A few articles from Germany: ‘under the skin: history of tattoo cult’ is weak-ish but with a video, so at least you can watch a few short interviews; an article about ‘nerd tattoos’ (ASCII tattoos) is way more interesting and shows a few neat things; two others are kind of typical: tattoos on athletes and ‘5 most embarrassing Chinese tattoos’.

Way more interesting stuff from the US: ‘Tattoo’s last taboo’ discusses facial (and hand) tattoos; I found it very interesting and making a pretty good point! These days, when literally everyone and their grandma (even if not all grandmas look like Isobel Varley) have tattoos, their status is more complicated and ambiguous than ever before and somehow even those who claim to be ‘heavily tattooed’ are hesitant to cross the line of really visible work.

In a similar vein, although on a different note, too, an article about a book by Suicide Girls, ‘’Suicide Girls: Redefined Beauty’. And again, it would be way too easy to agree with the statement that Suicide Girls really redefined beauty canons – all you need to do is just look at them and notice that, tattoos aside, they’re still ordinary chicks who go for heavy make-up and body measurements that are so ‘in’ in the modern pop culture. In a way, Suicide Girls don’t really redefine beauty, they merely exploit the popularity of tattoos and other mods. Maybe you can live both in ultra pop and alternative worlds but how authentic it actually is?

A pretty interesting read is an interview with Pedro Alvarez, a tattoo artist from Mexico.

’10 dumb questions to ask your body piercer’ was published on Chain Gang Body Jewelry website. Some of the questions seem way too dumb and obvious to actually ask them but one never knows – humans are capable of doing amazing/ ‘amazing’ things.

This article, however, reminded me of a few interviews Shannon Larratt did with people from the industry and which I had an opportunity to re-read not that long ago in his ‘Opening Up’ book. It’s something one should keep in mind – the industry may look glamorous and cool from the outside but a good insight into it shows a different world.

Big issues broached today, so another one to end this post: ‘making your mark’ from New Zealand starts in a standard way but turns out to be about an elderly woman who chose to have ‘do not resuscitate’ tattooed across her chest. Kind of powerful and brave statement and yet it might be ignored when her time comes.