bernot

Race is complicated, but one thing remains true: An arrest transcends skin color. Need proof? Just look at these touching, honest displays of physical coercion taken from Ferguson, Missouri that are bridging the racial divide.

The Chemin de fer de Petite Ceinture (French for “little belt railway”) was a 32 km railway that encirled Paris, connecting all the major railway stations within fortified walls during the Industrial Revolution. In service from 1852 to 1934, the line has now been completely abandoned for 80 years.

Several developers and local officials have recently set their sights on the vast swath of unused land, tunnels, and stations as an opportunity for new development. However, some railway enthusiasts and related organizations want the tracks and stations to be preserved indefinitely as part of the cities’ heritage. Others want to turn areas of de Petite Ceinture into parkways similar to the nearby Promenade plantée, a 4.7 km park built on an elevated train track in 1988 that later inspired New York’s famous High Line.

As part of his project “By the Silent Line,” photographer Pierre Folk has been working since 2011 to photograph the 160-year-old railway’s last remnants before any final decisions are made. He stalks the tracks at all times of the year, often returning to the same locations to document nature’s slow reclamation as rusted tracks and crumbling tunnels are swallowed by trees, vines, and grass. This is just a small selection of Folk’s work, you can see many more photos right here.

h/t io9.

From Imgur: “I went to see David Lynch’s Dune in the theater in 1984. As we entered, we were given a glossary of Dune terms with our tickets. I understand this is not a common piece of movie ephemera, so I thought you might like to see it.”

The post The Glossary Given to Audiences of David Lynch’s “Dune” appeared first on disinformation.

Currently, all of the digital wealth you’ve built up—iTunes libraries, Steam games, Farmville micro-transaction purchases—is the property of whatever service provides that particular online account upon your passing, but a new law enacted in Delaware will allow citizens to inherit their loved ones’ digital possessions. On a related note, the top Google search term in Delaware is now “permanently delete Fifty Shades of Grey from Kindle account.”

Of course, you already inherit computers and the files on them as digital objects, but the world hasn’t gone fully DRM-free yet, so some things may be off-limits to you without access to an account.

The new law, the Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets and Digital Accounts Act, simply and summarily awards the ownership of any online account to whoever the account-holder wishes instead of the tech company behind it. Other states have passed less comprehensive laws on the subject, but Delaware is leading the way in a comprehensive solution thanks to help from the non-profit Uniform Law Commission.

Great work, Delaware.

Now all we have to do is get the rest of the states on board, and we can end the unnecessarily complicated process currently involved in making sure your loved ones will always have access to all of your cloud-based pet and baby pictures.

(via Gizmodo, image via Noah Hall)

Previously in digital rights

• Comixology introduced DRM-free comics
• The DRM chair will show you how dumb DRM can be
• Too bad the new net neutrality rules still suck

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ANIMAL’s feature Artist’s Notebook asks artists to show us their original “idea sketch” next to a finished artwork or project. This week, artist and comedian Sean Joseph Patrick Carney talks about making Experimental Aioli, seven signature aioli flavors paying tribute to a New York individual or institution of cultural influence including Bill de Blasio, Action Bronson and Matthew Barney for a performance installation in the group exhibition “Peristalsis” at Air Circuluation in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Guess which one had weed in it.

In the summer of 2011, I was at a friend’s house in Portland, OR and his mother was in town visiting him. They’d invited me over for brunch, and she was making an elaborate and impressive spread for the three of us. As we sat down to eat, she placed a bowl of homemade aioli on the table to accompany one of the dishes. I fucking love aioli; it’s kind of like the thinking man’s ranch dressing. I was stoned out of my goddamned mind as we began to eat and an idea crossed my mind: Experimental Aioli. It would be a restaurant, an incredibly obnoxious and elitist one, that only served drinks and aioli. The theme would be BYOF (Bring Your Own Food) and we’d have pairing suggestions for each aioli, offering patrons the opportunity to order other restaurants’ food for delivery to try with our incredible sauces.

Except for talking a bunch of shit about how I was going to take out a massive and irresponsible business loan to eventually make this happen, I never really did anything with it. You can ask all of my friends from Portland though, and they’ll confirm that I literally would not shut the fuck up about Experimental Aioli for years. As proof, here is an email that I sent in September of 2011 to two of those very friends when I read a Gothamist article about some bullshit artisanal mayonnaise shop that opened in Williamsburg:

I was super annoyed, but whatever. They were running a retail shop; I had bigger plans. Eventually, I moved to New York in December of 2013. Shortly thereafter, a good friend of mine, Paulina Bebecka, approached me about participating in a group exhibition at a new gallery that artist Marcin Ramocki and some friends were starting in Bushwick. Air Circulation, as it would be called, was to be an interdisciplinary exhibition site where each year’s programming was centered around one particular theme. For the first year, that theme would be “food.”

Ramocki and Bebecka were curating the first exhibition, and she and I met up in the East Village after work one day in early February to talk about possible ideas for the show. I pitched her the idea of Experimental Aioli, and she was on board.

Obviously, this project is a playful nod to Gordon Matta Clark’s Food restaurant project in SoHo with Caroline Goodden in the 1970s. And there’s no shortage of references to contemporary artists who have worked with food, especially given away for free as a social experience, but I won’t bore anybody with a comprehensive list. My approach to this was less about the conviviality of the event, and more about the concrete comedic action of producing an obscene amount of gourmet mayonnaise.

Over the next several weeks, I shared a Google Drive document with Bebecka that included ideas I had for different flavors. The point was that each flavor that I developed had to be a tribute to a New Yorker, or New York Institution, of cultural influence. Since I’d just moved to the city, I wanted to do something in honor of it.

I took to Twitter and started to holler at the various people for whom I wanted to make a custom aioli flavor. With their favorite foods in mind, and the particular curiosities of their personalities, I began to write out individual aioli recipe ideas and possible food pairings.

Some people responded graciously, like Jerry Saltz and White Columns, others were too stoned to care, like Action Bronson and Matthew Barney. Nonetheless, I was undeterred by their silence and pushed forward with developing a flavor for them. In all, I produced seven different flavors, each in a limited edition of five.

Because of the fact that aioli’s main ingredient is raw egg yoke, I had to wait until the day before the exhibition to prepare all of it. Nobody wants to eat homemade mayonnaise that is a week old; it’d probably make one kind of ill. Still, I had a lot of prep to do leading up to the big egg-whisking session, and I ended up having the privilege of spending a bunch of time perusing the various industrial kitchen supply stores on the Bowery. I picked up some special bottles, 2oz and 4oz in size, so that I could offer a standard size at 4oz, and a “TSA-Friendly” version at 2oz that could legally be brought onto any domestic flight. Most of the snacks that airlines serve (pretzels, pita chips, etc) pair wonderfully with a sauce of this caliber.

It took me about thirteen hours the day before the exhibition to make all of the flavors from scratch. I did not employ any electronic kitchen gadgets; every aioli was whisked by hand, all of the ingredients finely chopped with a knife, and each bottle filled slowly by me. It got pretty Zen, actually. I even watched Tommy Boy and Can’t Hardly Wait while I prepared it in my kitchen, which by the end of the day that Friday looked like a fucking war zone. Oh, I also listened to a bunch of Scott Aukerman’s podcast Comedy Bang Bang. Everybody should check it out.

By approximately midnight, I had each flavor bottled, sealed, and refrigerated for release the following evening at the opening of “Peristalsis” at Air Circulation.

Despite being determined to be a BYOF pop-up restaurant, Bebecka suggested that I pick up some foods for dipping since it was highly unlikely that anybody would have brought their own food to the gallery. I compromised my ultimate vision (just kidding) and picked up a bunch of bread, various chips, veggies, and other things at that weird grocery store off the Morgan stop that is like fancy but really isn’t. During the exhibition’s opening reception, I stood behind a large table-type-thing and chugged Budweisers while people came up and sampled the flavors.

The most common response that I got was, “These are actually really good.” That’s because I’m a fucking good cook. I wasn’t making them to gross anybody out. Lots of people were exceptionally excited about the flavor “Rare Chandeliers” which I made for rapper Action Bronson because it had weed in it. They tried to scarf down as much as possible to see if they’d get stoned. I have no idea if they did or not.

The majority of the aioli was consumed, though I left behind a few bottles at the end of the night as I was planning to go party and did not need to risk having a bunch of mayonnaise explode all over the inside of my backpack.

EXPERIMENTAL AIOLI (2014)

(Photos: Anne Marie Chu Fong)

Previous Artist’s Notebook selects:

Artist’s Notebook: Lincoln Correctional Facility Prisoners, Kate Levitt, Miles Pflanz
Artist’s Notebook: Labanna Babalon
Artist’s Notebook: Ann Hirsch
Artist’s Notebook: Am Schmidt
Artist’s Notebook: Rhett Jones
Artist’s Notebook: Brenna Murphy
Artist’s Notebook: Andrea Crespo
Artist’s Notebook: Genevieve Belleveau

The post Artist’s Notebook:
Sean Joseph Patrick Carney appeared first on ANIMAL.

Dave Brockie, the lead demon singer of GWAR who went by Oderus Urungus, passed away in March, but it wasn’t until last night that he was OFFICIALLY laid to rest in the most metal way possible: with a viking funeral outside a barbeque restaurant. And not just any BBQ joint, but GWAR’S BBQ joint, Gwar-B-Q, at Hadad’s Lake in Richmond, Virginia. Loudwire has the report.

Randy Blythe of Lamb of God was among those who eulogized Dave Brockie. The rocker, who also spoke at the private memorial earlier this year, opened by stating, “Dave is the only motherf*cker I know who has to get put away twice. He’s too big for one f*cking funeral.” (Via)

Blythe later shared the following message on Instagram:

Tonight we sent Oderus home in a fitting manner at the public memorial for Dave Brockie. A blazing Viking ship with Oderus laid out in it, the cuttlefish pointing proudly straight up. Watching my friend Dave’s costume go up in flames in front of a thousand fans was so much more intense for me than the private memorial for friends & family we had April Fool’s Day. I spoke at both of them, as GWAR asked me to, & both times as I spoke I was sad. But watching his alter-ego burn tore me up way more than the first memorial, maybe because there was Dave, the human who was my friend who just “left us”- I never saw his body- & then there was Oderus, who was something entirely else. To watch his stage gear burn was like watching part of my life literally go up in flames. I was sobbing my eyes out as I took this photo. It was just a super-intense moment. Very beautiful, but overwhelming. Fly free, Oderus- you are missed. (Via)

That would make for a really good metal album cover.

Via Loudwire

Filed under: Music Tagged: funerals, GWAR, ODERUS URUNGUS, VIKING FUNERALS

Or maybe just one of those rare occasions when the truth slips through?

h/t @RussianNavyBlog

(Photo: Molaire & Tentacules)

At the end of a long day, the topiary laid back and slept.

I'm having trouble determining the origin of this bush, but I gather that it is located in Le Jardin de Plantes, a botanical garden in Paris. It may have been inspired by the work of the children's book illustrator Claude Ponti.

-via Lustik

methblue:

uptownzurban:

Please!!! I encourage anyone who follows me or sees this to sign this petition. My city is under a lot of distress right now for this wrongful doing. Here is the link to sign the petition… https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/mike-brown-law-requires-all-state-county-and-local-police-wear-camera/8tlS5czf

see this makes more sense, change.org wouldn’t do shit but here the government HAS to look at it

claudetc:

My girlfriend brought me a bunch of roses for our anniversary.

She thought there was some horrible irony in bringing me pictures of other attractive ladies (and guns n roses vocalists), I reckon it was metal as hell bringing me other the heads of other women like trophies.

Top tier GF.

"My name is Adam," the post read. "I'm 18 and non-exclusively attracted to boys and girls of all ages (particularly very young ones). I am the leader of a support group for non-offending pedophiles around my age… I would be very happy to talk with you."

Read more...

The retailer has agreed to label the images of models whose appearance has been modified by Photoshop.

With the death of Hollywood legend Lauren Bacall yesterday, everyone Madonna name checked in the song Vogue is now dead.

Read more...

The title of the first picture in this set is called "$tack$ o[n] deck." It’s a cool little still life, I guess. I like that the stacks of money, the sunglasses, and the little Patron bottles are all in groups of 3. You can clearly see that the people involved in this pre-game intend to smoke some pot-unceremoniously dumped on the dining room table-and drink some Moët & Chandon rose champagne and a bottle of Hennessy with a Coke mixer/chaser.

Outside of the booze, weed, money, and shades, the picture starts to fall apart for me. It’s too messy:  real life starts creeping into the promise of the intoxicated reverie to come and I don’t like it. Just beyond the champagne and liquor there is an open bag of white low cut socks and past that is what looks like a pile of mail or a wedding invitation or something. The brown and plastic bags on the left just look like trash no one bothered to throw away before the photographer took this picture. The baggie that held the weed is discarded like a busted balloon. It’s not even completely empty. I don’t even want to think about that weird baseball diamond-looking graphic on that person’s t-shirt.

The second picture in this series is called "dis is da way we ball." I like this one a lot better for the same reasons I don’t like the first picture in this set. Dis is da way we ball seems so ‘lived-in,’ so honest. The cash is out, the weed is dumped on the table, the booze is visible, but I think the laptop, the red cups, the brown bag, the bag from Larry’s(?) Famous Deli, the socks, the mail pile…in this photo, they demonstrate a life lived. An existence. All the clutter in this picture is representative of the clutter in our lives, the baggage we carry with us when all we want to do is spend our money, get stoned, drunk. I’ve been there. You’ve been there. Dis is da way we ball is the way we all ball:  imperfectly, but we ball regardless and hope for better times later, better times tomorrow, where we drank out of plastic red cups the night before because there’s nothing less baller than having to do dishes the next day.

Via HiLobrow (8/10/2014), Ben Zimmer came across this virtuoso display of Gothic katakana on feitclub's Tumblr:

I must confess that I have a hard time reading off this beautiful, ornate font, which is so different from the spare, simple, Japanese katakana. From Wikipedia, here's a chart of the latter for comparison:

Gojūon – Katakana characters with nucleus

	a	i	u	e	o
∅	ア	イ	ウ	エ	オ
K	カ	キ	ク	ケ	コ
S	サ	シ	ス	セ	ソ
T	タ	チ	ツ	テ	ト
N	ナ	ニ	ヌ	ネ	ノ
H	ハ	ヒ	フ	ヘ	ホ
M	マ	ミ	ム	メ	モ
Y	ヤ		ユ		ヨ
R	ラ	リ	ル	レ	ロ
W	ワ	ヰ		ヱ	ヲ

I've seen the English alphabet written to look like Devanagari, like Chinese characters, and other scripts, but this Gothic katakana is one of the most amazing lettering tours de force I've even encountered.  Yet what do all of these script metamorphoses tell us about the nature of writing?  Do scripts look the way they do because of esthetic preferences?  Or because of something intrinsic about the course of their development, including the surfaces on which they are written and the instruments with which they are traced on those surfaces?  One thing is certain:  the multiplicity of different scripts and their diverse appearances are wondrous to behold.

Now that it is going to be sold, my grandparents’ house, and the summers we spent there, seem cloaked in romance. I remember the trips to the thrift store, the games in the phalanx of sheds, the maple bars from Red’s Donuts, nature walks with my uncle, reading Green Mansions in the woods. It is easy to gloss over the rest.

It was a place of strong smells. Mint in the yard. Eucalyptus trees on the drive. Talcum powder and Lysol and always a potato rotting somewhere in the kitchen. It would have been a good place to be blind. Or, it would have if every inch hadn’t been covered with constantly shifting stuff.

I can’t seem to stop thinking and writing about my grandparents, lately. Well, they’ve been on everyone’s minds as they clear the property and sort through the family politics. I suppose I’ve been fumbling for some sort of eulogy. I’ve started to write about singing gay nineties songs around the piano, about family holidays and the day we all dressed in costumes for a group portrait. But I don’t think any of that really tells the story. If I were to try to say goodbye with one story, I think it would need to be a conversation I overheard one day. My grandfather called every evening; I walked into the kitchen to find my mother on the phone. 

“Has Mom agreed to this?” A beat. Then, exasperated, “Then that’s not a suicide pact, Dad; it’s a murder-suicide.”

36 (1981)

Вот уже на протяжении сорока лет американка Люси Гилмер ежегодно, в день собственного рождения, фотографирует саму себя в неизменном 'костюме'.


33 (1978)


34 (1979)


35 (1980)


36 (1981)


40 (1985)


42 (1987)


43 (1988)


48 (1993)


49 (1994)


50 (1995)


52 (1997)


54 (1999)


56 (2001)


57 (2002)


59 (2004)


60 (2005)


63 (2008)


67 (2012)

outriderreview:

We all have a story to tell. Share yours with The Outrider Review. We bring together the stories, art, and souls of the LGBTQ community to help spread understanding and connection.

Dans la lignée de “Fashion in Leaf – Les robes en feuilles d’arbres“, voici les créations de l’artiste Lim Zhi Wei, aka Lovelimzy, basée à Singapour, qui transforme des pétales de fleurs colorées en de magnifiques robes dans ses croquis…

Images © Lovelimzy / via

The Whirling Dervish was a willow sculpture by artist Trevor Leat that was installed in 2012 at Shambellie House, in New Abbey, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. Leat is known for his work with willow trees which he grows organically for use in furniture, baskets, and sculptures. Unfortunately, Shambellie House, which housed the National Museum of Costume, closed in 2013, so this piece may no longer be viewable. (via Colossal Submissions)

americanninjax:

isaia:

mybodythehandgrenade:

brinconvenient:

gailsimone:

chrishaley:

Done and done.

(Not pictured: “Butt window”, but trust me, it’s there.)

You have no idea how much this cheered me up just now.

I for one, think this is a major improvement. Look how empowered he is! And it’s relevant to the character as someone who is powered by the sun, he’d want to maximize the amount of sunlight he receives, right? It’s not like it makes sense for him to cover himself from chin to toe.
In fact, I think some strappy sandals might be an improvement.

strappy high heeled sandals would increase his height making him closer to the sun. and if wonderwoman can fight in heels it can’t be that hard, right?

SO EMPOWERING

Felt a dire need to contribute to the hilarity.

Stevie Nicks is getting ready to release a new album of unreleased songs collected over the last few decades, called “24 Karat Gold: Songs From The Vault.” And while it might be obnoxious for anyone else to label their own stuff “24 Karat Gold” that was deemed not good enough for inclusion on any of her records, Stevie Nicks actually means it. She’s probably forgotten more A+ songs than most artists ever write in their lifetimes. Like this new single “The Dealer,” for instance—it wouldn’t have been out of place on any of your favorite Fleetwood Mac records. “24 Karat Gold” comes out October 7.

h/t: Stereogum

“I was driving out into the Mexican desert with a shaman, and we were on our way to a peyote ceremony. We’d just eaten the peyote, and the shaman turned on the radio, and started playing The Talking Heads. He was this little indigenous dude, just banging on the steering wheel and singing along to The Talking Heads at the top of his lungs. I thought we were supposed to be contemplating life, so I said: ‘Are you sure the radio should be on right now? Is that how the ceremony is supposed to work?’ And he said: ‘This is exactly how it’s supposed to work.’ So I just shut up and rolled with it.”

“Cats Hate Cops” is a tidy black-and-white pamphlet from Research & Destroy, a “radical zine collective” based in New York. Its title may seem, to the casual observer, like an editorial statement, but make no mistake: it’s a fact. The zine’s sixty-two pages comprise 150 years of cat-on-cop violence, all of it diligently chronicled by our nation’s newspapers—hard evidence, in other words. The first report is from 1805, when, in Edinburgh, a man attempting to police his dairy met with a cat bite on the neck; the latest is from the Melbourne Age, which last January ran a sidebar called “Anatomy of a Cat Attack.” (“Police close one lane and engage Scratchy, who resists.” Attaboy, Scratchy!)

Whether these are disconnected incidents or the enactment of a kind of feline political philosophy remains to be seen, but my money’s on the latter. It just makes sense. Cats and humans are coevolved; the Scratchys and Tigers of the world have had ample time to form opinions about authoritarianism and the police state. And think about it: Have you ever seen a cat driving a cruiser? Have you even once seen a cat with a badge? These animals want Friskies, not frisking.

Of course, the media tends to side with the state. “A mad cat upset the general routine of things last Friday morning at a grocery store,” reads a 1939 blurb, failing thereafter to give the cat’s point of view. Time and again, “Cats Hate Cops” describes a world in which the humane treatment of animals is not a going concern, and in which the police are generally assumed to be competent executors of the public will. The prose is often blunt: “After clubbing the animal into insensibility they shot it through the head,” one story ends.

The zine is available from Brown Recluse Zine Distro; below are two of my favorite entries.

 

Someone trying to prove a point about the nature and value of art—or about the remarkably steady birth rate of suckers (still approximately one per minute!)—has printed out a screenshot of a 4chan post and sold it on eBay for nearly six figures.

Read more...

Screenshot: vom Wilzenberg

The world wide web has given us things like instant messaging, tentacle porn, internet banking, cyber stalking, and cats—all of which have been written about a lot. Weirdly though, there's one thing that has been grossly overlooked: German cat breeder websites.

Most people think that it is companies like Apple who shape our understanding of design nowadays, yet there are thousands of dedicated housewives and other types of animal lovers out there tirelessly working to challenge our sense of aesthetics and redefine the notion of "beauty."

What follows is a symphony of forms and furs that can’t be matched.

Image via Fairy Cakes

FAIRY CAKES

What immediately strikes you here is the extraordinary composition of the image. A sleepy, somewhat sad looking fairy is emitting a ray of light that ends on a cat in a flower hat. The cat seems to be in a really good mood. She’s unpacking a present—but for who? Her contemplative gaze reaches out into the distance. She seems to be content, full of inner peace.

The cat with the pearl necklace also seems peaceful and well-balanced. 'Fairy Cakes' is a place full of foaming cupcakes and love.

Image via vom Jägerswald

VOM JAEGERSWALD

Spirits in the 'vom Jägerswald' [of the Hunter’s Wood] cattery are noticeably more inflamed. One cat all but accusingly looks directly into the camera, while the others' gazes are wildly scattered throughout the forest landscape.

A legless bust of a stag appears out of nowhere, somehow recalling images of Lars von Trier’s Antichrist. You almost don’t dare to take your eyes off this atmospheric backdrop. So many questions remain unanswered—I guess the only way to have them answered is a visit to the Birman cat breeder.

Image via von den Silberfeen

VON DEN SILBERFEEN

Glitter, fairies, clouds and pastel tones. The 'von den Silberfeen' [of the Silver Fairies] cattery abides by the unwritten laws of the cat breeder game and presents the fluffy offspring as what they are: babies that only deserve the best. The white cat on the left affects a somewhat psychotic look. But the same could be said of you when you open your eyes a little wider to look cute in selfies.

Image via von den Mooswiesen

VON DEN MOOSWIESEN

I'll be honest with you—this website is my absolute favorite and not just because of the minimalist design that eschews animation, moving text, and any presence of fairies. What I like the most about it is the super grouchy facial expression of this nasty puss that’s about to eat the tiny, absurdly spotted bunny in the left corner.

The only thing keeping me from setting the homepage of Mooswiesen [Mossy Meadows] as my desktop background is the fear of being locked up for being slightly cuckoo.

Image via Juraperlen

JURAPERLEN

Yoga for the eyes—everything on the screen symbolizes harmony. The abundance of crystal balls and delicate flower petals refers to the precious fragility of the British Shorthairs on sale.

These two kittens are as pure as the white roses surrounding them. They’re unbelievably plush and fucking happy about the pearl necklaces they’re wearing.

Image via from Gloryhill

FROM GLORYHILL

Whether you like these forever-shedding fur balls or not, there’s one thing you can’t deny about cats: Even when shit's running down their tails, they are able to maintain a certain sense of dignity.

'From Gloryhill' takes advantage of their grandeur, setting their British Longhairs in Greece—the birthplace of democracy. And pairs them with a very colorful bird.

Image via vom Halterner See

VOM HALTERNER SEE

While many cat breeders use delicate rosé and terra-cotta tones to communicate cuddliness, the 'vom Halterner See' [of the Halterner Lake] cattery works with the jovial hues of sun, sea and beach. You can almost hear the Caribbean music in the background, while the kitties in heart-shaped sunglasses stare directly into your soul, purring “Buy me!” An advertising concept so brilliant, I doubt Don Draper could have thought it up.

Image via vom Winde verweht

VOM WINDE VERWEHT

A lot of catteries employ slogans in an attempt to stand out from their competitors. Few do it with this kind of panache: 'Vom Winde verweht' [Gone with the Wind] orients itself with the 1930s Hollywood classic of the same name.

That’s why you feel emotionally involved immediately after noticing the little cat on the right pulling the drapes shut, to conceal the view of the plantation house. This deeply romantic motif is present throughout the website. The cursor, for instance, leaves behind a trail of sparks as you browse your way through a way of life that's now become extinct.

Image via vom Dellwiger Schloß

VOM DELWWIGER SLOSS

As other websites spend their efforts on making their animals look as innocent and lovable as possible, 'vom Dellwiger Schloß' [of the Dellwiger Palace] offers a much more realistic, unembellished look at what cats really are: fluffy egomaniacs that force you to surrender all of your love and couch space.

Image via of little Buddha

OF LITTLE BUDDHA

Cats are the Shaolin of the animal kingdom: fast, silent and… whatever, it somehow makes sense to bring up the obvious connection between cats and the monastic culture of the Far East. There’s a ton to discover on the homepage of the 'of little Buddha' cattery. Make sure you don’t miss the animated hummingbird!

Would I buy my cat here if I liked cats at all? Maybe.

London graffiti legend ROBBO has passed away. In 2011, the 40-something artist suffered a traumatic brain injury and was put into a medically induced coma by doctors. We’re told he was taken off life support earlier today. His supporters, dubbed Team ROBBO, posted a brief statement on their website:

It’s with very great sadness that we have to announce that Robbo passed away this morning – 31 July 2014, due to health complications.

Peace and respect to Robbo’s close family and friends.. the Crew of Team Robbo and WRH and all his many fans and supporters around the world…

The old school writer, who stood 6-foot-8-inches tall, is said to have hit his first train in 1985, but really made headlines three years later when he did a massive “Merry Christmas” whole train with DRAX WD. According to DRAX, it was a six-car production. Car one said “Merry Christmas to,” cars two through five had the “names of writers and crew names,” and the last car read “from ROBBO & DRAX.”

He eventually retired in the early 90s and virtually disappeared from the scene. But in 2009, ROBBO rocketed back into fame when world famous street artist Banksy painted over and incorporated one of his historic pieces from 1985 — that was partially graffitied — igniting a very public feud that played out on a canal and the streets of London (and elsewhere). The tit for tat exchange produced some witty results as each camp tried to one up each other, creating some amazing public art in the process. As local as the battle was, it quickly became larger than the two artists and came to represent the friction between graffiti and street art.

Today, Banksy published a pithy tribute on his website to his former sparring partner: “ROBBO WRH WD PFB – R.I.P.”

(Photo: Team ROBBO)

The post RIP King ROBBO appeared first on ANIMAL.