Favorite People, Places & Things
All of the peeps featured on this page are kid tested, Les Simes approved. Trust. Whether you’re looking for tunage, blogage or swag-age, this is the place to find all your new fave things. Oh, and be sure to tell ‘em I sent you!
Analog Playset: By day, my pal Tony Thaxton is the drummer for Motion City Soundtrack. By night… well, he’s still the drummer of Motion City Soundtrack. However, when he’s not bangin’ on the skins (eek, that sounded waaay dirtier than I intended), he’s the creative mastermind behind Analog Playset custom toys, clothing and art.
Earn It Yourself: Hailed by the tragically brilliant Sarah Saturday, EIY is a philosophy that empowers people to take their dreams into their own hands, to take control of their own destiny and purpose in life, and to achieve their goals with a clean conscience and absolute conviction that they deserve every penny and every success they earn along the way.
Emo Girl Talk: Martina Butler is like the Oprah of emo. Not only does she have a regular podcast and action-packed website, but her YouTube channel boasts rad interviews with all your fave bands. Not too shabby for a lady who’s still in college. Natch!
Nan Lawson: I fell in love with Nan’s drawings the second I saw them on Etsy, which is why I asked her to work with me on the illustrations for Geek Girls Unite—and, luckily, she said yes!
Sara Newens: When I went to college with Miss Sara, she always had her nose behind the lens, filming local bands, PKE keggers and me dressed as Courtney Love. Nothing’s changed all that much since then—except that she’s evolved from a patchwork-clad fellow Phish fan into an utterly brilliant—and award-winning—documentarian. You go, girl!
The Snarkiest Of The Scenesters: I don’t know how Keaton does it, but she totes nails all the, um, stuff scene kids like—and I’m not just saying that because a certain drop-dead gorgeous authoress has been featured on the site. (Nod, nod, wink, wink.)
Hi Leslie! I just finished reading your book “Geek Girls Unite”, and I loved every page of it. I’ve discovered that I’m a healthy dose of fangirl-geek and literary-geek, sufficiently domestic goddess-geek, and a tiny bit music geek. I wanted to tell you about another brand of geek that seems to fit me very well, and it’s a subgroup of the fangirl-geek set: the toy collector geek. Ask most of my friends about what makes me smile and squee, and the first thing they will tell you will be “Care Bears, My Little Ponies, or Monster High dolls”. It’s a geek passion that may not be very well understood by the mainstream–or even some other geeks–but we are a strong and proud community, at least on the Internet. I’ve attended the national My Little Pony Collector’s Convention, am a moderator on a Care Bear Collectors forum, and some of my favorite pastimes is scoping out amazing finds at flea markets and yard sales, restoring abandoned playthings to their former splendor, and gloating to frenemies that the “hunk of plastic” I just paid fifty cents for could net me a Benjamin if I chose to flip it on eBay. Just wanted to represent the toy fans!