Author: Matt

Peru’s mysterious geoglyphs

There are certain sites in the world that inspire intense curiosity about their origins, like the Stonehenge formation or the statues on Easter Island. These ancient human-made structures cause us to wonder what was in the minds of those who created them, what purpose did they serve? Another intriguing example of this type of site is the Nazca Lines of Peru, an extensive set of patterns drawn into the Nazca Desert over 1,500 years ago.

Making a Good Impression

The Nazca Lines are a series of negative geoglyphs—patterns drawn on the ground by adding (positive) or removing (negative) stones or soil. Other examples of geoglyphs include labyrinths, burial mounds known as intaglios, and so-called “hill figures”—shapes cut into hillsides to reveal the chalk beneath, most often found in England (such as the Uffington White Horse).

The term “Nazca Lines” refers collectively to hundreds of large designs drawn on the surface of the Nazca Desert. They’re thought to have been created between 200 BCE and 600 CE by the Nazca, a culture known for its distinctive pottery and intricate textiles. This desert, an arid plateau located between the Andes and the coast of Peru, has a very particular topography and climate that allowed for both the construction and the preservation of the figures.

Instead of a sandy surface, the Nazca Desert floor is covered in a layer of pebbles made red through oxidation. Various designs, ranging from straight lines and geometric forms to intricate figures of animals, insects, and humans, were created by removing these pebbles, exposing the lighter-color soil beneath. The lack of wind and rain in the area meant that these figures were not disturbed since their creation thousands of years ago until they were rediscovered in the modern era.

Eyes in the Sky

A curious trait of the Nazca Lines is that they are difficult to identify from the ground; given their tremendous scale, they are much more recognizable from above. Thus it was not until the 1920s, when airplanes began flying over the area, that they were seen in their full aspect. This peculiarity led scientists and amateurs alike to ponder both the how and the why of these formations: How did the Nazca people create these large-scale designs without seeing them from above, and why would they have created them this way in the first place?

An early attempt to answer these questions came from Paul Kosok, an American archeologist, and his one-time assistant, Maria Reiche. Kosok, and Reiche after him, believed that the lines were a type of astronomical calendar, showing the alignment of different planets and stars as they rose above the horizon.

Reiche, who took over the study and mapping of the lines after Kosok left the project in 1948, eventually became its premiere advocate and guardian. Born in Germany and educated in mathematics, geography, and languages, Maria Reiche first went to Peru in 1932 to work for the German consul in Cuzco as a nanny and teacher for his children. She began working with Kosok in 1940, and spent the rest of her life preserving and studying the lines, until her death in 1998.

Although the astronomical calendar theory has raised doubts—including the observation that the multitude of lines and their varying orientations could be found to correspond with almost any trajectory and the fact that astronomical alignments have changed with time—Reiche made a huge contribution to the study of the lines. Her advocacy brought heightened attention to their existence, and resulted in their designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995.

Alien Flight Forms

Reiche believed that the Nazca had created the lines using grids, making smaller versions of the drawings and then transposing them onto a larger design. She even found markings she believed showed this initial process near some of the figures. Although the use of this method cannot be confirmed, there is evidence that the Nazca used some form of surveying technique in their production of the designs. Wooden pegs, dated to the time of the Nazca, have been found near the ends of long lines, implying they were used as markers of some kind.

The Nazca were very able weavers, and this ability could have translated into general pattern-making facility as well. Also, there is a similarity between figures they used on their pottery and some of the geoglyph forms. This seems to indicate their aptitude and predisposition to be the creators of the figures.

Nevertheless, some have publicly doubted the Nazca’s ability to create such works, given their earthbound perspective. Chief among these doubters is the Swiss author and UFO theorist, Erich von Däniken (of Mystery Park fame), who claimed in his 1968 book, Chariots of the Gods, that the Nazca Lines were in fact landing strips for alien spacecraft.

Another attempt to explain how the Nazca could have created the lines, when they are only fully visible from the air, was made by Jim Woodman in the late 1970s. He believed that the Nazca could have constructed basic hot air balloons, using materials available to them, in order to survey their designs from above. To prove this point, Woodman and balloonist Julian Nott set out to create a prototype of such a balloon and to attempt flight. They created a balloon out of cotton fabric, inflated it using only the heat from a wood fire, and attached a reed basket to it as their gondola. They did manage to get airborne, but this success does not prove that the Nazca did so too.

In response to this kind of speculation, Joe Nickell of the University of Kentucky set out to reproduce one of the Nazca figures (a 440-foot-long [about 130m] condor) without recourse to aerial observation. With the help of friends and family, and using a method of measuring points on a smaller version of the design to corresponding points on the larger design, in a matter of days he succeeded in producing a close likeness of the Nazca condor, sketched out in white lime on a Kentucky field.

Walk the Lines

While most scholars now believe the lines were created by the Nazca, most likely without aid from above, the question of their purpose remains unanswered. What was the motivation for this huge undertaking?

Given their size and their complete visibility from the air, the lines may have served some religious purpose, made for the benefit of celestial beings. The recent discovery of the ancient town of Cahuachi, located near the lines, lends credence to this theory. Archeologists studying the site believe that the town was a pilgrimage center to which people would come before visiting the lines.

Although there is no record of how the lines might have served in religious ritual, some now believe that ancient pilgrims might have walked along the lines as a show of devotion to a particular sacred entity, much as labyrinths were used in medieval cathedrals in Europe, and to a certain extent today.

Some people believe that the lines correlate with underground water sources, a key piece of knowledge in such an arid environment; the religious ritual might even have pertained to ensuring adequate water supplies in this drought-prone area.

Keep Off the Beaten Track

Whatever their purpose, for the first time in their long history, the Nazca Lines are now threatened with serious defacement. Although prohibited, there has been extensive foot and vehicular traffic over the lines in recent years, particularly by looters stealing artifacts from the ancient tombs in the area. Also contributing to the problem is increased tourist activity and the nearby Pan-American Highway.

After the environmentalist group Greenpeace staged a protest near one of the formations in 2014, damaging it in the process, Peru received a grant from the United States to better study and preserve the Nazca lines. As part of that initiative, new drone and mapping technology revealed the presence of 50 previously unknown geoglyphs, thought to be the work of an earlier civilization than the one which created the already-known formations.

This is an encouraging development, and brings hope that the situation can be turned around and the Nazca lines can be protected. It would be truly unfortunate for these fascinating structures to be lost after resisting destruction for so many centuries.

After all, they are not only a part of the rich cultural heritage of the area—which also includes the remains of the great Inca empire—but they offer a unique chance to put oneself into the minds of those who lived so long ago. This is what makes the Nazca Lines so fascinating for modern folk: their inscrutable mystery, which has lasted over the course of centuries.

Note: This is an updated version of an article that originally appeared on Interesting Thing of the Day on July 5, 2006.

Image credit: Paul Williams [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

The imaginary Polynesian culture

One day I walked into one of my favorite mom-and-pop variety shops and saw a big display of everything Tiki—a Tiki bar, Tiki glasses, Tiki masks, Tiki statues, Tiki books. My initial reaction was, “Ah, another cheesy American fad is reborn,” followed quickly by, “Cool! I need to own this stuff.” What can I say? I’m a sucker for faux culture, especially exotic faux culture—and particularly when it involves interesting drinks. But I soon realized that I had only ever heard the word “Tiki” used as an adjective. I didn’t know what a Tiki actually was. I could identify Tiki-themed merchandise easily enough, but I wasn’t quite clear what culture it was supposed to represent. So I decided to do some research.

My first step, of course, was to watch the film Pirates of the Caribbean. Other than being set in the wrong ocean, it was a good way to get those Tiki juices flowing. After all, it does involve islands and rum. But it made me hark back to the attraction of the same name that I’ve visited at both Walt Disney World and Disneyland. This, in turn, reminded me of yet another notorious Disney attraction which is also populated by those ubiquitous Audio-Animatronic characters—namely, the Enchanted Tiki Room. Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. So my next stop was the closest approximation of the Enchanted Tiki Room I could find in San Francisco, where I was living at the time: a restaurant called the Tonga Room. And what luck: just in time for happy hour and an all-you-can-eat buffet. At last I was getting somewhere.

The Authentic Fake-Polynesian Experience

The Tonga Room, like any good Tiki bar, is dark and funky, with a nautical feel, fake palm trees, and lots of large carved wooden statues. Unlike most Tiki bars, however, this one has a pool in the middle, with a floating raft that functions as a stage for the band. And every 20 minutes or so, visitors are treated to an authentic artificial Pacific thundershower. Morgen and I sat down, ordered scary-sounding tropical drinks, and loaded up our plates with vaguely Pacific-looking treats—basically a dim sum selection and a number of dishes involving pineapple. There could be no doubt that we were at last having a genuine Tiki experience. But the question still nagged at me…what does Tiki actually mean?

As I learned after some research on the web, a Tiki is a carved statue representing a Polynesian god. OK, fair enough. But it turns out that “Polynesian” is a fairly broad and ambiguous term, as Polynesia covers a vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean—from Easter Island to Hawaii to New Zealand—and the cultures and languages represented are numerous and heterogenous. In some part of Polynesia, apparently, islanders once made and worshipped statues referred to as Tikis. So what does that have to do with a wacky American fad?

In the 1930s, bars and restaurants in southern California began to adopt South Pacific themes, as Americans were just starting to discover Polynesian foods and cultures. A man named Ernest Gantt, who later changed his name to Donn Beach, was the leading figure in this movement. In an effort to lend some authenticity to the bars, owners adorned them with artifacts from various Pacific islands, and Tiki statues soon became regular fixtures. Put a Tiki in a bar and, ipso facto, you’ve got a Tiki bar. And what would a theme bar be without special drinks? So bar owners invented strong, fruity drinks with exotic names like “Mai Tai”—often served in Tiki-shaped glasses—even though the drinks themselves had nothing to do with Polynesia. Neither, for the most part, did the food or music that became part of Tiki culture; like the décor, they were composed of bits and pieces from lots of different places, along with a healthy dose of imagination. Ironically, the very effort to make Pacific-themed bars more “authentic” eventually led to the creation of a pseudoculture that didn’t resemble anything in the real world. But that didn’t stop it from taking on a life of its own.

Pros and Kon-Tiki

Tiki culture soon got another boost. According to Polynesian folklore, the earliest inhabitants of the Polynesian islands had come from South America, led by a mythical figure named Kon-Tiki. But it was popularly believed that such a long voyage would have been impossible using the technology available when the first settlers would have arrived. In 1947, a biologist named Thor Heyerdahl set out to prove the feasibility of such a trip. Along with five assistants, he built a balsa log raft (which he also named Kon-Tiki) and drifted 4,300 nautical miles from Callao in Peru to the Raroia atoll in Polynesia. The trip took three months and was quite treacherous, but it proved that it could be done. Heyerdahl’s book about his adventure quickly became a best-seller, reinforcing Tiki mania.

In most parts of the United States, Tiki bars died out before disco. But in keeping with the modern “retro is good” meme, Tiki is experiencing a renaissance, thanks in large part to the efforts of artist Bosko Hrnjak, who lives in Escondido, California—not far from my current home in San Diego—and creates much of the Tiki paraphernalia you’ll see at Tiki bars. I couldn’t be happier. I missed the Tiki fad the first time around, and of all the imaginary cultures I’ve experienced, Tiki is among my favorites.

Note: This is an updated version of an article that originally appeared on Interesting Thing of the Day on August 24, 2003, and again in a slightly revised form on July 14, 2004.

OK, raise your hand if you love being asked to create a new password, or to enter one you’ve previously created. Nobody? That’s what I thought. We’re all asked for passwords constantly, and that leads a lot of people to do highly unsafe things like using the same password everywhere, or using simple, easy-to-guess passwords like password1. Password manager apps can address part of this problem, but how do you choose one, and what should you do in situations where you can’t use a password manager? For that matter, why do we have the whole password problem in the first place, and are there any other ways to make our lives simpler without sacrificing security?

I answer these and many other questions about passwords in my book Take Control of Your Passwords, which lays out the whole story of password security in an easy-to-read way. I explain my time-tested, three-step password strategy—and even help you explain to your cranky uncle what to do if he just won’t accept professional advice about using passwords.

This book, like all Take Control titles, comes as an ebook, and you can download any combination of formats—PDF, EPUB, and/or Kindle’s Mobipocket format—so you can read it on pretty much any computer, smartphone, tablet, or ebook reader. The cover price is $14.99, but as an Interesting Thing of the Day reader, you can buy it this week for 30% off, or just $10.49.

An editorial aside

On December 31, 2000, I was in New York City. I went there because I wanted to attend the New Year’s Eve festivities at Times Square; having watched the spectacle on TV for years, I felt it was time I experienced it for myself. Time and time again, people warned me not to go. “I’ve been there; it’s horrible,” someone would say. “You can’t see anything, you can’t hear anything, the crowds are crazy. You’d have a much better time if you just stayed home.” And each time I replied, “I believe you. I want to go anyway.”

I hate crowds, yet there were bound to be close to a million people there. I hate the cold, and it was well below freezing—a major snowstorm had just blown through. I hate noise and chaos; the scene was likely to include both. In spite of all these things, I went, even knowing for certain in advance that it would be unpleasant, and knowing I could choose not to go.

Sure enough, the experience lived up (or down) to my expectations. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of noisy people crowding on all sides and extremities numb from the cold, my bladder was painfully full as I stood there for more than six hours in what can only be described as complete discomfort. I couldn’t see or hear what was happening on the stage several blocks ahead, and when the ball dropped and the police barricades were moved aside, I could not have been less interested in staying to celebrate. Warmth, food, and a lavatory—not necessarily in that order—were foremost on my mind. Later, when the people who had warned me off in the first place asked if I’d do it again, I said, “I’ve done it once; I don’t need to do it a second time. But if I could go back in time and choose again whether or not to do it the first time, I’d choose the same experience.” Why? Because no description of an experience can ever really tell you what it’s like. If you want to know, you have to find out for yourself.

Seeing for Yourself

The kind of knowing you get from experience is qualitatively different from what you get by reading about something or hearing a story. This is why people travel instead of just reading travel books. However much you may trust other sources of information, they can’t provide what your own senses can. And just as some foods are worth eating even though they don’t taste good, some potentially unpleasant experiences are worth having.

From Descartes, who said, “I think, therefore I am,” through phenomenologists like Husserl and Heidegger, who tried to create a rigorous science of experience, philosophers have time and again reaffirmed the importance of one’s own experience in understanding the world. Yet it is a tacit principle of modern western culture that only pleasant experiences are worth pursuing, that any experience you can’t reasonably expect to enjoy should be avoided if possible. This attitude effectively puts the evaluation of experiences in other people’s hands, but other people will never experience things exactly the way you will. You may enjoy an experience someone else does not, and even if you don’t, you may appreciate the value of collecting that knowledge for yourself.

For years I listened to people’s stories about their vacations to Hawaii, though I’d never visited there myself. Some of them told me it’s a wonderful place, full of beauty and culture; others told me it’s overcommercialized, touristy, and generally a waste of time. And the fact is, they’re all right—each from a different point of view. No two people can have exactly the same experience of the same thing, place, or event. There are too many variables, not the least of which is the attitude with which you approach an experience. Your background, tastes, expectations, and many other factors will influence your interpretation of any experience. I eventually visited Hawaii myself, satisfied my curiosity, and formed my own opinions. I thought it was lovely, by the way (which is not to say that it wasn’t also touristy, expensive, and so on). But that’s what it was like for one person, with one background, at one time. As the saying goes, your mileage may vary.

It’s Just a Sensation

While any experience, good or bad, can trivially be called a “learning experience,” I don’t necessarily have learning in mind when I think of experiencing things I may not like. I think, more generally, about approaching new experiences with equanimity (to the extent possible), trying to detach myself from an immediate value judgment. When I practice t’ai chi and my legs hurt, I try to think: “It’s just a sensation. Not everything that’s painful is necessarily bad.” And even things that are bad usually have some positive value. I had malaria once and it was terrible; I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I can’t pretend I liked it, but I do have a story now that I wouldn’t have had otherwise, and I have a piece of knowledge that most Americans don’t have: I know what malaria actually feels like, while others just know the clinical list of symptoms.

There are some experiences I choose not to have—for legal, moral, or philosophical reasons. I avoid experiences I consider likely to cause harm to myself or anyone else; I also avoid some experiences about which I simply have no curiosity at all—not everything can be interesting to everyone. Nor do I value every experience equally—for example, I certainly cannot say I have no regrets. I can, however, say that even my stupidest and most selfish choices have, at least indirectly, resulted in some eventual good.

The Decade of Risk

When I turned 30, I gave a little speech at my birthday party. Among other things, I declared that the following 10 years would be my “decade of risk.” I didn’t mean that I planned to take up sword swallowing or start investing in pyramid schemes. Rather, I meant that I would try to be more open to experiences that didn’t fit into my world view, that could change me in unexpected ways, that lacked assurances of enjoyment but offered the potential for enlightenment, in some small way. In short, I would seek to have more experiences for their own sake. In retrospect, I fared reasonably well, just as I did in my forties—my “decade of wealth and influence.” (Now in my fifties, I’m inclined to make things easier on myself. Can this be my “decade of consistent frozen yogurt consumption”?)

There are plenty more interesting things to experience and report. In the meantime, get out there and experience things. Try it, you’ll like it—or maybe not—but you’ll know something you didn’t know before.

Note: This is an updated version of an article that originally appeared on Interesting Thing of the Day on May 30, 2003, and again in a slightly revised form on July 10, 2004.

Image credit: ​Wikipedia user Chensiyuan [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Polar bear capital of the world

When I was in college, I went hiking with a group of friends in Riding Mountain National Park, located in southwestern Manitoba. We decided to hike quite a distance into the park before making camp for the night. Having had some camping experience, I looked forward to the adventure, but for one fact: the certain presence of black bears.

We took the necessary precautions, making plenty of noise as we hiked into the park, and making sure that our food was carefully put away after our evening meal. That night we had no problems, and it seemed like we were in the clear. As we hiked back out of the park, some members of our group with more backcountry experience went farther ahead on the trail. Suddenly they returned with stunned looks on their faces. They had seen a bear cross the trail in front of them, much too close for comfort. The rest of us were relieved that we hadn’t come face to face with a bear, but there was a certain excitement to the rest of our hike, knowing we had come so close to doing so.

The only other national park in Manitoba, Wapusk National Park, is also home to bears; in this case, polar bears. Not far from the town of Churchill, visitors to Wapusk (Cree for “White Bear”) can have their own near-bear experience, while safely out of reach of these mighty predators.

Good Fur Business

The area around Churchill is the ancestral home of the Chipewyan and Cree peoples who lived and hunted there before the first European explorers arrived in the 1600s. Located near the mouth of the Churchill River where it meets Hudson Bay, the town of Churchill began as a trading post for the Hudson’s Bay Company, and was named for one of its governors, John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough and an ancestor of Winston Churchill.

Churchill was well situated to become a hub for the fur trade, with its access to Hudson Bay and the Arctic Ocean on the one hand, and the availability of trading partners among the native population. Also unique to the location is that it sits at an ecotone, or the meeting of two different ecoregions. To the north is the tundra landscape of the Arctic, and to the south, the boreal forests, which extend down into the southern part of the province.

Bay City Rulers

In 1741, the Hudson’s Bay Company replaced its initial log fort with one built of stone, the Prince of Wales Fort, in recognition of the growing hostility between the French and English. This fort was overtaken by a French force in 1782 and burned to the ground. Soon after, a new fort was built farther upriver.

As the fur trade eventually declined in the area, a new means of trade was envisioned by backers of a rail line to be built from Winnipeg in the south up to Churchill in the north. This railroad would enable grain and other agricultural products to be transported from the southern prairies to the port at Churchill, in reality the closest seaport in the region. The Hudson Bay Railway was completed in 1930, and stretched for 1,180 miles (1,900 kilometers) from south to north. To this day, the railroad remains the only overland way to reach Churchill; there are no roads to the town, but an airport now exists to bring visitors to the area by air.

Days of Tundra

Although the fur trade initially drew the Europeans to Churchill, the town of almost 900 residents now relies on its local wildlife for another kind of economic activity: ecotourism. Churchill calls itself the Polar Bear Capital of the World, and with good reason. Every October and November, large numbers of polar bears gather near the town, waiting for the ice to form on Hudson Bay, which will allow them to reach their primary source of food: seals.

Many tourists come yearly to see the polar bears in their natural habitat, and during the “Bear Season” months, the town is bustling with activity. Polar bear viewing has become so popular that potential visitors must often book their trips a year ahead of time. Travelers to Churchill may arrive by air, but many make the journey by rail, which takes almost two days from Winnipeg.

While in Churchill, visitors have many choices for lodging, meals, and tour operators, but one of the best known is the Frontiers North Adventures. This company takes its guests into Wapusk National Park to view the polar bears in Tundra Buggies, enormous heated vehicles equipped with washroom facilities and an outdoor viewing deck. For those who want an immersion experience, the company also maintains the Tundra Buggy Lodge, a mobile hotel that is set up each year near the polar bear groupings. Guests are housed in sleeper cars, and can spend the night out on the tundra, ready to see the bears in action the next morning.

Feeling the Heat

While Churchill has long offered the unique opportunity to see polar bears in the wild, global climate change has dramatically affected both the local polar bear population and the town itself. In recent years the ice that forms on the Bay has arrived later and disappeared earlier, shortening the hunting season for the bears, and threatening their ability to feed themselves and raise healthy offspring.

In addition, the rail line to Churchill has been affected, with floods washing out the line in 2017 (which has only recently been restored), and its path across the permafrost becoming less stable with warming trends in the climate. The town relies on this vital means of transport for supplying goods and resources, and without it, the cost of living could become too onerous for many residents. A further complication is the closure of the port of Churchill in 2016, cutting off yet another access point for shipping and receiving goods (and eliminating a key employer in the town).

The Northern Sights

For those who are able to get to Churchill, polar bears are not the only wildlife worth watching there. During the summer months, Churchill is an excellent location for watching migrating Beluga whales, and bird enthusiasts come in the spring and summer to view the local species on display. Also on display, weather permitting, are the spectacular northern lights of the Aurora Borealis.

While it can be scary to encounter large predators, such as black bears and polar bears in their natural habitat, under the right circumstances, such as those present in Churchill, visitors can have this exhilarating experience and live to tell the tale.

Note: This is an updated version of an article that originally appeared on Interesting Thing of the Day on September 18, 2006.

Image credit: Frontiersnorth [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Taking storytelling to new heights

The story of Lemuel Gulliver, as told by satirist Jonathan Swift in his book Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World (also known as Gulliver’s Travels), has been a favorite of mine since childhood. One image that has always stuck with me from the story was the description of how the tiny residents of Lilliput lashed the much-larger Gulliver to the ground, and how Gulliver eventually pulled himself free from these restraints.

I remembered this scene years later when a friend sent me an intriguing video; in it, a curious little girl wakes up, gets dressed, and sets out to see the world around her. However, this “little girl” is actually a giant marionette, and her movements are determined by people pulling her strings from below and above. But, unlike Gulliver, these men and women dressed in crimson livery are not pinning her down, but instead seem to be freeing her, making her appear amazingly lifelike and real.

I later learned that the events I was watching were part of a larger production called The Sultan’s Elephant, which took place at various points around London in early May of 2006. This four-day, large-scale performance was created by Royal de Luxe, a street theater company based in Nantes, France. Seemingly well known everywhere but in North America, Royal de Luxe has been presenting highly creative street theater pieces in France and around the world for 40 years.

Giant Fans

Founded in 1979 by current director Jean Luc Courcoult, Didier Gallot-Lavallée, and Véronique Loève, Royal de Luxe staged a series of popular street theater productions in the 1980s, several of which they took on tour to various parts of Europe, Africa, and South America. In 1989, Royal de Luxe moved its operations from southern France to Nantes, a city in western France, and in 1993 embarked on a new phase of its history, when it presented the first of its “giant” pieces.

Featuring a doleful-looking gargantuan figure named Le Géant (the giant), the piece was called Le Géant Tombé du Ciel (“the giant falls from the sky”), and to date has been followed by numerous other giant-related shows including: another version of the first show (Le Géant tombé du Ciel: Dernier Voyage); Retour d’Afrique (“return to Africa”), which introduced the giant’s son, Le Petit Géant (“the little giant”); Les Chasseurs de Girafes (“the giraffe hunters”), again featuring the little giant; The Sultan’s Elephant, which introduced the giant’s daughter, La Petite Géante; and The Hidden Rhinoceros, which debuted in Santiago, Chile, in January 2007. The most recent additions to the giant crew were a giant grandmother, and a giant dog, Xolo, and various productions involving the five giant characters have been mounted in Iceland, Portugal, England, Germany, Mexico, Chile, France, Belgium, Ireland, Australia, Canada, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. (This article in the Atlantic features beautiful photos of some of these productions.)

These shows all feature enormous human and animal figures, built primarily by company member François Delarozière, and although rigorously choreographed, give a sense of spontaneity, as the figures move about in their surroundings and interact with bystanders. They all follow a simple story, since according to director Courcoult, it should be one that children can understand. The company reveals few details before a show opens, wanting to surprise its audience and to increase the chance that viewers will just “happen” upon the spectacle. Indeed, Courcoult finds it preferable that viewers don’t see everything that takes place, just participating in the performance as it happens.

Taking it to the Streets

When Royal de Luxe made its debut in the UK with The Sultan’s Elephant, a project that took four years of planning, this randomness was ensured by the diverse settings in which the events of the performance occurred, including Waterloo Place, the St. James’ neighborhood, Trafalgar Square, and Horse Guards Parade. These settings served the purpose of the story, for which the French name of the show provides a helpful outline: La visite du sultan des Indes sur son éléphant à voyager dans le temps, or “Visit from the Sultan of the Indies on his Time-Traveling Elephant.” The sultan of the story is looking for La Petite Géante (the little girl giant), who landed in Waterloo Place in a gigantic space rocket inspired by the works of Jules Verne. In fact, Jean-Luc Courcoult created the show in honor of the centenary of Verne’s death, and it was first performed in Nantes and Amiens, Verne’s places of birth and death respectively.

While I’m sure the elephant in the show was truly impressive—an intricate machine powered by hydraulics and motors, and weighing 42 tons—based on the video I saw, I think I would have found the little girl giant more fascinating. As she moves around doing ordinary things (getting dressed, licking a lollipop, sleeping), all the wires and people around her seem to fall away, and it’s as if you are watching a real giant girl do these things. It tickles me to know that on her sojourn in London she also did not-so-ordinary things, such as “sewing” cars onto the road, and stopping to take a pee out in the open.

In an article for 3 Quarks Daily that was published soon after the London performance, Elatia Harris reflected on the history of Royal de Luxe, and The Sultan’s Elephant in particular, and described the ending of the little girl giant’s time in London:

Then, on the afternoon of the fourth day, a Sunday, it was time to go. At Horseguard’s Parade, Little Girl Giant was helped into her goggles and her Lindbergh-era aviator’s cap, and climbed back into her ornate 19th Century rocket…Little Girl Giant took one more look around London, then the hatch went down and the engines were fired. There came an enormous explosion under the fuselage—the hellfire in broad daylight that is a Royal de Luxe specialty, and a mighty effort at a lift-off into another dimension. Of course, the rocket went nowhere. But when the hatch was opened, Little Girl Giant had gone—hurtling through time without her rocket. So the sultan was launched once again on a fathomless quest, his bearings to be taken in dreams.

A Giant Good-Bye

It’s clear that the minds behind Royal de Luxe want to fire the imaginations of spectators, reminding them of childhood dreams and reveries. In an interview with Jean-Christophe Planche from 2005, Jean Luc Courcoult even remarked on this, responding to how people react emotionally to the shows, saying “I have seen adults crying as the giant leaves…I don’t believe they are crying because he is leaving but because of the loss of their imagination.”

Although spectators might have been saddened by the disappearance of the giant after each performance, they might be sadder still to know that the era of the giants has passed. Courcoult has announced that a performance in Liverpool in October 2018 would be the last outing for the giant characters, and that the company next plans to launch a new show that will involve a silverback gorilla.

As I have fond memories of the image of Gulliver and the Lilliputians from my childhood, so those who were lucky enough to see the giants of Royal de Luxe in their full glory will have incredible memories to look back on. But unlike my childhood reminiscences, those who watched the giants invade cities from Liverpool to Santiago will have memories of fairy tales fully realized, in real life and larger than life.

Note: This is an updated version of an article that originally appeared on Interesting Thing of the Day on April 11, 2007.

Image credit: doctorow / gruntzooki / Cory Doctorow from London / Toronto [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons