Author: Eppu

Two Star Wars Tributes in the Style of James Bond and Top Gun

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Serendipity delivers again: in today’s online reading there were links to two gorgeous and skillfully made Star Wars video tributes. One is made to Spectre by Radiohead in the style of James Bond opening credits.

Star Wars – Episode V “The Empire Strikes Back” Homage (Title Sequence) by KROFL

The Empire Strikes Back Homage is designed, directed, and produced by Kurt Rauffer. The other, by Weston Wong, mashes up SW with Kenny Loggin’s Danger Zone from the movie Top Gun.

Star Wars – Danger Zone – Kenny Loggins by Weston Wong

Uh oh, now I have 80s movie music in my head… 🙂

Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.

Quotes: Books Do Something for the Human Brain

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“Books do something for the human brain that nothing else can. With books comes happiness, and people build empathy for one another. [We’re trying to offer] new perspectives and reignite an enthusiasm for reading.”

– Alicia Tapia

Books make your world larger. What a delightful excuse to read. 🙂

Quote attributed to GOOD Magazine, found via American Libraries November / December 2015, p. 28. Alicia Tapia is a librarian in San Francisco, CA and heads the Bibliobicicleta initiative.

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

Five Captain America: Civil War Clips

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Marvel UK’s YouTube selection includes these five Captain America: Civil War clips that I hadn’t seen before. The first includes snippets from interviews with the movie’s main actresses (Scarlett Johansson, Emily VanCamp, and Elizabeth Olsen).

Captain America: Civil War – In Good Company by Marvel UK

Yay, Sharon Carter / Agent 13!

The second has interview snippets with Chris Evans, Robert Downey, Jr., and the Russo Brothers.

Captain America: Civil War – Brothers In Arms | HD by Marvel UK

Captain America: Civil War – Right To Choose | HD by Marvel UK

Captain America: Civil War – New Recruit | HD by Marvel UK

Captain America: Civil War – The Team Vs Bucky clip | HD UK by Marvel UK

We’ve been in blackout mode, avoiding anything spoilery like the plague. Alasdair Stuart’s Civil War review for Tor.com doesn’t include spoilers, so I did read that one. After tonight, I don’t have to hold back anymore. 🙂

Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.

NASA Goes off to Outer Space for Star Wars Day

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This May the Fourth, NASA rules. Check out what they posted on the NASA Tumblr account:

NASA Tumblr Saturns Moon Mimas

“Worlds That Will Make You Believe Star Wars is Real

“The fantastical planets in Star Wars preceded our discovery of real planets outside our solar system… but fiction isn’t too far from the facts. When we send our spacecraft into the solar system and point our telescopes beyond, we often see things that seem taken right out of the Star Wars universe.

“Is there a more perfect time than May the 4th to compare real worlds to the ones depicted in Star Wars?

“Probably not… so here are a few:

What follows is pictures (mostly artists’ renderings) and short descriptions of eight planetary bodies that could serve as models for various locations in the Star Wars universe. And don’t let the photo of Saturn’s moon Mimas above fool you; it’s the most scruffy-looking of the bunch.

NASA’s post isn’t earth-shattering or deep or anything. But it does show a sense of humor, and combines pop culture geekery with science geekery in a very satisfying way. (YMMV, of course.)

I’m gonna go take you to Jabba now follow NASA on Tumblr right now.

Image: Saturn’s moon Mimas (the so-called Death Star moon) via NASA on Tumblr.

Out There is an occasional feature highlighting intriguing art, spaces, places, phenomena, flora, and fauna.

New Ancient Mediterranean Database: Public Monuments in Roman Greece

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A new project called Monuments of Roman Greece is under development at the University of Oxford. It covers about four centuries, c. 200 BCE – 200 CE, from when Rome began to expand into the Greek area of influence to the height of the Roman Empire, and will result in a series of articles plus a database.

The Met Bronze Veiled Masked Dancer

From the project website:

“Under the Roman Empire the marketplaces, streets, gymnasia and theatres of the cities of Greece were full of monuments such as tombs, inscribed stelai and – most numerous of all – statues. There were statues of bronze and of marble, portraying gods, heroes, emperors, kings and local dignitaries. Some of these monuments had already stood for centuries; others were fairly recent. Arguably no urban culture in history, with the possible exception of Rome itself, has set up such vast numbers of monuments in its public spaces. The nearest modern analogy for the amount of cultural material on display in the Roman period polis would be the museum. Yet the analogy falls short – the settings where these monuments stood were not places designed primarily for the passive viewing of works of art, they were vibrant public spaces, alive with the tumult and commotion of the city. If we are to understand the society and culture of these cities it is vital that we understand the impact of public monuments on the people who moved about them in their daily lives.“

The work is carried out by Dr. C. P. Dickenson at the Faculty of Classics, with Prof. R. R. R. Smith as scientific adviser. Both the website and the database are still in progress. Also, it sounds like the final home of the database is not finalized at the time of this writing; however, a browsable version is currently up on the University of Oxford website.

Visit the Public Monuments in Roman Greece website for scope and instructions on searching plus more info, or read Dr. Dickenson’s blog for behind-the-scenes tidbits on the development work, among other things.

Image: Bronze statuette of a veiled and masked dancer, from the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, bequest of Walter C. Baker in 1971, accession number 1972.118.95, by Eppu Jensen (Greek; 3rd-2nd century BCE)

A DIY Star Wars Day T-Shirt Project

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May the Fourth is a week away! Just time enough to figure out a small something to celebrate Star Wars with, if you’re so inclined. The Makeup Dummy shared a tutorial for a painted t-shirt with a Yoda-inspired quote:

How-To-DIY-Galaxy-Quote-Print-Shirt-Tutorial-by-The-Makeup-Dummy
The Makeup Dummy

Nice use of negative space on a starry sky. Also, using stickers to create the lettering is clever; it removes the need for messing with stencils (which can be a pain in the hindquarters to make if you don’t happen to have an electronic cutting machine or somesuch).

Bonus project: This wall art piece made with neon rods from a room designed by cityhomeCOLLECTIVE is decidedly lightsaber-like, if you ask me:

Desire to Inspire cityhomecollectivesmith-family-design-3
Interior design by cityhomeCOLLECTIVE, via Desire to Inspire

Do you have any Star Wars projects on the way? Do share!

In Making Stuff occasional feature, we share fun arts and crafts done by us and our fellow geeks and nerds.

Quotes: Things Were Never Just What People Said with Words

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“I was here alone and Evan wasn’t going to protect me. He never had. He wanted things from me, like everyone else. But those things were never just what people said with words. Everything about it, instead, was meant to manipulate you to feel something you wouldn’t otherwise feel, and screw up your steady, rational thoughts.”

– Karin Lowachee: Warchild

Protagonist Jos struggles with the pervasiveness of childhood traumas years after the events.

Lowachee, Karin. Warchild. New York, NY: Warner Books, 2002, p. 329.

(This quote comes from my 21 new-to-me SFF authors reading project.)

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

Why Wouldn’t Playing Games Get You a Job?

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This wall ad by the Finnish game house Remedy deserves wider circulation:

NYT Jussi Pullinen Remedy Wall Ad

“Mom always said that playing games won’t get you a job. From Espoo with love since 1995. Thank you Remedy crew, friends, families, Finnish dev community, fans and gamers around the world. This one is for you.”

Remedy (of the Max Payne and Alan Wake fame) designed this ad to celebrate their April 05, 2016, launch of a new game, Quantum Break, reportedly the most expensive entertainment production ever made in Finland.

The ad’s irony at one’s own expense sounds very Finnish to me. In Finland, it’s a little embarrassing to be successful or rich, and Finns don’t tend to draw attention to their achievements. At the same time, as a Finn, it’s very satisfying to see Finnish game companies grow up into mature businesses with large, world-wide audiences.

It’s also high time for people to recognize that storytelling is an integral part of human nature and that games are just as viable a medium for telling stories as are myths, songs, novels, image-based art, and the like.

Image by Jussi Pullinen via Nyt.

Disclosure: A friend of mine works at Remedy, but this post is in no way compensated or even requested by them.

Of Dice and Dragons is an occasional feature about games and gaming.

Dining in Middle Earth: Food in the Wild

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“‘There is food in the wild,’ said Strider; ‘berry, root, and herb; and I have some skill as a hunter at need.’”

LotR Dinner4

For this month’s dinner, we take up Strider on his offer and imagine what sort of a meal a ranger could have created in the wild at the best of times. This is what Strider might have cooked up for a party of hungry Hobbits if they hadn’t been running for their lives from ringwraiths: pan-braised game hens with root vegetables on a bed of green leaf and herb salad with fresh blackberries for dessert.

LotR Dinner4 Drink

Cooking would’ve been done with a cast iron spider, and light-weight wooden plates and small utensils wouldn’t add too much to the burden. Small pieces of fabric and sacks provide storage, and a rough piece of firewood functions as a makeshift stool or table. Everything is laid on rich, deep blue wool blend that nods towards Aragorn’s high status as the heir of Elendil.

Check out what’s it about in the introduction, or read the how-to!

Images by Eppu Jensen

Geeks eat, too! Second Breakfast is an occasional feature in which we talk about food with geeky connections and maybe make some of our own. Yum!

Quotes: Shrug off the Condescension that People Have toward ‘Lower’ Genres

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“On the verge of débuting his late, lamented sci-fi series ‘Firefly,’ which was cancelled after less than one season of Fox mismanagement, Joss Whedon remarked that his goal was not to create ‘grownup’ TV but to ‘invade people’s dreams’ – to create mythologies, which last so much longer than the mortal form of a TV series. Cult shows, such as ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘Community,’ often have this quality: they shrug off the condescension that people have toward their ‘lower’ genres, using their constraints to find a greater freedom. When you look at a show like that from a distance, it might seem too narrow to contain much of interest. But it’s so much larger when you’re on the inside.”

– Emily Nussbaum

Two thoughts. One: Ha, Joss Whedon wants to do a George Lucas. Two: Just like, say, fly fishing might look narrow on the outside, there are hidden depths and intricacies in just about any hobby or interest. Not sure why it’s still such a surprise to those condescending types.

Nussbaum, Emily. “Fantastic voyage: ‘Doctor Who,’ ‘Community,’ and the passionate fan,” The New Yorker (June 4 & 11, 2012) 127.

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.