Silhouette Masterpiece Theatre

In his Silhouette Masterpiece Theatre Wilhelm Staehle places silhouettes over Victorian paintings, and adds a subversive caption. Two of my favorites below.

Underwater Sculpture

Jason deCaires Taylor has received international acclaim for his sculpture park in Grenada, West Indies. Though to view it, it helps to be a diver, because it's underwater.

I think it's a swell idea. If I'm ever in Grenada, I'll make sure to sea it.

George W. Flush

In honor of election day: the George W. Flush urinal, created by urinal artist Clark Sorensen:

Chewing Gum Sculptor

I recently met a woman who could tie a knot in the stem of a maraschino cherry with her tongue. I thought that was pretty impressive. But what this Romanian chewing gum sculptor can do is even more impressive.

First WEIRD UNIVERSE Contest!!!

Welcome to the very first contest sponsored by your pals here at WEIRD UNIVERSE.

Here's the deal:

The single prize is a used but in-good-shape trade paperback copy of Ricky Jay's Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women, an essential handbook for any true lover of the weird.




The challenge: to win the book, you must identify the painting and artist behind this little visual snippet to the right. The painter is one of the more famous outsider artists of the past 200 years. With luck, this challenge will be neither too easy nor too hard. If the contest goes on for any length of time without a winner, I'll post more snippets of the canvas, and other clues.

Please make your guess in the COMMENTS section of this post, not through email. Priority of the response, in the case of multiple correct guesses, determines the winner.

When we have a winner, I'll get their snailmail and post the book with some of my mailart on the envelope.

Good luck, and play nice!

Weird Poster

[Photographed in Providence, Rhode Island, October 2008, corner of North Main and Branch.]

If anyone can possibly explain the meaning of this poster, please do so.

The Life Clock

The Life Clock is the creation of artist Bertrand Planes. Each number represents a year of your life. It assumes that you're not going to live past 84. After that, you're evidently on borrowed time.

I think the numbers should be spaced to reflect the subjective experience of time -- with the first half of the clock going from 0 to 21, and all the remaining years crammed into the second half. (Thanks, Sandy!)

Anger and Landscape Art

Do you feel angry and frustrated sitting in your windowless cubicle grinding away at a dead-end job? Recent research (published in the journal Environment and Behavior) indicates there may be an easy way to brighten your mood, at least if you're a man. Hang a few art posters.

Researchers at Texas A&M University conducted an experiment in a simulated office. Participants were told that the researchers were investigating performance on a variety of computer tasks. In reality, the computer tasks were designed to "provoke stress and anger." The question was whether the artwork hanging on the wall (abstract art, nature posters, abstract and nature posters, or no art) would modify people's moods. The conclusion:


It's not clear why men are calmed by wall art, but not women. Maybe men are just simpler creatures.

Breakfast by Svankmajer

Thanks to High Weirdo Sandy Pearlman, we can all enjoy this little gem by filmmaker Jan Svankmajer.

The Tiger Lillies

Witness the weirdness that is the Tiger Lillies.

All original content in posts is Copyright © 2008 by the author of the post, either Alex Boese ("Alex"), Paul Di Filippo ("Paul"), or Chuck Shepherd ("Chuck"). All rights reserved. The banner illustration at the top of this page is Copyright © 2008 by Rick Altergott.