by Chris Bodenner
This website has been around for a little while, but I don't think we've posted it yet. The site, founded by Joshua Foer, compiles profiles of obscure places around the world. This entry is for an "Eat in the Dark" restaurant in Paris:
Co-funded by the Paul Guinot Foundation for Blind People, [Dans le Noir?] is staffed entirely by the visually impaired. One is seated by a waiter/guide and given hints on how to avoid spilling such as "putting a finger inside your wineglass" but beyond this the diners are on their own. Diners call their server by literally calling out for them. In the words of one diner, "You have no idea where your fellow diners are sitting, how many are at the table, how big the room is, or indeed if the guy in the next seat has stripped naked and is rubbing asparagus spears into his groin. It-s genuinely disconcerting."
This entry looks at one of the biggest tree houses in world, built by a minister with a divine revelation:
Located just outside of Crosville, Tennessee, the 97 foot tall tree house/church is supported
by a still living 80 foot tall white oak tree with a 12 foot diameter base, and uses six others as further support. For 14 years he has built the tree house, spending only $12,000 and never running out of material.
Over that time the treehouse has gained truly monumental proportions, and may have achieved his goal of building the worlds largest treehouse. Currently the Minister's treehouse is 90 feet tall, said to contain 80 rooms, and currently has five stories complete with a church and a bell tower. The bell tower at the top of the tree house is equipped with oxygen acetylene bottles that, re-purposed as bells, chime daily.
In true southern architectural style every story is fully surrounded by a deck. There are no “Private Property”, “Stay off the Grass” or “No climbing” signs. Burgess say the tree house is Gods house and everyone is welcome.