Monty Python era Terry Gilliam gives a lesson in the cut out animation he was so well known for. Watching this, site I was struck by how inventive Gilliam was in playing with perspective and appropriating images as well as how maddeningly fiddly the entire process seems. Even with the help of tape I would be terrified that a stray gust of air or a sneeze would take everything away with it. Stop motion animators have nerves of steel and more patience than I shall ever possess.

Via Drawn

Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared, by London-based art collective This Is It, at first seems like a bizarro children’s television from an alternate dimension. Looking at the modern, television landscape, however, it would seem that much of the programming for neonates is comprised of educational material wrapped in visuals that would make the Surrealists weep with joy. If anything, this is just taking the concept to its logical, if unsettling, conclusion.

No Friday Afternoon Movie today. Instead, we present Jon Lajoie’s hip hop tribute to not giving a fuck. It is absolutely vital that you watch this right now (with headphones if you’re at work as it’s full of dirty, work-inappropriate language). The FAM will return next week. Promise.

When the internet was created, those involved most likely imagined a vast network where ideas could be shared across great expanses. Where great minds could come together to work on the most fundamental questions of human existence. Instead, here’s a video of Shelley Duvall, star of The Shining, introducing herself in almost the exact same way twenty four times. It is both maddening and hypnotic. Gaze upon its banal majesty and weep for what might have been.

(Also, let me just say, that this is, perhaps, the most terrifying thing one could hear upon entering a graveyard.)

Courtesy of the wonderful, search talented tykylevits, producer of fine Finnish nonsense for four years and counting.

I would venture that there are few phrases that stimulate the brain-meats of journalists or bloggers more than “Nazi sex dolls”. It is an idea so rife with possibility that it is nigh irresistible. The Daily Mail, in fact, just recently found itself under its powerful sway when it published this article, detailing the findings of one Graeme Donald, author of Mussolini’s Barber: And Other Stories of the Unknown Players who Made History Happen, who stumbled upon this tantalizing bit of information while researching the history of the Barbie doll. Barbie, in case you do not know, was originally modeled on Lilli (pictured here courtesy of The Daily Mail), a 1950s German sex doll.

Donald claims to have uncovered evidence relating to the “Borghild Project”, a program set up by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in order to make a doll who could satisfy the desires of their soldiers on the front and, in turn, help them to avoid being sidelined by the venereal diseases passed onto them by (The Daily Mail specifies) French prostitutes.

The dolls were apparently trialled in Nazi-occupied Jersey at the German barracks in St Hellier.

After being refined, Himmler was so impressed he immediately ordered 50 of them.

However, at the beginning of 1942 he changed his mind and the whole project was axed and any evidence was destroyed in the Allied bombing of Dresden.

The story came from German sculptor Arthur Rink, one of the men on the team which designed the doll at the Racial Hygiene and Demographic Biology Research Unit.

The plan referred to the dolls as “gynoids” and were said to be “smaller than life-size” (again, quoting The Daily Mail).

So, you can see the allure here, right? Hitler commissioned lilliputian sex dolls for Nazi troops. How could you not want to publish that story? Everyone wants to run that! It possesses a bizarre, fucked up perfection. And so, people have. More importantly, people did. In 2005. A quick search shows that Boing Boing’s Xeni Jardin fell under the siren spell of Nazi sex dolls (via Fleshbot who, in true, blogger fashion, appended a question mark to their headline to give themselves an out (NSFW)) just a month shy of 6 years ago. She was quickly disappointed thirteen days later, when it was argued that the story was, instead, a hoax. She was, perhaps, just as disappointed as I was when I Googled “Nazi Sex Dolls” upon receiving this link to see if I could beat Boing Boing to the punch. DAMN YOU JARDIN!

So now the question is: Is it a hoax? Has Graeme Donald found actual proof of the fabled “Borghild Project” or have both he, and The Daily Mail, and about a dozen others (including Gawker, no question mark this time) simply given in to the temptation of writing about lilliputian Nazi sex dolls, something for which I can hardly blame them? Could it be that I have become part of some sort of recursive hoaxing? I very much hope it is the first. History that weird should always be true.

Thanks, Pete!

One of the more unique looking, and easily one of the most unique sounding musical instruments ever invented, Hans Reichel’s daxophone is sure to put some spring in your step and some giggles in your face this fine morning:

A bowed musical instrument that falls into the category of “friction idiophones“, the daxophone consists of a long, thin wooden blade notched into a wooden block containing one or more contact (piezo) mics, often attached to a tripod. In addition to being bowed, daxophones can be plucked or struck, conducting sounds the same way “a struck ruler halfway off a table does”, with each vibration moving through a “tongue” of wood into the instrument’s wood block base, which acts as a resonator for the contact mics contained inside.

Depending on the shape and grain of each wooden tongue, and how they are manipulated, all manner of uncanny (and often hilarious) warbling, moaning, grumbling, yodeling, spluttering, rasping, growling, yowling sounds can be coaxed from these oddly human-sounding pieces of wood. (The daxophone’s name comes from the use of a stopper block of wood called the “dax”, which is fretted on one side to produce fixed pitches, while the other side is curved and smooth, allowing a performer to shift more fluidly from one note into the next.)

A variety of daxophone tongues. (Via oddmusic.com.)

Generously, Reichel offers extensive downloadable plans for his invention on his website so that other woodworkers can create daxophones of their very own.

Visit oddmusic.com to find out more about this, and countless other experimental instruments and musicians. Also worth checking out:

• Gravikords, Whirlies & Pyrophones
• Orbitones Spoon Harps & Bellowphones
• Bradford Reed
• Interview with musical instrument inventor Dan Rathbun
• INSTRUMENTAL documentary by Gabriel Shalom
• The Vegetable Orchestra

I got far too little sleep last night. For what reason, I do not know, but I was simply unable to get more than two or three hours of real rest and, as such, I am not all here at the moment. And while this is normally a bad thing, it does allow me to at least place the blame for this week’s FAM upon my delirium.

With that out of the way, allow me to present Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky from 1991, directed by Lam Nai-choi and starring Fan Siu-wong as the titular hero. Truthfully, that is all I would like to say about it, letting those who have not seen it just stumble in blindly but that would be, perhaps, irresponsible of me. So, as far as plot goes: The year is 2001 and all government institutions have been privatized. At the beginning of the film our hero, Riki-Oh Saiga, martial arts master, arrives at a prison to serve a ten year sentence for manslaughter, for killing the man indirectly responsible for the death of Riki’s girlfriend.

That’s all you get. However, I must warn viewers that the draw of this particular film (besides the amazing/bad dubbing) is, frankly, its outlandish violence. Saying The Story of Ricky contains some blood and gore is like saying Bill Gates has a few bucks. The movie is soaked through with gallons of fake blood. It is an orgy of ludicrous, cartoonish violence. If you aren’t down for watching a man punch the jaw off a laughably fake head, then don’t click the play button. If, however, that level of disgusting camp appeals to you, and you haven’t already seen this fine movie, then prepare yourself for an hour and a half of the most ridiculous martial arts mayhem ever recorded.

Every once in a while I like to check in on Alex Jones, just to see how he’s doing. The man lives in a very dangerous world, you understand. Far more dangerous than the sphere that you and I inhabit. Crazy shit goes down on a daily basis in Jones’s ‘hood, so I just stop by every now and then to make sure that his head hasn’t exploded or, at the very least, to witness his head exploding.

There could not have been a better time. Truly, this is some of the man’s finest work. It’s got everything a conspiracy could ask for: government cover-ups, drug use, Philip K. Dick and elves. It’s awe-inspiring stuff. The gist is that powerful old men, who may or may not be ruling the world, are jacked up on the powerful hallucinogen dimethyltryptamine (DMT). Under the effects of the drug, they have come into contact with beings Jones’s claims they refer to as “clockwork elves” who instructed them to enslave humanity and build the Large Hadron Collider.

Now, Jones insists that he does not believe this (probably…maybe) and that this is “pretty David Icke”. He wants you to know that he doesn’t talk about this stuff because it would blow your mind. But he also knows that you need to know these things. You need to be aware because, as mentioned, Alex Jones lives in a pretty dangerous world and, with his help, you can too.

Sexy Witch writes:

“Two of New York’s most successful witches”, viagra sale Abragail and Valaria, hospital “reveal their occult (and culinary) secrets for a livelier love life!” in How to Become a Sensuous Witch: Spells, Rituals, and Recipes for a Livelier Love Life (New York: Paperback Library, [November] 1971). The shout on the rear cover continues:

Finding a new love, or getting rid of an old one, is simple when you use magic. Keeping the right man is easier too.

How to be a Sensuous Witch is a combination of time-tested rituals and up to the minute recipes guaranteed to satisfy you and your love.

There are spells to attract both men and money (poverty is counter-sensuous), to arouse passion, to assure fidelity, or (if you get bored) to separate your lover from you. The recipes range from elegant dinners to restorative breakfasts—and there is a whole chapter on festive Sabbats for your whole Coven!

More info at Sexy Witch. Via Catamara, thanks!