Author: Ms. R.

One evening in 1983, a pair of local police officers in the German city of Siegburg stopped by an old butcher shop to investigate reports of suspicious activity. Inside, they found three slightly scruffy twentysomethings with kilos of contraband. Bernd Drosihn, the ringleader, tried to object, but the officers confiscated the offending substances. After a stern reprimand, they handed over a letter announcing a preliminary investigation into the crime: making “Torfu.” “Every week, we received a new prohibition order……

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Just south of Coffee Bay, a tiny resort town along South Africa‘s Wild Coast, a massive rocky sentinel sits astride the surf, as if guarding the mouth of the Mpako River.  The well over 200 foot (80 meters) high, 1 000 foot (300 meters) long shore-side cliff is composed of 260 million-year-old sandstone and shale, and capped with volcanic dolerite. At its base, the Indian Ocean thunders and roars through a gaping, almost-round hole through the rock. It is……

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This memorial is dedicated to the Sinti and Roma victims of Nazi Germany. It’s estimated that around 220,000 to 500,000 people were killed during the Porajmos, better known as the Romani Genocide. This mass murder was not recognized as genocide by the German government until 1982. The memorial was designed by Dani Karavan and unveiled in 2012. The government had agreed to build the memorial in 1992, but it suffered years of delays and disputes. The monument is composed of a……

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On the island of Saaremaa, just off the west coast of continental Estonia, stands a white church that is well-known for its distinctive features. Not only does the Karja parish church boast some of the richest stone decorations of any Baltic rural church, but the ceiling also displays several symbols that one would not easily find in a Christian house of worship. The two most famous medieval symbols found in the church are a triskelion with a white, a……

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Gành Đá Dĩa translates to “The Sea Cliff of Stone Plates.” This beach contains basalt rock formations similar to those seen at Ireland’s Giant’s Causeway. These rocks were formed the same way as their Irish twins. A volcanic eruption met the sea and the lava cooled in hexagonal shapes. The formation in Vietnam is smaller than the one in Ireland, but is still a sight to behold. Also, the temperatures are much more tolerable. Since 1998, the Gành Đá Dĩa……

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For Peter Glazebrook, there was one bright spot to 2020. A leek he entered into last year’s Mansfield Grow Show, which judges declared to be a monstrous four feet long, won him a new world record. “That makes 16 world records I’ve held over the years,” Glazebrook wrote to me recently, via email. “However, it’s a competitive hobby, so I currently only hold three.” Today, he is the proud grower of the world’s heaviest cauliflower (60 pounds), potato (10……

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Ajay Giri juggles an eight-foot king cobra in one hand and a snake hook in the other. The cobra’s forked tongue flicks. Its tail, coiled around Giri’s left arm, twitches restlessly. Hay, huts, fields, and farmers are all scorched under the afternoon sun at Heggodu, an agricultural village bordering the Agumbe Reserve Forest. Here, deep within India’s mountainous Western Ghats, Giri has come to rescue the king. “King cobras are shy. They don’t attack humans unless provoked,” says Giri,……

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Werner Härtl’s works have the warm tones of Renaissance-era sepia drawings, the monochromatic beauty of early photographs, and a richness of detail that recalls prints by Albrecht Dürer. His preferred medium offers myriad expressive possibilities, is environmentally friendly, costs him nothing, and is abundantly available in the Alpine foothills the artist calls home. Härtl is an illustrator, painter, and sometime cowherd from Bavaria in southern Germany—and his materials include cow dung. Viewers whose amused fascination with his work stops……

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According to legends, a bat-winged, scaley dragon terrorized the villagers who lived near the region of Wantley (modern-day Wharncliffe Crags). The beast was massive and could swallow trees and buildings. The dragon was nearly invincible to any weapons, save for one rather sensitive spot. A knight by the name of Moore took time off from his usual drinking and womanizing to end the dragon’s reign of terror. Wearing a specially designed suit of armor covered with spikes, Moore battled……

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Nestled among the multifold memorials of Mount View Cemetery in historic Galt, now part of Cambridge in southern Ontario, the tombstone of Millicent Milroy stands out. It’s not for its imposing size or defining black granite construction. Rather, it is because Milroy was the onetime partner of Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David, more commonly known as King Edward VIII, Duke of Windsor. Or so she claimed. The epitaph on her grave reads, “Millicent A.M.M.M. P. St. Daughter……

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Along the Via del Portico d’Ottavia resides a large inscription on a historical building that celebrates the former owner’s love for his city and its glorious classical past. Lorenzo Manilio, a spice merchant who lived during the second half of the 15th-century, built himself a large mansion and adorned it with a large inscription, along with various roman archaeological findings known as spoila. The inscriptions run alongside the building and read: “URBE ROMA IN PRISTINAM FORMA(M  R)ENASCENTE LAUR MANLIUS……

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