icecreamhdaches

Enabler: We've posted 2 more new songs "False Profit" and "All Hail the Void". Check it out here - http://enablermke.bandcamp.com/album/all-hail-the-void

All Hail the Void, by Enabler

icecreamhdaches

• Summer snub http://t.co/OvGP0Y3E #

Pete

• @ThisIsRobThomas haha I thought that was implied. #
• Wait Pluto isn't a planet anymore? How sad/not really though. #
• My mom loves your 💩. My dad loves your 💩. #

lmbujoldmyspace

http://www.myspace.com//loismcmasterbujold/blog/545787755

icecreamhdaches

• #FF @withknives @sonofmannyc and Mistar Humbargure. #
• @unglad thanks for the lack of support/demeanig demands:) #
• If you're going to just send me this all time hit, please unfollow me. RT @unglad: @trohman back to fall out boy, sonny #   ( ... )

Pete

• Today I'm eating pancakes til I bust open the flying home to la. #
• Spend so much of my life trying to sneak food into airport lounges #musicianproblems #
• How did my brain work before Wikipedia? #   ( ... )

westerblog

http://scottwesterfeld.com/blog/2012/05/fan-art-friday-7/

http://scottwesterfeld.com/?p=4371

I have had interesting news about my work in progress this week, but it’s all super secret. It’s pretty cool, though, and you will all hear it about one day.

One day soon? MAYBE. Maybe one day somewhat less soon. But one day. I PROMISE.

Let me just say that things they are a-brewin’.

In the meantime, it’s time for FAF! Let’s do this.

We begin with some cool 3-D projects. First is a Clanker lamp from Kirsten. Here it is, both in its raw form and with the shade on:

Like I’ve often said, one of my favorite things to come out of Keith’s illustrations is the sense they give of Clanker and Darwinist physical culture. Not just machines and beasties, but simple things like desks and lamps. So thanks to Kirsten for following that vision.

And here’s Haley’s cool Leviathan-wing ring:

The wing wasn’t entirely Keith’s creation. It was something that the designer of the hardback cover of Levaithan, Sammy Yuen, put together from pieces of Keith’s art.

Speaking of wings, here’s Kaitlyn’s cool shot of Deryn using her body-kite outfit:

Nice. Love the color scheme, and the fact that it makes Deryn look a bit like the shot of Lilit from Behemoth.

And here’s another one from Kaitlyn with that always favorite theme: hangin’ on the ratlines:

And from Patricia, a blow-up of A CERTAIN CREATURE WEARING A CERTAIN COMEDY COSTUME PIECE. SEE IF YOU CAN GUESS BEFORE LOOKING.

Okay. I think you were right:

And finally some Uglies action, a cityscape of New Pretty Town from Trenton:

What I love about this is that it calls to mind the classic Saul Steinberg image of how New Yorkers see the world:

Well, played, Trenton!

Thanks to everyone for a stimulating FAF.

gotld_rss

http://gotld.blogspot.com/2012/05/new-kickstarter-campaign.html

levgrossmanfeed

http://levgrossman.com/2012/05/various/

http://levgrossman.com/?p=1501

Usually I prefer to wait to blog till I actually have, you know, something to say, rather than just moving pre-existing facts around. But I’ve had so many deadlines this week I barely had enough thoughts to fill the stuff I got paid to write. All that’s left over is a thin, viscous residue. But I present it to you here.

First, I’m embedding below the playlist of submissions so far to the Magician King Song Contest. There’s some astounding performances in here, truly astounding. I’ll feel so bad when they totally lose to my awesome cellistical stylings.

But there’s still the long weekend to enter! You’re good up through midnight, May 28. Details here.

By saying “first,” I feel as though I’ve locked myself into a numbered list format, so: second, after reading this article in the New Yorker about literary fiction and genre fiction, I felt compelled to write up my thoughts on the same subject. The post went a little viral.

Third — OK, after this I’m done with the numbers — next Tuesday, the 29th, there’s a party for the paperback release of The Magician King. Come. You’re all invited. I’m going to have an on-stage chat with Ryan Britt, maybe answer a few questions and sign a few books. Then every one will be given drinks and we’ll all hang out.

Finally: I’m doing an AMA on Fantasy Reddit on the night of Wednesday, May 30. AMA stands for Ask Me Anything. Afterwards, to relax, I will have myself torn to pieces by wild dogs.

pennyarcademain

http://feeds.penny-arcade.com/~r/pa-mainsite/~3/_KLGzqmvMkw/disruptive-technology

cloistersgarden

http://blog.metmuseum.org/cloistersgardens/2012/05/25/inside-and-outside-the-garden-walls/

http://blog.metmuseum.org/cloistersgardens/?p=8860

The Unicorn in Captivity, 1495–1505. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of John D. Rockefeller Jr., 1937 (37.80.6). The profusion of flowering plants that springs from the millefleurs meadow on which the unicorn rests includes both garden plants and wildflowers. An iris and a clove pink are prominently placed outside the unicorn’s enclosure; both were intensively cultivated in the Middle Ages, but the purple orchis silhouetted against the unicorn’s body depends on a special relationship with microorganisms in its native soil and would not have grown in gardens.

Roses, lilies, iris, violet, fennel, sage, rosemary, and many other aromatic herbs and flowers were prized for their beauty and fragrance, as well as their culinary and medicinal value, and were as much at home in the medieval pleasure garden as in the kitchen or physic garden. These plants were carefully cultivated, but many useful plants of the Middle Ages were found outside the garden walls, or admitted on sufferance.

Unlike the iris and the pink that flourish outside the enclosure, the little cuckoo-pint that peeks out between the rails on the right side of the corral is a wild plant of woodland and hedgerows. Arum maculatum is a highly significant plant in European folklore, and bears many suggestive names, such as Adam and Eve, lords and ladies, cuckoo-pintle, and wake-robin.

Lettuces and other garden salads were supplemented with wild greens. The coleworts and pulses that were the staples of the medieval diet were augmented by the purslane and lamb’s quarters that grew unbidden in the fertile soil of well-manured vegetable beds. [See "Colewort and Kale" (October 22, 2010) and "Weed Eating" (October 29, 2010.)]

A lovingly rendered milk thistle (Silybum marianum) flourishes nearby a magnificent white lily (Lilium candidum). The lily was rivaled only by the rose as a sine qua non of the medieval garden; while several thistles were valued medicinally, they would have been gathered, not grown.

A plant deemed to be a noxious weed in a garden context might be a valued medicinal plant in its own right: Walahfrid Strabo, wielding a mattock, begins the garden year with a ruthless onslaught on the stinging nettles that cover his patch of earth, preparing the soil before sowing seed and renewing his stock of lilies, roses, iris, poppies, herbs, gourds, and melons. This same nettle, a nuisance in the garden, had been valued for centuries as a fiber plant, a food, and a medicament. (For more information on Walahfrid Strabo and his garden poem, the Hortulus, see http://wyrtig.com/EarlyGardens/Continental/Walafrid/Hortulus.htm. For more on nettles (Urtica dioica), see “Grasping the Nettle” (April 28, 2011.)

The relative roles of wild and cultivated species in the life and art of the Middle Ages is the theme of this year’s Garden Days, June 2 and 3. We hope you’ll join us in this wide-ranging exploration of the medieval plant world.

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icecreamhdaches

• Everyday Turtles, Toad and Their Kin #
• I'll be appearing sneaking out of a sewer grate, right by that one restaurant RT @VishRapha: @trohman where you comes to Brazil ? =) #
• What are you, ON drugs? Where are you, IN drugs? Which are you, A drug? #
• I've known some serious turds in my time. My dog just described all if them with his butt, in a far more literal way. #

Pete

• Don't ever hide your blood an sweat. Or they'll think it wasn't too hard. #
• Somewhere the toothfairy is crying and shedding wings at all the tooth dust that just came off the drill for me at the dentist. #
• When the mothership comes to get me I hope Patrick is at the wheel. #   ( ... )
  

making_light

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/013973.html

electoral538

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/25/signs-of-shift-among-african-americans-on-same-sex-marriage/