More Flash Pulp Sketches
Another grab from Opop‘s sketchbook – this time relating to FP #65 – The Weebinax.
I’ve been told I can only post this if I accompany it with a warning that she isn’t such a fan of some of her work here.
The Dangers, and Freedom, of Silicon
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zFdTrpjRjs]
Did you catch this video over at BoingBoing? Realistic masks are no longer the stuff of Mission Impossible, now you too can be an old man starting at the low, low, price of $700.
This is the same mask, I believe, recently featured in one man’s flight from Chinese oppression:
On October 29, a young Chinese man who was wearing a latex mask, cap and a cardigan sweater which disguised him as an old Caucasian man was able to board an international flight after passing Hong Kong airport security and make it on a flight to Vancouver, Canada. he took off the disguise and showed his true self sometime mid-flight. – Thaindian News
– and is from the same line of masks as the selection used by a recent bank bandit:
According to police reports, Conrad Zdzierak, 30, is alleged to have used the £450 silicon mask in an audacious string of six bank robberies in Ohio. – The Telegraph
I’ve often wondered what effect the internet has had on the perception of race and sexuality – it’s my theory that the uncertainty of the identity at the far end of the connection generates a greater need for tolerance – but we seem to be living in a world where even the likelihood of being able to believe your own lying-eyes is rapidly dropping.
What would happen if you were in the park with your ornery grandfather, listening to him complain regarding the personal affection a male couple were showing each other, only to have one of the apparent lovebirds pull back a layer of rubber to reveal a woman underneath?
Better yet, what would have happened if, eighty years ago, a black man in the American south had discovered one of these masks and realized it could be the key to a much better paying job?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8h_v_our_Q]
Flash Pulp 125 – Ruby Departed: Local Hero, Part 2 of 3
Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode one hundred and twenty-five.
Tonight we present, Ruby Departed: Local Hero, Part 2 of 3
(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp125.mp3]Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)
This week’s episodes are brought to you by The Walker Journals.
Undead Boy Scouts may attempt to consume your brain-matter. You’ll need more than a pocket knife and a knots badge to be prepared.
Find all the tips you’ll need to survive the zombie apocalypse at http://youtube.com/user/WalkerZombieSurvivor
Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.
Tonight, Ruby Departed stops for a beverage and a conversation, as the zombie apocalypse continues on about her.
Flash Pulp 125 – Ruby Departed: Local Hero, Part 2 of 3
Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May
[Text to be posted]
Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License. Text and audio commentaries can be sent to skinner@skinner.fm, or the voicemail line at (206) 338-2792 – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.
Many thanks to Wood, of Highland & Wood, for the intro bumper. You can find their podcast at bothersomethings.com
– and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.
The Most Trusted Name In Questions
Sometimes CNN.com starts throwing up questions, and, in those terribly confused moments, I step in to answer.
Well – the first isn’t actually a question, but that’s becoming traditional:
DADT may have been repealed, but the warship’s mom should have kept her mouth shut. It’s a shame no one introduced it to the It Gets Better Project.
I’ve heard this patter before: “- because, seriously, there’s not much left, and, you know, if you aren’t going to need it, my fries could use some more…”
Just take it already.
Absolutely. A reverse mortgage is exactly like cartoon amnesia – if anything goes wrong, all you have to do is get a double reverse mortgage and everything will be back to normal.
Yes.
This has to be the worst iteration of the “Carmen Sandiego” franchise yet.
Flash Pulp Sketches
These are just a few quick grabs from Opop’s sketches, which I wanted to share in the hope that it might encourage her to get around to doing more of the same at her own site.
Joe Monk’s ship, in a TNG-style planet scene:
Macbeth, angry:
– and, finally, a Ruby-related doodle from around the holidays:
Money Making Machine
I assume you’ve seen an ad from one of the recent bumper crop of money-for-gold companies?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrNipeP4HvQ]
I have a business proposal for you.
We rig up a computer to a modified high-heat oven, and put it up against a mail slot.
When the mail gets delivered, it drops onto a small sorting unit which separates things out into individual letters. The letters are scanned, then the ends are cut off. The gold (which we’ve released a marketing campaign offering to purchase at not-quite-gouging prices) is dumped from the torn envelope and into a smelting unit, which heats to exactly gold’s melting point, and mechanically separates anything else that might survive (diamonds).
The gold is set into blocks, which are then weighed, and a feeder unit dispenses the proper amount of money (as well as any of the other odds and ends that survived the smelting process) into an envelope, which has the address pre-printed with the location originally scanned from the letter-face.
Once a week you take some of the money we’re now rolling in, insert it into the pay-out hopper, check the envelope & ink supply, grab the outgoing mail, then walk off to a fancy party with your pockets full of gold blocks.
Flash Pulp 124 – Ruby Departed: Local Hero, Part 1 of 3
Welcome to Flash Pulp, episode one hundred and twenty-four.
Tonight we present, Ruby Departed: Local Hero, Part 1 of 3
(Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3)
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/skinner/FlashPulp124.mp3]Download MP3
(RSS / iTunes)
This week’s episodes are brought to you by The Walker Journals.
Cut back on the Beyoncé videos a little, and enjoy one man’s tales of zombie survival, as told to youtube.
Find it at http://youtube.com/user/WalkerZombieSurvivor
Flash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age – three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings.
Tonight, Ruby Departed walks a hard road as she comes to grips with the realities of the zombie apocalypse.
Flash Pulp 124 – Ruby Departed: Local Hero, Part 1 of 3
Written by J.R.D. Skinner
Art and Narration by Opopanax
and Audio produced by Jessica May
[Text still to be posted.]
Flash Pulp is presented by http://skinner.fm, and is released under the Canadian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License. Text and audio commentaries can be sent to skinner@skinner.fm, or the voicemail line at (206) 338-2792 – but be aware that it may appear in the FlashCast.
Many thanks to Wood, of Highland & Wood, for the intro bumper. You can find their podcast at bothersomethings.com
– and thanks to you, for reading. If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends.
Popularity Contest
I meant to run this bit of maintenance news closer to the New Year, but it slipped my mind till just now.
There are three posts from the archives that continue to get an oddly-large amount of traffic, despite the fact that all three are essentially throw away bits of brain-scraping:
- The truth behind the naming of Doritos.
- The current summation of the relationship status of cartoonist Kris Straub, as it relates to his former girlfriend, Erica.
- Two lines I posted regarding the disturbing fact that bear baiting is still active in Pakistan.
Frailty
Not long ago, while poking around the internet on the trail of research, I encountered an instrument that I’d never heard of – an instrument which has a body of work behind it that includes compositions by Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven.
The device is essentially a rolling post that spins glass rings, so the sound is similar to that of rubbing a wet finger about the rim of a bit of stemware.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQemvyyJ–g]
Its popularity didn’t last beyond the 18th century, apparently, and there seems to be some split in opinion as to why.
My personal guess is that the device was just too inconsistent, and too fragile, to garner a lot of players – but I like the romantic ideals of this suggestion made by wikipedia:
Some claim this was due to strange rumors that using the instrument caused both musicians and their listeners to go mad. […] One example of fear from playing the glass harmonica was noted by a German musicologist Friedrich Rochlitz in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung:
“The harmonica excessively stimulates the nerves, plunges the player into a nagging depression and hence into a dark and melancholy mood that is apt method for slow self-annihilation. If you are suffering from any nervous disorder, you should not play it; if you are not yet ill you should not play it; if you are feeling melancholy you should not play it.”
Joe Estevez Update
This is a bit of inside-baseball, unless you’re an Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan, but, remember Joe Estevez, Martin Sheen’s brother?
You know, the guy from Werewolf and Soultaker.
Jessica May just let me know that he apparently attempted to move in on Two & a Half Men* while Charlie Sheen was in rehab!
In the letter, Estevez’s manager Ed Meyer, writes that Joe is “by far the funniest of the Sheen & Estevez clan” and pitches the idea that he go on Two and a Half Men and take over while Charlie is on “Vacation.” – Perez Hilton*
For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, you might begin your education in comedy at the youtube link below. Prepare yourself for bad accents and California ladies.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M7vtpz6SaU]
* Ugh.