3d illusion arts: Oddity Central

Oddity Central

Black Gums Are Considered a Sign of Beauty in West Africa
Frano Selak – Truly the World’s (Un)Luckiest Man
Loughareema – The Vanishing Lake of Northern Ireland

Black Gums Are Considered a Sign of Beauty in West Africa

Posted: 02 Jan 2013 02:50 AM PST

I've read about people getting tattoos on the weirdest places of their bodies, but this one just beats them all. Never before have I heard of people getting their gums tattooed. Not in any particular design, but just a uniform black color. This is actually a popular practice among women in West African countries like Senegal, because over there apparently, black gums are a thing of beauty.

Tattooed black gums are especially popular in small towns and villages like Thies, in Senegal. Women here practice this ancient tradition to get a smile that is considered more attractive. Of course, the process is nothing short of painful. Marieme, from Thies, is one such young girl to have gone through the procedure. I watched a documentary on YouTube that covered her journey from having regular gums to the more desirable black variety. Before she went for it, she said, "I want black gums to obtain a more beautiful smile. It's become an obsession. I do fear the procedure. But I'll be OK."

Fast-forward into the documentary a bit and you'll see that Marieme was far from okay. The woman who administered the tattoo did not work out of a parlor, as you would expect, but from the backyard of her home. Her family pays no attention to her, and she herself doesn't do it for the money but for the love of it. She charges little over $1 for her work, and believes that black-tattooed gums are the way to sound dental health. "I'm doing tattoos out of my own free will. It's not something my mother taught me. By tattooing the gums we can take care of our teeth. You'll never see our gums bleeding. We have healthy teeth. We eliminate everything that's damaging for the mouth and never have foul breath. When you don't expose your gums when you smile you won't notice it. But it gives you a more attractive smile," she said.

The tattoo is done using a black powder – a mixture obtained by burning oil and Shea butter. The customer rests her head on the woman's lap and the powder is generously applied to the gums. After this, a sharp, needle-like instrument is repeatedly poked into the gums, causing them to be dyed black. This is done in several layers, and by the time the woman is finished, the customer is in a world of pain. Seven layers were planned for Marieme, but she began to struggle right from 'the get-go'. "It hurts. I would never recommend this torture to anyone," she said. "It really hurts. I thought I was going to die. But I tried to hang on." Finally, she got only 4 layers done, and has no regrets now. Because she has beautiful gums.

According to the gum tattoo-artist, "Less and less women are doing this, but some are still interested. Especially young women who are looking for a lover. Listen to me, tattooed gums and a silver tooth: that's what's attractive. A woman should not have red gums. Her gums need to be dark. A nice smile attracts men. A nice smile with white teeth." She also tells us that the custom is not generally meant for men. But there are still those men who get it done as a form of dental care, as a treatment for loose teeth or other problems.

That's all it takes for some women in Senegal to be happy – black gums, a silver tooth, a beautiful smile. I'd have to say, the end result didn't look all that bad after all.

Black Gums Are Considered a Sign of Beauty in West Africa was originally posted at OddityCentral.com

Frano Selak – Truly the World’s (Un)Luckiest Man

Posted: 02 Jan 2013 02:16 AM PST

What would you call a man who has managed to cheat death seven times, and also win the lottery? 'World's luckiest man', might just be an understatement. But that's exactly the story of Frano Selak, an 81-year-old music teacher from Croatia.

At first glance, there's nothing noticeably special about Selak. He looks pretty much like your average, everyday octogenarian. But the life this man has lived is quite extraordinary. He survived one plane crash, several train and car wrecks and other disasters such as falling out of a plane through a door that was blown open, only to land on a haystack. Obviously lady luck's favorite son, the icing on Selak's record came when he won a £600,000 (almost $1 million) lottery about 7 years ago, on the occasion of his fifth marriage. Until recently, he owned a luxury home on a private island and a vast fortune. But Selak realized that "money cannot buy happiness," so he sold his home, gave away his fortune to family and friends and moved back to his old home – a modest dwelling in Petrinja, south of Zagreb, right in the middle of Croatia. The only bit of winnings that he kept for himself was to pay for a hip replacement operation and to build a shrine to the Virgin Mary as a way of thanks for his luck. He now enjoys his life with his wife in his humble home.

Selak's first brush with fate came when he was traveling from Sarajevo to Dubrovnik in 1962. The train he was on jumped the rails and fell into an icy river below. While 17 people drowned in the accident, he escaped with a bout of hypothermia, shock, a few bruises and a broken arm. The second time was just a year later, on his first and only flight from Zagreb to Rijeka. The cockpit door flew open and threw him out; 19 people died but Selak landed on a haystack. In 1966, he was traveling on a bus that skidded into a river. 4 people drowned, while Selak swam to safety with a few cuts and bruises. 1970 saw his fourth accident, when the car he was driving caught fire on a motorway. Luckily, he was able to flee the car mere moments before the fuel tank exploded. Just three years later, his car gave him trouble again. The faulty fuel pump sprayed petrol over the hot engine, blowing flame through the air vents. This time around, he lost most of his hair, but the rest of him was intact.

That's quite a record already, and if you're thinking Selak had had quite enough, well, you will be surprised that there was more to come. His sixth and seventh accidents happened in consecutive years – 1995 and 96. In '95 he was knocked down by a bus in Zagreb, but he suffered only minor injuries. In 96, a UN truck came straight at him when he was driving around a corner in the mountains. He crashed through the barrier and down the 300 ft precipice. Thankfully, at the last minute he was able to leap out of the car and land on a tree, while his car hit the bottom and exploded. After I read about all of Selak's escapades, I did wonder if he is indeed lucky or actually unlucky. It seems to me as though fate was after him with a vengeance and he got away each time out of his sheer presence of mind. But as though life was trying to compensate for all the rough times he was put through, he won the lottery as a nice finishing touch.

Selak says he's never been happier, now that he's given away most of his wealth. "All I need at my age is my Katarina. Money would not change anything," he says. For a man who's been through so much, it's surprising that he considers his wife to be his sign of good luck. "When she arrived, I knew then that I really did have a charmed, blessed life. I never thought I was lucky to survive all my brushes with death. I thought I was unlucky to be in them in the first place." But people waste no time in telling him that he's very lucky. To that he says, "You can't tell people what they don't want to believe."

Source: The Telegraph

Frano Selak – Truly the World’s (Un)Luckiest Man was originally posted at OddityCentral.com

Loughareema – The Vanishing Lake of Northern Ireland

Posted: 02 Jan 2013 01:00 AM PST

When things mysteriously vanish in real life, sadly, there is always a scientific explanation behind it. And that includes Loughareema, the Vanishing Lake located on the coast road, a few miles from the town of Ballycastle, Ireland.

Irish lakes have always been the stuff legends are made of, and Loughareema is no different. At times, you could be driving down the entire stretch of the adjacent Loughareema road, go right to the middle of where the lake is supposed to be, and still not spot it. That’s because it conveniently vanishes from time to time. The trick to catching a good view of the Vanishing Lake is to be there at just the right moment. The lake actually drains itself out to such a degree that passersby wouldn't even be able to tell that there was ever a lake in that very same spot. The secret behind Loughareema's vanishing act is the fact that it sits on a leaky chalk-bed, a topographical feature called the ‘chalk 'plug hole'. The hole sometimes gets jammed with peat, causing the depression to fill with water, which is when the lake is visible to all. When the plug clears, all the water in the lake drains underground at a rapid rate, so no one could ever know about its existence if they hadn't seen it before.

Photo: Robert Macaskill

It is interesting to see pictures of Loughareema in its full and drained states. It's quite impossible to tell that you're looking at the very same place, if not for the landscape around. It's not surprising then, that the phenomenon even fooled engineers, who built a road right through where the lake is supposed to be. The road to Ballycastle runs right through the lake, and at one point it used to be extremely dangerous to cross, flooded for weeks on end. A modern road has now been rebuilt in the same place, but at an elevation as high as maximum water level, to avoid flooding. A stone wall has also been erected on either side of the road. Local history states that in 1898, Colonel John Magee McNeille, rushing to catch a train from Ballycastle had misjudged the depth of the lake's waters. He persuaded his coachman to drive the wagon pulled by two horses through the lake, but when they reached the middle, the cold water touched the horses' bellies and made them nervous. The coachman used his whip, which caused the horse to rear up on its back legs and turn to the side. Soon, everyone lost balance and the colonel, his coachmen, and two horses drowned to death. Local legend warns visitors that on nights when the lake is full, a phantom coach and its passengers haunt the lake shores to this very day.