• Tagged celebration, fireworks, Fourth of July, Happy Birthday USA, holiday, Independence Day, July Fourth, military, people, transportation

Happy Birthday America! As you celebrate Independence Day, spare a thought for our troops and for their families. Have a safe and happy Fourth of July!

• Tagged abandoned, adrenaline rush, architecture, art, bizarre, film location, ghost hunts, haunted, paranormal, paranormal phenomena, people, phenomenon, senior citizens, urban exploration, urbex

How do you tell grandma or grandpa that you love them? Certainly not by putting them in a formerly abandoned and haunted hospital! Facepalm, you’ve got to be kidding me? That is just so wrong in so many different ways! The six-story Linda Vista Community Hospital, which has been abandoned since 1991, is an infamous Hollywood favorite for filming super scary movies. It also has a notorious reputation for all kinds of paranormal phenomena. After some serious renovations, the supposedly haunted hospital will be revamped into about 100 single-bedroom ‘affordable housing’ apartments — Linda Vista Senior Apartments. Do you still dispute it’s haunted after viewing the 70 photos and 5 paranormal investigation videos as ‘proof’? Even skeptics, would you want your grandma to live anywhere within the top 5 floors of these future senior living apartments? About 42% of the U.S. population admits to believing in ghosts and the decaying and creepy hospital is a hotspot for urban explorers, paranormal investigators and the curious in Los Angeles. And then there’s all those animal sacrifices and allegedly satanic rituals which leave some people asking does the devil live inside Linda Vista Hospital?

While HDR sparked epic complaints on the illegal Six Flags tour, it is an art that we especially appreciate when it comes to enhancing extremely eerie, abandoned places . . . especially ‘haunted hospitals.’ If you’d rather see an abandoned place without HDR, here is Nara Dreamland, a derelict knock-off Disneyland in Japan. Otherwise, photographers, paranormal investigators and urban explorers take us on an urbex tour of this creepy ‘haunted’ hospital. Welcome to Linda Vista, future housing for grandpa and grandma. [70 photos and 5 paranormal investigation videos]

• Tagged abandoned, abandoned amusement park, abandoned theme park, adrenaline rush, architecture, art, defunct amusement park, haikyo, Japan, Nara Dreamland, ruins, transportation, urban exploration, urban explorers, urbex

In Japan, an amusement park ripping off Disneyland and Coney Island opened in 1961. By 2006, the theme park closed, it was all but a ghost town. The fun part exists due to Nara Dreamland being left abandoned but not demolished. Enter urban explorers armed with cameras and exploring the Japanese ruins, or haikyo. They took all the danger and adrenaline rush to bring us on an illegal tour via their awesome captures. Yes there is security. Yes it is illegal. Yes it is an abandoned amusement park. We love these pics! [65 Photos]

• Tagged animals, arctic wolf, art, big bad wolf, bizarre, black wolf, Canis lupus, Eurasian wolf, folklore, gray wolf, howl, lycan, nature, red wolf, werewolf, wolf, wolf pup, wolves, Yellowstone National Park

Fear of the wolf –the predator–is woven into folklore, fairy tales, mythology, music, and art to depict wolves as villains. From the Brothers Grimm to present-day sci fi, wolves are infamous for gobbling up people, for huffing and puffing and blowing down houses, and for one of the most famous storybook scenes when the big bad wolf said to Little Red Riding Hood, “Ah the better to see you with, my dear. The better to hear you with, my dear. The better to eat you with, my dear.” But the big bad wolf reputation is totally undeserved as wolves rarely attack humans. Yet untold scores of wolves have been ruthlessly hunted, shot, poisoned or trapped because of how much humans fear these fascinating and beautiful animals. At one point, wolves had been hunted to near extinction. Now their numbers have rebounded due to conservation. Did you know that wolves don’t truly bark or howl at the moon, or that you have a better chance of being struck by lightning that being attacked by a wolf? [56 Photos]

• Tagged art, castle, Château de Villandry, decorative garden, environment, Fickle Love Garden, France, French gardens, garden, gardens built for love, holiday, Loire Valley, love, nature, Passionate Love Garden, places, Tender Love Garden, The Love Garden, Tragic Love Garden, travel, tribute, UNESCO World Heritage Site

While researching castles built for love, we stumbled upon another castle located in Villandry, France. But it was the magnificent gardens that were built for love — and even the French name jardin de l’amour sounds divinely romantic. While these gardens have serene elements like Chinese gardens, the Château de Villandry gardens have been called the most romantic and beautiful gardens in France. There is a love story behind Love Garden and the entire estate was designed with romantic symbolism from the Renaissance era. The Villandry has three garden styles, a formal water garden, a 2-part ornamental garden with topiary hedges ripe with symbolism for love including for the “Garden of Love” and the “Garden of Music,” and a huge decorative kitchen garden (potager). The gardens of Château de Villandry are an UNESCO World Heritage Site. We’d never seen anything like it. Welcome to the most romantic gardens in Loire Valley, France! [40 Photos]

• Tagged architecture, architecture for love, art, castles, castles built for love, castles love built, haunted, holiday, love, odd, places, travel, Valentine's Day

Love is the most powerful force that exists. In the throes of love, your feet are nowhere close to the ground but floating in the clouds. Love has inspired all types of art, poems, novels, plays, music and paintings. After Cupid shoots an arrow through the heart, some people are so inspired as to erect architecture. We’re not talking about building a Love Shack, but of big-scale and divinely romantic architecture such as castles built for love. Margaret Anderson once said, “In real love you want the other person’s good. In romantic love you want the other person.” Castles built by love seem like both. There are many examples of architecture built for love, but to celebrate Valentine’s Day we wanted to hone in on castles love built. While this amazing architecture seems like something out of a fairy tale, and a wonderfully romantic way to say I Will Always Love You, not all end with happily ever after. The irony is that almost all of these grand displays of love ended in tragedy. [15 Castles presented in 83 Photos]

• Tagged bizarre, celebration, Chinese Year of the Dragon, dragon, dragons, holiday, Lunar New Year, Year of the Dragon

A dragon — the most powerful and revered of the Chinese zodiac signs — is just what the world needs while Mayan predictions for 2012 are all gloom and doom. 2012 is the Year of the Dragon and the Chinese New Year, also called the Lunar New Year, kicks off with parades filled with dancing lions and dragons. The parades start on Lunar New Year’s Day and continue for the next fifteen days until the festivities end with the Lantern Festival. Some dragons are as long as 100 meters and require 50 people dancing in sync. The Dragon is regarded as a sacred creature, symbolising power, courage, righteousness and dignity. The Dragon Dance originated in China during the Han Dynasty (180-230AD) and every Chinese New Year parade ends with a mighty and colorful Dragon Dance. The Dragon is the only animal of the Chinese zodiac year that is not real; it is all powerful, breathes fire, can travel on land, fly in the sky, or dive and swim in the water. Dragons bring good luck. Welcome Year of the Dragon! [36 Photos]

• Tagged art, bizarre, Calvin & Hobbes, Calvin and Hobbes in real life, comics, snow, snowman, snowmen, twisted, winter

For 10 winters from 1985 to 1995, snowmen met with murder and mayhem at the hands of 6-year-old Calvin in the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip written and illustrated by Bill Watterson. The hilariously horrific snowmen scenarios depicted by Calvin still continue to inspire fans who create snowman scenes straight out of a snowman’s worst nightmare. Got snow? Why not brave the cold and craft your own Calvin and Hobbes-esque snowmen creations to keep your neighbors wondering and a bit worried about you? Think dark humor such as stabbing, melting, maiming, murdering, or other mayhem. Think snowman + nightmare = snowmare. Your twisted snowy tribute is on the right track so long as your snowman will definitely not live happily ever after. Calvin specialized in wicked plots to bring about snowman suicide, a snowman cannibalizing another snowman, and a Snowman House of Horror. Snow sharks around the world have been seen attacking horrified snowmen. Here’s some really good snow art tributes, by people deeply inspired by Watterson, but it speaks loudly of the world in which we live . . . where a photo depicting a famous comic strip and turned into snowmen nightmares and Calvin and Hobbes in real life must be qualified as a ‘reproduction.’ Perhaps SOPA will move beyond trying to destroy the Internet and making websites disappear, to making houses and yards go poof? As sad as this fact is, we’re claiming ‘fair use’ for Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes comics in this tribute and ‘fair use’ for the the imaginative people who reproduced Calvin & Hobbes in real life snowman scenes. [63 photos, 1 video, and snippets of Calvin & Hobbes comics]

• Tagged event, holiday, Native American nations, Native Americans, people, pow wow, powwow

At the first Thanksgiving there were 53 pilgrims and 90 Native Americans who feasted for three days. Yet when you look at the First Thanksgiving history, art shows mostly pilgrims outfitted in clothing that they probably didn’t wear and a small amount of Native Americans. The depicted scenes irk me as it’s all about the pilgrims and totally skewed — or perhaps screwed which is where the pilgrims would have been without help from Native Americans. The new colonists were suffering illness and malnutrition, and most likely would not have survived had it not been for Native American, Squanto, a member of the Pawtuxet tribe. Squanto helped forge an alliance between the settlers and the Wampanoag tribe. So this is a bit different for a Thanksgiving post, but hey what can I say other than be thankful and hope you enjoy the very beautifully and brightly-colored pow wows. Happy Thanksgiving! [50 Fantastic Photos]

• Tagged art, bizarre, Halloween, Halloween party, haunted, haunted house, holiday, Lego, Lego abominations, Lego Halloween, Lego monster, Monster Mash, secret life of toys, special edition

Some folks believe toys have a secret life that few are lucky enough to glimpse. So in a tongue-in-cheek, haunted Lego-esque Halloween edition, think “Monster Mash” private party full of Lego abominations, CClone, and Minifig guests. Some folks imagine these mini-figures dressing up in Halloween costumes to go trick-or-treating, to parties, or to haunted houses. These are some of the same people and photographers who dared to step outside the box and probably colored out of the lines as kids . . so in most cases the captions for their monster Lego creations are their own. We’re very grateful for these creative artists and photographers for their Dracula, werewolf, Frankenstein, mad scientist, headless horseman, mummies, zombies, witches, Grim Reapers, ninjas, executioners, Star Wars clones and skeletons. Welcome to the Lego Halloween Party . . . do the Monster Mash! [56 Cool 'Lego' Pics and 1 Lego Monster Mash Video]

• Tagged art, bizarre, culture, Easter, ethnology, Holy Week, people, photo documentary, photographer, photography, religious

Sometimes we are fortunate enough to find a photographer previously unknown to us but with amazing talent. Jose Pereira is such a photographer. When we came across his attention-grabbing photo documentaries, the images were so compelling, so ‘different’ that we had to look closer. We are surely glad we did, or else we might not have had this look at this culture and ethnological religious expression. Mr. Pereira captured these images of Living Easter of Paradela (Meis), Spain. The photo-documentary spans 5 days and were taken during the Holy Week processions. He said it took “many hours of walking, running down the street, escaping the multitude of the public who attend the events.” Pereira added, “I have spent many years photographing events and ethnological religious expressions in Spain, other countries such as China, India, Russia, etc.” His site, RoughPhoto was a project he initiated. “In recent years for work reasons, I have a bit abandoned it. In recent years I spend more time working in office, instead of taking pictures in the street!” [27 Photos]

• Tagged Banksy, graffiti, street art

After watching Banksy’s “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” followed by Banksy’s new TV show “The Antics Roadshow” which focuses on the history of public pranks and various forms of anarchy, we wanted to pay tribute to Banksy. Much like the sand demon competition that is only meant to be temporary, too often Banksy’s street graffiti lives a very short time before it’s removed. Pity that, cause we think Banksy is talented, funny, and can make some very loud statements with his art with which we agree. Although we know that any talk of graffiti seems to ignite a war of opinions ranging from “it’s art” to “it’s vandalism,” the rebel spirit of raging against the machine appeals to some of us. The artist himself said, “Is graffiti art or vandalism? That word has a lot of negative connotations and it alienates people, so no, I don’t like to use the word ‘art’ at all.” Here are some of Banksy’s graffiti that speaks loudly to us, mixed in with quotes gathered from around the web that are purportedly pure Banksy. [45 Photos]