I've got a bag of pumpkin seeds that I've been nursing for several months now, and I just dropped it and spilled a bunch. Probably enough for a month if I kept at it the same pace. So that sucks a lot. I hate that kind of waste- food waste I guess. Frustrating.
An old friend of mine tends to post links to articles from the National Post and I checked out a couple this morning. One was about free speech and how it is only a protected right for left wing speakers, and the other was about denouncing the strategy of appeasement towards North Korea instead of actually punishing their policies/behaviour.
I was surprised with how much I didn't agree with the articles. It's one thing for me to read this and just have a different opinion, or maybe a preferred side of an argument while still seeing what they're saying... but I am really not on board with what this guy is writing. I can't even say "you've got an interesting point there".
A useful tool for evaluating an article is the comment section. You see the loud-spoken counter arguments, pointing out errors, which then get addressed by another poster, or maybe the original writer too, why not, and you get SOMETHING akin to two sides to the story. This kind of debate was eerily lacking on the National Post site.
This can either be indicative of an apathy from the readership, or else the active subversion of the dissenting voice. Let's say it is merely apathy (simplest explanation)- that still means your work is missing something.
Let's get into something approximating specifics (I say that because I'm not actually going to find the article again to quote verbatim- you can take any statement I make on faith, or not):
The article on North Korea talks about how it's recent activity is part of a cycle of agression, tactics used to extort their livelihood. And the world at large seems to always capitulate to the demands of North Korea, and things settle down for a bit until they want more aid.
And the writer says "that's bad."
Yes, I've simplified it, but that's essentially all he's saying- what everyone already knows. That rewarding North Korea for it's actions isn't going to accomplish anything, and instead the world should try actually punishing them.
The impression I got was that he meant using military force, but maybe he means through harsher diplomatic means, cutting off aid and the like. But I'm pretty sure the writer is referring to military force.
Actually, I don't necessarily have a problem with what he's written thus far, this could be a fine START to a piece. The problem I have with his article is that it doesn't go on to ask WHY these methods are being used, to actually examine the situation, and maybe THEN give a reasoned suggestion of where to go from there.
Though I already knew on one level why the world at large favours, for lack of a better term, the appeasement strategy, a two minute bit on todays "Daily Show with Jon Stewart" (a fake news show, as they'll be the first to remind you)gave an example of why the world 'gives in' to North Korea- to avoid a protracted war that actually morphs into a microcosmic battle between the powers of China and the United States with devastating worldwide consequences.
Maybe you disagree, that scenario will not be the end result of military action.
Why not?
What does happen next?
Why is that better or worse than an alternative?
I'm not asking you to be right, or to have all the answers, but man- if you're going to write an article, make it a full article. At least TRY to sway me to your side.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Sunday, November 28, 2010
White space filled with little black markings. Until the layout or font colour changes.
Dropped off my dad and twin at church, shivering the whole way back. It's not even that cold.
This cat outside wants to come in- I don't know whose cat it is. It sure knows how to look cute when it wants something.
I've already forgotten all but my last dream- which is a shame, because I know I had a bunch of crazy cool stuff last night, none of which included zombies which is a big plus.
But that last one is noteworthy:
I dreamt I was working on a comic story about these two OTHER comic creators, one was critically acclaimed but too slow, so that when the accolades fell to complaints the 'guys upstairs' would switch for another creator who could get material out fast, but of course it was a hackjob. When the complaints grew over THAT fact the cycle would repeat, endlessly. It was like I had these two guys arguing about who was better in my head, and I had to capture that onto a story... but all I was really working on was a caption between two panels. It looked exactly how I would write it out/draw it out by hand- which is to say, bad. I didn't take the time to erase the little bit of vertical line between panels, so the word would look like-
]
15 [ Days
]
(That's as close as I can figure to a straight line on here, sure hope that translates when I publish this page.)
Then I scratched a 2 over the one, and it was really bothering me that I was taking all my time creating a word in a poorly constructed box. I wasn't sure which of the two creators I was supposed to be.
And then I looked somewhere else on the page, and there was a completed drawing of two guys side by side, like they were examining a page THEY had completed. I finished the panels bordering them, but then realized I had a bunch of useless space around the characters- I scribbled around them to shrink the border, but I wasn't impressed by the space, I knew I could have drawn the two larger or done SOMETHING to make better use of the space.
And then I woke up.
While I'm on the subject, I read an interview with one of my favourite writers on Friday, and it was amazing for how it, all at the same time, affirmed WHY this guy is the best around, while also discrediting the view of the 'perfect creator' that sees every interpretation, who consciously put every detail in that speaks to you. The fact that this is just a person.
Not only that, but the interview felt so positive! Like at the end of the day, you can choose to pull yourself by your bootstraps and choose a good reality. Like you can look at all the bad news we're force fed everyday and tell the world "I know there's good in you- fight!"
That's a staple phrase to say to anyone who has been mind-controlled, but that's what it felt like I should say. Maybe because I am talking to a mind controlled crowd- including myself. Everyone deserves a break from reading a seemingly innocuous article on the back of page 17 and wondering "is that what's going to grow to be THE problem?"
I feel bad I didn't go to a friends birthday thing last night. She's always really great to me, she would have appreciated my being there, but it's so far and cold. Instead I opted for some extra time with Cool Geoff at home, and eventually watched an episode of Firefly with my brother, while the two of us shared a bag of ruffled chips. It was good.
Why are there no ruffled salt and vinegar chips?!? Does no one see how that would be the best thing ever?
I should probably go- I think my dad is doing the service at the church today. I'm already late. Howzabout I have a bowl of cereal now? A good call.
This cat outside wants to come in- I don't know whose cat it is. It sure knows how to look cute when it wants something.
I've already forgotten all but my last dream- which is a shame, because I know I had a bunch of crazy cool stuff last night, none of which included zombies which is a big plus.
But that last one is noteworthy:
I dreamt I was working on a comic story about these two OTHER comic creators, one was critically acclaimed but too slow, so that when the accolades fell to complaints the 'guys upstairs' would switch for another creator who could get material out fast, but of course it was a hackjob. When the complaints grew over THAT fact the cycle would repeat, endlessly. It was like I had these two guys arguing about who was better in my head, and I had to capture that onto a story... but all I was really working on was a caption between two panels. It looked exactly how I would write it out/draw it out by hand- which is to say, bad. I didn't take the time to erase the little bit of vertical line between panels, so the word would look like-
]
15 [ Days
]
(That's as close as I can figure to a straight line on here, sure hope that translates when I publish this page.)
Then I scratched a 2 over the one, and it was really bothering me that I was taking all my time creating a word in a poorly constructed box. I wasn't sure which of the two creators I was supposed to be.
And then I looked somewhere else on the page, and there was a completed drawing of two guys side by side, like they were examining a page THEY had completed. I finished the panels bordering them, but then realized I had a bunch of useless space around the characters- I scribbled around them to shrink the border, but I wasn't impressed by the space, I knew I could have drawn the two larger or done SOMETHING to make better use of the space.
And then I woke up.
While I'm on the subject, I read an interview with one of my favourite writers on Friday, and it was amazing for how it, all at the same time, affirmed WHY this guy is the best around, while also discrediting the view of the 'perfect creator' that sees every interpretation, who consciously put every detail in that speaks to you. The fact that this is just a person.
Not only that, but the interview felt so positive! Like at the end of the day, you can choose to pull yourself by your bootstraps and choose a good reality. Like you can look at all the bad news we're force fed everyday and tell the world "I know there's good in you- fight!"
That's a staple phrase to say to anyone who has been mind-controlled, but that's what it felt like I should say. Maybe because I am talking to a mind controlled crowd- including myself. Everyone deserves a break from reading a seemingly innocuous article on the back of page 17 and wondering "is that what's going to grow to be THE problem?"
I feel bad I didn't go to a friends birthday thing last night. She's always really great to me, she would have appreciated my being there, but it's so far and cold. Instead I opted for some extra time with Cool Geoff at home, and eventually watched an episode of Firefly with my brother, while the two of us shared a bag of ruffled chips. It was good.
Why are there no ruffled salt and vinegar chips?!? Does no one see how that would be the best thing ever?
I should probably go- I think my dad is doing the service at the church today. I'm already late. Howzabout I have a bowl of cereal now? A good call.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Should've posted yesterday but something happened. Laziness. I'm sorry!
Boy, I sure do love the american style foot ball instead of those shows that make me laugh.
Hey, who's talking? Get off my blog (I almost called it facebook) you handsome know nothing.
Format change over at mondomagazine.net- instead of dividing up our various books of the week for review, getting the most possible number of reviews on the site, we're switching it up. We get out books, call dibs on one or two, then give a more in depth review. It's a style similar to the random book of the week format we had before, but with the bonus that we can be familiar with what we're reading! It's pretty sweet.
No more reviews of Sonic the Hedgehog! Or, if you want a review of that book, look at any of my past reviews, and feel free to apply it to the new book. I don't have much to say about that one, and it doesn't change much.
I'm pretty pleased with my reviews for the week- especially the Batman and Robin review. I see what they're going for, whether or not they achieve it (they don't). Of course I was a lot more proud of that before my brother knew about it too. So fine, it wasn't a brilliant observation- it can be pretty hard to tell. One persons obvious truth is anothers brilliant revelation.
duh.
It makes me want to write a story under the same conditions that I imagine Cornell had- limited time and an edict to mimic the style of another writer- but why set myself up for failure as well? Well, maybe I'll change my mind, it could be fun.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to eat a muffin. That has blueberries in it I think.
Hey, who's talking? Get off my blog (I almost called it facebook) you handsome know nothing.
Format change over at mondomagazine.net- instead of dividing up our various books of the week for review, getting the most possible number of reviews on the site, we're switching it up. We get out books, call dibs on one or two, then give a more in depth review. It's a style similar to the random book of the week format we had before, but with the bonus that we can be familiar with what we're reading! It's pretty sweet.
No more reviews of Sonic the Hedgehog! Or, if you want a review of that book, look at any of my past reviews, and feel free to apply it to the new book. I don't have much to say about that one, and it doesn't change much.
I'm pretty pleased with my reviews for the week- especially the Batman and Robin review. I see what they're going for, whether or not they achieve it (they don't). Of course I was a lot more proud of that before my brother knew about it too. So fine, it wasn't a brilliant observation- it can be pretty hard to tell. One persons obvious truth is anothers brilliant revelation.
duh.
It makes me want to write a story under the same conditions that I imagine Cornell had- limited time and an edict to mimic the style of another writer- but why set myself up for failure as well? Well, maybe I'll change my mind, it could be fun.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to eat a muffin. That has blueberries in it I think.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Not mentioned in the below post: I treated myself to a bag of Lays Salt and Vinegar chips. Brand name chips! It has been a while.
Would you believe this is post the hundredth?
That's a whole lotta nothing.
I'm in the mood for attention, but seeing as I rarely address such desires by, say, calling someone up or something, I'll just chill out here.
I visited a couple friends yesterday- one asked me to start writing on a comic specific blog with him, so that'll be pretty fun whenever that starts up. All articles about the third volume of Superboy. Just straight up synopsis. Should be a lot of fun.
Then I zipped over to my one friends boat. Yes, he has a boat. Why yes, the ladies do love him. For non boat related reasons I'm sure. Anyways, there's a hatch in the bow, and I got to climb through it- twice!
We went to a show that the only reason I went was for the sake of hanging out. It was okay, a little expensive. The entire show was made up of my high school alumnus, and that was a long time ago. I actually got a 'hey guy' head nod from someone who I wouldn't have expected to remember me at all. OR, more likely, when I was taking off my coat he thought I gave him the head nod. I still felt it was relatively cool of him. Anyway, the place was packed, no seats available, and while the actual performance was great, the in-between jokes were... those were jokes? I guess they were funny, because people laughed.
Actually, it sounded like the kind of laughter you'd get from an over-eager heckler, but from EVERYONE. Maybe they forgot what genuine laughter sounds like? It was weird.
OH right, this is really funny. On my way to visit my pal with the boat, I crossed paths with another friend, she worked security at Ontario Place- and so she's telling me about the relative lameness of the guys working winter this season compared to myself (which was really nice) and she says "who'll talk about comics, and movies- who'll lift the stanchions?"
And that last part REALLY surprised me- see I'd always do arm curls with the stantions, usually at the end of the day, cause, you know- exercise! But I always did my best to do that when no one was around since I don't want to be one of those guys that shoves their fitness in peoples faces-- but apparently I was on camera the whole time, so the dudes in security would always know about it. And I had no idea!
Well, that's really funny to me.
That's a whole lotta nothing.
I'm in the mood for attention, but seeing as I rarely address such desires by, say, calling someone up or something, I'll just chill out here.
I visited a couple friends yesterday- one asked me to start writing on a comic specific blog with him, so that'll be pretty fun whenever that starts up. All articles about the third volume of Superboy. Just straight up synopsis. Should be a lot of fun.
Then I zipped over to my one friends boat. Yes, he has a boat. Why yes, the ladies do love him. For non boat related reasons I'm sure. Anyways, there's a hatch in the bow, and I got to climb through it- twice!
We went to a show that the only reason I went was for the sake of hanging out. It was okay, a little expensive. The entire show was made up of my high school alumnus, and that was a long time ago. I actually got a 'hey guy' head nod from someone who I wouldn't have expected to remember me at all. OR, more likely, when I was taking off my coat he thought I gave him the head nod. I still felt it was relatively cool of him. Anyway, the place was packed, no seats available, and while the actual performance was great, the in-between jokes were... those were jokes? I guess they were funny, because people laughed.
Actually, it sounded like the kind of laughter you'd get from an over-eager heckler, but from EVERYONE. Maybe they forgot what genuine laughter sounds like? It was weird.
OH right, this is really funny. On my way to visit my pal with the boat, I crossed paths with another friend, she worked security at Ontario Place- and so she's telling me about the relative lameness of the guys working winter this season compared to myself (which was really nice) and she says "who'll talk about comics, and movies- who'll lift the stanchions?"
And that last part REALLY surprised me- see I'd always do arm curls with the stantions, usually at the end of the day, cause, you know- exercise! But I always did my best to do that when no one was around since I don't want to be one of those guys that shoves their fitness in peoples faces-- but apparently I was on camera the whole time, so the dudes in security would always know about it. And I had no idea!
Well, that's really funny to me.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
It's Saturday morning. In a better decade I'd be watching tv right now.
I've been up for about half an hour now, most of that time has been me trying to get back to sleep. I guess I'll take the five hours, but five hours ago I was exhausted.
I also wanted to get back to sleep just to try to hold on to the dream I was having- two separate stories in a news report style, both unpleasant, violent, but I can only now remember the one. I think it must have been the more straightforward of the two- a close up shot of a little boy in a park, except he's not so little. He's young, he's simple, but he's actually pretty big, with a sort of sloping triangle shape to him. The narration was about how this young orphan needed a place to live... but he'd just killed his previous caretaker. Not with any malice- he simply didn't understand that he'd done anything wrong, anything irreperable. A Mice and Men scenario.
I wish I could remember the second part, but as it is I've only got the image of this kid staring at me in my head.
Visited a friend for her birthday last night- I want to take a crack at drawing this one girls face from the subway. Her face is composed of all circles and soft curves- very rounded cheeks and chin, large round brown eyes- a light complexion so that you know if she had a workout or was embarassed or anything she'd turn pretty red (of course, I know that because that happens to myself). Light brown hair that she seemed to have cut herself, short at the sides, longer and with some waves and curls on top, swept to the side- but the most interesting thing to me is that accompanying her very soft, rounded features, was this sharp nose with it's almost triangular nostrils pinched to her face. That's as good a description as I've got for her nose- there was nothing that out there about it, but it's definitely something you wouldn't see everyday, and even if I was much better at drawing I'd have a rough time getting that feature across.
Ah, almost forgot the piercing through her right eyebrow.
She struck me as rather gentle, and aware of the world around her- I get that by the smile she gave to some cute kids sitting across the aisle, as opposed to being thoroughly tucked away in a cacoon of music, or even a book.
Of course after I thought she was gentle I immediately reflected on the question of whether or not that could be a fair assesment. I'm, for the most part, just assuming things based on how she looks and carries herself- what exactly ARE those factors?
No, no, I didn't go over and introduce myself- I can only weird out so many people that way. Maybe next quarter I'll get back to it. Like I even know when those quarters are.
Talked to a person about literature last night- mostly she talked, I tried to follow along. Ostensibly, I should know a thing or two about this stuff, but I found her very difficult to follow. Mostly because what she said SOUNDED rather counter to expectations. To make a really simple comparison, it would be like if in conversation someone says matter-of-factly "so yes, the cow goes bark" and then keeps going as if that last sentence didn't blow me away with opposite-ness. This person was either brilliant, or had too much to drink. That's a trap of a distinction I've fallen in before.
She thanked me for the conversation, and was hmm upset is too strong a word... fine, upset that I was leaving so soon into the evening. Ah well, she was nice. In a more lucid environment I wouldn't mind asking her more details about what she was talking about, get her to slow down and be a bit more clear than a passage from Kerouac.
See? See? I know things.
... although I did do pretty terribly during last nights college tournament jeopardy...
I also wanted to get back to sleep just to try to hold on to the dream I was having- two separate stories in a news report style, both unpleasant, violent, but I can only now remember the one. I think it must have been the more straightforward of the two- a close up shot of a little boy in a park, except he's not so little. He's young, he's simple, but he's actually pretty big, with a sort of sloping triangle shape to him. The narration was about how this young orphan needed a place to live... but he'd just killed his previous caretaker. Not with any malice- he simply didn't understand that he'd done anything wrong, anything irreperable. A Mice and Men scenario.
I wish I could remember the second part, but as it is I've only got the image of this kid staring at me in my head.
Visited a friend for her birthday last night- I want to take a crack at drawing this one girls face from the subway. Her face is composed of all circles and soft curves- very rounded cheeks and chin, large round brown eyes- a light complexion so that you know if she had a workout or was embarassed or anything she'd turn pretty red (of course, I know that because that happens to myself). Light brown hair that she seemed to have cut herself, short at the sides, longer and with some waves and curls on top, swept to the side- but the most interesting thing to me is that accompanying her very soft, rounded features, was this sharp nose with it's almost triangular nostrils pinched to her face. That's as good a description as I've got for her nose- there was nothing that out there about it, but it's definitely something you wouldn't see everyday, and even if I was much better at drawing I'd have a rough time getting that feature across.
Ah, almost forgot the piercing through her right eyebrow.
She struck me as rather gentle, and aware of the world around her- I get that by the smile she gave to some cute kids sitting across the aisle, as opposed to being thoroughly tucked away in a cacoon of music, or even a book.
Of course after I thought she was gentle I immediately reflected on the question of whether or not that could be a fair assesment. I'm, for the most part, just assuming things based on how she looks and carries herself- what exactly ARE those factors?
No, no, I didn't go over and introduce myself- I can only weird out so many people that way. Maybe next quarter I'll get back to it. Like I even know when those quarters are.
Talked to a person about literature last night- mostly she talked, I tried to follow along. Ostensibly, I should know a thing or two about this stuff, but I found her very difficult to follow. Mostly because what she said SOUNDED rather counter to expectations. To make a really simple comparison, it would be like if in conversation someone says matter-of-factly "so yes, the cow goes bark" and then keeps going as if that last sentence didn't blow me away with opposite-ness. This person was either brilliant, or had too much to drink. That's a trap of a distinction I've fallen in before.
She thanked me for the conversation, and was hmm upset is too strong a word... fine, upset that I was leaving so soon into the evening. Ah well, she was nice. In a more lucid environment I wouldn't mind asking her more details about what she was talking about, get her to slow down and be a bit more clear than a passage from Kerouac.
See? See? I know things.
... although I did do pretty terribly during last nights college tournament jeopardy...
Monday, November 15, 2010
Going back over a reference to make it gender neutral is hard. And sticks out like a sore thumb anyways. That's it, back to how it was.
It's been a while since the last time, but...
When I play games, more traditional sit down in a play room, break out the golf pencils games, it's usually with a particular friend of mine who's social circle I have now invaded. That is to stress the rarity of this scenario, where I don't have all that many of the rotating cast comprising these games as even FACEBOOK friends. I mean, I've got some random guy from New York on facebook because I got a friend request, as well as a networking comedian. I don't really know their names.
Anyway, this friend often cites "game theory"- especially when I make a move he deems ridiculous, because I have made a move counter to my goal of winning.
What is surprising about this, to me, is the lack of perspective on my friends part. He asks why I would do that, without offering up any answers, or even asking me the reasoning behind it. He thinks I just like messing with him.
Actually, that sounds pretty close to the end of it- but what it really is is the fact that this person is very good at winning. Very rarely will he NOT win these things. So my goal or win condition is "he does NOT win".
Even then, my "success" rate is pretty low.
Take a similar situation, playing Smash Bros. with the guy and others- why in this scenario do I disproportionately attack his character compared to the others? In this area I'm actually pretty good, so my having a win condition of "winning" is actually feasable. But even then, if I were to really break it down, my win condition is "winning by taking out each player in order from toughest to weakest competitor". I'll generally take pot shots at someone who strays too close, but that is generally my strategy, because otherwise the weakest players get booted out immediately and have to sit there watching for five minutes.
Of course my weakening the strongest players will often lead to a win for a weaker participant, but I'm thinking they'll have enjoyed the game more, and I got a fun challenge out of it, so I won too.
Uh, just to be clear, I'm not going to say this happens ALL the time. If someone is really good at taunting me, well, things are tough all over at Final Destination.
Not that knowing this would help provide much of a defence against my admittedly lame win conditions... unless your defence is to persuade me to change tactics. That's a possibility. Yeah, but anyways, when it's all spelled out like this, it makes sense, right?
I'm reading a book right now called The Art of Strategy, it's very interesting, it's all about game theory, and right away- in the inttroduction- the authors point out how much their own understanding had grown since their similar book was published in the 90's (I THINK that one is "Thinking Strategically") especially within the realm of different motives. There's winning in the now, and there's setting up the future win. Or to put it another way, spending and earning political capital.
I read through volumes 4-7 of the Brian K. Vaughn written Ex Machina today- a book about a relatively realistic superhero (he does have powers, but the story would be just as fascinating without them, though naturally it would change a few things around)turned politician. All the time the protagonist has to make deals so something else will happen- compromising with the goals of another, a win-win, or he'll do something intended as a goodwill gesture only to have it backfire because of how someone else saw it- he failed to predict that he was doing something counter to that groups goal. The back and forth of motivations is pretty cool. Of course it helps that it's told in such a dramatic way, with maybe some mystery motivation being revealed at the end.
Which isn't that different from most stories I suppose, but it's standing out in my mind right now.
Do you ever question your motivations? I do- all the time. Am I doing something bad for a good reason? Am I doing something good for a bad reason?
Oh, I wanted to say, I had all those Ex Machina trades at once because I'd got vol 6 at the library a while ago, and picked up vol 7 today- but I've been waiting probably about two weeks for volumes 4 and 5 to come through, even though I ordered them waaay first. They've been "in transit" for a week. So I finally got sick of waiting, hopped over to a library I'd never been to before (Coxwell and Danforth- little small, but not bad, and pretty new facilities. My other library books beeped on the way in.) and picked 'em up. Three more trades and I'm done the series.
"Will I ever get better with my tenses?" he is to be said.
My neck is tense, that's all I know.
Ugh, it really is, I must have pinched a nerve or something. Feels better than yesterday though.
When I play games, more traditional sit down in a play room, break out the golf pencils games, it's usually with a particular friend of mine who's social circle I have now invaded. That is to stress the rarity of this scenario, where I don't have all that many of the rotating cast comprising these games as even FACEBOOK friends. I mean, I've got some random guy from New York on facebook because I got a friend request, as well as a networking comedian. I don't really know their names.
Anyway, this friend often cites "game theory"- especially when I make a move he deems ridiculous, because I have made a move counter to my goal of winning.
What is surprising about this, to me, is the lack of perspective on my friends part. He asks why I would do that, without offering up any answers, or even asking me the reasoning behind it. He thinks I just like messing with him.
Actually, that sounds pretty close to the end of it- but what it really is is the fact that this person is very good at winning. Very rarely will he NOT win these things. So my goal or win condition is "he does NOT win".
Even then, my "success" rate is pretty low.
Take a similar situation, playing Smash Bros. with the guy and others- why in this scenario do I disproportionately attack his character compared to the others? In this area I'm actually pretty good, so my having a win condition of "winning" is actually feasable. But even then, if I were to really break it down, my win condition is "winning by taking out each player in order from toughest to weakest competitor". I'll generally take pot shots at someone who strays too close, but that is generally my strategy, because otherwise the weakest players get booted out immediately and have to sit there watching for five minutes.
Of course my weakening the strongest players will often lead to a win for a weaker participant, but I'm thinking they'll have enjoyed the game more, and I got a fun challenge out of it, so I won too.
Uh, just to be clear, I'm not going to say this happens ALL the time. If someone is really good at taunting me, well, things are tough all over at Final Destination.
Not that knowing this would help provide much of a defence against my admittedly lame win conditions... unless your defence is to persuade me to change tactics. That's a possibility. Yeah, but anyways, when it's all spelled out like this, it makes sense, right?
I'm reading a book right now called The Art of Strategy, it's very interesting, it's all about game theory, and right away- in the inttroduction- the authors point out how much their own understanding had grown since their similar book was published in the 90's (I THINK that one is "Thinking Strategically") especially within the realm of different motives. There's winning in the now, and there's setting up the future win. Or to put it another way, spending and earning political capital.
I read through volumes 4-7 of the Brian K. Vaughn written Ex Machina today- a book about a relatively realistic superhero (he does have powers, but the story would be just as fascinating without them, though naturally it would change a few things around)turned politician. All the time the protagonist has to make deals so something else will happen- compromising with the goals of another, a win-win, or he'll do something intended as a goodwill gesture only to have it backfire because of how someone else saw it- he failed to predict that he was doing something counter to that groups goal. The back and forth of motivations is pretty cool. Of course it helps that it's told in such a dramatic way, with maybe some mystery motivation being revealed at the end.
Which isn't that different from most stories I suppose, but it's standing out in my mind right now.
Do you ever question your motivations? I do- all the time. Am I doing something bad for a good reason? Am I doing something good for a bad reason?
Oh, I wanted to say, I had all those Ex Machina trades at once because I'd got vol 6 at the library a while ago, and picked up vol 7 today- but I've been waiting probably about two weeks for volumes 4 and 5 to come through, even though I ordered them waaay first. They've been "in transit" for a week. So I finally got sick of waiting, hopped over to a library I'd never been to before (Coxwell and Danforth- little small, but not bad, and pretty new facilities. My other library books beeped on the way in.) and picked 'em up. Three more trades and I'm done the series.
"Will I ever get better with my tenses?" he is to be said.
My neck is tense, that's all I know.
Ugh, it really is, I must have pinched a nerve or something. Feels better than yesterday though.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Return of Bruce Wayne #6 Inferred to Death. Wow this is long. You, uh, may want to skip this one. I think it's interesting though.
mondomagazine.net doesn't seem to want to work today, which is a shame, because I want to read everyones different comic reviews for this week. A particularly "important" book came out this week, which I got to review. I think it'll be okay to post up my review here:
Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #6
Grant Morrison (w), Lee Garbett, Pere Perez (p), Alejandro Sicat, Walden Wong (i), Guy Major (c). DC Comics.
The first thing that jumps out about this comic is on the first page, with a series of images that are supposed to be defining elements of Batman’s story, and one of them is a bell. It took forever to see where that came from, but once you got it, it was thoroughly necessary, and pretty brilliant. Not only because it creates a trifecta of images (the gun, the pearls, and now the bell) but also because it ends up being a symbol of the readers’ connection to Batman. It’s the kind of fourth wall breaking that I especially expected from The Return of Bruce Wayne and, had it not been in the comic, I’d have been disappointed. As the panels started to disjoint, and my eyes widened and I was grasping at all the possible data so I could figure out what was happening, Morrison threw a life preserver in the form of a single dialogue box, potentially easy to miss in the frenzy, with the single word ‘apophenia’- the word that has very much been the mantra of Morrison’s Batman run, describing Batman’s process of making sense out of the insensible, and a reminder to the reader that these are supposed to be disjointed sequences. I’ll stop there, but this is essential reading.
And that's all that's getting posted on te site- which is for the best because I know it's unlikely that most anyone will sit through what else I could write. Which is what is written below here.
What's rough about these reviews, especially for the complicated Morrison issues of Batman, is that I have a lot to say and not a lot of room to say it in. I'd also like to include the rebuttal that will inevitably appear from a particular poster who refuses to enjoy, specifically, Morrison's Batman stuff- it's fair enough if he doesn't like it, but his argument is always the same, usually along the lines of "it doesn't make sense." You may notice that the majority of my review here is about how it is difficult to understand, and how that is supposed to be the case- I guess I did get my rebuttal in, but it isn't going to be enough.
Here are things I wanted to touch on (but haven't necessarily formed a cohesive analysis for- the review is done after all!)
The first page, ostensibly four panels, but really it's the page as an establishing shot of the setting, with three panels, one for each of the "representations of (Batman's origin story)'s defining elements"- the pearl necklace, the bell, and the gun. I mentioned this in the review, but something I didn't have space for was the dialogue in the third panel "as they reach the event horizon they will become frozen in time forever." -significant because the images are indeed frozen in time forever, as the static pictures in a comic book.
The second page has the title and credits, important to note the different artists Lee Garbett did pages 1-18, 20, 26-28, and 32, while Pere Perez did pages 19, 21-25, 29-31. The page has a Kirby-esque bent to it, with a particularly square jawed Bruce Wayne on the ground reaching forward and the surrounding walls designed with large circles connected by oddly patterned lines- it's a weird thing to describe, but look at any of Jack Kirby's Fourth World designed characters and you will know what I'm talking about. The Kirby influence appears throughout the book, but there are specific areas where it's more pronounced.
It's page seven where the significance of the bell is revealed, calling back to the Batman: Year One Frank Miller story where a bleeding to death Bruce Wayne hesitates before ringing the bell to call for Alfred, who can save his life, until that bat flies in and he decides to use its image for itself.
Page eight, Batman returns to the present wearing the archivist suit (all that you have to know about that suit is that it looks suitably Batman shaped) but is itself covered in hyper-adapter/hunter-killer/death-idea. That last name should make it especially clear that this is a place holder threat, that it may as well be anything you can think of- essentially Batman is covered in "antagonist", and when asked where he'd been he responds "Alone in the dark with the bats. I'm tying to save everything. Everybody." What becomes clear, particularly given the hindsight of, you know, finishing the book, is that this Batman/enemy is a kind of dark satire of what everyone has come to expect of the character, that he works alone and shuns his allies.
Page nine, following the line from the previous page "Alone in the dark with the bats. I'm trying to save everything. Everybody." The current Justice League have burst onto the scene, having torn the door or wall away... or rather having torn the very page away as Cyborg says "Cool. So we're all on the same page!" first being very obviously all-of-these-characters-are-on-the-same-page, as well as the more normal understanding of him saying "Yes, we all want to save everybody." but ALSO, along the lines of "you are the dark alone, we are a brightly coloured group, we all understand you as the enemy".
Through these last two pages we've had Red Robin on the scene, aka the third Robin, aka Tim Drake, aka the fanboy who figured out who Batman was and then became Robin, aka a representation of a genre savy comic book reader who just wants everything to work out in the end for his hero Batman. It's Red Robin who talks to Batman on page eight, asking about what he's covered in, informing him that the Justice League and a fight scene is just around the corner, and asking whether or not such a fight is necessary. (he also asks where Batman has been, essentially the simple question this whole series is supposed to answer to the reader. Not to suggest that it doesn't answer that, or that there was ever any real question, I only mention it because Robin asking it here strikes me as very in keeping with my reading of him as a comic reader.)
And then on the last panel of page nine Robin tells the Justice League to wait "five minutes before you... start breaking..." important because- a lot of modern comics will only take 5 minutes to read- especially if you avoid the fight scene, as Robin was attempting to do. And of course by only saying "start breaking" as opposed to saying "start breaking things" we're left to imagine him as saying "start breaking the fourth wall". In which case, he isn't asking the Justice League to stop, but the writer to stop. This comes up again later.
Page ten and eleven has Superman, Green Lantern, Rip Hunter, and Booster Gold (and Booster Gold's robot buddy Skeets) trapped in a force field at the end of time, but the way the panel is set up it looks more like they're trying to punch and heat vision there way out of their comic panel. The final panel has Skeets say "the bubble you're all trying to break is our only way out" which I'm going to go ahead and say he's referring to how it's only through the expression of each panel do these characters progress and have life. Also they were inside a rapidly evolving time machine, so there's that more literal thing he's talking about.
I'd also like to point out that they're worried about dying through the heat death of the universe at the end of time, and the best they've got is Green Lantern making boxing gloves and pointless drama and argument. Pretty much classic comic fare.
Page twelve is notable for saying "(Batman) was bonded with a biorganic archive machine. He could have known potentially... everything for a while." This happened in story, but it also describes the creative process behind creating the story- whatever the writer has plans for in the future of the series, not just the end of this single comic itself, the character has access to all that as the writer is constantly running through the different permutations of what the characters will and won't do.
It occurs to me that in saying Batman was bonded with a biorganic archive(the writer), Batman becomes an avatar of the writer- so when Booster Gold says "Batman thought of this. Wow." It's a little bit self aggrandizing on the authors part.
Page thirteen has a line I love- Superman saying "It's the heat death of the universe. Even body temperature's a super-feat."
Page sixteen, the Justice League has been defeated, so Robin gets to talk to Batman again- and everything he says is exactly what you would say if you had been reading the story all along and could actually talk to the character:
-"When Darkseid shot you back in time, I was the one who knew that corpse couldn't be you." (Pretty easy if you'd read the comic)
-I knew you'd leave messages(Return of Bruce Wayne series) if you could, and I knew you'd find a way back(again, Return of Bruce Wayne series).
-I'm Tim, your partner(reader)
Page seventeen continues this trend, but with two differences. After Batman calls him Tim, then Robin, Tim corrects him, saying he's Red Robin now, that Damian is Robin, and that Dick Grayson is Batman. "Everything changed." he says, somewhat akin to a disgruntled fan. One of his next lines is excellent because of how much it sounds like he's been reduced to a little kid- "(Listen!) you're Bruce Wayne and you wear a disguise to frighten bad people, okay?" It's like, "get it together, you're not supposed to be the bad guy here!" I enjoy it.
Page 19 is the first Pere Perez page, and has what I can only interpret as the voice of the archivist suit being worn before being completely taken over with "antagonist". It's dialogue balloons are partially obscured, it says "mother box" at one point, a Jack Kirby deus ex machina type device in his stories, but that was actually a red herring for me, when what I should have been focusing on was the words "mother" "nothing" "lied" "nothing" "father" "stay lonely" "stay dead forever" "father" "fear"- all pretty clearly negatives.
Combine that with the Kirby-dot covered bat cape and cowl on page 18 (maybe I SHOULD have mentioned that before, I was going to leave it out until I saw this connection) and the archivist seems to represent the portion of the fanbase that would prefer Batman be super dark, that hates Robins, etc. while the "Kirby-dot Bat-cape" is representational of the light hearted 50's and 60's era of Batman (an era that Morrison has heavily drawn on during his current run of stories, an era that he has gone a long way towards legitimizing).
This is then what the battle is between, dark Batman versus light Batman.
On page 20 now, with the archivist/dark Batman suit completely subsumed by "antagonist" the panels become disjointed (as mentioned in my review) as Robin seems to be able to see the panels comprising his body. The panels surrounding Batman now consist of a variety of images or words, not both (with the exception of the obscured panel that is clearly a "HA HA HA HA"- but as it's a done like a comic book sound effect, especially associated with the Joker, it therefore has a very strong immediate visual component to it, so I consider it 'image') ripe for analysis.
On my first reading, this is when I started to go "what what where what?" trying to see where there was order, or more appropriately, trying to figure out what the "proper" order was to everything. Tucked away in the bottom left corner of the page was the word apophenia, important enough that it got a mention in my review- because that was the cue to just relax buddy! It doesn't have to all come together perfectly, it can all be nonsense.
That said, having one of the images be Orion's belt, the constellation, and therefore indicative of Batman's utility belt, was cute.
Also, one of the more prominent images was the tarot Hanged Man. I looked it up, and well, I guess I won't post the whole article, but here's the link http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/learn/meanings/hangedman.shtml
and here's the pertinent excerpt:
"The Hanged Man... is a card about suspension, not life or death. This is a time of trial or meditation, selflessness, sacrifice, prophecy. The Querent(inquirer) stops resisting; instead he makes himself vulnerable, sacrifices his position or opposition, and in doing so, gains illumination. Answers that eluded him become clear, solutions to problems are found. He sees the world differently, has almost mystical insights. This card can also imply a time when everything just stands still, a time of rest and reflection before moving on. Things will continue on in a moment, but for now, they float, timeless."
Page 21, Tim refuses to leave, playing witness to the unfolding events (again, as is the reader)
Bruce is now smiling as he talks to the antagonist, telling it that the plan was to get it to destroy itself in battle "in an age of superheroes" where it's "just another monster for my friends to practice on." Green Lantern appears, and his last word on the page is "Challenge".
Super, friends, challenge- I know I'm putting way too much thought in this, but Morrison seems to now be alluding to the family friendly "Challenge of the Super-Friends".
Page 22 is notable for having Batman say "Have to get out of this MY WAY" which seems to be counter intuitive to the idea that this whole comic is about Batman needing others, followed by a panel that ONLY has Batman on it, tearing off the "antagonist" from himself. Fortunately, even when he's alone, there's still at least one person around- the reader. Still, this is the weakest panel in the book.
Page 25 is great because things are falling apart, time is breaking apart (ie the panels are breaking apart) and Batman is dying, and Robin is just yelling (at the writer, though of course it appears as though he's talking to the heroes around him) "This is NOT fair! You throw the Joker at him, fine! Killer Croc! Bane! Empty-handed! Don't make him fight gods on his own. He fought his way back and you have all these powers... do something..."
Page 26 and 27 is sort of a 2-page spread that is the height of Kirby design, it's pretty awesome panels within panels, and worlds between worlds, with scenes of Bruce Wayne fighting more terrestrial, sword wielding threats alone- another representation of what Batman is fighting against, the pull to the same kind of battles over and over again. Batman touches the face of the panel, silencing the phantoms around him (and potentially us) "Shh! What is this, like... glass? But it's warm... it's... thought... it's... alive."
Metron shows up, prompting Batman to tell him "The first truth of Batman." so as to "Take control of Darkseid's design." Darkseid, being the ultimate evil of the Kirby pantheon, as well as the guy that blasted Batman into the past in the first place, is pretty important, but stepping away from the character, he's also the literal "dark side" that Batman is facing off against- the idea that Batman is a dark, necessarily terrestral loner. The first truth must then be counter to that idea.
Page 28, we return to that scene in Batman: Year One, with the oddly important bell, and Bruce Wayne has just decided to become Batman- ringing the bell for Alfred to come save his life.
The first truth is that Batman has never been alone, he has always relied on people.
"Whoah, Isaac, maybe that's true after Batman: Year One- but isn't this kind of a stretch before that? Before that Alfred didn't always exist as a character!"
Even when that was the case, Batman has ALWAYS had at least ONE person with him- the reader, calling him into action and cheering him on.
Following on from that thought is Page 29- Superman and Wonder Woman are working on trying to revive Batman, and Robin, once more the voice of the reader, says "I know how to bring him back. Tell him Gotham's in trouble. And tell him he'll need this (Robin holds up the tattered left overs of the once Kirby-dot riddled Bat cape and cowl)."
Naturally Batman wakes up, and there you go. The return of Bruce Wayne.
Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #6
Grant Morrison (w), Lee Garbett, Pere Perez (p), Alejandro Sicat, Walden Wong (i), Guy Major (c). DC Comics.
The first thing that jumps out about this comic is on the first page, with a series of images that are supposed to be defining elements of Batman’s story, and one of them is a bell. It took forever to see where that came from, but once you got it, it was thoroughly necessary, and pretty brilliant. Not only because it creates a trifecta of images (the gun, the pearls, and now the bell) but also because it ends up being a symbol of the readers’ connection to Batman. It’s the kind of fourth wall breaking that I especially expected from The Return of Bruce Wayne and, had it not been in the comic, I’d have been disappointed. As the panels started to disjoint, and my eyes widened and I was grasping at all the possible data so I could figure out what was happening, Morrison threw a life preserver in the form of a single dialogue box, potentially easy to miss in the frenzy, with the single word ‘apophenia’- the word that has very much been the mantra of Morrison’s Batman run, describing Batman’s process of making sense out of the insensible, and a reminder to the reader that these are supposed to be disjointed sequences. I’ll stop there, but this is essential reading.
And that's all that's getting posted on te site- which is for the best because I know it's unlikely that most anyone will sit through what else I could write. Which is what is written below here.
What's rough about these reviews, especially for the complicated Morrison issues of Batman, is that I have a lot to say and not a lot of room to say it in. I'd also like to include the rebuttal that will inevitably appear from a particular poster who refuses to enjoy, specifically, Morrison's Batman stuff- it's fair enough if he doesn't like it, but his argument is always the same, usually along the lines of "it doesn't make sense." You may notice that the majority of my review here is about how it is difficult to understand, and how that is supposed to be the case- I guess I did get my rebuttal in, but it isn't going to be enough.
Here are things I wanted to touch on (but haven't necessarily formed a cohesive analysis for- the review is done after all!)
The first page, ostensibly four panels, but really it's the page as an establishing shot of the setting, with three panels, one for each of the "representations of (Batman's origin story)'s defining elements"- the pearl necklace, the bell, and the gun. I mentioned this in the review, but something I didn't have space for was the dialogue in the third panel "as they reach the event horizon they will become frozen in time forever." -significant because the images are indeed frozen in time forever, as the static pictures in a comic book.
The second page has the title and credits, important to note the different artists Lee Garbett did pages 1-18, 20, 26-28, and 32, while Pere Perez did pages 19, 21-25, 29-31. The page has a Kirby-esque bent to it, with a particularly square jawed Bruce Wayne on the ground reaching forward and the surrounding walls designed with large circles connected by oddly patterned lines- it's a weird thing to describe, but look at any of Jack Kirby's Fourth World designed characters and you will know what I'm talking about. The Kirby influence appears throughout the book, but there are specific areas where it's more pronounced.
It's page seven where the significance of the bell is revealed, calling back to the Batman: Year One Frank Miller story where a bleeding to death Bruce Wayne hesitates before ringing the bell to call for Alfred, who can save his life, until that bat flies in and he decides to use its image for itself.
Page eight, Batman returns to the present wearing the archivist suit (all that you have to know about that suit is that it looks suitably Batman shaped) but is itself covered in hyper-adapter/hunter-killer/death-idea. That last name should make it especially clear that this is a place holder threat, that it may as well be anything you can think of- essentially Batman is covered in "antagonist", and when asked where he'd been he responds "Alone in the dark with the bats. I'm tying to save everything. Everybody." What becomes clear, particularly given the hindsight of, you know, finishing the book, is that this Batman/enemy is a kind of dark satire of what everyone has come to expect of the character, that he works alone and shuns his allies.
Page nine, following the line from the previous page "Alone in the dark with the bats. I'm trying to save everything. Everybody." The current Justice League have burst onto the scene, having torn the door or wall away... or rather having torn the very page away as Cyborg says "Cool. So we're all on the same page!" first being very obviously all-of-these-characters-are-on-the-same-page, as well as the more normal understanding of him saying "Yes, we all want to save everybody." but ALSO, along the lines of "you are the dark alone, we are a brightly coloured group, we all understand you as the enemy".
Through these last two pages we've had Red Robin on the scene, aka the third Robin, aka Tim Drake, aka the fanboy who figured out who Batman was and then became Robin, aka a representation of a genre savy comic book reader who just wants everything to work out in the end for his hero Batman. It's Red Robin who talks to Batman on page eight, asking about what he's covered in, informing him that the Justice League and a fight scene is just around the corner, and asking whether or not such a fight is necessary. (he also asks where Batman has been, essentially the simple question this whole series is supposed to answer to the reader. Not to suggest that it doesn't answer that, or that there was ever any real question, I only mention it because Robin asking it here strikes me as very in keeping with my reading of him as a comic reader.)
And then on the last panel of page nine Robin tells the Justice League to wait "five minutes before you... start breaking..." important because- a lot of modern comics will only take 5 minutes to read- especially if you avoid the fight scene, as Robin was attempting to do. And of course by only saying "start breaking" as opposed to saying "start breaking things" we're left to imagine him as saying "start breaking the fourth wall". In which case, he isn't asking the Justice League to stop, but the writer to stop. This comes up again later.
Page ten and eleven has Superman, Green Lantern, Rip Hunter, and Booster Gold (and Booster Gold's robot buddy Skeets) trapped in a force field at the end of time, but the way the panel is set up it looks more like they're trying to punch and heat vision there way out of their comic panel. The final panel has Skeets say "the bubble you're all trying to break is our only way out" which I'm going to go ahead and say he's referring to how it's only through the expression of each panel do these characters progress and have life. Also they were inside a rapidly evolving time machine, so there's that more literal thing he's talking about.
I'd also like to point out that they're worried about dying through the heat death of the universe at the end of time, and the best they've got is Green Lantern making boxing gloves and pointless drama and argument. Pretty much classic comic fare.
Page twelve is notable for saying "(Batman) was bonded with a biorganic archive machine. He could have known potentially... everything for a while." This happened in story, but it also describes the creative process behind creating the story- whatever the writer has plans for in the future of the series, not just the end of this single comic itself, the character has access to all that as the writer is constantly running through the different permutations of what the characters will and won't do.
It occurs to me that in saying Batman was bonded with a biorganic archive(the writer), Batman becomes an avatar of the writer- so when Booster Gold says "Batman thought of this. Wow." It's a little bit self aggrandizing on the authors part.
Page thirteen has a line I love- Superman saying "It's the heat death of the universe. Even body temperature's a super-feat."
Page sixteen, the Justice League has been defeated, so Robin gets to talk to Batman again- and everything he says is exactly what you would say if you had been reading the story all along and could actually talk to the character:
-"When Darkseid shot you back in time, I was the one who knew that corpse couldn't be you." (Pretty easy if you'd read the comic)
-I knew you'd leave messages(Return of Bruce Wayne series) if you could, and I knew you'd find a way back(again, Return of Bruce Wayne series).
-I'm Tim, your partner(reader)
Page seventeen continues this trend, but with two differences. After Batman calls him Tim, then Robin, Tim corrects him, saying he's Red Robin now, that Damian is Robin, and that Dick Grayson is Batman. "Everything changed." he says, somewhat akin to a disgruntled fan. One of his next lines is excellent because of how much it sounds like he's been reduced to a little kid- "(Listen!) you're Bruce Wayne and you wear a disguise to frighten bad people, okay?" It's like, "get it together, you're not supposed to be the bad guy here!" I enjoy it.
Page 19 is the first Pere Perez page, and has what I can only interpret as the voice of the archivist suit being worn before being completely taken over with "antagonist". It's dialogue balloons are partially obscured, it says "mother box" at one point, a Jack Kirby deus ex machina type device in his stories, but that was actually a red herring for me, when what I should have been focusing on was the words "mother" "nothing" "lied" "nothing" "father" "stay lonely" "stay dead forever" "father" "fear"- all pretty clearly negatives.
Combine that with the Kirby-dot covered bat cape and cowl on page 18 (maybe I SHOULD have mentioned that before, I was going to leave it out until I saw this connection) and the archivist seems to represent the portion of the fanbase that would prefer Batman be super dark, that hates Robins, etc. while the "Kirby-dot Bat-cape" is representational of the light hearted 50's and 60's era of Batman (an era that Morrison has heavily drawn on during his current run of stories, an era that he has gone a long way towards legitimizing).
This is then what the battle is between, dark Batman versus light Batman.
On page 20 now, with the archivist/dark Batman suit completely subsumed by "antagonist" the panels become disjointed (as mentioned in my review) as Robin seems to be able to see the panels comprising his body. The panels surrounding Batman now consist of a variety of images or words, not both (with the exception of the obscured panel that is clearly a "HA HA HA HA"- but as it's a done like a comic book sound effect, especially associated with the Joker, it therefore has a very strong immediate visual component to it, so I consider it 'image') ripe for analysis.
On my first reading, this is when I started to go "what what where what?" trying to see where there was order, or more appropriately, trying to figure out what the "proper" order was to everything. Tucked away in the bottom left corner of the page was the word apophenia, important enough that it got a mention in my review- because that was the cue to just relax buddy! It doesn't have to all come together perfectly, it can all be nonsense.
That said, having one of the images be Orion's belt, the constellation, and therefore indicative of Batman's utility belt, was cute.
Also, one of the more prominent images was the tarot Hanged Man. I looked it up, and well, I guess I won't post the whole article, but here's the link http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/learn/meanings/hangedman.shtml
and here's the pertinent excerpt:
"The Hanged Man... is a card about suspension, not life or death. This is a time of trial or meditation, selflessness, sacrifice, prophecy. The Querent(inquirer) stops resisting; instead he makes himself vulnerable, sacrifices his position or opposition, and in doing so, gains illumination. Answers that eluded him become clear, solutions to problems are found. He sees the world differently, has almost mystical insights. This card can also imply a time when everything just stands still, a time of rest and reflection before moving on. Things will continue on in a moment, but for now, they float, timeless."
Page 21, Tim refuses to leave, playing witness to the unfolding events (again, as is the reader)
Bruce is now smiling as he talks to the antagonist, telling it that the plan was to get it to destroy itself in battle "in an age of superheroes" where it's "just another monster for my friends to practice on." Green Lantern appears, and his last word on the page is "Challenge".
Super, friends, challenge- I know I'm putting way too much thought in this, but Morrison seems to now be alluding to the family friendly "Challenge of the Super-Friends".
Page 22 is notable for having Batman say "Have to get out of this MY WAY" which seems to be counter intuitive to the idea that this whole comic is about Batman needing others, followed by a panel that ONLY has Batman on it, tearing off the "antagonist" from himself. Fortunately, even when he's alone, there's still at least one person around- the reader. Still, this is the weakest panel in the book.
Page 25 is great because things are falling apart, time is breaking apart (ie the panels are breaking apart) and Batman is dying, and Robin is just yelling (at the writer, though of course it appears as though he's talking to the heroes around him) "This is NOT fair! You throw the Joker at him, fine! Killer Croc! Bane! Empty-handed! Don't make him fight gods on his own. He fought his way back and you have all these powers... do something..."
Page 26 and 27 is sort of a 2-page spread that is the height of Kirby design, it's pretty awesome panels within panels, and worlds between worlds, with scenes of Bruce Wayne fighting more terrestrial, sword wielding threats alone- another representation of what Batman is fighting against, the pull to the same kind of battles over and over again. Batman touches the face of the panel, silencing the phantoms around him (and potentially us) "Shh! What is this, like... glass? But it's warm... it's... thought... it's... alive."
Metron shows up, prompting Batman to tell him "The first truth of Batman." so as to "Take control of Darkseid's design." Darkseid, being the ultimate evil of the Kirby pantheon, as well as the guy that blasted Batman into the past in the first place, is pretty important, but stepping away from the character, he's also the literal "dark side" that Batman is facing off against- the idea that Batman is a dark, necessarily terrestral loner. The first truth must then be counter to that idea.
Page 28, we return to that scene in Batman: Year One, with the oddly important bell, and Bruce Wayne has just decided to become Batman- ringing the bell for Alfred to come save his life.
The first truth is that Batman has never been alone, he has always relied on people.
"Whoah, Isaac, maybe that's true after Batman: Year One- but isn't this kind of a stretch before that? Before that Alfred didn't always exist as a character!"
Even when that was the case, Batman has ALWAYS had at least ONE person with him- the reader, calling him into action and cheering him on.
Following on from that thought is Page 29- Superman and Wonder Woman are working on trying to revive Batman, and Robin, once more the voice of the reader, says "I know how to bring him back. Tell him Gotham's in trouble. And tell him he'll need this (Robin holds up the tattered left overs of the once Kirby-dot riddled Bat cape and cowl)."
Naturally Batman wakes up, and there you go. The return of Bruce Wayne.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Warning: This whole thing is just me describing a dream- this may only be interesting to me.
So I developed a weird relationship while asleep last night.
I dreamt that I was in a dystopian alternate universe, where any open spaces we have now are removed in favour of 60's style "vision of the future" space age designed slums. Like if Walt Disney designed where we'd cram the most people, at the lowest income, for the lowest price. I was with a member of a policing group (it occurs to me that this is now the second time I've written about being a policeman- that would seem to be evidence that it happens a lot for me, but no, every time it comes up I've written it here.) And I was getting an introduction to how tough it is here. "You've gotta watch your back son- you can't trust anyone"
As our group patrolled along a waterfront a harbour police unit drove by and they felt extrememly sinister. I asked whether or not we could trust them. The "Sarge" said yes. I asked "Okay, we can trust them, but can we REALLY trust them??" spoken with all the genre savyness of a hard boiled Charles Bronson character. The Sarge of course was impressed and replied "No- you can't trust anyone."
Naturally it's less impressive when you remember- it's my dream. If the Sarge didn't answer in the affirmative (or however he could to make me cool) I was liable to stop dreaming about him all together.
Which I did right then- because we were all dismissed to go do our rounds, or crowd control, or something. I approached this railing of a bridge that was above me, I climbed up but before I could get up and over onto this safe platform this girl sees me and spits in my face.
Yes, she spit in my face, and made some disparaging remarks along the lines of "I can't believe in the other universe you were 'X'" I say X because I'm not quite sure who she said there, I've got a number of names and ideas in my head conflated on this subject. I expressed similar disbelief that she was 'Y'. Then I hit her with Christian Bale- or maybe a friend of mine dressed as Christian Bale... yes fine, dressed as Batman. It turned out he was a child's entertainer, but seemed more interested in entertaining HER (see what I did there?) So while perched at the base of a suddenly there slide this older woman gave me a crash course in forensically identifying whether or not a picture of taped on pipecleaners, paperclips, and glitter bits was made by a preschooler, or someone trying to make me THINK they were a preschooler. I tried to come up with clever descriptors for why each was different from the other but eventually was reduced to replying "that one's tiny-er" to each different point. I apparently passed my test with flying colours. Again, it was my dream.
But where do offscreen dream kids even GET paper clips and glitter that small- and why can't undercover adults with shady motivations get their hands on those same materials? It's a complicated world.
Things shifted quite a bit now, lying in an alcove just off from a grand stadium or ampitheatre. I was sitting with that girl who had spit in my face, but now I was trying to make her feel better because the guy who was in the Batman suit had ditched her and was making time with someone else. Then a random friend of mine showed up to give me a hug, that came out of nowhere.
There was somekind of show being organized in the theatre and I was recruited to sing a song- I had the words right in front of me, and it was really simple, so that rehersal went fine. Not long after that it was time for the actual performance, and I had some problems here.
First I needed my precious supply of condensed honey (I guess I was a sort of Bee Man now? But only in dietary needs?) but I DIDN'T HAVE THE TIME TO GET HOME before the concert. And I needed this stuff to live! Fortunately I was in a dungeon looking place, and through a window I could see two fist sized spheres of grainy looking honey. I found a door that led into that chamber, with only a short meter of a dark tunnel in my way. I had a penlight, or some source of light anyways, that didn't do much, but it got me through- I threw the first sphere in my mouth like my life depended on it, then ate a bunch of mini spheres also there, holding onto the last large fist sized sphere in case of emergency.
I returned to the ampitheatre, JUST IN TIME to give my performance, only I had no good clothes on to perform in (just jeans and a t-shirt) and I'd lost the paper with the lyrics- yes, I had forgotten the words, pretty stereotypical dream stuff right here. The woman organizing the show (also the woman who wanted me to learn kindergarten art forensics) gave me a paper, not with the full lyrics on it, that'd have been too helpful, but with a formula you could follow that would BE the lyrics. Basically "just sing the same line, but at the end of each line say W then X then Y then Z, with W,X,Y,Z being the words printed on the paper. Yes, I describe things with variables, I'm sorry!
I muddle my way through the performance (a performance that couldn't have been that well heard, what with me standing a good foot away from the microphone and leaning back while I hammed up the words- mumbling the actual preceeding lines- to get through. When in doubt, don't enunciate, you lout!) then quickly made my way off stage.
There I found some kind of fast food taco stand imbedded in the wall, and that girl (who spat in my face) was there. Something had changed, something to do with one of her parents... she was happier now. Or at least she seemed to like me now, whether or not that means happier or not I don't know. We made plans to meet up later. I climbed up the back stairs/hill out of the ampitheatre, past the taco stand, and into the open air, the exit behind me looking like the side door to any number of houses I could have lived in growing up, but is likely my house on Pharmacy where I spent my last years of high school.
I walked to the sidewalk, went around the corner, and arrived at some combination bus depot/car wash/gas station where I hung out with three people, a guy and two girls (one being the spit girl). The two girls were giving us a hard time because we didn't have jobs, like they did, at the depot-wash-station but we weren't impressed because they only had the jobs because their fathers owned the place.
Right about here is when I woke up, but only to press the snooze button- in the time between then (almost 11?) and when I actually got up (11:06ish) I dreamt I got a letter from that girl, it listed times I had been awake that night- some nebulous 6am time, an 8 am time, the almost 11 time (that may actually have been written down as 10:58am) and then 11:05
With a final line on the paper saying "THIS IS A TEST OF CHARACTER"
I immediately knew she was talking about being awake for the 11:11am Rememberance Day moment of silence, so I woke up again and thought to myself "test of character- passed" before I woke up more fully and realized I was sounding a) really silly and b)responding to a fake dream letter "out loud" (at least when you dream someone is there and calling you, it makes sense to call back- here I'm talking to a letter)
I thought it was pretty interesting to get a letter from a dream in the time before sleep and awake (that's a time descriptor, an accurate one for this instance, from Hook by the way) and knew come 11:14 am I'd be writing it down.
And I see I need to get to work on other things now. Also, probably only the beginning and end of this dream were particularly interesting. Well, maybe not- Bee Man eats honey before singing in ampitheatre sounds pretty good when you say it like that.
I dreamt that I was in a dystopian alternate universe, where any open spaces we have now are removed in favour of 60's style "vision of the future" space age designed slums. Like if Walt Disney designed where we'd cram the most people, at the lowest income, for the lowest price. I was with a member of a policing group (it occurs to me that this is now the second time I've written about being a policeman- that would seem to be evidence that it happens a lot for me, but no, every time it comes up I've written it here.) And I was getting an introduction to how tough it is here. "You've gotta watch your back son- you can't trust anyone"
As our group patrolled along a waterfront a harbour police unit drove by and they felt extrememly sinister. I asked whether or not we could trust them. The "Sarge" said yes. I asked "Okay, we can trust them, but can we REALLY trust them??" spoken with all the genre savyness of a hard boiled Charles Bronson character. The Sarge of course was impressed and replied "No- you can't trust anyone."
Naturally it's less impressive when you remember- it's my dream. If the Sarge didn't answer in the affirmative (or however he could to make me cool) I was liable to stop dreaming about him all together.
Which I did right then- because we were all dismissed to go do our rounds, or crowd control, or something. I approached this railing of a bridge that was above me, I climbed up but before I could get up and over onto this safe platform this girl sees me and spits in my face.
Yes, she spit in my face, and made some disparaging remarks along the lines of "I can't believe in the other universe you were 'X'" I say X because I'm not quite sure who she said there, I've got a number of names and ideas in my head conflated on this subject. I expressed similar disbelief that she was 'Y'. Then I hit her with Christian Bale- or maybe a friend of mine dressed as Christian Bale... yes fine, dressed as Batman. It turned out he was a child's entertainer, but seemed more interested in entertaining HER (see what I did there?) So while perched at the base of a suddenly there slide this older woman gave me a crash course in forensically identifying whether or not a picture of taped on pipecleaners, paperclips, and glitter bits was made by a preschooler, or someone trying to make me THINK they were a preschooler. I tried to come up with clever descriptors for why each was different from the other but eventually was reduced to replying "that one's tiny-er" to each different point. I apparently passed my test with flying colours. Again, it was my dream.
But where do offscreen dream kids even GET paper clips and glitter that small- and why can't undercover adults with shady motivations get their hands on those same materials? It's a complicated world.
Things shifted quite a bit now, lying in an alcove just off from a grand stadium or ampitheatre. I was sitting with that girl who had spit in my face, but now I was trying to make her feel better because the guy who was in the Batman suit had ditched her and was making time with someone else. Then a random friend of mine showed up to give me a hug, that came out of nowhere.
There was somekind of show being organized in the theatre and I was recruited to sing a song- I had the words right in front of me, and it was really simple, so that rehersal went fine. Not long after that it was time for the actual performance, and I had some problems here.
First I needed my precious supply of condensed honey (I guess I was a sort of Bee Man now? But only in dietary needs?) but I DIDN'T HAVE THE TIME TO GET HOME before the concert. And I needed this stuff to live! Fortunately I was in a dungeon looking place, and through a window I could see two fist sized spheres of grainy looking honey. I found a door that led into that chamber, with only a short meter of a dark tunnel in my way. I had a penlight, or some source of light anyways, that didn't do much, but it got me through- I threw the first sphere in my mouth like my life depended on it, then ate a bunch of mini spheres also there, holding onto the last large fist sized sphere in case of emergency.
I returned to the ampitheatre, JUST IN TIME to give my performance, only I had no good clothes on to perform in (just jeans and a t-shirt) and I'd lost the paper with the lyrics- yes, I had forgotten the words, pretty stereotypical dream stuff right here. The woman organizing the show (also the woman who wanted me to learn kindergarten art forensics) gave me a paper, not with the full lyrics on it, that'd have been too helpful, but with a formula you could follow that would BE the lyrics. Basically "just sing the same line, but at the end of each line say W then X then Y then Z, with W,X,Y,Z being the words printed on the paper. Yes, I describe things with variables, I'm sorry!
I muddle my way through the performance (a performance that couldn't have been that well heard, what with me standing a good foot away from the microphone and leaning back while I hammed up the words- mumbling the actual preceeding lines- to get through. When in doubt, don't enunciate, you lout!) then quickly made my way off stage.
There I found some kind of fast food taco stand imbedded in the wall, and that girl (who spat in my face) was there. Something had changed, something to do with one of her parents... she was happier now. Or at least she seemed to like me now, whether or not that means happier or not I don't know. We made plans to meet up later. I climbed up the back stairs/hill out of the ampitheatre, past the taco stand, and into the open air, the exit behind me looking like the side door to any number of houses I could have lived in growing up, but is likely my house on Pharmacy where I spent my last years of high school.
I walked to the sidewalk, went around the corner, and arrived at some combination bus depot/car wash/gas station where I hung out with three people, a guy and two girls (one being the spit girl). The two girls were giving us a hard time because we didn't have jobs, like they did, at the depot-wash-station but we weren't impressed because they only had the jobs because their fathers owned the place.
Right about here is when I woke up, but only to press the snooze button- in the time between then (almost 11?) and when I actually got up (11:06ish) I dreamt I got a letter from that girl, it listed times I had been awake that night- some nebulous 6am time, an 8 am time, the almost 11 time (that may actually have been written down as 10:58am) and then 11:05
With a final line on the paper saying "THIS IS A TEST OF CHARACTER"
I immediately knew she was talking about being awake for the 11:11am Rememberance Day moment of silence, so I woke up again and thought to myself "test of character- passed" before I woke up more fully and realized I was sounding a) really silly and b)responding to a fake dream letter "out loud" (at least when you dream someone is there and calling you, it makes sense to call back- here I'm talking to a letter)
I thought it was pretty interesting to get a letter from a dream in the time before sleep and awake (that's a time descriptor, an accurate one for this instance, from Hook by the way) and knew come 11:14 am I'd be writing it down.
And I see I need to get to work on other things now. Also, probably only the beginning and end of this dream were particularly interesting. Well, maybe not- Bee Man eats honey before singing in ampitheatre sounds pretty good when you say it like that.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
That weeks long car trip
I've just spent the last- many hours reading about american presidents.
Partly that helps to make me more informed, but also it's got me following the slippery slope of this one thing begets the next and the next making the current political landscape the result of something happening centuries ago. This, of course, was always the case, what with time generally moving forward (at least that's how we, as a collective, experience it- I'd rather not speak to the individuals experience) but when things jump out in hindsight as so blatantly connected, it feels weird. Mostly it's that jumping out that feels weird. Things shouldn't jump out at you.
Two for flinching.
Probably an hour and a half ago, approximately when that jumping out occured, I had the image of America as a hot, barren, boring desert that I had proto-formed in me not from any obvious political maneuvering from an outside party, but from family "vacations" of travelling through the states (the quotes around "vacations" aren't meant to indicate these trips were terrible, just that the more prominent ones were us in a car moving, not vacationing, from one side of the continent to the other, but these trips were virtually identical to a road trip vacation, so I'm categorizing them as the same)
anyway- that american image immediately yielded a counterpart- that part of the road trip where you wake up, you realize that you were sleeping after all (it's impossible to sleep in a car!) and you half heartedly focus on where you are or may be, and like in a pulp detective story you've got a bright orange light beaming in through the only nearly drawn blinds that leaves a bar of that dim light square across your eyes, and then goes away, and it's back, and goes away, and it's back, and goes away, and you finally turn your head to see that it's the highway lights, that you're getting close to Toronto, or London, or Vancouver, and you feel like you're almost home. And if you are almost home you get really tired, because you know that the final ten minute stretch will go forever, and when then finally passes you have to drag yourself out of the car, drag your pillow, wait for dad or mom to get to the door and open up so you can scramble for bed, trying to hold onto that tiredness you still had in the car even as that tiredness is saying "I'm not going anywhere".
OR if you aren't even close to home, maybe you don't live in a city right now, or this is a city somewhere in that central time zone, and it's 2 in the morning (according to SOME watch, but maybe we can get that hour back if we go far enough...) and you've waken up and because you're so very far from anywhere you are now totally awake, and can't believe you were ever asleep in the first place (it's impossible to sleep in the car!) and you look at whoever is driving and this was a long time ago.
*Long breath*
I sent a message to a friend of mine just a bit ago about seeing a movie. At the end I paused and thought about our past times together, and all the things this person has done for me. Maybe not a lot in the grand scheme, but important to me. I ended the message with an out-of-nowhere 'thank you', that can be taken as just an ideosyncratic send off, a 'you'rs truly,' that feels off but is still just a good-bye, when in reality it's a 'thank you for this and this and this...'
I'm 70 pages from finishing this book on "birdmen", the history of guys trying to make like Icarus. Okay, well, they often succeed in making like Icarus, in that 99.9% of them are killed doing some incredibly hairbrained jump with a set of wings. I'll have to come back with the names of some notables, there's a lot so it's hard to remember. Clem Sohn was a sort of grand daddy of the 20th century bat-men, and there was this guy... I forget. He was the next big name. And Sutten (I'll get back to whether that's the correct name/spelling later) was both a parachutist/birdman- but was just about the only modern one mentioned thus far to be an engineer who, you know, TESTED his equipment before jumping out of planes. Something which really helped with the whole not dying thing.
Ugh. It's 4:53 in the morning (and that's only because of the hour of saving grace provided by the clock change) and I haven't acomplished anything today. My beard needs some serious upkeep and attention, something it hasn't been getting for about the past two weeks.
Don't worry, that doesn't include neck beard shaving. I've got that beast well in hand.
Did I say yet that I miss a bunch of people? 'Cause I've been thinking it this whole time.
Partly that helps to make me more informed, but also it's got me following the slippery slope of this one thing begets the next and the next making the current political landscape the result of something happening centuries ago. This, of course, was always the case, what with time generally moving forward (at least that's how we, as a collective, experience it- I'd rather not speak to the individuals experience) but when things jump out in hindsight as so blatantly connected, it feels weird. Mostly it's that jumping out that feels weird. Things shouldn't jump out at you.
Two for flinching.
Probably an hour and a half ago, approximately when that jumping out occured, I had the image of America as a hot, barren, boring desert that I had proto-formed in me not from any obvious political maneuvering from an outside party, but from family "vacations" of travelling through the states (the quotes around "vacations" aren't meant to indicate these trips were terrible, just that the more prominent ones were us in a car moving, not vacationing, from one side of the continent to the other, but these trips were virtually identical to a road trip vacation, so I'm categorizing them as the same)
anyway- that american image immediately yielded a counterpart- that part of the road trip where you wake up, you realize that you were sleeping after all (it's impossible to sleep in a car!) and you half heartedly focus on where you are or may be, and like in a pulp detective story you've got a bright orange light beaming in through the only nearly drawn blinds that leaves a bar of that dim light square across your eyes, and then goes away, and it's back, and goes away, and it's back, and goes away, and you finally turn your head to see that it's the highway lights, that you're getting close to Toronto, or London, or Vancouver, and you feel like you're almost home. And if you are almost home you get really tired, because you know that the final ten minute stretch will go forever, and when then finally passes you have to drag yourself out of the car, drag your pillow, wait for dad or mom to get to the door and open up so you can scramble for bed, trying to hold onto that tiredness you still had in the car even as that tiredness is saying "I'm not going anywhere".
OR if you aren't even close to home, maybe you don't live in a city right now, or this is a city somewhere in that central time zone, and it's 2 in the morning (according to SOME watch, but maybe we can get that hour back if we go far enough...) and you've waken up and because you're so very far from anywhere you are now totally awake, and can't believe you were ever asleep in the first place (it's impossible to sleep in the car!) and you look at whoever is driving and this was a long time ago.
*Long breath*
I sent a message to a friend of mine just a bit ago about seeing a movie. At the end I paused and thought about our past times together, and all the things this person has done for me. Maybe not a lot in the grand scheme, but important to me. I ended the message with an out-of-nowhere 'thank you', that can be taken as just an ideosyncratic send off, a 'you'rs truly,' that feels off but is still just a good-bye, when in reality it's a 'thank you for this and this and this...'
I'm 70 pages from finishing this book on "birdmen", the history of guys trying to make like Icarus. Okay, well, they often succeed in making like Icarus, in that 99.9% of them are killed doing some incredibly hairbrained jump with a set of wings. I'll have to come back with the names of some notables, there's a lot so it's hard to remember. Clem Sohn was a sort of grand daddy of the 20th century bat-men, and there was this guy... I forget. He was the next big name. And Sutten (I'll get back to whether that's the correct name/spelling later) was both a parachutist/birdman- but was just about the only modern one mentioned thus far to be an engineer who, you know, TESTED his equipment before jumping out of planes. Something which really helped with the whole not dying thing.
Ugh. It's 4:53 in the morning (and that's only because of the hour of saving grace provided by the clock change) and I haven't acomplished anything today. My beard needs some serious upkeep and attention, something it hasn't been getting for about the past two weeks.
Don't worry, that doesn't include neck beard shaving. I've got that beast well in hand.
Did I say yet that I miss a bunch of people? 'Cause I've been thinking it this whole time.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
If you're wondering whether or not your tire has blown out- it hasn't.
Just taking some time to empty my text message history- I know that's an easy enough thing to do for most, but because I'm neurotic that way I have to stop and record everything I send and recieve- an endeavor mitigated by the fact that I don't really deal with a whole lot of texts here. I still wait until the box is nearly full, so yes, it takes some time.
I just reduced my inbox to 50 when I started working on my outbox. I had gotten maybe ten done (leaving me with about 65-70 to go) when I accidentally erased all of my outbox. It's hard not to laugh at this. So I did. But I also laughed a bit out of relief- I just saved myself a lot of work.
Just throwing this out there- driving along Richmond street yesterday I saw a guys tire blow out. I laughed because it was so awesome, but then I felt pretty bad about the situation, it's going to be a rough trip home for that guy. That was yesterday, so I'm mostly just mentioning it because, you know, it was awesome.
Took yesterday off the novel writing... which means I've only done the one day so far. Two days behind, not a good sign. But I can catch up, no big deal. Watching an interview with Jeff Lemire today he stresses the difference between character work (his "Sweet Tooth" book) versus more plot driven fare (your standard super hero stuff). While I would have liked my story here to serve as a comparison and contrast between the romantic/heroic traditions of the knight, samurai, and cowboy (well sure, it sounds silly when you put it like that), and yes, some of that will inevitably happen inspite of myself, I haven't plotted enough, or figured out the characters enough, that they can realistically bounce off one another as unique. They were always supposed to be three sides of the same coin (maybe that metaphor doesn't work here...) but at this point, unless they grow radically apart, I'm going to be writing pretty much three of the same guy.
Not an ideal situation character wise, but there's nothing to stop a reliance on a plot driven story.
I just reduced my inbox to 50 when I started working on my outbox. I had gotten maybe ten done (leaving me with about 65-70 to go) when I accidentally erased all of my outbox. It's hard not to laugh at this. So I did. But I also laughed a bit out of relief- I just saved myself a lot of work.
Just throwing this out there- driving along Richmond street yesterday I saw a guys tire blow out. I laughed because it was so awesome, but then I felt pretty bad about the situation, it's going to be a rough trip home for that guy. That was yesterday, so I'm mostly just mentioning it because, you know, it was awesome.
Took yesterday off the novel writing... which means I've only done the one day so far. Two days behind, not a good sign. But I can catch up, no big deal. Watching an interview with Jeff Lemire today he stresses the difference between character work (his "Sweet Tooth" book) versus more plot driven fare (your standard super hero stuff). While I would have liked my story here to serve as a comparison and contrast between the romantic/heroic traditions of the knight, samurai, and cowboy (well sure, it sounds silly when you put it like that), and yes, some of that will inevitably happen inspite of myself, I haven't plotted enough, or figured out the characters enough, that they can realistically bounce off one another as unique. They were always supposed to be three sides of the same coin (maybe that metaphor doesn't work here...) but at this point, unless they grow radically apart, I'm going to be writing pretty much three of the same guy.
Not an ideal situation character wise, but there's nothing to stop a reliance on a plot driven story.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
My title for now is "November Novel". A bad sign.
Just taking a little break from my writing for this november novel- I was getting pretty into the bad prose and I just couldn't stand it, I turned it up a notch, inserted my usual narrative voice, and rendered it supremely silly. That's how it goes with me- but the story was going to be silly from the get go considering the subject matter.
Now my taking a break usually indicates a loss of momentum, and you're bang on with that one- I'm at a point where I can't just write something silly, but have to actually organize it so that the characters go where I want them to go. Not much of a problem when I've planned out all the beats of a story, but a) it's been a while since I've done any real story writing and b) because this is a sudden jump-in-write-a-novel-for-november thing, even though I had the concept in my head beforehand, I really hadn't worked out all the why's and wherefores be fores.
But instead of jumping in on November first I took a little time to think of something, and so I've got a little sense of how it'll work, but beyond that I can't really afford any more time to figure it out- to reach the 50 000 word mark I have to write 1700 per day, and starting on the second, obviously, leaves me 1700 words behind.
Yes, it's just for fun, but still, gotta keep up with the joneses- especially since it's that competetive aspect that will keep me writing throughout the month, and I imagine that kind of continuous creativity will be a great learning experience.
Ah well, the Daily Show/Colbert Report hour of distraction is over, the tv is once again off and I am alone. Sounds like I can get back to it.
Now my taking a break usually indicates a loss of momentum, and you're bang on with that one- I'm at a point where I can't just write something silly, but have to actually organize it so that the characters go where I want them to go. Not much of a problem when I've planned out all the beats of a story, but a) it's been a while since I've done any real story writing and b) because this is a sudden jump-in-write-a-novel-for-november thing, even though I had the concept in my head beforehand, I really hadn't worked out all the why's and wherefores be fores.
But instead of jumping in on November first I took a little time to think of something, and so I've got a little sense of how it'll work, but beyond that I can't really afford any more time to figure it out- to reach the 50 000 word mark I have to write 1700 per day, and starting on the second, obviously, leaves me 1700 words behind.
Yes, it's just for fun, but still, gotta keep up with the joneses- especially since it's that competetive aspect that will keep me writing throughout the month, and I imagine that kind of continuous creativity will be a great learning experience.
Ah well, the Daily Show/Colbert Report hour of distraction is over, the tv is once again off and I am alone. Sounds like I can get back to it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
