MetaFilter posts tagged with weird and culture

witness the strangest customs of the red, white, brown, black and yellow races ... attend their startling rites, their mysterious practices ... all assembled for you

anastasiav — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 07:41:40 -0800

The Secret Museum of Mankind :: "Published in 1935, the Secret Museum is a mystery book. It has no author or credits, no copyright, no date, no page numbers, no index ... The tone of the commentary is dated, and uniformly racist in the extreme, often hilariously so. It reads like the patter of a carnival sideshow barker, from a time when the world was divided between "modern" Europeans and "savages" ... Presented here is the Secret Museum in its entirety, all 564 pages scanned and transcribed-- nothing is omitted or censored ... Treat it as entertainment instead of education (don't take it seriously and don't believe a word it says!), adjust for the blatant racial bias of the time, and enjoy."

The most banal, grotesque, ironic, twisted, or perverse creations of the capitalist marketplace.

sushiwiththejury — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:57:14 -0800

The Museum Of Weird Consumer Culture.
Richard Wilk's homepage. Wilk's book, Home Cooking in the Global Village, is online and free.

The Salton Sea

brownpau — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 10:13:02 -0800

Jonson takes pictures of The Salton Sea, which is a strange place, like some kind of huge, perpetual, Burning Man, but by a huge, salty, polluted, manmade lake with distant shores, dying fish, has-been resort towns, Salvation Mountain, fundie dinos, fountains of youth, and nice churches. [via mefi projects] [previously] [howdy]

Just when you thought it was safe to order the appetizer

jason's_planet — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 09:09:16 -0800

OK, I’ve been a good American. I’ve done the turkey and stuffing routine for more than three decades now. But next year is gonna be different. Next year I shall celebrate Thanksgiving by flying out to Iceland, where I intend to harpoon a big ugly shark. My friends and I will then bury the bugger in a gravel pit. After several weeks, it’ll be good and rotten. Then we’ll hang the strips of meat up to dry. When it’s ready, we’ll slam down some shots of the local liquor and consume dainty little cubes of fermented shark flesh. We’ll finish the feast with pumpkin pie.

"There has never really been any modernity, never any real progress, never any assured liberation."

Blazecock Pileon — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 23:46:18 -0800

Meditations on: the poetic and profane; on silence; death; catastrophe; Cage — and yet more strangeness and beauty from David Ralph Lichtensteiger's travels within the world of 20th C. avant garde music and postmodernism.

This is fiction

0bvious — Wed, 10 May 2006 18:27:00 -0800

Writing has been around for a long time, but that doesn't mean we've mastered it yet. Want to make fiction? Perhaps it makes itself, perhaps it makes you... Self reference breeding infinite hyperrealities. Which world will you choose?

Too much of a good thing

0bvious — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 06:18:07 -0800

The ashes of the recently deceased contains high amounts of nutrient rich phosphates, just perfect for sprucing up that garden of yours. On the iconic peaks of Scotland though Mountaineers have decided that enough is enough.

Someone's been watching too much Mystery Men, I think...

anastasiav — Wed, 17 Sep 2003 12:35:35 -0800

Angle Grinder Man Superhero or Vigilante?

Morbid Outlook: The Goth is Good

taz — Thu, 12 Jun 2003 07:19:38 -0800

Morbid Outlook is a polished, eclectic Goth magazine with a killer design and content to die for. With hundreds of articles and images in the categories of Art, Music, Fashion, Lifestyle, Fiction and Nonfiction, this is one of the very best online zines I've seen yet. Go to any feature, and you will find a list of related-interest articles accompanying the story, and, usually, a listing of online resources or suggestions for reading as well.