March 31, 2007
New York Groove
You know what's a great song? New York Groove by Ace Frehley. This is from that KISS solo lp (did you spot the paradox anyone?) in the late 70s. This song is clearly the result of Marc Bolan and Lou Reed producing a love child who then possessed the cosmic Kiss member.
The Lost Comic Books: an illustrated history
It's the summer 1973 and I am 7 years old. The sky is overcast and the air is cool. The pine needles are beaded with globes of rain. It's just me and my father at the cottage. I don't know where my mother and sisters are. Wherever they have gone they have taken the car because later my father and I walk to Carmichael's general store in Bristol. I'm reading a comic book on that grey afternoon. Sitting on the shelf above an antique dresser are old sleeping bags, rolled up and tied like hay bales smelling of napthalene mothballs. The comic book I am reading is called The Brave and the Bold. The story is eerie. There is a man from India who has visions, another man who transforms into a demon and another man who has risen from the dead after 100 years and there is the Batman. I am 7 years old and I am awe struck by this scenario. The images are so intense that they will stay with me through the years if only as lingering shadows in the corners of my mind.
That was the first comic book story I remember. I had comic books before this but I can't remember complete stories, but nonetheless whose panels form an arcane mosaic in my memory. At some point I started to save these 20 cent pulp and ink pamphlets and as the years passed the piles accumulated like so much sediment on shelves. This was years before the fanatic comic book collecting culture of today. A comic book then lived and breathed outside of a coffin of plastic poly bag and cardboard backing. In these times comic books served as coasters for glasses of kool-aid, were brought to the beach, were rolled up and stuck in a back pocket. Pages were cut out and pinned on the wall, images were traced in blue ballpoint pen. Crosswords were filled out and covers torn off.
My favourite comic books at the age of seven told the stories of Superman and Batman in Action Comics, Detective Comics and World's Finest published by National Periodical Publications Inc. 909 Third Avenue, New York, New York, otherwise known as DC comics. By the time I was 10 the comic books that I once enjoyed seemed juvenile and unsophisticated to me. Somewhere around 1976 my preferences shifted towards Spider-man and his monthly angst. The Marvel comics banner on a cover became a standard of quality adventure to my young eyes. The DCs moved to the closet but it would be a few years before I decided to part with them altogether. I barely remember when this happened. I think that my mother probably had a garage sale and that was that. The accumulated strata of 4 years of childhood adventures blew away like dust in an afternoon.
I saved just five issues from that newsprint trove. Two 100 page Super-Spectaculars that my father had given me for Christmas. Batman and the Flash, A Green Lantern DC Special also a Christmas gift and two of the earliest and eeriest issues my mother had bought for me at the Woolworths in the Westgate Mall in Ottawa. Those being an issue of the Justice League of America in which the ancient wizard Felix Faust opens up a gateway to the netherworld one Halloween evening in Rutland Vermont. The other an issue of Wanted that reprinted a 1940s story of the original Green Lantern battling the reanimated corpse of Solomon Grundy. Given these scenarios is it any wonder that years later I would be drawn towards the stories of HP Lovecraft that so clearly spoke through these old comic books.
Years passed, I grew older and comic books moved to the periphery of my life. There were times as an adult where I would come across one of those old DC comics at a flea market or in a bookstore and whether I was reading Shakespeare or Joyce, Foucault or Derrida the power that these musty old newsprint pulps had over me remained. I would pick them up when I came across them but I never actively sought them out. One year in Montreal Nikki and I went to a comic book convention. I was 29 and despite my love for my old comic books I had never been a part of that fan culture nor wanted to be. The comic books were satisfying in themselves. By this time though the thought of seeing some old long lost friends was appealing and I was drawn to the convention floor where table after table of junk was being bartered. I did however come across an old comic book that I had when I was 6 years old. It was an issue of Shazam. One of the 100 page Super-Spectacular series. Images of our home in Nepean in 1973 rushed over me. I could see my father coming home from work and handing me this treasure. It's very thickness promising thrill after thrill.
Somewhere along the way that charge of reclaiming my childhood set in and I wanted all of that lost DC collection back. I promised myself that if I ever had the income to do so I would. That time arrived this year.
LOOK!
Looking at these comic books again sometimes for the first time in over thirty years it is astounding how certain images still have this emotional impact when I look at them. I thought i would include some (click on images for full-size view)
That was the first comic book story I remember. I had comic books before this but I can't remember complete stories, but nonetheless whose panels form an arcane mosaic in my memory. At some point I started to save these 20 cent pulp and ink pamphlets and as the years passed the piles accumulated like so much sediment on shelves. This was years before the fanatic comic book collecting culture of today. A comic book then lived and breathed outside of a coffin of plastic poly bag and cardboard backing. In these times comic books served as coasters for glasses of kool-aid, were brought to the beach, were rolled up and stuck in a back pocket. Pages were cut out and pinned on the wall, images were traced in blue ballpoint pen. Crosswords were filled out and covers torn off.
My favourite comic books at the age of seven told the stories of Superman and Batman in Action Comics, Detective Comics and World's Finest published by National Periodical Publications Inc. 909 Third Avenue, New York, New York, otherwise known as DC comics. By the time I was 10 the comic books that I once enjoyed seemed juvenile and unsophisticated to me. Somewhere around 1976 my preferences shifted towards Spider-man and his monthly angst. The Marvel comics banner on a cover became a standard of quality adventure to my young eyes. The DCs moved to the closet but it would be a few years before I decided to part with them altogether. I barely remember when this happened. I think that my mother probably had a garage sale and that was that. The accumulated strata of 4 years of childhood adventures blew away like dust in an afternoon.
I saved just five issues from that newsprint trove. Two 100 page Super-Spectaculars that my father had given me for Christmas. Batman and the Flash, A Green Lantern DC Special also a Christmas gift and two of the earliest and eeriest issues my mother had bought for me at the Woolworths in the Westgate Mall in Ottawa. Those being an issue of the Justice League of America in which the ancient wizard Felix Faust opens up a gateway to the netherworld one Halloween evening in Rutland Vermont. The other an issue of Wanted that reprinted a 1940s story of the original Green Lantern battling the reanimated corpse of Solomon Grundy. Given these scenarios is it any wonder that years later I would be drawn towards the stories of HP Lovecraft that so clearly spoke through these old comic books.
Years passed, I grew older and comic books moved to the periphery of my life. There were times as an adult where I would come across one of those old DC comics at a flea market or in a bookstore and whether I was reading Shakespeare or Joyce, Foucault or Derrida the power that these musty old newsprint pulps had over me remained. I would pick them up when I came across them but I never actively sought them out. One year in Montreal Nikki and I went to a comic book convention. I was 29 and despite my love for my old comic books I had never been a part of that fan culture nor wanted to be. The comic books were satisfying in themselves. By this time though the thought of seeing some old long lost friends was appealing and I was drawn to the convention floor where table after table of junk was being bartered. I did however come across an old comic book that I had when I was 6 years old. It was an issue of Shazam. One of the 100 page Super-Spectacular series. Images of our home in Nepean in 1973 rushed over me. I could see my father coming home from work and handing me this treasure. It's very thickness promising thrill after thrill.
Somewhere along the way that charge of reclaiming my childhood set in and I wanted all of that lost DC collection back. I promised myself that if I ever had the income to do so I would. That time arrived this year.
LOOK!
Looking at these comic books again sometimes for the first time in over thirty years it is astounding how certain images still have this emotional impact when I look at them. I thought i would include some (click on images for full-size view)
March 29, 2007
March 26, 2007
Midnight Mood
I lived on nothin
But dreams and train smoke
Somehow my watch and chain
Got lost.
I wish I was home in Evelyn's Kitchen
With old Gyp curled around my feet
And I hope my Pony
I hope my Pony
I hope my Pony
Knows the way back home
Tom Waits
An Historic Day
This is a day of changes both personal and political. On the personal side I signed a contract today as a permanent employee at my organization. This is a first after years of contract work and now I get benefits like paid vacations, sick leave, extended health insurance and a pension. It's been a long hard road and perhaps it's a small dream but it finally came true and as mundane as it might be it's an important one that changes everything for me.
On the political side tonight is the Quebec election. It looks like the twilight of the PQ after 30 some years as the ADQ comes within reach of forming a minority government. Even if they don't there has been an historic shift in the Quebec political landscape this evening.
On the political side tonight is the Quebec election. It looks like the twilight of the PQ after 30 some years as the ADQ comes within reach of forming a minority government. Even if they don't there has been an historic shift in the Quebec political landscape this evening.
March 25, 2007
Jonathan and Karen's wedding pics
Real Life is more interesting than TV especially "reality" TV
Take this for instance. I wonder what the story is. Why is Homer Simpson at their wedding?
Take this for instance. I wonder what the story is. Why is Homer Simpson at their wedding?
It was a piece of crap
I tried to turn it on
When I got it home
It was a piece of crap
Piece of Crap - Neil Young, 1994
I bought a brand new computer this fall. An HP pavilion. The CD Drive didn't work. I took it back. I bought a brand new Black and Decker food processor last weekend. The motor doesn't work. I bought a Neil Young DVD this week. It froze on track 10. I took it back.
March 24, 2007
Old Glob
I was able to recover my old Glob and Wail template thanks to the Internet Archive:Wayback Machine. The archive has billions of pages archived. Is it legal? Debatable. Is it useful? Definitely. Check your own url and see if you are there.
Sophie Visit
Sophie came to visit last weekend. She has left Boston and is contemplating the next chapter of her life. we went out Friday to mark the departure of one of my co-workers. I can't really blog about things anymore as i no longer live this semi-anonymous life on the fringes of society. No fun!
Luna really freaked out when she saw Sophie. Her heart was hammering so fast I thought she might break. When Sophie left I swear Luna's eyes were all wet and red. she was definitely depressed the rest of the day.
Luna really freaked out when she saw Sophie. Her heart was hammering so fast I thought she might break. When Sophie left I swear Luna's eyes were all wet and red. she was definitely depressed the rest of the day.
March 16, 2007
Words to Live By?
Somehow the lyrics to many Smiths songs are deeply embedded in my skull after all these years. Every once and a while a resonant phrase is overheard on the street that brings it all back.
Some of the lyrics that were imprinted into my post adolescent brain circa 1984-89:
"Oh, anything is hard to find
When you will not open your eyes"
"There is another world
There is a better world
Well, there must be
Well, there must be"
"Sweetness, sweetness, I was only joking
When I said by rights you should be
Bludgeoned in your bed "
"And if the people stare
Then the people stare "
"I was looking for a job, and then I found a job
And heaven knows I'm miserable now"
"I dreamt about you last night
And I fell out of bed twice "
"Does the body rule the mind
Or does the mind rule the body ?
I don´t know...."
"I've seen this happen in other people's
Lives And now it's happening in mine "
"I would go out tonight
But I haven't got a stitch to wear"
Some of the lyrics that were imprinted into my post adolescent brain circa 1984-89:
"Oh, anything is hard to find
When you will not open your eyes"
"There is another world
There is a better world
Well, there must be
Well, there must be"
"Sweetness, sweetness, I was only joking
When I said by rights you should be
Bludgeoned in your bed "
"And if the people stare
Then the people stare "
"I was looking for a job, and then I found a job
And heaven knows I'm miserable now"
"I dreamt about you last night
And I fell out of bed twice "
"Does the body rule the mind
Or does the mind rule the body ?
I don´t know...."
"I've seen this happen in other people's
Lives And now it's happening in mine "
"I would go out tonight
But I haven't got a stitch to wear"
March 8, 2007
Great White Cold
My co-workers returned from the Arctic today. i thought -46 C was cold. they reported -70s C (with wind chill factor) where they were. Apparently thats lower than -94 F. Yikes I can't fathom that. Everyone who came back said something along the lines of "it does strange things to your body". It's strange to think that cold is the natural state of the universe. If you think of the absence of heat producing matter as natural I mean.
March 6, 2007
Northern Life Part II
I was writing about how i wish that i could go up North with my co-workers, well today the North came to us. It was a chilly -42C this morning with wind chill. it's warmed up this evening to -26C (with wind chill) which is actually very bearable by comparison. Yes the weather. Always a topic of conversation in Ottawa.
March 4, 2007
Northern Life
I feel a little more connected to the northern aspect of living in Canada by way of my job. A number of my co-workers will be heading up to Baffin Island tomorrow. I being the web lackey will not be going. I have asked for some qiviut though for Leslie to play with. Qiviut is the wool from Musk ox that can be spun into a very nice yarn.
It's an interesting work environment. What I didn't realize is that on of my co-workers is a celebrity of sorts. She is one of the world's premiere katajjaq (inuit throat singers) and has travelled far and wide performing before kings and queens, dignitaries and heads of state as well as humble me. Karin Kettler and her sister performed some traditional songs from different regions of the north. I was five feet away and it was truly the most amazing thing I have ever heard coming from the human voice. There were only two performers but I could hear at least four voices and sometimes more. The videos in the links do no justice. It's one of those things you have to experience live.
It's an interesting work environment. What I didn't realize is that on of my co-workers is a celebrity of sorts. She is one of the world's premiere katajjaq (inuit throat singers) and has travelled far and wide performing before kings and queens, dignitaries and heads of state as well as humble me. Karin Kettler and her sister performed some traditional songs from different regions of the north. I was five feet away and it was truly the most amazing thing I have ever heard coming from the human voice. There were only two performers but I could hear at least four voices and sometimes more. The videos in the links do no justice. It's one of those things you have to experience live.
Antarctica
In the news this past week was the discovery of a number of new species in the Anarctic "a completely unknown underwater world in Antarctica"
The gallery at Spiegel Online >>
The gallery at Spiegel Online >>
March 2, 2007
Neo-Mickey
I like this update on M-Mouse by Matthew Cruickshank and Barry Baker>>.
I don't know much about it otherwise.
March 1, 2007
Now You are a Friendly Ghost Too
My dear friend Casper died this week. I didn't really know him for very long but I did love him very much. In fact Casper became my little Blogger profile icon. He was 30 which is pretty old for a horse. A big hug goes out to Casper tonight.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)