Saturday, September 30, 2017

Bertrand Russell's Letter To Fascist, Oswald Mosley

Bertrand Russell, one of the great intellectuals of his (and any) generation, wrote this  letter at the beginning of 1962 to Sir Oswald Mosley, founder of the British Union of Fascists. Russell was 89 years old.




"I feel obliged to say that the emotional universes we inhabit are so distinct, and in deepest ways opposed, that nothing fruitful or sincere could ever emerge from association between us."




Via

How To Care For Your Pet Introvert

@Exurb1a offers helpful hints about caring for the introvert in its natural habitat, "like a sort of safari, but shit".


  Via 

Poetweet

Give your twitter handle to Poetweet and then choose either a sonnet, rondel or indriso. You'll get a poem back comprised of your random tweets and retweets. Brilliant! Here's mine:


Via

The Florida Project

"As economic inequality plagues the United States and shapes its politics, there has never been a better time for The Florida Project, a film about how the “American dream” is unavailable to many Americans."


More here 

Conceptual Photo-manipulations by "Fiddle Oak"

Massachusetts-based photographer Zev aka Fiddle Oak has been creating impressive miniature photo-manipulations for six years - and he's only 14!  He works with his 18-year-old sister Nellie who helps with concepts and setup but all of the shooting and editing is done by Zev who is also frequently the subject of his own work.





More here

Ai Weiwei's Chilling Dioramas


S.A.C.R.E.D. is a six-part installation by Ai Weiwei that offers insight  into his imprisonment by the Chinese government. Six near-life size dioramas show the artist and his prison guards inside steel boxes.



More:  artnet News

Lock - Biertan , Romania

Credit: Adam Jones, Ph.D/Wikimedia Commons

Lock on a wooden door in the church at Biertan, Romania. The lock contains 19 locks in one and is such a marvel of engineering it won first prize at the Paris World Expo in 1900.

Friday, September 29, 2017

Dispatch from Mar-a-Lago

“S.O.S. from the golden throne/‘Mogul’s’ in deep shit, he’s all alone/It’s not good, a riot in fact/The whole friggin’ country club is under attack.”
Iconic all-female 90s band, L7, has released their first single in nearly two decades. Did it take the rise of Donald Trump to get the band writing new material?

The Big British Music Map

The UK has a rich musical history and now you can check out the top artists, mapped out across the UK. Select an artist on the map to listen to their most iconic song and find out more about them.

Click here for the interactive map


Via

Logging Truck Driver Crosses A Tiny Bridge In France With a Full Load

Wow!



Via  Geekologie

The geometric kites of Alexander Graham Bell

You knew that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone but did you know he also built kites? Between 1907 and 1912 he built geometric kites designed around a simple tetrahedron pattern, or cells, that could add up to create giant flying structures. His biggest kites were even capable of carrying people!




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Ballet Rotoscope

A ballerina dances as the joints on her body are traced with a computer-generated rotoscope animation technique. Ballet Rotoscope explores how live-action and animation interrelate. The experimental piece was created by Japanese design group Masahiko Sato EUPHRATES.



More here 

Thursday, September 28, 2017

Tami Neilson "Loco Mama"

How Did the Egyptians Make Mummies?

This video uses a real mummy of a twenty-year-old man named Herakleides to explain the mummification process.



More: Open Culture

One Sky

88 members of Women Who Draw from around the world each looked up and drew the sky above them on August 13, 2017 at noon Eastern Time to produce a worldwide portrait of a shared sky.

Autumn Story



This charming chalk animation, co-directed by Yanni Kronenberg and Lucinda Schreiber, features music from Firekites' album 'The Bowery'.
Via Miss Cellania

DIY umbrella that opens and closes

Priti Sharma demonstrates how to make a tiny folded paper  umbrella that opens and closes. It won't keep you dry in the rain but it's pretty cute.



Via Boing Boing

Stranger Things As a RomCom

A trailer from Netflix that imagines Stranger Things as a 1980s romantic comedy.



Via

Pigeons Disapproving of Gentrification


Tom Gauld, “Two Pigeons in London.”

Via The Map Room

The World of Thomasson

“Thomasson: noun\ to-ma-son \ a preserved architectural relic which serves no purpose” 

A staircase from the Winston Churchill bridge in Strasbourg, France
which was demolished in 2006. 

Who knew these urban oddities actually had a name? Apparently there is a movement dedicated to observing them as conceptual art. There are books about Thomasson and more than 3000 posts on Instagram under the Japanese “Thomasson” hashtag: トマソン.

A ladder in Paris (source)

Lost staircase in Aachen, Germany (source)


More here

Via

Treetop Experience

The Treetop Experience in Denmark is a project by architecture studio EFFEKT that aims to reconnect people to nature by elevating them high above a treetop canopy. The 600 meter walk has two walkways, one in the oldest parts of the forest and the other in the forest’s younger areas.





More: Dioniso Punk

ZAZ - "Sous le ciel de Paris"

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

The Voices Behind The Peanuts Gang (1968)


This is a photo of the voice actors behind some of the animated characters in the Peanuts gang. Notice that all the kid roles are actually voiced by children.


This article at Voice Chasers provides a "Then And Now" for the Peanuts voice actors.

Via 

Dawayne Kirkland Really Wants This Internship

Internships are getting increasingly competitive. Dawayne Kirkland knew he had to think outside the box if he wanted to be considered. This is his submission response to "ARE YOU A CREATOR?" by Gary Vee.




Via

The Colours Of Canada's National Parks


In honour of Canada's 150th Birthday Jana Dempsey of Hand Maiden Fine Yarns in Halifax, Nova Scotia curated a collection highlighting 13 of Canada's National Parks, one for each province and territory.

Link

Via

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Rice Paddy Masterpieces


The village of Inakadate, Japan is known throughout the country for its colourful rice paddy art which is created by strategically planting dozens of varieties of rice. Each image takes up to three months and the help of many volunteers to complete.



Via Colossal

Dog Owner Sorry He Got This Tat


Chris Mendiola thought a tattoo on his beloved dog, Bear,  had been forcibly inflicted on the dog by his previous owner. The thought sickened him so he got inked with the same symbol as a gesture of affection and solidarity for his pet. He probably regretted it when he found out that the dog's tattoo was placed there to indicate that the animal had been neutered.

Via  

Experiments With Decomposing Flowers


Japanese flower artist Azuma Makoto's botanical sculpture, titled ‘Naibu-Inside’, is a large installation which includes a cut flower garden on the exterior of the museum and a large installation of flowers in the interior gallery space. In the interior gallery the flowers are enveloped in a large glass box that allows one to view their decomposition.


The symbolic piece alludes to the buddhist contemplation of life and death.
More here

Thanks Bruce!

London Fog by Fujiko Nakaya

Earlier this year Tate Modern presented an animated light and soundscape by Fujiko Nakaya in collaboration with Ryuichi Sakamoto and Shiro Takatani. The 83-year-old artist has been working since the 1970s to develop a system to disperse water vapour at high pressure to create a cloud of mist. Her father is credited with making the first artificial snowflakes.


Via

Biolojical

Biolojical (@biolojical)  is a Twitter account managed by @JacobPhD that shares the science of biology through emojis. He previously tried nerdy wit (without much success) and then he discovered he could could fit so much more information into 140 characters this way.



Via PfRC

Ukiyo-e Online Database

Ukiyo-e.org is a digital archive that collates collections from 24 museums, libraries, auction houses, and art dealers around the world and holds 220,000 Japanese woodblock prints.



Cake On A Stick

Self-taught baker Raymond Tan creates gorgeous cake pops.






Halloween menu includes "witch's' gums" and "eyeballs"

Japanese sushi chain Kurazushi features a ghoulishly themed Halloween menu.

Horrifying Eyeball Mousse and Witch’s Gums

Disappearing Ghost Black Curry


Via 

Monday, September 25, 2017

Gigantic Eight-Tentacled Sea Creature Carved From a Tree

Image: JMS Wood Sculpture

Washington-based woodcarver Jeffrey Michael Samudosky of JMS Wood Sculpture carved this replica of an Enteroctopus dofleini, a Giant Pacific Octopus, from a fallen redwood.

More: Colossal

Theft! A History of Music


Theft! A History of Music is a new fair use comic by James Boyle and Jennifer Jenkins, two law school profs from Duke University. It is "a graphic novel laying out a 2000-year long history of musical borrowing from Plato to rap."



Download the book

More: Open Culture

Made In North Korea


Phaidon's new publication Made in North Korea: Graphics From Everyday life in the DPRK by Nicholas Bonner is "the most comprehensive collection of North Korean graphic ephemera to date”.




More: It's Nice That

Sunday, September 24, 2017

Best Motorcycle Commercial

Based on a true story, this commercial about  riders whose average age is 81, is a great inspiration.



 Via

Bluegrass Clog Dancing

This clip from Bluegrass Roots: On The Road With Bluegrass Musicians, a 1964 documentary by David Hoffman, shows bluegrass clogging.



Via Miss Cellania

Sunday Links

License: Creative Commons

I hope I never have to use this information: How to Survive a Nuclear Attack

Sound Effects In Archie Comic Books 

Quiz tests whether headlines came from Breitbart or 1920s KKK newspapers  Via

Writing the Monsignor: Back then we believed the Monsignor was a holy man, but he also walked among us as a totally regular guy, so we pitied him his natural yearnings stemmed by sacrifice.

Grace Slick's Intense Vocals in the Isolated Track for "White Rabbit" 

Man Who Saved the World From Nuclear Armageddon in 1983 Dies at 77

A Farewell to Hemnes: Ernest Hemingway Assembles an IKEA Daybed Frame With Three Drawers

8 Things You Should be Making in your Waffle Iron

Neil Young's Canada: From a town in North Ontario to the Red River Valley, a look at the places, people and sounds that influenced the icon.

Don't sympathize with Shelley: Stanley Kubrick showed no mercy to Shelley Duvall on the The Shining

The Greatest Internet Recipe Comment of All Time involves a stolen husband. Via

Access denied: wheelchair metro maps versus everyone else's The metro can be the quickest way to get around many big cities. Unless you’re in a wheelchair.

'Columbine destroyed my entire career': Marilyn Manson on the perils of being the lord of darkness

Lauren Greenfield Reveals America’s Obscene Wealth, in Pictures

Iggy Pop and Debbie Harry Sing a Swelligant Version of Cole Porter’s "Did You Evah”  Via

James Leman, Silk Designer: The oldest surviving set of silk designs in the world, James Leman’s album contains ninety ravishingly beautiful patterns created in Steward St, Spitalfields between 1705 and 1710 when he was a young man.

The Madness of Donald Trump "Watching Trump lean over a podium on the road to the presidency was like watching a stud boar hump a hole in the wall." Is he crazy enough to be removed from office?

Female Photographers to Follow From Around the World

Cool airport amenities, in order of increasing absurdity 

Badass of the Week: Christopher Lee: "He's also developed something of a reputation for being a dick to fans and for having a seething contemptuous disdain for fajitas, which makes him even more badass in some ways."

The Reading Lists Hidden Inside 12 Great Books: Some books that mention a lot of other books.

Karin Pfeiff Boschek makes gorgeous pies Via

Saturday, September 23, 2017

Hey Jude

Caught Mr Nag watching this great video.




He turns his buddies into big kids on his vacation photos

Illustrator James Nathaniel transformed his friends into weird big children.







More here

Hong Kong At Night

Canadian photographer Greg Girard created these nocturnal images of Hong Kong in the 1970s and later, after relocating there, in the 1980s.  





More here

Thanks Bruce!

Wind



Life is hard for those living in this windy place but people have found ways to adapt.


WIND from robert loebel on Vimeo.

Directed by Robert Löbel
Via

Welcome to My Neighborhood



Welcome to My Neighborhood is a project created by VML, Inc for Youth Ambassadors that tells the stories of real children from underprivileged neighborhoods in a children's book format. The juxtaposition of cute cartoon characters with shocking content is a very effective way of raising awareness of the sad lives too many children are living.


"It's a children's book not for children," said Tiffany Lynch, co-founder of Young Ambassadors. "Why would we allow these stories to happen to children in our city when we can't even allow our own children to look at what's inside? It's the juxtaposition of those two ideas that VML so brilliantly came up with that really shocks you."


Via