E.T. and the Kid Today, I have a challenge for you. Despite its relatively young age, the United States is a nation full of pop-culture character sensations. Some real – Elvis, Calamity Jane, Johnny Appleseed – some fictitious – Paul Bunyan, John Henry, Bigfoot. On a county-by-county basis, it’s hard to beat the folklore pedigree […]
The Bootheel and Other Salients Humans love the notion of organization. We’ve taken a globe and sliced it into a grid; then we filled that grid with nations, states, counties, and cities. Viewing the planet from space, our longitudinal and border lines are invisible. Some of the lines between entities make sense, while others are
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Transylvania and the Count In 1897, Irish author Bram Stoker unleashed Dracula upon the world. The titular Count was not the first vampire in literature – that trend extends at least to the first half of the 18th century – but he is the most famous. Because of Stoker, we have dozens of adaptations of his
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Craters of Eternal Darkness What makes night within us may leave stars. — Victor Hugo One of the oldest tropes pertains to the interplay between lightness and darkness. Without one, does the other exist? Certain ruminations liken light and dark to being two sides of the same coin. This comparison makes sense on a cosmic scale,
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Peak of Eternal Light Today is the first full day of Autumn 2022 in the Northern Hemisphere. The fall equinox means we are currently experiencing nearly identical lengths of night and day. We have “day” and “night” because the planet spins on its axis. Earth rotates once every 24 hours with respect to the
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The Lake Above the Ocean Fire up your virtual traveling machines and come for a visit to the Faroe Islands, where one of the world’s most bodacious lakes resides. In the North Atlantic, the Faroe Islands sit approximately at the center of a triangle composed of Iceland, Scotland, and Norway. 779 islands, of which geographers term
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12 Casques & 12 Keys Planet Earth: undeniably gorgeous and endlessly interesting. She’s extraordinarily good at providing fodder for a series on natural beauty. How fortunate are we to live on a planet teeming with stunning scenery and adorable critters? We take it for granted, but we could easily inhabit a drab and dreary
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The Sedan Crater In our previous investigation, we learned a bit about the Nevada Test Site, thanks to an assist from Stranger Things. There, the U.S. military tested over a thousand nuclear weapons in the middle of the uninhabited desert. Though atmospheric experiments led to mushroom-cloud tourism in Las Vegas, more than 90% of
The Apple II Houses in Doom Town [This article contains very minor spoilers from Season 4, Part I, of Stranger Things. If you haven’t watched it yet and want a completely spoiler-free viewing experience, put this issue aside and come back later. If you’ve already watched the show, read on. If you don’t care about that
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Beyond the Pale Both Dove-like roved forth beyond the pale to planted Myrtle-walk — John Harrington, The History of Polindor and Flostella I look upon you, sir, as a man who has placed himself beyond the pale of society, by his most audacious, disgraceful, and abominable public conduct. — Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers We