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I knew this week was going to be bad. It’s started off even worse. But I’m getting by. My coping mechanism of the day has been playing this video on a loop. It’s Joe Walsh playing “Funk #49” with Daryl Hall.
Yes, you read that right. And your brain is short-circuiting at the cognitive dissonance, isn’t it? It’s that short-circuit that keeps me from falling into a black hole of depression, because who can not get fired up hearing that guitar riff?
Continuing my tradition of talking about events I’ve gone to days and weeks after the fact, here’s what I did last week.
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| Science Cabaret |
Last Friday was apparently Yuri’s Night. I had no idea Yuri’s Night is a thing. Definitely, worthy of a toast. So, having had a hard day, I had two much-needed pints of Great Lakes Brewing Company’s Edmund Fitzgerald Porter at the bar hosting the event, and went to the upper lounge to enjoy a presentation and slideshow from a member of Cornell’s Department of Astronomy.
The most interesting parts of the presentation were the more mundane details, like how my phone has a more storage and a more powerful camera than the rovers that went up years ago, or just how ridiculously easy it is to shoot something to Mars and miss it.
When I complain about the cognitive disconnect of working in a place where people are beaming shit to and from Mars while there are spots on campus where I lose cell service, this is what I’m talking about. Still though, the photos from the show, especially the ones from Mars, are pretty cool.
It’s that time of year once again where I celebrate that one special aspect of my cultural and religious heritage…
SAN FERNANDO, Philippines–Catholic zealots in the Philippines re-enacted the last hours of Jesus Christ on Good Friday, whipping their backs and nailing themselves to crosses in a grisly Easter ritual that persists despite Church disapproval.
(link)
I’m a few days late (busy as hell), but here’s my latest Retro Nerd column for Functional Nerds, in which I write about a disturbing epiphany about two of my favorite childhood TV shows.
Check out, “Knights in Shining Leather.”
Cleveland by Harvey Pekar
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Probably the only thing Harvey Pekar and I have in common is the city of Cleveland.
It’s supposedly the hipster thing to do nowadays to declare Pekar a genius while admitting you’ve never read his work. Fine, guilty. But at least I’m not one of those folks who came to his work as a direct result of watching the American Splendor biopic (still haven’t seen it, but soon). Anyway, my previous experiences of Pekar were his appearances on David Letterman in the 80s. (As a kid, it seemed for years that the only guests Letterman had were Pekar, Fran Lebowitz, and Howard Stern. More likely, these were the only guests that were memorable, having held my interest and attention.) The fact that he was from Cleveland and talked about Cleveland didn’t mean that much to me at the time.
It’s to my everlasting regret that I never came to underground comics at an earlier age. I just couldn’t brave the densely-drawn comics in “that section” of the comics store where American Splendor, Heavy Metal, and others were shelved, near the porn comics. But better late than never, and I’m glad my first real taste was from Harvey Pekar’s Cleveland.
The fact that the book gives a good-enough history of the City of Cleveland over the years is almost beside the point. It, like most of Pekar’s work in American Splendor is really about Pekar alone and his observations. It just so happens that there are years where his observations on Cleveland and mine coincide.
When he talks about the things that happened in the late 80s/early 90s–Toby Radloff’s 5 minutes of fame, the decline of Cleveland schools to the point where the State of Ohio took them over, the hospitals taking over the local economy, etc.–he’s talking about a time when Cleveland was my home, during years when there was every chance that we might’ve bumped shoulders walking down Coventry, or up the steps of the main branch of the Cleveland Public Library. Some of the times that were his own, like the experience of running up the stairs of Cleveland’s (Old) Arcade, I independently experienced (as did a lot of Clevelanders) 40-some years later. To me, Pekar isn’t to be praised just for speaking general truth, but for speaking some truths that I can verify.
So, I have to give Cleveland a very biased 5* out of 5.
I’m actively juggling plates. That, and fighting off whatever Andromeda Strain I might’ve picked up at work, hence the extended absence. But these are plates that put me more and more in a position of having to (temporarily, at least) set aside the things that threaten to derail my momentum if any of the seeds I’ve sown are to bear any fruit.
I’ve been doing my best giving those things the Dikembe Mutombo treatment when necessary…
…and just taking things one day at a time.
Today, I d/b/a “The Retro Nerd” for the crew at Functional Nerds.
Check out “Repurposing Nostalgia!”
My brain has finally recharged after my first World Fantasy Convention evar! I met so many people, renewed some old acquaintances, and once again was shown just how much Barcon and Con-Suite-Hallway-Con and people’s individual readings are slowly starting to matter more to me than panel programming. Unless I’m on a panel, of course, which I was!
Next weekend, I’ll be at the 2012 World Fantasy Convention in Toronto. Won’t get there until late Thursday, though. If you aren’t able to find me at the bar, or with the Dagan Books crew, you’ll be able to catch me at Vaughn East at 3:00 pm Friday at my first panel ever…
You’re probably thinking, “There goes the neighborh…” “How did a yahoo like you get on a WFC panel?” Probably because of the book I co-edited, Bibliotheca Fantastica.
So yes, I am ostensibly relevant to the panel’s interests. But still, I look at that lineup of my fellow panelists, and all I can think of is…
I switched the lyric from Steve Winwood’s “Freedom Overspill” that I was going to use as the title of this post. It was originally a line from the bridge…
You got no right going around
Talking ’bout the things that you do
But screw all that because, hey, ZOMGI’mgonnabeonaPANELatWFC!!!ZOMG!!! So, here I am–rather, there I’ll be–hopefully caffeinated, fighting off my imposter syndrome, and talking about books!
This is a “Proof of life” post.
I do have stuff I could be talking about. Just don’t quite have the wherewithal yet. Mostly because it requires a level of organizational thought which I’m not currently capable, since I’m still recovering from whatever Andromeda Strain kept me away from the dayjob last week.
In the meantime, here’s the stuff I’ve been marinating my brain in for the past couple of weeks…
1
You’d think I’d have known, as a comic book guy, that avowed subbie and Wonder Woman creator William Moulton Marston actually had a hand in creating the polygraph. I’m truly ashamed that I never knew, or at least never retained that information.
2
My current favorite comedian: W. Kamau Bell. I’d only kinda sorta heard of him and then a couple of months ago, I’d heard Elvis Mitchell interview Bell on KCRW’s The Treatment. From there, I caught a couple of episodes of the podcast Bell does with guitarist Vernon Reid, The Field Negro Guide to Arts and Culture, and the first half of the first season of his TV show Totally Biased.
And, it just so happens he was on a recent episode of Marc Maron’s WTF podcast.
3
Modern racism functions not by applying malice, but withholding forgiveness. We write so many rules that compliance is impossible, then enforce them selectively.
