Last one for the month. Not going to keep you long, I want to get to bed, I'm already up a good hour later than I should be.
At work there was a party going on, the baptismal after-function for someone. A baby I guess. In the lobby there're halloween decorations all over. Nothing too fancy, but there is a little zombie guy who pulls his head off and talks when you press a button (maybe there's a mode with a sensor, but I didn't care to touch the thing... how many random kids must have been pawing at that thing over the years? Forget it!)
Anyway, this sweet little girl from the baptismal thing, her family is about to leave, and she asks if she can see the thing? (Meaning: can she press the button so the zombie guy will pull off his head.)
She was really cute with how she asked her father: Can I- can I see the thing? Sil vous plait? Sil vous plait??
(uh my french... that is supposed to be 'sil', right?)
But THEN her father is all, "NO, THAT'S WITCHCRAFT, IT'S SATAN WORSHIP!"
"Sil vous plait?"
"IT'S WITCHCRAFT! DO YOU LIKE WITCHES?"
It was pretty ridiculous. The little girl, by the way, must have been five or so, so there's some extra context for you. I'm just glad I heard the father start to freak out like that BEFORE I told the little girl it'd be all right for her to press the button, because you know I would've gotten an ear full for tempting her and damning her soul forever. That would've sucked.
This one youngish couple at the condo came to me for a parking permit this evening, er, yesterday evening, and they ended up chilling out with me for quite some time. They were really nice, talked a bit about DeLoreans and "the Ottawa shift" which is apparently what the guy calls my working hours because I guess Ottawa paramedics can have the same 6pm-6am shifts.
I got side tracked- anways, they were really nice, and I enjoyed their company, but man, what were they doing talking to me? You've got your girlfriend over for the night, maybe you have other things to do besides chat with the securtiy guard?
I guess... I must be a really interesting guy to talk to? Like, REALLY interesting?
Awesome news, my buddy got me a ticket for a screening of Ghostbusters at the Paramount theatre tonight. And so that's why I'm done here, will check a couple of web comics, then go to bed.
Ahh sunlight! *hssss*
Monday, October 31, 2011
Friday, October 28, 2011
Some Steel
I’m really cutting myself short of time today. I’m still going to have to post this, and my comic reviews when I get up tomorrow, before heading off to that job I don’t want to do.
Hmm, I’m kinda hungry.
Spent the night writing reviews, making my food for work tonight, watching an episode of Sliders, right, and watching the film Easy A. I know I already talked about that movie at length when I saw it in theatres. That thing would fall apart without Emma Stone in the lead role. Anyways.
I did want to give a shout out to Real Steel before it completely drops off people’s radar. I was surprised to the degree that I disliked both of the main characters (Hugh Jackman and the kid who probably isn’t a much better actor than Jake Lloyd was doing Phantom Menace, but surely had better direction. Or hey, maybe this kid just IS a better actor than Jake Lloyd, how should I know?).
That dislike, I’m wondering if it’s a sort of a short hand for displaying the characters at the beginning of their narrative arc? Both these guys change massively through the course of the film, and good for them, but there probably should’ve been an element of that potential shining through at the beginning. You know, the old “diamond in the rough” business.
Oh, man, when that one evil genius Asian guy shows up, and he’s all calm and deep voiced and says something to the effect of “Zeus is unbeatable” it was amazing. He was intense, almost comically intense. Maybe I’m describing it wrong, but when that guy showed up out of nowhere it blew me away, I thought it was great.
I thought they dropped the ball in not including a degree of bitterness towards robots for destroying the sport of human boxing on the part of Jackman’s character. It would have been more rewarding to see this lost man find his niche as a champion when he gets to use his past skills to their fullest to operate his robot for the final match. But I’m being crazy, ‘cause I know it was already plenty rewarding, so whatever. I nitpick.
Most promotional stuff I saw focused on the ‘Atom’ robot, which doesn’t have that great a design. It’s not particularly exciting. I know, again, that’s the idea, but I was really surprised at how cool a lot of the other robots were when they showed up in the film. Maybe I’m talking crazy, I probably didn’t even see that many trailers for the movie or whatever.
I’d better wrap things up, I need my sleep, and it’s that full weekend of work ahead of me to deal with.
I should maybe buy Real Steel when it comes out. And Tron: Legacy too. Or just the sound track to Legacy. Also, I should figure out a way that I could do that without feeling guilty about the expense. Man, it took me six months to get myself to buy Sliders- and I was still guilty over the purchase! It’s been a lot of fun watching it though.
Hmm, I’m kinda hungry.
Spent the night writing reviews, making my food for work tonight, watching an episode of Sliders, right, and watching the film Easy A. I know I already talked about that movie at length when I saw it in theatres. That thing would fall apart without Emma Stone in the lead role. Anyways.
I did want to give a shout out to Real Steel before it completely drops off people’s radar. I was surprised to the degree that I disliked both of the main characters (Hugh Jackman and the kid who probably isn’t a much better actor than Jake Lloyd was doing Phantom Menace, but surely had better direction. Or hey, maybe this kid just IS a better actor than Jake Lloyd, how should I know?).
That dislike, I’m wondering if it’s a sort of a short hand for displaying the characters at the beginning of their narrative arc? Both these guys change massively through the course of the film, and good for them, but there probably should’ve been an element of that potential shining through at the beginning. You know, the old “diamond in the rough” business.
Oh, man, when that one evil genius Asian guy shows up, and he’s all calm and deep voiced and says something to the effect of “Zeus is unbeatable” it was amazing. He was intense, almost comically intense. Maybe I’m describing it wrong, but when that guy showed up out of nowhere it blew me away, I thought it was great.
I thought they dropped the ball in not including a degree of bitterness towards robots for destroying the sport of human boxing on the part of Jackman’s character. It would have been more rewarding to see this lost man find his niche as a champion when he gets to use his past skills to their fullest to operate his robot for the final match. But I’m being crazy, ‘cause I know it was already plenty rewarding, so whatever. I nitpick.
Most promotional stuff I saw focused on the ‘Atom’ robot, which doesn’t have that great a design. It’s not particularly exciting. I know, again, that’s the idea, but I was really surprised at how cool a lot of the other robots were when they showed up in the film. Maybe I’m talking crazy, I probably didn’t even see that many trailers for the movie or whatever.
I’d better wrap things up, I need my sleep, and it’s that full weekend of work ahead of me to deal with.
I should maybe buy Real Steel when it comes out. And Tron: Legacy too. Or just the sound track to Legacy. Also, I should figure out a way that I could do that without feeling guilty about the expense. Man, it took me six months to get myself to buy Sliders- and I was still guilty over the purchase! It’s been a lot of fun watching it though.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Great Expectations
I just got finished telling someone a few days ago that I didn't like 'Great Expectations' as much as 'David Copperfield'- well, a hundred some odd pages and I'm singing a different tune.
As far as they are both purported to be a bildungsroman/maturation novel, I stand by David Copperfield as the superior work. However! Great Expectations has been mislabelled!
The protagonist is very often an ungrateful sort, almost from his earliest appearance, which put a limit on how much I could root for the guy and enjoy the proceedings- but coupled with the moodiness of the scene, the tragedy of Ms. Havisham as a broken and corrupting woman, the hints of the supernatural (though never actually utilized, all played with in the eye of the narrator- Great Expectations reminded me more of Wuthering Heights than anything else... with an odd mix of Frankenstein as well (a connection I made JUST BEFORE Dickens actually makes an allusion to Frankenstein... on the one hand that subdues any brilliance I felt on my part, like I was shouting out the punchline to a joke only after the speaker has uttered nine tenths of it, however I take comfort in knowing that I was at least in synch with what Dickens was writing. A helpful thing as far as being assured of my understanding of the text.)
But not long after that Frankenstein bit, the novel shifts into an almost spy thriller, and/or heist film! Sprinkled throughout are the comedy aspects involved (not that there wasn't plenty of comedy in David Copperfield)... in short Great Expectations is a rather marvelous blending of genre.
It could maybe be shorter for the modern audience, but even then it may be impossible to create that same sense of mood without the length as is.
And I forgot to mention that I made a connection between the unlikability of the protagonist and the sorts of doomed individuals that star in various horror tales, EC Comics, Twilight Zone and the like.
Ah, plus, if I wanted to be fair, flawed Pip is perhaps a more realistic character than almost perfect David Copperfield (even though David does marry the very obviously wrong girl the first out... well, he gets it right in the end.) Everything works out perfectly for Copperfield, Pip has a less satisfying end, though more hopeful and (necessarily) philosophic than Copperfield's.
There's actually an alternate, original ending to Expectations that's included in the notes. I'm not really into it, it SORT of perpetuates the tragedy of Ms. Havisham onto the now grown Estella, while also undermining it by having her not REALLY be as tragic a figure?... No, I don't dig it. Better to have Pip and Estella meet up on what once was their shared meeting place, and maybe move past uh.. the past, and forge something new in the future.
Could be I just wanted Pip to get the girl.
As far as they are both purported to be a bildungsroman/maturation novel, I stand by David Copperfield as the superior work. However! Great Expectations has been mislabelled!
The protagonist is very often an ungrateful sort, almost from his earliest appearance, which put a limit on how much I could root for the guy and enjoy the proceedings- but coupled with the moodiness of the scene, the tragedy of Ms. Havisham as a broken and corrupting woman, the hints of the supernatural (though never actually utilized, all played with in the eye of the narrator- Great Expectations reminded me more of Wuthering Heights than anything else... with an odd mix of Frankenstein as well (a connection I made JUST BEFORE Dickens actually makes an allusion to Frankenstein... on the one hand that subdues any brilliance I felt on my part, like I was shouting out the punchline to a joke only after the speaker has uttered nine tenths of it, however I take comfort in knowing that I was at least in synch with what Dickens was writing. A helpful thing as far as being assured of my understanding of the text.)
But not long after that Frankenstein bit, the novel shifts into an almost spy thriller, and/or heist film! Sprinkled throughout are the comedy aspects involved (not that there wasn't plenty of comedy in David Copperfield)... in short Great Expectations is a rather marvelous blending of genre.
It could maybe be shorter for the modern audience, but even then it may be impossible to create that same sense of mood without the length as is.
And I forgot to mention that I made a connection between the unlikability of the protagonist and the sorts of doomed individuals that star in various horror tales, EC Comics, Twilight Zone and the like.
Ah, plus, if I wanted to be fair, flawed Pip is perhaps a more realistic character than almost perfect David Copperfield (even though David does marry the very obviously wrong girl the first out... well, he gets it right in the end.) Everything works out perfectly for Copperfield, Pip has a less satisfying end, though more hopeful and (necessarily) philosophic than Copperfield's.
There's actually an alternate, original ending to Expectations that's included in the notes. I'm not really into it, it SORT of perpetuates the tragedy of Ms. Havisham onto the now grown Estella, while also undermining it by having her not REALLY be as tragic a figure?... No, I don't dig it. Better to have Pip and Estella meet up on what once was their shared meeting place, and maybe move past uh.. the past, and forge something new in the future.
Could be I just wanted Pip to get the girl.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
A two hup
When I’m not writing these entries directly on blogger.com (which is a relatively rare occurrence these days) I write them up at home on Microsoft word. I see this thing has immediately capitalized the ‘m’ in Microsoft. How about that.
I usually save them as the date when they’re written, not the snappiest of titles, but it keeps things simple. I didn’t make it out to a convenient place to upload yesterday’s entry, so today I’ll load both up. That’s, you know, why I’m mentioning all this. To let you know that there’s a new one just before this entry you may have missed.
Instead of working on reviews or uploading blog entries, or even going to the gym, I spent yesterday watching my brother play the new Batman game, or playing it some myself, or watching Sliders with my family (Cool Geoff, who I assume will read this, is like my sixth brother). Not a very accomplished day, but a very nice one.
I do have to get back to sleep though, four hours isn’t going to cut it. It’s early yet, just shy of 6am, but I’ve got a lot I want to do today- reviews, gym, groceries, friend’s party.
Let me tell you a bit about Sliders.
It’s a show with a tumultuous behind the scenes that ended up, naturally, greatly effecting the on air story. The consensus is that the first two seasons are a lot of fun (it’s those first two seasons that I now own) but the third season went off the rails with a more action oriented drive to it. The scripts suffered, and Jonathan Rhys-Davies vociferously pointed out that the scripts suffered. So he was fired from the show, character killed off.
(I’d really like to fact check the spelling of “Jonathan Rhys-Davies”, but I’d have to get up, walk across the room, and look at my box collection. It’s far, and it’s dark. Also, I’m kinda cold. All great reasons to fuggedaboutit.)
It seems similar scenarios played out with Jerry O’Connell and Sabrina Lloyd (wow, I’m guessing at a lot of peoples names and the spelling thereof. With the natural exception of Jerry “Mr. Rebecca Romijn” O’Connell. I certainly will have to make a precautionary google search to make sure that’s all spelled right.) though I’m less sure of whether or not they had problems with the quality of the writing (as laudable a reason to get fired as I’ve ever heard) or whether or not they just got too big for their britches. Despite the fact that O’Connell managed to strong arm his real life brother onto the show as a main character, I’ll give the benefit of the doubt and assume these two also had an artistic integrity that grated against higher ups/producers. It does sound like a lot of these guys didn’t like this Steve Peckinpah producer guy.
Anyways, at its heart the show is considered the spiritual successor to Quantum Leap, a fact that I find fantastic, since I’m also into that show- though I’d never heard of Quantum Leap until years after Sliders was off my radar, so I got things a bit backwards there.
Apparently there was a ten issue Sliders comic (I knew about the comic thanks to that old YTV review show “The Anti-Gravity Room”, but I never knew how long that series ran.), one of the issues was written by Jerry O’Connell which I think is a cool fact, but much much better is the idea that before the series was cancelled there was talk about doing an issue that crossed over with… Quantum Leap! How awesome would that have been??
So yes, it’s not just coincidence that I always lump Sliders and Quantum Leap together, a lot of people have been drawing connections between the shows for years. It’s apparently hinted at that the character of Maggie Beckett, who replaced Professor Arturo (Rhys-Davies), was the niece of Sam Beckett!!
Uh, to keep you in the loop, Sam Beckett is the star of Quantum Leap.
Hmm… oh, did you want me to actually talk about what happens on the show itself? Like, story wise? I don’t know, I’ve already written more than a page of stuff here… Maybe later, I think I can sleep a little bit more now.
I did a lot of parentheses stuff this entry, eh? I mean, even for me, that was a lot of parentheses stuff.
I usually save them as the date when they’re written, not the snappiest of titles, but it keeps things simple. I didn’t make it out to a convenient place to upload yesterday’s entry, so today I’ll load both up. That’s, you know, why I’m mentioning all this. To let you know that there’s a new one just before this entry you may have missed.
Instead of working on reviews or uploading blog entries, or even going to the gym, I spent yesterday watching my brother play the new Batman game, or playing it some myself, or watching Sliders with my family (Cool Geoff, who I assume will read this, is like my sixth brother). Not a very accomplished day, but a very nice one.
I do have to get back to sleep though, four hours isn’t going to cut it. It’s early yet, just shy of 6am, but I’ve got a lot I want to do today- reviews, gym, groceries, friend’s party.
Let me tell you a bit about Sliders.
It’s a show with a tumultuous behind the scenes that ended up, naturally, greatly effecting the on air story. The consensus is that the first two seasons are a lot of fun (it’s those first two seasons that I now own) but the third season went off the rails with a more action oriented drive to it. The scripts suffered, and Jonathan Rhys-Davies vociferously pointed out that the scripts suffered. So he was fired from the show, character killed off.
(I’d really like to fact check the spelling of “Jonathan Rhys-Davies”, but I’d have to get up, walk across the room, and look at my box collection. It’s far, and it’s dark. Also, I’m kinda cold. All great reasons to fuggedaboutit.)
It seems similar scenarios played out with Jerry O’Connell and Sabrina Lloyd (wow, I’m guessing at a lot of peoples names and the spelling thereof. With the natural exception of Jerry “Mr. Rebecca Romijn” O’Connell. I certainly will have to make a precautionary google search to make sure that’s all spelled right.) though I’m less sure of whether or not they had problems with the quality of the writing (as laudable a reason to get fired as I’ve ever heard) or whether or not they just got too big for their britches. Despite the fact that O’Connell managed to strong arm his real life brother onto the show as a main character, I’ll give the benefit of the doubt and assume these two also had an artistic integrity that grated against higher ups/producers. It does sound like a lot of these guys didn’t like this Steve Peckinpah producer guy.
Anyways, at its heart the show is considered the spiritual successor to Quantum Leap, a fact that I find fantastic, since I’m also into that show- though I’d never heard of Quantum Leap until years after Sliders was off my radar, so I got things a bit backwards there.
Apparently there was a ten issue Sliders comic (I knew about the comic thanks to that old YTV review show “The Anti-Gravity Room”, but I never knew how long that series ran.), one of the issues was written by Jerry O’Connell which I think is a cool fact, but much much better is the idea that before the series was cancelled there was talk about doing an issue that crossed over with… Quantum Leap! How awesome would that have been??
So yes, it’s not just coincidence that I always lump Sliders and Quantum Leap together, a lot of people have been drawing connections between the shows for years. It’s apparently hinted at that the character of Maggie Beckett, who replaced Professor Arturo (Rhys-Davies), was the niece of Sam Beckett!!
Uh, to keep you in the loop, Sam Beckett is the star of Quantum Leap.
Hmm… oh, did you want me to actually talk about what happens on the show itself? Like, story wise? I don’t know, I’ve already written more than a page of stuff here… Maybe later, I think I can sleep a little bit more now.
I did a lot of parentheses stuff this entry, eh? I mean, even for me, that was a lot of parentheses stuff.
A one hup
For about five minutes before going to work I was looking frantically for my book, finally remembering I’d left it at work so I wouldn’t have to worry about bringing it.
Good luck with that.
Then I forgot my food for the night after having driven just far enough that I couldn’t go back for it. Yeah, I had a little freak out there.
And immediately after pulling over at the Don Mills Library to make this call (because, of course, it’s illegal to talk on your cell phone and drive unless you have a hands free device) to my brother to get him to please fetch my food to me, I’m besieged by people absolutely determined to keep me from exiting the parking lot for as long as possible.
As is ever the case, a stressful commute to work. I shut off the radio, too mad and too mad at myself for being mad for music.
Once I got to work I allowed myself the luxury (and at that point, necessity) of slowing down, taking some calming breaths.
I got to read some comics which, on the whole, weren’t great, but had some moments that made me smile and got me back on the right track. Who doesn’t love seeing the Flash school Superman?
As a practicing hypochondriac (not that I’m always going to the doctor- I worry about whatever charges I’d earn for a look over that yields no info, plus I only think I’m a hypochondriac because of those sidelong, judgemental glances my doctor keeps giving me for going to his office. Yeesh, it’s been well over a year, I’m sure, since my last visit. It just kills me how unhelpful the guy was about my toes.) I’ve been pretty worried about this brown mark on my left hand, situated on the principle callous under the middle finger that seemed to suddenly appear out of nowhere three weeks ago or so.
Finally (FINALLY!) I noticed a peeling at the edge of the murky mark and so literally removed a good piece of my worries from my person. My hand looks like it’s supposed to again, I’m quite relieved. I figure that one of my early hypotheses was correct, that it was a burn mark from cooking (just before noticing the mark I’d burned myself in that area… makes sense to tie the two events together) and that the reason it looked weird and took so long to reveal itself as temporary, was due to it being on, again, a calloused bit of skin that was happy to chill out.
Is this gross to talk about? Maybe it’s gross, I don’t know. I just feel better is all.
What IS gross, however, is this newspaper coverage of the death of Gaddafi, especially in the Sun. There’s no way I needed to see a photo of the mans corpse. If this is the kind of coverage Bin Laden would have received (and yes, it obviously is) then I’m glad such footage was held back from exploitation.
I’d rather not be so viscerally reminded of how vicious we people can be.
I used a lot of alliteration today. Sweet.
Good luck with that.
Then I forgot my food for the night after having driven just far enough that I couldn’t go back for it. Yeah, I had a little freak out there.
And immediately after pulling over at the Don Mills Library to make this call (because, of course, it’s illegal to talk on your cell phone and drive unless you have a hands free device) to my brother to get him to please fetch my food to me, I’m besieged by people absolutely determined to keep me from exiting the parking lot for as long as possible.
As is ever the case, a stressful commute to work. I shut off the radio, too mad and too mad at myself for being mad for music.
Once I got to work I allowed myself the luxury (and at that point, necessity) of slowing down, taking some calming breaths.
I got to read some comics which, on the whole, weren’t great, but had some moments that made me smile and got me back on the right track. Who doesn’t love seeing the Flash school Superman?
As a practicing hypochondriac (not that I’m always going to the doctor- I worry about whatever charges I’d earn for a look over that yields no info, plus I only think I’m a hypochondriac because of those sidelong, judgemental glances my doctor keeps giving me for going to his office. Yeesh, it’s been well over a year, I’m sure, since my last visit. It just kills me how unhelpful the guy was about my toes.) I’ve been pretty worried about this brown mark on my left hand, situated on the principle callous under the middle finger that seemed to suddenly appear out of nowhere three weeks ago or so.
Finally (FINALLY!) I noticed a peeling at the edge of the murky mark and so literally removed a good piece of my worries from my person. My hand looks like it’s supposed to again, I’m quite relieved. I figure that one of my early hypotheses was correct, that it was a burn mark from cooking (just before noticing the mark I’d burned myself in that area… makes sense to tie the two events together) and that the reason it looked weird and took so long to reveal itself as temporary, was due to it being on, again, a calloused bit of skin that was happy to chill out.
Is this gross to talk about? Maybe it’s gross, I don’t know. I just feel better is all.
What IS gross, however, is this newspaper coverage of the death of Gaddafi, especially in the Sun. There’s no way I needed to see a photo of the mans corpse. If this is the kind of coverage Bin Laden would have received (and yes, it obviously is) then I’m glad such footage was held back from exploitation.
I’d rather not be so viscerally reminded of how vicious we people can be.
I used a lot of alliteration today. Sweet.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Gotta get my act together, man!
Been feeling rather down and defeated lately. Lack of sleep is a prime culprit there, but there are other factors. Supreme bad luck when I'm walking up to my friends place to go out to lunch only to call her and find out she wasn't there, and completely forgot the plans we'd made not even 24hrs before.
Wait, that's not the bad luck, the bad luck is that this same day I went to two movies and no one whom I'd invited showed up. That was mostly my fault for springing the invite on people, but even so, I specifically made the event because this one dude wanted to go, and he didn't even show up. What.
If I'd known he wasn't going to be coming, then no doubt I'd have watched the heavier, downer ending Ides of March FIRST and finished with the feel good Real Steel. Both were quite excellent, but man, I'd have preferred to hold fast to the emotional boost of Steel than the jaded world view of Ides.
Regardless, I did finally get a lot of sleep last night, so I feel much better. I had a bunch of dreams that felt rife with story material, but I could either wake up at 8am and record one such dream, or continue to sleep onto 3pm and have it all fade away like so much ether. On this occasion, the latter was probably the correct answer.
That's enough here, I've got to go to work.
Wait, that's not the bad luck, the bad luck is that this same day I went to two movies and no one whom I'd invited showed up. That was mostly my fault for springing the invite on people, but even so, I specifically made the event because this one dude wanted to go, and he didn't even show up. What.
If I'd known he wasn't going to be coming, then no doubt I'd have watched the heavier, downer ending Ides of March FIRST and finished with the feel good Real Steel. Both were quite excellent, but man, I'd have preferred to hold fast to the emotional boost of Steel than the jaded world view of Ides.
Regardless, I did finally get a lot of sleep last night, so I feel much better. I had a bunch of dreams that felt rife with story material, but I could either wake up at 8am and record one such dream, or continue to sleep onto 3pm and have it all fade away like so much ether. On this occasion, the latter was probably the correct answer.
That's enough here, I've got to go to work.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
The Stars My Destination
Read through Alfred Bester’s “The Stars My Destination” about a “common man”, Gully Foyle, on his quest for revenge.
As the intro by Neil Gaiman spoils, this is essentially a science fiction version of The Count of Monte Cristo. And for so long as the book holds to the plot of Count of Monte Cristo I found it lacking. I didn’t see why you should read this in place of the other.
However, as we reach the end, and I thought I could predict exactly what was to come, it takes a hard left at Albuquerque, completely stepping away from Monte Cristo and becoming something other. It left me stunned and impressed.
They set up the turn at the very beginning – if you’d asked me what would happen in the book after twenty pages I would have been much closer to guessing the outcome then after a hundred pages of misdirection.
The book has an alternate title, “Tiger, Tiger” after the Blake poem. I can only ever remember the snippet that the book here provides anyways:
Tiger! Tiger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
And I remember of the comparison to the lamb, but not how that part goes. Regardless it’s an amazing piece, and to be so woven into the thread of this book was a major selling point for me.
How it’s used is in the thesis that Gully Foyle, after being ignited from common man by the spark of revenge into “a driven man”, he becomes a tiger, “remorseless, lecherous, treacherous, kindless villain.” After an early misadventure he gets his face forcibly tattooed by an asteroid based society into a horrible devil/tiger mask of stripes and whorls, with the name “NOMAD” printed across his forehead – the ‘O’ printed with a little arrow over top, as in the symbol for Mars or male. For the first half of the book, before he’s able to hide the tattoo through a combination of surgery and calmness, this is the visual reminder of the savagery of Foyle.
I have to mention the big science fiction detail of this universe, that people in this future have unlocked from their mind the ability to teleport, “jaunte” as it’s called, from place to place so long as they know the start and end co-ordinates, as well as having actually been to the place I guess. The thing about science fiction and fantasy is that it all hangs on the changes to the universe relative to ours. Okay, you changed this- and what does that change yield? And that change? The further down this chain of reasoning you go, the more thought out and “real” the narrative universe becomes.
There’s a constant stream of details in this book about how jaunting effects humanity, the industries it destroyed and created, the status afforded to those who can jaunte the furthest, and the wealth of those who can determine never to jaunte at all just for the sake of bragging rights. These details help give the reality its necessary veracity, but also, and I hope this is true of all science fiction and fantasy (though I’m sure it isn’t), the idea of jaunting and man’s potential to grow is integral to how the story completes itself.
I want to be careful not to give too much away, though like I said; if you think about it at all early in the book you’ll have a good idea of where this thing goes. Especially if you don’t read the intro by Neil Gaiman (if your copy has that), since that intro just throws you off track.
You know Alfred Bester worked in comics and radio? That is to say that, amongst other things, he’s credited with creating the Green Lantern oath? I’m guessing he created the Alan Scott original oath, which I think is this moody little number:
“And I shall shed my light over dark evil, for the dark things cannot stand the light, the light of the Green Lantern!”
I had to go tearing through my room to find the little card with that written on it. Glad I found it. But yeah, if that is the original oath then I have to give Bester props for writing something cool that I wouldn’t mind saying in public, not like the rhymey “In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight” one. That oath is overplayed.
Oh yeah, I said Bester worked in radio- as in he worked on the Shadow! That’s the height of cool right there.
The biggest problem I have with the book is that the quest for revenge never feels authentic. Foyle wants to destroy the ship “Vorga” for not saving him out in space, but as he gets more educated he learns that the ship is nothing, it’s all the crew, and even then, it’s only who gave the orders that counts. It’s hard to believe he’d keep his vendetta going after he gets his obscene fortune and takes on a new identity “Fourmyle of Ceres”.
Now in the Count of Monte Cristo I’d fully believe that guy of holding tight to his revenge. His family stolen, thrown in jail, all at the behest of one man that purposefully targeted the protagonist (Edmund Dantes? Is that the name?). The crew of Vorga were running a smuggling scam- it’d be like expecting bank robbers to pick up a hitchhiker mid heist. Nothing personal, but they’ve got things going on.
The other problem is the one character named Jiz McQueen. That name… hasn’t aged well.
As the intro by Neil Gaiman spoils, this is essentially a science fiction version of The Count of Monte Cristo. And for so long as the book holds to the plot of Count of Monte Cristo I found it lacking. I didn’t see why you should read this in place of the other.
However, as we reach the end, and I thought I could predict exactly what was to come, it takes a hard left at Albuquerque, completely stepping away from Monte Cristo and becoming something other. It left me stunned and impressed.
They set up the turn at the very beginning – if you’d asked me what would happen in the book after twenty pages I would have been much closer to guessing the outcome then after a hundred pages of misdirection.
The book has an alternate title, “Tiger, Tiger” after the Blake poem. I can only ever remember the snippet that the book here provides anyways:
Tiger! Tiger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
And I remember of the comparison to the lamb, but not how that part goes. Regardless it’s an amazing piece, and to be so woven into the thread of this book was a major selling point for me.
How it’s used is in the thesis that Gully Foyle, after being ignited from common man by the spark of revenge into “a driven man”, he becomes a tiger, “remorseless, lecherous, treacherous, kindless villain.” After an early misadventure he gets his face forcibly tattooed by an asteroid based society into a horrible devil/tiger mask of stripes and whorls, with the name “NOMAD” printed across his forehead – the ‘O’ printed with a little arrow over top, as in the symbol for Mars or male. For the first half of the book, before he’s able to hide the tattoo through a combination of surgery and calmness, this is the visual reminder of the savagery of Foyle.
I have to mention the big science fiction detail of this universe, that people in this future have unlocked from their mind the ability to teleport, “jaunte” as it’s called, from place to place so long as they know the start and end co-ordinates, as well as having actually been to the place I guess. The thing about science fiction and fantasy is that it all hangs on the changes to the universe relative to ours. Okay, you changed this- and what does that change yield? And that change? The further down this chain of reasoning you go, the more thought out and “real” the narrative universe becomes.
There’s a constant stream of details in this book about how jaunting effects humanity, the industries it destroyed and created, the status afforded to those who can jaunte the furthest, and the wealth of those who can determine never to jaunte at all just for the sake of bragging rights. These details help give the reality its necessary veracity, but also, and I hope this is true of all science fiction and fantasy (though I’m sure it isn’t), the idea of jaunting and man’s potential to grow is integral to how the story completes itself.
I want to be careful not to give too much away, though like I said; if you think about it at all early in the book you’ll have a good idea of where this thing goes. Especially if you don’t read the intro by Neil Gaiman (if your copy has that), since that intro just throws you off track.
You know Alfred Bester worked in comics and radio? That is to say that, amongst other things, he’s credited with creating the Green Lantern oath? I’m guessing he created the Alan Scott original oath, which I think is this moody little number:
“And I shall shed my light over dark evil, for the dark things cannot stand the light, the light of the Green Lantern!”
I had to go tearing through my room to find the little card with that written on it. Glad I found it. But yeah, if that is the original oath then I have to give Bester props for writing something cool that I wouldn’t mind saying in public, not like the rhymey “In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight” one. That oath is overplayed.
Oh yeah, I said Bester worked in radio- as in he worked on the Shadow! That’s the height of cool right there.
The biggest problem I have with the book is that the quest for revenge never feels authentic. Foyle wants to destroy the ship “Vorga” for not saving him out in space, but as he gets more educated he learns that the ship is nothing, it’s all the crew, and even then, it’s only who gave the orders that counts. It’s hard to believe he’d keep his vendetta going after he gets his obscene fortune and takes on a new identity “Fourmyle of Ceres”.
Now in the Count of Monte Cristo I’d fully believe that guy of holding tight to his revenge. His family stolen, thrown in jail, all at the behest of one man that purposefully targeted the protagonist (Edmund Dantes? Is that the name?). The crew of Vorga were running a smuggling scam- it’d be like expecting bank robbers to pick up a hitchhiker mid heist. Nothing personal, but they’ve got things going on.
The other problem is the one character named Jiz McQueen. That name… hasn’t aged well.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Zigzagoon the Racoon!
A couple of days ago I met up with a friend, got a lot off my chest, and ended up in a pretty good place. Exhausted, but in a good place.
Spent last night babysitting a racoon I called “Zigzagoon the Raccoon” For those that don’t know, zigzagoon is a raccoon like Pokémon. So yeah.
I wasn’t exactly expecting to be a mini animal control last night, but the ladies definitely loved the cuteness of the little guy.
Apparently he snuck into the parking garage late in the day, where he was captured in a box designed specifically for small animals, and brought up to the day staff to figure out what to do. Around this point is when I came in to work.
The residents that brought the box were cool enough that they said they’d bring the racoon to some animal care facility thing at Downsview Park, which was preferable to going to the Toronto Humane society, because apparently baby racoons are “out of season” and they’d just put him down, but I had to look after him all night because these guys wanted to sleep in the meantime. Makes sense, I was going to be awake anyways.
So the little guy was in this cramped box, with some carrots and some maybe meat thing, and I was given a heart shaped dish of milk to give the guy. Of course there was no way that dish was going to fit inside the box, so for almost my first hour at work I was stressing over how to get Milk A into Racoon B.
I first thought I’d be really clever and use SCIENCE! to get the milk in, getting a straw and sort of pipette-ing the milk in. Air pressure, awesome!
But I wasn’t sure which end the racoon was at, didn’t know if he’d go for it, and also I didn’t have any straws. That last one was the big hold up to my plan.
Hoping that this wouldn’t be the one night where someone would not leave a large box in the recycling room unbroken down, I kept an eye on the recycling room camera, and lo and behold some residents were moments away from breaking down and beautifully large box. They actually thought I was going to scold them into breaking it down.
“No, no, can I take it?”
So now I put on some of my rubber gloves, put the racoon box into the much larger box, and let’er out. It worked out perfectly – though a pretty inelegant solution. Need more room? Get a bigger box! (I still wanted to use air pressure for… I don’t know. Something. So unfair.) The little guy had a lot more room, loved the milk (we never thought he’d go through that whole dish, I actually got him a bunch more… maybe a bad idea when he started playing around with the dish and spilling milk on the floor through the box.)
Zigzagoon had a very cute shake he’d sometimes do, I mean in addition to the jitteriness of his being terrified by his environment. Like one of those dog-walks-out-of-a-lake shakes.
This guy peed all over his box, which was fine, but the one time he pooped was MASSIVE. To use an awkward/gross image, it’s pretty much like if someone pooped a baby. So, that gross thing was smelling up the joint, so I had to glove up, get newspaper, and get it trashed. I actually went right to the source, tossing it in the trash compactor. Hmm, I guess I could have dropped it out of the newspaper and into a toilet… I don’t know, that seems risky. What if the thing stuck to the newspaper when I was trying to drop it, and sort of swung towards me? Yeah, no, I made the right call.
Eventually, after it had gotten much later and he was all done with sleeping for a while, Zigzagoon was doing his best to get out of there. You almost wanted to give him a boost, what with how hard he was trying to reach up out of the box. He even started experimenting with using his first little box home as a step up to get out of the big box. Once he managed to knock over that first box, which yielded much firmer ground to work with, it was clear that given enough time this guy could get out. So I gloved up and took out the small box.
I took a couple of pictures of the guy, just with my little camera phone, but I let some other people do the same, but they went all out with flashes. I felt bad for the little guy- I don’t much care for sudden bursts of light in my face, and at least I know they’re coming. What’s worse is that guy probably got more of it than I’ve had to deal with in a long time myself. Pity the cute ones, it seems.
Those nice residents came by at about 5:20am to pick him up, a little earlier than expected, but I had paper work to concentrate on anyways. I gloved up, got him back in his little box (interrupting his renewed interest in the maybe meat thing) and off he went.
Leaving me to ditch the milk leaking box.
Please just be the milk.
Spent last night babysitting a racoon I called “Zigzagoon the Raccoon” For those that don’t know, zigzagoon is a raccoon like Pokémon. So yeah.
I wasn’t exactly expecting to be a mini animal control last night, but the ladies definitely loved the cuteness of the little guy.
Apparently he snuck into the parking garage late in the day, where he was captured in a box designed specifically for small animals, and brought up to the day staff to figure out what to do. Around this point is when I came in to work.
The residents that brought the box were cool enough that they said they’d bring the racoon to some animal care facility thing at Downsview Park, which was preferable to going to the Toronto Humane society, because apparently baby racoons are “out of season” and they’d just put him down, but I had to look after him all night because these guys wanted to sleep in the meantime. Makes sense, I was going to be awake anyways.
So the little guy was in this cramped box, with some carrots and some maybe meat thing, and I was given a heart shaped dish of milk to give the guy. Of course there was no way that dish was going to fit inside the box, so for almost my first hour at work I was stressing over how to get Milk A into Racoon B.
I first thought I’d be really clever and use SCIENCE! to get the milk in, getting a straw and sort of pipette-ing the milk in. Air pressure, awesome!
But I wasn’t sure which end the racoon was at, didn’t know if he’d go for it, and also I didn’t have any straws. That last one was the big hold up to my plan.
Hoping that this wouldn’t be the one night where someone would not leave a large box in the recycling room unbroken down, I kept an eye on the recycling room camera, and lo and behold some residents were moments away from breaking down and beautifully large box. They actually thought I was going to scold them into breaking it down.
“No, no, can I take it?”
So now I put on some of my rubber gloves, put the racoon box into the much larger box, and let’er out. It worked out perfectly – though a pretty inelegant solution. Need more room? Get a bigger box! (I still wanted to use air pressure for… I don’t know. Something. So unfair.) The little guy had a lot more room, loved the milk (we never thought he’d go through that whole dish, I actually got him a bunch more… maybe a bad idea when he started playing around with the dish and spilling milk on the floor through the box.)
Zigzagoon had a very cute shake he’d sometimes do, I mean in addition to the jitteriness of his being terrified by his environment. Like one of those dog-walks-out-of-a-lake shakes.
This guy peed all over his box, which was fine, but the one time he pooped was MASSIVE. To use an awkward/gross image, it’s pretty much like if someone pooped a baby. So, that gross thing was smelling up the joint, so I had to glove up, get newspaper, and get it trashed. I actually went right to the source, tossing it in the trash compactor. Hmm, I guess I could have dropped it out of the newspaper and into a toilet… I don’t know, that seems risky. What if the thing stuck to the newspaper when I was trying to drop it, and sort of swung towards me? Yeah, no, I made the right call.
Eventually, after it had gotten much later and he was all done with sleeping for a while, Zigzagoon was doing his best to get out of there. You almost wanted to give him a boost, what with how hard he was trying to reach up out of the box. He even started experimenting with using his first little box home as a step up to get out of the big box. Once he managed to knock over that first box, which yielded much firmer ground to work with, it was clear that given enough time this guy could get out. So I gloved up and took out the small box.
I took a couple of pictures of the guy, just with my little camera phone, but I let some other people do the same, but they went all out with flashes. I felt bad for the little guy- I don’t much care for sudden bursts of light in my face, and at least I know they’re coming. What’s worse is that guy probably got more of it than I’ve had to deal with in a long time myself. Pity the cute ones, it seems.
Those nice residents came by at about 5:20am to pick him up, a little earlier than expected, but I had paper work to concentrate on anyways. I gloved up, got him back in his little box (interrupting his renewed interest in the maybe meat thing) and off he went.
Leaving me to ditch the milk leaking box.
Please just be the milk.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
What else? October 9th why not
My buddy told me something that’s really gotten me unhappy. Naturally, I told him everything was fine. Does he even know he told me anything? Like all our big conversations, he was drunk while we were having it.
If I haven’t made it clear, I really hate alcohol and the excuse it is to people. There, now you know ONE of my values. Please don’t assume the rest.
Okay, sorry, enough of that. I’ve got a ton of library books that I want to at least mention, but I’m pretty sure the majority of them are due back today… AND I’m not exactly in the mood for anything in depth. So I’ll take each book as it comes.
First up, Marvel’s “Strange Tales II” the second anthology of more independent creators taking a fun crack at Marvel stuff. The Kate Beaton stuff is naturally the best, but she’s got the home team advantage, as well as being plain amazing. Not surprising, the Silver Surfer is a big player in these stories. People love the Surfer (as an idea). The book was dedicated to the memory of Harvey Pekar, who in fact has a story in it about The Thing asking Harvey to hook him up with a government job. It’s awesomely splendorous.
Jeff Smith’s RASL volume 1… did I already talk about this one? I forget. It’s really cool, and I love the creator, AND the fact that it’s sort of a cartoon Sliders (I finally bought season 1 and 2 of that !) but I do wish the story covered more ground in this first collection. So my complaint is that I don’t have volume 2 to read.
The Irredeemable Ant-Man by Robert Kirkman is great. The guys a slime ball, but you still get to like him. It’s almost lucky that this is the entirety of the series, that it got cancelled, as it allowed the character to branch out into the Avengers Initiative book and then onto Secret Avengers. I don’t know where he is now, but it’s still cool the amount of legitimacy this supposed joke character has attained.
Speaking of irredeemable, here’s the sister book (brother book?) to Mark Waid’s “Irredeemable”… “Incorruptible”! It’s not as accomplished a story as Irredeemable, since that one gets to cherry pick from a host of Superman conventions to tear down. This one has the worst bad guy decide if the world’s hero is going to now be a genocidal crazy man, Max Damage was now going to be a hero. The motivations are sort of there, but it’s still a little hard to swallow. Still, I like the concept, especially since, you know, this is at the end of the day a book about a good guy (mostly). Well, he tries to be good. He mostly succeeds anyways.
X-Men: Original Sin- a crossover between Wolverine Origins and X-Men: Legacy when it starred Professor X, it’s a lot of rewriting history that you get a lot of these days because a lot of comic creators are, you know, creatively bankrupt. Eh, skip it.
Already talked about the Goon.
Did I talk about Jonathan Hickman’s Pax Romana? Well, if I didn’t, long story short is there is no story. It’s a bunch of stuff that sort of happens, but the writer is so intent on putting the pieces together of “how would you go back in time to advance society so things chugged along a bit quicker than they did?” that he completely misses the point of storytelling. Except as a ‘what not to do when writing a story’ there’s no point to reading this. Plus, it’s a killer on the eyes to get through.
Two Generals by Scott Chantler- a well researched and sweet story about this Chantler fellow’s grandfather in WW II, with an excellent animated art style. Someone should get this made into an animated film, that’d be a real coup for Canadian culture. The comic is good too, but no one is really going to hear about it if it isn’t a movie of some sort. Unfortunately.
The first volume of Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso’s award winning 100 Bullets. A mostly rotating cast of characters are used to answer the question- if you could get away with murder, especially against someone who wronged you, would you? The form of the story is so strict that it stretches the creative muscles to answer differently with each new character- but they would completely answer differently, of course. It’s like writing a sonnet, it’s restrictive to not write in free verse, but it also gets your brain working, and there’s a flow to it all. I didn’t think I’d like this book, but now that I know what it’s all about I really see the appeal.
Kick-Ass! Finally read the book that the movie was based on. Yes, it is much different from the movie… not necessarily in what happens, there are only two things that are particularly different, but those two things greatly change the tone of the story. I prefer the film one, it’s both more off the wall AND more realistic, and the main character is a better person than in the comic. That’s because all the changes for the movie are to change the central thesis of the comic book: that only an asshole would be a super hero. That’s evident in how the movie version doesn’t even consider how his father would be devastated if he got killed, where the comic version realizes it, but then does it anyway because he’s addicted to it. Then there’s the Big Daddy conundrum- in the comic he just becomes a super hero and ruins his daughters childhood because… again, asshole, wanted to be special. The film version actually did have a wife that was killed- movie Big Daddy really was everything he said he was. The other big difference is that movie Kick-Ass gets the girl in the end, and comic book one gets made fun of by the girl and tormented a little. I felt the movie version was more accurate- the kid becomes a world wide sensation, lame though it was he was a hero, sure he’ll get the girl. However, now that I’ve read the comic I do get why comic Kick-Ass doesn’t get her… because he doesn’t deserve to. He isn’t a good person, again, that was the whole thesis of the comic. I’m not surprised that he isn’t popular. He kinda sucks. Anyways.
Volume 5 of Tom Strong, I’ve actually read this before, but I forgot that when I picked it up at the library. Whatever, it’s still good. The best, and saddest (I mean saddest for us real people/most snaptacular) is the last story where Tom’s world is changed so that his adventurous life and family was all a delusion, and he’s just some normal guy in the real world. He snaps out of it when, as he tells us in the epilogue after the fact, “The world that Morovia created, the world I was imprisoned in… it was a terrible place. The skies were always gray, the politicians were all liars, the people lived in loneliness and fear. There was no sense of adventure or wonder… and my life was so empty. Without you and your mother, without our friends. And I just realized no place like that could actually exist… outside the mind of a madman, that is. And that realization broke the spell. Simple as that.”
Volume one of Kill Shakespeare. It’s cool, my buddy Owen has a story in the back as illustrated by J. Bone, which is an awesome fact. It’s alright.
Invisibles: Bloody Hell in America, the first volume of the second Invisibles series. It’s all magicy stuff, mostly nonsensical, but at least the author avatar is a bit less of a Mary Sue this time out. It’s not really my thing, but I love Morrison, so I have to read through it regardless.
Victorian Undead: Sherlock Holmes vs Zombies. It’s Sherlock Holmes, making none of the usual dumb mistakes associated with zombie stories (lucky for Watson, eh what?) and there are huge side burns everywhere. What’s not to love about this? Could use more deer stalker cap, even though that’s an affectation added by the film serials or somewhere.
Volume 7 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8. I think I already talked about this one.
Filthy Rich by Brian Azzarello. It’s a crammed black and white book which makes it hard to tell what’s going on and who’s who sometimes, but pretty good all in all. You have to remember the protagonist isn’t a good guy… or maybe you should forget. That way the Stephen King/Twilight Zone ending won’t bother you. Not that it’s supernatural at all, just that the guy is determined to kill this one woman who wronged him at the first opportunity. By that point he’s become her driver, so I don’t know what he’s waiting for, but whatever. It’s pretty good, kind of a lame mystery, and again, I prefer good guy protagonists.
Patsy Walker: Hellcat. A bubble gum comic. It’s alright, though you have to be really well versed in “comic-ese” to understand a bunch of it. It’s fast and silly, kind of too silly for me, which is, you know, REALLY silly. The main story of two (both written by Kathryn Immonen) is ultimately anti-climactic. Ah well.
I don’t mean to shock you, but “After the Golden Age” by Carrie Vaughn is actually a novel, not a comic. What?!? Isaac can read books too?? Yes, I’m a man of many talents. But don’t get too excited, it’s still about super heroes. Anyways, I applaud the effort, but there are a lot of missteps in the story here, the universe is too small to make the mystery that difficult, and the ending straight up sucks. We spend the whole novel seeing what a jerk the superman analogue is to his powerless daughter, and then at the end he swoops in, saves her just in time, but is killed in the process, and then, two or three years later, she’s talking about what a good grandfather he’d have been. INncorrect. There was little evidence to support that he was even a decent father, so the entire ending is sappy and disingenuous. A couple of flashbacks to him BEING a good father would’ve cleared that up nicely though.
And yeah, that’s all the books. Now they can go back to the library and I can hopefully not get fines.
If I haven’t made it clear, I really hate alcohol and the excuse it is to people. There, now you know ONE of my values. Please don’t assume the rest.
Okay, sorry, enough of that. I’ve got a ton of library books that I want to at least mention, but I’m pretty sure the majority of them are due back today… AND I’m not exactly in the mood for anything in depth. So I’ll take each book as it comes.
First up, Marvel’s “Strange Tales II” the second anthology of more independent creators taking a fun crack at Marvel stuff. The Kate Beaton stuff is naturally the best, but she’s got the home team advantage, as well as being plain amazing. Not surprising, the Silver Surfer is a big player in these stories. People love the Surfer (as an idea). The book was dedicated to the memory of Harvey Pekar, who in fact has a story in it about The Thing asking Harvey to hook him up with a government job. It’s awesomely splendorous.
Jeff Smith’s RASL volume 1… did I already talk about this one? I forget. It’s really cool, and I love the creator, AND the fact that it’s sort of a cartoon Sliders (I finally bought season 1 and 2 of that !) but I do wish the story covered more ground in this first collection. So my complaint is that I don’t have volume 2 to read.
The Irredeemable Ant-Man by Robert Kirkman is great. The guys a slime ball, but you still get to like him. It’s almost lucky that this is the entirety of the series, that it got cancelled, as it allowed the character to branch out into the Avengers Initiative book and then onto Secret Avengers. I don’t know where he is now, but it’s still cool the amount of legitimacy this supposed joke character has attained.
Speaking of irredeemable, here’s the sister book (brother book?) to Mark Waid’s “Irredeemable”… “Incorruptible”! It’s not as accomplished a story as Irredeemable, since that one gets to cherry pick from a host of Superman conventions to tear down. This one has the worst bad guy decide if the world’s hero is going to now be a genocidal crazy man, Max Damage was now going to be a hero. The motivations are sort of there, but it’s still a little hard to swallow. Still, I like the concept, especially since, you know, this is at the end of the day a book about a good guy (mostly). Well, he tries to be good. He mostly succeeds anyways.
X-Men: Original Sin- a crossover between Wolverine Origins and X-Men: Legacy when it starred Professor X, it’s a lot of rewriting history that you get a lot of these days because a lot of comic creators are, you know, creatively bankrupt. Eh, skip it.
Already talked about the Goon.
Did I talk about Jonathan Hickman’s Pax Romana? Well, if I didn’t, long story short is there is no story. It’s a bunch of stuff that sort of happens, but the writer is so intent on putting the pieces together of “how would you go back in time to advance society so things chugged along a bit quicker than they did?” that he completely misses the point of storytelling. Except as a ‘what not to do when writing a story’ there’s no point to reading this. Plus, it’s a killer on the eyes to get through.
Two Generals by Scott Chantler- a well researched and sweet story about this Chantler fellow’s grandfather in WW II, with an excellent animated art style. Someone should get this made into an animated film, that’d be a real coup for Canadian culture. The comic is good too, but no one is really going to hear about it if it isn’t a movie of some sort. Unfortunately.
The first volume of Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso’s award winning 100 Bullets. A mostly rotating cast of characters are used to answer the question- if you could get away with murder, especially against someone who wronged you, would you? The form of the story is so strict that it stretches the creative muscles to answer differently with each new character- but they would completely answer differently, of course. It’s like writing a sonnet, it’s restrictive to not write in free verse, but it also gets your brain working, and there’s a flow to it all. I didn’t think I’d like this book, but now that I know what it’s all about I really see the appeal.
Kick-Ass! Finally read the book that the movie was based on. Yes, it is much different from the movie… not necessarily in what happens, there are only two things that are particularly different, but those two things greatly change the tone of the story. I prefer the film one, it’s both more off the wall AND more realistic, and the main character is a better person than in the comic. That’s because all the changes for the movie are to change the central thesis of the comic book: that only an asshole would be a super hero. That’s evident in how the movie version doesn’t even consider how his father would be devastated if he got killed, where the comic version realizes it, but then does it anyway because he’s addicted to it. Then there’s the Big Daddy conundrum- in the comic he just becomes a super hero and ruins his daughters childhood because… again, asshole, wanted to be special. The film version actually did have a wife that was killed- movie Big Daddy really was everything he said he was. The other big difference is that movie Kick-Ass gets the girl in the end, and comic book one gets made fun of by the girl and tormented a little. I felt the movie version was more accurate- the kid becomes a world wide sensation, lame though it was he was a hero, sure he’ll get the girl. However, now that I’ve read the comic I do get why comic Kick-Ass doesn’t get her… because he doesn’t deserve to. He isn’t a good person, again, that was the whole thesis of the comic. I’m not surprised that he isn’t popular. He kinda sucks. Anyways.
Volume 5 of Tom Strong, I’ve actually read this before, but I forgot that when I picked it up at the library. Whatever, it’s still good. The best, and saddest (I mean saddest for us real people/most snaptacular) is the last story where Tom’s world is changed so that his adventurous life and family was all a delusion, and he’s just some normal guy in the real world. He snaps out of it when, as he tells us in the epilogue after the fact, “The world that Morovia created, the world I was imprisoned in… it was a terrible place. The skies were always gray, the politicians were all liars, the people lived in loneliness and fear. There was no sense of adventure or wonder… and my life was so empty. Without you and your mother, without our friends. And I just realized no place like that could actually exist… outside the mind of a madman, that is. And that realization broke the spell. Simple as that.”
Volume one of Kill Shakespeare. It’s cool, my buddy Owen has a story in the back as illustrated by J. Bone, which is an awesome fact. It’s alright.
Invisibles: Bloody Hell in America, the first volume of the second Invisibles series. It’s all magicy stuff, mostly nonsensical, but at least the author avatar is a bit less of a Mary Sue this time out. It’s not really my thing, but I love Morrison, so I have to read through it regardless.
Victorian Undead: Sherlock Holmes vs Zombies. It’s Sherlock Holmes, making none of the usual dumb mistakes associated with zombie stories (lucky for Watson, eh what?) and there are huge side burns everywhere. What’s not to love about this? Could use more deer stalker cap, even though that’s an affectation added by the film serials or somewhere.
Volume 7 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8. I think I already talked about this one.
Filthy Rich by Brian Azzarello. It’s a crammed black and white book which makes it hard to tell what’s going on and who’s who sometimes, but pretty good all in all. You have to remember the protagonist isn’t a good guy… or maybe you should forget. That way the Stephen King/Twilight Zone ending won’t bother you. Not that it’s supernatural at all, just that the guy is determined to kill this one woman who wronged him at the first opportunity. By that point he’s become her driver, so I don’t know what he’s waiting for, but whatever. It’s pretty good, kind of a lame mystery, and again, I prefer good guy protagonists.
Patsy Walker: Hellcat. A bubble gum comic. It’s alright, though you have to be really well versed in “comic-ese” to understand a bunch of it. It’s fast and silly, kind of too silly for me, which is, you know, REALLY silly. The main story of two (both written by Kathryn Immonen) is ultimately anti-climactic. Ah well.
I don’t mean to shock you, but “After the Golden Age” by Carrie Vaughn is actually a novel, not a comic. What?!? Isaac can read books too?? Yes, I’m a man of many talents. But don’t get too excited, it’s still about super heroes. Anyways, I applaud the effort, but there are a lot of missteps in the story here, the universe is too small to make the mystery that difficult, and the ending straight up sucks. We spend the whole novel seeing what a jerk the superman analogue is to his powerless daughter, and then at the end he swoops in, saves her just in time, but is killed in the process, and then, two or three years later, she’s talking about what a good grandfather he’d have been. INncorrect. There was little evidence to support that he was even a decent father, so the entire ending is sappy and disingenuous. A couple of flashbacks to him BEING a good father would’ve cleared that up nicely though.
And yeah, that’s all the books. Now they can go back to the library and I can hopefully not get fines.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Two posts up in one day. I prefer not to do that.
I’ve gotten up a little early today because I’ve got a lot scheduled and not much time to do it all. Plus I’ve got some self hate running through my head.
There’s this one guy I’ve met a couple of times, I like him, he’s a really good guy- in fact that’s the thing, he’s so good that I can’t help but think “wow, this here is a person that is just better than me. I wish I was more like this guy.”
But then my worse nature kicks in, trying to chip away at this guy, bring him down to my level (or lower). “Hmm, doesn’t smile much, perhaps has issues with self confidence?”
It would be amazing, and probably horrifying, if someone could just go up to me and call me on this. I’d probably suggest they read (pronounced “red”) my blog, and this person could reply “wow, so conceited!”
I need to get taken down a peg or two. Maybe I’m sort of talking myself down a half peg right now. But yes, humility is important. It helps keep your abilities in perspective, it helps you appreciate the efforts of others- you know, humility!
Fortunately, I have had some good lessons as far as that goes. Most of my university career taught me humility, with a special mention going to my experience in the symphony orchestra where it just kept getting pointed out how not good enough I was for the thing. Man, that sucked. And the first year I was only there because they asked me!
The best example though, the one that isn’t tinged with bitterness and embarrassment, is back in grade eleven biology when I said something, I forget what now, and my buddy cracked that I was a “pretentious bastard”. I (clearly) never forgot that, because even though this guy never gave that a second thought, he was probably more kidding around than anything, he wasn’t really wrong.
Uh, about the pretentious part.
I sent him a letter a couple of years later thanking him. Maybe that sounds strange to you.
Since my last post, which I’ll have just posted but wrote a bunch of days ago, I got fairly sick and got better, just like the rest of Toronto. My voice still sounded a bit weird, but almost back to normal. I was at a birthday party last night where I talked too much about really trivial things (par for the course) and have hurt my throat yelling over the music. I probably should have gotten a drink for my throats sake- I mean water or sprite or something.
I played a little pool with this one younger guy. He was encouraging, though it was with that self assurance that comes with actual being okay at pool… or at least knowing full well that he was playing with someone that’s only played a handful of times in his life. It was actually interesting to watch this guy go from an area where he was in control, the pool table, to that of a circle of people talking, where he now flipped to this guy that talked way too much with a bunch of poorly thought out jokes… and now I’m describing myself. Isn’t that wonderful. Fantastic.
Maybe that describes me, but I will happily affirm that my bad awkward jokes are way cleverer than pool guys jokes. His were mostly of the sarcastic-admission-of-hard-drug-use variety… my jokes are usually, you know, Spider-Man related or something.
I seem to feel a bit better now, so I’ll get to work on my reviews. I’m going to ignore that I achieved that feeling by basically chipping away at pool guy like I said I was wont to do. :(
There’s this one guy I’ve met a couple of times, I like him, he’s a really good guy- in fact that’s the thing, he’s so good that I can’t help but think “wow, this here is a person that is just better than me. I wish I was more like this guy.”
But then my worse nature kicks in, trying to chip away at this guy, bring him down to my level (or lower). “Hmm, doesn’t smile much, perhaps has issues with self confidence?”
It would be amazing, and probably horrifying, if someone could just go up to me and call me on this. I’d probably suggest they read (pronounced “red”) my blog, and this person could reply “wow, so conceited!”
I need to get taken down a peg or two. Maybe I’m sort of talking myself down a half peg right now. But yes, humility is important. It helps keep your abilities in perspective, it helps you appreciate the efforts of others- you know, humility!
Fortunately, I have had some good lessons as far as that goes. Most of my university career taught me humility, with a special mention going to my experience in the symphony orchestra where it just kept getting pointed out how not good enough I was for the thing. Man, that sucked. And the first year I was only there because they asked me!
The best example though, the one that isn’t tinged with bitterness and embarrassment, is back in grade eleven biology when I said something, I forget what now, and my buddy cracked that I was a “pretentious bastard”. I (clearly) never forgot that, because even though this guy never gave that a second thought, he was probably more kidding around than anything, he wasn’t really wrong.
Uh, about the pretentious part.
I sent him a letter a couple of years later thanking him. Maybe that sounds strange to you.
Since my last post, which I’ll have just posted but wrote a bunch of days ago, I got fairly sick and got better, just like the rest of Toronto. My voice still sounded a bit weird, but almost back to normal. I was at a birthday party last night where I talked too much about really trivial things (par for the course) and have hurt my throat yelling over the music. I probably should have gotten a drink for my throats sake- I mean water or sprite or something.
I played a little pool with this one younger guy. He was encouraging, though it was with that self assurance that comes with actual being okay at pool… or at least knowing full well that he was playing with someone that’s only played a handful of times in his life. It was actually interesting to watch this guy go from an area where he was in control, the pool table, to that of a circle of people talking, where he now flipped to this guy that talked way too much with a bunch of poorly thought out jokes… and now I’m describing myself. Isn’t that wonderful. Fantastic.
Maybe that describes me, but I will happily affirm that my bad awkward jokes are way cleverer than pool guys jokes. His were mostly of the sarcastic-admission-of-hard-drug-use variety… my jokes are usually, you know, Spider-Man related or something.
I seem to feel a bit better now, so I’ll get to work on my reviews. I’m going to ignore that I achieved that feeling by basically chipping away at pool guy like I said I was wont to do. :(
P.S. I got sick later
I’ve just returned from finally watching Midnight in Paris. I was smiling through the whole picture. There’s that Owen Wilson onscreen personas charm, the non-digital grainy picture thanks to the AMC at Kennedy Commons (maybe also in part to how the film was shot- how could I tell the difference?), the blustery good nature of the caricatures of famous people.
It’s sort of like a grown ups version of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Which is high praise, as far as I’m concerned.
It’s raining lightly outside, just like the end of the movie.
The story is very much wish fulfillment- “what if I could meet all these people I’ve looked up to?” It’s like fanfiction in that sense. Your self insert character just dropped in on another universe and everyone acts just how you expect them to… plus everyone happens to love you somehow. Was it all a dream? As if that ever matters.
I strolled into the theatre with a couple of minutes to spare. It was just me and two old ladies at the front. The one, just before the movie started, asked the other if they were alone. “No, there’s one other person here,” was the reply. They laughed at a couple of things but left half way through the movie. Maybe they snuck in from/to another movie. Having the entire theatre to myself was the height of luxury, I’m lucky.
Heh. Everything out of Hemingway’s mouth was loud and abrupt. Everything had to be “true” with that guy, that guy in the movie I mean. I liked the advice about writers not wanting to read another writers work “we’re both writers, we’re in competition with each other. Either you’re book is bad, and I don’t want to read bad work, or it’ll be good and I’ll be jealous which is worse still.”
Maybe that’s the quote, I didn’t have a notebook at hand. And then when he drunkenly yells out “ANYBODY WANNA FIGHT?!” Again, these are cartoon versions of famous figures, but that makes them either more truly how Woody Allen (movies writer) sees them, or how he wants them to be perceived. It doesn’t matter which is the case, I’m unlikely to ever meet the man. I could write a story where I meet up with him. But if I were to do that I’d rather meet someone else. I’d previously thought about Animal Man, so maybe that’s still on the table.
I was trying to soak up as much atmosphere as I could afterwards. Two guys outside asked if I was alright- I probably looked high. Actually, the one guy sounded like he asked if I had or possibly wanted a tic-tac. I said no thank you before being informed the guy was asking if I was alright.
Making that the shortest, most successful game of telephone ever.
The objective of telephone is to obscure your message to the greatest degree possible, right?
If there are any others of this quality then I’ve gotta check out more Woody Allen movies.
Right now my head hurts, I’m getting sick, and so that’s gotta be stopped as soon as possible.
It’s sort of like a grown ups version of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Which is high praise, as far as I’m concerned.
It’s raining lightly outside, just like the end of the movie.
The story is very much wish fulfillment- “what if I could meet all these people I’ve looked up to?” It’s like fanfiction in that sense. Your self insert character just dropped in on another universe and everyone acts just how you expect them to… plus everyone happens to love you somehow. Was it all a dream? As if that ever matters.
I strolled into the theatre with a couple of minutes to spare. It was just me and two old ladies at the front. The one, just before the movie started, asked the other if they were alone. “No, there’s one other person here,” was the reply. They laughed at a couple of things but left half way through the movie. Maybe they snuck in from/to another movie. Having the entire theatre to myself was the height of luxury, I’m lucky.
Heh. Everything out of Hemingway’s mouth was loud and abrupt. Everything had to be “true” with that guy, that guy in the movie I mean. I liked the advice about writers not wanting to read another writers work “we’re both writers, we’re in competition with each other. Either you’re book is bad, and I don’t want to read bad work, or it’ll be good and I’ll be jealous which is worse still.”
Maybe that’s the quote, I didn’t have a notebook at hand. And then when he drunkenly yells out “ANYBODY WANNA FIGHT?!” Again, these are cartoon versions of famous figures, but that makes them either more truly how Woody Allen (movies writer) sees them, or how he wants them to be perceived. It doesn’t matter which is the case, I’m unlikely to ever meet the man. I could write a story where I meet up with him. But if I were to do that I’d rather meet someone else. I’d previously thought about Animal Man, so maybe that’s still on the table.
I was trying to soak up as much atmosphere as I could afterwards. Two guys outside asked if I was alright- I probably looked high. Actually, the one guy sounded like he asked if I had or possibly wanted a tic-tac. I said no thank you before being informed the guy was asking if I was alright.
Making that the shortest, most successful game of telephone ever.
The objective of telephone is to obscure your message to the greatest degree possible, right?
If there are any others of this quality then I’ve gotta check out more Woody Allen movies.
Right now my head hurts, I’m getting sick, and so that’s gotta be stopped as soon as possible.
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