The Bin–1/29/10

The Bin–1/29/10

Jan 29

We used to just like stuff every week. Now we throw that in a blender with links, videos, and random claptrap and we call it…THE BIN. It stinks like garbage but it doesn’t taste half bad.

Stuff We Like This Week

Matt: I have a playlist on my iPod entitled “Geek Music Hits,” where I put basically an assortment of my favorite John Williams themes & tracks. There’s a little Danny Elfman too, and lately Michael Giacchino has been making an appearance. I take this music for granted, because it’s stitched into the fabric of my brain so vividly; this is my go-to “Oh shit I gotta get some work done” playlist, for example, cause there’s no distracting lyrics and it’s interesting while being consistently recognizable. In other words, I can hear it without really listening, unless I want to take a mental break and do so.

I used Williams’ Superman theme for a work video this week; in creating it, I heard it about fifty billion times over and over. (Actually, at the risk of sacrilege, I used John Ottman’s mild reorchestration of the theme from the Superman Returns soundtrack, which was shorter and worked better for my purposes.) Even hearing it over and over, as it played yesterday morning at the event’s opening, I still got a tingle down my spine. The man is a master, and his work is indelible.

Sarah: I picked up the Marvel Fairy Tales collection on a whim. Not much thought went into it beyond “this art looks really pretty and I get 25 percent off at this particular comics shop. Wheee!” But this adorable little book — which collects all of the Avengers Fairy Tales, plus one issue each of the X-Men and Spidey editions — is the most beautifully rendered, flat-out joyful thing I’ve read all week.

Basically, C.B. Cebulski takes familiar Marvel heroes and puts them in various fairy tale situations and gets a bunch of talented artists (like Kyle Baker and Takeshi Miyazawa) to illustrate the results. One especially lovely thing: the Avengers stories, in particular, really position some of my favorite female characters front and center, whether it’s Wanda as a magic-wielding Wendy Darling or She-Hulk as Wizard of Oz’s Dorothy or Cassie Lang playing a social outcast version of Alice in Wonderland. And each story has its own distinct style and tone that fits perfectly with these ladies. Given the frustration I’ve felt over, say, Wanda’s absence in regular continuity, this seems like a truly magical thing. More, please.

Jeff: I caught up on the first two issues of Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba’s Vertigo series Daytripper this week, and I am just kind of blown away by it in an understated way. The art is breathtaking, the storytelling is poignant, and the dialogue seems incredibly real. The book is a huge breath of fresh air.

Oh, and hey! Lost! Lost is only days away and it is omnipresent in my life. I’ve been trying to keep a mild level of enthusiasm for the show, but everywhere I go, someone is super-psyched and I can’t help but get swept along with it.

Does anybody else feel like the 1960s live action Disney films are totally acid-fueled? I’ve watched Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang twice this week with my niece, and I am shocked at how insane the movie is.

Link Stew

Yeah, so Whitney Matheson of USA Today’s Pop Candy blog says Sarah’s book, One Con Glory, is the best thing she’s read this week. No big deal. (TOTALLY BIG DEAL.)

Our friend Karen Healey directed us to this excellent essay by Bao Phi about being a nerd of color.

Our friend Dan Wiencek’s write-up of the iPad as digital textbook is probably the best piece of writing we’ve seen so far covering the device.

This is Psyduck’s Wikipedia page.

Not surprising: several of the Alert Nerds are theme park dweebs. These image dissections of a 3D model for the Fantasyland redo at Magic Kingdom are way cool, from a nuts-and-bolts perspective if not from a content perspective (although we have high hopes for the Be Our Guest restaurant).

On a similar note, supposedly the Harry Potter land at Universal Orlando is now visible from the highway. Matt hasn’t spotted it yet, but here’s a pretty cool virtual walkthrough.

This tongue-in-cheek zombie revisionism kick in fiction has gone too far.

Etc.

Hitler doesn’t like the iPad, much like the rest of the Internet.