atlas obscura
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Beaking the Language Barrier
Twain endorsed the book, saying “Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book, nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect.” A 19th century Portuguese-to-English phrase book, English as She Is Spoke, broke…
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Gimme Gimme JSTOR
The question of access continues to plague the academic community—if academia is truly about knowledge and discovery, why are there still so many barriers to the unfettered sharing of information? The architects of digital “pirate libraries” around the world are…
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Reading Writing
A delightful, short essay at Atlas Obscura describes how handwriting in colonial America was packed with information about the profession, or trade, and class of the penman/woman. Reading was considered spiritual, and taught separately from writing, which was highly self-conscious, revealing,…
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Digging Deep into a Jawn
The word “jawn” is unlike any other English word. In fact, according to the experts that I spoke to, it’s unlike any other word in any other language. It is an all-purpose noun, a stand-in for inanimate objects, abstract concepts,…
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Talking Heads
Department store mannequins may be creepy, and automated customer service calls may take forever, but at least we don’t have to deal with the Euphonia these days. Inhabiting the lowest point of the uncanny valley, this machine mimicked human speech…
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Poetry and Plants
A tour through Rumphius’ work is a masterclass in the poetry of the concrete noun. His shells bear names like Little Dream Horn, the Prince’s Funeral, Peasant Music and the Double Venus Harp. Atlas Obscura tells the story of Georg Everhard Rumphius (no…
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This Week in Indie Bookstores
The famed Parisian English-language bookstore Shakespeare and Company is set to open a cafe. The shop is partnering with New York restauranteur Marc Grossman, the man responsible for introducing juice cleansing to Paris. The Alabama Booksmith sells only signed copies.…
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Mapping Literary Road Trips
What is more American than the road trip? Steven Melendez has created an astonishingly detailed interactive map of the beloved institution as documented in twelve works of American literature. The books featured include Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, Jack Kerouac’s On the Road,…
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Exorcisms, the Devil, and Helpful Grammar Tips
The Codex Gigas…contains the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, as well as an assortment of other texts that tackle everything from practical instructions for exorcisms to seventh-century grammar tips written by Isidore, the scholar-turned saint of Seville. Atlas…
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Learning to Work with Rare Books
In 1983, Terry Belanger created a curriculum for librarians to learn how to deal with rare books at Columbia University. Nine years later, the University of Virginia hired him and the Rare Book School moved to Charlottesville. The school now has 80,000…
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Exploring a Megalibrary
At Atlas Obscura’s Places index, a contributor shares photos and the history of Mexico City’s Biblioteca Vasconcelos, a “megalibrary” that combines five separate (and disparately designed) library-sized collections within one building.
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Good Work from the Museum of Bad Art
Travel blog Atlas Obscura has a post up on Slate about Massachusetts’s Museum of Bad Art, whose collection of paintings “displays a glaring gap between the artist’s sincerity and skill level.” It may seem cruel at first, but founders Scott…