Yew Nork

New York.
What can I say?

(NY Trip July 11 - 14)

The People

(Apologies for the crazy image sizes, but Flickr doesn't play nice with Blogger.)



I lived with Justin for two years in college. He's a great guy; unflappably relaxed, quick to laugh, and brilliant behind the editing console. He's one of the first people I've met who just pours out creativity, and is relentless in his pursuit of artistry. Justin was kind enough to let me and Kris spend several days in his lovely East Village apartment.



Kris is my longtime pal, currently residing in Boulder, CO where she does magical things with hard drives. Kris was the art director at the Gargoyle for three tumultuous years, and her artistic accomplishments speak for themselves. Despite working with me while I was editor we've remained friends -- a rarity at the Gargoyle.



Jennifer is the only person I know that sent in an unsolicited application to the Gargoyle. Talented with words, the Gargoyle was not enough to contain her and she's worked at all kinds of places (including the hardly reputible Michigan Daily). She met Justin during a hectic evening we all barely recall, and is now living with him in beautiful Yew Nork, NY.



From left to right: Kris, Me, Jennifer, Justin



Hyatt(hyatthyatthyatt) is another former roomate. Like Justin, he majored in film but spent a good deal of time focused on stagecraft. Currently living in Brooklyn, Hyatt is involved in some kind of theatre company. Unfortunately, the play he's working on opened after we left. Fortunately, he worked on a faux-blaxploitation movie that you can enjoy.



Cathy is the current editor of the Gargoyle and a skilled artist besides. Another film major (how does this happen to me?), she used my apartment on Madison street as a set for a student film. I'm not in it, on account of nearly dying from the flu. She's spending the summer in Yew Nork working as an intern for Conde Naste, the publishers of several magazines -- including the Yew Norker. I'm not in the least bit jealous.



Justin's Friends were many and varied; they were all so welcoming, if confused by us and our strange ways.
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The Places



If pressed I'd have to say that we spent 70% of our time in Justin's apartment. Watching movies, laughing our heads off, and wondering what to do next it was the perfect staging ground for our adventure(s). Not having a TV, Justin has made do with his laptop hooked up to a massive HD computer monitor. The affect of which, coupled with his seemingly inexhaustible supply of hi-res films, was quite impressive.

I slept on an air bed. Not an air mattress, an air bed. It was about three feet thick with a slow leak that meant I entered stranger and stranger positions throughout the night. Given that, it is odd that I not only slept well, but enjoyed the challenge.

Justin's apartment has three gold records and one platinum record on the walls. How cool is that?

I can talk at great length about the restuarants. We experienced phenomenal pizza, delictable Italian food, and uniquely Ukranian quisine throughout our travels. Chicago is the food capital of the US, of course, but NY gave us some phenomenal options. And the bars weren't too bad either.

After much recommendation from my parents, and friends, we made sure to hit up Essa bagel. While I have had several NY-style bagels, this was a unique experience. With a variety of fillings and toppings, complimented by a laid back experience and a truly massive bagel it should not be missed.

We also made a meal out of soup-filled dumplings. There's not much more to say about this except that it was awesome.

There were several encounters and experiences in a Halloween shop, followed by an overwhelming trip to Forbidden Planet -- the famed NY comic shop. I was excited to see the place, having heard so much about it on the Internet but left a little disappointed. We couldn't figure out the organization of the place, and the only staffer I spoke too was brisk to the point of rudeness. The place has serious potential, but could use a little refinement. However, I don't regret a moment (or a cent) of the time spent there.

We did amble around Battery Park, discovered secret statues of dogs in Central Park, and paid our respects to the flashing light gods of Time Square. We attempted a museum trip but were deflected by strange scheduling, instead paying a visit to a few galleries where we saw Seuss and Dali on the same street. Quite a time.



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The Things

A series of strange and wonderful movies Justin provided

Barack Pharoh-bama



Large, Ukranian meatballs



A clutch of art pens

Mattresses designed to give the sleeper a nautical adventure on a cushion of air

Small notebooks, filled with giggling sketches

Postcards

Old cameras valued for their peculiarities, rather then their photo prowess

A straw hat that's been everywhere

The sweat stain I left on the plastic bench in the 4 train

The homeless man that explained the Amtrak system to me

A gawdy gilded newsletter professing the wrath of God and the terrors of satan, complete with bedazzled cross clipart and a photo of the Elvis/Cash hybrid preacher

The quiet voice of a man as he passes quickly buy, quietly broadcasting his trade in fake IDs amidst the pulsations of Canal street.

A pizza joint that has a Major Award



The shirt that your friend also bought, that you don't wear on the same day

Finding yourself acting like you did 4 years ago

The future machine



A book about Sartre that you take off your friend's shelf, read, and makes you realize that you don't really like Sartre all that much



All these pictures come from the Flickr pool we put together. It's named for the Tom Wait's song, and will hopefully grow to include a complete if bizarre pictoral account of our trip.

The Other Website

In January of 2008 I registered the domain www.wmeddy.com

I didn't really have much of a goal in mind, but decided that I should have some space that I could play around on. I built the beginnings of a website by hand, using the HTML4 that I had learned in 8th grade and some bits stolen from around the internet.

There are some people that can teach themselves anything; I am not one of those people.

The site languished for while partly because I didn't have the technical skill to expand it, but mostly because it had to purpose. That changed when graduation came closer and the prospect of being yet another unemployed English Major loomed ahead of me. In a feverish few hours spent on the futon bed on the floor, I threw together a website that had the express purpose of advertising myself.

With the goal of employment now well accomplished, the site once again lacked purpose. I tried a number of Content Management Systems (most notably: wordpress), but nothing really took.

That changed when nearly all of my friends installed the MovableType content management system and made completely awesome websites almost overnight. Not to be left behind, I joined in and The Front of the End was born.

I am telling you this not because Is Max Alive is ending; it has a purpose and people seem to like it. I am bringing you all up to speed because I have some projects going on over there that I'll be linking to from time to time. I hope you enjoy them, and enjoy wmeddy.com
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Speaking of, please enjoy Passable Adventures, my short story in comic-strip form. Updates on Tuesday.

Passable Adventures #1
Passable Adventures #2
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Tomorrow I will be on the National Mall manning a display booth featuring a variety of Army stuff. More on this as it develops.

10 Seemed Like A Good Place to Stop

I struggle with this blog sometimes, especially when I have fallen weeks behind in updating it. 'Oh, no,' I think to myself. 'Yet another recap post that will cover weeks. Is this all I ever put on here?'

Fortunately for me, Stephen Fry seems to have the same problems with his blog. However, his blog is infinitely better than mine and he has much more interesting things to say (although I do wish he'd say a little less about how great Oscar Wilde is).
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So, here's the inevitable wrap up:

1. On the 7th, Claire and I took advantage of the nice weather and checked out the National Arboretum. It's a beautiful, sprawling park that, unlike most gardens, is car accessible. In fact, driving is something of a necessity given it's size. I know several of you are planning on visiting the area soon, so be sure to set aside time to visit this place. Don't let the fact that it's surrounded by a terrible neighborhood stop you!

Here's some pictures; please enjoy them!

National Arboretum

2. New assignment at Ft. Belvoir continues to take me places I never imagined I'd be. On the 11th I was attending a hearing on Soldier weight where the Army's Vice Chief of Staff and the Assistant Commandant of the US Marine Corps testified before the sub committee on defense spending. My journalist friends can roll their eyes at me, but it was still fun.

3. I have spent more time with a General than you have.

4. On the 12th I was at the Pentagon, which is kind of a frightening experience. It has very tight security, is frantic on the inside, and is the kind of place where the security detail has assault rifles. In a word: stressful. Add to that being late for the first of two meetings, and it made for an interesting day.

5. In a lot of ways I am still finding my feet at the fort. My first two weeks were especially difficult since I had two deadlines on top of getting used to the place, and figuring out how everything worked. Thankfully, everyone is patient and supportive.

6. Did you notice that 2009 has had two Friday the 13ths? I did. I think it's unusual.

On the most recent Friday the 13th, Keith, Claire, and I went to see Watchmen. When Auntie Barb sent me the trade paperback of the series for Christmas some years ago, my mind was blown. I had no idea that something so sprawling and wildly creative could be done with comics. As Crime and Punishment and Catch-22 changed my conception of literature, Watchmen changed how I viewed comics. Obviously, the movie could never live up to that, and in the end it's not that great. It's pretty, and has some fun moments, but I think Snyder was trying way to hard to get Alan Moore to like him by making a 100% faithful reproduction of the book, and the movie suffered for it.

I did, however, get to hang out with a cardboard cutout of Nicholas Cage that I found in the garbage behind the theatre.

From MarsEdit Images

7. My brother recently had a birthday. He's 14 by my count. My sister has a birthday coming up in May -- she'll be 12. They continue to amaze me.

8. My NCAA picks for this year are at 70%, and given that I usually have the worst picks in my family, I am more than pleased. I would have done much better if Arizona hadn't decided to win and shove Utah off the map.

Despite screwing up the whole Utah thing, I am proud of calling the exact measure of UM's basketball prowess: one game. Hail to this victor.

9. I've been having some trouble sleeping lately, which is unlike me. I am usually asleep within five minutes of getting into bed, and I will stay completely asleep until morning. On the rare occasions I do wake up in the night, I am back to sleep within moments. Lately, I've been waking up at odd times, been unable to get back to sleep after waking, and had some trouble getting to sleep at all. This is a new development I do not approve of.

10. I want to try and post every day next week, starting Monday.

Blog Horse

Fell off the blog horse this week. Work got very hectic, and the weather took a famous turn around these parts. Between the ice, the editing, and everything else I just couldn't keep up.

My reflections on the inauguration are forthcoming. I started working on it last week and realized it could be even better than I anticipated. Look forward to it!

In the meantime, here are some things I think you should know about.
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George Herriman has finally been immortalized and digitized. Take a look at this fascinating digital shrine to him and his seminal creation: Krazy Kat.

For those unaware, Krazy Kat is a delightfully surreal comic strip from the 30's/40's based around a simple premise: Ignatz the mouse throws bricks at Krazy Kat, which Krazy takes as signs of affection, and Offica Pup tries to intervene on Krazy's behalf to win her heart.

With this simple, Sisyphusian triangle at its core Herriman was able to experiment wildly with the setting and the dialogue eventually creating a bizarre desert world with it's own inflected language for the residents. Like Pogo, Lil' Abner, and the writings of Mark Twain, the language and setting become almost as important (if not more so) than the stories themselves.


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From out of nowhere comes SPACE GIRL! In the proud tradition of newspaper adventure comics (see: Flash Gordon, Prince Valiant) Travis Charest (who I know I have seen the art of, but can't remember where) gives us a beautiful side project that is sure to please. Though it has older, prouder roots, I cannot help being reminded of the occasional Calvin and Hobbes feature SPACE MAN SPIFF! In fact, I am almost certain that Waterson did a panel identical to Space Girl! #3.

It's a hoot.


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Noted friend and artist Kris Jacque has a moving reflection on the end of VHS casettes. The only thing I can add is:

Remember duplicating bootleg anime tapes to exchange with friends? Remember taping every episode of the Simpsons between 1991 and 1998? I do.
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Gorgeous photos of the most destructive devices made by humanity. Beautiful and terrifying. A must-see.


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And to cleanse your pallet: a car covered in singing fish. It even has a conductor.

This Post To Be Chiseled Into Solid Rock For A Nominal Fee

This is an interactive display based around a 1000 year old rune stone currently on display in Denmark. Without words, the stone tells the story inscribed on the stone, and then has some cool interactive stuff to boot.
There are not words for how cool this is. WATCH IT. READ ABOUT IT.


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Get the DMZ trade paperbacks for only $43. It's a good deal, but this series got pretty dull for me by trade #2. It's been called the "best comic of the Bush era," but I hope that's not true. DMZ strikes me as far to self-concious -- so much so, it is occasionally preachy. I think of Pogo, another incredibly pointed comic that took on world politics, and it's truly remarkable how effortless it felt and how forced Wood's work is. But if you like his stuff, you could do worse.
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This lineup for the Inaugural Concert sounds pretty good, but I am pretty disappointed that Wilco isn't on it. Especially after they did all those concerts for Obama, and shilled for the new Prez on Colbert (1 and 2).
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Trapped In The Airpot (Updated)

I am trapped in the Indianapolis airport. Normally, I wouldn't mind since delays are just part of flying these days. This particular airport even has free wireless, which is very nice -- luxurious, even. However, I don't have a seat assignment yet. This makes me incredibly nervous.

Worst case scenario is that I sleep in the airport and miss a day of work. I'd rather not, but what can you do?
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Yesterday, I saw The Spirit. As all the reviews will tell you, it is not a "good movie." At least not in the same sense that Casablanca is a "good movie." However, it is a very fun movie to watch. It is, simply put, the comedy event of the century. Not because it is so bad (although that might be part of it), but because you will never see a movie that goes as over-the-top as this one does. It makes Buckaroo Banzai look like A Room With A View. Tank Girl becomes a predictable, but enjoyable, romantic comedy when compared with The Spirit.

A lot of what makes the movie great is how surprising it is, so I don't want to go to into detail. But I will say that if you want a movie that is straightforward in intent, DO NOT see this movie. If you, like me, enjoy the absurd and don't mind laughing while wondering "ARE THEY SERIOUS?!" then this movie is for you.

I pulled a line from an article on The Spirit taken from a comic book blog. Personally, I don't think it's worth comparing the two. Miller's movie captures the (no pun intended) spirit of Eisner's creation with its use of comic book style violence and emotions (read: ridiculous, over-the-top). All the characters stand, move, and speak like they came right off the page. This is problematic for two reasons. First, because all this hokeyness is a little jarring when compared to Miller's trademark style of film. Second, because if you don't realize that it's supposed to be silly, then it won't be any fun at all.

Anyway, this line sums up the major problem with the movie: Miller never seems to decide how cartoony the movie is supposed to be.

If it was clear from the get-go that this was going to be like Dick Tracy, then I think the critics would have been a little kinder.
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UPDATE: I have a seat, but the plane is still delayed. Progress!

Time to Blog

You know you've neglected your blog when you receive emails from family members asking not "how are you? when are you coming home?" but, "when is your blog going to update?"

It's true; I've been unfair and unkind to you, my gentle readers. But I assure you that my silence has not been out of dislike for you, or out of a hatred for the medium of Blog. No, my reticence has one source: work.

On the job, much like at school, I didn't really feel like there was anything worth writing about. However, I have had a change of perspective that I hope will be made plain in the coming days.
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Careful readers will recall that I am currently employed at SAIC Integrated Communications. Recently, I had the pleasure of decorating my office. I'd share pictures, but the security policy forbids me from taking any. So, if you'll just have to trust me when I tell you that I have a large, golden shrine to the Zarathustra in my office.

Beyond that, I've put up a fantastic print of Bob Dylan by iconic 60's artist Peter Max.

It really ties the room together.

Also up is a color cartoon by Ben Katchor, whom I did not see when I didn't go to SPX a few weeks back. It tells the story of a man who, like me, has a small non-descript office. Unlike me, he has a mysterious pipe running through his office -- the undisclosed function of this eventually frustrates him to rash action.

Another thing I can't show you is the lovely picture of feet taken by Cathy Fisher, current Gargoyle editor. It's a lovely black and white photograph showing several feet perched around the rim of a plaster bucket containing many legos. It was taken in the Gargoyle office, and was actually, I think, not staged. I liked to believe that it represents teamwork. I might write "TEAMWORK" below it in striking, bold letters.

Lastly, I put up a small painting done by my long-time pal Kris Jacque. It was a Christmas gift from a while back. Being very colorful, I think it goes well with the Peter Max print.

Puppies make an office a better place.

That's all for now. Soon, I hope to have some family photos, pictures of Claire, and a wall-sized rasterbation of Iceland up on my wall.
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Many of you have asked what Integrated Communications does. I sincerely doubt I have done an adequate job of explaining it. So, take some time and watch this video. It was written, directed, shot, edited and produced by IC on behalf of the US Marine Corps. It's a training film for the Casualty Assistance Call Officers. I have to say, it's very impressive.

FILM.

An Update On The Brink Of Stunning News

I had a great, great time in Philly with E.J.. We hung around, I hurt myself bowling, and I took the liberty of introducing her to the art of Robert Crumb -- via an exhibit of his work at UPenn.

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I wonder what's happening to those Pogo books that I donated to the UM library. Here's a collection of covers.

Swear that you'll vote this year, and get a free MP3 of Wilco and Fleet Foxes (whom, I gathered from his Twitters, John Hodgman enjoys) covering Bob Dylan (who should be on Twitter, but as yet is not). Do it here!

Very nice short by Bryan Lee O'mally, author of Scott Pilgrim.
Watch your step, she keeps goats.

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Big news in the next few days. Keep on the edge of your seat. If you do not have a seat, find one and sit in it until I make an announcement.

Google Chrome

Google is making a free, open-source web browser forged of vampire and werewolf resistant silver, imbued with the blood of St. John and pieces of the True Cross and debugged by Jesus himself.

Not really, but they get pretty lofty when they talk about it. Enough to get me excited (it does not take much to get me excited).

The important thing about their announcement is that they have decided to do it via Comic Book. And not just any comic book, but one made by Scott McCloud (Understanding Comics, Making Comics, Zot!)! I love McCloud!

Take a gander.

One Down...

For Better Or For Worse is ending.

Now for Marmaduke, Garfield, Cathy...

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Maybe it's the fact that the Funny Pages of the Newspapers have an all-ages audience that they are so dreadfully bland, but the Sunday Comics have been a desolate place for a while now.

Pearls Before Swine and Non-Sequiter are the only two genuinely funny strips I can think of off the top of my head. Doonesburry doesn't count, because the Detroit Free Press moved it to the Op-Ed section.

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It's been cool for three days and rainy for two. Is fall almost here? I'd like that a lot.

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Am I trying to make a new record for the most posts in a month? I don't know, am I?

James Jean Leaves Fables

James Jean, the truly fantastic artist behind the covers of Fables is moving on to personal projects.

Words cannot describe how upset I am. Even the weakest Fables issues were ramped up by the fantastic covers.

Sniffles.

Top O' The Morning

For the first time since I got cable, I am not furious at MSNBC. It tuns out that when there is something actually going on, and real issues to talk about, these guys aren't so bad!

Maybe I'll warm up to CNN or FOX? Probably not.

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Skeletons of cartoon characters. This is so cool.

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Bob Thompson from the Washington Post discovers comics! Holy crap!

What bothers me the most about the article, and the responses from those interviewed, is that everyone is acting like comics just appeared out of nowhere. Ostensibly, this is because Thompson is interested in the elusive "Graphic Novel," but there is a whole history of comics that begins before graphic novel.

Everyone is acting like it's a shock that comics are popular, not remembering that Superman made a mint back in the 30's, and that comics didn't hit hard times until the 70's.

Lastly, I think it's silly to draw distinctions between graphic novels and collections of single issues. Most collections end up being organized by story arcs, so there is no reason to consider them as something less than a "graphic novel." Crime and Punishmen, and oodles of Dickens were written as serial magazine pieces -- we still call them novels!

All in all it's a pretty good article, and I am glad to see so much attention given to a great medium. My favorite bit is Scott McCloud answering why comics are so popular these days:

"Comics. Got. Better."

I think he might be right; I think the last decade has seen some truly amazing stuff.

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Have you heard of Okami? I am told it is a great game. I bought it for the Wii sometime ago, but I haven't played it yet. Why? Because I promised myself I wouldn't until I had a job.

Anyway, CAPCOM used art from IGN.com for the cover and just now got around to issuing replacements. They look pretty awesome.

Review: newuniversal:SHOCKFRONT

Dig it.

Hope to have another one up in a week!

Published!

My review of The Invincible Iron Man #1 is now available for reading!

Watch out! I am on the internet and I have opinions!

Briefly Noted: eFame

My eFame continues to set the world ablaze.

Now I must return to completing another application for the Atlantic magazine.

Quickly:
While I was sick, I did a phone interview with comics publisher Fantagraphics. I had a raging fever, was naked, bedridden, and sweated profusely throughout the course of the six-minute interview. At one point, the following exchange occurred:

Fantagraphics: What is the worst thing you've ever had to do at a job?

Max: Well, once I had to chase out some homeless people, and then bury their feces.

Fantagraphics: (silence)

I don't know if I perhaps misheard her question in my delirium, or if she thought I was trying to be funny. Either way, I did not get the job. It's just as well, since it would have required me to relocated to Seattle for several months.
I bear no ill-will towards Fantagraphics: more than anything I am pleased to have been given the opportunity and am utterly grateful at their flexibility while I was ill.

Northlanders

Brian Wood is easily one of the biggest stars in the comic book world right now. His series of short, self-contained comics called Demo made quite an impression and his popularity has exploded with the continuing series DMZ.

Personally, I hadn't had all that much exposure to Wood until DMZ went into trade paperback a few years ago. While I was initially unimpressed, it was Wood's story that drew me in. His characters, his plots were mostly uninteresting, and occasionally laughable. Especially in the most recent "Public Works" story arc (recently collected in trade paperback), Wood has shown such a penchant ham-handed story-telling that it has driven me away from the series. In the end, I couldn't take the irritating mixture of a byronic hero and a bubbling baby, or the Law and Order "ripped from the headlines" plot-lines for more than three books. Perhaps the next trade will redeem DMZ in my eyes, but I digress.

Wood has redeemed himself in my eyes, if only for using Vikings, in his newest continuous series from Vertigo called Northlanders. The story is set in 980 C.E., and follows the dark and violent story of a young Norseman who returns home to find his father dead, and his family's power usurped by his evil uncle. It's all very Shakespearean.



Despite the cast being headed by another brooding, dark-haired man, Northlander holds much more promise than the early DMZ issues did. Sven, the main character, may be dower but he's also capable and has motivation unlike the DMZ's aimless and endlessly naive Matty. This drive seems, at least in the first two installments, to be enough to hold the story together and keep readers interested.

What has impressed me most thus far is how well Northlander represents the period. The big things, like houses, clothing and boats are less movie-Viking and much closer to the real thing. Beyond that, the story is masterfully atmospheric, sometimes with whole panels showing the distant mountains and dark, alienating sea set against grey skies. It doesn't make the Orkney Islands look like a major vacation attraction, but it does capture the quiet majesty, and subtle grimness of Nordic life. The panels look like grittier, dirtier figures from illuminated manuscripts or stained glass. Figures idealized by history, but touched with humanity and reality.

Also, the premise of the story -- a young Viking abroad with the varangians, returning to seek his inheritance from greedy family -- is spot on for period Nordic stories. Even the land-grabbing, similar to the consolidation of power in the Norse world toward the end of the Viking age, seems quite natural.

If I must complain, and I must, I am annoyed by Wood's main character -- but just a bit. While he's more palatable than DMZ's lead, he falls more into the traditional comic book male role. Strong, violent, oppressed, aloof. While these characteristics are certainly natural for a Viking, it's handling seems thoroughly modern. The use of modern-english curses, for instance, just ruins the moment for me, and while I acknowledge that Vikings were probably a surly bunch I am certain that they weren't using words that I know. It's not that I don't think they should be swearing, it's just annoying to see "cursing" passing for being "atmospheric" or "character development."

What might be most exciting, especially for people like me, is not where Northlander is now but where it will be soon. 980 C.E. was the tail end of the Viking Age, and already the world was starting to squeeze them out. By 1000 C.E., Christianity had spread as far as Iceland and the sixty-six years later King Harald would be defeated in England, bringing an end to the fury of the Norseman. A comic series featuring some of the least celebrated and most interesting groups in history, poised on the edge of massive social upheaval is really something to get worked up about.

Personally, and I did say I was biased toward Vikings, I think this is a series that is certainly worth a look. It's very early in the series now, so it could easily go sour, but it has enough going for it to have me signed up -- at least for now.

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The author wishes you to note that he did not go into an extended discussion of how happy he was to see scorn poles, and other such Norse minutia, and tried to be all "professional."
The Author is also feeling much better, and considers himself no longer sick.

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Corrected the year Iceland converted.

Concerts and Comics and Football

I've been going to a lot of "cultural events" recently. Partly, I think, because it's my last year at the University and I want to get my money's worth.

Two weeks ago, I attended my first football game. It was both disappointing and exciting -- I feel rather torn about it. I suppose my problem is that everyone I met had been building it up for me.

"Oh man, you never forget the first time you walk into The Big House," my co-worker had told me. He said that he felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of people and marveled at the feeling of being part of something so large.

I did feel something like that. I often complain that since moving out of the dorm I've felt separated from the University. Being at the game was the first time in a long time I have experienced the sensation of being part of a community, a group that shared emotions and experiences. I think we must be hard-wired to seek out these kind of feelings, which is probably why we value family and create our own groups of friends.

I did not have the awe-inspiring psuedo-religious experience that I was promised. I did, however, enjoy a very good game.

Last week, I saw the Russian Patriarchate Choir performing church music and a few folk songs. Less harmonic than a gregorian chant, the singing is as you would probably imagine. Soulful and heavy it filled the room with something like pious joviality.

It was interesting since generally I don't listen to music just for the music. Opera, for instance, is interesting to me not because of the amazing arias or the contra-tenor singing them. I enjoy the plots as much as (if not more so) than the pretty music.

However, the Russian choir was in a totally alien language. Also, I feel like most liturgical music isn't really saying anything all that original. It's generally a lot of praising, and what not. My experience of the music transcended lyrics, and content and was solely about melodies, harmonies, and voice. It was a truly excellent experience, even if I didn't get the jokes that everyone (or rather, every Russian speaker) was laughing at during the folk songs. I suspect some of the members of the audience to be Kossacks.

Tonight, I saw Madeline Peyroux. The concert went pretty much as I imagine. I tried to think of some clever similes to describe it.

"Like drinking the best coffee out of a mahoganey cup."

No? How about:

"Like drinking hot chocolate while sitting in your robe, watching the rain spray across flame-orange trees on a grey autumn day."

I guess it's easier to just say that it was the most mellow experience of my life. Peyroux, who sings like a Frenchier Billie Holiday, was backed by jazzy quartet consisting of a keyboard/pianst, electric guitar, electric/stand-up bass, and drums. The end result is that I felt warm and sleepy the entire time.

Lastly, I found the artist who did my favorite comic from the Flight collection I bought three years ago. It is completely fantastic, and you should all read it.

I haven't forgotten the promises I have made to this blog, but I keep getting distracted. Sometime, soon.

Webs of Chance

I recently had a series of incredibly serendipitous moments.
Let me lay this out for you.

I got up late Sunday morning because its the Sabbath and thats what you do. Also because me, Kris, and a collection of assorted roomates hit the Fleetwood at around 2 am. As I write this I am suffering the direct results of eggs and hashbrowns with black coffee at that hour of the morning.
By 9am I was jerked awake after a particularly troubling dream centered in suburbia where I found myself equipped with a floating cellphone that I gripped from below which I used to avoid huge spiders in floating, complicated, three-dimensional orb-webs.
I couldn't float very high with the cellphone - I attribute this to the fact that my phone hasn't been working lately - and I hit one of these balloon webs. When I hit the web an asian grandmother-type figure appeared and took the hit for me. 'Ah! It pinches my butt!' She cried, and I was awake.
I always find it best to rejoin reality after particularly deep sleep by way of internet. I had unfolded my laptop and propped myself up in bed for about an hour or so, pointing and clicking my way to useful consciousness. By 10am I was set up at my desk, using all of my eSkill and iAwesomeness to find and use anything to avoid having to work on my final papers, which are many and manifest. This of course lead me to my podcasts.
As much as I am loathe to admit my participation in something as Trendy.com as PodCasting, I have to accept that you are reading this on (one of) my blog(s) so there is obviously little hope for me. It's too late. Don't cry for me, I'm already dead.
I do listen to a few podcasts, though. Only one now, though. The first ever was Ze Frank's the now concluded 'The Show.' His talent has been expressed in several other more frequented and lucrative forums than this, so we'll move ahead. The second is the weekly podcast of NPR's This American Life.¹ I love this show, and have for some time. The almost droning monotone of Ira Glass is so zen, so buddhist monk, and the stories successfully stretch me across an unbelievable expanse of temporal, geographical, and emotional locales that I can't help but love it.³
I listened to a show.
It was great.
It was the end of one of their live shows I had started listening to a few days earlier called "What I learned from Television."⁴ Awesome. Completely awesome. Sheer bliss. There I am, surfing the internet looking for wonderful little April Fools being left by site managers while listening to This American Life. I am so happy with listening that when the show ends I let it just roll into another one. Great! Huzzah! "The Allure of the Mean Friend!"⁵
At some point, during this procrastanotory NPR love-fest, Ira mentions that the This American Life website has been redone and revamped, likely a tie-in with their new TV show⁶ which I am too poor to afford to watch. I meandered, or as well as one can "meander" on the internet, on over now listening to the end of another episode which I had started weeks earlier⁷. The website is really something, with great colors and cool curvey things and Im just having a ball clicking around. Then my eyes fell upon something familiar and I stop.
What I see is a panel from Chris Ware's graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth. It's being used as part of the blurb about the show I was just listening to.
Normally, I wouldn't have stopped. But, if you can recall, this whole thing is about serendipity and something cool is about to happen. It's going to happen right here: because just this past thursday I was discussing that very book in my Graphic Narrative⁸ course at the Univeristy.
I'll give you all a second to inhale dramatically for me.

Alright, I'll be the first to admit that finding that, in and of itself is only moderately cool. A 2.3 on the Cool Vibrations scale.
But trust me, it gets better.
It is at this point that I must reveal that I was in fact looking at many websites at the same time, thanks to the magical gnome rats-in-hats of the internet. You see, there's not a lot of things I can do while listening to This Life. Im pretty much limited to playing video games (the most complex of which cannot exceed Zelda: Oracle of Seasons), and light reading material. It just so happens that I had Wikipedia'd⁹ Ira Glass right before this amazing moment of recognition with Jimmy Corrigan. I do this from time to time with celebrities that I enjoy or particularly admire. I like to chart my progress against them, and then judge my life accordingly.¹⁰
I hope you're all very ready for another cool thing, because it's about to slam you in the face when I tell you that at the very bottom of Ira's wikipedia page, there is a note that he dated popular cartoonist Lynda Barry¹¹ and that details of this relationship are chronicled in her graphic work One! Hundred! Demons!
You should all inhale sharply again because this is another book off the curriculum for my Graphic Narrative course! (Now at a Cool Vibration of 3.8!)

Meanwhile, in WebBrowser window number 8, my search for more information regarding the new This American Life television program (namely where I can watch it without paying for it) yields another reference to Chris Ware. Apparently he animated a brief section of a This American Life TV show. I was very excited at finding this. Chris Ware has a Cool Vibrations rating of at least 8.8 (which is actually so high on the Cool Vibrations scale that I should report it in Von Hugenstein's Awesomeness unit: The Viking), or 5.4vks. At this point, my searching was reaching a fevered pitch. The link at slate.com isn't working!¹² Oh no! Quick: cut to YouTube.
YouTube must have it - they have everything!

It doesn't take long to watch, and thoroughly enjoy, the short piece. The animation is smooth, and looks like it was done in Flash. But that doesn't matter, because it lends itself so well to Ware's style. I watch it at least twice.
After that, Im ready to finish up the episode of This Life that I was listening to way back when this whole thing started. You know, the one about "my brilliant plan?" Its about three or five billion lines of text above this exact spot, so go back, take a look and buy me a smoothie if you're lost.
I flipped iTunes back into drive and, again, get puzzled and have to stop what I am doing. I pause the show, and re-start the animation. And then I run both at the same time.

They have exactly the same theme music playing.

What? What's that?
No gasp? Nothing? Hold on just a second. The animation that I am watching on YouTube, that I found by chance surfing around killing time, has the exact same music in the background music as the show (which I had started listening to 9 weeks ago) I am listening to as I find the animation and you don't think that is completely amazing?!
Don't you see what just happened? I just wandered through a whole network of connections and coincidences, and got hit in the face by it. I just rode my low-flying cellphone right into the complex 3D structure of life's coincidences, while at the same time subtly drawing a comparison between the connection of people and things in life and the way things are connected and expressed on the internet, while simultaneously demonstrating how circular narratives carry a sense of completion which is greater than most!

It's a perfect 5.0 on the Cool Vibes meter.


--------


1². A few days ago I, along with the entire class, received a stern 'talking to' about the correct expression things like books (My Special Hemroid), Poems ('The Last Of The Great Goiters'), quotes ("The road turned and I didn't." (period inside the quotation marks)), and the like. I have no idea how a radio show is meant to be presented. I am also to lazy to look it up. Look, people. Look upon this blog and despair: the internet is degrading our beloved conventions. Tremble, mortals, at the misuse of the italics! The semi-colon! The hyphen!

2. Another strike against Journler - it has not built in superscript function. I had to use the 'Special Characters Palette' where, interestingly, "⁵" is located on line 2710 and "¹" is located on line 230.

3. The other great thing about it is that I can let them collect on my computer and, well, you all know about me and collecting things.

4. Episode 328. I likely used the incorrect expression, or citation or whatever. I'll see you in hell, MLA.

5. Episode 245, rerun.

6. On Showtime, apparently all the time.

7. Episode 324, "My Brilliant Plan." If one was willing, one could actually go through and plot exactly how much time I spent on all this through the subtle clues hidden throughout.

8. English 417, professored by the amazing E. S. Rabkin

9. "Photoshopped" and "Googled" are now acceptable terms, so it's only a matter of time.

10. This is, in fact, a very healthy activity. If you knew what some of your favorite personalities had to do when they were young to get where they are, it makes you think twice about your predicament. A friend of mine was recently struggling with some problems related to his band. He quit school very close to graduating to start taking music seriously. I told him to read the Wikipedia entry on Beck Hansen's early career. If you ever feel troubled about your life artistically, read the Beck entry.

11. I just wiki'd her and I feel pretty bad. She has a whole section, about 25-33%, of her bio dedicated to her relationship to Ira Glass. Truly, a measurement of someone's popularity.

12. What is slate.com, anyway? I hear them referenced constantly on NPR nowadays.

13. BONUS FOOTNOTE: This reminds me a lot of the Hypertexts that we are looking at in my Eng 407 class. Totally wiggy.

It's A Mite Chilly In Here

It's been snowing in Ann Arbor ever since the top of the page, and looks like it's going to stick around for a while.

Oddly, everyone is complaining. This isn't so odd an occurrence, this is winter we're in and we are all stuck in Michigan so complaining about cold, inclement weather is not unheard of.
So the weird vibe, Max? Simple: because about 8 months ago (or so) everyone was talking about how BAD global warming is. Everyone saw the Al Gore movie and was - at that moment - deeply concerned about adorable polar bears and the fate of the world on the whole (but mostly the adorable polar bear). So, here we are, experiencing what is relatively normal weather for this time of year and everyone is complaining! This is what you wanted! Good ol' normal Michigan winters!

Actually, Global Warming continues to terrify me. I heard last week that some massive chunk (23 square miles, that's 23x bigger than the Vatican) of ice broke off and melted in a few days. That's pretty scary! I've also heard that Greenland is melting really fast. While the loss of Greenland would improve the overall perspective of maps all around the world (it's always depicted much too large), it's not cool that it's disappearing. Hopefully Iceland will survive long enough for me to go and visit it.

Another thought on Global Warming: I was leafing through a Popular Mechanics from 1953 and even back then they were talking about a 'dangerous warming trend' across the world. They even used the same pictures of the same receding glacier that Gore used in his movie! Wiggy! They do, however, come short of really addressing the problem in the magazine. Every time the interviewer comes close, he veers off and starts talking about 'cloud seeding' or some other crap. Ah well.

Someone needs to remind me to upload that sometime.

Todays piece of media is the first ten minutes of what is going to be a fascinating documentary on Will Eisner. Link

Also! Today I celebrate my 1 year 1 month and 1 day anniversary of blogging on Blogger. Huzzah!

Twitter and Vertigo's DMZ

Some of you have already started asking, "Max, just what is twitter functionality?"

Twitter is a sort of global away message. From phone, computer, or instant messenger, you can tell the internet what you are up to. I know, it's totally lame. But I got bored a few nights back and didn't have anything better to do. So I made a twitter account.
The 'Twitter Live Updates' box on the right shows the last thing I sent to the Twitter Network. Think of it like a super-compressed update to the blog.

[EDIT: I've noticed that the twitter box is really lagging the blog's load time. Let me know if it's worth keeping, or if it's just too irritating.]


Recently, I started reading "DMZ," published by Vertigo. Link. It's an interesting story centered around a young journalist who finds himself trapped in Manhattan - the battle ground of America's next civil war. With obvious allegorical ties to the War On Terror, the title easily could have slipped to being nothing more than someone's soap box. But the writer has stayed focused on what's really interesting in this series - the characters and the environment that they're in. I should take a moment here to digress and also mention that so far, the only irritating thing about DMZ is that our protagonist 'Matty' does occasionally become the writer's mouthpiece. His idealism and naivete draw screaming breaks on an otherwise tight story.
The people 'Matty' meets are complex and mysterious, and if nothing else I keep reading just to see who stays a friend from issue to issue.The backdrop is uniquely modern, where in the face of a war on their porch regular Americans are able to put together some kind of life for themselves. This is really a marked departure for the languishing sense of self reliance and apathy that you get from reading the news.
Both somewhat anarchic and uplifting in the face of the face of the times we live in, the series is hailed as the 'next big thing' in comics. It seems pretty good after 12 issues, but an extended run will show whether it can really stay together.

This is something that I have noticed in long-running series of any variety. Like a projected image, a character fades further away from it's origin. It becomes indistinct and nothing more than an uncertainty. Hopefully this won't happen to DMZ.