There's a Happy Mutant reality hacker on the loose in Berkeley, California... affixing "mysterious medallions" on the city's sidewalks.

Berkeleyside reports:

There is a person out there with a sly sense of humor, a way with words, a working knowledge of Berkeley history and a desire to impart pithy observations.

He or she or they has been going around town the past few months affixing round metal medallions with clever sayings to sidewalks around Central Berkeley...

No one seems to know the creator’s identity, even though the question has been posed on Facebook and Twitter and even on Tom Dalzell’s Quirky Berkeley website.

“These days, just everybody – tout le monde – is talking about the mysterious medallions that are appearing in Berkeley’s sidewalks,” Dalzell wrote. “You read about them in Berkeleyside, you see them on Twitter, your hip friends are talking about them. “Plaque” might be a better word for what these are, but medallion gives us alliteration with mysterious.”

images via a friend Read the rest

Artist Damon Belanger's "Shadow Art" installations are making the rounds on the internet and for good reason, they're terrific! Using grey paint designed for concrete patios, he first created these street art pieces on commission back in 2016. They're a permanent installation, so you can still find all 22 of the fantastical shadows, ranging from anthropomorphic flowers to critters to abstract designs, on the downtown sidewalks of Redwood City, California.

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In use... #redwoodcity #visitredwoodcity #shadowart

A post shared by Damon Belanger (@dmn.belanger) on May 29, 2016 at 9:32pm PDT

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#redwoodcity #cityofredwoodcity #publicart #streetart #visitredwoodcity #rwcparks #redwoodcityshadowart #shadowart

A post shared by Damon Belanger (@dmn.belanger) on Jun 8, 2016 at 7:46pm PDT

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Dog the Cat. One of about twenty shadow art pieces I painted in downtown #redwoodcity. #rwcparks #visitrwc #redwoodcityshadowart #publicart #shadowart

A post shared by Damon Belanger (@dmn.belanger) on May 21, 2016 at 11:23pm PDT

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Robo Band. One of about twenty shadow art pieces I painted in downtown #redwoodcity. #rwcparks #visitrwc #redwoodcityshadowart #publicart #shadowart

A post shared by Damon Belanger (@dmn.belanger) on May 21, 2016 at 11:28pm PDT

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Hydrant @ El Camino. One of about twenty shadow art pieces I painted in downtown #redwoodcity. #rwcparks #visitrwc #redwoodcityshadowart #publicart #shadowart

A post shared by Damon Belanger (@dmn.belanger) on May 21, 2016 at 11:33pm PDT

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Parking Monkey. One of about twenty shadow art pieces I painted in downtown #redwoodcity.

What's in the water in one Canadian city? Uncooked hot dogs, apparently.

Last weekend, a reality-hacking hero offered bottles of unfiltered, "keto-compatible" "Hot Dog Water" at a Vancouver street festival for CAN$37.99 (~US$28) a pop. The vendor, performance artist/"foodie-troller" Douglas Bevans, claimed his special water (which included a real hot dog inside each bottle) had health benefits.

"Several" people "bought-and-consumed" his expensive meat water though his hilarious venture didn't turn a profit, according to the blog Vancouver is Awesome. The blog also shared Bevans' reason for selling it in the first place, which appeared at the bottom of the health claim:

If you get all the way to the fine print, you’ll find this: “HOT DOG WATER IN ITS ABSURDITY HOPES TO ENCOURAGE CRITICAL THINKING RELATED TO PRODUCT MARKETING AND THE SIGNIFICANT ROLE IT CAN PLAY IN OUR PURCHASING CHOICES.”

Bravo, well done!

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Get your Weiner 🌭 Water 💦 ...stay hydrated! Smoky & refreshing! #hotdogwater #candidcamera #carfreedaymainstreet #stayhydrated

A post shared by Bernadette Price (@bernadettiums) on Jun 17, 2018 at 8:39pm PDT

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The best booth at Car Free Day. Someone was doing a food trolling booth featuring hot dog flavoured water. It's a joke but people thought that it was real. The guy at the booth said that we were the first to immediately realize that this was foodie trolling. #CarFreeDayVancouver #CarFreeDay #carfreedaymainst

A post shared by Isabelle Guns (@isabelle_guns) on Jun 17, 2018 at 3:25pm PDT

lead image by Bernadette Price, 2nd image by Franklin Sayre, both used with permission Read the rest

See sample pages from this book at Wink.

$9 Buy a copy on Amazon

It is perhaps a sad testament to our disembodied lives that we need a deck of cards to coax us into interacting with strangers in meatspace, but that's exactly what Sneaky Cards: Play It Forward are designed to do. And they make their game of social interaction and random acts of kindness surprisingly fun.

Sneaky Cards began life in 2009 as a winning submission, by a 16-year-old kid, to a contest held by Boing Boing and the Institute for the Future. The game became a free online download. You printed and cut out your cards, then played them in the real world. The creator, Harry Lee, described the game as being about “creating fun and creative social interactions,” and for “breaking up the tedium of everyday life.”

This current commercial version, from the wonderful folks at Gamewright, sports all new card designs, new card “missions,” unique card-tracking numbers, and a website where you can register your cards and find out what becomes of them as they circulate. This “Play It Forward” version was designed by Cody Borst, with the blessing of Harry Lee.

The Play It Forward deck consists of 53 cards divided up into six different mission categories: Engage (tests of audacity), Connect (finding people and things), Grow (self-challenges and learning experiences), Surprise (hide things for discovery), Care (do-gooder tasks), and Create (socially shared art challenges). The cards come in a handsome and sturdy flip box with a magnetic catch. Read the rest