Ah, the wonders of the Free Market!

Yes, I know the free market is just like Darwinism, in that the weak and the fatally flawed quickly die out to be replaced by the stronger, but really....  Who thought this might be a good idea?

Ah, what a pretty fl.... OHMYGOD!!!

This could sort of be looked upon as a metaphor for America right now, I guess.  But I wouldn't want to be preachy or anything.

More pretty cool public chalk art.

It just seems like a lot of work for something that won't last very long. But they are cool. Click on the photo for a bigger version.

Natural ice sculptures.

From National Geographic, natch.

Exceptionally cool crop circles in the snow.

I always enjoy artist endeavors that are outside the norm but still very artistic. Here are some pretty fantastic designs drawn in the snow by Simon Beck.

From Yahoo.

Are aliens giving up cornfields for cold, mountain air?

Nope. Turns out these incredibly awesome snow designs are the work of decidedly human artist Simon Beck, who takes the concept of a crop circle to new heights by strapping on a pair snowshoes and getting to work.

"They are made by a kind of reverse orienteering," he explains on his Yahoo! Groups page. "The main lines and points are surveyed using a sighting compass (as used for surveying orienteering maps), with distance either by pace counting or string."

It can take Beck hours of trudging around in the snow to create his masterpieces, which can run the size of a soccer field. Why go to the trouble?

"The main reason for making them was because I can no longer run properly due to problems with my feet, so plodding about on level snow is the least painful way of getting exercise," he says. "Gradually the reason has become photographing them, and I am considering buying a better camera."

It would have never, ever occurred to me to actually do something like this....

See more of his work/trudging around in the snow on his facebook page here.

Why no... No, I didn't.

Or wait.... Maybe I did. I can't remember.

From Found Shit.

Ummm.... OK, if you say so.

I am assuming this has something to do with the presidential aspirations of Tim Pawlenty...

OK. this is a real story title and picture in the NY Times.

Aside From the Vampires, Lincoln Film Seeks Accuracy


Ahh....... I'm willing to bet that is the VERY FIRST time that particular sentence has ever been constructed in the history of mankind.

Well, why not? That's Hollywood for you. There isn't any story you could possible come up with that can't be enhanced with vampires. Or zombies, of course. But vampires will probably work best here. Hot, young, sultry, terribly self-indulgent vampires.

Lest you think I jest, here is the NYT link.

For no particular reason, here's a cat that looks like Lenin.

I'll have to find my doggie Trotsky photo. I have it here somewhere.

What's that old saying about any landing you walk away from is a good landing?

Yeah, that's about airplanes, not gliders, but even so, I am not sure I would totally buy into that.







This guy was apparently very lucky to walk away from this with only a few cracked/broken ribs. Ow.

DISCLAIMER: As with a number of photos that I post here, I do not know the original source of these. It appears they are under copyright. If anyone can give me a source, I will gladly give attribution, or remove them if someone really objects. My approach is that it is O.K. to post photos such as this if you give proper attribution and a link to the person's own web page. A commercial, of sorts, and an invitation to go visit the home page of the source of the material. Just covering my butt, in other words.

Todd Schorr, surrealist and observer of pop culture.

I saw an exhibit of Mr. Schorr's paintings in San Jose, California in 2009. It was pretty trippy, indeed. Being a film buff, and a 1950's bad sci-fi film buff at that, I found that some of his works just rang a bell with me. I love the one based around King Kong. You can see, if you look, Magilla Gorilla, the big metal Kong robot from that Japanese Toho release, "King Kong Escapes", and the artist himself as a little boy in front of a black and white television screen, watching King Kong. Click on the photos and get a larger version, and then go look at the detailed images in each of these paintings. There is a lot of stuff there. Even better, go visit his home page here.

Native American Paper Sculptures

Sculptures Designed and Made by Allen & Patty Eckman. Please visit their home page here.

















These stunningly detailed sculptures may only be made from paper – but they are being snapped up by art fans for tens of thousands of pounds. The intricate creations depict Native American scenes and took up to 11 months to make using a specially formulated paper.

Husband and wife team Allen and Patty Eckman put paper pulp into clay moulds and pressurize it to remove the water. The hard, lightweight pieces are then removed and the couple painstakingly add detailed finishing’s with a wide range of tools.

Allen said: "We create Indians partly because my great, great grandmother was a Cherokee and my family on both sides admire the native Americans... I work on the men and animals and Patty does the women and children" explains Allen. "I enjoy most doing the detail. The paper really lends itself to unlimited detail. I'm really interested in the Indians' material, physical and spiritual culture and that whole period of our nation's history I find fascinating. From the western expansion, through the Civil War and beyond is of great interest to me."

Allen explained their technique: "It should not be confused with papier mache. The two mediums are completely different. I call what we do 'cast paper sculpture. Some of them we create are life-size and some we scale down to 1/6 life-size. These sculptures are posed as standing nude figures and limited detailed animals with no ears, tails or hair. We transform them by sculpting on top of them - creating detail with soft and hard paper we make in various thicknesses and textures. We have really enjoyed the development of our fine art techniques over the years and have created a process that is worth sharing. There are
many artists and sculptors who we believe will enjoy this medium as much as we have."

More unusual art: Sand sculpting and beach art

Photos from Popular Mechanics, of all places.

The "Fire" Waterfall at Yosemite

From Wiki:

Yosemite National Park, California.

This park was gazetted as a national park in 1890. It is world famous for its rugged terrain, waterfall and century-old pine trees. It covers 1,200 sq km and the "fire" waterfall of El Capitan is one of the most spectacular of all scenery.

The Yosemite Firefall was a summer time ritual that lasted from 1872 until 1968 in which burning hot embers were dropped a height of about 3000 feet from the top of Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park down to the valley below, and from a distance looked similar to a glowing water fall because the people who dumped the embers made sure to do so in a uniform fashion. The ritual was performed by several generations of the owners of the Glacier Point Hotel. The ritual ended in January of 1968 when the National Park Service ordered that the Firefall be discontinued. The hotel burned down a year later and was never rebuilt.

The ritual was performed at 9 PM every night, to coincide with the end of a performance at Camp Curry.

This is where Rick Roberts came up with the name of the 1970's country rock band, Firefall.

UPDATE: I see by my Sitemeter that this post of mine got a number of hits from people searching specifically on "fire waterfall" or "El Capitan", and some included the word "hoax" in their search.

For those who are interested, no, this is not a hoax. Now, the original text of the e-mail that I received these in was totally wrong, in that it said this was some sort of natural phenomenon due to sunlight hitting the waterfall in just the right way. That's totally bogus. The text above that I lifted from Wikipedia is correct. I happen to know the members of the band Firefall (yes, they are still around), the lead guitar player being my older brother, and the current bass player was the one who sent me these photos. I am pretty sure that Rick Roberts, who picked the name back in the 70's, would have known if this were a hoax or not. One of these photos is actually in the inside sleeve of one of their albums, Elan (the old vinyl version, that is). Although, not being much of a photo bug, I suspect that most of these are time exposures, which gives the firefall its smooth, continuous look. Otherwise, it would look like a bunch of burning logs and sticks falling.

Besides, if you can't believe Wikipedia, who CAN you believe these days?

UPDATE II: Thanks to commenter Amanda. There actually is a waterfall in Yosemite that does catch the sunlight and look like it is on fire. Here is the link she provided. O.K., there are TWO versions of a Firefall in the same national park. Amazing. I stand corrected. Actually, I think these pictures are a mixture of both. The one taken at the side of the falls where it is obviously twilight is the actual 1968 version of the firefall. The others may be this sunlit version.