Filipino Louisiana’s History The Filipino village of St. Malo is perhaps the oldest Asian community in the United States, but its history has been largely written by outsiders—when it has been written about at all. In a state where Acadian and West African heritage sites and communities are celebrated, St. Malo and other early Filipino villages are rarely mentioned, though they are among Louisiana’s oldest. Now members of the community are uncovering and reclaiming their history—although much like navigating the bayou, it is not an easy course.  READ MORE → GASTRO OBSCURA A Garifuna Cookbook Isha Gutierrez-Sumner is Honduran, but she’s also Garifuna, a member of a persecuted Afro-Indigenous culture spread out across Central America. These people, collectively known as the Garinagu, face increasing threats at home and abroad. Gutierrez-Sumner, from her current home in New York, hopes to amplify the Garifuna struggle and protect their cultural legacy by collecting Garifuna recipes in a cookbook. The result, when it is published in early 2022, will be the first Garifuna cookbook in history. READ MORE → ATLAS OBSCURA COURSES Making Scents: Experimental Perfumery In this 3-part course led by Saskia Wilson-Brown, the founder and director of The Institute for Art and Olfaction, you’ll learn the basics of perfumery and lab safety, explore properties of fragrances, and create a small perfume accord of your own. LEARN MORE → SONOMA, CALIFORNIA Inspiration for an Iconic Wallpaper The serene, blissful landscape of the Microsoft Windows XP Default Wallpaper does actually exist in real life. In 1998, photographer Charles O’Rear was driving down Highway 121, and stopped to snap this peaceful landscape. In 2000, Microsoft came knocking—and the rest is history. READ MORE → World's Hidden Blunders Everybody makes mistakes. Some go relatively unnoticed, but others last, adding a quirky kind of charm to the attractions they grace. From a befuddling beast that became a Siberian town’s mascot to a Nebraska jail that was accidentally sold to a teenager, here are 19 mistakes worth marveling at. READ MORE → THE ATLAS OBSCURA PODCAST Good Vibrations Antique Vibrator Museum We’re in San Francisco today, visiting a buzzing collection that honors vibrator history. That’s right—we’re visiting the Good Vibrations Antique Vibrator Museum, which displays models from the late 1800s up through the 1970s. Join us as we meet Carol Queen, the museum’s curator who shows us some of the oldest vibrators in the museum’s collection. BUCKEYE, ARIZONA Hobo Joe Herb Applegate moved to Phoenix from Detroit in the 1960s. With a successful background in restaurant management, he quickly found investors in his newest venture: an affordable, family-friendly coffee shop and restaurant: Hobo Joe’s Coffee Shop. But though the facade of the restaurant was family-friendly and beloved, there were deep problems behind the scenes involving its possible connections to organized crime. READ MORE → FROM THE ARCHIVES Tolkien Really Hated Disney It’s no secret that J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were legendary frenemies. But while they may have sparred over fantasy and religion, they shared one little-known viewpoint: a disdain for the works of Walt Disney. The movie that cemented Tolkien’s dislike? Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. READ MORE → ATLAS OBSCURA EXPERIENCES New York Public Library's New Treasures Exhibition Get a virtual sneak peek at the brand new Polonsky Exhibition of The New York Public Library’s Treasures before it opens to the public! Housed inside the iconic Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, this new exhibition features 250 rare and unique items, including Thomas Jefferson’s handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence and Malcolm X’s briefcase. Be among the first to see this delightful new exhibit! LEARN MORE → NIKKO, JAPAN Abandoned Western Village Opened in 1973, the “Western Village” was a theme park inspired by classic American and Italian Western movies, as well as the 1973 sci-fi Western Westworld starring Yul Brynner, which features a menacing host of malfunctioning robots attacking a group of unsuspecting tourists. The park closed in 2007, but still features a replica of Mount Rushmore, a general store, barbershop, church, sheriff’s station with prison as well as a saloon chock-full of villainous characters. And yes—there are still robots populating every corner of the park, seemingly poised to break into movement at any second. READ MORE → SOUTHERN ICELAND Þrídrangaviti Lighthouse Few places in the world are as lonely as Þrídrangaviti Lighthouse, located on tall cliffs off the coast of the Westman Islands, which themselves are about 4.5 miles from mainland Iceland. When building commenced in 1938, builders had to scale the cliffs to reach the pillar’s pinnacle, laying out the groundwork by hand. READ MORE →