The Latest from Boing Boing |  |
- Mark Laidlaw's "Sleepy Joe" -- sf story comic podcast about war, cable access and human bombs
- All of Mojo Nixon in free, legal MP3
- Tiny living room in a PC casemod
- Xeni on Rachel Maddow Show: Ralph Lauren's Photoshop of Horrors
- The Kybalion by "Three Initiates"
- Massive French mechanical marionettes in Berlin
- Shepard Fairey shirt for Creative Commons
- Urban surveillance as a game?
- Hand carved bicycle saddles
- Ugly and Bizarre book covers
- Here Is Where: A Bevy of Alternate-History Plot Bunnies
- Short video profiles of interesting New Yorkers
- Judge orders woman to keep her SubGenius books under lock and key
- Article about beat record label, Paris Records
- A Tour of the Deepest Cave in the United States
- C graffiti
- Taiwan city launches new cash-for-poop initiative
- Pacific ocean "Dead Zone" may be forever
- Watch What You Say About Welsh
- Taste Test: red kuri squash
| Mark Laidlaw's "Sleepy Joe" -- sf story comic podcast about war, cable access and human bombs Posted: 10 Oct 2009 02:10 AM PDT This week's story on the Escape Pod sf podcast is Mark Laidlaw's "Sleepy Joe," a grimly comic, apocalyptic story about paralegals with a secret cable-access show who find themselves caring for (and kidnapping) a brainwashed war-veteran who's been turned into a human weapon. It's a marvellous story and a great reading (the story was originally published on The Infinite Matrix). Astute readers will remember Mark as a former guestblogger, a wildly imaginative sf writer, and the games-writer behind such Valve titles as Half-Life.
Sleepy Joe text on Infinite Matrix Previously:
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| All of Mojo Nixon in free, legal MP3 Posted: 10 Oct 2009 01:52 AM PDT Mike sez, "For three weeks only, Amazon and Mojo Nixon are offering his entire catalog in MP3 format completely free, including his latest album, Whiskey Rebellion." Now there's some good news! There's nothing I don't like about Mojo Nixon. This is the guy who produced the kiddypunk band Old Skull after all (I always suspected he was responsible for the rousing chorus of "I hate you Ronald Reagan!" at the end of their smash-hit "Homeless"). If you're not familiar with Mr Nixon's oeuvre, give a listen to Elvis is Everywhere, Wash No Dishes No More and This Land is Your Land. Especially Wash No Dishes No More. Mojo Nixon (Thanks, Mike!) |
| Tiny living room in a PC casemod Posted: 10 Oct 2009 01:43 AM PDT  This Russian casemodder included a dollhouse-scale living room in an elaborate PC case... Presumably it's where the computer elves go to relax after a hard day's tallying up spreadsheets. Заголовок сообщения: Комната в компьютере (Thanks, Fipi Lele!) Previously:
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| Xeni on Rachel Maddow Show: Ralph Lauren's Photoshop of Horrors Posted: 09 Oct 2009 10:17 PM PDT
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| The Kybalion by "Three Initiates" Posted: 09 Oct 2009 10:17 PM PDT Boing Boing guestblogger Mitch Horowitz is author of Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation and editor-in-chief of Tarcher/Penguin publishers. One of the oddest and most enduring occult books of modern times is called The Kybalion. Dan Brown mentions it twice in The Lost Symbol. The book exists in a multitude of editions and claims to be an ancient work of practical occult wisdom. Its pages brim with canny advice on how to get what you want from life. The "author" of The Kybalion is a hidden entity called Three Initiates. Speculation rages online that one of these Three Initiates was a twentieth-century magician, occultist, and writer named Paul Foster Case. Case, so the theory goes, co-conceived the popular book in early twentieth-century Chicago, a city bustling with occult impresarios. I consider the Case connection and The Kybalion in Occult America:
This compendium of "lost" Egyptian-Hermetic wisdom read a lot like New Thought principles recast in antique language but nonetheless enthralled readers, partly due to the secrecy of its authorship. A long-standing rumor, which now abounds online, named Paul Foster Case as one of the Three Initiates. But The Kybalion reads to the letter like Atkinson, and it was published before the two men would have been likely to meet. The Kybalion is often misdated to 1912. But the copyright and first edition were actually from 1908, when Case had barely arrived in the city. The error arose from a 1940 edition in which the publisher listed the initial registration as 1912, almost certainly in an attempt to reassert control over a copyright that had fallen into public domain after failing to be renewed at the required 28-year interval.Whatever its authorship, The Kybalion is an enticing guide to wise-living. I publish a new, redesigned edition at Tarcher/Penguin, which is probably the first to specifically credit Atkinson on the about-the-author page. The Kybalion |
| Massive French mechanical marionettes in Berlin Posted: 09 Oct 2009 03:22 PM PDT Royal de Lux, the incredible French mechanical marionette street theatre company, performed in Berlin this week as part of a 20t anniversary celebration of the Berlin Wall's fall. The main performers were the massive Big Giant and Little Giantess, which Cory posted about back in June. The Big Picture has a breathtaking photo gallery of the performance, titled The Berlin Reunion. This stunning photo was taken by Philipp Guelland for AFP/Getty Images.  "The Berlin Reunion" at The Big Picture (Thanks, Kenny Montana!) Previously: |
| Shepard Fairey shirt for Creative Commons Posted: 09 Oct 2009 03:25 PM PDT  Creative Commons has launched its 5th Annual Fundraising Campaign. Donate $75 or more and you'll get a special edition t-shirt featuring this lovely design by Shepard Fairey! For those who may not know, Creative Commons is an incredibly important non-profit making it easier for people to legally use, share, repurpose and remix creative work. It's about a shift from the default all-or-nothing stance of "all rights reserved" to a spectrum of "some rights reserved." Of course, everything Boing Boing does is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution. Creative Commons isn't about knocking down copyright, but rather complementing it in ways that support, and fuel, creativity and culture. Donate to Creative Commons |
| Posted: 09 Oct 2009 01:21 PM PDT  Snitches and snoops wanted: Internet Eyes is a new "game" where the public is invited to watch thousands of CCTV cameras for criminal activity. The most successful crimespotters can win cash prizes. The site will also feature a rogues gallery of alleged perpetrators. The service launches next month in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. It's free to watch the cameras and £20 a week to have your CCTV up for monitoring. From the Internet Eyes site (image above from Wikimedia Commons): From the Daily Mail: (Company founder) Tony Morgan, a former restaurant owner, said it would give local businesses protection against petty criminals, and act as a deterrent once 'Internet Eyes patrol here' signs are prominently displayed...  |
| Posted: 09 Oct 2009 12:18 PM PDT  Here's an interview with leather artisan Kara Ginther, who carves Brook's leather bike saddles. "I'll never forget how nervous I was to make that first cut into the gorgeous seat. Carving leather leaves little room for error; not only can you ruin the design, but with one slip of the blade you can render an object useless!"To Be, Inspired: Interview with leather artisan Kara Ginther |
| Posted: 09 Oct 2009 12:05 PM PDT  In honor of this phallo-rific paperback cover that Hang Fire Books proprietor William Smith recently stumbled upon, he has created an "Artists With Issues" tag for the "Ugly and Bizarre" category of his Pulp Fiction Cover Gallery. |
| Here Is Where: A Bevy of Alternate-History Plot Bunnies Posted: 09 Oct 2009 09:08 AM PDT On a winter night in 1931, 57-year-old Winston Churchill stepped off the curb of 5th Avenue & 76th St. in New York City and was hit by a car.  SPOILER: He survived. But I think 1000 writers could probably do a lot with what could have happened if he hadn't. Now, the job of speculative fiction authors everywhere has become somewhat easier, thanks to Here Is Where, a project to locate and map the sites of little-known, relatively unimportant historical events in the United States. Technically, the possibilities for alternate history are just a happy side-effect of Here Is Where, which is really about preserving tiny details of history for people who want to geek out over the parking garage where Bob Woodward met Deep Throat, or the baseball diamond where U2 spy plane pilot Francis Gary Powers died in a helicopter crash. According to the New York Times, it was inspired by...
That would be Edwin Booth, older brother of John Wilkes, btw. Right now, Andrew Carroll is traveling cross-country, collecting stories for the project. You can read about what he's found on his blog. Whether you turn what you read there into a best-selling novel is up to you. |
| Short video profiles of interesting New Yorkers Posted: 09 Oct 2009 11:29 AM PDT A city guide website called Revel in New York makes great mini documentaries about interesting New Yorkers. Here are a few: The Pigeon Lady, an East Village pigeon fancier who's been stealing pigeons from prized coops for nearly a decade. (Above) High Times senior editor David Bienenstock, who explains the different effects of different kinds of pot. A foot fetish sex worker who talks about her job about the foot-friendly places in NYC. Molly Crabapple, artist and founder of Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School. Tea blender Nini Ordoubadi, an Iranian born New Yorker who comes from a long tradition of tea blenders. |
| Judge orders woman to keep her SubGenius books under lock and key Posted: 09 Oct 2009 11:42 AM PDT Here's an update to story I've been following since 2006 about a woman who was denied custody of her 10-year-old son after a judge saw photos of her participating in a SubGenius holiday (an adult-rated parody of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ). The good news is that Rachel Bevilacqua (AKA Rev. Magdalen) regained custody of her son. The weird news is that, according to Modemac of the High Weirdness Project, Bevilacqua is "still the only SubGenius officially banned from keeping SubGenius materials in her home, where her innocent son might accidentally come across them and become corrupted into the corrupt, obscene, decadent SubGenius cult that got his Mom into trouble in the first place."
(Disclosure: I have been a card-carrying SubGenius reverend for 25 years and have contributed to Rachel's legal fund.) SubGenius Reverend officially banned from keeping SubGenius materials in her home Previously: |
| Article about beat record label, Paris Records Posted: 09 Oct 2009 10:35 AM PDT  Ralph Steadman and Tim Robbins in studio, recording for upcoming production of Paris Records' The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved, 2009. Photo courtesy Paris Records Ethan Persoff wrote an article in the Evergreen Review this month about Paris Records, which, he says, has "produced some of the more interesting records of the last 25 years," including William Burroughs' Dead City Radio, Terry Southern's Give Me Your Hump!, and Allen Ginsberg's Lion For Real. This is the first published account of the label's entire 25 year history. The article also has news and photos of previously unannounced album The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved starring Ralph Steadman as himself and Tim Robbins as Hunter Thompson. Produced by Hal Willner and Michael Minzer. Due in late 2009 or spring 2010. |
| A Tour of the Deepest Cave in the United States Posted: 09 Oct 2009 03:10 PM PDT Lechuguilla Cave is part of the Carlsbad Caverns Natural Park in New Mexico and is regarded as one of the most beautiful caves, with some of the most unique geography, in the entire world. You can't visit. Because of the delicacy of many of the formations, the cave is only open to scientists and the explorers who are still figuring out what all is down there. Nobody else is allowed in. Or, rather, nobody else but David Attenborough. This video from the Planet Earth TV series takes you down into Lechuguilla for some amazing sights and fascinating commentary on the chemistry and biology that make this cave so strange and lovely. Even more impressive, nobody knew it was there until 1986. Psst, Nova has a whole page on Lechiguilla, if you want to read more. |
| Posted: 09 Oct 2009 02:48 PM PDT  I photographed this graffiti under an overpass near the Palo Alto Caltrain station. It's a C++ program, called FUCKYOURMEMORY.c. Only in Silicon Valley. |
| Taiwan city launches new cash-for-poop initiative Posted: 09 Oct 2009 10:09 AM PDT  The environmental committee of the city of Taichung, Taiwan is trying something different to clean up its streets — it's offering $3 in shopping vouchers per kilogram of dog poop collected. From the city council's web site:By means of offering rewards, the bureau hopes to goad the public into spontaneous clean-up efforts that protect the environment.The problem in Taiwan isn't that dog owners don't pick up poop — it's more an issue of strays, where pet owners get bored of their dogs and leave them on the streets. The poop initiative seems like an odd, half-assed initiative given the greater issue of animal negligence on the island (180,000 strays among a population of 23 million people, according to Reuters), but I suppose it's better than nothing. Fetch! City pays for dog poo |
| Pacific ocean "Dead Zone" may be forever Posted: 09 Oct 2009 10:01 AM PDT An oxygen-depleted "dead zone" the size of New Jersey (well, figures!) is starving sea life near the coast of Oregon and Washington. The phenomenon will probably recur annually, and is caused by climate change, according to Jack Barth, an oceanography professor at Oregon State University. The news coincides with the release of this National Science Foundation briefing about the increasing occurrences of these "dead zones" around the world. Pacific Ocean 'dead zone' in Northwest may be irreversible (LA Times) |
| Watch What You Say About Welsh Posted: 08 Oct 2009 02:30 PM PDT It does have vowels, it's not the oldest language in Europe, and, yes, it does have words for modern technologies. Welsh, or Cymraeg as we probably ought to call it, is spoken by more than 580,000 people and was one of the 55 Earth languages chosen to represent our global culture on the Golden Record launched with the Voyager spacecraft in 1977. But it's still very much a small language and, to English speakers, a weird-looking one, so it's no surprise that tall tales abound. Garic, an evolutionary linguist and Welshman, is out to change that. He's written a series of posts that debunks pop-culture's worst Welsh fallacies and, along the way, makes some interesting points about the way speakers of common languages view the rare and unique tongues of the world...
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| Posted: 09 Oct 2009 06:16 AM PDT  Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Red Kuri. It's a winter squash — unlike its summer siblings, it's harvested at full maturity and has a very thick skin. I got this one from my CSA and fell instantly in love with its beautiful orange skin, which is hard to slice without killer knife skills.
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Chicago was a great city for a budding occultist in the early twentieth century. It was home to the influential New Thought teacher Emma Curtis Hopkins and hosted bustling subcultures in "mental science" and metaphysical publishing. A Chicago lawyer named William Walker Atkinson produced an imaginative array of occult books from his Yogi Publication Society based in the twenty-two-story Masonic Temple Building, once a jewel of the city's skyline and later demolished. Atkinson himself wrote many books, under the pseudonyms Yogi Ramacharaka, Magus Incognito, and, most famously, Three Initiates. The Chicagoan used the last of these aliases in 1908 to publish his most successful book, one of the occult classics of the twentieth century: The Kybalion.
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After nearly four years and $140,000 in legal costs, the SubGenius child custody case of Rachel Bevilacqua (Reverend Magdalen) has been dismissed. The end result is an anticlimax: She has custody of her son at last, and the status quo is maintained -- except that she is officially forbidden from keeping SubGenius materials in her home, in order to protect her son from J.R. "Bob" Dobbs. 
Red kuri squash risotto 1 red kuri squash 1/4c olive oil 2c Arborio rice 4c hot chicken or veggie stock 1/2 c grated parmesan 1 onion 1/2 c white wine 1/2 stick unsalted butter Drizzle olive oil, salt and pepper on the squash and roast it in the oven at 380F for about 1hr. Meanwhile, cook the onions and rice in a pot for a few minutes until the rice is toasty and opaque. Add wine and stock slowly as the rice absorbs it, for about 15 minutes until al dente. Stir in butter and cheese and squash last. Add salt, pepper, and parsley to taste.| You are subscribed to email updates from Boing Boing To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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