West Texas Book Banning Celebrations Underway

Yes, folks, we're having a busy week over here in West Texas. There's a downright festive feeling in the air as National Book Banning Week celebrations continue. The Wicked Witch of West Texas is actively lobbying for all future books with her as a character to be banned. Of course, she would want that since she wants to keep her evil deeds secret, but some also argue that it's because banning a book imbues it with a special glamour and allure that no amount of critical praise could ever match. This ensures that any kid worth the title will seek it out and read it by flashlight, in a cave if necessary-- thus the Witch may be trying to burnish her Wicked cred. It's been well documented that this was how the Wicked Witch of West Texas, herself, started out. She simply read everything she could find that was supposed to be off limits, until she finally tracked down those forbidden items that were truly despicable. Which begs the question: why does anyone bother? Had fewer things been off limits she'd never have discovered half of what she did.
120 Banned Books: Censorship Histories of World Literature

Dot: World's Smallest Stop Motion Video

Had to take a break from all that dancing to post this awesome video. Now, if only it included a pseudoscorpion. But seriously, how great is this?

Dance Craze in West Texas Today-- Rich Man's Frug

Things are so swell here on the plains today that we're having a little dance soiree. Check out our super-frug, aka "the Aloof."
Sweet Charity

Time Travel With Michio Kaku

Yes, time travel is theoretically possible, but would require the energy of a star, or a very good wand. Or perhaps just a relocation to Walla Walla.
Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel

Step Into the "Bizarre Book Shop"-- Psychadelic Pink Panther

Looks like a lovely bookstore. Lulu's favorite tomes would be right at home.


The Pink Panther Classic Cartoon Collection, Vol. 1: Pranks in the Pink

Japan-- Ghosts

We're haunted in the Black Mansion today as strange strains of things nearly forgotten are cast back up from the depths of the subconscious with a purple fury. Look out for ghosts today as Neptune is doing some strange work in Aquarius.

Fans of Awsomeness Behold the Pseudoscorpion

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I found one of these guys in my lamp the other day. After getting some magnification on the little fella I knew I was looking at an arachnid. It had claws like a scorpion, but no scorpion tail, and it was spinning a bit of silk like a spider. A little searching on the internet gave me the name of this creature. It's a pseudoscorpion, and everything about it is great. Pseudoscorpions live all over the US, but you may never see them because their maximum size is about 2 centimeters. Psuedoscorpions live entirely on a diet of things I hate, like flea larvae, carpet mites, clothing moth larvae and small flies, which is the first cool thing I discovered about them. They grab these pests with their venomous claws and devour them. Yes, I said "venomous claws." The pseudoscorpion is a very efficient creature. Where a scorpion has to grab its prey and then try to sting with its tail, the pseudoscorpion has its venom conveniently located in the claws. Pretty clever, eh? (BTW, they can't actually bite humans. Just very small things.) Another great thing about pseudoscorpions: though wingless they get around by air travel. How? They hitch a ride on a winged insect, like this:

The best part of this is that the pseudoscorpion might even be able to eat her mode of transportation once she gets where she's going. 

Suffice it to say I have a new favorite arachnid. 

Pointless Invention: Spray on Clothes

Yes, that's right. You can now spray your clothing onto your body from an aerosol can. But the question remains- why would you want to? From the daily mail:

Fabrican - literally fabric in an aerosol can - is the brainchild of Spanish designer Dr Manel Torres who has spent ten years working on his invention.
In a video demonstrating how it works, he sprays a blue and white T-shirt on to a model in just under 15 minutes.
Drying as soon as it hits his skin, the garment can be taken off, washed and re-worn.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1312399/The-shirt-spray-For-clothes-fit-like-second-skin-try-instant-fabric-can.html#ixzz0zt7Geeua

Maybe it's just me, but personally, I'd prefer to put on a t-shirt the old fashioned way.

Fuzztones-- The Witch

A musical selection dedicated to the local evil doer. Rumor has it this little ditty was written back when the Wicked Witch of West Texas arrived in these parts. The band claims no West Texas connections, but the song is strangely appropriate to our situation.
Monster a Go Go

Lions and Tigers and... Bananas? Oh, My!

Bananaphobia. It's real and it's scary, the non-aggressive nature of bananas not withstanding. Take the curious case of Fran Dando:

‘It began when I was seven and my brother put a banana in my bed as a joke,’ said Ms Dando, from Hastings, East Sussex.
‘I felt his horrible, slimy thing underneath my body. I was frozen in panic and hyperventilating. Ever since then, if I see one the same feeling comes back.’
She has since been forced to dodge bananas in shops and turn a blind eye to them in the fruit bowl at friend’s houses.

And that video? Well, that was just to raise the absurdity quotient.

B-52s -- Rock Lobster

We're headed down to the watering trough today to take a dip, so we'll be on the lookout for any wild crustaceans. Who knows if lobsters can live in a West Texas water trough? It's a savage place, however, unholy and often enchanted, or just plain hexed. So, it's a good policy to expect the unexpected around here.
B-52's

For Lulu: Remember Acrostics

Lulu should, in the coming days, remember our lessons on acrostics. They may come in handy. From Wikipedia:

"An acrostic (Greek: ákros "top"; stíchos "verse") is a poem or other form of writing in which the first letter, syllable or word of each line, paragraph or other recurring feature in the text spells out a word or a message."

Shadows, 1959: Existentialism

Not the clip I was looking for, but this is a good one. From Wikipedia:

Cassavetes shot the film twice, once in 1957 and again in 1959. The second version is the one Cassavetes favored; though he did screen the first version, he eventually lost track of the print, and for decades it was believed to have been lost or destroyed. This version was intended to have the jazz music of Charles Mingus on the soundtrack, but Mingus continuously failed to meet the deadlines Cassavetes set; the contributions of saxophonist Shafi Hadi, the saxophonist for Mingus's group, proved to ultimately be the soundtrack for the film...

Film critic Leonard Maltin calls Cassavetes' second version of Shadows "a watershed in the birth of American independent cinema". The movie was shot with a 16 mm handheld camera on the streets of New York. Much of the dialogue was improvised, and the crew were class members or volunteers. The jazz-infused score underlines the movie's Beat Generation theme of alienation and raw emotion. The movie's plot features an interracial relationship, which was still a taboo subject in Eisenhower-era America.

In 1993, Shadows was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Shadows (1959) - (The Criterion Collection)

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird-- Wallace Stevens

I

Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens

Giant Moths Hatch at Butterfly Sanctuary

With their stunning colours and 12in wingspan they're not the sort of insect you could ignore.

And now not just one but nine of the world's largest moths have hatched at a butterfly sanctuary in Gloucestershire.

The giant Atlas moths emerged from their chrysalises at Berkeley Castle Butterfly House.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1307182/Stand-aside-behe-moths-insect-world-arrived.html#ixzz0z3gebz45


Oddly, we found something only slightly smaller than this in Texas quite recently. 

Bonanza the Origin of the Chupacabra? Perhaps

From Cyptomundo:

One of the significant items of note about the show “Bonanza,” in terms of cryptozoology, is that it was the first place on television that the term “Chupacabras” was used.

As I often tell patrons to the International Cryptozoology Museum, as opposed to “Chupacabras” being noted as a bloodsucker of goats throughout its history, the mention of “Chupacabras” by a Mexican farmhand on the series “Bonzana” was framed in terms of some kind of milksucker of goats in an episode broadcast in 1960. From milk to blood, it appears, the Chupacabras have changed their diet down through the years.

Maybe the idea of a blood sucker was too much for 1960 television and the writer merely substituted milk. It's pretty interesting that the chupacabra entered North American pop culture as far back as 1960, though. They're pretty much all the rage here in Texas these days with every mangy coyote transformed in the minds of the locals into a chupacabra. We keep the herd here on the ranch isolated so as not to cause a mass panic.

A Song for the New Moon- Miles Davis- Generique

Elevator to the Gallows - (The Criterion Collection)

Song for a Hurricane

We've a guest today in the Black Mansion named Hermine. She's brought a bit of weather with her. Hurricanes are unruly guests that way, so we're avoiding low water crossings and suggest ya'll do the same.
The Ultimate Collection

Artist Ken Little Casting a Sculpture in Bronze

Ken Little from Mark & Angela Walley on Vimeo.

This is pretty interesting if you've ever wondered how "lost wax" casting works. Find more about Ken here.

Grace Jones-- La Vie En Rose

As the cruel summer comes to a close we take a dip in la vie en rose. Fall is a lovely time on the West Texas plains. The Marfa lights love the longer nights and the UFOs frolic in the lonely, barren places. Tornado season is just around the corner, and flash flood alley is about to get busy, too. Tourists flock to see the tumbleweeds and to bask in the rich dark air of a dust storm. Pretty soon we'll be summoning the ghosts of Geronimo, Dave Crocket and Annie Oakley to haunt the Black Mansion for the holiday season. Wish you were here.
Nightclubbing

Trolls, A Danger I Hadn't Begun to Ponder... Until Now

Read the Story at: http://kiyash.com/Troll-Proof-Story

Get Your Art History in a Music Video

70 Million by Hold Your Horses ! from L'Ogre on Vimeo.

The song is 70 Million. The band, Hold Your Horses.
70 Million