I’m finally getting a bit caught up on my RSS feeds. I haven’t had much time or desire to read through, so there are literally thousands of posts to read. Some are just getting skipped since they’re from before I went on vacation in late April. However, here are some things I found interesting, compelling, or otherwise worth sharing:

1. A three-dimensional exploration of Pablo Picasso’s Guernica.
2. Craftzine’s instructions on decorating office supplies with fabric.
3. A product that appeals to me in so many ways: a gizmo that creates perfectly spherical ice “cubes” - or, um, ice spheres, I guess.
4. An article in The New Yorker (via Bella Sugar) about how even Dove’s “real beauty” ad campaign makes liberal use of photo retouching done by a premiere photo retoucher who works for all the big magazines and ad agencies. Not surprising, but f’ed up nonetheless.
5. A post from BiblioAddict about buying a book for its cover. It’s saying basically what I was going to say about Michael Chabon’s Maps and Legends. I bought this book for the dustjacket (or jackets - there are three, ingeniously designed and cut to produce a stunning package). I also really liked The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and the first 60 pages of this (his first non-fiction) book are phenomenal. I’ll pick up The Yiddish Policeman’s Union next week since it’s in paperback now and is supposed to be fantastic, as well. But really, look at Maps and Legends:
   

Well, today was the first of my two days at New York ComicCon. The annual east coast comic convention at the Javits Convention Center. I was at the booth alone from 3:00 on, so I didn’t get to wander the floor and see what was going on, but I did get some photos. Kind of boring photos since they were taken from the confines of my company’s booth:

In the two images below, I’ve circled a light-saber battle for you. They were pretty far away and I don’t have a true telephoto lens for the camera, and there was a lot of motion and I didn’t have a chance to change the shutter speed since I just saw this craziness happening and NEEDED TO CAPTURE IT.

There was a girl and a guy, both in weird Captain America-esque outfits. Just -boom!- in the middle of the aisle as people sort of scooted around them, totally nonplussed by the sword battle going on in their midst. It’s amazing how one’s acceptance of the non-traditional really reaches new levels here (half-naked women wearing red contact lenses and 8″ high platform boots? Ain’t no thing!)

Yeah. There was that. And lots of other interesting things and people. Thankfully, unlike the last convention I attended, the time passed by rather quickly and before I knew it, it was time to leave. I took the ferry back over to New Jersey and took this photo in the ferry parking lot - that’s the New Yorker building, among others… :

Yup. Rinse and repeat - doing it all again tomorrow, though not for nearly as long. That will be nice; I looked up an old friend from my bookstore days who is a comic book artist and learned that the studio he co-founded has a booth at ComicCon. I went over to say hi to him before I was due at our booth and we chatted for a bit, but I’d like to pop over again and perhaps buy a sketch from him or some such Fun.

Phew. I am planning on spending the rest of the evening watching highly entertaining silliness with my sister and her boyfriend - “Wet Hot American Summer.” From the folks responsible for “The State.” Yes. It’s quite funny.