On a Friday in the waning months of the 20th century, a Macromedia employee was getting ready to meet with the creator of
Beavis & Butthead the next Monday to demonstrate Flash v.4's new feature, synchronized audio tracks – a feature he needed to learn over the weekend. So he put together the simplest model he could: a floating skull
sans lips, tongue or physique. The meeting was postponed, so the employee continued to spitshine the animation and put it on his website. His friends e-mailed their friends, and soon, everyone met a heavy-metal animated floating skull demon and his adorable little devil pal. Sparks had created
Radiskull, who will kill you one by one.
(Atom) [more inside]
posted by MikeHarris
on Dec 22, 2009 -
38 comments
The Devil's Tramping Ground is a barren circle in the forest in North Carolina. As a result of nothing having grown within the circle for at least the last hundred years, it has become the subject of some of that state's oldest legends. John Harden, a journalist, newspaper editor and author said of that place
"... the story is that the Devil goes there to walk in circles as he thinks up new means of causing trouble for humanity. There sometimes during the dark of night, the Majesty of the Underworld of Evil silently tramps around that bare circle; thinking, plotting, and planning against good, and in behalf of wrong. So far as is known, no person has ever spent the night there to disprove this is what happens.". No person until you came along and played
this neat interactive flash movie, that is.
posted by Effigy2000
on May 29, 2008 -
21 comments
Long before Robert Johnson ever went down to the crossroads, violinist & composer Niccolo Paganini was rumored to have
sold his soul to the devil in exchange for musical ability. Evidence against this theory: Paganini's 5th Caprice actually
prevented the devil from
stealing The Karate Kid's soul (the devil settled for stealing Ralph Macchio's career instead). Evidence in favor of this theory: When played on acoustic guitar, the virtuosity in his 24th Caprice really
seems supernaturally inspired. For my money, however, the perfect storm of ominous music & stringed instruments comes together in
this version of Carmina Burana (mp3 direct download), arranged for solo banjo.
posted by jonson
on Sep 27, 2006 -
35 comments
POLITENESS, n. The most acceptable hypocrisy. On this day Ambrose Bierce was born in 1842 in Ohio. The author famous for
The Devil's Dictionary was a Civil War vet who despite being wounded in the head moved to San Francisco where he began a successful career in journalism, writing cynical columns, fighting publisher William Randolph Hearst, and ultimately serving the first blow upon the railroad industry whose political muscle had grown obscene. A decade later, the family man whose wife was from one of the most well-to-do families in the City, dissapeared probably in Mexico never to be seen or heard from again.
posted by tsarfan
on Jun 24, 2005 -
13 comments
Devil Worship: The Sacred Books and Traditions of the Yezidiz , by Isya Joseph, 1919. 'This is one of the only public domain sources of information on the religious beliefs of the Yezidi, a small group originally from the northern region of Iraq. Although they speak Kurdish, they are a distinct population from the Kurds. The Yezidi are notable because they have been described as devil-worshippers, which has naturally led to constant persecution by the dominant Islamic culture of the region ... They have many unique beliefs, such as that the first Yezidi were created by Adam by parthenogenesis separately from Eve ... ' New on
sacred-texts.com.
posted by plep
on Sep 17, 2004 -
4 comments
I've just finished reading a copy of Larson's
Devil
in the White City sent to me by a relative who heard of my love for
Isaac's
Storm.
Devil is a biography of two men who were
central to the 1893
Chicago World's
Fair. One,
Daniel
H. Burnham would become one of the most influential architects and
city planners of the early 20th century. Burnham organized a crew of
the architectural, engineering and artistic elite including landscape artist
Frederick Law Olmstead
(famous for Central Park and Biltmore) in an effort to better the Paris
world's fair of 1889. The Chicago exposition would be profoundly
influential for American culture introducing Arabic Dance (the tune for "There's a place in France/where the naked ladies dance" was created in Chicago), the Ferris
Wheel, Shredded Wheat, and helping to settle the
Battle of the Currents
between Edison and Tesla. The fair drew a large variety of larger than
life figures including Archduke Ferdinand, Elizabeth B. Anthony, Buffalo Bill Cody and the
mostly forgotten master of self promotion
Citizen
Train.
Devil is also a biography of the man given credit for
America's first recognized serial murders, the self-named
H. H. Holmes. At the start
of the fair, Holmes changed his
modus operandi from marrying and
killing women as part of insurance and real estate scams, to running a
hotel from which an unknown number of his female tenants never checked
out. Although information on Holmes's activities is scanty, he serves
as a mirror of the utopia of civic safety created by Burnham. Larson makes the argument that the contrasts between optimisim and pessimism, well-intentioned virtue and depravity, urban utopia with a few blocks from slums, would set the tone for the 20th century.
posted by KirkJobSluder
on Aug 7, 2004 -
13 comments
You probably remember him best for his famous
green devil, tempting you with the esoteric delight of evil absinthe
*, or the familiar image of the jester pushing the pleasures of
Bitter Campari. Called by some the "father of the modern poster", and even the "
father of advertising", Italian-born
Leonetto Cappiello created over 1,000 memorable posters during his 40-year career in belle-epoque and fin-de-siecle Paris, and a quick look at a
collection of his work quickly reminds us how enduring both his images and his basic concepts have been.
(more...)
posted by taz
on Nov 4, 2002 -
15 comments
New gender-neutral bible planned... It seems there is a lot of
controversy surrounding the revised bible known as "Today's New International Version," or TNIV. The Council on Bibllical Manhood and Womanhood has released a
statement on what is wrong with a gender-neutral bible translation while admitting there are a few improvements regarding changing the word
men (which isn't specified by Greek text) to
all people, a faithful rendering of the Greek pronoun
pas
According to some, this is the work of the devil and
feminist groups
everywhere.
There have been outright denouncings of the gender-neutral bible by several Christian groups... but really, what do you think? Is it really the big deal people make it out to be? How can the church teach that man and mankind in the Bible refers to all of God's human creatures and yet, not support a genderless translation???
posted by gloege
on Jan 28, 2002 -
64 comments
German satanic couple held after ritual murder Nothing better to create hits than this.
It has: devil-worshipping, satanic killing, with 66 machete and hammer wounds, "The victim was no longer recognisable", DNA analysis to discover his identity, black oak coffin, upturned crosses, Nazi SS rune stones, Count Dracula's castle, walls were covered in black cloths, "When Satan Lives", July 6, a date supposedly chosen for the satanic symbolism of number six, The shaven-headed, body-pierced Daniel and his pink-haired, leather-clad bride Manuela, occult chat-line....
I'll stop now, but there's more....
posted by nonharmful
on Jul 26, 2001 -
11 comments
