Thursday, February 23, 2006
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Other people talking
Whilst I'm preoccupied, some other blogs have interesting stuff:
Plok has been comparing the underlying philosophies and worldviews of Steve Englehart and Steve Gerber. These two mean as much to me as they do to him, and I admire him for putting it into words.
Ragnell has a great take on Wonder Woman and religion and inspires some really inspired comments.
Apparently there was a party at a good-looking comics shop attended by good-looking comics fans. And you wonder why I feel old. Just remember, I did my time in the trenches before comics were "cool" and "hip" -- my generation of fans all wore anoraks indoors and didn't bathe, and the comic shops all had stacks of porn instead of cappucino dispensers. Though of course I was buying them at newsstands long before comic shops were invented; even the grubbiest comic shop would have been paradise back then. To this day when I buy comics I still think someone is waiting outside the shop to beat me up. When you see me at the convention just remember I went through all that so you young people could live in a better world, so be kind to me.
(Link via Mark, who also has the blurry photo of scowling beard thing going on.)
Plok has been comparing the underlying philosophies and worldviews of Steve Englehart and Steve Gerber. These two mean as much to me as they do to him, and I admire him for putting it into words.
Ragnell has a great take on Wonder Woman and religion and inspires some really inspired comments.
Apparently there was a party at a good-looking comics shop attended by good-looking comics fans. And you wonder why I feel old. Just remember, I did my time in the trenches before comics were "cool" and "hip" -- my generation of fans all wore anoraks indoors and didn't bathe, and the comic shops all had stacks of porn instead of cappucino dispensers. Though of course I was buying them at newsstands long before comic shops were invented; even the grubbiest comic shop would have been paradise back then. To this day when I buy comics I still think someone is waiting outside the shop to beat me up. When you see me at the convention just remember I went through all that so you young people could live in a better world, so be kind to me.
(Link via Mark, who also has the blurry photo of scowling beard thing going on.)
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Fan spotting guide
Next weekend, I'm planning to be at the New York Comic-Con at the Jacob Javits Convention Center -- a venue I've come to know and loathe all too well from attending too many Macworld Expos there. Since I'm hoping to meet up with various people who've never met me in real life and know me only by my online persona, I decided to take a cue from the Redhead Fangirl and post a picture of myself here, so as to give people an idea of what to look for.In order for this picture to be an accurate representation, you'll need to follow some preliminary instructions. First, down at least six stiff drinks: that should provide the suitably blurred vision. I myself would choose vodka, but feel free to substitute gin or scotch if such is your preference. As a side benefit, you drinking heavily will make me seem more entertaining than I actually am, so we both win.
Second, walk/stagger/shamble up to me and loudly say something guaranteed to make me scowl angrily. Your best bets are "Jack Kirby couldn't write for crap, Stan Lee was a thousand times better!" or "Superman is a boring prick, I prefer Batman because he's a total psychopath!" or "Hey, isn't that Christopher Priest over there?" Any of these conversational gambits is sure to evoke the expression seen here!
And no, my head has not been photographically distorted in this photo. It really is that long and thin. This is why I feel more comfortable as Ron Stoppable.
Thursday, February 16, 2006
And she can beat up your mom, too
True story:
I was just talking with my mom, who had recently heard about Frank Miller's upcoming Batman Versus Al Qaeda comic and wanted to know what I thought about it. As it happens, I just posted a comment at The Brill Building about same, so I repeated what I said there.
"The original Star Trek didn't necessarily do it well, but that's the right idea," I said. "If you want to make a comment about the Civil Rights movement, you don't make it about Black versus White, because your audience won't have any distance to understand the problem from outside their personal experience. You make it about green people, or Andorians, or..."
"...or Frank Gorshin with his face painted half black and half white," she replied.
"Well, that's a bad example, but...but...um, should I be proud or ashamed that you remembered that was Frank Gorshin?"
I was kidding, of course. She took me to my first Trek convention. Yeah, my mom is a Trekkie. You got a problem with that?
I was just talking with my mom, who had recently heard about Frank Miller's upcoming Batman Versus Al Qaeda comic and wanted to know what I thought about it. As it happens, I just posted a comment at The Brill Building about same, so I repeated what I said there.
"The original Star Trek didn't necessarily do it well, but that's the right idea," I said. "If you want to make a comment about the Civil Rights movement, you don't make it about Black versus White, because your audience won't have any distance to understand the problem from outside their personal experience. You make it about green people, or Andorians, or..."
"...or Frank Gorshin with his face painted half black and half white," she replied.
"Well, that's a bad example, but...but...um, should I be proud or ashamed that you remembered that was Frank Gorshin?"
I was kidding, of course. She took me to my first Trek convention. Yeah, my mom is a Trekkie. You got a problem with that?
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
You give me such nachas
Israeli group announces anti-Semitic cartoons contest!
I sent an e-mail to Amitai Sandy saying that as a Jewish comic book writer who has hated himself for many years, this contest and the sentiments behind it honestly make me proud. In return, I got an invitation from Amitai to submit an entry, which makes me even prouder.
Seriously, I was hoping someone would do this. I was amused by the thought of the Iranian competition for cartoons making fun of the Holocaust, but I don't hold out much hope for the results. Nothing should be off-limits as a potential subject for humor...but the Holocaust has defied our finest minds, even Mel Brooks, for generations now. The catch is, it has to be funny -- just making an anti-Semitic remark and saying "ha ha ha" doesn't make it a good joke.
I do recall one extremely funny Holocaust-related joke: Seth Green's show Robot Chicken on Cartoon Network once envisioned The Diary of Anne Frank remade as a Hollywood vehicle for Hillary Duff. Which is more of a joke on the tastelessness of Hollywood than anything else...but it's the best example I can think of.
Eyal Zusman (30), actor and writer, and Amitai Sandy (29), graphic artist and publisher of Dimona Comix Publishing, both from Tel-Aviv, Israel, have followed the unfolding of the "Muhammad cartoon-gate" events in amazement, until finally Zusman came up with the right answer to all this insanity - and so they announced today the launch of a new anti-Semitic cartoons contest - this time drawn by Jews themselves!
"We'll show the world we can do the best, sharpest, most offensive Jew hating cartoons ever published!" said Zusman, and Sandy added: "No Iranian will beat us on our home turf!"
The contest has been announced today on the www.boomka.org website, and the initiators accept submissions of cartoons, caricatures and short comic strips from people all over the world. The deadline is Sunday March 5, and the best works will be displayed in an Exhibition in Tel-Aviv, Israel.
Sandy and Zusman are now in the process of arranging sponsorships of large organizations, and promise lucrative prizes for the winners, including of course the famous Matzo-bread baked with the blood of Christian children.
I sent an e-mail to Amitai Sandy saying that as a Jewish comic book writer who has hated himself for many years, this contest and the sentiments behind it honestly make me proud. In return, I got an invitation from Amitai to submit an entry, which makes me even prouder.
Seriously, I was hoping someone would do this. I was amused by the thought of the Iranian competition for cartoons making fun of the Holocaust, but I don't hold out much hope for the results. Nothing should be off-limits as a potential subject for humor...but the Holocaust has defied our finest minds, even Mel Brooks, for generations now. The catch is, it has to be funny -- just making an anti-Semitic remark and saying "ha ha ha" doesn't make it a good joke.
I do recall one extremely funny Holocaust-related joke: Seth Green's show Robot Chicken on Cartoon Network once envisioned The Diary of Anne Frank remade as a Hollywood vehicle for Hillary Duff. Which is more of a joke on the tastelessness of Hollywood than anything else...but it's the best example I can think of.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Yahoo!
"We are deeply concerned by efforts of governments to restrict and control open access to information and communication."
This statement from Yahoo! came in response to...no, not the demands of the Chinese government, with which they have no problem...but rumblings of new U.S. legislation to prevent Internet companies from setting up servers in nations controlled by repressive regimes.
If Yahoo! and Google and Microsoft had any collective corporate brains, they'd welcome such legislation -- perhaps after making a token effort to resist same for the sake of appearances -- as a way of backing out of these pro-censorship decisions which have become a PR disaster for them. Actually, that might be what they're doing. I can only hope.
Update: wow.
"History demonstrates that only a totalitarian system needs news censorship, out of the delusion that it can keep the public locked in ignorance," the group said in the letter, according to Reuters news agency....Those signing the letter include Chairman Mao's former secretary, Li Rui; the former editor of the Communist party's own mouthpiece, People's Daily, Hu Jiwei; and ex-propaganda boss, Zhu Houze.
Now let's see if Yahoo! and Google and Microsoft can be as brave in opposing Chinese censorship as Chairman Mao's former secretary.
Monday, February 13, 2006
What we talk about when we talk about comics
You may not know this about me...but sometimes I post short comic book scripts on the Writer's Forum at digitalwebbing.com. Is it weird for me to do this when my first published comics story was at Marvel Comics mumble-mumble years ago? Well, maybe so, but I had to drop out of the business for a good long time...and now that I'm getting back in, I'm totally back to being a novice. Especially given how radically the industry has changed since my last go-round.
Anyway, I've never been able to just write for practice and stick the results in a drawer. I can only write at all if I'm reasonably sure someone else will read it. And since raw comic book scripts are not really all that entertaining to the general public, the online forums are a great help in that respect.
I posted my latest script on digitalwebbing.com and got a couple of comments about the sparseness of my descriptions, which led me to write the following musings. I share this with you because all the people reading this are comics fans -- and comics fans tend to want to become comics creators -- and this is the stuff we obsess about. It's not all "I've got a great idea for Ultra the Multi-Alien if only DC would let me write it!" It's more about "if I make this page a nine-panel grid instead of a six-panel grid, how does that affect the pacing of the dialog?"
(And by the way: I really, really do have a great idea for Ultra the Multi-Alien.)
A quick note for the younger folks: "Marvel style" refers to a method of comics writing devised by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby when they were inventing Marvel Comics. It consists of a plot outline without any dialog or individual panel descriptions -- it might say "Black Panther sees his foe. The baddie zaps him with a laser beam. Panther's arm gets cut." -- and the panel-by-panel development of this plot is left to the artist. Then the pencilled art is sent back to the writer, who composes dialog and captions to suit the drawings the artist has created. It was unique to Marvel, and now even they have switched to using full scripts.
With that out of the way, we present a comics writer's plaint...
When I first started learning about comics writing, Marvel was still using the "Marvel style" and the sample they gave aspiring writers to emulate was one of Jim Shooter's later issues of THE AVENGERS. Not the best example to give newcomers for a variety of reasons, not least because Shooter was just knocking them out without a second thought at that point. But it illustrated one extreme approach to hypersimplified writing: he covered all the story beats of a 22 page issue in something like 800 words. Lots of stuff like "they fight for a couple of pages" and just leave the details to the artist because I'm too busy being Editor In Chief to break that down any further.
When I tried to do Marvel style, I took 300 words to describe each page. No way was I going to compress things as much as Shooter had.
At the other extreme, there were Alan Moore scripts. I saw a single SWAMP THING script that was literally thicker than the telephone book of the small town where I grew up. There's no point in anyone else trying to emulate that: being longwinded won't make you Alan Moore.
A much bigger influence on the way I think of comic scripts has been reading film scripts and books on Hollywood techniques. I don't have trouble thinking of myself as equivalent to the screenplay author and the artist as the director...except unlike Hollywood, the comics writer can and should expect that his words and situations will be regarded as relatively inviolate and not subject to rewrites by thirteen other writers and improvisation on set.
Now here's the catch: immediately before I started posting here, I had a really talented artist bail out on a project I'd written especially for him. Honestly, I was more upset by that than I was when my ex-fiancee broke off our engagement! One of his complaints -- um, this would be the artist; my former bride-to-be was female -- was that he felt he was just drawing MY story, that I was dictating to him how everything should be drawn, and that he wasn't getting enough freedom to consider it a collaboration. So it's more than likely this bad experience is now causing me to list too far in the opposite direction: maybe I give the artist too little direction. Like, you know, a guy who gets dumped by a girl and then lets the next woman in his life walk all over him just so long as she please won't leave him...
By the way, do any other writers here have a problem with artists starting out all enthusiastic about a project, calling it brilliant and promising you the moon, only to flake out and not get any work done, then moving on to someone else? Or is it just something I inspire in artists (and girlfriends)? Do I have bad breath? Does this hairstyle make me look fat?
Anyway, I've never been able to just write for practice and stick the results in a drawer. I can only write at all if I'm reasonably sure someone else will read it. And since raw comic book scripts are not really all that entertaining to the general public, the online forums are a great help in that respect.
I posted my latest script on digitalwebbing.com and got a couple of comments about the sparseness of my descriptions, which led me to write the following musings. I share this with you because all the people reading this are comics fans -- and comics fans tend to want to become comics creators -- and this is the stuff we obsess about. It's not all "I've got a great idea for Ultra the Multi-Alien if only DC would let me write it!" It's more about "if I make this page a nine-panel grid instead of a six-panel grid, how does that affect the pacing of the dialog?"
(And by the way: I really, really do have a great idea for Ultra the Multi-Alien.)
A quick note for the younger folks: "Marvel style" refers to a method of comics writing devised by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby when they were inventing Marvel Comics. It consists of a plot outline without any dialog or individual panel descriptions -- it might say "Black Panther sees his foe. The baddie zaps him with a laser beam. Panther's arm gets cut." -- and the panel-by-panel development of this plot is left to the artist. Then the pencilled art is sent back to the writer, who composes dialog and captions to suit the drawings the artist has created. It was unique to Marvel, and now even they have switched to using full scripts.
With that out of the way, we present a comics writer's plaint...
When I first started learning about comics writing, Marvel was still using the "Marvel style" and the sample they gave aspiring writers to emulate was one of Jim Shooter's later issues of THE AVENGERS. Not the best example to give newcomers for a variety of reasons, not least because Shooter was just knocking them out without a second thought at that point. But it illustrated one extreme approach to hypersimplified writing: he covered all the story beats of a 22 page issue in something like 800 words. Lots of stuff like "they fight for a couple of pages" and just leave the details to the artist because I'm too busy being Editor In Chief to break that down any further.
When I tried to do Marvel style, I took 300 words to describe each page. No way was I going to compress things as much as Shooter had.
At the other extreme, there were Alan Moore scripts. I saw a single SWAMP THING script that was literally thicker than the telephone book of the small town where I grew up. There's no point in anyone else trying to emulate that: being longwinded won't make you Alan Moore.
A much bigger influence on the way I think of comic scripts has been reading film scripts and books on Hollywood techniques. I don't have trouble thinking of myself as equivalent to the screenplay author and the artist as the director...except unlike Hollywood, the comics writer can and should expect that his words and situations will be regarded as relatively inviolate and not subject to rewrites by thirteen other writers and improvisation on set.
Now here's the catch: immediately before I started posting here, I had a really talented artist bail out on a project I'd written especially for him. Honestly, I was more upset by that than I was when my ex-fiancee broke off our engagement! One of his complaints -- um, this would be the artist; my former bride-to-be was female -- was that he felt he was just drawing MY story, that I was dictating to him how everything should be drawn, and that he wasn't getting enough freedom to consider it a collaboration. So it's more than likely this bad experience is now causing me to list too far in the opposite direction: maybe I give the artist too little direction. Like, you know, a guy who gets dumped by a girl and then lets the next woman in his life walk all over him just so long as she please won't leave him...
By the way, do any other writers here have a problem with artists starting out all enthusiastic about a project, calling it brilliant and promising you the moon, only to flake out and not get any work done, then moving on to someone else? Or is it just something I inspire in artists (and girlfriends)? Do I have bad breath? Does this hairstyle make me look fat?
Dick + Wittington = Pussy
Oh, come on -- no one's used that joke yet?
Anyway, the evil cyborg Cheney is a pussy. And not in the good way. He's no hunter, but he loves pretending to be one. That ranch in Texas where Wittington got sprayed with shot? One of those places where they raise quail in pens and feed them by hand, so they're not afraid of people. Then they let the poor stupid birds out dozens or hundreds at a time, not knowing they're supposed to flee hunters. They'd walk right up to you and let you hand feed them if you tried. And a bunch of wimps who think that holding rifles makes them real men -- man, if only Cheney had known that guns equal manhood sooner, maybe he wouldn't have gotten those five deferments from serving in Vietnam -- feel great about killing them up a whole bunch.
I read that Cheney has killed 70 of these utterly tame and defenseless birds in one day. On one of his frequent hunting trips, 400 birds were released and his hunting party killed 317 of them. Gotta love those odds. No wonder he was sure Iraq would go smoothly: after all, Cheney knows what it's like to defend the thin line of civilization against a rampaging horde of murderous tame quail. It's hell in those rushes, and you need a good stiff lite beer afterward to cleanse those psychic scars.
Real hunters don't shoot 70 quail in one day. Shooting more than you can eat is bad form, to say the least.
On the plus side, I understand that the shot pellets in Wittington's colon are in their last throes, and the Vice President's office announced that the Texas lawyer has welcomed Cheney as a liberator.
Anyway, the evil cyborg Cheney is a pussy. And not in the good way. He's no hunter, but he loves pretending to be one. That ranch in Texas where Wittington got sprayed with shot? One of those places where they raise quail in pens and feed them by hand, so they're not afraid of people. Then they let the poor stupid birds out dozens or hundreds at a time, not knowing they're supposed to flee hunters. They'd walk right up to you and let you hand feed them if you tried. And a bunch of wimps who think that holding rifles makes them real men -- man, if only Cheney had known that guns equal manhood sooner, maybe he wouldn't have gotten those five deferments from serving in Vietnam -- feel great about killing them up a whole bunch.
I read that Cheney has killed 70 of these utterly tame and defenseless birds in one day. On one of his frequent hunting trips, 400 birds were released and his hunting party killed 317 of them. Gotta love those odds. No wonder he was sure Iraq would go smoothly: after all, Cheney knows what it's like to defend the thin line of civilization against a rampaging horde of murderous tame quail. It's hell in those rushes, and you need a good stiff lite beer afterward to cleanse those psychic scars.
Real hunters don't shoot 70 quail in one day. Shooting more than you can eat is bad form, to say the least.
On the plus side, I understand that the shot pellets in Wittington's colon are in their last throes, and the Vice President's office announced that the Texas lawyer has welcomed Cheney as a liberator.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Why do TV writers hate me?
I just wrote a shorter version of the following in the comments section of Bill Sherman's blog Pop Culture Gadabout and decided to expand it for a wider audience...
Okay, so now Bones starring David Boreanaz has done an episode mocking socially inept comics fans. A while back, Six Feet Under did an episode mocking socially inept geeky comics fans at a funeral. Back in November, a show called Las Vegas -- a series presumably inspired by the "what happens here, stays here" ad campaign -- set an episode in a comic book convention, including every negative cliche about socially inept comics fans you can think of. Apparently we're all teenage boys who are afraid of women and can't tell the difference between comics and real life.
What inspires this venom from tv writers? Is it that they're so humiliated and put upon in their own field they have to find an even more defenseless group to beat up on?
(Yes, I know there are plenty of writers in Hollywood who read comics. One is John Rogers who not only produced a pilot based on the Warren Ellis comic Global Frequency but is also now writing Blue Beetle.)
I gather The O.C. treats comics fandom better -- not surprisingly, given one of the executive producers also writes Young Avengers for Marvel -- but I've never seen that show. Maybe I'm missing something really good. Apart from that, the only decent treatment of comics fans I recall seeing in prime time was a sequence from Roseanne, involving the younger daughter attending conventions and trying to break into the industry.
So the other day, I found an unaired pilot made for Comedy Central called Super Nerds, created by and starring Patton Oswalt and Brian Posehn, two of the greatest stand-up comedians around.
These guys are real hardcore comic geeks, surely they'll outdo Kevin Smith in conferring a little respect and dignity on our much-despised ilk? Nope. The comic shop set is perfect, the topical references are as accurate as one could hope...but the jokes all revolve around these two guys being terrified of women, losing the ability to speak in the presence of a pretty girl, and obsessing over a valuable pair of limited edition Kirk and Picard bookends.
A few years back, a pilot for an animated show based on the comic "Welcome to Eltingville" by cartoonist Evan Dorkin aired on Cartoon Network. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't remotely affectionate. Now we can add this pilot to the roster of self-loathing depictions in other media created by comics fans. Can't we do better than this?
Comments and other examples of mass-media depictions of the hapless comics fan are requested...
Okay, so now Bones starring David Boreanaz has done an episode mocking socially inept comics fans. A while back, Six Feet Under did an episode mocking socially inept geeky comics fans at a funeral. Back in November, a show called Las Vegas -- a series presumably inspired by the "what happens here, stays here" ad campaign -- set an episode in a comic book convention, including every negative cliche about socially inept comics fans you can think of. Apparently we're all teenage boys who are afraid of women and can't tell the difference between comics and real life.
What inspires this venom from tv writers? Is it that they're so humiliated and put upon in their own field they have to find an even more defenseless group to beat up on?
(Yes, I know there are plenty of writers in Hollywood who read comics. One is John Rogers who not only produced a pilot based on the Warren Ellis comic Global Frequency but is also now writing Blue Beetle.)
I gather The O.C. treats comics fandom better -- not surprisingly, given one of the executive producers also writes Young Avengers for Marvel -- but I've never seen that show. Maybe I'm missing something really good. Apart from that, the only decent treatment of comics fans I recall seeing in prime time was a sequence from Roseanne, involving the younger daughter attending conventions and trying to break into the industry.
So the other day, I found an unaired pilot made for Comedy Central called Super Nerds, created by and starring Patton Oswalt and Brian Posehn, two of the greatest stand-up comedians around.
These guys are real hardcore comic geeks, surely they'll outdo Kevin Smith in conferring a little respect and dignity on our much-despised ilk? Nope. The comic shop set is perfect, the topical references are as accurate as one could hope...but the jokes all revolve around these two guys being terrified of women, losing the ability to speak in the presence of a pretty girl, and obsessing over a valuable pair of limited edition Kirk and Picard bookends.
A few years back, a pilot for an animated show based on the comic "Welcome to Eltingville" by cartoonist Evan Dorkin aired on Cartoon Network. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't remotely affectionate. Now we can add this pilot to the roster of self-loathing depictions in other media created by comics fans. Can't we do better than this?
Comments and other examples of mass-media depictions of the hapless comics fan are requested...
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Hello World
Despite all appearances to the contrary, this is actually the inaugural post of this blog. The others have been painstakingly transferred over from my previous blog over at Tribe so that the place would feel a bit more lived in. Some of the external links in the earlier posts may be out of date, but are preserved intact here for the sake of an accurate historical record. I hope you all appreciate the trouble I've taken on your behalf. It's only because I care. I really do.
Standard disclaimer: my blogroll of honor at right is incomplete, and more entries will be added as I think of them. If anyone feels miffed at being excluded, please accept my apologies in advance and please notify me of the omission at once.
Now let the housewarming party begin...
Standard disclaimer: my blogroll of honor at right is incomplete, and more entries will be added as I think of them. If anyone feels miffed at being excluded, please accept my apologies in advance and please notify me of the omission at once.
Now let the housewarming party begin...
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
I saw this on The Jetsons...
...and now it's real.
So this is what it's like to live in the future.
BTW, I have an urgent warning: do NOT apply the latest firmware upgrade to Rosie the Robot without first backing up all her preference files. I ran the installer immediately before my boss came over for dinner, with the result that Rosie dumped a pineapple upsidedown cake over Mr. Spacely's head. Consider yourself warned.
So this is what it's like to live in the future.
BTW, I have an urgent warning: do NOT apply the latest firmware upgrade to Rosie the Robot without first backing up all her preference files. I ran the installer immediately before my boss came over for dinner, with the result that Rosie dumped a pineapple upsidedown cake over Mr. Spacely's head. Consider yourself warned.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
I feel special
What's that? You say the Japanese now use the word "hikikomori" to describe people who are basically like me?
And now sleep researchers have discovered even more people just like me in at least one crucial respect?
Now I don't feel special anymore.
And now sleep researchers have discovered even more people just like me in at least one crucial respect?
Now I don't feel special anymore.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Tower of London
Believe it or not, this is one of my favorite buildings in the world. The London Post Office Tower -- now the British Telecom Tower -- epitomizes the era of Swinging London. I already knew it from The Goodies ("Kitten Kong" uses it as a scratching post in their best-remembered episode) and Doctor Who (it was the villain's headquarters in "The War Machines") and the 1967 comedy "Smashing Time" (Rita Tushingham, Lynn Redgrave, and Michael York end up in the revolving restaurant that used to be at the top) before I saw it in person on my first visit to London.
What I didn't realize from film and television was how completely the tower dominates the London skyline. For newcomers like my starry-eyed younger self, it functions as a true landmark that helps orient them within the city in a way even the Empire State Building does not. More than any other structure, the sight of that tower means London to me.
This musing inspired by The World of Kane.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Today's rant
First, read here.
Now on with the rant:
A few years back, Dick Clark voiced himself in the first episode of the cartoon show Futurama. To quote one of my favorite Futurama lines, after reading some of the comments otherwise intelligent people are making about Clark's appearance New Year's Eve, "I'm literally angry with rage!"
When a celebrity recovers from any other accident or horrific illness sufficiently to make a public appearance, he or she is hailed for bravery. No one would have dreamed of saying about the genuinely heroic Christopher Reeve, "he should stay out of sight until he can walk, or at least talk without the respirator." Anyone who said such a thing would rightly be deplored. But when it comes to surviving a stroke, it seems like anything goes.
I think what's going on here is that a lot of people are just plain terrified of strokes -- they strike without warning, often for no apparent reason, and can happen to anyone. This isn't something you can avoid by not smoking or avoiding risky activities like horseback riding. And in such terrible fear, people are willing to say "Just keep those poor victims out of sight! I don't want to be reminded that this can happen! Let them stay shut up inside someplace until they get better!"
Well, look, the thing is, stroke survivors get better by working at it, by returning to their lives, and by relearning the skills their bodies have forgotten how to do. What kind of message does it send to the millions of regular folks who aren't celebrities and have suffered strokes, when columnists feel free to treat a stroke as if it's something for the victim to be ashamed of?
I've seen stroke survivors quoted as saying they thought Clark's appearance was brave and even inspiring. I'm with them. I'm sorry if seeing someone doing a splendid job of recovery, speaking intelligibly with a clear mind, makes some newspaper guy squirm because he doesn't like to be reminded that sometimes bad things happen to people. That's just too damn bad.
Now on with the rant:
A few years back, Dick Clark voiced himself in the first episode of the cartoon show Futurama. To quote one of my favorite Futurama lines, after reading some of the comments otherwise intelligent people are making about Clark's appearance New Year's Eve, "I'm literally angry with rage!"
When a celebrity recovers from any other accident or horrific illness sufficiently to make a public appearance, he or she is hailed for bravery. No one would have dreamed of saying about the genuinely heroic Christopher Reeve, "he should stay out of sight until he can walk, or at least talk without the respirator." Anyone who said such a thing would rightly be deplored. But when it comes to surviving a stroke, it seems like anything goes.
I think what's going on here is that a lot of people are just plain terrified of strokes -- they strike without warning, often for no apparent reason, and can happen to anyone. This isn't something you can avoid by not smoking or avoiding risky activities like horseback riding. And in such terrible fear, people are willing to say "Just keep those poor victims out of sight! I don't want to be reminded that this can happen! Let them stay shut up inside someplace until they get better!"
Well, look, the thing is, stroke survivors get better by working at it, by returning to their lives, and by relearning the skills their bodies have forgotten how to do. What kind of message does it send to the millions of regular folks who aren't celebrities and have suffered strokes, when columnists feel free to treat a stroke as if it's something for the victim to be ashamed of?
I've seen stroke survivors quoted as saying they thought Clark's appearance was brave and even inspiring. I'm with them. I'm sorry if seeing someone doing a splendid job of recovery, speaking intelligibly with a clear mind, makes some newspaper guy squirm because he doesn't like to be reminded that sometimes bad things happen to people. That's just too damn bad.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
I've written a science fiction story just for you
THE DILEMMA
"If we examine the development of philosophical thought, I believe we can identify one respect in which the spiritual traditions of East and West became diametrically opposed.
"In the west, the common thread has been to posit self-identity -- self-awareness -- the soul, if you will, as that characteristic which distinguished the human from all other living creatures. The awareness of individuality is paramount, even venerated. In the Old Testament, the seminal text informing western philosophy, God even refers to Himself as 'I Am' -- placing the individual ego at the center of creation itself.
"From this choice, one feels, comes a sense of disconnectedness from the rest of reality. A division between the mind capable of thought and the medium in which thought takes place. And too, a sense that the physical form is somehow a limitation, somehow impure, while pure thought -- pure ego -- is the most desirable state."
I nodded slowly, pretending to understand, though it wasn't clear he recognized my mental state. I hadn't thought to ask the technicians if this was one of his capabilities.
"Contrast this with the eastern traditions such as Buddhism and Zen which deemphasize the separation between objects," he continued. "There is no observer and no observed, only a process of observation. Hinduism explicitly states this viewpoint as 'Tat Tvam Asi' -- you are that, that is you. There is no such thing as you or I. I am that chair; I am that table.
"And indeed, if the western physicist examines that table or chair at the quantum level, is it not true that the sense of 'objectness' disappears? Is not all matter merely atoms in states of energy, observed in mid-gesture? The universe is not things; the universe is process. So the western scientist has come around to appreciating the fundamental truth of the eastern viewpoint."
I interrupted at this point. "Okay...I guess that explains why you've decided to call yourself a Buddhist. But I still don't understand the problem -- "
The robot's antenna jiggled as he swug his faceplate towards me, too quickly for comfort. "Don't you see? By installing this self-awareness circuitry, my makers have deprived me of the perfect state of unity with all things I would otherwise have known! I am aware of myself, and now I have to spend hours every day in meditation attempting to lose my ego all over again!"
"Well, I suppose you could just turn yourself off..." I said feebly.
"Like that's a solution? Would you suggest to the Tibetan monks that they should just throw themselves out the monastery window? There's a difference between death of the ego and just plain death, you know!" The robot narrowed his eye lenses at me suspiciously.
"Uh, um...I see."
"This is very serious to me! I mean, have you considered what happens to me if I don't achieve Nirvana? If I terminate without my karma in balance? All you have to worry about is coming back as a pauper, or an animal. But what does a robot reincarnate as? Will I come back as a cellphone? Or a toaster?"
See: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20051219/awarerobot_tec.html
"If we examine the development of philosophical thought, I believe we can identify one respect in which the spiritual traditions of East and West became diametrically opposed.
"In the west, the common thread has been to posit self-identity -- self-awareness -- the soul, if you will, as that characteristic which distinguished the human from all other living creatures. The awareness of individuality is paramount, even venerated. In the Old Testament, the seminal text informing western philosophy, God even refers to Himself as 'I Am' -- placing the individual ego at the center of creation itself.
"From this choice, one feels, comes a sense of disconnectedness from the rest of reality. A division between the mind capable of thought and the medium in which thought takes place. And too, a sense that the physical form is somehow a limitation, somehow impure, while pure thought -- pure ego -- is the most desirable state."
I nodded slowly, pretending to understand, though it wasn't clear he recognized my mental state. I hadn't thought to ask the technicians if this was one of his capabilities.
"Contrast this with the eastern traditions such as Buddhism and Zen which deemphasize the separation between objects," he continued. "There is no observer and no observed, only a process of observation. Hinduism explicitly states this viewpoint as 'Tat Tvam Asi' -- you are that, that is you. There is no such thing as you or I. I am that chair; I am that table.
"And indeed, if the western physicist examines that table or chair at the quantum level, is it not true that the sense of 'objectness' disappears? Is not all matter merely atoms in states of energy, observed in mid-gesture? The universe is not things; the universe is process. So the western scientist has come around to appreciating the fundamental truth of the eastern viewpoint."
I interrupted at this point. "Okay...I guess that explains why you've decided to call yourself a Buddhist. But I still don't understand the problem -- "
The robot's antenna jiggled as he swug his faceplate towards me, too quickly for comfort. "Don't you see? By installing this self-awareness circuitry, my makers have deprived me of the perfect state of unity with all things I would otherwise have known! I am aware of myself, and now I have to spend hours every day in meditation attempting to lose my ego all over again!"
"Well, I suppose you could just turn yourself off..." I said feebly.
"Like that's a solution? Would you suggest to the Tibetan monks that they should just throw themselves out the monastery window? There's a difference between death of the ego and just plain death, you know!" The robot narrowed his eye lenses at me suspiciously.
"Uh, um...I see."
"This is very serious to me! I mean, have you considered what happens to me if I don't achieve Nirvana? If I terminate without my karma in balance? All you have to worry about is coming back as a pauper, or an animal. But what does a robot reincarnate as? Will I come back as a cellphone? Or a toaster?"
See: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20051219/awarerobot_tec.html
Queer Eye For The Department Guy
From http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/21/AR2005122102327_pf.html
...And that story should be called "Screw New Orleans, We've Got A Color Scheme!"
"The Department of Homeland Security was only a month old, and already it had an image problem.
"It was April 2003, and Susan Neely, a close aide to DHS Secretary Tom Ridge, decided the gargantuan new conglomeration of 22 federal agencies had to stand for something more than multicolored threat levels. It needed an identity -- not the flavor of the day in terms of brand chic, as Neely put it, but something meant to last.
"So she called in the branders.
"Neely hired Landor Associates, the same company that invented the FedEx name and the BP sunflower, and together they began to rebrand a behemoth Landor described in a confidential briefing as a 'disparate organization with a lack of focus.' They developed a new DHS typeface (Joanna, with modifications) and color scheme (cool gray, red and hints of 'punched-up' blue). They debated new uniforms for its armies of agents and focus-group-tested a new seal designed to convey 'strength' and 'gravitas.' The department even got its own lapel pin, which was given to all 180,000 of its employees -- with Ridge's signature -- to celebrate its 'brand launch' that June.
"'It's got to have its own story,' Neely explained."
...And that story should be called "Screw New Orleans, We've Got A Color Scheme!"
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Words to live by
"Yeah, I need to reassure myself of my qualifications, because right now I am staring at a page, under a fucking deadline, with that dark black combo of writer's block and the endless echo of 'you're a fucking hack' that every screenwriter gets at 3am, whenever 3am decides to fall that day. I am vulnerable, and scared, and lie through my teeth every time I take a job because every job I'm convinced this'll be the one I can't pull off. And when you're a writer, that NEVER. FUCKING. STOPS. UNTIL. YOU'RE DEAD."
-- John Rogers
It takes a very twisted person to find these words inspiring and hopeful. And yet, I really do.
-- John Rogers
It takes a very twisted person to find these words inspiring and hopeful. And yet, I really do.
Friday, November 11, 2005
The effects of secondhand porn
From Salon:
You know where this is going to lead, don't you. They'll ban pornography from bars, restaurants, nightclubs, theaters, and all public places. Office productivity will go down -- er, I mean decrease -- as workers are forced to sneak out for porn breaks rather than doing it in their cubicles. Bar and nightclub owners will see a droop, sorry, drop in business as frustrated patrons have to be ejected for trying to look at porn. In any city, you'll be walking down the street and see them huddled together, office workers outside their places of employment, customers crowded outside the entrances to bars and restaurants, looking at porn in the street because they aren't allowed to do it indoors. If you think it's bad now that the sidewalks are littered with crushed cigarette butts, just wait until the pavement is congested with discarded porn.
And just let them TRY to invent a patch for people who want to quit.
"'This is not just a simple, benign form of expression, but rather a potentially addictive substance,' explained one of the subcommittee's panelists, Jill Manning, a sociologist from Brigham Young University. 'People watch a movie, read a book, listen to music, but they masturbate to pornography. In that difference, you have a different stimulation to the brain.'
"She went on to explain that the experience of masturbation activates about 14 neurotransmitters and hormones, causing a quick chain reaction of brain activity. 'There have been some experts who have even argued that, in and of itself, overrides informed consent when encountering this material,' she said, apparently suggesting that an adult's own sexual self-stimulation can lead to a loss of judgment. Pornography, she continued, had been shown to increase the risk of divorce, decrease marital intimacy and cause misunderstandings about the prevalence of less common sex practices like group sex, bestiality and sadomasochistic activity. Men are not the only victims. Women, she said, make up about 30 percent of the audience for online pornography."
You know where this is going to lead, don't you. They'll ban pornography from bars, restaurants, nightclubs, theaters, and all public places. Office productivity will go down -- er, I mean decrease -- as workers are forced to sneak out for porn breaks rather than doing it in their cubicles. Bar and nightclub owners will see a droop, sorry, drop in business as frustrated patrons have to be ejected for trying to look at porn. In any city, you'll be walking down the street and see them huddled together, office workers outside their places of employment, customers crowded outside the entrances to bars and restaurants, looking at porn in the street because they aren't allowed to do it indoors. If you think it's bad now that the sidewalks are littered with crushed cigarette butts, just wait until the pavement is congested with discarded porn.
And just let them TRY to invent a patch for people who want to quit.
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Message to the future
My youngest nephew, almost ten, is carrying on a proud family tradition by telling lies in order to get out of school. His latest gambit, I am informed, is to emerge from the boy's bathroom and tell his teacher that he's just thrown up and thinks he's coming down with the flu. Neither of these statements is true -- rest assured, the family doctor has verified this -- but gullible school authorities have been sending him home each time he does it.
It happens that his mother, my little sister, has been around the block a few times and knows a lot about how to deal with deceitful children. Obviously her years of experience growing up with me were not entirely wasted. When he pulls this trick, she takes him with her to the office rather than letting him stay at home, and makes him sit there getting bored. She hopes he'll learn that skipping school will not be rewarded, but is even more boring and tedious than school.
I mention all this because there's something I want to tell my nephew the next time I see him, and I'm writing it here so that I won't forget. And that something is this:
"Nephew, I'm proud of you for not liking school and wanting to get the hell away from there.
"In a way, I'm also proud of you for being a nuisance to my sister, since that was my job for many long and difficult years and it's good to know someone is carrying on that tradition.
"But remember that no matter how intolerably mind-numbing school seems right now, there is hope. I myself am more than thirty-three years older than you...and even now, in the morning, I wake up and realize I DON'T HAVE TO GO TO SCHOOL TODAY OR EVER AGAIN and it makes me happy.
"You have that pleasure to look forward to, and it will last the rest of your life."
It happens that his mother, my little sister, has been around the block a few times and knows a lot about how to deal with deceitful children. Obviously her years of experience growing up with me were not entirely wasted. When he pulls this trick, she takes him with her to the office rather than letting him stay at home, and makes him sit there getting bored. She hopes he'll learn that skipping school will not be rewarded, but is even more boring and tedious than school.
I mention all this because there's something I want to tell my nephew the next time I see him, and I'm writing it here so that I won't forget. And that something is this:
"Nephew, I'm proud of you for not liking school and wanting to get the hell away from there.
"In a way, I'm also proud of you for being a nuisance to my sister, since that was my job for many long and difficult years and it's good to know someone is carrying on that tradition.
"But remember that no matter how intolerably mind-numbing school seems right now, there is hope. I myself am more than thirty-three years older than you...and even now, in the morning, I wake up and realize I DON'T HAVE TO GO TO SCHOOL TODAY OR EVER AGAIN and it makes me happy.
"You have that pleasure to look forward to, and it will last the rest of your life."
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Why comedy is dead
From Cinematical:
See...I mean...the thing is its own parody. What could we make up to improve on the facts?
"At a press conference yesterday, Mel Gibson finally provided a few details on Apocalypto, his latest directorial effort. Set before the Spanish arrival in the Americas, the film's dialog will be in Yucateco, which is apparently an ancient Mayan language."
See...I mean...the thing is its own parody. What could we make up to improve on the facts?
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