Skipped the McDonalds breakfast for dinner today. Had a craving for macaroni and cheese. Picked up a frozen version at the store, had a glass of milk, after posting here will have apple for dessert.
It's interesting to note the progression of interest in the food info on the sides of boxes. Before, all that mattered was calories, because I nkew I wasn't getting enough. The next priority was vitamin C, then A. I've gone through kicks where high fibre was where it was at.
Currently I'm on a calcium kick. Doing the math, I just haven't been getting enough, at least not from classic sources in the dairy group. The hope is that this will prove to be that one factor that leads to my toe ouchies.
Science!
The last bit of trek home, with a frozen mac and cheese box in my hand (I covered this already) and complicated series of thoughts zipped through my brain (not that the thoughts/concepts themselves were difficult, just keeping track of the stream of consciousness, which I didn't really do, so naturally thinking back on it it at least seems complicated) there was something about politics, and then "objectivism" just popped into my head.
It may have been linked in part to the political stuff, but what I'd prefer to think it is was just a delayed message bomb from when I saw some guy on the subway with a copy of Atlas Shrugged 14 hours ago.
In the Toronto Star, I guess yesterdays paper, there's an article about "Whoah Superman Renounces American Citizenship".
It was a short back up story in this weeks Action Comics #900 by David S. Goyer. That guy. He has this huge drive to inject superheroes into real life situations, this story has Superman take part in a non violent protest in Iran I believe, which has ramifications on the American home front. So Superman says "I'm tired of my actions being construed as American policy. I've been thinking about renouncing my American citizenship to deal with this."
Not that that would EVER work in story or out. He will always be seen as an American icon, and Superman is powerless to stop it. Mwahahaha! Luthor's brilliant plan has come to fruition!
I assume.
Unless done REALLY well, the insert-super-guy-into-real-life-situation is usually just a big turn off. Because it usually makes zero sense. The story goes like this:
Populace- "Oh no! Hunger in the middle east! What shall we do?"
Superman- "I will save you!"
Populace- "Superman, yay!"
Populace mixed with real world or SOMETHING- "Hold on, Superman! Even though you can do this and this and this, you CAN'T solve hunger, because you're just a comic, and having you 'defeat' hunger in a comic would trivialize hunger in the real world, so now you're hands are tied. But go ahead and say something about how humanity has to find its way on its own."
Superman- "Shucks. I guess even a Superman can't defeat... hunger!"
Naturally, you can replace "hunger" with "war" or "aids" or whatever, and the story always plays out the same, and it's annoying me.
That reminds me of a couple years ago, I did a random review of an issue of Supergirl that really blew me away. It was following the above formula with "cancer" being the word of the day, we're getting near the end of the comic, Superman is teaching her that lesson about how "there's somethings even we can't do" and then at the end of the comic... Supergirl promises a little boy that she will cure cancer!
Trust me, it was amazing, mostly because it broke out of that stupid box I've been talking about. I'm sure the story ended on that same note of defeat, but for that one issue- what a ride!
Hmm, I said I was going to talk about "Source Code" today, but I still want to eat that apple, and I've gotta get ready for bed and everything, plus this has already been a pretty decent post as is, so I'll call it a night. Morning.
So, as far as my regular quota is concerned:
Mi-shoan Come-plete
Show Me Yo Moves
Falcoooo- yeah okay you get it I'm out of here.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
On good covers and looong quotes.
Lots of reviews and whatnot to get to, so let's finish start... why did I type that? I'm super tured. Tired. Instead of sleeping all day I went out and did stuff, renewed my drivers licence and health card, and (an unexpected turn) hung out with a buddy and and read over his script for a short action film. We spent three hours discussing it, it was pretty fun, but I was originally planning on watching Community on my night off... I missed it again! I suck!
I think the next time I get interviewed for something and I'm asked about my greatest weakness I may say "my unsophisticated palette." I visited Tim Hortons (that in itself a rare move for me) for a sandwich and wildberry smoothie, I was asked if the smoothie was too sweet.
Me: "Uh, it's not too sweet."
Tim Hortons worker: "It's actually more sour."
THAT'S what that flavour is! Sour! Eventually I'll learn what flavours taste like.
Also, the hole in my pocket has finally gotten large enough for my cell phone to slip through and slide down my leg to the ground. A really weird feeling, caught me by surprise.
Alright, so what have I finished reading over here?
There's volume two of Grant Morrison's Invisibles series- I'm wondering about the origins of the punk movement in Britain, it's so prevalent in the series. I may have actual opinions on this... but again. Tured.
And besides, this book caught me by surprise a bit.
What I've actually got on deck is "Ernest Hemingway On Writing", "The Torrents of Spring" and "The Invisible Detective".
I had to be careful with this one- instead of some kind of essay format it's actually a collection of quotations either from personal letters or relevant story excerpts. What's to stop me from pulling a bajillion quotes out of the book and spending forever on that? Nothing but my firm will.
So here's a bunch of quotes:
In response to the question from the inspiration for Robert Cohn in The Sun Also Rises "But why did you make me cry all the time?"
I said, "Listen, if that is you then the narrator must be me. Do you think that I had my prick shot off or that if you and I had ever had a fight I would not have knocked the shit out of you? We boxed often enough so you know that. And I'll tell you a secret: you do cry an awful lot for a man." - Selected Letters, p. 764
"As a man you know who is right and who is wrong. You have to make decisions and enforce them. As a writer you should not judge. You should understand... Always think of people." - By-Line: Ernest Hemingway, p. 219-220
And yeah, I'll do the whole long run of this quote, it's pretty awesome, you start to forget he's talking about writing, instead of actually just beating up other writers:
"Hope this doesn't sound over confident. Am a man without any ambition, except to be champion of the world, I wouldn't fight Dr. Tolstoi in a 20 round bout because I know he would knock my ears off. The Dr. had terrific wind and could go on forever and then some. But I would take him on for six and he would never hit me and would knock the shit out of him and maybe knock him out. He is easy to hit. But boy how HE can hit. If I can live up to 60 I can beat him. (MAYBE)'
'For your information I started out trying to beat dead writers that I knew how good they were. (Excuse vernacular) I tried for Mr. Turgenieff first and it wasn't too hard. Tried for Mr. Maupassant (won't concede him the de) and it took four of the best stories to beat him. He's beaten and if he was around he would know it. Then I tried for another guy (am getting embarrassed or embare-assed now from bragging; or stateing) and I think I fought a draw with him. This other dead character.'
'Mr. Henry James I would just thumb him once like the first time he grabbed and then hit him once where he had no balls and ask the referee to stop it.'
'There are some guys nobody could ever beat like Mr. Shakespeare (The Champion) and Mr. Anonymous. But would be glad any time, if in training, to go twenty with Mr. Cervantes in his own home town (Alcala de Henares) and beat the shit out of him. Although Mr. C. very smart and would be learning all the time and would probably beat you in a return match. The THIRD fight people would pay to see...'
'In the big book I hope to take Mr. Melville and Mr. Doestoevsky, they are coupled as a stable entry, and throw lots of mud in their faces because the track isn't fast. But you can only run so many of those kind of races. They take it out of you.'
'Know this sounds like bragging but Jeezoo Chrise you have to have confidence to be a champion and that is the only thing I ever wished to be." - Selected Letters, p. 673
Yeah, maybe I shouldn't have used the whole thing, but pretty awesome, right?
The Torrents of Spring is interesting as it's Hemingway imitating the style of Henry Fielding, a comedic, fourth wall breaking style that I greatly enjoyed under Fielding via "Tom Jones", and I'm surprised with how well Hemingway pulls it off. Apparently he's got mimicry skills, who knew?
Lastly is the Invisible Detective by Justin Richards. I was given the book a few years ago, but never got around to it. I'm not quite finished it yet, but it turns out to be more of a kids book that isn't particularly well written. HOWEVER I think the cover image is amazing, so I'll leave you with that.
I think the next time I get interviewed for something and I'm asked about my greatest weakness I may say "my unsophisticated palette." I visited Tim Hortons (that in itself a rare move for me) for a sandwich and wildberry smoothie, I was asked if the smoothie was too sweet.
Me: "Uh, it's not too sweet."
Tim Hortons worker: "It's actually more sour."
THAT'S what that flavour is! Sour! Eventually I'll learn what flavours taste like.
Also, the hole in my pocket has finally gotten large enough for my cell phone to slip through and slide down my leg to the ground. A really weird feeling, caught me by surprise.
Alright, so what have I finished reading over here?
There's volume two of Grant Morrison's Invisibles series- I'm wondering about the origins of the punk movement in Britain, it's so prevalent in the series. I may have actual opinions on this... but again. Tured.
And besides, this book caught me by surprise a bit.
What I've actually got on deck is "Ernest Hemingway On Writing", "The Torrents of Spring" and "The Invisible Detective".
I had to be careful with this one- instead of some kind of essay format it's actually a collection of quotations either from personal letters or relevant story excerpts. What's to stop me from pulling a bajillion quotes out of the book and spending forever on that? Nothing but my firm will.
So here's a bunch of quotes:
In response to the question from the inspiration for Robert Cohn in The Sun Also Rises "But why did you make me cry all the time?"
I said, "Listen, if that is you then the narrator must be me. Do you think that I had my prick shot off or that if you and I had ever had a fight I would not have knocked the shit out of you? We boxed often enough so you know that. And I'll tell you a secret: you do cry an awful lot for a man." - Selected Letters, p. 764
"As a man you know who is right and who is wrong. You have to make decisions and enforce them. As a writer you should not judge. You should understand... Always think of people." - By-Line: Ernest Hemingway, p. 219-220
And yeah, I'll do the whole long run of this quote, it's pretty awesome, you start to forget he's talking about writing, instead of actually just beating up other writers:
"Hope this doesn't sound over confident. Am a man without any ambition, except to be champion of the world, I wouldn't fight Dr. Tolstoi in a 20 round bout because I know he would knock my ears off. The Dr. had terrific wind and could go on forever and then some. But I would take him on for six and he would never hit me and would knock the shit out of him and maybe knock him out. He is easy to hit. But boy how HE can hit. If I can live up to 60 I can beat him. (MAYBE)'
'For your information I started out trying to beat dead writers that I knew how good they were. (Excuse vernacular) I tried for Mr. Turgenieff first and it wasn't too hard. Tried for Mr. Maupassant (won't concede him the de) and it took four of the best stories to beat him. He's beaten and if he was around he would know it. Then I tried for another guy (am getting embarrassed or embare-assed now from bragging; or stateing) and I think I fought a draw with him. This other dead character.'
'Mr. Henry James I would just thumb him once like the first time he grabbed and then hit him once where he had no balls and ask the referee to stop it.'
'There are some guys nobody could ever beat like Mr. Shakespeare (The Champion) and Mr. Anonymous. But would be glad any time, if in training, to go twenty with Mr. Cervantes in his own home town (Alcala de Henares) and beat the shit out of him. Although Mr. C. very smart and would be learning all the time and would probably beat you in a return match. The THIRD fight people would pay to see...'
'In the big book I hope to take Mr. Melville and Mr. Doestoevsky, they are coupled as a stable entry, and throw lots of mud in their faces because the track isn't fast. But you can only run so many of those kind of races. They take it out of you.'
'Know this sounds like bragging but Jeezoo Chrise you have to have confidence to be a champion and that is the only thing I ever wished to be." - Selected Letters, p. 673
Yeah, maybe I shouldn't have used the whole thing, but pretty awesome, right?
The Torrents of Spring is interesting as it's Hemingway imitating the style of Henry Fielding, a comedic, fourth wall breaking style that I greatly enjoyed under Fielding via "Tom Jones", and I'm surprised with how well Hemingway pulls it off. Apparently he's got mimicry skills, who knew?
Lastly is the Invisible Detective by Justin Richards. I was given the book a few years ago, but never got around to it. I'm not quite finished it yet, but it turns out to be more of a kids book that isn't particularly well written. HOWEVER I think the cover image is amazing, so I'll leave you with that.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Tropical Topical Topics. It's not really tropical, I just wanted the word.
I was about to read this one guys blog post, going by the topic it sounded like it would be a short and sweet affair... but it just keeps going!
Window closed.
It feels weird that I'm complaining about a guy writing on and on... a criticism that has been aimed at my own comic review work at times, but I've honestly never seen it.
I mean come on, I average about 500 words, topping out at a 1000 (and if it's 1000 then that's probably the only review I did that day). It takes two minutes to read, come on.
That's part of why I'm so fond of people who take the time to read anything I've written- it's apparently a rare gift to be able to stare at a screen for three minutes.
I've actually had occasion to write a personal e-mail to someone, and when I ask about it later have them tell me they didn't even read it. That was years ago, but it burns me up. Oh, they got it, they just didn't read it.
ANYway- I'm cutting it really close with old April. I've got three days to write three posts to reach my quota. Fortunately (I've been using that word EVERYWHERE lately, it's getting on my nerves. Alright, I'm declaring a moratorium on "fortunately") I've got some topics on hand for just such an occasion.
In reverse order of when they will be discussed: My thoughts on and experience of the film "Source Code" (because that should in theory be a relatively short post, and I know I'll be hard up for time the last day of the month), followed by my recounting of the books I've just finished, and for this post that I'm already well into I'll delve into that timely but dangerous subject of politics.
Sort of. I'm more thinking of electoral reform.
When I think back on how the system of government works here in Canada I flash back to my high school law teacher (well, the one I remember, I'm sure there was another person before I moved to Toronto...) Mr. Katz.
Mr. Katz was a funny guy, he kind of reminds me of Bill Maher or Denis Leary, with the main difference being I actually like Mr. Katz (sorry guys, John Stewart is great because when people are idiots he talks about it as though he's sharing this information with the viewer, you two sound like you're constantly accusing the viewer of being idiots, and I don't have the energy to constantly defend myself against a prerecorded performance). Maybe he just didn't care what he said, if I'm remembering right it was his last year before retiring. Regardless, Mr. Katz was pretty cool, and here's what he said about our system of government:
"It's stupid- if you want to elect the leader of the party then, whoever it is, you have to vote for the meatball in your riding, or if you have a really good representative but don't like his leader, then you're screwed that way."
Yeah, don't super quote me on that, but that's the general idea.
I was mostly reminded about that, not just because of election fever, but because of the Harper assertion that a coalition government isn't legitimate. That it isn't the will of the people. And in a sense, that statement isn't so far off.
The problem (not that I'll take the time to figure out the whole definition of "the problem") is that we're operating under a mish-mash of U.S. political envy/"knowledge" and the actual system we've got in Canada. So people are under the impression that a coalition isn't legitimate. It helps when they're specifically told "a coalition isn't legitimate".
"You hear that fellers? Coalition governments aren't legitimate!"
All the attack ads over the leaders of the parties, over "their" policies, and that's how people will be deciding over random guys A, B, and C in their own riding!
As a quick side note, there's now this one attack ad on the NDP that starts out mentioning the Conservative tax cuts. The words themselves are saying those tax cuts were and are a good and helpful thing, and I won't argue that point, I don't have the numbers for that, BUT the narrator of the ad sounds like she's being sarcastic over this point.
"Suuuuure those were good tax cuts by the conservatives..." - paid for by the conservatives. I find that funny. And then I think the whole thing is disingenuous, attacking the NDP only after they become a real political threat, as opposed to spending the entire campaign discussing the merits of each-ish of the party's platforms. AND there's a Liberal dig in there as well.
Well, the narrative of the ad itself isn't very cohesive, but man, it definitely sticks it to the maximum groups possible.
Back on track: I'm thinking I'd rather the focus be entirely on campaigns between MP's in individual ridings. Let each area determine who's best to represent them, and then have those people meet up in Ottawa (or wherever, maybe Quebec, throw those guys the bone, I don't care), only THEN would leaders be chosen, nominated and elected after the fact by the representatives of the people.
Also, if we could get rid of the need for the short-hand of different party banners to explain the difference between candidates, that'd be good. It's harder to do, but I'd rather we just knew the MP's themselves and their beliefs, and then elected who was best for the job.
As opposed to our current method of one day going to a school, looking at a card, not knowing any of the names, and then saying, "guess I'm voting for you, glad to meet you...r name."
That's of course only my recommendation if we wanted to embrace our Canadian-ness. We could also swing the other way, full on American style like the ads would have us think we already have it.
I wouldn't necessarily mind switching to that full on American style, just so long as it's one or the other!
Oh politics, ye dangerous and revealing of subjects.
Peace out!
*drops microphone*
Window closed.
It feels weird that I'm complaining about a guy writing on and on... a criticism that has been aimed at my own comic review work at times, but I've honestly never seen it.
I mean come on, I average about 500 words, topping out at a 1000 (and if it's 1000 then that's probably the only review I did that day). It takes two minutes to read, come on.
That's part of why I'm so fond of people who take the time to read anything I've written- it's apparently a rare gift to be able to stare at a screen for three minutes.
I've actually had occasion to write a personal e-mail to someone, and when I ask about it later have them tell me they didn't even read it. That was years ago, but it burns me up. Oh, they got it, they just didn't read it.
ANYway- I'm cutting it really close with old April. I've got three days to write three posts to reach my quota. Fortunately (I've been using that word EVERYWHERE lately, it's getting on my nerves. Alright, I'm declaring a moratorium on "fortunately") I've got some topics on hand for just such an occasion.
In reverse order of when they will be discussed: My thoughts on and experience of the film "Source Code" (because that should in theory be a relatively short post, and I know I'll be hard up for time the last day of the month), followed by my recounting of the books I've just finished, and for this post that I'm already well into I'll delve into that timely but dangerous subject of politics.
Sort of. I'm more thinking of electoral reform.
When I think back on how the system of government works here in Canada I flash back to my high school law teacher (well, the one I remember, I'm sure there was another person before I moved to Toronto...) Mr. Katz.
Mr. Katz was a funny guy, he kind of reminds me of Bill Maher or Denis Leary, with the main difference being I actually like Mr. Katz (sorry guys, John Stewart is great because when people are idiots he talks about it as though he's sharing this information with the viewer, you two sound like you're constantly accusing the viewer of being idiots, and I don't have the energy to constantly defend myself against a prerecorded performance). Maybe he just didn't care what he said, if I'm remembering right it was his last year before retiring. Regardless, Mr. Katz was pretty cool, and here's what he said about our system of government:
"It's stupid- if you want to elect the leader of the party then, whoever it is, you have to vote for the meatball in your riding, or if you have a really good representative but don't like his leader, then you're screwed that way."
Yeah, don't super quote me on that, but that's the general idea.
I was mostly reminded about that, not just because of election fever, but because of the Harper assertion that a coalition government isn't legitimate. That it isn't the will of the people. And in a sense, that statement isn't so far off.
The problem (not that I'll take the time to figure out the whole definition of "the problem") is that we're operating under a mish-mash of U.S. political envy/"knowledge" and the actual system we've got in Canada. So people are under the impression that a coalition isn't legitimate. It helps when they're specifically told "a coalition isn't legitimate".
"You hear that fellers? Coalition governments aren't legitimate!"
All the attack ads over the leaders of the parties, over "their" policies, and that's how people will be deciding over random guys A, B, and C in their own riding!
As a quick side note, there's now this one attack ad on the NDP that starts out mentioning the Conservative tax cuts. The words themselves are saying those tax cuts were and are a good and helpful thing, and I won't argue that point, I don't have the numbers for that, BUT the narrator of the ad sounds like she's being sarcastic over this point.
"Suuuuure those were good tax cuts by the conservatives..." - paid for by the conservatives. I find that funny. And then I think the whole thing is disingenuous, attacking the NDP only after they become a real political threat, as opposed to spending the entire campaign discussing the merits of each-ish of the party's platforms. AND there's a Liberal dig in there as well.
Well, the narrative of the ad itself isn't very cohesive, but man, it definitely sticks it to the maximum groups possible.
Back on track: I'm thinking I'd rather the focus be entirely on campaigns between MP's in individual ridings. Let each area determine who's best to represent them, and then have those people meet up in Ottawa (or wherever, maybe Quebec, throw those guys the bone, I don't care), only THEN would leaders be chosen, nominated and elected after the fact by the representatives of the people.
Also, if we could get rid of the need for the short-hand of different party banners to explain the difference between candidates, that'd be good. It's harder to do, but I'd rather we just knew the MP's themselves and their beliefs, and then elected who was best for the job.
As opposed to our current method of one day going to a school, looking at a card, not knowing any of the names, and then saying, "guess I'm voting for you, glad to meet you...r name."
That's of course only my recommendation if we wanted to embrace our Canadian-ness. We could also swing the other way, full on American style like the ads would have us think we already have it.
I wouldn't necessarily mind switching to that full on American style, just so long as it's one or the other!
Oh politics, ye dangerous and revealing of subjects.
Peace out!
*drops microphone*
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Plus the theme song to Psych is catchy too
Went to bed a bit early I think today- 4am, now it's 7:30 and I've been up since 7.
So I'll just take a quick break to drink water, type here, then give bed another shot for awhile.
I heard about this show, Psych, a while ago and it really piqued my interest. I'd read all about it over at tvtropes.org- it's about a guy so good at observation the police don't believe that he ISN'T working with the criminals he gives tips on, so to save himself from jail he pretends he's psychic, and now he operates a psychic detective agency. A cop show with some sillyness to it, that's like two of my favourite things right there.
So a couple of weeks ago my youngest brother (whom I don't always get along with) is looking for something to download to watch on his X-Boxamajig and he scrolls past Psych as an option. I tell him to give that one a shot (mostly cause, you know, I've been wanting to try it forver myself)- not only was it indeed awesome, but my brother really liked it too. Like, a lot.
So he's seen something like 24 episodes at this point, mostly while I wasn't around, and when I WAS around I was trying to write here or do reviews or something, so I was torn between two worlds.
Finally yesterday I picked up that X-mawatzit controller and had a marathon watching session.
It's pretty nice that this is a show we can both enjoy... even if it's not necessarily at the same time.
Of the two main characters, Shawn (the "psychic" one) and Gus (the best friend dragged along for the ride) I was worried about Shawn's slickness, charming his way through life would get on my nerves- it hasn't, but I can easily see that as a fair complaint from someone watching the show.
It's not so much a problem for me, I'm thinking, because a) it's just a tv show and b) Gus keeps coming back for more, enabling Shawn, while every once in a while getting in a lick of his own in.
Plus both of these actors are insanely funny, with Shawn basically pulling off a modern day Ace Ventura and Gus having the best "half angry sorta resisting but then going along with it" reaction shots... hmm, I guess it's sort of a George Costanza thing? But without so much yelling, and is much smarter (as he'll be happy to tell you.)
So alright then.
I've got Offspring's "Self Esteem" stuck in my head... at least I got to check out all the lyrics just now, maybe that'll get it out of my system. As a rule I don't really care that much for songs that sort of put down the self, so there's this one, "Creep" and... googling... Everclear's "She's So High Above Me".
Curse their catchiness!
So I'll just take a quick break to drink water, type here, then give bed another shot for awhile.
I heard about this show, Psych, a while ago and it really piqued my interest. I'd read all about it over at tvtropes.org- it's about a guy so good at observation the police don't believe that he ISN'T working with the criminals he gives tips on, so to save himself from jail he pretends he's psychic, and now he operates a psychic detective agency. A cop show with some sillyness to it, that's like two of my favourite things right there.
So a couple of weeks ago my youngest brother (whom I don't always get along with) is looking for something to download to watch on his X-Boxamajig and he scrolls past Psych as an option. I tell him to give that one a shot (mostly cause, you know, I've been wanting to try it forver myself)- not only was it indeed awesome, but my brother really liked it too. Like, a lot.
So he's seen something like 24 episodes at this point, mostly while I wasn't around, and when I WAS around I was trying to write here or do reviews or something, so I was torn between two worlds.
Finally yesterday I picked up that X-mawatzit controller and had a marathon watching session.
It's pretty nice that this is a show we can both enjoy... even if it's not necessarily at the same time.
Of the two main characters, Shawn (the "psychic" one) and Gus (the best friend dragged along for the ride) I was worried about Shawn's slickness, charming his way through life would get on my nerves- it hasn't, but I can easily see that as a fair complaint from someone watching the show.
It's not so much a problem for me, I'm thinking, because a) it's just a tv show and b) Gus keeps coming back for more, enabling Shawn, while every once in a while getting in a lick of his own in.
Plus both of these actors are insanely funny, with Shawn basically pulling off a modern day Ace Ventura and Gus having the best "half angry sorta resisting but then going along with it" reaction shots... hmm, I guess it's sort of a George Costanza thing? But without so much yelling, and is much smarter (as he'll be happy to tell you.)
So alright then.
I've got Offspring's "Self Esteem" stuck in my head... at least I got to check out all the lyrics just now, maybe that'll get it out of my system. As a rule I don't really care that much for songs that sort of put down the self, so there's this one, "Creep" and... googling... Everclear's "She's So High Above Me".
Curse their catchiness!
Friday, April 22, 2011
The Sun Also Rises and Men Without Women discussed in sparse detail
Wanted to get a semi decent dinner, but forgot the Metro was closed today, so once again it's McDonald's breakfast for dinner.
Isn't it funny how you ALWAYS remember what a bad idea the mcgriddle is once you're halfway through eating it? Fascinating.
I keep running out of time in the day to come over and write here, so I'm writing a bit before bed again. I don't have work this evening, so I anticipate sleeping in until 5 or 6.
Just before leaving work I finished the collection "Men Without Women", so there's that plus "The Sun Also Rises" that I've got under my Hemingway belt so far.
The terse style that is his trademark makes brilliant sense when you recall his roots in the newspaper biz. You know Hemingway was a foreign correspondant for the Toronto Star? That's pretty cool. I think he was writing for them from France and Chicago. Not at the same time.
One problem I had was that Hemingway is very much a joint production- it's not action then subtext, it's all subtext. Amazingly, he jabs you with short facts, but the result is a poetry that can easily be interpreted (or misinterpreted) however you like- I forgot to say what the problem was. It's that when it's late at night and you're trying to stay awake, reading a page that describes very little doesn't help me. I have one job, stay awake!, and this guy is sabotaging me!
Hemingway is a born screen writer- true, the action is too light to please Robert McKee, but the dialogue really is incredibly strong. Only occasionally will "... he said." pop up, for the most part you jump in from the last pronoun and keep track in your own head who's talking. This helps the dialogue flow and feel (and sound) very naturalistic. The epic downside is when the character isn't so vocally defined, and maybe the line was a little confusing as to who started talking. There are definitely times I had to reread a passage an extra time or three to make sure I knew who was talking...
This man LOVES bull fighting. I enjoy his passion for it, but I could use a glossary for some of the terms. Or maybe a Harry Potter style explanation of the rules of bull fighting. You grow up, watch Adam West bull fight, watch Bugs Bunny bull fight, and you think it's just one guy with a cape and a bull, but it turns out I don't know anything, and there're at least four guys operating in a bull fight, with the uh matador(?) being like the lead singer of the group.
Jake Barnes is the protagonist for "The Sun Also Rises"- very easy to forget the protagonists names, most everything is written in first person. But at least this guy has the same last name as the current Captain America, so there's a mnemonic for you.
Oh man, yeah, I did want to copy this out. The last bit from the book:
"Oh, Jake," Brett said, "we could have had such a damned good time together."
Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly pressing Brett against me.
"Yes," I said. "Isn't it pretty to think so?"
THE END
There's a lot compressed in there; a tantalizing touch of intimacy, theirs being a world of direction from a world on its guard, the regret regarding Jake's war injury caused impotence (and by extension, regret about the war in general, and how their lives may have been otherwise) and there's a pretty blatant gender role reversal with this dialogue as well.
Getting tired, losing steam... here's a rundown of what I think the short stories in "Men Without Women" are about (and forgive me if I'm off base... but like I said, nothing is explicitly stated here):
The Undefeated- a disgraced, aging bull fighter has one last shot in the ring against a bull that seems impervious to his sword. He's hospitalized, but he got the bull. Pretty straightforward.
In Another Country- a rehabilitation clinic tries to support a hopeless patient, when what's really getting him down is the death of his wife <- that was all in the last paragraph, most of it is a wounded american hanging out with other wounded soldiers- but he's an outcast because he got his medals simply for being an american, whereas the others were heroes. Interestingly, while the american is disliked by the others in private, in public they stick together because EVERYONE ELSE in the community dislikes the soldiers.
Hills Like White Elephants- a couple is travelling to a mental health clinic to treat the woman, and the whole thing is very rough on the man. This is actually the story where I was really going "whaaaat?". I'm pretty pleased with my interpretation of the thing, so no one tell me if I'm wrong. Oh, but if I'm right, tell me you'd never have figured it out in a million years. That'd be pretty sweet.
The Killers- a Nick Adams story (that's supposed to be the big author insertion character, right?) about a couple of assasins looking for a dude at a restaurant. I was supposed to have read this one years ago, but I didn't. It was probably in a course kit I didn't buy. A fun read though.
Che Ti Dice La Patria?- This one was awesome, two guys travel through, uh, Italy I guess (my geography skills...) and let some dude ride on their roof for a bit, get propositioned at a restaurant, go to ANOTEHR restaurant where there's no bathroom so the waiter takes the guy across the street to use one, and a police bicycle guy tickets them on a bogus charge and extorts some money out of them, and this is the last line of the story:
"The whole trip had taken only ten days. Naturally, in such a short trip, we had no opportunity to see how things were with the country or the people."
That's really funny. Not sure whether the narrator is being ironic or whether he genuinely thinks he missed out and it's just the author who's being ironic. Not sure, but that line made the story.
Fifty Grand- this is an awesome boxing story with a little bit of betting intrigue thrown in. Man, boxing is awesome in fiction. It would be in real life too, if not for the violence. And brain damage.
It also had, like, a reverse training montage- drinking to sleep, half hearted training... probably my favourite story in the bunch.
A Simple Enquiry- a major tries to figure out whether his orderly is gay. In the end he decides 'not gay'. Or is he? This was definitely left open for the sequel.
Ten Indians- a young Nick Adams comes home from a fourth of july celebration (I think that was it), gets his heart broken, realizes that life goes on:
"In the morning there was a big wind blowing and the waves were running high up on the beach and he was awake a long time before he remembered that his heart was broken."
A Canary For One- the main character, "American Lady", spends part of a train ride with a married couple from the states saying how only American men make fit husbands, and that's why she prevented her daughter from marrying this great guy from uh, Sweden maybe I forget. The last line tells us that this couple is actually getting divorced.
So American men don't necessarily make for a happy marriage, and she should have let her daughter be happy, instead of stealing her away, and now bringing her a canary for a present. I imagine the title is a play on "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush", at least that's what it reminds me of.
An Alpine Idyll- not sure what this was trying to get across... two guys are on a skiing vacation in spring, and they're told the tale of a peasant guy who used his wife's dead body as a lantern holder over the winter, because he couldn't take her for a funeral until the snow was gone. Could be the ending, when juxtaposed with the tourists complaining that a priest won't return their greeting, is supposed to illustrate how refinement and courseness are relative. Maybe, I don't know, I didn't really like this one.
A Pursuit Race- a guy gets hooked on drugs and loves his bed sheet. Which is fine, but his boss was in the room, so he got fired. I'm shortening this for the sake of going to bed sooner, but this was actually a pretty funny story.
Today is Friday- a short play about the Roman soldiers getting a drink after crucifying Jesus. Particularly interesting in that I happened to read this Good Friday story on Good Friday. Surprisingly reserved, it's actually not too far away from being something a church would actually perform.
Banal Story- seems to be written as a sort of advertisement for a paper, while also serving as a bookend to the first story, officially telling us of that bull fighters death.
Now I Lay Me- hmm, what is this one about... it's a little odd to describe. Nick Adams is in the war-esque, and he's afraid to sleep in the dark, so he spends his nights thinking about fishing spots, or praying for everyone he knows, especially his friend who wants him to get married, 'cause that'd solve Nick's worries. Nick, at the time of the telling of this tale, still wasn't married.
And those are all the stories! So THAT'S what happens to Men Without Women.
Well, that took way too long, good night, nurse!
Isn't it funny how you ALWAYS remember what a bad idea the mcgriddle is once you're halfway through eating it? Fascinating.
I keep running out of time in the day to come over and write here, so I'm writing a bit before bed again. I don't have work this evening, so I anticipate sleeping in until 5 or 6.
Just before leaving work I finished the collection "Men Without Women", so there's that plus "The Sun Also Rises" that I've got under my Hemingway belt so far.
The terse style that is his trademark makes brilliant sense when you recall his roots in the newspaper biz. You know Hemingway was a foreign correspondant for the Toronto Star? That's pretty cool. I think he was writing for them from France and Chicago. Not at the same time.
One problem I had was that Hemingway is very much a joint production- it's not action then subtext, it's all subtext. Amazingly, he jabs you with short facts, but the result is a poetry that can easily be interpreted (or misinterpreted) however you like- I forgot to say what the problem was. It's that when it's late at night and you're trying to stay awake, reading a page that describes very little doesn't help me. I have one job, stay awake!, and this guy is sabotaging me!
Hemingway is a born screen writer- true, the action is too light to please Robert McKee, but the dialogue really is incredibly strong. Only occasionally will "... he said." pop up, for the most part you jump in from the last pronoun and keep track in your own head who's talking. This helps the dialogue flow and feel (and sound) very naturalistic. The epic downside is when the character isn't so vocally defined, and maybe the line was a little confusing as to who started talking. There are definitely times I had to reread a passage an extra time or three to make sure I knew who was talking...
This man LOVES bull fighting. I enjoy his passion for it, but I could use a glossary for some of the terms. Or maybe a Harry Potter style explanation of the rules of bull fighting. You grow up, watch Adam West bull fight, watch Bugs Bunny bull fight, and you think it's just one guy with a cape and a bull, but it turns out I don't know anything, and there're at least four guys operating in a bull fight, with the uh matador(?) being like the lead singer of the group.
Jake Barnes is the protagonist for "The Sun Also Rises"- very easy to forget the protagonists names, most everything is written in first person. But at least this guy has the same last name as the current Captain America, so there's a mnemonic for you.
Oh man, yeah, I did want to copy this out. The last bit from the book:
"Oh, Jake," Brett said, "we could have had such a damned good time together."
Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly pressing Brett against me.
"Yes," I said. "Isn't it pretty to think so?"
THE END
There's a lot compressed in there; a tantalizing touch of intimacy, theirs being a world of direction from a world on its guard, the regret regarding Jake's war injury caused impotence (and by extension, regret about the war in general, and how their lives may have been otherwise) and there's a pretty blatant gender role reversal with this dialogue as well.
Getting tired, losing steam... here's a rundown of what I think the short stories in "Men Without Women" are about (and forgive me if I'm off base... but like I said, nothing is explicitly stated here):
The Undefeated- a disgraced, aging bull fighter has one last shot in the ring against a bull that seems impervious to his sword. He's hospitalized, but he got the bull. Pretty straightforward.
In Another Country- a rehabilitation clinic tries to support a hopeless patient, when what's really getting him down is the death of his wife <- that was all in the last paragraph, most of it is a wounded american hanging out with other wounded soldiers- but he's an outcast because he got his medals simply for being an american, whereas the others were heroes. Interestingly, while the american is disliked by the others in private, in public they stick together because EVERYONE ELSE in the community dislikes the soldiers.
Hills Like White Elephants- a couple is travelling to a mental health clinic to treat the woman, and the whole thing is very rough on the man. This is actually the story where I was really going "whaaaat?". I'm pretty pleased with my interpretation of the thing, so no one tell me if I'm wrong. Oh, but if I'm right, tell me you'd never have figured it out in a million years. That'd be pretty sweet.
The Killers- a Nick Adams story (that's supposed to be the big author insertion character, right?) about a couple of assasins looking for a dude at a restaurant. I was supposed to have read this one years ago, but I didn't. It was probably in a course kit I didn't buy. A fun read though.
Che Ti Dice La Patria?- This one was awesome, two guys travel through, uh, Italy I guess (my geography skills...) and let some dude ride on their roof for a bit, get propositioned at a restaurant, go to ANOTEHR restaurant where there's no bathroom so the waiter takes the guy across the street to use one, and a police bicycle guy tickets them on a bogus charge and extorts some money out of them, and this is the last line of the story:
"The whole trip had taken only ten days. Naturally, in such a short trip, we had no opportunity to see how things were with the country or the people."
That's really funny. Not sure whether the narrator is being ironic or whether he genuinely thinks he missed out and it's just the author who's being ironic. Not sure, but that line made the story.
Fifty Grand- this is an awesome boxing story with a little bit of betting intrigue thrown in. Man, boxing is awesome in fiction. It would be in real life too, if not for the violence. And brain damage.
It also had, like, a reverse training montage- drinking to sleep, half hearted training... probably my favourite story in the bunch.
A Simple Enquiry- a major tries to figure out whether his orderly is gay. In the end he decides 'not gay'. Or is he? This was definitely left open for the sequel.
Ten Indians- a young Nick Adams comes home from a fourth of july celebration (I think that was it), gets his heart broken, realizes that life goes on:
"In the morning there was a big wind blowing and the waves were running high up on the beach and he was awake a long time before he remembered that his heart was broken."
A Canary For One- the main character, "American Lady", spends part of a train ride with a married couple from the states saying how only American men make fit husbands, and that's why she prevented her daughter from marrying this great guy from uh, Sweden maybe I forget. The last line tells us that this couple is actually getting divorced.
So American men don't necessarily make for a happy marriage, and she should have let her daughter be happy, instead of stealing her away, and now bringing her a canary for a present. I imagine the title is a play on "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush", at least that's what it reminds me of.
An Alpine Idyll- not sure what this was trying to get across... two guys are on a skiing vacation in spring, and they're told the tale of a peasant guy who used his wife's dead body as a lantern holder over the winter, because he couldn't take her for a funeral until the snow was gone. Could be the ending, when juxtaposed with the tourists complaining that a priest won't return their greeting, is supposed to illustrate how refinement and courseness are relative. Maybe, I don't know, I didn't really like this one.
A Pursuit Race- a guy gets hooked on drugs and loves his bed sheet. Which is fine, but his boss was in the room, so he got fired. I'm shortening this for the sake of going to bed sooner, but this was actually a pretty funny story.
Today is Friday- a short play about the Roman soldiers getting a drink after crucifying Jesus. Particularly interesting in that I happened to read this Good Friday story on Good Friday. Surprisingly reserved, it's actually not too far away from being something a church would actually perform.
Banal Story- seems to be written as a sort of advertisement for a paper, while also serving as a bookend to the first story, officially telling us of that bull fighters death.
Now I Lay Me- hmm, what is this one about... it's a little odd to describe. Nick Adams is in the war-esque, and he's afraid to sleep in the dark, so he spends his nights thinking about fishing spots, or praying for everyone he knows, especially his friend who wants him to get married, 'cause that'd solve Nick's worries. Nick, at the time of the telling of this tale, still wasn't married.
And those are all the stories! So THAT'S what happens to Men Without Women.
Well, that took way too long, good night, nurse!
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Doom Patrol's done, Invisibles and Transmetropolitan getting started
Once again I've got to be quiet, my brother here is sleeping, and here I am wanting to type away. He got a little mad at me last week- not that it takes much to get under this guys skin (at least, from his immediate family)- but it kind of puts me in a spot. On the days when I'm not working, I AM still going to be up late (it's just past 5am now) and I'd rather do a little writing here than nothing.
Oh, actually there's a 24 hour Goodlife Fitness I may end up joining for just such an occasion, but I spent my money on my new glasses, so that's going to have to wait.
When I was purchasing the specs it was at a hakim optical, doing the two for one thing to get my brothers glasses too. Well, the sales guy mentions that my glasses are the better frame/more expensive... I tell you that drove me crazy. I don't want my brother to get a 'worse' pair of glasses- but what is 'worse' here? I should have gotten him to clarify. Are mine the superior label/brand? Because if that's the case I really couldn't care less. However if there's an actual quality/durabilty issue...
I've had my current glasses for at least four years, who knows how long this next pair will be around for, and it's the exact same story for my bro.
Well, anyway.
So a quickish rundown of some of what I've been reading.
I finished the last volume of Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol. I understand that the series continued on as a purely Vertigo title under a different writer, but fortunately the ending here was a pretty satisfying end.
I kept hearing Robotman in the voice of a foul mouthed Optimus Prime, which is always awesome (don't believe me? look up Dr Smoov on youtube for any of his Transformers re-dubs and tell me they aren't awesome).
Unfortunately the collection ended with the special "Doom Force" one shot, a book that was Morrison lampooning the, lets say unique, qualities of a Lieifeld/early Jim Lee era X-Force book. There's no question Morrison nailed them, but he did it at the expense of myself and all us readers that would prefer to avoid all that garbage. (Well, usually I'll avoid that garbage.)
So, Doom Patrol ended with a whimper. I tell ya, that Doom Force special was WAY too long. Way too long.
I moved from there to the first volume of Morrison's "Invisibles" series, which I'd heard was something of a spiritual sequel to his Doom Patrol work. I can see the connection, but the sudden freedom, the lack of any genre conventions to play with, really hurt this book for me. That said, considering the story it told, I can see people getting blown away by it- providing the Matrix hadn't come out yet. They cover a lot of the same ground where perception of reality is concerned, and either one is stronger without the other.
That, and, the character of "King Mob" seems like a blatant self aggrandizing self insertion of the author. I'll keep going with the series, we'll see how it goes.
From there I read the first volume of the Warren Ellis book Transmetropolitan. I think I'll be able to keep Warren Ellis apart from Garth Ennis from now on- Ennis wrote the introduction to the book.
Transmetropolitan is dark, it's anarchistic (not that there's anything wrong with that), violent, ALSO has a self aggrandizing self insert protagonist (the day is saved through the hero's real time writing of an article on a riot, where he levels an absurd number of charges against those in power without a shred of evidence or even a single source.).
BUT- it's also really pretty funny. The violence is more cartoonish than anything, and it makes great use of Star Trek speak, that's technobabble gibberish that then gets explained via ridiculous analogy.
I really needed that break from the serious Morrison work. I didn't KNOW I needed that break, but it's just like you don't know you're holding your breath in a tense situation until, well, until you breathe.
Okay, I'll stop typing now.
Oh, actually there's a 24 hour Goodlife Fitness I may end up joining for just such an occasion, but I spent my money on my new glasses, so that's going to have to wait.
When I was purchasing the specs it was at a hakim optical, doing the two for one thing to get my brothers glasses too. Well, the sales guy mentions that my glasses are the better frame/more expensive... I tell you that drove me crazy. I don't want my brother to get a 'worse' pair of glasses- but what is 'worse' here? I should have gotten him to clarify. Are mine the superior label/brand? Because if that's the case I really couldn't care less. However if there's an actual quality/durabilty issue...
I've had my current glasses for at least four years, who knows how long this next pair will be around for, and it's the exact same story for my bro.
Well, anyway.
So a quickish rundown of some of what I've been reading.
I finished the last volume of Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol. I understand that the series continued on as a purely Vertigo title under a different writer, but fortunately the ending here was a pretty satisfying end.
I kept hearing Robotman in the voice of a foul mouthed Optimus Prime, which is always awesome (don't believe me? look up Dr Smoov on youtube for any of his Transformers re-dubs and tell me they aren't awesome).
Unfortunately the collection ended with the special "Doom Force" one shot, a book that was Morrison lampooning the, lets say unique, qualities of a Lieifeld/early Jim Lee era X-Force book. There's no question Morrison nailed them, but he did it at the expense of myself and all us readers that would prefer to avoid all that garbage. (Well, usually I'll avoid that garbage.)
So, Doom Patrol ended with a whimper. I tell ya, that Doom Force special was WAY too long. Way too long.
I moved from there to the first volume of Morrison's "Invisibles" series, which I'd heard was something of a spiritual sequel to his Doom Patrol work. I can see the connection, but the sudden freedom, the lack of any genre conventions to play with, really hurt this book for me. That said, considering the story it told, I can see people getting blown away by it- providing the Matrix hadn't come out yet. They cover a lot of the same ground where perception of reality is concerned, and either one is stronger without the other.
That, and, the character of "King Mob" seems like a blatant self aggrandizing self insertion of the author. I'll keep going with the series, we'll see how it goes.
From there I read the first volume of the Warren Ellis book Transmetropolitan. I think I'll be able to keep Warren Ellis apart from Garth Ennis from now on- Ennis wrote the introduction to the book.
Transmetropolitan is dark, it's anarchistic (not that there's anything wrong with that), violent, ALSO has a self aggrandizing self insert protagonist (the day is saved through the hero's real time writing of an article on a riot, where he levels an absurd number of charges against those in power without a shred of evidence or even a single source.).
BUT- it's also really pretty funny. The violence is more cartoonish than anything, and it makes great use of Star Trek speak, that's technobabble gibberish that then gets explained via ridiculous analogy.
I really needed that break from the serious Morrison work. I didn't KNOW I needed that break, but it's just like you don't know you're holding your breath in a tense situation until, well, until you breathe.
Okay, I'll stop typing now.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Epic Simon's Smackdown Smile.
I would have written here last night, er, this morning- I was up until 5am working on my comic reviews- and they turned out really well! But my brother was wanting to go to sleep, so fine, no blog postings.
And now I've got to get ready for work. So just one quick thing.
Off to a glasses store with my brother Jordan- he'd already been to the store with dad and Simon, so the salesman recognized him and came over to chat.
First, I don't know how you can be a glasses salesman when you wear a pair like that... but maybe that's just my tastes, so forget that.
The guy was super familiar and jokey, he was pretty creepy actually, and he mentioned that he thought my brother Simon was kind of a scary guy with his crooked smile. Salesman proceeds to imitate smile.
Now, I know exactly what smile he's referring to. It's my brothers smile that says "this is awkward, you're creepy and unfunny, and I'm going to humour you with this expression."
It was like a total burn from the past, being delivered by the very guy it was to be used against.
Pretty epic burn, Simon.
And now I've got to get ready for work. So just one quick thing.
Off to a glasses store with my brother Jordan- he'd already been to the store with dad and Simon, so the salesman recognized him and came over to chat.
First, I don't know how you can be a glasses salesman when you wear a pair like that... but maybe that's just my tastes, so forget that.
The guy was super familiar and jokey, he was pretty creepy actually, and he mentioned that he thought my brother Simon was kind of a scary guy with his crooked smile. Salesman proceeds to imitate smile.
Now, I know exactly what smile he's referring to. It's my brothers smile that says "this is awkward, you're creepy and unfunny, and I'm going to humour you with this expression."
It was like a total burn from the past, being delivered by the very guy it was to be used against.
Pretty epic burn, Simon.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Sort of a sixth ranger sydrome.
Hm, someone (probably me) has closed the program for sound on this computer, and it's too much of a hassle to fix it right now. Hopefully I've embeded the right clip at the bottom, it's kind of guess work at the moment.
Along the same lines as I had been discussing yesterday, finding the inciting incident of a story, I naturally take all this info and apply it to the story that's nearest and dearest to my heart- my comic!
The thing that really starts off all the action in my book is when the little creature named "Number One" releases all the heroes from their mindless thrall so they can go and do stuff OTHER than be experimented on under dangerous conditions.
The reason Number One decides to do this, as I had written it originally, was due to some ineffable quality in Atticus- merely his presence!- that inspired Number One to release them. This was supposed to be emblematic of Atticus' deus ex machina/Mary Sueness powers, but unsurprisingly it's weak story wise.
However!! During my recent story form studyings I hit on a different way to kick everything off- what if, instead of 5 heroes, the very begining has 6. Then one of them gets killed during the experiments, and so a horrified Number One sets the others loose. Not only is this a waaay more credible inciting incident, but it gives me the chance to do something else.
See, before these characters evolved to their current forms, if we rewound the tape to grade 6-7 you'd find drawings that already had 6 characters. It's just that during the revamping process even an eleven/twelve year old Isaac was able to tell that there were too many redundancies from a character perspective to sustain six separate characters. Everyone else fell into their own niche relatively easy, not to mention they lent themselves to cooler updates more organically.
I felt bad about it, but number six had to go. We (my brother and I) never even really fixed on a name for him after the update- before hand he was Super "insert name of the friend he was based off of". We were kind of messing around with a football themed identity, but that was obviously not something I had a lot of experience with to draw from.
Now I kind of want to name him "Number Six"... too 'Cyber Six' maybe. Which was an awesome show by the way.
But yeah, 6 gets "killed" so Number One releases the main cast, and then in the sixth issue when the mutated Dr. Corvid (turned Doc Flight) sets loose a robot army I can add a cybernetically revived 6 to lead the bad guys. I know that's sort of a cliche gambit at this point (that's basically what they did with Bucky Barnes, though he wasn't actually dead...) but it would still be awesome.
Speaking of awesome- when I was coming up with this I realized that the robot doppleganger of Eyesore didn't have a name to match his updated form either- and the sixth issue was always supposed to be his/its origin, besides being a cool stand off between the heroes and Doc Flight.
But I got it!
In tribute to the great naming conventions of Digimon shows of old, I dub thee "Metal-War-Eyesore".
Be sure to pronounce it with a heavy emphasis on the "TAL". And, like, with a clenched fist an inch in front of your nose.
This video should prove instructive (but just skip to the last ten seconds):
I'm sure I wasn't the only one disappointed to realize there was no such digimon as Metalwargreymon. But clearly, that would've been the best one ever.
Along the same lines as I had been discussing yesterday, finding the inciting incident of a story, I naturally take all this info and apply it to the story that's nearest and dearest to my heart- my comic!
The thing that really starts off all the action in my book is when the little creature named "Number One" releases all the heroes from their mindless thrall so they can go and do stuff OTHER than be experimented on under dangerous conditions.
The reason Number One decides to do this, as I had written it originally, was due to some ineffable quality in Atticus- merely his presence!- that inspired Number One to release them. This was supposed to be emblematic of Atticus' deus ex machina/Mary Sueness powers, but unsurprisingly it's weak story wise.
However!! During my recent story form studyings I hit on a different way to kick everything off- what if, instead of 5 heroes, the very begining has 6. Then one of them gets killed during the experiments, and so a horrified Number One sets the others loose. Not only is this a waaay more credible inciting incident, but it gives me the chance to do something else.
See, before these characters evolved to their current forms, if we rewound the tape to grade 6-7 you'd find drawings that already had 6 characters. It's just that during the revamping process even an eleven/twelve year old Isaac was able to tell that there were too many redundancies from a character perspective to sustain six separate characters. Everyone else fell into their own niche relatively easy, not to mention they lent themselves to cooler updates more organically.
I felt bad about it, but number six had to go. We (my brother and I) never even really fixed on a name for him after the update- before hand he was Super "insert name of the friend he was based off of". We were kind of messing around with a football themed identity, but that was obviously not something I had a lot of experience with to draw from.
Now I kind of want to name him "Number Six"... too 'Cyber Six' maybe. Which was an awesome show by the way.
But yeah, 6 gets "killed" so Number One releases the main cast, and then in the sixth issue when the mutated Dr. Corvid (turned Doc Flight) sets loose a robot army I can add a cybernetically revived 6 to lead the bad guys. I know that's sort of a cliche gambit at this point (that's basically what they did with Bucky Barnes, though he wasn't actually dead...) but it would still be awesome.
Speaking of awesome- when I was coming up with this I realized that the robot doppleganger of Eyesore didn't have a name to match his updated form either- and the sixth issue was always supposed to be his/its origin, besides being a cool stand off between the heroes and Doc Flight.
But I got it!
In tribute to the great naming conventions of Digimon shows of old, I dub thee "Metal-War-Eyesore".
Be sure to pronounce it with a heavy emphasis on the "TAL". And, like, with a clenched fist an inch in front of your nose.
This video should prove instructive (but just skip to the last ten seconds):
I'm sure I wasn't the only one disappointed to realize there was no such digimon as Metalwargreymon. But clearly, that would've been the best one ever.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
On my first shifts lows and new glasses
Before I forget again, so when I got my eyes checked out the optometrist is talking about how her apple computer died and lost all her stuff, and I mention that they sell extra drives for the purposes of backing that stuff up (called a time capsule I think). She goes "yeah, hindsight's 20/20."
I said "That's... that's actually a really funny thing for an optometrist to say."
Sure, in a tv show it'd be cliche, but in real life that's hilarious. And I'm not even sure she was doing it as 'classic optometrist' joke, I think it just happened.
I'm really enjoying my work at the condo for the most part. I expected the first night of training to be interminable (it was), but afterwards, like I've been saying, just me and my books. I'm like that guy from that Twilight Zone episode.
My buddy Jimmy says it's actually a good fit because I hate people. Maybe a bit hyperbolic, but not far off.
The only problems I've had are of course in dealing with people- not any kind of security issues, just them talking to me and doing their best to unintentionally insult me.
I mentioned to this one old man who'd lost his keys that I wanted to volunteer at a couple of places for the sake of learning about things. "What's this talk of volunteering? You need to get to work and make money. You'll be 30 before you know it."
Augh as if I'm not already hyper aware of that fact already, already questioning my life decisions, did you really have to rub it in, old man? At least I haven't lost my keys and locked myself out of my home. Zing!
Then this other guy asks me what I do, I talk about my reviews: "how's the pay?"
It's... just something I do for now...
And then this bubbly fast talking girl is talking to me about the quick turnover of staff working my job, that it must be really hard working nights like that. Unless you're a total loser with no social life.
Ouch. I- I'm right here. I mean, you're actually TALKING to me right now.
So yeah, those encounters sucked.
But I did get to help a cable guy find the underground lair of internet connections, and he was really nice, and this other dude came in for a parking permit, saw I was reading a Thor comic, and was all "Hey, you're a Thor fan? I just read Siege Aftermath..." and that made me smile.
I don't generally trust myself to just know when I'm feeling good, but there are a couple of cues that, when they appear, I can say "hey, I must be feeling pretty good!" One is when I'm walking around and start singing to myself. The other is if I'm walking and I start pretending like I can shoot webs like Spider-Man. I was walking down the hall on patrol and started doing that, so that put my mind to ease about how I was feeling.
Uh, that said, I was feeling pretty low today. There wasn't anything I particularly wanted to do, but I didn't particularly want to do nothing either. I called up a friend of mine to see a movie but he was actually hanging out with a bunch of other people that are my friends as well. I couldn't help feeling left out, so that sucked.
Okayokayokay this is sounding too negative, SO
I've been getting back into Robert McKee's "Story"- his book on story contstruction (mostly for screenplays, but it works for whatever). I don't agree with EVERYTHING he says, but I get why he says it, and it is mostly all good stuff.
I took a couple notes of stuff I wanted to remember (to be clear, these are notes of my own articulations of concepts talked about, and thoughts on them, not quotes from the book). Seems like here'd be a good place for them.
Getting into the characters heads is a familiar enough concept, but the telling happens when the gap in expectation and reality occurs- not when the character is let in the door, but when the character is delayed or stopped- you and the character are asking "why can't I enter this door?"
Quote from P. 191: "A story is not a sandwich of episodic slices of life between two halves of an inciting incident."
Why not have inciting incident and resolution of central plot happen immediately? Why add the subplot? In the case of "Rocky", the central plot was only credible after we'd seen the world the characters inhabited. Without the right setup, the conclusion is inauthentic. Or- "how much does the audience need to know about the protagonist and his world to have a full response?"
Ultimately, in a story we're dealing with ECONOMY OF INFO. Better to keep to lighter details and let each individual mind fill in the blanks to sort of "auto-correct" into an authentic experience, than give everything to the audience and make a mis-step that feels inauthentic.
The above paragraph is especially true when we're talking about creating for the widest mass market appeal possible, and less so as we begin to specialize. Theoretically, the more detail you can give, cued into the way a person would want to create it himself, the more exciting and authentic it'll be. I say this because- how else to explain the appeal of, say, the Lord of the Rings books.
I should make it clear that "Story" isn't advocating a non-fleshed out world. It does say to know your characters histories, feelings and everything else you can have, the more the better- but when it comes time to tell the story all that stuff should be used to inform the characters performance, not as a half hour of flashbacks or hundred pages of backstory.
Well, it's 6:40am, so I should be going to bed soon. With my new sleep schedule, this is going to bed early, can you believe that? When I get up I'll be going to Lenscrafters for a new pair of glasses (I did mention my trip to the optometrist). Despite getting new prescriptions, I hadn't gotten them filled out- I've had these same glasses, probably since 2007. I've shed a lot of tears onto them- more so than any other pair of glasses. In fact I think those glasses got off scott free.
Well, don't worry, my style won't change too much. I've done the soft rectangular versus my brothers more circular frame since highschool began. I like drawing little cartoons of me with little squares in front of my eyes and little circles in front of Jordan's.
I said "That's... that's actually a really funny thing for an optometrist to say."
Sure, in a tv show it'd be cliche, but in real life that's hilarious. And I'm not even sure she was doing it as 'classic optometrist' joke, I think it just happened.
I'm really enjoying my work at the condo for the most part. I expected the first night of training to be interminable (it was), but afterwards, like I've been saying, just me and my books. I'm like that guy from that Twilight Zone episode.
My buddy Jimmy says it's actually a good fit because I hate people. Maybe a bit hyperbolic, but not far off.
The only problems I've had are of course in dealing with people- not any kind of security issues, just them talking to me and doing their best to unintentionally insult me.
I mentioned to this one old man who'd lost his keys that I wanted to volunteer at a couple of places for the sake of learning about things. "What's this talk of volunteering? You need to get to work and make money. You'll be 30 before you know it."
Augh as if I'm not already hyper aware of that fact already, already questioning my life decisions, did you really have to rub it in, old man? At least I haven't lost my keys and locked myself out of my home. Zing!
Then this other guy asks me what I do, I talk about my reviews: "how's the pay?"
It's... just something I do for now...
And then this bubbly fast talking girl is talking to me about the quick turnover of staff working my job, that it must be really hard working nights like that. Unless you're a total loser with no social life.
Ouch. I- I'm right here. I mean, you're actually TALKING to me right now.
So yeah, those encounters sucked.
But I did get to help a cable guy find the underground lair of internet connections, and he was really nice, and this other dude came in for a parking permit, saw I was reading a Thor comic, and was all "Hey, you're a Thor fan? I just read Siege Aftermath..." and that made me smile.
I don't generally trust myself to just know when I'm feeling good, but there are a couple of cues that, when they appear, I can say "hey, I must be feeling pretty good!" One is when I'm walking around and start singing to myself. The other is if I'm walking and I start pretending like I can shoot webs like Spider-Man. I was walking down the hall on patrol and started doing that, so that put my mind to ease about how I was feeling.
Uh, that said, I was feeling pretty low today. There wasn't anything I particularly wanted to do, but I didn't particularly want to do nothing either. I called up a friend of mine to see a movie but he was actually hanging out with a bunch of other people that are my friends as well. I couldn't help feeling left out, so that sucked.
Okayokayokay this is sounding too negative, SO
I've been getting back into Robert McKee's "Story"- his book on story contstruction (mostly for screenplays, but it works for whatever). I don't agree with EVERYTHING he says, but I get why he says it, and it is mostly all good stuff.
I took a couple notes of stuff I wanted to remember (to be clear, these are notes of my own articulations of concepts talked about, and thoughts on them, not quotes from the book). Seems like here'd be a good place for them.
Getting into the characters heads is a familiar enough concept, but the telling happens when the gap in expectation and reality occurs- not when the character is let in the door, but when the character is delayed or stopped- you and the character are asking "why can't I enter this door?"
Quote from P. 191: "A story is not a sandwich of episodic slices of life between two halves of an inciting incident."
Why not have inciting incident and resolution of central plot happen immediately? Why add the subplot? In the case of "Rocky", the central plot was only credible after we'd seen the world the characters inhabited. Without the right setup, the conclusion is inauthentic. Or- "how much does the audience need to know about the protagonist and his world to have a full response?"
Ultimately, in a story we're dealing with ECONOMY OF INFO. Better to keep to lighter details and let each individual mind fill in the blanks to sort of "auto-correct" into an authentic experience, than give everything to the audience and make a mis-step that feels inauthentic.
The above paragraph is especially true when we're talking about creating for the widest mass market appeal possible, and less so as we begin to specialize. Theoretically, the more detail you can give, cued into the way a person would want to create it himself, the more exciting and authentic it'll be. I say this because- how else to explain the appeal of, say, the Lord of the Rings books.
I should make it clear that "Story" isn't advocating a non-fleshed out world. It does say to know your characters histories, feelings and everything else you can have, the more the better- but when it comes time to tell the story all that stuff should be used to inform the characters performance, not as a half hour of flashbacks or hundred pages of backstory.
Well, it's 6:40am, so I should be going to bed soon. With my new sleep schedule, this is going to bed early, can you believe that? When I get up I'll be going to Lenscrafters for a new pair of glasses (I did mention my trip to the optometrist). Despite getting new prescriptions, I hadn't gotten them filled out- I've had these same glasses, probably since 2007. I've shed a lot of tears onto them- more so than any other pair of glasses. In fact I think those glasses got off scott free.
Well, don't worry, my style won't change too much. I've done the soft rectangular versus my brothers more circular frame since highschool began. I like drawing little cartoons of me with little squares in front of my eyes and little circles in front of Jordan's.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Put a video in this one! It's a cool speech from Ernest Hemingway
I've just read through the wiki on old Hemingway and put a bunch of stuff on hold at the library. He was a handsome guy in the 20's, like ridiculously handsome. And with his jetting all over the world working correspondence, he cuts an enviable figure- until you get to the part about all the accidents he suffered. Seriously, those are way too many head injuries for someone that isn't a boxer.
I have less sympathy for his fourth(?) wife Mary breaking either ankle on one of two separate skiing trips. At one point you have to realize you just can't ski.
I'm particularly interested in this part that tells of his relation to J.D. Salinger, that the two wrote to each other and that according to one source "[Hemingway was] as introverted and private as J. D. Salinger, although Hemingway masked his nature with braggadocio."
That conforms to my own (hardly unique) idea of the necessary personal qualities for a writer... I was going to say an introversion, but that's really an exaggeration. One doesn't have to be introverted, they have to be self examining- and the one doesn't neccesarily follow from the other. Actually wait...
Dictionary.com defines introvert two ways:
1. a shy person.
2. Psychology . a person characterized by concern primarily with his or her own thoughts and feelings ( opposed to extrovert).
So, okay, yeah the one doesn't necessarily follow the other. 'Being introspective' is a better precursor to self awareness and any kind of knowledge on the human condition...
Oh, are you still here? I'm sorta working through this... well, anyways
I do love hearing what people have to say about the process of writing. From the 1954 Nobel Acceptance speech written by Hemingway (he couldn't attend the ceremony himself, what with recovering from the several accidents that had convinced the world he'd died... this guy had so many accidents! Rough):
My favourite part is this quote:
"Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day."
And finally on his famous iceberg writing:
If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing.
—Ernest Hemingway in Death in the Afternoon
What's so cool about that quote is that it rings especially true with some of the most famous comics around- Batman's retirement in Dark Knight Returns, the adventures of the Minutemen and Crimebusters from Watchmen, and more recently the secret history of the world as told in Planetary (I just finished reading all of Planetary this week). You get a tantalizing feel for those adventures, with a feeling that couldn't be matched by actually reading the adventures. It's a paradox that speaks to the power of the mind to fill in the gaps on its own.
I still wonder if, after a good look at his work, I'll switch gears and become a Hemingway fan.
That's right, I said I was going to talk about my fun hate on for the guy.
Well, it's pretty straightforward, in the tenth grade my english teacher was suffering from health problems, so our class had a lot of substitutes with no clear direction. You never knew what was going to happen, whether they'd be strict or not (I actually did better with the structure of the stricter teacher.). But yeah, that was the only year I didn't do well in high school english, and the main book for the year was "The Old Man and the Sea".
That's basically it, except if you fast forward to university when we read I'm pretty sure "The Sun Also Rises" in the best modernism course ever... nobody ask me how many modernism courses I've taken! (Yeah, I loved the professor for that course, too bad I was such an embarassment as a student :( ...)
After that there was a film course- read the source material, watch the film adaptation. I couldn't stand that course, whenever I attended the tutorial I basically had to do all the work for both students and tutorial leader, directing discussion in such a way so as to make the time spent in class NOT torturously painful. It's like there was this disconnect between the leader and the classmates. Question posed, irrelevant answer given, further irrelevant RESPONSE from the tutorial leader- at least acknowledge that that wasn't an answer. There can be a wrong answer! Especially if the student apparently wasn't listening to you!
Ah that place drove me mad, they say. I say, just now.
So I stopped going, and once the exam rolled around I wrote an essay about how Hemingway would have loved getting the film treatment based on knowing absolutely nothing but my own prejudices. I find that funny- no I didn't do very well, thanks for asking.
Uuuh, despite evidence to the contrary, I really do love to learn. Just thought I'd make that clear.
I have less sympathy for his fourth(?) wife Mary breaking either ankle on one of two separate skiing trips. At one point you have to realize you just can't ski.
I'm particularly interested in this part that tells of his relation to J.D. Salinger, that the two wrote to each other and that according to one source "[Hemingway was] as introverted and private as J. D. Salinger, although Hemingway masked his nature with braggadocio."
That conforms to my own (hardly unique) idea of the necessary personal qualities for a writer... I was going to say an introversion, but that's really an exaggeration. One doesn't have to be introverted, they have to be self examining- and the one doesn't neccesarily follow from the other. Actually wait...
Dictionary.com defines introvert two ways:
1. a shy person.
2. Psychology . a person characterized by concern primarily with his or her own thoughts and feelings ( opposed to extrovert).
So, okay, yeah the one doesn't necessarily follow the other. 'Being introspective' is a better precursor to self awareness and any kind of knowledge on the human condition...
Oh, are you still here? I'm sorta working through this... well, anyways
I do love hearing what people have to say about the process of writing. From the 1954 Nobel Acceptance speech written by Hemingway (he couldn't attend the ceremony himself, what with recovering from the several accidents that had convinced the world he'd died... this guy had so many accidents! Rough):
My favourite part is this quote:
"Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day."
And finally on his famous iceberg writing:
If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing.
—Ernest Hemingway in Death in the Afternoon
What's so cool about that quote is that it rings especially true with some of the most famous comics around- Batman's retirement in Dark Knight Returns, the adventures of the Minutemen and Crimebusters from Watchmen, and more recently the secret history of the world as told in Planetary (I just finished reading all of Planetary this week). You get a tantalizing feel for those adventures, with a feeling that couldn't be matched by actually reading the adventures. It's a paradox that speaks to the power of the mind to fill in the gaps on its own.
I still wonder if, after a good look at his work, I'll switch gears and become a Hemingway fan.
That's right, I said I was going to talk about my fun hate on for the guy.
Well, it's pretty straightforward, in the tenth grade my english teacher was suffering from health problems, so our class had a lot of substitutes with no clear direction. You never knew what was going to happen, whether they'd be strict or not (I actually did better with the structure of the stricter teacher.). But yeah, that was the only year I didn't do well in high school english, and the main book for the year was "The Old Man and the Sea".
That's basically it, except if you fast forward to university when we read I'm pretty sure "The Sun Also Rises" in the best modernism course ever... nobody ask me how many modernism courses I've taken! (Yeah, I loved the professor for that course, too bad I was such an embarassment as a student :( ...)
After that there was a film course- read the source material, watch the film adaptation. I couldn't stand that course, whenever I attended the tutorial I basically had to do all the work for both students and tutorial leader, directing discussion in such a way so as to make the time spent in class NOT torturously painful. It's like there was this disconnect between the leader and the classmates. Question posed, irrelevant answer given, further irrelevant RESPONSE from the tutorial leader- at least acknowledge that that wasn't an answer. There can be a wrong answer! Especially if the student apparently wasn't listening to you!
Ah that place drove me mad, they say. I say, just now.
So I stopped going, and once the exam rolled around I wrote an essay about how Hemingway would have loved getting the film treatment based on knowing absolutely nothing but my own prejudices. I find that funny- no I didn't do very well, thanks for asking.
Uuuh, despite evidence to the contrary, I really do love to learn. Just thought I'd make that clear.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Norm MacDonald says "you know" and "uh" a lot, and it's awesome
I did it.
Friday from 3pm to 11pm
Saturday from 2pm to 8pm
Sunday from 2pm to 7pm
Monday from 3pm to 9pm
Tuesday from 2pm to 9pm
Wednesday from 12pm to 9pm
Thursday from 12pm to 9pm
Friday from 12pm to 9pm
Saturday from 7am to 6pm
All told that's 70 hours I worked standing around. Needless to say my feet are killing me, and I'm hunched over like I'm a million years old.
This week felt like it would never end. Actually today's wasn't too bad until the end, I mostly talked to people instead of just standing around.
Highlights include when I told a guy I was more a paper and pen guy and he responded "yeah, paper and pen and NUNCHUKS", and when I got called with the job interview (but even better when I was called with a job offer), and when I showed a goofy doodle to this cute girl Jane who laughed.
I met a bunch of cool people this week, but seeing as I'm a non person (i.e. security) I only existed on the periphery of peoples experience. So that's cool, that's how it usually goes anyways, but it was interesting to see that in this sort of quick microcosm format.
I'm watching Norm MacDonald on Comedy right now- Norm did an interview on the Daily Show the other day and my brother Jordan commented on my face being one of pure joy for the interview. That's the kind of comment I'd usually only expect from me written right here. Coming from Jordan- it's a promising omen. Now if he'll just be less cynical about abstract art, we may be getting somewhere.
I was counting on getting a ride home from the fairview mall after my 11 hour shift, but I couldn't reach anyone at home, so I walked the hour or so, carrying the big plastic bag of hopefully-not-worn-before-but-I-know-that's-pretty-unlikely-other-security-guard-shirts-so-they-can-be-picked-up-from-my-home-later-even-though-my-contract-with-the-company-is-now-up-so-this-is-really-weird, but it was all good, because it was a beautiful day and I took the detour through the road whose name I forget at the moment but it's pretty deserted so I could belt out songs.
I've really gotta learn more full lyrics. Once I got to Victoria Park and 401 I remembered old timey Lion King and then El Dorado... so big Elton John kick kinda.
I was having a lot of fun, then I got a call that was worrisome but then it turned out to be absolutely nothing, so I don't know why my walk had to be ruined, immediately throwing the weight of 11 hours of standing back on me.
I've been excited about my upcoming full time concierge job at a condo- tons of reading shall happen. I'm thinking of finally taking a long look at the oeuvre of that guy I love to say I hate- Ernest Hemingway. Let's form a not joke opinion on the guy.
Speaking of which, it took forever to remember John Steinbeck's name today, but at least I didn't have to google it like Virginia Woolf made me do.
Oh yeah, but get this- I was worried that my job would be too tough, because I THOUGHT they were 18 hour days, so I've been psyching myself up for the impossible 18 hours- now I look at the schedule again, and it's actually 12 hours with a 12 hour break then 6 hours. MAN I can do that standing on my head!
You know... after thinking it was the 18 hours.
I wanted to mention a dream I had a couple days ago. I travelled to a place called "Awesome Island" where you see a thing in an idealized form. So a guy writes his signature down and when you go to look at it it's become a sweet picture of a guy standing in that Bruce Lee ready to fight pose. I saw another signature that turned into a guy going for a high five. I didn't get to see my signatures picture unfortunately.
Standing under an awning, looking out into some rain, I asked the person standing out in the rain what they were experiencing. The person said it was like the dance number from Singing in the Rain. That's pretty awesome.
Then there was the part where a guy who everyone KNOWS has advanced cancer is on the island for tests, but he now looks absolutely normal and his test results come back amazingly positive.
So the dark secret of Awesome Island is that you shouldn't go there for accurate medical testing.
This dream was remarkably internally consistent.
I had an idea for a cool story today, about what the world would be like if through social media and technologically near instantaneous communication the whole world became convinced the end of the world was here, but it turned out to not be true. Then I remembered "yeah, that certainly IS a great story... courtesy of Orson Welles performance of H.G. 'Wells War of the Worlds'"
So... ah, it's still a good idea.
Friday from 3pm to 11pm
Saturday from 2pm to 8pm
Sunday from 2pm to 7pm
Monday from 3pm to 9pm
Tuesday from 2pm to 9pm
Wednesday from 12pm to 9pm
Thursday from 12pm to 9pm
Friday from 12pm to 9pm
Saturday from 7am to 6pm
All told that's 70 hours I worked standing around. Needless to say my feet are killing me, and I'm hunched over like I'm a million years old.
This week felt like it would never end. Actually today's wasn't too bad until the end, I mostly talked to people instead of just standing around.
Highlights include when I told a guy I was more a paper and pen guy and he responded "yeah, paper and pen and NUNCHUKS", and when I got called with the job interview (but even better when I was called with a job offer), and when I showed a goofy doodle to this cute girl Jane who laughed.
I met a bunch of cool people this week, but seeing as I'm a non person (i.e. security) I only existed on the periphery of peoples experience. So that's cool, that's how it usually goes anyways, but it was interesting to see that in this sort of quick microcosm format.
I'm watching Norm MacDonald on Comedy right now- Norm did an interview on the Daily Show the other day and my brother Jordan commented on my face being one of pure joy for the interview. That's the kind of comment I'd usually only expect from me written right here. Coming from Jordan- it's a promising omen. Now if he'll just be less cynical about abstract art, we may be getting somewhere.
I was counting on getting a ride home from the fairview mall after my 11 hour shift, but I couldn't reach anyone at home, so I walked the hour or so, carrying the big plastic bag of hopefully-not-worn-before-but-I-know-that's-pretty-unlikely-other-security-guard-shirts-so-they-can-be-picked-up-from-my-home-later-even-though-my-contract-with-the-company-is-now-up-so-this-is-really-weird, but it was all good, because it was a beautiful day and I took the detour through the road whose name I forget at the moment but it's pretty deserted so I could belt out songs.
I've really gotta learn more full lyrics. Once I got to Victoria Park and 401 I remembered old timey Lion King and then El Dorado... so big Elton John kick kinda.
I was having a lot of fun, then I got a call that was worrisome but then it turned out to be absolutely nothing, so I don't know why my walk had to be ruined, immediately throwing the weight of 11 hours of standing back on me.
I've been excited about my upcoming full time concierge job at a condo- tons of reading shall happen. I'm thinking of finally taking a long look at the oeuvre of that guy I love to say I hate- Ernest Hemingway. Let's form a not joke opinion on the guy.
Speaking of which, it took forever to remember John Steinbeck's name today, but at least I didn't have to google it like Virginia Woolf made me do.
Oh yeah, but get this- I was worried that my job would be too tough, because I THOUGHT they were 18 hour days, so I've been psyching myself up for the impossible 18 hours- now I look at the schedule again, and it's actually 12 hours with a 12 hour break then 6 hours. MAN I can do that standing on my head!
You know... after thinking it was the 18 hours.
I wanted to mention a dream I had a couple days ago. I travelled to a place called "Awesome Island" where you see a thing in an idealized form. So a guy writes his signature down and when you go to look at it it's become a sweet picture of a guy standing in that Bruce Lee ready to fight pose. I saw another signature that turned into a guy going for a high five. I didn't get to see my signatures picture unfortunately.
Standing under an awning, looking out into some rain, I asked the person standing out in the rain what they were experiencing. The person said it was like the dance number from Singing in the Rain. That's pretty awesome.
Then there was the part where a guy who everyone KNOWS has advanced cancer is on the island for tests, but he now looks absolutely normal and his test results come back amazingly positive.
So the dark secret of Awesome Island is that you shouldn't go there for accurate medical testing.
This dream was remarkably internally consistent.
I had an idea for a cool story today, about what the world would be like if through social media and technologically near instantaneous communication the whole world became convinced the end of the world was here, but it turned out to not be true. Then I remembered "yeah, that certainly IS a great story... courtesy of Orson Welles performance of H.G. 'Wells War of the Worlds'"
So... ah, it's still a good idea.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
