A Free Chapter of YARN on-line now at FLURB

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

Don’t know Flurb? Flurb is a webzine of Astonishing Tales edited and produced by Rudy Rucker (mathematician, computer scientist, science fiction author of The Ware Tetralogy among many other books).

This issue contains writing by: Bruce Sterling, Ian Watson, Rudy Rucker, and Kathleen Ann Goonan, among many others.

The chapter from Yarn is A Peculiar Fashion Business.

Sarah Wrap

Monday, August 30th, 2010

Wigs by Kate Cushack

Lady Gaga and Marie Antoinette eat your hearts out.

Actually, eat just half your hearts, wrap the rest, and store it in your chill chests because your wigs are… wait for it… made of Saran Wrap!

Artist, creative thinker, jewelery maker Kate Cusack has created completely sustainable and environmentally… hmm. Strike that. Clever, beautiful and oh, so wrong wigs of plastic wrap! You’ll never look at leftovers the same.

There is an exciting “a-ha” moment when someone realizes that there is more to the design they are looking at–from sponges to saran-wrap to zippers.

Link: Kate Cushack

Fiber Optic Tapestry Project on KickStarter

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

It fuses traditional arts, digital electronics, interactivity, and data scraping with contemporary art. It is a new media canvas, woven from information, using fiber optic thread to carry information and data from the internet in the form of light.

Our inspiration came from the idea that the Jacquard loom was the first computer using punch cards. We wanted to expand on this to marry traditional hand-woven crafts with information technologies. The element of the hand is a critical factor through all stages of this project: from weaving on a loom, to the way the electronics are integrated with the fiber optic threads.

Iris van Herpen debuted 10 preview pieces from her upcoming SS 2011 collection “Crystallization” at Amsterdam International Fashion Week

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

Some unusual if mighty uncomfortable looking clothes!

Illuminated Coat Controlled Via iPhone

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

Currently in development, The Vanilla Series is a new line of wearables embedded with an LED display (on the cuffs or back of the coat) that can be dynamically controlled via your iPhone.

Vanilla “k” from Alexander Reeder on Vimeo.

via fashioningtech.com

Sneak Preview of the Cover of the YARN ARC

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

Thanks to Jeff Vandermeer, we have a sneak preview of the YARN cover. This is the Advance Reading Copy, so things might change, but there it is, in all it’s exploding beauty! What do you think?

Clothing That Can Record or Produce Sound

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

M.I.T. researchers say they’ve developed a fiber that would allow clothing to eventually do those things like record or produce sound with piezoelectric fibers.

vis Scientific American

The New Dystopians: Jon Armstrong, Paolo Bacigalupi and Scott Westerfeld

Monday, June 28th, 2010

I will be reading from Yarn Thursday, July 01 2010, 7:00pm - 8:00pm

The New Dystopians

Jon Armstrong, author of Grey (Nightshade, $14.95)

Paolo Bacigalupi, author of The Windup Girl (Nightshade, $14.95)

and Scott Westerfeld, author of Leviathan (Simon and Schuster, $19.99)

Dystopia has been a popular genre since before the word existed. There is little more powerful or indeed more darkly gleeful object of imagination than a ruined corrupted vision of the world as we know it. If the form has seen something of a resurgence in popularity recently, it’s only the possibilities for dissolution inherent in our own lives that are to blame. Well, that and these three authors.

Jon Armstring’s debut novel Grey gives us a brutal, often hilarious future too easily recognizeable to those of us living in chic downtown Manhattan. His America is fractured into vastly wealthy cliques, defining themselves by their allegiance to different fashion magazines. Their decadence, naturally, is built on the back of a viciously poor and despoiled lower class. This was one of our favorite SF books of 2007, and rumor has it that we can expect a sequel later this year. If we plead hard enough maybe we can get Jon to give us an advance listen.

What Would Holden Caulfield Wear?

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

What Would Holden Caulfield Wear?

John Jannuzzi of Textbook pulls together fresh-off-the-runway, high-fashion looks for fictional characters and historical figures, answering that eternal question: What Would Holden Caulfield Wear?

Via MetaFilter

Less is More and More is Less

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

In my interview with Jeffrey Ford on my podcast (If You’re Just Joining Us), he mentioned that he was thinking about the less is more idea.

It occurred to me today that the reason that can work is that you (the writer) are allowing the reader to do more. If I give lots of detail, as I sometimes do, I don’t leave as much space for the reader to make it theirs.

A couple of years ago, when I was reading The Terror by Dan Simmons, I remember reading several simple, rather plain sentences, only for elaborate scenes to come to mind and noting to myself, that was amazing.

One reason why I might want to add more detail is because well … who is my reader? When I’m writing, I do think of the reader in terms of story, plot, and character. Are they following along? Is this making them want to read more? Does this make sense? Is this believable?

Maybe I need to add another question (or questions). Have I shown just enough? Have I left room for them to fill in the details.

I think I’ll try that for the next couple of days and see how it feels.

Johanna Blakely: Lessons from fashion’s free culture

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

The connection between fashion designers and comedians is brilliant.

A Preview of Jon Armstrong’s Upcoming Yarn from the NYRSF Reading Series

Friday, May 14th, 2010

I read two selections from my upcoming YARN at last week’s New York Review of Science Fiction. A podcast is available at If You’re Just Joining Us.

What is this image? The reading was held at the
The SoHo Gallery for Digital Art and since there’s not yet a cover for YARN, I got on the internet and well…grabbed some cool fashion images and played around in photoshop.

Eco-Friendly Wedding Dress Dissolves in Water

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010

So a honeymoon near the beach … perfect!

British researchers have developed an environmentally friendly garment that can simply be dissolved in water after being worn. Fashion and engineering students at Sheffield Hallam University developed the wedding dress, which can be transformed into five new fashion pieces.
The dress has polyvinyl alcohol, a biodegradable substance that is used in laundry bags and washing detergents, knitted into the fabric. This enables to be dissolved into water without harming the environment.
Their creation is to be featured in an forthcoming exhibition, titled, a sustainable marriage, which will be shown at the university later this month.

Via: http://www.fashioningtech.com

This Is Cool, But Where’s My Illuminated Suit?

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

Katy Perry walked down the red carpet all aglow last night at the Costume Institute Gala Benefit at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I am going to have to figure out how I can get myself a glowing jacket at least. Seriously, this isn’t fair!

Via: Kim at the Soho Gallery for Digital Art

Two wonderful Hussain Chalayan fashion videos.

Tuesday, May 4th, 2010

I’m reading from my up coming novel, Yarn, tonight and will be showing a few fashion stills, but if you’d like to see some of the master, Hussain Chalayan’s transforming dresses and a short clip of his video dress, look no farther.

I will be reading from my upcoming novel, Yarn, next week!

Friday, April 30th, 2010

I’m going to be reading from my upcoming novel, Yarn, next Tuesday the 4th of May for the The New York Review of Science Fiction!

It’s at the SoHo Gallery for Digital Art, 138 Sullivan Street in New York City.

The program beings at 7:00. There’s a $5 suggested donation.

Since I there’s not a cover yet, I’ve created a few digital collages just to confuse and amuse folks. This gallery will be displaying them, but here’s one just for fun. BTW, this fake cover uses images taken from the internet. Sorry about that.

Bio-Accessories Breathe New Life into Wardrobes

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

“Bio-Accessories”, a series of wearable couture pieces that were on display at the Melbourne City Library, offer green fashionistas a chance to wear their hearts on their sleeves—or in this case, a plant-filled contraption on their face. Conceptualized and executed by Australian industrial designers Ben Landau and Brittany Veitch, each Bio-Accessory includes a living organism that not only creates a mobile natural environment, but also fosters a symbiotic relationship. Wearers tend to the animal or plant they don, and in return, they reap the benefits of fresh air, light, greenery, privacy, or birdsong.

Via: inhabatat

Worlds Are Colliding: Fashion and Geek

Friday, April 23rd, 2010

Tim Gunn, for those who don’t know, is one of the on-air mentors to designers on the reality television program Project Runway.

I’ve been a fan of fashion ever since 1984 when I lived in Japan for a year. Why become interested in fashion in Japan? It was my first experience of urban life (I was a suburb boy) and was just about the time when I was starting to care about what I looked like.

This is just wrong! Dog dressed at Star Trek’s USS Enterprise

Friday, April 23rd, 2010

I mean, I feel sorry for the poor dog, but everyone knows that Bud Light contains zero dilithium crystal.

Wooden Mirrors – Interactive Art

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

Daniel Rozin’s wooden mirror and how it works.

Below is a short, silent movie of another of Rozin’s wooden mirrors. This one has an eerie beauty.

Exhibited for the first time at bitforms gallery, Daniel Rozin’s “Peg Mirror” comprises 650 circular wooden pieces that are cut on an angle. Casting shadows by twisting and rotating in unison.

Alice in iWonderPadLand

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

Whomever made this — slow the fuck down! My god.

But the book does look like something my daughter would love.

The Towel Folding Robot

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

Watch this robot first study these towels and then go through a rather involved and gentle folding. It reminds me a little of my daughter — although more patient — when I sometimes can convince her to help folding the laundry.

I assume that the people at iRobot are going to come up with one of these soon and call it the Laundiba or maybe the Towel-a-band. Or maybe not.

Our Roomba, the floor cleaning robot, died a while back and although I haven’t thought about it much — there’s been too much dust on the floors to do much thinking — seeing this robot makes me a nostalgic for Roomy. What I remember most of all about the Roomba was the constant cleaning of the brushes and the way I would have to stand over it, tapping it with a foot to get it to clean where I wanted it to go, instead of the long zigzags that it preferred.

Yarn is off to Night Shade Books

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

Yesterday I emailed the final edit of Yarn to Night Shade Books. Then around five in the morning, I woke and started thinking about the beginning and the chapter titles. Had I made that change? Did I have the formatting right? What about that typo I had found toward the end yesterday? Had I fixed it?

Once I was finally out of bed, I considered looking at the file, but said fuck it. I’ll have another chance to fiddle with it in the galleys. It’s done. It’s finished. It’s the best book I could write right now. … At least for a couple of weeks.

Next it’s a week vacation with the family and then back to work on Loom.

This is Just Too Cool: Organ Printing

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

No, it’s not tattoos on your bits, it’s making tissues for transplant by “printing them.” I’d heard of 3-D printing, which is something I’m waiting for — although I hate to image how much Hewlett Packard will charge for those toner cartridges!

If Star Wars had Facebook

Friday, March 26th, 2010

It’s amazing how much Star Wars parody there is in the world and how much is actually interesting. (Just about the only person who couldn’t make funny of the film was Mel Blanc.) I just came across If Star Wars had Facebook. It’s hilarious.

I saw Star Wars opening night with my family. I don’t quite know why I knew I would like it, but I remember reading a rather small if somewhat enthusiastic review of it in Time Magazine. I’ve tried to track down that review. What do others remember leading up to the Star Wars premier?

Helpful Writing Tips from David Mamet

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

David Mamet’s memo to the writers of The Unit:

THE JOB OF THE DRAMATIST IS TO MAKE THE AUDIENCE WONDER WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. NOT TO EXPLAIN TO THEM WHAT JUST HAPPENED, OR TO *SUGGEST* TO THEM WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. […]

HERE ARE THE DANGER SIGNALS. ANY TIME TWO CHARACTERS ARE TALKING ABOUT A THIRD, THE SCENE IS A CROCK OF SHIT.

ANY TIME ANY CHARACTER IS SAYING TO ANOTHER “AS YOU KNOW”, THAT IS, TELLING ANOTHER CHARACTER WHAT YOU, THE WRITER, NEED THE AUDIENCE TO KNOW, THE SCENE IS A CROCK OF SHIT.

Great advice! The rest it at movieline.com.

Just one observation: usually I can’t stand to look at, let alone read all caps, but somehow coming from Mamet, it works. via http://daringfireball.net/

Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

This looks pretty cool. I’m a big fan of Channel’s designs, but don’t know much about her life. As for Stravinsky, I heard the story of the Rite of Spring riot a dozen times growing up. It was one of my dad’s favorite stories.

The only thing that bothers me is the title. Yes, I suppose for marketing that makes sense, but the possibilities! Think of the possibilities.

A few years back, RadioLab did an interesting show about music and the neurology of that premier.

Interview with Karl Lagerfeld, One of the Kings of Fashion

Friday, March 19th, 2010

There’s a fascinating interview with Karl Lagerfeld in Viceland Magazine. This except is about celebrity:

You’ve been famous for quite some time, but the whole landscape of celebrity has changed so dramatically in recent years.
That’s part of our life, our culture.

Do you think it’s become kind of toxic?
Yes, but you cannot fight against it. There’s a price you have to pay for fame, and people who don’t want to pay that price can get in trouble. I accepted the idea of celebrity because of a French expression: “You cannot have the butter and the money for the butter.”

I like that. You have to choose one or the other.
And now I cannot cross the street. I cannot go anywhere.

But you don’t mind being alone and isolated?
I have bodyguards. I have big cars.

Do you travel with bodyguards?
Oh yes. But I don’t travel commercially. Whenever I go around the world I go on private jets.

What if you went to a nightclub or something?
I don’t. I never go anywhere, not even from here to the Quai Voltaire, where I live. Never ever. People wait in front of my house.

How long has it been that way for you, with fans outside your home?
For the past ten years. Before that, it was OK. And when I was younger, people didn’t really know me. I had the time to be young and not to be troubled by this kind of thing.

Karl is an amazing designer who inspired not one but two characters from my upcoming novel, Yarn.

“The September Issue”

Friday, July 10th, 2009

“The September Issue” is the anticipated documentary that follows Anna Wintour and her staff at Vogue through the process of creating the magazine’s September issue, AKA the world’s thickest magazine issue.

Tennis ace Sharapova unveils blinking phone dress

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

So far the marriage between fashion and technology has brought clothes barely worthy of a headline in the goofball section of the news. Say, like this:

Former Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova presented a prototype dress to reporters that is designed to light up when the wearer’s mobile telephone rings.

What?

I’ve seen other odd offspring like this and it’s discouraging. Is there some designer whose actually doing something useful and interesting. Something some might actually want to use and wear. Will it have to be Apple that leapfrogs over everyone else with the iRGB shirt?

For an uninformative image of the dress see: www.ubergizmo.com/

Golf Swing of the Future

Sunday, May 31st, 2009

A week ago my dad recorded me at a range, and I’ve posted a few videos on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/user/JonArmstrongAuthor

I’d like to co-opt this for my upcoming novel, Yarn

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

A ball of yarn takes over San Francisco.

“50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice – ChronicleReview.com”

Monday, April 13th, 2009

I’ve never been a huge fan of “The Elements of Style,” which turned 50. If you’re like me and had told to read and study the thing to learn how to write well, only to flip through its narrow pages and wonder what people were raving about.

Geoffery K. Pullum has this to say:

“April 16 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of a little book that is loved and admired throughout American academe. Celebrations, readings, and toasts are being held, and a commemorative edition has been released.

I won’t be celebrating.

“The Elements of Style” does not deserve the enormous esteem in which it is held by American college graduates. Its advice ranges from limp platitudes to inconsistent nonsense. Its enormous influence has not improved American students’ grasp of English grammar; it has significantly degraded it.

Read the rest at The Chronicle of Higher Education.

A Cool-looking SteamPunk iPhone Game

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009

I was thinking about a steam-punk sort of look for a game recently. Not a puzzler, though.

The Flying Suit

Thursday, April 2nd, 2009

wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.
In my upcoming novel, Yarn, which tells the story of the tailor from Grey, I have a short scene with a flying suit. The one I imagined was more fashionable … a high-twist charcoal twill … however, these are pretty damn exciting.

scanwiches

Sunday, March 8th, 2009

This is making its way around the internets. Tasty and eerie at the same time. Like planet lunch floating in the black cosmos.

http://scanwiches.com/

Swimsuit that dries itself

Sunday, March 8th, 2009

“A new technology works by letting water pass through the fabric, rather than being absorbed into the fabric.

Wearers can stretch out on a beach or on a sun lounger without being encumbered by cold, wet, heavy, baggy swimsuits.”

The article from the Telegraph

Now all we need is a swimsuit that automatically defends against jellyfish and maybe sharks.

The Book Cover Battle

Thursday, December 11th, 2008

Some fun competition to make a fake book cover based on google’s repository of Life Photos.

BoingBoing Link Goodness for If You’re Just Joining Us

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

Thanks to Mary Robinette Kowal for mentioning the first of my Campbell Nominee interviews (with her! and she’s great take a listen) and getting a link from BoingBoing.

Free download. Free. Free.

Thursday, March 27th, 2008

As mentioned on BoingBoing, Grey is now a Free download for those who like their downloads free. Get it at NightShade Books.