Where I'm going this weekend

This weekend, I'm going to Kewanee, Illinois, hog capital of the world.

Monkeys

Monkeys, Chicago, Illinois

Of Maggots and Madonnas

The concept is quintessential Knight/McQueen. Create the face of an angel and place it, pride of place, in a church in the southern French town of Avignon. Nothing much new about that, you might think, except that instead of using stained glass or any other such obvious and/or widely deemed appropriate materials, the pair constructed the piece entirely out of dyed maggots – 80 gallons of dyed maggots, to be precise. It’s a frankly horrifying thought, which is, of course, the point. -- "Of Maggots and Madonnas," c/o Clayton Cubitt

The vice beat

Crickets, Shanghai, China
Over at my Forbes blog, I'm working the vice beat. Yesterday, I posted about cricket fighting, and today I'll have a post that's best described as: Is that a gun in your bra or are you just happy to see me?

The vice beat covers a lot of territory -- gambling, alcohol, tobacco, weapons, adult. But it can also include any business sector that a portion of the people view as having a negative impact on our culture. Illegal drugs, for example. Some people consider food a vice these days. I wrote a post awhile back on whether or not Apple is a sin stock.

Got tips on any subjects, people, or stories that you'd like to see explored on SIN INC? Email me.

Hey, homo

Nicky Da B - Go Loko (Official) from Clayton Cubitt on Vimeo.
One thing that's cool about the internet is that you can watch the arc of someone's career play out in real time.

Take, for example, Clayton Cubitt. A long time ago, he lived in a dreampod. And he took pictures of girls (sometimes in trouble). And he worked with meat. And then he die-d (Antwoord). 

Now, he's gone loko.

It's your career. Expanding and contracting. Rising and dipping. The internet where you leave the residue.

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Butt

Statue, Suzhou, China

Price

From my latest on Forbes, "The Price of Investing in Sin":

In a way, the Asian carp are not unlike sin businesses. Forced to meet extraordinary challenges, both thrive under dire circumstances, surviving despite public dislike, under shifting environments, and circumventing genocide attempts.

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Frogs

Frogs, Shanghai, China

Changes

There are some changes going on here. Tune back in on Monday to find out what. This photo (via Jim Romenesko) is awesome.

The pig belted out a horrific, loud squeal until Afari released it in the cage of the truck.

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Dog

Dog, Boca Raton, Florida

Marathon

Are you following my "30 Days of Freelancing" series on Forbes?

It's like a marathon, and I'm a sprinter.

Check it out.

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Photo of the day

Vet, Chicago, Illinois

Get that job

I interviewed the awesome Kelly Internets of The Daily What for my Forbes blog.

We discussed Colonel Meow.

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Cupcakes

Yesterday, I went to exercise my journalism skills by covering a cupcake story. You can read about my good time here: "A Cupcake ATM Dispenses Love."

I was sort of ambivalent about doing this story. I mean, it's not porn journalism.

I wondered if doing it made me a pussy, or if I was getting soft, or what else I could ask someone who was trying to use a cupcake ATM.

But I think it came out, well, cute. I like the photos, particularly the one of the dog.

Last night I told my husband that it's all about repeating. Do it over and over and over again, until you can do it with your eyes closed.

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Chihuahua

Chihuahua, Norfolk, Virginia

My spirit animal is a sloth

I spent the last five days in Costa Rica. It was amazing. I stood at the lip of a volcano crater filled with mist, climbed through the jungle, ate plantain chips, drank Costa Rican wine, toured the Teatro Nacional de Costa Rica in San Jose, swam in a pool, visited a coffee plantation, and generally had a great time.

One of my favorite moments was seeing a pair of two-toed sloths, seen here via my iPhone. I had recently become a sloth fan, after seeing the sloth videos on VBS.TV, but it was wonderful to see them in person.

There were two sloths. Maybe a boy and a girl? And they were lounging on a platform on a tree. Occasionally, the one that was vaguely more active than the other would pull at the other sloth's arm, and then it spent a while poking around in the other sloth's butt fur. Their fur is sort of long and coarse, a bit like a horse's tail, but shorter.

Mostly, they were just chillin'. We speculated they had figured out their plan for the day that morning. "We'll lay about sort of upside down and play with one another's fur." And that's what they did.

There's a saying in Costa Rica which is "Pura Vida." It means a lot of things, from "This is living" to "Thank you." It is also about enjoying life slowly. When I returned, Siege asked me if I got my groove back, and I said yes.

Turkey

Happy Thanksgiving.

XoX

S