Author: Don

Dorothy had reasons to be nervous …

This year’s Bulwer-Lytton winners have been posted. There are a few that aren’t too bad:

As she watched the small form swing backwards and forth from the crystal chandelier – hands on hips, sniffing the air and squeaking inaudibly – it suddenly became clear to Madame de Pompomme that she had done the wrong thing asking Jacques to find and bring back her long-lost sister: for, whilst her coterie would doubtless be enchanted for a short while, the novelty of Janine having been raised by bats since the age of two in caves of the North-west Congo would soon wear off in seventeenth-century France.

There are certain people in the world who emanate an aura of well being — they radiate sunshine, light up a room, bring out the best in others, and fill your half empty glass to overflowing – yes it was these very people thought Karl, as he sharpened his mirror-finished guthook knife, who were top of his list.

But most are laboriously dull, spliced together with too many semicolons and dashes.

The Lyttle Lytton results for 2008 were also disappointing, with nothing the caliber of “In 3010, the potatoes triumphed.”

If you want a laugh, I recommend watching the Stafford County, Virginia, Board of Supervisors in action. ((Please note that what is illustrated in the video is not “fuzzy math,” but stupidity.)) (Via the Maximum Leader.)

Anime makeover

Ever wondered how well Mikuru fills out the styles in her home century? Or what Mizuho would look like in clothing appropriate to his alleged gender? Or how a mahou shoujo would look as a mecha pilot, or vice versa? Here’s an opportunity to speculate, and perhaps to see your notions realized. The Future Fashion Folio for Costume Con 27 is open for submissions. Note the second of the special categories:

2. REDESIGN YOUR FAVORITE ANIME CHARACTER (sponsored by Karen Dick): You know what your favorite characters wear in that anime you love, but what do YOU think they should wear when they’re out of uniform (or when they get drafted into the military), or on that special  date, or going to that themed costume party?

If your design is selected for the folio, a costumer might make the outfit and model it in a fashion show at Costume Con. You don’t need to be a good artist or an expert costume designer; I’m neither, and one of my designs was included in last year’s folio.

If you should happen to be in the Baltimore area next May and you have any interest in costuming, the Con is worth attending. It’s devoted to all kinds of costuming, not just anime cosplay. There are pictures from Costume Con 25 here.

Is there a musicologist in the house?

Does the background music to this clip from Strike Witches sound familiar? Steven thinks that it’s 19th-century, but I don’t recognize it. My guess is that the tune was composed specifically for the show.

[mp3]http://tancos.net/audio/StrikeWitchesTune.mp3[/mp3]

(Yeah, I hadn’t intended to watch any more of Strike Witches, but Steven’s note piqued my curiosity and I had enough left in my BOST account to download one last episode. Unless I hear that there is a quantum leap in quality in the second half of the show, this is as much of Strike Witches as I’m going to waste time on.)

New poll

poteb01.jpg

Guchuko easily won the plushie poll with forty-three percent of the votes. President Aria was a distant second with sixteen percent. A random mushi and Potemayo got twelve and eleven percent respectively, and none of the remaining candidates got more than seven percent.

There’s a new poll up now. Which show would you most like to see licensed for your region? I started with Steven’s wish list and added several more.

Checking in

Odds and ends in lieu of a substantative post.

My ankle has healed to the point that it’s a minor nuisance, not a major problem. It doesn’t feel right, and I expect that it never really will, but I can get around plenty well now, up and down stairs and out on my bicycle. I’m done with formal physical therapy. Next month I plan to take a beginning ballet class as a form of advanced PT. I don’t expect to be back on the dance stage again — my ankle is getting better, but my knees aren’t — but taking class will be worthwhile just to demonstrate to myself that I can still do it, despite everything.

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I’ve installed a new photo gallery that I hope will be easier to upgrade in the future when it becomes necessary. I’m in the process of uploading the pictures from the old site. There are a bunch of them, and it’s going to take a while to post them all. Currently, there are some pictures from last year’s Walnut Valley Festival, some from the local botanical garden, and a selection of pictures from my days in the Society for Creative Anachronism. The last are mostly black and white and date back to when I worked in an old-fashioned chemical darkroom.

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Robert the LLama Butcher, one of my favorite bloggers, has his own place now, The Port Stands at Your Elbow. He promises to keep posting at the old site as well.

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Watchmen is one of the very few comic books graphic novels that I have read. The inevitable movie is due out next year, and it looks like it might not be a botch — though it almost was:

… they originally wanted Keanu Reeves for Dr. Manhattan, Ron Perlman for The Comedian, and either Jude Law and Tom Cruise for Ozymandias. Gack!

Toren makes an essential point in the comments there:

Alan has put his money where his mouth is and transferred all his share of the profits from the movie to Dave Gibbons, the artist. I’ve met Dave a few times here and in England and I must say he’s not only a great guy but his work in adapting Alan’s brutally difficult script has been vastly underrated. To take Alan’s insanely complex and dense scripts and adapt them to read fluently and yet contain the unbelievable amount of required detail and foreshadowing is one of comic’s great accomplishments. Dave’s work was hugely appreciated within the industry but alas, never got much credit outside of it. It was all “Alan Moore is God.”

It’s a damn shame.

Alan Moore isn’t God, but is he Shakespeare? Eve Tushnet has some interesting things to say about Watchmen (spoilers), finding parallels with Measure for Measure and much else. (You may need to scroll down to the entries for January 23, 2004.) Scroll up for additional comments and links.

Update: More on Moore from Tushnet.