Funky Shark

I hope everyone has seen the footage by now of the super-funky shark Japanese scientists videotaped and captured recently. This thing looks straight out of some bad science fiction book. It’s got a big fat head with pirahna-like teeth and the body of an eel. If I saw this thing swimming towards me I’d get the hell out of the water in a hurry.

It’s called a Frilled Shark and it’s ugly and prehistoric and looks something like this.

Superficially the frilled shark resembles a dark brown or gray eel, but the six gill slits identify it as a shark. The tissue of the gill slits protrudes somewhat, thus inspiring the common name.

It’s a creature that lives at the bottom of the ocean, obviously shunned to the dark abyss because of its hideous appearance by the other more judgmental fishies. I guess I’m in no danger, then, of having one swim up to me while I’m wading by the shore, water up to my Target swimtrunks, waves slapping against my beer belly.

Once when I was younger, back when I still bodyboarded but couldn’t yet drive, I saw in the waves, just yards from where I lay on my board, a blur of sinister fin and flesh and my head said DOLPHIN but my heart screamed SHARK!

I paddled my ass off, fearing for my young life, to get to the shore where I could stand and felt safe, only to look back and see Flipper and his buddy winking at me, shooting the tube.

 

Reverse Graffiti

This is some clean shit!

A new style of art, which isn’t so new when you think about it, has popped on the scene in grimey tunnels and overpasses across the globe. It’s called Reverse Graffiti and it involves removing dirt from a wall to reveal a shape, or image, or word. Some companies and advertisers have gotten into the game hiring artists to wipe their logo into the grime. But an artist out of Brazil, Alexandre Orion, has perfected the social protest side of it. From his website.

Orion creates these images by selectively scraping off layers of black soot deposited on those walls in the short life of this orifice of modernity. He sculpts skulls in the layer of soot deposited by car exhausts until reaching the natural layer of the wall. He scrapes off dirt clinging to the walls, our lungs, and eyes.

These are haunting reminders of the damage we do to the world when we drive. A terrific approbation of urban filth for something beautiful, meaningful.

So of course that pissed off the authorities. Seems they had to teach the artist a lesson for cleaning that wall by… cleaning the rest of the wall? Talk about cognitive dissonance.

From Inhabitat:

The Brazilian artist’s work came to a happier resolution. The authorities were certainly miffed but could find nothing to charge him with. They had no other recourse but to clean the tunnel — but only the parts Alexandre had already cleaned. The artist merely continued his campaign on the other side of traffic. The utterly flummoxed city officials then decided to take drastic action. Not only did they clean the entire tunnel but also every other tunnel in Sao Paulo.

Inspiring work: so simple in concept, yet elaborate and detailed in execution, the synergy creates a comfortable yet challenging piece of street art. I wish there were a device, some kind of machine, that would allow me to listen in on driver’s thoughts as they speed through the tunnel. How many think it’s the work of a madman? or that of a genius?

I think you know where my vote goes.

At the very least, the materials of this art, the essence, that of removing filth from city walls, forced public officials into historic heights of jabberwocky.