Where pop culture meets geek culture and they make out a little.
Archive for November, 2009
This Week in Normality — Parents and Children
Nov 18th
The original, defacto, theme was “Father’s and Son’s” for reasons I won’t go into now. Suffice it to say, I felt a more inclusive theme was fitting.
For the last week or so I’ve been picking my way through Manhood for Amateurs (Michael Chabon’s first work of non-fiction). Even though the HarperCollins website claims that the essays are “slyly interlinked” I’ve always enjoyed reading collected essays out of order. Perhaps I’m borderline ADD, but I’ve always held to the belief that reading such a work out of order leads me to discoveries I would have missed had my path been more linear.
Just today I stumbled across what will undoubtedly be my favorite passage from the entire book:
This may be the fundamental truth of parenthood: No matter how enlightened or well prepared you are by theory, principle, and the imperative not to repeat the mistakes of your own parents, you are no better a father or mother than the set of your own limitations permits you to be. And that set is your heritage, the pinched and helpless legacy of all the limited mothers and fathers whose fumblings, evasions, and shortcomings led, by some dubious accidental magic, to the production of you.”
It comes from an essay in which Chabon witnesses, in a real world exchange, the actualization of his eldest daughter’s burgeoning sexuality, and then must come to terms with his subsequent knee jerk reaction, even against the logical, objective view he holds of “sexuality” in his own mind.
It is cliched, or course, for a father to want to, as Chabon puts it, hit some boys in the face with “a mallet” for simply staring at his daughter. And while my own daughter isn’t even in kindergarten, I have a deepening sense that my own experience will turn out very much like Chabon’s.
Another cliche, though, is in telling someone “unless you have kids, you don’t understand.” More than once, someone has said to me “I can’t believe you have a kid” or, more recently, “I can’t believe you have two kids.” I’ve also been asked “what is it like to be a parent?” Or, “what advice can you give me for when I have kids?” My responses to questions like this are usually along the lines of…
- Weird, huh
- Yeah,
- (Shrug)
- Don’t forget your baby in the car when you go to the store.
In case you couldn’t tell, I have very little of use to say in regards to what it is like being a parent or what is required to be a “good” parent. When it comes to all things parent, “unless you have kids, you wouldn’t understand” which also means, if you already have kids, you don’t need it explained. Sort of a catch 22, really, but it is true.
One thing can convey, something I’ve slowly come to realize over the last 3 1/2 years (and has been reinforced in last year that I’ve had two kids) is that parents are just making it up as they go along. I might not know, precisely, what a good parent should do, but I can fake it well enough to fool a couple of toddlers. The other day my daughter asked mommy for something, mommy replied that said “thing” was broken and that daddy would have to fix it when they got home. My daughter, I’m told, said “daddy can fix anything.” That statement is heartbreaking for two reasons:
- It shows how much unconditional love she has for me
- It also betrays the fact that, someday (much too soon), my daughter will come to find out that, in fact, I’ve faked my way through parenthood
I’m not saying that I feel as if I’m a terrible father. While I can’t say for certain, my guess is most people who make an honest attempt at raising their children (read: don’t want their children to have the same fucking problems as themselves) are really just trying to find their way through a dark hallway without a flashlight. On some level, what counts most is the effort. At the end of the day, I will inevitably fuck up my kids in ways I had never intended, or could have foreseen, but hopefully they understand that I tried my best.
Until then, though, I get to read stories to my kids every night before they go to bed.
Finally, for your edification this time around, D. Composition brings us the Top 10 Most Awesome Parents in Film…enjoy.
Top 10 Most Awesome Parents in Film
Nov 18th
I’m not a parent and don’t really have any amazing stories about my parents. So, my friends, I have chosen to compile a top ten list of the most awesome parents in film. The list is by no means inclusive of all of film, as there are still many classics I’d like to see, and because I basically used my movie collection as reference. So here are the best parents (in my film collection). Also, HERE THERE BE SPOILERS!
Best Parents
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10. Last House On the Left – John and Estelle Collingwood would be a lot higher on the list if their daughter hadn’t been killed. Not that the average parent knows their daughter is going to run into a gang of rapists and killers, but there are other parents on this list that would never have let her go out that night, or at least taught her to better look after herself. Aside from all that though, of course, is the reason they are on the list. It takes a passionate heart and a keen mind to outwit and take revenge on a group of killers, and the Collingwoods manage it in fine style.
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09. National Lampoon’s Vacation – Come on. Who wouldn’t want Ellen and Clark Griswold as parents? Despite the horrible outcomes to so many of the family vacations, they prove that their heart is always in it, and they’re always thinking about the family.
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- 08. The Jerk – Now this is awesome. A big happy family all under one roof. Singing and dancing every day, dinner together at the table, and unbreakable gems of wisdom about shit and shinola. Mother and father Johnson take care of all of their kids as well as Navin, who was left on their doorstep when he was a baby. Even when Navin loses his fame and fortune, his parents show up to take him home again.
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07. Little Miss Sunshine – Richard and Cheryl Hoover don’t seem like the greatest parents right away, but their time together with the family helps them learn a few things about life, and in the end, they understand which things matter the most in their lives. There aren’t a whole lot of things in recent memory that are much more awesome than what the Hoover family manages at the end of the movie.
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- 06. Dumbo – Miss Jumbo is great. She’s a single parent, raising a child in the middle of a circus (literally). She’s gotta deal with asshole circus attendees and all the other gossiping cold-hearted elephants. As you can see in the movie, she’d rather bring down the whole circus than see her baby come to harm.
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- 05. Coneheads – Beldar and Prymatt have the classic immigrant story. They come to America in search of a new opportunity (just happens to be enslaving the blood-skulls), and find not only that they are stuck on Earth for seven zurles, but that they are with cone. They manage to evade immigration and provide a great life for their daughter on an alien planet, and eventually give up the life for which they were hoping and waiting… for her.
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- 04. Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels – Big Chris keeps Little Chris close at all times. They work together in their business ventures like partners and father & son at the same time. Despite the rough nature of their work, Big Chris still keeps Little Chris in line by reprimanding him when he curses or steps out of line with a client. You see just how much emotion is in Big Chris near the end of the film when Little Chris becomes threatened by the character called Dog.
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- 03. Donnie Darko – Eddie and Rose Darko prove to be quite awesome a few times in this movie. The main reason is that when Donnie gets in trouble with a teacher the parents know to be an idiot, they buy him a bunch of “new shit” for standing up for himself and making the teacher look stupid. It’s rare that the parent will take the child’s side in a situation like this (in movies at least). They also seem to have a great sense of humor.
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- 02. Kill Bill Volume 2 – “The Bride” proves to be a great parent when she tells Bill her story about leaving the assassin racket after taking a pregnancy test. Her entire life took a hard right-angle turn when she found out she was pregnant. It’s true that she thought her daughter was dead throughout the whole first movie, but that was a major motivator for her revenge. All she wants to do (from the time she finds out she’s pregnant) is get away from her violent life and start a safe family for her daughter.
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- 01. The Incredibles – What family could be more awesome than this? Bob and Helen Parr put away the hero duds so as not to get sued by people who “didn’t want to be saved”, and start a family. In the interests of safety, they never allow the kids to use their powers. But of course, the situation comes up where the powers are absolutely necessary and the family works as the ultimate superhero team in order to protect each other (and everyone else).
This Week in Normality (Short Edition) — Heroism
Nov 12th
This week’s (shortened) theme was inspired by the following story:
Driving home from Yankee Stadium last night, drunk with power (and champagne!), Girardi stopped to help an accident victim, even though each World Series winner is specifically granted the right to run over one pedestrian, no questions asked.
So here’s what happened. The Yankees, you may or may not have heard, recently won the world series. Joe Girardi is the manager of said Yankees, on his way home from the stadium (after the actual winning of the world series), Girardi drove past a car that had wrecked on the side of the road. He pulled over (keep in mind, this is at 2 in the morning after attaining of the the biggest accomplishments in all of sports) to help the victim.
I’m not sure Deadspin got that last part, about running over a pedestrian, correct but what I can tell you is that, were I someone who had just managed a major league team to a world series victory, I doubt I would have stopped to help an accident victim just hours after my triumph. Likely, I would have laughed at the victim for not being as awesome as me.
My self-serving nature notwithstanding, I thought it would be a nice change of pace to at least offer this small bit of karmic goodness to the universe.
Surprisingly…or not surprisingly…the “submissions” from the other NR staff for this particular theme were particularly lean. So lean, in fact, that we have all of one…even after I allowed for an extended time in which submissions could be, er, submitted.
I don’t know if that speaks poorly about the NR staff, in that we could find almost nothing worth writing about when told to write about Heroism…or if that is a reflection of the greater world, and its lack of heroism. Perhaps it is simply a matter of the topic being too serious minded for us. Or, more likely, everyone (save one contributor) has chosen to abandon me to face the grueling mistress of (quasi)weekly interwebz puclication on my own.
Is not, I ask you, soldiering forth, in the face of overwhelming evidence that you should give up, not heroic in and of itself?
Am I just trying to make myself feel better?
Probably.
The Incredible Shrinking Man
Nov 12th
“A hero is a man who does what he can” – Romain Rolland
I’ll take the opportunity to use this week’s theme as a means to write about a great classic that I recently read for the first time.
“The Incredible Shrinking Man” is the best horror story I’ve ever read. I suppose that’s not saying a whole lot since I haven’t been very heavily through the genre, but when you read it, you can feel its potency. I saw the old film adaptation (1957) a few years ago. It was good in the way a lot of old black and white sci-fi movies are, but was also lacking in a way those movies tend to. I also noticed something online that said there’s going to be another version being made with Eddie Murphy *shudder*.
Scott Carey, by way of extremely unfortunate chance, is exposed to elements that make him begin to shrink 1/7th of an inch, daily. Seems like a fairly straightforward sci-fi theme, right? I thought so for a long time too. You add the infamous black widow to the mix and maybe the family cat (giants now), and you’ve got two monsters that push the story into the realm of horror. This is what the story is like when you watch the movie. It’s all (more or less) left this way. The book gets into Scott’s mind, body, and soul.
The chapters in the book jump back and forth between tiny Scott’s survival tactics in the basement and the events (starting with the beginning of his shrinking) leading up to them.
The more Scott shrinks, the more self-conscious, paranoid, and defensive he becomes. On top of that, everything becomes a life or death situation. In all his frustration, he can’t even safely take a walk down the street. Soon after, he can’t go outside at all. Sexual frustrations also take their toll, making for a couple of rather uncomfortable, yet plausible scenes. Scott’s alienation from the world he once knew is so sudden and horrifying and written so thoroughly and convincingly that it almost seems a relief for him to spend his time doing something as simple as hiding from a spider that wants to eat him.
Scott has the problems with his wife, money, and people wanting to treat him like a sideshow replaced by things like becoming deafened by the water heater kicking on, being eaten by a giant black widow, and starving to death (amongst tons of other horrifying possibilities). Scott keeps things in order though. He creates makeshift clothing and a place for sleep and shelter. He marks his height on the wall daily, knowing the day will come that he will shrink that last 7th of an inch into nothing, and thinking about what he needs to accomplish before he becomes too small to accomplish it (and if it’s worth the effort at all). It becomes such an immense strain for him though, that he continually asks himself why he doesn’t just give up and die. Even when he convinces himself that he has had enough horrible luck and he doesn’t care about anything anymore, he continues to try to survive. All he has left in life becomes about what he can do…what he must do for survival.
Despite overwhelming heartbreak, terror, and misfortune, Scott Carey does not give up. That’s what makes him a hero.
5/5 - Punched in the face by AWESOME!
This Week in Normality — Things Change, Things Remain the Same…
Nov 3rd
Greetings Faithful Normalinauts,
Consider this week an unofficial/official/unofficial again reboot…sort of. Some time ago we (read: I) decided to start posting content at the beginning of the week to afford the weekend time to write stuff and, theoretically, allow for us (read: me) to write more for the site. Most of my weekday hours are devoted to bookmines duty, teaching, grading, bathing and feeding the kids, etc. After all that, I don’t have the time and/or energy to write anything else. As it is, I’m lucky to get more than 3 hours of sleep a night during the week.
So what the hell does this have to do with this?
This week’s theme, “Things Change, Things Remain the Same…,” is a fairly esoteric one and can be molded to fit any topic, I think, but is particularly appropriate when considering the history of this site. By that I mean, we’ve always gone through stretches of relative silence and stretches of frenzied activity. No doubt this state of affairs will continue until I win the lottery or in some other way become independently wealthy. So while we’ve undergone a lot of changes in the last six months, as always, we remain Normality Restored.
There are some more changes up ahead, not the least of which will involve a lot of begging on my part…but more on that later… Regardless of the changes, or the down time, I want to assure the few of you that have been consistent visitors to this site that it remains a priority for me…even if the kids and jobs must take precedence at times. I ask all Normalinauts out there in cyberspace not to lose hope, for as long as I have breath in my lungs (and the ability to pay the hosting fees) you will always have this little corner of the interwebz to call your own.
Now, I’d like to say that the above impassioned plea/apology/rant was the actual inspiration for this week’s theme, but it was not. In fact, this theme came to me as I pondered, some months ago, the release of The Gathering Storm, the most recent release in The Wheel of Time series that has now been taken over by Brandon Sanderson.
I would go into it in more detail here but that’s actually the focus of one of my articles.
D. Composition illuminates for us a re-discovery from our collective childhoods and a story from his past that was particularly special to him.
Lastly, I consider what it means to re-imagine both a foundation of fantasy literature as we know it…and the most popular contemporary fantasy story…all in the same book.
Lev Grossman’s “The Magicians,” or More Inventiveness than I Have
Nov 3rd
I have long been aware of who Lev Grossman was, author of the bestselling novel The Codex, and general “nerd” blogger for Time, he seems to have, essentially, the life I desire.
That said, I had not read any of his fiction until a promo copy of his newest novel The Magicians came my way (thank you, again, gods of the bookmines). I glanced at the back and my interest was piqued by the odd Harry Potter comparison made by George RR Martin. Opening the book to a random page, as is my custom when considering if I will take a book home or not, I came across both the words “prefect” and “4th year” in the same paragraph. The Potter comparison, then, was not overblown.
Well, I like books about magic, and schools, and magic schools. While I didn’t think there was much to be done with the subject, in a post Potter world, I still took it home. My book hoarding instincts often trump all other considerations.
I did begin to read it, though. Grossman has an unassuming style; almost conversational without being annoying or overly stupid. The main character, Quentin, an over achiever with no discernible confidence, sense of self worth, or familial relationships of note was fairly relatable…to me at least. Now I’ve never been recruited to go to a secret test session for a remote and highly selective magical college but I sure did understand the psyche of Quentin.
So, again, the Potter comparisons begin. Harry gets into Hogwarts, essentially, because of genetics. He is a wizard because he is a wizard. Well, Brakebills (the college in The Magicians) doesn’t work that way. You might have the potential, but unless you can pass the entrance exam, you don’t get in…or even remember that you took the exam in the first place. And there begins the differences that are dramatic between Potter and The Magicians. It would be easy to say that this novel is like Potter, but American, and since the characters are in college, there’s a lot more sex, alcohol, drugs, and nihilism. But that description short changes the true depth that Grossman understands the depression that can affect the highly gifted. Imagine, you dream your whole life that you can achieve something more than is “planned” out for you. You find out that, in fact, you can learn to use real magic…really could walk naked through the antarctic for days and survive, for instance…but then you realize that your life is still meaningless. How much worse would you feel, knowing you have such power but it doesn’t change the fact that your life means nothing? The understanding Grossman demonstrates of human consciousness coming to terms with the apparent arbitrary nature of the universe is both deep and disturbing. Probably more disturbing, in fact, in light of the fact that these characters really could fly to the moon if they so wished.
Besides taking a premise that was made popular by another (magic school) and turning it on its head, Grossman also pays homage to one of the foundations of fantasy literature: Narnia. In his book Narnia is replaced by a land known as Fillory. The Fillory books, favorite reading of Quentin even after he starts doing real magic, were written in the 1930’s by a man named Christopher Plover and starred a varying cast of children from the Chatwin family. The books, the reader discovers in time, are more than just childrens reading, though, and play an integral role in Quentin’s life after he leaves Brakebills.
The New York Times review of the book states that, “Perhaps a fantasy novel meant for adults can’t help being a strange mess of effects.” This demonstrates a serious lack of understanding on the reviewer’s part. Either he believes that fantasy must be cut and dry (i.e., good v evil, black v white) or that it can only be for children (and, again, fall into strict categories). The best fantasy, the best fiction, is fuzzy…like the world. If magic were a real force that humans could control (though have little real understanding of, as expressed in the book) then Grossman has given the reader the most true to life rendering of it possible. Of course it is messy because life, and humans, are messy.
In the end, I did not feel overly sympathetic toward Quentin, and I’m not sure I was supposed to. Yes, eventually, he winds up understanding that his story was nothing more than the by-product of another character’s attempt to right a terrible wrong. But even that, as is most often the case, was only the outcome of an even earlier evil… But, sometimes, we are just tools in someone else’s story. Were there moments when I felt sad for Quentin, certainly. Would I have made his choices at the end, maybe. Does that make me want to be him, not necessarily. But isn’t that what adulthood, and humanity, is all about? Whether or not one can perform feats of astonishing power, don’t we all hope to empathize with the pain of others, even if we choose to deal with that pain in a different way?
I’m Told There is a Storm, and That It May or May Not Be Gathering
Nov 3rd
I bought Knife of Dreams the day it came out in 2005. Even though I was in graduate school, and should have been reading my homework, I finished the book in just a few days. I had been waiting for its release, literally, for years. To prepare, I spent dozens of hours, in the weeks leading up to its release, re-introducing the Wheel of Time series to my memory with the help of EWoT (the Encyclopedia Wheel of Time for the unintiated).
When I was done with the book (#11, mind you, in the Wheel of Time series…not counting the one prequel) I realized that almost nothing, save for in the last 50 or so pages, actually happened in that damn book…and it was 800 fucking pages! Even the actual Knife of Dreams, the item for which the BOOK WAS NAMED, only made a minor appearance. I mean, seriously!?
I vowed, then and there, to never again subject myself to pain of reading a Wheel of Time novel.
And then Robert Jordan was diagnosed with a rare disease.
I’ll admit that my first thought wasn’t “oh god, I hope he’s OK” so much as it was “oh god, how will he finish the series.” I’m not exactly proud of that, but you know, I doubt I was the only one to think it. Yes, it is tragic that he died just a year and half after publicly revealing his diagnosis. I like to think, though, that my reaction was in no small part because of how much Jordan’s work had cemented itself in my mind. Yes, I had “sworn” not to finish the series, but when presented with the actual possibility of not being able to finish the series I freaked the fuck out.
I’m not saying there is a causal link between my worship of an author and serious health issues, but I will say that after Douglas Adams, Jordan, and Terry Pratchett, well…Neil Gaiman, Tim Powers, and James P Blaylock should all see the doctor.
By all accounts, Jordan fought the disease hard, but in the end, as these things generally turn out, the disease won.
So this guy Brandon Sanderson was chosen to finish the series.
Jordan, apparently, left very detailed notes on how the story was to finish. His claim that he would finish the series in 12 books, even if he had to write a 2000 page book for installment 12, was not far from the truth and Tor (the publisher) and Sanderson, decided to break the final arch of the story into three average size WoT books.
And so, as I write this, I’m just over 200 pages into the 766 that make up The Gathering Storm.
There was quite a bit of consternation amongst WoT fans over who would finish the series (before Sanderson was chosen). I, too, worried about who would step in to finish a 10,000 page series with 3000+ named characters.
Is Sanderson the equal of Jordan?
Shit, I don’t know. 200 pages in and I’d say the book reads like the rest of the series, all the main characters have, thus far, not done a whole lot and annoyed me with their overly complicated thought processes.
Sometimes I wonder why I kept reading past book 2.
On the one hand, every single character, even my mostest favoritest in the series (Mat, in case you were curious), is his/her own greatest obstacle. No two characters ever seem to have any meaningful communication. Even those who are all working toward the same goal…like defeating the Dark One in the Last Battle…work at cross purposes more often than not. After nearly 10,000 pages it can get really, really, really, fucking annoying.
But then again…isn’t that just how people are? I probably communicate effectively with my wife like 30% of the time and we aren’t on separate ends of the continent, being tortured, running into battles, fighting dark and foul monsters from the north…we just deal with dirty diapers and temper tantrums. The real genius of what Jordan did was take actual people that you might know in real life, the good and the bad, and throw them into some crazy ass fantasy world that is near its end. Even the most well intentioned WoT characters are selfish at times, make mistakes (even when trying to do what is right), and fail. But they also do some drastically heroic things, sacrifice (even their own lives), and fight and scrape. As a complex psychological study of humanity, I doubt I’ve read anything even remotely equal, in fiction, to the Wheel of Time.
It occurred to me, recently, that books are possibly the only form of entertainment where we, as fans, would worry so much when a new author takes over a series. There are, of course, things like D&D and Star Wars that are just written by loads of people by default. But something like WoT, which came from the mind of a single writer, and was shaped by that writer over the course of 10,000 pages, becomes less a series of fictional works and more an extension of that person. Novel writing in general, but long fantasy series writing in particular, is an iconoclastic endeavor the likes of which exists no where else in art.
Would the series be more satisfying if Jordan had finished it himself? I don’t know. At some point I believe works like this belong more to the fans than the creator and so we, the fans, are owed are closure.
The Advantage of Appreciation
Nov 3rd
I’m probably one of many people who got a Nintendo Entertainment System when I was little. That was big. Being able to play Super Mario Brothers whenever I wanted was like some divine dream. Many other games came after that. Some were great and some were not so great. I remember enjoying the hell out of most of them for reasons I didn’t think about. It was just fun. I saw each game as a whole package. It’s like when you’re little and you listen to music and hear it as a whole, then later on you start to differentiate each instrument and appreciate them more.
So then new systems came and went, and I think I always took the same kind of enjoyment out of everything (probably) until games started to have real bands doing the music and there being cut sequences and such. I even had the occasional nostalgia trip with an old console or emulator (still do sometimes). But it wasn’t really until I heard a band called “The Advantage” that I really became impressed with the music of 8 bit video games.
I don’t remember how I first heard The Advantage, but I remember being instantly shocked at their musicianship. The Advantage is a band that only performs video game cover music (NES covers specifically). Somehow I got wind of their first album (self-titled) and was amazed. I had never realized how potent the music was. When it finally dawned on me, I realized that the music for these 8 bit games has to be looped (for one thing). It also has to be catchy and never, ever get old. Didn’t A.D.D. rise to prominence around the same time as video games? Somehow, those Japanese composers created lots of music like this, and it was flying over the heads of kids like me in the late 80’s and early 90’s.
So the change from composer to cover artist was through instrumentation. The Advantage seem to have painstakingly worked to recreate these old songs with guitars and drums rather than 8 bit waves and blips. The music becomes even more potent because of the fullness of the instruments (not to mention the faithful recreation of the original songs). And this is all from guys who really did notice how good the music was. From this, they created their band (which is a side project for each member) to play those songs they loved as kids and to give game fans an awesome nostalgia trip.
I know that I enjoyed the music when I was little. I just didn’t think about it. It was in with everything else. One big ball of silly putty. It just took a few musicians (who did differentiate those things) to create something nostalgic and jarring that would snap me into realizing it. The musicians and instruments changed, but the music (by skills of the band) is as good as it ever was.
**The Advantage have released two official albums and a promo cd that was only available at shows (and online in some places). I’ve heard that they are all involved in new bands at the moment. Their myspace account hasn’t had any updates in quite some time and their official website, sadly, is long gone.**