Links (6/6/08)

My regular culling from the internets:

I think we’ve all felt like this sometimes at the office.

Holy crap! The thing people will do for attention. Some guy in China, in commemoration of the Beijing Olympics, stuck 2008 needles in his head.

Werner Herzog is my hero. Check out this bizarre interview he had with Defamer.

Seven gestures that could, just could, get you killed abroad.

Anthony Lane from the New Yorker articulates why I don’t like Sex and the City.

Someone called “The Decapitator” is lopping off the heads of billboard ads and replacing them with bloody stumps. Bloody good work, I say.

Cheap renders of a cool idea for L.A. — The Hollywood Freeway Central Park. Basically, they would cover a stretch of the 101 Hollywood freeway, which is already below grade, with a park.

Top 10 scientists that almost killed themselves for science.[h/t Ted]

And then there’s this trailer for a Korean film called The Good, The Bad, and The Weird.[h/t Joan]

There’s an interesting article about the failed fascist coup against FDR in 1933. I referenced previous here regarding Hitchcock’s WWII era flick Saboteur.

And speaking of that, Behold! Stalin’s crazy attempt at recreating a breed of half-man/half-ape for crude industrial work.

The Week’s Links (5/20/08)

My weekly culling from the internets:

This could possibly be the most hilariously overwrought movie ever made. That’s right, Werner Herzog and Nicholas Cage are remaking Bad Lieutenant.

And speaking of bizarro filmmakers, watch this video of David Lynch putting panties in his mouth. This is creepy even for Lynch.

There’s this EXTREMELY unsettling article about Bush’s plans for a possible police state.

And here’s an even unsettling more article about alternative (or just plain perverted) uses of maggots. Seriously not for the faint of heart. Really. (h/t to Ted who told me much more than I wanted to know about his fetishes.)

And then there’s this tragic/hilarious newspaper clipping detailing that sad fate of Od the Thai circus clown.

What’s funnier than a trailer for a trashy Hong Kong exploitation flick except a trailer of a trashy Hong Kong exploitation flick in German.

There’s this hilarious list of devastating international insults. My favorite are the Bulgarians with phrases like “You’re as ugly as a salad” or “Your mother sucks bears in the forest.”

Finally, the Chinese blogosphere is all a buzz about the run of bad luck China’s been having lately. First there was a massive blizzard that hit 1/25. Then there was the Tibetan riots/demonstrations that started on 3/14. And then there was the Sichuan earthquake on 5/12. All of those days add up to 8. 8/8/08 is the date of the Olympics. Cue spooky music. Along those lines, Liu Bowen from the Ming Dynasty wrote a poem, which is engraved on the Jinling Pagoda in Nanjing, that is supposedly prophetic. It predicts Chiang Kai-shek by name, along with Japan’s invasion and the rise of Communism. I’m told the translation loses a lot and is probably done by someone really into Falun Gong. But there is this striking line.

Hard to avoid the fierce Tiger, Fortunate people live at a mountain village
Vanity cities submerged by vast flood
Fancy skyscrapers became muddy ruins

So according to this, investing in Shanghai real estate might not be a good idea. (h/t to Joan, who spends all day at work looking these things up.)