The lion suit in the Wizard of Oz was made of a real lion.

The Cowardly Lion costume, auctioned at 3 million dollars last year, has been preserved for decades in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The original costume had a mask included that was modeled to Bert Lahr’s face (Lahr played the lion). 

Unfortunately, the mask didn’t stand the test of time, and had begun to wear down. Bert Lahr’s son Herbert Lahr volunteered to have a mask molded of his face as replacement, for the closest possible resemblance. The crazy thing is that the mask almost never made it to the place where it is today. 

After filming was done, it was thrown out in the trash and was found by a trash collector. The sad part, many felt, was that it was being sold at all. Several other articles from the movie like the ruby slippers and Tin Man suit have been preserved in museums and never sold. 

At the same auction where it was sold was Bela Lugosi’s cape from the original Dracula, the DeLorean from Back to the Future III, Marilyn Monroe’s wedding ring from her marriage to Joe DiMaggio, and a painting of Marilyn by Earl Moran. 

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Check Out The Creepiest Pool In India

The beautiful Aquaria Grande residential towers, currently undergoing construction, will be equipped with one of the most stunning architectural feats when the project is completed, transforming standard balconies into swimming pools.

The residential location consists of two 37 story towers located in Mumbai, India. The Aquaria Grande Tower was designed by Wadhwa Group, and will feature several different amenities including a car park, fully equipped clubhouse, and a sustainable podium garden.

*UPDATE – Inthralld has been informed by James Law Cybertecture that the design of the water balconies is for the Bandra Ohm Tower for Parinee Developers, and not the the Auqaria Grande Towers for Wadhwa Group.

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Bovine Boarding at Pakistan’s Traditional Bull Races

If you think surfing and snowboarding are extreme sports, then you’ve probably never seen what happens in Pakistan, during traditional bovine races. It involves bulls, a board and dirt.

Tens of thousands of people gather whenever there is a bull race held in Pakistan. They are usually the highlight of festivals organized in rural areas of the Asian country, and attract lots of spectators due to their thrilling nature. Watching a bunch of oxen running alongside each other might not be your idea of a fun time, but add a man on riding a board on a dirty track trying to guide the animals, and things become pretty exciting. The traditional competition  attracts landlords and farmers from all around the province where the race is held, and they all bring their fastest and strongest bulls in hopes of gaining a reputation.

After watching a Pakistani bull race, you can honestly say Western jockeys have it good. While they’re comfortably riding the racing animals, Pakistanis get to hop on a wooden board and hang on for their lives as they’re dragged by the oxen. And if trying to keep their balance throughout the whole 350 meter course while shouting and beating the animals with sticks wasn’t enough, they also have to guide them through a couple of poles placed 10 meters apart, in order to officially finish the race. If the bulls don’t come through the poles or if the jockey falls off his board, the competitor is disqualified.

The 50-year-old event still manages to bring around 40-50 pairs of bulls to the starting line, and spectators love it, as well. The $1,000 prize given to the winner isn’t even enough to cover the cost of raising the cattle, so it’s fair to say most of them don’t do it for the money, but because bull racing is a part of their culture.

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A “Bald” Art Movement – Artist Uses His Head in the Name of Art

A few years ago, when he started to go bald, English artist Philip Levine decided he didn’t want to shave his head like everyone else. Instead he opted to turn it into a canvas for his art. That’s how the “headism” art movement was born.

While other complain about losing their hair, young Philip Levine looks at the full half of the glass: being bald gives him full freedom in a very specific and original way. Ever since he started shaving his head, in 2006, he began using it as a canvas for his various design ideas, and soon trend websites started posting photos of his bald artworks. In 2009 he realized his head was becoming and inspiration in the art world and decided to put on a show. Ever since then, his name and the headism art he pioneered have become iconic withing London’s art and fashion scenes.

Talking about the inspiration for his intriguing head designs, Philip Levine says he has always been a creative person, and working in fashion for a long time he has used people and images as inspiration. Ever since he created headism, Levine has covered his bald head with anything from1,000 Swarovski crystals, to coffee beans and paintings of Hokusai. He usually collaborates with body artist Kat Sinclair for his designs, and says most of them take about two hours to complete, but there have been some (like his acupuncture needle artwork) that took considerably longer.

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The Photo-Like Charcoal and Graphite Drawings of Robert Longo

New York-based artist Robert Longo creates detailed charcoal drawings that look amazingly photo-like. If you thought your sketches were pretty good, wait till you see what this guy can do.

You know when you look at a photo and you say to yourself “this looks too good to be true”? Most of the time Photoshop is to blame, but Robert Longo decided to create his own black and white photographs, the hard way. Instead of a few mouse clicks, he uses charcoal, graphite and paper, spending hours-on-end to create incredibly realistic works of art. You don’t need to be an expert to figure out Longo is an exceptional artist, but he has captured the attention of the art world, and his works have been exhibited in galleries around the world.

Brooklin-born Robert Longo grew up in Long Island,  fascinated with mass media like movies, television, magazines, and comic books, and they continue to influence his art. Drawing has always been his favorite form of his expression, but the years he spent studying sculpture show in the distinctive chiseled line of his works that gives subjects a three-dimensional look.

To create his fascinating drawings, Longo starts by projecting photos of his subjects onto a paper canvas and traces their figures with graphite, removing the background entirely. After he completes the basic contours, he has an illustrator work on the figure for about a week, after which he uses charcoal and graphite to refine the image to a point where you can’t really tell if it’s a photo or a very good drawing. This final cosmetic work also takes about a week to complete.

If you’re into hyperrealistic drawings, be sure to check out Paul Cadden’s graphite artworks, they are simply mind-blowing.

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Welcome to the World’s Craziest, Most Controversial Zoo

At the Lujan Zoo, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, visitors can do much more than admire wild animals from a distance. They can ride on the backs of wild lions, feed tigers or hand-feed cheetahs.

You couldn’t pay me enough to get up close and personal with a full-grown lion, but apparently there are people out there who can’t wait to get into a cage with it, and at the Lujan Zoo they get to do just that. Daredevils can feed grapes to the grizzly bears or even allow them to use their tongues to pick up the fruits from between their lips, pet elephants, ride on the back of tigers and whatever else you can think of that involves interacting with wild animals. I know what you’re thinking, all this is an accident waiting to happen, but you’ll be surprised to learn that ever since the zoo opened in 1994, there hasn’t been a single accident. In fact, zoo keepers are so confident nothing is going to go wrong that they don’t require visitors to sign any waivers before entering the animals’ cages, and they even allow small children.

But what makes wild predators act so tame around human strangers? Many have argued that animals at Lujan are sedated so they don’t pose a danger to visitors, but zoo representatives have denied these accusations, saying it would be impossible to constantly drug the animals because they would soon become sick and die. According to Jorge Semino, the zoo’s director, the secret lies in his unique methods of raising the animals, which involve constant interaction with people. The big felines receive the most attention, and as soon as new cubs are born, animal trainers start work on diminishing violent instincts associated with competition for food. They make sure they all have access to the mother’s teets and that nursing time is distributed equally. As they grow up, trainers start using vocal commands to teach the felines to recognize the difference between their hands and the meat they are fed. Dogs are also used as an example. Semino says the big cats witness as the canines gently and obediently interact with humans, and this serves as an example for them.

“The only way is to raise them from when they are babies  and educate them with love, affection and respect, and they will return the same,” the Lujan Zoo director said about his methods. Juan José Bianchini, a biologist who works with the animals at the unique zoo says “the early learning causes the animals to lose their aggressiveness in a total and irreversible way. They learn to live with other species and lose the aggressive drives which are primarily related to the competition for food.” Animals at Lujan are fed constantly to keep them satiated and prevent them from even thinking of visitors as food.

According to statements made by representatives of the Lujan Zoo, many of the animals there are sick undernourished house pets people bring in illegally. Because Buenos Aires is so close to the Brazilian rain forest, exotic animals are sold as pets all the time, but people get bored with them, so they end up at the zoo, where they are fed, cured and trained to act friendly around humans.

All of the above would have you believe that Lujan Zoo is a wonderful place where man and beast can interact peacefully, but not everyone believes that. The Born Free Foundation, an international animal rights group, has asked authorities to investigate the practices at the Argentinian zoo, stating it exploits animal welfare for commercial gain. The online petition they launched against this place, a few years ago, read  “No one wants to see animals forced to behave in ways which are abnormal and degrading to them, and no one wants to see Luján Zoo (or any zoo) putting its visitors at risk.” Martha Gutiérrez, the president of the Association for the Defence of the Rights of Animals, also said the zoo’s intention of pacifying wild animals was misguided: “I think it gives a terrible message to the public about the relationship between animals and people. These are wild animals, and are not meant to be under our control.”

Jorge Semino said he respects these animal right groups and the work they do, and admits Lujan Zoo may not be the ideal place for wild animals: “We know that this is not the ideal place for an animal to live, but many zoos, including ours, give protection to animals that were abandoned or born in captivity. An animal born in captivity and who has spent many years in contact with humans can not be released into the wild. They don’t know how to survive on their own.”

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Belgian Artist Creates Elaborate Dresses Out of Simple Sheets of Paper

Belgian artist Isabelle de Borchgrave can use sheets of paper to create incredible garments many designers can’t really make out of fabric.

At first glance, Isabelle de Borchgrave’s creations seems made of expensive materials like silk, pleated cotton and damask, but in reality, her 18th century-inspired garments are made exclusively from paper. The Brussels-based artist painstakingly glues every “seam”, crumples, irons and fluffs paper to make it look like real lace and created buttons out of tiny rolls of paper, ultimately creating designer masterpieces you simply must see to believe they’re real. In her able hands, flimsy pieces of paper can become anything from ribbons to jewelry and feathers, a talent that makes de Borchgrave “unique”, according to French designer Hubert de Givenchy.

Isabelle de Borchgrave began her artistic career as a painter, but started making paper costumes for her children after discovering the versatility of paper. She could tear it, crumble it, paint it, glue it, so she found her transition to paper sculpting natural, while maintaining her identity as a painter. It’s actually her trompe l’oeil style of painting that gives paper clothes their appearance of velvet, silk or satin. In 1994, she met Canadian costume designer, Rita Browne, and they started creating wonderful garments spanning 300 years in fashion history.

But it’s not only her ability to turn paper into clothing items, but also her attention to details, Before starting work on a project, Isabelle does extensive research to avoid any mistakes in fashion history. She and her team turn to a collection of about 4,000 books to find every fashion style in history and make sure they get everything right. Then, with the help of three stylists, the artist tries to create a pattern, and sometimes has to interpret certain designs, such as the backs of dresses, caps, and shoes, which aren’t visible on documents received from museums. After they create a prototype model of the certain dress they’re aiming for, Isabelle paints the paper and, along with her team, starts crumbling, tearing, and folding the paper. Making the dresses, along with accessories like wigs, shoes, bags, jewelry, takes between four and eight weeks.

Isabelle de Borchgrave’s paper garments are made of common pattern paper, but she sometimes uses much thinner paper for lace and other fine materials. Her paints of choice are usually acrylics, but she also uses ink and other types, depending on the desired effect.

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The Future Is Here – China Opens Robot-Operated Restaurant

Well, it’s not exactly as advanced as you’re used to seeing in sci-fi movies, but China’s colorfulrobot-themed restaurant can be a sign of things to come.

They’re probably going to render us extinct one day, so we might as well enjoy their servitude, while it lasts. A unique restaurant, in Harbin, China’s Heilongjiang Province, has 18 different robots doing all kinds of jobs, from ushering in guests to waiting tables and cooking various dishes. All the robots were designed and created by the Harbin Haohai Robot Company. Chief Engineer Liu Hasheng, they invested around 5 million yuan ($790,000) in the restaurant, with each robot costing 200,000 to 300,000 yuan ($31,500 – $47,000). With an average cost per dinner of between $6 and $10, they won’t be recovering their investment anytime soon, but it is great advertisement for what the robot company can create.

So what happens at the Harbin robot-operated restaurant that makes it so special? As customers walk through the door, they are greeted by a robot usher that extends its right arm and says “Earth Person, Hello, Welcome to the Robot Restaurant,” with a robotic accent. After you’ve placed your order with one of the human waiters, the robots in the kitchen get cooking. There are dumpling-making robots, noodle experts and even robot chefs that get the foods right every time. Once the meals are ready, robot waiters bring guest their orders, following a set of tracks through the restaurant. All robots are equipped with sensors which allow them to move freely without bumping into anything or anyone. As human guests enjoy their robot-cooked food, a singing robot provides the entertainment. 

According to China Daily, the 18 differently-colored robots range from 1.3meters to 1.6meters in height, can show more than 10 different facial expressions and speak simple Chinese. They are controlled by a human staff in the computer room, and can work for five straight hours after a 2-hour charge.

Chinese people must not enjoy working in restaurants, as they’ve had quite a few previous attempts to replace humans with robots. In 2010, they opened their first robot restaurant, in Jiang, but they’ve also invented robot cooks a couple of times.  If you like this kind of robot-operated joints, you should definitely visit the Hajime Restaurant, in Japan, where robot samurai have replaced human waiters.

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