http://www.aquagallery.com/
Maybe your friends snicker at you because you bought all your furniture from Pier One and Pottery Barn. Imagine their reaction when they come over and find you curled up and sipping a brewski in a chair shaped like a giant, poisonous sea anemone.
http://www.pulpcards.com/e-pcs/sci-fi.htm
Brighten someone's day with a rockin' sci-fi pulp postcard.
If you ask me, even at their crassest, crudest and
most down-market, these works radiate a mind-expanding,
life-affirming virtue.
Especially compared to these gruesome relics
of the juvenile-delinquency exploitation industry.
http://www.pulpcards.com/e-pcs/ juv_del.htm
Or these ultra-squalid visions of Burroughsian
drug abuse.
http://www.pulpcards.com/e-pcs/ badhabit.htm
http://www.graffiti.org
As a science fiction writer, I strongly identify
with people who commit nuisance crimes and call it art.
Are you the only homey in your hood who is spraying
indecipherable nametags onto every vertical surface
you can reach? Well, this is your site, with street-cred
galore. You have eager colleagues even in distant
Lithuania.
http://www.fatcru.com/
On the downside, graffiti art gets mighty self-indulgent
and monotonous, even when it's not spraybombed on some
overpass that you have to drive by every single day.
http://www.snibbe.com/scott/dynamic/ index.html
Okay, you probably don't want to spend a lot of time
studying this guy's detailed justifications for his
interactive digital art. You just want to hope that
your box is Java crash-proof, and you want to click
that button that says "Java version of Gravilux."
And you may want to clear your calendar, because
you may be Graviluxing in there for quite a while.
http://www.livingmachines.com/htm/ machine.htm
This has got to be the coolest-looking sewer ever
invented. Requires a lot of gardening effort, however.
The thing that was interesting about Roman Egyptians
is that they were neither Roman nor Egyptian. They
don't seem to have quite gotten it about the mummified
burial thing, but they were willing to go through the motions
for the sake of local color, and to get their funeral portraits painted.
http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/1998/ 390/cu1.htm
Mind you, they weren't taking over Egypt: they were taking
over *Greek* Egypt, so they were a cosmopolitan mix of Greeks, Jews,
Egyptians, Romans, Syrians, and Nubians. They seem slightly insecure
and showy, there's something very American about them.
The skill of the funeral artists varies, but it's pretty clear that these
Greco-Roman-Egyptian babes had pretty well got it going on:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/ 2116/thepaintings.html
Especially her. Wow. What's your email, baby?
http://www.rollins.edu/arh305/mummies /fayumfem4.jpg
Nice lipstick, princess!
http://www.rollins.edu/arh305/mummies /fayumfem3.jpg
Don't think you're going neglected, ladies:
http://www.rollins.edu/arh305/mummies /fayummale1.jpg
These portraits are often called "mysterious," but they're probably
the *least* mysterious images out of the ancient world. If they
jumped out of their 2,000 year old caskets and you saw them down at
the local wine bar trying on their gold jewelry, you wouldn't think a thing
of it.
If you think the ancient world had some incredible ruins,
you should have a lingering look at modern Detroit.
It's big and time-consuming, but really, it's one of the most
impressive and mindboggling places on the web.
"The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit."
http://www.bhere.com/ruins/toc.htm
If you have to see just one example of the huge bounty here,
check out the Michigan Central Railroad Station.
http://www.bhere.com/ruins/downtown/ mcinterior.htm
http://www.bhere.com/ruins/downtown/ mcPlatform.htm
Bruce Sterling displays an enthusiasm for design that could lead the unwary into occasions of sin. Follow his line of thought, and you may find yourself committing nuisance crimes and lounging about on sea anenomes. Check out his speech to the Industrial Designers Society of America.
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