Bad falcon

Kes: Thanks go to my wonderful ff LJ user alexx_kay who wrote the descriptive track for this Web comic--I am trying to get this on a t-shirt, as I think it just says :Kestrell" so well.

Bad Falcon

Panel 1:
Several sad gnomes imprisoned in a box, looking out between bars. They
all look like stereotypical garden gnomes, with long white beards and pointy red hats.

Panel 2:
The gate of the cage begins to open, startling the gnomes.

Panel 3:
Wide shot. In the far background, the opened cage. Mid-to-foreground, gnomes fleeing for dear life. Mid-ground right, an evil sorceress with
long red hair, very skimpy clothing, and a leather gauntlet on her right arm on which rests a hooded falcon.

Panel 4:
The sorceress whips off the falcon's hood and shouts, "KILL!"

Panel 5:
As the sorceress grins in anticipation, the falcon's eyes begin to glow with golden energy.

Panel 6:
"K-ZOWTCH!" Laser beams shoot out from the falcon's eyes, reducing the gnomes to ashy skeletons.

Panel 7:
The sorceress frowns at the falcon, steamed.

Panel 8:
The sorceress waggles her left index finger at the falcon. "Bad falcon!
Lazy!" The falcon's beak is open as it looks at her, but it makes no reply.

http://oglaf.com/badfalcon/1/

Some thoughts on words and pictures

I'm currently reading John Crowley's _Four Freedoms_, which features a protagonist with a disability, and I am struck, as always, by how Crowley manages to bring such a visual sensibility to his work, while also providing such a rich sense of the multiple characters's interior lives.

For those who may not know, Crowley has worked for decades in the field of documentary film, and he has a genius for the language of describing visuals. It's
thanks to John Crowley
http://bostonreview.net/BR32.3/crowley.html
that I found out that there is a word for something which I had been striving to express to sighted people for years: why is it considered
to be such an impossible dream that I expect visual artists and critics to be able to describe what they see and what they do? Language and art should not be distant countries completely unknown to one another.

John Crowley, like one of the alchemists in his own books, has the mysterious occult
word to give my thoughts shape: "The word for written descriptions, in prose or verse, of works of art is ekphrasis..."

I use the word occult not merely in its meaning of magical but in its meaning of hidden or darkened, because language helps us to cast a light upon what has up until then remained hidden or half-sensed, perhaps only because, in limiting ourselves to a single sense, we fail to place what we are examining in various lights.

It's kind of difficult to talk about art or John Crowley's writing without, perhaps, coming across as wearing one's lit crit hat, but the work which recently reminded me of this link between words and pictures was an old movie, the classic film noir "Out of the Past," starring Robert Mitchum and produced by Jacques Tourneur, whose own work says a lot about thoughts and pictures, dark and light.

What struck me in listening to "Out of the Past" was how it possesses something which I find sadly lacking in a lot of contemporary films: dialogue which is sharp and eloquent, but which reinforces the personalities of the characters and underscores the sensibility of the film.

In checking out he IMDB page for this film, I realized that the person who wrote the screenplay also wrote the book upon which it was based and the radio version. It struck me that it was no surprise that this writer wrote dialogue which was fast-paced and snappy, because radio, like Shakespeare's plays, had to put not only the emotion but the action into the words. No long panning shots to show you the backdrop, no closeups to show you the teary-eyed woman or the squinting, flinty-eyed tough guy. Just words, creating pictures.

Accessibility unconference in Waltham, MA, May 15

Posted to an accessible tech mailing list--unfortunately, I will be out of town.

All,

I hope to see some of you at Boston's first Accessibility Unconference
http://www.a11y-bos.org on May 15, at Adobe's facilities in Waltham, MA.

The audience is expected to be broad, to include developers, usability
professionals, accessibility experts, and end-users with disabilities.
Come present, or just participate in the sessions, it's your choice, which
is what makes it an unconference. The theme is IT accessibility, the
topics are driven by attendees day-of, it's completely free to attend, and
the informal nature of the event lends itself to networking and learning.
There'll even be lunch.

Feel free to pass the invite along to interested folks you may know in the Boston area.

It is important that you do register to attend, in order for organizers to have an idea of head-count. http://www.a11y-bos.org