Today at Flavorpill, we learned eight things we didn’t know about Mardi Gras. We traveled back to the ’90s with these photos that perfectly (and hilariously) capture the decade. We went “pun hunting” at the grocery store with Pleated Jeans. We loved this snowy photo of Stanley Kubrick on the set of The Shining. We watched Adele get mad. We hoped Community fans would be happy to hear that the show returns March 15. We learned about the IPaint Project. We laughed at Weird Al’s photo with an Edward Cullen pillow. We were amazed there were actually 10 3-D movies in the 1980s. We saw Norah Jones channel Russ Meyer’s Mudhoney for the cover of her new album. We liked Austin’s exploding house. And finally, we were charmed by this gentleman who has a great life philosophy and a house full of collectibles. We want to visit him — and his cat!
We spotted these fascinating photos of circus performers in Andrew Shaylor’s Behance portfolio and have been dreaming about running away to start our own misfit troupe ever since. The UK-based photographer states on his website that he started out searching for the proverbial Bearded Lady and Siamese Twins — figures most of us have only encountered in places like the movies — but quickly discovered that those characters are a creation from the past. “There still exists a handful of small family-run circuses, but very few show with performing animals and the advent of political correctness has meant circuses have now become a little sanitised,” Shaylor explains.
That doesn’t mean his subjects are any less magical and mysterious, as you’ll see in our gallery past the break. Shaylor has also documented the lives of rockabilly enthusiasts, boxers, and tattoo fiends. Click on for more black and white visions of circus folk.
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AMC is looking past Betty Draper’s (January Jones) Grace Kelly looks and ladies-who-lunch style to focus on her ice queen attitude for its Mad Men season five teaser trailer. HuffPost TV shared the exclusive clip, which is more of a best-of Betty’s bitchiest moments from past seasons. You get the Mommie Dearest moment with Sally, the disgust for Don, and all the other jaw-clenching, suburban malaise Betty does best. It’s a quick and fun clip that whets your appetite for more admen antics, but as the show segues into the early dawn of feminism, does the video make you wish for a different kind of characterization? Would you be ok with more mad mom for another go-round? Watch the video past the break, head to THR for another clip celebrating Joan Harris (née Holloway), and keep your peepers peeled for the other character shorts making their way online. Mad Men returns March 25.
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Writer Anaïs Nin didn’t just keep a diary, she made journaling an art form. She began putting pen to page during her adolescence and continued documenting her most intimate, sexually frank thoughts — often involving famous friends and bedfellows like Henry Miller — until her death in 1977.
The erotica maven’s birthday is today, and we’re taking a look at several other well-known, scandalous diarists who have shared their candid (and often naughty) thoughts and experiences for all to peruse. In the age of celebrity sex tapes, some of these admissions may seem timid now, but they certainly made waves during their time. Who would you add to the list? Click on to read our picks, and weigh in with yours below.
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We love these clever reimaginings of famous logos that Stock Logos created. The website looked at technology titans like Apple and Microsoft — and brand names like Starbucks and Gap — and put a humorous spin on their symbols with a minimalist twist. Did we mention the website imagines what the designs looked like in the past and future? Volkswagen was just starting to produce cars in 1939 when World War II broke out — which may explain the runic symbolism of Stock Logo’s earliest version. Nokia’s logo completely disappears by the time 2015 rolls around (sounds about right), Firefox’s future is a wash by 2050 — a sad end to its firebird beginnings, and IBM finally gets the “blue screen of death” in 2042. Check them all out past the break, and tell us which ones seem most accurate.
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Today at Flavorpill, we looked at Pinterest’s oddest posts. We wondered why Oxygen is just realizing that “thrifting” is a thing and imagined how disturbing their teen wedding show will be. We had a super bad laundry day. We vowed never to eat something called a “Triple Bypass Burger.” We were creeped out by these realistic videogame sculptures. We were happy to see an Alamo Drafthouse opening in San Francisco. We heard what the American Life League thinks about Planned Parenthood. We read the short horror story that Goosebumps‘ author R.L. Stine recently Tweeted. We got the scoop on all the fairy tales being made into movies, but apparently aren’t safe to read to kids. We learned about the secret lives of shoppers and got stalkery vibes. We felt sunny looking at pics from France’s Lemon Festival. And finally, we got naughty with a few silly television taboos posted in a 1949 magazine. How times have changed.
That goofy, 1980s-riffic story about romance on the wrong side of the tracks, Valley Girl, is being remade into a musical feature film. Deadline is reporting that commercial director Clay Weiner will be shooting the story that follows a punk-esque guy and a bubbly Valley girl (with a jerky boyfriend) as they try to navigate their mismatched love connection. “In the musical, the actors will sing ’80s New Wave tunes from bands like The Go Go’s and The Cars.” The original soundtrack featured everyone from The Clash to Modern English. Singers Josie Cotton (“Johnny Are You Queer”) and Peter Case from The Plimsouls also made cameos in the movie. Nicolas Cage played the rowdy bad boy that wooed popular girl Julie (Deborah Foreman).
The film marks the first role Cage played using his stage name and not Coppola. MGM wanted to deliver this one sooner, but their financial troubles have prevented any progress. Weiner’s demo reel apparently “demonstrated the spirit, design, costuming and camera work” that got the studio excited to move forward. Is it too early to start casting the couple? Share your picks below, and watch the trailer for the 1983 film after the jump.
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Las Vegas is now home to the Mob Museum. The cultural ode to organized crime opened its doors on February 14, marking the 83rd anniversary of Chicago’s St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Gang wars erupted in the Illinois state in 1929, leading to the murder of seven mob associates. Now you can learn about it all, up close and personal in Sin City — a place with its own history of mob ties. Exhibits include a revolver found at the site of the famous massacre and the barber chair, in which 1950′s mobster Albert Anastasia was assassinated. In order to keep things accurate, the museum staffs former FBI agents, former police officers, historians, and other experts. The Mob Museum isn’t the only offbeat institution, of course. We’ve found a few other bizarrely fascinating museums around the world that easily rival it. Find out what other exhibition spaces we raised our eyebrows at past the break. Tell us the places you’ve been to below.
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Lego wizard Tyler AKA Legohaulic recently posted a commissioned set of Blade Runner figures on his gallery page, which should send you reeling back to the 1982 dystopian sci-fi epic. Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard is transformed into a blocky version of the retired cop. His new, inhuman shape probably won’t help the “Is he really a replicant?” argument, but we forgot all about that when we saw how awesome Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty looked. (Tears in rain sold separately.) Daryl Hannah’s Pris doesn’t look like your average pleasure model here, and the rest of the Philip K. Dick-inspired characters are equally great. There’s even a miniature version of Deckard’s jet propulsion vehicle, the Spinner, which means someone totally geeked out while crafting this authentic set.
Hopefully looking at these pics will help cheer you up after news hit that Ridley Scott — who is working on the Blade Runner prequel/sequel/we don’t know what yet — is not currently in talks with Harrison Ford to reprise his role. We’ll have to wait and see if Scott thinks Deckard’s part will involve a big enough story point to invite the actor back, but since there’s no script yet let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Check out some Lego porn past the break.
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We definitely enjoy the artful presentation of vintage mug shots — as we’ve pointed out before several times, like here, here, and here. A new batch of old-timey crooks and deviants recently caught our eye over at Dangerous Minds. While the website pointed out the female prisoners housed at Newcastle City Gaol and House of Correction — incarcerated between 1871 to 1873 — the number of children in the bunch is what interested us. All of the Victorian kid criminals we’ve shared past the break are no older than 16, and most of them were sentenced for petty theft. Poverty and peer pressure probably inspired a few of these cases, but no explanations are given apart from the crimes done. Even if they were naughty children, at least their mug shots are extremely polite! Meet a few child crooks below.
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