There are some wonderful “Physics of Superheroes” demos (from the book of the same name by James Kakalios) up on Youtube. These were captured when James spoke at a convention, and they mix the two great tastes of comics and science:
The Death of Gwen Stacy
The Atom’s Blooper
Here’s a quote from a dream I just had:
That is going to give you a “Sorry, Nonsense.” A “Sorry, Nonsense” gives you one point. And what does a point get you? Sorry, Nonsense.
Weird. The dream also featured some kind of nude stage show with three girls and a guy who did magic tricks with a ridiculously large strap-on.
My subconscious has made up a house that seems to be recurring in my dreams. In this house I live with my parents and brother, and quite often other relatives my be visiting. The house isn’t exactly the same in all my dreams; it has elements of real houses I’ve lived in with my family but it’s definitely not a real house. Anyone else have this sort of thing?
Tonight Joyce and I met John at Stephane & Sheri’s for a night of food and learning how to read music! It was very edumacational, as are all Slackademics courses. There was some degree of surprise to find out that I do all my “songwriting” by humming and vague drawing.
Does everyone know what the Circle of Fifths is? I do. Jealous?
Well you’ve got another chance for learning, just pipe up and let me know what you’re in the market for. We got some call for comic book appreciation, voice acting, vegetarian/vegan cooking, horror/scifi film theory, and Photoshop/Digital graphic manipulation.
As you can see I’m trying out new “skins” for my blog again. The last one was good because it was straightforward, but I decided I wanted a sort of banner with my artwork on it. Which I’m still working on, by the way. Thanks to Joe for his he’p.
Pursuant to my previous post about starting up a Vancouver chapter of Improv Everywhere, I had a couple of ideas.
If we can get about 30 people, dressed up like homeless people, and if we can find a suitable spot, we could lay down and spell out the words “spare change” in human bodies. Maybe even ‘snore talk’ “spare change.”
This second idea I like even better. You know how you can go to Stanley Park or to fairs and whatnot and you’ll find someone who will either draw your caricature or do a portrait of you in charcoal or conte or whatever? Well we could gather a half dozen or more people to do that. Only our portraits and caricatures would be bad. As in, grotesquely bad. The beauty of the idea is that the “artists” don’t have to know how to draw – in fact it’s better if they don’t. But we wouldn’t be drawing stick men; I mean it should look like we’re trying to do our best. And it should seem that we think we’ve done a great job and are proud of our work, even though it’s clearly terrible. And NEVER BREAK CHARACTER. I have lots of drawing materials (charcoal, pastels, pencil crayons) but participants would have to supply their own paper, stools, drawing board/easel. I think we could have a lot of fun with this! It is more of a summer thing, though.
So tomorrow is V-Con and I’m trying to figure out what to bring for the art show. I had some grand schemes of getting things framed but my heart just wasn’t in it. Frames! Frames are for suckers. So anyway I’m this very moment going through my files of original art that has been sitting in my file folder stagnating. I really have no idea what to charge for these things. I guess if nothing sells it means either I’m charging too much or it just plain sucks. At the very least people will see my stuff and I’ll have a whack of business cards. Oh yeah, self-promo, I forgot about you! AGAIN!
Here’s a really old one (’99 as you can see) that I dug up out of the files. Feng Shui the RPG is weird, I’m sure you’ll agree!
Today I was interviewed for the Victoria music magazine/paper Absolute Underground. When Kevin asked me earlier in the week where and when I would like to do the interview, I decided it would be serendipity to schedule it alongside the City of Vancouver/United Way Chili Cook-Off which took place today at noon at City Hall. It was kind of surreal–especially team “Detroit Rock Chili” (I wish I had my camera to capture the KISS costumes)–but not inappropriate for a Thickets interview. A lot of fun actually!
For those looking for a night of entertainment, may we recommend…? Scarface and/or The Illusionist at The Rio Theatre. It is after all my duty to plug the best theater in town. I watched The Illusionist with Joyce the other night and it really got me thinking about some interesting stories. I always liked the idea of a guy who gets his rocks doing inappropriate impersonations. Like an actor who is studying for a role as a spy, so he starts doing things like dressing up as maintenance staff to get into secure buildings for no other reason to see if he can do it. He goes too far, gets caught, and then the government hires him to be a real spy. Maybe this story has already been done…a few times. Anyway I digress. The Illusionist reminded me of this sort of thing and it also reminded me of Call of Cthulhu (the game). The period and atmosphere were excellent. I was suprised by Rufus Sewell’s performance, it was good. Paul Giamatti is always good. Edward Norton actually didn’t have much to do in terms of acting. But, a strong film, especially the first 3/4. I’d give it 7.4/10.
So I made made the comments require registration because of all the spam I was getting. Now I’m getting complaints about the registration so I’ll take it down for now and see what happens.
You can see me in this clip from X-Men 3 at the 47 second mark, on the right.
You are receiving this mail because you seem likely to be interested in signing on for wacky and questionable enterprises. Improv Everywhere is a group that does stunts/pranks/performance art in public places in New York, like staging a repeating time loop in starbucks. See their mission page: http://www.improveverywhere.com/missions.php . I recommend starting with Moebius and Slo-Mo Home Depot.
Chapters are springing up in other cities, and there are some people interested in starting up one for Vancouver. There is a board that you can sign on to in order to get more info here: http://www.improveverywhere.com/mb/index.php
If you are interested, and also if you know people who might be interested, a meetup is being organized for Saturday Oct 21st at the Starbucks in Station Square BBY near the Red Robin at 2pm.
My favourites are Anton Chekov and the Cell Phone Symphony, not to mention No Pants.
Toren, I’m afraid I cannot condone or support anyone downloading material or images from my site (which is declared on the homepage)– because there are those who print off and ink the pencil pages to use as art samples– Or worse still attempt to sell their inked copies as originals. I have actually stated elsewhere that if the problem persists I will have to discontinue my site. I realise you are not trying to make profit and I am sorry I cannot be more accommodating but there are those who use any compromise as the ‘thin end of the wedge’.Alan
