Because You Demanded It!

We live in interesting times, indeed... but rather than textually fret, I'm going to use my blog as a respite from, rather than a sounding board for, my worries Re: current events. So now some poorly-bibliographed nerdnotes on the comics I read the other night. These little reviews grew out of control, but I've tried to scale them back to terse yet informative blurbs...

Doom Patrol: Celebrated comics scribe Grant Morrison made an early splash with his run on this superhero team book by sprinkling esoteric occult lore and college-eddicated poesy over the usual superheroic shenanigans. It established the basic template for his later works like The Invisibles, yet is basically familiar food with exotic spices, while Invisibles is like exotic recipies with familiar utensils. The artists were on their learning curve, delivering uneven but often clever cartoony art; landscapes and original character designs are often imaginative, but facial expressions are often crude, more indication than expression.

Drawn & Quarterly Showcase Volume One! This came out a few years ago and features work by two different artists, Kevin Huizenga and Nicolas Robel. Huizenga's three stories center around a guy named Ganges, but feature a diverse array of topics. Two thoughtful comics essays (one on missing child notices, one on starlings) and one italian legend retold with hilarious gags and gloomy contemporary detail. Robel tells the story of a gloomy girl musing on her life to date; it is remeniscent of Debbie Dreschler's luminous early comics, but I don't think I've ever seen comics that communicated internal feelings and inclinations so effectively without sacrificing the sense that the story "takes place" in the world outside the protaganist, never shifting the "story space" to a purely internal space.

Marshal Law: A Judge Dredd writer and the artist of Alan Moore's way-better-than-the-movie series League of Extraordinary Gentlemen produce ultra-violent tales of science-fantasy mayhem with a cheeky drunk-testosterone-rage sense of humor. It's notable mostly for Kevin O'Neill's almost sculptural art. His oddly chunky compositions are allowed more flow and overlap here than when following Alan Moore's infamously detailed and rigourous scripts, and the whole thing feels like a visionary version of the kind of comics that guy you knew in high school who drew monsters might have gone on to do.

Hoo-Hah.

Today in church there was a discussion about Intelligent Design, and one guy pointed out that a problem with comparing the world to designed machines is that with most complex machines there isn't one designer; there's a slew of people who worked on it. So Intelligent Design theory would seem to work better with Polytheism than Monotheism. Ouch.

I'm also signed onto a church program where you send little anonymous gifts to a child in the congregation, then there's a little cookies-and-juice (no liquor) party where everybody meets each other. My kid likes Yui-Gi-Oh (sp?) so now I have to go research which kinds of Yui-Ji-Oh cards are hip and which are passe. Why am I doing this? Because I have a crush on the lady who was working the sign-up table after church. Piety alone won't keep a church running! If I had a buck for every guy who's only in church because his wife or girlfriend requires it, I could start my own church. A Crystal Cathedral. And then there's the slobs like me who see church as (among other things) a classy alternative/supplement to the bar scene.

I swore I wouldn't do any more theatre type stuff for a while, but a friend is slapping a movie together and so I went ahead and auditioned. I don't know how the film will turn out, but the writer/director/friend is a wonderfully talented guy who is only just now putting his talents to active use, so even if the film turns out cruddy it's still cause for celebration. Ya gotta walk before you can run.

Weight loss update: Fuggidaboutit. I've kept my no-chocolate pledge, but since I'm scarfing all kinds of non-chocolate sweets it doesn't seem to matter. On that note I better go out and waddle around a little. Seeya!

Muppets

I've been watching the Muppets Season One DVD set, and it's interesting how much of the pleasure of the show is in the "acting" of the puppets, or of the puppeteers through the puppets. I never really thought about it when I was a kid grooving on the slapstick, but the way the puppeteers are able to simulate real human physical responses to emotional stimuli (little things like slouching, shrugging, lowering ones' eyelids in weariness) is just as important as the exciting and colorful character designs. On the other hand it's a bit disappointing how uneven the jokes are, and how weak Jim Henson's ubiquitious singing is. Still, Gonzo's willfully impenetrable avant-guarde routines and Miss Piggy's deranged courtship of Kermit are still funny, and I like how they stole a page from Jack Benny's playbook: female guest stars flirt outrageously with Kermit. Of course Benny always acted like it was only his due, while Kermit always seems abashed... Another surprise, at least for me; the more serious musical routines that emphasis strong singing (from the guest) and lyrical puppetry (like the graceful green dancing things in the first episode) are some of my favorite bits now. When I was a kid they couldn't be over and out of the way fast enough. Not that they aren't open to accusations of kitchiness, but they suggest possibilities for puppetry that the Jim Henson crew continued to explore over the years. I remember some show they did around 1988 with great fondness, in which they really worked the full cinematic possibilities of puppetry and did more storytelling along with the sketch comedy.

What a cut-up!

Are you familiar with cutups? William Burroughs popularized them... it's an approach to manipulating words in ways that can yield surprising results. Here's a digital cut-up device which admittedly defeats part of what Burroughs regarded as the point of the exercise: allowing writers to physically manipulate their materials, much as visual artists do. A sort of word sculpting. Still, digital toys for digital times...

The following paragraph is a cutup I made using this device-I just wrote a little paragraph about my life at the moment, which was a little too plain and a little too direct. I think this cut-up makes it more interesting and more truthful.

Lately I've been in an odd floating on a lake, feeling the grilling on the beach yet unable like life is a constant stream stream of minor problems and causes it is. I love her her better when I'm just trying state; enervated yet enthusiastic, like I'm sun's rays, excited about the food to swim to shore. It's of splendid things with a constant for concern. Well, I suppose she but I seem to love to be her friend.

An odd day. But a restful one.

I slept late and woke up five minutes before church service was set to start; feel a bit bad about that. But I needed it; perhaps this will be an especially productive week now that I've gotten a head start on good, healthy sleep.

Anyway, it was oddly warm for this time a year, and cloudy. Dim and humid, almost like living at the bottom of a lake. I spent much of the day just strolling around; It's the first time I've felt sweat plastering my shirt to my back in months.

I've been reading Rumi: the Book of Love, a collection of poems by a Sufi mystic, translated by Coleman Barks. Lovely stuff. "Stop weaving, and watch how the pattern improves." I'm slowly learning how to live the truth of this.

Things I love about Karaoke

Black people singing country songs. Something about this just fills me with delight... maybe because it suggests that the melting pot is really working.

Exuberantly bad singers. Mrs Miller types.

When two or three nervous singers band together to do a song as a group.

When you can't tell how much of the singing you're hearing is from the people onstage, the people in the crowd or the prerecorded voices.

When gals do songs that are written for guys and vice versa.

My friend J'mel's story about singing "Thank You" by Alanis and making Pokemon characters the subjects of his thanks. "Thank you Pikachu, Thank you Geodude..."

Why magic box no SING?

My computer's audio device thingy (Riptide audio or somesuch) has developed a deep spiritul need to not work. Being the kind of doofus who can't pick his nose without putting an eye out, I am certainly unable to rise to this occasion. It's probably for the best; one more reason to turn off the computer, go outside and soak up some sunshine, if there were any sunshine this time of year for a wage slave like your Humble Author.

But if the computer won't sing, no worries; I will! Tomorrow a few folks from my last show are heading to Starz on Valley Ave. to warble a bit of karaoke. Karaoke, the sport of kings, is actually an ideal activity for me at this point; I've gotten really passionate about outsider music, and karaoke brings it to your neighbourhood.

I have a few actual thoughts I'd like to share on a subject that's been nagging at me for a while, but I'm too sleepy to share them yet... but soon I'll have a few things to say on the subject of vicarious living. Take care till then!