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There was once a civil engineer who found a magic lamp. When he rubbed it, a genie jumped out and said to him, "You have three wishes. but there is a catch. This wish system of mine was designed by a lawyer, so whatever you wish for every lawyer in the world will get double of."The engineer replied, "That's no problem, I can live with that." He then said, "For my first wish, I wish I had a Ferarri." "OK", said the genie, and a Ferarri appeared in front of the engineer. "But remember, every lawyer in the world now has 2 Ferarris," the genie told the engineer.
The engineer remained unperturbed and said, "For my second wish, I wish for a million bucks." So a million bucks appeared in front of the engineer and the genie said, "remember, now every lawyer in the world has 2 million bucks."
The engineer was non-committal and then said, "You know, I always wished I could donate a kidney."
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The day after his wife disappeared in a kayaking accident, an Anchorage man answered his door to find two grim-faced Alaska State Troopers. "We're sorry Mr. Wilkens, but we have some information about your wife," said one trooper... "Tell me, please! Did you find her?" Wilkens shouted. The troopers looked at each other. One said, "We have some bad news, some good news, and some really great news. Which do you want to hear first?" Fearing the worst, an ashen Mr. Wilkens said, "Give me the bad news first." The trooper said, "I'm sorry to tell you, sir, but this morning we found your wife's body in Kachemak Bay." "Oh my God!" exclaimed Wilkens. Swallowing hard, he asked, "Well, what's the good news?" The trooper continued, "When we pulled her up, she had 12 twenty-five pound king crabs and 6 good-size Dungeness crabs clinging to her and we feel that you are entitled to a share in the catch." Stunned, Mr. Wilkens demanded, "If that's the good news, what's the great news?" The trooper said, "We're going to pull her up again tomorrow." From Joe Jacobs, East Helena, Montana
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i recently passed through Ashville and the vibes of the city made me feel as if I were in the Village in the 60s. I told Lily that if I had found Ashville when I was younger. I would have moved there. This was my impression just passing through! I came across this story today:
Welcome to Dismaland: A First Look at Banksy’s New Art Exhibition Housed Inside a Dystopian Theme Parkby Christopher Jobson on August 20, 2015
Photo by Christopher Jobson for Colossal
Photo by Christopher Jobson for Colossal
WESTON-SUPER-MARE — Inside the walls of a derelict seaside swimming resort in Weston-super-Mare, UK, mysterious construction over the last month—including a dingy looking Disney-like castle and a gargantuan rainbow-colored pinwheel tangled in plastic—suggested something big was afoot. Suspicion and anticipation surrounding the unusual activity attributed to fabled artist and provocateur Banksy has reached a Willy Wonka-esque fervor. Well, if Banksy’s your bag, continue fervoring. If not, there’s more than a few reasons to continue reading.
The spectacle has since been revealed to be a pop-up art exhibition in the form of an apocalyptic theme park titled Dismaland (“The UK’s most disappointing new visitor attraction”) that will be open to the public for five weeks.
Dismaland legend
Dismaland brochure / Park aerial view courtesy Upfest / Photo of construction
Photo by Christopher Jobson for Colossal
Photo by Christopher Jobson for Colossal
The event has all the hallmark details of a traditional Banksy event from a shroud of ultimate secrecy (the event area was plastered in notices designating it as filming location for a movie titled Gray Fox) to general themes of apocalypse, anti-consumerism, and anti-corporate messages. However there’s one major deviation: the emphasis of Dismalanded is largely on other artists’ work instead of Banksy himself.
So just what’s hidden inside the walls of this derelict seaside resort? A demented assortment of bizarre and macabre artworks from no less than 50 artists from around the world including Damien Hirst, Bill Barminski, Caitlin Cherry, Polly Morgan, Josh Keyes, Mike Ross, David Shrigley, Bäst, and Espo. In addition, Banksy is showing 10 artworks of his own.
Dismaland also has artworks by numerous artists featured here on Colossal over the last few years including pieces by Escif, Maskull Lasserre, Kate McDowell, Paco Pomet, Dietrich Wegner, Michael Beitz, Brock Davis, Ronit Baranga, and others. From the event’s official brochure:
Are you looking for an alternative to the soulless sugar-coated banality of the average family day out? Or just somewhere cheaper. Then this is the place for you—a chaotic new world where you can escape from mindless escapism. Instead of a burger stall, we have a museum. In place of a gift shop we have a library, well, we have a gift shop as well.
Bring the whole family to come and enjoy the latest addition to our chronic leisure surplus—a bemusement park. A theme park who’s big theme is: theme parks should have bigger themes…
This event contains adult themes, distressing imagery, extended use of strobe lighting, smoke effects and swearing. The following items are strictly prohibited: knives, spraycans, illegal drugs, and lawyers from the Walt Disney corporation.
Photo by Christopher Jobson for Colossal
Photo by Christopher Jobson for Colossal
Photo by Christopher Jobson for Colossal
Photo by Christopher Jobson for Colossal
Photo by Christopher Jobson for Colossal
Photo by Christopher Jobson for Colossal
Photo by Christopher Jobson for Colossal
In addition to art there are a few rides, completely impossible fair games, interactive artworks, random live performances and unexpected spectacles happening throughout the day. The entire exhibition is staffed by morose Dismaland employees who seem completely uninterested in being helpful or informative. Getting in requires an uncomfortably awkward NSA-esque screening, and even trying to find the exit required a near herculean effort.
I had the honor of helping curate a particularly fun part of Dismaland: a program of 24 short films shown on a massive outdoor cinema that will play on a loop day and night. Films include shorts by Santiago Grasso & Patricio Plaza, Kirsten Lepore, The Mercadantes, Ze Frank, Adrien M. & Claire B., Black Sheep Films, and Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared.
Dismaland is open to the public from August 22 through September 27th, 2015 and information about pre-booked and at-the-gate tickets is available here. There’s also a series of events including a show by Pussy Riot and Massive Attack on September 25th.
I think it goes without saying, but if you have the means, get to the UK.
Also on Colossal...
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Banksy Has Unannounced Art Sale with Genuine Signed Canvases in Central Park, Sells Almost Nothing
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5 Mètres 80: An Absurd Animation Depicting a Herd of Giraffes Leaping Off a High Dive by Nicolas Deveaux
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Tom Hanks + Banksy = Hanksy
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French Artist ‘Levalet’ Injects Humor into the Streets of Paris with New Site-Specific Street Art
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Humorous Street Art and Urban Interventions by SpY
Humans aren’t normal animals—we are unnaturally destructive super-predators
(Reuters/Toru Hanai)
Imagine a fish-eating contest between a great white shark and a human. Odds would obviously favor the shark. But widen the contest to include all sharks versus all of humanity? Not a fair fight at all. Sharks have mouths, we have trawls. They have teeth, we have industrial fish-processing factories. They have stomachs; we have canneries and the freezer section at the local supermarket.
In fact, humans are no ordinary predators—they’re “super-predators.” And our unnatural abilities are the subject of a newly published studyby a team from University of Victoria in British Columbia.
This the rates at which humans exploit land mammals and marine fish vastly exceeds the impacts of other predators. (H=herbivore; C=carnivores; TP= top predators.)(P. Huey/Science)It’s not just our tools, tech, and trade systems that make us unique. It’s how we apply them. Other predators mainly target juveniles, while humans kill up to 14 times more adult prey than other predators. Shooting Bambi’s mother and sparing Bambi is actually not a kindness: Killing adults during their reproductively fruitful years causes populations to shrink and can throw entire food webs out of whack.
This habit of killing the animals with the most reproductive capacity is particularly acute in the ocean, since mature fish can release millions of eggs a year, and many species grow more fecund with age.The sea is different for another reason: the top-to-bottom effects of human super-predators on the food chain. On land, humans kill adult carnivores much more aggressively than we do herbivores. But at sea, humans over-plunder all layers of the marine food web more or less equally, from 10-foot tuna to tiny anchovies, says Boris Worm of Dalhousie University, in a companion piece (paywall).That’s due mostly to industrialized fishing operations, freezing technology, and labor specialization that makes relatively a few people hugely productive. The result is unprecedented in human history. While early tools like projectile weapons and dog domestication helped us kill prey more easily, more recent advances in technology have industrialized the process, says Chris Darimont, professor of geography, who led the study.
The contemporary forces are stunning and underline just how peculiar a predator the human species has become,” he says.
New Zealand halts cull after rare bird deaths http://bbc.in/1JlRpLm
More than 40 years ago, Aretha Franklin recorded her Grammy-award-winning live album Amazing Grace, which remains to this day her best-selling LP. Late director Sydney Pollack also filmed the 1972 concert where it was recorded, and now, after spending decades seemingly lost to history, the footage has finally been made into a documentary.
The concert was filmed at the New Temple Missionary Church in Los Angeles with a few cameramen, capturing the energy, the ’70s garb, and Mick Jagger rocking out to Franklin’s powerhouse pipes. (You can spot Jagger—a huge Franklin fan who signed with Atlantic Records in part because they had the Queen of Soul—at 1:57.) Amazing Grace will premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, but whether it will get a commercial release is still up in the air.
Update: It shall be released!
Two Bridgeton, New Jersey officers who shot and killed a man with his hands up during a traffic stop will not be charged, a grand jury decided Thursday. Officers Braheme Days and Roger Worley said they "feared for their lives" when they saw a handgun in the glove box of a vehicle they pulled over. “Don’t you fucking move!” Officer Days warned passenger Jerame Reid. “You reach for something, you’re gonna be fucking dead!” According to prosecutors, Reid was "reaching toward the handgun" when Days "reached in...and removed the handgun." As video shows, Days repeatedly told Reid not to move, but Reid began to exit the vehicle. When Reid got out, he raised his hands, but Days said he shot Reid because he believed Reid was going to grab his gun or another weapon.