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The flower beard trend has blossomed with little warning even though it remains to be seen how a beard decorated with daisies, violets and rosebuds might survive a Friday night pub crawl let alone the opprobrium it might receive from peers who simply don’t get it. If you drink in one of the many pubs named after our subject (see below) then you might just get away with it.
However, perhaps flower beards represent more than a passing fad: maybe these young men are channelling something rather more ancient than urban fashionistas might suspect.
It could be that this fashion is guided by a spirit of primal fecundity, the Green Man.
Yet it would be heartening to believe that these men, in their search for a male self-identity of the twenty first century (and let’s face it the last few decades of the twentieth saw a little ambling from whatever the true path may be) have, however unconsciously, tapped in to this ancient symbol of rebirth and the cycle of growth and replenishment.
Whatever the reason, it presents a fine opportunity to delve in to the history of the green man.
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If you want to work out who is who and what is what in the design for yourself, don’t read on! However, on the top half we have: (clockwise) Tardis (Doctor Who), Millenium Falcon (Star Wars), Planet Express spaceship (Futurama), Tesla coil, U.S.S. Enterprise (Star Trek: reboot), Serenity (Firefly) over the Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Cosmos nebula.
Midway is the Creation of Adam (thank you Michelangelo) but with Adam as an android, both of them reaching for the Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything (The Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy) entwined by the One Ring (Lord of the Rings).
The Lower half depicts the following: on the left, two sparrows tow a coconut (Monty Python and the Holy Grail) with tractor beams to English shores while a cyclopean pyramid (Steve Jackson Games) looks on in bemusement. In the center, Vault boy (Fallout) gives his approval atop Cthulhu (Call of Cthulhu) scowling in a highly disapproving manner. On the right, Targaryan dragon and Lannister lion claw at each other while the Stark direwolf and the Night's Watch crow square off (Game of Thrones).
Please visit Wild Guru Larry's Flickr Photostream to enjoy more of his amazing work.
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Claire&Max, the creators of this amazing video wanted to play with your perception of architecture by leveling Paris out and then rebuilding it in front of your eyes. The result is a magnetic experience- I couldn’t take my eyes off this.
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Ahem.
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This is one of the few places above sea level where you can see with your own eyes what happens when two major tectonic plates drift away from each other. In fact, Iceland owes its very existence to the tectonic processes which have played out along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge for millions of years. It was born of the ridge, which runs right through it.
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