The Latest from Boing Boing

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• The Amazing Unseen Hitler Films
• Cab Calloway, Betty Boop and Max Fleischer: "The Old Man of the Mountain"
• Contemporary photographers of Detroit
• A Fortsas Hoax of 1840
• It's Questionable Video Saturday!
• America makes nothing except weapons
• Jason Torchinsky at Dorkbake competition
• Bobby McFerrin hacks your brain with the pentatonic scale
• Cheezy-poofs marketed as "organic carrot stix"
• Michael Jackson wanted to make "Spider Man" movie, says Stan Lee

The Amazing Unseen Hitler Films Posted: 02 Aug 2009 12:39 AM PDT Jason Torchinsky is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Jason has a book out now, Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is a tinkerer and artist and writes for the Onion News Network. He lives with his partner Sally, five animals, too many old cars, and a shed full of crap. Back when my old comedy group, the Van Gogh-Goghs, used to be in North Carolina, we often met to practice in one of our members basement. The basement belonged to Galen, who was fond of looking for interesting things at tag sales, estate sales, auctions, and the like. One night, after we'd resigned ourselves to the fact that not much was going to get done, Galen pulled out a stack of old 8mm film reels he'd purchased at a recent tag sale. It being a summer night in North Carolina, and Galen's basement being cool and relatively mosquito-free, we stayed to watch the films. I don't think any of us were really prepared for what we saw. The films started our innocently enough: vacation films from a well-to-do Chapel Hill family, at the beach, some interesting aerial shots of Chapel Hill, lots of people in fussy clothes and hats looking at the camera and waving. Some were even color, which was a bit surprising. The next reels got more interesting. The family apparently took a trip to Europe in the early '30s. Shots of snowy alps, quaint chalets, ski lifts, and then, rows of Nazi flags. Handheld camera shots walking down a street, until a brown-shirted Nazi covers the camera lens with his hand. Cut to a Nazi rally, with the camera in the crowd, as the cinematographer raises their hand, along with everyone else in the massive arena, in a Nazi salute. Pan to the stage, small from the distance and central, as a small, familiar figure walks up to the podium, the part of his hair the hypotenuse of his facial triangle, a square cursor of a mustache under his nose, as he then starts to harangue the cheering crowd, silently. Cut back to a North Carolina basement, with six stunned, creeped-out faces, as they realize they're seeing unknown footage of Hitler. Cheerwine and Mountain Dew are gulped, nervously. Galen still has these films, and none of us could really figure out what to do with them. Are someone's home movies of Hitler (and Mussolini, If I recall) as valuable as they seem? Or are there a number of these kinds of reels floating around? The films aren't digitized at this point, but if anyone has any good advice as to what to do with them, I'l pass it on to Galen. Thanks, internet; you always know just what to do.

Cab Calloway, Betty Boop and Max Fleischer: "The Old Man of the Mountain" Posted: 01 Aug 2009 10:04 PM PDT Parenting in the Internet age is great: since I'm the one who gets up with the baby first thing in the morning (we're both early, 5AM risers), I entertain her until breakfast. Sometimes she'll carry my laptop over to me, climb up onto my lap, and we'll watch videos from the net; there's plenty of great stuff on YouTube, but lately we've been exploring the Internet Archive's collection of public domain animation and cartoons. This morning we had a great time with Max Fleischer's Betty Boop cartoon The Old Man of the Mountain with Cab Calloway. What I'm really hoping to find is those old Max Fleischer sing along follow-the-bouncing-ball cartoons, like "Let's All Sing Like the Birdies Sing" and "Give My Regards to Broadway," but haven't turned those up yet. Previously: Max Fleischer advertising silent film from 1927 - Boing Boing Boing Boing: Retro-future Fleischer cartoon about 1939 World's Fair 1938 cartoon: Katnip Kollege - Boing Boing Cab Calloway's hepster lingo glossary! - Boing Boing Boing Boing: Cab Calloway's hepster lingo glossary!

Contemporary photographers of Detroit Posted: 01 Aug 2009 09:55 PM PDT Here's a gallery of photos by seven contemporary Detroit photographers: "These seven artists have been working in the city as explorers, adventurers and pioneers for years to capture the city as it changes, evolves, devolves and transforms into something unbelievable, profound and heartbreaking. In the end they hope as a group to show Detroit as it is, not what it should be or what it was, but how it is. This in itself a provocative gesture as there are not many who feel content with the Detroit of today." The shooters are Corine Smith, Mitch Cope, Clinton Snider, Mark Alor Powell, Antonio Gomez, Ingo Vetter and Scott Hocking; and Mitch Cope, who assembled the gallery, wants to do a book of these shots. I'd buy it. 7 CONTEMPORARY DETROIT PHOTOGRAPHERS (Thanks, Fipi Lele!) (Image: Mark Alor Powell ) Previously: Haunting photo-essay on rotting buildings in Detroit - Boing Boing James D. Griffioen's photos of Detroit, "the disappearing city ... Rotting textbook warehouse in Detroit - Boing Boing Detroit's SuperBowl bid faked the skyline - Boing Boing Artists buying cheap houses in Detroit - Boing Boing Edwardian croquet-game in the ruined shell of a Packard plant in ... Glemie Dean Beasley, urban raccoon hunter - Boing Boing Detroit houses selling for less than cars - Boing Boing

A Fortsas Hoax of 1840 Posted: 01 Aug 2009 03:12 PM PDT Jason Torchinsky is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Jason has a book out now, Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is a tinkerer and artist and writes for the Onion News Network. He lives with his partner Sally, five animals, too many old cars, and a shed full of crap. I love a good hoax, and this one seems particularly well done: essentially, Renier Hubert Ghislain Chalon, a historian, researched the sorts of books that Europe's most noted book collectors would find irresistible. He then made up a Count, Jean Nepomucene Auguste Pichauld, Comte de Fortsas, who had a book collection of only one-of-a-kind books. If another was found of any book, the Count would burn it, insuring he held the only known copy. Each of the 52 books listed in the catalog was specifically designed to appeal to a particular collector. The eager collectors were instructed to arrive in the Belgian town of Binche for the auction, where they were all roundly zinged. They all descended on the town, a long, difficult journey for many of them, only to find that the town had decided to buy the incredible collection for their library. Only none of the locals knew about the count, the books, or even their town having a library. All the noted collectors, many of whom bore heated rivalries with one another, had all been led on a wild goose chase, and were now crammed, fuming, in the local tavern. Eat it, mid 19th-century noted rare book collectors! There's more details here as well, from a 1909 book of "literary curiosities."

It's Questionable Video Saturday! Posted: 01 Aug 2009 12:36 PM PDT Jason Torchinsky is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Jason has a book out now, Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is a tinkerer and artist and writes for the Onion News Network. He lives with his partner Sally, five animals, too many old cars, and a shed full of crap. Last Saturday, the day of no rules, I posted a video made by my old comedy group, the Van Gogh-Goghs that took the old Knight Rider conceit and added a colostomy bag. This week, we're taking the Spiderman story and replacing the spider with a pack of radioactive bears, who do something worse than biting. So, people with decency, you've been warned. Of course, it's probably NSFW. To be safe, I'll include the video after the jump. If possible, enjoy.

America makes nothing except weapons Posted: 01 Aug 2009 10:29 AM PDT Jon Taplin reproduces this jaw-dropping chart: Floyd Norris's scary graph of Durable Goods Production, adding, "We have so hollowed out our industrial plant that the only thing we are now producing is weapons of war." He goes on to quote Toynbee on Rome: "The economy of the Empire was basically a Raubwirtschaft or plunder economy based on looting existing resources rather than producing anything new. The Empire relied on booty from conquered territories... With the cessation of tribute from conquered territories, the full cost of their military machine had to be borne by the citizenry." National Security State

Jason Torchinsky at Dorkbake competition Posted: 01 Aug 2009 10:20 AM PDT I finally got around to uploading this 2007 video of our guest blogger, Jason Torchinsky explaining how his Dorkbake oven works. In 2007 Machine Project in Los Angeles held the Dorkbake competition. Contestants were given a 100 W incandescent bulb and had to make an oven out of it. I think Jason came in second place.

Bobby McFerrin hacks your brain with the pentatonic scale Posted: 01 Aug 2009 08:11 AM PDT Marilyn sez, "Bobby McFerrin uses the pentatonic scale and an audience's expectations to demonstrate neural programming at the World Science Festival 2009" World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale (Thanks, Marilyn!)

Cheezy-poofs marketed as "organic carrot stix" Posted: 01 Aug 2009 07:28 AM PDT We just got back from a pleasant morning at the London Zoo in Regent's Park with the baby. Just before we left, we stopped at the cafe for a snack. I took care of the kid while Alice lined up to buy some goodies. As the queue moved along, she grabbed a packet marked "Carrot Stix" thinking that they must be, you know, carrot sticks. Or maybe dried carrot sticks. Something that was, approximately speaking, food. After all, the company that makes it is called "Organix." And they have a "No junk promise." And they say that there's "reduced salt" and "reduced fat." Wait, what? I didn't know carrots had fat or salt. In fact, they don't. That's because "Carrot Stix" are not, in fact, carrot sticks. They're cheezy-poofs: deep fried powdered corn/potato snacks, dusted with "powdered carrots." They are not, in fact, carrots. They're not even food. Caveat emptor. Carrot Stix

Michael Jackson wanted to make "Spider Man" movie, says Stan Lee Posted: 01 Aug 2009 07:29 AM PDT MTV Splash Page blog editor Rick Marshall says, "I interviewed Stan Lee during Comic-con, and asked him about that late-'90s deal that almost had him and Michael Jackson buying Marvel Comics. During his response, he mentioned that Jackson wanted to buy the rights to Spider-Man so he could make a movie... or possibly to star in it?! It's an intriguing "What If?" scenario, if nothing else." Neat video of Mr. Lee's reply to that odd question is here: What If Michael Jackson Made 'Spider-Man'? Stan Lee Explains How It Almost Happened!

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