Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Kickstart This!

Here's a selection of wonderful Kickstarter projects that deserve some attention!



Amie Lockwood has created a beautifully illustrated children's books which break social norms. Tired of bedtime stories that reinforced old stereotypes and gender norms, she created Adventures of Alex.
The story starts with Alex, an inquisitive child with red hair and the courage of a lion. Along the way, we meet her friends, their parents and the people in their lives. To a child, The Adventures of Alex series are fun, entertaining stories. To an adult, they’re an important and easy way to entertain children without subjecting them to the stereotypes often found in children's literature. The world is diverse and so are our stories.


I think we can all relate to the desire to float through life sometimes, especially when things on the ground are too painful or scary to deal with. Nicola Murphy and Katy Wright-Mead have written a touching and beautiful short film, Float, about a young woman who has to make the brave to come back down and face reality.
In today's world, with the alluring ability to manipulate our public persona, we often disconnect from our authentic selves. It takes courage to be an individual, to face pain, and to learn and grow. To deny ourselves this experience is to risk losing sight of our deep desires, and ultimately ourselves. Parker is a young female puppet of society (both literally and figuratively). With the help of her "go-getter" boyfriend she has constructed the perfect persona for herself, but when her dying father fails to recognize his only daughter, Parker is faced with the decision to float farther from reality or face what is waiting for her on the ground.



When I saw the listing for Recipes for the Dead, I literally made a "squee" sound, out loud. And then my next response was, 'Issue Three?! Why haven't I heard of this before?!' 
Recipes for the Dead is a Victorianpunk-manga-ish comic series that follows the mad adventures of an ambitious baker who just wants to lift her pastry shop out of bankruptcy. Making one reckless decision after another, she attracts the attentions of a sinister neighbor, accidentally concocts a recipe that captivates demonic beings, and finds herself suspiciously much too charming to the boy who never paid attention before.



I love simple, beautifully designed games, and Tabula clearly fits the bill!
Made entirely of wood and designed to be self-contained, Tabula is its own box. The game closes in on itself to become an sleek tabula, "tablet" in Latin. The name Tabula also comes from "Tabula Rasa", meaning "blank slate" - the board starts as a blank slate that then becomes filled with the tiles.





Like a lot of us, I grew up with this image plastered everywhere. And while I knew a little about the story behind it, it wasn't until I started to learn more about the women in the war effort that I started to really understand what it meant. And then I read Gone to Soldiers by Marge Piercy, and fell in love with the women working in the Detroit factories, many of whom were trying to make ends meet while their husbands or brothers were off fighting overseas. I'm curious to learn more about Jessica L. Folk's Poster Girl, and although it's already funded, you can be sure I'll be looking out for it at local film festivals! -life
"Poster Girl" follows the tale of a young married woman as she discovers that life is not so simple once her husband is off at war and she's facing a life she never thought she'd have. She goes off to work in the factories and the antics that ensue flip her world upside down. Watch her become Rosie and lead women on the march toward equality!

0 comments :

Post a Comment