I don’t mean to alarm anyone here, but sometimes I can sound like an old man bitching about how things today stink.  Usually I am aware of my behavior and I ham it up a little.  I like sounding like a bitter old man.  However today’s Opinions Vary is a very different beast.  I actually and truly believe the following.
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I prefer practical special effects over digital effects.
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I know that they are more time consuming.  I know that we’ve reached beyond the tipping point and practical effects are more expensive.  I know that the business side of movie making has little or nothing to do with pleasing the audience and is about minimizing costs.  I don’t care.  Massive amounts of CGI combined with lighting effects and fake backdrops take me out of movies.

I understand that there are some effects that cannot be done by practical means.  I also understand that part of exploring new ideas is to find something that works better.  However, I think that digital special effects are best used to compliment practical effects.  The best examples I can give for both are Star Wars.

In the original cuts of A New Hope, Empire, and Jedi, practical effects and digital effects are blended perfectly.  I really believed that there were space ships that could fire lasers.  I believed that Laser swords existed and could cut through everything.  I really believed that Obi-Wan was a benevolent spirit sent to help Luke.

In the prequels, the universe felt stale, sterile, and uninhabited despite all the CGI creatures walking around.  The space ships felt too fake because they were made on a computer, not built in model form.  There is something about being able to physically touch something, the tactile response, that can’t be simulated.  This principle even comes through when on screen.  Light sabers weren’t fun anymore because they were out every 5 seconds.  There’s no mystique about them in the prequels.  If you lived on Boob Island, where clothing above the waist is illegal, boobs would get old fast.  I only want to visit Boob Island, not live there.

I don’t want to beat a dead horse by comparing the prequels to the OG trilogy.  The problem is that we have more Star Wars coming at us by a man (J.J. Abrams) who is all in on the CGI.  While that may have worked for Star Trek, I hope he has a different approach to Star Wars.

Moving along, I’m going to close on the REAL reason I chose this topic.  On May 7^th of this year, a mere 3 weeks ago, Ray Harryhausen passed away at the ripe old age of 92.  For those of you unfamiliar with his work, he was a special effects artist who began his professional career in the 1940’s and kept going strong until his retirement in 1981.  He was a master of blending stop motion miniatures and live action film.  For those of us that were raised on films like Clash of the Titans, Jason and the Argonauts, and the Sinbad movies (the pirate, not the comedian), he certainly had a special place in our hearts.  It also doesn’t hurt that he and Ray Bradbury were close friends.  I would have murdered babies with my bare hands to sit in on a conversation between the two.

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So where do your loyalties lie?  Are you dazzled by computer effects to the point that you are drooling out of the side of your mouth in anticipation for more?  Or do you enjoy a more practical, realistic approach to effects and cringe every time you see over polished and perhaps out of place CGI?

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Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby‘s been in theaters for a couple weeks, and it is a truly divisive talking-point amongst moviegoers. While some appreciate the sleek visuals and pervading splendor, others believe that the film isn’t grounded enough to give a fair representation of the novel. No matter which camp you find yourself in, chances’re good that if you’ve read the book or seen the movie you’ve spent some time slinging ideas about.

Such is my situation.

Allow me to be forthright – I believe that The Great Gatsby is an absolutely perfect novel. I’ve spent countless hours reading, discussing, and writing about Fitzgerald’s magnum opus, and yet I still find myself stumbling into new terrain. Of course, whenever I think I’ve find a rock worth turning over, I make a point to shout at anyone who’ll listen.

A couple years ago I posted Nick Carra-Gay?, an exploration of the possibility that the novel’s narrator is gay. Whether or not you go for the theory, it generated some great conversation.

In the hopes of generating similar discussions, I’ve taken a grad school paper I’ve just completed and rearranged it for the OL audience. Give it a read and then hit up the comments section to share your thoughts. I’m not sure if my argument’s got legs to stand on, but at the very least it’s evocative.

After all, the idea at hand is that Jay Gatsby is actually a black guy.

I now present – The Great Blacksby – The Literary Hero You Never Noticed.

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Since its release in 1925, The Great Gatsby has been regarded as an absolute masterpiece, a true exemplar of American literature. In the collective mind of the popular audience, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s seminal work is worthy of admiration because it is an incredibly well-written Jazz Age piece about one man’s attempt to escape socioeconomic conditions (by which so many are shackled indefinitely) so as to win the affection of his dream girl. From this perspective, the novel is an examination of not only the power of love, but also classed inequity and the hunt for the ever-elusive American dream.

While this superficial reading of the text (risqué-enough-to-intrigue and innocuous-enough-not-to-offend) allows for high school English departments and film studios to continuing investing time and money into the novel, digging into the more deeply ensconced content proves to be a far more illuminating endeavor.

Once a reader recognizes the crafty subversion of the Jay Gatsby alter-ego, it becomes clear that this is a novel dedicated to exploring the nature of elusive self-constructions.

The implication currently at hand is that by investigating the ways in which the characters of The Great Gatsby are presented, present themselves, and perceive one another, one may come to see that the novel fits comfortably on the bookshelf typically reserved for Harlem Renaissance fiction. In other words – F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece is a passing novel.

Consider, for a moment, the idea that even a surface-reading can establish the titular figure as one who is passing. After all, one of the biggest revelations of the novel is the fact that Jay Gatsby, millionaire playboy and old money-extraordinaire, actually spent his nascent years as James Gatz, poverty-stricken farm boy. It was only after Gatz made the conscious decision to change his identity that he was able to thrust himself into the criminal underground and attain his fortune.

Without this new persona, there would have been no access to the life he so desperately sought. Now once this context is established, it is anything but a huge leap to see Gatsby passing not just in terms of class, but race as well.

So if gay-Carraway is our appetizer, then the main course is black-Gatsby.

Delving even further into the rabbit-hole, the most intriguing notion of all is that Gatsby and Carraway are not performing constructed identities for other characters, but for readers as well. Perhaps The Great Gatsby is so poignant because there are multiple constructions operating at once, and these can be unconsciously felt even if they are not consciously identified.

At the risk of coming across as crass, one might discuss the possibility that Gatsby and Carraway are actually the safe, innocuous secret identities of Blacksby and Carragay – figures that average readers love to engage with, even if they don’t know it.

But to uncork such a lofty tasting of Fitzgerald’s prose-wine, it is wise to first begin by examining a moment in which the novel explicitly reveals its implicit dissidence. While driving across a bridge into the heart of New York City with Jay Gatsby, narrator Nick Carraway takes note of a sight that he finds most unusual. He recalls, “As we crossed Blackwells Island a limousine passed us, driven by a white chauffeur, in which sat three modish Negroes, two bucks and a girl. I laugh aloud as the yolks of their eyeballs rolled toward us in haughty rivalry” (Fitzgerald 73).

Nick finds this to be a curious moment because the sighted automobile represents a subversion of the racial hierarchy of the times, with the white chauffeur catering to the black passengers. However, this simple observation of novelty is transformed into a proclamation of possibility, as Nick continues, “‘Anything can happen now that we’ve slid over this bridge,’ I thought…Even Gatsby could happen without any particular wonder” (Fitzgerald 73).

Although taking up no more than a half-page of space, this moment is absolutely rife with the subtext that intimates to the reader that The Great Gatsby may very well be a passing novel of the same ilk as those produced by the writers of the Harlem Renaissance. After all, the parallel being drawn is between Jay Gatsby and the black passengers. And yes, it is true that one could present the counterargument that Nick comments on the carful of African Americans being driven about by a white man simply as a means of conveying the unusual, near-impossible quality of Jay Gatsby’s self-fashioning. But the consequent rejoinder is that Nick could have chosen any far-fetched-but-possible scene to serve as a parallel for Gatsby’s ascension, but ultimately chose one of black passengers being driven by (i.e., having dominance over) a white chauffeur. As a result, deep within the reader’s mind a seed is planted that begins to sprout the suggestion that perhaps, just maybe, Jay Gatsby is not just like those black citizens who have managed to succeed within a white world, but that he is such a black citizen.

Before forging ahead with the premise that Jay Gatsby is the construction of a black man who is passing in terms of race, it is useful to first reaffirm the fact that the figure is passing in terms of class. Through the voice of Nick Carraway, Fitzgerald informs his readers that the air of resplendent mystery surrounding Jay Gatsby is rooted in origins of the most humble sort. Nick describes the life lived as James Gatz: “His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people – his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all…So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end” (Fitzgerald 104). This account is enlightening on a number of fronts, explaining that “Jay Gatsby” is not only a guise, but one conjured into existence by an individual of the most idealistic sort.

A teenager.

In an archetypal teen’s mind, still relatively unfettered and devoid of “practical” considerations, anything is possible. To James Gatz, this means shedding the skin of an indigent farmer from North Dakota and becoming something more.

And to a confused black kid of the early 1900s, the misleading more might be white.

Although the keeping of secrets and dissemination of misinformation is at the heart of any tale of shrouded identity, passing novels are marked by the specific application of these aspects to the obfuscation of physically-identifiable racial qualities. In Nella Larsen’s Passing, there is absolutely no doubt that Clare Kendry is able to ingratiate herself into the privileged white echelons by manipulating her racially-ambiguous physical characteristics.

…she’d always had that pale gold hair, which, unsheared still, was drawn loosely back from a broad brow, partly hidden by the small close hat…The face across the forehead and cheeks was a trifle too wide, but the ivory skin had a peculiar soft lustre. And the eyes were magnificent! dark…Surely! They were Negro eyes! mysterious and concealing. And set in that ivory faceunder bright hair, there was about them something exotic. (Larsen 28-9)

This scene depicts a moment of clarity for Irene, who is astounded to realize the ease with which Clare shapeshifts phenotypically, simply by downplaying those characteristics which would be likely to “out” her as African American. Moreover, Irene is advantaged in that she knows Clare is passing; as a result, she is able to distinguish between the shrouded features (i.e. the eyes) and the highlighted features (i.e. fair skin and blonde hair). Consequently, it is Irene’s position that one would hope to assume if attempting to detect an individual with agency to move between racial identifications.

As such, when readers exchange their comfortable, hegemonic lenses in favor of those of a savvier, more racially-aware composition, perhaps the very style worn by Irene Redfield, Jay Gatsby is read as having phenotypical traits that out him as passing. Nick, observing a clear view of Gatsby for the first time, states that “His tanned skin was drawn attractively tight on his face and his short hair looked as though it were trimmed every” (Fitzgerald 54). Why is it that Nick chooses to identify Gatsby by his skin color and hair styling? Well, perhaps it is because these are the characteristics, even more than his hidden origins or ghostlike vanishing acts, suggesting that an act of passing is underway. As is the case with Clare Kendry, Gatsby’s black traits are only observable by those who are on the lookout for them; since Nick Carraway himself is passing (we will get to that in a bit), he is able to see that Gatsby’s skin is more than just tanned, and his hair must be trimmed every day so as to avoid the texture which would associate him with African Americans.

Granted, one could argue that this illustration of Gatsby’s skin and hair could be no more than a reflection of where the character was at that juncture of his life – sun-kissed by summer days and wealthy enough to be professionally groomed on a daily basis. However, the night before his murder, Gatsby mentions that he never used his pool once during the summer, which (although not proving) suggests that his skin tone may not be a product of sun exposure (Fitzgerald 161). Furthermore, even the seventeen year old incarnation of the character is described as having anything but fair skin, as the narrator declares that Gatsby had a “brown, hardening body…” (Fitzgerald 104).

Given the prominence of color-use The Great Gatsby – the green light on the Buchanans’ dock, the yellow murder-mobile, the ash-grey denizens of the Valley of Ashes – the repeated sketching of Jay with darker hues must be examined thoroughly.

With allure of a passing novel being tied into the self-fashioned character’s ability to pull wool over eyes, there is always the potential for conflict in an antagonist’s discovery of the ruse. Passing makes tremendous use of this potential by having Clare Kendry be married to Bellew, a vitriolic man with an intense hatred of African Americans. Larsen’s narrative device is especially adept at eliciting tension, as Clare is thrust out of the frying pan and directly into the fire; it is with disconcerting nonchalance that Bellew makes public statements such as “I draw the line at that. No niggers in my family. Never have been and never will be…I don’t dislike them, I hate them…They give me the creeps. The black scrimy devils” (40).

As might be expected, Clare’s trajectory into white culture is wavered with her husband’s discovery of her mixed ethnicity playing a role. Unfortunately, Bellew’s run-of-the-mill racism pales in comparison to the abhorrence he projects after learning about Clare. Bellew smashes into the room his wife is in, allowing his hatred to escalate into new terrain as he screams, “‘So you’re a nigger, a damned dirty nigger!’ His voice was a snarl and a moan, an expression rage and of pain” (Larsen 111). With this occurring only moments before Clare fatally plunges out of a window, the corollary is that a passing individual is killed – spiritually, emotionally, or even literally- when discovered.

If a racist character utterly aghast upon learning of an acquaintance’s ethnicity can be said to facilitate the narrative of a passing novel, then Tom Buchanan does wonders for The Great Gatsby. Much like Passing’s Bellew, Tom Buchanan’s very introduction establishes him as a veritable manifestation of racism, a virtual representative of the dominant culture from which he spawned. Nick notes that Tom’s physical presence emits an aura of subjugation, narrating,

Two shining, arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body…It was a body capable of enormous leverage – a cruel body. (11)

This portrait of prejudice incarnate is complemented by an emphatic dinnertime conversation in which Tom attributes all of society’s woes to a failing of the white race to successfully oppress all others. He goes on to tell his guests that his beliefs are supported by a book he read, asserting that “‘…everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don’t look out the white race will be – will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved…It’s up to use who are the dominant race to watch out or these other races will have control of things’” (17).

In a straight-forward reading of Gatsby, Tom’s pseudoscientific beliefs are written off as another expression of Tom’s status as a member of the over-privileged elite, just one more means reaffirming his conviction that he belongs atop everybody else. Moreover, the responses Tom elicits with his ranting about race show the reader that nobody is on board with him – Nick says nothing, Jordan Baker tries to change the subject, and his wife Daisy makes fun of him.

But what if Daisy chides her husband not just because she is in a loveless marriage and cannot stand him, but because she has actually loved a member of one of the races Tom detests. If Daisy Buchanan did not marry Jay Gatsby because he was not (only) poor but black, there is a whole deeper level of pathos to the narrator’s observation of how she responds to her husband: “‘Tom’s getting very profound,’ said Daisy with an expression of unthoughtful sadness” (17).

Approaching from this vantage point, the sadness experienced is not just a product of marital discontent or general exasperation, but Daisy’s deeply-rooted (maybe even unconscious) knowledge that the lost love of her life is African American. To reframe, the idea is that not only does Daisy have to live with the fact that she sold her soul for a life of luxury, the Devil she dealt with unknowingly reminds her of this simply by spouting off his bigoted nonsense.

Just like John Bellew, Tom Buchanan sees his fermenting intolerance explode after getting hip to the truth. It is towards the beginning of the seventh chapter, right after Tom realizes that his wife has been sleeping with Gatsby, that he tells Jordan and Nick he has investigated Gatsby’s past.

After spending much of the chapter getting frustrated in the heat of a summer’s day in New York City, the characters have a tumultuous showdown in which Tom reveals that he knows of the affair, and then shares some of the secrets about Gatsby that he has uncovered. Although Tom does not explicitly accuse Gatsby of passing, his response to Daisy’s attempt to calm him down is incredibly telling. It is at this juncture that Tom screams, “‘Nowadays people begin by sneering at family life and family institutions and next they’ll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white’” (137). Tom, an adulterer known to cross socioeconomic strata in his affairs, is not vehement because Daisy is cheating on him, nor because she is cheating on him with someone of humble origins, but because she is having sex with Gatsby…and he’s black.

And this is the inspiration that allows Tom to intuitively, reflexively, unabashedly point George Wilson’s bloodlust towards the mansion across the water.

So why is it that the popular discussion of Jay Gatsby’s cunning duplicity always ends with the “rags to riches by any means” conclusion? How come those who teach The Great Gatsby never ask students to go one step further when examining Carraway’s narrative reliability, into the terrain of the sexual?

Well, perhaps it is because these conversations can be extremely uncomfortable, opening up cans of worms that many would rather keep shut. However, there is also the chance that average reader does not look at Gatsby as black and Carraway as gay because the characters are masterful in their deceptions, fooling not only others in the text but those who hold the text in their hands – the popular audience. But this does not mean that the deception isn’t occurring, or even that these readers will never be able to spot it – they just need to know what to look for. In Passing Irene could spot Clare’s methods, and in The Great Gatsby Nick could see through Gatsby’s subterfuge, and in time more readers may be able to join in.

At the end of the day, The Great Gatsby is a wonderful story presented in elegant prose, and it can be celebrated as such. However, anyone who reads the tale, whether or not they know it, becomes a witness to acts of passing that may challenge fragile sensibilities. The truth is that the most triumphant act of passing that F. Scott Fitzgerald is not that of James Gatz becoming Jay Gatsby. While this is a certainly a great bit of plot-twisting, even Gatsby’s cunning deception looks childish when put next to the one Fitzgerald sank deep within the subtext. Even if readers don’t realize it, or aren’t willing to accept it upon realizing it, the true heroes of The Great Gatsby are a pair of literary iconoclasts, structure-defying rogues who attempt to fashion their existences into the stuff of dreams.

The heroes of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece are Blacksby and Carragay.

Amazon is going to begin publishing fanfiction through Kindle Worlds, which is an offshoot of their self-publishing arm. I don’t write fanfiction, though I do appreciate both its authors and the idea of it. So I don’t know if I’m the best one to weigh in on this shit, so I will stae that I like the idea of these talented folk being recognized. Or not recognized. You know, based on the quality of their work.

The Verge:

Despite being a driving source of interest in books, films, or TV shows, fanfiction faces an uncertain reaction from authors. Some have embraced it, others have tacitly accepted it, and a few have lashed out at fanfiction writers. But so far, virtually no one has done what bookseller Amazon now promises: offered to pay them for writing in other people’s universes. “Kindle Worlds,” announced just now, is an offshoot of Amazon’s Kindle self-publishing program. Fanfiction authors can submit their work to Amazon and, if they’re accepted, receive royalties when they’re sold on the Kindle Store. To get around the problem of selling works that likely infringe on another author’s copyright, though, Amazon will pay another royalty: to the authors of the original work, who have granted a blanket license.

Depending on your definition, plenty of fanfiction has made its way onto the bookshelves or even the bestseller list. Authors have won the right to publish critical reinterpretations of books like Gone with the Wind, and the notorious 50 Shades of Grayseries started out as Twilight fanfiction. But the latter did so only after significant rewrites and the removal of anything that could directly tie the two series together. Kindle Worlds, by contrast, will launch “soon” and allow direct fanfiction written for three Warner Brothers series: Gossip Girl,Pretty Little Liars, and The Vampire Diaries; more licenses are planned for the future. Fanfiction authors will receive 35 percent royalties on full-length works and 20 percent for shorter ones.

The fact that these works are officially licensed means that there are also stricter guidelines than authors would find on an unofficial repository like Fanfiction.net. Most prominently, there’s no way to write crossover fanfiction, which combines characters or settings from multiple works. Pornographic content and anything containing “racial slurs, excessively graphic or violent material, or excessive use of foul language” is also forbidden. As the program advances, other issues will likely arise. After all, even if they’re happy to have other writers adapt their work, authors will likely have limits to what they’re comfortable seeing in print.

Update: OL contributor RC has pointed me in the direction of this link, which explains why this whole Amazon publishing fanfics thing is fucking terrible. As I said, I really don’t know enough about the community and such.

Man, General Zod has a serious hate-stiffy for old Clark. Homeboy makes it pretty clear in this trailer he is willing to trash tons of us squishy homosapiens just to get old Kent out of hiding. The result? A pretty fucking wicked trailer, replete with all sorts of ‘splosions.

Microsoft is engaging in some serious fucking Obi-Wan speak when it comes to whether or not their new console requires an always-on Internet connection. It doesn’t. But does. You don’t have to be connected. But you have to connect everyday. I can’t keep track of this fucking stupidity. And yes I think requiring people to connect daily for a single-player game is fucking dumb.

Kotaku:

The Xbox One doesn’t have to be online all the time, but it does have to be online. Not just once in a while—once a day, according to Microsoft vice president Phil Harrison.

In a Q&A on their press site for the new Xbox, Microsoft tackles the always-on question with a strangely-worded answer: “No, it does not have to be always connected, but Xbox One does require a connection to the Internet.”

At the event in Redmond today, Kotaku boss Stephen Totilo asked Phil Harrison for clarification on this. And what Harrison told us might not please people who enjoy playing Xbox on military bases or other locations without Internet.

“There are many devices in your life that require the Internet to function,” he said. “Xbox One is no different in that it requires, at some point in the beginning and at various times through its on state, to connect to our cloud and to our Internet. That is to deliver Xbox Live functionality, that is to deliver download content to you, that is to deliver some of the innovations around TV and entertainment that we showed today. But it doesn’t require it to be online all the time.”

So how often does it check your connection? “Depends on the experience,” Harrison said.

“For single-player games that don’t require connectivity to Xbox Live, you should be able to play those without interruption should your Internet connection go down. Blu-ray movies and other downloaded entertainment should be accessible when your Internet connection may be interrupted. But the device is fundamentally designed to be expanded and extended by the Internet as many devices are today.”

And here’s the bombshell:

Kotaku: If I’m playing a single player game, do I have to be online at least once per hour or something like that? Or can I go weeks and weeks?

Harrison: I believe it’s 24 hours.

Kotaku: I’d have to connect online once every day.

Harrison: Correct.

So the system is built to work even if your Internet connection goes down, but you still have to be connected at least once a day to use it, according to Harrison. We’re not sure exactly what would happen if you don’t connect once per day—and that timeframe could change—but this doesn’t sound good for anyone who was hoping to use Xbox One without an Internet connection.

Pretty outstanding cosplay right here. No word on whether or not she was sanctioned by her parents to walk around yelling, “Fuck Jack Kirby!” That would have cinched it right there.

Fashionably Geek:

This little girl just won the internet. She was spotted dressed as the Generalissimo himself, Stan Lee, at Motor City Comic Con last weekend. I hope we start seeing her cameos in the next Marvel movie.

(Cosmic Brownie via bobdobalina)

What we know about the Xbox One: no backwards compatability. Used games…for a fee. And it ain’t always on.

Hit the jump for deets.

Kotaku:

The Verge reports that Xbox One will not be backward compatible with Xbox 360 titles. That is according to Mark Whitten, Microsoft’s vice president for Xbox Live.

When asked if Xbox One will be able to play 360 titles over Xbox Live, or by downloading them, or by some means other than a disc, Whitten said the company had no plans for such a service at this time.

“The system is based on a different core architecture, so back-compat doesn’t really work from that perspective,” Whitten told The Verge.

Xbox One will not be backwards compatible with Xbox 360 games [The Verge]

The Verge:

One of the big rumors leading up to the new Xbox One announcement was the possibility of Microsoft forcing gamers to keep the console connected to the internet. Microsoft saysthat while the Xbox One requires an internet connection, “it does not have to be always connected.” The difference means that Xbox One players won’t be restricted from gaming if a connection drops. “We are also designing it so you can play games and watch Blu-ray movies and live TV if you lose your connection,” says Microsoft.

Despite the system not requiring it, developers will be able to create games that will not play offline. Wired reports that games will be able to hook into Microsoft’s Azure cloud services with a lack of offline support, but there is no requirement for them to do so yet. A second part to the always online rumor was some type of activation system that prevents used games. Microsoft says it’s “designing Xbox One to enable customers to trade in and resell games,” and promises to offer more details in future. Wired has some additional details, noting that secondary use of a game disc will require a fee so that it will be marked and owned and can be played without the disc — something the Xbox One supports natively.

The next generation of Call of Duty has arrived. It has dog.

You like specs? They’re just numbers to me. Hope they mean more to you.

Kotaku:

Microsoft’s Marc Whitten just lifted the hood on the Xbox One’s technical specifications. In short: 8 gigs of RAM, USB 3.0, Wi-Fi Direct, a Blu-Ray disc drive, 64-bit architecture and “practically silent operation.”

Kinect 2.0 also gets a substantial upgrade. Whitten promised the integrated camera will have a wider field of view, and the sensor will be able to detect more joints, to include rotation of wrists and shoulders. “When you are exercising it can read your heartbeat.”

Hey look at it. [Will be updating throughout the day.]

Game of Thrones has itself an end date. Some Producer Person from the show has proclaimed that the pop culture favorite about pieces of shit being pieces of shit over an ass-chaffing chair will run no longer than seven seasons.

io9:

We’ve all been wondering how the Game of Thrones TV show will end. Will George R.R. Martin finish the book series in time? Will HBO try to pad it out? Will it be canceled? Now we have an answer — assuming all goes well. the show will last seven seasons, according to producer Frank Doelger.

From Rolling Stone:

“[The number of series] is being discussed as we speak. The third season was the first half of book three, season four will be the second part of book three. . . George R.R. Martin has written books four and five; six and seven are pending,” Doelger told Radio Times at the BAFTA Awards last weekend. “I would hope that, if we all survive and if the audience stays with us, we’ll probably get through to seven seasons.”

This is absolutely a good thing, but the gent at Rolling Stone worries about cramming the events of the fourth and fifth books, A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons, into one season. I wouldn’t worry; the show will almost certainly use some of AFfC and ADwD‘s storylines in season 4, to make sure all the main characters have a story arc; more to the point,AFfC and ADwD are essentially one long book, oddly separated, and are mostly a repositioning of the pieces (if you will) for the final act.

Claws and effect? I’m on fire! No, literally. I have engulfed myself in flames after that pun. This post is being typed in a final, zen-like state as I suffer immolation.

NASA is funding a 3D food printer, folks. Coupled with dietary experts from’Murica, the aim is to get cheese poofs and pizza into the gullets of astronauts. And eventually the world. (This is actually all sorts of amazing.)

The Verge:

NASA is funding research into 3D-printed food. Mechanical engineer Anjan Contractor received a $125,000 grant from the agency to build a prototype 3D printer with the aim of automating food creation. It’s hoped the system could provide astronauts food during long-distance space travel, but its creator has the loftier aim of solving the increasing food shortages around the world by cutting down on waste. The software for the printer will be open-source, while the hardware is based on the open-source RepRap Mendel 3D printer.

The concept is to use basic “building blocks” of food in replaceable powder cartridges. By combining each block, a wide range of foods should be able to be created by the printer. The cartridges will have a lifespan of 30 years, more than long enough to enable long-distance space travel. After proving his system works on a basic level by printing chocolate, Contractor will start his project within the next few weeks by attempting to print a pizza.

 As Quartz reveals, the pizza printer will first print a layer of dough, which will be cooked while being printed, before mixing tomato powder with water and oil to print a tomato sauce. The topping for the pizza will be a nondescript “protein layer.” It’s early days for the project, but if it’s successful it would be a real milestone on the way towards a Star Trek-style Replicator.

Check out teenage Ray Bradbury hanging out with the famous movie star Marlene Dietrich. The visionary used to hunt down famous people on his roller skates. You can’t make this sort of shit up. Old Uncle Ray with immaculate game. Or creepy stalking tendencies. However you want to cut it.

io9:

In this picture, you can see the fifteen-year-old Ray Bradbury — long before his famous author days — posing with the incredible movie star and singer Marlene Dietrich. How did this happen?

Over on Dangerous Minds, Tara McGinley contextualizes this odd coupling with a few telling quotes from interviews that Bradbury did over the years. He told Playboy that he’d moved to Hollywood with his family when he was fourteen, and that he loved to chase down movie stars on his roller skates:

I was madly in love with Hollywood . . . I skated all over town, hell-bent on getting autographs from glamorous stars. It was glorious. I saw big MGM stars such as Norma Shearer, Laurel and Hardy, Ronald Coleman. Or I’d spend all day in front of Paramount or Columbia, then zoom over to the Brown Derby to watch the stars coming or going. I’d see Cary Grant, Marlene Dietrich, Fred Allen, Burns and Allen—whoever was on the Coast. Mae West made her appearance—bodyguard in tow—every Friday night.

In a LIFE interview, he added:

I still have my autographs and a few roller skate ball bearings left over from those days so long ago. Almost all of the people I met then are gone, but miraculously Marlene and George have survived. The light that comes out of these pictures is a constant rerun of my life as a somewhat silly but always loving boy, terribly reluctant to enter manhood.

Man, we have all sorts of fancy lights and shit these days to view the cosmos. Dropping violet lights on Sol in order to view its activity isn’t even special anymore. Let us use the various lenses and thingies and whatever to view sunspots. Let us use technology I can’t grasp to behold the source of our light.

NASA:

Our Sun is not a giant blueberry. Our Sun can be made to appear similar to the diminutive fruit, however, by imaging it in a specific color of extreme violet light called CaK that is emitted by the very slight abundance of ionized Calcium in the Sun’s atmosphere, and then false color-inverting the image. This solar depiction is actually scientifically illuminating as a level of the Sun’s chromosphere appears quite prominent, showing a crackly textured surface, cool sunspots appearing distinctly bright, and surrounding hot active regions appearing distinctly dark. The Sun is currently near the maximum activity level in its 11 year cycle, and has emittedpowerful flares over the past week. During times of high activity, streams of energetic particles from Sun may impact the Earth’s magnetosphere and set off spectacular auroras.

Warren Ellis is dropping an ebook on June 15 called Dead Pig Collector. Ben Templesmith is providing cover art for this son of a bitch, and it is gorgeous.

Robot 6:

Warren Ellis has a new ebook debuting June 15 called Dead Pig Collector, and Sunday, via his Machine Vision email list, he revealed the book’s cover, by his Fell collaborator Ben Templesmith.

Dead Pig Collector, Ellis says, is “a love story. It is also about killing people and effectively disposing of their bodies.” Check out the complete cover after the jump.

Oh golly, that shameless pun. Here’s a first look of J-Law as Mystique in X-Men: Days of Future Past. If I’m being real, I’l cop to forgetting that she is involved in this franchise. And what an errant fuck that makes me. Anyways, enough of my blathering. Hit the jump for blue goodness.

/Film:

Your daily dose of Marvel Mutant Mayhem isn’t really much as far as mayhem goes, but if you’re a big fan of body paint then this one is going to go over well. Producer/director Bryan Singer is hip-deep in X-Men: Days of Future Past at the moment, and has been tweeting occasional photos of his cast as they make their way to set. Today he offers up a shot of Jennifer Lawrence in full-on makeup and paint as the shape-shifting mutant Mystique

Are you lowly spunk-dwelling peons even ready for this shit? I highly doubt it, so I’m recommending that you brace yourselves, for you see, the next-generation XBOX reveal is almost upon us and, due to my illustrious industry connections, I have some exclusive news nuggets that are so exclusive -  you’ll find yourself questioning their validity.

Are you braced?

BOOM! – EARTH-SHATTERING REVEAL FACT NO. 1

You thought this next console was going to leave physical media in the dust and hi-tail it to the cloud? WRONG! Fucking idiot! The cloud is for dicks, so the new XBOX is going to run games from a separate, earth-shattering 100TB hard-drive. The drive will require a permanent internet connection and features an on-board 3D printer that will spew out your chosen games onto cool-as-shit little credit card type things that you feed your XBOX. This conveniently brings me onto..

BOOM! – EARTH-SHATTERING REVEAL FACT NO. 2

The next XBOX will also require 24-hour around-the-clock love and care. Your XBOX will require sustenance via data stored within game cards and MS SNAX. These amusing food-like objects, purchased with the new form of MS Points,  will utilise the 3D printer to allow you to create snacks and even full meals for your ever-hungry XBOX. The machine even lets off a characteristic little ‘Yum!’ as you tease each data-crammed morsel into its ever-hungry data tray. This conveniently leads me onto…

BOOM! – EARTH-SHATTERING REVEAL FACT NO. 3

If it eats, it poops. Needless to say, the next XBOX will defecate frequently and in immense quantities. Never to fear, as the console will come packaged with a degradable fecal data tray. The trays, which will have to be replaced monthly (estimated to be around $14.95 each), must be disposed of at your nearest nuclear disposal facility. Never say that XBOX isn’t green!

BOOM! – EARTH-SHATTERING REVEAL FACT NO. 4

Motherfucking games! Oh, you thought the hardware reveal was going to solely be about techno-pooping and data nuggets? Think again! The games are where it’s at, you dumb turd! Right now, just for you, because I pity your lack of insider knowledge, I’m going to share with you some of the exclusive software line-up.

CAR GAME 6: In Car Game 6 you drive cars of varying classes around various locations. The aim of the game is to win all of the races by coming in first place (this means that other cars do not win). Once you have won all the races you will be the owner of lots of cars which you can then race with. FUCK!

Sports Game 2013: In Sports Game 13 you take control of a SPORTS TEAM that must defeat the opposing SPORTS TEAM at a particular SPORT. You must do this by being better and scoring more. Once you have scored the most and beaten all of the other teams at sport you will then, and only then, be champion.

Call Of Duty: Sky Bastard: COD Sky Bastard eschews the traditional COD format with earth-shattering form. You take control of disgruntled marine and you must shoot all of the bad guys in order to overcome your FEELINGS. The feelings you feel are that shooting people is largely bad but sometimes you can shoot certain people because they are worse than you. You shoot with GUNS.

Living-room Fuckwittery: LRFW for short, will bring the next XBOX into an all-new era of casual gaming. It will, literally, transform your social life. LRFW will utilise the new Kinect (re-named Kinext) and will ask you to move around in all sorts of ways. By moving you will have more fun and it will help distract you from the tired conversations most 30-somethings who think Kinect is in any way a good idea are now positively suicidal over the thought of. Mortgages? Dental Appointments? Career Options? Children and/or Marriage? FUCK THAT! Get flailing.

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OK, I think that’s about all that normal non-industry-insider types can handle. Cease your bracing and check back tomorrow to see how right I was about everything.

And remember: you heard it here first!

Welcome to Monday Morning Commute. This is the column where we all slow down enough to talk about what we’re enjoying on a given week. Me? How am I doing? Why, how kind of you to ask! As you may or may not know, I work on a college campus. And this week I’m lucky enough to enjoy the week off between Spring and Summer semesters. I’m going to spend the next seven days trying to figure out what that fuck I’m going to be teaching in a month, watching The Most Ill of all Bro Movies, and throwing a party at my new apartment. It’ll be a good week.

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Fast & Furious 6
This week is the week! The prophesied week wherein we will return to the land of Living Life One Quarter Mile At A Time. The Fast Franchise, boom! Though, the movie series has certainly branched out from the original premise of like, driving really fast. Now they’re more Homoerotic Bro Movie meets Oceans’ Eleven.

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The New Xbox reveal
As the site’s self-proclaimed Xbot, I’m excited for Microsoft’s reveal this week. Oh sure I have my qualms with the company, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t going to try and insert my schlonger into this console’s disc drive on launch day. Here is hoping they hang some sort of title that will be worth buying on the aforementioned launch day. I’m not holding my breath, though. Me thinks it will be ported third party titles for both PS4 and the Xbox-Whatever this year.

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Rick Ross’ 100 Black Coffins
I don’t know how I rediscovered this tune last week, but I have been pumping it fucking en masse. Which reminds me, it is probably time to rewatch Django Unchained.

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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
So the folks on campus have mistakenly put me in charge of teaching a class this summer. Whoops! One of the staggering things about this class is that I am raising it up out of the miasma of my imagination. I can teach anything so long as it fits the essential program objectives. I’m alley-ooping this freedom into the opportunity to teach Oscar Wao. Since I haven’t read the book for a good…five years, this week I’m going to begin an epic reread. Annotation fest.

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The Last of Us
You folk realize that The Last of Us is almost upon us, right? I have my preorder, my pants down, my jimmy dance prepped for the title’s arrival.

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Arresteddevelopmentarresteddevelopment
Can you believe that the latest journey with the Bluths is almost here? What are you folks planning on doing (if anything) on the day of release? Are you going to sit in bed, mowing on junk food and watching it in one sitting-laying? Or are you arranging a viewing party? Do you even care?

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What are you deviants up to this week?

Here is some glorious Max Moxxi cosplay to salve the sting of a Monday. Let Jessica Nigri and the power of lift-inducing brassieres carry you to the end of your day.

Cosplay Blog:

Mad Moxxi from Borderlands 2

Cosplayer:Jessica Nigri [WW / TW / FB]
Photographer: LJinto [FL]