The Latest from Boing Boing

Alan Moore's new zine: Dodgem Logic
Punk animal photoshopping contest
US gov't drops price of journals from $17k to $0, adds XML to Federal Register!
disapprovingrabbits.com
Report: Woman paralyzed by E. coli-tainted hamburger
A brief chat with Nick Zammuto from The Books
Cydwoq: handmade shoes designed by an LA architect
Portable office built into a steamer trunk
Homemade R2D2 steampunk junkbot

Posted: 04 Oct 2009 10:00 PM PDT

Joe sez,

The mere fact that the Great Bearded Wizard of Albion, Mr Alan Moore, is behind a new journal, Dodgem Logic, should be enough to get a lot of us interested. But add in talents like the Josie Long, Graham Linehan, Kev O'Neill, Melinda Gebbie, Steve Aylett and others and I'm pretty much sold and I'd imagine so are most of us.
But it gets even better - this is a new underground journal that seems to be part entertainment, part grassroots activism/advice on all sorts of subjects dear to many boingers' hearts, from guerilla gardening to making your own clothes, living on no cash (something most of us will find essential these days!), steampunk guides to rebuilding collapsed civilisation...
Alan's daughter Leah and hubby John Reppion (themselves excellent comics writers) have the official release describing the first edition (which will come with a segment designed to take local content so it can be reworked for different areas - a great idea), which comes from Tony Bennet's great Indy comics press Knockabout (home to Hunt Emerson & Gilbert Shelton as well as UK publishers of the new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen). Is it just me or is this the perfect sounding journal for BBers?

Announcing: Alan Moore's "Dodgem Logic" (Thanks, Joe!)

Punk animal photoshopping contest

Posted: 04 Oct 2009 09:56 PM PDT

Today on the Worth1000 photoshopping contest: punk animals.

Punk Animals

US gov't drops price of journals from $17k to $0, adds XML to Federal Register!

Posted: 04 Oct 2009 09:54 PM PDT

Rogue archivist Carl Malamud sez,

Well, this is just very cool. I throw a few stones over the wall to official DC, but this time I want to send some roses in the front door.
The Government Printing Office and the Office of the Federal Register just announced they're making all the "Official Journals of Government" available for free in bulk. Previous price was $17,000/year per product.
But wait, there's more. They've upgraded the Federal Register to XML. And, believe it or not, GPO has been using Ed Felten's shop at Princeton (coming Monday morning) and Public.Resource.Org (our re-design page from Point.B Studio) as alpha testers to see what we can do with the XML, and we're both definitely happy customers.
It was fun working with the GPO and Federal Register teams. This is a clueful product, the price is just right, and it is an important first step in making America's operating system open source.

Government Printing Office (Thanks, Carl!)

Previously:

disapprovingrabbits.com

Posted: 04 Oct 2009 09:40 PM PDT

Link.

Report: Woman paralyzed by E. coli-tainted hamburger

Posted: 04 Oct 2009 06:00 PM PDT

American megacorp Cargill, which brought in $116.6 billion in revenue last year, is in the spotlight this week around the story of Stephanie Smith: the 22 year old children's dance instructor was paralyzed from the waist down after eating E. coli-tainted hamburger traced back to the meat supplier.

She was in a coma for nine weeks (that's her, hospitalized, in the photo below), and can now no longer walk. "Ground beef is not a completely safe product," one food safety expert in the article is quoted. Well, no shit. Snip from an extensive investigative report in Sunday's New York Times:

The frozen hamburgers that the Smiths ate, which were made by the food giant Cargill, were labeled "American Chef's Selection Angus Beef Patties." Yet confidential grinding logs and other Cargill records show that the hamburgers were made from a mix of slaughterhouse trimmings and a mash-like product derived from scraps that were ground together at a plant in Wisconsin. The ingredients came from slaughterhouses in Nebraska, Texas and Uruguay, and from a South Dakota company that processes fatty trimmings and treats them with ammonia to kill bacteria.
Using a combination of sources -- a practice followed by most large producers of fresh and packaged hamburger -- allowed Cargill to spend about 25 percent less than it would have for cuts of whole meat.
Those low-grade ingredients are cut from areas of the cow that are more likely to have had contact with feces, which carries E. coli, industry research shows. Yet Cargill, like most meat companies, relies on its suppliers to check for the bacteria and does its own testing only after the ingredients are ground together.

E. Coli Path Shows Flaws in Beef Inspection (New York Times)

A brief chat with Nick Zammuto from The Books

Posted: 04 Oct 2009 02:18 PM PDT

Bassam Tariq is a Boing Boing guestblogger who is the co-author of 30 Mosques. A blog celebrating the NYC mosques during the Islamic month of Ramadan. He lives in Harlem, NY.

For those who aren't familiar with The Books, check out my post from Friday where I shared some clips from their music.

I was lucky enough to have a quick phone chat with Nick Zammuto, one-half of The Books. The other half, Paul de Jong, was at the doctor's office at the time. Paul, as Nick puts it, is the "consummate collector" of the samples the band uses. In fact, all the archaic audio and video footage The Books have been collecting are archived and cataloged. "There's a lot of research that goes into what we do," Nick remarks as I try to quickly scribble his words down. At this point, my voice recorder died and my handy notepad dictated the rest of the conversation, albeit selectively.

Some Boing Boing readers were wondering about the new album, so let's get that out of the way first. The last LP came out in 2005 and we have only heard one beautiful cover of Cello Song by Nick Drake since. I asked him why it's been taking so long. "Children," Nick says, well aware that it's been a while, "I have a three year old and Paul has a daughter that's two." In the four years, Nick has edited and scored a documentary entitled, Biosphere 2, and has built a house with his wife in south Vermont. "But we're now in a place where we're comfortable to start again." Nick resides in New England now while Paul is in Albany, NY. They meet up once a week and see where everything is headed. Nick was a little vague on when we can expect the album. "Maybe Late Winter or early Spring 2010." They have left their old German label Tomlab and are now shopping for a new home.

What makes The Books a unique band is their ability to seamlessly integrate samples with intricate compositions that somehow end up flowing pleasantly. Here is the first track from their first album "Thought for Food", fittingly titled, "Enjoy Your Worries You May never Have them again."

"As we travel we go around thrift stores and Salvation Armys. We pick up a lot tapes before they end up in a landfill. They are all going to be gone soon." Digging up random archived videos and showcasing them to the world isn't really anything new. There are countless sites dedicated to highlighting this kind of stuff. But what separates The Books is the sincerity they approach the material. Case in point - in their live rendition of "That Right Aint Shit" a video plays with the founding members of the Mormon church taking their hats off and putting them back on. Before they start playing Nick says, "Hats off to them, and hats off to you" (start the video at 1 minute)

"I'm fully aware of the meta element with our music. We're recycling culture that would otherwise be lost. You know, you get so immersed in life and if you step back and see it for what it is, you'll see there is a lot to love and a lot to question."

In a world of cynical sites like Everything is Terrible and TV Carnage ripping apart and de-contextualizing videos found in thrift stores and libraries all around the world, The Books have uniquely crafted their mundane collection to stand for something more open ended and sincere. I asked him if he had seen anything uniquely Muslim as they went through all their footage. "We did find a tape of the Muslim Mr. Rogers." I couldn't believe it, and flooded the line with laughter. "Yeah, he was teaching kids how to wash their feet. But sadly, we lost the tape in the mail." To be honest, a part of me cringes when artists/musicians carelessly appropriate pieces of the Muslim experience, but I have faith in The Books. "We are very careful with how we use the material. Everything points to a more gentle approach." Let's hope they find that video tape.

The Books Official SIte

Listen to The Books on Lala

Cydwoq: handmade shoes designed by an LA architect

Posted: 04 Oct 2009 10:04 AM PDT

They ain't cheap, but Cydwoq's hand-made-in-Los-Angeles shoes are heart-thumpingly handsome. Comfortable, too, if the couple pairs I've bought over the years are any indication. I've just worn out a pair after five years, and I've taken advantage of the occasion to order a new set. My wife loves the pair I bought for her for our wedding, too.

Cydwoq

Portable office built into a steamer trunk

Posted: 04 Oct 2009 08:41 AM PDT

Here's a portable office built into an oversized repro of a vintage steamer trunk -- it's a movable workspace you can take on the QEII or sail off with on a zeppelin.

Crafted by antiques dealer and furniture maker Timothy Oulton of London, our oversized steamer trunk armoire is configured as an ingeniously designed secretary.
* Reproduction antique steamer trunk
* Handmade of distressed vintage cigar leather over a solid wood frame
* Aniline-dyed leather has an antiqued, vintage look
* Accented with over 3,000 hand-hammered brass nailheads
* Features a pull-down desktop and multiple drawers, cubbies, wire management and bookshelves
* Lined in leather-edged canvas
* Stands on wheels for mobility and closes for storage and privacy

Mayfair Steamer Secretary Trunk Vintage Cigar Leather (Thanks, Charlie!)