Indiana State Fair 2013 Photos, Part 3 of 3: Arts and Stages

At long last, the trilogy draws to a close. In Part One, we examined the foodstuffs and agriculture at this year’s Indiana State Fair. In Part Two, we spotlighted a traveling animation exhibit that visited Indianapolis at just the right time and place.

Part Three divides neatly into two parts, beginning with a tip of the hat to the art of the fairgrounds. Between the advertising fixtures and the 4-H art contests, creativity is in abundant supply if you’re patient enough to search for it.

That being said: Hobbit diorama for the win.

Hobbit diorama, Indiana State Fair

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The GenCon 2013 Wednesday Night Food Truck Shindig

It’s that time of year again! This weekend GenCon returns to Indianapolis for another extended weekend of gaming and related forms of competition and geekery. My wife and I aren’t fullly accredited gamers, but we frequently find interesting activities and objects tangentially included in the proceedings, so we’ve dropped in on a few Saturdays. This year marks a bold new experiment for us: we’ll be taking our nephew along for the ride. Should be fun.

This year’s GenCon kicked off early today with a pre-show party downtown on Georgia Street, east of the Indiana Convention Center. Whereas the official focus was on alcohol provided by locally owned Sun King Brewery, we non-drinkers took advantage of the large cluster of food trucks on hand.

Indianapolis food trucks, GenCon 2013

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Wizard World Chicago 2013 Photos, Part 3 of 3: Actors, Artists Alley, and Things

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover, we spent Part One and Part Two sharing nothing but costume pics my wife and I snapped at this year’s Wizard World Chicago comics-‘n’-entertainment convention. In the miniseries finale, we present visible proof that con have other reasons for us to attend, including but not limited to comic books. My biggest victory: after my purchases this weekend, I’m now one issue away from a complete set of reading copies of Power Man & Iron Fist. (Curse you, elusive #123!)

Also, panels can be fun. Unfortunately due to time constraints we only attended one: a Firefly Q&A with costars Alan Tudyk, Emmy nominee Morena Baccarin (Homeland), and Summer Glau (now recurring on Arrow). As one would expect, Tudyk was the chattiest and funniest; Baccarin, the most dignified, but engaging in her own right (and expecting!); and Glau, the undisputed quietest. Best moment: Tudyk reciting a line of his racist character’s dialogue from the recent 42 using the voice of his King Kandy from Wreck-It Ralph.

Firefly panel, Wizard World Chicago 2013

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Wizard World Chicago 2013 Photos, Part 2 of 3: the Marvel/DC/Star Wars Costume Collection

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover, we began sharing cosplay pics from Wizard World Chicago 2013, albeit limited to subjects we ran across on Saturday, August 10th, because current family events negated sticking around for any additional days.

One of the more unusual Marvel options: Steampunk Iron Man! And possibly his assistant, Victorian Pepper Potts or Bethany Cabe.

steampunk Iron Man, Wizard World Chicago

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Wizard World Chicago 2013 Photos, Part 1 of 3: Costumes Not from Marvel, DC, or Star Wars

This past Saturday my wife and I spent quality time together once again at this year’s Wizard World Chicago. Due to multiple complications we had to settle for one-day admission, but we did our best to cover the territory and explore our entertainment options as much as we could within our limitations. We appreciated that the show floor was expanded across two levels to allow for much wider aisles and consequently a lot less congestion and personal-space invasions than we endured in years past.

We kick off our mandatory photo collection with, of course, a selection of costumes. It’s one of my favorite parts of any given convention. I’m frequently impressed by the effort and creativity that fellow fans pour into these lavish recreations, whether they select characters that everyone else is also trying on, or they go obscure and bring to life the characters known only to a few hardcore lucky ones.

The average movie geek knows of King Arthur and his knights, wielding requisite coconuts for accurate horsey clip-clopping sound effects, possibly retrieved from the beak of some nearby swallow.

King Arthur, Monty Python, Wizard World Chicago 2013

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What to Do with My Free Yellow Cape?

free yellow cape

Behold the freebie I received for running the Norton Symantec promo gauntlet at Wizard World Chicago 2013. Five minutes of minimal effort toward a game meant to sell a product I’ll never buy, and this was my reward. My wife and I normally avoid any booths huckstering software or any other merchandise we’re unlikely to buy on impulse, but when the doors opened at 10 a.m., not all the guests or exhibitors were in the house yet. We had to find something to do until they did.

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“Elysium”: Heavy are the Burdens of the Exosuit Gladiator

Matt Damon, Sharlto Copley, Elysium

Answering the most important question first: no, Elysium is nowhere near as revelatory as writer/director Neill Blomkamp’s previous film, the Oscar-nominated District 9. Constructed with four times the budget and ten times the star power, Blomkamp’s latest Important-Message sci-fi actioner is just as visually accomplished, but delivers a fraction of the impact.

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Indiana State Fair 2013 Photos, Part 2 of 3: the Animation Exhibition

Continuing the trilogy of this year’s captured moments from the event mentioned up there in the title:

One of this year’s feature presentations is “Get Animated”, a traveling exhibit about the animation medium that’s appeared in other states over the last three years before gracing our fair land with its colorful presence.

Longtime fans of the field will appreciate the looks back at the Looney Tunes era, including art samples and souvenirs from notable directors such as Bob Clampett and Chuck Jones.

animation model sheets

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In Honor of the Final Guy Night

July 9, 2013: dinner at the Gourmet Dumpling House in Boston’s Chinatown. Most likely my son’s final vacation with us.

[Tonight’s centerpiece is a previous MCC entry dated October 18, 2012. The photo, intro, and epilogue are new additions for follow-up purposes in light of upcoming major events.]

* * * * *

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2013 Road Trip Photos #5: Mark Twain’s Words in the Walls

My wife and I share a goal of hopefully setting foot in each of the forty-eight contiguous United States before we die. We usually aim to visit one or two states each year, but we’ll sometimes digress briefly into other states along the way simply so we can cross them off our to-do list, even if it’s a few hours at a single attraction. It was in that spirit of completism that we broke up the Day Two marathon drive from Dubois, PA, to Boston with our first-ever foray into the state of Connecticut.

After much research and little debate, we nominated this guy as our excuse for a Connecticut stop.

Lego Mark Twain, Connecticut

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My Son: Day One

babyI remember when this tiny baby wasn’t ready for college.

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America Lines Up to Preorder Sharknado Quality Merchandise

SharknadoNovel

When my wife and I threw caution to the wind and watched Sharknado on Syfy (as previously reported), we were curious to know why the internet wouldn’t shut up about it. By the time the end credits sped by and Ian Ziering was transformed from a 90210 also-ran into a chainsaw-wielding hero soaked in shark fluids, we had learned an important lesson and vowed never to be curious about anything ever again. We also didn’t speak to the internet for three days.

Outside our household, Sharknado-mania is allegedly sweeping the nation. Consider the following recent headline stories:

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Indiana State Fair 2013 Photos, Part 1 of 3: Food, Folks, and Farms

The Indiana State Fair is a fun annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides and big-ticket concerts by Top-40 or country artists. My wife and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context.

This year’s food theme was the Year of Popcorn. Unlike the food themes in years past (e.g., tomato, soybeans), very few vendors tried to incorporate this ingredient into new dishes. Local artists did their best to work within the inherent limitations.

popcorn guy, Indiana State Fair

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If I Were in Charge of “Star Wars: Episode 7″…

Star Wars villains

In my version, only one of these characters survives the first five minutes. Possibly the bearded guy in the white hat. He’s already guaranteed his own action figure. (Photo from our personal Star Wars Celebration III archives, April 2005.)

Every Star Wars fan has their own ideas about what Star Wars: Episode 7 should accomplish. Director J.J. Abrams and screenwriter Michael Arndt should make it all about the Holy Trinity of Luke, Leia, and Han, pretending they’re all still under 35. Or they should make their kids the main characters. Or they should invent all-new, barely related Jedi. Or they should bring back all the dead characters because movie magic. Or it should be a mixture of demographic demands scientifically calculated to please everyone, if everyone loved formulaic sequels. Or it should be a two-hour Jar-Jar roast.

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2013 Road Trip Photos #4: Travel Bits from Day One

The bulk of Day One was a repeat of our Days One from several previous vacations: barreling through the vast expanse of Ohio with minimal stops so we can reach the states beyond. The only Ohio stop that left an impression was lunch in Dublin at a chain called Jason’s Deli (which we don’t have back home). I liked their heated lunchmeat fare more than my family did, but their mostly teenage staff weren’t quite focused on service. When we needed a box for leftovers, I stood at the counter for a few minutes watching half a dozen employees crowded behind the same counter all chatting, teasing each other, fiddling with supplies, or otherwise too preoccupied to afford me the courtesy of a simple “May I help you?” till I lurched closer to the counter and raised my voice. We’ll be skipping Jason’s on future road trips, then.

Unlike that motley crew, Pennsylvania certainly seemed happy to welcome us, once we were free of Ohio’s clutches.

Welcome to Pennsylvania

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The Line for Free Cake Began Here

Cake Boss empty line, Indianapolis

I missed it by that much.

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“Batman ’66”: My New Favorite DC Comic

Jeff Parker, Jonathan Case, Batman '66, DC Comics

When I was a kid, Adam West and Burt Ward were the first super-heroes I remember following on TV. Less wooden than the Super-Friends, beset by better villains than Marvel’s 1970s live-action TV offerings, and a few years ahead of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, syndicated reruns of the 1966-1968 Batman TV show were a staple of my afternoon viewing.

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Chicago Photo Tribute #8: Little Details off Michigan Avenue

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover, as begun last April:

[This coming] weekend is the fourth annual Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (that “C2E2″ thing I won’t shut up about) at Chicago’s McCormick Place convention center, which my wife and I will be attending for our third time. As a tribute to this fascinating city, and an intro to C2E2 newcomers to provide ideas of what else Chicago has to offer while they’re in town, a few of this week’s posts will be dedicated to out experiences in the Windy City when we’re not gleefully clustered indoors with thousands of other comics and sci-fi fans.

As luck would have it, my wife and I will be heading northwest once again in two weeks for this year’s Wizard World Chicago. What began last spring as a short-term miniseries, and then became slightly irrelevant as the event passed, is suddenly relevant once more. Call it the circle of geek-convention life.

With some of our past Chicago experiences, we’ve taken a time-out away from the cons for local sightseeing as a husband/wife quality-time thing. Today’s feature presentation is that shiny attractor of affluent tourists, the Magnificent Mile, the long line of upscale clothing stores and skyscraper-shaped malls dotting both sides of Michigan Avenue northward from Wacker Avenue.

Magnificent Mile sign, Chicago

We’ve strolled the Mile a couple of times, but we never buy anything. Any MCC readers with impeccable fashion tastes have surely discerned from our past photos that our clothing budget is far more modest than our convention budget. We have our priorities.

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So There’s a Scene During “The Wolverine” End Credits

Hugh Jackman, Rila Fukushima, The Wolverine

For the first 2½ acts, The Wolverine is an engrossing slow-burn psychological thriller about the crippling effects of grief, powerlessness, sin, rediscovering your life’s purpose, and stranger-in-a-strange-land culture clash, all nestled inside an outlandish but well-oiled martial-arts flick that easily outclasses the previous Wolverine solo film. That being said, this is a rare instance of a Marvel film that would’ve functioned more cohesively if super-villains had been kept out of it altogether.

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2013 Road Trip Photos #3: Punxsutawney, Part 2 of 2: All the Groundhogs of the Rainbow

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Before we settled in at our hotel, we detoured for one exploratory stop in the famous li’l town of Punxsutawney, annual Party Central for the American celebration known as Groundhog Day. The town’s most famous resident is Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog who supposedly determines America’s winter destiny by crawling out of a hole and letting the sight of his shadow, or lack thereof, foretell whether or not winter would end on schedule. The town is littered with artistic tributes to Mr. Phil himself. Walk twenty feet with your eyes closed and you’re liable to trip over one of Phil’s many simulacra.

I wasn’t kidding by much. In addition to the individual works, Punxsutawney also sports a collection called “Phantastic Phils” — over thirty different fiberglass groundhogs scattered all over town. Each Phil is between four and five feet tall, has its own title, and is painted by different local artists in assorted fashions or practical occupations. My wife captured a fraction of them on camera, as a sort of self-appointed scavenger hunt with a time limit.

Most indulgent on Phil’s part: “The Wizard of Weather”. In this scenario, Phil clearly dreams of controlling the weather so that his forecasts would never, ever be wrong again, even if he had to alter reality and fix the weather to match his predictions. This is a glimpse into our new way of life if Phil ever turned to the dark side.

The Wizard of Weather, Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania

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