UPDATE 6/16:
Congratulations to Libby, the winner of our Paper: Tear, Fold, Rip, Crease, Cut contest! Libby teaches art at an elementary school in Memphis, Tennessee, where the book will live come September. Thanks again to everyone who entered.

Didn’t win? Still want a copy? Black Dog Publishing is kindly offering 40% off the retail price of the book to our readers. Please email them directly to take advantage of this special offer.

With businesses large and small going paperless and the concept of a “paper trail” nearing obsolescence, pressed wood pulp is slowly becoming an anomaly in an increasingly digitized world. However, paper’s 2,000-year history is far from over, thanks to its irreplaceable qualities as an artistic medium. London’s Black Dog Publishing celebrates the humble page with a new book, Paper: Tear, Fold, Rip, Crease, Cut, which traces paper’s origins and development, champions current innovations in production and recycling, and spotlights the work of more than 50 artists and designers. We chat with the book’s editor, Paul Sloman, to find out more about paper’s rightful place in the 21st century.

Want to win a copy of Paper? Hop down to the comments and let us know: What has paper done for you lately? Be sure to enter your email address, so we can contact the winner!

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Lunch is long gone; it’s 4 p.m., the Tianamen Square massacre still makes us sad, Cuba thumbed its nose at the OAS, David Carradine was found hanged, and work just won’t end. There’s only one way to make it out of this day alive: THE CAT POWER HAPPY HOUR, a daily pick-me-up from your friends at Flavorpill. After the jump, a picture so cute it’ll turn your cubicle into a den of pure cuddle. (Check back tomorrow, same time, same place for more unhinged adorability).

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Lunch is long gone, it’s 4pm, an Air France jetliner disappeared into thin air, anti-abortion activists are spewing hate, the Taliban abducted hundreds in Pakistan, GM is officially bankrupt, and work just won’t end. There’s only one way to make it out of this day alive: THE CAT POWER HAPPY HOUR, a new daily pick-me-up from your friends at Flavorpill. After the jump, a picture so cute it’ll turn your cubicle into a den of pure cuddle. (Check back tomorrow, same time, same place for more unhinged adorability).

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Patrick deWitt’s excellent debut novel, Ablutions, collects the musings of a nameless bartender who fears for his liver and his sanity. Presented as “notes for a novel,” deWitt crafts a second-person narrative that thrusts the reader behind the bar and into the life of a long-suffering boozer. Beginning with sharp depictions of a Hollywood dive’s motley regulars, Ablutions picks up steam as “you” hit the open road in an attempt to escape both patrons and demons. We caught up with deWitt to ask about his novel’s daring form, a potential silver-screen adaptation, and Ablutions‘ horrible smell.

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Given that New York’s New Museum pursues an aggressively contemporary agenda, it surprised us to learn that the feisty institution has been keeping an eye on the past. This backward glance is known as the Bowery Artist Tribute, an ongoing project that seeks to record the oral histories of the neighborhood’s former and current resident artists. We spoke with project coordinator Ethan Swan about the BAT, the new New Museum, and the neighborhood’s legacy of both creativity and squalor.

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Kelly “K-Fresh” Frazier is a DJ, blogger, and emissary for Detroit’s vibrant hip-hop scene. His website, Renaissance Soul Detroit, evolved from a tribute to the late, great producer J. Dilla into the city’s online hub for urban music. To celebrate our first Daily Dose contest‘s focus on the Motor City, K offered to take us on a virtual tour of his favorite hometown artists.

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Welcome to our first Daily Dose contest! Wanna skip all the good stuff? Fine. Just jump down to the comments and let us know:

What’s your favorite thing about Detroit?

[UPDATE: The contest is now closed — many thanks to all who participated! The winner will be announced in tomorrow's Daily Dose.]

The winner will score a D-town prize pack: a signed copy of Finale‘s yet-to-be-released debut album, A Pipe Dream and a Promise; Black Milk‘s latest LP, TRONIC, on vinyl; eLZhi‘s acclaimed 2008 album, The Preface; and a signed, limited-edition copy of artist Jamar Nicholas’ Interdependent Media coloring book.

Make sure you enter a working email address when you post a comment — it’ll remain invisible, and we’ll only use it to contact the winner, who’ll be selected at random and announced in next Tuesday’s Daily Dose.

Are you not receiving the Daily Dose, Flavorpill’s quick look at what’s new in music, print, art, film, and online? Sign up here.

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Almost exactly one year ago, the world’s music-history textbooks simultaneously fell out of date, after reports emerged questioning Thomas Edison’s status as the father of recorded music. Sure enough, researchers confirmed that an obscure French printer named Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville managed to make a ten-second recording nearly two decades before the invention of Edison’s phonograph. However, Scott’s device, known as a phonautograph, came with a severe limitation: although it could accurately etch sound waves onto paper, there was no way to play back the squiggles.

Dip down below for a free, full-length download and the rest of the tale.

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We’re getting a kick out of graphic designer Cam Wilde’s latest endeavor, the “Periodic Table of Typefaces: Popular, Influential, & Notorious.” Posted in an online portfolio hosted by our friends at Behance, Wilde’s work neatly arranges 100 fonts by fame  and class, serving as both a quick lesson in the art form and an assessment of its impact. We particularly appreciate Wilde’s inclusion of each typeface’s year of creation,  which stretch all the way back to the printing press’ invention circa 1450.

For a few thoughts on the wild world of fonts, we turned to our resident designer, Jonathan Rahmani, who confessed to a sans-serif love affair via IM.

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Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin presents the latest installment in a series of exhibitions that challenge visual artists to produce audio works. The Murder of Crows, by Canadian artists Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, consists of an immersive, half-hour sound play “performed” by 98 different speakers. Anyone in Berlin? Hop over to the comments and let us know how it is.