This video is simultaneously the most stupid and most awesome thing I have ever seen. "Yes We Carve: Pumpkins for Barack Obama", on YouTube, and here is the project website. (Thanks, Dana!)

If you're in Los Angeles, you may want to head over to alt-comic Dave Hill's live show tomorrow night, Tuesday, October 21, where at 10:30pm local time, he says...

I will be exploding like a motherf#@ker all over again over there at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Hollywood. If you see just one thing that is explosive in nature tomorrow night, you should totally see my show because it is going to be incredible to the point where it makes all other things previously thought to be incredible to suddenly seem, like, not really all that incredible if you think about it (with the exception of Olympic figure skating great Oksana Baiul's gold medal-winning performance at the 1994 Winter Olympics, something we still talk about to this day). My guests on the show tomorrow night will be actress/singer Lucy Lawless, whom you no doubt remember from such programs as "Xena: Warrior Princess," "Battlestar Galactica," and a ton of other programs besides those ones I just mentioned; and also singer/songwriter/actor/man-about-town Loudon Wainwright III, whom you no doubt remember from the radio and also the popular films "The Aviator," "40 Year-Old Virgin," and "Knocked Up." There will also be snacks, fire, small animals, knives, smoke, and dancing. I really hope you can make it. You can get tickets right here.

Previously on BB:
* Dave Hill, Jedi Master in training.
* Dave Hill returns to Fashion Week '09
* Dave Hill is a very funny guy (videos)

Today's Wellington Grey comic says it all: "Warning: In Case of Terrorist attack, do not discard brain." He's selling posters. We need to put these up everywhere. I've just had a British Airways purser threaten to arrest me, my wife and baby because my wife endangered the plane by saying "bullshit" when confronted with a "safety measure," while complying with the measure. Warning: In Case of Terrorist attack, do not discard brain. (via Schneier)

IT IS VERY GOOD AND FRIGHTENING to be here on BOING BOING. As readers of my own, small, imitation of a blog already know, I am a longtime reader, and now, very humbly...

A FIRST TIME CALLER.

I AM ESPECIALLY GRATEFUL to be here, for indeed it was a BOING BOING post which first convinced me to descend from the airy heights of minor television renown and return to my ink-stained former life of writing big books of fake trivia.

FOR IT WAS CORY, via Ape-Lad, who first brought to my attention the COMPLETELY IMPLAUSIBLE, BUT DISTRESSINGLY REAL product known as DICK VAN PATTEN'S HOBO CHILI FOR DOGS.

TRUTH MAY BE STRANGER THAN FICTION, I wrote in my first book, but never as strange as lies. But now it seemed, truth was catching up.

AND SO it was Van Patten's sublimely unexpected, non-fictional food for hobo dogs (hobo dogs!) that convinced me the time had come for me to return and restock the pond of fact with falsehood, and produce MORE INFORMATION THAN YOU REQUIRE.

(AND DUE TO THE INCREDIBLE GRACIOUSNESS of Mr. Van Patten and his business partners, I am able to reproduce in my book not only the label for HOBO CHILI FOR DOGS, but also the label for CHINESE TAKE-OUT FOR DOGS. It is obvious that they take great care in making their pet food, so please reward their good humor and esprit de creative commons by visiting their website.)

AS I BLOG here from day to day, I will not always be as baldfaced as I am today about mentioning my book. But I will be touring around the country reading from it, often accompanied by JONATHAN COULTON, so I cannot promise that it will never come up.

BUT BEFORE I PART, I did want to share with you one image of me, accompanied by my book, and a bottle of Dan Aykroyd's Crystal Head Vodka.

FOR INDEED, here is another product that DOES IN FACT EXIST, though there is no rational explanation for it.

IT IS STRANGENESS INCARNATE, and like my book, it is filtered through diamonds.

THAT IS ALL.

PHOTO courtesy: Seth Olenick

(John Hodgman is guest blogger.)

Next Sunday, splatterpunk pioneer Clive Barker will show his original concept paintings for the film Midnight Meat Train and other work at Packer Schopf Gallery in Chicago. Barker will be at the gallery from 2 to 5pm. Fortunately, the delightful work is also available for viewing online. Seen here, "Kiss Curl Carlotti" (24" x 24", oil on canvas).
Clive Barker's Midnight Meat Train art (Thanks, Dominic Paul Moore!)

Our Teresa spotted this mask for sale via Amazon that seems to have been, er, mislabeled. Click the image to see it larger.
Bush Jr Mask

UPDATE: They did it with the "Bush Celebrity Mask" too!

Researchers in Colombia have found fossils of a snake that was more than 40 feet long and weighed over a ton. The paleontologists from the Florida Museum of Natural History say that the snake was a relative of the boa constrictor and slithered around 60 million years ago. From Science News:

At a site in northern Colombia, (paleontologist Jonathan) Bloch and his colleagues unearthed the partial remains of an ancient snake. Each of the dozen or so vertebrae in that body segment measured about 10 centimeters across. That’s about twice the width of the largest vertebra taken from a 6-meter–long, modern-day anaconda, another modern relative, Bloch notes.

None of the ribs included in the fossil are complete, but the size and curvature of the fragments that remain indicate that the snake “would have had trouble fitting though the door into your office,” he adds. The gargantuan fossils represent an as yet unnamed species.

Fossil Find May Document Largest Snake

Boing Boing tv's UK-based music correspondent Russell Porter speaks with Ben Lamdin, founder of the nine-piece, alt-jazz ensemble Nostalgia 77 Octet (MySpace). Here's how one reviewer described their music:

Imagine Breakstra hanging with Cinematic Orchestra, or DJ Shadow teaming up with Elvin Jones and you're close to the sound of Nostalgia 77. A dark and stormy clash of breaks n' beats, moody bass lines, and cosmic jazz. Also includes the heavyweight cover of The White Stripes' "7 Nation Army". Hard to resist whether you're a hip-hop head, music lover, or jazz freak. For fans of Bonobo, Quantic, Cinematic Orchestra, Radio Citizen, Portishead, Polar Bear, Poets Of Rhythm, and Sleepwalker.

Link to Boing Boing tv blog post with instructions on how to subscribe to our daily video podcast. Direct MP4 Link here.

Seen above are magnetic structures on the surface of the sun, imaged by the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope, operated by the Institute for Solar Physics. This photo is one of a series of, er, hot photos of the sun recently posted to the always amazing Big Picture blog. The Sun at The Big Picture (Thanks, Mark Dery!)

BB pals Kirsten Anderson and Kenny Montana visited the Amsterdam studio of incredible painter Chris Berens. They made a short video of the visit as a teaser for Anderson's profile of Berens in the next issue of Hi-Fructose magazine. This was Anderson and Montana's first ever experiment with video. In fact, they didn't even own a camcorder until a week before they left for the Netherlands. I'm mightily impressed. Hi-Fructose Video: Studio visit with Chris Berens Pt. 1

Roll your own trick or treat masks with John McCain, Sarah Palin, and other scary political figures. "Rotten Monsters," From comics archivist Ethan Persoff.

At least, according to some wacked out wingnut flyer left on the dashboard of artist Laurenn McCubbin, while her car was parked at a university campus. (Via Warren Ellis)

Mister Jalopy, the celebrated "founder of the Maker Art movement" is to be featured in a college gallery show in Los Angeles. A reception for the exhibit will be held from 1 to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 1 at the College of the Canyons Art Gallery.

Painter Paul Gauguin once said, “Art is either plagiarism or revolution,” but the work of local artist Mister Jalopy defies that logic by appropriating discarded consumer products and creating something spectacularly new.

The College of the Canyons Art Gallery will display some of Jalopy’s work in the exhibit “Mister Jalopy and the Maker Philosophy” from Nov. 1 to Nov. 18, 2008.

Among the whimsical pieces on display will be “The World’s Biggest iPod,” an Apple iPod wired to a classic console stereo system, and a three-wheeled bicycle that operates a home-built movie projector.

“Mister Jalopy takes the best of earlier and contemporary technologies and shows us that they can work together to create new approaches to everyday challenges,” said Larry Hurst, gallery director at the college. “He directly encourages manufacturers to create products that consumers can understand and repair themselves. Although he says he is not an artist, the objects or 'gizmos' that he has created are certainly art.”

Mister Jalopy art exhibition

I've just acquired the single most beautiful book I've ever owned.

It's called ABC3D, and it is an unbelievably witty and well-made pop-up ABC book, produced by Marion Bataille. It's one of those books that could only be a book -- there's no way this could be an ebook or a movie (though the little video above gives you an idea of the thing, it's a poor substitute) or an audiobook or whatever. This is the apotheosis of book, something you have to put between covers to really, really appreciate.

You can see the transitions in the video above. I'm especially fond of the sheet of tracing paper that turn O and P into Q and R; of the tension-bridge U, the mirror page that turns a V into a W, and the hypnotic S.

At $20, this is a serious steal. I don't care if you've got a baby or not -- if you love books as artifacts, you will love this book. Link

Banjo player Eddie Adcock recently had brain surgery where surgeons installed deep brain stimulator electrodes to control a tremor in his right hand. Patients are sometimes kept awake during brain surgery to interact with the surgeon and help guide the procedure. In Adcock's case, he played the banjo as the surgeon worked. From Eddie and Martha Adcock's site:

Now you can truly call Eddie Adcock the Bionic Banjo Player --and don't forget Gearhead Guitarist-- as he recovers from some remarkable brain surgeries to control a right-hand tremor.

The three-part surgery, termed Deep Brain Stimulation, involved implantation of electrodes into the brain as well as insertion of a palm-sized battery-powered generator within the chest wall, plus lead wires to connect the two. The technologically-advanced procedure was performed in multiple stages over the month of August in Nashville, Tennessee, at Vanderbilt Medical Center, a teaching and research hospital which is a world leader in neurological studies and surgeries.

Those neurosurgeons were eager to operate on Eddie, with his life-long high level of musical accomplishment and the unique requirements related to his fine motor skills. During the brain-implantation stage of the surgery, he was kept conscious in order to be able to play his Deering GoodTime banjo and assist the team of surgeons in directing the fine-tuning of their placement of electrodes in the brain -- an operating-room 'first'.

According to Eddie, "I came up in music the hard way and learned to be a trouper fast. Some of those early days were pretty rough, and I've been stomped, cut and kicked; but I never went through hell like this -- it was the most painful thing I've ever endured. And it was risky. But I did it for a reason: I'm looking forward to being able to play music the way I did years ago prior to getting this tremor. It means that much to me. I'm far from being done!"

Brain surgery and the banjo player (Thanks, Sean Ness!)

(Image: Jan Cobb)

Meet our new guest blogger, John Hodgman. Here is a brief introduction:

Before he went on television, John Hodgman was a simple writer, expert, and Former Professional Literary Agent living in New York City. In this capacity, he has served as the Humor Editor for the New York Times Magazine, Occasional Public Radio Personality for This American Life, Advice Columnist for McSweeney’s, and a Freelance Journalist specializing in Food, Non-Wine Alcohol, Battlestar Galactica, and most other subjects. This was enough of a career for any human. But then he wrote a book of COMPLETE WORLD KNOWLEDGE entitled Areas of My Expertise and was asked to appear on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, where he continues to provide commentary as the show’s Resident Expert. Now, at 37, he has unexpectedly become a Famous Minor Television Personality, appearing as the “PC” in a series of television ads for Apple brand computers, and accepting guest roles as “the person wearing glasses” in a variety of films and TV shows, including Battlestar Galactica, a show he once wrote about as a journalist. From time to time, he is asked to describe his professional life, and in particular, the effect of this dramatic and surprising change of fortune, and typically, he finds he cannot do it.

His new book, More Information Than You Require, just came out today.