DOIN IT RITE:

Via Tristan.

Post tags: Better than coffee, Crackpot Visionary, Flora & Fauna, Memes, Silly-looking types, Stroke Material

From the same site that brought you disgruntled reviews of A Million Random Digits comes this bizarre collection of photos. “This mask imbues the wearer with super-human abilities … the power to make everyone around you feel akward and uncomfortable being first among them,” writes one reviewer of this mask on Amazon.

The “Accoutrements Horse Head Mask” customer gallery shows horse-headed people going about their daily lives: reading books to children, playing Scrabble, passing out from too much booze, camping, spelunking, and more. [via raindrift]

“It’s a shame that you can still find this kind of discrimination in America.” Uploaded by Amazon user Michael Genovese.

Post tags: Flora & Fauna, Madness, Surreal, Why

Well, here’s the sitch: dearest Ariana Osborne, who (in addition to sending over all manner of silliness and cuteness and beauty for us to blog here through the years) happens to be an absolutely brilliant graphic designer, has a Kickstarter project! She’s setting her sights on restoring the very same public-domain vintage demonic illustrations contained in that infamous blog post of yesteryear.

She wants to design and print a deck of 69 large (3.5″x5.75″), full-color heavy-stock art cards, each one featuring a Breton illustration from the Dictionnaire Infernal. She’s also planning to create “a supplementary PDF for the deck, with all 69 card images and extended information about each.” She’s given the project room to expand and evolve, depending on how much she raises beyond her minimum goal.

Ariana is all about fastidious documentation, immaculate restoration, and TEH LULZ (see below). EVIL GOOD TIMES. Click on MISTER SCARY ANTEATER OV DOOOO0M to learn more:

Post tags: Art, Crowdsourcing, Design, Flora & Fauna, Horror, Occult, Uber, Ye Olde, \m/

This collage series by Nadine Boughton combines men’s adventure magazines from the 50s and early 60s with the pristine rooms of Better Homes and Gardens. Bedrooms, living rooms and bathrooms are attacked by squids and rabid baboons, overrun by bats,  submerged underwater, and besieged by helicopters.

“The collages are set against the backdrop of the McCarthy era, advertising, sexual repression, WWII and the Korean War. The cool, insular world of mid-century modern living glossed over all danger and darkness, which the heroic male fought off in every corner,” writes Boughton.

Previously on Coilhouse:

• 50′s Jell-O Salad is Actually a Shoggoth

Post tags: Art, Cthulhu, End of the World, Flora & Fauna, Horror, Lifestyle, Madness, Sci-fi, Surreal, Ye Olde

Greetings, comrades, from the Motu-Kairangi valley of Aotearoa. New Zealand’s north island is spectacularly sun-drenched at the moment– an unseasonably serene autumnal week, by Land o’ Long White Cloud standards.

Perfect timing, too, ‘cos Nadya‘s here! Squee! We’ve been talkin’ some SRZ COILBIZ (“Brainstorrrrm! Maaaaagic!”) and have decided to give ourselves a few days off from blogging and cat-herding to take a much-needed Coil-free road trip together. Coilhouse.net will probably be a bit sleepy for the next leetle beet. Consider this post our GONE FISHIN’ sign.

Speaking of fish, check out this jaw-dropping photograph of an immaculately preserved, exquisitely beautiful/fantastical Mola Mola skeleton:

A specimen housed in the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien, Austria. (Via Paul Komoda.)

Oh, our marvelous world. It is full of such fantastical things, both natural and unnatural. We hope you’re all reveling in the weirdness as much as we are right now!

Love,

Mer & Nadya

Post tags: Antipodes, Coilhouse, Flora & Fauna, Geekdom, Travel

A frozen rainbow carousel, headless dinosaurs and lonely swan-shaped boats: this can only be Spreepark, an abandoned amusement park in Southeast Berlin. Conceived as a Socialist project to celebrate 20 years of GDR, Spreepark opened its doors in 1969, and shut down in 2001.  If you saw the film Hanna, images of a girl assassin running through this decaying fairyland park may spring to mind. Recently, Matthew Borgatti (previously on Coilhouse here and here) grabbed his camera and went exploring: he’s just published a beautiful set of photos showing both Spreepark’s ruins and signs of life, in tandem with a witty, comprehensive guide to urban spelunking. Spreepark’s story, writes Matthew, is one of “broken dreams, drug smuggling, and illegal things done with kiddie park rides in the dead of night.” You can’t tell the story of Spreepark without mentioning the story of Norbert Witte, as told by journalist Julia Jüttner.

An affluent funfair operator known as the “King of Carousels” to his friends, Witte walked into trouble when he decided to invest in Spreepark after the reunification of Germany. The son of a carnival performer and grandson of Otto Witte, an acrobat/swindler who once managed to be crowned as the King of Albania, Norbert Witte built his own carnival empire from humble beginnings. Together with his young bride Pia, the daughter of a bumper-car operator, he purchased one roller coaster (“The Catapult”) and began to tour with it, amassing eight rides over the course of two decades.

Photo by Matthew Borgatti.

At first, Spreepark seemed like a lucrative investment for Witte. But after the government eliminated 3,000 parking spaces near the park, people stopped coming and the park went out of business. Witte relocated his family to Lima, Peru, with the hope of bringing over Spreepark’s rides and establishing a new park called Lunapark. However, Peruvian customs officials refused to release all the parts of the rides, and the family quickly slid into poverty. Ultimately, Witte was caught smuggling 76 pounds of cocaine (worth $14 million) back to Germany in the mast of the “Flying Carpet” carousel. Norbert Witte received a lenient 6-year sentence in Germany, but his 21-year-old son, stuck back in Peru, received a jail term of 20 years. In a heartbreaking interview with Spiegel Online, Pia Witte elaborates further.

Unlike the story of Spreepark’s ruin, Matthew’s photos aren’t all that tragic. In fact, unlike most typical, ruin porn-tastic shots of abandoned theme parks around the world, his photos reveal the park’s vibrant, frenetic second life. Vinyl stickers depicting the step-by-step construction of an origami swan adorn a swan boat’s plastic neck. One of the dinosaurs still standing dons glam-rock makeup crafted from neon adhesive tape. A layer of graffiti art slowly encroaches upon the abandoned rides, often giving them a strangely modern look. Perhaps it’s because the German authorities seem pretty lenient, occasionally allowing fashion shoots, filming, and festivities such as “concerts, art installations, performances and a burning man” to take place in the park.

As hinted in Matthew’s photos, the future is bright for Spreepark: this summer, a new project called Kulturpark will set up a three-week artist residency camp producing public art inside Spreepark’s walls. Artworks will include “ecological grafitti, sustainable bicycles, a ping pong competition, learning events, radio station, [and] storytelling projects.” The public opening will be June 28 – July 1st.

Photo by Matthew Borgatti.

Read the rest of Adventures in Spreepark: Photos by Matthew Borgatti

Post tags: Art, Drugs, Fairy Tales, Flora & Fauna, Photography, Surreal

Mignon, 2012 by Jessica Joslin

Jessica Joslin is in Scottsdale, Arizona right now, installing and celebrating a big solo show at the wonderful Lisa Sette Gallery: ”Birds chirping, cacti and magnolia trees all around… sipping coffee and feeling excited about my opening tonight, and about the many other shows soon to come!” By all means, if you’re in the neighborhood, go say hi! Jessica’s creatures are even more enchanting in person.

On a related note: many of our LA readers will be excited to know that there’s another Twin Peaks art show happening (including this lovely new creature, named Waldo, by Jessica) later in the month; this year it’s Fire Walk With Me-themed. The opening is April 21st.

Post tags: Art, Events, Flora & Fauna, Sculpture

Director Joseph Mann, in cahoots with the puppeteering team Jonny & Will, has crafted this sweet, beautiful, and incredibly sad music video for musician Keaton Henson.

If you are a tenderhearted soul who can’t watch music videos like “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” and “Madder Red” or the movie Watership Down without bawling your eyes out, well… you probably shouldn’t watch this. But it’s beautifully done.

Post tags: Animation, Film, Flora & Fauna, Puppetry

Artist Aubrey Learner‘s recent series of watercolor, graphite and ink drawings pair larvae and lace, scissors and satin, pollen and pins. As J. Schnabel of Blood Milk writes on Tumblr, “these drawings … make me want to bury my hands in dark soil. i’m especially interested in the tension of the sensual things we want against our body, the ribbons, the chamise, & the grotesque, yet intensely beautiful inclusion of the dark beetles & winged cicadas that make up these garments.”

Read the rest of Aubrey Learner’s Insect Sensuality

Post tags: Art, Fetish, Flora & Fauna, Sexuality

This is Lady Peanut. She is a very good listener:

(Guh.  Is it any wonder this video’s going spectacularly viral?)

The soporific object of this wee kitteh’s affection is Sarah Donner, a self-proclaimed singer/songwriter/creative type/cat lady with a bright, sweet voice.  She says “Lady Peanut [...] likes to sit by me when I get out the ukulele.” The catchy tune Sarah’s singing is called “Treeline”, and she is kindly offering it as a free download through her ReverbNation account.

Sarah and a cameraman also made this charming Trap/Neuter/Return video documenting their personal TNR experience, which feels like an interesting/informative thing to share on a sleepy Monday afternoon:

To learn more about TNR and feral cat colonies, check out this ASCPA webpage. (In the interest of fair and complete reportage, while the ASPCA, the Humane Society of the Unites States, and other animal rights groups are pro-TNR, it is a controversial procedure which many wildlife and bird advocacy organizations have argued against. But either way, something to think/talk about.)

Visit Sarah’s website to find out lots of cute and funny details about her, and to hear more strummy folky yumminess.

In conclusion, here’s a screenshot of  Lady Peanut’s sweet little face. Because, well, just LOOK at her. Squeeee…

Post tags: Activism, Better than coffee, Blogroll, Flora & Fauna, Grrrl, Music