I'm not mommy, Ralph.

Man, I've really been on this computer way too long.

Reading comments about the sexism in Greg Land's artwork. Pretty much all the commenters agree, so it's a case of preaching to the choir, except for the one guy that asserts that all the form fitting female super-wear are inherently sexist.

Unsurprisingly, we agree that context is key, that there's nothing wrong with acknowledging sexuality in a person so long as the character is portrayed as more than that, with, you know, an inner life and whatnot- and that it's no good to have a bunch of women all portrayed as naught but identical sex-bots.

Mayor of San Fransisco? Sex bot
Time travelled teen girl? Sex bot
Emma Frost, the White Queen? Actually, she sort of makes it work- but she's a character known to use her sexuality for her own purposes. So she lucked into the right portrayal/image. A broken clock IS right twice a day after all.

The other bit of commenting I've been participating in has to do with mental illness in comics, particularly (only?) in Batman. I'm afraid I end up sounding calous because I WANT to hate Joker, I want him as a purely hypothetical stand in for "evil antagonist" which, you must admit, comics writers have been happy to give me- even going so far as to give him an inconsistent origin, motivations, characterizations and DEATHS. As far as literary symbols go, the Joker is a great one.

Man, this Jebediah Springfield episode is amazingly funny. Surprising no one.

The Ms. Hoover line is laugh out loud funny after the blog discussion I've been engaged in: "This is nothing but dead, white male-bashing from a PC thug. It's women like you that keep the rest of us from landing a husband."

Excuse me a second, I'm going to get a chocolate muffin.

Good, there are still some left. I will almost certainly return for a second (third?).

I'm not going to lie. I've already picked up my second muffin.

AND my Gravity's Rainbow notes!

I didn't actually take that many. Looks like I'm a big lazy.

In fact, continuing that lazy trend, I may as well just copy out exactly what I wrote, in all its contextless glory (not like it's the first time I've done that).

Pre p. 362 there's interest in Plastic Man, plastics, finds mad scientists lair, says "Where's Plastic Man now?"

(man, I've ALREADY added a bunch of words for the sake of clarity. That first "there's"? Yeah, I never wrote that originally.)

362-
-Slothrop learns FDR dies, but he was Slothrops president
-MINE would have to be Chretien AND Clinton (of course I include the American president- he was in the opening to Animaniacs after all!)

The appropriation of power in assuming a 'comic book' form that isn't a percieved as a threat in the context of post WW II Germany. All the soldiers are on the lookout for OTHER soldiers and weapons, not gaudy performers.
Not that he's the much of a threat to be percieved in the first place.

July 19 438 (I don't know why I wrote 438 here..)

p. 441 Slothrop thinking about his goals -what are they? It's been a few days since I thought about them...
^- mirrors the questions of the reader (me anyways) after the lengthy interruption with Pokler's story + coincidentally my days off the book (it's tuesday now, haven't read since last thursday)

And finally, from my actual note book (adds legitimacy to my ramblings, instead of being a folded over piece of paper that was previously host to my musing on a guard training schedule):

July 24 2011
A good chunk of the time it felt as though 'Gravity's Rainbow' were actually speaking to me- it was startling to see on p. 764 on a line unto itself

"Isaac"

printed, all ready to freak me out.

The book was about to talk about Isaac as in Abraham and Isaac- but still, super weird. It helps that I read the whole thing during the night time.

The spooooky night.

I loaned my now finished copy to a resident at that building I work at, in EXCHANGE(!) I've got an annotated James Joyce Ulysses.

ANNOTATED!

Heh, looks like I won that trade.