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".

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).

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

New John Hodgman ad for "That is All"

I still need to get this book.

Signal Watch Reads: The Grapes of Wrath

The Grapes of Wrath is among the books you're supposed to read that I was never assigned in K-12 or during college (I only took one literature class in college, and I don't know if we read anything by an American author.  Film and History degrees.  Sorry.), and as Tom Joad never dawns a cape in the book, nor does Ma Joad fight a robot or gorilla, it fell to the bottom of my reading list.  But as part of my program to catch up on books you're supposed to read that also translate pretty well to audiobook, I recently finished the 22 hour odyssey of Steinbeck's best known work.

No doubt in the era in which it was released, the book was a piece of propaganda, and I imagine it was intended as something like the socially-conscious work of Upton Sinclair in books like The Jungle, using popular media to draw attention to the circumstances of those who'd been caught up in the crush of economic and environmental turmoil in the farming communities of the south-central United States (in our case, Oklahoma) during the 1930's.

As a quick summary - the book follows the fortunes of the Joad family which, like everyone else in their Oklahoma community, is devastated by a bad crop, and loses their farm to a large industrial concern (the books makes plain this misfortune befalls most small farmers in the middle states).  With farm as home, they have nowhere else they can go and earn a living, and so take to the road to California, where they believe jobs will await them picking fruit.  It follows the hardship of crossing the country when there's no money to start with, and the reason all those Okies believed that this would work.

gggnnngghhhhhh.... The "I'm Not Feeling Like A Real Post" Itemized Round-Up

This is sort of how I'm feeling at the moment.  I'm doing all right, but, man...  hordes of pinheads, why are you so many, and why do you keep coming?  Even when I keep swinging my axe into your squishy selves?

Its just been a sort of irritating two days, and I'm hoping tomorrow goes better.  Even when I know Friday is going to be a mess of scheduling conflicts.

Item - I finally finished DC's Brightest Day with Volume 3.

What a mess that thing was...  It had some good elements but...  by and large, I see no reason why I'd tell anyone else to read that thing.  I find it sad that the only DC event book that felt driven more by character than "putting a hat on a hat" plot contrivances was the controversial Identity Crisis.  And the only plot-driven one I felt worked as a story was Final Crisis, but only if you read the Superman tie-in.  Go figure.

Item - if you're in Austin on Friday night, go see Jason's band "The Mono Ensemble" at the Carousel Lounge.  Its from 9:00 - 10:30.  There might be a cover, but the rockin' comes free with the seat.

If you're wondering what sort of music Jason plays - its sort of like this.  Only with a lot more dinking around between songs.

Item - I'm in Dallas for the evening and very tired.  I slept pretty badly last night.  Probably why I'm cranky with humanity today, and why its okay if I'm holed up in a rather nice hotel room by myself for the evening.

Item - After enjoying both first seasons, I haven't made time for either Boardwalk Empire or The Walking Dead this year.  I just can't seem to be motivated by TV at the moment.

Well, I am still making time for almost ten shows I can think of, and that seems like plenty, really. And considering I can't find time to read or catch up on my Noir viewing - where the heck is my time going?

Item - Be kind to your fellow humans.  And animals.  Your daily reminder.

Item - Jamie and I will be attending the UT/  Texas Tech game on Saturday.  If you see it televised, I'll be the one in the orange shirt.

Item - Grapes of Wrath is a really, really long book.

Item - Be cool and buy my friends' album.  I can't guarantee you'll like it, but you'll make some very nice boys in Seattle just happy as clams.

Books, Comics, Personal and Movies - Come read a round-up, won't you?

I'm not really feeling like doing some big, hefty posts at the moment.  Perhaps all the DCNu has worn me down.

Books:  On my quest to get to books I haven't read yet that you're supposed to read, I'm currently listening to The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck.  It's read by actor Dylan Baker, who I've always thought to be really good, no matter the project he's in.  And he's doing an awesome job thus far with this book.

Comics:  I just read Fogtown by Andersen Gabrych and Brad Rader from Vertigo Comics' Vertigo Crime line (my first dip in).  Its a pretty good detective story in the classic vein, but with a lot of modern sensibility despite its 1953 time-setting.  The protagonist/ narrator is very deeply in the closet, but its really the post-Chinatown content that keeps the 50's a setting rather than being truly evocative of the period.  Still, a good, brisk read.  And now that these books are in paperback and the price dropped, a lot better deal.  Feels a lot more like the dimestore novel this book emulates in spirit.

Personal:  My folks are off the Las Vegas for the first time.  It cracks me up.  They've been all over the planet, but I wasn't sure how to prepare them for the most ridiculous place I've ever been.  "Go to the Bellagio!" I said, unsure of what else to tell them.  What am I supposed to do?  Recommend The Gun Store to The Karebear?

Movies:  For some reason the 1984 film Streets of Fire kept coming up, so this evening I made Jamie watch the Michael Pare vehicle.  The entire movie makes so much more sense when you realize Jim Steinman, the brains behind Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell and Bat Out of Hell II wrote some of the movie's music, and no matter what they tell you, this should have been a Meatloaf musical.  It also stars all kinds of folks you know from other projects from Rick Moranis to Robert Townsend to Willem DaFoe and a very, very young Diane Lane.

Dude, I can only wish that "what it meant to be young" for me had included shotguns, cool cars and Diane Lane.

The dialog is pretty goofy in that way tough-guy dialog from the 1980's just absolutely doesn't work at all anymore (and not because of dated slang, etc...  It was like they were just learning how to use swears back then).  And frankly, I'm not sure anybody is very good in this movie, but its absolutely interesting.

Our Own Nathan C interviews Michael Uslan! Uber-Batman Fan and Bat-Film Producer

Longtime Pal and Signal Corps Founding Member NathanC is at Texas Public Radio in San Antonio. In addition to his regular duties making radio happen, he covers cinema and programs the Summer Cinema series for TPR.

He also does a lot of interviews with film-related folk.  Now Nathan has landed an interview with Michael Uslan!

Uslan is a former comics writer, and is now a producer of Batman movies going back to the 1980's and running up to the upcoming Dark Knight Rises.  Uslan's memoir, The Boy Who Loved Batman, has just arrived, and I'd heard about it via the buzz its gotten on the comics interwebs (people were pretty happy Uslan, who is such a champion for comics and Batman, was chatting a bit).

Its a great interview!  Listen here.

The Giant Eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg

I have very few memories of reading The Great Gatsby in high school.  Well, not exactly.  I have several flashes of memory of reading The Great Gatsby.

1. I remember finding all of the characters insufferable except Jay Gatsby, which I guess is correct.  But at the time, it made turning every page feel like I was lifting a 200 lb. steel plate.
2. I remember the book was a slim volume, but we spent weeks deciphering it like it was a set of clues as if we were our own little symbologists uncovering a Dan Brown "mystery".  
3. I don't remember a lot of hand waving about the "examination of the American Dream", but nobody telling me what the hell that actually meant.
4. I was somewhat obsessed with the Giant Eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg because my instructor and my CliffsNotes were also obsessed with the Giant eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg.  
5. We had to do some sort of class project, and ours was a skit in which we re-enacted the fatal car crash.  I was very proud of the "Dr. T.J. Eckleburg" sign I'd made with Sharpies on poster board for set decoration. I also played Gatsby, I believe.  
6. By the time I decided to give the book another go, I had no memory of it save for
1. The green light at Daisy's dock and Jay reaching out toward it in the darkness
2. Somebody was hit by a car
3. The Giant Eyes of Dr. TJ Eckleburg

10 things I currently like

As I went on and on about things I didn't like in a few recent posts, I thought I'd share a few things that I have enjoyed of late.

1. Game of Thrones - This show got off to a rocky start with an all-exposition pilot, and I wasn't sure I was going to care all that much about a fictional history of a fictional land when there are very real histories to care about.  But it did have a certain je ne sais quoi, and by the end of the 3rd episode, I was in for the full season.  I can't spell anybody's name, or remember half the names, but its still a really well produced show.  And Peter Dinklage's character is my new hero.

2.  Batman Inc.  - Yesterday I read Batman Inc. # 2-5.  There's not a lot of emotional depth to this one that I enjoyed in prior Morrison Batman work, but its a compelling story and epic mystery. I think he does a great job of picking up Rucka's vibe with Batwoman, and I would likely pick up an El Gaucho series all on its own (which...  probably just me on that one, I guess).

3.  Batman Beyond - I did read Adam Beechen and Ryan Benjamin's first few issues in the collection entitled Hush Beyond, and I quite liked it.  I was a big fan of the TV series and straight-to-video movie, and I wasn't tired of the universe that was developed for the show and the JLU cartoon.  Beechen and Benjamin clearly were both familiar with the series, and its a fun read.  Very glad this series is ongoing and they they're giving Superman Beyond a One Shot to see how that goes. 

4.  Treme - I haven't made it through The Wire*, so don't start on me that this isn't as good as The Wire.  Its a damn good show, although parts have gotten a bit cute for my taste this season.  And its a good reminder of what happened and is still happening in our backyard.  Great ensemble cast, amazing ability to weave in culture and music, and it has Khandi Alexander outside of a CSI show that I can watch without feeling my eyes burn.  It is also job #87 or so that Kim Dickens has had in the last few years (JimD is right, Kim Dickens is pretty great).

5.  Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - A co-worker turned me onto this band, and they're much more listenable than  I would have guessed.  I particularly like the cut "I Love Creedence". 

6.  Friday Night Lights - yeah, I know its already been canceled, but I love this damn show.  And its so sad so many people bring their baggage from high school and apply it to missing one of the best shows on network TV.  The one downside is that I'm not sure the show ever got better than its pilot, which was one of the best hours of TV I've ever seen.  Also:  Connie Britton I could watch doing crossword puzzles or delinting sweaters.


7.  American Gods - is pretty good.  I need to just block out some time to finish it.

8.  Edamame - why nobody told me about this stuff before is mindblowing.  You are all on notice for not alerting me to edamame before now.


9.  The ACL Fest Lineup - Go figure, the one year I don't buy a 3-day pass, its a great line-up.  I'm only going Sunday. 

10.  My goofy gym - I love places with goofy names, and that includes my new gym:  Planet Fitness.  It just seems sort of half-baked, like they decided "eh, that's good enough" and called it a day.  Inside, the gym proudly declares itself "The No Judgement Zone" in four foot letters, which isn't a misspelling of "Judgement", but its also not how you see it usually spelled (ie: judgment).  And for that, I JUDGE THEM.  Also, literally everything in the gym is purple, yellow or black.  I can only guess this is seriously screwing up the rods and cones within the eyeballs of the employees.


*park it.  I will watch it eventually.

In which I choose to judge a book by its cover

This may be the greatest cover to a book I've ever seen. Well, maybe not the greatest, but it speaks to me.

Media Consumed While Travelling to and from London

On the way to London, mostly I slept.  But during the trip

I read:

The Score, by Richard Stark.  #5 in the series.  I really liked this one, and, boy do these books read fast.
Jonah Hex: Face Full of Violence - by Palmiotti and Gray (and others)
.5 of Jonah Hex: Guns of Vengeance - by Palmiotti and Gray (and others) I left this somewhere in the flat in Kensington.  Now I will have to fin another copy somewhere used or very cheap.
The first 175 pages of American Gods by Neil Gaiman.  If you start reading this and think "well, gee, this is a lot like Anansi Boys..."  keep reading.

I watched:

Space Battleship Yamoto - live action version.  It... wasn't very good. 
Jonah Hex - it also wasn't very good
3/4's of Black Swan - its good, but for a movie with so much hype, man, its about as subtle as a slap to the face.  I didn't turn it off out of disgust, btw.  The plane was landing.
Beverly Hills Cops - for some reason we all came back to the flat and stayed up late watching this on Sky.  No idea why.