Quotes: Shooting People Was Such a Stupid Activity

“Shooting people was such a stupid activity, why should everybody–anybody!–be so impressed? Silver wondered irritably. You would think she had done something truly great, like discover a new treatment for black-stem rot.”

– Lois McMaster Bujold: Falling Free

Silver, one of the genetically engineered, learning-oriented people known as quaddies, expresses her deep dislike of violence.

Bujold, Lois McMaster: Falling Free. Riverdale, NY: Baen, 1988, p. 266.

(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.

I’ll Have Elevensies with My Elevensies, Thanks!

Beer brewers Night Shift Brewing in Massachusetts made a Baltic porter aged in apple brandy barrels. They call it Elevensies, and describe it as dark and of high gravity.

Night Shift Brewing elevensies_square-01
Elevensies beer by Night Shift Brewing
Night Shift Brewing Elevensies
Elevensies beer. Screenshot from Night Shift Brewing

Sounds like it would’ve made a perfect partner for our Prancing Pony dinner. Maybe we can still find some…!

Found via File 770.

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!

 

Love & Friendship Trailer

A movie version of Jane Austen’s never-before-adapted epistolary novel Lady Susan is coming out in a few weeks (released on May 13), and the trailer is finally here.

Love & Friendship TRAILER 1 (2016) – Chloë Sevigny, Xavier Samuel Movie HD via Movieclips Coming Soon

I’ve been waiting for it for a long time without any real idea of what it’ll be like, as I’ve never even heard of the writer / director Whit Stillman before. It looks absolutely hilarious! Kate Beckinsale as Lady Susan seems perfect in every way; I’m also looking forward to seeing more of Jemma Redgrave, James Fleet, and Stephen Fry. Can’t wait! Fansquee!

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

Native American Style Mainstream Genre Icons

Jeffrey Veregge, an artist and member of the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe in Washington state, makes positively fantastic versions of mainstream genre icons like superheroes, movie characters, Transformers, aliens, and the like.

Jeffrey Veregge Early-Bird
Early Bird by Jeffrey Veregge

Veregge himself says of his work:

“This site, the work that is seen on it is a reflection of a lifetime love affair with comic books, toys, TV and film. Taking my passions and blending them with my Native perspective, artistic background and the desire to simply be me. Basically I am just trying to have fun and get back to that kid that went to art school to begin with, wanting to create artwork that I want to see and make just for the hell of it.”

Jeffrey Veregge Shield-Logo
Shield by Jeffrey Veregge

Several of his designs would make fantastic fabric prints, like this Flash-inspired one, for example:

Jeffrey Veregge scarlet-blurr
Scarlet Blurr by Jeffrey Veregge (2012)

If there was a fabric Flash version, I’d use it for pencil cases, zipper travel pouches, or a table cloth. Or maybe tall, tall shades with a wide border on the bottom; that would look really striking.

Visit Veregge’s home page for more!

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

Dining in Middle Earth: Supper at the Prancing Pony

“In a twinkling the table was laid. There was hot soup, cold meats, a blackberry tart, new loaves, slabs of butter, and half a ripe cheese: good plain food, as good as the Shire could show, and homelike enough to dispel the last of Sam’s misgivings (already much relieved by the excellence of the beer).”

LotR Dinner3 Dessert

Barliman Butterbur serves up a filling supper of good home cooking at the Prancing Pony and we’ve done our best to do his fare justice. We have a soup of roasted root vegetables, cold chicken and ham, and bread with butter and cheese. A simple blackberry tart makes a satisfying dessert and a home-brewed blackberry stout goes with it all.

LotR Dinner3

We imagined a material culture in Bree-land that combines Hobbit and Bree Human features, possibly with some Dwarven-made touches. The color white is pulled from Mr. Butterbur’s white apron and the white tablecloth on the four Hobbits’ dinner table. Expanding on that, we used mostly white dishes, white candles, and clear glass. The soup bowl with leaf imprints on its inner surface is similar to the green one in the Long-Expected Party. A fabric-lined basket holds a variety of bread, and half a wheel of cheese invites nibbling.

LotR Dinner3 Main

And there’s pie!

LotR Dinner3 BW

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!

What If There Was White Moose Cavalry for Fantasy Winter Warfare?

What if there was a fantasy world where moose were tamed and selectively bred for cavalry? I spent some time pondering it after a couple of things found online collided in my head.

First, there’s this animated gif of a moose rushing through a deep snow-filled field:

moose rushing through a snow-filled field

Their size, speed, and ability to gallop through deep snowbanks make moose fearsome and pretty near unstoppable. Imagine a line of ginormous moose thundering at full tilt towards you across a field – that’s a truly frightening thought! Also bogs don’t slow them down by much, I believe, which might conceivably tip the scales in the right kind of a campaign.

Then, I saw this photo of an albino moose:

Yle Antti Terava valkoinen hirvi

Natural snow camouflage. Hmmm.

It’s not that far-fetched an idea, apparently. The Soviet Union attempted to build a moose cavalry in the first half of the 20th century, but they were unsuccessful. In our world, the solitary habits of moose seem to be standing in the way of domestication. If we’re talking about a fantasy world, however, I don’t see why not.

Images: Rushing moose gif via Crazy Hyena. White moose by Antti Terävä via Yle

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?

Mariachi Cover of Star Wars: Episode IV Throne Room Theme

Did you know there’s a band dedicated to making mariachi-style covers of video game and pop culture themes? I didn’t, until today. And, boy, Mariachi Entertainment System is brilliant! Here is just one of their recent productions: the throne room theme from the end of Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope:

Star Wars – Mariachi Cover – The Throne Room by Mariachi Entertainment System

That really works! Visit their YouTube channel for more videos.

(Don’t you just love the Internet for finding new, cool stuff!?)

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

Quotes: You Can’t Unite Woman and Human

“There is the vanity training, the obedience training, the self-effacement training, the deference training, the dependency training, the passivity training, the rivalry training, the stupidity training, the placation training. How am I to put this together with my human life, my intellectual life, my solitude, my transcendence, my brains, and my fearful, fearful ambition? I failed miserably and thought it was my own fault. You can’t unite woman and human any more than you can unite matter and anti-matter; they are designed not to be stable together and they make just as big an explosion inside the head of the unfortunate girl who believes in both.”

– Joanna Russ: The Female Man

A somber view of what it’s to be an intelligent, determined woman in a world run by men who don’t recognize their value.

Russ, Joanna: The Female Man. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1975, p. 151.

(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.

An End and a New Beginning for Bede’s World

Bede’s World, a small museum in Jarrow, Tyne & Wear, Northumbria, dedicated to the Venerable Bede and 7th-century England, shut down its operations in February 2016.

Bedes World Main Entry

Bedes World Entrance Inside

In addition to indoor exhibits, the museum includes several replica wattle and daub buildings, modeled on structures excavated in Anglo-Saxon Northumbria and built with original materials and contemporary methods. On the grounds there is also a herb garden and a working farm with a small collection of rare breed animals resembling those that lived 1,300 years ago.

Bedes World Collage

The museum issued the following statement:

“It is with great regret that the Trustee Board took the decision for Bedes World [sic] to cease operation from Friday 12 February 2016 due to a lack of funds.

“Steps are being taken to put the company into administration through the appointment of an Insolvency Practitioner.

“The Trustee Board have made arrangements for the immediate care of the farm animals and the security of the site.

“The Board would like thank all staff, volunteers and stakeholders for their hard work and dedication to Bedes World. [sic]”

Fortunately, only a few weeks afterwards better news surfaced: a new operator was found to run the site. At this writing it isn’t clear what their plans for Bede’s World are, though. (Follow this link to read the statement by Groundwork South Tyneside and Newcastle, the new operator.)

Found via Anne Bennett and BBC.

Images: Bede’s World main entrance, outside view via Bede’s World. Other photographs by Eppu Jensen