Well, complete in the sense that I now know all the moves, and can perform them in order without resorting to references (though sometimes there are big gaps where I have to pause until I can remember what to do next). Now, all I have to do is practice it three times a day every day for ten years, and then I will be pretty okay at it!
Some THOUGHTS to follow over at Ten Sword Style.
“Thus Shall You Go to the Stars”
Dr. Sally Ride passed away recently. She was the first American woman in space, and she was an inspiration to a lot of people. In response to her death, my friend Casey Conan — to whom Sally Ride was particularly inspirational — made the art above.
I think it is pretty fantastic, so this is what I want I am going to do.
Attention the internet!
In the US, the First Amendment to the Constitution protects something that we colloquially refer to as “Freedom of Speech.”
Here is what Freedom of Speech protects you from:
1. Government censorship of your work.
2. Legal repercussions (fines, penalties, jail time) from publishing or publicly stating opinion or accurate information.
3. Implicit or explicit pressure by the government on your media outlet (publisher, ISP, TV producer, &c.).
Here is what Freedom of Speech does NOT protect you from:
1. Someone calling you mean names because of your opinion.
2. Your daughter-in-law telling you to cool it with your bullshit.
3. A newspaper refusing to publish your shitty letter.
4. A blog deleting your stupid comments.
5. A bunch of people deciding they don’t want to help your hateful ass make a bunch of money selling shitty chicken sandwiches.
Those things are, in fact, PROTECTED by the First Amendment.
Thank you, that is all.
This guy. This fucking guy. So, okay, CNN has got some kind of blog, and it’s written by this guy Joe Peacock, here, go read this one.
Did you read it? Ahah.
Obviously, I want to talk about this, even though Twitter has been chewing this motherfucker up (“Overheard on CNN“: people think this is some bullshit).
Obviously spoilers.
I mean really, OBVIOUSLY spoilers.
Chris already dug deep into the meat of the movie, so I’ll be providing a light, summery sorbet of casual bullet points, nerdy “Hey did you notice…?” and whatnot.
So let’s get started with a NON-spoilery bit before we start talking about Things:
The Volume
Were the volume levels as screwed up for everyone else as they were for me, or was the musical score oppressively loud? For all the complaints about understanding Bane, I actually had a tough time catching large swaths of dialogue for all the BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BWWAAAAAAAA on the soundtrack. Read more »
I am going to discuss The Dark Knight Rises at length, now, and I am of no mind to be careful about what I reveal — like I’ve said before, I don’t really “review” things, like, “Should I go and see this on Saturday?” Yes, you should go see The Dark Knight Rises. That is my review. What follows here is a discussion of the movie, and to that effect you must understand that there will be Spoilers, and this entire opening paragraph before the jump is actually just an extended Spoiler Warning, and I don’t want to hear any of you punk suckers crying to me if I reveal that Hulk punches Thor or something, all right?
Spoilers.
Like a lot of long-time comic readers, I tend to wax and wane on whether I’m a DC guy or a Marvel guy. As a kid in the 80’s, Spider-Man, X-Men and Captain America held my attention. But in the 90’s, during my formative comic buying years, it’s clear I was more in the DC camp – looking through my collection I see some long, uninterrupted runs on JLA, Flash, Impulse, Robin, Nightwing, (though not a lot of Batman runs, oddly enough) – and James Robinson’s Starman had a huge impact on me.
It was only in the 2000s that my buying habits returned to Marvel as they started employing all the writers I like and essentially let them do what they wanted (Bendis’s Daredevil, Morrison’s X-Men, Ennis on Punisher, Ellis and then Fraction on Iron Man, Brubaker’s Captain America, etc ).
And DC at this point had become so mired in death and grimness that around this time last year, I was actually (cautiously) looking forward to the upcoming reboot/New 52 rebranding, in hopes that maybe I could get back onboard with a few titles here and there.
Of course, I hadn’t counted on the fact that the DC editorial staff had no fucking clue what they were doing, resulting in rebranded properties that were even less appealing to me than before.
And with little rhyme or reason. Part of the reboot was to state that the DC universe was only 5 years old, not the 10-15 sliding timeline. Which actually ended up wreaking havoc on the previous continuity, as writers and editors had to attempt to explain which previous books “counted” now – and just how Batman had gone through five Robins and three Batgirls (one of whom was previously a Robin!) in five years.
The answer: arbitrary subtractions and reassignments.
Which is why in the current DC universe, Green Arrow’s old sidekick Speedy/Arsenal/Red Arrow is only about five years younger than him – and his biological son Connor has winked out of existence entirely; the Flash for a generation of readers, Wally West (who was in the costume for over 20 years) was also erased in favor of the previous generation’s Barry Allen; and now the latest news, that Tim Drake was never an “official” Robin, having gone by the moniker “Red Robin” this whole time. Read more »
My play, Glossolalia, is one of the 40 finalists in the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival (SFOOBSPF, I guess?). My friend Casey made me a poster to help advertise it.
I like it. My understanding is that I will actually have to battle in a kind of Thunderdome-style competition with the other playwrights, so I am practicing my swinging-a-chainsaw-while-attached-to-bungee-cords as we speak.
UPDATE!
My AWARD-WINNING* series returns! As you all know, I like to talk about swords, and that is what I am going to do right now. If you DIDN’T know, then you might like to start over at the beginning of this series of articles. Otherwise, let’s just get right to it. I am going to start off with talking about the last fight from the new Conan the Barbarian movie and use it as a jumping-off point to address one of my swordfighting bêtes-noir:
Read more »
So, Marvel announced it was making a Guardians of the Galaxy movie a little while ago, but they just had a panel at SDCC and showed everyone some art from it. I think Guardians of the Galaxy is a weird choice, especially because the plan is for it to lead into The Avengers 2, The Legend of Loki’s Gold. Which, on the one hand, yeah, I guess you had to get [let's just say it] Thanos involved somehow, but on the other hand, what? I don’t know, maybe Thor 2 will explain some of this, because seriously, what? Also, who fucking knows.
In the meantime, can we talk about Wonder Woman?
