Lari's Bookshelf

This is seriously my favorite holiday of the year. I have some pretty awesome vampire teeth I'll use to scare any unsuspecting children that come knocking tonight, and I'm painting my three year old daughter's face like a skeleton . Screw that princess shit. Speaking of Halloween, I love Halloween songs. We started the day by watching The Nightmare Before Christmas , which is arguably the best Halloween/Christmas movie ever. One of my favorite songs is "Jack's Lament," where Jack has an existential crisis, and realizes that while he has everything he has ever wanted, he still feels like he's missing something in his life: Then, after watching Nostalgia Chick's review of The Worst Witch , I learned of a music scene which sadly has escaped my radar my entire life. Until now: I can't figure out if Tim Curry singing this 80s music vomit was making me happy, sad, confused, etc. What is going on there? All I know is that my jaw dropped early...

Those of you, who know me, know that I am a sucker for science-y things. I'm even more of a sucker for science-y, auto-tuned things. So when I found out there was a new Symphony of Science video, I nearly squeed myself to death. If you haven't seen the other Symphony of Science Vids, I'm so sorry for you. Get up to speed right now. Some of my favorites include: We Are All Connected , Poetry of Reality , The Unbroken Thread , and  A Glorious Dawn . But really, they all are pretty much brilliant. I probably account for half of all the YouTube view hits. The thing I liked about the latest one is that it reminded me of what I learned about in one of my fairly recent reads, The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow. In it, the authors write a lot about particle wave duality , and how the structure of the universe on a grand scale seems to operate under different laws than the cosmos on a quantum scale. It was amazing. They talked a lot about ...

If I was a hipster, I'd be having major second thoughts towards my affinity of steampunk. The fact is, it's popping up EVERYWHERE. I still like it a lot, and find the detail and imagination that comes with victorian science fiction beautiful. Here are some videos that incorporate this fantasy element. The first is my favorite. It's modern with a traditional celtic flare. Magical to the very core. The next is more "pop."  The only thing I see about this one is that it is basically a regular modern pop song wearing steampunk clothes (if you don't include the 'mystical' sounding beginning and the mystical story in the video). Still cool, but not as cool as "The Islander." When it comes to films. There are quite a few that are also laden with steampunk-i-ness. There's a trailer for an upcoming Holme's inspired film here . And then, there's that dark, dramatic, subtle science fiction, The Prestige (based on the book ): ...