Everyone loves superheroes. But not everyone considers what it's like to be a member of the supporting cast of a comic book series. However, if we're honest most of us are the kind of people who qualify more as supporting cast than main characters. So this week, I offer to you my suggestions for things to keep in mind should you ever find yourself trapped as a minor character in a comic book:
As we are about to drift out of November…
I want to take a brief moment…
to enjoy fond memories…
of a Red October…
It goes by so quickly…
It is gone before I know it.
But sometimes, if I am lucky…
I can glimpse a Red November.
A funny new twist on a classic love story, WARM BODIES is a poignant tale about the power of human connection. After a zombie epidemic, R (a highly unusual zombie) encounters Julie (a human survivor), and rescues her from a zombie attack. Julie sees that R is different from the other zombies, and as the two form a special relationship in their struggle for survival, R becomes increasingly more human – setting off an exciting, romantic, and often comical chain of events that begins to transform the other zombies and maybe even the whole lifeless world.
In theaters February 1, 2013
Darlings, today kicks off a holiday week here in the United States. While Halloween will always be my favorite, I do have a soft spot for all the events of autumn; celebrations of harvests and softly falling leaves, as we prepare for a dark and cozy period before the wheel turns once again to sun and summer.
In honor of this week's fall festival, here is a whole collection of early 20th century Thanksgiving art from magazine covers and America's…
There is a trend out there… not a huge trend, certainly… but a definite trend involving death as a fashion motif…
Skulls, bones…
I suppose we can call it death fashion
It’s certainly been around for a while.
There were times when death was quite the bold fashion statement.
(Givenchy skeleton-inspired gown)
At times, death can be a motif in haute couture.
It can make just as strong a statement today as it did in Victorian times… or at any time.
I can be subtle or obvious.
But it is, when done properly, most remarkable.
Long Live Death Fashion.
New York City – 100 Years of Progress: From Streetcars to Subway Cars
Photos via: New York Historical Society, Wired New York, and Ephemeral New York.
An Evadia Enterprises Production
_______________________________________________________________
Extra special thanks to my sweetie Eva at The Year of Halloween.
19-year-old Japanese artist Chooo-San incredibly transforms bodies of volunteers using just acrylic paint.
In her series of non-digitally altered works, she creates realistic, eye-catching illusions that make her volunteers look like they got creepy body modifications.
Check out these and other body paint creations at Chooo-San’s site.
For centuries, scientists have studied how we go about the difficult task of choosing A or B, left or right, North or South — and how both instinct and intellect figure into the process. Now new research indicates that the old truism “look before you leap” may be less true than previously thought.
My little geeks and nerdlings over at the University of Tel Aviv have stumbled upon an interesting finding regarding instinct and intuition. [1]
The article begins, “Decision-making is an inevitable part of the human experience, and one of the most mysterious. For centuries, scientists have studied how we go about the difficult task of choosing A or B, left or right, North or South — and how both instinct and intellect figure into the process. Now new research indicates that the old truism “look before you leap” may be less true than previously thought.”
(Prof. Marius Usher)
In a behavioral experiment, Prof. Marius Usher of Tel Aviv University’s School of Psychological Sciences and his fellow researchers found that intuition was a surprisingly powerful and accurate tool. When forced to choose between two options based on instinct alone, the participants made the right call up to 90 percent of the time.
“The study demonstrates that humans have a remarkable ability to integrate value when they do so intuitively, pointing to the possibility that the brain has a system that specializes in averaging value,” Prof. Usher says. This could be the operational system on which common decision-making processes are built.
The results of their study were recently published in the journal PNAS. [2]
I have a healthy respect for intuition, especially women’s intuition. Not that anything and everything a woman intuits can be taken to the bank… far from it. But there are times when I will take a woman’s intuition over a man’s intellect.
Case in point, my friend Tracy. She has an almost unerring ‘gut sense’ about many things. On several occasions in the past, when I have rationally thought something out, planned it meticulously and could see no real flaw… Tracy would say “I wouldn’t do that if I were you”… based on nothing except her instincts and intuition.
(Tracy: I don’t think we should go that way. I dunno… we just shouldn’t!)
She has an uncanny ‘spidey sense’ that I ignore at my own peril. Many a carefully crafted scheme has been tossed into the garbage bin because Tracy didn’t ‘feel right’ about it. Were there times when I went against Tracy’s gut feelings and it turned out ok? Sure. Were there times when Tracy was completely blindsided by something that she did not expect? Sure. She’s not psychic. She can’t predict the future. But there were many more times when I did not heed her gut feeling and I regretted it. Enough times that I learned through bitter experience to Just Trust Tracy.
There are times, however, when going with your gut leads you astray. There are times when you disregard facts and choose what Stephen Colbert calls ‘truthiness’… what feels like the truth rather than what is the truth.
(Karl Rove’s Election Night Meltdown – When truthiness and The Truth collide)
Some people learned that the hard way recently.
So I will continue to make plans based on facts and figures as I know them. But… I will always run them by Tracy first!
___________________________________________________________
[1] Personally, I use the terms ‘instincts’ and ‘intuition’ interchangeably. I am sure people could quibble with this, but if there’s a difference it’s not substantive enough for me to care about.
[2] Journal Reference: K. Tsetsos, N. Chater, M. Usher. Salience driven value integration explains decision biases and preference reversal. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012; 109 (24): 9659 DOI:10.1073/pnas.1119569109
Insufferable winners.
They gloat.
They smirk.
They love to rub people’s noses in it.
They do everything except (perhaps) say, “Nyah, nyah!”
Sore losers.
They just can’t accept reality.
They just can’t admit when it’s over.
Heaven forbid they should have a little grace. A little dignity.
They could be gentlemanly. But noooooooooo!!!
