At 11 acres in area, this portrait of an anonymous young girl in Belfast is the largest in the United Kingdom. It’s entitled “Wish.” Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada, an American artist, composed it for an annual festival in that city. He and his crew used GPS transponders to lay out 30,000 wood stakes, then earthmovers to arrange 4,000 tons of soil, sand and glass. The entire project took 4 weeks to complete.
Gerada, who is the festival’s artist-in-residence, says that “Wish” reflects his experiences with the city. He told the Belfast Telegraph:
"Getting to know the city on multiple trips and letting the creative flow helped bring the image to me of what I wanted to do.
"I told them it was going to be based on what kind of feedback we got from the city.
"This is not a project I wanted to do based on throwing money at it, but based on a collaboration with the city, using different entities within the city, from major construction companies like McLaughlin Harvey to the fire brigade.
"It's a very large mix, a lot of people, a lot of volunteers, a lot of really dedicated workers that gave a month of their time."
You’ll need a helicopter to see the work for yourself. In the meantime, you can view more photos here.
At Ask Reddit (my favorite subreddit) movienevermade asks:
If you wanted to write the beginning of a book that hooked you from the very start, what would be the first line?
There were several excellent responses, many of which inspired other redditors to begin writing immediately. Here's an opening line by WittyCommenterName:
I'm dead. Not that I want sympathy, I just don't want you to be surprised later.
Many contributors went along on horror themes. Here's one by run_dmt:
Everyone told me I couldn't kill him; I see now that all they really meant was "shouldn't".
There were science fiction ideas, such as this gem by GuaranteedWeirdo:
After eons spent watching humans, I already knew that the most exhilarating and terrifying moment of my tenure would be when one started watching back.
Kronzlar offered this glimpse from a terrifying future:
It's hard being the only person in the world that can't read thoughts.
Ruthi suggested the first line for a hard boiled noir story:
Photo: Charles Marville/Musee Carnavalet/Roger-Viollet
Well, in 1876 when the photo above was taken by photographer Charles Marville, Paris certainly was the most modern city in the world.
In the early 1850s, Napoleon III commissioned urban planner Baron Georges-Eugene Haussman with the task of making Paris the most modern city in the world. Back then, the city was just as it was during Medieval times. It didn't have a sewer system, so people would simply throw waste out onto the street.
As part of the modernization effort, Haussman installed outdoor facilities including pissoirs or public urinals for men shown above. These crude structures don't look like much today, but it got the job done. It had no roof, but it provided privacy where it was needed, and it was certainly better than urinating on the streets.
Charles Marville, the photographer who snapped the photo above, was commissioned to document Haussman's transformation of Paris. His photographs are currently on display National Gallery of Art. Curator Sarah Kennel talked to Susan Stamberg of NPR about the photos that Marville took - read and listen to the story over at NPR's The Picture Show.
Redditor jareyjareyjareyjarey took seven or eight activated glow sticks and attached them to the blades of a ceiling fan. Then he photographed it in motion, leaving the aperture open about 30 seconds. Others warn that you should try to even out the number of glow sticks on each blade, to keep it from going out of balance. It kind of looks like the rings of Saturn, doesn't it?
Then danimal1010 posted a picture of a similar project he'd done earlier. He had used LEDs.
Then in order to one-up everyone, dbzcas posted a picture of his ceiling fan with LEDs, which must have required some consideration in the placement of the lights.
Now, keep in mind that when you buy glow sticks, you don't know how strong they are, or how easy it might be for one to break open while being flung about on a ceiling fan, or how easy they may be flung off only to hit the wall hard. The results may require painting a room. LEDs seem like the safer alternative.
Just looking at this giant tribble rabbit is probably all the evidence you need to pronounce it as the world's fluffiest bunny, but that's why you're not a Guinness Book of World Records judge. Of course, even if this specific bunny isn't officially the fluffiest, he does have impressive hair volume. In fact, in this great round up of the adorable balls of fur called angora bunny rabbits, this little guy is still the fluffiest of the furriest bunnies on earth.
Oh and if you still were wondering, yes, these bunnies are where the yarn for your angora sweaters comes from -and as you can imagine, they are all too happy to be sheared for their wool.
My kids call my office "the place where Daddy lives," and judging by the amount of hours that I spend at NeatoHQ, they're technically correct. But I do go "home" to shower and sleep - not so for The Office Hobo, who lives - and we really do mean live - at his office.
One day last winter, The Office Hobo stopped by his office late at night after running errands to find that the place is nice and quiet - "No thumping bass from the upstairs neighbors. No security guard manning the premises, either. Someone could be here all night ... and not a soul would be wiser," he wrote in a blog post over at LA Weekly. Someone, in theory, could live in that office.
Then, over the summer, after a series of financial setback and the general feeling of being tired of paying rent, The Office Hobo revisited the idea of living in his office:
This is my experiment. It is rent boycotting. It is selective homelessness. I prefer to call it "home-free" living.
On Aug. 1, 2012, I packed my bags, secured a gym membership for shower access, and moved into my office. Save for a short hiatus of apartment living during the winter, I have been living there since.
I've chosen to remain anonymous to protect my company. None of my co-workers knows I'm living here. The people I work with are wonderful people; I want neither to accept their sympathy nor take advantage of their kindness. This presents a series of obstacles, and yes, I expend great energy to accommodate their schedules.
So far, The Office Hobo has been living in his office, secretly, for over 260 days.
But how does he do it? Where does he sleep? The Office Hobo offered a set of FAQs:
1. Where do you sleep?
I sleep on the floor behind my desk.
Initially, I had a twin-sized air mattress that fit perfectly behind my desk. But that mattress has since popped. For a while, I had been using my inflatable backpacking sleeping pad, but that became more trouble than the inch of cushion was worth. So instead of purchasing a replacement air mattress, I’ve been sleeping on some couch cushions. Since I’ve done so, I’ve had no back pain and have slept like a baby. A baby in an office.
As a backup plan, I sometimes take this setup to the walk-in storage closet. While hardly ideal, this lowers the likelihood of being caught in the act of not being awake.
2. Doesn't sleeping in your office suck though?
Yes and no. There is very little traffic in the office and the hours are generally predictable. The office has its own dedicated entrance, free parking, and is located near to the necessities. It has a sink and toilet, as well as a kitchenette. But it is a shared office. There are a series of cubicles and a handful of coworkers’ schedules to keep track of. So practically it requires some flexibility on my part. But so did paying over a grand per month in rent.
... back in March, when my co-worker stopped by unannounced to drop off a tray of files on a Sunday. Somehow, I managed to tidy my cubicle and bolt to the staff bathroom in a matter of seconds.
It was a close call. And hiding in a unisex washroom is, admittedly, a humbling experience. But the way I see it, inconveniences like these constitute my "rent." What others pay in earnings from countless hours of labor, I forfeit in sporadic exercises of self-deprecation. Having experienced both, I can't say my situation is any worse.
My situation just requires a little extra attention to detail. When I wake up in the morning, I always return my triple-sofa-cushion bedding to the same spot, zippers facing in. My belongings — the ones I haven't given away — are stuffed in odd corners of the office, placed one at a time over the first few weeks with frog-in-a-frying-pan success. I keep the fridge clear, opting instead to over-frequent the local sandwich shop and burrito stand. Sometimes I'll even run morning errands and show up "late for work."
The Office Hobo was content and happy to live the rent-free life, but then one day, he met a woman. A woman that he wants to be with ... and wants to be with him that night. Read what happened next over at LA Weekly's Arts & Culture Blog Public Spectacle, where The Office Hobo guestblogged.
It’s like those animated maps showing the rise and fall of empires. A swarm of Jennifers consume the country, only for their star to fall and that of Jessica to rise. Jessicas rule the land until the forces of Emily rise up and overthrow them. Look upon my works, ye mighty, and become Sophia.
With data from the Social Security Administration, Reuben Fischer-Baum of Jezebel created maps showing, state by state and year by year, the most popular baby names for girls from 1960 to last year. So far, none have been bizarre, invented spellings, for which I and the English language thank you.
Reader Audrey Lilley is the newest Neatorama fan to send in a picture of her pet getting ready for Halloween to jill@neatorama, and just look at Britta in that bee costume. This busy little spaniel/lab mix looks ready to buzz her way around the neighborhood in hopes of getting some sweet treats.
Despite their best efforts, they never did manage to find Cecil’s lost wedding ring.
Christopher Boffoli’s little friends must have big appetites. At least, that’s what he calls his latest photo series featuring miniatures. Big Appetites shows tiny people and their tools at work on giant pieces of food. He often includes humorous captions to make the scenes more touching or disturbing. You can view more of them here.
Boffoli sees his works as fitting within an old tradition of “a juxtaposition of different scales” that goes back to Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. In an interview with Left Field Project, Boffoli explained why he thinks that Big Appetites has resonated with so many people:
Combining what is essentially food and toys makes the work instantly accessible to virtually everyone. Regardless of language, culture and social status, all people can identify with toys from their childhood. And whether you eat with a fork, chopsticks or your hands, everyone understands food. Sitting down to a meal makes us feel most human.
In January, 1977, actor Vincent Price appeared on The Muppet Show. Though he was most famous for his B-movie horror roles, Price was a classically trained and highly accomplished stage actor.
In this scene, Kermit interviews Price about the actor’s craft. Price has vampiric fangs. How?
Price explains that after years of concentrated effort and skill development, a master thespian can grow fangs at will. Kermit, as you can see, learns quickly.
Children’s Librarian Susan Scatena of the Whitestone branch of the public library system of Queens, New York promised her kids something amazing: if the 300 children registered with the summer reading program read at least 4,000 books, she would read a story to an alligator. And not to a stuffed animal version, but a real alligator.
The kids reached that goal and Ms. Scatena kept her word. Last September, before an audience of hundreds of children and one alligator, she read Mercer Mayer’s There’s an Alligator under My Bed. Wally, a five-foot long alligator, and her handler, Eric Callendar, listened attentively.
Do you see anything wrapped around Wally’s mouth to act as a muzzle? I don’t.
Richard Balzer collects optical treasures of the past. He recently started a Tumblr blog to display Phenakistoscope images as gifs, so that we can see the animation as people in the 19th century saw them -without having to find the antique device to play them on.
The Phenakistoscope is a device invented by Joseph Plateau in 1841 to take advantage of the persistence of vision to give the viewer a moving picture. Spinning discs were viewed through a series of radiating slits to animate the pictures.
When you're as cute as Lola, it's hard to make a between all the great Halloween costume options available to you. It's finally come down between this great Minnie Mouse costume and a cute little bug. Her owner, reader Tif Semach, is all ready to help her make the final call when the big night comes.
I know plenty of pet owners are still shopping for Halloween costumes (and many aren't going to subject their little furry friends to such silly holiday traditions), but those who do celebrate with their pets, keep sending in pictures of your costumed pets to jill@neatorama.com and your little fluffy friend could end up getting featured here on Neatorama, just like Lola here.
The best pizzeria ever must be this restaurant in Vienna. Lukas Galehr, an Austrian architect, designed the interior of the Disco Volante. The huge disco ball inside immediately draws the customers' attention. It’s a rotating pizza oven with a mirrored surface. At night, colored lights projected on the surface illuminate the entire restaurant in an ever-changing cascade of color. You can see more photos here.
Rocket News 24 reports that this photo and others are circulating through Japanese-language Twitter feeds. Allegedly, they show one lucky Siberian husky who has a new friend: a tiny plush felted from his own hair. You can see more adorable photos here.
It looks much better than the one that Alex made from his own hair, which is more creepy than cute.
