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Le Corbusier's Special Measuring Tape Is Making a Comeback

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The architect thought his unique measurement system was revolutionary, but no one really used it besides him.

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In the summer of 1948, while visiting the 13th-century ruins of the Chaalis Abbey, just north of Paris, the architect Charles-Édouard Jeanneret “was struck by the fine proportions of the door (that of the transept, as I remember)." Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier, proceeded to reach into his pocket and take out a specially designed red-and-blue measuring tape to see whether the proportions were as perfect as he imagined. They were!

Le Corbusier used the same tape to measure Ancient Egyptian ruins, as well as historic buildings in Istanbul, İzmir, Athens, Lima, and beyond. He claimed that they, too, conformed to his measuring tape’s uniquely calculated proportions. But what was this magical measuring tape? And how and why did the architect design it in the first place?

Dubbed the “Modulor Rule,” Le Corbusier’s invention was the result of years of frustration with the metric system. According to the architect, the metric system was devoid of all human context, and hence incompatible with architectural needs. But because it was already deeply ingrained in the vocabulary of architects and engineers worldwide, it would be impractical to get rid of the metric system entirely. Instead, Le Corbusier hoped to inject some much-needed humanity into it.

“The French Revolution did away with the foot-and-inch system, with all its slow and complicated processes,” the architect wrote in his 1948 text The Modulor: A Harmonious Measure to the Human Scale Universally Applicable to Architecture and Mechanics. (This was the first of two whole books he dedicated to his new approach.) “The savants of the [1875 Metre] Convention adopted a concrete measure so devoid of personality and passion that it became an abstraction, a symbol: the metre, forty-millionth part of the meridian of the earth.”

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In as much as Le Corbusier hated the metric system, he wasn’t fond of the Imperial system either, calling it “steadfast in its attachment to the human body, but atrociously difficult to handle.” In the increasingly globalized world of the 1940s, he felt the best way to deal with this problem would be to somehow fuse the two measurement systems into a single universal one.

For philosophical inspiration, Le Corbusier looked to music. “Music, like architecture, is time and space,” he wrote. “Music and architecture alike are a matter of measure.” Just as musical notation and the tempered scale served to standardize Western Classical music, so, too, would his Modulor system standardize architecture.

The Modulor system itself is a rather confusing combination of human proportions, the golden ratio, and the Fibonacci sequence. The math becomes fairly complicated, but the general concept is that a structure built for human habitation should start with the proportions of the humans themselves. Le Corbusier based his very first Modulor system on the measurements of what he perceived to be a typical “French height” of 1.75 meters or 5 feet 8 inches tall, but ultimately, he decided that, because this was to be an international system, the “ideal man” should instead measure a bit taller, at 6 feet or 1.83 meters tall. (As he wrote in The Modulor: “Have you never noticed that in English detective novels, the good-looking men, such as the policemen, are always six feet tall?”)

Both the symbol and basis of the Modulor method of measurement is a muscular, six-foot-tall man with a wasp-like waist and an arm stretched above his head. Le Corbusier’s Modulor Man was like an updated version of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. “A man-with-arm-upraised provides, at the determining points of his occupation of space—foot, solar plexus, head, tips of fingers of the upraised arm—three intervals which give rise to a series of golden sections, called the Fibonacci series,” he wrote. “On the other hand, mathematics offers the simplest and also the most powerful variation of a value: the single unit, the double unit, and the three golden sections.”

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These preliminary measurements—feet to waist, waist to top of the head, top of the head to tips of the fingers of the upraised arm—serve as the basis of measurement for the Modulor Rule. The ratios between these measurements are then used to determine the ideal proportions of buildings, furniture, and any and all other aspects of the human environment. The measuring tape itself breaks down these proportions, from the miniscule to the architectural, so that one could theoretically use the tape to measure the proportions of a variety of things, from a bannister to a building.

Le Corbusier clearly believed his Modulor system was revolutionary, and he had a habit of carrying the special measuring tape around in a film canister in his pocket when traveling. In The Modulor—a book that is in essence a self-congratulatory saga of how he came up with his idea—Le Corbusier recounts talking to Albert Einstein about the Modulor system, quoting the great mathematician as having said, “It is a scale of proportions which makes the bad difficult and the good easy.”

Although Le Corbusier thought the Modulor would change the way architects work all around the world, he was probably the only architect that ever used it, most notably in his Unité d’Habitation in Marseille, France. Constructed between 1947 and 1952, the Unité d’Habitation was a utopian project, a largely self-sufficient building complete with shopping mall, hotel, restaurant, school, and a rooftop running track and pool, together with 337 apartments, all enclosed within the same structure. This utopian function paired nicely with the utopian Modulor method, which Le Corbusier used for numerous aspects of the design, from the plan and elevation of the building to the balconies, interior measurements of each apartment, and even the built-in furniture, including the woodwork. In tribute, a Modulor Man is carved into the concrete of the building itself.

Ultimately, the Modulor method failed to take off outside of Le Corbusier’s own designs, yet the architecture community continues to be fascinated by its history. In 2000, when Princeton Architectural Press and Fondation Le Corbusier created a facsimile edition of the Modulor Rule (complete with metal canister), it sold out almost immediately. A second batch of reproductions will be available in September 2018.


The Denver Airport Has the Best Public Service Announcements Ever

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Conspiracy or construction?

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If, like Twitter user Destiny., you are traveling through the Denver International Airport in the near future, you may notice something strange.

Which may not come as a surprise. DIA is known as a place that has some suspect features. There’s Blucifer, the apocalyptic horse that stands outside. There are the gargoyles in the baggage claim area. There’s the cornerstone covered with Masonic symbols.

Some conspiracy theorists believe the airport’s secrets go even deeper—to a network of underground tunnels, perhaps even a whole buried city, occupied by aliens and/or lizard people.

Giant posters now plastered all over the airport hint at what might be going on.

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“What are we doing?” one asks. Could it be… building an Illuminati headquarters? Remodeling the lizard people’s lair? Or perhaps adding new restaurants?

Emily Williams, an airport spokesperson, claims they're renovating neither underground tunnels nor lizard lairs right now. “Passengers and visitors can determine for themselves if it is construction or a cover up,” she wrote in an email to Atlas Obscura.

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The posters went up on Friday, August 31, 2018, as part of a marketing campaign around the airport’s renovation of its “Great Hall.” The implication, as the airport’s “DenFiles” site suggests, is that the aliens, gargoyles, and lizard people on the posters are a joke, and that of course the blank walls all over the airport are hiding a totally normal, not-at-all-strange remodeling project.

But of course that’s what the lizard people would want you to think.

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Peculiar Pastures in Kenya Were Once Poop Patches

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How old dung heaps become biodiversity hotspots.

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Imagine you're flying far above the Mara Serengeti, looking down. You'd see a dry, brown landscape dotted with trees. You'd see trails and roads. And every once in a while, you'd also see an large, open area, flush with green grass, like those pictured above. What are those peaceful-looking spots? And why do they look so different from everything else around?

Researchers think they have the answer: ancient cow poop. When Neolithic herders migrated to the area a few thousand years ago, they would corral their livestock in these areas during the night after letting them graze all day. For a recent study, a group of scholars took soil samples from five of these verdant spots in Kenya, and found that beneficial soil elements like phosphorus, magnesium, nitrogen, and calcium are much more prevalent there than in the surrounding areas.

This process was kickstarted by the dung heaps the sheep, goats, and cows left behind. "The positive impacts of increased soil fertility… can last for thousands of years," Fiona Marshall, a coauthor on the study, told Eurekalert.

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How does this happen? Other studies, on how contemporary pastoralism affects these areas, shed some light. It begins with the livestock themselves, which work like nutrient concentration machines. As they graze, they ingest nutrients from plants spread over a wide area. Then at night, when they're herded into corrals for protection, they excrete some of those nutrients back out in one big heap.

With the help of these nutrients, grass begins to grow, outcompeting the woody vegetation that might otherwise be there. The grass attracts grazing animals including gazelles and wildebeests, who also eat and excrete there, creating a self-reinforcing, grass-dung-grass cycle. One study found that after just 32 months of this, there were nine times more ungulates hanging around at a former dung heap than there were at a relatively poopless place.

The 'Chop Suey Sundae' Isn't What You Think It Is

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An ice cream topping once had the same name.

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The first few decades of the 20th century were a golden age for ice cream in the United States. Across the country, soda fountains and and drugstores served up elaborate sweet treats. In fact, many pharmacy and druggist's magazines included detailed instructions on how to make the most cutting-edge sundaes possible to draw in customers. One perennial favorite was the chop suey sundae.

Chop suey is a classic Chinese-American meat and vegetable dish served with rice. Its most likely ancestor is a dish from Taishan, Guangdong, called tsap seui, or "miscellaneous leftovers." Entrepreneurial Chinese chefs adapted it for American palates, and it became a standard at restaurants across the United States by the early 20th century. Before long, it became a recipe-book standard as well, typically sporting celery, bean sprouts, meat, and a thick coat of sauce.

But the dish was endlessly modified in restaurants and homes alike. As Anne Mendelson writes in Chow Chop Suey: Food and the Chinese American Journey, soon the term chop suey "had become a stand-in for any hashed mélange of ingredients," including the chop suey sundae.

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While the inventor of the chop suey sundae remains mysterious (one sundae scholar suggests a long-closed fountain in Pennsylvania as the source), recipes for the treat spread in the 20th century. On top of ice cream, "chop suey" was a topping of dried and preserved fruit, nuts, and syrup, mixed together by the pound. In a 1911 book called The Lunch Room, the basic concept is described as a topping of figs, dates, and walnuts, combined with vanilla syrup, over ice cream.

It could get much more elaborate, though. Another variation added French cherries and chocolate syrup to the figs, dates, and walnuts, which the author noted was "a very popular dish in Chicago." Other recipes for the topping leaned on other ingredients, such as a "Chop Suey for Sundaes" that involved strawberries, pineapple, coconut, and walnuts mixed with sugar syrup.

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Much like its namesake, variations abounded. Sometimes the topping was made with maple syrup, but tea syrup also made an appearance. The most elaborate versions included dried lychee "nuts," along with nearly every other typical "chop suey" ingredient. Sometimes, said sundaes had crispy chow mein noodles on top. The implied exoticism of such a sundae was often the main draw, and proprietors didn't hesitate to use racist stereotypes as advertising.

But Chinese-owned establishments sold chop suey sundaes as well. According to writer Judy Yung, Fong Fong, a bakery and soda fountain in San Francisco's Chinatown that opened in 1935, served their own unique chop suey sundae, complete with sesame cookies.

The chop suey sundae, along with other ice cream treats such as "The Merry Widow Sundae," "The Robinhood Sundae," and "Nut Symphony," have largely faded into the past. However, at New York's Museum of Food and Drink (MOFAD), a special admission ticket to CHOW: Making the Chinese American Restaurant includes a new take on the chop suey sundae. Under the topping, the ice cream is General Tso's chicken-flavored.

In 1900, Photographing an Entire Train Required the World’s Biggest Camera

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With bellows big enough to stand in.

In 1899, the Chicago & Alton Railway company introduced the Alton Limited, “the handsomest train in the world,” to run an express service between Chicago and St. Louis. It consisted of six Pullman cars built in perfect symmetry: every car was the same length and height, and every window identical. A 1901 issue of The Railway Magazine described it as “a train to be looked at from the outside as well as from the inside.” But there was a problem: how could the company capture the train’s exterior beauty in its entirety?

To answer this question, Chicago & Alton called on the photographer George R. Lawrence. Lawrence was an innovator in his field—his Chicago studio branded itself with the slogan, "The Hitherto Impossible in Photography is Our Speciality." By then he was already known for his experiments with flash photography. Later he would go on to photograph the famous aerial view of San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake.

Chicago & Alton wanted to know if Lawrence could create an 8-foot-long photograph of the Alton Limited. Lawrence’s first suggestion was to photograph the train in sections, which could then be blended together. Chicago & Alton rejected the idea on the basis that the joins would show and that it would “not preserve the absolute truthfulness of perspective.” So Lawrence proposed another solution, to which Chicago & Alton eagerly agreed: build the world’s largest camera.

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Lawrence quickly went to work designing a camera that could hold a glass plate measuring 8 feet by 4 1/2 feet. It was constructed by the camera manufacturer J.A. Anderson from natural cherry wood, with bespoke Carl Zeiss lenses (also the largest ever made). The camera alone weighed 900 pounds. With the plate holder, it reached 1,400 pounds. According to an August 1901 article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the bellows was big enough to hold six men, and the whole camera took a total of 15 workers to operate.

A team of men also helped to transport the camera, one spring day in 1900, from the studio to a padded van, then a train, and finally to a field near Brighton Park, an ideal vantage point from which to shoot the waiting train. The conditions were clear but windy. After the camera was fully assembled, Lawrence set the exposure to two and a half minutes, and took the photograph. (According to John Wade, author of The Ingenious Victorians: Weird and Wonderful Ideas from the Age of Innovation, four men had to insert the glass plate, and at least six men worked the bellows and lens). Later, using a reported 10 gallons of chemicals, Lawrence developed a clear, crisp, 8-foot-long photograph of the Alton Limited.

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The timing was fortuitous. Chicago & Alton submitted three prints to the 1900 Paris Exposition, where George R. Lawrence won the Grand Prize for World Photographic Excellence. But the photographs were subject to intense scrutiny. Exposition officials did not initially believe a single camera could create such a large image. Both Lawrence and Chicago & Alton had to submit affidavits to verify that the photograph had been made on one plate.

Chicago & Alton now had an irresistible means of promotion, "The Largest Photograph in the World of the Handsomest Train in the World."

A Time-Twisting Visit to the Museum of Capitalism

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How artists and curators are attempting to defamiliarize America's current economic era.

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In the back corner of the gallery, three chunks of amber glow under a spotlight. I squint at one and make out a couple of dark shapes. I'm expecting stuck bugs or plant matter, relics of some prehistoric age. Instead, I see an iPod Nano and a scrap of a fun-sized Butterfinger wrapper: relics very much of this century.

"They remind me of Jurassic Park," says curator Abigail Satinsky, looking at the art (Amber Pieces, by Evan Yee) over my shoulder. She and I are the only ones there. I have a series of visions in which future scientists carefully remove the preserved gadget, splice its material into a chicken egg, and step back to wait for their creation to hatch, not realizing the havoc they could wreak.

Such is the time-warping effect of the Museum of Capitalism, an art project that seeks to provide a new view on America's current economic era by pretending it's over. A collection of both "artworks and artifacts"—as well as works, like Amber Pieces, that blur the line between the two—function together to create the necessary distance. As the exhibit's entrance text puts it, "We should not have to wait until things have ended in order to examine them … from the very beginning[,] we should look at them the way we're taught to look at things in museums."

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The Museum of Capitalism is the creation of Timothy Furstnau and Andrea Steves, designers and curators who work together under the name FICTILIS. The first version of the museum opened in Oakland in 2015, in an abandoned warehouse. This past week, it became a franchise: The incarnation I visited is in Boston, at the Grossman Gallery, part of the School for the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University.

While it shares an ethos (and some exhibits) with the Oakland version, Satinsky says it is its own beast, tuned to the particular rhythms of its new location. (For instance, a machine by Blake Fall-Conroy dispenses exactly $11 every hour in pennies—Boston's minimum wage—as long as you keep turning a crank.) Another exhibition is coming to New York later this year or next.

The conceit of each of them is the same: Once you enter the gallery, capitalism has ended. There is no hint of what might have replaced it—all you know is that you are in the future, trying to learn about how things used to be. In the same way other museums might present a representative slice of the Renaissance or the Pharaonic Period, the exhibits carefully lay out what the curators consider to be the era's most telling creations.

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One case in the Grossman Gallery contains a set of mass-produced trading cards themed around Operation Desert Storm, the 1991 American-led Gulf War military operation. (The cards were "the first ever issued on a war while it was in progress," the accompanying text explains). A wall is lined with dozens of financial planning books, all branded with the names of small banks that have been absorbed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

Other works attempt to contextualize such artifacts by taking a longer view. Three bags by Jordan Bennet recreate plastic Target, Walmart, and 99-cent-store bags in moose hide, the plastic equivalent of a few centuries ago. Another case by FICTILIS is filled with a centuries-spanning rundown of powerful oblong objects, from magic wands to pens to security scanners and TV remotes. "Like so many useful technologies over the last few years, wands have gone through changes, becoming more and more … specialized," reads the accompanying text. "In many cases, they are so removed from their origins that one easily forgets their roots."

These exhibit descriptions and other written materials strike a tone of educated remove. They summarize, condense, and theorize. "In globalized capitalism, consumption of products typically occurred long distances from their place of origin, and people … often selected products based on their visual appearance," begins the caption next to Maia Chao's In the Shell of the Old, an artwork made of polystyrene packaging in a stunning variety of shapes. These people, it adds, were "defined by their buying habits and referred to as 'consumers.'"

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All of these tricks and juxtapositions encourage us to jump through time, helping us to imagine the ways in which our economic system might define us in retrospect. At the same time, the broadness of their conclusions reminds us of the flattening involved in all efforts to explain history: When we try to look in on people from the past, what does our vantage point show us that they couldn't understand? And what are we missing?

As in those other museums, the most telling exhibits are those that allowed moments for individual humanity. A collection of retirement letters—addressed to a man named Bill Pollock on the occasion of his retirement from IBM, and collated by FICTILIS— “Hey, what is this retirement crap at such a young and vital age?” wrote one friend, Chuck. “Weep late and worry not at all” wrote another, Harold. As I left, I looked back at the empty hall, and realized that the emptiness itself was part of the experience. The day after Labor Day, no one has time to go to the Museum of Capitalism, because everybody is at work.

The Festival Where Millions of Women Prepare a Feast for a Goddess

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On the ninth day of Attukal Pongala, an entire city is devoted to women and their sacred offering.

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The sun has not yet risen, but Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of Kerala, India, is buzzing with activity. The moonlit streets are lined with vendors hawking everything from plastic children’s toys to jasmine headdresses. Thousands of speakers are turned up to full blast, playing an eclectic mix of pop and devotional music. It’s only 4 a.m., but for nearly 15 miles, the streets are crowded with women gathering bricks, washing rice, and grating coconuts.

“On all other days it is not safe for women to be alone on the streets at night,” says Lekshmy Rajeev, the author of Attukal Amma: The Goddess of Millions. “But on Pongala, things change. It is almost 24 hours, and women are everywhere.”

Once a year, millions of women from all over India travel to Thiruvananthapuram to participate in a massive ceremony that is considered the largest spiritual gathering of women in the world. The event centers around the offering of Pongala, rice pudding made with ghee, coconut, and jaggery (unrefined cane sugar), boiled out in the open in small clay pots.

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Women purchase a new vessel every year, carefully selecting from the mountains of pots displayed throughout the city. The basic ingredients of the porridge are simple and affordable, making the ceremony accessible to any woman who wants to participate. “All the Goddess wants is a handful of rice. She doesn’t want diamonds, gold, or elephants, just simple porridge,” says Rajeev. “It makes you feel like she is someone like you. I don’t have to worry whether or not she is going to like it.”

The mass cooking ritual occurs on the ninth day of Attukal Pongala, an annual festival dedicated to the Hindu goddess Bhadrakali, the fierce incarnation of Devi, who annihilates evil and brings prosperity to her followers. In this form, she is black or blue in color, wields a sword and sickle, and wears a necklace of skulls and a belt of severed heads. The ferocious deity is believed to embody fury as well as benevolent protection, and is often worshipped as a universal mother figure. In fact, the temple’s Goddess is best known by another, more affectionate name: Attukal Amma, or Mother.

During Pongala, Thiruvananthapuram transforms into a sacred kitchen. Millions of women place millions of makeshift stoves side-by-side, forming a concentric circle around the Attukal Bhagavathy Temple. Devotees claim all available public space, setting up temporary hearths on streets, sidewalks, courtyards, bus stations, and railway platforms. Then the women wait. Some chant fervently; others bend their heads in quiet contemplation. All are carefully listening to the thottam pattu being sung over the loudspeakers, which builds and builds as the accompanying drums beat louder and faster.

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According to the song's myth, the King of Madurai unlawfully executes the Goddess’s husband. In retaliation, she beheads the king and burns down the city of Madurai. At this moment in the story, the lead singer of the Thottam Pattu lights the main hearth in front of the temple, commencing the ritual.

In a matter of seconds, the news is spread throughout the city by loudspeaker, text message, and television screen. “It happens at the same time, in the same moment, everywhere across the city,” says Rajeev. Four million women strike their matches, light their cooking fires, and prepare Pongala for Attukal Amma.

The air fills with smoke and heat from millions of small fires fueled by bundles of dried coconut-palm leaves. With sweat and tears streaming down their faces, waves of women wait for water to boil, moving slowly and cautiously to prevent accidentally setting themselves or their neighbors on fire.

When the time comes, a handful of rice is sprinkled over the top of each pot, followed by three other handfuls in rapid succession. Not a single grain can touch the ground. Time passes, tension builds, and inside each woman’s pot, a creamy white foam begins to rise. The women stir their porridge and feed their flames until, finally, the pot overflows, signaling that the Goddess has accepted the offering.

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“It’s such a fulfilling experience,” says Rajeev. “Everyone around you is crying and praying. Hundreds, thousands of women all crying out ‘Amma,’ and you are also crying out ‘Amma.’”

It is not uncommon for women to offer more than one pot, particularly after a major event. For example, the year Rajeev’s children were born, her mother offered 108 pots to Amma. “That takes a long time,” says Rajeev. “It’s very hot and muggy. The streets are full of clouds, heat, and fire, so it is difficult to offer even one pot.”

Hours later, after the ululations have hushed and the fires have faded to ash, a parade of priests emerges from the temple with pails of sanctified water. The procession snakes slowly across the city, sprinkling the water into pot after pot after pot. One by one, the women gather up their belongings and head home, sharing spoonfuls of Pongala with friends, family, and strangers along the way.

For Amma’s devotees, Attukal Pongala is a joyous occasion, a blissful break from their daily duties and routines, and an unique opportunity to celebrate with other women. The holiday is also associated with an abandonment of traditional expectations and responsibilities. “Kerala is a very conservative society, but on this particular day women are treated like goddesses,” says Rajeev. “You can go out at midnight. You can wander in the street. You can do whatever you want to do … These things are very rare in our life.”

While men participate in other parts of the 10-day festival, the Pongala ritual is performed exclusively by women. Men are not allowed near the temple without special passes and often stay home, quietly supporting their wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters as they offer Pongala for the benefit of the entire family. When the ceremony is over, they slowly reappear on the streets, giving the exhausted pilgrims food, water, and rides home.

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On this one day, the city’s attention, resources, and spaces are completely devoted to women. Everyone aids the women, understanding that in doing so, they are helping the Goddess as well. Thousands of policemen and firemen ensure their safety, bus and train fares are temporarily waived, and auto-rickshaw drivers volunteer to transport devotees. Mosques and churches participate too, providing thousands of pilgrims with food, water, and free lodging.

According to Dianne Jenett, a researcher and professor of women’s spirituality, who has studied and participated in Attukal Pongala for over 20 years, Pongala is an ancient offering, rooted in the sacred practices of the Dalit or “untouchable” caste. In the past, it was offered exclusively by Dalit women as a part of rural community rituals centered around agricultural fields and sacred groves. Women of the upper castes sometimes supplied the ingredients, but never offered Pongala themselves. Over the last century, the offering evolved into a mammoth ritual that attracts women from all social and economic backgrounds.

It’s believed that on this day, Amma comes out from the temple to prepare her own pot of Pongala, physically manifesting as one of the millions of women laughing, praying, crying, and cooking on the streets. During the Attukal Pongala festival, any woman can be the Goddess.

How One Pan Am Fan Recreated the Golden Age of Air Travel

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It took years of dedication and a few visits to the airplane graveyard.

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“I’ve never met anyone who collects to the degree I do… or who’s gone to the lengths that I have,” says Anthony Toth, a self-proclaimed aviation geek.

But it’s that level of obsession that ultimately led him to become the creator, chief curator, and “captain” of the Pan Am Experience, a one-of-a-kind immersive dinner party based on the former Pan American Airlines, which shuttered in 1991.

Though it began as something of a novelty for Toth, the monthly event has become a full-fledged time capsule of the airline as passengers would have encountered it in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

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Since the Pan Am Experience opened in 2014 at Air Hollywood, an aviation production studio in the North Valley area of Los Angeles, California, the demand has been tremendous, surprising even its creator. It’s attracted those who are nostalgic for a bygone era, who, like Toth, actually flew Pan Am in its prime. But there’s also an entire generation (or two or three) that hasn’t been able to personally experience the now-defunct airline, except as distant observers, thanks to films such as Catch Me If You Can and television shows such as Pan Am.

That is, until the Pan Am Experience opened. Attending one of the multi-course dinners —on a mock flight to one of the airline’s historical hubs (say, New York or London)—is about as close as some will ever get to flying in the airline’s former “golden age.” If it weren’t for the fact that guests don’t actually have to buckle their seatbelts and can’t actually smoke the prop cigarettes, they might think they’ve been transported back in time.

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The moment a “passenger” enters, they receive a replica ticket wallet, luggage tag, and boarding pass—all as close to the originals as possible, right down to the graphics, typeface, and even paper weight.

While all of the Pan Am interiors are “new and fresh,” made of custom textiles that have been reproduced from the original designs whenever possible, Toth has also incorporated actual pieces of history. For instance, attendees dine on one of 700 original airline china dishes and use authentic, antique utensils.

“I like to recreate the brand in its entirety,” Toth says.

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Previously, Toth had recreated a partial flight experience in an emptied out three-car garage, more or less for friends and family. At that point, he’d assembled the stretch from the nose of the plane to the first galley, with a spiral staircase that went nowhere; he’d acquired an upper deck but had no room to attach it.

His partnership with Air Hollywood solved his space issue, allowing him to relocate an entire 747 fuselage, obtained from a plane graveyard, to the production studio’s facility.

So, how authentic is the final result?

Judging by the former Pan Am flight attendants who have come on board, it’s pretty spot-on. Sure, they might be tempted to nitpick minute details. But, as Toth says, “We’ve actually learned a lot from that.” Feedback helps him continue to tweak the Pan Am Experience, even four years and dozens of sold-out dinners since its debut.

As a testament to his dedication to historical accuracy and completionism, he’s gotten the heartfelt endorsement of one former Pan Am “flight stewardess,” Barbara Norberg. “When I walked in the door,” Norberg says, “I felt tears in my eyes—it was so real.” Norberg is one of the few people who’ve witnessed the development of the aviation attraction from its early stages to its current iteration. And as Toth prepared to bring the Experience to life on a larger scale, Norberg helped him hire the first “flight attendants" and train them for the job.

Norberg calls the Pan Am Experience “the real McCoy” and says that the biggest difference between the real flights of long ago and today is “the lack of turbulence!”

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Despite the Pan Am Experience’s high standard of authenticity, there are some inaccuracies—intentional ones on the part of Toth, who had complete creative control over the reproduction. After all, if you were to replicate your favorite airline, why wouldn’t you take your favorite parts from various eras and mash them all together in one ideal scenario? That’s exactly what Toth has done, by putting his “own personal touch” on his reconstruction.

Notably, the Clipper Class (a.k.a. business class) represented at the Pan Am Experience wasn’t in existence at the same time as the first class. In fact, the three cabins assembled by Toth represent a mixture of years rather than one cohesive snapshot of a particular time.

Toth even admits to having taken “liberties” on the upper deck, which dates back to the early ’80s, despite much of the rest of the design being from 1976. That’s the year that sits squarely within what Toth considers his “heyday” with Pan Am.

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Toth really started this entire endeavor as early as 1969, while Pan Am was still very much in service. That’s when the world’s first jumbo jet—the Boeing 747—took its first flight. And a year later, the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 followed.

By then, Toth had already started flying, taking off from his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, to visit his grandparents in Germany. The young jetsetter was hooked. Before long, his parents allowed him to actually choose the family’s annual overseas flights—a decision that allowed Toth to start crossing various airlines and aircraft off his list.

With each voyage, he’d meticulously photograph every detail inside each plane of nearly every airline at the time. But documenting them—and committing them to memory—wasn’t enough to satisfy his fascination with air travel and the brands that made his trips so memorable.

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So, Toth began collecting. He acquired his first set of airline seats at just 13 or 14 years old. Next came a sidewall panel and an overhead bin. Eventually, his parents had to carve out a part of the house for his collection, which just kept growing and growing.

As an adult, one of the biggest reasons why Toth says he relocated to Los Angeles 15 years ago—after stints in Raleigh, Chicago, and San Francisco—was the city’s proximity to the potential pickings at the airplane graveyards of the Southern California desert hinterland.

The result? As Toth proudly proclaims, “I really could replicate any airline.”


Eating Lunch 14,000 Feet Below Sea Level

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Meals on Alvin are simple, for good reason.

Lunch requires some special considerations aboard Alvin, the United States’ deepest diving manned submersible vessel. Inside Alvin, dives can last up to nine hours, and since the vessel lacks a bathroom, gastronomical distress among crewmembers could result in an aborted dive. Carl Wood, the steward of A/V Atlantis, makes special sandwiches to fuel the crew during their long trips below sea level.

In the video above, Atlas Obscura joins Alvin’s crew for lunch, 14,000 feet underwater.

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Charles Kellogg Sang Like a Bird and Drove a Giant Tree

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The vaudeville entertainer turned a California redwood into a mobile "Travel Log."

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The whippoorwill is often heard, but seldom spotted. This shy nightbird spends its life in the woodlands of the eastern United States, nesting on the leaf litter of the forest floor, and calling to its mate with a tremorous quirt. In the late 1910s and early 1920s, however, thousands of Manhattanites heard the whippoorwill’s call many miles away from its usual stomping grounds—at the Palace Theater, off Times Square. Yet again, the bird was nowhere to be seen. Instead, an unremarkable-looking man with a sandy mustache stood on the stage, wedged into a vaudeville variety billing of jazz singers and comedians, and whistled and trilled like a whole forest of birdsong.

It was often said that Charles Kellogg could sing like any bird he had ever heard: the halting phrases of the catbird; the trill of the cardinal; the hoot of the barred owl, and, of course, the cry of the whippoorwill, among many dozens more. Thanks to the “strange whim of nature,” the New York Times reported, he was a man born with the “throat of a bird,” with an avian syrinx as well as the normal larynx. Whether this was true or simply a canny salesman’s story has been lost to time—but what is certain is that Kellogg was a tremendous whistler. In time, his skills made him famous and wealthy, resulting in record deals, coast-to-coast tours, and repeated coverage in the national press. But it was later in his life that Kellogg put his fame to use in a way much more common to the 21st-century celebrity than those of his time: saving the environment, specifically America’s coastal redwoods.

Kellogg was born in 1869, and grew up in the wilderness of Lassen County, California. His autobiography paints a picture of a “child of nature,” a Caucasian child raised by a Native American nurse who taught him the ways of the forest. He could start fires by rubbing sticks together or, allegedly, extinguish them by singing at particularly high pitches. (Mythbusters has since tested this, and found that although it’s technically possible, it’s extremely unlikely Kellogg could have sung loud enough without amplification for it to have worked.)

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As a musician, Kellogg professed to have a range of twelve-and-a-half octaves, with the highest notes inaudible to the human ear. (Mariah Carey’s range, for comparison, is just five octaves.) In one 1926 experiment, physicists recorded him singing a particularly shrill note over Radio Station KGO, then watched, amazed, as a flame went out. The Times reported that scientists later received a deluge of letters about how the sound had extinguished candles sat near the radios of listeners as far away as Hawaii.

But his skills went beyond simply mimicking the sounds of the forest. He could speak to the animals, or so he said, and claimed to have written a dictionary of the language of the hearth cricket. He was, in both his own eyes and those of his audience, “a white woods creature who could hear and see things other whites could not,” as one reporter wrote, with his upbringing lending him a certain closeness to the wilderness that he clung to for the rest of his life. Though Kellogg may have made his name as a performer, he saw himself as a scientist and a friend of nature, maintaining a vegetarian diet atypical the early 20th century, and refusing to ever carry a gun in the forest so as not to hurt its inhabitants.

In the mid-1910s, a few years into a big-ticket record contract with Victor Records, Kellogg made a pivotal trip to Humboldt County, California. This spot, some 250 miles north of San Francisco, has the largest remaining contiguous old-growth forest of coast redwoods in the world. They are trees so large it’s hard to get a handle on their scale, with girthy trunks that stretch up into foliage so far away it looks like parsley. You could host meetings inside them. The biggest among them are higher than two football fields are long, and taller than the Statue of Liberty, Big Ben, or 10 telephone poles. It is almost impossible for photographs to do them justice. Kellogg was awed.

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At the time, there were no protections in place for these magnificent trees. People were logging them indiscriminately, doing irreparable harm to forests that had sat undisturbed for hundreds of years. Kellogg was swept up in a growing movement to protect them, which, since 1918, has been known as the Save the Redwoods League. In his autobiography, he describes how he found himself wondering how to show people the trees’ value, and "how to take the forest out to the world [since] the world could not come out to the forests.” In 1917, with the support of Sunset magazine, Nash Motors, and the Pacific Lumber Company, Kellogg came up with a solution. He could not take the entire redwood forest out to the world, perhaps, but there was another tangible way to communicate their tremendous size—by taking one tree on tour.

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Kellogg built a mobile home out of a truck and a 22-foot section of a fallen tree that had once stood 360 feet high. A 1921 Automobile Journal article describes how the tree first stripped of its bark, then hollowed out. “The preparation of this log took weeks of time,” journalist Albert Marple wrote. “The car was fitted with windows and doors, and, inside, it was equipped with beds, kitchenette, closets, electric lights, and many other features that would add to the comfort of the travelers.” Finally, the “Travel Log” was varnished and polished, and set out on the road. For the next two years, Kellogg and his wife all but lived in the tree, traveling from California to New York with it to, as he put it, “awaken public sentiment … all over the United States.” And they had not a moment to lose: “At the present rate of destruction there will not be a single stand of redwood in the whole state within 100 years.”

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It’s hard to say how much impact Kellogg’s travels had—certainly, coverage of the vehicle from the time seems to focus more on its strangeness than its message. But the redwood preservation movement that had inspired him continued to grow, eventually attracting the attention of the then-National Park Director, Stephen Mather. There was little money to be had from D.C., but media attention from such titles as National Geographic and the Saturday Evening Post found yet another way to “take the forest out to the world,” as Kellogg had done. Eventually, private donations from people including the Rockefeller family helped to secure their future: By the early 1940s, thousands of acres had been secured and safeguarded.

As the Travel Log, it retired when Kellogg did, in the 1920s, and spent the next 75 years tucked away in storage. Eventually, it was restored by the Humboldt Redwoods Interpretive Association, and put on show for all to see in the Humboldt State Park’s Visitor Center. It stands proudly in a room dedicated to Kellogg, his life, and his work—not even three miles from where it once grew for hundreds of years.

Found: The First Known Footprints of a Sabre-Toothed Cat

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And they tell us about how they hunted.

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Today, the beaches of Miramar are no doubt covered in the footprints of visitors to this resort town on Argentina’s coast. But once—at least 10,000 years ago, during the Late Pleistocene—it was a sabre-toothed cat who prowled the area, and was nice enough to leave behind some fossilized tracks.

The prints were discovered, not far from the city’s commercial center, in September 2015 by researchers from the local Punta Hermengo Municipal Museum. The scale of the prints—about 7.5 inches in diameter, significantly larger than even the biggest left by modern lions—suggested that they were left by Smilodon populator, a species of sabre-toothed cat known, from fossilized bones, to have lived in the region. But footprints, or any other non-bone traces of them, had never been found before, so they couldn't be attached definitively to that species. This means that they had to be assigned to a new species, called an "ichnospecies," recently described in detail in the journal Ichnos.

Ichnology is a subfield of paleontology that studies everything but fossilized skeletal remains—footprints, trails, and borings, for example. These pieces of evidence provide different information about extinct species than bones alone. These footprints, for example, show that the large felines were more plantigrade than modern cats—in other words, they walked more on their soles like humans, and not like toe-favoring house cats. This, combined with the ichnospecies’ bulkier front feet, “reinforce the idea that this felid was an ambush predator,” the authors write.

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In a nod to the prints’ place of discovery, the ichnospecies has been named Felipeda miramarensis—an honor that has made the local museum that found them very proud. And now, Federico Agnolín, a paleontologist at the Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences and lead author of the new publication, is teasing another new find from Miramar: a previously unknown species of ancient sloth. Fittingly, we’re still waiting on that publication.

This Prized Filipino Fabric Is Made From Pineapple Leaves

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It's been a favorite of royalty and a first lady.

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Filmy, cream-colored, and embroidered, piña cloth has been worn by a first lady and gifted to royalty. Museums across the world hold exquisite piña dresses in their collections—a legacy of a 19th-century fashion trend. Part of the appeal comes from the fabric’s natural elegance. The Filipino fabric has long been a touchstone of national dress; it’s the traditional, if expensive, option for long Barong Tagalog shirts, Maria Clara dresses, and the occasional wedding gown. But people have long been entranced with its origins: As the name suggests, it’s made from the long leaves of pineapple plants.

As early as the 17th century, piña was noted for its elegance. It's something of a fusion fabric, says Dr. Michael Gonzalez, adjunct Philippine history professor at the City College of San Francisco and research and education director for the Hinabi Project, a nonprofit aimed at raising awareness of Filipino traditional textile traditions. Pineapples, likely native to Brazil, were brought to the Philippines by Spanish colonists, and Filipinos used age-old local weaving methods to turn pineapple fibers into gauzy piña. Chinese immigrants brought the frame loom by the 18th century, updating the weaving process.

The process of making piña hasn’t changed much since then. The dominant piña-growing regions are near Kalibo, the capital of Aklan province, and, to a lesser degree, Puerto Princesa on Palawan. Both have lots of rainfall, ideal for growing the red pineapple necessary for piña. (The leaves of the red pineapple can grow up to a yard long.) After harvesting the leaves and removing their spiny edges, piña makers use broken china to scrape away at them, exposing the fibers. Eventually, they swap the china for a shard of gentler coconut shell. When the thin, hair-like fibers are exposed, they are rinsed thoroughly in “good, clean river water” to remove any lingering glucose, says Gonzalez.

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After drying, the fibers are tied end over end into thread and woven into fabric. It can take months to produce a few yards of cloth, and even then, the process isn’t over, as Filipinos value embroidery on traditional piña products. Designs vary in style, from simple patterns to florals and figures. The more elaborate the embroidery, the more expensive the final product.

How did piña make the jump from adorning elegant Filipino patrons to European royalty? It was aided by the continent's love affair with pineapples. In the early 18th century, Europeans saw pineapples as exotic products of faraway colonies. The upper-class vied to get their hands on them, and they quickly became a symbol of wealth, and even an artistic and architectural motif. Gardeners built "pineries": greenhouses dedicated solely to the fruits.

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Some of that luster couldn’t help but rub off on piña fabric. According to Dr. Kate Strasdin, senior lecturer at the Fashion and Textiles Institute at Falmouth University, piña’s gauzy texture also suited British fashion trends, especially in the first half of the 19th century. Strasdin points to an empire-waisted, Regency-era piña dress in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection as a sign of the pineapple’s enduring allure. Along the bottom border of the dress is a lavish design of golden pineapples.

Piña was even included as one of the marvels of the Great Exhibition of 1851 (an early and prominent world's fair in London), and during the Crimean War, it became an alternative to cut-off supplies of Russian flax. In 1862, Princess Alexandra of Denmark received a piña handkerchief as a wedding gift. Sometimes, the fibers were woven into other fabric, giving it an elegant sheen. Both Strasdin and Gonzalez say it’s likely that some piña clothing in museum collections hasn’t been identified yet, due to a lack of early records and fabric analysis.

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Back in the Philippines, piña production was heavily influenced by European design and demand. Unlike other indigenous textiles, “it’s pretty much embedded in colonial history,” Gonzalez says of piña. Due to the influence of missionaries and merchants, piña was often embroidered with the lace-like European designs that were so popular in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Domestically, Filipinos sought piña for its light weight in hot weather and its glossy beauty. After the British flooded the Filipino market with cheap cotton in the 19th century, says Gonzalez, its manufacture shifted. Weaving it became a household task: Most middle-class households had piña looms. “It was like having a piano,” Gonzalez says. That situation lasted until the Second World War, which “destroyed pretty much everything." In the rebuilding, the laborious weaving of piña fell by the wayside.

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But, Gonzalez says, the 1960s saw a resurgence, as the country emerged from what he calls “survival mode.” The controversial former First Lady of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos, also played a role, as her piña-cloth dresses became iconic. Global interest has also steadily grown, due in part to piña's potential as an alternative, sustainable fiber.

Considering its labor-intensive nature, Gonzalez doesn’t think a massive piña industry is in the cards anytime soon. Part of the Hinabi Project’s mission is to encourage younger Filipinos to learn traditional weaving skills. “Most of the weavers are the average age of 50,” he says, noting that other countries, such as Japan, have nearly lost their age-old weaving traditions. Part of the process of fostering continuity, he believes, is promoting piña as a textile abroad while empowering domestic weaving communities. Weaving and wearing piña is now an inextricable part of Filipino cultural identity, Gonzalez says, and they need to help ensure its survival.

The Magical World of Microscopic Food

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How a "bio artist" captures extraordinary images of everyday edibles.

Under the lens of her microscope, Steph Mantis captures celestial-like images of objects such as drops of honey, or the texture-rich edge of an onion skin. Mantis is a self-described "bio artist," and she uses the tools of science to reveal the microscopic world of food. She describes her art as reframing the mundane and everyday, as well as a means of connecting people through food. She purposefully leaves her works untitled in order to maintain an element of wonder.

In the video above, Atlas Obscura gets a close-up look at Mantis's artistic process.

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Found: A Coin That Stopped the Tsar's Police From Shaving You

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It's one of the oldest ever found.

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They might be scratching their chins in surprise. Archaeologists in Russia have recently stumbled upon a 1699 coin issued to mark compliance with the “Beard Tax,” which Tsar Peter the Great had introduced the year before.

The beard tax policy required men who wished to keep their beards to pay up—or be shaved by the police. In return they received tokens like the one recently found (copper, while wealthier types—who also paid more—got silver), which got them a pass from authorities. The coin—embossed with lips, a curving mustache and a groomed beard, as well as “money paid” in Russian—was one of 5,000 historic coins found in the remains of a 17th-century building in the western Russian city of Pskov in 2016. The archaeologists only recently identified the beard tax token, and it is one of the oldest ever found, according to Elena Salmina of the Archaeological Centre of Pskov Region.

Peter instituted the tax upon his return from a tour of Western Europe, where he saw nary a furry chin. Beards had fallen out of favor in Europe over the course of the 17th century, explains beard historian Christopher Oldstone-Moore, in conjunction with the rise of absolute monarchy—best exemplified by Louis XIV of France. A close shave had become a way of expressing a strict adherence to the edicts of an absolute monarch, one with a court full of obsequious gestures of discipline and order. For the young Tsar, shaving his countrymen became an integral part of his broader efforts to remake Russia in the image of Britain, Holland, and France.

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But Oldstone-Moore, from Wright State University and author of Of Beards and Men: The Revealing History of Facial Hair, suggests that Peter was doing more than emulating other royal courts. “Peter needed people to show that they were loyal to him, not to the church,” he says. Indeed, one of the issues dividing Eastern Orthodoxy from the Catholic Church was facial hair: Shaving had become canon law for Catholic priests, while their Orthodox counterparts saw more piety in remaining hirsute. By getting Russian men to shave, Peter sought to trim the church’s influence and grow his own.

It appears to have worked. Most Russian men chose to keep their money rather than their facial hair, says Oldstone-Moore, and the tax wasn’t lifted until 1772 (when many of the tokens were melted down and repurposed). Perhaps Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Anton Chekhov were just making up for lost time.

The World's First War Submarine Was Made of Wood, Tar, and a Bit of Metal

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Underwater combat dates back to the American Revolution.

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Early on the morning of September 7, 1776, an American soldier named Ezra Lee quietly approached the enemy. The HMS Eagle, a 64-gun British warship moored in New York Harbor, was Lee’s target. His goal was to fix three time-delayed explosives to its side. The task required nerves of steel: "When I rowed under the stern of the ship," he later wrote, "[I] could see the men on deck, & hear them talk."

Lee soon ran into trouble. The ship's side was metal, not wood, and the explosive wouldn't screw in. Fearful of being spotted, he hightailed it out of there. When he saw that British soldiers were following him, he dropped the bomb into the water, frightening them away. About an hour later, it exploded, and everyone on both sides watched as it sent a massive jet of water up into the air.

It's hard to blame Lee for his failure. His mode of transportation—made of wood, covered in tar, and shaped (as Lee put it) "like a round clam, but longer"—was completely unprecedented. When Lee tried to blow up the Eagle, he was piloting the Turtle, the world's first combat submarine. Built by Americans during the Revolutionary War, it never had a successful mission, despite all of the out-of-the-shell thinking it displayed.

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The Turtle was the brainchild of David Bushnell, who began work on it in the early 1770s, when he was a student at Yale College. Bushnell was interested in the problem of underwater explosions: after much study, he managed to create the first ever underwater time bomb, packing gunpowder into a waterproof keg and creating a clock-based trigger mechanism.

In 1775, after the battles of Lexington and Concord, Bushnell graduated and went back to his family farm. Freshly motivated, he pursued the next logical step: a machine that could quietly bring these submersible explosives where they needed to go.

Over the next year, the Turtle began to take shape. (A local clockmaker, Isaac Doolittle, helped design and construct some of the most ingenious parts.) About seven feet across in each direction, the whole thing was basically one giant cockpit. The pilot—or, as one admirer put it, "the adventurer concealed within"—sat on a chair in the middle. He was accompanied by half an hour's worth of breathable air, which he could replenish by bobbing up to the surface and uncapping a couple of bronze tubes in the ceiling.

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A complex series of pedals, cranks and hand rudders allowed said adventurer to move in all three dimensions: to sink and rise, move forwards and backwards, and turn. For daytime visibility, he could peer through a series of glass peepholes. At night, he had to go by the barometer and compass, which were illuminated by foxfire: wood infested with a bioluminescent fungus, which glowed well in the pitch-black water and, unlike a flame, didn't use up any oxygen. Another set of gizmos let him automatically attach the underwater bomb to the keel of the ship, and set off the clockwork mechanism that would trigger the explosion.

Lee compared the submarine to a clam, and modern onlookers might be reminded of a human-sized hand grenade. But to Bushnell, its overall structure bore "some resemblance to two upper tortoise shells, of equal size, joined together"—thus its name.

Bushnell tweaked and tested the Turtle repeatedly. His brother Ezra practiced piloting the sub in the Connecticut River until he could steer it with "perfect dexterity," as military surgeon James Thacher later wrote. Finally, on September 6, it was time to go after a real target, the Eagle. According to some sources, George Washington—who, though skeptical, had funded most of the development of the Turtle—was watching from the shore.

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But you know what they say about the best-laid plans of turtles and tinkerers. Before the attack could be carried out, Ezra Bushnell got sick. Lee—a soldier who had volunteered himself for naval exploits—was called upon to pilot the sub. He was only able to practice with it a few times before, late on the night of September 6, a couple of whaling boats towed him out into the harbor and left him to complete his mission. By the time he encountered the impenetrable metal hull, he had already been rowing for two-and-a-half hours. He didn't have the knowledge or the strength to find another entry point.

The Turtle was put into action twice more, but never fruitfully, and was eventually captured by the British. Bushnell refocused himself on torpedoes, and found slightly more success. As for Lee, he earned a particular distinction: as his obituary put it when he died in 1821, "this officer is the only man of which it can be said that he fought the enemy upon land—upon water—and under the water."


How to Turn Plants Into Tinctures, Like an Ancient Alchemist

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A beginner's guide to extracting flavors from herbs and flowers.

Hieronymus Brunschwig had a cure for whatever ailed you, and it all came down to plants. More specifically, it hinged on coaxing things from them.

In the early 1500s, the German surgeon-alchemist was sure that distillation could do some very heavy lifting when it came to human health. Brunschwig believed that distillation—one method of extracting flavors from flowers, herbs, and other plants, by boiling and condensing water—could calibrate the body, which was frustratingly prone to falling out of whack.

A tall order, but Brunschwig was not one to shy away from an encyclopedic effort. In his book, one of the first printed distillation manuals, he arranged plants alphabetically, and noted their sneaky synonyms. He tallied the afflictions that various plants could defeat, and annotated which portions of flowers, stalks, and leaves were especially potent. He even indicated the months when each plant species were at their most formidable.

“Water of lekes,” distilled from roots in June, may be a balm “after the byrth of a chylde,” he wrote. “Water of lettys,” swallowed at “mornynge and nyght,” could comfort the “lyver.” The book promises drinkable salves for nearly any malady from head to toe, however ineffable. You could distill a remedy for headaches, marital discord, or bad dreams. You might chug some water of dill, or dab a bit on your temples.

There’s a long history here. Ancient Arabic alchemists made tinctures by macerating flowers and herbs, accenting them with spices, and setting them to boil and condense in glass vials over wood fires. By the Middle Ages, distillation was widely practiced by physicians, botanists, and apothecaries. The Victorians were enamored with tinctures, and during the Prohibition era in the United States, when alcohol was hard to come by, moonshiners applied the principles of distillation to make high-octane booze. (In the U.S., it’s still very much illegal to craft your own hard liquor at home, though Americans are permitted to buy and use distillation paraphernalia for other purposes.)

There's no indication that Brunschwig's concoctions made good on their many promises; if your marriage is on the rocks, no flower or herb is likely to save it. While herbal remedies remain popular throughout much of the world, they're not typically tested or regulated the way modern medicines are. As a result, in many places, including the United States, sellers aren't allowed to market essential oils or other contemporary tinctures as cures for specific diseases.

Theoretical curative properties aside, there are delicious reasons to extract flavors from plants. Compared with the complicated process of distillation, infusion (the method of stewing petals, stalks, or leaves in alcohol, oil, honey, or water) is nearly foolproof. Steeped in tradition, it's an easy and affordable way to jazz up foods and drinks from trifles to tipples.

We asked Sarah Lohman, a historic gastronomist and the author of Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine, to lay out a recipe for making simple infusions at home.

1. Collect your materials

No need to overthink this—most any herb or flower will do. “Lavender, thyme, basil, you can create whatever you want to add into baked goods, dinner, ice cream, whatever you’re thinking,” Lohman says.

“I guess if you’re really foolish, you could infuse something that’s poison—but just don’t do that,” Lohman adds. Only use plants you recognize. If you’re scouting for wild edibles, use a guidebook or go with a seasoned pro. “If you stick to herbs you find in the grocery store, you should be in good shape,” Lohman adds.

You’ll also need a container. Plastic, snap-top takeout containers work nicely for the initial infusion.

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2. Measure out the ingredients

Besides your plant material, you only need high-proof alcohol. The higher the proof, the faster the infusion happens, Lohman says—and if it’s really high, around 180-proof (meaning it’s 90 percent alcohol and 10 percent water), you’ll likely need to cut it with water in order to douse the burn. Vanilla extract, for instance, is 70-proof, so it’s 35 percent alcohol. “You make the infusion at a higher proof, and then you usually add water to bring down the proof to a comestible level,” Lohman says.

If you have a cup of Everclear and a cup of water, for instance, you’ve slashed the proof in half—from roughly 90 percent to 45 percent. For flavored spirits, such as things you’d add to cocktails, you’d want to hover around 20 or 25 percent. Keep on adding splashes of water until you get there.

3. Walk away

Place the plastic container in a sunny windowsill, and then leave it alone for at least 24 hours.

4. Sample and adjust

Since high-proof alcohol kills whatever microbes cross its path, you don’t have to worry about things getting funky the longer you leave your concoction stewing. “The worst-case scenario is that you make something you don’t like the taste of and you throw it out,” Lohman says. That said, you’ll want to test your infusion daily so that the flavor doesn’t get stronger than you like.

A little clove goes a long way, while something like basil or thyme will be more subtle. To get a punchy flavor, you’ll either need to begin with more plant material or let the infusion sit around longer.

This is where tasting is crucial. A delicate flavor, such as wheatgrass, might take a few weeks to develop, while a more-aggressive lavender comes through in just two or three days—anything beyond that might be overbearing. On the other hand, if the flavor is too toothless, you can keep adding more of the ingredients—one vanilla pod here, a clove there. “It’s a little bit of trial and error,” Lohman says.

As you experiment, keep a log of the tweaks you make. This makes the whole thing replicable, if things go well—and if they don’t, you know what to change in the next go-around.

5. Decant it

Once you’ve arrived at the flavor you want, you’ll need to fish out or strain the plant material so that the flavor doesn’t keep evolving.

After that, you might want to pour it into a pretty glass jar. (There are lots of apothecary-aesthetic shops online.)

The finished product makes a creative, inexpensive gift. “At this point, you’ve bought a bottle of vodka, plucked some stuff from the garden, and that’s it,” Lohman says. “It’s a very low-risk at-home hobby.” Not to mention a delicious way to tap into an ancient practice, with a modern twist.

Here's What the Watermelon Was Up to Before It Tasted Good

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Wild watermelons weren't sweet, but they were incredibly useful.

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Before it became the sweet summertime treat it is today, the watermelon was one foul, functional fruit. In fact, the wild watermelons of ancient times would hardly be recognizable to even the most seasoned Citrullus connoisseurs of today. Firm, seedy, and pale green on the inside, they were characterized by their bland or bitter taste. But despite their rather unpalatable flesh, they were evidently important fruits to keep around. In fact, they were cultivated for hundreds of years before they began to taste like something worth plating.

Native to Africa, watermelons have been grown throughout the continent since ancient times. In southwest Libya, 5,000-year-old seeds were excavated, and watermelon remnants from 1500 B.C. have been discovered in the foundational deposits beneath walls of a Sudanese temple. Archeologists have also found seeds and paintings of various species of watermelon in ancient Egyptian tombs dating back from as long as 4,000 years ago. These species include wild watermelons, as well as the oblong predecessors of the “dessert” watermelon.

But if not a flavorful fruit, what were these watermelons good for? According to the work of Harry S. Paris, a horticulturalist at the Agricultural Research Organization in Israel, ancient Egyptians likely harvested the round fruit for its water. Wild, or “spontaneous” plants, Paris writes, can be sources of clean water during the long, dry season, and can provide food for livestock and animals.

This might explain why watermelons were found in pharaoh’s tombs, as Paris told National Geographic, such as that of King Tut. Pharaohs would need to stay hydrated on their long journey to the afterlife, and watermelons might be the best way to provide water.

Living travelers, too, needed reliable water sources to sustain them. According to Paris, it’s likely that travelers took watermelons with them as a kind of nature-made canteen. Along with trade, he writes, the watermelon’s role as a portable fresh water supply helped the fruit find its way into new regions.

Once the Greeks got a hold of the pepo (as they called it) around 400 B.C., they, too, put it to use. While some varieties were eaten (and others had to be boiled, fried, or simply avoided), the watermelon made a splash in the medical world. Pliny the Elder found pepones to be incredibly refreshing, and, according to one translation, “also laxative.” The first-century physician Dioscorides also noted that the pepon was cooling, wet, and diuretic.

Slightly more charming than its water-inducing properties was the watermelon’s alleged ability to help folks stay cool. According to Greek physicians, watermelon rinds placed atop a small child’s head could treat heat stroke.

But by the first few centuries A.D., posits Paris, the watermelon had likely sweetened up. Writings in Hebrew from the end of the second century, as well as sixth-century Latin texts, group the watermelon with other sweet fruits, including pomegranates, figs, and grapes. And though it still was far from the modern-day melon, it was well on its way to becoming something sweeter.

It's Rosh Hashanah, and a Ukrainian Town Is Bursting With Jewish Pilgrims

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For the first time, Israel has opened a temporary consulate to help manage the chaos.

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The town of Uman is in the quiet center of Ukraine, hours from the country’s major cities. It’s an unlikely place for a foreign consulate, temporary or otherwise, but Israel has good reason for opening one there this week, for the first time ever. Tens of thousands of pilgrims have just descended on Uman for Rosh Hashanah and things are about to get both pious and raucous.

The pilgrims are there to honor Rebbe Nachman, founder of the Bratslav sect of Hasidic Judaism, who is buried in Uman, where he lived just the last few months of his life. While most Hasidic sects pass leadership down between generations, says Ariel Evan Mayse, a religious scholar at Stanford University, Nachman has remained Bratslav’s figurehead. The community has a joke, says Mayse, that asks, “How many Bratslav Hasidim does it take to change a lightbulb?” The answer: “Oy, there will never be a new one like the old one.”

Nachman had promised salvation to those who visit his grave (along with giving to charity and reciting the proper psalms), but it's not just formal members of the Bratslav group who have a soft spot for him and his final resting place. Recovering drug addicts, for example, feel recognized by his teachings on the darker aspects of existence. He was into meditation, which appeals to the otherwise secular. The Bratslav Hasidim are known for their intense, personal spirituality, which attracts many other seekers to Uman as well. It’s also common for young Israelis to travel to India after completing their mandatory army service. After that experience, many welcome the more meditative approach to religion Nachman is known for, and make the pilgrimage as well. The result is a great diversity of Jews who speak differently, dress differently, and believe differently all in one place to celebrate—but almost all men.

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Others are just there to witness what has become, Mayse says, “somewhat of an event”—one often likened to Burning Man (the Gathering of the Hasidim, maybe?), known for scenes of intoxicated masses clogging the streets to dance, pray, and read scripture. Last year, the Jewish New Year brought a record 40,000 pilgrims to town—thereby increasing Uman’s population by somewhere around 50 percent. But that ballooning population, as Spring Break teaches us, brings problems. For years, Israel has sent its own police to manage the debauchery, disputes, and even physical altercations that can erupt among pilgrims and locals. This year they've taken the unprecedented step of opening a temporary consulate there.

Whether due to spirituality or simply spirits—there's likely to be a lot of lost passports, and staff will be on hand to help many pilgrims get home when it's all over. As Nachman wrote: “It’s a great mitzvah,” or good deed, “always to be happy.”

Meet the 'Radio Guy,' an Obsessive Collector of Old Tech

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Steve Erenberg's passions include medical helmets and antique radios.

Steve Erenberg collects outdated medical devices, masks, and technology. Both his store and home in Peekskill, New York, are filled with objects that look torn out of a macabre sci-fi movie. The self-described "Radio Guy" refers to his collection as a mix of technology and art, with purposeful items displaying a wide array of materials and design.

In the video above, Atlas Obscura takes a tour of Erenberg’s unique world.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel to explore more Atlas Obscura videos.

The Adventures of America's Most Well-Traveled Bookstore

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Since 2015, Rita Collins has been taking her love of books on the road.

It’s a frigid morning in April when a shiny white van pulls into the parking lot at Isabel’s Family Restaurant in Woodstock, Illinois. A few flakes of snow float in the air as the driver backs the van into a corner spot. Members of a local collective, the Atrocious Poets, climb out of their cars and start setting up typewriters to craft on-the-spot poems.

At the epicenter of this small-town gathering about 50 miles northwest of Chicago is Rita Collins. Wearing several warm layers, Collins pulls open the van’s sliding door. Next to the door and under an awning, she sets up a folding table and a few chairs along with several small merchandise racks. Book-shaped earrings—real paper pages bound in tiny leather covers—dangle from her ears as she writes prices on a white board. Setting up on this cold spring morning is just another day on the job at Saint Rita’s Amazing Traveling Bookstore and Textual Apothecary, a mobile bookshop run by the itinerant bookseller.

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Since 2015, Collins has piloted her traveling bookstore around her home state of Montana and across the U.S. several times. What started as a seasonal summer project evolved into a year-round, part-time business after Collins retired in 2017 from a long career in adult education, teaching in Montana as well as recent stints in Romania and Czechia.

Like many bibliophiles, Collins had always wanted to own a bookstore. But she ran into a roadblock. Collins lives in Eureka, Montana, a town of just over 1,000 residents that can’t financially sustain a brick-and-mortar bookshop. Taking a one-week business-planning course with the American Booksellers Association, she realized another option was possible. “What about a traveling bookstore?” she asked her instructors. They were skeptical. But Collins knew she was onto something big—as big as a van or bus, anyway.

She drew inspiration (and some practical advice) from Dylans Mobile Bookstore, a traveling bookstore on the other side of the pond. Based in Wales, Jeff Towns, along with his son, Joe, turned to mobile bookselling after shuttering his storefront in the early 2000s. Named for Dylan Thomas, Towns was the only other traveling bookseller Collins could find to contact for advice. (Several novels featuring fictionalized traveling booksellers offer addition inspiration, including Jenny Colgan’s The Bookshop on the Corner and Nina George’s The Little Paris Bookshop.) Collins named her venture Saint Rita’s not just for herself; Saint Rita of Cascia is the patron saint of impossible causes.

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Reaching the first few mile markers—buying a used Sprinter van with a reliable diesel engine, asking a local friend to design a simple red-and-black logo for the business—was relatively straightforward. Harder to navigate was keeping the books from sliding off the shelves while on the road. Collins called a carpenter friend to build some sturdy custom wood bookshelves to hold the books at a secure, slight slant toward the van walls. The design mimics that of some library bookmobiles and keeps the books in place until eager shoppers pull them out.

Out on the road, Collins crowdsourced other feature requests. “The first day I opened, I realized I would need a handle to help people get into and out of the bookstore safely,” she notes. So she installed a heavy steel grab bar that helps people step from the pavement into the van. She also puts down a portable wooden step at every stop and added a rooftop solar panel to power two overhead lights inside the van so customers could more easily browse her donated inventory.

In the beginning, Collins had assumed friends would donate novels and nonfiction while she worked out how to source the rest of her goods for a low cost. But the reality is that everywhere she goes, she receives bags and boxes overflowing with used books from friends as well as enthusiastic strangers. “Often, even if I sell a lot, I return from a trip with more books than I left with,” says a bemused Collins. “Besides helping with my business model, the donations help me offer a range of books that I might not carry otherwise.”

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Prices can vary slightly, depending on her location for the day. But the books are always priced by type, with paperbacks typically a few dollars cheaper than hardbacks. Children’s books are always one dollar each.

As Collins has become a repository for extra boxes of books, she has also become a donor to literacy programs, as well as prison and public libraries, across the country. “I’m a book conduit now,” she says, noting that she sorts through thousands of titles and passes on roughly a third of the books she receives as donations.

Part of what draws the curious public to her textual apothecary is Collins’s obvious enthusiasm for writing as well as reading. At every stop, Collins puts a manual typewriter next to some smaller bookracks on the folding table out front. Occasionally, she’ll offer a small discount if shoppers type something. She borrowed the idea from Towns, who hauls a typewriter around England with his mobile shop. Collins’s beige vintage Olympia has become a surprisingly intimate accessory.

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“One time, a young man typed an entire page and left it with me,” she says. “I read it, and it was this really sad story about a friend of his who died. And I was like, Why is he typing this here on my typewriter? That’s something about this space that I never would have anticipated. Maybe because I’m passing through, and I’ll be gone tomorrow; maybe that makes people more comfortable.”

The device also helps Collins create community, as she’s frequently welcomed to park at typewriter retail and repair shops. Her cross-country trips in 2018 included stops at Ace Typewriter & Equipment in Portland, Oregon, and at a typewriter enthusiast meet-up in San Francisco, California.

As a lover of all sorts of instruments of creativity, Collins recently bought a Moog Theremini, a mini version of a theremin, an electronic musical instrument that musicians play using hand motions near the device. It’s a not-quite-hands-on attraction that helps Collins connect with an even wider network of like-minded small-business owners, including Moog Music in Asheville, North Carolina, where she parked on a 2018 trip. While in transit, Collins charges the Theremini using energy captured with her solar panel.

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Though her small town couldn’t financially support a retail bookstore, Saint Rita’s is a community-supported project. It’s just that the community sometimes changes, depending on the arts festival, restaurant, or retailer where she temporarily sets up shop.

In spite of her bookstore’s success, Collins doesn’t plan to do this forever. Within a year or two, she expects she’ll route the traveling bookstore to its next owner. “I don’t hold onto things,” she says practically, but also philosophically. “And that opens me up to do something different.”

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