Category: ARTS

2009
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ARTS

Chicken Little Protein: Space Merchants Radio Play

One of the great satirical classics of Science Fiction is surely “Space Merchants,” by Fred Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth, which skewers the American traditions of corporate greed, deceptive advertising, and the treatment of consumers as stooges, suckers, retarded fools, and miserable cattle. The story accomplishes this in a slick, almost effortless Science Fiction setting, which is fast-paced and chock full of sadistic irony.   It’s important to remember the context of American society at the time of publication — 1953 —  when the Cold War was in full swing, and the complete subservience to the Capitalist credo was not only the mood of the times, but was enforced by psychological warfare, not the least of which were accusations, blacklists, and finally the foaming-mouthed lunacy of McCarthyism.

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ARTS

Galileo vs. the Church: arent we past the Inquisition, yet?

Sophia and I were lucky last night because our friend, MaryAnn, scored some great tickets to the Preview show  of  “Two Men of Florence,” the first play by Richard Goodwin.   We ended up in the first row center orchestra seats, actually, right in front of the author.  Thanks, MaryAnn! It’s an intriguing play, which pits the scientific passion of Galileo against the vainglorious pursuits of Pope Urban VIII, who attempts at first to bring a “dialog” of ideas into the Church — owing to his magnanimous benificence — but later realizes that he has accidentally opened the gates of Reason which threaten the very foundations of a Church built on absolutist devotion.   The sets of the play are remarkable, including a latticework of walls full of candles, and circular center stage upon which revolve the desks, chairs, and armatures of Galileo’s inventions.  A semi-transparent curtain is occasionally whisked around this center of action, sometimes serving as a projection screen, or an effective scene changing device.  The staging and movements are delightfully paced, with nary a figure making absurd entries and exits on wires or wheeled pavilions. The performances were excellent as well,  not only the two lead actors, but also the supporting cast.  The Pope’s friend and confident , and Galileo’s daughter, were especially standouts, in particular the moments when the daughter sings in Latin.  Jay Sanders’ Galileo is fiery and sensitive, managing to convey his love of philosophy and the natural order of things without sounding snobbish or boorish.  The rich language provided by Goodwin really shines through here, giving Sanders a line like this: ‘The moon. Full-bottomed Eve. Crafted by God as comfort to the fugitive earth. Let me see if I can peek beneath the hem of your borrowed radiance.’

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ARTS

Rabbit Siji captures the cuteness

In the post-Hello Kitty Universe, the bizarre blank-faced character known as Tu Siji (Rabbit Siji) is both ubiquitous and actually making money.   Creator Wang Maomao said she couldn’t believe that

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ARTS

Philip Jose Farmer and the Weird Beard

Philip Jose Farmer, one of the great SF minds of our times, passed away in his Peoria, Illinois home.   The tributes and obits are flowing in from all corners of society.   SF Site has posted a great 1975 interview conducted in Minneaopolis by Dave Truesdale, (editor of Tangent fanzine), which primarily deals with the identity of Kilgore Trout.

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ARTS

Psyched for Boskone 2009 Art Show

This will be my first time to participate in the Boskone Art Show,  woot!  I’m having fun getting some prints mounted and ready for the show.  There will be four 8×10 prints available for the t

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ARTS

Secret Societies Converge to Get their Freak On: Arisia 2009 con report

My first impression of Arisia was one of sartorial richness, stirred together with equal parts of humor, history, literary allusion, and performing arts.  The non-stop schedule of movies, panels, gaming sessions, readings, parties and demonstrations got lost in the spectacle of costumed attendees swarming randomly around three levels of the hotel, and visible from any number of perspectives along the balustrades of the atrium.   Out of this dizzying scene the iconic image of this con, for me, was that of a black-clad woman with blonde dreadlocks, jacked up on really tall stilts, and moving hazily across the rippling lobby carpet while slashing playfully at people with her foot-long razor nails. There were plenty of other costumes…indeed far to many to describe, except to say that the standard for corsets, ray-guns, battle-armor, cloaks, boots, scabbards, gowns, ragged wings, top hats, gloves, goggles, spats, walking sticks, holsters, capes, chain mail, and hardened-leather bustiere was conspicuously high!   This managed to fit in with some of the subtexts running through the con, such as hentai anime, freemasonry, and steam punk vs. cyberpunk.  And you could follow some of those threads on the con Twitter feed.

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ARTS

The Groove is Analog

I was talking with my friend Don about this cool book I am reading about the rocket scientist John Whiteside Parsons — Strange Angel — when the conversation somehow changed tracks to Leon

2008
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ARTS

How to envision Lem?

An interesting problem:  illustrate a cover for the fiction of Stanislaw Lem.   How would you do it?   Here is a nice little gallery of rarely seen Lem covers, collected by one of the very best tribu