Nature slowly reclaims the space occupied by an abandoned train station in the former Russian territory of Abkhazia.
The End of the Empire [English Russia]
Categories: Photographs, Nature, Architecture, Russia
Posted at 12:05 pm on September 25, 2008
1 Comment -
Ah, Canada, that frozen wonderland to the north, with its lush, rolling fields of moose, beer waterfalls, and socialized medicine. Truly, it is a snow covered Eden. This week’s Saturday Morning Cartoons is (mostly) presented by Canada, featuring animators (mostly) from Canada, or films distributed (mostly) by The National Film Board of Canada. If you are so inclined (and you should be) all of these videos, with the exception of the first, can be viewed in a higher resolution on YouTube.
• The Cat Came Back: From Cordell Barker. Mr. Johnson has a yellow cat, which he is desperately trying to rid himself of. His efforts prove…unsuccessful.
• Last Time in Clerkenwell: Russian animator Alex Budovsky’s follow-up to Bathtime in Clerkenwell featuring more mind bending flash animation and infectious music.
• The Danish Poet: Torill Kove’s 2007 Oscar winning mediation on her birth, and the serendipitous events which led to it. Simple, clean lines lend this one a children’s book aesthetic which works perfectly.
• Ryan: Directed by Chris Landreth, Ryan is an animated tribute to Canadian animator Ryan Larkin. Thirty years ago, at the National Film Board of Canada, Ryan produced some of the most influential animated films of his time. Winner of an Oscar in 2005, it’s a film whose visuals tell just as much of its story as its dialogue does.
• How Wings Are Attached to the Backs of Angels: Craig Welch’s fantastic, creepy, surreal, Gorey-esque little film about a scientist’s quest for knowledge that is, perhaps, reserved for beings other than mere mortals. Cross hatching should be used more often in animation.
• Yellow Sticky Notes: Nine years worth of Jeff Chiba Stearns’s To-Do lists, written on sticky notes, animated with, well, sticky notes. Trust me, it works.
• Harvey Krumpet: I’m a big fan of Australian animator Adam Elliot’s work, having first seen his shorts Brother, Uncle, and Cousin through The Animation Show. Harvey Krumpet, narrated by Geoffrey Rush, continues the tradition of Elliot’s intimate storytelling; detailing the life of Harvey Krumpet, from his birth in Poland to the end of his life in Australia.
Saturday Morning Cartoons XXXIX: Oh Canada (Mostly) [YouTube]
Categories: Short Film, Interview, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Angels, Rail, Death, Animation, Ephemera, Russia, Surrealism, Documentaries, Saturday Morning Cartoons, Music
Posted at 11:24 am on August 16, 2008
7 Comments -
How many times I have fantasized about being Mikael Gorbachov I cannot say, but often I will find myself staring off into space, day-dreaming that I am the barbarian savior of Russia. With my mighty axe I cut a swath through the U.S.S.R., my rippling biceps, criss-crossed with veins, pump furiously like taut, fleshy pistons as I deal blood-soaked death to my enemies. With my laser vision I decimate the armies of zombie, Stalin impersonators, rending them limb from limb; freeing from their clutches the buxom, nubile nymphs of the hammer and sickle. Yes, it is for them — their bosoms heaving, their lips trembling with fear — that I, flush with the ancient and infinite power afforded me by The Mark emblazoned on my pate, rampage through the Motherland. It is for them that I bring soda from the West, and American denim.
And, oh, how grateful they are…
For the sake of decorum I feel that here would be a good place to stop. Besides, the stories of Gorbachov’s legendary sexual prowess and enormous genitalia are common knowledge. Alas, as will always be the case, I must awake from my reverie knowing that I am not Mikael Gorbachov. I cannot shoot lasers from my eyes, nor have I ever kicked someone hard enough to separate their head from their shoulders. No, I must live knowing those Soviet angels, their skin sticky and sweet from consuming Twinkies, will never welcome me into their arms, but this amazing ode to the man, from Russian metal mavens’ ANJ and director Tom Stern, is, I suppose, the next best thing.
GORBACHOV: THE MUSIC VIDEO - BIGGER AND RUSSIANER [Vimeo] : Thanks, Tim!
Categories: Nymphs, Russia, Noise du Jour
Posted at 10:23 am on July 10, 2008
4 Comments -
Portraits of deranged youth, possibly unsafe for work and for soul, but deeply affecting.
Sergey Bratkov [babyart]
Categories: Nymphets, Russia, Lolitas, Photography, Art
Posted at 5:19 pm on June 6, 2008
17 Comments -
A recent press conference held by Gary Kasparov was interrupted when a radio controlled penis flew toward the former Russian Grandmaster in an attempt to merely disrupt the proceedings or, perhaps, sodomize him. The offending member was struck down by a one of Kasparov’s seemingly unamused security detail. As the bodyguard gives the flying dick the rough treatment Kasparov says, “I think we have to be thankful for the opposition’s demonstration of the level of discourse we need to anticipate. Also, apparently most of their arguments are located beneath the belt.” Someone in the audience then shouts, “Finally the political power shows its face!” To which Kasparov quickly replies, “Well, if that’s its face…”
Check and mate?
Flying Penis [Sharenator] : ectotweeted by John P.
Categories: NSFW, Phallus, Politics, Russia, ectotweet, Twitter
Posted at 9:34 am on May 20, 2008
6 Comments -
This 1:500 scale model of the center section of Moscow was commissioned by Nikita Khrushchev in 1968; eighteen years later it was finished. It measures 144 square meters and is made from wood. There have been other, impressive models of the city which included more color and lighting but this particular example makes up for it with its sheer scale. The model is housed in Moscow’s town hall. Hit the jump for more pictures.
Categories: Russia, Sculpture, Communism, Art
Posted at 3:21 pm on April 22, 2008
5 Comments -
Gentlemen, I am outraged.
Your gross negligence in assuming I am ashamed of any of my musical predilections is noted, and will be revenged. There is absolutely no reason to assume, self-righteous pricks that you are, that the carmine creeping up my collar is anything other than stoic pride, a touch of the ol’ toxoplasma gondii, and perhaps a brief spike in my everyday, baseline feelings of discomfort.
Listen you, I was enjoying the Ruski pop nymphets way back, before any hoity-toity English remixes got loose, much less actual American album releases. This shit was edgy and inaccessible. Hell, it still is! I would get home from my live-action Vampire the Masquerade roleplaying session at the local college campus (back when I was a ginger-curled nymphet myself), maybe boot up a game of Fallout 2, invite my BFF Steve over, and we’d watch these videos, on repeat, in silent awe. Why, I thought to myself, did I not have a dark pixie of a partner, an eternal semi-succubus, someone to cling to during the long nights of crippling self-doubt, someone to share my pants and lipgloss, someone to hold my hair while I purged, someone with whom to ghost ride the whip? I mean, someone besides Steve?
Now, emerald-haired, naked in a wooden trunk, chugging Red Bull and typing on a keyboard for which I cannot see the screen, I ask myself: if I had found her, this dark unicorn, would things have turned out better?
But then I think: how could they?
Categories: Decadence, Naked Schoolgirls, Handmaidens of the Tentacle, Homoeroticism, Eliza's Muffed Sense of Equilibrium, Kissing, Guilty Pleasures, Internet Outrage, Nymphs, Kill Me, Exploitation, Fetish, Lesbians, Lolitas, Noise du Jour, Homosexuals, Gurls Gurls Gurls, Small Children, Ghost Riding the Whip, Russia, Ephemera
Posted at 3:42 pm on March 14, 2008
8 Comments -
Featured prominently amongst this collection of Russian criminals and their tattoos is this menacing gentleman, his shoulder adorned with tentacles. It was only moments after this picture was taken that he leapt at the photographer, viciously beating him to death with his cat.
Russian Criminal Tattoos [English Russia]
Categories: Ectomeme, Tattoo, Boys Boys Boys, Russia, Tentacles, Crime
Posted at 2:26 pm on February 6, 2008
1 Comment -
Instructables has a step-by-step to crochet your very own Cthulhu! A few people tipped us on this one, but Bibi was first.
Bela sends us some fantastic artwork from the talented Sayaka; comprised of an Ectomo favorite, namely: lithe, Japanese nymphets. Also, tentacles.
Asa Gilmore calls out attention to a list of abandoned wonders in Russia, saying “Scroll to the end of the article. If that strange contraption doesn’t scream ‘Steampunk’ to you, I shall eat my hat and say ‘balderdash.’”
Benton Barnett submitted this badass gas mask t-shirt which will now have to be added to my wardrobe. They can be purchase here.
Dr. Hypercube warns us, via ectotweet, to beware the cephalopod loo.
Ninjas and moustaches are BFFs! Thanks, Felix.
Illustration: Uncle Dapper by missmonster : Thanks, Jason!
Categories: Illustration, Artists, Street art, Cephalopods, ectocache, Gasmasks, Nymphs, Ninjas, Moustaches, Russia, Steampunk, Lolitas, Fashion, ectotweet, Japan, Gurls Gurls Gurls, Cthulhu, Deviant Artist, Art
Posted at 1:40 pm on February 1, 2008
4 Comments -
A slightly different format this weekend. Oscar nominations have been announced and while the pithy award show is as much an indication of cinematic excellence as one of Eliza’s massive bowel movements, it does draw attention to films that may otherwise have gone unnoticed. With that in mind Ectomo presents the nominations for Best Short Animated Film. Hit the jump for enough embedded video to make your browser weep.
Categories: France, Travel, Animals, Cartoons, Nightmares, Puppets, Saturday Morning Cartoons, Movies, Animation, Art, Film, Russia, Trailers, Music
Posted at 2:13 pm on January 26, 2008
2 Comments -
Categories: USSR, Vintage, Space, Russia, Propaganda, Communism, Retrofuturism, Aliens
Posted at 4:35 pm on December 19, 2007
3 Comments -
Andrei Severinko is a Ukrainian artist who uses found scrap materials to create mechanical monsters.
A Cyber Sculptor [English Russia]
Categories: Russia, Monsters, Sculpture, Art
Posted at 4:30 pm on December 17, 2007
4 Comments -
Russian Authors - set of 1″ buttons [stanleyleiber’s Etsy]
Categories: Etsy, Nabokov, Vintage, Artists, Russia, Art
Posted at 8:05 pm on December 10, 2007
6 Comments -
1. Potapych: Bear Who Loved Vodka
Why is it easier to make friends than keep them? The fable of Potapych and his pet hobo teaches us to be good, drink milk, and think of Russia.
2. Gnap-Gnap
The power of foley sound grants flight to an inflatable monster, who bears his Moebius-inspired master aloft.
3. Sam and Max Hit the Road: Intro
The animated lead-in to the classic LucasArts adventure. I desperately miss these voice actors.
4. Sam & Max: Our Bewildering Universe
A more recent Steve Purcell short, done in his inimitable style and perfect pace.
5. Sam and Max Episode 13
“Nice wedding so far!”
“I think the commissioner would support our decision to employ rubber ammo and tear gas at this point, ha ha!”
6. The Running Man
A short from Liquid Television that made an immense impression on me as a child. I still couldn’t give you a reliable synopsis, however.
7. Ergo Proxy: Episode 1
A newish anime that has more style and grace than anything I’ve seen since FLCL. After the first three episodes, it devolves into typical anime mush and become unwatchable, but until then it’s brilliant. The plot revolves around a wireless virus that impregnates androids with self-awareness. In a society built on the tireless backs of ubiquitous service drones, programmed into selfless slaves, a taste of freedom is civilization-threatening. Pay special attention to the costume designs and sound effects, which even on YouTube, have real panache.
8. Memories: Magnetic Rose
A crew of freelance space salvagers stumbles on what looks like a lush haul. I think saying a ything more would endanger the horror and sensitivity of what follows. You can thank Stickypig for this. This is part of a full-length anime with three different stories within, only one of which, this one, have I seen. And it is positively some of the best science fiction currently on film.
Categories: Anthropomorphism, Saturday Morning Cartoons, Animals, Television, Cartoons, Automatons, Insanity, Surrealism, Animation, Aliens, Horror, Science Fiction, Russia, Art
Posted at 9:03 am on December 8, 2007
8 Comments -
I love abandoned places…especially abandoned scientific establishments. You’d be amazed at the stuff that people will just leave behind. In Russia, the government literally left behind an entire neurological laboratory full of monkey brains in jars, half-mummified rat heads, and assorted other blocky, thrown-together Russian electronics. This place is like a candy store for zombies and medicophiles like myself.
The next time I’m in Russia (which would, technically, be the first I will have ever been in Russia), I plan to bust into this joint and abscond with a number of preserved brains and Frankensteinian Russki computer equipment. All part of my longterm plan to turn my house into an authenthic Mad Scientist’s Laboratory.
Abandoned laboratory of studying a human brain [Brushnicka.com]
Categories: Brains, Medicine, Mad Scientists, Russia, Communism
Posted at 1:06 pm on November 15, 2007
3 Comments -
In sheer defiance of the World Wide Web Consortium's will, Ectomo was designed using a non-web-standard font. Luckily, it is included in the excellent font pack released by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, which can be freely downloaded in Mac and PC formats here. Ectomo should still look fine without it, though.
