The Holy Mountain - Rare Cult Film

I have to see this Movie : "La montaña sagrada (The Holy Mountain, reissued as The Sacred Mountain) is a 1973 cult film directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky who also participated as actor, composer, set designer, and costume designer. The film was produced by Beatles manager Allen Klein. John Lennon and George Harrison also put up production money. The film was never given wide release.

The central members of the cast were said to have spent 3 months doing various spiritual exercises guided by Oscar Ichazo of the Arica Institute. The Arica training features Zen, Sufi and yoga exercises along with eclectic concepts drawn from the Kabala, the I Ching and the teachings of Gurdjieff. After the training, the group lived for one month communally in Jodorowsky's home before shooting began."

Now for the plot synopsis : "A Christlike figure wanders through bizarre, grotesque scenarios filled with religious and sacrilegious imagery. He meets a mystical guide who introduces him to six wealthy and powerful individuals, each representing a planet in the solar system. These six, along with the protagonist, the guide and the guide's assistant, divest themselves of their worldly goods and form a group of nine who will seek out the Holy Mountain, in order to displace the gods who live there and become immortal." Wiki

If any of my readers have seen this one, let me know.

"Light-Echo" from an Exploding Star

A Light echo is a visual phenomenon seen when light from a rapidly brightening object such as a nova is reflected from interstellar matter. Imagine a camera-flash in space - it's an expanding sphere of light. Likewise from NASA, we have a star which has exploded. What you're seeing in these images is the light-burst traveling outwards in all directions as it illuminates dust and gas previously blown-off by the star. For a size comparison, our entire Solar System would fit easily inside the red aura around the star, look again at the dates on the images and remember that light travels at roughly 186,000 miles per second and these pics span 6 months. Amazing.

Images of the Day

Monk Can Control Body Temperature by Meditating

"In a monastery in northern India, thinly clad Tibetan monks sat quietly in a room where the temperature was a chilly 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Using a yoga technique known as g Tum-mo, they entered a state of deep meditation. Other monks soaked 3-by-6-foot sheets in cold water (49 degrees) and placed them over the meditators’ shoulders. For untrained people, such frigid wrappings would produce uncontrolled shivering.

If body temperatures continue to drop under these conditions, death can result. But it was not long before steam began rising from the sheets. As a result of body heat produced by the monks during meditation, the sheets dried in about an hour.

In 1985, the meditation team made a video of monks drying cold, wet sheets with body heat. They also documented monks spending a winter night on a rocky ledge 15,000 feet high in the Himalayas. The sleep-out took place in February on the night of the winter full moon when temperatures reached zero degrees F. Wearing only woolen or cotton shawls, the monks promptly fell asleep on the rocky ledge, They did not huddle together and the video shows no evidence of shivering. They slept until dawn then walked back to their monastery."
Source - Harvard University

700-year-old painting looks like Mickey Mouse

"An amazing 700-year-old picture that looks just like Mickey Mouse has been found in an Austrian church. The mouse picture - called a fresco because it is painted straight onto plaster - has a pointed nose and big round ears that make it look just like it is the famous cartoon character. The image was found on the wall of a church in the southern part of the country, and is standing with a group of other animals." Source - BBC NEWS

Blogs blocked in India, Pakistan, Iran and China!

A big screw that from Stray Dog! Fellow bloggers, readers from Myspace, please add people from India, Pakistan, Iran and China. Tell them all they can still speak freely on the internet! Direct this link provided bellow to them all. Freethinkers unite, ideas never die, let us all speak loudly from our keyboards from sea to shining sea!
Godspeed!

Link and Banner that will allow people to shove it to their respective goverments - Pkblogs

Unkle - Eye For an Eye - Shynola

This video was sent my way by my bestfriend via Myspace. Its a Song by the Group Unkle, with an amazing music video, it's astounding, sinister and etheral. Frankly, i was blown away. After a bit of searching i found out the animation was the work of a collective of artist known as Shynola. They are a group of four visual artists based in London. The name Shynola is a reference to a line in the Steve Martin movie The Jerk which implies that all you need to know in life is the difference between shit and Shinola. Wow, i'm already a fan. Thanks Sean.
Band Website - UNKLE
Animators Website - Shynola

Unkle - Eye For an Eye

Knitting Gone Wrong

Strange Politics - Mitsuo Matayoshi - The only God

"Mitsuo Matayoshi is an eccentric Japanese politician, self-styled as The only God Mitsuo Matayoshi Jesus Christ or Matayoshi Jesus. He is the leader of the World Economic Community Party. Matayoshi was trained as a preacher of a Protestant sect, and did religious activity. After a life of preacher he has developed a particular concepts of Christianity, strongly influenced by Eschatology. In 1997 He established the World Economic Community Party based on his conviction that he is the God and Christ.

According to his program he will do the Last Judgement as the Christ but the way to do this is totally within the current political system and its legitimacy. His first step as the Savior is to be appointed the prime minister of Japan. Then he will reform Japanese society and then the United Nations should offer him the honor of its General Secretary. Then Matayoshi Jesus will reign over the whole world with two legitimate authorities, not only religious but also political.

He has presented himself in many elections but he has not won yet. He has become well-known for his eccentric campaigns where he urges opponents to commit suicide by hara-kiri (disembowelment, note that he avoids the more polite seppuku) and says that he will cast them into Gehenna (Hell)."
Source - Wiki
Official website (in Japanese)
Unofficial website (in Japanese)
Matayoshi campaign poster with English translation

The Artwork of Gregory Euclide

"Euclide's paintings on paper build from a tradition of landscape painting that is lyrical and a bit romantic; the images are atmospheric, delicate, and often wistful. Rendered in naturalistic shades of green, rust, gray, and the soft black of sumi ink, the pastoral scenes of hill, dell, and lake country are masterfully executed with fluid lines and painterly flourishes. But where traditional landscape painting ends, Euclide's work begins to get interesting. Skylines burst off the horizontal axis into exuberant scrolls and scribbles that resemble calligraphy or lines of graffiti tags. Detailed drawings of riverbanks and shrubs dissolve into masses of abstract lines and drips of paint. Throughout, cryptic letters, numbers, and a quirky use of office supplies disrupt the illusion, suggesting a highly subjective vision -- landscape on an acid trip. Euclide's near-psychedelic imagery reminds us that nature is more than a pretty view: It can be charged with emotional resonance, broken down into underlying patterns, and dissected through scientific inquiry. "
Source - sfWeekly
Artist Homepage - Gregory Euclide

Hallucii: Trapped in Escher Illusion.

Hallucii is an animated movie created by Goo-Shun Wang about a guy trapped in an M.C. Escher illusion.

Tiger's Nest Monastery - 3000 miles above Bhutanese

"One of the most holy sites in Bhutan, the Guru Rinpoche is said to have flown here on the back of a tigeress and then meditated in a cave, contained within the present structure, for three months. The monastery (goemba in Bhutanese) was built in its present form in 1692. It suffered a devastating fire of unknown origin during the night of April 19, 1998. Speculation is that the fire was caused either by lightening or an overturned butter lamp. Old photographs and diaries were used to make the reconstruction as close to the original as possible, though there was little documentation of the wall paintings and other artwork housed inside.Special permission is required for non-Bhutanese to visit the monastery, usually granted only to practicing Buddhists on a religous retreat. This photograph was taken from the viewpoint across the valley, the furthest point ordinary tourists can reach before being stopped by a guard."
Source - UNM.EDU
Image via - Leo Palmers portfolio

Images of the Day

Visual Acoustics

With Visual Acoustics you can paint a musical composition on your screen! Choose an instrument for your brush, set the volume and delay, and move your mouse over the surface to create a pattern both visual and acoustical. Link -via Dump Trumpet

The Video for Röyksopp's "Remind Me"

I'm not a huge fan of the music on this Video, but i do really like the animation. Good stuff.

James Brown - Rest in Peace

"Brown was admitted to the Emory Crawford Long Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia on December 24, 2006 after a dentist visit where he was found to have severe pneumonia.[6] Brown died the next day on December 25, 2006, around 1:45 a.m. (06:45 UTC)" Source : Wiki
James Brown- Sex Machine / Soul Power

Pictures of Walls

Link : 100's of Galleries with Pictures of Walls

Reindeer Hot Dogs Served For Holiday Season

"Just in time for Christmas, they're selling reindeer hot dogs in suburban Chicago. With grilled onions and mustard, it will cost you $8 at Fred Markoff's hot dog stand in Glenview.The reindeer dogs are made in Alaska and actually contain a bit of beef and pork, because reindeer meat is so lean and dry." Source : CNN

Justin Time for Christmas

Justin Timberlake sings "Dick in a Box" SNL Uncensored

The Most Mysterious Manuscript in the World

The Voynich manuscript is a mysterious illustrated book with incomprehensible contents. It is thought to have been written between approximately 1450 and 1520 by an unknown author in an unidentified script and unintelligible language.

Over its recorded existence, the Voynich manuscript has been the object of intense study by many professional and amateur cryptographers, including some top American and British codebreakers of World War II fame (all of whom failed to decipher a single word). However, Statistical analysis of the text reveals patterns similar to natural languages

The illustrations of the manuscript shed little light on its contents, but imply that the book consists of six "sections", with different styles and subject matter. Except for the last section, which contains only text, almost every page contains at least one illustration.

The question is - who wrote it, what does it say if anything and what was its purpose? We may never know. Source : Wiki

The official site listing its history and a massive gallery - The Voynich Manuscript Homepage