Bridget

Friends, let me tell you about Priapus. Long post about a long appendage below: press J on your keyboard to skip. Sources below the Read More.

Right. There’s two things you need to know about Priapus. Firstly, his closest Roman equivalent is named Mutunus Tutunus, which is hilarious in and of itself. Secondly, he was famed for his huge and permanent erection, which honestly, I don’t even know how I can begin to deal with, but damnit, the nature of your question means that I am obliged to try.

Priapus was a very minor god, usually associated with rustic subcultures. Due to his more pastoral worshippers, he was often linked to the harvest, livestock and nature. However, due to his absolutely massive schlong, he was also closely linked with fertility. I suppose that if you’re going to pray to a god to try and improve your chances of conceiving, you might as well pray to one with balls so big that they contain enough sperm to impregnate the entire city of Athens forty times over, take a quick break, and then get Sparta pregnant by lunchtime.

According to Pausanius’ Description of Greece, Priapus was the son of Dionysus and Aphrodite (again, this absolutely makes sense). By Pausanius’ account, Dionysus and Aphrodite were totally loved up and fairly monogamous, until Dionysus took a business trip and Aphrodite fell into the arms of Adonis. When Dionysus returned, Aphrodite kicked Adonis to the kerb and demanded some more sweet monogamy from the party king, but left him again as soon as she became pregnant with the fruit of his average-sized loins. Hera took personal offence to this, because Hera is the kind of person who could watch a news report and take personal offence to the newsreader’s tie, and so she placed her hand on Aphrodite’s belly and cursed her to give birth to a hideous child with an elephantine erection, a penchant for lewd conduct, and, critically, impotence. The gods were all kind of grossed out by Aphrodite’s weird kid, and so they kicked him off Mount Olympus, leaving him to be raised by shepherds, who clearly didn’t do a very good job of co-parenting, because he then ran away to join a pack of satyrs. Satyrs are really not the kind of people who want your son to be hanging out with, and Priapus became even more course and creepy.

In Ovid’s Fasti, Priapus is going about his business of being generally kind of gross and also erect, when he stumbles across the sleeping goddess Hestia. Being an individual of the aforementioned gross and erect traits, he decides that it would be a totally cool thing to do if he were to take advantage of her while she’s asleep, but just as he’s about to do the thing, a nearby ass starts braying and she wakes up. Desperate to get away from this guy, she begs for the gods to turn her into a lotus tree, and even Priapus won’t bone a lotus tree. Enraged, he then beats the ass to death with his behemothic bellend. This whole event gives him a real chip on his shoulder about asses, and this is why his worshippers would sacrifice donkeys.

As a symbol of fertility, Priapus was often depicted in statuette form, either as a grotesque dwarf-like figure with gargantuan gonads, or simply as a massive dick. Worshippers of Priapus would touch or stroke the penis of the statue and then, hopefully, when they made love to their wives that night, their seed would take root. It’s also notable that this tradition was more prominent in Roman society; the Athenians in particular didn’t give much of a shit about Priapus and often attributed his cult to Hermes instead, which is why there are some statues of Hermes with a period typical petite phallus, and some statues with a mega dong.

There does exist a textual work named The Priapeia. No-one is really sure who wrote these poems; it was definitely a group of dudes, but which dudes? Ovid? Virgil? Possibly, but most scholars are in agreement that it was probably a bunch of random guys. Whoever it was, they compiled 95 of their poems on the subject of Priapus, and in doing so gave us a really interesting (and often terrifying) insight into the sexual politics of the golden era of Latin literature. There are whole poems in which Priapus himself just brags about his jumbo junk. There are monologues in which Priapus ignores the subject of his tremendous trouser-snake and instead waxes lyrical on the topic of gardens. And of course, there are rants about sodomy, because it’s just not Greco-Roman if there isn’t a scolding allusion to homosexual bedroom etiquette somewhere.

While the Greeks could really take or leave Priapus, the Romans went fucking mental for him. Phallic symbols were more prominent in Roman society than in Grecian society, and the Romans adopted Priapus as a sort of figure of fun as well as a god. There are many examples of Roman pornography featuring Priapus, for example. These paintings would often be displayed in full view as a symbol of masculinity and fertility, because honestly, nothing says ‘I’m totally fertile and not over-compensating for anything’ better than hanging up pictures of huge dicks all over your house.

Not all accounts agree that Priapus was actually a god. Homer and Herodotus, for example, never expressly defined him as such, and Strabo went a step further in Geography, making it abundantly clear that while Priapus’ was Dionysus’ son (in his canon, Priapus’ mother was a nymph, not Aphrodite) Priapus was not a god, but was actually just a normal dude, cursed with an abominable appendage, who was later given divine worship due to his, ahem, affliction.

Also, fun fact: his name is where we get the medical term ‘priapism’, which refers to a chronically engorged penis. So, that’s a legacy to be proud of.

I know you probably all scrolled down to the bottom to see the pictures, so here you fucking go. I hope you’re proud, because I’m not.

Is that an entire city state in your trousers, or are you just happy to see me?

Worship this.

Read More

Here’s further proof that bees are awesome. Rotterdam-based designer Tomáš Gabzdil Libertíny of Studio Libertiny collaborated with a swarm of bees to create Thousand Years, a beautiful beeswax sculpture shaped like a teapot. This one-of-a-kind experimental sculpture was commissioned by French fine silver manufacturer Christofle. Libertíny worked with Dutch beekeeper Johan Beckers and his busy colony of 60,000 bees, who built their intricate honeycomb over a metal scaffold.

The Thousand Years project took two takes to complete: the first attempt was unsuccessful due to a variety of factors including location and local weather conditions; the project was then moved to a less windy location near Rotterdam, where it was completed in August 2014. The success and beauty of the project is also a statement about the bee colony’s health and strength, as well as the quality of local flora; no bees were exploited or displaced.

Click here to watch a video about this amazing art project and get a close-up look at the Thousand Years teapot.

Visit the Studio Libertiny website to explore more of Tomáš Gabzdil Libertíny’s creations, including other honeycomb sculptures.

[via Inhabitat]

Space

We all know and love the moon. We’re so assured that we only have one that we don’t even give it a specific name. It is the brightest object in the night sky, and amateur astronomers take great delight in mapping its craters and seas. To date, it is the only other heavenly body with human footprints.

In today's New York Times, James Barron's article about renovations to the Port Authority Bus Terminal had an interesting passage, as Helen Kennedy pointed out on Twitter:

Best reason to go off the record. pic.twitter.com/qi68vD8pxj

— Helen Kennedy (@HelenKennedy) February 25, 2015

Barron's tongue is firmly in cheek here, but he's abiding by a real Times policy that anonymity shouldn't be given without telling readers why. (He's not really following the stylebook guideline that anonymity should be a "last resort," but I think we can forgive him in this case.)

Anonymous sourcing can frequently be an extremely useful and informative tool for reporters and readers. "We cannot bring readers the information they want and need to know without sometimes protecting sources who risk reprisals, firing, legal action or, in some parts of the world, their lives when they confide in us," then-Times executive editor Bill Keller said in 2008.

But, of course, anonymous sources can also be misused — as they were in the paper's Jayson Blair fabrication scandal and in some of its reporting in the lead-up to the Iraq war. So Keller adopted the policy requiring justifications for anonymity in 2005, shortly after these incidents.

The policy has led to some strange and amusing anonymity excuses being printed in the paper. The Washington Post's Paul Farhi pointed out that seven Times articles granted anonymity simply "because of the delicacy of the situation" — including "one about a woman who fell off a balcony."

And New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan has repeatedly criticized the paper for still granting anonymity too freely, with what she calls "ever-more inventive" justifications. These include a past Oscar nominee speaking anonymously "because she was afraid of looking bad" and a parent of a Middlebury sophomore speaking anonymously "to avoid embarrassing her daughter." These explanations, like Barron's, get points for honesty, at least.

Following in the footsteps of the popular owl cafes in Tokyo, Annie the owl and some of her friends will be spending a week in London as the gracious hosts of an owl pop-up bar that will be showing up at a secret location in London’s Soho neighborhood.

Tickets cost 20 pounds for entry and two cocktails, but will be distributed by ballot because, as of publication, there are more than 43,000 people interested in visiting the owls! The proceeds of the event, organized by Locappy, will be donated to the Barn Owl Centre, an organisation dedicated to protecting owls in the UK. The pop-up bar will be open March 19-25 from 8:30 PM until 2:00 AM.

More info: annietheowl.com | Facebook | Twitter | locappy.com | barnowl.co.uk (h/t: timeout)

Cafes in Tokyo like this one will let you hang out with owls

Image credits: Ryukichisan

Owls are nocturnal, so the cocktail bar in London will let visitors hang out with them at night

Image credits: catersnews.com

The owls will all be accompanied by professional falconers who will see to their comfort and safety

Image credits: Area Baby

Tickets will cost £20 ($31) and will include two drinks…

Image credits: FG_75

…but more than 43,000 people have signed up for the ticket ballot!

Image credits: Torinouru Cafe

Some of the owls that will be arriving:

Image credits: annietheowl.com

The event will last only a week so the owls don’t get too stressed – March 19-25

Image credits: Preston Phro

“The owls belong to a professional falconry center and are accustomed to being around the public,” write the organizers

Image credits: trendy.nikkeibp.co.jp

“They have attended public events such as weddings before and, during the event, a professional falconer will accompany each owl”

Image credits: tech_k

Furthermore, visitors will be limited to two drinks each

Image credits: quejaytee.com

The profits from the event will go towards a new owl aviary being build by the Barn Owl Centre in the UK

Image credits: otakunonikanoticias.blogspot.com

Image credits: Preston Phro

Zombie action thriller Dying Light came out three weeks ago in North America, but is only now arriving in the UK, due for a release on Friday.

So, in order to stir up some much-needed Google juice publisher Techland today announced a completely nutty special edition, coming in with a price tag of £250,000 ($387,000).

Available through Brit retail chain Game, and limited to a run of just one, the "My Apocalypse" Collectors Edition comes with a custom built zombie fortification cabin, which normally costs around $100,000. There's also a set of "zombie avoidance parkour lessons," as well as a trip to Poland to visit the team, your face released as a skin and a bunch of other goodies (see full list below).

Techland's press release offered...

Continue reading…

mariechapuis:

The Rabbit-Go-Round

Once again, everything is ruined by a dude who thinks he’s a comedian but is actually just a dick. Way to go, Jan Rankowski! You’ve managed to do harassment victims, feminists, the art of comedy itself, and even gamergaters a huge disservice all at the same time. I think that’s a new new record.

You might know 20-year-old Rankowski better as”Jace Connors,” a man who described himself as a former Navy Seal and ex-Marine on Youtube and who frequently posted videos of himself rambling incoherently about topics like Islamic extremism, Barack Obama, and video games, often while standing in front of an American flag and a Call of Duty poster and brandishing knives on camera.

Recently “Connors” turned his attention to Gamergate and begin expressing an interest in—well, an obsession with, really— meeting Giant Spacekat Games founder and frequent target of harassment Brianna Wu. This came to a head when he uploaded a video of a car crash he’d been in, claiming that he had been en route to confront Wu with guns in his car when she “tried to assassinate” him “via street racing.” Several media outlets then picked up on the story, citing Connors as clinching proof that the movement was inherently toxic.

The car crash itself was real, apparently—as Rankowski told Buzzfeed News, he came up with the idea to ad-lib the video after being involved in an accident near his home in Maine. Everything else? A complete fabrication invented by him and Sam Hyde as part of their sketch group, Million Dollar Extreme, whose main aesthetic appears to be saying really terrible things to get a rise out of people and generally being unfunny.

But now, real Gamergate supporters have apparently started to make the connections between Connors and Rankowski, and both he and Hyde say that they’ve become the latest targets of the same harassment they knowingly helped to propagate against Wu:

“People have been calling my old high school calling my work,” Rankowski told BuzzFeed News, “and saying these nasty things about me. I was made to sign a contract at my job saying I wouldn’t make any of these videos again. I received a letter in the mail with a picture of me from my high school yearbook… It said I shouldn’t have fucked with 8chan.”

Hyde told BuzzFeed News that over the past two days he has also been harassed. “Some kid stood outside my window throwing pebbles. And someone knocked on my door — it’s a closed apartment, you shouldn’t be able to get in. And then there was no one there.”

Hyde also posted on the MDE Twitter account this morning that he had been stalked and physically attacked last night as well.

ATTN: this man has been stalking me, most likely associated with recent game trolling. I fear for my safety pic.twitter.com/7cqn0VH7uL

— MDE (@mde_never_dies) February 24, 2015

@katienotopoulos last night I was stalked, physically assaulted, and had my car broken into. Are you OK with that, you ugly piece of shit?

— MDE (@mde_never_dies) February 24, 2015

“They realized I was making fun of them with those videos,” Rankowski also said to Buzzfeed. “I started it as a joke, but it’s become far too real and I wish I could take it all back. [...] I didn’t take this situation seriously, but I see what it means now to be in the other person’s shoes. What her life must feel like. I have this newfound respect for the people who are having to deal with GamerGate, Brianna Wu and Anita [Sarkeesian].”

I guess now we should take those threats seriously? Oh, okay.

To be clear, I don’t believe Rankowski or Hyde deserve to be threatened for what they’ve done, because no one deserves to be harassed on the Internet. But I do think this is a perfect opportunity to bring up the most common dismissal of these kinds of threats, which is that the harasser is just joking and shouldn’t be taken seriously. These guys might have been lying, but Brianna Wu didn’t know that—she’s on record as saying she’d been worried he might do something to her before the car crash incident.

“This is has caused me immense psychological distress,” she told Jezebel earlier today. “I’ve talked to the police on multiple occasions. I’ve lost sleep over this. It has made me in fear for my life. If you come to my home we have padlocks installed on our attic and basement because every time we get home we check to see if anyone has broken in.”

By threatening her, these guys didn’t just make it that much harder for other harassment victims (like them, now) to get justice—they also made legitimately made a stranger think she was in danger just for their own amusement, which is a horrifically shitty thing to do. And on top of all that, now everything these guys say is suspect because of their reputation for trolling, meaning that both Gamergate supporters and critics alike will be far less likely to believe their claims of harassment.

On the plus side, now that Rankowski is out in the open, it might make it easier for Wu to file some type of charges against him for harassing her in the first place. “I thought they needed professional help more than prison,” she said to Jezebel. “Now finding out this is joke by this person that redoubles my effort to put him in jail.”

That‘s the kind of justice I want to see.

(via Buzzfeed)

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Earlier this month, health insurer Anthem was hit by a massive hack . Now, it's admitted that between 8.8 million and 18.8 million people who are not its customers could also be victims in the attack.

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The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas has ruled that Apple must pay $532.9 million because iTunes infringed three patents owned by a Texas-based patent licensing called company Smartflash.

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BCS 1x04: On the latest BCS Insider podcast, Vince says they called the college camera operator “Kid Kubrick,” because he looks like a young Stanley Kubrick. He’s played by Josh Fadem. (x)

[body_image width='1200' height='782' path='images/content-images/2015/02/24/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/02/24/' filename='is-patrick-swayze-really-the-nypds-latest-training-tactic-224-body-image-1424808554.jpg' id='30488']

Patrick Swayze a year after 'Road House' was released. Photo via Flickr user Alan Light

"If somebody gets in your face and calls you a cocksucker, I want you to be nice. Ask him to walk. Be nice. If he won't walk, walk him. But be nice. If you can't walk him, one of the others will help you, and you'll both be nice.

"I want you to remember that it's a job. It's nothing personal."

This is the advice Patrick Swayze's character Dalton gives to his fellow bouncers in the 1989 cult classic Road House. In the movie, Double Deuce is a smoky bar where brawls and black eyes are common, and Swayze's underlings are sick and tired of getting their asses handed to them by what Swayze calls "40-year-old adolescents, felons, power drinkers, and trustees of modern chemistry."

Swayze's tired too. So he riddles off the "three simple rules" of bar management: Never underestimate your drunken customer, always take it outside, and, most importantly, "Be nice."

According to the New York Post, cops in New York City are being told to do the same thing. [youtube src='//www.youtube.com/embed/l0aPIXy6PHM' width='640' height='360']

The tabloid reported Tuesday that this scene from Road House is being shown to all 22,000 cops who are participating in the New York Police Department's mandatory retraining program.

During the three-day course at a new academy in Queens, cops must attend lectures that encourage deescalation rather than aggression and learn how to evade violence—presumably so another chokehold doesn't end up on YouTube. The program is one of Mayor Bill de Blasio's initiatives to reform the NYPD in a post-Eric-Garner world.

(The NYPD has been reached for comment regarding the use of Patrick Swayze as a viable training tactic, and we are anxiously waiting to hear back.)

So New York City is apparently just a bigger, slightly more diverse version of this fictional dive bar. And, just like the bouncers in the movie, cops hate being told to play nice.

Over the past few days, at least one source has been steadily leaking out details of the new training regimen to the Post. So far, we've heard that officers are being told to take a deep breath and close their eyes when dealing with an unruly citizen, and that 80 percent of the cops believe the lessons in integrity are a "waste of time." Some are even reportedly using the retraining as a good time to catch up on sleep.

"The NYPD is trying to get people's attention," Eugene O'Donnell, a retired Brooklyn cop and professor at the CUNY John Jay School of Criminal Justice, told me. "Good training is hard to come by. In a perfect world, they'd have high-tech modules and videos, but they're making do with what they have.

"But a heroic cop, who read about cops being taught to close their eyes and breathe, told me earlier today, 'Of course that makes sense.' It's a little of, 'Everything I need to know, I learned in kindergarten,'" O'Donnell added. "Basic human empathy is the most used skill."

Still, if the Post is to believed, the heavy dose of Swayze is not playing well at all.

"It's crazy," one source told the Post. "They're showing us something from a movie and they want us to act like that in real life. It's not realistic—it's Hollywood."

At a press conference on Tuesday, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton disputed the Post reports, referencing an internal poll that says 84 percent of officers who have gone through the program think the training efforts are "relevant to their job." He argued that the tabloid was spreading "incredible misinformation" from a pissed-off cop. "Let's face it: the Post doesn't like the mayor," Bratton added. (There's plenty of evidence that the cops don't like the mayor either.)

Also on Tuesday, and on a decidedly more serious note, Bratton told a crowd at an event for Black History Month that yes, as FBI Director James Comey recently conceded, cops have an inherent racial bias.

"Many of the worst parts of black history would have been impossible without police, too," he said.

Follow John Surico on Twitter.

The new site allows you to search for historical landmarks by keyword or map. [ more › ]

screenshotsofdespair:

"This is fine."

On the #beautifulbizarre website now ~ Transmutations and Rebirth: The Sculptures of Chris Haas

https://beautifulbizarre.net/2015/02/25/transmutations-and-rebirth-the-sculptures-of-chris-haas/

For years I knew of the 1981 film Roar only because of its frequent inclusion on lists like “Biggest Bombs of All Time.” I knew the basics: apparently it was some sort of homemade kid-friendly comedy/adventure about a family who lives with a bunch of lions. Since it wasn’t a horror movie (or so I thought), Roar didn’t register all that highly on my list of “Bizarre Cult Movies I Simply Must Track Down.”

Fortunately, there are much wiser movie geeks than myself, and apparently a good number of them work for outfits like Drafthouse Films and Olive Films; that’s who’ll be resurrecting this staggeringly fascinating early-’80s relic for a theatrical run and a DVD release. And to those folks, I can only say this: Thank You.

Although Roar simply must be seen to be believed, I’ll try to give you a small sampling of the madness therein. For example, here’s an image of celebrated cinematographer Jan de Bont, from the set of Roar, his first American film. Notice how the back of his head is all stitched up because he’d recently been attacked by an untrained lion!

Now think about that image while you read this colorful piece about the history of Roar, as written by Drafthouse chief / hardcore movie geek Tim League. Here are a few of my favorite excerpts:

“For six years, (lead actress Tippi) Hedren and her daughter—the emerging young actress, Melanie Griffith—along with Marshall and his three sons lived, slept and ate with a growing pride of lions inside their home.”

Yes, you read that right: mom, dad, and three kids lived with dozens of untamed lions for the better part of a decade, just to make a movie.

“The cast and crew endured countless injuries, with over 70 bloody attacks documented. While nobody was killed, there were several close calls, most notably de Bont being scalped by a lion resulting in 220 stitches on his head. Hedren endured a fractured leg and deep scalp wounds. Griffith was mauled by a lion, resulting over 100 stitches and reconstructive surgery.”

How was this even allowed to continue?!?

“The production also endured multiple floods—including one that wiped out the entire set—wildfires, a feline illness that decimated their cat population and non-stop financing woes.”

Sheesh. Now it’s just getting to be depressing. All told, writer / producer / director / lead actor Noel Marshall and his wife / leading lady Tippi Hedren sunk about $17 million and ten years(!) into the production of Roar, and the result was a one-week 1981 release that earned a lot of bad reviews but only about $2 million in box office receipts. It seems like one could write a book about how the hell Roar ever happened (Ms. Hedren actually did; a 1985 book called Cats of Shambala) but as fascinating as the history may be — the film itself is a virtually hypnotic display of absolute wrongness.

There’s no question that Noel Marshall and Tippi Hedren loved their animal friends. Roar is absolutely packed with roaming lions, frisky tigers, and demonstrative elephants, but the way in which the actors grapple, wrestle, and frolic with the creatures is nothing short of, well, stupid. One can’t help but think of the horrific documentary Grizzly Man (2005) as Noel Marshall “plays” with five hyperactive young lions (the guy looks like he could be devoured at any second) or when Tippi Hedren allows herself to be tossed around by an energetic elephant. And it’s not just the grown-ups who are tossing themselves into harm’s way; Marshall’s two sons and Hedren’s daughter (the very young Melanie Griffith) are repeatedly batted, bruised, and clawed.

Basically, it’s nice to know that nobody was killed on the set of Roar, because the film itself almost plays like a snuff flick waiting to happen.

The plot? Well… there’s not much to Roar in a narrative sense. (Hey, you try shooting a movie over the course of ten years and see how you fare in the continuity department.) Basically, Hank (Marshall) spends a lot of time hanging around his giant house with a huge pride of lions who knock him over a whole lot, much to the chagrin of his justifiably skittish friend Mativo. But when Hank heads off to meet his estranged wife and their three bored teenagers at the bus station, well, that’s when slightly more stuff starts to happen.

Story thread “A” follows Hank and Mativo as they head one way, and story thread “B” follows Madelaine (Hedren) and the kids as they head the other way, end up at the big house, and spend about 35 minutes running for their lives as a bunch of curious tigers, lions, and leopards lope, leap, and lounge all over the place. There’s also a cursory subplot about a nasty hunter who wants to kill Hank’s cats, but most of Roar feels a lot like six stupidly brave actors, 200 unpredictably wild animals, and a whole bunch of ill-conceived improvisation. (Also keep an eye out for the late, great character actor Zakes Mokae in one scene.)

But what Roar lacks in plot, it more than makes up for in audacity, unpredictability, and full-bore insanity. It’s a surprisingly well-edited piece of foolhardy craziness, to be sure, particularly when Madelaine and the kids finally show up at the house, stumble over about 100 lions, and get stuck in what sure feels like a live-action Looney Tunes short. And there’s simply no denying that for all its bad ideas and aimless storytelling, Roar does feature some legitimately excellent cinematography from the young Mr. de Bont. From basic shots of animals at play to the much more creative photography employed in the elaborate set pieces, Roar may not tell a particularly gripping story, but it’s as beautiful to look at as it is certifiably insane. Which is a lot.

One could ramble on and on about a film that combines good intentions and bad ideas so consistently, so thoroughly, and so entertainingly, but if you have even a passing interest in big cats, big bombs, and a stunning array of big mistakes, you simply have to see Roar. The original tag line stated, “You’ll never see a film like this again,” and while we can all be grateful for that, we can also be glad that the movie lives on, if only in a “HOLY SHIT! I can’t believe what I’m watching!” sort of way.

—

Roar is being re-released by Drafthouse Films later this year, with a DVD release from Olive Films to follow soon after.

As robots get small enough to easily swim around inside the human body, they'll soon be used to perform medical procedures all from within a patient. And researchers at Johns Hopkins University are making such an idea even more plausible with the development of tiny robotic grippers that will actually dissolve away inside a patient after a medical procedure is complete.

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Jamie Lee Curtis interviews her friend and fellow actress Sigourney Weaver in the latest issue of Interview Magazine, and the pair—with their funny stories about the early days of their careers, adorable meet-cutes with their respective husbands and joke shit-talking about James Cameron—are an absolute joy to take in.

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You’ve definitely seen the stickers and maybe been to the parties, but do you know about the history of Dre Day? On the occasion of the 13th annual Dre Day, we talk with Mike Davis of Burlesque of North America about turning Dr. Dre’s birthday into a national celebration.
 
What is Dre Day? When is Dre Day? and How did it begin?

Dre Day is an annual celebration of one of the most prolific and influential hip hop artists of all time: Dr. Dre. Like a lot of our best ideas, the idea for the party started with just some shit-talking and goofing off around the studio. Around late 2002, the crew from Life Sucks Die magazine was transitioning out of working on the magazine and into building a design studio known as Burlesque of North America. LSD alum Andrew Broder was in the office talking with Wes Winship and George Thompson about his upcoming single “What a Day Day” by his band Fog. I was living in St. Louis at the time. The three guys were just randomly blurting out other “Day’s” and Andrew said something about “What a Dre Day.” He left the office to go about the rest of his day. A light bulb went off in Wes’s head and he ran downstairs, stopped Andrew in the lobby and started brainstorming ideas for Dre Day. What and when would it be? How would we celebrate this icon of rap music and how could we turn his birthday into a national holiday?

The first party was February 18th (Dr. Dre’s birthday), 2003 at 7th Street Entry in downtown Minneapolis. Local DJs spun Dre-related classics from World Class Wrecking Cru to The Chronic to “Straight Outta Compton” to Get Rich Or Die Tryin. Twin cities punk icons Dillinger Four performed, we played the $20 Sack Pyramid live on stage, there was cake, fake Dre memorabilia, and the first ever Dr. Dre sticker pack featuring lyrics from The Chronic and faces of Dre / Snoop / Steven Tyler / etc all served up in a dimebag.
 
Life Sucks Die was a great mag. So how did the sticker packs come together? Was there a committee approach to selecting the best lyrics from ‘Chronic’? Also, can you talk about the experimental format years in 2004 & 2005?

The LSD crew had been doing packs of screenprinted stickers for years. The most recent packs leading up to the advent of Dre Day featured phrases like “I like the Whopper. Fuck the Big Mac,” “Can you smell what the Rock is cooking?” and “Honk if you eat dead babies,” so the jump to doing something text-based with rap lyrics was pretty logical. For the first year, the idea was to make the pack look like a dimebag and feature lyrics just from “The Chronic.” In 2004, we wanted to try something different, so we changed the shape to square and used lyrics just from “The Chronic 2001.” Same thing in 2005 – just try something different with larger sized stickers. In 2006 and beyond, we went back to the dimebag sized stickers – a tried and true format. We’re almost 300 different stickers deep into it, so Dre better drop “The Detox” or we’ll run out of lyrics to use!

 

I was about to ask about how many different lyrics you’ve put on stickers, but blam… Do you have any particular favorites?

Sometimes it’s the combination of the lyric + image that really does it for me. Some of my favorites are included here. (gallery, above)
 
When did the Dre Day party start expanding to places outside of Minneapolis?

New York was the first city outside of Minneapolis to ask us about starting their own chapter of Dre Day. That was 2005 or 2006 I believe. After that it was Chicago, then it just snowballed from there. We now have over 15 cities throwing their own versions of Dre Day each February, from Toronto to Tampa, from St. Louis to Seattle, from Portland to Paris. It’s cool seeing how everyone puts their own spin on it and comes up with their own audio and visual tributes.
 

 
Besides Dre, are there any unifying characteristics to the parties?

We ask everyone to try to make their parties more than just a DJ night. At our party, we have a refrigerator filled with 40s on stage, drop a lit-up giant weed leaf from the ceiling at midnight, play the $20 Sack Pyramid on stage, and have a Chronic album cover photo booth. Other cities do their own creative bits with karaoke, trivia, live artists, bands playing covers of Dre songs, etc.
 

 
Do you ever see “Dre Day” getting co-opted by a major brand and/or would you even allow it?

Not interested in Dre Day getting taken over by a major brand, but it’s been great to see it grow into a nationally-recognized rap holiday. Once we can make it a federal holiday with no bank or postal service for the day, we’ll know we’ve succeeded.
 
Interested in attending Dre Day in your city, or want to cop a sticker pack? Click here

The post Dre Day in the USA appeared first on The World's Best Ever: Design, Fashion, Art, Music, Photography, Lifestyle, Entertainment.

Midori makes over two dozen different animals ready to hold the wayward strands of your life together. At least the parts of it that are on paper. The company's animal D-Clips are the most precious paper clips I've ever seen. (And possibly even more heartwarming is that we live in a world where it's possible to make a paper clip deserving of the word "precious".)

Are you a dog person or a cat person? Do you like birds? Whales? Hippopotamuses? Then show off your unique tastes and personality to the world with a thin rod of metal bent aesthetically into these animals' likeness and functionally into a handy means of securing your tax forms and divorce papers.

Midori D-Clips come in sets of 30, stashed in little boxes denoting the paper clipped critter awaiting you inside.

At Sunday night's Academy Awards, country musician Tim McGraw performed the song "I'm Not Gonna Miss You" from the 2014 documentary Glen Campbell... I'll Be Me. Country legend Glen Campbell originally performed the song, which was nominated for best original song. But he was unable to appear Sunday night because he's in the late stages of Alzheimer's disease. 

"I'm Not Gonna Miss You" was Campbell's final recording before he checked into a full-time care unit in April 2014, and the song deserves the largest stage it can find. Alzheimer's is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. While most people know the devastation Alzheimer's wreaks on the life and family of those affected, fewer people know that a simple therapy is making waves in medical communities: Music. This unexpected therapy is proving exceptionally effective in helping to improve the quality of life for people with Alzheimer's. Read More

If it's good enough for training the dog, it's good enough for training you. Pavlok thinks so anyway. And most people who were spanked as kids or repeatedly got hit in the face playing dodgeball would probably agree that the infliction of physical pain is a terrific teaching tool (stop mouthing off, stick to chess club). So the Pavlok bracelet, a wearable device that delivers a mild electric shock when you piss it off, might be your best bet for breaking some of your worst habits.

According to Pavlok's creators, studies show that receiving a shock--or some other form of uncomfortable physical punishment--activates humans' reptilian brains, which train them very quickly to stop doing whatever it was that caused the pain. With the Pavlok bracelet users can choose a bad habit they want to quit, such as smoking, nail biting, sleeping late, or over eating, and then set the Pavlok to start a "Self Shock" program.

At this stage (prototype, with a new version forthcoming) the program lasts for 5 days, during which the app walks wearers through various steps to breaking their selected bad habit...and then zaps the shit out of them when they screw up. Don't worry, the shock is allegedly safe, as well as adjustable, ranging from "'pin prick' to pretty friggin' strong."

Again, Pavlok is currently in its prototype stage, though still available to purchase for those eager to test the bracelet out. This version will: shock, vibrate, and beep on your wrist; connect to your phone via Bluetooth; and re-juice its buzz via an included mini USB. Those who would rather wait for the next gen Pavlok can preorder their bracelet, which will come with the companion app, likely include a strong water resistance rating, and have upgraded technology from the prototype.

behance | jiema37


behance | jiema37


behance | jiema37


behance | jiema37


behance | jiema37

Jie Ma

Health and Medicine

Using a novel method to measure the risk of mortality associated with the use of various legal and illegal drugs, scientists have confirmed what earlier studies have indicated: alcohol is the deadliest, while marijuana is the least risky.

The Streets of San Francisco

http://www.guidovanhelten.com/ Photography by Roman Gerasymenko


http://www.guidovanhelten.com/ Photography by Roman Gerasymenko


http://www.guidovanhelten.com/ Photography by Roman Gerasymenko


http://www.guidovanhelten.com/ Photography by Roman Gerasymenko


http://www.guidovanhelten.com/ Photography by Roman Gerasymenko


http://www.guidovanhelten.com/ Photography by Roman Gerasymenko

Reykjavík

AKUT for POW! WOW! HAWAII! 2015.

Artist Akut’s spectacular mural for POW! WOW! HAWAII! 2015.  Entitled, “My Real Challenges Were Outside The Ring,” Akut’s mural depicts an action figure type being feeding a baby milk in the artist’s visionary style.  This piece, perhaps more than any other at the street art festival, was strongly metaphorical and thought invoking.

Be sure to check out all of Supersonic’s coverage of POW! WOW! HAWAII! 2015 here.

Here's a cool new map showing the red hot pain of rental prices around Los Angeles from Pacific Palisades to Florence. [ more › ]