Friday Hangovers - Gwenda Bond

The NYT recently profiled video game legend Shigeru Miyamoto (he likes bluegrass): Mr. Miyamoto’s work is evolving from a reliance on invented characters and fanciful, outlandish settings like Mario’s Mushroom Kingdom or Zelda’s mythical Hyrule. With games like Nintendogs (inspired by his pet Shetland sheepdog), Wii Sports, Wii Fit and coming next, Wii Music, Mr. Miyamoto is gravitating toward everyday hobbies: pets, bowling, yoga, Hula-Hoop, music. It is as if an artist who had mastered the abstract had finally moved into realism.
Salman Rushdie on NPR on The Enchantress of Florence and the dangers of being perceived as ponderous: "The threat against me was arcane and theological and unfunny. There’s an assumption that I must be arcane and theological and unfunny," Rushdie says. "And I think it puts people off. When I go around lecturing at colleges and so on, every single time I do it somebody comes up to me and says ‘Who knew that you’d be funny?’ People have this expectation of a very dark, serious kind of burdened person. I’m just trying to burst back into Technicolor."
John Crowley considers an age-old question of terminology: Is there a term in SF — not "robot," not "cyborg." not "android" — for the Ironman concept — a man-shaped thng, suit or suit of armor, inside which a human sits, manipulating it?
Photos of one of the last uncontacted native tribes in Brazil. (Thanks, C!)
The sophisticated stray dogs of Moscow. They ride the metro! This is one of the most fascinating articles I’ve read in ages: Now, old factories are being transformed into shopping centers and apartment blocks, so strays have become more avid and skillful beggars. They have developed innovative strategies, zoologists say, such as a come-from-behind ambush technique: A big dog pads up silently behind a man eating on the street and barks. The startled man drops his food. The dog eats it. (Via a migratory Ed.)
Adrienne Martini writes an excellent, smart-as-hell review of Karen Joy Fowler’s Wit’s End for the Baltimore City Paper: With Wit’s End, you can feel the echoes of these books as Fowler pushes her story beyond all that she’s made before. She stacks each cup on top of the other, with sure and steady hands. And then she knocks them down herself, with a broad grin, because watching them fall is just too much fun. I can’t wait to see what her tower looks like next time.
Seven Imps turns the spotlight on Barry Moser.
Austin on maps of fictional worlds.
Dana on Chicago. (Please approach with a sense of humor.)

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