Here are some shiny things that caught my eye recently:
♦ I came across Kris Kuksi‘s elaborately detailed sculptures about two years ago, and for some reason unknown even to me I didn’t do any further research on him. Clearly, I’d gone mad, as I’m a nut for sculptural art, and Kuksi’s mythological-themed sculptures are definitely my cup of tea (he also paints and draws). If I had done a little more research then, I would have discovered he published a book of his work in late 2010 titled Divination & Delusion (and, yes, I ordered a copy as soon as I saw it). Below is one of the many, many Kuksi pieces I like (you’re really going to want to click and see it larger—you’ll thank me!):
The Visitation by Kris Kuksi
Here’s the book description:
Kris Kuksi’s sculptures, rendered in immaculate detail, evoke a grandeur reminiscent of the Baroque era. Kuksi successfully merges this sumptuous echo of the past with a satirical and critical commentary of our modern industrial world. These finely crafted sculptures employ images of Gods and Goddesses from past and present mythologies and examine religious belief and iconography. Despite the frequent portrayal of corruption, violence, chaos and degeneration, the works in this book challenge aspects of our beliefs and question whether or not humans have the ability to improve the world’s prosperity.
Be sure to click the links above to see more examples of Kuksi’s work. (Reminded via.)
♦ Since I’m talking about sculptures, let me tell you that J★RYU has a new exhibition of his work, The Ghost of You Haunted Me…. You can view the exhibit at the Rotofugi Gallery website here. So many favorites to choose from, but the one below might be my favorite favorite (even so, check out The Ghost of You Haunted Me; Safe and Sound; and I Won’t Come Back for You, I Promise at the gallery) .
Athenaeum by J★RYU
Via.
♦ The Book Nook.
Errantry: Strange Stories, a new collection by Elizabeth Hand, is due out soon from Small Beer Press. Check out the fun cover art:
Here’s some of the great online fiction found on the web last week:
Let’s All Sing like the Birdies Sing by Paul G. Di Filippo at Daily Science Fiction
The Taste of Salt by Rachel Halpern (a writer out of my MFA program, which I didn’t know when I first read the story and decided to share it here) at Daily Science Fiction
For They Heard the First Sound and Trembled by Jessica Breheny at Electric Velocipede
Overheard at The Platonic Ideal Bar and Grill by Aimee Vanessa Blume at Daily Science Fiction
The Mobius Garden by James Bambury at Daily Science Fiction
This past week AlphaBooks, an alphabetical tumblr exploration of fictional characters curated by Ben Towle, moved to the P’s. I had several illustrations that I liked—including Peter Pan by Jonathan Rosenbaum, Percival Bartlebooth by the incomparble Leah Palmer Preiss, Pinocchio by Marc Basile, Puck by Irv of Spacemansteve, and Paul Atreides by Axel Medellin Machain (click through to see all that fantastic artwork)—but my favorite has to be Andrew Neal‘s take on Paul Muad’Dib from Dune. Every time I see it I get so happy I just want to clap my hands (Richard Scarry fans know what I’m talking about):
A perhaps-less-than-interesting personal tidbit of information: I collect postcard photographs of authors and artists. Not in a terribly obsessive way (like, say, the way I collect books, or the way I used to collect comic books), but I have a hefty stack of those postcards. That collection is part of why I really like the cover art to Joyce Johnson’s The Voice is All: The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac.
Sometimes I like photographs of artists more than I like their work, which I know is a strange thing to confess. I should also confess that I haven’t actually read any of Kerouac’s work, so in truth I don’t know with absolute certainty that I do like photographs of him better than I might like his work. But I certainly feel this way about other artists. For example, I’ve seen lots and lots of Georgia O’Keeffe‘s paintings, and, while I like her art, I love photographs of her more, like the one below by Alfred Stieglitz, which is one of my favorite photographs of her (because of her expression and the contrast of light & dark and the composition of the shot):
When authors disown their work, should readers care? It’s a good question to ask. I may have a streak of some kind of canonicity in me, as I don’t usually seek out work that an author has abandoned—my Michael Cunningham collection is still incomplete because I never got around to tracking down a copy of Golden States, his first novel, after I read in an interview he didn’t like it and didn’t want it to be read. I listened!
♦ Holy smokes! El Ateneo, a 1919 movie palace in Buenos Aires, was transformed into a bookstore and it is amazing. Take a look at the pictures below and click through to BookRiot to see even more.
♦ She Blinded Me … with Science!
Natural, Social, Mortuary, and Weird sciences, that is.
What the game of Operation would look like in the Middle Ages (fun with anatomy!)
Sexual promiscuity among deer mice rewrites DNA and boosts the immune system (fun with genetics!)
These birds hold funerals for their dead (fun with avian mortuary science!)
The Bird Funeral by Lisa A. Fifield
Neuroscientists successfully control the dreams of rats. Could humans be next? (fun with neuroscience!)
The psychological syndrome that causes you to speak with a fake foreign accent (more fun with neuroscience!)
Do men and women really see the world differently? (you can’t have too much fun with neuroscience, folks)
Why do fathers’ testosterone levels drop when sleeping near their children? (fun with biology!)
Science says underpaid people enjoy their jobs more! (fun with psychology! but I don’t believe it)
Why is a cockroach harder to kill than a zombie? (this isn’t fun—just horrifying)
♦ Viewers’ Paradise.
People, it’s about to get real: Downton Abbey series three trailer. (“Real” in the sense of first-world problems, that is.)
For you Game of Thrones fans, here’s a take on the theme song made with only one violin (Lindsey Stirling) and one voice (Peter Hollens). Fun! (Via)
Midnight’s Children, directed by Deepa Mehta and based on the novel by Salman Rushdie, will hit theaters in November. Here’s the official film description:
At the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, as India proclaims independence from Great Britain, two newborn babies are switched by a nurse in a Bombay hospital. Saleem Sinai, the illegitimate son of a poor woman, and Shiva, the offspring of a wealthy couple, are fated to live the destiny meant for each other. Their lives become mysteriously intertwined and are inextricably linked to India’s whirlwind journey of triumphs and disasters.
♦ Les Contes des Fées.
This trailer for Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters is all kinds of ridiculous. I mean, all kinds of ridiculous.
♦ The Ninth Art.
Some potentially happy times ahead for for Wonder Woman fans: a new TV show is in development at the CW. I read the news last week on The Beat, io9, Tor.com, and Straitened Circumstances, so lots of Amazonian buzz going on. Check out the articles, as there are some interesting thoughts about and analysis of what the new televised Wonder Woman might be like.
Speaking of Wonder Woman (and when aren’t I?), Trouble Magazine out of Australia published Julie Ditrich’s article on William Moulton Marston, “The Secret Life of Wonder Woman.” Via.
io9 tells me I’m not stupid for being pissed off when someone messes with my favorite superhero. Woo hoo!
If you ever wrestle with how to organize your comic books (or even your books, for that matter), you’ll appreciate Ryan Haupt’s post on Reorganization Opportunities, which is about his debate on how to best re-organize his comic collection after a recent move. I’ve always organized my comic collection alphabetically by title, but I’ve never been completely satisfied with that approach. I’m going to be thinking about some of the suggestions in this post very carefully. Via.
Kelly Thompson’s posted the fourth installment of her Don’t Write Comics series.
I enjoyed John Bishop’s take on Medusa (of the Inhumans and the Fantastic Four) at The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe REDUXE Edition:
♦ Writers’ Corner.
Can you be saved from the writing life? Take this simple test Will Ludwigsen linked to on Facebook and find out!
Chuck Wendig opines about The Death of Genre: Drifting Toward a Post-Genre Future.
Rachelle Gardner offers 10 non-writing-related ideas for becoming a better writer. You might be doing a lot of these without even realizing it.
What’s your style? Style Guides and how to use them.
Writing about sex. As you may expect, the post is graphic but still useful. (Of related interest: 17 euphemisms for sex from the 1800s)
Joseph Gordon-Levitt reads
♦ I’m not familiar with the video game Assassin’s Creed, but I love parkour (though I’m not a purist—I all about the flips and stylistic flair that parkour purists would find unnecessary), so please to enjoy Assassin’s Creed Meets Parkour in Real Life. Via.
