August 02, 2022

UNUSUAL DISCOVERIES Lost Monastery, Neolithic Surprise John McCullen had a feeling about the old stone tower that stood on his family farm. It looked no more remarkable than the multitude of other ruins scattered around County Meath, but McCullen had a feeling that it was different. So he started to dig—and his intuition was right. The tower was hundreds of years older than thought, and would turn out to be the only remaining building from a lost medieval monastery. Even more surprising: Beneath the tower and other remains of the medieval site are much older structures, which date back millennia.  READ MORE → GASTRO OBSCURA The Return of Swiss Cheese Baths It doesn’t take much to make cheese—just a few hundred litres of milk and a sprinkle of precision. When milk, rennet, and cultures are heated to around 45-60 degrees Celsius (113-140 degrees Fahrenheit), they transform into two products: curds and whey. Curds become cheese. But dairy owners have never quite known what to do with whey. It has run the gamut from sought-after medicine to problematic waste product to pig feed to … niche bathing liquid. READ MORE → ATLAS OBSCURA COURSES | TONIGHT Lizard or Tree Branch? In this 4-part lecture series, join Dr. Earyn McGee for a herping intensive, learning how to spot, identify, and photograph lizards in your region. You’ll learn about lizards across the U.S., key features for identification, and then go on a lizard-spotting adventure! ENROLL NOW → ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND 'The Walking Man' Known in his neighborhood of Annapolis as “The Walking Man,” Carlester Smith helped keep West Street clean by picking up trash on his daily walks for many years and greeted all passersby. Annapolis artists painted a mural on the wall of Pinky’s West Street Liquors in his honor before he passed away in March of 2021. READ MORE → RING RING, HISTORY CALLING New York’s Last Public Payphone Kiosk Before the dominance of mobile phones, there was just one way to contact a friend, colleague, or family member while on the go: the payphone. And nowhere else in the United States were payphones packed as densely as in New York City. By 1960, a million of them had been planted like thickets of human connectivity from Wall Street to Staten Island, and then by 2022, there were only a handful left in Manhattan. Then there was just one. And finally, there was none—though that last kiosk did wind up in a museum. READ MORE → ATLAS OBSCURA PUZZLES Code-Breaking On the Armenian Subway A short drive from Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, is a monument on the side of a mountain that consists of giant stone versions of the 39 letters of the Armenian alphabet. No other country has honored its alphabet with such grandeur. But few countries are as indebted to their alphabets as Armenia is. This week, your linguistic challenge—should you choose to accept it—is to decode a subway map written entirely in the Armenian alphabet. PLAY NOW → LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA Table 31 at Tam O’Shanter Los Angeles is a treasure trove of historic sites related to Walt Disney, but the Scottish pub in Glendale called the Tam O’Shanter is not among the best-known of them. That’s a shame, since Walt Disney himself was once a regular there. Disney and his crew frequented it so often, the pub even gained the nickname “the Disney Studio Commissary.” READ MORE → FOOD CHRONICLES Chop Suey History Most people in the English-speaking world know chop suey as a vintage Chinese American dish. For decades, scholars and foodies have heaped scorn on it, with some accounts calling it a “brownish, overcooked stew, strangely favorless, with no redeeming qualities.” Harsh. Chop suey’s history, in fact, is much more acclaimed than you might think, with discrimination and mistranslation long obscuring the dish’s true origins. READ MORE → FREE MEMBERS-ONLY EVENT | TOMORROW Secrets of Medieval Tarot Unlock the mysteries of a medieval tarot deck in a state-of-the-art conservation center at the historic Morgan Library & Museum! In this live virtual experience, we join Conservator Frank Trujillo and Senior Curator Roger S. Wieck for an up-close look at the ornately painted cards, one of the most complete decks to survive from the 15th century. If you aren't a member yet, you can sign up during the RSVP process for this event. RSVP TODAY → DECODING MESSAGES ‘Hobo Code’ You’ve probably heard of the hobo code: distinctive coded messages left for other hoboes—transient laborers who rode the rails. Popularized in the late 1800s and early 1900s, hobo code supposedly consisted of distinctive symbols to communicate vital information: aggressive dogs, clean water, or a good place to camp. In many family stories, hobo code is established as fact. But did hoboes actually leave secret messages like these? It’s a question Charlie Wray of Salt Lake City has been trying to answer. READ MORE → WAIMEA, HAWAII The Ruins of a Hawaiian Fort When Kaumuali‘i became king of Kaua‘i in 1794, he inherited a precarious situation. King Kamehameha I had already conquered the other Hawaiian islands, and now was coming for Kaua‘i. Twice he tried to invade and twice he was thwarted, first by stormy seas and then by illness. Kaumuali‘i was desperate for allies; cue the Russians. READ MORE → SPONSORED BY THE MAINE OFFICE OF TOURISM Reis Education Canoe Given Maine’s coastal geography, birch bark canoes were long integral to the indigenous Wabanaki people. The handmade vessels traversed Maine’s oceans, rivers, and lakes to transport fish, game, and Wabanaki themselves across the water-pierced landscape. With the incursion of colonizers and the felling of much Maine pineland, the skill of birch bark canoe-building was nearly lost—but luckily, as one canoe in Portland’s Abbe Museum attests, this indigenous craft still lives with us today. LEARN MORE →