A precision military drill team impresses the crowd at a parade in Belarus. Well done! -via Buzzfeed
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Photographer Fabian Oefner creates lovely art by mixing water color paint with ferrofluids, and then subjecting it to a magnetic field. See various close-up views of the artwork in Oefner's project called Millefiori and a "making-of" video at his site. Link -via The Daily What Geek
Rob Manual wrote a silly song about his habit of smashing his phone, although he admits it's a form of killing the messenger. Contains some rude British slang -I think. Link
The winner in Shedblog's annual Shed of the Year competition is Wood Henge, a shed owned by John Plumridge of Shrewsbury, England. It started out as a simple garden pagoda, but after much steady work, is now a pub for family and friends!
John Plumridge, “When I was told I’d won the competition, I was absolutely thrilled. Normally I’m a very chatty and jovial person but I did find myself lost for words and I must confess to having “shed” a tear. I’ve been working on “Woodhenge” for around four years now and have enjoyed every minute of it. I can’t even hazard a guess at the cost involved but it’s a great venue for our family and friends to party in and the good thing is we haven’t got too far to get home.”
Besides the title, Plumridge wins £1000 cash and products from the contest's sponsor. National Shed Week runs through July 8. Link -via b3ta
See also: Last year's winner.
Indoor centipedes (Scutigera Coleoptrata) look huge and freaky and they like to hang around your bathroom! But according to this catchy little song, they are just looking for a place to stay. -via Geekosystem
Ernest Hemingway wasn't at all sure how to end his novel A Farewell to Arms. In fact, he wrote dozens of alternate endings that will all be included in a new edition of the 1929 novel.
If you've never read the novel, the linked article contains spoilers. Link -via Time NewsFeed
They have been preserved in the Ernest Hemingway Collection at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston since 1979, where Seán Hemingway studied them carefully. (Bernard S. Oldsey, a Hemingway scholar, listed 41 endings in his book “Hemingway’s Hidden Craft,” but Seán Hemingway found 47 variations in manuscripts preserved at the Kennedy Library.)
The alternate endings are labeled and gathered in an appendix in the new edition, a 330-page book whose cover bears the novel’s original artwork, an illustration of a reclining man and woman, both topless.
For close readers of Hemingway the endings are a fascinating glimpse into how the novel could have concluded on a different note, sometimes more blunt and sometimes more optimistic. And since modern authors tend to produce their work on computers, the new edition also serves as an artifact of a bygone craft, with handwritten notes and long passages crossed out, giving readers a sense of an author’s process. (When asked in the 1958 Paris Review interview with George Plimpton what had stumped him, Hemingway said, “Getting the words right.”)
If you've never read the novel, the linked article contains spoilers. Link -via Time NewsFeed
Someone had to do it sooner or later. They gave light sabers to the characters in Game of Thrones! -via The Daily What Geek
Are you bothered by pesky raccoons? The answer to your problem comes in a handy bottle from Hannah Montana! -via The Daily What
If you want to paint a saint, it’s best to hire a sinner.
Artist: Caravaggio
Sins: murder; punching a monk in the gut
Religious art in the late 16th century had become pretty standard stuff, full of beautiful Madonnas, chubby cherubs, and handsome saints. But Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio changed all that by painting what he knew best —debauchery.
After moving to Rome in the late 1580s, Caravaggio began rendering baroque Biblical scenes with remarkable realism. In the case of “The Calling of St. Matthew,” for example (pictured), he portrayed the apostle in a dirty Roman tavern surrounded by downtrodden patrons. According to police records, Caravaggio spent plenty of time in these Roman taverns himself, drinking, brawling, and once throwing a plate of hot artichokes into a waiter’s face.
Church officials put up with Caravaggio’s wild behavior in exchange for his amazing work—until he crossed the line to murder. In 1606, the hot-tempered artist killed a Roman thug named Ranuccio Tomassoni in a fight following their tennis match. Recent research suggests the tennis game was actually a kind of duel over a woman, and that Tomassoni bled to death after Caravaggio tried to castrate his enemy on the court. The artist would have gotten into serious trouble, but wealthy patrons smuggled him out of town.
Caravaggio wound up in Naples, where he thrived as an artist for several years. Then he shocked everyone by leaving to join the Knights of Malta, an order of elite warrior monks famed for their religious devotion. Less than four months after taking his vows, however, Caravaggio’s temper got the better of him again, and he wounded a fellow monk in a quarrel. Once more, his friends smuggled him back to Naples.
Oddly, the Church never gave up on Caravaggio, and in 1610, friends in Rome sent word that a pardon was in the works. Caravaggio headed north, but he caught a fever and died on July 18, at age 38. He left behind a bizarre artistic legacy: No fewer than 12 of his paintings show figures being beheaded—a reflection, perhaps, of his own violent life.
Artist: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Sins: debauchery; giving the Virgin Mary an “awkward phase”
Dante Gabriel Rossetti had two contradictory goals in life. One was to indulge his hedonistic impulses to such an extent that his fellow Victorians would faint. The other was to revitalize Christian art. Rossetti achieved the first goal by drinking heavily, taking several lovers, throwing the best parties in town, and filling his ramshackle house with exotic pets such as kangaroos, armadillos, and wombats.
The second goal proved trickier for a man who’d never made it to church. In paintings such as 1850’s “Ecce Ancilla Domini” (“The Annunciation,” pictured), Rossetti set out to realistically depict a young woman’s encounter with the divine. He painted the Virgin Mary as a gawky teenager, recoiling in terror from an angel. The portrait horrified devout Christians, and the work was denounced as blasphemous in sermons and editorials.
The criticism so hurt Rossetti that he never exhibited publicly again. But his painting of the gangly Mary ultimately freed him. Without the pressure of public life, Rossetti was able to do and paint what he wanted. He picked up an addiction to sleeping pills, had an affair with his best friend’s wife, and created some of the most fascinating religious works in history, including “The Passover of the Holy Family,” “The Seed of David,” and “Mary Magdalene.”
Artist: Salvador Dali
Sins: orgies; possibly hoodwinking the Pope
Continue reading
Artist: Caravaggio
Sins: murder; punching a monk in the gut
Religious art in the late 16th century had become pretty standard stuff, full of beautiful Madonnas, chubby cherubs, and handsome saints. But Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio changed all that by painting what he knew best —debauchery.
After moving to Rome in the late 1580s, Caravaggio began rendering baroque Biblical scenes with remarkable realism. In the case of “The Calling of St. Matthew,” for example (pictured), he portrayed the apostle in a dirty Roman tavern surrounded by downtrodden patrons. According to police records, Caravaggio spent plenty of time in these Roman taverns himself, drinking, brawling, and once throwing a plate of hot artichokes into a waiter’s face.
Church officials put up with Caravaggio’s wild behavior in exchange for his amazing work—until he crossed the line to murder. In 1606, the hot-tempered artist killed a Roman thug named Ranuccio Tomassoni in a fight following their tennis match. Recent research suggests the tennis game was actually a kind of duel over a woman, and that Tomassoni bled to death after Caravaggio tried to castrate his enemy on the court. The artist would have gotten into serious trouble, but wealthy patrons smuggled him out of town.
Caravaggio wound up in Naples, where he thrived as an artist for several years. Then he shocked everyone by leaving to join the Knights of Malta, an order of elite warrior monks famed for their religious devotion. Less than four months after taking his vows, however, Caravaggio’s temper got the better of him again, and he wounded a fellow monk in a quarrel. Once more, his friends smuggled him back to Naples.
Oddly, the Church never gave up on Caravaggio, and in 1610, friends in Rome sent word that a pardon was in the works. Caravaggio headed north, but he caught a fever and died on July 18, at age 38. He left behind a bizarre artistic legacy: No fewer than 12 of his paintings show figures being beheaded—a reflection, perhaps, of his own violent life.
Artist: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Sins: debauchery; giving the Virgin Mary an “awkward phase”
Dante Gabriel Rossetti had two contradictory goals in life. One was to indulge his hedonistic impulses to such an extent that his fellow Victorians would faint. The other was to revitalize Christian art. Rossetti achieved the first goal by drinking heavily, taking several lovers, throwing the best parties in town, and filling his ramshackle house with exotic pets such as kangaroos, armadillos, and wombats.
The second goal proved trickier for a man who’d never made it to church. In paintings such as 1850’s “Ecce Ancilla Domini” (“The Annunciation,” pictured), Rossetti set out to realistically depict a young woman’s encounter with the divine. He painted the Virgin Mary as a gawky teenager, recoiling in terror from an angel. The portrait horrified devout Christians, and the work was denounced as blasphemous in sermons and editorials.
The criticism so hurt Rossetti that he never exhibited publicly again. But his painting of the gangly Mary ultimately freed him. Without the pressure of public life, Rossetti was able to do and paint what he wanted. He picked up an addiction to sleeping pills, had an affair with his best friend’s wife, and created some of the most fascinating religious works in history, including “The Passover of the Holy Family,” “The Seed of David,” and “Mary Magdalene.”
Artist: Salvador Dali
Sins: orgies; possibly hoodwinking the Pope
Disney's new movie Oz the Great and Powerful is a prequel to the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. It follows the story of how the wizard came to be in the land of Oz.
When Oscar Diggs (played by James Franco), a small-time circus magician with few ethics, is whisked away from dusty Kansas to the vibrant Land of Oz, he thinks he’s hit the jackpot with fame and fortune being his for the taking. But unfortunately for Oscar, his luck is about to run out – He unwittingly runs into three witches, Theodora (Mila Kunis), Evanora (Rachel Weisz), and Glinda (Michelle Williams), who are not convinced he is the great wizard everyone’s been expecting.
The film is scheduled to hit theaters on March 8, 2013. Link -via Laughing Squid
Sandra Krautwaschl, of Graz, Austria, was astonished by the amount of plastic trash on the beaches of Croatia, where recycling is not done on the scale of her native country. She wondered what it would be like to not have all that plastic in her family's daily life.
The Krautwaschl-Rabensteiners decided to try and live a normal life without plastic, for a short period of time, to see if it could be done. Only what started as a month-long experiment eventually turned into a way of life. The first thing they did was try to eliminate all plastic objects from their home, in Eisbach. The front cover of Sandra’s book is a photo of her family surrounded by all their plastic possessions in front of their house. It says a lot about how important a role plastic has in our everyday lives. Next, they had to find alternatives, starting with wooden-handle toothbrushes, metal milk canisters, and food packaged in metal, paper or glass. They admit this radical change was difficult at first, and required ample research, but it also altered their entire shopping philosophy, in that they learned to stop and think if they really needed a product before buying it.
Read about how they did it at Oddity Central. Link -via Nag on the Lake
(Image credit: Sandra Krautwaschl)
The Big Bay Boom fireworks display in San Diego was supposed to be a 20-minute patriotic display. However, all the fireworks in three different barges in the bay went off prematurely at the same time, for an explosive display lasting almost a half-minute.
Link -via Buzzfeed
Coast Guard officials said it appeared that entire battery of explosives on three of the four launch barges was launched at the same time, possibly due to a "premature ignition."
"It looked like the finale ... you know, right at the end they shoot off everything." said Rich Dann, a civilian Coast Guard employee at the San Diego station.
Port officials said on the agency's Twitter page that they "sincerely apologize for the technical glitch that affected Big Bay Boom. Event producers are currently investigating the cause."
Link -via Buzzfeed
A typhoon wrecked the squirrel enclosure of the Inokashira Park Zoo in Tokyo last week, resulting in the escape of 30 squirrels. Attempts to recover the animals have been quite successful; at one count, 38 squirrels have been "recaptured."
Link
(Image credit: Flickr user su neko)
So why the mysterious additional squirrels? Zoo officials have come up with a number of explanations. According to Japan Today, zoo official and animal biology specialist Hioshi Mashima said on Friday, “More than 40 squirrels must have gotten away in the first place. There are no wild squirrels inhabiting this area. That is for sure.” Mashima said the zoo could not be precise on the exact number of squirrels it currently has in it possession “because they are difficult to catch, and they keep reproducing.”
But another zoo official, Eri Tsushima, told the Japan Times on Friday that animal handlers may have actually swept up wild squirrels from outside the zoo’s walls, noting that the zoo implants a microchip in each one of its squirrels and that each animal taken into captivity would be checked for the microchip.
Meanwhile, the zoo continues to get calls about runaway squirrels at large in Tokyo.
Link
(Image credit: Flickr user su neko)
Every full moon has a name, and often two or three names. The full moons are named by month, and again by where it falls in the season, and the second full moon in a month is a "blue moon." There are also special cases, like the "super moon" we saw last month. These names came about by common usage, and are listed and explained at EarthSky. Link -via the Presurfer
(Image credit: Flickr user Ava Verino)
The Welcome Home blog put together a compilation of recent military homecomings. The music is a bit overwhelming, but the families will make you smile. Don't miss the two Captain Americas and the Marine who showed up at his sister's graduation. And would you please stop cutting those onions in here? -via The Daily What
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