were all carved by hand.
Hugon’s girlfriend was firmly opposed to moving onto the yacht. She couldn’t envision her three kids, Hugon’s daughter, and the pair of them crammed inside a cabin the size of their living room. “We’re not all going to live on that boat,” she insisted. As she spoke, Hugon noticed a title on his bookshelf: All in the Same Boat.
Written by American anthropologist Earle Reynolds and his wife, Barbara, All in the Same Boat describes the around-the-world trip their nuclear family took in a 50-foot sailboat named Phoenix of Hiroshima. Living on a yacht smaller than a subway car, they visited major ports and uninhabited islands.
Hugon picked up the book. The descriptions of the Phoenix sounded familiar. He flipped to the photographs and saw that the roof and the planking were hand carved. “I knew it all,” Hugon says. “I’d sanded it and painted it.”
He turned to his girlfriend, astonished: “This is my boat.”
The story of the Phoenix begins with a man named Earle Reynolds, who had always dreamed of sailing around the world. In 1951, the physical anthropologist left his job at Antioch College in Ohio and moved with his wife and three children to Hiroshima, Japan, to study the effects of radiation on atomic bomb survivors. For the first time in his life, Earle lived by the ocean. By day, he examined survivors of the blast. By night, he fantasized about setting sail.
Born to circus performers in 1910, Earle was naturally equipped with a sense of adventure. He was also ambitious: He often told people he was the first child in his big-top “family” to get a college degree, earning a Ph.D. and becoming an expert in human growth and development. In Japan, he’d return home from work every night and research sailboat construction. A boat maker in Miyajimaguchi built a ship according to Earle’s plans, working by hand with saws, adzes, chisels, and hammers. Eighteen months of labor later, the family moved onto the Phoenix of Hiroshima. They planned to sail around the world.
“We gave the dog away—traded it in for a tricolored cat—sold our woody station wagon,” says Earle’s daughter, Jessica. As the skipper, Earle assigned each shipmate a role. Barbara, a published author, was in charge of cooking, provisioning, and education. Ted, their 16-year-old son, was the navigator. Jessica, 10, was the “ship’s historian” and kept a journal. (She embraced the voyage after her father promised that her dolls could have their own cubby.) Three Japanese men with some sailing experience signed on as crew members.
Before a crowd of well-wishers, the Phoenix left Hiroshima Harbor on October 4, 1954. The first stop was Hawaii—about 4,000 miles away.
Jessica Renshaw with her father, Earle Reynolds.
“To our hundreds of friends the whole venture was nothing less than a gallant form of suicide,” Earle wrote in All in the Same Boat. He had no sailing experience. He didn’t know if he’d get seasick. He’d only recently discovered that boats don’t have brakes. Earlier that year, when the Phoenix touched water for the first time, Earle crashed the yacht into another boat watching in the harbor.
Then, in an early test run, the crew failed to realize the anchor had been dragging the whole time. “I never put it together that they didn’t know what they were doing,” Jessica says.
Within 12 hours of setting sail for Hawaii, the barometer fell. A storm rocked the ship as waves crashed over the deck. Anything that wasn’t tied down went airborne. Jessica and Barbara stayed below deck and listened. “The ship groans with a thousand voices,” Barbara wrote in her journal. She found Jessica in her bunk buried under toys that had fallen from their cubbyholes.
The crew settled into a rhythm during calmer weather. They watched dolphins play in bioluminescent waters and made a game of lassoing albatross. In Bali, they watched a 17-year-old girl get her canine teeth filed down. In Huahine, a French Polynesian island, they held the skulls of former chiefs. Earle got a permit to take two animals of every kind from the Galapagos Islands, and the family sailed with a baby goat and a tortoise named Jonathan Mushmouth, whom they acquired in exchange for instant milk, hot pepper sauce, and a can of shortening.
Near Tahiti, 1955.
The Phoenix traveled from Hawaii to the Polynesian Islands, through the Tasman Sea into the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, to South America, the Caribbean, New York City, through the Panama Canal, the Galapagos Islands, and back to Hawaii. They stopped in ports like Sydney and Cape Town and dozens of sparsely populated, relatively undeveloped places where people spoke pidgin and native languages.
Most locals they encountered were curious and hospitable. The Japanese crew members, however, were often regarded with disdain and barred from entering white-only yacht clubs. On board, there was less racial animus, though the family did refer to the Japanese crew members as “boys.” Earle—who knew that the crew saw him as “cautious to the point of obsession”—chastised the sailors for not following orders. The final straw came when he reprimanded a crew member for steering the boat while sitting. Two of the men left the yacht and returned to Japan.
“In many ways Earle was a cynic,” his friend Bob Eaton says. “A cynic with high hopes.” All in the Same Boat gives occasional glimpses of those “high hopes.” Cruising from the Java Sea to the Indian Ocean, Earle describes “the thrill I sometimes felt, lying in my bunk and listening to the whisper of water flowing past, in thinking, ‘I’m doing it!’ ” He continued, “This is my ship, my life, my adventure, and nobody can take it away from me!”
But the ship could, and would, be taken away from Earle. Before the final leg of its trip, the Phoenix would be wrenched from his control and thrust into the Atomic Age.
The arrival of the Phoenix in Hawaii made headlines.
The Phoenix sailed into Hawaii on April 9, 1958. The boat had been at sea for three and a half years and traveled 50,000 miles, but “we were disappointing copy—no shipwrecks, no brush with cannibals, no mutiny, no piracy—we just sailed around the world and came back,” Earle wrote in his 1961 book, The Forbidden Voyage.
Nearby, the Quaker crew of a 30-foot sailboat called the Golden Rule was generating more exciting press. A Christian denomination with a legacy of pacifism, Quakers had been conscientious objectors to the First and Second World Wars. Now the Golden Rule was planning to sail some 2,500 miles to Bikini Atoll to protest nuclear weapons testing. It was a direct response to an Atomic Energy Commission regulation forbidding American citizens from sailing through the zone.
Earle thought the crew of the Golden Rule were “crackpots” for taking on the government. He was uncomfortable with religion and civil disobedience, but Barbara disagreed. She invited the Quakers for dinner. “Nuclear explosions, by any nation, are inhuman, immoral, contemptuous crimes against all mankind,” one member explained to the family.
Having lived in Hiroshima, Earle had seen the damage an atomic bomb could do. He suspected that nuclear weapons testing was unsafe and believed that the United States could not legally restrict sailing on international waters. His feelings began to change. On May 1, 1958, the crew of the Golden Rule left Ala Wai Harbor, only to be stopped five miles offshore and sent back. A month later, on June 4, they tried again. This time they were arrested and sentenced to 60 days in prison.
The Golden Rule in Hawaii, 1958, just prior to its departure for the Bikini Atoll to protest nuclear testing.
Now that the Quaker crew was in jail, Earle considered carrying on their protest. After all, the Phoenix had been built in Hiroshima. Niichi Mikami, the remaining Japanese sailor, was a native of Hiroshima. Jessica and Ted threw their support behind the mission. “It was like we were the only people in the world that knew about these dangers, the only people who could do anything about them,” Jessica says. Earle knew that protesting the government would end his academic career. Still, he and Barbara decided to sail.
Feeling “the pressure of the world,” the Phoenix took off June 11. They brought charts, a medicine chest, a radio, and a box of respirators from the Golden Rule. “What a pitiful protection against radioactivity!” Earle wrote. “How does one divide four masks among five people?” He knew he’d never open the box.
For three weeks, the Phoenix sailed in mild weather. When they approached the test zone, Earle announced his intention to enter. No response. The next day, a military ship approached—they’d been monitoring the Phoenix all day but had ignored their calls. Armed officers arrested Earle and ordered him to sail to Kwajalein military base. Shortly thereafter, they saw a dirty orange flash, illuminating the clouds.
The USS Collett alongside the Phoenix as they sailed to Kwajalein.
Earle was charged with “violating, attempting to violate, and conspiring to violate a regulation”—a crime that carried a possible 20-year prison sentence. Newspapers wrote regularly about Earle’s legal battle, and while some called his actions un-American, donations poured in from across the country. Earle was convicted but won an appeal, and was acquitted without serving jail time. The family left Hawaii for Hiroshima and arrived on July 30, 1960, making Mikami the first Japanese person to sail around the world on a recreational vessel.
The Phoenix didn’t stay in port for long. The family took a trip across the Sea of Japan to Nakhodka, Russia, to protest Soviet nuclear weapons testing. When they couldn’t dock, Barbara made the decision to turn around without consulting her husband. On the way back, the rudder broke, and the boat almost crashed into rocks.
“When we went into the test zone, expectations formed,” says Jessica. “Japanese people said, ‘You’re our voice in America. We look to you for nuclear war to end.’ We internalized that.” Barbara and Earle’s relationship fractured, and the couple divorced in 1964. According to friends and family, once the relationship ended, Earle rarely spoke of Barbara or his children. The family would never sail aboard the Phoenix together again.
But the Phoenix’s adventures were hardly over. As the Reynoldses were splitting, the boat was on the verge of becoming an international symbol for peace.
An Honorary Crew Member card that Reynolds and his family had printed and sent to supporters.
By 1967, the United States had nearly 200,000 troops in Vietnam. Quakers around the world had condemned the conflict and feared it could lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths. A rebellious new organization called A Quaker Action Group, or AQAG, believed taking direct action—dangerous and illegal protest in Vietnam itself—was the only way to stop the war.
Most Quaker groups were service-oriented and law-abiding. They provided medical care or lobbied the government. But service groups were already delivering aid in Vietnam’s American-supported South, and AQAG wanted to sail medical supplies into North Vietnam.
When Earle was in Hawaii fighting the charges against him, he began attending Quaker meetings and eventually converted. In 1966, one of the founders of AQAG, who had been on the Golden Rule in Hawaii, reached out to him: They wanted to use the Phoenix to sail into Vietnam. Earle agreed.
George Lakey, a founding AQAG member, thought sailing to Vietnam was “a drippy, corny idea,” but he didn’t have a better suggestion. He was “not a boat person,” and seeing the Phoenix for the first time didn’t change his mind. He shakes his head remembering the yacht. “It was so sloppy and tiny.”
Phoenix in Hong Kong harbor, en route to North Vietnam, 1967.
AQAG faced opposition from the United States government (who froze its bank accounts, stopped accepting packages for the organization, revoked members’ passports, and threatened 10-year prison sentences under the 1917 Trading With the Enemy Act), the North Vietnamese (who refused to grant them visas), and other Quakers (who felt an illegal voyage would erode support for the organization’s more established service efforts).
The idea of bringing medical supplies to North Vietnam on a boat, against the wishes of the U.S. government and in the path of the Navy’s Seventh Fleet, was controversial. “I never felt it was flippant,” Lakey says. “I just thought it was warranted under the circumstances. I saw no chance of getting the U.S. out of the Vietnam War unless we were forced out.”
The crew launched on March 22, 1967. During the five-day journey, “hearts were in people’s mouths,” says Lakey, who followed the voyage’s progress from afar. “It wasn’t a great chance for reevaluation of the Vietnam War; it was, ‘Oh my God, these people are going to die.’ ”
Tension on board was heavy. Earle, who served as captain, wanted to carry a gun, despite it being against Quaker beliefs. He barked orders and was impatient with the group’s insistence on making decisions through consensus.
“On a boat you obey the skipper. It is not a democracy. It’s not a Quaker meeting,” Jessica explains. Earle was autocratic and irritable, and the Quaker crew did not cherish his beloved boat. “This was the first time in my 13 years of association with the Phoenix that there were on board people who disliked her, to whom the boat was a necessary evil,” Earle wrote in a letter to AQAG leadership. The Phoenix and her crew spent five days seasick as they traveled from Hong Kong to the city of Haiphong.
While they waited in the Gulf of Tonkin to dock, the harbor went dark. Someone shouted, “Air raid!” and flames streaked across the sky. The activists watched in horror as five surface-to-air missiles crawled overhead. The Phoenix shook as the bombs exploded. They were told an American plane had been shot down.
Reynolds' book The Forbidden Voyage of the Phoenix into the A.E.C prohibited zone.
Ten minutes later, the North Vietnamese navy piloted the boat down the river to Haiphong. For the next two weeks, the Quakers, always accompanied by the North Vietnamese, attended banquets, met patients in hospitals, and visited bombed villages. Earle tried to stay on the boat. According to Jessica, he felt it was a “huge propaganda ploy that made the crew of the Phoenix seem extremely anti-American.” He declined to go on another trip, but he continued to loan his boat to the Quakers.
The press covered all of it. Like the Reynolds’ trip to the nuclear test zone, the public and media response to the voyage was mixed. Those opposed to the war applauded the Quaker efforts to aid civilians and raise awareness. Those who supported the U.S. intervention claimed the protests were aiding the enemy and putting U.S. soldiers’ lives in danger. But Lakey and the rest of AQAG considered the trip a success.
When the Quaker group tried to arrange a second trip to Haiphong, the North Vietnamese asked the Phoenix not to return. The group decided to deliver medical supplies to the South Vietnamese city of Da Nang, demonstrating they weren’t taking sides.
Lakey, who says that God called on him to make the second voyage, was miserable during the trip. Seams had opened and the cabin “was like crawling into a wet sponge,” he says. The crew arrived in Da Nang on November 19, 1967, but the South Vietnamese would not let them dock because they were also bringing medicine to the Unified Buddhists.
A standoff ensued. The Quakers refused to leave without delivering their medical aid, so the South Vietnamese tried to tow the Phoenix out of Da Nang Harbor. The crew had spent hours deciding what to do if this happened. With the floodlights of gunboats illuminating the yacht, Lakey and Harrison Butterworth, an English literature professor, jumped into the water.
Butterworth “took off swimming like Tarzan in a movie,” captain Bob Eaton says. Onshore, he got a face-to-face meeting with a Vietnamese general, but the answer was still “no.” They kept trying. At one point, the Vietnamese set up a fire line: If the Phoenix crossed, they’d be shot. They sailed through it anyway.
“We called their bluff,” says Eaton, his voice cracking, nearly 50 years later. “If we’d all been shot, I guess people would have said how brave we were, or how stupid. But we were stupefied. It didn’t calculate as a threat.”
Still, the crew was unsuccessful. They took the supplies to Hong Kong and sent them to the Unified Buddhists via freighter. In January 1968, the Phoenix made a final trip to North Vietnam, but officials cut the visit short. The Viet Cong had launched the Tet Offensive and expected the South Vietnamese or Americans to “bomb the port to ashes” in retaliation, Eaton says. “We didn’t want to add to the confusion having to protect us. We left with a very heavy heart.”
The Phoenix at sail.
The natural inclination of every boat everywhere is to sink. Every vessel that is floating is floating because of the work, time, and money someone—usually many someones—invested to keep it from going under. It’s here that the Phoenix began its most harrowing journey.
After the Vietnam War, the Phoenix was returned to Earle, who twice attempted to sail it to China. He envisioned a goodwill voyage of “friendship and reconciliation,” since Japan and China had no diplomatic relations. Neither nation was interested. The Phoenix was forced to turn around 20 miles from China, and when Earle returned home to Japan, the government kicked him out of his adopted country.
Earle took the Phoenix across the Pacific Ocean a final time and sold it to a man named Tomas Daly for $20,000. Daly, who is now 75, was in awe of Earle. On the phone from his home in Mexico he compared Earle—favorably—to Bernie Sanders and Edward Snowden. He too wanted to circumnavigate the world in the Phoenix, but after pulling tons of pig iron out of the bilge, stripping the wood, and repairing the dry rot, he realized it was never going to work. In 1977, Daly sold the Phoenix to a man named Norman Sullivan for $10,000.
By 1990, the boat was up for sale again. It had fallen into disrepair, but Al Hugon bought it, unaware of its past. He owned the ship for nearly 20 years, sometimes living on it, but his printing business struggled, and by 2007, he could no longer afford the upkeep or fees.
“You have to live on it,” Hugon says. “You can’t even just go down to clean and work on it on a Saturday or Sunday. You have to keep the engine and the gearbox running, the bilge pumps working. You have to haul it out of water every two, three years.” He tried to get surviving members of the Reynolds family to take it. He approached Greenpeace and some museums. When no one had the money or will to fix it, he put the Phoenix on Craigslist for free.
John Gardner, a 31-year-old recovering meth addict with no money or sailing experience, saw the ad. He knew the boat’s history and imagined “helping humanity,” specifically teenage gang members. He took it. “I just want to save this historical boat and save some kids. I want to put them in uniform and sail them around the world,” he told the Stockton Record.
As Gardner lugged the Phoenix out of San Francisco Bay, the boat ran aground twice. Then, as he towed it up the north fork of the Mokelumne River in Northern California, the boat hit a dock. Water rushed in. Gardner bought a solar panel to power a bilge pump, but someone stole it and, days later, he tried to pump the vessel manually. By then, the Phoenix was more submarine than sailboat.
Just off an overgrown island, the Phoenix—a civilian boat that had sailed around the world, been designated a national shrine in Japan, traveled to two nuclear testing zones, and made three wartime trips to Vietnam—now rests in muck, 25 feet underwater.
Last year, a group of volunteers finished a five-year restoration of the Golden Rule. Some of the people involved in that restoration have turned their attention to the Phoenix. Donations are trickling in. One person even pledged $25,000 to raise the boat if the Reynolds family can form a nonprofit for its restoration. In July, a local sheriff located the boat and took a sonogram. A diver examined it more closely and told the family that “every minute it’s down there, it’s deteriorating,” says Jessica. Getting it out of the water will be “just like a baby being born. As soon as it’s out there are going to be people there to wrap it, cuddle it, get it to [a salvage company in] Washington.” The whole restoration could cost $750,000.
The task of forming a nonprofit and raising money for the restoration has fallen to Naomi Reynolds, Earle’s granddaughter, who lives an hour and a half from the boat’s resting place. She wants to save the boat because it’s a family relic that represents something bigger—“that intersection of a major historical thing with a normal American family: mom and dad and 2.5 kids and the white picket fence,” she says. However, by her own description, she is “not an extroverted person,” and she worries she can’t generate enthusiasm for the project.
Others are hopeful. Eaton, who captained the Phoenix’s second and third trips to Vietnam, says that when people first started talking about restoring the Golden Rule, he was skeptical. It wasn’t until he saw the ship sailing again that he realized its value. “I don’t buy into relics in a church sense, for worship, but in fact they are important. They us tell us who we were; therefore who were are; therefore who we might be,” he says. “The question about bringing the Phoenix back is whether there’s a community of people who can breathe life into it.” After all, if there’s anything a phoenix is good at, it’s rising back to life.
This story was co-produced with Mental Floss. A version of this appears in their latest (and last!) issue.
Pumpkins can grow into gargantuan behemoths, some easily fitting one or two full-grown adults. And all around the world, pumpkins are carved and pitted not to make jack-o-lanterns or pumpkin pies, but to carry people in squash gourd boat races.
In the video of last year’s Windsor Pumpkin Regatta in Nova Scotia, competitors paddled their brightly colored pumpkin artworks in a 20-minute journey across Lake Pesaquid. Boaters decorate their vessels and dress up in the spirit of Halloween, trying with all their might to stay afloat. The bulky pumpkins, which can weigh over 600 pounds and reach 12 feet in circumference, are extremely difficult to control and steer.
“It’s pretty hard,” says a competitor donning a pirate outfit in the video. “They like to spin around a lot because they’re not really seaworthy.”
Countless costumed pumpkin boaters end up flailing into the water, sometimes before the race even begins, says the reporter. Tens of thousands of spectators flock to watch the hilarious fall celebration. Boaters can compete alone or in pairs. The Windsor Pumpkin Regatta even has tiers of pumpkin boat racing: experimental, traditional paddling, and motor.
In southern Germany, the International Pumpkin Boat Championships feature elaborate motorized pumpkin boats that blaze across a 200-meter water course.
The race at Windsor began in 1999, and celebrated its 18th competition on Sunday October 9.
Every day we track down a Video Wonder: an audiovisual offering that delights, inspires, and entertains. Have you encountered a video we should feature? Email ella@atlasobscura.com.
In 1905, Berich was just a sleepy village along the River Eder in central Germany. The small farming community grew up around a former 12th century Benedictine convent that had been dissolved in the wake of the Reformation. There were fewer than 200 people, but they had thriving and extensive farms, rock-solid buildings, and a nearly new stone bridge that connected them to neighboring villages.
It was an idyllic spot with deep roots and a long history, until a new dam and reservoir was planned—the largest in all of the state of Hesse—to flood Berich right off the map.
It took a few years to build the dam, but by 1914 the floodgates were ready to open. Hoping to preserve what they could before the deluge, pieces of the village were disassembled, carefully numbered, packed up and moved to a New Berich about 20 miles away. Unfortunately they weren’t able to move over seven centuries’ of graves, so plots in the cemetery were instead outfitted with concrete covers to protect them from the waters of the brand new Edersee reservoir.
Once the dam went up the basin filled, and for the next hundred years the old village of Berich was seen only by divers. That is, until recent draught conditions started drying up the lake. The water has receded so much that ruins of the village are now on full display. Sections of the stone bridge, walls of the convent and church, foundations of the local ironworks, and even the concrete-covered graves are visible again.
Hundreds of visitors, including some of the original villagers’ descendants, have flocked to the Edersee to explore, and to retrace their ancestors’ steps along the cobblestone streets.
Welcome to the third installment of Atlas Obscura's new advice column, Ask Zardulu—read the first two here and here. Zardulu is an expert in all things mythic and has been known to do a media hoax every now and then. If you have a life, love, money, family, spiritual, moral or myth-based dilemma, please email your question to askzardulu@atlasobscura.com, and specify if you want your name to be used. (For more information on Zardulu's mysterious work,look here.) Questions are edited for length and clarity. Enjoy!
ZARDULU: I started going on some dates with this nice, wonderful young lady a couple weeks ago and it seemed to be going pretty well. I liked her a lot and knew she was different from me, but that's usually a good thing.
Recently, though, I noticed and confronted her about her sort of disconnecting emotionally and physically. I don't mind her wanting to rethink or change our physical or emotional direction, but I wanted to understand what was going on. She had been in an emotionally confused and perhaps abusive relationship for 3 years up until a couple months ago, so I get that she's going through some stuff. But she seemed unable to actually voice what was going on for her and how I fit (if at all) into that process.
I asked her if her family talked about their emotions and she said that they absolutely did not. This was not super unusual, but what set off a flag for me was that she herself did not see a problem with this (besides the fact that she gets that other people think it's a problem). She said that you could keep emotions inside and "make them disappear" eventually. I heartily disagree with this—I think you can certainly let go of emotions and move on but that you need to bite the head off the monster before you can eat and digest it.
I'm not sure where the relationship goes from here, but it got me thinking: is it ever is possible to actually disappear trauma or emotions? And, if you could, would this ever be a good thing to do?
Emotional Rollercoaster
EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER: As I pondered your question, I brewed some tea in my favorite cup. I allowed the leaves to settle around its interior and, using the ancient art of tasseography, I’ve interpreted the images to gain insight into your future.
Starting at the handle we see two figures next to each other, they represent you and your girlfriend. Being the beginning and end of the reading, positioning at the handle is an indication that this is not a passing fling and you will be together for some time.
Moving clockwise around the cup we come to the image of an eagle in perched position. As with you, hasty action would reduce his chances for success. I agree that it's important to be able to share feelings with a partner, for the health of you as individuals and your relationship. However, getting to a place where your girlfriend is comfortable opening up to you will require patience.
Next, we see a hand with its palm up meeting a second closed hand. This represents you in the future, beginning a dialogue with your girlfriend in a calm and centered manner. When there's something you'd like her to open up about, bring up the topic without placing any blame. Encourage her to share, show your appreciation when she does and resist the temptation to explain your position. It can be difficult, but this more passive approach will lead to a willingness to engage in increasingly emotional conversations.
Lastly, toward the center we see a crumbling building with a bat flying above and a toad at the doorstep. There will come a time that moving in together seems like a good option but these images are a warning that you should resist this. Give yourselves time to build a more solid foundation because, like the building, a faulty one will surely lead to collapse.
Blessed Be
DEAREST ZARDULU: I crave your wisdom in facing the inevitability of my own mortality. I am in my mid-60s and am increasingly anxious and depressed over the possibility of debilitating illness and certain death. Thirty years (at best) seems such a terribly, terribly short time. Unfortunately, I find the prospect of individual consciousness perpetuated into some kind of afterlife unlikely at best. I am in despair and seek your guidance. Is there some spiritual or philosophical practice that you in your cosmic wisdom might recommend to alleviate this distress.
Thank you for your kind consideration,
Jack
DEAR JACK: You are not alone. When our instinct to survive is met with the inevitability of death, an intense psychological conflict emerges. This is something that humans have always struggled to reconcile and, as you've suggested, we've done so with the belief that eternal life is achievable through religion. Fortunately, for those that do not share this belief, there are other ways to achieve reconciliation.
There's surely something that you're proud of doing in your life. I suggest volunteering your time as a mentor to those embarking on a similar journey. Your experience will live on in those you've shared it with and, as you see the positive effect your work is having, you'll gain a sense that you're part of something greater than yourself, which is the essence of eternal life.
Blessed Be
DEAREST ZARDULU: I am currently studying Arabic and finding it exceedingly difficult to rewire my brain into this foreign language. My grades are suffering, and there is a choice young lady who sits behind me that I desperately want to impress. I am guessing you have studied various ancient languages in your quest to become a mystic. How did you do it? Is there a spell or some occult wisdom I could use to assist me in my efforts?
Starving American College Student
DEAR STARVING AMERICAN COLLEGE STUDENT: On one of my travels to South America I became acquainted with a group of young adults who spoke English as a second language more fluently than anyone I'd ever encountered. I was so impressed I had to ask how they achieved this level of mastery and one of them replied, "friends." Seemed like a simple enough answer until I realized that they weren't talking about other English speaking friends, they meant Rachel, Ross and the rest of the cast of the American ‘90s sitcom. By watching American television, the learning became a passive experience and by using a culturally relevant source, they learned many subtleties not available from a book.
So, my suggestion is to find a few television shows that are produced in an Arabic-speaking country that you might enjoy. Start with the subtitles on and slowly start to remove them as you become more comfortable.
Blessed Be
DEAR MADAME Z: My question concerns my dreams. For years, when I sleep, I often visit an alternate world. In this world I have a different home, clothes and life adventures. This dream life of mine has occurred for decades. I like visiting this secondary world but sometimes get events that occur there, confused with events in my present life. Do you have any explanation for this dream world of mine?
Dream Traveler
DREAM TRAVELER: In the Bible, Ezekiel had a dream of flaming angels, each with the head of a man, bull, lion and eagle, standing next to wheels covered with eyeballs. He was receiving a message, but the messages in dreams are not always easy to understand because they appear as symbols. I recommend keeping a journal next to your bed, recording your dreams and spending some time thinking about what they might mean.
Though your dreams may not be as dramatic as the cherubim of Ezekiel, there is still a great deal of knowledge you can gain from them. If you've never thought about dreams in this way, it can be difficult to known where to start so if you or anyone else would like me to interpret a specific dream, please send a detailed description along with some related personal background and I will do my best to interpret them here.
Blessed Be
DEAR ZARDULU: I am basically a nice person, however sometimes when I am in a bad mood I take stuff from department stores without asking. What should I do?
Basically Nice Person
BASICALLY NICE PERSON: To represent your journey through the past, present and future I have drawn from the tarot the Tower, the Hanged Man, and the Sun. In the Tower, its namesake is being struck by lighting and the inhabitants tumbling to the Earth. This tells me that there was an abrupt change in your life that had a profound effect on you. Like a bolt of lightning, it was beyond your control, leaving you with a feeling of vulnerability.
As we move toward the present we have the Hanged Man. His foot is bound and he hangs upside, carrying on the theme of vulnerability. Your desire to steal is a common psychological mechanism that is used to cope with this as it can help establish a sense of control over one's life. The only problem is, even though you're stealing from companies that pay children pennies a day to make their products, it's still illegal, and even the best thieves eventually get caught.
As we move toward the future, we have The Sun. It shows a jubilant child with outstretched arms and golden rays beaming down on it. This tells me that you will soon be enlightened in some way. Be open to opportunities for personal growth, especially ones you might otherwise have dismissed. Your desire to steal will soon subside along with your chances of getting pinched.
It was Christmas Eve in 1933 in Willoughby, Ohio, a small city just off Lake Erie. It would have been a blustery night to be wandering the streets, but a young woman in bright blue—her dress, coat, scarf, hat and purse all blue—was out walking when she was struck by a New York Central passenger train. She had nothing in her purse but ninety cents and a ticket to Corry, Pennsylvania.
"The Girl in Blue," as she came to be known, had arrived in Willoughby as mysteriously as she left. She had been staying for a couple of days at a local boarding house, but revealed almost nothing about herself. Reports at the time say that she spoke to a couple of people while out walking that December night, then she seemed to simply step in front of the speeding train.
The townspeople embarked on a search for the name of woman, but no one was able to identify her or locate any next of kin. A resident donated a burial plot in the Village Cemetery, and she was laid to rest. A collection was taken up for a plain headstone, which was inscribed:
In memory of the Girl in Blue / Killed by Train / December 24, 1933 / Unknown but not forgotten
Over the next sixty years the young woman became a kind of ward of the city, and as her reputation grew people would come to her grave to leave small tokens, flowers and coins. But still, no one knew who she was. In 1993, a chain of events changed that, and her true identity was puzzled out.
The Girl in Blue was Josephine (she went by “Sophie”) Klimczak. It was a combination of a news story and renewed interest in the mystery, coupled with some digging into tax and property records in Warren County, PA (that ticket to Corry was key) that sealed a pretty strong case.
Although the official death record still only cites her as the Girl in Blue, her identity has been unanimously embraced in town, a kind of rebirth in her demise. In 2002 a local monument retailer donated a foot stone, to finally give her a name.
Gather round to hear the tale of Ol’ Rip, the lizard who beat death! Well, at least once. After being entombed in stone for 31 years, Ol' Rip emerged alive and... somewhat groggy, briefly becoming the most beloved horned lizard in Texas. Today, the body of Ol' Rip can be found under glass at the Eastland County Courthouse, but the story of his miraculous recovery has been marveled about for nearly nine decades.
The Texas horned lizard, the state’s official reptile, is a devilish-looking little critter that could once be found all over the Lone Star State. Commonly known as “horny toads,” they are covered in severe-looking spikes, and look like miniature dragons. These prickly lizards have come to be a beloved Texas icon.
In a 2007 story in the Matagorda Advocate, Texas senator John Cornyn described their mystique, saying the horny toad seems to "reflect the land itself—rugged, fearsome, spiny, tough—and wondrously friendly, all at the same time.” So of course, when officials in Eastland County looked for something iconic to place in the keystone of their very first courthouse, this creature came to mind.
"[Native American] legend said that horned toads could hibernate for up to 100 years," says Cecil Funderburgh, Executive Director of the Eastland Chamber of Commerce. "The placement of Old Rip in the cornerstone of the Courthouse seems to be a test of that theory."
In 1897, Eastland County was finishing work on its third courthouse by adding a marble keystone to the edifice. There was a cavity in the stone where things could be placed as a sort of time capsule. According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine, Eastland County Clerk Ernest E. Wood suggested placing a horny toad in the block to explore the legend.
To commemorate the final step in completing the new county seat, onlookers came to watch the ceremony and listen to musical performances. Wood even produced a horny toad his son had captured. The reptile’s name was “Blinky.”
However, Wood wasn’t sure if Blinky ever got placed in the keystone. “Objections to putting anything alive into the stone came up,” he was quoted as saying, in a later story in the Woodville Republican. “I went away to play in the band and do not know if the frog was placed in the stone.”
Despite the ethical issues about entombing a live animal, it seems like the assembled locals overcame their reservations, and according to all accounts, the living horny toad was placed in the keystone along with some other assorted memorabilia, like a Bible and some coins. Then the stone was bricked into the wall.
Fast forward 31 years to 1928. Eastland was getting ready to demolish its old courthouse and replace it with a new, Art Deco-inspired building, and it was time to crack open the old keystone to find out what sort of treasures had been left back in 1897. Word about the lizard had spread, and over 1,000 onlookers arrived to see if the rumors were true.
Using a pick, a construction worker pried open the stone, and sure enough, multiple witnesses said that they saw a horny toad (presumably Blinky) lying inside, looking, quite understandably, dead. Finally someone reached in and took the little body out of the stone. The lizard slowly lurched back to life, much to the astonishment of the gathered Eastlanders.
The Lazarus lizard became an instant celebrity, and was soon renamed Ol’ Rip after Rip Van Winkle. After recovering for a few weeks, Ol’ Rip was given a new home in a fishbowl in the window of a shop. Visitors from around the world, including President Calvin Coolidge, came to see the famous animal, as he happily chowed down on harvester ants. But not everyone was convinced.
The keystone that once held the horny toad. Was Ol' Rip a Mason?! (Photo: QuesterMark/CC BY-SA 2.0)
While horned lizards hibernate during the winter months, their average lifespan is around five years, making the story of Ol’ Rip seem more than a little suspect. Most skeptics figured that one of the locals officiating the event slipped in a live lizard to make a good story for the massive crowd. However in the 1928 article in the Woodville Republican, a county judge, a local reverend, and even the man who pulled him out of the stone, insisted that there was no way the toad could have been tampered with.
But even in the face of massive skepticism, Ol’ Rip’s popularity continued until the day he died of pneumonia in 1929, less than a year after his rebirth. The popularity of the horny toad waned somewhat, but claims of fraud did not.
After his death, Ol’ Rip’s body was taxidermied and placed in a little glass-topped coffin and put on display in the Eastland County Courthouse. In 1973, Ol’ Rip was kidnapped from the courthouse, and later found at the local fairgrounds with a note that claimed to be from one of the original perpetrators of the resurrection hoax. It called for the other conspirators to reveal themselves, although no one stepped forward.
The coffin was returned to the courthouse, but suspicion persists to this day that the reptile inside is a replacement Ol’ Rip, based on the condition of the little body. "Due to the entombment of Old Rip, accounts tell of the horned toad’s spikes being worn down from attempts to escape from the cornerstone," says Funderburgh. "The body currently on display has horns and spikes that appear to be in pretty good shape." The motive for such a crime has not been determined.
Original horny toad or not, Ol’ Rip is still a celebrity in Eastland and the surrounding area, where his story is taken as gospel. "Ask the folks around Eastland what they think, and the majority believe it is a true fact," says Funderburgh. "A few believe it’s a publicity stunt. Me? I believe!"
In addition to acting as a sort of mascot for the area, his name also adorns a number of local businesses. The legend of Ol’ Rip is remembered and reinforced every February 18th, when local officials invite children and guests to the courthouse to recite the Ol’ Rip Oath, which has them pledge that they will continue to keep the story of Ol’ Rip alive. This way, the lizard that couldn’t die, never will.
Could a space station like this be our newest nation state? (Photo: iurii/Shutterstock.com)
This morning marked the announcement of the wildly ambitious Asgardia (no relation to the Marvel Comics location) project, which promises to not only create a defensive shield for our entire planet, but also to establish the very first sovereign “space nation.” Which all sounds very, very awesome, assuming it’s even legal.
Spearheaded by led Russian scientist Dr. Igor Ashurbeyli, the sci-fi initiative would entail designating an area of space that would be the home of Asgardia, where space science could be tested free from the conflicts and restrictions that terrestrial borders place on our space sciences. They even plan on one day joining the UN, if they can legitimately create a brand new nation, that is.
“Starting a nation is not an easy feat, and I am skeptical that any existing nation will recognize Asgardia as sovereign,” says Jacob Haqq-Misra, Research Scientist with the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science. “International agreement stipulates that anyone launching into space is an emissary of the nation from which they launch, so I'm guessing that Asgardia would be regarded as an extension of whichever nation the members hold citizenship of and from where they choose to launch.”
Then there is the Outer Space Treaty (OST) that is the bedrock of all international space law, which states that no nation can claim ownership of parts of space or celestial bodies. However, Asgardia might be above that.
“Technically, if Asgardia is recognized as an independent nation, then it will not be bound by the OST, as it has not formally signed the treaty,” says Haqq-Misra. “But I doubt that anyone will recognize Asgardia as independent, so the provisions of the OST will likely apply.”
All Earthly laws aside, should Asgardia manage to get off the ground, so to speak, the first proposed project would be to create a cutting-edge orbital shield that would protect the planet from both human-made space junk, and such stellar threats as asteroids. Although, few details of exactly what form this shield would take were not provided.
The effort is backed by the Aerospace International Research Center, and Asgardia aims to have its first satellite in orbit by 2017. With the announcement, Asgardia has also placed an open call for flag designs, and compositions for the national anthem. They are also currently holding an open registration for new citizens. If this election season’s got you down, forget moving to Canada, sign up to immigrate to space.
Last month, a lonely musk ox named Brutus wandered far from his herd in Sweden and stole the country's heart. Brutus was hoping to find a mate, but his roaming took him so far afield that there were no females within miles. Local and national news organizations covered his plight. Myskoxe.se, a Swedish website dedicated to musk oxen, is keeping detailed track of his journey, posting brief updates and paparazzi-style photos. "Brutus is out hiking," they wrote on September 12. "What he has in mind—it is not known."
Sweden loves Brutus because he's big, shaggy, and lovelorn, with the limpid eyes and curved horns of a classic Hollywood bad boy. But they also love him because he's living proof that, 45 years ago, the country got one over on one of their neighbors. Brutus is the descendant of a group of oxen that defected from Norway in 1971, defying all convention and providing Sweden with some measure of closure after decades of musk-ox related strife.
The story of the Great Scandinavian Musk Ox Rivalry begins about 11,000 years ago. Up until that point, musk oxen ranged throughout the Northern Hemisphere, munching on grass and lichen and standing around looking stately in the snow. But as the Ice Age slowly ended, thaws and hungry humans drove them out of much of their habitat. By the 1900s, the world's only musk ox herds were in Northern Canada and Greenland.
A small herd of musk oxen in their homeland, Northeast Greenland. (Photo: Hannes Grobe/CC BY-SA 2.5)
Also in Greenland were a number of Norwegian hunters, taking advantage of their country's claim on the eastern half of the land mass. These hunters killed enough musk oxen that Denmark, which had claimed the western half, got angry with them, saying they were on track to drive the animals to extinction. Hoping to save face, in the 1920s, a polar researcher named Adolf Hoel made a suggestion: why not bring some musk oxen to Norway, a place which, given its climate and general superiority, they might like even better than Greenland? "These measures to translocate muskoxen will partially disarm [this] criticism," Hoel wrote. "We will show with it that we don’t only slaughter, but that we too support cross-border idealistic cultural work."
Hoel's case was bolstered by a couple of fossilized musk ox vertebrae that had been uncovered during the digging of the national railroad. "In the minds of people in the 1920s and '30s, there was this idea that the musk ox was a Norwegian animal," says Dolly Jørgensen, an environmental historian at Luleå University of Technology in Sweden. "Because Norway claimed East Greenland, and there were musk ox in East Greenland, that means the musk ox are Norwegian." Hoel, then the head of what would become the Norwegian Polar Institute, began fundraising, writing to shipping companies, chocolate factories, and the Crown Prince. Over the course of a couple of decades, he and his successors managed to bring dozens of musk ox calves into Norway, letting them loose in Svalbard, and in the Dovre mountains, near the border with Sweden.
For years, the musk oxen wandered around Norway, munching and multiplying and frightening the occasional hiker. Then came the winter of 1952. Maybe the herds were hungry, or maybe they were just bored. For whatever reason, a small group crossed the frozen swamps on the Norway-Sweden border and ended up in Kiruna, where they were spotted by some Swedes.
A musk ox distribution map. Red represents the species' natural range, while blue denotes introduced populations. Note the broad swath of red in Greenland, and the small blue dots in Sweden and Norway. (Photo: WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 3.0) Norway tried to be understanding, but they were crushed. The wandering "must be condemned as disloyal," wrote John Giæver, a researcher with the Polar Institute, even if "it is in principle totally natural." His interlocutor, from Denmark, razzed him a bit, replying that "it isn’t unreasonable that the musk oxen are dissatisfied with the situation in old Norway, when you consider that they are condemned to live in seclusion." But Giæver stood firm: the crossing was "a sorry end to this experiment," he wrote.
Sweden, meanwhile, was overjoyed. The country had their own history with musk oxen—in 1899, a geologist named Alfred Gabriel Nathorst had imported dozens of them, hoping to establish a domestic population and leave the country flush with meat and musk ox wool, which is hypoallergenic, waterproof, and very soft. That experiment had been a failure on all counts—the kidnapped calves didn't take well to farm life, and were constantly raging in their pens, butting their owners and succumbing to various livestock diseases. By 1904, they were all dead.
Now, 50 years later, the musk oxen were coming over of their own accord—and from Norway, the country that had asserted such a strong claim on them in the first place. It was a sweet, musky victory. Within five days of the oxens' crossing over, the Swedish government declared them officially and legally protected. They even rubbed it in a bit, writing to the Polar Institute that "the musk oxen’s appearance in Lapland is very pleasing, and [we] will do everything in our power to promote the Scandinavian musk ox population’s growth."
Lapland, Sweden, nary a musk ox to be seen. (Photo: SteenJepsen/CC0)
But even this wasn't enough for the fickle beasts. By the spring of 1953, the herd had crossed back into Norway. Now it was Sweden's turn to pine. "Having the musk oxen, for even such a short time, whet the appetite of Swedes for the animal," writes Jørgensen. They asked Norway if they could buy some calves from them, but Norway refused. It hardly mattered: by the late 1950s, that whole herd was dead, too.
Determined to stick to their plan, Norway kept importing calves, building up new musk ox herds throughout the mountains. And driven by who knows what plan of their own, some of these musk oxen once again defected. In 1971, a five-strong herd decided they had had enough of Norway, and wanted to see what the grazing was like over in Härjedalen, a small mountain town in Sweden.
Once again, the oxen spent the winter accidentally crossing a boundary they were totally unaware of. And once again, Sweden freaked out. "Such a tourist attraction is something one could not even have dreamed," one local paper enthused. Another published an editorial cartoon in which a muskoxen shouts "Ah! Cloudberries!" while excitedly prancing across the border. A mere two days after the herd was sighted, a Swedish hotel called Hamrafjället began advertising day tours to the nearby mountains, which they had already rebranded as Muskoxen Land. "There were lots of people trying to see them, these five animals," says Jørgensen. "It really didn't work very well, because it was difficult to figure out where they were."
Also once again, Norway wasn't having any of this. Norwegian patrons of the hotel were peeved, insisting "It is [Norway] which is 'Muskoxen Land.'" The country's press was also skeptical, referring to the oxen as "emigrants," and asserting that they were "visiting the border." "What you kind of get is this language about, 'Well, yes, they may stay in Sweden," says Jørgensen. "'But if they don't like it there—which may very well happen—they can find their way back to [Norway] in the summer.' The overall message is like 'Huh, that's kind of weird. They don't really belong there.'"
A musk ox goofs around at the Swedish captive breeding facility. (Photo: Dolly Jørgensen)
Unconcerned with patriotism, the little group of musk oxen carved out happy lives in Sweden. At one point, the refugee herd numbered a respectable 30, and the environmental ministry considered separating it into two herds, to properly spread the newcomer around the country. In 1984, Sweden put a musk ox on a postage stamp, as part of a mountain-themed collector's set. "In 1971, the musk ox came back [to Sweden]," explained the accompanying press release. "The occasion can be seen as a return to the fold."
The musk oxen of Sweden and the musk oxen of Norway have almost everything in common—but because they are citizens of different nations, they lead different lives. "This animal, who has no nationality one way or another, is instantly given one by the people around them," says Jørgensen. These days, if you're a Norwegian musk ox, you're a beloved tourist attraction, the centerpiece of the country's many "musk ox safaris." You're also protected, so long as you stay within a certain boundary. (If you go outside of it, you're shot, and served as an appetizer at a state-owned hotel.) In other words, you're a wild animal, part of a national heritage that, although constructed, now seems totally natural.
If you're a Swedish musk ox, things are a little different. Maybe you live in the captive breeding facility, which boasts a gift shop full of wool clothing, and a viewing platform to accommodate the many curious human visitors. Or maybe you're one of the wild ones—in which case, even though there are only 11 of you, you aren't listed as endangered. As Jørgensen says, "the musk ox doesn't count as Swedish under the rules."
Or maybe you're Brutus, and you just want to find love. That guy was last spotted in Sonfjället, which means he's inching further and further west. Maybe he has headed back to Norway.
Naturecultures is a weekly column that explores the changing relationships between humanity and wilder things. Have something you want covered (or uncovered)? Send tips to cara@atlasobscura.com.
Known all over Europe for her astonishing beauty, Lady Hamilton accomplished many things in her lifetime. She was considered a key figure in the arts, a muse and patron, and her political influence saved the King and Queen of Naples. As if that wasn’t enough, she also—along with the spread of democratic ideas in the aftermath of the French Revolution, and the discovery of Pompeii—revived the neoclassical style that marks the Regency Period (1795-1825).
But to understand the influence she held over Europe, one must follow the trajectory of her life. Born in poverty and employed as a maid in her teenage years, her astonishing beauty and irresistible charm earned her the heart of many powerful men. Though scorned by her first two lovers, she eventually became the inamorata (and subsequent wife) of Sir William Hamilton, the English ambassador in Naples.
It was from this city, foreign though it was to her, that Lady Hamilton would make the world kneel at her feet.
Her journey to renown began with the warm welcome she received from the aristocracy in Naples. Despite being Sir William’s mistress, Lady Hamilton did not face scorn, derision, or persecution. Indeed, rather than focus on her status as a mistress, the nobles learned to appreciate her many virtues, among which stood out her cleverness, beauty, and high-spirits.
In time her company was sought after by many. Dukes and princes threw banquets in her honor. Noblemen wooed her. The King himself paid respects to her.
This portrait of Lady Hamilton as The Magdalene by George Romney was commissioned by the Prince of Wales himself (Photo: Sotheby's New York/Public Domain)
Even peasants were receptive to her charms. James Thomas Herbert Baily tells us in his biography of Lady Hamilton that “the country people fell down on their knees before her, asking favours from her in the name of the Blessed Virgin in whose likeness the good God had made her.”
Artists came from all over Europe to paint Lady Hamilton’s portrait. When they could not see her in person, they used for reference sketches drawn by George Romney, the first artist for whom she was a muse. The Lady Hamilton mania was so intense that in her lifetime she was the most painted woman in the continent, surpassing empresses and queens.
Portrait of Emma, Lady Hamilton as a Bacchante by Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (Photo: Public Domain)
Eager to please the nobles whose world she now inhabited and anxious to showcase her talents, Lady Hamilton searched for novel ways to charm and entertain the many guests that visited her house. To that end, and capitalizing on her naturally classical looks, she developed an art form of her own invention called "Attitudes". It consisted in giving performances where she would drape herself in simple cloth and strike, in graceful succession, a variety of poses modeled after classical themes.
Though it may be difficult for the modern reader to imagine that such a spectacle would appeal to anyone’s taste, European society couldn’t get enough of Lady Hamilton’s Attitudes. One of the best descriptions of the enchanting effect she had on her audience comes from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In his work Italian Journey, he describes a performance at the Hamiltons’ household as follows:
"She wears a Greek garb, becoming to her to perfection. She then merely loosens her locks, takes a pair of shawls, and effects changes of postures, moods, gestures, mien, and appearance that make one really feel as if one were in some dream [...] successively standing, kneeling, seated, reclining, grave, sad, sportive, teasing, abandoned, penitent, alluring, threatening, agonised. One follows the other, and grows out of it. She knows how to choose and shift the simple folds of her single kerchief for every expression, and to adjust it into a hundred kinds of headgear.”
In her daily life Lady Hamilton wore garments similar to those she used in performance, simple white robes with colorful sashes fastened to make a high waist. In this she would not remain alone. Eighteenth century Europe was by then obsessed with the classical age, and Lady Hamilton’s fashion choices both exemplified and mobilized the continent's burgeoning trends. She became Europe’s preeminent trendsetter.
Her most lasting contribution to fashion might be the robe a la grec.
The clothing of the mid-1700s was characterized by intricate dresses assembled with layers upon layers of skirts and decorated with symmetrical shapes that contoured the waist. It reflected a society obsessed with Rococo style, which favored opulence and ornament.
Regency looks were a stark contrast to this. Like the garments worn by Greek goddesses, modern robes were simple. Instead of stacking countless layers upon each other, the new trend favored dresses that combined only three pieces of clothing: the corset, the chemise, and the gown. The gowns, like those we see in classical paintings, featured mostly light colors, and they were loose fitting, with the waistline set just below the bosom. Following Lady Hamilton’s natural look, hairstyles also became simpler. Even the French ditched the massive wigs that had adorned the heads of the executed rulers.
High waists, simple robes, and classical hairstyles characterized Regency fashion. Picture from "The Five Positions of Dancing" by T. Wilson 1811 (Photo: Public Domain)
What Lady Hamilton did, society was eager to follow. It was thus that she contributed to the revival of Europe’s obsession with ancient Greece.
But not everyone loved or approved of her, and she was often the victim of malicious gossip and satire. Her luck turned when she became the lover of Admiral Nelson, England’s most beloved naval hero. She fell out of favor with the general public after she began to openly live with Nelson and Sir Hamilton in what is often considered the first publicly known menage-a-trois of the modern world. At the time of her death at the age of 49, with both her husband and her lover deceased, she had found herself destitute and alone.
But however unglamorous her end might have been, in life Lady Hamilton was a blazing torch. After all, how many people can boast of having defined the style of an entire era?
Many museums display pieces of Native American culture as things to be seen and pondered over, but the Totem Bight State Historical Park presents Native Alaskan culture as something to be lived and explored in the three-dimensional here-and-now.
Built on an old native fishing ground in Southeast Alaska just outside Ketchikan, the park offers a complete recreation of a 19th century Native Alaskan village, whose original totem poles and traditional structures were abandoned, left to be reclaimed by nature. In 1938, the U.S. Forest Service utilized funds allocated to the Civilian Conservation Corps (a.k.a. "CCC") to hire skilled carvers from among the older, indigenous population to salvage and reconstruct the remaining cedar monuments from within the forests. In the process, a whole new generation was trained in an ancient tradition, while either preserving or duplicating precious specimens that would have been lost forever.
By the time of its completion in 1940, the park was scattered with 15 totem poles and a massive clan house, all of which were built under the supervision of Alaskan architect Linn Forrest. The clan house alone could hold an estimated 30-50 people, and features a large, central fireplace and carved posts supporting the roof beams symbolizing the exploits of Duktoothl, a "a man of Raven phratry wearing a weasel skin hat who showed his strength by tearing a sea lion in two." Across the grounds, the Raven appears repeatedly, as tribal lore suggests he is responsible for bringing the sun to the universe. Accompanying the Raven are stylized representations of the Eagle, Bear and Wolf, Killer Whale, and Beaver, all of which carry powerful significance in Tlingit mythology.
That said, with such cultural significance at every turn, the one element at Totem Bight that stands above the rest is that of a man getting his hand chomped on by an angry mystical creature. Though surely there is a deeper meaning to this totem pole, what can be gathered by the human's expression alone is enough to elicit a chuckle from most laymen.
Visualizing change over time can be incredibly difficult. Which is why in a new Phaidon book entitled Evolution: A Visual Record, Robert Clark’s vivid and compelling photographs serve as an ode to Charles Darwin’s scientific breakthrough.
Beginning with text by David Quammen and Joseph Wallace about Darwin’s The Origin of Species, it is filled with photographs and facts about evolution, some of them startling. While there are rough estimates for the number of species of mammals on Earth (around 5,000) and birds (around 10,000), insect species estimates lie anywhere between 1 million to 30 million. And there continues to be discoveries, such as this giant amphibious centipede.
The adaptive skills of insects is seen in the above photo. According to the book, color and shape of both the dead leaf mantis (genus Deroplatys, left) and true leaf insect or "walking leaf" (family Phylliidae, right) changed over the years.
From insects to humans, Clark’s photographs capture a sense of wonder over life on earth. As Darwin described at the end of The Origin of Species: "…whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved."
Here is a selection of Clark’s photographs and accompanying text from the book.
"The hands of a gorilla. Despite the fact that humans are bipedal and gorillas usually walk on all four limbs, the two species’ hands are closer in proportion to each other than to those of any other ape, including Homo sapiens’ closer relative, the tool-using chimpanzee."
"'The combination of good sedimentary conditions and the fact that animals, including hominids, like to be near a source of water,' the great paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey says, helps explain why the remains of human ancestors—and many other creatures—are so often found near the shores of lakes. These beautiful human footprints, about 120 thousand years old, were discovered south of Lake Natron, Tanzania."
"Unsurprisingly, given their fragility and lack of any skeletal structure, jellyfish are rarely preserved in the geologic record. That makes some recent finds of spectacularly well-preserved specimens in Utah’s Marjum Formation (dating back to the Middle Cambrian Period around 505 million years ago) especially important. Helping clarify the origins of the Cnidaria—the phylum that also includes corals, and other aquatic invertebrate animals —these discoveries indicate that jellyfish may have evolved as long as seven hundred million years ago."
"The five-toed foot and long, powerful tail of a saltwater crocodile (Crocodylus porosus). The first crocodylomorphs (the group that included the early crocodilians and their now-extinct relatives) included animals such as Erpetosuchus, which was small, terrestrial, and possibly bipedal. But after appearing in the Late Cretaceous Period, the true crocodiles have survived while hewing largely to the form we see today. Why have crocodilians endured so long without evolving into dramatically different forms? Like other big, aggressive predators (such as great white sharks), crocodilians rely on their size, strength, and sharp teeth to overwhelm their prey. This hunting technique is simple and effective, as its great longevity demonstrates."
"Not so long ago, it was a controversial theory, but now it’s widely accepted: Birds aren’t just dinosaur-like; they are in fact living dinosaurs. That’s true of everything from sparrows to eagles to Darwin’s finches—but it’s rarely more obvious than when looking at a southern cassowary (Casuarius casuarius), the flightless bird native to Australia and New Guinea that at five feet tall and over one hundred pounds is one of the largest and heaviest birds on Earth. The steely gaze, the leathery crest, and the powerful beak all call the ancient dinosaurs to mind, as do the cassowary’s fearsome three-toed feet, which (much as Velociraptor and other birdlike dinosaurs must have done) it can employ as weapons."
"The result of evolutionary adaptation can be startlingly elegant. Case in point: protective coloration or camou age in the Indian or Malayan leafwing butterfly (Kallima paralekta). (Despite its common name, the species is actually endemic to Sumatra and Java in Indonesia, where Alfred Russel Wallace encountered and wrote extensively about it.) The upper surface of the male’s wing features a relatively straightforward pattern of blue and orange — but when its wings are closed, it suddenly resembles an ordinary brown leaf."
"Since mutations are selected for the survival advantages they provide to a species, it’s no surprise that the ability to fly has evolved repeatedly during the history of life on Earth, and in very different groups of animals. This phenomenon is known as convergent evolution. In ancient times, the reptiles known as pterosaurs—including such giants as Quetzalcoatlus, whose wingspan may have exceeded fifty feet—acquired active flight, a skill that persists in nearly all birds and bats, as well as a myriad of insects."
"Diversity among birds isn’t found only in size, shape, habitat, plumage, and behavior. It begins far earlier. This collection of eggs (in the Great North Museum: Hancock, Newcastle upon Tyne, England), demonstrates some of that diversity as well. In nature, birds’ eggs can range from those of the bee humming- bird (the size of a pea) to the 2.5-pound monstrosities laid by the ostrich."
The USS Niagara dates back to the War of 1812, one of only two still surviving ships from the battle, and she still sails on Lake Erie. However in a classic example of the Theseus paradox, some may question its authenticity since it has been restored with new wood and parts so many times it could be considered an entirely new ship.
The USS Niagara was built in Presque Isle Bay in 1813 to help protect the shores of Lake Erie against the British. The ship played a pivotal role in the Battle of Lake Erie, commanded by Oliver Hazard Perry. After the war, the Niagara was sunk in 1820 in the same bay it was built in. Various attempts were made to raise and restore the ship to its glory, especially for the centennial celebration of the battle, but for many years the ship simply sat idle in varying states of disrepair.
However, in 1988 the ship was completely rebuilt with only some of the original wood salvaged and with modern equipment like backup engines and long range navigation, and was set back to sail on the lake. Now managed by the Flagship Niagara League, the ship anchors at the Erie Maritime Museum and can often be seen sailing on Lake Erie. With the complete restoration including its new parts and wood, this ship is a living example of the Ship of Theseus paradox, references the famed example of a ship that is repaired so many time that none of the original parts remain. Since most if not all of the USS Niagara's parts are new, is it the same ship that sailed against the British in the War of 1812? Whatever your views on this question, the grand ship is still a sight to see when it sails among the modern fishing and sport boats on Lake Erie, and the public can sail on her for a day when the ship is in port.
