The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

I just finished Paolo Baciglupi's first novel "The Windup Girl" and I liked it as much as I liked William Gibson's "Neuromancer". The Windup Girl is set in a dystopian future Bangkok where global warming is threatening to flood the city, oil has been used up, pandemics run rampant in humans and plants, agriculture is controlled by corporations and political factions are tearing the city apart. The book has many interesting ideas, energy is stored in springs (compressed using human or animal power), and wars fought over bio-diversity. There's lots to think about after reading this novel and I don't want to spoil the joy of reading it.

You can buy from Amazon or get it from the Chicago Public Library

Instore at Hard Boiled Records on Friday

My friend Clark Paterson is playing at the store on Friday July 2nd at 6:30.

Here is a video of him performing at Sylvie's.

You can check out more info about Clark here

Sound added to the site

Added sound to the website. For that version go to the revamped Hard Boiled site

Warren Ellis' FreakAngels online comic

Warren Ellis is one of the best comic book writers working these days. He does high profile work (Astonishing X-men) to pay the bills, but most of his current output is for indie comic book companies that allow him and the artists to maintain ownership of their work. He also has a popular blog that is always worth daily reading. For the last two years he and Paul Duffield have published a weekly web comic called FreakAngels, 6 pages every Friday.

FreakAngels is the story of a group of superpowered twenty somethings who have flooded London and destroyed the UK government.

FreakAngels starts here

Hand painted movie posters

Heather and I went to the Primitive art space a couple of weeks ago to check out the hand painted movie poster from Ghana. Primitive has a couple of hundred hand painted posters painted on the back of used flour sacks. The posters are mainly from American action movies, Hong Kong kung fu, a few Bollywood, and Nigerian religious dramas (which are usually part horror or action movies). The paintings were made as advertising for video screenings of the movies in rural Ghana. Traveling projectionists would go town to town and put up the posters to advertise the nights video projection.

The prices start at $7000 and go up to $30,000 for a really nice King Kong (1977 version) poster that could be a Lee Perry album cover.

Early short films from Bong Joon Ho

The first of 4 short films from the director of The Host, and Mother.

Originally found on www.wildgrounds.com

Crazy lipsync video from the Phillipines

It starts out bizarre and gets really weird after 3:30.

Thanks to Niall