The Skeleton Key

secret menu

theskeletonkey — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:36:44 +0000

The magazine Mental Floss ran a post on their blog about menu items that aren’t advertised by fast food chains. My favorites are the secret flavors you can order at Jamba Juice: White Gummy Bear, Tootsie Roll, Skittles and even Push-Up Pops.

Be sure to check out the comments for more secret items, including the McGangBang.

Read the article here.

an empty and abandoned theme park

theskeletonkey — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 02:02:29 +0000

Six Flags New Orleans closed before Katrina hit and has yet to reopen, seemingly abandoned. As this photo journey through the park states, “Merchandise stayed on shelves, electronics remained in place, and the logs in the flume ride were left stuck halfway up their plastic hills.”

View the entire photo gallery at Bearings.

taryn simon photographs secret places

theskeletonkey — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:25:11 +0000

Taryn Simon exhibits her startling take on photography — to reveal worlds and people we would never see otherwise. She shares two projects: one documents otherworldly locations typically kept secret from the public, the other involves haunting portraits of men convicted for crimes they did not commit.

Pictured above is the Nuclear Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Southeastern Washington State.

Watch the video at TED.com

the five percenters and jay-z

theskeletonkey — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:59:51 +0000

NPR has an article about the Five Percenters, also known as The Nation of Gods and Earths, and the use of their phrases and symbols by a number of rappers, including Jay-Z:

In an interview with Guy Raz, [Occult America author] Horowitz pointed to Jay-Z’s use of the phrase “Peace God” as an allusion to the Five Percenters. Also known as the Nation of Gods and Earths, they teach that the original black man is God — and that all men are potentially God. “Peace God” is a typical Five Percenter greeting.

“A phrase like ‘Peace God’ does not find its way into someone’s vernacular by accident,” Horowitz says. “He’s making a very definite statement.”

NPR ran another story about Five Percenters in 2006:

Here’s what the group called the Five Percent Nation believes: Ten percent of the people of the world know the truth of existence, and those elites opt to keep 85 percent of the world in ignorance and under their controlling thumb. The remaining percentage are those who know the truth and are determined to enlighten the rest. They are the Five Percent Nation.

Read the article on Jay-Z and the Five Percenters, including an excerpt from Occult America, at NPR Music.

Read God, The Black Man and the Five Percenters from NPR