by Michael John Grist The Sphinx asked me its questions. I ignored the Sphinx. It had the head of a lion, and the body of a man and woman combined. “Where are you from?” it asked. “Why are you here?” The Sphinx touched me with its hips. It edged closer to me. “Stroke my hair,” it said. “Then you may pass.” “I don’t want to pass,” I said. “All want to pass. Just touch my cheeks. Stroke my back.” “I don’t want to. I’m fine here.” “It’s the desert.” “It’s where I’m meant to be.” “Kiss my eyelids. Stroke the …
The exploded bust of Ferdinand Marcos
At the height of his power in the 1970’s former president/dictator of the Philippines Ferdinand E. Marcos commissioned the construction of a 99-foot concrete bust in own image, situated on a cliff overlooking the South China Sea around 130 km North of Manila. In 2002 it was torn apart in an explosion, the eyes, forehead and cheeks blown to bits- suspects included left-wing activists, members of a local tribe – or possibly looters hunting for one of Marcos’ legendary treasure troves. The bust was completed in the early 1980s when Mr Marcos was still in power, but fell into disrepair …
The Devil at Your Heels
by Robert Mammone The tick tick tick of the car’s cooling engine dragged Arthur back to his surroundings with a rush. The sky was cornflower blue, the only movement a honking arrow of geese skirting the horizon. He squinted against the bright summer light, his face cooled by a gentle breeze that disturbed the smoke hazing the air. A fly crawled across his face, tasted the sweat beading on his skin, before he swatted it away. He looked down at his hand resting on the hood of his car. He felt the heat bite deep into his hand, the pain …
Painting the Ruins of NYC
Cities can be destroyed at the click of a mouse button. The ruins of New York are nothing new, we’ve seen them in countless movies as the stunning backdrop to end of the world tales. But how hard are these images to make? For film they typically do it with computers, and frame-by-frame paint what they want. Here I take a lesson in that kind of frame-by-frame painting- with just one cell. This is my first effort at destructing a city through Photoshop. I followed an indepth tutorial online here, and if you go to check that out you’ll notice …
Ruins of Tokyo’s Apocalypse
Tokyo has been ravaged. It was meteors or earthquakes, tsunami or nuclear holocaust, though the cause hardly matters- no one’s left alive to remember it anyway. The apocalypse came and killed everyone, leaving only bits of our cities behind. Tokyo Genso is the site of a Japanese game artist who is passionate about the apocalypse. His site features huge amounts of his often excellent art, occasionally describing his destructing technique, and show-casing his work in magazines like ‘Liberal Time’ and at otaku conventions. He takes photos around Tokyo, and via Photoshop kills all the people and ages the city through …
Levitation Town
by Michael Colangelo Connor Mason is disappointed with the way that the makeup kit has turned out. He stares into his mother’s boudoir mirror and compares his face to that of the monster’s face on the discarded box. He looks nothing like the picture advertised. In fact, he still looks like himself, just with ugly blotches of green and brown patterned on his skin. The kit was a rip-off. He has ordered things from the back pages of comic books before and they have all been failures. If they even show up at all, that is. They are usually nothing …
The High-Heeled Guide to Enlightenment
My sister has written a book, and now it has been released. The title is ‘The High-Heeled Guide to Enlightenment’, and it’s a wide-ranging guide to spirituality for modern women. I haven’t read it yet (am waiting on my signed copy to arrive) but I know she put at least a year of active spiritual experimentation (reiki, sweat lodges, tarot, meditation, etc..) into a blender along with her life experience as both a modern woman and daughter of a wiccan high priest, and came up with something unique and truly fascinating. I can’t wait to read it, and am enormously …
