The Hole Earth Catalog

Locusts

Contrary to popular belief, locusts are not destructive if they are properly trained. A well-trained locust is polite, considerate and fairly smart.

You will learn how to harness locust power for the cause of Good. They are a lot cheaper than bulldozers and a lot neater than dynamite. Also, they produce a tasty jelly that makes an inexpensive table spread.

Breaking and Training the Common Locust

By I. J. Merivale

By the same author:

Organic Weed Farming

Organic Mouse Ranching

How to Make Licorice Out of Tar

Make Your Own Steel

Tell U. S. Steel to shove it. You will now make your own with a good old-fashioned Bessemer steel converter. We've found an outfit in Bernt Furn, Georgia, that sells reconditioned Bessemers and Bessemer parts at reasonable prices. They also tell you how to make the stuff.

A hot and heavy job, but very nice when you hold a bar of good honest steel in your hand.

From: Al's Iron & Steel Supply, 361 S. Plumtree, Bernt Furn, Georgia 33402

Also from Al's:

Make Your Own Subway System

Make Your Own Hydroelectric Dam

How to Rap

We're not talking about talking. We're talking about rapping, the ancient Hindu musical form of beating on a clam with a scallion. Doesn't sound like much for a while. Keep at it. You'll start hearing the inner rhythms.

How to Rap

By Tatwandu Variswabi

H'ai Chu

At last. A Japanese physical art that centers on awkwardness and bad form. We can't all be graceful as gazelles. H'ai Chu is the art of Dropping. You hold two bowls of rice in your hands. You try to juggle them in a clumsy manner. They drop, spilling hundreds of tiny grains of rice all over the floor. You groan, bend down awkwardly and pick up every grain. You have just performed H'ai Chu. Life is a series of awkward moves and mistakes. You learn from your mistakes and you move on, picking up the pieces. Various stages of H'ai Chu include dropping chow mein, lamb stew, blueberry pie à la mode, cantaloupe seeds, glasses of milk, beer and wine.

H'ai Chu: The Japanese Art of Dropping By T'ing Wa and Jerome Silverstaub

Quicksand Houses

Cheap, fast shelter for seminomadic types. Just mix a big batch of sand and water until the mixture yields to your weight and you find yourself slipping comfortably into it. The idea is to make the perfect sand/water mixture, so you slide just so far down and no farther. Use the sand-saturation formula recommended by the United Arab Republic Department of Parks: three parts sand to one part water and a pinch of rock.

How to Walk a Thousand Miles a Day

Sounds a little farfetched, doesn't it? Actually, 1000 miles is absolute maximum; 750 would be an average. Ok, what's the catch? No catch. Have you ever heard certain homosexuals referred to as being "so gay they're always a foot off the ground"? In Lyle Johnston's case, it's true. But he's learned to harness his gay power into a kind of semiflying walk that propels him along at a remarkable speed while being about 12 inches off the ground. And he claims he can teach all of us to "walk gay" and stop polluting the air with cars and jets. We're for it.

How to Walk a Thousand Miles a Day By Lyle Johnston

Wool, the Wonder Food

If you're into sheep and you're not eating the wool, you've been missing one of nature's most nutritious foods.

Experts have discovered that wool contains more proteins, vitamins and minerals than any other substance, including soybeans. Natural unprocessed wool, freshly shorn from your organically raised sheep, is obviously the most nutritious. The rougher tweeds, such as Harris and Shetland, are also good. Laura Jarvis Tote's "Let's Cook with Wool" is the basic work on wool cookery. Great recipes for using wool with fish scales (that oft-neglected part of the fish).

Velveeta

Velveeta is a commune that claims to be a successful working utopia. It's based on the Theory of Negative Energy. Negative Energy comes from fear, envy and hatred, the feelings that conventional utopias want to eliminate. There is so much energy generated by all this hatred and bitterness that things tend to get done.

The name Velveeta comes from their house material, which is made of Army surplus cheese, a material that is unusually strong, weatherproof and mellows handsomely with age.

The only problem that still has to solved is excessive heat and fires. Sometimes a house accidentally catches fire and turns into a fondue.

The Velveeta Community: Or How to Achieve Utopia Through Hatred By Timothy Sprague and Ormond Lloyd

Katami

Katami, the ancient Japanese art of coldcut arrangement, is the sister of the more famous tea ceremony. Many consider it even more basic to an understanding of the Japanese way of life. Ko-Wen-Ba is one of the 300 finest katami masters in his home town of Azawa. He teaches all types of katami--buffet, cocktail party, informal and formal affairs. He discusses color contrasting, cutting, shaping, stuffing and garnishing. Also included is haibu, the art of carving a roast turkey and putting it back together.

Katami

By Ko-Wen-Ba and Jerome Silverstaub

The Workings of a Brain: Explorations into the Mind of a Smoked Whitefish

Professor Eli Dobkin has spent the last nine years studying the mind and nervous system of the smoked whitefish. He has succeeded in going inside the head of the fish, and with the aid of computers, he's learned how its whole behavioral system works.

since no one knows much about the human brain, maybe the whitefish brain is a start.

The Workings of a Brain By Professor Eli Dobkin (Note: Unfortunately, Professor Dobkin's studies on the smoked sturgeon had to be stopped because of lack of funds. Sturgeon now goes for about $12 a pound.)

Fox Husbandry

There isn't a more useful animal to have around. A good fox gives milk, has a beautiful pelt and, when the time comes, has the makings of a gourmet meal. Don't be put off by your first taste of fox milk. It's sour and greenish in color, but it's the best natural laxative in the world.

One trouble with foxes. They're crazy. Be sure to give them plenty of love and tranquilizers.

Fox Husbandry

By LeFevre Treadway