Geek Crafts

Inconsolable is not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach. Before I received my copy in the mail, author Shaheed Shabazz warned me that the book was “graphic and twisted” and I smirked to myself, thinking “He doesn’t know me very well, graphic and twisted is what I do“. I was not prepared in the least for the gore-filled, horrifying ride that calls itself Inconsolable.

There were times, while reading this revenge tale full of drugs, torture and mind tricks, that I couldn’t put the book down–there were other times when I was so horrified by the images Shabazz so skillfully painted that I had to put the book down to give myself a break from the intensity. The story starts out calmly enough, introducing the reader to Sean Stiles, a character who at once seems unassuming and noble. Shortly after we meet him, he meets a group of meth heads and loses his life. The story picks up down the line, where our meth addicted murderers have sworn each other to secrecy, gotten clean and moved on. Or so they thought.

Although they were sure no one would “miss” Sean Stiles it becomes clear that someone did, and that someone is intent on ripping apart their lives, and their bodies. With scenes straight out of a Japanese horror flick, Shabazz throws us into a world that is run by the Blue Giant, where justice is carried out slice by slice, slowly but surely, and where no one is off-limits. The book will leave you shaken, terrified to close your eyes, and regretting every wrong you have ever committed in your life. It’s a great read–if you’re brave enough.

See what Shaheed Shabazz had to say to Geek Crafts after the jump.

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A big thanks to Lilian for dropping this great etsy find in my inbox! What better to house your latest technological gadget in, than this retro style NES Controller iPhone Case made by SplashingKoi? I can’t even begin to properly embrace the techno-geekiness of finding a way to combine the iPhone with NES, but I’m going to try.

• NES Controller iPhone Case

I adore this clever needle-felted iPhone cozy made by UrbanCraft - what’s even better is that she’s actually the owner of a pink Motorola flip phone:

She listed the apps on her flickr page, from top left to right:
easy wi-fi, youtube, clock, flickr
wordpress, calendar, stocks, weather
iTurn, french, iLuna, projects
google earth, sketchpad, Obama, calculator
phone, mail, Safari, iPod

I also loved her rocket ship to disguise a thermostat

and her gorgeous Coraline mystery box, including this tiny sweater, for this spring’s swap.

Nicely done on all counts!

• Needle-Felted iPhone Cozy
• Rocket Ship Thermostat Cover
• Coraline Mystery Box

Craftster user Conburstt made these iPhone cupcakes for a friend’s birthday. You can’t go wrong with edible electronics.

• iPhone Cupcakes

My Pet Virus by Shawn Decker is probably the funniest book you will ever pick up. Now, I admit, this isn’t something you expect to hear about a real-life-story of a kid with hemophilia who ends up contracting HIV through a blood transfusion, but that’s only because you don’t know Shawn Decker. Shawn has faced down his HIV positive status with a twisted sense of humor and a series of anecdotes that will challenge what you think you know about prejudice, AIDS and life as a teenager while making you laugh until your guts hurt.

In addition to writing My Pet Virus and performing in the band Synthetic Division, Shawn, and his HIV-negative wife, Gwenn travel the world educating people about AIDS and safe sex. They believe that if a “positoid” and a “negatoid” (Shawn’s terms–read the book and find out more) can make a sexually active marriage work, then maybe other people should be aware of how to do it, too. In addition, Shawn has recently finished his first fiction work, a story about vampires, and if you are anxiously awaiting the release, you will find updates at his blog Shawn & Gwenn: Blog.

Even though Shawn has just finished one of the more hectic times of year in his life, he agreed to sit down and answer a few questions for our Geek Crafts readers.

So you grew up in a small town as a hemophiliac, HIV positive kid who loved
Depeche Mode…did you ever see yourself traveling the US speaking publicly
about your cult-hit memoir and safe sex?

I really had no idea I’d be talking about my HIV status with my friends, let alone strangers.  At age 20, around the same time I definitively decided that Black Celebration was Depeche Mode’s finest album, I realized I wanted to open up about my HIV status.  At that point, I’d been diagnosed half my life, and it seemed like an exciting thing to do.  Also, I was inspired by Pedro Zamora, who’d been on MTV’s Real World reality show.  He was young, HIV positive and speaking at college campuses.  He passed to spirit a couple of years before I started educating about HIV, but I was able to meet his partner, Sean, and his roommate, Judd Winick, both of whom I thanked for the inspiration.
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