The History of Pranks - The Art of the Prank

June 8, 2007January 15, 2019

Remembering The Realist

I’m very happy that archivist Ethan Persoff has created The Realist Archive Project, and will be republishing all 146 issues of Paul Krassner’s “classic and uncompromising” magazine The Realist. It’s great that his work will be back in circulation and available to the public.

I’ve known Paul since the 1960’s. He’s been a good friend and supporter of my work. He’s even been a participant. He came on my Hippie Bus Tour to Queens, was at my Vietnamese Christmas Nativity Burning in Central Park, and was kind enough to pose with my Grotesque Statues of Liberty in the East Village for the back cover of the jacket sleave of his book, How a Satirical Editor Became a Yippie Conspirator in Ten Easy Years. Paul has always been thoughtful, courageous and funny. Happily, he’s also a contributor to this site.

Four issues of The Realist will be posted every month until the archive is complete.

Thanks Mark Frauenfelder for the heads up and for the wonderful post about The Realist’s influence on Boing Boing.

May 24, 2007January 15, 2019

Fakes and Forgeries: The Art of Deception

An exhibition at the Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Connecticut, May 12, 2007 – September 9, 2007:

Bruce Museum Web site:

Fakes and Forgeries: The Art of Deception

…Fakes and Forgeries: The Art of Deception reveals the strategies and techniques of the world”s most successful forgers and exposes the extraordinary lengths to which they went to produce authentic-looking artworks. It also addresses techniques used to expose these deceptions, including X-ray fluorescence, pigment analysis, spectrography, dendrochronology, and carbon dating…”

Here’s a New York Times review by Grace Glueck, They Are Inauthentic, Yes, but Beautiful

Here’s a New York Sun review by Maureen Mullarkey, At the Bruce, the Art of Deception

Thanks The Art of Law Blog

May 17, 2007January 15, 2019

You should see the one that got away

While we’re on the subject of weird things on roof-tops…

The Headington Shark

Thanks Wooster Collective

May 5, 2007January 15, 2019

Coyle & Sharpe: The Imposters Podcasts, Episode 6

Here’s Prison Camp, episode 6 of the historic Coyle & Sharpe podcast series presented by Jesse Thorn of The Sound of Young America. In this episode, Coyle & Sharpe ask a man from Montana to help them to control the laborers in their agricultural facility using guns and electrical shock.

Listen to episodes 1, 2 & 3 here, episode 4 here and episode 5 here.

These recordings are from the Sharpe family archive, tended by Mal’s daughter, Jennifer Sharpe. More about Coyle & Sharpe is available on their Website or on MySpace.

You can also listen to this podcast at The Sound of Young America or you can subscribe to the series in iTunes.

May 2, 2007January 15, 2019

How false information creates true events

From monochrom: An article by Klaus Schoenberger — who is doing pop-culture research at the University of Hamburg, Germany — featuring the Yes Men and their Union Carbide/Bhopal hoax in 2004.

Activists use fakes and hoaxes to communicate information by speaking in the name of someone else – persons or institutions invested with power. With the spreading of Internet communication, this pattern of action and communicating has acquired additional power as a means of political and social protest. Within the framework of Guerrilla Communication, with its specific understanding of politics, faking develops into an efficient form of political articulation.

Read the entire article here.

Editor’s note: See also April Media Fools, March 30, 2005, by Rory O’Connor for MediaChannel.org