Bohemian Grove

Presidents and CEOs in the redwoods, performing rites before a forty-foot owl.

Two weeks every July, the guest list runs presidents, chairmen, and the occasional physicist — the Manhattan Project was partly conceived at a Grove planning meeting in 1942, which members cite as proof of seriousness and critics cite as proof of everything. The Cremation of Care is real, filmed, and stranger than the rumors. 'Weaving spiders come not here,' says the motto. The spiders, guests report, weave anyway.