Continuing our love-fest for extraordinarily costumed people in ordinary settings, we bring you the Land of the Free series from UK-based portrait and documentary photographer Steve Schofield:

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Popularity: 45% [?]

Speaking of otherworldly creatures, check out these Golden Age Mexican lobby cards:

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On Star Trek, a character is typically denoted as being of an alien species simply by giving them some sort of cranial abnormality. Vulcans have pointy ears, Klingons have forehead ridges, and Ferengi look like Klingons cross-bred with Stewie Griffin from Family Guy. Now, what Star Trek’s creature design team is overlooking, as far as I’m concerned, is the intense transformative power of full-blown, gravity-defying, gonzo-freakout beards and moustaches.

Above, we have Jurgen Burkhardt. He took home the title of “Best Freestyle Sideburns” at the 2007 World Beard & Moustache Championships (WBMCs), held in Brighton, England. And here we have fan favorite Willi Chevalier, whose triple-handlebar moustache/beard combo was once dubbed a “hair pretzel” by NPR’s Robert Siegel: Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 19% [?]

I can’t look out my office window on a grey rainy day like today without imagining Spinners weaving through the buildings, crowds of people with glowing umbrellas and shady eyeball craftsmen working their frigid magic on the streets.And as the 21st century grinds on, I’m more and more convinced that Blade Runner is coming true. It’s like some window in an alternate future was left open, just a crack, and all that alternate reality is whispering through, one invention at a time.

Listening to the Blade Runner soundtrack really helps this vision coalesce, too. Vangelis’ haunting ambient score over the sounds of busy, rainy city life are mixing really well with the view outside. A great geek friend of mine hooked me up with the motherlode too, a while back: a collection of ambient background noise and sound effects from Blade Runner.

And of course, I wouldn’t have mentioned it if I didn’t want to share … help yourselves to ambient background sound and effects from Blade Runner, as well as Vangelis’ score, laid over sounds from the film:

Blade Runner sound effects

Vangelis’ Blade Runner Soundtrack, Part 1
Vangelis’ Blade Runner Soundtrack, Part 2

If any of you are motivated to mash up or remix these sounds into something, please share …

Popularity: 25% [?]

Those great big billboard ads you see on the subway are nothing but giant peel-and-stick Coloforms, really. I love the accidental collages you see when people randomly pick and peel those thing like they’re great big scabs, and I just knew it was a matter of time before someone started making art out of them.

Then I saw this ad for Star Wars that had been chopped and remixed with bits from a beer ad and a poster for a Takashi Murakami exhibit and I heard a horde of angels singing a song titled “Shit Yeah!”:

You can see the whole billboard and a gold-bikini Princess Leia mixed with Iron Man after the jump …

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Popularity: 57% [?]

The Japanese robots at the Kennedy Center’s “Robotopia Rising” exhibit are cute, cuddly ambassadors from a future packed with smiling, happy plastic slaves. Japan’s massive aging population is creating a need for robotic elder-care assistants, machines that can remind the aged to take medicine, turn them in bed, or alert working adult children to problems at home.

This makes perfect sense for a culture that worships its ancestors, loves technology and has evolved economically to the point where family can no longer afford to care for family personally. “Robotopia Rising” asserts that Japanese robots are made to emulate their pop culture, equal parts Astro Boy and Hello Kitty. Here in America, we just chuck our old folks into crooked homes and get back to making actual Terminators as quickly as possible.

“Robotopia Rising” is part of a larger exhibit at the Kennedy Center, “Japan: Culture + Hyperculture,” and it’s easily the most magnetic part. I didn’t see a lot of wide-eyed toddlers and balding geeks like me lingering breathlessly over the admittedly gorgeous lacquer sculptures in the hallway, or straining to touch the gorgeous textile artwork with trembling, sweaty fingers.

I’ve created a photo gallery from the show here … and as usual, there’s much, much more after the jump …

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Godzilla Witch Project. Nothing more, nothing less.

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My friend Eric called me up late the other night from somewhere outside of Barcade, panting breathlessly in the cold. “Dude, don’t go to bed yet,” he said. “I’m bringing something over for you.”

And what a something it was! In its heyday, he looked like this, functioning as an expensive karaoke toy.

More photos after the jump …

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Popularity: 47% [?]

A few months ago, I saw David Levy give a presentation based on his new book “Love + Sex With Robots” at the Museum of Sex in Manhattan. While the presentation had a pretty interesting premise, I had so many questions afterwards and could’ve run roughshod over the Q&A session.

I bought the book and read it for myself, and just like the presentation it left me wanting so much more. Levy lays his belief that one day, people will have sex with robots, out like a master’s thesis that drops every idea down brick by thudding brick, cementing with precedent and detail in a way that makes you believe him while thinking “alright already, I get it. Where’s the fun stuff?” I have no problem buying the fact that pleasure robots are on the horizon … what I want to know is how they’re going to fit in, how society will change.

The book’s been talked about in a number of places online since Levy’s presentation. Wired, MSNBC, and The Globe and Mail have all done pieces on the book and its premise. I tend to agree the most with Joel Achenbach’s recent review in the Washington Post’s book section, but in all of this chatter, something’s been missing.

David Levy was kind enough to grant me an e-mail interview for this blog in an attempt to scratch my itching curiosity. The interview follows, after the jump …

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Popularity: 29% [?]

A robotic anti-aircraft cannon went haywire in South Africa last week, killing nine soldiers and severely injuring fourteen more. The gun was part of a training exercise using live ammunition and was part of a row of eight identical guns aimed northward at ground targets positioned 1.5 and 2 kilometers away. Each gun is capable of firing up to 20 explosive shells in one-eighth of a second.From Capetown’s Mail& Guardian Online, Via Wired’s Danger Room:

“As all guns commenced firing, the gun on the far right … had a stoppage. This is something that happens from time to time. Technicians repaired this gun, while all the other guns continued firing. This is a very normal drill.

“As they continued firing, after the gun was fixed, it swung completely to the left, and one barrel fired off a burst of 15 to 20 shots in one-eighth of a second. The … gun immediately to the left was hit.

“This fatal burst then killed or injured members of all the guns to the left. The effect was therefore that all of those killed or injured [were hit] from the right and lost right hands, or right legs, or lost their lives.”

He confirmed the total number killed was nine, and 15 injured.

Lekota said the eight guns had been used the day before, “and each one had successfully fired between 500 and 800 rounds each”.

He further explained the guns could be set on either “manual or electric firing mode”. On the day, they had all been set on manual. This meant they were sighted on the target, and the barrel then clamped into position “so that the barrel should not move from side to side”.

“When firing in electric mode, safety boundaries are computerised and the barrels are not clamped, but move within the boundaries set in advance.”

You can read more about the story on Danger Room here.

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Popularity: 22% [?]