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Machine of Death deadline approaches

The deadline for submitting a story to Machine of Death Volume 2 is in less than two weeks!

If you’ve already submitted something (we’ve received over 500 stories so far), thank you! We’re absolutely thrilled that you’re a part of it! If you’re still working on yours, that’s fine, but be sure to send in your submission(s) by July 15.

And if you haven’t even started yet — are you plumb out of time? I don’t think you are, necessarily. I just wrote a piece on the MoD blog about how you can spin simple stories out of absolutely any piece of inspiration:

Improvisers are taught that whatever the scene starts being about, is what it’s about. If one person says “I’m hungry,” then the second person could say “Well, of course! You haven’t eaten for days!” And the scene would be about that person being hungry. Why are they hungry? What has prevented them from eating? A diet? A stomach trauma? Torture? Do they have a tapeworm?

The point is that there are infinite reasons why that person could be hungry. There’s no reason to place bricks anywhere else, because that simple declaration, “I’m hungry,” is enough. The entire scene can be built on top of it. The character’s hunger can be explored to reveal deeper issues — problems with relationships, or self-esteem, or conflicts with other characters in the scene. Thematic elements can arise. The scene has the potential to become emotionally resonant.

All this can come from just “I’m hungry” — if you will just dig into it, and keep digging. There is never any limit to how deep you can go on even the smallest detail. (Read the rest)

Also, I’m in San Francisco this weekend! We’ll be doing the Machine of Death theater show on Saturday, and I’ll be at the Renegade Craft Fair both Saturday and Sunday. Details on both events are here.

I’ve taken to driving to San Francisco, instead of flying. It’s an easier way to transport all my goods, although it does take a while and tucker a person out. To show you a little of what the trip is like, here’s a mini-documentary I made about the drive to and from Maker Faire, back in May! Each piece is about fifteen minutes long.

Malki Goes To Maker Faire ! PART 1 on Vimeo.

Malki Goes to Maker Faire ! PART 2 of 2 Vimeo.

Next weekend: Two events in San Francisco!

Two big events coming up next weekend! I’ll be at the Renegade Craft Fair on July 9 & 10, which is held at the Fort Mason Festival Pavilion and is totally free to attend!

Come say hello, pick up a book or some greeting cards, or a sketch, or even just a handshake. I’m determined to have at least one new thing since my trip to Maker Faire just a few weeks ago, so I’ll be bringing new little pocket-sized Tinkerer’s Guide booklets!

ALSO: This is cool. I am super-excited about this:

Machine of Death is pleased to partner with the Un-Scripted Theater Company of San Francisco for a special one-night-only Machine of Death stage performance.

The Un-Scripted Company has a new improv showcase called “Act One, Scene Two.” Each night, the actors perform the first scene of an unfinished play — a script that has been previously written, but not completed. Then, the actors will improvise the entire rest of the play.

It’s a different play each night, and on July 9, they’ll be performing a piece from Machine of Death: “Murder and Suicide, Respectively” by your friend and mine Ryan North. Ryan will even be present on Skype for fun chats after the show!

Tickets are $20 ($10 for students & seniors), all of which goes to the theater. It’s a fairly intimate venue, so if you’re interested in attending, you should pick up your tickets in advance! This is a one-night-only performance that will never be repeated. (And if you like it, check out the other plays on other nights! Different Act One, Scene Two shows will be running every weekend through August.)

Also I will have a Machine of Death there at our show, giving out free death predictions. But that’s just a bonus.

ADDENDUM: Are you a Bay-Area-based photographer and/or videographer? I am looking to capture extremely high-quality photos and/or video of the show. If this is something that you do professionally, please email me with your rates.

Tickets for the show are on sale now!

Wondermark Caption Contest #3!

It’s time again for a caption contest! Come up with your best suggested caption for the above image, and post it on the Wondermark Facebook page (or just click on over to read the other entries)! The author of my favorite caption will win a personalized print of the comic with his or her caption rendered CANON.

OR, if you’d prefer to keep your entries SECRET from Mark Zuckerberg and his army of mafia hitmen and farm animals, you can email your caption(s) to me: dave at wondermark dot com, subject: “Caption Contest #3”.

Enter as many times as you like! The deadline is midnight Pacific time, Wednesday July 6th.

Also check out our previous caption contests for even more laffs

New shirt! “Unparsable Symbols”

In tenth-grade chemistry, I converted my name to an unpronounceable symbol, like Prince was doing at the time.

As I recall it was a bunch of math gibberish, like a compound expression inside a cube root, and Kilroy was peeking over the top of it, and the whole thing had an integral or something too. Mrs. Stockwell was tolerant enough to let me use the symbol on all my classwork, even going so far as to ask me which ASCII symbol she should use for me in the computer where she kept the grades.

The Student Formerly Known as David Malki (these antics preceded, and I suppose foreshadowed, the exclamation point) is no longer, but my fascination with preposterous semiotics continues. Thus my new shirt. Enjoy!

Calgary photos & a TALE OF VICTORY.

Just look at that strapping fellow in the photo! What a delightful book he’s holding, what a clever shirt he’s wearing! (Pay no attention to the seething jealousy seeping from the eyes of the man in the background. He is clearly a man consumed.)

Many, many thanks to the hero of the photo and the many others who came to visit at the Calgary Expo. It was tremendous fun and I sold out of pretty much everything I brought, which made it even more fun. We had a blast playing Machine of Death Draw & Guess on Sunday, and all in all I left Calgary feeling INSPIRED.

Not least because of an incredible achievement I managed on the way home:

…I am the type of person who wants things to work out. I want puzzle pieces to fit, and I want objects to be aligned. I once sorted a stack of bills by serial number because I was bored. I stack coins by size, take exhausting and overlong trips because I can make the itineraries mesh like beautiful gears, and before every trip I agonize over which suitcase will most exactly fit the things I need to pack. I HATE the idea of 43 Canadian cents burning a worthless hole in my pants as I cross the border home.

(Read more on my Tumblr)

Here is a picture I drew in a book:

And here is a newspaper headline that I saw:

…Which at first glance appears to indicate that R2-D2 and a charming moppet dove from a bridge to save a drowning man in an incredible moment of heroism.

Unless R2-D2 is what they mean by “motorist.”