The PS Inspiration Thread

Second Update 4 2 Day:

Roberto Calasso, The Art of Fiction No. 217:

http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6168/the-art-of-fiction-no-217-...

"Yes, the whole book converges toward that story—this strange creature, if you will, which is the brothel-museum dream, and where one finds all the strands of Baudelaire. But here’s an important point—that dream corresponds to a real and rather magical place in Paris, the Palais-Royal eighteenth-century garden and colonnade. At the end of The Ruin of Kasch, there is a part called “Voices from the Palais-Royal,” where the Palais-Royal is presented as an ultimate image of our world—where everything concentrates and anything can happen. At once paradise and hell. The Palais-Royal notoriously housed prostitutes but also coffee houses, political meetings, science laboratories, and gambling parlors. And it was the place where Diderot used to sit on a bench and fantasize. It is an outside space, and the brothel-museum functions like a Baudelairian mirror world inside."

~

"In the act of sacrifice, you establish a relation with something that you recognize as enigmatic and powerful. Our collective psyche seems to have lost touch with it, although science is providing countless motives for being overwhelmed by the unknown. The unknown itself is in our own mind as well—our mind is in its largest part totally unknown to us. Therefore, it is not only a relation to the exterior world, it is a relation to ourselves. We establish a connection with the unknown through the act of giving something and, paradoxically, the act of destroying something. That is what is behind sacrifice. What you offer and what you destroy, it is that surplus which is life itself. "

~

"Sacrifice is not a way to avoid guilt or to excuse guilt, it is a repetition of guilt. In a sense, it’s a reinforcement of guilt. The first guilt is the very fact of making things disappear. Killing is only one of the ways of achieving that. Eating is another.

These actions are all very closely connected and they reach very far back into prehistory. They have gone on for hundreds of thousands of years and have thus left their traces in our minds. You can take them into account or ignore them. Our world attempts to ignore them, it considers all of these things as very remote. In my books, I try to unearth them."

~

"Predators. The wolf is an animal who kills and is a danger to men. But Apollo was, among other things, a wolf. Then you had the girls who in Athens were trained in the temple of Artemis to become little bears. You see how the Chauvet themes mingle with mythology. You cannot understand mythology without this notion of metamorphosis. Ovid is, I think, the last great tragic and epic poet of that era because he tells the story of a world where metamorphoses happen all the time—but then stop. The stories he tells are stories of a girl becoming, for instance, a tree or a plant, but not reverting to being a girl. She remains a tree, and that, of course, is tragic. "

Maleficent Trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=704EXbJ-b5k

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Zeihen:

http://www.koboldpress.com/k/front-page17104.php#.UoQAd42E5w8

"Zeihen is a small, grubby creature born of the fey yet possibly the only one of his kind. Although physically small and weak, he has survived millennia by making deals. His uncanny ability to get into places he shouldn’t gives him unparalleled information, which he sells to those who need it in exchange for items, favors, or even servitude, and he then sells these items, favors, and servants for more information. Even the most powerful of creatures have learned to fear Zeihen, for while he may appear with exactly the object or knowledge you need, he will only appear when you are desperate enough to pay his heavy prices."

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Znag’s Jaw Dropping 3D Body Art:

http://ink.comicbookresources.com/znags-jaw-dropping-3d-body-art/

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Surreal Images of Faceless Men Stuck Between Two Worlds:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcalister570/

http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/christopher-ryan-mckenney-surr...

The Unreal, and Why We Love It, Part 3: Fear ->

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/01/the-unreal-and-why-we-love-it-part-3-fear

" Fear is not an emotion of our higher functions—it’s a survival reflex, an old and animalistic feeling....

...How then do you explain the ghost story? Or the endless appetite for horror, be it on a human level, or the soul-crushing abominations from H. P. Lovecraft’s wildest nightmares? Why are we afraid of things we know don’t exist?

What is it, really, that is so appealing about evil?"

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Preview Page from Young Avengers #13:

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Memento Mori
By Richard Prins

The jawless skull has eaten the apples,
not the pears. Life is stiller this way.
St. Francis cradles the skull upside-
down in his palms. He drinks blood,
not wine, from the skull's open stem,
thinking it might have been Christ's
or Apollo's. A rope is knotted where
a neck used to breathe, dispossessing
the skull marrow. His cloak's shining
sooty-blue in cave light. Somewhere
else, wherever the jaw sought asylum,
the skull is clapping its skull hands
until they bleed: echoing cave light.
It's a skull, and it don't give a damn.

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New Digital Sculptures of Fragmented Figures by Adam Martinakis:

http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/adam-martinakis-digital-sculpt...

Darwin Carmichael is Going to Hell:

http://dcisgoingtohell.com/about/

"It’s tough living in the 21st century, when mythical beings not only roam the earth, but camp out on your sofa and raid your refrigerator. Jobs are scarce; angels infest Brooklyn (the demons have taken all the good property in Manhattan) and minor gods bus tables at the local diner. The mortals of New York must balance not only their checkbooks but keep a close eye on their souls’ karmic account."

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Shadow Art Created From Everyday Objects by Kumi Yamashita:

http://hifructose.com/2013/11/13/shadow-art-created-from-everyday-object...

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Jamie Foxx's And She Was My Eve:

http://screen.yahoo.com/video/playlist/projectimagination-jaime-foxx-and...

It's an insane, American Horror Story type thing. The guy selling eyes was the most Planescapey bit. It made me think how the juxtaposition of these varied realities bleed into each other, revealing or perhaps even allowing new occult sciences in the more mundane dimensions.

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Tom Bagshaw:

http://tombagshaw.tumblr.com/archive

Real-life archer is a match for Hawkeye and Green Arrow:

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2013/11/real-life-archer-is-a-match...

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The most inspiring nature photography of the year:

http://io9.com/the-most-inspiring-nature-photography-of-the-year-1466718570

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M is for Mailbox:

http://vimeo.com/76403555

(Warning for BoVD level gore)

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Johnson Tsang:

http://johnsontsang.wordpress.com/

He: An Unknown’s Story ->

http://weirdfictionreview.com/2013/10/he-an-unknowns-story/

"...The diary I had been keeping at the Nordens was stolen by someone later: evidently it fell the victim of the same trace-destroying system, naïve and stubborn fight against every surface. Whoever the thief, he got nowhere with this petty, despicable act, and his hand had toiled in vain to pick the lock: I have a clear enough memory of all the events up to the final moment, when terror blew my consciousness away for long months. And those traces imprinted in my memory would not have yielded even to those three who used to trail their iron rakes along the paths at daybreak.

How can I forget that sea — shallow, hopelessly dull, lying perfectly flat, as if the globe itself had stopped being a sphere there? The idea of a sea had always brought that of a ship to my mind — but there were no ships, their routes ran somewhere farther, beyond the line of the horizon, ever misty and ever vague — and there lay that bleak grey wilderness of the low water, and the waves rolled in little ripples, jostling one another, powerless to reach the shore and eternal rest..."

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REM Losing My Religion Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPxVm8663Zo

"The lengths that I would go to
The distance in your eyes
Oh no I've said too much....
...That's me in the spotlight losing my religion..."

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Natalie Shau:

http://www.behance.net/natalieshau

Econd-say Update-way or-fay Oday-tay (Pig Latin):

Jean Sebastien Rossbach (revisit?):

http://livingrope.cghub.com/images/

Saturn - Evolution (short film, commercial)

http://vimeo.com/75754881

A demiplane with a faux ecosystem, constructed by a tinker gnome?

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Swedish House Mafia - Greyhound (music vid)

http://vimeo.com/75755258

(I can't recall if dog racing in RL harms the animals in some way? Might be a plot point for an adventure in itself...)

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The Unreal, and Why We Love It, Part 6: Recognition

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/02/the-unreal-and-why-we-love-it-part-6-re...

"Stories shape our thoughts. Often, we only really grasp a piece of news when it is structured into a narrative. Some evolutionary biologists believe that homo sapiens became the species it is today because prehistoric man learned to tell each other stories. It developed their ability to recognise situations that they had no firsthand experience of, and subsequently helped them extrapolate what would be the right decision.

And the oldest stories are always fantasy."

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Pablo Santander:

http://phallusdei.deviantart.com/

Borges, Mirrors:

http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/14/borges.php

"....Today at the tip of so many and perplexing
Wandering ears under the varying moon,
I ask myself what whim of fate
Made me so fearful of a glancing mirror.

Mirrors in metal, and the masked
Mirror of mahogany that in its mist
Of a red twilight hazes
The face that is gazed on as it gazes,

I see them as infinite, elemental
Executors of an ancient pact,
To multiply the world like the act
Of begetting. Sleepless. Bringing doom...."

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Strands of Woven Hair Form Unique Language at SFMOMA:

http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/wenda-gu-united-nations-babel-...

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Zhang Jingna, Motherland Chronicles:

http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/zhang-jingna-motherland-chroni...

http://motherlandchronicles.deviantart.com/

"The year-long project has only a few simple rules that basically requires each artist to submit a new work of art each week—no boring stuff allowed. There are generally no restrictions or themes for the submissions, though Jingna's work clearly tends to sway toward the surreal and fantasy.

With only a few months left, the photographer's project has amassed quite the collection of experimental work that combines photography, fashion, and art direction in a complementary manner. It's quite a feat for Jingna to produce such intricately involved attire, props, hair, makeup, and overall style and mood every week."

Iron Maiden - Out of The Silent Planet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbSxzqA8QrA

"...Withered hands, withered bodies begging for salvation
Deserted by the hand of gods of their own creation
Nations cry underneath decaying skies above
You are guilty, the punishment is death for all who live
The punishment is death for all who live

Out of the silent planet, dreams of desolation
Out of the silent planet, come the demons of creation..."

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The Great Alan Moore Reread: The Green Lantern Corps:

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/04/the-great-alan-moore-reread-the-green-l...

Each of the three stories offers some cool ideas for adventures. Moore is good at capturing the Weird essence of Planescape.

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Harvest Festivals in your Campaign:

http://www.koboldpress.com/k/front-page17191.php#.UpkBo43QFDs

"Also, since the harvest was in, this was a time where peasants and tenants presented rents to their lords and debts were paid. Again this can be highly ritualized and part of the festival. Finally, since the peasantry was at their wealthiest, young couples would often wed or become engaged as part of the festival.

A festival like this is a great time to schedule an honor duel (magical or physical), elections or referendums, and major announcements. Also, Kariv entertainers and/or a carnival may come to town, bringing both amusement and complications."

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Marc Eliezer Rubin’s New Installation, “Lost & Found”:

http://hifructose.com/2013/11/25/marc-eliezer-rubins-new-installation-lo...

Second Update í dag (Icelandic. at least according to Google):

"Lonely? Yes. But a solemn, brooding, tragic loneliness that a man hates with a passion—and yet loves so much he craves for more.

- The Second Kind of Loneliness, George R. R. Martin

Adweek:

http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/dan-wieden-and-others-reveal-work-they-wis...

While I especially like these zoetropes, I think giving the magi-tech advancements that should be hitting Sigil, there's lots of things here that might make more interesting advertisements. You could also have people putting on little street plays as ads.

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Not Trying To Understand Hippocampal:

http://indiestatik.com/2013/11/29/trying-understand-hippocampal/

"It’s important to decide whether or not you want to understand Hippocampal, either before or during your playing of it. This will affect how you’re going to analyze the game, and you will analyze it whether you mean to or not, because it’s designed to induce contemplation and bemusement, and for you to question everything.

You might take all of its symbolism and allegory as a cue for putting the pieces together and soaking yourself in the emotions each ill-fitting sound and creepy looping animation makes you feel, in order to find a greater understanding of its message. You know, just like you do with other games and media.

Or you scrap any notion of pursuing artificial meaning and look beyond what the symbols may suggest in conjunction with each other and try to get behind the reason the developer constructed each area of the game in the way that they have. If there’s a reason at all."

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Lost Girl (revisit?):

http://www.showcase.ca/lostgirl

Supernatural monsters all placed into an ecosystem, with the majority being Fae living as hidden predators and symbionts of the human community.

The whole thing is pretty fun.

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Continuum:

http://www.showcase.ca/continuum

Another good show - Anarchists are sent back in time along with a police officer to change the future. It manages to put things in a justifiably grey morality, and the main plot would make for an interesting Chronomancy + Factions campaign.

What if you managed to travel into Sigil's past? Will the Lady flay you if she figures it out, given her interdiction on chromomancy spells?

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What Dreams May Come:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPZpQsEFcKI

"Robin Williams and Cuba Gooding, Jr. star in this visual masterpiece about a man determined to find his damned wife in the afterlife so they can share eternity together."

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Beautifully Detailed Photoshop Paintings by James R Eads:

http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/james-r-eads-photoshop-paintings

Atlantic (short film):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xgbx1apOOZM

"Atmospheric, poignant tale of a lonely farmer passing his endless days unaware of the letter that's on its way from the woman he once loved.
A letter that could change his life..."

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Fairycatcher (short film):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv8HPqtsgns

"After witnessing the brutal death of his friend, the fairy Gwendal is captured by a sinister fairycatcher.

It is then a race against time as the terrified fairy must attempt to escape by any means necessary before he meets his end."

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Sonic Legends supplemental music for adventures:

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse.php?manufacturers_id=3018

"Sonic Legends soundscapes are a blend of music and sound effects specially designed to enhance tabletop and live-action roleplaying games. The music provides an emotive backdrop that helps your players get into the right mood, and the sound effects give you a realistic sonic environment to set your scene in. Each soundscape is approximately eight to ten minutes in length, and shifts to naturally follow a dramatic storyline. The best part is that each soundscape is seamlessly loopable, so there's no limit to how long your scene has to be! Just download your Sonic Legends soundscape to your mp3 player or laptop, turn up your speakers and GAME ON!"

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AJ Fosik's New Wooden Sculptures Jump Off the Canvas:

http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/aj-fosik-against-the-infinite

Second Update for Today:

Witcher 3 Trailer ->

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5GhqY9j9oCc

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Pompeii Trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uvprlUfYB_Y

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300 Trailer 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jGEERBDelH8

"My fate is inevitable, they play musical chairs once I'm on that pedestal."
-Kendrick Lamar

"He who wants to beat a dog always finds a stick."
- Slovak proverb

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POLICA - VIOLENT GAMES:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXotZEA3E0E

"Tremble at the taste of,
tremble at the taste of
tremble at the taste of in his hands

oh what a violent game,
stole but i still remain..."

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Pearl Jam Pendulum:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1D1uZbhdQY

"We are here and then we go
My shadow left me a long time ago"

"I'm in the fire but I'm still cold
nothing works works for me anymore"

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Matt Corby, Made of Stone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7zfHvdzaPw

"See I left my mother's arms,
I left my father's home,
And fell into a well of hope...

I'm carrying my heart,
But it's made of stone,
Oh I'm carrying my heart,
But my heart is made of stone..."

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Tohdaryl:

http://tohdaryl.deviantart.com/

~Also, make sure to check out his A-Z Creature Challenge:~

http://tohdaryl.deviantart.com/gallery/42281297

Metron, Angel of Knowledge and Truth:

http://www.koboldpress.com/k/front-page5169.php#.UqTysY0jRzY

"Inevitables tasked with enforcing the laws of truth, metrons seek out and punish those who use deception to attain wealth, power, or advancement. They target dishonesty in all its forms, including any attempt to change a creature’s true state using magic. As such, beings who exploit or indulge in transmutation magic often incur a visit from a metron…"

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Relic: Codex of Fallen Angels:

http://www.koboldpress.com/k/front-page11653.php#.UqTy240jRzY

"The Liber Libri Delapsus Angelus, or Codex of Fallen Angels, is a book that was created to document the true names of all angels who were banished from Heaven during the Great Revolt. According to lore about this tome, fueled by rage and blood lust, the angels’ rebellion brought Heaven to the brink of a massive devil invasion. The rebellion failed, and all of the angels who partook or supported the rebellion were brought before the gods and judged. The leader of the rebellion was judged first. He was chained to the top of a thin, crumbling pillar anchored in the layered depths of Hell.

After angering the higher powers with hateful statements about the gods being nothing but self-centered slavers, he was sentenced to be forever bound to the codex, which bore the names of those fallen angels that almost drove the upper planes to ruin those many eons ago. He was charged with ensuring the book would remain unharmed for all of eternity. Although many of the angels named in the codex have met with violent or gruesome ends in their new home, lore about the book states that many forcefully carved their own niche in Hell and became the progenitors of a species of devil known today as erinyes."

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Mingzhu Yang:

How to Write Descriptive Passages Without Boring the Reader or Yourself:

http://io9.com/how-to-write-descriptive-passages-without-boring-the-re-1...

"Describing stuff can be the hardest part of writing prose fiction. You have a scene in your head, with all the dialogue and action, but now you have to fill in what everything looks like. There's nothing more boring to write, or read, than a long descriptive passage — but here's how to spice it up."

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Monument Valley (Game Trailer):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vUABzeh55hQ

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New Witcher 3 Trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqQ3LeBgGDM

"I saw a longship made from the claws of dead men...no man who meets the Hunt returns to this world."

"I returned."

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"It started as an epic of man versus beast, the sailors hunting a male swold whale, capturing him, and performing a vasectomy. There are etchings of men crushed by the two-hundred-ton monster as they struggled with its genitals on the deck of a ship. And their job was not done then, for after they had ensured the male would not inseminate the female, they needed to attach a yeast bundle to the tip of the male’s penis. Thus, when the male penetrated the female, she would be fooled into believing she was pregnant, when all she really carried was a colony of eager bacteria.

Swold whales choose to be pregnant. For years, cetologists attempted to inseminate females artificially, with no success. The female would slough the fertilized egg because she had not heard the male’s song of impregnation, had not felt the male’s bulk against her back as he entered her, filled her with life. Now, of course, with the whales laid bare in their tanks, it’s a simple matter to pipe in the song, to send a diver in amongst their organs to prod here and stimulate there.

In the early days of the art, the sailors had to track the male, sometimes for months, until he copulated, then track the female for the twelve years of her pregnancy, never knowing if the yeast had been successfully delivered, if they or their successors would capture the creature only to receive from its womb the bath of sugar in which an infant was meant to have grown.

The sailors eventually discovered that the vasectomy was unnecessary. So long as the yeast payload had been delivered, the alcohol would kill the fetus before it grew large enough to affect the taste of the wine.

I longed to wash my hands and mouth in wine as it poured onto the deck of a rolling ship, fresh and sweet from a whale racked with pangs hidden by skin. I longed to believe in the sea, and the song. I longed for a tiny crew to climb inside my frame and manipulate my organs so that I might swell with honor and nobility."
--The Beginning of Peace by Will Kaufman from Unstuck #3

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The Works of Morgan Spry-Young and Daniel Giantomaso:

http://www.juxtapoz.com/current/the-works-of-morgan-spry-young-and-danie...

Dungeon of the Endless:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/12/12/the-wait-for-dungeon-of-the-e...

"The randomized roguelike-like dungeon defender is about preparation and exploration, with players defending a generator using all sorts of tools and emplacements while cautiously edging through doors that hide writhing horrors of increasing power. You also meet and team up with all sorts of deranged sci-fi/fantasy prisoners along the way."

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47 Ronin Motion Comic: The Way of the Warrior:

http://www.craveonline.com/film/previews/616817-47-ronin-exclusive-motio...

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This Year's Ice Hotel in Sweden Recreates Frankenstein's Lab:

http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/pinpin-studio-its-alive

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Xiau-Fong Wee:

http://www.xiaufong.com/

Kelis - Acapella (music video):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8D9xCBcfzw

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These Astronomical Clocks Were a Wonder of the Medieval World:

http://io9.com/astronomical-clocks-were-a-wonder-of-the-medieval-world-1...

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Thomas Wievegg:

http://thomaswievegg.deviantart.com/

Imagine see this guy in a crystal sphere or in the Plane of Vacuum!

Second Update for Today ->

Pages from Pretty Deadly (art by Emma Rios, Coloring by Jordie Bellaire, Written by Kelly Sue Deconnick, lettering by Clayton Cowles, and edited by Sigrid Ellis):

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The Cages of Pretty Deadly:

http://mercurialblonde.wordpress.com/2013/11/06/the-cages-of-pretty-deadly/

"....Both Lady Snowblood and Female Convict 701 are about engaging the ways in which these traumas imprison, but literally and figuratively, and both create a kind of horror in them, that as many people as are killed, and as much as the protagonists might struggle, there is no escape, and they can only fall farther and farther down their prison walls.

In the backmatter section of Pretty Deadly, Kelly Sue Deconnick relates a dream she had as a child where she and some friends are being chased through this dream house, and they keep running up and up, until they end up on the roof of this house, their pursuer hot on their heels. Her friends keep running though, and soon fly right off the roof off into the sky leaving Kelly behind on the roof because she is unable to fly. She has become trapped in space that is fast evaporating as she turns to face her pursuer.

It is this key motif of confinement, of retreating from space, into the constricted confines of one’s own inability to continue to run, that informs every level of Pretty Deadly...."

Unraveling Morality, Hypocrisy, Faith And Sin In Ossuary:

http://indiestatik.com/2013/12/18/ossuary-2/

"There’s exploration, puzzle-solving, mysteries, meaty dialogue, a ton of stuff to find and an interesting sin-absorbing gameplay mechanic. As you talk to some people, they will impart a certain sin upon you. For example, you might speak to an angry fellow and absorb the sin of wrath; later, it might come in handy to make someone angry in order to get what you want.

As is encouraged in Discordian teaching, there have been many schisms among the population of the Ossuary, resulting in several different orders, each with their own beliefs and real estate separated from the others. There are four areas (Fortitude, Justice, Prudence, Temperance) branching off the main hub of the Ossuary, and you will spend a lot of time in each of them pursuing several different goals. Certain people are looking for certain things, and they offer you promises in return for delivering what they seek. Of course, the rewards may not turn out to be what you’d expected."

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Salem Trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ICJaJgbZDKI

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Swoon's Motherlands:

http://hifructose.com/2013/12/19/on-view-swoons-motherlands-at-galerie-lj/

"Known for using her artwork for social good — from her public artwork in post-Katrina New Orleans to her Konbit Shelter housing project in Haiti — Swoon recently opened her solo show, “Motherlands,” at Galerie LJ in Paris. The mural-scale, 2D works in the show straddle the boundaries between drawing, installation and street art, eschewing the traditional gallery format. Swoon’s work is primarily portraiture-based, blending the faces of people from a great variety of backgrounds and uniting them with abstract forms and stylized compositions. “Motherlands,” as a result, is a reflection of Swoon’s utopian vision."

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Depicting the Divine in Epic Fantasy:

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/10/depicting-the-divine-in-epic-fantasy

" When it comes to the celestial realm of heaven, however, Dante runs into trouble.

At first blush, this might seem strange; Dante is, after all, a religious poet, and the ascent to heaven is the climax of his spiritual journey. Unfortunately, according to Dante himself: “The passing beyond humanity may not be set forth in words.” (Trans. Singleton)

This is a problem. He is a poet, after all, and poetry tends to rely pretty heavily on words.

So does epic fantasy. Gods are a staple of the genre—old gods, dead gods, newly ascended gods, gods of animals and elves, gods masquerading as goldfish and pollywogs—and with all these gods comes an old, old problem: it is very difficult to describe that which is, by its very nature, beyond description.

There are options, of course, but as each presents challenges, opportunities, and limitations, it’s worth taking a look at them."