October 28, 2022

MAKING SCENTS  The Smell of a Witch  Most perfume ads suggest that the right scent can make you sexy, alluring and successful. A blend by Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs, meanwhile, offers to make you smell like Hecate, the three-faced Greek goddess of witchcraft—and it’s just one of many magic-inspired fragrances available today. What does a witch smell like, and what might it reveal about the ancient world?  READ MORE → GASTRO OBSCURA Picnicking in Cemeteries During the 19th century, and especially in its later years, snacking in cemeteries happened across the United States. It wasn’t just apple-munching alongside the winding avenues of graveyards. Since many municipalities still lacked proper recreational areas, many people had full-blown picnics in their local cemeteries. The tombstone-laden fields were the closest things, then, to modern-day public parks. READ MORE → LANCASTER, SOUTH CAROLINA Springs Park By all accounts, Springs Park was more like an amusement park, complete with a skating rink, carousel, mini Ferris wheel, and bowling alley. All alongside its crown jewel: an Olympic-style swimming pool, half surrounded by an ancient Greek-style amphitheater. The park closed in the summer of 1989 for unknown reasons, and today lies quietly decaying in a riverside forest. READ MORE → SPONSORED BY LOS ANGELES TOURISM Architectural and Artistic Wonder Amid the standard skyscrapers and bustling sidewalks of downtown Los Angeles is some of the most fascinating architecture and art in America. Daring architects brought their visions to life here, while art adorns walls and streets—if you know where to look. Come experience the myriad cultural and creative sights that await the curious wanderer. LEARN MORE → CRYPTID LORE Beware the Thunderbird Thunderbirds are essentially big birds—big, terrifying birds. According to George M. Eberhart’s seminal Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology, the wingspan of a thunderbird can be as much as 70 feet. For comparison, the largest bird in North America, the California condor, has a wingspan of 10 feet. Thunderbirds are bigger than some planes. As such, it’s a surprise that they’re so hard to spot. READ MORE → JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA Kona Skatepark Tucson, Arizona, gave skateboarders the perfect place to perfect the nascent sport in September 1965: Surf City, the world’s first skatepark. Surf City ceased operation in 1979, but not before it spawned others across the country, including Florida’s iconic Kona Skate Park, which has been recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the “longest surviving privately owned skatepark” anywhere on earth. READ MORE → ATLAS OBSCURA COURSES Learn to Play with Your Food Want to create more charged intimacy among guests? Ask them to spoon feed each other. Want to get messy? Ask guests to eat face to plate. In this four-part workshop with quori theodor, we’ll focus on foregrounding constraints to draw out a sense of play in the kitchen and highlight cherished social aspects of eating, bringing people together, in new ways, around food. ENROLL TODAY → FRIGHTS AND DELIGHTS Jersey Shore Hauntings In the late 1970s and early 1980s, if you wanted to be scared out of your skin outside of Halloween, the place to be was the Jersey Shore, where haunted attractions dotted the boardwalk. These purpose-built, walk-through “houses of horror” were staffed in large part by student actors who loved theatrics and makeup, knew how to improvise, and operated under laws that were a lot less strict than you might expect. Anything went, anything was possible. So these places soon became legendary. READ MORE → CLEVELAND, OHIO Balto the Sled Dog In 1925, snowbound Nome, Alaska, was hit with an outbreak of incredibly contagious diphtheria, with the antidote miles away in Anchorage. With plane delivery impossible due to the conditions, the only way to get the serum to Nome and combat the fatal outbreak was with a relay of sled dog teams on the Iditarod Trail. The final leg of the trek was with Gunner Kaassen and his team led by a black Siberian husky named Balto, and the team braved about 54 miles of brutal wind and a blizzard, with the temperature remaining below -40 degrees Fahrenheit. READ MORE → NOW ON KICKSTARTER Ascend Ascend on Vinyl We’re so excited to be part of poet and artist Janaka Stucky’s Ascend Ascend Kickstarter! In 2019, Janaka Stucky performed his work, Ascend Ascend, around the U.S. in an Atlas Obscura-produced tour—and now his Seattle performance featuring cellist Lori Goldston, has been lovingly preserved in a special vinyl double LP that will be published through Neurot Recordings. Back the Kickstarter today to receive exclusive items from colored vinyl to ritual candles to special VIP access for his upcoming tour. LEARN MORE →