Travel By Balloon!

Originally, I had planned for today to involve a movie poster follow-up to yesterday's book cover bonanza.  However, webcomic xkcd intervened with a piece of elaborate brilliance that has detoured the original plans.  xkcd's most recent entry initially appears to simply be one of the comic's more sad, reflective pieces, presenting a big, sad, wonderful world. It's only when you follow the piece's title and mouse-over suggestion that you get a sense for how big the world that the balloonist refers to really is.  The comic is some sort of TARDIS/House of Leaves madness, featuring a panel bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.  Much bigger.  Estimated to be 14 feet bigger.  And while I encourage you to click and drag your way around the world at the original site, I acknowledge that we all have things to accomplish today.  So, consider saving time with this zoomable version of the piece.  Or, if you really want to see what's cool, but really don't want to click around, Mashable has put together a slideshow of the comic's highlights.  The pop-culture references are great, particularly the Pokemon and Oregon Trail shoutouts.  My favorite parts, though, are the whale and the tire swing.
 
Not all balloons are ideal for travel, though.  Some are dangerous and demonic.  Presented without further comment, Don Hertzfeldt's animated short film Billy's Balloon.
Spend some time today considering all the different sounds that result when two "o's" are next to each other.  It's Moon Bloodgood's birthday!

I wonder where I'll float next...

By Its Cover

Ahoy, and happy Talk Like A Pirate Day!

In today's Report we venture away from the aww-inspiring world of cute animals to tackle more literary concerns.  Don't worry, though, we're not going to get too deep into books here.  In fact, we won't go any further than the cover.

First up, an entertaining post on a blog run for and by parents (not sure how I ended up there...) features a slideshow in which a mother shares book covers with her six-year-old daughter.  The six-year-old then offers her summary of the contents that the book must contain based on the cover and title.  Some of the quotes read true to the contents in a vague and poetic way.  Gatsby is, indeed, "good and evil and he's trying to get rid of the ghosts."  "It doesn't really have a story" rings true for Catcher.    Others miss the mark entirely.  But how awesome would a prospecting Jane Eyre be?  And "a blob of purple that lives in [a] house"?  Please don't read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to your "kiddies."  I'm also hoping the mother in question corrected her daughter's comment, "I would not read a book about just a tree."
 
It should come as no surprise to readers that book covers hold such an influence on opinion.  If they didn't, where would we get our overused cliché?  Perhaps no one knows this quite as well as cover designer (and novelist) Chip Kidd, seen here giving a humorous TED talk about book cover design.  Kidd is yet another name you may not recognize whose work you definitely know.  (Covers for Jurassic Park, The Road, 1Q84...)  And yet he actually downplays the cliché, having said: "I'm very much against the idea that the cover will sell the book. Marketing departments of publishing houses tend to latch onto this concept and they can't let go. But it's about whether the book itself really connects with the public, and the cover is only a small part of that."  And in a world of online book buying and tiny-covered e-books, he may be onto something.  But I still love my McSweeney's editions of books for the brilliant visual and tactile design of the physical books themselves.
 
Along with talking like pirates, we wish a happy birthday to Jimmy Fallon today.  No doubt whatever song we sing to wish him a happy birthday will be parodied by him shortly thereafter.

A Return to A(www)nimals

So, the report's been back for a week now, and largely in its morning time slot, too, for those of you time-stamp-checkers out there.  But the Report 2.0 (MacKenzie McHale stands by as I write this) has been notably devoid of a traditional Report fixture.  Specifically, there have been no cute animals!  Let's correct this now.

First up, while we've technically harkened in the beginning of Fall, the weather, at least here in DC, is still just perfect for lounging out in the sun.  And these 20 animals know how to lounge.  From ferret to chapeau-ed guinea pigs, there's a whole lot of adorable going on here.  I'm not too keen on Rowlf being listed, as he is technically a muppet and not an animal. Much as I know he must smell, the ferret in 10 is my favorite, although look how smiley that corgi is!

And if that's not enough (and we've been gone for a while, so it's not), BuzzFeed has also put together this incredible compendium of cute.  And they've made it into a test to see how far you can get without squealing.  I must admit, I didn't actually squeal.  I don't know that I'm capable of making such a noise.  Though it was somewhere around 12 or 15 that I took a deep intake of breath and felt my heart warm.  A dog sleeping in food?!  That would be great served up with the cup of ducks in 22.  And I'll be hard pressed to remember that all the chocolate in my house would kill him if 36 shows up at my door on Halloween.

And to wrap things up for the day... A wonderful blend of adorable animal and human interest.  Last Friday we talked about the Internet's ability to educate, not just serve as a place for time wasting.  Today, let's also consider just a single example of the social outreach angle of the Internet.  A whole world wide web of dog treats was available for  Bingo's Lick It List.  And certainly a bitter reader could argue that there are more worthy causes than Bingo, and I would be foolish not to agree with them.  But to Cole, whose life Bingo has saved many times, I don't think that is the case.  And without the Internet, I don't believe that the Bingo Hein Fund would have taken off.  If we can spread charity as we spread knowledge, that's damn good. 

Closing with the animal theme, throw your lion monarch brother off a cliff and then declare to his son, "I KILLED MUFASA," it's Jeremy Irons' birthday!  That's right, classically trained, Academy Award winning actor with an incredible range of live-action roles, I'm calling you out for being an animated lion.