To the dedicated reader, how you find a book becomes almost important as what you're reading. If a book is recommended to you as a friend, your relationship to that friend colors how you read it, and vice versa--if the book is complete excrement, you're not going to look at that friend in the same way. That's why buying a book as a gift can become an overthinker's nightmare--you have to consider not only what the intended receiver means to you, but what you mean to them, what the book means to you, and what the book will potentially mean to them. Other methods of book searching carry similar issues. Usually, if a book recommendation comes to me from some sort of scholarly article, I read it in full scholar mode, noting all the little issues that arise that would make an interesting paper. That's not to say that I enjoy the book more or less than if I had come across it otherwise--just that the reading experience is different.
One of the ultimate thrills of the reader connoisseur, then, is the book, or series of book, that is discovered through serendipity. It's akin to the horticulturalist who finds that rare flower growing by the side of the road, or the antique collector that finds the last piece of a set at a garage sale. I deliberately choose random books on occasion, hoping for just this outcome. Of course, to say that the choice is random is a sort of willing blindness--if you are looking for books in a bookstore or a library, there is some sort of organizing principle at work, and, like it or not, your search becomes a part of that system. (Idea I'm too lazy to flesh out: this is very much what de Certeau's talking about in The Practice of Everyday Life, both in terms of consumerism and reading.)
As you've probably gathered, this digression eventually leads to the book at hand. My first Fay Weldon book came from the result of a random search in a Someplace Else public library. Of course, it wasn't entirely random: I was looking for a book that caught my eye in the fiction section, because I generally prefer fiction to nonfiction, and I chose the book--A Hard Time to Be A Father largely based on the comic strip-esque cover. The book turned out to be a collection of short stories by Fay Weldon, with heavy overall emphasis on postcolonialism (in the New Zealand form) and gender issues. It was an all right collection, good enough that I took out another of Weldon's books,Mantrapped. As an entirely tangential note, this book belongs in the small category of books I read from beginning to end in the cardio section of the University of Someplace Else's gym in the summer of 2008. And while Hard Time was okay, Mantrapped was exceptional. The plot itself--a middle aged woman switches bodies with a mid-twenties man--is handled well enough, but the real ingenuity comes from the book being half fiction, half autobiography: Weldon regularly interrupts the plot to deliver a metacommentary on what events in her own life led her to include or reject certain elements, and how the progression of her life mirrors the progressions of her novels.
This book took Weldon, in my personal estimation, from an interesting writer to someone with something really unique to say, and led me to make the crudest estimation of her scholarly significance: I looked up how many books the university library had by her. The result was a whopping 41 (75 at my current university). It doesn't really compare to, say, Atwood or T. S. Eliot (both at 100 or so, btw), but it's very respectable. And yet, because I discovered the author entirely independently, the books mean something very different to me than Oryx and Crake or The Wasteland.
I've read one other Weldon book since coming to Blank: The Life and Loves of a She-Devil. I'm not going to say anything more about it here other than the fact that it dealt with gender and misogyny in an intelligent manner highly reminiscient of Patricia Highsmith at her best, and, despite that, I found it to be the most repellent book I've ever read.
So: book at hand. The plot is that the narrator, Phoebe, stays at a spa over Christmas and the New Year. She and the other nine women there spend the time telling each other their life stories. In other words, it's a 21st century feminist restructuring of Cantebury Tales. (Not that you'll find any direct reference to it in the book's jacket. Would it have been that hard?) It's an interesting inversion of the formula: a decadent retreat instead of a religious pilgrimage, and a redefining of the essential positions of society: rather than miller's wives and knights, we get the trophy wife, the stepmother, the judge, the surgeon, and the manucirst. (The best title of the bunch has to go to "The Vicar's Ex-Wife's Tale.") Essentially, it boils down to the elements Weldon has made herself famous for: an uncomfortable examination of gender roles and a conscious evaluation of what makes a story. On that level, many of the tales are hit and miss--"The Conspiracy Theorist's Tale" is a really abrupt shift to modern social theory, and the "Company Director's Tale" is a little too heavy on shock value. The hits, on the other hand, are a lot of fun: "the Journalist's Tale" and the "Brain Surgeon's Tale" are respectively stories of how nasty people can be to each other, and how we try to hide things, and "The Screenwriter's Tale" is a wonderful piece of metafiction that blurs the line between life, story, and screen play. Most important of all is the narrator's story, the text that binds all the individual tales together, much as in the original. Phoebe provides some further judgment and evaluation of the stories and characters, so that we feel we are colloborating with her--and becaue Phoebe is basically a thinly vieled stand-in for Weldon, it creates all sorts of issues regarding response to the individual works and the book as a whole. It's a good read.
And that's it. I suppose current blog readers may complain that they've travelled a very long path to reach that conclusion.
Now you know how I feel.
Later Days.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Friday, May 8, 2009
Still Worth It
I am feeling really good about things at the moment. It's interesting how quickly emotions can flip like that, because I was NOT feeling that way about 12 hours ago.
That's because about 20 hours ago, I made a Bad Decision: to scan an entire class worth of secondary reading in a single sitting. Difficulties ensued (basically, an antique scanner, file size restrictions, and about 600+ more pages than I had thought), and my own stubbornness insisted I see it out rather than let common sense prevail, and, long story short, I was not a very happy camper when I finally got home last night (and very nearly this morning). As a sort of reward for myself, I decided to stay up even longer and watch the season finale of a show that I was saving for just such a down-in-the-dumps moment.
And man, I'm glad I did. The episode had a lot of truly great scenes, but the crowning moment was the montage at the end. And the accompaniment was perfectly chosen-- I honestly haven't been that moved by a piece of music in a TV show since Seinfeld's brilliant use of Time of Your Life. It was so good, I'm not even going to tell you what show it was--I'd like to keep it to myself a little longer. (Do feel free to guess.)
The other thing that has me in a good mood is that I FINALLY received my final mark for last term. It's really, really good, so I'm not going to complain, but I imagine anyone that didn't do so well would be rather displeased at having wait quite this long. I also find it kind of odd that I do much, much better in my 18th century courses than my supposed specialty, but again, I'm not going to complain.
The third (and least; some people build up, I build down) reason I'm in a good mood is that I talked to the grad chair yesterday, and I finally feel like I've got a firm direction mapped out for my studies. I'd be more pleased about this, but he was convinced I should learn Japanese for my language requirement, which seems... foreboding. I mean, since my area is video games, it would be the most useful, but still... but that's jumping ahead a bit. Next step: finding a supervisor.
So. It's Friday, the weekend's ahead, and it's a beautiful day outside. (20 degrees. Enjoying your snow, Saskatchewan?) I'm feeling good. How are you?
Later Days.
That's because about 20 hours ago, I made a Bad Decision: to scan an entire class worth of secondary reading in a single sitting. Difficulties ensued (basically, an antique scanner, file size restrictions, and about 600+ more pages than I had thought), and my own stubbornness insisted I see it out rather than let common sense prevail, and, long story short, I was not a very happy camper when I finally got home last night (and very nearly this morning). As a sort of reward for myself, I decided to stay up even longer and watch the season finale of a show that I was saving for just such a down-in-the-dumps moment.
And man, I'm glad I did. The episode had a lot of truly great scenes, but the crowning moment was the montage at the end. And the accompaniment was perfectly chosen-- I honestly haven't been that moved by a piece of music in a TV show since Seinfeld's brilliant use of Time of Your Life. It was so good, I'm not even going to tell you what show it was--I'd like to keep it to myself a little longer. (Do feel free to guess.)
The other thing that has me in a good mood is that I FINALLY received my final mark for last term. It's really, really good, so I'm not going to complain, but I imagine anyone that didn't do so well would be rather displeased at having wait quite this long. I also find it kind of odd that I do much, much better in my 18th century courses than my supposed specialty, but again, I'm not going to complain.
The third (and least; some people build up, I build down) reason I'm in a good mood is that I talked to the grad chair yesterday, and I finally feel like I've got a firm direction mapped out for my studies. I'd be more pleased about this, but he was convinced I should learn Japanese for my language requirement, which seems... foreboding. I mean, since my area is video games, it would be the most useful, but still... but that's jumping ahead a bit. Next step: finding a supervisor.
So. It's Friday, the weekend's ahead, and it's a beautiful day outside. (20 degrees. Enjoying your snow, Saskatchewan?) I'm feeling good. How are you?
Later Days.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Merry Slapsgiving, Everyone
I've been meaning to do a longer post on How I Met Your Mother. And after Monday's epsiode, here it is.
Quick outline: The premise of the show is that Ted Mosby (narrated by Bob Saget), in the year 2030 or so, has sat down his kids to tell them the story of "How I Met Your Mother." That started four seasons ago. Since then, we've been following the antics of Ted and his friends. Ted is a helpless romantic/architect; his original love interest and now platonic friend is the tomboyish Canadian Robin Sherbotsky; his old college roommate/best friend is the eminently huggable Marshall Erikson; Marshall's wife is the elementary school teacher/artist Lily Aldrin; and the cast is rounded out brilliantly by the brilliant Neil Patrick Harris, who plays Ted's other best friend, the amoral, philandering Barney Stinson.
There's a lot to like about the show, but I'll limit myself to three main things:
1. The Flash Format. Since Ted is telling this story to his kids, the entire thing is clearly a flashback. But it's never as straightforward as "and then this happened, and then this happened, and then this." Instead, each episode is told more of a broken manner: Ted jumps back to elaborate on some events, forward to mention what's going to happen, and at times, makes the story up entirely. The flashback has become more or less commonplace in cinematic story telling; jumping around like this is a very different technique, and one rarely used in primetime television, especially on such a regular basis. One of my favorite applications of the method is when Ted admits that he's sometimes just making things up: at one point, he can't remember a girl's name, so for the episode, everyone refers to her as "blah blah." The show maintains an ongoing balance between oral storytelling and mainstream eposodic television; in that sense, I can't think of another show that better uses the conceit of a narrator, and the notion that the story before us is not only being shown, but being told.
2. Barney Stinson. The key to Barney's character is that, essentially, he's a horrible person. Or, maybe more accurately, he's a caricature--the hyper-cool, supersexualized urban elite, obsessed with surface appearances and scoring women. The writers get a ridiculous amount of mileage out of just the concept behind him. Here, for example, is one of his greater pick-up line set-ups:
Actually, Barney has always reminded me of the Sheldon character from The Big Bang Theory. Not because they share any particular characteristic; Sheldon is a barely functional misanthrope with extreme OCD tendencies. But both are essentially extreme outliers of normally accepted social behaviour. As far as comedy goes, it's one of the oldest methods in the book--you see the same thing in the characters of 18th century rake heroes, Shakepseare's Falstaff, and as far back as characters in ancient Greek plays. The difference between those forms and the sitcom is that in sitcoms, the joke can't wear thin--or if does, the entire series becomes dry and repetitive. (I'm looking at you, Erkel.) Or, it resorts to increasingly outlandish premises. (Again, Erkel.) From interviews, I've read that the writers are very aware of the fine line they walk with Barney: in order to have him be outrageous, they feel it's necessary to show a more balanced side of him as well. I know some people who hate the idea of 'humanizing' the Barnacle, but so far, the show's done a great job of walking the line between the two.
It helps, of course, that Neil Patrick Harris is one of the best comedic actors of his generation.
3. Continuity. Every sitcom has some loose continuity; if the character changes from a neat freak buddy cop to a put-upon lazy dad between episodes, there's a problem. But HIMYM (the abbreviation for How I Met Your Mother) takes the continuity to extreme. It's not just a matter of running gags, although there's plenty of those too: Barney's endless Bro Code rules, Marshall's Fish-based comedy routine, and the greatness that is the Slapbet. (You better believe you're getting a clip for that.)
These gags are really the heart and soul of the show, and the commitment to them goes far beyond the average TV series. But what I'm talking about more generally is the epic feel of the series, the sense that there is a direction, a final destination that the show is moving towards. It's a focus that's missing in television series in general; in sitcoms, you're lucky if one episode follows the other, and even in dramas, you rarely get more than a single season build-up. Here's where the conceit of the series really comes into play: you know, theoretically, at least, everything is building up to meeting the mother. Of course, that's a double-edged sword: once Ted reaches the Mother, the story is over--or at least needs severe redefinition. The first season shows this coherency most clearly, and the current season shows its lack pretty strongly as well--it's been a long time since we've had more than a hint of the series' supposed impetus. But that changed last Monday, in the epsiode "Right Place, Right Time," which is what prompted this post to begin with. I don't want to explain everything, because really, it's building on multiple seasons of hints and flashforwards, but it looks like they haven't forgotten that sooner or later, there's a wedding in the works.
And I think that may be what I like most about the show--not that there's a wedding, specifically, but the certainty that the story ends there connects it with literally centuries of literary precedent in the comedy genre--and yet, it still manages to feel like something fresh and different.
Plus, they totally did the Doogie Howser reference.
Later Days.
Quick outline: The premise of the show is that Ted Mosby (narrated by Bob Saget), in the year 2030 or so, has sat down his kids to tell them the story of "How I Met Your Mother." That started four seasons ago. Since then, we've been following the antics of Ted and his friends. Ted is a helpless romantic/architect; his original love interest and now platonic friend is the tomboyish Canadian Robin Sherbotsky; his old college roommate/best friend is the eminently huggable Marshall Erikson; Marshall's wife is the elementary school teacher/artist Lily Aldrin; and the cast is rounded out brilliantly by the brilliant Neil Patrick Harris, who plays Ted's other best friend, the amoral, philandering Barney Stinson.
There's a lot to like about the show, but I'll limit myself to three main things:
1. The Flash Format. Since Ted is telling this story to his kids, the entire thing is clearly a flashback. But it's never as straightforward as "and then this happened, and then this happened, and then this." Instead, each episode is told more of a broken manner: Ted jumps back to elaborate on some events, forward to mention what's going to happen, and at times, makes the story up entirely. The flashback has become more or less commonplace in cinematic story telling; jumping around like this is a very different technique, and one rarely used in primetime television, especially on such a regular basis. One of my favorite applications of the method is when Ted admits that he's sometimes just making things up: at one point, he can't remember a girl's name, so for the episode, everyone refers to her as "blah blah." The show maintains an ongoing balance between oral storytelling and mainstream eposodic television; in that sense, I can't think of another show that better uses the conceit of a narrator, and the notion that the story before us is not only being shown, but being told.
2. Barney Stinson. The key to Barney's character is that, essentially, he's a horrible person. Or, maybe more accurately, he's a caricature--the hyper-cool, supersexualized urban elite, obsessed with surface appearances and scoring women. The writers get a ridiculous amount of mileage out of just the concept behind him. Here, for example, is one of his greater pick-up line set-ups:
Actually, Barney has always reminded me of the Sheldon character from The Big Bang Theory. Not because they share any particular characteristic; Sheldon is a barely functional misanthrope with extreme OCD tendencies. But both are essentially extreme outliers of normally accepted social behaviour. As far as comedy goes, it's one of the oldest methods in the book--you see the same thing in the characters of 18th century rake heroes, Shakepseare's Falstaff, and as far back as characters in ancient Greek plays. The difference between those forms and the sitcom is that in sitcoms, the joke can't wear thin--or if does, the entire series becomes dry and repetitive. (I'm looking at you, Erkel.) Or, it resorts to increasingly outlandish premises. (Again, Erkel.) From interviews, I've read that the writers are very aware of the fine line they walk with Barney: in order to have him be outrageous, they feel it's necessary to show a more balanced side of him as well. I know some people who hate the idea of 'humanizing' the Barnacle, but so far, the show's done a great job of walking the line between the two.
It helps, of course, that Neil Patrick Harris is one of the best comedic actors of his generation.
3. Continuity. Every sitcom has some loose continuity; if the character changes from a neat freak buddy cop to a put-upon lazy dad between episodes, there's a problem. But HIMYM (the abbreviation for How I Met Your Mother) takes the continuity to extreme. It's not just a matter of running gags, although there's plenty of those too: Barney's endless Bro Code rules, Marshall's Fish-based comedy routine, and the greatness that is the Slapbet. (You better believe you're getting a clip for that.)
These gags are really the heart and soul of the show, and the commitment to them goes far beyond the average TV series. But what I'm talking about more generally is the epic feel of the series, the sense that there is a direction, a final destination that the show is moving towards. It's a focus that's missing in television series in general; in sitcoms, you're lucky if one episode follows the other, and even in dramas, you rarely get more than a single season build-up. Here's where the conceit of the series really comes into play: you know, theoretically, at least, everything is building up to meeting the mother. Of course, that's a double-edged sword: once Ted reaches the Mother, the story is over--or at least needs severe redefinition. The first season shows this coherency most clearly, and the current season shows its lack pretty strongly as well--it's been a long time since we've had more than a hint of the series' supposed impetus. But that changed last Monday, in the epsiode "Right Place, Right Time," which is what prompted this post to begin with. I don't want to explain everything, because really, it's building on multiple seasons of hints and flashforwards, but it looks like they haven't forgotten that sooner or later, there's a wedding in the works.
And I think that may be what I like most about the show--not that there's a wedding, specifically, but the certainty that the story ends there connects it with literally centuries of literary precedent in the comedy genre--and yet, it still manages to feel like something fresh and different.
Plus, they totally did the Doogie Howser reference.
Later Days.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Tiny Dancers
In preparation for a return to scholastic living, I went to the university today to do a bit more than the running back and forth. I picked up some books for my American Lit course that I ordered online. It's the first time I've used online services to order books, but since it saved me some money ($10-$15), I'll probably be using it again--got to start putting money away for the next bicycle disaster. (I just got it back from the shop--$90 for a new chain, new brake chords, and other sadly necessary repairs. Anything goes wrong with it now, it's going to the "farm.") The books had all arrived and were waiting in my mailbox, which is nice. I'm a little nervous about the course--I looked back over my past academia, and I haven't looked at any 20th century American Lit in a course since 2002. How did that happen? How has it not come up?
At any rate, I ran into the ongoing dancers on my way out. (Is it a dancing camp? Do they have those?) And, it seems I owe someone an apology. In an earlier post, way back in the halcyon times of two days ago, I mocked a sign warning people not dance in university hallways. As it turned out, I should be the one who is mocked. In flagrant disrespect for black and red signs put on bulletin boards, there was a little girl pirouetting in the halls as I left the building. Another asked me if I was dancer too. (No, dear. Not in any way, shape, or form. Never, never, never. No.) And a third had the absolute audacity to run ahead of me, hold the door open, and wish me a nice day! They must be stopped!
Oooh, I wish I had a lawn, so I could tell them to get off it.
Later Days.
At any rate, I ran into the ongoing dancers on my way out. (Is it a dancing camp? Do they have those?) And, it seems I owe someone an apology. In an earlier post, way back in the halcyon times of two days ago, I mocked a sign warning people not dance in university hallways. As it turned out, I should be the one who is mocked. In flagrant disrespect for black and red signs put on bulletin boards, there was a little girl pirouetting in the halls as I left the building. Another asked me if I was dancer too. (No, dear. Not in any way, shape, or form. Never, never, never. No.) And a third had the absolute audacity to run ahead of me, hold the door open, and wish me a nice day! They must be stopped!
Oooh, I wish I had a lawn, so I could tell them to get off it.
Later Days.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
And Whatever Anyone Else Might Say About that Night, *I* Have Never Desecrated a Cemetary
So I felt it was time for a blog post, and here it is. Now all I need is a topic. Topic. Topic, topic, topic.
Sorry.
Anyway, this presents a good opportunity to transcribe for the record last Wednesday night. Since school starts again for me *next* Wednesday, this is probably the end of my "party" themed posts for a bit. Technically, I could have gone out tonight, since a bunch of people are going out for a last hurrah to the local cowboy karaoke bar, which closes for good this Monday. But as regular readers know, I already went recently, and I feel I got the whole experience then. This time, it would be filled to the rosters, and I just don't feel up to dealing with that many people right now. It's even a little hypocritical, since the last time we went, one of the ladies in our party was kind of reluctant, and I gave a big, flowery speech on the importance of seizing the opportunity, going for the experience, and living for the moment. And now that she's putting together the event, I'm wussing out. Sorry, dear, to you and the rest of the group: I know I'd be in great company, but I also know I wouldn't be good company, not this time out. Regrets, and a promise that Stick-in-the-Mud PoC will be out next time.
But right, Wednesday night. It was a grad house party, and I never know how long I'm staying at those things, especially if I didn't come with anybody. This time, I stayed until the dying embers, and had a great time. I think it was party the composition: there was somewhere between a dozen and twenty people there at its height, and I think that's a good number: just right to allow a bit of circulation without being overwhelming. It also helped that the majority of the party was MAs from another non U of Blank program--the remaining PhDs and I banded together a bit, and mixed a bit. It also probably helped that I spent the entire night nursing a six pack of Vex Hard Lemonade. As I was told (repeatedly, in an increasingly slurred tone), it may be the preferred drink for 40 year old female divorcees, but at 7%, it gets the job done.
Is it just me, or do people tend to default back into certain stories and modes of behaviour when party time comes? I suppose part of it has to do with the whole performance aspect: you want to impress people, to a certain extent, or at least make an impression, so you go to what's made an impression on you. In my case, there's a few different things: "racy" Greek myths (I'm looking at you, Tiresias), the Grad student field trip to the morgue, and, the geekiest of them all, the formula.
Every now and then, when I'm inebriated, bored, melancholic, nostalgic, happy, confused, bemused, or feeling abused, I trot out this little gem, aka Person's Law:
2x+2 + 2x = 2x-1 * 10
Now, don't go running to the patent office or anything, because it's actually a fairly banal, basic application of powers. But it's always been a favorite of mine, because I came up with it myself way back in grade 11, from looking at a series of sums another class had left on the board. So, sometimes at parties, or a few other places, I get myself a pen, and play around with some other sums to see if I can come up with any other interesting power/sum relationships.
Arguably, this act may seem antisocial, or arrogant, or showing-off, and I'll admit those are all valid interpretations. Personally, though, I think it's a different form of what I was talking about above. When you go to a party, when you go to connect with old friends and make new ones, you impress with the things that have been impressed on (and in) you. That may be a favorite drink, or a favorite dress. You may show it by pulling out a guitar or pulling out a photograph.
Me? I like stories and numbers. And as far as I'm concerned, that's enough.
(And no; no, beyond the title, you're not getting any more on what happened at the end of that night. Ask someone else. Or buy me a pack of Vex.)
Later Days.
Sorry.
Anyway, this presents a good opportunity to transcribe for the record last Wednesday night. Since school starts again for me *next* Wednesday, this is probably the end of my "party" themed posts for a bit. Technically, I could have gone out tonight, since a bunch of people are going out for a last hurrah to the local cowboy karaoke bar, which closes for good this Monday. But as regular readers know, I already went recently, and I feel I got the whole experience then. This time, it would be filled to the rosters, and I just don't feel up to dealing with that many people right now. It's even a little hypocritical, since the last time we went, one of the ladies in our party was kind of reluctant, and I gave a big, flowery speech on the importance of seizing the opportunity, going for the experience, and living for the moment. And now that she's putting together the event, I'm wussing out. Sorry, dear, to you and the rest of the group: I know I'd be in great company, but I also know I wouldn't be good company, not this time out. Regrets, and a promise that Stick-in-the-Mud PoC will be out next time.
But right, Wednesday night. It was a grad house party, and I never know how long I'm staying at those things, especially if I didn't come with anybody. This time, I stayed until the dying embers, and had a great time. I think it was party the composition: there was somewhere between a dozen and twenty people there at its height, and I think that's a good number: just right to allow a bit of circulation without being overwhelming. It also helped that the majority of the party was MAs from another non U of Blank program--the remaining PhDs and I banded together a bit, and mixed a bit. It also probably helped that I spent the entire night nursing a six pack of Vex Hard Lemonade. As I was told (repeatedly, in an increasingly slurred tone), it may be the preferred drink for 40 year old female divorcees, but at 7%, it gets the job done.
Is it just me, or do people tend to default back into certain stories and modes of behaviour when party time comes? I suppose part of it has to do with the whole performance aspect: you want to impress people, to a certain extent, or at least make an impression, so you go to what's made an impression on you. In my case, there's a few different things: "racy" Greek myths (I'm looking at you, Tiresias), the Grad student field trip to the morgue, and, the geekiest of them all, the formula.
Every now and then, when I'm inebriated, bored, melancholic, nostalgic, happy, confused, bemused, or feeling abused, I trot out this little gem, aka Person's Law:
2x+2 + 2x = 2x-1 * 10
Now, don't go running to the patent office or anything, because it's actually a fairly banal, basic application of powers. But it's always been a favorite of mine, because I came up with it myself way back in grade 11, from looking at a series of sums another class had left on the board. So, sometimes at parties, or a few other places, I get myself a pen, and play around with some other sums to see if I can come up with any other interesting power/sum relationships.
Arguably, this act may seem antisocial, or arrogant, or showing-off, and I'll admit those are all valid interpretations. Personally, though, I think it's a different form of what I was talking about above. When you go to a party, when you go to connect with old friends and make new ones, you impress with the things that have been impressed on (and in) you. That may be a favorite drink, or a favorite dress. You may show it by pulling out a guitar or pulling out a photograph.
Me? I like stories and numbers. And as far as I'm concerned, that's enough.
(And no; no, beyond the title, you're not getting any more on what happened at the end of that night. Ask someone else. Or buy me a pack of Vex.)
Later Days.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Comic Book Wednesday: Doom's Day
I thought to make things interesting, I'd do a 2 in 1 feature: for the entire blog post, I'd alternate between a comic book review and what I did Wednesday night, switching between topics with each sentence. Then I realised that wasn't so much interesting as annoying, so I'll do the comics now and a party post at a later date.
The loyal returning comic book fans may have noticed I skipped last week--which was a little odd, since I actually enjoyed most of the comics I read. This week, on the other hand, nothing in particular jumped out at me, and yet, here's a review, all the same. Truly, the universe is a strange and wonderful place.
Doctor Doom and the Masters of Evil 4. By Paul Tobin and Patrick Scherberger & David Baldeon. This was the final issue in a mini-series that saw Doctor Doom slicing through the Marvel Universe's villain rosters like a scalpel through butter. Here, he teams up with Magneto to fight Selene, and the resulting battle is nothing short of epic. What's at stake? A chance to rewrite the universe, and remove the one biggest threat to the bad doctor's existence. Any guesses on what that threat is? Tobin's mostly known for his work on the Marvel Adventures series, the all-ages comics Marvel puts out that manage to be consistently more entertaining than the "proper" books most weeks. This can be a fairly damaging label: it's taken other MA writers, like Jeff Parker, considerable time to "break out" of it. Tobin's shown here he can write a good story: the various villains are all in character, even relative blank slates like Princess Python. (We also get the reason that Doom decided to cart Python around with him for the past few issues, and again, it's not what you'd expect.) If I have any complaint with the series, it's that I'm not sure I like the ending--Doom's wish seems to limit future story potential to a certain extent. But, as this guy says, it's the best Doom story since at least the Waid/Wieringo Fantastif Four run a few years ago. It's a series worth reading, if you can track down the issues.
Dark Avengers 4 By Brian Michael Bendis and Mike Deodato. This, on the other hand, has yet to prove itself as a series worth reading. After multiple issues of proving themselves to be largely ineffectual, the Dark Avengers continue to be largely ineffectual in doing anything other than distract Morgan LeFay--and since she apparently has the ability to be simultaneously aware of everything in multiple time periods, that didn't work so well either. Finally, Doom, the guy they were sent to rescue, rescues them, in some very, very shady time travelling logic. The rest of the issue fares a bit better, as Osborn deals with some consequences that have cropped up while they were gone, and realizes he may have bit off more than he can chew. And Bendis finally seems to have gotten a handle on Doom as a character. It's okay, but since it's supposed to be one of the flagship titles for the "Dark Reign," it should really be better.
Dark Reign: The Cabal. By Various. This oneshot is an example of one of the oddities that crop up under the current state of comicbook crossovers. It can't tell a big story, because that would be handled in one of the big titles. But for whatever reason, the stories it does tell are stories that didn't fit in any of those titles, so we get a bit of a mixed bag of five stories, each using the POV of a member of Osborn's Cabal. First up is Doctor Doom, in Hickman and Granov's "And I'll get the Land." Essentially, it's an extended daydream in which Doom considers exactly what he'll do once it's time to "renegotiate" the Cabal's current roles. Again, we have a well-characterized Doom--albeit one who spends a little more time staring off into space, ala JD from Scrubs. Next is Emma Frost, in Fraction and Acuna's "How I Survived Apocalyptic Fire." It's a quick recap of Frost's history, and how she got to this point. It's nice to know that Fraction has really done his research with the character, although the entire thing is essentially an extended flashback. Third is the Hood, in "Family Trust" by Rememnder and Fiumara. Out of the Cabal, the Hood is the least known, so this story presents a different side of the character as he presides over the funeral of one of his fallen members. It hasn't even remotely convinced me that the Hood is a worthwhile character, but it's not actively bad. Namor, in "The Judgement of Namor" by Kieron Gillen and di Giandomencio, makes a regal decision involving the fate of his subjects, which may or may not wind up being a plotline in the X-Men at some point. And in the last story, Loki has dinner with Doom in Milligan and Zonjic's "Dinner with Doom." In which, as a set up for a plot line that started LAST week in Thor 601, Loki asks permission to move Asgard to Latveria. Again, it's okay, but when your story is late compared to Thor, one of the most perennially late titles in the Marvel line... that looks like a big mistake. So, overall, we have a handful of tie-in stories that are, for the most part, well told and very well told, but really only worth purchasing by the Dark Reign completists.
The loyal returning comic book fans may have noticed I skipped last week--which was a little odd, since I actually enjoyed most of the comics I read. This week, on the other hand, nothing in particular jumped out at me, and yet, here's a review, all the same. Truly, the universe is a strange and wonderful place.
Doctor Doom and the Masters of Evil 4. By Paul Tobin and Patrick Scherberger & David Baldeon. This was the final issue in a mini-series that saw Doctor Doom slicing through the Marvel Universe's villain rosters like a scalpel through butter. Here, he teams up with Magneto to fight Selene, and the resulting battle is nothing short of epic. What's at stake? A chance to rewrite the universe, and remove the one biggest threat to the bad doctor's existence. Any guesses on what that threat is? Tobin's mostly known for his work on the Marvel Adventures series, the all-ages comics Marvel puts out that manage to be consistently more entertaining than the "proper" books most weeks. This can be a fairly damaging label: it's taken other MA writers, like Jeff Parker, considerable time to "break out" of it. Tobin's shown here he can write a good story: the various villains are all in character, even relative blank slates like Princess Python. (We also get the reason that Doom decided to cart Python around with him for the past few issues, and again, it's not what you'd expect.) If I have any complaint with the series, it's that I'm not sure I like the ending--Doom's wish seems to limit future story potential to a certain extent. But, as this guy says, it's the best Doom story since at least the Waid/Wieringo Fantastif Four run a few years ago. It's a series worth reading, if you can track down the issues.
Dark Avengers 4 By Brian Michael Bendis and Mike Deodato. This, on the other hand, has yet to prove itself as a series worth reading. After multiple issues of proving themselves to be largely ineffectual, the Dark Avengers continue to be largely ineffectual in doing anything other than distract Morgan LeFay--and since she apparently has the ability to be simultaneously aware of everything in multiple time periods, that didn't work so well either. Finally, Doom, the guy they were sent to rescue, rescues them, in some very, very shady time travelling logic. The rest of the issue fares a bit better, as Osborn deals with some consequences that have cropped up while they were gone, and realizes he may have bit off more than he can chew. And Bendis finally seems to have gotten a handle on Doom as a character. It's okay, but since it's supposed to be one of the flagship titles for the "Dark Reign," it should really be better.
Dark Reign: The Cabal. By Various. This oneshot is an example of one of the oddities that crop up under the current state of comicbook crossovers. It can't tell a big story, because that would be handled in one of the big titles. But for whatever reason, the stories it does tell are stories that didn't fit in any of those titles, so we get a bit of a mixed bag of five stories, each using the POV of a member of Osborn's Cabal. First up is Doctor Doom, in Hickman and Granov's "And I'll get the Land." Essentially, it's an extended daydream in which Doom considers exactly what he'll do once it's time to "renegotiate" the Cabal's current roles. Again, we have a well-characterized Doom--albeit one who spends a little more time staring off into space, ala JD from Scrubs. Next is Emma Frost, in Fraction and Acuna's "How I Survived Apocalyptic Fire." It's a quick recap of Frost's history, and how she got to this point. It's nice to know that Fraction has really done his research with the character, although the entire thing is essentially an extended flashback. Third is the Hood, in "Family Trust" by Rememnder and Fiumara. Out of the Cabal, the Hood is the least known, so this story presents a different side of the character as he presides over the funeral of one of his fallen members. It hasn't even remotely convinced me that the Hood is a worthwhile character, but it's not actively bad. Namor, in "The Judgement of Namor" by Kieron Gillen and di Giandomencio, makes a regal decision involving the fate of his subjects, which may or may not wind up being a plotline in the X-Men at some point. And in the last story, Loki has dinner with Doom in Milligan and Zonjic's "Dinner with Doom." In which, as a set up for a plot line that started LAST week in Thor 601, Loki asks permission to move Asgard to Latveria. Again, it's okay, but when your story is late compared to Thor, one of the most perennially late titles in the Marvel line... that looks like a big mistake. So, overall, we have a handful of tie-in stories that are, for the most part, well told and very well told, but really only worth purchasing by the Dark Reign completists.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Book Review: Titus Crow Bk 1 by Brian Lumley
Brian Lumley's Titus Crow is actually a compilation of two novellas: "The Burrowers Beneath" and "The Transition of Titus Crow." They connect as larger texts, in that the events from one lead directly into the other, but there is a rather rapid shift in subject, in tone, and somewhat in style between the two.
"The Burrowers Beneath" is a horror/fantasy story, that wears its Lovecraftian influences very prominently. The titular character, Titus Crow, stumbles onto a Chthullian world of tentacled, menacing ur-creatures bent on enslaving humanity and ruling the world. The narration is provided by Henri-Laurent de Marigny, his sidekick from another tradition entirely, that of the Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. It's a slight genre mashing, which becomes more evident later, when they become involved with the global efforts to limit the advances of Chthullian forces. It does well in capturing the general mood of the Lovecraft horror stories, and at its best has a great "horror" atmosphere. At its worst, it's hampered by bland characters (de Marigny is a little TOO like Watson in that department, and Crow himself is little better), ex machina intervention, and a climax that seems separate from its stakes: the novella spends a great of time explaining that the battle for control of the planet has reached a desperate turning point, but the end fight is between the two main characters and low-level broodlings.
"The Transition of Titus Crow" suffers from many of the same problems--climax has been jettisoned to make room for exposition; the character roster now includes Tiania, the innocent, beautiful girl Not of This World, who comes off a little cliched; and random earthquakes, last minute escapes, and intervening godly intelligences are part of the norm--all arguably forgiveable, given the genre Lumley has chosen to write in. What's interesting is that the good elements have shifted considerably, arguably to another genre entirely. Without giving away too much of the previous story, Titus Crow is taken on an adventure through time and space, so it's less of a novel as a series of vignettes. As one of the blurbs on the back mentions, it is as much H. G. Wells as Lovecraft at this point, as Titus outwits dinosaurs, is resurrected by robots, flees from monsters beyond time (okay, there's still some Lovecraft), and meets the woman of his dreams in the place of his dreams. There's a real sense of adventure to the second story, and Lumley deserves full credit for that.
Essentially, then, it's two stories for the price of one, but from an author who seems better at capturing locale and mood than character. If you're a fan of Lovecraft, you need to check this out-- but whether you'll like it another matter. I think I've mentioned before that I sat in on a cyberpunk class last term, and the class started at Frankenstein, then jumped to the genre's inception in the 1980s. I'd like to posit the subgenre of Lovecraft themed fantasy as a missing link between the two. It's clearly got some of the same themes: they're male oriented, nonheroic, and based on the accumulation of knowledge and power. More importantly, the accumulation of knowledge of power is portrayed as ambiguous at best: as in Frankenstein, there's a definite strain of "Man is not meant to know." It needs some ironing out, but I think there's a definite case to be made for adding these works to the pre-cyberpunk canon.
The question at hand, though, is whether "Titus Crow" is really a Lovecraft story. In the cyberpunk class, we looked at the movie "the Matrix," which featured a lot of definitive cyberpunk traits: it was big on technology, yet with a retro spin, it had hyper masculine and feminine characters, it was slick and smooth, it featured man bonding with machine. And yet, it wasn't quite cyberpunk, for the simple reason that a cyberpunk main character is never the one--he is one of many. He does not play the hero. Likewise, the Lovecraftian main hero may attempt to play the hero, but he can't win anything beyond a pyrrhic victory--the forces of evil are too strong, and the corruption that comes with the knowledge necessary to face them is too absolute. And yet it Titus Crow, we see in the first story a massive, global organization centered around fighting the Cthonic forces, and in the second, we see Elysians, the good, equally powerful counterparts to the Cthonians. I'm somewhat interested in the symmetry that this depiction presents, but... I think it might cross the line between bending the rules of the genre and breaking them.
Final Verdict: A flawed book, but it raises interesting questions--if you're predisposed to these sorts of questions to begin with.
"The Burrowers Beneath" is a horror/fantasy story, that wears its Lovecraftian influences very prominently. The titular character, Titus Crow, stumbles onto a Chthullian world of tentacled, menacing ur-creatures bent on enslaving humanity and ruling the world. The narration is provided by Henri-Laurent de Marigny, his sidekick from another tradition entirely, that of the Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. It's a slight genre mashing, which becomes more evident later, when they become involved with the global efforts to limit the advances of Chthullian forces. It does well in capturing the general mood of the Lovecraft horror stories, and at its best has a great "horror" atmosphere. At its worst, it's hampered by bland characters (de Marigny is a little TOO like Watson in that department, and Crow himself is little better), ex machina intervention, and a climax that seems separate from its stakes: the novella spends a great of time explaining that the battle for control of the planet has reached a desperate turning point, but the end fight is between the two main characters and low-level broodlings.
"The Transition of Titus Crow" suffers from many of the same problems--climax has been jettisoned to make room for exposition; the character roster now includes Tiania, the innocent, beautiful girl Not of This World, who comes off a little cliched; and random earthquakes, last minute escapes, and intervening godly intelligences are part of the norm--all arguably forgiveable, given the genre Lumley has chosen to write in. What's interesting is that the good elements have shifted considerably, arguably to another genre entirely. Without giving away too much of the previous story, Titus Crow is taken on an adventure through time and space, so it's less of a novel as a series of vignettes. As one of the blurbs on the back mentions, it is as much H. G. Wells as Lovecraft at this point, as Titus outwits dinosaurs, is resurrected by robots, flees from monsters beyond time (okay, there's still some Lovecraft), and meets the woman of his dreams in the place of his dreams. There's a real sense of adventure to the second story, and Lumley deserves full credit for that.
Essentially, then, it's two stories for the price of one, but from an author who seems better at capturing locale and mood than character. If you're a fan of Lovecraft, you need to check this out-- but whether you'll like it another matter. I think I've mentioned before that I sat in on a cyberpunk class last term, and the class started at Frankenstein, then jumped to the genre's inception in the 1980s. I'd like to posit the subgenre of Lovecraft themed fantasy as a missing link between the two. It's clearly got some of the same themes: they're male oriented, nonheroic, and based on the accumulation of knowledge and power. More importantly, the accumulation of knowledge of power is portrayed as ambiguous at best: as in Frankenstein, there's a definite strain of "Man is not meant to know." It needs some ironing out, but I think there's a definite case to be made for adding these works to the pre-cyberpunk canon.
The question at hand, though, is whether "Titus Crow" is really a Lovecraft story. In the cyberpunk class, we looked at the movie "the Matrix," which featured a lot of definitive cyberpunk traits: it was big on technology, yet with a retro spin, it had hyper masculine and feminine characters, it was slick and smooth, it featured man bonding with machine. And yet, it wasn't quite cyberpunk, for the simple reason that a cyberpunk main character is never the one--he is one of many. He does not play the hero. Likewise, the Lovecraftian main hero may attempt to play the hero, but he can't win anything beyond a pyrrhic victory--the forces of evil are too strong, and the corruption that comes with the knowledge necessary to face them is too absolute. And yet it Titus Crow, we see in the first story a massive, global organization centered around fighting the Cthonic forces, and in the second, we see Elysians, the good, equally powerful counterparts to the Cthonians. I'm somewhat interested in the symmetry that this depiction presents, but... I think it might cross the line between bending the rules of the genre and breaking them.
Final Verdict: A flawed book, but it raises interesting questions--if you're predisposed to these sorts of questions to begin with.
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