Welcome to another edition of THAT’S METAL!, in which we collect for your amusement and edification images, videos, and the occasional news item that I think are metal, even though it’s not music (or at least not metal music). Today I’ve got eight items for you.
ITEM ONE
The first item is the image at the top of this post. Take a good look at it. It was created by a Japanese-born artist currently living in New York City named Kumi Yamashita using only three materials, but I bet you can’t guess what they are.
The materials consist of a wooden panel painted a solid white, thousands of small galvanized nails, and a single, unbroken, common sewing thread. Kumi Yamashita created this image and others like it by winding the thread through the array of nails, with the darker and shaded areas created solely by the density of the string and the nails. Amazing stuff. If you doubt me, take a look at the close-up that comes next.
While you’re waiting breathlessly for the next full installment of THAT’S METAL!, I have a couple of items I’d like to share, to make the pain of waiting somewhat less traumatic.
ITEM ONE
For my first item, I give you the mantis shrimp. Not long ago, The Oatmeal prepared a comic strip about the mantis shrimp that made the rounds on the interweb. It described facts about this creature that make a strong case for anointing it the MOST METAL THING ALIVE, including some of these (I sourced other facts included below from this article):
Our eyes have three types of color-receptive cones (green, blue, and red). Butterflies have five, enabling them not only to see two colors we don’t even have names for, but also a massive spectrum of color that our brains can’t process. The mantis shrimp has sixteen color-receptive cones.
The mantis shrimp is one of the most creatively violent creatures on earth. It has two hinged arms normally held under its head. In the “spearer” species, the arms end in an impaling spike, while the “smashers” wield crushing clubs.
In the six weeks since I last compiled one of these posts I’ve received lots of suggestions from NCS supporters, so many that I really didn’t need to look for any items myself. When other people start doing all your work for you, I’ll tell you friends, you’re on the path of righteousness.
Today I have eight items for you, all of which I think are metal, even though they’re not music. The supporters who tipped me to these items, either by messages or by sticking them on their FB pages, are credited within or after each one.
ITEM ONE
As usual, the first item is the photo you see above. I’m virtually certain this is the first time a photo from Field and Stream has appeared at NO CLEAN SINGING. It was taken by forester Jason Good while he was surveying timber in Meigs County, Ohio, on November 12, 2010. In the words of Field and Stream’s writer:
“[H]e stumbled upon a bizarre sight that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up: In a waist-deep pool of Leading Creek, nose-to-nose like fish on a stringer, floated three whitetail deer. The experienced woodsman needed a few minutes to puzzle out exactly what he was seeing—a trio of mature bucks that had locked horns in a battle to the death, illustrating, in the starkest terms, the potential ferocity and brutality of the whitetail rut.”
I haven’t put together a “That’s Metal!” post in a solid month. And I still haven’t, not really. Despite the title, I only have one item to share instead of 7 or 8, but this item is so stupendous that it deserves a post all by itself.
In the video after the jump, you will see a cheetah becoming the most metal of all cheetahs . . . and that’s all I’m saying about it.
Thank you Phro for this link. Nothing else that happens to me today could make it a bad day.
To those of you who celebrate the day, whether for pagan or Christian reasons or just because you like watching kids hunt for Satan’s nuts in the shrubbery, Happy Easter.
It’s time for another edition of this series, in which we collect photos, videos, and news items that make us exclaim, “Shit! That’s metal!”, even though they aren’t music. In today’s installment we have seven items.
ITEM ONE
The first item is the photo above. It’s a weird kind of woodpecker called Jynx torquilla, colloquially known as the wryneck. Why is this metal? Well duh, because this bird fuckin’ knows how to windmill!
Only problem is that it seems to have only one speed — blazing fast. It would probably draw stares at a stoner/doom show.
Okay, it would probably draw stares at any metal show. I bet if it were bigger it would clear out a pit in a hurry though.
The Font of All Human Knowledge provides this additional info about the wryneck: “These birds get their English name from their ability to turn their heads almost 180 degrees. When disturbed at the nest, they use this snake-like head twisting and hissing as a threat display. This odd behaviour led to their use in witchcraft, hence to put a “jinx” on someone.”
That month-long out-of-town stint for my fucking day job put THAT’S METAL! on ice for a while, but I’m getting it going again beginning today, and I’ll start resume posting it on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. For newcomers, this series is devoted to photos, videos, and news item that I think are metal, even though they’re not music.
In this installment, I’ve got coal divers, volcanic lightning, Mt Etna going all out, Sarcastic fringeheads, sculptured books, an underwater gallery, stupid and dangerous at 2500 frames per second, and close-up card magic that will drop jaws.
ITEM ONE
I whined a lot about my out-of-town work project over the last 4 weeks, and I’m glad it’s over and I’m back in the Pacific Northwest. But I also realize that I don’t really have much to whine about. At least I have a job, and at least it doesn’t involve going down into a fuckin’ coal mine like those vacuum-packed Belgian miners shown above (circa 1900). As the author of the site where I found this wrote, I’ll bet they weren’t singing “Heigh ho, heigh ho . . .”
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. It’s time for another edition of THAT’S METAL!, in which I collect photos, videos, and sometimes news items that I think are metal, even though they’re not music.
Today, our collection includes mirrored, floating trees; art that’s meant to disappear with the waves; spiders in the sky; a Kraken on camera; reflections that turn nothing into something; possibly the best condom ad ever created; “My Vag” (well, not mine); and a movie trailer that shines on like a crazy diamond.
ITEM ONE
Tracy Griffin is a professional photographer. For the last four years, off and on, she has been working on a project she calls “mirrors”. I haven’t found a description of exactly how she creates the photos, but in effect she makes mirror-image symmetries of trees, causing them to reflect back on themselves. As you can see in the example above, it appears as if the branches are floating.
The web site where I found the photos describes them as “looking alternately like enormous insects, or family crests, or racks of antlers on unseen stags”. Of course, to me and I suspect most of you, they look like black metal band logos — which is why they’re metal. Here are a few more:
Well now, I have been shirking this feature, No. 68 having appeared on December 9 of last year. Mainly, I was preoccupied with our year-end Listmania series and the nearly endless roll-out of our 2012 “Most Infectious Song” installments. I’m finally finished with those projects and now trying to resume more usual NCS activities, including this series in which I collect images, videos, and news items that I think are metal despite the fact that they’re (usually) not musical.
In this installment: a stunning Rubik’s Cube solution, swans in Poland, People vs Winter, a dude cleaning a cobra pit, another dude playing keep-away with a polar bear, the world’s biggest fireworks display, and Bad Lip Reading takes on the NFL.
ITEM ONE
The human brain is capable of amazing things. Okay, well maybe not my brain, but some brains in some people. Take Mike Hughey’s brain, for example. Mike Hughey can take an 8x8x8 Rubik’s Cube, scramble the shit out of it, and then solve the puzzle blindfolded.
He was filmed while doing this. After scrambling the cube, he studied it for 40 minutes, visualizing and memorizing the steps necessary to solve the puzzle. Then he lowered the blindfold and spent 37 minutes executing the solution. The video is accelerated in the following YouTube clip, so you can see this in 7:39. It is utterly phenomenal. Hughey’s reaction after finishing is priceless.
That’s a big fuckin’ wave, innit? If you look closely at the photo, you’ll see a puny human surfing down the face of that titanic wall of water.
That puny human is veteran surfer Garrett McNamara, and it appears that on Monday of this week (January 28) he broke the world record for the highest wave ever ridden. This one reportedly was 100 feet high (30.48m), though I have no idea how such things can be measured.
This took place off the coast of Nazaré in Portugal on Monday (January 28). It was reportedly 100ft high (30.48m), although that is subject to verification.
If the record is confirmed, McNamara will beat his own world record of 23.77 metres, which he achieved in 2011 at this same place after being towed into the wave by a jet ski.
And now for the real bonus — this event was captured on film, which you can see after the jump, long with film of McNamara setting the last record in 2011. But first, a few excuses by your humble editor.
This isn’t a full-fledged THAT’S METAL! post. I just saw three videos this morning that I thought would brighten your day, because they brightened mine.
ITEM ONE
The first one relates to that photo above. I’m a sucker for cats, large or small, and I’m a particular sucker for cheetahs. If you don’t give a fuck about cheetahs, you’ll want to move on to our second item. But if you do, I found a video that you need to see.
It was made at the Cincinnati Zoo by National Geographic using a Hollywood action crew and a Phantom camera filming at 1200 frames per second. Using an installed track, they kept pace with five different cheetahs, from both alongside and in front, as the cheetahs hit speeds in excess of 60 mph chasing a lure. At that frame rate, they were able to create a crystal-clear, super slo-mo film of the cheetahs in action. If you hang in ’til the last part of the video, you’ll see how they did this, and you’ll see how fast the cheetahs were really moving.
To me, this is amazing to watch. There’s only one problem with the video: the soundtrack. It’s one of those angelic, ultra-gooey things that Hollywood uses to over-dramatize things that are already dramatic enough. I mean come on, a cheetah is a fuckin’ predator. If there’d been something alive in front of it instead of that lure, there would have been blood spray at the end of the chase.
In other words, this video needs music that’s more appropriate to the subject matter. I think Krisiun will do nicely.
