Author: CPilgrim

Williams Crater, Oregon | Outsider Architecture

Self-titled arborsculptor Richard Reames grows and shapes tree trunks using the ancient arts of grafting, framing, bending and pruning. Reames believes that his living arborsculptures could one day replace many of the things that trees are typically killed to make.

Gazebos, tables, chairs, spiral staircases, benches, entrance arches, bridges and fences represent just a small portion of Reames’s imaginative vision of a world built entirely of living trees. He is currently growing a living tree house 15 feet off the ground. He has spelled out love in apple trees. Author of two books on the subject, Reames teaches and lectures worldwide. http://www.arborsmith.com

On Obscura Day, March 20th 2010, Reames will be opening up the normally private Arborsmith Studio and showing visitors the techniques he uses to create living sculpture out of trees.

Saks, Alabama | Unique Collections

The museum was started by an a Farley Berman, an American GI who married a French spy while stationed in North Africa. The two spent 40 years traveling the world and collecting antiques, oddities and weapons.

Farley Berman was never entirely clear about how some of the objects made their way back to Alabama. Some pieces, he suggested, might have made their way home in his bedroll after World War II; others, he liked to say, simply appeared magically in his house. One such piece that seem to have made its way home in his WII bedroll is a set of Hitler’s tea service.

Having been a spy Berman also liked to collect easily concealed weaponry, and has a fascinating collection of such items as “a flute that fires bullets, a tin of cough drops that conceals a tiny gun, an ink pen that can fire a .22 or a capsule of poison gas.”

Join us for Obscura Day on March 20th in Anniston, AL, where we will be visiting both the Berman Museum of World History and the adjacent Anniston Museum of Natural History for an afternoon of discovery.

Saitama, Japan | Subterranean Sites

The G-Cans project (Shutoken Gaikaku Housui Ro, or the Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel) is a massive underground waterway and water storage area built by the Japanese government to protect Tokyo from flooding during the monsoon seasons.

Begun in 1992, the two-billion-dollar project will be finished in 2009. The tunnels run over 100 km, but perhaps the most impressive features of the drainage system are the 213-foot-tall silos and the 83-foot-tall, 580-foot-long pillared main tank known as the “Underground Temple,” which was built to collect run-off from the city’s waterways. The humongous drainage system can pump over 200 tons of water a second.

A free tour is offered in Japanese only. It is requested that you bring along a translator… for “safety reasons.”

Mongolian People's Republic, Asia | Natural Wonders

Badain Jaran Desert is home to the tallest stationary dunes on Earth. Reaching over 1,600 feet tall, they are roughly the same size as the world’s tallest buildings. This area also shares a mysterious property with some three dozen other deserts around the world. Known as singing sands, whistling sands, or booming dunes, the dunes of the Badain Jaran Desert make a surprising amount of noise.

Singing sands are generated when the desert wind pulls the top layer of sand off layer below. It is believed that the noise is generated by electrostatic charge this action creates. On a small scale, such as a beach, this phenomenon creates a high-pitched sound, but on a much larger scale, it can emit a low-pitched rumble or booming sound, and at up to 105 decibels, it can be quite loud.

Despite singing sands and booming dunes being a feature shared by some 35 deserts and beaches around the world, the mechanism that makes the sound is still not fully understood.

Key West, Florida | Unique Collections

On September 4, 1622, a fleet of twenty-eight Spanish ships left port in Havana, Cuba. The ships were transporting the wealth of the Spanish empire from Central and South America to the motherland in Europe. The following day, the fleet was overtaken by hurricane and by the 6th of September, eight ships had found their way to the sea floor, scattered between the Marquesas Keys and Dry Tortugas.

One of the eight ships that went down was the Nuestra Senora de Atocha. Aboard the Atocha, along with passengers, was a cargo of silver, gold, copper, bronze, silverware, tobacco, jewelry and indigo. The exact amounts were reported in the later translated manifest, but do not include all the extras that were unregistered to avoid taxation.

Of the 265 passengers that went down with the ship, only five survived. After rescuing survivors, rescuers tried to enter into the sunken ship, but due to lack of technology during this time period, were unable to stand the 55 foot depth for long. They marked the location of the Atocha, and vowed to come back to it.

Luck was not with the Spanish, and a second hurricane came through the area, further destroying and scattering the wreck of Nuestra Senora de Atocha. For the next 60 years, the Spanish would attempt to relocate the sunken treasure without any luck.

In 1969, almost three centuries later, American treasure hunter Mel Fisher and his team began an incessant, sixteen year search for the remains of Nuestra Senora de Atocha. Many times, for months on end, the team would go without any luck, struggling financially to keep their search moving forward.

In 1973, a few silver bars were found and matched to Atocha’s manifest and in 1975, a few matching bronze cannons were found. By the 1980s, a large portion of the remains of Santa Margarita was found along with some treasures, securing belief that the hunt was nearing its completion.

However, it was not until five years later that Mel Fisher and his men would stumble upon the Atocha. Within the remains lay gold, silver, jewelry, and gems of all sortss. Fisher’s cache, known as “The Atocha Motherload” was estimated around $450 million and after a few arguments with the state of Florida, the Supreme Court announced that Fisher was indeed the owner.

Today, visitors can view many of the treasures that Mel and his team found at the Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society and Museum in Key West, Florida. Bars of gold, bricks of silver, Spanish coins, jewelry and gems fill the museum, all dating back to the 1500s. The museum is also home to the treasures of Mel Fisher’s other important treasures and finds, including goods from the Henrietta Marie and St. John’s wreck. Despite having found 450 million worth of treasure, hunters estimate that this is only half of the Atocha treasure. The rest remains beneath the ocean.

Some of Mel’s treasures can also be found at the Treasures of the Sea exhibit at the the Delaware Technical and Community College.

Antonito, Colorado | Outsider Architecture

Built by Donald “Cano” Espinoza, a Native American Vietnam vet, whose main influences for the Castle are “Vitamin Mary Jane” and Jesus, it is a wonder to behold. Built largely out of beer cans and other metal refuse, for Espinoza it serves as a thanks for having his life spared during the war. Cano’s castle is actually four separate structures. “The king”, “the queen”, “the palace” and “the rook”. The four story “king” house, covered in beer cans and hubcaps gleaming in the sunlight, is by far the crowning architectural achievement.

Springfield, Illinois | Museums and Collections

Near the Oak Ridge Cemetery, the second most visited cemetery in the United States and the site of Abraham Lincoln’s tomb, lies the Springfield Museum of Funeral Customs. The museum houses a bizarre collection aimed at educating visitors about the history of funeral customs and practices in the United States, with a special emphasis on the 1800s and Lincoln.

The museum’s collection features a handful of beautiful replicas, including the caskets of Lincoln, Kennedy and Nixon as well as a home funeral from the 1870s and an embalming room from the 1920s. Other exhibits include horse-drawn hearses, clothing, jewelry, instruments, photography and of course, a wide variety of caskets and coffins.