Here’s an incredible story about Oak Reed, a transgender high school homecoming king candidate who would have won by a landslide had the school board not disqualified him, and the ensuing outcry from his majesty’s peers. These kids are NOT having it, and now the story’s getting national attention. Via the Daily Kos:
If the kids of Mona Shores High School in Muskegon, Michigan are a harbinger of the future…I have some hopes that our world is going to get geometrically better and more sane with each passing generation. They had elected one of their friends to be homecoming king, a fellow who happens to be registered as a female with the school system. A transgender teen, honor roll student, and well liked guy was elected by the school body to the honor… which of course was stripped away by the school: Then, last Monday, the principal called him into her office.
“They told me that they took me off, because they had to invalidate all of my votes because I’m enrolled at Mona Shores as a female,” Reed said.
Asst. Superintendent Todd Geerlings said the ballot gave two choices: Vote for a boy for king and a girl for queen.
And now the kids are raising holy hell.
Right. Freaking. ON. Oak’s friends and family have started a Facebook page, Oak Is My King, and they’re selling shirts internationally to raise money for his upcoming sex reassignment surgery. The SF Chronicle has picked up the story, and now the ACLU wants to get involved. Way to go, y’all! Huge love and support is heading your way.
I have only a rudimentary grasp of the work of Benoît B. Mandelbrot. In fact, what I know is basically that through the use of complex mathematical formulas it is possible to create some kick-ass desktop wallpaper. This does, no doubt, a great injustice to the man’s work, but there it is. Krzysztof Marczak, obviously, understands the aforementioned mathematics better than me and has, with the help of a program called Mandelbulber, produced a hypnotic rendering of a flight through a fractal cube. It’s really great and you should go to the YouTube page to watch it in high def. I bet it would make a kick-ass screensaver.
Japanese photography studio Neon O’Clockworks, previously mentioned on Coilhouse, recently released a short film titled Déjà Vu. The film features an assortment of complex, theatrical headgear crafted by London-based designer Tomihiro Kono. Influenced by 1920-30s, Dada, Surrealism and Assemblage, the hairpieces are constructed from found objects and vintage materials.
More images of Kono’s intricate hairpieces, wigs, masks and other “head props” can be found at Kono’s site and blog. At the latter, you can find full credits and behind-the-scenes stills from Déjà Vu. Full video, after the jump. [via TwistedLamb]
Hurrrrr, neuTRON dance… geddit? (Via BarbieHead, reigning Coilhouse clan queen of Disney trivia/ephemera.)
It’s 1985. It’s Disneyland. It’s the Main Street Electrical Parade. It’s the Pointer Sisters performing their hit single “Neutron Dance”. It’s two dozen exuberant jazz dancers in Tron leotards. It’s a gargantuan glowing mushroom. It’s a spinning, leering, ten-foot-tall bumblebee thingummer about to annihilate the Pointer sister furthest to the right (look closely– you can see the terror in her eyes). It’s a blinking, zigzagging caterpillar conga line. It’s Pete’s friggin’ Dragon farting up the joint. It’s… it’s full of stars? No, wait, it’s just another Monday morning cultural acid flashback, and we all head off to work singin’ “I’m on fiiiiiighYAH!” (Woo hoo!)
Mike Flores, a photographer and filmmaker from North County, San Diego, sets his state-of-the-art HD camera on a dolly that scoots it along at a snail’s pace, shooting time lapse imagery. The resulting footage –particularly that of natural desert landscapes and skies– is stunningly beautiful.
Soundtrack supplied by Hans Zimmer’s bombastic (and highly effective) Inception score. Visit Flores’ Vimeo account for more videos. Be sure to watch them all full screen.
Didn’t get enough of the heebie jeebies after viewing Ross’s Gimme Pizza post? It’s OK, evil scrambled Fox News is here to help. The mysteriously-titled clip, “auspice,” presents a ghostly double-exposure view of slowed-down Fox personalities, set to an unholy-sounding chorus. The music is not credited, and any help identifying the artist would be appreciated. “I hear a little bit of Diamanda in there at the halfway point,” notes Wobbly, who sent this in.
It’s the perfect companion to this CNN piece, also submitted by Wobbly sometime ago. “Listen to me. I want to tell you something. Come closer. Don’t be upset and don’t get emotional.” Which is scarier, that CNN clip (embed-disabled high-res version posted here for your viewing displeasure), or this FOX clip?
I’m fascinated by conspiracy theories. The machinations within machinations, the way they simultaneously complicate simple matters and simplifying the most complex world events, they are a monument to human creativity and imagination. It should be no surprise then that conspiracy theories have come up multiple times on the FAM. Indeed, only last week, we examined some breathless speculation on the veracity of claims that man has ever set foot on the lunar surface.
That, however, is tame as far as conspiracies go. The real money is in world domination, in the people pulling the strings. The Freemasons, the Bilderberg Group, Bohemian Grove, Lizard Men — this is the nexus of lunatic postulation. Therefore, as a service to those in the audience who are, perhaps, not as well versed in the affairs of the tin-foil hat crowd the FAM presents the History Channel special Secret Societies which functions as a great introduction into the mad, mad world and which features FAM favorite David Icke, making his third Friday appearance. Should this pique your interests, feel free to check out Jon Ronson’s Secret Rulers of the World which delves much deeper into all this weird and wonderful nonsense.
It should be pointed out that this is, perhaps, not the best video to be watching first thing in the morning or, conversely, right before bed. The above is a clip from late 80s maudlin sitcom Full House, jumping off point for the careers of The Olsen Twins and the show partially responsible for convincing America that Bob Saget was not a perverted lunatic. Were that all it would not be here, of course (Zo’s obsession with the program and her unbridled lust for Dave Coulier notwithstanding).
What pushes this into true bizarro territory — and, hence, this post — is the fact that it has been slowed down by an unspecified number of degrees, an effect that one could be argued is overdone, but one that nevertheless is almost guaranteed to produce pure nightmare fuel. This point is made plain when the aforementioned clip turns to some of the program’s musical numbers at about 3:40, turning what appeared at first to be a bad acid trip into twisted, lecherous dreamscape. It’s really quite astonishing. And horrible. Mostly horrible.
Correction: It seems this clip is not from late 80s maudlin sitcom Full House and is, apparently, from some other, Olsen related venture. Apologies to Zo and all the other Full House aficionados amongst our readership.
A young girl in a scarlet hoodied romper stares gravely up into the heavily furred, ferociously fanged face of a black wolf. A lesser creature might be shamed by the child’s frank gaze – her features set earnestly, courageously, eyes alight with curiosity, and perhaps, even compassion.
Is the wolf to be deterred by this sweet faced thing, obviously unafraid? Will it stray from it’s monstrously predictable fairytale course? No, it is not. Will not. Cannot — after all, that is what it wolves do, isn’t it?
And before you can blink it has swallowed the girl whole.
The ambitious, online highly atmospheric video for “Devil of Mine” from The Moulettes self titled album resembles nothing less than a Baroque fairy tale “creepshow” and/or meandering hallucinatory dream told through a “pioneering technique utilizing live action, stuff stop motion, and motion GFX”.
A twisty track that is at turns sinister, playful and cleverly, unexpectedly catchy – at 2:06, for example: the juxtaposition of Hannah Miller in a puritanically prim ruffled night dress and cap surrounded a ghoulishly jazzy, finger snapping beat crowd – this is a delightfully decadent, debauched, yet danceable “cacophony of sound”. A real toe (bone) tapper!
Bonus! Here is some sneaky backstage footage of the video.
