Archive of October 2008
October 31
Nihon de update #1: Konnichiwa bitches
All is splendid in the land of the rising sun. Angie & I hooked up with our jet-setting friend Zach<br /> when we got here, had some drinks, some gyoza and soup, and passed<br /> out...then woke up at 5am and hit the Tsukiji fish market (might as<br /> well when we were jet-lagged anyway). It was everything you can hope<br /> it can be. We ate fish that might have been still breathing. Oh man.<br /> <br /> A little market-going, scampered around electric town (memory cards<br /> are dirt cheap) said goodbye to zach, lunched at this crazy delicious<br /> tempura bar, and trained to the outskirts to visit the ghibli museum<br /> which is a wacked out animated fantasy wonderland. the we passed the<br /> fuck out. way early. oh yeah. also, the subway map that looks like a<br /> ball of yarn...best subway in the world.<br /> <br /> now to some tea...<br /> <br /> also, as you can see, i havent found the apostrophe on this<br /> newfangled japanese keyboard.<br /> <br /> who needs an apostrophe when you have squiggles everywhere anyway.<br /> tomorrow we:re off to the<br /> monastery...<br /> <br /> shitsureishimasu,<br /> s<br /> 09:51 AM | 13 Comments | Tags: japanOctober 24
<p><a href="http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fnecchu.buzzlog.jp%2Fe37542.html&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=ja&tl=en"><img src="http://www.buzzlog.jp/usr/necchu/q.jpg" border="0" /></a></p><p>And, for an easily related story, a man who makes sculptures out of bundles of chopsticks. A tale of love between him and a patron-less broom shop owner? Hell yeah. </p>
10:32 AM
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Tags: inspiration, art, japan
<p><img src="http://www.boingboing.net/japanese-broom-shop.jpg" border="0" alt="200810221040" hspace="4" vspace="4" width="300" height="437" /> </p><p>According to the <a href="http://www.wordpress.tokyotimes.org/?p=2554">Tokyo Times</a>, this Tokyo broom store hasn't had a customer since 9/2/72, and even that customer wanted a hand broom which they could not provide. Sad, in an awesome sort of way. What a great character/setting to frame a story...who owns this shop? </p>
10:28 AM
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Tags: character, setting, inspiration, retail, japan, brooms
October 23
<p style="margin-bottom: 0pt"> <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2008/10/22/easpider122.xml"><img src="http://s.buzzfeed.com/static/imagebuzz/2008/10/22/15/8f612d82446c74fd5c8452e9a96de8c6.jpg" border="0" alt="Giant Spider Eating A Bird" width="400" height="518" /></a> </p><p>What a great source of paranoia and fear for a character. </p>
10:33 AM
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Tags: inspiration, science, fear
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This is almost too fantastic for words. A banjo player helping guide neurosurgeons by playing the banjo while under the knife. Thank you BoingBoing. 10:32 AM | 0 Comments | Tags: music, science, mind, surgery, inspiration
This is almost too fantastic for words. A banjo player helping guide neurosurgeons by playing the banjo while under the knife. Thank you BoingBoing. 10:32 AM | 0 Comments | Tags: music, science, mind, surgery, inspiration
October 06
Trapline, by Alexi Zentner
This story appeared on <a href="http://narrativemagazine.com/issues/fall-2008/trapline">Narrative Magazine's</a> story of the week. I like the way this story unfolds and flows - at least in the first half - and it'll be a great reference for writing my story about Cephus Madrigonus. 03:15 PM | 0 Comments | Tags: reading, cephus, inspiration
03:12 PM
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Tags: reading
October 03
<p>This was generated on <a href="http://wordle.net/">Wordle.net</a>, using the Book of CLAV text as input. Aside from being neat-looking, this would actually be an interesting visualizer for looking at your own writing habits and vocabulary crutches, or to specifically hone some subliminal messages into your text through subconscious repetition. From their site: </p><blockquote>Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.</blockquote><p> </p>
03:53 PM
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Tags: inspiration, words, tools, visualizer
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This is really cool. Reminds me a bit of a <a href="http://www.ted.com">Ted</a> talk I saw with <a href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/theo_jansen_creates_new_creatures.html">The Jansen</a> who made these giant (wooden? plastic?) mechanical beach-walkers, which already is an interesting setup for a story. I can't help but also think of Italo Calvino's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cosmicomics-Italo-Calvino/dp/0156226006">Cosmicomics</a> here and wonder what type of story he would either tell of these creatures, or of their genesis. Or, of course, their impending war! Thank you <a href="http://www.boingboing.net">BoingBoing</a>. 03:35 PM | 0 Comments | Tags: inspiration, science
This is really cool. Reminds me a bit of a <a href="http://www.ted.com">Ted</a> talk I saw with <a href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/theo_jansen_creates_new_creatures.html">The Jansen</a> who made these giant (wooden? plastic?) mechanical beach-walkers, which already is an interesting setup for a story. I can't help but also think of Italo Calvino's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cosmicomics-Italo-Calvino/dp/0156226006">Cosmicomics</a> here and wonder what type of story he would either tell of these creatures, or of their genesis. Or, of course, their impending war! Thank you <a href="http://www.boingboing.net">BoingBoing</a>. 03:35 PM | 0 Comments | Tags: inspiration, science
October 02
<p><a href="http://www.susannahertrich.com/html/feartuners.html"><img src="http://www.susannahertrich.com/img/FT_ani_04.jpg" border="0" width="500" /></a></p><p>Cute, but I think it could be done better. As in, tied more directly with actual science. And then applied to a character who is given these "implants" and put in a taxing situation beyond his wherewithall to adapt to. Imagine if you had a new sense all of a sudden, that ilicited strong emotional reactions, yet you didn't know yet what it was sensing. Interesting. Click the pic for more.</p>
04:43 PM
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Tags: inspiration, science, mind
October 01
