The weekly weird

Published October 22, 2022

Levi’s jeans from 1880s auctioned for $87,400

A pair of Levi’s jeans from the 1880s found in an abandoned mine were auctioned for $87,400, at Durango Vintage Festivus, a four-day celebration of denim on the outskirts of Aztec, N.M.

The jeans feature a buckleback adjuster along the seat, and were purchased by Kyle Hautner and Zip Stevenson. Stevenson, who owns and operates the Denim Doctors repair shop in Los Angeles, said the pants were a rare discovery. A couple other pairs of Levi’s from the same time period are known to exist, but they are on display in museums and are not in wearable condition. The auctioned pair, by contrast, can be worn with only a few minor repairs.

The jeans are now in a safety deposit box and can be viewed by appointment. They are hoping to sell the pants to a museum for public display.

Man gets paid to do nothing

Shoji Morimoto has what some would see as a dream job: he gets paid to do pretty much nothing.

The 38-year-old Tokyo resident charges 10,000 yen ($71) per booking to accompany clients and simply exist as a companion.

“Basically, I rent myself out. My job is to be wherever my clients want me to be and to do nothing in particular,” Morimoto told Reuters, adding that he had handled some 4,000 sessions in the past four years.

Morimoto has nearly a quarter of a million followers on Twitter, where he finds most of his clients. Roughly a quarter of them are repeat customers, including one who has hired him 270 times.

His job has taken him to a park with a person who wanted to play on a see-saw.

Spanish Stonehenge’ emerges from drought-hit dam

An unexpected side-effect of Spain’s worst drought in decades has delighted archaeologists — the emergence of a prehistoric stone circle in a dam whose waterline has receded.

Officially known as the Dolmen of Guadalperal but dubbed the Spanish Stonehenge, the circle of dozens of megalithic stones is believed to date back to 5000 BC.

It currently sits fully exposed in one corner of the Valdecanas reservoir, in the central province of Caceres, where the water level has dropped to 28 percent of capacity.

It was discovered by German archaeologist Hugo Obermaier in 1926, but the area was flooded in 1963 in a rural development project.

Elon Musk new perfume, ‘Burnt Hair’

The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has scented a new opportunity to capitalise on quirky products, launching a perfume called ‘Burnt Hair’. He sold 10,000 bottles to earn a million dollars in just a few hours.

“With a name like mine, getting into the fragrance business was inevitable — why did I even fight it for so long!?” Musk asked on Twitter, where he now describes himself as a perfume salesman.

The perfume costs $100 a bottle and will start shipping in the first quarter of 2023. The Boring Company, which is founded by Elon Musk did not respond to a query on how long it planned to keep the perfume listed.

Published in Dawn, Young World, October 22nd, 2022

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