What I Learned from the Super Blood Moon

Liam Smith 3 Comments

This morning at the unsocial hour of 3:47 am, the Sun, Earth and Moon were arranged in perfection alignment.  The Sun’s rays, distorted and coloured by the Earth’s atmosphere, beamed upon the Moon – itself orbiting close to Earth as the Autumn Equinox approaches – and turned it a glowing red.  This is a fairly rare astronomical happenstance – it last happened in 1982 and won’t happen again until 2048. It’s called the Super Blood Moon.

I hauled myself up at half three in the morning to have a look at it, and I’m glad I did.  Here’s three lessons I learned from seeing the Super Blood Moon:

Getting out of bed is always a good thing.

Actually, I’ve suspected this one for a while and based my writing schedule around it.  If I didn’t have to sleep I wouldn’t – you don’t even realise when you’re asleep that you are asleep.  So there’s very little to take from it besides the obvious physical and mental recharge.  As soon as you’re awake you can appreciate the sleep you’ve had – or, in this morning’s case, didn’t have.  Which is endlessly preferable to not being able to appreciate either.

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Steampunk Record Player: A Modelling Project

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Earlier this year I decided to steampunk-ify my trusty record player.  I’d been considering it for a while – ever since I modded a couple of Nerf Guns back in my university days.  Records are pretty old school; it would only make sense to play them on a Victorianate turntable.  Eventually I bit the bullet and dug out my modelling saw.  Here’s how I built my Steampunk Record Player…

The Brief

I knew I could achieve a steampunk look simply by dismantling the record player and painting it brassy colours, but I wanted to add something to the player whilst modding it – I wanted to add some functionality.  For example, when I modded my Nerf Maverick, I added power to its firing mechanism and built in a shoulder chain for ease of use.  I decided to add a speaker to my record player, so that I wouldn’t have to keep thieving my girlfriend’s Logitechs whenever I wanted to play an LP.  Once I’d settled on this idea, it didn’t me long to decide to model the speaker on an old gramophone horn.

Topleft: Nerf Maverick. Bottom left: Nerf Jolt. Right: dismantled Maverick
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Bands on the Run: Best Running Music

Liam Smith 4 Comments

Anyone following me on Twitter will know I’m into my running. It’s my favourite way of exercising, and I like challenging myself to hit faster speeds and longer distances.  One of the main reasons I run, though, is for the opportunity to listen to a bit of music.  On a run, it’s just you, your thoughts and your iPod.  It’s a great chance to meditate over an album whilst getting a bit fitter.  Here are five favourite bands that make the best running music. Read More

How to Build a Book Cover II: Paperback

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After self-publishing my novella complete with its cover art, I was desperate to get my hands on a physical copy of The Witching Hours.  I’m a supporter of ebooks and e-readers, but there’s something to be said for holding a book in your hands; feeling its shape and taking in the tactility of it.  I published my ebook though Amazon and CreateSpace, an Amazon company, offer a print-on-demand service for self-published authors.  I’d already done the hard work – writing the book – and I couldn’t wait to have a printed copy of it too. This how to design a book cover, and its interior too.

I found CreateSpace a little less user-friendly than Kindle Direct Publishing.   Nonetheless, it’s a fairly logical process and, like KDP, it begins with the trickiest bits – confirming your tax location and account details.  Once this is complete, you can start the fun stuff.

Getting started: dashboard and setting up your title

Createspace Member Dashboard

The member dashboard is your default page, and it is here that you can add a new title. This is first step of getting your book to the printing press.  Clicking ‘Add New Title’ first prompts you to enter the basic information about your book: title, author, series…  The bits you know like the back of your hand.  I found this really exciting. It really felt like I was placing my work out there into the world of printed books.

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del Toro’s Labyrinth

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I watched Pan’s Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro’s masterpiece, a couple of times when I was a teenager. I thought it was brilliant then.  But just now I watched it for the first time as proper adult, and I’ve gone from merely thinking it was great to considering it one of the best films ever.  Here’s my…  Well, less of a Pan’s Labyrinth review, more of a Pan’s Labyrinth reflection. Why I think it deserves to go down in history as one of the most important films ever made.

It treats fantasy and drama as equals

Ofelia explores a spooky shrine as the armed convoy approaches

Pan’s Labyrinth is, of course, a fantasy film. What’s more, it’s told through the eyes of a child protagonist: the imaginative Ofelia (Ivana Baquero).  But del Toro knows that the true purpose of a fairy tale is to provide a coping mechanism for the horrors and dangers of the real world. It’s not just an excuse to include unlikely creatures and CGI-heavy locations in a story.  Accordingly, he doesn’t labour over matching the fantasy and drama turn for turn. He lets both breathe as gripping stories in their own right and lets the viewer reflect on them relative to one another.

The multiple narratives constantly wrap around one another – there are no hard cuts between plot strands.  One scene shifts by panning to a tree, which pans directly onto the next scene. It’s as if both battle scene and fantasy confrontation are part of the same world.  It’s these poetic touches that soften the transition between what could have been incongruous elements.

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