Jordan cave on CouchSurfing.com:

Ghassab Al-Bedoul, 42, offers up his cave in Petra, Jordan, for visitors on CouchSurfing.com. It looks like a fantastic experience. In the four years he’s been registered on the site, Al-Bedoul says he’s hosted more than 1,000 people. From CNN:

The cave, which is no larger than 150 square feet, is uniquely modern. A row of solar-powered lights, a gift from a couch surfer, encircles the front of the cave entrance. When the sun sets past the Petra mountains, they are the only visible lights.

The outside of the cave is hard stone, but Al-Bedoul has done some decorating on the inside. The roof is painted black with stars circling the room. Candlelight glows just bright enough to see some of the traditional Jordanian paintings he’s placed inside; not included in that collection is the large Bob Marley poster near the cave’s entrance…

When asking Al-Bedoul for the washrooms, he points to the mountains, and says, “far away please.”

“Couch surfing a cave in southern Jordan“

[How fun is that? -egg]

Touring indie band picks up hitchhiker who looks like John Waters. It was John Waters.:

Indie band Here We Go Magic is driving across America on tour. Earlier this week, they spotted legendary director John Waters hitchhiking by the side of the road with a hat that said “Scum of the Earth.” DCist has the story, and a followup interview with the band.

So what happened once the car pulls up alongside him and he gets in the van? We pulled up and we saw him and everyone went, “That’s definitely John Waters.” We opened the door and I said, “Hello how you doing? Where ya coming from?” And he said Baltimore. We were like, “Uh huh,” totally knowing that he was from Baltimore. So we said, “Come on in!” He got in the van and he got all tangled up in the seat belt, it was really adorable. That was the first thing that happened. We’re traveling in a van and there are all these seat belts that block your way. You know, the ones that go from the side to the seats in the middle.

So he was totally tangled and he didn’t even remove himself. He just sort of sat down, entrenched in seat belts. He was a perfect gentlemen. We addressed the fact that we knew it was John Waters and he very calmly accepted that information. It sort of rolls on from there. The shock of the event wore off pretty quickly in exchange for the warmth and the kindness and cleverness of this human being that’s now sitting next to you. He became a human being very quickly. He answered every single question and he was even a little shy about photos. Finally it was like, “My mom wants a picture” and “Do you mind if I Tweet this” and he was fine with it. We were like, “What on earth are you doing this for?” He was like, “I have a lot of control in my life and I just wanted to let go of the reins a little bit, have an adventure.” He’s such a true artist and it’s so cool!

Hitchhiking Director John Waters Picked Up In Ohio By Indie Rock Band

Band Who Picked Up Hitchhiking John Waters Talks About Their Six Hours With The Director

(Image: @turnerjen, “Who knew I’d be tearfully leaving john waters on the side of the highway today…)

Klout:

Geology geeks: Time for a shopping spree: The United States Geological Survey is having a great big spring sale, with lots of maps, charts, and publications—some of them mid-century vintage—discounted to $1. Yes, $1. At that price, you can’t afford to not own entirely too many USGS maps. (Via Travis Weller)

A Softer World:

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Photographic Collages Suspended in Plexiglas:

Auckland-based artist Peter Madden gleans found images from old encyclopedias, back issues of National Geographic, and nature books to create his dense and nearly psychedelic collages suspended in perspex, also known as ‘safety glass’. Of his work Madden says “I consider myself a ‘Sculptographer’; a ‘post-conceptual photographer’. A mediator between genres and dimensions, between you, the other and I. I suppose I am an altogether different collagist, maybe a collagist of difference.” To see much more of his three dimensional work, check out this gallery. Images above courtesy Ryan Renshaw and EyeContact. (via junk culture)

People of Burning Man [NSFW]:

Julian Cash’s The People of Burning Man is a beautifully produced photo-portrait book shot over many consecutive years at Burning Man, the giant, weird, delightful art and culture festival that takes place every summer in Nevada’s Black Rock desert. Cash — who’s quite an accomplished and experimental portraitist — does a wonderful job of bringing out the decadence and playfulness of Burning Man. There’s plenty of the nudity that often comes to mind when people think of Burning Man (this is, after all, the home of the Critical Tits topless bicycle ride), but Cash manages the fantastic trick of allowing his nudes to be sensual and sometimes sexy without ever being pornographic or salacious. These aren’t “tasteful” nudes — but they are exuberant and above all, fun.

People of Burning Man is to be celebrated also for its admirable lack of text. There’s very little narration here, because very little is needed. The pictures tell their own stories — sometimes in a frozen snapshot, and sometimes over time, as we visit with the same Burners over consecutive years (including one woman who appears first in a very pregnant state, and then with a babe at her breast). What little text there is — a bit of background on the art of shooting portraits in a harsh desert, a little bit of biography supplied by the subjects — complements the images without upstaging them.

Cash was good enough to supply a gallery of (NSFW, naturally) photos that are included below. There’s plenty more — and lots more material, besides — at his The People of Burning Man site. The book was independently published with the help of a successful Kickstarter campaign, and it’s both a beautifully made thing and a thing of beauty.

The People of Burning Man

Little Free Library can help put a library on your corner:

I happened upon this mini-library in my neighborhood and am so impressed with the movement that Little Free Library has started that I am getting one together for our street. The concept is simple: put a charming box full of books in a public place, encourage people to share them and to contribute their own.
From their FAQ:

Little Free Library sells pre-made mini-libraries or will show you how to build your own.
Check out a couple of my favorites from around the country:


Here’s a Google Map with many of the libraries on it. Support Little Free Library if you can!