Author: Ms. R.

In the dark pandemic days of last December, 667 people gathered on a video call to celebrate Emily Dickinson’s birthday—and her black cake. Participants were invited to bake the recipe before the gathering, and many appeared on camera with their own rendition of the cake. The tradition had started five years before, when Emily Walhout, a reference assistant at Harvard University’s Houghton Library—which houses the largest collection of Dickinson’s poems, letters, and household artifacts in the world—finally decided to……

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Mundolingua is a quirky museum of world languages, linguistics, and pedagogy tucked away in a corner of one of the more chic neighborhoods in Paris. At first glance, it looks more like an office or unusual storefront than a museum. Mundolingua is the brainchild of New Zealand linguist Mark Oremland, who started working on the idea in 2010 to share his love of languages.  After several years of preparation, the museum opened in 2013. It consists of two floors, each……

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Jimmy Fike is on his way to a campsite when I call him. “Jeez, a lady almost hit me. I’m driving,” he says offhandedly. But unlike most of us, if Fike’s car broke down or if he wandered a bit too far from his campsite, he could likely eat his way back to civilization. That’s because, for the last 13 years, Fike has been photographing North America’s edible flora. But instead of snapping pictures in the field, he carefully……

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The beauty of the Colorado River was captivating to early explorers as its green-blue waters wound through the dramatic red canyons of northern Arizona. As a vital source of water in a rugged and desolate landscape in which few things could survive, the river seemed like a gift aiding their exploration—until they tried to cross it. It turns out there is only one place in hundreds of miles from which the river can be easily accessed from both sides,……

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Baelo Claudia checks the box for multiple kinds of travelers—the surf and sun set and the culture and history nerds alike. This 2,000-year-old town in Spain was inhabited by Romans until the sixth century. It was abandoned after a series of earthquakes caused heavy damage to the city, and a series of attacks by Barbary and Germanic pirates made the place unsafe. Located beyond the infamous Gates of Hercules (thought to be Gibraltar and the mountains on the other……

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An unusual timepiece can be found at the Petrovaradin Fortress of Novi Sad, Serbia. Locals often call it pijani sat (drunk clock), because its accuracy fluctuates depending on the season. The clock consists of three interconnected systems: the timing mechanism that keeps time and powers the clock hands, a striking mechanism that sounds the quarter-hours, and another striking mechanism that sounds the full hours. The timing mechanism is sensitive to changes in temperature. When the weather is cold, the clock……

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In 1992, the German Harmonie Club committee—led by the club’s longest-serving president, the late Guenter Koerner—decided to create a memorial to the reunification of Germany on the club’s grounds. “With help from friends in Berlin, they managed to get hold of a section of the wall—weighing 2.6 tons and standing 3.2 meters tall—for 500 Deutsch Marks,” Harmonie German Club president Kevin Bramboeck, said. The large concrete slab is believed to be the largest piece of the Berlin Wall in the……

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