- Mark Evanier on the origin of the phrase “top banana.” I’m not entirely sure if this is true, but it’s a lot more convincing than some of the other origin stories I’ve seen.
- The most environmentally friendly city in the United States? Surprisingly, it might be New York City. [via]
- I wonder if that means we’ll be able to avoid post-apocalyptic scenes like these [via]
- Maybe we can at least stop getting letters like these. Although I do particularly like the 1911 letter to Mayor Jay Gaynor about “the disgraceful acts that take place daily in Bryant Park.” Imagine if the letter writer had ever seen it during Fashion Week!
- Speaking of letters, and more particularly, Letters of Note, I particularly liked Kurt Vonnegut’s letter home after surviving being a POW and the bombing of Dresden. Makes me want to re-read Slaughterhouse-Five.
- Continuing a theme: Navy was ordered to listen for Martians in 1924.
- Sure, an “iTunes for magazines” sounds like an intriguing idea — maybe — but what does it even mean? [via]
- Often find yourself bemoaning the lack of originality in Hollywood and endless parade of remakes, sequels and prequels? It’s much worse than you think. [via]
- Speaking, sort of, of such, should Stephen King write a sequel to The Shining? Well, if it’s a good sequel, why not? [via]
- Meanwhile, King is delaying the e-book release of his new novel, Under the Dome. (I’ve heard some good things, but I am waiting for the e-book.) Allegedly, it’s “in hopes of helping independent bookstores and the national bookstore chains sell the hardcover edition.” Which actually, on King’s part I don’t really doubt, although I’m sure his publisher is eyeing its own bottom line more closely. The exercise will probably have no effect at all, given the price war being waged between Wal-Mart, Amazon, and Target (among others), except to annoy those of us who want a copy but don’t want to cart around a 1,000+-page hardcover.
It makes me wonder, though, what things would be like if one could purchase e-books from independent bookstores. Maybe it’s time to start looking into IndieBound more closely…
- For now, I guess I’ll just have to settle for reading King’s new poem in the November issue of Playboy. (That link, to The Guardian, is SFW. The link to the poem itself? Not so much. Then again, it doesn’t seem to be working anymore, so if you want to read “The Bone Church,” you may have purchase the issue or wait until it’s reprinted elsewhere. [via]
- Also potentially a little NSFW: this Graffiti Control on the Death Star cartoon. I found it amusing, though. [via]
- Of course, if I wanted to avoid the price war altogether, I could go with free books only. Like Gregory Maguire’s new novel. He and his publisher are giving away 2,500 copies of the book, provided you agree to make a small donation “to a local charity, someone who needs it, or a stranger on the street.†I don’t have any particular interest in the book itself — I liked but didn’t love Wicked, the only Maguire book I’ve ever read — but it’s an interesting idea. Although that seems like a big print run for a small publisher to just be giving away. [via]
- I’ve heard reasonably good things about the book that started this Jane Austen mashup craze, and my sister and her husband even recently bought me a copy. But now there’s a third? Mansfield Park and Mummies? I don’t think I’ve ever been more glad that Jane Austen only wrote six novels.
Though, there’s already a Pride and Prejudice and Zombies sequel planned. [via]
- And finally, speaking of Jane Austen… Mitchell & Webb’s “Posh Dancing” [via]
zombies
Tuesday various
- Plagiarism Software Finds a New Shakespeare Play. Well, maybe. Unless we can dig up Zombie Shakespeare, I think it’s still just conjecture. [via]
- Speaking of zombies, however, I’m not so sure I agree with The Guardian‘s contention that:
No zombie is ever going to be a pinup on some young girl’s wall. Just as Pattinson and all the Darcy-alikes will never find space on any teenage boy’s bedroom walls – every inch will be plastered with revolting posters of zombies. There are no levels of Freudian undertone to zombies. Like boys, they’re not subtle. There’s nothing sexual about them, and nothing sexy either. It’s all about splatter and gore and entrails and our own fear and fascination with just how messy and vile and extraordinary our bodies are.
Which seems to be making all sorts of gender-based assumptions on some pretty shaky and limited evidence. I’d also suggest that the so-called subtlety of broody vampires like Edward Cullen is actually a pretty thin veneer over a shallow pond. [via]
- Dr. Scott’s Case Studies of Comic Book Medicine. More here. [via]
- Two new ways of looking at things: the US highway system as a subway map [via] and the Beatles’ “Hey Jude” as a flowchart.
- And finally, speaking of the Beatles, what if the band never broke up? [via]
Monday various
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Thursday various
With the schedule set, King plans to go on vacation until the end of the season. “There won’t be any changes, since CreSyFy has a rule against things evolving,” King explained.
Evolution of The Martian Chronicles cover. I think the 1950 (original?) cover is my favorite, although a battered copy of the 1984 version is what I own. Though I’d love a copy of the new one. [via]
Monday various
- Michael Chabon’s essay on the Wilderness of Childhood got a lot of attention when it was first posted, back in July. (It’s been sitting in my saved links since then.) I think Chabon made some interesting points, but I also think Sergei Lobanov-Rostovsky’s response is worth repeating [via]:
I’m not really arguing with Chabon here: he may be right that all children are instinctively adventurers, and he’s certainly right that limiting their exploration of the world in the name of safety threatens their creative imagination. But let’s be clear: the maps we draw for our children are not the maps that guide their lives. They draw their own maps, but it’s a mistake to confuse them with the nostalgic – or anguished — images produced by adult memory. Childhood is a foreign country to us. We once knew its landmarks, but they’ve grown wild in our imaginations, so that the “adventures†we remember are now just stories we tell. Adventure is what we call it when we show the slides. The natives just call it life.
- Leaving aside the silliness of a religion based on Star Wars, or the questions that are maybe raised about established religions when you ask why this one is silly and they’re not — or even Tesco’s valid point that plenty of Jedi(s?) in the movies don’t walk around in public in their hoods — why can’t you wear a hood in their store? [via]
- Well, at least he wasn’t wearing this flip-top zombie shirt… [via]
- Permanent Bedtime, which plays a complete recording from BBC Radio’s late-night Shipping Forecast. Warren Ellis describes it as such:
- And finally, I’ve only watched a couple of episodes, but I quite like NASA’s IRrelevant Astronomy video podcast, particularly the Robot Astronomy Talk Show. [via]
The latenight edition of the Shipping Forecast has long been praised by the British as a gentle aid to restful sleep. And dream-filled sleep, too, because the Forecast is famous for listing “places†that are entirely notional, a virtual geography inhabited only by ships and the wondering minds of people drifting off into sleep. Sleep districts of the British imagination: Fastnet, Rockall, Dogger, Cromarty, Viking…
It’s quite interesting to take an afternoon nap with that playing in the background.
I quite liked the most recent episode with Linda Hamilton and Dean Stockwell, super genius: