Gary K. Wolf Wants YOU!

by Liz DeJesus

Are you a fan of the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Did you know that this movie was based on a novel titled Who Censored Roger Rabbit? and that it was written by a novelist named Gary K. Wolf?

Do you have questions you’d like to ask the author? If so, this is your chance! I’m honored to interview Gary K. Wolf and ask him questions about his writing and his upcoming novel Who Wacked Roger Rabbit?, but I wanted to give the fans a chance for input.

For example:

What does Roger Rabbit have for breakfast in the morning?

Does Jessica Rabbit always look that good?

Does she have a bad hair day?

What does Eddie Valiant do on his days off?




The questions will be sent to Gary, and maybe your question will get picked! For what, you ask? Not only to be answered but for a chance to win a giveaway once the interview is posted.

Hmmm…interview, fan questions answered, and a giveaway. What’s not to love? Please post your questions right here in the Comments section.

Gary K. Wolf wrote his first short story when he was in the third grade. The teacher told the students to write about their summer vacation. Gary wrote about his trip to the moon! He always did have an over active imagination.

He's gone back to the moon many times since. Also to places in the galaxy far, far beyond that.

To date he's written many short stories and nine novels.

Gary is well known for two kinds of writing. His science fiction novels include Killerbowl, A Generation Removed, The Resurrectionist, Space Vulture an old-school, throwback, pulp science fiction novel which he co-wrote with his childhood friend Catholic Archbishop John J. Myers. His newest is newest Typical Day. Both Killerbowl and The Resurrectionist are currently in production as major motion pictures.

His other kind of writing isn't as easily categorized. Gary calls it fantasy fiction. He was told early on by a marketing executive at a major publishing house that this kind of writing wouldn't sell. Because there was no place for it on the bookstore shelves. It's not a regular novel, not crime, not science fiction, not romance. Gary asked the executive what he would do if he got Gulliver's Travels, The Wizard of Oz, or Alice In Wonderland? He thought for a moment and said he couldn't sell those either.

He was wrong. Who Censored Roger Rabbit? did indeed get published. It went through sixteen printings, and became a visual reality in Disney/Spielberg's $950 million blockbuster film Who Framed Roger Rabbit? The film won four Academy Awards and the Hugo Award. Walt Disney Pictures has also purchased film rights to the sequel novel Who P-p-p-plugged Roger Rabbit?

One of my newest novels The Late Great Show! is solidly in the Roger Rabbit style fantasy category. Those who enjoy Toontown tales will most assuredly like The Late Great Show!, too.

Gary K. Wolf currently lives in Boston, but regularly travels around the world.

Liz DeJesus was born on the tiny island of Puerto Rico. She is a novelist and a poet. She has been writing for as long as she was capable of holding a pen. She is the author of the novel Nina (Blu Phi'er Publishing, October 2007), The Jackets (Arte Publico Press, March 31st 2011) First Frost (Musa Publishing, June 22nd 2012) and Glass Frost (Musa Publishing, July 2013).

She is also a member of The Written Remains Writers Guild.

Liz is currently working on a new novel.

15 Fall Fashion Patterns & Details

Some of these patterns are just plain genius like the Ashish sequin tweed or the Balenciaga cracked paint. Others are funny and fresh like the House of Holland cigarette print or the Burberry Prorsum heart pattern. Get inspiration from fall patterns to update your wardrobe!

Ashish sequin tweed

Balenciaga cracked paint

Burberry Prorsum metallic leopard print

Burberry Prorsum grommet coat

Burberry Prorsum lovely heat print

Burberry Prorsum

Christopher Kane

Dolce&Gabbana jewels

Dolce& Gabbana Byzantine mosaic

Dior

Dior chandelier detail

Dries Van Noten precious coat

Holly Fulton quirky patches

Politically uncorrect: House of Holland cigarette print

Fausto Puglisi metal of honor decorations

Chanel's homemade Chanel bag

Here's the shape of the Chanel Boy bag reproduced over a plain canvas bag. It's not a homemade version of the original expensive one, but the real thing presented in Paris by Karl Lagerfeld. It's painted and airbrushed like we would do to at home. Could it be inspired by the street style shot taken by Tommy Ton a few years back? Lunch bags landed into high fashion scene as it-bags too since then. This is a runway bag inspired by street style DIY bags that were inspired by high fashion bags.  High fashion absorbed street style to produce more high fashion.
Somewhat this bag will be meticulously crafted by expert artisans to look  homemade.
On the other hand, Chanel's bag is a trompe l'oeil bag, painted with a technique that has been widely used in fashion by Hermes, Elsa Schiapparelli, Roberta di Camerino and Margiela to name a few.
In the street style shot below there is one thing that appears new, it's the deliberate intention to do the trompe l'oeil badly, as the double c, no matter where they appear, are enough to make something special, ever a paper lunch bag.
What do you think about it? Is the summer Chanel bag inspired by street style? Will you buy or DIY the bag?

Homemade bag inspired by Chanel via jak and jil

Trompe l'oeil bags clockwise from left: Micheal Kors - Roberta di Camerino - Mulberry - Vuitton

The Chill of Discovery

by Randal Keith Jackson

It's a wonderful, crazy time to be alive. The current state of scientific knowledge is advancing almost as fast as the universe is expanding. On any given day, just read the science newswires and you'll find something that might have made Isaac Newton's head spin.

But for me, within the daily parade of science epiphanies, there is also … a dark side. Some of the new stuff we're learning about our world and universe kind of freaks me out. To wit:

The multiverse theory. If theoreticians are right, our universe is just one of an infinite number of universes. And in that infinite set of alternate universes, every conceivable variation is being played out (as long as it obeys the laws of physics).

For just one example, among those many universes, there is one with no extra period at the end of this sentence..

Everything else in that alternate universe is exactly the same, except that tiny period simply isn't there. And there is also another universe where there's a semicolon instead. And yet another one where this blog doesn't exist because I was hit by a bus on the way to work. And so on. Creepy, isn't it?

Slime with memory. When food is plentiful, a slime exists as a single-celled organism. But when food is scarce, they congregate and hit the road. The tribe crawls along, amoeba-like, at the rate of about an inch per day, in search of chow.

These lovelies may resemble vomit and have no brains, but incredibly, new research shows that they have memories, of a sort. Slime molds secrete a viscous, translucent substance as they move, which they use like a breadcrumb trail to remember where they've been. This information helps them negotiate obstacles and find things. In an experiment, researchers hid a sugary meal inside a simple maze, and a slime mold found it by using its trail to figure out where it had already been. Thus, it was able to find the food faster.

These molds might not be able to solve Fermat's Last Theorem, but I'm pretty sure they could find their cars in a mall parking garage faster than I can.

Rogue planets. Have you heard about the nomad planets? Planets without stars that just wander aimlessly through the universe?

I'm not making this up. In 2011, a group of astronomers reported the discovery of 10 such planets roaming our galaxy, apparently unhitched to any star. But the finding was not surprising; computer simulations of planetary dynamics show that interactions between planets within a solar system are likely to fling planets out into interstellar space on a regular basis. It may have even happened during the formative stages of our own solar system.

And astrobiologists tell us there's no reason to assume such planets couldn't support life; an Earth-like rogue planet could have liquid oceans if the water were heated from below by the planet’s core and insulated from above by a thick layer of ice. Even if Earth were suddenly tossed into interstellar space, it would be able to sustain some of its microbial life because of the heat that comes from inside the planet.

But here's the most unnerving part of all: These eerie drifters are probably common. Astronomers think there are billions of them in our galaxy. In fact, free-floating planets may outnumber what we think of as "normal planets." Gaaaa!

In the next few months, I'm planning to write at least one short story based on these unsettling prompts. How about you? Have you come across a scientific discovery lately that completely freaks you out?

Find out more about Multiverse theory, slime memory, and rogue planets.

In some universe, Randal Keith Jackson is an Icelandic haddock fisherman. But in this one, he's Internet manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

His first published short story, "All the Devils," appears in the October 2013 issue of Penumbra.

Kisses from Paris : Slimane's tribute to Yves Saint Laurent

Saint Laurent spring 2014 pic via Style.com

Saint Laurent spring 2014 pic via Style.com

The Saint Laurent collection that just walked the Paris runway is very Heidi Slimane and  little Yves Saint Laurent. Love him or hate him he's continuing on the way mapped out since his arrival to the french house: deliver dresses that youth generations want to wear inspired by the world of rock music. For many Slimane is making dresses that sell and he's choosing business over innovation. And what is a fashion show without pure creativity? As fashion enthusiastic we want to see collections that push the limits of creativity a little further, we want to fall in love with clothes we have never seen before and from that moment on we cannot live without, but that's not always easy or profitable for a fashion house to do that.  Let's forget for a second the name of the label  and watch the collection. It's youthful and very wearable with a lot of short dresses for party girls, a lot of black and leather for the dark lady and a few polite suits made sexy is worn with see through shirts (watch the full collection here). It might not being innovative, but maybe it's just what young (rich) girls want to wear now. For Slimane his line is a start over. Forget Yves Saint Laurent, this is Heidi (Saint Laurent). And while we try to find answers to questions like: what should be the difference between a clothing line and a fashion collection? Why can't Slimane have his own line? How hard is it to collect the heritage of a brand and make up-to-date collections? Look at the tribute to Yves Saint Laurent that Slimane put in his latest collection: the dress with the "lips print". Originally designed by Yves Saint Laurent in 1971 the "lips print" becomes a short dress for  2014 and even shiny on the top decorated with sequined lips appliques.

The easiest way to decorate a top with the funny lips print is to buy iron on lips sequin appliques and iron them on  or you can glue a trim of sequins giving them the shape of lips. If sequins are too flashy for you can just draw lips over a t-shirt with fabric markers.
Below you'll find more "lips print" inspiration.

Saint Laurent spring 2014 pic via Style.com

YSL  dress  1971 pic via Artfact

Lulu Guinness purse pic via Vintage&Couture

Prada spring 2010 pic via Searching for Style

Prada Smoking lips shoes pic via Gotham Magazine

Alice & Olivia resort 2014 pic via dusty burrito

Alice & Olivia resort 2014 pic via dusty burrito

RABBIT FEVER

Roger Rabbit: A Cultural Impact, Part II by Andrea Blundell

In Part 1 of Roger Rabbit: A Cultural Impact, we looked at the effect Roger Rabbit had on the film industry. Now we come out from behind the lens of movie-making and look instead at his influence on society.

After the huge success of the film, it didn’t take long for Roger Rabbit fever to take hold. And what was not to love? A zany hare with a zest for life—you couldn’t help but root for the guy.

First there was the typical movie memorabilia—pins, clocks, beach towels, video games, and even a board game called Dip Flip. Children begged their parents to buy the latest Roger Rabbit gear. But it didn’t stop there. As the Roger Rabbit craze grew, so did commercial efforts to cash in on it.

In1990, Disney created a comic book series called Roger Rabbit, which ran for eighteen issues and went on to spawn a spin-off series called Roger Rabbit’s Toontown. There were graphic novels, children’s books, and activity books. And now, proof that Roger and Toontown’s legacy lives on, there is a growing community of fan fiction.

In 1994, Disneyland got in on the action, adding a new ride in Mickey’s Toontown called Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin. Here, fans can go through the streets of Toontown and narrowly escape being “dipped.” That same year, McDonald’s had a Happy Meal toy of Roger Rabbit in Benny the Cab.

Aside from the commercialism, Roger Rabbit made a rabbit-shaped hole in our hearts as well. It is almost a guarantee that you can mention Roger Rabbit in a room, and more than one person will respond with, “I loved Roger Rabbit as a child!” or “I watched that movie over and over again when it came out.” Both children and adults loved the film, which is part of what makes it so iconic. Eighties children walked around mimicking Roger Rabbit, drawn into the perfect child’s fantasy of a world with “real” cartoons. For many adults, including Celina Summers, one of Musa’s founders, it was the first VHS tape they bought.

But if you are still questioning the cultural impact of Roger Rabbit, look no further. As the saying goes, the proof is in the pudding. And in this case, the pudding is none other than a Roger Rabbit dance move. Yes, that’s right. There is a Roger Rabbit dance. You may not even know that you’ve seen it, but chances are that you will recognize the move. Just check out this online instructional video for a refresher.

And now twenty-five years have passed. The Eighties kids have grown up to have kids of their own, and the Eighties adults have grandkids of their own. A new generation is around to share in the fun and humor of the Roger Rabbit phenomenon, and they are enjoying it just as much as those before them. Four-year-olds are watching raptly alongside their grandparents, hiding their eyes at some of the more intense scenes, and giggling at the sillier ones. Teenagers are snickering behind their hands as they begin to understand some of the more adult-oriented humor.

Roger Rabbit has proven he can stand the test of time, and his fans are ready for more.

Luckily his creator, Gary K. Wolf, is ready to deliver more with his latest book about Roger and his Toontown pals. Who Wacked Roger Rabbit? promises more of the hare-raising antics and mystery that we’ve all come to expect from Roger, plus a host of new Toons that will keep it fresh.

So whether you are young or old, new to Roger Rabbit or experienced in his p-p-p-playful mannerisms, you can surely appreciate the cultural impact he’s had on society. And who knows? Maybe the Roger Rabbit dance will be making a comeback to a dance floor near you.

 

 
Gary K. Wolf’s latest novel Who Wacked Roger Rabbit? will be available for pre-order from Musa Publishing on October 22, 2013, in digital-only format.





Photographs courtesy of AllCollectors.com
Cover art courtesy of Kelly Shorten and Jacques Muller

Easy snakeskin effect manicure DIY

There are two main reasons why you can't take your eyes off these beautiful amazon shoes; the lace up design and the vibrant bright color that really draws attention. If you want to get your nails under the spotlight, take inspiration from the bold snakeskin print and make your diy manicure. It's surprisely easy and quick to do.

you'll need:

• nail polish in two colors
• mesh fabric scrap

If you don't have the exact shade mix nail polish as you would do with paint to get the desidered color.

Paint the mesh fabric with black nail polish.
Lift your stencil.

Put it on the nail, take it off and you've done.
You'll get different patterns any time making the snakeskin effect more realistic.

If you stain your fingers remove the excess nail polish with nail varnish remover or protect your fingers with paper scotch tape.


More DIY nails