Face it

James Green’s mask exhibit

Picture of the Day

This is some of the more than 50 masks based on the face of Elephant Man John Merrick made by British artist James Green and exhibited at the Exchange gallery.

John Merrick, The Elephant Man

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Arthur C. Clarke, Cephalopodcaster

Enjoy this fine, fine television programming from the golden days of the Seventies: so much to mock, so much to adore. Charlie’s Angels. Watergate. Jethro Tull. Fat Ties. Fat Lapels. Fat Elvis.

Arthur C. Clarke.

Chariots of the Gods.

Sea Monsters!

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the Animatus Collection: life, death, and Acme

Behold, ye, the poignant, yet magnificent, splendor of Korean sculptor Hyungkoo Lee‘s soul-chillingly beautiful Animatus Collection.

From the ethereal elegance of the Geococcyx Animatus

Geococcyx Animatus

To the cunning, resolute malevolence of the Canis Latrans Animatus

Canis Latrans Animatus

This is a collection destined to haunt your nightmares, and to distort and pervert your formerly peaceful daylight hours with waking dreams of senseless violence, of constant pointless striving, of meaningless ambition thwarted, always thwarted, and, most of all, the gaping, inarticulate silence of the void.

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Trilogy of Christmas

Oh, why did I not find this heartwarming seasonal slideshow in time for Christmas last year? Alas, it is too late to make it part of my past traditions, but there’s no reason not to post it now and make viewing it a yearly thing from this point forward. It really sets the perfect tone for the celebration of The Saviour‘s glorious birth, with its joyous celebration of family life, Charlie Brown, seasonally appropriate decorating schemes, and steak knives.

A little background:

Amelia:
(Written by Richard Matheson, based on his short story Prey)

Amelia is a single working woman who lives in a high rise in the big city. She has just arrived home for the day with a gift for a man she’s been seeing…it’s a genuine Zuni hunting fetish doll.

Packaged with the doll is a scroll which reads “he who kills…he is a deadly hunter.” He who kills…he is a deadly hunter…

Naturally, the moral leaning of one’s Zuni fetish doll is an important factor in that whole sleeping-peacefully-at-night-versus-lying-awake-screaming thang, and we at the ol’ raincoaster blog have located a handy-dandy test to determine the evil-ality of your ventriloquist dummy once and for all. Presumably, like a virus scanner that detects attacks on IE but ALSO on email, it will also determine the malevolentosity of your Zuni Fetish or Tiki doll as well. At least, we’ve found no reports to the contrary.

From the Tiki Central Forums:

1.Make a large, roaring fire.

2.Within earshot of the doll say “Well, I think it’s about time I get rid of this ventriloquist doll … it’s not doing me any good no more”.

3.Pick up the doll and say “I think this will burn up real good in the fire”

4.Walk towards the fire.

5.Make like you’re going to throw the doll into the fire on the count of 3.

At this point, if your doll is evil, you’ll feel a bite on your arm, or a punch, or some other violent reaction. The doll will try to get out of your grasp, and, if successful, will run away, most likely with an evil cackle out of it’s smiling mouth. Be careful … he’s not fleeing from you; he’s only looking for a place to hide in order to attack you later.

If nothing happens, your doll is probably not evil. You now have 2 choices: Throw it into the fire anyway, or put it away. Warning: If you do not throw the doll in the fire, it is suggested that you take a knife with you to bed. It’s possible the doll IS evil but knew you were testing it, and is waiting for you to go to sleep before attempting to strangle you.

~Hanford

Tiki Socialite purple jade, however, raises a disturbing point.

This is a moot argument…everyone knows all ventriloquist’s dummies are evil, as are their cousins, clowns.

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The Spiders from … Antarctica!

Of the many and varied delightful creatures which enliven the drear, dark depths, there are perhaps more mysteries than certainties. From time to time a trawler will snag something huge, something strange, something unspeakable; briefly it surfaces on Ananova or Reuters, only to be tossed back into the void, too disturbing for true contemplation.

We live on a placid isle of ignorance, amidst black seas of chaos,
and it is not meant that we should voyage far
.

Tunicates on the ocean floor

Giant sea creatures, including sea spiders the size of dinner plates and
jellyfish with six-metre long tentacles, have been found by Australian scientists in the deep waters around Antarctica.

Huge worms and giant crustaceans have been filmed during an expedition which trawled the floor of the Southern Ocean almost a mile below the surface. Many of the animals could not be identified and are to be sent to labs, possibly to be classed as newly discovered species…

So it is with these strange creatures recently spotted in the subsurface valley depths of the great Antarctic Mountains of Madness. Where shoggoths breed, man was never meant to tread. I wouldn’t want to be this videographer once they find out their secrets have been exposed. Philipa passed the footage along to me, and I put it out to the public as a way of saying, “Look. See what wonders, what horrific marvels our world contains. These living anomalies share our planet, dwelling beneath the deceptively peaceful surface of the Antarctic Ocean, crawling and thrashing, killing and breeding all unsuspected in the Stygian, turbid void beneath us…”

We live in Fortean times indeed.

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