Month: May 2018

“Ready Player One” is a new movie directed by Steven Spielberg (worldwide premiere: March 2018), based on the science-fiction novel by Ernest Cline (2011):

The movie talks about the vision of the world in the future, in 2045, where people use a massive virtual reality called “OASIS” to escape from the real life. The author of the “OASIS” – James Halliday, before his death decides to announce a contest for the players and give his entire property to the first person who will find the “Easter Egg” hidden in virtual reality.  Then the whole world throws itself into the challenge:

The creators of the film decided to put into it many references to well-known pop-culture works, such as (inter alia) “Back to the Future”, “Batman”, or “Robocop”, but they also took some inspirations from the Greek mythology. One of the movie characters was named after the Greek Goddess of the hunt – Artemis. It is Samantha Evelyn Cook, a 19-year-old girl,  who as a player of “OASIS” is called Art3mis. As we can already guess, the girl is hunting for the “Easter Egg” – she is also very brave, independent, and intelligent character.

The Funko company – creators of licensed vinyl pop-figures, produced a doll inspired by the Art3mis character (see below):

Found by Dorota Bazylczyk

Elaborated by Dorota Bazylczyk

See more:

• The Official Movie Site – link
• “Ready Player One” in IMDb – link
• “Ready Player One” on Twitter – @readyplayerone, link
• The Official Website of Fanko – link
• “Ready Player One: 138 Easter Eggs and References in the Movie”:

“Zwierzokracja” [“Animalocracy”] is a recently (April 2018) published Polish non-fiction big format illustrated book. It was designed by Ola Woldańska-Płocińska, a Polish illustrator and designer.

The book presents the animal rights, the history of human-animal relations and so on. On two spreadsheets we can see the classical elements: the first one is dedicated to the cult of cats in ancient Egypt, the other – to the Greek philosophers’ approach towards eating meat. Living in the 6th century BC Pythagoras was a vegetarian, but Aristotle (4th century BC) said that animals were to be used – and eaten – by man. That is why he is depicted by the author with a big sausage! The part in question is entitled “The Philosophers’ Duel” and the winner is clearly indicated by the author. Although Aristotle is chronologically later, it is Pythagoras the vegetarian whose “environmental” view concludes the section and leaves the young readers with the lasting and animal-friendly message.

Found by Krzysztof Rybak

Elaborated by Krzysztof Rybak

All the photos of the book were taken by the author of this post.

See more:

• About “Zwierzokracja” on Publicat publisher website [POLISH] – link
• “Zwierzokracja” on Strefa Psotnika – link
• Ola Woldańska-Płocińska’s Official website [ENGLISH]- link
• Interview with Ola Woldańska-Płocińska on Culture.pl [ENGLISH] – link

A new series about mermaids has appeared on Freeform TV on March 29, 2018 – it is called “Siren”, and it talks about the relations between people and sirens, that has a very long history in a coastal town called Bristol Cove.

The main character of the series – Ben Pownall, is a marine biologist from a rich local family, who had an opportunity to meet the sirens already in the past. In one of the episodes Ben meets Ryn – a siren swimming to the shore, looking for her sister that was trapped into the fishing nets. It comes out that the lost siren was taken into the military laboratory and became an object of experiments.

Thus, mythology combines with an animal protection theme, and we see a lot of beautiful underwater views and amazing mermaids who – however – may behave like predators at some circumstances. And yes, they do sing, and they are very attractive for sailors. 🙂

Found by Dr. Hanna Paulouskaya

Elaborated by Dorota Bazylczyk

See more:

• Read about “Siren” in the IMDb – link.
• “Siren” on Freeform – link.
• Austern, Linda; Naroditskaya, Inna, “Music of the Sirens”, Indiana University Press, United States, 2006.
• Peraino, Judith, “Listening to the Sirens: Musical Technologies of Queer Identity from Homer to Hedwig”, University of California Press, Los Angeles, 2005.
• Ventura, Varla, “Among the Mermaids: Facts, Myths, and Enchantments from the Sirens of the Sea”, Weiser Books, San Francisco, 2013.