Keep Me Going Strong.
NFDC Happenings From TumblrThis is tech week for Much Ado About Nothing, so posting will be lighter than usual.
As such, you can expect posts like this one. Memes, perhaps. At least this meme is associated with what might turn out to be a somewhat worthwhile film (based upon a series of incredibly worthwhile books).
I can has raccoon daemon.
Really, ol’ chum, it’s better that you didn’t know. (more…)
Back in mid-December, I posted about how Jodi Picoult was taking over writing duties on Wonder Woman. December 12, actually. 104 days ago.
Earlier this month, I posted a follow-up about how Jodi was leaving and her eventual successor was going to be fan-favorite Gail Simone. 13 days ago.
Today, CNN has an online feature about … Oh, hai … Jodi Picoult — “serious novelist” — will be writing herself some Wonder Woman!
But potential jibes about the relative speed of “old media” aside, what caught my eye and rendered it askew was Picoult’s particular observation of how WW is just like any other woman. (Bolding mine.)
Recent events in the DC universe find Wonder Woman … struggling with her place in the world.
“She is not human and elevating herself to the level of a superhero like Batman or Green Lantern. Instead, she is other than human and she’s slumming it with all of us,” Picoult observes.
[Diana] Prince’s struggle is further complicated by work as an agent for the Government’s Department of Metahuman Affairs — for which her assignment is apprehending none other than Wonder Woman.
In a rare moment of vulnerability, she tearfully asks her partner, Tom Tresser, “Why don’t people just leave her alone?” Seconds later, duty calls — and Wonder Woman is forced into action.
It’s a moment that Picoult says any woman can relate to.
“You have your pity fit, you do what you have to do. But then, you move on. You just pick up the pieces, and you jump in. And that ultimately, is always going to be Diana’s strength.”
Pity fit? I’m sorry, correct me please if I am wrong, but I don’t think Diana of Themyscira, daughter of Hippolyta, descendent from the Goddesses of Mount Olympus, ever has anything that one could describe as a pity fit.
My morning tea just wasn’t enough to carry me aloft to my office. So I pulled over at the last moment, parked appropriately and stepped into Caribou. My timing was such that I caught the barrista dealer guy-behind-the-counter just as he was about to step away. Not sure where he was going, as he was alone back there. Anyway.
“Cup of the dark roast, grande medium please,” I say. “Room for cream?,” he asks. “Sure.”
As he tops off the cup, I look up to check the trivia question. Get it right and they knock a dime off your total. Which A-Team member was afraid of flying? I know this one.
“B. A. Barracus,” I answer as he rings me up. “What?” He looks at me quizzically, so I point up to the question. He thinks I’m pointing at him, so I point higher. “The question,” I explain.
He chuckles, then shakes his head. “Naw, man … that was Mister T.”
I blink. “Um … Mr. T was B. A.”
Reality dawns on him.
“Oh, wow … wow … how do you even remember that?”
I shrug, pay and take my coffee, wondering in the back of my mind just what Mr. T might say to this sadly uninformed young man.
Shoulda stayed in school, fool!
And eat ya greens!
Stay off drugs!
I’m going to post this ridiculousness without comment.
“On Thursday night, monologist Mike Daisey was performing his well-reviewed solo show, Invincible Summer, in a 300-seat second-stage space at American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Mass., when about 80 members of a group got up and walked out. On their way out, one of the people walked up to Daisey, took his glass of water and poured it over his notes for the show.”*
[tags]Mike Daisey, Invincible Summer, American Repertory Theatre, censorship[/tags]
Sky Blue Sky (With Leaves)
Originally uploaded by grabbingsand.
So busy. Little time to even describe just how.
Briefly, here’s the rundown. Rehearsals continue, getting better all the time. Most of our actors are off-book, mostly. Many of our costumes are in-progress or finished or acquired. Music for the show has been selected, though not edited. We have posters. Local newspapers have been contacted. A big sign for the corner has been ordered. Much of the set dressing is good to go, having been altered or recovered or painted.
For proof of the last point, I offer my finger, stiff and sore as it is with a condition best described as Tagger’s Index. At least it is no longer coated in black.
This shot wasn’t taken today, but last week. Thursday night, I believe. Or maybe Wednesday. No earlier than Tuesday.
The other night, I had to stop by the drugstore. Pollen pervades still, so the supply of Allegra must be maintained. So I went.
After picking up a few items from the shelves, I wandered back to the pharmacy area and waited while a pair of other customers sought assistance and paid for whatever. As I was waiting, I noticed the song change on the in-store radio.
Thum-thump. Thum-thump. Joined by a snare. Then comes guitar. Then …
“You make me we-hee-eak …. I wanna die.”
Okay. Minor confession time. I’m not a fan, but I like Journey. I have a favorite Journey album and a favorite song from said album. And that song, I have to say, is the one that started playing in the Wal-Green’s.
But as I stood there, holding my sundries and biding my time, I thought about the first time I heard the song. My initial exposure to a lot of rock was on television, via local channel 61 out of Chattanooga. They’d play the kind of late ’70s music clips that would eventually become the bedrock of MTV and an industry unto themselves. And one of those proto-videos on regular rotation in 1979 was an in-concert rendition of “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’” by Journey.
But it wasn’t until the drive home from the drugstore that I remembered a particular observation made by a seven-year old me after watching said video a number of times …
“Wow. That ugly woman sure can sing.”
This afternoon, I cursed my car stereo.
I heard our President’s remarks at the Virginia Tech convocation, and cursed in disbelief.
In a democracy, the offering of condolence is an accepted part of a statesman’s job. Just as there are ribbon cuttings, ground breakings, and state dinners, there will be times of shared hurt with your constituency. When one is elected, it is for thick and thin, good and bad. Now, for the higher offices, like that of a Senator or a President, a show of support in times of sadness is a relatively simple matter. The mere act of taking time out of a known-to-be busy schedule to appear at a family’s side or to be present at a memorial ceremony, that can mean the world to all involved.
It takes very little.
Only a day after the shootings at Virginia Tech, President Bush was there. The logistics of moving a U.S. President aside, as I’m sure the local authorities already had their hands full with the investigation, I’m sure the people of Blacksburg overlooked any inconvenience and were comforted that he and wife Laura made such an effort to attend this afternoon’s memorial convocation at Cassell Colliseum.
And yet … that was not enough.
Opportunity presented itself, so our President spoke. Before the assembled crowd, he offered remarks. Typically, these are the times when statesmen shine, possibly because they can feel the sense of longing from those in attendance. With so many wanting some modicum of reassurance, how can anyone help but try to sustain them, even a little?
Now, I know that our President is no Bill Clinton. He’s no Reagan or Kennedy. But still …
He started off as expected, thanking his hosts and all in attendance. He explained why he and his wife had come to Blacksburg, that they came bearing sympathy and an assurance that America shares their grief. Then he delved into a brief recounting of the events of yesterday, saying how events took a “dark turn” that likely established that day as “the worst day of your lives.”
And then he said this:
It’s impossible to make sense of such violence and suffering. Those whose lives were taken did nothing to deserve their fate. They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now they’re gone — and they leave behind grieving families, and grieving classmates, and a grieving nation.
This is when I cursed.
How dare he? How dare he? Read it again.
They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Wrong place? Wrong time? No, sir, I beg to differ. For all of the unanswered questions we may forever have about just what went on at Virginia Tech on April 16th, I can assure anyone concerned that those who fell were most certainly in the right place at the right time. They were in class as their college schedule dictated. They were taking exams according to someone’s syllabus. They were exactly where they were meant to be at the very time they were to be there.
They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s what you say when some unfortunate tourist loses their Fodor’s and walks into a back-alley meth lab full of drug-addled thugs at 2am. But Virginia Tech is an American college campus, one that was relatively sedate up until the odd bomb scares of last week, and even that threat was merely potential, not actual.
They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Did someone write this for you, sir? If so, fire them. Immediately. After looking over the remainder of the remarks — which I read and did not hear — I’m guessing that someone else did compile the rest of his observations. The later references to “dorm rooms and dining halls and on blogs” kind of gives the game away.
It has been said before, but rarely has the proof of it been made more clear than with this absolutely uninspired assessment. Our President is intellectually lazy. This sounds like an accusation that only an English Major could level, but this kind of laziness is incredibly detrimental and arguably dangerous. Obviously, the President meant nothing malicious with this remark, but he really didn’t give the statement much thought either. Words like these, particularly in times of suffering (even at a micro level, right in the Blacksburg community), deserve thought and consideration.
I’ve never made it a secret that I wish our President were someone other than he is. To this day, I still have moments of yearning that can best be described with the initials W.W.J.B.D. — What Would Jed Bartlett Do? And while the race for 2008 is giving me hope, far more than I had ever in 2004, I fear for the lasting damage that will be left behind by our current President’s sheer lack of empathy, of humility and of common sense.
And any hopes for impeachment not withstanding, the best any of us can do until January 20, 2009 is to keep cursing the car stereo.
[tags]Virginia Tech, Bush’s Last Day, Wrong Place, intellectually lazy[/tags]
04-16-07_1631.jpg
Originally uploaded by grabbingsand.
Good for you?
(Diet Coke Plus, spotted at the local Kroger.)
Tasty Post-Show Goodness
Originally uploaded by grabbingsand.
A lovely selection consumed at Twain’s in Decatur.
