News
The cartoonist Fred died this week. Take a minute to check out Domingos Isabelinho’s post looking at his work.
Th eweek of the 15th we’re going to start a comics and music roundtable. If you’ve got a post you’d like to write on that theme, let me know. You can email me at myname at gmail.
On HU
A brief post on comics that work in a gallery and those that don’t.
For Easter, a post on death metal and bluegrass gospel.
Featured Archive Post Fabrice Neaud on Aritophane’s Conte Dominaque. trans. by Derik Badman, intro by Domingos Isabelinho.
Jacob Canfield on the problems with animation adaptations of comics — particularly Axe Cop, Calvin and Hobbes, and Achewood.
Sarah Shoker on Harry Potter and multiculturalism.
I talk about comics vs. fashion editorials.
Domingos Isabelinho on the the blind man and the elephant, if the elephant was Jack Kirby.
Chris Gavaler on Clark Kent and the passive voice.
The Incredible String Band wants to know what music you listened to this week.
Utilitarians Everywhere
At Reason I review Peter Eichstadt’s new book about the mess that is Afghanistan.
At the Atlantic I talk about
— Waldorf education and not sweating the gnomes.
—hook up culture and my college experiences. Humiliating, though not quite in the way you may be expecting.
—the Atlanta teachers scandal and how cheating is caused by high-stakes testing.
At Splice Today I write about:
— the awesomeness of fIREHOSE.
— class and changing ideas of marriage.
Other Links
Sharon Marcus on comparative sapphism.
This Week’s Reading
Finished Octavia Butler’s Kindred; read around in Brian Attebery’s “Decoding Gender in Science Fiction”, and (on his recommndation) started Gwyneth Jones’ White Queen.
I also saw John Carter, the film, this week. Which was an entirely adequate sci-fi space opera. Not sure why people hated it so much?
Firehose done a song about REM? REM got Minute Men to tour with them, actually fought for it. That Firehose singer sounds more like Stipe than any other singer I’ve heard. Gibby Haynes from Butthole Surfers was a huge fan and you could occasionally hear it in his voice too.
I loved White Queen without entirely following the peculiarities of alien culture and/or perceptions. I tried following the author’s blog (http://www.boldaslove.co.uk/blog/index.php)
but it’s mostly weather updates and British Leftist grumping. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it wasn’t what I’d hoped for.
Regarding music and comics, I understand that in the early 90s, around the time Marvel got Neil Gaiman and Michael Zulli to do an Alice Cooper comic (not Marvel’s first Cooper comic) they were planning a Yes comic too. Not sure where I read that; I subscribed to a Yes Magazine, and this predated my web access. The album Talk had just come out, so I suppose the comic would have centered around the Owner of a Lonely Heart lineup. Perhaps it got scuttled because Peter Milligan or whomever really wanted to get Rick Wakeman and his sequined cape in there, or Glyn Dillon wanted to squeeze Stave Howe’s mug in there…
When you live in small-town North Carolina, this is how you spend Saturday night.
I’m pretty sure with White Queen that a certain amount of the point is that you’re not supposed to be able to follow what’s going on. May write a bit about it next week…
I’d be more humiliated about sending my kid to a Steiner school…
Noah, quite agree about “John Carter” being “an entirely adequate sci-fi space opera.” It’s a puzzlement about how perfectly good (and sometimes even better than that) cinematic fare like “Waterworld” and “Daredevil” end up being so ferociously attacked. I blame herd-instinct; a few high-profile attacks generate a following. (Plus, it always looks more “cool” to tear down rather than praise.)
That “Why Apologize?” ( http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/04/why-apologize/274622/ ) article was excellent, the utterly sensible “As a parent, you’re not just trying to increase your children’s sense of self worth; you’re trying to turn them into a civilized human being” message lost in an era where parents threaten to sue a teacher who won’t award their precious sprout the grades they deserve, where so many believe, as Margaret Thatcher put it, “…there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.”
Hah! Well, plenty of reason for humiliation all around, I guess.