And you know what that means!! (NSFW)
No False Advertising Here
This is a Cat in a Shark Suit Riding a Roomba and Chasing a Duck:
Apparently it’s quite a hit with all the cool kids.
And this week’s addition to the Testimonial Gallery is:
Gillian Anderson!
Always Look on the Bright Side of Life
This past week has been a tumultuous one for folks here in the US of A. I can’t add any new insight or words of wisdom that haven’t already been shared by better and wiser people than myself so, instead, I’ve decided to focus on several positive, yet admittedly frivolous, events looming in the very near future.
Tonight, Friday 4/19, my wife and I and a couple of friends of ours will be attending a performance of Grey Gardens at the ACT Theatre in Seattle, WA.
What makes this notable is that we will be seeing one of my favorite broadway actresses in the dual roles of Big Edie and Little Edie Beale – Patti Cohenour. I mentioned Patti previously in my review of the Broadway Revival production of “Follies”, where I lamented the miscasting of a popular actress in the role of Sally and wished that Patti had been there instead.
Patti Cohenour – She’s Just Awesome
Patti has been getting STELLAR reviews as the Beales and I cannot emphasize enough how excited I am to see her on stage again!
Tomorrow, we’ll be teeing off at Smash Putt – an anarchic mini-golf/art installation where each hole is an exercise in fun, creativity, artistic expression and (occasionally) chaos and destruction. I’m looking forward to firing golf balls from air cannons, belly-crawling through laser beams and attempting to putt around my friends as they play NES while lounging on shag carpet – just to describe a few of the holes.
Smash Putt is a temporary installation in SODO (South Downtown Seattle) through the end of April, so we’re excited to have gotten the chance to play before it’s gone.
Farther out into the future, I am pleased to say that I was lucky enough to be one of the folks to successfully buy my passes to PAX Prime this year before they sold out within hours of going on sale. It was one of the most intense online purchases I’ve ever made. As I sat for over two and a half hours in the “queueing room” waiting for my turn to buy my tix I watched the four-day passes sell out and the Saturday passes sell out. It was a minor miracle that I managed to get passes for Fri, Sun and Mon, but I got them!
In other news on the “Super Neat-o” front, video of me “jaunting” in front of the Grand Cinema here in Tacoma was included in Hannah Hart’s new music video launching her cross-country tour. Hannah Hart is the genius behind the web-series “My Drunk Kitchen” as well as many other Youtube vids.
Her cross-country tour is called “Hello, Harto” and will be made up of charity meet-ups and on-location MDK’s.
Here’s the music video! I show up at the 01:02 mark!
Filming the jaunt for Hannah Hart has inspired my wife and I to film more jaunting videos, and you can look forward to seeing them here in the future as they are completed. Yay!
So those are some fun things coming down the pike, silly distractions from the heavy intensity of the past week.
My thoughts are with everyone affected by the this week’s events, and I urge everyone to donate time or money to charities helping to support those in need during this time.
Cheers until next week, everyone!
Silent Partner
Last week Jane Henson passed away and, in mourning her, I suddenly realized that I knew next to nothing about her.
Jane Henson with Kermit and Yorick
Here was a person who had been intimately involved in the conception and realization of the original Muppets and yet chose to allow the glow of the spotlight of recognition to fall solely on her husband, Jim.
Jim became the icon, but he never would have succeeded without Jane. Jim was a terrific and imaginative puppeteer, but he didn’t have more than two hands. Jane was there beside him, performing the puppets on “Sam and Friends” and, most likely, building them too.
Working on Proto-Kermit with Jim
After their children were born, Jane quietly stepped behind the camera and instead of managing a group of rambunctious and imaginative adult children (Jim, Frank, Jerry, et al.) she found herself managing a household of five rambunctious and imaginative ACTUAL children. One wonders how much of a change this really was, toilet training aside.
Henson Family
I don’t think that Jane ever really got the true credit she was due. Especially after she and Jim divorced. She still stayed closely involved with the Jim Henson Company, and started The Jim Henson Legacy after he died. Creating the Legacy wasn’t for her own benefit – it wasn’t so that she could gain fame or fortune from her husband’s name – it was because she still so strongly believed in Jim, and what Jim had brought to the world.
Jane at a JH Legacy Event
I recall reading a book on Sesame Street called “Street Gang”, and in the chapter discussing Jim’s short illness and subsequent death it was reported that Jim called Jane when he felt he was definitely dying. He was scared and he looked to Jane for help. I can’t remember who it was (though I’m pretty certain it was NOT one of the Muppeteers), but one of Jim’s business associates was quoted as saying something like, “To this day I have no idea why Jim would have called Jane.”
This derisive statement (by whomever it was) really rankled me. Of course Jim would have called Jane in this penultimate moment of need. She was his original creative partner, the mother of their children, perhaps the love of his life (likely since he never remarried) it only makes sense that he would have called her because with her he felt safe with her. Perhaps he even felt “saved” by her.
Once again Jane’s importance was being sidelined.
Jane continued to work, quietly, behind the scenes up to her passing. Most of the major accomplishments of the Jim Henson Legacy the past few years were due directly to her. She continued to put Jim ahead of herself. When she was asked to speak directly about her involvement with the early Muppets she would always sidestep and push Jim again to the fore. It was always about Jim.
As a result, to the average fan, Jane Henson was at best an enigma and at worst non-existent. This needs to be changed.
Muppet fan-site Toughpigs.com has compiled a wonderful collection of reminiscences of folks who knew and worked with Jane. You can read them HERE. I urge you to hop over there and take a read. Such lovely memories and insight about an amazing lady deserve to be shared.
And this week’s addition to the Testimonial Gallery is:
Felicia Day!!
Play More Games!
Tomorrow is the first Annual Table Top Day!
And even though there are ZERO game shops located near enough to me to be considered “convenient” means I will not be getting any of the AWESOME SCHWAG participating stores will be handing out… I am still SUPER-PSYCHED because we will be spending the day playing THESE:
And more!!
At the end of the day, somebody is walking away with this:
It’s going to be EPIC!!!
Art by the Numbers
One of the perks of attending lots of fan conventions is the opportunity to meet and explore the work of new artists.
At this past ECCC I was lucky enough to stumble upon the artwork of Sienna Morris. She’s developed a style of art work she calls “Numberism”. Similar to how a pointillist will create an image by positioning hundreds of thousands of dots strategically on a page or canvas, Ms. Morris uses numbers relevant to the subject she is rendering.
The concept is difficult to explain with words alone, so I’ve included some images of her artwork (clicking on the images will take you directly to Sienna’s website)
This piece is titled “Fibonacci’s Snail” and was created using the Fibonacci Sequence of numbers, starting at the tightest point in the spiral and working its way out.
I know, right?! Simply incredible – not to mention gorgeous!
Each piece Ms. Morris creates requires time spent in advance researching and calculating the numbers (and occasional letters) she uses in the rendering process.
This next one is called “Locutus of Borg” and she ingeniously created the image of Locutus using Flocking Algorithms to represent the Borg Hive Mind as well as predator/prey calculations using Lanchester’s Laws formulae.
She also included many of the famous Borg catch-phrases.
Look, when it comes to higher level maths in general, I don’t know diddly-squat, but the fact that Ms. Morris has taken such pains to add even greater depth of meaning to her already impressive artistic skill is just… amazeballs.
The last one I’m sharing with you here is titled “A Cello” and when she explained how she settled on the numbers she used to create this impressive piece I swear my brain melted a little from all of the awesome.
To create the wood of the bow, she used the Pythagorean comma which is basically the difference between two pitches or tones (it’s used a lot in music theory). It’s essentially a quarter of a semi-tone. I’m not a mathematician and (even though I play the guitar) I never studied music theory, so I’m not going to attempt to dive into a deeper explanation. It’s just impressive.
But it gets even more impressive (and also a little bit insane). Check this out, peeps, the tuning pegs are drawn using the Twelfth Root of Two, an equation used in the calculation of pitch adjustment.
THEN, Ms. Morris went further and drew the strings using the HERTZ FREQUENCY OF THE NOTES. She actually sat down and calculated the rate of audible vibration for each note down the neck of the instrument for each string.
The coup de grace for me with this piece is the body of the cello itself. It is drawn with the numerical value for the speed at which sound travels parallel to the GRAIN of the WOOD. She represented three wood types, so that means three different rate of speed calculations.
I know… I know… MIND. BLOWN.
You can find out more about Sienna Morris and her artwork on her site FleetingStates.com.
Go there. Be impressed. Buy prints. Tell your friends.
If Jane Austen Replied to a Customer Service Survey
May 24, 2013 · Filed under General Geekery, Just for Fun, Randomosity, Social Commentary
Yesterday I was on the phone with customer servicefor one of the businesses my company works with. It was a pleasant interaction and, following the end of the call, I received a “How Are We Doing” survey request from the agent who had assisted me.
Most of the survey was your typical “On a Scale of 1 to 5 Rate your Experience” series of check boxes; but at the end was a place where a person could leave a free form comment.
I was about to write something like, “Excellent service, keep up the good work”, when it suddenly occurred to me that this was a window of opportunity to answer the question, “What if Jane Austen were to reply to a contemporary customer service survey?”
So I wrote this (please note, names have been changed for privacy):
Dear Sir or Madam or, indeed, Monkey (as ‘twere the case, this being a Survey after all),
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a lighting rep in possession of a quality product must be in want of a reliable customer service agent.
Behold me going to write you as handsome a letter of praise as I can.
The day began with a dismaying cry of vexation as I was in the most piteous of states trying to discover the purpose and function of your device named simply “N80”.
I was in want of a sheet of specification that would in detail reveal the secrets of the device, thus imbuing me of the knowledge wherein I might present the piece confidently to those so in need.
Finding myself at a loss for such discovery I lept with eager haste to take in hand my telephonic communicator and, pressing the appropriate keys in sequence, found myself, as luck would have it, directly connected with your Mister Brzozowski. It is his name, though unpronounceable, of whom I sing the praises of this day.
Quick to the task, Mister Brzozowski eloquently answered my questions, of which there were many, and politely directed me to the location of the document I sought. My brain so full with new knowledge and my chest swollen with sighs of relief, I thanked Mister Brzozowski heartily for his time and learned counsel and returned to my work so much the better for it.
I endeavor here to remark how very grateful I was for his aide and thank you heartily for his employment as it benefits us all.
Yours very truly,
Jen “Austen” Tidwell
I think I shall respond to survey inquiries in this manner from now on.
And this week’s edition to the Testimonial Gallery is:
Natalia Tena aka Tonks!
Yes, there is a smudgey bit on the photo, she’d written my wife and I a personal message and I (badly) photoshopped it out to keep it personal. Hope ya’ll don’t mind
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