Boing Boing » cephalopod

HOWTO make an octopizza

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 01:56:28 +0000

Instructable user DoneDirtCheap posted this "Octopizza" recipe for the site's fast-food contest.

We eat a lot of pizza. Usually that means we take a blank canvas of soft dough and apply our favorite colors -basil, tomato, cheese, meats, veggies- then cut it into triangl-y pieces and eat the pointy ends first. But what if, this time, we changed neither the canvas nor the paints but the whole approach to eating pizza? How about dipping bread sticks in a cheesy, saucy pizza? Well, that's pretty good, except that bread sticks are boring. Then Claramecium (my oldest daughter's Instructables screen name), thought up the Octopizza, complete with pepperoni suckers. I love having kids!

Octopizza Pie: Gruesome and Delicious by donedirtcheap (via JWZ)

Giant PVC squid

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 12:50:22 +0000

Designboom profiles Victorine Müller's beautiful, gigantic inflatable animals, including 'Ballon Stratosphérique' (a giant PVC squid).

one example of her compositions is 'timeline', a performance in lucerne from 2005, which gives clear definition for most of her work. the piece is best described by the deployment and occupancy of a monolithic transparent elephant, illuminated by natural and powered light. with the animal in the upright position for the beginning of the showing - müller sitting calmly cross-legged in its bowels - she manages to exude a certain spirit and alertness akin to the living beast itself. the remainder of the exhibition sees the artist lay the sculpture on its side to display it in a completely contrasting state - sleeping, or even perished, this she manages to embody just as acutely - 'an elephant in a quiet, dark space, motionless, awe inspiring yet also arousing our sympathy.'

performance art meets inflated sculptures by victorine müller (via Crazy Abalone)

(Photo: Stephan Wyckoff)

Expressive octopus-with-lanterns statue

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 19:03:56 +0000

The expressive insouciance of the tentacles are what really make this wonderful lantern-bearing-octopus sculpture by Scott Musgrove.

Scott Musgrove (via Super Punch)

A bowl of dancing squid in Hokkaido, Japan (video)

Xeni Jardin — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 17:38:57 +0000

[Video Link]. How does this work? The YouTube comments point to the basic idea being that the sodium in the soy sauce causes the legs to move, even though the squid is dead, by some definition of death, anyway... From the YouTube description:

There's still some question as to whether or not it's officially "dead" at the time of serving. The brain is probably still in the body, but a significant part of its nervous system, the giant axon, I believe extends into the mantle, which has been cut. I'm not an expert on squids so I can't really come to a definite conclusion about that.

As you can see in the beginning, it's not moving at all when it's brought out so I assume that signals around the body have stopped, whereas a fresh intact squid out of water would constantly move around. This doesn't necessarily mean that it's "dead" but it seems to me that it's at least incapacitated.

Paging Boing Boing science editor Maggie Koerth-Baker to the comments, please!

Over at G+, Dustin Hoffman described it as "a culinary seizure."

(thanks, Miles O'Brien)