Mad Men Barbie Dolls

Mattel is releasing a line of high end Barbie dolls based on Mad Men characters Don and Betty Draper, Roger Sterling, and Joan Holloway Harris.

Anybody who likes the show for its attention to detail will get that from the dolls,” [show creator Matthew Weiner] added, which earned approval from him; Janie Bryant, the costume designer for Mad Men; and Scott Hornbacher, an executive producer.

As an example of their scrutiny, Mr. Weiner said he told Mattel that the sideburns on the Don Draper doll needed “to be higher” and the haircut needed “to be tighter.”

Web Standards for E-books

Interesting article by Joe Clark about the difficulties in marking up ebooks. ePub (which the iPad will use) is just plain HTML, but surprisingly few publishers know how to write good code. See also the sidebar, which shows some examples of poor typography in the ebook version of China Miéville’s The City & the City.

The Exaltation of Wordplay

4½-minute interview with James Lipton about An Exaltation of Larks and the English language.

Making the Case for iPad E-Book Prices

Olympic Pictograms Through the Ages

I love this cartoon that The New York Times’s Steven Heller did, “Olympic Pictograms Through the Ages”.

See also David Ross discussing homoerotic imagery in Olympic posters on The Colbert Report.

Covering Lolita

(Metafilter’s article on this link says a lot and is nicely researched, and I’d prefer not to summarize, so forgive me for just quoting the post here.)

As Dieter Zimmers online exhibit “Covering Lolita” shows, it started with a plain green jacket.

Cover art for Vladimir Nabokov’s controversial work Lolita then falls into two primary categories: non-representational or abstract, and titillating sexual imagery (here, and others), including now-familiar enduring film images.

This presentation of Nabokov’s work, and the implication of Lolita-as-temptress, incurred the ire of architect, photographer and blogger John Bertram. Bertram issued a challenge for a redesign of covers for Lolita. The entries are in, and a winner of the $350 first prize has been chosen. In reviewing the results and talking about the judging process, Bertram explained that he received but avoided the “lingerie, lollipops, roses, hearts, lipstick prints, butterflies, heart shaped sunglasses, and overtly sexual poses” that have become culturally linked with our conception of this book. Winner Lyuba Haleva, a freelance graphic designer from Bulgaria, has explained her inspiration.

The Seafarers

A young Stanley Kubrick’s 1953 documentary, The Seafarers, is available on YouTube. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

Lincoln One-Cent Redesign

Tables of Vampire Traits

Includes “attractiveness”. (via)

The International Jurassic Park Erotic Fan-Fiction Writer's Association

(via @ebertchicago)

“
Tarantino quotes, borrows from or pays homage to so many different films that the Academy could hardly list who he has “adapted.” That said, his screenplay is an original, not least with the Tarantinian dialogue. It draws inspiration from earlier works, but sets out anew.
Roger Ebert, on why Quentin Tarantino was nominated for Best Original Screenplay and not Best Adapted Screenplay for Inglourious Basterds. See also Esquire’s heartfelt profile on Ebert and Ebert’s “Nil By Mouth”.

How to Move a 100-Year-Old Church

Turf War at the New York Times: Who Will Control the iPad?

I’m excited about the prospect of being able to read the newspaper on something like an iPad. It just seems like such an obvious “next step” in periodical publishing. According to Gawker The New York Times is having an internal war to determine which department will “own” the iPad edition, and the print division is “afraid people will cancel the print paper if they can get the same thing on their iPad”. Well of course I’d cancel my print edition! Why would I want both? But it’s not like every one of their subscribers is going to buy an iPad, not to mention all the people (like me) who don’t subscribe now but might for the right price, and “$20 to $30 per month” would not be the right price.

It’s not surprising, but unfortunate, that publication companies seem to think that the product they’re selling is the paper, not the reporting.

Boom De Yada WoW

World of Warcraft-themed, Discovery Channel-inspired. Previously

Alex Godfrey on Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon

He would shoot the film in France and Italy, for their grand locations, and Yugoslavia, for their cheap armies. These were pre-CG days, and he arranged to borrow 40,000 Romanian infantry and 10,000 cavalry for the battles. “I wouldn’t want to fake it with fewer troops,” he said to an interviewer at the time, “because Napoleonic battles were out in the open, a vast tableau where the formations moved in an almost choreographic fashion. I want to capture this reality on film, and to do so its necessary to recreate all the conditions of the battle with painstaking accuracy.”

Article includes lots of great photos.