Nicholas Cage is one of those actors whose very glare can render you infertile. Whether he’s wowing us by playing a sycophantic gambler in Snake Eyes, a pedantic cop in the Wicker Man remake, or JOHNNY BLAZE in GHOST RIDER*, the man has more range than the Andes. Which, as I learned during an abortive trivia session this past week, have a great deal of range. I also found out that yelling “VAGINA” every time a question is read out isn’t witty, and neither is attempting to call your team “TEAM VAGINA”.

Sigh.

Anyway, Nicholas has become increasingly erratic and harder to comprehend over the past few years. After winning critics over in the Jonze/Kauffman masterpiece Adaptataion, he proceeded to plough dick-first into a despair-swamp of shitty roles, exacerbated by the fact that his hair appears to have grown directly into his chubby brain. So what better way to wrestle his career back on track than quite literally CONTROLLING THE CAGE? Brandon Bird has released the Nicholas Cage Adventure Set. Imagine paper dolls. Only with icecream. And a parrot. And Nicholas Motherfucking Cage. Here’s how the website breaks it all down:

Introducing the Nicolas Cage Adventure Set! The magic and wonder of one of the most dynamic figures of the 21st century comes home in this incredible playset (one might even call it a Colorforms set, if “Colorforms” was not a registered trademark of the University Games Corporation). Reusable vinyl stickers cling like magic to glossy backdrops! Mix and match accessories! Peel and re-peel to create new scenes! The fate of Nicolas Cage is in your hands!

Each set includes a double-sided 8.5 x 11 inch play background (depicting “tropical island” and “haunted castle” environments) and one 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of nine vinyl cling stickers: 3 full-body Nicolas Cages, battle axe, skateboard, ice cream cone, scary ghost, parrot, and space helmet.

I’m pretty sure I’m bleeding to death with joy over here.

/Paul

*I had ball-spasms whilst writing those words, hence the all caps.

Some genius has combined the subtle majesty of an imperial Tie Fighter, and the irrascable charm of Charlie Brown. It’s hard not to imagine Luke streaking down a narrow trench towards an exhaust port, with Charlie Brown’s enormous head zipping along after him. Where would Vader sit? In Charlie Brown’s mouth? I guess that makes sense; there isn’t a digestive tract attached, so it’s pretty safe to assume Darth couldn’t be accidentally broken down by stomach acids. Unless, of course, the Tie docks onto the rest of Charlies body, in which case…

I’ve gone to far again, haven’t I?

/Paul

(Link via Neatorama)

Jamie Bolton, clearly a shiny little genius, has utilized minimalist design aesthetics and principles to re-imagine movie posters for some classics. I particularly enjoyed his interpretations of the Back to the Future trilogy and The Shining, although I can’t help but feel his Jurassic Park poster ought to have had Jeff Goldblum’s oiled nipples staring outwards with glistening defiance.

Or maybe that’s just me.

Who am I kidding? YOU ALL WANT A PIECE OF THIS.

(link via Hello Bauldoff, via TJ)

Or perhaps having Superman preside over the liberation of a German castle?

Or maybe just to have Darth Vader chilling out with Stalin, Churchill and some other guy who looks like he could consume your soul with his eyes alone

Which would of course beg the question as to why we didn’t just deploy these dudes in the opening stages of the war and be done with it. I mean, I’d give Superman 24 hours to punch his way into Hitler’s bunker and then through his face. If that. We could have all just finished up for the day and gone to get ice cream. But no. We had to do it the old fashioned way. Six years of noble sacrifice and valiant struggle and such and such. So much waste. So much uneaten ice cream. Sigh. Stupid war.

/Luke

[The photos are the work of Indonesian artist Agan Harahap and the full gallery can be checked out over at Format Mag. Pretty rad concept, I'm sure you'll agree.]

Gum. Is there anything it can’t do?* Maurizio Savini is an Italian artist, and has created an almost unsettling series of staggering gum sculptures. Not only are they huge in terms of size, but the sheer degree of pedantic minutia is exhilrating. To get a more thorough idea of the premise behind these (in particular, the delicious gum-bear pictured above), here’s an excerpt from a review of the exhibit, taken from Pastificio Cerere.

The sensual act of chewing, the voluptuous warmth of rebelling saliva, the artificial and secretly aseptic fragrance which spreads from the mouth as a promise and missed kiss. The synthetic fleshliness of the pink color, the obsessive square shape of the product unwrapped and ready to be shred to pieces by the power of the tongue, all compete in crashing on the senses. Applying all this to the power and energy of the Sculpture and its history causes a short circuit having the capacity of turning the ludic into stately and vice versa. The strict minimalism of parallelepiped is subverted by the uniform coating with many bars of chewing-gum completely cover it, rendering chewable to desire, soft and provoking to forbidden touch, what was abstract and distant.

Great. Now I don’t know whether I want to eat the bear, or have sex with it.

I always had issues with gum, ever since I caught a relative of mine eating it off some stairs near my house. True story. Also, people kept insisting that by swallowing it i’d have a hunk of rubber in my stomach for ten years, which would, I don’t know, affect my grades and render me infertile. What the fuck did I care? Oh, incidentally, the muscular motions involved in digestion and the acids which coat your stomach wall make this old wives tale clear for what it is: total fucking bullshit. Swallow away. I did some digging, though, and it turns out that gum advertisements are either totally inane, or are the best way to trip balls. Observe.

You see? Mental. It’s ads like that which are likely to blame for my relative and his filthy gum/stair habit, and which have shaped me into the twisted berk I am today. And yes, I said berk. I was leafing through The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole a day or so ago, and am still trying to wash off the Thatcher-era working class British-isms. Fuck you, Thatcher. I hope you swallow some gum and die from a bowel obstruction. If only that were biologically possible.

/Paul

(Link via Fabrikproject)

*There are literally billions of things gum cannot do. Sorry kids.

Ginou Choueiri, the woman responsible for these lumpy head things, is Lebanese artist living in Beirut. Which doesn’t mean she’s dwelling inside the liver of our favourite singer songwriter, although that in and of itself would warrant closer inspection.

No, Ginou has used the potato as an artistic medium. The works themselves are striking, not just because they’re terrifying, but because they look a little too human. Here’s a statement from the artist to clear things up a little (hopefully):

“I chose the potato to portray human faces because of the many striking parallels. Not only is their skin porous like ours, but their skin texture and color is very similar, and like us, they come in different sizes, shapes and forms. Potatoes grow, live, and then decay, mirroring the ephemeral existence and fragility of our own human nature.”

It’s a good thing I like the idea of being stamped on the front of a distended, starchy tuber, or I’d be very very cross right now.

/Paul

(Link via Notcot)

Tattoos. I’ve wanted one for ages but haven’t really had the nerve to commit. Do I get something nerd related, or something classy and intellectual? Something more profound than, say, a pixelated Alex Kidd on my shoulder? Well, here’s a rather enviable example of what I’m after. Many of you will be familiar with Contrariwise, the blog which features literary tattoos (Luke has featured on there before with his M83 inspired back tattoo). My girlfriend TJ has had her wrist tattoo put up; it’s ‘Do I dare to eat a peach?‘ from Prufrock and Other Observations, by T.S. Eliot. And it looks awesome. Hmm. Now that all my favourite people are getting tattoos, maybe I should bite the freaking bullet and get the tattoo I’ve been talking about for at least five years.

A SCARY GHOST! WOOOOOO!

I know. I’m an idiot.

/Paul

(Link via Contriwise)

Darth Vader. Apart from bellowing “NOOOOOOOOOOO!” in Revenge of the Sith, Vader hasn’t really had a down moment. Ever. Culturally, he’s unflappably badass, frequently making first place in greatest villain lists. And apparently when he threw Palpatine into the Death Star reactor, he lifted the Emperor up by the balls.

HIS BALLS.

Balls balls balls.

So how does once make this spitshined ebony phallus of a man cooler?* Enter the Vader project. A group of 100 of “the best underground artists and designers working today” were given a scale replica of the helmet, and told to customise it.

So naturally at this point we’re all thinking of the phrase “pimp my helmet”.

Anyway, the project started in 2007, but for the first time there is a collected exhibit at the Warhol gallery in Pittsburgh. And it’s not easy keeping this blog entry on-track, given how eye-catching some of these pieces are, so now of course I’m all confused and baffled, and inclined to end the blog with something which at first glance seems idiotic, but in actuality is the product of a total fucking genius.

Balls.

/Paul

(link via Notcot)

*I solemnly swear to never use the phrase “spitshined ebony phallus” again.

5th place: Thimblz

4th place: Danica Zuks

3rd place: Ivan Haynes

2nd place: Taylor Nelson

1st place: Mike Ford

First prize has yet to be announced, but Mike Ford, rest assured the gift will be… pretty good. I hope. The rest of you will probably all get something, but we’re not sure what it is yet.

And in no way should this previous paragraph be taken as proof that we’re badly organised idiots.

/Paul and Luke

UPDATE! Ned (aka Manchux, our website wizard and the worst tank in all of Christendom) has finagled prizes for our first palce winner! Somehow he’s convinced Chupa Chups to hook him up with a Chuck doll (from their new Got Chucked campaign), some trail mix, a used artline marker and tickets to Lukes comedy festival show, Luke’s Got Cancer!

It’s possible to approach things from different perspectives.

Take this little tidbit plucked from Neatorama. Helmut Smits, a conceptual artist, decided to create a new work based on a nuance of Google Earth. He has burned an 82 x 82 cm square in an open field, the exact size of one pixel from an altitude of 1km. The piece is meant to emulate a “dead pixel”.

Which is where perspectives come in. See, to Helmut Smits, this razed patch of earth represents a flicker of imperfection in a global surveillance project. A giggling brown “fuck you” borne skywards. Yes. It could be that. Or, it could be a square of grass prised up and rationalised by a postgrad who wanted to smoke it.

Though to be fair, isn’t that how all great works of art are created? From a desire to get high and/or impress people whilst high? That’s the Dutch for you! Getting high and faking art! Fuck you, you clog-wearing fucknuts!

…And that, my friends, is how to alienate the Dutch.*

/Paul

(link via Neatorama)

*I’m Dutch, so it’s sort of ok. Also, I had a dream I was raped by a windmill last night. Still a wee bit on edge.