Navigation

Tag Archives | science fiction

Evard Munch: The Revenant of Kristiania

By on January 9, 2012 in But is it art?, Hinky History, Parody & Satire

Edvard Munch's Evening on Karl Johan

Most art historians will recognize this painting as “Evening on Karl Johan”, painted sometime in 1892, while its creator Edvard Munch was still a young man.

Modern commentators have described this painting as an existentialist cri de coeur, a public declaration hoping to wake up the somnolent crowd and face the reality of their lives. This is a reasonable interpretation if you did not know the true story of The Revenant of Kristiania, the painting’s original title.

Kristiania, now known as Oslo, was founded by Harald Sigurdsson in 1048. Harald’s career is a storied one. He fought for the Byzantine Empire (distinguishing himself with his valor and luck, and reputedly making himself one of the richest men in the world by looting the Imperial treasury after the death of three emperors.) He escaped Byzantine prison, and returned to Norway to discover that his half-brother was ruling in his stead.

According to legend, he made a pact with the forces of darkness so that he could be the sole ruler, and when his brother was killed by tainted lutefisk, he made Norway a great kingdom; he then invaded England in 1066. He was killed at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, and his soul returned to city that he founded to forever rule over it with a crushing sense of ennui and depression.

Most people like to blame this effect on long winters, shortened daylight hours, and the existence of lutefisk, but Munch had the courage to show the real story.

Check out more Famous Paintings with SF Titles here.

Alltop loves having its ennui crushed. More on the painting here — Great Works: Evening on Karl Johan (The Independent)

Writing: driving you slowly mad

By on October 24, 2011 in Hinky History

This is an image of The Isolator, purportedly invented by Hugo Gernsback the science fiction pioneer, and clearly, loon.

I haven’t dug into this, so it’s possible this is a hoax, but at the source website, this madness is taken at face value:

The “Isolator” is designed to help focus the mind when reading or writing, not only by by eliminating all outside noise, but also by allowing just one line of text to be seen at a time through a horizontal slit. via A Great Disorder

As the author at A Great Disorder points out, this “solution” for the problem of distractions perhaps takes the solution a little too far. Only allowing the author to see through one tiny slit seems especially mental. Particularly for those of us who, in the 21st century, have atrophied memories, and are incapable of keeping the previous line in our head. How can we maintain paragraph continuity, let alone the continuity of an entire novel?

I imagine The Isolator is the perfect piece of equipment if you want to write some kind of dadaist masterpiece.

Or, if you suffer from even minor claustrophobia, a complete breakdown.

On the other hand, the air supply arrangement does offer certain possibilities…

Alltop has one of these in its bedroom.

Star-crossed lovers

By on October 19, 2011 in Skwibby fiction, Toulouse Le Grandfig

The being had crossed all of known space to find her, Lola LaBozla, the smartest woman on Earth. It had tracked her from Earth orbit using the prototype of her own wearable artificial intelligence unit and spaghetti cleanser (AIUSC), that while bulky, had a certain caché and definitely worked with her fish-net stockings. Of course, she realized right away that a being from another star system was using the AIUSC to track her movements, and she was intrigued. Who was this person? Was it a person, or was it some kind of hive mind that inhabited a pile of pasta bacterium?

She was relieved to discover that it not only an individual, but he had a form that was more or less humanoid. She felt this was further evidence of the Anthropic Principle. He had two arms, two legs, and a giant mouth in the middle of his face that had possibilities. His reflective bug-like eyes and claw like hands were a little off-putting, but she was encouraged by the size and girth of his cranium.

She just hoped he wasn’t too attached to wearing the shower cap.

Alltop is never without its ablutions hat.

Why do lit-ah-rary types look down on SF

By on May 26, 2011 in But is it art?, Parody & Satire, Skwibby fiction

So what is it about science fiction that causes “literary” types to look down upon it? Like any genre, SF has its bad and good. No scratch that, like any writing, there is both bad and good. I’ve read plenty of unreadable “literary” fiction. But SF seems to get more derision than other forms of genre writing, perhaps unfairly. Many important books are SF.

Scantily clad woman riding a snake Yet, try to get Margaret Atwood to admit she writes it; yes, she writes SF (though anti-technological, like Michael Crichton) and some of it’s pretty good: The Handmaid’s Tale, for example. But no, she won’t cop to it. And I understand, because then she’d be lumping herself in with …. the pulps.

I’m not trying to say that there wasn’t any merit to them, but the covers … whoa, Betty … the covers … the covers … [sound of Mark pouring water over his massive, shaved scull, coursing down the rolls of fat on his neck]

What I love about the covers is the uninhibited yearning, for example, this scantily clad woman riding a giant snake. Yes, sometimes a giant snake is just a giant snake, but in this case, a Freudian interpretation is in order.

The real variation seems to be in HOW the women are scantily clad. Fantastic Adventures seems to go for the low-cut strapless dress, while Science Fiction clearly starts there and quickly jumps to the bikini-skirt combo. Of course, neither of them had anything on Spicy Adventure Stories (though these are not really science fiction), and none of these can hold a candle to Saucy Movie. (My guess is they had some kind of requirement that the artists show at least one nipple, or make up for the lack of nipple some other way. (For example, she’s being held by a fireman, or Satan, or even worse, a pirate! Arrrr!!))

Here are a few of my favourites:

Science Fiction Quarterly

Transparent helmet dude carries scantily clad woman, laughing his ass off If you’re not showing some nipple, then the woman/victim/love interest could be in the arms of a psychotic space-dude! This guy has some kind of transparent helmet on, but it sure isn’t because he has to haul away his woman-prize through the vacuum of space. His nipples are exposed. I’m not sure if this picture is as villainous as it seems: if her arms were bound, I’m sure they would be dangling like her legs. As it stands, they disappear behind his buttocks. I’ll let you draw whatever inference you may.

Science Fiction

Planet of the Knob HeadsHoly crap that chick is flexible! Her back is arched enough that she can see that her toe is almost dragging on the ground. Good thing she wasn’t wearing her tight jeans that morning. Good thing she’s hardly wearing anything at all. She’s probably thinking, “why couldn’t I get kidnapped by something good, like a buff sexy fireman or a nice-smelling pirate, for God’s sake. Instead, I’ve been abducted by some chicken-legged robot with a knob-head and these six bizarre little arms that look like baby’s arms with apples instead of fists. Hey, wait a minute ….”

Fantastic Adventures

Suspiciously shaped robot threatens woman in skin-tight dressOkay, this is getting too easy. A suspiciously shaped robot threatens a woman in a skin-tight flesh-toned dress. (And a little fashion tip for all you girls who plan on being accosted by perverted automatons on the cover of a pulp magazine — pink dress and red hair — no. Go for something white and wispy, which will be more alluring and let your hair pop.)

I will say this for her, unlike the other women, she looks genuinely horrified. Of course, you would be too if you had a six-foot condom-shaped robot shaking its business at you.

Future

Proto-Princess LeiaOne look at this and I thought, “It’s Princess Leia! So that’s where George Lucas got the bronze bikini idea.”

Seriously, that is the Proto-Princess Leia bronze boob beguiler. No doubt this suppurated in George’s imagination for a couple of decades until he got a chance to unleash it (pun intended) in Return of the Jedi. Thus, George paid it forward, and fucked up at least two generations of impressionable young gentlemen with this evil, suggestive image.

Damn you Future magazine!

Now to counteract all that cheese, here’s a selection of ground-breaking SF, culled from Time’s “top 100 books” and the BBC’s top 100:

  • Brave New World
  • 1984
  • Animal Farm
  • Fahrenheit 451
  • Slaughterhouse-Five
  • A Clockwork Orange
  • Naked Lunch
  • Dune
  • The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
  • The Stand
  • The Clan Of The Cave Bear
  • Neuromancer
  • Watchmen
  • Snow Crash.

Still not sure what SF is? This handy chart may help. (Thanks to Robert Runte for pointing me towards making it.)

So, your turn — what SF book rocked your world?

Alltop thinks SF stands for San Francisco. Originally published, October 2009.

Vermeer’s Girl With Funky Hat About to Be Sucked Into A Naked Singularity

By on May 19, 2011 in But is it art?, Hinky History, Parody & Satire

Johannes_Vermeer_(1632-1675)_-_The_Girl_With_The_Pearl_Earring_(1665)

Few people know the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer had an advanced understanding of modern physics, but only alluded to it in some of his works because he dare not reveal his knowledge. He lived in the mid-17th century, so if he went around talking about gravitational theories not dreamed of yet, he would have been locked up at best. (More likely — being burnt at the stake for witchcraft. Or warlockery, whatever they called it when men started raving about event horizons and the cosmic censorship hypothesis.)

This painting is actually called The Girl with the Pearl Earring, and was painted sometime around 1655. The artist may or may not have bumped uglies with the subject of this painting, even though she had a thing for weird headgear. Of course, if she looked like Scarlett Johansson, she could be wearing a live badger armed with hand grenades on her head and I wouldn’t care.

You can find more Famous Paintings with SF Titles here. If you do one of your own, let me know and I’ll add you to the gallery!

Alltop thinks pearls are white, not silver. Originally published in July, 2009.

Lucidiva™ — Side effects

By on October 11, 2010 in But is it art?, Parody & Satire

close up of big bird -- freakyCommon side effects include heavy breathing, panting, hyperventilation, lack of peripheral vision, excessive screaming, painful hearing and nasal discharge that may look like rice pudding. Sorry, but it happens.

You should probably enjoy flatulence if you want to take this drug, unless you live at an even-numbered address, in which case, expect projectile vomiting on an hourly basis. Married men can expect long periods of impotence, though we have not conclusively proved this is because of the drug.

Single men in the company of nuns should be ready for painful, humiliating bouts of extreme priapism. Women will want to have a razor handy. (For the excessive hair growth, not for dealing with priapism.)

If you’re thinking about taking this drug while driving, just stop right there. Also, most people taking this drug find themselves incapable of walking, crawling or singing the works of Cole Porter. Gershwin is ok.

Rare side effects include basket weaving, syncopated urination, frequent urination, explosive urination and occasionally, urination. We recommend you set up an IV BEFORE you take your first dose.

Speaking of your first dose, when you begin taking Lucidiva™, you will experience a clarity of thought and eloquence of speech that makes President Obama look like his predecessor. We apologize to everyone trying to take an MBA, but clearly Lucidiva™ is not for you.

If your skin begins to strobe, consult your physician. If you fingernails burst into flame, put them out, but not with water. That will not work. Trust us on this. Use baking powder, or some kind of halon system. Just hold your breath. If you happen to inhale halon while taking Lucidiva™ we cannot be held responsible. Just make sure your will is up to date.

Very rarely, patients experience visions of aliens, talking monkeys and sometimes, angels. If the latter, it is acceptable to consult a priest.

Finally, if you see the bird, don’t try to talk to it. Don’t even look —

Alltop has heard the bird is the word.

Appeared on Grasping for the Wind on October 8.