I love Doctor Who and Tom Baker in particular, but The Talons Of Weng Chiang?
Yikes. Racist.
It’s got Leela at her best, however, so there’s that.
Target: 1600 words
Written: 1134 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: Coppermine Journey, Farley Mowat
Comics: Wildstorm Revelations 2-5
Music: Frank Sinatra Essentials, Frank SinatraThat was cruel. Even though Billy Joel is the worst, it’s not my place to tell people what they like and don’t like. Challenge them by exposing them to better (much better), sure.
But outright condemnation and insults?
That’s beneath us.
Sorry, kid. That was rude. I won’t yuck your yum, even if your yum is a bland piece of unseasoned chicken breast, boiled for too long.
Target: 1600 words
Written: 1349 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: The Black Unicorn, Terry Brooks
Comics: WildCats Nemesis 7-9, WildC.A.T.S. v4 1
Music: The Fragile (Left), Nine Inch NailsI was watching a webcast on the preservation of indigenous languages (as I am wont to do) and a very intelligent federal employee by the name of Mandy sent my mind spinning in a manner few have lately.
It was her assertion that language and culture often have a symbiotic (my words, not hers) relationship, that language forms culture and culture language, that got me thinking, but another participant’s story about how frustrated she’d gotten with her grandfather in trying to translate some from his language to English (I’m sorry, I don’t remember the language now), and how he’d responded.
She wanted a word for resilient, a straight, word-for-word translation and he wouldn’t give it to her, because it doesn’t exist; in his language and culture, resilience wasn’t just a label, an assigned word; like many other things, it required description to truly carry the essence of resilience. A tent that stands up to Arctic winds without tearing. A man with the strength to travel weeks on end to his deer meat caches in order to feed his family in the winter.
That’s resilience. And it struck me that describing things that way resonates the actual meaning so much more clearly than a simple word can. It isn’t literal, as her grandfather told her; it’s felt sense.
Mandy’s assertion from the shores of Great Bear Lake were that in her culture, language comes from a different place, a different method of thought. Because in her culture, when one speaks and acts, when one considers their lives, it’s never, as it so often is in Western culture, and white North American culture (American culture), about solely you. Every thought, every communication, every action; it’s all in context, with the understanding that we are not separate from the world; we do not live in void. Our actions, our words, our thoughts – they happen as part of the larger universe, of the larger world, the larger community.
The larger family, even.
So, when we speak and when we act, we act and speak with all that in mind. And their language reflected that; the concepts, the methods of speaking, were reflected in the words and style. Her assertion was that these concepts, this language, needed to be taught, so that the culture of understanding where we exist in the world, that we are a part of it, and not separate from it, would not be lost in this me-me-me society we find ourselves in.
It was a wonderful truth, and I agree – the more we think in terms of ourselves as part of the greater picture, and not as the whole world, the better off this world would be.
(And yes, I recognize the irony/hypocrisy of not knowing what the languages were; I could find them again, but after three days of trying to get to this, I’m squeezing it in where I can, and I’m not in a position to research it just this second – it came from a work site, and I’m not able to log in – I’ll post it later when I have the chance to find it, in addition to any resources I can find that might help keep these languages alive).
Target: 1600 words
Written: 1279 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: Castle Of Wizardry, David Eddings
Comics: WildCats 3.0 24, Warblade: Razor's Edge 1-3
Music: The Four Lads Greatest Hits, The Four Lads (I think there's five of them)Apparently, cutting grass and listening to post-Hoon Blind Melon will do that to someone, in that now, this far in, we see the shape of our lives as carved by our worst enemies.
In my case, crippling depression that I’ve mostly learned to live with, though it’s stolen so goddamn much from me.
So goddamn much.
I want to talk about language and culture and modes of thought, but this damn depression, and this damned lack of time.
So goddamn much.
Target: 1600 words
Written: 1785 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: Castle Of Wizardry, David Eddings
Comics: WildCats 20-23
Music: Fossil Fuels: The XTC Singles Collection 1977-1992, Discs 1-2, XTCOr old, technically. I have a whole thing to think about involving the nature of language and culture and ways of thinking, and…
Nope.
Someone’s here to pick up my brother’s dog.
Thoughts are for tomorrow, I guess.
Target: 1600 words
Written: 998 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: Castle Of Wizardry, David Eddings
Comics: WildCats 3.0 16-19
Music: Forty Licks, The Rolling StonesIt’s okay to have a drink.
I know it’s en vogue to make out anyone who has an alcoholic beverage to be an irredeemable drunk. So many shows and books and things turn even the most casual of drinkers into real problems, but gimme a fuckin’ break.
For some people, they have to go cold turkey.
But for many, many others, it’s totally reasonable to have a drink without being labelled an alcoholic.
I’m so sick of the condemnation and outrage; the denial of possibility and nuance.
The non-existence of middle ground.
There was a time when we knew that not everything was black and white, that there was room for complexity. For moderation.
There is kindness beyond the outrage.
Try and remember that.
Target: 1600 words
Written: 954 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: Gregor And The Marks Of Secret, Suzanne Collins (you know, this is one of the best written YA series ever - the depth of the subject matter, dark, man, for kid's stuff. Great work.)
Comics: WildCats v2 20-23
Music: For Tomorrow, BlurI mean, didn’t everyone?
But, yeah. I’m supposed to be better than that. I still think, that to this day, she’s one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen.
I’m also in awe of the kindness and compassion she shows, which is actually more attractive than her appearance ever could be.
Indeed, that kindness and compassion is one of the sexiest attributes anyone can have, regardless of gender or appearance.
Being a hateful thing only serves to strip even the most beautiful of us of any allure.
Just ask Brigitte Bardot and her Marine LePen supporting ass.
Target: 1600 words
Written: 2093 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: Side Hustle: From Idea To Income In 27 Days, Chris Guillebeau
Comics: WildCats v2 1-3, Wild Times: Grifter 1
Music: Foot In Mouth, Green DaySo I’ve been watching oldie TV lately, and I’ve finally hit on the first season of Wonder Woman. Now, I love Lynda Carter, and not just because she’s one of the most beautiful women, possibly ever.
She seems like a very good person, strong, compassionate, kind – it’s like she took all the non-magical traits of Diana and kept them for herself. She is an inspiration and much to be admired (personality-wise, though she’s still very good looking. She’s aged exceptionally well. I certainly hope she’s that nice in real life, and not some Neil Gaiman redux.)
Anyway, not the point, my point is this. There’s an episode late in the season where she’s tracking down some cattle russlers, and some war orphans break her out of jail by giving her back her belt.
And I swear, there’s a moment where she’s pulling open those bars (filmed a bit for the male gaze with an emphasis on the chest, obviously), and then they cut to the kids looking flabbergasted, and I swear, I SWEAR, you can actually see those kids hit puberty in real time.
I’m not going to say that’s how it happened for me (I’m pretty sure it was my first time seeing Elvira), but you know. It made me laugh.
Target: 1600 words
Written: 1661 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: Side Hustle: From Idea To Income In 27 Days, Chris Guillebeau
Comics: WildC.A.T.S./X-Men 4, WildC.A.T.S. 50, WildC.A.T.S./Aliens 1, Wild Times: WildC.A.T.S. 1
Music: Your Favourite Toy, Foo FightersI’ll be honest. I find a lot of commonality with Wil Wheaton, even though Wil Wheaton and I have lived very different lives.
My parents weren’t particularly overbearing, but I definitely feel the anxiety and the insecurity, the desire for people to think I am more than I am, and the head-up-the-assiness of my fully filled with bullshit youth.
How’s that for a sentence?
My first thought when reading Still Just A Geek was, my god, he’s still stuck, still defined by his bitterness and angry from decades before. Thankfully, it mellowed out a bit, but there was a moment there where I was genuinely concerned for him, that he was going to be forever caught in this bitter hatred, this ravaging insecurity, only now, instead of blaming Hollywood and overplaying his hand, he was blaming his parents.
I mean, shit, is he ever hard on young Wil, even as he’s telling young Wil that it’s not his fault. Plus, there’s an oversensitivity to his own insensitivity, in that he wants to give himself a break for being hard on himself, but excoriates himself repeatedly for even the most minor of politically incorrect offenses (never really truly acknowledging that while we know better now as we’ve grown, it’s just not someone we understood back then, and we cannot live our lives in perpetual guilt for the smallest of past actions, and outrage for the current ones by everyone else).
I worried he’d traded the bluster of overperformative insecurity and anger for the bluster of overperformative modern social standing (and believe me, it is a major pet peeve of mine when it comes to people whose use of modern political correctness is done solely as performance art, to make other people think of them in a way that doesn’t reflect who they truly are – for example, those who think a social media post is all that’s needed to end racism or transphobia. Exposure helps, but if your only interest is in how it makes you look, well then, fuck you. You’re the example right wing fascists use when they want to demonstrate the hypocrisy of the left – and while they’re still assholes and fully in the wrong about pretty much everything, there’s something to that.
Don’t be a hypocritical asshole.
In any case, I made myself do what I always do – devil’s advocate. Because I didn’t want to dogpile on the guy. I enjoy his work. I just worried he’d moved into a space where he’d not really moved, but only shifted the focus, or done some minor redecorating.
Of course, again, this was 2021 when he did all these annotations, so another five years gone and who knows where we are now? I’ll guarantee dredging through those old memories was a trigger for past trauma, so while he may have started with the best of intentions, he may have let that past anger infect him a little. It shows in some of the comments he makes. The second half is better, with more recent and more inspired stuff, but at times, it feels like he’s a little scared to really get into it, to let us dive deep into his psyche.
Then again, as he himself mentions at points, he’s under no obligation to share any of that.
And he’s not. He’s right.
Anyway, this sounds like I’m being a jerk, but I really do identify with the whole thing. I want Wil to be happy because I want myself to be happy. If he is, if he grows and changes and moves on to a full life without all the baggage, well, shit.
Maybe there’s hope for us all.
Target: 1600 words
Written: 726 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: Still Just A Geek, Wil Wheaton
Comics: WildC.A.T.S. 47-49, Voodoo 4
Music: Foo Fighters Essentials, Foo Fighters (it's been a few foo foo kind of days)Is there any more passive-aggressive bullshit than this?
Out with it, or shut the fuck up.
Anything less makes you seem petty and disingenuous.
Target: 1600 words
Written: 1554 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: Still Just A Geek, Wil Wheaton
Comics: WildC.A.T.S. 43-44, Voodoo 1-2
Music: folklore, taylor swift (i gather she likes the lowercase and not, you know, LOUD NOISES)