Sad news for snackers: Arch West, creator of Doritos, passed away last week. He was 97. West, of Dallas, Texas,  is credited with creating the iconic snack chip after a family trip to San Diego in 1961. The inventor of the super-cheesy tortilla chips will get a memorable nod for his junk-food innovation, though:

According to West's daughter, Jana Hacker of Allen, Texas, her father was a Frito-Lay marketing executive when he pitched the idea for Doritos after seeing fried tortilla chips in San Diego.

Hacker said the pitch received only a lukewarm response, but that market research supporting West's hunch eventually put the chips on store shelves.

A graveside service is planned for 10:30 a.m. Oct. 1 at Restland Memorial Park in Dallas.  Hacker told The Dallas Morning News that before putting dirt over her father's urn, they planned to toss in a few Doritos.

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We've seen plenty of minimalist movie posters, but this might be the first time we've come across art like this for music. Swedish designer Viktor Hertz, whose honest logos made the rounds a while back, uses simple pictography to illustrate the title of songs. (My favorite is "Life is a Rollercoaster") Check out more in his Flickr stream. Link | via Flavorwire

So maybe "mercury in the Arctic" doesn't make you think of the ghost of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury hovering around an igloo. But someone over at F*ck Yeah Headlines has a weird sense of humor, and turns normal-seeming article titles into these silly cartoons. There are lots more (this is my favorite) over on Tumbler. Link | via Flavorwire

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[caption id="attachment_52546" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Pattern Paper Stilletos by Jennifer Collier"][/caption]

Jennifer Collier of Unit Twelve uses found and recycled papers--patterns, maps, newspapers--to create everyday objects like shoes and cameras. Rather than choosing an item to sculpt then scrounging up the paper for it, Collier works the other way around: "I tend to find items then investigate a way in which they can be reused and transformed." The results are interesting and a bit whimsical. You can check out more of her work on Laughing Squid, or see it at the Origin Contemporary Craft Fair Sep 22-28. Link

Back in 2008, Alex reported on Lee Hadwin, an artist who only draws in his sleep. Hadwin's had a bit of success since then, selling pieces for up to "six figures" and even one to The Donald himself.

While there are countless documented cases of sleep-walking, this is the first known case of sleep-drawing. Hadwin got started at age 4, when he scribbled on walls and furniture. Now some of his pieces fetch six-figure prices. Still, the North Wales native doesn't want to make art his career. He never studied art, and is lousy at drawing when awake. "Art has never interested me at all," says Hadwin, as quoted by the BBC. But just in case, he now prepares by leaving a sketchpad, brushes, and other art supplies in his bedroom.

Hadwin says that an evening of drinking can often trigger an episode of sleep-drawing. His condition leaves experts baffled: Doctors at the Edinburgh Sleep Center can't even determine what stage of sleep Hadwin is in when his creative impulses kick in. Whatever is happening here, says Whitchurch Arts, it's working. And — who knows — there could be more sleep-drawing prodigies out there. "Perhaps put out a piece of paper and pencil on the bedside table tonight to find out."

Watch Hadwin in action in this video on The Week. Link

Talk about a tough audience. Granted, it can be hard to take a photo that everyone is happy with, but recently a Long Beach newspaper photographer was arrested for taking pictures of "no aesthetic value." Ouch.

Long Beach, Calif., police arrested a man for taking a photograph of "no aesthetic value." Sander Wolff, who takes photos for a local newspaper, was detained after snapping shots of an oil refinery. Police say photography is considered "suspicious activity" if officers determine that it isn’t "regular tourist behavior."

Maybe he caught the oil refinery's bad side? Link

Photo: CC BY: Joe Shlabotnik

We've featured a lot of burnt toast art here on Neatorama, and more than a few posts about The Beatles--but now the twain shall meet, in mixed media artist Henry Hargreaves' series, Toasted, large-scale portraits made entirely of bread. See the rest of the fearsome foursome in all their crunchy, buttery glory on Flavorwire. Link

Joseph Tame has only been an Apple product-owner for five years (since he purchased a 5th gen iPod Classic) but he's happily professed his love of the company's tech since. Tame claims that "[h]aving an iPhone really has changed [his] life," and as a tribute to Steve Jobs after the recent news of his resignation, Tame used his iPhone's Runkeeper app to record his 21km logo-shaped marathon through the streets of Tokyo. To read more about the tribute and see other works of GPS art, check out Tame's Art of Running. Link

No one's worse at living a normal life than the people in infomercials, as evidenced by this supercut of "you're doing it wrong" moments from product ads. Seriously, how hard is cling wrap, really? And unless you're trying, it's hard to imagine a situation in which a cracked egg might land right in the burner plate.

via pleated-jeans

It looks like a 'shopped-up version of your average garden rose, but it's not: that's the Rainbow Rose, and you can make them yourself using cut flowers and some heavily tinted water. And if you aren't a rose fan, you can use the same technique for cut Chrysanthemum and Hydrangea as well. http://www.pickchur.com/2010/05/how-to-grow-a-rainbow-rose-naturally/ | via Mental_floss

To be 115 when the best life expectancy rates in history hover around 78 (for a person born in 2009!) is no small feat. Besse Cooper, currently the world's oldest person, just celebrated her 115th birthday in Georgia state. It was a smallish affair, with about 15-20 friends and family.

Her daughter-in-law Edith Cooper said the group gathered at a Monroe nursing home, where Besse Cooper enjoyed two small slivers of her birthday cake and nodded with approval as musician Mike Cronic sang "Tennessee Waltz."

Cooper was born in Tennessee and moved to Georgia during World War I to find work as a teacher. She has 12 grandchildren and more than a dozen great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. Her husband, Luther, died in 1963.

Cooper was declared the world's oldest in January. In May, Guinness learned that Maria Gomes Valentin of Brazil was 48 days older. Valentin died June 21.

Link|Image: AP Photo/David Goldman

Space travel doesn't yet allow for planet-hopping, so to see a place that is truly alien-looking should be on any traveler's bucket list. Personally, I suggest heading to Bolivia, where you'll find Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat on Earth. Twelve-thousand square kilometers of the smoothest, most reflective land on the planet, rich in gypsum, lithium and halite--and when it rains, the entire plain mirrors the sky. What's not to love about that? Check out the beautiful photo essay on Kuriositas. Link

Image: Las fotos Claras

Behind-the-scenes footage of anything is usually interesting (if you're interested in that sort of thing), but these screen tests from classic movies are more fun than most. Above, a probably-intoxicated Judy Garland testing for the role of Helen Lawson in Valley of the Dolls. She won the role, but was replaced by Susan Hayward after coming to the set drunk. Check out nine more on Flavorwire. Link

There are lots of crazy products for the over-the-top pet owner, but one of the craziest (and saddest) has to be the new trend of pet plastic surgery. Droopy eyes and wrinkly coats are character attributes for most people owned by a dog, and your average family pet-owner wouldn't dream of putting Bowser under the knife without a health reason to do so. Sure, sometimes a pet needs surgery to repair a medical condition, but the big money isn't in procedures to keep your dog healthy:

Botox for wrinkles, tummy tucks, nose jobs, braces, and eyelid lifts, which are common for breeds like the bloodhound and bulldog. There are also implants such as "Neuticles" — bean-shaped silicone implants to replace the testicles of neutered dogs. They have little to no health benefit for the dog, and vets aren't too keen on the procedure. Still, more than 425,000 pets around the world now sport such implants.

Proponents of the cosmetic pet surgeries say they allow pets to lead  "healthier and more active lives." Personally, I find the trend as cruel as suggesting your kid get a tummy tuck, but you can decide for yourself. There's more from The Week: Link

A person would be hard-pressed to argue that the Beatles didn't revolutionize music; even the youngest of today's kids has heard a song by or inspired by the band. (My six-year-old, for her part, is a fan of the movie Across the Universe and her Kindergarten class performed "Yellow Submarine" at last year's graduation.) But people may not realize that John, Paul, George and Ringo also had a part in bringing animation to the foreground of innovation with the making of their feature-length film, Yellow Submarine.

More than a decade before Pixar, the film was not only a technical feat of animation execution but also a seminal work in bringing more attention to animation as a serious art form, both for audiences and for creators.

It's worth watching even if you're not a Beatles fan for the history and great one-offs from the narrator, who calls Yellow Submarine "a sort of open-end Rorschach filled with Joycean puns." Check out the documentary on Brain Pickings. Link