River of Play

Time's Winged Chariot

I almost wrote "whinging chariot." Fun with fingers, eh? Though nothing compared to the daughter. Her fingers are simply the most amazing thing she sees. 

We've been busy around here in Lincoln. Houseguests and so on. We took our guests--Wendy's godparents--out to look at the last of the Sandhill cranes. Instead, we ran into snow geese. Tens of thousands of snow geese. I have pictures. And I will post them. But right now I have a narrow window for posting, so I wanted to set up a quick link to a fab/scary comic here (it's the 3/13/09 strip). If you're a PhD student, you must be reading this strip. If not...it'll give you some insight, I expect. Oh, but not this particular one. It's more of a theme link. 

Remind me to write about the new poetry project. And think loving thoughts toward Natural Bridge. 

Th' Wearin' o' th' Green

I have now exhausted any love I might have had for apostrophes.

I've been thinking about two very different green issues recently. First, the relentless green-washing that's going on. As an example of sorts, Chlorox bought Burt's Bees to shore up/establish their environmental...illusion. At a coffeehouse get-together with the two ecocrit Toms in the department and a visiting poet, Maria Melendez, we got to talking about the issue, viewing it with a kind of dark fascination. It's moments like this where I can see some in the environmental movement heaping scorn on what have become pop buzzwords like "green" and "sustainability." But I think it's important to keep fighting for the words that are appropriate. I have serious problems with deep ecology, and I feel pretty damn sure that people who might be interested in making lifestyle changes to ensure the survival of their offspring's offspring will be turned off by an invitation for all the humans to just go ahead and die.

And the other green thing I've been thinking about is The Incredible Hulk. Weren't expecting that segue were you? So there's another Hulk movie coming out this summer, among other comic book movies for you to line up for (and Hollywood's a delightfully greenwashed town, no?). My curiosity stems from trying to sort out the various versions of the Hulk and what they mean. Id v. superego at the heart of the whole thing, to make the issue a bit old fashioned in its Freudianism. The character survives as an adolescent male fantasy about what you'd like to be able to do when you get angry. Puny Banner--and puny parents and puny stupid fucking adults--don't understand the freedom of being apeshit wild. And strong! I want to break shit! Thwock! Fwoom! It's the sort of story that has doomed the graphic storytelling scene in this country to the sort of niche it inhabits. Ah, well.

Maybe the US Greens would get more attention and/or votes is they adopted the Hulk. We might be socialists, but look at my pecs!

Without Pasta

Usually, I try to post items of substance. And I will (the Dan Barden rant in P&W comes to mind), but today I came across this amazing thing. The presence of absence indeed. Go and see.

I'll wait here for your response.

For the Sake of Diversion

Did you know this quiz existed? I didn't. Are the last three digits of the URL a coincidence? Maybe.

When A Giant Tiger-Man Pretty Much Gets Killed. Twice.

Mike Wieringo’s last big project came out in late August/early September: a hardback collection of 12 Tellos comics. Colossal Tellos, it’s called. My reaction to it is complicated. I wanted to be stunned, delirious, enthralled. I was none of those things. I liked it, sure, but I liked it despite its flaws. It’s a beautiful book, thick, glossy pages. The color scheme is. . . lurid. It felt like they worked with the primary and secondary colors of the wheel only. The characters were fun, but cartoony to the point of manga and, god help me, inconsistent. The story was fun, but basically a Wizard of Oz/Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge hybrid. And the writing itself was pretty awful. As a bonus, poorly edited as well. I’m not sure if all these. . . difficulties are because it came from a small, indie publisher or not. Maybe they were rushed. Who knows.

So what did I like? It’s a nice quest story. There’s a lot of humor. The book never loses sight of the fact that our narrator/main character is a little boy. Giant cat hero. It seemed like a good starting point. I wish he’d lived long enough to explore it fully.

In Memoriam

Oh, fucking Christ. Mike Wieringo died Sunday. I knew him in the early mid 90s. We hung out in his studio, Artamus. The man was young, 44. I've been having a hard time not weeping all day today. He was a good, good guy. There are places to visit: here (his now-defunct blog--and that makes me clench my jaw in anguish), here, and here. I've written about him before. And I'll leave it at that.

Tights and Xians

I was going to throw a link about xians and environmental scientists out there, and I will, but first I wanted to hitch this Slate link to the blog, here. How much am I the geek of your worst days? Oh, so. And not the cool geek who slunk off to concerts and collected albums. No. I was of a whole other stripe. Theater. RPGs. Comix. And not hip comics, either. We didn't have them in my town. Improbably handsome and strong young people in spandex. Those comix. The Slate articles alright, but scroll down to the slideshow. Some fun stuff. Let me know if you have them. Bring 'em by. We'll talk.

And now, evangelicals, already in progress. Or not progressing at all. Well, on environmental issues, apparently, they've woken up a bit. Let's not wait for Armegeddon and the Rapture (not in that order), they seem to be saying, let's not poison ourselves now. Because, when we do this kind of not-giving-a-shit, not-paying-attention, I-should-have-two-SUVs poisoning, we poison poor people, and that behavior just ain't xian. No shit. In this article, though, it's telling that the scientists and the xians won't field questions. Ah. Don't agree on much else? Think the other side's a deluded fool out to kill you? Let's. . . just not talk, 'k?

And my first issue of Knucklebones arrived. I promise not to get the pages all sticky.

P'tit Amusement

Click over to PvP, go to the comix archive, and pick up the narrative starting with the 28th of December. Keep going to today. Enjoy. You can start with this click.