Here's the trailer for Busby Berkeley musical classic Gold Diggers of 1933.

And let's compare the two iconic dance sequences from these two flicks. Here's "We're In the Money," one of my very favorite musical numbers from Great Depression-era musicals. It's just completely psychotic and wonderful.

And here's the completely psychotic dance party from The Matrix Reloaded.

Which makes you feel more like dancing the apocalypse away?

In today's edition of Slate, Winters outlines his writing process for Quirk Books' followup to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Unlike P&P&Z, which contained only 15% new text, Winters explains that Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters is a rather different book from the original, containing 60% of the original Austen, and 40% of his own original writing. Part of this stems from his less than watery choice of original text:

As I began writing, it was immediately clear that the original settings would need to be reconsidered. Devonshire is lovely and all, but this isn't Sense and Sensibility and Lake Monsters. (And yes, I know, there is a great Austen novel set on the water, but Persuasion isn't as ripe a target for satire as Sense and Sensibility. Also, Persuasion and Sea Monsters doesn't quite have the right ring to it.) In Austen's original, the Dashwoods, upon their disinheritance, are invited to live in what is essentially the guest house of a wealthy relation, Sir John Middleton. In my version, their move is to Pestilent Isle, part of a vast archipelago controlled by Sir John-now an elusive explorer/collector with a beard "as white as the snows of Kilimanjaro" and a necklace of human ears.

Winters also found that describing sea monsters within the context of Austen's world required a good deal of research into the scientific language of the period, as well as a bit of mashing up her tone with that of the Victorian era's own science fiction writers:

One of the most consistent creative challenges of writing the book was on the basic level of vocabulary. For the conceit to work, the new material would need to sound as much like Austen's marvelous and precise early-19th century diction as possible. So how to find the right vocab words to describe stuff that Austen never would have described in a million years? I borrowed a lot from my sources. From Verne, I got great fish-describing words like cartilaginous and bioluminescence. From Stevenson, great deserted-island words like miry and marish, not to mention nautical words like cockleshell and flying jib. I also turned frequently to the thesaurus. Poring through my Roget's, I arrived at the appropriately eloquent and disgusting phrase to describe the slimy stomach of an oversize hermit crab just before it smothers someone to death: mucocutaneous undercarriage.

How I wrote Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters [Slate]

Like its literary predecessor, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Sea Monsters includes a discussion guide, in case readers want to get together in a book club, to discuss the symbolism of killer crustaceans and giant squid:

2. In "Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters," painful personal setbacks often occur at the same moment as sea-monster attacks, suggesting a metaphorical linkage of "monsters" with the pains of romantic disappointment; for example, Marianne is rebuffed by Willoughby at Hydra-Z precisely as the giant mutant lobsters are staging their mutiny. Have you ever been "attacked by giant lobsters," either figuratively or literally?

5. Which would be worse: being eaten by a shark or consumed by the acidic stomach juice of a sand-shambling man-o'-war?

8. Have you ever been romantically involved with someone who turned out to be a sea witch?

10. Is Monsieur Pierre a symbol for something? Name three other well-known works of Western literature that feature orangutan valets. Are those characters also slain by pirates?

I think I'll just skip to the questions about tentacle porn.

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters comes out September 15.

How to Discuss ‘Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters' [NY Times]

Retrofuturs, a series by Flickr user hulk4598, places quotes from historical figures and popular entertainment beside retro, monochromatic images, some expected, some less so. The results are posters subtle enough to hang in your living room, but so unusual they're sure to spark conversation.

hulk4598 Quotes/Citations [Flickr]

Noting that the Ghostbusters films owe a great to old horror comedies, from Abbott and Costello flicks to the 1970s children's series The Ghost Busters, YouTube user whoiseyevan created this faux trailer from over a dozen films and TV shows, recasting Dean Martin as Ray Stantz, Bob Hope as Peter Venkman, and Fred MacMurray as Egon Spengler. And personally, I think the 1975 Ghost Busters theme is a great improvement.

[via Coilhouse]

A frequent science fiction novel cover artist, Brambilla's Invading the Vintage series uses actual postcards from Switzerland, Santa Barbara, Milan, and a host of other popular vacation spots. Far from being horrified, the humanoid (and sometimes canine) subjects of these photos treat their alien encounters as just another tourist attraction.

[Franco Brambilla via Drawn!]

Thanks, Seth Mutchler!

For those of you who haven't seen it, the Joker (who also is the central baddie in the upcoming movie) goes nuts in this film and dehydrates the world leaders at the United Nations, turning them into piles of dust. Luckily, Batman and Robin save the day, but screw things up a bit when they rehydrate everyone: everyone now speaks the wrong language. Hilarity! The dynamic duo then head off, leaving the leaders to deal with the problem on their own.

I'm surprised it's taken someone this long to do a Batman mashup with the old series, but this one made me laugh pretty hard. Especially the "Like me!" shot. I don't know why I'm finding Cesar Romero speaking with Heath Ledger's voice so amusing, but chalk it up to fumes and crossed wires. If someone could make us a some high-quality Heroes, or better yet, Misfits of Science meets meets X-Men mashups, we might be okay with the current state of television.