The Penguin

I saw Infinity Pool  with my fiancée for Valentine's Day, and we spent the rest of the car ride home discussing it. It's certainly a thinker. I love movies that operate like intricate layered puzzles that can be picked apart for their themes - movies like Jordan Peele's  Nope come to mind. While Peele likes to wear his themes on his sleeve (not necessarily a bad thing), Brandon Cronenburg is subtler, more willing to obfuscate and play games with his audience. I really wanted to take some time and analyze this film.     I haven't seen any of Brandon Cronenburg's previous films, so I'm a bit fresh in terms of his recurring motifs; obviously I'm quite familiar with the work of his body horror-obsessed father. Brandon takes a much more cerebral tack that's still quite terrifying in its implications. **Spoiler Alert!** for the entire film - so if you haven't seen it, go out and see it! I. Synopsis Writer James Foster and his wife Em are vacationing at a ...

( A brief word on the illustrations I used here - the main "plates" are lightboxed from Google image results; the reference photos are linked below each image. I point this out to ensure that none of my readers say, "Wow! These are incredible renderings!" since I essentially traced them. I used this technique because I felt just using the original photos was a bit lazy, and also to isolate the bugs from the backgrounds and make their characteristics stand out). Let me spin you a nightmare scenario: you and your friend are enjoying a beautiful summer day, when suddenly your friend gets stung. Immediately he begins to swell, showing clear signs of deadly anaphylaxis. You quickly spring into action and inject him with an EpiPen, saving his life. But one aspect of the incident continues to haunt you, sending your life into a downward spiral of shame. One question that, had you brushed up on your entomological knowledge, wouldn't make you sit bolt upright in a cold ...

 Good Lord, what could that title mean...? Not actually from my woodlot, but a nice huge old oak behind a Biggby. But seriously folx, as you know I'm a bit of a tree geek*, and as such I'm endlessly fascinated by these woody giants and always want to experiment with them. Today I investigated the properties of five different hardwoods: shagbark hickory, American beech, American basswood, eastern hophornbeam, and musclewood. So background: I've been low-key obsessed with making my own bow and using it for hunting. You may think, "Well gee Rick, go get a stick and some string!" but oh no no, my sweet summer child, it's much more involved than that. The first part of the process is to find a log of the correct length, then split it lengthwise into two or more "staves" that then form the basis for the bow.** The trick is to find the kind of wood that's flexible, long-grained, straight, and without any big knots. Really the best wood for this is found...