Posts Tagged ‘weird’
“Just play. Have fun.”*…
The mud-pit belly flop, a highlight of the annual Summer Redneck Games in Dublin, Georgia
The word “weird” is defined by various dictionaries as odd, bizarre, eccentric and unconventional. And where most of these traits could be considered unsettling, in the world of photography, and specifically sports, it could also translate to a gold mine. The essence of photography is to capture a truly remarkable moment. And many times, different (or weird) can be good. If photographers covered the same events from the same angles, we really wouldn’t achieve anything unique or memorable…
712 people and 600 balls in Manhattan: the world’s largest dodgeball game
Sol Neelman, a self-proclaimed “failed athlete” and Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, has turned his lens away from the conventional targets of sports photography…
A Chinese tourist in the dunes of the Sahara Desert tries his hand at sandboarding
Read an interview (from whence, the body quote above) with Neelman here; peruse his portfolio here.
* Michael Jordan
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As we Do It, we might recall that it was on this date in 1893 that “Cowboy Bill” Pickett invented bull-dogging. A 23-year-old cowhand at the time, he rode alongside a stray, dropped from his horse to grab the steer’s horns, and– emulating bulldogs that he’d observed– sharply bit the steer’s upper lip. Soon after, Pickett and his four brothers formed The Pickett Brothers Bronco Busters and Rough Riders Association. He did his bulldogging act, traveling about in Texas, Arizona, Wyoming, and Oklahoma. In 1905, Pickett joined the 101 Ranch Wild West Show that featured the likes of Buffalo Bill, Will Rogers, and Tom Mix; Pickett was soon a popular performer who toured around the world and appeared in early motion pictures (see below)– though he often had to mask his African-American heritage by claiming (only) his Native American roots. (Even then, while he was in fact part Cherokee, he claimed to be part Comanche.)
As the event became a common rodeo event, lip biting became increasingly less popular until it disappeared from steer wrestling altogether.
“The slogan of Hell: Eat or be eaten. The slogan of Heaven: Eat and be eaten”*…
This three-year-old male Great Dane was observed repeatedly vomiting and retching all day; he was taken to DoveLewis Emergency Animal Hospital in Portland, where abdominal radiographs revealed a severely distended stomach and a large quantity of foreign material:
During exploratory surgery performed by a DoveLewis veterinarian, 43½ socks were removed.
The patient was discharged home one day after surgery, and is doing well.
The peckish pooch finished third in Veterinary Practice News‘ annual “They ate WHAT?” contest. See the other winners at “2014 X-Ray Contest Winners–Animals will eat just about anything. The proof is in the radiographs.”
* W.H. Auden, A Certain World: A Commonplace Book
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As we are what we eat, we might recall that it was on this date in 1932 that Walt Disney initiated the art classes that grew into the Walt Disney Art School (and later inspired the creation of the California Institute for the Arts). In preparation for his feature-length cartoon (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which would require the animation of more human figure than the critters theretofore featured), Disney set up the school to train his animators. The first class was taught by Don Graham of the Chouinard School of Art, lecturing at Disney’s old sound studio on Hyperion Avenue in Los Angeles. Classes are held once a week after work on the sound stage, but soon this will be expanded to twice weekly. The selection of Graham was propitious; “The Prof” groomed a team of animators that went on to set (and continually raise) standards for decades.
A true scholar of the art of drawing [who] knew as much about art as anybody I’ve ever come in contact with. Don gave so much and offered so much and not too many people realize that. [Don] was a very inspirational man. –Marc Davis on Don Graham
Don Graham really knew what he was teaching, and he “showed” you how to do something – he didn’t just talk. He taught us things that were very important for animation. How to simplify our drawings – how to cut out all the unnecessary hen scratching amateurs have a habit of using. He showed us how to make a drawing look solid. He taught us about tension points – like a bent knee, and how the pant leg comes down from that knee and how important the wrinkles from it are to describe form. I learned a hell of a lot from him! —Art Babbitt, Once Upon a Time — Walt Disney: The Sources of inspiration for the Disney Studios
Jack Kinney‘s memory of Don Graham’s class
“Judging books by their covers is seriously underrated”*…
How to Poo on a Date has won the 36th annual Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year.
The book, by Mats & Enzo, published by Prion Press, topped a public vote to find the oddest title, in one of the closest contests in prize history. In the end, How to Poo on a Date: The Lovers’ Guide to Toilet Etiquette, took home the title with 30% of the vote, beating into second place Are Trout South African? by Duncan Brown (Pan South Africa) andThe Origin of Feces by David Waltner-Toews (ECW Press), which both captured 23% of voters.
The rest of the shortlist [pictured above] was made up of early frontrunner Working Class Cats: The Bodega Cats of New York City by Chris Balsiger ands Erin Canning (One Peace Books), with 14%; Pie-ography: Where Pie Meets Biography by Jo Packham (Quarry) with 6%; and How to Pray When You’re Pissed at God by Ian Punnett (Harmony Books), with 4% of the votes…
Previous titles from Mats & Enzo, How to Poo on Holiday, How to Poo at Work and How to Bonk at Work, were all previously nominated for the prize. Tom Tivnan, features and insight editor at The Bookseller, and Diagram Prize administrator, said: “The two were in danger of becoming perpetual Diagram bridesmaids, like Beryl Bainbridge and the Booker.”
He added: “In recent years, Diagram Prize voters have showed their catholic tastes by selecting rarefied food science titles (The 2009–2014 World Outlook for 60-milligram Containers of Fromage Frais, 2008), zoological studies (Bombproof Your Horse, 2004), and highbrow experimental literature (The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories, 2003). Yet after Mats and Enzo’s win this year, with The Origin of Feces on the shortlist, and Saiyuud Diwong’s Cooking with Poo taking the crown in 2011, an all too-clear trend emerges. Diagram devotees have spoken, and spoken in no uncertain terms: poo wins prizes.”
No prize other than the honour of the win is traditionally given to the winner of the Diagram, which was founded as a way of relieving boredom at the Frankfurt Book Fair by Diagram Group co-founders Trevor Boundford and Bruce Robertson in 1978.
Readers can read the full release at The Bookseller, and can follow (Roughy) Daily’s coverage of earlier year’s competitions here and here.
* Amy Smith, All Roads Lead to Austen: A Yearlong Journey with Jane
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As we load up our Kindles, we might send fabulous birthday greetings to Hans Christian Andersen; he was born on this date in 1805. A prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his (often curiously-titled) fairy tales. Those tales– which include “The Princess and the Pea,” “The Ugly Duckling,” “Thumbelina,” “The Little Mermaid,” and “The Emperor’s New Clothes”– have inspired plays, ballets, and both live-action and animated films.
In Andersen’s honor this date– his birthday– is celebrated as International Children’s Book Day.
“There’s no drama like wrestling!”*…
Local lore has it that it all began when a gentleman named O’Rourke and a partner developed a business in the late 1940s of fishing for octopuses with O’Rourke serving as live bait, and his partner hauling him out of the water after an octopus was sufficiently wrapped around him.**
In any case, you can read all about it on the ReelChase site, but in a nut shell, by the 60s octopus wrestling had become a lively “sport,” especially in the Seattle area. Annual “World Octopus Wrestling Championships” were held in Puget Sound; they attracted up to 5,000 spectators and were televised. Trophies were awarded to the individual divers and teams who caught the largest animals. Afterwards, the octopuses were either eaten, given to the local aquarium, or returned to the sea. For example, in April, 1963, 111 divers took part in the competition; they wrestled– caught by hand, then dragged to shore– a total of 25 giant Pacific octopuses (Enteroctopus dofleini) weighing up to 57 pounds.
The sport began to die down in the late 60s, and the Championships ceased. Octopus wrestling is now illegal in Washington State.
* Andy Kaufman
** This, according to reporter and humorist H. Allen Smith in an article for True magazine in 1964; Smith’s source was West Coast raconteur Idwal Jones, so readers are left to dial up their own credulity.
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As we pull on our wet suits, we might recall that it was on this date in 1967– just as the Octopus Wrestling Championship was fading– that elsewhere in Seattle another freaky voice was born: on March 23, 1967, the first issue of Seattle’s alternative newspaper, The Helix, was published. Inspired by San Francisco’s Berkeley Barb and Oracle, and New York City’s East Village Other, Helix‘s prime instigators included Paul Dorpat, then a wayward University of Washington grad student, and Paul Sawyer, a Unitarian minister. This circle quickly grew to include later-to-be famous novelist Tom Robbins, Seattle Post-Intelligencer cartoonist Ray Collins, and Jon Gallant, co-founder of Seattle’s legendary underground radio station KRAB-FM. It also launched the media career of Walt Crowley, revered local writer, historian, and rabble-rouser, who joined the paper’s staff, first as an illustrator and later as an editor, in May, 1967. (Crowley and Dorpat later went on to be two of the three founders of HistoryLink, along with Crowley’s wife Marie McCaffrey.)
Volume 1, Number 1
“I’ll give you my one-handed flail when you pry it from my cold, dead hands”*…
From the one-handed flail…
to the flamethrower…
… “10 Crazy Weapons That Are Still Legal In The U.S.”
* variation on the NRA’s slogan, popularized by Charlton Heston: “I’ll give you my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands”
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As we re-read the Second Amendment, we might recall that it was on this date in 1998 that a tobacco company executive– Steven Goldstone, RJR Nabisco chairman and CEO– acknowledged the health risk of tobacco products under oath to Congress for the first time.
Concern about the safety of tobacco dated back to the 19th Century, and links to lung cancer emerged in the early 20th. But it was in 1950, with the publication of Richard Doll‘s research in the British Medical Journal, that a close link between smoking and lung cancer was scientifically established. Many studies quickly followed, confirming Doll’s findings and establishing the addictive quality of nicotine. Still, as recently to Goldstone’s testimony as 1994, seven tobacco company executives had sworn under oath that nicotine was not addictive.
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