The Dark Lens
Photos by Cédric Delsaux
Hardcover book featuring dozens more photos of Star Wars characters wandering Earthine landscapes can be purchased at amazon.
Towel Day 2012
You live and learn. At any rate, you live.
Since 2001, admirers of Douglas Adams the world over have celebrated Towel Day, a holiday created by fans two weeks after his passing to commemorate the late, great author. As a tribute, Towel Day is typically celebrated by carrying a towel with you for the entirety of May 25th, demonstrated here and here by the good people of the internet. For those who haven’t read the books (shame on you), the towel is a reference to Adams’ most famous work, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:
A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.
Hence a phrase that has passed into hitchhiking slang, as in “Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There’s a frood who really knows where his towel is.” (Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)For more information on the holiday, visit TowelDay.org, and if you happen to be sporting your towel today like I will be, feel free to send a picture along and we’ll put them up later tonight!
34th shot…33rd week…
19 more weeks and I’m a year. That is nuts.
Life is weird at the moment…so good and so bad. I feel like a wuss for complaining, but….eh
My workouts and diet are really coming together. Being down 25 lbs is a huge boost for me…I’m much more confident and have less dysphoria.
Work sorta blows. I’m not out there and now that I’m a supervisior it seems even more impossible to come out. I want to be happy that I’m really building my career…I just can’t. There is so much risk and stress. It’s awful.
Maybe things will come together…
French artist Sylvain Meyer creates awesome outdoor installations by modifying the natural landscape using materials such such as bark, leaves, and stones.
[via enpundit]
I can’t help being moved by almost every single version of The Rainbow Connection. Let’s start with the man… uh… frog himself, plus the awesome Debbie Harry.
I know what you mean! At last year’s D23 Expo during the Disney Legends induction ceremony for Jim Henson, when Rowlf & Kermit sang Rainbow Connection live on stage there wasn’t a dry eye in the auditorium!
33rd shot…32nd week…
Its been a strange journey so far. I’m not really sure whats really changed and what hasn’t. This whole not documenting thing is more of a hindrance then I thought. This seems totally obvious and dumb, but I’ll say it any way…I see myself everyday and most of the time I’m staring and straining to see change. Why would I? Slowly I’m resolving the matter. I’ve finally taken some pics…mostly to see my workout results. I’ll be posting those later.
I just cant make up my mind about everything. I am out at home 100%, but at work not at all. I even put myself in the idiotic position of going for a supervisor spot. Work has a diversity training stuff, but it doesn’t really apply to orientation or gender. I just don’t have a good feeling about it I guess. If I get this promotion I’m in a vulnerable position. I could have just been another medic in the crowd safe and happy on my MICU. Its almost like I’m sabotaging myself or something.
I’m 8 months in and I have no idea where I am.
Hopefully some day this all makes sense…or at least I won’t be so wound up about it. I just want all this to be over, but I think down deep I know it will never be over. It’s not like the shadows from the past can ever be erased…only faded.
Above:
“On the highline my thoughts are simple and clear,” says pioneering rock climber, BASE jumper, and wing suit flyer Dean Potter. “Fundamental needs shine through the mental clutter. I focus completely on my breath, my connection with the line, and making it safely to the other side.” This highline was set up on the summit of Cathedral Peak, in Yosemite National Park, at an elevation of 10,911 feet. Though Potter is untethered, he is in control. “I’ve always been a ‘free soloist.’ Whatever I do, I long to be untethered and free,” notes Potter. “I am completely confident with my ability to catch the line if I were to fall. I’ve practiced this catch move successfully for the past 19 years.”“Hands down this was the most complicated photo I’ve ever taken,” says photographer Mikey Schaefer.
Schaefer worked throughout the filming of the show, from rigging ropes to operating video cameras, all while shooting still images as well. The image of Potter against the moon stands out from the rest of the shoot. “The whole scenario seemed crazy,” Schaefer says. ”I was over a mile away from my subject, who was walking a tightrope with certain death consequences if he fell. I was running through the woods with $20,000 worth of camera gear, making the most unique photo of my career. I’m still a bit amazed that I managed to stick the shot.”Below:
“Should I grab the stalactite with my hands or turn around on my feet like a real pro?” recalls slackliner-photographer Jared Alden of this moment on an unusual stalactite highline on Koh Yao Noi island in Phuket, Thailand.After driving through a jungle, wading through a cave system, and climbing the backside of the cave, two team members lowered themselves 120 feet to the base of this stalactite and secured the line about 300 feet above the water. “One of the main challenges for this line was finding an anchor point on the stalactite that was strong enough to hold the slackline … and also wouldn’t drop off the end!” says photographer and slackliner Scott Rogers.
To capture the shot, Rogers hung from a rope adjacent to the highline and used his widest lens to frame both Alden and the cave formations. Rogers had to maneuver around eight other people hanging nearby to get the photo he wanted. But the climate and terrain may have held the biggest challenge. “Thailand was pretty rough on all our gear, from corroded biners to fogged image sensors, but we brought enough of everything to last through the trip,” he says.
Ooh, fun with tape! Here’s a contest that proves you can create art with materials sitting right on your desk. Using 15 rolls of Scotch packaging tape, Jake Longenecker nabbed first place in The Scotch Off the Roll Tape Sculpture Contest, sponsored by 3M. Entitled Free Fallin, Jake’s entry depicts a WWII era paratrooper in mid drop. Longenecker beat out more than 100 entries to take home the $5,000 cash prize. This year, one of our favorite and most street artists, Mark Jenkins, helped judge the entries.
For more creative inspiration, make sure to check out last year’s amazing entries and winners here. Fun!
Visit My Modern Metropolis to view the sticky work of three contest finalists.
32nd shot 31st week…
A while back I decided that photo documentation was not something I wanted to do and I went back and fourth about it for quite some time. I’m not sure I made the right call. In fact I’m almost regretting it. I guess I could start now, but that seems sorta weird. So I’m still debating on what to do…which is sorta sad since I’ve been doing this for 30 odd weeks.
I went to my doctor yesterday…I’m still not sure why he even scheduled it lol. I think he just was curious…or something. I dunno…any way I go back in six months and get another set of labs then.
Everything is going better and better. I just wish I had a way to more accurately track my muscle gains to see really how much actual fat I’m losing…which I’m down 22 lbs as of this morning, but as muscle is way more heavy than fat I bet I’ve lost more than that.
I guess thats really all this week…
A tiger mother lost her cubs from premature labour. Shortly after she became depressed and her health declined, and she was diagnosed with depression. So they wrapped up piglets in tiger cloth, and gave them to the tiger. The tiger now loves these pigs and treats them like her babies.
I will always reblog this. Makes me so happy inside.
