Just as a blind squirrel occasionally finds an acorn, so to does College Humor occasionally produce something that’s actually funny. “The Nightmare Before St. Patrick’s Day” is one of those time.
Archive for March, 2013
The Nightmare Before St. Patrick’s Day
Sunday, March 17th, 2013Shoegazer Sunday: Mirage in the Water’s “Chimera Panorama” (plus The Hour-Glass Sanatorium)
Sunday, March 17th, 2013What is it with Shoegaze bands and surreal Communist-era Eastern European films? First No Joy used the Czech film Daisies. Now here’s Mirage in the Water’s “Chimera Panorama,” whose video features clips from the 1973 Polish film The Hour-Glass Sanatorium, which looks extremely weird and interesting.
And it being the Internet, the entirety of The Hour-Glass Sanatorium is available online as well:
The video is in black and white, but the film is in fairly glorious color.
Random Image Dwight Will Find Amusing
Friday, March 15th, 2013
Short Cthulhu Mythos Themed Movie: “Ryleh”
Friday, March 15th, 2013Since this is the anniversary of H. P. Lovecraft’s death in 1937, here’s a short, well-done, Lovecraft/Cthulhu Mythos themed cgi short film called “Ryleh”. Enjoy!
Random Thoughts on the Naming of a New Pope
Wednesday, March 13th, 2013Because I wasn’t really in a position to post them to Twitter when Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was named Pope Francis:
On the non-snarky side, here’s a video of Pope Francis making his first appearance:
Shoegazer Sunday: The Asteroid Shop’s “Destroyer”
Sunday, March 10th, 2013Austin’s own The Asteroid Shop presents “Destroyer,” a video full of stop-motion plastic dinosaur goodness.
I may have to catch one of their live shows one of these days…
The Good, the Bad, and the Utley
Friday, March 8th, 2013Lots of health-related news for the science fiction community, so I thought I would roll it up into a single post here.
The good news: Jay Lake is currently free of detectable tumors. As Jay notes, this is quite different than being cured, but beats the alternative. Indeed, his optimism is so guarded as to be indistinguishable from pessimism. “No one knows what will work for me, and none of the choices are all that likely to pay off anyway.” He’s still waiting for the full results of the DNA scan.
The bad news: SF writer, editor, and publisher and pioneering rock critic Paul Williams is in a hospice. Williams is suffering from early onset dementia brought about as a side effect of his 1995 bicycle accident. There’s a donation page to help his family. Williams was also executor for the Philip K. Dick estate for a number of years, but that’s now handled by the Philip K. Dick Trust. I think I may have met Williams, very briefly, at the 2006 Anaheim Worldcon, but I’m not sure.
And now a few Steven Utley memorials:
Problems in Fantasy Perception
Thursday, March 7th, 2013Background
In The Wizard of Oz (the movie), protagonist Dorothy wakes up at the end and finds out her entire trip to Oz was just a dream.
In Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Merricat, the first-person protagonist, believes she can work a sort of sympathetic magic through wards and charms to keep the world at bay. When these charms are breached by an interloper, the outside world (and disaster) come crashing in. Also, one character believes Merricat is a ghost and never interacts with her, and by the end of the novel, several characters in the village she and her sister Constance live in have come to believe they are a witches.
Problem
Is either of these novels a fantasy, neither, or both? Explain your answer.
This will make up 10% of your grade.
New Iron Man 3 Trailer
Wednesday, March 6th, 2013Howard and I will be reviewing this in May:
Looks like fun, although this trailer is a lot more generic looking than the first one. And I’m not sure about Ben Kingsley playing The Mandarin. I mean, it’s not like Hollywood lacks actual Asian actors these days…
It’s Been A Bad Month for Old Fans
Tuesday, March 5th, 2013First Jan Howard Finder (AKA “Wombat”) died February 26.
Now Locus Online brings word that Richard E. Geis, Hugo-winning fanzine editor of Science Fiction Review and The Alien Critic, died back on February 4th.
I wasn’t particular close to either of them, but both were on the Nova Express mailing list, and I occasionally got mail from them.
Geis may be most famous for killing the porn book market for writers in the 1970s. Writers used to be able to get $1,000 a pop for a porn novel (not great, but far from chicken feed), but Geis turned them out so fast the price dropped to $500 a pop.