“It is a low cost strategy to get motorists to slow down as they approach the bike trail and pedestrian path. While at first motorists may be a little disoriented, the main point is to get them to pay attention and slow down through that area.”

[Source: SNAFU-ed .... Situation Normal]

Japanese superstar Shokotan in a hazmat suit. Terror chic?

More on Shokotan, from her Wikipedia entry:

Shoko Nakagawa born May 5, 1985 in Tokyo as Shiyoko Nakagawa is a Japanese idol and tarento (an actress, seiyÅ« (voice actor), illustrator, and singer)…. Her nickname is Shokotan. (In the blog by Mika Kaneda, who appeared with her on “ÅŒsama no Brunch”, she is called Shokotasu).

This is a beautiful image, but also quite chilling, especially if you remember the Tokyo subway sarin gas attack by Aum Shinrikyo cult members on March 20, 1995. This memory must be even more acute for people in Japan who encounter the source of this image, a Norton Symantec billboard advertisement at the west exit of Shinjuku subway station in Tokyo:

Norton Symantec billboard at the west exit of Shinjuku station. (Click to enlarge.)

And if the image is unsettling, the text hammers the point home:

"I am in danger. You are in danger. Japan is in danger. Protect yourself with yellow." (Click to enlarge.)

Unfortunately, as nasty as computer viruses can be, they’re nothing compared to a chemical or biological attack on people, so it seems kind of flippant to trade on the fear of human suffering to sell protection against technological trauma. But it does make for great advertising, and using a current pop idol helps sweeten the medicine a little.

Haruki Murakami wrote a great book about the Tokyo subway gas attack, Underground, comprised mostly of interviews he conducted with people connected to the attack in one way or another. [Shokotan source: Pink Tentacle]

WW1 listening device for airplanes

In the days before radar existed, this was the only way to detect incoming aircraft. These days it could be adopted by the NSA to listen in on Al Qaeda chatter. [Source: Gizmodo]

I get the feeling that nobody was running for cover while wearing one of these Brewster body armor suits. Still, for launching a modern day run on the bank and fending off rabid bankers and foreclosed families, this might come in handy. [Source: Flickr]

WWI German messenger dog gas mask

No beast is immune to the forward march of progress. I can actually see these becoming quite chic if chemical and biological weapons begin to seriously threaten our pets or military messenger dogs. Messenger dogs? [Source: New Sciences of Protection]

WWI mobile shield

Finally, perhaps the most practical technology of all, as this coffin-like “mobile shield” could easily double as a mobile final resting place. Comes with handy oversized ruler to measure grave depth. [Source: Dark Roasted Blend]

Nah, on second thought, better take the bus. C’mon Japan, WTF? Hentai as a form of city planning, or just trying to “cute up” old Godzilla’s image? For those of you who are (even more) confused, Wikipedia can bring you up to speed:

Hentai (変態 or へんたい) is a Japanese word that, in the West, is used when referring to sexually explicit or pornographic comics and animation, particularly Japanese anime, manga and computer games (see Japanese pornography). In Japan it can be used to mean “metamorphosis” or “abnormality”. The word “hentai” has a negative connotation to the Japanese and is commonly used to mean “sexually perverted”.

Yep, I think that about sums it up. No idea where in Japan this is from, or even if it still exists (or ever did, for that matter). Still, if you see it, run for cover, and report back to us. [Source: BuzzFeed]

UPDATE: Here are a couple more images of this oddity.

From the Life magazine photo archive:

Teenage boys sporting their latest shoe fad of wearing G.I. shoes (Army surplus they bought or inherited) which they call “My old lady’s Army Shoes” & wear every Tuesday at school.

Location:    Des Moines, IA, US
Date taken:    December 1948
Photographer:    Alfred Eisenstaedt

I like the specificity of this fad, and I wonder how the organic group thought process decided that Tuesdays were the day for this? And “My old lady’s Army Shoes” is a pretty great name. Rascals.

What has become of all these budding your Des Moines rebels from the middle of the century last?

Americans’ search patterns reflect their narrowing financial straits, according to the marketing research firm comScore. The number of Internet searches incorporating the word “unemployment” more than tripled from December 2007 to December 2008. Bankruptcy appeared in more than twice as many searches, and “coupons” went from 7.6 million searches to 19.9 million.

“Coupons and discounts are a major ‘tell’ as far as consumer behavior,” said Andrew Lipsman, an analyst at comScore. “Coupon sites grew 33 percent year over year for this January.”

People ages 25 to 34 seem to be searching most heavily for the term “unemployment,” relative to the percentage they represent of all searches. But, Mr. Lipsman said, “No demographic is immune.”

It arose through the pursuit of individual expression by Chinese artists that broke away from the collective mindset that existed since the Cultural Revolution. The major themes tend to focus on socio-political issues and events since Revolutionary China (1911) to the present. These include having a, usually humorous and post-ironic, take on a realist perspective and interpretation of transition that Chinese society has been through, from the advent of Communism to today’s industrialization and modernization.

Yue Minjun is probably the most successful of the new Chinese Cynical Realists, and his unique brand is easily identified, as he always paints (or sculpts, draws, prints) smiling figures in action:

Galliant Hero, by Yue Minjun -- 1995, oil on canvas

He’s actually a pretty great artist, and his work is very funny — check out his website gallery for many more images.

Yue Minjun is very successful, but that also means is work is way too expensive for most of us. In an ironic exclamation mark to the phrase “Cynical Realism”, you can buy cheap Chinese knockoffs of expensive Chinese art online at Reorient., which features “furniture,  décor, lifestyle” items for sale from Asia. Here is a painting by an anonymous artist in the style of Yue Minjun:

Not Yue Minjun (Anonymous) -- ND, oil on canvas 32"x32"

This painting would ship to you rolled up and ready to frame, were it not SOLD OUT in the Reorient Store. So I’m looking for a source where I can buy cheap(er) knockoffs of the unavailable knockoffs of contemporary Chinese art.

“What do you need another mall for?” he went on. “In L.A., that’s all they ever have built. They cut up the Brown Derby. They cut up all those restaurants that looked like funny things, like pigs or hot dogs. They tear down every coffee shop they can find. You talk about heritage, man, it was there. They find a bowling alley, chop it down. Interesting old apartment house, chop it down. Then they give back stuff with zero content, buildings with no past, a useless present, and no future at all. Where nobody is going to get together, where no memories will be created or associations made, or good times. They will simply be directing you into the act of taking your credit card out of your wallet, with that glazed look on your face. So, you see, I’m not a fan of that. ”

It’s kipplization toward sameness and blandness, toward unification of experience (pulling the credit card from the wallet). The unique experiences of the past may have been kipple (theme restaurants, for instance), but what’s replaced them is a new and greater kipple disguised as a false sense of order: strip malls that all have a liquor store, a donut shop, a laundrymat and video store, all with the same regulation plastic signage in the same generic font, with the same beige stucco walls and the same parking spaces in front.

What such environments do is devaluate the urban experience, and when meaning has been reduced from each specific encounter, what’s left in its place is kipple. It’s like a zombie movie, in which living, breathing humans, once bitten by a zombie, become zombies too. It’s kipple as mass zombiefication of the planet.