ANIMALS. MEN. ANIMAL MEN. Comics reviews.
Animal Man--the three volumes of the Grant Morrison run.
There's very little I can say about this series that wasn't said earlier and better by Comics 101. Here's the column that persuaded me that I had to have this series. It's very "meta"--but not in an annoying way--more in a chilling and thought-provoking way.
I guess the thing you should do, if the C101 column (which does have spoilers, sorry) doesn't do it for you, is stand in your local comics shop and read "The Coyote Gospel" in the first volume. I knew the twist (again, b/c of C101, so maybe you should avoid clicking that link?) and I was still blown away. Just creeptastic, provocative stuff. This is the kind of thing you rave and rant to your non-comics-reading friends for days afterwards about.
My only disappointment is that Morrison's ending is way too long and way too lame. And he knows it! He's written himself into a corner, and he just kind of says, "Hi, I've written myself into a corner, how 'meta.'" Growl! I loathed the last chapter--until the final page redeemed it.
Also, anyone who can't tell the difference between a lab rat and a human child has pretty much forfeited my sympathy. Then again, I do think Morrison realizes that that's kind of the point. He's a craptaculous moral philosopher, but he's a fine writer and he can exploit a good unreliable narrator when he finds one (or realizes that he is one).
Absolutely worth your dollar.
Ultimate Spider-Man 1 through 3: The Good: The dialogue is snappy. These comics are fun. Just really, really funny--I think I started noticing in volume 2. (Kingpin: "Who sent you?" Spidey: "...Do you mean who sent me in the larger cosmic sense of the word or...?" Kingpin: "Who sent you?" Spidey: "Uh... uh... Carson Daly." KP: "I don't know who that is.")
I loved Aunt May as a neurotic liberal. I loved the Evil Grief Counselor.
The Bad: Could those eyes get bigger? I deeply dislike that scrawny bug-eyed sharp-chinned manga-haired style, and Spider-Man in costume looks way more insect than teenager. (Yeah yeah, I know, they're arachnids not insects. Hush, you.)
The Ugly: In general, Hannibal Tabu and I have very different comics tastes, but I can get behind every word of his USM review: "On my comic pusher's recommendation, I read this ... and Bendis has Spidey down cold. The banter, the decision making process -- flawless. Kingpin is very solid, but it's really the charisma of his Spider-Man that made this issue a real winner. If I didn't find Spider-Man insanely boring, I'd have bought this. The hype is well-deserved here."
See, I don't care about Spider-Man. I don't know why. I just don't.
Part of it is that, while I love the superhero comics that I love a lot, I don't love very many of them. More on that above....
Friday, November 07, 2003
KEEP ON ROCKIN' IN THE FREE WORLD. "I am here today to tell the people of Canada what has happened to me.
"...I have never had trouble with the police and have always been a good citizen.
"So I still cannot believe what has happened to me, and how my life and career have been destroyed."
Basically this guy was terrorized, isolated (with no outsiders to provide unwanted scrutiny of his case), humiliated, hurt, lied to, shipped to Syria despite his pleas that he would be tortured there, then tortured--a lot.
And who sent him to Syria? Let's just say it was your tax dollars at work.
Via Mark Shea. More info here.
I'm not sure quite where to go with this, but let's start with Republican human rights advocate Chris Cox (R-Calif.): (202) 225-5611. If people can think of better places to call, please let me know, since I realize I'm taking something of a blunderbuss approach here.
I'll be calling as soon as I get a chance, probably tomorrow. I don't assume I know exactly what happened--I just know that somebody needs to be looking into this, and hard. We should not be in the business of outsourcing torture.
"...I have never had trouble with the police and have always been a good citizen.
"So I still cannot believe what has happened to me, and how my life and career have been destroyed."
Basically this guy was terrorized, isolated (with no outsiders to provide unwanted scrutiny of his case), humiliated, hurt, lied to, shipped to Syria despite his pleas that he would be tortured there, then tortured--a lot.
And who sent him to Syria? Let's just say it was your tax dollars at work.
Via Mark Shea. More info here.
I'm not sure quite where to go with this, but let's start with Republican human rights advocate Chris Cox (R-Calif.): (202) 225-5611. If people can think of better places to call, please let me know, since I realize I'm taking something of a blunderbuss approach here.
I'll be calling as soon as I get a chance, probably tomorrow. I don't assume I know exactly what happened--I just know that somebody needs to be looking into this, and hard. We should not be in the business of outsourcing torture.
SECRET HABEAS CORPUS CASE UPDATES: The California Yankee has lots of details. This looks like your go-to site for info on the case.
Update from Los Volokh.
Update from Los Volokh.
THE STAINLESS STEEL MOUSE OF CHINA. Fascinating story: "The 'stainless-steel mouse' is her cyber nom de plume. Her name is Liu Di, and in the one picture available, she has a young face and a wide, shy smile. Until the authorities tracked her down a year ago Friday, she was one of the most famous Internet web masters in China.
"A third-year psychology student at Beijing Normal University, Ms. Liu formed an artists club, wrote absurdist essays in the style of dissident Eastern-bloc writers of the 1970s, and ran a popular web-posting site. Admirers cite her originality and humor: In one essay Liu ironically suggests all club members go to the streets to sell Marxist literature and preach Lenin's theory, like 'real Communists.' In another, she suggests everyone tell no lies for 24 hours. In a series of 'confessions' she says that China's repressive national-security laws are not good for the security of the nation.
"But since Nov. 7, 2002, when plain-clothes police made a secret arrest, Liu has not been heard from. No charges have been filed; her family and friends may not visit her, sources say; and, in a well-known silencing tactic, authorities warn that it will not go well for her if foreign media are informed of her case.
"Experts have debated for several years now whether expression in China is opening up or whether a steady stream of key arrests or removals of Chinese writers and editors means that speech is being diminished. Some argue that while individuals like Liu and others are detained, in the long run overall media freedoms in China are expanding, due to the rise of commercial press competition.
"Such arguments, however, do not hold up in another recent prominent case -- a loss of editorial freedom inside Southern Weekend. The Guangdong weekly has been known for years as China's most crusading journal. ..." more
Via InstaPundit.
"A third-year psychology student at Beijing Normal University, Ms. Liu formed an artists club, wrote absurdist essays in the style of dissident Eastern-bloc writers of the 1970s, and ran a popular web-posting site. Admirers cite her originality and humor: In one essay Liu ironically suggests all club members go to the streets to sell Marxist literature and preach Lenin's theory, like 'real Communists.' In another, she suggests everyone tell no lies for 24 hours. In a series of 'confessions' she says that China's repressive national-security laws are not good for the security of the nation.
"But since Nov. 7, 2002, when plain-clothes police made a secret arrest, Liu has not been heard from. No charges have been filed; her family and friends may not visit her, sources say; and, in a well-known silencing tactic, authorities warn that it will not go well for her if foreign media are informed of her case.
"Experts have debated for several years now whether expression in China is opening up or whether a steady stream of key arrests or removals of Chinese writers and editors means that speech is being diminished. Some argue that while individuals like Liu and others are detained, in the long run overall media freedoms in China are expanding, due to the rise of commercial press competition.
"Such arguments, however, do not hold up in another recent prominent case -- a loss of editorial freedom inside Southern Weekend. The Guangdong weekly has been known for years as China's most crusading journal. ..." more
Via InstaPundit.
FORMAT VS. FUNCTION? Comics-y stuff. So there's been a lot of discussion lately about floppies (monthly comics, magazine-format) vs. trade paperbacks (comics collections). Here's a good link--I comment there.
I can't stand floppies. This despite having spent most of high school creating and reading zines--so it's not that I don't appreciate the cool stuff you can do within the monthly, magazine-y format. What follows is a very personal take; the more theoretical points are the ones I'm least sure of.
Why I Hate Floppies:
1) I read everywhere. I am never spotted without something to read--you never know when you might get a chance! I read on the bus. On the subway. Waiting on line. While walking (I'm hardcore). In the tub. I would read in the shower if I thought I could get away with it! Floppies are flimsy, unwieldy, and unforgiving. I need a format that can take serious abuse without the pages falling out or the ink smudging. (I haven't gotten very far in From Hell in large part because the paper quality doesn't line up well with the size of the book--I'm really worried that if I handle FH the way I handle most of my books, I'll rip the pages. I was quite grateful that big ol' honkers like Blankets and Jinx were printed on thick, punishable paper.)
In the link above, Laura says (in comments) that you can mistreat floppies too. I haven't really found that to be true--maybe I'm just more gorillalike than she is? I really do tend to schlep books around until they're hurtin', and magazine-format items get mangled much more easily than book-format items. My old zine collection is a disaster; my magazine collection, ditto; my very tiny floppy comics collection is only in decentish shape because I'd learned my lesson by that time, and tried to be nice to them! ...Did I mention that I'm one of the lousy people who keep track of where I am in a book by turning it upside-down and open on the table? And then forgetting it's there and piling other books on top of it? So maybe this is just me, the Book Ape....
2) THOSE $#@! $#@! %$#@! ADS! Seriously, I can't stand them. Big garish full-page ads interrupting my story! This is why people pay cable price to see movies without commercials. I just--can't--deal--with having my story interrupted by ads. ("But it's OK to have your story interrupted because the checkout line finally got your groceries up to the front?" That's different. Don't ask me why, it just is.) This criticism only applies to comics that have the ads--thus not, say, Cuckoo, or (I think) Love & Rockets.
3) (Very speculative:) Floppies are disposable. I suspect people write more disposably for a disposable medium. (The counter to this argument is that nobody could afford to publish trade paperbacks for all the many comics out there, so there'd be [even!] less experimentation and variety without the audition-like, bet-hedging monthly format. I don't know enough about the industry to comment on that.)
4) I'm just not good at short stuff. Even though I write short stories myself, the only short story writers I really, really like are Yukio Mishima and Angela Carter. So I like the longer-term plotting that TPB's (maybe?) encourage.
I can't stand floppies. This despite having spent most of high school creating and reading zines--so it's not that I don't appreciate the cool stuff you can do within the monthly, magazine-y format. What follows is a very personal take; the more theoretical points are the ones I'm least sure of.
Why I Hate Floppies:
1) I read everywhere. I am never spotted without something to read--you never know when you might get a chance! I read on the bus. On the subway. Waiting on line. While walking (I'm hardcore). In the tub. I would read in the shower if I thought I could get away with it! Floppies are flimsy, unwieldy, and unforgiving. I need a format that can take serious abuse without the pages falling out or the ink smudging. (I haven't gotten very far in From Hell in large part because the paper quality doesn't line up well with the size of the book--I'm really worried that if I handle FH the way I handle most of my books, I'll rip the pages. I was quite grateful that big ol' honkers like Blankets and Jinx were printed on thick, punishable paper.)
In the link above, Laura says (in comments) that you can mistreat floppies too. I haven't really found that to be true--maybe I'm just more gorillalike than she is? I really do tend to schlep books around until they're hurtin', and magazine-format items get mangled much more easily than book-format items. My old zine collection is a disaster; my magazine collection, ditto; my very tiny floppy comics collection is only in decentish shape because I'd learned my lesson by that time, and tried to be nice to them! ...Did I mention that I'm one of the lousy people who keep track of where I am in a book by turning it upside-down and open on the table? And then forgetting it's there and piling other books on top of it? So maybe this is just me, the Book Ape....
2) THOSE $#@! $#@! %$#@! ADS! Seriously, I can't stand them. Big garish full-page ads interrupting my story! This is why people pay cable price to see movies without commercials. I just--can't--deal--with having my story interrupted by ads. ("But it's OK to have your story interrupted because the checkout line finally got your groceries up to the front?" That's different. Don't ask me why, it just is.) This criticism only applies to comics that have the ads--thus not, say, Cuckoo, or (I think) Love & Rockets.
3) (Very speculative:) Floppies are disposable. I suspect people write more disposably for a disposable medium. (The counter to this argument is that nobody could afford to publish trade paperbacks for all the many comics out there, so there'd be [even!] less experimentation and variety without the audition-like, bet-hedging monthly format. I don't know enough about the industry to comment on that.)
4) I'm just not good at short stuff. Even though I write short stories myself, the only short story writers I really, really like are Yukio Mishima and Angela Carter. So I like the longer-term plotting that TPB's (maybe?) encourage.
Thursday, November 06, 2003
Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard, but I think,
Oh blogwatch! up yours! 1-2-3-4!!!
Camassia: "What's the difference between Christian love and Buddhist compassion? Katherine seemed to imply that Christian love is more passionate, and that seems so to me. Buddhists seek to rid themselves of desire, but Christians have desire all over the place: God desires us, we desire him, we desire each other, etc. I can see why Katherine finds that more appealing than the Void, but I can't help feeling that this also brings the things that appall me about the Christian God -- the anger, the punitiveness, the blood and suffering and the whole shmeer. Is that the price we pay for having an impassioned God?"
Dappled Things: Powerful post on belonging to the Catholic Church. I have a different perspective, as an adult convert raised very very much outside the Church. But I definitely see this: "Reading Luther or Kierkegaard (who are the Protestant thinkers I'm most familiar with), I'm impressed by the intense personal faith of the individual who stands naked before God and calls out for salvation. I'm impressed by the great personal responsibility that the classical Protestant takes upon himself as he picks up the Bible and, relying on his own mind and the Holy Ghost, attempts to figure out what God means to communicate to man and then bets his soul upon it. To me (and, I think, to most Catholics) this fearsome responsibility has something very distant and cold about it. It is awe-inspiring, but it also seems very, very lonely."
[Eve adds--it also seems to make the Descartes mistake of seeking truth outside relationship, rather than viewing trust and personal relationships as a matrix within which we can gain greater understanding of God--which is sort of what I was getting at in my post about Derrida and being "open to the Other." But I should probably shut up about that until I have a more thought-through thing to say about it. Back to Dappled Things:]
"...When I think of 'faith,' I think of something that has been passed along to me from the hands of another. ...I think of something I'm not entitled to change, because it doesn't belong to me and because I'm charged with passing it along intact to the next generation, who will depend upon me as I have depended on the last generation. The writings of the Saints and the Church's worship are the checks and balances which keep my own personal interpretations of the Faith from straying far afield...."
Eve again: It's very strange for me to think about people growing up in the Church, since so much of my conversion was about a sense of exile (which is a sense of the Fall) and entering the Church was, not a homecoming, but the anticipation of a homecoming--like hearing an echo before you hear the voice. So it's hard for me to imagine experiencing this echo or shadow of homecoming as home, as normal, as the known. Fr. Tucker makes me see the beauty of a formation I find very foreign.
Forager 23: What ever happened to the heavy? Great question for those of us interested in a) movies or b) masculinity.
Johnny Bacardi: Flattery will get you everywhere. Also, you all are wrong about Chuck Jones. Read his autobiography, Chuck Amuck, for some of the straight-up funniest stuff I've ever seen. I named my solo zine Femme Skunk after, of course, Pepe Le Pew's petit chou-chou. That skunk's always been a hero of mine.
Kesher Talk: I haven't read the linked post yet, but this sounds fascinating: "Naomi Chana wrote an excellent and moving essay -- inspired by a widespread discomfort and misunderstanding of the Yom Kippur Avodah service by liberal Jews -- on the translation from the sacrifice-based Temple service to the rabbinic innovations in liturgy. I have some remarks in the comments. I think this would fit into my Pintele Yid series as another window onto the Jewish worldview, so if you are interested in what makes Jews tick, read the whole thing."
The Old Oligarch: Part one of his review of "The Matrix: Revolutions." I hated the second movie but loved reading the O.O.'s commentaries on it (here here here), so I anticipate much chunky, funky philosophical goodness from his posts on the third film.
Oh blogwatch! up yours! 1-2-3-4!!!
Camassia: "What's the difference between Christian love and Buddhist compassion? Katherine seemed to imply that Christian love is more passionate, and that seems so to me. Buddhists seek to rid themselves of desire, but Christians have desire all over the place: God desires us, we desire him, we desire each other, etc. I can see why Katherine finds that more appealing than the Void, but I can't help feeling that this also brings the things that appall me about the Christian God -- the anger, the punitiveness, the blood and suffering and the whole shmeer. Is that the price we pay for having an impassioned God?"
Dappled Things: Powerful post on belonging to the Catholic Church. I have a different perspective, as an adult convert raised very very much outside the Church. But I definitely see this: "Reading Luther or Kierkegaard (who are the Protestant thinkers I'm most familiar with), I'm impressed by the intense personal faith of the individual who stands naked before God and calls out for salvation. I'm impressed by the great personal responsibility that the classical Protestant takes upon himself as he picks up the Bible and, relying on his own mind and the Holy Ghost, attempts to figure out what God means to communicate to man and then bets his soul upon it. To me (and, I think, to most Catholics) this fearsome responsibility has something very distant and cold about it. It is awe-inspiring, but it also seems very, very lonely."
[Eve adds--it also seems to make the Descartes mistake of seeking truth outside relationship, rather than viewing trust and personal relationships as a matrix within which we can gain greater understanding of God--which is sort of what I was getting at in my post about Derrida and being "open to the Other." But I should probably shut up about that until I have a more thought-through thing to say about it. Back to Dappled Things:]
"...When I think of 'faith,' I think of something that has been passed along to me from the hands of another. ...I think of something I'm not entitled to change, because it doesn't belong to me and because I'm charged with passing it along intact to the next generation, who will depend upon me as I have depended on the last generation. The writings of the Saints and the Church's worship are the checks and balances which keep my own personal interpretations of the Faith from straying far afield...."
Eve again: It's very strange for me to think about people growing up in the Church, since so much of my conversion was about a sense of exile (which is a sense of the Fall) and entering the Church was, not a homecoming, but the anticipation of a homecoming--like hearing an echo before you hear the voice. So it's hard for me to imagine experiencing this echo or shadow of homecoming as home, as normal, as the known. Fr. Tucker makes me see the beauty of a formation I find very foreign.
Forager 23: What ever happened to the heavy? Great question for those of us interested in a) movies or b) masculinity.
Johnny Bacardi: Flattery will get you everywhere. Also, you all are wrong about Chuck Jones. Read his autobiography, Chuck Amuck, for some of the straight-up funniest stuff I've ever seen. I named my solo zine Femme Skunk after, of course, Pepe Le Pew's petit chou-chou. That skunk's always been a hero of mine.
Kesher Talk: I haven't read the linked post yet, but this sounds fascinating: "Naomi Chana wrote an excellent and moving essay -- inspired by a widespread discomfort and misunderstanding of the Yom Kippur Avodah service by liberal Jews -- on the translation from the sacrifice-based Temple service to the rabbinic innovations in liturgy. I have some remarks in the comments. I think this would fit into my Pintele Yid series as another window onto the Jewish worldview, so if you are interested in what makes Jews tick, read the whole thing."
The Old Oligarch: Part one of his review of "The Matrix: Revolutions." I hated the second movie but loved reading the O.O.'s commentaries on it (here here here), so I anticipate much chunky, funky philosophical goodness from his posts on the third film.
Wednesday, November 05, 2003
SHAKE THE MANY HANDS: So I was superlame and didn't mention Sunday's blog get-together. (I missed the Saturday comics-ish blogfest because of a minor intrusion: the wedding of two of my closest friends! This is the first time, by the way, that I'd ever seen a married couple both before and the day after the ceremony, and I was kind of tripped out at how completely normal they seemed. I guess I expected them to grow horns, or to be purple, or something.)
Anyway, the Sunday brunch featured Mr. and Mrs. Unqualified Offerings (with Mrs. UO playing her usual valued role of deflater of pretensions), Polytropos, Mr. Lite and Mrs. Light, Glen Engel-Cox, and a person named Jen whose URL I too have forgotten because I am lamer than lame.
Of what did the octumvirate (?) deliberate during their itinerary? The book industry; the fact that I would help the Hulk in a battle against the nonexistent and generally annoying Thor; the deeply unnecessary quality of journalism schools; the necessity and benefits of translation (look, call me a philistine, but I think the Inferno sounds better in thorny spiky English pentameter than in overly-liquid, overly-symmetric Italian terza rima); and the nature of loyalty to America. More on that last item presently, since I don't think anyone there quite got it right, and I am all about esprit d'escalier. ("The spirit of the staircase"--the deal where you think of the right thing to say several hours after it would have been relevant, a.k.a. the origin of blogging.)
Anyway, the Sunday brunch featured Mr. and Mrs. Unqualified Offerings (with Mrs. UO playing her usual valued role of deflater of pretensions), Polytropos, Mr. Lite and Mrs. Light, Glen Engel-Cox, and a person named Jen whose URL I too have forgotten because I am lamer than lame.
Of what did the octumvirate (?) deliberate during their itinerary? The book industry; the fact that I would help the Hulk in a battle against the nonexistent and generally annoying Thor; the deeply unnecessary quality of journalism schools; the necessity and benefits of translation (look, call me a philistine, but I think the Inferno sounds better in thorny spiky English pentameter than in overly-liquid, overly-symmetric Italian terza rima); and the nature of loyalty to America. More on that last item presently, since I don't think anyone there quite got it right, and I am all about esprit d'escalier. ("The spirit of the staircase"--the deal where you think of the right thing to say several hours after it would have been relevant, a.k.a. the origin of blogging.)
I'M LEO. "As the captain of the Bartlet Administration's boat, the chief of staff is a work-a-holic. Although he is sometimes haunted by the demons of his past alcohol and drug abuse, because of his character and perserverance there is no one more admired on the staff than he."
I've never watched "The West Wing," and would be perfectly content if I never heard the word "Sheen" again without the word "Fulton" close by, so I can't comment on the veracity of this comparison. Anyway, I found this quiz through this utterly random blog with a cool name. Um, this was almost work-related, I swear.
I've never watched "The West Wing," and would be perfectly content if I never heard the word "Sheen" again without the word "Fulton" close by, so I can't comment on the veracity of this comparison. Anyway, I found this quiz through this utterly random blog with a cool name. Um, this was almost work-related, I swear.
We watch the blogs at night,
We go where eagles dare...
Alan David Doane says Palomar, the new and enormous collection of Gilbert Hernandez's Love and Rockets comics set in a fictional South American small town, is a great way for people who haven't picked up L&R yet to start. I don't rightly know--I hate gigantic books (if I can't read it in the tub what good is it?), but I do see that it can be difficult to start with one of the great G. Hernandez comics like "Human Diastrophism" or Poison River if you don't know the characters. So... basically I'm saying, this is some of the best art out there. Not solely some of the best comics, but some of the best art. Fetch yourself some L&R. If you like big fat books, buy Palomar. If you don't, stand around in a comics shop reading different volumes of the paperbacks until you find something that really grabs you, and start there.
Bruce Baugh: "One of the functions of horror is to frame the act of grieving in art." I'm not sure how to permalink his entries--go here and scroll down to "Horror and Grief." There's also an excellent comment on art that tries to blind the audience to the rest of the world and art that opens us up to that world.
MarriageDebate is hosting a discussion of marriage and gender, sparked by this piece in the new Commentary. Anybody interested should drop by.
Sursum Corda: Powerful meditation on falling in love with Christ. This is not really a perspective I share, to my great loss; I'm still more in the stage Cat Power described--
What defeats people is a double confession. One time they will confess one thing and the next they will confess the next;
You talk to them, they will say,
"Learn to say the same thing."
The Volokh Conspiracy: Supreme Court starts sniffing around the secret habeas corpus case. More updates as I know more.
And a description of a "boot camp for creative writing." Merely underlines how much work I need to do on my stuff.... (Speaking of which, next short story will begin on Friday.)
We go where eagles dare...
Alan David Doane says Palomar, the new and enormous collection of Gilbert Hernandez's Love and Rockets comics set in a fictional South American small town, is a great way for people who haven't picked up L&R yet to start. I don't rightly know--I hate gigantic books (if I can't read it in the tub what good is it?), but I do see that it can be difficult to start with one of the great G. Hernandez comics like "Human Diastrophism" or Poison River if you don't know the characters. So... basically I'm saying, this is some of the best art out there. Not solely some of the best comics, but some of the best art. Fetch yourself some L&R. If you like big fat books, buy Palomar. If you don't, stand around in a comics shop reading different volumes of the paperbacks until you find something that really grabs you, and start there.
Bruce Baugh: "One of the functions of horror is to frame the act of grieving in art." I'm not sure how to permalink his entries--go here and scroll down to "Horror and Grief." There's also an excellent comment on art that tries to blind the audience to the rest of the world and art that opens us up to that world.
MarriageDebate is hosting a discussion of marriage and gender, sparked by this piece in the new Commentary. Anybody interested should drop by.
Sursum Corda: Powerful meditation on falling in love with Christ. This is not really a perspective I share, to my great loss; I'm still more in the stage Cat Power described--
What defeats people is a double confession. One time they will confess one thing and the next they will confess the next;
You talk to them, they will say,
"Learn to say the same thing."
The Volokh Conspiracy: Supreme Court starts sniffing around the secret habeas corpus case. More updates as I know more.
And a description of a "boot camp for creative writing." Merely underlines how much work I need to do on my stuff.... (Speaking of which, next short story will begin on Friday.)
Monday, November 03, 2003
"NOW AND AT THE HOUR." Finished the final section of the rough draft of my latest short story. Since it's been over a week since I posted the last chunk, I suggest just starting at the beginning, but if you just want the last section it's here.
This is what the story's about: "I hadn't been expecting to come back to life. I think I'd seen a quick segment about revival on the evening news, or maybe glanced through a magazine article in the checkout line. But I certainly didn't know it was covered by our insurance; it was still very exotic at the time. We were among the first thousand people to be revived. Even today, you still spend three days brain-dead before revival. I suspect they could cut it down, but I think people like the religious symbolism--I think it helps them believe revival will work. The price has come down significantly, though, and it's covered by the state insurance plans. It's cheap enough now that even the poor we shall always have with us."
As with the other stories I've posted, I'm not satisfied with N&ATH, and welcome criticism so I can make the next draft much better. I know this one suffers, specifically, from the fact that the pivotal character in the third section doesn't show up in the first two, and the pivotal character in the first section doesn't show up in the third. I'm going to fix that for sure. It is a bit of a triptych, but right now it's a very clumsy one. I'm going to fix it so it's much more tightly structured.
Anyway, other criticism is very very welcome.
This is what the story's about: "I hadn't been expecting to come back to life. I think I'd seen a quick segment about revival on the evening news, or maybe glanced through a magazine article in the checkout line. But I certainly didn't know it was covered by our insurance; it was still very exotic at the time. We were among the first thousand people to be revived. Even today, you still spend three days brain-dead before revival. I suspect they could cut it down, but I think people like the religious symbolism--I think it helps them believe revival will work. The price has come down significantly, though, and it's covered by the state insurance plans. It's cheap enough now that even the poor we shall always have with us."
As with the other stories I've posted, I'm not satisfied with N&ATH, and welcome criticism so I can make the next draft much better. I know this one suffers, specifically, from the fact that the pivotal character in the third section doesn't show up in the first two, and the pivotal character in the first section doesn't show up in the third. I'm going to fix that for sure. It is a bit of a triptych, but right now it's a very clumsy one. I'm going to fix it so it's much more tightly structured.
Anyway, other criticism is very very welcome.
COMING DISTRACTIONS: Here's what you'll find on this site late tonight, tomorrow, and/or Wednesday (depending on how fast I blaze through my Real Work): the conclusion of "Now and at the Hour"; more thoughts on Watchmen; the first several of a series of short posts replying to Grotesque Anatomy's vast reply to me on same-sex marriage; thoughts on superhero concepts vs. execution (in which, among other things, I will valiantly defend oft-overlooked aspects of the generally lame concept of the X-Men!); and, as always, whatever else stumbles onto the horizon.
In a little bit you'll get comics reviews: Animal Man and Ultimate Spider-Man.
In a little bit you'll get comics reviews: Animal Man and Ultimate Spider-Man.
FINAL MOVIE NOTE: Forgot to mention that Jesse Walker rightly took me to task for implying that "The Ice Storm" is nihilist. Very poor word choice on my part. The thing I was trying to get at is that TIS is--or, at least, this is how it feels to me when I watch it--purely negative. It tells you how awful it is to live in a culture that's losing its moral compass. But there's not a very vivid sense of what you should do, what right action and love would look like. In that respect it reminds me of a lot of Nirvana's music. (I really love both TIS and Nirvana, by the way.)
TODAY, THE SCORE SO FAR: Plus: Indian summer. Man oh Manischevitz, what a beautiful day it was! It was basktastic. I made like a lizard on a rock for much of the afternoon, reading in Dupont Circle.
Mocha frappuccino. I hate myself for loving something called "mocha frappuccino."
Did a chunk of work and a chunk of fiction.
Yapped with the Rat for an hour or so.
Minus: Total, all-night, catastrophic insomnia, followed by one of those killer midday naps that always leave me feeling much worse than I was initially. If anyone has anti-insomnia suggestions other than pills (won't) and no caffeine after 5 (already on it), PLEASE email me. This is getting ridiculous.
Still gotta do several more chunks of work and fiction before I knock off for the night.
Didn't do some volunteer stuff I needed to do, partly because of aforementioned evil midday nap.
This apartment is a disaster area. Again. Still.
Mocha frappuccino. I hate myself for loving something called "mocha frappuccino."
Did a chunk of work and a chunk of fiction.
Yapped with the Rat for an hour or so.
Minus: Total, all-night, catastrophic insomnia, followed by one of those killer midday naps that always leave me feeling much worse than I was initially. If anyone has anti-insomnia suggestions other than pills (won't) and no caffeine after 5 (already on it), PLEASE email me. This is getting ridiculous.
Still gotta do several more chunks of work and fiction before I knock off for the night.
Didn't do some volunteer stuff I needed to do, partly because of aforementioned evil midday nap.
This apartment is a disaster area. Again. Still.
SECRET HABEAS CORPUS CASE? That's freaky. All my hackles are at attention for this one. If anyone has more info please send. I couldn't find anything at TalkLeft but maybe I just missed it.
From Law.com: "A South Florida waiter who was detained in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether U.S. District Judge Paul C. Huck in Miami and the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals abused their discretion by sealing his case without explanation.
"But in an unusual move, the public copy of Mohamed Kamel Bellahouel's petition to the Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari is heavily censored, with entire pages blanked out. A complete copy, plus attachments, was filed under seal for the justices' eyes alone. Still, the filing by the federal public defender's office in Miami is the first public acknowledgement by any federal court of Bellahouel's habeas corpus case. . . .
"The lower courts, the petition said, have gone to great lengths to hide the 'essential fact' that Bellahouel's case even exists -- including keeping the existence of the case off the public court dockets. But, it said, 'the facts of the petitioner's case would make a significant contribution to the national debate about the detention and treatment of Middle Eastern persons. There is no legitimate government interest [in] permitting court-suppression of his ordeal.'"
From Law.com: "A South Florida waiter who was detained in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether U.S. District Judge Paul C. Huck in Miami and the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals abused their discretion by sealing his case without explanation.
"But in an unusual move, the public copy of Mohamed Kamel Bellahouel's petition to the Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari is heavily censored, with entire pages blanked out. A complete copy, plus attachments, was filed under seal for the justices' eyes alone. Still, the filing by the federal public defender's office in Miami is the first public acknowledgement by any federal court of Bellahouel's habeas corpus case. . . .
"The lower courts, the petition said, have gone to great lengths to hide the 'essential fact' that Bellahouel's case even exists -- including keeping the existence of the case off the public court dockets. But, it said, 'the facts of the petitioner's case would make a significant contribution to the national debate about the detention and treatment of Middle Eastern persons. There is no legitimate government interest [in] permitting court-suppression of his ordeal.'"
WOMAN WHO WAS ALMOST DIAGNOSED AS "PERSISTENTLY VEGETATIVE" SPEAKS TO NPR. This link, which I can't listen to but you should, I got via a characteristically sound piece on Terri Schiavo from Mickey Kaus. (I don't know how to permalink him, but scroll down to "NPR vs. NPR.")
Excerpts from the Kaus post: "I was just growing more sympathetic to the cause of those who want to pull the plug on Terri Schiavo--then I heard an eye-opening interview on NPR's Day to Day with a woman who says she was near to being diagnosed as being in a 'persistent vegetative state' and was trying desperately to signal her doctors and nurses while they debated the most convenient time to kill her--sorry, I mean, exercise her 'right to die.' If she tried to make repetitive letter motions with her hand, they sedated her. ... She was finally saved by one nurse who suspected she 'was in there' and gathered evidence to 'prove' it. [I've interviewed one such successful nurse--Eve]... How does a) the number of innocent people who will be executed under death penalty procedures compare with b) the number of innocent, live patients who will be killed under a tendentious diagnosis of PVS?"
The whole post is very much worth your time.
Excerpts from the Kaus post: "I was just growing more sympathetic to the cause of those who want to pull the plug on Terri Schiavo--then I heard an eye-opening interview on NPR's Day to Day with a woman who says she was near to being diagnosed as being in a 'persistent vegetative state' and was trying desperately to signal her doctors and nurses while they debated the most convenient time to kill her--sorry, I mean, exercise her 'right to die.' If she tried to make repetitive letter motions with her hand, they sedated her. ... She was finally saved by one nurse who suspected she 'was in there' and gathered evidence to 'prove' it. [I've interviewed one such successful nurse--Eve]... How does a) the number of innocent people who will be executed under death penalty procedures compare with b) the number of innocent, live patients who will be killed under a tendentious diagnosis of PVS?"
The whole post is very much worth your time.
Oh Cecilia, you're watchin' my blog,
You're shakin' my confidence daily....
Bruce Baugh: More praise for Uzumaki, the killer-spiral Japanese comic: "Ito never lectures on this point, but he shows by contrast with the alternative how much a meaningful life depends on a society and a world in which actions have consequences, choices exist, and there is both a knowable past and a comprehensible future. That's all gone by the time Kirie and her friend and almost-lover Shuichi see the power behind the spirals and lose the last of what they've managed to cling to.
"...There are some classic scenes and views here, but there are many more profoundly original -- and very deeply unsettling -- visions. From the coiled man to the poor lovers to the first person in town to become a giant snail to the peeping tom to the town's last configuration, I kept thinking, 'Wow! I never imagined that!'
"This is also a deeply humane book. ...The carnival of destruction is freaky and glorious, but it's also constantly saddening. It matters."
Eve again: I just got vols. 2 and 3 and am really looking forward to reading them.
Cacciaguida: Saints with a prominent role in his life.
Ninomania: Report from a conference on same-sex marriage. I thought Prof. Wagner's description of his own speech was the most interesting bit, but there are nuggets throughout: "More interesting, among the morning panels, were the presentations by European law profs who have recently been active in various forms of SSM/civil union legislation in Western Europe. Overall, I sense that Europeans are less passionate about this, on both sides. It seems France, the Netherlands, the Nordic countries have all created some form of civil union for same-sex couples; some benefits traditionally associated with marriage go with these, others are still reserved for marriage. Good old European urbanity: not much principle, but not much venom-spewing either. ...
"And so we come to my panel, on SSM and the Constitution. This one was graced by Prof. Mark Strasser, a gay scholar who is consistently knowledgeable and collegial. Ideological screeds and rehashing of oral arguments aren’t his style: careful analysis of applicable precedent is, and he did it again.
"...Mark and I both derived mirth from the 'Scalia role-reversal,' whereby gay advocates are urging the interpretation of Lawrence that Scalia offered in dissent, while Ninomaniacs are disagreeing, ever so respectfully, with our Main Man on this issue. ...
"Then I expatiated a bit on the role of marriage in harnessing destructive male sexuality to the requirements of female patterns, which include helping in childrearing. I cited a Harvard-educated (but otherwise reliable!) inner-city minister in Boston – Rev. Dr. Ray Hammond, MD – to the effect that tying men to the children they father is a vital need served by marriage. This need is going unmet, and this causes grave problems among people who don’t look like the lily-white assembly at the Boston Radisson." And more.
Sean Collins: Halloweenery postmortem. Do you take requests? If so, do "Night of the Hunter" and "Jacob's Ladder" later!
Stephan Kinsella: The Fantastic Four reveal their inner Hayeks! Fun. Forget where I found this.
You're shakin' my confidence daily....
Bruce Baugh: More praise for Uzumaki, the killer-spiral Japanese comic: "Ito never lectures on this point, but he shows by contrast with the alternative how much a meaningful life depends on a society and a world in which actions have consequences, choices exist, and there is both a knowable past and a comprehensible future. That's all gone by the time Kirie and her friend and almost-lover Shuichi see the power behind the spirals and lose the last of what they've managed to cling to.
"...There are some classic scenes and views here, but there are many more profoundly original -- and very deeply unsettling -- visions. From the coiled man to the poor lovers to the first person in town to become a giant snail to the peeping tom to the town's last configuration, I kept thinking, 'Wow! I never imagined that!'
"This is also a deeply humane book. ...The carnival of destruction is freaky and glorious, but it's also constantly saddening. It matters."
Eve again: I just got vols. 2 and 3 and am really looking forward to reading them.
Cacciaguida: Saints with a prominent role in his life.
Ninomania: Report from a conference on same-sex marriage. I thought Prof. Wagner's description of his own speech was the most interesting bit, but there are nuggets throughout: "More interesting, among the morning panels, were the presentations by European law profs who have recently been active in various forms of SSM/civil union legislation in Western Europe. Overall, I sense that Europeans are less passionate about this, on both sides. It seems France, the Netherlands, the Nordic countries have all created some form of civil union for same-sex couples; some benefits traditionally associated with marriage go with these, others are still reserved for marriage. Good old European urbanity: not much principle, but not much venom-spewing either. ...
"And so we come to my panel, on SSM and the Constitution. This one was graced by Prof. Mark Strasser, a gay scholar who is consistently knowledgeable and collegial. Ideological screeds and rehashing of oral arguments aren’t his style: careful analysis of applicable precedent is, and he did it again.
"...Mark and I both derived mirth from the 'Scalia role-reversal,' whereby gay advocates are urging the interpretation of Lawrence that Scalia offered in dissent, while Ninomaniacs are disagreeing, ever so respectfully, with our Main Man on this issue. ...
"Then I expatiated a bit on the role of marriage in harnessing destructive male sexuality to the requirements of female patterns, which include helping in childrearing. I cited a Harvard-educated (but otherwise reliable!) inner-city minister in Boston – Rev. Dr. Ray Hammond, MD – to the effect that tying men to the children they father is a vital need served by marriage. This need is going unmet, and this causes grave problems among people who don’t look like the lily-white assembly at the Boston Radisson." And more.
Sean Collins: Halloweenery postmortem. Do you take requests? If so, do "Night of the Hunter" and "Jacob's Ladder" later!
Stephan Kinsella: The Fantastic Four reveal their inner Hayeks! Fun. Forget where I found this.
"Patterns of family pathology clearly don't change with the number of wives on the premises."
--Against Love on polygamy. Since I've now given you two quotes from AL where Kipnis offers piercing insights, I figured I'd throw one of her more irritating moments your way. Here Kipnis makes the common and over-easy assumption that family structure has nothing to do with family happiness--it's all about the individuals, not the institutions and forms they set up to channel and guide their actions.
--Against Love on polygamy. Since I've now given you two quotes from AL where Kipnis offers piercing insights, I figured I'd throw one of her more irritating moments your way. Here Kipnis makes the common and over-easy assumption that family structure has nothing to do with family happiness--it's all about the individuals, not the institutions and forms they set up to channel and guide their actions.
Sunday, November 02, 2003
MOVIE NOTES: Sean Collins's case against "Grosse Pointe Blank," which I think isn't wrong so much as incomplete. I'm not sure I can be fully reasonable about this movie, since I think it's about being lost and searching for meaning and I just so happened to see it several times when I was in that exact state. So I, like, related. But I'll make three quick points:
1) I agree that you're not asked to view Martin Blank as awful. You're asked to view him as blank (not a subtle movie, you know?). Emptied. "You're a handsome devil--what's your name?" That sense of self-lessness, of lack of selfhood due to wrong actions, is reinforced throughout the movie. Evil actions alienate you from others and from yourself, and begin to erase you. You have to stop acting wrong before you are erased forever.
2) I'm OK with movies in which evil actions do not have obvious immediate punishments. I think there's a theme in GPB that Blank is being punished for his crimes by being trapped in an absurd and isolated world--he's in solitary--but I totally agree with Sean that everything's resolved too neatly. I'm okay with that in part because I think real-life evil actions don't have obvious immediate actions, and yet they are still wrong, just as GPB presents Blank's hit-man career as wrong. I don't want to demand either that every story show virtue rewarded, or that every story show vice triumphant in our bad world. I'm willing to say that sometimes the effects of sin are evident in the outside world and sometimes they're just not.
3) I hadn't seen "Say Anything" until a few years after I saw GPB. GPB was my second Cusack flick after "The Grifters." So he wasn't embedded in my mind as a Cute Actor--more of a Loser Sleazeball. I'm sure that influenced my reading of his GPB character as, well, a Loser Sleazeball rather than a Cute Actor.
Sean on "The Shining," a movie I really don't like--I want to see a movie about sin, not a movie about Calvinism. Sean has a far higher tolerance for random absurd evil than I do. [Edited to remove overly-quick jump from fiction to reality! I don't like "TS" the movie in large part because I don't think it's as realistic as TS the book, but there are lots of amazing artworks that present worldviews I don't think are true. So it's not just that "TS"'s Jack Torrance seems pre-damned, will-less, on the express train to Hell. But his character is one of the bigger problems with the movie, IMO. Anyway....]
All this notwithstanding, he really should see "Carnival of Souls." I know I'm picky and we tend to have differing tastes in horror flicks, but I really do think he'd like this one.
Sean also has a post on "The Exorcist," but I haven't read it b/c I fear spoilers.
1) I agree that you're not asked to view Martin Blank as awful. You're asked to view him as blank (not a subtle movie, you know?). Emptied. "You're a handsome devil--what's your name?" That sense of self-lessness, of lack of selfhood due to wrong actions, is reinforced throughout the movie. Evil actions alienate you from others and from yourself, and begin to erase you. You have to stop acting wrong before you are erased forever.
2) I'm OK with movies in which evil actions do not have obvious immediate punishments. I think there's a theme in GPB that Blank is being punished for his crimes by being trapped in an absurd and isolated world--he's in solitary--but I totally agree with Sean that everything's resolved too neatly. I'm okay with that in part because I think real-life evil actions don't have obvious immediate actions, and yet they are still wrong, just as GPB presents Blank's hit-man career as wrong. I don't want to demand either that every story show virtue rewarded, or that every story show vice triumphant in our bad world. I'm willing to say that sometimes the effects of sin are evident in the outside world and sometimes they're just not.
3) I hadn't seen "Say Anything" until a few years after I saw GPB. GPB was my second Cusack flick after "The Grifters." So he wasn't embedded in my mind as a Cute Actor--more of a Loser Sleazeball. I'm sure that influenced my reading of his GPB character as, well, a Loser Sleazeball rather than a Cute Actor.
Sean on "The Shining," a movie I really don't like--I want to see a movie about sin, not a movie about Calvinism. Sean has a far higher tolerance for random absurd evil than I do. [Edited to remove overly-quick jump from fiction to reality! I don't like "TS" the movie in large part because I don't think it's as realistic as TS the book, but there are lots of amazing artworks that present worldviews I don't think are true. So it's not just that "TS"'s Jack Torrance seems pre-damned, will-less, on the express train to Hell. But his character is one of the bigger problems with the movie, IMO. Anyway....]
All this notwithstanding, he really should see "Carnival of Souls." I know I'm picky and we tend to have differing tastes in horror flicks, but I really do think he'd like this one.
Sean also has a post on "The Exorcist," but I haven't read it b/c I fear spoilers.
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