Cheryl Eddy

An Otherworldly Village Made Entirely from Ice Sculptures

In the city of Harbin, China’s 31st International Ice and Snow Festival has begun. This is one of the world’s largest such events, and always brings some psychedelic wonderment to the bitterly cold city. Here are some photos as the fest gets underway. As CNN reports, the festival’s multiple themed areas sprawl across some 750,000…

In Shocking Twist, Alien Abductee Artist Not Really An Alien Abductee

Though British artist Lloyd Canning got media attention for claiming to be an alien abductee — he told the Daily Mirror that he’d had six close encounters, and was receiving “visions”from extraterrestrials that inspired his paintings — he later took to his Facebook page to confess the truth: for anyone who have seen my story…

Man Sentenced To Jail For Eating Tigers, Because Tigers

Dude, no. Guzzle all the Doritos-Flavored Mountain Dew you want, but in the name of all that is holy, keep your fork away from tiger meat, unlike a certain Chinese man (identified only as “Xu”) who was sentenced to 13 years in jail for buying and eating the endangered species three different times. (Could it…

Watch These Simple Vector Graphics Utterly Transform a Modern Dance

Marvel at these excerpts from Pixel, a modern dance performance that looks like it’s taking place inside the computers of Tron. It’s so simple, and yet it’s utterly captivating. Artistic director and choreographer Mourad Merzouki says this is his “work on illusion combining energy and poetry, fiction and technical achievement, hip hop and circus.” The…

Excuse Me, Sir, But You Have A Rather Large Knife In Your Skull

YOWCH! A Brazilian taxi driver survived being stabbed in the head … and roamed around with the knife wedged into his melon for over three hours. As you can see from the X-rays, we’re not talking about a little poke from a Swiss Army knife. That’s practically Excalibur up in there! Incredibly, CNN reports, Juacelo…

This Clothing Store Features an 18th Century Haunted Well

A New York City outpost of clothing store COS has a 200-year-old well tucked into its men’s department. The structure is a remnant of the building’s 18th-century past … and it’s where a woman’s strangled body was discovered in 1799. Scouting NY (a fascinating, wonderfully detailed blog written by location scout and hidden history enthusiast…

Giant Gummy Bear + Liquid Nitrogen + Shotgun = Magic

Because sometimes you have a World’s Largest Gummy Bear, some liquid nitrogen, and a 12-gauge all in the same place at the same time, and you’re just crazy enough to see what happens when you combine the three. And you’re also clever enough to film it for YouTube viewers ’round the world. What more is…

These Gorgeous Planters Made From Reclaimed Furniture Are Truly Gothic

So you’ve got that one crappy old chair that most definitely does not tie the room together. Why not take a page from Brazilian artist Rodrigo Bueno, whose love of nature has literally grown together with his creative spirit. Design Boom has the scoop: Sao Paulo-based Bueno lives and works in what he calls the…

The Woman In Black Barely Bothers To Show Up In Woman In Black 2

Even by the standard of recent obligatory horror sequels, The Woman In Black: Angel of Death feels like an exercise in futility. Scares are few and far between — and even the Woman in Black herself has the good sense to give this one a miss. Spoilers ahead… Most would agree that the absolutely worst…

Clues About the End of Maya Civilization Come from this Blue Hole

Recent findings suggest the massive sinkhole off the coast of Belize known (quite logically) as the Great Blue Hole may hold the key to solving the mysterious end of the Maya civilization. As the Huffington Post reports, groups from Rice University and Louisiana State University found that the sinkhole, a popular scuba-diving site, contains evidence…

The True Crime That Inspired Looking for Mr. Goodbar 

Today marks the 42nd anniversary of the “swinging singles” murder that inspired Lacey Fosburgh’s book Closing Time: The True Story of the “Goodbar” Murder, which in turn inspired a novel and movie called Looking for Mr. Goodbar. Why did this crime inspire so many popular stories? Judith Rossner’s best-selling novel was adapted into a notorious…

Admire These Adorable Animals Carved From Fruits and Vegetables

British artist Alex Matthews carves absolutely delightful creatures from fruits and vegetables, like this potato-hippo (above) and this parsnip-giraffe “paraffe” (below)! AND THIS WALRUS CARVED FROM A SWEET POTATO! Omg and this sloth carved from a sultana. Hanging from a tree, even! All photos via Al Mode Art’s Facebook page. Follow Matthews on Instagram here.…

Monarch Butterflies May Soon Be an Endangered Species

A sharp decline in North America’s monarch butterfly population (90 percent in the last 20 years!) means the species may soon be headed for protected status. On December 29, the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced it’s “launching a scientific review to determine whether the monarch butterfly should be protected by law under the Endangered…

The Only Movie You Need To Watch Tonight

So you spent all of Christmas in a slasher-movie frenzy. Why not continue the streak with 1980’s deliciously trashy, punk-inflected Golan-Globus production New Year’s Evil? “I’m going to commit murder at mid-e-night!” “CALL ME EEEEVIL!”

Gaze In Awe At These Stunning Photographs Of World Libraries

Here’s one for the book lovers (i.e., probably everyone reading this). Photographer Franck Bohbot’s stunning architecture photos have captured grand movie theaters and glowing city signs, among other subjects. His latest work in progress is “House of Books,” a lush tribute to the libraries of the world. The artist, whose shot of the Bibliothèque Nationale…

What Happened to These Notorious Crime Scenes?

Some buildings that bear witness to heinous crimes are transformed into tourist attractions (you can spend the night in Lizzie Borden’s house!) Others get a change of address, or are completely torn down. Here’s the current state of five famous crime scenes. Jeffrey Dahmer’s apartment building At the time of his 1991 capture, cannibal killer…

This World War I Soldier’s Bedroom Hasn’t Changed Since 1918

Here’s one for the history buffs: the Washington Post has some gorgeous, poignant, frozen-in-time photos of a room last occupied in 1918, by a 22-year-old soldier who died in World War I. The grieving parents of Dragoons officer Hubert Rochereau decided to keep his room in small Bélâbre, France exactly as he’d left it. When…

The Weirdest of the Weird News in 2014 

“When the going gets weird,” Hunter S. Thompson once wrote, “the weird turn pro.” As we cast our gazes back at 2014, we can all agree the year had more than its share of utterly odd moments. Needless to say, we’re all pros now. Weirdest Giant Hole Remember that 260-foot crater that yawned open in…

Your late-night karaoke skillz have some competition. As part of a study using birdsong to help better understand human speech, scientists at the Oregon Health and Science University gave spiked juice to zebra finches. Shocker: “Once the birds were sloshed, they started to slur their songs.”

John Carpenter’s Secret to Making Terrifying Soundtracks

The horror movie master himself, John Carpenter, is about to release his debut solo album, Lost Themes. Remember the ultra-creepy synth music in the movie Halloween? Yeah, that was him. The weird part is that he started out wanting to make westerns. Carpenter was a recent guest on NPR’s All Things Considered (download it or…