Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.03.2010, Síða 26

The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 03 — 2010
26
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CONSTABLE POINT
Greenland
Joshua Foer has made a name for himself as a
freelance science journalist for various publica-
tions such as Slate.com, New York Times and
the Washington Post. He is also the author of the
forthcoming Moonwalking with Einstein, which
documents his journey from covering the USA
memory championship as a journalist, to actually
competing in—and winning—both the USA and
the World Memory Championships, breaking the
U.S. record for memorisation along the way.
Recently, Foer founded the Atlas Obscura (www.
atlasobscura.com), with friend Dylan Thuras,
with the goal of cataloguing all of the singular,
eccentric, bizarre, fantastical, and strange out-
of-the-way places that get left out of traditional
travel guidebooks and are ignored by the aver-
age tourist. The project will celebrate the first
Obscura Day on Saturday March 20th, with
special programmes planned for over 200 sites
around the world. Among them is the Phallalogi-
cal Museum in Húsavík, Iceland. The Grapevine
caught up with Foer to learn more about Obscu-
ra Day and the Atlas Obscura.
What was the inspiration behind atlas Ob-
scura? Did it never cross your mind to just
expand Wikitravels or something? Write a
lonely Planet guide?
Well, my partner and I love these sorts of ob-
scure places, and we think they deserve to be
celebrated. The problem is that they are, by their
nature, hard to find. We believe you don't have to
go to the Grand Canyon to experience wonder,
or to the Smithsonian to indulge your sense of
curiosity. These experiences are all around us, if
you only know where to look. That's what the At-
las Obscura is for. Just think of us as UNESCO's
weird little brother, on a mission to celebrate
and hopefully help preserve the world's lesser-
known "wondrous, curious, and esoteric" spots.
Can everybody be a part of the site, create
and edit articles, etc.?
Yes, yes, yes! The site is entirely user-generated.
There's no way any one person could know about
all these incredible, obscure places. We depend
on people all over the world sharing and writing
about the curious places they know about.
Do you plan your own travels around ob-
scure and abstract destinations? What is
the most obscure destination you've been
to?
I do. Whenever I go anywhere, I first check to
see what's nearby in the Atlas Obscura. Most
obscure place I've been? Hard to pick, but it's
probably the Bozhou medicinal herb market in
central China. You'll never see so many barrels
of dried human placentas, flying lizards, humon-
gous millipedes, and other stomach-churning
pharmaceuticals in one place.
Tell us about Obscura Day. Is there some-
thing special taking place in Iceland as a
part of the celebration?
More than just cataloguing the world's curious,
uncelebrated spots, Dylan and I want to encour-
age folks to actually go out and explore them.
That's what we're going to be doing en masse,
all over the world, on International Obscura Day
on Saturday, March 20th.
So far we've seeded Obscura Day with events
in almost 40 cities and towns around the world.
We're getting access to private collections and
museum back rooms, exploring hidden trea-
sures, and leading expeditions to places that
aren't normally open to the public. We're hoping
to have Obscura Day happenings taking place
in dozens more cities on every continent. One
of the exciting places where there will be an
Obscura Day tour is at the Iceland Phallologi-
cal Museum in Húsavík. If anyone in Reykjavík
wants to make the trek up north, I promise it'll
be worth it.
So, a phallological museum. Where does
such a place rank among the world's ob-
scurities?
I'd say it's right up there.
Do you see this idea translate to other body
parts? Will we see the arm and a leg mu-
seum entry in the atlas Obscura soon?
One of my favourites is the Nose Academy
(http://atlasobscura.com/places/nose-acad-
emy) in the Museum of Student Life at Lund
University in Sweden. It's a collection of over
100 plaster casts of noses belonging to distin-
guished (and some not-so-distinguished) Scan-
dinavians.
It is funny you should mention that par-
ticular place. I am living in lund myself at
the moment and I did not know about this
museum until I stumbled upon it on atlas
Obscura while doing research for this inter-
view. I guess I'll have to go visit it now.
Definitely check it out and let me know how it is!
I can't very well let you off the hook with-
out answering at least one memory related
question, so, what do you remember from
your visit to the phallological museum?
Could you recount every species repre-
sented there?
Haha, I've never been to the Phallological Mu-
seum. Only heard about it from friends. Perhaps
I'll visit on Obscura Day 2011.
Travel | Interview
SVeInn BIRKIR BJöRnSSOn
FROM PHalluS.IS
Celebrating the Obscure
Go to www.phallus.is to learn
more about the Phallalogical
Museum in Húsavík.
What: Obscura Day: An international celebration of wondrous, curious, and esoteric places.
When: March 20
Where: Icelandic Phallalogical Museum, Húsavík, Iceland
www.atlasobscura.com