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JEEZ..
How will some of them grow up in a few years
kids today really have a short childhood
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Thank you! Great article!
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#6 looks a lot like Dennis Hopper
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"Dr. Aibolit" talks to the animals and is known as "Dr. Dolittle" in the western world.
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And we wonder why so many chidlren of today have 'issues' lol. Great post!
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Can you say "ethnocentric"? I knew you could...
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I may never sleep again. Surely there must be some charity I can contribute to that will put an end to nightmarish playground design.
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Man, I would have loved these things as a kid. I still love them today, but sadly I'm a bit too old to go onto playgrounds without people talking and arrests going on.
When I have kids, I shall have to import some of these things for them!
"Cadaver eating orcs" needs to become a world-wide catchphrase.
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"Dr. Aibolit" is just a plastic horse somebody's posed and drawn a face on the tail...
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"Anonymous said...
"Dr. Aibolit" is just a plastic horse somebody's posed and drawn a face on the tail..."
I think the descriptions are above the pictures. The Dr. Aibolit figure is the one with the red cross on his/her head.
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That last one will haunt my dreams. Thanks a lot, jerks! :)
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Maybe if American children grew up with stuff like this, they wouldn't turn into whiny, ethnocentric fops with no sense of adventure or creativity who expect everything to be safe.
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These are so much more creative than the playgrounds kids in america have today. Every playground looks the same. From the rececycled material padding the bottom of the play area to the bridge, 2 slides (1 going in a corkscrew) the bars to hand on and the tic tac tow in plastic blocking under the platform for the bridge and slide. Did I not just describe every playground from every neighborhood across america. And I live in Hawaii and we got this too. Go Capitalism. Standard playgrounds make standardized brains to take standardized tests.
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Thank you anonymous. I totally agree with this. Suburbs are all like this... a bunch of pre-fabricated blocks everywhere.
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I think, actually, that this is more related to the norm that existed in child-rearing for hundreds of years. You let your kid know that scary things exist out there, instead of making vague intimations about kidnappers and keeping them in a bubble.
Really, these wouldn't have anything to do with the problems kids have TODAY (speaking as, in America, which is where I assume Andrew is posting from) because kids today AREN'T exposed to this sort of thing.
Have you noticed? Kids' entertainment, the bad guys are getting bland and cuddly (if there are any) and the good guys are the ones to perpetrate the violence, if there is any.
No monsters, in my opinion, means children grow up with unrealistic ideas about how to interact with the world. There ARE monsters, all kinds--poverty, disease, pedophiles, kidnappers, etc. And children aren't being taught to sublimate the existence of these threats on a level they can understand.
Of course these threats SHOULDN'T exist, but as long as we do we're not doing kids a favor by trying to hide the fact that 'scary things can get you' from them. As in abstinence-only sex education, telling someone not to worry about something, they're too young to know about it, is obviously not a viable or intelligent option.
There's my rant. I love these, I grew up in cold-war Europe and saw monsters and went to torture museums as a kid. When I moved to America, it was pretty noticeable how sheltered some of the other kids were. Not necessarily from the sex and violence portrayed in the media, they got plenty of that, but it was untempered by a healthy understanding of the risks they personally ran. It was all an abstraction to them, with no concept of their own placement in it.
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Loved seeing Nyarlathotep in riverside installation, the dedication definitely was there,lol.
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fantastic!
i love this stuff but the chimp one at the end gives me the fear something chronic.
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My gosh, some of this reminds me of haphazard scenes out of Second Life!
» http://lh6.ggpht.com/abramsv/SBuvBido3pI/AAAAAAAAQCk/oGNafsu9QNw/s1600-h/116522017.jpg
^ in particular looks like a melted-down Smurfette.
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Really, while the photos are intriguing, I find it far more interesting that there's quite literally no subject that can't be turned into a cynical dig at America and/or capitalism.
Those tame cookie-cutter playgrounds don't exist because some corporate fat-cat is churning them out in a bid to stunt childrens' mental growth. Lawyers survive by encouraging parents to sue those corporations every time little Johnny gets an skinned knee or barked shin from "unsafe" playground equipment.
Those "evil" corporations don't have any choice in the matter if they want to survive.
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I happen to think these are beautiful.
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Better than Disneyland. Actually, much much better.
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The shy-looking red devil/king thing is great. I'd like to have one, although I don't know what I'd do with it...
The vegetable thing looks like a giant turnip to me. I wonder if the leaves are slides?
Also, the ape at the end is REALLY something. Wow.
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256 - The "Red Devil" is Kaschei the Immortal from Russian fairy tales - and he's got his life hidden in the needle, in the egg inside the box.
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loved this collection---thanks. Wish these sorts of things decorated my local playgrounds!
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thanks for collecting those photos, awesome post! we had lots of laughs at these pics.
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i also got a nice set on flickr with some scrap metal sculptures from israel,
here
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The "vegetable thing" is actually a giant turnip from a fairytale I really loved when I was young. Grandpa's turnip grows huge, and he can't get it up, so Grandma helps. Turnip doesn't get up, so their grandson helps. But the turnip doesn't get up, so eventually there's the horse and cows and dog and cat etc. helping, with little effect. Finally a tiny mouse helps and they get the turnip up. This was always told with sound effects and I had to imagine who else could help in order to get the turnip up from the ground.
One of the sculptures on the first page also depicted this. Guess it must look extremely freaky unless you know the story.
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Hey, you know what? Even though I can agree that SOME of this stuff is downright ugly (but please don't forget that many of them are just in a terrible shape, that's it), only those people having no clue what-so-ever about what these things are about (cultural background, fairytales, cartoons, etc.), can make fun of these and think they are stupid or insane. I grew up in Russia in late 60's - early 70's, and believe me, the playgrounds that we had back then were so much more entertaining that anything I can see now in America and Canada, for example. To me, those "mysterious little monsters" (they are buddies of the more well-known Cheburashka, BTW) are far more appealing than any Disney character. I totally agree with people here talking about standardized thinking and keeping children in a bubble -- these are real evil things. And BTW, I can see waaay more young people "having issues" than folks who grew up in those days and in those playgrounds. WTF is a depression or anxiety disorder in a kid?!? They did not exist back then, plain and simple. Jeez, people, get real, and get a life...
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Anonymous, I'm sure people back in Russia would poke in fun at unfamiliar American cultural figures and find them bizarrely unattractive, just like the hair growing out of a strange old man's nose and ears are hideous, but never on your own beloved grandfather.
As well you're right about disorders present in today's children, and we have a name for them all- but that hardly means this generation is less mentally fit than the one before, and the one before that.
I started kindergarten in the California public school system in 1967, and nobody was labelled as having "A.D.D." or "Autistic", but there were a couple of kids in every class who were fidgety and disruptive, often a genius in entrance testing but short attention span resulted in C's by midyear- (cough, ahem, me) or another who droned on and on about some insanely boring subject until someone pounded him into the asphalt at recess- remember in those days if you didn't come home with a bloody nose or a fat lip once a month or so there was something strange going on.
I didn't know mom wasn't normal because once a week I was late for school when she got halfway to the campus with me and insisted we go back home so she could be sure the clothes iron she'd used in the den then put in its box in the kitchen REALLY WAS UNPLUGGED and couldn't burn down the house. All those nights she kept half the house awake scrubbing the same tub for hours that she'd scrubbed the previous night, well I just figured we needed a clean place to bathe.
Mom's close to 80 now, you think I should break the news to her that I think she might have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder? She'd probably say "what the hell is that?"
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Man those look amazing, some of them I think they're a bit out there, but for the most part they're awesome. Then again I think teletubbies are a bit scary, so to each his own right? ^_^
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So what should we be putting in children playgrounds if these are so bad, Michelangelo's David?
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Wow, notice all of these are in other countries... I think it`s just different cultures, but people in the US would claim these are NOT PC and sue the maker for thousands of dollars, and probably win too! "Judge, my child still has nightmares!", LOL!!!
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Agreed, Magnetic Crow. I grew up in Russia with my mom reading me the Hans Christian Anderson original versions of Disney classics.
I don't understand why people think kids can't handle the realities of life -- I think they understand them better than adults in some respects.
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fantastic post as always DRB!
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The fly on the urinal is a very old idea, though originally it was a bee, as a pun on apis - latin for bee.
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The bomb is a T-12 Demolition bomb, as developement of the british "Grand Slam" bomb, on display at the US army ordinance museum, Aberdeen proving ground, Aberdeen, Maryland
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The image of the boy in front of the large bomb is at the US Army Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland. You can see it here:
http://www.ordmusfound.org/Littledavidslideshow.htm
If you scroll about 2/3 to the right, there is a thumbnail that will enlarge.
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that image of those two snakes were intriguing.
What were they doing?
Getting ready to fight of to kiss
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who's milking the mouses?
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Cats! but of course.
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Those weren't two snakes at all!
The reptile on the right is a turtle... notice the lack of fangs among other differences.
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oh wow! just fantastic!
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The Pasha Bulker was a bulk cargo carrier, not a container ship. Hence the name 'Bulker...'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Pasha_Bulker
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this pictures are amazing.
but they do show one thing. what ever the humans build or create nature will fight back and win. metal doesn't stand a chance against nature.
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I never knew that damage could be so beautiful.
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Here is another big ship at the wrong location:
http://www.cargolaw.com/2006nightmare_apl_panama.html
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OMG it's the Borealis!
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In the UK there is a saying "As useless as sending coals to Newcastle" which makes The Pasha Bulker somewhat ironic (yes I know its a different Newcastle
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Check out the S. S. Selma. It is a ship made of concrete that was scrapped outside of Galveston.
http://www.concreteships.org/ships/ww1/selma/
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really beautiful set...
Great for inspiration!
Is it wrong to wish there was stuff like this everywhere?
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There's something so majestic about ships and so heart-tuggingly sad about their deaths.
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"Oriskany" was misspelled.
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While not on the same scale as these huge ships check out the Steamboat Arabia museum in Kansas City. The boat sank in the Missouri River in 1856. The story of finding it and recovering the contents is pretty amazing.
http://www.1856.com/
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Tons more photos like this can be found at gCaptain's
Disaster At Sea page. Check it out!
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it's wrong that these arent everywhere
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More shipwrecks, less cute animals DRB!
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Anonymous - yes, there will be part 2 of shipwrecks; and... er, ugly animals.
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Reminds me: I must update my tetanus shot.
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totally rad, man. F--king awesome
mmmm it would be cool to explore a wrecked ship and come across ghosts of pirates and/or sailors who perished in the seas...
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Absolutely amazing pictures...
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The "Murmansk" was a cruiser, not a battleship.
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The "Golf Course" in the Pasher bulker photo set is actually just a park. not nearly enough room for a golf course on that headland. We went to see the bulker while we were in Newcastle.
Big boat, little beach.
Quite funny.
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Great pictures and interesting information. I've linked your site at www.shipreckdiaries.blogspot.com since we seem to share an interest in shipwreck and related subjects.
Juan
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Wow, those are some really amazing shots. I've always been curious about diving to see some underwater wrecks but I don't think I'd be able to go that deep due to some genetic inferiorities. I didn't realize how many are above the water!
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amazing photos!
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Absolutely beautiful & tragic at the same time.
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This is beautiful!
I love shipwrecks!
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Fantastic collection!
re: Pasha Bulker. That isn't a golf course, it's just a park. That was an interesting weekend the Pasha ran aground. Up to half a dozen or so other freighters came dangerously close to doing the same thing.
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The Pasha Bulker weekend was crazy, the amount of rain and the number of people driving up to see it when it first washed up were incredible. It seemed like most of newcastle was driving to see it.
Also anonymous is right about it not being a golf course, it's just a park.
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This is GREAT!
You can actually dive the Oriskany. More information is available on our website www.visitpensacola.com
We also have footage of the first underwater wedding that took place on the deck of the Oriskany in Pensacola Florida.
You can watch that video on our blog www.visitpensacola.blogspot.com/2007/11/love-is-in-water.html
Thanks
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Think that those who enjoyed these photos (and who wouldn't?) find Wired's "High Tech Cowboys of the Deep Seas: The Race to Save the Cougar Ace" an interesting read: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-03/ff_seacowboys.
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hey... very very super collection....
i like this page and hole blog....
super really very very super....
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amazing picures, thanks for sharring
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One artist documented rotting hulks in New York Harbor in the middle of the 20th century -- see the museum devoted to his work:
http://www.noblemaritime.org/aboutjohn.htm
There are pages on his museum site showing thumbnails lithographs of his work and a book reproducing his work.
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That last one looks like a bad Photoshop.
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yea... I got rid of it
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The "pet" is a Moloch, a lizzard that lives in the dessert. The wings are photoshopped in.
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The squirrel keyboard one...reminds me of when my nephew was about three years old and I had to look after him. He would always try and copy me and "mash" my keyboard while I was doing stuff. I found a spare unplugged keyboard and put it in front of him. Loved it, both of us happy. What a great story (not).
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That last photo is of Prairie Dogs not squirrels.
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Marmots actually..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmot
Picture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Marmot-edit1.jpg
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Definitely NOT a marmot, Maurice. They're prarie dogs, for sure.
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Technically we are both right:
Class: Mammalia
Order: Rodentia
Suborder: Sciuromorpha
Family: Sciuridae
Tribe: Marmotini
Prairie Dogs ARE members of the marmot tribe, and we are quibbling over the genus:
Genus: Cynomys, versus:
Genus: Marmota
I still think they are genus marmota in that picture
They look to be too big to be prairie dogs.
BTW, I live in Alberta, where we see both, not to mention Richardson's Ground Squirrels, often confused with prairie dogs as well.
In any case, they are rodents..
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Haha fair enough Maurice.
But I'm also familiar will all of those (I'm from Colorado), and prarie dogs live in the fields by my house. My vote is prairie dogs.
But I do see the arguement for marmot. They look pretty large in that picture. Although... not THAT large. ;)
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I still spelled prairie wrong. I coulda sworn I threw that 'i' in there both times. Oh well.
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No. 21, definately the tops!
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I'd go with number 30
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26! Go Gilly, Go!
(Aussie Aussie Aussie)
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zomg chin-chan!
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Is #20 in a church? what the... I'm going to have to vote for that weird demon eyes girl with the raising-hands girl right behind her.
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my vote is for 21.
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44
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my vote goes to No 26
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13, hands down.
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11. That Kid is scary!
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12 FTW!!!!!!!!!!
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I would just add this guy, Vladimir Franz, who is actually a university professor, composer and a painter: http://franz.wz.cz/franzeng/index.html or a site of his fans with more pictures http://www.vladimirfranz.eu/
his portrait: http://www.classical-composers.org/img/franz_vladimir.jpg
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#43 is a really creative one - poor Julia Timoschenko:D
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I'm going to say 21. Too funny, only one that made me laugh out loud.
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No. 31 is my pick.
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Haha...
i go with faces 13,16, and 21.
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1 or 19
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40
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22 is great.
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Number one does not say which of the Olson Twins this is?!?
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32
32
32
three two
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22 for me
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And the winner is: 15!
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1 and 20!
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21 is very funny
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Haha. 21 or 13.
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10 and 42 are awesome.
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MOSHGIRRRRRRRRRRRRL!
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19.....Lisa Boyle!
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I FANCY #1
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1
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1
14
and
19
XD
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All photos are great/funny.
Our favorite photo is No.15.
Greetings,
Macedonian Girls
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#37
looks like a candit shot of a sweet lady enjoying life
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last one is, well, something horrible.
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definitely have to go with 13
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No. 1 for sure. I'd like to do some testing on what I could fit in there!
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is number 34 andre 3000?
(day off...wants to get that jumper finished but feels like being a little sociable?)
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My vote is for 16, I wonder what the girls doing and the guys in the background look very very horrified for some reason... Its just a funny pic, Thanks!
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Chinese man died at 256 because his unsigned int age overflew... his system couldn't handle it.
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the house of people is also the parliament of romania
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A couple of nitpicks:
The name of the former Romanian dictator is commonly spelled Ceausescu, not Chaushescu (although the pronunciation sounds similar).
Dom Narodov sounds suspiciously Russian, the Romanian language, however, is not related to Russian, but Latin.
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Further to Dom Narodov: in Romanian, the building is called Casa Poporului.
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yeah, what he/she said! :)
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I got a book about the Vulcan raid on Argentinia for Christmas. It's a really good read. Still the furthest bombing raid ever! Damn argies still think the falklands are theirs!
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I ove the last one. It´s really than life
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Is not ove, it´s love. Sorry.
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Great photos on the Beijing Olympic construction projects, Avi! For more in-depth reporting on mind-blowing scale and speed of these projects, check out the May National Geographic special issue on China, with an article by Ted Fishman on China's urban construction boom. In an interesting turnaround from the situation in the US, where most of our products are Chinese, in Beijing all these new architectural designs are from Western companies, which sometimes doesn't sit too well with Beijing's citizens; "Some people in China—including Chinese architects—believe their country has become the Western architects' weapons testing ground":
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/05/china/architecture/ted-fishman-text
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Thank you Marilyn, I added the link to this great article inside the post.
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I am sorry you feel the need to rip into China like the rest of the media - Obviously us Westerners don't like up and coming competition (China) or, for that matter, oil producing countries (where do I start?).
I was very happy to see Micheal Palin (arguably a man of the world) interviewed yesterday and when asked to coment on the Tibet issue, basically wouldn't, and even suggested after speaking to many Tibetans (including the Dalai Lama himself) that there would be a lot in it for them.
I am sick of idiots who read the propaganda press and think they know it all.
Oh I think the cartoon at the end really say's it all doesn't it? Whitout China us Westerners would not have many things we take for granted.
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Without China,you may can not buy ur bread!
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"Whitout China us Westerners would not have many things we take for granted."
Westerners can still have things that they take for granted. Just wait till us in the USA have to pay $50 for a broom, made in Europe! Happy times are coming!!!!!!!!
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the dalai lama has said breaking off from china would be bad economically for tibet, but a sovereign state, led by the dalai lama is ideal for china and tibet.
the only propaganda is coming from china.
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Looks like a tarsier.
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Mystery animal looks like a slow loris.
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It's a slow loris.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_loris
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Cute! Definitely a slow loris -
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It is a slender loris. As in this link, http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Slender_Loris_Gasps_For_Survival_As_Urban_India_Expands_999.html
It's the actual picture to boot. Cute!
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Thank you guys. Updated the info.
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The "Corporate Culture" drawing looks like a Bill Plympton creation.
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3 Comments:
Re: Kalashnikov Vodka - Not just an appropriation of a known brand name. Apparently, in Russia, it's common for famous people to partner with a distillery to release a vodka that they endorse (in return for a handsome cheque, I assume). And Kalashnikov Vodka is indeed endorsed by Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of the AK-47.
Re: Phonebox/Kayak - That looks like a BT (British Telecom) phonebox, and England certainly did have floods resulting in 4-5ft water a couple of times in the last few years. So it's entirely possible that it's real.
Cool
Re: Phone box underwater - this is almost certainly not photoshopped. Last summer we (the UK, can tell from the BT phone box) had some incredibly severe flooding, which was probably when this photo was taken.
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