That's right this is all a sneaky advert to plug Crypticon so you folks will come find us at Crypticon and make us grin. And buy stuff. :D
I'll be there Fri/Sat dunno about Sunday yet.
And, because you fine folks are such wonderful and long suffering lovelies, I shall remind and berate regarding the excellent ZFW: Volume One trade and the shiny and new Ron English Presents MC's Secret Circus order cut offs are this weekend so get down to your LCS and order 'em up! In fact a little bird shared that you can get Ron's book for %35 off at midtowncomics.com.
I trust each and every one of you looted to your heart's content? Excellent. In honor of the day of idiots - er the Rapture I present:
Something about this video strongly reminds me of the 1980s BBC miniseries of The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Now that I have that in my head I need to share it. NEED.
Now, bare in mind that when this was made computers were hugely expensive behemoths roughly the size of my house. So all the graphics you're seeing were actually hand drawn animations. Yeah. Fuck yeah even.
Aaaaaanyway
So allergy season is well and truly here. I'd forgotten how incredibly potent benadryl is I went ahead and took one, thinking I'd be able to function like a human being afterwards, PSYCH. Five hours later I woke up. Heh.
So in order to limit such occurrences and make the half packet of benadryl I've got left last longer I've been wearing a painter's style paper mask while weeding, shoveling gravel etc. I would wonder what my neighbors think about it except I'm reasonably sure they're so overcome by delight that someone is doing something about our ridiculous yard that I could be wearing a speedo and pasties while singing operatic arias and they wouldn't mind (that's an image that will pop into your head .5 seconds before you fall asleep tonight and startle you awake).
Also the city is putting raingardens in a few of my neighbor's yards so there are gawkers abounding anyway. But it does remind me of when I first got to Japan, I noticed quite a few locals wearing similar masks. At first I thought maybe it was an air quality issue - not - or maybe it was flu season - but it was May - so I chalked it up to allergies. I was wrong turns out if you're sick in Japan etc a lot of times the ill person will wear such a mask to limit the exposure of other people. Can you imagine anyone wearing an uncomfortable weird looking mask just to protect random strangers in the west? Weird yet cool right?
I don't really have anything earth shattering to report today. Well, not yet anyway, the day is young, we've survived 'the Rapture' what's not to look forward to?
I'm going to wander off now and pretend that the universe didn't collude in plotting to give me terrible allergies and painful womanly troubles in the same period of time and that the ibuprofen I took forty five minutes ago just hasn't kicked in, not that it is pathetic in the face of my angry body, and therefore I'm not really feeling this headache. Yeah. :P
Thought I'd update you fine folks. As most of you know none of the partners in CEP makes a red cent off her, it all goes to the creators we work with and back into the company so I've been living on my G.I. Bill and getting my learn on. Buuut time's being what they are I need a job. The G.I. Bill just doesn't pay that much and is subject to the whims of Congress and a massive bureaucracy. Anyway the point is I need a damn job. Last time I worked a real job was The Nightmare Job from HELL with the Infamous Psychotic Supervisor.
Anyway.
So, back in March I started the process of applying to the Transportation Security Administration at Seatac. I passed everything, the Computer Based Test, interview, security check, and nearly all of the physical. That is, they didn't find anything to disqualify me but I had to, of course, disclose my hypothyroidism and the medication I take for it yadda yadda.
They put me on medical hold. I have to show that I'm within normal limits while on medication. Problem is my medication has been undergoing adjustment since I was first diagnosed in October. I have another blood test on the 24th, and if that shows normal limits they'll take me off medical hold and stick me in the candidate's pool. I'll probably still end up waiting who knows how long before being actually hired and trained.
Also, I just got an email saying the applications I filled out a billion years ago to be a clerk at a state run liquor store has been short listed. I've filled out the pre-interview questionnaire and am now waiting to hear back.
I'm not picky, I'll just take one that lets me pay my bills, really.
In addition to all that I've been filling out at least one job application a day for anything I might remotely qualify for. No joy.
So if anyone needs a vacancy filled drop me a line... ;)
A loaded term if ever there was one. I've found it used predominantly by Christians, usually unsolicited by the person addressed, and about half the time it's a condescending judgmental conversations stopper, the other half it's meant sincerely and kindly. For the latter I've graciously accepted the statement as a gesture of compassion and sympathy. The former?
FUCK. YOU.
That said, what would the average Christian do if a Wiccan, Druid, Eclectic Witch, Kemetic or other pagan said, I'll pray for you?
Now, to be fair, I would be flabbergasted if the average pagan actually did that, by and large most pagan religions, creeds, etc are strongly against any kind of proselytizing and tend to be almost overly sensitive about interacting with another's faith/path without being specifically requested to do so (say via prayer, spells, even energy work). It's a touchy subject. So this question is massively theoretical. All of that said, how would a Christian perceive a Pagan turning that phrase back on them?
Would that be seen as a demonic assault? At the very least I imagine that it would be unwelcomed and possibly perceived as a hostile act. Well how the hell do you think the non-Christian hearing it feels? Even if it's a reactionary statement to a bad situation uttered by a lifelong Christian truly meant with love?
I'm genuinely curious. There are douchebags from all walks of life, every religion, every creed, every philosophy. The danger, I think, lies in the inability or unwillingness (out of fear, judgement, spite whatever) to realize that the people we are addressing have their own framework they're working from and may not be aware of or care about ours and can take something perfectly acceptable in our framework as a massive insult. Obviously that isn't limited to just religion etc. It can apply to nearly any interaction but it seems to set off more problems when religion and such becomes involved than otherwise.
I think part of the problem is that, at best, the term is a platitude. When I started working at Powers Funeral Home the site manager did some one on one training and one of the things she told me (which I'd already learned going through my mother's death) was to never ever use platitudes when offering condolences. It's insulting, aggravating, and offensive. Things like, 'they're better off now', or 'at least they're not in pain', or 'this is what they would've preferred'. Why? Because it's making assumptions about the wishes and fate of the dead, things that are often impossible to know, and it's mitigating and minimizing the pain of the mourners.
"I'll Pray for You" also makes assumptions. The phrase assumes that the user and recipient share the same faith, worldview, operational framework, etc. It also mitigates, marginalizes, and insults the possibility of a different still valid faith, worldview, operational framework etc.It strongly implies a dismissal of the other persons' values and therefore their inherent value and equality. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, feel free to argue or correct if you think I am but that's my perception.
/rant and ramble.
So what do you think, are you offended or annoyed when someone says that to you? Does it come up often if ever? Do you think it's acceptable in some situations but not others? How has that phrase been used around you? As a bludgeon or a bandaid?
Note: I thought I'd add in here that anyone that gives a crap is welcome to visit my other blog to follow along with my flaillings and musings as I work through Ár nDraíocht Féin: A Druid Fellowship's (ADF) Dedicant Path program, I'll also be touching lightly and briefly on the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids initiatory stuff as well but in broader non-specific terms as most of that is meant to be private, it's a mystery initiatory tradition, similar in that respect to the Masons. So what OBOD material filters in will be in the form of more broad comparative strokes than specifics.
I like mead. I'm not a wine person (red goes straight to my head, seriously I can have a six pack and be mildly happily buzzed, couple shots, few cocktails whatever, but half a glass of red and I'm swinging from chandeliers), I like beer and liquor though tequila, rum (any sweet liquor really) and hypnotiq are banned from my cupboard due to poor effects on me or awkward associations.
So, mead. Let's define it shall we? This is what wikipedia has to say int its first passage regarding mead:
"Mead (/ˈmiːd/meed; Archaic and Dialectual "medd" from Old English "meddu"), also called honey wine, is an alcoholic beverage that is produced by fermenting a solution of honey and water. It may also be produced by fermenting a solution of water and honey with grain mash; the mash is strained off immediately after fermentation.
Depending on local traditions and specific recipes, it may be flavored with spices, fruit, or hops (which produce a bitter, beer-like flavor).
The alcoholic content of mead may range from about 8% ABV[4] to 18%. It may be still, carbonated, or sparkling, and it may be dry, semi-sweet, or sweet.
Mead is known from many sources of ancient history throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia, although archaeological evidence of it is ambiguous. Its origins are lost in prehistory. "It can be regarded as the ancestor of all fermented drinks," Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat has observed, "antedating the cultivation of the soil."
Claude Lévi-Strauss makes a case for the invention of mead as a marker of the passage 'from nature to culture.' " (site)
So mead is old and AWESOME!
I prefer the dry to the semi-sweet or sweet (for the same reason I tend to avoid rum and other sweet liquors it plays havoc with my stomach), though there's an awesome fireweed mead by FairWinds Refinery out of Port Townsend that's pretty dang delicious. It has an almost nutty kind of bready undertaste that lingers with the warmth of the booze. Very tasty. There is at least one other local refinery/brewery/thingy that does an acceptable mead as well, though I've only been able to find their semi-sweet and sweet variety with any regular success, their dry though, is quite good. I'll add a note once I've hunted down the name of the joint.
There are all kinds of varieties of mead and spins on it as the wikipedia article hints at, I've seen spiced mead, mead with huckleberries and other fruits, I haven't had a chance to try sparkling mead though I wouldn't mind.
Mmmm meeeeeeaaaaad. Hell if it's good enough for Vikings, god only knows how many of our ancestors, and Ancient Celts, who am I to say no?
Who couldn't use a lil bit of the Bangles to kick off their week eh? I like the 80s they were an amusingly jaded yet in retrospect strangely naive time. I say strangely because while I was born in the 80s I don't actually remember them very well, a fact that seems to stymy people. I apologize for not recalling the Thundercats, I was probably busy in the back yard with my dog and some sticks making a fort or staging an invasion of G. I.Joes. I had priorities people!
Not to mention that I was probably a toddler and thus only allowed to watch Sesame Street. Just sayin'.
I do remember Exo-Squad, She-ra, Masters of the Universe, the Ninja Turtles, and a few other shows. I don't remember Gem, a fact that has stunned and horrified no less than three women I've known. The great thing is that these women couldn't be more different from each other, a fact that I find endlessly amusing. I also remember Captain Planet and was horrified upon watching it as an adult to discover that it was, at best, poorly disguised propaganda. Weird.
So on to our topic today.
Note: You won't see any pretty pictures for this post, honestly I couldn't really find any that weren't asinine, hateful, or just crap. If you can think of any feel free to post a link in the comments or suggest some.
I was listening to the radio on Friday night in my car as I drove down to Comic Evolution (I was helping Chuck move some inventory to the shop's new location). I heard a short news bit about a religious conference about Islam in Seattle, the topic was something along the lines of fostering a better understanding of Islam and less fear. The Imam that advocated for a mosque at Ground Zero was a speaker.
But here's something I've noticed.
We seem to blame and condemn people for being afraid of Islam and Muslims in general.Which, okay, fine, but let's look at the facts for a moment.
People wearing yarmulkes, pentagrams, oak leaves, crosses, etc didn't kill 3,000 innocent people. People claiming the title Christian, Pagan, Latter Day Saint, Jew, Hindu etc didn't do it either. Fact is the assholes that took those actions claimedto be Muslim, claimed to be doing it for glory and favor for Allah and so on.
It's fucked up and unfair that all Muslims are painted with the red-neck-bigot-hate-'em-'cause-I-can bullshit brush. It is, but is it fair to condemn and deride the fear people feel when faced with people of that faith? Yes and no - in my opinion.
I would split hairs and say this, it is fair to condemn fearful and hateful acts against someone for their faith, skin color, favorite sports team, job, or any other arbitrary aspect or condition.
But, feeling that fear, having that sphincter tightening reaction is, I think, not something that a lot of people can help and probably feel shame and guilt over. What decent person wouldn't?
I'm not trying to justify acting on these reactions or even having them in the first place by any means. I feel a sick rage toward anyone that acts inappropriately based on fear, ignorance, or hate. It truly baffles me that there are people out there that lack the most basic compassion. That are so devoid of empathy that they can Otherize another person to the point that treating them horribly is not only okay but preferred. I don't get it. I flat out don't and genuinely hope and pray that I never do, there are some things i don't want to be capable of comprehending. Call me a coward.
No, what I am saying is that when we feel fear about another religion, person, situation or aspect of our lives that is considered unpopular or inappropriate, that, instead of getting defensive about it, instead of feeling shame or guilt about it, instead of quashing the reaction and moving on with our days we take a moment to ask ourselves why.
Why do you feel like you should pull your children close when you see a man with a covered head (be it Sikh, Muslim, or balding man), why do you feel a thrill of resentment, fear, or suspicion when you see a woman wearing the protective garb of her faith? (which can be as much a function of cultural norms as adherence to faith) Most importantly why do you feel you should act on these feelings but manage to stop yourself before you actually perform them?
It's great that we as a people seem to be gaining some sense of sanity, compassion, and decency regarding the amorphous fear of something as abstract and subjective as a religion. But when you have that moment of fear or uncertainty, ask yourself, WHY?
Are you really afraid of the person or the faith? (being afraid of a complete stranger moreover a non-threatening one is hard to justify, as is being frightened of a freakin' religion) Or are you afraid of causing offense or distressing the other person? Are you afraid of looking like an insensitive ass in front of strangers at your favorite grocery store? Are you afraid to engage the unknown person in conversation or smile at them or interact with them or acknowledge their humanity as a reflection of your own?
If you are uncomfortable or afraid you owe it to your peace of mind to figure out why. Maybe read up on it, call a local mosque, synagogue etc and ask to speak with someone who wouldn't mind answering some stupid questions from an outside, go online and do some research, make up a handle and join a chat room or message board where you can ask these questions and not worry about looking or feeling like an ass because it's anonymous. Because here's the thing, odds are your fears, questions, and concerns are not yours alone.
Admonishing and quashing inappropriate, thoughtless, hateful, even violent behavior motivated by hate, fear, resentment and so on of someone's religion is absolutely a good thing to do. But if we don't explore and come to terms with the reasons that people, including ourselves, have these impulses in the first place then we're putting a bandaid on a bullet wound and pushing the issue aside. What good does that do any of us?
All I ask is that in addition to smacking the bigot shit head making pajama jokes at the woman wearing a burka in line at the grocery store, you take a second to wonder at the little voice of suspicion that spoke up in your head a split second before the bigot actually started to talk. Ask yourself what the difference between the two of you really is, is it just that he voiced the joke aloud?
Because while some of us may not act on it, some of us may act on it, and some of us (too few I think) may not even think it; we all know that these feelings and suspicions are buzzing around anyone wearing their faith on their sleeve. Whether they're Muslim, Orthodox Jews, Latter Day Saint, or any other religion or creed with a visible, demarcating symbol.
I'm not innocent I feel a spike of resentment in the back of my head whenever I hear someone mention their god as though he/she/it is the only deity out there, or assumes that I naturally worship theirs. I know what motivates it, I've been mistreated by people claiming the title of Christian. I know that it's fucked up when I get that buzz of hot headed annoyance. As a result I try to make a deliberate and conscious effort to kick it to the curb, because for every asshat that's looked down their nose at me, been condescending, judgmental, or flat out rude. There are at least a half dozen people that claim that same faith and have been fucking amazingly kind, inspirational, sincere, generous and basically the best ambassadors of their religion possible. So I can't justify a reactionary hatred to an off hand comment usually made by a well-intentioned stranger.
But I still have those moments, they may only last for a heartbeat, and I castigate and beat myself up over it but they happen. So I'm not asking anyone to do anything I'm not trying to do myself. I'm not asking us all to change our stripes for spots, to turn around years or decades of thinking overnight. All I'm asking is that you take a moment, a single breath, and think.
Please?
As always, thanks for reading and feel free to comment!
Update: This link popped up on my newsfeed on FB I'm not sure who or what posted it initially but it touches on some of what I'm trying (probably badly) to say here and does so in a an amusingly acerbic way that I enjoy. I love me some Cracked.com.
Note: You may have noticed that I slapped an adult content advisory on the blog recently. That's mostly so I can swear freely and not feel like my kindergarten teacher is clicking her tongue at me. Mrs.Fields was awesome. Also upon consideration I think I'm going to start posting three times a week, hopefully this will cut down on bullshit fluff pieces and allow me to properly polish and eyeball future posts.
In my arrogant yank opinion of course. And, to be fair, the BBC needn't necessarily bring them back, I suppose ..no shut up self, these are far too British to be manhandled by the U.S. networks. To be fair I haven't seen the remake of Being Human but in general...just say no to U.S. remakes. Besides these need to be brought back with the cast intact (oh impossible dreams of impossibility).
Here's why this might be a practical idea, British television isn't devoted to the 22 episode format. It's not unheard of to have a show that lasts for say one two hour movie a 'season', or has a season of two movies and fucks off for a couple years only to return with a miniseries format. They do this shit all the time.
Now, look at some of the beloved shows (by fans and critics) of cable lately, Mad Men - 13 episode seasons, The Walking Dead - 6 episode first season slated for a 13 episode second season, Breaking Bad, 7 episode first season 13 episode seasons thereafter. The magic number seems to be 13 episodes. Why? Well honestly it's probably a lot less grueling on the cast and crew to do half the number of episodes as the standard run. Therefore the writing can be a lot more coherent and consistent and plot arcs can develop at a sane pace. In my ever so humble opinion of course.
So on to the two shows in mind.
Allison and Robert
The first is Afterlife starring Lesley Sharp (some may recognize her from the episode of Nu-Who 'Midnight' where she was Sky, the woman that sat next to the Doctor) and Andrew Lincoln (AKA Rick from The Walking Dead).
Sharp plays a woman named Allison Mundy and Lincoln plays Robert Bridge a shrink. Here's a youtube link to ten minutes of the first episode:
Allison and Robert sort of team up. Robert's life work has been the exploration of humankind's need to believe and the folly thereof. So he takes on Allison as a case study and asks permission to observe her and write a book. She reluctantly agrees partly, I think, to fuck with a skeptic. The show was on for two seasons and was consistently excellent. Also yes Allison was just cyberstalked and guilt tripped by two well meaning old people. Ahh life.
Why I love this show:
1. It's one of the few horror/sf/fantasy shows out there that doesn't present weird shit and assume the audience will just take it.
2. The skeptic is kind of a shit head. Robert argues a decent case but there comes a point when he's clearly just shouting in the dark and Allison makes no bones about calling him out on it.
3. Back story, there's a whole back story for Allison that the writers drop hints about but was never developed properly because the show was killed off, what hints there are, however, are excellent and after seeing what back story is provided (and it's significant) it's amazing Allison isn't locked up somewhere with liquid lunches and IV anti-psychotics.
4. Chemistry, for once the chemistry between two opposite sex heterosexual characters screams quite strongly of friendship rather than lust. How utterly refreshing. (Don't get me wrong a healthy dose of lust is fine it's just that actual friendship is so much rarer in media)
You can find afterlife online if you don't mind doing some digging. It was recommended to me by one of my bestest friends Charlotte. *waves* (Faithful reader, you may be fortunate enough to hear directly from Charlotte herself at some point)
The second show is Wire in the Blood recommended to me by my twin brother. It's a gritty, sour, dark, and violent British crime drama based on a series of books by Val Mcdermid. Now, if you can watch this clip and guess which character is the shrink and which the patient before the reveal you get brownie points. Go ahead, I'll wait. *waits*
Did you get it? No worries if you didn't I was thrown too. S'part of why I love this show. Robson Green is great at making the extremely weird and should-be-creepy Dr. Hill somehow sympathetic and admirable. He works with DCI Carol Jordan for at least the first two seasons by semi-profiling super creepy and realistically non-standard serial killers (unlike some that show up in say, Criminal Minds etc, that are more Hollywood shock than logical). He does so in order to assist DCI Jordan's team, in the face of outright hostility from her superiors at first, though after some time they STFU and use Tony at will. Tony Hill doesn't worry about politics, vengeance, saving face and all the rest of the crap we all tend to mire ourselves in, rather, he genuinely only cares about catching the killers and if possible understanding them as well as he can.
Meanwhile, he struggles to continue his pursuits in academia and fulfill his duties to his few patients. DCI Jordan is a tough nut as well, more married to her work than anything, or one, else. There are hints of something possibly developing between them but Hill is so fucking weird and screwed up that nothing really materializes, though Jordan has plenty of issues and baggage as well. Not that she's some kind of neurotic basket case, far from it, she's an efficient and dedicated officer but she's reasonably flawed. There seems to be a trope to make female cops ineffective bumblers, men with boobs, or neurotic battle maidens that fuck for sport and kill for fun. Or maybe that's just in my head. Whatever the case Jordan is none of the above which, again, is pretty nice to see.
I haven't read the books the series is based on though I'm assuming that after the first season or two the show and the books go about their business on separate planes of fictional existence, rather like Dexter (not to mention I'm fairly sure that at least one of the books was published after the show's run). I'd like to read them but haven't bothered to track down the paperbacks yet and the kindle copies are $8 a piece so yeah. But, for those interested they are:
*NOT to be confused with a book of the same title by Lisa Carey,a very different book indeed
So, reasons I like this show:
1. Chemistry, I know I know, I just said how nice it was to have a sexually compatible pair with something aside from lust on the mind. Well, here's the thing, due to Tony's weirdness and unexamined issues (in the show at least, I'm pretty sure there's more expansion/explanation in the novels and suspect there's more than Tony being shy standing in the way) a physical relationship between them is pretty much a non-starter. Which, IMO tends to make it more interesting if not entirely more realistic. Not that I would really know obviously.
2. Wacky wacky Tony Hill / Robson Green. Seriously, this guy should be disturbing as hell, and probably would be if we were in the room with him when he's doing his role play mind meld thing but since there's a TV/Computer screen between us and him we're safe to kick back and enjoy the show. Not to mention the inevitable appeal of a person who, at the end of the day, genuinely cares most about stopping dangerous people and saving lives than his personal anything. Hell, in one episode a person he trusts accuses him of something abominable and even has him arrested before he's proven innocent and it never really occurs to him to go after the offender on a personal level. Who does that? Doctor Tony fucking Hill, that's who. And Robson Green brings Tony beautifully to life. Also, again, BACK STORY that isn't spoon fed to the audience. After the clip above it's pretty clear that 'ol Tony is damaged goods but the writers don't sit down and spend five minutes of some character monologuing about Tony's history.They let Tony tell us in his own way and in his own time and even then not everything is revealed, as it should be! Seriously, who among us has ever had the iconic reveal moment of a fucked up friend's reasons for being fucked up?
3. There's loads of eps compared to some other canceled series. Seriously I think there are six seasons plus one film (set in Texas, Tony is brought in to consult on a potential death row case involving an Iraq war Vet and the murder of the man's family. Interesting to see such a very British show's take on Texas and the U.S.).
4. It's genuinely compelling. Seriously, the twists and turns are so tight and well done that often even pausing the show to use the restroom etc is annoying and to be held off on.
5. The soundtrack / audio editing. As far as I know no soundtrack has ever been released which is a pity. The soundtrack is one of my favorites and extremely distinct. The sound editing is also quite well done especially during Tony's montages.
The series is excellent though Jordan is replaced in later seasons and the quality sags a bit. The movie set in Texas (Wire in the Blood: Prayer in the Bone) is not as good as the series but is interesting and worth watching regardless. And, unlike Afterlife or loads of other shows WitB had a healthy run nonetheless it would be a great one to resurrect.
Wire in the Blood is available on netflix instant, Afterlife is harder to find but if you know your way around the 'net I have faith you'll be able to track it down. As always, thanks for reading!
Note: I was going to post this on Saturday, then it dawned on me that doing so may be a rather poor idea as who gets up early to read a blog on Saturdays? So here it is a couple days early to insure you folks get a chance to plan your Saturday accordingly. Enjoy!
Okay so, first things first, Saturday, May 7th is Free Comic Book Day! FCBD is the one day when you can bop down to your LCS (Local Comic Shop) and get free comics! That's right! It's a great way to find out about upcoming comics, find out about announcements regarding new titles or changes to existing titles, and sample something that you wouldn't usually pick up because it's free.
Comic Evolution storefront
So, this year I strongly recommend checking out Comic Evolution in Puyallup on the corner of Meridian and Pioneer, downtown by the US Bank. This year Chuck Messinger owner/operator will have a special edition flip book available featuring Zombies Vs. Cheerleaders, and as a special Comic Evolution bonus Steve Franks and Mark Rahner will be on hand to sign it! For those of you unable to attend feel free to go hereto pick up the Comic Evolution exclusive cover of the flipbook and if you order before Monday Mark and Steve will sign it for you!
Chuck has some great deals going on for variants and back issues right now as well so feel free to pick up an armload or two while you're there!
Now if you can't make it to Comic Evolution but are in Southern Washington or Oregon check out Odyssey Comics and Coffee in Vancouver, Washington. Josh 'Bile' Cantrell will be there to sign comics and hang out with all our fans :D. Odyssey comics is located at 1503 NE 78th STE 10 in Vancouver and will be open from 9am to 7pm on Saturday. Come on by! They're also having a huge sale and special deals.
Also worth noting is that most libraries will also have some free comic books available, so why not bop on down, purchase your very own signed copy of the Rotten/Zombies Vs. Cheerleaders flipbook, a whole passel of free comics, get some good eats at the farmer's market and then swing by the library for a few more comics?
And while you're at CE or your local shop don't forget to order the newest and best offerings from Creator's Edge Press.
The amazingtastic cover!
MC's Secret Circus - A circus clown becomes a corporate powerhouse with the aid of a helpful alien.Ron English puts a contemporary twist on the pre-code comic aesthetic with the secret history of MC Supersized, the man who would be Ronald McDonald… if he hadn’t eaten the food. Also introducing MC’s obese alien sidekick Francis, who came to serve man… but got served. The comic, featuring parodies of comic book advertising, wacky packs, and introducing the Kursed Kids, offers a second chance at corruption for the generation of post-code consumers who were not sufficiently damaged by the comics of their youth. Pre-Order Now at your Local Comic Book Shop through Diamond Distribution, Order Code MAY110972.
Unfamiliar with Ron English (odds are you know him but don't know that you know him)? Check out his page for more examples of his work and awesomeness. Here's an excerpt "One of the most prolific and recognizable artists alive today, Ron English has bombed the global landscape with unforgettable images, on the street, in museums, in movies, books and television. English coined the term POPaganda to describe his signature mash-up of high and low cultural touchstones, from superhero mythology to totems of art history, populated with his vast and constantly growing arsenal of original characters, including MC Supersized, the obese fast-food mascot featured in the hit movie “Supersize Me,” and Abraham Obama, the fusion of America’s 16th and 44th Presidents, an image widely discussed in the media as directly impacting the 2008 election. Other characters carousing through English’s art, in paintings, billboards, and sculpture include three-eyed rabbits, udderly delicious cowgirls and grinning skulls, blending stunning visuals with the bitingly humorous undertones of America’s Premier Pop Iconoclast. "
Take a stand for great art and subversive thinking, help keep indie comics indie and celebrate the culture of freedom of expression we're so fortunate to have and order Ron English's MC's Secret Circus by Creator's Edge Press today! Diamond order code: MAY110972
The second offering CEP has for all the fine discerning readers out there is ZFW:Volume One.
Cover for issue #1 / Primer
We proudly announce that the full finished first graphic novel of Josh 'Bile' Cantrell's Zombies of Foreign Wars is complete and available for pre-order via Diamond! Featuring the art of Hopscotch Sunday a local Portland, Oregon artist ZFW details the exploits and adventures of a band of irascible vets that battle their way with booze, bullets, bullshit and camaraderie through a zombie infested United States.
A group of emo-teens perform a dark ceremony in a small town cemetery only something goes terribly wrong unleashing hoards of the undead from their graves. The teens panic and flee but only one survives and manages to reach relative safety in the local VFW hall. Once inside the teen pleads for help from a steely band of over the hill, hard drinking, hard cussing, and hard fighting vets. The zombies follow the teen to the hall and all hell breaks loose.
Will the heroic vets kick ass? Hell yes! Will they find the real source of the zombie plague? Will they take names and kick ass across the U.S. in a quest for answers and more booze? Order ZFW: Volume One to find out! Diamond order code: MAY110973
As always thanks for reading and feel free to comment! Remember, only you can keep independent comics independent!
Update: Holy crap I just found out that the Pioneer bakery down the street from Comic Evolution is going to be celebrating their 85th anniversary on Saturday. They're advertising $.25 coffee and donut and $1.00 loaves of bread! You can get an armload of comics, coffee and a donut, for only $.25 on Saturday! Get on down there folks! This is the link for more information on the anniversary celebration!
I'm going back to the old standby of movie/television show reviews for Thursday and Friday's posts. I've tried to choose some somewhat obscure favorites to tantalize you fine readers. I say tried because the weather here is finally becoming downright nice, never mind pleasant, and I really don't expect anything I post to really be able to vie with anyone's attention span when lovely weather beckons. Still, the sun goes down at some point and a good movie or show can be just the ticket.
Aaaanyway, to kick off I'm going to babble a bit about one of my new favorite flicks that's a bit obscure though it was released in '07. It's an interesting film partly because it's main method of distribution prior to its appearance on Netflix instant and on DVD (I think its even on BD now but I really don't see why) on Amazon etc. was via peer to peer torrent based file sharing. That's right, the movie was basically pirated and passed around but get this, instead of getting upset the creators and producers thanked fans for sharing it and solicited donations. It's fair to say it was a successful distribution method since, as noted, it's now reached a much wider and more profitable audience. There is an interesting entry for it on Tv tropes beware that it's spoilery although they do hide major spoilers.
John likes it by the fire
This film is, as the title of this blog states, Jerome Bixby's The Man from Earth, or The Man from Earth.
The film opens with a man loading goods into a pickup truck. Soon other characters arrive and tease him about leaving a party and so on. Turns out the man loading the truck is named John Oldman and is a professor that is retiring/quitting his job to pursue other interests but with very little notice to his colleagues and no real explanation of his flight or where he's going. His companions tease and cajole and finally call him out on the mystery. This is where it gets interesting.
DETOUR
I'll digress for a moment to warn the potential viewer about the quality of the film stock. For whatever reason they opted to use film or cameras or something that rendered the picture extremely grainy. The soundtrack is crisp and clear, the dialogue likewise and the set and location (yes just one of each really this is more like a play than a movie) are quite nice and yet...so, so grainy. So, if you can't stand poor picture quality (can't blame you if you do I despise bad audio or poorly leveled audio, y'know where the action is five billion times louder than the dialogue?) you may want to go in cautiously.
END DETOUR
John admits that the reason he's leaving (now don't laugh this actually works quite well in the movie) is that he's a 14,000 year old Magdalanian caveman and people around him are now beginning to notice that he isn't aging. Now he doesn't just blurt that out, he leads into it via the whole, 'what would you say if' schtick and presents it as more of a thought experiment than a reality before he launches into a spiel about how he had a chance to sail with Columbus but was still a little concerned about falling off the world. Yeah.
John being moody while his companions discuss him in the background
What follows is his autobiography while his friends (anthropologists, biologist, etc) try to reason out the logic of the claim, they even call in another character, a psychiatrist/psychologist (he states he's one but another characters refers to him as the other) to see if John has completely lost it. They discuss historical events he was part of, people he knew, and people he was.
The logic is pretty decent though the bit about the flat Earth bothered me as the Greeks were fully aware that the Earth was round. Still, as John says, "One man, one perspective" when asked about great historical events he was nowhere near when they occurred, meaning, he may've had a pulse at the time but wasn't necessarily on the scene. So I'll take that to mean he missed out on that bit of ancient Greek wisdom, or hell might've forgotten it, after all presumably he only has a normal human being's memory banks to work with. They do a good job of touching on and elaborating on the practicalities and questions most people who've pondered literal human immortality have likely wondered about.
The gang arrives spoiling John's plans
Now, about the writing. D'yeah know who Jerome Bixby is? No? Well then. This is his wikipedia entry but to save you the trouble of clicking I present a tasty excerpt (unfortunately he passed away 1998 The Man from Earth was his last work finished on his deathbed):
So, really now, with talent, skill, and experience like that to back it up it's small wonder the darn thing is so well written and compelling. Remember it's basically a half dozen or so academics drinking whiskey and pondering shit in a cabin. Seriously, that's it, and it's still a great movie, a real brain twister that leaves you (me) kind of wondering/hoping if there might not be a John or Jane Oldman out there somewhere. The performances as well are decent though the fella playing John comes across as a hair over actory in one or two bits.
Behold, the trailer:
And apparently at least one performance of the film-as-a-play has been done which makes me giddy, I'd love to see a local group perform it, I think the story and such would be fascinating to see live. Here's a trailer for a play production of it, thus proving such productions exist:
So I started reading the Song of Ice and Fire books a few months ago. Actually if I'm honest I started to read them like two years ago but I only read the first and was then eaten by other projects and the like. Special thanks go to Gabe for introducing me to the series and then hounding -er 'reminding' me to read on. I'm not saying the series is dull enough that harassment is required to finish it, quite the opposite, I'm just a special little snowflake.
Aaaanyway. For those unaware the first book in the series A Game of Thrones has been made into a 10 part HBO miniseries and after the excellent reception of the first episode a second season has been fully greenlit.
In broad strokes the series is basically a retelling/reworking of the British historical conflict the War of the Roses. Only with like, magic, and dragons, and incredibly intense drama and angst. So, maybe saying its inspired by the War of the Roses would be more accurate. Hmm.
Sean Bean as Eddard Stark
Anyway in broad strokes the story takes place on the continent of Westeros. Years beforethe story opens, Robert Baratheon lead a rebellion against mad King Aerys Targaryen. Robert won the day and the crown with the assistance of his friend Eddard (Ned) Stark as well as Jamie Lannister a member of the Kingsguard who betrayed and murdered Aerys. The Targaryen family was also wiped out including an infant.
The Targaryens were the descendants of an invading family from the land of Valyria several thousand years in the past. Valyria later fell to an unknown cataclysm (widely believed by fans to have been an enormous volcanic eruption) leaving the Targaryens and their dragons the last of their kind. They invaded with actual dragons (seriously Westeros was doomed to fall imagine air power against swords...yeah) united the existing seven kingdoms of Westeros under one banner and forged the Iron Throne. Which is all nasty hooked jagged bits that grabs and cuts at the ruler sitting in it.The Targaryens are known for having violet eyes and marrying their siblings (they don't seem to have the violet eyes in the HBO series, at least not yet). Some think Aerys lost it because of his dubious lineage. Two Targaryens survived and fled, well two and a bit but one died in childbirth in exile. So Viserys Targaryen and his younger sister Daenerys live in exile in the Free City Pentos across the Narrow Sea from Westeros when the series opens.
Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen
Eddard Stark returned to his northern lands near The Wall after securing Robert's crown and has lived there with his wife Caitlyn Catelyn, their children Robb, Bran, Rickon, Arya, and Sansa as well as Eddard's acknowledged bastard Jon Snow. The stark children and Snow live and work together largely as equals though there's always the niggling presence of John's unknown mother and illegitimate status between them. Caitlyn Catelyn despises Jon as she resents the hell out of his mother's however brief existence and still warm spot in Eddard's heart. Eddard refuses to speak of who Jon's mother was.
The wall is a massive, like, obscenely huge creation of ice and stone (700 feet tall and 300 miles long) that separates the free north lands from the southern lands of Westeros. The Stark family has held the North for thousands of years but the persons that guard and watch the wall are the Night's Watch. Members of the Watch forswear children, families, and heritage when they vow to the wall. Meaning that anyone on the wall cannot sire new or claim existing children (I don't recall if any of the Watch actually had children before becoming members hmm), will inherit neither title nor lands, and are bound to the Watch until they die (these same rules seem to apply to the Kingsguard as well, once Jamie Lannister joined the Kingsguard as a teenager his twin sister became their father's heir as he refused to name his despised son Tyrion as heir). Desertion results in execution. Because there hasn't been any legitimate threat to the wall in generations the Watch is now largely fortified with criminals and the like. Beyond the Wall in the Free Lands are two flavors of enemies. The Wildlings, which are usually human but sometimes contain giants in their numbers they are wild people who tend toward chaos and are undisciplined though fierce fighters. The second enemy are the White Ones or the Others some kind of ancient undead wights that are ridiculous dangerous and nearly impossible to kill.
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Jamie Lannister
Robert has devolved to a drunken lump of a king more devoted to whoring and hunting than certain aspects of state, a situation he is fully aware of. He married Cersei Lannister twin sister of Jamie Lannister the Kingslayer, daughter of Tywin Lannister (an extremely skilled and ambitious statesman) and older sister of Tyrion Lannister who is a dwarf and is highly resented by his family not only because of his stature and hideous appearance but because his mother died having him. Soon after the first book opens Robert brings his court to Winterfell the ancestral castle of the Starks and requests that John replace his dead brother in law as Robert's Hand. The Hand of the king is a dangerous position and most Hands tend to die young through treachery or the hardships of the position. Robert reveals that he is aware of some of the danger at his court and can only trust Ned.
So there you have it, four houses the Wolves of House Stark, the Dragons of the Targaryens, the Stags of Baratheon, and the Lions of Lannister. Soon after the first book opens things go south in a big way.
Mark Addy as King Robert Baratheon
This hugely complex interwoven story could easily fall apart or just fail in general if it were not for the skillful prose and deft handling by George R. R. Martin. Each book is told in third person via several point of view characters. Martin's characters are raw, rough, believable and biased. No character is safe and no event or hardship is too hideous. Each book is massive and yet they are some of the easiest reads I've ever come across. I highly recommend the books to anyone interested.
Now, the HBO series. This is where you might expect me to piss and moan about poor adaptations, the differences in media and necessary changes etc. Buuuut I'm not gonna. As of now I've only seen the first episode although the third aired Sunday but so far I am floored by the excellent spot on casting, the attention to detail in props and costumes, and most of all the wonderful adaptation of the story to such a different format. So, if you want to read the books (highly recommended even if you're watching or plan to watch the series as there are aspects missing from the show necessarily as each book is like 500 pages) with a mental image and voice for most of the characters already provided then you could do much worse than using the HBO cast.
Kit Harrington as Jon Snow
Fair warning there is a quite a bit of sex and violence at least in the first episode for sure, but here's the thing, there is in the book too. Yes, Martin doesn't shy away from it but he also doesn't write such scenes for pointless thrills they're usually plot driven and tastefully done. then again, if you're watching a show with swords on HBO aren't you expecting some rampant good times?
Whatever the case if you have HBO you owe it to yourself to catch a Game of Thrones on Sunday nights, there are seven more episodes to go and a no doubt great second season in store for us as well.
Note: I read the first book as a paperback then purchased all four on the kindle to re-read the first and so on. Great purchase and great reads, they're perfectly adapted to the .mobi format. Also the fifth of a slated seven books A Dance of Dragons is slated for a July release.
Okay so it's been a few months now that I've had my kindle, and the shiny has aaaalmost worn off it.
I've really enjoyed using it at the gym when doing cardio etc it's nice to lose m'self in the story or whatnot I'm reading and thus not obsess over my breathing, pace, etc but let my body figure that shit out itself (usually works better that way too). It's great for the gym because it's so darn small and light. Even with the dayplanner style case I keep it in it it's still nicely portable and I don't have to worry about propping a heavy paperback or turning pages. Win.
Unfortunately the clip on light I've been using proved itself to be a neurotic unreliable battery eater. It may've just been my experience but yeah. It has a button on the back of the lamp section, when I first got it pressing it once turned on one of two LED lights pressing it again turned a second on and a third time turned them all off. Now it's basically completely useless. I suspect a lose connection or bad bulb but since I can't take it apart to repair it without basically destroying it (something I'll probably do now that the warranty is useless) it's hard to say. Until it stopped working though, it worked great. Which is a bit like saying until he died he was fine.
As far as syncing reading material between my laptop, Iphone, and the kindle itself that's been a mixed bag as well. If I read something on my laptop then go to the kindle itself and open the same file the kindle is excellent about asking if I'd like to sync to the furthest point and doing so. However, kindle to iphone is not as rapid or accurate and I haven't tried laptop to Iphone yet. I will say that I appreciate the kindle to personal computer app as with my wonky reading light I can now still read at night without screwing with an awkwardly angled bedside lamp.
Converting .pdfs to .mobi files has been mixed as well. All the freeware/shareware I've come across is not as successful or accurate as the amazon conversion process offered for a small fee but both tend to have some weird artifact issues, particular with heavily columned material like a document with a newspaper type layout, particularly if there are photos or advertisements separating the columns. Ideally as software and the popularity of e-books increases more documents will be made available in .mobi from the get-go and conversion software will improve. It's still very possible to read a .pdf on the Kindle either way.
The one thing I have yet to investigate is using E-books from my local library. I've read that many libraries offer this service but as I am Princess Fail and no longer have a library card (the one I did have expired gods only know how long ago) I'll have to investigate further and report back, and again, there may be limits and exceptions unique to my library system rather than the Kindle.
Apologies for vanishing. Perfect storm of shit got real. Aaaaanyway. On to the purpose of this post.
Ding Dong! The Witch is dead eh? Which Witch? Why the Great American Boogeyman Osama Bin Laden. Now, don't get me wrong I had the same gut gleeful reaction as the rest of my people when I heard the news, sort of a fuck-yeah-we-got-im with a bit of that'll-teach-him and a dash of relief.
Why relief? I'm not sure, granted he was a monster but he didn't do anything to me specifically. I never got a note in the mail or an email saying, hey Ash, we're coming for you. Then again I was a member of the United States military, a woman with an education and a mouth, and a non-Muslim so I don't think we'd've been pals even discounting the wholesale slaughter of three thousand or so innocent human beings. He was a monster, I think we can agree on that.
But, compared to the weird glee when we captured Hussein (as a friend rightly pointed out my experience was likely amplified as I was on a U.S. base overseas at the time but I think the comparison still stands) this feels ...hollow. Yes, we killed the son-of-a-bitch, yes he deserved it but what now?
When we got Hussein there was a series of events and then an execution. It was drawn out for three years, I don't think anyone in the U.S. didn't see the photo of a hairy filthy Hussein freshly dragged from his hole or the photos of his execution.
Maybe it's a poor comparison as realistically speaking there was no fucking way Bin Laden would ever be captured, held for trial, tried, executed, and buried. Security concerns just couldn't justify the risk to life and limb. Hussein was largely hated and the security to keep his evil ass 'safe' until the state could execute him was some serious shit.
And clearly the expense and effort to attempt to keep the fucker under wraps just to have him become an even more public martyr than now would've been prohibitive. I'm not complaining that he didn't get a trial or a court though maybe it's a bit hypocritical of me not to. No, I get the need to slice his cancer out of our world. I do. But it still seems...anticlimactic maybe?
According to Wikipedia this is how the death of the most wanted man for nearly a decade went down (wikipedia tends to be more neutral than other sources, at least in my experience and opinion):
On May 1, 2011 in Washington, D.C. (May 2, Pakistan Standard Time), U.S. President Barack Obama announced that Osama bin Laden was killed by "a small team of Americans" acting under Obama's direct orders, in a covert operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan, about 50 km (31 mi) north of Islamabad. The Telegraph newspaper identified the compound's specific location on Google maps.According to U.S. officials a team of 20–25 US Navy SEALs under the command of the Joint Special Operations Command and working with the CIA stormed bin Laden's compound in two helicopters. Bin Laden and those with him were killed during a firefight in which U.S. forces experienced no injuries or casualties.According to one US official the attack was carried out without the knowledge or consent of the Pakistani authorities. In Pakistan some
people were reported to be shocked at the unauthorized incursion by US armed forces.The site is a few miles from the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul. In his broadcast announcement President Obama said that U.S. forces "took care to avoid civilian casualties."Details soon emerged that three men and one woman were killed along with Bin Laden, the woman being killed when she was “used as a shield by a male combatant”. DNA from bin Laden's body, compared with DNA samples on record from his dead sister, confirmed bin Laden's identity. The body was recovered by the US military and was in its custody until, according to one US official, his body was buried at sea according to Islamic traditions. One U.S. official stated that "finding a country willing to accept the remains of the world's most wanted terrorist would have been difficult." U.S State Department issued a "Worldwide caution" for Americans following Bin Laden's death and U.S Diplomatic facilities everywhere were placed on high alert, a senior U.S official said. Crowds gathered outside the White House and in New York City's Times Square to celebrate Bin Laden's death.
Wonder if Obama was tempted to say mission accomplished?
Now, the idea of Pakistan, a nation with a pervasive secret police/security presence, somehow not knowing that the Great American Boogeyman was living within such a secure and sensitive area in a frigging compound is mildly ridiculous. I can't say I'm surprised but like most of us I think a disappointed sigh and some annoyed tongue clicking and head shaking is certainly in order. I imagine the awkwardness of receiving a phone call from the most powerful man in the world that states basically, "Hey shit heads, we got you and your little dog too". Someone's face is red.
Back to the point, the GAB is dead, ding dong. Now what? Now that we've shot our national load in one night of glee - not to disparage or question the celebrants in D.C. and New York, particularly New York but what now? We're still mired in 2 wars not counting whatever the fuck we're doing in Libya, we're still mired in a recession - I don't give a fuck what Wall Street and the Fed say until myself and my friends who are also unemployed have jobs with livable wages and college grads can actually get hired a year out of school we're in a goddamned recession - and we're still facing a more divided political system than I've ever seen (in my entire 27 years and some six months). So, what, now?
If we'd killed the GAB years ago it might've done some good, admittedly the manner of death and disposal smacks of mitigating backlash - an impossible thing to eliminate- but so what? The extremists are still going to come after us and Al-Qaeda is still going to be a threat.
It just seems... odd, non-plussed, dull, and worn now. Adding to the surrealism (for me at least) are the large number of people celebrating that were children when the attacks initially occurred. Hell, I wasn't even 18 when they happened although I'd enlisted in the USAF the summer before. Maybe it's the combination of realizing I'm pushing thirty combined with a bit of a generation gap, after all I had a life where Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, IUDs and other post 9/11 terms were utterly foreign and they haven't.
So in the end maybe it's just me but waiting ten years for impersonal vengeance against a nebulous threat to me personally is not a very tasty dish after all. I hope the survivors and families of the 9/11 victims and all the people we've lost since get some satisfaction from the death of Bin Laden.
Update: This vid popped up on my fb page as a few friends had posted it. It's pretty damn funny so in an effort to inject some levity into this reasonably somber post I'm reposting it here. Enjoy!
As always thank you for reading and feel free to comment!
and Among the Living: A Zombie Novel - Revised and Expanded
and even Barriers Beyond
. The infamous Mark Rahner of Rotten fame will be in attendance with a load of goodies for old and new fans alike, and lucky us, we'll be seated next to hizzoner at booth 805A.
