This Blog Rules

Posted: 06 Jul 2012 07:35 AM PDT

It doesn’t get much madder than this on a pogo stick. Mr. Curt Markwardt and Mr. Fred Grzybowski do extremely crazy things that I can’t come even remotely close to doing on a pogo stick in this awesome video filmed with a Canon 5D Mk3 in Brighton, England. Note the sign at the 1:31 mark that reads, “No Cycling and No Skateboarding.” The sign-makers weren’t able to anticipate that two crazy kids would one day get on pogo sticks and do amazing stunts. The song you hear playing in the background is “Astronaut” by Vincent Tone. It’s sick as well. I wish this sport was more mainstream so I could bet on on the outcome of a pogo stick skills event. Sports betting is very much my cup of green tea.

I still remember that night in Vegas 3 years ago. I lost about $2,000 at the blackjack table and was pretty bummed out. The following day I made some bets on Major League Baseball games and ended up making the $2,000 back and then some. I was so happy that I jumped on a pogo stick and began bouncing up a storm. No, I couldn’t come close to doing the unbelievable tricks that the pogo dudes are capable of doing, but I’d like to think that I held my own.

By Elroy Johnson

Wire Wonderland: Woodland Critters of Twisted Steel

Posted: 06 Jul 2012 07:00 AM PDT

You ever bend a paperclip out of shape and bend it into another, much more fun shape? I know I've done it a few times in the past, mostly when I was bored and on my lonesome and felt no need to bind several sheets of paper together. Most of my creations were cats and people or, to be more specific, disfigured felines (which for some reason looked like canines) and short-legged, big-headed hunchbacks, like the bell-ringer of Notre Dame. I wasn't exactly Van Gogh with a paperclip – I was always more of a Picasso.

Hayley Dix, however, is a much better bender of bits of steel wire than I ever was, as shown in her remarkable new art project, "Wire Wonderland." In it, the Middlesex University graduate creates deceptively simple but utterly stunning wireframes of woodland critters – birds and foxes, etc. – perched on and crawling across real-life fallen branches. And it looks marvelous.

As stated on Dix's official website, "Almost as if to reincarnate the wood each piece displays a fragment of a story which is directly inspired by the environment in which it was found." Below, you can check out images from "Wire Wonderland," which has been selected for display at the 2012 New Designers One Year On exhibition in London.