The Fury of Lego Moses

Leviticus 8:22-23--"He then had the other ram brought forward and slaughtered it."

Go here to check out the Bible (Old and New Testament) in Lego form: http://www.thebricktestament.com/

My friend Shea and I did a couple Lego-assisted presentations for a Civics-type class in Junior High...one on the Revolutionary War, one on the laws of government. Lego makes cannons and other crazy stuff nowadays, but back then we had to improvise a lot of things with clay...I think Shea even put little clay bayonets on each gun. We spent a lot of time arranging each scene, then took photos and pasted them onto posterboard.

I don't think we were at our best with the laws one, though (at least, I wasn't), since there were no good opportunities for decapitations in that one.

Stop swinging the bat, Wendy.

Masereelin'

A copy from a page of Franz Masereel's wonderfully stream-of-consciousness book "The City: A Vision in Woodcuts"

You can look through the entire book at this address: http://www.nebulous-cargo.com/masereel/woodcuts/city1.html

The Nature of Talent?

I was reading through the latest issue of Discover and during an interview with neurologist Oliver Sacks he mentioned a period of his life when he was taking a huge amount of amphetamines:

"I got into a very strange state for two weeks, a state in which I, who cannot draw, found myself able to do the most accurate anatomical drawings. I have a notebook from that time full of anatomical drawings of a sort I had never done before and have never done since. This also affected things like musical reproduction and sense of smell. I could recognize most people and most places by smell. And so I did have an experience myself of having various perceptual powers released. When it all disappeared, I had mixed feelings. It was a great relief, and also some regret. However, I think the amphetamines are terribly dangerous, and I'm glad I survived that time."

I had generally assumed that artistic talent was a combination of heredity and learned skill, in various degrees. While that's probably still the case, the idea of artificially unlocking previously unknown and undisplayed technical skill, and what that then means about the nature of talent, is fascinating to me. How much of pure artistic talent is born out of perception?

2008

According to the Issac Aasimov short story "Franchise", in 2008 the U.S. president will be selected by a computer program looking for the "most representative citizen".

In the Larry Niven/Jerry Pournelle novel "The Mote in God's Eye", faster-than-light travel is also perfected in 2008. And according to Futurama, suicide booths are invented then, too.

The 1972 sci-fi film Silent Running takes place in 2008. By then all plant life on Earth has died out, and Bruce Dern is committed to growing and preserving plants in geodesic domes orbiting Saturn so that eventually the Earth can be reforested (the movie also demonstrates why we should never put Bruce Dern in charge of anything).

So...some good and some bad things to look forward to next year...

The Big Wait

"Well, the fact is I never know where my books come from, and I never go out looking for ideas. It all seems to happen in a way that has nothing to do with me. One day something is there that wasn't there the day before."

--Paul Auster

For the last few weeks I've been steadily waiting for 'The Big Black' to come together, but so far it remains a fragment of an idea. I try not to push it or force it to fit into some preconceived notion of what a story should properly be like, but sometimes the whole process is damned frustrating. Lately I've been staying awake for hours when I should be sleeping, trying to let things connect in my head. I've got to try and cut that out.

Anyways, that's what I've been doing for awhile now...sketching and waiting for the big black idea to coalesce.

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There's always a tendency to catagorize the best books/movies/music/etc at the end of the year in a kind of retrospective. I can't make a Top Ten list of the best comics of 2007 because there's plenty potential ones out there that I haven't read yet (like Shaun Tan's "The Arrival", Matt Kindt's "Super Spy", or Paul Karasik's apparently awesome book on Fletcher Hanks, "I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets", if that can be included in such a list), but right now I feel it would be extraordinarily hard to top Acme Novelty Library #18 as the best comic of the year.

Dax's Dreamscape

Today I dreamed that Tony Danza shot me in the leg.


I have to say this is one of those kinds of dreams that defies analysis. Though I suppose if I were to choose an 80's sitcom star to wound me it would be Tony Danza...I imagine he'd be very apologetic about it afterwards, say "Whoa" a lot, and probably get into some crazy mixed-up shenanigans while trying to take me to the hospital.