fapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapOH GOOD MORNING COMRADES I DIDN’T SEE YOU THERE.
What’s that? Oh, um. I was just, uh, playing with my tribble.
Ariana showed me the following picture last night…
…which spurred me to revisit that notorious “Closer” slashup, the gravitational pull of which sent me spiraling down a long, twisted YouTube wormhole of Trekkie aberration and depravity. Woooo!
To help you get your sluggish blood pumping, I’d like to share a bit of what I found with you. Just the tip…
Our next and final feature on Late-to-the-Party Sunday is this collection of prosthetics-inspired, insectlike body armor created by recent University of the Arts London graduate Úna Burke, blogged everywhere and recently rediscovered by Haute Macabre. On her site, Burke explains the rationale behind these creations: “This is a conceptual collection of wearable art pieces, depicting a series of eight human gestures associated with the cause, the physical and psychological effect and the healing stages of human trauma…in my research I have referred to the work of artists, photographers and designers such as Hans Bellmer, Anthony Gormley, Alexander McQueen, Erwin Olaf, as well as looking at the casts of the victims of Pompeii. The entire collection made from undyed vegetable tanned leather which is reminiscent of caucasian flesh.”
Burke’s pieces are reminiscent of fellow Londoner Paddy Hartley’s Project Facade in their sensual combination of sculpture and fashion to represent body trauma and the trappings of recovery.
Next up on Late-To-the-Party Sunday, we present The Body Bakery. This has been blogged in many places, but I especially appreciate shape+colour’s thoughtful coverage of the subject:
(insert cannibalism joke here). (insert “eat me” joke here). (insert “put your foot where your mouth is” joke here).
Thai-based Kittiwat (I love his name) Unarrom is the son of a baker with a fine arts degree who decided to create the contents of a serial killer’s freezer using dough, raisins, cashew nuts, and chocolate. All the items he makes are packaged up like food and available for sale at his gallery/shop. Here’s an adorable video of mothers and their kids shopping for dismembered delicacies. It’s official: I love you, Thailand. I’m rooting for you to out-weird Japan!
This Sunday night is a special “late to the party” edition of Coilhouse, wherein I’ll blog some items that have already been immortalized elsewhere on the web – in this case, BoingBoing, IO9 and EnglishRussia – but that still deserve a place here in the ‘haus.
The first of these is The Matrix, starring Charlie Chaplin. This was created by the team that produces “Big Difference” (Bolshaya Raznitsa), a Russian show that parodies other Russian television shows. Neo’s incredible kung-fu maneuver at 4:45 takes the cake figuratively, and Agent Smith takes the cake literally one minute after that happens. Enjoy!
Coilhouse readers located in the Yay Area! We’re doing a shoot for Issue 05 next weekend in San Francisco, and we need two volunteers! We can’t reveal the content of the shoot, other than to say that the subject is one talented performer, and that there’s some beautiful custom-made outfits involved. Other than that – no spoilers for the readership! Especially since Issue 04’s not even out yet. The shoot will be either on Saturday or Sunday of next week in a studio. We’re looking for the following people:
Makeup Artist. Must be good at beauty and fashion makeup. Please provide a link to portfolio.
Assistant Photographer. Must be a photographer experienced with lighting. Please send portfolio. Having a car a strong plus!
The shoot will be a fun creative collaboration, and we’ll be happy to hear your ideas once we fill you in on the subject. I’ll be the photographer on this – hence the image above, in lieu of the real subject of the shoot, which you’ll soon find out.
Via Stylecunt & Haute Macabre – the good cop & bad cop of alt fashion – comes the discovery of Marko Mitanovski, a Belgrade-based designer with a penchant for ruffs, asymmetrical corsets, antler-shaped hairstyles and elongated, knife-shaped fingertips. Mitanovski’s recent Renaissance and Elizabethan-inspired collection, entitled Lady Macbeth, was splendidly captured by Coilhouse favorite Peter Ashworth. The richly hued orange-lavender series provides an upbeat look at Mitanovski’s rather somber designs, and can be seen on Ashworth’s site. Expect for Mitanovski’s designs to appear in the next Lady Gaga video in 3… 2…
Tom LaBrie is a man’s man and a ladies man. He’s a man with a form fitting, wide collared shirt and slim, flared pants. He’s a man with a moustache and an unfortunate haircut. Tom LaBrie is also a man on a mission, and that mission is to get you into the squishy embrace of a fabulous new waterbed. Tom LaBrie made his pitch as the host of “Night Comfort Theater” on Sacramento-based UHF station KTXL in the 1970s and ’80s. In soft, sultry tones he hypnotizes the viewer, his words washing over them like warm, honeyed laudanum, enveloping them in their easy chairs, beckoning them to taste the aqueous pleasures his waterbed warehouse has to offer. Like a polyester siren, his song is nigh irresistible to all but the most steadfast insomniac Odysseus.
Is it even necessary to discuss the utter insanity of Japanese media? I mean by this point I think it has been firmly established that, to the Western sensibility, their commercials are bat-shit crazy; 30 second recordings of spectacularly horrible acid trips. The Japanese version of Mad Men would require the talents of David Lynch and Takashi Miike working in concert. To stare into the mind of the ad man of the Far East is to stare into the face of God. We blink, for our feeble brains cannot process its wonder.
This ad for Dole bananas is no different. The Dole Banana Man struts down the street as people accost him; demanding satisfaction, which he obliges. A woman sitting on a bench despondent, it seems, from a lack of bananas. Not for long, however, as the Dole Banana Man comes upon her and, smiling at the camera, his bananastache atwitter, he bestows on her a bounty of fruit sprayed forth from one nostril; a potassium rich snot-rocket. In doing so he joins the ranks of other, food-bestowing characters like the Cheese Man who shills for Nissin, assaulting people in their homes in order to add cheese to their cups o’ curry. He even has a love interest now. No doubt Dole will do the same and give the Dole Banana Man a female counterpart; someone who he can grope with his sweet, fleshy digits.
The Flora and Fauna tag on Coilhouse reveals many wonders. From actual, real-life creatures – such as the rare, flightless spotted kiwi that made an appearance in yesterday’s BTC, the furry and feathered stars of Larytta’s living kaleidoscope, some stylish camel- and Ninja Turtle-shaped poodles, the memorable, never-safe-for-work Pigbutt Worm, to the imaginary – demonic insects,furry fungi – it’s one exotic menagerie of creatures you either wish you had as pocket-sized talking sidekicks, or hope your enemy encounters in an empty locker room. But there’s one thing missing – weird, real-life plants. Of which there are plenty. The Corpse Plant, for instance, emits the scent of rotting meat to attract bugs. Black hollyhocks are “rock stars of the plant world,” according to Scottish gardener Diane Halligan, explaining that black flowers “seem to rebel against nature and draw us to their nonconformity.” The sleek appearance of Nepenthes ampullaria’s “scavenging cannibal leaves” rivals 1stAveMachine’s bio-electronic botanical fabrications in terms of futuristic style. To name just a few.
But the real star of today’s post is the Rose of Jericho – the “resurrection plant” that can be found in the deserts of Mexico and the Middle East, and possesses the seemingly magical ability to, when placed in a bowl of water, become green and lush in a matter of hours after appearing brown, brittle and lifeless for years. When the plant is removed from water, it shrivels up again, until the next time it’s placed in water. This can be done many times over. One romantic caption from the YouTube video above reads, “it travels blown by the wind, where there seems to be no life, its roots have no home and seem dead, but its heart is emerald green-blooded and it opens wide to the slightest presence of water, then it goes back to sleep… and so it goes, eternal.” The Rose of Jericho is said to have many magical properties; some believe that letting it bloom inside the home brings luck in money, while others believe that carrying bits of the plant on one’s person can keep away negative energy. Even if none of that is true, there’s something deeply hypnotic and perhaps even spiritual to watching this plant unfurl. Especially in the clip below, when set to Clint Mansell’s music for Requiem for a Dream. (By the way, these plants are available in most botanical/witchy stores for under $10.)
[Good morning, dear comrades. I’m chugging redbull and running to catch a ferry in a few minutes, so please forgive the sloppiness of this edition of BTC!]
Last night, I and ten other curious folks took a guided nocturnal hike through the Karori Sanctuary. A dense and verdant square mile of forest located mere minutes from downtown Wellington, the preserve is surrounded by a predator-proof fence (specially designed to keep out invasive species like hedgehogs, possums, cats and dogs), and has become “a safe haven for some of [New Zealand’s] most iconic and endangered native animals, including tuatara, little spotted kiwi, saddleback, hihi and giant weta.”
Our lovely tour guide, Tracy, told us that there are approximately 100 little spotted kiwis living in the sanctuary. They’re extremely shy and elusive critters, so there was no guarantee we’d get to see one. But we lucked out and encountered one foraging in the underbrush mere feet from the trail. He was one of most adorable, lovable creatures I have ever seen. I will cherish the memory of his fuzzy rump bounding off through the twilight for the rest of my life.
There are hundreds of different factoids I could share about his species. Perhaps when I return from my travels in a few days, I’ll add some of them in comments. Hopefully some of Coilhouse’s more knowledgable NZ and/or birding readership will chime in as well?
For now, here is the Maori legend of New Zealand’s beloved hairy little whiskered flightless bird, imparted by Ben, Hayden and Gavin, three young storytellers from Mangakahia Area School in Titoki, Northland:
The Maori Legend:
Why Kiwi Lives on the Forest Floor
One day the king of the forest, Tanemahuta, was walking through the forest. He looked at his trees and noticed that they looked sick. They were being eaten by the bugs that lived on the forest floor. Tanemahuta told his brother Tanehokahoka (King of the sky) what had happened to his children the trees.
Tanehokahoka wanted to help his brother so he called all the birds together for a meeting. Tanemahuta said to them all
“The ground bugs are eating the trees. I need one of you to give up your life in the sky and come and live on the forest floor so the trees will be saved. Who will come?
Tanemahuta and Tanehokahoka waited and listened – but everything was quiet, and not a single bird spoke. Tanehokahoka turned to Tui…
