Just because you’ve been wondering whatever happened to….
The Guys that painted ‘No War’ 0n the Sydney Opera House?
Will Saunders and Dave Burgess made global news with their painted 2003 protest, two words on the top of Sydney’s most famous icon transforming it into a strong statement that the Australian public weren’t happy with the leader’s decision to join the invasion of Iraq. Since then? Will and Dave were convicted of the charge of malicious damage, along with a bill to clean off the paint : $151,000, which they raised over time selling snow-domes, t-shirts, stubby holders, fridge magnets and posters featuring the Opera House with ‘No War‘ painted up top. They were both also sentenced to nine months periodic detention, which they have both completed.
“We were always committed to paying any reasonable clean-up costs, or even unreasonable costs as it turned out. But the Opera House is as good as new, unlike Falluja, or Baghdad. 100,000 deaths later and with Iraq on the brink of civil war, our reasons for painting NO WAR on the Opera House look as good as ever”, says Will.
The German Cannibal
Remember Armin Meiwes? He was all over the world news back in May 2006 after being convicted of the murder of a 40 year old German designer, an event made all the stranger because of the extensive written and video evidence showing the victim’s consent, indeed the victim’s actual desire to be eaten, to offer himself up into the service of another in the profoundest of ways. The pair met on a European online cannibal forum somewhere, and discussed for months the ways it would happen, before finally following it through, complete with video recording of their last meal together. Since then, Armin has been the subject of much television documentary and film interest ( Butterfly: A Grimm Love Story, Your Heart in My Brain, Cannibal ), which he is quoted as finding ‘distasteful‘. Also true : since entering prison, Meiwes has become a vegetarian, and wants to write a book of his life story with the aim of deterring anyone who wants to follow his steps.
Geocities And Angelfire?
Back in the pre-social networking days of the twentieth century, back before ‘free social network sites’ owned by multinational media empires allowed your local anarchist punk and techno bands to conveniently publish their songs and manifesto, yes way back then, well there were a series of crappy but free webhosting services where your crazy ‘work in progress’ animated gifs could be stored above a rainbow of font colours, arranged into the special sequences that made your particular slice of the web ‘unique’. Amazingly, Geocities and Angelfire still exist, undre yahoo and lycos respectively, still serving free ( ad-hosted ) pages, and offering ad-free hosting for small change per month. Craving a domain name that better says *you*?
Webster?
You mean Emmanuel Lewis, that 1.3m high sitcom actor? Didn’t he die of a freakish breakdancing neck injury? No, that’d seem to be an urban myth, or maybe you’re mixing him up with the popular 2007 movie , ‘Kickin’ it old school’, whereby “At a talent show in 1986, young Justin Schumacher suffers a head injury and slips into a coma. Twenty years later, Justin (Jamie Kennedy) awakes with the mindset and experience of a 12-year-old. He decides to reunite the members of his former dance team and revive their short-lived careers.”
Blimps?
Sure, the Hindenburg went up in flames in 1937, along with blimp evangelist dreams of blimps taking over the worldwide. Giant gas filled objects with engines in the sky? What were they thinking? Well they still exist today, with a shifted emphasis from passenger travel to ‘certain niche applications, such as advertising, as camera platforms for sporting events, and as aerial observation and interdiction platforms, where the ability to hover in one place for an extended period outweighs the need for speed and maneuverability’. Go wikipedia! ( look up airship )
Yeah I want my blimps back. The Germans bombed bits of England with them in ww1. They mostly missed everything got lost almost always crashed or screwed up in other ways, but still had the terror in the skies effect. The Americans had a couple of airship aircraft carriers which were pretty awesome and provided incentive for a few other parasite fighter projects.. The peak helium situation will probably put an end to mass blimp transport, as the Hindenburg kind of wrecked it for the rest of us.