#instead of doing the sensible thing of using paint or marker

[toerrishumansodont]

Scary artmaking jumpscare

[mantisliberationfront]

Brimley Necrosafari to Close After 55 Years in Business Citing Budget, Safety Concerns

Brimley California – July 22, 2023.  The beloved and sometimes controversial Brimley Necrosafari is set to close this September due to difficulties maintaining the park and the creatures, according to long-time Necrodirector Peter Bhurghg. “We tried everything we could, but the pandemic regulations wiped us out. ‘Oh you’re spreading plague,’ they said. Ridiculous. Unless you’re talking about the Plague Draken, which does bring every disease.”

Although the Necrosafari is mainly held outdoors, patrons would sleep in enclosed luxury tents and spend evenings enjoying a formal dinner and sharing stories of the hunt over cigars and Tombwine. Some say Necrodirector Peter Bhurghg’s refusal to alter the model led to difficulties. “He’s an old school guy, in the sense that he has existed since the 1300s,” said one mysterious floating oracular head, who wished to remain anonymous. “We talked about maybe sharing stories through Zoom instead, or doing the formal dinners outdoors, but he just wasn’t having it.”

Amid repeated refusals to follow Covid 19 regulations, the Brimley Necrosafari found itself with legal bills piling up and fewer state and federal grants than normal. “They had money for ‘public health’ but they don’t have money for Luxury deathabomination trophy hunting? What is happening to America? What is happening to the American Nightmare?” Howled Bhurghg.

“Dream,” he added. “I meant American Dream.”

But budget considerations were only part of the puzzle, according to the Extremely Reasonably Concerned Parents Association. “We’ve had sixteen people die on the Necrosafari in the last month, three of them children,” said Ruth Baker, local parent. “Beheaded by the Scythe Thing, eaten by Skull Mantises, gored by the NECROBOAR. It’s absurdly dangerous. They don’t even have path markers, and you have to get your own silver, large-bore ammunition, which leaves people vulnerable to fakes.”

Indeed, infamous local entrepreneur Walborg Shrupe was forced to pay a fine of 15,000 dollars after a protracted and contentious trial last year after it was revealed his bullets were not pure silver, but merely brass with a silver-colored spray paint. “Caveat emptor,” he famously said, before paying his fine in pennies and disappearing to the Philippines in a solid gold helicopter.

“The whole community still bears scars from that trial,” said district attorney Kate Vance. “When will the Scar Curse end?”

“Yes, we’ve had a few deaths,” Peter Bhurghg admitted. “But they were all the results of patrons failing to follow sensible precautions.” He then tore his face-meat asunder, revealing his true undead form and shot scarlet lightning bolts from his fingertips.

“If you can’t hire a haruspex to tell your omens before the hunt – stay home!” He went on to say. “It’s simple!”

Some Brimley residents expressed regret over the decision. “I think it’s sad,” remarked mayor Janet Vimmmmm. “I used to go to the Necrosafari when I was a child. I bagged my first wraith when I was seven. Shame about Great-Uncle Walter though.”

Others have voiced displeasure that the already difficult local job market may soon be flooded with former park employees. “Can you imagine the Scythe Thing working as a cashier at Bath and Body Works?” said Lila Cohen, local ne’er do well. “I can. I have nightmares about it.”

In the meantime, the Black Cloth Society has announced a blood drive to save the park. “We will be collecting blood,” said Society President Balrock Rune. “Keep your doors unlocked.”

“It’s the end of an era,” said a relieved Ruth Baker. “A dark era, full of terrors.”

The Brimley Necrosafari will close on September 30, 2023. In the meantime, they have announced that spots are still available at a discount for their May Hunt. As ever, patrons are required to bring their own large caliber weapons, silver bullets, rune charms, and napalm-salt explosives. Tickets are “first come, first serve.” Discounts are available for children and seniors. For more information, call 1-800 DEAD ONES or follow the Brimley Necrosafari account on Twitter at RealActualNecrosafari@twitter.com.

[lastchancevillagegreen]

Chicago Edition! Freestyling!

Thursday, 24 August 2023:

Painted From Memory Elvis Costello with Burt Bacharach (Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab) (originally released in 1998, this reissue came out in 2017)

Before my nine day cat-sitting event in Chicago I went to Chicago earlier this month just because I could. It was on this adventure that I went into Reckless and discovered this particular album up on their wall which assured me I would be bringing trade just so I could pick up the one Elvis Costello MOFI release I blew off when it came out. Never one of my favorite Costello albums, I'd already bought all 11 of his MOFI reissues that encompassed his great work from Columbia, so perhaps I had reached a stage of burnout, perhaps I sensibly ignored an album I didn't really care for, who knows my rationale for failing to buy this upon release. All I know is I wanted to make amends for that error.

(And let me tell you, this caused a bit of a tiff in my household when Mrs Echo say that price tag in the first photo. I assured her that I got this free, she assured me I paid full price. I merely traded one piece of physical media for another without ever exchanging money. I'd long ago paid for those Criterions I traded away, no money exchanged hands between myself or Reckless. But Mrs Echo assured I wildly overspent on an album that no one in their right mind would ever do. Perhaps it is the R Crumb School of Record Collecting Thought, but I still say I got this album free of charge in exchange for a box full of Criterion DVDs/ Blu Rays.)

So, the four photos above: the first is the album inside the plastic with Reckless' price tag still in tact. When I saw this on their wall, I knew a trade would be imminent and I'd walk away with this because no one was going to be dropping $150 on it any time soon (a price, by the way, commensurate with discogs). The second photo is a straight shot of the cover. The third shows the gatefold (and the gatefold is so tight it doesn't even open all the way, this thing has barely been used) while the fourth shot shows you the back of the album. The barcode has been crossed out with a marker as has the number (#2295 out of 3000), but a lot of my MOFIs that I didn't buy direct from the dealer are often like that.

Here is a shot of both sides of the record label. My apologies for poor shots, these are being done in my kitchen at 11:30 at night instead of the bright sunlight!

This album even came with that damned cardboard insert that, once upon a time I used to keep in a stack atop my records int he cubbies. I never left them in the albums because I find them cumbersome and a complete nuisance. Then one day I just decided I'd had enough and I recycled the whole lot of them. I despise these cardboard advertisements. I'll keep this one only because the original owner saw fit to keep it. If you haven't a clue what I'm referring to, you are in luck. Below is a shot of the front of the insert, the gatefold and then the back of it.

[sidhewrites]

April Showers, Part 1

Hoping to build a feeling of a studio Ghibli film with this. It’s very slow paced so far, but I think it’s evoking the right feeling of a sleepy, easy life where the smallest things are important. If not, then at least it’s some self indulgent niceness you all get to read instead. Approx. 2100 words.

Yarn over, pull through. Yarn over, pull through. Sunlight filtered in through the wide window, cracked open a few open to let in the early morning breeze. It played with the leaves on the plants, the petals of the flowers, all in various hand-painted pots, arranged so they got just the right amount of sun. Yarn over, pull through. A half-finished cup of tea sat on a side table covered with a small, embroidered cloth. Beside it, a portable radio announced the weather - humid but cool after last night’s rain. Yarn over, pull through. 

Twenty stitches this way, then twenty more back. Soon enough, it would turn into a scarf. A small project, something anyone with a hook would be able to do, but Lise would be proud of it all the same. She worked slowly. Her hands were rarely without pain, especially on cold mornings like this, but she worked all the same.

The radio announcement ended, and a song took its place. Clouds passed overhead, and Lise turned the scarf over, starting work on the next row. She’d draped a crocheted shawl over her shoulders to keep warm, one of the first things Great-Aunt Marya had taught her to make, using heavy wool yarn dyed any number of greens and browns from just down the way.

Judging by the smell, Great-Aunt Marya was just now finishing in the kitchen. Eggs were on the stove, and bread in the toaster. From the other side of the house, Lise heard the kettle announce itself, and her ears burned with shame. She must have forgotten to keep the first one warm. Great-Aunt Marya wouldn’t say anything about it, but Lise hated to make a mistake in their routine.

She continued working, trying to focus as Great-Aunt Marya’s footsteps echoed down the hall, but there was no use in it. By the time the door clicked open, Lise had set the work down and looked out the window. Clouds passed by slowly. The sun continued to rise. Great-Aunt Marya entered the sun room with a tray of food and tea, and the usual, cheerful greeting of, “Good morning, Lisabelle.”

As always, Lise puffed up her cheeks with mock indignance. “You’re still the only one who calls me that, you know.”

“I do know, and I’m never going to stop.” Marya set a plate down on the side table besides Lise, shut off the radio, and took a seat in the other chair, dressed in woollen quilts, and a half-finished lace bridal veil. Eggs on toast, and sweet tea for breakfast, just as always.

Lise didn’t mind Marya using her given name. It wasn’t a deadname, not in the same way her best friend Cass’s given name was. But it was embarrassing. The sort of fancy, girlish thing her parents had loved, as if they wanted her very name to make people think of lace and ribbons when they heard it. No-one but family was allowed to call her anything but Lise, and Great-Aunt Marya was the only family she had left. They looked similar -- sleepy eyes, hair that was always braided back. But Marya’s had long since turned from brown to grey, and she wore glasses everywhere she went. Lise liked to imagine she’d look like Marya

“What did you dream about, Great Marya?” she asked, looking down to work another stitch into the scarf.

“Nothing particularly interesting last night, I’m afraid.” Marya paused to take a bite. “I’ll tell you if you put that down and eat.”

Lise sighed, but did as she was told, setting the scarf aside in favor of breakfast. She made a performance of the first bite, and swallowed with an exaggerated gulp, as if to prove she’d eaten anything at all.

Marya chuckled, and nodded. “I had a dream that I went to the ocean. I was a great scientist that the world loved. They’d just discovered a fish that they had thought was extinct for the longest time.”

Lise’s breakfast sat half-forgotten already. These were some of Marya’s best dreams, when she was a scientist, or when she found something fantastical. 

“But there was something special about this fish, they said, and I just had to see it for myself. This time, though, it wasn’t just a talking fish. It was singing.”

“Singing!” Lise echoed.

“Eat your breakfast, Lisabelle, and I’ll tell you more.”

Lise pouted, but Marya remained firm. There was no fighting her though, not on matters of breakfast, so Lise groaned, and stuffed her face.

“Eat it slowly,” Marya warned, “or you’ll get sick.”

Lise groaned again. “Great-Aunt Marya, I know how to eat breakfast.” But, still, she did as she was told, and ate measured, sensibly sized bites. It was good food, after all. Everything Marya made was. 

Only after Lise ate enough did Marya continue her story. “So this singing fish -- they’d caught it in one of the fishermen’s nets by accident, and they wanted me to see if I knew anything about it. And when I saw it, it was beautiful. With these shiny rainbow scales, and these big, sparkling eyes.”

“What did it sound like?”

“The most amazing thing in the world. Like…” She gazed out the window dreamily. “Like someone had given the wind itself a voice. Like all the orchestras and all the singers were mixed together in a pot and topped with honey.”

The breeze whistled outside, quiet but familiar. Lise looked outside as well, hardly able to imagine the fish’s voice. Her mind turned to far off dreams and the tiny, glittering strip of blue on the horizon. Her thoughts slipped out unintentionally. “One day, I’m going to see the ocean.”

“What’s that, Lisabelle?”

“Oh, uh--” Lise’s ears burned, and she stammered in search of the right thing to say. A faint barking saved her, and she set the nearly-finished plate aside. “Cass is here!” She pushed up to her feet, all but stumbling to the windowsill to look outside and wave. Marya rushed after her, one hand going to the small of Lise’s back instinctually.

Cass was only a little ways away, his bright red hair blowing in the wind beneath his sunhat. Mops hung off his broad shoulders like a child, tail wagging furiously. He shifted the sheepdog to one arm in order to wave and call out, only to nearly topple over from the weight. Mops barked, jumping to the ground and righting himself without an issue. Cass, however, fell to his knees with a yelp, getting mud all over his yellow pants.

Lise gasped, but wasn’t able to keep from laughing as she called out, “Are you okay?”

Mops was at Cass’s side in an instant, but he was laughing as well, frustrated and amused in equal measure, and waved again. “I’m all right! Stay there, I’ll come get you!” He hesitated, looking over at Mops and his now-filthy paws. “All right, I guess you’re walking the rest of the way.” He adjusted Mops’ little backpack, and brushed himself off as much as they could before resuming the hike up hill.

“Not a chance!” Lise backed away from the window and turned for the door. Her head spun, and she nearly lost her footing, catching herself quickly on the chair. 

Marya moved to her side once more, helping her stand upright and taking most of Lise’s weight to ease her back into the chair. “You shouldn’t move so fast. You get dizzy.”

“I know, I know. It’s a good day, though, I thought it’d be fine.”

“Clearly it’s not.”

Lise groaned. Still, she waited for her head to stop spinning before she sat up again, putting a stitch marker into the scarf and tossing it over her shoulders.

Marya set it aside for her gently, and helped Lise back to her feet. “That’s looking great so far. Looks like you’ll be done in a week.”

“Yeah, I hope so. It’s been forever since I finished something.” Lise grabbed the radio, and made her way with Marya to the front room. She used the furniture and walls for balance, finally coming to a stop outside the mudroom. Cass grinned at her through the window in the door, here already. 

Lise frowned. “I told you I wasn’t going to wait.”

Cass shook his head, and pointed to his ear, pretending he couldn’t hear.

Marya stepped forward to swing the door open with a polite, “Good morning, Cassius. Here for Lisabelle?”

Cass’s smile grew. “Actually, I thought I might take you out today, Ma’am. You’d fit right in with the group.”

Lise made a face and spat out her tongue, while Marya gasped with mock indignance. “How forward. When I was your age, a young person would never --”

Cass shrunk away, suddenly guilty and not recognising the joke for what it was. “I’m sorry, I only meant it as fun.”

Marya smiled and reached out with an upturned palm. “So did I.”

Cass hesitated, but nodded, reaching out to brush his fingers against hers, an unspoken apology and forgiveness between them. 

Satisfied, Marya nodded and began making her way to the kitchen. “Wait there a moment. Let me get your lunches.”

Lise meanwhile down onto the small bench, and put her things aside to exchange her house slippers for hardy boots. Cass stepped inside to sit beside her. He gestured at Mops, signalling that he could stop working for a few minutes, and the dog’s patient demeanor changed instantly. He bounded in with a bark, tongue lolling out and tail whipping back and forth as he fell against Lise’s legs. She pet him obediently, running her fingers through his long fur with a laugh. “How’s your morning been?”

Cass shook his head. “Josephine cooked breakfast, if that tells you anything.” His youngest sister, nine and a half, had a particular fondness for jam on her eggs -- something Cass didn’t care for in the least.

Lise let out an exaggerated sound of disgust, sending Cass into a new round of laughter. “I hope she grows out of it by her next birthday,” he said, and shook his head.

“Is she doing any better in school?”

“Yeah. She’s doing long division now. It’s hard, but I think she’s getting the hang of it. Anyway, she still just wants to paint every day.”

Marya returned from the kitchen with two small boxes in hand. “If you ask me, you should let her. There’s nothing to be lost from spending the day making something. Lise, get your shoes on.”

“Tell the teacher. You know how important she thinks math is.”

“Math is important,” Lise insisted. “You can’t crochet properly without math, and you can’t build houses without math, and --”

“You can preach all you like, Lisabelle, but that won’t change how I feel. Get your shoes on.”

Cass gestured for Mops to begin working again. The dog lay down obediently while Cass packed the lunches his backpack, and grabbed Lise’s cane and cardigan off the hook for her. “Do you need anything from town today, Ma’am?”

“Otto should have our eggs for this week. Oh--” Marya rushed to the kitchen and back with a small parcel and a thermos. “And here’s Hattie’s shirt. Tell them to stop letting the kittens climb all over them, and maybe they’ll stop getting so many holes in their  clothing.”

Lise pulled out her own small backpack out from under the bench, and put the parcel inside, alongside the radio and scarf. “What about this?” She gestured with the thermos before packing it.

“Leftover tea. Just because you let it go cold doesn’t mean I will.” Marya tut-tutted, but smiled. “I hope you enjoy it, Cass. I tried something new.”

“Any chance you used blueberries this time?”

“It’s berry tea,” Lise said, “but no blueberries.”

“That’s a good idea, actually. Here.” Marya pulled her wallet from her own bag on its hook and pulled out a bit of money for them. “Pick some up for me, would you?”

Now ready, Lise slung the backpack onto her shoulders, and let Cass help her onto her feet and up onto his back. He carried her weight easily, and turned around to nod at Marya. “If you need anything else, call the general store. Hattie’s working there today, so they can get me the message.”

With a few more goodbyes, Cass made his way out the door, past the front garden, and onto the winding road down to town.

[shirlleycoyle]

We Talked to the Host Accused of Doing “Satanic Rituals” In His Airbnb

Frederick T. Joseph, a marketing CEO, former national surrogate for Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and respected commenter on race in America, launched an impassioned Twitter thread on Monday night after finding himself at an Airbnb that he claimed was full of “seemingly satanic items and stuff for witchcraft rituals.” Joseph said that he and his family members were forced to flee the house after finding “imagery, candles, books, etc for rituals and what looked like devil worship.” Both the host of the Airbnb property in question and the Church of Satan have weighed in to dispute his description of the house and its contents.

In a video call with Motherboard, the host was able to take us on a walkthrough of the house and show convincingly that many of the alleged markers of “Satanic” activity are art books and kitschy objects. Joseph also claimed the house’s basement had “ritualistic markings” on the floor, which, from our viewing, is flatly untrue. They looked like paint smudges.

“They [the items] are not Satanic,” the host, whose name is Alex, told Motherboard on a video call from the house. “They’re kitsch. None of it is occult. You can get this stuff at a bodega.”

Joseph is the CEO of a marketing and storytelling agency called We Have Stories and an occasional political columnist and commentator; he’s the author of a forthcoming book called The Black Friend, on his personal experiences with racism and allyship. He tweeted that he arrived at the house with his fiancé, 8-year-old brother, and a cousin, only to find objects he considered disturbing. These included, according to photos, a religious candle that reads “Rompe Hechizo” (“Hex breaker” in Spanish), two photos of topless people, and a naughty wind-up toy of an upright dog having sex with a woman. There was also poster of a (clothed) couple wearing rubber masks and the words “SEX MILITANT” overlaid over them. Joseph also was particularly incensed by a small Baphomet statue on a bookshelf behind a taxidermied pheasant in a plastic bag.

“As we walked through the two rooms we found a bunch of imagery, candles, books, etc for rituals and what looked like devil worship,” Joseph wrote. “My brother was terrified, as were we. We called @Airbnb and told them we couldn’t stay there and explained the situation.”

Joseph also tweeted that he’d gone to check out an “animal skull” hanging on the outside of the house, adding, “When I walked I went to the basement and found more animal skulls and ritualistic floor markings and then I went up to the rooms to find much more.” He didn’t provide photos of what he called “ritualistic floor markings.”

Joseph also claimed that Airbnb had refused him a refund, writing, “We were told that we couldn’t receive a refund and they spoke to the owner who said there were just a few small art pieces that they could come remove. This was a lie, it was the whole damn house not a few things. A BAPHOMET HIDDEN BEHIND A DEAD BIRD IN A BAG.”

Baphomet is a horned, winged goat deity, sometimes depicted with breasts, that has been associated with the esoteric, occult and mystical traditions since the Middle Ages. (The Knights Templar, an exceedingly Christian organization, were accused of worshipping Baphomet by King Philip IV of France, and forced to confess to such worship under torture.)  The statue in Alex’s house appears to be a teeny tiny one covered in suede or felt, which would be an impractical and unlikely thing to use as a centerpiece for any Satanic ritual.

The Church of Satan, one of two prominent global Satanic organizations based in the United States, responded to Joseph on Twitter, writing, “The photos in this thread depict thrift store curiosities & hot topic kitsch, not evidence of satanic rituals. Sounds like you have an over active imagination and can’t tell the difference between supernatural horror movies and reality.” (Joseph did not respond.) The Satanic Temple—a group distinct from, and which has long feuded with, the Church of Satan—has a Baphomet statue at its headquarters, and garnered a great deal of news coverage for trying to place Baphomet statutes alongside Christian monuments at state capitol buildings across the country, to make a point about religious plurality in America.

Joseph indicated at the end of his thread that his family felt unsafe in the house, writing, “There was also a bridge from the woods behind the house to the back patio. Needless to say, we left because we are Black and not dealing with something that was:  1.  advertised completely different 2. Looks like a scene from Hereditary 3. Made the entire family feel unsafe.”

Joseph didn’t respond to an email from Motherboard requesting comment.

In a statement, Airbnb told us, “Frederick was fully refunded this morning, and we apologize for the delay in providing support. Our policy prohibits sexually explicit images within our listings, and we are currently working with the host to help ensure he is in compliance.” (Alex was able to show us that he provided the refund, not Airbnb.)

Motherboard successfully reached Alex, the owner of the Airbnb property in question. He requested that we keep his last name private, to prevent him from being harassed, but gave permission to disclose that the house is in Mountain Dale, New York, an area of the Catskills popular with vacationers. He offered to allow someone at Vice News to stay a night at the house to see it for themselves, which was not possible. Instead, he got on a FaceTime call on Wednesday morning to offer both a guided tour and a spirited defense. (He also showed us documentation that he issued a refund to Joseph himself, on September 8, in the amount of $983.77.)

Alex told Motherboard he works in the film and photography industry, but started offering his house on Airbnb earlier this year, as work started to slow down. He and his housemate vacate the house and stay with friends when they have guests, and Joseph was their 13th or 14th booking this year. All proceeded uneventfully, he said, until now.

Alex was at dinner with friends the night Joseph and his family arrived at the house, he told Motherboard, when he got a call from an Airbnb representative. As Alex recalls it, the Airbnb rep told him, “He wants to leave, he wants a full refund, and he says you’re holding rituals in the house.”

Alex says he responded, “I’m not giving a refund for that, that’s crazy,” then messaged Joseph to say, as he remembers it, “I heard you’re offended by some things in the house. I’m happy to remove them. I want my guests to be comfortable.”

Joseph didn’t reply, Alex said. When he realized his guest was a writer, he assumed he had a Twitter. Alex went to the site and was shocked to find tweets with pictures of his home, baseless accusations of Satanism, and what he viewed as a growing, and possibly dangerous, hysteria in the replies.

“The thread became an echo chamber,” he said. “A lot of people saying crazy stuff, that I should be called out, asking my address. I’m a private person. I don’t post to my social media or what I’m doing with my friends, so to be thrust into this wild Twittersphere of misinformation and a story conceived completely out of context and taking wild liberties with his imagination about what this house is— the first little while, I was pretty shocked and upset.”

His main concern, he said, was that someone would take it upon themselves to come to his house: “I was like, what if people find me? What if people start turning up at my house? What if this is against their religious sensibilities and they want to do something about it?

Alex was especially alarmed by a few of the replies, like one from Cindy Chu, an actor, who opined that a tub on Alex’s porch looked like it was for “bloodletting outside and washing away evidence.”

In a tour of the house, Alex showed that the “hexbreaker” candle sits on a woodstove, next to some matches and a crystal. Much of the art, like the topless photos, is tucked on low bookshelves, not immediately visible. Nearby the offending Baphomet statue is, of all things, a light with an image of Jesus painted on it, and nearby, by the bed, a white candle that reads GUARDIAN ANGEL, in English, along with a prayer.

“Here’s some Alice in Wonderland art,” Alex said, panning across the living room. He displayed a stack of art books, and then, on the windowsill, a tiny handful of delicate bones he said the housemates had either found in the woods or been gifted. “There’s a little nest here on the windowsill I found and some animal bones, a mushroom, there’s feathers we found – there’s a lot of hawks around here. Here’s a mushroom and a Jewish memorial candle. You get the picture. It’s pretty eclectic and esoteric. Any individual item taken out of the context, you can build whatever narrative you want out of that.” (The “Sex Militant” poster, for instance, which is a promotional poster, as it happens, for the work of an artist named Jex Blackmore, who is an activist and non-theistic Satanist who does not literally worship Satan.)

On the refrigerator, he showed Motherboard a pink dolphin magnet and one of a Nativity scene from Jerusalem; nearby is a wall of children’s drawings, from where they let guests’ children scribble on the walls, he said. He displayed what he thought was probably a jet engine, drawn by a small guest. “It’s a very good jet engine,” he offered.

A FaceTime conversation between a Motherboard journalist and Alex the Airbnb host, showing children's drawings in the kitchen of the home.

From the porch, he displayed the bathtub—which is clearly connected to plumbing lines and has candles next to it, obviously intended for bathing—and, below it, a little board laid across the river as a makeshift bridge. He gestured at a firepit in the yard below him.

FaceTime between Motherboard and Alex, showing bridge, river and non-ritualistic firepit.

“Someone on Twitter was saying this was a ritualistic firepit,” he said dryly. “There’s logs and a grill for meat. We also have a veggie garden nearby. Guests are allowed to pick tomatoes.”

Downstairs, in  the supposedly offending, “ritualistic” basement, he showed us a washer and dryer, a stack of boxes, a mess of clothes and other household objects, an animal skull with long horns, draped in an American flag, and, in the corner, what he suspects was the cause of Joseph’s alarm.

The basement and non-Satanic speaker stand.

“There’s a speaker stand for a DJ setup,” Alex said, showing us an object with a triangular base that was, clearly, a speaker stand. “I think maybe he looked at it and thought it was an altar.”

While the imagery, and the presence of a bridge across the water, may certainly have made Joseph and his family feel unsafe, the images he specifically posted on Twitter do not appear to be particularly menacing. All these elements, even the sexualized ones, seem relatively par for the course for a kitschy cabin in the woods. (Per Airbnb rules, “pervasive” sexual imagery isn’t allowed; that is, sexual images that are in plain sight; erotic or suggestive art is not permitted; those lines are clearly a judgment call in many cases.)

For his part, Alex acknowledges that the windup toy of the dog having sex with a woman is “in bad taste”; it was in his roomate’s room, and, had he known it was there, he said, “I would have moved it.” And had Joseph complained about the sexual imagery in the house, to him or to AirBnb, Alex said, his response would have been immediate and apologetic. “If he’d just said, ‘This doesn't look like advertised, there’s nudity,’ I  would’ve said, ‘I’m so sorry, I’ll buy you dinner in town, I’ll help you find another place to stay, I’ll give you some fuel money.”

Having candles, dead birds, and risque imagery in your house also does not mean that you are going to ritually sacrifice your Airbnb guests, or put them in position to suffer harm. (As I write this, I am sitting arm's length from a skunk skull, a taxidermied bird, a rat preserved in formaldehyde, an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and a cute little plaster owl, none of which indicate that I intend to ritually slaughter anyone who enters my home.)

The broader question, of course, is whether having naughty art or religious imagery that a guest finds objectionable is a matter for offense, alarm, or a refund. Airbnb would likely not refund a guest who was offended by crosses, Stars of David or prayer mats, leaving open the question of whether “Satanic” art, or anything a guest broadly considers to be “Satanic,” ought to be treated differently. (Joseph also reported that the Baphomet statue was “hidden,” which would seem to suggest the host didn’t leave it out in plain view to offend the eyesight of any easily scandalized renters.)

“I’m agnostic,” Alex said. “But if I was a pagan and someone came to my house and did this, it would be super offensive. Are they [Airbnb] cherry picking which theologies they find acceptable? Should a person have to disclose their religion? If you’re a religious person are you expected to remove the religious iconography from your house? Because that is flatout discrimination.”

That gets at the larger point here, which is that Airbnb is, at least nominally a place for normal everyday people to rent out their homes, not a hotel service, despite the fact that it’s become a haven for investors, shell companies, and the odd scam. Some people’s ordinary taste is Satanic kitsch, and there's no obvious reason why such people would have to remove anything that might conceivably be offensive to anyone spending money to spend time in their house and among their stuff. (Including your Baphomet statue prominently in your listing photos, though, might self-select out anyone who would be frightened or offended to share a living space with such an item.)

Before we spoke to Alex, Motherboard was also able to locate and review the listing where Joseph and his family stayed. The host described the house as “bright and cozy with a bit of a Scandinavian vibe to it.” The offending artwork isn’t clearly visible in any of the photos we were able to view; as the tour of the house showed, it is actually somewhat difficult to find at all.

A look at previous reviews of the house where Joseph stayed shows that other guests described the house as “cozy,” “a home away from home,” and that several enjoyed hearing the nearby creek rushing by; one guest also reported that there’s a nearby pub, suggesting the listing isn’t quite as remote as it felt to Joseph. The listing notes it has "very fast internet :)." None of the previous guests self-reported any Satanic experiences, positive or negative.

In the end, Alex said that he was never able to speak to anyone besides “low level representatives” on an Airbnb hotline, and one chat conversation online where he was able to send some supporting documentation.

“They actually said to me, ‘We haven’t experienced anything like this so we don’t know what to do,’” he told Motherboard. “They said my case has been elevated to a different team,” and that someone would call him soon. “Nobody called me,” he said. He got an email warning that “sexual nudity” is not allowed in Airbnb listings, and then another, where he was told he’d received a “strike” against his account, which would be deactivated if he got another.

Alex told us that he returned to the house around midnight, after first double-checking to make sure that his unhappy guests had departed: “The last thing I wanted was to have him think we were turning up to intimidate him.” He then passed an anxious and mostly sleepless night.

“I went to bed at like two o’clock and woke up at 6 a.m.,” he said. “ I stupidly checked twitter and things had exploded even more. It was a day of watching Twitter explode while being on hold at Airbnb. But no one had called me back.”

The experience, Alex said, “wasn’t frightening,” not exactly. “It was unsettling. Unsettling and weird and surreal and unnecessary.”

We Talked to the Host Accused of Doing “Satanic Rituals” In His Airbnb syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[gwynnew]

'Death Becomes Her' Turns 25: Behind the Scenes of Its Oscar-Winning Special Effects

Meryl Streep, Bruce Willis, and Goldie Hawn in ‘Death Becomes Her’ (Photo: Everett Collection)

The black comedy Death Becomes Her, which has developed a healthy cult following since it opened 25 years ago, on July 31, 1992, is rarely cited as a special effects milestone. Yet Industrial Light and Magic’s work on Death Becomes Her, which won the movie its only Oscar, directly paved the way for the realistic dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, not to mention contemporary CG characters like Marvel’s Hulk.

For the film’s 25th anniversary, Yahoo Movies spoke with Death Becomes Her‘s visual effects art director Doug Chiang — then at the start of his career at ILM, now Vice President and Executive Creative Director at Lucasfilm — who explained how Meryl Streep’s 360-degree neck and Goldie Hawn’s torso-sized bullet wound revolutionized computer graphics.

Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep compare macabre injuries in a scene from ‘Death Becomes Her’:

In Death Becomes Her, Hawn and Streep play ex-best friends turned middle-aged rivals, who discover a potion that can keep them eternally young. There is, however, a catch: their bodies cannot be killed, no matter how gruesomely they’re mangled and mutated. Thus, Streep’s character breaks her neck when she’s pushed down a flight of stairs, and spends the rest of the film putting her head back in place; Hawn’s character is shot, and spends the remainder of her scenes with a gaping hole in her stomach. All that said, Death Becomes Her is very much a comedy, so its body horrors are cartoonish enough to be funny — yet realistic enough that the audience stays engaged.

And that’s where the visual effects team came in. Thanks to director Robert Zemeckis’ determination to “push the boundaries of computer graphics,” as Chiang puts it, ILM took on the challenge of creating “organic CG” — in other words, making lifelike human skin and body parts with computer graphics. It sounds basic now, but in the early ‘90s, this was practically unprecedented.

Meryl Streep recovers from a fall in a scene from ‘Death Becomes Her’:

“Prior to Death Becomes Her, I worked on Terminator 2, and even though [the T-1000] looked kind of organic it was still synthetic: it was still metal, it was still robotic,” Chiang told Yahoo Movies. “Computer graphics at that time could do hard surfaces really well, like machinery. But Ken [Ralston, visual effects supervisor] and I knew that Bob Zemeckis wanted to play around with the human body, distorting proportions — breaking Meryl Streep’s neck, for instance, and other crazy things like that. In some ways, putting a very toony sensibility to it, but also making it very real and as believable as possible.”

Bruce Willis and Meryl Streep gawk at Goldie Hawn’s bullet wound in ‘Death Becomes Her’ (Photo: Mary Evans/Ronald Grant/Everett Collection)

One of Chiang’s first tasks was to figure out just how realistic those effects should be. For example, with Hawn’s gaping shotgun wound, “I kind of played around with the whole range,” said Chiang. “The first version was very realistic: what would happen if a shotgun blasted your gut? So what I did was I did a very gruesome version where the hole wasn’t perfectly clean and round, you could actually see some of her internal organs and the spine.” Chiang laughed at the recollection, saying, “Right away, you could tell that that was going to be too much for the tone of this movie.” For the next version, the ILM artists decided to take “almost a Tex Avery approach” to Hawn’s injury. “And so I made the hole very graphic, very circular, and then maybe we don’t see the spine, and so literally you remove all the gruesome parts of it out of it, but at the same time you’re actually treating the quality of the hole in a very realistic manner. And that was the fine boundary that we were trying to find, in terms of designing computer visual effects that would fit with the tone of the movie without it becoming a horror movie.”

Meryl Streep adjusts her broken neck in ‘Death Becomes Her’ (Photo: Mary Evans/UNIVERSAL PICTURES/Ronald Grant/Everett Collection)

In order to get an accurate idea of how the effects would look, Chiang used a tool that was still very new to his industry: Photoshop. “Most of the art departments were still very traditional, in terms of pen and ink and markers,” said Chiang, who felt that his first colored-pencil sketches of Streep’s twisted neck didn’t capture the necessary detail. Instead, he scanned photographs of his art department colleagues, then digitally “painted” the effects on the photos. (See some of Chiang’s concept art, below.) By using Photoshop, said Chiang, “I could mimic with high fidelity the actual look that could be executed in computer graphics, in terms of the amount of highlights, the amount of wrinkles, how much bruising. And so it really transformed design to the next level; we were designing and creating imagery that looked very much like the finished product.”

‘Death Becomes Her’ concept art by Doug Chiang (Image: ILM)

Meryl Streep in ‘Death Becomes Her’ (Photo: Universal Pictures c/o Everett Collection)

Some of the effects in Death Becomes Her were accomplished with makeup and prosthetics, but digital effects were used to create a seamless transition. For example, the film contains a famous shot in which Streep’s head and body are facing different directions. To accomplish that, Zemeckis shot the scene with Streep facing backwards. Then in post-production, the actress came to ILM, where they filmed only her head performing the scene. (She was seated in a chair and wearing a blue bodysuit.) “A lot of those things involved shooting elements after the fact, and choreographing it very carefully so that her expressions matched her body poses,” said Chiang. “And it was a very delicate thing. In hindsight, it’s very, very complex, whereas today we would probably do most of that visually. But back then it was still old-school, because we were blending traditional techniques with the new tools that we had in computer graphics.”

Of the film’s “old school” effects, Chiang’s favorite is one that most contemporary audiences likely wouldn’t notice: the miniature sets. Nowadays, computer graphics are used to create larger worlds around small sets. But traditionally, this was accomplished with either realistic matte paintings (like the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz) or extremely detailed miniatures (like the Tyrell building in Blade Runner). Chiang revealed that multiple sets in Death Becomes Her were built-to-scale miniatures, including the Gothic mansion where Isabella Rossellini dispenses her magical potion. Chiang has fond memories of crawling around the mansion, adjusting the lights on each tiny, individual room. (See photo below.)

Doug Chiang on the miniature set of ‘Death Becomes Her’ (Image: ILM)

“For me the charm of Death Becomes Her was, it was really one of the films that bridged that technology gap,” Chiang said. On the threshold of the computer graphics revolution, ILM’s artists were literally “inventing the tools as we were making the movies,” he explained. “And often we would start projects without really knowing how we were going to do the effects.”

The realistic body effects that ILM created for Death Becomes Her proved that computer graphics could be used for more than just robots and machines. The results of that discovery can now be seen all over the multiplex, from the photorealistic apes in War for the Planet of the Apes to the de-aged Kurt Russell in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Just remember: it all started with Meryl Streep falling down a flight of stairs.

‘Rogue One’ Behind the scenes: Doug Chiang starts development:

Read more from Yahoo Movies: 

The ‘Star Wars’ Cantina Scene: The Out-of-This-World Story Behind the Galaxy’s Favorite Dive Bar

The Gruesome Inside Story of ‘Misery’s’ Terrifying Ankle-Bashing Scene

How ‘Labyrinth’ Achieved Peak Practical Effects

[zarbakht-bilal]

Hello beautiful souls,

I hope you all are as charming as always and cherishing your life to bits 🙂 I am here with a new article that I’ve been wondering to write on for the past two days. This is about how you can surround yourself with positive vibes all the time without being bored, lazy and depressed. So without any further delay, let’s dive into the blog ❤

1. Keep your space clean:

Be it your room, personal study, working space, or research cubicle, make sure you keep your space neat, clean, and organized.

A study led by associate professor Nicole R. Keith, Ph.D., research scientist and professor at Indiana University, found that people with clean houses are healthier than people with messy houses. Keith and her colleagues tracked the physical health of 998 African Americans between the ages of 49 and 65, a demographic known to be at an increased risk for heart disease. Participants who kept their homes clean were healthier and more active than those who didn’t. In fact, house cleanliness was even more of a predictor for physical health than neighborhood walkability.

A 2010 study published in the scientific journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin used linguistic analysis software to measure the way 60 individuals discussed their homes. Women who described their living spaces as “cluttered” or full of “unfinished projects” were more likely to be depressed and fatigued than women who described their homes as “restful” and “restorative.” The researchers also found that women with cluttered homes expressed higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

In 2011, researchers at Princeton University found that clutter can actually make it more difficult to focus on a particular task. Specifically, they found that the visual cortex can be overwhelmed by task-irrelevant objects, making it harder to allocate attention and complete tasks efficiently.

A survey conducted by the National Sleep Foundation found that people who make their beds every morning are 19 percent more likely to report regularly getting a good night’s sleep. People who were surveyed also reported benefits from having clean sheets — specifically, 75 percent of people said they get a better night’s rest when their sheets are freshly cleaned because they feel more comfortable. (Psychology Today, 2016)

 2. Organize Yourself:

Organizing yourself is the easiest thing in this world to do right now. In this modern era of technology where people are becoming quite organized and sensible day by day, it is very easy to get planners, and organizers from different websites and online stores. Planners give you a next-level sense of responsibility and future planning.

From to-dos to the grocery list, from tasks to homework, from house chores to paying bills, from class schedules to birthday reminders, everything can be penned-down in a single notebook that you can proudly call as your planner. I decorated a beautiful planner in last winter vacations and am using it successfully since then. I also implemented several creative ideas like my yearly transformation to track down my fashion sense and photography skills enhancement. I will stick a fresh picture ate the end of every month below the respective month name. Also, I created a birthday tracker of my friends and family that helped me in reminding the birthdays of my friends which I always forget otherwise, thus earning much disappointment.

3. Time for a Change:

I don’t know about others, but a lot of Asians seems to have this particular habit of keeping the old things for years while purchasing new things simultaneously. It is totally understandable that some things are very dear to us and we cherish them forever, but we shall keep this in mind that:

A change is always beautiful!

Have an old rose-flower pot on your study for two years? Time to replace it with new crystal crockery with fresh lilies instead. Have a vintage wallpaper in your room for too long? Why not try a summer color this time? Have a cute cactus by your bedside? Let’s bring a sunflower pot in its place this season. Been sipping on this bright red mug all winters? The whole supermarket is filled with beautiful new mugs in pastel colors that you are absolutely going to love. Replacing old things with new ones always help to rejuvenate your mind and keeping your soul alive. Whereas, decluttering the old stuff is important to avoid mess and useless cluttering. It is true that old is gold, but a fresh change always motivates us to do something beautiful and unique. A change always helps us in making miracles happen. 

4. Green heals the soul:

Color psychology suggests that different colors can evoke psychological reactions. For example, color is often thought to have an impact on moods and emotions. Sometimes these reactions are related to the intensity of a color, while in other cases they are the product of experience and cultural influences.

How does the color green make you feel? For many people, it has strong associations with nature and immediately brings to mind the lush green of grass, trees, and forests. Perhaps because green is so heavily associated with nature, it is often described as a refreshing and tranquil color.

“Green, which is Nature’s colour, is restful, soothing, cheerful, and health-giving.”          – Paul Brunton

According to color psychology, green is a color of balance and harmony which is very important to keep your mind and thoughts intact while living. The green color is reported to give you a sense of fresh start and a punch of positive thoughts and ideas every morning. To inculcate green in your environment, you can go from minimal to grandeur. From keeping a cactus on your bedside to raising a palm tree in your garden, from hanging a spider plant in your window to growing a dragon tree in your living room, you can surround yourself with the greens, and ultimately attracting the positive aura.

  Green is a color that can evoke powerful emotions. It is a dominant color in nature that makes you think of growth. Think of nature and see the incredible variety of shades of green expressing renewal and life. Green evokes a feeling of abundance and is associated with refreshment and peace, rest and security.  Green helps people feel rested and secure. People are invited to wait in the “green room” before going on camera to relax. Many doctors even use green in their offices to put patients at ease. Green encourages a balance in your brain that leads to decisiveness. However, green may also be perceived negatively when associated with materialism, envy, and possessiveness (Christi Wharton, 2019). 

5. Do not argue about un-knowledgeable things:

It is the most common behavior of us humans that we have to participate in almost everything even if we are unacquainted by the context and background knowledge. I have learned this thing from my personal experience actually!

A lot of the times, if some controversy breaks out, we all become the scholars and start judging or defending a certain party without knowing the whole story, and without analyzing both sides. This behavior is spreading 99% of the negativity in this world today. What actually happens is that when we start a social media fight without complete knowledge, and somebody else (who is acknowledged and learned) confronts us, we, unable to defend our claim start being intolerant by bad-mouthing, hating and criticizing the character of the other person. Such a situation creates a very destructive atmosphere where we learn nothing but extremism, intolerance and destructive criticism. Also, as a piece of advice, stay away from politics if you want your mind to work without any bounds and bias. Live as an individual and give your stance likewise without being under any impact and influence.

6. Witness Maximum Positivity:

  What if you decorate your bedroom’s wall with all the bloodshed and warfare images from the time of Hitler? How would you feel whenever you’d look at those pictures throughout the day and the night? On the other hand, if you put up vibrant frames displaying positive quotations, rainbow and sunshine depiction, plants and unicorn portrayals, you would feel completely different than the earlier scenario.

Being a student, I own four notebooks, a bag, planner, laptop, phone, USB, wallet, makeup bag, pencil pouch and a collection of different pens and markers. To witness the maximum positivity, I decorate my notebooks myself in the vacations or the semester break with all of my favorite morale-boosting quotations.

Moreover, I have made a bunch of photo frames and wall-hangings displaying my own happy-drawings and positive-paintings. You can also implement this witness-maximum-positivity phenomenon in your life and trust me you will feel an emergence of positive aura inside yourself. I made multiple bookmarks to help myself in not-giving-up on a book and to carry on with a punch of colorful motivation. My planner also has this new-year-resolution front page that reminds me of what I have achieved so far and what is already left, what do I need to improve and how better can I get? Being a free-lancer, I have selected a minimal laptop wallpaper that says “Create” and trust me the wallpaper alone helps me with writing new things and creating new ideas when I am feeling bland. I also decorated one of my notebooks with my favorite J.K. Rowling’s quote that says:

“It is important to remember that we all have magic inside us!”

This quote helps me in my mood swings throughout the lectures, it boosts my morale when I score lesser than expected in any exam, and cheers me up when I achieve something great! Below is a collection of my personal contribution to make my life witness more positivity throughout the day. 🙂

I hope this article would help most of you guys. Happy Blogging! 🙂

Adios,

xoxo.

  Tips to surround yourself with positivity. Hello beautiful souls, I hope you all are as charming as always and cherishing your life to bits 🙂 I am here with a new article that I've been wondering to write on for the past two days.

[nempiredesign-blog]

The Right Tools For The Job

Those who enjoy working with art can get lost in a world of wonder when they go shopping for art materials. There are so many to choose from that the artist is probably going to abound with suggestions because they see all the choices they have. The key here would be to select the correct items for the artist.

It’s fine in case you want to try new methods. It is part of being innovative after all. But, you will find also times when you have to do your research or make certain you get the things that are actually viable for whatever project is in process at the moment or in the future.

One of the most commonly used items in the world of art is a pencil. Regardless of whether you want to sketch, outline, shade or whatever it is you need to do with a pencil, you’ll still need one that fits your requirements. Technology has come a long way in developing particular things like pencils which are made to use with water and colored charcoal pencils. Artists might do well to purchase a small pack to try out new methods or items instead of a big one to ensure that they can assess how nicely the item works for them.

Paper is the foundation for many art projects. Every project needs to begin with a solid foundation that the artist can build on. There are several kinds of paper types and they each are created with specific things in mind. Some are made only for tracing or maybe for painting. Pay attention to the info provided by the supplier so that you know what it’s for.

Markers are a fun medium to work with. They can bring drawings and other items to life with vivacious colors. By the same token, an inexpensive marker can absolutely ruin a work of art. This is one area exactly where you have to use a brand you can trust and not try to cut corners if you want to make a quality piece of art.

Those that use pens in their artwork tend to be very picky about what kinds of pens they buy. This is a smart move simply because the quality of the pen has a lot to do with the quality of the end product. It’s not just the quality either. It’s the way the pen is made and what kind of point it has that may be essential. You do not want one that is constantly bleeding out or one that just doesn’t function well.

Paints and brushes open up a whole new world for even the youngest of artists. After all, what is paint but liquid color? With the right combination of paints and brushes, you are able to make a creation come to life. Every item is a piece of art are created for specific uses, as are some paints. You’ll discover that the higher if you purchase a high-quality brush, it will make a world of difference in your work and allow you to use some fun new techniques!

It’s impossible to not have fun when shopping with art supplies, but even an artist needs to think sensibly in this area. The wrong supplies can ruin a project just as quickly as the right supplies can make it into a masterpiece!

[traveling-sircus-blog]

Top 23 Tips & Tricks to Win Getaway Space Games

We have actually compiled our leading 23 escape room ideas as well as methods that we've used to achieve more than 85% retreat rate on 100+ rooms in the United States as well as Europe. The pointers can be broken up into five groups: make a team, collaborate, take care of puzzle items, be thorough, as well as address challenges efficiently.

Make a Group

Tip # 1. Play with pals or coworkers (when possible).

Specifically for large-group video games, groups work much better when there's an usual context for communication. It's not fun for a team of 20-somethings to have fun with a household bringing their children, the play styles may clash when teamwork is required. This clash is irregular however could occur if you're unlucky. This might be cost-prohibitive for public-booking spaces (but you could evaluate your good luck by scheduling final or at undesirable time ports), yet personal areas have this by the default.

Idea # 2. Play at much less compared to maximum team size.

Dipping into the maximum team size suggests 1) physical density 2) inadequate things for every person to service 3) less "aha!" moments 4) extra expenses in getting everybody up to speed. We usually recommend roughly 70-80% of the maximum capacity although this could vary by video game or group. Once again, this might be cost-prohibitive for public-booking spaces (again, you can evaluate your luck by booking last-minute or at undesirable time slots), yet exclusive areas should permit the flexibility of picking your excellent group dimension.

Collaborate.

Having multiple individuals to look over a clue could help! (Image Credit Score: 60out).

Suggestion # 3. Pass the baton.

If you've been looking at a puzzle for too long as well as cannot figure out the option, get a fellow team member to help or take control of on the puzzle. This assists make sure that challenges don't obtain neglected, which there are enough eyes on each unresolved challenge. This can continue till a few people cannot figure it out-- that's usually an indication that you do not have all of the details yet (or that you need a hint!).

Idea # 4. Hear your teammates.

Retreat space teams operate best when they attempt everything. So if your colleague has an insane however somewhat sensible suggestion, listen to them and also attempt it with them! If you think it's a negative suggestion, still encourage them to attempt it however. As long as the crazy suggestion is reversible, it could simply relocate you closer to the last service. At the very least, it will certainly be enjoyable!

Suggestion # 5. Shout out loudly exactly what you locate.

This has the tendency to be rather disorderly however really efficient. Escape area games are won as well as shed based on just how swiftly 2 staff member who discovered related things can match them together. This includes points like a code and also a key, an essential as well as a lock, or a pattern that shows up similarly in 2 various places.

Tip # 6. Work with just what other people aren't servicing.

This aids spread apart your team as well as have each team member be maximally reliable. There's a tendency to reject or miss over some problems that are "too hard" to do in the beginning look. This leaves some problems neglected and also reversed until somebody understands that they're needed.

Pointer # 7. Don't "glob" around the very same puzzle.

Be a contributor to a problem as well as not a viewer. It's too simple to be a viewer when interesting progress is being made on a puzzle, however individuals are a lot more reliable when they're expanded as well as dealing with exactly what needs to be done! If there's just one challenge open nevertheless, by all implies let the whole group brainstorm!

Take Care Of Puzzle Things.

A lot of tricks ... (Image Credit History: Robert Montalvo).

Pointer # 8. Maintain made use of keys in their lock.

A key is virtually never ever made use of greater than when. Leave it in the lock for your peace of mind! This will aid stop the trick from being made use of once again, avoid somebody else from trying an additional secret on the lock, and also avoid you from unintentionally locking the object once more. In really unusual situations, a key might be utilized greater than as soon as, so keep that in mind as well as a last resort choice.

Idea # 9. Make a "throw out heap".

Separate items in the video game right into a "used" heap and an "extra" pile. This aids stop staff member from analyzing the same object repeatedly. This additionally aids you attach particular "unused" things by putting them in physical closeness! Note that in some escape rooms, things could be "used" more than when.

Tip # 10. Arrange things nicely.

This assists maintain the room clean, so you could locate exactly what you need. This additionally allows you keep together relevant things, so you could discover every one of them right when you require them. Some instances:.

Pile related publications together.

Spread apart an important piece of towel.

Place loosened objects on the table on the space.

Place all extra tricks together in a central location.

Be Comprehensive.

If you see a bunch of publications on a rack, first check to see if any of them is really a book secure. You may obtain a hint later to describe a details publication (particularly if you need a publication cipher or you have a thesaurus). As a reduced priority job, skim some of guides (but please don't lose way too much time taking a look at random marks in them).

Suggestion # 11. Search the space thoroughly.

Be exceptionally comprehensive when looking and also touching everywhere, as if you were painting the space instead of as if you were simply trying to find where you put your phone. Sometimes crucial objects could be in the most exotic (or non-exotic) of places, like:.

snuggled on the top of a shelf.

concealed within a publication.

embeded a layer pocket.

behind the door of a cabinet.

in a secret area of the flooring, wall surface, or shelf unit.

stuck on a ceiling-supporting pillar.

positioned on a ledge high up on the wall surface.

Suggestion # 12. Split and also overcome to search.

At the very start of each video game, split the space into sections and appoint various individuals to comb with each area, trying to find items of importance. This assists make sure that the area is extensively evaluated, as well as assists prevent the situation where certain areas are ignored and particular other areas are over and over again combed over.

Tip # 13. Hear your host.

Hear the intro and regulations by your video game master-- your game master may slip some handy mean the beginning that will certainly conserve you a great deal of time. This relates to the hints that they offer in-game too, particularly if they are live action actors. All of the staff in-game will attempt to push you in the ideal instructions.

Tip # 14. Request hints.

There's often a tip system in the game. You might have to wave into a cam, use a walkie-talkie, or take note of the in-game actor. No matter how tips are dispersed, we suggest asking for tips whenever you really feel extremely stuck or have actually quit having a good time. Video game masters are educated to press you in the appropriate direction so you can begin resolving problems again.

Fix Puzzles Efficiently.

Don't look up right here. (Photo Credit Report: Adamantios).

Pointer # 15. Know just what to ignore.

This is ideal collected with experience, yet here are some usual things that brand-new retreat space gamers find that are nearly never crucial to the getaway room.

Random numbers created in black marker on old books or furnishings-- This is normally simply artefacts left over from when the video game master bought the item.

Power outlets-- Do not mess about with power electrical outlets, unless its clear that you should. This is both a safety concern as well as a wild-goose chase.

Go down ceiling floor tiles-- Never try to look behind a decrease ceiling tile or touch the ceiling. It's a waste of time and also a security issue.

Idea # 16. Try combination solutions frequently.

Unless the lock is some kind of "lockout" safe, trying mix solutions whenever you have a plausible right service provides you quick responses on if you're doing the right thing. If you're fortunate, your very first assumption may also be appropriate! This pointer is combined well with the the following idea-- if you have 3 from 4 of the numbers on a combination lock, instantly input in the 3 digits as well as cycle with the last one.

Tip # 17. Miss the last number/ letter.

Some examples where you could avoid some small steps include:.

Finding out the last figure in a lock-- If you know the very first 3 figures in a 4-digit mix lock, you can just cycle through the last alternatives for the Fourth one.

Determining the last couple of letters in a wordlock-- This is like addressing a crossword. If you have a 5-letter word that starts with M and also finishes in C, attempt MAGIC!

Keep in mind that you must just do this if you're alright with missing out on a problem. Normally you could ask a game master concerning the challenge you skipped after that.

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: Required Reading

Danish design firm MONSTRUM has been creating these colorful and imaginative playscapes for playgrounds around the world, and they’re quite impressive. Check out more on Colossal. (via Colossal)

One Texas museum, the Galveston Art Center, was devastated by Hurricane Ike in 2008 and they weren’t taking any chances with Hurricane Harvey. This is what they did:

Nance has good reason to be wary. Back in 2008, when Hurricane Ike pummeled Texas, the Galveston Arts Center sustained steep losses. According to Harvey Rice of the Houston Chronicle, art valued at more than $100,000 was ruined, and the storm caused upward of $1 million in damage to the historic, 19th-century bank building that houses the Arts Center.

RELATED: Some good photo essays on the hurricane at the New Yorker and the New York Times.

I’ve gripped about the awfulness that is the new Orange County Government Center in upstate New York but CityLab just published a more extensive take on the architectural disaster that was intended to save the original landmark:

A year later, Kaufman’s plan was scrapped, leaving Clark Patterson Lee with the last proposal standing. Meanwhile, designLAB’s schematic proposal for the site ended up winning an “unbuilt architecture” award from the Boston Society of Architects. A lawsuit by local residents to block demolition was dismissed in June 2015. “This is one of Rudolph’s great buildings,” Kaufman adds. “It’s a shame. What happened in Goshen represents a tremendous diminution government plays in promoting good architecture and good development.”

Miklos says that their removal of the original corduroy blocks in the remaining 1971 buildings was unnecessary. “There was mold after the building flooded because the drywall was wet, but they determined the concrete block was the problem. In fact, we did a lot of research to determine the block was not the problem.”

As for the new building, “they did a different version of what we proposed,” says Miklos. “I’ve seen the pictures. It’s not a successful solution. It doesn’t do Rudolph’s building justice.”

Writing for The Cut, Rhonda Garelick discusses the role of fashion in crafting the image of Melania Trump:

Melania dresses and moves as if she were awkwardly performing a theatrical role, much as Ivanka does. Their oddly stilted presence in political settings seems to transform all occasions, no matter how “presidential,” into advertisements. This is not because they were both once models, but because they cannot stop posing like models. (Ironically, successful models learn to avoid such obvious artificiality, since it makes the unreality of fashion shoots too glaring.)

The Trump women evince a dazed blankness and anonymity that in turn cast doubt on the reality of everything around them. When you see Melania headed to Marine One, or dining with world leaders, or standing on a White House balcony, the entire scene looks like a magazine spread in which “real” people, equipment, and buildings are being used merely as dramatic backdrops for a fashion layout. On Tuesday, this meant that instead of being a supporting presence in the president’s trip to survey flood damage, Melania became the star and the trip morphed into a simulacrum, a kind of Vogue shoot “simulating” a president’s trip. In other words, the realness of everyone and everything else (including hurricane victims) faded and the evacuated blankness of the commercial overtook the scene.

We are talking about Civil War memorials but are there some other monuments that didn’t support a decisive and white supremacist history, like the Sphinx at Mt. Auburn Cemetery:

The Sphinx was the vision of Dr. Jacob Bigelow, a Harvard botanist and physician who was one of the founders of Mount Auburn Cemetery. In the wake of the Civil War, he wanted a monument that would honor the sacrifices of the Union army and point the way toward a more integrated America. A figure from Egyptian mythology, the sphinx represents the fusion of both “American” and “African” motifs, a perfect union between black and white.

Bigelow had dreamed up the statue and designed it entirely himself. Egyptian motifs had associated in nineteenth-century America with mourning and grief, but these had never included a sphinx. Bigelow’s monument was to be his own, ex nihilo and sui generis. Bigelow’s dreams swam with hybrid monsters. The Elgin Marbles, he noted, “to which the whole world pays homage,” consist of depictions of centaurs and other strange creatures; and the winged steed Pegasus, “on which poets in all ages have sought recreation,” was also an amalgamation of different beasts. “Even angels,” he concluded, “the accepted embodiments of beauty and loveliness, are human figures with birds’ wings attached to their shoulders.” Why, then, not revere another hybrid, why not create a new mythology?

Khaled A. Beydoun writes about Islam in the Antebullum South, which was more common than many Americans believe. His abstract outlines the realities:

America’s first Muslims were slaves. Social scientists estimate that 15 to 30 percent of the Africans enslaved in the Antebellum South practiced Islam. Research indicates that the Muslim slave population could have been as high as 1.2 million. Despite their considerable presence in the Antebellum South, the history of Muslim slaves has been largely neglected within legal scholarship.

The Atlantic tells the story of a proposed superhighway to honor the Confederacy that never materialized:

The Jefferson Davis Highway was a pet project of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), an association of Confederate descendants that has been trying to preserve (and rewrite) Civil War history since 1894. Though not as well known as the Lost Cause memorials the UDC built throughout the South—objects promoting a narrative that the Confederacy fought honorably for states’ rights rather than slavery—the highway was intended to be a cross-country system of roads studded with markers memorializing Davis. And for some cities and states in its proposed path, it was simply too good a deal to pass up.

… The highway, then, did the work of white supremacy by stealthier means than those of other infamous groups. As the highways wended across the U.S., proponents of the UDC’s historical vision such as the Ku Klux Klan lynched black people, burned crosses, and enacted and supported Jim Crow laws. More broadly, the femininity that the UDC embodied provided a cover for public behavior that was unheard of for Southern women. “They would speak in public, which women were not supposed to do—not Southern women, anyway. It provided a lot of these women with a career,” says Cox.

Ultimately, the grandiosity of the UDC’s vision for the Jefferson Davis Highway did not match up with reality. Historians don’t agree on which routes were actually built and whether they lived up to the UDC’s claims. The group’s own promotional materials contradict themselves: As the historians Euan Hague and Edward H. Sebesta note, official depictions of the highway “[were] inconsistent, varied over time, and outlined often vastly differing routes.”

According to the New York Times Iran is pivoting to video:

Things like chanting “death to America,” burning effigies of Uncle Sam and painting murals of Lady Liberty with a skull as a face lost their impact long ago, particularly among younger Iranians. Forced to adapt or fizzle out, Iran’s propaganda machine has sought to embrace the latest trends and technologies to try to tailor messages to the sensibilities of a new generation.

A number of such propaganda videos have appeared in recent years, distributed on Apparat, a local version of YouTube, as well as on the messenger app Telegram.

Here is one example (pretty over the top):

J Nathan Bazzel donated his hip bones to a museum in Philadelphia after they were surgically removed and replaced with implants, and this is his story.

How to make your text look futuristic.

In case you’re looking for an ancient Assyrian dictionary, here’s one available for free online.

The ornate birdhouses of the Ottoman Empire:

The art of preserving a fish in a museum, and it’s pretty good geeky discussion:

Ethanol is flammable and therefore unsuitable for large quantities to be on public display, and formalin gives off hazardous fumes.

Instead, the team tried storing the fish in a compound called glycerol, which poses no threat to visitors.

‘But a fish the size of the marlin had to be fixed in a formalin solution first,’ explains Ralf.

‘People started using formaldehyde rather than ethanol as a fixative around 1900, and it is still the fluid of choice whenever you want to preserve anything big today.’

The initial transportation and fixation of the marlin caused it to lose some of its natural shape. However, one of the perceived benefits of glycerol is that once the fish has soaked up the solution it should expand again.

‘It’s possible the dents will pop out again, and it will go back to its natural torpedo shape,’ says Ralf,

‘There is also the chance that glycerol will help the colours that are left in the skin to increase in intensity’.

You can’t make this level of self-involvement up:

Peak LinkedIn http://pic.twitter.com/WfPoBFtrCs

— Tom Goodwin (@tomfgoodwin) September 1, 2017

Adorable:

Shredding with daddy from gifs

Required Reading is published every Sunday morning ET, and is comprised of a short list of art-related links to long-form articles, videos, blog posts, or photo essays worth a second look.

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How Will Virginia SandBlasting Be Inside the PoTential.

Would Like To Get Were Only Available In Crafts And Arts? These Pointers Might Help!

Do you need to start doing arts and crafts to pass through time? Perhaps you’re trying to find family-oriented craft projects? It doesn’t matter the reason why you came here, this informative article will have some great crafting advice for yourself.

Crafts and arts can be done with plenty of different materials and supplies. You could even take advantage of paper products which wind up in your trash. You may even use paper rolls from your bathroom. Additionally, try incorporating items from magazines or newspapers in your crafts. Rather than throwing things away, get creative by thinking of methods to utilize them within your crafts and arts projects.

Remember that once you do crafts with children, things are going to get messy. Cover everything nearby with butcher paper to hold it clean. It is also important to utilize the washable versions of supplies, including markers and adhesives.

Seek out arts and crafts ideas online. There are several websites where you could gain inspiration and concepts. No matter how old the participants are, you will discover a family art project online.

You can get a good amount of supplies for crafts and arts at Etsy.

This web site sells items from individuals. You could buy supplies here, and you may sell your creations, too. Etsy is a pretty sensible choice in case your current or next project requires vintage media.

Spray glass cleaner on a cloth and wipe your mosaic whenever it actually starts to look cloudy right after the mortar dries. The mortar powder is hard to get out almost every other way, and you want to avoid powder gumming the finish of your own finished piece.

Try looking in your kitchen area for supplies. You are certain to locate plenty of interesting items there which can be used. Things alike metal cans, glass jars, and tin foil are simply a few examples. Even dried beans and pasta might be crafting material.

You can utilize your crafts and arts skills to create presents instead of buying them. Personalized crafts bring holiday gifts. Many individuals like homemade gifts much better than ones from the store, and you save a ton of cash every year at the same time.

Get your supplies wholesale if need be. You will pay more for supplies if you shop at conventional retailers or boutiques. But, purchasing wholesale means you get more at a lower price. You could just end up with more supplies that you can use on your own, so share all of them with friends or make extra money by selling them online.

A personalised food or water dish makes an ideal crafty holiday present for your pet. Begin with a bowl and use markers or paint pens to help make designs. The family pet turns into a highly unique dish!

When you saw inside the article above, you will enjoy arts and crafts alone, or enjoy them with your entire family. Take advantage of the tips you’ve learned if you do your upcoming art project, and stay surprised by the finished product. Try these tips out and let your family discover their whereabouts too. It is possible to all make some very cool stuff!.

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