Opus – Page 156 – Encyclopædia of the sublime

Darra Adam Khel

Darra Adam Khel is a town in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan. The town consists of one main street lined with shops, with some alleys and side streets containing workshops. Darra Adam Khel is devoted entirely to the production of weapons. In Darra, almost three-fourths of the people are in the gun trade. Pen pistols and walking stick guns are popular here, but heavier ordinances like anti-aircraft guns are also manufactured. Around 400-700 guns are made in Darra each day and the number is rising with the adoption of more tools.

Ubari

Ubari is an oasis city in southwestern Libya.

Eyemo

Designed and first manufactured in 1925, the Eyemo was for many years the most compact 35 mm motion-picture film camera of the hundred foot capacity. Its small size and ruggedness made it a favorite choice for newsreel and combat cameramen (it was used through the Vietnam War, and the War Department issued special manuals for it), and also found use for fiction and filmmakers whenever a portable, rugged, and inconspicuous camera was needed. The Eyemo is still in use by some filmmakers. It is often used these days as a "crash cam" for filming dangerous stunts and explosions, and shots in which the camera must be dropped from a building or other elevation.

Great Mosque of Samarra

Spiralling up from the ground, the remaining minaret of the Great Mosque of Samarra is the most prominent of the remaining structures of a mosque that was once the largest in the world.

Silk floss tree

With their fat, thorny trunks and branches, tropical-looking foliage, and exotic, hibiscus-like flowers, the floss-silk trees are among the most distinctive ornamental trees for regions where frosts are not severe.

Bijagós Islands

The Bijagós islands are some of the least-visited in West Africa. The Bijagós archipelago, comprising 18 major islands and dozens of smaller ones, covers 2,500 sq km of ocean. It belongs to Guinea-Bissau, a tiny former Portuguese colony wedged between Senegal and Guinea. Life on the islands, which have Unesco Biosphere Reserve status, seems to tick along much as it has done for hundreds of years. While the beaches are pristine and white, there's rarely anyone on them except the odd fisherman.

77 Water Street

A World War I fighter plane sits on the roof of 77 Water Street, NYC. When the William Kaufman Organization built the 26-story office tower in 1970, the owner wanted to adorn its roof with something more interesting than air-conditioning machinery.

Moscow metro dogs

The Moscow Metro is the second most heavily used in the world by daily ridership. A total of about 500 strays on average live in its stations, especially during colder months. Of these dogs, about 20 are believed to have learned how to use the system as a means of commuting.

Gerard Houckgeest

Gerard Houckgeest was a Dutch Golden Age painter of architectural scenes and church interiors.

Jaime de Mora y Aragon

Jaime de Mora y Aragon, a flamboyant Spanish aristocrat whose amiable antics made him the toast of the Costa del Sol.