Graphic stuff...

Last weekend, we went to the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the National History Museum, and it was pretty awesome.  There were some really amazing pictures on show (as you would expect), many of them things I never thought I would see.  For example, a close-up of a lava flow!  Among my favourites were a cougar sauntering along with the Hollywood sign in the background, a mouse in silhouette, sitting on a giant puffball mushroom against the moon, and a tiny squid outlined only by its own lights.  I think I liked the Young Photographer section best, though, as it contained more classic wildlife photos of recognisable animals in the wild - a jay mid-flight, a leopard relaxing in the grass, and a family of owls on a tree stump.  Well worth a visit.


In other graphic news, I just finished reading The Sculptor by Scott McCloud, which is a really interesting a quite gripping graphic novel about an artist wrestling with his desire to be seen.  The story takes some unexpected and very interesting turns, and it kept me intrigued right up till the end.  I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the ultimate conclusion, but I really enjoyed it, and the central relationship had some interesting things to say about attitude to life and how to live it.


Almost forgot - we also went to an improvised stage show last Sunday, based on Austen - it was called Austentatious, and they do one every month in the Leicester Square Theatre.  I remember laughing quite a lot, but thinking afterwards that I probably wouldn't go again.  I guess it's likely to be quite variable, and they did a good job with the title they pulled out of the hat (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Parson).  Bits of it were very funny ("I'm afraid the pool table closed during your monologue...") but other bits of it fell a bit flat.  Guess that's what you get with improv!