Holy Recaps, Batman!

Some of you may have caught the first episode of Gotham last night, the police-procedural-cum-superhero-origin-show about the early days of Gotham City before Bruce Wayne became Batman. As an avid fan of both noir and comic books, I've been looking forward to this show for a while, and I'm excited to announce that I will be handling the weekly Gotham recaps / reviews for Tor.

My overview of the pilot episode is already up (though admittedly, it's rather long and overly-detailed — not unlike the tepid episode itself), so please stop by and add your comments, then join us in the weeks to come!

In the meantime, to tide you over to next week's episode, here's a supercut of every instance of Bruce Wayne's parents being murdered on television and film:

The Antique Mickey Mouse Gasmask That's Totally Not Creepy At All (yes it is)

Originally released just one month after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, to encourage children to protect themselves from chemical attacks and to do it in god damn style. According to Major Robert D. Walk, a former Weapons of Mass Destruction Individual and Instructor Training Officer at the US Army Reserve Command:

The mask was designed so children would carry it and wear it as part of a game. This would reduce the fear associated with wearing a gas mask and hopefully, improve their wear time and, hence, survivability.

The Mickey Mouse Gas Mask was produced as part of the war production program. The Sun Rubber Company produced approximately 1,000 Mickey Mouse gas masks and earned an Army-Navy ‘E’ for excellence in wartime production in 1944. Overall, production of the Noncombatant Gas Masks (and in fact, all gas masks) was one of the most successful production programs of the war. In fact, production had to be curtailed early due to the vast quantity produced.

Very few of the Mickey Mouse gas masks survived. The US Army Chemical Museum at Fort McClellan, Alabama, has a hand-made prototype. The 45th Infantry Division Museum, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, has a production specimen on permanent display with other gas masks in the combat support area of the museum. The Walt Disney Archives, Burbank, California, has a facepiece without ears, lenses, or a canister, and a mask owned by the founder of the Sun Rubber Company was on display at the Summit County (Ohio) Historical Society’s "Toys Made in Summit County" exhibit in 1982. 

Thanks for the info, Major Walk. But it's still pretty creepy.

EDIT: My friend Jeremy reminded me that this weird bit of complementary history exists as well. Donald Duck's only Academy Award-winning film!

Help Me Raise Money For Suicide Awareness & Get Free Stuff!

That's me and Mike to the left, circa 1999. Mike was one of my first friends I ever had, very much raised as a brother to me. He lost his life to suicide nearly five years ago now, and while you learn to deal with loss as time goes on, it never really goes away — you're left with questions and loss and one big hole that will never ever get refilled. That's part of the reason that I'm so sensitive and vocal about mental health (aside from own struggles); because I know what that suffering is like on all sides, and I don't think anyone else should ever have to experience those things.

I had other friends who'd lost loved ones to suicide, but Mike's death was really the first time I was forced to deal with losing someone so directly close to me, and especially in such a way. Unfortunately, when it comes to dealing with loss, I've gotten my fair of share of practice in these last five years, and Mike's wasn't the only one of those that could have (maybe, possibly) been helped, or stopped.

I could go on and on about this, but since suicide has recently been in the public eye, I've decided to do something different. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention hosts walkathon fundraisers every year to raise money for research, education, and outreach programs about suicide. The Out of Darkness walk (as it's called) in my hometown is not just for Mike, but it is taking place right around the anniversary of his passing. I want to raise some money for the walk, in the hope that even though its too late to save my friends, it might make a difference in someone else's life, so that they don't have to suffer the same.

So here's the deal: I've put together a sweet little package of music and eBooks, all various things that I've created, and they can all be yours with a donation of any amount to the Hamden, CT Out of Darkness Walk for the American Foundation for Society Prevention (Go Team Mikey).

All you have to do is click here to make your donation, and the download should start right away! (It's a pretty hefty ZIP file, because all the music is uncompressed)

Thanks in advance for your support. It means more to people than you realize, and I hope you enjoy your little rewards. Here's what you'll get:

eBooks:

• Fixing a Hole, a one-act play about two friends and a hole at the end of the world. Mike lived for theatre, and shortly his death, I wrote this as a kind of elegy to him, and a reflection on our relationship.
• EndProgram.txt, a darkly comedic (or maybe just sad) short story about the death of a robot. Originally written and conceived in the 5th week of the Clarion Writer's Workshop under the guidance of Kelly Link and Karen Joy Fowler. 

Music:

• If You Really Want To Hear About It, the unreleased EP from my college band the Roland High Life. Six tracks, plus two bonus b-sides. Track 2, "Your Last Fall" was written before Mike's passing...but listening to it now, it feels frighteningly prescient.
• Three new cover songs recorded especially for this occasion:
  • "The 59 Sound" by the Gaslight Anthem, changed to "The 69 Sound" in honor of the recording of Mike's beloved "Let It Be";
  • "I Was Meant For The Stage" by The Decemberists, one of Mike's favorite bands, this song could just have easily been written from his point of view, especially given how he had committed his life to theatre. At the reception following his funeral, some of Mike's friends played a haunting video of him singing this song at karaoke (my parents actually thought it was a song he had written). Recording this was the first time I've listened to this song since then;
  • and "You Were Cool" by the Mountain Goats, an unreleased track, with a few lyrical changes, as John's protagonist lives in his version of the song (also Mike wasn't really known for wearing high heels back in high school, although I did think about changing it to something like "stalking down the concrete hallways / in your tight jeans / back in high school," but then I didn't). Still, the lyrics remind me a lot of Mike growing up, and what I wish I could say to him now.

If you have any trouble with your download, please let me know.

Legal stuff: all content made available in this offer is available free and will not used for personal profit or gain. All files, content, intellectual property, etc. is the legal property and copyright of Thom Dunn and is made available through a Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike4.0 International license, with the following exceptions: 

• "The 59 Sound" is copyright 2008 Brian Fallon / The Gaslight Anthem
• "I Was Meant For The Stage" is copyright 2003 Colin Meloy / The Decemberists
• "You Were Cool" is copyright John Darnielle / Mountain Goats

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Infographic: What We Talk About When We Talk About Reading While We Poop

Yeahhhhhh this accurate (also I totally caught a guy at work today watching a video on his smartphone while pooping, and as a firm advocate of poop-reading, I still thought that was a pretty weird thing to do in a public bathroom in a professional environment)

In Which CALVIN & HOBBES Deconstructs The American Educational System

Happy first-week-of-school, suckers.

And here are a few more fun education-based bits from throughout Calvin & Hobbes history.

Happy Judgement Day! 17 Years Robopocalypse-Free! #NoFateButWhatWeMake

Three billion human lives ended on August 29th, 1997. The survivors of the nuclear fire called the war Judgment Day. 

(I'm just kidding, of course. The robots haven't killed us. Yet. And neither has that new Terminator reboot with the corny puntmanteau name. But once again, I should qualify it: yet.)

God I love this movie.

So Anyway Here's A Real-Life 3D-Printed Robot Riding On A Hoverbike

Fortunately — or unfortunately, if you were really hoping that your visions of an Endor-like future were finally near — this is only a model, created by Malloy Aeronautics. As it turns out, the bike itself is less than four feet long, and the combined weight of the robot and the bike is a mere 15.4 pounds. On the bright side, the robot has a GoPro camera for a face, so at least they'll get some cool footage out of it, right?

The MA Hoverbike is a 1/3-scale model but Malloy Aeronautics is trying to turn the full-size bike into a reality. They've got a Kickstarter campaign going that ends this Sunday, so you better act fast if you want to get your own GoPro'd Hoverbike drone for the low, low price of $1000. Just think of it as a donation to a good cause (the cause of escaping from AT-STs and destroying the shield bunker on the Forest Moon of Endor so that the Rebels can destroy the second Death Star, obvi).

Jeff Mangum + John Malkovich = NEUTRAL MALKOVICH HOTEL

My friend Jeremy is one of the most wickedly funny people I know. His previous venture White Bored Funnies provided me with endlessly entertaining stick fingers for several years, and now he's outdone himself once again with one of those stupidly brilliant ideas that you hate yourself for not thinking of first (that is, if you're the kind of person with a similar sense of humor and taste of music as me).

Enter: NEUTRAL MALKOVICH HOTEL, my new favorite meme. Neutral Milk Hotel lyrics superimposed over screenshots from John Malkovich movies. It's like The Diaries of Anne Frank meets Being John Malkovich. It's everything I've ever wanted. 

He'll be adding more as he goes on, I'm sure, but you can check out the Neutral Malkovich Hotel tumblr right now for all your carrot flower needs.

That Is A Damn Fine Ice Bucket Challenge

I've mostly stayed out of the whole ALS Ice Bucket Challenge phenomenon, mostly because I'm ambivalent — it's clearly successful in raising awareness (although I don't know how much money it's actually raised, or how important that awareness is in the grand scheme), but I can also be a bit contrary and resistant to jumping on band wagons. (Mostly I just don't care to pour a bucket of ice water on my head or to offer some cleverly deconstruction of this voyeuristic online ritual, so I've resigned myself to leaving it alone, but I don't begrudge anyone who does choose to participate)

That being said, my friend Jason shared this link with me on Facebook, and it was just too good not to share. One of the earliest bonding experiences that Jason and I had as roommates back in 2008 involved David Lynch and a creepy dude Kristoff who had a lisp, an Asian fetish, and a weak stomach, so this felt particularly appropriate.

Also Vladimir Putin. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Dear Star-Lord: Who Is Your Daddy And What Does He Do?

Continuing my apparently never-ending coverage of Guardians of the Galaxy for Tor.com, this week's article suggests some theories about the identity of Star-Lord's mysterious absent father, as alluded to at the end of the film (oops, sorry, spoilers). Check it out, and share your thoughts in the comments below!

Oh, and also, there's this:

You're welcome.

Joe Strummer's Original Handwritten Lyrics For "London Calling"

The late Joe Strummer would have been 62 years old today, and probably just as pissed off at the world as he ever was. To celebrate, here are his original handwritten lyrics for "London Calling."

The future's still unwritten, boyo.

And as a little added bonus, here's the Joe Strummer version of "London Calling" from the 2003 Grammy Awards, featuring Bruce Springsteen, Dave Grohl, Elvis Costello, and pretty much everyone else ever.

"Is Someone You Care About Getting Involved With Post-Structuralism?"

Hee-hee. Cheesy intellectual humor. Hee-hee.

Why Men Shouldn't Be Allowed To Vote

Who says women's rights activists don't have a sense of humor? Judging from this satirical piece from 1915, posted on Twitter by iRevolt, suffragettes knew how to make a good joke.

Writer, poet, activist and general badass Alice Duer Miller outlines five (obviously tongue-in-cheek) reasons why men should not be afforded the right to vote. These reasons include the fact that "men are too emotional to vote" and "because a man's place is in the army." The piece was published in Duer Miller's 1915 book of satirical poetry, "Are Women People?" based off of her New York Tribune column.

Re-mixing the Awesome GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY Mix

We all know I'm a sucker for a good remix / mashup, and in addition to appealing to the Vonnegut fan in me, DJ Kilgorian Tralfamadore has put together this sweet mashup version of the complete Guardians of the Galaxy "Awesome Mix #1" (which is also apparently the #1 album in America right now? Weird).

(Admittedly, some of the grooves are a little sloppy — but I'm pretty sure he pulled off my second-favorite off-beat sampling of "I Want You Back" after "Jump" by Kriss Kross)

Listen below, or you can also download the individual tracks legally on SoundCloud (hooray for Creative Commons remix rights!). There's also an infinite video loop of Dancing Baby Groot that you can watch because let's be honest, that's the cutest thing that any of us have seen in a while.