Joel Goldsmith, son of legendary composer Jerry Goldsmith, died yesterday. Goldsmith was best known for his work as a composer on Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, also composed the music for Call of Duty 3 and collaborated with his father on the score for Star Trek: First Contact. He was 54.
Author Archives: Emily
More from the Coruscant Craft Fair
It’s the end of the semester over here, and that means one thing–my immune system has given up and decided that I need a couple of days to recuperate from running non-stop. Naturally, that means I spent far too much time on Pinterest this week.
So, remember those shoes I posted last time? Check out Geek with Curves for instructions on how to make your own Star Wars shoes using old magazines and Mod Podge. Don’t feel like doing it on your own? Fashionably Geek has a link to an etsy store where you can buy handpainted R2-D2 Toms.
If you’re more into cooking, how about a set of these for the kids: Chewbacca cupcakes.
If you’re making them for the adult crowd, I might suggest using this recipe which adds to the chocolate-y goodness by including Guinness. (No, there is no redeeming nutritional value to these at all. But they’re Chewie cupcakes! Who wants there to be?)
If you’re more into needlework instead, take a look here at these crocheted Granny Square TIE fighters from Craftzine. Each fighter has a different granny square as its foundation. Unfortunately, there aren’t any instructions. But if you’re looking for Star Wars-themed crochet, you can buy a pattern for a mini Yoda amigurumi over at Etsy.
In fact, you can get more than just Yoda. The seller features 12 different Star Wars amigurumi patterns at her Etsy store. Aren’t they cute?
Things that happen when you accidentally text a member of the 501st….
It’s NSFW due to some language at the end. I didn’t realize Darth Vader had an iPhone, though.
(By the way, check the dates on this…our Vader stand-in had this guy going for a month.)
Book Review: Leaving Mundania
Ready for another aspect of geek culture? Here’s a book you might want to look into: Lizzie Stark’s Leaving Mundania: Inside the Transformative World of Live Action Role-Playing Games, published by Chicago Review Press and out in bookstores Monday, May 1st.
Full disclosure: I received an advance digital copy of this book for reviewing purposes.
Leaving Mundania was one of the more interesting books I’ve read in a while. Being a geek myself, I’m familiar with live action role-playing games. Many of my friends in college played, and while I never made it to an actual LARP event, I knew the basics of how to play, had my own boffer sword (think a homemade Nerf sword–a pool noodle carefully duct-taped around a PVC pipe), and enjoyed practicing beating the crap out of my friends with it.
I never went to a LARP event, because when you got right down to it, it meant camping and tromping through the woods, and well, I didn’t want to go. I’ve always been much more of a table-top gaming girl myself (which I loved doing with these same friends). In the intervening years, the LARP that I knew has gone under, unfortunately, so my husband and his brother don’t spend weekends “playing whoop-ass” (as my mother-in-law likes to refer to it).
Coruscant Craft Fair
Otherwise known as: Emily goes through her Pinterest boards and finds the coolest geeky crafts and products out there.
So, ladies? How about these for that next special occasion? (As featured on Craftzine)
More awesome Star Wars crafts…err…pinterest stuff after the jump. Continue reading
Slow News Day….?
In an effort to preserve our readership from Brian’s iTunes list, Shane and I were discussing what we could do to possibly indicate a slow news day. One of the blogs he reads uses the Slow News Day Gorn–appropriately, since there is nothing slower than the Gorn.
But this being a primarily Star Wars blog, news today has been slower than:
a) Greedo’s gun hand (because Han shot first)
b) Jabba the Hutt
c) Bossk (this was Shane’s favorite)
d) the Sarlacc’s Digestion
e) a season on the moisture farm
f) Brian updating his taste in music
Got a better suggestion? Let us know in the comments.
An Academic’s Defense of Fanfic
Hi! No, I’m not Brian. Or Nanci. Or Shane.
My name’s Emily, and I’m Shane’s other half, among many other things. Among those many other things, I’m a graduate student close to finishing my Ph.D. in English at a university which has a very open department that is well known for studying popular culture. I’m also a huge nerd, which one would have to be if one is to marry Shane. I’m also a fan of fanfiction.
Let me preface this discussion with the following: I despise Twilight for many reasons, I’ve not really been keeping up too much with the E.L. James and Fifty Shades of Gray hullabaloo, as I’ve been studying for exams lately, but I’m still plugged in enough to hear about all of the incredible flak that’s been going around and aimed at the fanfiction community, primarily by the mainstream media. I’m not going to get into the intellectual property issues here—I’m most assuredly not a lawyer. I don’t even play one on TV. What I want to talk about is the flak that’s attacking the fanfiction community as a group of deviants who are solely concerned with the erotic possibilities fanfiction offers.
But like so many other things, the mainstream media once again has it all wrong. They’re only telling one side of the fanfiction story. It’s time to shatter some of the preconceptions about fanfiction and start dealing in facts. So, I present to you an academic’s defense of fanfiction in layman’s terms. Continue reading