Friday, May 30, 2008

choose your own adventure

website

these books always left me with an uneasy feeling, partially because i couldn't read the whole thing and partially because, well, they were creepy and weird things happened to you and sometimes you died. sort of like pulling you from the children's fantasyland where dinner was always on the table and legos and treehouses took up most of your time, to the sucky world of adulthood. although adult life is less creepy. mostly.

taking of the pelham 123

i knew there was something wrong about it

'Bodies' exhibit avoids a stiff penalty
BY KENNETH LOVETT
DAILY NEWS ALBANY BUREAU CHIEF

Friday, May 30th 2008, 4:00 AM

ALBANY - The company behind the controversial "Bodies" exhibit has agreed to document the origin of cadavers used in its show and to offer refunds to anyone who saw it.

Critics have charged that the exhibition featured the preserved human cadavers and body parts of Chinese political prisoners who might have been tortured and did not consent to be part of the exhibit.

Premier Exhibitions, which runs the worldwide exhibit, including one at the South Street Seaport, has denied the allegations.

But Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said Premier has agreed to document the cause of death, origin of the bodies, and consent of those who agreed to have their remains displayed.

The company also agreed to pay refunds to anyone who visited the exhibit in New York City, which contains 20 full cadavers and over 200 human parts, organs, fetuses, and embryos.

"Respect for the dead and respect for the public requires that Premier do more than simply assure us that there is no reason for concern," Cuomo said.

"This settlement is a start."

that looks awesome!

zarkorr! the invader



dear zarkorr!,
something about your sexy horns and the way you shoot blue lazers out of your glowing pink eyes, your terrible mechanical repetitive roar, how you mercilessly walk over hundreds of cardboard buildings while the same flameball shoots from below again and again in different angles and lights, well something about all that tells me you are more than just a monster, you are indeed something terrible, and old. king kong and godzilla could only hope to be half the monster you were, and that stupid stupid postal worker with his diobalical plan to kill you using your own weapons, well that was just a travesty. i only wish they had more scenes of you in all your terrible glory as you tear the world apart....zarkorr!, you are a true hero among monsters. r.i.p.

one of the last uncontacted tribes (welcome to hell)






Incredible pictures of one of Earth's last uncontacted tribes firing bows and arrows
By MICHAEL HANLON
Last updated at 4:43 PM on 30th May 2008


Skin painted bright red, heads partially shaved, arrows drawn back in the longbows and aimed square at the aircraft buzzing overhead. The gesture is unmistakable: Stay Away.


Behind the two men stands another figure, possibly a woman, her stance also seemingly defiant. Her skin painted dark, nearly black.


The apparent aggression shown by these people is quite understandable. For they are members of one of Earth's last uncontacted tribes, who live in the Envira region in the thick rainforest along the Brazilian-Peruvian frontier.

Thought never to have had any contact with the outside world, everything about these people is, and hopefully will remain, a mystery.

Their extraordinary body paint, precisely what they eat (the anthropologists saw evidence of gardens from the air), how they construct their tent-like camp, their language, how their society operates - the life of these Amerindians remains a mystery.

'We did the overflight to show their houses, to show they are there, to show they exist,' said Brazilian uncontacted tribes expert José Carlos dos Reis Meirelles Junior. 'This is very important because there are some who doubt their existence.'

Meirelles, who despite once being shot in the shoulder by an arrow fired by another tribe campaigns to protect these peoples, believes this group's numbers are increasing, and pointed out how strong and healthy the people seemed.


But other uncontacted groups in the region, whose homes have been photographed from the air, are in severe danger from illegal logging in Peru and populations are being decimated.

Logging is driving uncontacted tribes over the border and could lead to conflict with the estimated five hundred uncontacted Indians already living on the Brazilian side.

'What is happening in this region [of Peru] is a monumental crime against the natural world, the tribes, the fauna and is further testimony to the complete irrationality with which we, the 'civilised' ones, treat the world,' said Meirelles.

It is extraordinary to think that, in 2008, there remain about a hundred groups of people, scattered over the Earth, who know nothing of our world and we nothing of theirs, save a handful of brief encounters.

The uncontacted tribes, which are located in the jungles of South America, New Guinea and a remote and the beautiful and remote North Sentinel island in the Indian Ocean (the inhabitants of which have also responded to attempts at contact with extreme aggression) all have one thing in common - they want to be left alone.

And for good reason. The history of contact, between indigenous tribes and the outside world, has always been an unhappy one.

In our overcrowded world their very future hangs in the balance. Almost all of these tribes are threatened by powerful outsiders who want their land. These outsiders - loggers, miners, cattle ranchers - are often willing to kill the tribespeople to get what they want.

Even where there is no violence, the tribes can be wiped out by diseases like the common cold to which they have no resistance.

According to Miriam Ross of Survival International, which campaigns to protect the world's remaining indigenous peoples, 'These tribes represent the incredible diversity of humankind. Unless we want to condemn yet more of the earth's peoples to extinction, we must respect their choice. Any contact they have with outsiders must happen in their own time and on their own terms.'

As to who these people are, how they live their lives, what language they speak - we know nothing. 'Normally you can tell who tribes are by their language, how they wear their hair, how they adorn their bodies and so on, but in this case the photos don't allow us to get close enough to see,' says Ms Ross.

When anthropologists first overflew the area, they saw women and children in the open and no one appeared to be painted. It was only when the plane returned a few hours later that they saw these individuals covered head-to-toe in red. 'Tribes in the Amazon paint themselves for all kinds of different reasons - one of which includes when they feel threatened or are aggressive,' Ms Ross says.


'And they are almost certain to feel threatened by or aggressive towards a plane, which was where the photos were taken from. They are almost certain not to understand what the plane is - perhaps a spirit or a large bird.

'The jungle is fundamental to their lives and survival. It's their home, their source of food, the source of their culture etc. Without it, they could not exist as a people.'

Contact is usually a disaster for these remote tribespeople, who live a life probably unchanged for more than 10,000 years. Even if the loggers do not shoot them (which they often do) or force them off their land, diseases against which these isolated humans have no resistance typically wipe out half an uncontacted tribe's numbers in a year or two.

Ms Ross added: 'These pictures are further evidence that uncontacted tribes really do exist. The world needs to wake up to this, and ensure that their territory is protected in accordance with international law. Otherwise, they will soon be made extinct.'


For more information on Survival International, see www.survival-international.org.

super amigos

tarkovsky

Thursday, May 29, 2008

on the back of my fried banana chips from vietnam

'the product is manufactured form the modern technology chain; assuring the foods hygine safety and obtaining high crispness and sponginess, but always maintaining natural colour and flavour of fresh ripen fruits and especially the chemical substance is not used in the process of production. the ingredients of the product have many nutritive facts, vitamin which are to necessary for human body and are also a delicious meal for tourists and travel days.

what a....

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

tax write off? thats what she said

my cats do this to my dreams


justshutupfortheloveofgodshutupshutup

vibrating horse action

cure guitarist or dungon master?


you be the judge.

some of these ideas aren't half bad














some are.

fred astaire in smooth criminal

fail blog!




failboats get me every time.

i thought they were real....

comic book ads that taught us to be cynical

hey, at least you got a real monkey. poor thing...








fake art!


Artist Admits He Didn't Actually Use GPS, DHL to Create 'Biggest Drawing in the World'
By Dylan Tweney May 27, 2008 | 1:39:23 PMCategories: GPS



Swedish artist Erik Nordenenkar claims to have created the "biggest drawing in the world" by sending a GPS-equipped plastic briefcase on a squiggly, looping trip around the world, tracing out a 110,664-km (68,763-mile) unbroken line with the help of DHL delivery planes and trucks. The result: A self-portrait of the artist as a megalomaniacal god with a planet-sized Sharpie and a rather nice sense of line.

Problem is, the project is almost certainly faked, despite the footage showing the briefcase disappearing into the cargo hold of a DHL plane and a photo showing a stack of delivery receipts at the end. Why?

DHL does not deliver to arbitrary latitude-longitude destinations.
DHL is not likely to consider "trace a few looping lines through the Indian Ocean, without landing" as a valid delivery request, even with lat-long coordinates
You can't get a GPS signal inside the aluminum skin of an airliner
No GPS system, even with supplemental batteries, would have lasted the 55 days the artist says his project took
Details on the setup's "extended tracklog and battery time" are suspiciously absent.
So yeah, we're calling bullshit on this one. Nice picture, though.



UPDATE 5/27/2008: Yep, it's a fake. The artist has added a line to the bottom of his webpage stating "This is fictional work. DHL did not transport the GPS at any time." And DHL confirmed that Nordenenkar never went any further than a warehouse the company allowed him to film in.

Image above from the artist's website. Below, the artist's video.


i have lots of these at work

this really fucks with my head

1960 las vegas


fear and loathing era

alice-roots

alice remix

watch where you google that street view

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

the greatest silence

Since 1998 a brutal war has been raging in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Over 4 million people have died. And there are the uncountable casualties: the many tens of thousands of women and girls who have been systematically kidnapped, raped, mutilated and tortured by soldiers from both foreign militias and the Congolese army.

The world knows nothing of these women. Their stories have never been told. They suffer and die in silence. In The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo these brave women finally speak.

carl jung

“Who looks outside, dreams ; who looks inside , awakens.”

somewhere i have never been

Somewhere in the world
a beautiful woman
runs through white sand even though
a book sits absorbing sunlight at
the edge of a blue towel.
And there’s probably even a field out there
with tall yellow sprouts
that swing in the wind,
whipping pollen across the sky
like birdshot.
Perhaps a small child,
while learning to ride a bike under
mother’s watchful push
falls, cracks
a bone, and can
never
trust
again.
Somewhere a summer day starts
with the promise of success
for a young businessman and his
pigeon-faced trophy wife.
Somewhere far away
people drink and yell
into their plastic cocktail glasses—
a DJ plays a famous song
I’ve never heard and
bodies bounce like felt hammers
across wire.

I’d really like to be
at somewhere
someday,
if only to feel the warm sand on my feet,
the wake around my pantleg,
or the satisfaction of wasting money
on an expensive drink (or companion)
to scream at.
Life goes on
but hopefully I’ll find a good passage
in some old book
to give me back the beach,
the wife,
the child,
and all the drunken nights
I’ve missed.

Roderick Burroughs

Friday, May 23, 2008

my american family

tyler spiers

the babysitter


by David H. Steinberg

go west-the wedding scene

another film clip from ahmed imamovic

me

Director: Ahree Lee | United States

The idea is simple, the result is stunning. On November 1, 2001, artist Ahree Lee began taking daily digital snapshots of her own face; and she has continued this project every day since. In 2004, Lee compiled all of her daily images into a montage with a wistful musical score. In the fast-paced parade of images you're about to see, each second of screen time represents about one week's worth of pictures

10 minutes by Ahmed Imamovic



i was very moved by this movie...it won the best european short film in 2002.

the shock doctrine

by Alfonso Cuarón and Naomi Klein

:)

i am a

rocket builder

death to gladiators

The thumbs-up gesture has its roots in ancient Rome, where gladiators would literally live or die by it. Pollice verso is the Latin term for the gesture, meaning "with a turned thumb."


"It was a hand gesture that was used by the crowd to say if the gladiator should live or die after a fight," explains Lisa Slattery Rashotte, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.


The last thing a sweaty sportsman wanted was a thumbs-up. While in modern times it has a positive meaning, back then it meant "get him out of here," or death, while a concealed thumb (considered thumbs-down) meant the gladiator lived.

maybe you should switch shoulders


CHRIS JOSEPH TAYLOR / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Muraco Kyashna-Tocha, 48, of Seattle, has grown marijuana legally since 1999. Kyashna-Tocha has had five neck and back surgeries and said that using marijuana manages her pain enough so she can engage in daily life. Kyashna-Tocha's moluccan cockatoo Big Bird Bubba sits on her shoulder and travels with her almost everywhere.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

the bubble project



link

carrotbomb

addresszero




Jamie Livingston took a photograph every day for 18 years using a Polaroid SX-70. The final photo comes from the day before Livingston's death. Take a frame-by-frame look at the days of the man's life here.

good magazine

2007

what? hes right AND his movies are better?



Spike Lee rips Coens and Eastwood at Cannes
Wed May 21, 2008 9:24am EDT

CANNES (Hollywood Reporter) - Spike Lee is in Cannes to promote a new film, but he couldn't resist taking a few swipes at some fellow directors, including Joel and Ethan Coen and Clint Eastwood.

Speaking about his World War II drama "Miracle at St. Anna," Lee said that, unlike the Coens, he was respectful in the way he portrayed death.

"I always treat life and death with respect, but most people don't," Lee said at a news conference Tuesday. "Look, I love the Coen brothers; we all studied at NYU. But they treat life like a joke. Ha ha ha. A joke. It's like, 'Look how they killed that guy! Look how blood squirts out the side of his head!' I see things different than that."

Speaking about the casting for his tale of four black American soldiers in Tuscany, Lee said that black actors appear in war films too infrequently.

"Clint Eastwood made two films about Iwo Jima that ran for more than four hours total, and there was not one Negro actor on the screen," he said. "If you reporters had any balls you'd ask him why. There's no way I know why he did that -- that was his vision, not mine. But I know it was pointed out to him and that he could have changed it. It's not like he didn't know."

today is the ride of silence

Beaverton

Distance: +/- 6 miles
Notes: This is the 2nd Annual "WestSide Ride of Silence held in Washington County, Oregon hosted by the Washington County Bicycle Transportation Coalition (WashCo BTC), the 6 mile loop will start at SW 5th & Hall and circle Beaverton with ghost bikes located in places related to those where bicyclists have been killed in Washington County in the past 3 years. Another, longer, 'no-host' ride will also begin at the starting point. This 35 mile+ course will feature ghost bikes in those actual locations where the cyclists were killed. Cycling groups and clubs will be invited to participate on this ride, maintaining silence and obeying traffic controls and laws.

jasper goodall





link

i could feed 7!

How many cannibals could your body feed?