The Huli Wigmen are a tribe that inhabit several villages in Papua New Guinea. They are known both as some of the most fierce warriors in the region and as masterful “hairstylists”who craft flamboyant wigs out of their own hair.

Not much is known about the origins of the Huli men’s tradition of crafting wigs from their own hair. When researchers discovered the tribe, they were already practicing the custom, and since they are believed to have lived in the area for at least 1,000 years, the tradition must have been developed sometime during this period. Males in their late teenage years and early 20’s leave their community behind and go to Bachelor school, where older man teach them all about manhood, including how to make beautiful wigs from their own hair. They are sequestered in the jungle for at least 18 months, after which they can return to their villages or stay a while longer to acquire more knowledge and improve their skills. The wig-making process starts with the trainees growing out their hair. When it’s big enough, the shaping of the wigs begins while the hair is still attached to their heads. Most of the shapes are saucer-like, so the men have to sleep with bricks and other objects under their heads to keep their heads off the ground and prevent the hair from getting flattened.

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FootGolf is an addictively fun sport that combines golf and football (soccer). It’s usually played on golf courses and players have to putt a football in 21-inch holes using as few kicks as possible.

The origins of footgolf are unclear, but its conversion into an official sport can be attributed to the Netherlands, where the ruleset was standardized in 2009. Its popularity has expanded around the world ever since, and every day more and more football and golf fans choose to replace the club stroke with a good healthy kick. In this new precision sport, players are required to kick a football into a cup in as few shots as possible. Most of the rules correspond to those of golf, and there is even a dress code. The first shot has to be played from the tee, and obstacles like bunkers, trees, water and hills have to be avoided for an easier game. In some countries, the game also features man-made obstacles that the players are not allowed to touch or move in order to get the ball in the hole. Players have to combine powerful kicks with strategic plays in order to complete the 9 or 18 hole course as fast as they can.

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Liu Bolin, the man who took the international art world by storm, in 2009, with his incredible ability to merge with the environment, has returned with a new series that makes him even harder to spot.

Nicknamed the “Invisible Man”, Liu Bolin is a master of camouflage art who spends up to 10 hours blending into various backdrops, with the help of paint. He puts on a suit and waits patiently as his helpers cover him in paint matching the colors of the background, until he becomes almost impossible to spot. Passionate about his art, this human chameleon he tries to get every little detail, every crack and crevice just right for that one perfect snapshot.  His latest exhibition, Hiding in the City, at New York’s Eli Klein Art Gallery, features some of his best works yet. It wasn’t for the shoes sticking out of the backdrops, I probably would have needed to really look at the photos to figure out where he was hiding. My favorites are the panda camouflage, the magazine stand and the toy aisle, but every one of his creation is simply mind-blowing.

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What do you get when you put together a passion for cars and a love for barbeque? Well, a Carbeque, of course. A vehicle that’s perhaps the only one of its kind, the Carbeque looks just as cool as it sounds. Owned by Australian Radio personality Merrick Watts, the car itself is based around a 1973 Ford Langau, powered by a 351 V8 with extractors, and styled similar to the ones used in Mel Gibson’s ‘Mad Max’ movies. The only difference here is that the trunk comes with a fully functional grill. According to Watts, the Carbeque is the answer to the question that’s been plaguing people since the first tailgating party. “How many times are you driving somewhere, and there’s nowhere you can have a barbeque,” he says. But with the Carbeque, “you just pull over, and you start cooking.”

Watts was recently signed on as the face of Meat & Livestock Australia’s promotional campaign. As a part of the promotional activities, the Carbeque was unveiled in Parrmatta Mall on the 26^th of November, last year. Just before he powered up the car for the first time at the unveiling, he said, “It’s balls-out amazing! I took our entire marketing budget. It’s not just a car, I introduced the world’s first CARBEQUE!” While describing the car, Watts said, “Half car, half barbeque! It’s integrated, it’s part of its genetic make-up, it’s been spliced with a barbeque. You open up the boot, and out comes a cantilevered barbeque, the greatest barbeque you’ve ever seen. Not some ratty little hot plate thing, a full blown barbeque.” Well, it has to be, considering that Watts spent a whopping $156,000 (the money meant for marketing his show, Merrick and the Highway Patrol), on the car. According to the show’s producer Elle Conwell, “We can cook 9 (10.5 ounce) T-Bone steaks at one time. The Carbeque can pump out around 35 pounds of steak within the hour, or around 200 sausages. The roasting hood means that this Carbeque is ideal for cooking multiple dogs at anytime – depends on your taste. Maybe three Chihuahuas or one larger German Shepherd!”

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Datta Phuge, a chit fund businessman from Pimpri, India, refers to himself as “The Gold Man of Pimpri” and in order to live up to this image, he has recently commissioned a 22-karat gold shirt weighing 3.2 kilograms that’s bound to make some Western rappers green with envy.

According to India Today, gold-obsessed businessmen and politicians are nothing new in India. Not long ago, a man by the name of Ramesh Wanjale was spotted wearing 2 kilos of gold, then NCP functionary Samrat Moze wore 8.5 kilograms of gold in the form of jewelry and ornaments, but chit fund Datta Phuge found a way to one-up them both. He had a team of 15 goldsmiths working 18 hours a day for over 15 days in order to finish a 3.5 kg woven gold shirt. “The gold shirt has been one of my dreams,” Mr Phuge told Indian newspaper the Pune Mirror. “It will be an embellishment to my reputation as the ‘Gold man of Pimpri’”, Phuge said. His extravagant garment consists of 14,000 gold flowerrings, interwoven with one lakh spangles. It was assembled on a fabric base of imported white velvet, and comes with six Swarovski crystal buttons and an intricate belt, also made of gold.

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Who would have thought that an ordinary carpenter’s handsaw could be used to produce music? But apparently it can, and has been for the past 300 hundred years. And in order to commemorate this bizarre yet unique tradition, the NYC Musical Saw Festival is held in July of every year, in Astoria (Queens), New York City. Ever since the festival was established by founder and director Natalia ‘Saw Lady’ Paruz in 2003, musical saw players from all over New York and the world have come together to preserve and honor this rare form of music. In fact, for saw players in far-flung countries like Germany, Sweden, India, China and Japan, Astoria has become a pilgrimage place of sorts. Every year, the sawist who travels the greatest distance in order to attend is awarded the title of ‘guest of honor’.

At the Musical Saw Festival, the players socialize and hear each other play. There are solo performances and jam sessions as well. They even take the opportunity to educate each other about the different types of saws and various techniques of playing. Overall, the atmosphere is said to be rather friendly and encouraging. But the festival is not limited to saw players. The event is open to the public, so people are welcome to come in and learn about the musical saw, or just enjoy a concert or two. An art exhibit and a workshop are also part of the festival.

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Peter Bulow, a psychiatrist from Washington Heights, is just like any other New Yorker – he spends a chunk of his day commuting on the Subway. But unlike others who tend to doze off or are busy on their smartphones, Bulow prefers doing something much more creative and artistic – he sculpts. He has actually managed to convert the A-train into his own personal studio and his fellow commuters, into models. Armed with a blob of clay and a sculpting knife, he picks a subject and creates miniature busts of them. His completed works are usually stored in his violin case. Among several sculptures, you can find things like a school-girl on her way to a violin lesson, a macho guy with headphones, a couple snuggling, a woman wearing a fur collar, a few sporting dreadlocks and turbans.

Bulow started his unique Subway pastime about four years ago. “I had a long commute to work, so I thought it would be a good time to practice sculpting portraits,” the 52-year-old says. He has degrees in clinical psychiatry and art, and is a researcher at Columbia University. Not only is he an artist and a psychiatrist, but an immigrant and the son of Holocaust survivors. Born in India to a German father and Hungarian mother, Bulow’s sculpting days go far back into his childhood in Berlin when his uncle took him to the zoo and he made clay lions. Before his son Isaac was born, he would go to a stone carving studio after work. But now, he does it to and from work. So far, he has completed over 400 sculptures and he views them as portraits that help him “capture a moment in time.” Bulow feels a live connection with his subjects, especially because he has a fascination for people’s inner lives. He is so deeply moved by his art that he says, “When you look at a sculpture you feel all these emotions, but it’s not the sculpture that’s doing it; it’s you. It interests me how art affects the brain.” In fact, he is so much into sculpting miniature busts that he is writing a book in which he is attempting to connect all the portraits he’s made with his research in neuroesthetics (how the brain interprets music and art).

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It’s not the first time we’ve reported cases of real-life superheroes here on OC. But this sure is a first – a female superhero who has gladly shared her identity. And that’s not all. She’s also probably the first superhero to be concerned about her own safety. So she only patrols the streets of Brooklyn with fellow male superheroes. She is ‘Prowler’ by night, dressed in black spandex, red cat mask and clawed gloves, and Nicole Abramovici by day, a 32-year-old home-organizing businesswoman.

Abramovici is a part of the Big Apple chapter of a group called Superheroes Anonymous (only, she isn’t). She came to know about this group of male superheroes patrolling the city through a newspaper article and was inspired to join them. “I am one of the very few females active as a real-life superhero,” she said. “I wanted to help the homeless and the abandoned animals of New York, so pretty much immediately I decided on the name Prowler.” Abramovici admitted that the name Prowler isn’t always seen in a positive light, and is perceived as a person who creeps around at night, stealing. “But I wanted to make the prowler a force for good,” she said. On most nights, you can find her seeking out the needy with her superhero mentor, ‘Life’.

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The first trampoline dodgeball court was inaugurated in 2004, and the sport has been growing in popularity ever since. Now, the world’s first Ultimate Trampoline Dodgeball Championship might finally bring it into the spotlight.

There are a lot of popular sports played on giant trampolines these days, including basketball and volleyball, but trampoline dodgeball has to be the most exciting one yet. Created by Sky Zone Sports, this revolutionary game is played by the same rules as traditional dodgeball, with some slight differences. Instead of just trying to dodge and catch the balls by running around the court, in trampoline dodgeball the playing surface is made up of several trampolines, allowing the players to jump 10 feet in the air or bounce off the walls and “floor”, and making the experience even more fun. Two teams of five go against each other in 4-minute-long matches, with the one knocking out all opposition players being declared the winner. If at the end of four minutes, both teams have players on the court, the match goes into sudden death, until the first player is knocked out. In the upcoming championship, the team who wins two matches out of three will advance into the next stage of the competition.

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The Daily Talk is a unique news medium published on a blackboard in Monrovia, Liberia’s capital city. As most Liberians lack the money and means to access conventional mass media, this chalk-written daily “newspaper” is the most widely read report in Monrovia.

In the Western world, many are already talking about the death of written media, and the coming age of online information, but in some countries, access to old-fashion newspapers is still a thing of the future. Many Monrovians can’t afford to buy real newspapers or electricity to access the internet, so Alfred J. Sirleaf, the founder of this blackboard newspaper had to come up with a way to bring information to the people in an inexpensive way. He believes a well-informed people is the key to Liberia’s rebirth so ever since he started his unique venture  on Tubman Boulevard, in 2000, in central Monrovia, he’s been providing valuable news every single day. For local news, he relies on a team of volunteer reporters who come to him with stories, while for international events he goes to an internet cafe to access sites like the BBC, because he doesn’t own a computer. Then, in the newsroom, a small wooden shed attached to the back of his blackboard, he updates The Daily Talk with chalk. He’s the editor, the designer and sole employee of the unique newspaper, yet he manages to get his message across.

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Don Martini, a 75-year-old fan of the New York Giants has taken his devotion for his favorite football team to a whole new level. The Blairstown-native spent the last two years and $20,000 building an astonishing replica of the Giant’s old stadium in his garage.

The crazy idea came to Don in the middle of the night. The next morning, he got up and told his wife “I’m going to build Giants Stadium”, but all he got out of her was “You’re crazy!” But not even she thought he would be crazy enough to actually go through with it. The truth is, Don Martini was in search of a new project. After turning his backyard into a miniature village complete with an elevated rail for model trains, a working windmill and a lighthouse, the man was looking for a new challenge, something bigger than everything he had created in the past. He decided to combine his love for the New York Giants with his passion for building stuff, so he actually started work on this astonishing model of the football team’s stadium.

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In order to better “dissolve the barrier between art and artist”, New York-based artist Vincent Castiglia uses his own blood as a medium for his disturbing paintings. Throughout his artistic career, he has used around 12 pints of blood. “My work is literally a blood sacrifice on the altar of art,”the painter says.

While many artists claim a lot of sweat, blood and tears go into their art, Vince Castiglia is serious about the blood part. During the last 10 years, the painter from Hell’s Kitchen, New York, has been using his own blood as material for his art. In a recent interview, Castiglia said he was first inspired to use the bizarre art medium by a need to connect to his work “on the most intimate level.” It just so happens that human blood contains iron oxide, a pigment found in many traditional paints, as well as in iron ore and common rust. The 30-year-old begins his artistic process by drawing pen or graphite sketches on a white canvas, before proceeding to extract the “paint”, in the privacy of his own studio. Then he dilutes the blood and uses paintbrushes to create creepy reddish characters with twisted limbs, or in different stages of decay. Read More »

Created by Japanese divorce guru Hiroki Terai, Divorce Newspapers are gaining popularity as a quick and painless way to let family, friends and acquaintances know your marriage is over. This saves couples the embarrassment of having to tell each one of them their marriage has failed and explain how it happened.

You know those awkward moments when you bump into an acquaintance on the street and while making small talk you courteously ask them about their spouse, only to find out they got divorced? With the divorce rate on the rise, it’s becoming harder to avoid this kind of unfortunate situations. However, the resourceful Japanese have come up with an ingenious solution to this problem, called “the divorce newspaper”. Its creator, Hiroki Terai, got the seemingly-wacky idea after hearing many divorcees complain about having to tell everyone they know in person about their failed marriage, and wishing there was a quicker way to do it. Sure, you have social networks like Facebook and Twitter, but let’s face it, 80-year-old grandmas don’t usually have accounts on these platforms, and a simple status change doesn’t let everyone know how you feel about the whole thing.

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Ina bid to turn the idea of pop-up restaurants on its head, an award-winning Finish chef has opened a unique eaterie in an old mine shaft, 80 meters underground. Obviously, it’s called a “pop-down” restaurant.

“‘Pop-down’ is such a unique idea that I just had to do it,” chef Timo Linnamaki said on Monday, before his first clients descended to the bottom of the mine shaft in the town of Lohja, Finland.  “It’s great working down here because you are totally cut off from the world, so nothing distracts from the cooking.” The idea of preparing food so far below ground was all part of being close to the earth, but the talented cook admits this is by far the weirdest place he has ever prepared his dishes and that it would be very difficult to find something on par. The 115-year-old mine chosen as the location for this unique pop-down restaurant goes down to a depth of 380 meters where limestone is still mined, for the chemical industry. But that didn’t seem to scare off customers, as the 64-seat restaurant is already fully booked until September 29, when the crazy underground cooking experiment ends.

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I love watching movies, but doing it continuously for over 200 hours seems like an impossible feat. But not for two Bolivian movie aficionados who recently won a national movie marathon contest and split a prize of $10,000.

Last year, Bolivia set a new world record for the longest movie marathon. Felipe Gonzalo Ticona managed to stay awake for 131 hours watching all kinds of different films, but because a Guinness representative wasn’t present on scene, his record wasn’t certified so the title remained in the possession of a certain Indian gentleman. But this year, Bolivian movie theater chain “Cine Center” was determined to snatch the title of longest ever movie marathon for their home country, so they announced another monumental film-watching event that would take place simultaneously in three of Bolivia’s largest cities: La Paz, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz. The person who managed to beat all other participants and surpass the current record of 128 hours was guaranteed a prize of $10,000 and his name mentioned in the Guinness Book of Records. In total, over 1,400 film fans signed up for the chance to see dozens of films and win the attractive cash prize. At first, organizers decided to allow only people over 18 to enter the competition, but after receiving a considerable number of requests from younger movie buffs, they decided to allow teens as well, as long as they presented a signed authorization from their parents. Everyone had to pay a $14 entrance fee.

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