These $20 "CheTrooper" tees are everything an ironic t-shirt should be: black, large, moderately priced and funny as hell. Link (Thanks, stx!)

There's a complete Calvin and Hobbes hardcover archival collection (a la the totally stunning $100 Far Side box set from last year) coming out, priced at $150 (yowch, but man, how totally cool to own one of these!). Link (Thanks, DigDoug!)

I just finished Scott Westerfeld's "So Yesterday," a novel about cool-hunters working for Nike who stumble upon a shoe that's so amazingly cool that they can't figure out why it bears a red-circle-slash No Logo modifier. Nor how said cool anti-shoe relates to the mysterious disappearance of their boss, the head cool-hunter wrangler. The book is a fast-paced, smart-talkin', trivia-spoutin' mystery thriller that I read through in about a day and a half, laughing aloud time and again. I mean, how can you resist a book with passages like this one:

The guy riding in the truck's elevator was muscular and lean, very dark. He was wearing a trucker cap and cowboy boots, jeans and a mesh shirt that showed off his muscles. In a friendlier context I would have pegged him as a gay bodybuilder doing an ironic take on NASCAR fandom. But alongside the other two, he looked more like one of the many hopefuls sent down by central casting to try out for the part of THUG #3 in a hip new thriller.

Link

The makers of a groundbreaking documentary film exploring racial identity within the punk scene -- Afro-Punk: the "rock n roll nigger" experience -- were hit with an unexpected disaster last week. Friends are reaching out to coordinate donations of space and gear to help the filmmakers get back on track. From an e-mail sent to friends and supporters:

On Monday Sept. 13th at around 2pm the building that houses the afro-punk offices was set on fire. Apparently, the first floor failing clothing store owner, in an act of desperation, set a phone book on fire and took a little walk. Meanwhile Afro-Punk's director James Spooner was two flights up discussing his upcoming panel on music as a tool for black liberation with a colleague. "We heard the bell ringing and a lot of screaming and yelling" says James. The guilty store owner, alerted James and his friend of the blaze below. Thinking quickly James ran back into the office unplugged his Mac tower, which houses the documentary and hobbled down the stairs through the smoke and flames . "Man, maybe it was stupid, but this film has effected too many people for it to all end here, let the rest burn, I had to save it!"

Luckily fire fighters acted quickly on the scene and were able to stabilize the fire. Flames never reached our office but the NYFD destroyed the place trying to make sure the fire wasn't in the walls or ceiling.

After the smoke literally cleared they were allowed back up to access the damage. All in all it could have been worse. The Afro-Punk computers and camera are still working, the 200 hours of footage afro-punk was cut from seems to be okay and the work for our next film is safe. We did lose some furniture, a monitor and some vcrs from our dubbing station, but most tragic, we lost our donated office space.

Link to the Afro-Punk website, link to paypal donation site, and e-mail the group for a list of non-cash donations they're seeking -- including office space, office supplies, and electronic equipment (VCRs, monitors, CD-Rs, DVD-Rs, and the like). (via pho list and Bob Davis of Soul Patrol)

Jason Wishnow, creator of two infamous Star Wars documentaries -- Tatooine or Bust and Star Wars or Bust -- has a new short out. An eight-minute rendition of Sophocles' classic tale of Oedipus, performed by fresh produce.

"Sex, violence, and cauliflower abounds!", says Jason, who tells us the film is "Performed by vegetables -- In the tradition of BEN-HUR. See a potato as it was meant to be seen, 15 feet tall!"

It's screening at fests all over the place over the next couple of months, including September dates in SF and LA. You can also download production stills and other goodies on the project's website. I haven't seen it, but it sounds great. And low-carb. Billy Dee Williams does voiceover for the "handsomest of all bell peppers." The production notes crack me up.

"We shot the Senate Plaza with a handful of real olives then digitally expanded the scene to a cast of thousands. True to the spirit of 1950s cinema, we racially profiled our extras. Green olives play soldiers, black olives play slaves, and the citizens are Greek olives."

Question 1: If animation with clay figures = claymation, and marionettes on steroids (a la Team America) = supermarionation, then what's this? Vegemation? Question 2: Do male lead broccoli stalks carry SAG cards, or "certified organic" stickers? Question 3: If a scene shot with edible characters needs finesse, do you rotoscope or rotisserie?

Link to Oedipus The Movie. (also spotted on Calacanis' blog earlier this year)

Responding to yesterday's post about the grotesquely supersized Hummeroid vehicle known as the International CXT, Bruce Bortin says: "'Exactly what statement would that be?' -- I submit the following response," in the form of a handily printable bumper sticker shown at left. Link to sticker.

Perhaps an alternate approach might be the last lines of Radiohead's Exit Music (For a Film). Link

BoingBoing reader Kenneth says,

This is the site of the pro-amendment 37 campaign in Colorado. The amendment would require utilities in CO to purchase a percentage of their electricity from renewable sources, getting to 10 percent by 2015. The utilities are, of course, very opposed to it. It may be that the only way for non-CO residents to legally contribute to the campaign is through the cafepress shop they have and buy a t-shirt. But, IANAL, so I really don't know that.

Link

The Black Block boutique at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris is selling a French artist's series of Photoshopped takes on various rock album covers. I snapped this shot of a c.2003 altered version of the Ramones' self-titled debut. As we know, it's sadly time for an update.

In other Ramones news, here's an NPR interview with filmmaker Michael Gramglia about End of the Century, the controversial Ramones documentary. Link

Kevin sez, "This is the t-shirt site with the Che Guevara/Michael Moore shirt. We're announcing a fundraiser for MoveOn.org where we donate funds from shirts and buttons to the MoveOn PAC from now until election day. For the first hundred shirts we donate a dollar, the second hundred two dollars, and after that, we'll donate five dollars for every shirt sold.

"We're excited about this - we're a company of roughly three people so this feels like a way that we can actually help. I don't know what kind of response we're going to get to it yet, but who can predict? We're preparing for anything!" Link (Thanks, Kevin!)

Great (if over-long) Philip K Dick essay on the nature of reality and science fiction:

But I consider that the matter of defining what is real -- that is a serious topic, even a vital topic. And in there somewhere is the other topic, the definition of the authentic human. Because the bombardment of pseudo-realities begins to produce inauthentic humans very quickly, spurious humans -- as fake as the data pressing at them from all sides. My two topics are really one topic; they unite at this point. Fake realities will create fake humans. Or, fake humans will generate fake realities and then sell them to other humans, turning them, eventually, into forgeries of themselves. So we wind up with fake humans inventing fake realities and then peddling them to other fake humans. It is just a very large version of Disneyland. You can have the Pirate Ride or the Lincoln Simulacrum or Mr. Toad's Wild Ride -- you can have all of them, but none is true.

In my writing I got so interested in fakes that I finally came up with the concept of fake fakes. For example, in Disneyland there are fake birds worked by electric motors which emit caws and shrieks as you pass by them. Suppose some night all of us sneaked into the park with real birds and substituted them for the artificial ones. Imagine the horror the Disneyland officials would feel when they discovered the cruel hoax. Real birds! And perhaps someday even real hippos and lions. Consternation. The park being cunningly transmuted from the unreal to the real, by sinister forces. For instance, suppose the Matterhorn turned into a genuine snow-covered mountain? What if the entire place, by a miracle of God's power and wisdom, was changed, in a moment, in the blink of an eye, into something incorruptible? They would have to close down

Link (Thanks, Condour!)

Randall sez, "Showcasing the now-extinct shooter arcade that once graced the exit to Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean attraction, The Pirates Arcade page offers your chance to have Fortune Red, the fortne-telling pirate machine tell your fortune. Click on the "Fortune Red Has This To Say..." button, and one of the 20 possible fortunes will be delivered in a popup window. Most fortunes make reference to one Disneyland attraction or another, including the long-gone Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland." Link (Thanks, Randall!)