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01.10.2017

08:53 am

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He was born about 1573 in Zwolle. In 1603 he there married Brigitta Lantinck. They had eight children. Some of them established themselves as solicitors in Leeuwarden where Brigitta Lantinck’s sister had married but remained childless so that the children of van Bolten became her heirs. Arent van Bolten must have died about 1625, for he is still mentioned in 1624, whereas in 1626 we read only of his widow.

Even his death date is uncertain as some put it up as far as 1633—which may have come as a surprise to his wife if she was already a widow in 1626. Apart from this slim entry we know he was a silversmith by profession, was in Italy 1596-1602, and left behind “a great deal of silverware and plaquettes.”

He may well have been one of those craftsmen who themselves made both the model and the finished article and perhaps even the original design which was not the normal practice at this time.

Van Bolten sculpted religious and rustic scenes and knobbly weird bronzes of “squat, ponderous” mythological beasts. It is for the latter that he is now best known—in particular his 400+ drawings of surreal and grotesque creatures compiled by an unknown collector circa 1637 which are currently held by the British Museum.

It’s unknown what Van Bolten’s intention was in creating these rather fabulous beasts but the drawings do reveal the eye of a man who was a sculptor rather than a painter. His line relishes building up the layers, curves, depths, and organic growths rather than just offering a mere representation. Van Bolten’s grotesques have a solidity that makes it appear we could actually touch them.





More of Arent van Bolten’s beasties and grotesque creatures, after the jump…

01.10.2017

08:53 am

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Terrible wax museums rule. Granted, good wax museums are really cool, I’ve got nothing bad to say about superior artistry or the skillful evocation of a likeness, it’s just that awful wax museums deliver different kicks, a more what-the-f*ck kind of experience. Just up Clifton Hill from the actual falls area of Niagara Falls, Ontario there’s a really tacky entertainment district, which, among other gloriously, unabashedly garish attractions, boasts an incredible concentration of comically inferior wax museums. My absolute favorite, the Criminals Hall of Fame, closed down a couple of years ago, and I really wish I knew what became of its inventory (apart from its Hitler figure, which was brazenly stolen right from its case in 1999).

No need to wonder about the inventory of The Hall of Presidents and First Ladies Museum. It wasn’t in Niagara Falls, but judging by photos of its collection, it’d have been a good fit. The Gettysburg, PA institution just closed in late November—how someone could fail with a historical attraction in Gettysburg, I’ll refrain from speculating—and its figures and other ephemera are going up for auction. The collection is exemplary—exemplary for why I adore cheap wax museums. Everything about the likenesses is just off, some in subtle ways, but plenty are just marvelously, unmistakably wrong. It is truly regrettable that this place closed before it had a chance to “honor” Donald Trump.


Allegedly, this is JFK.


Per the auction catalog: “Very fine President John F. Kennedy plaster sculpture head.” Very fine indeed. Also evidently AX CRAZY.

More wax Presidents after the jump…

01.10.2017

08:36 am

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The cover of ‘Rock A Bye Baby.’ A horror novel from 1984 by prolific horror writer Stephen Gresham.

A huge tip of my hat goes out to the exhaustive blog Too Much Horror Fiction (is there such a thing? I think not) for inspiring this post. Curated by the self-described “neat, clean, shaved & sober” Will Errickson, the site has been cataloging and reviewing vintage horror novels since 2010. As a bonafide horror junkie, I’ll never understand how I didn’t know about this site until today. If you’re a horror nerd like I am and were perhaps not hip to Errickson’s dedication to the books that helped shape our youth, then welcome to your new Internet time-killer. Zing!

I’m sure a few of the books I’ve featured in this post will be familiar to you—such as the cover of the 1976 book The Fury which was the basis for Brian De Palma’s 1978 film of the same name starring Kirk Douglas, John Cassavetes and Amy Irving. I’ve also included a few H.P. Lovecraft paperbacks featuring fantastic cover artwork that will bring you right back to those times you spent spinning those revolving metal book racks around hoping to find a cover repulsive enough to freak your parents out with. If this post gets you pining away for this kind of vintage goodness then you’re in luck as many of these books can still be found on auction sites such as eBay and Etsy. Some of the artwork that follows is slightly NSFW.


The 1976 cover of a reprint of the novel by Jack Finney ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers.’ Finney original penned the book, which has been adapted into several notable films, in 1955.


‘Evil Way,’ 1990.

More macabre book covers after the jump…

01.09.2017

06:00 pm

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Last night Donald Glover and Atlanta won well-deserved Golden Globes for “Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy” and “Best Actor in a Television Series - Musical or Comedy” for the show’s creator, writer and star. Despite these awards—and a slew of others Atlanta and Glover have won or been nominated for—I’d wager that much of America has still to catch up with the FX network’s breakout new hit. If you fall into that category, you need to change that status, stat, jack.

Several friends of mine were raving about Atlanta after it premiered in September, but I was too preoccupied with hate-watching a reality show called “Election 2016” to take much notice at first. By the time I finally sat down to watch Atlanta, five episodes had already piled up and I greedily watched all five one right after the other. Had there been more I’d have watched the entire series then and there. I loved Atlanta. My wife loved it as much as I did. There is so much great television on today that to designate just one show as the very “best” is a difficult task, but even still, Atlanta is what comes immediately to mind when I ponder what that one best current TV show would be. With Rotten Tomatoes giving Atlanta a 100% approval rating and Metacritic bestowing upon it a 90 out of 100 score, clearly many other people feel the same.

It was a few episodes in—the one where Earn wants to sell his sword to raise some quick money—when I put my finger on exactly what I believe makes Atlanta feel so fresh and special—and just that much of a cut above anything else—in a sea of admittedly ultra great competitors. Dig the shot where they walk into the pawn shop. Watch the choreography of how the camera moves, watch what the actors do, notice the color palate going on. “Clearly the director [Hiro Murai] has watched every single Godard film” I remarked to my wife, but that’s what it was: Atlanta is shot like a European arthouse film that is bogged down by exactly zero of the standard tropes of American sitcoms. It’s one of the most cinematic things ever produced for TV that is, essentially still a situation comedy. Compare and contrast it with, say, Seinfeld. There are a lot of things you could find that the two shows had in common, but stylistically speaking, there are just about none.



With the sharpest writing around, a cast of some of the most charismatic young actors working today and the insanely brilliant comedic timing of Ivy League-trained thespian Brian Tyree Henry as “Paper Boi” there’s already a level of excellence afoot here, but again, it’s the attention to detail that gives the impression that we’re looking at a finely cut diamond. Another key element of Atlanta‘s success is the incorporation of casually oddball events that call attention to themselves just for a moment before the characters move on. Who doesn’t have quirky encounters on a daily basis? Atlanta is great at capturing how mundanely surreal life can be—not something that’s easy to accomplish—and does so better than anything else currently on television

Which brings me to Clapping for the Wrong Reasons, a short film that Glover wrote and starred in (playing himself to a certain extent) and Murai directed. Clapping for the Wrong Reasons was produced to promote Glover’s second Childish Gambino album Because the Internet in 2013. Filled with the same sort of attention to small details as Atlanta, Clapping for the Wrong Reasons—which takes place high in the Hollywood Hills under much different socio-economic circ*mstances—plays slower but has some wonderful (and wonderfully strange) moments. I don’t want to imply that it was a dry run for Atlanta—because I do not think that was the case—but if you’re hankering for something more produced by the same creative team, it’s the next best thing.

More after the jump…

01.09.2017

11:44 am

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Ever wondered what the skull of the Xenomorph from Alien might look like? On top of that, have you ever wanted to own a Xenomorph skull? It’s your lucky day, bucko: Check out this detailed Xenomorph skull replica. I like it. It would definitely be a weird thing to own and would be a fun item to slip into a taxidermy collection to fool people with. “That one? The dealer didn’t know what that was a skull of. Sold it to me cheap, too. Do you know what kind of animal it’s from?”

The replica, designed by ToyWiz, is made of “durable foam rubber and latex that’s carefully hand-painted for extra eerie detail.”

Based on the deadly creatures from the classic Alien movie, this incredible piece measures 36” long and comes with a display stand for tabletop use or wall mounting.

It’s on pre-order now and selling for $229.99. According to the website, it’ll ship in March.

via Nerdcore

01.09.2017

11:05 am

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‘Lovecraft Tormented’ wall sculpture. Get it here.

Like many of you oh-so-cool Dangerous Minds readers I am a collector of a great many THINGS. From records to books and a slew of action figures, my house is a mini-museum full of cool THINGS. I also happen to know that a number of our regular visitors to DM seem to have a thing for anything that associated with the great American horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. Which leads me to my post for today which features a number of intricate sculptures depicting some of Lovecraft’s eldritch entities such as “Dagon,” a creature that first made its appearance in Lovecraft’s short story of the same name from 1917; everyone’s favorite octopus-headed cosmic being, “Cthulhu”; Pickman’s model, and the nutty Nyarlathotep among others. I’m just aching to bring a few of these critters into my own menagerie of mayhem…

Some of the sculptures in this post are available for purchase. That said they are not cheap—specifically that magnificent wall sculpture “Lovecraft Tormented” (pictured at the top of this post). That puppy will run you a cool $1288. Several toy companies have released sets of Lovecraft’s monstrous nightmares and when they do, they sell out pretty fast, so if you see something in this post that strikes your fancy, get it now before it’s sold out and selling on eBay for bigs bucks. I’ve included some handy links for you to do just that under each available piece below.


‘Nyarlathotep’ sculpture by Sota Toys. Get it here.


‘Dagon’ sculpture. Get it here.

More Lovecraftian terrors after the jump…

01.09.2017

09:33 am

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Apparently I’m on some kind sweater-blogging kick today. Maybe because it’s currently 17° outside and this brilliant sweater struck a chord with me. I’m feeling sick, sorry for myself and in a really terrible mood today so this “Leave Me Alone Sweater” by Ruth Grace totally makes terrific sense to me right about now. I’d wear the sh*t out it today if I had one. Just zip it up and tell the whole world to f*ck off. It’s my alone time.

It’s also perfect for someone with social anxiety who just wants to disappear for a moment. Although, it might bring more attention while wearing it. I mean, you would look kind of weird. And you’d be bumping into sh*t and all…

I got all excited and was prepared to buy this puppy but you have to make it yourself or find someone to make it for you. I can’t knit or sew, so I’m going to have to do the latter. The full instructions are on Instructables.

via Bored Panda

01.09.2017

09:25 am

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Well, we knew this was going to happen. We were warned often enough but did we listen? Did we heed the warning given out in episodes of The Outer Limits, Twilight Zone or Black Mirror, innumerable B-movies and books from H. G. Wells to Stephen King? No, we thought we knew better. We were having way too much fun to even think about what we may be mortgaging for getting all those likes on Facebook and all those followers on Instagram and Twitter. We were only in it for the LOLz.

Then one day, our life’s all used up and we’re part of the machine. It’s no fun anymore but still we can’t help checking our feed, tweeting our food and liking every f*cking picture of a grumpy-looking cat. WE are the pod people sci-fi warned us about! Like OMG!

Artist Kristian Jones produces neat illustrations of children and families whose lives have been taken over by the technology they use. His figures look like the characters once found in children’s stories who are now transported to a strange, surreal science-fiction land where technology snoops and insidiously steals away their very life force.

Jones is a self-taught artist based in Birmingham, England. His work which has been featured in galleries, magazines, posters and a clothing range “depicts our relationship with the modern world”:

...in a surreal and twisted form to highlight the problems with modern day living, preying on the innocence of childhood imagination, surreal worlds and fictional creatures.

Jones’ illustrations are funny and chilling. We recognize his point but know the same was once said about television and radio, or cinema and leisure time—where the Devil was always making work for idle hands. Technology is neither good nor bad—it’s all about us and how we use it. Jones is wise to this too and has in one picture Old Nick leading a group of idle carefree kids on a merry dance to Hell, while in another a boy peers into his tablet just like Narcissus who was smitten with his own reflection.

He is also part of the Brothers of the Stripe collective of illustrators and graphic designers. More of Kristian Jones’ work can be seen and purchased here.





More of Kristian Jones’ work, after the jump…

01.09.2017

09:01 am

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Vintage matchbook cover from the Jewel Box Lounge in Kansas City, Missouri.

A few of my DM colleagues as well as myself have posted about vintage matchbooks previously—think of them as folk art—so I was pretty delighted when I came across a large array of vintage drag and gay club matchbooks—some dating back to the 1950s.

Like some of you, I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for matchbooks and have a large collection of them myself that I’ve collected over the years from places that no longer exist like the one of the greatest rock clubs in Boston, The Channel and other clubs and bars that closed their doors long ago. When it comes to the drag club matchbook covers I can’t lie—they are fantastic and as colorful as the female impersonators who graced the stages at venues like the Jewel Box Lounge in Kansas City (one of which is pictured at the top of this post), or the artistic interpretation of the leather boys that hung out at the Ambush in San Francisco back in the day.

Occasionally these kinds of matchbooks do pop up on auction sites such as eBay and depending on their condition can sell for as much as $50. I’m especially fond of the matchbook personalized by drag performer/piano player “extraordinaire” Sir Lawrence Lawson who notes that every time you light your “reefer” with one of his gay matches you’ll read his poetic message reminding you that he’s “thinking of you.” Awww.


A matchbook from the San Francisco gay club Ambush.


The Torch Club, Sacramento, California. The club first opened its doors in 1934.

Many more after the jump…

01.09.2017

08:55 am

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Everybody needs a hobby, right? Meet “sweater dude,” Sam Barsky whose hobby is to knit sweaters of places and then have photos taken of himself wearing those sweaters at these places.

Sam was making the Internet rounds a few days ago but I didn’t really look at the photos when they first popped up in my feed. I finally clicked on it—because I couldn’t help myself—and was shocked at just how many sweaters he’s made! The photos are endless. I admire the man’s commitment to his craft. I particularly dig his sleeveless sweater looks.

I wonder how many sweaters he owns in total and just how long it takes to make one? If you want to see more of Sam’s unusual hobby you can follow him on Facebook.

More after the jump…