Reel Around the Fountain

Animated artwork by Rebecca Mock

Still-Practiced Pagan Ritual Costumes

These are not your average Halloween costumes. For two years, French photographer Charles Fréger has been traveling throughout European countries, trying to capture the spirit of what he calls “tribal Europe” in his Wilder Mann series. What he found was a huge array of pagan rituals, mainly related to the winter solstice and spring renewal, focusing on the common myth of the “wild man.”

It appears that the tradition of men dressing up as wild animals and monsters, which dates back to neolithic times and shamanism, is still very alive. The mythological figure of a “wild man” represents the complicated relationship humans have with nature and life and death cycles. His series explores the different interpretations of such figures – while some cultures depict him as covered in flowers or straws, others possess the features of bears, goats, or horned and hairy beasts.

Everybody Needs A Hobby of the Day: Looking back on it now, the taxidermied badger theremin was really just an obvious idea waiting for someone to think it.

Luckily, for it and us, electronic artist and sculptor David Cranmer did just that.

Cranmer, who apparently was in possession of a dead badger looking for a purpose, stuffed the stuffed weasel with a fully functional PAiA Theremax theremin to create the mythical hybrid known as “Badgermin.”

Listen to its siren call below. Mass production is undoubtedly forthcoming.