• 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 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 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 art, author, fantasy, forest, Hobbits, inspiration, J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, LOTR, muse, nature, people, Puzzlewood, The Shire, Tolkien, woods

All writers and artists have a muse; for some it’s music, for some a person, place or thing, but fiction writers can take a place that is real and twist it until it’s flat-out fantasy. For high-fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien, Puzzlewood was one such mystical, magical muse that inspired him to create the fabled forests of Middle-earth within The Lord of the Rings. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892 and died at age 81 on September 2, 1973. On this anniversary of his death, we wanted to pay tribute to Tolkien and Puzzlewood — his extraordinarily enchanted backdrop for Middle-earth. [26 Photos]

• Tagged art, bizarre, culture, Dante, Dante's Inferno, Italy, odd, photos, pics, places, sand castle, sand sculpture, sand sculpture festival

Dante’s Inferno – welcome to hell, a mixture of culture and amazingly intricate and evil sand sculpture art. Dante Alighieri wrote the 14th-century epic poem in which Inferno, meaning hell in Italian, is the first part of his Divine Comedy. The International Sand Sculpture Festival was held in Venice, Italy, on the beach of Jesolo Lido. The Sultans of Sand Worldwide brought together 18 incredibly talented master sand sculptors from 9 countries. 2,000 tons of sand were used to craft 24 different scenes from the 9 circles of hell in Dante’s Inferno. Some of these wildly wicked sculptures stood over 4 meters (13 feet) high and were built in only 10 days! While professional sand sculptors can carve out both amazing and sometimes bizarre creations, the intricate designs of these giant sand demons make this one of the most mind-blowing, bizarre, and unforgettable International Sand Sculpture Festivals ever. A very special thank you to photographers Marco Rizzetto and Gael Reignier for granting me permission to post their copyrighted pictures that show off all 9 circles of Dante’s Inferno. Get ready to traipse through the nine levels, “circles,” of hell: Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Fraud and Treachery. [46 Photos]

• Tagged art, Brazil, Christ the Redeemer, Christ the Redeemer statue, Christian, Cristo Redentor Statue, Easter, holiday, Jesus, Jesus Christ, photo, photographers, photography, pic, pictures, places, Rio, Rio De Janeiro, Seven New Wonders of the World, statue, travel, Wonders of the World

Christ the Redeemer is one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. As such, the Cristo Redentor statue in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, is photographed by thousands each year. Christ the Redeemer statue speaks a bit differently to each photographer who captures the image as seen in their magnificent mind’s eye. Their talent, a blessing to be sure, has been collected here to celebrate Easter and Christ. We love these pics! [45 Pictures]

• Tagged 350 Earth, art, art exhibit, bizarre, climate change, enivronment, photos, pics, pictures, Satellite Image, space

350 Earth is the world’s first art exhibit large enough to be seen from space! 350 EARTH is a global project to put art and creativity at the center of the growing movement to stop the climate crisis. 350.org launched the 350 EARTH project in November 2010 in the lead up to the UN Climate Meetings in Cancun, Mexico, coordinating over a dozen major public art pieces large enough to be seen from space. 350.org is building a global movement to solve the climate crisis. We love these pics and this project! [21 Pics]