Quantcast
Channel: Atlas Obscura: Articles
Viewing all 11432 articles
Browse latest View live

Why Northern Long-Eared Bats Love Nantucket

0
0
article-image

Like many of her neighbors, Danielle O'Dell of Nantucket, Massachusetts, has some strong opinions about local architecture. As more and more people discover the island, old houses keep coming down to make room for the new. O'Dell has watched dozens of homey little cottages, their shingles gray with age, get replaced by fresh-built summer mansions, and she doesn't necessarily like it.

Unlike many of her neighbors, though, O'Dell's concerns aren't driven by aesthetics, or an attachment to history. As a biologist with the Nantucket Conservation Foundation, she spotlights one thing about the old-style houses: with their eaves, attics, nooks and crannies, they make better homes for bats. Northern long-eareds, the species she's been tracking, prefer drafty crawlspaces to airtight finished basements. "Everything's brand-spanking new here now," O'Dell says. "I worry a little bit."

There's a reason the bats haven't been invited to recent zoning meetings: they're brand-spanking new, too. Until a couple of years ago, no one knew they were there—Nantucket, an island small enough that it once scrupulously regulated shingle colors, had somehow missed them. What's more, they seem to be thriving, a contrast with the mainland that intrigues local biologists. "We live in this tiny little place, and we think we know everything that's going on," says O'Dell. "And here we found a new species of mammal. It's crazy."

article-image

Nantucket has plenty of seasonal inhabitants: vacationers whose summer homes stand empty in the winter, and tourists who take the ferry over for a week or two. For years, biologists assumed any bats people saw on Nantucket were the same way—that they stopped over in the fall, en route to hibernating grounds farther south, and then again in the spring on their way back. "We don't have that many in the collections," says Emily Goldstein Murphy, the director of science at the Maria Mitchell Association. She adds that historically, the island's naturalists have been more interested in birds and insects. "No one was really looking for bats."

That changed in the summer of 2015, when the researcher Zara Dowling, who was monitoring bat populations on nearby Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard, decided to check Nantucket, too. "I thought, 'What the heck, it's worth a try,'" Dowling says. She set up some acoustic detectors, which picked up a near-continuous chorus of high and low-pitched calls—evidence of a variety of species. "It was a total shot in the dark," she says, and the denizens of the dark shot back.

Once they were on the scientists' radar, bats started showing up all over the place. Because it can be hard to identify bat types by sound alone, in the summer of 2016, O'Dell and her fellow researchers went out to see the newcomers for themselves. "We set up a net, and within 90 minutes we had caught 10 northern long-eared bats," she says.

article-image

Over the last year, the researchers have engaged in further detective work, tracking individual bats with radio transmitters. They've concluded that although some of the bat species may just be passing through, the northern long-eareds, at least, aren't tourists: they spend the whole year on Nantucket, where they hibernate, mate, and raise their pups.

What's more, they seem to be enjoying the island's many comforts: although they're generally considered to be forest-dwelling bats, their squeaks have been detected near the ocean, over the island's famed sandplain grasslands, and even on the golf course driving range. "It's like, 'What are you doing there?'" says O'Dell. "We're getting them everywhere."

It's hard to blame them for having some fun. On much of the rest of the East Coast, northern long-eared bats have been hit hard by white nose syndrome, an itchy fungal disease that rouses bats early from hibernation and forces them to scratch themselves instead of sleeping, essentially exhausting them to death.

article-image

White nose thrives in cold, crowded environments: if one infected bat brings it into a cave, it can knock out up to 90 percent of the colony hanging inside. There are no bat caves on Nantucket, though, and so far, no sign of killer fungus, either. "We're really hopeful that we don't have it," says O'Dell. "Maybe the population here could be a refugium"—a place where the bats can hold on, despite dire circumstances elsewhere.

It's a cautious kind of hope. Martha's Vineyard—another of Cape Cod's islands, 38 miles from Nantucket as the bat flies—has been seriously tracking their own population of northern long-eareds since 2012. They too have seen pups, and evidence of full-time residency. They too have felt optimistic about their bats' cave-free lifestyle. And then, earlier this year, they found one of their tagged bats dead on the ground, hidden underneath some leaf litter. When they sent it out for a postmortem, it tested positive for the fungus that causes white nose syndrome.

The diagnosis "suggests that Martha’s Vineyard is not the safe haven for bats that researchers had suspected it was," the Vineyard Gazette wrote at the time. As those researchers are quick to point out, though, one bat does not an epidemic make. "There are still a lot of unanswered questions," says Liz Baldwin of BiodiversityWorks, Martha's Vineyard's chief conservation organization. "We don't actually know where the bat came from." Did it fly over from Cape Cod and spend its last days on the island? Did it have white nose, but die of something different?

article-image

"These are all just theories," says Baldwin. Still, it's true that the case doesn't mesh with the standard mainland trajectory, in which one case of white nose means an instant plague. Plus, certain aspects of island life do seem promising for vulnerable bats. For one thing, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard have slightly shorter winters than the mainland, which could spell briefer hibernations, leaving less time for the fungus to wreak havoc.

For another, small-group living might mean that even if some individuals do get white nose, they won't spread it to their brethren quite so quickly. "Maybe we lose a few each year, but we're not losing our entire population," says Baldwin.

Then there are those creaky old New England houses—the ones that are left, at least. O'Dell and her team are still trying to figure out exactly where Nantucket's bats are hibernating, but when they managed to follow one group home, it brought them right to a crawlspace.

article-image

Last but not least, the bats have a welcoming committee. They're a bit hard to keep up with—they tend to chew or groom off their own transmitters—so O'Dell has been talking up their presence aggressively, recruiting locals and visitors alike to call in signs and sightings.

"People are fascinated," she says, especially once they learn that the island's small colonies may be escaping disease. A few weeks after she manned a bat-themed table at the island's annual science festival, one young enthusiast—who happens to live in an old house—recognized the fluttering shapes he had been seeing in the evening sky.

"'He saw bats flying from under their shingles and said, 'Mom, you have to call the bat lady,'" says O'Dell. So she did. After all, it's not every day you meet a new neighbor.


Chasing Totality: A Look Into the World of Umbraphiles

0
0
article-image

Bill Kramer was a boy in 1970 when he raced outside to witness a partial solar eclipse. The act itself wasn’t out of character for a kid who was already an astronomy buff, aside from the fact he was gearing up for a swim meet and wearing only his Speedo.

But that was only the beginning of his obsession with a darkened sun. Kramer is an eclipse chaser—also known as an “umbraphile” for the Latin word “umbra” meaning “shadow.”

“I’ve seen 15 total solar eclipses and it’s easier to say I have not gone to the Antarctic and I have not been in South America, although I’ve been close,” says Kramer, in lieu of ticking off the numerous locales he has visited in pursuit of eclipses. Kramer is a freelance computer programmer who runs Eclipse-Chasers.com and organizes viewing expeditions.

article-image

Solar eclipses occur when the moon passes between the Earth and the Sun. During most solar eclipses, only part of the sun is obscured. Total solar eclipses, during which the sun is completely obscured and “totality” occurs, happen around every 18 months. And unless you live in their “path”—a thin band of around 100 miles (give or take) circling the Earth, you won’t witness totality. So eclipse chasers go to the eclipse.

As the Earth, Sun, and Moon move across the sky, so does the path. In 2009 it traipsed across Asia. In 2012, Australia. In 2017, it will slice across the United States, from Oregon to the Carolinas. But often the best place to see the path isn’t a vacation hotspot. In 2015 crowds amassed to witness totality on the remote Faroe Islands, halfway between Iceland and Norway. And sometimes the most desirable viewing spots aren’t even on land but in the ocean. For those times, chasers can partake of the niche travel industry that has sprung up around the craze and buy passage on an eclipse cruise.

But how do you know when an eclipse is going to happen? That’s the easy part, thanks to the internet and computers that crunch out calculations. Many sites, including one run by NASA, provide dates and maps. It’s figuring out where to go once you’ve got the information that presents a challenge—eclipse chasers take into account many factors, from weather to politics, when it comes to picking the ideal place.

article-image

“Chasing? Nah, nah, nah,” says Kramer. “We tend to do a heck of a lot of homework and figure out exactly where we want to be.”

Homework alone could be enough to turn anyone off from eclipse chasing. Throw in time and money and the uninitiated may wonder: Why?

It’s a question that Kate Russo, a clinical psychologist and author of three books about the psychology of eclipse chasers, has asked herself a lot. Russo witnessed her first total eclipse in 1999 in France.

She didn’t expect to feel the rush of adrenaline that coursed through her body or to break into tears or feel overwhelmingly connected to something bigger than herself.

“At the end of it, I just couldn’t make sense of it,” says Russo, who lives in Ireland. “I knew that I needed to see it again.”

Since then she has witnessed nine solar eclipses over 15 years. A self described “eclipse nerd,” she has traveled in all-terrain vehicles across Outer Mongolia and on a cruise ship 800 miles off the coast of the Galápagos Islands to reach totality. She also often works with local communities to help them prepare for eclipses, including planning for crowds.

“I love looking at eclipse maps,” says Russo. “Because I just look at possibility and adventure and my eyes light up and I think, ‘Wow, the world is out there and it’s just amazing.’”

article-image

Here is what you might see if you get totality and clear skies: As the Moon, Earth, and Sun align, a shadow pours over the Earth and the Moon gradually devours the Sun, which sends out flares of bright light around the black orb. Twisted filaments spill out in every direction as the Sun’s corona is revealed. The temperature drops, the wind slows, and darkness falls.

“There’s a whole roller coaster of emotions that happen and these emotions are really quite intense,” says Russo. “Awe is at the central part of the eclipse experience, but there’s something I’ve termed ‘primal fear,’ this eerie feeling in the environment. The primitive parts of our bodies are picking up that things aren’t quite right in the natural order of the world.”

Kramer also describes the experience grandly.

“The total solar eclipse,” he says, “it’s like the eye of God is staring down on you from the sky.”

article-image

Eclipses trigger a range of physical responses in viewers, according to Russo, including weeping, crying out, goosebumps and chills. It can be literally hair-raising.

It’s hard to pinpoint how large the eclipse-chasing crowd is. Eclipses are witnessed by many people, particularly if they are visible from an easily accessed area. The 2009 total eclipse visible from the southeast coast of Asia is estimated to have been seen by millions. But when it comes to the hardcore chasers who travel to multiple eclipses, Russo estimates that number is anywhere from 200 to 500. For her book, Total Addiction: The Life of an Eclipse Chaser, Russo conducted a survey to which 80 chasers responded, and 67 completed. The survey was a means to find interviewees, writes Russo, and a “brief snapshot” that is not necessarily representative of the whole. But she does include data for “those who enjoy reading statistics.”

The average age of the responders was 46, the majority (39 percent) hailed from the United States, and 92 percent were male. The number of total eclipses seen ranged from 0 to 29; the average was 7.

A common uniting factor in serious eclipse chasers is a stronger desire for experiences than material possessions, says Russo.

article-image

Over the years, Kramer has become familiar with many flavors of eclipse experiences.

Ravers congregate to party under the spectacle. Photographers live to snap the most dramatic picture. Some reverent viewers prefer to watch far from the crowds. Casual observers pop a tallboy and wait for the show. There’s the dude who stinks because he used scant packing space for extra binoculars instead of an extra T-shirt. One thing that an eclipse always offers is commonality, an experience that can be shared concurrently and through time.

When Kramer looked on in astonishment at his first total eclipse, he wondered what the ancients must have made out of someone turning out the celestial lights.

“If you weren’t already religious you might easily be swayed,” he says. “When you got home and the wife is sitting there asking if you’ve been reading the Good Book lately: Nah, give it to me, man, I just saw the sun go freaking out in the middle of a cloudless day.”

This story originally ran June 29, 2015, and has been updated.

An Oregon Couple Has Built the Perfect House for Observing the Total Eclipse

0
0
article-image

Jon Brewster has always been interested in how things work. He’s an engineer by training, and he refurbishes steam locomotives. “For astronomy, it’s the universe itself,” he says. “It’s just fascinatingly complex and interesting.” He was given his first telescope when he was eight years old, a dime-store model that he could use to look at the Moon and the rings around Saturn. He still has it, but, he says, “over the years, we’ve upgraded.”

That’s putting it modestly. Brewster and his wife Susan chose the site of their house, on a hilltop in Oregon, to fulfill their vision of building their own permanent observatory. Today, with their suite of telescopes, observatory dome, specialized cameras, and custom software, they are perfectly positioned for 2017’s total solar eclipse. Their observatory-home is right in the path of totality.

The Brewsters, married 40 years, met in high school and complement each other well. When they go out stargazing together, Susan is more likely to lean back in a chair and look through binoculars. She knows the lore and the stories that go with the constellations, the mythology of stars. Jon, on the other hand, likes to nerd out about the digital gear. When Halley’s Comet passed close to Earth in 1986, they bought an eight-inch Celestron scope, and Jon figured out how to control it with a computer. That was not an easy task back then, and it got him a job in Hawaii at the Mauna Loa Observatory. After their time there, they began to get more serious about digital imaging of the universe, and in the mid-1990s started imagining a permanent set-up, in a place with dark sky and good elevation—and ideally positioned for the eclipse.

article-image

“We knew the eclipse was coming. We spent years looking for the right spot,” Brewster says. Half an hour outside of Corvallis, Oregon, where he works at HP, can feel like it’s far away from everything, but it was still a challenge to find the right site, with good dark sky and a view of the horizon, with the Milky Way stretching down to the edge. They would drive around at night, and even meet with realtors in the dark. But the right site, a clear-cut hilltop that belonged to a logging company, they encountered for the first time in the day. They came back at night and thought, "This could work." It wasn’t for sale, but they tracked down the owner and made an offer. It took years of work—putting in a well and a driveway, replanting the clear-cut land, designing the house—before they moved in, in 2001.

There are other serious astrophotographers around, perhaps 20 or 30 in Oregon, Brewster estimates. Most of them like to be on the move, though. “I don’t know of too many people, and still with their day jobs, having a full observatory as part of their home set-up,” he says. Part of the fun of the permanent observatory for him has been automating his equipment, which means, for instance, that he can get a shot that he wants, even while sleeping or when they are not home. One time, when he was trying to shoot the Orion Nebula, winter clouds kept thwarting him. Finally, there was going to be a clear night, which happened to be on the date of a full moon. Normally that would make the task impossible because the bright moonlight would wash the sky out. But that was also the night of a lunar eclipse. When the shadow of the Earth blocked the light of the Moon, the observatory scope was pointed at the nebula and cameras captured the image. Brewster was fast asleep.

article-image

The Brewsters often host star parties, with guests from nearby Oregon State University, slideshows of the pictures they’ve taken of the distant universe, and a chance to do some observing. They are, naturally, planning a party for the August 21 total solar eclipse, and Jon already knows what shots he wants to go after. The main dome will photograph the corona; another set-up, with a drone stationed higher up, will capture the moon’s shadow flying towards them. He’ll capture flares, shadow bands, atmospheric effects. All of this will be set up in advance of the event. During the actual eclipse, he’ll be down in the observing field, enjoying the experience.

Afterwards, the Brewsters will go back to their regular astronomical routine. There’s plenty to see in the sky, even on an average night. “We’ve got galaxy clusters to bag,” Brewster says. “I’ve seen a fraction of the way across the universe, but I can see half? Can I see three-quarters? We haven’t really pushed it.”

Scientists Have Unlocked the Magic in 'Magic Mushrooms'

0
0
article-image

Prepare your minds and souls to witness the self-transforming machine elves hiding past the material veil because scientists have finally unlocked the key to creating artificial psilocybin, the active ingredient in “magic mushrooms.”

According to Science Alert, German researchers at Friedrich Schiller University Jena have finally identified the four enzymes that create the psilocybin compound responsible for so many psychedelic breakthroughs. Scientists have known about the existence and effects of psilocybin since the late 1950s, but only now have they concretely figured out how it is created.

Now that the chemistry behind psilocybin is better understood, the hope is that it can be produced in safe, replicable, industrial amounts, just like other drugs. The psychoactive agent has a number of uses beyond opening one’s third eye, including treatment of depression and addiction. But testing of psilocybin has so far proved difficult both because the amount and quality varies in natural samples; it's also, in many places, a controlled substance.

All of which means we’re probably a long way from over-the-counter recreational psychedelics, but now, at least, the benefits of mushrooms can be more easily studied outside of college dorms.

'Total Eclipse of the Heart' Was Almost a Meat Loaf Song

0
0
article-image

When Bonnie Tyler’s husky, powerful "Total Eclipse of the Heart" hit the radio in 1983, rock ballad fans around the world fell in love. In the U.S., the song peaked at number one on the Billboard’s Hot 100 list. To anyone not privy to the details, the song seems like a fairly straightforward musical success. But for one musician, the history of the tune, which was written by composer Jim Steinman, is as torn as the dark love ballad’s lyrics. Meat Loaf is the one who was supposed to have sung that song.

Many pop singers and high-profile musicians rarely write the material they perform; instead, they partner with professional songwriters and composers, who select or write songs for particular musicians. Meat Loaf had long worked with songwriter Jim Steinman, especially on his hit 1977 album Bat Out of Hell. Meat Loaf’s next planned album, the never-made Renegade Angel was poised for recording, and was supposed to include the track "Total Eclipse of the Heart."

But Bat Out of Hell was, it turns out, a hard album to follow. Amid mysterious and abrupt problems with his voice and a psychologically damaging aversion to fame, Meat Loaf’s success and partnership with Steinman began to slowly unravel, forever changing the sound and trajectory of the ballad "Total Eclipse of the Heart." Meat Loaf was living in a powder keg, if you will, and giving off sparks. But not the sort that bring rushing crashes of musical greatness.

article-image

According to a Q Magazinearticle in 1993, now available in text form on Jim Steinman’s website, Meat Loaf and Steinman’s joint record company and management team distrusted Meat Loaf’s mental stability in the early ‘80s, and initially pushed Steinman to leave the duo in hopes of writing a new hit. "He had a mental block on the new songs," Steinman said of Meat Loaf at the time, adding that management wouldn’t let Meat Loaf rest his voice. Meat Loaf suffered from severe stress and anger and emotional issues; he then lost his operatic voice, prompting Steinman to leave the team. Meat Loaf accused his former managers of misjudging him during a particularly difficult time, which he got through emotionally by coaching little league softball games for his daughters

“The record company said I shouldn't have anything to do with Jim, that nobody wanted to hear his songs. These morons—and I'm gonna sit here and call 'em morons—passed on "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" and "Making Love Out Of Nothing At All," which reached number one and two on the American charts during the same week. "They couldn't care less about me,” Meat Loaf told Q Magazine. Sadly for Meat Loaf, at the same time, the trend-busting success of his hallmark album came at a steep cost. According to an interview with Meat Loaf in The Guardian, 45 lawsuits allegedly amounting to $80 million were starting to be propagated by Steinman's ex-manager for undisclosed various reasons, which haunted Meat Loaf into bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, Bonnie Tyler had made her name with her album The World Starts Tonight, and hit in the top three in the U.S. Billboard charts and near the top of pop music charts in Australia and the U.K. with the song "It’s a Heartache". But Tyler wasn’t feeling the country-rock influenced vibe that her producers and team, who wrote her music, had set before her, and longed for a more epic sound. After hearing Bat Out Of Hell, Tyler approached Jim Steinman to be her new producer.

article-image

Tyler met with Steinman in his New York City apartment in 1982, where Steinman showed her two tracks to gauge whether they were on the same page, musically: Creedence Clearwater Revival’s "Have You Ever Seen the Rain?" and Blue Oyster Cult’s "Goin’ Through the Motions." Tyler liked the music, which cemented her partnership with Steinman. In a Peopleinterview in November 1983, Steinman claimed that he wrote (or perhaps re-worked) the song “to be a showpiece for her voice,” calling the ballad “a Wagnerian-like onslaught of sound and emotion.” The track landed on Faster Than the Speed of Night, released in 1983 as Tyler’s fifth album.

By the time Meat Loaf had regained his voice and was ready to record again, his label was no longer willing to pay for production-heavy, expensive tracks and writers. That included the songs he had still wanted to record with Steinman: "Making Love (Out of Nothing at All)," which instead went to the band Air Supply and hit number two on the U.S. Billboard charts, and "Total Eclipse of the Heart." Meat Loaf, under contractual obligation, went ahead with his next record, Midnight at the Lost and Found, a collection of songs written by various songwriters, which Meat Loaf later came to regret. (Steinman meanwhile released songs that he initially thought up for Meat Loaf on his own solo album, Bad for Good.)

article-image

The repercussions of all this likely hit Meat Loaf pretty hard. While Bonnie Tyler’s album sold nearly 6 million copies, Meat Loaf's album only sold roughly 700,000, with none of the tracks hitting the U.S. top 100 music charts, though with some mixed international success in some regions, including the U.K., Australia and Norway. Meat Loaf continued to be embroiled in a series of lawsuits with Steinman and his producers, continuing in 2014 with a $50 million lawsuit for trademark rights to Bat Out of Hell. According to Meat Loaf, Bat Out of Hell royalties didn’t surface for him until 20 years after its release. Apparently, there was no ill-will between Meat Loaf and Bonnie Tyler, who put out their own compilation album Heaven and Hell in 1989; this included some tracks from Bat Out of Hell and Tyler’s rendition of "Total Eclipse of the Heart," and the pair occasionally performed together in Europe.

The song, ever popular, has resurfaced from time to time. Steinman re-used the song in his 1997 Broadway remake of Roman Polanski’s 1967 film Dance of the Vampires. He also revealed to Playbill in 2002 another quirk about the song: it was initially meant to be about vampires. “Its original title was 'Vampires in Love',” said Steinman. “If anyone listens to the lyrics, they're really like vampire lines.” Bonnie Tyler also re-released a version of the song in 2003 with French singer Kareen Antonn, and another in 2014 with an all-male choir. The song’s music video, which featured prep school boys with glowing eyes, gymnasts, dancing men in leather jackets, and lots of floating fabric, also spawned a Literal Video spoof in the early 2000s that highlights the super weirdness of the visuals.

article-image

Despite the whirl of drama surrounding "Total Eclipse of the Heart" for Meat Loaf, the song boosted Bonnie Tyler’s career, and remains a favorite decades later—so much so that Tyler has just announced she will perform it during the total solar eclipse on August 21, 2017. (While many fans of the song might like to see both Tyler and Meat Loaf perform as the moon moves past the sun, Meat Loaf is not involved.) According to a U.K. Survey in 2016, the song is still a top guilty pleasure for people who like to belt out with abandon when showering or home alone.

article-image

“I just cried at the intense emotion of it and was so happy to have that song,” Bonnie Tyler wrote for The Guardian in 2009. “Now when I go on stage and sing Total Eclipse, everybody sings with me.”

On This Chilean Island, the Whole Community Helps Move Your House

0
0
article-image

Moving house can be a real pain. But shuttling some boxes, a couch, and other detritus from point A to point B is small potatoes compared to the ordeal of moving house for the islanders of Chiloé, who physically move their homes from place to place—sometimes over water.

Floating off the coast of southern Chile, the misty archipelago of Chiloé is a pastoral, sheep-dotted, and drizzly, the austral equivalent to Ireland. Verdant forests fringe on undulating fields that roll down to the sea, where palafito stilt houses perch over tidal bays. The ocean provides a constant flow of fresh catches, with the promise of sighting whales, dolphins, and penguins (which are not on the menu). The snowy tips of volcanoes on the mainland pierce the skyline.

Meaning “seagull place” in the indigenous Quechua language, Chiloé is isolated from the mainland, with no connecting bridges. The only way on or off is by boat or small airplane. This separation has birthed a distinct way of life that distinguishes Chilotes—as the archipelago's inhabitants are known—from their onshore brethren. Ask any Chilote, and they will say that they are Chilote first, Chilean second. They are a close-knit island community of farmers, fishermen, and sheep herders. An unsinkable sense of heritage keeps them anchored to their wind- and water-battered islands.

article-image

Every once in a while, due to non-arable farmland, the threat of tsunami, the danger of erosion, or the rising tides, Chilotes need to move house. And when they do, their house comes with them. It’s a real show, and it’s known as a minga.

Translating to “a meeting of neighbors and friends to do some free work for the community,” a Chilote minga can refer to a range of communal events, such as a gathering for harvest, but is most famous as a house-moving ceremony. These actions are done without payment, but with the expectation of reciprocity in the future should it be needed.

“The minga is a collective work where a community comes together to help each other, and the concepts of solidarity and brotherhood are the pillars of this action,” says Maria Teolinda Higueras, head of the Quemchi Public Library in Chiloé. “What matters is that the neighbor achieves his objective, and that payment is not necessary.”

The custom of mingas started before the Spanish arrived in Chiloé in the 1500s, and is believed to have been brought to the islands by the Huilliche tribe, who learned the practice of communal work without pay from the Incas. The minga was then adopted and used by the Spaniards.

Higueras says modern mingas originated in the 1950s, with the creation of roads on the island.

article-image

“Before that time, all the work of the inhabitants of the archipelago of Chile was done by sea, since there were no roads between the villages, therefore all the communities were located by the edge of the ocean. When the roads began to be built in the late 1950s, Chilotes started moving their houses to places where it would be easier to connect them to the roads ... thus was created the collective work of the house-moving mingas.”

The need for farmers to gain better access to roads also opened up the possibility of relocating to more fertile ground. For low-income families surviving on the slim and volatile profits of farming or fishing, leaving behind a perfectly good house only to have to invest the time and money in building a new one elsewhere is not the most feasible option. Besides, with a whole community at their disposal to help with the move, who needs to pay general contractor fees?

For many Chilotes, the tradition is also rooted in their spiritual beliefs. Although Chiloé’s main religion is Catholic, the islands are also rich in pre-Christian pagan mythology, involving apparitions such as El Caleuche, a local ghost ship staffed by drowned fishermen. It is also believed that the “collective Chilote spirit” resides within the home, so leaving one’s home for a new one would be to abandon a vital part of their cultural identity. Many Chilotes still believe in the myths, which is why sometimes a minga’s purpose is to move a house away from haunted land.

The preparations for the minga take several days, with the family first going to their town to ask for assistance and establishing an official date for the move. The house is then prepped for departure, with furniture, windows, and doors either removed or secured in place. Sometimes, the building is reinforced with struts so it doesn’t suffer structural damage en route.

The big day arrives. After the house is blessed for the journey, it is removed from its wooden foundations and hoisted onto tree-trunk rollers. A team of oxen or bulls is hooked up, and the helpers (usually men) drive the oxen forward, with the “minga engineer” overseeing the procession. Men outside the house help direct the oxen and adjust the rollers, while men inside the house spur the oxen forward with sticks and shouts. The minga route is usually lined with other villagers and onlookers cheering them on.

article-image

Moving a house overland is laborious enough, but water-crossing mingas take things up a notch.

Having been pulled to the beach, the house is deposited below the waterline at low tide to wait for the tide to come in, and buoys are attached to the underside of the structure. As Chilote houses are single-story and wooden, they are generally light enough to be towed across channels without completely submerging. Some houses can also be placed on a small raft to help them float.

Once the tide is in and the house is surrounded by water, it’s hooked up to one or more boats, and is pulled at a steady speed through the water to its destination. The house is then floated as close to shore as possible at low tide, refitted to a new team of oxen, and is pulled back onto the wooden rollers to finish the journey.

It can take several days, but when the minga is finally completed and the house safely returned to dry ground, the community celebrates. Curanto, a clambake-style meal of seafood, meat, and potatoes, is prepared by the family for the workers and community. With music and drink, everyone dances and parties as the house is, once again, blessed.

article-image

“Moving the house is a sensation of joy, of happiness, because we achieve the goal with the whole community,” says Higueras.

Because of their rarity and spectacle, mingas nowadays are a big attraction, drawing tourists and other locals to watch the procession and take part in the afterparty. Some, like Higueras, believe this is a slippery slope.

“The threat is that mingas will become arranged for the expectation of the tourists, without a larger objective than that ... mingas should not be an instrument to develop tourism,” she says. “It is a reason to attract tourists to the area and while we do not oppose that, it would be a real shame to have mingas without having the need for their original purpose.”

article-image

With plans to finally construct a bridge connecting the island to the mainland, tourism becoming a greater economic force and incentive, and climate change a looming threat to coastal communities, change is in the winds in Chiloé.

But based on Chilotes’ proven adaptability, molding centuries-old traditions to suit modern necessities, whatever comes will be handled hand-in-hand with neighbors and communities. When houses float, anything’s possible.

Found: A Puma Under the Desk

0
0

In Serra, outside of São Paulo, Brazil, some employees at a factory showed up to work on Monday and found a large puma lying down underneath a desk, according to Agence France-Presse. In a video, the puma was startled enough to growl a bit and show its teeth, but not enough, apparently, to get up and do anything about it.

"Good afternoon, followers," some local firefighters who were called to the scene announced in a Facebook post, before going on to explain that they suspected the puma had been displaced from its natural habitat by "constant" wildfires.

They also included a nice photo:

The puma was taken to an animal rescue organization, according to AFP. Everyone, in the end, was fine, but that doesn't make it any less startling to the workers, who will certainly be looking under their desks when they arrive at work for the foreseeable future.

Giving Trees Probiotics Can Help Clean Up Superfund Sites

0
0
article-image

Trichlorethylene is an industrial solvent once used to degrease metal parts, clean rocket engines, and remove paint (it was even used as an anesthetic) that is now known to be carcinogenic and a cause of developmental and nervous system problems. The chemical doesn't occur naturally, but is found in soil and water in areas contaminated by industrial waste. Cleanup efforts often require laboriously excavating contaminated soil or using expensive groundwater treatment processes.

Scientists have now developed a new approach for getting trichloroethylene out of soil. A particular strain of bacteria acts as a sort of probiotic for poplar trees, and helps them absorb the chemical from the soil to break it down into less harmful compounds. Using plants to clean up toxic waste is known as phytoremediation, and while it's a relatively inexpensive method, the plants involved are at risk of stunted growth, or may die in the process. But in field tests in California, the trees given the probiotic not only grew better than control trees, they also pulled more trichloroethylene out of the soil.

The bacteria is a naturally occurring strain that scientists found in the Midwest. Researchers combed through wood samples from a grove of poplars growing at a site contaminated with trichloroethylene, and eventually isolated the helpful microbe. “The poplar at the older site in the Midwest selected for the best microbes to help it do its job,” said Sharon Doty, a professor at University of Washington and lead author of the study, in a press release. “We took advantage of that natural selection process. We just had to find the best ones that the plant already chose.”


How Edmond Halley Kicked Off the Golden Age of Eclipse Mapping

0
0

In 1715, Edmond Halley published a map predicting the time and path of a coming solar eclipse. Today the astronomer is most famous for understanding the behavior of the comet now named for him, but in his lifetime he was a hotshot academic, elected to the Royal Society at age 22 and appointed the second Astronomer Royal in 1720. He was fascinated with the movements of celestial bodies, and he wanted to show the public that the coming event was not a portent of doom, but a natural wonder.

When the Moon’s shadow passed over England, Halley wrote, if people understood what was happening, “They will see that there is nothing in it more than Natural, and nomore than the necessary result of the Motions of the Sun and Moon.”

The map he created shows England with a broad, gray band across it, with a darker patch within that shows how the moon’s shadow would pass over the land. It was simple and clear—a piece of popular media as much as a scientific document. His work heralded what Geoff Armitage, a curator at the British Map Library, calls “the golden age of the eclipse map.”

“True eclipse maps, in the sense of geographical maps showing the track of eclipses, are a phenomenon of the eighteenth century onwards,” Armitage writes in his book The Shadow of the Moon.

article-image

Astronomers have studied the patterns of solar eclipses going back millennia and had some success in predicting their arrival. But as 18th-century astronomers sharpened their understanding of the solar system and the motion of the Earth, Moon, and planets, they were able to predict the paths of solar eclipses with unprecedented accuracy. With his original 1715 map, Halley included a plea for observational data—“A Re-quest to the Curious to observe what they could about it, but more especially to note the Time of Continuance of total Darkness.”

His original predictions, it turned out, were off, but only by a bit. After collecting data from his citizen scientists, Halley updated his original map. He had predicted the time of the eclipse to within 4 minutes, but had the track of it off by about 20 miles—surely a disappointment for anyone in that band of uncertainty. But the work remains a remarkable achievement, and he was confident enough in his calculations that the second version of the map included a prediction of a future eclipse, in 1724, as well.

article-image

Part of the reason that 18th-century scientists produced groundbreaking eclipse maps is that there were so many eclipses in this time period—two annular and five total solar eclipses in the British Islands alone, which is a greater frequency than normal. Popular publishers (John Senex and Benjamin Martin, in particular) wanted to produce broadsides that could help inform the public about the terrifying wonder that would cross the sky.

With each eclipse, the maps iteratively improved. For the 1736 annular eclipse, for instance, Thomas Wright, a self-taught astronomer, land surveyor, and instrument maker, created a map that adopted Halley’s design but added visualizations of what the partial eclipse would look like outside the path of totality.

article-image

British scientists weren’t the only ones working to improve predictions and public communication about eclipses. In the 17th century, Dutch astronomers had created some early eclipse maps that set the stage for the 18th-century advances to come. In the 1700s, German scientists excelled at creating maps that focus on particular scientific themes.

With each eclipse to pass over the British Isles, publishers became more savvy about promoting the event to the public. In 1737, mathematician and astronomer George Smith published a predictive eclipse map in The Gentleman’s Magazine, which is thought to be the first eclipse map published in a popular publication (as opposed to as a stand-alone broadside). By 1764, writes historian Alice N. Walters in a 1999 paper, “so many eclipse maps were on the market—each with a different prediction—that one commentator likened the competition between them and their producers to an event quite familiar to the English public: a horse race.”

article-image

In the 19th century, eclipse mapping continued to advance, and accurate predictions became a matter of course. The most scientific maps took on utilitarian aspects and were less likely to have the aesthetic, public-pleasing qualities of their 18th-century forebears. At the same time, though, beautiful data visualizations that tried to communicate the essence of eclipse science started appearing in almanacs as well.

article-image
article-image

With these maps, the darkening of the sky became a knowable phenomenon and, as Halley hoped, "the suddaine darkness wherein the Starrs will be visible about the Sun, may give no surprize to the people." Instead of an ominous portent, the solar eclipse became an event to look forward to.

Introducing Atlas Obscura VR

0
0

Atlas Obscura is thrilled to announce its first ever Virtual Reality experience!

With our partners at Start VR, we set out to create a VR adventure that's all about not knowing what's around the next corner, of choosing your own path. Atlas Obscura's mission has always been focused on the delight of discovery, and Atlas Obscura VR captures that feeling perfectly.

Our first stops are the Temples of Humankind, a huge series of psychedelic underground temples hidden in the foothills of the Alps; Salina Turda, a futuristic world underneath Transylvania; and a classic American roadside attraction, the Winchester Mystery House. In addition to these first three episodes, the app features over 50 awe-inspiring places whose stories are told via a combination of photos and audio. And this is only our first season.

The Atlas Obscura VR app is free. Currently, it's only available in the Oculus store for the Gear VR headset, but we'll be adding additional platforms very soon. If you have a Gear VR at your disposal, please come with us and explore the world through new eyes. Download Atlas Obscura VR here.

Found: Ice From 2.7 Million Years Ago

0
0
article-image

In an Antarctic ice core, made using a new strategy, scientists have found ice and bubbles of air that are 2.7 million years old. That’s astonishingly old ice, but it’s also dramatically older than any other pieces of ice humans have found before. Before this, the oldest ice we’ve ever found was one million years old.

What was the air like 2.7 million years ago? As Science News reports, the carbon dioxide levels in the air bubble samples was less than 300 parts per million, far lower than today’s rising carbon levels. That low concentration of carbon could have helped tip the planet into a series of ice ages; this very old ice can help scientists piece together the history of our planet

Usually, scientists drill ice cores with a continuous ice record—layers of ice each representing a year in Earth’s history. But there’s a limit to how far back those ice cores can go: Over time, the internal heat of the Earth melts the deepest, oldest layers of ice.

A Princeton geochemist, Michael Bender, figured out how to date ice that is not preserved in those clear layers. His technique involves measuring the argon and potassium trapped in the ice, and while it’s not precise—the results might be 100,000 years or so off—it can give scientists a rough idea of ancient ice’s age.

Armed with that technique, a Princeton team drilled into “blue ice” which is not preserved in organized layers but can contain much older ice. On their first try, they found that 1 million year old ice. (Previous to that, the record was 800,000-year-old ice.) On the second try, they found this sample, 1.7 million years older than the previous record. Next they may go after ice that’s 5 million years old, and it’s possible that there’s ice in Antarctica that’s 30 million years old

Just think about that—there’s ice somewhere on this planet that has been sitting frozen for 30 million, and someone might be able to find it.

American Towns Are Making Solar Eclipse Time Capsules

0
0
article-image

The path of totality—the swath of America that, as the solar eclipse sweeps over the country this coming Monday, will fall under its full shadow—is a busy place to be this week, as people prep for a deluge of tourists, scramble to find safety glasses, and gird themselves for possible encounters with lizard men.

In all this hubbub, though, some towns are still finding time to plan for the future: they're making eclipse-themed time capsules.

In Hopkinsville, Kentucky, the Pennyroyal Area Museum has compiled an array of eclipse-themed items: newspaper articles, merchandise, and memorabilia, including a black and orange eclipse bowling ball. Visitors to the museum will be asked to fill out questionnaires about their eclipse experiences.

It won't be sealed until the deed is done: "We wanted one that said it was coming, it was here, and here's what happened after," the museum's director, Alissa Keller, told 14 News. It will be opened again when the next eclipse comes to Kentucky, in 2024. Other towns, including Fredericksburg, VA and Long Island, NY, are also making their own memory caches.

If you want to get in on the fun on your own, the time capsule experts at NASA have put up a helpful guide. One piece of advice—if everyone puts their eclipse glasses in one of these, maybe we won't run out next time.

Every day, we track down a fleeting wonder—something amazing that’s only happening right now. Have a tip for us? Tell us about it! Send your temporary miracles to cara@atlasobscura.com.

The Best Way to Drink Whiskey Is With a Bit of Water, After All

0
0
article-image

Drink scotch, drink rye, drink bourbon, drink too much but barely enough, drink a barrel of it, drink it hot, cold, with a cigarette—but however you drink your whiskey (whisky), drink it with a splash of water. Or so says science.

Rather than relying on highly scientific and perfectly enjoyable taste tests, researchers at Linnaeus University in Sweden carried out computer simulations of water and alcohol to better understand the movement of organic compounds that make whiskey taste like, well, whiskey. That flavor comes from a molecule called guaiacol, which contributes to common "tasting notes" for the spirit—smoke, peat, spice. Chemically, it resembles other aroma compounds, such as vanillin (tastes like vanilla) or limonene (tastes like lemon). You get more of it in Scottish whiskies than their American or Irish counterparts, researchers said.

The water and ethanol in any spirit don't mix perfectly, so drinks have what are technically known as "ethanol clusters," which can trap aromatic compounds such as guaiacol and, in turn, prevent drinks from tasting as they should. A little extra water in the glass can free guaiacol from its depths, so it can skate around the surface of the drink and enhance both the smell and the taste (in the range of about 40 to 45 percent alcohol after dilution). At 27 percent overall alcohol—even more water!—it's even freer to "aerosolize" and get up in your nose as you sip.

This highly important research began (more or less) over a barrel. Scientist Ran Friedman was inspired to carry out these trials after a visit to Scotland, where he was struck by the locals' dedication to adding a few drops to a wee dram, no matter how high-end it was. But his coauthor Björn Karlssen is reluctant to tell drinkers what to do. Preferences are necessarily personal, he told NPR, and whiskey is "among the most complicated product there is, in terms of chemical composition." It sounds like further tests are necessary. Pull up a stool and let's get to the bottom of this.

Meet the Bipes: Lizards With Only Two Legs

0
0

If you're ever roaming around Baja California, there's a pretty good chance you're never going to see one of the most common reptiles in the region. But if you do happen to come across a Mexican mole lizard, you certainly won't forget its long, bright pink body and its two tiny little legs.

The Mexican mole lizard, as this video from bioGraphic explains, are one of just three species of bipes, lizards that have just two legs and a wormlike body. They're found only in Mexico, and the mole lizard lives only on the Baja California peninsula. The species is usually subterranean, so getting to see one squirm around on rocks and through sand like this is unusual. Sara Ruane, a biologist at Rutgers University, explains that researchers use a bucket trap to catch them.

Scientists don't know all that much about the mole lizard. They spend so much time underground, crawling and slithering through sand and soil, that they make challenging subjects of study. Researchers do know that they eat insects and that, in some places, they're the most abundant squamate (scaled reptiles such as snakes and lizards) around. Because they're so common, and eat so many bugs, they're important parts of their ecosystem.

Two-Headed Turtle Discovered on a Florida Beach

0
0

Marine biologist Kate Mansfield recently shared images of a small loggerhead turtle to Twitter, and it’s undeniably cute, even if it is a mutant.

The turtle was discovered by an intern with the University of Central Florida Marine Turtle Research Group while they were performing a nest inventory, taking stock of how many of the turtles had hatched.

The group released the turtle back into the wild after the researchers took some pictures of it, though Mansfield said that its life expectancy probably wasn't great.

"Others I've seen haven't made it out of the nest or lasted long," she tweeted. "It depends on what it looks like internally," meaning how well its internal organs are functioning.

Still, for today at least, the cute mutant got its moment in the sun.


Why Uganda Has Two Eclipse Monuments

0
0

Solar eclipse events are transient by their very nature, so permanent monuments to such celestial events are scarce. But in the African country of Uganda, there are two that honor important eclipses from the area’s past, one recent and one hundreds of years old.

Back in 2013, a total solar eclipse passed over Uganda, and the small town of Pakwatch in the northwest of the country was identified as the best place to see it, possibly in the entire world. Specifically, Pakwatch's Owiny Primary School was singled out as a prime viewing location.

As hundreds of eclipse-chasers and onlookers prepared to head to the area for the eclipse, the Minister of Tourism's office announced that it would erect a monument to the event at the school. The monument was constructed amid a number of other infrastructure fixes, including improvements to some of the local roads and renovations to water stations and buildings.

As outlined in a diagram of the monument shared on Ugandan news outlet The Daily Monitor, the attraction is shaped like a squat stone pyramid, topped with a metal eclipse medallion on top.

article-image

On November 3, 2013, the eclipse passed over the assembled onlookers at the school, a crowd that included Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. In the photo above, spectators can be seen surrounding the monument while awaiting the eclipse.

The 2013 eclipse was a momentary economic boon to the area, but the monument is its more lasting legacy. However it is not the only eclipse monument in the country. Almost 300 miles south, and a bit farther west, Uganda has a second, more grandiose monument that, while built more recently, honors an eclipse much farther in the past.

Located in the Biharwe neighborhood in the town of Mbarara, the 1520 Eclipse Monument was erected in 2014 near the Igongo Cultural Center & Country Hotel. The Igongo Centre, which was also refurbished in an effort to attract tourism to the area, features historical and cultural displays, of which the eclipse monument is the most grand.

The monument crowns a hill near the hotel, and has a sort of afro-futurist vibe. The piece was designed by an art student who incorporated meaning into every facet of the monument. The central feature is an eclipsed orb held in a three-legged stand meant to symbolize a trio of Ugandan kingdoms (Bunyoro, Buganda, and Nkore). The surface of the monument is also covered in symbols such as drums and spears, as well as Egyptian writing.

article-image

The eclipse event honored by the monument is thought to have occurred in the year 1520, and factors into the area’s cultural history. According to local folktale, hundreds of years ago, in a time when a number of small kingdoms were at war with each other, King Olimi I was carrying his spoils over Biharwe Hill, when a strange thing happened. The skies darkened unnaturally, which the king took as a sign that the spirits of those they had killed in the war had returned to exact their revenge. King Olimi and his troops abandoned their loot, including cattle, food, and concubines there on the hilltop, fleeing the unnatural shadow. The locals were able to collect the discarded spoils, calling their haul “cattle from heaven.”

While the story may or may not be entirely true, the eclipse itself certainly seems to have occurred. The monument is a fitting mix of real-world installation and fantastical design.

Two monuments might not seem like that many, but given how few monuments to the world’s eclipses exist, Uganda might have accidentally become the eclipse monument capital of the world.

How 7 Sisters Made a Fortune off Their Rapunzel-Like Hair

0
0
article-image

In the late 1800s, seven sisters living near Niagara Falls in upstate New York used their unusual hairdos to become famous and tour the world. They appeared at dime museums, in P.T. Barnum’s circus sideshows, and even at world’s fairs.

A handbill for one of their appearances called the sisters—Sarah, Victoria, Isabella, Grace, Naomi, Dora, and Mary—the “7 Wonders of the world! 7 Accomplished musicians! 7 Refined and Educated Ladies! … 7 Ladies with 49 feet of hair! 7 feet of hair each!” Onstage, the Seven Sutherland Sisters showed off their musical talents. But what the audience really waited for was their big reveal: when all seven loosened their cascades of dark hair that swooshed down, brushing the floor.

article-image

Long, flowing hair on women was considered an important marker of femininity in England and the United States during the Victorian era. Billowing manes figured prominently in the art of the era—in the poems of Yeats and paintings by artists such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti—imbued with enchanting powers. In Rossetti’s Lady Lilith painting, “the grand woman achieved her transcendent vitality partly through her magic hair … her gleaming tresses both expressed her mythic power and were its source,” according to Elizabeth Gitter’s The Power of Women's Hair in Victorian Imagination. An article in the late 1800s-era Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine states that a woman’s hair should be naturally abundant and luxuriant—but, above all, it should be long: “It is equally hurtful to the health of females, as it is contrary to their beauty to wear their hair cut a la Brutus, Titus, or Caracalla.”

Long, untrammeled hair could also carry a whiff of the disreputable. When Victorian girls reached a certain age (usually 18), they were expected to put their hair up and let down their hems, signifying that they were now of marriageable age. A respectable woman would only let her hair down, as it were, in private. This sex appeal may have accounted for the Sutherlands’ popularity in sideshows and dime museums, such as P.T. Barnum’s American Museum. The notorious impresario billed them as “the seven most pleasing wonders of the world.”

article-image

The Sutherland girls, the eldest born in 1846 and the youngest around 1864, grew up on the family turkey farm in upstate New York, near the Erie Canal, Buffalo, and Niagara Falls. Their father Fletcher Sutherland was a sometime preacher who left the farmwork to his wife and daughters. According to Arch Merrill’s Shadows on the Wall: Tales of New York State, the girls’ mother Mary would slather their hair with a stinky ointment that helped it grow…and grow. When they were tending turkeys, no one cared about the stench, but it got them teased at school. Nevertheless, the concoction was effective, judging by the sisters’ Rapunzel manes.

The young women were skilled musicians. Naomi sang in a surprising and beautiful bass, and, by her teens, Sarah was a well-loved local music teacher. Performing at churches, community theaters, and fairs, they were known as the “Sutherland Concert of Seven Sisters, and One Brother,” according to Brandon M. Stickney, author of a biography of the sisters. (Brother Charles was born in 1854 but didn’t continue as a singer.) The sisters toured in New York City and throughout the South, appearing at Atlanta’s International Cotton Exposition and World’s Fair in 1881. In 1883 they toured with the W.W. Cole Circus in Mexico. By 1884 the group was touring with Barnum.

article-image

The Sutherland sisters (“7 Refined and Educated Ladies!”) were listed on handbills alongside “The Most Costly Curiosities! Rare beautiful and the most eccentric freaks! Astounding Oddities!” The sisters emphasized their respectability by singing hymns and parlor songs such as “Woodman, Spare That Tree!” and “Come Into the Garden, Maud.” When on tour with the Forepaugh and Sells Bros. Circus in 1883, they were said to have performed before Queen Victoria. But they still belonged to the sideshow, where acts were classified as born freaks (with congenital abnormalities such as missing limbs or gigantism), made ones (tattooed ladies, people with extremely long hair or beards), and novelties (sword-swallowers, fire-eaters, snake-charmers).

In the last quarter of the 19th century and first quarter of the 20th, hundreds of so-called freak shows toured America. “Freak” was a common term, although a group of sideshow employees banded together at the turn of the century to demand that their managers show them the courtesy of exchanging the word “freaks” for “prodigies,” according to a 1907 article in The New York Times. Many performers owed their fame in some way to their hair. Bearded ladies were popular, as was the hirsute Alice Doherty, known as the Minnesota Woolly Girl, and a Russian teen, Fedor Jeftichew, known as Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy for the luxurious pelt of hair that grew up his forehead, merged with his hairline, and continued around to form a handsome beard and mustache.

article-image

In the early 1880s, Fletcher realized that the Sutherlands’ hair, more than their musical talent, was the big draw. He and their manager, a showman named Harry Bailey, decided to capitalize on the public obsession with abundant hair. One problem: mother Mary Sutherland was dead and no one remembered the recipe for the original hair grower.

It was the era of patent medicines, and the men came up with a tonic. The company got its first trademark in 1883. “The Lucky Number 7 Seven Sutherland Sisters Hair Grower” cost 60 cents for four ounces, or the equivalent to about $15 nowadays. (The average weekly wage for a railroad engineer that year [1881] was just under $4). It was also sometimes known as “Hair Fertilizer.” Ingredients included borax, salt, quinine, bay rum, and cantharides, an irritating powder made from an aphrodisiac beetle known as a Spanish Fly. “It’s the Hair—not the Hat That Makes a Woman Attractive,” read one ad for the Grower and Scalp Cleaner. A few years after that, a Sutherland Sisters comb and eight shades of “Hair Colorator” followed.

In its first year, the Seven Sutherland Sisters Corporation made $90,000 in sales (about $2.25 million today), according to Douglas Farley of the Erie Canal Discovery Center. He writes that the company eventually had 28,000 dealers and offices in New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, Toronto, and Havana. By 1890, the sisters had sold over $3 million dollars’ worth of the Hair Grower (some 2.5 million bottles). At the height of their fame, a judge temporarily ordered the sisters to refrain from posing in the window of their Manhattan store because the ensuing crowds were a public disturbance.

article-image

The sisters hired long-haired women to demonstrate their products in drugstores and shops around the country. (Occasionally, they had to fill in for Naomi, who had several children before dying young of cancer, and Mary, who had her difficult spells.)

Their fortunes burgeoning, the sisters shifted to touring for the sake of their business rather than as part of a circus. In 1893, they built an elaborate mansion on the site of their former turkey farm. It had bedrooms for each sister, a marble lavatory with hot and cold running water, a turret and cupola, imported fine furniture, massive chandeliers, black walnut woodwork, and hardwood floors, according to Farley.

article-image

The sisters’ behavior reportedly became increasingly eccentric. Mary’s room locked from the outside, with a slot for food trays. A young man was married to Isabella, but seemed awfully close to Dora (they all cohabitated for a while). The women were said to have closets full of furs and beautiful dresses, but at home they wore their hair piled up under white-toweling caps. They rode their bikes around the yard in their bathing costumes. The sisters loved their menagerie of pets. The animals were fed the finest steak and chicken and wore handmade sweaters and slept on silk beds. Dora had a Mexican hairless dog named Topsy. When a pet died, the sisters put obituaries in the local paper and had elaborate leave-takings. Topsy’s read: “Deceased Canine Will Have First Class Funeral.”

Had they known about a certain fad that would soon be sweeping the country, they might have reined in their spending. In the 1920s, modern young women, aka flappers, shed their corsets and long skirts to symbolize freedom from stodgy respectability. They also began chopping off their long hair—the era of the bob began.

Where Statues Go to Retire

0
0
article-image

The ongoing controversy over Confederate statues, which has seen these monuments removed from public spaces in more than a dozen locations in the past couple years, is the renewal of a historical tradition that has been going on for as long as humans have erected such monuments: the symbolic removal and recontextualization of artifacts from the past that are no longer relevant or welcome.

Putting aside antiquity, in the recent past, this has included the removal of statues of a seemingly endless march of former leaders, all over the world: Alberto Stroessner, Josef Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, Muammar al-Qaddafi, Chiang Kei-shek, Saparmurat Niyazov, Hafez al-Assad, Hosni Mubarak, Enver Hoxha, Saddam Hussein, and more. Some of these statues are destroyed—symbolically, even ritually—but others are relocated, as is the case with most Confederate statues today.

Sometimes statues are collected in one place, where the immortalized fallen crowd together in awkward silence, historical repositories of different eras. Take the "Garden of the Generalissimos" in Cihu, Taiwan, where scores of Chiang Kai-shek statues sit together, regarding one another. The statues are some of the thousands on the island—a controversial legacy of the late leader of the Republic of China (not to be confused with the modern mainland People's Republic of China).

article-image

In Budapest, Hungary, leaders in 1993 built a similar shrine for statues from the country's communist past. Memento Park, about 20 minutes south of the city's center, contains 40 statues from the time when the country was a satellite state of the Soviet Union. Its most famous statue might be one that doesn't even really exist anymore—the boots of Josef Stalin, all that remain of a 25-foot-tall monument.

In Lithuania, there is Grūtas Park, which contains a number of similar communist artifacts, while Moscow has Fallen Monument Park, which hosts relocated busts and statues of Lenin and Stalin, among others.

article-image

There is also the curious case of Harlan Crow, a Dallas real-estate investor who has amassed a collection of more than a dozen statues of authoritarian leaders—most imported from Europe—including depictions of Yugoslavian dictator Josip Broz Tito and Walter Ulbricht, the East German leader who oversaw the construction of the Berlin Wall. Crow told The New York Times in 2003 that he was inspired to collect the statues after watching statues of British colonial leader Cecil Rhodes being taken down in what is now Zimbabwe. ''It's an image that has persisted with me for many years,'' he said. ''I thought something was being lost from history if a statue of that time was not salvaged."

Indeed, today, many agree with Crow's perspective, and believe that the removed Confederate statues should not be destroyed, but preserved as historical artifacts. So far, nearly every state and local government that has removed them has agreed as well—placing them either in private spaces, cemeteries, or, in some cases, storage.

article-image

“It is vital that we keep these things and use them as symbols for our memory,” Matthew Logan, the executive director of the Montgomery County Historical Society in Maryland, told Newsweek earlier this month. He argued that the teaching of history "should happen in museums, not public spaces, so that it’s understood that you’re looking at a historical relic as opposed to a symbol of current values.”

(Logan's society had offered to take in a statue of a Confederate soldier that was located in public space in Rockville, Maryland, before it was moved in July to private property.)

Authorities elsewhere have come to the similar conclusions, with New Orleans putting four monuments in storage while they decide on permanent homes for them. In Gainesville, Florida, a Confederate monument was moved to a private cemetery, while officials at the University of Texas moved a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis from outdoor grounds to a history center on campus. (The New York Times has a full list of removals and planned removals here.)

These statues, it should be noted, haven't been erased. Just like those in Taiwan or Hungary, they are being reconsidered, immortal still, but subject to a new time.

Beatles Monuments in Unexpected Places

0
0
article-image

There are plenty of well-known destinations for Beatles fans. Countless British Invasion enthusiasts have no doubt ended their pilgrimages on Abbey Road (hopefully the right one), or at Andrew Edwards’ relatively new statues at the Pier Head in Liverpool.

New Yorkers can readily visit the Strawberry Fields Memorial across from the building where John Lennon was killed. And those who've found themselves shopping for a sleeping bag or a tent in Washington, D.C., may have taken a moment to appreciate the coliseum where the Beatles played their first U.S. concert―now an REI.

But some monuments to Beatlemania are featured in places one might not expect to find them. From the bronze statues of Paul, George, Ringo, and John in Kazakhstan to a wall in Prague dedicated to their legacy, the British Invasion, which gained momentum after the group’s performance on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964, made its way to places that aren’t often associated with rock 'n' roll history.

If you’ve already seen the Battersea Power Station, which makes an appearance in Help!, or Penny Lane, which still boasts the “shelter in the middle of a roundabout” and the shop where the barber showed photographs “of every head he’s had the pleasure to have known,” maybe a John Lennon statue commissioned by Fidel Castro can satisfy your desire for visiting Fab Four historical markers off the Beatle path.

article-image

Beatles Statue of Almaty

Almaty, Kazakhstan

This youthful, cartoonish representation of the worldwide musical sensation was created in 2007 by the artist Eduard Kazaryan as an homage to the popularity and universal appeal of the Beatles, and as another piece of artistic flair to go along with the existing attractions in Kazakhstan’s largest city.

The statue stands near the Almaty Tower, which it seems is starting to be a rallying point for artists and tourists alike due to its attractive scenic vistas.

article-image

Beatles Park

Walnut Ridge, Arkansas

In September 1964, the Beatles landed at the Walnut Ridge airport. The plan was for them to be secretly transported to a nearby vacation spot, and then return to the airport two days later. But fans were tipped off, and nearly the entire town turned up to catch a glimpse.

The quick stopover in Walnut Ridge marked the only place that the band stepped foot in Arkansas throughout their entire run, making what should have been a quick and easy layover into a monumental event for the town's residents, who to this day pass on stories of their encounters with John, Paul, George, and Ringo.

In remembrance of the fateful day, Walnut Ridge created “Beatles Park,” a public area complete with cutouts, sculptures, and murals of the four band members and various other objects symbolic of the band, such as a yellow submarine and a piano painted with the word “Imagine.” Every September the town hosts the Beatles at the Ridge Music Festival.

article-image

David Adickes Beatles Statues

Houston, Texas

The 36-foot tall Beatles statues were once kept at David Adickes’ studio, among his 43 giant busts of U.S. presidents, but they’ve since been moved to a temporary location nearby. The concrete behemoths are currently standing in the backyard of Houston’s 8th Wonder Brewery (they’re set to remain for at least a year). And they’re for sale; if anyone has an extra $350,000―and enough room for them―the Fab Four is theirs to keep.

article-image

Rock N Roll McDonald's

Chicago, Illinois

The Rock N Roll McDonald's in Chicago features a museum dedicated to the genre’s history. Plaster statues of the Fab Four are frozen in a constant state of walking by the window for customers to admire. One can’t help but wonder what vegetarian Paul McCartney thinks of it; a few years ago, when a Liverpool McDonald’s hung photographs of the Beatles on its walls, McCartney’s spokesman Geoff Baker responded" “What sort of morons do McDonald's think Beatles fans are? It’s ridiculous and insulting to use images to peddle hamburgers.”

article-image

John Lennon Statue

Havana, Cuba

It’s no surprise that the music of the Beatles was banned from Communist Cuba in the 1960s and '70s. Cuban authorities considered the music “ideological diversionism,” and a decadent American influence during a time of Revolution.

But 20 years after John Lennon’s death, Castro made a complete 180. No longer was his music banned, but instead Lennon was to be celebrated as a hero. Castro unveiled a shiny new bronze statue of Lennon in the year 2000, at the then-new John Lennon Park, and spoke of a feeling of kinship to the artist: “I share his dreams completely. I too am a dreamer who has seen his dreams turn into reality.” Lennon was also harassed by the U.S. government in the later years of his life, and Cuba considers him both a rebel and a victim—a kindred spirit to Cuba’s relationship with the U.S.

article-image

Lennon Wall

Prague, Czechia

Tucked away into a nondescript street far from the touristy hustle and bustle that pervades much of Prague, the Lennon Wall is covered with Lennon-inspired graffiti and Beatles song lyrics.

An image of John Lennon was first painted on the wall opposite the French Embassy after his murder in December 1980. Soon it became a prime site for political and Beatles-inspired graffiti and a sounding board for disgruntled youth. Several attempts were made by the police to whitewash the wall, but in vain. Artists continued to paint on the wall, refusing to be pinned down. After so many attempts to keep the wall clean, the Knights of Malta, who own the wall, finally gave in and it now stands in all its graffitied glory.

article-image

Beatles Monument

Yekaterinburg, Russia

This monument to the Beatles in central Russia may seem out of place, but considering their popularity in the underground music scene of the USSR, and their cultural impact, the monument, comprised of a wall sculpture and accompanying mural, seems right where it should be.

The Beatles’ place in Soviet hearts and musical souls was hard won. If USSR teenagers couldn’t buy Beatles jackets or boots, they’d make their own by refashioning the bulky coats and chunky boots they had. When they couldn’t get their hands on actual albums or 45s, they’d bootleg their own versions by scratching the grooves into discarded X-ray plates, creating what became known as “bone music.” It could be risky to exchange Western music in the USSR, but for those who loved and revered the lads from Liverpool, it was worth the risk.

Meet the Folk Art Collector Who Makes Your Eclipse Glasses

0
0
article-image

John Jerit may be one of the very few people in America you could describe as “eclipse rich.” Jerit’s business, American Paper Optics—one of the major American manufacturers of NASA-approved eclipse glasses—booms every time the sun’s disk is covered by the moon.

Jerit also happens to be one of the major American collectors of visionary folk art. His sprawling collection of work by “outsider” artists is, in a literal sense, purchased with the help of celestial movements. His collection includes work by hermetic writer and illustrator Henry Darger, the Baptist minister Howard Finster, and the schizophrenic folk artist Martín Ramírez. Jerit began collecting visionary art in the early 2001, after coming across the scholarship of folk art historian Carol Crown, who has written extensively on Southern vernacular art.

article-image

In recent years, both Jerit’s art collection and his eclipse glasses business have grown. This summer, American Paper Optics has received upwards of 13,000 orders of eclipse glasses daily, doing $2.7 million of business in a single day. Some of the glasses are themed (for instance, there’s a “Bill Nye The Science Guy” edition, as well as a Moonpie-themed collector's set) but most are a simple, utilitarian design. The company’s business surged after news broke that other retailers sold unsafe eclipse glasses, and Amazon issued a massive recall.

“It’s crazy. It’s absolutely gone nuts,” says Jerit, whose business-like tone contains notes of a showman’s enthusiasm. “We’re going to sell 40 million plus glasses. My original goal was 100 million, but I didn’t get the big corporate sponsors—Coke, Pepsi, Intel. Ecommerce and retail have been excellent, and I’ve been blown away by the website and by Amazon resellers.”

article-image

Jerit began manufacturing the eclipse glasses in the early 1990s after being contacted by an astronomer named Roger Tuthill, who had developed a special solar-viewing material and sought a glasses manufacturer. The first eclipse for which he made glasses was the 1991 total eclipse visible from Mexico. (Today, the company uses a paper manufactured by Thousand Oaks Optical, rather than Tuthill’s original invention.) Since then, business has been as constant—or, rather, as mercurial—as the moon.

American Paper Optics is located in a nondescript building in the Memphis suburb of Bartlett, Tennessee. The walls of the office are lined with classic posters, limited-edition paper glasses, and spare selections from Jerit’s folk art collection. Jerit keeps the rest of the art in his modern house on the banks of the Mississippi River. Intricate works by the French Art Brut painter Augustin Lesage hang near works on paper by Italian veteran-turned-painter Carlos Zinelli. Folk sculpture—cartoonishly whittled versions of American presidents, disembodied wooden busts—occupies every spare nook. A massive work by Ramírez is currently on loan to the Institute for Contemporary Art Los Angeles, who will include it as a part of an exhibition that opens in September.

article-image

The jewel of Jerit’s collection is a large work by Henry Darger, a reclusive hospital custodian who drew narrative scrolls and authored a 15,145-page book called The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion. In the work, stiffly drawn children flail while lightning strikes. “It’s a pretty tame Darger,” says Jerit.

Jerit hopes to acquire more of what he dubs “A+” works of visionary art. But what he can do with his collection depends, at least in part, on the demand for glasses. When not selling eclipse glasses, Jerit sells 3D paper glasses. The market for 3D paper glasses has shrunk since around 2011, when plastic glasses became the standard in movie theaters (“2007-2011 I was 24/7 making glasses from the movie industry,” says Jerit). But there’s still demand for 3D paper glasses for use in printed promotional materials and books.

Only 94 percent of the August solar eclipse will be visible from Jerit’s home in Memphis, so he plans to travel to Nashville or Carbondale, Illinois, depending on traffic. He will watch the eclipse wearing two different pairs of his own glasses—a standard-issue paper pair and a specially made plastic pair. Says Jerit, “I’ll probably switch them out. Gotta try the product!”

Viewing all 11432 articles
Browse latest View live




Latest Images