| a couple dreams |
[Nov. 10th, 2009|12:01 pm] |
had more or less two dreams last night, woke up in between them. i'll start with the second one first b/c the first one is less coherent.
Dream 2:
i enter a room. this woman i know and have a crush on is there, and no i'm not saying who it is, dressed in a stunning deep blue nightgown, done up very 1940's movie star glamorous. hawt. as we chat we press our palms together and do an odd, Charlseton-y kind of dance. i twirl her around and she spins back into my arms. we turn to the right and there's a piano. i hold her close on my left and with my right hand play a little air, in a vaguely Slavic mode. we gaze into a mirror on the wall above the piano and are framed in what resembles a classic movie production still, beaming. i'm wearing a tux, am about 15 years younger, and have a full head of blonde matinee idol hair.
we fall over beside the piano and things warm up. she's above me grasping at my shirt front, but, as i lift my head to go in for the kiss, she rolls away, and very dramatically says "No! No! I can't!". i say something like, "Well shit," and wake up, very disappointed.
Dream 1:
this was longer, with an adventure story vibe to it. i don't remember it as well and stuff may be out of order. my perspective shifts between different characters and it's not always clear to me who i am in this.
an actor in an unimportant role in a play is in love with the lead actress. she's been friendly towards him so after a rehearsal he declares this to her on bended knee, right there on the stage. she laughs haughtily in his face, informing him how she is involved with the lead actor (IMPORTANT: he is EEEVIL!!!) and stalks away behind the curtain, leaving him crushed. he catches a glimpse of his rival, grinning sardonically backstage.
his living quarters are in the same building, just off the theater, consisting of one dim, drafty, cluttered room, like an attic, and he retreats there to sulk. it has a large opening like a big bay window, without any pane. he sits there to stare out at the starlit night. then things get weird.
there's another person there. i think at some points it is me. he's actually some kind of wizened alien, but appears more or less human...most of the time...sometimes he's short and has a big alien head. also i think a talking animal is there? anyway, the alien and the animal tell the actor that here in his attic there is a magical bell, and that he has been chosen to protect it from an evil cabal (lead by guess who?!? if you guessed Evil Actor you are right!) who want to use it for their nefarious plots.
we find the bell. it looks like a oversized champagne flute of faintly blue tinted glass, about a foot and a half long, 10 inches or so around, with a short stem and base like a wine glass. it rest sideways on an ornate wooden stand, lined with green felt. there is a small padded stick with which to strike it.
the bell, I/alien explain(s), when struck, emits a beautiful ringing tone that can imbue the hearer with the sum of all knowledge in the universe. when one receives total knowledge, essentially omniscience, one experiences total joy and becomes like unto a god. we demonstrate.
one of us, don't recall which, hits the bell with the stick. bong. a lovely deep glass ring reverberates through air, lasting much longer than one might expect. the sound throbs and becomes louder, and clearer, and suddenly...it comes. all is known, all is one, all is ecstasy and joy. i am in a field of only white noise, like on a mistuned tv, that fills my vision and coruscates throughout my being. utter happiness, indescribable electric pleasure, is the only thing i am. just before me, there is a patch of golden light superimposed over the swirling pattern of black and white. it morphs and swirls like a liquid, but it is only light. beautiful bliss and light.
abruptly the vision ends. we're back with the actor and now he understands he must protect this treasured bell at all costs. things get a little weirder.
now there's a conference table and the attic has changed into a kind of war room, where roughly a dozen people are planning the defense and extrication of the magic bell. it isn't safe in the attic and needs to be moved to a more secure facility. on one side are the actor, the alien, a older bearded man that seems to be in charge, and a few other strange creatures of various kinds. i don't get a good look, i just know they're there and weird. on the other side are some soldiers and military types who're helping plan the bell moving operation.
I/Alien am walking around the table and semi-intentionally bump into one of the soldiers. young guy, hot-headed. he gives me a dirty look so i bump into him a few more times, saying "Oops. Sorry. 'scuze me." very sarcastically, and keep moving. he takes umbrage and gets up to follow me and makes with the threatening. the others warn him but he won't listen. so, since I/Alien appear to have some kind of electrical powers i grab him by the nuts and give him a little shock. not enough to kill him, but enough to make him change his mind about messing with me.
about that time the bad guys, lead by the Evil Actor, bust in and try to take the bell. big fight breaks out and the actor grabs it and makes off. a few of us follow him out the window into the night, pursued by some baddies of course. we've got to get across this empty lot to what looks like another building. i decide that being a super-powered alien i should just fly over there, but i get caught in some power lines. they stretch like rubber bands, and i get all tangled up, bouncing up and down several times before i can get free.
i get across the field and the building turns out to be a giant concrete wall, like a massive dam or levee, good forty feet high at least. at its base there is a large storm pipe, through which everyone has run to get away from the baddies. i scramble in last and shut the iron door behind me. it locks from the INSIDE, which i remark at being very strange. we run past a network of huge pipes into a large open space in which there is an office building...?!? wha?
fire escape stairs on the outside of the building, everyone climbs up to a "secret" floor, as if an office inside of a dam weren't secret enough, that is between two other floors. it's some kind of ops hq for the group of benign weirdos to which I/Alien belong(s). there's an attractive woman there, kind of classic tv hot-professional-nerd type, blonde pony tail, business suit, glasses, seems to be second in charge to old beard man, who may be a kind of wizard...?
i wake up and have to pee real bad. |
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| STAPLE! 2010! |
[Oct. 19th, 2009|09:59 pm] |
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STAPLE! 2010! Hey Everybody! Just a couple quick announcements of very important information. The sixth annual STAPLE! Independent Media Expo is ON and scheduled for March 6th, 2010! It will once again be held at the lovely Monarch Event Center in Austin, Texas. PODCASTS! If you missed ‘em at last year’s show, be sure to the visit Podcast page at the website – www.staple-austin.org - to check out two of our panel discussions from the ’09 show: Episode 10 - The “Joys of Independence in Multiple Mediums Panel” featured Zachary Kent, Paul Czege, Will Terrell and Leo McGovern sharing their insights into self-publishing in audio, games, comics and journalism, and Episode 11 is a Q&A with Special Guest Stan Sakai. We’ll be posting Jeffrey Brown’s Q&A panel real soon and adding more great interviews and content throughout the year for your listening pleasure. TABLES! Exhibitor Tables are now available! You can get yours by visiting the Registration Page at www.staple-austin.org/register We’ve expanded our floor plan at the Monarch and squeezed in a few more spots, but we still expect them to go really quickly. So don’t dawdle if you want to be a 2010 STAPLE! Exhibitor! Stay tuned for more exciting news coming soon! Chris "Uncle Staple" Nicholas www.staple-austin.org http://www.myspace.com/staple_austin STAPLE! The Independent Media Expo is the Southwest’s premier event for independently produced comics, zines, art, animation, games, crafts and more! The SIXTH annual show will be held on Saturday March 6th, 11am-7pm, at the Monarch Event Center, 6406 North IH-35 Suite 3100, in Austin, Texas. Admission is still only $5.00!
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| STAPLE! T-shirts |
[Mar. 15th, 2009|02:14 pm] |
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Have quite a few left over. Most men's sizes and L and XL in women's. If anybody wants one drop me a line.
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| why STAPLE! is not 2 days. |
[Mar. 12th, 2009|11:39 am] |
Reposting this from a comment I left in the STAPLE! Blog:
A lot of folks have mentioned it over the years, but I hesitate to go to two days for a few reasons. These are they:
1. I'm not entirely convinced there is yet enough audience to support 2 days. There may be enough folks in Texas that would like to be there, but the logistics of travel in our grand and enormous state is certainly a prohibitive factor in getting them there.
2. Costs. It would cost STAPLE! and everyone invloved along the lines of twice as much as what it does now to do it. 2 days of venue/table rental, extra night of hotel, extra day of meals. B/c of reason #1 it would be less likely that we'd all make back our expenses. It wouldn't be so bad for local folks but traveler's would be harder hit, and one of our express principles is to keep everything as affordable as possible.
3. I would die. You don't want me to die do you? As you may imagine it is a lot of work to do this - Saturday was about a 21hr day for me - and everyone that works on it is a volunteer, including yours truly. I couldn't ask people to commit that much time and I don't personally have the energy for two days in a row like that.
Really, I wish every day was STAPLE! (except for the 21hr part) but I feel like we may have to wait a while for that. I'm not going anywhere, are you? |
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| Onstad and Podcasts and Programming at STAPLE! Oh, my! |
[Feb. 18th, 2009|08:34 am] |
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In a last minute guest addition, Chris Onstad, creator of Achewood www.achewood.com will be joining us for STAPLE! 2009! Chris came through town in December and really liked Austin and our world famous BBQ and we’re very excited to have him back for the show. PODCASTS! The triumphant return of the STAPLE! Podcast starts now with two brand new episodes! Randy Lander of Rogue’s Gallery Comics and Games www.roguesgallerytx.com interviews Chris Staros of Top Shelf Productions http://www.topshelfcomix.com/ about small press, upcoming books from Top Shelf, and exhibiting at STAPLE! then talks to special guest Jeffrey Brown about his books "Clumsy", the "Incredible Change-Bots", and more. Upcoming episodes include interviews with Stan Sakai (Usagi Yojimbo); indie RPG publishers Luke Crane Paul Czege, and Danielle Lewon; and webcomics artist Mitch Clem! Listen to all these and more at http://www.staple-austin.org/podcast/ or subscribe in iTunes! Recording services provided by www.dial-a-stranger.com PROGRAMMING! We’ve got lots of great programming lined up for the 2009 show! We’ll be kicking things off with: “Comics and Comics: A performance by ColdTowne Theater”! The New Movement is Austin's latest improv and sketch comedy training center. Their instructors have performed all over the country, learned from the best, and have trained hundreds of writers, actors, comedians, and filmmakers. The New Movement approach is designed to ease the performer into improv by finding the truth in comedy at the top of the scene. New classes scheduled all the time! For more information email them at thenewmove@gmail.com “Self-Gratification: The Joys of Independence in Multiple Mediums” featuring Zachary Kent (Dial-A-Stranger), Paul Czege (Half Meme Press), Will Terrell (Push Button Publishing) A discussion of why we love self-publishing, what it does for us and what it adds to the consumption of media as a whole. Q&A sessions with Guests of Honor Stan Sakai and Jeffrey Brown! Pre and After Parties! And the fun doesn’t start or stop there! Be sure to join us on Friday, March 6th at Austin Books and Comics, 5002 N. Lamar Blvd. for our pre-Expo Meet and Greet! Free refreshments and a casual atmosphere in which to meet all your favorite STAPLE! people! And after STAPLE! come by Red7, E. 7th Street just WEST of I-35, for the After Party and Live Art Show! There’ll be killer DJ’s, a performance by nerdcore hip-hop artist Terp2it, and a chance to pick up some awesome pieces of unique and original art, while benefiting local community radio station KOOP! What more could anyone ask for?!? STAPLE! The Independent Media Expo is the Southwest’s premier event for independently produced comics, zines, art, animation, games, crafts and more! The FIFTH annual show will be held on Saturday March 7th, 11am-7pm, at the Monarch Event Center, 6406 North IH-35 Suite 3100, in Austin, Texas. Admission is still only $5.00! For more info visit www.staple-austin.org And if you’d like to help promote the show go to www.staple-austin.org/promote to grab a STAPLE! web button. Hope to see you there! Chris “Uncle Staple” Nicholas www.staple-austin.org http://www.myspace.com/staple_austin
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| STAPLE! 2009 graphic design |
[Feb. 4th, 2009|07:46 am] |
Ever since ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) curdburglar, aka Raygun Robyn, moved to Baltimore, I've had to take on the duties of designing all the posters and whatnot for STAPLE!, which she used to do when she was here. Although completely untrained I have found that I'm not that bad at it, if rather slow working.
This time around I came up with some stuff that I'm very pleased with, I must say. A few months ago Stan Sakai, our guest and the legendary creator of Usagi Yojimbo, sent me this awesome version of the Staplegator:
Totally hawt! (btw, anyone who wants to please take a shot at coloring this and post it to your lj, etc. Some folks are diong this on the STAPLE! Blog.)
Combining that with the STAPLE! logo that John Rubio designed way back when:
I made this:
which will be the t-shirt this year. VERY happy with this. I did some cool tricks here. It looks like a 3 color design, but will screen print with only 2 colors - red and gray. What's black on there will be the shirt, which will actually be a very dark charcoal gray - Anvil brand "smoke" color tees i ordered. The texture that's on the logo and the dot pattern on the gi I made in seperate files, then pasted them in on top of the colors in layers in the main working Photoshop file.
For the stone texture I found a photo of a cliff face, upped the contrast till it was just b/w, and using the logo shape as a sort of "cookie cutter", color selected just the black and pasted it in to the main file. Cleaned it up a little. Also made a grainy texture using a filter and applied it similarly. Pretty much the same process for the half tone dot pattern.
The paint splat is an object I made in Illustrator. I tried doing it with Photoshop brushes but didn't like how it came out. B/c it is vector, Illustrator makes a cleaner line that I think works much better here. If anyone wants to order one of these shirts let me know. Be around 10 buck + shipping ($3-sih?).
Next I made this poster:
it's 8.5 x 11 and we mailed 2 copies to every comic shop in Texas that I had an address for - 105 of them to be exact.
I also made some sweet bookmarks and free passes, which I don't have handy jpegs of, that I printed up and am handing out. Acidflyers.com will make you about 2,500 of something like that for about $111. Cheap and nifty. Got some awesome buttons made by the Busy Beaver Button Company. Maybe I'll post these images later.
Next up to do - 11x17 poster and exhibitor badges!
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| super safe |
[Jan. 26th, 2009|09:16 am] |
extra security at work last couple days. apparent threats from a disgruntled ex-employee.
i'm pretty disgruntled, too.
shit, i don't think i was ever gruntled to begin with. i could really use a good gruntling. who wantsta gimme a little gruntle? |
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| Jeffrey Brown at STAPLE! |
[Jan. 22nd, 2009|10:11 am] |
We are pleased to announce the appearance of indie comics icon Jeffrey Brown at STAPLE! The Independent Media Expo!
Jeffrey Brown is the author of nearly a dozen graphic novels. He's best known for his autobiographical memoirs such as "Clumsy", "Unlikely" and "Little Things," but has also received acclaim for his humorous works such as "Cat Getting Out Of A Bag" and "Incredible Change-Bots". Most recently, Top Shelf has begun publishing Jeffrey's new series "Sulk", issues of which will include genre, parody and experimental comics.
Mr. Brown will be located with publisher Top Shelf, in their third consecutive year at STAPLE!, and will participate in a Q&A panel, as will our other special guest, the legendary creator of Usagi Yojimbo, Stan Sakai!
STAPLE! The Independent Media Expo celebrates its 5th year as the Southwest's premier event for independently created comics, zines, graphic arts, crafts, games and animation on Saturday March 7th, 11am-7pm, at the Monarch Event Center in Austin, Texas. Admission is still only $5.00!
For more info visit www.staple-austin.org |
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| Podcast Awards |
[Oct. 28th, 2008|11:10 am] |
My friends' podcast Dial-a-Stranger is nominated in the Cultural/Arts section of the Podcast Awards. Please check out their show at http://www.dialastranger.com/ and vote for them at http://podcastawards.com/ "We take questions from you, the listener, and attempt to find answers to them by asking strangers over the telephone. We compile the results into a radio program available here for your enlightenment and enjoyment." You can leave questions for them and sign up to be a "Stranger". The Holiday Episodes (7 & 8) are particularly good and I tell a story on Episode 38: Stranger Stories (Part 2).
They were also recently featured on Transom. http://www.transom.org/ |
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