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kate_nepveu) wrote2019-10-14 10:04 am
Monday links are off work
But the kids don't have school, so it's not a day off.
Time sensitive: The Tiptree Award is renaming itself; the Motherboard proposes the new name the Otherwise Award; and it requests feedback on the word Otherwise, specifically, within the next two weeks. Lots of details.
Fascinating, at the AV Club: No-budget African action studio Wakaliwood is ready to take over the mainstream.
The next and last season of Steven Universe will be called Steven Universe Future; here's the new opening. I . . . don't really know what to think about this.
Time for a logistics story, because I'm me: The California Sunday Magazine on how to dispose of unwanted guns, and specifically on the National Center for Unwanted Firearms. (I could only find an Amazon Smile link on their website, and not a direct donate link.) Via Go Fug Yourself.
The Cut, At the Russian Baths With the Big Boys of Brawn: Welcome to the new frontier of plus-size male modeling.. It's a small frontier, but an interesting one. Via Tom & Lorenzo.
I have a card for the New York Public Library (you can too, if you live, work, attend school, or pay property taxes in New York State). The library tends to get ebooks in giant batches, tens or hundreds at a time, so scanning through their new acquisitions on grid mode is a really good lesson in how important covers are in signaling genre.
All that is a leadup to say that I've always been interested in book covers, which the age of ebooks has only reinforced. And there are occasions where I see a book cover somewhere (not usually on the NYPL) and say to myself, "oh, that's unprofessional," but without knowing why exactly. Freelance cover designer Augusta Scarlett has a blog post on 7 Mistakes of Amateur Book Cover Designs that clearly lays out the things I'd been subconsciously noting, with lots of great examples.
Two on theater: Slate on Lauren Gunderson, the most-produced playwright in America—solely because of regional theaters. This is a thoughtful, balanced look at why and the prospects of The Half-Life of Marie Curie, her first New York City premiere.
And at the NYT, Aisha Harris describes What It’s Like to See ‘Slave Play’ as a Black Person:
The provocative premise: Three interracial couples attend a multiday retreat during which they attempt to address their issues in the bedroom through “antebellum sexual performance therapy” — a sort of B.D.S.M. through the lens of American slavery that is followed by a heavy dose of psychoanalysis.
Tor.com reports a bunch of insightful comments from the Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy panel at New York Comic-Con, but stick to the end for the ash ice cream.
The John Wick movies are not my thing, and neither is the game, but I was still interested in reading about the adaptation, as an adaptation, and the mechanics, which sound very cool.
Finally, an appreciation of Jason Mendoza from The Good Place; no detectable season 4 spoilers. I haven't watched any of that yet, and really need to. Via Go Fug Yourself.
+1 (thumbs-up, I see you, etc.)?