Gweek 041: Under the Moons of Mars

Gweek is a weekly podcast where the editors and friends of Boing Boing talk about comic books, science fiction and fantasy, video games, board games, tools, gadgets, apps, and other neat stuff.

My co-hosts on episode 41 are Dean Putney, Boing Boing’s coding and development wizard, and Michael Pusateri, a lifelong tinkerer and former television tech executive for Disney. Visit his blog, cruftbox.com.

Below is a list of the things we talked about in Gweek episode 40. (Sure, you could just click on the links below to learn about them without listening to the podcast, but then you will miss out on our discussion about whether or not Tarzan shrank in Tarzan and the Ant Men or not.)

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Dean went to the Rineke Dijkstra exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Mike talks about a new TV-to-any-device-you-want-service called Aeero.

Mark and his daughter Jane went to a at Arts ReFoundry in Los Angeles to make bronze mini-sculptures. Even if you don't live in LA, you can order a bronze buckle kit for $110, which includes pouring.

Mark announced the winner of the Gweek Secret contest. Congratulations, Eric Z. Goodnight!

Mike recommends Under the Moons of Mars, a book of contemporary short stories that place in Edgar Rice Burrough's Barsoom. Mentioned: Philip Jose Farmer's Tarzan novels: Tarzan Alive, A Feast Unknown, Lord of the Trees and The Mad Goblin and ERB's Tarzan and the Ant Men

Mark recommended Baby's in Black a graphic novel love story about photographer Astrid Kirchherr and Beatles bass player Stuart Sutcliffe in the early days of the band.

Mark also recommended the stunning new graphic novel by Tom Gauld, Goliath, the biblical tale told from the giant's perspective.

Mike's soundtrack while he worked this week was Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians

Dean likes Command Line Fu to find neat commands

Mike scared me with a personal information search site called Melconcard.

Mark is enjoying the Kameoka Diaries, a webcomic about Lars Martinson's experiences teaching English to students in Japan.

Mark likes Timehop, a web service that sends you an email each morning with your Tweets, Facebook postings, Foursquare, and Instagram activity from a year ago today.

Dean has been enjoying Super Going, a site where your friends send you on fun missions.

Dean bought two "indispensable" low-priced accessories for his phone and computer: the Wrapster and Power Curl, both by Quirky.

Mike explains why One Good Earbud from Far End Gear is a good idea for people who like to run or ride bikes and listen to music at the same time.

Mark enjoys play with the HDR and tilt-shift functions on his Canon S95 point-and-shoot camera.

• [John P]

  Another good Philip José Farmer riff on Tarzan: Lord Tyger. 

  • [Mark_Frauenfelder]

    Oh yeah — I remember that now!

• [ridestowe]

  i remember getting unreasonably upset when i found out that ipods/iphones dont have a feature that will push the stereo channels into a mono one, requiring a hardware alternative like the one good earbud in this post

• [Incipient Madness]

  I have to second your recommendation of Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians . It’s a beautiful piece, but very grueling to perform. It’s seldom performed live and usually they have about 25 musicians working in shifts.

• [olrac57]

  Maybe it’s done well – I haven’t checked it out yet. But does anyone else look at Goliath and get the feeling it’s just Grendel? Shall we start retelling every tale from the perspective of the villain and call it creativity? And will any others reach the level of Grendel?

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archetype

• [John Joseph Adams]

  Hi guys. Thanks for mentioning Under the Moons of Mars on the show. Glad to hear Mike is enjoying it.

  If anyone wants to read a few sample stories from the anthology, read interviews with the authors, or view the artwork from the book, you can visit the promotional site we’ve setup for the book, http://www.johnjosephadams.com/under-the-moons-of-mars.

  • [Mark_Frauenfelder]

    Hey John! Would you like to be a guest on Gweek? Email me: [e-mail]