Opus

Encyclopædia of the sublime

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Guoliang Tunnel

The Guoliang Tunnel is carved along the side of and through a mountain in China. The tunnel links the village of Guoliang to the outside through the Taihang Mountains. The village was named after a fugitive rebel during the Han Dynasty, who had fought an overwhelming imperial force to a standstill utilizing the extreme local terrain. Before the tunnel was constructed, access to the nearby village of Guoliang was restricted to a difficult path carved into the mountainside. The village is nestled in a valley surrounded by towering mountains cut off from outside civilization.

Crazy Eddie

Crazy Eddie is the name of a consumer electronics retailer conducting business through the internet and by telephone. Almost from the beginning, Crazy Eddie's management was engaged in various forms of fraud. An essential part of Crazy Eddie's success was its advertising campaign. In 1972, WPIX-FM late-night disc jockey Jerry "Dr. Jerry" Carroll ended a live commercial with the now-famous slogan, "Crazy Eddie, his prices are IN-SA-A-A-A-A-ANE!" Crazy Eddie called in and told Carroll to say the line the same way every time.

Penn & Teller’s Smoke & Mirrors

Penn and Teller's Smoke and Mirrors is an unreleased video game that was planned for release initially on the Sega CD in April 1995. Desert Bus is the best known trick minigame in the package. The objective of the game is to drive a bus from Tucson, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada in real time at a maximum speed of 45mph. The feat requires 8 hours of continuous play to complete, since the game cannot be paused. The bus contains no passengers, and there is no scenery or other traffic on the road. The road between Tucson and Las Vegas is without exception completely straight. The bus veers to the right slightly; as a result, it is impossible to tape down a button to go do something else and have the game end properly.

L’enfer

L'enfer is an unfinished film by Henri-Georges Clouzot. Despite an unlimited budget from Columbia Pictures—Clouzot worked with three crews and 150 technicians—the shooting was beset by severe problems: everyone suffered from the record heat during July in the Cantal region; the main actor Serge Reggiani claimed to be ill; the artificial lake below the Garabit viaduct, an important part of the location, was about to be emptied by the local authorities; then Clouzot suffered a heart attack and was hospitalised in Saint-Flour. After three weeks, the film was abandoned.

Father Divine

Father Divine was an African American spiritual leader from about 1907 until his death. His full self-given name was Reverend Major Jealous Divine, and he was also known as "the Messenger". He founded the International Peace Mission movement, formulated its doctrine, and oversaw its growth from a small and predominantly black congregation into a multiracial and international church. Controversially, Father Divine claimed to be God. Some contemporary critics also claimed he was a charlatan, and some suppose him to be one of the first modern cult leaders. However, Father Divine made numerous contributions toward his followers' economic independence and racial equality.

Brazilian Adventure

In 1925, British explorer Colonel Percy Fawcett, along with his son and another companion, disappeared while searching in Brazil for the Lost City of Z. Not long after, Peter Fleming, who was literary editor for London's The Times, answered a small ad seeking volunteers for an expedition to find out what had happened to them. Fleming's story of that 1932 expedition is told in Brazilian Adventure. Despite a great deal of fanfare, the expedition seems to have been very poorly organized. Fleming and his companions do not seem to have done much preparation, not even bothering to learn any Portuguese. They left everything up to the leader they hired, an eccentric American, Major George Lewy Pingle, who lived in Brazil. They sailed from England, met Pingle, and followed him to the Araguaya river and down it, with Fleming, an admirer of Hemingway, blasting away at the wildlife for sport as they went.