July 4th, 2009. Landshark Stadium. Florida Marlins. Pittsburgh Pirates. KC and the Sunshine Band. Fireworks with forty thousand friends.
I love you Miami!
July 4, 2009
Sarah Palin is more than just an action figure.
Sarah Palin is the most entertaining politician in the world. Today’s resignation speech was straight out of a Tom Robbins novel. Brilliant, free-wheeling, stream-of-consciousness poetry. If she is really about to be indicted by the feds, I am really going to miss her.
July 3, 2009
Alphabets of Desire: The Words Get In The Way.
(Promethea copyright DC Comics.)
Welcome to the third portion of the extended study of Alphabets of Desire by Todd Klein and Alan Moore, who also happen to be two of Promethea’s real parents. Our introduction has the full image and ordering information, this section has a knife.
These are Alan Moore’s next six sentences:
We are living in a code. We feel the apple resting in our palm, its weight, the waxen texture of its skin. We see the highlights rolling on its dimpled contours and the point at which leaf-green becomes lustrous red. Lifting it to our lips we catch its perfume, redolent of rural mornings, urban dinnertimes, our mother’s pastry and the way she had her hair. Our bite is audible, the crunch of tooth enamel in the crisp wet flesh, cell splitting violently from cell and a sweet aerosol of juice sprayed from the fissure as microscopic dew upon our taste buds. The familiar flavor is infused in our saliva, its initial sharpness rounding to a sumptuous curve there in the mouth’s dark privacy and rivulets of juice uncurl in sticky ribbons on our chins, but our experience of the apple can be only an experience of those words used to contain the raw phenomenon: red, green, sweet, crisp, round, and the way she had her hair.
Do you remember the last time something felt really good? Well, while you were actually experiencing it you weren’t putting it into words. Direct connections don’t have soundtracks. Or narration. Or storyboards.
The human brain gets trained to explain. That sack of meat in the skull is ideally suited to specific translation and categorization. Once it is schooled, it is too late.
The exquisite apple eating doesn’t happen to you. It just happens. In order for you to know what you went through, you need to use code. Identifying yourself with the bliss is a separation process. The words get in the way.
July 2, 2009
Robot 6 FTW.
The heroes of Robot 6 provide the best source of comic book news in all the interwebs.
Yesterday in their July 1, 2009 issue, they included our humble abode alongside such luminaries as Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, and Clive Barker. It was a birthday present I never could have imagined. Thanks gents, I will never forget you.
July 2, 2009
Like Two Squirrels In Love.
(Scrat and Scratte copyright 20th Century Fox.)
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs features the one character who keeps me flocking to the franchise. Scrat is back, and this time his temperature rises exponentially. As you can see, he has a new love interest. Check the direction of his eyes. This is a totally different game.
I will not spoil the romance further, you must see it for yourself. You might be able to guess the rest, especially when you remember that Squirrel Girl never fails when she sets her mind to something. Enjoy!
(Speedball and Squirrel Girl copyright Marvel Comics.)
June 30, 2009
Alphabets of Desire: Playing Tag.
(Alphabets of Desire copyright Alan Moore and Todd Klein.)
Welcome to the second chunk of examined text from Alphabets of Desire. Our introduction gives the details of its creation, now we are trying to understand the meaning of the piece. Today’s three Alan Moore sentences go like this:
Using sounds or scrawled marks we distinguish between fire and water, earth and sky, divide the world up into self and other, man and woman, good and evil, black and white and fish and fowl and sheep and goat. The whole of our experience is broken down into roughly two dozen minimal phonetic glyphs that can be recombined in almost endless permutations, can be called upon to conjure the imaginable universe and all that it conceivably contains. The world of our perceptions, the one planet we can ever truly know, is made of nothing except language, having words instead of molecules and letters in the place of atoms.
Upon birth, the human being feels the world directly through its senses. As it grows, the brain begins the process of differentiation. Raw experience is translated into language. The seamless whole universe gets chopped into bite-sized pieces. Easier to digest that way.
Unfortunately, the words create as many obstacles as pathways. Pretty soon the human cannot feel the world directly any longer. A skull full of language colors everything around it.
The Matrix movies did a good job of showing the basic theory here. After language takes over completely, the brain is helpless to know, for sure, what reality is. We think ourselves into a corner, and the walls are made of words.
Is this prison of phonics inescapable? Perhaps. And yet, with the very words that shackle, the poet patterns wings of fancy and flies to the stars, with readers in tow. We may not be able to shake the spell of language, but we can simultaneously celebrate its wonders.
June 29, 2009
Upper Deck And Marvel Comics Are Joining Forces Again!
It is the news we have all been waiting for, and it is official. Upper Deck will continue to produce the highest quality trading card games in the world using the most spectacular characters in the universe.
“We are extremely excited about the possibilities that this newest partnership opens up for us,” said Scott Gaeta, director of new business development at Upper Deck. “Gamers and trading card enthusiasts alike will benefit greatly as a result of the collaborative efforts by both companies.”
Paul Gitter, president of consumer products, North America at Marvel, added: “The Marvel Universe and Marvel Studios’ upcoming slate of feature films are ideally suited for trading cards and trading card games that will appeal to a wide audience.”
That sounds like party time to me. The first new products will be released this January, stay tuned to this station for more news as it breaks.
June 28, 2009
Sunday Mandala: Tributes and Remixes.
What a fanglorious Sunday morning this is. Basking in the glow of one human masterpiece reinterpreted by another artist. If you open your ears all the way, you can hear countless cover versions and re-mixes of Michael Jackson’s exquisite catalog coating the entire surface of the Earth. Inevitable synchronicity dragged my eyes across the sizzle of the googlesphere toward a blinking bauble by Alex Duplation Mediation for breakfast. It is a New Day Rising.
You see, today’s mandala is an interpretation of Julie Dillon’s champagne bottle crashing with a splash against the flying angel pointed toward the horizon that launched this ship. I started the Sunday Mandala feature twelve weeks ago with her work. Today that image has been spectacularized into a morffledelic chakrabbalah map to the center of infinity equals one equals zero.
What a fanglorious Sunday morning this is.
June 28, 2009
I Was There The Day Michael Jackson Bought This At The Mall.
One Saturday five years ago I was waiting tables at TGI Fridays at the upscale Aventura Mall in Miami when the whole place exploded. People were running full speed from every store, helicopters were circling, and time seemed to stop.
Michael Jackson was shopping with a friend.
The restaurant had full length windows along the section of the mall leading to the door that he used to come in and out, so we got to see him in person. The local news reported his purchases on the evening news.
He bought the Green Goblin statue that I had been wishing I could afford. I was glad it finally found a good home.
Life is like a bunch of small bubbles dancing under water. When we die, we pop to the surface and rejoin the big air above. Enjoy the greater self Michael. Thanks for the music.
June 26, 2009
Joe Quesada Confession: He Loves Squirrel Girl.
We have breaking news.
Minutes ago on comicbookresources.com, Joe Quesada, the Editor in Chief of Marvel Comics, admitted to an enduring adoration of our favorite hero:
“I’ve always wanted to do a Squirrel Girl miniseries or a Squirrel Girl event…
I haven’t been able to sell it in yet, but I keep on trying.”
- Joe Quesada
Okay, you heard it. Joe Quesada wants a major Squirrel Girl appearance just as much as we do.
Make it happen.
