I've already got two document pages opened to potential posts, one on the Dark Knight Rises, the other on the novel "A Drink Before the War". But I need to at least get this out of the way- I have a bunch of crumpled up newspaper stuff in my bag that I wanted to mention at least in passing (though I'll surely need to glance at them to remember why), and before I get to THAT there's a bunch of stuff just from todays paper. So let's whittle this stuff down and reduce the likely hood of me collecting obscure scraps of paper like some kind of crazy philatelist (sp?).
***
A quick shout out goes to "Adam @ Home" in todays Toronto Star for something that I'm often praising it for in my head. The humour is mostly derived from the cheesy gags that any of the characters could spout. Despite the abundance of wit (and therefore the possible complaint that all the characters sound alike), it's all very understated and sweet. The main cast family are all people I would want to hang out with. No one is a charicature(sp?) of stupidty, arrogance, hyper-activity, or any trait jacked up to 11 for the sake of making things funny. For the sake of being laugh out loud funny it isn't the way to go, but everyone is so endearing I wouldn't want a thing changed. The strip could also potentially be criticized for these kids making Star Wars references that this newer generation probably wouldn't make, but I don't know how long the kids have been in the strip, maybe they've been 10 years old for the past 20 years like Bart Simpson! But who cares, those Star Wars references are another reason why I'd love to baby sit these fictional kids.
***
This scrap from the celebrity obsessed entertainment section informed me that the too-cool-for-school Joseph Gordon-Levitt said "pretty girls aren't usually funny", with the suggestion that he'll soon regret those words because of the inevitable offended rebuttals (since those are always so hilarious). I'd love a three panel comic strip of:
Panel 1: Clear view of cartoon Gordon-Levitt's face, word balloon situated to the right of his head matter-of-factly states "Pretty girls aren't usually funny."
Panel 2: Gordon-Levitt looks to the side, embarrassed, realizing he may have said something that will be taken poorly, says "Um, I mean, uh..."
Panel 3: Reprise of Panel 1, but with the addition of a quick word balloon on the upper left of the panel saying "...whatever."
I just like picturing the cartoon Gordon-Levitt I'd draw, little black dots for eyes, pointed little ears, all on an over-sized head, with furrowed brows, the first and third panel displaying the height of a straight-serious face. Mock serious? Is this a situation that calls for the descriptor "mock serious"? My ignorance has once again embarrassed me.
***
Okay, maybe this doesn't tie in together, but there's this great line that hit me from this Les Miserables book today. P. 67 has Inspecter Javert exclaim "Good God, it is easy to be kind, the difficulty is to be just."
This coming from what is an enemy to our protagonist, the disguised Jean Valjean, someone who held against Valjean the innumerable kindnesses he bestowed upon the village he'd taken to living in, whose unprejudiced generosity has been objectively the key factor in the villages new wealthy status, Javert's words should be wrong, right? (There is definitely a better way to phrase that sentence)
How much am I "loved" for the times when I let the rules slide for this or that person, compared to my intractable counterpart who asserts the rules even when they don't make sense? Scratch that- ESPECIALLY when they don't make sense. I'm not being kind to him in that case, he has to suffer through the unfavourable comparisons. Granted, I try to look at why a rule exists, to keep to the spirit of that rule if it makes any kind of sense at all. My counterpart refuses to engage in a case-by-case analysis. Fairness/justice on his part, or laziness?
You have to choose your battles though. What will it get anybody to argue over an extra ten minutes of parking time? A lot of energy has been wasted in such arguments when he could have been hakuna matata-ing.
In the end, I think he's the better employee on paper, but in any reality you'd want me instead. Though that could be a separate issue having to do with my ability to understand to do new things and whatnot.
Uh, anyways, ideally kindness and justice should be the same thing. I guess in the working world it's a question of "who's justice?"
***
I really like this letter to the Star, the caption above it says "It's up to the people to solve this" let me try and get a decently succint excerpt to share (cross your fingers I don't just retype the whole thing):
"My brother and I were raised by a single mom in Scarborough. At no time have either of us sold drugs, been in jail, or carried a gun... My mother worked full-time and spent her free time with us... She wore the same crappy coat for years, not buying herself new clothes so she could afford our (sporting and other) activities. She kept us out of trouble... She parented us. The media are so quick to blame lack of 'free' community programs or 'absentee' fathers. What is really lacking is selfless, quality parenting. (Our mother) relied on herself and taught us to rely on ourselves and take responsiblity for our own actions. People have to step up. Support your children, be involved in their lives, know their friends, and sacrifice some designer clothes or the latest gadget to make things happen for them. Parent them! It's not up to the politicians to solve this problem; it's up to the people themselves." Tamara Caldwell, Whitby
Well, I cut it down some for you. This hit me because here I am, thinking about all the various social programs that should be instituted, the jobs and subsequent hopes for the future that just don't seem to be around anymore, basically I'm thinking "what should our politicians (calling them "leaders" would be a bit of a stretch, unfortunately) be doing to solve our problems?"
Make no mistake, I want there to be more, better funded social programs, but as a means to a more fair-minded, egalitarian society. (I better be using egalitarian correctly just now!!) IF we had parents teaching those values of personal responsibility then things would take care of themselves... but who parents the parents? Where do they get THEIR values? How far back must we travel to find that point where, okay, right, this is something that needs to be taught. "The parents need to do their job!" "Well, who taught them their job?" "Their parents?" "And who taught THEM?" "Their parents.." and on and on.
I think it's pretty obvious that self involved parents aren't going to change by themselves, and as a result their legacy of selfishness gets passed on.
I flipped from where I originally was on this, about how the government SHOULD just get out of the way on this (and most everything), and that we'll simply anarchicly intuit the best way forward. It bothers me how close in my head modern conservatism matches up with my ideal of anarchy. But then my brain matches up modern conservatism with a liberal (see what I did there?) dash of objectivism and I'm less worried.
I may have run through the totality (clearly a limited one) of my knowledge of political theory. More or less. It really is a good letter though!
I'm thus far failing at getting through all these bits of paper- I've now got the NEW newspaper in front of me, and there's another great letter this time from Deanna Churcher of Milton who says that, though her parents weren't around much and therefore weren't a positive influence on her, the fact that people, her teachers, cared at all, helping her match up with scholarships, loans, and new work, made all the difference- a difference found in various community and school social programs.
Really, there probably just aren't enough people making good faith actions towards helping others to a better life simply for the sake of giving someone a better life.
Okay, I'm out of it for the night. I made no dent in my pile of papers already in my bag... and have now added one more paper. Uuugh.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Saturday, July 21, 2012
I will read this book, whatever that means.
I've got Les Miserables in my bag beside me for this bus ride home. It's a classic so I was sure to get to it eventually, but this copy I picked up, while certainly beautifully water-damaged and browned with age, it turns out to be some kind of abridged version that gets straight to the good stuff. Should I read from this version? Am I severely missing out on the experience of Les Mis?
I'm already quite aware that I'm not reading it in the french. Well surprise! I don't speak french. I'd get maybe every fifth word or so. That would surely make the book a chore to read. Bah, I'll probably stick with this version and wrestle with my conscience afterwards about whether or not I can sit back and say "I have read this book."
I had a bunch of blog type work I wanted to get to this evening, but instead I played Star Fox 64 with a guy that sure refused to go easy on me. Very frustrating. Especially since I have the latest Batman movie to briefly talk about (I'm taking spoilers for this movie very seriously).
The bus ride has been quick, I'm almost home. I've really got to start looking for a new job, get my schedule in order.
By the way, I missed my bus to work today, and so ended up going on a short run with my dad. We don't generally spend time together, so that was different, especially considering it's an activity I usually so associate with isolation. Most of the time, anyways.
If I have enough time and will I'll post something else before I go to work today.
I'm already quite aware that I'm not reading it in the french. Well surprise! I don't speak french. I'd get maybe every fifth word or so. That would surely make the book a chore to read. Bah, I'll probably stick with this version and wrestle with my conscience afterwards about whether or not I can sit back and say "I have read this book."
I had a bunch of blog type work I wanted to get to this evening, but instead I played Star Fox 64 with a guy that sure refused to go easy on me. Very frustrating. Especially since I have the latest Batman movie to briefly talk about (I'm taking spoilers for this movie very seriously).
The bus ride has been quick, I'm almost home. I've really got to start looking for a new job, get my schedule in order.
By the way, I missed my bus to work today, and so ended up going on a short run with my dad. We don't generally spend time together, so that was different, especially considering it's an activity I usually so associate with isolation. Most of the time, anyways.
If I have enough time and will I'll post something else before I go to work today.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Really messed up dream
I just woke up and I'm going to tell you about this seriously disturbing dream I had.
It was a sort of pilot episode to a tv series, I think it was called "Unlawfully--" er, something. Or maybe "Blind Justice". I forget. It was really clear in my mind the first time I woke up, when all I could think was "what. was. THAT?!?!" but then I did go back to sleep, to try and mentally rinse my head out with something else. So it was a couple of hours back.
So the story follows this guy, he's a treasure hunter I guess, holed up in this beach front house. He leaves, but the lights are out, and he's worried he may not be able to find where he's going.. he's kind of worried that he won't even be able to make it back to the beach house, it's so dark, this despite their being no other landmarks nearby.
In the darkness on the beach, a woman approaches, running, she's scared, the guy offers to help her, to take her back to the beach house for protection. They find their way back to the house, but the guy starts getting suspicious of her motives, of the REAL reason she's out there at night, being chased by whatever. He leaps into the water (there's a hole at the far end of the beach house, like what you see people go ice fishing in, but obviously much larger to accomodate a person going in and out) to demonstrate how the woman could have, at an earlier time, been listening in to his conversation about the treasure, that she's here to somehow cheat him out of it. But he offers to legitimately cut her in, climbing up out of the hole, soaking wet.
I guess she agrees, because the next scene is the two of them joined up with another man and woman, navigating around a mountain of human body parts. A sort of flash forward happens, where we see where the "series" is headed, all four of the characters, now limbless, each wrapped in a sort of flesh coloured cacoon, alternately bobbing in the water, or rolling towards some goal, or riding in the back of a pick up truck. Somehow it's made clear that these characters have gained a sort of immortality, a month of life for every time they consume flesh (suggesting that, while they were lost, bobbing out at sea, they survived on their own arms and legs).. but that isn't what happened at all.
Back to the mountain of body parts, the four characters, still whole, come upon another group, two or three large. They are responsible for grisly scene around everyone. Someone in the main group was a traitor, working for these guys the whole time. The new groups leader attacks, but the main character shoots at his eyes. Maybe the bad guy is blinded for the moment, but he's some kind of supernatural monster, inhumanly strong, also immortal. He picks up the main guy, and blinds him.
All three of the main group are mutilated: the main guy loses his legs, the other two, well, I think something different happens, but I can only remember it as them also losing their lower half, so whatever.
There's a cut, and it's clearly several years later, and that main guy now works for some international police service. He's blind, in a wheel chair, but also vows to keep searching for the people that did this to him. He boisterously takes whatever cases the agency assigns him, hoping to get the people that did this, all the while the people that assign him cases are unnerved by him, while also thinking he can't get any of his jobs accomplished.
So yeah, that was that. Really really really messed up.
It was a sort of pilot episode to a tv series, I think it was called "Unlawfully--" er, something. Or maybe "Blind Justice". I forget. It was really clear in my mind the first time I woke up, when all I could think was "what. was. THAT?!?!" but then I did go back to sleep, to try and mentally rinse my head out with something else. So it was a couple of hours back.
So the story follows this guy, he's a treasure hunter I guess, holed up in this beach front house. He leaves, but the lights are out, and he's worried he may not be able to find where he's going.. he's kind of worried that he won't even be able to make it back to the beach house, it's so dark, this despite their being no other landmarks nearby.
In the darkness on the beach, a woman approaches, running, she's scared, the guy offers to help her, to take her back to the beach house for protection. They find their way back to the house, but the guy starts getting suspicious of her motives, of the REAL reason she's out there at night, being chased by whatever. He leaps into the water (there's a hole at the far end of the beach house, like what you see people go ice fishing in, but obviously much larger to accomodate a person going in and out) to demonstrate how the woman could have, at an earlier time, been listening in to his conversation about the treasure, that she's here to somehow cheat him out of it. But he offers to legitimately cut her in, climbing up out of the hole, soaking wet.
I guess she agrees, because the next scene is the two of them joined up with another man and woman, navigating around a mountain of human body parts. A sort of flash forward happens, where we see where the "series" is headed, all four of the characters, now limbless, each wrapped in a sort of flesh coloured cacoon, alternately bobbing in the water, or rolling towards some goal, or riding in the back of a pick up truck. Somehow it's made clear that these characters have gained a sort of immortality, a month of life for every time they consume flesh (suggesting that, while they were lost, bobbing out at sea, they survived on their own arms and legs).. but that isn't what happened at all.
Back to the mountain of body parts, the four characters, still whole, come upon another group, two or three large. They are responsible for grisly scene around everyone. Someone in the main group was a traitor, working for these guys the whole time. The new groups leader attacks, but the main character shoots at his eyes. Maybe the bad guy is blinded for the moment, but he's some kind of supernatural monster, inhumanly strong, also immortal. He picks up the main guy, and blinds him.
All three of the main group are mutilated: the main guy loses his legs, the other two, well, I think something different happens, but I can only remember it as them also losing their lower half, so whatever.
There's a cut, and it's clearly several years later, and that main guy now works for some international police service. He's blind, in a wheel chair, but also vows to keep searching for the people that did this to him. He boisterously takes whatever cases the agency assigns him, hoping to get the people that did this, all the while the people that assign him cases are unnerved by him, while also thinking he can't get any of his jobs accomplished.
So yeah, that was that. Really really really messed up.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Just a short Senna I guess. It's a really cool doc
And the last horse crosses the finish line.
The Wednesday before last I went to see Senna at the "Bloor Hot Docs Theatre", which I had to be told is what they're calling the Bloor Cinema now after its renovation. I guess they're only showing documentaries now? It's all good, you have to see documentaries somewhere, and the place looks really nice.
I told my buddy Jimmy that I was going to see Senna and he was surprised that I'd be into a racing movie. The next day I saw him at the Comedy Bar and was able to explain better: "It's a documentary about a real life Speed Racer!"
"Ah- that's all you had to say."
It was a very foreign world I was getting a glimpse into. Not only was it the 80's, which I remember mostly from the cartoons I watched, less so the real world conditions, but also it's the F1 racing business, the movers and shakers of that world at the time. It's a great story they were able to piece together, but that's the advantage of twenty years, getting to see how things play out, getting time to piece together that story.
And you need that time to do that. Everyone is trying to define their story in the right now- and, sure, they'll never be particularly objective about their own story- but how many of us are trying to make romances out of impending tragedies, be heroes when we're villains, etc. etc. whatever.
I should say more about my conversation with Jimmy that day, but I've spent most of today working on getting my arbitrary number up. So let's just finish it here and pretend like I've done something with my day.
The Wednesday before last I went to see Senna at the "Bloor Hot Docs Theatre", which I had to be told is what they're calling the Bloor Cinema now after its renovation. I guess they're only showing documentaries now? It's all good, you have to see documentaries somewhere, and the place looks really nice.
I told my buddy Jimmy that I was going to see Senna and he was surprised that I'd be into a racing movie. The next day I saw him at the Comedy Bar and was able to explain better: "It's a documentary about a real life Speed Racer!"
"Ah- that's all you had to say."
It was a very foreign world I was getting a glimpse into. Not only was it the 80's, which I remember mostly from the cartoons I watched, less so the real world conditions, but also it's the F1 racing business, the movers and shakers of that world at the time. It's a great story they were able to piece together, but that's the advantage of twenty years, getting to see how things play out, getting time to piece together that story.
And you need that time to do that. Everyone is trying to define their story in the right now- and, sure, they'll never be particularly objective about their own story- but how many of us are trying to make romances out of impending tragedies, be heroes when we're villains, etc. etc. whatever.
I should say more about my conversation with Jimmy that day, but I've spent most of today working on getting my arbitrary number up. So let's just finish it here and pretend like I've done something with my day.
Gone Baby Gone- I didn't talk about this already, did I?
I've just woken up from this weird and terrible dream that I keep thinking I'm waking up from. I'm being chased by this backwards militant "church of the brotherhood" that have this one washed up but still physically threatening bounty hunter type guy who's chasing after me, all the while it's being broadcast as a sort of reality show that portrays events like I'm some criminal mastermind and my pursuer is an angel of justice. The theme song is some kind of Team America constant yelling, that's just catchy enough that I can remember it. They were trying to vapourize me with the sun at the end just now.
Man that was freaky.
Uh, well, let's see, what else- did I tell you about "Gone Baby Gone"? It's Ben Affleck's directorial debut starring his brother Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan (sp?) as two private investigators/lovers that get hired to find a kidnapped girl, a job they initially refuse to take because they know the odds of success in these cases are slim, and they don't want that kind of failure haunting them.
I went into the film knowing absolutely nothing about the picture, so it took some time before I realized "...it's a DETECTIVE STORY!" albeit with a very fresh faced protagonist.
That realization became a big deal when at the end Casey's character has a choice: to do the lawful thing, or to do the murkier, maybe more right thing. His girlfriend threatens to leave him if he does the lawful thing. What's he going to do? If it was me, I'd probably go with the latter option, but again, DETECTIVE STORY, where the world weary heroes never choose the option their heart is screaming at them to go with. They solve cases with their guts, then sort through the pieces with their heads, and he does the exact same thing here.
Interestingly, the movie is based on a book series written by the uh, Mystic Water guy? In that series' last book they team up with (uh SPOILERS) the little girl that got rescued here and returned to her negligent mother, and she's clearly the worse for the heroes choice, the mother even saying that it was the wrong decision.
So I picked up the first book of the series at the old library, I'll have to give it a read.
Man that was freaky.
Uh, well, let's see, what else- did I tell you about "Gone Baby Gone"? It's Ben Affleck's directorial debut starring his brother Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan (sp?) as two private investigators/lovers that get hired to find a kidnapped girl, a job they initially refuse to take because they know the odds of success in these cases are slim, and they don't want that kind of failure haunting them.
I went into the film knowing absolutely nothing about the picture, so it took some time before I realized "...it's a DETECTIVE STORY!" albeit with a very fresh faced protagonist.
That realization became a big deal when at the end Casey's character has a choice: to do the lawful thing, or to do the murkier, maybe more right thing. His girlfriend threatens to leave him if he does the lawful thing. What's he going to do? If it was me, I'd probably go with the latter option, but again, DETECTIVE STORY, where the world weary heroes never choose the option their heart is screaming at them to go with. They solve cases with their guts, then sort through the pieces with their heads, and he does the exact same thing here.
Interestingly, the movie is based on a book series written by the uh, Mystic Water guy? In that series' last book they team up with (uh SPOILERS) the little girl that got rescued here and returned to her negligent mother, and she's clearly the worse for the heroes choice, the mother even saying that it was the wrong decision.
So I picked up the first book of the series at the old library, I'll have to give it a read.
Kieron Gillen says:
With 10 hours and 45 minutes to go until July starts up, I've still got some work to do, entry wise. I'm pleased with what I've got so far, I expected to cheat far more than I have, with much shorter, lamer posts, but instead they've been overall decent.
Time to change that so I can sleep for a bit before coming back to finish things off.
The following is a nearly totally out of context comment for you, it's Kieron Gillen talking about his work writing comic issues that tie in with bigger crossovers. This is important given that his tie ins have been universally considered "good" where most tie ins are... horribad.
The acronyms used: JIM refers to the book Journey into Mystery, which I really should be buying, and FI is Fear Itself, a crossover even that sounded terrible, and I'm told was terrible.
Here's the link I was directed to to read this bit: http://mindlessones.com/2012/06/12/silence-17/#comments
and here's, well, I guess I'll restrict myself to the last, main comment by Gillen:
"Kieron Gillen Says:
June 14th, 2012 at 12:33 pm
Man, this is going to end up wanky. JIM covers its wankiness with gags most the time, and this is unsheathed. UNSHEATHED WANKY WORDS.
James Moore: You make your themes dovetail with the themes of the crossovers, basically. It’s probably most visible with Uncanny. I knew before I started we’d be heading to AvX, so with that as a major climax, I planned appropriately. The story is about the X-men’s increasing militancy, estrangement with governments, etc, because telling any other story is going to lead to that story being derailed.
(Which is fine, because that’s a theme I’m interested in. I’ve said that the Student riots were a major influence on the Uncanny run before, etc.)
With JIM, I had the issue-to-issue breakdown of FI before I started, and dovetailed all my plotting to act as counterpoint to the main themes (often by explicitly undermining them to render extra complexity). As its own entity, that JIM is a political book driven by a bunch of ironies means that it’s a suitable structure to work with to intro what I want to talk about.
The cost is that since I made FI so key – those 10 issues would be about a third of the whole run – FI remains important right to the final panel. So JIM is easy to ignore because they think it should be shrugging off the shroud of FI (or so they say, because they didn’t like it). That’s the problem with the novelistic intent is the holistic structure of it.
I try to serve both masters. I want people to be able to pick up my crossover books knowing they can read them without the core book, because I know many readers aren’t into crossovers. But I also want to add meaningfully to the experience of the people who *do* come for the crossover.
Pragmaticism. You’re never going to get 26 issues to do your Animal Man by your lonesome in 2012.
In short: Crossovers are a known. You make them work for you, as much as you can. And really? If you actually take any crossover seriously, they make fantastic backdrops for stories.
amypoodle: I certainly respect the opinion – and you pick up on the more awkward parts of the book – but it’s one enough reviewers have disagreed with to make me feel my intent at least worked for some. The comment “Reading JIM improves FI considerably, but works entirely without it” was something that turned up in almost all the early positive press. Thor’s release is the main awkward jump, but it kinda works as an intro to JIM’s odd caption-prose compress/decompress mode of storytelling. If you squint.
The usual metaphor I use is that JIM is the equivalent of a film about the Enigma Code and Fear Itself is WW2. You don’t need to know about Hitler’s rise to power to watch a film about Enigma. For JIM, “power threatening Asgard” is enough to be getting on with.
It’s Pop Sandman in the MU. That does mean it has to be in the MU, and such, we have to explain its setting (As much as you’d have to explain a bit of the French Legal System for a book about French Lawyers). C’est la vie, etc.
I’m not sure why I’m ending any statement with “etc”."
***
I like this guy. I wasn't nuts about his Phonogram book, but that's because I wasn't the audience. It was for fans of 90's British pop music and lovers of magic/wizard business, so I'm neither. Fair enough.
Time to change that so I can sleep for a bit before coming back to finish things off.
The following is a nearly totally out of context comment for you, it's Kieron Gillen talking about his work writing comic issues that tie in with bigger crossovers. This is important given that his tie ins have been universally considered "good" where most tie ins are... horribad.
The acronyms used: JIM refers to the book Journey into Mystery, which I really should be buying, and FI is Fear Itself, a crossover even that sounded terrible, and I'm told was terrible.
Here's the link I was directed to to read this bit: http://mindlessones.com/2012/06/12/silence-17/#comments
and here's, well, I guess I'll restrict myself to the last, main comment by Gillen:
"Kieron Gillen Says:
June 14th, 2012 at 12:33 pm
Man, this is going to end up wanky. JIM covers its wankiness with gags most the time, and this is unsheathed. UNSHEATHED WANKY WORDS.
James Moore: You make your themes dovetail with the themes of the crossovers, basically. It’s probably most visible with Uncanny. I knew before I started we’d be heading to AvX, so with that as a major climax, I planned appropriately. The story is about the X-men’s increasing militancy, estrangement with governments, etc, because telling any other story is going to lead to that story being derailed.
(Which is fine, because that’s a theme I’m interested in. I’ve said that the Student riots were a major influence on the Uncanny run before, etc.)
With JIM, I had the issue-to-issue breakdown of FI before I started, and dovetailed all my plotting to act as counterpoint to the main themes (often by explicitly undermining them to render extra complexity). As its own entity, that JIM is a political book driven by a bunch of ironies means that it’s a suitable structure to work with to intro what I want to talk about.
The cost is that since I made FI so key – those 10 issues would be about a third of the whole run – FI remains important right to the final panel. So JIM is easy to ignore because they think it should be shrugging off the shroud of FI (or so they say, because they didn’t like it). That’s the problem with the novelistic intent is the holistic structure of it.
I try to serve both masters. I want people to be able to pick up my crossover books knowing they can read them without the core book, because I know many readers aren’t into crossovers. But I also want to add meaningfully to the experience of the people who *do* come for the crossover.
Pragmaticism. You’re never going to get 26 issues to do your Animal Man by your lonesome in 2012.
In short: Crossovers are a known. You make them work for you, as much as you can. And really? If you actually take any crossover seriously, they make fantastic backdrops for stories.
amypoodle: I certainly respect the opinion – and you pick up on the more awkward parts of the book – but it’s one enough reviewers have disagreed with to make me feel my intent at least worked for some. The comment “Reading JIM improves FI considerably, but works entirely without it” was something that turned up in almost all the early positive press. Thor’s release is the main awkward jump, but it kinda works as an intro to JIM’s odd caption-prose compress/decompress mode of storytelling. If you squint.
The usual metaphor I use is that JIM is the equivalent of a film about the Enigma Code and Fear Itself is WW2. You don’t need to know about Hitler’s rise to power to watch a film about Enigma. For JIM, “power threatening Asgard” is enough to be getting on with.
It’s Pop Sandman in the MU. That does mean it has to be in the MU, and such, we have to explain its setting (As much as you’d have to explain a bit of the French Legal System for a book about French Lawyers). C’est la vie, etc.
I’m not sure why I’m ending any statement with “etc”."
***
I like this guy. I wasn't nuts about his Phonogram book, but that's because I wasn't the audience. It was for fans of 90's British pop music and lovers of magic/wizard business, so I'm neither. Fair enough.
Robinson Crusoe
Yet another entry in my collection of classic fiction: Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.
It's one of those stories that everyone thinks they already know, guy gets shipwrecked, survives on an island, gets a buddy he names Friday, and presumably there are monkey butlers.
While all that certainly does happen (excepting the monkey butlers), and it is the lions share of the narrative, there's actually a whole other adventure beforehand. Crusoe, on an earlier voyage, gets kidnapped and made a slave for three years before he manages to escape on his masters fishing barge (it's a super nice boat that was exceptionally well provisioned even before Crusoe snuck on extra stuff before escaping, so I call it 'barge', regardless of whether that's the right term or not.) and all the while he's escaping in that boat, any change in the weather had me asking "is this it? Is he about to be hopelessly shipwrecked on an island with only these provisions to sustain him?" and then he makes it safely back to civilization.
What?
Then he goes on to own a semi successful plantation in, wait, Brasil? I think it's Brasil, specifically NOT "Brazil", I guess this is in Spain? I forget.
Later he's convinced to go on another voyage, and here is where he gets shipwrecked- finally!
We get to follow the steps undertaken for Crusoe to survive, detailing the what he needed and made for himself, but losing out on exactly how he does it. Not to suggest some flight of fancy on Defoe's part, more like the steps to making X are so natural that it would have seemed silly to write them out for the modern audience of 1719. That's my guess anyways.
You know the guy was stuck on the island for about 30 years (assuming, again, that I'm remembering the number from the book right)? You sure didn't expect that from the Swiss Family Robinson- which I barely registered anything of when I was little, but they were probably the ones with monkey butlers.
The ending had a pretty clever bit of pirate out-smarting, well, they were mutineers more than pirates, but it's all the same to me. Defoe isn't likely to argue with me. But then after this end of action the story goes on to follow what Crusoe does back in civilization, ending with a mention that he went on ANOTHER exciting voyage, and that he'll tell us about it sometime, maybe. That's right, Robinson Crusoe ends with a sequel hook! It's the Back to the Future of classic literary endings.
It's one of those stories that everyone thinks they already know, guy gets shipwrecked, survives on an island, gets a buddy he names Friday, and presumably there are monkey butlers.
While all that certainly does happen (excepting the monkey butlers), and it is the lions share of the narrative, there's actually a whole other adventure beforehand. Crusoe, on an earlier voyage, gets kidnapped and made a slave for three years before he manages to escape on his masters fishing barge (it's a super nice boat that was exceptionally well provisioned even before Crusoe snuck on extra stuff before escaping, so I call it 'barge', regardless of whether that's the right term or not.) and all the while he's escaping in that boat, any change in the weather had me asking "is this it? Is he about to be hopelessly shipwrecked on an island with only these provisions to sustain him?" and then he makes it safely back to civilization.
What?
Then he goes on to own a semi successful plantation in, wait, Brasil? I think it's Brasil, specifically NOT "Brazil", I guess this is in Spain? I forget.
Later he's convinced to go on another voyage, and here is where he gets shipwrecked- finally!
We get to follow the steps undertaken for Crusoe to survive, detailing the what he needed and made for himself, but losing out on exactly how he does it. Not to suggest some flight of fancy on Defoe's part, more like the steps to making X are so natural that it would have seemed silly to write them out for the modern audience of 1719. That's my guess anyways.
You know the guy was stuck on the island for about 30 years (assuming, again, that I'm remembering the number from the book right)? You sure didn't expect that from the Swiss Family Robinson- which I barely registered anything of when I was little, but they were probably the ones with monkey butlers.
The ending had a pretty clever bit of pirate out-smarting, well, they were mutineers more than pirates, but it's all the same to me. Defoe isn't likely to argue with me. But then after this end of action the story goes on to follow what Crusoe does back in civilization, ending with a mention that he went on ANOTHER exciting voyage, and that he'll tell us about it sometime, maybe. That's right, Robinson Crusoe ends with a sequel hook! It's the Back to the Future of classic literary endings.
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