Hard to Believe: Just Plain Weird

Simple Explanations: (1) Alex Noel, 16, a finalist in Rhode Island's Great Pumpkin Weigh-Off in October, said his success raising his (1,224-pound) pumpkin was because "You spend all your time with it. No sports. You just come home and be with the pumpkin."

Crime-fearing female pedestrians in Tokyo can soon protect themselves with fashion designer Aya Tsukioka's skirt that opens into a realistic-looking (except made of fabric), full-size vending machine that she hopes thugs will pass right by. It's one of several fanciful crime-avoiding creations of the genre that Japanese inventors are noted for, according to an October New York Times dispatch. Another, the "manhole bag," resembles a sewer covering when laid on the ground but can hold a person's valuables, again provided that the thug passes it up. Yet another is women's wraparound sunglasses that are extra-dark so that even shy, eye-contact-avoiding females can stare unobserved at potential perverts in trains to guard against the ubiquitous groping.

(1) In Bayonne, N.J., in October, Lindsey Millar's car burned up after a squirrel, chewing on an electric line, caught fire, and its flaming carcass fell down beside the car and rolled underneath it.

Australian performance artist Stelios Arcadious, 61, showed off the laboratory-grown ear that he had implanted in his arm in 2006 and which now fully resembles his other two ears, according to an October report in London's Daily Mail, reviewing his latest show at Britain's Newcastle Centre for Life. The next step, he said, is to implant a tiny microphone, connected to a Bluetooth transmitter, so that his audiences can hear what his third ear "hears."

Australian performance artist Stelios Arcadious, 61, showed off the laboratory-grown ear that he had implanted in his arm in 2006 and which now fully resembles his other two ears, according to an October report in London's Daily Mail, reviewing his latest show at Britain's Newcastle Centre For Life. The next step, he said, is to implant a tiny microphone, connected to a Bluetooth transmitter, so that his audiences can hear what his third ear "hears."

Great Art! At press time, two major pieces of art at galleries in London and New York City were basically holes in the floors of the buildings, yet were the subjects of glowing reviews. Doris Salcedo's "Shibboleth," a large crack in the floor of a hall at London's Tate Modern (on which at least 15 people have suffered minor injuries after tripping) is said to symbolize racial and class divisions in society. Urs Fischer's "You" at New York's Gavin Brown Enterprise is actually just a crater, 38 feet by 30 feet, by eight feet deep, that, according to one reviewer, meshes "themes of transparency, transformation, disruption, and destruction."

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