Sunday Shuffle
“The Best of Make” By Mark Frauenfelder
Okay, this is number one on my list of essential new releases — it’s the ultimate DIY resource for an era when the very idea is ignored by the heralds of the mainstream, but celebrated by so many within it. Basic fact: people like to create stuff. Other basic fact: there are a lot of people who are mechanically and electronically inclined who want to do a little more with these inclinations than fix stuff around the house — they want to fix UP stuff around the house. There’s plenty of insane stuff in the book — for instance, the VCR cat feeder and the instructions for turning your computer mouse into a robot — but there’s also some practical stuff, too, like building your own wind powered generator and getting an old, decrepit pinball machine up to speed. Really, though, making your own spud gun and real
, working cigar box guitar are probably higher on everyone’s list. The perfect Christmas gift for the handyman or handywoman in your life. And don’t forget about the fabulous magazine and Web site that spawned this book.
“Fox Bunny Funny” by Andy Hartzell
If you’re feeling a little alienated, perhaps a tad repressed, but you don’t like to whine about it, then Andy Hartzell’s “Fox Bunny Funny” may be just the thing for you. This graphic novel has a pretty basic set-up — the world consists of foxes and bunnies, you’re one of the other, and it’s a fox, fox, fox, fox world all the way. What’s to be done with foxes that are intrigued by bunnies, foxes that, in fact, might have a bit of a fetish for them? Train it out of them to enter the norm of fox society until the point that they don’t feel quite themselves and are miserable because of it, of course! Just like humans do! Hartzell’s wordless story is as profound as it is hilarious.
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