The Weird And The Wonderful

As we stay home sipping Quarantinis sat, perhaps not upon sofas, but high atop mountains of the tissue paper we’ve hoarded since YouTube videos of irrational shoppers swept the Net, let’s remember how lucky we are in this life to have people like Austin James Smith and LyleXOX who transform their faces into elaborate works of wondrous art, or performers like Yvie Oddly, Gingezilla, and Anthony Nakhle, on stages in Las Vegas, London, and Beirut respectively. How lucky are we that a model scout in Miami stumbled across the Instagram account of our cover stars, Hope and Grace Fly – a rare pair of red-headed identical twins, and that Alessandro Michele has created so much weird and wonderful at Gucci that they all work together in so much synergy? Let’s be thankful for edible insects, body modification, tentacle fetishes, and fake fairies. Let’s be thankful for curiosity, nonsense poetry, and all the diverse people we meet when we’re not living ‘28 Days Later’. And who better to offer this issue’s Final Word on all things weird and wonderful than walking work of art, Daniel Lismore? We’re lucky to have him. So, as we take a collective second to appreciate all the fantastic madness on this big blue marble, I’ll leave you with the words that smiling, shining beacon of jazz standards Louis Armstrong once rumbled like fun thunder — what a wonderful world!