Content Catnip

Menswear Dog Is Dripping With Badassery

Menswear Dog is very quietly becoming a thing. This dog is sauve as f%&* and a real hit with the ladies. If you’ve become tired of seeing male humans in perfectly coordinated and well tailored outfits, then you’re in for a real treat. See below…I have hijacked the popular Tumblr blog with my own captions.

Photos are courtesy of Menswear Dog, captions courtesy of me.

When witnessing Menswear Dog’s awesome apparel and thoughtful temperament, there is only one quintessential soundtrack.

If only I could morph into a rottweiler, my life would become more fulfilling

Caption it!!!

Now it’s your turn to caption these two photos in the comments. Go wild…

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2. Tinder Tales As Told By Puppets

Tinder is that ruthless app that allows users to swipe left on their device to move to the next potential lover. How simple and yet malevolent! Although around 50 million people are using it worldwide so that’s telling.

This is a collection of true dating experiences on Tinder, demonstrated by some amazing puppets. Tales from Tinder was created by Melbourne based artists Emma Watts and Lisa Kovacevic.

How do you get fake projectile vomit into a soft toy koala, watch to find out..

The backgrounds in the park and of the train are clearly Melbourne and the language used ‘smashed through the goon-sack’ is Australian. This had me in fits of laughter.

What The Heck is Electronic Mail? Asks Ad From 1977

Global technology company Honeywell is still alive and kicking in 2015 but in 1977 the idea of electronic mail was certainly novel and almost unfathomable. It’s so fascinating to see how previous decades, what’s unimaginable in our daily lives becomes commonplace. And everyday objects that were commonplace fade to black and become pieces of quaint nostalgia.

The delights of encountering the original manuscript for “Alice in Wonderland”

The enchanting original hand-written manuscript of Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol

Vincent Van Gogh In 3D Occulus Rift

Famous painting by Vincent Van Gogh ‘The Night Cafe’ gets the Occulus Rift treatment with a 3 dimensional view into Van Gogh’s hidden world.

Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo in 1888 and joked that he planned on painting the Café de la Gare as revenge for husband and wife proprietors Joseph-Michel and Marie taking loads of his money over the years.

Today I am probably going to begin on the interior of the café where I have a room, by gas light, in the evening. It is what they call here a “café de nuit” (they are fairly frequent here), staying open all night. “Night prowlers” can take refuge there when they have no money to pay for a lodging, or are too drunk to be taken in.

Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother explaining his intention to paint the cafe.

Over two nights he painted and slept during the day, later creating a toned down watercolour version.

This melding of technology and art was submitted by Mac Cauley of Brooklyn, NY as a part of Occulus Rift’s Mobile VR Jam. Artists and animators submit unique work into a competition and go into the running to win millions in prizes.

“I have always been drawn to the paintings of Van Gogh and I imagined it would be amazing to be inside one of these colorful worlds. While creating the environments of these paintings in 3D space, I’ve had to expand on areas that can’t be seen; rooms behind doors, objects hidden from view, people turned away from the viewer.” – Mac Cauley

This opens new worlds for lovers of art. It’s like taking a glace behind the mirror. What do you think?

Book Review: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

*Contains no spoilers*

This was a true sky-scraper of a novel. A sweeping epic in the grandest sense that could be compared to Swann’s Way by Proust or even a Dickensian tale like Oliver Twist. The Goldfinch has all of the hallmarks of one of these epic novels because it involves a believable modern-day premise, believable characters and a emotional bare-bones rawness that really lacks from a lot of novels.

I can’t really go into the details of the narrative without ruining the entire thing, except to say that this is a novel to read if you haven’t read something great in a while or if you desire simply wallowing in a book for a good solid few days. It’s a long brick of a book at over 800 pages but each page is easily accounted for and necessary.

Theo Decker is a damaged, stubborn, precocious and entirely believable protagonist as are all of the characters and the various American settings where they roam around. They all glitter and dance off the page with the feather-light and yet powerful skill of Donna Tartt, who is a consummate storyteller. This novel is exhilerating and heartbreaking, infact it’s so amazing that it will rip your heart out and won’t allow you to forget it for the rest of your life.

Donna Tartt has written only a handful of books in her writing life and yet she seems to pour every ounce of herself into them. The Secret History was an explosive book and really intellectual and stylish. The Goldfinch is different and in a way more ambitious than her two previous novels because it traverses many worlds (read many socio-economical backgrounds), many ways of seeing reality, life and death. It has been over a decade in the making and it was worth the wait. It’s a post 9-11 bildungsroman about being a young person in a confusing and terrifying age. She really pulls it off.

I can’t explain more without giving it away but if you would like to read it…I can send it to you. Past attempts at giving away my books have been met with no real takers. But if you want The Goldfinch I have one copy – a once-read almost new copy to give away. So please write in the comments below and I’ll get your address for sending the book to you via post.

Treasures to Love and Adore: Smith Journal

In the magazine publishing world nowadays, it takes a good deal of creativity and originality to be able to stand out and make revenue. This Australian magazine is built upon solid foundations of authenticity. From cover to cover it’s high quality. What makes it so great is there is a subtle harmony of beautiful design and beautiful and evocative stories.

Better yet, I’ll let the team at Smith Journal describe themselves and what the magazine stands for.

Smith Journal is a quarterly, Australia-based publication that takes unexpected, interesting, funny and sometimes complicated stories and tells them the way you would to a bunch of friends at the pub. The minds behind Smith wanted to create something they’d be happy to read themselves. That smart, creative people could peruse without shame, slap down on the coffee table, whack in their favourite old satchel or display proudly on the toilet reading rack. A mag that looked really good, but had substance, wit and inspiration. Smith isn’t obsessed with the latest stuff or being first in line. While it does keep an eye on what’s current, it’s much more intrigued by things that stand the test of time. Smith isn’t about being nostalgic. Admittedly, it does love plenty of things from the past but knows that nostalgia can be toxic, so it’s constantly looking toward the future too. Smith isn’t about creating a divide between makers and thinkers, because it understands that to build anything you need your hands as well as your mind. Smith isn’t about being clever. It happily confesses to knowing nothing, but considers that a positive, because it means it’s fascinated by everything.

Just in case you aren’t convinced then you can get a taste for the content on their fascinating blog filled with all of the sorts of weird and wonderful things that I write about on here.

Strangely enough, judging by the ads in the magazine itself (of which there are only a few), the magazine is targeted mostly at males. Although it actually is genderless in my opinion. The stories feature men, but are so incredibly quirky, touching and funny that they cross gender lines – as most good writing should.

The content is mostly evergreen and timeless, the kind of storytelling that makes it coffee table fodder rather than bird cage liner. You can find out more here and get it delivered to your door, or you can also get it for iPad or other electronic devices.

{BTW: NOT A SPONSORED POST}

Debunking Myths And Fascinating Facts About Animal Eyesight

Throughout history people have always speculated about what animals see. This resulted in some giant myths and half truths. Luckily, nowadays technology and science has caught up and can reveal the truth about seeing through the eyes of other animals, giving us a fascinating glimpse into their private lives.

Snakes

Have specially adapted sensors in their eyes that detect heat and can pick up subterranean heat signals indicating potential prey. Rattlesnakes use this to see the vulnerable and hot spots of a victim before striking at the most vulnerable point. It’s also thought to keep them safe from predators too, as they can sense when they approach.

Horses

Horses have a better visual acuity (20/33) than cats (20/50) and dogs (20/75) with a slightly poorer vision compared with humans (20/20). They are essentially flight animals, which means that they are constantly on the lookout for predators. For this purpose, horses have the largest eyes of any land mammal, that are positioned on either side of their head. They have a range of vision spanning 350° with a slight blind spot directly in front of their faces. The can only see in blue and green and so anything red coloured appears to them to be slightly green.

Dogs

Like horses, dogs can only see in shades of blue and green. A dog’s visual acuity will vary considerably depending on its breed. Many thousands of years of dog breeding has meant that dog breeds vary quite markedly in their physiology and their corresponding ‘job’ for humans: lapdog, hunting dog, rescue dog and so on.

Long-nosed dogs often have a wider field of vision due to their physiological make-up and short-nosed varieties have a larger bundle of nerve endings in their eyes, meaning that they have better visual acuity compared to humans.

Most dogs have developed eyes for hunting; therefore they have eyes that can track movement far better than stationary objects. A dog can distinguish its owner from other humans at a distance of 900m when the owner is moving, but if they stand still this decreases to around 500m.

Why Does My Dog Watch TV?

Experiments have shown that dogs can recognise shapes that provoke a reaction in them like a silhouette of a dog on a wall or a video of a dog on YouTube. However, once they realise that they can’t physically interact with the other dog, they lose interest quite quickly. TVs are optimised for human usage at 50-60Hz and dog vision is from 60-70Hz, which explains why their attention wavers pretty quickly when they try and watch TV.

I’ve written about Bees and their immaculate powers of sight before. Which animal’s eyes would you like to see through for one day?

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Philosophical Friday: The Pleasure of Being a Homebody

This poster is absolutely priceless, I found it on Reddit.

While there’s much to be said for going on an epic journey into the unknown, or gearing up for a massive weekend festival, we are often champing at the bit when we see a line-up for a festival. Yet the reality is, we end up wearing wellies, having smeared dirty faces and waiting in a kilometre long line for the portable shitter. Essentially we become a part of the great and smelly unwashed – and for what? To see some band oscillate around the place wasted on stage and playing terribly? Often music festivals end up being a pretty mediocre experience, in the least they are very tough on the body and the mind. All of those faux Indian headresses get a bit repetitive after a while.

We neglect to realise how great our own homes really are…

Sure it’s exciting and thrilling to see bands or witness sword-swallowing magicians deep in the hills of Andalucia; or some lass wearing pasties on her nipples doing some burlesque; or whatever, but what we leave behind is equally as golden.

Our homes are not thrilling or out of the ordinary, but they are filled with the best kinds of creature comforts that we can imagine and with the right diversions, they can be fun too.

What do you think?

Ancient Mineral, Art or Book?

Geological Marvel, Art or Book? You Be The Judge!

San Fran based artist Alexis Arnold has managed to reimagine National Geographic magazines with the use of Borax crystals for a strange geological marvel of colourful striations. Glittering crystals are alive and growing on the gradients of colour, turning them from mere functional books to something akin to living art and also uncannily like a rock formation. Quite a strange effect but totally bewitching!