The Men Who Stare At Goats is a must-read 2005 book by UK journalist Jon Ronson about the US government's interest in very strange stuff, like Jedi powers, psychic spying, subliminal sound weapons, and the potential to kill something (like a goat, or an enemy soldier) just by looking at it. Fact or fiction, or most likely some of both, it's an absolute blast to read. (And Ronson's BBC documentary based on the book, Crazy Rulers of the World, is a lot of fun too! You can find it here on Google Video.) Yesterday, it was announced that Grant Heslov will direct a feature film based on The Men Who Stare At Goats. The star? George Clooney. From Variety: Script was penned by Brit Peter Straughan ("How to Lose Friends and Alienate People"). The project has been around for some time, but international buyers only just received the script this week as the Cannes fest and market got started. Script topped the 2007 Brit List of best unproduced screenplays. Link to Variety, Link to buy Men Who Stare At Goats

Previously on BB:
• The Men Who Stare At Goats Link
• Documentary: Crazy Rulers of the World Link

Wired's posted a photo gallery from the new show of vintage Japanese robots opening at the Sci Fi Museum in Seattle. Iconic graphic designer Tom Geismar, whose firm Chermayeff & Geismar has created memorable logos for Mobil, PBS and other U.S. institutions, has been collecting the shiny bots for decades.

The Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in Seattle will exhibit toys from Geismar's collection in Robots: A Designer's Collection of Miniature Mechanical Marvels through Oct. 26. The vintage robots on display reflect Geismar's trained eye. "I've really restricted myself to ones that appealed to me as interesting, imaginative designs," he says. Link

If you know me, you know I love bookcases built into EVERYTHING. This sofa (the Flexform Oltre) with bookcases in the arms: no exception. Link (via Cribcandy)

This 1958 Japanese tin toy features Laika, Sputnik 2's brave cosmo-dog. Poor Laika. Link (Thanks, Erin!)

See also: Laika - graphic novel tells the sweet and sad story of the first space-dog

Danny O'Brien from the Electronic Frontier Foundation sez,
Vista users are complaining that Media Center refuses to let them record broadcast digital TV shows on NBC.

Here's a screenshot of what they're seeing.

After we won the fight to stop the Broadcast Flag three years ago, over-the-air digital TV shouldn't have any copy controls -- and if it did, Microsoft shouldn't have to obey them.

Is it a bug in Vista's DRM systems? Did Microsoft and NBC cut a deal? What other receivers out there are going to obey the broadcasters instead of their owners? Link (Thanks, Danny!)

BB pal and inspiration V. Vale is the publisher of RE/Search, chronicles of underground and fringe culture since 1977. The RE/Search books, from Industrial Culture Handbook and Pranks! to Modern Primitives and Incredibly Strange Music, are essential encyclopedias of alternative thought, art, music, literature, and methods to circumvent "control" in all its manifestations. (Pranks!, Industrial Culture Handbook, and RE/SEARCH #4/5: Burroughs, Gysin, Throbbing Gristle are now available in limited edition hardcover!) Vale attended the recent Maker Faire Bay Area and was blown away by the connections he saw between the hacker/maker/crafter culture and what he suggests are the original, unspoken "principles" of punk rock: DIY, Mutual Aid, Anti-Authoritarianism, and Black Humor. Vale saw all those characteristics embodied at the Maker Faire and, inspired, wrote a wonderful piece about what the Faire meant to him. Here's an excerpt from Vale's RE/Search blog post, "Maker Faire and Punk Rock": The first, quintessential principle of “Punk Rock” was (obviously) “DO-IT-YOURSELF”… meaning Create All Your Own Culture: music, recordings, record labels, distribution, “Punk Rock” stores, art, graphic art, collages, drawings, interior decor, your clothing, hairstyles, sculpture/installations, social gatherings, community centers, squats or shared housing, art studios, shows — everything that makes your life “meaningful” and “fun.” And this “principle” made EVERYONE at least a naive or “outsider” artist, if not more...

Well, for more than thirty years Punk’s “Do-It-Yourself” signified (to me, at least) Doing It Yourself — but pretty much restricted to the “Arts.” But for the first time we attended last weekend’s Maker Faire and realized that: Why shouldn’t D-I-Y also apply to Science and Technology? (Now, we had ALMOST thought that, years ago, when Survival Research Laboratories began, but — we’re dense.)...

In other words, for thirty years the underlying message of all my publications has remained: “Everyone Is An Artist.” But, now I want to add an additional message: “Everyone Is A Scientist” — or, “Everyone is an Artist/Scientist.” Because, who doesn’t want to figure out how things work? ” Link

Buddhist monk THich Dang "Tom" Phap is building a beautiful Buddhist Meditation Center in a very unusual and unlikely location: the barren high desert of Adelanto, California. The centerpiece is a 60-ton marble statue of the saint Quan yin, donated by a Malaysian businessman. Phap bought 15 acres in Adelanto four years ago as a home for the statue and the center that he hopes he can complete if enough donations come in. Right now, the place has no power or water. The Los Angeles Times created a lovely short video visit with Phap to accompany an article on his project. Link to video, Link to article (Thanks, Paul Saffo!)

QA Create sells these elegant cufflinks made from Scrabble tiles. You pick the letters! They're $15.99.
Link (Thanks, Jess Hemerly!)

Did you know archive.org has lots of cool old feature films in the public domain you can download for free? Here's one they just added to the archive that looks promising: The Hoodlum, from 1951.

I'm downloading it now.

(Here's the RSS feed for recent additions to the movie archive.)

Lawrence Tierney ("Reservoir Dogs") plays an unreformed, hardened criminal who has just been released from prison. Working at his brother's gas station, he becomes very interested in the armored car that makes regular stops at the bank across the street. Link

Here is an old soulful cover of Sam Cooke's "Having A Party" by Greg Dulli, former frontman of one of my all-time favorite modern rock bands, Afghan Whigs. The first national magazine article I ever wrote, for Alternative Press, was about the Whigs, who I knew growing up in Cincinnati, Ohio. And Cooke's "Having A Party" was my wedding song, so this cover has special meaning to me. On hiatus from his current band Twilight Singers, Dulli just put out a killer new record with Mark Lanegan (Screaming Trees, Queens of the Stone Age), under the moniker Gutter Twins. The album, titled "Saturnalia," is some heavy-ass neo-gothic gospel.


Link to Dulli's Having A Party video
Link to buy Gutter Twins
Link to Summer's Kiss for more on Whigs, Gutter Twins, Twilight Singers

frog Design's concept facemask would let you escape reality by augmenting or replacing what you see, smell, and hear with sensory inputs of your own choosing. In a troubling future, these augmented reality devices would offer a new dimension - a virtual layer that could be used to “re-skin” the troubling outside world. A boundary between the wearer and the world around him, the device would become a sort of visual drug, used to make the world appear a better place – even if just for a moment.

The device itself acts as a mask between the user and the outside world, expressing the internality of the human-device interaction. It offers a physical distinction between those moving in the real world and those who are “plugged in” to their private dimensions, the world as they wish to see it.

The visual design casts the mask as a lifestyle product of the future, as it plays with a glaring, exaggerated coolness of the wearer. It gives an almost robotic appearance, and suggests a diversion from what we define today as “normal” physical human interaction.

Within the mask, smells, sounds, even air quality would be imitated to create a full sensory experience. The facial expressions of those wearing the device would be detected and projected onto personal avatars visible to others also living behind the shield of the mask.

Link

Richard sez, "Apparently there are still places in the US where people are still using the old-fashioned analog gear driven pumps to meter gas instead of the common digital ones. The old pumps will need new gears to go past $3.99/gallon for gas and those parts are getting harder to come by. It is strangely like having a Babbage Difference Engine run the gas pump. Gear driven gas pumps are another unexpected but sad victim of rising gas prices. No more clicks and bells." Link (Thanks, Richard!)

(Image: Tracy A. Woodward -- The Washington Post))

Eric Reynolds of Fantagraphics writes: "I came across this incredible Will Elder photo this morning, looking for some nice Elder photos in our MAD PLAYBOY OF ART files, to give the Los Angeles Times for its obituary, which I'm told will run tomorrow. Was there ever a man who embodied the vivaciousness of his work more perfectly?" Link

A 29-year-old Swis man died in a spitting match with a friend, reports the daily Blick newspaper. Apparently, the two pals were up late at a hotel in Cadempino, Switzerland when they decided to see who could spit the greatest distance off the balcony. One of the men took a running start and, well... Link (via Fortean Times)

This poster sure beats most motivational office posters. Created by artist Andy Smith, it's hand-printed in a small edition and sells for £25.
Link (Thanks, Koshi!)

Yesterday, I posted the sad passing of Mad cartoonist Will Elder, one of the undisputed giants of comic book artists. Today, The Comics Journal blog has made available a scan of a Harvey Kurtzman / WIll Elder story from Help! magazine that Archie Comics took from Help! in a copyright infringement battle. During Will Elder’s run on the ill-fated Help! Magazine — one of three such publications upon which Elder collaborated with Mad founder Harvey Kurtzman following the latter’s exodus from the magazine that made him famous — a story starring Kurtzman and Elder’s naïve leading man Goodman Beaver attracted the ire of Archie Comics for taking their signature characters and grafting Hugh Hefner’s “Playboy Philosophy” onto them. That story was “Goodman Goes Playboy,” and it resulted in waves of lawyers raining upon the strip’s creators, ultimately leading to Kurtzman and Elder handing the copyright to the story over to Archie and signing an agreement promising never to reproduce it again.

Some 40 years or so later, Gary Groth or someone close to him discovered that Archie had forgotten to renew the copyright to the strip, and that it had fallen into the public domain. Armed with a copy of Myron Fass’ underground zine Portzebie Illustrated, which contained a copy of the strip, we reproduced it in The Comics Journal #262 — and here it is again, Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder’s “Goodman Goes Playboy,” available either as a PDF file (5.9MB) or, if you’d prefer to use your comics-reader software to read it, as a Zip file (also 5.9MB). Next Friday, we’ll present a copy of Gary Groth’s 2003 interview with Elder for TCJ #254 here on the website, so there’s more Elder on the way, don’t you worry.

Link

Here's another comic book gem from Ethan Persoff, outré ephemera scanner extraordinaire. Vietnam month continues with a great mid-month snack. Tod Holton was a school student from the 60s who fought the Vietnamese through use of a magic beret. Presented here is every Tod Holton story ever produced. A patriotic kitsch classic, now presented in full. Link

Atlanta's Crissy Thompson is the queen of coupon-clipping -- she's so skilled at it that she's cut her weekly grocery bill to $10 for a family of five: She buys two copies of the AJC's daily double Sunday paper, getting four papers, four sets of coupons, for $5. She also goes to her favorite coupon websites (see links).

On the day we're with Crissy, we tell her we just want a sampling of what she does. She tells us we're going to CVS and Publix, two of her favorite stores.

I do coupons every week myself so I was very curious to see how she did it.

At the Publix, Crissy got her best deals with the buy 1, get 1 free items.

Most local grocery stores will let you buy only one item and get it 50% off. If you pair a coupon with that (most grocery stores double coupons up to 50 cents) you can sometimes get the item for free or next to nothing.

What I learned from Crissy is that you can use one coupon per item.

All this time I had misunderstood what it says on each coupon, only one coupon per purchase. I took "purchase" to mean "transaction." It's not.

For example, Crissy grabbed two boxes of cereal that were buy 1, get 1 free. The cereal was $3.79 a box. Crissy had a three dollar coupon for each box of cereal. She made over $2.00 when she pulled those boxes off the shelves. I thought I could only use one coupon, no matter how many boxes or cans or whatever I'd bought. So that's good for me to know.

She didn't buy any produce or meat when we were with her. The best deals that week were elsewhere and she told us she often gets her produce from local farmers at a nearby market where prices are very inexpensive. When we got to checkout her bill was $15.38 and she saved $36.22. Basically she saved two thirds of the bill. Link (via Consumerist)

Over on Boing Boing Gadgets, our John's spotted this Ringshot contraption, a stainless steel sheath for your thumb and forefinger that protects you from misfires in your school/office/airplane rubber-band wars. Link, Discuss this on Boing Boing Gadgets

The California Senate passed a new bill yesterday, legalizing membership in the Communist Party for California state employees. Now the California Assembly has to agree. Next up: legalizing the practice of lady teachers wearing dresses that expose their ankles. California is the only state that allows public employees to be dismissed for membership in a political party.

In addition, current law requires that any organisation that applies to use a public school facility can be asked to sign a statement that "the applicant is not a communist action organisation or a communist front".

"SB 1322 seeks to protect the rights of free speech and political affiliation by repealing the no-longer necessary statute from the books," Lowenthal said. Link