Miscellaneous Links (in an Imaginary Chain)

Time to dump out some miscellaneous links I've been collecting:
*The NY Times has an article about Alexis Rockman, an artist who claims as influences both the Hudson River School of painters and Chesley Bonestell. An earlier article from Wired has some more of Rockman's paintings.

*Peter Lindberg has some interesting thoughts about Peter Bøgh Andersen's article "Genres as Self-Organizing Systems" (PDF), which I was able to read about half of before it felt like my brain was seeping out of my toenails.

*McSweeney's has a list of Movies Directed by Mel Gibson's Father, Hutton Gibson.

*I discovered a fascinating post offering thoughts on the classification of civlizations, which might even be useful to writers of good ol' fashioned hard science fiction, assuming one or two ever stop by.

*Here is a collection of numerous definitions of "science fiction", including the following from Northrop Frye: "Science fiction frequently tries to imagine what life would be like on a plane as far above us as we are above savagery; its setting is often of a kind that appears to us technologically miraculous. It is thus a mode of romance with a strong tendency to myth." And here is a definition of "spinach" from the 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

*Ever wondered how to make erotic origami?

*Ideomancer has a new issue up that's worth reading, including work by M. Rickert and Jay Lake, both of whom I've written about recently, and both of whom I try to read whenever I encounter their work (I haven't read these stories yet, though, because I've been trying to catch up on other things).

*In awards new, the International Horror Guild Awards were given out in Phoenix, AZ this weekend. My mother and her partner were in Phoenix visiting family, but, not being horror buffs, they found other things to do than attend the ceremony, to which they were neither invited nor aware. As for me, I haven't read any of the winning fiction, and so cannot offer yays or boos, though I did like the winning film, David Cronenberg's Spider.

*Finally, a favorite site I haven't been able to fit into a post anywhere: Notcoming.com. No, it's not a companion to the erotic origami site, but rather a phenomenal reference for movies you might not otherwise hear about. At times it's a depressing site, because you realize how many great films aren't available on DVD. (Recently, they reviewed Paris, Texas, one of my favorite movies, the VHS of which I play only now and then, always fearing that it will break, since it is, in VHS years, ancient.) There are plenty of fun lists, too (I always like lists), including: benevolent robots, weird monsters, and religious controversies.

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