From The Morgue

Willa had a cold this week, not super fun, but she’s good again now. HOW EXCITING IS MY LIFE!

Webseries action happenin’ all over the place:

Jane Espenson is the biggest name behind HUSBANDS, which launched yesterday. It’s a sprightly sitcom about a casual couple who go to Vegas, get drunk, and end up married! Yep, that old concept – only in this case, the couple are two gay men. Love it.

Emma Caulfield’s Bandwagon is rocking its way through a new season. I never got into the first season (actually a film chopped into bits) of this behind-the-scenes-in-LA comedy, but the new one caught my attention with an audacious plotline around making “GLEE for black people” – urban Glee! I have no time to catch up but worth checking it out, fer shure.

And of course Felicia Day’s groundbreaking series The Guild is well into season 5, and this one is going heavy heavy on the guest stars. A great turn by Neil Gaiman last week, and there’ve been a whole lot of other familiar faces in recent eps. Good stuff!

All those folk are Buffy alumni. Via another Buffy name, Amber Benson, I came across another brand-new web series, called Sex, Drugs & A Capella. It’s like Glee with none of the really obnoxious bits. I’m going to embed this one – it’s really great, and obviously put together by someone who knows how to edit. And there is great singing.

Speaking of editing, Salon.com has been featuring some great video essays that (like the one for The Thing I linkied last time) dissect a film sequence and show you how it works, or doesn’t. They’re both really worth watching to understand visual grammar. The first one tears a sequence from Nolan’s excellent The Dark Knight to pieces, and the second one celebrates a sequence from an entirely forgettable Angelina Jolie flick called Salt.

Interesting case study of media coverage of the “Ground Zero Mosque” story.

NZ$100,000 funding for the best low-budget film idea – you need to mock up your poster and tagline. I should find someone to make a poster of my MARCH… OR DIE! concept, wherein a young woman discovers that small-town New Zealand marching girl troops are actually engaged in carefully-choreographed battles to the death. (Some amongst you will have heard me saying repeatedly over the last decade that NZ should develop a cheapo straight-to-DVD exploitation film industry piggybacking on all the infrastructure and expertise we have here. The Knifeman is my pick to career-change into NZ’s Roger Corman.)

Now, what else…

Vladimir Putin: Action Man (I actually prefer to think of him as a Big Jim, but that’s just me)

The guy who found that Diamond Planet talks about science. And climate change. This is a good read.

Speaking of climate change, Al Gore’s 24-hour global climate reality event is on right now. Or has it just finished? Regardless, it’s important stuff. I love the language: “climate reality”. Considering the way the anti-science forces like to use words as weapons, this is one highly-sharpened piece of rhetorical technology.

Another climate change effect, underway now, ahead of schedule: giant red crabs invade Antarctica in their millions. Contains unsettling video.

You might have heard about the plane in Detroit that was the location of a terror scare on 9/11. Did you hear that the woman who was suspected of being a terrorist is a blogger? Her account makes for sobering reading.

George Lucas added a line of dialogue to the new version of his Star Wars films – Darth Vader saying “Nooooo!” Here is the best response you’ll find.

Via the Alligator:

Tape Generations from johan rijpma on Vimeo.

And finally, from the triumphantly returned Critical Miss: Chess for Dogs.

NZ is about to go a bit mental, because the Rugby World Cup is starting. For 6 weeks we will be in agonies of roaring enthusiasm, severe frustration, not a little wishing all the rugby and tourists would go away, and of course the barely-suppressed angst that we will once again lose the big dance despite being number 1 in the world. Forgive us, furriners, if we make even less sense than usual until the end of October.

Here are some linky that are strongly themed around subjects that are not rugby:

Translating book publisher promotional language

Oh man, I could watch this again and again and again: Schulz draws Charlie Brown

U.S. productivity indexed against wage levels. A simple graph that shows just how bad it’s gotten there (and throughout most of the Western democracies, although not to this extent.) Households responded by going into debt and sending both mum and dad out to work, but those responses are at capacity now – something’s gotta give.

Student runs a secret banned books library from her locker. Love it.

NYT gives a good explanation of decision fatigue, which is a good thing, because this is a crucial idea to understand what it means to be human. Read with reference to every single infuriating statement by economic conservatives and law’n’order bellowers that people should’ve made better decisions. (Game designers should also be aware of this too – there is scientific support for the idea of willpower as an expendable and diminishing resource pool.)

This is a creepy Korean comic that has been doing the rounds. There have been reaction videos. It’s fascinating from a technique perspective, and very successful as a done-in-one creepy tale. If you haven’t looked at it, you should. All in Korean but no translation is needed.

Someone does the numbers on that idea that if you click the first link in any Wikipedia post, and the first link in that one, and so on, it will eventually lead to Philosophy. Cool!

Video tributes to fake rock bands

Incredible insider account of the challenges in achieving diversity in film casting.

Okay I know I said I wouldn’t have rugby stuff, but look – if you are minding your own business and suddenly an official delegation from rugby turns up, and you need to make a speech in a hurry, here’s the tool for you!

And finally… workouts.

I do love how NZ’s (awful) anti-filesharing legislation has become known all over as the Skynet Law. Hee. Maybe we need shouty Christian Bale to lead the resistance?

Two Cellos doing Smells Like Teen Spirit

How hard is it to get a cartoon into the New Yorker? Worth reading just to hear about the process involved. It’s quite something. Also: funny cartoons that didn’t quite make it!

Foreign Policy lessons drawn from hip-hop disputes.

Purely for nostalgia and laughing at fashions: SEARS 1983 catalogue.

An elegy for the age of space

As the ill-advised prequel to John Carpenter’s (ill-advised remake of) The Thing approaches, here are some Thing linky: an audio version of the story “The Things” that retells the movie from the alien’s point of view. The text is there to if you just wanna read it, I thought I’d linkied to the story ages ago but apparently not.
Also: closely-argued (very detailed) video essay about the ambiguous ending of The Thing – are there enough clues to work out the film-maker’s intention? As Mr D Ritchie of Hamiltron has pointed out, includes a slightly-too-long clip from the essayist’s student film, to the bemusement of all.

And finally, from Jenni Talula, here are the Men-Ups

It’s Friday linky time!

Tree gives bicycle long slow hug

Timewaster alert: Amazing science facts!

The AVClub interviews Martin Starr, actor best known in this household as Bill Haverchuck on Freaks and Geeks. He just comes across as a fascinating guy. I love that he and Eugene Levy are developing projects together.

NYT feature on Dollar Stores and the economy that sits behind and around them. Fascinating and worth knowing about.

Ursula K Le Guin writes vividly about the use of curse words in modern fiction. Contains bad language, unsurprisingly.

A fun set of engagement pictures. The photographer turns up in the comments to discuss.

Lovely short film set in the world of the Portal video games. Well worth watching even if you, like me, know virtually nothing about Portal.

Fascinating! New version of mass-market war boardgame RISK makes previous games impact on future games – you add permanent stickers to the board after each play, reflecting what happened. The designer chats about the logic behind this – well worth a read.

Incredibly rewarding essay by comics journalist Tom Spurgeon about facing death, loving comics, working hard, and the shape of life.

Now that the Harry Potter film cycle is finished, refresh your minds with these new takes on the characters by artist Makani.

And finally… French firemen do it fast

There are many like it but this one is mine

Muppet Who. Check out more of Amy Mebberson’s funny, skilful work on her Tumblr.

Young woman journo infiltrates the Gathering of the Juggalos.

Once you would have had to be a seriously dedicated collector who had scoured dozens of books and odd periodicals to collect this information. Now it’s right there on Wikipedia. The Tehran UFO incident of 1976. Whippersnappers these days have it all so easy.

Dogs in flight and dogs shaking off water

Another interesting experiment in alternative exchange models: “I’m going to try offering people a new way to obtain my games without buying them or stealing them. It is this: do purposeful acts of social good, tell me about those purposeful acts of social good, and then you get the game.” For example, you go and pick up litter from a local park, then tell him, and he’ll give you the game. (Obviously this doesn’t scale *at all*, but for niche/small-audience products this has a very nice feel.)

The weird science of coffee stain rings

The only review of Rise of the Planet of the Apes you need to read. (Minor spoilers I guess but they’re worth it.)

The Ross Sea: It’s a Horrible Place

(that’s a competition entry by my buddy Matt. See also this bedtime story.)

[late addition! thanks Maire] Crazy dragon illusion…

And finally… hipster ipsum, because ordinary filler text just isn’t cool enough.

Linky’s back. Like Linky 2: The Legend of Curly’s Gold. Or Linky 2: Electric Boogaloo. Or Linky 2: The Squeakquel.

Street flyers that are funny Some of these are clever-clever and annoying, but most are clever-dumb or dumb-clever and very fun indeed. (via Joel Pitt)

Neo-Nazis get a surprise in their t-shirts. This is quite brilliant actually. (via George Langlands)

You will know just from the title whether this link will be your sort of thing; if it is your sort of thing, you could lose weeks in here. Digital Atlas of Roman and Medieval Civilizations

The Great French Post-It Art War of 2011

Over on Facebook everyone, including me, is sharing this great piece on the London riots by the Spider Jerusalem of this reality, Penny Red.

Man, it seems like an age ago when I bookmarked this one. Only two weeks! An eternity. Hey, remember when Rupert Murdoch was a big story? Remember that guy? What Rupert Murdoch means for you, personally. How he’s screwed up your life too.

Fan-made Angry Birds motion comic

Literati call out the great works of literature they didn’t like

Kinda creepy vanity dolls

Dancers among us (via Jamie Norrish)

Everything you need to know about the exploitative history of the superhero comics industry can be extrapolated from this story.

Joggers, before and after

And finally: ‘Harold and Maude’ arts and crafts

Because I just saw a link to this right now and expect it’s fun: technologies missing from sci-fi movies, including amusingly enough the bicycle.

Full-on Oranges right now. Check out our website that I plugged last week!
www.orangesathalftime.co.nz

And come like our Facebook page!

There are recipes in this exhibition. For reals. Also, lots about rugby.

Yes, everything extremely hectic right now as a major project comes close to launch.

The project is Oranges at Halftime: Rugby and the Kiwi Experience, a travelling exhibition hitting the road around NZ on August 9. It’s going to be a fun attraction, using our national game to explore NZ social history. Nothing too serious, and plenty to interest anyone I reckon! Come see us on Facebook, too…

Also of significant note: the Ennies awards, the biggest awards in role-playing games, are up for vote now, and ICONS what I worked on is up for recognition in several categories. Nice one! So go vote if you know one end of a D20 from the other. Several friends have work nominated in other categories, too. It’s a good-looking slate this year. Lots of cool stuff happening in RPG-land.

Anyway, I’m loath to go two weeks without linky, so here are a few that have caught my eye. Only short ones because there is much work to be done!

Stephen Judd wrote this excellent piece about the prevalence of antisemitism in NZ. Since then there’s been a big flap about !1potential Mossad agents in the Christchurch earthquake!!1 – worth reading that chatter with this in mind. (Yes, Mossad have a painful track record of farming NZ passports for their agents. Yes, there were a few odd things about the actions of the Israelis who survived the quake. But.)

Phil Hartman is only known in NZ via The Simpsons. His SNL audition is worth a watch…

Mahna Mahna – the original version!

Can’t remember which of my wrestling nerd friends shared this: a discussion about 10 wrestling events and whether they were real or staged. Wrestling is one of the strangest, most post-modern entertainment forms in existence. I have fairly little interest in the actual thing itself, but find the way it tells stories and the collision between fiction and reality to be endlessly fascinating.

Star Wars: speeder bike. Or is it meant to be something else? [It seems so! Bat Pod! Cheers to Mr D Ritchie of Hamiltron.]

And finally, via Ivan, the apotheosis of the weird alignment chart trend: Batman alignment chart

The Willa is gleefully rolling around the room, which gives me just enough time for a quick bout of Friday linky.

Infographic: Size 8 variance across fashion designers

LIFE has a gallery of pics from the Mad Magazine offices. Eventually someone is going to make a movie about this magazine, and they will win a whole swag of Oscars.

Took me a while to get around to reading this, but it is recommended: 30 years on we are still learning from AIDS

The Batmobile and the ECTO-1 in the style of Pixar’s Cars. And characters from the Lord of the Rings in the style of indie kids and hipsters.

For Māori Language Week: make your own kid’s book in te reo

Short film, worth watching:

Plot Device from Red Giant on Vimeo.

Design a better bike (or, really, fail to design a better bike)

And finally… you seen the Hunt Me For Sport guy, right? It’s been on real news and suchlike, even. Cool. How about this then: guy visits a flea market in his dreams, returns with a mission to create the weird toys he saw there.