Things I've Said to My Children

Kids say the darndest things and evidently parents of kids can come up with some pretty weird stuff too. Nathan Ripperger's Things I've Said to My Children   poster collection is hilarious and you can purchase prints at his Etsy shop. 

(This has been around the block a few times but it's new to me.)

And the Winner Isn’t...

It's Oscar season and Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will present awards for outstanding  film, performance and technical achievements. Do they ever get it wrong? Why yes they do.

Citizen Kane, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Pulp Fiction and Fargo all failed to get the best picture nod from the Academy. Hitchcock's Vertigo, Kubrick's 2011: A Space Odyssey and Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing weren't even nominated.


Read more about Oscar fails at MoMA 

The Twilight Zone in 140 Characters Or Less

The Twilight Zone was one of my favourite television shows when I was a kid but could the show be a hit in today's fast paced world? Modern Twilight Zone  tweets plots in 140 characters or less to fit with the challenged attention span of the wired generation. Here are a few:

A brave sandwich artist at one @SUBWAY discovers a hidden room with Jared clones growing in tanks labeled ham, turkey, and roast beef.
— Modern Twilight Zone (@ModernSerling) February 25, 2014

Skipify lets fans skip songs they dont like at shows. But doing so always returns them w/ an urge to fight. What happens during those songs?
— Modern Twilight Zone (@ModernSerling) February 20, 2014

Ann realizes that her TV shows footage from #Sochi2014 days before it happens live, unfortunately she can only watch curling.
— Modern Twilight Zone (@ModernSerling) February 7, 2014

Sergeant Stubby: The Most Decorated Dog of WWI

When Private Robert J. Conroy was undergoing military training at Yale University he found a puppy with a short tail who he named Stubby. When he was deployed to France he brought Stubby with him, a strict violation of the rules. His Commanding Officer was won over when Stubby gave him a salute.

The dog's sensitive nose and ears saved the lives of many soldiers. He even captured a German spy and was promoted to the rank of sergeant. He was wounded several times.

All in all, Stubby served in 17 battles during the war. He had to be smuggled back home—dogs still weren’t allowed on the ship—but when he landed on American soil he was an instant celebrity. He had served faithfully in the war, saving many lives and earning nearly a dozen medals for various deeds. He met President Woodrow Wilson, visited the White House twice, and led several military parades.

This story looked familiar and I thought I might have posted it before but Mr. Nag reminded me that we saw Stubby at the Smithsonian Institute where the brave canine was preserved and is on display, along with his medals.



Read more about Sergeant Stubby here

Thomas Doyle's Suburbia

American sculptor Thomas Doyle constructs scenes of suburban life that, on examination, are not idyllic. In fact they are somehow disquieting.



Via Cool Hunting

Space Colony Art from the 1970s

In the 1970′s Princeton physicist Gerard O’Neill with NASA Ames Research Center and Stanford University  explored the possibilities of humans living in giant orbiting spaceships. Colonies housing about 10,000 people were designed and a number of artistic renderings of the concepts were made.

They look a little like the comic books I read as a child. They also look a lot like suburban North America.

More at The Public Domain Review

Swarming Reindeer Herds

Norwegian photographer Jan Helmer Olsen, shot this hypnotic footage of reindeer being herded. It was taken from above with a hexacopter drone. Some complex choreography happening here.



Via Gizmodo

The Trailer Park Sandwich

 Epic Meal Time creates The Trailer Park Sandwich, ultimate Canadian fusion food.



It's packed with hot dogs, bacon, chicken fingers, giant cheeseburgers, bologna buns and more bacon and is guaranteed to turn trailer park boys into trailer park men!

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Lisbon's Hospital de Bonecas

When you were a kid were you content to toss a beloved toy in the trash or did you hope that a doll hospital could save your friend? I know I would have wanted my worn teddy to have access to professional medical services. Lisbon's Hospital de Bonecas, or Doll Hospital, was founded in 1830. It's the oldest known facility of its kind, where seamstresses and handymen fix broken limbs and sew worn clothes on children's dolls. The facility is housed in an 18th-century row house off one of Lisbon's main cobblestone squares.

Link 

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On This Day

 CBC News

Dolby Presents: Silent, a Short Film

 "Silent" is an animated short film created by Academy Award winning Moonbot Studios  It is the story of two street performers who dream of bringing their "Picture and Sound Show" to life. A magical contraption inside an old theatre helps them find the audience they always wanted.



Sound by Oscar nominated sound designer Steve Boeddeker.

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Ferran Adrià: Notes on Creativity

Notes on Creativity, on view at the Drawing Center in New York through this week, is an exhibit of objects such as ledgers, notebooks, and scrap paper belonging to trailblazing chef, Ferran Adrià.  While he ran the iconic Spanish restaurant elBulli, Adrià kept detailed records, filling stray pieces of paper with plating ideas, loose concepts, and flavor profiles. The sketches illustrate Adria’s imagination and creativity. Wish I could see this.

Detail from Ferran Adrià, Plating Diagram, c. 2000-2004; Colored pen on graph paper; elBullifoundation

Read more at  Paris Review 

Oscar Dresses

Tis the season...

Source: Mediarun

Via The Curious Brain

Dinosaur Pet Guide

After watching The Flintstones as a kid I sometimes wished I could have a pet like Dino. John Conway's dinosaur pet guide shows you the pros and cons of dino ownership. You can buy the poster for $16.

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Taste Test From Hell

I'm being generous when I say my mother wasn't much of a cook. Dinner was often something like Kraft Dinner with cut up wieners or potatoes mashed with canned salmon. After reading this post at Jezebel I think I should be grateful that my mum didn't have more lofty culinary ambitions.

Above is a cheesy pie crust filled with a layer of pimiento-olive-studded lemon-tomato Jell-O, topped with a chiffon of creamy, celery-heavy tuna salad. I left more appetizing looking dishes in the toilet after a night of heavy adolescent drinking.
More putrid food from the 50s at the Link

The Escape Cabin

The Escape cabin could definitely turn me into trailer trash. This 400 square foot cabin designed by Kelly Davis from SALA Architects is actually a house on wheels that was constructed entirely of high quality recyclable or sustainable materials.

The Escape cabin is designed to travel anywhere on the road and you can get it delivered to you. The current cost is around $79,000.


Via The San Francisco Times

A Tale From The "Just Say No" Days

This anti-drug propaganda pencil contained a message that was subverted simply by sharpening it. It was sent to schools and recalled only after a child noticed the problem.

From the NYT archives Via Boing Boing

Listen to The Grand Budapest Hotel Soundtrack

A new film by Wes Anderson is always a treat and I look forward to The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Academy Award-nominated composer Alexandre Desplat and Grammy-winning music supervisor Randall Poster's original soundtrack for the film is out March 3 via ABKCO. It includes original compositions, traditional Russian folk songs, and performances by the Osipov State Russian Folk Orchestra. Go to Pitchfork and give it a listen.

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Spectacular GIFs of Flowers Blooming

Why oh why is it still February? In the midst of this harsh winter I'm longing for some garden action. This collection of gifs of flowers blooming is taken from Touched by Strangers a time-lapse video shot by Japanese artist Yutaka Kitamura, part of a performance art collaboration with Alexander Reeder.

More at My Modern Metropolis

Harold Ramis letter

In a letter provided to the Northwest Herald by the Woodstock Public Library, "Groundhog Day" director Harold Ramis thanks the people of Woodstock for their hospitality during the shooting of the movie.

Harold Ramisletter Via Letters of Note

Time-Lapse Video of Snowflakes Being Formed

After being battered by snow storms for the past 3 months I am less than enamoured of the white flakey stuff. However this microscopic time-lapse by Vyacheslav Ivanov showing the formation of  snowflakes is pretty awesome.



The song is Avril 14th by Aphex Twin.

Via TwistedSifter

Cardboard Cities: Dioramas by Andy Rudak

British photographer Andy Rudak has created cardboard street scenes of London, New York, Mumbai, Paris, and Tokyo in collaboration with set designer Luke Aan de Wiel. Each diorama includes an animal representing life.

Via Faith is Torment 

The Poodle Trainer

The short film ‘The Poodle Trainer’  tells the story of Irina Markova, a Russian poodle trainer. In this short documentary from filmmaker Vance Malone Markova and her troupe of twenty purebred poodles perform an elaborately choreographed routine every night.

In this intimate portrait of destiny, passion, and loss, Irina Markova, a solitary Russian poodle trainer, reveals her transcendent relationship with her dogs, the childhood tragedy that sparked a lifetime of working with animals, and the welcome isolation behind the red velvet curtains of the circus.

The Poodle Trainer was an official selection at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.

Via Laughing Squid 

Lost and Found

One man's trash is another man's art. Brooklyn based photographer Will Ellis has arranged 30 found objects picked up over two years  in abandoned buildings, neglected parks, and shorelines across NYC into a collection aptly named Lost and Found.

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Star Wars Story Hand-Stitched Onto 30ft Bayeux-Style Tapestry

Designer and illustrator Aled Lewis has translated the entire Star Wars epic into a hand-stitched 30ft tapestry akin to the Bayeux which tell the tale of the Norman conquest. This Star Wars version contains in-jokes complete with quotes stitched in Aurebesh, the fictional language used in the films, to mirror the Latin captions on the original.

This caught my interest because I'll be in Bayeux in April and am looking forward to seeing the famous tapestry (which is 230 feet long).

More at Mail Online
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How To Skate Like Barbara Ann Scott

World champion figure skater Barbara Ann Scott was my idol when I was a little girl. In this documentary she demonstrates the fundamentals of the sport. 

                       

An Introduction to the Art of Figure Skating by ONFB , National Film Board of Canada

NFB

Classic Movies in Ottoman Miniature Style

Murat Palta created these beautiful illustrations that blend traditional ‘oriental’ (Ottoman) motifs and contemporary ‘western’ cinema.

Alien

Kill Bill

A Clockwork Orange

More here
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Iconic Cats

Shanghai-based illustrator A KE imagines pop culture icons as cats.

Via

Learn to Skate The Old Fashioned Way

Frontispiece from A System of Figure-Skating

Do you yearn to do triple salchows like Adelina Sotnikova?  If you read T. Maxwell Witham’s A System of Figure-Skating: Being the Theory and Practice of the Art as Developed in England, with a Glance at its Origin and History  published in 1897 you will be on the podium  in no time at all. Witham was a “Member of The Skating Club” so was obviously a figure skating expert.

More at Paris Review

It Was Kind of Like Slavery

This is a heartbreaking story of young boys who were betrayed by those who were ostensibly there to help and guide them.

reuters.com

Between  1900 and 2011 tens of thousands of boys attended the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, a reform school in Marianna, Florida.  The grounds appeared idyllic but what went on inside the walls was horrific. Over the course of 111 years Dozier gained a reputation for abuse, beatings, rapes, torture and murder of students by staff but it was not until 2011 that a Florida Justice Department investigation uncovered “systemic, egregious, and dangerous practices” at the school. Official records say at least 96 children died at Dozier between 1914 and 1973.

Five men who attended the institution talk about their experiences at Mother Jones.

Via Miss C

The Long And Short Of It

Senor Don Santiago de los Santos was just 2 Feet 2 Inches high and barely reached the knees of Miss Angela Melius, the very tall woman who in the print above.

The public was fascinated by this pair when they toured England together as part of a traveling show during the late 1820s and the early 1830s. Prints like this one would have been for sale as fans exited through the gift shop.

Don Santiago abandoned at birth in the forests of the Philippines but survived to live a very interesting life. You can read more about him at The Appendix

Pussy Riot - Putin will teach you how to love

A graphic music video of punk band Pussy Riot being beaten by Cossack militia in Sochi at the Winter Olympics.

Mumbai's Art Deco Architecture

Did you know that Mumbai has the second largest number of surviving Art Deco buildings in the world after Miami?  Messy Nessy Chic did and posted photos of this city's Machine Age influenced architecture.

Creative Commons Images via Flickr Sandra Cohen Rose and Colin Rose

Goldfish Learns to Drive a Tank

What would a goldfish do if it were free to explore the world?
Studio diil decided to find out and designed a tank of water on wheels that can be driven by a goldfish. A digital camera mounted above the tank sees the fish's position and a tiny computer and micro-controller steers the little tank around in that direction.

Via Gajitz

Fishs Eddy

"Fishs Eddy is equal parts Edward Hopper, Andy Warhol and Bazooka Joe." How is that I, lover of all things vintage, have never heard of this place?



I'll be doing some shopping here next time I'm in The Big Apple. In fact Mr. Nag may not be able to drag me away.

Via Design*Sponge

Taxidermied Sheep Cabinet

This lamb cabinet by Barcelona Design is inspired by the 1942 Dali painting “Interpretation project for a stable-library” that includes a lamb with a drawer sliding out from its stomach and a telephone balanced on its back.

Twenty white pieces are available for around $50,162 each, and one black piece (literally the black sheep of the collection) is available for $98,950.

I was hoping real sheep weren't killed to make these tables but alas these ones were found at a slaughterhouse and taxidermied by Deyrolle.


More at  Paste

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