Unusual Life

Each spring, Atlas Obscura organizes a global event called Obscura Day.

On Obscura Day thousands of people, all over the world, go out and explore interesting and unusual places. Sometimes they organize the event, sometimes folks organize it themselves! Over the past two years nearly 10,000 people have attend over 200 different events on Obscura Day.

The Atlas Obscura is the definitive guidebook and friendly tour-guide to the world’s most wondrous places. User-generated and editor curated, the Atlas is a collaborative compendium of amazing places that aren’t found in your average guidebook.

And this month, Saturday, April 28th is Obscura Day, an international celebration of unusual places, full of expeditions, back room tours & explorations of the hidden wonders around the world.

FIND YOUR OBSCURE PLACE IN YOUR OWN HOMETOWN!

Since we’re located in Seattle, we’ll tell you about Atlas Obscura’s two places in the Seattle area that are weird and wonderful enough to be included in the official Atlas Obscura Day celebration, the Official Bad Art Museum of Art and a tour of the Inscape Building and the Northwest Museum of Legends and Lore.

Tour #1: Atlas Obscura Day at the Official Bad Art Museum of Art, sponsored by Hendricks Gin, a “Gin made Oddly”.

All day is Atlas Obscura Day at Cafe Racer and the Official Bad Art Museum of Art.

Doors open at 10AM Saturday, April 28th. Have breakfast, peruse the Bad Art in the OBAMA, enjoy some “Hendricks Obscure Punch”.

Schedule is as follows:

2:00pm View in amazement an incredible array of bugs, marine invertebrates, isopods and lepidoptera from “Bug Man” Don Ehlen.

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3:00pm Musical performance by Operadisiac, a surreal opera comedy duo that is sure to delight

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4:30pm Performance by God’s Favorite Beefcake, featuring Shmootzi The Clod of Circus Contraption fame, with music and sword swallowing and God knows what else.

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6:00pm (or thereabouts) the Nu Klezmer Army will entertain with their honkin’ versions of old time favorites.

… The hijinks continue until 1am.

Tour #2: Tour of Inscape building and Northwest Museum of Legends and Lore
Peek into Seattle’s past with a tour of the city’s 77,000-square-foot former Immigration and Naturalization Services building, plus a visit to the Northwest Museum of Legends and Lore for rare D.B. Cooper, UFO, and Bigfoot-related artifacts.

SPONSORED BY HENDRICKS GIN!

Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, Dorknob found this great fake grass-covered home located in an Austrian hillside by GRID Architekten.

Here’s another “green” home, almost completely covered in greenery.

You could almost miss this whole home while walking by on the street, buried as it is under dense layers of climbing greenery that wrap up and around on three of four sides (as well as the roof).

Here’s the same house, from the front, showing the walls of windows:

HomeDesignFind features a very modern eco-luxury vacation villa set in the Costa Rica rainforest features a series of energy-conserving thick green roofs for natural cooling and lush velvety greens that contrast with the stark white of the walls.

More “Green Images” from Home Design Galleries:

See artist Motoi Yamamoto live from March 1 through March 4 as he creates a monumental “salt labyrinth” at the Bellevue Art Museum in Bellevue, Washington.

This is part of the Making Mends show, also featuring Seattle artists Jennifer Zwick and Debra Baxter.

Saint Valentine’s Day, often simply Valentine’s Day is a holiday observed on February 14 honoring one or more early Christian martyrs named Valentinus.

We are commemorating the day by looking at some unusual homes and interior decor celebrating the holiday.

Life in a Pink House (collection of pink house photos)

In Hong Kong, because of the space, apartments are small and expensive. Gary Chang, an architect, decided to design a 344 sq. ft. apartment to be able to change into 24 different designs, all by just sliding panels and walls. He calls this the “Domestic Transformer.”

• HAPPY NEW YEAR 2012 !!! •

What a great way to get the New Year off on the right foot.

Below are some photos from the

New Year’s Day Bad Wig and Ugly Tracksuit Walk  on 1.1.11

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If you have photos of this event and would like to share them here,

please email them to me along with your name for the photo credits,

and I will update this page.

jodavid@UnusualLife.com

Have a Great New Year!!!

and remember to put it on your calendar again for next year, 1/1/12 @ noon

Courtesy of Dork 40: Weird Christmas

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Weird Christmas tradition in Spain.

Bacon Nativity!

Strange and bizarre Christmas ornaments

Beer bottle Christmas tree

Underwater Christmas tree

Walter Dymond, groundskeeper of Harold Lloyd’s estate, Greenacres, with the Lloyd Christmas tree. He was responsible for the construction of the Christmas tree from two trees (wiring the branches of one into the other), and placed the ornaments where Mr Lloyd directed. Harold and his wife Mildred decorated it every year from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve, and collected thousands of ornaments for it from all over the world. It was 20 feet tall, 9 feet wide and almost 30 feet around. The tree was fire-proofed and remained up, all year ‘round. – (1972)

****Yeah, Harold Lloyd

When Galen Dively fixes breakfast, he gets a revelation every morning. He’s the creator of “Jesus Toast”, a metal stencil fitted into an everyday toaster, for your religious and pop culture edification.

He also has created a lovely Mary toaster and, just in time for the holidays, if you buy 3 Jesus toasters you get a Mary toaster absolutely free. Yes, indeed.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

If you don’t want to spring for a toaster devoted completely to the Lord Jesus Christ, then hustle on down to Archie McPhee’s Jesus Toaster Tattoo.

Don’t even want to buy a cheap plastic stencil? Try a do-it-yourself holy image of the Christ. Spread butter in an enlightened style. Toast. Worship.

Not sure you want to break bread with Jesus. How about rocker Ted Nugent?

Love toast? Take your passion extra-large.

Toasty Links:

The Bread Art Project

Toast Art by Maurice Bennett

Toaster Art Gallery

Welcome to Elite Waste’s new line of Urban Homes. You are about to witness the newest trend in 21st Century living. Would you like to live in a home and never pay mortgage again? Simplicity and luxury optimized in our High End Dumpster home, The future of urban living has arrived!

The roof on this house must have taken many man hours to cut and install, but it’s quite a beautiful example of a charming shake roof.

“Bumber By Number” is an interactive and fully immersive Paint-by-Number art exhibit curated by Marlow Harris and JoDavid for the 2011 Bumbershoot Arts Festival.

The show features an interactive audience participatory paint-by-number homage to Edouard Manet’s “The Picnic” (“Le Dejeuner sur L’Herbe”) by artist Ryan Feddersen. In addition, bask in the glory of Victoria BC artist Bill Blair’s amazing life-size paint-by-number banners and guitars, and local Seattle artists create incredible canvases of altered vintage Paint-by-Numbers.

Ryan Feddersen has created a tableau complete with hand-cast wax crayons used to bring her murals to life.

Canadian artist Bill Blair creates Stories for Paint-by-Number and paints huge 9′x7′ foot Paint-by-Number backdrops.

Over 40 modern, contemporary, abstract and pop surrealist artists were given vintage completed Paint-by-Number paintings and asked to alter them in their own style.

Here is Janet Galore’s “Blue Boy”, prior to transformation.

Seattle artist Troy Gua chose two clowns he called “Father and Son”.

Pop culture cutie Lisa Petrucci adds her own personal style to this tiger painting.

Fantagraphics favorite Jim Woodring puts his own twist on this bucolic covered bridge scene:

John Brophy, fresh from his show at Seattle’s Roq La Rue Gallery, creates “Gift Horse”:

Art Army artist Mike Leavitt, who shows in Seattle at Roq la Rue, Copro Nason in LA and the Jonathan Levine Gallery in NYC made this fine trio of work:

Detail of Mike’s work:

Jim Dever’s Duck’s Revenge is for sale with all proceeds to benefit Camp Corey:

Nancy Guppy’s piece is an homage to Robert Hardgrave:

And her completed piece:

And Robert Hardgrave himself took a staid and formal arrangement of flowers…..

And re-created the piece in an unusual and unexpected way.

Seattle artist Mary Iverson was recently featured in Juxtapoz Magazine.

“Bag Painter” Chris Crites, chose a classic ship to alter:

And added his own personal style to the piece:

Show details:

• Curated by:
Marlow Harris
JoDavid

• Featured Artists:
Ryan Feddersen
Bill Blair

• Special Guest Artists and PRICE LIST will be posted on the Bumber-by-Number website.

High-Resolution photos by Jodavid on Flickr

MORE PHOTOS HERE: Seattle Twist Bumber-by-Number

• WHEN and WHERE?
Bumber By Number and other Visual Arts exhibits are open 11am – 8pm, 9/3 – 9/5, and the Location of the exhibit is the Seattle Center Pavilion (just east of Key Arena)

Free Visual Arts Preview, Thursday, September 1st, 3pm – 9pm, – Mayor’s Arts Awards are 4-6pm

• The dates and times of Bumbershoot Music & Arts Festival are 9/3 – 9/5, 11am – 11pm at Seattle Center.

Please visit their website for information…
www.bumbershoot.org/

A visit to our Paint-by-Number Salon on Treasure Hunter’s Roadshow hosted by Andy St. Claire.

The International Banana Club was founded back in 1972 by Ken Bannister, T.B. (Top Banana). This clubs purpose is to keep you smiling, get you more attention and recognition, give you a vehicle to keep spirits up and stay in good health.

What looks like a banana-is curio shop to us, serves as a networking vehicle for the founder and other members.

After all, the banana is the only fruit shaped like a smile

International Banana Club on Atlas Obscura

Banana Blog

A giant statue of a lady in Hamburg, Germany can be seen floating at Alster Lake with its knees up, several international news sites reported on Thursday, August 4, 2011. Oliver Voss’ “The Bather” Credit

Slide Show