What's Up Wednesday - October 5, 2011

So did you know that since the reign of Queen Victoria, the last Wednesday in September has been given the name "Second Tuesday"? That's because it's not true. I missed a week. Oh well! Let's see what I found interesting in the past two weeks.

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Music
I love The Muppets and am a big fan of off-beat covers, so when I saw The Green Album I knew I would eventually have to give it a spin. It starts off really promising: OK Go!'s cover of "The Muppet Show Theme" is weird and groovy, although it goes on a little too long. Things pick up with Weezer & Hayley Williams's cover of The Rainbow Connection, which gives us a harp doing the traditional banjo riff and a beautiful two-part harmony for the last verse. The Fray's "Manah-Manah" sounds nearly the same as the TV version, which is okay but nothing special. And then there's the Alkaline Trio's version of "Movin' Right Along" which could be my favourite song on the album: it's a fusion of the band's sound with the spirit of the original, where the band plays with it just enough to make it interesting without completely destroying the song. My Morning Jacket's version of "Our World," a song I've never heard before, is a nice little song that would be easily performed by both Muppets and rock stars.

And then...things start going downhill. Amy Lee does a creepy version of "Halfway Down The Stairs," which needs that kind of interpretation like Archie Andrews needs a goth-style makeover. Another lowlight is a really awkward version of one of my favourite Muppet songs ever, "I Hope That Something Better Comes Along" - a human should not sing lyrics like "What could be better than a saucy Irish Setter" straightforwardly. An adequate version of "It's Not Easy Being Green" almost pulls us out of the nose-dive, but then the album closes with Rachael Yamagata's version of "I'm Going To Go Back There Someday" which seems weirdly-orchestrated just for the sake of being weird, and is truly unfortunately mixed (I don't need to hear the soft tisues of your mouth sliding against each other when you're singing). I like about half the album and the rest either underhwlmes me or makes me frustrated thinking about how much better it could have been.

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Comics
I have been curious about Matt Wagner's Grendel comics for a few years, so last week I got off my ass and took Grendel: Behold The Devil out of the library. If I had done my research I would have discovered that this was one of the last books in the series, but I decided to try it anyhow, figuring every comic is someone's first and that it might hook me hard enough to want to seek out the other comics. And boy, did it. In this volume Grendel is Hunter Rose, bestselling author by day and brutal crime kingpin by night. Behold The Devil is an examination of a "lost" episode in his life, and if this is anything like the earlier comics then I am in. Beautifully illustrated, perfectly paced, this tale of violence unfolds step by glorious step until the surprise (to me) ending. The violence is absolutely exq$uisite; the first five pages of Chapter One completely blew me away. I will be back for more, definitely, and will re-read this one with relish when I get back to its spot in publishing continuity.

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Movies
I saw Drive yesterday and it is GOOOOOOOD. It's not the big dumb action movie they're trying to sell it as, although sharp-eyed viewers would probably have figured that out by the use of pink font on the posters and trailers. It's a thoughtful, suspenseful action film, more along the lines of a Point Blank or To Live& Die In L.A. than a Fast & The Furious. I've heard a few people say the 70s & 80s homage is slap-dash and unsatisfying, but I really feel there's a lot to like. There are a number of very quiet moments, nearly TOO quiet, and there are a lot of very subtle performances that would have been completely extinguished in a lesser film. And when things go bad, they go really bad. Shocking, grotesque violence, with one scene that had me squirming in my seat. And the cast is great, too. Ryan Gosling's stoic performance may go a little too far towards stone-faced at times, but Carey Mulligan is note-perfect, Ron Perlman is fun and intimidating, Bryan Cranston is great as usual, and Albert Brooks is TERRIFYING as a crime boss. No seriously. I was shocked too. If you like film in general and action films in particular, then you need to make a trip to see Drive, and soon.

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Books
After months of struggling to read, I broke into Grant Morrison's Supergods for Nerd Book Club and it is a really fun and fast (but uneven) book. I enjoyed his (admittedly skewed) examination of the Golden and Silver ages of superhero comic books, with a little bit of examination of how these books represent spiritual archetypes that have been with us for centuries, but these analogies didn't really going anywhere other than "Did you notice that? I did, it's amazing." Which is okay, I guess, and I enjoy seeing someone else's perspective on these familiar characters. And then about halfway through, it became less about an exploration of the character archetypes & how they could inform us about human nature and became part-history, part-memoir. I understood why: Morrison felt he needs to explain his motivations for writing, which are based on his life experiences, including his metaphysical ones. And while that fits into the theme of the book, which I won't completely reveal because I think finding that theme is part of the journey,

I think the memoir aspects could have been toned down and the thematic aspects given more direction and follow-through. The book is in some pretty desperate need of an editor, as things get a little meandery about halfway through and almost spiral completely out of control towards the end. (There are also some pretty obvious typos and things being mentioned out of sequence.) For me, though, being familiar with Morrison's style, I find the lack of direction is a trap he sometimes finds himself in, and I was able to climb out of it with him and bring something worthwhile along with me. So I ended up liking it and will probably re-read it in the next couple of years, but  I would be really interested in a non-fan's perspective on the book.  I don't know if it would be easy to follow or impactful for someone who doesn't have strong connections to the characters or the writer like I do.

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DVDs/Blu-Rays
Two weekends ago I went to visit a friend and we had a marathon of all 25 episodes of the first season of Community Season 1. That marks the seventh time I've gone through the first season in under 12 months. Which probably sounds silly but it really is that good. I noticed jokes and references this seventh time that had completely passed me by the first time, which means that either a) I am not very observant or b) these are some amazingly great episodes. I would like to think that the answer is b). Regardless: if you haven't seen Community, you really should. It is one of only a handful of shows that represent the pinnacle of television comedy, and I have no doubt that it will be remembered very fondly in the coming decades.

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TV
This "week," I would like to take a moment to talk about...The Playboy Club. When I first heard that there was going to be a prime-time drama about The Playboy Club, I was dubious. I thought that it was just a lame way to grab ratings by cashing in on the Mad-Men-60s-style-chic and parading beautiful women around in Bunny costumes and their underwear. And I will admit: it was partly that. But honestly, only partly. By the end of the first episode I thought, despite myself, that there was something more there. They introduced a lot of characters, and involved a lot of interesting themes: politics, race relations, organized crime, sexual orientation, gender roles, and a handful of interesting mysteries. And there were musical numbers! And did I mention a half-dozen beautiful women? Sure, some of the characterizations were groaningly broad, and the "Hugh Hefner in the shadows" bits were pretty awful, but I thought there were things to grow on. I felt even more positive about the show after the second episode, where things felt a little rushed and some plots were given more time to breathe. And that meant, of course, that it would be cancelled. I just didn't think it would have been by episode three! I thought for sure I'd get a half-season out of it at least, where they could wrap at least a couple of plot threads up. Instead I got three episodes of what was a pretty promising show. I guess most viewers didn't see it the way I did, but I really think that The Playboy Club is up there with American Gothic as one of those promising shows cancelled way too early.

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Life
Last Monday my brother got me royally drunk, tied some training wheels on me, and set me up in his hockey draft. I apparently did okay, stealing some players out from under some of the other guys, and I walked away thinking I did okay. And then three days later he sent me a text saying I had drafted someone who had already retired. And nobody noticed. So I have a lot more to learn, I guess.

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And that's it. More song updates to follow, for sure, but now it's time for me to get on the exercise bike. Curse you, bike.

The Return of What's Up Wednesday: September 14, 2011

Hello! In efforts to find more ways to distract myself that aren't "sit on couch and eat too much while watching movies," I'm pulling out the What's Up Wednesday semi-feature I tried about a year back. This should get me writing more regularly, and should provide me with a "deadline" and reason to dedicate some blog time every week. This week's update is going to be long, as I figured I should dive in headfirst, so let's see what struck me as interesting, fun, and or important about the previous week!

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Movies

I got to see Contagion with @Morgoid last night. The trailer had me mildly interested until I saw that it was directed by Steven Soderbergh, and then I knew I had to see it. Soderbergh's one of my favourite modern directors, and although he's helmed a few clunkers he's also put together two of my favourite movies: Out of Sight and The Limey. And since he is apparently retiring from the movies to paint, I thought I should see what might be his last movie in the theater.

Overall, I thought Contagion was a good film. First of all, it's a hell of a cast: Lawrence Fishburne, Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Enrico Colantoni, Chin Han, Elliott Gould, Jude Law, Jennifer Ehle, and Bryan Cranston all do remarkable work. I thought it would be distracting having so many recognizable faces because the presence of so many stars might pull you out of the story, but ultimately having so many names helped because they were all really good performances. Each character was given moments of weakness and of strength, so the characters weren't all paragons or villains, but people with varying degrees of greed, hope, selfishness, passion, and fear.

The pacing, sparse score, and naturalistic dialogue help the film to be very matter-of-fact without being boring: it really does feel like this is what would happen if there was a worlwide outbreak of a devastating disease, which makes the horror very real. You get to see the impact of the outbreak from varying levels: international tensions, national political issues, state and family emergencies. It's a very thoughtful and well-researched film that some others might find cold and unengaging but I appreciated the lack of sensation and sentimentality that you might find in a lesser "Hollywood-style" thriller.

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Books

Still finding it really hard to read lately - apparently stress plays havoc on my concentration - but I am trying to finish The Lost City of Z that I started reading for Nerd Book Club. It's adventure non-fiction, the story of explorer Percy Fawcett and his doomed trip into the South American jungle in search of a fabled lost civilization. I'm enjoying it but I don't like the author putting words and thoughts in the character's mouth: it's one thing if you're quoting from journal entries and letters, but inventing dialogue whole-cloth is where I draw the line in my non-fiction. Your mileage may vary, but if you enjoy exciting and interesting non-fiction then I think this is up your alley.

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DVD/Blu-Ray

Speaking of Elliott Gould: I watched a lot of DVDs this week (including the fascinating I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale which is a must-see documentary for people who love acting and/or movies, and the entire first season of Castle which was just as fun as I remembered), but the DVD I really want to rave about is The Long Goodbye. I read Raymond Chandler's novel when I was in University and really liked it, and was a little hesitant to watch a re-imagining of the story directed by Robert Altman, who I knew had taken a number of liberties with the story and the setting (updating it to the early 1970s, contemporary for the time). Finally sitting down to watch it, though, I was really pleased: although it does feel like an Altman film in the same vein as M*A*S*H or McCabe & Mrs. Miller (meandering storyline, chunks of improvisation, moments of unintelligible dialogue, constantly moving cameras), it works as a movie in its own right.

Elliott Gould's Marlowe is really terrific, and it's because he doesn't do a version of Humphrey Bogart, although there are similarities in the characterizations. I love the contrast between Marlowe's 1950s aesthetic and the rest of the characters "contemporary" attitudes and styles; his straightforward hard-boiled nature and older-cut suits play beautifully off the ambiguous characters and sometimes outrageous outfits. Gould is funny and wry when he needs to be and tough and cold when the situation calls for it, and another awesome standout is Sterling Hayden, sporting a Hemingwayesque beard, as a troubled writer that Marlowe is hired to find. Plus: Arnold Schwarzenegger in a non-speaking role sporting a moustache. Yeah. That happened. I can't stop thinking about it since I watched it three days ago, which to me is the mark of a good movie. Watch it: you just might be surprised.

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Podcasts

I'm going to shine a spotlight on what is not just one of my favourite comedy podcasts but one of my favourite podcasts period: Doug Loves Movies. (Fun Fact: I saw a taping of Doug Loves Movies when I went to California in July and if you listen to this episode you can hear me laughing in the background and catching a monkey.) The premise is that comedian Doug Benson sits around a table with a bunch of his friends, ostensibly talk about movies, then play movie-themed games such as "Build a Title" (where you add movie titles together to make things like "Wait Until Dark City of Angels in the Out-Field of Dreams" and "The Leonard Maltin Game" (think "Name That Tune" but with movies and actors). In the past two days I've listened to five episodes and they're all very funny; three of the most recent episodes were recorded live from the Bumbershoot festival and feature great guests such as Scott Aukerman, Kyle Kinane, Eugene Mirman, and Paul F. Tompkins. I think the Bumbershoot episodes are a good intro to the show because you get a lot of content and a lot of great guests without a lot of self-promotion (which, let's face it, is why people do the podcasts). If you like movies, standup comedy, and tangents: Doug Loves Movies is for you.

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TV

On Monday the last episode of So You Think You Can Dance Canada aired and while the show itself felt kind of like filler, Mary Murphy's breasts shocked and terrified, and Leah Miller's special brand of anti-charisma threatened to break my spirit, I enjoyed it. Not only did the "right" dancer win (in both my and @DanicaHere's opinions), it featured some of my favourite routines. If you're curious as to what I thought, or what you can expect, here are four of my favourite routines of the season in glorious low-fi YouTube quality! (You can skip through the judges at the end, I usually do.)

Melissa & Shane in a Hip-Hop routine (choreographed by Luther Brown; the music is awful but the dance is really fun; starts at about 0:50)

Jordan & Joey in a Jazz routine (choreographed by the great Sean Cheeseman; starts at 1:16)

Shane & Lindsey in a REALLY fun disco routine (choreographed by Melissa Williams; starts at about 3:08)

And because I want EVERYONE to see this last one, embedded video! Jordan & Christian in a breathtaking Jazz number (again by the brilliant Sean Cheeseman):

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Comics

I read quite a few comics last week, but the ones I'm going to focus on are the ones from the DC relaunch. For those non-comics people who read my blog, DC Comics (they who make Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, etc.) decided to revamp/relaunch their line of superhero comics by streamlining continuity, making the characters younger and more modern, and releasing 52 new titles starting all over at #1. It's an attempt to bring in new and lapsed readers, and as someone who is neither of those two things I'm still excited to see what they do with their titles. The four titles I liked best from last week were:

Swamp Thing: The list of talented creators who've worked on this title in the past is about as long as my arm, and this first issue lives up to those expectations. This is more of a supernatural thriller than a superhero book, but it's definitely grounded in the shared universe thanks to featured appearances by a number of recognizable DC characters. Swamp Thing features really lush art from Yanick Paquette, which is some of my favourite art of the books I read. I've never read anything by Scott Snyder but he has sold me on this Swamp Thing and I will be going back to pick up some of his Detective Comics run as well.

Animal Man: I have a soft spot for Animal Man; I have almost the entire run of single issues from 1-89, and even when it got really weird and sloppy it was still interesting. Writer Jeff Lemire does a good job of holding the tradition of the title while still breaking new ground, and while I wasn't always affected by Travel Foreman's art there were a number of sequences that blew my mind. Definitely a companion book with Swamp Thing, bringing supernatural and horror elements into the superpowered DC Universe, and despite a few reservations I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes.

OMAC: Something I thought would be disposable and easy to pass up ended up being my favourite book of the week! I love 70s Jack Kirby and OMAC is some of the best stuff he did in my opinion, and Dan DiDio, Keith Giffen, and Scott Koblish make this new iteration SING. Part of the reason I love it so much is that it reminds me of those old Kirby books, with many tips of the hat to the King's legends, but the other part is because it is BIG LOUD FUN which is sometimes all I want out of a superhero book. Evacuate your expectations because OMAC is going to destroy them!

Action Comics: The new origin of Superman from writer Grant Morrison, penciler Rags Morales & inker Rick Bryant is probably the most new-reader-friendly of the bunch, and despite some online brouhaha is a very good comic. This new Superman feels like he's going back to his 1930s roots: a working class hero with a sense of social justice. He doesn't fly: he leaps tall buildings in a single bound. He's faster than a speeding bullet. As for the locomotive...well, you just have to read the issue. It tells a complete story but ends on a cliffhanger, daring you not to pick up the next issue.

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Life

Is about as positive as a Morrissey song. I'm not getting into it. But the possibility of more #yegprov (a Twitter-enhanced improv experiment) is an exciting development. And I hope to have a new creative project to ignore starting on Monday, so keep your eye on this space.

How I Am Doing

(Note: this was written on Thursday evening before I went to see Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Parts 1&2. I wrote it because I was trying to make some sense of what I was thinking, feeling and doing in my life. And I put it up here because I need to try to be accountable, and also because I am getting really sick and tired of answering the question "How are you?" If you're interested: this is how I'm doing. If you're not, just wait a couple of days/weeks and something better will be up here. Probably about comics or vacations or both.)



"I don't get what I want. I get to pretend things are going to be fine because people tell me they are going to be."

It’s been two weeks since my wife left. And since then life has kind of ground to a halt for me. I’m still making it to (almost) all my appointments, generally keeping up with my responsibilities, and seeing my friends and family. But if I had the choice I would be doing as close to nothing as I possibly could. Most days I can barely hold myself together.

Physically: I’m falling apart. I have stopped exercising entirely, and I have been putting absolutely no effort into eating well. Which means that I’m eating stuff with lots of cheese melted on top, and my diet has become about 35% take-out or delivery. I’ve gained 5 pounds since she decided to leave (the end of May), and probably another 10 pounds since the beginning of July. My lower back, which was feeling okay in May and the beginning of June, is starting to ache again. I know I should be more active and conscious of what I eat, I just don’t have any motivation to do so. (Also, I don’t have anyone to hold me accountable and provide me with healthy dinners, which was a big part of my progress in the first place.) And no matter how much sleep I get, four or seven or ten hours, it never feels like enough.

Mentally: I can’t concentrate. I can barely focus my attention on a single episode of 30 Rock let alone a movie of 90 minutes or more. And considering I am spending almost all of my downtime (when I'm not packing) watching movies…I get tired pretty quickly. Let’s repeat that for emphasis. I get tired. Because I need to focus. On watching a movie. That is just horrible. I can’t read any complicated prose, although I did manage to get through 50 pages of a new book at breakfast time. Usually the most reading I do in a day is when I absent-mindedly check my Twitter feed. This is the guy who used to read about 5 books and 15 comics collections in a month.

Emotionally: I am numb. The most powerful emotions I feel are sadness and anger, and since I don’t really have any solid person to blame for anything I am just spewing them into the void. I try to keep those under control whenever I can, although sometimes I can’t. And those are the days that seeing a scrap of paper with her writing on it, or a bottle of her favourite drink in the fridge, or a piece of mail addressed to the both of us, will set me off on a crying binge. I wake up from dreams where we're still together and I can barely bring myself to get out of bed. Dozens of times a day I forget that no, she won’t be home when I get back, and I won’t be able to tell her the good/bad/indifferent news of my day, and then I feel like I lose her all over again.

And when I’m not actively trying to deaden my emotions, I am passively numbed by exhaustion. I barely get excited to see my friends and family. After spending an hour with people I generally want to crawl into a corner and die, but often I soldier on. I can think of exactly three times in the past fourteen days that I felt real happiness, and that was all in the same weekend.

In two hours I will be going to see a group of my friends to watch movies. Normally that would be something I would be very excited about. But I am going to be surrounded by people who love me, in various forms, and the best I can muster is “attendance.” In five days I will be going to San Diego for Comic Con, something I have wanted to attend since I first found out about it over ten years ago. I am objectively looking forward to it, but that is in danger of being smothered by a startling amount of dread. And I can’t live the rest of my life, even if it’s only half a life, underneath a curtain of fear.

So I will try. I will make a list of things that I need to do in order to live, only pick a couple of them so I don’t get overwhelmed, and take it from there. And most importantly I will try REALLY hard not to beat myself up if I don’t succeed. I have a feeling that this upcoming chapter of my life will be dominated by failure. That’s something I don’t deal with very well when I’m at my prime. Hopefully it’s a short chapter. Hopefully it is big on character development and low on whining. And hopefully in the next chapter I get a jetpack.

Rambling: My Changing Thoughts On The Self-Help Industry

When I was a child, I thought that one of the things that defined being a "grown up" - aside from the ability to order Big Macs and Peanut Buster Parfaits without having to ask your mom - was being able to do things on your own, without having to ask for help. I mean, as a little kid, you need help with pretty much EVERYTHING. Or at least, I did. Before I turned ten, I did almost everything with at least cursory supervision and guidance: driving (the tractor), making food, doing chores, etc. I don't know if that is because I was bad at a lot of stuff, or if my parents were a little overprotective, or if that's what happens to most kids. But I always felt that I grew up with every little task that my parents deemed me capable of doing on my own.

(As an brief aside: this mindset is likely why I don't like doing anything I'm not immediately good at, particularly sports & other physical activities. If I can't do it successfully the first time, then I generally don't try again. I think that has some kind of basis in the "you shouldn't need help" mindset; if I need to ask for help or guidance, then I obviously shouldn't be doing it.)

When I graduated University, I kept that idea in my head. Being an adult means that you don't need help with anything. Or at least, you shouldn't. Particularly in your field of "expertise." I mean, you have a degree now, doesn't that mean that you should understand pretty much everything about it? And if you don't, all that means is that you need to read more, study more, and figure it out for yourself. And that's pretty much the way I've operated my entire life. Until this afternoon.

I'm not going to go into the fine details, but to sum up: there was a motivational speaker at my school division's big meeting today, and he was talking about changing your life by changing your outlook. I've never put much stock in motivational speakers, new-age gurus, or self-help books. Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, The Purpose-Driven Life, How To Win Friends & Influence People: all of these smacked of people who were just trying to make you feel good while taking your money, psychological snake-oil salesmen at best and spiritual saboteurs at worst. I equated Steven Covey, Dale Carnegie, et al. with televangelists like Jim Bakker and Peter Popoff. Besides, who has the audacity to tell you what to do to "improve" yourself? You live your life, not some guy with a business suit and sandals who wants to talk to you about "realizing your own potential." I wouldn't trust a guy like that to mow my lawn, let alone organize my life.

And yet...

...today, those thoughts were tested a little. Not by anything specific the speaker said, but by a thought I had while listening to him. A thought that was basically: "Why NOT ask for help?"

It's hardly a breakthrough, I know. But it had never honestly entered my mind before. I had half-heartedly entertained the notion of getting a financial advisor, but never actually acted on it. The truth of the matter is, though, that the world I live in is incredibly complex, and there is no way I can possibly make all the decisions I would like to, correctly, the first time. I still believe that most of the self-help gurus out there have done more harm than good. But there are experts in varuiys other fields that I respect, and I seek out their guidance and trust their opinions. And there are people who have already done the things that I am going to do, and they might have insight into my current situation. So why NOT ask them? Why NOT brainstorm with them and try to be better?

I'm not saying that I'm going to start spouting aphorisms and trademarked catchphrases; it's unlikely that I'll buy into any of the self-help cultures out there. I can't stand new-age spiritual claptrap, I almost ripped my copy of The Alchemist into tiny pieces as I read it so no-one else would have to read it EVER, and the metaphors and figurative language that most book authors use make me feel nauseous. I'll never be the guy with the life coach, telling people to live their lives according to the Four Directions. But maybe I can feel comfortable asking for other people's opinions, and maybe branching out. Because I know now that I honestly can't do everything on my own.

I know. Not really mind-blowing stuff. But something I think I needed to consider.