icu. or not. whatever.

Urban Camo SuitThe other day I was walking home along the Drive, and, as I walk pretty snappily, I was passing saunterer after saunterer. If they can put fast and slow lanes in the swimming pool, why can't they put them on the sidewalk for god's sake? Instead we have the morass lane, the poleaxed tourist lane, the distracted lovers' lane, and the fat lazy grampa in a scooter lane all rolled into one. And, because it's the 21st Century and nobody grows up anymore, we have the skinny grampa on a motorized skateboard or Segway lane as well. It's all I can do not to kick them into traffic.

So I was walking down the street, enjoying the sunshine and the feeling of the wind as it whipped past my shoulders at high speed. And ahead, I saw what I refer to as an "ambulatory landscape feature" ie someone walking more slowly than I. He was dressed all in camo, from his head to his foot, and you could tell, heavy weight on his style he did put. A manpurse of nylon he had slung on his back, and his pants were so low I do swear I saw crack. His boots, how they clompéd, his laces untied. You could tell this fat mofo was a man of some pride.

As I passed, I deliberately bumped into him.

"Sorry," I said. "Didn't see you there."

I don't think he got it.

The Drive Street Hockey Forever

Breaking fast: Necronomicon Found!

Damn. I knew I left it someplace!Cthulhu sees you!

Fortunately, the British police have no idea what they've found. "Anthropodermic bibliopegy" indeed; they're just trying to normalize this to prevent a global panic. The fools! Mwahahahahaha.

When you happen to find an old book that you can't read, bound in human skin and lying by the side of the road in small-town nowheresville, your first reaction shouldn't be: gee, I can't read this, so it must be an old ledger. And it's just lying here, so it must have been dropped during a robbery of…that barn there. Or the sheep pen. Or maybe the badger hole. I'm sure it must be fairly common. People are always dropping old ledgers bound in human skin by the side of the road after committing robberies that have gone completely unreported and unnoticed. Happens all the time.

Honestly, is a Hound attack so implausible in that light?

This news surfaced the day after I'd made cheap jokes at the expense of Leeds, and just as I was putting together a blog entry on Ernest Angley. Not that there's any relationship between these completely independent incidents.

The End Times Are Upon Us! It's Easter, just the right time of the year for an Apocalypse. And it will be blogged, people.

Cthulhu ftagn, Cthulhu RSS!

Cthulhu peeps

Happy Birthday, Animation!

A ten-tentacle salute to Whatacharacter, who alerted me to the fact that April 7 was the 100th anniversary of animation. And here's an image from that very first film, Humorous Phases of Funny Faces:

Humorous Phases of Funny Faces

Update: Ah, now we have a controversy over whether or not it's just the 100th anniversary of American animation. Whodathunk whether or not a film was animated would be in question, but it is. Well, it's nice to see something that's more complicated than it first appears, rather than less; it satisfies the evil genius in me. And can you imagine what it was like 101 years ago? Because the idea of un-animated Americans is what I think of as a contradiction in terms.

And now some stuff from Windsor McKay, because he was also an early animator, and dude was way twisted, yo. Word. McKay, most famous for his Little Nemo series, produced a masterwork of early interactive journalism with his Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend. The premise was simply this: after eating something as cheese-laden as Welsh Rarebit, people tend to have vivid, strange dreams. And "Silas" as he was known, asked readers to send in their dreams, so he could illustrate them. It's an amazing gallery of the human mind. I'm not sure if the differences between these dreams and my own reflects the differences between individuals or the difference between times. Buy the book (reissued, thanks to a Seattle small press) and check it out for yourself.

We're lookin for daylight

And more of same:

McKay strip

  Anudder Mckay cartoon

yetanudder McKay cartoon

You getting the idea? Traaaaaast me, the dialogue is twice as twisted as the images most of the time. The scathing "Cannibal Meat Trust" episode was particularly memorable. And now for more of same:

Little Nemo

Rarebit Fiend

The Five Fists of Science

The Five Fists of Science 

Is this not the whackest shizzle you evah seen, niggaz? (is that how that is pronounced? I'm using an online translator here, cut me some slack) A snip from the Boingboing post:

Matt Fraction shares a sneak-preview of his forthcoming graphic novel, The Five Fists of Science, starring Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla in a race to save the world from Thomas Edison and J.P Morgan. "Best part? It's true. Almost," says Matt.

You know some underachieving physics grad is going to be living his dreams through this.

Back cover copy. If you listen closely, you can hear Thomas Dolby, I swear:

SCIENCE!
No longer the realm of the fop, the dandy, or the physicist!
SCIENCE!
No longer the purview of landed gentry or the monied upper classes
SCIENCE is TODAY! SCIENCE is NOW!
SCIENCE IS FOR YOU!

Come one and come all, to this, a grand old adventure
in a brand new tradition
the penny dreadful
the pulp adventure
the escapist fantasy
the pictotrash compendium
THE GRAPHIC NOVEL
THE FIVE FISTS OF SCIENCE

join
MR. MARK TWAIN
(aka Samuel Clemens)
— and —
MR. NIKOLA TESLA
(aka Master of Lightning)
in a white knuckle thriller
AS THEY SAVE THE VERY WORLD

not recommended for the soft or the sissy
the weak at heart
or
the dull of mind

THE FIVE FISTS
of SCIENCE!
TWAIN! TESLA!
AMERICA:
You cannot spell “action & adventure” without
T & T
!!!

As told by Messers Fraction & Sanders, Kansas City, Missouri
and published by Image Comics, Berkeley, CA.

AT LONG LAST
SCIENCE FOR THE COMMON MAN
SCIENCE FOR THE WORKING MAN
SCIENCE FOR EVERY MAN!
Fear it! Feel it!

THE FIVE FISTS
of SCIENCE!
Do you dare
READ IT?

a shoe drops in Vancouver

Now I know why I've been on a Tina Brown fixation Tina Brown Hairdothe past couple of days. It's worrisome, it can't be healthy, and it'll probably result in an unfortunately feathered hairdo if it goes on too long.

Yep, now I know exactly what my brain was trying to tell me. It's true what some of the mellower religious figures say. All things do come to those who wait, if by things you mean things like memories. And a fair few other things come to those who simply interview.

When [20-year-old] Tina took up with Harold Matthew Evans — forty-six at the time and married, with three children — she was selecting for herself one of the most remarkable, successful, and attractive men in all of Britain, and very likely one of the most vulnerable as well.

Hmmm, where's my damn phone? I gots calls to make.George Headphones

"Why, hello there George!"