Marc Levitt. (Photo: Arun Chaudhary)

Presidential campaigns don’t plan themselves. For the months in which a candidate is on the road, wheeling from state to state, event to event, there’s an entire team of people whose job it is to get there first and make sure everything goes smoothly.

They find the places where the rallies happen and the hotel rooms where the candidate stays; they need to know which entrances the car will pull up to and who will be standing behind the candidate when the cameras close in tight. In this world, a perfect day is when no one notices that team has done their job—everything runs smoothly.

Marc Levitt was Director of Scheduling and Advance for Bernie 2016, which meant that if anything did go wrong, he would hear about it, quickly. This wasn't his first time out: he worked advance on presidential campaigns for John Kerry and Barack Obama, too. Now back in civilian life, he told us about the inner workings of getting political people where they need to be.

Why don’t you start by explaining: what is advance work, exactly?

At every place that a presidential candidate goes and every event that he appears at, I think there’s a perception that these things just happen magically. When, in fact, they are the most planned and coordinated aspect of the campaign. I remember being blown away when in 2004 I joined the Kerry campaign, that, wow, every 10 seconds of John Kerry’s day was planned, really down to the minute.

What the advance team does is, they’re the group of people who, in coordination with the scheduling office at headquarters, they go in advance to a given city where the candidate is going to drop down and do some events. They serve as the tip of the spear for coordinating with local officials, venues and vendors to build the events, to build the rallies, to build the town halls, to set up the fundraisers, the meetings, whatever it is. That’s the basics of it.

How did you get into this line of work to begin with?

I was volunteering in South Florida, for an advance team that was doing a Kerry trip, in 2004. I did a few favors for one of the people on the advance team, and she called headquarters and by the next week, I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, working on the advance team. It was pure serendipity. The serendipity continued in 2008, when a lot of the people I knew from the Kerry campaign folded over and became part of the Obama operation. That’s how I got into it.

When you were a volunteer, what were you doing?

Oh gosh, well, back in those days, we didn’t have immediate and ready access to all the information in the world. The thing that I did that really endeared me to the person I was working for — I was the guy who went to Kinkos, or whatever it was, at 4 o’clock in the morning and made copies of the press clips. At time time, they were a couple hundred pages long. I had to be at Kinko’s at 4 a.m. to copy these press clips and deliver them to the hotel that John Kerry was staying at. That was honestly the main thing I did that got me on the road. It enabled this woman, who I still talk to every now and then, to sleep in, which for her was a pretty rare thing.

When was the first time you felt like you were in charge and on your own—when you were thinking, ok, it’s all on me to make this work?

That was literally the next week in Harrisburg. Depending on which job you take on the advance team, there can be no net. In my case, I was the RON, which can mean, depending on who you ask, "remain over night" or "rest over night". It’s a military acronym. I was responsible for coordinating the hotel logistics for something like 130 traveling press, and 30 traveling staff. I had to figure out in a week’s time, how to make that work, with a Sheraton in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Having never done it before and having very little guidance, I consulted a few people who were able to help me out, but, yeah, that was it. And it was abject chaos. I mean, I can’t tell you how badly I failed.

What happened?

Well, I didn’t really know what I was doing. These are totally novice mistakes. I had not coordinated with the motorcade person to figure out that the candidate was going to be arriving to a separate entrance from the staff. At some point, 30 some-odd people arrived in the building and had no idea how to get their keys. This happened in mid to late evening, when everyone on a presidential campaign is moving pretty quickly and everything is very harried. That failure of coordination just led to chaos. Everything ended up okay in the end, but that’s the sort of situation that not even weeks later I would have figured out how to control a little bit better.

And they kept giving you work?

Yeah, despite that. When you’re a Democratic campaign you just try to sniff out talent. There’s no off-cycle advance, so it’s very difficult to find people who do this on a regular basis and people who’ve cultivated the skills over the years. People come in and out of the business. You’re pretty dependent on young people who are sharp enough to figure it out after a short period of time, but there’s definitely a learning curve.

Levitt with the candidate. (Photo: Arun Chaudhary)

What are the stages of advance work, the different types of job you could have?

One of the nice things about advance is that it has a built in hierarchy that makes the organization of any given team pretty easy. The team has a lead, a press lead, usually somebody subordinate to the press person, called the P2. There’s a person who does site or multiple people who do site if you have more than one event. Let’s just say we’re at a high school gym. They’ll be sitting at a high school gym and working with the high school principal or the activities coordinator. They’ll work with that person, the vendor, Secret Service, custodial staff, all those sort of things. They’ll build all the rooms, make sure walking paths are logistically viable, and make sure that all the needs we have for a given site are covered. There are people who are subordinate, trainees to the site person, that go by the term S2.

Depending on whether or not you need it, there’s a crowd person. The crowd person is responsible for... everything involving the crowd, so ingress, coordinating with the Secret Service, making sure the crowd shows up. Sometimes there’s a subordinate crowd person, the C2. Then there’s the RON, which is the person who coordinates hotel logistics. There’s also the motorcade person, who deals with motorcade cars and getting the volunteers to do that. The motorcade person is also typically responsible for liaising with the field office, to get volunteers for the entire team. The lead is sort of the person who sets the agenda for the entire team and the single point of contact for headquarters to figure out what will happen on the trip.

It does sound very military.

It is. There’s no coincidence there whatsoever. It is a model that is borrowed from, at least as far as I know, that’s borrowed from the White House, which is—people’s public perceptions notwithstanding—it’s basically a military base. RON is a military acronym. The Secret Service operates like a quasi-military operation. The Secret Service has counterparts for all the various members of the team I just described. There will be Secret Service lead, a Secret Service press person, someone who is responsible for the site. A lot of the time, the site person doubles as the crowd person, although there are also different types of Secret Service agents who work on that. So, yeah, it is quasi-military, with a very real function.

What is the relationship between the Secret Service and the advance team? How does that work?

It starts again with their leads and their counterparts. On a campaign, the campaign staff, the advance sets the agenda for a given trip. They say we’re going to go do a rally. The Secret Service dutifully says, ok, let’s go do this rally. They make their own assessments and judgement about the security and they coordinate that with the campaign. The campaign may want to do this one thing, and the Secret Service will say, Oh my god, that is a death trap. There’s give and take there. It has to be worked out.

I always say this about the relationship between advance and the Secret Service. Advance’s goal is to expose the candidate as much as possible, and Secret Service’s goal is to cover them up. There’s that tension, but it’s not that hard to navigate. The Secret Service understands our goals, and advance understands Secret Service’s concerns and requirements. The lead and the lead on the advance team will work together, and then there are all these counterparts for the various components—the press agents will work work with the press lead, our site agents will work with their site agents to figure out the particulars of how any events or series of events is going to go.

When you’re planning for the candidate to arrive in a particular place, what are the things you need to think about and coordinate?

The first thing is: what are we doing in that city? You try to figure out what the schedule looks like. Are we there to talk to a newspaper’s ed board? Are we there to raise money? In Bernie’s case, it was almost never to raise money. We only had three or four terrestrial fundraisers; the rest was done on the web. You try to figure out, in cooperation with the local field office, what their goals are for the stay. It involves taking in a lot of input from both the political and field site about what it is we’re going to do.

We look for a venue. If you need to stay in a hotel, we find a hotel, and we work from there.

So when you’re looking at a place, what do you look for? What do you see and what are your concerns?

Let’s say that we’re going to do a rally in Lawrence, Kansas, because that’s where i think the university is. We’re looking for a venue that’s appropriately sized to the number of people we think we’re going to draw. In Bernie’s case, we had a pretty good sense, based on rule of thumbs compared with the number of email addresses we had, to get a sense of how many people in a given area were likely to show up to for an event. So we would trying to find a venue that matched that.

That, by the way, is incredibly difficult. You can’t always build a stadium in Lawrence, Kansas. You end up in these situations where you’re in a town and all there is is a high school gym, but you want to be able to accommodate as many people as possible, to sort of foment the revolution. That is the challenge. You’re looking for a venue that will meet all those sort of goals. In the case of the Bernie campaign, one of the key goals was getting as many people in front of Bernie as we could. So size of venue was the first and foremost consideration.

So if there’s just a high school gym, what’s your next step?

You have a couple of options from there. You can go to another town. There are all kind of reasons a venue can fall through. The largest venue in town could be busy. There could be weird things in the venue’s background, like they’re owned by the Klan, or something like that. There are crazy things that can render a venue unusable.

So you could move to another town. If you’re talking about Lawrence, Kansas, you’re not that far away from Kansas City, and you can count on some overlap between the audience for those two rallies. Alternatively, you can go to a high school and ticket the event or somehow limit RSVPs for the event. Almost invariably, with very few exceptions, we ended up with overflow crowds at our events. You have to hedge your bets with where you’re going to set up shop. Because you don’t how many people are going to show up, and one of the things that journalists love to report on is if there’s any empty space in the venue. It becomes an immediate tweet, or “is support for Bernie in Lawrence, Kansas, not what we thought it would be?”

So do you have to worry about the venue being too big?

I think at the end of the day you don’t. There’s way too much emphasis put on that by practitioners. The reality is, given how fast the news cycle moves these days, it’s usually a couple snarky tweets from journalists and then everyone moves on. In certain cases, the campaign or the candidate is invested in having a full house, and that plays a psychological role for folks internally.

You can look this up — the thing I cite to, to point out how little it matters, is in 2008, I was working on a rally for Obama that took place at the New Jersey Meadowlands. I think it’s a 22,000 person event venue, and less than 3,000 showed up. But nobody noticed. It was all but forgotten at the time.

Is the example you gave of the Klan venue something you really encountered?

No, no, no. But that said, a real story that we did encounter is a venue that was owned by someone who was a vigorous Donald Trump supporter and who, in their Facebook messages, made clear their allegiance to Trump. That’s not to say we wouldn’t go to that venue, but it would make us wary about what we were going to encounter there.

A Bernie rally. (Photo: Michael Vadon/CC BY 2.0)

What’s a perfect day feel like? And how often do things go not as planned, and what’s the first sign that, as you’re saying, it’s going to devolve into chaos?

We kept things pretty tight on the Bernie campaign. A perfect day is when nobody notices we were even there. That’s a perfect day—when nobody notices we’ve done our job. If I get a phone call, that means something has gone wrong. So no news is good news. I, as the boss, if my email is quite, that means things are okay.

What’s the first sign? It could be anything. One of the regular pitfalls is, and because our communications staff is in regular touch with journalists, we’ll hear very quickly if the press logistics are messed up. If somebody from the New York Times wasn’t able to check in quickly at the rally, that’s something I hear about that right away or for days. Generally speaking, our candidate was pretty chill with logistical things that went wrong. I very rarely heard anything bad about that. That comes down to the chillness of the candidate. But I’ll get the phone call or email pretty quickly if something has gone pear-shaped.

How many people did you have on your team, for the Bernie campaign? How many people were you coordinating to coordinate?

There are full timers and day raters. We term them consultants and pay them daily. I want to say 75 maybe, was what it maxed out at. For context, that’s what a primary campaign that goes national would look like. About half of that were consultants, and the rest were fully salaried. By the general election, you’re operating with something like 300 to 350 advance people, because you’re taking care of travel for the primary candidates and also for the spouse and big deal surrogates.

It takes a lot of folks to get these things done and get things done well.

Is a week typical to how long you would have to plan?

It varies, based on the campaign. Campaign vs. White House is also a material difference. In the White House, you have schedule visibility six months to a year out, sometimes years out. For foreign trips for that, you’ll get two weeks. For domestic there, you’ll get 7 to 9 days, generally. On campaigns you’ll generally have less time. Three or four days. But you have fewer things to worry about.

With Bernie, we would probably figure out exactly where we were going and what we were doing three days out on average. There’s a reason why we were able to do that this cycle, which would not have been possible in prior cycles. Internet penetration was radically higher this cycle than it had been and particularly among the people who stuck with our campaign. It meant we could hit send on an email and guarantee that a crowd would arrive. Even in 2008 for Obama, you wanted to have 6 or 7 days just for the news to percolate out that Obama was going to be some place. There was no such need this cycle. You could hit send with 24 to 48 hours and you would have 15,000 people show up.

What makes someone good at this job? When you’re looking for people to hire, what do you look for?

Poise is really important. Flipping out is not okay. And, you know, you get that now and then. Some people might be able to compensate for not being poised. But poise is really, really important.

What do you mean by poise?

You can’t raise your voice, you can’t run. Everything’s calm, nothing’s going wrong is the veneer you need to maintain. That’s even when things are in fact going wrong, because you’re the person responsible for fixing it.

Generally—you also need personability. I think the thing that advance teams are—things that advance teams are not giving enough credit for are the diplomatic tact needed to navigate the various forces at place. Any time you hit the ground, assuming your candidate is a Secret Service protectee, you’re going to be working with a venue, you’re going to be working with a hotel, you’re going to be working with local vendors. You’re going to be working with maybe several different people at the venue, of variable quality, and you’ll have to figure out who to get things done with. Diplomacy is actually a pretty important skill as well.

For you, after your first campaign, what convinced you to keep doing it the next cycle?

I cut my teeth politically in the Bush era. I was near certain going to be trying my best to make a Democrat win. And that was true in 2006, too. I worked briefly for a field program for a congressional candidate in 2006 in Florida. It wasn’t solely that I was dedicated to advance work so much as the Democratic cause. It just happened that I had this background in advance in 2004 that led naturally to the job I took in 2008. But it’s about political passion.

Not that you love planning so much.

No, not that I love planning so much. I think it’s enjoyable. There are aspects of it that are really sweet. What opportunity is a 23 going to have to travel to Kansas City, Missouri, or North Dakota.  I got to see parts of the country that at age 23 I would never have a reason to go to. I was in Birmingham, Alabama, for a week working a John Edwards thing. I was in North Carolina. There were pretty sweet aspects to it. But I didn’t start college saying—I’m going to be an event planner.  I mean, my college majors were philosophy and German. The fit was not necessarily natural.

Levitt with the Bernie bus. (Photo: Amanda Mansour)

You’ve worked for a few different candidates—does the job change depending on who you’re working for?

Sure. Absolutely. The principle, the candidate, sets the tone for the campaign. At a certain point, despite myself wanting to do the job in the way that I want to, in the way I think is best and most expert, I’ve got to defer to the candidate’s preferences. Bernie, early on, was fairly reluctant, I would say, to have too much in the way of advance staff. That was very different from Obama, who very early on said, we’re going to have a huge, professionalized advance staff.

Each candidate has different preferences for how they want information presented to them and how they want their days to go, things like that. You have to work all those considerations into how you schedule things, how you prepare a hotel, how you prepare a venue, how you prepare a clutch with local political people, how you prepare interviews and in what order. The candidate more than anything drives the significant differences you’d see across advance operations.

How much of an impact does the campaign budget have on what you can do?

The goal of these events was strategically speaking central to the campaign. You want to get as many people in the room as possible. You want to get as many email address as you can, and Bernie’s exposure, via the media, as broad as possible. So you can imagine—what an organization's priorities would be, vis-a-vis a budget, given the goals.

If you think about what those events were as an investment, they were enormously fruitful. And there are ways of measuring that. I would get these clips every morning of what local TV stations covered our event in South Carolina and it would tell me, based on how much the equivalent ad buy was, for every 30 seconds. I could literally add up the monetary value of individual events to the campaign.

Does the advance staff get a certain budget to spend, or are there parameters? What are the budget guidelines?

I would say...circumstances change radically from city to city. If you’re going to be in New York City, and you need a hotel, that’s going to cost something very different than in Mason City, Iowa. There’s a lot of flexibility, I would say. Same thing goes—if you’re putting on a rally in New York City, that’s going to be a whole lot more expensive. It also depends on the venue. If you’re going to put on a rally at a convention center, convention centers are notoriously expensive. If you’re going to be doing an outdoor rally, there are all kinds of expenses that people don’t really think about — Port-a-Potties, more substantial sound. A lot of time you’ll end up in an arena that has in-house sound. If you’re in an outdoor venue, that you anticipate 30,000 people showing up to, you need to have some pretty serious speaker stacks to reach all of them.

Encompassing all of that, there’s a lot of variability in how much the events cost.

I saw that you were the Deputy Parade Director for President Obama’s first inauguration. I have to ask about that. How much is that the same as this and how much was it totally different?

Radically different. When you’re  doing this stuff for the government, it operates at a very different pace. When you’re doing it for the President, it also operates under different constraints. The challenges associated with both are different. With doing the deputy parade director thing, for the inaugural committee, patience is a real virtue. Because things move glacially. You encounter for the first time—at least for me it was the first time—the full weight of government bureaucracy, creating challenges that you hadn’t encountered before. Everything always works out fine, but there’s no flexibility with certain things.

What’s an example of one of those challenges?

The National Park Service has a very, very constrained budget. Consequently, they are extremely protective over their resources around the National Mall. So, what does this mean? It means, in certain cases, there’s these weird pads that you have to put down to make sure there’s no damage to lawns. There are boxes that the Park Service will require we put around trees, to make sure the public doesn’t bump into them or knock them. Similarly the Secret Service, the protection they assign to the President is a lot more rigorous.

Right, I went to that swearing-in, and there were so many people. I don’t think I actually was on the National Mall anymore.

It was a large number of people. And some 50,000 of them got stuck in the tunnel, or whatever it was.

Oh, right the tunnel!

I thankfully was not responsible for that. But at the end of the day, who is responsible when there are so many cooks in the kitchen? A lot of the authority and responsibility is diffused for that kind of fuck up.

Are there things that you think people should understand about this work that they often misunderstand?

As much as the logistics are the prima facie, key aspect, the other thing that’s central to what we do, We are fundamentally about communicating. There’s this huge symbiosis between communications efforts and what we do on scheduling and advance. So, to give an example, over the course of the campaign, we switched around the things that we were doing visually and putting in front of people. They had different objections at different points.

Very early on it was mostly just Bernie placards. This was before we had our footing as a campaign. It became pretty clear that we were going to be raising money entirely online, so at a certain point I switched over all of our visuals—the banner, the podium sign—in particular the things that were going to be most visual to cameras, I switched that to our URL. It had a variety of purposes. Thankfully our URL contained Bernie’s name. One of things you’re concerned about early on in a campaign is name ID. You want to convey the name as much as possible. So thankfully the URL contained the name. We switched over to that, and then even later on, we switched over to "A Future to Believe In".

It’s hard to describe, but until you can anchor the campaign a little better with a unified visual and messaging front, you have the potential for completely disparate operations in different parts of the country. Iowa is going to be a different campaign from New Hampshire. Some of that is by necessity, but there’s a sense in which introducing "A Future to Believe In" gave the campaign a unified feel. Because our events looked the same regardless where we were going.

One of the things we also do as a communications strategy — it’s obvious to people without being obvious what it’s about—we’re trying to make the guy look like a very popular person. So we put people behind him. Those people shout and scream and yell and whatever, and what’s it’s saying every time someone see that is: here’s a guy with a well of support. Every now it’s ok to have a town hall where people aren’t whooping and hollering. But if you ever have the displeasure of going back and looking at Jeb Bush’s town halls, there were people falling asleep and they were relatively sparse. If you think about the average consumer of these things visually—and visually is the way I would say we do the majority of our communication—they have like 8 seconds on a treadmill, or 30 seconds while their kids are screaming to see something on the local news. Those very brief impressions have a very definite impact, and we try to tailor what those impressions are going to be.

Do you pick the people who are standing behind the candidate? And how do pick them?

It depends on well coordinated the team is and what the nature of the event.  I would say there’s no question that there’s an effort to shape that image. We have that image there for a reason, and there’s no question that there’s a desire to shape that image. To give an example of something you want to avoid, back in 2008, I think it was the night of the Indiana primary, Barack Obama had three dudes wearing all wearing Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirts directly behind him, in the tight shot. That became the story for the following day. So you do try to craft that shot. You do pick them, and you distribute them...you know, as a Democratic campaign one of the goal is to make our head-on shot look like America, make it look like the party.

Never underestimate how much these events are stage managed. If you can think about a way we might stage manage it, we probably have or at some point we did, for better for worse.

So what happens now for you? What’s it like to be off the job? Would you do this again or are you totally done after this campaign?

Yeah, time will tell. There’s not a whole lot of upward movement for me professionally within the campaign world. We’ll see. Nobody would deny that it’s extremely punishing. It’s exhausting. Emotionally, it’s exhausting. It’s physically exhausting. I think I ate a full pizza three nights a week for six months. You’re dependent on really bad food, really terrible hours. I don’t know if I would repeat that. I do enjoy civilian life. I am glad to be home with my wife. I was separated from my wife for nine months—she was living in Washington, D.C., while I was mostly in Burlington. I’m glad to re-establish some normalcy.

A view of Opus 40 from the eastern edge of the quarry. (Photo: Blake Olmstead/Atlas Obscura)

Every day our community of travelers and writers unearths fascinating places from the hidden corners of the world and adds them to the Atlas, helping to build our collaborative database of over 9,000 hidden wonders. And while each and every place is worth a wander off the beaten path, some stand above the fray as particularly extraordinary. These seven unusual locales are some of the most curious and enticing places we came across this week.

The Flying "V" Cabin

PHOENIX, ARIZONA

(Photo: Marine 69-71/CC BY-SA 4.0)

The Flying “V” Cabin, built in 1880, seems to lack windows, but on closer inspection you see that there are small slits throughout the walls. These were not designed to let sunlight in, but to let gunfire out. In place of windows there are gun ports.

This rustic cabin was once home to John D. Tewksbury, patriarch of the bloodiest family feud in American history. Whether you call it the Pleasant Valley War or the Tewksbury-Graham Feud, the resident of that small cabin was at the center of a family war that lasted six years and had the largest death toll of any family feud in US history. By the end of the battle nearly every male in both families was dead.

Hans Island

DENMARK AND CANADA

Hans Island, in the Nares Strait near Greenland. (Photo: NASA/Public Domain)

Hans Island is a small, uninhabited, barren rock in the Arctic with no known reserves of oil or natural gas. Yet there is an very odd, ongoing territorial dispute between Denmark and Canada over who owns this little rock. To lay claim to Hans Island, the Canadians and Danes take turns placing their flags on it, a curious practice that has been going on since the 1980s. Making matters more odd, when the flag on the island is periodically changed, so is a bottle of liquor: the Canadians leave a bottle of Canadian Club and the Danes deposit a bottle of schnapps.

Oliver Miller Homestead

SOUTH PARK TOWNSHIP, PENNSYLVANIA

(Photo: Atlas Obscura user Thomas Harper)

The first shots of the Whiskey Rebellion were fired (and not drunk) here at the Oliver Miller Homestead south of Pittsburgh. In western Pennsylvania in the late 1700s, many farmers would use their surplus grain to make whiskey, and the spirit would often be used as currency. An estimated one in six farmers owned a still.

Many of these farmers were also veterans of the Revolutionary War, so when a federal tax on whiskey was announced in 1794, seemingly violating the principles that they fought for, the Whiskey Rebellion began to take shape. President George Washington would eventually personally lead a force of over 12,000 soldiers to quell the rebellion.

Crypt Beneath St. Joseph des Carmes

PARIS, FRANCE

The monument to the Martyrs of September at St. Sulpice. (Photo: Allison Meier/Atlas Obscura)

There’s at least one place in Paris where the violence of the French Revolution is still palpable: the crypt beneath St. Joseph des Carmes, a Roman Catholic church. There you can see the battered remains and bloodstains of some lesser-known victims of The Reign of Terror, a group collectively known as the martyrs of September.

The martyrs were a group of priests, seminarians, bishops, and, most famously, the Archbishop of Arles. They were rounded up by a mob of sans-culottes and imprisoned in the convent near St. Joseph's after refusing to take an oath that undermined papal authority. The mob’s punishment for this transgression was quick and especially brutal. Today, some of the recovered bones of the martyrs are on display in the church crypt. Many still have the obvious marks of swords and pikes. Some skulls sit in niches, while others are stacked in a cabinet above the epitaph, "Having preferred death to violating the holy law of God, they were massacred."

Museum of Broken Relationships

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

(Photo courtesy of Museum of Broken Relationships Los Angeles)

One part melancholy, one part cathartic, this museum is dedicated to housing the runoff of broken relationships. The concept is simple: if your heart has been broken and you are left with reminders of your lover too precious to throw away but too painful to keep, send them in to the museum with a brief description. The collection offers a tender look at the intimacy of others.

Wiggly Bridge

YORK, MAINE

(Photo: Atlas Obscura user Amandabears5000)

True to its name, this bouncy walkway may be the world’s smallest suspension bridge. The steel structure juts out of the landscape with an arced wooden deck spanning a mere 75 feet between two petite green towers. When walked upon, the deck bounces and flexes, banging back and forth in the anchorages.

Opus 40

SAUGERTIES, NEW YORK

A view of Opus 40's central nine-ton monolith. (Photo: Blake Olmstead/Atlas Obscura)

In 1938, artist and sculptor Harvey Fite purchased a quarry as a source of stone to use in his own work. Inspired by the Mayans, he used the heaps of stone in his own quarry to create an outdoor gallery in which to showcase his own sculptures.

Over 20 years after starting his work on Opus 40, Fite realized that the scale of his stone landscape had begun to overwhelm his smaller sculptures and that the landscape had become a sculpture in its own right.  Fite continued to refine, rebuild, and extend his earthwork, eventually installing the stately nine-ton, monolith at the work's highest point. In the 1970s he finally gave a name to his masterwork. Due to his expectation that he would need 40 years to complete the work, it become known as Opus 40.

There is it. (Photo: Rogue River Police Department)

In Rogue River, Ore., a man walking his dog in the park in the morning opened a Porta-Potty, and found a lot of pot.

He called the local police, for whom this was a record marijuana discovery. It is not clear yet who put the pot in the Porta-Potty or why. The Associated Pressreports: “Chief Ken Lewis and his officers have not yet been able to hash out the circumstances behind what became the largest marijuana find in department history.”

They do know that just three hours prior there were no drugs to be found in the Porta-Potty. Possession of small amounts of marijuana is allowed in Oregon, but this is way, way more than the legal limit.

A close up. (Photo: Rogue River Police Department)

Every day, we highlight one newly found object, curiosity or wonder. Discover something amazing? Tell us about it! Send your finds to sarah.laskow@atlasobscura.com. 

Four-eared cat called Batman finds a new home https://t.co/8AT169nJHipic.twitter.com/KDydC9jkUU

— Independent US (@IndyUSA) August 11, 2016

Batman has finally found a place to call home. Batman the four-eared mutant cat, that is. According to ABC News, the black cat was finally adopted after being turned over to a shelter with a passel of other cats in July.

Batman was born with a rare congenital defect that gifted him with vestigial ears that have grown right behind his actual ears. While his extra ears don’t seem to have given Batman any super powers—or even, better hearing—caretakers at the Humane Society say that they don’t affect his actual ears either. And unlike his comic book namesake, the cat is described as being friendly, if, still, just a little different.

The three-year-old black cat was delivered to Pittsburgh’s Western Pennsylvania Humane Society by his previous owner who could no longer care for it. After being treated for a respiratory infection for a few weeks, little Batman was ready for adoption. And while his extra ears might not serve any functional purpose, they may have ended up helping him out anyway.

Black cats usually have a longer shelf life at shelters, but Batman was snatched up within hours of being made available. He was adopted by a young girl who was, coincidentally, interested in superheroes.

Synchronized swimming is a complicated sport, bringing together elements of swimming, gymnastics and ballet. Competitors are highly skilled and their timing, strength and balance are all crucial for a good run. Routines, as Team Canada proved in 2009, can be elaborate, dramatic and slightly disconcerting.

At the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, the competition will be as fierce as ever and the performances complex and original. But things were different in the 1960s, when international swimming body FINA had yet to recognize synchronized swimming as an official sport.

This British Pathé video was shot at a holiday camp in Clacton, on the southeast coast of England. A team of young swimmers, or "water babies," according to the narrator, prepares for the performance, wearing swim caps that may have been inspired by pineapples. For their first move, the girls form a star. They manage it pretty well. Problem is, when they move backwards to break out into the star, they can't stop moving. The synchronized swimmers' star explodes, like a supernova. They rein it back in, and into formation.

With a couple of underwater moves, the troop seems to gain in confidence. The music—airport lounge-style strings—carries the routine forward to the showstopper: a human underwater fairground wheel.  

This group may not be ready for the world championships or the Olympics, but they were not bad at this new-fangled sport. 

Every day we track down a Video Wonder: an audiovisual offering that delights, inspires, and entertains. Have you encountered a video we should feature? Email ella@atlasobscura.com.

This tiny bead may be the world's oldest gold artifact https://t.co/U43uqXIbUapic.twitter.com/8pupeo7bUT

— CBC News (@CBCNews) August 11, 2016

Humans have been making things out of gold and trading them for a very long time. Thousands of years, in fact, owing in part to the fact that gold resists corrosion and rust. 

Archaeologists recently unearthed what they say is likely the oldest processed piece of gold ever: a small bead, found in Bulgaria, from somewhere between 4,500 to 4,600 B.C., according to Reuters.

That beats the previous mark by a couple of centuries, archaeologists say. 

Archaeologists found the bead while digging up an ancient settlement in Pazardzhik, in central Bulgaria. It was made by people who had been living there for 1,500 years already, in one of civilization's first cities. 

The bead, which is 1/8 inch wide and weighs about 0.005 ounces,  will eventually be displayed in a museum, a happier outcome than what happened to the civilization that produced it, according to Reuters. 

Around 400 years after the bead was made, the settlement met an untimely demise, after being "destroyed by hostile tribes who invaded from the northeast," Reuters reports. 

Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn, a married couple in China. (Photo: John F Kennedy Library/Public domain)

The American war correspondent, Martha Gellhorn, walked along a corridor at the London Clinic, a private hospital in central London, looking for her injured husband, Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway had been at a party the night before in Belgravia Square, the domain of London’s high society. His friend, the driver, was drunk, and crashed the car on their way back to the Dorchester hotel in the early hours of May 25, 1944. 

Gellhorn heard about her husband’s accident on her journey down to the capital from Liverpool. She’d only just crossed the mine-strewn waters of the Atlantic from her home in Cuba, on a ship laden with dynamite, when she found out her husband had gashed his head quite badly.

She found Hemingway in bed, surrounded by empty whiskey bottles, and a crowd by his side in raptures. Their hoots of laughter filled his hospital room. Gellhorn offered her husband little sympathy. In fact, she was annoyed at him: Hemingway had decided to cover the ongoing war for Collier’s, the magazine she worked for.

Hemingway crashed on his way back to The Dorchester. (Photo: Oxyman/CC SA: BY 2.0)

Hemingway and Gellhorn’s marriage had broken down by then. They had fallen out of love since marrying four years earlier, in 1940, and now lived apart. A journalistic rivalry, however, still burned strong. The couple were in London to report on the pinnacle of the Second World War: the D-Day landings. Come June 6, 1944, when the allies reached Normandy, this rivalry would play out in spectacular fashion.

Gellhorn and Hemingway first met in 1936 at a bar called Sloppy Joe’s in Key West, Florida. Their relationship blossomed during their coverage of the civil war in Spain. Both were phenomenal writers, known for daring reportage from the battlefield. Their similarities made them natural allies, and passionate competitors, in journalism.   

Gellhorn spent the end of 1943 and the beginning of the following year in Europe, reporting on the war from the United Kingdom and Holland. Gellhorn wrote for Collier’s and had been a loud advocate for American intervention into the war. She didn’t understand why her husband, the famed author and fellow war reporter, had not joined her in Europe, where all the excitement was. 

Instead Hemingway, a man who often projected himself as a daring sportsman, decided to patrol the coast of Cuba, where he lived, in his 38-foot fishing boat. He was supposedly on the hunt for German U-Boats. He refitted the boat, called Pilar, with a radio to intercept U-boat communications and a machine gun. Hemingway even kept grenades on board.

Gellhorn traveled back to their home in Havana, the Finca Vigia, armed with a plan to convince Hemingway to join her in Europe. Gellhorn had negotiated a deal with author Roald Dahl, who worked for the British Royal Air Force at the time, for Hemingway to get a free seat on a plane to Europe if he wrote positively about the R.A.F. for an American publication. A spot on a transatlantic flight at the height of the war was a rarity, and someone as celebrated as Hemingway would have newspapers and magazines chomping at the bit to publish his stories. 

He agreed, and to the dismay of Gellhorn, chose Collier’s to publish his war dispatches. Gellhorn was furious at the decision—she viewed it as a blatant attempt by Hemingway to steal her thunder, and column inches. Gellhorn was an admired writer in her own right; one of America’s first female war correspondents, as well as the author of several novels, short stories, and novellas. 

Martha Gellhorn, war correspondent, with Naval Captain Virgil C. Griffin in 1942. (Photo: National Museum of U.S. Navy/Public domain)

But she couldn’t compete with the notoriety of her husband. So the two went to textual war, says Kate McLoughlin, author of Martha Gellhorn: The War Writer in the Field and in the Text, as they battled for scoops on the battlefields of Europe. 

On June 6th, 1944, Ernest Hemingway sat shoulder to shoulder with Allied soldiers on a boat destined for the French coast. The Dorothy L. Dicks struggled against heavy waves and as the vessel got closer to France, the sound of rattling machine-gun fire filled the sky.

Warships on either side of Hemingway’s 36-foot coffin-shaped boat launched shells towards the beach. The Germans fired back: “ahead of us, death was being issued in small, intimate, accurately administered packages,” wrote Hemingway.

As the coastline approached, Hemingway discussed the plans for landing with an officer. He wrote in his Collier's piece that he had studied the relevant maps, and, amid the chaos of the approach to the beach and the bloodshed of the invasion, Hemingway told the officer that they were indeed headed in the right direction. It was clear from his account that Hemingway played dual roles as a journalist and a member of the invading force. That was the day, Hemingway wrote, “we took Fox Green beach.”

An old Collier's front cover. (Photo: Boston Public Library/CC SA: BY 2.0)

Meanwhile, Gellhorn had started the day in a dark room at the Ministry of Information in London. The British government would not allow her, a woman, anywhere near the frontline. Collier’s magazine held the same view. Her role would be to cover “the rear” and the women’s angle. Gellhorn, fueled by a competitive zeal not to be outdone by her rival and husband, and by her own fervent desire to cover the war, sped in a car towards the southern coast.

On the way, a policeman stopped her. She told him that she was going to report on the woman’s angle for Collier’s magazine. “No one gave a hoot about the women’s angle, it served like the perfect forged passport,” said Gellhorn during an interview later in life.

Gellhorn tricked an official into thinking she was a nurse and they let her onto a hospital ship bound for France. Once aboard, she found the nearest toilet and locked herself inside. Her ship crossed the English Channel and arrived in France on the morning of June 8, two days after the Normandy beach landings.

She was soon confronted with bloodshed and mayhem of the invasion, and recorded the misery in great detail. Gellhorn was not just an observer; she helped to stretcher wounded soldiers back to the ship. “We waded ashore, in water to our waists, having agreed that we would assemble the wounded from this area on board a beach LCT (Landing Craft Tank) and wait until the tide allowed the motor ambulance to come back and call for us,” wrote Gellhorn, in an article for Collier’s published in August 1944.

View of Normandy during the D-Day landings in 1944. (Photo: Robert F. Sargent/Public domain)

Gellhorn’s wariness about her husband swooping in to cover the war for the same publication were proven right, McLoughlin says, when Collier’s ended up giving Hemingway more prominence in the D-Day edition of the magazine.

Collier’s magazine printed “Voyage to Victory By Ernest Hemingway” on the front cover of the July 22nd edition. Hemingway had five pages dedicated to his account of the D-Day landings. A large photo of him surrounded by soldiers accompanied the first page of the article. Meanwhile Gellhorn had a one-page piece on page 16 and no photograph.

Gellhorn's story, “Over and back” was published without any direct reference to her relief effort on the Normandy beach. Instead the piece documented ancillary matters. Her own, very dramatic retelling of the scene from Normandy two days after the invasion was not published until August 5th. And, despite a rich and detailed account of the invasion, this piece made no reference to Gellhorn’s extraordinary backstory of hiding in a ship’s toilet to get there.  

Hemingway on his boat, Pilar. (Photo: John F Kennedy Library/Public domain)

After covering the invasion and its aftermath, the couple followed different routes for much of the remainder of the war. Hemingway reported on the American advance to Paris, and Gellhorn wrote from the liberated Dachau concentration camp. 

"We have all seen the dead like bundles lying on all the roads of half the earth, but nowhere was there anything like this," she wrote from Dachau on June of 1945. "Nothing about war was ever as insanely wicked as these starved and outraged naked, nameless dead."

Hemingway had a more swashbuckling style and preference for vivid descriptions of the action as it unfolded. Gellhorn’s focus was darker, and she paid more attention to the casualties of war. There was a final twist to their D-Day showdown, however. No one ever saw Hemingway get out of the landing craft, and, despite clearly implying that he went ashore from his D-Day report, some scholars believe he never actually made it onto the beach.

Gellhorn walked out on Hemingway at London's Dorchester Hotel after an argument in 1945. After they divorced, she refused to allow anyone to mention his name in her presence, and her sense of injustice about being constantly identified by her five-year marriage to the famous author remained for the rest of her life. ''Why should I be a footnote to somebody else's life?'' she wondered. In her later writings, Martha Gellhorn referred to Ernest Hemingway only as "Unwilling Companion."

A 1965 stamp depicting Alexey Leonov on the first spacewalk. (Photo: EugeneZelenko/Public Domain)

During the Cold War, the U.S. and the USSR fought for dominion over the coveted title of World's Most Powerful Country. But the conflict didn't just stop at Planet Earth. The missile proliferation between the two countries turned into a race to get to space. It was a chance to exert ideological control not just over the people of Earth, but over the cosmos. Whoever made it there first would be representing their nation as the best that Earth had to offer.

Earth is littered with vestiges of this contentious rivalry, which paved the way for such innovations as meteorological systems, the International Space Station, and the Internet. Here’s a list of landmarks from our foray into the final frontier, and the one-upmanship that spurred it on. 

Laika Monument

MOSCOW, RUSSIA

Laika Monument (Photo: Wikipedia.ru/Public Domain)

Laika was a little dog picked up off the streets of Moscow by the Russian space program, selected because of her sweet face. Though both Russia and the U.S. had sent animals to space previously, Laika was the first to orbit Earth when she launched in 1957. Unfortunately, Laika didn't return alive—the details are unclear, but it's believed she suffocated, overheated, or was intentionally euthanized during her flight.

Despite the fact that they denied it for decades to come, Soviet scientists always knew this would be the case. Technician Yevgeny Shabarov recalled that "after placing Laika in the container and before closing the hatch, we kissed her nose and wished her bon voyage, knowing that she would not survive the flight."

Scientists admitted much later that the entire purpose of Laika's flight was to see if a mammalian body could physically withstand spaceflight. In this regard, the project was a success; Laika did make it to space, albeit without a return plan. This monument erected to Laika in Moscow commemorates her sacrifice, which paved the way for human cosmonauts to come.

Miss Baker's Grave

HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA

The grave of Miss Baker the squirrel monkey, with banana offerings left by visitors. (Photo: mike fabio/CC BY-SA 2.0)

Not all space animals perished in covert death missions, though—some returned alive. One such case is Miss Baker. She was one of many animals sent to space, but the first ever recovered alive by NASA. In 1959 Miss Baker, a squirrel monkey, and Miss Able, a rhesus monkey, were outfitted in tiny space suits and shot out of Earth's atmosphere. Their flight lasted a mere 16 minutes.

The monkeys landed in the Atlantic Ocean, and were recovered with much excitement by NASA. Their safe return meant that primates could survive space travel. Miss Able died just four days later due to being given too much anesthesia during surgery, but Miss Baker lived a long life after her pioneering mission into space. She spent her retirement in captivity at Huntsville's U.S. Space & Rocket Center, and upon her death in 1984 was buried in the parking lot. Visitors to her grave typically pay their respects with bananas.

Aerojet Dade Rocket Facility

HOMESTEAD, FLORIDA

A view of the abandoned rocket, through a small hole in its cover. (Photo: Brett Levin/CC BY 2.0)

By the early 1960s, enough tests had been performed that we knew it was possible for humans to attempt space travel. But how were they to get there? NASA began to experiment with different methods of fueling the mechanical behemoths that were to shuttle mankind into space. One of the places experimentation took place was at the Aerojet Dade Rocket Facility outside of Homestead, Florida. The testing grounds were in the middle of the Everglades, hidden from the Russians.

Ultimately NASA ended up using a different kind of fuel than what Aerojet was testing, and the facility was abandoned. But when you've got a failed secret rocket in a hole in a national park, it's difficult to find someone to take it off your hands. No attempts to repurpose the land ever took off, and so the facility, rocket and all, remains as secluded and abandoned as ever.

Ham the Astrochimp's Grave at the New Mexico Museum of Space History

ALAMOGORDO, NEW MEXICO

Ham's gravestone. (Photo: David N. Lotz/Findagrave.com)

A three-year-old chimp called Ham (named for the Holloman Aerospace Medical Center where he received his training) was the first hominid to successfully "man" a flight to space and return alive. Ham was launched from Cape Canaveral on the Mercury-Redstone 2 flight, in 1961.

Despite numerous technical problems during the flight, Ham was able to complete the tasks he had been trained for (pulling levers, pushing buttons) at about the same rate he had on Earth. This gave NASA reason to believe that a human astronaut would be able to do the same. Ham was recovered from the Atlantic Ocean, and his only injury was a bruised nose. He lived out his days at D.C.'s National Zoo, and his remains were interred at the New Mexico Museum of Space History's International Hall of Space Fame. That is, his remains minus his skeleton, which is on display at the National Museum of Health and Medicine.

Baikonur Cosmodrome

BAIKONUR, KAZAKHSTAN

Rollout of the Soyuz rocket for the Expedition 21 mission, September 28, 2009. (Photo: NASA/CC BY-SA 2.0)

Outside the tiny village of Baikonur, the Soviets were planning something big. The Cosmodrome was where they had launched Sputnik in 1957, and Laika's rocket the same year. In 1961, just a few months after Ham's spaceflight, Yuri Gargarin was launched from the Cosmodrome on Vostok 1, becoming the first man in space.

The facility was literally off the map for many years, using fake coordinates, but American spy planes were able to spot the Cosmodrome from the air. The U.S. was not, however, able to beat them to space. NASA's first man in space, Alan Shepard, took flight just one month later. Though it's still in use by the Russian space program today, the Cosmodrome is considerably more public. Visitors can tour the facility and even watch rocket launches (for a hefty price).

Star City

SHCHYOLKOVO, RUSSIA

The centrifuge gravity simulator at Star City. (Photo: Bernt Rostad/CC BY 2.0)

To prepare for his mission, Gargarin and other cosmonauts lived and trained in the mysterious Star City. This place, like the Cosmodrome, wasn't on maps either. The Soviet space program wanted to keep the little village a secret to ward off theft or even attack by the U.S. Though it was wholly manufactured by the government, Star City was host to a thriving community. The cosmonauts moved there with their families in tow, so the city had post offices, schools, even a movie theater.

Unlike the Cosmodrome, Star City is no longer in use. Instead, it has become a tourist destination. Visitors can see what it was like for the very first cosmonauts to prepare themselves for space, right down to trying on space suits and experiencing zero gravity.

Cosmonaut Grove

BAIKONUR, KAZAKHSTAN

Cosmonaut Grove in the Cosmodrome, Baikonur. (Photo: kilhor/CC BY 2.0)

On a nondescript pathway behind Cosmonaut Hotel, a place for cosmonauts to stay and rest up before their launches, are two lines of trees labeled with plaques from the men and women who planted them. They, of course, were cosmonauts.

Every Russian who's ever been to space has planted a tree here. Yuri Gargarin's is the oldest and tallest, while those planted more recently by the Soyuz crews are just saplings. The grove provides a moment of peace before spaceflight—perhaps the cosmonauts find it comforting to leave something behind to grow on Earth.

Monument to the Conquerers of Space

MOSCOW, RUSSIA

The monument features a rocket taking flight with a jet stream behind it, classically Soviet in its minimalism. (Photo: Lynn Greyling/Public Domain)

The Soviets were very proud to have been first to space, to say the least. Yuri Gargarin became an international celebrity the moment he set foot back on Earth. They must have been confident of their success though because plans for this monument, emphatically dedicated to the "conquerors of space," were set in motion three years before Vostok 1 even launched. 

Launch Complex 34

BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA

Launch Complex 34, with the rocket cradle at center right. (Photo: brx0/CC BY-SA 2.0)

In 1967, NASA was to launch its first manned mission of the Apollo project, the first attempt to reach the moon. During a rehearsal launch, however, the cockpit caught fire. The flames combined with the pressurized oxygen of the cabin, producing toxic fumes. Astronauts Grissom, White, and Chaffee were killed.

Launch Complex 34 now sits stark and empty. The massive concrete pad still has the rocket cradle at its center, now emblazoned with a plaque to commemorate the tragic accident along with the "ABANDON IN PLACE" graffiti marker on all Cape Canaveral ruins.

Soyuz 11 Memorial

ZHANAARKA DISTRICT, KAZAKHSTAN

The Soyuz 11 Memorial before being vandalized. (Photo: vikkom0203/CC BY-SA 3.0)

The Soviets had tragedies in pioneering the space frontier, too. The 1971 Soyuz 11 mission began well enough. The cosmonauts had broken the record for the most days spent aboard a space station (22), and even after a small fire on the station, their reentry into Earth's atmosphere appeared normal. But when the recovery crew opened the capsule that had landed in the Kazakhstani desert, they realized this wasn't at all the case. Cosmonauts Dobrovolsky, Volkov, and Patsayev were dead, their faces black and blue. On detaching from the space station, the cabin had completely depressurized at a rapid rate, and the three men asphyxiated, making them the only cosmonauts to die in space.

The Soyuz 11 Memorial was erected soon after on the very spot the capsule had landed. It was a towering structure in the middle of the desert featuring the engraved faces of all three cosmonauts. In 2012 it was found destroyed by vandals, and since then a smaller monument has been raised in its place.

Alan Shepard's Golf Club at the United States Golf Association Museum

FAR HILLS, NEW JERSEY

Astronaut Alan B. Shepard's sock, golf club, and mission patch. (Photo: Courtesy of USGA Museum)

The United States was the first to land on the moon in 1969. Besides Neil Armstrong's "one small step for man" and the planting of the American flag, perhaps no greater meme has arisen from the Apollo missions than golfing on the moon.

Apollo 14 Commander Alan B. Shepard's golf session was an unsanctioned experiment not intended to happen during the mission, but when you're one of a handful of people to set foot on the moon, you've got to have your fun. Shepard, an avid golfer, fashioned a makeshift golf club, squirreled it away in his sock, and hit two balls on the lunar landscape. The first veered off into a crater, but the second went for, according to Shepard, "miles and miles and miles."

The club, the sock, and an Apollo 14 mission patch are on view at the United States Golf Association Museum in New Jersey.

Philadelphia's Moon Tree

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA

The moon tree clone. (Photo: Jeremy Thompso/CC BY 2.0)

While Alan Shepard was golfing, Stuart Roosa was orbiting the moon in a command module. He wasn't alone, though. Before becoming an astronaut, Roosa was a smoke jumper (a kind of parachuting firefighter).

A friend in the Forest Service asked him to bring seeds on the trip to the moon to test the effects of zero gravity on the growth of plant life. Around 500 seeds traveled on the Apollo 14 mission, and were planted and closely studied following their return.

In 1975 and '76 all of the moon tree saplings were given away in celebration of the United States bicentennial anniversary. They went to Brazil and Japan, to Monterey, Indianapolis, and Philadelphia. The Philly tree lived until 2011, when it got sick and died. However, the city isn't totally without extraterrestrial plant life: a clone of the original moon tree was grown in a lab, and its sapling is going strong in the same spot as its parent. While some moon trees didn't survive, others have grown tall—there might even be one near you.

Timanfaya National Park

TINAJO, SPAIN

The moon-like terrain of Timanfaya National Park. (Photo: Miriela Rodríguez/CC BY-SA 3.0 es)

Devastated by volcano eruptions in the 1700s, Timanfaya National Park was left barren and desolate. It's so otherworldly, in fact, that it was used when training astronauts for a lunar geological survey on the Apollo 17 mission.

Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics

MOSCOW, RUSSIA

A mythologically flamboyant statue of Yuri Gargarin at the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics. (Photo: Petar Milošević/CC BY-SA 3.0)

By 1981, the fires of the space race had begun to cool. Man had been to space, walked on the moon, and in the mid '70s the USSR and the US had collaborated on a couple of space missions. At the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics, opened in '81 to commemorate two decades since Yuri Gargarin's spaceflight, one can see objects from throughout the course of Russian space travel, including Yuri Gargarin's spherical space capsule and the taxidermied bodies of Belka and Strelka, two space dogs. 

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 the space race was off for good. The two countries' programs diverged. NASA has scaled back its operations and rarely performs manned missions, and the Soviet space program was converted into the Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities, which mostly does experimentation on the International Space Station.

Now, some are turning to private institutions for hopes of space adventures in the future. With proper funding, technology and training, men on Mars might not be so far-fetched.

The Dear Abby Cake and the Ann Landers Cake, side by side. (Photo: Atlas Obscura)

From the time the twins were born, in 1918 in Sioux City, Iowa, they were fated to lead entwined lives. 

The woman who would become Ann Landers was born first, and her parents named her Esther Pauline Friedman. Minutes later came future-Abby, and her parents named her (seriously) Pauline Esther Friedman. Eppie and Popo, as they soon nicknamed themselves, dressed identically and entertained guests by singing Andrews Sisters’ duets in Yiddish. Throughout their lives, they continued to share activities while done up in matching costumes—they co-wrote a college gossip column, married in the same ceremony with the same hairstyle, veil, and dress, and settled down with their families in Eau Clair, Wisconsin, where they tended to co-lead the town parade in a Cadillac.

They grew up to be America's foremost advice givers—Esther took the name "Ann Landers", with her widely-syndicated, highly-regarded advice column beginning in 1955. Abby became "Dear Abby," with her column launching in 1956. 

But while they spent their lives solving America's most intimate problems, these two sisters never overcame a professional and personal rivalry that spanned decades. A pugnacious 1958 LIFE Magazine dual profile has them swinging at each other every chance they get, painting Ann as a jealous crank and Abby her blithe tormenter. Ann accuses Abby of gold-plating her silver jewelry. Abby keeps a book called The Hostile Mind around, not to better understand her angry interlocutors, but for “clues” about her sister. “I understand why she’s disturbed,” she says in the piece. “She wanted to be first violin in the school orchestra, but I was. She swore she’d marry a millionaire, but I did. I’m not trying to be the champion.” Ann replies: “That’s her fantasy. She’s just like a kid who beats a dog until somebody looks, then starts petting it.”

So for Rival’s Week, we wanted to explore another facet of their lifelong competition—a bake-off.

Pauline "Dear Abby" Phillips, also in 1961. (Photo: Easter Seals/Public Domain)

The story of their epic dispute begins in the 1930s, when Eppie moved to Chicago and successfully applied to be the Sun-Times's new widely-syndicated advice-giver. Although “Ask Ann Landers” had existed before her, begun by Ruth Crowley in 1943, she quickly made it her own.

Early on in her tenure, she asked her sister for some help getting through the onslaught, and Popo liked the work so much she decided to get her own gig, advising the readers of the San Francisco Chronicle and beyond. She picked her own stately name—Abigail Van Buren, half Old Testament, half old president—and “Dear Abby” was born, suddenly competing with “Ask Ann Landers” for attention. Once again, the sisters were doing the same thing, dressed identically in newsprint.

Esther "Ann Landers" Lederer, in 1961. (Photo: Fred Palumbo/Public Domain)

According to advice column lore, that’s when the trouble started. Eppie-now-Ann, seeking her own identity, was floored by what she saw as her sister’s professional copycatting. Popo-now-Abby couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. 

According to LIFE, it was this feud that drove them both. “The evidence indicates that it is their subtly ferocious struggle which lends their work its real fascination,” the author concludes, “and that without this goad neither of them would ever have begun it in the first place.”

For a long time, things were strained. Ann refused to speak to Abby for nearly a decade. Though they eventually reconciled, their competitive streak was powerful enough that it soaked into their surroundings. After they both had passed away, their children fought on their behalf. This was a true rivalry, unmitigated by space, time, success, or death.

Esther "Ann Landers" Lederer in 2008, potentially in the same raccoon coat she and her sister used to wear around their college. (Photo: Alan Light/CC BY 2.0)

We wanted to find a way to measure these two giants, once and for all. The most obvious idea was to compare their work—whose advice would hold up better, if followed today?—but that kind of thing strongly resists empirical testing (and besides, none of us wanted to anger a mother-in-law for science). Both were socially progressive for their time, (relative) champions of birth control and ending the Vietnam War. Both were also often sharp and funny, dosing out all kinds of shade when they felt it warranted. As so often happens with rivals, they were surprisingly similar. Was there anything they disagreed on, besides each other? We were nearly stumped.

Then we found the cake recipes—Ann’s reprinted in the 1982 Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Abby’s in the 1986 Piedmont Dispatch. They were decidedly non-identical. Ann’s promised a fluffy pound cake, Abby’s a dense, frosted chocolate tower. It was 2016—the perfect time to compare two extremely impressive professional women on the strength of their cakes alone. We decided to have a bakeoff.

The Bakeoff

I baked both cakes on Thursday, August 11th, on an insanely hot day in a Park Slope apartment kitchen, and served them up that evening at the Great Media Trivia Competition of 2016, soliciting feedback from all tasters. The cakes were judged in four categories: ease of baking, overall appearance, texture, and taste. Each category had five points available, and the cake that racked up the most overall points would be declared the winner. 

Category 1: Ease of Baking

The Ann Landers batter, post-ginger ale. (Photo: Atlas Obscura)

I’m an internet journalist, and generally lack the patience for baking. I am also an insufferable East Coast millennial, and so have never made a cake that included three entire sticks of margarine and fully glutinous flour. My co-baker, Sarah Laskow, tends to cook medieval. This made us baking dummies compared to your average Ann/Abby column consumer—a good starting point for an ease of use test.

Both Ann and Abby’s cakes required mostly ingredients that tend to hang out in contemporary homes—flour, sugar, baking chocolate, etc. But each had a couple of wild cards. Ann’s was the ginger ale, and the sheer amount of margarine (again, three sticks!). Abby’s was the sour cream and the cream of tartar. Still, everything was easily acquired at a very normal grocery store. 

First up was Ann’s cake, the instructions for which basically required dumping everything into a bowl one at a time and stirring. Sarah has a stand mixer, so this was an easy experience, bordering on delightful. The sugar, flour and margarine folded together like old friends. The ginger ale made the batter fizz up joyously. I scraped it into a pan, baked it for 45 minutes, and it came out golden and fragrant. It all felt like a first grade science experiment.   

Next was Abby’s, a more complex endeavor involving several bowls, a precise addition sequence, two instances of double-boiling, and a full 1.75 hours of baking time. While this might have been exciting in other circumstances, on a hot NYC day, I wasn’t feeling it. “Dear Abby,” I thought, “My job today is making cakes, and yet I am grumpy about it. What can I do?” “Stir harder,” she answered, in my mind.

EASE OF BAKING SCORE:

Ann: 4.5/5

Abby: 3/5

Category 2: Appearance

The author, extremely thrilled at the Ann Cake's emergence. (Photo: Ella Morton)

Abby cared greatly about her cake’s appearance. When Dora Gummerson, food writer for the New York Herald-Tribune, attempted to make it and sent her a picture, Abby replied with intense criticism. "The cake should have been baked in a smaller pan, so it would have been higher," she wrote. Ann was slightly less concerned. "This recipe will appear in over 1,100 papers," she wrote at the end of it. "A typesetter someplace is sure to goof up. If your cake flops I don't want to hear about it." 

Ann's words seemed to invite risk, so we acquired a special tube pan, shaped like an art deco cathedral. After carrying the cakes to our office still in their pans, for subway protection, we attempted to arrange them on plates. Here, the trouble began. Despite sincere efforts to grease the bundt pan (more margarine) the cake wouldn’t shed the pan. It took 20 minutes and a lot of banging to get it out. When it emerged, it was slightly tattered, like a crumbling sandcastle.

Compared to this, Abby’s two chocolate loaves slid out of their pans like otters, and stacked up easily. The frosting was so well-whipped it wasn’t drizzle-able, so we just slathered it all over everything. The result was impressively tall and enticing. You could bring that thing to a party and feel like you’d really done something.

APPEARANCE SCORE:

Ann: 3/5

Abby: 4/5

Category 3: Texture

Peaky frosting, from the Dear Abby cake. (Photo: Atlas Obscura)

After attempting to psych out our trivia competitors by leaving the cakes untouched, in full view, for several hours, we finally carved into them with a butter knife, the only kind available. Ann’s sliced neatly and held together well, and was served easily on a scrap of paper towel. It was chewy, but still light, filled with ginger ale bubbles. When people talked through mouthfuls of it, I could still understand them.

Perhaps due to its layers, Abby’s cake carved into a gluey mess. The cake itself was dry and difficult to swallow, the mouthfeel described as “interesting” by some of the more generous tasters. The frosting, though, was springy, like a marshmallow, providing a good counterbalance. Mix Ann’s cake with Abby’s frosting, and you’d have, texturally at least, a great time.

TEXTURE SCORE:

Ann: 4/5

Abby: 2/5

Category 4: Taste

Atlas staffers having fun with cakes. (Photo: Atlas Obscura)

When invited to try the cakes, tasters tended to gravitate first towards Abby’s, which intrigued with its promise of both chocolate and vanilla. The frosting, as ever, came through: sweet, but not cloying. The cake itself was not as popular. “This is less flavorful in the flavor that it is supposed to be,” observed one person, frowning while chewing. Those who got the best possible bites, though—corner pieces with a good cake/frosting ratio—were very pleased.

Ann’s cake, the same bite to bite, took fewer risks. Though never transcendent, it was reliably good, like something you might eat mindlessly at a church breakfast. It did offer one surprise: “There’s a subtle note I can’t identify,” mused one taster. “That’s the ginger ale,” I responded, wisely.

TASTE SCORE:

Ann: 3/5

Abby: 3/5

The Winner

OVERALL SCORES:

Ann: 14/20

Abby: 12/20

So that’s that—when it comes to cakes, Ann, the original, beats Abby the upstart by a nose. Despite the density of both cakes, though, this contest left us feeling mostly empty. Perhaps the real lesson here is to let sleeping advice columnists lie.

Sword tip. (Photo: Texas General Land Office)

Archaeologists studying the Alamo, the famous mission that featured in the Texas Revolution, discovered the tip of a Mexican sword near what they believe is the mission’s south wall and gate, the Star-Telegram reports.

The sword tip is six inches long and much corroded.

It belongs to a Briquette, a type of sword manufactured in France and used by the Mexican army in the 19th century. The sword would have belonged to a non-commissioned officer.

A similar sword tip was found a decade ago at place where Mexican troops gathered in December 1835, after they lost control of the Alamo. The military artifacts expert who identified this newly found sword tip thinks it’s most likely that it broke off earlier in 1835, when the Mexican army was fortifying the southern side of the Alamo. But it also could have broken during the famous siege of 1836.

Every day, we highlight one newly found object, curiosity or wonder. Discover something amazing? Tell us about it! Send your finds to sarah.laskow@atlasobscura.com. 

Ian Fleming Thriller Map. (Photo: PJ Mode's collection of persuasive maps/Cornell Digital Library)

James Bond is the world’s most famous fictional spy. A super sleuth, cold-blooded marksman and serial wooer of women. Stoic and morally questionable. A gentleman of a waning empire and for some fans, just an all-round lad.

Before Daniel Craig had ever jumped across the roof of a moving train, landed, and then adjusted his cufflink, author and one-time intelligence officer Ian Fleming created the original James Bond. Starting in 1953, Fleming invented the British Secret Service agent adored around the world, penning 14 Bond spy thrillers before his death in 1964.

The author created the fictional character, to some extent, in his own image. Fleming was active during WWII and had some experience with the British Secret Service. He also had an affinity for the finer things in life. Bond enjoyed everything the world could offer a pleasure-seeking man of wealth and prestige: Fast cars, fine clothes, the best food, drinks, and girlfriends. 

Sir Ian Fleming and Sean Connery. (Photo: Scio Central School Website Photo Gallery/CC BY-ND 2.0)

While the Bond of the films may have eclipsed the literary 007, this map will be a treat for true Bond aficionados. The Ian Fleming Thriller Map shows the real locations for all Bond’s escapades during the novels. Boy did he get around. The spy’s missions took him across four continents and dozens of countries; to Japan, Seychelles, Mexico and French Guyana. Each spot, marked by cross-hairs, explains what went down for Bond, his rivals and lovers.

An illustration of a "generic" Bond is emblazoned in the center of the map. (He bears a striking resemblance to Sean Connery.) Bond poses with a handgun and a cocktail glass with a large bug inside it. A blond "Bond woman” sits below him, clutching a champagne bottle.

The map introduces Bond in text overlaid across a pair of lounging beauties, noting his origins, favorite car, choice of tobacco and brand of watch: Rolex. We learn what his opponents are too: Extortion, terrorism, the Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, and Russian Counter-Intelligence.  

Sean Connery as James Bond. (Photo: The Coincidental Dandy/Public domain)

The legend for the map is divided into different books, and lists his exploits during the most significant scenes in each adventure. The women he slept with. The villains he encountered. The games he played. The guns he used. His drinks of choice (occasionally there is a special section for the types of Champagne and liquor he consumed.) And finally, the cars. It's essentially a list of ingredients for Fleming's recipe on how to plot a spy thriller.

For example, in Diamonds Are Forever, the showdown takes place at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Bond meets Tiffany Case, encounters the villain Rufus B. Spaye, his weapon is a steam cabinet, he plays blackjack and bets on the horses, drinks bourbon, Bollinger Champagne and a martini, and drives a 1956 black Studebaker convertible.

When Fleming created James Bond, Britain was in a state of imperial decline. Bond's ability to get the bad guy showed how Britain and its secret service agents were still on top, vanquishing enemies while oozing swagger and class. Bond embodied an idealized man of the British Empire at a time when the country felt insecure about its place in the world.

John Zelnick, an illustrator, created the map, which was published in 1987. This was the same year the Bond film The Living Daylights was released. The map forms part of PJ Mode’s collection of persuasive maps at the Cornell Digital Library.

Map Monday highlights interesting and unusual cartographic pursuits from around the world and through time. Read more Map Monday posts.

If only all explosives were so clearly labeled. (Photo: Sean MacEntee/CC BY 2.0)

Up to 39,000 sticks of dynamite were discovered in a shelter that once belonged to a now-abandoned mine. According to the Phillipine Star, local villagers discovered the explosive stockpile just days ago.

The mining site is located at the foot of the mineral rich, Daguma mountain range and was once used to extract copper and other minerals from the area. The firm that owned the operation abandoned the site years ago, for unclear reasons, leaving behind a number of pieces of infrastructure, including supply shacks.

It was in one of these shacks that thousands of nitroglycerine explosives were discovered, simply decomposing, and becoming more unstable with age. Reports of exactly how much of the explosive varied by some 20,000 sticks, and by the time the authorities got wise to the site, some local farmers had already made off with some of it. The Philippines authorities urged anyone who took dynamite from the site to return it, as it is illegal to privately own.

In the meantime, the government is working with an army division to dispose of the remaining explosives.

Remember: If you’re going to abandon your mine, please be sure to take your dynamite with you.

A brand new baby Montserrat tarantula, safe in its zoo condo. (Photo: Chester Zoo)

Last week, an employee at Britain's Chester Zoo saw something that would send most humans running: hundreds of miniature tarantulas, pouring out of the ground of an invertebrate exhibit.

But rather than running and hiding, this lucky employee likely whooped for joy. These weren't just any terrifying spiders, they were baby Montserrat tarantulas—the first in the world to be born in captivity, and the result of several years of tricky zookeeping work.

The zoo announced the birth in a press release last week, calling it "a momentous event which has never been achieved before." The Montserrat tarantula is a mysterious critter, found only on the Caribbean island whose name it bears. Dr. Gerardo Garcia, the zoo's curator of small lower vertebrates, collected a dozen of them back in 2013, and it took him and his team three years to successfully convince some of them to breed.

This is a relatably stressful process, as Garcia described to the BBC. First, he says, a male will drum an elaborate rhythm on a female's web, and see how she reacts. "The female can take [the male] as a prey, rather than a partner," Garcia said. "There were a lot of sweaty moments."

After three of the females became pregnant, they all disappeared underground, holing up in very private burrows for months. "They don't feed, they don't show up, we don't know what's going on," said Garcia.

But then, last week, tiny spiderlings began emerging from the dirt. "From one single burrow, one female, we had about 200 tarantulas," Garcia said.

For now, the babies are currently being kept in individual pots and hand-fed small flies, as befits new spider royalty. Once they've grown up, though, they'll be conscripted into the breeding program as well, facing a life of web-drumming, fraught mating, and being gawked at by enormous humans. Enjoy your childhood, tiny tarantulas.

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.

Red Seabeach. (Photo: Jia Mi/Used with Permission)

The Atlas is full of remarkable places that most everyone wants to go, as well as remarkably remote or obscure places that few have even heard of. And then there's a very curious bucket of places that exist at the intersection of the two: places that hundreds people in our community of travelers want to visit, but not one has actually been.

These eight places are by our count the most desirable of the utterly untrodden. If you are one of the lucky few to have witnessed the glowing Milky Seas or venture across Devil's Bridge, let us know! These incredible places are waiting for their first explorer.

1. Super-Kamiokande

HIDA, JAPAN

Neutrino Japan Facility Super Kamiokande. (Photo: Super-Kamiokande)

Neutrinos are some of the most abundant yet mysterious particles in our universe, and also frustratingly difficult to detect. Thus neutrino detectors are often built in isolated places where they are protected from cosmic rays—which is why Japan’s Super-Kamiokande detector is hidden in a mine 3,000 feet underground, deep under Mount Kamiokakō.

Considering this, the “Super-K” is, unsurprisingly, not exactly an easy place to visit. However groups are sometimes permitted to tour the lab for educational purposes or scientific research, so it’s not impossible to see this incredible machine as it works to solve some of the mystery of the universe. The detector itself is surely a sight to behold, for those that manage to behold it. It’s an enormous steel tank holding 50,000 tons of water, ensconced by a stunning array of 11,146 photomultiplier tubes used to detect the light produced when neutrinos interact with the surrounding water.

2. Starkenberger Beer Pools

TARRENZ, AUSTRIA

(Photo: Atlas Obscura user Martin)

For beer lovers, Starkenberger's Castle is one of only a few places in the world where they can truly, literally, immerse themselves in beer. As such it is a obviously a desirable travel destination. So why have no Atlas users bathed in the hoppy aroma of "world’s only beer-swimming-pools?” These 13-foot pools, each containing 42,000 pints of warm beer (with some water) are the most unique attraction at the beer-themed castle—and not just a gimmick.

The beer is rich in vitamins and calcium, and it is said that sitting in it is good for the skin and helps cure open wounds and psoriasis. If it all makes you a little thirsty, you can order a cold brewsky to imbibe while you bathe (drinking from the pool is ill-advised). The dearth of visitors to this beer spa remains a mystery.

3. Drowned Church of Potosi

URIBANTE, VENEZUELA

For more than 30 years, the former town of Potosi resided underwater after it was flooded by the building of a dam. (Photo: JunCtionS/CC BY 2.0)

Technically speaking, is no longer possible to visit the Drowned Church of Potosi — per se. Because it is no longer drowned. Today, a towering gothic church stands in the Venezuelan town of Uribante, but this is only a relatively recent occurrence. For over two decades—from 1985 to 2008 —the Drowned Church of Potosi was almost completely submerged. All that was visible was a lone and mildewed cross rising crookedly out of the water.

But then something curious happened. Severe droughts and water shortages in Venezuela resulted in the effective draining of the reservoir, and the cross started to rise higher and higher out of the water, revealing more of the gothic structure below. By 2010, the water had receded almost entirely, revealing a large stretch of flat land, and the entire church is now visible, a haunting sight.

4. Devil's Bridge

ARDINO, BULGARIA

(Photo: Evgeni Dinev/CC BY 2.0)
Bulgaria’s “Devil’s Bridge,” despite being the most stunning of the humpbacked bridges that cross the Arda River, is as of yet uncrossed by any Atlas traveler, perhaps because it is not for the faint of heart. Its span is 185 feet long, 11.5 feet wide, and at its gravity-defying central arch stands 37.7 feet high.

But the reason some locals are hesitant to cross the Devil’s Bridge at night is rooted in dark lore. One story is that the head builder's wife passed away during construction, so her shadow was encased in the structure. Another tale has it that the devil's footprint can be found somewhere on the rocks. While this is all folkloric myth, its towering form does make for a somewhat unsettling vista in the darkness.

5. Buried Remains of Little Compton Street

LONDON, ENGLAND

(Photo: Luke J Spencer/Atlas Obscura)

No one in our community of travelers has claimed to have visited this forgotten remnant of old London, but in fact many of you probably have been here, albeit unknowingly. The buried remains of Little Compton Street are hiding in plain sight beneath a sewer grate on an anonymous-looking traffic island in the middle of one of London’s busiest streets, Charing Cross Road.

If you look down at the metal grate covering the island you will see two tiled, Victorian street names set into the wall below ground level. Bearing the faded name of Little Compton Street, it is a beguiling glimpse into a long lost road. Maps from the 1790s show Little Compton Street connecting Old and New Compton Streets at the time when the street level was much lower, running at the height of the basements of today's buildings. Most traces of the secret London street have long gone, but you can still see two perfectly preserved road signs, if you know where to look.

6. Margalef

MARGALEF, SPAIN

Antiga ermita de Sant Salvador. (Photo: Arnaucc/CC BY-SA 3.0 ES)

There are many reasons to want to visit Margalef, a tiny rustic village in Spain nestled in a remote and fantastically climbable conglomerate rock formation. The town is literally tucked in the crevices of the mountainous rocks that surround it, sometimes with only a few feet of space between someone’s front door and the solid rock across from it. This all adds up to be a mountain climber’s dream destination. The unique village is also attracts travelers looking to get back to nature and experience a lifestyle that’s literally a part of nature. So dear Atlas readers, who will be the first?

7. Red Seabeach

NGARI, CHINA

(Photo: Jia Mi/Used with Permission)

Red Seabeach is one of those places that’s easy to fantasize about seeing with your own two eyes, but much harder to actually do so. If you live in the Americas, you first you have to get yourself to China, about as far away as you can travel without circling back around. From there it’s a bus or train ride from Beijing out to Dawa County, where you’ll find the world’s largest wetland area and a swath of marshy flora glowing an otherworldly red. This bright red grass of this sprawling, alien-looking landscape is unlike anything else you’ll find on Earth.

8. The Milky Seas

ARABIAN SEAS

 Long exposure image of bioluminescence of Noctiluca scintillans in the yacht port of Zeebrugge, Belgium. (Photo: Hans Hillewaert/CC BY-SA 4.0)

Who doesn’t want to witness a swath the ocean roughly the size of Connecticut glowing blue? No one. But in the case of the so-called “Milky Sea,” the largest bioluminescent area in the world, you’d have to get real lucky. This unusual phenomenon is so rare that for years it was just a subject of folklore within the sailing world. It even showed up in Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Then a scientist named Steve Miller decided to double check. Sure enough he discovered a huge bright area off the horn of Africa.

Believed to be caused by the bioluminescent bacteria Vibrio harveyi, the glowing area is over 15,400 sq km and was seen by satellite glowing for three nights in late January. The illuminated stretch of sea is so large, the only way to experience its full effect is from space.

Condensation trails behind a plane. (Photo: Public domain)

All good conspiracy theories are alike, while each bad conspiracy theory seems to be dumb in its own unique way. 

Take chemtrails, for example. Those white trails that planes leave behind in the sky? Not condensation, chemtrail theorists would have you believe, but a secret conspiracy to spray chemicals onto the world to kill you, or control your mind, or something. 

Leading scientist Kylie Jenner, for one, is chemtrail curious, even while the vast majority of other scientists dismiss the theory as utter nonsense. 

And, now, dozens of scientists have banded together to publish the first peer-reviewed study on chemtrails, according to Science Alert.

Seventy-six of the 77 scientists said there was no evidence that chemtrails existed, while the lone holdout observed a chemical that could be explained by spraying chemicals in the sky, though that scientist had no evidence to suggest that was actually happening. 

In other words! Chemtrails are not a thing! You can take this as permission to resume looking at the sky with awe and wondering, idly, if it's possible that "clouds" are the dangerous work of our federal government, intentionally placed there to obscure all the real things happening higher up in our atmosphere. 

A Victorian-era print of a bouquet of roses. (Photo: Boston Public Library/CC BY 2.0)

Imagine for a moment that a messenger shows up at the door of your elegantly-appointed Victorian home and hands you a small, ribbon-wrapped bouquet, obviously hand-assembled from somebody's garden. As an inhabitant of the 21st century, your natural inclination is to be charmed by the gift, and to search for an appropriate vase. As a wealthy inhabitant of the 19th century, your instinct is a little different: you rush for your flower dictionary to decode the secret meaning behind the arrangement.

If it's a mix of lupins, hollyhocks, white heather, and ragged robin, somebody's impressed with your imaginative wit and wishes you good luck in all your ambitions. By contrast, a collection of delphiniums, hydrangeas, oleander, basil, and birdsfoot trefoil means you're heartless (hydrangea) and haughty (delphinium), and I hate you (basil). Beware (oleander) my revenge (birdsfoot trefoil)—the ultimate passive aggressive present.

Maybe somebody sent you a mix of geraniums to ask whether they can expect to see you at the next dance. If you have any striped carnations blooming in your conservatory, you can send them to the enquirer to say, “afraid not.” Victorian flower language, or floriography, was the pre-digital version of emoji; not much separates a bouquet of flowers implying you are skipping a party from a party ghost.  

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, c. 1739. (Photo: Public Domain)

Like any symbol-based code, part of the appeal was deniability: in some flower dictionaries, the white cardamines I wore to my father's wedding mean "paternal error", while other dictionaries say they mean "ardor.” (I just thought they were fresh and lovely.) In the 1890s, Oscar Wilde famously asked his friends and supporters to wear green carnations which he simultaneously hinted would represent homosexuality and claimed had no meaning at all.

The long-lasting floriography fad was set off by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, a feminist poet married to the English ambassador to Turkey. Letters she wrote home from Constantinople in 1717 and 1718 not only argued in favor of smallpox inoculation, but included an enthusiastic description of the Turkish selam ("hello")—a secret flower language used by clever harem women to communicate under the noses of their guards.

According to Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, an Austrian translator who penned early studies of the Ottoman empire, Montagu either misunderstood or romanticized a popular rhyming game of the time—but when Montagu's collected Turkish embassy letters were published in 1763, the idea of a flower code quickly caught on with a fashionably Orientalist circle of educated readers. The exotic East, full of strange customs and decadence, was a powerful subject for upper-class fantasy—all the more so if it might be a source of forbidden knowledge, or a proxy for discussion of women’s repression back home. Whether Montagu had mischaracterized selam was beside the point. Harems were sexy; flowers were sexy; secret messages between lovers were extra sexy. The public wanted in.  

From the 1855 book Flora's Dictionary. (Photo: Mann Library/CC BY 2.0)

 By 1810, French publishers had begun to put out flower dictionaries. People in France at the time already liked to give each other flower almanacs, presents that were halfway between a desk calendar and a coffee table book—collections of watercolor and pencil sketches of seasonal flowers, accompanied by thematically-related poems or facts. The first published flower dictionaries were appendixes to those almanacs, though they quickly spun off to form a new subgenre.

In 1819, a tome called Le langage des fleurs almost immediately became the definitive word on the subject; the translations and many plagiarized derivatives of the book by Frenchwoman Louise Cortambert, writing as Madame Charlotte de La Tour, were bestsellers on both sides of the Atlantic. These dictionaries weren't inventing a language so much as amassing and collating the established meanings already in use, Beverly Seaton notes in The Language of Flowers: A History.

Ever since Montagu’s Turkish letters, flower language initiates had passed meanings back and forth as a gossipy secret handshake. Some of them, like a narcissus for egotism, had obvious mythological roots. Others were derived from characteristics of the flowers themselves, or from hedge-witch lore about their medical and magical properties: cabbage looked like a wad of cash, and so it meant profit; walnuts looked like brains, and so they meant intellect; pennyroyal, rue, and tansy teas were abortifacients women secretly (and often desperately) used to induce miscarriages, and so the flowers meant “you must leave,” “disdain,” and “I declare war against you,” respectively. Other plant meanings are harder to fathom—why should a pineapple, long a symbol of hospitality and wealth, instead mean “you are perfect”?—but that was part of their allure; a secret language is hardly secret if it’s obvious. 

The Ausrian rose, which meant 'thou art all that's lovely'. (Photo: Mann Library/CC BY 2.0)

Between 1827 and 1923, there were at least 98 different flower dictionaries in circulation in the United States, and flower code was regularly discussed in magazines like Harper's and The Atlantic. It spread way beyond actual flower bouquets, and into literature and fine art. Jane Austen and Emily Dickinson—both gardeners as well as authors—used the language of flowers in not only their writing, but their personal letters. Maybe you thought it was annoying that bits of Jane Eyre expected you to know French; Charlotte Bronte also expected you to understand that when Jane looks at snowdrops, crocuses, purple auriculas, and golden-eyed pansies in chapter nine, she's feeling hopeful, cheerful, modest, and preoccupied with the connection between money and happiness.

Similarly, the Pre-Raphaelites relished the ability to add floral symbolism to paintings that already drew on mythic themes; Rossetti’s “Lady Lilith” might look sensual, but the white roses behind her belie a disinterest in carnality, while the poppies and foxgloves beside her suggest she’s sleepy, forgetful, and insincere. Even home embroiderers got in on the game; a woman might apply her needle to a difficult lilac pattern as a meditation on humility, or work through a marigold and pansy theme as a way to come to grips with thoughts of grief.

However, actually creating or deciphering a physical bouquet required an unusual set of circumstances—ones mostly restricted to the extreme upper class. 

An invitation to dance encoded in a bunch of ivy geraniums. (Photo: Mann Library/CC BY 2.0)

 In order to look up a flower's meaning, you had to be able to identify the plants on sight, and this was no easy task with hundreds of obscure plants to choose from. For example, the ‘C’ section of the dictionary included much more than carnations and chrysanthemums; it also featured cuscuta, a crop parasite used in medieval medicine; cobaea vines imported from Mexico; and the rare, poisonous corn cockle. As it happened, botany was an insanely popular science in England at the time, especially among women.

To assemble a floral message yourself, you needed easy access to hundreds of flowers. England is often called "a nation of gardeners," but it's hard to believe anyone would go to the trouble of cultivating the incredibly toxic manchineel tree to someday convey the sentiment "falsehood." Moonwort, a type of fern which means “forgetfulness,” can go dormant for years at a time, making for a very belated “sorry I missed your birthday.” Kennedia (mental beauty) is endemic to Australia, houstonia (content) is North American, and  the bearded crespis (protection) is a Mediterranean wildflower easily mistaken for a dandelion (rustic oracle)—which means an off-the-cuff and easily-misinterpreted compliment could require several steamship journeys and a remarkably flexible greenhouse.

The latter would have been impossible in most eras, but aristocratic Victorians benefited from an unusual confluence of concentrated wealth and new industrial processes. Technological advances in the manufacture of architectural glass meant the sufficiently wealthy could build mansion-sized conservatories (a great way to show off), and since coal and labor were both very cheap, they could heat their indoor gardens to tropical temperatures year-round, and employ live-in staff to look after temperamental non-native plants they might want to harvest for flower messages.  

An illustration from Robert Tyas' The language of flowers: or, Floral emblems of thoughts, feelings, and sentiments. This bouquet suggests "your modesty and amiability inspire me with the warmest affection". (Photo: Internet Archive/Public Domain)

By the end of World War I, floriography had largely vanished, as nations and families shifted their attention and resources to war and its long aftermath. Grand estates tore down their hothouses, or converted them for other purposes (a few survive as museum attractions, like the restored Wentworth Castle conservatory in Sheffield, England).Once the wealthy stopped assembling physical message bouquets, their disinterest gradually trickled down; after all, it’s no fun to label-spot if nobody’s wearing couture. Urbanization took artists and writers away from nature, and the cool kids turned their attention elswhere. Georgia O’Keeffe’s flowers may have represented something beyond themselves, but their not-so-secret meaning doesn’t take a dictionary to decipher.

Today, most people prefers to send ambiguous imagery through digital devices instead of plants. Massachusetts florist Jennifer Collins says the only symbolic flower people ever request is the lily—which they want left out of their bouquets because of its link to funerals. (White lilies are a symbol of the Virgin Mary, and represent purity; they're a popular way to convey a return to innocence in death.)

Even in lavish wedding ceremonies where every element is planned in obsessive detail, very few bouquets are assembled to send a floral message; according to the team at wedding florist I Love Roses, contemporary brides are more often concerned with replicating an attractive image from Pinterest. A notable exception is Kate Middleton, now Duchess Catherine of Cambridge and presumably England’s future queen. When she married Prince William in 2011, she deliberately gave the nod to Victorian flower language, choosing flowers less for their looks than their meanings: myrtle and ivy for love and marriage; hyacinth for sports (the couple reputedly bonded over a shared love of athletics); sweet william for gallantry (a reference to her own sweet William).

Most likely, floriography will live on as a tool for miscommunication as long as there are dramatically-inclined introverts with feelings too strong to say out loud. And knowing the code still has its uses, even for the less neurotic. When I was a kid, a family friend found out her husband wanted a divorce thanks to a bouquet of yellow roses. She thought it was a sign he hoped to reconcile, but her flower-literate sister knew the score. (Yellow roses mean "let's be friends.") Sure enough, a few days later, he said it with words—and she was able to give him a dignified response, thanks to the forewarning of a carefully-chosen posy.

"European Parliament, Brussels, Belgium, 2005"—one entry in Martin John Callanan's ongoing "Grounds" series. (All photos courtesy Martin John Callanan)

Have you ever wanted an inside look at the room where it happens? To be standing there in person when a government passes a bill, or embedded in the thrum of a nation's stock exchange when a massive deal goes through?

Most of us will never get to see these moments up close. But thanks to "Grounds," a 13-year project by UK photographer Mark John Callanan, we can at least have a gander at the floor.

A conceptual artist,Callanan's work focuses on where individuals fit within systems. (Other projects have seen him live-aggregating all the world's flight departures, sending polite letters to world leaders, and legally changing his name from Martin John Callanan to Martin John Callanan and then back again.) In 2003, he decided to begin a literal exploration of his own place within systems, by photographing various incarnations of important, restricted rooms—in parliaments, government offices, and bank headquarters.

But when he tried to make inroads, he was very specifically rebuffed."Most wrote back with various different reasons why it wasn't possible," Callanan says. "[I couldn't] photograph personnel, or computers, or monitors, or doors and security devices, or views from windows." So he altered his request to be equally specific: What if he just photographed the floors?

Former commander’s office, Stasi Headquaters, Berlin, Deutschland, 2009.

Suddenly, those blocking his way changed from bureaucratic gatekeepers and back into people. "It didn't compromise any security, or other concerns," Callanan says. "People were happy to help." He'd bring his camera through the security checkpoints, point straight down, and shoot.

At first, Callanan had ulterior motives. "Photography was originally an excuse to gain access, so I could discover the mystery of what it was like inside," he says. But what started out as a workaround became an artistic preoccupation. In the 13 years since he started "Grounds," Callanan has traveled extensively for other projects. Wherever he goes—from Hawaii to Qatar to Norway to Hong Kong, and in the many airports in between—he makes sure to take note of what he's standing on.

The resulting photographs are both self-contained and evocative. The European Parliament headquarters in Brussels, Espace Léopold, becomes a large expanse of speckled floor, the tips of colorful flags just visible at the edge of the frame. Bonham's Auction House in London, headquarters of one of the world's longest-lived antiques auctioneers, is summed up in blank tiles, a glass wall, and a short set of stairs.

Shakaden Reiyūkai Temple, Minato, Tokyo, Japan, 2015.

Though Callanan has become adept at maneuvering bureaucracy—finding the right people, granting the occasional favor—he occasionally has to adapt. If he can't get inside after all, he settles for nearby ground: the snow-swept cement outside the Latvian Television Agency; pink-tinted sidewalk tiles next to a Moroccan mosque. Along the way, he has expanded his criteria for inclusion, taking strangely-angled looks at museums, stock exchanges, monuments, and other geographic lightning rods. "There are many institutions or companies that we rely on every day, but know little about how they work and what they really do," he says.

By design, his photos reveal no new details—but they might get us thinking about the blanks, or attempting to fill them in ourselves.
"Grounds" now comprises over 2,000 photographs from 22 countries, and is still growing. (The entire collection, indexed by country and site, can be viewed here). In an unforeseen consequence, Callanan, too, has his own mental database: he can now identify any of the thousands of hotspots he has photographed just by looking down. That's one way to master what lies beneath.

Balancing Reservoir, Feltham, United Kingdom, 2004.

Avenue Mohammed V, Ouarzazate, Morocco, 2010.

High Court, Hong Kong, 2006.

Submillimeter Array, Hawaii, United States of America, 2010.

Doha International Airport, Doha, Qatar, 2006.

The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, United States of America, 2010.

Oslo Opera House, Norway, 2011.

Edinburgh International Airport, United Kingdom, 2011.

Supercomputing Division, University of Tokyo, Japan, 2015.

Orchid Nursery, Hawaii, United States of America, 2010.

Train Station, Florance, Italia, 2008.

Miyanoura Post Office, Kagawa, Japan, 2015Bonhams Auction House, London, United Kingdom, 2004.

Latvijan Television Centre, Riga, Latvija, 2007.

City Hall, London, United Kingdom, 2004.

There are crazy, flashy raves growing on these petri dishes. The undulating lights in the four-minute video set to LMFAO’s “Party Rock Anthem” are actually produced by bacteria. The single-celled micro-organisms are programmed to flicker, pulsate, shimmer, flow, and do the wave in a rainbow of neon color.  

Scientist, TED Fellow, and director of the Synthetic Biological Systems Laboratory at Columbia University Tal Danino found out that you can create mesmerizing patterns with bacteria by modifying their DNA. In his lab, Danino codes bacterial programs—writing and arranging the four nucleic acids, or DNA building blocks, into different sequences. These biological programs and algorithms are developed in a similar fashion to computer programs.

The programs control bacteria’s quorum sensing, which is a natural process when bacteria release tiny communication molecules when the colony reaches a critical density. These molecules trigger coordinated behaviors, which Danino can program. For instance, at the one-minute mark of the video Danino posted, he programmed these bacteria to glow bright blue when critical density is reached. He calls the clip “The Supernova” because it looks like an exploding star. At the 15-second mark, the bacteria turn into a cascading waterfall of blue bacteria, the expanding colony only about the width of a human hair.

“Besides programming these beautiful patterns, I wondered, what else can we get these bacteria to do?” Danino said in a TED Talk in 2015.

In addition to being the perfect visual backdrop for the “Party Rock Anthem” music video, Danino and his colleagues are investigating how these bacteria can be used to detect and treat diseases, including cancer. For example, there is a specific sequence of DNA that can produce fluorescing purple molecules that is visible in urine, Danino tells TED. He can instruct the bacteria to shine only if it comes into contact and grows within cancer cells. So, if a patient’s urine is tinted a shade of purple, doctors will be able to take action.  

“In my work, science and art actually influence each other dramatically,” he notes in the TED post. “I see these beautiful patterns while working in science, and then I think, ‘How does that pattern happen? I really want to study it.’”

Every day we track down a Video Wonder: an audiovisual offering that delights, inspires, and entertains. Have you encountered a video we should feature? Email ella@atlasobscura.com.

#CajunNavypic.twitter.com/Pt1d21I20Z

— Steve Hardy (@SteveRHardy) August 15, 2016

Nearly 11 years ago, as Hurricane Katrina brought in a deluge of rain, causing flooding across the state of Louisiana, a group of civilians and their boats gathered to try and rescue those in need of help. 

Dubbed the Cajun Navy, they were later recognized at the Super Dome for the work, which included saving dozens of lives, historian Douglas Brinkley has said. 

And now, new, deadly flooding this month in the state has brought a version of the Cajun Navy back. And while it's unclear if it's the same rescuers or a different loose band of civilians, they've taken to their boats to help out in any way they can. 

#CajunNavypic.twitter.com/hjScnNu7Gy

— Ben Sanders (@CriminalSanders) August 14, 2016

The help is welcome, and often crucial, though one Cajun Navy volunteer told the Times-Picayune that it could get pretty chaotic. Strong currents flooding through neighborhoods weren't helping things. 

"I had access to a boat I could use but, man, they got a lot of (people) in duck hunting boats riding around these neighborhoods who have no idea where they're going, but they're just here to help," Macaluso told the Times-Picayune. "This is not easy work." 

 

#stcharlesparish has answered again. 20+ boats 40+ men. Just hoping for effective direction today. #holdfast #cajunnavy

A photo posted by Raymond Guedry (@one_way_ray) on Aug 15, 2016 at 3:19am PDT

The flooding has already claimed at least five lives, officials have said, while forcing the rescue of some 20,000 residents, and stranding hundreds of others. 

And while the torrential downpours that were the flood's proximate cause have mostly moved on, officials have been warning of a lingering threat: the probability of more floods downstream as the waters—now centered around Baton Rouge—move south. 

Bud light taps. (Photo: Michael Dorausch/CC BY-SA 2.0)

A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail.

When it comes to products we eat or drink, we love our gimmicks.

In the past week alone, Crystal Pepsi has returned to the shelves after a 23-year absence and Burger King tried putting a Whopper in a tortilla wrap.

Those are great gimmicks that will win some pretty killer business for those brands, despite the likely high calorie counts of each item. (A 20-ounce bottle of Crystal Pepsi has 250 calories. How? It's clear!)

But the greatest gimmick of all time might have been the creation of light beer—a swill that is widely derided by snobs like me, but nonetheless defines the modern beer industry.

It was an immense success story, because it solved a problem for many beer drinkers, Bud Light didn't hit the market until 1981, but despite that, the light beer category exploded, making up 28 percent of total beer sales by 1990, according to the Chicago Tribune.

As one supermarket category manager told Chain Drug Review back in 1998, "Beer drinkers may be couch potatoes, but if they can't rouse themselves to shed their fat with exercise at least they want to slow the weight gains. If they drink a light beer with their baked chips, they can tell themselves they're not neglecting their health."

These days, light beers make up seven of the ten most popular brands of U.S. beer, with Bud Light far outpacing everyone else.

But Bud Light didn't invent light beer. In fact, Miller Lite beat them to the market by years. And both have Joseph Owades to thank for the invention.

Amstel Light. (Photo: Cyril Caton/CC BY 2.0) 

It probably says a lot about light beer that the man widely considered the inventor of low-calorie swill was a biochemist.

Owades, the man behind light beer, figured out the scientific elements of creating the beverage—and he did a bunch of research into the way yeast interacted with the starches in malt. He found an enzyme in yeast that removed much of the starch while ensuring the beer kept the properties of beer, and that led to the creation of Gablinger's Diet Beer, a brew sold through his employer at the time, Rheingold Breweries.

As you can tell by the name, the marketing prowess that light beers are famous for wasn't really in check at the time, and the beer quickly flopped—as did a follow-up product by Meister Brau that was allowed to use Owades' recipe. Nonetheless, Owades knew he was onto something.

"It was a common belief then that drinking beer made you fat," Owades said, according to his 2005 Washington Post obituary. "People weren't jogging, and everybody believed beer drinkers got a big, fat beer belly. Period. I couldn't do anything about the taste of beer, but I could do something about the calories."

His idea was too good to hide behind bad marketing. After a set of mergers, his process ended up in the hands of Miller Brewing, and soon after that, the basic formula was being used to create Miller Lite, which launched in 1975 to immediate success.

Miller, at times, has implied it invented light beer, which some consumer watchdogs have criticized the company for.

Miller Light and Genny Light beer trucks. (Photo: MobiusDaXter/CC BY-SA 3.0) 

"Listen, Miller Lite-ites, we’re not out here to kill your buzz, man," the advocacy group Truth in Advertising wrote in a blog post last year. "Your go-to beer has a storied history indeed. We just think consumers should know that there’s a certain spin to the tale as told in current advertising."

(In a response to the group, a Miller spokeswoman emphasized that Miller was "the first successful low-calorie beer," which is accurate.)

The invention of light beer, it turns out, is the easy part. The hard part involves making sure it comes out consistently, especially at the scale at which major brewers work.

A 2012 Mental Floss piece details exactly how complicated it is, highlighting the fact that a lot of factors are at play in ensuring the brews remain at a high quality, and how the light beer creation process—specifically how the fermentation takes place—is a major differentiator between good light beer and bad light brew.

"At all 137 Anheuser-Busch breweries around the globe, Budweiser and Bud Light undergo exactly five and a half days of primary fermentation and 21 days of lagering, all at 50°F, plus or minus one degree," the article explains. "Any warmer and the beer could end up thick and flabby, instead of 'clean, crisp, and fresh.'"

Light beer is the stuff that pays for sports bars and Super Bowls. And the space, even to this day, is immensely competitive.

We can thank Miller Lite's aggressive, out-of-the-gate ad strategy for that. At the time of its launch, the company brought out major sports stars—for example, this ad's use of Whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle was pretty effective at the time, and even shoehorned in the immortal "tastes great/less filling" line.

But it did inevitably create an arms race that's still, slowly, playing out to this day. Having seen the success of Miller Lite's celeb-heavy approach (which faced, let's say, diminishing returns), other companies quickly followed suit. Schlitz, for example, hired famed action star James Coburn to promote its light beer.

And Miller's natural enemy Anheuser-Busch rushed to get its own version of light beer on the market. It took them three tries before they finally got it right. The first try gave us Natural Light, a beer associated with the bottom of the barrel these days, but back then, it was promoted at the same tier as Budweiser and had Mission: Impossible star Peter Graves defending the product to the public.

The second gave us Michelob Light, whose pedigree—and that of its cousin Michelob—have totally usurped the parent brand's momentum in every way, shape, and form. One of their ads featured a before-he-was-famous Ted Danson.

But ultimately, the light beer trend had become too big to ignore, because eventually Budweiser Light came onto the scene. (Its name trim came later.) The 1981 launch of the beer that became the most popular in the land, how did it get off the ground advertising-wise? Well … they didn't have Mickey Mantle available, that's for sure.

Budweiser Light's inauspicious start as the king of advertising involved a lot of, uh, sports. A 1981 ad featuring a basketball player going for the winning shot is one example of the kind of approach you'd never seen in a Bud Light ad today. Another involved a bike race, a brass instrument of some kind, and a particularly bad jingle more fitting of an energy drink than a product designed to get you drunk slightly more slowly than its regular version.

"The best: You've found it in yourself, and now you've found it in the beer you drink," a voiceover says in a super-serious way that current Bud Light spokespeople Seth Rogen and Amy Schumer would mock.

Budweiser, clearly, got better at this whole advertising thing. The beer? Eh, not so much.

Bottles of Bud Light on ice. (Photo: LunaseeStudios/shutterstock.com)

While light beers remain the king of the roost—again, nearly every possible permutation of light beer is near the top of the popular beer list—consumers' changing palates are making that lead a little more wobbly now than it's been in a while.

But one thing that's likely to be to Bud Light's advantage in the coming months: Nearly every big brewer is soon expected to put nutrition info on their beer bottles.

That could be a good reminder for the calorie-conscious of the world that they may want to go with something a little less carb-laden, but on the other hand, light beer has been so thinned-down that it has little to no nutritional value whatsoever anyway.

As Medical Daily notes, if you're willing to drink a slightly heavier beer, there's actually some more shape to the beer that gives it health benefits. A pint of Guinness, for example, has 126 calories—a nice midway point between Budweiser's 145 calories and Bud Light's 110.

And then there's the further added benefit that you're not drinking Budweiser. 

A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail.