How on earth have I lived in ignorance of the existence of Theo Jansen’s kinetic “beach animals” until now? Heart-achingly beautiful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5GgZ-RfpD8

From Wired News:

“Jansen is evolving an entirely new line of animals: immense multi-legged walking critters designed to roam the Dutch coastline, feeding on gusts of wind. Over the years, successive generations of his creatures have evolved into increasingly complex animals that walk by flapping wings in response to the wind, discerning obstacles in their path through feelers and even hammering themselves into the sand on sensing an approaching storm.”

Four names immediately spring to mind: Leonardo DaVinci, Mark Pauline, Hayao Miyazaki, and Lee Bontecou. Theo Jansen, the father of Animaris Percipiere and Animaris Rhinocerous, has just joined those venerable souls on my shortlist of creators who deserve to have glorious temples and shrines, even cities, built in their honor.

Big love to Justin for the elucidation. More images and comprehensive article links under the cut.

With the much-appreciated feedback we’ve been getting for What’s Zo Wearing?, and so many wonderfully inspired and inspiring creatures out there, we’ve decided to occasionally present our favorites; créme de la créme so to speak. Here we’ll be asking about personal style philosophy, shopping habits and views on fashion in general.

I first came across Princess Coldheart a.k.a. Princest on MySpace a few years ago and immediately fell in love with her look. Appreciation of drama, big hair,and big shoes is a sure way to my heart, but there’s far more to her than meets the eye. Spend some time reading her painstakingly written LJ entires and you’ll see a well-versed, intelligent and delicate person. She’s not afraid to present herself as dramatically as she pleases, while still being fascinated by the world around her and that’s where the real inspiration lies. You can find her here and here.

“I generally try to be unique, vibrant and individualistic when it comes to the way that I look and dress and how I style my hair and do my make up. Frankly, my style has gotten much simpler and more stripped down over time (as compared to how intricate, elaborate and altogether impractical my predominantly all-black outfits and overall look used to be).

It’s Monday morning again. Drag yourself up from that Ambien fog with some wholesome, manly arena rock:

(Broken link updated.)

Fuck a bunch of Flashdance. 1984 belongs to Billy Squier and his no-holds-barred performance in the “Rock Me Tonight” video.

In all seriousness, I give this man infinite kudos for venturing waaay out of his comfort zone. Shame on all the repressed homosexuals who renounced him at the time. Take into account the concupiscent gender confusion of those hazy days. Times were a’changing for classic stadium rockers. Let no one cast a stone at Budokan Billy for trying to scramble aboard big hair metal’s bandwagon, for who among us has not been seduced by some unfortunate 80s trend, either in their unquestioning past, or the ironic now? (Not I, says the girl clad in fluffy mohair legwarmers.)

This dance is a good dance. A dance of reckless abandon, vulnerable and radiant. On this dour Monday morning while the coffee brews and the sun beats down upon my satin sheets, I will do your dance, Billy Squier, and do it right.

(Wearing elbow pads, of course. With the shades drawn.)

I’ve already mentioned the freeform radio station WFMU a few times on C.H. and I surely will again. Based out of Jersey City, this listener-supported outpost of obscure music and culture has been a constant source of delight to me since the mid 90s. Before then, I had no idea that kind of integrity or diversity existed in radio.

Today I’d like to make specific mention of Tom Scharpling’s modestly titled “The Best Show on WFMU”, a comedy segment that often features indie-rock luminary Jon Wurster masquerading as various call-in guests. I can’t think of anything more entertaining to listen to on this chilly Sunday evening than their mind-blowing gaff “The Music Scholar”. The Music Scholar

We all know at least one real-life Charles R. Martin: that elitist snob propped up at the end of every single hipster dive bar in the universe, oozing condescension and pretentiousness, a dismissive amateur musicologist given to Cooler-Than-Thou histrionics and compulsive one-upmanship. Wurster cranks these characteristics up to 11, reducing the most elitist Pitchfork writers or Bedford Avenue disputants to fleecy wee lambs by comparison.

Last week there no one believed me about PayLess, but here’s more proof! On occasion they just have decent stuff. Not too often but it does happen – at least one pair of actually decent shoes.Check the website if you don’t want the often tedious experience of actually walking into one of these places, but I wouldn’t recommend buying anything here without trying it on. So if you find something you like on the site, call up your local stores and ask them to set aside the pair/size you need. This way you’re in and out in 15 minutes, tops. Then you have more time to do things. Like dye your incredibly overgrown roots, for instance!

READERSHIP ADVISORY: The following post contains very subjective opinion, frivolity, and the shameless sexual objectification of highly respectable people. In other words, we are about to go totally alt-Cosmo on your ass. You have been warned.

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. – Sir Francis Bacon

Preternatural means out of the ordinary course of nature; exceptional or abnormal. That which appears outside or beyond the natural. Extremity – an ordinary phenomenon taken beyond the natural.

10 Klaus Kinski

Bug-eyed, white-haired, rubbery-lipped Klaus Kinski was by all accounts (especially his own) an insatiable fuck machine. Open his infamously filthy memoirs to any random page and gasp at the depravity. He also happened to be gibbering batshit insane. It has been observed that sociopaths are often very charismatic. Certainly, when Kinski wasn’t foaming at the mouth, he could charm the knickers off any lady in the room. Fans of exploitation cinema adore him as the punishing playboy in Jess Franco’s masterpiece, Venus In Furs. His tumultuous partnership with filmmaker Werner Herzog yielded two of the most compelling antiheroes of all time: Aguirre and Nosferatu. Indeed, even in the most paltry cameo roles, Kinski oozed a certain fetid yet undeniable charm.

We often have a code among ourselves and those we identify with. Nadya recently mentioned certain people’s common love of tentacles, and for me between the ages of 15 and 18 this code was Gift. It was an art film made by Perry Farrell, likely at the height of his creativity, with his then-wife Casey Niccolli and released after Jane’s Addiction initially broke up in 1992. The plot is loosely woven around a fictional overdose and death of Casey, and grief-stricken Perry’s reaction. Stream of consciousness storytelling combined with concert footage, spoken word, and iconic imagery made an enormous impression on me. Soon I demanded every person I met watch this film. I’d observe their reactions and attempt to decipher whether they were My People.

Comrade Lev has left on a special Coilhouse mission for about a week. While obligations prevent me from saying more, site rest assured it is a task of high caliber!

Now, in conjunction with this post, let us dwell for a moment on Polish artist Maciej Osika. Osika has dedicated several years of his photographic career to portraying himself as a beautiful feminine creature. These stirring images are a combination of digital and film work, intended to display beauty that is other, beyond standard queues of male or female. Exposed shoulders and silk combined with closely cropped hair in the image below are a good example of this, devoid of dramatic makeup and hair typically associated with cross-dressing. Maciej says of these portraits: “This does not mean that I want to be a woman at all costs: all I really want is to show that by photographs I can be beautiful for at least a moment. But the beauty contained in my portraits is merely a play of light and shadow…and I decide whether in the given situation I will be beautiful or ugly.”

• Maciej Osika on ArtMargins
• Polish article and a few images
• A multitude of images and an essay from Osika

Yesterday I got two emails, one right after another, from two completely different people, both about Survival Research Laboratories.

Paul Komoda shares a link to a YouTube video entitled Weird Weapons of WW2, which aired on the History Channel. The video discusses psychoacoustics, air cannons and other unusual Nazi attempts at weaponry from WW2. All of these machines were abandoned or dismantled, but Mark Pauline appears to demonstrate how some of them worked using SRL recreations. It’s funny to hear the History Channel people describe SRL in that gee-whiz History Channel voice. Also from Paul, a link to A Bitter Message of Hopeless Grief, “an almost Quay-like film” featuing SRL machines.

Mark Jennings sends along news of the approaching Blue + Green Ball, a Todd Blair benefit happening this Saturday in San Francisco. Todd Blair is a member of SRL who suffered a head injury during a recent SRL performance in Amsterdam. Todd has a long road of medical bills, living and rehab expenses, and a community of artists and performers has joined to help him by putting together this show. Activities include music, belly dancing, dada percussion, art auction peices by Stelarc, SRL, Lynn Hershman, Eduardo Kac and others, hot dogs steamed by the Neverwas Steam Car, and more.

I’ve mentioned Eric Eric Lafforgue here before, click his eye and lens are just remarkable. In my mind he must be some sort of great adventurer, at least according to his Flickr stream. The stunning image above is from a book of his on the Papou tribe of New Guinea.