Vonne Gut Reactions: Bluebeard

Twelve down...two more to go...I'm not making 'em all in 2012, but I'll have 'em wrapped by by early in 2013, at least.

Bluebeard is an odd Vonnegut book in that it almost doesn't feel like a Vonnegut book at all. Yes, there are a number of Vonnegut ticks throughout the book, but there are also a number of aspects that feel almost as if Vonnegut was trying something else here, something that is paralleled in the story of Rabo Karabekian, the book's main character.

Let's take a look at the two sets of things - Vonnegut-isms and non...

This book is clearly a Vonnegut story because (pages refer to the edition shown above)...

• Rabo Karabekian - Our main character first appeared in Breakfast of Champions as the painter of a The Temptation of Saint Anthony, for which $50,000 was paid, making it the most valuable work in Midland City, OH's new art museum.
• introduction - "Tremendous concentrations of paper wealth have made it possible for a few persons or institutions and hence distressing seriousness." - Vonnegut has long espoused his belief that money only has value because we, as a group, have convinced each other that it has value. This is, of course, true, but it appears again and again in this book as the pieces of modern expressionistic artwork switch very quickly from worthless to immensely valuable.
• p32 - "everyone alive is a survivor" - We first heard this in Galapagos. Vonnegut often ascribed the survival or heroism or success - as well as death, cowardice, failure - to random chance rather than to any skill - intellectual or physical. Those of us who survive are simply the ones who survive. And so it goes...
• p27 - " 'Never trust a survivor,' my father used to warn me, with Vartan Mamigonian in mind, 'until you find out what he did to stay alive.' " - Vonnegut saw horrors and war. In his books he continually states of those horrors, of the reluctance of the survivors to speak of the horrors, and what some of the survivors had to do to become survivor.
• p46  - The book is titled Bluebeard, and here Vonnegut summarizes the tale of Bluebeard and his one room kept secret from his many wives. Karabekian keeps a similarly locked room, his potato barn, and allows full access to his world except for the barn. Vonnegut makes this comparison openly and without artifice. He keeps few secrets from the readers.
• p147 - "Another was triangular in cross-section, so that the wound it made wouldn't close up again and keep the blood and guts from falling out." - Roland Weary states something similar in Slaughterhouse Five.

The book is, however, quite unlike Vonnegut's other stories in many ways...

• The main character ends up happy this time. This really is something unique in Vonnegut's stories. Bill Pilgrim of Slaughterhouse Five ended up resigned to his fate, as did Paul Proteus in Player Piano, Eliot Rosewater in God Bless You, Mr Rosewater, Walter Starbuck in Jailbird, and Rudy Waltz of Deadeye Dick. Others have ended up dead or dying: Malachi Constant (Sirens of Titan), Howard Campbell (Mother Night), narrator John (Cat's Cradle), and Leon Trout (Galapagos).
  
  Here Karabekian seems to actually be happy at the end of the book, and the ending felt hopeful. That's new...
• Circe Berman is a female character who isn't placed on a pedestal, isn't two-dimensional, and is a force for good (and some minor misery) for our main character. She is a very successful author - under a pseudonym. She brings Karabekian out of his self-imposed exile from the world and leaves him far happier than she found him. This might be the first positive female character that we've seen in a Vonnegut story, and even she's not 100% positive.

This is one of the few Vonnegut books that has absolutely left me happy at the end of the book. Even Slaughterhouse and Breakfast of Champions, books that I think are far greater than this one didn't leave me absolutely happy.

I know we only have two books left in Vonnegut's career, but I can understand how critics at the time could have thought that this book - coming only two years after Galapagos - would have signaled a return of Vonnegut from the doldrums of Jailbird, Deadeye Dick, and Slapstick.

Hocus Pocus next. I'm about a fourth of the way through reading that as I write these words.

Vonne Gut Reactions: Galapagos

It's been too long, but we're too late to apologize now.

Galapagos is the first really excellent Vonnegut book that I've read since Breakfast of Champions. That's a run of three pretty mediocre books - Deadeye Dick, Jailbird, and Slapstick. This is a return to Vonnegut's strength, to a story that matters to him and consequently to us.

This may also be Vonnegut at his most hopeful - as only Vonnegut could be, however. Our tale is told by a ghostly narrator who died in the building of the ship on which much of our tale revolves. Our narrator, Kilgore Trout's son, has chosen to avoid heading into the blue tunnel of the afterlife, a fate that his father begs him to take. Instead, Leon Trout stays on Earth to hope to understand the human condition just a little better and is given a million years to do so.

In the million years of watching, Trout sees humankind evolve from what we are to an ocean- and island-dwelling species with fins and fur suited for fishing in the waters off the Galapagos islands on which our entire species lives. The book thankfully focuses on the events that lead to our modern Noah's Arc of fewer than a dozen survivors finding themselves shipwrecked on Santa Rosalia island on which they are to make their home in perpetuity. The world's economy collapses, Peru attacks Ecuador, mental instabilities bring together our cast of characters, accidents and chance clear the remainder of the book's characters, and natural selection works its magic from there.

Vonnegut's main themes here are ones that we have seen before: the failings of our big brains and the effects of chance events on our future. Repeatedly Vonnegut explains that our big brains - shrunken to allow for more streamlined swimming a million years in our future - and their failings constantly lead to problems in our modern world, allowing us to lie, to delude ourselves, and to choose actions clearly designed to overcome evolution and somehow remove ourselves from the gene pool. Chance also plays a huge part in shaping events, bringing together figures that will become our species's eventual genetic starting points.

Things I noticed along the way...(pages refer to the edition of the book shown at the top there)

• p8 - "...every adult human being back then had a brain weighing about thee kilograms! There was no end to the evil schemes that a thought machine that oversized couldn't imagine and execute." - the first mention of our big brains being the source of so many of our problems
• p14 - "in his native city of Midland City, OH" - Hey, we've seen Midland City before.
• p18 - "Only one English word adequately describes his transformation of the islands from worthless to priceless: magical." - A number of times in his books, Vonnegut had given us examples of objects whose value has changed dramatically because of one person's efforts or words or beliefs. This shows up again late in Galapagos when 'the nature cruise of the century' becomes The Nature Cruise of the Century because Jackie O signs on to take it and because the cruise's promoter refuses to refer to it as anything but 'the nature cruise of the century'.
• p19 - "The two with stars by their names would be dead before the sun went down." - Vonnegut again tells us of the fate of our characters long before that fate takes place.
• p24 - "It was all in people's heads. People had simply changed their opinion of paper wealth, but, for all practical purposes, the planet might as well have been knocked out of orbit by a meteor the size of Luxembourg." - Again, opinions changing the value of something - and our big brains causing problems.
• p65 - " 'Marriage: a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.' Ambrose Bierce (1842-?)...'Marriage from love, like vinegar from wine --/A sad, sour, sober beverage --by time/Is sharpen'd from its high celestial flavour,/Down to a very homely household savour.' Lord Byron (1788-1824) " - Two quotes from Vonnegut that don't present a positive view of marriage. Shocking...
• p70 - "I have already given my opinion as to the cause for the craze back then for having machines do everything that human beings did -- and I mean everything." - One of Vonnegut's recurring themes throughout his books is our urge to develop machines to replace ourselves and our subsequent dissatisfaction with being replaced.
• p74 - " And the people would eat all the food, gobble, gobble, yum, yum, and it would become nothing but excrement and memories." - Vonnegut seems to see everything we do as pointless and dramatically impermanent. 
• p81 - "And if I were criticizing human bodies as they were a million years ago, ... I would have two main points to make -- one of which I have surely made by now in my story: 'The brain is much too big to be practical.' " - Yup, big brains are the source of so many of our problems.
• p90 - ""He had just moved into new offices within the hollow crown of the Chrysler Building, formerly the showroom of a harp company" - We got to meet that harp company back in Jailbird.
• p108 - " Of course I love you,/So let's have a kid/Who will say exactly/What its parents did:/ 'Of course I love you,/So let's have a kid/Who will say exactly/What its parents did: ...Noble Claggett (1947-1966)" - We've seen a number of repetitive poems in Vonnegut's works (Yon Yonson from Slaughterhouse, for example). The mating dance of the blue-footed booby is also mentioned as being repetitive and without reason in this book.
• p111 - "Human beings use to be molecules which could do many, many different sorts of dances, or decline to dance at all-- as they pleased." - Vonnegut often refers to humans as nothing more than molecules or machines or animals trained or programmed to do what they do.
• p120 - "The other nobody was her husband, who himself played a crucial role in shaping human destiny by booking, when facing his own extinction, that one cheap cabin below the waterline." - Mary's husband Roy booked that cabin because he had gone insane, his big brain betraying him. If the cabin hadn't been booked, Mary wouldn't have become the Mother Nature to the future human race. Random events...
• p136 - "If I'm what's bothering you, you can tell me to take a flying f*** at a rolling doughnut, and I'll be the first to sympathize." - Vonnegut has used this phrase "a flying f*** at a rolling doughnut" before, in Slapstick.
• p149 - "His brain was telling him all sorts of things that were not true -- that he was the greatest dancer in the world, that he was the son of Frank Sinatra, that people envious of his dancing ability were attempting to destroy his brains with little radios, and on and on." - Dwayne Hoover had this happen to him. So did, perhaps, Billy Pilgrim. It's a common problem for Vonnegut's characters.
• p162 - "But then some tiny animals evolved into rodents. These easily found and ate the ggs of the tortoises -- all of the eggs." - The eventual downfall of the human race - other than the few survivors on Saint Rosalia - is a bacterium that evolves to destroy the eggs of human women. A parallel between us and animals...
• p219 - "I was the ghost of a ghost ship. I am the son of a big-brained science fiction writer, whose name was Kilgore Trout." - This is the first time that our narrator is given a name, and he is connected to Kilgore Trout, Vonnegut's literary alter ego.
• p226 - "Mary said things like this to *Wait in so many words, but her tone alone would have delivers the same messages: 'We love you. You are not alone. Everything is going to be all right,' and so on." - Vonnegut often explains that all we hope for is a bit of reassurance, kindness, and connection. Here, a dying man is comforted by just those simple messages.
• p229 - "and he was mowing the lawn of a fabulously well-to-do automobile dealer and owner of local fast-food restaurants named Dwayne Hoover." - Hey, Dwayne, it's been a while since we've seen you. In these pages we find out that Dwayne's son - "a good dancer and very musical, just like *Wait" - was actually not Dwayne's genetic son.
• p255 - "Like the people on this accursed ship, my boy, they are led by captains who have no charts or compasses, and who deal from minute to minute with no problem more substantial than how to protect their self-esteem." - Vonnegut doesn't have a whole lot of faith in our leaders.
• p292 - "Have natural rafts of vegetable matter from anywhere arrived here in my time, with or without passengers? No." - One of the theories (source) of how some of the larger land animals got to the Galapagos Islands is that they arrived via natural rafts, the mechanism of which is seriously in doubt. Vonnegut mentions this in passing, and I found it funny.

This cover, by the way,
 is my favorite of the various
ones I found online.

Vonnegut commits his apocalypse via evolution (bacteria evolving to feed upon human eggs) but also offers his version of salvation via the same mechanism of natural selection and evolution. The first child born on Saint Rosalia is mutated because of her mother's exposure to radiation from Hiroshima and comes out with a thin coating of fur, protecting her from the rough rocks on and the cold water around the island. This advantageous trait is then passed along generation by generation as the last vestiges of humanity evolve to their new habitat.

It's nice to read a great Vonnegut book again.

Three more books to go before the end of the year.

Ranking Vonnegut's books based on which ones I enjoyed most (not necessarily which are the best or the worst)...

1. Salughterhouse Five, of the Children's Crusade: A Duty Dance with Death (excellent)
2. Breakfast of Champions, or Goodbye Blue Monday (excellent)
3. Cat's Cradle (really, very good)
4. Galapagos (really, very good)
5. Mother Night (really, very good)
6. God Bless You, Mr Rosewater, or Pearls Before Swine (good)
7. Jailbird (good)
8. Player Piano (meh)
9. Deadeye Dick (meh)
10. Slapstick (meh)
11. The Sirens of Titan (painful)

Still to come...Bluebeard...Hocus Pocus...Timequake...

First...not last

• Space shot of the day - It gets foolishly philosophical at the end, but it starts well.
• Photos: NBA's Christmas day sneakers - All are godawful...Blake Griffin's are the most palatable.
• Video of the 'Biggs-Rauscher iodine oscillator' - So pretty...and so complex

• Find your home on this US dotmap - A park just north of me made it doable, but there are still people listed as living in the park, which is odd.
• Natural Path Sanctuary - a 'green cemetery' - The Girl and I are curious about this one.
• Achilles - funny stuff...

• Calvin & Hobbes - still funny
• DNA proposal - geekieness at its absolute finest
• 6 places you'll recognize from the background of every movie - I do, indeed.
• 9-yr-old Mila Kunis is adorable - She is, indeed.

• Link roundup - Apparently Kelly Lynch's husband is being slowly tortured by Bill Murray & his brothers.
• Terrifying Jim Carey gif - seriously, man...terrifying
• If Orson Wells had made Batman - nice editing

• Lego Calvin & Hobbes - nice work
• Calvin & Hobbes 'Resolutions?' - This is pretty much how I feel about resolutions.
• Gravity Light - ingenious (project link)

• No fiscal cliff for defense contractors - This would be an industry to go into.
• New Year, New oddball laws - gonna have to find somewhere new to release my pigs in the wild
• Carbide shooting: a Dutch New Year's Eve tradition - 'cause they're crazy

• Lego golf course - nice work
• Rise - Some jokes just seem so obvious that I'm embarrassed I didn't think of them myself. 
• The rarest play in football: a one-point safety - I have never heard of this.

• SMBC - The future of reality television
• 45 facts for national trivia day - I knew 4,6,22,24, and 31.
• What if Django Unchained was a sitcom? - I probably would've enjoyed it more.

• The uncropped photo from Tiananmen Square - On the other hand, I did not know that.
• Double helix cloud - coincidence, sure, but pretty coincidence
• 2013 ping pong drop - Well timed, sirs (formerly embedded but now gone because it's autoplaying which is just annoying)
• OaKoAk - pretty creative graffiti
• Painted spider webs - very pretty and worth a further click through
• Richard Fenyman's "Ode to a Flower" - I agree wholeheartedly with the man.

• Catch all of Carson Hart's Lego Pokemon - Katydid's new favorite Lego set
• 25 most anticipated movies of 2013 - I'm in for 24,12,8,5,3,2, and 1. 
• In brightest day, in blackest night, no Domo shall escape my sight! - I really like the blind boxers.
• 10 worst commercials of 2012 - Good lord did #10 annoy the crap out of me.

• Revenge - Some jokes just seem so obvious that I'm embarrassed I didn't think of them myself.
• Bowl Sponsor MVP: Chik-Fil-A - Politics aside, their spokesperson gives great answers here.
• Comic Rack - Supreme 67 - Wait, Omni-Man...from Invincible?
• Predicting future Hall of Fame elections - Way too much unknown here...and how the heck do all those players (at the bottom) not get in eventually?

Yup...uh, huh...

Presented without comment...

The one we will miss most

Wonderful remembrance piece about Adam Yauch, the celebrity passing from 2012 that most mattered to me.

Check, check, check it out...

Winter break's media

First, the big pile of meh...

• X-Men: War Machines - Zzzzzz...look, there are Sentinels to be destroyed...Sentinels that are being controlled by an Eastern European breakaway republic...and the X-Men destroy the Sentinels...zzzzzzzzzzzz 
• Green Lantern: Sector 2814 - Back in the dumb ol' days when anything yellow would nearly defeat Hal Jordan. Look, somebody's thrown a bottle of urine at Green Lantern (who wields the most powerful weapon in the universe), he's going to drown!
• DC Universe: Legacies - It's a boring, bland DC version of Marvels. It reads like the DC editors listed every event in DC history that they found important - including all the new ones that turn out not to be important or even moderately interesting - and told their team to have a guy talk about each of them...in order...and with like no context. 
• Superman/Batman: Public Enemies (DVD) - The comic arc on which this straight-to-DVD movie is based was entertaining enough and funny. This movie takes all the same events, deletes the humor, and makes it pretty boring. Plus the art style doesn't translate well to the movie medium. The title sequence is kinda cool, though.

Then the middling stuff...

• Superman/Batman: Torment - It's certainly not one of the best collections from this series, but it's no bad. Artwork's okay. Bekka's kinda weird and somebody I've never heard of before. It's a'ight...
• Fables: Werewolves in the Heartland - I was really disappointed in this one. The artwork stinks, and all of the women pretty much look identical (check a few pages here). The story's not terrifically interesting, either, as it requires retconning of one of Bigby's backstory. Big disappointment...
• Django Unchained - Even The Girl was excited to see this one. I'm all down with Tarantino's films, but this isn't anywhere near one of his best. I'll let this review speak for me...

  Don't get me wrong — he's still able to offer up scenes set to music that are the cinematic equivalent of a velvety slice of rich cheesecake, he has a facility with and takes an unbridled glee in dialogue in a way that's unequalled among filmmakers working today, and he comes up with unforgettable characters that feel intensely modern but also like they've walked out of some long forgotten but incredible film. It's possible that no one does momentary pleasures like Tarantino, and Django Unchained has no insignificant amount of instances of sheer enjoyment, from an introductory sequence in which a scene-stealing Christoph Waltz as Dr. King Schultz liberates the titular slave (Jamie Foxx) from traders to one in which Django rides onto an estate to some anachronistic hip-hop. 

  But the film also comes across like a rough cut that was never looked at as a coherent whole, and some segments that start off as promising become interminable while others feel entirely unnecessary. There's no pressure on or expectation for Tarantino to please anyone other than himself, and the film feels overstuffed with ideas that should have been pruned. That sense of fun needed to power something this outsized wanes before the film reaches its ending, two hours and 45 minutes later — it's not a feature that you want to last forever, but one that seems to take it for granted that you feel that way. There's a good movie inside Django Unchained, maybe even a great one, but it hasn't been carved out of the lopsided excess.

  The film is overly gorey - with ridiculous amounts of blood spurting forth from every gunshot wound (something that felt okay when Tarantino was doing Kill Bill but that feels very much out of style in this faux Western film) - and seems to almost relish the slavery-era violence. The film is unpleasant and overly indulgent, seriously in need of a stronger editing hand - especially during a far-against-tone, broadly comedic scene of a proto-KKK attack.
  
  There are moments of stylish greatness, but there isn't a great film here. 

And the good stuff...

• Casa de mi Padre - I warn you in advance. This is a Will Ferrell film that's entirely in Spanish...entirely in Spanish.  SPANISH. It's also absolutely hilarious and must've been a blast to make. Ferrell plays the slightly stupid and cowardly rancher son whose brother returns to save the ranch but also brings along loads of problems related to his drug-dealing business. Ferrell's brother also happens to bring along his fiance who falls in love with Ferrell as he becomes a hero and a man.
  
  The plot is ridiculous. The scenery is frequently openly and badly faked. The music and acting is over the top. Scenes are often filled out with mannequins instead of actors. The stunts are ridiculous. The timing is absurd.
  
  The movie is hilarious.
  
  
• Ultimate Comics Spider-Man: Scorpion - I'm really surprised at how strong an entry the Miles Morales Spider-Man has been over the past year. I shouldn't be, though, and it's helpful to read this in light of Marvel's announcement about the 616 Peter Parker. The only thing that matters is telling a good story. Every single thing we cared about, every single aspect of a great character is only important because there were great stories behind it, and we'll all be just fine - no matter the changes - as long as they keep telling great stories.
  
  And this is certainly a great set of a stories. Mile is finding his way as a slightly-younger-than-Peter-Parker-was-when-he-started Spider-Man, trying to honor the Peter Parker name while also finding his own way in the heroing world. In this volume Miles's uncle, a here-to-fore unheard of by us (but known to Nick Fury) super-thief, confronts Miles announcing that he knows who Miles is and how he got his powers. The uncle then offers to train Miles while also pointing out which villains Miles can take care of - conveniently and unbeknownst to Miles the very ones who are challenging his uncle's territory. It's a trope that we've seen before, but it's so well told here that it feels fresh.
  
  This is great storytelling, folks.
• Saga - Brian Vaughan's latest creation is weird and freaky and moving and beautiful. It's a tough series to nail down in a review because it's a family tale (lovers from across battle lines have a child and have to run from hunters on both sides of the war) set in a mystical (spells and ghosts abound), science fiction (space travel, aliens) world.
  
  It's gorgeous and complex and takes a bit of trust to go with it until you understand what the heck is happening.
  
  It is also, I warn you, very much for adults. This isn't kiddy stuff as the language and sexual content keeps is solidly NC-17 (or at least a very solid R).
  
  You can check out a preview of issue 1 here...and a few images that I've chosen below.

Handmade Legos

I'm a Lego fiend. You should know that by now if you've been hanging around this blog long enough.

Recently I went hunting on etsy to see what interesting things people had done with Legos. Here's the most interesting stuff I found. All are, of course, unofficially Lego-related.

Lego crayons - like 'em...cute...wouldn't want to own 'em...would like 'em more if they were swirled wax colors rather than monochromatic...

Lego couples heart necklaces - I really like the cuteness of this one. I'm tempted to get these.

Lego brick/minifig ice cube trays - These are just being resold. They're official Lego products. I'm pointing them out because I'm pretty sure I know how those Lego minifig crayons were made.

Lego family car decals - cute...not something I want but cute...I like that they offer pets, too...

Custom wall letter - I like this one but wouldn't dream of buying it. The idea's cute enough that it could be made for a kid's room (or my school room) and would leave lots of room for play with it being adjustable and customizable over and over again.

I will never lego print - witty...

Lego Christmas ornament - This is stupid. Anybody who has seen a Lego could figure out how to make that with a little hot glue.

Lego soap - glycerin & olive oil - Two problems here: one, that top guy's not a Lego figure...two, those would hurt like heck after the soap starts to rub away

Lego Ninjago switchplate - seriously, $50?...it's a cute idea, but it's just frickin' superglued Legos...c'mon, folks...

Lego block pillow - Finally, this is handmade and kinda cool. It's Lego-inspired but not just a bunch of Lego bricks glued together.

2012 in review: The lists (updated 1-1-13)

Lists across which I have come...

• American Songwriter's Top 50 Albums of 2012 - Tempest by Bob Dylan #1, in case you're curious...I've grabbed it but haven't ever listened to it yet.
• FARK's headline of the year contest - funny stuff here
• Top 100 'Pictures of the Day' from Twisted Sifter - gorgeous...gorgeous...gorgeous
• Essential web videos of 2012 - I'd only seen three of the five.

• NPR Music's Top 50 Albums of 2012 - not in any particular order
• 50 most wtf animal pictures of 2012
• CNN's 2012 in pictures

• Entertainment Weekly's various best of lists 2012
• Most-viewed Wikipedia pages of 2012
• AllMusic's 50 best albums of the year
• Grantland's 2012 Shootaround - the year in gifs and riffs - my favorite right here...

• NPR listeners' favorite albums of 2012
• Time's top 10 photos of 2012
• Comics Alliance's best comics of 2012 - part 1...part 2...part 3...part 4...part 5
• The Big Picture's year in pictures - part 1...part 2...part 3...best nature pictures

• IGN's best of comics 2012
• GoodRead's best books of 2012
• Best movie trailers of 2012
• Best table tennis shots of 2012

• Pitchfork's best albums of 2012 - I've heard none of the top 50.
• AV Club's Best of 2012 lists
• Google zeitgeist 2012

• Best comic book covers ever (of 2012)
• Five favorite restaurants (in Cincinnati) of 2012

And a one...and a two...and a...

• Carolina Wozniacki's impression of Serena wasn't racist - maybe, but it certainly was in poor taste...of course Andy Roddick did it first
• Smoker's carpet - That's disgusting.
• Funky fungal holiday - science, eh?...we got culture, yes we do!
• "Rolling in the Deep" on handbells - I don't understand why handbell choirs exist. Can anybody explain?

• Tony Moore - I met this guy last week. He's one of the co-creators of The Walking Dead...kinda cool
• What do these items have in common? - I did not guess right.
• Bacon jam! Huh? Have you tried it? - I have but not this recipe yet.
• Trailer for James Bond documentary The Other Fellow isn't what you think, but cool none the less - Always curious to see what people choose as documentary subjects.

• Holiday Gift Guide - The Powers collection is spectacular and what I really want. (Buy me that, please...)
• Saucy Picard - He does appear a little forward there.
• Thirteen tennis storylines for 2013 - #3 would be outstanding.
• The story of the Christmas truce - That's really touching, man.

• "Carol of the Mehs" -  Meh
• Marvel's awesome collection of 2012 holiday cards - Shockingly, they have good artists.
• The complete Great Comics that Never Happened holiday specials - a blast from the past

• Tesla's Million Volt Revenge - David Blaine sadly did NOT die here...
• Nativity - reductionism at its finest
• Electric - new Richard Thompson album announced - with an online preview even

• Slow motion study of the day - fire...Fire...FIRE!
• Crème Dreams: 12 Odd &; Awesome Oreo Cookie Flavors - Candy corn was awful.
• LEGO Expert 10232 Palace Cinema - Man, I wanna get these giant, modular sets. So pretty...

• Back to the Future set to become a reality - and to make some donation for the Michael J Fox Foundation
• Lifehack of the Day - That's a gorgeous wall.
• Ten New Year's Resolutions from your favorite superheroes - Somebody wanna explain the Tony Stark resolution to me?

• Dishing out 2012 - These are things and places to try in Cincinnati.
• Great drought of 2012 continues into 2013 - The photo of the now-dry ship at St Louis is stunning.
• Notes on a lost art - I miss the great movie soundtracks of the '90's.
• Review: Promised Land - looks like the next one I want to see
• 'Brighter than the full moon': The biggest star of 2013...could be Ison - the comet of the century - You have been informed - via the most punctuated headline of the year.

What's cooler than cool?

Sam Rockwell, that's what.







He definitely rocks the rock well.

Thoughts on series 9

I'll admit it. I'm sucked in.

The Lego group has beaten me. They've won. They've dragged me kicking and screaming into the world of Lego collectible minifigures.

I'd resisted until a year or so ago when Meijer had the series 5 figures for half price. I bought a bunch at random then went feeling through the bags to complete my collection...with a number of duplicates (anybody need a cavewoman or six?)

Luckily, I never saw series 6, but I did stumble upon series 7 and its outstanding Scottish highlander.

I didn't quite finish that one off via feel - still needing the ocean king.

Series 8 tempted me with the red cheerleader and Santa with his sack. I managed a nearly full set there, still lacking the fairie (her wings and scepter are supposedly easy to feel but befuddled me).

And now Lego has given us images of the series 9 minifigs with the very cool-looking chicken man, Dr Jeckl/Mr Hyde, and the roller derby queen.

Supposedly they started showing up in some stores before Christmas, but I checked a couple of local WalMarts and Meijers with no success.

Stupid completist mentality...now I want to go back and get all of the first four series, too...especially the clown, wrestler, the maraca man, baseballer, fisherman, gorilla suit guy, lawn gnome, hazmat team, mad scientist, lady liberty, and the leprechaun.

Plus they've already announced series 10 and series 11.

I'm gonna be buying these for a while now...sheesh...

A great man has left us...

Today Charles Durning let slip this mortal coil.

We are all the richer for his having been with us as long as he was.

He was a spectacular actor and an even greater man.

From his wikipedia bio...

Durning served in the U.S. Army during World War II. Drafted at age 21, he was first assigned as a rifleman with the 398th Infantry Regiment, and later served overseas with the 3rd Army Support troops and the 386th Anti-aircraft Artillery (AAA) Battalion. For his valor and the wounds he received during the war, Durning was awarded the Silver Star and three Purple Heart medals. 

Durning participated in the Normandy Invasion of France on D-Day, June 6, 1944, and was among the first troops to land at Omaha Beach. In Episode S03E09 of the program Dinner for Five, which also included Burt Reynolds, Dom DeLuise and Charles Nelson Reilly, Reynolds spoke about Durning's service career for him, as Durning did not like to talk about it much. Reynolds revealed that Durning was in a group of gliders who overshot their landing zone and that he had to fight alone all the way back to the beach. Reynolds also stated that his own father was there fighting about 15 yards away and that Durning was probably the most decorated veteran (then) still alive from World War II. Some sources state that he was with the 1st Infantry Division at the time, but it is unclear if he served as a rifleman or as a member of one of the division's artillery battalions. 

Durning was wounded by a German “S” Mine on June 15, 1944 at Les Mare des Mares, France. He was transported to the 24th Evacuation Hospital. By June 17 he was back in England at the 217th General Hospital. Although severely wounded by shrapnel in the left and right thighs, the right hand, the frontal region of the head, and the anterior left chest wall, Durning recovered quickly and was determined to be fit for duty on December 6, 1944. He arrived back at the front in time to take part in the Battle of the Bulge, the German counter-offensive through the Ardennes Forest of Belgium and Luxembourg in December 1944. 

After being wounded again, this time in the chest, Durning was returned to the United States. He remained in Army hospitals to receive treatment for wounds until being discharged with the rank of Private First Class on January 30, 1946. 

He was nominated for an Emmy Award for his portrayal of a Marine veteran in "Call of Silence," an episode of the television series NCIS, first broadcast November 23, 2004. Drawing on his first-hand knowledge of the lingering effects of battle-induced stress, Durning's character turns himself in to authorities, insisting that he must be prosecuted for having murdered his buddy during ferocious combat on Iwo Jima six decades earlier. The real truth of the incident only becomes known for certain when the guilt-stricken veteran goes through a cathartic reliving of the battlefield events. 

Durning was known for participating in various functions to honor American veterans. He was the chairman one year of the U.S. National Salute to Hospitalized Veterans. He was an honored guest speaker at the National Memorial Day Concert for many years, televised by PBS every year on the Sunday evening of Memorial Day weekend. 

In April 2008 Durning received the National Order of the Legion of Honor from the French consul in Los Angeles, awarded to those who served with distinction in France. During the ceremony, Durning spoke about his wartime experiences.

I've offered Durning a tribute before, but many of the videos have left YouTube, so I thought I would update things.

A Classic

Enjoy today's fine Christmas special in its entirety: Pee Wee's Playhouse Christmas Special.

2012 in review: Books

I actually read some books this year...like real, actual, written for adult, non-picture books.

Yeah, I probably read twenty times as many comic book collections (trade paperbacks, you know) as I did non-picture books this year.

What were the best of the books I read this past year?

• Breakfast of Champions - I would put this as Vonnegut's second greatest work just a bit behind Slaughterhouse, but it's close. This is Vonnegut's darkest great work, one that saw a writer exploring his world. It's a tough read at times, but it's brilliant.
• Cat's Cradle - Vonnegut's second great work and the one that is almost his most light-hearted. Yes, the world ends as a direct result of the characters' actions, but it ends entertainingly.
• Dream Team - Fun to see the behind-the-scenes relationships and rivalries that never prevented the original Dream Team from becoming the greatest basketball team ever...also fun to see how much went into the creation of the team
• Hunger Games - Gripping opener for what has become a massive literary hit trilogy...very much enjoyed learning about this post-apocalyptic world of the United States after an obviously disastrous civil war. Solid characters, though the romantic triangle would become troublesome after a while.
• Just After Sunset - Stephen King's latest short story collection is hit or miss but with more hits than misses
• Methland - This one's terrifying but not without hope as it looks at the history of crystal meth (and methamphetamines) in the United States, the effects of addiction on one Iowa town, and the lives of addicts. Thankfully the book is not without hope.
• Mockingjay - The climactic Hunger Games book wrapped the story up fairly well and avoided the whiny crap of Katniss in book two.
• Mother Night - Vonnegut's first great book...and the one that is sort of the least impossible...It's not happy, but it was his first great work.
• Slaughterhouse Five - I've read this dozens of times now, and it held every bit of the impact for me on the newest reading. I'll still put it forth as Vonnegut's finest work.
• Summerland - Read this one for one of the two two-person book clubs in which I took part this year. (Tough to judge which was more successful, but that's for another day.) It's an odd book in that it's clearly written for young people - probably pre-teens or earlier - but is large enough that it might not hold their attention long enough to get to the payoff. It also has some pacing issues, but in the end I again found myself in tears.

I probably should start shopping for Christmas sometime soon

Or not...maybe I'll just give donations to the Human Fund this year...

• How to make your own Smash Glow crystals - Need to look up the cost of europium nitrate now
• A rainbow of affirmation - I kinda want this in my house.
• All 7 horcruxes on one necklace - If only they weren't sold out, Calen would've had her Christmas gift for next year already.

• Eat Ramen like a man - I've been doing it wrong.
• Frost Flowers: nature's exquisite ice extrusion - There are more things in heaven and Earth...
• The most horrific daycare ever - The teacher seems nice, at least.

• Gratuitously garish GARC - I don't know what the GARC stands for, but I dig the constructions.
• How Dave McKean created multidimensional artwork before Photoshop - I assumed they were photographic collages. I had no idea they were real.
• Life-size Lego Bag End built by Lego model shop - I really want the small set, but this big one would be kinda cool to have around.

• Deal or no Deal parody - I feel like I've posted this before.
• Replacement level podcast - great discussion about the baseball Hall of Fame ballot
• Beer/wine hybrid drink tested at Coors Field - Seems an odd combination...

2012 in review: comic books

My reading of comic books is far from comprehensive. Because of that my list is nothing close to a 'best of 2012' but rather a 'best of what I read in 2012'.

• I read almost exclusively what's in at the public library. That means I rarely get the newest but rather get things a few months old and in somewhat limited selection. Our library is spectacular, marvelous, and amazing, but there are always lots more comic on the 'to read' list than there are at the library.
• I read way more DC/Marvel superhero comics than I read anything else. The ratio is probably ten to one or even higher. There are, I'm sure, tons of outstanding non-superhero graphic novels out there. I just don't check them out as much as I could.
• I tend to re-read things that I very much enjoyed. Some of these things could make my 'best of' list every year. I'll try not to do that unless some part of the series was new to me this year.

So, without further ado...

• GI Joe: Death of Cobra Commander - GI Joe and Cobra are huge organizations with seemingly hundreds of thousands of members making for a wildly rich cast of characters. This also means that things happen that aren't initially, obviously connected to the vast plot of Cobra Commander's eventual demise. Turns out that they're all connected and make for a marvelously rich storyline and a much more indepth Cobra motivation than we ever got from the cartoons.
• Invincible - The seventh ultimate collection of Invincible was published this year, taking Mark, his father, and his younger brother away from Earth to fight the full-out Viltrumite War above the surface of Viltrium on behalf of the Coalition of Planets. It's more knock-down, drag-out, non-stop action. And time passes back on Earth while all this is happening. This is not a series where nothing happens. People die, others get depressed and fat, and Mark goes a bit off the rails by the end of this volume, throwing his lot in with a villain whom he had previously helped lock up.
• Locke & Key - Clockwork - This one was actually new this year and the penultimate volume of the brilliant Locke & Key series. The tension is ratcheted up, and I am desperate to get my hands on the next volume. Joe Hill has this story wrapped as tightly as it's possible to do. Love it
• Nextwave: Agents of HATE - There aren't enough funny superhero comic books around these days, but this twelve-issue maxi-series from Marvel hit the right tone with a weird combination of spy and anti-hero genres, good guys being hunted by the agency that they left behind. Good stuff
• Powers - full series here...the newest volume (Gods) takes the horror of living in the Powers world up a notch with Gods upon Earth nearly destroying the Eastern seaboard. This might be taking the questions of what distinctions there are between gods and the series's titular powers to a ridiculous extreme. The again we also get some possibly HUGE changed to Walker's relationships with Calista and his alien bosses. This isn't the finest volume in the series, but Powers's weak link is a pretty great collection. Plus I re-read all the volumes leading up to Gods, and they're phenomenal - especially 25 Coolest Dead Superheroes of All Time.
• Spider-Man Blue - The Loeb/Sale partnership struck again with this great volume. I complain often about comics treading the same landscape as most superhero origin stories have been told to death. This is, though, the one time when the same ground should be tread. The retelling of Spider-Man's first year - focusing on his time falling in love with Gwen Stacy - is spectacular. The framing device of Peter feeling titularly blue works marvelously well, and the artwork is stunning. Yeah, it's ten years old, but it was new to me this year.
• Tale of Sand - Look, it's the only non-superhero comic on the list. Enjoy it while it's here. This is a completion of one of Jim Henson's final projects, and it's a gorgeous work. Yeah, it's a bit non-linear and experimental, but it's a bit weird. Certainly worth a look because it's pretty oustandingly attractive.  This one's for the art lovers out there.
• Ultimate Spider-Man: Death of Spider-Man Prelude - Bendis pretty well knocked this entire hundred-sixty-issue run of Ultimate Spider-Man out of the park. He created a brilliant character who spent the fourteen or so years of his teenage years learning how to be the best hero and man that he could...and then he left us. Taken before his time...
• Ultimate Spider-Man: Fallout - I wrote that the Ultimate Comics Spider-Man was the lynchpin of the Ultimate world, and it makes sense that his death would be a traumatic event for so many different characters. The writers here do a marvelous job allowing the various heroes to grieve both publicly and privately. It's a moving collection.
• Honorable mention - JL8 / Little League (it's a webcomic, but it's some of the best comic writing out there right now), Superman: The Black Ring (great Superman comic without Superman but with robot Lois Lane), Batman: Noel (my review was pretty crap, so I have no idea why I liked it so much, but it must've been pretty good, I guess), Blue Beetle (I read the full, pre-cancellation series this year and was pretty impressed with the slow growth of the first set of writers...and less so about the second set).