Daenerys Targaryen and other kings and queens from Nathan Stapley's solo show at Gallery 1988.
Sigils of the Houses of Westeros poster by Darrin Crescenzi on sale here. Via.
Courtesy of United NY, Bane protested today at Bain headquarters. Via.
The base for the figure is one of those plastic balls that you open to reveal a mystery toy. His head is a ping pong ball and his arms came from a Terminator Salvation figure. The brim of his hat and the part around his waist were cut from craft plastic while everything else is scratch built using Apoxie Clay. Painted with Citadel paints.
Psylocke by Bryan Lee O'Malley.
Clever promotion by Lg2 for the Quebec City Magic Festival uses television screens and actors to make it look like passersby disappear. Via.
Cool miniatures by Soda Pop Miniatures for the Relic Knights Kickstarter.
IG-88 and Obi-Wan Kenobi by Amanda Visell.
*Buy Amanda Visell toys at Amazon.
This is how the secret magician blue star tattoos are supposed to look.
"My drawings of kittens and ponies have improved, and now that I'm writing my last name hyphenated with the Robert Pattinson's last name, I really believe he may some day marry me! I'm positively giddy."
"So you can imagine how hard my heart was pounding when I slipped these into my cart at office depot the other day. I of course told the cashier that they're a present for my wife, but I've been secretly using these at work for over a week. I've covered them in black tape so the guys around the office don't catch on, and I'm careful to never lend them out to ANYONE. It's just my little secret and it feels SO GOOD. I can finally be the REAL ME at the office."
"But the Bic Cristal for Her pens sparkle (like crystal!) and twinkle and dance on the page and even emit little squeaks and giggles when they're writing extra fun stuff. They chatter among themselves and have their own personalities"
"Obviously, I don't use it for vulgar endeavors like math or filling out a voter application, but BIC Cristal for Her is a lovely little writing utensil all the same. Ask your husband for some extra pocket money so you can buy one today!"
"I love the pretty colors and skinniness, but I'm only giving two stars because they're annoying. For one thing, they dot every "i" with a little heart. They also won't make periods at the ends of sentences; it's a question mark or exclamation point every time, also dotted with hearts--SUPER annoying. I went to okay a memo from my boss with the word "Fine" and it looked like I was coming on to him or something, which I wasn't. At ALL."
Think about how that works in the post war era. The office dwelling accountant/lawyer/ad man/salesman has an expense account. This covers some lunches at counters with clients , or maybe a few nice dinners. He flirts with the secretaries and receptionists and sometimes sleeps with them. He travels on business, perhaps from his suburb into Chicago, or from Chicago to Cleveland, or San Francisco to LA. His office issues him a dictaphone (he can't type) or perhaps a rolling display case for his wares. He has a work car, maybe an Oldsmobile 88 if he's lucky, or a Ford Falcon if he's not. He's working his way up to the top, but isn't quite ready for a management slot. He wears a suit, tie and hat every day to the office. If he's doing well he buys this downtown at a specialty men's store. If he's merely average, he picks this up at Macy's, or Sears if he's really just a regular joe. If he gets sick his employer has a nice PPO insurance plan for him.
Now look at Bond. He has an expense account, which covers extravagant dinners and breakfasts at the finest 4 star hotels and restaurants. He travels on business, to exotic places like Istanbul, Tokyo and Paris. He takes advantage of the sexual revolution (while continuing to serve his imperialist/nationalist masters) by sleeping with random women in foreign locations. He gets issued cool stuff by the office-- instead of a big dictaphone that he keeps on his desk, Bond has a tiny dictaphone that he carries around with him in his pocket! He has a work car -- but it's an Aston Martin with machine guns! He's a star, with a license to kill, but not management. Management would be boring anyways, they stay in London while Bond gets to go abroad and sleep with beautiful women. Bond always wears a suit, but they're custom tailored of the finest materials. If he gets hurt, he has some Royal Navy doctors to fix him right up.
Who is our generations James Bond? Jason Bourne. He can't trust his employer, who demanded ultimate loyalty and gave nothing in return. In fact, his employer is outsourcing his work to a bunch of foreign contractors who presumably work for less and ask fewer questions. He's given up his defined benefit pension (Bourne had a military one) for an individual retirement account (safe deposit box with gold/leeching off the gf in a country with a depressed currency). In fact his employer is going to use him up until he's useless. He can't trust anyone, other than a few friends he's made on the way while backpacking around. Medical care? Well that's DIY with stolen stuff, or he gets his friends to hook him up. What kinds of cars does he have? Well no more company car for sure, he's on his own on that, probably some kind of import job. What about work tools? Bourne is on is own there too. Sure, work initially issued him a weapon, but after that he's got to scrounge up whatever discount stuff he can find, even when it's an antique. He has to do more with less. And finally, Bourne survives as a result of his high priced, specialized education. He can do things few people can do -- fight multiple opponents, hotwire a car, tell which guy in a restaurant can handle himself, hotwire cars, speak multiple languages and duck a surveillance tail. Oh, and like the modern, (sub)urban professional, Bourne had to mortgage his entire future to get that education. They took everything he had, and promised that if he gave himself up to the System, in return the System would take care of him.
We're all Jason Bourne now.
Hoth and Beggar's Canyon travel posters by Steve Thomas on sale here.
Competitive yachting is "a little bit like H.O.R.S.E."
When you win the America's Cup, you get to decide pretty much all the details about how, where, and when you get to defend the trophy. It's a little bit like H.O.R.S.E. crossed with Capture the Flag, . . . and lots of saltwater. After Ellison won the 2010 America's Cup, hosted in Valencia, Spain, he wasn't just interested in steering the ship, so to speak: Nope, he made like a nautical engineer and decided to redesign the whole thing.
He announced San Francisco as the host venue for 2013, but didn't stop there. He also announced the formation of a new organizing body and introduced a regatta circuit that would run during the two years leading up to the main event. Called the America's Cup World Series, it would determine challenger seedings next summer and, presumably, help attract sponsorships and publicity.
From DC Nation and Wolf Smoke, the excellent Catwoman, Bane, and Batman of Shanghai. Sure wish you could buy DC Nation shorts at iTunes.
1. "All Seven Of Lance Armstrong's Tour De France Wins Would Now Go To Cyclists With Doping Scandals Of Their Own."
Amy Sohn got in touch with us about her new book. She pitched a few ideas and the Gothamist editorial team pitched a few back to her, but neither side could agree on a topic for a post. As a compromise, Amy suggested another interview, similar to the one we did with her when Prospect Park West came out. I agreed, but on the condition it would be "really hard-hitting and possibly cruel." I felt strongly about the way Park Slope was portrayed in her books and her Awl piece, and felt anything less than hard-hitting questions would be puffery. When she got the questions, Amy decided to pass on the interview, responding in part "I can't answer these questions. Even for a writer who bares a lot and writes about her personal life, they're too invasive and too hostile. And I'm not sure that all of them are really questions."
Producer Rick Berman saw Siddig playing King Feisal in the British television production A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia, and decided to cast him as Commander Sisko. Berman changed his mind when he realized Siddig was only in his mid-twenties, and instead offered him the part of Dr. Bashir — who was originally named Dr. Julian Amoros. This was a part with way less job security: for the first two years Siddig was on the show, the network was constantly telling Berman and the other producers to fire him, because he was the most unpopular character. But the producers held their ground, because they wanted to change Bashir over time and slowly make him more likable. Also: Siddig and Miles O'Brien actor Colm Meaney fought in real life, while their characters were fighting on the show — they had hours of "furious fights" about England and Ireland, according to Siddig.
Star Wars Detours™ is an animated comedy that explores what daily life is like in a galaxy far, far away. There are no Empires striking back or attacking clones here. Instead, Star Wars Detours focuses on the universe's regular folks and their everyday problems... which, to be fair, do frequently involve famous bounty hunters, crazed Ewoks, and even a Dark Lord of the Sith.
Star Wars 1313 concept art and developer's video. Via.
Things are far apart in space. If you took your spaceship through the asteroid belt, you wouldn't even see an asteroid unless you really knew where you were looking.
In terms of shows that I haven't worked on, some of the ones that I think are especially bad are animal training shows. There are things that people don't know that happened beforehand, in order to create this perfect scenario for this expert to magically whip a troublesome animal into shape. The viewer doesn't know the animal had to take an hourlong walk to be super-tired before the expert got there.
Well, the first thing is to start with my sister. When I came up with the show and pitched it to Disney, the thing that I was most excited about -- sort of tied in excitement with being able to tell stories with magic, monsters and mayhem -- was to make fun of my sister for twenty stories a year. I was really excited to mine my comedic relationship with my sister, to deliver her weirdness to America, and that's probably the core of the series.
My sister, when we were in Elementary school, had one particular lime green fuzzy troll doll sweater with a gem sticking out of the belly and actual hair that stuck to it, and I just remember, even though I was very young, being like "This is unusual. It is weird that she is wearing this in public."
One funny thing was, when we had a wrap party, we got the whole crew and everybody together to premiere the first episode. My sister came down, she lives in San Francisco, and she brought THE sweater from elementary school. With a lot of peer pressure, we were able to talk her into putting it on, and it's funny. When she was a kid, it was huge, now it finally fits her.
Criterion Collection cover for The Game, available at Amazon.
Anti-drug board game by John K.