T-shirt #359 - Sandman - Shakespeare - Tempest

TODAY'S COUNT: 06 blog posts remaining in the T-shirt year!!

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T-shirt #359 - Sandman - Shakespeare - the Tempest


Hello and welcome to one of the few remaining installments of the DAILY TRANSMISSION of the 365 T-shirts blog project.

A couple of things before I share the main content of today's post, which will be for the most part my review of The Tempest at the WHAT A DO THEATRE of Battle Creek.

But first two subjects: COSMOS and the BLOG JOURNEY/ BLOG OUTLOOK.

COSMOS

I missed the premiere of the new Cosmos program on FOX, but Liesel and I watched it tonight (which is actually last night as I am writing this a day later but time is dilated like that).

I had already seen some Facebook posts about the program, and one of the authors I follow, John Scalzi, wrote about it on his blog: JOHN SCALZI AT WHATEVER BLOG ON COSMOS, the series.

Like many, Scalzi was disappointed in the music, which was decent but the same caliber as the original Vangelis music. Since I read his reactions, I was watching for the asteroid belt during the tour of the solar system, and I have to agree: too many asteroids.

I did not know that Neil deGrasse Tyson was so well known in memes shared on Facebook. I am not well acquainted with the man, I must admit. Though I liked his narration quite a bit.

I agree with Scalzi on most points, except that the animation sequence featuring Giordano Bruno went long. I liked it. Though watching the original transmissions of the show conflicts with our watching of The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones, I have set the DVR, and Liesel and I will surely keep up with it.

Here's a bit I liked best from Scalzi's blog:

But the main reason why the show works this time is the same reason why the show worked the first time — it’s unabashedly aimed at a popular audience. I’ve said before that one of the things I learned from the original series is that so much of science is understandable to the average person; I thumbnail it as “anyone can get 80% of any scientific topic.” That other 20% is what takes real attention — but if you can get most people 80% of the way there, just by speaking plain language and being engaging while you do so, the benefits can be enormous in the long run. This series is made to provide that 80%. 

THE BLOG JOURNEY - THE BLOG OUTLOOK

I could surely go on and on rhapsodically about the blog in each of these remaining blog posts. I could treat you to a lot of "Yipee! I am going to make it!" And then, I could close with a final "YIPEE! I MADE IT!!" But I suspect that will get tedious. I cannot promise to refrain from such ecstatic, prideful exhortations of glee, but I will try to keep these cries of joy somewhat minimal and low key.

In sharing about The Tempest today, I am reminded of what it seemed to mean to Shakespeare and why Neil Gaiman invoked it at the end of his run on the Sandman comic book as seen on Today's T-shirt. Shakespeare was putting an end to his magic when he wrote The Tempest, breaking his magic staff and drowning his magic book.

In a sense, I am doing the same thing as my magical year comes to a close. I had the merest glimmer of a notion that I dismissed as difficult and narcissistic, which I revisited after being diagnosed with cancer. Could I write something every day? This question plagued me the most. I needed to know that I could keep pace with a blog that would demand a daily installment. A secondary question also occurred to me: would anyone care? Would anyone read? I was less interested in the answer to this question, but I have been pleased with the results. My links do not always get liked on Facebook, and I do not get comments there or here on a regular basis, but I see activity, and I am inspired to do more writing and writing of other kinds (not just t-shirts) in the future.

In a way, I have woven my own magic spells in daily castings with this blog. I could presume to suggest that the spell worked on you, dear reader. But this idea is very presumptuous. I would rather declare that the spell worked its magic on me. I explored many aspects of my self and my interests over the course of this year of T-shirt blogging, and the spell I made shrouds me in comfort. I am more comfortable in who I am and why I am as well as where I am going. The blog has given me a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment that I was lacking. And now I am geared for more accomplishment and challenges and tests of my fire.

The analogy with the Tempest is not quite in sync. I am neither breaking my staff nor drowning my book. Not only will the T-shirt blog continue but my writing and my blogging will also continue. I will be somewhat relieved to no longer be tied--by lashings of my own making to be sure but still ones I took seriously--to daily transmissions. I will still broadcast at least weekly, if not multiple times a week, and I am planning to continue a daily writing regimen, but the daily transmissions will cease as will the need to post an incomplete entry let alone leaving entries incomplete (there are still six incomplete entries on this blog as of this writing). And though my regular transmissions will broadcast from my other blog, the T-shirt blog will continue since I still have shirts remaining that were in my possession when I started the blog project as well as a bunch of new shirts and plans for some extensive love letters, such as my post on the soap opera The Young and the Restless (yes, I am a fan), which has languished in various states of draft and incompletion since at least August if not earlier. I late updated the Y&R blog post on September 17th.

The Blog Journey has been rich and fulfilling, and the Blog Outlook promises good weather and favorable winds to propel me through the rest of this year. I hope you will stay tuned.

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THE TEMPEST

I am blessed with the opportunity to see great local theater, write my views, and have these published in The Battle Creek Enquirer. I saw a very special production Friday night that truly was a work of art. here's the link to the published review.

Review: 'Tempest' spirits audience away to magical world

Next, I will share the promotional text for the show, some promotional videos, and my unedited review.

Thanks for reading.

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WHAT A DO'S PROMOTIONAL TEXT - 

What A Do Theatre’s second production of the New Artist Series will feature Resident Company Member Tara Bouldrey as director and welcomes Chicago-based aerial choreographer Genevieve Lally-Knuth in this enchanting version of William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.” Set on a remote island the exiled Duchess of Milan, Prospera, plots to restore her daughter Miranda to her rightful place using illusion and skillful manipulation. The eponymous Tempest brings to the island Prospera’s usurping sister Antonia as well as the complicit Alonso, King of Naples, and his royal entourage. Three plots are intertwined throughout the rest of the play and are eloquently told under Bouldrey’s direction and Lally-Knuth’s aerial choreography.
“It was when Genevieve Lally-Knuth came to see “Back County Crimes” last January that the idea for this production was born. A Chicago-based performer, Genevieve has a long history with physical theatre, Shakespeare and aerial acrobatics. She was instantly drawn to the steel rafters that contribute to the unique performance space at What A Do,” says Bouldrey.
The new artist series strives to spotlight up-and-coming artists and allow for that art to be incorporated into elements on the stage. Bouldrey made the decision to take the original text and cut it heavily in order to establish the mysterious and magically masque-like atmosphere under which “The Tempest” was originally performed. This production is a must-see as the space, cast and production team are utilized to their fullest capacity.
Lally-Knuth states that, “The work is all done as an ensemble so that the finished product really showcases the strengths each actors brings with them. And I love that we all have such stock in the finished piece. We built it together. This is true ensemble work.”
This production features Kristin Marie Stelter, Averi Beck, Sam Friia, Joshua Olgine, Emily James, Rachel Markillie, Heather Cerridwen, Jared Sheldon, Vanessa Banister, Quinton McDougall, Stefani Lynn Wallace, Lars J. Loofboro, Tara Bouldrey, and Genevieve Lally-Knuth.

Performance dates are: March 14 & 15 - 8PMMarch 20, 21, & 22 - 8P

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The Tempest- Shipwreck

The Tempest- Teaser What A Do Theatre

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"The Tempest”
a production of What A Do Theatre
Attended Date: March 14, 2014
reviewed by Christopher Tower

Welcome to the storm. Magic, aerial choreography, and special effects merge in an organic aesthetic quite unlike anything seen before with the second production of the New Artist Series launched by the What A Do Theatre Company. Resident artist Tara Bouldrey collaborates with Chicago-based aerial choreographer Genevieve Lally-Knuth for a unique interpretation of William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.”

Upon entering the unique space of the Dickman Road theater, the magical and other dimensional ambience of this special production takes shape. Large fabric curtains shield the performance space, painted with cabala and mandala, some adorned with runic or astrological symbols, which effectively shrouds the performers in the magical spells of the show’s main character. Eerie lighting effects and insistent, infectious music add to the other worldly feel as the theatrical journey spirits the audience away from the mundane world to a magical world, much like the characters are transported in what is considered to be Shakespeare’s last play.

The spectacle of this production is unlike anything attempted yet at What A Do or anywhere in the west Michigan area. As an organic work of art, a whole, this production of “The Tempest” is unique, powerful, and beautiful. Though not perfect in every aspect, the elements that recommend this production far and away outweigh those that would count against it.

For Shakespearean purists, some adjustments will be necessary as Bouldrey not only cut the script extensively but recast many of the roles, reversing genders. The re-interpretation works very well and fits the aesthetic of the entire show, though the performances do not always well support the interpretation.
Though in the original, the magician and rightful Duke of Milan Prospero and daughter Miranda are shipwrecked on an island after he was betrayed and cast off to sea by his brother Antonio, aided by Alonso, King of Naples, for the dukedom of Milan. Here, the magician is Prospera (Kristin Marie Stelter), mother of Miranda (Averi Beck), whose sister Antonia (Vanessa Banister) has conspired with Alonso (Rachel Markillie) to depose her from her rightful place as Duchess. Prospera’s servants, Caliban (Joshua Olgine) and Ariel (Sam Friia) remain male, though other characters see gender reversals, such as Ferdinand (Emily James) and Trincula, a jester (Stefani Lynn Wallace).

The core story survives. Prospera engineers the romance between his daughter Miranda and Alonso’s son Ferdinand. Caliban hatches a plot to kill Prospera with the drunken Trincula and Stephano (Lars J. Loofboro), and Antonia and Sebastian (Jared Sheldon) conspire to kill Alonso. This last plot works all the better now with Antonia as a woman thus entangling the two romantically, which is a reading of the relationships well supported in the original text.

Much of the original Shakespearean script is supplanted by choreographed sequences by Genevieve Lally-Knuth. The performing space features hanging fabrics and one hoop that are used in various ways for amazing aerial movement sequences. The storm that shipwrecks the cast on Prospera’s island and a later sequence in which Prospera ensorcels Alonso and his cadre are among the show’s most impressive scenes. The aerial choreography is reason enough to go see this show, but Bouldrey’s strong direction and smart choices with the Shakespearean text make it all the more worthwhile. The show flows artfully and exquisitely like a masterwork symphony due to the synergy of these two brilliant creators.

And yet, direction and special effects alone might not be enough to satisfy all audiences if performances were lacking. And though Shakespeare demands much of its performers, the majority of the performances in this show are awe-inspiring.

Left: Kristin Marie Stelter as Prospera;
right: Joshua Olgine as Caliban

Kristin Marie Stelter continues to prove that she is one of the most important and talented members of the What A Do company with her majestic work as Prospera. She is regal and frightening when the role demands it and aggrieved and miserable when stripped of her powers at the end of the show. Her work is sophisticated and a driving force for the production.

Joshua Olgine has proven many times that he is an extremely talented actor, but his work in the role of Caliban is mind-blowing. He is a consummate actor with a range so vast that he is transformed to an almost unrecognizable state in this role. Olgine contorts his body in ways only a yoga master could attain. He performs for most of the show in crouched position with his torso bobbing near the stage floor. His vocal work as well as movement in addition to his shaved head and body painted skin make his role one of the most special in the show.

Sam Friia as Ariel

Sam Friia turns in his best work to date in the role of Ariel. He is true to every moment, every nuance, and subtlety in this role. Averi Beck proves once again that she has talents beyond her years with impeccable diction and stature in the role of Miranda. Beck has achieved a quality of talent and mastery of the craft by the age of fifteen rarely seen in performers of her age. The drunken clowns played by Loofboro and Wallace are over the top hilarious and without flaws. And Vanessa Banister’s Antonia is sufficiently sinister early on and later redeemed as Propsera forgives her.

In nearly every aspect, this production of “The Tempest” is a complete and organic work of art. Direction, choreography, special effects, and performances merge into a two and a half hour spectacle of magic, power, and energy rarely seen on stages in our Michigan communities. Innovative, well-conceived, appropriate, and even true to the essence of the original despite the re-interpretations this production is a special achievement that repeats through March 22nd. Don’t miss it!

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this is the shirt
I am actually wearing today

OFFICIAL BOILERPLATE TEXT OF THE LAST TWENTY POSTS COUNTDOWN: Hi. Thanks for reading. I am posting this "boilerplate" text everyday for the last TWENTY posts in the T-SHIRT blog year, which started on March 22, 2013. I will close out daily transmission on March 21st, day 365 of my T-shirt blog-tastic extravaganza spectacular. I will give myself a short hiatus of total non-transmission or  publication for an as yet undetermined period of time, though I am estimating about two weeks. After my blog vacation hiatus, I will resume T-shirt posts on a regular basis, also as yet to be determined (weekly? Twice monthly?) to finish blogging about all the T-shirts that were not featured in the blog year. At some point, once I feel I am rolling along nicely, I will begin regular posting through my main blog: SENSE OF DOUBT. T-shirt posts will direct to the T-shirt blog from SENSE OF DOUBT. I will continue to post THE WEEKLY COMIC LIST, the features of occasional T-SHIRTS I AM WEARING THIS WEEK, book reviews, comic book reviews, and other popular culture nonsense as I have been for a year now but all will go up at SENSE OF DOUBT and some will direct back here to 365 T-SHIRTS. Ultimately, I will begin Internet publication of my fiction, primarily the comic book satire episodic story called POP! among other projects. So, in summary, 365 T-SHIRTS will continue though intermittently. SENSE OF DOUBT will host my main blog presence and fiction writing as well as links to any T-shirt posts shared here. I hope you will continue to follow me in my journey as a writer and a content provider. Thank you for your kind attention and time you have spent with me on this and/or any other day this year. I am humbled and blessed by your readership. - chris tower, blogger, originated 1403.02
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COUNTDOWN TO END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 06 shirts remaining

- chris tower - first published - 1403.15 - 19:57

Final Publication - 1403.16 - 13:07

T-shirt #338: Mauna Kea

OFFICIAL INCOMPLETE BOILERPLATE TEXT: Thank you for coming to my blog. If you have been here before, you know why I post unfinished blog entries. If you are new to the blog, and came here by an Internet search or some other nefarious means, you may be wondering why someone would post something incomplete to the Internet. The shirt (ha ha.... leaving in that typo: I meant "short") answer is that I must post something every day because of the goal I set for myself when I began 365 T-shirts in March of 2013. And though there is a way to post backwards in time thanks to Blogger's scheduler utility, I would rather post an incomplete entry when the daily chaos of work, family, and the universe prohibits me from completing the blog entry for that day. Sometimes, I need a few days to complete the entry, and readers who check may see a work in progress slowly bloom.
In other words, more tomorrow. Thanks for checking.

T-shirt #338 - Mauna Kea

Mauna Kea Tour by Arnott's


pu'u huluhulu

COUNTDOWN TO END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 27 shirts remaining

- chris tower - first published - 1402.22 - 18:46
final publication - date - time

T-shirt #315 - The National Air and Space Museum

T-shirt #315 - The National Air and Space Museum - The Smithsonian, Washington DC

I am a space junkie. I can't get enough of books, movies, TV shows, TV news, written news, and especially museums that have to do with outer space, the exploration of space, and other related subjects.

This shirt is a companion to T-shirt #310: Tropical Rainforests as both have a listed copyright of 1988 on the shirt, and I suspect that both were purchased at the same time. Though I am guessing that these were gifts, as I wrote in the previous entry, purchased by my mother and father on a trip they took to Washington DC, a few days has improved my memory. I may have been with them on this jaunt. I was still going on trips with my parents in 1988 as I recall a trip to Milwaukee with them the year When Harry Met Sally came out, which was 1989. I remember a trip to Washington DC, in which I had dinner with my friend John Locke in the Takoma Park neighborhood, and I must have been with my parents. So, it's likely that these shirts came from such a trip.

Pictured to the right, the shirt features a picture of the earth and a caption: "The sphere of the Earth as photographed from Apollo 17 spacecraft during the final lunar landing mission in the Apollo program. The photograph extends from the Mediterranean Sea area to Antarctica south polar ice cap."

I would amend that caption, explaining that the Mediterranean is visible at the very top of the Earth's sphere but the dominant image is Africa and part of Asia. Madagascar looms very large in this perspective. Antarctica is at the bottom of the sphere as it always is and as it is always visible from this angle.


Though I love this and the rainforests shirt, I think both are destined to become pajamas as I have worn neither in years, and with constant wear and washings, the current pajama shirts are growing more worn and thin.

The picture above depicts the The Southern Pinwheel-spiral galaxy M83. I cannot remember where I snagged the picture. I think it was Reuters pic of the day, and it's been sitting in my T-shirts Blog folder for months.

I divulged my love of space and things to do with space science and exploration in the first ten blog entries I posted. T-shirt #5: Do you want to move to Mars? featured a shirt Liesel bought for me after I asked her if she wanted to move to Mars once the Mars One Project gets underway. I was half-serious. I used to fantasize about space exploration when I was a kid and a young man. Not so much as I got older and more settled. After all, I like too many of the comforts of Earth and our life here that would be missing in a move to Mars, where we would not even be able to go outside. If I am feeling cabin fever now with the dangerously cold temperatures this January, I can only imagine how much more intense would be the cabin fever on Mars and enroute to Mars. I should amend my former comments. It's not that I could not go outside the spacecraft or domed-living-environment-pods, but I could not do so without a space suit.

I also mentioned space stuff in my post devoted to Spektrmodule, the Warren Ellis podcast, in T-shirt #75.


I am surprised that I have not written more about space and associated topics given my love the subject. Obviously, my love of science fiction comes from my love of space. The love of space came first. One of the first sets of things I learned were the planets of our solar system in order. I may have known these before I knew the alphabet. Though the "science" category only has three entries currently (and now this one) and none of them really to do with "space" (obviously the two I named already should be grouped there), the science fiction entry contains 29 posts (one of which is still a draft). These contain all the Star Trek  and Star Wars entries as well as ones focused on other print or multimedia science fiction.

APOLLO SPACE PROGRAM

My last point today (and I could make many but I am Grading Robot and I have to keep it short) concerns an apocryphal story I tell. I am not sure if this story is actually true or not. But I have told it so many times that I have made it true. I was about to start second grade in 1969 when the Americans sent the three most famous astronauts in the history of space exploration thus far to land on the moon for the first time (Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins).

My affection for the Apollo Space Program and science fiction surely kept me hoping to explore "brave new worlds and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before." But instead I settled for being an English teacher, an ultimate player, a husband/father, and a writer. Wait... maybe I am going there, to that place the no one has gone... you tell me. :-) But in the summer of 1969 if you had asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have probably said a superhero, which you would have rejected and made me pick something real and attainable, so my real answer would have been an ASTRONAUT.

Apollo 11 landed on the moon in July of 1969, not long before my sister was born, when my family was moving from Schoolcraft, just south of Kalamazoo, to Richland, just northeast of Kalamazoo, and before I started second grade at Richland Elementary in the Fall of that year. However, there were several Apollo missions after the first moon landing, two of which, Apollo 12 (November of 1969) and Apollo 13 (April of 1970), took place during my second grade year of school. For some reason that still puzzles me today, my teacher was more interested in teaching us subtraction, basic spelling, grammar, and other useless bits of knowledge when AMERICAN ASTRONAUTS WERE LANDING ON AND EXPLORING THE MOON!!!!!!!!

I mean, really, what was she thinking? Her name was Mrs. Tuttle, and she was a strict, disciplinarian. And yet, I was a precocious child. I insisted that we have  a television in the classroom showing the news broadcasts of the Apollo landings. Here's where my memory is a bit murky, and I just have always made up the details to make the story work, much like any good writer of fiction.

For accuracy sake, let's say this is in November of 1969 and the advent of the Apollo 12 project. In my usual version of the story, Mrs. Tuttle cannot do anything to comply with my request, and so I bring my own family's TV to the class to watch the orbits and landing. This is the part that is probably not true. I have a clear vision of television atop a big metal cart in that second grade classroom with Mrs. Tuttle presiding in front of it, attempting to make deals with us for our right to watch: so much subtraction, so much spelling and grammar, so much time watching the TV. I remember the principal also in attendance as this was the first time there had been a television in a class room at Richland Elementary. It was historic.

This was also the year that due to my obsession with the soap opera Dark Shadows that I sold a case or two of plastic fangs to all the students in my classes and others. The fang sale was my first business enterprise as a primary school student though not my last. But that's off topic. More on this one some other time.

I like my version of the story best. We brought in the family TV. It's probably not true, but it shows my overriding focus on the space missions that year, when I was not watching Dark Shadows that is.

Okay, so reprinting T-shirt #5 because it fits this subject, it's short, I am not sure it was widely read, and I like it. :-)

T-Shirt #5: Mars One: Funny thing, my wife bought me a T-shirt. It's not really funny as in laughter evoking by itself. But it's quirky and cute.

One morning last year, I asked my wife Liesel: "Would you like to go live on Mars?"

I was just checking. I wanted to see what she would say. I have always liked the idea of going into space. Moving permanently to Mars is a neat idea but maybe not realistic.

This subject came up because of Ray Kurzweil.
"Raymond "Ray" Kurzweil is an American author, inventor, futurist, and director of engineering at Google" (Wikipedia). 

If you like science, Ray Kurzweil runs a great Twitter feed of science news here:

KurzweilAINews

@KurzweilAINews

KurzweilAI is a newsletter/blog covering nano-bio-info-cogno breakthroughs in accelerating intelligence

California/Mass · http://kurzweilai.net

Google has hired Kurzweil to work on AI, which is an exciting proposition.

There is also a great website: Kurzweil Acclerating Intelligence.

I like to follow Kurzweil and watch the news he shares. He sends A LOT of Twitters, and they are always entertaining and informative.

Late last year (2012), he sent this
Mars One plans to establish human settlement on Mars in 2023

No return ticket

Liesel called me a "dork" for asking about going to Mars, but then, she searched the Internet and bought me a T-shirt from the Netherlands based Mars One project and gave it to me as a birthday present.

Kuzweil has updated the search for people to colonize Mars here:

WANTED: MARS COLONISTS TO EXPLORE RED PLANET

At this time, we have no plans to move to Mars, but I do like the shirt.
- 1303.26 7:46


PLEASE NOTE: WHY T-SHIRTS: I am taking a day off from the WHY T-SHIRTS? series as I am at full power as Grading Robot, and this shirt is very much a continuation of yesterday's item, the proof I did something and the promotion of it: I went to this museum, and I love space science.


HIATUS TEXT: I am taking a short hiatus. A "hiatus" for the 365 T-shirts Blog does not mean that there will not be shirts or that I will skip posting on any forthcoming day. There will be shirts. But the shirts will not be exciting or the featured shirts will not require me to write a small novel to properly generate the content I feel is sufficient. I created a category for my hiatus so as to group together those "easy" shirts that I consider to be "hiatus shirts." The goal of the hiatus is to fill in many blog days with easy shirts in order to complete longer love letters to beloved popular culture icons on more special shirts and to write more complex entries AHEAD OF TIME. The daily grind is becoming too much and causing me to fall behind and to be forced to post incomplete entries. I am hoping that a series of hiatus shirts will allow me to catch up, get ahead, and stay ahead. Ideally, I would like to be writing the bulk of each entry three days ahead while always working on at least one other. I have a lot of great shirts to share before the end of my blog year (after all I was just given SIXTEEN shirts for my birthday). Stay tuned. I promise to post the more interesting and longer T-shirt entries as I finish them. Thanks for reading. BTW, this is the standard HIATUS TEXT that I will include in every "hiatus shirt" entry.

COUNTDOWN TO END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 50 shirts remaining

- chris tower - first pubished - 1401.30 - 20:07
final publication - 1401.31 - 9:58

T-shirt #75: Spektrmodule

T-shirt #75: Spektrmodule

 I like Warren Ellis.

For those who do not not know who Warren Ellis is, check here: Warren Ellis web site.

Warren Ellis, the author (not the musician who works with Nick Cave), describes himself thusly: "WARREN ELLIS is a graphic novelist, author and columnist. His new novel, GUN MACHINE, available now from Mulholland Books, is being developed for television by Chernin Entertainment and FOX. His first non-fiction book, from FSG, is due in 2014. RED 2, the sequel to the Bruce Willis-Helen Mirren film RED based on his book of the same name, will be released in August 2013" (Warren Ellis, 2013).

Planetary #26

Additionally, I would add many of his other credits to who he is and why I like him. Ellis did not hit my radar until I started reading Planetary, a comic book from DC/Wildstorm, which may be my favorite comic book thing concocted from his mind (and that of the the brilliant artist John Cassady). Once I realized how much I was loving Planetary, I back-tracked to read his other stuff: The Authority, Transmetropolitan, and his work for Avatar Press with the Gravel graphic novels among others. When Planetary ceased publication due to a disagreement between Ellis and DC, he forged ahead with many other books that quickly catapulted him to status as not only my favorite comics writer but one of my favorite writers, period. Notables from this time period include Global Frequency, Fell, Doktor Sleepless, and genius run on Iron Man, which gives us the Extremis storyline that I am told is the basis for the Iron Man 3 movie (though I have not yet seen it).

And, of course, there was FreakAngels, which I discussed with T-shirt #22.

The Wiki page is not very good for gaining Ellis knowledge. There are probably better compilations of his career to be found on the web somewhere. I did not look, but I suspect there are fan sites to be found.

But, wait, there's more. Since 2008, I have been plugged into Warren Ellis' wired presence in cyberspace. He runs a website which he updates frequently, and since it runs on blog-software, I can load an RSS feed in a reader  that I check daily. He sends Twitters, and though sometimes he goes off for 20-30 in an hour (like the time he broadcast his views on whisky and whiskey from a pub somewhere near London to the tune of 45 messages in 90 minutes), I allow his messages to go through to my phone because he is endlessly entertaining and thought-provoking. He started an email newsletter to promote his Gun Machine book, which I pre-ordered and read, after which, I re-read his first book Crooked Little Vein via the excellent audio edition. He has many recurring activities, such as bookmarks of interesting research, Night Music (of which three of his posts are embedded on this blog page), and website station idents, sometimes posted by guests and other times as weather updates from his home near London with text overlaid on photos.

One of his most recent projects (he calls it a "hobby") is a podcast series entitled "Spektrmodule." As of this writing, Ellis had just broadcast Spektrmodule 23 - "Cloud Circuitry." Here's what Ellis had to say about it in his most recent Machine Vision #50 "Sundays" email newsletter: "First off, I wanted to mention that there’s a new SPEKTRMODULE podcast, since some of you seem to like that sort of thing.  I seem to be doing a two weeks on / one week off kind of schedule with it right now.  Still utterly amazed at how many people listen to it."

Ellis describes Spektrmodule as "a podcast of haunted, ambient and sleepy music I compile for my own amusement."

I have found a great deal of synchonicity with Warren Ellis. Before I plugged into his online broadcasts, I was already a big fan of "haunted, ambient, sleepy music" going back to Eno's pioneering work, Bowie's Berlin albums, David Sylvian, Holger Czukay, Harold Budd, Robin Guthrie, William Orbit, Robert Fripp, the Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Laraaji, John Hassell, and many more. I would add Tangerine Dream to that list but for some reason Tangerine Dream has always freaked me out. But Aphex Twin's and Future Sound of London's creepy ambient work has given me many haunted, sleepy nights.

Ellis takes the name for Spektrmodule from the Russian Mir Space Station project. The fifth module of the station was known as Spektr, designed for remote observation of the atmosphere and surface of the earth. Ellis describes the origin of his podcast name in the first episode of Spektrmodule. In 1997, a collision with another vessel punctured a hole in the hull of the Mir. The resulting de-pressurization required that the entire station be sealed off. As Ellis describes, "the crew had to sever the power cables to the module with fire axes. Fire axes on a space station. Who thinks of that?" (Spektrmodule 01, 2011).

Find the podcasts here: SPEKTRMODULE.

If you like haunting, sleepy, ambient music, you will like them. Trust me. I'm a doctor.

UPDATED: 1401.14 with link for Spektr and image below.

SIDENOTE: Ellis is always on about interesting things. He works with ideas. Part of his appeal is that he freely shares his thinking to the world. Not all of it, mind you, but a good share of what's going on in his mind is on display to the world in his posts, Twitters, emails, and podcasts. One such post, which he is still unpacking, is a little investigation analysis he called "The Manfred Macx Media Diet," after a character in a free e-book serial novel published via the Creative Commons license by Charles Stross. This is the kind of thing that keeps me paying attention to Ellis. If you have time, follow the link and read the column. If you consume media, and if you are curious about how we consume media, you will be interested.

- chris tower - 1306.04 - 8:25

T-Shirt #5: Do you want to move to Mars?

T-Shirt #5: Mars One: Funny thing, my wife bought me a T-shirt. It's not really funny as in laughter evoking by itself. But it's quirky and cute.

One morning last year, I asked my wife Liesel: "Would you like to go live on Mars?"

I was just checking. I wanted to see what she would say. I have always liked the idea of going into space. Moving permanently to Mars is a neat idea but maybe not realistic.

This subject came up because of Ray Kurzweil.
"Raymond "Ray" Kurzweil is an American author, inventor, futurist, and director of engineering at Google" (Wikipedia). 

If you like science, Ray Kurzweil runs a great Twitter feed of science news here:

KurzweilAINews

@KurzweilAINews

KurzweilAI is a newsletter/blog covering nano-bio-info-cogno breakthroughs in accelerating intelligence

California/Mass · http://kurzweilai.net

Google has hired Kurzweil to work on AI, which is an exciting proposition.

There is also a great website: Kurzweil Acclerating Intelligence.

I like to follow Kurzweil and watch the news he shares. He sends A LOT of Twitters, and they are always entertaining and informative.

Late last year (2012), he sent this
Mars One plans to establish human settlement on Mars in 2023

No return ticket

Liesel called me a "dork" for asking about going to Mars, but then, she searched the Internet and bought me a T-shirt from the Netherlands based Mars One project and gave it to me as a birthday present.

Kuzweil has updated the search for people to colonize Mars here:

WANTED: MARS COLONISTS TO EXPLORE RED PLANET

At this time, we have no plans to move to Mars, but I do like the shirt.
- 1303.26 7:46