#that picture of a coathanger

[marlynnofmany]

Seeing Faces

It’s rare when we get a shipment to deliver that’s not packaged somehow — either in Earth-standard boxes, another world’s version of shipping crates, or a livestock pen of some kind. Even that bunch of alien trees had been thoroughly wrapped at the bottom. But this collection of machinery parts didn’t have so much as a layer of cling-wrap on it. I guess the owners figured these things were sturdy enough not to need it.

They were probably right. The metal chunks were heavy. I tried to guess what they were made for as Blip and Blop muscled the biggest ones onto a hover sled, clearing the way for Paint and me to gather up the smaller pieces. Captain Sunlight bid the customer farewell and shut the cargo bay door.

“I think these look like vertebrae,��� I said to Paint. “Greasy vertebra. Ew. I’m going to need a new shirt.” The offworld engine oil of whatever didn’t seem acidic at least, so that was nice. I sighed about the black smears.

“Strange vertebrae,” Paint said, juggling her own armload of odd shapes that didn’t seem to be rubbing off on her orange scales. Not that I was jealous or anything. “There would need to be a dual spinal cord.” She tapped a claw on one of the holes.

“Hm, yeah. There are probably animals like that,” I said. “Or robots, as the case may be.”

Ahead of us, Captain Sunlight opened the door to the appropriate storage hold, then headed off on captainly business. It was impressive how different a vibe she gave off compared to Paint, for all their physical similarities. Both were little lizardy people, but one strode with her lemon-yellow head held high, every inch the authority figure, while the other was Paint. She somehow bounced when she walked, even when weighted down by unwieldy metal things.

“I’ll bet these stack really well,” Paint said. “They look like they interlock. We could probably build a spinal column without them falling over.”

“We probably could,” I agreed. “But I don’t want to be the one responsible for bending one of the flanges because we wanted to test it out.”

“Hm. Yep yep yep. But I maintain that we could.”

“We could.”

The two of us entered the storage hold to find Blip and Blop racing to see who could unload the sled faster. It’s not that the Frillian twins were overly competitive, but they were twins. They’d apparently hatched at the same time, and had been in a low-key competition to see who was better at life ever since. But they smiled while they did it.

“Done!” Blip declared, setting down a lump of metal big enough for Paint to hide behind. She raised her hands in triumph, fins fluttering.

“Doesn’t count,” Blop said as he put down his own piece. “You didn’t line them up right. Mine are tidier.”

They squabbled about this while Paint and I unloaded our metal chunks nearby. I had to kneel to keep from dropping the things. It would be just my luck if they did warp on impact, or bounce off each other and whack me in the shin.

The Frillians took their debate out the door before I finished. They’d already moved on to who could steer the hoversled with the minimum of touching.

“Ha,” Paint said. “They do stack.”

I turned to see only one of the things set on top of another, with Paint ready to catch it if it slid. She took it down before I could say anything.

I just nodded and arranged my own into a reasonable huddle, then wiped my hands on my shirt. It was only when I moved toward the door, with a look back at the big pieces, that I got a good look at the one that Blop had set on its side.

This was the logical place to put it, not sticking out past the rest, but the thing that caught my attention was the shape when seen from this angle. Those two holes could have been eyes, and the flanges were shaped like stubby arms. There were even a couple slots in the middle like nostrils.

I burst out laughing.

“What?” Paint demanded.

“It looks like Zhee!” I said, pointing. “Big bug eyes and everything!”

“What does?” Paint asked. She came to stand next to me, following my arm, but just looked confused. “Where are the eyes?”

“These!” I said, stepping closer and pointing at the holes. “And those are the arms. Isn’t it perfect?”

Paint cocked her head as if slightly tilted vision could unlock the answers. “Arms?”

I repeated myself, but she still looked lost, so I found a notepad and pencil in a storage cupboard —reliable even when the batteries all run out — and sketched what I saw.

“Ohh, I get what you mean now,” Paint said when I showed her. “Those parts are lifted like pincher arms, and those are roughly the same proportion as Mesmer eyes.”

“Yeah, it’s uncanny,” I said.

Paint took the notepad to study it closer. “How did you even notice that?”

“It was pretty easy,” I told her. “It just jumped out at me when I looked from the right direction. Like seeing faces in clouds, you know?”

Paint’s blank expression said that she didn’t know.

“Do you not do that? Find patterns of familiar shapes in random things?”

“No?” she replied. “Is that a thing I’m supposed to be doing?”

“You don’t have to! It’s just something that everybody does on Earth, ever since we’re kids. It’s probably from a long history of watching for camouflaged predators in the bushes. You’ve got camouflage on your planet, right? You must.”

“Yeah, sure,” Paint said easily. “But I guess not that much. I’ve never seen a face in a cloud; that sounds terrifying.”

“Not really; it’s more like feeling smart for spotting something. Well,” I amended. “It could be a little unsettling if you see a skull or something. But that’s rare. There are whole systems of divination about this sort of thing.”

Paint looked like she was about to ask a million questions, but right then the sound of familiar clicking footsteps tapped down the hall.

“Zhee!” Paint called, whirling with the notebook in her hand. “Zhee, look what Robin saw!”

Zhee came into view looking just as eyecatching and purple as usual, halting at the doorway while Paint eagerly explained the conversation we’d just had. Quickly and enthusiastically. With lots of waving the sketch around, and pointing back at the machine part.

I felt like apologizing as he stared with an unreadable alien expression. His antennae weren’t even moving; I couldn’t tell what he thought of it all.

Finally Paint finished talking. “She says it’s probably because her species watches for predators in the bushes. Isn’t that amazing?”

Zhee made a point of looking slowly from the sketch to the metal thing, then to me. I braced myself for judgement.

Instead, Zhee raised his pincher arms into the same pose and declared, “I am the danger that lurks in the bushes.” Then he slunk out of sight, many legs scuttling in a quickstep way that he knew darn well I found creepy.

Paint blinked at the empty doorway, still holding the notebook.

“Aw, man,” I said. “He’s picking things up from Trrili.”

Paint immediately closed the notebook. “We definitely shouldn’t show her.”

“Agreed!” I said.

After a moment of thought, Paint tore the page out and handed it to me, then took the notebook back to the cupboard. I pocketed it with a final glance at the metal vertebra that looked remarkably like a cartoonish Mesmer squaring up for battle.

Someone had left a roll of no-residue marking tape on a box nearby. I grabbed a strip and stuck it onto the metal, with the ends curved up.

Now the thing had a goofy grin that possibly no one would recognize. But if there were any humans on the receiving end of this delivery, they ought to get a good laugh out of it.

~~~

The ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book. More to come! And I am currently drafting a sequel!

[spotforme]

actually the plot is secondary actually, expantion on that "futuristic" comedic dystopian milieu is all i'm thinking about

[marvelousmop]

While the twist in the 1974 movie Madhouse is set up quite well, my favourite (definitely unintentional) bit of foreshadowing is that the picture Herbert (Peter Cushing) has of him and Paul (Vincent Price) looks like a random thing he slapped together because he heard that Paul was coming a few days ago and thought "Wait, shoot, I should probably add something to sell the illusion that I actually like him."

Couldn't even bother to put it on the wall at a normal angle, that hook was probably used for a Christmas Stocking or a coathanger.

[in-death-we-fall]

24 Hour Party People

Things are getting messy on the Stone Sour/Murderdolls UK tour. Welcome inside their world of drunken orgies, comedy pissing and pickled cow’s hearts…

(google docs link)

Photos: Tina Korhonen

If you ever find yourself in the same building as Corey Taylor, the frontman with the most Tourettes-like speech patterns in rock (no mean feat in an arena where swearing is both big and clever), the chances are you’ll hear him long before you see him. A couple of hours after his band Stone Sour’s first UK show with fellow Slipknot-affiliates the Murderdolls, the singer is drunkenly ping-ponging off the walls of a corridor backstage at Nottingham’s Rock City, beaming and gleefully bellowing Electric Six’s ‘Gay Bar’ at top volume before tumbling into his dressing room for the umpteenth shot of Jack Daniel’s this evening.

The backstage area is teeming with young women who have miraculously acquired passes along the way. More incongruously and to Taylor’s obvious confusion, there are also random semi-naked men flitting about. In the next room, Murderdolls’ Nikki Sixx-coiffed bass player Eric Griffin is entertaining two ladies — one of them, dressed as a sexy nurse, currently occupied with snapping on a pair of surgical gloves. Tonight is clearly going to get messy. If everyone involved in this tour comes out of this thing unscathed, it’ll be a miracle.

“I like the fact that we’re just five fucking guys who stink and love music. I love it, that’s real, fuck that dumb shit.”

    Rewind a few hours, and an infinitely more coherent, if chronically hungover Corey Taylor is fumbling his way into a minibus to join his bandmates on their way to an in-store signing. While, along with guitarist Jim Root, he spends his time worrying America’s parents and poncing around in a mask in Slipknot, it’s quickly obvious that Stone Sour offers the chance to show his often-gurning, surprisingly clumsy human side. The side that has dumped all attempts at being enigmatic for the person whose big ambition in life is to appear in a cartoon (“I can picture Bart Simpson going to a Slipknot concert,” says Jim. “It’d be great, you’d hear, like, a note between bleeps.”), who has been terrified of sharks since his mother took him to see ‘Jaws’ when he was three, who has an obsessive love of British comedy, and revels in tasteless, decidedly un-PC jokes. A random example: “What do you call the worthless skin around a pussy? The rest of the woman.” Classy.

    All of which is good news for the scores of fans who have turned up to meet the band today.

    “There are guys out there who would pick their eyes out with a fucking coathanger and go, ‘Aaargh! They’re for you!’,” grins the singer as one fan thrusts a giant dildo at him to be signed. “But they’re all great. Anyone that listens to us is pretty fucking cool. And little kids are really into it too. You take the time and you fucking talk to them and shit, that’s a fan or (sic) life. Get them young, like the tobacco companies say!”

    Over at the venue, the Murderdolls — all similarly hungover, bar iron-livered frontman Wednesday 13 — emerge from their bus in a flurry of red and black hair and leather to be met by fans bearing gifts of Boris Karloff action figures and teddy bears dressed in bondage gear.

    Perhaps inevitably, because of the way they look, their unashamedly cock-rock outlook, their gang mentality and the way that there’s genuinely no-one like them at the moment, the band have inspired a tribe of similarly-attired devout followers who you can spot a mile off. Many of them are female, which is curious given the off-the-scale testosterone levels that shape the band.

    “We had a group of four girls here bawling their eyes out, really shaking,” says Joey Jordison, struggling to wake up. “I don’t really think it’s too weird. We give them something to believe in, some escapism from maybe some of the hard things in their lives.”

    “It’s insane,” grins Wednesday. “You hang around us for a day you’ll be crying to get away from us.”

    It’s a strange kind of devotion the two bands create. While both are surprisingly approachable some people still go to unnecessary extremes to get their attention.

    “A girl came to an in-store signing with her arms completely slashed up, with every guy in the Murderdolls’ name cut into her arm,” says Joey. “She brought me a cow heart in a formaldehyde jar with my picture in it, and said that that was her heart and it belongs to me. And she gave me a book of a hundred poems that are all about me.’

    Is that not a little disturbing?

    “No, I just think that some of these kids need a little bit more attention. We’re a fun band, we want the kids to have fun, and I don’t want anyone taking their aggressions out on themselves. Life is really not as bad as they think it is. That’s why we come over here, because I know we’re important to these kids. I could easily be at home right now sitting out on my porch drinking a beer and not giving a shit. But I’d rather come over here and tell kids thank you for giving me a reason to live as well.”

    By the time showtime comes around, Stone Sour can be found in their dressing room “spanking the bottle of Jack”, a strange pre-show ritual that seems to achieve little more than earning Corey a new blood blister on his finger.

    One set of anthemic rock and one set of fantastically ludicrous glam-rock stomping later, and it’s time to get the alcohol flowing, bring the prettiest girls backstage, and for certain members of this touring circus to behave very badly indeed…

“Oh Jesus.”

    Corey Taylor is suffering. The last anyone saw of him last night was when he was taken to support band Elviss’ bus for a little drink. Today, he’s paying the price, big time.

    I remember getting onstage,” he says, trying to piece the previous evening together. “I remember doing a great show, coming offstage, drinking about 12 Jack and Cokes being pulled onto Elviss’ bus and them pumping fucking absinthe down my goddamn throat trying to kill me. Fuckers. After that it’s a blur. I remember eating an ignorant amount of fucking lamb steak, just shoving it in my face. It was fucking gross.”

“We go apeshit every night.” -Joey Jordison

    This, apparently, has nothing on what went on in the Murderdolls’ tour bus last night, where one stunned witness hazily recalls someone attempting to use the on-board toilet, only to be met with the sight of a certain lanky member of the Murderdolls inserting “objects” into two girls.

    “We are a fun rock ‘n’ roll party band in every sense of the word,” says a wary Joey Jordison the next day as the band roll in to the Birmingham Academy. “You can draw about every conclusion you ever heard about the traditional rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle from the ‘80s, that’s pretty much us. But I don’t want to make it sound like that’s cool. I don’t endorse it in any way.”

    Joey, Corey, and Jim Root have, of course, seen and done it all before with Slipknot, so it’s fair to say that, bar the heroic alcohol consumption, they may have a certain amount of detachment from the mayhem surrounding them these days.

    “But all that crazy shit happened a long time ago,” Corey insists, grimacing through his hangover. “I don’t really recall! I’d be coming offstage, having a glass of milk and eating cookies.”

    Because the two bands are about such vastly different things — with Stone Sour it’s about bringing things down to the simple elements of their songs and connecting with the audience, while Murderdolls are on a mission to bring the biggest, trashiest, glammiest, most X-rated party to every town they hit — there’s little in the way of rivalry between the camps. The only competition seems to be with putting on the biggest, loudest live show.

    “If anything I think it’s healthy if there is,” Corey concurs. “It just makes you want to give that bit fucking more and go for it. At the end of the day it’s all about the kids, fuck us. It’s all about whether they’re having a good time or not.”

    “There’s always that little competition,” Joey says. “This is our last run before we go back to Slipknot, so I’m not worried about it too much. But we put on the same show pretty much every night anyway. We go that apeshit every night.”

The first thing you’d notice on entering the Murderdolls’ dressing room is the detritus: clothes, make-up scattered everywhere, not to mention drummer Ben ‘The Ghoul’ Graves — the cause of most of last night’s very worst behaviour — stretched out on a sofa and spilling, somewhat unpleasantly, out of his stage costume of a PVC thong while loudly “making room” in his nose. The second thing you notice, half a second later, is that it stinks in here.

    “My clothes smell like a cat litter box,” Wednesday says, wrinkling his nose. “I got my pants out of our wardrobe case, and they’re still soaked from the show because I was sweating, but I swear they smell like piss. I think someone could have pissed on my pants. Our stuff was packed up, so I’m not sure what happened, unless someone is trying to play a trick on me.”

    This, of course, is what happens when you stick a load of men on a bus together for months on end and deny them the rights to proper laundry services.

    “Most bands rely on special lights and effects,” Wednesday continues, as Joey and Corey work on new Slipknot material down the corridor. “But we come to the people in Smellovision. We bring all the senses out. Whenever you come to our show and we haven’t come onstage yet, you can go (sniffs), ‘Oh, something smells like shit! They’re getting ready to go on!’. We’ve got an intro smell instead of an intro tape.”

    Tonight’s show makes Nottingham’s insanity look like a warm-up. It’s so hot in the venue you have to wade through the air, and after Stone Sour incite a mass singalong of ‘Bother’, the Murderdolls trip down the stairs, making last minute checks on their hair, before they explode onto the stage. By the time the encore comes around, Acey has rather gruesomely lost all his clothing from his lower regions, the rest of them are running around the stage as if they’re being chased by killer mosquitoes, and Stone Sour are bellowing their approval from the wings. Nothing here is about angst. It’s all about living larger than most of our lives.

    “Rock stars should look like they’re from outer space or something,” Joey says afterwards, as they pack up their make-up kits. “When I was growing up seeing Alice Cooper and Kiss and shit, when I went to a show I could be like, ‘Okay, that’s the fucking dude in the band’. That’s the way it should be. Even with Slipknot, our image and the show goes with the music. Music and imagery go together, and it just makes it that much more fun for the live show.”

    And while Stone Sour head off to deal loudly with the latest booze-related crisis (their bus driver, who is supposed to be driving them to Scotland in an hour, is passed out drunk, so it’s time to fire him), Joey prepares himself for the long, but no doubt eventful journey ahead.

    “I intend on having a hangover tomorrow,” he says. “The plan for tonight is the same for every night. The reason bands get so fucked up and drink a lot is because all we do is the same thing every day, and it’s the best fucking lifestyle. We have no responsibilities. You’re on this bus, nothing can fucking touch you. You’re meeting cool fucking people all the time. It’s much more fun-orientated and more of a free-spirited vibe with this band than any other band I’ve been in.”

“I liked the ‘Fuck’ song!” The fans’ verdict on the Stone Sour/Murderdolls face-off…

Name: Riannan Davis Age: 19 From: Mid-Wales Well, what did you think?: “Excellent. I love Stone Sour and Murderdolls.” Which band comes out top?: “Stone Sour. I just prefer them and I get bored of Murderdolls after a while. Stone Sour are good over and over again.” Highlight? “Getting promised to go backstage in five minutes!”

Name: Andrew Gordan Age: 14 From: Oxford Well, what did you think?: “It was amazing, really good.” Which band comes out top?: “Murderdolls, definitely. I just prefer that type of music, it’s really good.” Highlight?: “‘White Wedding’ by the Murderdolls. I love the Billy Idol version, and I love the Murderdolls version.”

Name: Natalie Reynolds Age: 15 From: Bristol Well, what did you think?: “I’ve had a fucking amazing time!” Which band comes out top?: “Murderdolls! They rock, because Ghoul’s in the band. He’s so fit! He’s just the drag queen of my dreams.” Highlight?: “Seeing Ghoul in a thong!”

Name: Chaz Boswell Age: 18 From: Wales Well, what did you think?: “It was fantastic tonight.” Which band comes out top?: “Murderdolls, definitely. They’re more fun than Stone Sour, and I prefer their music. My friend lost his shoe.” Highlight?: “Finding the shoe.”

Name: Hayley Lamb Age: 14 From: Lemington What did you think?: “I had a great time.” Which band comes out top?: “Murderdolls. I just love the way they dress and I think their music’s great.” Highlight?: “I liked the ‘Fuck’ song with the umbrella, that was great.”

[peppergnocchi]

URGENT!!!

Please help a disabled NB artist provide for their cats and be able to survive while unemployed!!!

Hey, my name is Ari! I'm a disabled NB artist who's desperately looking for help! Currently, as I have been fighting to get disability benefits in light of recent health troubles (Awful joint issues, extreme fatigue, spinal straightening that makes me dizzy when bending, extreme vitamin deficiencies, and mental health issues including autism), I haven't been able to secure a job. Since November I've been trying every day to apply to different places, but despite any skills I may have, I either never hear back from employers, get interviewed and then ghosted, or am told that they went with another candidate. Here's one of my cervical X-rays showing the straightening in my spine, which causes coathanger pain, the aforementioned dizziness, near fainting when standing up after being bent for short periods of time, and all over body misalignment/pain:

I also have two lovely cats (and other small miscellaneous animals) who need food, supplies, and care that I can't afford. Here's some pictures!:

With this being said, I put together a GoFundMe! I wouldn't make one unless I was desperate, but I honestly am at this point in time. Alongside the other health issues I face, I also need to get to a rheumatologist to determine if I have an autoimmune disease/infection, since I tested positive for ANA.

If you can donate, I very deeply appreciate it! If not, it's alright. Please just share if you can to boost, since I'm hoping to be able to make at least $150 by the end of next week to be able to pay my phone bill!

Any donations over $5 will receive a free small commission!!

Here's the link!:

Thank you so much for your time and help!

-Ari

[zahri-melitor]

Gosh it’s hilarious when artists are like “I can draw that!” and don’t bother to use their reference photo properly.

There’s something…missing…from that picture.

Something that should be taking up over 50% of that view to be at that angle.

I can’t quite put my finger on it…

Oh. Wait.

YOU LEFT OUT THE BRIDGE. To manage to have the exact view you’re using there you’d probably be just above Luna Park in Milsons Point. The angle on the Opera House sails is too side on to be from the same side of Kirribilli with the Bridge behind you.

And thanks Google, this was shot in 2009, so the city skyline around Circular Quay looks more accurate than the pics on my phone.

Anyway this boardroom is apparently on board a giant yacht directly IN Sydney Harbour because otherwise that giant coathanger would be obstructing half the view.

[vonlipvig]

ok taking a look at some of the screenshots we got in the steam page and oh boy

-we've got some new characters: holly, and a fancy looking guy (for one second i thought he was a ghost, don't even ask me why lmao). guessing that's patrick on the shot with them, so is this the ghost hunting broadcast team?

-i wonder if that's graham on the live screen...maybe an old ad or recording of some sort?

-new buttons on the board, with the icons for lights, a saw, a coathanger, and some weights. also, interference board is gone and we have... whatever the hell that new thing is, spooky!

-it doesn't seem like you can pick the ads, but this is what appears to be ye olde ad machine here:

which kinda does look like you can fit three rolls of film. but can you pick? maybe you can't and you have to remember to switch to the correct one.

-more pictures showing some locations:

they really do seem to be ghosthunting in this abandoned studio, huh. oh man, i know it's literally called "live & spooky" but i'm such a coward with horror games i'm gonna CRY.

-oh, also, the DLC on steam has the "gore" and "violence" tags, so make of that what you will. ohhhhhh boy.

[letrune]

We deposed the fascist tyrant a dozen years back in a bloody revolution. The now democratic country had a lot of problems. Oh so many new factions sprung up, and all of them implemented an idiot in my new parliament. I stepped down after installing the democratic institutions and decided to do the boring paperwork that actually ran the country.

They also sent spies in there. They all knew I am too big and too powerful, thanks to some... powers. But that is not of any import. I want my home country to be a good place to live in.

There are a lot of spies in this administration. They want to know if I do implement the idea or if I shift votes or cheat. I never cheated for anyone. The worst I did was digging up the dirt of horrible people and conviniently release it before their campaign got powerful, crashing them.

But... There was one man I could not even think of stopping. Marax Rekliff. He was an academical from the neighbouring country, logistics, mathematics, sociology, a bit of psychology. Had a brief stunt as an anarchist during university, but eventually, he stopped politics and became, as they say, a boring man.

Bur I do know he works for the Union, a neighbouring country. The Gray Eminence (me) is to be spied on, and to be subject to every trickery known to mankind. To see if she really is what she says she is. To see if she does what she said she will.

I got to say, I am happy for Marax. He was about 20 when he got the job. Was a kid when the fascists were deposed, if I recall well.

Now, he is 40. Still a sharp mind. When I struggled to make sure the trains can deliver food where they must, and toiled away for a week on the plans, he shown up with multiple ideas. Nobody else did.

When the last election felt like a powderkeg, I collected all options, but I failed to see any way to do it without blood. My Marax... He offered to fabricate some dirt on one of the horrid people. Turns out, he did not fabricated a thing, he just tricked him.

It's a shame he works for the Union. They can't accept my home country switching leaders every five years or less, but with Marax at the administration chair, they are at peace. My country had one or two murders and fifty robberies last year, thanks to his logistical plans. I struggled to get it lower, and he just had this amazing budget plan that made sure our land is a land of peace and tourism.

He even rooted out some spies in the administration who did a bad job or wanted us to have more survelliance or less freedoms.

And Marax only have to send a coded report every three months. I know exactly how, but, man... This man is born to be an administrator.

I wish I could promote him in my job, but then he has nobody to spy on!

Sometimes I drop him a little extra as a bonus. A forgotten plan of a superweapon I saw on TV. A microfilm that, between my vacation pictures and cat images, has me talking to a shady looking guy (actually a coathanger and some shadows). A huge plan of highway expansions with railway lines and scribbled on secret messages that can mean a lot. I even left him a note in some cookies I delivered once, i think I wrote "you will be notified of great events. Follow the Gray Eminence. Don't allow her to build the dam. Take care." Or something. I forgot.

Marax Rekliff is the spine of this entire administration. Without him, the parliament would collapse in three weeks.

....Darn, I think I have fallen in love with him a few times. But I can't let such distract me. I got my work to do.

Your chief administrator is a spy and a traitor. You have known this for years. You’d also hate to get rid of him. To rise in the ranks and work his way closer to you, he has proven to be the most effective administrator you’ve ever had. A vast improvement on the loyal idiot he replaced.

[toetappinsilence]

favorite recent meme has to be "how will i accomplish some random task?" and then a picture of a fucked up dog or cat and they label it as "the [adjective] [relevant noun]"

like "how will i hang up these 50 coats?" "the virtuous coathanger:" (pic of a cat in a weird pose that kinda looks line a coathanger)

just tip tier really good stuff

[djshannonigans]

Radio Clash on Newtown Radio, 8.26.24

Hosted by DJ Shannonigans

Beck - "Where It's At"

Mavis Staples - "Worthy"

Charles Bradley, Bullets - "Ain't It A Sin"

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - "Don't Give A Friend A Number"

The Meters - "Cissy Strut"

Ray Charles - "Hit The Road Jack"

Carl Carlton - "She's A Bad Mama Jama"

Florence + the Machine - "Dog Days Are Over"

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Y Control"

Jack White - "Old Scratch Blues"

The Mystery Lights - "Mighty Fine & All Mine"

The Coathangers - "Follow Me"

The Bug Club - "Lonsdale Slippers"

Wishy - "Sick Sweet"

Pink Breath of Heaven - "The Wind Is Calling"

Wild Pink - "Sprinter Brain"

Ducks Ltd. - "Train Full of Gasoline"

Quivers - "Pink Smoke"

New Order - "Bizarre Love Triangle"

Curses - "Another Heaven"

Skelseys, Curses - "Picture In My Mind"

Tr/st - "All At Once"

Mr. Toe - "You're Such A Weirdo"

The Belair Lip Bombs - "Say My Name"

Lesley Gore - "You Don't Own Me"

Loretta Lynn - "The Pill"

Dolly Parton - "Light of a Clear Blue Morning"

The Smile - "Pana-vision (live at Montreux Jazz Festival)"

[jasperlovesstarss]

Friend sent me this picture so I made it into some RF!Wally (Walden) x RF!Candy (Candilyn) art :p

(Ps: he chose the coathanger)

RF au belongs to: @/KatelynDeuce on Twitter and TikTok(?)

[squiddleknitted]

[ID: The title of the page is, "The Art of Adapting." It then says, "How older people "hack" household devices to make them easier to use." There are then several pictures with captions.

One: Soap in a stocking. A sensible soution to handling soap in the shower, according to Dr Hougan. You can use the soap through the stocking, and if you "drop" it, the bar is stil within reach, not on the shower floor. The image shows a bar of soap in the end of a stocking. The stocking is tied to a metal bar at the top, letting the soap hang.

Two: Sponge/Foam tubes can make doorknobs, silverware, and toothbrushes easier to grip. The image shows a fork and spoon, both with a foam tube around the handle like a pencil-grip.

Three: Clip-on napkin holder. Small alligator clips connected can be used to attach napkins to clothing, a more elegant soution than tucking the napkin into a shirt and less humiliating than using a bib. The image shows a person wearing a napkin like a bib. Two alligator clips connected by a thread wrap behind the neck and clip to the top of a napkin over the person's chest.

Four: Silicone rubber bumps with adhesive backs. Out on appliances, cellphones and keyboards to help people see and feel what buttons they need to press. The image shows a older-style phone with buttons and a small screen, as opposed to a smartphone. One of the main buttons has a little silicone nub stuck to it.

Five: Sugru. This moldable rubbery substance can make materials easier to turn, grab and carry, like the tops of jars and pill bottles. The image shows a pill bottle with a lump of clay on top of the lid.

Six: Straw holder. Simply use a clothespin to keep the straw from moving around in the glass. The image shows a mug with a straw in it. A peg is attached to the edge of the mug, with a metal spring glued to the side. The straw is threaded through the metal spring to be held in place.

Seven: Clothes hangers. These household staples have a variety of off-label uses, including holding cookbooks in the kitchen. The image shows a coathanger with clips, typically used for trousers, instead holding a book open. It is hung off the handle of a cupboard to hold the book up.

Eight: Shelf liners. These inexpensive materials can be used as nonslip seating. The image shows a chair with a liner covering the back and seat.

Nine: Gadgetry. For the technologically savvy, a little customizing can go a long way. Like making remote controls easier to use by taking off unneeded buttons, or removing the "delete" button from devices like cameras and picture viewers. In another example, one person repurposed a motion detector to monitor the movement of a spouse with dementia. The image shows an electronic device with a screen and three buttons. One button is crossed out.

The end of the page says, "Illustrations by David Preiss." End ID]

I came across this article in the wall street journal and thought it might be helpful for some of my fellow spoonies

[talopeiros]

Learning to Smelt - 2

Part 2! The main goal of my second smelt was to A: Figure out how the sand casting worked B: Try mixing copper and aluminium together to make Aluminium bronze! TLDR: Here was how it went down:

Now into the details! The whole reason I got into smelting was to cast metal into cool items and the like, and to do that I needed a casting flask and some casting sand. All a casting flask is is a wooden or metal box that comes in two sections that you can pack sand and your design into. You want to be able to clasp the box shut so that the heat and pressure of the liquid metal doesn't cause it to pop off. Part of the reason the box in the vid burst into flames at the mid point is because we only clamped down one side of the box, thinking it would be enough (IT WASN'T) For the casting sand we made a mix of bentonyte (bentonite?) clay and yellow bricklayers sand in a volume ratio of 2:8. A lot of other casting vids and forums suggest a similar combination. Bentonyte clay is super fine so use a mask when handling it. With the sand part, you can't use regular sand since the grain shape of that does not lock together too well and will fall out of the vessel really easily (trust me I tried and it was impossible to hold anything in it). Once it's been mixed, you then need to put in 2 or 4 stroke motor oil into it and mix it thoroughly. Don't really have any specific measurements/amounts but what you're going for is to use a little oil as possible for it to be "wet" all throughout. Best way to test is to mix in a bit of oil, clasp a chunk of the sand mix in your hand and, if it can hold its shape, you're good. otherwise, MOAR OYLE

Now a quick heads up, the sand mix we used didn't work so well. best volume mix of sand-clay we used (which I'll go into a bit in the next post) was 6 sand for 4 clay.

Once you have your template, sand and flask, you start loading up the sand into the flask, and packing it in as tightly as possible. If it's not, then there's a chance that some of the sand could fall into the gaps and cause the design to be a bit scuffed.

Once you get to the halfway point of your flask (i.e. 1 of the two sections, the second section should not be on top yet) you press your design into the sand and keep it in there. Once you're satisfied it's evenly at the halfway point, get some talcolm powder or some other separating powder and coat your design/exposed sand in it, using a brush to spread it evenly (YOU NEED TO DO THIS IF YOU DON'T WHEN YOU TRY AND REMOVE THE DESIGN IT WILL NOT SPLIT AT THE HALFWAY POINT EVENLY)

After that, lock your top half on (with the design still in there) and start filling in the sand and really packing it in there as best you can. Once you're done you simply separate the 2 halves and voila! You have your negative space for the metal to FLOW LIKE FINE WINE. (Also sorry I didn't have many pictures in my second smelt, probs should've taken more photos over this part) Of course for it to flow (like fine wine) you need to then carve channels into the sand so you can pour it in in the first place. You NEED to take special care when carving because, even if the sand is packed in tightly, too much force may dislodge the whole thing. You'll need either a drill or a sharpened section of pipe to allow you to make a hole in the top piece for the fluid to flow. Make sure it's large enough for the metal to pour. You also need to make one (or more) vent holes. These holes you aren't pouring down there but they need to be there to make sure there's a place for the gases to vent out. Probably a sharp piece of wire coathanger would be best for these (and of course make sure they connect to your design.

Speaking of your design, you never want to pour directly onto it! Make sure your pouring hole if off to the side a bit with a channel that leads into the main design. This is mainly so you don't damage if from the inital collision of the liquid metal onto the sand.

In the end, you should have something that looks like this! (Hopefully better than it though since again, this one did NOT go according to plan)

There were a couple of reasons this one didn't go well.

The sand composition. 2 Clay for 8 sand was not a good ratio, it needed more clay

More talcom powder as a separation layer. You can't see it but that middle layer was very uneven since some parts of the top layer fused to the bottom layer and it was a whole thing)

The end result of the above pour was this! Another attempt at the channel emblem:

Yeah not too good, looks like really bad aluminium bronze. Plus there are a few holes in it, where I'm guessing the mold began to break down while the sand was burning.

Another reason this one didn't work too well! We used almost exactly the amount we needed! Because we didn't put too much in the crucible, I believe that too many impurities got poured out with the molten metal which caused it to look like a mess. Still, not too shabby! And I can certainly say the next one went a lot more smoothly too! On a side note, make sure if you want to do this that you don't have a crazy uncle nearby. After we had poured out the aluminium bronze, he wanted to "take advantage" of the hot crucible/smelter and put some scrap brass he had into it. Certainly sounds like a good idea if you like efficiency, but of course mixing metals you don't want to mix is a very bad idea. When poured, the brass ended up looking really bad since it was mixed with the leftover aluminium bronze already in the crucible and also I could not use the bronze crucible again until I filed out all the traces of brass I could find. More to come!

[nothingofvaluewaslost]

STORY: Don't Feed the Birds

A short, dark science fiction story. What happens when your words come back to you, on the one day you can't afford it?

If you enjoyed it, feel free to visit my Patreon.

Don't Feed the Birds, by Christina Nordlander

The morning of my wedding, the sky was clear, a plane of burning blue. My evening suit hung out on a coathanger over the closet door. Jamis, already in his suit, popped into my room to borrow the blow-dryer, and we sat on my bed joking about the ceremony and the reception, about the most far-fetched things that would go wrong. At one point he poked me in the shirt above the waistband and said:

“Looks like you’ve got a bit of extra stuffing there, Seb.”

But it was mainly nostalgia, a rerun of all the old sibling jabs we might miss after today.

The church was less than a kilometre from our terraced housing estate, but Tiffy’s parents had rented a limo for my family and me. It was my first time riding in anything so luxurious. The stuffy air in the carriage was bitter with old leather upholstery, and the whole arrangement of details made you want to light a cigarette, even if you didn’t smoke. You couldn’t see the sky from in there. You could look out the windows, or a little bit through the windscreen, but lush leafage stretched in arches above all roads. That refined and drugged air was starting to make me dizzy, nauseous. There was no prison like one of these cars: the gratitude stopped you from getting out and running.

If I’d asked them to stop, let them believe I was getting motion-sick, the chauffeur would certainly have done it. It would have cost more time, and if they came, there was nothing I could do.

Out in the blazing car park, along the raked gravel path up to the church doors, tarred and with tousled sprays of lilac on both sides. I glanced upwards once, but the drapery of leafage was so dense, I wouldn’t have seen anything.

Tiffy’s mum had arranged a fairytale wedding: the chancel stuffed with white roses, an angelic choir of eleven-year-old girls. The thought of the cost made me light-headed. When I’d spoken to Tiffy, she’d laughed and said, “They’re burning my inheritance on it, we’re gonna end up on the street.”

We were inside the porch, shady and chilly between heavy stone walls. I felt dizzy and fever-warm like from sunstroke, but the morning had been cool. This was where I met Tiffy, her dark hair put up in curls, body encased in the slim bodice of her wedding-gown. The ivory skirt bloomed out to its full width and would float over the flagstones when we walked, half-a-step, and wait, and half-a-step, like the vicar had drilled us.

“You look like you’ve never seen me before, Seb,” she said with a pointy smile.

We waited, arm in arm, outside the bustle of a packed church, until the wedding march struck up inside and the warden pushed open the doors.

I don’t remember the first third of the walk. It was a unique phase of my life, and it felt like I might still be dreaming. I didn’t want to stare in every direction like a curious child. The aisle was a tunnel enclosed by a grey haze.

I didn’t see the bird until it was two steps away. It had perched on one of the pew doors on the left, wood painted grey with blue trim. In my memory, I picture them as flea-bitten and moulted, but they’re always bright and new when you see them: fitted in silicone sleeves, no dust particles get into the system, an estimated effective life of eighty years. It was sitting so it could see me, with an eye that was a little sensor under glass.

I didn’t try to swat it. If I’d thought it would help, I would have, but I wouldn’t be the first to try. You’d probably be able to beat them to scrap with a baseball bat, at least enough to silence them, but we’re not fast enough to surprise even an organic bird. As we proceeded, I came up with impossible plans: toss my black jacket over it, prevent it from seeing me. It would have been less possible than smashing it up. I was the groom; there was no-one in the pews who didn’t have their eyes on us. Still, I might have tried, if I’d had a chance.

A moment later it had flapped onto a many-armed wrought-iron chandelier, and there was no way to reach it. A guest whose name I didn’t know ducked in its trajectory, the draft of its wings wafting her blond hair across her eyes.

I’d frozen in the aisle. Tiffy had to squeeze my arm to get me to move.

My hope of making it through the ceremony without birds was gone, but I could still hope that it wouldn’t say anything. That was what I had left, hoping, praying. I didn’t think about the fact that we’d have to stay for at least a short sermon – hymns, “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” I managed to convince myself that it was just a case of getting through the marriage act and our vows. I calculated the maximum number of minutes it might take.

We passed below the unlit chandelier. I couldn’t see it any longer without craning my head back. I did anyway. The wrought-iron arms blended into it, so that it was possible to imagine that there wasn’t anything there. An artificial tree and an artificial bird.

“Most females have had like twenty to thirty dicks before they hit fifteen, anyway.”

It didn’t sound quite like my voice, but they never do. Tiffy and Jamis and my in-laws would recognise the voice, they were used to hearing it from outside. The church vault amplified it.

I marched onward. I’d stopped praying: now I focused on getting to the altar rail and getting it done. I fixed my gaze on the embroidered cross on the white altar-cloth as if it wouldn’t be able to speak until I stopped focusing. (As if no harm would be done until it spoke again.)

I couldn’t bring myself to look at Tiffy’s profile, but in my memory, she looks like she’s about to cry.

The organ had fallen silent and the floating wordless choir had fallen silent. There was nothing for the bird to drown out other than a concerned muttering.

“It’s just woke feminists who whine about rape all the time, after all. Men would rather die than just lie down and let someone subject us to something like that. I mean, little boys are too weak, but a grown man would fight back.”

It was a long post, we were almost at the altar rail with its flat embroidered cushions when finished. The clergyman stood stiff. He let the ceremony proceed as if one of us had dropped something. I was a little outside myself, I hovered next to Seb’s dark-haired head in the liquor scent of my aftershave and almost wanted to hear more, to see it tear down more of me. I wanted to see what would be left.

I only remember snippets of the ceremony. The things the bird said are clearer. Tiffy didn’t run out on me, nothing so dramatic.

We’ve hugged since then, and had sex. When she looks at me, she has an expression that I never saw while we were dating. If I talk to her, I don’t know what it might lead to.

Yes, it was all my words. Not even those who hate them the most are able to show proof that the birds twist what we say. If I could have made myself believe it, I would have. That would mean it wasn’t me.

I could say that I’ve matured, that I wouldn’t say those things again, but I don’t know if it’s true.

I want to have a conscience again.

THE END

[oliviamartinphotography]

David Cook

David Cook is an NZ photographer. A lot of his work focuses on capturing people in their environment. I particularly loved his work Meet Me In The Square from the 80’s in Christchurch which he recovered after the 2011 earthquake. It provides such interesting snapshots into society at the time from punk fashion and rebellion against the status quo to an empty stadium full of beer cans, illustrating NZ drinking culture, university graduates, schoolboys learning to shoot a gun, a nun, a girl riding a bike. The black and white photos allow us to focus on the scene and leave colour to our imagination. I think black and white also creates a feeling of something in the past like a memory or something you haven’t experienced. His work Bledisloe & Jelicoe from 90’s Hamilton is also really interesting. It shows the average life at that time through images at parties, interiors and people on the river. I love the way that he portrays seemingly mundane settings in such a special way. He captures people being people which is the beauty of it. My favourite photos in particular of his:

Lady on the phone - I think this image has a strong composition uses aspects of the golden spiral. The woman on the phone in the foreground is lit by the lighting coming from the room she's in. The lighting is warm which gives a homely feel and the woman's face clearly shows she's having a good conversation. The doorframe and phone wire beautifully frames a woman and the living room beyond where there are a few more ladies sitting around a red table. This image creates a sense of community and friendship.

Man standing in stadium - I think this image is interesting as the man is situated in a stadium after an event. He's the only figure we can clearly see but there are some figures that are pictured far in the background. There are beer cans littered everywhere which creates an interesting scene as well as the lines of the steps that lead to the man in the foreground.

River through the window - I love this photo as it captures both the interior and exterior. The framing of the river and trees through the window frame is beautiful and contrasts the more dark interior. The edges of the room create leading lines into the frame. We can see a coathanger and shower curtain so we can assume this is the bathroom. The window is split into 2 frames which divides the river in the bottom half from the bush above. I like the tranquility of this image - no people.

[beatrice-otter]

[image description: picture of a crow flying with a wire coathanger in its beak. /end id]

The opposite of the stork