YEAREND: Well, well, it's the last day of the year. The new year is pretty much the biggest sign of change most people have in their lives. Having a waypoint that allows you to see definatively that times are changing and your days are going by is very useful. Most people use January 1 to make "resolutions" that are a joke even as they make them. I can't say that I've not made resolutions that I've forgotten weeks later but I usually don't even make them. I do use the opportunity to look ahead though and see what I want to do the coming year. This year is going to be rather more eventful than most so I have a lot to look forward to.

• A new job. I'm finally leaving my current job which I've had for almost 5 years now. It's time to move on though and I'm hoping my leaving will do good things for both me and the company I'm leaving. I pretty much built the entire company on the technical end of things so now that it's running I'm hoping someone else will take the ship in new directions. This means finding a new job for the first time in 5 years so that's a hassle but if all goes well I'll be making more money (potentially _a lot_ more if my main prospect works out) which will allow me to finally get some self-publishing done in preparation for moving to writing as a career, not a side-job. In any case, I'll be going from the main guy who has to worry about the health of the system all the time to just an employee who gets to go home and not think about work so I'll have a better state of mind in my free time.
  
• My daughter's second birthday. It's hard to believe I can say "She started doing that a year ago" already. She's starting down the path of being able to really learn and speak and listen which promises to be the start of the most interesting time in her development. I know I have no experience in this area and I'm biased but she already seems so smart that I can't help but think she'll be running circles around me and her mom intellectually which I love.
  
• Getting married. I probably have the least view of what it will be like to be married than anyone on Earth. Since Kim and I already live together and have a daughter I assume it will be mostly the same but I have no idea. I can't help but think good things though, Kim and I and Allison are already a great team.
  
• My writing. My newest story (which is being sent to SciFi.com's SciFiction editor today so cross your fingers for me) is probably the best short story I've written and my new thing I'll be submitting to Oni in February is shaping up to be a good one too. I'm hoping the new job opens up my time and brain a bit so I can get more writing in and move forward. If I get High Paying Programming Job I'll have more than enough cash to get Hype Comics going and self-publish. In any case, I have a good feeling about the writing thing.

I have way too horrible of a memory to do any kind of comprehensive Best Of list. I'd be adding stuff I forgot to it for weeks. If you're really interested, I've been putting most things I liked on this weblog so skim through the archives. One of my goals for next year is to work on my memory so hopefully by a year from now I'll be a more proper weblogger and have my list together.

Here's hoping for a new year ful of change and surprise for everyone.
- posted by Matt @ 12:34 PM permanent link |

 
BOOK REVIEW: Singularity Sky by Charles Stross
Bottom line: This is the kind of science fiction I want to write, which is pretty much my highest compliment.
I used to read tons of science fiction, nothing but for long stretches. Then I grew up and realized that most science fiction sucked. I look back on the time spent reading anything by Piers Anthony and know I'm going to be wishing I had those hours back when I'm older. Writers like Charlie Stross are the reason I know most SF sucks, he just does it so well. He fills this somewhat slim book with more ideas than any 10 other books from the section his work inhabits at the bookstore. The main idea of the story, semi-sentient information gathering alien system called the Festival comes to a backward farming planet and begins granting wishes in the form of advanced technology in exchange for stories and information, is only the seedbed for the larger exploration of the societally backward planetary system and what happens when the revolution you hoped to lead finally comes and it doesn't need you.

As a lifelong reader of science fiction and as a futuristic thinker myself, I hate that most SF is just as backward-looking as Fantasy. Part of the problem with recent SF work is that we've come to a point in science where a lot of what made science fiction new has been done and what's coming is almost impossible to imagine, which I'll get to in a second. Space exploration can still be exciting but most new space stuff has been infected with the Star Trek Syndrome, as I call it, where everyone is boring and has no flaws, and the status quo rules. People just don't look to space exploration as exciting in real life so that translates to the SF work that people do. Real life science is changing so fast that it leaves even science fiction people in the dust. The result is the rise of 'Fantasy with robots and aliens' and 'Space Opera', two facets of SF that seem to be dominating the landscape. Even Neal Stephenson, who was at the forefront of real technological future SF with The Diamond Age and Snow Crash has gone backward with Quicksilver and to a lesser extent Cryptonomicon.

The issue is The Singularity. This is Vernor Vinge's idea that technological progress proceeds at an exponential rate until there is a complete break with what came before. The End Of History, as people call it. This comes with the creation of a human-level AI that quickly proceeds past human-level, the invention of Upload technology that will allow us to live in computer systems and artifical bodies, something of that nature that we can't imagine. The problem with writing futuristic work in the time before a Singularity is that you can't see beyond it. Everything is different, so much so that all we can hope for is the fire up our imaginations to the point where we can begin to think in new ways. One of the main goals of science fiction as I see it is to prepare us for the future. You can't hope to cope with the future if you've never been innoculated with new ideas. Singularity Sky is one of the first post-Singularity novels I've read that takes the idea seriously and examines it, allowing us to open our minds to the vast possibilities. Stross doesn't shy away from it like so many others. He uses the Festival's coming to show the speed of the change that comes with a technological Singularity and what happens to people in the aftermath. He also shows a culture trying desperately to hang on to old ways and the futility of doing that in the face of such rapid change.

There are problems with the book, mostly in terms of character development, but the rush of ideas glossed over that for me. This is only Mr. Stross's second book, I believe, the first being a collection of short stories called Toast: And Other Rusted Futures, that is high on my Must Read list. Charles Stross is a name that you will hopefully hear a lot more from in the coming years. His imagination is up there with the best and brightest and with his work as an accelerant my mind can't help but burn with new ideas. I hope more science fiction writers see this book and decide to move forward to meet him.
- posted by Matt @ 12:35 PM permanent link |

 
BOOKS: When I read the headline of this story, I thought immediately of myself in 50 years. - posted by Matt @ 9:47 AM permanent link |

 
LIFE: Just got back from the longest vacation I've ever taken, a week in Flaggstaff, AZ with my family for Christmas. A grand time was had by all and beyond the train home being 6 hours late picking us up due to a mud-slide in California, completely drama and complication free. If you're going to be in Flaggstaff, I wholeheartedly recommend staying at the Little America Inn. It's a great place on a huge forest plot and doesn't cost any more than your standard Motel 6 or whatnot. Also, used bookstore lovers should definately stop at Bookman's, one of the best used book stores I've ever been in. I picked up 5 new books there (including Foucoult's Pendulum for my aunt who just got done reading The Da Vinci Code for her book club). As a result of that shopping spree and a lot of extra reading time, I'll have a couple of new book reviews coming soon (the awe-inspiring Singularity Sky by Charlie Stross, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamont, and maybe Gun, With Occasional Music by Jonathon Lethem if I finish it by tommorow). - posted by Matt @ 1:50 PM permanent link |

 
STUPIDITY:
This is apparently a new comic put out by the lovely folks at PETA to protest wearing fur. They're giving it to kids as they walk by with parents who are wearing fur coats. Now, I don't think violence solves very much but if somebody handed this bullshit to my daughter the best they could hope for was that I would only take the rest of the comics and throw them in the trash. It's one thing to bother adults with your concerns about animals but giving this to kids is reprehensible. If the PETA leadership had any balls they would disavow this type of extremist activity, unless they support it in which case they need to be public about it. This is not an isolated incident and this type of activity is only making people think the group is irrational and ignorable, like all extremists and wackos. Abusing kids like this only hurts your cause. The only way people are going to listen and think about what you've said is if you're rational about it.

Once again, if you don't like something, don't do it. Take responsibility for yourself and let others do the same. Discuss your differences, don't resort to ugly guerilla tactics. I think fur coats are gaudy and pretentious but I'm not going to do anything but snicker at people wearing them because it's their right. They aren't hurting me and unless the mink or the rabbit went on the endangered species list recently, they aren't hurting the planet either. The choice to wear a coat made from an animal is yours and yours alone. The instant you throw paint on someone's coat or hand a kid one of these booklets is the instant you give up your right to not have people fuck with you for no reason. From that point on if the world were fair people would be able to key your car if they disagreed with the paint color, egg your house if they think it's ugly, etc.

Thanks to the artblog for pointing this one out (no permalinks).
- posted by Matt @ 5:07 PM permanent link |

 
COMICS: God Bless Graeme at the Fanboy Rampage weblog for going through the worst depths of internet comics fandom to find message board threads such as these recent ones:

I just finished rereading The Dark Phoenix Saga and noticed these inconsistencies.

4 continuity errors in the 20 year old X-Men storyline snipped out for sanity's sake.

"I agree 100% with what [Rob Liefeld] said about [Alan] Moore. Moore is one of the biggest rip off artist in the industry. What started with Watchmen continued on with Supreme and ABC and I doubt it will ever stop.

"Moore should try coming up with really original characters intead of ones based on what other people have done."

hahahahahahahaha. Spoken as someone whose only foray out of the safe confines of his room in his mom's house has been to the Marvel/DC shelves at the comic shop.

1) Cut half the X-comics. 2) Eliminate Ultimate titles. 3) Mandatory Marvel Method for core books. And that's just the first day."

"Eliminate the Ultimate line? Are you nuts? That's a moneymaker."

"If the burden of continuity has become too great, ignore continuity! But REWRITING everything flies in the face of common sense: the only reason Spiderman still exists to be screwed with is that HE WORKS THE WAY HE IS--well enough to last 40 years. If you need to 're-imagine' something, re-imagine something that never made a blip. Re-imagine Codename Spitfire."

Marvel Method? Cut the best-selling Ultimate books? Spiderman works the way he is? Man, oh man. Although these ideas came from a thread about how you would run Marvel Comics so the original poster was just asking for trouble. There's another thread on Micah's forum about how you would run DC if you swing that way.
- posted by Matt @ 4:24 PM permanent link |

 
LIFE: The American Family Association is currently running a poll on whether people support legalization of gay marriage. Since the AFA is an extreme religious group, I don't doubt they will have plenty of people click on 'I oppose gay marriage'. If you do support the rights of people to marry whoever they damn well please and want to keep groups like the AFA out of your love life, please go to the site and vote. They say they're going to present the results to Congress. Color me cynical but I doubt the results will go anywhere but the shredder if they don't agree with the group's agenda.
- posted by Matt @ 10:56 AM permanent link |

 
BOOKS: Note to Dan Brown fans: If you've read The Da Vinci Code and are dying to tell somebody how great it is, please read Foucault's Pendulum first. If you still think Da Vinci Code is a great book, please do tell your friends. But please, experience Foucault's Pendulum first. When I read The Da Vinci Code I had no idea it was some sort of phenomenon and am now flabergasted by the fact that it's on every best seller list. I heard 2 different people talking about it in Borders the other day as if it were the greatest thing ever. If you haven't read it, do as Chuck D commands and Don't believe the hype. Read Foucault's Pendulum instead, you'll be glad you did.
- posted by Matt @ 10:18 AM permanent link |

 
COMICS: I'll never understand people's facination with redoing old stuff rather than coming up with new things. Darwyn Cooke has a huge new work coming out called The New Frontier which recounts the 50s era of superheroes in the DC universe. I have no idea if this book will be good or not. I'm sure old school DC fans (which, let's face it, is most DC fans looking at the books they publish in their main line) will love it. It's 384 pages so it has enough girth to impress just about anybody and I'm sure will end up on many Best Of lists for 2004. The problem is, why? Besides the money, which I'm sure will be very good, what posseses someone with the obvious talents of Mr. Cooke to spend 384 pages telling basically the same story that has been told literally hundreds of times before? I know he has a new "spin" on it, otherwise they probably wouldn't let him have this many pages to work with. A new spin though, is really just a new paint color on a old car. Or, to steal a less charitable phrase, putting makeup on a corpse. Besides oddities like the shot-for-shot remake of Psycho from a few years ago (which completely failed at the box office if I remember correctly), no one in Hollywood is looking at doing the 18th remake of Casablanca. Nobody is writing about how good Avery Brooks's performance as Fred Sanford is the best they've seen in years. A hell of a lot more people grew up watching Lucille Ball than gre up reading Green Lantern and nobody wants to see a new version of I Love Lucy with Lucy 'updated to modern times'. I understand that US comic book readers are by and large nostalgia fetishists; with nothing but basically the same characters to read for the last 40 years it's hardly suprising that the majority of readers left are the ones who grew up on those characters. What I don't understand is why creative people (leaving aside the money issue) would want to spend their time and creativity putting the shock paddles to old concepts in hopes of putting their own "spin" on it. If Darwyn Cooke had gone to DC and said he had a new, original project he wanted to do with the same page count and set in the same time period with his own characters, would they have said no? I don't know the answer to that, obviously, but I doubt they would have unless his original concept was too terrible.

Are creators locked into the rehashing of old concepts because of the publishers or readers? I don't think it's the readers (outside of the few hundred thousand existing stuck-in-neutral superhero readers, that is) because readers are embracing crazed original ideas in the form of manga like no tommorow. Are the publishers the ones who are fixated on retelling old stories? They have to keep their copyrights alive, that's a given. But that's accomplished with the monthly books. Does DC really think they need to put out new versions of Superman's origin story over and over again or is the creators wanting to "spin" it?

I know DC at least has a handle on original material, most of the Big Two books I read are original concepts and most of them are coming from DC. Marvel is a lost cause as far as original concepts are concerned. They're too deeply intrenched in the 'revamp and sell to Hollywood' business model to delve too deeply into new concepts (once you have people creating for you instead of rehashing, they're going to want to get paid for those concepts and Marvel doesn't want to share licencing revenue - witness the brick-by-brick destruction of Epic).

It's an interesting question, to me anyway as this little discussion with myself will testify. As a writer who would like to write comics and has no interesting in moving from corporate concept to corporate concept the way so many other creators seem happy to do, I'm always looking at this idea. In addition to having a hard time believing that genuinely creative people are happy working as cogs in a never-ending corporate machine to the exclusion of their own original ideas, I'm trying to get a handle on where the blockage is exactly so I can incorporate that into my career plans. I firmly believe the future of comics is with a mainstream audience in bookstores and that's where I'm focused right now. The problem with that from a career perspective is the lack of money involved outside the DC/Marvel hegemony. I'll probably be self-publishing at least one book in 2004 and I hope to work with so-called independent publishers like Oni but as far as I've seen, those venues do not a career make and I don't want writing to be sidework for my 'real' job that pays my bills. My dream setup would be a Warren Ellis style deal at DC where (until recently) he was signed exclusively with them to create original works. Not only because the money would be nice but I respect DC's track record on original concepts. They've got the core nostalgia line of books like Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, etc., but they've also got Vertigo and Wildstorm putting out really good (mostly) original concepts, even if some of them are dressed up as old books like Wildcats 3.0 and The Losers. Since I have yet to be published, however, I doubt any DC editors will be giving me any chances much less contracts. Anybody at DC who want to see samples of my work are free to email me though. :) You'll be seeing my name in print soon in any case.

Not sure if this makes much sense. My sympathies if you've read through this whole thing and you're not me. I'm sure I'll be posting more on this topic though as I work through my feelings on the matter though so be aware.

My thanks to Peter Siegel for the Sanford & Son analogy.
- posted by Matt @ 1:20 PM permanent link |

 
BOOKS: The New York Times has an article here about science books for children (click if you're alergic to free registrations). Speaking as a geek with a daughter, this is a great trend. Nothing will kill the love of learning like Science Class in elementary school unless you have a teacher who loves science. Most science classes for young kids are taught by the math teacher or the teacher who knew who Darwin was and as a result of this and the coma-inducing writing of most elementary science books the only thing kids learn in these classes is that science sucks and only extras from The Revenge of the Nerds know anything about the world. Of course parents who grew up knowing nothing about science and our strange cultural thing of disdaining intelligence doesn't help. Kids need to understand that intelligence is not a handicap and science is not a subject in school, it's the world around them. Everything in their lives is science. Asking questions about things is science.

A lot of people are under the impression that kids are too stupid to understand science. This is just wrong. One of my coworkers has two boys no older than 12 and after only 15 minutes of explaining it to them, they probably understood more about brain function than their parents. And my coworker just couldn't get the fact that I wasn't wasting my time explaining why our brains have wrinkles, how memories are formed, etc. As long as you use words they can understand and don't start out with the assumption that they won't understand, kids have an amazing capacity to understand even advanced concepts. So-called 'pop science' books have become very popular in recent years with scientists writing books such as The Elegant Universe that explain very advanced concepts such as string theory to lay adults. Applying the 'pop science' idea to kids books is something we should all get behind.

David Macaulay, one of the authors mentioned in the article, was probably one of the most influential authors of my childhood. His books Cathedral and Castle (which I borrowed from my 6th grade teacher and accidently never returned, oops) were amazing to me even in 6th grade. The illustrations and explinations of the construction and design of these two huge structures I'm sure contributed heavily to my love and appreciation of architecture. The Way Things Work is another great book by Macaulay (who should be given an award for his contribution to society as far as I'm concerned) that uses humor and art to explain the world.

Anything parents and teachers can do to keep the love of learning alive in their children should be helped and applauded. Kids ask a million questions about the world for a reason, they're curious. Instead of telling them to shut up and stop bothering people they should be rewarded for their behavior. If they ask a question you don't know the answer to, great! Use the opportunity to find out together. This being the gift giving season, kids are going to get a hundred pointless toys they'll use and probably toss in the closet. Instead of bowing to commercial pressures and buying the latest retarded Bratz doll for a kid, buy them a good illustrated science book and read it with them. Everyone can use a little learning.
- posted by Matt @ 1:09 PM permanent link |

 
COMICS: John Jakala's "Manga Stack of Intimidation" has become one of the big reasons people are using when they want to try to explain why manga are kicking western comics' asses in sales. I always thought that comparison was a bit off and now someone else has done the work I'm too lazy to do. The Keromaru weblog has posted a new series of Intimidation Stacks that are a bit more fair (not fair as in "Don't pick on my comics you mean manga fan!" Fair as in comparing apples to apples). The problem with comparing Shonen Jump to monthly western comics is that Shonen Jump is reprinted material, as far as I know, as is most manga we see in the US. The cost to create a brand-new monthly comic is much higher than the cost to have someone re-dialogue an already produced book that has already made its production costs back many times over. Manga is sold in Japan to a culture that devours the books by the millions and the manga companies reap the benefits of that cultural acceptance. If X-Men sold millions of copies I would imagine it would be easier to lower the price on the trade paperbacks to be more in line with manga. Economies of scale create wonderful benefits for companies in every industry, comics included.

There's a lot to be said for manga versus the western comics industry, which unfortunately is really the superhero comics industry (one of the things that favors manga, not incidentally) but just comparing the sizes of the books doesn't really address the issues any more than comparing the sizes of apple to oranges. The sizes of the two fruits are not where the difference lies.
- posted by Matt @ 5:53 PM permanent link |

 
COMICS: I'm not going to wade into the 'My superhero comic cover can beat up your superhero comic cover' argument making it's way around various comics weblogs since I think arguing about art is just about the most pointless thing someone can do with their life. There's absolutely no way to even pretend to have any objective arguments about it so it all comes down to 'I like what I like.' Rational adults should be able to leave it at that.

With that said, I do want to point out some really nice comic book covers I like, because there are so few of them. Most straight superhero comic covers are so bland as to make no impression on me, just like most science fiction book covers. Here are a couple of books whose covers I really like.

These are two covers to Grant Morrison's The Filth that I really like. The minimalistic sort of industrial look to some of the images really stands out amongst a sea of muscles and capes. If the series is ever collected I really hope they at least reprint the covers in the book. A note on how they came up with this look would make my day as well.



Wildcats 3.0 is one of my favorite books of 2003 and definately has the most imaginative covers of any superhero book (even though it's more of a corporate intrigue book the superhero parts of it are so ingrained as to make it silly not to call it at least nominally a superhero title). The 'Build Your Own Grifter' cover is one of my favorites of all time.



The Losers is another great book of 2003 and this cover has stuck in my mind since I first saw a preview image of it. For a guy with one name, Jock sure can draw. :)



What I like about the covers to Fables is that they always reflect what's going on in the book but only until you read it. This looks like random images until you read the issue and see how it fits together.



Dave Johnson is one of the kings of covers, as far as I'm concerned. His work on 100 Bullets has been some of my favorite stuff in recent memory. I would love one of those big posters of all the 100B covers.


This is by no means a complete list, I have too horrible of a memory for that. What I do notice putting together this list is how it's all DC books. I'll have to look over the recent Daredevil covers and post the couple of those I've liked. For the most visible part of a comic before someone buys it, Marvel sure doesn't put a lot of effort or thought into its book's covers.
- posted by Matt @ 11:49 AM permanent link |

 
BOOK REVIEW: The Da Vinci Code
I just finished listening to the audiobook of this and my opinions on it haven't changed much since I started it. I can tell why this book is popular, it hits a lot of notes that people like to read about; conspiracies, the Church, the Holy Grail, puzzles, riddles, ancient societies, etc. I had a couple of problems with it though.

The first is that the writing and dialogue are not subtle, ever. The first time the two main characters meet I just kept waiting for them to just start kissing passionately, even though they're at a murder scene. Even though you might not know exactly how you're going to get there, the end result of the book is pretty much in sight the whole time. My other main problem is that the puzzles and riddles are way too clever. And not clever in the 'You fooled me, clever author' sense, clever in the 'I can't believe what a clever author I am' sense. Everything in the book fits together; the characters all have weird connections to each other. The characters have connections to things that help them solve the puzzles. The bad guys have connections to each other and to the object everyone is chasing. It's like a house of cards, if one of the characters hadn't done exactly what they did or said exactly what they said, the whole thing would have fallen apart. The "reveal" of the identity of the main bad guy is where I lost it. When you reveal a secret identity as someone who's already in the story the reader should go 'Oh, that makes sense.' In this one, not only did I think it immediately didn't make sense, the author spent the next 5 minutes having the character tell me why it really does makes sense. I should be able to do that on my own, thanks. If you're interested in this type of book, I would recommend reading Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco. It covers a lot of the same conspiracy, ancient order, Knights Templar ground but is like comparing a planet to an apple in comparison to this book.

I also had an issue with the voices used. The book takes place in Paris and London so there are a lot of different accents. The voice actor doing the book is very good with accents but it's a little bit too much. At the end the characters go to Scotland; as soon as I heard the actor describe a character as having a 'thick brogue' I thought 'Oh no' and I was then assaulted with that character's accent. A little bit of accent goes a very long way with an audiobook.

If anyone's been paying attention to the Books sidebar you'll notice that I've replaced Quicksilver with The Complete Book of Scriptwriting by J. Michael Straczynski with no Review for Quicksilver. The reason for that is that I had to put aside Quicksilver without finishing it, which I hate to do. The book is just too damn slow. It's been awhile since I read Cryptonomicon (for which Quicksilver is the first of a prequel trilogy) and even though it's a thick book I don't remember it being slow. The first part of Quicksilver is the part I thought I would like better since it's about Isaac Newton and a bunch of other scientists during the beginnings of real science in England. Unfortunately it was just so slow and mannered with very little happening that I couldn't wait for the chapters set years later on a ship bound for England from America. I like books that hit me with ideas, good writing or dialogue to study, or just make me think. Unfortunately Stephenson has adopted such a labored prose style for this book that I have a hard time getting into it. An Instance of the Fingerpost is a good comparison to Quicksilver in time period (and not much else) but it doesn't get bogged down and ponderous. If I could just sit and read that book to the exclusion of everything else, I might think differently about it but I can't do that. When I read a book I'm also probably reading at least one magazine, my weekly comic books, and a ton of stuff on the web in between so if nothing happens in 3 or 4 sessions of reading my main book I lose interest in it quick. When I've read a couple of other faster things and get back into Quicksilver I'll try making it my only reading for awhile and see if I can get more into it. I'll have a full report when I finish it.
- posted by Matt @ 12:21 PM permanent link |

 
TECH: Since my desired method of teaching rude people about the manners of cell phone usage, punching them in the face, is unlikely to catch on with the public, I'm glad to see the rise of cell-phone jammers. To paraphrase Homer Simpson, "Technology; the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems." I don't think that putting jammers everywhere is a real solution because someone will just come out with a jammer-jammer and we'll be into one of the things technology does best, an arms race. What I do think jammers will do is spark a debate on cell-phone usage. Once their usage trickles down to the local news and the public starts hearing more about these devices it will give people a real reason to talk about cell manners, it won't just be whining. Of course I'm sure a lot of people will just want them banned and we'll be back to being forced to punch people in the face but I do think a dialogue will help. If nothing else, it will give manufacturers a financial reason to think of a technological solution to the problem.

The solution I thought of is to require all cell manufacturers to have a Silent Mode for their phone which is activated by a signal given off by a device that movie theaters, restaurants, etc., can buy. That way a theater can have a sign up that tells people their phones will be in Silent Mode while inside. If someone has an old phone then the theater reserves the right to refuse service and kick them out if their phone rings or if they answer it inside the theater. I forget exactly what the turnover rate for new phones is in the US but I think it's pretty high. It wouldn't take very long for this feature to become a standard, especially if it becomes the alternative to the signal being jammed altogether.

Link courtesy of Gizmodo.
- posted by Matt @ 12:05 PM permanent link |

 
ART: The Cleveland Scene has a great article on the whereabouts of Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin & Hobbes. It's a wide ranging article; covering Watterson's dislike of merchandising, the end of Calvin & Hobbes, what Watterson is doing now, and the author's (halfhearted) attempt to find the man himself.

I was just a dumb kid when the Golden Age of comic strips was happening (as referred to in this article anyway) so I never got into Doonesbury or Outland in any real way. I remember laughing at Bill The Cat but that's about it. What I do remember though, is Far Side and Calvin & Hobbes. Those two strips were really my first experience in having an emotional connection to a work of art. Even though as a kid I didn't understand every Far Side, I could easily laugh at the gag strips ("Luposlipophobia" is still one of my favorites). I always laughed and felt a deep connection to Calvin though. I don't know if a huge Complete Far Side style collection is feasible with Calvin & Hobbes but I would pay huge sums to get that sort of definitive set.

One of the discussions I'm always interested in with Calvin & Hobbes is about Bill Watterson's refusal to merchandise his characters. People really don't understand why someone would refuse to sell their creations. Everyone points to Jim Davis for an example of someone who gets 18-wheelers of cash delivered to his house monthly because he's sold Garfield to everyone who wanted to put the fat cat on a piece of merchandise. The problem with that is Garfield, even if the strip somehow came up with something original to say, couldn't say it for fear of "the franchise." If Jim Davis wanted to stop putting out Garfield today (and since he doesn't even draw the strip that would be a dumb decision in anything but artistic terms) he would probably be buried in lawsuits by Monday. He's making a lot of money off that character but a lot of other people are also making money off of it so in a lot of ways he's a slave to them. Bill Watterson had as much control over his strip and his characters as anyone in comics and never ceded any of it to make a buck. He got to make the strip he wanted to make. I would love to have a Hobbes plush toy for my daughter but at the same time I have the utmost respect for someone who decided to say no to our consumerist culture and decided not to sell his creations. At a time when brands are worshipped as if they mean something and idiots worldwide are naming their kids Adidas, Porsche, and Courvoisier, passing up what would have been an enormous fortune for principals is something to be very much admired. I probably won't ever get the chance to meet Bill Watterson, and as a private person I understand his wish to remain hidden, but I would like to just for the chance to shake his hand and thank him very much.

Link courtesy of Bookslut.
- posted by Matt @ 3:49 PM permanent link |

 
BOOKS: This article is yet another instance of somebody trying to get Huckleberry Finn banned from a school. I guess it's too much to hope that people figure out that when you disagree with a book, that does not mean that you should try to keep everyone else from reading it. How about teaching your kids not to be afraid of words, rather than lashing out at any book containing words you don't like. Yes, certain words are offensive to some people, deal with it. The answer is more education, not less. Do these people think that by banning a book containing words they don't like that those words will go away? All it means is that people won't have the tools needed to deal with those words. Rather than banning Huck Finn because the characters are correct to the setting of the book and use words we find offensive, teachers should be using that as part of the lesson. It's part of history. Mark Twain didn't invent hick characters calling black people calling niggers, it's a part of our history, as shameful as it may be, and it shouldn't be ignored any more than we should stop teaching about the Holocaust because it was a supremely painful event in our history as a race. Ignoring history is the best way to do the things we didn't like the first time over again.

Education is the only way to eradicate racism, the only way. People who find Huck Finn offensive should be the first ones trying to get an effective lesson plan in place to help teachers deal with the offensive parts of the book. This mother should have asked the teacher to let her come into the classroom and talk to the kids about why she found the language offensive and why they shouldn't use those words. She went to the trouble of meeting with everyone in the school district to try and get her will imposed on all the other students in the school. She could have funneled 1/10th that amount of energy into educating her daughter and her class and been a lot more beneficial to everyone involved.

One of my favorite quotes on the dangers of banning things you find offensive is from Lenny Bruce: "If you take away the ablity of people to say 'fuck', you also take away their ability to say 'fuck the government.'" If you don't like the word 'fuck' don't use it. But don't take it away from me.

Link courtesy of another weblog, but I can't remember which one. Sorry to whoever it is. If I find it, I'll post. - posted by Matt @ 3:24 PM permanent link |

 
COMICS: This interview is one more reason I think that Grant Morrison is by far the most interesting person in comics. Beyond being a great writer, he's just a hell of an great subject for an interview. This is obviously an email interview but even given the limitations of that (no followup, much more formal answers than a personal interview) and the somewhat generic nature of some of the questions Grant fills the page with very intriguing and well thought out answers. I always find it strange how comic book creators who obviously have vivid and well-oiled imaginations turn into complete bores when confronted with an interviewer. One of the reasons I look up to Grant Morrison as a writer is that he always finds a way to get his ideas out there in interviews as well as in his work. He obviously thinks a lot about the process of writing and coming up with good ideas and he's going somewhere with his writing. He's not just putting finger to keyboard to get a paycheck, he wants to express himself and move people forward out of the ruts it's so easy to get into in the comic book industry. Fellow comics writer Mark Millar has obviously taken a lot of inspiration for his "interview persona" from Grant (I believe they're friends and worked together so with a personality as big as Grant's I don't fault Millar for that) but I don't think he's nearly as successful at it as Grant. When Grant talks about his view of the world and the reasons for his work being the way it is, I believe him. When Mark Millar talks about reasons for his work it comes off as hucksterism, not an actual belief. Even if it is all a put-on, it's a good enough one for me that I don't care.

One thing that always bugs me about a lot of comic book readers when talking about Grant Morrison is how they go on and on about how weird and hard to understand he is. Yes, he has weird ideas. He has ideas and isn't afraid to express them, some of them are bound to be weird. He thinks about them though and explains them so I think part of the problem people have is that they think beforehand that he's going to be "too weird" for them so they start out with a bias. I won't even go into the people who read his superhero work and then complain about his other work as being "that weird Vertigo shit" or whatever they say. Those people should rot. I'm talking about people who have been given the impression by others that he's hard to understand so any time he goes out of the normal boring range of interview answers that most other comic book creators stick to it's automatically labelled as "too weird." There's something wrong with a person who believes that any idea is "too weird" to try to understand. Even if you don't agree with Grant's idea that the world (including us) is a single giant organism about to undergo a severe metamorphosis, it's something interesting to contemplate. Give him a chance. You don't have to have read the entire Invisibles saga to understand Grant Morrison. You don't have to be into magic and have seen extra-dimensional aliens to read his work.

Read the interview and I defy you not to have at least a little respect for someone willing to put his brain out there for all to see. - posted by Matt @ 1:42 PM permanent link |

 
ART: Terry Teachout has a great post on About Last Night on Frank Lloyd Wright in general and his visit to Fallingwater in particular.

I've never seen Fallingwater in person, unfortunately for me, but I have studied quite a few pictures of it (I recommend the book Frank Lloyd Wright: A Visual Encyclopedia if you want pictures of his work) and I cannot think it would be anything but completely inspiring to live in that house. Most people come home from work, go inside and watch TV, eat dinner, whatever, without really giving any thought to their home itself. Living in a house like Fallingwater (or any Wright house really) you can't help but take notice of your home and be uplifted by it. It's not just a place to keep your stuff, to take a line from George Carlin, it's an experience and helps you appreciate your life. I feel badly for people who don't understand architecture, who can't see what the difference between coming home to a standard tract house and a place of form and beauty would be. Your home should be a place you want to be, not just a place to keep stuff and sleep.

A lot of people make a big deal out of the "problems" with Wright's houses; you can't hang art on the walls, his furniture is sometimes hard to sit in, etc. These people are missing the point, I think. Nobody complains about a painter using unwieldy canvas sizes or strange color combinations because it's hard to fit with your house. If you don't like how a piece of art would fit in your house, it's not for you. Find something else. If you want to hang a bunch of pictures on your walls and want to ignore the line of the wall and the form of the house as the architect intended it, don't live in a Wright house. There are plenty of other beautiful houses with acres of blank wall space to fill up with art. Yes, Frank Lloyd Wright was an egomaniac who wanted things his way or else. Yes, some of his homes have structural problems (he was a pioneer of the cantilever and overestimated it's weight-bearing abilities) but you'd be hard pressed to find any home from 50+ years ago that doesn't have problems, especially ones utilizing new techniques and materials. That doesn't detract from the work. "Read the book you are reading" to quote a recent Believer article. No one's forcing anyone else to love Wright's work, no matter how much wannabe intelligencia-martyrs protest otherwise. If you don't like it, find something you do like.

I, for one, count it among my goals in life to at least visit as many Frank Lloyd Wright buildings as I can. My visit to Taliesin West was one of the most profoundly moving events of my life, probably the closest thing I've had to a religious experience. Taliesin West is not even the most beautiful thing Wright ever built but it's absolutely breathtaking. The Robie House, Hollyhock House, the Unitarian Temple, I cannot understand how someone could not be moved by those buildings.

- posted by Matt @ 1:46 PM permanent link |

 
LIFE: I'm terrible about taking pictures and even worse about letting anyone see them so in the spirit of getting over bad habits, here are a few pictures of my daughter, Allison, taken over the last month or so. Click the small image for a larger version.

And no, I have no idea how I had any genetic part to play in a daughter that cute. :) - posted by Matt @ 1:09 PM permanent link |