Update submitted by Marcy LaViollette, May 8, 2008 (see original post below):

This stencil art festival has some pretty amazing artistry. This is my favorite:

Many other wonderful images to check out:

From ArtDaily.org:

Tunnel becomes Banksy art exhibit
BBC News
May 2, 2008

A disused road tunnel in south London has been turned into a giant exhibition space by graffiti artist Banksy.

Murals in the Bristol artist’s famous stencil style appear with work by 29 other artists in a half-mile stretch of the tunnel in Leake Street, Waterloo.

Images of Madonna kissing Britney Spears and a hoodie appear alongside installations of crashed cars. (more…)

Judge Tosses Out ‘Borat’ Lawsuit by N.Y. Businessman
1010WINS
April 2, 2008

New York (AP) — A judge has tossed out a defamation lawsuit brought by a businessman shown in the movie “Borat” as he is chased down Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.

The 2006 hit, starring Cohen as a crass Kazakhstan journalist, can be deemed “newsworthy,” defined in its most liberal and far-reaching terms, U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska said.

New York civil rights law provides limited protection for any person whose image is used for advertising or trade purposes without his written consent, she said, and the nonconsensual use of a person’s image to depict newsworthy events or matters of public interest is exempt from the law.

The lawsuit had sought unspecified damages from the movie’s producer, Twentieth Century Fox, for Jeffrey Lemerond, who claimed he was humiliated when the Borat character tried to catch him.

In the movie, Lemerond, a Dartmouth College graduate and financial analyst, is shown running and yelling “Go away!” as Borat chases him in an attempt to hug strangers. (more…)

Pranks.com is one year old today!

Many, many thanks to all the supporters, contributors, readers, and friends who have made it such a great success!

images: party balloons, zombies

Submitted by Paul Krassner, written by Michael Dare for Dareland,
March 26, 2008

The true story of the biggest April Fool’s Day Prank of All Time

Lies To Get You Out of the House

None of this is my fault. At least not all my fault. There are plenty of others to blame. For instance, there’s the Bhagwan . . .

I start out 1985 at the Bodhi Tree, a multispiritual bookstore on Melrose with incense and herbal tea. I am looking for nothing in particular, which is when you stumble upon the most surprising things. I am skimming from section to section, belief system to belief system, from Asimov to Zoroaster, when there in front of me is an entire wall of books by someone I’ve never heard of. His name is Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and he is not famous yet. He has not yet moved to Oregon, started an ashram, collected Rolls-Royces and gotten thrown out of the country. But he will be equally responsible for the Biggest April Fool’s Day Prank of all time. If I had not opened a random book by Rajneesh, turned to the first page and read the first paragraph, none of this would have happened. Here is what that first page said:

Beyond the boundary of this room is the unbound, open sky. You have never seen it. I can talk with you about the sky, about the freshness, about the sea, about all that is beyond this room, but you have not seen it. You do not know about it. You just laugh; you think I am making it up. You say, “It is all fantastic. You are a dreamer.” I cannot convince you to go outside because everything that I can talk about is meaningless to you. Then I say, “The house is on fire!” This is meaningful to you; this is something that you can understand. Now I do not have to give you any explanations. I just run; you follow me. The house is not on fire, but the moment you are outside you don’t have to ask me why I lied. The meaning is there; the sky is there. Now you thank me. Any lie will do. The lie was just a device; it was just a device to bring you outside. It did not cause the outside to be there. Every religion is based on a lie device.

I immediately dig the guy. Here he is, right off the bat, admitting that he’s lying to me. I buy the book and never finish it, but I do end up carrying a phrase around in my head for days, like a hit song with a killer hook. “Lies to get you out of the house.” I write it down at the top of a piece of paper, sure that something will come.

It does. (more…)

April Fools’ Day is extended to April 2 and 3!

If you’re in San Francisco, don’t miss:

The First Annual Pranks Film Festival
April 1, 2, 3 at The Roxie Cinema
3117 16th Street by Valencia, San Francisco CA 94133
Tickets $10 per day for all shows.

The 1st Annual Pranks Film Festival is a three day celebration and tribute to the “Art of the Prank” and those pranksters that have courage enough to pull them off. [Editor’s note: Footage of Joey Skaggs’ exploits will be screened Thursday, April 3 at 5pm]

www.pranksfilmfestival.com

RE/Search Publications Presents:

The First Annual Pranks Film Festival
April 1, 2, 3 at The Roxie Cinema
3117 16th Street by Valencia, San Francisco CA 94133
Tickets $10 per day for all shows.
www.pranksfilmfestival.com

The 1st Annual Pranks Film Festival is a three day celebration and tribute to the “Art of the Prank” and those pranksters that have courage enough to pull them off.

The Festival will screen films about the masters like Alan Abel, John Law, The Cacophany Society and the Billboard Liberation Front and short docs from the newest infiltrators and prankster, like the Yes Men, Harmon Leon and Joey Skaggs. This is a festival that is both humorous and political.

Check the schedule here. Benefit for RE/Search Publications and Todd Blair of SRL.

Editor’s note: Video about Joey Skaggs will be screened on April 3 at 5pm.

Marc Horowitz: The Centre for Improved Living is at Hayward Project Space, London SE1 (0871 663 2501) from 18 March to 13 April

Marc Horowitz: The artist-cum-prankster has a hot date with Britain
by Nicholas Barber
The Independent
9 March 2008

Nicholas Barber meets the man who invited thousands of strangers to dinner and was voted one of America’s most eligible bachelors

Marc Horowitz’s website is well named: ineedtostopsoon.com. You probably haven’t heard of Horowitz, but if you’re curious about art, comedy and the ways the internet is blurring the distinctions between them, you might log on to his site intending to glance at it for a moment, only to find the minutes slipping into hours. Even while the words “I need to stop soon” are echoing round your head, there’s always the temptation to click on one more link.

The biggest time-swallowers are the amiably rough-around-the-edges YouTube videos of Horowitz’s Pythonesque sketches, from the Underwear Trying-on Contest to the operetta about how he invented the internet. Get past them and you come to the video tours of Horowitz’s gallery shows in Paris, Geneva and Como. Each exhibition is titled The Centre for Improved Living and is stocked with sculptures, sketches and posters that could, in a semi-ironic way, make life easier. Among the exhibits are a rug for sweeping things under, a kit that enables you to take revenge on noisy neighbours, and a card which reads “I’m sorry for breaking into your bank”. (”Just in case you break into a bank, you have an apology letter already written,” explains Horowitz.)

Also on the website are videos of Horowitz’s performance art, including his Errand Feasibility Study, for which he rode around San Francisco on a pack mule. And once you move on from the videos, there are suggested daily activities and photos which reveal that Horowitz, aged 30, has a certain kind of nerdy chic. There are even doodles and hand-drawn T-shirts available for a few dollars apiece.

Watch Mark Horowitz’s ‘I Invented the Internet’: (more…)

Jail for Facebook spoof Moroccan
BBC News
February 23, 2008

A Moroccan computer engineer has been sentenced to three years in jail for setting up a Facebook profile in the name of a member of the royal family.

Fouad Mourtada was arrested on 5 February on suspicion of stealing the identity of Prince Moulay Rachid, younger brother of King Mohammed VI.

The Casablanca court also ordered Mr Mourtada, 26, to pay a $1,300 fine.

The prosecution had urged the court to impose a sentence which set an example for others.

Mr Mourtada was convicted of “villainous practices linked to the alleged theft of the [prince’s] identity”.

In his defence, he said he admired the prince, and that the Facebook entry was just intended to be a bit of fun.

‘Beaten unconscious’

(more…)

Submitted by Steve Lambert:

The Billboard Liberation Front today announced a major new advertising improvement campaign executed on behalf of clients AT&T and the National Security Agency. Focusing on billboards in the San Francisco area, this improvement action is designed to promote and celebrate the innovative collaboration of these two global communications giants.

“This campaign is an extraordinary rendition of a public-private partnership,” observed BLF spokesperson Blank DeCoverly. “These two titans of telecom have a long and intimate relationship, dating back to the age of the telegraph. In these dark days of Terrorism, that should be a comfort to every law-abiding citizen with nothing to hide.”

video via iovdebeholther

This is a 2 hour and 27 minute documentary produced by Alan Graham and edited by Don Alex Hixx as a tribute to the legendary Andy Kaufman:

You can also view it on Google or on Best Free Documentaries.