Friday Links: Van Gogh lookalikes, Park Avenue Cubists, and creepy dolphins

Photographer: Robert Howlett | Isambard Kingdom Brunel, builder of the Great Eastern | ca. 1857-1858 | George Eastman House, eastmanhouse.org

Some stories we’ve been reading this week:

• Hey red! This is your big chance: Douglas Coupland, the author of Generation X, is offering €5,000 and a trip to Vancouver to the person who most closely resembles Van Gogh.
• Jorge Luis Borges’s sister was a pioneering modernist painter. Must have been a very interesting household.
• The travel films of the artist couple known as “Park Avenue Cubists” are suitably kooky.
• And on the topic of films, Cubists, and kooky, here’s an animation of a bar brawl between Matisse and Picasso.
• Does dishware collecting sound like a tame hobby? Try radioactive uranium glass.
• And finally, a question that has long bugged us (really!): why did ancient dolphins look so creepy?