• • • to set a mood • • •
• • • some of the things I read while eating breakfast • • •
To identify potential flaws in his ideas, Thomas Edison created a nasty, confrontational alter ego named “Nicholas Shadowfather”, with whom he would have long, violent debates.
— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 7, 2019
For Sale: America’s Largest Private Grove of Giant Sequoias
They’re older than Christ and as high as the heavens.
A conservation group is trying to buy a huge swath of giant sequoias.
GIANT SEQUOIAS ARE NO STRANGERS to history. The trees can last thousands of years, and at least one tree was already half a century old at the time of the Trojan War. But that’s if they’re uninterrupted by environmental devastation and human activity, two hazards that often go hand in hand. The environmental threats of drought and fire vex most of the Sierra Nevada’s forests, including groves of giant sequoias.
Now, a California conservation group is beseeching the public to step up and fund the purchase of a huge grove of the towering trees. “It’s an awe-inspiring place,” says Jessica Inwood, Parks Program Manager for the Save the Redwoods League. “It’s the last, largest giant sequoia property left in private ownership.” One sequoia on the property, the Stagg Tree, is believed to be the fifth-largest tree in the world.
Many giant sequoias grow to over 250 feet tall.
Alder Creek, a 530-acre property in California’s southern Sierra Nevada, has been the property of the Rouch family since before World War II, according to The Mercury News. The league recently signed a purchase agreement with the family, and is seeking $15 million from the public to acquire the land and the giant sequoias on it, nearly 500 of which have a diameter of six feet or more.
Though the sequoias do not burn as frequently as other trees in Californias, the league intends to reduce tree overgrowth in order to mitigate the damage of future fires. “With fire frequency and intensity predicted to increase due to climate change and with significant fuels accumulation in the forest, the ecosystem is vulnerable to severe fire damage,” Inwood says. …
Dante’s Divine Comedy may have been a conceptual blueprint for a theme park commissioned by the Church.
— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 7, 2019
How to survive a Twitter storm
Tanya Gold published a piece about a plus-size mannequin one Sunday. By Monday morning the internet had gone mad and was out for her blood.
Shame shame shame: ‘obese’ mannequin displayed in London’s Nike store. Tanya Gold dared to say the company was being ‘cynical’.
It was my fault. Sometimes I write glibly. I make an argument for myself and forget that people read it. It still surprises me, after 20 years of writing, to think that I have readers: that my internal monologue is out and about in the world. I do not think about them. If I did, I couldn’t write anything.
In June, I wrote a piece about Nike’s obese mannequin, which was displayed at the London flagship shop to publicise Nike’s new willingness to sell clothes to overweight women. It makes me laugh now to think I insulted a mannequin – how, on that day in 2019, we came to discuss human rights for mannequins. I said it was a cynical doll from a cynical company that is no friend to women. I said that the normalisation of obesity frightens me, because I can see the outcome of addiction to sugar in myself. I said that the “fat acceptance” movement is an abyss of denial. I said the mannequin was “gargantuan” and “heaving with fat”. I said it might get diabetes – if it had flesh. I said that if it ran, it would ruin its inhuman knees.
I am an addict: to alcohol, to nicotine, to sugar. And now I think that, because of this, I wrote about the doll with self-hatred. I was ill with alcoholism when I was young, and the worst thing was my denial. I conquered alcohol by hating what it made me with such ferocity I was too scared to drink again. But I never got anywhere with food. I am stuck on food. So I said I hated the doll.
The piece appeared on Sunday. By Monday morning it was trending on Twitter. A friend emailed to tell me this, as if it were happy news: but she is a comic with the all the oddness peculiar to the comic. I do not write for attention, which is what I was accused of. I think it is more accurate to say that I write to conceal myself – and this time I failed.
It rolled around the world. It followed the sun. I was called fat-phobic in the South China Morning Post and elitist in the Irish Times. I became a person who hated women. My Wikipedia entry was changed to “Tanya Gold is fat and fat-phobic.” Within half a day I was an invented person, and that version of me, which I do not recognise, is more vivid than I am and will, I marvel, outlive any other version, no matter my future strivings. This invented person was fleshed out swiftly, like a doll, and this seemed, in retrospect, a suitable punishment. I was presumed to have opinions I have never held. A reply to a famous critic enclosed a list of inspirational mantras to protect against feminine self-hatred. I was presumed to be against all of them. If I wasn’t, I would not make sense. …
Jonathan Van Ness on being HIV positive: ‘It gave me a reason to really fight’
The charismatic star of hit TV show Queer Eye had a troubled and chaotic early life. Here, for the first time, he talks about his life with the virus.
‘Everything I’ve been through has prepared me for this’: Jonathan Van Ness.
The words “smoky lavender” appear twice in Over the Top, a memoir by Jonathan Van Ness, the most fabulous of the so-called Fab Five on Queer Eye, the hyperventilating makeover show in which he stars. The first time it is used to describe the skin colour of a gun-toting meth addict he encounters during a stint as a sex worker in Tucson. The second to describe the colour of the thigh-high boots worn by the hair stylist at a salon he lands at in Los Angeles in 2008. He is 19. Later, Jane Fonda, a customer, tells Van Ness his hair makes him look like Jesus.
Between these two smoky lavenders is a gulf that separates two versions of Van Ness: the garrulous, sassy, resident groomer of Queer Eye – and the emotionally bruised, risk-taking addict. As he warns readers midway through the book, “Buckle up, buttercup, because I can go from comedy to tragedy in three seconds flat.”
Van Ness and I are in a Cadillac sedan, driving past the tangled, rusting architecture of Philadelphia’s suburbs. Travelling like this is normal for him – on Queer Eye, he gets to roam the country waving his wand and transforming lives. The show, which was brought out of cold storage last year after an 11-year hiatus, has been a surprising success. America, it seems, is hungry for its uplifting brand of magic. A lot of that comes down to Van Ness, the show’s foremost cheerleader for Queer Eye’s stated mission of turning red (Republican) states pink, “one makeover at a time”. It’s Van Ness who brings the energy to the party, Yass queening his way through each episode, scattering memes and neologisms wherever he goes, and generally helping people connect to their feelings, often by tapping into his own. Tears are never far below the surface. Resistance is futile. Everyone loves him.
Looking sharp: the Fab Five from the first series of Queer Eye.
Van Ness has a hectic, energetic style and a voice that soars high and then higher. In the car he talks quickly, words tumbling out of his mouth in a way that can leave you trailing far behind. When I ask if any of his encounters on Queer Eye have changed him, he answers: “The act of showing up for your family and being able to live in the world I think is heroic. There’s like 15 bajillion eggs in the ovaries and who even knows how many, like, little spermies are in there, so the fact we got to be born and be living this long is kind of like a mathematical who-knew.” This is, I think, a roundabout way of saying we all deserve to be acknowledged. But things are way more fun when Van Ness says them. …
5 Weird Jobs Famous Authors Had To Take To Make Ends Meet
The thing about being a writer is that it’s actually really hard, and you should all be very proud of what a brave boy I am for doing it. The median wage for a full-time writer is only $20,300, which is roughly the same pay as jobs like “Crooning Hobo with a Heart of Gold” or “Public School Teacher.” The point is that this is America, dammit, and if those namby-pambies think they deserve food just for “having ideas” and “entertaining millions,” well, maybe they should take up a side job to help pay the bills. After all, that’s what some of the greats have had to do.
5. Mark Twain Anonymously Wrote About Balls
Mark Twain is easily America’s second-favorite Southern gentleman in a white suit with funny facial hair. Despite being a successful author and scrapbooking magnate, Twain was as poor as … well, I was going to make a humorous comparison here, but in light of that statistic about the median income of authors, “as poor as an author” is actually pretty apt.
Twain lost almost all of his book bucks — nearly $9 million in today’s money — investing in an invention that combined the convenience of a typewriter with the gigantic metal skeleton of a decommissioned locomotive engine. Twain was eventually able to dig himself out of debt by touring the world and doing comedic speaking engagements. A famous comedy writer becoming a famous stand-up comedian is a pretty logical progression, like an ice cream truck driver becoming a serial killer. But we’re here to talk about his other side-hustle: writing dirty stories for men’s magazines.
In Twain’s time, there was a literary subgenre of “squibs,” which were essentially trashy short stories published in magazines marketed toward men — or as they were called in the 1890s, “magazines.” Twain wrote a few of these, but the most (in)famous is a little story published in 1876 called “1601.” Due to its salacious content, Twain didn’t actually admit to writing it until 1906, just four years before he died. It’s so filthy that it wasn’t legal to print until the overturning of obscenity laws in the 1960s. The story is framed as a conversation between 17th-century England’s heavy hitters, including Francis Bacon, William Shakespeare, and the queen. It’s written in faux-Elizabethan argot, and the joke is that these fancy-pants tightasses talk about who can rip the nastiest fart or who has the best pubic hair. At one point, Shakespeare tells a story about a dude with four balls.
Now, there’s some contention as to whether Twain wrote this tawdry little tale for money or just as an exercise. I keep asking my Ouija board, but all it does is start screaming and demand that I avenge the ghost in my apartment, so we’ll probably never know. But it’s probably fair to say that Twain wouldn’t turn his nose up at a payday, especially if it meant he could get paid to talk about supernumerary testicles — a subject he was rarely able to explore in his other work. …
From smashing tiles to driving sheds: the weird world of wacky record breakers
For some, setting a world record is an all-consuming passion – and the weirder the better. Meet the people putting the record books into a spin.
You spin me right round: Getti Kehayova puts her bespoke hula hoop through its paces.
‘I realised I needed to make gravity work for me, not against me’
Getti Kehayova, 42, Las Vegas, USA. Record: the largest hula hoop spun (female) is 5.188m in diameter, and the spin was achieved by Getti Kehayova in Las Vegas, Nevada on 2 November 2018.
I grew up in the circus. I’m from Bulgaria and all my family were performers. We went all over the world together. It was the absolute best experience a child could ever have. So many different kinds of people, so much access to different cultures, and I could learn on the road and not at school. There were loads of kids around, too. Lots of the performers had children so we’d all hang out together. I had friends from Mongolia, Russia and France. It was a family, really.
My parents did a teeterboard act, and it was the most amazing thing. Then my older sister started doing a hula-hoop act. She was my hero. I wanted to be just like her. So I started learning how to do it. I really fell in love with it.
I retired from being a touring circus performer five years ago. I moved to Las Vegas and now work as a technician at Cirque du Soleil. It was the right time to get off the road. I put my kids in regular school and bought a house. Then I brought my mum over from Bulgaria to live with us. But it was hard to adjust, knowing there wasn’t going to be another town tomorrow. I always thought I had one more performance left in me.
Both my dad and my older sister had broken Guinness World Records, so I thought I might try to see if I could break one. I decided to try spinning the world’s largest hula hoop, which I had to have specially made. It was hard though. So hard. It took me ages to work out how to spin it, and I had to bulk up – I needed more muscle. The hoop is as big as a house, so the problem is getting it off the ground and then spinning.
One day I realised that I needed to be spinning in order to get it off the ground. I needed to make gravity work for me, not against me. It took me ages to work that out and I really had to get used to being dizzy.
It was a proud moment when I broke the record, and even if someone comes along and breaks it, I don’t think I’ll mind because they’ll really deserve it. Both my dad and my older sister have sadly passed away, so I like to think my world record is my little tribute to them. …
Archaeologists find penis statue buried at ancient sacrifice site
The statue found at the site in Rollsbo outside Kungälv close to Gothenburg in the west of Sweden.
A large stone penis that may have been used for sacrificial fertility rituals has been uncovered in Sweden.
The bizarre phallic statue has been linked to a Bronze Age fertility cult – and stands erect at nearly two-feet high.
Archaeologists uncovered it by accident while investigating a site earmarked for construction in Rollsbo, Sweden.
The hardy member was initially thought to be a paving stone but turned out to be a giant todger.
“When we excavated the rocks, we saw something that deviated from everything else. It was on the ground but had been raised in this past,” said archaeologist Gisela Ängeby, speaking to the Göteborgs-Posten.
“There was a 52cm-long stone shaped like a penis.”
The site at Rollsbo before the statue was discovered.
Ängeby continued: “In archaeological contexts, however, one is careful to call it a phallus. It has a distinct phallus shape. I thought when I stumbled upon it that ‘oh my god, it can’t be true.’” …
Video Goodnesses
and not-so-goodnesses
and not-so-goodnesses
Bill recaps the top stories of the week, including Trump’s whistleblower complaint and Justin Trudeau’s “brownface” scandal.
THANKS to HBO and Real Time with Bill Maher for making this program available on YouTube.
In his editorial New Rule, Bill declares that Trump Derangement Syndrome is real – and that it applies to anyone condoning the president’s indefensible behavior.
Trump visits the border wall in California, a new study details water safety issues aboard commercial flights, and the U.S. Navy confirms the veracity of UFO videos from 2017.
THANKS to Comedy Central and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah for making this program available on YouTube.
CAUTION: Some language may not be appropriate for work or children.
Here’s me commentary on a collection of excellent ninja fails. Okay, a few of them are broad martial arts fails. Ok, a few of them are in fact wins. ENJOY! Cheers ya legends, O-Man.
秋の運動会！Autumn sports day!
This unassuming manhole cover is actually the lid to an underground shrine celebrating the world’s subterranean workers. Visiting hours are infrequent, but memorable.
— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 2, 2019
FINALLY . . .
Morbitorium
An amazing collection of curiosities hidden in a small Welsh village.
In a quiet mining village in the South Wales valleys, you’ll find a most surprising collection of oddities. From the outside, you’d never suspect that this 19th-century canalside cottage was anything other than a normal family home.
Look closer, however, and you’ll soon spot an eight-foot skeleton with glowing red eyes tucked away in the corner of the vegetable garden and a hookah-smoking fox peering out from the front window. Once inside, it gets even weirder.
The Morbitorium has an amazing collection of curiosities from all over the world and occupies the entire ground floor of the house. Taxidermiy animals peer down at you from the shelves while antique medical devices—including some Victorian sex toys—will make you appreciate the advances made to modern healthcare.
Peruse its stock, and you’ll spot wet specimens, Ouija boards, human skulls and bones, mummified animals (including not one but two mummified cats), Masonic regalia, vintage collectibles. and more. The backroom even has a full-sized coffin complete with a fez-wearing, dreadlocked skeleton. …
Cypocraphy, practiced since the mid-1400s, is the practice of making one’s romantic or professional rivals believe that they are being haunted by witches.
— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 1, 2019
Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Maybe. Probably Not. Groundhog Day.