Photo by Fir0002 | Flagstaffotos
Monday morning has broken, like the first morning
Magpie has spoken, like the first bird*
Welcome to another week-long Magpie Monday fest (well, Friday is only Video Friday, but a week full of posts!). Please to enjoy these dainty dishes set before the king! And queen, and princesses and princes, and dukes and earls and duchesses and viscountesses, and so on and so forth.
♦ PARKOUR.
Check out this very cool video of James Kingston practicing parkour from Kingston’s point of view as he travels the rooftops in Cambridge, UK. For my money, as fun as this video is (and it is fun), I’d still rather watch people perform parkour. Kingston is part of the parkour team Ampisound. Via.
♦ MAKE WITH THE FUNNY.
Colin Heck wanted to try animating a GIF, and this is what he came up with (Tina Fey’s rocking it!). Via.
Convos with My 2 Year Old continues with Episode 4: The Check and Episode 5, below:
Taryn shared this link from Dangerous Minds on Facebook, and I thought it was too fun not to share with you. Dale Irby, a retired P.E. teacher from Dallas, “wore the same shirt and sweater vest combination in all of his school’s yearbook photos for 40 years.” Here’s a video showing the inside joke in action:
Meaning to parody the It Gets Better project, “Comedians Dave Waite and Grant Lyon have created the It Gets Worse Project as a way ‘to communicate why being a stand up comedian is simultaneously the best and worst job in the country.'” You can check out more videos from the project at the It Gets Worse channel on YouTube. As you may have surmised, the language can be NSFW but it made me LOL. Via Laughing Squid.
Wanda Sykes Presents Herlarious, a new special airing on OWN on July 13, features this clip of Sykes talking with fellow comedians Gloria Bigelow, Andi Smith, and Dominique Whitten about the term “female comedians.” Via.
♦ THE HORNS OF ELFLAND.
A couple more treats from the 70s: Maureen McGovern and Tommy James & The Shondells:
A live performance of “It’s Been A Long Time Awaiting” by a capella group The Nymphs. Thanks to Terri Windling-Gayton for sharing the video!
Steve Grand made quite a splash last week and has been touted as the first openly gay country star (I don’t know a lot about country music, but I know Grand isn’t the first openly gay country singer—maybe he’s the first to come out as he debuts?). BuzzFeed had an article about him (thanks to Fara for that link), and here’s his video for “All-American Boy”:
♦ TOUGH STUFF.
io9 had a fine list of the 10 greatest female samurai and ninjas. My favorite, and this was a hard choice, is Lady Snowblood, so here’s a super-cool interpretation of her by DeviantArtist vercingertorix09:
Lady Snowblood, as interpreted by vercingertorix09 | DeviantArt
Courtesy of The Mary Sue tumblr, great concept art by Wesley Burt for The Lord of the Rings Online. The armor’s not only practical but aesthetically pleasing. Here’s one image but click the TMS link to see more.
The Lord of the Rings Online concept art by Wesley Burt
♦ THE GRAVE’S A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE.
Courtesy of The Goblin Market:
The Puzzle Tombstone which marks the graves of Henrietta and Susanna Bean in Rushes Cemetery, near Crosshill, Wellesley Township, Ontario. [Henrietta and Susanna] were the first and second wives of Samuel Bean.] The two wives are buried side by side. Their husband prepared a cryptogram, similar although not identical to that on Henrietta’s funeral card. It was 15 letters across, and 15 down and carved on a white marble stone. The reader must solve the puzzle by reading in a zig-zag fashion. It says (with several spelling discrepancies):
In memoriam Henrietta, Ist wife of S. Bean, M.D. who died 27th Sep. 1865, aged 23 years, 2 months and 17 days and Susanna his 2nd wife who died 27th April, 1867, aged 26 years, 10 months and 15 days, 2 better wives 1 man never had, they were gifts from God but are now in Heaven. May God help me so to meet them there. Reader! meet us in heaven.
TGM has a good deal more information, so click through to read the entire piece.
♦ TURN THE PAGE.
Interesting analysis of Violet Baudelaire from A Series of Unfortunate Events by Liz Belsky (via).
Also, female power in Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane.
Into your raging ocular maws I throw these brief bites:
From flax-golden tales: The Cat and the Fiddle by Erin Morgenstern.
From Edward & Amelia vs. The Vampire King: Chapter Sixteen: The Tower by Russell Hinson.
From Weird Fiction Review: An Incident at Agate Beach by Marly Youmans.
From Letters of Note: Live as Well as You Dare by Sydney Smith and You’re Off, By God! by Richard Burton.
From Tor.com: The Monsters of Heaven by Nathan Ballingrud and The Curiosity (excerpt) by Stephen P. Kiernan.
From Lightspeed via io9: Division of Labor by Benjamin Roy Lambert.
From Nightmare Magazine: And Yet, Her Eyes by Brit Mandelo.
From Daily Science Fiction: All Kinds to Make a World by Georgina Bruce; Pinned and Wriggling on the Wall by Usman T. Malik; Such Days Deserved by Lee Hallison; The Frenchman’s Jihad by J.T. Howard; and Melancholia in Bloom by Damien Walters Grintalis.
From Apex Magazine via The Mary Sue: To Die for Moonlight by Sarah Monette.
And some poetry! Also from Apex Magazine: A Great Clerk of Necromancy by Catherynne M. Valente. And Haikus of Regret #14 by Amy Winfrey:
7 filthy jokes you didn’t notice in Shakespeare (well, you might have noticed, mightn’t you?).
♦ THE WRITING DESK.
Poets & Writers shared eight inspired readings where the writer made a connection with the audience. Here’s one of the eight, Derrick Brown reading at New York University in 2009 (he’s really funny):
Alice Munro puts down her pen to let the world in (tip of the hat to Marnie Bullock Dresser, who shared this link on Facebook). My favorite part:
Critics have often called Ms. Munro’s stories novels in miniature, a compliment she resists a little. “We can do without that word ‘miniature,'” she said sharply, but then added that for years she was not content writing short stories. “While working on my first five books, I kept wishing I was writing a novel,” she said. “I thought until you wrote a novel, you weren’t taken seriously as a writer. It used to trouble me a lot, but nothing troubles me now, and besides, there has been a change. I think short stories are taken more seriously now than they were.”
Monkeybicycle interviews Christopher Barzak about many things.
A conversation with poet and pie-maker Kate Lebo at Ploughshares (via).
I liked how this advice for writers was structured (via):
Speaking of good advice, thisisallablr asked Neil Gaiman: “Do you think an author is ever to be held responsible for the things people do as a result of reading their work, even though fiction is fiction?” And here is Gaiman’s reply, with which I quite agree.
Jaym Gates on First-Draft Maps at Booklife.
LitReactor answers the question, What is Neo-Noir Fiction?
Cathy Day on research and serendipity in writing fiction: “Research isn’t something I do to flesh out my ideas. Research is how I get my ideas.”
Will Ludwigsen has some wise words about social media and writing in “Enough,” He Said, Peeling His Bloated Belly Off the Table”
Details, details: apparently, Germans don’t say, “I don’t care”; instead, they say, “Das ist mir Wurst,” which translates into English as “This is sausage to me.” Via sweettasteofbitter.
♦ TINY BUBBLES.
Ken To makes marvelous miniature bonsai from wire. Just look at this example! (via)
PetaPixel shared several photographs by tabletop photographer J.D. Hancock, who uses action figures and miniatures to great effect. I had a hard time choosing a favorite, but I went with the one below for all my Whovians. Check out the link above or Hancock’s flickr account for more of his great photos (both links also have some behind-the-scenes shots). Via.
Photo by J.D. Hancock
Check out these mini coffins by AhtheMacabre on Etsy (via)! I may have to get one….
Flavorwire showed us the smallest museums and galleries in the world. Pretty cool stuff! Here’s the first couple sentences to charge up your interest:
We are completely enamored with small spaces, which is why we’ve explored tiny houses, slender buildings, delightful dwellings on micro islands, and more. After reading an interview with Alex Kalman, co-founder of alleyway institution Museum (located inside an abandoned freight elevator), we went searching for more of the smallest art and culture spaces the world has to offer. These museums and galleries are minuscule, but contain big ideas and fascinating finds.
What the? Tiny cats in dollhouse spoons, that’s what! Made by MijbilCreatures on Etsy (via). Click to enlarge!
♦ BOOK NOOK.
My friend Bonnie shared this picture from the Facebook community No, I do NOT have too many books! (how many times have I uttered those same words?).
Louise Richardson‘s book art is quite lovely (and she has a penchant for adding butterfly wings to people, which I’m also inclined toward). Below is Spell Bound, which is wonderful, but do check out her flickr account via the link above for more of her work. Via.
Another wall of shelves via Share Your Shelf—oh, how I wants, my precious!
So true, Book Mania!, so true:
*Apologies to Cat Stevens and fans
