Putting this up because I’m sure that John DeNardo will want to know about it for SF Signal, and in no way because it has lots of attractive, scantly clad women in it…
Silly me. I didn’t even know the U.S. had a cosplay expo.
Also: Oh my…
2013 Comikaze Cosplay Expo Video
November 9th, 2013Library Additions: Odd Gaiman and Swanwick Items
November 6th, 2013If you collect everything an author wrote (or, in my case, everything they wrote which has been published as a separate items), you can end up with things that stray fairly far from what most people think of as “books.” Here are two recent acquisitions that may cause more than one collector to go “What the hell?”
The Day of the Dead Memes
November 1st, 2013Here, on the Day of the Dead, it’s time to remember those who were once briefly (if inexplicably) popular, but which have now largely passed from our consciousness.
I’m speaking, of course, of dead memes.
Once they roamed wild and free across the Internet, but now these memes are largely dead in popular culture. Consider this a Whitman’s Sampler of the once-popular memes.
The Dancing Baby
This computer-generated dancing baby was one of the first Internet memes, so popular it evidently showed up on an episode of Single Female Lawyer Ally McBeal. (Kids: Ask your parents what an “Ally McBeal” was.)
Mahir (I Kiss You!!!!)
In the early days of the Internet, people started putting up home pages willy-nilly with only a basic understanding of HTML and little-to-no taste or guiding aesthetics. It was a different era, when Geocities roamed the land.
Into this era stumbled Mahir Cagri, a Turkish man with diverse interests and a shaky grasp of English. “I like music , I have many many musicenstrumans my home I can play. I like sex.”
If you had an email address in 1999, chances are pretty good someone forwarded you Mahir’s page…
Hamster Dance
Basically rows of animated gifs of cartoon hamsters dancing to a silly, sped-up song. There were many offshoots and parody pages as well. I remember an “Objectivist Dance” page with animated dollar signs…
Bert is Evil
A website that claims Sesame Street‘s Bert is an agent of historical calumny, and has the photoshops to prove it.
Briefly flared into worldwide consciousness after 9/11 when radical Muslims incorporated an image of Bert with Osama Bin laden into a street sign supporting the terrorist.
All Your Base
Are belong to us.
Domo-Kun
A Japanese plush mascot chasing a kitten in divine retribution for your Onanistic sins.
Badger Badger Badger
A short animation of badgers, mushrooms, and snakes set to self-referential music, in an infinite loop. The surrealist Internet hit of 2003.
David After the Dentist
Woozy little kid gets filmed after dental surgery. Hilarity ensues.
Boxxy
Teenage girl makes video. 4Chan gets hold of video. Flamewar so epic that 4Chan grinds to halt ensues.
So look on these dead memes, ye mighty lolcats and ponies, and know that one day you too will pass into obscurity…
See also: Charles Mackay’ Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
I Would Totally Buy This Halloween Prop…
October 31st, 2013…if it weren’t $5,100.
Also, this is nicely creepy:
Fark Annual Scary Story Thread
October 31st, 2013Library Additions: Limited Hardback Edition of Ides of Octember Roger Zelazny Bibliography
October 30th, 2013Another crazy collector item for my Zelazny library:
(Zelazny, Roger) Kovacs, Christopher, compiler. The Ides of Octember: A Pictorial Bibliography of Roger Zelazny. NESFA Press/Camelot Books, 2011. First hardback edition, letter M of 21 lettered copies with a Zelazny signature sheet (taken from unused Ultramarine Press Zelazny books), a Fine copy in three-quarters bound leather, in a Fine patterned traycase with the pictorial cover from the trade paperback edition, sans dust jacket, as issued.
An elaborate aftermarket edition of this Zelazny incorporating unbound NESFA sheets obtained by the compiler.
I paid $191 for it, considerably less than the $500 list price it was offered at.
New York’s Last Movie Photo Shop Closes Its Doors
October 29th, 2013I’m sort of surprised one was still in business. What with the insane rents and all.
Also, Rick Klaw’s grandfather, Bettie Page photographer Irving Klaw, gets namechecked.
Library Additions: Philip K. Dick’s A Handful of Darkness
October 29th, 2013Another important book for closing in on my complete Philip k. Dick in hardback collection:
Dick, Philip K. A Handful of Darkness. Rich & Cowan, 1955. First edition hardback, Currey binding A (blue boards lettered in silver) in a first state dust jacket (no mention of World of Chance), an Ex-Library copy with most of the usual flaws, including protected dust jacket flaps taped to boards (and inner cardboard sleeve additionally taped) and stamp for Eeeling Science Fiction Postal Library on inner cover; dust jacket is completely intact, the only flaws being “D11/2” written in white on bottom spine just above publisher, and slight dust staining to white rear cover; call it a VG/NF Ex-Lib copy. Levack, 21a. Currey (1978), page 157. Dick’s first short story collection and first hardback book.
(Click to embiggen; hairline crack on left is a scanner artifact.)
Giant Pentagram in Kazakhstan
October 28th, 2013Well, here’s something you don’t see every day. A giant pentagram in the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan.
Looks to be about 1,300 feet across.
I’m sure it’s in no way a summoning grid for unspeakable eldritch horrors…
Shoegazer Sunday: Black Tambourine’s “Throw Aggi Off The Bridge”
October 27th, 2013For your Sunday dose of shoegaze, here’s Black Tambourine’s “Throw Aggi Off The Bridge.”