3d illusion arts: Oddity Central

Oddity Central

Only Allowed to Whistle When Walking: The Quirky Story of the Portland Whistler
Who Needs a Paintbrush When You’ve Got Magic Fingers
Latest Fake in China – Concrete-Filled Walnuts

Only Allowed to Whistle When Walking: The Quirky Story of the Portland Whistler

Posted: 25 Feb 2013 03:56 AM PST

Believe it or not, whistling can get you arrested. Robert Smith, better known as The Whistler, in the city of Portland, was actually thrown in jail for disturbing people with his constant whistling and has now been ordered by a judge to only whistle when walking, so he doesn’t annoy businesses and passers-by in any one area.

“It came from God — that’s where it came from,” Robert Smith says about the origins of his passion for whistling. ”God is showing me what I’m doing is OK. He shows me every day with laughter.” He’s referring to the reactions of people who seem amused by his constant whistling. But, unfortunately for him, laughter is not the only reaction triggered by his almost daily habit. Businesses around Portland have been filing complaints about The Whistler’s behavior, and when they just kept piling up, the Police Department finally picked him up ant even took him to court for disorderly conduct for “loud whistling.” ”It just got to the point last summer where the complaints just mounted,” said Trish McAllister, the city’s neighborhood prosecutor. “He’s so loud!” Apparently, Smith’s steady monotone notes are so strong they can be heard a block away.

Photo: Tanya Zivkovic

There’s actually a story behind the character known as The Whistler of Portland. The 32-year-old says he spent a whole year walking around singing, when he came to Portland. Then one day, while listening to a rock song laying in his headphones, he started whistling the tune. ”I thought, you know, that sounds pretty cool,” Smith said. “I get more self-worth out of whistling.” And he’s been doing it every day, weather-permitting. He’s well known in downtown Portland and he shows up in online blog posts, videos and photos, but apart from fame, his whistling habit has also gotten Smith in some trouble over the past year. In May of last year, he was summoned for disorderly conduct after a business complained. Two months later, he was arrested for whistling in front of a local Starbucks cafe. Records show he pleaded guilty to the charge of disorderly conduct and agreed to only whistle while walking, so he doesn’t disturb businesses and passers-by in any one place. However, this chain of unfortunate events didn’t make the Whistler give up on his passion. “You can arrest me a thousand times, and the day I walk out of this jail, I’ll be whistling out the door,” he told the police.

There has been a lot of speculation surrounding The Whistler of Portland and his strange habit. Some have even suggested it might be related to drug dealing, but there’s no proof of such thing. I’ve heard that drug (dealing) thing. It doesn’t faze me one bit,” Smith said. “They just want an answer to what I do every day. They want to put an answer to something they have no answer to. All I’m doing is expressing myself freely. People who express themselves freely should be held in the highest regard, not the lowest regard.” And Maine ACLU spokeswoman Rachel Healy seems to agree with him. ”In general, merely being annoying isn’t enough to constitute disorderly conduct,” she says. ”Unless it’s meant to incite chaos or violence, whistling in public is usually not a crime — and punishing someone for it could raise real First Amendment concerns.”

“I’m doing it because of the reward it gives me,” The Whistler recently said. “My goal is if someday I can walk down the streets of Portland and I can see 20 or 30 people whistling along, doing the same thing I’m doing, well then I will be a happy camper. I’ll know I did something right.” It might be one person’s dream but there are many others who can barely stand hearing his loud whistling, let alone that of 30 other people.

Source: Portland Press Herald

Only Allowed to Whistle When Walking: The Quirky Story of the Portland Whistler was originally posted at OddityCentral.com

Who Needs a Paintbrush When You’ve Got Magic Fingers

Posted: 25 Feb 2013 02:36 AM PST

You probably thought finger painting was just for kids, but Iris Scott is determined to prove you wrong. Wearing a pair of latex glove, the American artist dips her fingers in color paint and wiggles them on the canvas to create beautiful work of art.

“I see the world through 'finger painted' colored glasses," Seattle-based Iris Scott says. "I paint what I see. Finger paintings are hiding everywhere, sometimes I catch them when I’m walking down the sidewalk, or lounging in a living room. I search for color relationships, and intriguing forms.” The young artist discovered this ingenious painting technique while on a relaxing artistic retreat in Taiwan. She was exercising her painting techniques in an air-conditioned room, when she realized she needed to go clean her brushes before switching to bright colors. But that required leaving the room and facing the high temperatures outside, so Iris just put away her painting tools and started using her fingers. ”I knew within 10 strokes that finger painting with oils was what I would spend the rest of my life doing,” the 28-year-old remembers about that very first finger-painting experience.

These days Iris Scott is a true finger-painting master, able to swirl her fingers on the canvas to create detailed portraits or wonderful landscapes that often filled with textured movement. Although the painting process itself seems very loose, the artist says it requires a lot of preparation: Sketching and photography are very key. Sometimes its a photograph that provides the inspiration, and sometimes I just start sketching and develop the composition. In the evenings before painting days I stretch the canvas by hand, cover it with primer, and set it up in the studio for the following morning.” Once the sketching is done, she paints for about 12 hours straight, on average. It may seem like a lot, but Iris says time passes differently when she’s making art. ”In the studio I can lose 12 hours fairly easily because time doesn’t pass in the same way when I’m painting. I’m in a visual zone of consciousness that’s somewhat impervious to the sense of time passing. Hours go by like minutes. I listen to great music and drink lots of coffee,” she told ArtProMotivate.

via My Modern Metropolis

Who Needs a Paintbrush When You’ve Got Magic Fingers was originally posted at OddityCentral.com

Latest Fake in China – Concrete-Filled Walnuts

Posted: 25 Feb 2013 01:31 AM PST

China has long had a reputation for making counterfeit goods, but the practice in recent years the practice has been getting really extreme. After news reports of fake eggs and fake beek made of pork, it seems concrete-filled walnuts are the latest invention of ingenious Chinese food counterfeiters.

There’s a set of photos making the rounds on the Internet these days, but even though they recently went viral, they were actually released a year ago. They show a bunch of normal-looking walnuts that when cracked open reveal a very hard filling - concrete pebbles. According to Ministry of Tofu, these fake walnuts were bought by a certain Mr. Li, last February, from a street vendor in Zhengzou, Henan province. When he got home and started cracking them, he noticed that instead of a meaty seed, many were actually filled with concrete pebbles wrapped in tissue. But Li’s case is not an isolated one. Apparently, many Chinese walnut vendors try to maximize their profits by carefully cracking open the hard shell, taking out the nutmeat, replacing it with concrete and tissue so it doesn’t make a strange noise, and gluing it shut. This way they can sell the nuts and the seeds separately.

RocketNews24 reports that the sale of fake walnuts is becoming so prevalent in China that conned buyers have even posted videos like "How to spot a fake walnut and the return of making fake walnuts." It seems a fake walnut is usually dry and doesn’t make a sound when cracked. Unless you’re buying fresh walnuts, they’re usually all kind of dry, and unless you’re lucky enough to actually pick a fake one when testing them, you’re probably going to pay for a lot less walnuts then you think.