Now that summer is properly on the way here in the northern hemisphere, it’s time for summer critters. This aqua-blue-brown lizard, Anolis grahami, would make a lovely detail in speculative—or, indeed, in any kind of—story-telling.
In the real world, they’re endemic in Jamaica and an introduction to Bermuda. According to Wikipedia, occasionally you can see a pure turquoise blue lizard.
The Visual Inspiration occasional feature pulls the unusual from our world to inspire design, story-telling, and worldbuilding. If stuff like this already exists, what else could we imagine?
I wonder whether there is any fantasy-themed peel-and-stick wallpaper—I noticed myself daydreaming of scifi book shelves backed with space murals, fantasy shelves with amazing forests or creatures, history with vintage wood or brick or castles, etc.
The Derinkuyu (also known as Malakopi) underground city is situated in the historical area of Cappadocia, which is in Central Anatolia in modern-day Turkey. And it’s pretty astounding.
Apparently, underground cities were A Thing thereabouts: according to Wikipedia, there are over 200 of them. Looking at the landscape, it’s no wonder.
Much of the rock is easily accessible, i.e., not covered by layers and layers of vegetation, and there are plenty of rock faces to carve into.
The first mentions of underground dwellings in Anatolia come from Xenophon’s Anabasis (c. 370 BCE), but they were probably built much earlier as places of refuge from attacks. Derinkuyu seems to have been in use for millenia: the last recorded use was at least as late as 1909.
According to a tourism site, there are about 600 entrances to the underground Derinkuyu, and some can be closed with a door resembling a mill stone.
In addition to tunnels and rooms themselves, there are other notable features. There are stairs, ventilation shafts, wells, and storage areas with nooks and crannies of various shapes, including wine troughs.
Clearly some areas were left in quite rough shape.
Others were carefully detailed. For example, there is a room with a barrel-vaulted ceiling.
At its largest, Derinkuyu seems to have been able to house 20,000 people and their livestock and supplies.
One of the best things about social media—like the Internet, too—is how many different phenomena you can witness if not first hand then at least in a secondary capacity; way more than would be possible in a regular human lifetime.
Case in point: the Clay Forest is a massive gorge like the Grand Canyon, except it’s located in Western Tibet. Apparently it wasn’t really accessible for Westerners until 2015.
Recently we rewatched The Hobbit trilogy, which made me—again—root around looking for Dwarf-ish music. This time, though, I went wider and also included cover versions of melodies from all of the six Peter Jackson movie soundtracks.
Under the moniker FXitinPost, visual effects artist Christopher Clements made an unofficial, improved scene for Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope and seamlessly inserted it into the movie. The resulting six-minute clip is all about the final confrontation between Ben Kenobi and Darth Vader, and definitely worth a watch:
I don’t know whether they had any skill or not, but if Alec Guinness and David Prowse were not competent sword fighers, it’s understandable the scene looks like it does. I have to confess, though, that the clunkiness of the fight has been long bugging me; it also stands out since Lucas retroactively changed so many other scenes. Clements’ version is much more in line with Jedi abilities and includes many intriguing creative choices on how to use the space on the Death Star. Kudos!
In Making Stuff occasional feature, we share fun arts and crafts done by us and our fellow geeks and nerds.
One of the current exhibits at the National Museum of African Art is “Striking Iron: The Art of African Blacksmiths”. It focuses on blacksmithing in sub-Saharan Africa and features works dating from the 17th century to recent times: not just weapons, but other tools and implements such as musical instruments.
The range and design of shapes is truly impressive. Below are just some of the examples.
I wasn’t familiar with the concept of rain wands (image below) before. They were planted in the earth with the intention of drawing the life force of the Earth up toward the heavens in order to bring down rain.
Various kinds of sound instruments are also displayed, including lamellophones.
And, since it’s ironworking, there are weapons.
I’m especially struck by the multiple elaborate curls of the ceremonial knives and the rain wand in the shape of a three-headed snake. Simply stunning.
The exhibition runs until October 20, 2019.
Found via NPR—make sure to visit the article for more photos!
Images: Ceremonial knives by Olivia Sun for NPR (Democratic Republic of the Congo; 19th century; iron). Rain wands by Olivia Sun for NPR (Nigeria; iron). Lamellophone (chisanji) via Smithsonian (Chokwe artist, Angola; late 19th century; wood and iron). Double-bladed dagger by Olivia Sun for NPR (late 19th-century Sudan; iron, bone, and crocodile skin).
Ooh—I knew cosplayers were an ingenious group, but this is awesome: cosplayers portray Disney princesses in Boba Fett -like armor:
Oh my goodness, the leaf detailing on the Pocahontas / Fett helmet! And the detailing in general—love it!
The photography is credited to Jonathan York who posts his photos as York In A Box. I haven’t been to confirm it, since Facebook has been glitching for me for some reason. It would’ve been great to read more about the setup and the individual cosplayers’ thoughts.
(I did some searching elsewhere, too, but my google fu fails me for the moment. If you can find a different link, please share!)
One of the best things about social media—like the Internet, too—is how many different phenomena you can witness if not first hand then at least in a secondary capacity; way more than would be possible in a regular human lifetime.
Case in point: the occultation of Saturn (i.e., hiding behind another object, in this case the moon) a few days ago.
The name and the first trailer for Star Wars: Episode IX were released last week, and both are tantalizing! Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker again seems to revolve around Rey:
Oh my goodness, her leap over the speeding fighter looks incredible! (Even if I can’t quite understand the decision to run with an extended lightsaber in your hand… Is anyone else reminded of running with scissors?) I’m also looking forward to seeing Poe and Finn questing, er, fighting the Empire together—I always appreciated the ease with which they became and remain buddies.
J.J. Abrams’s work has been bit of a hit or miss for me in the past, so at the moment I’m cautiously optimistic about Rise. It will, however, be remarkable to see the end of the nine-movie Skywalker story arc begun when I was a toddler.
A nostalgic tidbit: A New Hope was one of the first stories I remember reacting to and realizing that I really, really liked the stuff with space and robots and dragons and elves and whatnot. Ever since then, around the age of 11 or 12 or so, I’ve considered myself a science fiction and fantasy geek.
And now I kinda want to make myself a sleeveless, hooded tunic like what Rey is wearing underneath her wrap. It’s a really neat design. 🙂
December 20, 2019, seems so far, far away.
Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.
Co-Geeking 
