Month: May 2002

The recent history of Marvel Comics has not been rosy. Hopes are high that better times for Marvel may be in the offing, with the company’s fortunes being jumpstarted by the resounding success of the Spiderman movie, the establishment of The X-Men as another cinematic franchise, and other Marvel silver-screen adaptations (The Hulk, The Punisher) in development. There is an interesting article on Slate today about Marvel’s future and the pitfalls that may await.

I stopped reading comics on a regular basis about the same time I went to college; when my budget reached a point where a pizza from Domino’s was an extravagance, I quickly realized that reading twenty or twenty-five comics titles on a monthly basis was simply out-of-the-question. I’ve started reading comics again in the last year, albeit in trade-paperback compilations as opposed to the monthlies, and I’m coming to appreciate comics as the most unfairly-castigated medium for storytelling currently in existence. If movies help Marvel to keep comics afloat, then more power to them. (These well-wishes of mine, though, are subject to withdrawal if Marvel should ever attempt a Power Pack movie.)

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My mother had a sneaky way of getting me to read when I was a kid. Whenever I did something that warranted being taken off television for a while (more often than I care to admit), she always had some book conveniently lying around which I would then be required to read in its entirety before I could watch any more television. (And more often than not, the books she chose were initial books in a series. She knew what she was doing, all right.) One of the authors to whom I was thus introduced was John Bellairs, a wonderful writer of gothic novels for children. Bellairs died in 1991, but an author named Brad Strickland has carried on his characters in new books. (Strickland also finished a couple of works Bellairs had going at the time of his untimely passing.) Bellairs had three main series: the Lewis Barnavelt books, the Johnny Dixon series, and the Anthony Monday series. The first books of each series, respectively, are: The House with a Clock In Its Walls, The Curse of the Blue Figurine, and The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn. All of Bellairs’s books are wonderful, full of interesting detail and quirky, memorable characters. And some of these books are downright scary, but never violent or gory — Bellairs is a master of atmosphere and creating a sense of malice. They are a great alternative to those Goosebumps books, and will also come in very handy now that it’s looking like the fifth Harry Potter book will be longer in coming than originally thought.

For more information on Bellairs, check out The Compleat Bellairs.

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Rick Norwood, a film and TV reviewer for SFSite, has written this review of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. He likes the film, and says so in a lot less words than I did. Ah well….

(He also likes Spiderman, which I have yet to see — despite the fact that Spidey has always been my favorite superhero. I probably spend too much time blogging….what a good thing I swore off newsgroups.)

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IMAGE OF THE WEEK

“The Lady of Shallott”. Oil on canvas, 1888, John William Waterhouse. (Click on image for enlargement)

In Victorian-era England there was a great resurgence of interest in the legends of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, which was felt as high as England’s great poet laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson. His Idylls of the King are one of the indispensible tellings of the Matter of Britain (along with Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur and T.H. White’s The Once and Future King), and his earlier poem “The Lady of Shalott” is also one of his most famous works.

The fascination with Arthurian legend was also felt by the visual artists of the time, including Edmund Blair Leighton and John William Waterhouse (1849-1917). Biographical information on Waterhouse can be found here.

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POETICAL EXCURSION #3

“The Ruins of Time”, by Luis de Gongora (1561-1627)

This chapel that you gaze at, these stern tombs,

the pride of sculpture…Stop here, Passer-by,

diamonds were blunted on this porphyry,

the teeth of files wore smooth as ice. This vault

seals up the earth of those who never felt

the earth’s oppression. Whose? If you would know,

stand back and study this inscription. Words

give marble meaning and a voice to bronze.

Piety made this chapel beautiful,

and generous devotion binds these urns

to the heroic dust of Sandoval,

who left his coat of arms, once five blue stars

on a gold field, to climb with surer step

through the blue sky, and scale the golden stars.

(translated from the Spanish by Robert Lowell. From the collection World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from Antiquity to Our Time, edited by Katharine Washburn and John S. Major.)

I read this poem a week or two ago, skimming it fairly quickly. Since then I’ve kept coming back to it. There is something compelling in the way de Gongora directly addresses the reader and forces him to pay tribute to the one interred within the tomb on which these words are inscribed. The poem appears to be an epitaph for the Duke of Sandoval, a patron of de Gongora’s. (I am not sure on this point; my attempts to locate information specific to this particular poem were not successful.) In any event, de Gongora uses the physical characteristics of the tomb itself to pay tribute to Sandoval’s greatness. We are told nothing of Sandoval’s deeds or acts or qualities as a person; all we know is that this is man who warranted the “blunting of diamonds” and the “wearing smooth of files” on the marble of his tomb. All this is done, de Gongora tells us, to give meaning to blank stone and voice to mute bronze. Also notable is the reversal of the color in the last portion of the poem. Sandoval has died, leaving behind his coat of arms — blue stars in a gold sky — to walk amongst the gold stars set in the blue firmament of Heaven. Luis de Gongora is one of the most important Spanish poets of the baroque era; his works were deemed praiseworthy by Cervantes. And to think, until a week or two ago I had never before heard of him.

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NPR had a trio of stories about electronic gaming today on All Things Considered. First was this story about some colleges that are offering degree programs in game design. Second is a report on the Los Angeles Electronic Entertainment Expo, a big trade show where the big gaming companies (and some smaller ones) unveil their new wares. And third comes a profile of voice-over actor Charles Martinet, who is now the voice of the Super Mario Brothers.

Also, this week’s TIME Magazine has an article about the new wave of “world-immersion” games — EverQuest, Final Fantasy, The Sims — that are more and more popular, branching out into online gameplay that can involve thousands of users at a time. Read the article online here.

Some of these games really look cool, but somehow I wonder if we’re not missing out on the old magic of walking into the arcade with a pocketful of quarters and seeing that, by some miracle, there is no one playing Defender just now….

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According to VH1, the greatest one-hit-wonder of all time is….(drumroll please)….”The Macarena”.

Uh, sure.

Personally, I’d go with “99 Luftballoons” or “Come On Eileen”. or maybe “Walkin’ On Sunshine”. or “Take On Me”. Or….

(Sean found this one.)

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The City of Buffalo, New York has given to the world one of the greatest of all indulgent foods: the Buffalo-style chicken wing. The problem is, Buffalo wings — which retain the fatty skin, are deep-fried, and are then tossed in a sauce comprised of hot sauce and butter — are, from a health standpoint, a disaster of a food item. (What makes them even worse is their amazingly addictive quality. Remember that old Dorito’s slogan, “Betcha can’t eat just one”? Well, try eating just one Buffalo wing.)

Many people have attempted to come up with a “healthier” version of the classic Buffalo wing. Most such attempts involve baking the wings instead of deep-frying. But today I read, courtesy The Buffalo News food critic Janice Okun, of a truly bizarre method of cooking the little morsels. Read about it here. (Okun is a longtime defender of the wings of Buffalo.) Wings encrusted in oatmeal? The mind boggles….if you suggested such a thing at The Anchor Bar, you’d probably be tossed out on your ear.

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0hk,kono,nl9nk

(The above appears courtesy of my daughter, who cannot resist the siren call of a keyboard left unattended whilst I fetch a bottle of water.)

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Just in time for summer, Slate has an article up about a crucial issue that arises each and every summer, a question which divides the country into geographical camps where each is convinced of the absolute correctness of its own position and deeply suspicious of the folks from different parts who are muddled enough to think differently. Yes, it is an article about….

….which barbecue sauce is best.

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