This man did. And I’m in awe.

This clever creature responded with a slap-dash music video. It’s an auto-tuned rave anthem, obviously.

Catch ya later, kids. I’m heading out to soak up some rays and commune with nature. DOUBLE RAINBOW. OH MY GOD.

Main image via Living Wilderness.

Kickstarter is a space where folks can pledge financial support ($1 – $10,000) to “fund creative ideas and ambitious endeavors.”

What kinds of ideas and endeavors, you inquire? How ’bout a comic book guide to frugal urban living? Or a documentary film about walking across New Zealand? Or perhaps a whimsical Victorian board game centered upon art, logic and literature?

The best part about Kickstarter? It’s not a charity. Project backers receive more than just warm fuzzy feelings and good karma — they get a copy of the finished product, once it’s been fully funded. And if the project doesn’t attain full funding? Backers don’t lose any money. Everybody goes home happy.

The worst part about Kickstarter? At the moment, starting a new project is by invitation only … but the website’s creators plan to open up the floor to the masses in due time.

Kickstarter was profiled in last Sunday’s issue of The New York Times Magazine as part of their 9th annual “Year in Ideas” feature. As The Times points out:

For perhaps the first time, an artist can quickly answer a nagging question: Does anyone actually want my art badly enough to pay for it?

It’s so exhilarating to see a website where the answer is a resounding YES.

(Image via Kickstarter)

I loved the way you wrote candidly about your coming-out experience, and about the ways that a woman’s sexual orientation can become muddled and muffled by social narratives and expectations:

All signs in our culture point toward the boy-meets-girl love story, and I wanted that, too [...] It wasn’t until I began a relationship with a woman some three years after breaking up with my ex-boyfriend that things clicked into place: being with a woman was so different — just like the guests on Oprah said. The intensity, the closeness, all of it made me feel vividly alive. This was right.

I almost never buy books straight off the shelf, but I am scampering to my local bookery to purchase a hardcover copy of Ash. It’s not every day a new work of queer young adult fiction comes out. Ooh, look — a pun!

Lo: I can’t decide if I have a BrainCrush or a CrushCrush on you … I reckon both. Keep rockin’ those snappy blazers. You fill me with hope.

(Photo via AfterEllen)

I recently began Annie Dillard’s Holy the Firm. In Part I, “Newborn and Salted,” Dillard describes a moth trapped in a pool of candlewax, burning and illuminated like a living wick. It’s one of the most tragic and violent passages I’ve ever read. Six or seven paragraphs later, I’d fallen irrevocably in love with Dillard’s detail-drenched, attentive prose.

Dillard: I want to bound through Puget Sound with you. We can fold paper sailor hats from pages of Gideon’s Bible, and you can tell me where butterflies go to die.

(Photo via Paphio’s Flickr Photostream)

But ex-con / bad-girl Martha cannot compare with 1970s Wall Street stockbroker Martha. For evidence, see photo above. Yes. That’s Martha. As in, “now that’s a good thing” Martha. Feeling a little tingly? Don’t fight it. Give in to the hotness.

This is supposed to be a BrainCrush (“intellectual,” not “physical” affection) post, but I fear it may be slipping into ActualCrush territory. Is it possible to have a HistoricCrush — as in, a crush on a previous decade-version of someone?

If so, consider me crushin’ on ’70s Martha. And how.

Stewart: Let’s pipe perfect starbursts onto pumpkin cupcakes and then toss glitter onto styrofoam skulls, just in time for Halloween!

(Photo via Martha’s Scrapbook)

You may know him as zookeeper Bob Fossil from the brilliant radio / stage / TV show The Mighty Boosh. Or you may know him from his autobiographical one-man show, Mom, I’m Not a Lawyer. Or perhaps from the short-lived sketch comedy series Snuff Box. Or perhaps you don’t know him at all. In which case, what the hell is wrong with you?

Fulcher’s forthcoming book — Tiny Acts of Rebellion: 97 Almost Legal Ways To Stick It To The Man — received the following review from Boosh co-star Julian Barratt:

Richard C. Fulcher’s prose sparkles like dew on summer com and makes one laugh with wonder as you would at the sight of a new-born foal.

If you haven’t already pre-ordered a copy, you’ve got loads of mental problems.

Fulcher: I want to beam you into my house as a holly-gram so we can battle the evil Betamax together. And then sip from our pocket cups and watch the sunset.

(Photo via Rich Fulcher’s MySpace page)

I’ve subscribed to TNYT for 5 days. Like any new relationship, it’s been a whirlwind rush of emotions. The morning anticipation — has it been delivered yet? Will it be dewy and wet? Did they wrap it in plastic or just a rubber band? Is today the Travel section day? — crescendos in my chest like a swelling symphony.

I unfurl my morning companion and greedily consume each columned quadrant. Stylish fonts. Pun-free headlines. Advertisements for Manhattan penthouses. Same-sex wedding announcements. And wonder of wonders, a review of Balenciaga’s fall fashion collection … in the BUSINESS section. It’s like a dream.

Yesterday, TNYT and I took our relationship one step further. That’s right — I received the Sunday edition. And it was sublime.

The New York Times: I want to make an origami sailor cap out of you and wear you everywhere. I don’t care if people stare. I want them to know about us.

(Photo via Venture Beat)

He formed the first library in America. Harnessed electricity. Created bifocal lenses. Played the violin, the harp and the guitar. He was an independent printer, successful author, satirist and cartoonist. A volunteer firefighter. The ambassador to France. A fervent abolitionist. Oh, and then there was that whole American Revolution thing.

Hmm, what have I done with my life thus far? About as much as Ben accomplished during a semi-productive morning stroll.

Franklin: I’d like to polish your spectacles and feed you lemon scones. Then you could play the harp while I untangle your collection of kitestrings. Just name the date.

(Photo via Electric Scotland)

Florence sounds like a cross between Amy Winehouse (minus the drug overdose) and Amy Lee of Evanescence (minus the Christian overtones).

Her lyric material ranges from werewolfism (“Howl”) to mythic sacrificial rituals (“Rabbit-Hearted Girl [Raise It Up]“) to post-modern fairy tale allusions (“Blinding”).

There’s something very urgent and earnest about her voice. It’s unvarnished, without that soaked-in-bourbon-rawness common to so many female belters.

Oh, and did I mention she’s absolutely drop-dead gorgeous?

I’ll admit that I’m not a fan of Florence’s first single, “Kiss with a Fist” — a punchy  track (parden the pun) that smacks (pardon the pun again) of domestic violence glorification. I’m sure Florence doesn’t intend the lyrics to be taken literally, but beyond my issues with the song’s subject matter, it just doesn’t showcase her stellar voice as well as the other 13 tracks on her debut album, Lungs (Island Records, 2009).

“Kiss with a Fist” notwithstanding, Lungs is a powerhouse album that’ll bore into your skull in the best possible way.

Welch: I’d love to prepare a silver platter of Vegemite on toast and share it with you, and then dance maniacally beneath the waning moon.

(Photo via UK Daily Mail)

He was a frugal / green / DIY-ing / straight-edge / vegetarian / anarchist / hipster way before skinny jeans and thick-rimmed spectacles hit the scene.

He graduated from Harvard University in 1837, but refused to pay the $5 fee to receive his diploma.

In a certain sense, he was the original blogger — methodically recording the minutia of his daily life, regardless of whether anyone would ever read it.

He also rocked a kickin’, 100% non-ironic beard.

Thoreau: if you were a lady (and alive), I’d totally make out with you in the bushes at Walden Pond.

(Daguerreotype circa 1856 / via Thoreau E-server)