News
I’ve been invited to write a bit more regularly for the Atlantic’s Sexes channel — so keep an eye over there if that sounds interesting.
On HU
Caroline Small on authenticity and Aline Kominsky-Crumb (featured archive post.)
I review Biomega and Ikigami and see things blow up while learning life lessons.
I review Wu Tsang’s Wildness, a film about a Hispanic trans bar.
Me on whether Johnny Ryan or Raymond Chandler is more of a man.
Ng Suat Tong on Mattotti and Zentner’s Crackle of the Frost.
Tucker Stone on 100 Bullets (Voices from the Archive.)
Matt Brady on the horror comics of Emily Carroll.
Me on Raymond Chandler’s misogyny.
Kailyn Kent on Saul Steinberg, the cult of genius, and the status anxiety of cartooning.
Me on why liberals should stop worrying about creationism already.
Richard Cook on gender and Jaeger in Carla Speed McNeil’s Finder:Voice.
Utilitarians Everywhere
At the Atlantic I think about why Katy Perry doesn’t identify as feminist.
At the Atlantic I review Playing For Keeps, and explain why infidelity doesn’t make the man.
And again at the Atlantic, I point out that Ross Douthat is a decadent tool of modernity who hates children.
At Splice I explain why the fiscal cliff is the founding father’s fault.
At Splice, I write about the smaller-than-life soul of Womack and Womack.
Other Links
The Magic Pixie Dust Prostitute (HT Alyssa Rosenberg.)
Amanda Marcotte rejects Ross Douthat’s population growth concern trolling.
Neil McArthur on stupid social trend articles.
C.T May dives into memeing.
This Week’s Reading
Read a bit more Auden poetry and then got bored; read a slim Alasdair MacIntyre lecture volume on atheism; read Stanley Hauerwas’ excellent memoir Hannah’s Child; started Jared Diamond’s new book The World Until Yesterday, hopefully for a review. Also started Bart Beaty’s Comics vs. Art.
After finishing the Earthsea books I decided to reread Lord of the Rings, which I haven’t read since… I don’t know, maybe elementary school.
In regards to LOTR, an interesting interview with Christopher Tolkien about the estate and how much they hate the movies/marketing stuff: http://www.worldcrunch.com/culture-society/my-father-039-s-quot-eviscerated-quot-work-son-of-hobbit-scribe-j.r.r.-tolkien-finally-speaks-out/hobbit-silmarillion-lord-of-rings/c3s10299/#.UMCVFpPjnfY
Also, comics reading: Slowly making my way through Ron Rege’s Cartoon Utopia which is really slow going. The art is super-busy, the text is kind of hard to read, and the subject matter is… esoterical. And Peanuts year 1980 (which includes one strip where a tree talks!?). And some French comics, including the kind of creepy painted comics of Alex Barbier who is kind of Baconesque stylistically.
Late peanuts has a talking school too…things get really weird.
Have you read Tolkein’s posthumous Children of Hurin, Derik? Partially written by Christopher, I think. It’s amazing; arguably as good as LOTR.
Oh, yes, the talking school is actually in the 70s. I LOVE the talking school.
I haven’t read any other Tolkien than Hobbit (way back in 4th grade and I don’t think I ever reread it) and LOTR. I tried the Silmarillion after finishing LOTR the first time but it seemed really dry to me. I’ll add Children of Hurin to the list for the future.
I read Fantagraphics’ recent Harvey Kurtzman volume, from its new EC library. Having read it, and part of the Wally Wood volume, I can’t help thinking that the series will not cement EC’s place in the canon but will, in fact, go some way to, uh, uncementing it. So much for their vaunted sophistication and maturity. The book looks gorgeous, at least, thanks to Jacob Covey’s design; the spines look especially nice when shelved together.
And I finally finished the first volume of IDW’s Terry and the pirates reprints. Not what I expected. Caniff starts out with a very different style from what he later develops, a style much more indebted to Roy Crane. Indeed, the basic set-up is startlingly indebted to Crane — a fresh-faced boy (drawn in a rather cartoony style) has light-hearted adventures in exotic lands with his adult man-of-action friend. What’s really interesting, however, is that this early style is itself pretty good; I’m used to earlier strips having different style because they’re a bit cruder and not as technically accomplished (as e.g. Li’l Abner or Dick Tracy), but not so with Caniff. His early style is just different from his later, and more derivative.
I just could not get into the early Terry and the Pirates… or any of it really. Maybe I gave up before he got good. Give me The Heart of Juliet Jones any day over Terry and the like. If I’m going to read silly melodrama it might as well be pretty women melodrama rather than tough guy melodrama.
Finished Dream Jungle, went back to Tombstone. It’ll be a while before I finish this book.
I’m finishing up the print volumes of Templar, Arizona, and on a recent trip to the library, I picked up that Kurtzman EC volume, the second volume of The Graphic Canon, the first collection of the Fables spinoff series Fairest, and Noah Van Sciver’s The Hypo. I’m quite interested to read Kurtzman, and some of those other EC volumes, since I’m in the camp of having heard about the genius of EC for so long without having read much of it at all.
Movies: I watched John Carter, but slept through most of it. That’s as good a review as any, I guess. It seems like decent adventure, but it didn’t keep my interest enough to stay awake. I also watched Atlas Shrugged, Part 1, or at least stayed in the room while it was playing. My mom was visiting, and she wanted to watch it, or otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered. It was pretty terrible, but kind of compellingly so, enough for me to keep it playing while I was checking my email and doing some work and whatnot. It’s pretty much exactly what I expected from having read about Ayn Rand without actually reading anything she’s written. Characters are obsessed with trains and metal, with the “heroes” being unapologetically selfish (the main guy responds to the statement the all he cares about is making money by saying “All I care about is making money”) and all the lesser businessmen and their congressmen buddies scheming to undermine those who are more successful and produce better products by implementing laws that limit people to owning one company or force companies to share profits, those horrible communists who just don’t respect individual creativity and accomplishment. It’s a pretty laughable libertarian wet dream, repeatedly holding the idea that people should sometimes try to help other people up as ridiculous and worthy of mockery. People who take this nonsense seriously are assholes.
The Caroline archive link is pointing to the wrong site.
No surprise with Douthat. Reductionist as always. At least he didn’t mention the Bible’s “mandate” to be fruitful, as he did in one of his previous columns with the same topic. It’s typically specious of him to state that foreign birthrates will “probably gradually recover” without explaining exactly how this will come about. To take his formulation further, if American people are decadent, then what about the rest of the world? Maybe the USA will have to settle for being slightly less decadent than everyone else.
Currently reading Spain Rodriguez’s “Big Bitch” anthology, which so far has been pretty terrible. A lot of it comprises of stories from the eighties, which means at that late date one of the major “Underground Comix” figures hadn’t progressed far beyond the “EC Comics + porn” formulation. What I’ve read of his “Cruisin’ With the Hound” book is ok, certainly better than the “Big Bitch” stories, but not enough to stop rolling my eyes when certain segments of the comics blogosphere praises his (workmanlike) output.
Listened to “The Best Best of Fela Kuti” compilation, which is just outstanding, especially disc two. Also went back to the “OHM+: Early Gurus of Electronic Music” anthology. Probably not the kind of thing one can listen to in one sitting, but certain of the pieces are just glorious. At least some of them, anyway. Just not the Edgar Varese.
Watched Claude LeLouche’s 2006 film “Roman de Gare.” On the surface it’s a nicely put together film. The characters and plot though are wound up so clumsily though that one can’t help but recall the meaning of the movie’s title. LeLouche’s choice of movie title is more reflexive than he intended. At least I don’t hate the film like I do his “A Man and a Woman.” If one definition of a hack is someone who can’t help but exhibit their own worst tendencies, then with both films Lelouche certainly qualifies.
—————————–
Noah Berlatsky says:
Women who value traditional expressions of femininity—whether that means wearing pink, or prioritizing family life like Bruni-Sarkozy or sacrificing themselves for their children—can feel scorned and belittled by the feminist movement. The scorn can, as Serano says, feel similar to the misogyny that feminism is supposed to oppose.
—————————-
http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/12/katy-perrys-aversion-to-feminism-shows-feminism-is-still-radical/265951/
Some feminists long ago made a useful distinction between “femaleness” — natural, innate — and the artificial construct called “femininity”: frou-frou, all pastel, glitter, lace.
Look at how women dress in traditional, “pre-modern” societies throughout the world: beautifully, distinctively, yet not like infantile sex objects, intending to titillate shallow males.
As for women “sacrificing themselves for their children,” when the male — who bears equal responsibility for the arrival of Baby — gets to opt out on most of the work, does not get his career-path and earning potential hampered (as countless studies have shown), unlike the woman, then it’s a situation rightfully as maddening to justice-minded people as women not getting equal pay for equal work.
If both parents equally (or close enough) sacrificed themselves for their children, then feminism need not enter into the situation.
And if it “feel[s] similar to the misogyny,” well, feelings can be highly deceiving, can they not? An insecure person can feel that criticism intended to enhance their job performance is instead casting doubt upon their worth as human beings; yet it’s actually meant to help them better themselves in that area.
Recall that feminists used to practice a form of criticism intended to liberate, rather than tear down: “consciousness raising.” A woman who’d continually defend and make excuses for her cheating, abusive boyfriend would have that behavior criticized, have it explained how she’s been taught that women are supposed to put up with mistreatment, be told she’s not deserving of abuse, that she should kick the bum out, etc.
(In modern “everybody gets a gold star” feminism, it’d be in poor taste, anti-woman, to put down any action a woman takes, no matter how blatantly self-destructive. “Women ought to be free to make any choices they want to! If you criticize, you’re limiting their freedom!“)
Whereas criticism flowing from misogyny seeks not to free and build up, but to tear down, keep women “in their place.”
Argh; sorry samuel. The link is fixed.
Interesting about Spain; I don’t think I’ve ever seen his comics, believe it or not. But folks (understandably) are especially laudatory right now….
The final page from this preview may sum things up.