Elena Dorfman: Still Lovers

(via Notes From Somewhere Bizarre)

See also: Documentary about men and their RealDolls

This image looks remarkably like groves of trees growing among Martian dunes. But, the trees are an optical illusion. They are actually dark streaks of sediment on the downwind side of the dunes. They were created by escaping gas from the evaporating carbon dioxide ice below. The bottom of the ice melts into vapor and moves toward holes in the ice, carrying dark sediment along with it that is then deposited when the gas escapes.

Wired Science: Strange Places on Mars: What Do You Want to See Next?

Photographer Peter Ross has been allowed to photograph William Burroughs’s stuff from a New York apartment he once lived in.

William Burroughs lived for many years in the former locker room of an 1880s YMCA, on the Bowery in New York City. The almost windowless space was known as The Bunker. When he died in 1997, his friend and mine, John Giorno, kept the apartment intact, with many of Burroughs’s possessions sitting as they were. Part of the space is now used for Buddhist teachings, and the apartment is a wonderful mix of Buddhist wall hangings and pillows and carpets and Burroughs’ personal furniture and collections.

The Morning News: William Burroughs’s Stuff

(via Kottke)

The surprising thing is that this place exists. He lived out his final days in Lawrence, KS. Did he also keep an apartment in NYC?

Update: A few more pics here (via Metafilter)

Wired: 35 Years of the World’s Best Microscope Photography

These days the only things that land on Hashima Island are the shits of passing seagulls. An hour or so’s sail from the port of Nagasaki, the abandoned island silently crumbles. A former coal mining facility owned by Mitsubishi Motors, it was once the most densely populated place on earth, packing over 13,000 people into each square kilometre of its residential high-risers. It operated from 1887 until 1974, after which the coal industry fell into decline and the mines were shut for good. With their jobs gone and no other reason to stay in this mini urban nightmare, almost overnight the entire population fled back to the mainland, leaving most of their stuff behind to rot.

Today it is illegal to go anywhere near the place as it’s beyond restoration and totally unsafe. The Japanese Government aren’t keen to draw unwanted attention to this testament to the hardship of the country’s post-war industrial revolution either.

The punishment for being caught visiting Hashima Island is 30 days in prison followed by immediate deportation. But the other week, after getting up before sunrise and cutting a secret deal with a local fisherman, some friends and I landed on Hashima Island.

Vice: Battleship Island – Japan’s rotting metropolis

(via The Agitator)

“Eliza Dushku has more going on than just her much-talked-about starring role in television guru Joss Whedon’s new upcoming series, Dollhouse.

The Bring It On beauty just told me she’s co-producing a movie about the life of Robert Mapplethorpe, the late photographer who caused national headlines with his controversial homoerotic work.

“Literally this week after quite some time, we finalized the deal with the Mapplethorpe estate,” Dushku told me at Gatorade’s G-Gym at Sundance’s Village at the Yard. Dushku’s brother, Nate, will star as Mapplethorpe, who died of AIDS in 1989 at age 42.”

(via E!online)

(Related: “Black, White and Grey: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe” via SangFilms)

More pics: Time

(via SuperTouch)