A good rapport between a customer and their tattoo artist/piercer doesn’t appear out of nowhere but rather keeps growing over months or years; some of us are lucky enough to have actually found a great artist who also became a good friend. Sometimes you get to read about it in a newspaper, too: ‘me and my tattoo artist’ is about such a close relationship.

Good artists are usually in good shops, so it’s essential (no matter how often you get to hear that!) to choose a good reputable place and even then just take your time and look around. This article from Austria discusses a recent survey about the local shops; turns out, many shops don’t meet the basic requirements.

On another serious note, an article from TX discussing ‘tongue piercings and serious dental distress.’ And here’s something I came across in a book I’m reading at the moment (‘Freaks of the storm’ by Randy Cerveny): ‘the BBC of London in 2003 reported that a woman became temporarily blind and badly blistered by a lightning strike that seemingly was centered on her tongue stud’ (p. 68). Fortunately, the book is focused on bizarre weather anecdotes and such misfortunes don’t happen often.

Fakir Musafar and the modern piercers in an article from RI: ‘Thayer St. shop pierces the spirit’ – focus on the piercers’ general attitude and the intensive courses taught by Musafar in CA.

Another interesting article from Gizmodo: ‘Bare conductive ink turns your body into handy extension cord’ with a few cool pictures.

Misspellings in the celebs’ tattoos in ‘this is why I won’t get a tattoo’ (the news spread fast, so here’s about it in German).

I’ve just added a new category for scarification as now and then something actually appears on the subject; here’s two articles: from Australia and the UK; the Australian one is more in depth!

‘Medical tattoos’ from India and a silly discussion on tattoos in ‘Point/ Counterpoint.’

To end on a funny (and weird) note, ‘Joel Madden was asked to cover tattoos for flight.’