Well, kind of.
The excellent blogTO reported on Mirko Daneluzzo’s design for the Canadian Malting Complex on Toronto’s waterfront, and it’s rather unusual (though nowhere near as bad as the ROM Crystal).
Click on the picture to enlarge, or click here for more images.
It’s unlikely to ever make it past the design stage, but it looks really nifty, and, as my husband noted, it looks like “some sort of giant temple to Cthulhu”. Which makes it kind of awesome.
After last week’s rant about Pluto, Sarah kindly pointed me in the direction of The Pluto Files, a PBS special hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson.
The website has all sorts of great info about our favourite planet, including an mp3 (with transcript) of Alan Stern, head of NASA’s new mission to Pluto, defending the “little guy”, as they put it.
There’s an interactive bit where scientists give a thirty second promo for their favourite planets, and then readers are invited to cast their votes for the best planet in our solar system. Currently Earth is in the lead, but Saturn’s a close second. Poor little Pluto ranks fifth – surely we can do better than that?
The best part of the whole site, however, is the hate mail from third graders outraged over Pluto’s demotion. Hells, yes.
There’s lots of other great stuff on the site, too. Check it out.
Now on to your signal: Continue reading »
Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods, directed by Patrick Meaney
Halo 8, 80 minutes, 2010
I suspect there are only a few kinds of people who’ll be interested in the documentary Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods – either serious documentary fans, devoted comic-book readers, or magical practitioners. Each of them will come away from this film quite happy.
Director Patrick Meaney largely works with a familiar pattern for this kind of celebrity documentary – one of mostly stepping back and letting the interviews (and, of course, editing) tell the story. There are several attempts to visually represent the psychedelic elements of the tale created by cinematographer Jordan Rennert, though the results are far less annoying than is often the case in such films! The perspective is mostly one which aims at the comic-reading audience, introducing them fairly gently to the core of occult thought that permeates his work.
The film opens with a montage of several comic-book writers and artists talking about Morrison’s reputation as a very successful comics creator who is also out as a practicing chaos magician who’s no stranger to psychedelics – and the usual kind of “drug-crazed madman” rumours that inevitably follow. Continue reading »
