HRSFANS.org

While we’re talking about innovative solutions to space constraints…

This Hong Kong architect has packed twenty four rooms into his tiny but very versatile apartment, through the magic of movable walls and fold-out facilities.  Apparently, this is environmentally friendly in addition to being awesomely futuristic.

Apparently my father’s friend has a website that contains a large assortment of interesting abstract boardgames (including descriptions and links to the rules) and java applets that allow you to play them online against a computer or another player.  I didn’t recognize most of them, but gipf and its fellows were there and seemed pretty representative.  For those of us who enjoy this sort of game, this could be an awesome way to waste time and meet likeminded people. Hey– if a bunch of us sign up, we might find each other. We could even use it to follow up on the longstanding notion of an online gaming SIG (presumably alongside other similar sites that support other games)…

I’ve always been pretty skeptical of conventional greeting/thank you/etc. cards, in general. But I ran across a guy selling some really excellent cards of various sorts at a farmer’s market a couple of weeks ago, and couldn’t help but buy a few.  If you can imagine a Romanophile Edward Gorey and some of his friends going into the card-design business…that’s more or less the idea.

Anyway, today I received a thank-you note from the first recipient of one of the cards I bought. She wanted to know more about the creators, which led me to their website:

http://www.archelaus-cards.com/

The website was clearly designed by the same people who designed the cards. It’s worth checking out even if you haven’t (or hadn’t previously) the slightest interest in greeting cards.

I was just perusing that occasionally invaluable Internet Anagram Server known as “I, rearrangement servant” when I followed a link that I’d never noticed before and stumbled upon The Anagram Times, a  blog composed of anagrams of headlines from major newspapers. So, for example:

Metro bridge collapses in Delhi = This rails problem needed logic

I won’t say that the submissions are all brilliant, but I enjoyed reading them, and I think I’m glad to know that such a site exists. And if you think you can do as well or better, apparently they’re looking for new reporters…

…for The Graveyard Book. The Washington Post has more details.

It’s always nice to see excellent genre authors gain acclaim in the mainstream literary world.

I’m starting a collaborative blog at http://craftsblog.wordpress.com, so that HRSFANS with an interest in arts and crafts can write about the various projects they’re working on, detailing their travails and displaying their triumphs for the benefit of friends who live far away. So far, we’ve got posts on origami, cabling, two-sided embroidery, crocheted potholders, and a gryphon tapestry.

I know there are lots of HRSFAlums out there who are interested in crafts of various sorts, and you’re all welcome to join in the fun. Whether you’re an expert or a dabbler,  whether your particular passion is portraiture, papier-mache, spinning, or smithing… we’d love to have you.

You have to join word-press in order to become a member of the blog (though fortunately, this is quite painless). If you’d like to be added, comment below and I’ll send you an invite.

Kibbitzers are also welcome. We’ve got an RSS feed, and are syndicated on livejournal as “hrsfanscrafts”.

Apparently the freshmen of Caltech’s Blacker Hovse have constructed a 1500 sq. feet Catan board, upon which they played a truly epic game during finals. The pictures are pretty impressive.

I’m not generally inclined to encourage people to buy stuff, but since By The Sword is having a holiday sale this week, I thought this might be an appropriate moment to mention that it’s a really fun site for those of us whose aesthetics are grounded in another century. It mostly sells anachronistic clothes and weapons, but it’s got lots of other interesting stuff too: goblets, jewelry, artwork, miniatures, musical instruments, “home decorations”, etc. It also sells collectable merchandise in various fantastical settings (e.g. LotR, Pirates of the Caribbean), and equipment for LARPs. Essentially, it’s a little bit like shopping at a ren faire online.

Anyway, if you like that sort of thing, it’s a neat place either to shop or (more usually for me) to browse.

I heard about this just last night: Reapo! The Genetic Opera. Amidst a 2067 epidemic of organ failure,  the MegaCorp GeneCo can sell you replacement organs…but if you don’t keep up on your payments, Repo Man will be dispatched to “repossess” them. Meanwhile, the show features Sarah Brightman, Paris Hilton, and no fewer than 61 musical numbers.

According to the wikipedia article, it’s been getting good reviews and has been able to expand its limited tour in the theaters due to higher-than-expected turnout.  But ultimately I’m not arguing that this show is good. I’m merely predicting that a certain subset of HRSFANS may find it irresistable. Apparently there’s a sound-track out already, and the DVD comes out in late January. If you see it, please report back!

Carl Warner’s art gallery is quite entertaining to peruse. His work is fairly wide-ranging, but the common theme seems to be the idea that ordinary things, once removed from the contexts in which we’re accustomed to seeing them, can surprise us: by their beauty, their hilarity, and their resemblance to other things with which we don’t often associate them.  It’s unfortunately not possible to link to specific images within the gallery, but I’d like to point your way to a couple.

Under the second page of “still life”, you can view a genuine “cook’s brain-pan”. I don’t know what Warner was thinking, but my immediate association with that image was the uncharacteristically Carollian, and never solved, conundrum from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Yeoman of the Guard:

JACK POINT: But before proceeding to a more serious topic, can you tell me, sir, why a cook’s brain-pain is like an overwound clock?

LIEUTENANT: A truce to this fooling–follow me.

JACK POINT: Just my luck; my best conundrum wasted!

The other objects on this page are equally interesting, if perhaps less evocative of light opera: a goldfish swimming in a blender, two fish in a toaster, and what appears to be a zinc-coated strawberry.

But these images pale beside Warner’s most singular achievement (found on page 1 of Fotographics): intricate landscapes crafted entirely out of food. They’re really something. When you load the page, you see a bucolic scene that is, if obviously not a photographic reproduction, a convincingly stylized interpretation–in terms of style, they remind me of nothing more than J.R.R. Tolkien’s drawings of Middle Earth (I can’t find an online collection, but see e.g. these). A few familiar things pop out: potatoes for rocks; broccoli for trees. And then you look again and see more: the gravel is made out of rice! And is that house carved out of cheese? Are the awnings peppers? You look again. The sky is made of lettuce! And the river of salmon!  The glorious moment you get from an optical illusion is the one where you look at something and suddenly see something else. I’ve only been looking at these pictures for a few minutes, but I haven’t stopped seeing another “something else” every time I look, and I don’t think I’m anywhere close.