The city is choked by a cloud of "red dust" and haze that experts haven't seen before. Hit here for more amazing photos of this curious weather phenomenon in Syndey.
(Special thanks to Father Roderick Vonhogen for the eerie and stunning find!)
That's what GeekTyrant is wondering (and has Twitter-ed that sources are confirming). This does indeed appear to be Nicolas Cage in a costume test for the Superman movie that Tim Burton almost began production of in early 1998. That would make this photo around twelve years old... which jibes with Cage's current age.
And then there's this tidbit that also adds credence to it being real, from a very long article posted in 2005 about the INSANELY bizarre story of the Superman film franchise between Superman IV: The Quest for Peace in 1987 and 2006's Superman Returns...
"Nicolas Cage, having been fighting tooth and nail against Burton and [Jon] Peters' vision of Superman (even though he'd been putting on a happy public face about working with them), angrily demanded that he be allowed to wear the classic Superman costume and fly. So WB relented much to Burton's dismay, ordering up a rubber Superman suit and flying FX tests. (A chintzy, Sam Jones-as-Flash Gordon-type Superman suit was dished up, but it went over like a lead balloon.) However, when Cage tried on the rubber suit, it looked stupid. And when they stuck a long-haired wig on him, it looked even worse."Some are saying this might be a Photoshop job. Personally, I think it fits well with the evidence.
So lemme ask you, Dear Reader, after you have finally stopped hysterically laughing: what do you think? :-)
But there was one piece on display that grabbed hold of my senses more than anything else, because I had never seen something like this before. It was a "painting" made by grinding on a sheet of stainless steel:
Now ain't that cool?!?
Well, it so happened that the artist responsible for this eye-arresting image was on the gallery's premises and at work in a small studio down the hall. Her name is Catherine Thornton, and I was most delighted to meet a lady blessed with not only artistic vision but original techniques and concepts. As it turns out she has done several works in stainless steel, using various grinders and sanders to etch patterns and shapes into metal as another artist might use a paintbrush on canvas. But as Thornton was sure to note, the advantage of her medium is that it will last indefinitely with no fading away of pigment or deterioration of the surface.
Truthfully folks, the photos that I shot do not do justice to Thornton's work. They have to be seen in person and up close to best appreciate. As one who works in metal also from time to time, I thought it was one of the most creative use of steel so far as artistic handiwork goes. If you possibly can, I would heartily recommend a visit to Artspace at 201 E. Davie Street in Raleigh to check it out for yourselves. And Catherine Thornton also maintains a website devoted to her work and artistic philosophy.
I'm sorely tempted to insert a "Space Mountain" joke in here somewhere :-P
EDIT 3:18 a.m. EST 09/23/2009: I am just now discovering that this game is not called "Ric Flair Scratch-Off" as I had originally thought. Instead it is officially known as... Wooooooo!
As if this state didn't have enough people imitating Ric Flair, heh-heh...
That's it. I'm definitely going to buy at least one of these tickets. Not to scratch off, just to keep and hold onto because, well... a Ric Flair-themed state lottery scratch-off game called "Wooooooo!" is just too clever to pass up on owning one.
This will be the hottest-selling scratch-off game since the lottery started up here almost four years ago, I would wager an RC Cola and a Moon Pie on it. Maybe we'll see the entire Four Horsemen appear on a ticket sometime down the line :-)
Very, very wrong move. As Rockingham County's own Phil Berger Sr., the state Senate Minority Leader noted...
"This action is a slap in the face to legal North Carolina residents that desperately need access to the job training provided by our community colleges during the worst period of unemployment since the Great Depression."But it's still worse than that. It's this kind of thing that encourages illegal immigration to begin with. And in my opinion that's not being a good neighbor to our friends across the border in Mexico. They have their own house to clean, just as we have our own that needs a lot of work. Sweetening the pot so that more people will be drawn here illegally to take advantage of our already over-burdened societal infrastructure is a detriment to the citizens here, and it does more damage to Mexico than most realize by bleeding away personnel that could otherwise be trying to make their own nation a better place to live.
All of that, and I have to wonder aloud how what is officially admitted to be illegal behavior is now being rewarded.
Hey everyone, say hey to the newest blogger on the planet (along with the probably 500 or so in the past few minutes who also took that first leap into the blogosphere): Steven Glaspie and his Gentle Giant Express. Steven is a longtime friend and fellow Eagle Scout, and yes he's yet another brilliant mind to come out of Rockingham County, North Carolina! This is a thinkin' dude, who writes some great poetry among other things. The blog is brand spankin' new, so check it out at stevenglaspie.blogspot.com and watch Steven flex his skillz!The cops didn't have far to look for a suspect, however: Parker used the victim's computer to log into his Facebook account and forgot to log out.
Jonathan Parker was arrested, and is currently in jail on $10,000 bond. He's facing one to ten years in the slammer if convicted.
Dumb, dumb, dumb. But also very funny :-)
All we need now is Halo 3: Commissary Orbital Kitchen Officer and we will have our new Halo trilogy!
So while we're waiting for Joss Whedon to hopefully make more episodes, here's last night's hiliarity between Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer...
Is it just me, or is Dr. Horrible a way sad supervillain for letting his arch-nemesis just walk into the secret lair and take over his Internet? I can't see Destro or Dr. Colossus ever being that slacking. Horrible better pray that Bad Horse doesn't hear about this...
I do not watch much television, truth be known. A show has to be mighty impressive for me to invest the time to keep up with it on a regular basis. But I can't recall any show that has so captivated my imagination as has ABC's Lost. And of all the remarkable characters from the magnificent Lost ensemble, few have been more intriguing than Benjamin Linus (shown here from last season's episode "316" as he shares the story of Thomas the Apostle), played as no one else could by Michael Emerson. Is Benjamin a bad guy? A good guy? Someone with an agenda we can't even begin to imagine? Even now going into the show's final season, Ben Linus is a complete mystery.Last night at the Emmy Awards, Emerson finally got his long-deserved recognition: he won the Best Supporting Actor for a dramatic series. Considering that there is no single "primary" character in Lost, that is certainly something to be proud of.
Congrats to Michael Emerson, and everyone who won something last night :-)
(And I'm wrapping up a bunch of projects this morning too. Boo-yah!!)
Awright, back to the blog. I hope you people have behaved yourselves in my absence. If I'm told you've been nice, there may even be some photos that I'll post later on :-P
Mark your calendars: February 9th, 2010 will herald the release of BioShock 2: the sequel to 2007's mind-rattling first-person shooter. It will be an international debut across Xbox 360, Windows and PlayStation 3.
From the official press release from 2K Games...
Currently in development for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, the PlayStation3 computer entertainment system, and Games for Windows LIVE, BioShock 2 will deliver two unique, yet intertwined experiences that form the perfect blend of explosive first-person shooter combat, compelling storytelling and intense multiplayer action.Are you ready to return to Rapture? Just four and a half months to go!Set approximately 10 years after the events of the original BioShock, the halls of Rapture once again echo with sins of the past. Along the Atlantic coastline, a monster has been snatching little girls and bringing them back to the undersea city of Rapture. Players step into the boots of the most iconic denizen of Rapture, the Big Daddy, as they travel through the decrepit and beautiful fallen city, chasing an unseen foe in search of answers and their own survival.
Multiplayer in BioShock 2 will provide a rich prequel experience that expands the origins of the BioShock fiction. Set during the fall of Rapture, players assume the role of a Plasmid test subject for Sinclair Solutions, a premier provider of Plasmids and Tonics in the underwater city of Rapture that was first explored in the original BioShock. Players will need to use all the elements of the BioShock toolset to survive, as the full depth of the BioShock experience is refined and transformed into a unique multiplayer experience that can only be found in Rapture.
Just a friendly reminder that if you want to meet the blogger/proprietor of The Knight Shift in person and you're going to be in the Raleigh/Durham today, that you're in luck!
I will be at Artspace, located at 201 East Davie St in Raleigh at 5:45 p.m. this afternoon during the filmSPARK track of SPARKcon: a grassroots-organized four-day festival celebrating individual creativity around the Triangle area and throughout North Carolina. This will be the fourth annual event and this year SPARKcon will be held September 17-20. I'll be speaking about the bizarre "copyright infringement" situation that happened between Yours Truly and Viacom on YouTube two years ago.
And look again! There's also a Facebook page for "The Dude Who Took Down Viacom"!The Dude Who Took Down Viacom: One Filmmaker's Story EVENT LOCATION
ArtspaceEVENT DESCRIPTION
Meet North Carolina filmmaker Chris Knight, a.k.a. "The Dude Who Took Down Viacom". In 2006, Knight made a campaign advertisement to help promote his running for a seat on Rockingham County's Board of Education. Knight did not win a seat on the board, but he did win some internet and media fame as his commercial was featured in The New York Times, on the Fox News Channel, every major newspaper in the state, on National Public Radio, the Canadian Broadcasting Company, by the Heritage Foundation, VH1's show "Web Junk 2.0", and E! Entertainment Television's show "The Soup". The major attraction of Knight's commercial was his creative use of Star Wars as an allegory for his strong commitment to reforming education practice. Life was good for Knight, until he loaded a few clips of his infamous commercial's featurette on "Web Junk 2.0" onto Youtube and was slammed with a copyright infringement claim. Come here the details of Knight's battle tonight as the filmmaker recounts his battle with Youtube and VH1's parent company Viacom firsthand.SPONSOR
Artspace
Once again, I am compelled to note that I am very thankful to Nene Kalu, Kathy Justice and the rest of the good folks organizing the filmSPARK track for inviting me to take part in SPARKcon. Check out the SPARKcon website for more information.
And I hope to see you there! :-)
Poor Bert. He probably wakes up every morning with quiet dread about what Ernie is going to do that day :-)
The Windows edition of BioShock - a video game so profound that many consider it to be an entirely new form of high-brow literature - is now on sale for five bucks at Direct2Drive. If you've a Windows-based machine and haven't experienced the majesty and horror of the sub-Atlantic metropolis that is Rapture, here's your chance to go in deep for a handful of scratch. It's just one of the games that Direct2Drive is offering at slashed cost to celebrate its fifth anniversary as an online game delivery service. I don't have to tell you how terrific a deal this is, so go get BioShock... would you kindly?
There are a lot of things running through my head right now about Annie Le, the 24-year old graduate student at Yale who disappeared last week just days before she was to be married. Her body was found this past Sunday hidden in a basement wall of the campus lab where she had been conducting research.Nothing I might say could add any substantially new comment about how utterly heartbreaking this story is, about how this happened just as Annie was preparing to spend the rest of her life with her husband-to-be.
I've wanted to say something about how the mainstream news media has once again sacrificed ethics and principles for sake of an admittedly sensational story. And I'm referring to how the press has been all over the story of Raymond Clark, now the main suspect in Annie Le's murder (he's probably being arrested as I write this). Even if Clark did take Le's life, there is a right way to bring him to justice. What I've seen in the past couple of days (particularly the "journalism" of the Associated Press) is not that way at all. I've never believed that anybody accused of murder should be found guilty by the press before due process has been allowed to take place. This kind of "reporting" does nothing to protect liberty and ensure justice, and in fact puts those aspects of American life in greater jeopardy than many might realize.
But mostly, what I can't help think about, is what Annie Le promised us.
This was an absolutely brilliant young woman. Le was considered to be "the next Einstein" by her high school peers (and was valedictorian of her class). She had graduated with honors from the University of Rochester after majoring in cell and developmental biology. And until this past week Le was pursuing her doctorate in pharmacology at Yale.
There is no telling what Annie Le would have brought to the world with that beautiful mind that God had gifted her with. She could have cured a disease or found a way to prevent birth defects. What Annie could have accomplished was practically without limit. But we will never know. That she was taken in such an apparently brutal and senseless fashion is not only a loss to her loved ones, but to all of us.
There was so much potential to change the world for the better, contained in that tiny, beautiful girl with the beaming smile.
And she never got the chance to do that, or to have the happiness that she deserved.
And then I think about how it is, in America today, that there are so many that are just as blessed with talent and ability as Annie Le had been... and those same individuals will never have the opportunity to show us what their promise. Yeah, I'm talking about what you think I'm talking about. But I'm not about to turn this tragedy into a platform for any political agenda.
All I'm saying is this: that this could very well have turned out to be a much different, and indefinitely more promising, world. If only millions of more hearts and minds and souls had been permitted to share their creativity and their passion and their intellect with us.
That is what Annie Le promised.
And I prefer to believe that is what any of us can promise.
The first is that veteran actor Henry Gibson has died at age 73. He was one of the original cast members of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, where he made regular appearances as the flower-bearing poet who would stroll onstage and deliver a funny poem. He also appeared during each episode's "party scene" as a priest-type character invoking religious humor ("My congregation supports all denominations, but our favorites are twenties and fifties."). Over the following years and decades Gibson racked up an impressive filmography, including voicing Wilbur in the animated film of Charlotte's Web (I had no idea that was Gibson's voice until this morning), Kentucky Fried Movie, InnerSpace, and recently in a recurring role on Boston Legal. However I'd bet that most people reading this will especially remember Gibson's uproarious portrayal of the Head Nazi in The Blues Brothers. Gibson also wrote songs and books, including more of his poetry.
Sounds like he was an all-around talented fella. He will certainly be missed.
And then last night came word that Mary Travers, whose voice endeared itself to generations as part of the musical trio Peter, Paul and Mary, has passed away at age 72 following a battle with cancer.
In her memory, here's a clip from the early 1960s of the classic cover that Travers, along with Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey, did of "Blowin' in the Wind"...
Thanks for the good tunes and the great memories, Mary.
