Each year, David Silverman (director of the Simpsons Movie, and longtime director of the TV show) illustrates holiday cards for friends and family. Xeni visits him in his home studio for a re-enactment of the craziest years in holiday cheer, complete with tuba carols.

From the 17th to 19th centuries, millions of African people were sold
 into slavery, transported on ships 
to the Americas. With them came spiritual traditions 
including Voudun, which we now 
know as “voodoo.”
 Its roots are in the Dahomey kingdom 
on the West Coast of Africa, now the country of Benin.


In today’s episode, I 
travel to Benin’s port city of Ouidah,
 one of the most important slave trade ports, 
and a center of the Vodoun religion.

We visit the Temple of Pythons and learn about Voudun religious practices, and witness some of the most important sites in the history of the slave trade.

We walk along a beach that was the single most highly-trafficked embarkation point for West African slaves headed over the Atlantic to the Americas. One million people were forced on to ships here, many transported to Haiti and Brazil, where Voudun transmuted into voodoo and Candomblé.

Outsiders called this region the Slave Coast. Ouidah's residents today call the former boarding platform on this otherwise idyllic beach the Gate of No Return. -- XJ

(Photos: Xeni Jardin, CC license)

Today, the debut installment of Boing Boing tv's SPAMASTERPIECE THEATER, which Hodgman himself describes as the dramatization of "true tale[s] of romance, adventure, infamy, and low-cost prescription drugs, all culled from the reams of actual, unsolicited emails, received here by us and people like you -- what we call SPAM."

We'll be releasing more of these in the coming weeks. Each one is composed exclusively of actual, unadulterated, unsolicited email. Like virtual raw foodists, we would not think of cooking perfect fruit that falls so gracefully from the internet's tree of life.

We hope you enjoy. { fade to black, fade in Hodgman in the library chair, surrounded by spam ephemera}

A note from our musical director: The adaptation of Jean-Joseph Mouret's "Rondeau: Fanfare" (1735) which opens today's episode was remixed in flagrante 8-bit by Hamhocks Buttermilk Johnson.

Today, we feature the work of animator, filmmaker, and music video director Bill Barminski, a longtime Boing Boing fave.

Above, "Drive In," a soothing ambient work I like to watch before bedtime.

Another beloved Barminksi joint is below, S.E.X.Y. R.O.B.O.T.: Pinker Tones music video by Walter Robot.

Here's a link to all of the BBtv episodes which have featured Barminski's work.

My favorite appears in the second half of this BBtv episode: the "Fuji Apple" animated short from Barminski's production team Walter Robot, with music by Boards of Canada (song: Roygbiv, from "Music has the Right to Children.") I could just watch that over and over again, and I often do.

"Gem sweater diva" and midwestern maven Leslie Hall has appeared twice on our show. The video featured above is a tour diary she recorded just for us. If you like that, check out our backstage visit with her during a stop in San Francisco, below. "With these shoulder pads, I have the strength to destroy villages, homes and crops."

Original BBtv posts:
* Leslie Hall: Dear Diary
* Leslie Hall: ceWEBrity, gem sweater diva, jammer of jams.

Today: John Behrens and "Omega Recoil" build giant Tesla Coils. Their work explores how electronic fields can be excited in the environment, and their creations become the centerpieces of interactive public art performances.

Some of the tinkerers and performers in this SF Bay Area-based collective were previously associated with Dr. Megavolt, an electrical art project which...

[featured] a person in a metal mesh suit interacting with artificially generated lighting. The Doctor sets objects on fire with electricity originating from large Tesla coils, spars with the electric arcs and exhorts the audience to worship the elemental force of electricity.

(special thanks to Wayne and Bre for use of their magic bus; air travel generously provided by Virgin America.)

Related Boing Boing tv episodes:

* Primus: Xeni interviews Les and Ler (music)
* Kaki King, guitar hero: performance, interview with Xeni (music)
* BB Gadgets' Joel at Outside Lands: Crowdfire deconstructed
* Carney at Outside Lands - a "Boing Boing tv Bus Session." (music)
* Boing Boing tv backstage at Outside Lands: (Xeni + Russell Porter)

Jay Dedman and Ryanne Hodson of Ryanishungry.com spoke to us over Skype from a hostel in Beijing. One of the actions they documented in photo and video was the hanging of an "LED throwies" light banner, below, which read "FREE TIBET." We agreed to hold this Boing Boing tv episode until after we received word that they'd safely left the country. They have returned home, so I am posting the piece today.

Correction: Yesterday, we posted news that 6 Americans who'd been detained were now released and on their way to Los Angeles. Turns out that in fact, a total of 8 were detained -- the last two, from a later protest, a photograph of which is posted below (Thanks, NF and Students for a Free Tibet).

Previously on Boing Boing blog:
* UPDATE: US citizens detained in Beijing over Tibet protests are released, returning home.
* Beijing and Tibet: GRL's James Powderly, Brian of "Alive in Baghdad, 4 other US citizens receive 10-day jail sentence
* Beijing update: New detentions, 6 US protesters missing, Tibetan protesters in Tibet reportedly shot dead.
* Beijing: "Alive in Baghdad" videoblogger among US citizens detained in pro-Tibet protests
* Beijing: Five US activists detained after lighting up "Free Tibet" LED Throwies banner near Olympics site
* GRL's James Powderly detained in Beijing for planning pro-Tibet "L.A.S.E.R. Stencil" art protest

Related episodes of Boing Boing tv:
* BBtv WORLD (Tibet): Inside Lhasa
* Vlog (Xeni): Tibet report - monks forced to participate in staged videos.
* Vlog (Xeni): Tibet's uprising and the internet

I'm here with our UK-based music correspondent Russell Porter, and the entire BBtv crew over the next 4 days. We're posting this episode from inside a giant rock star tour bus *very* generously loaned to us by friends of the blog

We ran around yesterday in a golf cart with the guy who created Outside Lands, Rick Farman of Superfly Productions. We spoke with him for this episode about the idea behind this festival, and what it takes to put together something this huge and complex. Events like this are a virtual world of sorts -- only with lots of real live breathing humans.

We're parked about 100 feet away from the main stage. It feels strange to be so close to something so big before the gates open. All night long, production vehicles and golf carts full of loading guys buzzed around; as I type this there's an eerie quiet before the opening chords explode. This is going to be fun.

Tech notes: the tall eucalyptus trees next to our bus (this is a gorgeous park, remember!) are blocking our satellite dish, so no WiFi in the bus right now -- instead, we're jacked into EVDO cards on MacBooks, on which BBtv editor Wes and segment producer Derek edited this piece last night. I'm pleasantly surprised at upload speeds on this card (it's a Verizon Rev-A). Stay tuned for more video from the BBtv bus at Outside Lands!

(special thanks to Wayne and Bre for use of their magic bus; air travel generously provided by Virgin America.)

Related Boing Boing tv episodes:

* Primus: Xeni interviews Les and Ler (music)
* Kaki King, guitar hero: performance, interview with Xeni (music)
* BB Gadgets' Joel at Outside Lands: Crowdfire deconstructed
* Carney at Outside Lands - a "Boing Boing tv Bus Session." (music)
* Steel Pulse founder David Hinds at Outside Lands (music)

Previous work from monochrom on Boing Boing tv:

* Monochrom: Economic Recession Wisdom from Sock Puppets.
* Monochrom's "Kiki, Bubu, and the Self"
* Nazi Petting Zoo
* Fisch Interview
* Orwell's 1984 deconstructed by puppets
* Monochrom's Marxist sock puppets
* Monochrom: MyFaceSpace, the musical
* Monochrom: Campfire at Will
* Monochrom: Falco Stairs
* Monochrom: Bar code artist Scott Blake / Falco stencil memorial
* Human USB Hack / Very Simple Motor
* Mark's Curie Engine / Monochrom's love song for Lessig

First, Todd speaks with the Long Now Foundation's Alexander Rose about a 10,000-year mechanical clock dreamed up by supercomputer designer Danny Hillis.

Next, we listen to a prototype chime mechanism that will ring ten bells in a different sequence each day over the next 10,000 years. Brian Eno and Danny Hillis came up with the algorithm, and a team of tinkerers crafted the contraption to tap out time on a series of Tibetan bowl gongs.

Todd has a photoset with snapshots from the Mechanicrawl adventures. See also this previous Laughing Squid post.

(Special thanks to Karen Marcelo for image shown in video still)

So what is that, Joel?

A one-of-a-kind official LEGO version of Mead's "Spinner" flying car from Blade Runner, presented to Syd by LEGO when he attended a design summit in Billund. Syd let me pick it up and swoop it around my head like a child.

If you like this BBtv episode, you might want to pick up:

Previous episodes in BBtv's Syd Mead series:

(Footage from the movie Blade Runner courtesy Warner Bros. Entertainment / Warner Home Video; Artwork courtesy of Syd Mead Inc.)

Today on Boing Boing tv, Boing Boing Gadgets editor Joel Johnson visits the studio of artist and futurist Syd Mead, who designed the film's dystopian look and feel. We learn about the "erotic machine" he dreamed for the replicant Zhora (this breast-shaped dreampod was cut from the script when director Ridley Scott ran out of dough), the 1 2 3 *4* alternate opening scenes designed by Syd (one of them, which involved shoveling dead bodies, was deemed "too Holocaust"), what really lights up those building facades, and many more secrets.

Syd explains he envisioned the world of Blade Runner as a place "you wouldn't want to be for too long," and describes the challenges of designing for "a love story with moralistic underpinnings... if we could actually make people, would we treat them like dishwashers? Just use them up and throw them away?"

If you like this episode, you might want to pick up:

Previous episodes in BBtv's Syd Mead trilogy:

(Footage from the movie Blade Runner courtesy Warner Bros. Entertainment / Warner Home Video; Artwork courtesy of Syd Mead Inc.)

Previous BBtv episodes featuring Walter Robot Studios and Bill Barminski:

In this installment, we go inside Syd's studio in Pasadena, CA, and learn more about the creative process behind his work for movies, television, and automobile design -- both Hot Wheels and life-sized -- and how Syd feels about design in the video game industry.

Mead is a former designer for Ford Motor Company and US Steel. His designs have appeared in many movies, including Aliens, Tron, and Blade Runner.

Previously on Boing Boing tv:

These fuzzy logicians ponder the true nature of individual identity in capitalist societies, and connect the dots between Star Trek fandom, Sesame Street characters, Broadway musicals, and racy jpegs.

Previously:

* Nazi Petting Zoo
* Fisch Interview
* Orwell's 1984 deconstructed by puppets
* Monochrom's Marxist sock puppets
* Monochrom: MyFaceSpace, the musical
* Monochrom: Campfire at Will
* Monochrom: Falco Stairs
* Monochrom: Bar code artist Scott Blake / Falco stencil memorial
* Human USB Hack / Very Simple Motor
* Mark's Curie Engine / Monochrom's love song for Lessig

Mead is a former designer for Ford Motor Company and US Steel. His designs have appeared in many movies, including Aliens, Tron, and Blade Runner.

Previously on Boing Boing tv:
Joaquin Baldwin's short, "Sebastian's Voodoo."

'70s punk star Wreckless Eric describes them as "a triumph of dysfunctionalness," and even Kylie Minogue (they've covered a hit song of hers) has become a fan.

The band says their mission is...

...to demonstrate that disability rocks. There are few genres left in music that have yet to be defined. Heavy Load have unwittingly created a brand new one.

We play gigs all over the country and we have noticed that something strange happens at 9.00pm – people start to go home. Heavy Load are fed up with people with learning disabilities leaving club nights and gigs early because their staff finish their shifts at 10pm. This means they are missing out.

If this happens to you: You need to talk about this with your friends, support workers, family and advocates. Our ‘Stay Up Late’ campaign is to make managers and staff know that we want them to plan ahead and talk to us about what we want to do...

Playing the Building is Byrne's latest sonic innovation, and morphs the century-old Battery Maritime Building into a clanging, vibrating sound sculpture. In this installation, the former Talking Heads co-founder blurs the boundaries between the creators and consumers of culture. He explains:

Devices [have been] attached to the building's structure — to the metal beams and pillars, the heating pipes, the water pipes — and are used to make these things produce sound. The activations are of three types: wind, vibration, striking. The devices cause the building elements to vibrate, resonate and oscillate so that the building itself becomes a very large musical instrument.

Playing the Building continues through August 10, 2008 at 10 South Street, New York, NY; open every Friday through Sunday, noon - 6pm. Admission is free of charge.

(Photos used in this episode: Clayton Cubitt. Special thanks to Danielle Spencer, and Jason Wishnow).

Update: Byrne will receive a lifetime achievement award at the Webby Awards tonight.

And in part two of today's BBtv episode, Xeni travels with the BLF and monochrom to document their first-ever joint exploit to build "The Great Firewall of China" around one of the Google signs on the internet giant's Mountain View campus. Hijinks ensued; dogs, cops, and GOOG security guards pursued; TV news crews newsed.

The goal of their "unpaid advertising services"? To draw attention to Google's role in online censorship within China. As it happened, this particular day was the same day of a Google shareholder meeting, during which related proposals came up for vote.

Link to Billboard Liberation Front press release, and here's monochrom's side of the story. Here are previous BBtv episodes with monochrom.

Before he helped launch Wired 15 years ago, and served as the publication's founding editor, the onetime "nomadic photojournalist" wandered throughout Asia with a backpack crammed full of film -- and little else.

The resulting images, most of which were taken in the 1970s, form the body of Asia Grace. We see worlds that no longer exist: Afghanistan and Iran before wars that changed them forever; and traditional lifestyles in Tibet, Nepal, China, and India that fade further into history with each passing year.

Here's an Amazon link for the book.

In part two of today's episode, Kelly explains his hypothesis of "A thousand true fans," an idea that generated much debate and discussion on Boing Boing recently when we pointed to his blog posts on The Technium (which you should read regularly, if you don't already). His question: in the internet age, can an artist subsist on the micro-patronage of a thousand true fans?

This latest Wachowski brothers project reinterprets the classic 1960s Japanese anime series of the same name.

In this second part of BBtv's conversation with Gaeta, he reveals some of the art, anime, and pop culture elements that combine to form Speed Racer's "poptimistic photo-anime" feel. The live action Speed Racer is saturated in a candy-colored palette so rich, audiences may just leave the theater with a contact sugar high.

View interactive samples of the digital building blocks behind the movie in a related online feature in VRMAG, "Speed Racer Uncovered."

And Gaeta adds a special message for Boing Boing tv viewers, who are already well accustomed to all things digital -- "For optimal viewing experience, see Speed Racer at a digital cinema or IMAX theater." He's not kidding, with a feature like this, analog projection just doesn't do the work justice.

PREVIOUSLY: Part One of BBtv's interview with Gaeta on "Speed Racer."

(Special thanks: John Gaeta; Andy and Larry Wachowski; and David Pescovitz)

Next, an animation based on work by illustrator Jon Burgerman for his forthcoming book Pens are my Friends, produced by Jason Arber and Wyld Stallyons.

Related Boing Boing tv episodes:

Gaeta explains how he used VR "bubbles" and a mysterious team known as the "world unit" to create the film's "poptimistic photo-anime" feel. The live action Speed Racer is saturated in a candy-colored palette so rich, audiences may just leave the theater with a contact sugar high.

View interactive samples of the digital building blocks behind the movie in a related online feature in VRMAG, "Speed Racer Uncovered."

And Gaeta adds a special message for Boing Boing tv viewers, who are already well accustomed to all things digital -- "For optimal viewing experience, see Speed Racer at a digital cinema or IMAX theater." He's not kidding, with a feature like this, analog projection just doesn't do the work justice.

(Special thanks: John Gaeta; Andy and Larry Wachowski; and David Pescovitz)

From their statement, redacted by the "U.S. Dept. of Homeland Graffiti"...

From their origins in the trash room of a non-profit in Manhattan to their emergence as the instigators of an international art movement, Graffiti Research Lab: The Complete First Season documents the adventures of an architect and an engineer who quit their day jobs to develop high-tech tools for the art underground. The film follows the GRL and their network of graffiti artist collaborators (and commercial imitators) across four continents as they write on skyscrapers with lasers, mock advertisers with homemade tools, get in trouble with The Department of Homeland Security and make activism fun again. Primarily using video footage from point-and-shoot digital cameras (“The Pocket School”) and found-content on the web, the movie’s visual style draws as much from the art of the power point presentation and viral media as conventional documentary cinema.

Narrated by GRL co-founders, Roth and Powderly, The Complete First Season makes a humorous and insightful argument for free speech in public, open source in pop culture, the hacker spirit in graffiti and not asking for permission in general. The film was premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008. Available 24/7 on The Pirate Bay.

GRL was mistakenly credited with the Boston Mooninite LED Terror Freakout; while their work no doubt inspired the street marketing team responsible for the Aqua Teen Hunger Force debacle, Powderly told Boing Boing the day it happened that GRL was not involved.

Link to more info about the DVD and where you can download a torrent -- or, see it at the premiere, May 4, at New York's MOMA.

"Why do humans love robots so much?" Xeni asks. "Actually, people love animals, babies, and robots," Krach replied. "But animals make turds and babies cry, while robots do none of those things."

Includes gratuitous references to the spectacularly crappy 1979 movie "Starcrash," starring David Hasselhoff and Christopher Plummer. Special thanks to Make, which sponsored the event, and to Andreas Stoiber and Johannes Grenzfurthner of monochrom.

MORE circuit bending video goodness: filmmaker John Fox attended the 2007 Bent Festival in Los Angeles, and shot this fun mini-documentary about the instruments, the technology, and the participants: Video Link.

Together, they are probably best known for the animated hip-hop classic DJ Qbert's Wave Twisters -- and Garon directed the opening animation sequence that appears in each and every BBtv episode.

First up in today's show, "Bear Witness III, Ego Trippin'" an animated music video for Dan the Automator. The video includes work from illustrators Lucasz Ataman, Aaron Piland Joshua Ellingson. Co-director Eric Henry describes the video as "[A] four-part study in hubris. Each section explores a different 'ego trip'— military, cosmetic, scientific, and engineering/industrial — and takes it to its logical conclusion. Pride cometh before the fall."

Part two of today's BBtv is an animated video for Buckethead, the eccentric metal guitarist who wears a bucket on his head. For his song "Spokes for the Wheels of Torment," Syd & Eric brought the hellish Rennaisance paintings of Hieronymus Bosch to life. Sinners are plucked apart by demon birds; unrepentant souls are tortured, sliced, and diced, in an epic headbanger's nightmare.

Vienna-based art-pranksters monochrom teach us how to "hack the urban context" with campfires, sausages, beer, and an elderly Austrian gentleman who speaks LOL. In the second segment of today's episode, someone constructs a campfire, complete with beer bottles and half-cooked links, right in the middle of the Vienna airport. American kids, don't try this at home unless you want a one-way to Camp X-Ray.

BBtv co-editor David Pescovitz takes a trip into the alternate reality of pop surrealist artist Tim Biskup. And it's definitely a trip. Then, sculptor Chris Yates demonstrates how he makes a Diesel Sweeties wooden Red Robot from start to finish, slightly faster than normal.

I was originally introduced to 3d animation by a great freeware program call Anim8or way back in 2000. Soon after, I discovered a program called 3d Studio Max and I have been working with it up to this point. I now work for a company called MAKE.

So, I have several years experience with 3d Studio Max, and am familiar with everything from modelling to texturing to animation.

CBS News almost blew our cover! The muffineers say, "We dedicate our efforts in memory of Keith Taft." A full list of cupcake art car bakers designers and drivers, after the jump.

First up, the classic "Fight Fight," a Mortal Kombat spoof in which the director performs the role of both vanquisher and vanquished. Next, an all-new exclusive for BBtv -- "Blingee IRL," in which all is pimped out and glamtabulous.

In part two of today's episode -- what's the secret behind For Tax Reasons' terrific work? They make those fancy animations with hard labor coerced from underpaid, non-union robots. Robots with simmering resentments that might! just! blow! up!

First, regular BBtv contributors monochrom from Austria give us The Void's Foaming Ebb, a hallucinatory retrospective of ancestral media -- from the eight-track to the VCR to long-extinct PDAs -- and a meditation on dead data-forms of the future (created by: Frank Apunkt Schneider, Christoph Sonnleitner, Johannes Grenzfurthner, Stefan Scheder, Roland Gratzer, David Dempsey). German version here.

Next, 198090 by BBtv favorites Peppermelon from Argentina -- a sweet short suggesting new forms of luminous eco-erotica (created by: Fernando Sarmiento & Tomás Garcia).

Remember those LED signs from the great Boston Mooninite debacle of 2007, in which a street promo campaign for a television show turned into a big security scare? They are in fact fun to make, and not at all deadly -- I spoke with Windell from Evil Mad Science, which sells kits so you can make pegboard signs at home. Here's a related post by Phil Torrone on the MAKE blog.

10 performers outfitted in medieval/space/fantasy armor re-create Bruce Nauman’s 1973 work “Tony Sinking into the Floor, Face Up and Face Down”. Performed in slow motion and combined with movements based on computer game death animations, this piece is accompanied by a high volume binaural beats reputed to induce out of body experiences.

In part two, an impressionistic montage of iPhone snapshots taken among those living, slow-mo dead.

What we found were machines, simple and intricate, that blurred the line between art and industry, kinetic masterpieces created during an era of diabolical innovation and gleeful invention. The steam engine embodied the ideologies, desires and dreams of its era, of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, a bright and shining future where technology was built by hand. They were the aspirational finned cars and rockets of their day. Most recently, steam's fantastic has been represented by romantic industrial arts and the literary movements of retro sci-fi, steampunk, and gothic neo-Victorianism. The arch modernity of the steam driven Industrial Revolution is a powerful metaphor that explores our present and future through the nostalgic and dystopic past.

Duh, Compubeaver! This taxidermy casemod was created by Kasey McMahon of yourpsychogirlfriend. Compubeaver boasts impressive technical specs, and can chew through logs or logfiles with equal ease.

In this episode of Boing Boing tv, we observe the critter in his native environment: a contemporary office space, with eager information workers -- and one big problem.

Want to build your own? Read this Instructables HOWTO!

Special thanks to Sean Bonner, to everyone at The Groop, and to Adam Koford for the Compubeaver illustrations and "LED log" font. If you dig this video, feel free to Digg it.

Previously on BBtv: Text-o-possum / Your Psycho Girlfriend

Next, Pour Nos Jeunes, a surreal and eco-funky animated short by award-winning motion graphics studio PepperMelon, from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Directed by Martin Dasnoy.

Next, a sneak preview from U2 3D, a stereoscopic 3D movie opening this week in US theaters which showcases the band's use of technology to create immersive experiences for fans in concert. There's a blog for the film here.

Music in this episode: Beef Wellington, from Eighth Dimension Records (Special thanks, Michael Donaldson, Souris Hong-Porretta, and Thor!)