Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Hello, Babies

On Wednesday evening I finished listening to God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater via audiobook.  I had read the most quoted part of the book on a poster by a local artists of some renown, a Mr. Tim Doyle (who once owned and managed a comic book shop in a mall beneath a dormitory), and the quote stuck with me the way some of these things do.  What the poster said was this:
Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind.
It is the blessing Eliot Rosewater plans to bestow upon a pair of twins born to an arsonist of ill-repute who has asked him to lead the proceedings at the twins' baptism.

Just so you know, I have been asked to officiate a wedding this coming winter. Should I be asked to officiate a baptism, the above quote shall be included in my remarks.  Other excerpts will be taken from The Bible, Ray Bradbury, and Kanye West.

Anyway, I finally consumed the book recommended to me long ago.  Thank you for the suggestion.

But now I feel like I need to read Slaughterhouse Five again.  Or all the Vonnegut novels I've read.  Again.

So it goes.

At any rate, a fine book and an interesting read as the presidential election blares out of every orifice of media and we all pound our chests about our understandings of who gets ahead and how and how we choose to look at one another as a matter of policy and, according to this novel, a matter of sanity.


Friday, August 10, 2012

We read more Parker: "The Seventh" and the graphic novel of "The Score"

The Seventh

The Seventh is, probably not-coincidentally, the seventh book in the Richard Stark (pen name of Donald Westlake) series of books about Parker, the tough guy master criminal who first appeared in The Hunter.

In this volume, following a particularly well-planned and executed heist that should have landed him a nice chunk of change (something sorely needed after the disastrous conclusion of The Jugger), Parker is hiding out and playing it cool when he comes back from a quick trip out for cigarettes and beer to find the girl he's been shacking up with stone cold dead in an apartment that's still locked and shows no signs of forced entry. And, of course, not just Parker's take (his seventh) is gone, but the whole take from the heist.

Stark never explains Parker, never spends time on much other than notes about characterization, and there's never a why.  All we see is Parker on the job, and it's not some writerly oversight.  Nobody gets insight into what makes Parker tic - be it his partners, the people he goes up against, or the reader.  We know he doesn't like small talk not just because the limited omniscience narrator tells us, but because Parker tells people rattling on at him to shut up, and he seems to appreciate the slain girl not just for her bedroom acrobatics, but for her agreement that they can sit in silence for hours if they've nothing to say.  But we never see a young Parker becoming Parker (at least by this seventh book).  Heck, we never even know his first name.

This book follows what happens not when a heist goes wrong, or a run in with the Outfit, but the unexpected occurring, and throwing Parker off his game.  We always get to see little pieces of Parker, and this book gives us an opportunity to see Parker wrestling a bit with making the smart move versus doing what he wants to do from a gut level once he's been shown up.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

All I've Been Doing has been Watching the Olympics

No movies.  No comics.  Basically, I've got none of my usual stuff to cover.

I've really been enjoying watching Volleyball.  Men's.  Women's.  Beach.  Otherwise.  I love the pace and the athleticism, and, of course, watching May-Treanor and Walsh-Jennings again has been a lot of fun.  The addition of Longhorn Destinee Hooker to the US Team has been just terrific.  It's great to see her get attention on such a huge stage.

I watched Little Girls' Gymnastics, and that was very sweet.  And seemingly not a headcase in the bunch.

Archery was pretty great this weekend, and this coming weekend I get to see Track & Field, the one time every four years when I watch those events, but I can't wait.

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Book Watch: SuperGods by Grant Morrison

In some ways, I feel like I could send the dozen or so regular readers of this site a copy of SuperGods by Grant Morrison and call it a day with The Signal Watch.

The basic breakdown of the book is equal parts comic book history and Grant Morrison's personal journey and how it associated with comics, eventually becoming his career, which, he reports, is fairly lucrative.  If you read your fair share of comics history and Grant Morrison interviews (and I do), then there's not a whole lot new in the pages, but what Morrison manages to do is what he does so often in the comics he writes: takes an existing idea and takes it on a new journey with a new thesis statement.


The bits of bio about Morrison are what's been reported in comics press: working class Scottish upbringing, hippie anti-nuke parents, punk-era-living under Thatcher, bands, a really vocal attachment to his cats (man, I hear you), early comics he's still talking about, etc...  And if you've read your David Hajdu, Lee Daniels and Gerard Jones, the comics history stuff is mostly known.  However, it's interesting to hear about it through Morrison's filter, what grabbed him as a kid, what grabbed him as a young man, and as a guy at the tipping front end of Generation X (I consider myself the last, dying gasp of the X'ers before Y came along assuming the internet was a foregone conclusion), how we looks at Miller and Moore's books in relation to the industry.  And, of course, he gets to talk a bit about the guys he works with who have been making comics history for the past two decades and more.  

Thursday, June 21, 2012

TL; DR: On Willing Suspension of Disbelief, John Carter of Mars, Superheroes and Sci-Fi

I was reading a post at The Onion AV Club offering a reconsideration of this spring's commercial disaster, John Carter, and a single statement stuck out at me.
On the run, Kitsch ends up encountering a Thern in a cave and is teleported to Mars. (I’m sorry, I mean Barsoom).
And with that, I had to re-evaluate everything else in the article.


Rightfully, elsewhere in the article the reviewer points to the pulp roots of the movie, that it was a film that perhaps reflected a different era not just of writing sci-fi (or, as it was called, "Planetary Romance" before "scientifiction" had been coined, which, of course, became "science fiction") but of film making.  Sure, I'm onboard with "not the right place on teh spacetime continuum for this movie, and not the right marketing"


But what struck me was the curiously quasi-anglo-centric/ xenophobic/ concrete thinking that belies so much of why sci-fi, fantasy, superheroes, etc... have such a hard time with an adult audience.  In short, I'm guessing this same author wouldn't have phrased it as "Kitsch end up encountering a Man in a cave and is teleported to Japan. (I'm sorry, I mean Nippon)." 

Monday, June 18, 2012

Superman Bio and Interview on NPR's "Fresh Air"

The word you're searching for when pondering this image is "awesome".

I spent the evening listening to Terry Gross's excellent interview of Larry Tye, who has written a sort of biography of Superman and the character's history across multiple mediums.  Thanks to Nathan and others for the link (Nathan alerted me to the interview bright and early).

It may be some time before I read the book.

Not to sound super-snooty, but I spend a lot of time reading about Superman, and have done so for quite a while.  All this fandom means that on top of the hundreds and thousands of Superman comics I've enjoyed, I've also read multiple histories of Superman - the media property, and check in daily with The Superman Homepage (an amazingly thorough web resource).  I've also read more than one comics history that used Superman as its fulcrum*.  I have seen all the Superman movies multiple times, watched every episode of the the 1950's TV series, watched the Ben Affleck movie about George Reeves, watched the Superboy TV series in small bits, have watched Lois and Clark, watched most of Smallville, listened to episodes of the radio show, watched the original movie serials, the 40's cartoon, the 60's cartoon, the 80's cartoon and the 90's cartoon.  Am hoping for a new cartoon in 2013.

In short, there's very little in the way of new information for me in the way of Superman.  Which is why I may actually read the thing.  It's always great to find out something new and interesting.  I confess to being a little concerned with the usual trotting out of Superman as stand-in religious figure.  It seems like a post-facto reading of the actual Superman comics until maybe the late 60's or early 70's, so you're talking 30 years of initial stories that I don't think really suggest any conscious parallels, but, whatever.  It doesn't mean the character isn't heavy with cultural fingerprints.

I still have a few Superman novels to read (both by Elliot S! Maggin), and there's plenty to know and learn about the upcoming Superman movie.  But I'm also not averse to checking out Tye's book at some point.  I still genuinely enjoy Superman fandom, and I'm not letting a little New 52 reboot get in my way on that front. After 75 years, its just a small patch in the middle of everything else.

Yes, I wrestle with what's happened with the Siegel estate, but I have hope that both the law and justice will prevail, and we'll see a sound resolution to the ownership of the character, publishing rights, copyright and trademark, and everything else that's not in the comics, but which has driven the comics for the past year, all shake out and disappear into the background.

We can hope.

Give the interview a listen.  It's a nice, brief overview of some of the highlights of Superman's history and the folks who've been involved with the character.


* check out Men of Tomorrow.  It's an amazing book, and sometimes I think I'm the only one who has read it.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Signal Watch Reads: The Jugger by Richard Stark

I've never been a book series guy before, but I guess between the John Carter books and now finishing my sixth Parker novel, I'm a book series guy.

I'm totally in the bag for the Parker books by Richard Stark (aka:  Donald Westlake).


The Jugger (1965) picks up finding Parker in small town Nebraska to check on his contact and the closest thing to a friend he's got (not that he's sentimental about it), Joe Sheer.  Only to to find that the panicky letters he'd been getting from Sherer were on the money, and by the time he's arrived, Sheer has died rather suddenly.



But since his arrival, local law has been keeping an eye on Parker, and now a twerp from the criminal underground has shown up insisting Parker must be there for some reason other than to say adios to Joe Sheer.  And he's just smalltime and dumb enough to think he can play ball with Parker.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Books. Comics. Movies. Travel. Grey Gardens.

Hello.

I am afraid it is already very late, and thanks to an evening out for dinner, followed by a catch-up call with my folks (just returned from Disneyworld), and catching up on a few things around the house, I am afraid we come to a third evening in which I have not written a post in which I review any media.  Partially, because no media has been consumed.

I feel I should post this evening because tomorrow night I am off to the movies to see a double bill of Shock Corridor and Naked Kiss at The Paramount's Stateside Theater.  You are welcome to join me.  At this time, I believe I am going alone.

Books:

During my commute, I am listening to For Whom the Bell Tolls*.  I also finally cracked Grant Morrison's Supergods over the weekend.

Supergods is covering a lot of history I already know, so I am really hoping it finds a new direction soon.  the Hemingway book is fantastic.  I'm pretty skimpy on my Hemingway, having only read short stories, some assigned stuff, and A Farewell to Arms.  Quite enjoying the audio book.


Comics:

Wednesday sees the arrival of Before Watchmen.  I won't return to discussing the project in this post, but its another DC product I'm leaving on the shelf.

But I am picking up a few books this week.  Action Comics.  Popeye.  Fury Max.  iZombie and X-O Manowar (which had at least an interesting first issue).  But looking at the picks for September...  Man, it looks a little bleak one year on from The New 52.


Movies:

Of course Wednesday, I'll be at the double bill of Shock Corridor and Naked Kiss, so maybe see you there.

Sunday I'm off to see Prometheus with Matty, Nicole and JuanD.  Should be a hoot.  I'm mostly looking forward to Scott's visual spectacle.  If the story pans out, all the better.

My Blu-Ray of John Carter is coming soon.  A movie not many saw, but which I really liked.  Here's to Planetary Romance.

For next week, I don't have anything on my Paramount schedule, but I do have a ticket to see The Old Dark  House at The Alamo Ritz.  It's a classic, but one that rarely screens.  This should be fun.  Again, I'm going alone, so if anyone wants to buy themselves a ticket, let me know.

Just FYI:  Realized tonight there's a strong chance I'm not going because...


Travel:  

Next week I'm off to Boston for most of the week for work.  I'm presenting with a colleague from Florida.  We'll be out in the "Quincy" area, wherever the heck that is.  I've never been to Boston, and I won't get to do any touristing.  It's going to be all-conference, all the time.

No, I am not telling you where or when I'm presenting, Mom and Dad.


Grey Gardens:

Home ownership has finally caught up with us.  In the past couple of weeks, we found a small stain in our laundry room was actually indicating a roof leak that hadn't leaked thanks to the SEVERE DROUGHT plaguing Texas.

May showers led to a leak that dripped between the walls of two rooms upstairs and straight down into the ceiling of our dining room.  A room which is delightfully free from any real furniture, so, it all ended okay after we lost some plaster, etc...

Then, our air conditioner died for a few days there.

I keep waiting for raccoons to start wandering through the living room.

Jamie has taken care of hiring people who can fix these things, and she has provided oversight of repairs.  We are keeping the slow decay of our home at bay for the time being.  Its just a bit taxing to even deal with, money aside.


That's it.

I gotta go to bed.

As a last thing...  the new album is out from Advance Base, if that's your thing.


*spoiler:  It tolls for THEE

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Signal Watch Watches: Ramona and Beezus (2010)

As a child of a teacher with her Masters in Reading Education, we never wanted for books around the house.  I had my favorites, and I read a lot of the Beverly Cleary books featuring the neighborhood of kids of Klickitat Street, with Henry Huggins, Beezus & Ramona (and Henry's dog, Ribsy*).

It's been a long, long time since I read the series, probably closer to 30 years than 20, and so my memory is a bit hazy.  Still, I was amazed at how many scenes and references from of the books came back to me when I found Ramona and Beezus on the HBO in-demand options, and once the movie started rolling.  From the "kitty-kat Q" to the proper way to crack a hardboiled egg (a technique I still employ from time to time), to the employment problems of Mr. Quimby.

I believe this is the edition of the book I had.  Beezus was such a square.

Friday, May 25, 2012

Signal Watch Reads - Further: Beyond the Threshold

Exploration.

I don't read a tremendous number of science-fiction novels, and I never have.  I know what that looks like, and I appreciate the fandom, but its never been me.  Sure, I went through my Bradbury phase and I glanced off the Robot Novels of Asimov, but even in middle-school I'd pick up paperbacks, read the product description on the back, and only rarely walk out the door with one I felt was worth the while.

I also don't read book series.  Its not that I haven't read, say, books by William Kennedy that share a set of characters and circumstances, but its not episodic in quite the same nature.  When I think about a series of books that numbers more than four, I can't get my head around it.

As you may have heard, I've been enjoying the writing stylings of Chris Roberson for a bit now, so when I heard he had a book coming out, I pulled some strings (asked politely) and got a copy.*

I just finished Further: Beyond the Threshold, a book I assume is intended to start a new series.



This is no-@#$%ing-around science fiction, and I quite enjoyed it.

Captain RJ Stone awakens from hypersleep which he entered aboard a star-faring vessel in the 23rd Century.  He finds himself alive and deeply aged 12,000 years later in a world which has changed over the millenia.  The era of seeking new planets has been conquered and mankind has spread itself out far over the cosmos.  With so much time passed, some of those civilizations have been lost, and the challenges of passing from one world to the next have been solved by way of instantaneous transportation via "thresholds".

Monday, April 16, 2012

Sometimes I Wonder What The Kids Don't Know About

I don't really know when they quit showing Popeye cartoons on TV, but I really don't remember seeing them on after I started college.  Its not like Popeye was all that popular even when we were kids in the late 70's and 80's.  Heck, one night I spent an hour explaining to Jamie what the hell a Jeep and a Sweet Pea were.

I just finished listening to the audiobook of Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon (also read by Chabon, who did a great job, I might add).  The book covers a lot of territory, considers adulthood, childhood, his fatherhood, how he relates to his kids, how he related to his parents...  He's got 10-12 years on me, and so is a product of the 1970's, a period I see in my mind's eye with a weird aura of gold and washed out color thanks to the film stock and production values in vogue at the time.

He talks a bit about how we mourns the content his kids have to consume, the formulaic closed-endedness of a cute but structurally dead-ended bit of Dreamworks entertainment.  He admits that between what the 90's called helicopter parenting, and this closed-off world of entertainment, he doesn't think his own kids really understand what it means to have an "adventure".  After all, if you're not letting your kids go beyond the end of the driveway, or out into the yard without supervision, how can you ever experience the unknown?  And its reflected in a lot of juvenile lit and entertainment.

He also discusses how he relates to his kids through media, how he's raising them on a steady geek-diet of Marvel comics, Dr. Who and other bits...  things that he enjoyed alone once, but that is creating bonds within his own family.

I've got no kids.  I don't often think much about passing on my passions to anyone else (Scout, simply, does not care about Superman.  She's sort of an X-Men fan, and I assume she'll grow out of that).

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Status, Reading, Grillmaster 2012, Writing

Status

Returned from Dallas this evening.

I like the UT Southwestern Med Center campus.  As with so much in Dallas, its very Logan's Run.  Its also crawling with young soon-to-be-doctors in scrubs and white coats all looking very stressed.

Reading

A long, long time ago AmyD suggested I read Michael Chabon's Manhood for Amateurs, and I am now listening to the audiobook.

I am, obviously, not a father (at least not to anyone I'm telling Jamie about), but I'd recommend friends who have taken the bold step to bring human life onto this miserable rock (either male or female) to give it a whirl.  Mr. Chabon's essays and observations are not all exactly something I agree with, but they're interesting, and I think they do an excellent job of exploring the headspace of us products of a generation raised on TV but who did not have the interets, play-dates and Pixar movies its now common practice for middle-class folk to foist upon their children.

Chabon's geek-media-fueled POV is of particular interest to me, even if many of his choices don't reflect my own.  But anyone who writes a paean to Big Barda gets my respect.

I am also finally reading The Jugger by Richard Stark (aka: Donald Westlake).  Its more Parker.  And its very, very Parker.  Nice to get back to Stark's punchy, brisk style.

Grillmaster 2012

For my birthday/ in order to engage in better living, I have finally moved from the charcoal grill to propane, something the me of 7 years ago would have found horrifying.  But the me of both Sunday and Wednesday evenings found absolutely fantastic.

Cooking meat inside your home is for chumps.  As is doing anything to vegetables but grilling them.  Especially when Matt T. Mangum pushes you aside on the maiden voyage of said grill and insists this is his show, and on Wednesday when Jamie wants to do this herself, so maybe you don't get to use that grill you bought, but you do get to just sit in a porch chair, watch the sun lower in the west and then enjoy a lovely dinner.

Writing

I'm at a very strange point in working on the thing I'm working on.

1)  To some extent, I'm now playing connect-the-dots with plot points I've always known were there, so I feel like I'm straying from character development, world-building, development of themes, etc... in favor of "let's get this told", which is a huge departure from where I spent several chapters/ years hacking away.

2)  Some items that popped up in the news were scheduled to happen within three chapters of where I'm at. Its both disarming and useful to see what actually happens in real life so I can see how close I was, and what the parties involved actually do.

3)  Writers, can you be kind to your protagonists?  It seems counter productive to raising the stakes or maintaining a certain goal or theme.

4)  Tween Vampire Fiction is fun to write.




Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Signal Watch Reads: Warlord of Mars

Well, I have now completed the first three Barsoom novels, just finishing Warlord of Mars.

I will say, of the three, Warlord is, perhaps, the silliest of three fairly ridiculous novels.  Now, when I say the books are ridiculous, these novels are hyperbolic, escapist adventure fantasy.  Its the predecessor to Flash Gordon and Conan by several years, each, and helped launch both genres.  While interesting themes and ideas present themselves in the three books, you'd be hard pressed to say that Edgar Rice Burroughs was pushing an agenda beneath the layers of the Barsoom novels, or that he was seeking to impart a subversive message or pat himself on the back for writing a very important book.  But that doesn't mean they aren't pretty wild fun, and don't work surprisingly well in the context of the modern action enthusiast.

But it can get silly.  Warlord features at least two instance where our hero goes undercover in iffy disguises, knocks himself out more than once, and routinely has to explain that maybe he isn't much of a thinker as he apologizes to the reader for not having a particularly good reason why he has once again pitched himself into a fight that maybe didn't need to happen (while suggesting he thinks to think too hard about these things is sort of for jerks, anyway).  In some ways, John Carter is the Jack Burton of his time and place.  He's a reasonable man caught up in unreasonable circumstances.

Hail to the king, baby

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Signal Watch Reads: Gods of Mars

I've now re-read Princess of Mars and finished Gods of Mars.  I am now heading into Warlord of Mars.  Because, you know:  Mars.

I am also going to spoil the end of the book because its not a spoiler.  Its so that you know something I wish I'd known - the book ends on an amazing cliffhanger.  DO NOT EXPECT NARRATIVE CLOSURE.  The last forty pages of the book, I just kept thinking "wow, this is really not seeming like its wrapping up here.  The first book had that whole epilogue sort of ending.  Not this one."  Nope.  It ends with a very Two Towers sort of insistence that you will read/buy book 3, and you will like it.

And I will.  Well, I have a collection with the first three books in it, so...

its pretty much this for over 200 pages

Nobody is going to accuse Edgar Rice Burroughs of writing deep literature with the Barsoom novels.  His character, John Carter, is not here to give lit majors reasons to write papers.  Sure, you could spend a lot of time exploring ideas of religion, class, race, masculinity and femininity in his work, and it might not be wrong to do so as you grapple with 20th Century genre-fiction's long and shaky history with all of these issues.  But these are books for crazy, escapist high adventure and if you find something else in there, well, there you are.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Signal Reads: 2001 - A Space Odyssey

Because as a kid I liked SPACE, the old man took me to whatever movies were out that featured people slipping free of the bonds of Earth's gravity.  And so it came to pass that he said "We can go see 2010, but I don't think you'll like it.  I've seen the first movie, and this isn't going to be The Last Starfighter."

"Ok," I said.  "I still want to go."

And so it passed that I saw 2010 in the theater and had to have The Admiral explain 2001 to me on the way home.  No, it did not have the visceral thrill of the sci-fi adventures I adored, but I had already seen Star Trek: The Motion Picture, so slow moving sci-fi epics were not outside my scope.  



Perhaps tellingly, very few kids in my grade saw 2010, but all of us in the special nerd math class I was in during 4th grade had seen it and thought it keen.  We also all agreed that Star Trek wasn't properly appreciated, so, you know, there was precedent.  In short - kid nerds of the 1980's.

About two years after 2010, The Admiral and Jason rented 2001 and watched it while I was out of the house.  A bit peeved I'd been left out, I sat down the next day and watched the first half of 2001 by myself until Jason wandered back into the house and finished watching it with me.  

So, yeah, its been a long time in coming that I finally decided to get a bit more of my nerd bonafides and purchased the audiobook of Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey.  

According to Clarke's forward to the audiobook, done in 2000 as we neared the actual year 2001, the book was written basically for Stanley Kubrick so he'd have something to use when he made a sci-fi movie that wasn't, in the filmmaker's estimation, a whole lot of hoo-ha.  And it is interesting to compare and contrast Kubrick's film with the novel, which is written in the very literal terms of mid-20th Century Sci-Fi, and does not contain the ethereal feel or the explanation-by-implication that can leave some viewers feeling stranded in the film's last 20-30 minutes.  



Despite the fact that script and novel were co-developed, there are some differences, including Discovery's destination (Saturn in the novel) and an explicit explanation of HAL's malfunctioning.  

Frankly, I very much enjoyed the book and I'm glad I "read" it after all this time.   The themes of the novel and film reflect very much upon how I personally consider what it means for human beings to continue to look at space as a possibility, which is either because of Kubrick's influence or because I watched too much Trek as a kid.  



The audiobook, by the way, is extremely brief, running under 7 hours.  There's something to how long something like Stranger in a Strange Land runs, and how much information was shared, or how much story was necessary (that audiobook ran about 22 hours, I think), and the impact possible on the reader.  

In comparison to the Barsoom novels I'm also currently reading, well, its more or less two different ends of the spectrum from this genre we call "science fiction".  And with Clarke's scientific high mindedness, even the mystery of the cosmos that Kubrick puts forth gets a near unlimited omniscient narrator's explanation we'd never get from just the visuals of the film, draining away some of the mystery (or confirming what you thought Kubrick was suggesting).  

Its a wonderful novel, and if you can deal with some of the dated concepts and the deadpan characterization of David Bowman, Heywood Floyd and Frank Poole, there's a lot to like if you've never read the book.  Particularly HAL's characterization.  

I should mention, the HAL-related stuff is far less important to the book than the movie, and acts more as a fulcrum toward making a point about men, machines and the perils of both (especially a billion miles from home).

Anyone else read the book?  Thoughts?


Sunday, March 18, 2012

Is this possibly the best book cover ever?


Not enough of you will see this if I bury it as a reblog on tumblr.  And I could not bear the thought that you would not see this, as it's the most amazing book cover we've seen since Carmen Miranda's Ghost is Haunting Space Station Three.  Because it is absolutely the one time we shall judge a book by its cover.

From tumblr.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

General Update: SXSW, Books, This week's Comics, Pop Art

Howdy!

While I'm still not firing on all cylinders, I'm so much better than this time last week.  Basically, I think I'll have a cough and sinus issues for a while, and I don't want to risk 30 minutes on the elliptical til this weekend, but I'm basically back up to firing speed.

SXSW

As we say in Austin, "South By" is on.  Tomorrow begins the musical portion, and I will not get to see Bruce Springsteen.

We missed Nathan this year as we were a sick house, and in no condition to get the house prepped, even had I not worried about hacking a lung all over him.  From watching him on Facebook, it looks like he had another great few days of coverage of the Film portion.

Some other friends from Seattle (if you knew me back in The Day, you might know them) showed up.  The My, Bryan M and their two bandmates.  We grabbed a meal with them and then they came to my office this week at work just to see me and see what I'm up to, which cracked me up.  Unfortunately I still haven't felt well enough to go out to any of their showcase shows.

Books

I just re-read A Princess of Mars and am starting Gods of Mars, the second John Carter book by Edgar Rice Burroughs.  I'd like to read at least the first three novels (especially as they came in a handy, single volume from Simon & Shuster for a really reasonable price).  Meanwhile, I decided to countermeasure that by giving 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke a listen as an audio book during my commute.

Yes, I've seen the movie a half-dozen times, but I'd always heard such good things about the book, and I wasn't ready to jump right into Rendevous with Rama.  If I like 2001, I will add that one to my bucket list.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

This sounds like a case for The League, P.I.

This dame has real trouble.  Sandwich trouble.
I have no idea what this is about, but its the kind of mystery I can get behind.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Noir City Special: We Crash Dashiell Hammett's Apartment

So, more than once I mentioned that Jenifer had lined up something highly unusual for my visit to San Francisco that was going to be a real topper for the trip out.

She told me ahead of time that she'd gotten this set up, but it didn't make any sense at the time.  After having spent a few days with Jenifer, I now get that she's just one of those people who has the near-magical ability to make things work.

Its also worth mentioning that Jenifer figured out from looking at pictures that she lives across the street from the recently renovated former apartment of pulp hero, Dashiell Hammett.

The story around the apartment itself is kind of amazing, and involves sleuthing on the part of his truest fans.  Its true Hammett lived in multiple buildings, but by looking at return addresses on envelopes from letters, descriptions of Sam Spade's apartment in The Maltese Falcon and a few other contextual clues, they've narrowed it down and figured out that this was the apartment Hammett resided at for a few years in San Francisco, and when he wrote The Maltese Falcon.

I'm still not entirely clear on how Jenifer made the contact, but this morning we met up with one of the organizers of Noir City, who had been one of those investigators and who had lived in the apartment himself and did a lot of renovations.  I won't go into specifics, but basically the apartment is now a very weird spot.  Nobody lives there, and its a residential building, so there are no tours.  Essentially its supported by a philanthropist who pays the rent and maintenance and the place sits empty most days except for an occasional tour like ours or a walking tour.

Jenifer models next to the plaque talking about Hammett outside the security door.
The building is down the street from my hotel, as well.  And one thing I've learned in my short stay is that behind a lot of these facades, there's something going on or some crazy history in a lot of these buildings you wouldn't guess walking by, be it a famous author's former residence, or a secret stash of vintage cars or swimming pools by big doors.

Just inside the doorway
It doesn't seem that anybody was really aware of the building's history until the last 20 years, and so the apartment had to be basically re-done to match the original decor.  The building went up in 1917, and so Hammett would have lived there about 10 years after it opened.  Since that time, landlords had removed doors, painted over glass, added a hundred layers of paint, etc...

Dedicated folks pieced together the apartment from fixtures in apartments from the building that were original, found items that matched the book, etc...

Its a fairly small place.  A bedroom/ living room with a murphy bed, a small bath (with the original clawfoot tub and toilet, so you can stand where Hammett stood as he showered, I suppose), a small kitchen, etc..   So this was not from a period in Hammett's life where the money was just rolling in.  Its a modest living space in a part of town with a lot of character now and then.

I did take more pictures, and when I upload them to Google, I'll post a link.

Oh, the Falcon on the desk?  I'm not sure what that's about.
No, this was not Hammett's chair, but its a nice chair, right?
Of a very special, very noir weekend, this was an unbelievable bit of history that put a near surreal spin on things.

Thanks to Jenifer for arranging the tour (and so much more during my stay), to Bill who was more host that tour guide, and Doug, who was... there, I guess.

More pics when I get home and get them off my phone.

Friday, December 2, 2011

Signal Watch Reads: It's Superman!

In 2005 or 2006, I bought the novel It's Superman! by Tom De Haven.  And, I never read it.  I don't know why.  I read the first couple of chapters and then loaned it to Judy (my mother-in-law) and when it came back a week later, I just never finished the book.

Truthfully, I didn't really understand the point of the book.  Who was Tom De Haven?  With television, comics, movies, cartoons, etc... all spinning their own take, why go to the media where Superman hasn't had as much success as elsewhere?  Why start over?

After listening to the novel as an audiobook from Blackstone (delivered via audible), I'm still not exactly sure.  Yes, the novel provides angles and insights movies and comics might not.  It follows inner monologues, switches points of view with tremendous regularity, but it also seems to lack a certain insight into Superman, the sort of insight that I think has been understood by others in recent media, from Mark Waid's Birthright to Paul Dini and Alex Ross's Peace on Earth to Morrison's All Star Superman to bits and snippets of Superman Returns.  And, again, I think I'm seeing it in Grant Morrison's Action Comics.

Between buying the book of It's Superman! and listening to the audiobook (thank goodness for long car rides), I read De Haven's follow up to this one.  The follow up, however, wasn't another novel.  Instead, it was a meditation on Superman entitled Our Hero: Superman on Earth.  It was a nuanced read but it also informs some of what I think De Haven struggled with in writing It's Superman! and where he and I might part ways in our opinions of what's going on with the character.