Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

My journalist friend (that's the only context I know her in) Quinn put together a very nice little implant article for WIRED which features me, Steve, and Emilio. It's not really anything new for BME readers, but it's a positive introduction to the subject for the mainstream:

"In Larratt's ideal world, 'Everyone looks interesting, everyone looks different.' So when body modification artist Steve Haworth invented a way to implant jewelry under human skin, Larratt jumped on the opportunity."

I told them that you could blame my interest in body modification on my father sitting me down in front of Star Trek so regularly as a kid (which is mentioned in the opening paragraph)… Growing up as a baby, I suppose I always assumed that it was normal to see aliens on the street… and since science and fate has not provided them for us, we need to create them. I remember Steve telling me long ago that he had some of the same influences:

"I'm not a Trekkie, but I enjoyed Star Trek. In another interview a woman had asked me what my inspirations were, and I had to think about it for a moment. Of course I said, 'Well, Fakir, and Jim Ward... and Star Trek'."

- Steve Haworth, 1997

I was also — rather bizarrely [edit: duh on me, the story adjacent is about me so it's a simple typo] — featured on one of my favorite blogs, BoingBoing, earlier today. Here is how the start of the entry (since corrected; screencap c/o Mike, and currently still online at this mirror and elsewhere):

"Cory Doctorow: The always-hilarious Shannon Larratt, late of the screamingly awesome comedy site Brunching Shuttlecocks, has put together a rendition of the Tolkienesque massively multiplayer online game that presents it as a Zork-style text adventure."

Now, it is true that I'm always hilarious, and I have been involved in some screamingly awesome sites, and I've even written Zork-style adventure games, but I've not written for Brunching Shuttlecocks, nor did I have any involvement in this little game… I guess Cory just had me on his mind when he wrote that or something? I love you too, buddy, and to prove it, I won't publish potentially embarrassing sex stories about your time in Toronto. Seriously though, I know people rag on Cory a lot for the direction he pushes BoingBoing, but I really think he deserves a lot of credit for the tenacity with which he pushes copyright reform and other civil rights issues that people too-often ignore.

Well, I've got to head out later today but I wanted to share this picture of the always-artistic Cory* and I doing a little painting earlier today.