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Mind Blowing Movies: Blade Runner (1982), by Gareth Branwyn

Gareth Branwyn — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 00:00:06 +0000

This week, Boing Boing is presenting a series of essays about movies that have had a profound effect on our invited essayists. See all the essays in the Mind Blowing Movies series here. -- Mark

Like Tears in the Rain, by Gareth Branwyn

[Video Link] In 1982, my wife and I had just moved from a rural commune in Virginia to Washington, DC. We moved to the city so that she could pursue her music career (among other reasons). We were still country mice, easily awoken in the morning by street traffic, bothered by the air quality, and longing for the open skies of the country -- where, at night, you could see the stardust of the Milky Way clear as day.

Every year my wife would go to Nantucket to perform at a restaurant called The Brotherhood of Thieves -- a place that wouldn't look at all out of place in Treasure Island. It was dark, brick-walled, candle and lantern-lit, with big oak-slab tables and wooden ass-numbing chairs. In 1982, she was performing a duo act with well-known New England folkie Linda Worster, with whom she frequently played on the island.

Seeing them perform every night was a joy, but some nights I'd want to drift onto the streets of Nantucket, get swept up into the tide of pink and Nantucket-red golf clothes and flouncy summer dresses, and see where the night might wash me up.

On this night, a somewhat cold and cloudy one, I ended up under the marquee of Nantucket's Dreamland Theater, a giant, creaking, wooden ship of a building that smelled of mold, popcorn grease, and sunscreen.

Blade Runner, it read. I knew nothing about the film, but it was sci-fi and had Harrison Ford in it, so I figured it'd at least be the perfect way to kill a couple of hours before the ladies' last set. Little did I know that I was stepping into a portal and would emerge a different person, on a different life trajectory than the person who was stumbling down the shabby carpet in the dark, looking for a seat.

I can't really say what made such a fundamental impact on me. The dark noir mood of the film, certainly, and the questions it raises about the nature of life, memory, what constitutes humanity, and whether "androids dream of electric sheep..." What I didn't know I was looking at was a cyberpunk aesthetic that I would soon become completely immersed in, through the work of William Gibson, John Shirley, and others -- dystopian worlds, fifteen minutes into the future, where mega-corporations run the show, where personal and planetary technologies permeate society, and where the street finds its own uses for things.

I found the brutality of the film, the violence of the film's rogue replicants towards humans, and their "retirement" at the hands of police special agent Rick Deckard (Ford) shocking to my country hippie sensibilities. But all of those shocks only made the final scene of replicant Roy Batty's (perfectly cast in Rutger Hauer) "natural" death all the more effective and moving. At the time, I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and ate up Hauer's (allegedly ad libbed) Tannhaeuser Gate/tears in the rain soliloquy.

It was in that moment that the mood of the film throughly soaked into me. I felt as though I were in it. It ended and I unceremoniously swam back out into the boisterous, drunken nightlife of downtown Nantucket, which didn't feel at all like Nantucket anymore. Fittingly, it had started to drizzle and a fog had crept up Broad Street from Straight Wharf -- Blade Runner's perpetual rain had descended upon Nantucket.

I made my way back to The Brotherhood. I stood outside the window right next to where Pammy and Linda performed and peered in. I don't know what song it was, but they were in the middle of some energetic, smilie-faced, folk number. As I stood in the chilly rain, now getting seriously wet, Pam sensed I was there and turned to me as she sang. Her face dropped as she saw the faraway look on mine. I faked a smile back. She smiled, satisfied, and turned back into the music. I was a universe away. I was peering into that antique-glass window from the future.

I didn't go into the restaurant that night, one of the rare occasions I didn't at least catch one set. I went upstairs to the "Ent Room" (Entertainer's Room) where we stayed and I cried. I cried a lot. Again, I'm not really sure why. It is one of my few "molting moments" (as Cocteau called them) where I can't tell you what gears got turned, what wires in my nervous system got spliced. But I had changed, and I cried for the loss of something. Humanity, perhaps. I knew, without knowing it, that post-humanity had just dawned on me. Long live the new flesh. I would quickly travel from this moment into cyberpunk sci-fi, industrial/electronic music, bOING bOING, Mondo 2000, Beyond Cyberpunk!, and Wired. I cried for the death of the country hippie. And like Batty, in that moment, I could feel the full weight of my life, the amazing adventures I'd already been on, full of "things you people wouldn't believe," and somehow, sense wondrous adventures to come, And like Batty, I was sad to think that all of this, all of this accumulation of experience and knowledge, all of my memories, would vanish when I died.

Pammy is gone, eight years now, by her own hand, and I think of that "scene" from our life together frequently, that frozen moment at the window. It has become a scene in Blade Runner itself. I can't think of one without the other. I hold these and other memories in a precious kind of stasis 'cause I know that "all those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain."

RAW Week: Mindfucking Since 1976, by Gareth Branwyn

Gareth Branwyn — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 21:23:00 +0000

Above: Gareth's original copies of The Illuminatus Trilogy.

“It's not true unless it makes you laugh, but you don't understand it until it makes you weep.” -- Illuminatus!

I first discovered Robert Anton Wilson when I was 18 years old. I'd just moved to a commune in the tobacco fields of central Virginia and was working for the magazine that the community published. Wilson and Bob Shea's Illuminatus! trilogy had just been published and I sent off for a review copy on the magazine's letterhead. I was shocked when Dell actually sent me the books. I had no idea what Illuminatus! was; I thought I was getting some free trash sci-fi to kill time down on the farm.

The first few chapters in and I knew I wasn't reading sci-fi, not any kind I recognized, anyway. Reading the first book, The Eye in the Pyramid, then the second, The Golden Apple, and then the third, Leviathan, was like going on an extended acid trip, complete with that phasing delirium of humor and the absurd, flashes of diamond clarity and numerous a-ha moments, awkward sexual arousal, plenty of cartoonery, fear, paranoia, and maybe a little out-and-out terror. (It's no coincidence these books are divided up into ten “Trips.”) There is so much to Illuminatus!, an almost fractal density, that you have to unhinge your mind (like a serpent would its jaw) to fit it all in. I read the trilogy, and then read it again. (When my late-wife and I hooked up, we read them out loud to each other, and after Bob died, I read them for a fourth time.)

There are few works of art or pieces of media that have altered my nervous system to the extent that Illuminatus! has. In 1976, I was this awkward, alienated Wiccan teen, a restless seeker. But I was also a science and space nerd. I could never reconcile these two and constantly switched between them, rejecting one for the other, at least for a time. But here was a world where these points of view were not mutually exclusive, a playfully plastic world where open curiosity, creativity, absurdity, and skepticism leavened all explorations, whether religious/mystical/artistic or scientific. It was Robert Anton Wilson who turned me onto the concept of “hilaritas” (what he described as being “profoundly good natured”). These books (and all of RAW's oeuvre) are steeped in that spirit.

Illuminatus!, and all of the Robert Anton Wilson books that I read after that (which is all of them), have formed an amazingly steady through-line in my life. I've gone through many intense changes since that 18 year old kid scammed free reading material, and my belief systems (or “BS” as RAW called them) have oscillated wildly, but most of my takeaways from Wilson have remained. His basic approach of being “open to anything, skeptical of everything” is how I've tried to live my life. This allowed me to finally embrace both parts of myself, the part that wanted to be open to magick and spirit and the part of me that needs extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims.

In recent past, I'd somewhat fallen out of touch with RAW's unique brand of “guerrilla ontology” until a few years before he died. Some friends were on their honeymoon, traveling through the deserts of Utah. They found the 5-volume set of audio interviews that Bob had done called Robert Anton Wilson Explains Everything: Or Old Bob Exposes His Ignorance, in the bargain bin of a truck stop. They aren't particularly into this sort of thing, but more based on my interest, they bought the set. They listened to it on their honeymoon and enjoyed it so much, they bought me a copy. I now listen to it regularly and can't recommend it highly enough.

At one point in Robert Anton Wilson Explains Everything, the interviewer asks Bob why he's so into conspiracy theories. He'd spent the better part of his life studying them, writing about them, but he doesn't seem to actually believe any of them. So, why the intense interest? Bob thinks about it for a moment and replies: “It keeps the mind supple.”

Thank you, Mr. Wilson, for pulling an uptight, overthinking teen out of his constrictive reality tunnels and for a lifetime of “keeping the mind supple.”

Bonus Bob!: There are many threads and themes shot through Illuminatus!: Puzzles, parodies, bad puns, conspiracy theories, synchronicities, Burroughsian cut-ups, libertarian politics, occultism, sex, drugs, and rock n' roll. One of these themes is pranking, part of what Wilson and Shea dubbed “Operation Mindfuck” (or OM); what they describe as the only serious conspiracy in the book (of which the book is the principle manifestation). OM is the art of confusing consensus reality with plenty of pranks, misinformation, and mindfucks. In the appendices, a rubber stamp is described that reads “See Mental Health Records.” On any bills, junk, or other mail that one of the Discordian characters didn't like, he'd use this stamp on the envelope and return to sender. After reading about this, I had a stamp made up that read: “This is Not Art” (a statement from the Fluxus movement). For years, I stamped this on tax returns and business envelopes, on the backs of endorsed checks, on much of my daily correspondence. I loved imagining what the various worker bees who processed my paperwork made of this puzzling statement.

So, give the world's sad sonambulism a wakeup call. Put some OM (whether “trivial or colossal”) in your day. Bob would have wanted it that way.

Fnord

Signing Off

Gareth Branwyn — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:41:40 +0000

Well that, as they say, is that. It's time for me to clear out my desk, return the keys to the executive washroom, and bounce. It's been a profound pleasure hanging out here for the last two and half weeks. It was so much fun to write about things other than technology for a change. But that seems to be my calling -- to write about tech that sucks less and people doin' it for themselves -- so back into the datamines I march. Speaking of which, I just finished guest editing the Lost Knowledge (aka Steampunk) theme for MAKE Volume 17. Content includes an amazing Whimshurst Influence Machine project by Jake von Slatt, how to build a tea cup Sterling engine, and how to create your own Wunderkammer (Cabinet of Wonders). I also have a piece on William Blake and his invented method of relief-etching. The issue hits newsstands March 10th. A million thanks to Mark, David, Xeni, Cory, and Joel for this outstanding opportunity. I owe you all indecent favors. Here are all of my posting, shamelessly reiterated, for those who may have missed some (and so I have one place to link to):

UPDATE: People have been asking me about the robo-portrait of me in this post. It was done by Ben Rollman. Info about my "sitting" here. A video of it is here. He'll do one of you for $15.

The Musical Illusionist, Now Appearing at the Hotel St. George

Gareth Branwyn — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:08:14 +0000

Like McSweeny's, Hotel St. George is a painfully hip lit website and print publisher that satisfyingly delivers on its pretensions. Their website is stunning, one of the more impressively-designed sites I've seen. And their print publishing efforts are truly unique, infused with wonder and playful, brainy ideas for presenting and telling stories. I'm currently reading writer and filmmaker Alex Rose's The Musical Illusionist and Other Tales ($14.95). It's one of the most imaginative and unconventional collections I've read in years. It's really fired up my imagination. Here's the back cover copy which, while typically breathless, accurately describes the whimsy and weirdness contained within.

Disappearing manuscripts. Profane numbers. Extinct bacteria. Cities without shadows. A language spoken entirely in rhythms. A man deaf solely to the waltzes of Chopin. These are among the many anomalies to be found in the Library of Tangents, a vast underground archive whose beguiling exhibitions are detailed by Alex Rose in his exquisite debut collection, The Musical Illusionist. A masterful fusion of science-historic precision and magical-realistic caprice, this Pandora's Box of curious tales stands in the tradition of Borges, Calvino and Pavic, blending the playfulness and mythic wonder of folk tales with the complexity and richness of modern thought. Together, these interlaced parables chart an inebriating realm of possibility, the secret passageways that lie between words and meanings, neurons and thoughts, space and time, fact and fiction, sound and music–and in doing so, activate that rare, dreaming rapture one felt as a child, entranced.

The book is as beautiful as it is eccentric, with real scientific illustrations, religious art, maps, and cryptographic manuscripts helping to sell the bait and switch of the "truth" where each story begins with the farcical world where each story ends up. The latest offering from Hotel St. George is Correspondences ($50, incl. shipping), by Ben Greenman, a limited-edition series of letterpressed stories on thick accordion-fold paper tucked inside of pockets, inside of a slip case. Three two-sided accordions hold six stories. A seventh story is contained on the packaging and there's also an included post card that you can return with your idea for finishing the seventh story. Worthy submissions are being posted on the HSG website. This is a beautiful piece of book art that will especially appeal to collectors of new letterpress work.

Random Acts of Poetic Bookmarking

Gareth Branwyn — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:20:07 +0000

I love sites like Bookcrossing (where books are left out in public and their journeys, from reader to reader, are tracked vis the web) and Where is George? (when stamped dollar bills are tracked in a similar way), so I was tickled to have someone send me info about NamelessleTTer, a collaborative art bookmarking project, where bookmarks are made and stashed inside of library books, books in stores, etc.

The goal is to provoke curiosity (to encourage people to visit libraries and bookstores in hopes of discovering one of these bookmarks), to bring a new and exciting aspect to book reading in a world that is becoming increasingly digital, and to interact with other people.

The bookmarks usually offer some commentary or comic relief on the title in which they're placed. Here are a few bookmarks from the site and the books in which they're found: Left in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Left in Where Is God When It Hurts?

Left in: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Moving Paintings From Inside

Gareth Branwyn — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 09:11:59 +0000

In 1993, I was honored to be asked by my friend, artist and musician John Bergin, to write the precis for his graphic novel From Inside. It was an exciting time. Kevin Eastman, fat with cash from the meteoric success of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, created the Tundra imprint and published such ground-breaking work as Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz's Big Numbers, Moore and Eddie Campbell's From Hell, Stephen R. Bissette's Taboo, and Dave McKean's Cages. Bergin and his friend James O'Barr brought over The Crow, Kerosene, and the Bone Saw collection. And then there was From Inside. In the introduction, I wrote:

John Bergin's work exists in a world of perpetual darkness and droning ambiance. His artistry lies not so much in his ability to maintain this consistent dark vision (which he does with a vengeance), but in his ability to build a rich and complex world inside such a singular dimension. He has the ability to dance right on the edge of suffocating nihilism, while providing just enough oxygen to sustain life.The beauty of his art uplifts you, while its devastating message crushes you to dust.

From Inside has always been a film, even when it was a comic book. When I first got the galleys and began thumbing through it, I saw storyboards, I saw frames and camera angles, I saw sweeps and transitions. The experience on the page was extremely cinematic. So it makes sense that John would want to go the other way and make a film that feels like reading a comic book in motion. And no, we're not talking about a comic book being adapted to the big screen as a full-blown animation. John worked with the original art from the book and did the ol' Ken Burns Effect on the panels, adding some animation elements, and 3D models and set pieces. The result feels like a mash-up between a static comic book, a pop-up book, and full-blown 3D animation. Its "bookness" is more intact than other comics made into films. The main characters of From Inside are Cee, a young pregnant woman, and a seemingly endless steam train. John has always had a "thing" for trains and that adoration comes through in the immense detail of the 3D models and animation, the texture maps, the sounds, and smoke effects. It's a giant beast of a machine (literally in some scenes). It's mind-boggling to consider that John did nearly all of this work himself (the credits for the over-one-hour film are ridiculously short) on a Apple G5 Dual 2.7 running Maya, Photoshop, and AfterEffects. Some shots took weeks to render. One took over a month. John ended up spending 2-1/2 years of his life on this effort. The story of From Inside opens with the pregnant Cee on the train as it traverses a post-apocalyptic landscape. As we fall into the sonorous rhythms of the train, we hear the gentle voice of Cee:

I have tried and tried to remember how this wasteland came to be. I don't remember where I got on this train and I don't know where it's going. What difference does it make? When the end of the world has come, it's too late to wonder why.

From there, the train slows and stops at one whistle stop of horror and devastation after another. Cee's experiences on and around the train bleed into the dreams and nightmares she's having in the little womb-like compartment she's been given by the engineers. Through her narration, we learn of life on this helltrain and are made privy to her most intimate fears, her grieving over the loss of her husband, and her total apprehension over bringing a child into this world. And it's that last bit that From Inside is really about. It's a nightmare meditation on fears of being pregnant, questioning the sanity of bringing a child into an insane world, and the generalized, frequently irrational, fears young pregnant couples have over the devastating impact a newborn will bring down upon their lives. However it will work out in the end, it will surely be catastrophic to your pre-child life. And the certainty of that can be terrifying. If you're looking for happy endings here, look out. (John jokingly calls it "the most depressing film ever made.") Like the novel, John rations use of the oxygen throughout. When the film ended, it was all I could do to keep my head out of my oven. But in the end, I was more satisfied than bummed -- I'd had the unique opportunity to climb inside of a book, a world, that has intrigued me since the day I was introduced to it. You can watch a preview of From Inside on the movie's website and read the blog John has kept throughout the project. The film is currently traveling the animation and film festival circuit, and not surprisingly, scooping up a number of awards. See the News section of his site for the screenings schedule.

"Mysteries" Magical Tour

Gareth Branwyn — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:42:26 +0000

Manly Palmer Hall has been called the America Madame Blavatsky, which probably isn't far from the truth. Like the controversial Russian-born founder of Theosophy, Hall seemed dedicated to quantity over quality in his writing (authoring more than 50 books on esoterica and self-help), and like Helena, the troubling smell of snake oil swirled in his rotund wake. Manly P Hall is one of the people principally responsible for the birth of the New Age religious movement in the United States, first in LA, starting in the '20s, and then beyond, through his writings and endless lecturing. While some of his lesser works, like Questions Answered on the Problems of Life by Manly P Hall, Philosopher, may have proven less than influential, his occult encyclopedia The Secret Teachings of All Ages was a bedrock influence on New Age thought then, and to some extent, remains so today (Secret Teachings still sells well, as is now in its 16th edition). LA Times staff writer Louis Sahagun's biography, Master of the Mysteries: The Life of Manly Palmer Hall (Process Media) is an engrossing look inside, not only the life of this self-taught philosopher and spiritual teacher, but the growth of the often bizarre alternative religious movements that were busting out all over Southern California in the first half of the 20th century. This is Hollywood Babylon in Egyptian ankhs and yoga pants. Actors, artists, musicians, politicians, and scientists of the time flocked to hear Hall lecture on the mysteries of East, self-help psychology, and secret societies. Allegedly blessed with photographic memory, Hall was capable of absorbing huge amounts of information and then reformatting it into his own books, frequently under suspicions of plagiarism and playing fast and loose with facts and legitimate sources (another dubious distinction he shared with Blavatsky). Through Sahagun's engaging text and lots of photos and bits of ephemera (lecture ticket stubs, news clippings, plans for Mayan temples in downtown Hollywood, hand-written death threats), we're taken on an amazing LSDisney trip through the most surreal spiritual theme park imaginable. We get lots of juicy gossip along the way about the Hollywood of the times, a creative-community as hungry as it will ever be for deeper levels of meaning, rejuvenation, and fulfillment. As if to cap off this bizarre tale with a scene cut straight from gas-lit celluloid, Hall died under gruesome and mystery circumstances. Foul play was suspected when he was found dead on top of an unslept-in bed with traces of dirt around his face and thousands of black ants streaming from his nose, mouth, and ears. The LA Coroner's Office subsequently botched the autopsy, the investigation was poorly handled, and the case was never solved. Even when I was a teen seeker and into a lot of fluffy New Age beliefs and practices, I got a bad odor from a lot of Manly P. Hall's work and tended to steer clear of it. (Color me an unimaginative skeptic, but I found the whole Mayan temple in downtown Hollywood to be a tad on the flamboyant side.) So, I went into this book without a lot of respect for its subject. I can't say that opinion was significantly changed, but I do think I understand "Dr" Hall a lot better now. This was obviously an extraordinarily smart man who fervently believed in what he was talking about. You gotta give the guy props for passion. He remains the most prolific writer of mysticism and the occult and he continued lecturing until his likely-murder at 89. What I found most interesting in this story was the parallels between Hall and another Southern California occult resident of the time, Jack Parsons (covered in another recommended Feral House book Sex and Rockets -- Process is an imprint of Feral House). Parsons was also self-educated, began his occult career at an early age, had matinee-idol good looks and an impressive ability to learn things quickly, hobnobbed with bohemian Hollywood, saw himself as birthing a new religion, and died under mysterious circumstances (though Parsons' death was likely an accident). They also each had their own court "confidence men," Hall, the mysterious colonic-loving "Dr. Fritz" (suspected in Hall's death), and Parsons, the reality-barnstorming L. Ron Hubbard. Ultimately, the most fascinating character in Master of the Mysteries is the City of Angels herself. Through the tale of one of her more extraordinary residents, we can almost feel a new city emerging, one with an identity like no other. And with her naive sense of wonder and an openness to new ideas, new beliefs, and novel experiences comes a lot of seriously weird shit. Previously: L.A.’s occult roots: Master of the Mysteries

Shuffle Deep the Gathering Gloom

Gareth Branwyn — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 10:04:42 +0000

For all of my writing about role-playing and tabletop wargaming (I used to host a sci-fi tabletop modeling site), I've actually not spent that much time heavy-duty gaming, at least not since I was a teen/20-something. Most of my gaming time in adulthood, and definitely my most enjoyable time, has been playing various light-duty card games. Since a lot of my friends are not as deeply geeky as I am, it's often hard to get them to sit still long enough to learn rules for an RPG or tabletop game, and by the time they've created a character or an army, the little lightweights are tired (many of them have these bizarre constructs I don't understand called "day jobs") and they need to head home. Card games usually have easier rules, quicker play times, and tend to be more social/less serious (proverbial beer and pretzel games). I've never played a game of Steve Jackson's Chez Geek without everyone involved, regardless of how into such games they are, not coming away having had a ball. I can't recommend that game, and its spin-offs (Chez Goth, Chez Guevara -- for all your leftie-commie friends, etc), highly enough. And for the anarcho-libertarians in the chez, there's always Illuminati. It's more "medium-duty" than Chez Geek, but still suitable for general play. I've been playing that game since it was one of the infamous "pocket box" games (go Car Wars!). My most recent attempt at feeding my friends a gateway drug to deeper gaming nerdom is Keith Baker's Gloom, from Atlas Games. I tend to be attracted to games with gimmicks and this has a great one. The cards are printed on clear plastic. As you play your hand, and cover the cards you've laid down with further draws, the cards change values/capabilities, depending on which attributes show through the card stacks. The other thing that attracted me to the game is the objective. As you play, you try to increase the happiness of the other players' characters, while increase the miserable things that happen to yours (you choose from four families of dysfunctional freaks in the core game). You want to end up with the gloomiest family in the end. Gloom good, happy bad. (Does Morrissey know about this?) The artwork on the cards is really lovely, evocative of Gorey, Addams, and Lemony Snicket. The game is designed for 2-4 players and the rules are fairly simple, so even older kids can play. Unfortunately, since I bought it over Christmas, I haven't been able to cajole anybody into playing it with me yet. Pocket-Protector Barbie sez: "Being a geek is HARD."

Fractally-delicious Papercraft

Gareth Branwyn — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 19:03:16 +0000

I had the pleasure of meeting Jen Stark, and seeing her work, at the wonderful Civilian Art Projects in DC last year. Her paper-based sculptures are mind-bogglingly meticulous (lots of precise snips and X-Acto slices of construction paper), and lyrical as all get-out; bursts of unwinding cellulose sunshine. Above is an Art Street profile of Jen. Previous post on Boing Boing

Last Gasp on My Doorstep

Gareth Branwyn — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 19:11:45 +0000

There are a lot of things that can suck about being a freelance writer: long, solitary hours, throwing pitches at magazines like so much spaghetti against a wall (with nothing sticking), low pay, no benefits, having to discipline yourself to stay in the saddle, while sunshine, or a nap, or The Daily Show strum their sexy siren songs. One thing that does not suck is getting lots of free shit: books, CDs, movies, t-shirts, free trips to exotic locales (if you're the type that succumbs to the latter, somewhat questionable, job perk). When I knew I was going to be doing this-here Boing Boing Guest Blogging gig, I wrote off for some books I might want to review. I saw in my latest issue of Hi-Fructose that there was a new Chris Mars book, called Tolerance. And there was that new Attaboy postcards collection. Oh, and there was also that last Ron English book. I sent an email off to the Last Gasp PR guy and asked if I could see review copies of these. He wrote back and said sure and he'd send some other titles I might be interested in as well. A week or so later, a box showed up on my front porch which was so heavy, I could barely muscle it into the house. I can't tell you how excited I was as I recklessly knived into it. It was crammed tight with thick, nutritious tree meat. Besides the books I'd asked for, there was a collection of legendary montage artist Winston Smith's work, called All Riot on the Western Front, the horror-comedy manga of Tokyo Zombie, a book from the godfather of low-brow Robert Williams, called Through Prehensile Eyes, an oversized book of unsettling kiddie-pink perversion from Gary Baseman, called Dying of Thirst (taken from his "I Melt in Your Presence" show), Limited Edition: The Art and Design of GAMA-GO (the only place you'll find all of GAMA-GO's limited-release designs), a lovely, hefty tome of Basil Wolverton's lifework, called The Original Art of Basil Wolverton, the list goes on. This motherload of fringe-art awesomeness arrived just days before Christmas. It was like my very own Christmas Story, except my winning prize sucked a lot less than a mannequin leg lamp. I ended up getting some nice gifts for the holidays, but I couldn't help coming back to that box, both literally and figuratively, as the real Yuletide score. So, a million thanks to Last Gasp. I cherish these amazing books that you sent, but I may have to boil and eat some of them if times get any tougher. Interestingly enough, with all of these books to ogle and sniff, it was the two I asked for in the first place, Chris Mars' Tolerance and Ron English's Abject Expressionism, that got the biggest rise out of me, and my art-student son, Blake. Chris' work is undeniably strident in its political message, but the rawness of the anger, the clarity of the shouting, is so crystalline-sharp, and its all rendered with such technical virtuosity. This guy is definitely the George Grosz of the 21st century. I love the way all of his figures look almost like they've been flayed alive to reveal their naked truth beneath. Like Grosz, he manages to render macabre beauty in the most staggering depictions of ugliness and terror. My son and I reverently paged through Ron English's book, laughing, gasping, and generally marveling at the perverse genius behind it all. It reminded me of being high and watching TV with the sound off, the rank idiocy of "the Spew" so clearly revealed. English Cuisinarts cultural icons, commercial trash, and sacred cows (literal cows, even) into such an intoxicating slurry, I literally felt like my consciousness had been altered by the time we were through. Ron English shreds icons and brand identities like a guitar hero. He's the Jimi Hendrix of culture jamming.

Show Us Your Saints

Gareth Branwyn — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 12:28:35 +0000

I was raised Catholic (thanks, I'm better now). I also spent my teen years studying meditation, yoga, and eastern religions. So maybe through this upbringing, I tend to think in terms of teachers, gurus, saints, heroes, muses, angels, and daemons -- no longer in a theological sense, but I still find use for these concepts, at least in a poetic, symbolic sense. When I was kid, I loved all of the trappings of the saints: the icons, the medallions, the miracle stories, the statues, relics, the veneration. I'm a pagan at heart, and when you think about it, this is nothing more than high paganism, ceremonial magick. I loved the idea that there are different saints that help, guide, and protect you under different circumstances. And I loved that they represent different virtues and qualities you could meditate on and try to emulate, as you lit candles and prayed to icons. Recently, I've come to the realization that I still engage in something of this practice. I have various "teachers" in my life -- writers, philosophers, artists, and scientists -- whose work holds a powerful influence over me. They've become hugely symbolic in my life and have come to represent different aspects of myself that I wish to improve and magnify. I keep them close to me, mainly in collections of books in my library that I browse and "meditate" on whenever I am in need of a little inspiration. Below is my list of "saints." Do you have such a pantheon? These are more than your heroes. These are the people that you think have taught you the most, that you near-venerate in your love and respect for them, and whom you feel have helped form the bedrock of your beliefs and worldview. My "Saints" (and what they represent to me) William Blake - I venerate this guy above all others. He's the closest thing I have to a guru. His entire mission in life was to use his art and ideas to wake us all up from the somnambulism he believed the State, organized religion, even our own sensoria, were cursed to induce in us. I use him as my constant reminder to stay awake and creative, keep my imagination expansive, and to "fight the power." Gregory Bateson - A father of cybernetics. Bateson was something of a saint to the Whole Earth folks and Whole Earth was a huge influence on me. Bateson was the one who introduced me to Blake. Bateson reminds me to look at relationships over objects and for patterns that connect. And to tie all of my ideas and beliefs with slipknots. Robert Anton Wilson - In the CD interview series with Bob Wilson, Robert Anton Wilson Explains Everything, the interviewer states that RAW had spent a career collecting, trading in, and writing about conspiracy theories, the paranormal, and the like, but he doesn't appear to buy into much of it. So why does he spend so much time exploring such things? "It keeps my mind supple" is Wilson's reply. That elevates him to sainthood in my pantheon. Wilson also embodied the virtue of hilaritas to me. And he remind me to embrace the absurd. Wilson was also "open to anything, but skeptical of everything." Bucky Fuller - Fuller's mission in life was to see how much a single "human intelligence unit" could create, learn, and experience -- what one person could do to make the world a better place -- in a lifetime. Amazingly, he embarked on that mission, on the other side of an aborted suicide attempt, in his mid-30s. Everything we know about Buckminster Fuller happened after that. I also venerate Bucky's optimism, faith in human ingenuity, and in the transformative powers of science and technology. Aleister Crowley - I hate "The Beast" as much as I love him. He represents my faith in the powers of thelema (will) and agape (love) and the notion of syncretism. And I try to live by his motto "The method of science, the aim of religion." Say what you want against him (and there's plenty to say), but his influence on modern, at least bohemian, culture and on alternative religions has been huge. He was such a significant influence on me in my youth it would be disingenuous to not include him. And every list of apostles needs a Judas. (Sadly, there are no women on my list. I racked my brain. I could come up with women I greatly admire, lots of artists and musicians, but no one who's risen to the level I'm thinking about here.) So, who are YOUR saints? What lessons, virtues, ideas, or qualities do they represent for you?

Music from the Hearts of 'Space

Gareth Branwyn — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 20:17:05 +0000

[HTRK photo by Emma Pop] Ed Note: Boingboing's current guest blogger Gareth Branwyn writes on technology, pop and fringe culture. He is currently a Contributing Editor at Maker Media. Recent projects have included co-creating The Maker's Notebook and editing The Best of MAKE and The Best of Instructables collections.

I love making serendipitous musical discoveries via MySpace. It's amazing how many unique, talented, unsigned bands there are on the site. Okay, they are somewhat overwhelmed by the Tbits of less-than-unique-and-talented bands, but that makes the accidental discoveries all the happier. Musical taste is clearly and utterly subjective, so YMMV, but here are a few of my recent MySpace finds.

Lunabee & Swan I love how bands categorize themselves on MySpace. Belgium/UK duo Lunabee and Joanna Swan describes their music as "Melodramatic Popular Song/Trip Hop/Electronica" and that's pretty accurate. The two artists, Lunabee the musician, Swan the singer, actually met on MySpace. Swan bumped into Lunabee's page (again with the serendipity) and sent her a message saying she wanted to collaborate. A week later, an album's worth of music showed up in Swan's inbox and Lunabee & Swan were born. Their song "Smoke Rings" blew my wig off the first time I heard it... and the 20th time (I gotta get stronger toupee tape!). It's like Annie Lennox on the lower register, Shirley Bassey in the middle, and Prince wailing away up on top. I have to sit up and listen to any band that lists Poulenc, Ella Fitzgerald, and Tod Browning's Freaks as influences!

ZAZA My pal, Pete Kennedy, of the most-excellent psychedelic folk duo The Kennedys, turned me on to these 21st century shoegazers, another duo, this one from Brooklyn. Pete says they've only done a handful of gigs, but they're already generating a buzz, on both coasts. Echoey, ethereal singing over smeared-out gothy soundscapes. The male singer sounds a little like Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips (never a bad thing in my book). One reviewer described their sound as "like drowning with a smile on your face." Yeah. It's like that.

HTRK My favorite "MySpace band" of the moment is HTRK, pronounced "Hate Rock." This trio of young ones from Melbourne, Australia makes a primitive, minimalist form of noise rock (vocalist Jonnine Standish's percussion instrument is a single maraca and a floor tom). They also do some poppier fare, like "Fascinator," the first song to prick my ear. When I started listening to their MySpace jukebox a few weeks ago, Fascinator had 80,000 listens. It's now shot up to over a quarter million. At least some of those are not me. HTRK just released a three-song MP3 bundle "Ha-Panties," which includes the tracks "Ha," "Panties," and "Fascinator." It's tasty, GBP2.97, and deliciously DRM-free.

Maker's Notebook Hacks

Gareth Branwyn — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:19:54 +0000

I think I have one of the coolest jobs in the world. I get to work for Maker Media, helping to create magazines, books, web media, and events that I truly care about, that excite and inspire me. I just got back from the MAKE offices in Sebastopol, CA, where I was helping to put Volume 17 to bed. It's the "Lost Knowledge" issue, pressurized with plenty of steampunky goodness. It'll hit newsstands on March 10th. Last year, I got to lead the team that created The Maker's Notebook. Every engineer, artist, designer, crafter, or other creative type I know has ideas on what would make the ideal blank notebook. We took a lot of this input and tried to incorporate it into our design. One of the things we wanted to do with The Maker's Notebook was design in hackability. We wanted the book to beg to be customized, extended, repurposed. The cover was designed to look like a cross between a blueprint and an empty storyboard. We created special stickers with which to customize it. We're thrilled by all of the useful, creative, and crazy things users have done with their books. We gave some notebooks to teacher Steve Davee's 4th grade math class to see what they'd do with them. Above is student Aiden's LED cover mod video. Steve has done some crazy-cool hacks of his own, including a binary indexing system, which you can see here. Below are a few other mod projects. More can be found on the Maker's Notebook webpage. This is an impostor! Kent Barnes Maker-ized his pocket Moleskine by covering it with a paper bookcover he made of the Maker's Notebook. I did one of those jowly cartoon triple-takes when I saw this image on Flickr. Matt Mechtley's, of Flashbang Studios, notebook, modded at the workshop at last year's Maker Faire Bay Area. Val Hutchins made a cloth tool caddy that attaches to the cover of her notebook. MAKE Online Editor Marc de Vinck made a snap enclosure for his book.

J & B, Still on the Rox

Gareth Branwyn — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 14:26:02 +0000

Back in the early '90s, at print bOING bOING, we all took a shine to a Bloomington, IN cable-access TV show called "J & B on the Rox," or just "Rox" (in Wired, Mark called Rox "the best TV show in America"). It was pre-Vlog, proto-YouTube, Wayne's World meets Michael Moore's TV Nation (on prodigious amounts of herb and alcohol). These guys were good. They made it look effortless. And they never took themselves, or their show, too seriously. Now, through the reconnective magic of Facebook, I've found my Bartender J again! Turns out, he and B are back to putting out periodic episodes and releasing some cutting-floor specials, like the video seen below. The most recent episode, Fifteen Months of Katrina, is a moving look at B and (wife and Rox regular) Xy returning to their home after the hurricane and trying to make sense in the aftermath. J & B also have a new podcast, called J & B's Nightcap.

Tripping Through Video Vaults

Gareth Branwyn — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 09:29:56 +0000

My friend, DC-area video artist Rob Parrish, posts a weekly video on his site Next to Heaven. Each week, he goes onto Archive.org, sniffs out new raw material, dreams up an idea for a found art video, edits, audio-records, and then on Wednesday, releases a new piece. Some of the resulting videos feel immediate, small, off-the-cuff, others strike much deeper, more resonant chords, and are truly impressive in their impact, given the production timeline. I'm always impressed with Rob's clever use of the found footage. And I love his perverse sense of humor. Given the retro source material, there's a haunting quality to many of these videos, a pervasive sense of loss, faded memories, tragic childhoods, dreams unfulfilled, and dirty secrets unrevealed -- all usually leavened with humor and a healthy helping of the absurd. Above is Episode 41, about a junkie who replaces his love of smack with drug education films narrated by Paul Newman. Other favorites of mine include the special episode The Tapes of My Father, about a son who discovers that his late Public Access TV producer dad recorded his innermost thoughts over found video footage from the PATV archives, and Episode 49, which has a man reminiscing about his macho childhood of sports and trouble-making while the video shows a young boy timidly putting on his mother's make-up.

Seek Ye the Hilaritas!

Gareth Branwyn — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 07:42:35 +0000

I've written about hilaritas elsewhere, but I thought I'd bring it up here for the benefit of Boing Boing readers who may not be familiar with the concept. I was introduced to the term via the work of Robert Anton Wilson. The more common hilarity springs from the same root. Hilaritas was a Roman goddess of rejoicing and good humor. She appeared on Roman coins from from the time of Hadrian until the late 3rd century AD. Hilaritas was a Roman public virtue, something that people were supposed to strive to exhibit and inspire others with. Wilson was keen on this word as he thought it perfectly expressed a rare quality of being that revealed a special kind of person. He defined hilaritas as “profoundly good natured” and made clear that, for him, it was more than just being happy or having a good sense of humor. I've also seen it defined as “being of pleasant spirits.” There's a kind of cosmic it-factor involved. People possessed of hilaritas are people you're drawn to because they have something indefinable that you want, a kind of playful knowing about the world. They seem to be having just a bit more fun on the slip'n slide flow of the Tao than the rest of us. Santa Claus has hilaritas. Bugs Bunny. Hotei. Mark Frauenfelder. And, of course, our dearly-departed Bob Wilson (Eris playfully unrest his soul) embodied this quality. My life has been a quest to surround myself with as much hilaritas as possible. It's ultimately hard to define, but (as they say) like pornography, you know it when you see it.

Linda Hesh's "Bench Project"

Gareth Branwyn — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 18:14:02 +0000

DC-area artist Linda Hesh does a lot of situational art that uses common products and familiar locales to address race, gender, sex, political polarization, and other typically prickly issues. She does this with a great deal of style, wit, and wry humor. Her "White Liberal Products" series is a line of Cafe Press mugs, t-shirts, tote bags, and baby onesies that sport the slogans: "I Like Black People," "I Like Brown People," "I Like Yellow People." Her "Desolation Doorknob" series are paper doorknob hangers with quizzical statements like "I didn't ask for this," "I don't know what to do," and "I tried to forget." She leaves the hangers on residential and commercial doors around town. You can also buy them (along with the White Liberal Products) and join in the culture jam yourself. Linda's most recent project was the For and Against Benches. These were two 6' steel benches, one green that said "FOR," one red that said "AGAINST." She set them up in locations around DC last fall, leading up to the election. Passers-by could sit on the bench of their choosing, then write down the thing they were for or against. As you can imagine, a lot of dominant cultural and political issues were on people's minds, like poverty, hunger, the Iraq war, freedom of speech, and world peace. But there were smaller, and some sillier concerns too, like chocolate, big screen TVs, and camelback crickets (that last one was a "For," BTW). Linda says that most people gave serious thought to what they wrote down and took the gesture seriously. In the end, she got 1000 written opinions and 309 photos of people posing on the benches. You can see an online gallery of the photos and the statements at Linda's website here.

Attention "Paper-based Romantics"

Gareth Branwyn — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:11:16 +0000

[Image from the blog Strikethru] Ed Note: Boingboing's current guest blogger Gareth Branwyn writes on technology, pop and fringe culture. He is currently a Contributing Editor at Maker Media. Recent projects have included co-creating The Maker's Notebook and editing The Best of MAKE and The Best of Instructables collections.

I launched a new weekly column on the Make: Blog today, called Lost Knowledge (also the theme of our next issue, BTW). We're going "in search of the technology of the future in the forgotten ideas of the past (and those slightly off the beaten track)." The first column on the blog is about collecting, refurbing, and using manual typewriters. In the comments, a reader posted a link to this wonderful blog, called Strikethru. Their mission:

This blog heartily approves of typewriters, fountain pens, junk cameras, retrotech, Rhodia, Myndology, Apica, and Moleskine notebooks, woodcase pencils, ephemera, Polaroid, rubber stamps, and fellow paper-based romantics who like the sound of a typewriter bell at the end of a sentence.

Ding! I wrote the URL in my Maker's Notebook, using my Varsity disposable fountain pen.

My Wallet Just Got Raptured

Gareth Branwyn — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:27:07 +0000

Music critic Daniel Stephen Johnson called Braithwaite Wallets "deliciously pretentious," and that pretty much sums them up. I mean, my new, now beloved, Braithwaite is called "Raptured," for Christ's sake! But if you're at all like me, you'll enthusiastically fork over your cash while cringing at their "Wallet Registry," some of the breathless prose on the site, and just generally getting this worked up over wallets. I've had my... er... heavenly Raptured for a few weeks now and I'm over the moon about it. It's actually a coat wallet, almost 7" long. I would rather have had a back pocket-style billfold, but I fell in love with the Raptured's steampunky design, with its laser-etched Art Deco-y flourishes and gold oriental brocade lining. I frequently carried my billfold wallet in my front pants pocket anyway, so I'm doing that exclusively now with this wallet. The Raptured is reasonably flat, so it doesn't create an unsightly bulge in your pants. There are seven, staggered, slots for your credit and ID cards, a place for bills, and one for receipts, etc. The full-grain, vegetable-tanned leather has a really nice old-world look and feel. It's really a beautiful, well-made piece that I'm sure I'll have for a long time. At first, the price of $127 seemed rather steep, but when you think about it, a wallet is one the few accessories a man carries, and you carry it all times. My last wallet was a Pierre Cardin I paid $40 over a decade ago. So $127 for something this handsome, this well designed, and well made -- that I'll likely carry for another ten years -- doesn't seem like that much. And that's the most expensive wallet Braithwaite makes. The other wallets run from $97 - $113. The other model I almost got was the Orpheus (below). It's an actual billfold style and made for guitar players, with a 3-slot guitar pick holder on the outside. They also make a wallet/Moleskine zipper case for $133. I've got my eye on that baby, too. "Deliciously pretentious" and a danger to your existing wallet in more ways than one.

Seanie Blue's Night Light

Gareth Branwyn — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 09:36:58 +0000

My friend, photographer and filmmaker, Seanie Blue traveled north, to Iceland, to blow his mind on the aurora borealis, in hopes that its incomprehensibility might help him forget a love gone south. He captured the most amazing photos and now those photos and interview footage of him talking about the experience have been edited into a Photography Channel (yeah, me neither) documentary. Here's a two-minute teaser. I'm psyched. Can't wait to see the whole thing. Way to go, Seanie!

DIY 33 1/3 Books

Gareth Branwyn — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 11:31:42 +0000

Following up on my post about the 33 1/3 book series, I forgot to mention a discovery I made recently. Using Wikipedia, you can have a sort of low-rent, roll-your-own 33 1/3 experience, at least with a lot of popular recordings. For many albums on Wikipedia, there's not only an entry for the album itself, but one for each (or many) of the tracks on the album. As an experiment, I chose “The Beatles” (aka “The White Album”) and Brian Eno's “Before and After Science.” There's a lengthy entry on The White Album, along with a fairly detailed entry for each track. For “Before and After Science,” there's only a single, brief entry. So, at least for The White Album, I was able to use my method of listening to each track, reading the Wikipedia entry, then listening to the track again. Of course, with Wikipedia, it's hit and miss on the quality and accuracy of the entries, and a lot of the track entries don't delve very deeply into the details of the compositions themselves; they're more anecdotal. On The White Album test, I did discover some interesting stuff, including: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da Arguably one of the worst Beatles songs, Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da was Paul's idea of a reggae tune. John Lennon hated the song, calling it "Paul's granny shit." He left the studio as they struggled with different tempos and styles (not in the Wikipedia entry, but is the rumor that it was Ringo who couldn't understand nor establish a decent reggae beat) only to return a few hours later declaring that he was good and truly fucked up, sitting down at the piano, and banging out the piano intro you hear on the record. Helter Skelter “Helter Skelter “ was written after McCartney read an article in Guitar Player magazine where Pete Townsend said "I Can See for Miles," was the “loudest, rawest, dirtiest” song The Who had ever recorded. “Helter Skelter” was The Beatles' attempt at the same. The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill “This song mocks the actions of a young American named Richard A. Cooke III, known as Rik who was visiting his mother, Nancy Cooke de Herrera, at the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Rishikesh at the same time that the Beatles were staying with the Maharishi. According to his mother, both she and her son maintained friendly relations with all of the Beatles except for Lennon, who by Cooke de Herrera's account was "a genius" but distant and contemptuous of the wealthy American Cooke de Herrera and her clean-cut, college-attending son. According to Nancy's life account, Beyond Gurus, the genesis of the song occurred when she, Rik, and several others, including native guides, set out upon elephants to hunt for a tiger (allegedly presented by their Indian guide as a traditional act). The pack of elephants was attacked by a tiger, which was shot by Rik. Rik was initially proud of his quick reaction and posed for a photograph with his prize. However, Rik's reaction to the slaying was mixed, as he has not hunted since. Nancy claims that all present recognized the necessity of Rik's action, but that John Lennon's reaction was scornful and sarcastic, asking Rik: "But wouldn't you call that slightly life-destructive?" The song was written by Lennon as mocking what he saw as Rik's bravado and unenlightened attitude. “Lennon later told his version of the story in a Playboy interview, stating that: "[Bungalow Bill] was written about a guy in Maharishi's meditation camp who took a short break to go shoot a few poor tigers, and then came back to commune with God. There used to be a character called Jungle Jim, and I combined him with Buffalo Bill. It's sort of a teenage social-comment song and a bit of a joke." Mia Farrow, who was also at the ashram during the period supports Lennon's story in her autobiography; she writes, "Then a self-important, middle-aged American woman arrived, moving a mountain of luggage into the brand-new private bungalow next to Maharishi's along with her son, a bland young man named Bill. People fled this newcomer, and no one was sorry when she left the ashram after a short time to go tiger hunting, unaware that their presence had inspired a new Beatles' song - 'Bungalow Bill.'” Dear Prudence “The song is about actress Mia Farrow's sister, Prudence, who was present when the Beatles visited Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in India. Prudence, focused on meditation, stayed in her room for the majority of their stay. Lennon, who was worried that she was depressed, wrote this song for her, inviting her to "come out to play". While the Beatles left the course, Prudence, Mike Love of the Beach Boys, and others, stayed and became Transcendental Meditation (or TM) teachers. Prudence now teaches elementary school along with her husband, and they both still practice TM and advanced versions of it.”

Oblique Tweets

Gareth Branwyn — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 08:53:06 +0000

I've been a fan of Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's Oblique Strategies cards ever since they showed up in the mid-70s. I've had a computerized version of the deck on every one of my machines since the Hypercard version was released. So, I wasn't surprised when I recently searched and discovered that there's now a Twitter version too, called Oblique_Chirps (twitter.com/Oblique_Chirps). It feeds you a card an hour. I wish there was a way you could select the feed rate. One an hour is too frequent for me and it waters down the impact. And I'm not sure I want to be auto-fed the cards anyway, as opposed to choosing them as desired. I like Far Out Labs' iPhone version (available in the Apps Store). It allows you to select from all five editions of the deck and the card-drawing experience feels closest to the analog deck than any of the electronic versions I've used. Unfortunately, they snoozed on some of the capabilities. The cards get picked in the same sequence (i.e. two people choosing cards at the same time will get the same card). It also would've been fun if you could shuffle your deck by shaking your phone. Hopefully, they'll make improvements in future editions. Here, let's pick a card and and see what is says: Go outside. Shut the door. Okay. See ya!

Playing my Widower Card

Gareth Branwyn — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:44:27 +0000

A dear friend of mine, who blogs under the name Supa Dupa Fresh, and I share a grim truth -- we've both lost our spouses. One of the other things we have in common is an off-beat sense of humor. These two forces collide on her Fresh Widow blog, and especially, with her Fresh Widow (and Widower) Cards. She explains:

One night in my support group, S. said casually that he’d “left work early… I just pulled a widower card.” I thought about how often I’d done this in the months since LH died, but more about how I could make good use of some little advantage. All the handicaps I was living with… single (really, double) parenting, how impossible it was to go grocery shopping with a toddler, and how no one could see that anything was wrong. The side of me that is tempted to shoplift (but only cashmere or chocolate) was aroused. I was always comfortable as an underachiever, but could I have some legitimate “cover” after surviving catastrophe? Something versatile? Something I could use every day? And so the concept was born: Not as useful as a “get out of jail free” card, more powerful than a hall pass… it’s… it’s… The Widow Card!

Surfrider's "Catch of the Day"

Gareth Branwyn — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 11:54:50 +0000

Annie from Provisions Learning Project writes:

In their continuing efforts to battle the ever growing mounds of garbage polluting our oceans and coastlines, Surfrider Foundation joined forces with Saatchi & Saatchi LA to sponsor the aptly titled Catch of the Day guerrilla ad campaign. Trash was collected from beaches across the US, then sorted, packaged like seafood, and strategically placed around local farmers’ markets. Directly targeting seafood consumers, this creative campaign draws attention to the gross debris littering our oceans and highlights how this pollution affects the consumer directly through the food they eat. Even if you’re not partial to seafood, its hard to miss the message!

It's eco-guilt meets the Barbie Liberation Organization! [Full Disclosure: I am on the Board of Directors of Provisions Learning Project]

Down the Rabbit Hole with the World's Smallest Postal Service

Gareth Branwyn — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 05:09:11 +0000

I'm a firm believer in clinging to as much childlike wonder as possible. I love it when people take it upon themselves to inject a little magic and whimsy into the human herd. A few examples, one from my past that's stayed with me, one a recent discovery. Years ago, I was living in a group house. A woman came to visit, an artist and crafter who specialized in miniatures and dioramas. Her work, which she shared with us via a slideshow, was breathtaking – these pristine little dioramas, frozen scenes from some alternative kidverse of talking-animal storybook characters and various human strangelings, all going about their daily Lilliputian lives inside her little black boxes. She stayed for a few more days, and after she left, life on the commune moved on. We had a tree in our front yard which was itself something out of storybook, a big ol' gnarly tree with a humongous rotted knothole on one side. One day, I was doing some work in the yard, likely grumbling over the heat and the generalized ick of a Virginian late-summer afternoon. As I passed the tree, something caught my eye, something in the knothole. I peered in, and for a triple-take moment, all of the wistful fantasies of childhood overtook my adult reality. There, inside the dank hole, was a tiny overstuffed chair sitting on a braided rug, and next to it stood a floor lamp. Tiny pictures hung on even tinier nails on the inside walls of the knothole. A family portrait. Reclining in the chair, watching the TV inside the hole, sat a little rabbit-man. I think he had on overalls. And he may have been drinking something. A can of carrot juice? Honestly, I don't remember the details, and I'm sure time and memory have exaggerated them. But I honestly remember the impact. It was a simple reality hack with extraordinary impact, a rare moment when magic existed in the world. It worked me on so many levels – the fact that she never said anything to us about it, the amount of thought and work she'd put into it (all in secret), my chance discovery of it days after she'd gone, and that brief, delicious blurring of the mundane and the fantastic – a gift given only to those who happened upon it. This is all a very long-winded way of introducing my most recent encounter with someone doing the work of the fairy. Lea Redmond calls it the World's Smallest Postal Service. She writes little tiny letters on little tiny stationary and seals them with wax inside a little tiny stamped and canceled envelope. The letter is then placed by an official World's Smallest Postal Service employee (er... Lea) inside a little tiny blue post box. Then our ham-handed land of the giants reality takes over and the little magic letter is prepared for real-world mailing. It is put into a slide mount-like viewing envelope and then inside of a larger glassine envelope with a magnifying glass thoughtfully included so that the recipient can actually read it. You can order the letters online or you can check the calendar to see where the World's Smallest Postal Service will be setting up shop in the Bay Area. Online, you fill out a form with what you want your letter to say (up to 12 lines!) and where you want it sent. Each letter cost a measly $8. I bought a bunch of them for family and friends over the holidays and everyone seemed genuinely enchanted by the whole enterprise. Be sure to check out the rest of Lea's site. There's more clever whimsy to be had: matchbox theater, recipe dice, conceptual knitting patterns, earrings with flower seeds in 'em, and lots more awesomeness, If you ask me, we need a lot more surprise knothole dioramas and little tiny wax-sealed letters in this-here junkyard world. Are ya with me, people?

Mr E's beautiful blues

Gareth Branwyn — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 01:00:00 +0000

I may be one of the few people who came to the Eels through Hugh Everett III, father of principle Eel, Mark Oliver Everett, aka "E." Mark's father is the originator of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics. The many-worlds interpretation figures heavily in the work of Robert Anton Wilson, and so it was one of my Discordian brethren (Hail, Eris!) who said: "Hey, did you know that Hugh Everett has a son in some alt.rock band called Eels?" As soon as I heard 'em, I was gill-hooked, but good. 2005's "Blinking Lights and Other Revelations" was certainly a revelation to me -- a two-CD set of 34 songs without a stinker in the bunch. E has said it's about "God and all the questions related to the subject of God. It's also about hanging on to my remaining shreds of sanity and the blue sky that comes the day after a terrible storm, and it's a love letter to life itself, in all its beautiful, horrible glory." For me, it also served as something of the soundtrack to the loss of my wife. I still can't listen to "The Stars Shine in the Sky Tonight" without completely losing my shit. Mr E knows from loss. His father, who barely interacted with him as a child, died when Mark was 19. His schizophrenic sister committed suicide in 1996, and two years later, his mother died of cancer. So much of E's music seems to encode all of this loss, along with a deep, dysfunctional social disconnect, and a visceral sense of confusion over who he is and what he should make out of all that's happened to him. But like all artists who resonate, Mark Everett seems to have an alchemical ability to transmute all of this sordid business into transcendent bits of sound poetry, music that, even when it's sad, the melodies, the musicality, the poetics, and all of its "beautiful, horrible glory" are so strong, it lifts up, rather than drags you down (at least, in this case, it does for me). Last year, the BBC released a wonderful documentary called "Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives," which followed Mark Everett as he retraced the steps of his father, trying to learn more about the dad he never really knew and the physics theories he could never really understand. All in all, it's a rather quiet piece (not bad or boring, just quiet and small), but there are some truly potent moments, like when he hears his father's voice on tape for the first time, or when he finally figures out (basically) what the many-worlds interpretation really means, and when he hears himself on tape, in the background as a child, playing the drums and then bragging about how great he is. The scene where he describes finding, at 19, his dead father on the bed is one of the most heartrending things I've ever seen. That one scene explains at least half of the hit you get whenever partaking of an Eels' song. The entire BBC documentary used to be on YouTube, in four parts. Alas, it's been taken down. While links last, you can see it in two parts, on Veoh, here and here.

Nightly meditations on 33 1/3

Gareth Branwyn — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:03:23 +0000

Ed Note: Boingboing's current guest blogger Gareth Branwyn writes on technology, pop and fringe culture. He is currently a Contributing Editor at Maker Media. Recent projects have included co-creating The Maker's Notebook and editing The Best of MAKE and The Best of Instructables collections. Back in the mid-80s, I used to have a little ritual I'd perform every year. I'd select a biography, autobiography, or session/musical history about The Beatles and I'd read it while listening to a housemates' pristine vinyl copy of the The Beatles Collection (from end-to-end) on a kick-ass stereo. I so loved and looked forward to each yearly immersion. Fast-forward to 2005 and a posting by David here that Boing Boing pal Erik Davis had authored a book on Led Zeppelin's fourth album, part of a series of books on iconic records, called the 33 1/3 Series. I ordered Erik's book and have been collecting the series ever since. I can't tell you how much I enjoy them and how much deeper they've taken me into the music I love so much. Each book is somewhat unique, there's no set formula, although they all focus on a single album and most tend to have a chapter or two to set up the album, a chapter for each track on the album, and then a follow-up chapter or two. The books are each about 130-140 pages, so they're a quick read -- unless you want to ritualize the experience like I do. For each title, after I buy it, I download the album onto my iPod. Every night, before bed, I listen to one of the tracks, read the chapter on that track, then I listen to the track again. It's really an amazing way of penetrating deeper into the music. Usually after I'm finished with a particular book/album, I'll obsess over that artist for awhile, tracking down and listening to their entire oeuvre, wishing there was a 33 1/3 book for each record. I just recently finished the 33 1/3 for Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica and then went off and listened to any of his records I could find. I think I understand his work (both his music and his painting) now in a way I never would have without having gone on this journey, little pocket tome in-hand. My next excursion is going to be Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures. Forthcoming titles I'm jazzed about are Kate Bush's The Dreaming and Brian Eno's Another Green World (although it's been perpetually forthcoming -- rarely a good sign). I got so psyched after reading Erik's book, I even proposed one of my own, for Eno's Before and After Science, but the timing ended up not being right for me (especially given the labor-of-love-sized advance). One caveat about these books – the quality is very hit and miss. There seems to be a lot of latitude for the authors to step out (the whole enterprise is very passion-driven) and follow where their muse takes them. Some end up in a better place than others. But even when a title draws up short, I've still enjoyed the ride, and the books are so brief, it's not like I've invested a lot of time or money. David Barker, editor of the series, maintains a blog about 33-1/3, which you can find here.

Gareth in no-man's land

Gareth Branwyn — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 08:18:49 +0000

[Photo: Scott Beale/Laughing Squid] Ed Note: Boingboing's current guest blogger Gareth Branwyn writes on technology, pop and fringe culture. He is currently a Contributing Editor at Maker Media. Recent projects have included co-creating The Maker's Notebook and editing The Best of MAKE and The Best of Instructables collections. Hello Wonderful World o' Boing Boing! I can't tell you how thrilled I am to have this opportunity. I was at a party this weekend and told someone I was about to start blogging here. “You'll have the eyes of the world on you!,” he blurted. Gulp. I'll try to only use my powers for good (and not think about how high and centrally located this soapbox might actually be). I'm especially excited to have the opportunity to blog about anything other than technology and science. I've been hand-to-hand in the personal and DIY technology trenches for a long time now and I'm looking forward to scrabbling over the top for a few weeks to fight the good fight on some other fronts. Which ones? I'm going to be making a lot of it up as I go along (the kicks are more exciting that way), but there are personal themes I'll likely fall back on. I've been slowly, but surely, writing a novel over the last two years (my first). It uses occult themes as the carrier waves on which travels the real story (about love, open source gnosis, and DNA-rearranging sex). So, I'm going to use this time as an excuse to openly research material for my book (and share interesting things I've already uncovered). I'm also a music fanatic and I miss my Mondo 2000 and bOING bOING days when I got to indulge that passion in public. So I'll likely be raving about what's on heavy rotation in my digital library. Back in my zine days, I also did a lot of coverage of, and participated in, mail art. I just recently started poking around the Web to see what sorts of mail art is happening these ays. So, I'll be sharing some of that, too. I also have ideas for some collaborative projects I might try and cajole you all into undertaking with me. We'll see. Again, a million thanks to Mark, David, Cory, Xeni, et al, for this opportunity. So, let the sex, drugs, rock n' roll, black magick, and collaborative mail art begin!