GWARbar
GWAR Restaurant Will Feature ‘Gourmet Junk Food’
Legendary costumed metal band solicits fan support on Indiegogo
WRITTEN BY Chris Martins
Heavy metal monsters GWAR suffered a major setback in March when frontman Dave Brockie, a.k.a. Oderus Orungus, died unexpectedly at the age of 50. Now they aim to move forward once again, while honoring their fallen leader, with help from their fans. As it turns out, Brockie had a dream to open up his very own restaurant in the band’s hometown of Richmond, Virginia, and his pals are now using Indiegogo to fun the so-called GWARbar.
“We have found the perfect building in Richmond’s historic Jackson Ward, but we need your help to transform it into a fantasy land of food and beverage that we know it can be,” they write. “We need a budget to update almost every surface on the interior and exterior of the building, including bars, floors, walls, ceilings and bathrooms. The money we raise on Indiegogo will also be used to help us renovate the kitchen and purchase all the equipment we will need to bring Derks’ vision of ‘gourmet junk food’ to life. We will be building a smoke house to create our world famous GWAR-B-Q. We need a GWAR sized meat grinder to make creative new takes on hot dogs and freshly ground hamburgers.”
Maya Angelou Gone
Maya Angelou: A Hymn to Human Endurance
Remembering a life of relentless creativity.
When Maya Angelou was 16 she became not only the first black streetcar conductor in San Francisco but the first woman conductor. By the time she was 40 she had also been, in no particular order, a cook, a waitress, a madam, a prostitute, a dancer, an actress, a playwright, an editor at an English-language newspaper in Egypt, and a Calypso singer (her one album is entitled “Miss Calypso.”) It wasn’t until 1970, when she was 41, that she became an author: her first book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, told the story of her life up to the age of 17. That remarkable life story ended today at the age of 86.
In her last years Angelou’s work became associated with a certain easy, commercial sentimentality—she loaned her name to a line of Hallmark cards, for example—but there was nothing easy about her beginnings. She was born Marguerite Johnson in 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri. Her parents divorced when she was 3. When she was 7 her mother’s boyfriend raped her. She testified against him in court, but before he could be sentenced he was found beaten to death in an alley. Angelou’s response to the trauma was to become virtually mute – she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, speak in public for the next 5 years. She often cited this silent period as a time when she became intimately aware of the written word.
Angelou eventually regained her voice, but her life remained chaotic. She became a mother at 17, immediately after graduating high school. She bounced from city to city, job to job and spouse to spouse (she picked up the name Angelou from one of her husbands; “Maya” was her brother’s nickname for her). She spent years living in Egypt and then in Ghana. By the time she was 40 her life story and her distinctive, charismatic way with words had her friends—among them James Baldwin—begging her to write it all down. She finally did.
In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Angelou describes herself as “a too-big Negro girl, with nappy black hair, broad feet and a space between her teeth that would hold a number-two pencil.” Although generations of high school students have been assigned it, the book’s unsparing account of black life in the South during the Depression, and of her sexual abuse, is not easy reading. It is Angelou’s tough, funny, lyrical voice that transforms her story from a litany of isolation and suffering into a hymn of glorious human endurance. That extraordinary voice—dense, idiosyncratic, hilarious, alive—brought novelistic techniques to the task of telling a life story, and its influence on later generations of memoirists, from Maxine Hong Kingston to Elizabeth Gilbert, is incalculable. (Angelou also mixed fact and fiction, unapologetically, long before James Frey.) The themes she expounded in Caged Bird, of suffering and self-reliance, would be braided through the rest of her long life’s work. “All my work, my life, everything is about survival,” Angelou said. “All my work is meant to say, ‘You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated.’ In fact, the encountering may be the very experience which creates the vitality and the power to endure.”
When Boogers Just Won’t Do
Norwegian Performance Artist Eats His Own Hip
A Norwegian artist named Alexander Selvik Wengshoel has kicked his art career into high gear with a stunt that’s equal parts Chris Burden and Hannibal Lecter: He claims he ate his own hip. Born with a deformed hip that kept him in a wheelchair despite several surgical interventions, Wengshoel finally underwent a successful operation at age 21, which involved replacing his hip. Following the surgery, the performance artist, who is now 25, said he took the detached bone bit home, boiled it, and ate the meat along with a glass of wine and potato gratin, the Independent reports.
“When I got home, I sat in my living room and suddenly I had a whim that I should cook the meat,” Wengshoel told Norway’s The Local. “I resolved to have this nice moment, with me and my hip bone. . . . It’s not every day I will have a piece of human flesh which is mine and which is possible to eat. So I had a little taste and then I thought, ‘That’s really nice.’”
Shocking though this act of self-cannibalism may seem, Wengshoel says his meat actually tasted quite good, even a little exotic. “It had this flavor of wild sheep,” he told The Local, “if you take a sheep that goes in the mountains and eats mushrooms.”
This Is Terrible.
Family Finds Out Daughter Died In California Mass Shooting After Activating iPhone Tracking App
A woman places flowers on the lawn of the Alpha Phi sorority house on May 25, 2014 in Isla Vista, Calif. (credit: David McNew/Getty Images)
SEATTLE (CBS Seattle/AP) — A Seattle family found out that their 19-year-old daughter died in the California mass shooting after activating a phone tracking app.
Bob Weiss, father of University of California, Santa Barbara freshman Veronika Weiss, realized their daughter was at the crime scene after activating an iPhone tracking app in an effort to find her after the shooting.
“We got to the border of the crime scene and we turned it on again,” Weiss told KING-TV. “We could actually see the phone moving which we assume was Veronika’s body being moved to the coroner’s truck.”
Memorial Day by artnet
Your Memorial Day Weekend in 12 Artworks
Leo Villareal, Flag (2010).
Morgan Freeman On Helium
The Revolutions Will Be Televised
Arby’s Is Airing 13 Straight Hours of Smoked Brisket on Television
Forget the Yule Log. How would you like to see 13-straight hours of meat on film? If that sounds up your alley, then Arby’s has you covered, thanks to a TV ad it will be airing this weekend to promote a new sandwich mounded with brisket cooked for—you guessed it—13 hours. The New York Times reports that the commercial is free of talking and consists of a single take of the brisket cooking away through the glass window of a smoker.
Arby’s has arranged for the commercial to air on a single television station in Duluth, Minnesota. The action starts at 1 p.m. Central time on Saturday and ends at 2 a.m. on Sunday with an Arby’s exec removing the brisket from its smoker and slicing the meat for a sandwich. It will also play in a one-time livestream of the event from 9 a.m. until 10 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday. The takeaway is that if you live in Duluth and come home drunk and hungry on Saturday night, you’ll have a big hunk of meat to stare at.
ENDGAME: Million Dollar Cover
Million dollar cover reveal for James Frey’s new Endgame series
Newsflash: Readers around the world are given the chance to win a million dollars in gold by solving the clues of a super-puzzle!
by Amber Segal
Emblazoned… Endgame: The Calling by James Frey. Photograph: HarperCollins
The first novel in James Frey’s Endgame series, The Calling, is set for release in 36 countries on 7 October 2014, and today publishers HarperCollins have revealed its golden cover. But there’s more!
As a surreal real-life tie-in, readers across the globe can solve clues both within the book and in the outside world to be in with a chance of winning the extraordinary prize this cover represents. Very mysterious! The prize, a million dollars in gold, is going to be displayed in a soon-to-be-revealed public location…
No more steering with your knee while texting.
California Will Start Granting Licenses For Driverless Cars In September
by Greg Kumparak (@grg)
You need a license to drive a car. But does a robot?
For now, yes.
Come September, the California Department of Motor Vehicles will begin granting licenses to select driverless cars and their human co-pilots, which will make it a bit less legally iffy as to whether or not they’re actually allowed to be on a public road.
The good news: The license will only cost $150 a pop, and that covers 10 vehicles and up to 20 test drivers.
The bad (but probably actually good) news: You probably can’t get one, so don’t go trying to make your own Googlecar just yet.
The terms of the license are (as you might hope, in these early days) pretty strict.
Bulls On Parade
Madrid matadors gored by bulls at festival launch
Matador Antonio Nazare was the second matador to be wounded at the San Isidro festival launch
A major event in Madrid’s bullfighting season had to be cancelled after all three matadors were gored by bulls.
David Mora suffered the worst injuries, as one of the animals rammed its horn into his leg and tossed him into the air at the Las Ventas bullring.
He was said to be in a serious but no longer life-threatening condition.
The organisers of the prestigious San Isidro festival said it was the first time in 35 years that the event had had to be suspended.
About 2,000 bullfights are still held every year in Spain, but the numbers are falling. In 2010, Catalonia became the second Spanish region after the Canary Islands to ban the tradition.
Opponents describe the blood-soaked pageants as barbaric, while fans – including Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy – say the tradition is an ancient art form deeply rooted in national history.
‘Horrific, shocking, chilling’Mr Mora, who opened the programme, fell to the ground after being knocked over by a 532kg (1,172lb) bull.
A shocked crowd watched in horror as he was gored and thrown through the air. Mr Mora sustained a large gash in his thigh and another in his armpit, bullring officials said.
Say It Isn’t So….
Plagiarism Controversy Behind Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway” Resurfaces
By Shawn Christ
For 43 years, “Stairway to Heaven” has been the most popular song in the Led Zeppelin catalog, capturing listeners from Jimmy Pages’ first glimmering notes to Robert Plant’s fading vocals.
However, Bloomberg Businessweek reported last week that legal action has been taken to block the release of the band’s Led Zeppelin IV reissue because of a plagiarism conflict with the song’s famous intro, which can be heard at any time by stepping into a Guitar Center of your choice nationwide. Attorney Francis Alexander Molofiy is representing deceased guitarist Randy California, who played with the band Spirit) and claimed before his death in 1997 that the beginning of “Stairway to Heaven” was lifted from his band’s 1968 song “Taurus.”
The similarities in the songs become evident right around the 1:38 mark in the video above.
Très Cool Kitchen Slide Rule
Hang This In Your Kitchen. Seriously, This Idea Is Genius.
Credit: sblattindesign
Buzz Books: Young Adult
BEA In A Book, Featuring The Best of YA!
Available for free download now for Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Apple’s iBookstore, the Google Play Books store, and Kobo.
This inaugural edition of Buzz Books: Young Adult provides substantial pre-publication excerpts from more than 20 forthcoming young adult and middle grade books. You now have access to the newest YA voices the publishing industry is broadcasting for the fall/winter season—for free to read on Kindle, Nook, iBooks, Google Play, Kobo and more.
Excerpts you can read right now include new work from established giants of the field (Ellen Hopkins; Garth Nix; Scott Westerfeld), authors best-known for their adult books (Carl Hiaasen; Michael Perry; Ben Tripp; Meg Wolitzer), and genuine newsmakers—including the first of James Frey’s attention-getting Endgame trilogy, which will include interactive elements developed in association with Google’s Niantic Labs.
“A variety of scenes that reference gory, abusive and misogynistic violence” (or, Pre-censorship is so cool!)
Warning: The Literary Canon Could Make Students Squirm
A sophomore at the university, Bailey Loverin, and others have formally called for “trigger warnings” on class syllabuses that would flag potentially traumatic subject matter. CreditMonica Almeida/The New York Times
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — Should students about to read “The Great Gatsby” be forewarned about “a variety of scenes that reference gory, abusive and misogynistic violence,” as one Rutgers student proposed? Would any book that addresses racism — like “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” or “Things Fall Apart” — have to be preceded by a note of caution? Do sexual images from Greek mythology need to come with a viewer-beware label?
Colleges across the country this spring have been wrestling with student requests for what are known as “trigger warnings,” explicit alerts that the material they are about to read or see in a classroom might upset them or, as some students assert, cause symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in victims of rape or in war veterans.
The warnings, which have their ideological roots in feminist thought, have gained the most traction at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where the student government formally called for them. But there have been similar requests from students at Oberlin College, Rutgers University, the University of Michigan, George Washington University and other schools.
The debate has left many academics fuming, saying that professors should be trusted to use common sense and that being provocative is part of their mandate. Trigger warnings, they say, suggest a certain fragility of mind that higher learning is meant to challenge, not embrace. The warnings have been widely debated in intellectual circles and largely criticized in opinion magazines, newspaper editorials and academic email lists.
This is a vast alien communication network
Are these mystery radio bursts messages from ALIENS? Freak frequency from outside the Milky Way baffles astronomers
In 1967 British astronomer Jocelyn Bell Burnell was left stunned by mysterious pulsing signals she detected coming from outside the solar system.
For months she suggested the signals could be of an extraterrestrial intelligent origin, but they were later proven to be rapidly spinning stars known as pulsars.
However, a new series of mysterious signals, known as Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs), has again got astronomers scratching their heads and wondering if, maybe, we’re picking up alien messages.
FRBs are radio emissions that appear temporarily and randomly, making them not only hard to find, but also hard to study.
The mystery stems from the fact it is not known what could produce such a short and sharp burst.
This has led some to speculate they could be anything from stars colliding to artificially created messages.
Little Shaq (from Shaq and Full Fathom Five Woo-hoo!)
Shaq to publish a children’s book series
Courtesy USA Today
Shaquille O’Neal can add a new title to his LinkedIn profile: “Children’s book author.”
The retired basketball player will author a new series of books called Little Shaq for early readers. It will be based on O’Neal’s childhood and feature a series of adventures of a young Shaq and his cousin Barry.
“I am excited to be working with Bloomsbury on this project that will reach young, independent readers,” O’Neal said in a statement. “Education is a cause that is very important to me and I love that this series will combine reading with my love of basketball. It’s a slam dunk for literacy!”
The first book is scheduled to be published in 2015.
Mandatory Penis Inspections Demanded By School District
4 high school senior pranks that went wild
You’d think that after more than a dozen years in school, high school seniors would know what will get them into trouble and what won’t, but apparently some don’t. It’s senior prank season, and while some have been innocuous, others have led to arrests and suspensions, with one school seeing nearly 20 percent of the senior class picked up by police.
Traditional senior pranks are harmless, and include activities such as making prank phony school announcements, putting desks and chairs outside, and putting alarm clocks in the ceiling to go off at different times.
And then there was a senior prank in San Francisco, where somebody posted phony inspection notices in the hallways that said that school district authorities required “mandatory penis inspections on all male students, faculty, and staff at Lowell High School,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle. A statement that the newspaper said was issued by the district reported that Lowell adminstrators are “regarding this incident as a senior prank, and the infractions will be addressed according to school and district policies.”
H.R. Giger Gone
Sci-Fi Artist H.R. Giger Has Died
Swiss artist H.R. Giger has died. According to reports in the Swiss press, Giger died of injuries after he suffered after sustaining a fall. He was 74 years old.
The surrealist artist was known for his work which explored the fusion between man and machine. He was best known for designing the sets of the film Alien. Giger was both the author and subject of many books. Giger published his first bookNecronomicon in 1977. Taschen published a comprehensive study of the artist’s work in a book in 2007.
Giger built his own museum in Gruyere, Switzerland which featured many of his sculptures and paintings. Here is more about the site from The Morpheus Gallery’s bio page of the artist.
Tort Tort Godzilla!
from The San Jose Mercury News
Protecting Godzilla: Even giant monsters need lawyers
LOS ANGELES — He spews radioactive fire, razes cities and pummels creatures from Earth and beyond, but even Godzilla needs a good lawyer sometimes. After all, you don’t survive 60 years in the movie business without taking some fights to court.
For decades, attorneys acting on behalf of Godzilla’s owners, Tokyo-based Toho Co. Ltd., have amassed a string of victories, fighting counterfeiters and business titans such as Comcast and Honda along the way. The opponents have come from all corners of pop culture: TV commercials, video games, rap music and even the liquor industry.
The litigation has kept Godzilla’s brand thriving and helped pave the way for commercial and merchandising tie-ins that will accompany the monster’s return to the big screen on Friday after a 10 year hiatus. Godzilla’s image is for sale, but permission is needed.
Toho’s attorneys use copyright and trademark law as effectively as Godzilla uses his tail and claws to topple buildings and swat opponents. Their court injunctions have permanently whacked music, books and movies from store shelves.