Issue #4 (out in July) features an article on the “denim kit”- also known as the “Canadian tuxedo” or “denim sandwich”. The cheap and functional combo of jeans and denim jacket has been the uniform of cow punchers, construction workers, bikers, punks and metal heads. The timeless favorite of badasses and fashion rejects, ObMag pays homage to the blue suit in our summer issue- due out this month.
Friday, July 1, 2011
ObMag #4 Preview: The Canadian Tuxedo
Issue #4 (out in July) features an article on the “denim kit”- also known as the “Canadian tuxedo” or “denim sandwich”. The cheap and functional combo of jeans and denim jacket has been the uniform of cow punchers, construction workers, bikers, punks and metal heads. The timeless favorite of badasses and fashion rejects, ObMag pays homage to the blue suit in our summer issue- due out this month.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
R.I.P. Flick Colby- Unsung Hero of Pop Music
From The Guardian...
When 15 million viewers tuned into Top of the Pops each week during the show's 1970s heyday, the appeal extended beyond the hitmakers on the screen to those who were not appearing, since an absent act's single was interpreted by the show's all-female dance troupe, Pan's People. Their silky routines were choreographed by one of their dancers, Flick Colby, who has died aged 65 of bronchial pneumonia, after suffering from cancer.
Colby, an American with long blonde hair and a megawatt smile, confected slinky, semi-risque and often extravagant Top of the Pops routines for Pan's People for eight years. She continued to work on the show with subsequent troupes, choreographing moves to suit a range of musical styles such as glam rock, folk, soul, disco and punk.
Full Story
When 15 million viewers tuned into Top of the Pops each week during the show's 1970s heyday, the appeal extended beyond the hitmakers on the screen to those who were not appearing, since an absent act's single was interpreted by the show's all-female dance troupe, Pan's People. Their silky routines were choreographed by one of their dancers, Flick Colby, who has died aged 65 of bronchial pneumonia, after suffering from cancer.
Colby, an American with long blonde hair and a megawatt smile, confected slinky, semi-risque and often extravagant Top of the Pops routines for Pan's People for eight years. She continued to work on the show with subsequent troupes, choreographing moves to suit a range of musical styles such as glam rock, folk, soul, disco and punk.
Full Story
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Dumpster-Diver Gardening
from ObMag#1...
We began dumpster-diver gardening sometime in the early 90's, when we came across a vendor at the Brooklyn Terminal Market tossing flats of slightly wilted bedding plants into the trash. Neither Wildgirl nor I were strangers to dumpster diving (a proud trash-picking tradition that is now fashionably know as "Freeganism"), and W.G. immediately hatched a plan for me to distract the shop owner by buying a bag of peat moss while she filled the trunk of her '74 Valiant with rescued greenery. "It wasn't so much about wanting the plants," she recalls- "It was about the waste. It was about the disposable society."
Fast-forward 10 years. We no longer live in New York. We have a small organic farm, and grow a lot of our own stuff. On a blistering July afternoon in Coralville, Iowa, I noticed one of the seasonal garden centers set up in a grocery store parking lot was breaking down for the season and again, they were dumpster-izing flat after flat of sad, leggy, brown and bolting tomato plants, squash, peppers, herbs, and flowers. A lot of the higher-priced organic and heirloom stuff was left behind. I took as much as the old Subaru GL would hold. What I have discovered in the last few years that throughout the Midwest (indeed, much of the country), is that huge numbers of plants get dumped, given away or sold for next to nothing sometime in the last part of June to first week of July. If timed properly, a pickup truck can be filled with blueberry bushes, roses, prairie plants, perennials, and lots and lots of vegetable plants for less than twenty bucks- often for nothing more than the price of gas. If you are a non-driver and really hard-core, you can do it with a cargo bike, shopping cart, hand truck, wheelbarrow or travois. The keys to success are timing, speed, and a modicum of stealth. Despite the fact that the stuff is being jettisoned, employees, particularly middle managers, can tend to flex-out on people who want their trash. In most cases, though, if you time your arrival properly, the peons who got exiled to the sweltering parking lot to haul the stuff to the dumpster are more than happy to have you lighten their load.
We began dumpster-diver gardening sometime in the early 90's, when we came across a vendor at the Brooklyn Terminal Market tossing flats of slightly wilted bedding plants into the trash. Neither Wildgirl nor I were strangers to dumpster diving (a proud trash-picking tradition that is now fashionably know as "Freeganism"), and W.G. immediately hatched a plan for me to distract the shop owner by buying a bag of peat moss while she filled the trunk of her '74 Valiant with rescued greenery. "It wasn't so much about wanting the plants," she recalls- "It was about the waste. It was about the disposable society."
Fast-forward 10 years. We no longer live in New York. We have a small organic farm, and grow a lot of our own stuff. On a blistering July afternoon in Coralville, Iowa, I noticed one of the seasonal garden centers set up in a grocery store parking lot was breaking down for the season and again, they were dumpster-izing flat after flat of sad, leggy, brown and bolting tomato plants, squash, peppers, herbs, and flowers. A lot of the higher-priced organic and heirloom stuff was left behind. I took as much as the old Subaru GL would hold. What I have discovered in the last few years that throughout the Midwest (indeed, much of the country), is that huge numbers of plants get dumped, given away or sold for next to nothing sometime in the last part of June to first week of July. If timed properly, a pickup truck can be filled with blueberry bushes, roses, prairie plants, perennials, and lots and lots of vegetable plants for less than twenty bucks- often for nothing more than the price of gas. If you are a non-driver and really hard-core, you can do it with a cargo bike, shopping cart, hand truck, wheelbarrow or travois. The keys to success are timing, speed, and a modicum of stealth. Despite the fact that the stuff is being jettisoned, employees, particularly middle managers, can tend to flex-out on people who want their trash. In most cases, though, if you time your arrival properly, the peons who got exiled to the sweltering parking lot to haul the stuff to the dumpster are more than happy to have you lighten their load.
Monday, May 23, 2011
OBSOLETE! is now accepting Bitcoins
If you haven't heard about it already, check out Bitcoins. This is an open-source, P2P currency that is making a very real attempt to do an end-run around the banking industry and create a "people's currency". Can they make the Fed obsolete? Probably not, and if they are successful, I'm sure the government will crush it....
...but for now, why not give it a try? You can find our Bitcoin address in the right-hand column of this page.
...but for now, why not give it a try? You can find our Bitcoin address in the right-hand column of this page.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Warren Buffett's Radioactive Ronin Pillage Iowa
Months after massive earthquakes and Tsunamis crushed
Japan, the "Fukushima 50" toil on. Crawling through darkened tunnels
dangerously close to overheating radioactive reactors, the remaining nuclear
power plant employees at Fukushima Dai-Ichi struggle to stop the worsening
catastrophe that is spreading deadly toxic pollution across their already
crippled homeland. The Fukushima 50 know that they have already sacrificed
their lives. They know that the exposure they have already experienced will
kill them.
Like samurai committing nuclear seppuku, radioactive ritual
suicide, the 50 are driven by a sense of honor and loyalty.
Meanwhile, at the Iowa state capital, lobbyists for
MidAmerican Energy continue to push for passage of Senate File 390, a bill that
they say will send the message that "Iowa is open for business for nuclear
power". They also work from a sense of loyalty, but not like the Fukushima
50. They are corporate ronin, political samurai with no loyalty other than to
those who pay them to pillage.
Warren Buffett, who's Berkshire Hathaway Company controls
MidAmerican Energy, has been obsessed with nuclear power for many years. In
2007 Buffet made an unsuccessful play to build a nuclear plant in Idaho. More
recently, Buffett was outbid by French state-owned utility giant Electricite de
France (EDF) for a 49% share of Constellation Energy's Calvert Cliffs III
nuclear reactor. Now, Buffett hopes that the third time will be the charm for
his nuclear ambitions and he wants to make his nuclear dream come true in Iowa.
Senate File 390 is a bill that seeks to raise MidAmerican
customer's electric rates to cover the cost of Mr. Buffett's dream. Despite the
fact that Fukushima now rivals Chernobyl as history's biggest nuclear power
plant catastrophe, Buffet's Iowa statehouse ronin fight on, hiring more
lobbyists to fight back the increasing resistance from "the little
people".
Before Fukushima, MidAmerican anticipated easy passage of
their bill, counting on republicans to vote "for" nuclear power
(which they generally would do just to piss off democrats) along with a cadre
of "pro-business" democrats (re: those who took MidAm campaign
money). They were confident that
the tired, gray-haired, granola-eating "no-nukes" enviro-dinosaurs
could surely be no match for the giant stick they swing at the Iowa statehouse.
Surprisingly though, even since Fukushima, the groundswell of opposition has
come not as much from enviros as from those who object to MidAm's financing
scheme.
AARP (American Association of Retired People) state director
Barry Koeppl was quoted in an April 11th article in the Des Moines Register as
saying; “We oppose Senate File 390 and House File 961 because those bills
substantially shift the cost and risk for nuclear power construction to ratepayers.
Rather than rely on shareholders to finance a new power plant, this legislation
shifts the billion-dollar-plus costs to ratepayers for a possible nuclear power
plant, years before the plant is built, or the plant design has even been
approved.”
Apparently, AARP is not alone. Word has it that MidAm lobbyists are now feverishly counting
votes- including republican votes. It seems that Iowa's new crop of Tea-Party
Republicans also have problems with state government approving what amounts to
a rate-payer funded subsidy for MidAms admittedly sketchy plans. Republican
leadership is finding that some of the tea-partiers may be making good on their
promise of less government- and the new influx of radical freshmen republican
legislators may be a knife that cuts both ways.
This new alliance of populists from the far left and right
may be a harbinger of things to come. Not unlike it the U.S. House where
far-left Dennis Kucinich and far-right Ron Paul agree in a surprising number of
cases concerning issues of personal freedom, the fight against nuclear power on
economic grounds may illustrate that there is more common ground to be found in
the future when "the little people" stop listening to corporatist
Republican and Democrats talking points.
In the mean time, elevated levels of radioactivity are being
found in milk in California. Nuclear experts predict Fukushima may kill as many
as 200,000 from increased cancers in the next 50 years. Spent waste containment
pools continue to fill up at sites across the world. And yet, a majority of
Iowa's legislators appear to be willing to charge MidAmerican customers
up-front for the privilege of hanging out the "Iowa is open for business
for nuclear" sign, and making Warren Buffet's dream come true.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Thursday, May 5, 2011
OBMAG #3- The Cory Doctorow Interview
If you don't know who Cory Doctorow is, you may be living under a rock. Of course, we here at OBSOLETE! applaud anyone who chooses the "Sub Silicis" lifestyle. Those of you who choose to spend time in the digital realm, however, have much to thank Mr. Doctorow for.
The Canadian science fiction writer and journalist is an editor of Boing Boing. He is a leading advocate for liberalizing copyright laws and has worked on copyright issues for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. His novels, including Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Little Brother and Makers are all available as free downloads under a Creative Commons license.
Doctorow's 2009 book Makers is a wonderful story of Feral Technology, a vision of post-scarcity Amerika where hardware hackers battle the Disney empire for the last scraps of the withered economy, and the resources they mine are the detritus of consumer culture.
Cory sat down for an interview at ICON 35 in Cedar Rapids, IA, where he was the special guest author. We spoke as he prepared shots of espresso in his motel room with an amazing portable handheld espresso maker.
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