Hobo Code

In the fraternal spirit of the road, hobos have developed a set of symbols to communicate local conditions. Important information concerning things like food and drink, the disposition of the residents, the presence of dogs and police and even the state of the local jail was codified into a universally adopted picture-language. Hobo signs are still used today. Considering the state of the economy, it might be helpful to buff up.

from Fran's Hobo Page

Hobo Slang

Specialized Vocabularly: Hobo Slang 1939

Pearl Diver. A hobo dishwasher and who works for his meal.

Scenery Bum. “A young tramp who bums it around the country, just for the fun of it.”

Jungle Buzzard. “A tramp who loves to eat but is too lazy to get the ingredients for a mulligan stew. He eats what is left when the gang leaves the jungle fire.”

stray bullets

Right Thing to Wear at the Wrong End of a Gun There are bulletproof leather jackets and bulletproof polo shirts. Armored guayabera shirts hang next to protective windbreakers, parkas and even white ruffled tuxedo shirts. Every member of the sales staff has had to take a turn being shot while wearing one of the products, which range from a few hundred dollars to as much as $7,000, so they can attest to the efficacy of the secret fabric.

also:
Was Life on Mars Extinguished Prematurely by a Huge Impact? (via)
Man of steel (rare Richard Serra interview)
Liveblogging a pending asteroid strike

Futility Closet - Allied Reptiles In February 1945, the British 14th Army had surrounded a mass of fleeing Japanese in a mangrove swamp in southern Burma. In the swamp were thousands of saltwater crocodiles, averaging 15 feet long, but the Japanese refused to surrender...

viddy:
Kraftwerk - Radioactivity (live)
Video Inside the Chernobyl Sarcophagus
Jack Kerouac reads from Doctor Sax in 1961
The Weather Underground (feature length doc)

stray bullets

The U.K. bans product placement on TV, hopefully a trend (via); Wired Science asks, Would You Smoke Genetically Modified Marijuana?; just don't smoke any before you read The Art of Simplexity (via); though if you insist, you can zone out on some European Film Treasures (via); but if you really want to go deep, check out Jahsonic's mind-blowing Art and Popular Culture Wiki, good for you.

Speakeasy Restaurants and Forbidden Food

Good Magazine's weblog posted an article by Ligaya Mishan on speakeasy restaurants.

I've always been intrigued by illicit and underground social gatherings. Many of us are familiar with exclusive, illegal after-hours clubs, the secret raves of the '90s, absinthe parties and the many and varied orgies, klatches, salons, flash mobs and bongathons that go on in unlikely venues far beyond the walls of our domiciles; these are fairly well documented in the meme pool. Speakeasy restaurants may be a bit more tame but are no less sub rosa and therefore quite attractive to trendjackers and urban adventurers.

In a time when food is heavily regulated, litigated and legislated, it only stands to reason that these sorts of establishments would thrive in their own quietly exclusive ways. I suspect that the Cisco-ization of American restaurants and the fact that nouvelle cuisine adventures often involve bizarre concoctions featuring liquid nitrogen, carrageenan, sodium alginate and other seemingly unpalatable chemicals at upwards of $300 a plate has led many to seek their fancies in more down-to-earth, yet still singular, alternatives. (It seems we're already in the midst of a backlash against the postmodern molecular gastronomy fad)

I've caught wind of this in the past but not in much detail. I'm inclined to think that the examples cited in the above article are just the tip of the iceberg. I'd wager there are goodly numbers of covert and exotic eateries out there.

Word trickles in that certain chefs, for a fee, would prepare forbidden meals for the venturous and jaded. One example of forbidden food is the Ortolan, a tiny, endangered, European bird, the selling (but not eating) of which was outlawed by France in 1999. Apparently, only a few chefs in the world would dare prepare this delicacy and would only do it for a very healthy stack. (Recipe)

Another example that could be construed as 'forbidden' (in more than one way) is cited in Ms. Mishan's post:

"Theme menus have included a "Yes, we’re trying to kill you" dinner: bacon-wrapped pork belly, foie-gras custard with truffled wild mushrooms, and duck-confit pie."

Just yesterday I was told that there are secretive groups of cannibals in the U.S. indulging their ghoulish predilections with all the flair of contemporary haute cuisine, though I haven't been able to verify this... yet...

One can imagine nouvelle cuisine deviating into fetishes like 'culinary masochism', an Artaud-esque obstacle course of excruciating and dangerous dining. (although as I imagine this, I suspect that someone has probably already done it, in spades.)