Meet my good friend Marisa McClellan. A celebrated blogger (and now a published author!), Marisa runs the wildly popular Food in Jars blog, where she teaches the Internet how to make delicious canned nibbles.

Yesterday Marisa’s book, Food in Jars: Preserving in Small Batches Year-Round, hit stores everywhere via Running Press, a lovely publisher here in Philadelphia. The book is fantastic, the photography is beautiful, and you should absolutely pick it up immediately.

Seriously. Do it now. Here’s a link to Amazon. You’re welcome.

In honor of her book release, Marisa’s our Geek of the Week. Enjoy, and make sure you visit her blog at foodinjars.com.

1. What made you decide to launch Food in Jars? Why canning?

I started Food in Jars in early 2009 because my job as the editor of Slashfood (AOL’s now-defunct food blog) was ending and I wanted to stay in the food blogging world. I grew up canning with my mom and have been entirely obsessed with jars for years, so it was something that was always part of my life. At the time, there weren’t really any blogs out there dealing with canning, so I figured it would be a good niche for me. At the time though, I had no idea that canning would effectively become my career.

2. A lot of times when a blog lands a book deal, we see those blogs go quiet, start updating less. You? You don’t stop. How did you find a balance between writing on the blog, pursuing your other writing interests, and working on your cookbook?

To my mind, it was never an option to stop writing the blog while writing my book. One of the reasons that I got the opportunity to write the book was that I had an engaged community of readers. A large part of my value as an author was that audience. I had to continue to feed that relationship and develop that community so that there would be people welcoming the book when it was finally released. So I kept writing.

I will say that the summer of 2010 was really hard, because that’s when I was developing all the recipes for my book and was still working full time. I spent all my free time canning and making sure all the recipes for the book worked, while also continuing to invent stuff for the blog. It wasn’t so much about balance as it was general brute force.

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Photo by Beau Roulette

Back in high school, a few friends and I painstakingly taught ourselves how to play Pardon Me and Drive on acoustic guitars, in attempts to impress girls. I mean, why else do you pick up an acoustic guitar? Ten years later, and I’m still listening to (and poorly playing) songs by Incubus.

So needless to say, I was pretty thrilled that I had a chance to ask Brandon Boyd, the lead singer of Incubus, a couple of questions. They just toured through the area (some of you might have caught them at Penn’s Landing) and are playing in Camden tonight.

Fun fact, Brandon not only spends a lot of his time writing music, but he also paints and writes books. And as a serious book and publishing geek, I asked him some questions about his literary and artistic pursuits.

So along with your music career, you paint, you’re into photography, you’ve written books… how do you manage to find a way to balance all of your passions?

I like to follow muse wherever she goes! Sometimes she wanders into bookish moods, sometimes into noise and I am compelled to organize notes and words into song, then occasionally she will sing to me from the backside of a camera. I made it sound a lot more esoteric than it actually is; I just really enjoy making things. Pulling thoughts, moods and landscapes out of the ether! There I go, back to the esoteric.

Speaking of those books, what are some of your major literary influences? How have they affected your writing?

A few of my favorites are Henry Miller, Tom Robbins, Robert Anton Wilson, Kurt Vonnegut, and William Burroughs to name just a few. (more…)

If you spent any time watching the WWE or ECW for the past 20 years, you know the name Mick Foley. Or, you know him better as Cactus Jack, Dude Love, or, most likely, Mankind. Foley proudly wears the title as the Hardcore Legend, the man who made chairshots, exploding tables, and thumbtacks fashionable, and one of the most beloved character in the history of professional wrestling. The Mickster has entered the second (or maybe third, as he is a New York Times bestselling author) phase of his career: stand up comedy. The scary part? He’s good.

Geekadelphia caught up with Foley— who is on tour with comedians Louis “Twitchels” Centanni and The Reverend Bob Levy— and chatted about redneck typecasting, being the Justin Timberlake of Comedy, and a Santa Claus obsession.

Was doing comedy a dream for you?

It wasn’t always a dream. I always enjoyed comedy. The dream was wrestling. Half of the performance of wrestling was to make people laugh for me. I couldn’t continue doing that, so I looked for a medium where I could have as much mic time as I wanted. And, comedy is something you can think of while driving, and then work on and use later.

Did someone approach you about doing stand up?

I did a lot of speaking at universities and colleges, so I had the experience of talking in front of a crowd for longer periods of time. Back in 2009, someone did approach me about doing a show at the Improv in Hollywood. So, I put together a blend of wrestling stories and life stories, and did a 25-minute set. I enjoyed it. (more…)

It seems like I can’t go down to my local comic shop lately without seeing a brand new, must buy Image title on the stands. The list of quality titles they have published over the last few months just goes on and on. But one that has stood out from the pack for me and is always at the top of my reading list is No Place Like Home.

This reimagining of the story of Oz by Angelo Tirotto and Richard Jordan has intrigued me like few comics manage to these days. And a big part of the reason for that is the artwork of Jordan. His style is unique in comics today and mixes equal part creepy visuals with solid, straight forward storytelling. He was nice enough to answer a few questions via email about No Place Like Home and his artistic process.

How did you become involved in working on No Place Like Home?

It seems like a long time ago now. Back in July 2010 I had put some sequentials of Catwoman up on the comic art forum Penciljack, I got a decent response from people wanting to collaborate. Out of the offers Angelo’s ideas struck a chord with me most and he came across as more experienced and professional.

We pitched a WW2 vampire idea to Image initially and then almost as an after thought he asked if I would like to pitch NPLH too. As I started working on it I realized that NPLH was the book I wanted to work on. Fortunately Image saw both pitches and decided they wanted us to do NPLH first. Score. (more…)

Photo via The Mark News

Over the last year or so, Philly’s own Zenescope Entertainment has gone from being a small, boutique publisher to becoming a force to be reckoned with in the world of comic books. Part of the reason for this is the innovative ideas that get peoples attention, all spearheaded by Editor-in-Chief Ralph Tedesco.

The latest is Comic Company, a web series documenting life at Zenescope offices. It is a funny, informative behind the scenes look at what goes on at Zenescope that the public rarely gets to see. Mr. Tedesco was nice enough to answer a few questions about Comic Company, the Grimm Fairy Tales Kickstarter and what’s coming up for Zenescope.

What was the genesis of your new web series Comic Company?

The idea just sort of popped into my head while I was watching an episode of The Office one night. I love that show (especially the earlier seasons) and I started thinking that I’d love to do something similar to that with a documentary style feel. But I didn’t want to imitate The Office because that would be a bad move. Then the idea of integrating characters from our books into our office came to me and I knew it had to be done.

The key was that we needed to make sure the series was entertaining and fun. I’ve always been a writer and I feel I have a decent feel for comedy and I’ve been acting for 15 years and always loved it so that felt natural but I’d never directed anything before and I knew that would be the biggest challenge in doing this. But I’ve been really happy with the results and we have an amazing team involved. (more…)

 A few weeks ago, in co-operation with the Canadian Authorities, I was granted a supervised conference call with The Trailer Park Boys: Ricki, Julian and Bubbles. The call’s purpose was to discuss and promote their upcoming “Ricky, Julian and Bubbles’ Community Service Variety Show” gig Wednesday, May 9th at 7:30pm at the Keswick Theatre.

Due to phone visitation guidelines I had keep it brief, but it was great to hear what the boys were up to in Sunnyvale Trailer Park and they even dropped some news about possibly more Trailer Park Boys shows in the future.

A bit of warning this interview much like the boys is not for the easily offended, if you have seen the show you know what I mean. Tickets for the show are still available and can be picked up here.

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Before the advance screening some of you attended at the Rave of The Cabin in the Woods, I had the opportunity to sit down and chat with one of the stars of the film Fran Kranz. I have been a fan of Fran’s since Dollhouse and remember hearing about him getting the role in Cabin, and was really psyched for him and the film.

That was 3 years ago, since then he has done quite a bit. Dollhouse was canceled. He went on to do Much Ado about Nothing (also with Whedon), acted in Death of a Salesman on Broadway and raised over $100,000 for a film called Lust For Love on Kickstarter.

I got to chat with Fran about his career and asked if he was able to get his way into Whedon’s The Avengers.

I was a huge fan of Dollhouse, what was it like working on that show?  Were you happy with how it ended?

Yeah, people think it’s crazy to say, but I’m thankful to Fox for giving us a full two seasons. Do you know what I mean? Look at the end of the day, we knew where our ratings stood, we knew we were on Friday nights, we always kind of felt like the black sheep of the Fox family.

Obviously, we had to accelerate towards a conclusion and I think you can feel that and the budget was chopped in half. There were things that would not have been done if we were given another season for sure. I’m just thankful that it got an ending because it allowed for my character to have, I think, this very beautiful journey.

Topher began as this kind of amoral, seemingly insensitive, sort of wise-ass tech genius or whatever. A lot of people, I know Whedon fans thought I was really annoying, you know? And I meet a lot of fans that now say “I hated you at first and now you’re my favorite character.”

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I paused for a second the first time I ever heard the word “Paleoartist”, even in context, I had to stop and think about it. But considering the nature of what Bob Walters and Tess Kissinger, what would you call it? Bob and Tess are as knowledgeable of dinosaurs as they are skilled in their renderings.

When you meet them, they speak with a passion so strong that if harnessed for evil, it could darken the sky and bring about another ice age. When I swung by Bob and Tess’ studio, I thought that few people would ever know two of the world’s most brilliant and talented dinosaur artists reside in the heart of Fairmount. Behind some unassuming rowhomes, they’ve got their studio where they’ve fashioned together everything from the world’s largest dinosaur mural to the illustration that would later be the Spinosaurus in 2001′s Jurassic Park III.

The path to dinosaur art was one Bob started down at the age of four, when he saw the foldout cover of LIFE magazine. It featured Rudolph Zallinger’s mural of dinosaurs from the Peabody Museum. From then on, there was no turning back. For Tess, she took her love of art and science, and gravitated toward paleontology when she met Bob. Along the way, she even became good friends with the paleo guys at the Smithsonian.

Seasoned veterans in traditional fine art, they’ve since gravitated to doing their work entirely digital. As they stated themselves, the pair work at the intersection of art, science and technology — and I’m hard-pressed to think of a finer example than their stunning work depicting plants and animals long since departed from our world. (more…)

Carving up a turkey

This week’s Geek of the Week is a man of varied interests, my pal Brian Lim.

Philadelphia foodies might know Brian from his food blog Bridges Burgers Beer, where he rambles about local nibbles, or from his work with Foodspotting as a Philly Foodspotting ambassador. Those driving in and out of thte city… well, you probably don’t know him, but he’s the gentleman who helps engineer those bridges your car zips over.

Bridges. Burgers. Blogs. Brian does a lot. Read on to learn about this geeky gentleman.

So when you aren’t busy at your day job, you run a food blog. Tell us a bit about it.

I started my blog, Bridges, Burgers & Beer in October of 2009. It was sorta created out of boredom. I like to eat, drink, and cook. I’m also somewhat of a bridge geek. I hoped to combine my passions for all those things in my blog.

You party down with the Philly Foodspotting community quite a bit. Tell us about that group.

I got hooked on Foodspotting a few years ago when my friend/fellow blogger, Amy Cao, started to work with them. Because I take photos of my food normally and it was a fun, neat way to find food, I figured why not contribute to Foodspotting.

Since then, a Philly Foodspotting community developed and I became one of the two Philly Foodspotting ambassadors. We hold a food eatup or crawl every month, open to everyone. (more…)

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Last week I got to sit down and chat with Ti West about his upcoming release The Innkeepers, which hits Blu-ray and DVD today. I was a huge fan of The House of the Devil and loved The Innkeepers, the story of two geeky hotel employees who are determined to prove the inn they work at is haunted days before it closes. I

Ti fares from Wilmington, Delaware, where growing up he would often come to Philadelphia to enjoy our theaters. Ti is a very humble guy who was very candid about his thoughts on The Innkeepers, his career, piracy and bed bugs.

Oh and if you’re in Philly, check out The Innkeepers DVD release party on Wednesday, April 25th at 8pm thanks to Awesome Fest.  They will be screening the film and probably giving away some great prizes.

The Innkeepers is your fifth horror film in a row. Do you feel comfortable as a genre director or would you eventually want to do other kinds of films?

The time is running out on the horror movie train. I just wrote a movie for a job that I may make, and then I have a job doing an adaptation of a novel. I kind of made a promise to myself after that, if its not a job that comes to me to make a horror movie I am not going to write them for a while in my spare time.

It’s not because I have turned on it or anything, its just I am starting to feel like I am repeating myself.  I have this werewolf movie I am trying to get made, I have a sci-fi film that is almost getting made and I have another movie I am sort of quiet about that is seconds away from getting made and I am going to write that novelization out.

After doing all that, when you sit down and write “They walked slowly down the hallway”, you just kind of slap yourself in the head, because you’re like holy shit I need to take a step out of this and re-group. I am not uncomfortable being labeled that, but certainly you can only do something for so long till you do something else.

I’ve read The Innkeepers was based on some of your experiences shooting House of the Devil and staying at the actual Yankee Peddler you used in the film, could you tell me about that?

Yeah, well when we made House of the Devil we stayed at the Yankee Peddler, because it was a cheap hotel to stay in. All this weird stuff started happening, not so much to me but to the crew and the whole town is obsessed with it being haunted. So since we were there making this satanic horror movie, we would all be like “the real horror is at the hotel,” we would all goof.

But I wanted to make a ghost story, so I thought why don’t we make the one we lived. What if we went back to the actual place and made it there, I could write it specifically about that and that is what we did.

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Welcome to this week’s Geek of the Week, where we highlight the fun and creative people of our city. This week, we talk to both sides of the power-couple behind the Talkadelphia podcast. For their work, Kishwer and Gino were winners in our first-ever Philadelphia Geek Awards for Best New Podcast last year.

It’s been over 50 episodes/a year and a half now. How did this all begin, why did you want to start a local podcast?

Kishwer: I was listening to an acquaintance, the talented jazz composer and pianist, Vijay Iyer, talk to Terry Gross over on NPR’s podcast, Fresh Air and it struck me that writing really sucks. At the time, I was doing a number of Q&As for MTV Desi and I found it especially challenging to encapsulate people’s words in neat, 500-word blog posts. I wanted people to be able to tell their stories in their own words and using their own voices. Words can sometimes strip people of their personalities.

Plus, I missed the connection I felt to Philadelphia when I used to blog regularly from my own site. So on October 14, 2010, I tweeted: “I want to do a podcast. How do I do this and who wants to be interviewed.” And 10 seconds later, Gino, my then-boyfriend, called me. He was on board with the idea from day one. He really made it all happen.

Gino: It was all her idea. I just do what I’m told.

Listeners of the podcast will know that you guys are law school students. What else would you like to say about yourselves?

Kishwer: I have an unnatural affection for bacon.

Gino: I’m a comic book geek, a sports nerd and a movie nut. If they made a movie where the Avengers played football, I would self-combust.

Who’s been the most interest, favorite or notable guest you’ve had on thus far?

Kishwer: I really enjoyed talking to author Lorene Cary. She was someone I’d read since I was in high school and it was such a treat to find out she was as animated in person as she is on paper. And of course, it was a thrill to interview Philadelphia Inquirer food critic Craig LaBan. And let’s not forget Mayor Nutter. He has quite a sense of humor.

Gino: Obviously, no one can top our second ever guest, noted novelist Eric Smith. What’s that you say? He has something to do with this outfit? I had no idea!

What future plans do you have for the podcast?

Kishwer: As long as people still engage in our content, we know they’re listening and want to hear from us. As for future plans, well, we’ve recently become members of PhillyCAM and I think it may be neat to someday include a few video clips of our interviews.

Gino: What we try to do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world!

Who are some people you’d like to interview in the future?

Kishwer: Bill Cosby. Nothing more Philly than Bill Cosby. I actually did interview him for my high school paper when he came to visit. But he just dodged all my “serious” questions with jokes. Somebody hook us up!

Gino: I’ve always said my dream interview would be Will Smith. I would make him sing the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song on the podcast with me. I might settle for Tina Fey, though.

Have any upcoming events that we should be keeping an eye for?

Kishwer: On Thursday, April 26, we’ll be at PhillyCAM from 1PM-2PM for Philly Tech Week, taping a live, streaming episode of Talkadelphia called “The Future of iOS Games,” featuring Yis Goodwin and Jeff Hsu of the iOS game Catball Eats It All and William Stallwood and Andrei Marks of Cipher Prime, a Philadelphia-based game studio as they talk about the next phase in iOS gaming. Come join us!

Gino: What she said.

—For folks reading this, you must check out their podcast immediately. Visit TalkadelphiaRadio.com or look for them on iTunes.

I don’t even know what half of these are

In an era where politicians can announce their run for office on Facebook, Twitter, and make nationwide headlines for joining Pinterest and Spotify, the social media savvy voter has to ask… will candidates who don’t show up on the digital playing field be left behind?

Well, this Thursday, April 19th, you can have those questions answered for you at the National Constitution Center.

A number of political strategists and social media folks are coming to the NCC to chat about the role of social media and its impact on the 2012 presidential campaign, with Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post moderating.

Speakers include Maria Cardona, the Emmy-nominated Daniel Sieberg (Google Politics & Elections), Andrew Rasiej (co-founder of TechPresident), Todd Van Etten (Managing Director of Crowdverg), and more. For a full list of speakers and their backgrounds, visit the NCC’s official website.

The panel is free and open to the public. Come learn something.

Social Media: The New Political Battleground
Thursday, April 19th, 2012
constitutioncenter.org/calendar/social-media-the-new-political-battleground

National Constitution Center
525 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106
(215) 409-6895
www.constitutioncenter.org