MuseBlog

Enceladus asked:

“Do they have channels in whatever graphics program you use? And if so, could you explain them? Because, essentially, there’ the one thing (aside from actual scripting) that I need to know to proclaim myself a GIMP wizard.”

Step inside our virtual tent to learn more about channels. Or just enjoy the pictures, if graphics aren’t your thing.

[*Chautauquas began in the 19th century as a sort of summer camp approach to continuing education. The events were often held in big circus-style tents. The name comes from the New York town where the first one took place. We’re borrowing the term as a convenient umbrella title for such occasional threads as might be more information oriented than the usual. Though really we simply like the name.]

Read more »

Ebeth, Midnight Fiddler, and Grant — what more can we say? Read more »

Warning! What you are about to see — should you brave the jump — is extremely disturbing. (Robert especially should approach with caution.) We will not be responsible for any mental damage incurred.

Technical note: you will need a decent screen size to make it work. Handheld devices are not big enough. Click on the images for larger versions. Also, you may need to watch it closely for a moment or two to get the full effect (at your peril). Let your eyes move around.

Read more »

Robert writes:

While sorting through my storage room, I’ve come across a box containing my old comic books — including my beloved X-Men. KaiYves and Keiffer in particular might get a kick out of a few of the early panels.
Read more »

Success! Combing through his archives, Robert has unexpectedly uncovered several yellowing manuscripts from his own proto-Muser days, including a veritable trove of peasant art from the mysterious floating island of Prussiania. Read on…
 
Read more »

Robert’s ultra-rare Prussianian doodles have been re-scanned and are once again visible on the second Prussiania time-capsule thread.

Whatever your medium, if it’s visual, here’s a place to talk about it, dream about it, or share ideas.

Continued from Visual Arts, 2009.

In response to several recent requests, your ever-obliging GAPAs have decided to create a 2009 edition of the MB Signature design. You can view previous versions at Musery Loves Company. Read more »

At long last, here they are. Introducing the Boston Kokonventioneers… Read more »

See inside. Read more »

Prussiania was an imaginary country that Robert and some of his friends concocted when they were Muser age (decades before Muse, alas). You can read more about it on the previous Time Capsule thread.

Now, rarity of rarities, Prussianian records are starting to come to light. Here are a couple that Robert found in one of his old school notebooks:
Read more »

See it to believe it. The blog can’t accommodate the full tableau, so click through to find a larger version. Since even Photobucket can’t handle a 42-inch wide image, full-size versions of the individual panels are also available. (When you’re in Photobucket, click again to magnify.)

Robert, age 13 (yearbook photo)

Long before Museica and the PeacefulPieceful Pie Planet — before NationStates and World of Warcraft — even before Dungeons and Dragons had been invented, then-Muser-aged Robert (see photo, above) and about half a dozen of his friends invented an imaginary country of their own and used it as a setting for role-playing and storytelling. Unfortunately, any original maps and manuscripts that still exist remain buried in the Coontz archives. Robert will scan and post them as they come to light. Meanwhile, this description will have to suffice for any MBers curious about their GAPA’s disreputable history. Read on… Read more »

When GAPA Robert Coontz was Muser-age, he acted in a couple of plays with the Children’s Theater of Arlington (next door to his home town of Alexandria, Virginia) and worked as a stage hand for various children’s and adult shows. He’s still in touch with some of his fellow actors, including the mother and aunt of new MuseBlogger Ham.

A few photos from that era:

Robert (second from left) played the Tortoise in “The Great Cross-Country Race,” a retelling of the story of the Tortoise and the Hare. Ham’s mother (second from right) is practically invisible in this photo in her role as an all-black bird, a rook. Ham’s Aunt Diana worked on the costume crew and made the Tortoise’s shell, which was even more uncomfortable than it looks.

——————————

Ham’s mother, center, looking pert in “Rumpelstiltskin.”

——————————

Ham’s Aunt Caroline, kneeling at center, in “The Prince and the Pauper.” Caroline excelled in emotional roles and got to plead and cry a lot.

Here’s how to participate:

1. Create your signature, using whatever “natural” or digital media you like.
2. Scan the results, if necessary (preferably at 200 or 300 dpi) A digital photo might work, also, if you have a steady hand.
3. Send by email to gapa @ musefanpage.com (except without the spaces)
OR if you have no way of scanning your signature, you may send it by U.S. mail to: Rebecca Lasley c/o P. O. Box 3, Jamestown NC 27282.

For those of you who email us PLEASE USE DESCRIPTIVE TEXT IN YOUR SUBJECT LINE, i.e., “Rebecca’s signature.” Avoid generic phrases like “my signature” and such.

ONE signature per MuseBlogger, please.

We have not established a deadline yet. Best guess based on current data is that it will be sometime in September.

No last names on the signatures, please–blognames and/or first name plus last initial only. Plain or embellished, as you prefer. Take a look at the previous edition to get the idea.

DESIGN GUIDELINES

LINE WIDTH: the graphics will print best if the lines are not too thin or light. For drawing with natural media, something at least as thick as a “fine” Sharpie (not “ultra fine”) is perfect, though you may have to write larger letters than you’re used to. Pencil and fine point pens will simply get lost, especially when reduced to fit on items smaller than shirts. For digital drawing, use a brush that is at least 5 pixels, 10 or more is better, for those programs which allow you to specify (medium or large on MS Paint).

SIZE: make it big. Probably bigger than you think. There are so many variables, it’s hard to be specific, but if the file size is smaller than 80k, it’s likely too small. Most of those that proved easiest to work with last time ran from 150k up to 1 MB. No one has ever sent anything too big. It’s much easier for us to reduce a graphic cleanly than it is to enlarge one that is too small.

If you can, print a hard copy at 200 dpi or higher to see how it looks. Most signatures should print out to at least a couple of inches wide and no less than half an inch in height. Do not judge size by what you see onscreen.
Onscreen appearance can be very misleading.

FILE FORMAT: Most any graphic programs will support the following: JPG, BMP, PNG, or GIF. (When you save the file, look for “save as” or “export” in the file menu). Some allow TIF. Rebecca has Photoshop CS2, Adobe Illustrator CS2, InDesign CS2, CorelDraw suite X3, Corel Painter IX, and Paint Shop Pro XI, among other things, so you can send a file in their native formats. PDFs are also fine. Ask if you have something else. (If at all possible, avoid MS Word and AppleWorks. Their results are unpredictable.)

IF THESE INSTRUCTIONS DON’T MAKE SENSE TO YOU, DON’T WORRY. Just do what you can and send it in. We’ve learned a trick or two since last time and will find a way to make it work.

In general, keep your designs bold and simple. Don’t let details get too fine. DO NOT add tag phrases longer than a word or two. They simply will not show up.

Previous Participants: You may send in a new design or request to reuse your old one. Just let us know if you want to be included.

The Ultimate Supreme Executive Chairman sent us a couple of sound files for his film project. We haven’t had time to convert them to MP3 format, so we can’t be sure you’ll be able to play them until you report in. Here they are:

film1.wav
film2.wav

NEW! Treble_Cone_Freeskier (who now seems to be spelling her name “Trebel_Cone_Freeskier”) has taken Midnight Fiddler’s storyboards and turned them into a real, honest-to-goodness film strip.

Long-term MBer Lizzie sent us three sound files of her playing the violin. It took us several days to convert them to blog-friendly format (sorry, Lizzie), but here they are at last: Part 1, Part 2, and Cadenza.

Here’s Lizzie’s description:

A few months ago, I asked the blog if anyone would be interested in
hearing a recording of my playing. Several people responded
positively, so I went off and recorded me playing the concerto I was
working on at the time, which was the first movement of Paganini
Concerto no. 1. Since the piece is about 20 minutes long and really
hard to play through well at one sitting, I split it into three parts
(the first part, the part that comes after that and approx. 50
measures of rest, and the cadenza that comes after the second part).
Hopefully, I included them all in attachments in a format that you can
open / post. The first part is probably the best, the second part
contains some really cool parts that may, alas, be slightly out of
tune (or more than slightly, but hey, I’m still a student, and I’m
getting better), and the third part the hardest and most showy (Sauret
cadenza. I swear, that man must have had a horrible childhood or
something, and had this unresolved grudge against the world of
violin-playing, and decided to get it out by writing the hardest, most
evil cadenza he could think of).

During last week’s Muserly get-together, Alice, Cat’s Meow, and IBCF — all loyal members of Muse Academy’s Spector House — recorded themselves singing the house song (with lyrics by POSOC). You can hear an MP3 file of the performance by clicking right here.

The event now sets sail for the history books, the photo albums, and bloglore. Reports thus far proclaim the meeting of our Washington State Kokonventioneers to be a success enjoyed by all.

Suggested by Gaea to popular acclaim. Describe your dream avatar in words or send a picture (to gapa @ musefanpage.com). If you can’t think what yours should be, I’m sure other MBers will be happy to help you out.

Unintended Pun says, “Not everyones’ names are on there, but it’s for the entire MB, including the newbies who come after it.”

Full-size editions of the valentines may be viewed by clicking on them individually, or you can browse the whole album.

The indefatigable podcasters Purple Panda and Taiwan Hippo Fan weigh in with their longest MuseCast yet, entitled Life on Mars.

Previous MuseCasts are still available:
MuseCast 1
MuseCast 2
MuseCast 3
MuseCast 4
MuseCast 5
MuseCast 6
MuseCast 7

No, we’re not taking Muse on the road like the Wiggles. But some of the Administrators have acted in plays from time to time, including a few when we were Muser-age. Pictures below.
Read more »

Robert, age 13 (yearbook photo)

One thing the papers emphatically show is what a Lord of the Rings fanatic I was–far, far worse than any Muser. I read The Hobbit in fifth grade and the trilogy every summer before six through eighth grades. (The Silmarillion and other books of Middle-earth lore didn’t start to come out until I was in college.) A couple of my friends were immersed in the books, too. We learned to write Tengwar and Angerthas, drew white hands and red eyes on our homework assignments, came within a hair’s breadth of inventing Dungeons and Dragons, and did all the other geeky things Musers would rediscover decades later. I also wrote a LOTR musical.

Well, not exactly a musical. There was no script–just a series of songs set to tunes that my friends knew and could sing along with. The songs were deliberately silly. As for the quality, judge for yourselves:

1. Elrond’s Song to the Council in Rivendell, Explaining What’s Going On
(To the tune of “Now I Am the Ruler of the Queen’s Na-vee” from H.M.S. Pinafore by Gilbert and Sullivan)

In days of old of which we sing
Sauron decided to make a ring.
He studied ancient books of lore
And he melted down the handle on the big front door.
(All: He melted down the handle on the big front door!)
He melted down the handle, and such was fate
That it turned into a mighty ring of power great.
(All: He melted down the handle and such was fate / That it turned into a mighty ring of power great!)

Eons later on the ca-len-dar,
The ring passed on to Is-il-dur.
Isildur battled for his life,
And he cut the ring off Sauron with a putty knife. (All: He cut, etc.)
Isildur took the ring in such an hour
That he thought that he would be endowed with endless power. (All: Isildur took the ring, etc.)

There were a few more verses, but I think that will do. Let’s see, what else have we got here… Oh, I’d forgotten all about this one:

2. Treebeard Meets Merry and Pippin and Tries to Figure Out What They Are
(To the tune of “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music)

First come the Eldar, the fairest of races;
Dwarves, metal-workers, with hair on their faces.
Animals of the air, water, and ground–
But “hobbits” is not a fa-mil-i-ar sound.

Are you a badger, or maybe a carrot?
Animal, veg’table, mineral, spirit?
Horse? No. Or pig? No. Or maybe a cow?
This I must find out, so come with me now!

(Chorus) To the Entmoot… I must take you.
Please do not ask why.
Hop up on my shoulder and hold yourself tight,
For if you fall off… you die!

O.K., what next? “Denethor’s Song” — more Gilbert and Sullivan, not very interesting. “We Are Pursuin’ an Orodruin” (to the tune of “I’m Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover”) — didn’t get very far with that one, must have sensed it was a bad idea. Oh, this one’s fun:

3. Ringwraiths’ Song to Frodo and Sam Hiking to Mordor
(To the tune of “Parsely, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme” “Scarborough Fair” as sung by Simon and Garfunkel)

Are you going to Orodruin?
Orcs and trolls infest these hills.
Remember me to old Sau-ro-on.
He’s the master of our wills.

When he has you, you will squeal.
Orcs and trolls infest these hills.
He’ll feed you to Shelob for her next meal
Or be the master of your wills.

The orcs had the best numbers, though. For example:

4. The Uruk-hai Marching Song
(to the tune of the Marine Corps Hymn“The Caissons Go Rolling Along”)

Here we come, now you die,
We’re the fighting Uruk-hai
And our soldiers are marching along!
Rip and tear, maul and crush,
Slice our en-e-mies to mush
As our soldiers go marching along!
So it’s KILL! KILL! KILL!
It gives us such a thrill.
Our numbers, you know, are thousands strong.
And we just can’t wait
To maim and desecrate
As our soldiers come marching along!

Finally, there’s a big company number for orcs and Ringwraiths, to the tune of “Camptown Races” by Stephen Foster:

Ringwraiths: Minas Morgul, here we come.
Orcs: DOO DAH! DOO DAH!
Ringwraiths Mithrandir is just a bum.
Orcs: OH, DOO DAH DAY!
Ringwraiths: Sauron has a big red eye.
Orcs: DOO DAH! DOO DAH!
Ringwraiths He is screaming DIE DIE DIE.
Orcs: OH, DOO DAH DAY!
All: Gonna laugh and dance,
Gonna kill and sing.
I’ll bet my money on the Uruk-hai,
Somebody bet on the ring.

I know, I know: the Uruk-hai were Saruman’s troops, not Sauron’s. I just liked them.

–Robert