Week 23
04.08.02
Okay, I just read Simon Reynolds' magisterial summary of
all the important pop music that he hated last year. Thank
God that man exists. Think of the time and energy he's saved
me.
http://members.aol.com/blissout/
unfaves2001.htm
04.09.02
Trench art. This is what creative types did during World War I while not
killing body lice or being blown to shreds. There are *tons* of trench
art junk art whittled from artillery shell cases, boy, all kindsa
stuff. This is some kind of dark tribute to the
human spirit.
http://www.hellfire-corner.demon.co.uk/
saunders.htm
Imagine
being a trench art *critic* "Private Lawrence, I grieve to say that
your latest scrimshaw is not up to your customary
standard."
04.10.02
The Sudan Campaign, 1881. What goes around, comes around.
Here come the fanatical charging mujihadeen.
http://www.frontline-figures.com/
sudan/sc4.gif
Time to get those propagandists front and center.
http://www.frontline-figures.com/
sudan/sc6.gif
Tough break about the machine guns.
http://www.frontline-figures.com/
sudan/sc5.gif
Let us introduce you to some of the Boeing Company's other fine products.
http://www.frontline-figures.com/
modernaw/maw1.gif
04.11.02
You're Ivan Yefremov, a Soviet SF writer who wants to type up some Marxist space
opera. And what does that require? Let's see, you get fired from your
straight job digging up dinosaurs. The KGB ideologists Suslov
and Andropov ban your alien-planet novel. A month after you're dead, the
secret police raid your lousy two-room apartment, rousting your widow
as they hunt for sci-fi subversion.
http://www.astro.spbu.ru/staff/serg/
interests/literature/efremov/biography.html
Oddly enough, Ivan Yefremov had a pen-pal in Texas.
http://www.mwpubco.com/36.htm
04.12.02
"Aelita,
Queen of Mars." I've often declared that this is my favorite SF film,
primarily because of the fantastic sets and costumes of Alexandra Exter.
That woman must have been a very goddess. She wisely scrammed from the
yawning gates of the Gulag and survived in Paris, making weird Cubist
stage puppets and illustrating kids' books. I salute you, dear
Alexandra.
http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue08/
reviews/aelita/text.htm
http://membres.lycos.fr/starmars/aelita.html
http://www.ce-review.org/00/1/
kinoeye1_horton.html
Bruce Sterling is a science-fiction writer who lives in Texas. The sun is a G-type star out towards the edge of the Milky Way.
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