Surrealist Street Gang

Devil's Kettle Falls

Devil’s Kettle Falls in located in Judge C. R. Magney State Park, in Minnesota, near Lake Superior.  The branch of the falls to the left drops into a hole that descends too… well, nobody seems to know where.  People have tried sending dye, logs, ping-pong balls and other things down the hole to see where they reappear, but they never seem to do so.  I love a good mystery!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge_C._R._Magney_State_Park

http://www.sciencebuzz.org/image/devils-kettle-falls

A beautiful city, bombed out of existence by the allies in February 1945.  The dropping of over 7,800,000 pounds of high explosives and incendiary devices destroyed 15 square miles of the city center.

Dresden 1890s

CLICK ON STUFF

I’m not saying all the facts are correct – check the wiki page for it – but sometimes things just demand an intervention. Three thousand adverts per day? Actually, I’m guessing I’m down to five or ten given that I don’t really watch television or listen to the radio. And then there’s my baby, Adblock Plus. Battle technology with technology! Right now I run it with the “Myspace Junk Filters”, “Rickroll Blacklist”, “Malware Domains”, and “EasyPrivacy+EasyList+EasyElement”. I’m lovin’ it!

Thank you HitCoffee!

“in this way waking consciousness can be thought of as a controlled psychedelic experience. It is when the control of these systems becomes loosened and their behavior no longer correlates with the external world that the altered states arise.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethyltryptamine

It could explain religious experiences and gods, alien abduction, near death experiences, and other crazy things some people believe they have experinced.

I’ve always felt that life was a trip.  The moral of the story is Don’t do drugs!  Existence is crazy enough by itself.

So somehow I wound up reading about entomological warfare recently. I think I actually got there backward, from the United Sates biological weapons program, but I can’t recall if I came in from some other site to swine brucellosis or the M33 cluster bomb. Either way, it’s  perhaps semi-comforting to know that ‘murca was always on top of the homicide thing, as usual.  Let’s face it, what more constant thing do we have than Americans loving to kill?  America!  Fuck yeah! Maybe I need another new nickname… hey gang leader, how do you think Joe works for me? *g*

Awww yeah, bring it.

On 3 November 2004, N. P. Johnsens Fyrværkerifabrik fireworks factory exploded in Seest, Denmark.  284 tons of fireworks went off.  The blast caused much damage to the surrounding area, and killed one firefighter.  The video is amazing. Although it’s a devestating fire and explosion, it seems festive with all the fireworks going off around it.

In 1977 we launched the Voyager 1 space probe to explore the solar system, and it is now the farthest man-made object from the Earth.  It’s almost 10 billion miles away at this point, and still functioning and transmitting data back to earth.  The radio signals take 14 hours to travel from Voyager to the Earth.  In about 6 years it will reach the heliopause, which is the boundary of the suns influence on the space around it.  Once it passes the heliopause, the probe will be in interstellar space.

Included on the probe is a message to anyone who may encounter the probe in the future.  The message is recorded on the state of the art medium of the day: a gold-anodized long playing record.

Voyager Golden Record

The record is meant to be played at 16 and 2/3 rpm, which sounds weird, but that is because it is not based on our time-keeping system, but on the fundemental transition of the hydrogen atom.

The record has a cover which includes instructions for playing it.  Apparently there is also a cartridge and stylus included on the probe.

Earlier, in 1972 and 1973, we launched the Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 probes, which didn’t include a record, but only a plaque showing what humans look like and where the Earth is located.  Some stupid people were upset that the plaque showed naked humans.  I say thank God they were naked.  Who knows what they would have been shown wearing in 1972.  Bell-bottoms?  Leisure suits?  Oy!

Pioneer plaque

So we’ve basically shown the aliens where we are and what we look like.  Better hope they’re freindly.  And not hungry and looking for meat.

Finally, I get around to writing a bit about my favorite 20th century artist, Francis Bacon.  I have long been fascinated with his delicately executed yet highly disturbing images.  Best of all, his name is Bacon.  And he painted many images of meat!  What could go better on SSG?

Images in this post have been borrowed from http://www.francis-bacon.cx/ which I highly recommend.

Francis Bacon circa 1980

I was going to include a brief biography, but Wikiepdia does an excellent job if you’re interested:

Francis Bacon (Painter)

Now, on to the important part – the paintings.  Although not meat-themed, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion is his first important work, and is an excellent introduction to his style and techniques.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

I see a lot of meaty shapes and colors in those images.  But it gets better.  Painting, 1946 is a full-blown meat festival, respendent with carcasses and entrails.

Painting, 1946

Bacon had preoccupations with many different images he had seen during his life.  One of those images was a portrait of Pope Innocent X by Valazquez.  Below is the original painting.

Pope Innocent X, by Valazquez

And here is one of Bacon’s works based on that painting, Figure with Meat.  Great title!

Figure with Meat

If you find his paintings fascinating, as I do, use the links included above to explore and discover more.  Bacon is yummy!

Postscript:

I just found this image.  I’m very excited.  I’ve never seen this before.  A photograph of Francis Bacon with meat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Potato_Head

www.bloggits.com

Proof that politicians will do ANYTHING to get elected:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/31/AR2007123102054.html

Hilary goes for the preschool voters

293 Grams of Ecstacy smuggled in Mr. Potato Head:

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=302454

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