Boing Boing » Gweek

Gweek 095: Ruben Bolling and Nate DiMeo

Mark Frauenfelder — Thu, 09 May 2013 21:29:02 +0000

In this episode of Gweek, I talked to Ruben Bolling and Nate DiMeo.

Ruben Bolling is the creator of “Tom the Dancing Bug,” the weekly comic strip that premieres every Wednesday on Boing Boing. “Tom the Dancing Bug” has won many awards and is a multiple Harvey Award nominee for Best Comic Strip. You can join the INNER HIVE, the comic strip’s subscription service.

Nate DiMeo is the creator of the Memory Palace, a podcast and public radio segment. He’s an on again off again journalist and has written for the TV show Parks and Recreation and was a finalist for the Thurber Prize in American Humor for co-writing a companion book for Parks and Rec called Pawnee: the Greatest Town in America.

Here's what we talked about:

Cinebook, a line of European comic books, including Lucky Luke, Yakari, Blue Coats

Marble Season, by Gilbert Hernandez

Waze, a traffic and GPS app

The Books of Beginning series, a middle-grade fantasy adventure trilogy by John Stephens

Super Flat Times, a kinda lost, unheralded, terrific collection of short stories about a bonkers dystopian world by Matthew Derby

The Hunter, by Richard Stark

Wikireader, $20 gadget contains "the entire English Wikipedia with 3 million topics"

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Gweek 094: Director Chris Columbus and writer Ned Vizzini, authors of House of Secrets

Mark Frauenfelder — Mon, 06 May 2013 22:35:23 +0000

In this episode of Gweek, I talked to Ned Vizzini and Chris Columbus about their new book, House of Secrets. Harry Potter creator J. K. Rowling calls House of Secrets “a breakneck, jam-packed, roller-coaster of an adventure about the secret power of books.”

Ned Vizzini is an award-winning author and television writer. He’s the author of the novels Be More Chill and It's Kind of a Funny Story, and he was on Gweek 069 last year when his delightful young adult novel, The Other Normals was published. He’s also written for TV, including MTV’s Teen Wolf.

Chris Columbus is the writer, director, and producer of many award winning movies, including Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Mrs. Doubtfire, The Goonies, Gremlins, The Help, and Home Alone.

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Thanks to Soundcloud for hosting Gweek!

Gweek 093: Crime writer Duane Swierczynski

Mark Frauenfelder — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 13:30:20 +0000

In this episode of Gweek, I talked to the terrific crime writer Duane Swierczynski. Duane has a new book out today, called Point & Shoot. It's the third and final novel in his Charlie Hardie series (see my review here). Next week, Dark Horse is releasing X #1, written by Duane. We talked about his novels, non-fiction work, and comic book writing (See my review of his comic book series, Bloodshot). We also geeked out on our favorite crime writers, and I added several authors to my list of books I want to read before I die.

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What we talked about in this episode:

Point & Shoot

Frauds, Scams, and Cons

Thanks to Soundcloud for hosting Gweek!

Gweek 092: Cartoonist Lucy Knisley

Mark Frauenfelder — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 23:46:00 +0000

Dean Putney and I interviewed Lucy Knisley, one of my favorite cartoonists. From her website:

Lucy is an illustrator, comic artist and author. Occasionally she is a puppeteer, ukulele player and food/travel writer. She likes books, sewing, bicycles, food you can eat with a spoon, ornery cats, art you can climb on, manatees, nice pens, costumes, baking, television, cheese and Oscar Wilde.

Her first published book, French Milk, is a drawn journal about living (and eating) in Paris with her mother. (From Touchstone Publishing from Simon and Schuster), August of 2008.

Her newest book, Relish, from First Second Books, is about growing up in the food industry. (First Second Books, April 2013.)

Beginning with a love for Archie comics, Tintin and Calvin and Hobbes, she has been making comics in some form or another since she could hold a pencil.

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What we talked about in this episode:

Mailbox

Primates

Pretty Girls Ugly Faces

Thanks to Soundcloud for hosting Gweek!

Gweek 091: Dennis Eichhorn & Real Stuff

Mark Frauenfelder — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:46:01 +0000

Dennis Eichhorn launched the autobiographical comic book, Real Stuff, in 1990. Dennis has had some of the strangest life experiences you can imagine, and he comes across as a person who is adventurous, compassionate, curious, and enjoys laughing at himself. Best of all, he is a terrific storyteller.

Real Stuff is one of my favorite comics of all time, and I have some good news to share. Boing Boing is going to run the amazing stories from the pages of Real Stuff, once a week (Read the first one here). I’m immensely excited that a new audience is going to be able to read Real Stuff on Boing Boing, free of charge. I hope you’ll enjoy reading, or re-reading them.

Gweek 090: Melissa McEwen, food blogger

Mark Frauenfelder — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:48:11 +0000

I spoke with food blogger and Meatshare founder Melissa McEwen. Her blog, Hunt Gather Love is about "the intersection between evolutionary biology and food."

Melissa is profiled in today's Chicago Reader article about a supper club run by amateur chefs.

Thanks to Soundcloud for hosting Gweek!

Gweek 089: Marina Gorbis, executive director of Institute for the Future

Mark Frauenfelder — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 19:20:49 +0000

Earlier this month, Boing Boing posted an excerpt from Marina Gorbis's fascinating new book, The Nature of the Future: Dispatches from the Socialstructed World. As David wrote, the book is "a compelling, provocative, and grounded book about how technology is enabling individuals to connect with one another to follow their passions and get stuff done, outside of large corporations, governments, and the other institutions that typically rule our lives." David and I spoke with Marina about The Nature of the Future for this edition of GWeek.

When Marina was a child, growing up in the Soviet Union, she lived with her sister and widowed mother, a medical doctor at a government clinic in Odessa. Her mother’s salary was meager, and her mother wasn’t a member of the privileged communist party elite, and yet Marina says she and her sister enjoyed a life filled with the arts, good food, fashionable clothes, travel, and education. It was all possible, she says, because her mother knew the value of social capital. “Social connections,” Marina writes, “were a powerful currency that flowed through [my mother’s] network of friends and acquaintances, giving her access to many goods and services and enabling our comfortable, if not luxurious, lifestyle.”

Marina never forgot this lesson about the incredible power of networked individuals, and it directed the course of her professional life. For the past 7 years, Marina has been the executive director of the Institute for the Future, an independent, non-profit research organization and creative design studio in Palo Alto California where David is also a researcher. IFTF helps organizations think about the future to make better decisions in the present.

Thanks to Soundcloud for hosting Gweek!

Gweek 088: Nick Harmer of Death Cab for Cutie

Mark Frauenfelder — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 22:28:54 +0000

David and I had a terrific conversation with Nick Harmer, bass player for Death Cab for Cutie. We talked about the state of home recording, great crime novels, the best places to use the toilet while on tour, and much more.

Nick provided a list of enjoyable books he's read while on tour:

A Darkness More Than Night, by Michael Connelly
The Cabinet of Curiosities, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (I dig the character Agent Pendergast)
The Guards, by Ken Bruen
Out, by Natsuo Kirino
The Night Gardner, by George Pelecanos
Print The Legend, by Craig McDonald
In The Woods, by Tana French
Dark Places, by Gillian Flynn [Boing Boing interviewed Gillian on Gweek 073 in 2012]

Nick says: "Pretty much anything by these authors is great reading. Other notable go-to authors for me include: James Ellroy, Elmore Leonard, James Sallis, and Walter Mosley to name a few."

Thanks to Soundcloud for hosting Gweek!

Gweek 087: The Art of Doing

Mark Frauenfelder — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 13:30:34 +0000

I had an enlightening conversation with Josh Gosfield and Camille Sweeney, authors of a great new book called The Art of Doing: How Superachievers Do What They Do and How They Do It So Well. Josh and Camille interviewed 36 notable people -- artists, entrepreneurs, actors, athletes -- asking them their secrets of success. Joining me on the episode was Gweek's frequent co-host, Joshua Glenn, co-editor of Unbored: The Essential Field Guide to Serious Fun and HiLowBrow.

In this episode:

The Art of Doing: How Superachievers Do What They Do and How They Do It So Well

Ye-Ye Profile: Gigi Gaston

Fathom Butterfly - the notorious beauty queen, showgirl, Hammer horror actress, porn star, felon and feminist filmmaker tweets her memoirs

Unbored: The Essential Field Guide to Serious Fun, by Elizabeth Foy Larsen and Joshua Glenn.

Katana, by Ann Nocenti and Alex Sanchez

Science-Fiction: The Early Years, by Everett Franklin Bleiler

In Praise of Messy Lives, by Katie Roiphe

Geek Battle: The Game of Extreme Geekdom

Flow Free

Gweek 086: Utopian for Beginners

Mark Frauenfelder — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 00:55:01 +0000

This was a fun episode! I spoke with John Glassie, author of A Man of Misconceptions, a non-fiction book about the unusual 17th-century polymath, Athanasius Kircher, and Joshua Foer, author of Moonwalking with Einstein, which recounts Joshua’s yearlong quest to improve his memory under the tutelage of top "mental athletes.”

In this episode:

A Man of Misconceptions: The Life of an Eccentric in an Age of Change, by John Glassie

Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, by Joshua Foer

Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder: Pronged Ants, Horned Humans, Mice on Toast, and Other Marvels of Jurassic Technology, by Lawrence Weschler

"Utopian for Beginners: An amateur linguist loses control of the language he invented," a New Yorker article by Joshua Foer

"Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm," a Wired article by Gary Wolf

Atlas Obscura is the definitive guide to the world's wondrous and curious places.

Language learning apps and websites: Memrise, iAnki, Dr. Moku's Hiragana Mnemonics, Dr. Moku's Katakana Mnemonics

Gweek 085: Maximum Sugar Rush

Mark Frauenfelder — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 12:30:04 +0000

(Thanks to SoundCloud for hosting Boing Boing's podcasts!)

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

My guests in this episode:

Peter Bebergal (left), the author of Too Much to Dream: A Psychedelic American Boyhood and a writer for various online and print magazines. He blogs at mysterytheater.blogspot.com. Glenn Fleishman (right), executive editor of The Magazine, a periodical for technology-minded readers that isn’t always about technology, the host of the podcast The New Disruptors, and one of the writers of The Economist magazine’s Babbage blog.

Peter talked about the "lack of pop culture for that once powerful consumer: the 10-13 year-old boy." He said, "I spend so much time with my son trying to figure out the appropriateness of media, from TV to movies to video games. There is so little directed to his age (11). everything is either dumbed down or too violent and mature. My son gave me a list of his favorite things this past year." Peter shares his son's list in this episode.

Other things we talked about:

Maximum Ride novels, about mutant kids who have spy-like adventures.

Justified: It's back and continues to be one of the great network shows.

Sony NEX6: The prospect of a compact camera with most of the characteristics of a DSLR, but at a lower cost and in a more compact form factor. The differences between a smartphone and anything but a DSLR are eroding. Cameraphones have nearly caught up to some of the better point-and-shoots. (And some cameras are becoming phones or running Android.)

PrintrBot Jr., a $400 3D printer.

Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and artist Fiona Staples: the weirdest comic you'll ever read right now for a mainstream audience

Strange Aeons magazine

Wreck-It Ralph Soundtrack

Gweek 084: Carrie Brownstein

Mark Frauenfelder — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 22:34:39 +0000

This morning David and I spoke with with Carrie Brownstein: musician, writer, actor. She's a founding member of the bands Sleater-Kinney and Wild Flag, and the co-creator, co-writer, and co-star of Portlandia, the hit sketch comedy series on IFC, currently in its 3rd season.

Previously:

Portlandia: A Guide for Visitors

Portlandia: Artisanal popcorn

Portlandia just keeps getting better

Portlandia holiday preview video: "Vagina Pillows"

SPOILER ALERT: New Portlandia preview clip is called "Spoiler Alert"

(Image of Carrie Brownstein: Wildflag - SXSW Music 2011 - Austin, TX, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from kk's photostream)

(Thanks, Rachel Maguire!)

Gweek 083: How Schweetz It Is!

Mark Frauenfelder — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 21:53:00 +0000

In this episode of Gweek I was joined by John Walker of the gaming review site Rock, Paper, Shotgun, and Phillip Gullet of the blog Phil Are Go.

Here are a few of the things we talked about:

Rum Doings Podcast

Marvel NOW!

Dresden Files: Cold Days

The Art of Wreck-It Ralph

Nexus7

Gweek 082: Mitch O'Connell, the World's Best Artist

Mark Frauenfelder — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 19:16:46 +0000

In this episode of the Gweek podcast, I interviewed Mitch O'Connell about his massive new art book, Mitch O'Connell the World's Best Artist by Mitch O'Connell. This book shows his early work (he published a great zine when we were in high school together), his attempts to enter mainstream comics ("Interesting, but no cigar" -- Jim Shooter), his commercial art, band posters, gallery paintings, tattoo flash, and more. See sample pages here.

Gweek 081: Wonderful apps, books, comics, and gear

Mark Frauenfelder — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 23:20:16 +0000

Gweek is Boing Boing's podcast about comic books, science fiction and fantasy, video games, board games, tools, gadgets, apps, and other neat stuff.

Subscribe to Gweek on iTunes | Subscribe via RSS | Listen via Stitcher | Download MP3 | Listen via Soundcloud

My co-hosts for this episode:

Joshua Glenn, a Boston-based writer, publisher, and semiotician. He is co-author of Significant Objects, published by Fantagraphics, and Unbored, the kids' field guide to serious fun coming from Bloomsbury this fall. He edits the website HiLobrow, which as HiLoBooks is now publishing classics -- by Jack London, Rudyard Kipling, Arthur Conan Doyle, and others -- from what he calls science fiction's Radium Age.

Kevin Kelly, senior maverick at Wired, editor of Cool Tools, co-founder of Quantified Self, and author of books.

In this episode, we talked about:

About Love: Three Stories by Anton Chekhov, illustrated by Seth. Three interlinked stories about hunters who are stuck in a hut during a snowstorm. Joshua: "Seth is not only great at illustrating, he's also great at decorating books. It's a beautiful pleasure to hold this book." Seth also illustrated two books that Joshua co-wrote: The Idler's Glossary and The Wage Slave's Glossary.

Vela Quadrant Task Force. A long-running webcomic. Kevin: "The art in it looks like folk art painting. There's a kind of cramped feeling to it. There's an offbeat, slightly skewed sensibility … there's something outsider about it."

Kevin gives us an update on the successful Kickstarter campaign for the second volume in The Silver Cord graphic novel series. Download the first issue for free as a PDF here.

Finish This Book. Joshua: "It's a very neat book kids. The author, Keri Smith, pretends that she's found a bunch of scattered pages in a park that she's assembled. There is a mystery involved, and you have to figure out what this manual was. And in order to do that, you have a bunch of creative exercises on each page."

The People of the Ruins, by Edward Shanks. The fifth book in the Radium Age Science Fiction Series, published by Josh's HiLoBooks. "Trapped in a London laboratory during a worker uprising in 1924, ex-artillery officer and physics instructor Jeremy Tuft awakens 150 years later — in a neo-medieval society whose inhabitants have forgotten how to build or operate machinery."

The Yeti USB Microphone by Blue. Mark: "There are many reasons to use the Yeti microphone for podcasting instead of a USB headset. You can change the directionality with a knob. There's a knob for the game. You can plug headphones into it and get instant monitoring of what your voice sounds like, so you can modulate your voice -- it really helps to keep me from yelling into the microphone."

Reflective Zero Messenger Bag from Rickshaw Bagworks.

And lots more: Lens reversal rings for macro photography, 21 truly great movies for parents and kids to watch together (that you can watch instantly on Netflix), Finding Bigfoot, Waze GPS collaborative navigation app, Banksy Bristol Tour app, Werewolf/Mafia, the parlor game.

Gweek 080: Interview with Anarchy Comics publisher Jay Kinney

Mark Frauenfelder — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 22:31:53 +0000

In this episode of Gweek I interviewed one of my publishing heroes, Jay Kinney. Jay was a founding member of the underground comics movement in the late 1960s beginning with Bijou Funnies in 1968. In 1970 he launched Young Lust comics, a great parody of the true love comics of 40 through 60s. He was also art director of the rock fanzine, Who Put the Bomp, which launched the careers of music journalists Lester Bangs and Griel Marcus.

He was editor of Co-Evolution Quarterly, the magazine that grew out of the Whole Earth Catalog. When Co-Evolution Quarterly evolved into Whole Earth Review, Jay wrote an article for it in 1987 called, "If Software Companies Ran the Country," in which he likened digital media to the replicating Shmoos in L'il Abner, and the article remains as fresh and powerful today as it did 25 years ago.

Jay was the founder and publisher of the late, great Gnosis Magazine, and more recently the author of several books on Western esoteric and occult traditions, including The Masonic Myth, "a journey of discovery into the real facts (and mysteries) of Masonry's history and symbols."

We also discussed the newly-published anthology of Anarchy Comics, yet another terrific creation by Jay. Though it ran only four issue from 1978 to 1987, the series remains one of my favorites, and I treasure my original copies.

Gweek 079: Milo Danger, maker of the armed civilian drone

Mark Frauenfelder — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 01:30:18 +0000

In this special edition of the Gweek podcast I interviewed Milo Danger, the guy who installed a paintball handgun into an unmanned drone and shot cardboard targets shaped like human torsos. Milo has other videos on his Danger Info YouTube channel about lock picking and how to grow medical marijuana.

Gweek 078: Joshuah Bearman and ARGO

Mark Frauenfelder — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 00:38:16 +0000

I interviewed one of my favorite journalists, Joshuah Bearman, who wrote the 2007 Wired article that the movie Argo was based on. It was called "How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans From Tehran." Joshuah has also produced some of the best and weirdest episodes to appear on This American Life, including the mind-boggling full-hour piece called "The Incredible Case of the P.I. Moms." I talked to Joshuah about all the above and more.

Gweek 077: Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Chef

Mark Frauenfelder — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:20:07 +0000

David and I interviewed Tim Ferriss, author of the new book The 4-Hour Chef. This is Tim's third book. He's also the author of: The 4-Hour Workweek, and The 4-Hour Body.

Tim is a broad-spectrum enthusiast and his sense of curiosity drives him to learn about and participate in a dizzyingly large number of activities. He’s developed a system of sorts to quickly pick up enough skills and knowledge to understand, participate in, and appreciate crafts and practices such as learning languages, game hunting, martial arts, body building, tango dancing, and startup investment. His latest book, The 4-Hour Chef, reflects Tim’s interest in the culinary arts, but more importantly, it describes how Tim goes about learning new skills in a way that others can use to pursue their own interests.

We talked about many things, including smart drugs, the Paleo Diet vs the Slow Carb Diet, and a strange experience in China.

Gweek 076: I Want My Blackwing Dirt Candy

Mark Frauenfelder — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 01:15:31 +0000

Click here to play this episode. Gweek is Boing Boing's podcast about comic books, science fiction and fantasy, video games, board games, tools, gadgets, apps, and other neat stuff.

My co-hosts for this episode:

Michael Pusateri, a lifelong tinkerer and former television tech executive for Disney who blogs at cruftbox.com

Fred Van Lente, the author of the Comic Book History of Comics, Valiant’s Archer & Armstrong comic book series, the Marvel iOS game Avengers Initiative, and much more.

Here are some of the things we talked about:

Dirt Candy, by Amanda Cohen. "Shares the secrets to making flavorful dishes—from indulgent stone-ground grits with pickled shiitakes and tempura poached egg, to hearty smoked cauliflower and waffles with horseradish cream sauce, to playfully addictive popcorn pudding with caramel popcorn."

Leviathan Wakes: The Expanse, by James Corey. Michael: "Great space opera sci-fi with a mix of detective who-dunnit and realistic characters."

I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution. Mark: "A great oral history of MTV. Filled with amazing anecdotes about the improbable rise of a channel that almost didn’t happen."

The Secret History of DB Cooper, the recently-wrapped psychedelic spy series from Oni Press by Brian Churilla. Posits an early 1970s in which Soviet and American agents war in a trippy psychic realm, of which the famed “skyjacker” was one (but on which side)?

Blackwing/Palomino Kum Pencil Sharpener. Michael: "Great manual sharpener for pencil enthusiasts."

How to Sharpen Pencils: A Practical & Theoretical Treatise on the Artisanal Craft of Pencil Sharpening for Writers, Artists, Contractors, Flange Turners, Anglesmiths, & Civil Servants, By David Reese.

Perma-Proto Breadboards from Adafruit. Mark: "An easy way to make a permanent version of your solderless breadboard prototype."

Borderlands 2. Fred: "Because Borderlands 2, that’s why. Pretty much the perfect game (in my own, admittedly highly biased view) from a writing sense, and something I think a lot about these days, as I’ve started writing games."

And much more, including three excellent picks by Gweek listener Tyler Dewald: Write or Die, White Noise Lite, Law and the Multiverse.

Gweek 075: Oliver Sacks' Hallucinations

Mark Frauenfelder — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 03:21:59 +0000

When I was living in London in my early 20s, I found a book in the hallway of a university in Hampstead. It was a nonfiction story about a group of people who had become literally frozen with Parkinson's disease from an encephalitis outbreak. The book was written by a doctor who treated the people with a substance called L–dopa. The drug was like magic. It gave the formerly paralyzed people the ability to move around, talk, dance, and do most everything they could do before they became sick. Unfortunately, the effect of the drug tapered off, and the patients needed greater and greater amounts of L-dopa to receive the benefits. Eventually, The dosage required to obtain positive results exceeded the toxicity threshold, and so the doctor had to stop administering L-dopa to them. And one by one, all the patients became frozen again for the rest of their lives.

The book is called Awakenings, and it was written by Oliver Sacks, a physician and professor of neurology at the New York school of medicine. Dr. Sacks is the author of twelve books, including Uncle Tungsten, The Mind's Eye, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, and most recently, Hallucinations, which was published earlier this month.

Dr. Sacks' books are fascinating explorations into the way the human mind works, usually through studying abnormal minds and surprising ways in which they give us clues about perception, consciousness, and behavior. Interestingly, Dr. Sacks himself has face blindness, Asperger's syndrome, is blind in one eye, and is slightly deaf, which might explain in part why matters of the human mind are of great interest to him. He's one of my favorite authors, and because my coeditor at Boing Boing, David Pescovitz, is also an ardent admirer, he joined me in the following interview with Dr. Sacks.

Here is our interview with Dr. Sacks.

Gweek 074: Lost at Sea with Jon Ronson

Mark Frauenfelder — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 21:02:25 +0000

David and I spoke with Jon Ronson about his new book, Lost at Sea: The Jon Ronson Mysteries. Jon is the author of several first-person narrative books that David and I love: Them: Adventures with Extremists, The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry, and The Men Who Stare at Goats, (which was made into a movie by George Clooney). If you are unfamiliar with Jon's work I recommend that you get your hands on every book he's written.

Lost at Sea collects 22 Guardian articles Jon's written over the years, and they are fascinating portraits of people and groups a few standard deviations away from the middle of the normalcy bell curve.

Subjects include: Insane Clown Posse and their announcement that they are born-again Christians who have encoded secret messages in their songs for the last decade, the billionaire transgender woman who invented satellite radio and her attempt to create a lifelike robot of her partner, the culture of Indigo Children, a British pop star's fascination with UFOs and aliens abductions, the contents of Stanley Kubrik's archival boxes, the tiny town of North Pole, Alaska, where Christmas is celebrated 365 days a year and where a group of high school students were caught trying to duplicate the Columbine high school massacre, a profile of Neuro-linguistic Programming co-creator Richard Bandler, a Children of God offshoot that donates kidneys as part of their religious practice, a profile of psychic Sylvia Browne, and many more stories. I was enthralled by every one.

David and I spoke to Jon last year on Gweek. Listen to that episode here.

Gweek 072: A History of Halloween

Mark Frauenfelder — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 01:06:22 +0000

Have you ever wondered about the origins of Halloween? Where does the word Halloween come from? What is the origin of the term trick or treat? Why do we carve jack-o'-lanterns? And how did costumes come into play? I don't know the answers to any of these questions. But luckily we have someone here who does know. Joining me today is the horror author and screenwriter Lisa Morton. Lisa’s novels and short stories have won numerous awards, including the Stoker Award. She’s written screenplays for feature films and television and has appeared as a Halloween expert on The History Channel's The Real Story of Halloween. And that’s what we are going to talk to Lisa about today because she has a book that just came out called Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween, published by Reaktion Books.

Gweek 071: Adrian Tomine

Mark Frauenfelder — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 23:46:22 +0000

Click here to play this episode. Gweek is Boing Boing's podcast about comic books, science fiction and fantasy, video games, board games, tools, gadgets, apps, and other neat stuff.

My co-hosts for this episode:

Joshua Glenn, a Boston-based writer, publisher, and semiotician. He is co-author of Significant Objects, published by Fantagraphics, and Unbored, the kids’ field guide to serious fun coming from Bloomsbury this fall. He edits the website HiLobrow, which as HiLoBooks is now publishing classics -- by Jack London, Rudyard Kipling, Arthur Conan Doyle, and others -- from what he calls science fiction’s Radium Age.

Adrian Tomine, a cartoonist and illustrator best known for his long running comic book series Optic Nerve and his stunning New Yorker covers. This month, publisher Drawn & Quarterly is releasing New York Drawings, a decade of covers, comics, illustrations, and sketches from the pages of New Yorker and beyond.

In this episode, we talked about:

New York Drawings, by Adrian Tomine. This beautiful coffee table book published by Drawn & Quarterly includes every illustration Adrian has done for The New Yorker.

Unbored: The Essential Field Guide to Serious Fun, by Elizabeth Foy Larsen, Joshua Glenn. I wrote the introduction to Unbored, and it is the coolest kids' activity book I've ever seen. It's packed with how-to projects, activities, games, and other instructions for leading a varied and fulfilling life.

Building Stories, by Chris Ware. Adrian: "This is the project Chris Ware has been working on for 10 years… it's a giant box, almost like a board game. You open it up and there's a big stack of booklets and books of different sizes… it's just an amazing package altogether."

The Hive, by Charles Burns. Adrian: "It's the second part of a series of his Tintin-influenced graphic novels and it's very much Charles Burns. It's quite a departure from his previous book, Black Hole. It's just gorgeous work as always and it's in color, too."

Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy. Glenn: "A very cartoony science-fiction themed movie starring Jane Fonda, directed by Roger Vadim that was based on a French comic book. It's about a woman exploring her sexual power in a metaphorical way, having experiences as she goes around the galaxy."

Elenco AmeriKit Learn to Solder Kit

And much more!

Past episodes of Gweek: 001, 001, 002, 003, 004, 005, 006, 007, 008, 009, 010, 011, 012, 013, 014, 015, 016, 017, 018, 019, 020, 021, 022, 023, 024, 025, 026, 027, 028, 029, 030, 031, 032, 033, 034, 035, 036, 037, 038, 039, 040, 041, 042, 043, 044, 045, 046, 047, 048, 049, 050, 051, 052, 053, 054, 055, 056, 057, 058, 059, 060, 061, 062, 063, 064, 065, 066, 067, 068, 069, 070, 071

Gweek 070: John Hodgman returns

Mark Frauenfelder — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 01:27:04 +0000

Click here to play this episode. Gweek is Boing Boing's podcast about comic books, science fiction and fantasy, video games, board games, tools, gadgets, apps, and other neat stuff.

My co-hosts for this episode:

Glenn Fleishman. Glenn is a long-time tech reporter, a hacky perl programmer, and one of the writers of the Economist’s Babbage blog on technology and culture.

Kevin Mack. Kevin is a visual effects supervisor, an artist, and the true son of Tinkerbell. (Here's a video profile of Kevin and me.)

John Hodgman. Among other things, John’s the resident expert on The Daily Show and the judge on the Judge John Hodgman Podcast. The third and final installment in his trilogy of Complete World Knowledge -- called That Is All -- comes out in paperback and audiobook today. John and Jonathan Coulton are performing together Boston and Northampton on November 2nd and 3rd. Learn more about the events here.

In this episode, we talked about:

That is All. John Hodgman brings us the third and final installment in his trilogy of Complete World Knowledge. The paperback is loaded with new material!

Skype is owned by Microsoft now, and the latest version stinks. Glenn: "Microsoft reengineered its security infrastructure to make it easier to tap Skype calls. I maintain and others maintain, and that process caused worse phone connections."

Postsingular, by Rudy Rucker.

Glenn: "Jo Walton’s Among Others just won Hugo. Terrific novel. Also recently read her Small Change trilogy (from 2006, 2007, and 2008)"

John recommends Reamde, by Neal Stephenson: "A thriller of international espionage but it puts the cliches of international espionage thrillers so far behind it."

How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character, by Paul Tough

DenTek Slim Brush Cleaners: "Like tiny bottle brushes. Much better than dental floss."

Samsara. A non-narrative documentary shot in 25 countries.

And much more!

Gweek 069: Ned Vizzini, author of The Other Normals and writer for Last Resort

Mark Frauenfelder — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 01:00:10 +0000

Click here to play this episode. Gweek is Boing Boing's podcast about comic books, science fiction and fantasy, video games, board games, tools, gadgets, apps, and other neat stuff.

My guest this week is Ned Vizzini, an award winning author and television writer with a new young adult novel called The Other Normals. He’s written for the New York Times, Salon, and the L Magazine. In television, he has written for Season 2 of MTV's Teen Wolf and currently writes for ABC's Last Resort. He is the co-author, with Chris Columbus, of the forthcoming fantasy-adventure series House of Secrets. (The drawing above is from Ned's Flickr account. It was drawn by his wife, Sabra Embury, and is in the set "Art from and Inspired by 'The Other Normals.'" Ned says: "This is a fish-monster (or batrachian) in the book drawn by my wife. In the book they actually have legs. My wife says, 'That was my attempt to help you visualize one of the characters.'")

In this episode, we talked about:

The Other Normals, by Ned Vizzini. "It's about a 15-year-old role-playing game geek who goes to summer camp and falls into an actual fantasy world and has to put all his gaming knowledge to the test against monsters."

Be More Chill, by Ned Vizzini. "It's about a kid who gets a pill in his brain that tells him how to be cool all the time."

Stranger Magic: Charmed States & The Arabian Nights, "a new nonfiction overview of the 1,001 Nights. I took a lot from 1,001 Nights in writing The Other Normals. I love the John Payne translation which Sir Richard Burton is alleged to have plagiarized -- one of those cases where the flashier author who was better at self-promoting got the credit."

Last Resort "It's about a nuclear submarine captain who gets questionable orders to fire Pakistan. When the captain asks to have those orders clarified he is fired upon. He has to take his nuclear submarine to a South Pacific island and take refuge there and set himself up as the world's smallest nuclear nation."

"One of the books we have in the 'Last Resort library': The 48 Laws of Power. Really scary must-read for anyone who wants to get ahead -- or understand sociopaths. (Last Resort is a political thriller, so it helps)."

Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms

"I got Johnny Ramone's Commando on Kindle (released this year) and I think it's an interesting example of a book that some claim MUST BE enjoyed as a hardcover which is actually just fine on digital."

Slash, by Slash

And much more!

Gweek 068: Matthew Modine

Mark Frauenfelder — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 00:54:30 +0000

Click here to play this episode. Gweek is Boing Boing's podcast about comic books, science fiction and fantasy, video games, board games, tools, gadgets, apps, and other neat stuff.

My co-hosts for this episode are:

Jamie Frevele, Boing Boing's entertainment editor, comedian, and former editor of The Mary Sue.

Actor Matthew Modine, who has lent his voice talents to a new interactive book for kids called Punky Dunk and the Gold Fish, which is designed to make learning to read fun and something parents and kids can share. Matthew also recently released the Full Metal Jacket Diary app, which is an amazing iPad app that includes Matthew’s on-set photos and diary entries of his experiences during the time he was in the Kubrick movie.

Here's a demo of the Full Metal Jacket Diary app:

FULL METAL JACKET DIARY iPad App Demo Video from Cinco Dedos Peliculas on Vimeo.

Gweek 068: Matthew Modine (MP3)

Gweek 067: Eugene Mirman, the world's greatest podcast co-host

Mark Frauenfelder — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 17:11:37 +0000

Click here to play this episode. Gweek is Boing Boing's podcast about comic books, science fiction and fantasy, video games, board games, tools, gadgets, apps, and other neat stuff.

My co-hosts for this episode are:

Glenn Fleishman. Glenn is a long-time tech reporter, a hacky perl programmer, and one of the writers of the Economist’s Babbage blog on technology and culture.

Our guest is comedian, actor, writer, and filmmaker Eugene Mirman. He played the character Eugene in the HBO television series, Flight of the Conchords. He currently plays a Russian hit-man/comic in the Adult Swim Series Delocated and does the voice of “Gene” on Fox’s animated series Bob’s Burgers, which has a new season launching on September 30. Eugene was named Best New York City Comedian by the Village Voice and one of the 10 best comedians of the last decade by Paste Magazine. Rolling Stone calls him a “Hot Twitterer,” and he created, curates, hosts, and performs at the hugely popular Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival, now in its 5th year! It took place in Brooklyn Sept 13-16.

In this episode:

Studio 360 Live: Eugene Mirman vs. Time Warner Cable

Using CancelWizard.com to cancel SiriusXM's impossible-to-cancel subscription

Glenn says: "Flaming Carrot is back! Sort of. A Kickstarter project by Bob Burden and his cohorts will bring the early stuff to digital form, and he’s also offering a limited-edition hard-cover of a collection of semi-early stuff."

Bill Griffith: Lost and Found: Comics 1969-2003

Fables Vol. 1: Legends in Exile

Astro City

Super Scratch Programming Adventure!: Learn to Program By Making Cool Games. Mark: "Scratch is a drag-and-drop programming language for kids that was developed at MIT. My 9-year-old daughter loves it because she can create interactive cartoons. Scratch also hooks up to the Picoboard, which has various controls and sensors on it."

Economix: How and Why Our Economy Works (and Doesn't Work), in Words and Pictures

And much more!

Past episodes: 001, 001, 002, 003, 004, 005, 006, 007, 008, 009, 010, 011, 012, 013, 014, 015, 016, 017, 018, 019, 020, 021, 022, 023, 024, 025, 026, 027, 028, 029, 030, 031, 032, 033, 034, 035, 036, 037, 038, 039, 040, 041, 042, 043, 044, 045, 046, 047, 048, 049, 050, 051, 052, 053, 054, 055, 056, 057, 058, 059, 060, 061, 062, 063, 064, 065, 066, 067

Gweek 066: Happier at Home, by Gretchen Rubin

Mark Frauenfelder — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 21:08:05 +0000

Click here to play this episode. Gweek is Boing Boing's podcast about comic books, science fiction and fantasy, video games, board games, tools, gadgets, apps, and other neat stuff.

My guest today is Gretchen Rubin, author of the brand new book called Happier at Home: Kiss More, Jump More, Abandon a Project, Read Samuel Johnson, and My Other Experiments in the Practice of Everyday Life. It’s published by Crown and it’s a followup to her 2009 runaway bestseller, The Happiness Project, in which Gretchen spent a year conducting experiments to find out if doing certain things made her happier or not/ The experiments were based on folks sayings, advice from famous thinkers, and scientific studies.

Gweek 065: Super Tight

Mark Frauenfelder — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 22:07:18 +0000

Click here to play this episode. Gweek is Boing Boing's podcast about comic books, science fiction and fantasy, video games, board games, tools, gadgets, apps, and other neat stuff.

My co-hosts for this episode are:

Ed Piskor, the cartoonist for Boing Boing’s weekly Brain Rot comic strip. Has illustrated 2 graphic novels with Harvey Pekar (Macedonia, and The Beats). His first solo graphic novel, Wizzywig was released in July.

and

Joshua Glenn, a Boston-based writer, publisher, and semiotician. He is co-author of Significant Objects, published by Fantagraphics this month, and Unbored, the kids’ field guide to serious fun coming from Bloomsbury this fall. He edits the website HiLobrow, which as HiLoBooks is now publishing classics -- by Jack London, Rudyard Kipling, Arthur Conan Doyle, and others -- from what he calls science fiction’s Radium Age.

In this episode:

How to Build an Android: The True Story of Philip K. Dick's Robotic Resurrection. A book about the creation of the Philip K. Dick android head, and how it vanished.

Rhino Resurrected. A documentary about the legendary record store and music label.

Weird Tales of the Ramones (Box Set)

The Wire: The Complete Series

The Powerpuff Girls: The Complete Series - 10th Anniversary Collection

Ego Trip’s List of Rap Singles from 1979-1992

Joshua: Spotify came in handy when Robin Gibb died in May. I don’t own any Gibb, but I badly wanted to hear “Massachusetts,” “New York Mining Disaster,” “I Started a Joke”... Good argument for cloud music — for every song you want to own, there are a million you don’t.

Joshua: Also in love with Karinne Keithley Syers’ ukulele covers, which she did as a reward for Kickstarter backers of her novel LINDA at HiLobrow. (Leonard Cohen’s “Bird on a Wire”, Bel Biv DeVoe’s “Poison,” Joy Division’s “Ceremony,” I asked for Selecter’s “On My Radio”)

Google Nexus 7 tablet

Ker-Punch!

Story Dice

Snark Super Tight All Instrument Tuner

And much more!