My good disciple Timmy ‘Twang’ Lowndes of Northern Ireland offers: “A Spiritual contemplation of all things toasted. Let us take time this day to celebrate all that can be placed within the sacramental toaster. Be it bread or crumpet, dark or light, we praise all that is warm and butter covered. Behold All Ye That Enter The Seventh Apocalyptic Church Of the Toaster, thee shall visit our revered prophet Dr. Toast.” Join now at Facebook.com!

Sept 17-21, 2009: Join the Dr. at Northern California’s premier art and music festival in a beautiful outdoor location just outside Yosemite National Park. Also: Les Claypool, Amon Tobin, the Shamanic Cheerleaders, art installations and fire performances, workshops and presentations, and much more. Dr. Toast performs 3:30-5pm Friday on the Lake stage. Tickets and info at www.symbiosisgathering.com.

July 11, 2009, 4pm-2am: big ART studios presents: Sand by the Ton! Join us at Oakland’s newest beach for a grand opening fundraiser of epic proportions. Swimwear encouraged. 4 electronic music stages, 3 live music stages, 250,000 square feet of art studios, 1000s of your closest friends, 200 tons of sand, 1 carnival midway, 5 swimming pools. Symbiosis + False Profit stage with Carbon Fire Flower installations from False Profit Labs. Featuring the music of Beats Antique, Random Rab, Welder, Heyoka, Dov, Dr. Toast (7pm), Tinker and more! American Steel, 1960 Mandela Parkway, Oakland, CA (info, tickets, map)

Back in the early 90s, a product called the Video Toaster was introduced that allowed folks to do high-quality video editing and special effects with inexpensive Amiga home computers. Almost 20 years later, an industrious fellow named Lemonie gives us instructions on how to convert an old VCR into a Video Toaster that actually toasts bread (minus the video editing, and with the addition of the extreme danger of fire or electrocution). You can learn how on Instructibles.com.

Thomas Twaites is a designer who has decided to build his own electric toaster, from scratch. Now, I don’t mean that he went out and bought a plastic box and some wire and cut some holes and plugged it in. He is making his toaster FROM SCRATCH. That means he has to extract copper (for wires) and iron (for the springs and grill) from raw ore. And he has to process crude oil to make plastic. Below is a picture showing how he used a microwave to attempt to smelt iron (he was able to produce a coin-sized amount, not quite enough for a toaster. The project is ongoing.) The Toaster Project, via We Make Money Not Art

Dr. Toast makes his 4th annual performance at False Profit‘s Priceless campout this 4th of July weekend, at a beautiful location on the Feather River in the Sierra town of Belden, CA. Three days of camping and swimming plus interactive fire and video art from False Profit Labs, vegetarian/vegan food from Table Nectar, plus sculpture, workshops in balloon animals, hand percussion, knot tying, yoga, and staff spinning. Live music highlights include David Last, Deru, Mimosa, ganucheau, Genji, EPROM, Heyoka, Ill Gates, Kalpataru Tree, Mozaic, Random Rab, Welder, and many more. For more information, visit priceless.false-profit.com.