Andrew Lausman of Lakeland, Florida has created a new genre of art. He calls it "explosionism." As far as I can tell, it involves dipping firecrackers in paint and shooting them at a canvas. A few of his works, which I found on his
facebook page, are below. He focuses on space themes — galaxies and nebulae — perhaps because it would be hard to do a still life with flowers using firecrackers.
Lausman's art hasn't allowed him to quit his day job yet. (He's a dental assistant.) But he does have his first exhibition opening this Friday. [
theledger.com]
When Oompa Loompas attack, watch out!! Or perhaps emerging from a kabob place at 3:30 a.m. is discouraged in England.
Here's a link to the story:
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/01/16282615-uk-police-attackers-dressed-as-oompa-loompas-beat-man?lite
Sorry -- only two of the four attackers were Oompa Loompas. At least these two already have their hands up to be arrested.
![image](https://www.weirduniverse.net/images/uploads/obitprojo_thumb.jpg)
[From
The Providence Journal 12/31/12]
Was there a shortage of vowels in this woman's homeland, when her husband's surname, and hers by marriage, was coined? How do you even begin to say it?
"Marker-tosh-jan"? "Maker-tisch-jan"? "Muck-root-sack-hyj-an"?
There aren't that many people who seriously pursue art and wrestling at the same time, but Patrick O'Connor was one of them. Back in the 1940s, he was heavyweight wrestling champion of Ireland, but also had a Greenwich Village art studio. He was an artist of the "conservative Realist and Romantic school." Apparently he viewed art as his true passion. Wrestling was just a way to make money. From
The Evening Independent, Sep. 9, 1944:
His portraits were too realistic. If a rich dowager had three chins, he refused to conveniently omit two of them. As a result there was no rush of customers, so the painter turned to wrestling as a means of earning an honest dollar.
Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any examples of his art, except for the ones that can be seen behind him in the pictures below. O'Connor is the one with the beard. The pictures were taken in his art studio.
![](https://www.weirduniverse.net/images/2013/bowater.jpg)
Sir Vansittart Bowater, predictor of the future
Back in 1913,
Sir Vansittart Bowater, London's new lord mayor, made some predictions for how the world would look like in 2013 [
Evening Independent, Dec. 6, 1913]. Now that 2013 has arrived, we can judge how accurate he was:
—
a horse will excite far more wonder and curiosity in the city than an aeroplane or a dirigible flying over St. Paul's does today
Correct!
—
the drone of great airships, each carrying perhaps many hundreds of passengers, will also probably be heard across both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
Correct!
—
these new aircraft will require "the protection of pedestrians and householders, possibly by wire netting laid over the housetops and even over the streets."
I'm not sure if he was foreseeing chunks of frozen poop falling from planes (
blue ice). If so, his powers of prediction were impressive. But as for the netting, he was incorrect.
—
the channel tunnel scheme may be a commonplace of actuality, with train services running every few minutes direct from London to Paris
The trains don't run every few minutes, but he got the general idea right, so I'll give him this.
—
London will assuredly find part relief from the congestion between now and 2013 by the extension of her suburbs
Correct!
—
postmarks and stamps may exist only as curiosities
Stamps are gradually on the way out, but they're not gone yet. So I'm judging him incorrect on this.
—
a visit to Mars or the moon [may] be practicable in 2013... by harnessing the elusive ether, by electricity, or by some other at present unknown force capable of off-setting gravitation.
Correct! It was actually in 1914, one year after Bowater made his predictions, that Robert Goddard filed his first patent for a liquid-fuel rocket that would make spaceflight possible.
—
such awful scourges as cancer and the hidden plague will be as much a memory as plague and the 'black death' are to us today
Not sure what he meant by the 'hidden plague,' but as far as cancer goes, he was unfortunately incorrect.
—
he certainly will be a bold man in that year who will venture to say a person is dead beyond hope of resuscitation.
No. Dead is still dead.
Overall he scored 5 out of 9. Not bad. Better than most 100-year forecasts.