editor's note: I thought I lost this post, but found an open tab with a draft still available I was able to copy and add to. This isn't the original post that went out, but I - for the first time in years - accidentally erased that post when I clicked the wrong button.
Apparently yesterday was the 60th Birthday of Madonna.
Here at The Signal Watch, we salute Madonna as the person who told us it is 100% okay to like pop music. You will not lose your edge by enjoying Madonna.
After the Fourth of July, Jamie, her dad and myself flew to Chicago to take in some Cubs games. We talk a bit about the games and whatnot here.
Sunday the 8th, we rose, cleaned up the AirBnB, and Jamie and her dad waited for a Lyft to O'Hare while I waited for my own, separate Lyft that I might be whisked northward to Evanston where I was scheduled to put in two days of facetime on campus at Northwestern.
We bid each other good-bye and I jumped in the Lyft, bidding our neighborhood, Chicago's Boystown, good-bye, and rode mostly up Lakeshore.
the coolest kids you know. I am moping because my Cubbies just lost, 3-2 to the Reds.
This is our second year in a row to travel to The Windy City to take in some Cubs games (and rumor has it, we're doing it again next year). It's no secret I don't just cheer for The Cubs, but quite like Chicago. I also happen to work for a university in Chicago (from home), so I'm up here a lot.
Jamie humored me - and we watched Justice League (2017) and then she agreed to do a podcast.
Ryan welcomes a very special guest - Jamie, the light of his life - as they talk DC Entertainment's "Justice League", and Jamie works through her feelings about the movie. And Ryan maybe goes on a Kirby tangent.
So, on June 2nd I flew out from Austin to Bozeman, Montana to attend a conference. I never tack vacation days onto my work trips, but this year I'm doing it twice. I had never been to Montana, and as this event took place on the campus of Montana State University - and I really had no idea when or if I'd get back this direction - I booked a few extra days to just take it in.
A lot of us stayed at the Lewis & Clark Motel.
My colleagues feel welcomed, indeed!
A fine place for a bed and some sleep. They were really pushing the sauna, but... I dunno. I don't want to see my colleagues in just a towel any more than I suspect that's how they want to see me.
For the next week, I am in Bozeman, Montana on a work trip. Big conference. And if noir has taught me anything, we will all wear matching fezzes and get drunk and provide cover for someone trying to hide out in a hotel
I'm also taking some vacation days while I'm here because I've never been to this part of the world, and I'd like to see a mountain, a moose, a bear and water that is neither gross Texas creek water or gross Texas lake water.
Thus far I've eaten lunch here, had some coffee and walked around to see Downtown Bozeman, which is high-end knick-knackery and touristy eateries. Which serves my purposes well.
So, no movies for me this week, I'd guess. I might read a Superman comic or two. But expect a slowdown in posting, etc...
Yes, Jamie is still in Austin, but The Dug is set to be there by this evening and is hanging with her all week.
This weekend Jamie and I flew to New Orleans for the wedding of two folks I met via blogging and have become good pals with as we all lived in Austin for a few years before they departed for San Francisco and then NYC. On Saturday Steven H and Lauren R tied the knot in City Park with yours truly officiating.
The Peristyle in City Park. This is from the internet, but it is where the wedding occurred.
This was the third time I've officiated and every time it's no less nerve-wracking, and it is no less special as I've known all the couples well and know their stories. It's truly an honor and privilege to be asked, and to get to play that role is a truly memorable experience.
It's also the best seat in the house, if you're going to show up for a wedding, anyway. You want to see people having a moment as up close as it gets? That's where you want to be. You'll also see your friends looking as dashing and beautiful as they will ever be from, like, three feet away.
In short - I hope I didn't mess up the ceremony too much.
So, I guess I missed my own 15th Anniversary of blogging. We were over at League of Melbotis back then. Here's a link to the first batch of posts.
Back then, kids, we had no facebook, no twitter, barely had iTunes and it took me forever to figure out how to upload photos and have a comment section. I was a lad of about 27 and living as a Texas ex-pat in Arizona at the time. I was busily learning about Superman and comics, and I was oh, so, sweetly naive. Reading those early posts is sometimes a teeth-gnashing experience but also a journal of what was going on in my head in the blogging salad days.
April 18 marks both the 80th Anniversary of the release of Action Comics #1 and the release of Action Comics #1000.
Short a few documents written by fellows in wigs and waistcoats, there are few things in Western culture, Pop or otherwise, with so profound an impact or as wide a legacy as this simple, brief story by a couple of young men from Cleveland.
Superman's first appearance was just one of several of different genres appearing in Action Comics #1 (this link is currently good and includes the first Superman story) To revisit the story, every time I read it I find it shocking how much of Superman springs to life there in those first few pages - an assemblage of parts of other characters and science fiction concepts forged into something entirely new and its own.
Doomed planet. Locomotives and bullets. Lois Lane as a tough girl reporter. The cape, the boots, the forelock. A newspaper setting. The dual-identities of Clark Kent and Superman, Lois' failure to recognize her co-worker. Superman/ Clark's immediate attraction to Lois. Righting wrongs.
What about the time?
You were rollin' over
Fall on your face
You must be having fun
Walk lightly
Think of a time
You'd best believe
This think is real
Put away that gun
This part is simple
Try to recognize
What is in you mind
God help us
Help us loose our minds
These slippery people
Help us understand
What's the matter with him? He's alright
How do you know? The lord won't mind
Don't play no games, he's alright
Love from the bottom to the top
Turn like a wheel, he's alright
See for yourself, the Lord won't mind
We're gonna move right now
Turn like a wheel inside a wheel
I remember when
Sittin' in the tub
Pulled out the plug
The water was runnin' out
Cool down
Stop actin' crazy
They're gonna leave
And we'll be on our own
Seven times five
They were living creatures
Watch 'em come to life
Right before your eyes
Backslidin'
How do you do?
These slippery people
Gonna see you through
What's the matter with him? He's alright
How do you know? The lord won't mind
Don't play no games, he's alright
Love from the bottom to the top
Turn like a wheel, he's alright
See for yourself, the Lord won't mind
We're gonna move right now
Turn like a wheel inside a wheel
What's the matter with him? He's alright
How do you know? The lord won't mind
Don't play no games, he's alright
Love from the bottom to the top
Turn like a wheel, he's alright
See for yourself, the Lord won't mind
We're gonna move right now
Turn like a wheel inside a wheel
What's the matter with him? He's alright
How do you know? The lord won't mind
Don't play no games, he's alright
Love from the bottom to the top
Turn like a wheel, he's alright
See for yourself, the Lord won't mind
We're gonna move right now
Turn like a wheel inside a wheel
He's alright
Love from the bottom
Alright
Love from the bottom to the top
Alright
The love from the bottom
Right now
Turn like a wheel inside a wheel
Happy National Pet Day from The Signal Watch. This is your blogger with his two dogs, Scout (left) and Lucy (right).
Despite the fact they wanted to go out at 3:30 in the morning again last night, I love these two dogs dearly. They're older now, and it's both a heart breaking and lovely time in their lives - they are as sweet-natured as they've ever been, but you also see the sun is setting. They can't talk about it, and they want to still be the same dogs they've always been, and they just get up every day and keep trying. You just need to have more patience, help them when you can and love them as much as they love you.
I wouldn't trade these two knuckleheads for all the tea in China.
There's a bit of a travel season in Library-land, and it started this week (for me).
This week was a 72 hour turn around to Stanford to meet up with colleagues, plot the future, etc...
In my 9 years of working at my last job, where I traveled quite a bit, I never dealt with anything but the barest of inconveniences while flying or driving. And, the bit of travel I've had so far with this gig, it's been the smoothest of all possible sailing.
Nothing "bad" happened, but Wednesday I was set to fly out at 10:30 AM to be in San Jose pretty early (I think 2:30 Pacific) so I could get my hotel, get some work done, meet up with colleagues to do dinner. Instead a pretty standard issue awful spring weather system cut through Texas.
I dunno. I like milestones. That seems significant. 1000 posts. On movies.
There are 2865 published posts here, so I guess movies are mostly what we discuss. That's not to say I've watched 1000 movies since starting The Signal Watch, but it also isn't to say we haven't. I don't really know. I've only done the "let us account for every movie we've watched" thing a few times. And even then I left out things like Hallmark Christmas movies.
But I have been doing this blogging bit long enough that The Room has gone from a cult-movie bit of schadenfreude to fodder for an Oscar nominated picture and we've been through three Spider-Mans.
Seems this is a thing we're all doing, so here goes.
I very much remember placing this order (or these orders). Half of my friends were totally excited about this new Amazon thing, and half of them were convinced Amazon would just take my credit card and drain me of money. Both were right, as it turns out.
In 2017, at the height of my "oh, who cares?" moment, I made the decision to stop posting on every movie I'd watched. But I've found it's sort of weird to me, personally, that I can't go back and see a list of everything I watched in a year or refresh my memory from my notes when a movie comes on. Thus, in 2018, I'll be at least dropping the name of the movie and some info for my personal reference. That's what you can learn from the change in format that started at the beginning of the year.
When I was writing up every movie I'd seen, I said it allowed me to spend more time with a film, and that's still true. In 2017 I leaned into writing more of my personal experience, dropping some notes on how I engaged with the movie, and rarely got much into straight up attempts at criticism. There's enough of that out there, and you can Google any movie and find reasonable reviews and critiques.
Let it be known - I was remarkably square in high school. I don't want to over or undersell anything here.
But a kid's room is a timecapsule - not just of a time, but of what was going on and how things intersect. As near as I can tell from other pics in the stack, these are from some point between Christmas and Prom of 1993. If the other pics in the pack were taken at the same time, I have reason to think it's Christmas break of 1992.
My folks were incredibly lax about what I did with my room, which was on the second story of our house. It was in the front, had a big window I never opened, and had a vaulted ceiling, which was kind of nuts.
At some point I just started tacking and stapling stuff to my walls, and by the time I graduated, one wall was pretty well covered and the opposite was getting there.
All this was taken down unceremoniously circa 1995 when I'd left for college and my parents had some visitors with a kid who "couldn't sleep in my room". Apparently they found it "scary".
In theory some of the contents were preserved during the re-do of my room, but they didn't survive the purging of my old stuff pending the sale of my folks' house before they moved to Austin.
most of high school I was riddled with acne, so I don't know how I look so fresh-faced here
