Judith G. Klausner - Oreo Cameos

Can you believe these Victorian-style cameos are actually carved from scratch on oreo cookies! They are the creations of Somerville-based artist Judith G. Klausner using toothpicks, straight pins, and a balled-tip sculpture stick.








And all I can do is just twist, lick and dunk!

W/W - Smashed Chicken

Ayam Penyet is a traditional Indonesian dish that literally translates as 'smashed chicken'. When I first heard the words 'smashed chicken', I had this mental image of poor chickens being smashed to death!

Hey, before you report to PETA, read on pallies!

The meat (from the humanely slaughtered chicken!) which is marinated in a variety of spices and herbs is 'smashed' with a wooden mallet and then deep fried. This tenderizes the meat and detaches the flesh from the bone resulting in chicken that is super crispy on the outside and tender and juicy on the inside. The fried chicken is topped with some kind of fried crumbs and served with a killer sambal (shrimp paste) and tempe (Javanese fermented soybean cakes).

Josh enjoying his 'smashed chicken'

I had the smashed gurami (catfish)

Mmmmmm!! It was a smashing meal! I'll definitely be back again to try the smashed bakso (beef balls ....er...I mean... meatballs).

The Sand Bubbler Crab

While beachcombing in Bintan, we were fascinated by the radial patterns made of wee balls of sand that littered the beach. On closer inspection, we found itty-bitty crabs hurling little sand balls onto the beach, creating a unique artwork that patterned around small holes. I thought those teensy-weensy critters were hermit crabs. Turned out I was wrong. They were actually sand bubbler crabs.

Here's what I've learned.

A sand bubbler crab - it measures no more than an inch across

During low tide, the sand bubblers emerge from their burrows to feed. They ingest the sand, sieving out detritus (the food particles hidden within the sand) and regurgitate unwanted particles in the form of tiny perfectly shaped spheres of sand that are littered all over the beach.

With only a few hours available before the tide returns, the crabs need to work super fast. Each crab produces 12 balls every minute which adds up to 3000 balls per crab in a single day between the tides!!!


Losing one's way among the thousands of balls is easy so the bubbler crab leaves behind an escape route - a narrow passage free of balls that leads straight back to the safety of its burrow!!!

You can almost tell how long the tide has been out by the patterns of their sand balls. The more intricate the pattern, the longer the tide has been out.

Watch a sand bubbler in action in this cute video! - http://videos.howstuffworks.com/animal-planet/29027-fooled-by-nature-sand-bubbler-crabs-video.htm

"Everything that ever walked or crawled on the face of the earth, swum the depths of the ocean or soared through the skies left its imprint here."
Robert M. Fresco

* pictures taken at the Mayang Sari Beach, Bintan



Sunday Snapshot and Sunday Citar are hosted weekly by Stefanie and Tabitha .
*Citar means "to quote" in Spanish

Link up your post and have fun meeting new friends on your hops!

Kindskoepfe (Grown Ups)

fThese fun digitally manipulated images are the creations of a team of Hamburg-based artists consisting of photographer Paul Ripke, art director Florian Schmucker and post production company POP.
The pictures are from a series in which parents swapped their heads with those of their kids! Too cute!

Sven & Maximilian

Sandra & Mia

Esther & Amy

Silviu & Leonardo

Sandra & Filipa

Silke & Cecelia

Theresa & Polly

Daniele & Luis

Ole & Piet

Dominic & Emilian

Calvin Nicholls

I've posted the works of several papercrafting artists like Joe Bagley, Carlos Meira, Jeff Nishinaka and others but these paper sculptures are surely the best I've seen so far. They are the creations of Canadian artist Calvin Nicholls. The artist uses simple materials like sheets of paper and scalpel to craft incredible forms. Visit his website at www.calvinnicholls.com

Lego Church

I received the following pics in an e-mail forward and on googling, found that they are actually a lego reconstruction of the Abston Church Of Christ by Amy Hughes.

A few quick facts:

How long to build it?
It was about a year and a half of planning, building and
Photographing.

How many pieces of LEGO to build it?
More than 75,000?

How big is it?
About 7 feet by 5 1/2 feet by 30 inches
(2.2 am x 1.7 am x .76 am)

How many LEGO people does it seat?
1,372 mini figures

How many windows?
3,976?

It features a balcony, a Narthex, stairs to the balcony,
Restrooms, coat rooms, several mosaics, a nave, a baptistery,
An altar, a crucifix, a pulpit and an elaborate pipe organ.

The mighty Abston Church of Christ organ occupies the rear wall of the nave. The balcony offers excellent viewing of the church. Dual stairways in the narthex offer access to the balcony and organ console.

A view from the balcony looking toward the chancel. There's seating for an 80-member choir under the mosaics. The roof over the chancel and mosaic alcoves is glass.

This picture was taken from the top of one of the mosaics looking back at the nave. There were 622 minifigs in attendance at this service, and the church was less than half full.

Special Guests attending the dedication service

The altar, crucifix and pulpit.

A close view of the pulpit against the color of one of the mosaics. Rev. Ashley tells us it feels like he's floating while he stands at the pulpit. He has a commanding view from here and can probably spot sleepers even in the back pews.

WOW!

Christopher Boffoli - Disparity

Seattle based Christopher Boffoli uses food and toy figures to create every day scenes for his project entitled "Disparity". He says,"Coming up with an interesting image is only half the battle - a caption that will make people smile is also a big part of my work."

Gary always uses too much mustard but no one can say anything. It's a union thing.

Josh had a great deal of pride in what was capable with a freshly-sharpened blade.

Bill was a happily married man. But he wasn't about to say no to an offer to check out Heather's new tattoo.

She was flying a kite just moments before the accident.

The beekeepers knew it was a good idea to move their hives to this new location.

The others didn't care to hear Marilyn's stories of her youth on a dairy farm. They all just wished she'd shut up and paddle.

No one would be allowed in until the hazmat team had deemed the strange albino pumpkins safe.

They won't be happy to hear about this down at the henhouse.

Even though he knew the likelihood of shark encounters was low, Eric still had anxiety about the dive.

Greta and her pals enjoyed the smooth ride so much that they vowed to never again attempt a ride over the pineapples.