I just had to share this incredible piece of performance art I just ran across. It apparently was performed on the Ukraine’s Got Talent tv show which she subsequently won. The artist is Kseniya Simonova and her medium is sand.

Powerful storytelling in a totally unexpected form.

Smile and the world smiles with you. Laugh and the world laughs with you. Get happy and the world gets happy with you. Right? I said RIGHT?

Barbara and Judy get happy…

;

Porcelain dolls are just so *shiver* incredibly creepy. What is it that makes some women be drawn to them? Their lifeless staring eyes? Their evil “If you only knew what I had in store for you when you go to sleep tonight” smiles?

When I was a child, maybe about seven or eight years old, I went on a cross country drive to Oklahoma with my grandparents. There was some horror movie that was coming out soon and they were running the heck out of the ad for it. I must have seen it a bunch of times in various hotel rooms across the country and then in my great Aunt’s house in Oklahoma. I know nothing about the movie, but I do distinctly remember that an evil porcelain doll with a lifeless bloodthirsty smile on its little puckered lips figured prominently in that commercial and forever after in my nightmares.

I mean just look at that. What would make you want to bring that into your home? How can you NOT have nightmares knowing that thing is sitting in your living room. Or worse yet sharing your bedroom with you?  It’s like voluntarily opening up a portal to hell in your home.

So listen up ladies. This is your warning. Rid yourself of this strange obsession. Destroy the little demons wrapped in china and repent. Otherwise when you least expect it those evil little dolls are going to ruin your day. And when that happens don”t say I didn’t warn ya.

With October fast approaching and a little nip in the air I felt like a little ghosties & ghoulies music and animation was called for.

A little factoid for those who might find it of interest. Stephen Foster a prolific 19th century songwriter is often referred to as “the father of American music.”  Some of his songs still widely recognized today are “Beautiful Dreamer”, “Camptown Races”, and “Oh! Susanna.”

This tribute song and video is by the Squirrel Nut Zippers. The video, directed by Raymond Persi and Matthew Nastuk, won an award for best animated music video at the Vancouver Animation Festival in 1999.

Okay I may have gotten some of you under semi-false pretenses. Because while technically there may be cakes and potato chips in the photos you can’t see either of them.

The building in the background is the location of Charm City Cakes (you know The Ace of Cakes..Duff…and all that) and they guy in the foreground is the UTZ potato chip delivery guy dropping off the mother-load-of-chips (trust me I have watched him delivery before..what you say there is about 1/5 of the chips he is actually delivering) to The Dizz a wonderful little local bar and restaurant that never fails to serve up great bar grub at awesome prices (and the owner is a sweet lady who is always on hand to cook and chat with her customers).

So while you don’t SEE any actual cakes or chips you know there has got to be lots of cakes behind that wall over there and inside those chip tins are lots of chips. So it was only semi-false pretenses. I will appease you with a second bonus photo of The Dizz.

(click on photos for bigger version)

I so enjoyed this I thought I should share it with the rest of you (and by rest of you I of course mean the 2 or so people that occasionally read or watch something on this blog…you know who you are).

“A Glorious Dawn – Cosmos remixed” is a sweet little musical tribute to Carl Sagen and Stephen Hawking done by musician John Boswell of colorpulse. It is composed almost entirely of footage culled from the Cosmos and Universe series.

Many thanks to Iain Tait at crackunit for bringing it to my attention

Flashback Wednesday takes us back to a sunny day on a beach in Portland Oregon. The year is 1970. For some reason it was the state’s Highway Division that was responsible for getting rid of a dead whale that had washed up on the beach. Somebody thought it was a good day to blow up a whale so they brought in the dynamite. Lots of dynamite.

Behold the cautionary tale of the exploding whale…

Thanks to The Geek Pad for reminding me of this gem.

Kids are wise.  My niece Sofia is a font of wisdom. It has been a rough couple of months in all of our lives. I imagine for a turning-five year old it has been really tough.

I am paraphrasing here, and the wisdom was relayed through my mother, but Sofia shared this thought over the weekend:

Everything is really messed up in this city right now.  I wish you were better and Pop Pop were better and everything would get back to normal.

I couldn’t agree with you more kid.  Here’s to “normalcy” whatever it is that that means for you. Normalcy is underrated.

Is there a word for ennui mixed with a dash of sucking hopelessness? If not there should be.

“It is bitter, bitter”

This post, much like this picture, has no real purpose. I just happen to like the picture for some reason and knowing it might never see the light of day..err a glowing computer screen…I am posting it here. Since this is my blog I can do those kinds of things. Ah the power…muuhahaha.

(Click image for larger version.)