Llamapillar


Alright, instead of uploading trip shots, I went for Cuban food last night.
Bad me.

Here's another placeholder beast to snack upon.
How doth it move? How quickly? Could it catch up with me? In a dark alley? On a chill October night?

Does it eat like snake?

Placeholder Spokesbird



Just got back from a whirlwind tour of Croatia and Prague. Am feeling good. So good in fact, that I'm going to have to throw something out here until I can get my pics uploaded and mention a few choice weirdnesses that I captured over there. Soon there will be international curiosities to feast your eyes on - just you wait.

In the meantime, to assuage my own guilt over not having contributed recently - thieving shithawks!

Pedro the Mini Mummy

In 1932 two men, Cecil Main and Frank Carr, spent a few weeks digging for gold in the San Pedro Mountains of Wyoming. After working a rich vein which seemed to keep continuing into more solid rock, they decided to use dynamite to blast a huge section of the mountainside off and save some time getting at more of the gold.

After the dust from the blast cleared, they found that the rock face they had been chipping away at led to a small cavern about 15 feet long and 4 feet high (4.5m x 1.2m). It had been totally sealed off from the outside world by this thick wall of rock they had been working at, with no visible entrance or even small crack leading into it. Inside this cavern was a small ledge on which a pixie-like creature sat, cross-legged. It turned out to be a tiny mummy about 7" high (18 cm) with a total height of 14" (35 cm). It's face looked like an old man's. It had a flat head, huge, heavy-lidded eyes and a very wide mouth. It was so well preserved that the finger nails could still be seen on the hands. It gets stranger - the top of it's head was covered in a dark jelly-like substance that was still mushy. Ew!

Cecil and Frank carefully took their find to the huge town of Casper, Wyoming where many prominent scientists, sure of a hoax, came from all over the US to have a look at it. Everyone had the idea that this was just a scheme to make money, something invented by the two prospectors to get rich with their discovered anomaly. Dr. Henry Shapiro, an anthropologist from the American Museum of Natural History, set up extensive tests, assuming it would show some type of doll or pieced-together work of taxidermy. Instead the X-rays showed that "Pedro" had inside him a perfectly formed, manlike skeleton with a complete set of human-like ribs. Also shown was a damaged spine, a broken collarbone and a skull that had been smashed by a heavy blow. It seems Pedro had met with a violent death. The gelatinous substance on his head was exposed brain tissue and congealed blood. Ew! The fontanels - the soft spots in the skull which mesh to a solid plate as a baby matures to childhood - were closed, proving that this had indeed been a full grown adult. Pedro had a full set of adult teeth but the odd difference to us regular humans was that he had overly pointed canines - what we'd call "vampire" teeth. The overall estimate was that the being had been about 65 years old at the time of death and dated 'far back into history'.

Sometime in the 1950s, Pedro vanished after one of his owners died, and his location today is still unknown.

The Shoshone Indian Nation of Wyoming have legends of the Nimerigar, a small race of people who it is said would attack them with tiny bows and poisoned arrows. It was also said they used to kill their own kind with a blow to the head when they became too ill to be a useful and active part of society anymore.

The Craigslist Serial




I may have mentioned before that I have a weakness for the craigslist missed connections. No, it's not because I expect to see myself in there (jerks), but because on a sociological basis, it is remarkable to see how describe each other in passing. And really, what details are noticed.

More often than not, you get something like :
"You: Girl in Green shirt with face. Me: Tall guy in pants. Coffee?"

But occasionally there is something undeniably delightful in the describing. A resurrection of the cinematic 'love at first sight' moments from 1950sHollywood. A defiance of what sometimes feels like modern disregard for the romantic grand gesture.

My favourites are when people play peekaboo with their lives - which brings me to this week's Toronto Missed Connections serial girl. I can't quite get a handle on her: she's in love, she's furious, she's humorous. Is she dating this man? Is it illicit?
Read it for yourself. I welcome your thoughts on the matter.
Welcome to my voyeuristic depravity.

Walken be Rockin That Chicken



I have a dream.
And a list.
The list pertains to something I mentally drafted years ago after watching Harvey Keitel disrobe for the millionth time in a movie (stop it Harvey, I mean it this time).

Without much ado, my favourite top 5 creepy men of Hollywood (in no particular order):

Christopher Walken
Jeremy Irons
Geoffrey Rush
Harvey Keitel
Willem Defoe

In my defense, this is not a judgement on acting abilities. On the contrary, their creepyness makes them more alluring. They have character stamped across every crevice of their faces while also sporting that undefinable quality that makes them unsavory as dark alley run ins.

The more interesting question, I think, is how these guys do their average Joe bit. Imagine, if you will - Rush deciding between bacon or sausage with his Sunday eggs. Irons reading Where the Wild Things Are to his kids. Defoe going to the mall to try on bathing suits.

Possibly, even possibly...Christopher Walken preparing a whole roast chicken.
It's hypnotic.

And God Said - Let There Be Flight

A Vatican-backed charter service has made its inaugural flight, aiming to carry pilgrims to such Catholic shrines as Lourdes, Fatima, Santiago de Compostela and the Holy Land.

The flights, scheduled to start regular service next year, are tailored to the pilgrims' needs, with inscriptions - such as "I search for your face, Lord," - decorating the seats and religious videos shown on board.

"We want to create the conditions to enable pilgrims to live their pilgrimage starting at their city's airport and even before they arrive at their destinations," said the Rev. Caesar Atuire, CEO of Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi, which organizes pilgrimages for the Diocese of Rome.

"That's why we created this initiative, with a dedicated aircraft, trained staff, and messages (on board) to help people live a better experience," he told reporters at a presentation ahead of the inaugural flight, which carried VIPs and church officials to Lourdes.

The five-year agreement between Mistral Air, a small airline owned by the private Italian post office, and the "Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi," offers flights leaving from seven Italian airports, including Rome and Verona, with a Boeing 737-300.

Officials expect the deal will bring an estimated 150,000 passengers a year to destinations including Fatima, Portugal; Lourdes, France; Santiago de Compostela, Spain; the Holy Land; Czestochowa, Poland; and Sinai, Egypt.

Details on schedules and fares are still being discussed. However, Atuire said the airline is hoping to offer pilgrims competitive prices.

Rome Cardinal Camillo Ruini praised the initiative.

"The way to make pilgrimages can change over time but their deepest meaning remains the same: To look for a deeper contact with God," he told reporters before boarding the inaugural flight.

The Vatican does not have an airline or its own airport, and the pope regularly takes special flights with commercial carriers for his trips around the globe.