'Neath Satan's Sweaty Ballsac

2013-06-28, 6:29 pm
Categories: Stream of Consciousness

It's 116 degrees out today.

And cloudy and humid.

When I stepped out the door after work, I actually groaned, "Oh, Jesus."

When I say "It is literally an oven out there," it's not because I'm one of those assholes who uses the word "literally" to mean "not literally". It's because today at work we had a potluck, and the people who brought hot food just left it in their cars until lunchtime to keep it warm.

When I got in my car I burned myself on the turn signal -- and I'd had a shade in my windshield all day. On my way home, I was relieved when I got close enough to see that whatever's on fire and billowing a huge cloud of smoke into the sky is a good ways northwest of my house.

Tomorrow's forecast is 119. Which, well, I guess the good news about when it gets up to 119 degrees is it's probably not going to get any hotter. (Phoenix's all-time record is 122, and that was 23 years ago.)

And while the humidity is awful, it also means the monsoons are coming and we won't have to put up with this shit for much longer.

And the other good news is, I have made it back to my air-conditioned home and I have no reason to step outside again for days.

My pants are off, and they are staying off.

Moggio

2013-06-27, 9:42 pm
Categories: Music

Arranged by James Woodrow and covered by Icebreaker. Bochum, Germany, 2003. Uploaded by Icebreakerterminal.

Cartooning

2013-06-27, 9:16 pm
Categories: Comics, Stream of Consciousness

I've posted these bits from Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics before:

Chart of Realistic to Iconic Cartooning

McCloud as Iconic and Realistic

McCloud mentions, in one of his essays in the Zot! collection, that when he was working on Zot! he studied Peanuts and tried to figure out how Schulz managed to convey such a huge range of expression and emotion with such simple drawings -- and that this line of inquiry ultimately led to that chapter in Understanding Comics.

And you know who's got this whole "simple cartooning" thing down?

Sergio Aragonés.

The other week my wife and I took our 2-year-old nephew to the comic store. He made a beeline for a display case full of Batman statues. He looked at all of them, excitedly chanting "Batman! Batman!" But there was one he focused on more than any of the others:

Sergio Aragonés's Batman

He was excited. He was tapping on the glass. He was enthralled.

He's a smart kid.

And I got to thinking, what is it about Aragonés's art that has that kind of appeal? That speaks to a two-year-old, even through two whole shelves' worth of Batman figures?

Just look at it -- the pose, the arms, the fingers, the teeth, the eyes, the nose, the cape, the skinny little legs.

It's expressive. It's funny. It's exciting. And it's exaggerated as hell.

A collection of body parts in a bunch of simple shapes, most of them big and round.

It speaks to us on a fundamental level. A level so simple a two-year-old can see it.

Aragonés is a master. He may be the greatest living cartoonist. I wouldn't argue with someone who suggested he's the greatest of all time.

I was at Phoenix Comicon last month. Most of the artists were approachable. Eastman and Capullo were the only two who had real lines -- and they didn't just have lines, they had three-hour ones.

So my TMNT #50 went unsigned, because there's no damn way I'm waiting in line for 3 hours to meet Kevin Eastman.

I guess that brings up the question of what artist I would stand in line 3 hours to meet.

And I think, maybe, maybe Aragonés. If he ever came to Phoenix, and was just sitting in Artists' Alley signing things instead of spending the entire time doing panels. He'd be the one guy I can really think of who I'd be happy to wait that long to meet. Not Spiegelman, not Clowes, not Crumb, not Los Bros Hernandez -- I love those guys, but I wouldn't wait in line three hours to get their autographs But Aragonés? Yeah, maybe.

And I guess maybe Jaffee, too.

DRUMline

2013-06-26, 9:28 pm
Categories: Music

DRUMline interviews Joe Travers of Zappa Plays Zappa, who discusses, among other things, his longtime friendship and collaboration with Dweezil and Ahmet, his preservation work on the vault, and Frank's love of sound in all its forms. Uploaded by Michael St. John.

And remember, you can buy some of the recently-excavated work from the archives at Barfko-Swill.

Two More Victories

2013-06-26, 8:21 pm
Categories: Politics, Stream of Consciousness

If you want a good rundown of US v Windsor and Hollingsworth v Perry, you could do a lot worse than A home run but not a grand slam for gay-marriage advocates: In Plain English by Amy Howe of SCOTUSblog.

Meanwhile, Ken White of Popehat -- who has previously described gay marriage opponents as "dinosaurs snarling at the asteroid" -- gives us a fun Then 'n' Now contrasting June 26, 2013 Antonin Scalia's insistence that DOMA is not intended to discriminate against gay people with June 26, 2003 Antonin Scalia's citation of DOMA as an example of legislation that Americans feel "protect[s] themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive," once again reminding us that the major difference between Antonin Scalia, a clown, and a professional wrestler is that nobody put any talent or creative energy into designing the silly outfit Scalia wears to work.

On the long road toward our gay brothers and sisters receiving the same legal and social status as my recently-married ass, this is just one more step -- but it's a big one.

My immense gratitude and thanks to Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kennedy for choosing the right side of history, whose arc, I'm told, is long but bends toward justice.

And to all my LGBT friends and family, tonight I raise my beer in your honor. Even those of you who prefer martinis.

Dizzying

2013-06-25, 6:58 pm
Categories: Stream of Consciousness

So this past Saturday I finally went to see the doctor about the dizzy spells I've been having. (I realized, after I got there, that my existing GP doctor is listed as "in network" on my new insurance's website but also has a smattering of disclaimers around it saying that's no guarantee of coverage. So I've got that to worry about now, too. Man, healthcare in this country...)

She agreed with my assessment that it's most likely a result of allergies and congestion around the ears. She told me to buy some maximum-strength Sudafed (an ordeal in and of itself; I hate the hassle of buying Sudafed -- but hey, totally worth it since it's done such a great job of solving Arizona's meth problem!), use my nasal rinse, and drink lots of water, to get my nasal passages rehydrated and clear out the gunk.

I'm a few days in, and it's hard to say whether I feel better or not. The nasal rinse is one of those things that always feels legitimately unpleasant but does clear up the passages -- aside from the part where you drip varying combinations of snot and saltwater out your nose for the next few hours. When I'm not dribbling like a leaky faucet, I am breathing better than I have been.

Still feel congested, though. Still dizzy, and had a wicked headache today besides.

Spoilers

2013-06-24, 7:00 pm
Categories: Books, Stream of Consciousness, TV

There's recent research indicating that people who know spoilers ahead of time actually enjoy them more than people who are surprised -- that anticipation increases satisfaction.

This was -- and here's where I start to get a little pretentious -- this was the view of the ancient Greeks at the very dawn of theater.

(Did I just spell "theater" with an "-er"? Guess I'm not being that pretentious.)

When I was a freshman in high school, we read Oedipus Rex in English class with my favorite teacher. He told us the twists upfront: that Oedipus killed his father and married his mother. Of course, the whole play is a mystery about Oedipus slowly piecing together the clues toward that ending.

One of my classmates indignantly asked the teacher why he told us the ending before we read it. The teacher responded, "Because the audience in those days would have already known too."

Sophocles, I think it's safe to say, understood storytelling. He understood suspense. And he understood that it's entirely possible to build suspense even if the audience knows what's going to happen.

And at this point I offer a Warning: The rest of this post is written around major spoilers for both Game of Thrones the TV series and Song of Ice and Fire the book series. Including bits that haven't been on the show yet.

Of course, if you believe what I've just said in the preceding paragraphs, you'll keep on reading anyway, spoilers or no.

I've spent the last week and a half or so catching up on Game of Thrones. But I already knew, with a couple of exceptions, what was going to happen, as I'm already all caught up on the books.

So I knew about the Red Wedding. I knew what was going to happen. I anticipated it.

And it was still affecting as hell.

Whether it was more enjoyable than the first time, more enjoyable than reading it -- well, that's an interesting question.

I will say that there was a lot less confusion in watching it as a foregone conclusion.

The big bits in the books, the shocking parts, the stabby parts -- I find that I wound up going back and rereading them, several times, to make sure I'd really read what I'd just read. Ned's death, the Red Wedding -- and here's the part where I get into stuff that hasn't happened on the show yet, so this is your final warning --, Joffrey's death, Jon's stabbing -- my reaction to those was, as much as anything, Wait, what? I had to go back, read it again. Particularly with Joffrey's death -- I had a feeling that the other three examples I've just given might happen; certainly there was plenty of foreshadowing that something bad was going to happen -- but Joffrey's death caught me completely by surprise. (Perhaps because it's also the only major twist in the series that gives readers something they want instead of hurting them.)

Watching it on TV, knowing what was going to happen -- it increased the air of foreboding, the grim knowledge that the outcome was inevitable. I clenched my teeth, clutched the arm of the couch, and caught every single little bit of foreshadowing as it built.

And speaking of Joffrey's assassination, every bit of foreshadowing lands harder knowing that it's coming. Margaery Tyrell and the Queen of Thorns feigning friendship to Sansa is that much more cruel, knowing that they're not merely pumping her for information but setting her up to take the fall for his murder.

Then again, I also paid special attention to every change, every surprise, every moment that wasn't in the books. Robb's wife being stabbed repeatedly right in the belly -- Jesus Christ, that may have even topped the book for gruesomeness. Grey Wind dying in a cage instead of putting up a fight. Catelyn killing Lord Frey's wife instead of a handicapped grandson. Roose Bolton being the one to kill Robb himself, rather than just sitting back and watching. Every alteration was that much stronger for being unexpected -- and I think the biggest question in my head right now is how Shae's story is going to turn out, since it clearly won't be the same way as in the book. (Though, on the other hand, it could simply be the obvious -- Tywin finds out about her and makes good on his threat. Which unfortunately would leave us without the last interesting little twist we learn about Tywin, but I think that ship's already sailed.)

It is, as you'd reasonably expect, hard to quantify something like enjoyment. But I think good stories are ones that don't rest entirely on twists and can still be enjoyed even if you know what's going to happen. Indeed, I'd sussed out who Jon Snow's real parents were by the end of the first book, but that hasn't decreased my anticipation for the big reveal when it comes.