Mein Gott!

A final solution to your architectural problems.

Classic Photos in Lego

This flickr by user "Balakov" is dedicated to classic photographs reenacted in LEGO. It is nerdily awesome. The accompanying caption: Another tough decision of whether to use the smiley face or not.

Red Pilot

It was an unusually warm day in early spring when René was sunning himself by the brook and it went sputtering overhead, smearing the clear sky with oily, brown smoke. A fiery, crumpled Icarus of sticks and scorched fabric fell out of the sun and met the earth, disappearing behind a slight hillock. Little René was on his parents’ farmstead because he had decided to skip school that afternoon, and it made sense to hide out there on the bank by the droopy willow tree. Aeroplanes flew overhead all the time, and sometimes the pilots waved, both Allemands and Anglais. Never had he ever seen one up close, though—even wrecked—and maybe there would see a dead man. He had not seen one of those, either. Though little René ran, it still seemed to him to take hours to reach the site of the crash. Soaked with sweat from the exertion and sheer boyish excitement, exhilaration overcame René when he found it in the field. The still-smoking remains had crushed the bright young alfalfa and the skin of the machine had mostly been sheared or burnt away. It was a confrontation with what appeared to be the skeletonized carcass of some terrifying, prehistoric aerial monstrosity. The pilot was still seated in the cockpit with bloodied, mustachioed face. René poked his head with a stick and it flopped over and a sticky, meaty mess under his jaw glared back at him, disturbed. The airman had shot himself with his revolver rather than burn on the way down, but the corpse was hardly singed… There was buzzing from behind the copse of trees and the child turned to see another plane flit across the fields like some predatory insect attracted to the smell of burning gasoline and red meat. It was a triplane stained bloody as his victim. The pilot put down by the crash and climbed out of his machine, the engine idling and prop spinning. His face was obscured by bug-eyed goggles and soot from machine gun smoke. Only his pale lips showed he was vulnerable flesh like the boy and not a droning war machine or giant nightmare insect. The airman pulled the goggles over his head and his cold Prussian eyes found René’s. He quickly glanced away, but René could do nothing but stare at him. The pilot went to his kill and considered the angles, admiring his handiwork with the care of a modiste before the wedding. When satisfied with the inspection, he took out a large hunting knife. Until then the boy was fascinated, not afraid. This was the first time he had seen a German after all, and he flew! His guts might be in danger, though. He stood still, not remembering to run, dazzled by the sunlit blade in the filthy hand, wondering if machine gun bullets burned when they hit the bone the way the sun did to his eyes.

Ignoring René, the pilot walked past and slashed at the last scraps of fabric at the end of the aeroplane’s wing and ripped off the charred red and blue bullseye. He rolled it up, tucked it inside his jacket, and glanced at the little boy one last time. He didn’t give a snappy salute the way the servicemen did in town. A dark look of triumph skipped behind his otherwise calm face. It was sport to him and he was the winner.

He flew off back to his unreachable eastern hideout and René stared at the wreckage, wondering if he would get in trouble when he got home. About a month later Mother showed him a name in the newspaper, precisely plotted amongst austere ticks of newsprint, was a pilot’s obituary: downed over Allied lines.

Don't Forget!

ANNOUNCING:

FINALLY AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC! TOMORROW, MARCH 17 THIS ST. PATRICK'S DAY SAMPLE THE DELIGHTS OF MR. CORRINGTON'S AMAZING PAIN-RELIEVING CONCOCTIONS! TRY THE STUPENDOUS ZYMOLOGICAL HEALING ELIXIRS A CERTAIN DEFENSE AGAINST THE TRAVAILS OF THE EVENING 8.30 PM 1200 30TH ST S #12 BIRMINGHAM, AL

(What it might look like)

Suds Love

zombie reagan likes beeeeeeer

Yesterday the Alabama House passed HB373 (The Gourmet Beer Bill) 49-37. Now it needs to go through the Senate, where it was filibustered last year. Some day Alabama will be dragged kicking and screaming into the 18th century.

change we can drink to

I felt a ghost but I don't believe in them.

The lantern defends feebly against the thick, suffocating woods tonight. The wall of noise from the frogs and bugs cannot quite drown out the mountain lion, either, shrieking like some tortured infant on one of those moon-silhouetted hills. He can’t hear me over this din, but maybe he can smell me. I hope not. The dark is fight enough. Earlier when hiking I saw the wise owl this evening, hooting on a tree branch. Why he was out before dark I do not know, but he must be out now, hunting for small despicable things. We glimpsed each other, earlier, and his wide animal eyes looked right through me. They might be looking right through me now, hunting in me. Maybe that mountain lion can smell my fear and sniff me out, but that hoot-owl does not need to. He can see it in me. He can see it growing fuller in the dark, knowing that I know it too, those fears that creep out of us when we are alone in the dark. Moonlight nourishes anxiety and the dew waters it. The owl is out here hunting still. I thrust the lantern out at the night, and I remember owls only make noise when they want to be heard. I want to hear him, but he is out hunting. Twigs crackle and small animals scurry around. What if I step on a rattlesnake? The night gets warmer and more humid, and I have the urge to remove my sweat-drenched shirt, but the mosquitoes are everywhere. The owl is feasting with his perfect, monstrous eyes; consuming insignificant, despicable things.

I still love you.

I have not forgotten you, Banjo Like OJ Simpson, I'll find them Those fuckers

Green Velvet in the Land of Fire and Ice

Landslagarkitektar's Litlatún installation in Reykjavik, Iceland is brilliant. The flora in Iceland is so fragile and precious that it makes sense to enclose it, protect it, and keep it close. The idea is that the planted boxes fill the role of the un-realized park (meant to surround the museum) as miniature simulacra. Brought to you and me via The Sourcebook of Contemporary Landscape Design.

Technicolor Nazis

Amazing series of LIFE photographs from Nazi Germany. That they are in color really changes the mood of them (some of them are more famous as black + white reproductions). The washed out color gives them an eerie feeling that I do not think quite comes across in the grainy, albeit more ominous, black and white photography that chronicles much of the World War-era. Overwhelming.

Well, not this one...

Found on LiveJournal via FARK

Commodore Corrington's

A new brew will be ready in two-ish weeks. It is a fine coppery amber, of a color evoking the rust of the City's decaying mills. There shall be an official tasting, yesssssss.