A bunch of artists designed Chuck Taylor sneakers this season for the CONVERSE (PRODUCT) RED line, including my pal Dustin "UPSO" Hostetler. I dig the color scheme and of course UPSO's artwork on the upper. Sharp! They're $49.99 with 10 percent of the wholesale price going to The Global Fund to Fight AIDS. Click "Converse 1Hund(red)" on UPSO's site or search for "Project Product Red" on converse.com's online shop to see the whole line. UPSO (UPSO.org)

Adam sez, "WikiLeaks has a copy of the 2008 DHS Travel assessment, which includes a number of key findings warning US travelers that their laptops can be searched and seized, that their data can be copied, etc. It then talks about precautions to take to prevent this sort of thing from happening. Is this a case of 'It's OK for US to do it to you, but not them'?"

Risks associated with use of electronic media overseas can be reduced through proper handling techniques. The simplest of these is to leave such devices at home. Barring that, protective measures should include using designated “travel” computers, single-use cell phones, and temporary e-mail addresses as well as refraining from communicating with a home organization’s information technology systems... Travelers should use strong passwords on devices and encryption programs for electronic files and e-mails.

US DHS: Foreign Travel Threat Assessment: Electronic Communications Vulnerabilities 2008 (Thanks, Adam!)

Katie sez, "After being told by the MPAA that the poster for his new movie, 'Zach and Miri Make a Porno' was too obscene, Kevin Smith came back with a hilarious hand-drawn version." MPAA causes ‘Zack and Miri’ Poster to become BETTER (Thanks, Katie!)

Austin "Soon I Will Be Invincible" Grossman's written a fantastic review of my young adult novel Little Brother for this weekend's New York Times book review section. Incidentally, the book went into a fifth hardcover printing last week, and is going back for a sixth printing next week because so many orders came in between the fifth printing being set up and it being delivered!

“Little Brother” is a terrific read, but it also claims a place in the tradition of polemical science-fiction novels like “Nineteen Eighty-Four” and “Fahrenheit 451” (with a dash of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”). It owes a more immediate debt to Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli’s comic book series “DMZ,” about the adventures of a photojournalist in the midst of a new American civil war. ...

MY favorite thing about “Little Brother” is that every page is charged with an authentic sense of the personal and ethical need for a better relationship to information technology, a visceral sense that one’s continued dignity and independence depend on it: “My technology was working for me, serving me, protecting me. It wasn’t spying on me. This is why I loved technology: if you used it right, it could give you power and privacy.”

BTW, if I'm not mistaken, there are still some signed first-edition hardcovers in stock at Bakka Books in Toronto and Borderlands in San Francisco, and both stores ship.

Nerd Activists

This concept (?) fridge from Electrolux uses modular stacking mini-units to provide personal refrigeration compartments for everyone in the household -- it's designed for shared student accomodation:

Happy flatshares often fall apart over the politics of the shared fridge. There’s always a flatmate with low hygiene standards and another with light fingers and a baked bean addiction. With the Flatshare fridge, everyone gets there own very separate compartment that still has a tall section for bottles and a smaller side for veg and there can be no arguments about who’s turn it is to clean it out. When another flatmate moves in, thay can simply buy another unit to go on top.

Electrolux Flatshare fridge designed for squabbling students (via Cribcandy)

Particle Zoo sells this adorable cuddly Higgs Boson for your kid's crib or your cubicle. No way to tell from the photo if it's very massy or just moving very fast in another spatial dimension. Higgs Boson (via Wonderland)

Loraksus sez, "The recently released report about Taser use by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is quite interesting. Not only did they find that RCMP did an "inadequate" review of the literature available on Tasers and had an 'overreliance' on anecdotal information., but they also tore into 'excited delirium', saying'ED should be considered 'folk knowledge'' and '...should not be included in the RCMP's operational manual' It looks like the use of Tasers in a "ensuring compliance" role is diminishing. In most of Canada at least."

"Perhaps there would have been a delay in implementation, or at least a limited deployment (e.g., to supervisors or their designates and to tactical squads)."

The review, which questions the safety of stun guns — especially when used on pregnant women, drug users or people with medical conditions — argues that there should be national standards to guide Taser use by police forces across the country. The standards could be developed with the help of the Canadian Firearms Centre and Public Safety Canada.

RCMP relied too much on Taser manufacturer info: report (Thanks, Loraksus!)

See also: Taser death at Vancouver Airport

Check out these awesome ukulele covers of Jonathan Coulton's Still Alive, the closing song from Portal, one of the most original and genuinely witty games I've seen since Katamari Damacy. I'm especially fond of the mop-haired kid in the Cyberdog tee, and the lady below is no slouch, either, she's the Angus from AC/DC of videogame uke covers!

“Still Alive” ukulele covers (via Wonderland)

Sophie Can Walk is a tour-de-force of cinematic advocacy greater than An Inconvenient Truth and a Michael Moore montage combined -- a film that speaks out bravely, albeit in a cute little googoo voice, against the prejudice faced by baby-Americans born without the ability to walk. Above, the YouTube low-rez; here's a better quality version. (thanks, Sepideh!).

Over at Dinosaurs and Robots, I dipped a toe into the vast world of velocars, velomobiles and other pedal powered craft. As is often the case on the interdoodles, there is a fascinating world of diehard pedal automobile enthusiasts out there just waiting to share their passion.

Velocars at Dinosaurs and Robots

Reid Gershbein says: "I have just taken the low quality video from a flip camera and was seeing how interesting I could quickly make it with some inspiration from tilt-shift techniques."

Flip Camera Tilt-Shift Visual Experiments

Beyond an average repairman, Tytell was an artisan of the typewriter. He built a hieroglyphics typewriter for a curator, musical note machines for musicians and recreated Alger Hiss' typewriter, flaws and all, thus killing the legal argument that each machine had a unique fingerprint.



From the New York Times:

When he retired in 2000, Mr. Tytell had practiced his recently vanishing craft for 70 years. For most of that time, he rented, repaired, rebuilt, reconfigured and restored typewriters in a second-floor shop at 116 Fulton Street in Lower Manhattan, where a sign advertised “Psychoanalysis for Your Typewriter.”

There, at the Tytell Typewriter Company, he often worked seven days a week wearing a white lab coat and a bow tie, catering to customers like the writers Dorothy Parker and Richard Condon, the newsmen David Brinkley and Harrison Salisbury, and the political opponents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Adlai E. Stevenson. Letters addressed only to “Mr. Typewriter, New York” arrived there, too.

From a 1997 Atlantic Monthly article by Ian Frazier:

At about that time he added a new service to his business -- converting American-made typewriters to foreign alphabets for the stationery department at Macy's department store. He did these jobs on short notice and fast. Macy's would tell a customer that they could provide a typewriter in the customer's language before he left town; then Martin would remove the type from an American typewriter, solder on new type for the alphabet desired, and put new lettering on the keyboard. Usually he converted to Spanish or French, not difficult jobs, but he did Russian, Greek, and German, too. He found that by adding an idle gear he bought for forty-five cents on Canal Street, he could make a typewriter go from right to left. That enabled him to do Arabic and other right-left languages such as Hebrew and Farsi.

I hope the Smithsonian is calling the Tytell family right now.

New York Times Obit - Martin K. Tytell (Thanks, Ron!)
Typewriter Man from The Atlantic Monthly
Photo Credit: Patrick Burns/The New York Times

(Mister Jalopy is a guest blogger!)

PES' stop motion moviemake movies use households objects in place of other things to create a whimsical effect. I really like "Western Spaghetti." The candy corn as jets of flame and yellow Post-It notes for pats of butter are clever. Nice sound effects, too.

I don't have much to say about this poster that was sent to me. I just thought Jack Abramoff cuts a commanding figure in that outfit. It's unfortunate that men have stopped wearing hats to work.

Fun story about Abramoff here.

Over at Instructables, SteevAtBlueDust tells how he made "the world's most expensive chess set." He used banknotes for the board and coins for the pieces. It cost him £2,402.68. Nice work! "The World's Most Expensive Chess Set" (Instructables.com)

9/12/08 will be remembered as the day we finally caught one of the bad guys -- a 4th grader with a broken pencil sharpener.

A 10-year-old Hilton Head Island boy has been suspended from school for having something most students carry in their supply boxes: a pencil sharpener.

The problem was his sharpener had broken, but he decided to use it anyway.

...

The boy -- a fourth-grader described as a well-behaved and good student -- cried during the meeting with his mom, the deputy and the school's assistant principal.

He had no criminal intent in having the blade at school, the sheriff's report stated, but was suspended for at least two days and could face further disciplinary action.

Fourth grader suspended for using broken pencil sharpener

Here's an MP3 from the Cato Institute with Cheye Calvo (Mayor of Berwyn Heights, Maryland) describing how police conducted a baseless no-knock marijuana raid on his home, killing his two labrador retrievers. It's chilling.

The good news is that Calvo and his family adopted a new labrador from a shelter and are working to restore some order back into their life.

Link

Previously on Boing Boing:
• DC-area mayor whose dogs were shot dead in botched drug raid to speak out
• SWAT team raids mayor, shoots family dog because someone mailed them pot

(click image for full size)

Brian says:

I saw your post about hot beef sundaes.I attend the Iowa State Fair annually and at the Cattlemen's Beef Quarters they have a similar entree there.

Ian of the IAM Network says: "I noticed on Boing Boing that you've covered the mystery floating feet in the past. I've just put together a follow up segment on the case."

Are Police Any Closer To Solving The Mystery Of The Floating Feet?

Here's a much higher quality (and longer) version of Errol Morris' short film, "Stand Up To Cancer."

Errol Morris' Stand Up To Cancer

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Errol Morris' film "Stand Up to Cancer"

“Do-It-Yourself” from the Columbia Records series “Music for Gracious Living.” Do-It-Yourself

A group of gentlemen patronizing a bar in South Africa got into a heated debate about race and penis size. When words failed to persuade either side into conceding to their opponents' view, guns were used, leaving three dead and two injured.

A worker at the bar, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal, said a customer of Indian origin had remarked to a white customer while they were both at the urinal in the bar that his penis was bigger than that of the white customer.

"After both men returned to their friends, the two groups began swearing at each other before the group of five Indian men left the scene and all returned with firearms. They opened fire and three guys died on the spot. The other two were rushed to St. Augustine's Hospital, where I am told they are critical."

Indian-White argument over genitals leaves three killed (via Arbroath)

My friend Joe Hutsko contacted with the intriguing offer to serialize his novel, The Deal, on Boing Boing. I jumped at the chance. I read The Deal when it first came out in 1999 and loved the thrilling story about a Apple-like company's undertaking to create an iPhone-like device.

Here's a link to Chapter 15 as a PDF or a text file. (Here's chapter 1 and an introduction to the book, and here are the previous chapters)

To buy a paperback copy of the book, visit JOEyGADGET or purchase directly from Amazon.

The Electrolux Scan Toaster is a prototype bread printer. So *that's* how the Virgin Mary ended up on a grilled cheese sandwich -- she used one of these! Rob has more over at Boing Boing Gadgets.
Scan Toaster (BB Gadgets)

AZ sez, "Here's a beautiful collection of title panels from cartoonist Winsor McCay's classic (early 1900's) series 'Little Nemo in Slumberland'." Slumberland Titles (Thanks, AZ!)

See also: Gigantic Little Nemo book does justice to the loveliest comic ever

Vintage, monkey, cartoons. As standalone words they're wonderful. Combined, they're explosive. STWALLSKULL’s Cartoon Crypt: Directory of Vintage Monkey Cartoons (via Little Hokum Rag)

Formtank's 3Fold desk is punched and formed from a single cut sheet of steel (the tabletop is a separate piece). It's a nice bit of solid-steel papercraft come to life as executive office-furniture. 3fold (via Core77)

(Photo of Venus Fly Trap by Jessica Miller for LA Weekly)

Gendy Alimurung of the The LA Weekly attends a monthly meeting of the Los Angeles Carnivorous Plant Society.

Discussion turns to flies, a perennial favorite among Society members. "Do you feed one leaf at a time?" someone asks. "Meaning, on one plant, would you only put one fly on one leaf?"

"Do you feed the flies dry?" asks someone else.

"I don't feed the flies at all," Dr. Frankensnyder quips.

"You wet it, then feed it," another member advises.

"But don't get the flies wet or you'll get all kinds of mold growing in there," someone cautions. "You can get sick from sniffing it."

"Don't be sniffing your dried flies, guys!" still another knowledgeable member of the society chimes in.

Feed Me! Carnivorous Plants and the Bloody-Fingered People Who Love Them

From the fantastic Flickr LEGO Album Covers pool comes The Beatle's "Lego It Be" by minifig and The White Stripes' "White Blood Cells by joanna saves the Earth. Of course, The White Stripes are no strangers to Lego, having worked with Michel Gondry on the Lego-ized "Fell In Love With A Girl" video. LEGO Album Covers pool (Flickr, via Geekdad)

Previously on BB:
• Album covers redone in Lego

L.A.-based artist/animator Lynne Naylor has a show of new lovely, eerie, pop surrealist paintings opening tomorrow night, September 13, at M Modern Gallery in Palm Springs, CA. Along with her gorgeous paintings, Naylor is known for her work on The Ren & Stimpy Show and The Powerpuff Girls. The mood, colors, and composition of this series, titled Arlice's Odyssey, take my breath away. I was thrilled to learn that these paintings are the basis of a three-part illustrated storybook that will be published next year. The show opening is from 7 to 10pm and will feature the live psy-fi sounds of Sir Cosmo Cosmopollus (aka Naylor's multitalented husband, painter Chris Riccardi.) Arlice's Odyssey is also viewable online at Naylor's Web site. Seen above, "Arlice converses with a Sprite" (acrylic on canvas, 16" x 20"). Arlice's Odyssey (lynive.com)

Boing Boing Gadgets editor Joel Johnson checks out Crowdfire, a sort of real-life social media experiment at the Outside Lands Music fest. The experiment allows concertgoers to upload, share, remix, and "favorite" photos, audio and video they shot themselves... during the event. Some of that media was projected on the stage while bands played, and all of it was made available online.

Crowdfire (with Windows) is Boing Boing tv's sponsor this month, and the project was the brainchild of BB partner and FM founder/CEO John Battelle and Rick Farman, the festival developer who created Outside Lands.

Crowdfire is sort of like an event-centric Flickr or videosharing site, but on a very large scale -- some 60K+ people attended the concert each day, and as Battelle said, probably 59,000 of them were carrying cameraphones.

---

Link to Boing Boing tv blog post with downloadable video, discussion, and BBtv video podcast subscription instructions.

---

Related Boing Boing tv episodes:

* Primus: Xeni interviews Les and Ler (music)
* Kaki King, guitar hero: performance, interview with Xeni (music)
* Carney at Outside Lands - a "Boing Boing tv Bus Session." (music)
* Steel Pulse founder David Hinds at Outside Lands (music)
* Boing Boing tv backstage at Outside Lands: (Xeni + Russell Porter)

(Special thanks to Bre and Wayne for the bus; to Virgin America for generously providing air transportation)

For my money, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Quirks and Quarks is the best science radio broadcast on the air (and the best science podcast on the net). It's witty, layperson-friendly, cutting edge, uncompromising and relentless in its quest to make science engaging and interesting to a broad, diverse audience.

So it's no surprise that Jim Lebans's The Quirks and Quarks Guide to Space: 42 Questions (and Answers) About Life, the Universe and Everything is the kind of astronomy book that manages to make subjects like star classification, galactic collision, space-folding, orbital pollution and other staples of astronomical curiosity into easy-to-understand, fascinating little stories that have something to say to anyone who's ever looked up at the night sky and wondered.

Each of the 42 questions is answered in a short, breezy essay style that will be familiar to anyone who tunes into the show. These are the perfect length for reading aloud in the car on long trips, bedtime stories, or on the crapper (ideal for this last, in fact, especially when you find out about all the deadly, high-velocity space-turds released by Shuttle and Mir crews -- talk about icy BMs!). And the book is the perfect source to turn to the next time you're wondering about dark matter, dark energy, the beginning and end of the universe, and other large imponderables. The Quirks & Quarks Guide to Space: 42 Questions (and Answers) About Life, the Universe, and Everything

A Canadian record exec has changed his name in order to get off the TSA's no-fly list: he had his identity stolen and ended up spending one to six hours being questioned every time he boarded a plane:

"I was pulled aside in a room ... and you have to wait your turn to finally be released," Labbé said. "An hour, an hour and a half, two hours, whatever it is after. Once I was caught in Miami like that for six hours.

"It's always the same questions, about if I've lost my passport, if I've been to Japan — I don't know why Japan, but in their file it was something to do with Japan."

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security wrote a letter to Labbé in 2004, saying he had been placed on their watch list after falling victim to identity theft. At the time, the department said there was no way for his name to be removed.

Although Labbé wrote letters to the U.S. department, his efforts were in vain, prompting him to legally change his name.

"So now, my official name is François Mario Labbé," he said.

"Then you have to change everything: driver's license, social insurance, medicare, credit card — everything."

Although it's not a big change from Mario Labbé, he said it's been enough to foil the U.S. customs computers.

Quebec man changes name to dodge relentless airport screening (Thanks, Happy Mutant PaulR!)

Steve sez,

This is really lovely... just bumped into it while looking for Dr Who clips on youtube with my recently-Dr-Who-obsessed-6-yr-old son who is filling in the essential history/backstory of the doctor!

Homebrew movie (6:43) a family made while on holiday.
- Gets the tone just right.
- Re-uses themes/scenes from the recent end of series 2-parter with Davros/Daleks/many-companions.
- Wonderful low-fi special-FX (flying daleks, sound FX, EXPLOSIONS!)
- watch for the credits at the end.

Fave part: 3 yr old Davros wearing a "Mr Happy" t-shirt!

Dalek Invaders 2008ad (Thanks, Steve!)

The lost art of parenting, 1947-style:

LITTLE John Gray Jr., three months old when these pictures were taken, has seldom been outside of this glass house in which he lives. His showcase home is temperature and humidity controlled, dirt-free and has a built-in air filter. It is partially sound-proof-he can bellow without straining the family nerves. He doesn’t catch cold; visitors can’t pass their germs through the glass and the house’s temperature never varies from 84 degrees. At the slightest deviation, a bell rings. There are no draughts and neither is there the fear of smothering; there are no bed covers. Papa John Gray Sr. built the ingenious baby house in the workshop of his home in Sea Cliff, Long Island, New York. Only time will tell whether the child will escape the usual ills.

Showcase baby (Mar, 1947)

Republican strategists in Michigan have confirmed that they plan to challenge the right to vote for people on a list of recent foreclosures, though these people may still be living in their homes, renegotiating or fighting the order. The largest foreclosure firm in the area donates hundreds of thousands of dollars to the GOP, and the Republican-controlled Senate killed the bills that would have given foreclosure relief. Michigan is a swing state.

Joe Rozell, director of elections for Oakland County in suburban Detroit, acknowledged that challenges such as those described by Carabelli are allowed by law but said they have the potential to create long lines and disrupt the voting process. With 890,000 potential voters closely divided between Democratic and Republican, Oakland County is a key swing county of this swing state.

According to voter challenge directives handed down by Republican Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land, voter challenges need only be “based on information obtained through a reliable source or means.”

“But poll workers are not allowed to ask the reason” for the challenges, Rozell said. In other words, Republican vote challengers are free to use foreclosure lists as a basis for disqualifying otherwise eligible voters.

Lose your house, lose your vote (via Making Light)

A house in North Texas burned down killing two occupants (me stupid, me misread article, no one die) because the local authorities had switched off the fire-hydrants to stop terrorists from poisoning the water supply through them (?!?!). As Schneier sez, "This pegs the stupid-meter." At 11.

He explains all the district's hydrants, including those in Alexander Ranch, have had their water turned off since just after 9/11 - something a trade association spokesman tells us is common practice for rural systems.

"These hydrants need to be cut off in a way to prevent vandalism or any kind of terrorist activity, including something in the water lines," Hodges said.

But Hodges says fire departments know, or should have known, the water valves can be turned back on with a tool.

Wait wait wait. Turned back on with a tool? So these fire-hydrants will prevent terrorists who are capable of poisoning the water supply through them, but only if they're incapable of getting a tool? Are the fire hydrants in your neighborhood turned on? (via Schneier)

Anachrotechnofetishism, a new gallery show of 13 steampunk artists, opens tonight in Seattle at the Suite 100 Gallery:

Long before the age of the internet, and well before the cold efficiency of the assembly line, existed fantastic and terrible machines, run on hope, sweat, and steam. It was a time in which form and function lived in sin, and everyman was a revolutionary.

These are 13 American artists united by broad geography and narrow aesthetic.

Marrying narrative and nostalgia to design and technology, they imagine the triumphs of the past overriding the failures of the present to create from the ruins and detritus a dazzling future-perfect.

Anachrotechnofetishism (Thanks, Jake!)

The Canadian Conservative party is in trouble for appropriating copyrighted news-video for a web app that lets supporters make their own campaign ads. It's significant because this is the party that tried -- through the now-dead Canadian DMCA -- to bring in copyright laws that would raise the penalties for this sort of appropriation.

But you know what? As much as I dislike the Tories and as much as I appreciate the irony (as a friend used to say to the anti-lyrics-censorship, pro-copyright-censorship people in the record industry, "I know you love free speech, I just wish you'd share it with the rest of us!"), I think that they should be allowed to do this without copyright hassles.

Look: they're engaged in political speech, using news-footage to criticize politicians. Whether it's "out of context" or not (surely a subjective matter), this should be a slam-dunk. No copyright system should restrict quotation on news in the pursuit of political speech -- the purposes of copyrights -- encouraging creativity, encouraging investment -- are not undermined by political commercials.

This is why we fought against the Canadian DMCA after all: because we wanted Canadians to have the right to express themselves with a minimum of locks and fears. If you only support free expression for people who agree with you, you don't support it at all.

Some of the clips might look familiar. They have been taken from an Agenda interview with Stephane Dion, snapped off the context and put them to work. And that is where an ad like this can cause trouble. Now the Conservatives are going to have to deal with the embarrassment of being told to take the clips down (sort of like when Heart told Sarah Palin to stop playing Barracuda at her rallies).

That Conservative site steps in it again, this time dragging the Agenda along (Thanks, Mike!)

A man in Orem, Utah had the Homeland Security flying squad at his house because he'd planted a castor bean plant on his front lawn, prompting a neighbor or passing snitch to decide he was making ricin:

A startled homeowner got a visit from Orem Police Tuesday afternoon. They were interested in a plant that he was growing by his mailbox in the front yard. They were so interested that they put a call into Homeland Security. No, it wasn’t marijuana. It was a castor bean plant...

He says with a laugh, “I’m not a terrorist, but I was terribly frightened when the call came in. I was terrorized (for) my humble little plant that’s over there in the corner.”

Orem man's bean plant investigated (Thanks, Sam!)

Geraldo Rivera and Bill O'Reilly arguing at half-speed. I am easily amused, and find this riotously funny when they start screaming at each other about a minute or so in. The Slo'Reilly Factor. Previously on Boing Boing: Angry Tyra Banks Godzilla, Angry Tyra Banks Chipmunk. (thanks Supersly!)

The Velosniper points us to the amazing bicycle photography of Ray Dobbins. Using consumer cameras, Ray gets tremendous results in his modest garage photography studio. Ray's process has been perfected with considerable trial and error, but surprisingly little money. With a $30 tripod, $35 halogen Sears work lights and a $55 roll of seamless, Ray has proven that I can no longer blame my camera for my poor quality photos.

From Ray Dobbins:

I started with a very cheap 3.2 megapixel digital camera, the Olympus Camedia D-395. About four months ago I moved up to a better camera, the 4.0 megapixel Kodak EasyShare DX7440. It has a better lens, more features and higher optical zoom, which really helps with the close-ups. However, all things being equal, the difference in the quality output between the two cameras is not significant. One of my best looking albums, the Colnago Oval CX, was taken with the Olympus. The big difference is in the features. So don't think that you need an expensive camera - even my new one only cost around $300.00.

Take a look at the Colnago Oval CX gallery, consider your own photographs and then come to the grips with the fact that he took those photographs with a generations-old digital camera that routinely sells on eBay for under $40! Ouch! We suck! Ray rules!



Ray Dobbins Photo Set-up (via Velosniper)

According to Robert Urbanek, scandalous ice skater Tonya Harding shot JFK. How is that possible? Because she was actually Lee Harvey Oswald in a previous life. And yes, President Kennedy has been reborn as Harding's rival Nancy Kerrigan. Hilarious parody? Frightening reality? You decide. From TonyaHardingShotJFK.com:

Consider the evidence of reincarnation. Both Tonya Harding and Lee Harvey Oswald have the letters "Har" in their names. Both of their victims were Irish Catholics from Massachusetts whose last names began with the letters "Ke": John F. Kennedy and Nancy Kerrigan, and both were attacked in cities beginning with the letter "D": Dallas and Detroit. Time magazine also saw a connection in the assaults on Kerrigan and Kennedy. Margaret Carlson wrote in the February 21, 1994 issue, "The videocam verite of the clubbing [of Kerrigan] provides the same gritty realism that the Zapruder footage brought to Oliver Stone's JFK."

Harding and Oswald came from poor dysfunctional families and learned to use a rifle. Both were about the same age when they became infamous: Lee at 24, Tonya at 23. And they have similar facial features. Kennedy doesn't look like Kerrigan, but Kerrigan looks a bit like Jackie Kennedy. Perhaps God's joke is that JFK, the womanizer, should return in a body resembling his own wife.

Tonya Harding Is Lee Harvey Oswald (tonyahardingshotjfk.com, thanks Vann Hall!)

Chilean artist Victor Castillo's first solo show in the USA opens tomorrow evening at Seattle's Roq La Rue Gallery. Castillo's series, titled "When the Heavens Open," are dramatic paintings of children in dark situations where toys are weapons and the fun is frightening if not brutally violent. Seen at top, "When the Heavens Open" (acrylic on canvas, 40" x 40"). Sharing the gallery with Castillo is Seattle artist Brian Despain who introduces more mechanical protagonists from his "100 Robots" series. Above, detail of "They Talked of Tin" (oil on panel, 11" x 14"). All of the work from both artists is viewable online. Castillo/Despain preview, Roq La Rue exhibition page

A researcher at Tel Aviv University suggests that humans might be able to "see" with their skin. Engineering professor Leonid Yaroslavsky hopes that through biomimicry, new kinds of imaging technology might be developed that forego obviate traditional optics. Yaroslavsky presents his theories on the subject in a chapter (PDF) of a new book titled "Advances in Information Optics and Photonics." From an American Friends of Tel Aviv University press release:

"Some people have claimed that they possess the ability to see with their skin," says Prof. Yaroslavsky. Though biologists usually dismiss the possibility, there is probably a reasonable scientific explanation for "skin vision." Once understood, he believes, skin vision could lead to new therapies for helping the blind regain sight and even read.

Skin vision is not uncommon in nature. Plants orient themselves to light, and some animals -- such as pit vipers, who use infrared vision, and reptiles, who possess skin sensors -- can "see" without the use of eyes. Skin vision in humans is likely a natural atavistic ability involving light-sensitive cells in our skin connected to neuro-machinery in the body and in the brain, explains Prof. Yaroslavsky.

"Seeing through the skin" (Eurekalert.org)

Over at Strange Attractor, my pal Mark Pilkington points to two articles on the fascinating subject of false memories. The first is a piece in yesterday's Guardian stating that four out of 10 people surveyed in a new study claim to have viewed footage that simply doesn't exist of the 7/7 bombings in London three years ago. A previous study by the same researchers, led by University of Portsmouth psychologist James Ost, reported how people distinctly remember seeing footage of the Princess Diana car crash. No such footage of that event exists either. From The Guardian:

The (7/7) study shows how prone people are to "false memories", which the researchers say police and social workers must take into account when evaluating witness testimony or "recovered" memories of childhood abuse.

"Taken as a whole, this is further evidence that our memories are not perfect," said Dr James Ost, a psychologist at the University of Portsmouth. "They are not like a videotape you can rewind and replay for perfect recall. Because of this, memory alone is not reliable enough to form the basis of legal decisions."

Study shows how false memories rerun 7/7 film that never existed (The Guardian)

Another similar study from 2001 at the University of Washington addressed good false memories rather than bad ones. From Daily University Science News:

About one-third of the people who were exposed to a fake print ad describing a visit to Disneyland and how they met and shook hands with Bugs Bunny said later they remembered or knew the event happened to them.

The scenario described in the ad never occurred because Bugs Bunny is a Warner Bros. cartoon character and wouldn't be featured in any Walt Disney Co. property, according to University of Washington memory researchers Jacquie Pickrell and Elizabeth Loftus.

"Fake Memories Easily Created" (UniSci.com)

Seen above is Chuffy the mouse driving his guinea pig time machine. Look closely and you can see that the guinea pig has been augmented with clockwork in its belly. This taxidermy curiosity is available for £594.99 from Top Hat Taxidermy. Chuffy and the Time Machine (tophattaxidermy.com, via Cabinet of Wonders)

Andy Rouse is a professional wildlife photographer. He recently snapped a photo of this, er, ice penis in the Bransfield Strait between the Antarctic Peninsula and the South Shetland Islands. (For full effect, rotate the photo 90 degrees counterclockwise.)
Giant ice penis (Metro.co.uk)

Les Rita Mitsouko "C'est Comme Ça" from The No Comprendo

Although Jean-Baptiste Mondino has directed music videos for huge artists like Madonna, Bjork and Chris Isaak, my favorite video of all time is for the relatively unknown Les Rita Mitsouko. Mondino was helped considerably by the frantic sexy robotics of Catherine Ringer, the windmill gyrations of guitarist Fred Chichin and, the sure crowd pleaser, chimpanzee antics. It is a brave director who steps in the room with those three.

Produced by Tony Visconti, the entire album is fantastic and I still listen to it regularly. Sadly, Fred Chichin passed away last November.



Nearly twenty years after Les Rita Mitsouko, Mondino choreographed the removal of Mirwais' cabaret makeup to the infectious beats of French electronica. Admittedly, I really love trashy French house music and this is a particularly fine example.







Neither unknown nor underappreciated, Mondino's place in fashion, photography and directing is rock solid. Before the days of YouTube, I would pay attention if I heard of a Jean-Baptiste project, but how the hell would I ever be able to see French commercials?




It would be wrong to leave the reader with the impression that Mondino's talents are restricted to frenetic overloads. The Henley "Boys of Summer" video swept the MTV Music Video Awards and is a beautifully shot, wonderfully restrained, example of the best of the 1980s.

In addition to Mondino's considerable directing talents, he is also a tremendous photographer who continues to amaze.

Mondino's Page
Jean-Baptiste Mondino at wikipedia
Comprehensive music videography at mvdbase.com

(Mister Jalopy is a guest blogger!)

Today's dose of Boing Boing tv is an experimental rock animation oddity featuring one of our favorite directors, Syd Garon. It's a music video for To My Surprise, a band led by The Clown (Shawn Crahan) from nu-metal heavyweights Slipknot.

The video was directed and animated by Syd Garon and Eric Henry with illustrations by Doug Cunningham (of Morning Breath), Lee Ballard, Cristie Henry and The Clown's daughter, who was 6 years old at the time.

Part of what makes this so interesting to us is the crazy backstory. Syd explains:

The record was produced by Rick Rubin and had some pretty good Beatles-inspired tunes on it if memory serves.

The Clown had a bizarre list of things -- completely unrelated to our treatment -- which we were required to have in the video. The items were so strange we decided not to even try to fight it. That is why the final video has a pilgrim and a turkey, a rubber dog head, and a rat eating a taco among other oddities.

In addition to "the list" we had to incorporate a bunch of black and white drawings made by his 6 year old daughter. Oh yeah, the drawings had to be playing dodgeball.

We actually had a conversation with an assistant at the record label and spoke the words, "yes there is a rat eating a taco in the video".

One of the band members refused to have his cartoon likeness anything other than completely realistic. That is why a goddamn imaginary band has a robot with bunny ears, a three eyed Rastafarian and one totally fucking normal guy.

In retrospect, having one normal guy makes the band even stranger in a way I never would have thought of. So, hats off to you, normal guy.

To our surprise the video didn't totally work. The kids drawings were actually awesome and if I had a time machine I might go back and try making a video just around them instead combining our ideas with The Clowns.

We made this video with the mighty Doug Cunningham at Morning Breath and it was fun to get the Wave Twisters crew back together again.

Link to Boing Boing tv blog post, with downloadable video and instructions on how to subscribe to the BBtv daily video podcast.

Also see: Previous BBtv episodes featuring the work of Syd Garon.