books

Help! A Bear is Eating Me!

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Imagine a novel called “Help! A bear is eating me!”

Are you imagining it?

No, seriously, try it now. How would it start? Main character. Being eaten. By a bear. For real. For a whole novel.

Are you getting anything yet? No? Not even a first line?

Well, if you’re having trouble imagining this novel, fear not, because my dear and astonishing friend Mykle Hansen has imagined it for you! Not just imagined it, but written it down in so many words! In chronological order! And as if that weren’t enough, he’s actually started to read them out loud and record them digitally for your digital word-listening enjoyment! I assure you, this is no bait-and-switch. No false bears here. No men in bear suits. No bears-as-metaphors-for-falling-stock-markets. The main character really* is being eaten, by a real* bear. I kid you not.

Anyway, you gotta hear this stuff. It’s really good. Pick your favorite flavor:

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subscribe via iTunes
just download the mp3s

The book itself is due out in print this fall, via Afterbirth Books. And if you like what you’re hearing, may I also recommend Mykle’s first book of short stories (self-published, in the literal sense of xeroxing and cutting and gluing and binding), Eyeheart Everything.

Update: How do I know about this book, you may wonder? Well, Mykle sends out these incredibly entertaining emails every time he publishes another chapter. These used to be only for a select elite (“people whose email address Mykle happens to have”) but now they’re available to the world on his blog! Check the conveniently named helpabeariseatingme.com!

*Disclaimer: by “real”, I mean “fictional”. But you get the point.

timelapse

Farm Fight!

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Click here to download full-res Quicktime (720×480, 20MB)

A rousing game of Carcassonne played at lightning speed, while the boys play Rescue Rangers in the background. Starring Andy James, Elliott, Finn, and myself. Location: Vashon Island, Washington. Shot, as usual, on a Canon DSLR, at a rate of 10 seconds per frame. Video edited using Quicktime Pro and iMovie. (This is my first time using iMovie, and I now understand what Lorelei meant when she said it was “like editing with a big crayon.”)

alphabet, books

Folk Typography essay in LAB zine

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The internets are a wonderful thing. In April 2005, during my Flickr honeymoon, I started a group called Folk Typography: a place to collect all the weird typographical innovations stumbled upon by people whose job is anything but typography. Two years and four hundred photos later, the group’s become a nice little compendium of quirks, and has attracted some remarkable folks.

One of those folks is Joseph Robertson, a guy of such astonishing gumption that, in order to teach himself graphic design, he created an entire magazine from scratch: LAB magazine. The first issue was a knockout: beautiful, sleek, and stuffed with more fascinating articles than any ten magazines in my local newsstand. So when Joseph asked me to contribute to an article about Folk Type for the next issue, I couldn’t say no!

That issue is now online for your enjoyment, in its entirety, for free: LAB magazine issue 01. Or you can jump right to the article itself. But if you’re a reader who likes colorful things, I highly recommend getting your hands on a handsomely printed hard copy. Have at it!

photos

Maker Faire




jolly, candy-like!

Originally uploaded by otherthings.

Finally made it to Maker Faire! It really is one of the coolest events ever. It’s one of those things that makes me glad to live in San Francisco: so many creative freaks and geeks in one place! You got your electro-tinkerers, your robotic overlords, your bitchin’ stitchers, the works. We even got to see the Mentos and Diet Coke guys do their thing!

I took a few photos. So did everyone else. Enjoy!

eyestilts

Catch!

Apparently there have been several scientific studies that demonstrate this interesting fact: when you’re wearing a Telestereoscope, not only do you look like a total spazz, you also catch like one.

Of course, we didn’t need a double-blind study to figure that out. A few tosses of a crusty old tennis ball were enough to know that we wouldn’t be using our device to cheat our way into Wimbledon any time soon.

animation

Shrek the Third opens tomorrow!

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So, Shrek the Third opens tomorrow. Y’all are going to see it, right? Of course you are! ;-)

The trailers have been out for a while, so I’m sure you’ve seen them around. As it turns out, there are shots I animated in almost all the movie trailers! Some Shrek shots, some princesses, even a few ogre babies (the cute ones, not the dancing ones…)

The shot pictured above has a little easter egg, a “shout-out” to all you computer animation industry old-timers. (You won’t see it in the image above–I’ll leave it up to you to scan through the trailer and figure it out!) “Mad props” to my “homie” Jerry Hebert for “hooking me up” with the idea! ;-)

Cassidy Curtis's splendid display of colorful things.