Bun Bun, a creature we seek to understand. (Image: Amanda Engle/YouTube)

It's been a long year, filled with tragedy and heartbreak, but balanced somewhat by the gift that keeps on giving—incredible animal videos. No 2015 list would be complete without the inclusion of a new classic, titled "Bun Bun, Destroyer of Leaves!" The basic action is sublimely simple: a human throws dry leaves on a bunny, and, over and over, the bunny flings herself through them, like a skateboarder off a rail, or a soccer goalie going for a top corner shot.

But these 50 glorious seconds bring up unanswered questions. It's an oddly emotional video. What is going on with the bunny, cognitively? Can bunnies really play games like dogs, cats, or other more traditional companions? What does the bunny know and when does she know it?

The video begs for a close reading; we need to find out exactly what this this bunny was doing, thinking and feeling. 

Faced with this display, we did what any investigative journalist would–called someone who knows a lot about bunnies. Our expert today is Nancy LaRoche, founder and manager of the Colorado House Rabbit Society and co-author of Rabbits: Gentle Hearts, Valiant Spirits. LaRoche has been rescuing, placing, and living with bunnies for 24 years. Below you will find a transcript of our conversation, time-stamped for your convenience. Let's begin.

0:00 First things first–is this bunny playing? Do bunnies play?

Yes, absolutely! They’re incredibly social and intelligent. Most of us see rabbits in pens or crates or something like that, and they just look like they just sit there, and they don’t attract our interest. If you put a human in that kind of environment and left them, we wouldn’t last very long. We would seem dumb to people that came by, because we wouldn’t be getting any mental stimulation or social stimulation. But when you have them in your home–as long as you rabbit proof and things like that–they can be just great. They play, they interact with you, they're like a family member. They’ll even use a litter box.

0:02 We can assume from the bunny's clear investment in the situation that this video starts midway through playtime, so we’ll have to fill in the blanks here. But in your experience, what inspires bunnies to play? Are there certain things that get them in the mood?

There are. One aspect of that is their sleep cycle. They typically sleep from midmorning through the afternoon, so of course during that period of time, they don’t really like to be bothered. That’s one of the reasons that rabbits make terrible pets in schools–a rabbit should never be in a classroom. They’re most active at dawn and dusk in nature, and they modify that slightly so that they’re most active around breakfast time and then again in the evening. A lot of people have their rabbits out in the mornings when they’re getting ready to go to work or school and the bunnies may run around the breakfast table and beg for Cheerios and things like that. Then in the evening as they’re allowed around the table, they’ll be begging for bits of salad. They love when the family gathers, whether they’re watching TV or doing homework or whatever, and at that point they sometimes will initiate play. 

0:10 The bunny now runs into the corner of the cage in order to get into the path of the leaves. This seems like the opposite of a normal prey response–prey animals typically run away from threats, not towards them. So this leads me to ask, do you think the bunny sees the leaves as a threat, or as something else? 

I think it’s just experience. The first time somebody threw the leaves at the bunny, she probably thought “What’s happening!” and panicked. And then it didn’t hurt, and it was kind of fun feeling it just fall around her, and it became a game quickly. They learn to trust certain people. In general, if people have not worked with the rabbit, the rabbit is going to be primarily fearful and cautious… but it’s amazing how quickly some of the rabbits suddenly realize that there are some people who are friends, and they can trust.

0:14 Here the bunny stands on her hind legs and waggles her front paws. I didn’t realize rabbits could stand up on their own–why do they do that?

I think it’s a way for them to get higher than the weeds around them or the grass, to see further and see what’s out there. They tend to like to go up high.

0:20 The man throwing the leaves scoots around the fence. Is the bunny aware that she’s playing with someone? Do bunnies prefer to play alone, or with humans, or with other bunnies? 

We always place them in pairs, because the wild European rabbit, which is what our domestic rabbits are descended from, bond for life. They raise babies together and all of that sort of thing–they’re not at all like native cottontails in this country. The domestic rabbits inherited all of that social and intellectual ability. 

This couple had adopted a pair from us, and the bunnies had grown fairly elderly, and the female was a little debilitated, she couldn’t get around very well. The human mom came in with treats, and the male rabbit stood up, took the treat from her, ran it to his wife, and went back over and got his and then they sat there and ate together. It’s things like that—people get accustomed to seeing a rabbit in a small crate or hutch, and they don’t get to express themselves that way. But when they’re in your home and they run around and interact with you, you get to see a whole lot more what they’re like.

0:28 A very impressive move here–the bunny refuses to get faked out and only jumps when the leaves are thrown and maximum payoff is possible. This leads me to wonder, can rabbits be trained to be better at their favorite activities?

One thing I have to say right away is, I do not like contests for any animal–if it’s trying to see how high a rabbit can jump, people keep trying to push them higher and higher until they end up getting injured. I do like the ones where there’s not that aspect and it’s just done for fun. They have some really cute obstacle courses, and rabbits can learn to do that.

Clicker training is a really good way to train rabbits to do almost anything you want. We had one adopter who, the day he got his rabbits, he started clicker training them. One of them would stand on their back feet and walk, and the other would stand on his back feet and hop, or they'd run in circles. They would even use the litter box on command.

0:32 Here there’s a pause in the action and I can’t help but notice the swinging rope on the fence. If this were a different small animal (say, a cat) they would obviously be attracted by very different parts of this situation. What kinds of toys and play interest bunnies?

It’s just amazing to me the things that bunnies will do. A lot of bunnies like to sit with their human dads and watch football. They love things like cardboard and paper to chew on. We often get a box and cut a couple of holes in the sides so that they could go in and out. it doesn’t take them more than a week or so to just about destroy it. Throwing games–we’ll toss something to them, and they’ll try to toss it back. It usually goes sideways, but they understand what they’re doing.

via GIPHY

0:39 Here the bunny does get faked out a little. What sense is paramount in terms of letting her know what’s going on? Sight? Hearing? Smell?

Their sense of smell is incredible, it’s very very good. Their sense of hearing is extremely good. Their eyesight is primarily to spot predators at a distance—motion and things like that. I don’t think their eyes play as much of a part in play as much as other senses do. They can’t judge distance–those of us with two eyes in one plane can judge distance, but animals whose eyes are on the sides of their heads can’t judge distance. You’ll sometimes see them bobbing their heads or moving them back and forth, and they’re using parallax to get some idea of what’s closer and what’s further away. I think that influences some of the way they play.

0:45 At this point it seems like the bunny could likely play forever and everyone would be fine with it. Can a bunny learn a game? Would this bunny be excited for Leaf Cage Match Part Deux with this guy?

I’ve seen a cat and a rabbit where they became friends, and the rabbit discovered what chasing was. And the cat would chase the rabbit, and the rabbit would turn around and chase the cat. It didn't come naturally, but they learned how to do it. And they learn from each other. We often have bunnies that come in, and we always give bunnies some toys, and a bunny who has never been introduced to toys will look at it like “What on earth is this for?” But then they see other bunnies playing and they catch on. 

0:51 In this video overall, laughter is omnipresent. Why is it so much fun to play with bunnies?

I've always felt that rabbits get bad press. Over the years, there have been cliches like “dumb bunny,” things like that, that would lead you to expect them not to be much of an animal, but they are incredible. But you’ve got to get to know them. 

The abandoned Castelinho da Rua Apa in Sao Paulo. (Photo: Eli Kazuyuki Hayasaka/flickr)

It was May 12th, 1937. Elza Lengfelder, the housekeeper of a rich family in São Paulo, was putting her sons to bed in the back room where they lived when she heard a loud noise from the main house.

Lengfelder ran to the street, found a watchman, and led him to the house, but it was already too late. Splayed on the floor in a pool of blood were the bodies of the recently widowed owner and her two sons. It was the beginning of a crime case that remains an enduring mystery in Brazil's largest city nearly eight decades later.

Sao Paulo in 1902. (Photo: Public Domain/WikiCommons) 

To better understand the case, we must go back a few decades. In the 1910s São Paulo was already a big city with a steadily growing population. The rich coffee barons and other prominent families built their mansions in the neighborhoods surrounding Sé, the city’s first church. Dr. Virgílio Cézar dos Reis did the same; he chose Santa Efigênia, one of the most noble areas of the city, to be the address of his new home.

In 1912 he brought architects from France to build a mansion that resembled a medieval castle–it was a gift to his wife, Maria Cândida Guimarães dos Reis. Five years later the 7,500-square-foot house was finished, with marble stairs, carpets imported from India and luxury in every detail. It became known as the Castelinho da Rua Apa, or Little Castle of Apa Street.

Dr. Virgílio and his wife had two sons. Alvaro was a lawyer and professional ice skater. He was well known for being a playboy–very outgoing, laddish, and always surrounded by women. Armando, two years younger, was also a lawyer, but he had little else in common with his brother; he wasn't very fond of socializing and had an introspective personality.

The Castelinho, designed to look like a medieval castle, in a state of considerable disrepair.  (Photo: Natalia Naomi Aoi B./flickr)

In 1937 Dr. Virgilio died, leaving the family business, a movie theater called Cine Broadway, in his eldest's hands. At the time, Alvaro had just gotten back from France and was passionate about the idea of transforming the cinema into an ice skating rink. Armando was pointedly against it. But there wouldn't be time to solve this disagreement, because two months after the patriarch passed away, the whole family was murdered.

One year after the crime, investigators announced their theory: Alvaro and Armando had gotten into a discussion about the business, and the older brother had grabbed his gun. Their mother tried to separate her sons and was shot by accident. Scared, Alvaro shot Armando and killed himself.

The Church of Santa Ifigência, Sao Paulo. (Photo: Diego Torres Silvestre/flickr)

But the police’s version had too many gaps. First, two types of bullet were found inside the bodies. One was from Alvaro's gun, the other was from a different gun model–and this second weapon was never found, implying in a fourth person may have been present at the murder scene. Plus, Maria had four shots in her body, implying that she was not shot accidentally. And even stranger: Alvaro, who supposedly committed suicide, had two bullets in his chest.

Despite the obvious weaknesses of their theory, the police considered the murder case solved. The Brazilian laws of that time didn't count aunts or cousins as eligible for inheritance, so the Castelinho became government property, ushering in a period of no maintenance and no use.

The medieval-looking murder scene soon became the focus of urban legends. There were widespread accounts of screams coming from the house and open sinks every May 12, the anniversary of the murders. A Brazilian horror movie director suffered an accident while shooting there, and people readily blamed the spirits of Dos Reis family members.

A restoration project for the Castelinho received preliminary approval in 2007, but the work has yet to begin. (Photo: Natalia Naomi Aoi B./flickr) 

Though there’s no reason to believe the mansion was actually haunted, one can't say it attracted good luck either. By the ‘80s, the Castelinho was a deteriorated building, known as a drug dealing and garbage disposal site. It wasn’t out of place: the neighborhood of Santa Efigênia, once so upscale, had become a collection of abandoned houses and cheap hotels where prostitution was the main activity.

Not very far from Apa Street was the Cracolândia (or Crackland)–a block where hundreds of addicts not only bought and used the drug, but also lived together in tents on the streets. Maria Eulina was one of São Paulo’s many homeless during that period, though she was not a drug addict. Every day she gazed at the big castle across the street–empty, dirty, unused.

Eventually, Eulina got back on her feet. In 1990, she filed a request to have the building declared a historic landmark. The city, uninterested, just filed the papers away. Eulina did not stop trying to save the distinctive building, though. In 1997, she received government permission to operate an organization called Clube das Mães (Mother's Club) in the Castelinho's back room.

After that, things began looking up for the mansion. In 2004 the Castelinho was finally declared a landmark, and in 2007 a restoration project received preliminary approval. This year the Castelinho finally received permission to start raising funds for the restoration, estimated at five million Brazilian reals (or about $1.5 million).

Sao Paulo skyline today. (Photo: Leandro Neumann Ciuffo/flickr)

The architects tasked with restoring the mansion are aiming for a historically accurate recreation of its interior–which, ironically, is only possible because of the pictures taken during the murder investigation.

Eulina's Clube das Mães is still operating in the back room, teaching homeless and vulnerable people how to make purses and decorative objects out of trash, so they can sell it and generate income. The garbage that once filled the Castelinho is now used as raw material to make its surroundings a better place.

It’s yet to be determined when the Castelinho’s restoration will actually begin, but it looks like the castle is slowly transitioning from a horror story to a rags-to-riches tale.

Toothbrush and paste. (Photo: Jeremy Hockin/flickr)

As you eat away the rest of 2015, consider this: the fancy electric toothbrush that you spent $100 to clean the holidays off your gums on might be no better than a stick.

In the West, the toothbrush comes in hundreds of styles. Think: stiffer or more pliable bristles, tongue scrapers, rubber paddles placed alongside bristles, different colors and thicknesses of bristles, jagged patterns and curved heads pledging to reach parts of your mouth that have heretofore been horrendously, embarrassingly unclean. But throughout much of Africa and the Middle East (and exported to the Muslim world elsewhere, notably Southeast Asia), the toothbrush is grown as much as bought.

Called a “miswak”, it is the king of the teeth utensils—its simplicity does not impinge upon its effectiveness. By peeling the bark from the stick, you also eliminate the need for toothbrush’ sister consumer product, toothpaste.

Traditional miswak sticks. (Photo: Middayexpress/WikiCommons CC BY-SA 3.0)

As the oldest of the five major dental tools (toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, gum, and mouthwash), the toothbrush has probably gone through the most change. It’s also, according to dentist and Harvard faculty member Lisa Simon, the most important. “The toothbrush is a pretty great tool,” she says. “You have lots and lots of bacteria in your mouth, they're always going to be on your teeth. But in terms of removing stuff that could get stuck in your teeth, they're very good at their job.”

A stick-like tool with a bristle-y end dates back to well before recorded history; they’re commonly found in Babylonian ruins dating back to 3500 BC. The modern Western form, which is typically a plastic rod with nylon bristles on one end, dates back to 1938, when DuPont invented the nylon bristle, but before that, various other materials were used as brushes: animal hair (usually horse or hog), fabric, leaves, basically whatever was around.

The miswak is a version of an older toothbrush called a “chew stick.” There are trees throughout the world that, when chewed, sort of split into bristly soft fibers, very similar to a toothbrush. In India, the “neem” is very popular, but the miswakis used throughout the Muslim world.

A horse-hair toothbrush made for Napolean Bonaparte. (Photo: Science Museum London/WikiCommons CC BY-SA 2.0)

Miswak (or sometimes “siwak”) is the name of the chew stick, but it comes from a tree called Salvadora persica. (Its non-Linnaean names include “arak” and, helpfully, “toothbrush tree.”) S. persica comes from the same broad order as the brassicas, which include most of the best vegetables: broccoli, cauliflower, kale, mustard greens, cabbage, brussels sprouts. But S. persica might be the most amazing of all.

A miswak is a short stick from S. persica, about the size of a toothbrush. You peel the last inch or so of it so there’s no bark, and then chew on it until bristles form. Then you brush your teeth with it, the same as you would with any toothbrush. Except: no toothpaste necessary.

Examples of toothbrushes in 1916. (Photo: Public Domain/WikiCommons) 

Here’s where miswak gets amazing: the World Health Organization, along with dozens of studies conducted by scientists around the world, have declared that miswakis at least as good at maintaining oral hygiene as a plastic toothbrush. It contains, naturally, everything that we force into a tube of toothpaste. There’s fluoride, to reduce the risk of tooth decay; abrasives, which are inserted in toothpaste to provide some more friction to scrape plaque off teeth; detergents, to whiten teeth; and an astringent flavor, somewhere between ginger and mint, to freshen breath.

A quote from a 2003 study comparing miswak to the toothbrush: “It is concluded that the miswak is more effective than toothbrushing for reducing plaque and gingivitis, when preceded by professional instruction in its correct application.” Here’s another: “Miswak embedded in agar or suspended above the agar plate had strong antibacterial effects against all bacteria tested.”

And you can grow it yourself.

Founded in 1945 by Wally Bronner, Bronner's Christmas Wonderland is the world's largest Christmas store, a year-round commercial attraction for all ages. A huge draw for the town of Frankenmuth, Michigan, Bronner's welcomes at least two million visitors every year from throughout, mostly, the United States and Canada. In 1976, the state of Michigan designated Bronner's an "Embassy for Michigan Tourism."

The building, which is the size of five and a half football fields, sits on 27 acres of landscaped grounds that feature dozens of Christmas displays. Outside of the main entrance, for example, are three 17-foot tall Santas and a 15-foot tall snowman.

Inside of the building, which uses the motto "Enjoy CHRISTmas, It's HIS Birthday; Enjoy Life, It's HIS Way," Bronner's has about 800 animated figurines on display. The electrical bill for the store averages about $900 every day. Also on display are Christmas ornaments, artificial Christmas trees, decorations, collectibles, and Nativity scenes. Every single year, the store, which has a parking lot built to hold more than 1,000 cars and buses, sells about 150,000 postcards, 600,000 glass tree ornaments, 500,000 feet of garland, and much more.

Wally Bronner died in 2008 at the age of 81, but his store continues to function as it did before his passing.

When Nellie and Con Miller arrived in Fairbanks, Alaska, in 1949, they didn't have anything with them except for their two children and $1.40. Con became a merchant and fur buyer in the area, but he would also put on an old red Santa suit and entertain the village children; he would do anything to carve out a living for himself in this new frontier and the kids couldn't have been happier to see their first St. Nick.

Only a few years later, the Millers had cobbled together enough money to built a trading post just outside of Fairbanks. They named it the North Pole, but when a young visitor recognized Con and asked if Santa was building a new house, they changed the name of the outpost to the Santa Claus House and decorated as they thought one of St. Nick's home might look.

The Santa Claus House received international recognition and, after newspapers and magazines all over the world wrote about the new trading post, letters from kids started to pour in. The Millers, for decades now, have been returning as many of those letters as they could, sending mail to boys and girls all over the world who think they're corresponding with Santa Claus himself. Over the span of 60 years or so, the Millers sent more than two million personalized letters.

The town of North Pole, Alaska, which has grown up around the Santa Claus House, has the slogan "Where the Spirit of Christmas Lives Year Round." And the Santa Claus House is just one of the ways that spirit lives on. Visitors to the town will be greeted by not just it, but also a 42-foot-tall Fiberglas Santa Claus statue that stands on Richardson Highway. Other Christmas items decorate the town all year-round.

Part of a once-grand and ambitious network of franchised North-Pole-themed amusement parks, Santa's Village in California now sits abandoned on the aptly named Rim of the World Highway.

But in its heyday, the popular and familiar Santa's Village once whirred and hummed with the activity of hundreds of mechanical decorations, theme park rides, mobile and light-up characters as far as the eye could see. 

Now it rusts in disrepair, devoid of Christmas cheer. Unkempt and unmanaged, the rides are falling apart, and the decor has been either sold off or stolen. The surrounding forest is being chopped down, and piles of unused lumber scatter the park grounds as a result of a widespread bark beetle infestation.

It's a sad state of affairs for a theme park that was once the place to go for families and fun-lovers seeking a cost-effective nearby vacation. It was also the nostalgic home of many first jobs and seasonal summer employment for area teenagers.

As decrepit as it is, there is uncertainty about how long even this will last. The land it occupies is currently used as a logging staging area and it may only be a matter of time before the lumber company grows weary of rusted candy canes, pastel toadstools and leering elves. Until that day comes, you can still take a drive up the Rim of the World and see the saddest Santa's Village ever for yourself.

Christmas traditions can be a challenge in places that rarely see a day of cold all year, but in the Arizona city of Chandler, they have simply adapted their traditions to match the climate but forming a pile of their native tumbleweeds into the shape of a festive fir tree each year.

Dating all the way back to 1957, the city takes its tradition quite seriously. Beginning around September, city workers begin collecting the dried Russian thistle bushes (better known as tumbleweeds) that roll across the landscape. It takes around 1,000 of the iconic dead plants to create the massive "tree" each year. The collected tumbleweeds are placed around a chicken wire frame to give the attraction the shape of a wide, full tree, before being coated in a more pleasing shade of Christmas white and flame retardant (this is not the Gavle Goat). Finally the whole thing is assaulted with over 65 pounds of glitter, and strung with Christmas lights which are activated in a yearly ceremony full of pomp and circumstance.

While it may not be have the size or reach of something along the lines of the tree at Rockefeller Center, in its way, Chandler's Tumbleweed Christmas Tree is far more unique and Christmas-y given that they have to invent their tree each year just to show how much they love the spirit.   

Jack Poppele's life was long intertwined with Christmas.

In 1922, Poppele began broadcasting from a homemade station in Newark, known as WOR. It was one of the nation’s first radio stations and operating it alone, Poppele became known as the “one-man radio station.” Broadcasting on Christmas Day in 1922, Poppele became the first person to broadcast on Christmas Day.

After his career in radio, Jack Poppele went on to open Santa's Land, a popular roadside attraction on Vermont's historic Route 5.The Christmas themed "storyland" like park, was a gift shop complete with toys, ornaments and Santa figures year round. Opened in 1957 and it ran for over 50 years. Sadly, Santa's Land closed it doors for good on December 18th, 2011.

It is unclear if the Ding Dong School House, Santa's Land Arcade, the Candy Can Cupboard, or the Igloo Pancake house - a giant foam igloo - will reopen anytime soon.

Lucille Mullhall, American cowgirl and Wild West performer, standing on back of seated horse, 1909. (Photo: Library of Congress)

Tales of domestic drudgery, rigid dress codes, and a regimented daily life create a bleak portrait of the 19th century woman: she sits tightly corseted in the drawing room, knitting booties and antimacassars for the newest of a dozen children. But this isn’t the whole story–American women of the late 1800s were hardly as placid as much of history suggests. 

While it’s true that many women worked only at home, the 1800s also spawned a generation of female activists, scientists, entrepreneurs, writers, artists, and theater actresses. The backlash against female entertainers was particularly intense. Women in stage productions of all kinds, from vaudeville performances to drama, were seen as “fallen women” with loose morals who wouldn’t conform to 19th century feminine ideals of domestic duty and humble purity. In fact, for decades the words “actress” and “whore” had an strongly assumed link to one another; social workers even pulled performers from their work along with prostitutes to ‘save’ them.

Despite the stigma, actresses joined the industry in droves: Alfred Auster reported that between 1870 and 1880, the number of women who listed their occupations as “actress” rose 596 percent, and increased another 332 percent by 1910. For women to endure such negative associations, acting had to provide an equally strong advantage, and it did. 

An 1880s poster for Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, advertising "Miss Annie Oakley, the peerless lady wing-shot".(Photo: Public Domain/WikiCommons)

In his book, The Silent Feminists: America's First Women Directors, Anthony Slide says that 19th century theater actresses “handled their own luggage, took care of bills and negotiated contracts no different than actors”–a very different lifestyle from other women of the day. In theater and in life, performers were playing roles that required and allowed them to do things that were considered un-ladylike, including smoking, which Slide writes was a “sign of liberation” and scandal at the time.

Expanding railway systems brought theater companies and actresses to new venues, and Wild West performers shocked audiences more used to typical female social norms. Known as “The First Cowgirl,” Lucille Mullhall out-performed her male counterparts so well that The Scranton Truth wrote how “Lucille Mulhall, a comely young woman who will essay to rope a Texas steer in record time at the Garden tonight, was the observed of all observers.” She appeared frequently in papers, though some columns about her were less than flattering; The Daily Telegram of Clarksburg, West Virginia, mentioned that she was nicknamed “Bossy.” At the peak of her fame, Mullhall formed her own show, entitled “Lucille Mulhall and her Ranch Boys,” and performed in various acts up until her accidental death by automobile at age 55. Although she was frequently on the road for tours, she also raised a family and got married twice.

The performing life could also be a haven for adventurous women by design. Famed Old West showman Buffalo Bill, who grew up as the only son in a family of five, held ultra-progressive views of women for the time, including women’s right “to vote, for their own organizations, live alone without restrictions, and enjoy the same employment opportunities and pay as men,” writes Chris Enss in Buffalo Gals: Women of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. The Buffalo Bill Show, which lasted from 1883 to 1910, was not without its issues–it helped to invent and perpetuate the “Savage Indian” trope and the false notion of a white, glamorous Wild West–but was also a venue where some women, like Annie Oakley, got paid to shoot targets, lasso herd animals and ride horses, actions they weren’t normally allowed to make a living on.

Ada Isaacs Menken reclining "nude" c. 1868. (Photo: Public Domain/WikiCommons) 

Female entertainers not only got to dodge some of the drudgery that society expected of them, but were able to essentially force stodgy 19th century audiences into accepting what was then considered risqué behavior. Actresses could cross-dress, and undress, feeding into the stereotype that actresses had loose morals. The Museum of San Francisco calls actress Adah Menken “the most sensational actress San Francisco has ever seen,” for little reason other than her tendency to perform in male roles and “nude” by the standards of the day. She married three times, and divorced three times, but seemed to avoid the deep shame associated with divorce at the time, and through her work became one of the eras’s highest earning actresses.

Keep in mind that during this time women were expected to cover their bodies almost completely; paintings of high society women baring their shoulders caused social scandal, yet Menken was stripped down to her undergarments in each performance of Mazeppa before riding a black horse across the stage. Upper-class men and women flocked to these shows. Actresses like Menken could get around public indecency notions: it was all for the noble cause of the part she played.

This ability to destroy or reinforce stereotypes extended into class and race; among them the highly offensive minstrel caricatures of black men and women. At the time, it was expected that all actors and actresses, including from the African American community, might capitalize on these tropes; a meta display of systemic racism for a white audience. At the same time, though, many black performers and revues were able to step outside these marketable acts, perform “neat,” and show their own acting and dancing skills. Amid offensive characters such as the “Mammy”, emerging artists broke into stage theater while leaving behind the draw of minstrel shows.

Aida Overton Walker in 1907. (Photo: Public Domain/WikiCommons)

Vaudeville actress Aida Overton Walker refused to act in the mammy stereotype, though became known for performing the cakewalk with her husband, a dance originally designed to mock slave owners’ gaudy dance moves and later used as a tool to mock black dancers.

Dora Dean, another black actress of the time, similarly rejected minstrel stereotypes. She performed the cakewalk with her husband and helped influence public views that black women were as elegant as their white peers, evidenced in her professional nickname “The Black Venus.” Both women, though restricted by racist laws and an unfair social order, were able to earn and control assets that were essentially barred from them in other facets of society. "The Black woman 'no longer lost her dignity when she entered the theater,'” Walker is quoted as stating in Jo A. Tanner’s book, Dusky Maidens: the Odyssey of the Early Black Dramatic Actress.

Not only were women acting, but they were producing and directing performances with often unprecedented power over their male counterparts. Anita Bush was one such actress and choreographer from New York City, and created the first professional black non-musical theater company, the Anita Bush Players of Harlem, later the Lafayette Players. Within 17 years, according to Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, her theater company trained “over 300 Black performers and introduced serious theater to many cities across the country.” Bush later co-starred in The Crimson Skull in 1921, a Western starring an all-black cast that regrettably only survives in the form of its promotional and advertising posters.

Professional stages like Bush’s and informal drama clubs alike gave women a voice and a chance to solidify a public presence: even activist Ida B. Wells, according to Patricia Schechter, acted in a dramatic club in Memphis that attracted New York talent agents, long before she found her communication niche through journalism and moving speeches about black disenfranchisement and the suffragette movement.The public eye provided by professional theater was a springboard for speaking and writing on political or social issues for the time, similar to the current political and activist agendas of celebrities like Angelina Jolie.

Helena Modjeska holding a spear in "As You Like It", 1893. (Photo: Library of Congress)

While actresses would not be considered part of respectable society until the 1910s, the imagery of actresses softened in the 1890s as images of the Gibson Girl and the New Woman came into the public imagination; women who were educated, lively, full of adventure, and edging toward the soon-to-bloom sexuality of the 1920s, women who shockingly rode bicycles and bared their arms at the beach. 'First Lady of the American Theater' Ethyl Barrymore and countless others helped popularize feminist politics, while plays like Ibsen’s A Doll’s House turned the strictures of 19th century marriage into talking points.

As American society began to slowly change its views toward women, theater and film actresses exemplified women’s needs of financial, intellectual, and sexual autonomy both on-stage and off. In her speech at The World's Congress of Representative Women in 1894, renowned tragic actress Helena Modjeska asked, “If the influence of our sex upon the theater is beneficent, can we say the same of the influence of the theater upon the woman herself?”

While she refrained from directly answering that question at the time, from a contemporary vantage point the answer would clearly be "yes."

A Finnish reindeer browses reflectively. (Photo: Reindeer Herder's Association)

If you're on the lookout for magical reindeer this year, don't bother gazing skyward—turn your attention to Finland, where local herders are using iridescent antler paint to cut down on deer-car collisions.

In Finland's Lapland region, vehicles share space with huge groups of freely roaming reindeer, herded by the Sami people. During the long, dark winter, this coexistence can be dangerous.

"Every year, about 4,000 reindeer are lost on Finnish roads in car accidents," explained Juho Tahkola of the Reindeer Herder's Association in an email. "We need to find a way to get these numbers down." 

A member of the Reindeer Herder's Association sprays down a test subject. (Photo: Reindeer Herder's Association)

Like a bike vest, the reflective paint only glows when light hits it. The Association has experimented with this strategy for several years, applying various types of paint to various reindeer parts. This year, after spray paint and fur-coating both proved lackluster, they've swabbed a test group of antlers with a thick brushing paint. "We have about 400 reindeer antlers painted and we will get results in a couple of months" says Tahkola. In the meantime, on Dasher, on Dancer, etcetera.

Turns out Rudolph's nose was a genetic thing. (Photo: Anne Ollila/Yle)

Every day, we track down a fleeting wonder—something amazing that's only happening right now. Have a tip for us? Tell us about it! Send your temporary miracles to cara@atlasobscura.com.

A glass bead found at the settlement site (Photo: Åge Hojem/NTNU University Museum)

On the coast of Norway, about 300 miles north of Oslo, an airport renovation has revealed the remains of a significant and somewhat wealthy Viking settlement from 1,500 years ago. And archaeologists working at the site have found one of the oldest garbage heaps discovered in Norway. 

Garbage heaps, for archaeologists, are like treasure troves: they show evidence of daily life, all piled together. A midden might show what people ate, what they wore, what tools they used. In this case, the archaeologists found bones from animals, seabirds and fish, including salmon and cod. They found a number of beads, including one striking blue bead. They also found the remains of a cup—a green glass. The glass beads and cup suggest that this community of farmers was doing pretty well for themselves: they had enough wealth to trade for valuable glass.

They also found evidence suggesting that the settlement featured three large buildings, as long as 131 feet, arranged in a U. Though the site is now inland, the waters of a bay once reached this area, too. The whole of the evidence suggest a relatively picturesque life in this Viking settlement, of prosperous farms and families looking out over the water. 

Bonus finds: Ninja lanternshark

Every day, we highlight one newly lost or found object, curiosity or wonder. Discover something unusual or amazing? Tell us about it! Send your finds to sarah.laskow@atlasobscura.com. 

Sure, putting a Christmas tree in your house seems pretty arbitrary considering the true religious context of the holiday. But beating a smiling, hollowed-out Christmas log until it “defecates” in your fireplace takes the celebration in Catalonia to a whole new level.

In Catalan, Tió de Nadal is roughly translated to Christmas Log and is a widespread tradition in many parts of Spain. According to Catalan mythology, the Christmas Log brings small presents on Christmas (big presents come from the Three Wise Men) in the same way presents are placed under Christmas trees in United States. Originally, the Tió de Nadal was just a piece of dead wood, but now the log is often given a face with an attached nose and two little legs, along with a little red hat similar to a barretina.

If it stopped right there, it wouldn’t be that strange. Just another present-delivering vehicle adopted by a different culture. But it doesn’t stop there, that’s only the beginning. It all starts on the Day of the Immaculate Conception, December 8. Tradition states that households begin to “feed” the log every night starting then. The log is also usually given a small blanket during this time to keep it warm during the chilly weeks before Christmas.

After weeks of feeding, it is finally Christmas Eve and the log is placed in the fireplace, little face and beret staring up from the ground. Members of the house then take turns bashing the little log person with a stick and commanding it to defecate out presents, candies and wafers and not to defecate stinky herring. This is where the tradition got its other name, Caga tió, or shit log.

The bashing continues while traditional songs about the log are sung. Christmas is then celebrated to the delight of everyone in the house as they reach below the tió’s blanket to pull out their “gifts” of defecated candy and presents.

No doubt we are all familiar with the obligatory baby Jesus in the manger scene rolled out every Christmas, but the early 18th-century inhabitants of Catalonia, Italy, and certain areas of Southern France started a different tradition that lives on to this day.

Unlike the English-speaking version of the Nativity scene, Catalonians at Christmas time actually build a large model of the city of Bethlehem. The caganer, whose origins have been lost in time, is a particular and highly popular feature of these modern interpretations.

Often tucked away into a small corner of the nativity scene, one can find a lone figure caught in the act of defecation. There are more than a handful of guesses as to how and why this tradition started ranging from the figure representing the equality of all people (everyone poops!) or that is symbolizes the idea that God will manifest himself when he is ready, without regard whether humans are ready for him. Still others believe it is a tradition grown from comic relief.

Whatever your thoughts, if you find yourself traveling in the region around Christmas time it's highly encouraged to take a second look at the scaled down Bethlehem and see if you can find their little "caganer."

For many Americans the 1983 film 'A Christmas Story' is the Platonic ideal of holiday entertainment, and the actual home used in the film is now restored to its cinema quality. There is even a museum devoted to the singular movie directly across the street.

The location itself was originally chosen due to its firmly mundane 1940s style and yet, thanks to the film, the simple abode is now one of the most iconic buildings in Western media, with Christmas decorations and tchotchkes paying homage to the famous facade. The owner of the house began by selling replica "leg lamps" like the one featured in A Christmas Story's most memorable scene and was eventually able to purchase the home from the movie. He has since completely remodeled the interior to be an exact replica of the home in the film. Visitors can walk through period-modeled site tasting the soap Ralphie washed his mouth out with, or firing a BB gun in the backyard.

The museum across the street continues the obsession with the film and features a number of movie props such as little brother Randy's snowsuit and all the toys from the department store window that Ralphie fawns over. If you can't wait to watch A Christmas Story as it airs non-stop on cable this holiday, you can actually head to Cleveland and live the experience. 

In 1934, Charles W. Howard (a former Macy's Santa) established a Santa school in direct response to his displeasure with seeing other Santas in frayed suits and cheap beards, and a shockingly inadequate knowledge of reindeer.

The school was well-received and is still in operation, and Charles' curriculum is taught to this day. Classes include studying the history of Saint Nick and Santa Claus, proper dress and make up, Santa sign language, reindeer habits (studied with live reindeer) and Santa flight lessons.

It's declared by CBS as "The Harvard of Santa schools," and you would think that the oldest school dedicated to being his Royal Jolliness would be at the North Pole, or at the very least somewhere near where the Santa Claus myth started, but the Charles W. Howard Santa School is located in an otherwise ordinary town in Michigan.

The neutrality of its location doesn't seem to put a damper on the authenticity of the school. With its gingerbread-like exterior and an interior that emulates Santa's workshop, prospective students get the full Santa Claus experience in the school's once-a-year, intensive three-day course.

While students of the school go through the traditional classes in Charles' original curiculum, changing times called for a few modern classes as well. There are classes on negotiating contracts (for things such as bathroom breaks and the like), as well as how to avoid trouble with lawsuits and accusations of less-than-wholesome behavior (the golden rule is to have your hands visible at all times to avoid possible suspicion).

The three-day course starts in October, and registration is open year-round. Be warned, however, that you should be prepared to write a stunning short essay on why you want to attend, and outlining what a fantastic Santa you would be. 

The Mojave desert, with its blisteringly hot summer sun, Joshua trees and bizarre rock formations, would not generally be the place one would choose to honor a man whose traditional home is the North Pole. Yet standing in the desert is the ghost remnants of Santa Claus, Arizona.

Nina Talbot and her husband arrived in nearby Kingman, Arizona, in the early 1930s. Calling herself "the biggest real estate agent in California," the name originated from Talbot's girth (over 300 pounds) rather than her business acumen. Nonetheless, she clearly had a flair for public relations.

The Talbot's founded Santa Claus, Arizona, in 1937 as an attempt to attract buyers to the desert location. It featured several Christmas-themed buildings and visiting children could meet Santa Claus at any day of the year. The town's post office became very popular in December as children and parents could receive mail postmarked with the town's name.

The town did in fact become a popular tourist destination, however no one ever bought land there, and the only people living there were the ones working in the town. Failing to see how she would make her real estate profits, and with the town in decline, Talbot sold Santa Claus in 1949, having failed in her attempt to convince people to move to the desert.

One of the places in town that was genuinely successful was its local restaurant, the Santa Claus Inn (later renamed the Christmas Tree Inn). Critic Duncan Hines, who would later become famous for the brand of food products that bears his name, described it as being of the best in the region. In 1950 science fiction writer Robert Heinlein wrote a short story about a sumptuous gourmet meal served there by Mrs. Claus. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes star Jane Russell even threw a dinner there in 1954. But even this was not enough to save the town and by the 1970s, it had already begun to fall into disrepair.

When writer Mark Winegardner visited the area in 1988 for his new book, it had become a sad shadow of its former self with "Styrofoam silver bells, strands of burned-out Christmas lights, and faded plastic likenesses of Old Saint Nick. A lopsided, artificial twenty-foot tree whistled in the wind beside a broken Coke machine and an empty ice freezer. Two of the three buildings were padlocked; through their windows, encrusted with layers of sand and decade-old aerosol snow, Jim and I saw dusty, overturned fiberglass statuettes of elves and reindeer."

The last gift shops and amusements went out of business in 1995, leaving little recognizable, except for a few vandalized buildings, a wishing well, and the "Old 1225," a derailed, pink children's train covered with graffiti.

As of 2015 little remains of Santa Land, its just two boarded up graffitied buildings, the train is gone, there's very little nothing special left, someone even stole the face of Santa off the front sign.

In few places can you experience every stage of the water cycle at once. But there's magic in the Mendenhall Ice Caves, where water runs over rocks under blue ceilings inside a partially hollow glacier. 

The Mendenhall Glacier is a 12-mile-long glacier in the Mendenhall Valley, located only 12 miles from downtown Juneau in Southeast Alaska. Federally protected as part of the Mendenhall Galcier Recreation Area, a unit of the Tongass National Forest, the glacier originally had two names, Sitaantaagu ("Glacier Behind the Town") and Aak'wtaaksit ("Glacier Behind the Little Lake"). 

The Ice Caves are inside the glacier, accessible only to those willing to kayak to, and then ice climb over the glacier. However, the glacier is retreating increasingly fast as global warming heats the oceans and temperatures rise. 

Monitored since 1942 by the Juneau Icefield Research Program, the Mendenhall Glacier has receded almost two miles since 1958, while previously it had receded only 0.5 miles since 1500. The caves are in part a function of this increased glacial melting.

Images of the caves circulate the internet with such captions as "otherworldly" and "surreal," but "melting" and "fleeting" could be used as well, as this glacier creates incredible new landscapes while we watch it melt away.

Smack in the middle of Alaska is a research facility that studies a wonderful mix of rockets and auroras. The Poker Flat Research Range is comprised of over 5,000 acres of science-y goodness, using rocketry to take a closer look at the Aurora Borealis, the magnetic field, and the ozone.

The land, which sits beneath the normal path of an aurora, has been used to observe the colorful natural phenomena since the 1920s. In the 1940s the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks took control of the site, and they brought rockets with them. The facilities as they are known today weren't completed until the 1970s, with multiple on-site facilities like riometers, magnetometers, and other pieces of precision equipment that allow the data gained from the rockets to be studied on the premises. 

Rather than military grade missiles, the researchers use "sounding rockets" which are projectiles loaded to the gills with research instrumentation. These are fired up into the atmosphere to a level that sits somewhere between where weather balloons reach and where space begins, allowing for a detailed look into how the Earth's atmosphere interacts with the vacuum of space. 

Today there are five separate launch pads and an ever-evolving array of scientific facilities. As the state of research evolves and the range of interests spreads, the PFRR continues to grow with it. 

When your grade-school science teacher described the various methods one can use to construct a telescope, drilling countless holes a mile and a half deep into Antarctic ice probably wasn't one of them. But that's exactly how the IceCube South Pole Neutrino Observatory works.

Call it a telescope, call it a detector, or call it an observatory – it's all the same to the University of Wisconsin scientists at the IceCube, which is now the world's largest neutrino research array. Constructed between 2005 and 2010, the IceCube array consists of 86 identical holes, drilled 1.5 miles deep, scattered throughout the ice and filled with extremely sensitive particle physics monitoring equipment.

The IceCube is a tangential facility of the much larger Amundson-Scott South Pole Station, both of which are literally located at the South Pole in Antarctica, where temperatures are normally a deadly -75 degrees Fahrenheit.

The research being done at the IceCube is obscure and esoteric, as they essentially search for signs of tiny subatomic particles called neutrinos as they streak through the crystal clear ice thousands of feet below the surface, but its impact could be profound. Neutrinos are one of the most mysterious building blocks of the universe, and while studying them is notoriously difficult, the more scientists understand about their behavior, the more they will be able to explain about how the universe works.

More heralded and easily understood than the science of the lab is remarkable engineering it took to create it. Beyond the extreme difficulties of travel and habitation at the South Pole, the drilling of the all-important holes used for the array's sensors is an engineering marvel. Using highly advanced equipment, scientists bored into the earth with an ultra-high-pressure hot water drill, not unlike a massive power washer. Each tube took approximately 40 hours to drill in total.

Antarctica seems like a long way to go to measure one tiny particle, but the darkness and purity of the subsurface ice at the South Pole creates a naturally ideal environment for detecting neutrinos, which almost never actually interact with matter, making them very hard to measure.

In fact, it is only when one accidentally collides with another particle and creates a reaction that its presence be can examined, and that is difficult to create in a lab environment – it's more likely to be seen by happenstance over a large area, such as the gigantic IceCube array, which might be the most artful application of a using desolate location for the advancement of science to date.

Secret McGumbus bunker (Photo: Courtesy of Dan's Papers) 

When Old Man McGumbus first began appearing in the police blotter of Dan’s Papers, a news weekly covering the East End of the Hamptons, he was in trouble. Naked, intoxicated, and unconscious on the side of the road, McGumbus was not found alone. He had three bottles of bourbon, a sex doll and a dozen roses by his side. This was 2011. 

That was just the beginning of his adventures. Identified as “104 and a former World War II button-making commander,” McGumbus kept showing up in the paper’s police blotter. Week after week, he was arrested. Often, he was drunk. Always, he was eccentric. 

And then, earlier this year, he disappeared.

Even before that, it was hard to pin down details on Old Man McGumbus. Despite many years of purported government service, the only source of information about him is the paper’s police blotter. From that, however, it’s possible to put together a sketchy portrait.

McGumbus is a staunch libertarian with a tendency towards violence and a series of unlicensed businesses to his name. He’s an excellent shuffleboard player and invented the world’s first banana-shaped hand-grenade. His first name has never been published, and Dan’s Papers has reported his age as anywhere between 101 and 108. He hates hippies and hipsters, and he’s very fond of Wild Turkey bourbon.

A typical police blotter from Dan's Papers. (Courtesy: Dan's Papers)

One of the main points of McGumbus’ biography is his status as a World War II combatant. Dan’s Papers has reported over the years that McGumbus had a number of positions, serving as: a B-18 bomber pilot, bomb engineer, pigeon communication expert, Chief Engineer of the Department of Insidious And Special Weapons for the U.S. Allies (in which capacity he invented the exploding candy bar), tank operator, Bazooka Man, atomic bomb tester, aeronautical specialist, CIA truth-serum research specialist, minesweeping expert, all-terrain transport engineer, supply chain specialist, demolitions expert, and veteran statistical analyst.

In McGumbus’ career, only one thing has remained constant. He has always lived on Shelter Island.

Shelter Island (Photo: © Google Earth)

Shelter Island is a fairly small and very real island. It is located between the north and south forks of Long Island, and is accessible only by ferry. A couple thousand people live there, and it’s a small, tight-knit community. Much of the island is covered by wetlands and nature preserves.

This is the stage for McGumbus’ exploits. David Rattiner, who first wrote about McGumbus, has explained that he first met the vet there in the 1990s, when McGumbus was celebrating his 100th birthday.

Since then, McGumbus has used the island as his base for operating, at various times, a spa, a lotion-making factory, a hostel, a rehab clinic, a driving school, a casino, a pop-up store called Gumb, an after-hours hovercraft service and a jerky-making operation–all unlicensed or illegal in some way. He has been the star of a reality TV show, the on-air host for a local cable network, and the author of a coffee-table book called The Horizontalists: A History. He has a regularly updated Twitter feed, which mostly covers gun news, and in 2012, he made a splash on Reddit when he harnessed a pet Bengal tiger that had escaped from another Shelter Island house and taken over a beach.

As much as he’s prone to antisocial behavior, McGumbus also participates in some community activities: he is part of the Shelter Island Red Beard Society, Tomato Club, Association for Phones with Actual Buttons, Association of United Founders, and Board of Oil and Gas Exploration. On the other hand, he has also been arrested for forcibly twerking with local women and is friends with Kim Jong Un.

Shelter Island (Photo: Wikimedia)

To be fair, McGumbus isn’t the only local character to have achieved some celebrity in the pages of Dan’s Papers. Local billionaire Derwood Hodgegrass regularly appears in the society column. He has heated the ocean outside his house to make winter-time swimming more pleasant, created a celebrity DNA archive and installed caviar vending machines in his mansion.

Readers of Dan’s Papers have affection for McGumbus; the paper has received at least one request for him to speak at a veterans event. Editors there are often asked: Is he real?

After McGumbus disappeared, though, Hamptons residents did not seem too concerned for him. Perhaps they were happy to have some peace. Plus, he had been reported dead in the past, only to get up to his old mischief soon after.

And indeed, in November, Dan’s Papers wrote that authorities had found him holed up in an underground bunker on the Shelter Island beach, where he had been surviving on an incredibly large supply of his own goat jerky. He recently granted an interview to a reporter from Apocalypse Militia Gazette-Times.

Don’t waste time looking for his bunker, though. As with all things McGumbus, the story of a survivalist World War II vet buried in a beach bunker is too good to be true. 

Welcome to No One’s Watching Week, the time of the year when the readers are away and your tireless editors have run amok. For this week only, Atlas Obscura, New Republic, Popular Mechanics, Pacific Standard, The Paris Review, and Mental Floss will be swapping content that is too ​out there​ for any other week in 2015.