After dinner Saturday night, we finally watched the typeface geek movie Helvetica.
Chances are pretty good that if Helvetica is the type of movie you enjoy seeing, you’ve already seen it. But if not, and you’re interested in fonts, it is indeed worth watching.
A few random topics that came up during conversation at dinner and during the movie:
(I saw it on Gail Carriger’s Facebook feed; not sure of the original source.)
This is an upgrade book, replacing an Ex-Library copy:
Zelazny, Roger. A Rose for Ecclesiastes. Rupert Hart-Davis, 1969. First edition thus and first hardback edition, a Fine copy in a Fine- dust jacket with very slight spine fading. First hardback edition of Four For Tomorrow. Levack, 17b. Kovacs, V11c/V20. Zelazny’s first short story collection.
Here’s “Innocent,” another track of Japanese band Civic‘s debut album Toilet Monster.
Civic gets compared to Supercar, and while I can hear the resemblance, Civic has a rawer sound, like a garage band who just started meshing a few weeks ago. I like that high energy rawness, and some have labeled Civic “Noise Pop,” if that’s a real thing.
I’ve found and ordered Toilet Monster from a domestic source, and I hope to have a more detailed report if/when it comes in.
Slowly but surely I’m closing in on my complete Jack Vance hardback collection:
Vance, Jack. Son of the Tree. Underwood/Miller, 1983. First hardback edition, #183 of 200 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy in a Fine- dust jacket with just a tiny bit of wrinkling at head and heel. Hewett, A13g.
Since I have a lot of weird dreams, and remember the Mellotron from Genesis, I was already inclined to like Dead Mellotron‘s “Weird Dreams.”
Via Ace of Spades, comes War is Boring’s primer on how to kill Godzilla.
The basic plan is:
That would probably work in real life (where the square/cube law pretty much precludes 10-story monsters, much less ones breathing atomic fire). But in the world of the just released Godzilla movie (which, alas, I have not seen yet), given that our fire-breathing friend is reported to have survived Castle Bravo, America’s first dry-fuel thermonuclear bomb test on Bikini Atoll, well, color me skeptical that 30,000 pound JDAMs would do the trick…
Someone needs to do a reality TV show featuring all the people claiming their father was the Zodiac killer living together in the same house. It would be like The Three Christs of Ypsilanti, except, you know, sleazy.
For the season finale they could battle the people who claim their fathers were the Black Dahlia killer in some sort of trash sports obstacle course…
Pioneering artist H. R, Giger has died at age 74. Few other 20th century artists produced work so technically accomplished, pioneering, and disturbing (all at the same time) as his biomechanical paintings, which were mostly produced by airbrush. Even if Giger had never done the design for Alien, his work would still have been hugely influential. And few artists are able to open successful museums of their own work in their own lifetimes.
Honestly, the only thing I know about Jesus on Heroine is that they have a Facebook page. Here’s the slightly differently spelled “Jesus on Heroin.” It’s probably best I didn’t play this on easter Sunday…
There’s lots of news about staggeringly successful, critically acclaimed movie franchise having new installments out in 2015.
What, you’re saying the words “staggeringly successful,” “critically acclaimed” and “franchise” don’t apply to Sharknado?
All I have to say about that is: I had a great deal more fun watching Sharknado than I did Attack of the Clones.
In other Sharknado-related news, The Asylum is crowd-funding a scene in Sharknado 2: The Second One. Personally, I think $50,000 for a single scene is more than a bit high. Give The Asylum’s previous track record, with that much money I would expect them to make an entire film…