I discovered this random-name generator from Gwenda Bond, and of course had to try it out myself:
Andrew Wheeler is the author of
Drums, Heavy Metal, and the Slacker Kings
But G.B.H. Hornswoggler wrote
Girls, Germs, and the Slacker Kings
What is it with those Slacker Kings? I just can't get rid of them!
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Movie Log: American Splendor
How appropriate is it that, in a movie with Paul Giamatti playing Harvey Pekar, and Harvey Pekar playing "Real Harvey" (giving asides on the action of the movie, and explaining various scenes) and someone else playing "Stage Harvey" (in the stage-play based on American Splendor shown in the movie) -- and with the drawings of at least four artists also showing various versions of Harvey Pekar -- that the Production Supervisor is someone named Andy Wheeler? (Not me, of course.)
I've never been a huge fan of American Splendor the comic book (though I have read it, on and off -- mostly off, come to think of it), but the movie got great reviews, and Harvey Pekar is a fascinating character, so I stuck it on the Netflix queue, and I felt like watching it this last week.
American Splendor the movie is a bit diffuse; it seems to be trying to hit thirty years of the comic's high points (and to play with levels of discourse, to drag an English Lit major term out of long-term storage in my skull). So it starts with a brief scene of Harvey Pekar (our hero, a writer of autobiographical comics and long-time Cleveland VA Hospital file clerk) as a kid in about 1950, and then jumps ahead to the end of his second marriage in 1975 and his subsequent comics "career." He meets weird with Joyce Brabner, and marries her almost immediately. He goes on Letterman's show, then feuds with Letterman (for no clearly articulated reason -- I just got the feeling that Harvey was too cranky too tolerate Letterman's jibes any more). He gets cancer, and lives through it. The bits of his life the movie shows are interesting, but I'm already familiar with this time in Pekar's life -- what I really want to know is how he got there.
Pekar's narration at the beginning describes him as an "intellectual," but he works in a mindless job for decades (and never seems to even try to do anything else) and he talks in an aggressively lower-class way (though that is probably deliberate). He makes no effort to present himself as an intellectual, or to do intellectual things (until after his comic book makes him a minor celebrity, and he starts writing reviews of jazz records). So how and why is he an intellectual? Did he ever try to have a more demanding career? What was he like as a young man?
All in all, this is a movie that could have really benefited from more structure -- the real-Harvey parts are great, but they should have been organized to structure the movie, and the interviewer should have pushed Pekar to explain himself more. As always with autobiographical cartoonists, what looks like pure soul-bearing honesty is usually hiding something; this movie was an opportunity to explore what Pekar has been hiding about himself, and I missed that.
Still, it's a lot of fun, and a very engaging movie. The metafictional conceits are sly and well-handled, and it actually does have something like a storyline (basically: Harvey finds fame, Harvey finds love, Harvey gets cancer). It just could have been so much more. (But I seem to say that about every movie; I may just be a tough audience.)
I've never been a huge fan of American Splendor the comic book (though I have read it, on and off -- mostly off, come to think of it), but the movie got great reviews, and Harvey Pekar is a fascinating character, so I stuck it on the Netflix queue, and I felt like watching it this last week.
American Splendor the movie is a bit diffuse; it seems to be trying to hit thirty years of the comic's high points (and to play with levels of discourse, to drag an English Lit major term out of long-term storage in my skull). So it starts with a brief scene of Harvey Pekar (our hero, a writer of autobiographical comics and long-time Cleveland VA Hospital file clerk) as a kid in about 1950, and then jumps ahead to the end of his second marriage in 1975 and his subsequent comics "career." He meets weird with Joyce Brabner, and marries her almost immediately. He goes on Letterman's show, then feuds with Letterman (for no clearly articulated reason -- I just got the feeling that Harvey was too cranky too tolerate Letterman's jibes any more). He gets cancer, and lives through it. The bits of his life the movie shows are interesting, but I'm already familiar with this time in Pekar's life -- what I really want to know is how he got there.
Pekar's narration at the beginning describes him as an "intellectual," but he works in a mindless job for decades (and never seems to even try to do anything else) and he talks in an aggressively lower-class way (though that is probably deliberate). He makes no effort to present himself as an intellectual, or to do intellectual things (until after his comic book makes him a minor celebrity, and he starts writing reviews of jazz records). So how and why is he an intellectual? Did he ever try to have a more demanding career? What was he like as a young man?
All in all, this is a movie that could have really benefited from more structure -- the real-Harvey parts are great, but they should have been organized to structure the movie, and the interviewer should have pushed Pekar to explain himself more. As always with autobiographical cartoonists, what looks like pure soul-bearing honesty is usually hiding something; this movie was an opportunity to explore what Pekar has been hiding about himself, and I missed that.
Still, it's a lot of fun, and a very engaging movie. The metafictional conceits are sly and well-handled, and it actually does have something like a storyline (basically: Harvey finds fame, Harvey finds love, Harvey gets cancer). It just could have been so much more. (But I seem to say that about every movie; I may just be a tough audience.)
More iTunes Wankery
I have been struck in the head by another meme, and this is it:
Total number of tracks: 14,262
Sort by song title:
Total number of tracks: 14,262
Sort by song title:
- First Song: "? (Modern Industry)" by Fishbone (Fishbone 101)
- Last Song: "[japanese characters] (Acoustic Version) (Kaze ni Naru)" by Ayano Tsuji (Koi Suru Megane)
- Shortest Song: "Kangaroo -- SFX" by Carl Stalling & the Warner Brothers Orchestra -- 3 seconds
- Longest Song: "Pelleas und Melisande" by Arnold Schoenberg and/or Pierre Boulez directing the Chicago Symphony Orchestra -- 40 minutes, 20 seconds
- First Song: "Don't Go in the Basement" by Oingo Boingo (listed as (outtake))
- Last Song: "Mighty Quinn (Quinn the Eskimo)" by Manfred Mann (no album listed)
- Last Song That Actually Has an Album: "[japanese characters] (Tayorinai bokurano hateshinai ashita)" by Ayano Tsuji (Koi Suru Megane)
- "Don't Drop the Baby" by the Judybats -- 35 times
- "Pictures of Matchstick Men" by Camper Van Beethoven -- 32 times
- "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding" by Elvis Costello and the Attractions -- 31 times
- "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" by U2 -- 31 times
- "Better Things" by Fountains of Wayne -- 30 times
- "Little Red Light" by Fountains of Wayne -- 30 times
- "Spider Man" by Ramones -- 30 times
- "Why Does The Sun Shine? (The Sun Is A Mass of Incandescent Gas) (live)" by They Might Be Giants -- 30 times
- "The Spine Surfs Alone" by They Might Be Giants -- 29 times
- "I Will Follow" by U2 -- 29 times
- "Don't Let Me Down, Gently" by The Wonder Stuff -- 29 times
- "sex" -- 42 songs
- "love" -- 592 songs
- "you" -- 1226 songs
- "death" -- 78 songs
- "hate" -- 35 songs
- "wish" -- 38 songs
- "monkey" -- 35 songs
Rules for Living, No. 2
Rule No. 2: "Human memory," in most places, is about thirty years. In a tight-knit family or particularly backward-looking organization, it may stretch as far as fifty or seventy years. But even the USA, one of the youngest and wildest countries in the world, has a history of two hundred years and more.
So always remember that "we've always done it this way" only means "our grandparents did it an entirely different way, but we've forgotten about that."
So always remember that "we've always done it this way" only means "our grandparents did it an entirely different way, but we've forgotten about that."
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Book-A-Day #52 (9/7): Boneyard, Vol. 5 by Richard Moore
The fifth collection of the comics dramedy-set-in-a-graveyard, including one issue that should have been in the previous collection (as a sheepish letter from the author explains, since it concludes that storyline) and a complete story, mostly about a summer camp plagued by a serial killer.
It's a bit odd going to a Richard Moore all-ages book (this one has some titillation and innuendo, but no actual on-page nudity) after recently reading some of his porn: his dialogue and character styles pretty much are what they are, so it's easy to imagine what porn-Moore would have done with some of these situations. (And that can be distracting.)
This book is cute and light and fun, but there's some backstory in the set-up that I think will have to be resolved at some point, so I hope Moore doesn't drag it out too long. (Specifically, if Lilith comes back every twenty issues or so, and is foiled every time without anything more definitive happening, I will begin to Be Annoyed.)
It's a bit odd going to a Richard Moore all-ages book (this one has some titillation and innuendo, but no actual on-page nudity) after recently reading some of his porn: his dialogue and character styles pretty much are what they are, so it's easy to imagine what porn-Moore would have done with some of these situations. (And that can be distracting.)
This book is cute and light and fun, but there's some backstory in the set-up that I think will have to be resolved at some point, so I hope Moore doesn't drag it out too long. (Specifically, if Lilith comes back every twenty issues or so, and is foiled every time without anything more definitive happening, I will begin to Be Annoyed.)
Book-A-Day #51 (9/6): Thumbsucker by Walter Kirn
As I said a couple of posts below, I read this because I'd just seen the movie made from it. (Which is not the ideal way to read a book, but it got the book off my shelf and into my hands, which is a plus.) I'd previously read Kirn's Up in the Air and vaguely liked it, but I wasn't on any particular quest to read all of his books. In fact, as I recall, I picked up the novel because of the movie, as I fairly often read books rather than seeing the movies made from them (I read The English Patient that way, for example).
Thumbsucker the novel is an episodic, apparently very autobiographical tale of a young man who spends his teenage years (in the early '80s, from internal evidence) first sucking his thumb a lot, and then searching for alternatives. It's divided into three essentially independent parts: "Mouth to Mouth" (in which the boy stops thumbsucking and joins the debate team), "Hyper" (in which he goes on Ritalin), and "Kingdom Come" (in which the whole family converts to Mormonism -- the movie doesn't even touch this material).
I was prepared to like this a lot; Justin Cobb, the hero of the book, is probably only two years older than I am, and so I'm very familiar with and sympathetic with his high school experiences. (And how many Americans don't secretly think high school was the defining point of their lives?) But the book just meanders around and doesn't really go anywhere; it made the fairly meandering movie look like an exemplar of tight plotting, which is a difficult thing.
Thumbsucker the book is enjoyable, but not wonderful: it's probably most interesting to men born in the late '60s or early '70s somewhere in middle America.
Thumbsucker the novel is an episodic, apparently very autobiographical tale of a young man who spends his teenage years (in the early '80s, from internal evidence) first sucking his thumb a lot, and then searching for alternatives. It's divided into three essentially independent parts: "Mouth to Mouth" (in which the boy stops thumbsucking and joins the debate team), "Hyper" (in which he goes on Ritalin), and "Kingdom Come" (in which the whole family converts to Mormonism -- the movie doesn't even touch this material).
I was prepared to like this a lot; Justin Cobb, the hero of the book, is probably only two years older than I am, and so I'm very familiar with and sympathetic with his high school experiences. (And how many Americans don't secretly think high school was the defining point of their lives?) But the book just meanders around and doesn't really go anywhere; it made the fairly meandering movie look like an exemplar of tight plotting, which is a difficult thing.
Thumbsucker the book is enjoyable, but not wonderful: it's probably most interesting to men born in the late '60s or early '70s somewhere in middle America.
Video Log: Star Wars: The Clone Wars Vol. 1
It was very well-designed and visually interesting, but I'm afraid I was mostly doing other things (eating lunch, reading the Times) while it was on this afternoon. The boys chose it as the "Boys Movie Saturday" pick, which I was quite happy with -- the other thing they got from the library was Pokemon 3, which I'd rather not see again.
So I don't have much of an opinion about it, though there's a good chance the boys will be watching it again over the next couple of weeks (until it needs to go back to the library), so I will certainly have the opportunity to amend that if I feel like it.
So I don't have much of an opinion about it, though there's a good chance the boys will be watching it again over the next couple of weeks (until it needs to go back to the library), so I will certainly have the opportunity to amend that if I feel like it.
Movie Log: Thumbsucker
I've now seen two movies since this one (I'm getting backed up on my "obligatory" posts), so my memory is a bit fuzzy. Plus, I read the book immediately after watching the movie, which is the reverse of how I usually like to do things.
Thumbsucker is yet another one of those small American indy movies with an interesting cast and a moderately high-brow pedigree (this time, it's directed by Mike Mills and from a well-regarded bildungsroman novel by Walter Kirn) about dysfunctional families. It's not absolutely wonderful, but if you like that sort of movie (and I guess I do, since I seem to gravitate to them), you'll enjoy it. Lou Taylor Pucci is good as the teenage kid at the center of the movie; this is basically the story of how he finally stops sucking his thumb at age seventeen and what he finds to take the place of that (in rough order: debate club, sex, drugs, New York City).
Keanu Reeves is remarkably good in a smaller part as the boy's dentist; from the evidence of this movie, he could have been a great character actor, instead of a ridiculously rich and famous but laughably bad leading man. (Choices, choices.)
Oh, and for those of you like me who have been puzzled: the director Mike Mills is not the same person as the R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills. I keep forgetting which guy quit R.E.M., and when, and the director Mills first popped onto the scene soon after that, so I kept thinking it was the same guy. It isn't.
Thumbsucker is yet another one of those small American indy movies with an interesting cast and a moderately high-brow pedigree (this time, it's directed by Mike Mills and from a well-regarded bildungsroman novel by Walter Kirn) about dysfunctional families. It's not absolutely wonderful, but if you like that sort of movie (and I guess I do, since I seem to gravitate to them), you'll enjoy it. Lou Taylor Pucci is good as the teenage kid at the center of the movie; this is basically the story of how he finally stops sucking his thumb at age seventeen and what he finds to take the place of that (in rough order: debate club, sex, drugs, New York City).
Keanu Reeves is remarkably good in a smaller part as the boy's dentist; from the evidence of this movie, he could have been a great character actor, instead of a ridiculously rich and famous but laughably bad leading man. (Choices, choices.)
Oh, and for those of you like me who have been puzzled: the director Mike Mills is not the same person as the R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills. I keep forgetting which guy quit R.E.M., and when, and the director Mills first popped onto the scene soon after that, so I kept thinking it was the same guy. It isn't.
Friday, September 08, 2006
Quote of the Week
I'm in a good mood today, so you get a happy, uplifting quote this time:
"Life is a God-damned, stinking, treacherous game and nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand are bastards."
- Theodore Dreiser
"Life is a God-damned, stinking, treacherous game and nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand are bastards."
- Theodore Dreiser
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Book-A-Day #50 (9/5): Sloth by Gilbert Hernandez
To my mind, Gilbert is the Hernandez brother with more daring -- his brother Jaime is a slightly better artist, and probably more popular, but Gilbert has a fearlessness and a willingness to try anything on the comics page that is breathtaking.
This is his first major work that has nothing to do with Love and Rockets, the comic he and Jaime (and a third brother, who quickly dropped out) started about twenty-five years ago. That overstates the case, though: it's a magic-realist story set in the southwestern US (probably somewhere in California), about a group of Mexican-Americans -- just like much of his Love and Rockets work.
Sloth is the story of a love triangle and a year-long coma that might -- or might not -- have been self-willed. The question of who was in the coma is also not as clear-cut as you might expect. It doesn't work as well as Gilbert's best Love and Rockets work, but it's a major novel in comics form, as well as being a great introduction to Gilbert's work for someone for whom twenty-five years of Love and Rockets is just too daunting.
This is his first major work that has nothing to do with Love and Rockets, the comic he and Jaime (and a third brother, who quickly dropped out) started about twenty-five years ago. That overstates the case, though: it's a magic-realist story set in the southwestern US (probably somewhere in California), about a group of Mexican-Americans -- just like much of his Love and Rockets work.
Sloth is the story of a love triangle and a year-long coma that might -- or might not -- have been self-willed. The question of who was in the coma is also not as clear-cut as you might expect. It doesn't work as well as Gilbert's best Love and Rockets work, but it's a major novel in comics form, as well as being a great introduction to Gilbert's work for someone for whom twenty-five years of Love and Rockets is just too daunting.
Movie Log: Howl's Moving Castle
I should stop slandering my sons, because they actually did want to watch a good movie this last weekend. Howl's Moving Castle is the most recent Miyazaki movie, and nearly the last of his films I have to see. (I still haven't caught My Neighbor Totoro -- though I could have, since the boys popped it in right after Howl for a Miyazaki double-feature -- and then after that I think I'll need to try to dig up his pre-Studio Ghibli work.)
Of course, Thing 1 did declare the movie to be "too weird" and ran upstairs several times during the middle, and Thing 2 joined him once, but what can you do? My older son is very affected by emotion in movies, and sometimes runs away if he even suspects a sad part is coming up. (I also had to warn them to hide their faces when it looked like there might be kissing, but that's to be expected from eight- and five-year-old boys.)
I don't think Howl is quite as successful and of a piece as Spirited Away is, but it's close. The plot moves at its own pace and in its own directions; it all feels organic, but it also (amazingly) never falls into any of the expected plots or patterns. I did read the Diana Wynne Jones novel (of the same title) that the movie is based on, but that was several years ago, so I don't remember it well enough to be sure what's different in the movie.
A young woman, Sophie, is working in a hat-maker's shop in the standard unnamed Miyazaki country (vaguely European, though this one seems to be a bit more late-19th century rather than his typical pseudo-1930s), which is sliding into war, for unspecified reasons, with its unnamed neighbor. (As I vaguely recall, this was all clearly specified, and made sense, in the Jones novel, so I guess Miyazaki was going for a feel of timelessness.) Sophie has a run-in with a dashing young wizard, and then falls afoul of a nasty witch through no real fault of her own. (I don't know if this is a Miyazaki thing, a Japanese thing, or just coincidence, but the magical plots work this way in several Miyazaki movies, and it feels very real and concrete, especially compared with the usual run of crudely didactic American animation: bad things happen to good people just because they're in the wrong place at the wrong time, not due to any moral failing that they then fix over the course of the movie and announce their redemption of with a big schmaltzy production number.)
So: Sophie is cursed, turned old. She believes the mysterious and dangerous wizard Howl can cure her, and so she sets off to find him. Of course he turns out to be the wizard she met in the beginning of the movie, and of course they eventually fall in love. Howl is magnificently selfish and vain, and Sophie is strong-willed but unsure of herself -- and yet the plot does not follow the well-worn romance tropes that those character types would lead us to expect. It meanders and sidetracks, always fascinating but never predictable.
In common with Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, there's no real villain here -- several characters seem to be stepping into that role (starting with the nasty witch), but then step down to do other things, or wander off from the main plotline.
Miyazaki's movies are simply amazing, and his last few are clearly his best. It's heartening to discover someone like him, especially to a viewer like me, who desperately wants to see more good fantasy and more good animation in the movies. He's getting old, but, with luck, he could have another two or three good movies in him. I certainly hope so
Of course, Thing 1 did declare the movie to be "too weird" and ran upstairs several times during the middle, and Thing 2 joined him once, but what can you do? My older son is very affected by emotion in movies, and sometimes runs away if he even suspects a sad part is coming up. (I also had to warn them to hide their faces when it looked like there might be kissing, but that's to be expected from eight- and five-year-old boys.)
I don't think Howl is quite as successful and of a piece as Spirited Away is, but it's close. The plot moves at its own pace and in its own directions; it all feels organic, but it also (amazingly) never falls into any of the expected plots or patterns. I did read the Diana Wynne Jones novel (of the same title) that the movie is based on, but that was several years ago, so I don't remember it well enough to be sure what's different in the movie.
A young woman, Sophie, is working in a hat-maker's shop in the standard unnamed Miyazaki country (vaguely European, though this one seems to be a bit more late-19th century rather than his typical pseudo-1930s), which is sliding into war, for unspecified reasons, with its unnamed neighbor. (As I vaguely recall, this was all clearly specified, and made sense, in the Jones novel, so I guess Miyazaki was going for a feel of timelessness.) Sophie has a run-in with a dashing young wizard, and then falls afoul of a nasty witch through no real fault of her own. (I don't know if this is a Miyazaki thing, a Japanese thing, or just coincidence, but the magical plots work this way in several Miyazaki movies, and it feels very real and concrete, especially compared with the usual run of crudely didactic American animation: bad things happen to good people just because they're in the wrong place at the wrong time, not due to any moral failing that they then fix over the course of the movie and announce their redemption of with a big schmaltzy production number.)
So: Sophie is cursed, turned old. She believes the mysterious and dangerous wizard Howl can cure her, and so she sets off to find him. Of course he turns out to be the wizard she met in the beginning of the movie, and of course they eventually fall in love. Howl is magnificently selfish and vain, and Sophie is strong-willed but unsure of herself -- and yet the plot does not follow the well-worn romance tropes that those character types would lead us to expect. It meanders and sidetracks, always fascinating but never predictable.
In common with Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, there's no real villain here -- several characters seem to be stepping into that role (starting with the nasty witch), but then step down to do other things, or wander off from the main plotline.
Miyazaki's movies are simply amazing, and his last few are clearly his best. It's heartening to discover someone like him, especially to a viewer like me, who desperately wants to see more good fantasy and more good animation in the movies. He's getting old, but, with luck, he could have another two or three good movies in him. I certainly hope so
Obsolete Skill Meme
I got this one from the amazing Ellen Kushner, who was Latin. I, on the other hand, am...
What obsolete skill are you?
You are 'Gregg shorthand'. Originally designed to enable people to write faster, it is also very useful for writing things which one does not want other people to read, inasmuch as almost no one knows shorthand any more.You know how important it is to do things efficiently and on time. You also value your privacy, and (unlike some people) you do not pretend to be friends with just everyone; that would be ridiculous. When you do make friends, you take them seriously, and faithfully keep what they confide in you to yourself. Unfortunately, the work which you do (which is very important, of course) sometimes keeps you away from social activities, and you are often lonely. Your problem is that Gregg shorthand has been obsolete for a long time.
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What obsolete skill are you?
You are 'Gregg shorthand'. Originally designed to enable people to write faster, it is also very useful for writing things which one does not want other people to read, inasmuch as almost no one knows shorthand any more.You know how important it is to do things efficiently and on time. You also value your privacy, and (unlike some people) you do not pretend to be friends with just everyone; that would be ridiculous. When you do make friends, you take them seriously, and faithfully keep what they confide in you to yourself. Unfortunately, the work which you do (which is very important, of course) sometimes keeps you away from social activities, and you are often lonely. Your problem is that Gregg shorthand has been obsolete for a long time.
Take this quiz!
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Rules for Living, No. 1
This may turn into an irregular series, or it may not.
Rule No.1: The man who habitually refers to stories or novels as "tales" is almost guaranteed to be long-winded and opinionated in an odd fashion. He may still be worth listening to, but one must make sure to re-set one's Crank-O-Meter before engaging.
Women, for whatever reason, are far less subject to this affliction.
Rule No.1: The man who habitually refers to stories or novels as "tales" is almost guaranteed to be long-winded and opinionated in an odd fashion. He may still be worth listening to, but one must make sure to re-set one's Crank-O-Meter before engaging.
Women, for whatever reason, are far less subject to this affliction.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Overrun By Wolverines
Mike Sterling, my favorite comics blogger, has just found nineteen people claiming to be "Wolverine" on MySpace.
Please join him in pointing and laughing.
Please join him in pointing and laughing.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Reading Into the Past: Week of 9/3
I just gave last week a miss, but this week I'll start again, and head back to 1996:
- Roy Morris, Jr., Ambrose Bierce: Alone in Bad Company (8/28)
As I recall, this was a decent biography of Bierce, but it sent me on a ten-plus year search for the definitive bio of Bierce, by Richard O'Connor. (Which I eventually found, a year or two ago, but still haven't read.) - Tom DeHaven, Derby Dugan's Depression Funnies (8/29)
One of DeHaven's several novels set in and around the comics world (this time the strip cartoons of the 1930s). I hadn't remembered reading it at all. - Harlan Ellison, Over the Edge (8/30)
Originally a '60s collection of Ellison stories, here read in its incarnation as the first half of Edgeworks 1, the first of four 2-in-1 Ellison volumes published by White Wolf in the mid-90s. The White Wolf books were nicely produced, though the relationship of the books in the 2-in-1 often were less than obvious. As always, Ellison used reprintings as reasons to write new introductions, clean up corrupt texts, and (to the consternation of bibliographers everywhere) change the Tables of Contents. In this case, he added to Over the Edge the late 1980s essay "Xenogenesis," a listing of various horrible, cruel and nasty things people had done to SF writers he liked... - Connie Willis and Cynthia Felice, Promised Land (8/30)
I swear to God these were actually the books I read, in this order, on the same day, back in 1996. This is a slight, very romance-novel-y, SF novel that was enjoyable at the time, but which I remember no more than any other meringue I consumed that year. - Patti Perret, The Faces of Fantasy (8/31)
A nice book of pictures of fantasy writers, along with essays by those writers. Unfortunately, I have bad memories of it, since it was supposed to be a Big Deal, and it was not. In fact, it was a Huge Disaster, massively overprinted for the sales it got, and I think the publisher was still trying to get rid of stock of it five years later. We were stuck with a mass of them in the SFBC, too, and Tor kept trying to sell theirs to us and we kept trying to sell ours to them. Now it's probably an expensive and rare collector's item, but ten years ago you couldn't give the thing away. - Jonathan Lethem, As She Climbed Across the Table (8/31)
Possibly Lethem's most successful SF novel, this is very much a homage to Philip K. Dick; the tale of a physicist's doomed love for a point anomaly. - Ward Moore, Bring the Jubilee (9/1)
A very nicely written alternate history in which the South clobbered the North in the US Civil War and became a major dominating world power. Nicely atmospheric, but I couldn't believe the alternate world for five seconds; the CSA just didn't have the manpower or the economic clout to make any of the backstory plausible. - Julian May, Sky Trillium (9/1)
One of the many contradictory sequels to Black Trillium. As I recall, I liked this one the best of all of them; May tried the hardest to write the other authors' characters well and to contradict the wildly differing sequels the least. A valiant effort, at the very least. - Kevin Eastman, Eric Talbot and Simon Bisley, Melting Pot (9/1)
Minor comics project that was supposed to become huge; as I recall, this was Eastman's bid for a big post-Turtles comeback. As you might have noticed, it didn't happen quite that way. Of course, I don't think anything launched in 1996 became huge; it was a bad time for comics in general. - Matt Howarth and Lou Stathis, Those Annoying Post Brothers: Das Loot (9/1)
First collection of the great comics series about a couple of entertaining reality-shifting psychopaths. - Matt Howarth, Those Annoying Post Brothers: Disturb the Neighbors (9/1)
Second collection, ditto.
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