(Photo: Gage Skidmore/CC BY-SA 3.0)

If you've ever registered a website, you may have dealt with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), but for a lot of others, it remains an obscure part of the internet—only crucial when battling to secure a dream URL.

ICANN is the nonprofit that, among other duties, oversees top-level domains, which are the parts of URLs that you find at the very end: dot-com, most commonly, but also thousands of others. ICANN was founded in 1998 to be the steward of such top-level domains, known as TLDs, and it has been overseen since then by the U.S. government. 

But on Saturday, the government, in a long-planned move, is set to give up its oversight of the organization, leaving it in the hands of a diverse group of international stakeholders, including an advisory panel that is composed of an array of representatives from governments across the world. 

This has some people, like the Republican Senator Ted Cruz, upset. (“Don’t Let Obama Give Away the Internet,” a press release on Cruz’s website blared in August.) Cruz's concerns, such as they are, are a mixture of make-America-great-again style bombast coupled with a more serious warning, that putting ICANN in the hands of the world could undermine American national security. How? By potentially giving foreign governments the capacity to undermine or sabotage our internet infrastructure. 

There are many reasons why that probably won't happen, but the most persuasive might be the simplest: ICANN, despite the fact that it controls TLDs, is less a key cog propping up the internet than a vast, mostly administrative registry. Think of it more like a library's card catalog, a place that helps keeps track of a lot of information, but has almost nothing to do with the information itself. 

Still, Cruz's concerns do shine a somewhat uncomfortable light on an organization that has had a swift 17-year rise, as the infrastructure behind the Domain Name System evolved from a single man with a notebook to ICANN, which has hundreds of employees and a budget of over $130 million. Who are the functionaries behind the world's URLs?

In the beginning, the internet was mostly just numbers, or, more specifically, Internet Protocol addresses, a string of numbers that would lead you to a website. But numbers are hard to remember, so a guy named Jon Postel, one of the founders of the internet, decided to construct a system in which a lettered name could be attached to those numbers. 

Thus was born the Domain Name System (DNS), and, originally, seven top-level domains: .com, .org., .mil, .gov., .edu, .net, and .arpa, to represent companies (hence the dot-com), organizations, military, government, colleges, networks, and the internet's technical infrastructure, in that order.

Jon Postel, a founding father of the internet. (Photo: Carl Malamud/CC BY 2.0)

But Postel was just one man, keeping track of domain names in a notebook, and, as the web got larger and larger, he and his colleagues sought a system that could scale. The U.S. government, similarly, was interested in a more formalized system, in part because many government agencies were among the internet's biggest users. 

In January 1998, Postel nudged along ICANN's creation with a stunt, by rerouting a good portion of the internet through servers at the University of Southern California, where Postel was based, instead of government servers in Virginia. The action spooked federal officials, who, within days, announced plans for what would become ICANN. By September 30 of that year, ICANN was formally incorporated in Los Angeles. 

The web, at that time, was in the midst of the dot-com bubble, and the government's oversight at the beginning was meant to be temporary, but with each passing year, in part because of simple inertia, the U.S. retained their oversight role. The situation, in turn, became the source of an ever-increasing amount of angst from foreign governments and users, some of whom questioned the U.S. government's motives, and others who simply thought that no government should have a role in a free and open internet. That's not to mention that by the mid-aughts, the web had gone from Cold War-era government project to something resembling a global public utility. 

A visualized map of the internet from 2005. (Photo: The Opte Project/CC BY-SA 2.5)

From the U.S.'s perspective, its oversight over ICANN also presented some unsavory hypotheticals. What if Russia or China, miffed with the U.S.'s continuing influence over the internet, decided to start their own private internets, beyond the scope of the world's scrutiny? The U.S. was also wary of the United Nations potentially trying to step in. The internet, Republican and Democratic administrations have long argued, should be independent of everyone. 

Still, it wasn't until March 2014 that the Department of Commerce said that it was finally ready to let go, after over 15 years of overseeing ICANN. The U.S. said then it would hand over the reins once ICANN developed safeguards to ensure that it would remain a place governed by every internet stakeholder, from users, to governments, to businesses, to civil society groups. And in June, the government said they were satisfied that it had, setting the formal end of oversight for October 1, the day after ICANN's contract with the government expires. 

Cruz remains worried, however, that something nefarious could be afoot, issuing two press releases just this week on the matter and writing recently that China, Russia and Iran, "will never relent in their pursuit to control the global internet infrastructure."

Which might be true, if only ICANN wasn't such an unworthy target. 

"There are so many other paths that the Russians or the Chinese could take and have taken to make sure that their citizens or even people around the world can't see stuff that they don't want them to see," Jonathan Zittrain, a law professor at Harvard, told NPR.

Real security threats or not, Cruz and others have also repeatedly referred to the ICANN situation as an "internet surrender" or "internet handover," stirring, of course, one's sense of American pride, however small that may be, since, after Saturday, most of us will probably go back to not thinking about ICANN at all. 

When the collage artist Mark Wagner first started creating his signature pieces, he faced every day with a significant decision: save that fresh stack of one-dollar bills sitting on his drafting table for his currency-based artwork, or eat heartily.  

But to Wagner, those thousands of bills were meant for more than just creature comforts. Soon he would slice them up into 25 of their individual components—George Washington heads, treasury seals, the various letters—and glue them onto sketches that skewered capitalism, or socialism, or both, making sure every last sliver was accounted for.

His frugality paid off: last month, Wagner opened I’m Mark Wagner and I Approve of This Message at the Pavel Zoubok Gallery in New York City, just in time for the final stretch of the presidential campaign. In a conversation with Atlas Obscura, Wagner discusses the unique methods he uses to construct his currency portraits, from decapitating George Washington with a “Guillotine cutter” to the signature he takes special pains to avoid.

Hail to the Chief. (Photo: Mark Wagner) 

How do you go about cutting the currency?
There’s probably about a dozen different ways we approach a dollar for use… Sometimes we just shred the bills. Much of the time a bill gets sort of dissected into its constituent parts, separating lights and darks, preserving line work that might be used for “drawing” purposes, subdividing Washington’s face into cheeks, foreheads, necks… all of which have their specific uses.

Most recently I’ve been cutting up a hundred bills at a time in a 19th-century Guillotine cutter that lets me slice like butter through an entire stack at once.

Detail of Wish You Were Here. (Photo: Mark Wagner)

Tell me more about your selfie still-lives.
The design of the dollar bill hasn’t changed since, like, the 1950s, and even then it didn’t change that much. And there’s really not much to root my artwork in any specific time since then. So I wanted to do something super-contemporary.

At the same time, the computer-ish things our phones are doing is also changing the nature of money. And vanity and money don’t have anything to do with each other… right?

Display case containing Wagner’s working materials. (Photo: Adrian Brune)

Do you use every piece of the dollar bill in your work?
There are pieces that fall out of favor. I’ve been avoiding [former U.S. Treasury Secretary] Timothy Geithner’s signature for years because it’s ugly. I’ve got a bag that must have like, 2,000 of his signatures, but it’s still only a tiny bag.

Hillary, Billary. (Photo: Pavel Zoubok Gallery)

There’s a lot of symbolism in these pieces. Does that cohere after construction, or is it planned before?
It’s a mixed bag as far as the symbolism goes. Some of the pieces are obviously very heavy-handed with their commentary. But some of the work is just pretty. I don’t fret too much over it.

I’d drive myself crazy if I tried to plan everything in advance… and I’d fail at it, to boot. I have strategy in mind for every piece before I start, but am happy to adjust tactics while they are getting made.

Dollar Donald. (Photo: Pavel Zoubok Gallery)

How did you first decide to use currency as collage material?
I wanted to use a very familiar piece of paper… something contemporary, recognizable and familiar to as many people as possible. I grabbed a dollar. At the time I had no idea where that would lead.

Atlas. (Photo: Pavel Zoubok Gallery)

You’re starting to work with foreign currencies. What’s behind this shift?
Working so strictly with the U.S. dollar for so many years, I’ve missed color. Foreign currency gives a broad choice of color, design, imagery to use, but there are a bunch of new, non-obvious obstacles for me at the same time. I’m used to having access to a thousand of every little piece I might need, but I don’t have a thousand whatever-that-currency-is from wherever-that-place-is.

More importantly, as an American, I feel a measure of confidence commenting on America and its foibles. Less so with… any other spot on the globe. So far the foreign currency pieces have all mixed passages of U.S. currency against passages of generalized foreign currency. This “us vs. them” [motif] is, unfortunately, very American.

This statue is 8,000 years old. (Photo: Çatalhöyük Research Project)

As soon as archaeologists found this statue, they knew it was special.

It was found at a Neolithic site in Central Turkey, where it was carefully crafted sometime around 6,000 B.C. It’s 6.7 inches tall and 4.3 wide, and it weighs 2.2 pounds. It’s made of recrystallized limestone, and, Stanford University says, is distinguished by the fine lines of its “elaborate fat rolls,” its arms, separated from the torso, and the cut below the belly. To make such distinct lines would have required good tools and practiced hand.

At this site, Çatalhöyük, it’s not uncommon to find figures like this one, but they usually are made of clay and have not survived the millennia in such good condition. They’ve usually been associated with the figure of a fertility goddess, but Ian Hodder, the Stanford archaeologist leading the dig here thinks that they might have another significance as well.

The statue. (Photo: Çatalhöyük Research Project)

Çatalhöyük was home to thousands of people—perhaps as many as 10,000—and developed as an egalitarian society, without social class. As people aged, they gained respect and importance, and Hodder is in the camp of archaeologists who believe female figures, like this statue, represented elderly women, honoring their place in society.

This limestone statue came from a part of the site developed later in the city’s history, when its egalitarian character was fading and social stratification edging in. So it could have been an object that signified not just age but a higher social position.

The threat of nuclear attack loomed large for Americans in the 1950s. In an effort to prepare for such a scenario, President Truman formed the Federal Civil Defense Administration, and commissioned dozens of instructional videos about what to expect in the event of an attack, and how to protect one's family and home. 

"You are the target," the video above ominously begins, "of those who would trample the liberties of free men." Black-and-white graphics showing explosions and fighter jets in a V-formation flash by. No matter whether you live in an industrial city, a "farming area with fertile fields," or a "mining region rich with vital ores and minerals," you have to be prepared for the worst, the video advises.   

In a deep voice, the narrator sets you on a clear path to survival, even providing a handy checklist. Some of the suggestions are quite useful: storing canned food, and learning first aid could help you survive in a number of scenarios. Others, however, make you doubt whether you should ever follow government emergency plans. After all, it’s unlikely that closing your blinds will make much of a difference in a nuclear apocalypse.

But if the video fails at actually preparing people for a nuclear attack, it is very effective in doing two other things: striking fear into the hearts of Americans, and igniting passionate feelings of patriotism.

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.

The fly's forked penis. (Photo: NSW Office of Environment and Heritage/Used with Permission)

When it comes to insect genitalia, it’s not size that matters, but apparently how many you’ve got. At least that seems to be the case with a newly-discovered species of long-legged fly that has a forked penis.

The new variety of “walking fly” was discovered in Australia’s Kosciuszko National Park, according to the Australian Broadcasting Network. The well-endowed bug was discovered by Professor Gunther Theischinger, who has identified over 700 new species of insect during his career. He found it accidentally while sampling for aquatic insects in the park. 

The male specimen himself. (Photo: NSW Office of Environment and Heritage/Used with permission)

The fly is now a new genus and species of crane fly, which are known for their long legs and little wings. Named Minipteryx robusta, the creature was also notable for its relatively small wings, which seemed too tiny to be effective. 

Professor Theischinger is not sure what benefit the extra penis gives the fly, and would likely have to find a female of the species to find out. He speculates, though, that it may be there to make up for the lack of functional wings, which would otherwise help provide some control during fly copulation. For now, then, Minipteryx robusta’s double penis remains a sexy mystery.

We live in weird times, when the press ranks almost as low as Putin in national polls yet reporters in TV and movies can still be heroes. The 2015 film Spotlight, which dramatized the work of The Boston Globe reporters who exposed habitual child sex abuse within the Catholic church, reaped box office and critical success and took home Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. This month, moviegoers can see director Oliver Stone’s Snowden, starring Joseph Gordon Levitt as whistleblower Edward Snowden and Zachary Quinto as reporter Glenn Greenwald. And the Panama Papers—the inflammatory leak of 11.5 million documents detailing the offshore dealings of wealthy individuals and public officials worldwide—have inspired two impending films, including a Steven Soderbergh project based on a book by journalist Jake Bernstein and a Netflix feature created in collaboration with journalists Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer.

Given the roiling political climate—where Facebook hoaxes and insane conspiracy theories are the norm—it’s perhaps not surprising that we fantasize about crusading journalists. So for this installment of In the Background we thought we’d turn our attention to one of the most iconic cinematic portrayals of journalism, All the President’s Men, which turns 40 this year. 

Released in 1976 and directed by Alan J. Pakula (Klute, Sophie’s Choice) the film casts Robert Redford as Bob Woodward and Dustin Hoffman as Carl Bernstein, Washington Post reporters who investigated the Watergate scandal. The pair’s reporting on a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. uncovered abuses of power by the Nixon administration and were instrumental in fueling President Richard Nixon’s subsequent impeachment hearings and eventual resignation in 1974. The film was celebrated (although The Washington Post found it a little boring), won eight Academy Awards and has gone down in film history as a classic journalism thriller.

The look? Rumplecore. 

Much ado was made of Spotlight’s attention to detail, right down to the “artless look” of journalistic attire, and it owes more than a little to the obsessive recreation that informed All the President’s Men. Perhaps inspired by their subject, Hollywood fetishes the accuracy of their world-making when it comes to journalism, even as they fictionalize it.

The film is set (naturally) mostly in Washington D.C. and the offices of The Washington Post. And make no mistake—Washington D.C. is a shady place. Literally. The city and its landmarks are a foreboding chiaroscuro of darkness. There are barely lit parking structures, inky car rides, gloomy apartments and homes. Even the offices of the Library of Congress are shot as if in a cave. (Please, somebody buy these librarians a lightbulb!) Conversely, The Washington Post offices are a glowing halo of truth-telling. They are glaringly lit; blazingly bright in comparison to almost every other scene.

Someone please get the Library of Congress some lightbulbs.

The office is as much a star of the film as Redford and Hoffman who are elbow to elbow with landslides of paper, stacks of well-thumbed reference books, clusters of coffee cups and overburdened ashtrays. Some of this can surely be chalked up to artistic license, but the newsroom was a careful recreation that included actual garbage transported from the Post offices.

Not winning any clean desk awards.

Art director George Jenkins obsessively reproduced the Post office’s at Warner Bro’s Studio in Burbank. According to a 1975 Post story about the making of the film (and invasion of the office by Hollywood types) the newsroom was recreated for $200,000 and spread out over two sound stages. “Nearly 200 desks at $500 apiece were purchased from the same firm that sold desks to The Post four years ago,” the story continued. “And to color them just right, the same precise shades of paint—be they '6 ½ PA Blue' or '22 PE Green'—are being mixed on special order.” 

Jenkins even obtained a brick from the building’s lobby so he could have it copied in fiberglass. And, in what the Post termed “The Great Hollywood Trash Lift," Jenkins asked reporters to toss their unwanted ephemera into boxes, which he had transported to the set and strewn across desks. According to the Post, reporters helpfully supplied the filmmakers with a risqué Christmas card, a newsletter from the Little Richard Fan Club, a chart on animal parasites, and enough other goodies to fill 75 boxes.

One writer reportedly left a note on a coworker’s desk warning them not to chuck old love letters in the box, lest they be projected on a screen in front of a new paramour a year later.

The paper strewn office, populated with actual documents from The Washington Post. 

The idea of a love letter written on paper is quaint today, and the chaotic desks are a startling contrast to today’s offices, where paper and pencils are relics and workspaces often consist of a computer, a monitor, and not much else. The background is often in frenetic movement as bodies rush back and forth, as if the reporters work in a bustling gym.

Also in complete chaos? The wardrobes of Woodward/Redford and Bernstein/Hoffman and their compatriots (who are almost exclusively male). Rolled up sleeves and enormous, disarrayed collars are ubiquitous. Very few ties in this film are knotted with any authority. Jason Pollack, the film’s costume designer, ended up making a career around masculine style. He was a struggling actor who fibbed his way into costume design, and went on to become Robert Redford’s regular costume designer. He also dressed Hoffman frequently, as well as stars like Harrison Ford, Sylvester Stallone and Tom Cruise. (Pollack was especially praised by The New York Times style section for swaddling Ford in a pair for flattering Wranglers in the film Extraordinary Measures.)

No time to tie a tie. 

Pollack is sanguine about his role of picking out duds for leading men. “If I do my job well, then nobody notices the wardrobe,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2008. “It just assists in telling the story and creating realistic characters.” 

The rumpled-ness of reporters is something Hollywood still holds dear. When asked to describe the style of journalists, Spotlight’s costume designer told The New York Times that “it’s an unthought-about uniform.” The irony, of course, is that every detail has been lovingly constructed by Hollywood. When the central action of a film revolves around a paper chase instead of a car chase, those details have to be just right.

Spider monkeys from a fore-edge painting on The Natural History of Monkeys (1838). (Photo: Courtesy of The Swem Library)

While you don’t see them very often these days, fore-edge paintings were once some of the loveliest book illustrations around. Literally, they were around the edges of the book.

A fore-edge painting refers to an image painted or drawn on the closed leaves of a book. While covering the collected page edges in gold or silver leaf was a popular choice, sometimes artists went one step further and painted whole scenes and landscapes on them. This form of fore-edge decoration is known as “all-edge” painting, and it was only the beginning.

Some ambitious, “disappearing” fore-edge paintings were painted on the inside edges of the pages, so that the hidden scenes could only be seen when the page block was fanned in a certain direction. If the book was simply closed, the page edges could look normal and unadorned (or possibly gilded), only revealing the image when one of the covers were shifted back, slanting the pages.

A two-way double fore-edge painting from The Book of The Thames (1859), slanted one way... (Photo: Courtesy of The Swem Library)

... and the other.(Photo: Courtesy of The Swem Library)

These secret illustrations could be doubled, with an illustration on either side of the pages, revealing themselves depending on the slant of the page block (known as the “two-way double”). Some were painted so that if the book was laid open in the center, naturally splaying the pages to either side, two different illustrations could be seen on either side (known as a “split double”).

There are even examples of rarer variations that required the pages to be pinched or tented in a certain way to see the image. The only limit was the artists’ imaginations.

The American capital painted on the edge of American Poems (1870). (Photo: Courtesy of The Swem Library)

"Sometimes the fore-edge paintings corresponded to the subject of the book, and sometimes not," says Jay Gaidmore, Director of Special Collections at the Earl Gregg Swem Library. The library holds the 700-strong Ralph H. Wark Collection, the largest collection of fore-edge painted books in America.

"Typical scenes include Oxford and Cambridge, the Thames River, Westminster Abbey, the English village and countryside, Edinburgh, authors, ships, and classical figures," says Gaidmore. "Most of the books are 19th century English fore-edges, but there are a few American scenes."

Henry Longfellow from The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. (Photo: Courtesy of The Swem Library)

Fore-edge paintings can be found on books dating back to the 11th century, with early examples being decorated with symbolism and heraldry. Disappearing fore-edge paintings began to appear around the 17th century, as the paintings began to become more elaborate, consisting of fully illustrated scenes, portraits, and composed artworks.

It wasn't until many centuries later that the art form had a Renaissance, and become more common. "Fore-edge paintings peaked in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in England," says Gaidmore. "Edwards of Halifax, part of the Yorkshire family of bookbinders and booksellers, has been credited with establishing the custom."

According to the Boston Public Library’s website for their 250+ collection of fore-edge books, for the most part the paintings were made using watercolors, and went unsigned, often being commissioned by a book-binding firm. 

 A circus scene from Essays, Poems, and Plays (1820).(Photo: Courtesy of The Swem Library)

Examples of fore-edge painting continued into the early 20th century, and as a 2013 piece over on Flavorwire points out, they are still being created by modern artists such as Clare Brooksbank and Martin Frost.

The technique has even been printed onto some modern books like Chip Kidd’s 2001 novel, The Cheese Monkeys, which was printed with a two-way double, disappearing fore-edge message. If the pages are shifted in one direction, the phrase “GOOD IS DEAD,” appears, while if they are shifted in the opposite direction, the message, “DO YOU SEE?” can be read.

Take a look at more incredible historical fore-edge paintings below.

A ship painted in Lectures on Modern History (1843).(Photo: Courtesy of The Swem Library)

A tiny farm scene on the side of The Farmer's Boy (1827). (Photo: Courtesy of The Swem Library)

John Milton's house, grave, and portrait on the side of Paradise Lost, Vol. 1. (1796). (Photo: Albert H. Wiggin Collection/Boston Public Library)

Matches, Mackerel, Scissors on the side of The Poems of William Cowper (1820). (Photo: Albert H. Wiggin Collection/Boston Public Library)

The Last Supper on the edge of The Holy Bible (1803). (Photo: Albert H. Wiggin Collection/Boston Public Library)

A hunter firing at a bird on the side of The Poetical Works of John Milton (1843). (Photo: Albert H. Wiggin Collection/Boston Public Library)

A hunt on the side of The Seasons (1811). (Photo: Albert H. Wiggin Collection/Boston Public Library)

Hindu temples painted on the side of The Modern History of Hindostan. Volume 1 (Date unknown). (Photo: Albert H. Wiggin Collection/Boston Public Library)

Four putti on the edge of Des. Erasmi Rot. Moriæ encomium (1629). (Photo: Albert H. Wiggin Collection/Boston Public Library)

Diana sitting with a handmaid by a lake from the side of Dictionnaire Grec-Français (1817). (Photo: Albert H. Wiggin Collection/Boston Public Library)

Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden on side of The Bible (1795). (Photo: Albert H. Wiggin Collection/Boston Public Library)

Aylesford Church and bridge on the side of Sermons, Vol. 2 (1814). (Photo: Albert H. Wiggin Collection/Boston Public Library)

A chess scene from the side of Analysis of The Game of Chess (1790). (Photo: Albert H. Wiggin Collection/Boston Public Library)

The people of Orleans greet Joan of Arc, from the side of Jeanne d'Arc: Her Life and Death (Date unknown). (Photo: Albert H. Wiggin Collection/Boston Public Library)

George Washington and Ben Franklin from the side of The Speeches of The Right Honourable William Pitt (1808). (Photo: Albert H. Wiggin Collection/Boston Public Library)

Stonehenge painted on the side of The Royal Kalendar, and court and City Register for England, Scotland, Ireland, and The Colonies (Date unknown). (Photo: Albert H. Wiggin Collection/Boston Public Library)

The White House painted on the edge of A History of New York (1821). (Photo: Albert H. Wiggin Collection/Boston Public Library)

 

About yesterday 🌌✨ #reykjavik

A photo posted by belakarsai (@belakarsai) on Sep 28, 2016 at 11:31pm PDT

Living in Reykjavik, the northernmost capital in the world, has its perks, including, of course, the Northern Lights, also known as aurora borealis. 

And last night, to better take in the show, officials shut off the city's street lights, making it darker on the ground but more visible in the sky. Safety, for the moment, would have to take a backseat to natural beauty. 

 

A photo posted by Daði Guðjónsson (@dadigud) on Sep 28, 2016 at 6:16pm PDT

The Northern Lights are a natural phenomenon seen at the northern and southern reaches of the Earth, created when charged particles emitted from the Sun disturb Earth's magnetosphere, depositing other charged particles closer into Earth's outer atmosphere. As Icelanders well know, what happens next is a dazzling show.

The street lamps were out for just an hour, from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m., according to the Iceland Monitor, but that was more than enough time for many a resident to snap a shot for Instagram. 

 

A photo posted by Adam Thor Murtomaa (@adammurtomaa) on Sep 28, 2016 at 6:32pm PDT

La Condesa neighborhood of Mexico City, where La Llorona is likely to be heard. (Photo: Keizers/CC BY-SA 3.0)

There are many reasons to fall in love with Mexico City, but among the most understandable are its sounds. Linger on a park bench long enough for the ocean swell of the traffic to blend into the background, and a second layer reveals itself. The gas sellers calling up to the apartments. The scratched Big Band-era songs of the helado trucks. The organ grinders outside the national monuments, twirling their ancient machines for change.

Into this clutter every so often, particularly in the La Condesa area, perhaps the most city's fashionable and bohemian (read: "hipster") neighborhood, arrives the haunting voice of a wailing woman. Her calls echo through the narrow streets and swirl in the zocalos, full of despair and obsession like the Latin legion of La Llorona. But rather than asking passersby if they've seen her lost children, this voice is asking for your junk. This is what she sounds like:

Follow the calls to its source and you'll find a rusty speaker bolted to the top of a flatbed truck. Depending on what hour of the day you happen upon it, the truck will either be empty, chock full of so much junk it seems it'll tip over, or in between. Peak through the refuse and you'll find mattresses, washing machines, stoves, microwaves, loose metal, and other detritus. To the non-Spanish speakers out there, these items, after all, are what the woman on the recording is asking for. 

“I heard the voice for years,” says Wendel Equisuvequis, who grew up in the suburbs of Mexico City. When he was 14 years old, Equisuvequis heard the recording from inside of his home and ran out to meet the trunk. “My dad bought some new sports wheels for his car, so I assumed he didn't want the other ones.” He let the junkers into the house to take the rims, netting a sweet 450 pesos in return. But it didn’t end well. “Little did I know my dad was planning to sell the car with the original wheels and use the sports one for the new car,” he says. “He was pissed!”

After the trucks pick up the rims, or whatever else they're looking for, they return to warehouses and garages where they unload the materials, which are resold or have the copper stripped. The business is legit, but has a reputation for being tough guys to deal with, particularly for anyone trying to muscle into their territory. “Urban legend is that it is a super-powerful cartel controls most of them,” says Equisuvequis. “I don't mean breaking the law, but they act with almost unquestionable power. They are a gremio, which is like a union on steroids.”

But where does the wailing call come from? Turns out, the recording is not the voice of an older woman at all, but from a young girl.

According to 2013 broadcast from ForoTV, the speaker is Marymar Torreón, since given the awesome moniker of voz del fierro viejo, or, “the voice of old iron.” It was recorded 11 years ago by her father, Marco Antonio Torreón, who drives one of the trunks for a living. One day, Torreón realized how tired he was getting not only from walking—back then, he was using a wheelbarrow to collect scrap instead of a truck—but also from yelling at the top of his lungs. So, he bought a cheap tape recorder and gave his daughter a script.

Mexico City. (Photo: Kasper Christensen/CC BY-SA 2.0)

“He started recording me from about 12 a.m. to 4 a.m. until I got it right,” Marymar remembers in the broadcast. “My tongue would get tied, I would say one word instead of the other.” Which accounts for the drowsy, droning quality of the recording. After a brief editing session, they began to use it to save Torreón's throat. But how did it get from that to, as the ForoTV broadcast puts it, “a classic sound of the streets?”

“I passed it out to some colleagues that asked for the recording,” he says. “And they passed around to others, and the others to more people, and there you go.” 

The tapes spread in the most viral, old school sense. Soon copies began popping up at swap meets, sold for around 200 pesos or less. In fact, the recording is no longer claimed solely by Mexico City, or even the country itself. Marymar's voice can be heard through much of Latin America and, if a YouTube commenter is to be believed, even in St. Petersburg, Russia.

But not everyone's pleased with the droning call. If you're in Mexico City when a truck rolls by, it's not uncommon to see a curious smile morph into an annoying scowl the closer it gets. “I would ask my colleagues to put the volume a little bit down,” pleads Marco at the end of the news broadcast. “That is the reason why some people doesn’t like the recording. Sometimes, they put it too loud.”

Of course, that's not going to happen anytime soon, not as long as there are kids out there ready to part with their parents' seeming junk for a few extra pesos. But if it’s bothering you, take comfort that the wail will soon pass, and more will rise from the city’s ever-changing soundscape.

Abandoned pier on the Salton Sea, California. (Photo: Hank Shiffman/shutterstock.com)

In the Imperial Valley of California’s southeastern desert is an unexpected, almost oasis-like sight: a vast saline body of water called the Salton Sea, covering an area of around 350 square miles. On a closer look, though, its long-term neglect is obvious. The area, once called the “California Riviera”, was once awash in pastel boating outfits and jet skis; now it’s littered with broken trailers and run-down yacht clubs. Millions of fish die there yearly, largely from the water’s rampant avian botulism.

And now, decades after the water began to recede into an ultra-concentrated smelly, salty mess, environmental groups are finally getting funding to manage the water. “It’s a terminal lake, which means there are no outlets to the Salton Sea,” says Bruce Wilcox of the California Natural Resources Agency, part of the Salton Sea Task Force. “Anything that’s in the water or comes into that basin stays there, and it's getting progressively saltier.”

The Salton Sea is now one-and-a-half times saltier than the ocean, and evaporating quickly. But saving the Salton Sea isn’t your typical restoration effort, undoing human mistakes. This time, ecological interest groups are fighting nature to keep the mistake intact: the Salton Sea is a man-made lake, created by accident.

An aerial view from the early 1930s of Salton Sea. (Photo: National Archives/23935069)

“The fact that [the Salton Sea] was an accident, and a human accident, makes no difference to the birds,” says Wilcox. Birds use the Salton Sea as if it were a natural habitat, and taking that away would cause more damage than it would have decades ago; most of the wetlands along the shores and central valley of California have since been drained and developed. Losing the Salton Sea would be destroying a necessary foodsource and pitstop for thousands of birds migrating from the west, Appalachia and Colorado, many of which would face extinction, unable to replace the loss.

This is an unexpected development for the Salton Sea, considering that for much of its history, it wasn’t a source of water at all. In 1900 the Salton Sea was called the Salton Sink, and was, at the time, a dry geological depression, deep and wide, with vast salty deposits on its floor. Commercial interests grew around it: salt farmers harvested the basin, and the California Development Company began an irrigation project to send water from the Colorado River to surrounding farmland, which exists today. The company dug canals to divert water into the Coachella and Imperial Valleys, hoping to build lush green farmland in the desert.

Unfortunately, a series of mishaps plagued the area from the beginning; the Colorado River was not yet controlled by the Hoover Dam, and the canals flooded and filled with silt. Efforts to fix the problem included making additional, hasty cuts into the river basin, making the problem worse, and money and interest ran out after a major flood filled the Salton Sink at a rate of one inch per hour. For two years, the Colorado River filled the sink creating a large saline lake, later known as the Salton Sea.

Old signage at Salton Sea. (Photo: Library of Congress/LC-DIG-highsm-21008)

Over time the Salton Sea became a tourist draw. In the 1920s its soft waves and migrating birds enchanted entrepreneur Gus Eilers into promoting the area and building a clubhouse with boat races near the water. The word spread, and property developers rushed to the area, building marinas, resorts, and a yacht club in Salton City—the Salton Sea became known as the California Riviera. In June 1954 women entered an annual contest to become the official Miss Salton Sea.

Celebrities like Frank Sinatra and Jerry Lee Lewis spent their weekends boating and jet skiing into the 1960s, and fish were added to the brackish water for recreation. Corvina and tilapia thrived, attracting birds and fishermen to the new watering hole. But, since the Colorado River was under control, its water wasn’t supplying the desert sea with water anymore; farming continued to thrive in the area with more controlled irrigation, and unregulated agricultural runoff began to flow into the lake from nearby farms, sustaining its water levels to a degree.

The Salton Sea had been slowly shrinking since the 1950s, but hurricanes in 1976 and 1977 further devastated the area. Conservation groups sought aid from the government. Sonny Bono (of Sonny and Cher fame), who by the 1980s was a congressman, introduced plans to save the Salton Sea before his death. The plans were briefly supported before falling by the wayside, though a wildlife refuge there bears his name. As the water and property values evaporated, many people moved away, and the area faded from public consciousness. 

Abandoned gas station at Salton Sea. (Photo: Marc Cooper/Public Domain)

Now, the Salton Sea is surrounded by vacant property and few residents remain beyond a smattering of elderly folks and families attracted by the low cost of rent. Fish have been dying by the millions since the 1990s. The water is now at 59.3 parts of salt per thousand parts water, and “fish can’t breed at 60 parts per thousand,” says Wilcox, though invertebrates continue to thrive. Locals complain of the smell, the lack of stores and amenities, and the regret that their property investments did not live up to the dream.

But the issues around the Salton Sea are getting more serious, beyond the financial collapse of a local tourist economy. On Monday, there were 200 earthquakes under the lake, which sits near several fault lines including the San Andreas Fault. Water management in the region is an issue in the desert and for California, which had to divert water from reaching the Salton Sea in 2003 in order to supply San Diego. A 2014 report estimates that by 2045, the receding lake will expose nearly 150 miles of the lake’s floor, called “playa,” which will release around 100 tons of fine dust into the air per day.

“The playa is hazardous because it’s such a small size dust particle,” says Wilcox. “They can travel through your lungs into the bloodstream.” The surrounding valleys provide much of the United States’ produce, and that dust will also destroy crops, affecting our food supply. Since 2003 elevation has dropped six to seven vertical feet, exposing 10,000 to 11,000 acres of playa around the lake, which would flood the area and the Coachella Valley to the north with dust.

A ditch in the Salton Sea. (Photo: Akos Kokai/CC BY 2.0)

Current playa control plans of the Salton Sea Task Force include finding areas that are higher in arsenic and copper, in order to control those first, with an initial goal of 12,000 acres of habitat creation and control. Teams will build canals and storage ponds next to the Alamo and New rivers to store agricultural runoff to add water to the lake. Plans also include rooting the playa with plants, covering the dusty Salton Sea floor, and building nearby shallow habitat wells for fish and insects while monitoring the lake’s salinity. Wilcox adds that wildlife concerns are pressing: the Salton Sea alone is a vital stopover point for over 420 species of birds.

While these matters are in need of immediate action, those who are working on and advocating for saving the Salton Sea are realistic; they’ve stopped calling their efforts “restoration,” and instead use the word “management.” “What we’re talking about doing will not turn it into a natural habitat, it will have to be managed forever,” says Wilcox. “But we’re trying to put something in place that has minimal management requirements over time.”

While the task force’s plans are not entirely funded, the California government recently earmarked 80 million dollars for saving the water, which is a start. President Obama’s administration gave another $30 million from the federal budget in September of this year. In addition to suppressing the playa and adding water, Wilcox says these plans aim to add value for humans and local tourism. Bird watchers and sailors may one day use the Salton Sea again, though the waters will never be quite as deep as they were before.

Dead fish on the sand at Bombay Beach. (Photo: EsotericSapience/CC BY 2.0)

A new full proposal with updated cost estimates and data is scheduled for release at the end of 2016, just before the last holdout of water supplying the basin will be removed per agreement the following year;  implementation of many management plans is estimated to begin next year. While some plans are estimated to cost millions of dollars, the alternative—which includes a major public health hazard—could cost the government over $70 billion if it spirals out of control.

The Salton Sea was made through blunders because of human desires, but over time, those actions actually made the large salty lake vital. Hopefully a new course of human intervention for it will arrive in time to sustain our lucky mistake.

Narnia hid behind a wardrobe. Doctor Who's Tardis was disguised as a blue police call box. With no signage and no flags, these out of the ordinary things are hidden away disguised as something utterly banal. In some cases, these things are camouflaged on accident; in others, they are secreted away so that only those in the know can find them. 

Either way, the world is full of seemingly mundane places that are more than meets the eye. It reminds us to stay curious—one has to always be on the lookout for wonder. Here are nine places in the Atlas that may seem boring at first glance but are actually amazing once you take a closer look. If you know of mundane place hiding something wonderful, add it to the Atlas!

1. Brooklyn Townhouse Secret Subway Exit

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

This fake townhouse is actually a subway emergency exit. (Photo: Atlas Obscura user Allison)

You might not notice anything off about this Brooklyn Heights townhouse, other than the black reflective windows. Though it was once a private residence, this building is now a clandestine emergency exit from the 4 and 5 train lines. The decoy has been sitting at 58 Joralemon Street since 1908, but in recent years the NYPD has heightened security measures around the "entrance" to the "house" in an attempt to prevent curious passersby from any subterranean exploration.

2. Bodega

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

What sits just behind the Snapple machine in the back of this bodega? (Photo: Atlas Obscura user themakebelieve)

If you've seen one bodega you've seen them all, right? There are shelves of Gatorade and Doritos and maybe a friendly cat if you're lucky. But this deli in Boston is different. Though it does function as a regular corner store, a secret door behind the Snapple machine leads to a shiny, lacquered men's clothing store, supplying the finest designer sneakers and tees in an environment that could not be more of a departure from the mundane shop it hides behind.

3. Mystery Soda Machine

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON 

(Photo: Atlas Obscura user hsstudios) 

In Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, a dingy 1970s soda machine dispenses wonder in the form of mystery soda. Insert 75¢, select a button (it used to have branded buttons like Mountain Dew and Pepsi, but those have all been replaced by MYSTERY buttons), and receive a random soda blessing from the machine. One person reported receiving more brands of soda than there were buttons. No one knows who stocks the machine or why, but there is no concerted effort to find out either. It would be a crime to strip any of the mystery away from the Mystery Soda Machine.

4. The Lonely Parking Meter

WINTERS, CALIFORNIA

The only parking meter in Winters, California. (Photo: Atlas Obscura user Bruce Ferrari)

This parking meter is actually just a parking meter, but its very existence is the whimsical thing about it. Winters is a quiet little farming town but in the past few years it has become a tourist destination for those who want to take in a country atmosphere. As such, locals have been having trouble finding parking in the business district (which, though full of free parking, is only about four blocks long). In April of 2015 a single old—yet still functioning—parking meter appeared in the downtown area. It wasn't placed by the city council, but rather by a mysterious prankster commenting on the tourist economy in Winters. It's rumored that the police don’t even have an ordinance addressing parking meters. Out-of-towners have been seen feeding the meter and then walking away grumbling, and occasionally parents will drop a dime in to show their kids how it works. The rogue parking meter generates about $100 a year, all of which is donated to the annual fireworks fund. 

5. Sunshine Laundromat

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

Sunshine Laundromat, a fully functional laundromat as well as a hidden pinball bar. (Photo: Atlas Obscura user dylan)

A clean, friendly laundromat in your neighborhood is a blessing. A laundromat with a secret bar in the back is a godsend. A laundromat with a secret bar in the back featuring some of the rarest pinball machines in the world is an absolute treasure, and that's exactly what Sunshine Laundromat is. You might be happy enough playing the few pinball machines amidst the washers and dryers, but in the very back of the narrow establishment, two of the washers are different. If you look closely through the fish-eye glass of the washer doors, you'll see a warm, brick-walled bar behind, illuminated by flashing pinball lights. 

6. REACH: New York

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

A subway rider experiments with REACH. (Photo: Atlas Obscura user lynn)

On the N/R subway platform at 34th Street Penn Station, there are green metal bars mounted a foot or two above eye level. At regular intervals along the bars are small holes, and between the holes are what look like air ducts. But the air ducts are really speakers, and the holes actually contain motion sensors. Reach a hand up in front of one of the holes, and you'll trigger a sound. You can move from sensor to sensor, playing a different sound on the instrument as you wait for your train. The installation, called REACH: New York, was built by Christopher Janney in 1995. The sounds are updated every year. In 2015, the selection included a number of traditional musical instrument sounds along with six kinds of frog sounds. The 2016 update featured marimbas and xylophones. There is only one small, usually unnoticed sign that explains it, which facilitates the joy subway riders experience as they discover the secret installation.

7. Villa Rose

GLAND, SWITZERLAND

Sweet little Villa Rose. (Photo: Paebi/CC BY-SA 3.0)

When walking along the Swiss border you might be charmed by two pastel suburban houses. Don't be fooled; Villa Rose and Villa Verte are no harmless abodes. They are military fortresses, deceptively disguised as sweet little chalets. Behind the painted-on windows is a substantial cache of weaponry, including cannons behind the garage doors. These were built during World War II, but fortunately Switzerland's history has been very peaceful ever since.

8. Flask and the Press

SHANGHAI, CHINA

The secret entrance to Flask. (Photo: Courtesy of msemmafan on Instagram)

If you live in a metropolitan area, you're awash in speakeasies, period authentic or brand new. Some of them keep the secret well, others not so much. But however many speakeasies you've patronized, a cocktail bar hidden behind a vintage Coke machine within a sandwich shop in the middle of Shanghai remains one of the few instances where that original sense of magic lingers in the air exactly as it did in the Prohibition era. Behind a sleek, minimalistic sandwich shop, The Press, there is a brooding, dark bar called Flask. By pulling the lever on the machine, visitors can peel back the layers of personality in this place and step into a whole different world. 

9. Times Square Hum

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

Times Square in 1977, when the Hum was installed. (Photo: Derzsi Elekes Andor/CC BY-SA 4.0)

There's obviously lots to look at in New York City's Times Square, so it makes sense that you would miss the mysterious hum that can only be seen, not heard. One part art installation, one part social experiment, the hum was installed by artist Max Neuhaus in 1977. Speakers beneath a subway grate on a median between 45th and 46th Streets project an unplaceable sound—sort of a machine/voice humming noise. He wanted to see if anyone would notice the change in the sonic environment. Very few did. Times Square has only gotten noisier since Neuhaus created his piece, making the secret art all the more clandestine and special once you've found it. 

(Photo: Brian Gratwicke/CC BY 2.0)

The Rabbs' fringe-limbed treefrog wasn't discovered until 2005, and only named three years later, but now the last known Rabbs' fringe-limbed treefrog is dead.

Toughie the treefrog lived in the Atlanta Botanical Garden, after being flown out of Panama with several other frogs the year they were discovered, when researchers at the time detected a threatening invasive fungus in their natural habitat. 

Toughie has lived at the botanical garden more or less since then, becoming the only known living Rabbs' fringe-limbed treefrog in the world in 2012, when the penultimate frog of the species died at the Atlanta Zoo.

But botanical garden officials announced Wednesday that Toughie, too, had died, officially ending the species. 

"Found in Panama on an expedition to save animals from a deadly disease, our dear Rabbs’ frog was estimated to be about 12 years old," the garden wrote on Facebook. "It's a sad day here at the Garden as we mourn the loss of our beloved Rabbs’ fringe-limbed tree frog."

The frogs were last seen in the wild in 2007, and have only been observed in cloud forests in central Panama, where, in part because of the fungus, they are also presumed extinct. 

From the world's best clown police post. (Courtesy Rolla Police Department)

Whether it's because it's an election year, or because hysteria's tend to take on lives of their own, clowns, this year, have been spotted everywhere, no one is really denying that we're in the midst of a clown panic.

Police in Rolla, Missouri, have heard the rumors too, prompting one officer to spend an entire day investigating the rumors. He detailed that investigation Thursday in an epic post on the Rolla Police Department's Facebook page.

It is unclear who the officer is, and Rolla police did not respond immediately to a request for comment, but it's safe to say he or she is probably one of the department's most valuable members. (Update: Rolla Police Chief Sean Fagan later identified the officer as Adam Meyer, a detective.)

The post begins with a sensible survey of the situation, and a quick tl;dr conclusion, before the officer goes deep into the evidence. 

The officer then describes some of the old-fashioned police work he or she used to come to this determination, including a non-lethal encounter with a real clown.

But wait, there's more!

Finally, the investigation concludes.

The post was published a little more than an hour ago, but has managed to rack up dozens of comments already, many thankful to the Rolla police for their hard work. 

A job well done then for the officer, who signed off in style. 

"There is one more thing I think that is worth mentioning," the officer wrote. "This whole creepy clown stuff did actually scare some people. If you think it’s a good idea to put on a clown mask there is nothing illegal about that. Keep in mind that scared people do crazy things sometimes and there the chance you may find yourself in a precarious situation. But don't worry, we will respond and investigate the assault."

This post will be updated if more information becomes available.

In 1915, the manager of the New York Philharmonic Society’s Concert Hall had a unique problem. There had been some unusual disturbances during performances, and to address this, he included a notice in the program. It was titled “Knitting During Performances”. After acknowledging the importance of helping the war in Europe, he wrote, “many complaints have been received from patrons of the concerts who are annoyed by knitting during performances, and the Directors respectfully request that this practice, which interferes with the artistic enjoyment of the music, be omitted”.

This illuminating quote is one of several that puncture a wonderful selection of knitting-related photographs in the new book People Knitting: A Century of Photographs. Complied by Barbara Levine mostly from her own collection, it is a fascinating look at people knitting from the 1860s through to the 1960s. 

There are people knitting while sitting, walking, driving, in a hair salon, and as a hobby, an occupation or a duty. All of them are compelling. Regardless of you’re a knitter or not, Levine’s photographs are a charming ode to this long and timeless tradition. Here is a selection of images of what Levine calls “the meditative act of knitting”.   

 Postcard of Dutch girls knitting published by Utig F. B. den Boer, Middelburg, Holland, 1909.

Carte de visite showing Sojourner Truth, c. 1880. She is sitting at a table with her knitting and a book. Truth commissioned formal photographs of herself and sold the prints to support her career as a traveling lecturer. 

Studio portrait of young Scottish woman with her knitting, c. 1915.

Seattle woman knitting while walking, c. 1918.

Graham’s photo postcard series, “Scotch Fisher Girls,” Blyth, England, c. 1915. During fishing season, fishing families would come from Scotland to England to catch herring. For the women, every spare moment was taken up with knitting.

 High school boys knitting for the soldiers during World War I, Cooperstown, New York, 1918.

Women’s Institute, Jerusalem, Arab women knitting in the Old City, c. 1939. 

 Prisoners knitting in one of their classrooms, Sing Sing prison, Ossining, New York, c. 1915.

Taxicab driver knitting between fares, London, c. 1940.

Girls engaged in knitting and making toy animals in the handicraft class of the St. Simon’s Youth Center of the National Youth Administration, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1941.

Knitting for the forces at the beauty salon, London, 1940.

Mrs. S. Nako and Mrs. William Hosokawa spend an afternoon knitting at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Park County, Wyoming, January 8, 1943. They were among more than ten thousand Japanese Americans who were held at this internment camp during World War II. 

Betty Grable knitting baby clothes for her soon-to-be-born child with her second husband, bandleader Harry James, 1943.

The cover for People Knitting: A Century of Photographs. (Photo: Courtesy Princeton Architectural Press)

Hranická propast, the Hranice abyss (Photo: Jiří Komárek/CC BY-SA 4.0)

Krzysztof Starnawski, a diver from Poland, found the cave in 1999. Even back then, he knew it was an unusual cave: the water made the team’s skin itch. Carved from limestone, the cave was shaped by “hot water saturated with carbon dioxide [that] bubbled up like a volcano” from the cave bottom, reports National Geographic, which funded the expedition.

The question was: where was the bottom?

Now, Starnawski and his team—with a major assist from an underwater robot—have found it, 1,325 feet deep, making this cave the deepest underwater cave in the world.

Previously, that record was held by Pozzi del Merro, an underwater sinkhole in Italy. This cave is in the eastern Czech Republic, where the country borders Poland and Slovakia.

To find the bottom of the cave, Starnawski dove down around 650 feet to a small break in the floor of the cave’s upper section. He’d previously been through, only to realize the cave went down, much, much further. This dive, he directed a ROV through the slot, from which it traveled all the way down.

Without the robot, it would not have been possible to get to the bottom of the cave; the deepest scuba dive on record went just over 1,090 feet deep.

It can't protect against underground trains. (Photo: Marianna/CC BY 2.0)

Walking across the top of the Great Wall of China is a classic tourist go-to, but soon enough, traveling under it may be just as common, once China completes its plans to construct the world’s deepest high-speed rail station beneath the world wonder.

The Guardian is reporting that China is planning to build a giant high-speed rail station 335-feet under The Great Wall to accommodate the tens of thousands of tourists that can visit the site in just a single day. The massive station is projected to take up over 387,000 square feet, or as one of the project directors is quoted as saying, “equal to five standard soccer fields.”

In order to dig out the station, without harming the Great Wall itself (or the surrounding area), builders plan on using the latest in advanced explosion technology. The station is planned to sit beneath Badaling, the most visited portion of The Great Wall.

The station is just one step in the preparations the country is making for hosting the upcoming 2022 Winter Olympics, which are taking place in Beijing. The station will be along a route that connects the city of Zhangjiakou, which will host some events, with the country's capital.

Imagine: it's 1976, and you're a busy professional living in LA. You're also single, and looking, but it isn't working. You've been on dozens of first dates, and gamely accepted every introduction that's come your way, but that spark—that someone special—keeps eluding you.

Then one day, tucked among your magazines and bills, you find a strange piece of junk mail. "No more blind dates!" it reads. Intrigued, you head to the address, a "Membership Centre" in Westwood Village, where you're greeted warmly, ushered to a seat and the lights dim.

These days, as everyone knows, you can swipe through a city's worth of potential dates while waiting in line at the bodega. But for decades, if you wanted to gaze upon a plethora of eligible singles, you had to go to a repurposed office building during open hours and watch them flicker by onscreen, spooled through Sony Betamax SLO-320s. Welcome to the age of video dating.

Betamax cassette tapes, an early example of the technology that enabled video dating. (Photo: Tomasz Sienicki/CC BY-SA 2.5)

The 1970s was not only a time of sexual freedom, but also relationship tumult. Thanks to new laws and evolving sexual mores, divorce rates were climbing. Around the same time, VHS and Betamax tapes became widely available, enabling people to record and watch themselves without needing to invest in prohibitively expensive equipment.

After spending a dinner party listening to his cousin lament how difficult it was to meet people, a young videographer named Jeffrey Ullman put two and two together. He borrowed seed money from his parents, did a bunch of research into the psychology of attraction, and created the first video dating company, which he christened Great Expectations. According to company lore, they launched on Valentine's Day, 1976.

"Single people" are a tricky demographic to pinpoint, so Ullman took a scattershot advertising approach, taking out radio ads, bombarding local reporters with press releases, and—most effectively—sending out pounds upon pounds of well-targeted junk mail. Once seduced, prospective clients would head to the Great Expectations offices, where—after they paid one-year membership dues of about $200—the real magic began.

"We didn't call them customers or single people, we called them members," says Ullman. "And we didn't call them offices, we called them Member Centres." These Centres were staffed by friendly customer service representatives, including Ullman's mother, who worked there for years. They were decorated almost exclusively with enormous photos of happy couples—eventually, ones who had actually married after meeting through Great Expectations. "They were huge, like four by six feet," says Ullman. "Candid shots."

New recruits would first fill out a "Member Profile," which asked for your hair color, height, "religious/racial dating preference," and so on. Then they would enter the "interview room," which was dressed up as a generic office set—bookshelves, plants, pleather chairs. A Great Expectations employee would come in, click on a hidden camera, and begin gently grilling you.

Ullman considered this interview, which he called the "Talk Show," the heart of the Great Expectations process. "You have to show as much as possible the essence of the person," he says. "If a picture is worth a thousand words, what do you think video with audio is worth—ten million words?"

A young Jeff Ullman, backed by early success stories. (Photo: Jeff Ullman)

Some questions were the sort usually reserved for late-night reveries: "What do you want to be when you grow up?" "What is your secret dream?" Others, by design, were a bit harsher. "I'd say to you, "You've got five kids, and you live way out in the suburbs. now I don't mean to insult you, Ethel, but how datable are you?'" recalls Ullman. "Now that's putting Ethel on the spot! But if you're John watching Ethel, that's on your mind. You open an objection and then you answer it."

After squeezing acceptable answers out of you, the employee would show you the resulting five-minute tape. Then they'd file it away, and you'd go home and wait. If all went well, within a few days, you'd start getting postcards. "Please come in for a viewing," they'd read. "You have been requested by Greg." At that point, you'd return to the Great Expectations office to read up on Greg, and, if your interest was piqued, to view his tape.

Then and only then—when each of you had vetted the other—would the company brush its hands off, inform you of each others' contact information, and step back. Depending on each party's enthusiasm and availability, this swipe-right process could take anywhere from days to weeks. (If you decided to turn someone down, they'd be informed, delicately, that you were "not available.")

To hardened Tinder users, this probably seems tame, even quaint. But at the time, video dating was considered somewhat scandalous.  Ullman spent a lot of time reassuring reporters that it was both safe and morally sound—after all, he argued, what ne'er-do-well or wannabe adulterer would willingly "put his face on a video tape for the police to see?"

Reputation management was more difficult. "It was really stigmatized at first," says Moira Weigel, author of Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating. "A lot of articles in the late '80s and early '90s would say 'It's not just for losers anymore!' So you can tell everyone definitely thought it was for losers."

But others were great fans. "Where else can you have access to so many potential companions without spending every waking hour hustling and having to go out on dates that may turn out to be nightmares?" wrote Harlan Ellison, an essayist who watched dozens of video profiles while researching a 1978 article for Los Angeles magazine. "Clients are delighted by the novelty of being able to choose someone out of a book, watch them on a TV screen, and then have a neutral party find out if they want to date them, without being rejected face-to-face," gushed a 1981 UPI article, quoting one woman who said that "looking at the tapes was like a kid going into a candy shop."

A scene from "Not So Great Expectations," an episode of the sitcom Ellen that spoofed video dating companies. (Screenshot: Youtube)

By 1985, Great Expectations had 17 franchises, and was pulling in millions of dollars. Competitors got in on the game, offering local flavor. "You definitely see the dynamic of niche-ification that happens with dating apps now. By the mid-'80s you have 'Mazel Dating for Jewish Singles,' or 'Soul Date a Mate,' which is this LA-based one for African-Americans," says Weigel. "There was even one specifically for people with herpes in D.C.."

Then, of course, came the internet—the greatest niche-ification machine of all time. Match.com, the first dating website, went online in 1995, and was quickly followed by JDate, eHarmony, and Ashley Madison. Most smaller video dating sites shuttered, unable to compete with these new offerings' efficiency and (relative) low cost. (But not before playing a pivotal role in Cameron Crowe's 1992 opus, Singles.) Ullman sold Great Expectations in 1995, too, and within a few years, its new owners had shut it down.

Our current technological climate seems like the perfect place to resuscitate video dating—after all, we're already curating our Snapchat stories 24/7. But people haven't really seemed that interested. When YouTube launched in 2005, it was originally supposed to be a dating website—until its founders discovered that people wouldn't post dating videos to it even if they paid them. Take in the vulnerability on display in videos like, say, this infamous montage, and the misgivings become more clear.

But Weigel thinks there may be room for it in the future—if not for a Vine-Tinder hybrid, then something that looks a bit more like Great Expectations. "We've seen, in the past few years, this return to matchmaking—growing numbers of people who want humans to matchmake them, because they're sort of fatigued with apps," says Weigel. "Video dating felt more like matchmaking." There was a person in the room with you, asking you questions about you as though they really cared. Even if you never got a date, at least you got to talk to them.

While visiting a Brooklyn church whose subterranean tunnels were part of the Underground Railroad, I came across an arresting painting. It was a copy of an 1860 oil painting by Eastman Johnson called The Freedom Ring, and showed a young slave girl in a red coat. That same year, the congregation at the Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims in Brooklyn Heights, led by pastor Henry Ward Beecher (and brother of activist Harriet Beecher Stowe), had raised enough money to buy her freedom.

Surprisingly, a caption noted the original painting was owned by Hallmark Cards Inc. of Kansas City, Missouri. 

Most Americans don’t realize that the massively successful greeting card company has its own museum-quality art collection, known as the Hallmark Fine Art Collection, which was specially collected over the last century to inspire its staff artists. I sure didn’t. But last year, Americans sent around seven billion greeting cards, over half of which were made by Hallmark Cards. All required original art.

Part of the vast Hallmark art collection; here two women sort entries for the 1949-50 Hallmark Art Awards program. (Photo: Courtesy of the Hallmark Archives, Hallmark Cards, Inc)

Yet fuzzy animals and Christmas trees are not all you’ll find in the company’s collection of around 3,800 works in Kansas City. Their vast collection ranges from Norman Rockwell and Salvador Dali, to the folk art of Grandma Moses, and optical illusion artworks made in the 1950s and ‘60s.

It also includes thousands of Hallmark’s own commissioned works, of everything from cats and teddy bears, to New England churches and villages covered in snow. This improbable mix of priceless modern art and snuggly card illustrations is surprisingly—and utterly—charming. 

The combination of art and carefully crafted words that saw Hallmark become America's largest manufacturer of greeting cards. (Photo: Luke Spencer)

My contact at Hallmark Cards headquarters was Ron Worley, who for many years has worked as the Outreach Supervisor. Worley tells me how over 500 artists, writers, stylists, photographers, editors and production staff work there, designing around 10,000 cards a year.

But rather than a stale, corporate atmosphere, as one might expect at such a large company, walking into Hallmark Cards is like stepping into Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory—if it were pastel-colored and located in the middle of an 85-acre complex in the middle of downtown Kansas City.

Crown Plaza, an 80 acre 'city-within-a-city' and home of Hallmark. (Photo: Luke Spencer)

Even more surprisingly, Hallmark, despite its vast size and reach, is still a family owned company, and largely the vision of a teenager who dropped out of high school.

At the turn of the last century, sending postcards was the height of fashion. An enterprising 16-year-old from Nebraska, Joyce Clyde Hall, set up his own part-time business with his two brothers, importing and selling foreign postcards. After quitting school, J.C. Hall took a train to Kansas City with two shoe boxes packed with postcards. Soon, he opened his own stationery store, called Hall Brothers.

Hallmark artists working on flower designs at the card manufacturers headquarters in Kansas City. (Photo: Courtesy of the Hallmark Archives, Hallmark Cards, Inc)

He had a novel gimmick, though: Hall felt that greeting cards, sent in sealed envelopes, could provide a far more intimate way of sending a personal message than a postcard. At that time, greeting cards were only sent for Valentine’s Day and Christmas.

In 1919, the Hall brothers created the first “everyday card,” as they called it then. It featured a line from a poem by Edgar Guest: “I’d like to be the kind of friend you’ve been to me.” The Hall Brothers’ cards proved so popular that sending “everyday” cards fast became the preferred social custom. 

Saul Steinberg, one of the New Yorker's most iconic artists, started designing Hallmark cards for Christmas, 1952. (Photo: Luke Spencer)

In addition to pioneering the idea of sending greeting cards, the Hall brothers also created another universal holiday ritual. During one Christmas, sales at the store were going so well that they ran out of the tissue paper that, until then, was how Christmas store purchases were always wrapped.

Finding an unused stack of nicely decorated French paper that was designed for lining envelopes, the Hall brothers used decorative paper to wrap their holiday items, unwittingly inventing the idea of gift wrap.

J.C.Hall's friendship with Sir Winston Churchill led to a series of cards bearing Churchill's paintings in the 1950s. (Photo: Luke Spencer)

By the 1920s, J.C. Hall replaced the Hall Brothers logo with a crown and the word ‘mark’, thinking that the name “Hallmark” would bring to mind the quality and craftsmanship of European gold and silversmiths.

But at the forefront of J.C. Hall’s rapidly growing greeting card business was a love of art. 

Sir Winston Churchill and J.C.Hall; the British prime minister, close friend, artist and Hallmark card illustrator. Photo: Courtesy of the Hallmark Archives, Hallmark Cards, Inc.)

Hall steadily began collecting contemporary art, not only to use on the front of his cards, but also to inspire the artists who worked for him. Feeling that it was crucial for his employees to enjoy and be stimulated by museum-quality art, he started collecting works by the likes of Edward Hopper and British statesman Winston Churchill, and commissioned original works by Salvador Dali and Saul Steinberg. 

In 1948, he started a lecture program, wherein notable artists would come to Kansas City to give lessons and inspire the Hallmark staff. The first lecturer was Norman Rockwell.

Card design by Norman Rockwell. J.C.Hall invited Rockwell to Kansas City to give art tutorials to his staff. (Photo: Luke Spencer)

But Hall also began hiring full-time painters and illustrators, from veteran fine artists to students fresh out of art school, from painters expert in depicting quaint New England villages to those who loved drawing cats.

Hallmark has been producing their own painted cards for nearly a hundred years. One artist has been there for over half that time. Mary Hamilton started working at Hallmark at the age of 19. Until she retired in 2015 at the age of 74, Mary Hamilton was still painting cards four days a week. Her specialities were teddy bears, angels, and animals. 

Mary Hamilton, one of Hallmark's longest serving artists. Her speciality is teddy bears, angels and animals.  (Photo: Courtesy of the Hallmark Archives, Hallmark Cards, Inc)

“They’re sweet little things”, she explains. “They convey lots of love and emotions, and I never get tired of painting them. I just love it.” Mary Hamilton has painted over 3,000 cards for Hallmark.

Another veteran Hallmark artist is Ken Shelton, who has been illustrating Hallmark cards for over 20 years. Some of his most popular cards feature his three daughters, whose growing-up years he has closely chronicled. “It’s shocking to see how fast the transition happens,” he says. “There’s this compulsion to try and stop that, and I can do that when I’m drawing.” 

A long collaboration with Charles Schultz led to one of Hallmark's most enduring and popular lines. (Photo: Luke Spencer)

But of equal importance to the eye-catching artwork on the outside of the card is the written sentiment on the inside. Molly Wigand has been a greeting card writer since 1979. For Wigand, writing in rhyme is “kind of a lost art. There’s a perception that people don’t like it, but really they do,” she says.

Today Hallmark Cards are written for just about every social occasion imaginable, from National Nurses Day (May 6th), to Clergy Appreciation Day (October 9th), from passing your driving test to cards offering congratulations for receiving a Girl Scout Gold Award.

Crown Plaza was designed to include offices, apartments, hotels, theaters and even an aquarium. (Photo: Luke Spencer)

“Sometimes it starts with a writer,” explains Worley, “who has found the right words and needs the visual to complete the message, or it might happen the other way around. Sometimes the artist goes through a life event and they capture it in their work.”

Today the company’s reach is staggering, from television channels to crayons to, of course, the cheerful cards found in over 40,000 stores around the U.S. Yet ultimately, the multi-billion-dollar company rests on the individuals in Kansas City who, in the words of greeting card writer Molly Wigand, are in “the business of helping people to be nice to each other." 

Imagine: it's 1976, and you're a busy professional living in LA. You're also single, and looking, but it isn't working. You've been on dozens of first dates, and gamely accepted every introduction that's come your way, but that spark—that someone special—keeps eluding you.

Then one day, tucked among your magazines and bills, you find a strange piece of junk mail. "No more blind dates!" it reads. Intrigued, you head to the address, a "Membership Centre" in Westwood Village, where you're greeted warmly, ushered to a seat and the lights dim.

These days, as everyone knows, you can swipe through a city's worth of potential dates while waiting in line at the bodega. But for decades, if you wanted to gaze upon a plethora of eligible singles, you had to go to a repurposed office building during open hours and watch them flicker by onscreen, spooled through Sony Betamax SLO-320s. Welcome to the age of video dating.

Betamax cassette tapes, an early example of the technology that enabled video dating. (Photo: Tomasz Sienicki/CC BY-SA 2.5)

The 1970s was not only a time of sexual freedom, but also relationship tumult. Thanks to new laws and evolving sexual mores, divorce rates were climbing. Around the same time, VHS and Betamax tapes became widely available, enabling people to record and watch themselves without needing to invest in prohibitively expensive equipment.

After spending a dinner party listening to his cousin lament how difficult it was to meet people, a young videographer named Jeffrey Ullman put two and two together. He borrowed seed money from his parents, did a bunch of research into the psychology of attraction, and created the first video dating company, which he christened Great Expectations. According to company lore, they launched on Valentine's Day, 1976.

"Single people" are a tricky demographic to pinpoint, so Ullman took a scattershot advertising approach, taking out radio ads, bombarding local reporters with press releases, and—most effectively—sending out pounds upon pounds of well-targeted junk mail. Once seduced, prospective clients would head to the Great Expectations offices, where—after they paid one-year membership dues of about $200—the real magic began.

"We didn't call them customers or single people, we called them members," says Ullman. "And we didn't call them offices, we called them Member Centres." These Centres were staffed by friendly customer service representatives, including Ullman's mother, who worked there for years. They were decorated almost exclusively with enormous photos of happy couples—eventually, ones who had actually married after meeting through Great Expectations. "They were huge, like four by six feet," says Ullman. "Candid shots."

New recruits would first fill out a "Member Profile," which asked for your hair color, height, "religious/racial dating preference," and so on. Then they would enter the "interview room," which was dressed up as a generic office set—bookshelves, plants, pleather chairs. A Great Expectations employee would come in, click on a hidden camera, and begin gently grilling you.

Ullman considered this interview, which he called the "Talk Show," the heart of the Great Expectations process. "You have to show as much as possible the essence of the person," he says. "If a picture is worth a thousand words, what do you think video with audio is worth—ten million words?"

A young Jeff Ullman, backed by early success stories. (Photo: Jeff Ullman)

Some questions were the sort usually reserved for late-night reveries: "What do you want to be when you grow up?" "What is your secret dream?" Others, by design, were a bit harsher. "I'd say to you, "You've got five kids, and you live way out in the suburbs. now I don't mean to insult you, Ethel, but how datable are you?'" recalls Ullman. "Now that's putting Ethel on the spot! But if you're John watching Ethel, that's on your mind. You open an objection and then you answer it."

After squeezing acceptable answers out of you, the employee would show you the resulting five-minute tape. Then they'd file it away, and you'd go home and wait. If all went well, within a few days, you'd start getting postcards. "Please come in for a viewing," they'd read. "You have been requested by Greg." At that point, you'd return to the Great Expectations office to read up on Greg, and, if your interest was piqued, to view his tape.

Then and only then—when each of you had vetted the other—would the company brush its hands off, inform you of each others' contact information, and step back. Depending on each party's enthusiasm and availability, this swipe-right process could take anywhere from days to weeks. (If you decided to turn someone down, they'd be informed, delicately, that you were "not available.")

To hardened Tinder users, this probably seems tame, even quaint. But at the time, video dating was considered somewhat scandalous.  Ullman spent a lot of time reassuring reporters that it was both safe and morally sound—after all, he argued, what ne'er-do-well or wannabe adulterer would willingly "put his face on a video tape for the police to see?"

Reputation management was more difficult. "It was really stigmatized at first," says Moira Weigel, author of Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating. "A lot of articles in the late '80s and early '90s would say 'It's not just for losers anymore!' So you can tell everyone definitely thought it was for losers."

But others were great fans. "Where else can you have access to so many potential companions without spending every waking hour hustling and having to go out on dates that may turn out to be nightmares?" wrote Harlan Ellison, an essayist who watched dozens of video profiles while researching a 1978 article for Los Angeles magazine. "Clients are delighted by the novelty of being able to choose someone out of a book, watch them on a TV screen, and then have a neutral party find out if they want to date them, without being rejected face-to-face," gushed a 1981 UPI article, quoting one woman who said that "looking at the tapes was like a kid going into a candy shop."

A scene from "Not So Great Expectations," an episode of the sitcom Ellen that spoofed video dating companies. (Screenshot: Youtube)

By 1985, Great Expectations had 17 franchises, and was pulling in millions of dollars. Competitors got in on the game, offering local flavor. "You definitely see the dynamic of niche-ification that happens with dating apps now. By the mid-'80s you have 'Mazel Dating for Jewish Singles,' or 'Soul Date a Mate,' which is this LA-based one for African-Americans," says Weigel. "There was even one specifically for people with herpes in D.C.."

Then, of course, came the internet—the greatest niche-ification machine of all time. Match.com, the first dating website, went online in 1995, and was quickly followed by JDate, eHarmony, and Ashley Madison. Most smaller video dating sites shuttered, unable to compete with these new offerings' efficiency and (relative) low cost. (But not before playing a pivotal role in Cameron Crowe's 1992 opus, Singles.) Ullman sold Great Expectations in 1995, too, and within a few years, its new owners had shut it down.

Our current technological climate seems like the perfect place to resuscitate video dating—after all, we're already curating our Snapchat stories 24/7. But people haven't really seemed that interested. When YouTube launched in 2005, it was originally supposed to be a dating website—until its founders discovered that people wouldn't post dating videos to it even if they paid them. Take in the vulnerability on display in videos like, say, this infamous montage, and the misgivings become more clear.

But Weigel thinks there may be room for it in the future—if not for a Vine-Tinder hybrid, then something that looks a bit more like Great Expectations. "We've seen, in the past few years, this return to matchmaking—growing numbers of people who want humans to matchmake them, because they're sort of fatigued with apps," says Weigel. "Video dating felt more like matchmaking." There was a person in the room with you, asking you questions about you as though they really cared. Even if you never got a date, at least you got to talk to them.