Sunday, October 31, 2021

Happy Halloween

 

 

Sunday Links

Kinrai ryūkō kabuki uwasa Kenbutsu no hara
Internal bodily functions dramatized by popular kabuki actors


The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) holds a collection of 400 health-themed woodblock prints from 19th-century Japan, all illustrated in the ukiyo-e manner. (image above)

Weird and wonderful Leon Redbone always had a Polaroid camera onstage and took a photo of the audience at every show. Mr. Nag and I were fans and I wouldn't be surprised to see us in one of the early Toronto photos. (via Everlasting Blort)

This week's house envy is a light-filled home with a view in a picturesque town in Kent, England

JoΓ£o Carlos Martins couldn’t play piano anymore until magic (bionic) gloves. (Thanks Bruce)


A Puff Before Dying: When marionettes mix with marijuana, a joy ride becomes their last ride. (Language warning!) 


Start planning a Halloween vacation for next year: 13 Haunted Hotels  

I adore The Noordwijk Forest Villa. I'd like to buy a treed lot and build it right now!


The story behind Robert the Doll, Key West’s most cursed object.


California Condors reproduce without a male. A first.



The Tarim Basin mummies are immaculately preserved, well-dressed, and buried in boats. read more


“The worst spy cop movie I’ve ever seen” How British police tried to recruit an informant in Black Lives Matter 

Air travel sucks. I am a small and relatively agile person and I find it awkward getting in and out of airplane seats. It is so much more difficult for people who rely on a wheelchair. This seating that allows air travellers to stay in their wheelchairs facilitates a smoother boarding and disembarking experience for passengers with reduced mobility.

These are the tiniest crochet pieces I've ever seen. I can't imagine having this kind of manual dexterity.


Saturday, October 30, 2021

 

Happy Caturday!

Russian artist Galina Bugaevskaya  photoshops cat faces on anything you can think of: giraffes, fish, pandas, even edible things like potatoes, buns, and bananas. 







Many more here

Friday, October 29, 2021

Older Than Ireland

This is a wonderful film.

 

The Sponsored Animated Films of the NFB

"From its creation in 1939 all the way through to the 1980s, the National Film Board of Canada was mandated to produce films for all federal government departments and agencies. These sponsored films were made according to the needs of the agency or department, to be shown in a variety of places. In many cases, humour was used to help convey a message."
Here's one that was created for the Department of Fisheries in 1957. It was animated by Gerald Potterton who rose to the tough challenge of making a fun film about bacteriological contamination of fish.

 

See More: NFB Blog

Wednesday, October 27, 2021



This photograph was taken as President Lincoln's funeral procession moved along Broadway in New York City April 25, 1865. Future president Teddy Roosevelt, at the age of 6, can be seen with his brother gazing down on the spectacle from a window of their home.

More: Futility Closet

Watch A Drone Screw in a Lightbulb

The video below is set to the sounds of the docking scene from the movie Interstellar.
@insta360_official

This is a legit “lightbulb moment”πŸ’‘@pixel & #insta360go2 #insta360 #filmmaking #drone #pov #fyp #viral

♬ original sound - insta360_official
Read more:  PetaPixel
Whee! A motorcycle powered merry-go-round!

Building a Celtic Roundhouse

Two adventurous cousins build an Iron Age Celtic roundhouse in Ireland without the use of modern methods and materials. This is Episode 1 of 24.


Via MetaFilter

Tuesday, October 26, 2021

Bloody Fun

 

Read more here 

Scary Facial Treatment Is Perfect for Halloween

The Rejuvenique electric face mask does double duty as a Halloween costume. From a 1999 infomercial with Linda Evans.



Via Miss Cellania

Clever Floral Styling

Harriet Parry's floral interpretations meld history, art, fashion and film with the world of floral design.





Monday, October 25, 2021

Adieu Charlie

Charlie the Unicorn's magical journey comes to an end in this 40 minute grand finale.


Nag In The Lake?

Climate change takes different forms depending on where we live. 
ThisClimateDoesNotExist.com is an application that shows what a specific location will look like after being impacted by floods, wildfires or smog. Here is a visualization of my house under water:


It's not hard to imagine as we are close to Lake Ontario and have a damp basement in spring and fall.

Squid Game Funko Pop Figures

I'd never heard of Funko Pops but I have watched Squid Game. Apparently you will soon be able to purchase the characters from the Netflix series. The figures are kind of cute and childlike, unlike the series which is cringingly violent.

Image credit

Thanks to perfect for roquefort cheese for keeping me in the pop culture loop.

Hell No

If horror films were sensible they wouldn't be half as much fun.

This is what happens if you let your kids sew their own clothes



Sewing and clothes making were once a skill learned in school and in the home but now cheaply made fast fashion has replaced home made clothing. Puzzleware is a sew-your-own clothing kit for children between the ages of four and 12 that encourages them to make their own clothes. 

Sunday, October 24, 2021

 

I know it's not Caturday but this was so good I couldn't wait!

@klrdubs

This is why i do my own subtitles πŸ˜‚

♬ original sound - KLR Dubs

Via BoingBoing 

Sunday Links

Image: Ghoul at Heart

Antipasto de los Muertos (image above) is perfect for Halloween. Cheese skulls on a bed of red butter lettuce, surrounded by a garden of salami roses, artichoke buds, onion vines and tomato flowers. How about some I Scream Cones  for dessert!(via Vintage,Thrift and Simple Living)

The Oldest Depictions Of London

Free parking, employee discount, keg in the break room? You got it. We will do anything to get you to work for us except pay you a living wage

Photos of children with their Jack-o lanterns in the 1950s and 60s

Technological Disobedience: An article about artefacts of Cuban ingenuity and resourcefulness. Aluminium dinner trays were hoisted onto poles to repair broken aerials, discarded soft-drink cans became vessels for kerosene lamps and vinyl records were cut and thermoformed as replacement blades for missing fan heads. (via @KufferPit )

Dissecting fugu, a poisonous blowfish, is a matter of life and death and only chefs who have been through special training are licensed to do it but now you can do it too.

Behind the scenes of 'French Dispatch' Production designer Adam Stockhausen and set decorator Rena DeAngelo share how they transformed an entire town in France for the new Wes Anderson movie.

The streets of the Sicilian town of Gangi look like they would be difficult to navigate.

There are so many different hauntings, so many ways to do it. The first days of ghosthood would be tricky. How to choose your haunt style.

Because you like puzzles: "The Frogs and Tumblers"  illusion.

Nothing says old like seeing the fashion trends of your youth coming around again. The Enduring Appeal of Laura Ashley (NYT article)

The Best Panoramic Photos of 2021

No need to worry about how billionaires have fared during the pandemic. In fact they have done well and some have done very, very well indeed. (via Miss Cellania)

8 Novels That Take Place Over The Course Of a Day - I've read three of these and just ordered two others from the list.

In a small village in southern Norway, a church wall is filled with thousands of tiny demons but that's not the oddest thing about Norway's Disturbing Demon Wall

Husbands can come and go, but whatever you do, hang on to your curtain-maker  Best tips of the last 50 years from legendary interior designer Nina Campbell

 Spanish Crochet Class Crafted a Giant Canopy To Beat The Heat 

As part of his series, American Spaces Project, Franck Bohbot visited the world’s oldest McDonald’s restaurant in Downey California and took some nice retro photographs. 

It's gloomy and chilly and the nights are getting longer, Advent Calendar season  must be here! (thanks Bruce!)

How long have you got?  Baking Cookies That Take 1 Minute, 45 Minutes, 72 Hours

Music For Sunday Morning

Saturday, October 23, 2021

 

When you feel the music, you just gotta let it out!!

BicibΓΊs

 

(Thanks Bruce!)

God Only Knows - The Beach Boys (Isolated Vocals)

Pet Sounds is the best Beach Boys album. Listening to vocals only tracks make me appreciate the magic harmonies even more.

 

 (Thanks Bruce!)

Some Caturday Weirdness

 

 

Via Everlasting Blort 

How Autism Shapes Gregory Blackstock’s Art

This film showcases Gregory’s inner life and intricately detailed “list” drawings and shows how he uses his artwork to catalog and make sense of the world around him.


Via Aeon Videos

Friday, October 22, 2021

Take a tour of the Haruki Murakami Library

This month marked the opening of the Haruki Murakami Library in Tokyo which houses the author’s personal archive. You can take a video tour of the library here.


Via Literary Hub

Searching for the Unmarked Graves of Canada's Indigenous Children

The New York Times followed a team of archaeologists who came to the Muskowekwan First Nation to search for the graves of indigenous children who were forced to attend the residential school there. It's heartbreaking.



Largest Triceratops Skeleton Ever Found Sells for $7.7 Million

Photo: Francois Mori (AP)

“Big John” is about 66 million years old and roughly 23 feet long and 8 feet high at the hips. The skeleton was discovered on private property in South Dakota in 2014.
Sadly, demand for rare dinosaur fossils has inflated prices at the expense of museums, which often cannot afford to buy them. It was purchased by an American buyer for personal use.

Read More

Largest wooden building in Iceland



The largest wooden building in Iceland will transform a landfill site in Reykjavik. Slated for completion in 2026, Living Landscape will contain a mix of housing for students, elderly people and families, alongside workspaces, daycare facilities and local shops. The design will eliminate all possible emissions and offset any that cannot be eliminated by removing carbon from the atmosphere.

A Universe of Imagination

Sixty years after its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival the NFB short documentary Universe, directed by Roman Kroitor and Colin Low, remains a revered classic.



(Narrated by Douglas Rain, the voice of HAL in Stanley Kubrick's 2001:A Space Odyssey)

Read more: NFB Blog 

"Unstuck In Time" - Trailer

Filmmaker Robert Weide made this Kurt Vonnegut documentary many years ago but it has only recently secured distribution and will finally be available in theatres and VOD.


Restoration of a burnt Omega watch

This took a lot of skill and effort. Amazing.

 

Thanks Bruce!

Thursday, October 21, 2021

Tour the Pyramids of Giza in 4K


Bowling Tricks With Andy Varipapa (1948)

Andy Varipapa was apparently "the greatest bowling trickster of all time."


Via The Awesomer

The Sounds from Mars


Via Kottke

Hands-Free Gun Firing Device

In 1921 inventor Harry McGrath obtained a patent for a gun firing device capable of being concealed under the coat and fired when the hands are raised or at any angle.


It was intended to be used by cashiers or bank tellers who were told to put their  hands up during a robbery. This device would have allowed them to fire their pistol without lowering their hands. (Yikes!)

Dead Meat

A couple of seagulls fight over a hotdog.

Tentacle Pot Pie

I found this in my Facebook memories today. It's squidlicious!



Recipe: not martha

Wednesday, October 20, 2021

Via Rusty's Electric Dreams 

Ontario in the 1980s

A c.1982 tourism video of Toronto, Muskoka, Niagara Falls and my town, Niagara on the Lake.

The Topiary Cat


The story of the Topiary Cat began when British surrealist artist Richard Saunders was walking a few years ago and saw a shrub shaped like a cloud. It reminded him of a sleeping cat and he decided to insert his beloved cat Tolly, who passed away in 2016, into a photograph he'd taken. He created many more similar images, some of which went viral on Facebook and were seen by millions. He tells the story here:


These giant cat topiaries don't exist in real life but wouldn't it be great if they did?  You can see the Topiary Cat on Facebook or at this website,

Via

New Vhils Mural Unveiled in Toronto


Image: SÉRGIO MURATO/LUSA


Portuguese street artist Vhils painted a mural depicting some of the heroines of the 1975 Cleaners' Action movement. A majority of the primarily women cleaners were from Toronto's Portuguese community.
"It was a story that touched me a lot. We decided to make the mural, not only for women who are still alive, but for this whole movement that emerged to create better working conditions for the first wave of Portuguese immigration to Canada" - Vhils

Previously 

Read more

We all need this

 

Tuesday, October 19, 2021

Dance Performance for the Paralympics Hand Off Ceremony

French choreographer and dancer Sadeck Waff is known for his limb-centric performances. As part of a closing hand-off ceremony for the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games and the 2024 games in Paris he worked with 128 performers in this performance focused on arms and hands. 


Via Colossal

 


(Via my FB friend Edith)

16th century optical illusion

This 16th century optical illusion may be the oldest ever. It appears in 'The Ambassadors', painted by Hans Holbein the Younger in 1533, which memorialises Jean de Dinteville, French ambassador to England, and his friend, Georges de Selve.  It is only visible when viewed from the right.


The Hippie Temptation

CBS News series Who, What, Where, When, Why premiered on August 22, 1967, with “The Hippie Temptation”. Host Harry Reasoner visited the Haight Ashbury neighbourhood during the Summer of Love to advise hippies not to turn on, tune in and drop out.

Monday, October 18, 2021

Origami Emergency Shelters

Temporary emergency shelters must be compact, stable and easy to assemble and take down. A team at Harvard turned to origami for inspiration to build structures that meet those three criteria.


Via The Kid Should See This 

The First Horror Film

Georges MΓ©liΓ¨s’ The Haunted Castle was originally released in 1896. Although it is more funny than scary it is considered to be the first horror film ever made.

Creating Art Grain By Grain

Andrew Clemens (1857 – 1894) was a sand artist from Iowa in the United States. Clemens formed his exquisitely detailed pictures by compressing natural colored sands inside chemists' jars to create his works of art.




More:  TYWKIWDBI

(A Google Image search shows many more of his pieces)

James Bond Theme (A Cappella)




Sunday, October 17, 2021

Sunday Links

Jorna Newberry | Waru Tjukurrpa – Fire Dreaming

Jorna Newberry's abstract Fire Dreaming paintings (above) relate to the use of fire for hunting and for land management on traditional Aboriginal lands (via  Memo Of The Air)

Hypothesis: "Walk of Life" is the perfect song to end any movie. The Walk Of Life Project


This happened in Colorado last week: Elk with car tyre stuck around its neck for two years is free at last  He feels much lighter now.


New Minister 

The Paintings of Nastya Chudakova evoke nostalgic memories of the Soviet past.

Amphibia, an Eau de Toilette for Muppet fans.

Music to read James Bond by And make some James Bond scrambled eggs as well (from last week's links) to recreate the full 007 experience.

Frank Lloyd Wright's last home is for sale: The Norman Lykes Residence is a futuristic circular home in the Arizona desert.


"Take a lot of the tomatoes, shove them into the pillowcase, and squeeze the s#*! out of them over the other tub so that the juice of the tomatoes oozes through the weave of the pillowcase, making it look like a relic of the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre. Continue until all the tomatoes are gone or until you feel like Macbeth at the end of his play." Stanley Tucci Shares His Grandmother's Tomato Sauce Recipe


Worst excuses ever (apparently dogs no longer eat homework)

Inspired by Harry Potter: The Goblet of Fire Cocktail

Take a tour of this very large shipping container home currently rented as an airbnb. (Thanks Bruce)

Do you remember Upstairs, Downstairs? The award winning television drama series ran for five seasons back in the 1970s. It tracked the decline of the British aristocracy from the POVs of a wealthy family and their domestics from the turn of the century through the Great Depression in the 1930s. (A sequel was broadcast by BBC One in 2010)

Squid Game costumes for pets? No thanks, my animals prefer to flounce around naked.

From the inventor who disappeared along with the lighthouse he designed to the daredevil whose contraptions vaulted him to fame and then cut his life short: 
Inventors Killed By Their Own Inventions (Thanks Bruce!)

Lady's itinerary for 4 Days in Edinburgh 


Abandoned and overgrown: Eerie photos of Bali without tourists

Give your mediocre toaster some TLC. It will last longer. (NYT)

 

Via Everlasting Blort

Music For Sunday Morning

This is the first single from Blue Rodeo's forthcoming new studio album Many A Mile.

Stained Glass Time-Lapse

Start Sunday morning at the Washington National Cathedral. (Full screen is best)


Music by Brian Eno

Via Bits and Pieces

Saturday, October 16, 2021

Shark Pool

"So I hear you've been telling people not to go in the pool. I came here for 4 things - beer, bitches, babes and the pool - and I'm not going to let some punk ruin the party because he thinks there may be a shark in the pool."
This spoof trailer was made a decade ago but it gains new relevance in the time of Covid-19. Cue the Jaws soundtrack and enjoy: 

 
Via The Chawed Rosin and Miss Cellania

How to find a missing cat

 


According to Japanese legend there is a surefire method to get your missing cat to return. Talk to street cats in the neighborhood and ask them about your cat, describe its colour, tell them its name. Ask them to help you look for it and to tell the missing cat that you love it and how much you want it to come home.
They will communicate with each other to help your cat return. (via FB)

Real Time: Sweeper’s Clock

A few years ago I posted a clock designed by Dutch designer Maarten Baas at Schiphol Airport. It features a man painting the time minute by minute. My FB friend Simon reminded me that it is still keeping time in Amsterdam. I visited the Baas website and found other real time clocks including this Sweepers Clock with two handymen sweeping trash for 12 hours, indicating the time as they go:


Check out more of his cool clocks at here.

Peacock Spider Dances to YMCA

 

 Thanks Bruce!

Happy Caturday!

 

 

What looks like cat wings are his dog friend's ears behind...

Friday, October 15, 2021

Julie Buffalohead's work has focused thematically upon describing Indian cultural experience through personal metaphor and narrative. (I admit to posting this image because it resembles my dog, Liz.)


Revisionist History Lesson by Julie Buffalohead 2014 - Lithograph

Ocean Depth Comparison

From the beach to the deepest part of the Mariana Trench.

 

Thanks Bruce!