Zepped Again! (Part II)

Once you start looking for Led Zep references, you find that there’s no shortage of how the band’s visual iconography spawned homage over the years. Take this logo for a vanity record label created by jokester Les Claypool of the American band Primus. For comparison, LZ’s iconic “Icarus” logo, with its Art Nouveau typeface, is on the left.

Swan Song – Prawn Song

The original source for the logo is the painting below by American artist William Rimmer. Entitled Evening (The Fall of Day) it is said to depict the Greek god Apollo. or alternately the fallen angel Lucifer, as the figure has a halo and is without genitalia, as the angels are supposed to be.

The original heavy metal headbanger?

The original Swan Song logo as it appeared on vinvyl. Notice the lettering is more Book of Kells in this early version.

The main difference is how the LZ version of the figure holds his left arm up, not folded behind him, as if he’s headbanging at a concert. But the pose also makes it seem like he’s lost his ability to fly and is plunging to the earth, which is more in line with with the legend of Icarus. Icarus was the teenage son son of the inventive genius Daedulus, who was imprisoned by King Minos. Daedulus made two pairs of wings out of paper, wax, and feathers so he and Icarus could fly to freedom, warning his son not to fly too close to the sun or the wax would melt. But Icarus was forgetful, or perhaps too prideful, to take heed, and his fatal mistake caused him to plunge from the sky. This is the interpretation the band chose for the figure.

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Zepped Again! (Part I)

Robert’s a real doll… Barbie doll that is!

Here’s another topic carried over from last year’s Led Zeppelin May, which I wanted to get to then, but didn’t: the band’s influence on popular culture over the years. First, take this quartet of demon-like monsters from the manga and later anime Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure.

Manga version, top; anime, below.

The four are named, respectively, Page, Jones, Plant, and Bornnam (in Japanese, Peiji, Jōnzu, Puranto and Bōnnamu.) Bornnam might have taken the place of Bonzo for legal reasons (which may have been null because Peter Grant isn’t around to protect his non-existent band anymore) or been easier to pronounce in Japanese. The creatures themselves were the nemesis of members of the Joestar family, whose descendants battle evil over the centuries. Perhaps the manga’s creator, Hirohika Araki, was influenced by the band’s associations with black magic. The four are killed after being trapped inside a burning chandelier.

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 5/22/24: Led Zeppelin Magic

One bard casting a Lazy Lungs spell on another (AI art)

I had such a fun time doing Zeppedee-doo-dah May last year that I thought I’d revisit it. There were a number of items I had wanted to post back then but found the month ended way too soon. This pun-filled list of spells and magic items was one of them.

 

Led Zeppelin Spells and Magic Items

Bed-thyme of Bonzo: This aromatic mix of magical herbs, held in a muslin pouch, is capable of putting even the most unruly drunk straight to sleep if held under their nose.

Custer’s Cream Pie: Creates a cream-topped pie out of nowhere and throws it at the target’s face, immobilizing them for 1 -4 rounds.

Daze and Confuse: The victim becomes emotional bereft, as well as intellectually muddled for a number of rounds.

Gnome Quarter: Reduces a gnome’s stats down to one quarter of what they would normally be for the duration of the spell. This includes armor class, hit points, and attacks, as well as personal attributes like strength and intelligence.

Incendiary Pageboy: This effete-looking blonde pageboy wig, created by the magic-using highwayman Jo-Nzee, has a sinister purpose. When ripped from the wearer’s head and thrown at a target, it turns into a firebomb capable of destroying an entire building or large creature. Jo-Nzee kept a supply of these wigs on hand to aid his nefarious activities, aided by the impression they gave of the wearer being a silly fop.

Lazy Lungs: This magical curse is one minstrels or bards typically throw at a rival. It reduces the victim’s oxygen intake so they are unable to project their voice. The physical ingredient is a leaf from a withered plant.

Misty Mountain Hops: These magical hops brew an especially potent beer. Drinkers will want to get up and dance and be merry after just a few sips. This beer never causes a hangover, and drinkers who imbibe too much fall asleep and never act violently or aggressively.

Playful Presence: Creates a friendly poltergeist who plays various tricks for a period of time, like hiding items and then returning them, tapping on the windows, and cleaning up the dishes. The presence is never malicious and can even protect the area in some way, like alerting inhabitants to danger.

Staff of the Stickman: Points the owner to dried logs and sticks suitable for a fire. It also lets them carry up to their own body weight in dried wood back to camp bundled on their back.

Torc of the Black Country: A silver torc (Celtic neck ring) plated with silver and set with pieces of dark turquoise stone and sparkling black opals. The torc enhances a musician’s skill and stamina and also their charisma, attracting to them adoring members of their preferred gender.

Wand of Miscommunication: Creates an area of effect where no one, and I mean no one, will understand correctly what is said to them, though they will think they do. Mayhem usually results. The wand is effective across all languages and means of communication, such as sign language.

You Need Coolin’ : When the words to this spell are sung or chanted, a hot item too painful to touch, like a fresh-baked pie, a sunburn, or metal from the forge, cools down to room temperature.

Ymij’s Dragon Thread: This large spool of multicolored silk thread comes with a silver needle. With it the user can embroider beautiful dragons on any kind of clothing which enhances the charisma of the wearer.

( A note on the Midjourney pic above. It’s based on a pic of Robert and Jimmy, but for some reason Jimmy wound up looking like Steven Tyler with snakes in his hair. )

An ASFR Tidbit

I haven’t been posting much ASFR content on here lately, but I’m pretty pleased by this happy accident of a Midjourney prompt, which was for a futuristic London subway, but came out… skewed sideways as often happens.

Female wrongdoers were placed into transportation sarcophagi for their journey to the processing facilities. Such displays acted as deterrents for the State. Their friends and families gathered along the conveyer tracks for one last glimpse of them, even though their only individuality came from the LED screens that glowed on their faceplates: name, date of birth, criminal codes. Sealed within and cut off from the outside world, none knew where they were headed or who observed.  But the onlookers knew they wouldn’t be coming back.

.At least not in their human forms.

 

Worldbuilding Wednesday 5/15/24: Let’s Talk About the Milky Way (Part 4)

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There are interpretations of the Milky Way other than the arms of a distant galaxy. The Milky Way candy bar, invented in 1923 in Minneapolis, is still going strong domestically and globally. Its inventor was one Frank Mars, who gave his name to — you guessed it — the Mars Bar. You’d think he chose the name Milky Way to continue the astronomical theming, but the name just happened to be one of a popular milkshake of the time whose flavors he borrowed. To be fair, the milkshake itself might have been inspired by the galaxy, as the Milky Way was much in the news in the 1920s. It was only then that the astronomy community reached the consensus that it was, in fact, a galaxy, and that there existed many other galaxies just like it in the cosmos.

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 5/8/24: Let’s Talk About the Milky Way (Part 3)

Marduk had two pairs of eyes and four ears and flames shooting from his mouth, a rather off-putting deity if you ask me. Tiamat is depicted as a not unusual dragon.

The Greeks weren’t the only ones to create origin stories for the Milky Way. Centuries before them, the Babylonians had their own version: it was the tail of Tiamat, the dragon/serpent goddess of primordial chaos, placed there after her defeat by the god Marduk. Likely the first version of the chaos vs. order megamyth, not to mention female vs. male.

In my last post I talk about the different views a planet might have of its home galaxy, assuming it was the same as Earth’s. Today I’ll continue the discussion.

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 5/1/24: Let’s Talk About the Milky Way (Part 2)

The Birth of the Milky Way (1668) by Peter Paul Rubens

The Birth of the Milky Way (1668) by Peter Paul Rubens

The painting above, by Peter Paul Rubens, offers a different take on the Milky Way’s origins. I like it a lot better than Tintoretto’s which appeared last week. For one thing, it feels more real. There’s a story being told as your eye travels from element to element in the painting. But it’s not the same story as Tintoretto’s. It’s more direct and less busy. In Rubens’ painting Hera suckles baby Heracles  willingly as Zeus fumes at her back, a bundle of lightning bolts at his feet, annoyed he isn’t paying attention to her. Heracles looks amazed at the size of Hera’s boob and so misses the stream of milk she squeezes, which turns into a glowing cloud at the lower left of the picture. In contrast, Tintoretto gives up just a few measly stars.

In addition to the cloud, Heracles and Hera are lowing with light, bringing them to front and center of the composition. In a nice touch, the dark shapes of Hera’s peacocks, which she uses to draw her chariot, look like the dark clouds in the center of the Milky Way that, in less light-polluted times, were more visible.

Like the myth, a planet’s view of the Milky Way can change depending on where it is placed and the tilt of its axis.

First, some basic astronomy.

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 4/24/24: Let’s Talk About the Milky Way (Part 1)

The Origin of the Milky Way (1575) by Tintoretto.It’s hard to make out the action, but the nude central figure is Hera, the baby under her flailing left arm is Heracles, and the divine milk he spilled takes the form of tiny gold stars shooting upwards from his head.

The Milky Way  takes its name from a Greek myth about Heracles (Hercules in Roman myth) the son of Zeus and the mortal woman Alcmene. His mother, fearing the wrath of Hera, Zeus’s jealous wife, abandoned Heracles in the woods. But the infant was rescued by Athena, the goddess of wisdom and warcraft. Not being a motherly type, she placed him next to the sleeping Hera so he could suckle on her milk. Unfortunately, he suckled too hard, making Hera wake, and she pushed him away. The mouthful of milk that  spilled became the galaxias, or the way of milk, in the night sky, as the Greek word for milk is gala.

Over the centuries, galaxias eventually became galaxy, the familiar term we use today for these titanic clusters of stars and gas.

Other cultures gave the softly glowing arch, which rotates over the night, their own explanations. Many of them, as the Greeks did, reference it as a path or a road, and often a river, stream or sea. For example, Hindu mythology called it Kshira Sagara, or the Sea of Milk, perhaps related to the myth of Samudra Manthana, or the churning of the Ocean of Milk by a mountain. Other ways of explaining it were a giant chain, a fence, or even an animal’s belly or tail.

In that spirit, here’s a list of names some other culture might use.

 

Other names for the Milky Way

The Arc of Ascension

The Veils of Venus

Tiamat’s Tongue

Causeway of the Gods

Great Churn of Heaven

Misty Bridge

Abandoned Skyway

The Star-spindle

The Great Tether

Breath of the Frost Gods

Bone-powder Path

 The Starstream

The Nightbow

Tail of the Great Serpent

The Lodges of the Star-Kin

The Great Loom

Falling-blossom way

Path of the dead

Cosmic crack

Creamy Cleft

Pearly Path

The Celestial Oarfish

Worldbuilding Wednesday 4/17/24: The Best of Twittersnips (Horror and Halloween)

Christine Daae unmasks the phantom in the 1925 silent movie The Phantom of the Opera. The scene still gives me goosebumps.

Oh, the horrors! Here’s a selection from Twitternaps of the past. All meant in fun of course.

 

Horror and Halloween

Horror movies
 The Reptiloid Slayer
The Island of Medusa
Echoes of the Silence
Attack of the Giant Centipede
Mark of the Zombie
Lake of a Thousand Lunatics
Blade of the Werewolf Queen
Horror movie taglines
 See the Headhunter King Murder Helpless Coeds!
Vile Experiments Lead to Man’s Ruin!
Mad Science Creates a Race of Clam Zombies!
It would not die… yet dominated death!
Killer grave robbers from Bikini Island!
Reptile Girls Run Amok in a Top Secret Military Base!
Horror novels
 The Zombies of Paradise
The Sheath of Shadow Door
Cold Breath/Stolen Breath
The Prophecy of Area 51
Warn a Cursed Bride
Twisted Daughter
Vampire novels
 Sanguine Nectar
In a Succulent Vein
Evil coat-of-arms
 An ape’s skull on a field of indigo and white stripes
Foul villains
 Shammoki Hellsprung
Eyel Fetidbask
Lord Rukek Ravenslaughter
Giletto Otis Skullford
Queston, Necromancer of the Wounded Finger
Queen Umyrantha the Bloodless
Halloween Costumes
 Witch Doctor Cheerleader
Rastafarian Nun
The Bacon Witch
Redneck Mummy
Punk Rock Mermaid
Baby Freddy Krueger
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Drag Queen
Hawaiian Cyclops
Pool Noodle Skeleton
Day of the Dead Mr. Rogers
Elizabethean Barrista

Passing Obsessions 4-24

The Spanish region of Navarre is famous for its white asparagus. For a time the farmers’ cooperative was sponsor of the annual Running of the Bulls in Pamplona.

Rock band Wet Leg.

There’s a new ai art engine called Sureel.ai that uses “responsively sourced” image references.

Hamsters, and iPad games featuring hamsters. This one’s gonna hang around for a while. I missed the Squid Game train, but there are dozens of hamsters on YouTube playing rodent versions, which is more entertaining.

Quiet on Set, a documentary currently airing on Max about behind the scenes abuse going on at the Nickelodeon children’s network in the 1990s and 2000s.

Asparagus. I once had a co-worker named Jean-Phillip, who was from a village in France. He said that every spring during the asparagus harvest they would eat it every day, at every meal. Puzzled, I asked him, “Didn’t you ever get tired of eating asparagus?” and with a gentle logic, he said, “No. Because it was so good, you see?” And… he was right.

Asparagus salad with sesame oil

1 lb. asparagus, thin stalks
1 tbs. sesame oil
1 tbs. sesame seeds
Kosher salt
Fresh ground black pepper
1/2 cup thinly sliced onion, red onion is best

Boil asparagus in salted water until soft enough to pierce with a fork, but still firm. Cool and cut into 2″ pieces. Put into a large bowl and mix with sesame oil, sesame seeds, and onion, grind the pepper over it to taste. Tastes best cool.