...where I write about my visits to oddities of art, nature, history, and culture across the country and world, as well as my life in between the oddities.
OTIS Blog
05.22.2013
Sinister Strolling: A New York Grimpendium-Inspired Walking Tour
Let’s say you find yourself in Lower Manhattan. And in a morbid mood. And you have the leg strength of a kangaroo. I’ve made an app for you.
Random Post
05.21.2013
My Modern Metropolis recently posted some fantastic wide-angle shots of the interior of La Sagrada Familia, the Barcelona church designed by Antoni GaudÃ. I visited it a few years ago (post here), but my pictures did little to show how strange, grand, and--in the apt description of the My Modern Metropolis post--"kaleidoscopic" the interior of the church is. And if the interior is kaleidoscopic, the exterior is, I don't know, primitive-extraterrestrial. Gaudi just worshipped a weirder God than most.
Oddity News
05.20.2013
- This is what it looks like from atop the Washington Monument.
- The St. Louis Gateway Arch is a dirty, dirty thing.
- An amazing memorial for the 1989 crashed UTA Flight 772 out in the Sahara.
- Lenin mausoleum reopens.
- Giant stained-glass crab at BWI airport.
- A sky whale.
- Alaska's Mount Pavlof erupting.
- A UFO festival in Oregon.
- Slave cabin being moved from South Carolina to the Smithsonian.
- Cygan, an 8-foot-tall robot from the 1950s, is for sale.
OTIS Visit
Naperville, Illinois
05.19.2013
Gigantic Gumshoe: The Dick Tracy Statue
We visit the giant statue of an 80-year-old fictional detective that Warren Beatty tried to get me to care about almost a quarter of a century ago. Yes, that's how you can describe the year 1990.
Random Photos
05.18.2013
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| My day in three frames. |
Oddity News
05.16.2013
- Boston Bomber buried in Virginia.
- Strange white foam seeps up from beneath a street in China.
- Man restores Galileo shuttle prop from Star Trek: The Original Series.
- Hong Kong's pink dolphins at risk.
- Bizarre, toothy marine carcass washes up on New Zealand beach.
- Slideshow of abandoned cities across the world.
- Vatican hates Mexican death saint.
- Detroit's 10-foot-tall RoboCop statue cast and ready for bronzing.
- Old pieces of wedding cake from celebrity weddings are highly collectible.
- Mysterious, tiny wooden coffins filled with tiny wooden bodies found in 1836 in Scotland on display.
Random Photo
05.15.2013
Headed to the Chicago area for a couple of days. Last time I was there I met this guy:
Random Photo
05.14.2013
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Astronaut Chris Hadfield's recent orbit rendition of David Bowie's Space Oddity reminded me that I've had this on the wall of my study for more than a decade. Multiple studies over the course of a decade, actually. From back when personal printers and tons of fonts were a novelty.
OTIS Visit
Seattle, Washington
05.13.2013
Alien Architecture: The Space Needle
Every major city has a Signature Tall Thing. For most of them, it’s usually just a relatively boring office building. In Seattle, Washington, it’s a tribute to extraterrestrials built by Satanists...
Random Photo
05.13.2013
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My Saturday in the Bronx wasn't just all bell towers.
It was also trash, razor wire, and alleys.
Random Photo
05.12.2013
OTIS Visit
Milford, PA
05.08.2013
These Colors Run: The Bloody Lincoln Flag
Local history museums are the attics of entire towns. Everything old and weird and that people don’t want to throw out but don’t know what else to do with ends up there. Like the blood of Abraham Lincoln or the noose of an executed wife murderer...
Oddity News
05.06.2013
- A sunken town in Italy whose tower still juts above the water.
- 1,700-year-old Roman cemetery found beneath UK parking lot.
- Fully stocked, 50-year-old fallout shelter discovered in Wisconsin family's back yard.
- Amazing giant metal creature sculptures in the desert outside San Diego.
- Six-inch, alien-looking Atacama skeleton turns out to be human.
- Antique, taxidermy frog sculptures in the Frog Museum of Switzerland.
- Freud's couch in London needs a restoration.
- Hundreds of yellow spheres found beneath Quetzalcoatl's temple outside Mexico City.
- Bray Studios, the site of many Hammer Horror movies from the 50s and 60s to be torn down.
- Historical marker unearthed in Cambridge, MA.
Random Photo
05.05.2013
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| I know I still owe you my map of New England oddities. It's coming. Promise. |
Random Photo
05.04.2013
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| All right. May the 4th...whatever. Pic from a disastrous event I did last year for the New York Grimpendium. Well, not totally disastrous. This moment was my salvage. R2D2 not pictured. |
