※ Achewood
For characterization, for playing with form, for dialog, for fresh kinds of funniness, for pathos, for ethos, for range of reference, for complexity, for comfortable minimalism, for storytelling, Achewood is some of the best entertainment I know of being made today. Following it these days is like getting to read Dickens serialized in the newspaper. If it’s hard to get into at first, you might skim its Wikipedia article.
※ Arctic average
An average of the last 303 days of Modis Terra’s arctic mosaics. (Postprocessing: convert -auto-level -modulate 100,180 -resize 768x -gamma 0.7.)
※ Camilla and Java on Thanksgiving
Camilla in an elevator.
Camilla and Java sniff out dinner.
Java is excited to see her grandmother, but card games are not fun for dogs.
※ Khromax
Nick wrote a game. It’s called Khromax, and it’s very simple and very fun. I recommend it highly – it has the same kind of frustrating simplicity as, say, Tetris. Sounds good, too. I helped a bit with the look and feel:
That’s what a very small project’s graphic design workspace looks like. Given Khromax basically only has three screens, you can imagine the amount of drafting that goes into something more complex.
Nick did something difficult and risky by writing two functionally near-identical versions of the game: one that you can play on your iPhone or iPod Touch for $1, and one you can play online for free (assuming your browser’s up to snuff). Please try the online version, get the mobile version if you like it, report any bugs, and rate it honestly.
Once again: iPhone/iPod Touch version, in-browser version. Give ’em a try.
※ Please Do Not Fight at the Parlour
PDNF is a photogenic band, and the Parlour is a nice venue, but I’m afraid I couldn’t make much of the lighting.
※ “The First Long Train Journey”
One of most interesting things I read this summer was The First Long Train Journey, by Kafka and Max Brod, hiding in the back of a Kafka collection. It’s the first chapter of an abandoned novel in which characters closely resembling the two of them take turns narrating a travelogue. It’s written straight – apparently it was meant partly as a response to silly exoticism in travelogues – but as they describe one another’s ideas and argue about people and scenes, it’s lively and absorbing and unlike anything else I’ve ever read.