More Northcross Mall Coverage

Jason also waxes nostalgic regarding our trip to the mall. He discusses it a bit more throughly than myself and makes some comment as to the why's and wherefore's of how the place may have begun to spiral.

Plus, he liked Golden Compass better than me, so give his comments a quick review.

I've Got a Golden Compass...

Well, the big news is that I think my folks have signed paperwork and will be building a house in North Austin. Super huge news as far as Jamie, Jason and myself are concerned. I will now be surrounded by parents on all sides. No getting out of town in the dark of night now.

We're very happy to have the folks coming to town for a multitude of reasons, just as we were quite pleased when Jamie's folks announced their intention to relocate to San Marcos. I tell you this much Leaguers, its going to make traveling during the holidays a heck of a lot easier.

Yesterday high school and college pal Erica Foster and her husband, Scott, happened to be in town, and so they swung by. It's really been a while since we've seen Erica, unless you count her wedding. Which I sorta do, but, you know, she didn't really get much of a chance to chit-chat, and we only met Scott briefly. It's always nice to see your friends married a good guy, and Scott is that. So... Well done, Bug. Jamie and I were quite impressed.

Hope to see you over Christmas.

Speaking of KOHS folks, former high school lab chum Jeff Wilser popped up in the old e-mailbox on Friday. Sounds like Wilser is doing very well. He's landed an editorial job for a NYC-based entertainment and nightlife review website. Not a bad gig, and its kinda cool to hear the guy you used to play lacrosse with and dissect the occasional pig fetus has done pretty darn well for himself.

We met up with my parents at Houston's Restaurant on Anderson Ln., but had an hour or so to kill before we were to see The Golden Compass at the Village Alamo. And so, we headed over to Northcross Mall to see if any of the shops were still open.

I wouldn't say Northcross was the busiest mall in Austin, but it's located in the middle of a good neighborhood, there should be a lot of traffic around it, and, hey... it had an ice rink.

I recall seeing "The Muppets Take Manhattan" at its movie theater in 1984 or so, and continued seeing movies there through the first year or two of college. I bought my copy of Cure's Disintegration at the Sam Goody there, and, I believe, Beastie Boys' License to Ill. It wasn't a huge mall, being Austin's first mall, but there wasn't anything really wrong with it.

But now, aside from a fairly dumpy video game shop, that almost seemed to be begging people to steal from it, a Sports Authority where Oshman's had once built a huge sports-plex/ store, and a still functional ice rink, there really isn't anything there. Well, oddly, there's still one of those places where you can go in and record a song in a booth.

There also seems to have once been a church congregating in a part of the mall, but they're gone. The food court and a whole wing of the mall are covered in drywall, so you can't really go there. The wing where the movie theater once stood may or may not be used for conferences now. I couldn't tell if that operationw as still functional.

But as we had time to kill before the movie, I really didn't know what to do but hang out there and sort of soak in the vibe. They're supposedly going to plow the whole place under next year and put in a gigantic Wal-Mart, despite the protests of the areas' residents. No doubt the Wal-Mart would do better than the tomb of a building that remains (I walked through the middle of the dried out fountain), but it seems like its wrong for such an old neighborhood to play host to a Wal-Mart that would be serving people not actually from that neighborhood.

I dunno. Maybe a Thunderdome?

The whole thing had a weird feel of saying good-bye to a place, if not a thing. I don't have a lot of memories tied up in a mall. But I do recall the puppies at the PetLand. And I remember Jason admitting to me (he being 17 and me 15) that he really hated Christmas shopping at the mall, a sentiment that I remember finding odd. I hadn't really thought about it until then. It was just something you had to do, like going to the dentist. But as he now had his own wheels (a swanky Camaro), I think he had a little more time to ponder what sort of shopping horror he would face down in the weeks leading to Christmas.

We watched some adult players knock a puck around the ice for a while (I don't think they were heating the building), and finally crossed the street to go see the Golden Compass.

The Golden Compass isn't bad, per se. It is very, very heavy on exposition for the first half of the movie, and you certainly get the feeling stuff is happening because that's how it happened in the book, not because the director and editor were able to get the momentum of the book culled from the footage. It's an odd disconnect, because the movie is really pretty, the performances are great, and the animal CG performers are terrific and seamless.

In part, the movie suffers because it feels the need to explain everything to the viewer like a manual rather than letting the characters discover anything, or else by letting us know what the deal is with their fairly complicated world by dialog and having a bit of faith in the audience. In setting up the world, the plot itself gets somewhat lost, and, honestly, I can't really piece together much, but it seems the Golden Compass should have just been called Deus Ex Machina for a goodly portion of the film.

Oh, also, the film is a big, poorly disguised allegory that I don't see a lot of America embracing.

I'm not sure how balloon-driving cowboys fit into the allegory exactly. Or Polar bears.

The girls sitting next to me certainly liked the movie. They cheered every time an animal appeared on the screen. Which is pretty much every other shot. They also found Daniel Craig dreamy. I did have to ask them to please keep it down, but they mostly were just really into the movie in a way in which I was not.

I guess if you're on the fence, the polar bears are pretty cool.

A History of the S

A fun history of the ever changing nature of Superman's "S".

Here.

Science: Finally Doing Something Useful

It seems science has now given us glow-in-the-dark cats.

here

Honestly, as often as I trip over Jeff at night on my way to bed, which is, like, twice a week... I think this is exactly the sort of things science needs to be working on.

Thanks to Jamie for the link

Another Sign I'm Getting Older

In Arizona there was a bar called Four Peaks that also served food. It was a very popular hangout, but I'd only been there once or twice. Anyhow, I was mistaken when a new place opened up in the now defunct seafood place off I-35 and Stassney.

The place was called Twin Peaks, but, you know, it'd been a while and I got the places mixed up. So we headed there, just to check it out to see if it was the same chain.

It was not.

The first thing I noticed when we walked in was that the hostess was in a trampy Mrs. Claus outfit. And then I heard Jamie mention, as we were getting seated "I'm the only woman in this place..."

And, aside from the waitresses, also dressed in trampy Mrs. Claus outfits, she was the only female I saw in a very packed restaurant.

The interior hadn't changed at all since it was the defunct seafood place, so you kind of had to wonder how much the new owner was even trying. And the menu wasn't terribly impressive, either.

Honestly, the place wasn't goofy and sort of intentionally low-brow as Hooters (which, yes, I have been to). Instead, it was just... weird. And kind of gross.

I looked at all the lower-back tattoos on all the waitresses, and all the kind of guys there having a drink with their pals, and for some reason tonight, I just couldn't put up with it. Plus, the menu was kind of lame.

I really couldn't see asking Jamie to stay, although she sort of shrugged the whole thing off. But I couldn't do it. The whole thing was so... dumb. And I knew maybe six years ago I would have giggled my way through the whole meal, but instead I just kind of found the whole operation depressing.

We looked at the menu, and I looked around for a few minutes, and then I realized, I just couldn't keep sitting there. I had to go. I just wasn't going to have patience for the whole thing tonight. So, Jamie and Jason being good sports, we left and went across the street.

I feel so old.

Wonder Woman article

There's a brief article in the NY Sun that more or less cuts through the hype and is surprisingly accurate regarding Wonder Woman's struggles with keeping up with her two peers at DC, Superman and Batman.

I agree with almost everything in this article, especially the words shared by Greg Rucka. And, like the author of the article, I think Gail Simone has a genuine chance to turn things around.

Read the article here.

Jason C. at earthx.org has an excellent post on digital comics. Looks to be the first of a series.

Link for a new movie called Machine Girl. Looks completely awesome, but has some incredibly violent stuff in the trailer. Wacky violent, but... anyway. Mom, don't click.

When I see a trailer that is truly awful and shameless in its pandering, for some odd reason, it brings a smile to my face. And that's how I feel about Alvin and the Chipmunks. I am tempted to actually go see this one, much in the same way I was tempted to see Underdog. That said, I never actually saw Underdog. Draw your own conclusions.

Dear Jason Lee,

I only wish I could have a tiny scraping of the big pile of money you get for doing completely stupid @#$%.

Sincerely,

The League

But today, thanks to THIS, I feel some hope.

Man to Ape

In the wee hours of Saturday's festivities, I made a passing remark that my high school hadn't done much to teach evolution and that my knowledge of the process came from college. What was intended to be a remark upon the value of higher education was, unfortunately, taken as an indictment of public education, especially an education from a school with local political considerations which may have played more than a small part in the discussion.


a school where I might have actually paid attention. Or paid for it with my life.

It's worth noting that I had only a passing interest in the sciences until my senior year of high school. It may be worth noting that I had mostly only a passing interest in high school. I was far more interested in skating through courses like biology than killing myself for an A+. I was too busy reading comics, worrying about art class and English, playing basketball, trying out for plays, trying to start a lacrosse team and trying to go to shows to care much one way or another about what sort of education I was getting in high school biology. At the time, I assumed most public high schools taught basically the same things, and didn't really know what I didn't know... so it didn't seem at all like a big deal.

A fairly normal track at Westwood, the first high-school I'd attended, was to take a basic intro to science course as a Freshman, biology as a sophomore, chemistry as a junior and physics as a senior. Tucked in there were other science offerings such as anatomy, bio 2 (which KOHS also offered), and a few other options.

So it was that when I moved from Austin to Spring between my Freshman and Sophomore years I was lumped into the honors science track and took biology with a herd of freshmen. That year Jeff Wilser and I dissected worms, frogs, squid, a fetal pig and I spent most of the year wondering how what I learned from The Swamp Thing and X-Men applied to what I was learning in class. And I frequently asked questions about the Swamp Thing and the likelihood of humanity ever shooting beams from their eyes.


Apparently, not going to happen.

I received few answers which I found satisfactory as to how a plant could take on the consciousness of a biologist as he lay dying in a swamp, but my instructor was patient and I felt like I had a pretty good feeling as to the difference between the innards of a pig and a worm by the end of the year. That, really, had been our focus, after all. Anatomy, eco-systems, and how far we could push our teacher without getting bounced out of class seemed to be more than enough to fill a year.

We had, in the spring, covered Mendel Squares and there had been mention of evolution as a part of our year. I believe terms like "natural selection" had been bandied about, and looking at if you could curl your tongue or which direction a hair swirl would go as an inherited trait. But, really, that was about it as far as I can recall.

I had a subscription to National Geographic, read comics about mutants (which had about the exact grasp on science as one would expect of a comic where a man can cover himself in ice and not die of hypothermia), owned a set of Encyclopedias, watched Nova on occasion and National Geographic Explorer, so I knew of Darwin. I had heard of the Beagle, knew that mutations occurred between generations, and that was the basic mechanism for the present state of the world's biodiversity, in the snap-shot view of the modern human (with an historical record).



What was not covered, as I can recall, was much about Darwin himself, nor was Darwinism heavily emphasized in our lessons. The focus, in retrospect, was more upon genetic traits and inheritance than on the advantage of a larger beak to eat a different sort of nut. Whether Darwinism was deemed beyond the scope of a basic biology class, I don't know. Or whether a political decision had been made by our creaky school board and Superintendent (who was, I think, 147 at the time), I have no clue.

But I have my suspicions.

In college I was more interested in geology than I was biology, but as these things tend to do, some of my courses began to intersect. Age of the Dinosaurs was, for some odd reason, placed under geology. I was hoping for a course that would teach me about gigantic pre-historic eating machines, and that was absolutely part of the curriculum. These teachers were no fools. But it was also about the progression of life and the minute changes of anatomy that work as an advantage in a dino-eat-dino world. Further, with a fairly clear way to read the fossil record through radioactive decay and soil layering, the picture was logical and clear.



I also took UT's Bio-for-Dummies, or biology for those of us not planning a career in a lab coat or herding lab rats. Here, the angle of biology was inverted from the broad-based/ Marlin Perkins world of Biology I'd poured over in high school. It was DNA and RNA sequences, bio-diversity on a microcosmic scale, spreading outward through non-random splitting and re-splitting, and the cause of mutation becoming abundantly, pointedly clear. Moreover, our instructor was a retired UT prof who had grown bored and returned as an adjunct. He was passionate about the topics he taught in a way I think must have come out of having that year or two of retirement to live in his own head, with no pressing publishing dates to worry about, and deciding that he'd spend the years that were supposed to be for him making sure 18-22 year olds knew how the hell a cell replicated itself and what that meant for each and every one of us.

Also, he intoned, beware of pseudo-science. Beware of the folks coming at you with an agenda that goes beyond mitochondria and gene sequencing. Heed the tenets of the scientific method, and understand the difference between hypothesis, theory and fact.

For a student, who wasn't much of a student, but who was looking for tools with which to observe and understand the world around him, the course had a tremendous impact.

In my final semesters at UT, I was able to take Physical Anthroplogy, and, again, as these courses tend to do when you've landed in your fifth year of undergraduate education, just as one sees patterns in history course after history course, and learns to make those connections that come with a more detailed approach to education than the "drink from the firehose" of the first year or so, there it was again. My own body was being detailed in its change from large-mandibled anthromorphs to protein hungry tool users. DNA and RNA sequences slowly, gradually changing.



And the knowledge that it wasn't so much that one species was some high-evolutionary (after all, leave you alone with a hungry puma and see who wins in that scenario), but that its been an advantage to be able to build wheels and spears. And the slow, gradual change over millenia was a beautiful thing, in its way.

I don't take what I learned in college for granted. Or I try not to. I was not a great student, and I doubt most of my instructors would remember me (while I suspect my high school biology instructor would probably remember me for reasons other than my raw genius).

Like a lot of folks, I don't see evolution as a matter of belief, unless you want to reduce trust in academia to some form of faith. Instead, it is a matter of observation and understanding. Part of that understanding is that, while the data is massive, should reliable data begin to move science in another direction, understanding why and how observations have produced a new hypothesis or theory.

Biologists, anatomists and scientists do not have answers to every question or unexplained phenomena in the pattern of evolution, nor do they claim to. When new and contrary evidence shows up, it's not a challenge to destroy the whole image, but an opportunity to re-evaluate what the scientific community believes it knows.

For me, while I've never been a lab-coat kind of guy, it's been a method I understand and can appreciate. It's given way to understanding how science can move forward, and in its simplicity, its something us non-scientists can embrace as a method for our own observations.



I'm not sure what the point was to this post, other than a nostalgic trip down academic memory lane. I've often regretted my own lack of more rigid academic pursuits in the sciences, though I suspect my near inability to deal with any math beyond trigonometry would have probably been a bit of an issue.

The world is a lovely place, and viewing it through the lens of what few scraps of information I was able to pick up in school only makes it all the more of an amazing universe in which we dwell.

Why we do this only once per year

4:20 am - blogged
4:30 am - went to bed
9:00 am - alarm goes off by accident. Go feed dogs.
9:15 am - return to bed
12:30 pm - wake up. Tidy a bit.
1:15 pm - go get food at Casa Garcia's
2:30 pm - return home. Watch part of Cowboys' game. Talk to Mom.
3:00 pm - Matt wakes up and comes downstairs
4:00 pm - clean up a bit.
4:15 pm - hangover decides to become more than mild acheyness and head-ache. Moves into pounding headache.
5:00 pm - go back to bed.
7:00 pm - wake up.
7:40 pm - Papa Johns guy shows up, mercifully delivers Canadian bacon and pineapple to my door
8:30 pm - The League decides to blog

Ugh. I feel 100x better right now than I did when I went to go lay down again at 5:00. Too much Holiday Cheer, I suppose.

Jamie and I never take photos. Which is weird, since they now put cameras into every device known to man.

But, anyway, we were lucky enough that Jason took a few photos. You can see me in all my Holiday Splendor here.

The picture of me with Andy and the bear is... uhm.... One of the things we've done at the Holiday Heckstravaganza is that we have a drawing to win Amazing Door Prizes. Andy won the Grand Prize. Which was a bear wearing a t-shirt bearing the image of yours truly.

Which now YOU TOO can own.

Party is now over

Well... that went longer than expected. It's now 4:22 am.

I am going to bed.

Thanks to all who could make it.

Until next year!

Party Prep

Well, Leaguers. Tonight is the 2007 Holiday Heckstravaganza.

I am mostly prepared. I need to run the vacuum, shower and probably help out with a few tasks Jamie knows of, but not I. Oh, and I need to go get ice and maybe some logs for the fire pit, although it hit 82 degrees here today.

Just getting in and out of shopping centers was a bit challenging today as the Holiday Rush begins. Which reminds me, I am also not even close to having finished my Christmas shopping.

But for tonight, we're not focusing on the hustle, nor the bustle. We are, instead, focusing on friends, family, food and drinks. I know many a-Leaguer is too far away, is otherwise engaged, etc... to make it to the party. We certainly wish you could be here with us this evening.

So, when you get a chance, raise a glass this evening. We're raising one for you.

Everyone is Stupid (but me)

I woke up in an absolutely awful mood today. I kind of think I know why, and it's totally irrational, but that's the way it is.

Anyhow, its just been downhill since I rolled out of bed. I had to clean up cat barf, and then it was raining outside and its supposed to be 85 degrees today and tomorrow, and something like 89% humidity. Which makes me irritated with all the "global warming is a hippie fraud" people. And even more irritated with people who live up north who try to extol the virtues of global warming.


Anyhow, I'm having an ego-filled day, feeling as if everyone else is stupid but me. Including cats, dogs, radio DJs, journalists (does she really not see what an unpleasant and self-absorbed person this article makes her out to be? Yikes), other drivers, the people who made the Monster Cable I use to attach my iPod to my car, and, lastly, parking lots that slope.

Today I am in a bad mood.

And, oddly, what's driven me there is food. I don't want to discuss the conversation, because were I in a better mood, I would not care. But here's the deal:

I don't care if people are gourmands, but I do not understand when a particular taste in food is used as a moral judgment on those who don't share their income, lifestyle or palette. If you call yourself a "foodie", super. Seriously. I can understand the love of food as art form and sensory experience. But what bugs the heck out of me is when one assumes that others who do not share their passion for foods are somehow intellectually inferior or unable to embrace the true nectar of life in the way only the gourmand can.

I know I think about food in much the same way as any other sense-based activity. Can you appreciate music if you are unable to afford a trip to the opera or symphony? Or if you prefer the music of Hank Williams to Puccini? Or if the art on your wall is a framed poster of Starry Night versus owning your own Magritte? Is a grilled fajita taco really inferior to Authentic Interior Mexican? Is such a distinction elitist, if not bordering on some sort of insinuated perception of Mexican Americans as second class versus people who happen to live further south?

Moreover, food is ephemeral. Paying $30 - 100 for a single meal is not something which scales terribly well across the average person's budget once paying the bills enters the picture. When you need to put a coat on your kid, or you need to get them a pair of soccer shoes, delicately buttered asparagus, sprinkled with goat cheese may not be where you get to spend your money. Paying for a singular sensory experience may not be where the family budget needs to go.

I have a particular issue with those so spoiled on the food around them that they've turned a blind eye to the opportunities. Places like Austin are not known for their food in the same manner as New Orleans, San Francisco or New York. But neither is Austin without fairly decent places if one is willing to look outside their neighborhood and can spend a dollar.

Historically, the idea of one's status as a gourmand was something only the Rich Uncle Pennybags' of the world could even think of aspiring to, while the rest of the population was boiling potatoes and cabbage, with meat considered a luxury. The food that people could get their hands on was grown locally and seasonally, and generally took a hell of a lot of effort. It's only been within the lifetime of Gen X'ers that one could expect to eat cherries year round in any grocery in America, or head down to the grocer's for oranges, shipped in off-season from Australia. Only in this generation could the upper-middle class even consider experiencing the wealth of opportunity available to them as new waves of immigrants brought new kinds of food to the US and eating at restaurants was no longer mostly a luxury.

With the Frugal Gourmet and Julia Child entering into our living rooms, and an influx of upscale cuisine from around the world (with both a market for the food, and those who would actually know how to make it present), it's an opportunity to move beyond the food our parents and their parents had available, let alone were aware of. In many ways, is looking down upon those who do not share your obsession a form of chronological snobbery, or just plain old class or regional snobbery?

This is not to suggest I think food as art is any less important, nor should one NOT have discriminating taste or enjoy as many types of food as the world can cook up. Or that I believe all food to be equal. As subjective as taste is, and as subjective as each diner's experience, I'd certainly never make that argument. But I do take exception to the idea that those who cannot afford fine or exotic dining, or who do not have a wide variety of options open to them are fools for enjoying the foods available to them and are, by insinuation, some sort of culinary second class citizen.

It is one thing to appreciate the subtleties of new and exciting foods, or to cook them yourself. Just, you know... keep it in perspective for the love of Mike.

I happened upon this quote, and I wonder if it applies:

"It is better to be a good ordinary bourgeois than a bad ordinary bohemian." [Aldous Huxley, 1930]

Speed Racer

Because you guys were so excited about the link to the Speed Racer photos I posted earlier, here's a link to a trailer for Speed Racer.

Looks like silly summertime entertainment to me. But it also seems to be the second movie (Beowulf being the first) that is a blend of animation and live actors that's the legacy of the latest slate of Star Wars movies. Movies certainly are no longer constrained by sets, lights and in-camera effects. It was just a matter of time before filmmakers started using/ abusing the palette of CGI to create environments which reflected outlandish worlds into which to drop their stories.

(edit: I have ignored the rich legacy of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings adaptations. Please forgive.)

I want to be clear: This doesn't look terrifically intellectually stimulating, but it does look like a bizarre literal translation of the 6 frames per second animation we all grew up with. A great idea? I dunno. I confess to being a bit curious to see the thing just to see how it works.

56 Flavors of Geek

There's a poster coming out of the 56 varieties of geek.

And there I am at #1.

Hooray.

Speed Racer

In case you were wondering...

The new Speed Racer movie will feature ChimChim after all. HUZZAH sez The League.

Click to see:

the Mach 5
Racer X
Christina Ricci in a Louise Brooks bob
ChimChim and Spritle

Thanks to Randy for the link.

oh, it's also directed by the guys who did The Matrix flicks. Go figure.

Why So Serious?

Thanks to Randy for forwarding the first poster for the upcoming movie "The Dark Knight".

Cesar Romero this is not.

I have nothing to write about

Hey, Leaguers!

I have ABSOLUTELY nothing to report. Last night I ate catfish for dinner, some slaw and baked beans. Then I read comics while Jamie did crosswords.

Whoopdie-doo!

Hope you Leaguers had an exciting evening.

I think, if anything, I was a bit confused by the ending to JLA #15, which seemed like it should have been just Superman opening a can of Super Whoop-Ass on the In-Justice League. Instead, McDuffie and Benes let the rest of the JLA do all the lifting.

Also, I KNOW that back in the day the evil equivalent of the Justice League was called the In-Justice League. But even the writers of SuperFriends, a show meant for 3-8 year olds, knew that name was too hokey and re-named them The Legion of Doom.

Luthor is supposed to be one of the smartest guys on Earth. I think he could cook up something a little better and perhaps more menacing.

I dunno. I'm sort on the fence about the whole thing. After all, I do like the legacy aspect to DC Comics publishing and iterations of various ideas. And it does add a certain zest of fun to the JLA title when your villains are just jerks enough to declare themselves your evil opposites.

Next we'll see the resurgence of the Superman Revenge Squad. Or the Anti-Superman Gang. All great ideas for their time and audience, but...

Anyhow, once Firestorm was back (and I am so glad to see McDuffie handling the new Firestorm once again), I sort of thought Superman + heat vision + fast than speeding bullet + more powerful than a locomotive might have been able to clean that mess up. But that would have denied me the enjoyment of a good chunk of the rest of the issue.

Sounds like Firestorm is now on the team, and that's a good thing. They need some newer characters.

And as an aside... The Rebirth of Ra's Al Ghul storyline in the Batbooks? Not so good. Good idea. Questionable execution.

Cookies/ Tin-Man/ Santa's Intolerant Voice

Here's an interview with Jim Parsons, who I knew once upon a time, and who is experiencing some much deserved success on the sitcom "Big Bang Theory".

A quick reminder, The League of Melbotis Holiday Heckstravaganza 2007 is scheduled for Saturday the 8th at 8:00 PM.

As global warming officially ruins the Holiday Season, it's going to be around 80 degrees on that day, so be prepared for a balmy Holiday party. Thanks, evil scientists.

To prepare for the party, we spent our Tuesday evening frosting cookies which Jamie had made from scratch. The frosting was also from scratch, so, seriously... these cookies are a whole bag of effort. If you do eat one, you'd best LOVE these frikkin' cookies. Like, bringing tears to your eyes love them. I counted this morning, and I frosted 22 cookies, each displaying less detail and attempt at cuteness than the one before it.

We also tried to watch the first part of Sci-Fi Channel's 6 hour Wizard of Oz re-mix called "Tin Man", and didn't make it past the first half-hour. One would assume that hiring Alan Cumming and a Deschanel sister would mean that the director would take some time to come up with a decent script that doesn't FORCE Kathleen Robertson into some awkward scenery chewing.

The weirdest thing about the movie was that the writer and directors sort of jumped right in and refused to find a point of view. Rather than gradually discovering the world through the eyes of DG (this is a re-mix. Dorothy Gale is replaced with "DG"), they just toss in scenes of events in The O.Z. (no longer Oz in our re-mix, it's The Outer Zone!) before Dorothy ever makes her way to the woods of Endor. Further, the writers spent no time getting the audience familiar with DG's world and why she's want to escape (other than that she lives on a farm and is artsy, which must be obvious to these writers that such circumstances necessarily make one unhappy).

The thing was pretty bad, with clunky dialog and what was beginning to look like a "chosen one" plot to explain DG's arrival in The OZ (as well as why her "parents" were hiding her in Kansas. So we turned it off. I really couldn't foresee spending another 5+ hours with the show.

I don't really get what went wrong, other than that the writers weren't terribly good and the director was more caught up in dreaming up creepier analogs to the familiar Oz characters and plot points than he was in pacing his story. One doesn't generally expect quality TV from Sci-Fi, but every minute of the show just felt like a missed opportunity. There was much to be learned from the BSG mini-series, and it seems that none of those lessons for creating an engaging series were applied. Build up your characters, build up the scenario. Give a clear point of view (even if its through several characters' eyes), and pace the thing. You've got six hours to fill. It's a marathon, not a sprint.

We wound up watching new Holiday perennial "Elf", which still has its good moments and a Deschanel sister, but has an ending steeped more in 3rd generation Hollywood interpretations of Christmas than in anything actually having to do with Christmas.

And then, because I do not own a copy of Miracle on 34th Street, we watched Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas, a 70's era Henson production with music by none other than 70's TV music staple, Paul Williams.

And, of course, we watched part of Rudolph on CBS. I believe I've opined before upon the deeply unsettling undertones of the Rudolph special regarding the North Pole's insistence on conformity and intolerance. And I realized, all year round Jamie and I imitate Santa's voice when we're making fun of people we find to be jerks, both on TV and in life. There's a certain broadness and obviousness to Santa's intonation when he's condemning characters for having red-noses or being "a dentist", that you can apply to pretty much anything.

I need to bust out a copy of Miracle on 34th Street to get my Holiday Movie Mojo going again.

Shauna 911

Old pal of The League, Shauna C. is a screen writer in LA. She's got one picture being produced right now and is working on a few other projects. Or, she should be.

Anyhoo... she's on strike. It seems one benefit of the strike is the opportunity to meet folks you might not otherwise meet. Here, Shauna meets Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon of Reno 911! fame who, curiously, are picketing in costume. Shauna is not in costume. or is she?



We at The League support the WGA in their efforts, even if it leads to really crappy TV until the strike is over and cameras are once again rolling.

Sensational Spider-Man #41

IF YOU ARE AVOIDING SPIDER-MAN COMICS SPOILERS, DO NOT READ THIS POST

Probably the worst kept secret/ most telegraphed play in comics of late has been Marvel's long pondered method of ending Peter Parker's 20-year marriage to Mary Jane Watson.

How does one end a marriage and manage to keep everyone smelling like roses? How does one split up two characters incredibly popular across all of comic fandom? Especially after all the craziness Peter Parker and Mary Jane have supposedly endured together and always come up totally pleased as punch with one another?

Fortunately, superhero universes, especially SHARED superhero universes, tend to be littered with all-powerful mystical whatzits and whatnots. And while Spider-Man is mostly famous for containing his adventures to the sky-scraper canyons of the Big Apple, fighting a string of animal-themed cretins, he does live in the same fictional vision of NYC that contains the Fantastic Four, Dr. Strange and the Avengers.

It's probably worth noting: at the conclusion of Civil War (like, a year ago...), dear old Aunt May took a bullet meant for Peter. She was just standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. In order to save Aunt May's life, Peter and MJ have been given an opportunity for a possible deal, literally with the devil. In order to save May's life, Mephisto wants... (wait for it...) THEIR MARRIAGE.

Because Peter and MJ are supposed to be all-around good folk, we know that they'll make the deal and Joe Quesada will have his swingin' bachelor Peter Parker he's been wanting since taking over as EIC a few years back. We know that neither Peter nor MJ would allow May to die. I'm not disputing this point as some bloggers have done. I'll accept it as a believable character decision.

Supposedly the Devil Mephisto gets something out of the knowledge that Peter was happy, and now he will be less-so. EXCEPT that Peter won't remember that he was ever married, so its some teeny-tiny part of his brain that can remember, but, really... no. Neither Peter nor MJ will remember. So... Really, Mephisto seems much more interested in confusing 20+ years of comics continuity.

Here's what's bugging me, Leaguers: Rather than writing a story that reflects the grim realities that a tense time can put on a marriage and end it in the ugly, not-terribly-fun way that marriages actually end, they've created a Magical Divorce Machine.

To this reader, the method of dissolving the marriage is editorial cowardice.

Comics readers are big boys and girls, and as much as we don't like it when Mommy and Daddy fight, having the devil steal Spider-Man's marriage makes no sense. This sort of plot doesn't seem true to forty years of comics. It isn't in keeping with the street-level tone Spider-man has maintained for the vast, vast duration of its run. It's not true to the Spider-Man we've seen lift up a 100 ton undersea machine. It's not Spider-Man. It's a deus ex machina plot point and a fairly lazy one at that.

If he was any sort of devil, wouldn't Mephisto ask Peter to kill a random person and remember it? Or do something else hopelessly heinous? Maybe turn the past twenty years of Parker's life into one in which Spider-Man is a horrible criminal? Not that forgetting your marriage is a bad thing, but if neither of you remember it... I dunno.

I guess I'm just casting aspersions on Mephisto's ability to be actually evil and not just a nuisance.

It's interesting to note that Marvel has apparently come to an executive decision that, despite fans responses of "don't do it!" and "meh" when asked about a bachelor Peter Parker... they've resorted to a plot contrivance like Mephisto in order to make it work. This path, I guess, keeps Parker's nose clean as a face to put on lunchpails, etc... and I can appreciate the business necessity of such a decision. After all, some editors have tried to find a path to divorce Superman and Lois, but nobody could come up with anything not involving a Crisis Wave. Plus, really, the Magical Divorce Machine is going to give editorial a "get out of Jail" card if the fans do revolt. After all, writers can turn to that greatest of Spider Wish Granters, Dr. Strange, and make it all go away.

It is interesting that comics will show, in detail, all sorts of physical hurts and injuries that most readers will never experience. What they will not show, however, are the fairly mundane aspects of everyday life. And that's just weird. I know, I know... escapism. Whatever.

Perhaps the readership can't actually handle their Spider-Hero getting a divorce, but can handle grim destruction and violence as the idea of a building coming down around one's ears. Unlike divorce, the Scorpion coming at you with his deadly tail is so foreign an idea, its nothing but an abstraction. Perhaps the image of Mommy and Daddy agreeing that they'd be happier apart than together hits a little too close to home. But it's certainly not the sign of mature storytelling to avoid such a common topic as divorce and believe only the devil can make two good people go their separate ways.

As I said. Editorial cowardice.

I'm not sure if I'll actually drop Spider-Man. I'm not outraged. And I've seen plenty worse. I'm mostly just disappointed that Marvel couldn't continue down the organic path of the story of Peter Parker and, if they felt the need to dissolve the marriage, simply do so in a way that would make sense in context of the past forty years of comics.

The next and final issue of "One More Day" is coming out soon, and we'll find out if Petey and MJ give up a life of wedded bliss for a nice old lady to have a few more years. So far the decision isn't made. Marvel has a chance to actually do something interesting here. And, in the hands of the right writers and editors, anything could happen.

RIP Knievel

Jesus. They killed Evel.

When I was a kid Evel Knievel was past his heyday of jumping the Snake River Canyon, breaking hundreds of bones and generally making an American Hero out of himself.

It wasn't so much that I remember actually watching Knievel on TV. I don't think I ever did. But I was familiar with the jumpsuit (and occasional cape), and I was familiar with the man's deeds. Including the fact that the mad would occasionally do time. Tate, the kid down the street, had a Knievel motorcycle toy we relentlessly drove into his wall.

Later, I heard the jail time was for hitting his wife, which may or may not be true. I don't know. Facts about this kind of stuff were impossible to come by in 1981 or so. It was the same way we all thought Mikey from Life cereal had died from a spider bite or Pop Rocks or something.

But if one performed a stunt of any kind, be it jumping off the dresser or hopping your big wheel off a curb, at my house you were labeled Evel Knievel.

Knievel would do time and later more or less disappear from the public eye as he had no bones left to break. Robby Knievel would take his spot as a motorcycle jumping daredevil, and I hear most of Knievel Sr.'s records have been broken in the past thirty years. But Evel Knievel will be the one they remember.

I dunno.

He was sort of one of those mythological figures you build up in your head as a kid. Someone with steely determination and grit you wish you had. It's kind of sad when you begin to tie the notion that he lived his life recklessly to the fact that he was also living it selfishly.

Also, The Admiral's tendency to refer to folks like Knievel as "that idiot". The Admiral knows keeping your bones intact and not being in jail is where its at.

But even then you hold some grudging admiration for the man, maybe the same way you admire the boozy old singers who made up the Flatlanders. Clearly nobody was telling Knievel what to do, just like you couldn't tell those old cowboys. Not a surgeon, health insurance company nor gravity could convince Knievel not to jump over a GD canyon in a rocket cycle if that's what he was going to do. And, dammit, people would pay to see that, so there was something to it.

There's only so many lands left uncharted and unexplored, I suppose, and then they're all mapped. Then you find yourself figuring out what a man can do with high octane gas and some good shock absorbers.

To be clear, nobody killed Knievel. Perhaps Knievel's own lifestyle killed him, but he managed to squeeze a lot of living into those years.

He's been out of the public eye so long, its questionable if anyone will really miss him.

Surely that is not how Knievel saw himself going out, though. How many times did he sit on a ramp, wondering if he was going to wake up in a hotel room somewhere tomorrow, or maybe in a hospital room, or just not be around at all.