Elayne Riggs' Journal (for Leah)

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Rainy Day Blogaround

Really, so much time, so little to do -- Strike that. Reverse it. Onward:

• Mike Netzer is back from his latest Negev wanderings. I had to mention this first because I've been using "the netzer" today (that's our nickname for the umbrella that Mike gave me when he went back to Israel after his brief sojourn in the States a couple years back).

• Steve feels a draft coming on. As his ex-Navy Wife I have a slightly different perspective than he does, but I also know that he served (at least when we were married) during relatively safe times.

• Colleen Doran is running a contest, nifty prizes and all: First, familiarize yourself with her "What Are You Working On" thread, as that's where you'll need to enter your submission. "Take the time to post about what you are doing, if you are creating a new comic, working on music, writing a play, whatever you are up to, we want to hear about it. If you can provide web links too, that would be great. This is a chance for you to share your work. You may post more than once, you may talk about more than one project. Then jaunt over to the 'Recommend It' thread and pick at least ONE nifty item one of your fellow posters has presented, and if you can, pick at least ONE other cool creative thing to discuss." Here's the money part: "$250 CREATOR GRANT for whatever the heck it is gets posted that tickles my fancy the most." The deadline for submissions is September 15. Post early and often!

• Val D'Orazio has decided to live up to her blog's name of only being an occasional superheroine, and branch out into blogging about whatever strikes her fancy. Although she will still tackle comics from a feminist viewpoint, as with her latest post about the current situation at DC Comics, it won't be her only topic. This saddens folks like Heidi Meeley, herself no mean slouch at feminist musings, but I can get behind it because it's the kind of thing I've always done. I'm a comics blogger AND a political blogger AND a photo blogger AND a cat blogger AND a lot of other things. Maybe us nicheless bloggers can band together and create some sort of Uncategorizable Club or something...

• Leigh Dragoon is warning all artists not to get too emotionally attached to their brushes. As far as I know, Robin's relationship with his tools is strictly platonic.

• Lis Riba is compilling a list of Shakespeare comedy videos. As far as I recall, Firesign never did record Anythynge You Want To on its own, but I do seem to remember an abbreviated version included with other material on a recent DVD; any help out there from Firesigny friends?

• Chris Weston runs into an old nemesis whose behavior makes him rethink his earlier animosity. I loved this tale.

• Did Lisa Rein hear what she thought she heard -- definitive confirmation that Karl Rove committed treason?

• Hope you've been following Marie Javins' saga of Teshkeel's Egyptian office. Looks like all's well that ends well, at least for now. Marie also has a food post, which I adore. Cat Simril Ishikawa has tons of food posts as he's just returned from Japan; here's part 1, part 2, part 3 (seafood) and part 4 (drinks). All come with a hefty side order of photos.

• Melissa Krause sums up very nicely why suggesting to women (to anyone, really) who prefer a specific comics genre but want to read better stories that they should try a different genre never works; and Rachel Edidin claims that everything she knows about diversity, she learned from superhero comics. Me, I learned that all British people eventually use the phrase "Lord love a duck."

• Martin Wisse at Pacific Views hits the nail on the head about the black eye some performance art gives to actual activism. I have only very rarely had any tolerance whatsoever for performance art; I think most of it's horribly self-indulgent, humorless and pretentious.

• Speaking of humorless, it seems an author who is probably an Intelligent Design-type creationist in disguise, and is also quite litigation-happy, is suing my favorite militant atheist, PZ Myers, because Paul gave his book a couple bad reviews. The ever-diligent Teresa Nielsen-Hayden has all the details. Silly rabbit, it's not defamation if I state my opinion that your book sucks, and the closest PZ ever comes to a personal insult is to call the ID-in-disguise guy a crackpot. Which he certainly seems to be.

• Yes, it's that time of year already, and Laurie at Ask The Blondes reminisces about her school days when she knew she'd never be one of the cool kids. Ah, takes me back. I was about as uncool as they got. I probably still am, but I have cool friends now, so that helps a lot.

• Chris Clarke puts a name to what I've been feeling a lot lately -- an odd mortal twinge. It hit hard last week what with the deaths of Mike Wieringo and then Phil Rizzuto, the latter of which served to remind me vividly of so many times Dad and I watched baseball games on TV. I remember Rizzuto, White and Messer calling Yankee games before I even remember McCarver doing Mets games.

• This has been another edition of What Digby Said, both about news management and about the deliberate dismantling of infrastructure safety by people who don't much like government but adore power.

• Also, What Melissa Said about the real terrorists. I can't emphasize this enough, people: Get your politicians to define their terms. Don't let them get away with buzzwords and slogans. Ask them for their exact definition of "freedom" and "support the troops" and "family values" and "terrorism." They may not (they probably don't) define things the same way you and I might.

Lastly, DC solicits for November are out. Robin will be inking this one.

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