kitty-carroll.org

For the sheer fun of it

CGH — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 22:03:01 +0000

Our very own Unseen Model gets her own music video, a mere seven decades after the fact:

With thanks to John, Ringo, George, and especially Paul.

Song from the shadows

CGH — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 01:22:30 +0000

The challenge was to write a song from the point of view of a superhero. Denise Hudson responded with “Invisible Girl.” It’s actually quite charming.

Oh, and she also has a blog.

Scarlet puts in an appearance

CGH — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 19:00:50 +0000

Mars Will Send No More (now that’s a name to be reckoned with) has a couple of Scarlet O’Neil four-pagers from the old Famous Funnies. There’s even the obligatory Blind Guy.

The unseen fashionista

CGH — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 01:23:52 +0000

The Web site of the Guardian has added a fashion column dedicated to the “vintage years,” written by someone identified only as the Invisible Woman. Apparently no one’s noticed her in about ten years.

I think it’s a fairly safe bet that she can actually be seen, but I have to applaud her taking on the pseudonym, if only because it stirs conversation, and if there’s one thing the Guardian likes, it’s conversation: they have a whole subsection called “Comment is free,” with its own US sub-subsection.

Sweet child o’ mine

CGH — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 02:28:03 +0000

Very nice short-short story by Maria Deira: single mom raising invisible daughter.

Sorta clear on the concept

CGH — Tue, 17 May 2011 00:44:06 +0000

At some point when I wasn’t looking — turns out to be the early 1990s — Marvel Comics issued a handful of Swimsuit Issues. (As Brett White of Topless Robot points out, “The only difference between superhero spandex and a swimsuit is that the colorist gets to use a lot more flesh tone.”

Which still doesn’t explain putting an invisible swimsuit on the Invisible Woman:

Frighteningly, there’s precedent for this.

(Via Fark.)

Technically, he wasn’t seeing her

CGH — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 03:04:05 +0000

Theodore Hook’s The invisible girl: a piece in one act dates to 1806. The young lady in question, one Harriet Falkland, has lots of lines and an enthusiastic suitor, but the play contrives to have her unseen, behind the scenes or otherwise out of the line of sight, for its entire length. (Google has it as an e-book.)

I suspect this was intended as a send-up of the popular Parisian “Invisible Woman” shows of that decade, in which audience members were invited to interact with the feminine occupant of a seemingly-empty room.

Nanosuit yourself

CGH — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 19:55:29 +0000

From EA’s Crysis 2 description at YouTube:

Enhanced strength and speed are necessary improvements, but it’s the Nanosuit’s invisibility that will give gamers the true advantage. Fight to save NYC and the world from an all-out alien invasion by slipping into the shadows and using stealth to surprise, confuse and eliminate your opponents.

Due out on Tuesday.

(Via ShootersOnly.)

Today a paper clip, tomorrow a fashion model

CGH — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 00:46:37 +0000

Well, okay, not tomorrow, as in “the day after today,” but apparently they’ve made a heck of a start:

In the past, researchers have only been able to “cloak” microscopic objects using extremely complicated physics and so-called meta-materials made on a tiny scale.

But a new study at the University of Birmingham in the UK has taken a major step forward by making a paper clip invisible — an object thousands of times bigger than in previous experiments.

Invisible paper clips! How do they work?

The research works by using a naturally forming crystal called calcite which has extraordinary light-bending abilities.

By placing the crystals over an object it “bounces” light around it rendering it invisible to the naked eye.

And apparently calcite has been found in crystals up to 21 feet long, about the length of the current Rolls-Royce Phantom.

Doe!

CGH — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 16:52:01 +0000

Misterdoe has consolidated his various Web activities under a single URL: Misterdoe.com. It looks quite a bit better, and should be easier to navigate.

Behind the scenes

CGH — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 13:31:56 +0000

WordPress evidently discovered something sneaky that took advantage of a hole in the last release, so here’s a new release. As always, please advise if you see anything you shouldn’t, or don’t see something you should.

Who will bell the cat?

CGH — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 19:30:28 +0000

There has been much talk of metamaterials and their application, but not so much about who’s going to do the actual research.

Perhaps this is a clue:

My guess is that we would see the lead in this project being taken by high school science whizzes who would never never never never never never never use a working invisibility cloak to camp inside the girls’ locker room with the highest megapixel resolution video camera they could get their hands on.

Five will get you 22.7 there turns out to be a girl on the team.

The Story Archive closes

CGH — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 21:06:27 +0000

After several years on GeoCities and a year on its own domain, The Invisible Woman Story Archive will be shutting down. I’m hoping some of the stories may turn up elsewhere — Yahoo! Groups, perhaps? — but it looks like this particular repository is, um, vanishing.

You … sibling!

CGH — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 08:00:39 +0000

Bill B. recommends My Invisible Sister by Beatrice Colin and Sara Pinto (New York: Bloomsbury, 2010), the tale of a nine-year-old boy named Frank who is, as nine-year-old boys often are, tormented by an older sister. Elizabeth is thirteen, which is bad enough, but she’s also invisible, which means that, as the cover says, “trouble is so much harder to handle when you can’t see it coming.” It doesn’t help that he thinks the parental units always take her side.

Unusually for a book dealing with this subject, My Invisible Sister does not relegate the young lady to the shadows: she goes to school every day, and apart from her lack of appearance, she is regarded as a fairly normal person. It helps that the genetic anomaly that caused her condition is merely rare, not unique. It’s a charming little book with something of a twist at the end, and if you’re about Frank’s age, you’ll probably enjoy it a lot.

Where it gets tricky

CGH — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 21:48:34 +0000

Resolved: “A woman made invisible is not likely to ask if this dress makes her look fat.” True, false, or somewhere in between? (Derived from this.)

Watch for visible anomalies

CGH — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 18:51:01 +0000

We’ve just upgraded to WordPress 3.0, and who knows what you might see?

Update, 29 July: Make that 3.0.1.