The Philosopher's Stoned

Since this blog is almost defunct, I should point out that I have joined the legions on Facebook. I'm on there very frequently and you will be able to see my daily doodads to one extent or another. Feel free to request friendship and, unless you're on my very short list of people I don't like, I'll accept.

Recent events in my life include my wife and daughter cruelly abandoning me for two weeks while they vacation in Texas. It's a working vacation for my wife as she tries to get surveys and research done. I'll be flying down to join them for the holiday next week. Yay Texas!

We're entering interview season where my wife tries to sell her soul to employer after potential employer, hoping that someone will pick her up and that it'll be a place we can enjoy living.

I have learned my job may or may not be in jeopardy as ACS pursues the benefits of hiring overseas. If the rumor mill is true, the staff in my current location will be greatly reduced by February's end. But my manager (who just recently left his position after finding out about this) has told me he has spoken very highly and recommended I be one of the employees they keep on here in Cheshire, so I'm crossing my toes in hope.

And in the fun dept, I am just about finished with the first run of The X-Men. The book was cancelled in 1970 after 66 issues and sat dead for five years before being revived with a new creative team and new characters in 1975. As hot an item as the X-Men have become, it's hard to believe they were once at the bottom of Marvel's barrel. But having read 65 of those 66 issues I can confidently point out that more than a few of them were hard to get through. Don't get me wrong. The concepts were there, the characters were solid. But after Jack Kirby quit the art in issue 15 and Stan Lee quit writing around issue 17, the book kept floating from writer to writer and artist to artist, and many of these people just didn't have successful ideas for the team. And when 1/3 to 1/2 of your stories are less than stellar, readership is going to slack off, and it did. So they cancelled The X-Men completely for several months before bringing it back as a bimonthly book that reprinted the older stories. The characters would occasionally appear in other heroes' books as guest-stars during this interim, and I guess fan interest was there because the team was eventually revamped and reborn in 1975 with Giant-Size X-Men 1 and then new stories recommenced in issue 94 of The X-Men. So that's where I am with the X-Men.

And for anyone who's interested, do a Google search for Chronological Spider-Man. You'll see some sharing by ChronoSpidey. This is the first pack of who knows how many to come...

I plan to a post this week regarding some of the TV that's been on lately, but for now I want to talk comics.

When I was a boy, I had three paperback books of Spider-Man that collected his first 20 issues from 1963 and 1964. And then I started buying Spider-Man comics in 1990, and I had to get used to all the changes that had happened in his universe. That comic collecting lasted about two years before it tapered off. And now, since Iron Man's release in theaters, I am back in comics.

Due to DVD-ROM collections and the magic of bit torrent, I have been able to re-begin my journey through the saga of the amazing Spider-Man from the beginning. Lifelong dream coming true right now. And it's been great.

Tonight, I finished the December 1969 issue of Amazing Spider-Man. I have now read every issue of Spider-Man from the 1960s. I can't describe how much I'm enjoying this.

You've seen the movie. Amazing Spider-Man is, of course, the tale of Peter Parker, a high school teen who is endowed with spider powers through the bite of a spider that has mistakenly been caught up in a radioactivity experiment. He joins a wrestling gig and begins to cash in through show business. Getting a bit of a swelled ego, he decides *not* to step in as a crook runs by, being chased by a cop. Blowing off the angry policeman, he soon regrets his nonaction when the same crook shoots and kills his uncle, leaving Peter alone with his elderly aunt. (His parents had died when he was very young.) Realizing that his great power obligates him to a great responsibility, he turns from showbiz wrestler to night-time crime-fighter. And so the saga begins.

Spider-Man was one of Marvel's first heroes since their World War II hits like Captain America and Sub-Mariner had fizzled alongside the war fervor in the late 40s; and he was their second superhero concept to be given his own magazine. In a day when most comic superheroes were cardboard cutouts and non-superhero comics were horror and sci-fix anthologies, Marvel's presentation of super-powered people with true-to-life personalities and hang-ups helped to revolutionize the industry and give it some much-needed life in the early and mid-60s. (Ten to 15 years later, this will have fizzled again, but for now Marvel was riding a surfboard on a very high wave.)

Spider-Man appealed to readers of all ages. Unlike other heroes, Spider-Man didn't have to put on glasses and pretend to be a loser. He wore glasses and really was a loser. He couldn't get a girl at school and so he started pursuing a high-school dropout who worked in the same place where he had a part-time job, and that only worked because she was a needy girl who flamed in jealousy every time she saw some other girl even look Peter's way. Fortunately, most losers eventually grow out of it (or at least that's what I keep telling myself) and Peter eventually found himself in college dating a rather lovely blond, whose father was an ex- police captain and had a great respect for Spider-Man, and sharing an expense-paid apartment with the son of one of the wealthiest businessmen of New York City.

In this era, you have three main creative teams. Stan Lee is the writer throughout. The three chief artists are Steve Ditko, John Romita, and Jim Mooney, successively.

Lee had been writing comics since shortly after Captain America hit the scene in 1942. He and other artists like Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby worked to bring back the superhero for a new generation in the early 1960s. Jack Kirby took the pencil for their initial hit The Fantastic Four, and Steve Ditko drew the less superstar-oriented Spider-Man. He designed a slim, not-so-muscular figure who could be believed to be a high-school kid in tights. When Ditko took the mask off, his Peter Parker was not too attractive, even somewhat naifish, and went to school dressed in the necktie and vest or suit of the far-from-hip.

Ditko and Stan had a falling out for some reason that is still debated. Some say it was a disagreement over the creative direction of the book, specifically the identity of Spider-Man's chief villain, the Green Goblin. Other say this can be discounted, and the true reason is between Stan and Steve. In any case, after three years on the book, Ditko was replaced by John Romita. In retrospect, where Steve is known for his action drawing, John is known for his women. Romita took Peter Parker, now in college, and finally worked him toward getting laid. At least that's what I like to think. In any case, he introduced readers to new glamor girl Mary Jane Watson and prettied up Ditko's Gwen Stacy creation, giving Peter a love triangle that finally seemed to be drifting towards Gwen. He hipped Peter up a bit in other ways, taking him out of his aunt's house and putting him in a pad with college buddy Harry Osborn, even giving him a motorcycle to cruise around town with. (Modern Spider-Man has made the joke that he still doesn't have a drivers' license. After all, when you learn to swing on webs at 15...) This went so far as to cause fans to write letters complaining that the Problem Peter Parker of old had been replaced by an unrecognizable Swinger Pete.

After a couple of years, Romita seemed to take more of an overseer role with the art. Marvel tried to do a second Spider-Man title that would be magazine-sized and would be sold with regular magazines rather than comics. So Romita's duties were stuck between the regular monthly title, and this new higher-priced quarterly. So Romita started being given credit as Layouts or Innovator, rather than Penciller or Artist. And in the last year or so, Jim Mooney began to pencil the ideas given him by Lee and Romita (with Romita sometimes being substituted with John Buscema).

Jim Mooney increased the darkness of the Spider-Man title. I don't mean this as post-modern psychological darkness, although a little of that may have been a side-result. But actual darkness in the art. Increased shading. More grunge to the backgrounds. Increasing the mystery-feel of the mag. In addition to fighting super-villains, Spider-Man has always been a mystery crime-fighter as well. It was also during this time that the stories began to incorporate non-white characters more, increasing the modern and relevant feel of the stories. Mooney also began to cement the ties between Peter Parker and his beautiful blonde Gwen Stacy. Mary Jane was a thing of the past, supposedly dating roommate Harry Osborn, but she was rarely seen in the mag anymore, if at all.

With villains like the Vulture, Doctor Octopus, the Lizard, and the Rhino, Spider-Man seems to attract animal-themed villains. Recently, I understand, they even did an arc exploring that very concept, but that was before my return. I hope to read it some day. But possibly his greatest villain during this era, possibly during all eras, was the Green Goblin. Beginning as a cooky character who sought to take over the mob rackets of New York City, the Green Goblin quickly rose to be a fan favorite, partly because his origins and identity were kept in secret, unlike virtually all other villains in the series. Romita's first story, after taking over the reins from Ditko, was to tell the story of how the Green Goblin becomes the first person ever to unmask Spider-Man (that is, without it being immediately explained away by extenuating circumstances, which had happened once or twice before). This was immediately followed by his removing his own mask, revealing himself to be the father of Peter's friend from college, and later roommate, Harry Osborn. This mutual unmasking appointed the Green Goblin as Spider-Man's first psychological enemy, whose threat was beyond the mere physical.

Other great villains from this time include Doctor Octopus, a man whose mechanical arms created for dealing with radioactive experiments behind a lead shield were fused to his body by such an experiment going sour; the Lizard, a one-armed scientist who sought to use reptilian biochemistry to regenerate his missing limb, only to cause his entire body to mutate into a man-sized reptile; and the Kingpin, who would later come to be one of Daredevil's main menaces, but who now threatened Spider-Man by being both a physical threat in his own right and a master-planner behind many criminal schemes which Spider-Man was obligated to thwart.

Overall, this was some solid storytelling. Yes, there were some lulus. The Looter and the Ringmaster come to mind. And others like the Vulture and Mysterio were used both well and badly. But I think I may be descending from here, as I move into the 70s. Later editor-in-chief Jim Shooter has gone on record saying that Marvel's contract to adapt the new science fiction movie Star Wars, and their continuation of that series, saved the company from going under in 1977, so I'm afraid of where Spider-Man will be at that time. I know there's a Spider-Mobile somewhere in there, and that causes me to shudder a bit. But here's to the journey.

Hello, blog. Hello, blog readers. I know I haven't said anything on here for a while. Basically, I've been at a loss to think of interesting things to say.

Life is good. Baby is coming, for those who don't know. We're still waiting on the penis determination, but we've decided names for both sum and sans penis eventualities.

Wife is working very hard at her schooling and her job, despite her body's valiant attempts to turn her into a lazy miserable bum. I applaud her efforts while I worry about her being able to complete everything she needs to do.

Daughter has become just an amazing reader. It's fun being with her and realizing that this whole world of words has opened up all around her. She's reading signage on the road and all sorts of random crap. Why? Because she can. Because six months ago, she couldn't. But now she can. And now that she has crossed the subjective line we call "being able to read for enjoyment", she has plunged into chapter books. Her current title is "All About Bats", which is funny because the child literally would not admit to the existence of bats until about a year ago. Didn't believe in them. Or deserts. Didn't think they were real. Crazy child. Love her to the depths of my soul.

This blog started when I was going through some major philosophy changes. And I initially envisioned this as a place to discourse on a lot of that. Hence the title. But it quickly descended into a forum for my geekiness. Sorry for all those family members who read this looking for emotional insight into my life. I'm really just a big dork whose most interesting life events happen on the screen or the printed page, involving people who don't exist.

On that note, I am enjoying the current season of my shows. Terminator continues to excel. (Is that one L or two? Microsoft has destroyed my ability to spell.) Fringe is a little on the fence, but I'm continuing to give it some rope. Smallville probably needs to end, but I find myself secretly enjoying it. Shhh....don't tell anyone. I have the impression that enjoying Smallville is not cool.

But what really gets my TV week happy is Heroes. Love that show. It's superheroes. On TV. And they're cool. Not to mention that almost every single person on that show is sexy. Guys, dolls, love them all. But especially everyone's favorite cheerleader, Miss Hayden Panettiere.

The reading front has been pretty silent, as far as actual books go. I'm in the middle of two books. Only two. And it wouldn't have even been two except I didn't want to take a big hardback on the recent flight to Texas. So I'm reading The Host by Stephanie Meyer, and I recently started Kobayashi Maru by Mangels & Martin.

But I'm not reading 'actual books' much anymore. I'm still in my comic book frenzy.

If you don't want to read about comic books, proceed to the next blog in your RSS feed.

Wow, there's some stuff going on in comics these days. Shape-shifting Skrulls have invaded the Marvel universe. Spider-Man made a deal with the devil to save his aunt's life, costing him his marriage, but erasing the knowledge of his secret identity from the minds of the world. The Avengers have demolished and reformed. Spider-Woman was brought back from obscurity to the forefront of the Marvel world, only to be revealed as the queen Skrull. Daredevil's gotten married. 98% of the world's mutants have lost their powers, many dying in the process.

It's just crazy.

And at the same time that I'm reading current stuff, I'm also reading older stuff. My current mission is to read every Spider-Man book from his intro in 1962 to now. So far, I'm in 1968 and still going strong. But we'll see if I can make it through the strangeness of the 70s or when he explodes in the 90s.

Really, it's all Iron Man's fault. If the movie hadn't turned me on to comics, we wouldn't be here right now.

I think comics may become a frequent topic here. They're what I'm excited about right now, and I don't have many venues to geek out about it.

That's all for now. Laterz.

So...after Iron Man came out, I thought it would be cool to read his mag from the beginning. With comics as downloadable as they are these days, I figured it'd be easy to get a hold of them. And with so many online resources, I figured I could even track down his appearances in other comics and read those.

Well, in comics, when an event is referenced which happened in a previous issue, or in another series, there is usually a footnote that mentions the issue referenced. I like to get these to feel like I'm getting "the whole story".

Well, so many comics are on DVD-ROMs now that I found I was able to catch most of the major series collected in their entirety on DVD-ROM. Which means that I would have easy access to many of the referenced issues and wouldn't have to download as much.

But then as I was reading these, I realized how much I loved these other characters and how much I'd always wanted to read their series as well. People like the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, the X-Men.....and especially, my all-time favorite -- The Amazing Spider-Man.

And so, I'm currently reading a lot of comics. I've started in 1961, with the very first issue of Fantastic Four, and I'm working through several series chronologically, in parallel.

They are:
The Fantastic Four
The Amazing Spider-Man
Iron Man
The Avengers
Captain America
The Incredible Hulk
The X-Men
Daredevil

The joy is that, after the initial purchase of the DVD-ROM collection for most of these guys, and subsequent download of any referenced issues I don't already have, I'm riding on free reading for the foreseeable future, and having a blast doing it.

The flip side is that I haven't picked up a non-illustrated book in over a month now. It's been long enough that people have teased me about how most books don't have pictures. I guess they forget that I'd already finished over 50 titles before May, and that's more than most people read in a whole year. Or several years. But that's ok.

I have another thing to say about Spider-Man, but that's for another day. Suffice to say, that if you're a Spider-Fan, and you're curious about what's going on in his universe, prepare for a gobsmacking surprise.

So, yeah, all the books I was in the middle of two Thursdays ago... I'm pretty much in the exact same place in all of them. I haven't really felt like reading an actual novel. I have tried to pick one up, but it just seemed tedious.

This is a very weird state of affairs for yours truly. I have *always* been a reader. I remember reading Dr. Seuss' ABC when I was three years old at the Sugarland daycare center in Denton, TX.

Camel on the ceiling...c...c...c...

But now it just feels annoying.

On the other hand, my interest in comic books has been resurged by the new Iron Man movie, which by the way, kicks all kind of @$$. I got two DVD-ROMs, one with the entire Iron Man run, and one with the Avengers run, from 1963 to 2005 or 2006. And I've been enjoying reading those.

And with download land being like it is, when Iron Man appears in another title, or one of his books refers to events in another title that I want to read about, I can download those books as well. So I've been reading lots of 60s comics, and that's been really fun. The thing about 60s comics is you can never have too many adjectives or superlatives.

Coupled with that, I've been reading Marvel's various "Ultimate" titles because they are uber cool.

And a friend of mine has electronic copies of all the Books of Magic series and spinoffs. This series was begun by Neil Gaiman, whose Sandman series from the 90s stands tall and proud as Best Comic Series Ever.

So yay comics. Lots of comics. But no books, not so much. Which makes me wonder what I'm going to read when the wife and I train down to New York this weekend, as they're all in electronic form. Best Friend wants me to read Mistborn, so I may have to delve into that.

Some people work in oils, some in watercolors, some in mixed media.

And some people work in pure awesome --

The trailers for Iron Man promised a lot of action and sarcastic humor, and I'm pleased to see the movie delivered delightfully on both counts. No spoilers, but the nanotech effects with the suit were amazing. Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts was adorable, and the post-credits zinger scene raised the awesomeness of the whole movie to another level.

Loved it!

I want to say more, but I don't want to spoil it for everyone going to see it tonight or soon.

Also recently finished two Star Trek: New Frontier novels -- #7: The Quiet Place and #8: Dark Allies. Still enjoying the series, although the next trilogy to come is where I've heard many say they lost faith in it. Also, if you're going to end your duology with "and all this happened five minutes before everyone blew up", that's just mean.

Two of my favorite sci-fi concepts, and my wife's least favorite, are time travel and parallel universes. Infinite storytelling possibilites abound that take your favorite characters outside the box of their universe and see how they act in different situations.

And so, one of my favorite Trek episodes is "Parallels" from The Next Generation, which has Worf spontaneously hopping form universe to universe, and you see his life circumstances changing around him. In some he is married to Deanna Troi, in some Picard died during the Borg incident and Riker is in command, etc.

Well, this year there will be Pocket Books is releasing a project that I imagine will be right up my alley. In two volumes, under the banner Myriad Universe, will be six novellas that each takes a separate What If...? from the Trek universe as the basis for its tale. And the details of each novel were just released.

INFINITY'S PRISM (July)

A LESS PERFECT UNION by William Leisner: More than a hundred years after the Terra Prime movement achieved its dream of an isolationist Earth, humanity is once again at a fork in the river of history . . . and the path it follows may ultimately be determined by the voice of a single individual: the sole surviving crewmember of the first Starship Enterprise.

PLACES OF EXILE by Christopher L. Bennett: Midway through Voyager's journey across the galaxy, Captain Kathryn Janeway and Commander Chakotay must choose whether to brave a deadly war zone or abandon their quest for home. But an attack by Species 8472 cripples the ship, and the stranded crew must make new choices that will reshape their destinies . . . and that of the Delta Quadrant itself.

SEEDS OF DISSENT by James Swallow: Khan victorious! Almost four centuries after conquering their world, genetically enhanced humans dominate a ruthless interstellar empire. But the warship Defiance, under its augmented commander, Princeps Julian Bashir, makes a discovery that could shake the pillars of his proud civilization: an ancient sleeper ship from Earth named the Botany Bay.


ECHOES AND REFRACTIONS (August)

THE CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT by Geoff Trowbridge: In a continuum where Spock died during childhood, an Andorian named Thelin became Captain Kirk's stalwart friend and first officer. But at the moment of Khan's final defeat, history takes an even stranger turn, and the emerging potential of Project Genesis is revealed as the galaxy's greatest hope . . . and its most ominous threat.

A GUTTED WORLD by Keith R. A. DeCandido: Terrorist Kira Nerys-from a Bajor that was never liberated-may hold the key to winning a war that has engulfed half the galaxy. But with the Romulans and the Klingons at each other's throats, and the Federation pulled into the conflict, even victory may not bring salvation.

BRAVE NEW WORLD by Chris Roberson: Dr. Noonien Soong's dream has been realized: androids are now woven inextricably into the fabric of the Federation, revolutionizing Starfleet and transforming the quality of humanoid life. But when Soong's long-missing breakthrough creation, Data, mysteriously resurfaces, civilization reaches a crossroads that could lead to a bright new future, or to ruin.

Yay Star Trek books!

Finished reading Star Trek: Voyager -- Equinox by Diane Carey, an adaptation of the two-part Voyager episode that finished out the show's fifth season and started its sixth.

A darker story, with Janeway making some questionable choices. It's kinda odd. Most of the time Janeway is just like any other captain, amiable at most times and stern when she needs to be. But every now and then, they do an episode that puts her in a very hard place, and she will often make decisions that her crew (and the viewers) have problems with. To me, it comes off a little unevenly, though.

But I guess they're trying to make the point that Janeway can be a hardass when she knows she's right, and to hell with everyone else.

The novelization didn't add much to the episode, aside from some extra dialogue between Janeway and Chakotay as they hash out the moralities of their situation.

This also marks the beginning of the first Star Trek season in seven years that didn't have two shows running together. Two more seasons of Voyager, and four seasons of Enterprise, and I'll be all caught up, show-wise. And with the number and frequency of Trek books decreasing, it shouldn't take too much longer after that to catch up on the book side. Maybe...five years, total? Six, maybe? :-)

Rabbit Hole by David Lindsay-Abaire is the play that won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2007. It had finished it's run long before I decided I wanted to see it, and I thought I'd be stuck with that void in my Pulitzer reading, but lo and behold, the script has been published and is available on amazon.com, so I got it and read it.

Reading through the reviews on the site, it appears that there were mixed reviews. Some called it deep and insightful and others called it melodramatic hooey, and there wasn't a whole lot in between, so I wasn't sure what I was in for.

Having read it now, I wonder if those who didn't like it have experienced the death of a close loved one. I know that many of you who read my blog either have experienced this or are closely involved with someone who has. This story is about a family and their efforts to cope with a somewhat-recent death of their young son.

The story is very much a "day in the life" kind of tale with little resolution at the end. Because that's how life is. When you lose someone, there is nothing that can be done to tidy up all your emotions at the end. Even now, 11 years after three members of my family were shot, I still have this little box inside that will always be there. At one time, it was burst open and blazing with rage and grief. Now it just sits there quietly, and every now and then, I take it out and open it, and I remember everything almost with a sense of "Oh, yeah...that." ...and then I put it back. The feelings don't go away, they just change somewhat, and you integrate them into the rest of you.

And I think this play illustrates all that complexity very well. My sister was 4 years and 56 days old when she was killed. And I remember the day that L reached that age and passed it. I used to fear that I'd lose her too, although that isn't a common thought anymore. She loves me so much, more than I know what to do with, and I'd be devastated if I lost her.

But, eventually, I would have to move on. And the family in the story is still learning how to do that, some ten months after their son was hit by a car.

Overall, I'm very glad I read it. It helped me to see my own situation through the eyes of others' grief, and I recommend it to others.

Ok, sometimes I see something on television that I just didn't know they could do. It's not often, but it happens. And not that I'm saying they shouldn't do it, I just didn't know it was allowed.

Tonight's Gossip Girl, a show I do not watch, evidently has some major characters having sex and it's a big plot thing. Or it could just be a really sex-focused episode... I don't know.

And I don't care. What surprises me is the ad campaign they're running for it. Their tagline for tonight's episode is "OMFG".

For the acronymically-challenged, that's chat-speak for "Oh My Fucking God!"

And I just didn't know that primetime network television could get away with using the word "fuck"...even an abbreviation for it.

Hey...maybe BSG's "frak" paved the way for it? That'd be cool...

I was never a big reader of Superman comics. My knowledge of him has come primarily through the movies, pop culture, Smallville, and the Death of Superman comics, the only Superman story which I *have* set out to read.

And so in my mind, Superman is much like Captain America in that he is essentially a super-powered Boy Scout who rarely, if ever, makes an error in moral judgment, and for whom I imagine it is difficult to write interesting stories.

After all, if the Man of Tomorrow always does the right thing, and he can't be hurt or injured, how do you manage to tell an interesting character story about him every month or more? Obviously, there are answers to this question, for Superman has endured longer than any superhero still in comics today.

Yet despite my seeming cynicism, I've always felt drawn to Superman, and I've always thought it would be fun to learn of his stories. Hence my reading of the story of his death in the 90s and my desire to follow the story of his subsequent rebirth, despite the financial deficiencies of a young teen already devoted to several comic heroes of the Marvel Universe.

And so, when I was in the comic shop a few weeks back, and I saw the fourth volume of The Superman Chronicles (Every Superman Story in Chronological Order!), I was immediately intrigued. And the price wasn't terrible, but I would of course have to begin with the first volume. Keeping an eye out, I eventually secured a copy at Barnes & Noble, and have recently set aside the time to read it through.

Now, I'm not entirely sure what I expected. In retrospect, I probably should have realized there would be no Supervillains. No Brainiac, no Lex Luthor, no ... see, I don't even know Superman well enough to know his enemies. After all, the rise of science-fiction publishing didn't really start to increase until the late 40s and early 50s, and this is very probably the era when many super-villains found their birth. But Superman first saw publication in 1938, a pre-WWII era when social injustice and administrative corruption were the great evils of society.

And so we have Superman. A man able to leap an eighth of a mile, who can rend steel bars, and whose skin is so tough only a full shell explosion can harm it. And this man sets out to conquer ... not aliens or computer constructs, ... oh, no. Superman sets out after mining company owners who disregard employee safety. He takes down the manager of a football team who seeks to defeat the other team through deceit. And let us not forget how Superman used his alien powers to improve the traffic situation.

Let's not forget Lois Lane, society gossip queen for the Daily Star and occasional interest of Clark Kent. However, she absolutely despises Kent for being a weakling. She loathes him for being a coward. She wants him to never speak one word to her because he's not a real man like Superman.

It was all really quite laughable, and yet I could see the cultural context. What left me with a somewhat disconcerting feel about this Superman was his total disregard for legal authorities. Whether it be police, mayors, or governors, if you stood in Superman's way, you might very well be thrown through a wall for your troubles. To my understanding, today's Man of Steel sees killing as an absolute last resort, to be avoided at almost all costs. Not so, the super-powered vigilante of the New Deal era. It was actually kinda disturbing.

Which is probably how the adults felt at the time who took it upon themselves to speak out against the violence of children's comics and science-fiction. If I recall my cultural history, there was a great drive for censure in the 50s. Which is probably when Superman became more Boy-Scout-ified.

Anyways... I find myself wanting to read the early Batman stories as well. Turns out he's getting the same Chronicles treatment as Superman. And they were introduced at about the same time, with Batman coming about a year after Superman.

So... I don't count comics as books, nor comic collections. So this doesn't get a count in the books I've read this year. But it was still fun. And I look forward to maybe reading the next one, someday. And now that I have caught up on my comics and magazines, I will be starting up other books now -- namely Rabbit Hole, The Race Beat, Doctor Who -- The Inside Story, and The Other Boleyn Girl.

So, the amount of TV I watch has been weighing on me lately. Not as guilt, although that probably wouldn't be a bad thing, but as a pile of things to do that discourages additions to its height.

I currently have 14 hours of programming scheduled for the upcoming week. They are as follows:

Monday - Power Rangers Jungle Fury, Star Trek: Enterprise (4x) -- 4.5 hours
Thursday - Smallville, My Name Is Earl, The Office, Lost -- 3 hours
Friday -- The Sarah Jane Adventures (2x), Doctor Who (new), Battlestar Galactica -- 3 hours
Saturday -- Doctor Who (old), Transformers Animated -- 1 hour
Sunday -- The Tudors -- 1 hour
plus
- an unspecified hour of Star Trek: Voyager on DVD
- an irregularly released (but roughly once a week) half hour of Super Sentai

So, it is no wonder that I so easily get behind in my viewing. This is a lot of television. Something in my brain tells me that getting it under 10 hours would be much more manageable. I'm hoping that my brain is correct. (Of course, there's the other part that says a good parent would only watch an hour or two a week as an example to the child....I choose not to listen to that part and tell it to go to the corner.)

Now, some of these hours are going away soon.
- The four episodes of Enterprise will run their course by the end of August as they reach the end of the series. I'm only watching them through because I haven't seen most of them since they originally aired.
- Battlestar Galactica is in its last season

So that's five hours right there. And even of those that are coming back next year, many of them won't start up until the winter or spring, rather than the Fall. However, there are other shows that aren't currently airing that I plan to pick up in the Fall -- Heroes and The Sarah Connor Chronicles. And Dirt and Torchwood, if they are renewed. (Torchwood's season finale is this Saturday, so it barely squeaks out of being included above.) So that's four hours back on again.

And all the other shows are up for renewal. Well, Doctor Who is taking a year's hiatus so the cast and crew can do other things for a while. But it's promised to be back in 2010.

So I don't know. If I were to get my regular weekly programming to 9 hours or less, then I would probably pick up another show. As it is, it's everything I can do to keep up.

If I were to pick up one show right now, it would probably be Robin Hood on BBC America. That just looks so good. It's second season premieres next week. And so once some of my current shows end, before others begin, I plan to take a swing at the two seasons of that show.

I don't know. I'm probably putting too much thought into this. And I shouldn't do that. Cuz when I think about things too much, the fun drains away. And I would much rather enjoy these shows than worry about how many there are. But if I don't pick up some of the exciting titles announced for this Fall, you'll know why.

You know, I've never considered myself as "handy". I barely understand conventional tools, and my DIY skills are below pitiful. So whenever I'm able to repair something, I get excited.

So, a few weeks (or months?) ago, my Check Engine Light came on. Only it tried to be all sneaky and call itself a Service Engine Soon light. I immediately began to worry that my car was going to explode. Talking to a friend, I learned that it was probably something to do with the emissions and I was probably fine. So I took it to Auto Zone and they plugged in their computer-dohickey and got the error code. I looked it up, found out it was a valve that needed to be cleaned or replaced. And I figured I would do it myself when the temperature warmed up.

Well, the temperature has warmed up, and other circumstances which are too embarrassing to go into publicly have pushed me to get my car in optimum working order. So I went down to the Auto Zone and purchased a new EGR valve for my '02 Saturn SL. I was a bit dismayed at the cost ($159) because I'd gotten the impression online that it would cost less, but at least it's warrantied for 2 years. Also got a repair book for my model.

With a little bit of wrenching, and a little bit of dirt on my clothes, I got the bad boy on there. And now my engine light is gone. Woohoo! And my car fumes are less stinky as well, which is probably good.

So, yes, I am not totally inept when it comes to DIY. I have vanquished the CEL and emerged victorious. I'm so cool. Yay me! Yay me!

I really want to be this guy.

Yeah, if you've read the link and recognize half the names, you know why I'm drooling. But ah, well. The closest I can come to being him is reading his really awesome-cool Deep Space Nine prequel book: Terok Nor -- Day of the Vipers, 2318-2328.

But I'm not here to talk about that.

A while back, I thought, you know, reading the Hugos have really helped me appreciate non-media sci-fi a lot more. But what about non-sci-fi books? I thought I should become more widely cultured. But being OCD, I needed a guide to selecting which books I would read, so I decided upon the Pulitzer Prize winners. With awards given every year for Fiction, Drama, History, Biography, Poetry, and General Non-Fiction, I thought this would be a great way to broaden my horizons and self-educate at the same time.

And tada!, I finished the first of the 2007 winners just today. And by crazy chance, it is also the 50th book I have finished this year. (Woohoo for crazy amounts of reading!)

The Road by Cormac McCarthy is a dark novel set in a post-Apocalyptic America. The author spends very little time with setup and allows the reader fill in the blanks. A man and his son are on a journey of survival through the darkness and danger of this wilderness that had been their civilization several years earlier.

Much like the movie No Country for Old Men, which I saw recently and is based on another book by the same author, there's not a whole lot to say to describe the plot. The plot is good, but is not what makes this book worth reading. What does make it worth reading? That's also hard to pin down. My wife stayed up all night reading it, waiting for it to turn happy, but the victories won in the man's and boy's journey are few and far between, and usually followed by darker defeat. Although the book does end on a somewhat uplifting note, it couldn't exactly be called a "happy" ending.

Uniquenesses: There are no chapters, just many "scene-breaks" or gaps between paragraphs to segment the story, but these are too numerous to be considered chapters. Um... no names are given to the characters, but it's amazing how much this doesn't matter. And the only thing that made it slightly confusing at times was the lack of quotation marks during dialogue. I've heard people criticize the book for these reasons, but personally I think it's a silly reason to discommend the book.

I ended up really enjoying it. It flows easily, without being the lower reading level that is usually called an "easy read". The emotions between the man and the boy are deep, but very subtly drawn. The despair they face everyday is only overcome because they don't stop to think about the despair they're facing everyday. And in the end, the world doesn't get healed; everything is not made better; but the despair appears to be lifted, at least somewhat.

The next Pulitzer Prize winner for 2007 is the play Rabbit Hole. But I'm not starting anymore non-Trek books until I catch up on my backlog of magazines and comics. ...which will hopefully be achieved before this week is out. Next week at the latest.

Oh, and book 51 is Star Trek -- Across the Universe by Pamela Sargent and George Zebrowski.

So, they've released a character guide for the upcoming sequel to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I enjoyed being able to see all the actors made up in full movie regalia. Helps to get a feel for where this movie is going to take the story, and I'm feeling very optimistic. Warning: There are minor spoilers for anyone not familiar with the story from the book.

I enjoyed the previous movie, but there were some things I wish they had done differently -- e.g., I felt like the White Witch's meeting with Edmund was completely wrong, mostly in the way the Witch was written. But as a whole, I was very pleased with the movie. The second story has a bit of a darker tone to it, with the magical beings of Narnia being sent into hiding by a conquering race of Humans. I'm curious to see how the movie chooses to tell the story. The novel is written with three or four chapters of setup, followed by four or five chapters of flashback, and then another five chapters or so to resolve the story. The BBC chose to compress the flashback portion and tell it in sequence, rather than out of order like the novel, and I didn't care much for that take. At the same time, when a third of your story is flashback, that can be problematic for the energy of your story. Hopefully, they overcame the storytelling difficulties and still remain true to the feel of the novel.

Only 32 days left!

I think I finally figured out what's wrong with my neck. For those who don't know, I've had a stiff neck for about five years. I can't turn to the side all the way like I should. Makes rear-ward driving lots of fun.

And I think I finally figured it out. I thought it was a matter of the muscles not being stretched enough, and I've been trying to stretch those out to no avail. But after talking to the therapeutic massage guy who works at my chiropractor's, we think the muscles are being strained from too much extension. I constantly have my head tilted down -- reading, working, whatever. And he suggested that might be causing the muscles to stiffen up and resist when I try to go contract them too far the other way.

I don't know. Makes sense to me. It's not a joint issue. The chiropractor has pretty much determined that. An adjustment will usually ease it to a greater or lesser degree for a short while, but then it stiffens up again.

So I've lowered my chair at work, and I'm gonna get a shelf to place under my monitor to raise it up to eye level.

But my sore neck has supported my tilted head while I finished two books --

Star Wars -- Truce at Bakura by Kathy Myers follows up directly from the end of Return of the Jedi. It's the very next day when the Star Warriors get a distress call from Bakura. They take it on themselves to head on out since the Emperor is no longer around to send assistance. They find Bakura an Imperial stronghold facing an invading alien force that is combining human life-energy with their fighter planes for improved performance, and they want to take the whole planet full of humans.

It had several good moments and was a good sci-fi concept. Not quite in line with the feel of the actual Star Wars trilogy like the Zahn trilogy of novels was, but still fun. Next is the first volume of the Jedi Academy Trilogy.

Star Trek: The Next Generation -- I, Q by John de Lancie and Peter David was a first-person Q story. The Universe ended, and Q had to fix it. With Picard's help, of course. Short and fun.

And that is all I have to say.

I'm pretty sure Wife thinks my following the Pulitzers is a little silly. Well, in my defense, I have talked to other people who also have awards they follow. My friend at the comic store tries to see Oscar winners and also follows the World Fantasy Award. Of course, the fact that he's "my friend at the comic book store" loses points for that defense, but there it is.

In any case, the Pulitzer Prize winners for 2008 have been announced, much to the joy of newspaper staff everywhere. What I didn't know until late last year is that books and other "Letters" also win. And I have decided that Pulitzer Prize winning books are worth reading. Also this year was "a Special Citation to Bob Dylan for his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power." So yay Bob Dylan! And here are the Letters winners:

FICTION
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (Riverhead Books)

DRAMA
August: Osage County by Tracy Letts -- had its run in Chicago, but comes to New York at the end of the month...yay!

HISTORY
What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 by Daniel Walker Howe (Oxford University Press) -- the latest volume in the ongoing series Oxford History of the United States

BIOGRAPHY
Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father by John Matteson (W.W. Norton)

POETRY
Time and Materials by Robert Hass (Ecco/HarperCollins)
Failure by Philip Schultz (Harcourt)

GENERAL NONFICTION
The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 by Saul Friedlander (HarperCollins) -- cuz....I guess we needed another Holocaust book? i dunno

So I've ordered Oscar Wao, and it will be going on the bottom of the Stack, to be followed by the others in due course. So I will no longer be an uncultured swine....just a slightly-cultured swine.

I had no intentions of seeing this movie. I hadn't seen any previews for it, the cover looked like a bland western, and there was just nothing out there that said I should see it.

But...then it won Best Picture. And when it did, I looked it up, having only barely heard of it, and found out it was based on a novel by Cormac McCarthy, who also wrote The Road, which Wife had read and I am currently reading.

So, I thought, OK, let's see the movie.

And...

I don't really know what to do now.

Do I recommend this movie to others? Well....yes. But not if you want a happy story where the good guys win. Not if you want an action movie. Not if you want a gripping western with a thrilling shootout.

But if you're willing to settle for a well-told, atypical dark drama, then yes, it's worth seeing.

Set in 1980 Texas, No Country for Old Men tells the story of a man who stumbles upon a drug deal that went wrong (as in, everyone's dead) and the satchel of money that was intended as purchase. He is then pursued by a dark man who wants the money, so he sends his wife to her mother's and goes on the run. Meanwhile, Tommy Lee Jones is the local sherrif, on the eve of retirement, who is trying to follow the trail of blood and catch a bad guy if there is one to be caught.

Problem is, nobody wins. I guess I shouldn't completely give away the ending. But evidently McCarthy is not known for winding everything up with a pretty bow at the end like we normally like. I talked to Wife about it, who read The Road a few months back. And she stayed up late trying to finish it to get to the happy part, and she never did. Ah, well.

Oh, yeah. And there's zero background music.

I think it's a pretty cool movie. The atypicality of it alone is enough to make me like it. I don't think I'll ever watch it again, unless I'm with someone who wants to see it. But I'm glad I saw it once. And I believe the same team is taking on The Road, so I'll probably see that too.

There are so many things I want to watch on TV right now, so many new shows that look like they're really good. But I just don't know how to squeeze them. New Amsterdam is calling from the SciFi front. Weeds and Californication are hailing from the comedic adult drama side. NBC just announced their Fall slate, and it's full of sci-fi/horror titles, some of which seem appealling.

But I just don't think I can do it. Even in this pared-down period on TV, I'm still way behind. I haven't even touched Smallville since it started up again last month. I have Battlestar Galactica, Dirt, The Tudors, and every week the SciFi Channel shows a few episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise that I thought would be fun to watch since I haven't seen them since they aired. Then there's Torchwood and the shows I share with Lily like Engine Sentai Go-Onger, Power Rangers Jungle Fury, and Transformers Animated. And Friday nights are about to grow bigger with The Sarah Jane Adventures starting this week and the fourth season of Doctor Who starting in two weeks.

There really is a lot of good stuff out there. There's just not enough time in the day. Ah, well.