The Illustrated Night Parade of A Hundred Demons

During the same year that the Declaration of Independence was signed in the US, Japanese artist Toriyama Sekien published Gazu Hyakki Yakō, which is much like the tales of the Brother's Grimm in that it is a collection of folklore, except that this one is an illustrated bestiary instead of a collection of stories. The most amusing is the Akaname, or Filth Licker. The Tenome should be familiar to anyone who has seen Pan's Labyrinth:
This is probably my favorite:
...though I am also a fan of these two:

Domestic Transformer

This apartment in Hong Kong is amazing and precisely the kind of space-efficient home I want to have some day.

Existentialism and parenting

(blatantly stolen from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comics, which is somehow both updated daily and consistently hilarious)

I expect that we existentialists make many lousy things, including parents. This is actually one of the reasons I never want to be have children: there would be far too many instances of me saying thinks like "Well, I don't think that I would like having my eye poked out, but of course there isn't anything inherently good or bad about it. There is no reason to prefer--say--the taste of ice cream over the experience of extreme pain. I do have that preference, but there is no reason for it. If you think you might prefer to poke out your eye over having two functional eyes then feel free to keep playing with that sharp object near your face." Or if asked if Santa Clause is real: "It is true for your friends that Santa exists but it is not true for me. I don't know whether or not it is true for you. It depends on whether the opinions of your friends outweigh my opinion on that issue."

The other philosophy-based problem I have with parenting is that as far as I am concerned parenting consists of conditioning your children, whether you are doing so purposefully or not. Thus I would want to have a plan in place as to what I wanted to condition them to believe and desire, but I have no idea. I wouldn't want them to share my values because my values are self-undermining, but people with radically different values from mine drive me crazy.

Update:

Air vent art

As a Reedie, I'm no stranger to air vent art. The bubble ferris wheel may be the coolest Renn Fayre piece I've seen. It is nice to see that we are not alone:



I also like that these NY pieces are from subway exhaust, and so come and go, so the sculptures come to life and then after a moment fall back into a lifeless pile.

(hat tip Andrew Sullivan)

In the desert we will dirty our hands 'til they're clean

I cannot recommend highly enough Songs About Teeth by Cake Bake Betty. The lyrics, as the title might suggest are about strange things like anatomy (especially teeth and spines), the stars disappearing, cannibalism, and other less odd things that are sometimes quite powerful. Here's my favorite of the songs [other great tracks are Jesus and Austria, 64 Litle White Things, The Charge (knockturnal), and The Spine Song]:

Flying cars

It's about damn time. We were all supposed to have flying cars years before 2009, and this still isn't exactly what I was expecting. Still pretty cool though.

Radio Free Korea

Pandora doesn't work abroad, but mediayou.net does. I prefer Pandora, but this will be sufficient for keeping me sane.