These lovely little “jellyfish” are made of airplants and sea urchin shells. I originally saw them at This is Why I’m Broke and assumed they came pre-assembled; however, the actual Etsy listing calls them a “kit” and specifies DIY assembly. If you’re gonna have to do that, you may as well just get the supplies yourself.
The plants appear to be one of the bajillion varieties of Tillandsia, which are widely available at nurseries and online (they even come in pretty colors.) If you want something a little more exotic, there are dozens of other varieties to choose from.
Sea urchin shells are similarly ubiquitous; you can find them at souvenir shops, craft supply stores, or online.
Stick the one into the other and you’ve got yourself a jellyfish. Hang with a bit of clear fishing line: You can drill holes in the shell if you’re feeling really ambitious, but it’s probably easiest to just thread the line through the hole and tie it around the base of the airplant. You can also hang several by repurposing a cheap photo mobile.
These are a great decoration for an office or other area where there isn’t much natural light. They’d also make an interesting favor for an undersea-themed party or wedding.
Brazilian street artist Herbert Baglione has a series called 1000 Shadows in which he paints weird, floating silhouettes on floors and walls. He recently continued the series in an abandoned psychiatric hospital in Italy. The result is haunting.
I unfortunately can’t seem to find a list of the entire series anywhere. His site and Facebook page include some project photos intermixed with his other work (some of which, incidentally, is NSFW), but there are no tags or categories. There’s a 1000 Shadows tag on Instagram, but it also picks up other users’ shares of the images, so there are lots of repeats.
Despite the difficulty in finding the images, they’re worth seeking out. Even the ones that aren’t done in an old insane asylum marvelously creepy and otherworldly, like the things you see out of the corner of your eye that are gone when you take another look.
Never Ending Night – Art/science project (currently looking for funding) which aims to make a live feed of the starry night sky available online 24 hours a day.
strangeling – Jasmine Beckett-Griffith does unusual, surreal takes on fairy-tale princesses and other legendary figures. This is the most whimsical little version of Durga that you’ll ever see. (You can also purchase some originals if you’re feeling spendy.)
Dish Wish – Scrub brush shaped like a fairy’s wand.
Bela Lugosi’s Birthday – New Doctor Who star Peter Capaldi was lead singer in a punk rock band called Dreamboys (whose drummer was Craig Ferguson). Here’s one of their songs.
Octopus Chair – This is astonishingly gorgeous, and I don’t even want to guess what it would cost. (Hat tip to Sisifo)
Funeral Meat – Show this sculpture to your relatives at Thanksgiving and I guarantee they will all want tofu for dinner.
Pronunciation Book is a strange and little-viewed YouTube channel which provides guidance on pronouncing words and phrases in American English. The channel has been running since April of 2010, and the words it chooses to highlight tend to be rather odd: “Zosia Mamet,” “one million dollar commercial,” “Yggdrasil,” “goodbye lyrics,” and “tsundere” amongst them.
It also occasionally features how-to guides with unusual example phrases: How to State an Unpleasant Fact in English teaches you how to pronounce, “I have no choice but to complete the mission.” How to Bargain in English has, “I’ll tell you where it is if you promise to leave this city.”
On July 9, the words suddenly stopped and a countdown took its place. A new video is posted daily, counting down from 77, which promises that “something is going to happen.” Each message is followed by a series of clicks which were originally thought to be Morse code. However, some users exploring the mystery have used spectography to convert the audio files into visual data, revealing an image file that seems to be the lower part of a man pointing toward the camera.
CNet has more on the puzzle, and there’s a public Google Doc with a detailed analysis. The best guess is that this is the start of an alternate reality game by a company called Synydyne; if so, they have certainly committed to the bit: A three-year lead time is pretty impressive (CNet notes that phrases in some previous videos may have hinted at what was to come; How to Argue in English uses “I’m trying to tell you something, but you’re just not listening” as an example).
At its present rate, the countdown will end on September 24. I’ll be curious to see what comes next.
Musician Ken Elkinson specializes in “solo piano and ambient” music. He just dropped me a line about his newest project, an all-Halloween album called Halloween Ambient. He notes that he got the germ of the idea when one of his children said, “Daddy you should make Halloween music,” which made him think about how much he loved the holiday.
I then thought about the annual Halloween costume contest at my day job…about how I won so many times, that they actually cancelled the contest last year because they did not want me winning again. Then I realized how much I love Halloween, so much that even with the costume contest cancelled I still showed up at work dressed as Richard Simmons. I should add 100% accurately dressed as Richard Simmons down to the sheer pantyhose, even as no one else bothered to come in costume.
Awright, Ken! Way to represent!
He states that he tried to make the music “haunting and minimalistic without being overly cheesy.” The album has just dropped and is available for download at iTunes, Amazon, and other major digital music stores. If you want a physical CD, they can be purchased through his site.
He’s also kindly offered a free track for my readers to download. This track is called “Cauldron,” and it has a wonderfully ethereal quality. Download it here.
This is lovely stuff, and would be perfect as background music that’s thematic without being intrusive. It’d also make a nice gift, particularly for people who aren’t quite sure what to make of one’s Halloween obsession (and here I’m thinking of my mother-in-law) since it nicely fits the spirit of the holiday without being overly weird.
Incidentally, he’s got a number of other albums (including two other holiday-themed ones: Christmas and Chanukah), so if you like his Halloween stuff check out the rest of his music as well.
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(No prizes, but if you can answer them all without googling you get bragging rights.)
The Handbook for the Recently Deceased in Beetlejuice “reads” like what?
A famous haunting known as the Dalby Spook involved a talking animal (variously interpreted as a poltergeist, a cryptid, or merely a hoax) named Gef. What kind of animal was Gef supposed to be?
A) Badger
B) Cobra
C) Owl
D) Mongoose
E) Dog
Although the title sounds like horror, Stephen King’s novella The Body is instead slice-of-life drama. It was adapted into a movie with what title?
The comic play (and later movie) Blithe Spirit involves a séance gone awry, leaving the ghost of a man’s first wife trying to disrupt his marriage to his second wife. Who is the author of the play?
A) George Bernard Shaw
B) Oscar Wilde
C) Eugene O’Neill
D) Lillian Hellman
E) Noël Coward
In Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files, wizard Harry Dresden’s helper/adviser is a spirit who resides in a skull. What is the spirit’s name?
The Cottingly Fairies were a series of photographs taken between 1917 and 1920 which purported to show fairies interacting with two young girls. The case gained the attention of what famous author and spiritualist?
A) Charles Dickens
B) Arthur Conan Doyle
C) Jack London
D) W. B. Yeats
E) Harry Price
The Tower of London is said to be haunted by (amongst many others) the ghosts of two little boys who were murdered by their uncle because they were heirs to the throne that he later claimed for himself. Who was their murderer?
Alfred Hitchcock liked to make a cameo in each movie he directed. In a film which featured a limited cast, he snuck in an appearance as “Before” and “After” photos in a newspaper weight-loss advertisement. What was the film?
A) Lifeboat
B) Rope
C) Dial M for Murder
D) Rear Window
E) Strangers on a Train
This mythical Australian animal is said to be a large, vicious, arboreal marsupial related to the Koala which attacks its prey by pouncing on top of it. It is classified as Thylarctos plummetus in the Australian Museum’s catalogue of native fauna. (Yes, really.)
In the TV series The Addams Family, Morticia’s mother was played by Margaret Hamilton. What was the character’s name?
A) Ophelia
B) Endora
C) Hester
D) Lydia
E) Dorcas
In this poignant short film, a murder victim’s consciousness is uploaded to a computer and interrogated in a bid to catch his killer. (Yes, that is Paul Reubens.)
Marty Magic – Lots of interesting jewelry, including a decent selection of Halloween-themed stuff. I particularly like the octopus and bat flock ear cuffs.
Cthulhu Mask – Amazingly detailed mask, which will apparently be part of a whole costume. (Hat tip to Sisifo)
Back in 2008 Amanda Palmer got the idea to produce a deck of themed tarot cards. She did an open call for submissions and selected an artist to create each card. There was much excitement and illustrations were produced and then the project sort of…evaporated. Apparently no real explanation was ever offered other than that AFP’s team were juggling a lot of projects and the deck fell through the cracks. And lo, there was gnashing of teeth.
A friend who did one of the cards just announced that the deck is back on again. Two of the artists decided to get the thing printed on their own, contacted as many of the original artists as they could find, and are launching a Kickstarter to produce the deck (pleasantly, unlike the original project, all of the artists will be paid royalties).
The AFP Tarot Kickstarter campaign will launch on Monday, August 5. You can stay abreast of updates via their Facebook page or Twitter feed.
Just for fun I googled around to see how many of the original images I could turn up. This is going to be one eclectic deck. (Many, unsurprisingly, are NSFW, so click with care.)
These lovely little “jellyfish” are made of airplants and sea urchin shells. I originally saw them at This is Why I’m Broke and assumed they came pre-assembled; however, the actual Etsy listing calls them a “kit” and specifies DIY assembly. If you’re gonna have to do that, you may as well just get the supplies yourself.
Brazilian street artist Herbert Baglione has a series called 1000 Shadows in which he paints weird, floating silhouettes on floors and walls. He recently continued the series in an abandoned psychiatric hospital in Italy. The 
Musician 
Back in 2008 Amanda Palmer got the idea to produce a deck of themed tarot cards. She did an open call for submissions and selected an artist to create each card. There was much excitement and illustrations were produced and then the project sort of…evaporated. Apparently no real explanation was ever offered other than that AFP’s team were juggling a lot of projects and the deck fell through the cracks. And lo, there was gnashing of teeth.