Belbury is an English market town with a picturesque 11th century church, and some notable modernist architecture, including the Polytechnic College. None of which exist except in the constructed world of the
Ghost Box record label, whose founder Jim Jupp records under the name
Belbury Poly, and publishes the
Belbury Parish Magazine.
[more inside]
posted by reynir
on Feb 11, 2012 -
5 comments
As we near completion of the current Year of the Rat, it feels appropriate to tell a story about how rat appreciation started, how the ratitor came to be, and how the organic unfolding of rat haus reality awareness manifested, first in the building of the balsa wood house itself (preceded by the rat cabin and
ancestral rat hans), then in its image scribing, next as a gift-in-photo series, and now as this virtual gathering place for consciousness to further explore, expand, and extend itself.
posted by deanklear
on Jan 20, 2012 -
6 comments
"...Obama isn’t just lying about his identity. He’s lying about his military service record, too. While his political opponents in 2008 attacked him for never serving, in truth, he was concealing his participation in
a hidden CIA intergalactic program hosted at a California community college in 1980."
posted by Brandon Blatcher
on Jan 4, 2012 -
77 comments
After the, aheh, weirdness surrounding Ann Vandermeer's departure from Weird Tales (
Previously), Jeff and Ann Vandermeer have now released the succinctly titled compendium of weird fiction, "
The Weird," covering 100 years and 750,000 words of weird fiction.
The hitherto-silent "companion site,"
Weird Fiction Review, launches today, revealing itself to be a bit of an all-purpose blog about fiction as well as general strangeness and affiliated oddities.
[more inside]
posted by Scattercat
on Oct 31, 2011 -
27 comments
"
n arratives is a surreal, offbeat humour, low-key comedy cartoon show in amazing MULTICOLOURWIDESCREENMADNESSTECHNOLOGY." Apparently the first in a series. (SLVimeo; German with English subtitles.)
posted by ixohoxi
on Mar 21, 2011 -
7 comments
Complex China-U.S. currency issue explained in bizarre news animation. "Need a primer on the issues? Check out our US-Sino Currency Rap Battle, featuring Chinese president Hu Jintao and American president Barack Obama.
China has mad stacks of US Treasury debt and fears America will inflate its way out the hole by weakening the greenback further.
The US, on the other hand, says China is keeping its currency artificially undervalued to protect its exports.
It's a battle for the ages. And everything you need to know about US-Sino trade relations can be learned right here."
posted by Fizz
on Nov 10, 2010 -
27 comments
Take a game like Super Mario Bros. Introduce garbage data into the code, either through random Game Genie codes or a corruptor program. Try to play what results,
while the laws of reality slowly go insane in the background, and upload the "best" results to YouTube. Can Mario make it to the princess
when stomping a Goomba turns the air to water,
when hitting a block ends the world,
when the world is infinite length,
if the ground can't support his weight,
when touching a flagpole destroys his mind,
when brought into being over an ocean immediately before a fatal heart attack,
before the enemies turn into Bowser-halves,
while the universe is freaking out around him?
(hint: no)
posted by JHarris
on Oct 11, 2010 -
50 comments
Do we live in a world where there is magic and meaning, or is it all just chance? Radiolab meets two young women who share a nearly unbelievable story of coincidence and fate. Then they consult with statisticians for a very different take on the same story.
This short audio documentary is charming and delightful.
A Lucky Wind won a Best Documentary: Honorable Mention Award in the 2009 Third Coast / Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Competition as well as the 2009 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award (Radio Documentary).
[more inside]
posted by storybored
on Aug 25, 2010 -
92 comments
Gifts from
The King of the Internet. Observe,
Falconer; the great consulting detective and pervert. His early years as a male prostitute had quite ruined his spine, although they'd also gifted him with his sharp senses and preternaturally strong tongue. Consider also,
Cathcart Zen; chemical atrocity and monument to manhood.
[more inside]
posted by Lorc
on Aug 17, 2010 -
13 comments
Greetings from the Twine Ball, wish you were here: "But you can't see out of the side of the car, because the windows are completely covered with the decals of all the places where we've already been: there's
Elvis-O-Rama, the
Tupperware Museum, the
Boll Weevil Monument, and
Cranberry World, the
Shuffleboard Hall Of Fame,
Poodle Dog Rock, and the
Mecca of Albino Squirrels. We've been to ghost towns, theme parks, wax museums, and
a place where you can drive through the middle of a tree ... "
[more inside]
posted by WCityMike
on Jul 8, 2010 -
41 comments
Jani, a hindu man in western India, claims not to have taken in any food or water for 70 years. He has been under 24 hour surveillance since April 22 by a hospital team.
This video goes into a little more detail.
posted by mdn
on Apr 29, 2010 -
82 comments
So this new
critter, the
Symbion pandora, has such a bizarre life cycle and is just so bloody weird -unlike anything we had come across before- that its
discovery in 1995 lead to the creation of a whole new phylum in the Animal Kingdom. Meet the little
monsters.
If your weird-o-meter is humming, keep reading
Zoologger, a new column in NewScientist magazine that writes about about weird animals from around the globe. Selective abortion in pipefish, single-cell giants that enslave bacteria, amphibious cats, you name it.
posted by Cobalt
on Apr 28, 2010 -
38 comments
