Monday December 31st, 2007 @ 1:18 PM
Dear ModBlog,
This is the last time we will speak in 2007, and I’d like to thank everyone for their help on BME this year. In perfect timing, the new BME stickers arrived this morning (they match the year-end shirts), so those of you placing orders with BMEshop may find these as gifts. Those of you getting the free top contributors shirts and are on the list should already have an email from me about it, but if you don’t, please write me. Oh, and I’d be happy to send stickers out to people hosting BME-related events as well (as soon as I am permitted to moderate events you’ll see lots more there I hope).
Thank you again to everyone who supported BME in 2007 (especially Sacred — seriously, wow!), and click the picture to continue on to the year end awards. ModBlog updates will resume in a few days.
See you in 2008,
- Shannon
snowrail@gmail.com
Posted by RooRaaah Crumbs | Permalink | 52 Comments
Saturday December 29th, 2007 @ 5:55 PM
Filed under: Events
Dear ModBlog,
I’ve been prepping the year end awards and running my various analysis tools on the log files (and let me tell you, what a surreal process that is given that for over a quarter of the year BME has sat without any updates — it’s like the internet equivalent of electing the mayor of a ghost town or something), and it’s likely I’ll not write again here until I unveil that article.
I wanted to again mention the “special recognition” awards — if you feel that there’s someone that deserves to be recognized, either because of something [good] they did for BME, the BME community, or the body modification community/scene in general, please do email me with the details at snowrail@gmail.com. I need these recommendations ASAP! If some readers could repost a link to this entry in a couple of relevant forums on IAM it would definitely be appreciated.
Finally, have a good New Year’s everyone (join us for a cold wet one if you’re in Toronto), and because I anticipate it will still be several weeks before I’m able to post updates to BME proper, please keep on sending in content for ModBlog to me at snowrail@gmail.com and Roo and I will do our best to keep new things posted here at least. Any submissions you send there will go into the BME submissions queue as well unless you ask me not to, so you’ll get membership credit and so on for it.
Thanks again everyone for the support and see you in 2008!
- Shannon
snowrail@gmail.com
PS. The logo in the picture — taken by his sister — of Tom-Tom (who works for one of Norway’s biggest corporations — anti-mod stigma is disappearing all over the world) isn’t the year end shirt, it’s a logo that I drew called “Ultracalm” which may or may not be run as a shirt in the future.
Posted by RooRaaah Crumbs | Permalink | 30 Comments
Saturday December 29th, 2007 @ 5:37 PM
Dear ModBlog.
Sorry I didn’t write sooner in the day. Ryan from BMEshop reminded me that Rock Band is out in Canada now so I picked it up this morning and quickly whipped through beating it on “hard” (the graphics are nicer than in Guitar Hero, but it’s a way easier game)… Sorry, it’s a compulsion! Beating “expert” is next although I don’t expect it to be particularly challenging either (I’m just playing on “Solo Tour” mode with my GH guitar).
Anyway, this super-clean and precise looking skin removal of a set of brass knuckles on a calf was done by my friend Anders at The Dragons Lair Tattoo in Marsden, Brisbane Australia.
I’ll write once more this year,
- Shannon
snowrail@gmail.com
Posted by RooRaaah Crumbs | Permalink | 16 Comments
Friday December 28th, 2007 @ 11:22 PM
Dear ModBlog,
Lane sums up his leg implant experience (scroll down a couple entries if you haven’t seen it yet) by simply saying, “My body just did not want it at all.”
The rather unpleasant photos below were taken two weeks after the implant was put in.
A day after Lane took the sutures out, the wound opened up and nearly a liter of yellowish-clear fluid poured out of the incision — the previous three nights he’d been running a high fever accompanied by heavy sweats, general ill-health, and a stiff neck. After consulting with Brian on the phone, who inserted the boobs, they agreed that taking it out was the right thing to do. Because it was the holidays, Lane’s staff weren’t around, so in a one hour DIY procedure and with his wife’s assistance he removed it. Thankfully it’s now healing well — flat chested once again — and looking much better.
It’s unclear whether this was the early stages of septic shock, or if his body was straining to reject the large piece of silicon.
However, I’d really like to emphasize that Lane is a healthy guy that’s aware of body modification issues, and Brian is an experienced and clean practitioner — even in the best of cases, things can and often do go horribly wrong. If Lane had not removed the implant when he did, he could very easily have become seriously ill or even died without emergency care. If you choose to explore the world of heavy modification, it’s your responsibility to not just find a good artist you can trust, but also to be completely aware of what you’re getting yourself into and be very in tune with your own body. I can not repeat enough that things go wrong for everyone, and it’s these cases we need to prepare for. Being prepared is what will keep them as nothing but temporary setbacks instead of permanent setbacks.
I’ll write back tomorrow — please email me if you have submissions to post about,
- Shannon
snowrail@gmail.com
Note to self: If you’ve been feeling nauseous all day, editing ModBlog entries may not always help take your mind off it..
- Roo
Posted by RooRaaah Crumbs | Permalink | 78 Comments
Friday December 28th, 2007 @ 8:38 PM
Dear ModBlog,
Brian in the Netherlands got his toes cut up by the girls from Dare2wear in Amsterdam, with Julia cutting the 666, and Sharon cutting the HELL… Both of them were cut simultaneously, which he describes as a “different” feeling! (Cut him some slack, it’s not as if English is his first language). Julia also did the goat-head cutting on his shin, and Ilya did the spider skin-peelings at Lab360 in Amsterdam.
Brian is also a performer, and recently did this suspension show in Maastricht, The Netherlands, assisted by Raoul and Beto… The facial hooks — my favorite part — were inspired by the movie Hellraiser (and remind me of Casshan’s shows).
I’ll write again later tonight,
- Shannon
snowrail@gmail.com
Posted by RooRaaah Crumbs | Permalink | 8 Comments
Friday December 28th, 2007 @ 6:30 PM
Dear ModBlog,
One of the most popular entries — linked and plagiarized from all over the net — in my now exterminated previous blog featured my friend Lane having Brian (photos by Candace) give his pin-up tattoo a set of carved silicone breast implants. The implants are carved as a single piece (rather than being, say, two separate domes).
The procedure took less than 45 minutes and seemed quite uneventful. Everything went fine, and the next day it felt like nothing more than a bruised leg.
I’ll write again later today,
- Shannon
snowrail@gmail.com
PS. A few days after he got the implant he sent me a couple of healing photos… I noticed (and you can probably see as well) that there was some apparent irritation over the top of one of the “breasts”, this reminded me of a series of implants that I had which were removed due to rejection. Anyway, no one thought anything of it at the time but it foreshadowed a very unpleasant end for this modification… I’ll post more about that later today.
Posted by RooRaaah Crumbs | Permalink | 14 Comments
Friday December 28th, 2007 @ 2:00 PM
Dear ModBlog,
I got some more great photos from Sergio Enfermo of Russian suspension events by the folks from Apokalypse Party in Saint Petersburg. This set is from a suspension party at the tattoo studio Extreme Art, where they did the three suicide suspensions — Totay, owner of the studio (the guy with long hair and beard), Aspid, and Clockorange (I really like the touching photos of Doggy, her husband, and her in this set — below at full size, and you can find more if you follow the links).
They’re aiming to host an event every week or two, and you can also find them on IAM — Doggy, Clockorange, and devil rejeñts.
I’ll write again soon,
- Shannon
snowrail@gmail.com
Posted by RooRaaah Crumbs | Permalink | 2 Comments
Friday December 28th, 2007 @ 1:00 PM
It appears there was an issue with connectivity for some readers of Modblog. After a quick restart, everything appears to be fine. For example, I wasn’t able to get to Modblog but a second computer on my network was.
If you ever have any issues visiting any of our sites, please email support@bmezine.com to let us know as soon as possible.
And now back to your regularly scheduled ModBlog!
Posted by Rachel Larratt | Permalink | 21 Comments
Friday December 28th, 2007 @ 7:46 AM
Dear ModBlog
I think maybe this entry will be of interest mostly to etymology buffs? Niklas (here’s a picture of him and his sister) got this tattoo to show his roots — Swedish one half, Hungarian on the other. The text on the top is Hungarian and the Swedish is on the bottom — the reason I thought it was interesting is that I’ve always identified “Home Sweet Home” as a uniquely American expression, so it’s really a mix of three cultures, one of them unintended?
I’ll write again soon,
- Shannon
snowrail@gmail.com
Posted by RooRaaah Crumbs | Permalink | 11 Comments
Thursday December 27th, 2007 @ 10:28 PM
Dear ModBlog,
I think that 2007 is definitely “year of the microdermal”, a modification which I continue to believe is the single most revolutionary thing to happen to body piercing in the last decade.
When Jon Cobb first proposed it in 1997 (he called it “pocketing”), people laughed and thought it was silly that a section for it was added to BME. It took a decade for people to figure out the perfect method and jewelry, and now they’re almost commonplace, offering people an infinite range of new decorative options for their body.
This triple wrist was done on Ryan by John Blake and another piercer at the same shop. Ryan writes,
Everything is healing up fine — both of the side ones have given me no problems at all and these have been the most painless modifications I’ve ever done… a lot more practical than surface bars, which makes for an all-round better experience for the subject who is enduring the procedure. I got my first one, right in the middle and it’s only caused me problem upon problem as the piercer who did it (not John, although she works in the same shop) told me to keep it covered with an airtight dressing for a week, which did nothing but trap an infection under my skin, thus the problems.
I would recommend to anyone looking to have a healthy microdermal to take my advice and just leave it alone.
I’ll write again soon,
- Shannon
snowrail@gmail.com
Posted by RooRaaah Crumbs | Permalink | 18 Comments
Thursday December 27th, 2007 @ 4:16 PM
Dear ModBlog,
Most of Seth’s mods are self-done, but he got his forearm balls done last Sunday by Brian. They’re a series of five 1″ silicone domes (photos above by Ashlee Parry).
There’s still a bit of swelling around them, so they’ll likely “pop out” more as they heal.
I’ll write again soon,
- Shannon
snowrail@gmail.com
You may have noticed we now have implant and microdermal categories you can browse through.
I tried to be thorough but it was quite a tedious task so if you notice any discrepancies, omissions or errors let me know, thanks.
- Roo
Posted by RooRaaah Crumbs | Permalink | 9 Comments
Thursday December 27th, 2007 @ 7:06 AM
Dear ModBlog,
Before my ability to host it disappeared, you may remember that on another blog I mentioned that on the 20th of December the folks at
Bizzart Studio in Jerusalem were hosting the first suspension ever in the Holy City “since Jesus”. I promised I’d let everyone know how it went, and Bar Hofesh writes,
“It went great — lots of people, and lots of energy that went beyond what we thought there would be. It is amazing to see how many people come to these events… We had over 150 people”
Congratulations, and hopefully they can have many more events.
I’ll write again soon,
- Shannon
snowrail@gmail.com
Posted by RooRaaah Crumbs | Permalink | 7 Comments
Wednesday December 26th, 2007 @ 9:05 PM
Dear ModBlog,
Scott let me know about Martin and Bre’s “new year’s project” on Make in which they use a 25W engraving laser to do a “fingernail etching” using a computer controlled plotter-type device with their hand restrained inside it during the procedure which took just a few frightening but painless seconds. Over time, the “calendar” will grow off of their fingernails — “instead of checking off boxes, we clip off our nails”.
Now, maybe like me you’re saying that’s not really body modification (any more than hairstyles or nail painting is)… But really, there’s no reason that this same method couldn’t be used to do a scarification project on skin as well… I’d just want to be very, very certain the machine was tuned to the right power level!!!
I’ll write again soon,
- Shannon
snowrail@gmail.com
Photo by Bre.
Posted by RooRaaah Crumbs | Permalink | 36 Comments
Tuesday December 25th, 2007 @ 8:38 PM
Dear ModBlog,
One last set of photos before I go back to eating an enormous Christmas meal with Caitlin, and family… (Ok, ok, Roo scheduled this on my behalf so it’s chewing through the robots Christmas schedule, not mine)…
As well as the show they did for Roks Club in the entry above, Apocalypse Party also arranged their own Halloween event called “Blood & Fire Halloween”, which Doggy admits was financially a bit of a failure, but was enormously satisfying on every other level and they had tons of fun — isn’t that always the truth though (don’t ask me how much money I lose every year on BMEfest!)? These photos are all by Dmitri Starchak I think .
I’ll write again tomorrow, and if you have things you’d like posted here, please do email them directly to me (I’ll insert them into the queue as BME submissions as well so you’ll get membership credit, unless you ask me not to).
- Shannon
snowrail@gmail.com
Posted by RooRaaah Crumbs | Permalink | 5 Comments
Tuesday December 25th, 2007 @ 3:34 PM
Dear ModBlog,
Team Apokalypse Party did a Halloween Show at Roks Club — this is their “standard short show” which includes skewering, suspension, and fire. In these shots their suspending star is Staruha and the piercers are Elvira and Clockorange (she’s the one with the braids). I like the effect of the flaming skewers a lot! These photos were also taken by Sergio Enfermo.
Talk to you soon,
- Shannon
snowrail@gmail.com
Posted by RooRaaah Crumbs | Permalink | 10 Comments
Tuesday December 25th, 2007 @ 10:33 AM
Dear ModBlog,
These pictures were taken by Sergio Enfermo (check out his Picasa site for plenty more pictures in this vein) of the Apocalypse Party suspension at the Radio Inferno 6 festival in collaboration with Liki Bogov (Faces of Gods, a pagan/folk/electro/metal band) — Doggy is doing a crucifix suspension, with Staruha doing the fireshow… He says this was a difficult performance because there were so many bands playing and so much going on that it was hard to concentrate and get everything as perfect as they wanted.
I’ll write again shortly,
- Shannon
snowrail@gmail.com
Posted by RooRaaah Crumbs | Permalink | 6 Comments
Tuesday December 25th, 2007 @ 10:27 AM
Dear ModBlog,
I noticed that you had a Russian guy as your featured first entry for a bit over a month. I assume this means you love Russia as much as I do (and I really do love getting submissions from Canada’s northern cousin), so I wanted to share a handful of entries today with you that are from some of my friends there. Thanks for this set of photos (in all four of the entries in this series) go to my friend Doggy and the other folks (Clockorange, Elvira, Staruha, and Skifik) from Apocalypse Party.
I’ll write again momentarily,
- Shannon
snowrail@gmail.com
Posted by RooRaaah Crumbs | Permalink | 6 Comments
Tuesday December 25th, 2007 @ 3:24 AM
Dear ModBlog,
You may recall that quite some time ago, not long after we parted ways, I posted photos of a full back cutting that Charles Finnie and Leia Stafford (pictured below) from DragonFX Kingsway did. The customer stopped by the shop a few days ago, so Lane had a chance to snap some photos of it well on its way to being healed (above of course). I thought this piece was fairly unique because of the fact that it’s fantasy themed — it’s rare to see classic tattoo imagery in scarification, and I think this speaks of just how broad a market there is inside scarification these days.
Assuming it isn’t just a comment on Alberta! :P
I’ll write again soon,
- Shannon
snowrail@gmail.com
Posted by RooRaaah Crumbs | Permalink | 4 Comments
Monday December 24th, 2007 @ 5:21 PM
Filed under: Events
As of a few hours ago, if you’d like to post comments on ModBlog entries you’ll need to click here and register.
It’s safe, secure and will help us keep on top of things*.
Thank you!
* - Stop snickering at the back!
- Roo
Posted by RooRaaah Crumbs | Permalink | 76 Comments
Monday December 24th, 2007 @ 1:00 PM
Dear ModBlog,
At a time of year when far too many people are being reminded of their broken families, with generation gaps accentuated by devastating absences of empathy and understanding, coupled with a divorce rate that makes bitterness the norm, I really liked this story of family togetherness that my friend KayLeigh sent me, and I’d like to share it as my “Christmas Eve Message”, to the extent that I have one.
KayLeigh has wanted to get a facial tattoo for a bit over a year now, but wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted. When she recently saw Kat Von D’s stars, she fell in love with the idea and knew something in that vein was right for her. She didn’t jump right in and do it, but after debating it for a long while to make sure she really wanted it, she had her tattoo artist Jane Hazard draw up the design.
The part of the story though that I really like is that her mother, a purchase manager at a control panel company, recently got a promotion and wanted to celebrate — she’s got lots of tattoos already, and had been eyeing a swirly facial tattoo for herself… So the timing was perfect, and as she put it, “most mother-daughters go shopping, we get tattooed!”
Both KayLeigh and her mother live in a small town “where everyone knows everyone and news travels fast”, so it must be nice to have each other’s support — they’re definitely already encountering some resistance to their decision. Too often parents and kids are at odds over what could easily be a bonding experience, and it’s very nice to hear a story that reflects a positive experience.
I’ll write again tomorrow,
- Shannon
snowrail@gmail.com
PS. If you have stuff you’d like to see posted here, please email it to me at snowrail@gmail.com (I won’t get it right now if you send it to the regular submissions email or use the online form).
Posted by RooRaaah Crumbs | Permalink | 24 Comments
Monday December 24th, 2007 @ 6:55 AM
Dear ModBlog,
If you didn’t already see, the 2007 Top Contributor’s shirt design is the bastard son of the calm logo and the BME militia logo… on a whole lot of psychedelics! James liked it so much that he got it tattooed on him by his friend Mick (so it’s fresh and swollen above), adding to his collection of BME tattoos that you can see below… Funny thing is that this is now the first logo to actually be tattooed on someone prior to BME officially using it, since the shirts won’t actually be printed for a week or two!
Anyway, on to the part of the entry where I need your help. Every year as well as the top contributors that are named due to the cold statistics of the help they’ve provided to the site in submissions, thanks are given to those individuals who helped the site or the BME community in other ways that deserve recognition, or otherwise ought to be sent a special present (for whatever reason — maybe you just think your piercer goes above and beyond and you want the world to know it). If you know of someone who you’d like to see on this list, please email me their name (IAM name preferably), and why they deserve an award, to snowrail@gmail.com.
Barring unexpected issues, these awards will be posted January 1st, 2008.
I’ll write again soon,
- Shannon
snowrail@gmail.com
PS. These will never be publicly available as shirts other than in the awards here (although we do have stickers on the go). However, if you’d like a high quality EPS, I’m happy to provide that for both the logo and for the backing flower: bme_2007_logo.eps and bme_flower.eps
Posted by RooRaaah Crumbs | Permalink | 8 Comments
Sunday December 23rd, 2007 @ 10:59 PM
Dear ModBlog,
As I mentioned, I was just visiting Santa (mostly hoping he could help me out with my peanut collection — it’s been a little boring around there), and he asked me to pass on some news about BMEshop that was written up in one of the fictional gift-givers trade journals. If you place an order over the holidays, and enter the coupon code “BME-HoHoHo” (at the checkout page, then hit “recalculate”), it will give you 5% off of your order. I believe this code is good from now until the 26th.
Remember, every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings you order from BMEshop, a eunuch loses his nuts.
I’ll write again tomorrow,
- Shannon
snowrail@gmail.com
Posted by RooRaaah Crumbs | Permalink | 6 Comments
Sunday December 23rd, 2007 @ 5:32 PM
Dear ModBlog,
When my old friend Ryan from Precision Body Arts was in London at the start of the month he did this heart branding on a client’s chest — this is a the first time he’s tried the “crosshatch” method of accenting a cutting, first popularized by Dave Gillstrap.
I’ll write again soon,
- Shannon
snowrail@gmail.com
Posted by RooRaaah Crumbs | Permalink | 22 Comments
