I try not to re-blog from BoingBoing too often but I've got a local angle on this.
A salon in Alexandria Virgina has imported the exotic technique of having tiny live fish nibble the dead skin off the feet of paying customers. Will any of my Virgina based IZ readers have the guts to go try this out please? I'd do it if I was there and I bet my feet would be the most delicious.
Talk about two great tastes that taste great together, Boing Boing (the world's greatest website) visits Secret Headquarters (the world's greatest comic shop) in the video below.
The interwebs are all a twitter with Joss Whedon's latest creation, Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog. It's a wonderful little venture for all, unless you are a crotchety spoilsport type who hates everything fun. And the fun does not stop there, you can cruise over to Dr. Horrible star Felicia Day's site for her own clever blog and web series The Guild.
Dr. Horrible also led to this interview with Mr. Whedon which is very funny. And inexplicably in the middle of the interview there is a weird link to the website of Handlebar Harry, "the world's most magnificent moustache." That in itself is a rabbit hole of the arcane. Strange and hilarious internet ephemera is everywhere today...
On Monday there was a fire in an underground bunker in Vancouver Canada that houses the server for AFI FEST's submission system. As the final deadline is a week away, the timing was pretty bad for us. However it was worse for Outfest which is going on now and went completely dark. Additionally I heard that Michael Moore's Traverse City Film Festival was knocked down for their first day of sales. It's pretty funny to think that a part of the internet fell down. It's back up and running now but you can read the angry thread over on the Peer 1 message board here.
People sometimes ask me what my favorite comic book is and I want to sounds like a snobby asshole so I usually respond Miracleman. The reason this response makes me an asshole is that despite it being a superdude in tights title and being written by Alan Moore almost no one has read it. That's because its been out of print forever, and it was only released on a relatively small print run when it was available. I wrote more about it here.
The reason I get to bring up MM today is that IO9 reports there is an Australian stage production being put up based on the comic. (?!?!?!?) So basically all I need now is a ticket to Australia and my obsession will be complete. (In case you were wondering, I already own a complete run of the original comic, complied with much difficulty and cost over the years--see how snobby I am?)
I was just talking with a co-worker yesterday about how great it was that Bruce Conner was still making films and how cool it would be to invite him to our festival. I had just seen his latest film at Cinevegas. Later that afternoon, I read the sad news that he has passed away at age 74. He is the father/inventor of collage or found footage filmmaking. Here is his most famous film the groundbreaking 1958 work, A MOVIE.
My first contact with Conner's amazing films was in film school. I remember a professor saying that if there was any justice in the world MTV would be sending Conner a check for a million dollars every year. Conner was among the first to use pop music for film sound tracks. His films have inspired generations of filmmakers, and are now considered to be the precursors of the music video genre. Here is his film for the Devo song "Mongoloid"
A few years later in Los Angeles I was lucky enough to see the Conner exhibition at the Kohn Gallery. Wandering into the back of that small space I found a small screen showing TAKE THE 5:10 TO DREAMLAND. Stumbling into that film in such a unusual way was purely magical. Take a look:
On a side note, the book "2000 BC: The Bruce Conner Story part II" was a dearly a treasured object, my own copy has alas slipped through my fingers. I'm sure it must have been passed to a dearly loved one, and lost in the sands of time.
Saying goodbye to this towering figure in art and cinema is heartbreaking. Now it is our sad duty to update all biographies and profiles from "one of our greatest living artists" to simply one of our greatest.
The "Worst POTUS in History" visited my hometown on the 4th of July this year. He had the gall to give a speech at Monticello to celebrate the holiday. Well the locals did a good job of stepping up and protesting the speech and you can see it on CNN right here. Unfortunately the cameras were not able to capture zombie Jefferson rising from the grave to throttle the life out of Bush.
The original version of the 1927 film METROPOLIS has not been seen since it's initial German premiere. Up to a quarter of the film was believed to have been permanently lost. But now a film museum in Buenos Aires reports that they have found a copy of the complete film. This classic dystopian film had previously seemed a bit disjointed and difficult to comprehend but the researchers say the complete version of the film answers questions audiences have had for 90 years.
According to Boing Boing, the global food crisis has lead to Italians choosing to eat pasta over pizza. I blame the Global Warming and pretty much view this as a major sign of the apocalypse.
btw--I have ended my self imposed pizza ban. I lasted about 3 weeks but had to order one this weekend to celebrate my new kittens!
