Daily Life
May 16th, 2008 Jana
Tiny People
May 16th, 2008 John
“I don’t let it stop me. In fact, I try to ignore it. It’s for other people to pay attention to.”
Review - “The Fatal Bullet”
May 16th, 2008 John
When it comes to the study of presidential assassinations, Kennedy and Lincoln tend to draw all the attention away from Garfield and McKinley, but Rick Geary is out to change a little of that with his graphic novel “The Fatal Bullet,” a tight non-fiction affair that not only recounts the assassination, but the circumstances that lead up to it.
What Geary delivers is a captivating portrait of two men — Garfield and his assassin, Charles J. Guiteau — in a narrative framework of parallel paths, one all-American, one demented, and both crossing at several points.
Geary begins his book with a very funny cartoon depicting “The Two Roads,” which has Garfield beginning life in “a frontier boyhood of hard work and piety,” while pathetic Guiteau is doomed to “a childhood lost and love-less.” For Guiteau, it’s all down hill from there.
The guiding forces behind Guiteau’s trajectory are twin sicknesses — delusions of grandeur and a devotion to an unhinged religious cult. Guiteau was convinced he would be a man of greatness, even if reality conspired to prove otherwise, and the key ingredient separating one’s mind from reality was planted in him in 1861, in a religious community in Oneida, NY. This talent for self-derangement was called upon in a series of swindles that allowed Guiteau to masquerade as a legitimate man of importance, while stealing money from clients and remaining perpetually on the run.
Guiteau began to believe his own lies and, as a man who could not separate fantasy from reality, became convinced that he would gain a position through Garfield, an appointee for a political post abroad. Disappointment mixed with madness and a word from God himself signaled to Guiteau what he had to do to save the Republican Party and the nation — and he attached himself to his mad calling with a meticulous vigor, stalking the president until he could send him on what turned out to be a slow and painful descent into death.
In Geary’s hands, the story of how Guiteau ends up shooting President Garfield unfolds with a finger-wagging humor brought forth by an overwrought Victorian sneer that wraps itself around the facts of the tale. Not that this attitude takes away from the true story — in fact, it bolsters it, working well with Geary’s visuals to gives the tone of a report being given at the time this is all happening. Not content to stay at arm’s length from the proceedings, Geary’s meticulous recounting of events passes through private moments of both men, tracing the motivations, animosity and madness in a fluid and emotional way.
Along the way, Geary dispenses interesting facts and contexts that make the story — and the world in which it unfolds — even more real to the reader. In his work, published under the umbrella title “A Treasury of Victorian Murders,” Geary has done well to document the fact that psychotic madmen bent on carnage are nothing new to the landscape. The immediacy of our media — and the enormity of its scope — makes it seem as though things have gotten somehow worse in that area. But Guiteau is merely one point in a long line that passes through John Hinckley and Seung-Hui Cho and, sadly, onto an area beyond the latest incarnation.
My Year Writing This Book About My Year Writing This Book
May 16th, 2008 John and Jana
Friday morning video festival
May 16th, 2008 JohnSpeaking of my previous post, Quit Your Day Job offers this funny PC vs. Mac parody starring Batman and Iron Man . . . that is, action figures of those guys, so it’s really tugging at my heart.
Von Doviak take note — Vinnie Rattolle offers this sprawling sampling of 50 Underappreciated Films. Of the ones I have and have actually seen, “Dreamchild” is easily my favorite - another great Dennis Potter work. I saw the first episode of “Neverwhere” and found it annoying - am I the only person alive who thinks Neil Gaiman is overrated AND has actually met him? - and saw “Doctor Calagari,” which I was immune to. Oh, and “Rabbit Test!” And of course “Shock Treatment,” about which he’s entirely correct.
Thanks to Allen for both of those.
Meanwhile, here’s a complete episode of Return to the Planet of the Apes for everyone’s viewing pleasure. I remember the novelizations of the Saturday morning Apes show fondly — they upped the ante a bit and made them palatable to adults and feel more like a real Planet of the Apes property — but I have long labored under the impression that this show may well have been better than the live action TV show . . . and maybe the four sequels, which bore an uncanny cinematic resemblance to Barnaby Jones.
My favorite computer news in ages
May 15th, 2008 JohnWho’d have thought? Not only does the Mac OS run faster and smoother on an Apple computer, but so does Vista. Popular Mechanics also claims that for a good computer, they’re actually cheaper than PCs.
Should I have twittered that?
Arts and sciences: 5 neat things
May 15th, 2008 JohnFroguts is virtual dissection software! Yay! You can do some of it online, but we have the subscription CD, which has more you can do, including a fetal pig — you have to pay to play for the fetal pig action. But online, you can try dissecting a frog, a squid, and an owl pellet — that’s vomit not poop, right?
It’s perfect for homeschoolers, kids who are interested in biology, and grown-ups who dig surgery.
Here’s an odd companion for Froguts — The Guardian has an amazing photo gallery of portraits done before and after death by German photographer Walter Schels and his partner Beate Lakotta.
It’s very haunting stuff that raises plenty of questions about the nature of our being — and tugs at very personal emotions about your own mortality.
Here’s a pretty good video by a Mass MoCA intern who scoured the streets of my town to answer the very important but entirely diversionary question “What is art?”
Nick Abadzis’ excellent graphic novel “Laika” now has an informational Web site if you want to further explore the creation of the novel, as well as the topic it covers. Abadzis provides lots of material covering the book’s conception and creation, and also includes some of his research into the material. Cool stuff that’s another good resource for homeschoolers interested in teaching about graphic novels.
Oddee has a good rundown of the 20 Most Fascinating Prehistoric Paintings. If you have an interest in art history, why not start at the beginning, you know? And then you can cross reference this introduction to the lovely and haunting ancient form with the excellent book 30,000 Years of Art and the intense and riveting series How Art Made the World.
Daily Life
May 15th, 2008 Jana
Other People’s Lives
May 15th, 2008 John
My Year Writing This Book About My Year Writing This Book
May 15th, 2008 John and Jana
Review - 3 from Minx
May 15th, 2008 John
I will freely admit that many Minx books are sooooooo not meant for a 42-year-old guy and they do present moments where I feel like I’m peering into a MySpace blog that I had no business looking at. This is less a criticism than a qualification — I understand I am not the target audience of any of the Minx line. This is also said with the understanding that teen-agers aren’t writing these things, but playing to that audience. That brings up a strange line to walk — as adults writing for kids, I imagine you want to speak to the kids of their own lives, though it can get kind of icky when you pander. There is a degree to which — at least I think — adults do owe it to their teen audience to set some sort of example of decorum — not the stiff kind, but just, you know, set an example in some way and maybe even offer some seasoned advice in the entertainment. Maybe it’s because I’m a parent that I think this.
The first new release by Minx this year, “Burnout” by Rebecca Donner and drawn by Inaki Miranda, grabs your attention fairly well without being anything special character-wise. Danni is a teenage girl who moves with her mother from the city to the middle of nowhere — bummer, nothing to do, as well all know — after her father bolts on them. Mom ends up in the arms of an abusive lout while Danni ends up starry-eyed for her future step-brother. Meanwhile, her outrageous rock and roll best friend — is there any other type in these books? — feels their friendship is slipping.
Oh, add in there some intrigue involving eco-terrorism.
Rocket Robin Hood: Out of my brain and into my car
May 14th, 2008 John
There are all sorts of bits and pieces on YouTube, but I felt it was my duty to point out that there is one complete Rocket Robin Hood adventure up, Part One and Part Two.
The episode itself is apparently some sort of cult item among . . . somebody . . . because of its whacked out psychedelia. I was watching a documentary about William Castle the other night and thinking out it’s fun to rediscover something odd, but it’s pretty glorious to have experienced it firsthand.
And so it is that Rocket Robin Hood is not only one of my earliest TV memories, but one of my earliest memories entirely. Bits of the show and the music have stayed with me almost 40 years, even though I haven’t seen a damn bit of it until tonight.
So it’s odd to not only see this thing again that has lurked in the shadows of my consciousness for decades, but also . . . kind of enjoy it. Seriously, I sat through all 15 minutes of it and thought it was pretty cool. Actually, in comparison to what I had suspected all these years about the quality of the show, it was downright brilliant. Well, I mean, it didn’t make a lot of sense, but it was clever in a weird way and fun and it kept my attention and I liked it a lot better than Torchwood.
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About Shuffleboil
John and Jana blog here. They are married and live in North Adams, MA. John is a writer and newspaper editor. Jana is a children's book illustrator. They used to work together in comics and now they just like to make comics together. Stories, too. They wrote a book about their travels a few years back.
You can find Jana at her own web site. She also likes to write about Rabbit.
John is full of all sorts of mutterings and ramblings.
He also writes up all sorts of interviews and reviews about the art world and the comic and book worlds and the film and television world and the music world, as well as the very exciting world of writers.
He does some other stuff here, too.
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