H&M

Found here. Compliments Friend Davey.

Wonder Woman, Christina Hendricks and the Womanly Body

Or: A Blatant and Frankly Uninspired Excuse to Post Photos of Christina Hendricks


Maybe it's just my recent stint on Pavarti K. Tyler's (nee Devi) 'blog, but lately I've been mulling over some of my opinions on more risque subjects. (Well, more risque than normally occupy this particular space, anyway.) Today I found a couple of items that reminded me of one of these long-held opinions. The first such item had to do with Christina Hendricks' long-held desire (longevity at least in Internet scale) to play Wonder Woman, and her Drive director Nicolas Refn's claim that not only was he interested in bringing that particular character to the big screen, but that Hendricks would be his...er...woman. The second had to do with Refn's particular take on the character and her world, insofar as he's dreamed it up.

These public discussions about Hollywood casting rarely yield results, even when they're held after the movie deal has already been picked up, much less so when every single person involved in the conversation is speaking hypothetically. Now, too, studios are banking way too many dollars on their superhero franchises to leave decisions about casting to people standing so far from the board room. Case in point: Donald Glover for Spider-Man. An amazing groundswell of support (though, too, controversy) responded to the suggestion he play Spidey for the reboot, and that sure didn't work out. So I'm not banking on a Hendricks/Refn Hellenic team-up any time soon.

What the possibility does raise is a couple of issues I'd like to address.

The first is the as-yet-unspoken gimmick of one of the few lauded curvy celebrities playing a superhero who is also - let's face it - a sex symbol. (And feminist symbol; and if you don't believe me, do a web search for "William Moulton Marston" and "wonder+woman+bondage." [With safe-search activated {Of course.}.]) Christina Hendricks has somehow tread a brilliantly slender line in her career, being both of ample figure and widely regarded as sexy (and in some [these] circles, to "sexy," please append "as all hell"). And lest we forget, a damn fine actor, regardless. So we can say Ms. Hendricks would be an unconventional choice for the Woman, yet a potentially popular one. Sex sells in Hollywood.

Detractors would complain that she isn't hot enough, or that she's fat. Neither is the case, by a long shot. Would-be supporters might argue that of course she's sexy - just look at that bust. To whom I must respond, of course that doesn't hurt (not in a bad way, anyway) but if you think that's why she's beautiful, you're missing it by a-mile-and-a-half. And finally, some really, truly, well-intentioned fanboys might cry that she has the nerd pedigree for her Firefly connection, and that with a dye job and some sit-ups they will welcome her with loving arms. Add to that a few of us who might even feel a little earned self-righteousness from endorsing a full-figured super-heroine. I am no better than these hypothetical people, but all of these miss the point when it comes to Hendricks as a good choice for Wonder Woman's boots.

Christina Hendricks would be a brilliant Wonder Woman (particularly if paired with a director with real ingenuity, like Refn) because she understands all the complexity involved in and strength needed for navigating  life as a determined woman with a powerful - not to mention inescapable - sexual identity. Not only has she had to see past the limitations of others' assumptions, but she's succeeded in being associated with good work that she presumably has a personal appreciation for. In some ways, this is a scenario in which any woman finds herself, in some way and on a daily basis. I just happen to think Hendricks is well-qualified to portray that fight with unique grace and sensitivity.

Issue the second that this brings up for me is perhaps a less socially significant one; yet more important personally (I'm somewhat ashamed to admit). It also brings up a criteria that might put my dear Ms. Hendricks to the test, in a way.

Women who work wear muscle.

Look, I'm not a body-building fetishist, any more than girls who lust after brawny Hollywood hunks are. Taken to extremes, muscle mass is often freakish and Geiger-esque. The trouble is, ideas of contemporary beauty seem to limit us from finding any developed musculature on women appetizing. What is that? And why must it be used as an excuse for me to suffer through another fight scene such as this:

I mean: really.

The bad examples are too numerous to relate, and I can only think of a few positive ones; among them, Terminator 2 and G.I. Jane. T2 is of course well known for how impressive a transformation Linda Hamilton made. In particular, she went from making an especially soft impression in 1984 to a very lean and angular one. I don't mean to detract from that at all - it was impressive - but I also have images of Ms. Hamilton spending quite a bit more time on aerobics than anyone in her character's situation likely would. To wit: still an emphasis on weight loss. G.I. Jane's Demi Moore did quite a shade better, daring to wear biceps and actually demonstrating her strength on film.

These examples remain in the minority, however. Most Hollywood images of powerful heroines still favor slinky dresses and long legs over developed shoulders. Sometimes this leaner physical type is handled better than others. Smart fight choreographers put such nimble minxes in fights in which they get to move fast and use lots of kicks and lower-body advantage (real advantage, rather than the fetishistic "leg lock" depicted in the video above), and intelligent directors offer plot-related explanations for ballet-bodied ladies putting the smack down on crews of mercenaries.


But please to be noting, if you will, the distinction between the way the admittedly wonderful Summer Glau looks, and the way a woman (Bridget Riley) who spends her days actually working on fighting does:

(To her enormous credit, Glau does manage that scorpion kick much better than Riley.)

I know movies are not reality, and that men don't always rise to similar challenges, either (it would seem the Internet hasn't favored us with a capture of Kilmer's shirtless scene in Batman Forever). In recent years, however, Hollywood has held to a truer physical standard for their male superheroes, and I'd like to see a little courage in applying those standards to Wonder Woman, whenever she finally appears. Some may argue that women don't put on mass in the same way most men do, and this is the where the topic really does get a little personal for me.

They do. They so do. It may not always read the same on women, but hard work = muscles. I have had the pleasure of working with female circus performers off and on during my acting career, and in particular in the past two years as I've studied aerial silks I've gotten to see women physically transform over the course of time. I can say with absolute confidence that when a women practices pulling herself up a few yards of fabric once a week for a month or two, not only do her arms get more defined, they grow larger muscles. Girls have guns, gang. Respect.

That's it. In sum: Christina Hendricks, with some push-ups, as Wonder Woman: Yes. The larger issue is that I believe the predominant opinion of feminine beauty pretty much sucks. My two little opinions above don't even begin to cover it, of course. Plus they address my personal preferences just as much as Hollywood's bias, I suppose. That's all completely subjective, but I know female fighters have real arms, and nobody in this lifetime's going to convince me Christina Hendricks is less than beautiful or talented. But I pretty much expect the accusations of personal taste to start rolling in, so...hang on...lemme just get my latest issue of Guns & Curves in hand so I can read it (for the articles) at my leisure as the flame-war commences (I should be so lucky, to have such readership)...

Versing the World

Because sometimes The Man makes shilling for him just too much dang fun:

Yes. Yes, I am looking forward to the movie. No; no I haven't read any of the books. Yes, yes I remain at heart a frustrated teenager.

Kick-Ass: A Follow-Up

WAY BACK in November of 2008, when I still had hair (I still have hair), I encouraged you folks to go out and read a little comic called Kick-Ass. I had only read the first issue at the time and, thereafter, I read only through the third or so. (Out of eight? I can't be bothered to Google this?) When I wrote that there 'blog post I promised a movie was in production and, last weekend, said movie opened in wide release. And last night, I observed the playing of said movie. This, then, is my response.

RESPONSE. NOT a CRITIQUE, or even a REVIEW. Just to be clear. Though there will be SPOILERS, me mateys. (Gatling jetpack. Wha-tah! How's that for timing?)

I'll preface this with a few interesting facts about this particular movie deal and my particular choices with regards to how I ingested this morsel of mixed media:

• Obviously, I was sold on the concept (as I understood it) straight off.
• I elected not to pursue the comic very far so I would not spend the whole movie comparing the two.
• The comic got the movie deal from practically the first issue (can't be bothered to Google) and subsequently delayed releases of its issues in an effort to release the final one in the story arc as close to the opening date as possible.
• The last issue of the comic that I did read -- though this was not a factor in my decision to stop reading -- I found a little off-putting.
• I like comics, action movies and underdog stories.

To be brief: I enjoyed the movie a great deal.

All right, goodnight everybody! Tip the lamb and try your waiters!

[Then he just went on, and on, and then on about the damn movie...]

Those of you fervently tracking my 'blog, eager to analyze my responses to comicbooks and their cinematic interpretations in particular, may be reminded here of my rant on the impracticality of superheroes (see 2/14/08). It's true: Superheroes are entertaining mythology, and an answer to almost nothing practical. In that sense all this hubbub about the moral issues supposedly addressed in Kick-Ass are simply a mess of malarkey. (Points: "hubbub" and "malarkey" in the same sentence.) This film is not immoral, it's amoral, and one simply has to accept that as an aspect of the genre in order to approach it on terms remotely related to its intentions. It's reminiscent of Japanese manga in this sense (not to mention in much of its imagery) -- indulgent fantasy that knows it is indulgent fantasy. Is it immature and irresponsible? Totally. It's a teenager, and that's apt for its story.

That having been said, if this film catches on big, kids are going to emulate and probably get hurt or killed. One can easily argue that such kids will be stupid to begin with, because the movie more than emphasizes the catastrophic physical danger of vigilantism, and one would be right, but one would also be missing the point that many kids are stupid, because they're kids. They haven't had enough experience to reliably process this kind of information with some sense of distance. I know this, because I literally fantasized about sneaking out to "fight crime" when I was a teenager. I didn't see why I couldn't, nor that doing so was in itself criminal, nor even what that actually meant. More on that later. Point: This is an irresponsible movie. End of point.

I had a hell of a good time watching it. I may even buy it when it's released on DVD/Blue-Ray/DRM-FreePsychicImpression, if for nothing else than to revisit some of the brutal, beautifully choreographed "fights." (There was maybe one actual fight in the movie; the rest of the sequences were, to coin a phrase, "heroes" owning "villains.") This film takes a good ol' power fantasy that fanboys have had for at least half a century and just gives it a good, hard nudge into a more relevant setting. Relevant, but not in any sense realistic or naturalistic. Some may be fooled by the many parallels -- far more than even the new Batman films -- between the movie's environment and reality, but to those people I would say only this: Gatling jetpack.

Things I liked:

• The action choreography was a really rather interesting blend of tropes and innovation. For an (amoral) example, Hit Girl straight-up kills bad guys, which is really the only way an 11-year-old could be expected to defeat adults, and many of the ways in which she does this are completely over-the-top, but also gratifying in their efficiency.
• It did not pull punches in any sense, and was not aiming for any PG-13 rating, which allowed teenagers to be non-idealized and consequences to be heavy (when actual consequences were audacious enough to appear in this movie).
• There was a very dark humor throughout, to the extent that I can see why some people seem to think the humor ended about midway through.
• Nicolas Cage. I know. I KNOW. He still made gratingly huge acting choices, but if ever there was a movie in which they seemed apt, this is that movie. There was also a fanboy level of appreciating that he was for a long time thought to be Tim Burton's first choice for a very different interpretation of Superman(TM). In particular, the cadence of speech he used for Big Daddy was an astonishingly bizarre, yet recognizable, riff on Adam West's Batman. Fun; lots.
• The movie and comic took a nice risk in actualizing a commonly held fantasy with creativity and specificity -- namely, answering the question of what might happen if a teenager followed through on his power fantasy.

Ironically, this last point was what initially intrigued me with the concept, yet also provided my biggest disappointment with the film. I was already rather resigned to this disappointment from the last issue I read (in which Hit Girl makes her splashy entrance) and from the tone of the movie previews, but I can't shake it completely, because I really wanted to see the movie I had fantasized about way back in November of 2008.

The only actual fight that takes place in the film happens about a third of the way in, and involves Kick-Ass fighting three guys in defense of a fourth whom they have chased into his path and proceeded to beat on. This is months after our hero's initial confrontation, in which he is stabbed and then hit by a car, then takes a little time-out to recuperate in the hospital. Before jumping in, he tells a nearby teen to call 911. The fight goes awfully for Kick-Ass, but he manages to first distract the attackers, then straddle the victim and keep them at bay with two batons. He doesn't win in any conventional sense. In other words, he doesn't beat them, but he endures mortal danger until they have to flee, owing of witnesses and the increasing risk of the intervention of the police. I liked this scene in the comic. I love it in the film; the lighting and dressing is gritty, and the direction is frenetic enough to communicate the utter confusion that the fight entails for our hero, while staying removed enough to allow us to distinguish just enough specificity to appreciate the story of the encounter.

The movie I wanted to see -- am in fact left still wanting, quite badly, to see -- is one that continued along that line. It's shortly after this point in Kick-Ass that Big Daddy and Hit Girl are introduced as supposedly more capable superheroes (in fact: vigilantes), complete with tremendous budget and revenge subplot, and everything is amped up. This is the movie (and, I suppose, the comic [the chicken-and-egg here is nigh inconceivable]) they wanted to make and, as I said, I enjoyed it a lot. It's just: What if? I mean this question both in terms of the comic/film, and in terms of continuing what I felt was the set-up and development of the beginning of the story.

What if when our hero gets in over his head, no one is there to bail him out? What if he revisits the hospital? What if he gets involved in the world of crime so deeply that his boundaries start to blur? What if he drops out of school? What if he inspires other teenagers in both directions, heroics and villainy? What if he has to choose whether or not he'll use firearms? What if he kills someone, or even just witnesses murder, and there are actually psychological consequences? What if, somehow, through it all, he actually gets quite good at fighting crime -- what does that entail and lead to in reality? What if he discovers he can't make a difference -- but personally needs to, anyway?

Lately a lot of hybrid superhero movies have been produced, many of them setting themselves in decidedly naturalistic worlds (Defendor comes to mind) but none that I know of approach the idea in such a straight-forward way. No one has made this movie yet, and I'm afraid no one will. Even I balk at writing the story, because I have some pessimistic views about how it might be received by producers and audiences alike. Certainly last night's audience by-and-large would not be pleased with the movie in my head. Yet I'd really like to see it. I think it would be entertaining and interesting, and that it would continually surprise its audience with events that occur with such veracity that anyone can imagine the same thing happening to them. Not to mention that it's the kind of story that is best served in film; no other medium could express it with such specific verisimilitude.

I think it's a shame that Millar and Romita, the creators of the comicbook, didn't go in this direction, but they did create one hell of a ride that probably many, many more people will enjoy. I know I did. The movie does what it says it is.

* of course...

Curses: Foiled Again

Lately I've been wanting to write in my 'blog using the voice of Rorschach from his journal: Had phone conversation with Expatriate Younce last night. Brief, but good. Wonder why doesn't happen more often. Talked of writing, ideas. Must remember notes later. PS, senseless debauchery and depravity of malignant tumor of a world makes crave cold beans again...

Doubtless this is due to the really wonderful performance by Jackie Earle Haley in the movie. Definitely in the top-five best interpretations of comicbook characters in cinema. Probably in the top three. Probably commie.

All right. That's enough of that.

One of my more irksome writing habits has to do with creating characters that are mere foils. I believe I can create some really developed, interesting characters, but more often than not I end up with a foil in there somewhere -- someone who fills gaps, quasi-antagonizes broadly, and generally exists as a sounding board for the rest. (Benvolio, for example, is largely considered a foil.) It's weird to me that I'd be inclined toward this, because I've played many foils in my career, and it's always a bit, well, irksome. In fact, when I was younger I was often cast as the "foil character." Not all of these were foils to a fault (i.e., folks devoid of development or consequence; e.g., Benvolio), but they were there to serve the needs of other characters in advancing the plot. I think Frankie in A Lie of the Mind is a fair example of this. If you disagree, then you may have some insight into why I did such a shite job playing him (see 4/5/07).

Perhaps it's my proclivity for such characters that lends to their presence in my writing. It's hard to say. What's easy to say is that they are often burdened by concept. Take for example Jude and Angelo, characters from two plays of mine. Jude is a Mormon cast out of his church for numerous breaches in personal behavior, who continues to believe and do mission work whilst using drugs and foul language. Angelo, from Hereafter, is a former gang-member with a dead son who lives with him in his paranoid delusion. It's as though having a concept answers too many questions about the character for me, in a way, so I feel there's nothing left to explain or develop in its writing. Yet simultaneously, I feel clueless about what the characters need and where they go from where they are.

This habit and its connection to my acting came to mind for me out of last night's discussion. We talked a bit about the writing and idea-generating processes, and in particular I was intrigued with the possibilities and challenges of creating the characters Youncey was contemplating. Of course the discussion eventually touched on my as-yet-owed (and as-yet-written) werewolf story, and talking about it helped me realize that I stalled out in a previous attempt because I had all these exciting concepts for characters . . . but no real ideas about who they were, and where they were going. Well, two of them had direction and identity. Two that weren't remotely werewolfy. *sigh* So I thought the problem was that I just didn't actually want to write a werewolf story. Now, however, I have some ideas (hopefully not mere concepts) about what I do want to write about in a werewolf story. Now it's a question of time and keeping it foil-free.

Wherefore the foil? It's not laziness. Often time I spend much more energy on what turns out to be a foil character than I do on a fully realized, interesting one. Perhaps it's a problem with my perception of structure in a given story. It's true that I've never outlined a plot in my life; the closest I ever come to that is when I somehow know where I want the whole thing to end up. Writing is improvisation to me, or (perhaps more accurately) like just such a conversation as I had last night -- ideas piling up, going exploring down one path or another, accepting everything I can and using it as best I can. It's funny. Younce will continually make claims to not being a writer, yet the very stockpiling of ideas we do equates to the writing process for me. It isn't the same, of course. I take for granted whatever actual writing skills and instincts I may have acquired over the years. Yet that idea-hashing, that collaborative energy, that's what keeps me writing. That's what I really love about it.

When I was a teenager I was quite obsessed with my writing voice, and unique little turns of phrases. Early teachers of mine would kindly describe my prose as being "poetically dense." Thankfully I've rescinded my former enthusiasm for linguistic frippery and syntax of a winding and convoluted manner, the which is not dissimilar from a verbal slalom track (not to mention [since it bears repeating] a certain appreciation for [parenthetical] asides). But seriously: When I was a teenager, it was even worse. Now I value a certain amount of clarity and efficiency in my writing (not too [too] much, mind). Similarly, I want to make efficient stories, with necessary characters, not just cool concepts and dramatic tensions. That's the mysterious quality of really amazing stories, for me: structure. Lean, mean and beautifully functional.

Something made of steel, rather than foil.

Mysteries and Secrets

Neil Gaiman.

Neil Gaiman is an incredible treasure of storytelling, whom I can appreciate largely due to the years-ago efforts of Expatriate Dave to make me experience as much of Mr. Gaiman's work as possible. Since that time (around age 17, this was) I have consumed every iota of his work that I could, and his work includes comics, other literature, movies, a daily 'blog and numerous odds and ends besides. If you don't know his work, you should, even if you don't consider yourself a fan of fantastical fiction. He has very good ideas, and he steals awfully well. By which I mean that one of the things I love about his work is the way he can tie together disparate old ideas and stories with new ones and make something appreciably unique. This could be considered a decent description of what any artist endeavors to do. Neil Gaiman is an artist.

I decided to write about him today because I have noticed many disparate ideas and stories coming together for me lately that point his way. In brief:

• I'm reading a book about him I received for Christmas.


• He was just on "The Colbert Report," which I stayed up to see (WAY past night-before-open-call bedtime).


• He just made Wife Megan's esteemed list of Famous People With Whom She Would Like to Have a Conversation.


• I've been enjoying the fiction-writing process of late, especially with Friend WHftTS.


• Expatriate Younce actually confessed some writerly desires to me the other night -- a victory for the cause of Fiction, I assure you.


• He recently experienced a personal loss that makes me wish I could do something for him, as he's done so much for me.

I had an opportunity to share a word or two with Neil Gaiman a few years back, when he was in town signing copies of his short-story collection, Fragile Things. He was interviewed by John Hodgman, which was hilarious and insightful, and then took a seat at the back of the room to sign hundreds upon hundreds of signatures. I waited my turn in line with my and Megan's books, and I thought about things. I had a signed copy of his novel Stardust that I had won in a costume contest back in my home town, and it seemed unbelievable that I was going to watch him sign a book from my very hand. I wondered what I would say, and suddenly the whole thing felt eerily familiar. Looking back, I realize the panic I felt was the exact same feeling I have waiting for an open call. Suffice it to say, I thought of a million things I could say. When I got to the table, I squeaked. Something. I don't know. I think I've since blocked it out. But I know it was squeaky, whatever it was.

The Zen Buddhists believe that the elimination of desire is a key to enlightenment. When I want something as much as to be cast off-Broadway, or to get into a discussion about mythology with Neil Gaiman, I can see their point. It can be crippling.

Mythology, as a concept, is a very interesting way of looking at our lives. Obviously I would say so -- see name o'blog -- but a few thousand years' worth of actual mythology may be said to back me up on this as well. I used to think of mythology on the whole (and prepare for more sweeping generalizations here) as a way of devising answers to difficult questions. I was taught that these stories came about because primitive peoples needed an answer to things like lightning storms, death and babies. I won't argue against that theory, but it is only one theory. The more I learn about them, the more I see the enduring mythologies as stories and beliefs that return people to essential questions, rather than direct answers. Moreover, I see mythology not as giving us guidelines or neat morals for our living, providing context, so much as it changes our story. Stories influence other stories, and one person's life can be said to be a (hopefully) long, largely sequential story. What I realized while standing in that line was that Gaiman's stories had profoundly affected my life, my story. In fact, just at that moment, it seemed entirely likely that his stories had had the most influence on mine, out of all of them. Thus: Squeak.

I don't know if myth and mystery have any relation, etymologically speaking, but I find them to be very closely related. Brothers, almost. In his famous Sandman graphic novels, Gaiman resurrected DC Comics' versions of Cain and Abel as the keepers of mysteries and secrets, respectively. According to that particular mythology, a mystery is a mystery because it was meant to be shared, a secret a secret because it ought to be forgotten . . . if it can be. Mythology, fiction, stories, they all confront unanswerable questions in one way or another, and it's by sharing them that we fulfill their functions. So I hope you'll share in some of Gaiman's, because it's no secret that they're uncommonly good.

Unfortunate Accident w/an Intrinsic Field Subtractor

Photoshappage compliments of Dave Youmans.

And Now for Something...Completely Different

It is my day off, after all. Mostly. I'm headed back to Scranton early to teach acrobalance to the unsuspecting students of ETC's Griffin Conservatory.

Friend Patrick had a recent post directing me here, where I promptly played with creating my own comicbook character's cover. The result:
It's awfully silly stuff, and apparently part of an advertising scheme (cp+b is an advertising agency) but for what exactly is not as immediately apparent. Naturally I took it far more seriously than was intended, trying once again to realize what a real-life vigilante crime fighter might look like, assuming he had even a passing familiarity with superhero tropes. This website put me in mind of Hero Machine, a wonderful little bit of Flash that Friend Younce introduced me to years ago. Hero Machine gives you many more options, including the possibility of actually naming your imaginary figure (the Amazing Kicking Black Belt not being my idea). And so, of course, I almost-immediately had to head that-a-way and see how my vigilante would turn out if he could, I don't know, disguise his identity somehow! The result:Kind looking fella', isn't he?

Obviously my trope for a "superhero" is based on Batman: No powers, all determination. What I've been thinking about lately is that a real "superhero" would be most interesting for his (or her) need to be anonymous. Apart from the legal ramifications, of course, what would compel someone to endanger themselves regularly and anonymously? There must be a deeper psychological reason, in addition to the pragmatic. Comicbooks have tackled this before, of course, but never to my satisfaction.

So what we have here is a mid-level-income superhero, with a priority for fighting street crime, but not killing anyone. His weapons would have to be compact and largely non-lethal, and he'd need ranged ones as well as something for in-fighting. The shuriken is actually a compromise; when I was thinking about it, I realized darts would be the best weapon for such a vigilante. Blown or tossed, a dart with some kind of drug would be the most efficient tool in such a one's arsenal. The rest of Hero Machine's provisions were pretty great for my purposes. He'd need agility, but would certainly be armored, so sectional plates are best. Paratrooper boots, with ankle support but rubber soles, are the best footwear any vigilante could need. He could use leather pants, but his top would need something that breathes and flexes more, and of course good, tight-fitting gloves. Some little things I particularly appreciate -- equipped at his sides but not his front or back as this would impede brawling; he's a little jacked up, as one would be if one took to the violent neighborhoods nightly; he's in dark greys, imminently more practical for hiding in shadows. Hero Machine only failed me in the kind of mask I wanted for him. To cover his brow and eyes, I had to cover his ears too, and this is something no one in their right mind would do (sorry, Bats).

This was a fun way to spend a day off. I'm going to post the code for this guy below. Simply go to Hero Machine and select "Load," paste it in, and you can mod him up. Or make your own. Whatever you do, share it in the comments somehow.

2.5b5*m1*The East Sider*Hair:Standard,understubble,732C00,000000,100,100,21,Eyebrows:Expansion1,raised,5A3410,5A3410,100,100,20,Eyes:Expansion1,slanty,01B3F1,390F7C,100,100,19,Nose:Standard,thinhook,F8B684,F8B684,100,100,23,Mouth:Expansion1,stern,EE694A,F8B684,100,100,17,Beard:Standard,gaunt,FFD08C,F8B684,100,100,22,Ears:Standard,fraBlank,F8B684,FFFFFF,100,100,18,Skin:Standard,wounded,F79E72,F8B684,100,100,8,Mask:Standard,topbandana,202020,000000,100,100,26,Headgear:Masks1,tophalfbandana,000000,313131,100,100,24,Undershirt:Expansion1,tek,727272,5A3410,100,100,9,Overshirt:Expansion1,scifi,434343,000000,100,100,28,Coat:Overshirt,downchevron,000000,181818,100,100,27,RightGlove:Standard,plain,5A3410,181818,100,100,16,LeftGlove:Standard,plain,5A3410,181818,100,100,15,Insignia:Standard,fraBlank,DC0028,FF0000,100,100,29,Neckwear:Shoulders,2straps,5A3410,000000,100,100,30,Belt:Expansion1,twotone-left,312829,000000,100,100,14,Leggings:Expansion1,checks,313131,FFFFFF,100,100,10,Overleggings:Expansion1,furbriefs,4B4B4B,000000,100,100,31,Pants:Standard,fraBlank,FFFFFF,FFFFFF,100,100,13,RightFoot:Expansion1,dessertboot,000000,202020,100,100,12,LeftFoot:Standard,combatboot,202020,000000,100,100,11,Back:Standard,fraBlank,FFFFFF,FFFFFF,100,100,5,Wings:Expansion1,fraBlank,FFFFFF,FFFFFF,100,100,6,Tail:Expansion1,fraBlank,FFFFFF,FFFFFF,100,100,7,Aura:Expansion1,mentat,FFFA9C,FFFA9C,100,100,3,Companion:BigWeapons,motorcycle,181818,53453A,100,100,4,Background:Expansion1,forest,B2B2B2,EE694A,100,100,1,RightHand:Expansion1,shuriken,A6A6A6,000000,100,100,25,LeftHand:Blunts,nightstick,181818,FFFFFF,100,100,2,#

Kick-Ass

SRSLY: You guys: Go out and buy the comic book Kick-Ass. Oh, you don't "get" comic books? You aren't "hep" to "justice culture"? Well, prep for the conundrums of Watchmen, and in the meantime, go read Kick-Ass. It's not even compiled into a "graphic novel" yet (this entry brought to you by the punctuation mark '"'!), yet it's optioned into a movie and being made. Go buy it. Go re-evaluate your life. Much love . . .

And the Award Goes To... (4)

So there's this guy I've known for just about 26 years now, and he came to the 'blogging game even later than I did. In the interests of maintaining his relative anonymity (he posts no profile on his 'blog, though most of his readers know who he is), we shall henceforth refer to him as Fuzzy. For no particular reason. And certainly not because it pertains to any childhood nicknames. Anyway: Fuzzy created his 'blog, Peter, Puck and Mxy, a little over a year ago, without any particular mission statement that I have been able to discern, but it does have a continuous theme, and one which is most apt, I assure you. Every single entry title is a song title.

Why is this so apt? Well, Fuzzy is one of the smartest and most perceptive people I know as it pertains to music. He's got it in his blood. I am a bit biased, of course, owing to the fact that he was one of the first people to introduce me to popular music and -- of particular note -- the one almost single-handedly responsible for any Beatles education I have received. We've made beautiful (sort of) music together, in fact. In elementary school we both started trombone lessons at the same time, and for a few years there we sat in the same section of a couple of different bands. As we approached high school, of course, I showed my true talents (among them, finding anything at all after school to do except practice trombone) and Fuzzy learned more and more ways in which he understood music. Thus, not for the first time, we went down separate paths. One of my all-time favorite memories is still of the Fuzz-man playing a solo at the final jazz band concert for our graduating class.

So you might expect to find a lot of music or music theory or music criticism over at Peter, Puck and Mxy, but you must consider Fuzzy's other interests, which are legion. Note, too, that the title is a bit . . . shall we say . . . eccentric. It suggests popular music, sure (if you consider 60s folk music to be of that category), but there's something more. I have it on good authority that Peter refers of course to Peter Pan, and that Puck is that merry wanderer of the night, Robin Goodfellow. I must imagine that some people scratch their heads over Mxy, in spite of a clear visual reference in the banner, because some people can't be bothered to pick up a dang comicbook every once and awhile. Mxy is short for Mr. Mxylplyx, common inter-dimensional, impish villain to Superman's hero. He works by magic, creating chaos wherever he goes, and the only way to get rid of him is to . . . well . . . say his name backwards. Xylplyxm (Retsim?). I think this is a gag that worked better when it functioned exclusively in the realm of comics, inciting debate betwixt Superman fans as to the proper pronunciation. At any rate, three supernatural, youthful spirits claim namesake to his 'blog.

So what you find at Peter, Puck and Mxy is a melange of commentary, quiz, personal narrative and comic strips, all of it salted with insightful and acerbic humor. It doesn't get updated quite as often as it once did, which makes me sad, but Fuzzy has good reasons and has provided plenty of old entries to get caught up on. It's a little like buying a ticket for a variety show and, owing to the simplicity of the 'blog's structure, you essentially have to read it in reverse chronological order. There is no menu or archive list. It reminds me of a book he told me about in my youth (and that I still haven't read): The Once and Future King. That was another thing Fuzzy introduced me to -- fantasy fiction. Now-a-days I take him to be my go-to authority on comicbooks in general, and so occasionally forget that even before that shared interest he shared with me an interest in fiction that has shaped the course of my entire life.

Fuzzy, really, was my first introduction to the trickster clown. (Ooo, but he'll hate that, coulrophobe that he is.) He's got a passionate method of diving headfirst into fantasy and stories, and immediately assuming all the priorities of that particular story's world. If you want to talk "playing high stakes," give him a tug by the ear. I've learned more from him about investing my all into what I do than perhaps anyone else I've known. It can be a little scary, frankly. There's something Fuzzy has in common with jazz musicians and method actors alike -- a complete abandon, a total surrender to the song he's playing, the story he's hearing, or creating -- that most people back away from before they ever even get close to appreciating its price and its glory. It's one of many good creative traits he's got (along with an excruciating attention to detail and an ability to pattern-recognize like a mo' fo') that I continue to aspire to, that have helped to drive me forward in my own creations.

And so, this award goes to Peter, Puck and Mxy.

And the Award Goes To... (3)

As If You Care. is a sardonic sort of title for a 'blog. I recall that when Friend Younce started it, I was so out-to-lunch on the whole 'blogometric phenomenon that I thought, that's odd; if he disdains the medium, why is he engaging in it? The answer to my question was, of course, that he didn't disdain it at all, and understood it immediately, and saw possibilities for using it to his own ends and by his own means. He just wanted to be funny about it. That's how Dave is. And though it might not be immediately apparent from reading about his awesome family and game theory and distinction-making and his intense appreciation of a vast, ecclectic variety of (sub)pop music, Dave is also a mastermind type with strong creative leanings. This mostly gets expressed through gaming and online collaborations to produce real-world community and more game play, but to my mind, Mr. Younce will always be an aspiring author of fiction. Even if he never publishes a word of it.

I've known Dave since time immemorial. Well, since high school, at any rate. But we weren't exactly friends in high school. We had a few classes together, and were both involved in the theatre department, but the actual friendship didn't really crystalize until after graduation, when I suppose we both thought, Hey, wait a minute. I knew some much cooler people in high school than I've met so far in college. Thus was a really cool collaboration formed. Yet the roots extended back to that final year in the school of high, when even then there was a hint of the underlying creative current that would stick with us through college and missionary assignments and {shudder} adulthood. The photo atop this entry is from a project Dave did in that same time reinterpreting characters from the Sandman comics. At some point we geeks (we happy geeks) were backstage during some show or other discussing some thing or other, and Dave had this wild idea of people preserving their bodies past their normal lifespan by encasing themselves in a sort of radioactive gold. This in turn led to me having the idea of people who exponentially increase their intelligence by training themselves to experience a year's worth of living in a single night's dreaming. We discussed the possible overlap of our ideas, and Dave said, "You should write that."

I still haven't.

However, this kind of idea-swapping and assignment tradition continued as Dave and I reunited in the summer after our freshman years away at college. I didn't know it at the time, but the whole three months were extremely formative for me, as a person and as an artist, and Dave was around for a lot of that, giving me books to read and music to listen to and assignments to complete. It was reciprocal, this creative tête à tête, but of course I remember what I was assigned and absorbed more than what I offered up. Frankly, I remember being challenged by the effort to return in kind when it came to assignments and influences. Dave was, and is, a very focused thinker, yet seemingly without being overly linear, and the result is that he can pound out ideas and improvements upon those ideas while one is still sitting at the keyboard contemplating how you're supposed to punctuate "tête à tête." More recently, Dave has worked to connect me with the gaming community (see 5/12/08 & 5/7/07), which I was resistant to and which probably stands alone as the experience most encouraging to my creative processes since reading the Sandman comics for the first time (also Dave's doing).

Expatriate Younce has moved to jolly ol' England, which is bad for me, but great for As If You Care. Now, in addition to never knowing quite what you'll get when you sign into his 'blog, you also never know when it might be something wicked cool that you wouldn't have thought of today without it, like new random generators, observations on information diagramming or photos of Dave's adorable progeny clambering about on the heath. I'm particularly fond of Dave's five-word movie reviews. If Dave ever does become an author, he will probably remind us of Hemingway in the efficiency of his prose, crossed with a Gaimanesque sense of humor and a Stephensonish complexity of ideas. Dave himself is a big fan of Eco and Pynchon. Mercifully, he does not sound a bit like either. (You could write a respectable epic poem about Dave's efforts to get me to read Gravity's Rainbow. "Don't you understand the amazing things this guy's doing?" "No Dave, I don't.") For all those influences, Dave writes things like, "When I was a young, cynical LDS missionary on the hardscrabble streets of LA, I would often see black plastic bags floating along the ground or in the air, or fluttering helplessly in a tree, and I would daydream of having a Nature-channel special that would follow them around, while a British narrator in hushed tones talked about what they were doing."

And so, this award goes to Dave Younce.

Follow Through

Yesterday (thanks to an informal assignment set by Friend Nat [you're my boy, Blue]) I completed the first draft of a short play, the first bit of fiction writing I have seen through to the state of having a distinct and spelled-out beginning, middle and end since . . . well, I can't recall. It is a first draft, and was largely worked through during lunch breaks and lulls at il day jobo, so it's not a magnificent accomplishment. Still and all, there was a very pleasant sense of synergy I experienced in the writing of it and, as you can see, the mere fact of finishing something has me feeling cuddly with myself. So it got me to thinking about the "Notions" series (& a 1, & a 2, & a 3) of 'blog entries I shared with my tremendous, and tremendously grateful, reading populace all the way back in October/November of 2007. (Verily, Odin's Aviary has become an institution.) (Please refrain from unsavory "institution" insinuations. That's rude.) The idea behind those was to experiment with how the accountability that announcing creative intentions invites would affect their outcomes. Simply put, would sharing my ideas for projects sap my enthusiasm for them (as it seemed to when I was younger) or would it hold me to my ideas and keep them coming back to my priorities list? Let's take a look, shall we?

• Freaky Chicks & Aspirant. These are my two most interesting ideas (to me, at any rate) for comic-book adventures, the first being one I wrote a draft of way back 'round 2000, the second being one I had the idea for RIGHT BEFORE HEROES CAME OUT, I SWEAR TO GOD. Both toy with the notions (heh-heh) of superhero(TM)-like people cropping up in mundane settings, and rather unwilling partnerships. These ideas, I confess, I've done absolutely nothing with in the intervening months. Can I explain myself in this? Not really interested in doing that, I'm afraid. Also: No. I can't. I really like these ideas, still. I just haven't done the work necessary to resurrect them.


• The Project Project. This is a play I badly wanted to write when first I thought of it, and is most likely of all of my announced notions to go the way of the Dodo. Frankly, the title is the thing I dig the most about anything I've come up with for it. I started writing it, and got about five pages in before feeling like I had really gotten off on the wrong foot. I found the characters unsympathetic and the structure nonexistent -- two very bad things, made worse by the fact that I was in complete control of both of them. Clever titles are like booby-traps for frustrated writers, man. And this one's a bear trap, because I can't get over how great it could be, if only I could figure how to make it have a heart.


• Mimosa Pudica. A play I directed in college; the idea being that I mount a showcase production of it here with me directing. I haven't re-read the play, I haven't researched a thing along these lines, nor been mentally casting. I've barely thought about it. BUT. Over the past few months a burgeoning desire to direct has been building, and expressing itself through this here 'blog. I think the important thing about this particular notion was that it got me thinking that way with a fairly safe specificity, and now my thinking has expanded to more daring possibilities (such as directing my own Zuppa-style show) which, frankly, may be more apt. Mimosa Pudica may still get done though. It would probably be a good idea to have an intermediate step between my intention and my ambition.


• Building various stilt-related paraphernalia. Mmm, yeah. Well, this is a tough one when you don't have ready access to a workshop. Also tough when your stilts have been in storage for the past three months. And finally, Corporate Carnival queered me on stilts for a little bit. May be coming out of that soon; still would be lacking a power saw or titanium lathe. (Though I do have some nifty welding goggles.)


• Picking back up the trombone. Uh-huh. Next!


• Punch & Judy. Heather and I have made very little headway on this project; just a bit of research (including a wicked-rad find by Samantha Philips) and discussion. However, it definitely informed our creation of Love is Crazy, but Good for our performances in Italy in June, and the experience of working on that ended up being a crucial step toward things like learning how to work together without outside assistance and learning what works, what doesn't. It's difficult to develop something whilst in separate cities, and with so much other Zuppa-related work to do, but I'm confident Heather and I will get something of this up off the ground.


• Superhero(r) monodrama. I don't know how I feel about this notion, these days. The ubiquitous monodrama of the self-generating "creactor" is still something I'd like to have under my belt, but I feel more and more that I need collaborators to get my best work done. It's how I've worked all my life, really, and I'm not sure I'd even want to see a monodrama that had existed in solo for any significant stage of its development. Plus, when I had the idea, the Hollywood superhero(c) phenomenon hadn't quite hit the fever pitch it's at now. I would probably be working against a curve with that concept. Back to the notional drawing board, as far as I'm concerned.


• Using Friend Patrick's Sukeu mask in performance. See above? I don't know. In the spirit of Patrick himself, I'm loathe to apply the mask to something artificially. I want it to inform me of what it belongs with. This may entail getting in a room (with a mirror) with it and playing, without context. Which I should do anyway. It goes on the to-do list under "get new acting job." Patrick?


• My werewolf novel. You know, I increasingly feel that this story I've been writing and ruminating over has been co-opted by its own inciting notion. That is to say, maybe I don't want to write a story about werewolves (but literature needs another werewolf novel!) after all, and I shouldn't try so hard to make it be about that. What interested me and got me started on it was this different idea of what a werewolf might be. What has been most engaging about writing it (and I haven't done any writing on it in a long while) has been one of the non-central characters and writing about people who feel lost. So: Maybe I'm writing two different things without knowing it?


• The Very Nearly Perfect Comedy of Romeo & Juliet. It has a title! And a webpage! AND a 'blog! This is certainly the prospective project that has been most worked upon out of my lists, which is in keeping with my suggestion that I need collaborators to get anything done. In fact, the entire nature of the project is one of collaboration, being as it is a vehicle for collaborating with Italian artists, and I can hardly take credit for it as "my" notion anymore; if, in fact, I ever could. The very concept has leapt ahead, and in the best ways, in my opinion. I read my initial idea for the play and cringe a bit at the thought of working on something like that right now. Perhaps it's valuable, in the interests of getting projects accomplished, to think of them as inevitable, and also as something that will ultimately bear very little resemblance to the original notion.


• Red Signal. The clown, quasi-silent film screenplay. This, above all, is my most frustrating venture. Not because I haven't made progress on it; I have. That's the source of said frustration, because (much like a subway train faced with a...wait for it...) the writing hit a brick wall somewhere around March/April. There are a number of possible causes for this -- getting a new day job, busting my laptop, health concerns, getting on and into other projects -- but what it boils down to is that I feel rather out of ideas, and with three acts of a five-act outline all figured out (it's act the third that I have been stalled on; five's ready to roll). Three is certainly the magic number, and I'm confident that the cutting stage of this process will be immense, but I'm just not there yet. Something vital is missing. Apart from occasionally pondering (futility) the casting of the female role, I haven't returned to it in earnest since running out of track. Which. Is. Frustrating.

So all in all: I don't feel too bad about how I've done. I realize this list may read like it's largely a schedule of a lack of completion, but in writing it I've been reminded that every process is just that, and one can't rush it or skip steps. I could certainly have done better (especially when it comes to stilts, trombones and comicbooks) but I see in most of these notions a progression, at least in thinking. I'd like to be more productive ultimately, but that's why I checked in on these in the first place: to see how I can do that. In the spirit of this, this entry represents no great goal post, but another step in the process at large. So. Do I think sharing my ideas helped them move along?

Didn't hurt . . .

Friendly Neighborhood

I am straight-up terrified of musical-theatre auditions. If you gave me a choice between publicly humiliating myself in some way, or standing in a room with one other person and singing for them, I'd go with the former, nine-out-of-ten. I don't know why. I can sing. I'm not trained, but I have a natural ear and a strong, albeit somewhat limited, baritone voice. I even enjoy singing. There's just something to be overcome in my psyche when it comes to singing for an audience; particularly an audience of one. I often claim to be something less than a fan of musical theatre, and it's true for the most part. I usually find the idiom a bit too coy for my tastes and, though I'm not great fan of opera, either, prefer musical theatre that's raw, and passionate, and in which the characters are more often struggling than they are bursting with rapturous joy. The fact of the matter is, I'd love to be in a "good musical" (read: one that adheres to my personal criteria). So my policy when it comes to auditioning for musicals is, and has been since I was eleven years old, not to. I have a couple on my resume from summer stock gigs that required a full season from me, and that's about it.

A little over a week ago, a friend of mine who is in no way connected to my theatre life these days shared an item on his Google Reader account about the holding of an open call for the upcoming Spider-Man musical. Specifically, the call was to troll for actors to play Mary Jane, a high school principal character and Mr. Peter Parker. I've known about this musical for a while, marvelling at its seemingly disparate elements: Spider-Man, Broadway, Bono and The Edge doing the music and Julie Taymor directing. I was surprised to hear of open calls, because I knew it had been in development for some time now. A guy who was working with them to develop rigging looked at subletting my old apartment back in the fall. I understood rehearsals had begun July 2. And an open call? Madness. If it were just for Peter, you could chalk it up to a stunt or a Superman-The-Movie priority for a fresh face. But for Mary Jane and an anonymous adult character? Madness.

It stuck in my head. I suppose, in some ways, I had been thinking about this show with some curiosity ever since I first heard of it. When I imagine a Spider-Man musical involving aerial rigging and directed by Mz. Taymor (who is famous for, amongst other things, the Broadway production of The Lion King with all its puppetry and stilt-giraffes) I picture some wild, fairly circus-y stuff. But come on, I thought, too. It's a huge, big-budget production. It must be pre-cast within an inch of its life. It was probably cast in large part from the moment of its initial conception. So when I heard of an open call, it must have opened up that little well-spring of hope in me for a huge, circus-y, comicbook musical. Because I proceeded to do something very, very stupid. I talked to everyone about it. I even claimed to be planning on going. Because...why not? Hey: It's just talk. I can not go. They'll be staying away in hordes, the rest of my peers. It sounds terrible. Open call? Who does that anymore? And hey, here's a list of reasons I'm all wrong for Peter Parker:

1. Too old. They extended the casting age into the "20's" (sic; somebody get a proofreader into that casting office), but come on now. Would I really be fresh-faced enough for the sweetest dork in the Marvel universe?



2. Not pretty enough. Well, this is Broadway. You should see some of these magnificent bastards.



3. Can't sing. Yes so I can sing. It's just that I don't. Ever. Upon threat of injury, even.



4. Doesn't know what he's doing. In some things, sure. In a musical? It's like any other specialized field. You jump right in, and the learning curve is going to be terribly steep. Nearly everybody thinks they could be an film actor. Hardly anyone says, "Hey, I know all I need to know about Broadway from watching it."



5. Can't dance. Oh I'll act the hell from a good bit of circus or fight choreography. I'll even make picking up a coin feel specific and significant. But a shuffle-ball-change? Next, please.



6. Is shaking. And...sweating; profusely. And what is that smell? So scared. So very very scared.

The alarm went off at 5:30 this morning, and I shot up like a rocket. My carefully-chosen t-shirt and my carefully-chosen slacks were donned, followed up by sneakers. It took me longer than usual to get ready, but I blamed the hour and was out the door by 7:30. When I got to Leonard Street, the line hadn't quite gotten to the end of the block. I walked to a nearby bodega, grabbed a large cup of coffee, and took my place at the end of the line. It was a matter of seconds before more people joined the line behind me, and very soon the line snaked back around its first corner. It's been years since I stood in line for an open call, I thought. All this just to sign up for a time-slot. I looked around me, and wasn't surprised to see largely teens and early-twenty-somethings. I was surprised to see some of them be over six feet tall, or rather robust, or whatever other features you wouldn't expect to see on your Peter Parker or your Mary Jane. I did see some older women in line, which was a comfort, until I remembered the high-school principal role was described as older.

Crossword puzzles make for great distraction from an open call wait line, I find. I had a good book and four New York magazine crosswords to keep me from obsessing. It was hard, though, to block out the energy around me. And probably wrong, as far as choices go. Better to absorb and reflect energy than block it, in just about any situation. Maybe it was my nervousness (I doubt but that it was the main), but I was immediately turned off by the conversation around me. Directly in front of me in line was a group of three uber-musical-theatre types and they, like, were clearly very excited to be, like, there and yet somehow, like, better than a lot of the like, people there. They yammered non-stop, alternating between musical-theatre topics and gossiping, and they knew every third person who walked by, and greeted them with a stock phrase: "Oh my God!" Directly in front of them was a sixteen-year-old girl whose father had driven her in from New Jersey for the day. She sat patiently, quietly, in line while he called in regularly to tell her what he had gotten into exploring Chinatown. Behind me, a woman (one of the elder) promptly started making business calls on her Blackberry at 9:00, checking on leases and contracts and spreading little white lies about where she actually was. I tried to block it out, lose time (and thereby anxiety) and remember the damn name of the damn dog in the damn The Thin Man movies. "Asta," by the way.

I soon had reason to be grateful for my surrounding musical-theatre enthusiasts. Their support network had someone ahead in the line, who informed them via cell phone that the auditions would actually be acapella. This was very useful information, as I learned 1) I could stop sweating that the sheet music I had brought would sound as I thought it ought, and 2) I now knew the line wasn't going to just sign up for time slots. They were moving us through FAST. We'd get the name sheet, put down our information, then get ushered in pronto. It was around 10:00 when I got the vicarious news. At approximately 11:15 I was in a tiny room, taking my first breath.

The auditions were being held at The Knitting Factory, a downtown music venue I had visited once before for a reading and concert by Friend Nat. It's a dark and intricate space, with many rooms on different levels and a very rock-n-roll vibe. We were brought inside in a group of about ten, and taken downstairs. On our way we heard singing in various rooms, and passed lines of people waiting to enter one room or another to give up their sixteen bars of enticing magic. They were auditioning in no less than four rooms, simultaneously, and possibly many more. The room I was brought into to wait in line actually had people auditioning at one end, in the open. I was terrified that I was seeing where I would have to audition, in front of everyone. It took me a couple of nerve-steeling minutes to realize that, no, in fact we were in line for a teeny-tiny room with a door. I could hear the people audition on the other side, but it looked private, and the voices were somewhat muffled. Mine would be most of all, because I can't belt like the others waiting for their shot at spandex. Finally, my turn came and I stepped inside with no introduction.

The room was literally about 5x7 feet, and seated in it at a desk was a very pleasant looking woman of nondescript age. "Jeff?" "Yes." "Please step down (there was a lower section in all that space, somehow) and begin." So I stepped down, took a nice, deep breath, and began my pop selection: The theme song from The Greatest American Hero.

Should my choice of song have been reason number 7 that I'm totally wrong for the part, not to mention the entire environment? Perhaps, and perhaps not. Probably. Let me tell you how it went: Awfully. I could look on the bright side, and say it could have gone much worse. It could have. There was a very definite danger of my losing the lyrics in my panic, of my throat drying out completely in the final moments before entering, of hitting all the wrong notes in my adrenaline-fueled state, of my crashing into the door on my way out. None of these things happened, and I feel very fortunate in this regard. In some ways, even accomplished. But I was dreadfully frightened, and moved too quickly, too tensely, and my voice vibrato-ed almost into sharp-toned errors, and in no way did I act the song, I was so nervous. It didn't get a laugh, as was half my hope, either because I was too nervous or my proctor was too busy or a little of both. In a word, it was bad. A bad audition.

I am so proud to have done it. I spend so much time subconsciously defending my professionalism and experience, trying to prove myself a wise investment, an asset, to other people. At 31, I am tired of unfulfilling work, and find myself re-evaluating my choices in almost every pursuit. My life, in unexpected ways, is becoming about taking risks once again, just when it maybe ought to be simmering down to a more-settled form. It was absurd of me to go to the Spider-Man audition for numerous sensible reasons, a waste of time and effort from the perspective of supposed "adult priorities." And I rationalized it in any number of ways, to myself and others. I just want to get my circus-y resume in the door. I thought it'd be funny. I have to find out more about this show. I know it'll make for a good story. But the fact of the matter is, the real reason I subjected myself to it is, I think, that when I was very young indeed, that theme song was my favorite song in the world, and I had all the lyrics memorized. And sometimes, when I feel really good, I feel like I could fly, and when I have the means at hand it drives me to climb things and jump from tall places. Hope is a thing with wings, someone with far less opportunities than I have once wrote. I think sometimes it's the best thing one can do for oneself, to just go ahead and believe, and dream big, because...what the hell? It feels good. And who knows where it might lead?

Believe it or not, I'm walking on air,

I never thought I could feel so free!

Flying away on a wing and a prayer,

Who could it be?

Believe it or not, it's just me.

This Entry is Essentially One Big Spoiler of "The Dark Knight"

Consider yourself warned.

Saw it last night, finally. I shared the count-up of days from when it opened that I hadn't seen it on my Facebook status, and was oddly delighted by some of the responses I got to that. Even Tom Rowan greeted me after the reading of his play Monday night was over by saying, "So I guess this means you'll be able to see The Dark Knight now." (Sadly, I told him, I wouldn't until Wednesday.) It was a happy problem, not being able to immediately see this movie about my favorite character, a result as it mostly was of having too much acting work filling my time. Still, it frustrated, and as I raced last night from rehearsal to my saved seat five blocks away (old-school Batman t-shirt flapping in the humid breeze) I felt a wonderful lightening conjoined with my excitement. I would see it. I would have satisfaction.

And hoo-boy, I did. I am a satisfied man, at least for the time being -- when I grow dissatisfied again, I shall see it in Imax. That's not to say it was perfect or anything, but I did think it was a much better movie than its predecessor in terms of adapting aspects of the comicbook (which didn't do such a bad job itself). My primary problems with Batman Begins had to do with making the story and character a little too real-world based. That may sound absurd when talking about a superhero movie, but I really do think BB takes some of the drama out of its lead character by making him and his world so modern, so pragmatic. I had rather the opposite feeling about the moments of ridonkulousness in The Dark Knight; they were by-and-large departures from feasibility or overkill that even a huge fanboy such as myself couldn't quite stomach:

1. My gauntlets shoot razor spires, yo. Erm, yes. You know, they did such a nice job of justifying low-tech uses for the fins on the gloves in the first film, why did they have to do this? It seemed cheap and lame, especially when you consider he's supposed to be good with precision weapons like his little bat-shuriken. Plus: How did those things fire, exactly? The trigger was in his sphincter, or something?


2. I have a metal-manipulation technology so confusing, even I don't quite know how it works. His entrance includes using some gadget attached to his arm to bend a rifle muzzle into a crazy straw. This would seem to have limited uses, so they make sure we know it can also cut into and grip a van's metal shell. Way to go, Q...er...I mean, Lucius. Was that developed to help the military with creating inspirational metal sculptures? Batman is much more the type, as he does later in the film, to disassemble the gun; and if you need extra cool he could do it whilst it's still in the perp's hands. As for adhering to the side of an escape van, see above note about previously established uses for the gauntlet fins.


3. I am recent American geopolitical policy personified. That may well be, Batman, but must you beat us about the head and shoulders with it? Er. Come to think of it, that's pretty in keeping with this philosophy. My mistake. Pray, continue.


4. My cars don't break--they transform into motorcycles. This...was actually really cool. So I'm willing to suspend judgment on feasibility. They did it in such a way that I thought just prior to it, "Dang; how does he get out of that tank if it tanks?" And I'm not a big fan of the whole batcycle idea, even in the comics. But they made it look and work really really cool. So, like I said, I'm willing to forgive. Until I found out they named it the batPod. You think it's hampered by any DRM issues? And finally, the big one:


5. I can haz Bat Sonar thru lil phones n' ther ownerz! No. No, you can't. Stop being frickin' stupid, LOLbatz. I really don't understand what this was doing in my movie (oh all right: OUR movie). Appeal to the video-gamers? They liked that effect in Daredevil? Say something about the omniscience of . . .. Nope; just don't get it. They could have brought up the same issues and character development if he had simply tapped all the phones, or maybe strung together their GPS functions in some wild way. I reject the bat sonar completely.

But enough of all that. This movie, in an unbelievable number of ways, was the Batman movie I've been waiting for all my life. It stands on its own, doing its own things with the character arcs, but doing them well and in a way that doesn't betray the spirit of the original. I almost don't know where to begin in my praise for this film, until I remember that it features the Joker and gives birth to Two-Face, arguably two of the best in a really impressive menagerie of rogues. And they do it so well, so new. They seemed to be decidedly eschewing the tormented childhood angle on both, which was great not only for keeping Gotham from becoming a reformed nursery, but also for keeping the origins of the characters in the action of the film. Harvey Dent is a true tragic figure. We can see his flaw from almost the start, and we watch as he changes over the course of two-and-a-half hours. Development! What a concept in a superhero movie!

And then the Joker. Much well-deserved, post-humus praise has gone Heath Ledger's way for this performance, and I speak as a humble -- not to mention humbled -- actor when I say it is entirely deserved. Between the writing and his craft an indelible character has come to life, one that is incredible to watch in action. I read a lot about how the filmmakers chose to avoid his history, to make him more a character defined by his actions than his history, and I thought, "Eh, well, sounds pretty shallow." And it might have been, had it not been for Ledger. I was amazed by the effect, too, of the screenwriting for him. They have him explain his face one horrible way to one person, then a completely different horrible way to another, then he starts on a third to Batman at the climax of the movie, and Batman never lets him finish. Not only does this make Joker a force in his own chaotic right, it makes Batman win on a direct philosophical level. The Joker never gets to the punchline, the Joker never finishes the joke . . . his comic three is interrupted!

Which leads me to another thing I really, really loved about this movie. Remember when you watched The Matrix for the first time, and you couldn't be sure of what to expect, and accompanying all this big-budget bad-ass-ness were some really interesting ideas about the nature of reality and approaches to that? (I could be speaking only for myself here, but I doubt it.) The Dark Knight is the first movie since then to really engage that kind of philosophical wonderment in me while maintaining the same high stakes and power fantasy. As I wrote last week in my pining for this movie, my ideal Batman struggle is with a villain who somehow stands in opposition not only to his politics, but to his philosophy. That idea was taken well in hand and run with. The Joker was an unrepentant anarchist with an argument about the nature of life that he made seem easy to make, and Batman had to really struggle to contend with it. The good resolution of that came through a seemingly miraculous coincidence of human benevolence, reminiscent of a Spider-Man fight sequence (Humanity is essentially good, and we'll prove it!), but Joker gets in his dangling dig, too. "It only takes one small push to send you over the edge."

Which brings us back to Harvey "Two-Face" Dent.

All-in-all, we've got a pretty well-adjusted Batman in these movies. He found peace in the mountains (studying the art of despotism), purpose that overwhelms his trauma -- we are not subjected to a movie full of flashbacks to that fateful night. This is the closest to Frank Miller's Dark Knight we've gotten in films; the vigilantism is his fix against the trauma, and when he's doing it, he's strong. One thing I loved about what Miller did in that graphic novel was to emphasize Batman's belief in Harvey's reformation and, ultimately, his fear over the recognition that Two-Face is Batman gone bad. Whereas the Joker is Batman's polar opposite, essentially, take the judgment away from Batman, and you've got Two-Face: a dual-identity obsessive who metes out justice by his own authority. Even in completely restructuring Two-Face's origin story (moreover, perhaps as a direct result of that) the writers set that up beautifully. Hopefully in the next installment they will continue to adhere to that motivation for him, and not turn him into a petty thief of some sort, obsessed with the number 2. It's the duality that's important, not the digit itself.

Just what can we expect from the third movie in this franchise? Will Harvey be back? Will Joker? Was Lucius Fox written out, or did his little name-cued destruction of the "bat sonar" redeem Wayne in his eyes? Well, I'd guess, but had I guessed at The Dark Knight's content I would have been sorely mistaken. One can hope, though. I hope they continue to learn from audience feedback, as they seemed to for this film. I hope we get to see the revamped Wayne Manor, and with it the completed "batcave." I hope they leave the Joker alone at least one movie, though that they keep him in the background: a joker card appearing here and there. I love that we leave Batman an outlaw once again, and hope they don't turn that around too early. Most of all, I hope they make a totally new and inventive movie that takes its characters seriously. As they've just succeeded in doing.

(Also: Take the batPod; leave the gun gauntlets.)

Update, 7/25/08: The WSJ agrees with my assessment of the politics of Batman: What Bush and Batman Have in Common. Thanks, Nat.

Murderous Clowns

In honor of MY NOT BEING ABLE TO SEE THE DARK KNIGHT FOR DAYS AND DAYS, I thought I'd finally get around to writing the sequel (heh heh) to this little gem of an entry. I wasn't sure if I'd ever write about this. It's a difficult entry to justify in the ethos of the Aviary (because I've been so dedicated to my mission statement to date) except perhaps to say that: 1 - my doing clown work makes for a very real interest in the sociological implications of any clown identity; B - my early cultural influences have untold ramifications on what I choose to create today; and * - it's BATMAN weekend, people! And I've got to be a part of it!

Really though, it's Joker week. That's the big excitement over the movie and, I'd wager, would be even if it were not for Heath's untimely exit from the stage. The Joker is almost as iconic a character as Batman himself, and certainly as graphic and emblematic a villain as has ever risen from popular media. He may even indicate that a pervasive fear of clowns has been around a lot longer than some of the current media we have to propagate it. Before The Dark Knight, or Batman, or Killer Klowns from Outer Space, or It, or John Wayne Gacy, Jr., or the original appearance of the Joker in Batman #1. Maybe it's always been around, pre-Punch. Maybe the fear was first, and the laughter second. That's certainly in keeping with my general theory of humor. [Laughter = self awareness * inevitability, squared.] And for those of you who consider the Joker a relatively trivial source of terror, consider this, too: In his first dozen appearances in the comics, he averaged about three murders per issue.

In my deep, unending and intricate research into coulrophobia (sp?) I have discovered some amazing things. Unfortunately, I can not share these things with you, because they are far too intricate, deep and, uh, unending, to . . .. Okay. I haven't exactly been to the library yet. But I've spoken with people about it, and I'm amazed by how few people know who John Wayne Gacy, Jr., was. (He was executed in 1994; one less clown to deal with, coulrophobes.) I thought he was sort of a household name, right up there with Dahmer and Manson, but I only spoke to one or two people who even had an inkling of who he was. Well, he was a seemingly pedophilic mass-murderer with a penchant for imprisonment and grisly dismemberment, who apparently can't even properly be classified as a psychopath. He also enjoyed moonlighting as a birthday clown. Pogo the clown.

So it's difficult to discount coulrophobia as absurd or irrelevant. It could even be a pretty basic survival instinct, as some have suggested. Some of the most ancient human rites involve masks and grinning figures that don't necessarily mean us well. The Joker's white face may as well be the clay pasted to an aboriginal witch-doctor, or the bleached skull an African shaman paints on his face. And death is absurd, too. Well, it seems absurd to the living, anyway. Living is to some extent based on ignoring the fact that we're going to die. This is such a prevalent philosophy that those who embrace death, or even simply associate themselves with it, are seen as somehow mystic or insane. The skull of a deceased comedian grins back at Hamlet's philosophizing, and when anyone grins, they expose the teeth -- the only "bones" directly visible on a living human body.

The Joker makes a great villain for Batman, and the two sum up a very basic human struggle pretty succinctly, so I have to forgive this perpetuation of the coulrophobic phenomenon. Batman is serious, and the events of his life have meaning -- he's a believer. Hell: His whole "superpower" is a character trait, that of determination. And Joker, well, he stands in absolute contrast to that. My favorite characterizations of him never allow him a moment to regret even his own failure. For him, it is all absurd, all pointless. He's not appetite-driven or suppressed, like Gacy, nor a traumatized child who is endlessly acting out his worst fantasies and fears. The story has no significance to the conclusion because, at the end, all our stories end the exact, same, way. If only he could convince Batman of that, maybe then he'd be able to rest. If only the Yorick had survived into Hamlet's story, maybe he could have made everyone see the folly of their ways.

So how do you tell the difference between the jester, who just wants to make fools of us all, and the joker, who wants to make us all corpses? Well, sadly, you can't. That's part of the dread of comedy, and the thrill of death. You just have to take your chances.

"I must be a creature of the night, black, terrible. . ."

A dark night.

I won't be able to see it for several days. Which is killing me. But it's mostly because I have acting work. So that's good.

Oh God.

Hold me...

This

I can haz?!

Bespectacled

I just finished me my first read of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, a book I have longed longed to read, and was not disappointed by. If Dickens had only written about magicians, I would have enjoyed my required reading so much the better. In an odd way, it encourages my steampunk leanings of late. Of course the setting of the book predates any sort of industrial revolution by quite a bit, yet something about the juxtaposition of magic on an otherwise historically rational world sets me in mind of the steampunk. That, and it's set largely in Britain, home of all good steampunk. (Expatriate Dave: I need a grood steampunk gadget to go with my steampunk jacket.) (All: Can I stop saying "steampunk"? No I can not. And you wouldn't want me to, really. Steampunk.) Finally, on the subject of steampunk (henceforth: steampunk), someone really needs to make a good, contemporary movie in this vein. Sadly, no one will. Oh, they may try, but they'll botch it good. Elements can be found in The Golden Compass, Hellboy, and of course any Jules Verne adaptation. In fact, in my ideal world, such an ideal steampunk movie would be directed by Guillermo del Toro, with consulting art direction by Tim Burton, include specific references to Verne all over the place, and feature predominantly craft and in-camera visual effects. Also it would be aware of the cultural similarities between Victorian England and contemporary United States. Make it so.

But the actual subject of this post is actually to point up something I've noticed thanks to the new book I'm reading: The Man on the Clock, by Tom Dardis. It is, so far, not a great book, but it was the only remotely portable biography of silent-film actor Harold Lloyd I could find. Lloyd was a great comedian, and was the basis of my base character in Silent Lives. Not nearly as many people know him as do Chaplin and Keaton. I wanted to learn more about him because I dig these guys as pioneers of art, entertainment and media, and because I'm lagging a bit in the idea department in completing my clown silent film outline (see 3/27/08). As I read, I discover (assuming Mr. Dardis' writing is to be believed) that I have far more in common with Lloyd than I was aware of. He seems to have been a very careful sort who loathed making mistakes, and something of a frustrated actor in the beginning, trying to find his own way. I've also noticed a remarkable potential connection between two things I love.


This:

+ this:

= this:

Harold Lloyd apparently had some difficulty early in his film career in establishing a memorable, unique character upon whom the production companies could bank. He was just a few career footfalls behind Chaplin, and only one or two behind Keaton, but it could be argued that he was a lot more behind in experience to the two. He grew up on stage, but as a regular actor who took what roles he was given, rather than the kind of innovative vaudevillians Charlie and Buster had to be. In an unfortunate turn, he even made a character called Lonesome Luke that was so derivative of The Tramp that it's a little difficult to believe as an honest mistake. (Then again, it's a pretty human tendency to "borrow" -- sometimes without even realizing it -- from those around you when starting something new.) At any rate, audiences liked Lloyd because he was daring, easy on the eyes and a good actor, but they didn't really identify with him until he figured our his glasses character, or Glass Man.


The glasses were pivotal in Lloyd's effectiveness as a character. The Glass Man worked because of the expectations implied by his appearence with the glasses. They made him accessible and identifiable, sure, but in a very specific way. The films Lloyd made after 1918 and his discovery of the Glass Man began to evolve his stock progression. A goof, a klutz, and hopeless boy gets in over his head in adventures that have him thrown this way and that, until just at the end, seemingly miraculously, he overcomes every adversity, usually through some incredible act of bravery, strength and cleverness. It must have been as though one were going to a Buster Keaton movie that switched at its climax to a Douglas Fairbanks. As he established his character, Lloyd even bested Chaplin (in my humble opinion) at incorporating pathos and empathy. A conglomeration, to be sure, but a very effective one that may have been responsible for moving movies toward still more sophisticated forms.


Nevermind whether or not that was a good idea.


Siegel and Shuster began a long process of creating the Superman(TM) we all know today in 1932. He went through a lot of revisions over the six years before they sold him to Action Comics (the initial comic they wrote featured The Super-Man as a psychic bad guy), at which point his appearence and general origins are at least similar to what we know today. It's just possible that they were sunconsciously influenced by Lloyd films. Many of the names they used in their creation were references to movies, and though they've never mentioned him by name, they have included silent films amongst their influences. Shuster: "But the movies were the greatest influence on our imagination: especially the films of Douglas Fairbanks Senior."


Harold Lloyd was tall, brunette, athletic and charismatic, but it was all belied by those glasses, and his own relatively reserved persona in real life. Superman certainly was a zeitgeist comprised of too many elements of society and culture predating him to point to any one as a significant source. It is precisely because of this conglomerative nature that I'm inclined to believe that Harold Lloyd's character had some influence on the creation of at least Clark Kent, if not Superman himself. And hey: Even if I'm wrong, it's clear that American audiences love a good underdog scenario.


Which gives me hope.