Strandbeests!

For ten years Theo Jansen has been creating huge, wind-powered strandbeests (beach animals) that lumber across the countryside near The Hague. "Eventually he wants to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives." That would be a sight to see!

A movie about the strandbeests is coming soon; meanwhile, you can look at some video clips of strandbeests (click on "film" beneath the top photo on the site). Amazing!

For the darker side of self-propelled mechanical beasts, see Survival Research Labs. I hope nobody ever lets these creatures roam in herds on their own! I attended a Survival Research Labs performance once, and had to sign a waiver that said I would not hold SRL responsible if I were injured or killed during the performance. Now, that's the kind of art that holds an audience's attention!

Come to think of it, such waivers are not uncommon. I recently had to sign a waiver acknowledging that I ran the risk of being injured or killed while taking a flower-arranging class. If you're wondering how many U.S. residents are killed each year in grisly floral mishaps, I'll tell you: None (as of 2003, anyway), according to the National Safety Council's Odds of Death Due to Injury chart. According to NSC's data, your lifetime odds of dying from your pajamas catching on fire are 1,249,356 to 1. (Pretty long odds, but I plan to sleep in the buff from now on, just in case. Happily, you are very, very unlikely to die from being bitten or crushed by a reptile, so you can pretty much stop worrying about that. Flower arranging is not even listed as a potential cause of death.)