Opus

Encyclopædia of the sublime

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Katamari Damacy

Katamari Damacy is a video game whose plot concerns a diminutive prince on a mission to rebuild the stars, constellations, and Moon, which were inadvertently destroyed by his father, the King of All Cosmos. This is achieved by rolling a magical, highly adhesive ball called a katamari around various locations, collecting increasingly larger objects, ranging from thumbtacks to human beings to mountains, until the ball has grown large enough to become a star. Critics have hailed it as a cult classic and one of the greatest video games of all time, praising its gameplay, replay value, humor, originality, and shibuya-kei soundtrack.

Vicuna

The Altiplano is a cold, harsh habitat, ranging from about 12,000-18,000 feet above sea level in the Andes Mountains of South America. At this elevation, there are no trees to block strong winds, and very little rain, though nightly fog and dew provide water. The land is covered with low, tough shrubs and hardy grasses, neither of which provides places to hide. This inhospitable area is home to a species of animal with the finest fiber in the world: the vicuna. During the height of the Incan empire, the animals were plentiful and numbered approximately 2 million. Their fleece was so valuable vicuna fabric currently sells for $1,800 to $3,000 per yard) that only royalty could wear garments made from it.

Fort Zverev

Built by engineer Konstantin Zverev in the 1870s, Fort Zverev now lies in ruins, with machine gun mounts, bunkers, and water tubes slowly rusting away. But the part of Fort Zverev that feels truly nightmarish lies in the basement area, where in the 1970s, a fire erupted. However this wasn’t just any fire. In this basement they stored a Russian alternative to napalm, and when it caught fire it reached temperatures of over 2000С, so hot in fact, that it literally melted the brick above it. In doing so it created a sort of artificial cave of red brick stalactites dripping down from above. Today the fort, and its cave of dripping brick stalactites are still there, slowly falling back into the Russian countryside.