Omorka's Lair

So. Um. There's this guy doing prints on his Etsy store of . . .

Well . . .

I guess one might call this The Michael Bay School of American History?

The terrifying thing is, Jackson and TR would totally have done that if they could. And there's something oddly amusing about Mecha FDR.

Baphomet with French Horn

I mean, I like it, but I have no idea why that, of all things, is in his/her lap. (NSFW on account of naked tits.)

From io9: Links to some images from the 2009 Crazy 4 Cult art show. Includes two Ghostbusters and two Back To The Future references. (hat tip: calliopes_pen)

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The Tau Manifesto, or why 2π is more important than π. As a trig teacher, I'm one of the culprits here. And while I don't think the half-turn/full turn distinction makes that much of a difference, mathematically - twos are a dime a dozen in formulae, anyway, and I prefer Euler's formula with the negative sign - I agree that getting kids to remember that π radians is half a circle can be tricksy.

The annual Houston Art Car Parade was yesterday. I never go; the entire parade invariably shows up on half a dozen photoblogs within a few days of the parade, and I get to enjoy the art without going and standing in the hot May sun for three hours. But this year, the Grand Marshal was Dan Aykroyd, and fangirl couldn't pass up the chance to holla at one of her idols in person. So I put on my jungle-green-clay-brown-and-blue tie-dyed handkerchief-hem sundress and a thick coating of SPF 40 sunscreen, tied my hair up under a broad-brimmed sunhat, and carted myself, my backpack, a camp chair, and a large bottle of orange sports drink up to Allen Parkway to mingle with the crowd and find a semi-shady seat to watch.

I wandered around and ran into C., one of the Tribal Lilies, followed by oxflop and Rev. B. Somewhere around in here, I apparently managed to miss Dan the Man himself by a few minutes. Then quantumduck and northwall wandered past. I determined that where they'd camped their chairs was farther than I wanted to walk, and then was distracted by the first of two Ecto-1's in the parade - and its crew, in full movie-style uniform. Okay, their jumpsuits were in beige instead of off-grey and didn't have the proper yellow tubes, but other than that their kits and packs were pretty good. Their Ecto was a fairly recent-model car, but the kit on the roof rack was awesome - not a slavish reconstruction, but most of it was there, and what wasn't was replaced by something that could plausibly be a new-and-improved version. They'd come all the way from Minnesota; I ended up chatting with their Egon-analogue for a good ten minutes or so.

The next car in line was a Bluesmobile, crewed with a tall skinny guy with a harmonica and a shorter, huskier guy who was cajoling passers-by into singing with them; they had two mikes and an amp with karaoke versions of '60s R&B blaring and were singing along pretty credibly. They had just roped a female Ghostbuster in jumpsuit but without a pack into singing "Land of 1000 Dances" with them, which was kind of awesome.

The other Ecto was on the other side of the Bluesmobile; the kit on top looked, well, incomplete, but the car itself was, while not the exact ambulance, a vehicle of roughly the right era and shape. It was being piloted by the lady 'Buster being entertained by the faux Elwood and Jake and another guy in similar kit; their uniforms were movie-based, but the car looked more like cartoon-Ecto. I didn't get a chance to chat them up, but I'm guessing they were from the local franchise.

The parade itself was a lot of fun, and included a number of tractor-, lawnmower-, motorcycle-, scooter-, and bicycle-based entries, including starcat_jewel's and RA-not-on-LJ's tie-dyed tandem. There were several bands on floats, including the Tribal Lilies and the Hightailers on Last Concert Cafe's entry, and a few others with canned music and live dancers. Aykroyd appeared to be genuinely enjoying himself; he didn't have the I'm-a-celebrity-and-this-is-a-public-appearance look that he occasionally has in interviews. But then, I'd have guessed that funky folk art and old refurbished vehicles would be right up his alley, anyway. (The live music probably didn't hurt on that score, either.)

As soon as various people's photos go up, I'll post links to some of the more interesting entries and the three movie tributes listed above.

I managed not to get sunburned except for a small patch on my back I apparently missed when sunscreening, and didn't get too badly dehydrated, but I need to invest in some better walking shoes - by the time I got back home, my feet were sore and rather tired, and it's really not that long a hike.

. . . So I guess I don't have a choice about going to the Art Car Parade this year. (Spouse mentioned it a couple of days ago, but someone just Twittered about it.)

Fangirl gotta holla. Not going in the jumpsuit, though, that'd be too geeky for words (and, far more importantly, too hot).

Another reason I should not read fandomsecrets: I was unaware that someone had back-formed 'maja' as the feminine equivalent of 'mojo'. Now that I know this, I would really like to smack someone for it.

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I had given up on James Lileks when he reproduced and immediately transformed into a crazed conservative warblogger. It was really a shame, because his work before that was really quite funny, even if it was the strange sort of mild but quietly desperate Minnesota humor that always strikes me as one step away from embarrassment squick.

He's also one of the foremost purveyors of Weird '50s Kitsch. Which is, I suppose, how he happened on the works of Art Frahm. (No thanks to panthyr for tipping me off to this thing's existence.)

Er - um - what - Lileks, what the hell? What the frelling hell?

I'm going to go look for Five/Master slash fanart now. It's a far healthier use of the celery.

I'm not a big design geek, and I suspect that some of the art geeks on my flist will find these rather tiresome, and I just flat didn't get some of these, but this blog had some interesting stuff that is peripherally connected to some of my fandoms.

I especially liked this one.

This is just perfect. (Warning: huge image behind the cut)

( I lie below, you float above . . .  )

Anyone know anything about the Houston Fringe Festival? The website is . . . awfully pink, but some of the listed acts sound vaguely interesting and a couple of my students are really excited about going.

I think I've linked to this artist's stuff before, but I haven't seen all of this set of photos. Or maybe they just didn't have the comments before. (Thanks to altamira16 for the link.)

Warning: none of these are exactly safe for work.

This one's for the Spouse. Hair up, public library, laptop - what's not to like?

This one's just sweet. Awwww!

The text on this one is more interesting than the photo. And the photo's actually pretty cool.

Another awwww!

Goddess much? Seriously, I want a sculpture of her for my altar.

"Soon we'll all be sleeping in Saran Wrap." Best. Conversation. Ever!

The tattoo makes this one for me. For presumably obvious reasons.

Two kinds of awesome. First, the foreground/background contrast in the photo itself - yeah, for once I could easily get a thousand words or more out of that. And second, the text that's there already. She rocks.