Magpie Monday

Here are some shiny things that caught my eye recently, for this my fiftieth Magpie Monday post:

♦ This image by Jeremy Dower makes me happy. Based in Melbourne, Dower uses Photoshop to create his digital 2D paintings, and his other work is equal parts cute and creepy. HUH. magazine has some more images by Dower in case his site still isn’t loading well. Via.

♦ Book Nook.

Molly, this link is for you: it turns out most people enjoy books and movies more if they’ve been spoiled. Via.

Some good reading bits for you:

Jabberwocky 12 with fiction and poetry by Alexandra Seidel, Nicole M. Taylor, Samantha Henderson & Kendall Evans, and David Mohan.

“The Cairn in Slater Woods” by Gina Rosati. Here’s a description: “Dylan has just moved to New Hampshire to live in a house his family has inherited from a great aunt he’s never met. There he meets his cousin, a bully who resents Dylan’s family, and a mysterious girl who claims she can lead him to buried treasure in the woods on the property. The key to helping the girl involves uncovering a dark family secret and righting the wrongs of the past.”

You can’t read this book online, but check out Birds and Birthdays, a new collection by Christopher Barzak (available from Aqueduct Press). I’m particularly excited about this collection, not only because I like Barzak’s writing so much but also because the three short stories (and an essay) are based on three Surrealist artists I like tremendously: Leonora Carrington, Dorothea Tanning, and Remedios Varo (okay, Varo is one of my favorite artists, so “like tremendously” is putting it mildly).

This past week AlphaBooks, an alphabetical tumblr exploration of fictional characters curated by Ben Towle, has moved to the K’s. I really liked Andrew Neal’s K is for Koschei the Deathless and Marya Morevna (from Catherynne M. Valente’s Deathless) and Ben Towle’s K is for Kurt Barlow (from Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot). But I really loved Lee Pegler’s K is for Kaa (from Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book)—just check out the vibrancy of that green!—and, of course, Leah Palmer Preiss’s K is for Kinbote (from Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire). Click the images to seem them larger!

♦ Laura sent me this link to an image of the aMAZEme installation at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Brazilian artists Marcos Saboya and Gualter Pupo constructed this maze from 250,000 books!

Below is another shot of the maze (click here to see even more photos of the installation). Inspired by José Luis Borges, the maze is based on one of his fingerprints.

The time-lapse video below shows the construction of the maze (it’s worth watching full-size).

♦ I’m extremely excited about the Subterranean Press edition of Neil Gaiman’s Smoke and Mirrors, which will have illustrations by Dave McKean. Below is McKean’s illustration for “The White Road,” a Mr. Fox poem you can read here.

♦ The Ninth Art.

I couldn’t resist sharing another image from The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe REDUXE Edition since it is Dr. Strange related: his mentor, the Ancient One as rendered by Mike Scott.

Paul Tobin’s second favorite female character in literature is Mary Marvel. Check out this great write up and all the awesome Mary Marvel images he’s amassed.

Oh my goodness! (you’ve got to hear Shirley Temple saying that in your head) but how I love the Super-Team Family blog. Last week had these wonderful mash-ups:

This mash-up of The Phantom Stranger and Dr. Strange is fun because finally there’s a hint at the origins of the Stranger! I’ve always loved that character because he was so mysterious (and because of his glowing white eyes), but I still wanted to know something more about him. At least I’ll always have the recently cancelled Madame Xanadu volumes….

Too much campy fun! Of course, I also dig this mash-up because it uses the image of Wonder Woman from the cover of one of my favorite comic books of all time, the giant-sized Superman vs. Wonder Woman (if you’ve never read it before, find it and read it!).

Tansy Rayner Roberts continued her Where the Wonder Women Are series with a Batweek focusing on Robin, Huntress, Catwoman, Batwoman, and Batgirl! So many Bat-tastic thoughts about these fun characters.

Tor.com thought of 5 reasons why the next X-Men movie should be “Days of Future Past.” While I loved loved loved the first DoFP storyline under Chris Claremont and John Byrne, I’m not sure how well the same premise will work with the characters used in X-Men: First Class, since many of them were not in the Claremont story. And how will Rachel Summers make sense with the X-Men: First Class characters? Still, Sentinels! Who doesn’t want to see them in a movie?

♦ She Blinded Me … with Science!

The future is unevenly distributed.

10 futuristic technologies that will never exist. I’ve really been hoping for teleportation because I really hate to drive.

What exactly is a Blue Moon?

10 foods you crave–and why you crave them. Do I need to point out that, cravings aside, dirt is not a read food?

Russian scientists think immortality is possible by 2045. Cue Queen:

Apparently, there are biological advantages to being awestruck, like expanding your perception of time, enhancing your well-being, and altering your decision making. I can’t remember the last time I was awestruck, but I’m frequently gobsmacked by the actions of people. Why is there no advantage to being gobsmacked?

Nasal hallucinations can make your life Hell. Not hallucinatory but still olfactory: I often code smells oddly, like cigarette smoke always smells like crap to me. What’s that about?

How do “mystery spots” and “gravity hills” work?

How do magicians know what card you’re thinking of?

People are more likely to believe in magic spells that are repetitious and time-consuming. If it’s harder and more tedious, then you know it’s on the up-and-up.

This data infographic from Domo is pretty cool—and pretty mind-boggling. Here’s the description:

How much data is created every minute? Data never sleeps. Every minute massive amounts of it are being generated from every phone, website and application across the Internet. Just how much data is being created and where does it come from?

You’re gonna want to embiggen this one.

Via.

♦ Writers’ Corner.

My friend Zachary Jernigan just sold his first novel, No Return, to Night Shade Books—congratulations, Zack!—and he posted about his promotion strategy, which will be pretty cool, folks.

Cameron, I thought you might enjoy this post on three ways to mess with genre.

Penelope Trunk offered the best advice to twenty somethings which I think also applies to writers: (spoiler alert) trust yourself.

LitReactor shows you how to look like a genius without actually being one with eight formatting tips and tricks.

Kind of related? I’m tickled by The Periodic Table of Typefaces, a promotional poster from Gotham Books for Simon Garfield’s book, Just My Type. Click to see it full size!

Poets & Writers compiled a list of the Best Books for Writers (it is a pretty good list).

Chuck Wendig offers some writing advice in which he exhorts us to care less. He also includes a link to Mur Lafferty’s post about depression, which is quite good and worth a read as well.

Is Kickstarter a viable tool for writers?

Nora Ephron famously did not blurb books, but her refusals were classy.

It never hurts to know the top ten query letter mistakes from an agent’s point of view.

Justin Larbalestier has some reflections on being a pro writer versus being a pro academic.

The first page of Virginia Woolf’s unfinished memoir, A Sketch of the Past (click to see larger). Via.

LitReactor shared 5 more ways your brain sabotages your writing (and what you can do about it).

Aliette de Bodard spells out some errors writers make when using names in fiction.

Douglas Coupland has some practical writing advice.

Speaking of practical, Krissy Brady has some suggestions about how to effectively create more time to write.

Annalee Newitz discusses why remakes are one of our greatest achievements as a civilization.

♦ Adam Leipzig, publisher of Cultural Weekly and former president of National Geographic Films, on what’s an artist worth. My favorite part is at the end. Via.

♦ More Thomas Allen wonderfulness: