Here are some shiny things that caught my eye last week:
♥ Awesome Art.
One of the things I love about the interwebs is how many new artists I discover during my reading and how I can keep up with favorite artists’ new work.
I really love Ellie Lane’s work (thanks to Angela and Will for first bringing her to my attention). Her photographs are often strange and lovely and dark—in other words, just what I like. Lane has a page on Facebook, a tumblr, and an Etsy store (I will be buying a print soon or two soon, I think). I hope a book is forthcoming….
A Secret Code Carved (self-portrait 2013) by Ellie Lane
Photographer Traci Griffin uses mirrors for her portraits of trees to produce images of floating branches that seem like alien things, but still beautiful. Check out the link on her name for more of her work, which is pretty varied. Flavorwire also some more of her mirrored trees.
Photo by Traci Griffin
John Kenn Mortensen‘s Post-It monsters are big favorites of mine, and he shares new monsters weekly. I like this one because it’s about beheaded monsters! And I do love beheadings.
♥ The Ninth Art.
Below are my two favorite mash-ups from The Super-Team Family blog last week, but I also liked Thor vs. Steel (hammer time!) and The Super-Skrull joins the Superman Family (I have a soft spot for Silver Age Superman Family).
Tim Callahan reflects on Dream Country, the third Sandman collection, in the latest installment of Magic & Good Madness: A Neil Gaiman Reread. Good stuff. I can’t wait to see what he has to say about Season of Mists.
Warren Ellis shared (some of) his favorite Planetary covers. My favorite of his favorite is below, though I also really liked the “Full Steranko” and the “Doctor Strange” covers, too (heck, I liked all of them). John Cassaday is one of my favorite artists, and this cover might tell you why:
The Mary Sue shared artist Mike Mitchell‘s second series of a re-imagined Superman from the cover of Superman #6 (at left) as a lot of iconic pop culture figures, like Max from Where the Wild Things Are, the Joker, Doug Funnie, Krang, Link (the Zelda one), Walter Sobchak, C-3PO, Spongebob Squarepants, Spock, an Oompa Loompa, Margot Tenenbaum, Pee-Wee Herman, and Mickey Mouse. His first series included Harry Potter, Ned Flanders, Ash Ketchum, Wonder Woman (!), the Tin Man, the Hulk, Carl Sagan (!!), and Charlie Brown. Below is a teaser, but click through—they’re a lot of fun!
Superman as Max by Mike Mitchell
io9 has a list of 12 things that ruined Superman (some of them are spot on; actually, I might agree with most of them). Also, Superman’s on the cover of Empire (via):
♥ She Blinded Me … with Science!
Astronomy: Dark Side of the Earth: What would happen if our planet became tidally locked?; Full Moon Silhouettes is a short film by Mark Gee, “a real-time video of the moon rising over Mount Victoria Lookout in Wellington, New Zealand.” This video is really beautiful. Via.
Evolution: How did wolves evolve into man’s best friend?
Medicine: The cancer death rate is down 20%; When you can’t talk, but you can sing.
Ornithology: How can owls rotate their heads 270 degrees without dying?
Physics: The physics of why there are no vampires at the North Pole.
Psychology: Can you learn to taste numbers, smell words, or hear colors? (What do you think of this article, synesthetes? And I’m thinking specifically of Laura).
Sexology: Why gay men may be less anxious than straight ones.
Social Science: Double Majors by Grant Snider for The New York Times Education Life section.
♥ Turn the Page.
Are your ocular organs ready for some fine fiction feasting?
Three Kisses: The Mirror of Reason by Henry Szabranski at Daily Science Fiction
Without a Summer (excerpt) by Mary Robinette Kowal at Tor.com
Three Kisses: A Royal Breakfast by Henry Szabranski at Daily Science Fiction
Etiquette & Espionage (excerpt) by Gail Carriger at Tor.com
Three Kisses: Defenders of the Crystal Casket by Henry Szabranski at Daily Science Fiction
Six-Gun Snow White (excerpt) by Catherynne M. Valente at Tor.com
Draconic Motivation by Donald S. Crankshaw at Daily Science Fiction
Flax-golden tales: Dinosaurs on Holiday by Erin Morgenstern
Mashup by Floris M. Kleijne at Daily Science Fiction
Want more fiction? K. Tempest Bradford offers her list of the best of January’s short stories (that you can read for free online).
Why not enjoy Elvis Bego’s piece on Nikolai Gogol, Theory, and the Fantastic at Weird Fiction Review? I am a huge fan of Gogol’s “The Nose” and “The Overcoat,” which are examined in the essay.
If you’re in search of idiosyncratic answers to idiosyncratic questions on “the so-called paranormal,” then check out these links to Will Ludwigsen’s blog, where he explores some unexplained mysteries as a countdown to the release of his next short-story collection, In Search Of and Others: The Oak Island Money Pit! Atlantis! Alien Abductions! King Tut!
Helen Lowe listed her favorite fantasy standalone novels. You may recall that I am a big fan of the standalone fantasy novel. I haven’t read everything on her list (only The Mists of Avalon, Faerie Tale, Neverwhere, and The Forgotten Beasts of Eld), but it looks respectable. (And the commenters added more to the list.) Maybe some day I’ll make a list of my most recommended standalone fantasy novels, if people would be interested in such a thing.
This video of Patti Smith reading Virginia Woolf is pretty wonderful (via):
♥ Viewers’ Paradise.
This trailer for director Chi-kin Kwok’s Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons looks like insane fun. The film is based on Monkey God’s Journey to the West, one of the Four Great Classical Chinese Novels, and I wish that the Monkey had been shown more in the trailer! Via.
io9 made a list of TV show opening monologues that are worth reciting in the shower each morning. I don’t know about that, but there are a lot of good opening monologues on the list.
Here’s some good creep: a new teaser for A&E’s upcoming Bates Motel (via):
Flavorwire shared the darkly glamourous posters for the films of David Lynch by designer Jeremy Saunders, describing them as “Minimalist in idea but not aesthetic, each focuses on a single object, highlighting the significance of details in the filmmaker’s work.” The posters are for sale, but I’m intrigued by the book collecting them all…
Speaking of David Lynch, over at The Awl, Matthew J.X. Malady explores on of the most terrifying characters to ever show up on a TV screen in The Terror of Twin Peaks: His Name is BOB. And he includes a clip of what I think is the most terrifying moment of Twin Peaks and TV in general (I’ve included it below—more than twenty years after I first saw it, this scene still freaks me out). Actually, Malady includes lots of clips and his exploration of BOB is really amazing, looking at the character as well as behind-the-scenes stuff (and it’s spoilery, for the two of you who’ve never seen Twin Peaks but should stop everything and go watch it now).
And here’s a chaser of cute to calm your heart rate! Sesame Street takes on Downton Abbey. Via.
♥ The Horns of Elfland.
Sagar Jethani composed a lovely mashup of the themes for Game of Thrones and Downton Abbey, which he calls “Game of Downton Abbey.” The two go together quite well! (Though the X-Files/Downton Abbey mashup is still much beloved.) Via.
♥The Book Nook.
Oh, this home library, designed by Ilai, is something to envy! Via.
Check out these photorealistic paintings of enticing book spines.
I could use one of these chairs—or two, or three…. Via (click if you want to read how it’s built).
Judson Beaumont, Straight Line Designs
15 movies starring bookstores. It’s a good list—such sumptuous bookstores! and such diverse films—but I hate to see You’ve Got Mail on the list, even though the bookstores therein are gorgeous. I just hate You’ve Got Mail.
Oh, heavens, Bookshelf Porn—you always know how to get me.
And here, too:
Bookstore Culture, Sao Paulo, Brazil – photo by Nany Giardini
♥ The Writing Desk.
The intriguing passports of 20 famous artists and writers, like Virginia Woolf’s, below.
Booklife Now on the time management triforce (payment, bandwidth, impact).
LitReactor has some opinions: Kill Those Modifiers! Info Dumps Aren’t Evil! Watching out for Reiterations: Eliminating Redundancy in Your Writing! (note: I added most of those exclamation points)
Chuck Wendig says, Yes, Virginia, you can be a paid writer, too.
Extensive research reveals Hemingway probably didn’t write his famous “six-word story.” For those of you unfamiliar with the six-word story in question, I present it to you here unexpurgated: “For sale: Baby shoes, never worn.”
Tor UK authors offer one tip each for aspiring writers. Very useful.
The Secrets to Not Being a Terrible Writer: an interview with Ben Yagoda, author of How to Not Write Bad. Via.
Charlie Jane Anders lays it down: what it means when someone tries to tell you THE rules of good writing.
Neil Gaiman drops knowledge. Also, the best advice he ever received from another author.
♥ The Month of Letters Challenge.
I’m off to a good start with the Month of Letters Challenge; I’ve posted something each day thus far in February, and I have recipients designated for every day of the month with several days that include more than one mailing. I’ve also received my first Month of Letters mail! (Thanks, Mary—I’ll be sending something in reply, soon ^_^) Two people are getting a series of Satisfactory Comics postcards by Isaac Cates and Mike Wenthe that tell a story over the course of ten cards. I love this concept so much (another of the Kickstarter projects I supported, The Postcard Story, had a similar idea, though in prose) that maybe next year I’ll create my own postcard stories for the Month of Letters challenge. It’s not too late to get in on the fun this year!
