I don't know what to say

Steampunk Star Wars. That's all there is to say.

I not so briefly summarize

A lot's been going on lately, which is a good thing. First of all, it's really fucking hot. No, I mean I can feel myself radiating heat after I come back from a run and have been reduced to waking up early just to run. I can honestly say I never thought I'd be one of those people. Really.

Shakespeare started a while back, but so far all I've seen is Love's Labour's Lost, which was a new one for me. Incredibly brief summary: Four men in Navarre have sworn off women to pursue their studies and establish an Academy at the court. The problem is that the king has forgotten that the Princess of France and her three ladies are en route to ask for a war funds. The four men fall in love, but the four ladies fail to take them seriously. Everything is ruined by the announcement that the Princess's father has died.

The production was set in Kennebunkport before America's entry to WWI. This worked well with the French envoy of ladies requesting a war loan and was cleverly used in a couple of important moments. For instance, when the four men discover they've all broken their oaths and decide to jointly pursue the ladies in earnest, they rip off their old school matching college football sweaters. But as to the play itself, I don't think it's held up so well as the other comedies. Harold Bloom claims it as one of his favorites, but it's so full of contemporary jokes and allusions that you're left lost too often. It doesn't help that one of the comic characters, Don Armado, requires an overblown Spanish accent, rendering his jokes even more difficult to follow. This production also gave the scholar Holofernes a little bit of a lisp, further exacerbating the problem. So not my favorite play.

On the writing front, I was told by my workshop last week that the story I gave them was a novel, which is actually how it started out. So not all bad, although I really wasn't looking to be working on a novel now. I've got another couple of days to put together my next piece for them, which most definitely is not a novel, although the world it's in could certainly support one. I do find myself creating quite a number of worlds that sit astride the scifi/fantasy border to varying degrees, and this one very much so does that with post-apocalyptic magic fun.

I hate viral marketing

So these random faceless people have been turning up in photos around England lately, and thus making it onto Fark.

To which I say, it would be damn awesome if this was how someone's responding the surveillance cameras everywhere. About time that there was some sort of outrage at the crazy erosion of privacy and liberties over there. They keep going on about how cameras have lowered crime, when it's only been shown to push crime out of sight. But that only means you need more of them, right? Also crazy: they don't have the right to use force to defend their property. That's what the police are for. As a result, half of all British burglaries now take place while the victim is at home.

But, of course, turns out it's a creepy viral marketing campaign instead. For Lotus. How weird is that?

On to the next thing....

Today I went ahead and put a deposit on the Red Lion. I think despite the quirks of the place it'll be quite fun, wonderful in nice weather, and will certainly have the best food. Some further pictures:

Appetizers would be out here in nice weather (imagine I wasn't too lazy to get the tent strap out of the frame).

This would be where dinner and dancing and an outdoor bar will be. I think it's all rather charmingly Colorado.