brainwagon

It’s no surprise: I’m a bit of a scifi geek. But just a bit. I’m not hugely well read in the genre, although I have read a lot of the classics by Bradbury, Hogan, Asimov and Clarke, and even some of the more modern stuff by Gibson and Orson Scott Card. Most of these books are translated into truly dreadful movies and television shows. It’s too bad, and largely while I’m holding my breath about the impending release of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, due out next week. (Expect a podcast review next weekend…)

But sometimes, you do stumble across things which are truly good, and I thought I’d mention two of them here.

The short-lived series Firefly by Buffy creator Joss Whedon is now out on DVD. It’s truly sad that this marvelous series was cut by the geniuses at Fox, because it was the first science fiction show in a great while which wasn’t homogenized crap. Great characters, imaginative situations, and great story telling. I’m comforted in a small degree by the knowledge that it has spawned a movie: Serenity, which will be out this September, but I really wish we had more than just a single 90 minute installment for these characters. If you haven’t watched Firefly, rent or buy the DVDs and scan the episodes and the director’s commentary. Very good.

My other good science fiction experience of the month was provided by the first two episodes of the BBC’s new production of Doctor Who. I really like Doctor Who because it never centers around technology. American audiences seem to be obsessed with technology, but in the Doctor Who Universe technology is just magic: the Tardis moves almost by magic incantation rather than by science. As a result, they never bother to explain technology: it simply is never the point. When you think about it, it’s hardly ever the point in real life either. Nobody ever talks about how a television works, only if it does or does not.

But in anycase, I’m getting astray. Chris Eccleston is really good as the Doctor, it is a pity that he only was signed for a single season. Billy Piper is a gorgeous, likeable sidekick and they seem to have real chemistry on the screen. Effects are improved over the classic episodes, but never quite reach the “totally believable” stage, which frankly, I find a bit good. Anyway, if you get the chance to see ‘em, check them out.

During our (alas, last) class today, they were passing around Martha Dahlen’s book, Brush with Life. A very nice, spiral bound book. I’ll have to pick up a copy, and this post will remind me to do so.

Dan took some nice pictures while walking around San Francisco today. He snapped this picture:

which I liked, but I thought could use a bit more oomph. So, I fired up gimp, cut the bird out, and manipulated the contrast of the bird and the background separately, and came up with this.

Probably overdid the blacks and whites, but I was only really goofing around. I really like The Gimp.

Mei Wah is a page to help you learn Chinese. Well, at least some of the Chinese you need to read a menu in a Chinese restaurant. Cool! What’s even cooler is that through this page, I found out that McCawley’s legendary ::amazon(”0226555925″, “Eater’s Guide to Chinese Characters):: is back in print! I first heard about this book about ten years ago, but all available copies were mucho-bucks, and I couldn’t justify it. Now, it’s available for a mere $10 in paperback. Awesome. I think that you can learn an awful lot about a culture through its food, and it’s a fun hack to be able to decipher Chinese menus.

Well, today was Chinese Calligraphy class again. This is one of the better attempts at writing the character for “Dragon” 龍 or long2 as writin in pinyin. Not very good, and a crappy scan because our scanner doesn’t have a bed big enough to scan large art.

I’ve acquired some books on Chinese writing to augment my study and appreciation.

::amazon(”0804832064″, “Reading and Writing Chinese”)::

A great and useful reference, contains 2000 characters and 2500 combinations, includes names, meanings, and happily, the proper stroke order for drawing the forms.

::amazon(”0071419837″, “Beginner’s Chinese Script”)::

A cool, cheap little book that can help you decipher signs written in Chinese. I like the approach

::amazon(”0823005569″, “Chinese Calligraphy Made Easy”)::

The book that will tell you what you need to know to do Chinese Calligraphy. If you are gonna get just one book, get this one.

::amazon(”0823048381″, “The Simple Art of Chinese Calligraphy”)::

A book which has less to do with calligraphy, but a lot more to do with arts and crafts surrounding Chinese characters. A decent second book.

Eeesh. Do I need practice!

It has a light side, and a dark side, and it binds the universe together.

You can also turn it into wallets.

I liked this tutorial on making stencils from freezer paper. Apparently the shiny wax that is on freezer paper allows you to iron it onto cloth and it will hold in place while you ink your stencil. I’ll have to give this a try.

Check out Stencil Revolution for some cool tutorials on how you can create your own stencils and use them to make art, either in the form of graffiti or just T-shirts.