May 24
I became aware of Led Zeppelin fanfic in the late 1990s when the web exploded with archive sites. To say I was surprised would be an understatement. I’d known of Star Trek fanfic for years, and Buffy, X-files, and Xena fanfic sites were all over the place. But Zep fanfic was a new thing, especially …
May 03
Above is a portrait of the most recent of Hungary’s exports: the Vizsla, wearing a traditional peasant outfit courtesy of AI art. The speedy, good-natured hunting dog joins the rank of other notable exports like paprika, ghoulash, video pioneer Ernie Kovacs, and Gene Simmons (by way of Israel) to name a few. Situated in Central …
Apr 26
Like the color green, the color yellow has a split personality. Yellow, and its cousin gold, can mean wealth, sunlight, cheer and happiness, even life itself. But it is also the color of sweat, feces and urine, cowardice and betrayal, just as green’s sour side is that of poison, jealousy, snot, and pus. Unlike green, …
Apr 19
Now that Spring is here, it’s entirely appropriate to talk about shades of green, and how they are named. Pictured above is a set of green PMS colors, once the standard for the printing industry. Basic colors of ink were mixed together to create the colors in the squares, which were referred to by …
Apr 12
Now let’s get down to what makes a Dark Acadamia setting truly dark: the secret societies! There are for students, and in the Ivy League schools, for the elitist of the elite. Dartmouth has its Sphinx Society, Princeton its 21 Club, and Yale, the most notorious one of all: The Skull and Bones, thrust into …
Apr 08
1959 by Fred Kaplan John Wilwy & Sons, Inc., 2009 [ #14 — Article free in ’23: Read a book whose title doesn’t contain “a” “an” or “the.” ] 1959 by Fred Kaplan is a sociopolitical history book about various events of that year that “broke the barriers” and opened up new frontiers in …
Apr 05
For some reason, there aren’t as many fictional colleges around as there are cities, states, and countries. Of them, Miskatonic University, H. P. Lovecraft’s creation and the setting for many of his stories, is the best known and detailed, even having a map. (I’d call those stories Dark Academia before the term existed, even though …
Mar 29
Dark Academia is one of those -punk subgenres/aesthetic styles, but without the punk in its name. It deals with, basically, anything you’d see at the site of a old, respectable university in Europe or the U.S. — a library full of weighty tomes and classic literature, old money, gothic architecture, dark wood, leather seats, well-kept …
Mar 22
On to the second part of the Western states! As promised, I am puncturing some cowboy myths. Cowboys didn’t always ride horses. They likely weren’t white. It was a career that attracted the outcasts of society, so many were black, Hispanic, mestizo, Native American, or of mixed race. It was not considered a fun or …
Mar 20
Ties that Bind Stories of Love & Gratitude from the First Ten Years of Story Corps by Dave Isay Penguin Books, 2013 [ #27 — Bits and pieces: An anthology (poetry, short stories, whatever). ] Ties That Bind, edited by David Isay is a collection of personal anecdotes from people who participated in the …