Thursday, April 16, 2009

20 Most Bizarre Houses around the world

1. The Upside-Down House, in Szymbark (Poland). The house was created by Daniel Czapiewski to describe the former communist era and the present times in which we live.


2. The
Toilet-shaped house, in Suwon (South Korea). South Korean sanitation activists marked the start of a global toilet association right here on November 21, 2007, by lifting the lid on the world's first lavatory-shaped home that offers plenty of water closet space.


3. The
Teapot Dome, in Zillah (WA, USA). It was built in 1922 as a reminder of the Teapot Dome Scandal involving President Warren G. Harding and a federal petroleum reserve in Wyoming.


4. The
Strawberry house, in Tokyo (Japan).


5. The
Steel House, in Lubbock (Texas, USA). Architect and sculptor Robert Bruno spent 23 years building this strange home that looks like a giant pig out of 110 tons of steel.


6. The
Spaceship House, in Chattanooga (TN, USA).


7. The
Shoe House in Hellam (Pennsylvania, USA). It was an actual guesthouse (3 bedroom, 2 baths, a kitchen and a living room) of a local shoe magnate, Mahlon N. Haines. After his death, it was an ice cream parlor for a while, and now it is a museum.



8. The
Pickle Barrel House, in Michigan (USA).


9. The
One Log House, in Garberville (California, USA). It is a one-bedroom house hollowed out from a single log that came from a 2,100-year old redwood tree. After felling this 13 foot diameter forest giant, Art Schmock and a helper needed 8 months of hard labor to hollow out the log into a room 7 ft. high and 32 ft. long, weighing about 42 tons.


10 & 11. The
Nautilus House, in Mexico DF (Mexico), is a seashell-inspired abode built by designed by Senosiain Arquitectos for a couple.

12. The Mushroom House, in Cincinnati (Ohio, USA).

13. The Kvivik Igloo, in Kvivik (Faroe Islands).

14. The Kettle House, in Texas (USA).
15. The Fallingwater, in Pennsylvania (USA). It was designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1935 and built partly over a waterfall.

16. The Errante's Guest House, in Chile.

17. The Eliphante Art House, in Cornville (AZ, USA). Artist Michael Kahn and his wife Leda Livant built it from found materials piece by piece.

18. The Cube houses, in Rotterdam (Holland). All of this 32 cube houses are attached to each other. Designed by architect Piet Blom in 1984, each cube house has three floors.
19. The Bubble House in Cannes (France). In the early eighties, fashion designer Pierre Cardin bought this atypical summer house built by architect Antti Lovag.

20. The Boeing 727 House, in Benoit (Mississippi, USA). The plane set Joanne Ussary back $2,000.00, cost $4,000.00 to move, and $24,000.00 to renovate. The stairs open with a garage door remote, and one of the bathrooms is still intact. And let’s not forget the personal jacuzzi in the cockpit.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Billie Holiday — one of the jazz world's greatest names — never even learned to read music. But, she loved jazz and cut her teeth on singing along with Bessie Smith or Louis Armstrong records in afterhours clubs in Baltimore. Holiday moved to NY with her mother in the 1930s; she sang in Harlem nightclubs, where she was spotted by John Hammond, who was responsible for her first big break: cutting a record as part of a group of singers led by Benny Goodman. With a trademark white gardenia in her hair, "Lady Day" (as she was known) sang songs like "The Man I Love," "Porgy," "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child." Billie Holiday was born in 1915.

"The Man I Love"

Someday he'll come along, The man I love
And he'll be big and strong, The man I love
And when he comes my way
I'll do my best to make him stay
He'll look at me and smile, I'll understand
Then in a little while, He'll take my hand
And though it seems absurd
I know we both won't say a word

Maybe I shall meet him Sunday,
Maybe Monday, maybe not
Still I'm sure to meet him one day
Maybe Tuesday will be my good news day

He'll build a little home, That's meant for two
From which I'll never roam, Who would, would you
And so all else above
I'm dreaming of the man I love