Dig Me No Grave

Dead Men Tell No Tales


From Twitter 12-08-2009
[info]e_moon60

  • 10:00:05: MESSIAH performance tonight. Hate the venue, love the director. Will take long nap today--not a night owl by nature.

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Bah! Snowbug!
[info]dadiceguy
In honor of the first snow of winter...

I Hate Snow

To The Tune of Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

Authorship Unknown

1. Oh, the traffic outside is frightful,
Accidents aren't so delightful,
I'm stuck in this stop-and-go,
I hate snow, I hate snow, I hate snow.

2. Cars are having troubles stopping,
Each other they keep popping;
I am moving so really slow,
I hate snow, I hate snow, I hate snow.

When I make it back home tonight
How I'll hate going out in the storm;
Because cutting wood really bites,
But I need more to stay warm.

3. Traffic is slowly dying,
While I sit here I keep crying
Cause it just won't end, I know.
I hate snow, I hate snow, I hate snow.

When I make it back home tonight
How I'll hate going out to the store;
And the crowds that I'll have to fight,
I am sure that they won't have any more.

4. Oh, the blizzard outside is frightful,
Snowflakes aren't so delightful,
I'm trapped with no place to go,
I hate snow, I hate snow, I hate snow.
Tags:

A Farewell to Wednesday One-Liners
[info]overheardnyc

Teenage boy, explaining why he joined the Air Force: We've been around since World War II. We fought against the Germans and sank several submarines. We also killed a whale, but that's not the point.

--Bard High School, Queens

Overheard by: Sunny

20-something dude to friend: Ma-fucking-rines! The Marines! Man, I'ma join up, be a Marine, and go all over the world, fuck, and have babies. I'ma get laid and have a baby in every country: Spain, France... even Pakistan!

--50th & 8th

Overheard by: camillia*

Little boy in army fatigues hiding behind fallen tree: Pow! Pow! Look, mommy! It's the Battle of the Bulge!

--St. Mark's

Lady with Russian accent to salesperson in outerwear section: I don't like the style, it's not feminine. It's like for soldiers, or Chinese people.

--Lord & Taylor, 39th St

Overheard by: mira

Off-duty MTA worker to another: Britain? Whatever man, we beat they ass with... muskets and shit!

--6 Train


Alsome | Thumbs up | Thumbs down |
Link · Email · Quote this! · Del.icio.us · Posted 2009-12-09

Comic: On The Dunes of Ur-Marsa
[info]pennyarcaderss


Recap: Castle 2.10 - One Man's Treasure
[info]to_paraphrase


“It appears early on that Sam is a two-timing hound. This is revealed by his wife (whom he had children with) and his much younger fiancée (whose hair I covet) both showing up to ID his body at the morgue. Awkward.” – http://ping.fm/stats/Idrw5

Recap: Castle 2.09 - Love Me Dead
[info]to_paraphrase


“Basically what happens here is, Castle gets played by Scarlet like the Devil plays the violin (fast, loose, and sloppy).” – http://ping.fm/stats/yDEIA

Recap: Doctor Who 4.16 - The Waters of Mars
[info]to_paraphrase


“So, he knows something’s going to go down but he can’t save them and needs to leave. That is, typically, until something happens and he has to figure out the problem (he’s like House, only in alien form).” – http://ping.fm/stats/1PQbe

From Twitter 12-08-2009
[info]wyldkyss

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com


Recap: Fringe 2.06 & 2.07
[info]to_paraphrase


“I know it’s hard to come up with original storylines for an FBI agent investigating the strange and unusual when The X-Files was on so long it pretty much covered just about every supernatural entity you could think of, but you really don’t have to do that! The Pattern is interesting enough on its own!” – http://ping.fm/p3dCv

Recap: Castle 2.08 - Kill the Messenger
[info]to_paraphrase


“Hey. Just because you have money doesn’t mean you should get away with murder. At least on television.” – http://ping.fm/bcqyQ

Friends In Kanyana
[info]littlemissrisk
I am in love.
It doesn't matter that he's a cold-hearted reptile, he's affectionate to me, cuddly and has this long, long tounge... Of course I'm totally getting ahead of myself. I'm in love with a resident Bobtail Lizard atthe Kanyana Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. My mother is a volunteer and helps to give presentations to school children on the native fauna which includes long-term residents at Kanyana. The general aim of the center is to take in injured wildlife and get them well again and ready to re-enter the wild. However there are some who live there due to the fact that their either are too badly in need of constant care or too dependant on humans to be able to live properly in the wild.

So how did I fall for the Bobtail? Two of them live in one of the enclosures and as I cuddled this little armoured fellow, he went on a quest for the warm. Little did he know he was about to hit the overheating jackpot. Not only was he getting cuddled by a Canadian who was desperately unused to the Aussie summer heat, but she was wearing two layers AND long sleeves on her shirt to keep the sun off her albino skin. Bonus! So he had himself more or less his own heat blanket. It was hard to give him back to his enclosure mate who was peeping (thinking that he was getting some kind of food that she wasn't) but rationality won out. It was going to be too hard to smuggle the little fellow back to Canada and too cold for his heat-loving heart to bear. He would have wound up peeping a phrase that wouldn't sound unlike a very small "Fuck off!"

I also made the acquaintance to two Tawny Frogmouths, who are little tree owls. Okay, okay, I know they aren't ACTUAL owls, but they do a darn good impression with their giant bright yellow eyes and appetite for mice. They are adorable, and I had to be prized away from the two of them.

I got to meet one of the endangered residents, Boodie. This little guy was all curled up and refused to move his head out from under his towel to look at me due to the bright sunlight. He's a Bilby and where once these little charmers nearly overrun Australia, they are now estimated to be extinct in less than ten years. The best hope they have is to be a captive breed, but between the feral cats and the mining companies *cough cough* who are stripping them out of their habitat they haven't got a snowball's chance in hell. I nominate letting them use my apartment as a breeding ground/habitat, but the idea of having to shake the Bilbys out of my costumes, hats, and pantyhose and so on is a little daunting. Of course, if I could train them to do some dancing and be entertaining the Aussie government may find some funding in their pockets for a protected area... They'd have to wear tiny little hats, though.

Until that time, Kanyana is doing a really wonderful job. If you're looking for one of those "eco-friendly" Christmas gifts, then you can sponsor an animal for someone... All the info on the center is here and you can see how cute these little buggers are for yourself. Photos of myself and above critters to follow.
Namaste.
Little Miss Risk

Recap: Destination Truth 3.09 – The Bhutan Yeti
[info]to_paraphrase


“That method of tracking makes me suspect they don’t actually want to catch any footage of whatever it is they’re yelling at whilst chasing.” – http://ping.fm/dzvPR

Recap: Castle 2.07 - Famous Last Words
[info]to_paraphrase


“Yes, Castle is right when he concluded that Beckett seeing him be a father with Alexis made her want him more. It’s like programmed into every female’s uterus to be attracted to this — even I found it attractive — but she continues to deny she has any sort of feelings for him (oops, back on the “bad aspects” list there for a minute).” – http://ping.fm/zA01U

Recap: Castle 2.06 - Vampire Weekend
[info]to_paraphrase


“A vampire kid is found staked in a cemetery. For all us Buffy fans, this is not news. That’s like going fishing at an aquarium.” – http://ping.fm/RrCFv

Recap: Destination Truth 3.08 – Werewolf/Arica Monster
[info]to_paraphrase


“Recently to whenever this episode was filmed, the locals of a town dug up a corpse, removed its heart, and drank its blood in an arcane ritual to ward off werewolves. That is so unsanitary; didn’t these guys ever read Interview with the Vampire? You’re not supposed to drink the blood of a dead man. Duh.” – http://ping.fm/b6nwz

Recap: Destination Truth 3.07 – Haunted Lost City/Thunderbird
[info]to_paraphrase


“Again, they don’t get evidence of anything other than that there are things in the wilderness that eat meat when you leave it laying around out there.” – http://ping.fm/dOaqr

Recap: Destination Truth 3.06 – Chullachaqui/Bermuda Triangle
[info]to_paraphrase


“Giant bugs and death are what the Amazon are made of, and that’s why they call it the jungle, Sweetheart.” – http://ping.fm/go3Ox

Tier
[info]mysticalforest
The last time I dedicated myself to acquiring tier gear was with Abethany and her Magister's set. In fact, you can see her wearing it in the icon I used for this post and for the profile pic on Abethany's Twitter feed.

Despite the fact that I think it's ugly...

...I have nevertheless decided that I will make the effort to collect all five pieces of the latest tier gear, the Bloodmage's Regalia (and later Sanctified Bloodmage's Regalia).

Reason? None, other than I haven't pursued such a thing in a very long time indeed, nearly four years actually. Anyhoo, that's the new goal.

So it is written!

P.S. Here's what Abethany looks like now:
Tags:

Recap: Fringe 2.05 - Dream Logic
[info]to_paraphrase


“Peter and Olivia find the doctor (Nayak) to question him, and I love how Olivia tells him two of his patients murdered people right before they died with a happy face. That made me giggle.” – http://ping.fm/0Knlb

Recap: Castle 2.05 - When the Bough Breaks
[info]to_paraphrase


“This case actually had me guessing for a minute, and the show suddenly was interesting as a complete show that had me hooked (until the very last part that kind of killed it).” – http://ping.fm/zXR15

Recap: Castle 2.04 - Fool Me Once
[info]to_paraphrase


“I think if there were a scene that called for Castle to be reading the New York Times on the crapper for an hour, Nathan Fillion would somehow make it witty, charming, and entertaining to watch.” – http://ping.fm/jUa8g

Recap: Fringe 2.04 - Momentum Deferred
[info]to_paraphrase


“May be they can get the alternate reality Charlie to come over and play?” – http://ping.fm/i2rnf

Recap: Destination Truth 3.05 – Alien Mummies/Van Lake Monster
[info]to_paraphrase


“So they rent a truck that comes with complimentary dirty pillow and crusty undies on the driver’s seat and make their way down to the town of Van to check out their lake monster.” – http://ping.fm/8yS16

Recap: Castle 2.03 - Inventing the Girl
[info]to_paraphrase


“Oooo, from sly fox to lecherous old man! That was a short fall.” – http://ping.fm/cgUn6

Recap: Fringe 2.03 - Fracture
[info]to_paraphrase


“which isn’t happening because her hands are about as steady as that birdhouse you made back in high school” – http://ping.fm/OuGQK

Today was Big Patch Day!
[info]mysticalforest


Patch 3.3 contained a lot, including new content in the form of a new sprawling dungeon featuring the Lich King and the new Looking for Dungeon (LFD) tool.

How did the first day go? Well, that was a mix of really good with really bad.

Good:
• The Frozen Halls are neat. Fun, quick, nice aesthetic, interesting quest line, and just a delight. I had to PUG the first part since there weren’t enough guildies and despite none of us having ever set foot in it or read a word about what to do, we were able to comport ourselves with enough competence to complete the first section and be ready for the Halls of Reflection.

• The new Looking for Dungeon (LFD) tool is great—when it works, it works really well. I was usually able to join a PUG for the random heroic dungeon in under five minutes, with one notable exception described below (plus an additional incident that took about 20 minutes). I thoroughly enjoy how it groups people together and the fact that you can teleport right into the dungeon is the bee’s knees—when it works. The grouping of people together seems to work well, we all seemed to be evenly matched and we all held our own well. There’s one very bad thing about the tool which is described below.

• The Core Hound Pup is absolutely adorable!

Bad:
• Server congestion was severe, hampering the ability of the LFD tool to teleport people to dungeons and the Halls of Reflection, in particular, were shut down and I had a very frustrating time trying to PUG it to complete the Frozen Halls quest line I had to stop because a couple of the PUG members from the previous group got d/ced. I ultimately had to stop playing altogether because my character was trapped at the dungeon loading screen with no way to escape it, I just had to sit there and wait to time out and be disconnected from the server entirely.

• The LFD tool no longer allows you to look for help for a quest. You can only look for dungeons. This is extremely frustrating. It’s compounded by the fact that since the daily dungeons have been (rightfully) replaced by a weekly raid quest, there’s no way to LFD to complete it. I tried pretty much all day to find a way to complete the quest but to no avail.


I think once the servers calm down that things will be just swimming and awesome, with the exception of the weekly raid quest in particular, and miscellaneous group quests in general. Not being able to get help for quests is unfortunate but being able to get metric tons of emblems of triumph through the LFD tool is good.
Tags:

(no subject)
[info]artbroken
I will say this for Tony Abbott - he's put together a frontbench and suite of policies that are sure to be big election hits.

In 2004.

However, I have my doubts that in 2010, the general public will be all fired up to vote for the things they voted against in 2007.

So until Abbott gets a time machine, or a lick of fucking sense, I'm content to keep laughing at him.

put me out to graze, give this beast a burden.
[info]moriarty6
Random Fact #25: It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken

Today I formally resigned from Amazon.com.

It's been a great four years, and one of the most intense learning experiences of my life. I've had opportunities I could only dream of a few years ago, and gotten an education by watching how the insides of some of the biggest companies in the world operate. Amazon was easily one of the best things that ever happened to me, but it didn't come without its dues, certainly. But to make a very long and self-absorbed story short, it's time to make the transition into doing what is most fulfilling for me.

On January 1st I will be taking over Fremont Coffee Company as a 50% owner of the entire operation, and directing the wholesale division full time. I will also be taking the Mantis school I have next door to the coffee shop to a three-day per week schedule and hence be devoting more time to training and teaching, though I don't expect to ever make a great deal of money in martial arts and my plans don't depend on its success. Freelance writing is also in the near future, though I can't be explicit about it just yet.

It's a decision I've spent a (very) long time chewing over, but it's the right decision, and the right time to make it. This is a bit of a leap, and definitely a pay cut in the short term, but I've spent a long time planning for it; I have several revenue streams in place, and savings in the bank as a cushion, and the deep, abiding desire to not spend another day NOT doing the things I need to be doing with my life.

December 9, 2009: Nanuk Unboxed!
[info]sjgames


Nanuk cover</p>

The latest in our series of unboxing videos has been uploaded to our YouTube channel. This installment features Nanuk, the game of boasting and dooming we've been talking about quite a bit lately. (By the way, a container of the game arrived in our warehouse last week, so Nanuk will be hitting the shelves of your friendly local game store before the end of the month.)</p>

What's an unboxing video? The idea came from the tech industry, where early adopters -- you know, the guys who stand in line for hours to grab the newest cell phone/music player/AR widget -- open their new toys and show all of YouTube what's in the box. It works for boardgames too. Let's face it: Having a ton of cool components can get you off the fence on some games, but you can't see them all on the store shelves. Our unboxing videos can't put the pieces in your hands, but they can give you a better idea of what's inside that shiny box.</p>

For Nanuk, we sat Will down with a copy and had him talk about each component. Then we edited out the extraneous babble (Will likes to talk -- makes him a great demo guy, but brevity? Not really), added some stills, and now you can see it here.</p>

Nanuk is shipping from our warehouse now, but if you can't wait, it's available on Warehouse 23.</p>

-- Paul Chapman</p>

More Green Jobs
[info]ysabetwordsmith

For best results, aim to accomplish multiple goals simultaneously.  In this case, the President seeks to create green jobs, which will lower unemployment, boost the economy, move America toward energy independence so we don't have to rely on oil from people who hate us, and protect the environment of the only planet we have to live on.  This is a terrific idea.


Mary Susan Littlepage | Obama Offers Job Proposals, Discusses Improving Economy
Mary Susan Littlepage, Truthout: "President Barack Obama has proposed increasing spending on highway, transportation and other infrastructure projects, as well as increasing tax breaks for small businesses and offering tax incentives to people who make their homes more energy-efficient. In his speech Tuesday morning at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC., Obama also said that small business, infrastructure and clean energy are areas in which Americans can be put to work while putting the nation on a sturdier economic footing."


Comic book sales figures for November 2009.
[info]whedonesque

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/16433.html

ICv2's sales estimates for November 2009 have been released.

Buffy #30 sold 49,155; the Dr. Horrible one-shot doing excellent business, with 25,326 copies sold; this ends up being ahead of Angel #27, which sells 20,731. Angel: Only Human #4 picks up 11,995.

In graphic novels, After the Fall volume 2 and Buffy volumes 4 and 5 make appearances.


Imagine All The People
[info]stannex
All day I've been thinking about making this post ... or not making it. John Lennon's murder was certainly an important event in my life ... one of those "I'll always remember where I was" moments, and I really am too young to be a first generation Beatles fan.

I have memories of their animated show and some of their songs that I formed during the course of the band's active years ... but I didn't really "discover" the Beatles until 7th grade ... that's 1977 and deep right on the cusp of the first solid round of Beatle-revival-mania. At that point, though, I was bit HARD by the Beatles bug. Before long I owned all their U.S. albums ... and was informed enough to know the difference between the U.S. and U.K. releases (a feat that, in those pre-Internet days, required many trips to the library's reading room and microfiche files).

But today is not a day I particularly want to mark. I'd rather do that with his birthday (October 9th) than the anniversary of his death. Still, THIS is the day the world seems to prefer commemorating ... and I've seen some very lovely and heartfelt ruminations on the subject today.

John Kovalic, for example, posted the text of an article he wrote marking this occasion 19 years ago ... and many people simply posted links to videos set to John's music. One that struck me in particular was the clip that John Wick posted of the song God which begins with an audio clip from the Monday Night Football broadcast on December 8, 1980. In it, Howard Cosell interrupts his own broadcast to announce the tragic news. Another poignant clip shows that the news of John's death was, in fact, Walter Cronkite's lead story on the CBS Evening News the next night (at the time, CNN was less than 6 months old ... and cable TV was still a luxury you could only get in the densest population zones).

After all that thinking, I realized I don't really have anything in particular to say to mark this occasion. (Perhaps next year for the 30th anniversary.) But I DO I want to sit back and just listen to some of John Lennon's songs.
Tags: ,

Twitter Updates for 2009-12-08
[info]forbeck_feed

  • Everyone made it off to school and work today! It's the first time I've had the house to myself in two weeks. Time to work! #

  • Twittered too soon. Pat threw up in the lunch room, then twice more on the car ride home. Got home and had to turn back to get Ken too. #

  • Those who say a computer game can't make you cry haven't seen a kid lose a puffle in Club Penguin. #





"Pay to Straight"
[info]wickedthought
That's what I'm calling them. All these "programs" that teach you, the gay man or lesbian woman, how to cure your homosexuality.

You pay them and they teach you how to be straight.

Rachel Maddow, a lesbian, has an interview with one such individual and demonstrates just how full of shit this conman really is.



Tags:

Arctic Blast from the Past
[info]makinglight
With the first major snowstorm of the winter bearing down on us, it's time to list some of the cold-weather stuff I've posted over the years, in one convenient place:

First comes Cold Blows the WInd Today. It's a brief note on hypothermia. Very brief. Just a single screen. None of the really horrifying detail about blebs and such that I could have used. The take-away lesson is that cold kills. Don't let it kill you. The comment thread is over 400 entries long, and filled with good stuff.

Snowed In. A review of a book about the Donner Party.

Stop, Drop, and Roll. Winter time brings new hazards, including heaters that produce carbon monoxide. Some notes on same. Over a hundred comments.

Happy stuff: Cold Weather Drinks, including my favorite, Hot Lemonade.

Weather outside: Frightful. My local weather. Lucky me! (Hey, I volunteered to live here.)

Dashing Through the Snow. How to drive in a snowstorm. Short version: Don't. Longer version: If you must, then slowly, and only if you have good snow tires.

Snowday. Ah, storms past! We gots photos!

Fimbul Winter. From last year's Snowpocalypse. Over two hundred comments, and all of them worth reading.


Hey, Boys and Girls, It's Wednesday One-Liner Time!
[info]overheardnyc

30-something blonde in office attire on cell: You need to tell Vanessa that she can't be on the show because she's not overweight enough, and s not unattractive enough.

--Whole Foods Market, Chelsea

Syracuse University girl, going up escalator: I feel like I'm in Star Trek! (begins humming Indiana Jones theme)

--Penn Station

Overheard by: Mickey

20-something gaysian: Yeah, he watches Hannah Montana so I don't get why he makes fun of me for watching iCarly!

--Washington Square Park

Teen: I watched I Love Lucy last night. She's funny; she's like the Jim Carrey of the 1920s or something.

--UA School of Music and Art

20-something preppy kid to mother: You know, they really should have a reality show about Midtown.

--54th St b/w 1st & 2nd Ave

Overheard by: Pedro


Alsome | Thumbs up | Thumbs down |
Link · Email · Quote this! · Del.icio.us · Posted 2009-12-09

(no subject)
[info]januarychill

  • 13:00 Constantly fantasizing about leaving NY makes me feel more creative and more alive. That's why I've been drawing for the first time in ages. #

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A cornucopia of exoplanets
[info]james_nicoll
At the recent Porto conference, the Geneva team not only reiterated their claims regarding the frequency of low-mass planets, but actually upped their yield predictions. According to a contact who heard Stephane Udry’s talk, the latest indication from HARPS is that between 38% (at the low end) and 58% (at the high end) of nearby solar-type stars harbor at least one readily detectable M<50 Earth-mass planet. This is quite extraordinary, especially given the fact that were the HARPS GTO survey located 10 parsecs away and observing the Sun, our own solar system (largely in the guise of Jupiter’s decade-long 12-m/s wobble) would not yet be eliciting any particular cause for remark.

Artificial System.
[info]lx
artificialsun

Favourite Comics and Art Books of 2009 – John’s Picks
[info]drawn_feed

bigrabbit

Big Rabbit’s Bad Mood by Ramona Badescu and Delphine Durand

The most charming kids book I read this year (original review). Delphine Durand’s illustrations are pure joy, and could melt the heart of anyone who forgot how much fun drawing can be.

pictorial-websters

Pictorial Webster’s: A Visual Dictionary of Curiosities by John M. Carrera

A beautiful love letter to engravings, bookmaking, and language from bookmaker John M. Carrera, Pictorial Webster’s collects the original engravings from 19th-Century dictionaries into a new pictures-only dictionary (original review). Pictorial Webster’s satisfies my hunger for visual list-making that probably grew out of picture book dictionaries from my childhood, and now extends to things like Blackstock’s Collections and the work of Tom Gauld.

giganticrobot1
giantrobot2

The Gigantic Robot by Tom Gauld

And speaking of Tom Gauld, his The Gigantic Robot was another instant favourite of the year. His usual mix of subtle humour and minimalist drawings are used here to tell a parable about war, futility, and decay. It may not be a meaty book, but Tom manages to say more with 15 single-panel pages than some cartoonists do with entire graphic novels. Visit Tom Gauld’s website.

genesis

The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb

R. Crumb’s visual, literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis is certainly the most impressive comics project of the year, if not the decade. I usually try to avoid such hyperbole but, even though Crumb claims to have treated this adaptation as an impartial word-for-word illustration job, we must appreciate the context of such a book. That context is not only one of Crumb’s kingly status in the pantheon of underground comics–psyche-driven comics of sex, drugs, desire, and the antiestablishment–but a modern world in which the origins of life on earth are a highly-politicized battle between Darwinian Science and the Hand of God. In this context, a literal adaptation of the bible’s first book–a story of how we came to be–is a statement in itself.

gigposters

Gig Posters Volume 1: Rock Show Art of the 21st Century by Clay Hayes

Quoting my original review:

Anyone familiar with GigPosters.com knows it’s the site for modern music posters. And with the CD going the way of the LP, and its cover art with it, these posters are fast becoming some bands and artists’ primary means of representing their music visually.

The Gig Posters book features over 700 posters, 101 of which are full-page. And it’s a true poster book; each page is perforated and ready to be torn out and hung on your wall.

It’s a terrific resource for how contemporary designers are fusing illustration, typography, and reinvigorating the world of the poster.

naive

Naïve: Modernism and Folklore in Contemporary Graphic Design by Robert Klanten & Hendrik Hellige

Inspired by the likes of Saul Bass and Charley Harper, the contemporary artists featured in Naïve all embrace the virtues of modernism and minimalist design–simplicity, restriction, patterns, and shapes–and even if the work was made with the aid of a computer, the pieces all boast an aesthetic that seems to say, “this was made with my own two hands.” Like the Gig Posters book, this is an invaluable source of inspiration for designer-illustrators and printmakers, featuring favourites of mine like Tad Carptenter, Matte Stephens, Linzie Hunter, and Nate Williams.

charleyharper

Charley Harper: An Illustrated Life (Popular Edition)

That brings us to Charley Harper himself. There’s not much I can say about this smaller affordable version of its larger, more expensive counterpart, that I haven’t already said in my initial review, but I can once again stress that if you had put off purchasing the original behemoth of An Illustrated Life because of its size or pricetag, you have little reason to avoid adding it to your collection any longer. Charley Harper’s work is modernist, abstracted illustration at its best.

asteriospolyp

Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli

I’ll start by stating that I didn’t love the story, or the characters in Asterios Polyp. But I am a sucker for formalism in comics and artists that play with the medium itself. Usually, cartoonists’ forays into form-bending rarely sustain full-length stories. But in Asterios Polyp we may have the first true formalist graphic novel–a story actually about style and duality that exploits form, motif, colour, and line to their fullest, in a way that could only be achieved in comics.

georgesprott
freshstart

George Sprott: (1894-1975) by Seth

Seth’s serialized story for the New York Times Magazine is collected here in a gorgeous volume, which makes the wait for the next Clyde Fans book a little more bearable. Mixing mid-Century Canadiana with death and the passing of time, Sprott is pure Seth through-and-through. The panels are rich in the warm, monotone colours befitting a tale of nostalgia and the oversized pages allow Seth to showcase some of the best-designed page layouts of his career.

katebeaton

Never Learn Anything From History by Kate Beaton

Fans of webcomics darling Kate Beaton finally got a book this year, collecting Kate’s hilarious comics featuring historical figures (if not historical fact). Kate’s expressive characters are up there with the best of Jules Feiffer’s work, and it is always a good day when my RSS reader gives way to one of her comics. Guaranteed to be the only book on your shelf featuring Tesla, Napoleon, AND Stompin’ Tom Connors!

Stitches

Stitches: A Memoir by David Small

In this memoir, illustrator David Small tells the harrowing story of a childhood spent with unloving parents and the cancer they unintentionally gave him, and subsequently kept a secret from him. A quick but engrossing read, Stitches features some of the most vivid images of childhood to be realized on the comics page, and several truly stunning wordless sequences–appropriate for a story of a child who loses his voice, and finds it again in his ability to draw.

monsters

Monsters by Ken Dahl

Monsters barely didn’t make the cut this year, and only because I didn’t read it until just a few days ago, when it quickly secured itself a position on this list. Ken Dahl/Gabby Schulz’s semi-autobiographical graphic novel about herpes is a cautionary tale for, as Jeffrey Brown writes on the back cover, “anyone who has had sex, is going to have sex, or wants to have sex.”

Honourable mentions: Jeffrey Brown’s Funny Misshapen Body, R.O. Blechman’s Talking Lines, Denis Kitchen’s Underground Classics: The Transformation of Comics into Comix, and R. Sikoryak’s Masterpiece Comics.

See Also: Last year’s lists: Matt’s Picks / John’s Picks


Posted by John Martz on Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog | Permalink | No comments
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My friend Leon's Open letter to ABC. Please share.
[info]muskrat_john
TO: ABC
FROM: Leon Lynn
RE: Desecration of "A Charlie Brown Christmas"
12/8/09

Dear ABC,

How could you?

For years and years I have awaited the network broadcast of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" as the true herald of the holiday season. I brought my kids up with the same tradition -- one which has been made no less special for us by the fact that they happen to be Jewish.

Tonight we sat in horror and watched what you have done to the single greatest cartoon ever made.

How many minutes did you cut out of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" so you could run more commercials?

Gone was Sally's materialistic letter to Santa, which finally sends Charlie screaming from the room when she says she will settle for 10s and 20s.

Gone was Schroeder's miraculous multiple renditions of "Jingle Bells" from a toy piano, including the one that sounds distinctly like a church organ.

Gone was Linus using his blanket as an improvised slingshot to knock a can off the fence no one else can hit, complete with ricochet sound effect.

Gone were the kids catching snowflakes on their tongues and commenting on their flavor.

Gone even was poor Shermy's only line. He thought he had it bad because he was always tasked to play a shepherd. He had no idea.

And why were all these classic scenes cut? To plug more ads into the show, of course. To sell burgers and greeting cards -- and to relentlessly plug the insipid-looking new Disney "soon to be a classic" show immediately following. (I didn't watch the new show, by the way. I was laid far too low by what had just happened.)

Cramming all of these ads into the 30-minute broadcast of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" required major edits to a cartoon that has spent 44 years now trying to remind us that Christmas is supposed to transcend crass commercialism.

Do you have no sense of irony?

A couple of weeks ago I noted that you can now buy a plastic replica of the pathetic little real-wood Christmas tree Charlie Brown brings home from the tree lot otherwise monopolized by shiny fake trees. I thought we had sunk as low as we could.

Obviously I was wrong.

Oh, and by the way: The sound was half a second behind the picture: They were not synched properly. I thought this was pretty sloppy for a major TV network, but I was willing to look past it.

What I cannot look past is the chopping to bits of a genuine classic, not just to pump more ads at us, but in direct conflict with the message that has made it a classic.

When I was a kid, the annual broadcast of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" was a holiday unto itself. It was the only time we ever saw ads for Dolly Madison snack cakes, for one thing. But more importantly, it actually framed the coming holiday for me in a meaningful way.

The shepherds in their fields had no corporate sponsors. Nobody had bought the naming rights for the manger. The infant Jesus did not have an endorsement deal lined up with a particular line of swaddling clothes.

Instead he came, the story goes, to preach universal love, and the abandonment of false ideals like the acquisition of gross material wealth in favor of something far more valuable.

You have not just lost sight of this, or turned your backs on it. You have stomped it into the mud.

You should be ashamed of yourselves.

But I bet you aren't. I bet you're way past that.

Count my family out for next year.


Sincerely,

Leon Lynn

Gamma 4
[info]playthisthing

Cactus gets finished making a vegetable smoothie, he then takes out the trash and wraps a Christmas present for his mother. He thinks, "I have half an hour until my girlfriend comes over, what should I do with my time." He decides to surf the blogs where he notices that Kokoromi is having another contest so he checks his watch, shrugs his shoulders and makes a triptastic, shader-loaded, splendiferous little joygasm, composes an audio track for it, sneezes, and then hears his girlfriend buzz the door.

Simply entitled Gamma 4, Cactus' latest is an exercise in baroque minimalism, that is, the game uses one-button (per contest rules), is fairly simple to play, and yet the sync of the music and the shiny, electric visual effects make it feel like a parade. Who would have thought that a game about dancing swastikas (originally a symbol of love) would be so upbeat and poppy? The game is being distributed only with donations, he can't release it for free until March per contest rules, so I'll tease you with some details. You have four symmetrical vectors that leave a trace, if they crash into a wall or a red beam they'll all explode, there are shiny boxes that you must collide with, collide with all of the them to move to the next level, press space to change the vectors 45 degrees. Basic stuff, and once you play through the levels the game burns pretty fast, but the real sheen here is Cactus' expert use of the GameMaker engine's visual tool-set, the quadrangular symmetry, and of course, the burn effect where past traces layer onto the blackness of the background. This is the style the man is known for, and he delivers once again. For an outside observer, the game appears to be a procedural visualizer, like an interactive version of Electric Sheep, for the player you tend to focus your eye on one quadrant, I focused my eye on the upper-left, which on decompiling the game turned out to be the basis, the rest of the screen is extrapolated procedurally.

This game is worth the price of $whatever-you-want-to-pay. I dontated $5, which is the sweet spot for "premium" iPhone games, according to a lecture I attended, and this should most definitely be ported to iPhone. Cactus envy is trite but that doesn't stop me from feeling it.



Gonna get a big dish of beef chow mein
[info]stillsostrange
Tonight the boy and I saw The Men Who Stare At Goats, which was adorable. We left the theater to find Austin enveloped in impassable Death Fog, so we stopped at a diner for coffee and pie. And when we walked in, "Werewolves of London" was playing. The real damn song, not that Kid Rock abomination. Reader, I fell to my knees and gave thanks.* "Werewolves of London" in spooky fog with coffee and pie is made of win.

You know what I didn't do today? Work on my book! And that is also made of win.


*Okay, I just sat down in the booth an gave thanks, but I did give thanks rather loudly. I think I scared the waitress.

saxomaphone
[info]mizzmarvel
At some point, my father nicknamed me Stampy (because of how loud my steps are when I walk up stairs) and my brother Little Bobo (for a reason now lost to history).

The two of us should have started a Simpsons-based rock filk duo called Stampy and Bobo. Or at least sued the creators of the show for inspiring this.

Dear Hivemind
[info]squirrel_monkey
Quick question: has anyone spent any time in the Amsterdam airport? Are there any exciting things to do/places to eat/to keep otherwise entertained for a few hours?

Marbled Polecats - The Introverts
[info]ysabetwordsmith
This post is from Animal of the Day.  That critter looks like it went crazy with bleach and hair dye.  Cute though.

O lovely reading!
[info]ellen_kushner
So many fine people came to our NYRSF reading tonight - friends old & new, and even some strangers! It was a full house, which was terrifically gratifying and not a little moving. Our 20th Anniv Curator, Claire Wolfe Smith, gave a very moving opening talk about the history of NYRSF, complete with anecdotes you had to have been around 20 yrs ago to fully appreciate! Which, of course, we were. She also read the list of those whose readings she'd curated back then, including Delany, Emshwiller, Gaiman, Palwick ,Haldeman, Dozois, and many many more. A real Honors List. Many of these, our Elders, have had serious health scares recently; it made me happy to realize that, with the exception of Tom Disch, who took his own life last year, they are all still with us, bless them.

Delia read "How the Pooka Came to New York," which will appear in Ellen Datlow's NAKED CITIES next year (in a slightly longer version - we edited it down to be under 30 minutes); she read Liam's POV, and I read the Pooka's. Then I read "The Man with the Knives" (which will go out on submission as soon as I figure out where the Glory and the Money are next). Instead of dividing it evenly between POV's (mad Alec's & Sofia's), I went with my gut and simply assigned certain Sofia bits to Delia - including dialogue. It was a bit like music. I think it worked well. My only regret is that we read right up to the time we needed to vacate the building - so I didnt' get the chance to get everyone's reactions, field questions, etc. I invite you to do that here, if you like.

All I Want For Christmas
[info]reginawessells
Been spending a lot of time away from home lately, visiting family and friends. Today, I visited Jacquie. Yesterday, I went to Rachel's, had lunch with my husband, and then saw Carenda.

Sunday is a blur; I can't remember a thing. Must be due to all those dacquiris I've been drinking lately.

On Saturday, I went to the Farmer's Market with my mom and Nonna. Last Friday, Carenda and I hung out (for her birthday), then we took Bug to Hershey's Chocolate World. The day before that, Jacquie and I went to Tuckahoe State Park in Maryland.

I've spent more time in my car in the last few days than in my own bed.

I'm glad to be getting out, because I don't like being confined by the same walls on a daily basis, but it's bad that I leave so frequently because nothing is getting done; the laundry has piled up (well, it's all CLEAN clothes, just UNFOLDED clothes), the dirty dishes have grown to unspeakable proportions, and my living/dining area looks as though a paper bomb exploded all over.

Don't get me started on the sitting room and my bedroom.

I know I don't usually ask my friends for gifts for Christmas, but I am considering it this year. I'd like for them to come and clean my house.

Yeah.

They can come over as an army, invading my personal space, clearing away clutter, and leaving it all tidy and sparkly, or they can each choose a room to clean as their gift and come over individually and tackle it (with my help, of course, lol).

So that's what I want for the holidays from my friends. Nothing that'll cost money (except the fuel to get here), just something more valuable: time.

And elbow grease. :D

Tomorrow, Chris has a half day, which leads into six consecutive days of vacation time. I can't wait! We're going to take Little Green into the shop to be evaluated, go on a road trip with the Big Green Monster, have lunch somewhere, and maybe see a movie.

LOL ... this means more time away from home. Guess those piles of junk will just have to remain out of control a little while longer...

“Shadow Complex” up for Spike TV Best Downloadable Game
[info]peterdavidblog
Not that I'm putting a gun to anyone's head, you understand, but hey, an award's an award. So vote early, vote often.

Vote Shadow Complex!

PAD

Look at me!!
[info]kostika
This was yesterday

Automatically shipped by a monkey in a hat

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