The Garrulous Bombast Friday "Take Ten"

So last week's ten-minute break didn't look like it got a lot of love, and I thought it might be because I posted it in the afternoon, so I figured I'd try to get this one out a little earlier in the day.

Author John Scalzi, he of Bacon Cat fame, in his blog Whatever, runs an occasional feature called "The Big Idea." In Big Idea posts, guest authors get to come in and pimp their books alongside an explanatory essay on how that book got written. (I just remembered...the Big Idea feature was supposed to break out into it's own, separate website. Not sure what happened there.) Anyway, one of the recent Big Ideas was by Catherynne M. Valente about her new book The Habitation of the Blessed.

Now, the Big Idea post iteself is certainly worth a few minutes, especially if you're looking for, you know, cool new books to check out. But for those of you who want to cut right to he meat of the coconut (*wink* belle1446), I highly recommend for your break today the following video presented by Valente herself, telling the story of the great Medieval priest-king huckster Prester John.

Let's face it...I think I'm a little bit in love here.

Happy Friday, everybody!

UPDATE: Coincidentally, speaking of bacon, the tasty meat product features somewhat largely in today's Axe Cop guest strip. Along with hamsters, space monkeys, marbles, and other such Axe Cop shenanigans. For those not keeping score, Axe Cop's online presence is hitting a slower pace these days...because the artist got picked up to do an Axe Cop comic for Dark Horse! Exciting stuff!

Coooool

So...I totally randomly came across this today (you don't even want to know how). We all know I'm personally a sucker for the modern fantasy genre, but come on...who's not excited about this?

Followup

Okay, so it's not really a followup. But on the heels of that Terrence Chan thing, it's still a pretty good story.

A young Asian man ... boarded an Air Canada flight elaborately disguised as an elderly white male ... intercepted after emerging from a toilet mid-flight without his silicone mask...

( Cut for photos )

Was anyone else thinking Lo Pan? I was totally thinking Lo Pan.

P.S. If you really are looking for a followup, I recommend taking a quick gander at this subsequent post of Chan's. It kind of outlines his thinking, and it sounds totally reasonable to me. And the thing is...right or wrong, it is reasonable. The world needs more reasonable people, that's all I'm sayin'.