“Living Without Laws: Slab City, USA” is a short documentary about Slab City, a desert settlement in Southeastern California that is populated by a combination of vacationers, eccentrics, and squatters. The settlement is on the site of a WWII era Marine training base—the leftover building foundations give Slab City its name. The documentary was created in 2010 by Ernie Quintero for VICE (see the accompanying article & photo gallery).

via Nerdcore

In January 2012, New York City-based photographers Alex Troesch and Aline Paley traveled to Matehuala, Mexico and captured some wonderful images of the Los Socios and Los Parrandero crews wearing some very long and pointy boots. TIME LightBox recently published the set of images and they report that in “northern Mexico, the pointy boots trend is more about flash than fashion.”

“They’re worn by people who want to impress other people,” Troesch says. In fact, one boot maker they met had transformed a regular pair of shoes into pointy boots for a client who wanted to impress the jury of a dance contest. That’s how the fervor started—but not everyone is a fan. “Sometimes you’d hear people teasing others about wearing the boots,” Troesch says. “Still, it was very interesting for us to witness how such a common object—cowboy boots—worn by so many people in northern Mexico could be reinvented and reappropriated by young teenagers whose eyes and ears are so many times directed towards the other side of the border.”

Members of “Los Socios” pointy boots crew, posing on the rest of an old mining field of Matehuala.

via LightBox, Design You Trust and Archie McPhee’s Endless Geyser of Awesome

photos by Alex Troesch and Aline Paley for TIME LightBox

Wooden Toy Quarterly is an Australia-based “design-heavy lowbrow art and creative culture” print magazine. The current Music Edition issue, as well as back issues, are available to purchase online.

The award winning Wooden Toy Quarterly presents creative culture as a lifestyle that cannot be separated from a love of brilliant photography, art, illustration and some of the tightest graphic design you’ve ever seen printed on uncoated paper before. A must read for any magazine/book collector.

via Juxtapoz

Emojicons by Huy Hong is an Internet library of emoticons, from “middle fingers up” t(-.-t) to “Nyan Cat” ~=[,,_,,]:3

via Waxy.org

Mule Radio Syndicate is a new podcast network with a focus on design and culture. The network is by San Francisco-based Mule Design and Caleb Sexton.

We are dedicated to bringing you the best podcasts about design and culture from a diverse point of view. We’re committed to excellence through argument. Your mom listens.

The network has its very own sporty T-shirt from United Pixelworkers (currently sold out):

Amrit Richmond, founder of New York City-based R&D lab and innovation consultancy Magenta Labs, just launched Beaker magazine, an online business and culture magazine aimed to “the idea generation”. Beaker is currently looking for “article contributions from entrepreneurs, technologists, investors and analysts.” They are “interested in publishing lessons learned, thought pieces and original insights on technology trends and early stage operation.”

Beaker aims to equip entrepreneurs, technologists and executives to act on their ideas while navigating between the stages of idea to product, product to market, and the first few years of a startup. We create and curate articles on early stage operations, startup culture and technology trends from around the world.

via Betabeat

Vanishing Cultures is an ambitious photography project by Dennis Manarchy to document people who represent different fading corners of American culture. Their images will be captured by the Eye of America Camera, a unique 35 foot long trailer-mounted film camera that creates massive 4.5 by 6 foot negatives (a working prototype is pictured above). The negatives will be used to create incredibly detailed 24 foot tall prints for exhibition.

Manarchy discusses the project in this interview with Films Not Dead. Manarchy and project manager Chad Tepley are raising funds for the project on Kickstarter.

Two days of preparation results in 1/1000th of a second flash exposure and I have only one chance to get it right. I literally focus half-way down an eyelash. If the subject moves, it’s out of focus…if they blink, it’s a disaster…and if their expression is off the portrait suffers. I must say that the length of time it takes with the subject creates a special bond that I would never want to lose…and that moment is captured in every one of these portraits.

via PetaPixel, ISO1200 & Films Not Dead

Everything is a Remix Part 4: System Failure, the final installment of the 4 part series on the history of remixes by Kirby Ferguson, who has just announced the launch his latest project: This is Not a Conspiracy Theory.

“Crack The Surface” is a web documentary series on urban exploration and its practitioners (see episode 1 & episode 2). The ongoing series is by British urban exploration site Silent UK.

via Nerdcore

Has Anyone Said This Shit? is a search engine for the many, many spin-off videos from the “Shit Girls Say” meme (the search engine has indexed more than 675 videos so far). The search engine was created by F.A.T. in collaboration with Lindsey Weber and Tanner Ringerud of BuzzFeed.

via F.A.T.

“The New French Hacker-Artist Underground” by Jon Lackman is a fascinating Wired article about the French UX collective, a shadowy group that uses covert actions to preserve neglected historical and cultural treasures in Paris. Over the past 30 years, the group has infiltrated art museums to demonstrate security flaws, and says it has completed 15 covert restorations, including the 2006 repair of the Pantheon clock:

A cadre spent months infiltrating the Pantheon, the grand structure in Paris that houses the remains of France’s most cherished citizens. Eight restorers built their own secret workshop in a storeroom, which they wired for electricity and Internet access and outfitted with armchairs, tools, a fridge, and a hot plate. During the course of a year, they painstakingly restored the Pantheon’s 19th- century clock, which had not chimed since the 1960s.

Thanks to Deborah Yoon for the tip!

photo via UX

Urban Dictionary TV is a site that plays user-submitted videos for Urban Dictionary word definitions. It is a collaboration between Urban Dictionary and the VHX video platform.

via VHX

In December, we posted about the comedic YouTube videos series “Shit Girls Say,” which is based on a Twitter account of the same name. Well, Shit Girls Say is now a full-on Internet meme with a plethora of derivative videos: “Shit Black Girls Say,” & “Shit White Girls Say…to Black Girls,” & “Shit Asian Girls Say” are some of the more popular spinoffs.

There are many peculiar holiday traditions around the world, but the various Catalan Christmas traditions that put a happy holiday face on defecation (figuratively, mostly) may be the most fascinating. I learned about the Caga Tio (“shitting log”) from my pal Dave Thau writing in Boing Boing many years ago. Here’s Dave’s summary of the shitting log tradition:

Fifteen days before Christmas, caga tio makes his appearance in the dining room, where he must be fed at least once every day. He likes oranges, crackers and sweet wine. In some families, caga tio starts small, but grows as the days progress toward Christmas.

Then on Christmas, the log, which has been fed and treated like a family member for weeks, is expected to produce. The children in the house proceed to beat caga tio with sticks demanding they be given presents. Here’s what that looks like:

A translation of one version of the charming chant these kids are singing:

Shit log,

shit turrón,
hazelnuts and cottage cheese,
if you don’t shit well,
I’ll hit you with a stick,
shit log!

Another version encourages the log “don’t shit herrings,” which is pretty good advice for us all. Once the beating has ended, the blanket is lifted off the caga tio. And there below the ass end of the log are presents including little brown candies or, if you haven’t been good, you’ll find the aforementioned salty herring fish. Here’s a video that goes into more detail. But that’s not all, there are more feces-centric Catalan traditions.

Catalans also make candy shaped like poop and “Caganers“, little figures of peasants or famous people shitting. We wrote a few weeks back about the biggest Caganer of all-time. For everyday household use, you’ll want a modest-sized caganer, and Caganer.com is the definitive resource. You’ll find dozens of defecating figures like Tiger Woods and Sarah Palin, the FC Barcelona football team, even cartoon characters like Astérix and Sponge Bob (whose poop is yellow, it turns out). Catalan shit-expert Stephen Fry explains that caganers are the essential decoration for every crib at Christmas time.

See Previously: World’s Largest El Caganer, 19-Foot Tall Defecating Giant in Barcelona

Origin is a print magazine that founder and publisher Maranda Pleasant created in early 2011 to be a “collective source for Arts+Culture+Conscious Lifestyle”. It bridges the West Coast and East Coast with lifestyle and cultural connections in Texas. The magazine launches nationally this month and featured contributors are Deepak Chopra, Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky), Henry Rollins and more.

Connection. Cohesion. Collaboration. Creation. Celebration. Community. Change

One Platform for: Art. Culture.Conscious Lifestyle. Humanitarianism, Sustainablity and Yoga. We are creating a cohesive and connected Art+Conscious Community that cross pollinates with West Coast and New York. We support an Art Community that Collaborates + Creates, bridging the gap between the artist and the collector. We are a channel for transformation, connection, vison, intention and creation. We Integrate Art.Music.Yoga.Health: All the same…just different mediums of transformation.

The launch party for Origin, The Book of Ice and Building Hope happens Wednesday, December 14, 2011 starting at 9 PM at The Wooly in New York City. The Book of Ice is an art book about Antarctica by Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky). Building Hope is both a book and a film from Turk and Christy Pipkin that “tells the inspiring story of a partnership with a rural Kenya community to build the area’s first high school”.

The 5:04 PM mutant art car, a back-end crushed 1978 Olds Cutlass Supreme, was created by Michael Michael (aka Danger Ranger) and its fun history begins with the San Francisco Bay Area Loma Prieta earthquake.

On October 17, 1989 at 5:04 PM, the Loma Prieta earthquake struck the San Francisco Bay Area and a brick wall collapsed on the rear half of an Olds Cutlass parked by Clayton and Page streets. Michael Michael saw it there and the creative wheels began to turn. “I bet that will still run”, he mused, and he placed a note on the car offering to buy it.

Within a few days, the car had changed hands, and with the addition of a new paint job and a license plate bearing the exact time of the earthquake, it became a conceptional art piece and a testament to the powerful forces of nature…

In 1991, 5:04 was the first “art car” to make an appearance at Burning Man, beginning a trend that has grown to epic proportions.

The 5:04 PM (aka the Earthquake Car) is now sporting a shiny new paint job and, as it was Burning Man’s first art car at the desert’s festival, is on display at Mutant Rides: Origin of a Species Burning Man art car and costumes exhibit at the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada. The exhibit opened October 7, 2011 and runs through July 25, 2012. Artist Kevin Evans took a photograph of The 5:04 PM at the 1991 Burning Man which shows its original color and condition after the earthquake.

photos by Eric Baron and Michael Michael

Skinemax by Smash TV is an hour long trip back through the 1980s and early 1990s starring Kurt Russell.

Skinemax is Koyaanisqatsi for a generation raised on late night television and B-movie VHS tapes. It’s long form entertainment for short attention spans. An hour long VJ odyssey, it will move your body and warp your mind.

A nostalgic look back at a half remembered childhood growing up in the 80s and early 90s, Skinemax takes a close look at the culture of that era. The images that motivated, delighted, and terrified us on the silver screen, set to propulsive modern music that pines for a simpler time.

via MetaFilter

Zach Weiner takes a look at How Culture Ends on his awesome comic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

RE/Mixed Media Festival, a two day event celebrating the diversity of remix art and culture, takes place October 21-22 at One Arm Red in DUMBO, Brooklyn.

RE/Mixed Media FestivalThe RE/Mixed Media Festival is a 2-day celebration of collaborative art-making and creative appropriation. It’s the artists’ contribution to the ongoing conversation about remixing, mashups, copyright law, fair use, and the freedom of artists to access their culture in order to add to and build upon it.

Featuring: Performances, panel discussions, hip-hop, sampling, beat-box, film & video, fashion, food, DJs, technology, interactive installations, painting, sculpture, software, hacking, and much more!

Filmmaker, multimedia artist and self-described ‘extreme hobbyist’, Jared Whitham, has spent ten years filming The Garage Sale Documentary, a quirky documentary about the ‘last free American market place”, and has over 200 hours of footage to show for it. He recently launched a fundraising campaign to gather money to pay for all kinds of equipment, the acting skills of garage sale guru and actress Phyllis Diller, guest speaker quantum physicist Fred Alan Wolf, Japanese language translation services, and of course, Whitham’s personal costs to finish the film.

The first important social exploration of the American Garage Sale. In times of financial crisis, increasing numbers of people gather supporting each other at this great American pastime. Money stays in town. Dreams are made, bills are paid and treasures are found. Cultural boundaries are broken, supernatural events take place and you finally meet your neighbor.

A place were anything can be discovered. Stories are shared and humanity shines. Where great wealth and prosperity is uncovered through friendship, exchange, and community action. Practicing the true American concept of “No Taxation with out representation”. A non-corporate grass roots activity of eccentric renewal. Citizens create a sustaining root system for communities across America.

Whitham also runs the online Garage Sale Channel and his own eccentric show, the Jared Whitham Show.

The Antics Roadshow, a hour long television documentary created by Banksy “charting the history of behaving badly in public, from anarchists and activists to attention seeking eccentrics”, premiered last weekend on UK’s Channel 4.

There is an interview with Joey Skaggs that starts at the 28:45 mark.

via The Art of the Prank

The Glove and Boots puppets Fafa and Mario explain the Evolution of the Hipster.

Tiki Oasis 11, South of the Border, a four-day long celebration of all things tiki, takes place August 18-21, 2011 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in San Diego. Produced by Baby Doe and Otto Von Stroheim of Tiki News, this year’s Tiki Oasis is a “Retro Tijuana-style Tiki Party” complete with a “Burros, Black Velvets and Other Delights” art show, a Whipped Cream Girl Pin-up Photo Contest (à la Herb Alpert’s Whipped Cream and Other Delights album cover), and lots of great performances, music and vendors. If you are headed to the event, don’t miss rockabilly crooner, Big Sandy, perform with the lucha libre mask-wearing surf rockers, Los Straitjackets, as that’s sure to be a great show.

Event tickets are still available but Crowne Plaza Hotel rooms are sold out.

illustration by Derek

photo by Big Sandy

See also:

- Tiki Oasis 10 Extravaganza

- Tiki Oasis 9, Tiki Surf City -

- Tiki Oasis 8, Voodoo Vacation on Zombie Island

- Tiki Oasis 7, Hawaii A Go Go In San Diego

- Tiki Oasis 6

My Damn Channel has just launched Slacktory, a new satirical internet pop culture blog edited by Nick Douglas.

Plenty of blogs act like the newspapers of the internet, reporting and aggregating news. We’re the magazine. A little bit MAD, a little bit Spy, a little bit Ken Kesey.

William Breathes of Denver’s Westword alt weekly is America’s first marijuana critic. Maintaining his anonymity in the manner of many restaurant critics, Breathes has been reviewing Denver medical marijuana dispensaries and their products since 2009 (see today’s article and video about Breathes by Justin Rocket Silverman of The Daily).