47. Columbine by Dave Cullen
48. Green Lantern: Rebirth by Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Scriver
49. Green Lantern: No Fear by Geoff Johns and several artists
50. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
You can read my post on Columbine over at Stop Trying to Inspire Me.
At the halfway point, I still seem to be in my "comic book" phase, but I think that's ending because the Green Lantern trades were ones I recently nabbed with an Amazon gift card. I have been a casual fan of Green Lantern for years but never really committed to buying the book beyond a few issues here and there; however, when Geoff Johns took over with Rebirth (and helped jump-start its sister series Green Lantern Corps), I began to take more notice. After the company-wide crossover, Infinite Crisis, I was hooked, and read the book until I stopped buying monthly comics altogether.
So, what I'm doing is going back to the beginning of the current series--about five years--and reading everything. The story is this: the Green Lantern you remember from Super Friends is actually one of thousands of lanterns who make up an army of universal protectors. His name is Hal Jordan and he was considered the "greatest" lantern (running a close second, btw, is John Stewart, the African-American GL who was in the Justice League cartoon. He was also a GL and a major player in the comics through the 1980s and 1990s). Back in the mid-1990s, he went nuts, killed nearly every other Green Lantern and became a villain named Parallax. The last remaining GL ring was given to a guy named Kyle Rayner and he was the lone Green Lantern for the better part of the next 10 years. Jordan, as Parallax, died in a self-sacrifice/redemption story and then became The Spectre, God's spirit of vengance.
That's where we are when Rebirth starts, and Jordan is brought back to fight Parallax, which isn't him, but the living embodiment of fear who once possessed him and was the reason that Green Lanterns had a weakness for yellow (there is a spectrum of "power," each corresponding to a feeling and in a later storyline we see lanterns of each color--red=anger, orange=green, yellow=fear, green=willpower, blue=hope, indigo=compassion, violent=love, and black=death). He survives and No Fear is about reestablishing him as a hero and seeing the reactions of some of his longtime villains when they realize he has come back.
Johns is a great writer and is obviously at work on a science fiction epic. Rebirth is a great jumping on point and does a great job at taking what are some of the more ridiculous comic stories of the past and making them work; he has a deep understanding of DC continuity but definitely knows how to get a newbie hooked. With No Fear, he starts laying the groundwork for a much bigger story that will make you want the second collection and the third and anything thereafter, as the current Blackest Night storyline has its roots in the very first pages of Rebirth. But it's not just sci-fi geeky, it's pretty badass. Hal Jordan is a gunslinger, a Captain Kirk/Han Solo type who se flaws make him more interesting than the constantly heroic Superman or always brooding Batman.
As for To Kill a Mockingbird, this was the third time I have read it and this fall will mark the first time I am teaching it. This is one of those novels that I don't think I will ever tire of, and I found myself seeing a lot more than I remembered when I read it as a sophomore in high school and right after college. It's honestly one of those "you must read this before you die" books for me and I could gush about it for 1000 more words but anyone who is reading this (both of you) probably already knows that and if you don't you should. Go out. Read it. NOW.
Whew. Halfway there. Coming soon: Wuthering Heights, more American history, nomal people, and The 'Mats.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
10 Random Thoughts (Because I Have Nothing Lengthy to Write About)
1. So hopefully by the end of the day today we should have 7 new leland cyprus trees planted along our tree line in an effort to block out all of the shit in the neighbor's yard. My dad has said that in order for them to grow, I need to make sure I water them on a regular basis. This brings back memories of childhood summers when I had to water the plants along the driveway fence and in the back yard every single day.
2. I'm driving home yesterday and am almost to my house but have to sit in traffic because for some reason people slow down at the green light for the intersection of 29 and Frays Mill Road. Seriously, what is it with people? Anyway, I say, "Come on, people!" and a moment later I hear "Come on, people!" from behind me followed by baby laughter. At least I wasn't cursing.
3. The softball retirement tour continues with tonight's game. I've got another on Sunday night (a makeup game from a rainout) and then a couple of Thursday night games. My time to hit a ball over the fence for a home run is running out.
4. Last night, we're watching the news and see a report that Michael Jackson reportedly has a vault of unreleased recordings. Amanda says, "Come on, Tupac that shit up!"
5. Summer school ends today. Then, I've got some SOL review sessions from the 14th-16th and a yearbook workshop the following week. Then, nothing school-related until August 17. Sweet!
6. With more time on my hands, it's time to enact my "clean out the crap" plan ... or at least resurrect it. This includes: getting the radiator of my car fixed, cleaning the office, selling more comics on eBay, and losing 10-20 pounds. I've made a little bit of progress on some of that and the car goes into the shop on Monday.
7. Fantasy football draft is set for August 22. I think this year I'm actually going to buy a magazine and study up so that I don't finish in dead last. Also, new team name this year. Monkey Trauma Center was awesome, so I'm going to struggle to top that. I'm thinking Editor-in-Chimp? Maybe The Cunning Linguist? I don't know.
8. I'm slowly becoming a podcast dork.
9. But not as much as I'm becoming a playlist dork. Though I love my '90s alternative/grunge playlist I just put together.
10. Also on the summer schedule is a vacation to Williamsburg. We're staying at a resort and going to Busch Gardens. Considering that's where I lost my looping roller coaster virginity. We've gotten a travel toddler bed for Brett. He calls it his "special bed" and we're working on it for him at naptime.
2. I'm driving home yesterday and am almost to my house but have to sit in traffic because for some reason people slow down at the green light for the intersection of 29 and Frays Mill Road. Seriously, what is it with people? Anyway, I say, "Come on, people!" and a moment later I hear "Come on, people!" from behind me followed by baby laughter. At least I wasn't cursing.
3. The softball retirement tour continues with tonight's game. I've got another on Sunday night (a makeup game from a rainout) and then a couple of Thursday night games. My time to hit a ball over the fence for a home run is running out.
4. Last night, we're watching the news and see a report that Michael Jackson reportedly has a vault of unreleased recordings. Amanda says, "Come on, Tupac that shit up!"
5. Summer school ends today. Then, I've got some SOL review sessions from the 14th-16th and a yearbook workshop the following week. Then, nothing school-related until August 17. Sweet!
6. With more time on my hands, it's time to enact my "clean out the crap" plan ... or at least resurrect it. This includes: getting the radiator of my car fixed, cleaning the office, selling more comics on eBay, and losing 10-20 pounds. I've made a little bit of progress on some of that and the car goes into the shop on Monday.
7. Fantasy football draft is set for August 22. I think this year I'm actually going to buy a magazine and study up so that I don't finish in dead last. Also, new team name this year. Monkey Trauma Center was awesome, so I'm going to struggle to top that. I'm thinking Editor-in-Chimp? Maybe The Cunning Linguist? I don't know.
8. I'm slowly becoming a podcast dork.
9. But not as much as I'm becoming a playlist dork. Though I love my '90s alternative/grunge playlist I just put together.
10. Also on the summer schedule is a vacation to Williamsburg. We're staying at a resort and going to Busch Gardens. Considering that's where I lost my looping roller coaster virginity. We've gotten a travel toddler bed for Brett. He calls it his "special bed" and we're working on it for him at naptime.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Holy 1980s, Batman! (100 Books ... 54 Left)
43. Batman: Year One by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli
44. Batman: Year Two by Mike W. Barr, Alan Davis, and Todd McFarlane
45. Batman: Full Circle by Mike W. Barr and Alan Davis
46. Batman: A Death in the Family by Jim Starlin, Jim Aparo, and Mike DeCarlo
I think that rereading Crisis and Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow is what prompted me to pick up these particular dark knight works that I haven't read in the better part of a decade and a half. They're some of the more prominent late-1980s Batman stories (some others include the Ten Nights of the Beast story as well as Gotham By Gaslight, which places Batman in the late 19th Century and has him solve the crime of Jack the Ripper), as post-Crisis, DC wanted to retell the origins of each of its major characters, keeping most of the more famous elements but updating them for a more modern audience (see also John Byrne's Man of Steel miniseries).
Miller does this very well in Year One. He tells a story of a young Bruce Wayne returning to Gotham after training for at least a few years to become a vigilante; concurrently, Lieutenant James Gordon arrives in Gotham after transferring from Chicago (Gordon becomes commissioner in Year Two). The villains in this story are not the usual ones you expect from a Batman story; instead, they are the Gotham mafia and the corruption that lies within the police department and city hall. Miller's story and Mazzucchelli's art are excellent film noir fare and the parallel stories of Gordon's fight against police corruption as well as his marital problems, and Bruce Wayne's becoming Batman and creating the "millionaire playboy" persona are excellently told (a great subplot, btw, is the origin of Catwoman as a prostitute who decides to become a thief and the presence of a pre-Two-Face Harvey Dent, still a prosecuter).
Year Two, however, doesn't hold up as well. When I was 13 and read it for the first time, I was blown away by the artwork and the villain. It's not Gotham corruption that Batman fights against, it is The Reaper, a vigilante who terrorized the criminal element of Gotham back in the 1960s and has returned. The difference between Batman and The Reaper is that The Reaper kills in a gruesome fashion. After Batman encounters The Reaper the first time, he decides he needs to use a gun to combat him, and he also needs to ally himself with Gotham's criminal underworld. This causes a rift between him and Commissioner Gordon and also causes him to be "partnered" with Joe Chill, the man who killed his parents. In Full Circle, The Reaper returns although the person in the costume is Joe Chill's son, who found The Reaper's costume after the original Reaper fell to his death in Year Two.
Both Year Two and Full Circle don't really do it for me anymore, although I can totally see why I loved them when I was 13. The reason Batman has to use a gun (not only a gun but the gun that killed his parents) never seems that clear, as well as the total coincidence of him being paired with his father's killer (also, The Reaper happens to be the father of the woman Bruce Wayne is dating--how conveeeeeeeeeeenient) seems contrived. The Reaper himself seems like he's a product of the decade, when Marvel was still overtaking DC in a lot of ways, because the villain is a cross between Wolverine and The Punisher, both of whom were outselling Batman like crazy (Batman would fight The Punisher in a crossover book in the 1990s and there is a brief, hilarious encounter between the two in the JLA/Avengers book). Both Davis and McFarlane went on to do Marvel books shortly after this--Davis did the X-Men-related book Excalibur and McFarlane became a superstar with Spider-Man (and would leave Marvel to create Spawn), so it makes sense that Year Two and Full Circle lack the nuance of Year One.
A Death in the Family, on the other hand, is a disaster. This is easily the most famous storyline from the 1980s because it's the one where Robin dies. As explained in the introduction, a few years before this story, Dick Grayson, who had been Robin since 1940, quit being Robin to become Nightwing (he is actually currently Batman ... Bruce Wayne "died" at the end of Final Crisis) and lead the Teen Titans. What the writers of Batman did was give Batman a new Robin, Jason Todd. According to his origin, which is recounted in A Death in the Family, Batman found Jason trying to steal the tires off the Batmobile and took him in then trained him to be Robin (yeah, it doesn't make sense to me and it makes even less sense than Dick Grayson's origin but we'll go with it).
Thing is, this version of Robin didn't really work. The fans didn't like him that much and DC obviously wanted to return the character to his darker roots, as Miller had done with Year One and The Dark Knight Returns, so they created a storyline wherein at the end of Batman #427, Robin was caught in an explosion and fans could call one of two 1-900 numbers to vote on whether or not he lived or died. He died by a slim margin of a couple hundred votes, and the story accomplished what it set out to do because over the next couple of years, Batman became a darker character and even when a new Robin was introduced (Tim Drake this time), the darkness stayed (probably because the company allowed Robin more independence and there were quite a number of Batman stories without Robin).
The story itself is pretty awful. Robin is "grounded" by Batman because while on a drugbust, he blows his cover and acts impulsively. This causes him to "go for a long walk" to his old neighborhood. He encounters a woman who gives him a bunch of his dead parents' personal items and then discovers that the woman he thought was his mother was really his stepmother and his birth mother is still alive. He narrows the field down to three women, all of whom are in the Middle East. Meanwhile, The Joker has escaped from Arkham and is headed to the Middle East because he has stolen a nuclear missle and wants to sell it on the black market. Batman, naturally, follows. Eventually, Robin finds his mother only to discover that she is being blackmailed by The Joker and when all is said and done Robin dies. Then, The Joker becomes the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations (complete with cameo by the Ayatollah!) and tries to kill the entire General Assembly, but Superman and Batman save the day. The Joker, btw, is not captured but is presumed "dead" because his helicopter crashes into the East River (he would not return to comics for another two years).
It's no wonder they brought Jason Todd back from the dead, and I think that if the storyline hadn't been something out of a bad A-Team episode it might have still held water. But all that really remains is the "controversy" surrounding it.
Next up: To Kill a Mockingbird and Green Lantern
44. Batman: Year Two by Mike W. Barr, Alan Davis, and Todd McFarlane
45. Batman: Full Circle by Mike W. Barr and Alan Davis
46. Batman: A Death in the Family by Jim Starlin, Jim Aparo, and Mike DeCarlo
I think that rereading Crisis and Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow is what prompted me to pick up these particular dark knight works that I haven't read in the better part of a decade and a half. They're some of the more prominent late-1980s Batman stories (some others include the Ten Nights of the Beast story as well as Gotham By Gaslight, which places Batman in the late 19th Century and has him solve the crime of Jack the Ripper), as post-Crisis, DC wanted to retell the origins of each of its major characters, keeping most of the more famous elements but updating them for a more modern audience (see also John Byrne's Man of Steel miniseries).
Miller does this very well in Year One. He tells a story of a young Bruce Wayne returning to Gotham after training for at least a few years to become a vigilante; concurrently, Lieutenant James Gordon arrives in Gotham after transferring from Chicago (Gordon becomes commissioner in Year Two). The villains in this story are not the usual ones you expect from a Batman story; instead, they are the Gotham mafia and the corruption that lies within the police department and city hall. Miller's story and Mazzucchelli's art are excellent film noir fare and the parallel stories of Gordon's fight against police corruption as well as his marital problems, and Bruce Wayne's becoming Batman and creating the "millionaire playboy" persona are excellently told (a great subplot, btw, is the origin of Catwoman as a prostitute who decides to become a thief and the presence of a pre-Two-Face Harvey Dent, still a prosecuter).
Year Two, however, doesn't hold up as well. When I was 13 and read it for the first time, I was blown away by the artwork and the villain. It's not Gotham corruption that Batman fights against, it is The Reaper, a vigilante who terrorized the criminal element of Gotham back in the 1960s and has returned. The difference between Batman and The Reaper is that The Reaper kills in a gruesome fashion. After Batman encounters The Reaper the first time, he decides he needs to use a gun to combat him, and he also needs to ally himself with Gotham's criminal underworld. This causes a rift between him and Commissioner Gordon and also causes him to be "partnered" with Joe Chill, the man who killed his parents. In Full Circle, The Reaper returns although the person in the costume is Joe Chill's son, who found The Reaper's costume after the original Reaper fell to his death in Year Two.
Both Year Two and Full Circle don't really do it for me anymore, although I can totally see why I loved them when I was 13. The reason Batman has to use a gun (not only a gun but the gun that killed his parents) never seems that clear, as well as the total coincidence of him being paired with his father's killer (also, The Reaper happens to be the father of the woman Bruce Wayne is dating--how conveeeeeeeeeeenient) seems contrived. The Reaper himself seems like he's a product of the decade, when Marvel was still overtaking DC in a lot of ways, because the villain is a cross between Wolverine and The Punisher, both of whom were outselling Batman like crazy (Batman would fight The Punisher in a crossover book in the 1990s and there is a brief, hilarious encounter between the two in the JLA/Avengers book). Both Davis and McFarlane went on to do Marvel books shortly after this--Davis did the X-Men-related book Excalibur and McFarlane became a superstar with Spider-Man (and would leave Marvel to create Spawn), so it makes sense that Year Two and Full Circle lack the nuance of Year One.
A Death in the Family, on the other hand, is a disaster. This is easily the most famous storyline from the 1980s because it's the one where Robin dies. As explained in the introduction, a few years before this story, Dick Grayson, who had been Robin since 1940, quit being Robin to become Nightwing (he is actually currently Batman ... Bruce Wayne "died" at the end of Final Crisis) and lead the Teen Titans. What the writers of Batman did was give Batman a new Robin, Jason Todd. According to his origin, which is recounted in A Death in the Family, Batman found Jason trying to steal the tires off the Batmobile and took him in then trained him to be Robin (yeah, it doesn't make sense to me and it makes even less sense than Dick Grayson's origin but we'll go with it).
Thing is, this version of Robin didn't really work. The fans didn't like him that much and DC obviously wanted to return the character to his darker roots, as Miller had done with Year One and The Dark Knight Returns, so they created a storyline wherein at the end of Batman #427, Robin was caught in an explosion and fans could call one of two 1-900 numbers to vote on whether or not he lived or died. He died by a slim margin of a couple hundred votes, and the story accomplished what it set out to do because over the next couple of years, Batman became a darker character and even when a new Robin was introduced (Tim Drake this time), the darkness stayed (probably because the company allowed Robin more independence and there were quite a number of Batman stories without Robin).
The story itself is pretty awful. Robin is "grounded" by Batman because while on a drugbust, he blows his cover and acts impulsively. This causes him to "go for a long walk" to his old neighborhood. He encounters a woman who gives him a bunch of his dead parents' personal items and then discovers that the woman he thought was his mother was really his stepmother and his birth mother is still alive. He narrows the field down to three women, all of whom are in the Middle East. Meanwhile, The Joker has escaped from Arkham and is headed to the Middle East because he has stolen a nuclear missle and wants to sell it on the black market. Batman, naturally, follows. Eventually, Robin finds his mother only to discover that she is being blackmailed by The Joker and when all is said and done Robin dies. Then, The Joker becomes the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations (complete with cameo by the Ayatollah!) and tries to kill the entire General Assembly, but Superman and Batman save the day. The Joker, btw, is not captured but is presumed "dead" because his helicopter crashes into the East River (he would not return to comics for another two years).
It's no wonder they brought Jason Todd back from the dead, and I think that if the storyline hadn't been something out of a bad A-Team episode it might have still held water. But all that really remains is the "controversy" surrounding it.
Next up: To Kill a Mockingbird and Green Lantern
Friday, June 26, 2009
The Farewell Tour Begins
Should I hold a press conference to announce my retirement from softball?
I was looking at the schedule yesterday and saw that I've got about five games left before the season is over and I've decided that for the most part this is going to be it. I've only been able to play on about half of the Thursdays we've been scheduled, and half of those have been rained out, so basically I've played in maybe four games this year. It's not that I don't enjoy playing ball or that I'm upset that we've only won 1 game this season, it's just that when trying to fit in a Thursday night game becomes this much of a hassle, you have to rethink it.
Last night's game was a heartbreaker. We took a very good team into extra innings--though we were winning going into the 7th and blew the lead in a very Mets-like fashion--and they scored two runs at the top of the 8th, which we could not get back. I had one of my more eventful games at first and hit a high bloop single into center and scored a run so I actually contributed. And while there's no "I" in team, I've been focused on my individual performance a lot lately because I platoon at first base so I only play so many innings, and since our offense doesn't light things up the way we did last spring, I only get 1, maybe 2 at-bats each game. Part of me wants to make it a goal of hitting a home run over the fence--something I have never done, ever--but I know that if I become really focused on that, I'll just pop up and ground things back to the pitcher and then I won't contribute at all.
So, a few more weeks and then I'll retire the #23 jersey unceremoniously ... unless I feel like playing for the Jets or Vikings (wrong sport, I know, but I had to make a Favre reference somewhere).
I was looking at the schedule yesterday and saw that I've got about five games left before the season is over and I've decided that for the most part this is going to be it. I've only been able to play on about half of the Thursdays we've been scheduled, and half of those have been rained out, so basically I've played in maybe four games this year. It's not that I don't enjoy playing ball or that I'm upset that we've only won 1 game this season, it's just that when trying to fit in a Thursday night game becomes this much of a hassle, you have to rethink it.
Last night's game was a heartbreaker. We took a very good team into extra innings--though we were winning going into the 7th and blew the lead in a very Mets-like fashion--and they scored two runs at the top of the 8th, which we could not get back. I had one of my more eventful games at first and hit a high bloop single into center and scored a run so I actually contributed. And while there's no "I" in team, I've been focused on my individual performance a lot lately because I platoon at first base so I only play so many innings, and since our offense doesn't light things up the way we did last spring, I only get 1, maybe 2 at-bats each game. Part of me wants to make it a goal of hitting a home run over the fence--something I have never done, ever--but I know that if I become really focused on that, I'll just pop up and ground things back to the pitcher and then I won't contribute at all.
So, a few more weeks and then I'll retire the #23 jersey unceremoniously ... unless I feel like playing for the Jets or Vikings (wrong sport, I know, but I had to make a Favre reference somewhere).
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Humor, Heroes, and History (100 Books ... 58 Left)
35. Cars and Trucks and Things That Go by Richard Scarry
36. The Amazing Mackerel Pudding Plan by Wendy McClure
37. Garfield Minus Garfield by Dan Walsh w/Jim Davis
38. Batman: Strange Apparitions by Steve Engelhart, Marshall Rogers, and Terry Austin
39. Crisis on Infinite Earths by Marv Woflman and George Perez
40. The History of the DC Universe by Marv Wolfman and George Perez
41. Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? by Alan Moore, Curt Swan, George Perez, and Kurt Schaffenberger
42. A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
So I'm getting a little back on track here because if I'm going to be on pace I have to hit #50 by next Tuesday. Being 8 off the pace isn't too bad.
I posted on the Zinn book over at Stop Trying to Inspire Me, so check it out there.
As for the others, it's pretty much a smattering of different stuff, some of which I've read before. I've looked through the Richard Scarry book about 100 times with Brett but I finally got the time to sit down and read it to him before putting him down for a nap last week and it's really fun. We just got him another one of Scarry's books for his birthday and I'm sure he's going to have a lot of fun looking at the stuff in it.
The humor books are ones I've been pretty familiar with for a while because of their presence on the internet. McClure's book is on the infamous 1974 Weight Watchers recipe cards that she featured on her blog some years ago; Garfield Minus Garfield is a book version of the website where Garfield is removed from several strips and we see Jon in his lonely, sad world. And I have to say three things about that: a) it makes Garfield funny again; b) the fact that Jim Davis not only condoned this but did a few "minus" strips himself (in the book) is awesome; and c) my sister and I collected the fuck out of Garfield books when we were kids and it's awesome that this was a Christmas gift from her.
The comics are classics that I've read seemingly a million times. I highly recommend the Batman and the Superman books because you don't really need to know much about the characters to enjoy them. The Batman stories are from the late 1970s and are the type of quality stuff you've seen in the better movies. Tou've got some quality Joker stuff in there too and a great subplot involving Hugo Strange, Gotham's crime "boss" Rupert Thorne and a love interest of Bruce Wayne's, Silver, who figures out that he is Batman and it ultimately means that they can't be togther. The Superman story is the "last" Superman story, an imaginary story in which a reporter from the Daily Planet interviews Lois Lane 10 years after Superman's last battle versus all of his villains. It's one of those great "ride off into the sunset" type of stories you'd expect from a hero with a history like Superman's.
Crisis is a bear. If you have read any DC Comics you've heard of some of the elments of Crisis, especially in recent continuity. For the unitiated, the premise is this: there are multiple versions of Earth existing in multiple parallel universes, and when our story opens, the ruler of the anti-matter universe, the Anti-Monitor, is "eating" up universe after universe (the destruction is shown by a white wall of anti-matter sweeping across the worlds, literally erasing everything it touches). The only person with enough power to stop him is The Monitor, who recruits heroes to fight him.
Over the course of 12 issues there are momentous events like the deaths of The Flash and Supergirl and a complete realignment of DC's continuity. Honestly, it's one of those gargantuan epics that comic fans drool over; the difference between this one and some of the others is that this one is really tightly written and literally has a cast of thousands (seriously, issue #9? A team of super-villains led by Lex Luthor and Braniac take over three earths and the fight that ensues is right out of the old Super-Friends show). I reread it because I recently sold my individual issues plus several crossovers and tie-ins on eBay so I wanted to reread the collected hardcover version, which I am keeping. I highly recommend the trade paperback.
History ... is a companion to Crisis, and proceeds to tell the history of the universe now that it has been "rewritten" by the events of the series. It's a prose book with some beautiful illustrations by George Perez (my favorite comics artist of all time) and is impressive not just because it's great to look at but because Wolfman and Perez go into such depth, trying their best to mention just about every character in DC's collection.
Up next? More history, more comics, and mockingbirds.
36. The Amazing Mackerel Pudding Plan by Wendy McClure
37. Garfield Minus Garfield by Dan Walsh w/Jim Davis
38. Batman: Strange Apparitions by Steve Engelhart, Marshall Rogers, and Terry Austin
39. Crisis on Infinite Earths by Marv Woflman and George Perez
40. The History of the DC Universe by Marv Wolfman and George Perez
41. Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? by Alan Moore, Curt Swan, George Perez, and Kurt Schaffenberger
42. A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
So I'm getting a little back on track here because if I'm going to be on pace I have to hit #50 by next Tuesday. Being 8 off the pace isn't too bad.
I posted on the Zinn book over at Stop Trying to Inspire Me, so check it out there.
As for the others, it's pretty much a smattering of different stuff, some of which I've read before. I've looked through the Richard Scarry book about 100 times with Brett but I finally got the time to sit down and read it to him before putting him down for a nap last week and it's really fun. We just got him another one of Scarry's books for his birthday and I'm sure he's going to have a lot of fun looking at the stuff in it.
The humor books are ones I've been pretty familiar with for a while because of their presence on the internet. McClure's book is on the infamous 1974 Weight Watchers recipe cards that she featured on her blog some years ago; Garfield Minus Garfield is a book version of the website where Garfield is removed from several strips and we see Jon in his lonely, sad world. And I have to say three things about that: a) it makes Garfield funny again; b) the fact that Jim Davis not only condoned this but did a few "minus" strips himself (in the book) is awesome; and c) my sister and I collected the fuck out of Garfield books when we were kids and it's awesome that this was a Christmas gift from her.
The comics are classics that I've read seemingly a million times. I highly recommend the Batman and the Superman books because you don't really need to know much about the characters to enjoy them. The Batman stories are from the late 1970s and are the type of quality stuff you've seen in the better movies. Tou've got some quality Joker stuff in there too and a great subplot involving Hugo Strange, Gotham's crime "boss" Rupert Thorne and a love interest of Bruce Wayne's, Silver, who figures out that he is Batman and it ultimately means that they can't be togther. The Superman story is the "last" Superman story, an imaginary story in which a reporter from the Daily Planet interviews Lois Lane 10 years after Superman's last battle versus all of his villains. It's one of those great "ride off into the sunset" type of stories you'd expect from a hero with a history like Superman's.
Crisis is a bear. If you have read any DC Comics you've heard of some of the elments of Crisis, especially in recent continuity. For the unitiated, the premise is this: there are multiple versions of Earth existing in multiple parallel universes, and when our story opens, the ruler of the anti-matter universe, the Anti-Monitor, is "eating" up universe after universe (the destruction is shown by a white wall of anti-matter sweeping across the worlds, literally erasing everything it touches). The only person with enough power to stop him is The Monitor, who recruits heroes to fight him.
Over the course of 12 issues there are momentous events like the deaths of The Flash and Supergirl and a complete realignment of DC's continuity. Honestly, it's one of those gargantuan epics that comic fans drool over; the difference between this one and some of the others is that this one is really tightly written and literally has a cast of thousands (seriously, issue #9? A team of super-villains led by Lex Luthor and Braniac take over three earths and the fight that ensues is right out of the old Super-Friends show). I reread it because I recently sold my individual issues plus several crossovers and tie-ins on eBay so I wanted to reread the collected hardcover version, which I am keeping. I highly recommend the trade paperback.
History ... is a companion to Crisis, and proceeds to tell the history of the universe now that it has been "rewritten" by the events of the series. It's a prose book with some beautiful illustrations by George Perez (my favorite comics artist of all time) and is impressive not just because it's great to look at but because Wolfman and Perez go into such depth, trying their best to mention just about every character in DC's collection.
Up next? More history, more comics, and mockingbirds.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Requiem for a Walkman
My big birthday present this year was an iPod. I suppose this isn't anything significant to most people considering that the iPod has been the predominant portable music device for the better part of a decade and that very few people even buy CDs anymore. But for me it's a pretty big deal. You see, I still own a Walkman.
Granted, in recent years I have only used the Walkman when I was working out and my newest mix tape is something on the order of three or four years old, but with the acquisition of an iPod, I'm truly at the end of a very long era in my life. Since I was in elementary school, I've always had something to take with me that played music. My very first music device was an Emerson "tape recorder," the type that was a huge rectangle that took a full-sized cassette and that you'd often see on 1980s cop shows during interrogation scenes. I recorded a lot of stupid stuff on it and listened to a lot of those "read the story/hear the book" books (my favorite of which was one about Superman because it was a full-sized hardcover book and not some cheapo paperback, which is what I had for Return of the Jedi).
My first Walkman was one I commandeered from my parents. I'd place its origins in the mid-1980s, as it had the classic headphones that went over the head and two foam-covered speakers that went over the ears. This was the Walkman I took with me on school field trips and tuned people out with by listening to tapes I'd made by taping songs off of the radio, which is why you'd get a deejay talking over the first few seconds of "Pour Some Sugar on Me" or why there was static during the bridge of INXS's "Devil Inside." Sadly, this is something the current generation will not have the pleasure of dealing with.
In the years since I had several Walkmen, not all of them technically of the "Walkman" brand, and all of them had different features and suffered various fates. There was the one with equalizers on the face and a digital display that a family friend accidentally dropped in the Great South Bay one summer afternoon; there was the one I chucked across the room when I was fifteen, pissed off about ... well, something; there were ones with bass boost, hold buttons, AM/FM transmitters, carrying cases, and ear buds. There were also the quirks that each machine had -- a tendency to sometimes play tapes too slow or eat them; a crackling sound when the earphone jack became aged; or, how, when my current Walkman would switch sides on the tape, one of the speakers would cut out and I would have to take the tape out, flip it over, and press play again.
It seemed that as the cassette tape became more and more obsolete, the manufacturers did what they could to make the Walkman appealing. I'm not surprised that the Walkman held out pretty well against the Discman, considering that early models of the Discman were notorious for breaking easily or couldn't handle actually being carried--my sister was always combatting with CD skipping. But when the iPod with its colorful commercials set to "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" began to take hold, that was the final nail in the coffin.
Still, I held out for a while. Partly because I didn't have a computer that had the capacity for maximum iPod-ness and partly because the Walkman--more importantly, the tapes it played--was a pretty important figure in my life and I wasn't just ready to throw away that particular velveteen rabbit. I still have three shoeboxes full of tapes that I've got to decide what to do with. Some are albums that I have yet to replace with CDs, mostly 1980s-era Queen and a few things, like the soundtrack to The Big Chill, that were pilfered from my parents when I was back in high school (I did let my dad keep his collection of Kenny Rogers tapes as well as Exile's Greatest Hits); most of them are mix tapes, which provided some sort of unofficial soundtrack to my adolesence. I don't think that my trip to Europe when I was 17 would have been half as fun without a steady diet of Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Jane's Addiction, and Metallica (in fact, I think I wound up giving one of my Metallica tapes to a girl); walks home from high school would have been way more boring without Billy Joel.
And I've already written quite a bit about about college room soundtracks and mixtapes for girlfriends.
The Walkman isn't in the trash just yet -- it's sitting in one of the trays of our treadmill -- but I've already gone full-tilt into the iPod, making playlists, buying songs, and listening to a few podcasts while I clean and do some work here and there (btw, I totally understand why my students want to listen to them instead of me in class ... though I wish they had better taste in music than T.I.). The tapes are still in the closet and while I will definitely purge them, I think I might take a look at what's actually on those tapes and maybe transfer some of that stuff to CD (or buy the songs). The machine will probably meet its demise soon after. So in a way, this is "farewell, my lovely," though I'm sure you'll have a legacy.
Granted, in recent years I have only used the Walkman when I was working out and my newest mix tape is something on the order of three or four years old, but with the acquisition of an iPod, I'm truly at the end of a very long era in my life. Since I was in elementary school, I've always had something to take with me that played music. My very first music device was an Emerson "tape recorder," the type that was a huge rectangle that took a full-sized cassette and that you'd often see on 1980s cop shows during interrogation scenes. I recorded a lot of stupid stuff on it and listened to a lot of those "read the story/hear the book" books (my favorite of which was one about Superman because it was a full-sized hardcover book and not some cheapo paperback, which is what I had for Return of the Jedi).
My first Walkman was one I commandeered from my parents. I'd place its origins in the mid-1980s, as it had the classic headphones that went over the head and two foam-covered speakers that went over the ears. This was the Walkman I took with me on school field trips and tuned people out with by listening to tapes I'd made by taping songs off of the radio, which is why you'd get a deejay talking over the first few seconds of "Pour Some Sugar on Me" or why there was static during the bridge of INXS's "Devil Inside." Sadly, this is something the current generation will not have the pleasure of dealing with.
In the years since I had several Walkmen, not all of them technically of the "Walkman" brand, and all of them had different features and suffered various fates. There was the one with equalizers on the face and a digital display that a family friend accidentally dropped in the Great South Bay one summer afternoon; there was the one I chucked across the room when I was fifteen, pissed off about ... well, something; there were ones with bass boost, hold buttons, AM/FM transmitters, carrying cases, and ear buds. There were also the quirks that each machine had -- a tendency to sometimes play tapes too slow or eat them; a crackling sound when the earphone jack became aged; or, how, when my current Walkman would switch sides on the tape, one of the speakers would cut out and I would have to take the tape out, flip it over, and press play again.
It seemed that as the cassette tape became more and more obsolete, the manufacturers did what they could to make the Walkman appealing. I'm not surprised that the Walkman held out pretty well against the Discman, considering that early models of the Discman were notorious for breaking easily or couldn't handle actually being carried--my sister was always combatting with CD skipping. But when the iPod with its colorful commercials set to "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" began to take hold, that was the final nail in the coffin.
Still, I held out for a while. Partly because I didn't have a computer that had the capacity for maximum iPod-ness and partly because the Walkman--more importantly, the tapes it played--was a pretty important figure in my life and I wasn't just ready to throw away that particular velveteen rabbit. I still have three shoeboxes full of tapes that I've got to decide what to do with. Some are albums that I have yet to replace with CDs, mostly 1980s-era Queen and a few things, like the soundtrack to The Big Chill, that were pilfered from my parents when I was back in high school (I did let my dad keep his collection of Kenny Rogers tapes as well as Exile's Greatest Hits); most of them are mix tapes, which provided some sort of unofficial soundtrack to my adolesence. I don't think that my trip to Europe when I was 17 would have been half as fun without a steady diet of Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Jane's Addiction, and Metallica (in fact, I think I wound up giving one of my Metallica tapes to a girl); walks home from high school would have been way more boring without Billy Joel.
And I've already written quite a bit about about college room soundtracks and mixtapes for girlfriends.
The Walkman isn't in the trash just yet -- it's sitting in one of the trays of our treadmill -- but I've already gone full-tilt into the iPod, making playlists, buying songs, and listening to a few podcasts while I clean and do some work here and there (btw, I totally understand why my students want to listen to them instead of me in class ... though I wish they had better taste in music than T.I.). The tapes are still in the closet and while I will definitely purge them, I think I might take a look at what's actually on those tapes and maybe transfer some of that stuff to CD (or buy the songs). The machine will probably meet its demise soon after. So in a way, this is "farewell, my lovely," though I'm sure you'll have a legacy.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Whaddaya want, a medal?
So it's Father's Day again. I've already done my requisite perusal of everyone's daddy issues shit over on PostSecret and in the last week and a half I've seen about a hundred commercial about "dad" and how "dad" wants you to go to Home Depot and Lowe's and buy him some sort of massive power tool or a Dodge dealer and buy a pickup truck even though: a) he would probably cut his foot off if he actually used that saw, and b) Chrysler is bankrupt.
I'd say that dads don't get a fair shake in the grand scheme of parenting holidays, commercials, etc. ... but that's complete bullshit because there are just as many annoying "mom" commercials and other images out there, plus moms have to overcome the image of Kate Gosselin and her reverse mullet (seriously, what the fuck is up with that thing and why are women actually copying it? Amanda has related to me at least a few stories of how a hairdresser talked a woman out of getting "the Kate." Good for those hairdressers because "the Kate" looks like some of the late 1980s "skate-rad" [seriously, this is what how they referred to themselves] cuts that guys were getting when I was in the sixth grade). I mean, she makes Joan Crawford look like Queen Hippolyta, so we definitely don't have it easy.
I did find a funny piece over on Babble, "Daddy Doesn't Babysit," in which the writer wonders why people feel the need to comment on how much of an achievement it is when dad has the kids and is *gasp* capabale of taking care of them ...
I never understood why it seems like it's some sort of feat to actually be a parent when you're a father. It's kind of what you're supposed to do, right? I do find it funny when I come across that sentiment; for instance, about a month ago, I was flying solo for the better part of a week because Amanda was away on business and a friend made of those "can you handle this" comments (I think the phrase "Mr. Mom" was in there at some point). Since I've done this a number of times already, my response was like, "Uh ... all right, I guess." I mean, Brett had a little too much tequila, but doesn't that happen to everyone?
Look, real men aren't looking for some sort of praise or recognition. Men who insist on being recognized for simply doing parental duties are douchebags. If anything, real men want what every parent wants from their kids: more time to sleep.
I'd say that dads don't get a fair shake in the grand scheme of parenting holidays, commercials, etc. ... but that's complete bullshit because there are just as many annoying "mom" commercials and other images out there, plus moms have to overcome the image of Kate Gosselin and her reverse mullet (seriously, what the fuck is up with that thing and why are women actually copying it? Amanda has related to me at least a few stories of how a hairdresser talked a woman out of getting "the Kate." Good for those hairdressers because "the Kate" looks like some of the late 1980s "skate-rad" [seriously, this is what how they referred to themselves] cuts that guys were getting when I was in the sixth grade). I mean, she makes Joan Crawford look like Queen Hippolyta, so we definitely don't have it easy.
I did find a funny piece over on Babble, "Daddy Doesn't Babysit," in which the writer wonders why people feel the need to comment on how much of an achievement it is when dad has the kids and is *gasp* capabale of taking care of them ...
Calling my husband a babysitter is insulting. He doesn't get paid. He doesn't spend time with our daughter because he's required to or because it's going to get him something (money, sex, whatever). He spends time with our daughter because he is her father, and he kinda, sorta, really likes her. Isn't that why men become fathers? Because they want children?
The comments from women on a recent Strollerderby post about the Daddy-babysitting issue poured in. One woman recounted the story of a kindly seatmate tapping her on the shoulder on a plane to tell her how "lucky" she was because her husband helped give their child a bottle. "Clearly, he deserves a nomination for Man of the Year, because those are the little woman's jobs, and any man who does them
is worthy of a ticker-tape parade," she said.
I never understood why it seems like it's some sort of feat to actually be a parent when you're a father. It's kind of what you're supposed to do, right? I do find it funny when I come across that sentiment; for instance, about a month ago, I was flying solo for the better part of a week because Amanda was away on business and a friend made of those "can you handle this" comments (I think the phrase "Mr. Mom" was in there at some point). Since I've done this a number of times already, my response was like, "Uh ... all right, I guess." I mean, Brett had a little too much tequila, but doesn't that happen to everyone?
Look, real men aren't looking for some sort of praise or recognition. Men who insist on being recognized for simply doing parental duties are douchebags. If anything, real men want what every parent wants from their kids: more time to sleep.
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