See that, remember the giant marathon hamster wheel? They hung light on! So pretty.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Schnowwww!
November, man. WTF. This took less than one hour, and it shows no sign of letting up any time soon :)
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Friday, November 26, 2010
Giz perfectly summarizes James Cameron's Avatar:
This is a movie about a man who rapes a dragon until it loves him, then immediately abandons that dragon for a better dragon
via gizmodo.com
I think I need to see it again.
"Maybe it's just catharsis. But I think it's more." A letter from Gene Roddenberry.
Written to his agent during the negotiations for the original Star Trek series, Gene Roddenberry. Patient and principled. Rest in peace.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Let's sing a damn song!
There was a time when people whistled their way to work and headed home singing, when the music in a shop came from the shopkeeper. A time when the 'national throat' was well-lubricated through daily exercise. Radio didn't kill it, but it did give us as a people an excuse not to belt out a tune any more.
Nowadays too many grown men and women shy away when invited to join in. They bashfully abstain, ashamed of their rusty, unpracticed voices. Who can blame them? They hear pitch-perfect auto-tuned studio-engineered hi-fi songs every day; how could a mere mortal measure up to that?
Who cares, say I.
If we just stop being so childish and shy we might get a bit of practice in, and the streets will sound a lot livelier with couple of verses being belted from an open window. And so will this dreary internet of ours.
So shut up and sing. Even if it's only when you're alone; under the shower, vacuuming the floor, cleaning your gun collection. You'll get better, and you'll appreciate music more. You can join in when a song goes up even outside of the drunken comfort of a karaoke bar.
Listen to me: I dare you.
I dare you to grab your phone and download Audioboo, whip out your MP3 player, whatever you might have that can record audio and sing your favorite song.
Right now if you can. Later if you must, but before you go to bed, give your ol' larynx a good workout!
Mess up the words? No sweat. Keep going. Hum a few bars if you have to. Make it to the chorus and belt that shit out, and keep repeating the one verse you can remember. Miss a beat? Take a breath and pick it back up. What do yo think Mick Jagger does when he messes up on stage? Do the rest of the Stones pause and start over? Nah, man.
You know you wanna do it. You already know, right this second, what you want to sing. So why not, just this once?
Maybe you're at work now, or on the bus, that's fine. But when you get home... plug a headset into your computer or whatever, discharge your lungs and post it proudly on the internet. Blast it onto YouSpace or MyFace or toss it in a tweet and tag it with #singadamnsong. Just go for it.
And of course, I'll put my raw, scratchy throat where my mouth is.
Here's my favorite song to sing: De Stad Amsterdam, which is a Dutch translation of Le Port d'Amsterdam by Jacques Brel. I'm not nearly as sweaty as he is, but damn I love that song.
Who's next?
Give me a poke when you post yours. I'd love to hear it!
- Alex
Teenage Dogs Now Available in Snack Packs
Teenage Dogs Now Available in Snack Packs
I love True American Dog so much.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Caborrower: a counter-cultural mirror to the traditional Calendar. By Alex F. Vance.
Every year, the same old thing. Winter, summer, winter again, sometimes with a spring and autumn tossed in just for color, but ultimately it's cyclical drudgery.
And why? Do we really benefit from the same boring tidal oscillation of moods and atmospheres?
Let's try something different. Instead of lending, let's borrow (disclosure: I briefly toyed with the idea of a castealer but worried about the legal implications) and reinvent our year, beginning with the names of our months:
- Jaoldary: While we're used to frothing at the mouth at the prospect of the shiny and untried, at the opening of the year, maybe we should put Janewary on hold for a year and instead reflect on all that's come before.
- Februwatery: All that vapid, noxious gasbaggery we always engage in around Februairy is well and good, but wouldn't a nice splash of fluidity be more refreshing? Also good for otters.
- Saunter: Come on, guys. The year's still young. Should we really be Marching in lockstep already? Chill.
- Primateril: There's more to the ungulate, dextrous animal kingdam than just the hairy brutes we always celebrate in Aperil. So we can either cycle through (Monkeyril, Lemurril, Macaqueril, etc.) or we can decide we are all brothers and celebrate our opposable thumbs together.
- Ringworld: Perhaps it may not be as popular as Frank Herbert's world-renowned June, but Larry Niven's month also won a Huga and Nebula award, and a Locus, thank you very much.
- Juhonest: With half the year over it may be easy to slip into bad habits, but fibbing, as we typically do in Julie, is not cool. The truth will out, so let's stick with what works.
- Aubreeze: In many parts of the inhabited world we're just enjoying the last spasms of summer, so if we really must have the wind caressing our skin, let it be the warmth of this month instead of the shocking Augusts we've resigned ourselves to.
- Antiseptember: Just because the hard part of the year is over is no reason to become complacent about hygiene and cleanliness. Be clean, disinfect, or your house will smell like a Septembic tank.
- Squidtober: Technically I could have gone for Coleoidtober in the vein of Primateril's all-inclusive equality, but there's only really three subclasses to worry about, so it'd be nice to let them take turns in the spotlight. We've had October for a while, so I propose we alternate between Squidtober and Cuttlefishtober for the forseeable.
- Yesvember: Why so pessimistic in the penultimate month? I've had enough ot November, where everything I propose is shot down because there's so little time left. Let's be more positive for a change!
- Cember: We deconstruct, declassify, even decry on occasion, and at the end of every year we December it. Aren't you curious what would happen if we didn't remove it? If we just Cembered on for a bit? Let's find out!
I'm looking forward to 2011, let me tell you.
Who's with me?
- Alex F. Vance
Friday, November 19, 2010
FC '08 Writing Panel #3 - Meet the Editors
The third furry writing panel I gave at Further Confusion 2008. The turnout was a bit slim as the panel was planned on the very last day and most people had already left, but good fun was had nonetheless.
I was joined at the table by two fellow editors. There was our own Ben Goodridge, who edited the first volume of our non-erotic fiction anthology ROAR, and Quentin "Cubist" Long who edits ANTHRO, the online anthology.
Pretty much all the attendees were writers, which made for an interesting and diverse set of topics.
FC '08 Writing Panel #2 - Narrative Techniques
In early 2008, in the strange land of California, a slightly younger me gave his first furry writing panels in person, to standing room only.
The previous one was concerned with the Fundamental Story; this one delved into the judicious use of a few more advanced narrative techniques, including surprise/suspense, tragedy, sentimentality, and that most terrible and terrifying of techniques: the joke.
The audience was wonderful, and a delight to speak to. In attendence were authors Ben Goodridge, Teiran Dragon and André "Badger" Blaireau, each of whom had a book published by Bad Dog Books.
Among many fine, insightful, and sometimes hilarious others.
FC '08 Writing Panel #1 - The Fundamental Story
In this episode, we hear a recording of the first writing panel taught by Alex Vance at the Further Confusion convention in January 2008 in the Doubletree Hotel in San Jose, California.
In this panel, Alex discusses the Fundamental Story. Also known as the hero's journey. Lightly touching on Vladimir Propp's 'Morphology of the Folk Tale', the session quickly spirals out of control with a deconstruction of a bizarre hybrid of The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars.
Sadly, the recording failed after only half an hour due to a technical malfunction, but the portion that is recorded here, at least, should hopefully prove informative.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Monday, November 8, 2010
1954 sciance via Life magazine: Chickens Never Learn.
Stupid chickens. Pfuh.
The chick in the photo, despite bearing a resemblance to an emaciated and overfluffy E.T., does look rather glam with her feathered boa.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Remember that fun-looking giant three-lane marathon hamster wheel outside Schiphol Airport I showed you?
It still looks like silly amounts of fun.
"The Walking Mountain" by Ben Goodridge, audio edition of the British, steampunk, furry War of the Worlds
An oldie but goodie, recorded for the Bad Dog Books podcast when I still ran that.
The Walking Mountain (which first appeared in FANG Volume 2 in 2005) was Ben Goodridge's endearing, if not outright hilarious take on a speculative-fiction classic.
Still very fond of this one! It was a delight to record.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Heathen City's donation to the #RBW charity auction
A gorgeous vinyl wall print of the Heathen City 3 promo poster!
All proceeds will go to RBW's selected charity, Sled Dog Welfare.Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
This $999 cable (with high interdimentional rift preventability) is on track to be this generation's Three Wolf Moon: http://amzn.to/YGIq
via amazon.com
Says Matthew Sidor:
Transmission of music data at rates faster than the speed of light seemed convenient, until I realized I was hearing the music before I actually wanted to play it. Apparently Denon forgot how accustomed most of us are to unidirectional time and the general laws of physics. I tried to get used to this effect but hearing songs play before I even realized I was in the mood for them just really screwed up my preconceptions of choice and free will. I'm still having a major existential hangover.
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