snurri | Introducing For the First Time, Pharoah On the Microphone

Things I have not posted about on account of being busy and scatterbrained:

Yes, that is me in the latest issue of Writer's Digest. Jordan Rosenfeld interviewed me for the "First Impressions" column, which features first-time novelists. I sure make it sound easy. And, thanks to the lies of photography, I look good doing it.

Comics: Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction are leaving Immortal Iron Fist. Wah! For serious, their run has been incredible; retro-pulp updated for the modern day, with the glorious feel of grainy, badly-dubbed kung fu flicks. This, combined with John Rogers leaving the sadly underselling Blue Beetle (Seriously, do people not want their superhero comics to be good?), is going to cut down my comics reading considerably.

DVDs: I gave up on The L Word, finally, because I can't stand Mia Kirschner or her character or the way that the writers apparently view writing on that show. So. Grating. Like, Baltar-and-Six grating. (Them being the reason I can't watch BSG.) I started on Weeds, which is pretty great so far. Also started on Season 1 of the new Doctor Who, which is . . . cute? I can appreciate that it's all about the fun, and they're aiming at kids, but man is the plotting preposterous. Yes, Rose is wonderful, and the show is funny ("Harriet Jones, MP Flydale North"), but I'm not sure I'm going to last with it. I finally saw "Network," and I'm sorry I waited so long. Genius. Also saw "A Streetcar Named Desire." (Yes, I have many gaps.) Brando was amazing, as usual, but it took a long time for Vivien Leigh's performance to work for me. There's a particular definition of "feminine" in Streetcar that I find extremely off-putting in fiction as well as in life. Which may actually be part of the point of the play, and may be why it works in the end. Obviously I haven't decided.

Books: Am reading Liberty: The Lives and Times of Six Women In Revolutionary France, by Lucy Moore. This was recommended to me by

stephanieburgis, and man am I grateful. Really evocative, and sad, and inspiring. Also reading Lost White Tribes: The End of Privilege and the Last Colonials in Sri Lanka, Jamaica, Brazil, Haiti, Namibia, and Guadeloupe by Riccardo Orizio, which sounds a lot more awesome than it is. It's more a travelogue than anything, neither historical nor anthropological in focus; a disappointingly shallow look at a potentially rich subject.

Baseball: Bit of a rocky start for the Twins, not unexpectedly. Liriano's shaky, and the offense is unreliable; but Hernandez is a rock, and Bonser seems to have matured nicely. Not to mention that Carlos Gomez is as much fun to watch as Torii ever was. Dropping two to the Tigers = not cool, but it's early yet. (If you catch me saying that in August, I give you permission to smack me upside the head.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

What I love about Vivian Leigh's performance is that she really does understand that Denial is the State Religion of the South. Maybe it was from playing Scarlet. Heh.

Anyway... I think her performance starts out feeling uneasy because Blanche knows Stanley will be hard to fool. And it's all about the foolin'.

Or it's all about everyone agreeing to pretend to be fooled, more to the point.

That pretending is why Old Southerners don't like Yankees: because they don't play by the rules.

Does that make any sense?

Kind of. I think, at least, that it points to one of the things that bothers me about her; the artifice. I have no patience for that kind of thing, hence Old Southerners would hate me :-)

Heh. Yeah, alot of people react that way.

Notice how I didn't say anything about that Cabrera homer?

I am perfectly willing to let you enjoy the moment. :-P

Well, it's not like the Indians are getting their butts handed to them by the Red Sox again or anything... sigh...

Heh-heh-heh
(sorry, it hasn't been often in my life as a Red Sox fan that I've been able to gloat so I'll take it anywhere I can get it).

Don't make us call in the midges.

Edited 2008-04-16 17:37 (UTC)

I think that only works with the Yankees.

:)

Last week I saw a headline on the Cleveland entertainment weekly's blog that said, "Carmona signed to long term deal; Midges flee in terror."

For as much attention given to the Yankees collapsing under the midge attack (which I must admit brought sweet delight to my Red Sox loving heart), the fact that Carmona dealt with the same bug attack without wilting tends to get overlooked. He pitched a hell of a game that night.

Oh, yeah! I was pleased by that deal to say the least.

You should check out Brubaker's Scene of the Crime which is out in a trade -- has the feel of a seventies auteur film in thhe vein of Arthur Penn (his Night Moves in particular). I never really got into the new Blue Beetle although I must admit that I never gave it much of a chance either.

As to the Twins, I recently heard Rob Neyer saying that he didn't think anyone would ever see the same Liriano that was on display at the end of 2006. He compared him to Kerry Wood after his Tommy John surgery. I kind of think he's right which is too bad -- he was amazing before the injury and it's always a lot of fun to watch pitchers with the type of stuff he had even when they don't play for your team. As to Hernandez, you have to look at your comment that it's early yet -- I can't see him holding up for the whole season like he hhas been so far. Once the hitters start to warm up you'll probably see a bunch of "quality" starts and he'll certainly eat innings but quality starts are fairly mediocre at best. I know I'm not the only one saying this but i really do think that these next couple of years will be kind of down years for the Twins as they wait for their younger players to develop more.

Season 1 of New Who gets very much better over the stretch from Ep 6-10. (Though there's one story in there you have to pretend doesn't exist.) Be interested to know what you think of those later stories.

That sounds promising; I'm just starting that stretch now. "Dalek" was definitely a step above the rest.

On comics, I've just gotten back into them recently and picked up some good trades like Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, LoEG, and other classics. As for more current stuff, I'm finding Gunslinger Born and Thor are pretty good so far. Any other recs on the new stuff coming out? Got an opinion on the Spiderman 'One More Day' controversy?

Here's what I think of the "One More Day" crap. I'm not buying Amazing anymore and likely won't until they undo the undoing; I've seen bits of it and am unimpressed.

New stuff: any Hellboy or BPRD; Gail Simone's run on Wonder Woman; Marvel's The Order; Buffy Season Eight and, to a lesser extent, Angel: After the Fall (if you're a Whedon fan, that is); anything by Brian K. Vaughn.

Just got done with Part 4 of 'One More Day,' having blindly picked up all 4 parts on ebay a few weeks back. WTF?! Why didn't Peter just kick Mephisto's arse? It certainly would've made for a more entertaining finish than the last couple of pages, which I found especially nauseating. I actually read a copy of #555 (part of Brand New Day) the other day. Meh! Seemed fairly uninteresting, and with yet another cameo by Wolverine. I reckon I'll give this one a miss!

Have you read Brubaker's Sleeper? It's like a James Ellroy novel set in a superhero universe.

Introducing For the First Time, Pharoah On the Microphone

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