Cool Sh!t
Besides the really cool work showing up on our streets, part of the allure of new street art is the mystery of who did it and how. Depending on how anonymous an artist or group of artists try to be, it can be hard or impossible to find out who is responsible for some of our favorite creations. Right now, Chicago has a mystery on its hands, and it involves a pretty familiar board game character. It’s not the work of Alec Monopoly, but this art brings the Monopoly man back to life in some really cool ways on the streets of Chicago.
Last week, Colossal writer Christopher Jobson discovered an oversized stack of Monopoly’s “Chance” cards near a church in Logan Square. He wasn’t the first to find huge Monolopy pieces on the street, it turns out. It turns out there were more than a few pieces of the board game scattered in the city, being tracked by people online, on sites like Reddit. Not only were there more pieces to the game, but sometimes the pieces themselves changed. The top cards on the Chance and Community Chest set were sometimes painted over and had new messages. Pretty soon, tons of people in Chicago were on the search for the artist responsible.
There’s no sweeter way to start the work week than with a little bit of kindness. Ron Perlman, with the help of masters of movie magic make-up, Spectral Motion, brought Hellboy back to the world of the living on Friday. He didn’t come back for another movie, but to fulfill the wish of one young leukemia patient who didn’t just want to meet Hellboy, but to be him. As far as wishes go, that’s pretty spectacular. Zachary, the coolest little six year old we’ve ever heard of, got his wish thanks to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Given the opportunity, most of us would go back in time to have a chat with our younger selves. You’re never too young or too old to want to go back, warn yourself about things to come or tell yourself that things get better. Most of us might want to go back and stop our teen selves from making disastrous fashion choices, romantic choices, or picking careers that don’t exactly net us millions. We’re human, though, and our entire lives are full of moments we wish someone who understood us well was there to talk to.
Jeremiah McDonald, at 12, understood himself better than anyone. The soon-to-be actor and comedian left himself a message in the form of an open-ended conversation on tape, with a stern warning that it was only to be played by him in the future. He asks his future self questions we might ask ourselves. He wants to know if he still loves his favorite show (Doctor Who), how things panned out for him, and about his passions like drawing. Jeremiah McDonald, as it turns out, is a pretty charming little kid. He’s funny and weird in a way that reminds us a lot of ourselves when swept up in the things we like.
Fans of poetry and art will really dig the work of Anatol Knotek. His creations weave his words into work that is first and formost visual. While that’s nothing new in the art community, for poetry, it is a much needed breath of fresh air. Poetry is a dichotomy of rules and creativity, often at odds with one another. We are taught to be creative as possible with our words and with what we choose to spill forth onto paper, but when it comes to form, rhyme, and the visual, too many times is a format pushed on writers. Poetry can be expressed in so many ways, but very few of them are seen as acceptable and beautiful, especially to academics. Knotek’s work breaks the mold in some astonishing ways.
We know, Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used To Know” is everywhere. It’s on the radio, TV, and on rotation in just about every hip clothing store’s music playlist. The internet’s no help. There are Gotye parodies lurking around just about every corner. Some are great and some are...Well, we’ve gone through a lot of parodies to bring you the one featured today, and we have suffered for it. Let’s face it, the song is relatable and really catchy.
If the summer heat is getting you down, then consider booking an evening at the Snow Castle restaurant in Finland. The Snow Castle offers a unique experience of staying at a hotel and dining in a restaurant made of snow.
So, how does it work? The temperature in the hotel is at 23 degrees Fahrenheit, while offering the same amenities as a regular hotel- except wearing your coat and hat indoors is a must.
Luckily, the menu items aren't cold too. The restaurant serves local fish like salmon and perch served with vegetables. You can also find an array of soups and lamb on the menu.
Hey lushes/frat boys, we just got wind of a new drinking game called "BasketPong." Described as the "ultimate drinking, party and tailgating game that combines the competiveness and skill of basketball and darts with the fun and excitement of activities such as beer pong, quarters and flip cup."
Apparently this thing is so popular it was featured at the 2012 World Pong Tour Championship in Atlantic City.
We're not surprised by its popularity. We imagine this game will be the Cornhole of summer 2012.
You can pick up your set here or at select retail locations.
Game on!
Street art lovers in New York may have noticed a familiar childhood icon working the turntablelately at the Bowery. The Monopoly man, practically artist Alec Monopoly’s signature, now graces the giant mural that is the EMM Group’s future home. The jolly tophatted man is also known as Rich “Uncle” Pennybags, and while most of us might remember him as Monopoly’s mascot, he became a symbol of the times in Alec Monopoly’s creative hands. When the economy officially tanked and executives living in excess were still lining their pockets, Alec Monopoly took to the streets of L.A. and expressed more than what we could with words through the childhood mascot.
We’re all about whimsy and pushing the imagination when it comes to digital art. There’s no limit to what kind of mediums you can combine or what kind of image you can create when you’re not limited by what art supplies you can afford or find. Andy Fairhurst has combined his awesome sense of wonder with some beautiful silhouette work to create some pretty undeniably cool vignettes into childhood.
Fairhurst’s Super Kids series are pieces of artwork that depict kids doing their thing as some of our favorite super heroes and villains. The scenes are at once appropriately dramatic with our cast of heroes and villains in the dark, and adorably accurate. Each kid works with tools a kid would use, sometimes even things we might have used when playing around as our favorite heroes. Kid Flash carries around flashlights. The Punisher menacingly dual wields squirt guns. Iron Kid flies using a trampoline. Tiny Captain America, of course, brandishes a trash can lid shield.
Chicken wire doesn’t exactly bring awe and inspiration to mind. It’s cheap, pointy, a little hard to shape, and it’s generally used to keep chickens from making a mess everywhere. It’s more like a really tiny wired fence than anything else. London-based artist Benedetta Ubaldini, however, turns these scraps of metal into something truly fantastic. Ubaldini is a sculptor like no other. While we’re used to sculptures carved from the heaviest, most solid materials, she sculpts from simple material we see every day.