She appears to be in full Swoon.

Hello D-
                 I'm just blowin' in to tell you:
                               

I've got levitation

After Death, What?

Hola D-

I nabbed this little beauty today and wanted to share it with you. I love how the questioning is so urgent. I feel like it should really say "After death, WHAT?!" 

Where do you think we go when we die? Sometimes the idea of a spiritual life after the demise of our bodies really interests me, other times I find the concept terrifying. Still other times I am of the mind that the world would be a better place if we know that this was the one and only chance and that TIME IS RUNNING OUT.

Someone stood next to Ceasar to remind him of his mortality. Whispering Memento Mori in his ear.

When I wear a watch I feel like that's pretty much the same thing.

Jamming on a theme...

Owls and the Faces Behind Masks

Afternoon D-

I hope you're doing well, wherever you are. I missed you especially this morning because I saw something unusual and that always puts you firmly to the center of my mind.

As I was riding the train to work I noticed a young man curled up on one of the smaller subway seats. This isn't unusual in Gotham, the homeless come in all types, but something about him struck me as odd. First of all he was clean and put together, and through you can't see it in this photo, he was sitting on his sneakers which were brand new Nikes...not cheap. I get the impression he was just a kid who partied too hard and chose a bad place to sleep it off. Then I noticed the mask. 

At first glance I could not ascertain what it was supposed to be, but then I noticed the shape of the eye holes, and an indent meant to be a beak.

An owl. Before he ended up asleep on the subway sitting on his expensive sneakers in a black fur hat this kid had been somewhere it was appropriate to be an owl....or to be dressed as one.

In Sicilian folklore Owls are considered to be bad omens and it's not wise to put an image of one in your home. In fact, the Owl is one of the few animals to be represented in cave drawings, and throughout the history of humanity they have been perceived as everything from a symbol of kindness and wisdom to the animal form of a witch.

These concepts and superstitions still pervade to this day. Many people think that the legendary Mothman incident at Point Pleasant West Virginia was actually  the spotting of a rather oversized barn Owl.

England has it's own Owlman in Cornwall. The creature is said to leave behind the crackling sound of static for a few minutes after it takes flight into the air. It was first spotted in 1976, but sightings continue to crop up every few years.

A letter written by Tony 'Doc' Shiels - April 1976: "A very weird thing happened over the Easter weekend. A holiday-maker from Preston, Lancs., told me about something his two young daughters had seen ... a big, feathered bird-man hovering over the church tower at Mawnan (a village near the mouth of the Helford River). The girls (June 12, and Vicky, daughters of Mr Don Melling), were so scared that the family cut their holiday short and went backthree days early. This really is a fantastic thing, and I am sure the man wasn't just making it up because he'd been told I was on a monster hunt. I couldn't get the kids to talk about it (in fact, their father wouldn't even let me try), but he gave me a sketch of the thing drawn by June. There have been no reports, so far as I know, of anybody else seeing the Bird-Man ... even if it turned out to be just a fancy dress hang-glider, you'd think someone else would have spotted him ... but Mawnan is not a place for hang-gliding! I really don't know what to think ... it's as if a whole load of weirdness has been let loose in the Falmouth area since last autumn!" (Phantoms and Monsters)

There are a lot of theories about what it might be, some claim that a church built on ancient Druid leylines is the cause. Most however think that it's probably just an Eagle Owl that has flown out of it's normal hunting areas.

On an even more bizarre note are the tales of the Lechuza, or shape shifting witch caught in Texas that started making the rounds last year accompanied by a rather perplexing photo.

Lechuza are women, or the spirits of women who can transform into a vengeful giant owl. There are many stories and thoughts of Why though. Some versions of the tale state that a Bruja or witch was killed by local townspeople. Some claim that she is the faithful wife of an unfaithful husband whose spirit seeks justice. No matter what she was, as the Lechuza she is deeply dangerous. Often her modus operandi includes sitting in the trees and making the sound of a newborn baby to attract her prey. She then swoops down and carries the victim off to her cave to eat him slowly. It draws certain comparisons to the Hag or Banshee.

Either way, I think that our sleeping friend is safe from Lechuzas. Safe from the people of Gotham is another story.

-Vi

Secrets of the Deep

Welcome Back D-

https://www.facebook.com/MyFWC
Official site for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission

Seems like it was a pretty big weekend for mysteries and shenanigans in the ocean. First off, a mysterious eyeball washed ashore on Pompano Beach in Florida.

Described as being "slightly larger than a baseball" when it was found it sparked many theories about it's origins. Some of those tossed about on the Florida Wildlife Conservation Commission's facebook where whale, squid, and my personal favorites "a giant squid ripped out a whale's eye" and the ever popular "Lovecraftian horror."

In the end scientific analysis proved it to be the eye of the Swordfish.

http://tinyurl.com/8s3694r

That wasn't the only creepy thing from the deep. On Friday an Oarfish washed ashore in Cabo San Lucas, in Mexico. A secretive, deep-sea species (between 600 and 3,000 feet) these behemoths lack scales and can reach lengths of 30 feet. With their orange dorsal fins and "manes" many people think that early sightings of Oarfish may have help to form the tales of seamonsters and serpents told by mariners all over the world.

It is thought that this is the first Oarfish to wash up on Cabo's main beach.











Yet none of these is as odd as the tale that came out of France. "A woman was attacked by an octopus while aqua biking." Apparently "aquabiking" is the newest fitness trend, but it nobody expected that the marine life was going to try to get in on the action. The octopus wrapped it's tentacles around the woman's legs, holding her tight to the point that she became unable to escape or continue with the class.

Octopus Street Art in Reims, France

They say that octopod are actually some of the most intelligent creatures of the deep. It's made me reconsider eating them honestly. But then is it right to eat pigs, since they are also highly intelligent? When is a creature too intelligent to eat? It seems like an odd line to draw. 

Q: But would I eat a dolphin? 

A: Maybe. I'm not very nice.

I guess to close up I wanted to show you this video of an octopus stealing a guy's video camera. Maybe all octopi are of the criminal class, so then it's totally ok to eat them.

Wait, that's a bad brand of logic. We can't eat criminals...

Sorry I'm going all Jonathan Swift's Modest Proposal on you this early on a Monday.

Ephemera And Religious Pamphlets

Happy Friday D!

           Living in the city can be pretty exhausting. The sheer number of peoples, lives, and faces... sometimes it can really make your head swim. There's this joke that the comedian Louis CK wrote about how when you think you've seen the same stranger over and over, it feels like God is running out of extras for the movie of your life. I feel that is a uniquely Urban problem. In a small town those repeated faces would be community members, but in Gotham they're just extras

           Then there are those people that break the convention of ignoring one another. A shared look of confusion or amazement on the subway over a set of break dancers or a virtuoso musical saw player. A few words of kindness or a helping hand to a mother with a stroller...all these moments remind us that it's not just a sea of people, it's a sea of lives. Ebbing and flowing around this city. It's no wonder that somedays this place seems less like a city and more like a coral reef.

          The most common way that people attempt to break through the "stranger barrier" is usually when they are campaigning for something. It can be political, religious, or even business related. Though usually I'm to busy to stop and have a long chat, I do have a certain affection for unusual or dramatic religious handouts and pamphlets. I've started to keep these little pieces of Ephemera above my desk at work, much to the confusion of my boss. This is one of my favorites.

Hope you have a rad weekend D!

Vi

Brains!

Holy Hell D!

You're never going to believe this! The following images are from a Soviet era Neuroscience laboratory. The lab was seemingly abandoned in a hurry, and most of the equipment and samples remain behind. If this was your brain what would you want them to do with it? Would you want it to be used again for scientific study? Or buried or cremated? Or something else.

I think I'd rather them keep using it for science if it was viable. Unless there is some sort of a brain surplus. I think that isn't likely though.

If you want to see more photos check out this Russian Blog