we can remember swimming in December

October 05, 2012 | Tags art, avatars, horror, music, neko, second life, Slender Man

If you are one of those people who need special instructions, then here's how to pet a kitty. You're welcome.

Meanwhile, Gaetano Pesce has found a way to bring water features indoors--as end tables. It's a really intriguing idea--reproduce waterfalls, puddles, islands and bays as miniaturized objects that can then be used--to hold anything from coffee-table books to containers that might hold water as well. It's genius, in a sense.

Here, I found the world's smallest violin. It plays just for you.

Also, this is deeply impressive--a mix of mesh and plain system layers, with more traditionally designed pieces, all of which make up a stunning Marie Antoinette costume.

Oh, did I mention she's headless?

Happy Halloween.

Speaking of creepy things...more from compileTRUTH:

(from the Slender album; compileTRUTH's entry on the Ichthyological blog)

Acherontia, noun (animal): A distinct species of European hawkmoth, also called the "Death's head moth". Notable for the distinctive (and variable) markings on its thorax that resemble a skull. Used significantly in the Silence of the Lambs film, both on the movie's poster, and by the serial killer, who kept and bred the moths in his basement.

(from the Slender album; compileTRUTH's entry on the Ichthyological blog)

Set aside the notion that the Slender Man isn't real, for the moment. This, by itself, is a fascinating idea. The tiger moth does, indeed, seem to have a way to jam bat sonar with a series of loud repetitive clicks. This seems to confuse the bat into missing them when in a hunting dive, or in being unable to find them.

Where this theory falls apart, as fascinating as it is, is that the variable ways Slender Man has been shown to affect electronic equipment is just that--affecting electronics. Cameras, recording devices, video recorders--none of these are particularly 'effected' by things in their immediate surroundings.

Of course, the internet has documented a wide range of ways Slender Man effects the living bodies of its victims, as well, so...maybe it's like the EVP recordings from several different, purportedly haunted locations?

EVPs, or electronic voice phenomena, are supposedly communications from the deceased using frequencies humans cannot hear unaided. Perhaps Slender, as he is so often depicted, communicates visually (and perhaps audibly) in frequencies that distort recording devices?

(from the Slender album; compileTRUTH's entry on the Ichthyological blog)

This is also a fascinating concept to me. The movie Mimic (and, to an unfortunate degree, Mimic 2) took on this concept as a major plot point: that other lifeforms evolve to imitate dangerous things, or innocuous things. For example, most poisonous tree frogs evolved brightly colored skins because of the toxic compounds their bodies naturally produce. Over millenia, similar, non-toxic species evolved with simulacra coloration, because this meant predators would leave them alone, thinking they were their more toxic cousins.