Stuff We Like This Week: June 12 Edition
Jun 12
In an effort to combat our occasional…okay, okay, near-constant negativity, we give you a regular feature full of nothing but love — Stuff We Like This Week. Appearing every Friday, SWLTW will recap the things that have set our little nerdly hearts aflame within the past seven days.
6 Hours in San Francisco
Jun 10Through a series of unfortunate events, I will be traveling for business in late June…land Sunday evening in Seattle, fly Tuesday morning to San Francisco, drive to Chico, leave Chico on Wednesday back to San Francisco, take this horrifying red-eye time-shift thing from SF back to Orlando, with a two-hour layover in fucking DETROIT.
The trip’s only redeeming factor is that because I planned it based on an incomplete knowledge of events, I should find myself with about 6 hours to kill in San Francisco on July 1.
I will use this time to visit what are arguably two of the finest comic book stores on the planet: Comix Experience and Isotope. I will meet two of the interweb’s leading comics bon vivants: Brian Hibbs and James Sime. And with luck, I will break bread with a few bloggers I’ve long idolized, hoping to overcome the initial awkwardness of meeting web pals IRL quickly and without too much alcohol, so that we can have some engaging conversation and I won’t drive my rental car into a street light between the restaurant and the airport.
Should be fun…barring last-minute disaster or the shifting sands upon which business travel plans are always built, it should actually happen. I’ll livetweet the living shit out of it. Don’t you worry.
Up
Jun 09I’ve read plenty of reviews of Up, and talked to plenty of people who have seen it plenty of times. I feel like there’s almost no point in reviewing it. It’s a Pixar movie. Just like Metallica albums, even a bad Pixar movie is better than a great effort from nearly any other creative team, and Up is not a bad Pixar movie.
On the other hand, there is something purposefully uneven about the film that might be off-putting. There is a very full, resonant beginning to the film and a long stretch of cute fun comprising the rest of it that doesn’t match the emotional core that’s built at the outset. There are moments that come close, but they are only callbacks to that segment and not powerful emotional moments in and of themselves. And this is exactly what Pixar wanted.
See, I’ve heard a lot about how this is a film about adventure and never letting go of your dreams, but that’s not what I think the movie is about. This is the Pixar version of that John Lennon lyric, the one about life happening to you while you’re making other plans. It is far less about the things you do than the people you spend it with, which is what both of our protagonists come to grips with in the end.
The notion of waiting for life to start and then being shocked when you realize that you’re an adult all of a sudden and you haven’t done anything is not alien to me at all, nor is the Pyhrric aspect of achieving what you hoped for and realizing that nothing fundamental has changed. It’s the very thing that Elizabeth Kostova is talking about in The Historian when she talks about the disappointment of rediscovery: to paraphrase, the narrator talks about searching out a place that you once loved and revisiting it, but discovering that some mercurial thing you loved about it isn’t part of the equation anymore – like going to a place in the company of friends and going back alone, or finding it alone and returning with friends. Which is exactly what Up is about – the kind of love that makes every day an adventure, and how nothing is the same when it’s gone.
Of course, there’s also the easy joke about Up being an allegory for the subprime crisis. So, whichever.
Grok #4: Extra Life
Jun 08So. Once again, summer is about to hit us upside the head with crash-boomy blockbusters and Comic-Con-induced anxiety. Luckily, we’ve got just the thing for our nerdly brothers and sisters looking to cool off, chill out, and other trite phrases that describe the act of being un-sweaty: a new issue of Grok.
If you’ll recall, this is our PDF zine you can read on your computer screen or print out and tote wherever you desire. Within, you will find fiction, essays and other general hilarity dedicated to geek culture and the nerd experience, all centered around a delightful theme. This time ’round, we’re all about…Extra Life.
In this issue…
LOLing Out Loud – Part I, by Sarah Kuhn: What do a web-obsessed wallflower and a hyperactive cosplayer have in common? Well…nothing, but somehow, they manage to be best friends. And one of them is about to get a virtual shock of the life-changing kind.
Resolution, by Kenny Jeffery: Real world or second life? “Meaningful” activities or night-long videogame binge? Should a true gamer have to choose?
Embracing Videogame Heresy, by Kristina Wright: What happens when one woman goes on a seemingly hopeless quest to find the perfect starter game for her young son? Kristina takes you along for the bumpy, thrilling, Super Mario Bros-avoiding ride.
Must Love Dice – Part I, by Jeff Stolarcyk: Dungeoneering Wizard Ron’s newly-single. Dungeonmaster Martin’s crushed out and confused. And unfortunately for both of them, love is extra complicated in the world of natural 20s, healing surges and saving throws.
Dead Means What?, by Caroline Pruett: Just how arbitrary are the so-called rules of life and death when you’re talking about the big, bad universe of comics? Caroline takes an exacting look at funny book death and the revolving door (and, for good measure, explains Holly Robinson).
Man Out of Time, by Matt Springer: Paul Freemont is lonely, fat, middle-aged, and about to make a deal with the devil…or maybe just a guy who happens to own a wicked-looking Lord of the Rings replica letter opener. Hard to say, really.
Also! Ivan Sian takes on everything from rejected videogame sequels to drunken hook-ups with Bit from Tron! It’s all there for the reading, so go forth and READ!
Stuff We Like This Week: June 5 Edition
Jun 05
In an effort to combat our occasional…okay, okay, near-constant negativity, we give you a regular feature full of nothing but love — Stuff We Like This Week. Appearing every Friday, SWLTW will recap the things that have set our little nerdly hearts aflame within the past seven days.
