Daikaiju Post

[deepfishy]

Rationing posts doesn't work. I get busy/lazy/distracted, and suddenly there's about thirty things either out of date or too random to post on their own. So here is Daikaiju Post, come to crush all before it:

(Now with deadly exclamation point attack!)

1. If you were ever wondering who to blame (or praise) for semicolons: Aldus Manutius!

2. A Dinosaur Comics that fills me with unholy glee: Wheirwolf!

3. Advice from Kurt Vonnegut: Sit up straight!
(EDIT: or not? As dievle points out, it's very similar to the "wear sunscreen" speech misattributed to him. Nigeria-419-esque mutation of myth, or intentional pastiche by the man himself?)

4. LOLcats meets literary pastiche (sadly, no macros - text only): a Making Light thread!

Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock:
I can has peach?
O HAI MERMAIDZ! kbai :(

5. Doctor Who crossover (utter crack!fic): The Comedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark!

MARCELLUS
Is it not like a credenza made of wood?

HORATIO
As thou art to thyself:
And yet it is not in my ken
That such appointments of furnishing
Should, wailing music ne'er heard by ears of men,
Be poiséd thus upon the icy air.
'Tis strange.

6. Calming, yet oh so addictive: Boomshine!

6a. Supernatural fic rec (read this *after* playing the damned game): Boomshine.

7. And finally: the three interests/three icons meme from lyrstzha! Just comment if you'd like to merge with the Hive Mind do the meme.

1) zombie camels.
Total Clarion in-joke (there was something of a zombie theme going). Plus, zombie camels are both comical and scary. Probably the only thing that could top them is zombie penguins...

2) sinister ducks.
There's something about ducks. They're planning something. What are they doing at night in the park? Please see March of the Sinister Ducks (vocals by Alan Moore) to more fully apprehend the seriousness of this situation.

3) forward motion.
Way back, I stumbled upon Holly Lisle's author site. Apart from the usual author stuff, she had (still has) a range of essays about the writing life, and had created an online writers' community (Forward Motion) with the goal of paying it forward. She's not involved with the community any more, but it's remained a friendly and informative place. It's fair to say that between Holly and Forward Motion, I learned everything I needed to get serious about writing - both the industry, and the writing life.

4) (mythic spyglass).
My first icon, made from a picture in Richard Adams's poem/book "The Ship's Cat" (which, incidentally - pirates and the Spanish and a brave English ship's cat, all with gorgeously detailed illustrations).

5) (yo-less).
One of my early icons, when I was... (how to put this tactfully?...) still learning the ropes. The comedy series Black Books. Bernard kicks Manny out of the shop, Bernard cannot make Manny's yo-yo yo-yo, Bernard is sad...

6) (mehitabel).
From Don Marquis's Archy and Mehitabel. Archy was a vers libre poet whose soul had transmigrated into a cockroach. Mehitabel the alley-cat claimed that she, too, had been human in former lives - usually someone like Cleopatra, of course. This site has several of Marquis's poems available to read, such as the coming of archy, the lesson of the moth, and what the ants are saying.

~

Comments

[dievle.livejournal.com]

to number 3: i wonder if vonnegut is actually responsible for that... would be kinda funny if it was him, considering he was erroneously credited with the piece that is taken from - the "wear sunscreen" speech written by Schmich and later turned into a song was originally credited to Vonnegut.

[deepfishy.livejournal.com]

(edited the entry to reflect this - I actually managed to miss the whole "the 'wear sunscreen' speech is by Vonnegut!" thing, only heard the song)

Mysteriously frustrating to research indeed. A basic search neither confirms nor refutes the "sit up straight" speech as Vonnegut's (other than that comic, for instance). No newspaper reports, for instance - not that those are foolproof either. I can think of a few search terms which might turn up supporting evidence (whether or not Vonnegut gave a graduating speech in 1999 for some Masters program, for instance), but...there's so much filler to wade through. Guess I have to be content to leave this one a mystery. (For now!...)

It would be cool and funny if he *had* done it, though!

[secondsilk.livejournal.com]

Boomshine! Wow.
That's amazing. Particularly the way the music just makes you keeping playing.

Semicola and more dragging me into wikipedia. Ha!

[deepfishy.livejournal.com]

I swear, Boomshine is a paen to the subtle art of mind control. You failed to achieve your goal. $!*&%!

[lyr]

Cool answers; thanks! Forward Motion looks especially intriguing. I'll have to poke around their site more later. And one of these days, maybe I should try to catch Black Books; I've heard a couple of nice things about it.

[deepfishy.livejournal.com]

I'm not active on Forward Motion at the moment, but I do recommend poking around - the boards are enormous, and there's all sorts of stuff, including writing exercises, challenges and dares, crit circles, chat... it's a big community, and I know I never used half of what was available.

I have much love for Black Books - its just the right mix of surreal for me, and it's set in a BOOKSHOP! :) Do check it out if you can.

(And while we're on the subject of British comedy recs, you might also like Absolute Power. It stars Stephen Fry and John Bird as the heads of a PR agency, and...well, the easiest way to describe it is that Absolute Power is to public relations what Yes, Minister was to politics - sharp, witty, and painfully accurate. Brilliant, in other words.)

[lyr]

Oooh, thanks for the tip! I loved Yes, Minister a lot, so that comparison sounds great to me.