{"id":284378,"date":"2026-10-05T08:35:19","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T13:35:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/?p=284378"},"modified":"2026-10-05T08:35:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T13:35:19","slug":"things-can-get-very-competitive-at-the-sauna-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2026\/10\/05\/things-can-get-very-competitive-at-the-sauna-olympics\/","title":{"rendered":"Things can get very competitive at the sauna Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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He finds the chamomile and tips a couple extra drops onto a white snowball, making the top of it turn blue. Then the door opens, and he walks through it. For the next 15 minutes, Talmadge, 39, will whip a towel through thick, sticky air to push waves of heat and scent toward 200 naked strangers, including a six-person jury. Aufguss is a sauna ritual; a performance is called a set, and the most elite of them combine choreography, scent, storytelling, steam, and stamina. A competitor\u2014known as a sauna master\u2014enters the sauna to music and places a scented snowball on the hot rocks, then disperses its aroma with their towel. For every one of three or four song changes, another snowball goes on the stove. Contestants are forbidden from drinking water, and judges dock points if they appear fatigued. Within the span of his set, Talmage\u2019s heart rate will hit about 195 beats per minute, according to the Whoop he wears on his left wrist. This is the Aufguss Show World Masters. Forty solo sauna masters from 19 nations have come to Satama, a lakeside resort, after qualifying in their national championships. (via GQ<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The six-year quest to find the mystery woman in an 18th-century painting<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Adam Harris Levine stood before the 18th-century painting, completely stumped. The 30-year-old curator at the Art Gallery of Ontario had been scrutinizing a portrait of a young Black woman bedecked in jewels and wearing a shimmering blue gown with pearls around her neck and wrists. Portrait of a Lady Holding an Orange Blossom<\/em> \u2014 the woman holds a sprig of white flowers in her right hand \u2014 hung in the gallery near masterpieces by Rubens and Rembrandt. Yet when Levine first stared at her in 2020, he had no idea who had painted her or who the woman even was. Levine set out to solve the mystery. It led his team to sift colonial-era archives and convince families to share fragile letters revealing ugly histories. Early on, they crowdsourced tips through a podcast, garnering help from amateur genealogists listening in. Today, the Art Gallery of Ontario believes that it knows who its mystery girl is and who painted her \u2014 the art-historical equivalent of finding a needle in myriad haystacks. (via the WSJ<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note<\/strong>: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can\u00a0see other issues\u00a0and sign up here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

New York City at one time had a single-station subway that was pneumatically-powered<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Before the subway we all know was built there was an 1870 demonstration line known as the Beach Pneumatic Transit. Alfred Ely Beach, inventor and editor of Scientific American, had designed a pneumatic (air-driven) system which he demonstrated at the American Institute Fair in 1867. He applied for a permit from the Tammany Hall city government, and after being denied, decided to build the line in secrecy, in an attempt to show that subterranean transit was practical. Operated as a demonstration from 1870 to 1873, the short tunnel had only the one station and train car. While frequently mentioned as an important early development in NYC transit history, it was merely a curiosity. It is unclear that such a system could have been practical on a large scale. Smaller tube systems are used in buildings for mail delivery, but a rail-car sized system has never been developed. The perfection of electric multiple-unit traction and electric locomotives came about so quickly after this experiment that it wasn’t deemed worthwhile to even try an expanded pneumatic system. (via NYC Subway<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hi everyone! Mathew Ingram here. I am able to continue writing this newsletter in part because of your financial help and support, which you can do either<\/em> through my Patreon<\/em><\/a> or by upgrading your subscription to a monthly contribution. I enjoy gathering all of these links and sharing them with you, but it does take time, and your support makes it possible for me to do that. I also write a weekly newsletter of technology analysis called<\/em> The Torment Nexus<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three Elvises, and one pink Cadillac crash: Inside the chaotic world of Elvis impersonators<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Elvis drives a temperamental pink Cadillac with no seat belts and unreliable brakes. He\u2019s sweating \u2014 a lot \u2014 and foundation has spread from his face to the lapels of his white jumpsuit. He is running late for an appearance in a Mexican Independence Day parade. This may be my fault. That afternoon, Elvis, n\u00e9 Jesse Grice, had obligingly received us at home, wearing only mesh shorts, so that we could witness his transformation into the King. I apologized for being late. \u201cIt\u2019s OK,\u201d he said. \u201cI keep Elvis hours.\u201d Inside his apartment, gilt mirrors shone from almost every surface, so the many pieces of Elvis paraphernalia refracted and seemed to multiply. Above the sofa was a huge shirtless portrait of either Grice or Elvis \u2014 at points, the distinction blurs. That evening, Grice was scheduled to chauffeur Las Vegas Councilwoman Olivia Diaz through the parade. So he did a speedy version of his normal routine: heavy foundation (Dermablend, the stuff they use to cover tattoos), hair spray, and waterproof mascara. \u201cI learned from the best,\u201d he explained, \u201cdrag queens.\u201d (via the Boston Globe<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Physicists have discovered that gravity can actually collapse the fabric of space-time<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Put a box around any region of space (space-time, really, but I\u2019m going to drop time throughout this essay for ease of visualization, as physicists often do). The holographic principle asserts that no matter what\u2019s going on inside \u2014 from gas molecules pinging around to black holes colliding \u2014 you can decipher the entire contents of the box just by repeatedly measuring points on the surface. Scientists have known for more than a century that gravity is different from the other forces. Imagine a box filled with electric charges, representing one of the other fundamental forces, electromagnetism. Because positive charges neutralize negative charges, different arrangements can look the same. If you observe no field, it could mean there\u2019s no charge inside \u2014 or it could mean that the effects of the positive charges are perfectly blocking the effects of the negative charges. From the surface, you can\u2019t tell the difference. (via Quanta<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watch the 2026 Hay Bale Toss champion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Acknowledgements<\/strong><\/em>: I find a lot of these links myself, but I also get some from other places that I rely on as “serendipity engines,” such as <\/em>The Morning News<\/em><\/a> from Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack, Jodi Ettenberg’s <\/em>Curious About Everything<\/em><\/a>, Dan Lewis’s <\/em>Now I Know<\/em><\/a>, Robert Cottrell and Caroline Crampton’s <\/em>The Browser<\/em><\/a>, Clive Thompson’s <\/em>Linkfest<\/em><\/a> and<\/em> Why Is This Interesting<\/em><\/a> by Noah Brier and Colin Nagy<\/em>. If you come across something you think should be included here, feel free to email me at mathew @ mathewingram dot com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He finds the chamomile and tips a couple extra drops onto a white snowball, making the top of it turn blue. Then the door opens, and he walks through it. For the next 15 minutes, Talmadge, 39, will whip a towel through thick, sticky air to push waves of heat and scent toward 200 naked … <\/p>\n

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