You've probably enjoyed the animated musical stylings of Bongo Cat occasionally over the past couple of years. Now you can be Bongo Cat and make your own music with this web toy. Use your keyboard to hit the various rums, or you can switch to paint or marimbas when you like. Musical talent is not included, but you might find yourself spending enough time with this toy to attempt to develop some. -via Metafilter
In Night of the Living Dead, The Walking Dead, and other fictional zombie worlds, the zombies are the monsters, intent of killing and devouring innocent human life. But in the original zombie folklore, the zombies themselves were the victims.
In Haitian folklore, a zombie is an animated corpse with lack of cognition or free will, whose soul is said to be imprisoned and possessed by magical means, and whose body is controlled by its master. The symbolism of slavery in this concept is impossible to ignore, shedding light on how European slave drivers, plantation owners and colonial powers used the fear of “zombification” amongst Haitian people; the fear of being trapped in their enslaved bodies forever, to discourage suicide amongst the workforce. Despite France being the first country to abolish slavery, French plantation-owners worked their African slaves so hard, the rate of death of slaves at Haiti’s Saint Domingue plantations was higher than anywhere else in the Western hemisphere. Fictional horror was born from real-life horror.
The concept of zombies was brought to the US in the 1920s through a book about Haiti, and Hollywood went to work turning the legend into a whitewashed movie monster. Read about the origin of zombies and see a documentary about them at Messy Messy Chic.
(Image credit: Jean-noël Lafargue)
Tattoos have been around for thousands of years, and the easier they become, the more people get them. In 1891, Samuel O'Reilly patented an electric tattoo machine, which led to a sharp rise in the popularity of tattoos. Soon they were flourishing on the bodies of London's upper crust. A 1907 article from The Washington Times featured an interview with a tattoo artist referred to only as South, who told tales of the kinds of tattoos he'd been doing in London. Some of his clients just wanted a nice body decoration, but others found practical uses for the ink.
Another woman, fearing the last will and testament of her husband, by which she was to inherit all his lands, tenements and other property, might be lost or destroyed by enemies, arranged with the decorative artist to reproduce the document on her back. The matter was placed in the hands of one of London’s foremost practitioners and the will was borrowed and loaned to the tattooist, in order that he might copy the chyrography as well as the words of the testator. The document contained 500 words and several signatures and legal phrases showing it had been properly filed.
This was one of the most difficult tasks of the artist, and likewise the most painful ordeal through which any of his clients ever passed. It required a week for the document to be reproduced, and the woman was in great pain at the completion of the tattooist’s task, but now that the needle pricks have healed, the will can never be lost as long as the woman lives.
Parents tattooed their babies for identification, and old folks got inked to feel young again. Read more stories of London's tattoo craze at Strange Ago. -via Strange Company
#NightmareBeforeChristmas I, Jack the #PumpkinKing grow tired of the same old thing #HoboNickel #CoinCarving by #DavidHjHe @davidar29827307
— Hobo Nickel Society (@Hobo_Nickel_Soc) October 23, 2020
#Film #jackskellington #Halloween #HalloweenCountdown pic.twitter.com/QVcH6t86gH
The term "hobo nickel" comes from the American experience during the Great Depression, when some impoverished people carved images and designs into coins, often the soft 5-cent coin, to sell. The Hobo Nickel Society is an organization dedicated to preserving this craft and promoting its modern practitioners.
For Halloween, the society is tweeting out images of the best Halloween-themed hobo nickels.
It’s understandable to have unskippable ads on free-to-play mobile games. After all, that’s how they can earn money. But to have unskippable ads on a game that you paid for full price is not, and that’s what the NBA 2k series of games does for the last few years, with this year not being an exception.
The ads usually turn up as part of a pre-game video, and while in previous years they’ve been for brands like Converse and the TV show Snowfall, this year it’s an Oculus Quest commercial that’s got fans upset.
Fans have been and continue to be pissed every time this happens, and if you’re wondering why, it’s because this is a full-priced video game, not a free-to-play mobile title. Folks have already paid in full for the game itself, then been fleeced at every turn to spend on microtransactions, and now have to sit through an ad as well? Get outta here.
In response to the uproar, the NBA 2k21 Twitter account posted an apology on the platform.
What are your thoughts about this one?
(Image Credit: Stevivor/ YouTube)
In this two-minute clip, Good Comparison shows us how the legendary Leonidas line from the film 300 sounds like in 12 languages, including Spanish, French, Russian, and Japanese.
Which one is your favorite and why?
Today, the term "caveman" really just means earlier versions of humans, but did they really live in caves? Humans arose in Africa, and eventually migrated to the rest of the world, which was colder and meant they needed shelter. A cave seems like the perfect place to hide from both predators and the elements. But there's a reason we know them as cave men- caves happen to be where we found evidence of early humans.
If caves were not quite as important as was portrayed by the caveman stereotype, why did we find so many traces of palaeolithic life in caves? The answer to that is two-fold: On the one hand, the already existing stereotype of the caveman and early finds in caves naturally oriented more research in caves. It is a selection bias. On the other hand, the conditions for the preservation of fossils in caves are extremely good. Caves not only shelter humans from rain and wind, but also all other kind of things that are left behind in them. Adding to the protection from the weather, many caves accumulate sediment steadily over time burying archaeological traces. They are ideal grounds to conserve a glimpse of the past.
The truth is that people lived in caves and a lot of other places, too, but those other places are not so easy to detect. Read about the many kinds of shelters early humans used and how we manage to find them at Today I Found Out.
(Image credit: Jaroslav A. Polák)
The new Photoshop's AI is amazing and feeds our questions about our new world of appearances and deep fakes. It can definitely gives us a good laugh!
When it comes to making slo-mo hair flip videos, a person needs two basic elements: a person with long hair, and a camera that has a slow motion feature. Other elements are optional, but if you want to make your video unique, then you should go and do just that.
Check out this clip of a woman flipping her hair, and find out what makes this video unique, over at Reddit.
(Image Credit: u/jaxjax55/ Reddit)
What’s a famous mythical creature in your country? Have you ever wondered if other countries have the same kind of mythical beast in their fables and stories? No worries, as SavingSpot of CashNetUSA has put together a list of every country’s most famous mythical creature. This list is not just boring text, no, it comes in a stunning map, filled with wonderful illustrations, as Nerdist details:
First SavingSpot compiled a long list of famous mythical beasts using Heather Frigiola’s Monsters and Mythical Creatures From Around the World, Wikipedia, and “numerous independent sites.” To then find each nation’s most popular legend “the research team ranked them by total search results on Google, using the search terms “[Country] + [Mythical Creature].”
What they found was that many countries share the same monsters, even though they sometimes have slight differences. For example lots of countries fear dragons, but not all dragons look the same.
Image via Nerdist
Don’t worry, these ones aren’t real. They look real scary at first glance though, not gonna lie. Mister Finch takes scraps of brocade and cotton fabric to form creatures that look like they came straight out of a fairy tale, or a horror film. His creations contain so much detail that will unnerve viewers (or take a second look to check if it’s real). The Leeds-based artist’s recent pieces are oversized spiders that he photographs suspended from the ceiling, as Colossal details:
“I love the way this looks and enables me to dress and humanize them, which is something I’ve always wanted to do.”
Although the ongoing pandemic has stifled the artist’s foraging of fabrics and other materials in recent months, Finch notes that he’s been pulling textiles from his home stash and occasionally visiting fairs and markets. He’s also been scaling down his sculptures so that they’re easier to handle without assistance.
Finch published two books filled with his fairytale-style sculptures and settings in recent years—and currently is working on a third—which you can purchase in his shop along with cards and totes. Dive further into his eccentric projects on Instagram.
Image via Colossal
The San Diego Ballet will hold performances of Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker" at an outdoor stage, where the audience can park their cars and be able to watch the play. This adjustment, due to the pandemic, was a way that executive director Matt Carney found to provide work for their artists and to offer something to the public this holiday season, as KPBS details:
"We have a strong commitment to our company dancers in providing work for artists," said Carney. "And it never occurred to me to do nothing. And to cancel our season or to not offer anything — it just didn't seem like an option."
This season, the company will grace an outdoor stage in Liberty Station for just five live performances of "The Nutcracker," over two weekends. Audience members will park their cars spaced out and offset from each other in the lot, and will have enough room — an additional parking spot's worth — to set up chairs or a tailgate area, weather permitting. (The show is rain or shine and the stage will be covered.) Each performance will be limited to 30 vehicles. Carney said this separates them from other drive-in performances.
"The Nutcracker" and holiday-themed performances in general — like "The Christmas Carol" or "The Grinch," or singalong renditions of Handel's "The Messiah" — serve a much broader community than the season ticket holders or regular attendees.
"The holiday offerings are, oftentimes, an entry point into the arts for people," said Carney. "It's an important show because it's an entry point for people who don't normally see art throughout the year." Plus, it's a way for the company to inspire a sense of hope, tradition and normalcy for the community.
Image via KPBS
If you’re a big fan of watching dance videos or art films, this video of ballet dancers might spark your interest. To celebrate Harlem Week 2020, the Dance Theatre of Harlem created a beautiful dance film of ballet dancers dancing on the streets of New York to the tune of a Bach violin concerto. The short but enthralling video, called Dancing Through Harlem, was produced by Derek Brockington and Alexandra Hutchinson, choreographed by Robert Garland and filmed by Heather Olcott and Joe Samala, as Classic FM details:
Harlem is a neighbourhood of New York City which occupies a large part of northern Manhattan, and has for decades been one of the most important places of the African American cultural movement. For over a century, it's been a vibrant place for culture and the arts, starting with the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and since becoming a focal point for jazz, hip hop and creatives through the 20th century and beyond.
We love the vibrancy and vividness when great dance takes place on the streets and everyday settings.
image via Classic FM
The Hugo Boss Prize is one of the top art awards in the world. The award is given to one artist every other year. New-York based photographer Deana Lawson has won the prestigious prize, and is the first photographer to do so. Besides the trophy, Lawson will have an exhibition at Guggenheim Museum in New York in spring 2021 and take home a $100.000 cash prize, as Art News details:
Lawson’s photography centers Black men and women, and features them in poses and settings that appear to be highly naturalistic, but are in fact carefully staged in advance. They tend to feature individuals who appear to be families and couples, and they allude to histories of disaporas and racism in the process. “Photography,” Lawson once said, “has the power to make history and the present moment speak towards each other.”
It is a body of work that, because of its rigorous conceptual framework, has been hard to define. But, in its reworking of art-historical tropes and its emphasis on tenderness and intimacy, her photography’s aesthetic has proven influential. Zadie Smith once wrote of Lawson’s photography, “Black people are not conceived as victims, social problems, or exotics but, rather, as what Lawson calls ‘creative, godlike beings’ who do not ‘know how miraculous we are.’”
Image via Art News
A history of claiming to be the first Egyptian to conquer an incredible feat, Omar Samra decided that he would become the first Egyptian to travel to space...
