Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

From the writer's site: "Lirael has never felt like a true daughter of the Clayr. Abandoned by her mother and ignorant of her father's identity, Lirael resembles no one else in her large, extended family living in the Clayr's Glacier. She doesn't even have the Sight - the ability to See into the present and possible futures - that is the very birthright of the Clayr.

Nonetheless, it is Lirael in whose hands the fate of the Old Kingdom lies. She must undertake a desperate mission under the growing shadow of an ancient evil - one that opposes the Royal Family, blocks the Sight of the Clayr, and threatens to break the very boundary between Life and Death itself. With only her faithful companion, the Disreputable Dog, to help her, Lirael must find the courage to seek her own hidden destiny."

Sabriel grew up away from the Old Kingdom, unaware of most of its dangers or how she even fits into her family heritage. At the advent of her father's disappearance, she is pulled into a journey which puts her in and out of Death. From the writer's site: "Sabriel is the daughter of the Mage Abhorsen. Ever since she was a tiny child, she has lived outside the Wall of the Old Kingdom - far away from the uncontrolled power of Free Magic, and away from the Dead who won't stay dead. But now her father is missing and Sabriel is called upon to cross back into that world to find him. Leaving the safety of the school she has known as home, Sabriel embarks upon a quest fraught with supernatural dangers, with companions she is unsure of - for nothing is as it seems within the boundary of the Old Kingdom. There she confronts an evil that threatens much more than her life, and comes face to face with her hidden destiny."

I was looking for some monkey images, when I came across this brilliant photographer Jill Greenberg. Her work would be my dream job. I want to find a way of working with monkeys. I just need to be around monkeys. Check the link to see all her amazing monkey portraits.

Open source dialectic: the gift economy of artistic practice and the social systems created through open source artworks.  read more »

 

 

RE: Andrew Keen's Google lecture on "The Cult of The Amateur."  read more »

When I was a Junior in high school, I worked with Jacob Ames at a Dunkin Donuts on the corner of one of the two major streets in our tiny town. We would sit all afternoon in that donut shop and discuss life; and the day we saw Clerks together, we understood how art mimics life (or does life mimic art?). Sitting all afternoon in a donut shop allowed us many hours of dead time to contemplate why we were doing nothing. It brings to question a man's morale when he's getting paid minimum wage to have creamer fights.  read more »

Perloo is a Montmer, a race of sentient rabbits, who has always wanted to be unnoticed. Being a scholarly montmer, he only wanted to stay in his hole, read his histories and be left alone. When the leader of the Montmers dies and names him as the leader, there are several usurpers who want to claim power for their own.

It is time for the Apocalypse. Except there are two celestial beings (one an angel, one a devil) who aren't terribly keen on the idea of loosing what humanity has to offer. Quite frankly, after 6000 years, they've grown very attached to things like sports cars and books. So they combine in an unholy (and unsatanic) union to stop the Apocalypse from happening. Of course, this only makes things worse.

This is Percy Jackson's third year of adventures with the half-bloods. Although in this book, we don't see most of his friends from previous adventures. Instead, Annabeth has been captured and Percy does his best to save her. Along the way, he realizes his feeling for her go a bit deeper than friendship.

Granny Weatherwax and two other witches from the local provinces try to igrnore the recent Macbethian changes in the kingdom. However, when the old king's ghost shows up demanding that they put the right son on the throne... well... they ignore him too. Until their pride is assalted. That is a real reason to get involved.