How the Oldest Company in the World, Japan’s Temple-Builder Kongō Gumi, Has Survived Nearly 1,500 Years

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Image from New York Pub­lic Library, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

If you vis­it Osa­ka, you’ll be urged to see two old build­ings in par­tic­u­lar: Osa­ka Cas­tle and Shiten­nō-ji (above), Japan’s first Bud­dhist tem­ple. In behold­ing both, you’ll behold the work of con­struc­tion firm Kongō Gumi (金剛組), the old­est con­tin­u­ous­ly run com­pa­ny in…

When Samuel Beckett Drove Young André the Giant to School

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Are your idle moments spent invent­ing imag­i­nary con­ver­sa­tions between strange bed­fel­lows? The sort of con­ver­sa­tion that might tran­spire in a pick­up truck belong­ing to Samuel Beck­ett, say, were the Irish play­wright to chauf­feur the child André Rene Rous­si­moff—aka pro wrestler André the Giant—to school?

Too sil­ly, you say? Non­sense. This isn’t some wack­adoo…

How an Ancient Roman Shipwreck Could Explain the Universe

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In a 1956 New States­man piece, the British sci­en­tist-nov­el­ist C. P. Snow first sound­ed the alarm about the increas­ing­ly chasm-like divide between what he called the “sci­en­tif­ic” and “tra­di­tion­al” cul­tures. We would today refer to them as the sci­ences and the human­i­ties, while still wring­ing our hands over the inabil­i­ty of each side to…

Jimi Hendrix Arrives in London in 1966, Asks to Get Onstage with Cream, and Blows Eric Clapton Away: “You Never Told Me He Was That F‑ing Good”

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Jimi Hen­drix arrived on the Lon­don scene like a ton of bricks in 1966, smash­ing every British blues gui­tarist to pieces the instant they saw him play. As vocal­ist Ter­ry Reid tells it, when Hen­drix played his first show­case at the Bag O’Nails, arranged by Ani­mals’ bassist Chas Chan­dler, “there were gui­tar play­ers weep­ing.…

Soviet Inventor Léon Theremin Shows Off the Theremin, the Early Electronic Instrument That Could Be Played Without Being Touched (1954)

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You know the sound of the theremin, that weird, war­bly whine that sig­nals mys­tery, dan­ger, and oth­er­world­ly por­tent in many clas­sic sci-fi films. It has the dis­tinc­tion of being not only the very first elec­tron­ic instru­ment but also the only instru­ment in his­to­ry one plays with­out ever touch­ing any part of it. Instead, the theremin…