In Bergen, Alberta (Canada) you can find the Museum of Fear and Wonder,  curated by Brendan Griebel and Jude Griebel. People are welcome to visit the museum on an appointment basis. In this video, we get a tour of some of the museum's unique artifacts and hear from the owners and curators of the collection. One of the owners explains that these objects are "emotionally uncomfortable," and have been a part of someone else's story at a point and time. Even without knowing their backstory, just looking at these objects will let a viewer know that they've had a complicated history or emotions were projected onto them by a previous owner.  

On the museum's website, I learned that it "uses the dying tradition of the rural museum to highlight the psychological and narrative qualities of objects. The collection is comprised of emotionally complicated artifacts that speak directly to themes of human experience, identity, and myth-making. It forms a greater story in its entirety, both educating and mystifying its audience."

I pull a lot of inspiration from curiosities like the ones on display here. I appreciate that the people who run this place want to keep rural museums alive.

On shhhnoise.com, you can create your own personalized ambient sounds by mixing and matching any combination of beach, wind, forest, raindrops, typing, and paper sounds. You can add as many or little of these noises as you'd like, and you can choose the volume level for each one. The results from my experimentation with this site all work great as white noise tracks to fall asleep or meditate with. I can't sleep without white noise, so I'm glad to have some new free sounds to use.

Picnic Boy is a track from The Residents' 1980 "Commercial Album." Eric Nordhauser directed one of the music videos for this song which came out in 2004. I'm a big fan of the collage-like design of all the characters. The video features creepy children who move as if they're being controlled by puppet strings, and an anthropomorphic cat. The cat lives with the picnic boy in an apartment. The children roam the streets outside of the apartment and carry sharp knives. Watch to see what happens when the cat leaves the poor little boy to fend for himself against the bloodthirsty kids (It's not a happy ending for the picnic boy).

On SkylineWebcams you can people-watch from the comfort of your bed. I'm glad it's too blurry to see anyone's faces up close, because that would be a little bit creepy. Browse through the list of cameras to view places all around the world in real-time. There are webcams for all sorts of places from populated areas like Times Square to remote areas in national parks. You can even snoop on volcanoes.

Music For Drums is an incredibly out-there performance by avant-garde musician Gary Wilson from 1994. It was directed by Bernie Allen and was streamed on public access TV. This wild performance features Gary in an uncanny hand-made mask and costume. At one point during this creation of combined music and performance art, he pulls a frowning life-sized doll out of the drum. I loved this little surprise. If only I could turn on my television right now and see more stuff like this.

On a website called Sounds of Earth, you'll find a 3D globe that you can spin in order to select and play various ambient nature sounds recorded from around the world. They're all quite relaxing, and great for peaceful background noise. The website was inspired by the phonograph records sent into space on NASA's 1997 Voyager 1 and 2 interstellar missions. The records contained a "Sounds of Earth" section, which included a range of natural sounds from our planet.

Mr. Noseybonk was a creepy character who solved puzzles in a British show called Jigsaw from 1979-1984. Mr. Noseybonk was mute, always up to mischief, and had a giant, bulbous nose protruding from his ever-grinning, nightmarish face. I wouldn't be surprised if he was the culprit for many children's night terrors in the '80s. In this clip from Jigsaw, Mr Noseybonk spends some time in the garden. He plants some seeds which, to his delight, sprout into more giant noses.

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This Psychedelic Brim Coffee Commercial features people sipping on Brim decaffeinated coffee with psychedelic patterns and designs coming out of their noggins. The commercial credits the flavor for the psychedelic effect. Although Brim was just being hip to the times with this commercial, I'm sure that many people in the 60s would have loved to drink a cup of coffee that has these tricks up its sleeve.

I want to play with the toys on this beach in the music video for Aphex Twin's 1993 track On. The video was directed by Jarvis Cocker of the band Pulp. Through stop-motion technology, a bunch of seemingly random things such as a giant ear, a pair of scissors, sculptures, toys, and a scuba diver, come together to frolic around on the shore. I love the way that stop-motion can bring inanimate objects to life like this. Apart from these fanatstic visuals, "On" always puts my mind in a good place with it's hypnotic sound.

My LSD-Induced Love Affair With a Pigeon features one of the most eccentric people I've seen appear on Hamilton's Pharmacopeia. In this episode from the show's third season, psychedelic researcher Amanda Feilding recalls an intense love affair she had with a pigeon when she was 23 years old. The expanded consciousness she experienced from LSD allowed her to bond with the bird in a deep way. 

Fielding calls the love she shared with "Birdie" one of the most meaningful relationships in her life. She says that the pigeon had two main emotions: "passionate love and hateful jealousy." The bird wanted Fielding all to herself, and was not a fan of Fielding's partner. When Birdie was loving, though, it would cuddle her and kiss her pupils delicately.

The way Fielding allowed the bird to "kiss" her open eyeballs speaks to how extraordinary this love affair was. Although I found her story to be truly heartwarming, I couldn't help but think of a particular scene in Hitchcock's Birds when she mentioned this detail.

Ms. Fielding is also an advocate of preparation (cutting a hole in the skull):

This newly colorized version of Pink Floyd performing Apples and Oranges took close to a year to edit, and the result is absolutely dreamy. The wizard behind this stunning colorization goes by Artist on the Border on YouTube. The color greatly magnifies the psychedelia of the music. In the video, a glowing Syd Barrett stands front and center, while the band performs on the television program American Bandstand in '67. The band had just arrived in America for the first time a few days before this was recorded.

[via Dangerous Minds]

The Cameraman's Revenge (1912) is a 13-minute experimental Russian stop-motion animated short directed and written by Wladyslaw Starewicz. This animation was one-of-a-kind when it was created for its use of real dried-out insects as characters. The film includes beetles, grasshoppers, dragonflies, and other fine specimens. The bugs live like humans in a little town. They even ride bikes. At 6:02, you can see a grasshopper making a painting on a tiny little canvas. Who knew that dead bugs could be so darling?

Songs Hurt Me is an ethereal album from 1989 by artist Marnie Weber. Weber works in many mediums including collage, performance, film, sculpture, and sound installation. 

Some of Weber's early performance art characters (a deer, an old woman, a manic courtesan, and a butterfly) are incorporated into the album. I'm mesmerized by the otherworldly crossover of performance art and music that exists in Songs Hurt Me.

Previously:

Songs Forevermore: Marnie Weber's incredible new exhbit at ODD ARK•LA

I am an entirely new person after watching this looped video of two very chipper men whistling and jamming together in lederhosen. My consciousness has been permanently altered from viewing this riveting performance. Although I turned the video off, it's playing on an eternal loop in my subconscious.

My Friend Dahmer is a comic by Derf which tells the true story of the author's teenage friendship with American serial killer Jeffery Dahmer when the two went to middle school and high school together. Dahmer, also known as the Milwaukee Cannibal, murdered 17 men and boys between 1978-1991. 

The Cartoonist Kayfabe youtube channel has a great review of the 24-page version of the comic, which was later adapted into a 224-page graphic novel and then a feature film. The story follows Dahmer from age 12 to high school graduation, right before he committed his first murder This isn't a true-crime comic, but it recalls Dahmer's life as a social outcast throughout his teen years and the strange behavior he exhibited leading up to his crimes.

This Obstinate Donkey celluloid wind-up toy is a perfect representation of the inner conflict I experience on a day-to-day basis. I must force myself to get chores and tasks done, but the obstinate donkey in my heart just wants to stay put. These days, I often find myself running out of steam and sputtering out just like the toy. I also look down and find myself in a similar-looking clown suit, sometimes.  I am the Obstinate Donkey celluloid wind-up toy incarnate! 

Omega Mart has all of my meat-related needs, and I couldn't be more delighted. All-purpose meat spray? Check. They even have butter-scented air freshener, which I like to use as a cologne. It works wonders for my self-esteem. I'm on my way right now to buy the "collectors edition sliced meats", which are perfectly sliced and packaged inside of DVD cases. See the amazing Omega Mart meat collection for yourself here: Omega Mart's Weekly Specials: Complete Your Collection.

It's A Bird is an impressive excerpt from a 1930 stop-motion animation. It's about a strange little bird who enjoys devouring various pieces of scrap metal and car parts. The bird likes to hang out in an auto scrap yard and gobble down anything it can find. The bird also has the special ability to lay car-filled eggs after consuming all of the metal parts. The coolest part of the film is at 1:47, when its egg hatches a tiny piece of metal that slowly morphs into a car. The visual effects are pretty amazing considering the era it was made. 

If you're into ambient music, Tim Hecker's 2006 album Harmony In Ultraviolet is an essential listen. Tim Hecker is a Canadian sound artist. He makes experimental, ambient, and electronic music. Harmony In Ultraviolet gives me the peaceful yet eerie feeling of walking alone on a snowy night. It helps me reach a state of deep focus every time I put it on.

"Spring Heeled Jack Flies Tonight" is one of my favorite tracks on the album. Fun fact: through the title of this song, I learned about the urban legend of Spring-heeled Jack, an entity from Victorian-era folklore. A popular version of the legend says that Spring-heeled Jack was a devil-like man with claws and red glowing eyes. He would roam the streets of London at night, jump over houses, and attack people.

"Horse kicks tree, farts on dogs then runs away" is a thorough summary of the contents in this YouTube video. It will not disappoint. We will never know why this horse decided to kick a tree, fart on some dogs, and then run away. It will remain one of nature's greatest mysteries. One thing is for sure, though —  completing this chain of events was a very serious matter for the horse.