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Recently, the Temple Restaurant and Bar in Minneapolis had a … um, cultural night. Yeah, that’s it: They brought the Japanese practice of eating sushi off of a naked body to the heartland of America:
The history of eating sushi off of a person ("nyotaimori" and "nantaimori" mean "female body presentation" and "male body presentation" respectively) is a bit enigmatic, and tracking down the origins of the practice is difficult. Sources differ about whether it is a longstanding tradition among geisha or whether it is a relatively recent phenomenon owed to the yakuza.
There were four models, two males and two females – and you can guess which ones were more popular:
Though the practice seems a more artistic than sensual one, there are exceptions. Two men approach a model whose sushi stocks have recently been depleted. "Oh no!" one says, never taking his eyes off Tuesdee. "There’s no more food!" But he lingers. "C’mon," his buddy says. "Let’s get more sake." I hear another man’s girlfriend ask him, "are we going to keep going back to the same girl?"
Link: Article by Jeff Shaw in City Pages | Gallery of photos by James Tran (SFW) – Thanks Jeff!
Sometimes, too much creativity is really, really bad. Take, for example, this scan from an old issue of McCall magazine telling parents to decorate paper bag costumes for their kids:
Decorated paper bag costumes are easy to create. Children can design their own bright creature costumes for dress-up and party time. Paper bags become colorful creatures from another planet when children let their imaginations go free to maek their own fun faces or those shown here. Use large paper bags (approximately 24" x 32") from the cleaners – do not use plastic bag. Paint, then decorate each bag with scraps of yarn, bright paints, colored paper, and glitter to make the fun-face costume. Cut small holes in top of bag for vision; vary face by creating animal creature with holes at sides so arms can extend in hornlike fashion.
On second thought, if you don’t have stairs in your house, these costumes are genious!
Puppetoys is a toy company founded by Michael Maddi, a veteran Hollywood special effects artist. He specializes in making Prehistoric Puppets, a line of life-like puppets designed and sculpted using the same methods as film special effects:
The PREHISTORIC PUPPETS line offers six well-known fascinating dinosaurs that are extremely accurate and highly detailed. Our puppets are made from super-soft molded foam that feels very realistic, and has a patent pending process. The unique manufacturing process enables the user’s arm to be supported by the puppets legs while puppeteering. This makes for the most realistic puppets available anywhere! Finally you can really see how these mighty creatures, now long gone, might have looked, moved and fought.
See – via Puppet Building, thanks Andrew!
Neatorama reader Laura McDougall sent us this funny photo of a convenience store outside of the Village Vacances Valcatier in Quebec that also serves food. The "ass" is short for "assiette" which means "plate" or "assortment plate". Thanks Laura!
Larry Peterman’s candy shop Hotlix in Pismo Beach has been making yummy (and crunchy) treats for over 20 years. Their lollipops are also nutritious but a little gross … because they have worms and insects embedded in ‘em.
Here’s a neat documentary from National Geographic about etymophagy entomophagy, the art of eating bugs: Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – Thanks Christophe!
If cricket lollipop is too much for you, then perhaps this is more suitable: maple-bacon lollipops ("The least kosher lollipop in the history of candy") by Lollyphile:
While we admit that it’s pretty far from the norm (it’s definitely not kosher!), once you make that initial leap of faith and try it out, we’re positive that you’ll love it. The salty chunks of bacon make a delicious and unique counterpoint to the subtle sweetness of the maple, and oh, yeah- you’ll be eating an oh-my-god bacon lollipop!
A perfect gift for the sweet-toothed pork aficianado in your life.
Mmmm… bacon. Is there anything it can’t do? Link – Thanks Jason!
By day, Lee Hadwin is a nurse from north Wales, UK and by night he is an artist. That’s not so unusual, but here’s where Lee is different:
… but when he wakes up, he says he has no memory of having created them.
Hadwin has been walking in his sleep since he was four, but it was only when he stayed over at a friend’s house, aged 16, that he first began to draw in his sleep. "The next morning, my friend’s mother found drawings all over the walls in the kitchen," he says. "But we had been drinking that night, so we put it down to that." (Source)
Gallery of Lee’s sleep-walking art | Video of Lee sleepin’ and drawin’ at Cabinet of Wonders (kind of hard to see b/c it’s dark) – Thanks Emperor!
Stay on the straigtht and narrow on this bike path, mmkay? (Supposedly it’s a joke bike path in the Netherlands, where they’re actually very friendly to bicyclists…) – via reddit, thanks Lee!
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Master sushi chef Ken Kawasumi (author of the sushi bible "The Encyclopedia of Sushi Rolls") created a replica of Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers made entirely of sushi!
Link – via Spluch, thanks Geekazoid!
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Artist Jeremiah Palecek of Net Surrealism, whom we’ve featured on Neatorama before, wrote to us about his new project: painting Internet memes!
This one is the famous Dramatic Prairie Dog. He’s also got the diet coke with mentos, Tom
Cruise’s scientology video and the techno viking.
Link – Thanks Jeremiah!
Regina Rickert of At Close Range Photography sent us this amazing picture of an albino alligator named King Louie just hangin’ at the Louisville Zoo:
King Louie is a six foot long white alligator. I took this photo of him at the Louisville Zoo this summer. He is an albino American alligator. According to the zoo’s website, he doesn’t move very often or very far. This proved to be true the day I visited him. He never moved once. =)
Link – Thanks Regina!
Sean Ragan created a visual map of his favorite choose-your-own-adventure book, The Mystery of Chimney Rock by Edward Packard (1979). In this directed graph, each page is a node and the arrows are page choices.
Link – Thanks Sean!
"Michael Jackson was a poor black boy who grew up to be a rich white woman."
– Molly Ivins, American newspaper columnist and author
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This list of the best zombies includes popular zombies from movies and video games, plus one from a music video (you can guess that one), and one from real life! Warning: some images may be disturbing. Link -via Digg
Some animals use a bad smell for defense; others find it attractive in each other. Environmental Graffiti has seven of the most vile. Believe it or not, the skunk came in at only #3!
There are 11 species of skunk, two in Asia and nine in the Americas. All of them have the ability to spray a foul smelling chemical when threatened. The famous skunk spray is a mix of sulphuric chemicals, and skunks can spray accurately up to 15 feet. The stench is so powerful the skunk almost every animal leaves it alone, the sole exception being the Great Horned Owl which has almost no sense of smell.
Link -via J-Walk Blog
(image credit: Qmnonic)
Jazz pianist Yosuke Yamashita, 66, plays a burning piano on the beach in Shiga, Ishikawa Prefecture. He was showing his appreciation for his old piano that he no longer uses. — Japan Today
Hooray! Today’s Neatorama and Hobotopia Caption Monkey is a special one: You get to caption what Pip and Meowlin Q. Kitteh are saying in this Laugh-Out-Loud Cats drawing by Adam "Ape Lad" Koford.
Funniest caption will win the original drawing, with caption inked in. Game rules: place your caption in the comment section. One caption per comment, but you can enter as many as ou can think of. You can also vote for your favorite caption, just not your own (duh!)
Need an inspiration? Check out more of Adam’s excellent work on his blog and Flickr pool. Good luck!
Update 3/13/08: Adam has picked teh winnarz!
Congrats to v.dog #179 who won the original drawing!
Kevin Connolly was born without legs. It was a ‘sporadic birth defect’. No event, chemical, accident or experiment caused the defect. It was just a twist of fate. But that has never stopped the average observer from drawing their own conclusions and creating scenarios to explain what they cannot comprehend while in the vicinity of Kevin.
During his travels, he has been mistaken for a Thalidomide victim, a beggar, a holy man, a magician and the victim of a shark attack. In reality he is a remarkable young man from Montana who never let what others would perceive as a handicap limit his ambitions.
He studies film and photography at Montana State University and, while perched upon the skateboard he uses for mobility, he has taken more than 32,000 photos of the stares he attracts during his travels across the world – 15 countries at last count.
“I was just kind of sick of being stared at, and I was looking back with my lens.”
Many of his photos are displayed on his Internet site, therollingexhibition.com. The photos are candid and from Kevin’s field of vision. The photos are a compelling and often humorous essay on human nature in different cultures. One can look at the faces of the photo subjects and not only see their confusion, but also their ease following their subsequent fanciful interpretations of who Connolly is, and why.
Kevin currently lives in Bozeman, Montana as a photographer and professional skier.
Other well-traveled limbless wonders include Johnny Eck, Dick Hilburn, Mademoiselle Gabrielle and Prince Randian.
via CSMonitor.
www.therollingexhibition.com
HOLY MOTHER OF GOD! This 6-month-old baby, born at normal weight in Tehran, Iran, weighs 20 kg (44 lb). Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] (does anyone know what they were saying?)
"Who invented the brush they put next to the toilet? That thing hurts!"
– Andy Andrews, author
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New Zealand artist Lisa Black does a little taxidermy work – but she doesn’t do just any stuffed (I suppose professional taxidermists prefer the term"mounted") animal … they’re borgs!
See her steampunk baby crocodile, duckling, ferret and of course the fawn above here: Link – via porphyre
Previously on Neatorama: Gruesome Taxidermy by Sarina Brewer | Fiendish Curiosities | Unusual Taxidermy of Dr. Seuss
When he was growing up, Kirk Demarais of Secret Fun Blog always had the funnest birthday cakes. His mom is quite talented when it comes to baking and decorating cakes.
Kirk shares with the world the fantastic cake his mom made for the first 14 birthdays he had. I quite like the low-key, yet so deliciously retro (well, now – I suppose at the time it was pretty modern) Asteroids birthday cake above.
In his blog, Rex Parker solves and dissects the New York Times crossword puzzle.
In fact, he’s a little obsessed with this crossword puzzly thingy (every day he solves the New York Times, New York Sun, La Times, CrosSynergy, Newsday, Universal, and USA Today puzzles. That’s not all, there are other special puzzles that he solves on a daily basis – those are just the ones he solves regularly)
I can’t even solve Monday’s NYT puzzle. I’m a weakling.
Link – via Pop Culture Junk Mail
In case the original 7 deadly sins aren’t enough for you, the Vatican has come up with seven additional "social" sins to be wary of:
The seven social sins are:
1. “Bioethical’ violations such as birth control
2. “Morally dubious” experiments such as stem cell research
3. Drug abuse
4. Polluting the environment
5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor
6. Excessive wealth
7. Creating poverty
While we’re on the subject, Harvard psychology professor Daniel L. Schacter has classified memory’s failings into the 7 sins of memory: transience, absent-mindedness, blocking, misattribution, suggestibility, bias and persistence.
PsyBlog has a neat (and long) dissection of these various "sins," some which I know I commit all the time (absent-mindedness, I’m talking to you!):
"Memory itself is an internal rumour." –George Santayana
The word rumour captures an aspect of memory perfectly. When we delve backwards, moments never return in their original clarity; they return as rumours of the original event. Faces have been switched, names deleted, words edited – sometimes it’s as though we weren’t even there.
Psychologists have found that right from the moment an event occurs, is laid down in memory (or not), to the moment we try to retrieve it (or can’t), our minds are fallible. Harvard psychologist Professor Daniel L. Schacter has classified memory’s slips, ambiguities and downright lies into the ‘seven sins of memory’: transience, absent-mindedness, blocking, misattribution, suggestibility, bias and persistence (Schacter, 1999).
But despite these ‘sins’, we still get by. Memory is what makes us who we are. Practically it enables us to function in everyday life. Without it we would be lost, like those with severe amnesia who can’t remember who they are or achieve even the simplest of tasks. So how can memory’s fallibility be reconciled with its abilities?
Link – via Mind Hacks
