8 posts tagged “on everything”

I. What I Like In A Movie

My tastes in music and movies are quite similar: I favor things that aim for the mainstream or mass acceptance, while avoiding all of the easiest cliches and devices normally associated with such product. There's certainly something to be said for experimental or art cinema, but I often just don't find those movies satisfying. In general, if a film spends all of its time running around the idea of expressing emotion vividly -- if it's just too icy or reserved, as I find so many intellectual-oriented films to be -- I just can't love it. I can appreciate it, but I can't love it. As someone who considers themselves to be a writer, I also obviously tend to be more script-oriented (plot/dialogue) in my evaluation of whether or not a given movie is any good; acting, directing, and overall tone matter a lot, but I can rarely forgive bad dialogue.

As far as my technical eye goes, I do OK, though I'm by no means an expert on such things; I'm reluctant to say I'd like more "training" in such devices, since it can't help but affect the way you watch movies profoundly. I'm already cutting up comic books in my brain that way; it's nice to have a medium where I don't have to be as focused on the nuts and bolts at all times. Of course, I have coworkers who are serious movie snobs (we are talking about a dude who sees an average of more than one movie a day over the course of a year, almost none of them distributed by a major studio), but I can more than hold my own in a conversation about film with, you know, 99% of normal people. I'd be lying if I said not being a true snob wasn't sometimes frustrating. Believe me, there are few looks one human being can give another that is more poisonous than the look I get from some of the people I know when I tell them that Pirates Of The Carribean: Dead Man's Chest was one of my favorite movies of the year. There's always a part of you that aspires to be seen as more intellectual than everyone else, even if it is a false distinction; but fuck it, I likes what I likes. I'm pretty proud of the formula I managed to boil my taste down to on my MySpace profile:

"Anything with dinosaurs in it; anything with Catherine Keener in it. Also My Beautiful Laundrette, which contains neither."

II. How I Like To Watch Movies

There really is nothing better than a good movie theatre for watching a movie. There's nothing worse than a bad one, of course, and there are so many factors that can kill the moviegoing experience -- uncomfortable seats (especially tough on tall folks like myself), horrendously rude patrons (i.e. about 70% of Americans), shitty projection, poor facilities -- but when it goes right there's no better way to watch a movie. If I'm watching something on DVD at home, my attention span can't help but waver (my laptop is always nearby) and it's not like I have a particularly impressive home theatre setup, so quality of experience always takes a hit. I'm an anachronism as a music industry consumer (yes, I still buy almost all of my music on CDs; I am, at the most recent count, the absolute last American male under 35 to be doing so), and I'm an anachronism as a consumer of films as well, since I hate BitTorrenting them (video just looks like shit on a computer, there's no way around it) and I prefer not to watch at home when possible. Of course, I do have Netflix, but I've downgraded myself to a one-disc-at-a-time plan because I simply do not go through them fast enough to justify anything more expensive. It takes me an average of a week and a half, or even two, to summon up the will to sit down in front of the television for two hours and watch a movie. Of course, I'm perfectly happy to stare at the internet for five hours; why the double standard, I do not know.

Also, allow me to take this opportunity to bitch about how poor Netflix's social-networking features are if you're not going between Netflix members. I would kill to be able to link you to my queue page, but unless I'm a total dumbshit, I just don't know how to do it in a way that allows all comers to see it. I also wish they had some kind of API for outputting reviews and ratings to one's website in a relatively pain-free way. Sigh. I couldn't agree with Adam more about this idea.

III. The Movies I Love

First off, there's the formula above, which obviously accounts for, well, My Beautiful Laundrette, plus all three Jurassic Park movies and Being John Malkovich. (And how bad do I want Catherine Keener to appear in a Jurassic Park movie herself? SO BAD.) But I'll throw a big ridiculous list out there anyway (which will veer into alphabetization at the moment I started looking at my DVD rack for inspiration): Fight Club, Rushmore, South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut, Network, Moulin Rouge!, Chinatown, Do The Right Thing, Edward Scissorhands, Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters II, Glengary Glen Ross, Good Night And Good Luck, Monty Python And The Holy Grail, The New World, Twenty-Four Hour Party People, Alien, Blade Runner, Hedwig & The Angry Inch, The Rocky Horror Picture Show... you're starting to see what I mean when I say my tastes are horribly mainstream, aren't you?

IV. The Movies Of 2006

I saw a lot of movies in 2006, many of them a result of participating in The Movie Binge, and not all of them were good. At all. But you can imagine how pissed I was to have seen so many movies and then, when the Oscar noms were announced, to have only seen two of the Best Picture nominees, *none* of the Best Actor performances, etc. etc. Indeed, they nominated out the wazoo a film I desperately steered clear of, since it looked terrible, sounded terrible, and was reported to be terrible by people I trusted (Babel). I have since learned that the Academy really is fucking clueless and I was right to avoid most of the movies I avoided. But still, it's the principle of the thing.

Anyway, here for posterity is a complete list of the 2006 movies that I've seen. They're not ranked, just grouped by quality, and the order within the groupings is irrelevant. Half Nelson is on its way to me today from Netflix, and God knows I'll probably break down and see Babel before the big show on the 25th (maybe I will just download that one, since it really doesn't strike me as a film I need to be supporting with my cash), so I am still trying to get that much more coverage purely as a parlor game, I guess (though I am really looking forward to Half Nelson)...

Loved It:
TRISTRAM SHANDY
TALLADEGA NIGHTS
CHILDREN OF MEN
THE DEPARTED
A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION
VOLVER
CASINO ROYALE
PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST

Liked It:
THE HISTORY BOYS
V FOR VENDETTA
SHORTBUS
THE QUEEN
BORAT
QUINCEANERA
THE DESCENT
BRICK
FRIENDS WITH MONEY
THE WAR TAPES
THE PRESTIGE
THE PROPOSITION
THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED
AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH
LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA

Just OK or Not So Good:
MIAMI VICE
SUPERMAN RETURNS
WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR?
X-MEN: THE LAST STAND
LITTLE CHILDREN
MARIE ANTOINETTE
TIME TO LEAVE
CARS
WORDPLAY
THE ILLUSIONIST
STRANGERS WITH CANDY
PEACEFUL WARRIOR
HOW TO EAT FRIED WORMS
KEEPING MUM
RENAISSANCE
THE FOUNTAIN
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE

Terrible:
LADY IN THE WATER
THE MOSTLY UNFABULOUS SOCIAL LIFE OF ETHAN GREEN
SNAKES ON A PLANE
CLICK
JOHN TUCKER MUST DIE
PULSE
TRUST THE MAN

Didn't See But Wanted To:
INSIDE MAN
DAVE CHAPELLE'S BLOCK PARTY
HARD CANDY
UNITED 93
A SCANNER DARKLY
THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP
INLAND EMPIRE
PAN'S LABYRINTH
BABEL
NOTES ON A SCANDAL
APOCALYPTO
HALF NELSON
FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS

I think it's fair to say that I am not exactly a fashion maven. I am still wearing a pair of jeans I bought in the spring of 2002; indeed, I think of the pair that I purchased in the summer of 2003 as my "new jeans," even though I've bought jeans since then.

My taste in clothes, like my taste in food, is very simple: I am a "jeans and a t-shirt" guy, although I do have standards for both the jeans and the t-shirt*, and I do give a lot of thought to how I look. I just don't have the financial means -- or, barring that, the insider know-how -- to construct a fashion identity for myself that would actually distinguish me in some way. I've never been the kind who enjoys clothes-shopping for shopping's sake (see the first paragraph, obviously), probably in large part because I'm disgusted by how much even my middle-of-the-road clothing (i.e. The Gap or Express Men) costs nowadays. But I do find the business and practice of fashion interesting, even though fashion "types" on the human level tend to irritate me in a way that few other artistic people do (they're right up there with out-of-work theatre actors for their unbalanced Self-Importance / Unbearable Obnoxiousness ratios). Or maybe I'm just talking out my ass because I really like Project Runway, the only reality show in which, despite the drama and amped-up interpersonal bullshit, creativity and accomplishment are actually rewarded. At the end of Project Runway, the contestants have actually done something worth doing -- they've created something -- and we have valued and congratulated them for it; we haven't just watched to see if they'll eat another girl's pussy to impress Flava Flav, or whatever else it is that passes for culture nowadays.

There was a time when I wore my lack of fashion sense -- although it was never a lack of sense, more a lack of willingness to participate -- as a badge of honor. I guess that was my attempt at maintaining some kind of masculine defiance** against the fashion-fag image that most gay men either embrace or have to shrug off (and make no mistake, I still think it's absolutely necessary to shrug that shit off whenever possible). But nowadays I really would like to put more effort into how I look, and I have arrived at a moment where just about every component of my wardrobe, from socks and underwear to shirts and pants to shoes, is ready (in some cases screaming) for a refresh. My unwillingness to spend a shit-ton of money is a huge obstacle, as are my ethical misgivings about how most clothing gets made (despite their sickeningly crude advertisements, I do try to buy American Apparel when possible, purely because it's domestically made on a living wage -- although I also like how their shirts fit), but there's really no reason why I can't gradually introduce a touch more class and style into what I wear over the course of the next year. One thing is for sure, though: I need to stop buying so many damn t-shirts, since I can't wear them to the office. The exception is the winter, when they're always covered with a sweater, but the rest of the year, that eliminates five out of the seven days of the week right there.

Of course, what clothing I can wear connects directly to how my body looks, which is a whoooole other can of worms that doesn't need to be opened in this post (stay tuned, folks!); suffice it to say that I've been planning my clothing reinvention around a hot-sexy-muscular body reinvention that's been, uh, a little delayed for over a year now. I like tight-fitting shirts, but it helps if there's something worth fitting onto under there, y'know? Oh lean, fatless pectorals and non-pencil-width biceps: why have you eluded me for so long?

* For jeans: No baggy legs, good on my butt, generally prefer darker washes to light ones. For t-shirts: Plain, solid colors; band t-shirts (I have entirely too many at this point, though I've taken to using them as home decor as well, which reminds me I need to buy a new set of frames for some of the shirts I've worn out or outgrown); occasionally something with a cool (or, ahem, nerdy) design, a la Threadless or my Magneto Was Right or INVISIBLES #1 t-shirts. (The latter recently purchased from Forbidden Planet; it's the silkscreened grenade from the cover of INVISIBLES #1 on a bright orange t-shirt. Rockin'!) It bears noting at this point that I never, ever wear anything with a clothing manufacturer's logo emblazoned on it. I'm sorry, there's already enough advertising in the world, and I'd prefer to use the real estate on my chest to promote something I support wholeheartedly -- like, say, THE INVISIBLES.

** Josh, if you're reading, I apologize for all the times I gave you shit when we went shopping together for, y'know, giving a shit about clothes. I'm sure you saw right through it and just didn't want to bruise my fragile ego. Thanks for that.

Every so often I wish I could get a blood transfusion -- or maybe a brain-fluid transfusion -- from a serious Type-A personality, as even my sense of organization is, well, disorganized. There are some things in my life that I am rigorous about keeping systemized and totally in control, and there are some things that I'm definitely not. Unfortunately, I'm rigorous about all the wrong things: My CDs, DVDs, and graphic novels. When it comes to, say, financial documents, or my desk space at work... not so much. I'll spend twenty minutes renaming rarely-used files on my computer to have the proper metadata (which I did at work today -- and when it comes to my personal files, such as my iTunes library, you had best believe my iTunes is a thing of beauty), but all of my most important physical files are haphazardly slotted into a small crate that's shoved into the corner of my bedroom, which I've barely looked at for about nine months now. Thank God I'd saved a copy of my 1040EZ from last year on my work computer, because of course I didn't have a printout in my files... I'm not even sure I have a "Taxes" file, and taxes are pretty much the quintessential reason that "grown-ups" (unlike myself) keep files!

The funny thing is that, intellectually, I'm really attracted to organization -- I find it profoundly satisfying, to the point where, no joke, I'll just spontaneously re-alphabetize things -- but I don't follow through on it for anything I'm not emotionally invested in. I'm tempted to sneak into my office on a Saturday sometime and just tidy up my desk and files to the point of glistening perfection, but the rationale for doing so would be that I "just don't have the time" in a regular workday and sadly, I think I do. It's just the fact that I can be so easily distracted -- just like I got distracted last night and fell off the posting wagon after only four weekdays... I do intend to make that post up; possibly this weekend, but possibly later. I've been looking at my spreadsheet of topics for this series -- another of my random spurts of organization -- and am realizing that most of them should properly be much longer posts than I'd been planning for, so it will take some -- ha ha -- organization of my free time to really do them justice. Oh well, I've been putting off the last two dungeons in ZELDA for two weeks now (I know, right?), so what's a couple more days?

So yes, it's time to follow up the post about how I'm happy to work a job I love for not a lot of money with a post filled with whining about not having enough.

Of course, it's pretty difficult in modern America to ever get to a place in which you think "You know? I've got all the money I need!" I'd love to be able to say that I'm not a materialistic person in general, but in my moments of brutal clarity, I'd have to say that I actually am. I really like having things, and while my desires don't generally run towards, for example, luxury goods just for the sake of luxury (if I ever own a Rolex, or any goddamn thing with a diamond on it, please have me assassinated), I grew up in a household that had just enough money to give me a taste for comfort without necessarily guaranteeing it for me in the future.

The single greatest thing my parents ever did for me, however, is foot the entire bill for my undergraduate education -- which, at NYU, is not inconsiderable. That wasn't the case for many of my peers, and I'm sometimes almost embarassed by the primary luxury that it gave me, which was to be able to take a job with pay that I can live simply on, instead of being forced to do the kind of work that would pay enough to split between a modest lifestyle and the service of student-loan debt.

So I do have a love for things -- some of them cheap, some of them less so -- but in general, I don't live extravagantly beyond my means. I have one credit card, on which I carry a balance, but it's not maxed out and I use it with extreme circumspection, preferring to use cash or debit for all my expenses. In fact, if all goes according to plan, it'll be completely paid off by the end of the year. But there's always an itch, sometimes a pretty profound one, spurring me on to Find A Way to Buy More Crap. Right now, the itch points me towards an HDTV, but soon it'll find a new target -- a laptop, or furniture, or some other big-ticket item that it would realistically take me several months of financial planning and scrimping/saving to get into the neighborhood of.

I'd like to start tracking my expenses on a much more granular level -- I got very excited about Wesabe when I first joined but something about it isn't working for me, though I need to give it another chance. I also have a crazy idea in my head about making a complete -- and I mean complete -- list of Everything I Want That Costs Money, from electronics to clothing to books to kitchen goods to furniture, just so I can take a long hard look at what it totals up to and start laughing my ass off. And then maybe, just maybe, start saving some money towards crossing things off.

As far as saving goes -- beyond my 401(k), which I do contribute a respectable amount to (and which Time Warner respectably matches -- I might bitch and moan about the cashflow from my job being less than immense, but the Time Warner benefits are wonderful and really do make the overall compensation for what I do quite fair), there's not much happening on that front. I should really probably be saving towards a down payment on an apartment -- I'd love to own a place within the next five years -- but I truthfully haven't figured out how to make it happen yet. I'm not paying an absurd amount for my apartment (New Yorkers are always perfectly willing to tell you exactly how much they pay, which I find both charming and deeply useful, but I'm going to opt not to publish that information here), and my bank account rarely dips below a certain level on a monthly basis, but it rarely gets above that level either, so where the money to sock away would come from I just don't know yet. Which, I guess, is where that granular expense-tracking should come in.

Oh, and one final little tidbit about my relationship to money that you might find either hilarious or depressing: Yes, I play the lottery. Not regularly, mind you, or obsessively, and only when the Mega Millions jackpot gets above a certain level. But I will also admit that I take the usual "Man, what if..." fantasizing a little too far. I have a website bookmarked that calculates the post-tax lump-sum payment that winning Mega Millions would provide you for any given jackpot. And then I take that number and start cruising the New York Times Real Estate listings for fabulous sky-palace apartments I could then afford.

God, I know, so sad. What am I, a compulsive Polish gambler (like everyone else in my neighborhood buying lottery tickets)? But hey, it's like Oscar Wilde said: we are all of us in the gutter, but...

It would seem I don't have enough. The end!

OK, OK. I guess I should say something else.

In general, I'm deeply ambivalent about "ambition" in general. It's difficult for me to disassociate the term with a kind of cutthroat, business-oriented mentality that frankly disgusts me. I'm unique among many of my peers in that I do a job that I love for not a lot of money, and while God knows I could use more money, I have no real plans of pursuing any other occupation that might make me more cash but that I would enjoy significantly less. My only ambition for my professional life is to never do something that I simply despise. If I have to make significant compromises in my standard of living in order to do that, then at least for now, I'm perfectly willing to do so. And frankly, I don't trust people whose goal in life is to climb the corporate ladder simply because it's there, because I simply can't relate to what's animating them. What's waiting for you at home? More precisely, and more importantly, what's waiting inside you when you're alone, with no business to do and nobody to impress? What's keeping you going in those moments? There needs to be something there that isn't your job, and I keep meeting a depressing number of people for whom that core is either absent or exceptionally well-buried, and I never want to be in that place.

As for ambition in a non-professional sense... well, it would seem I often bite off more than I can chew. Take this whole experiment. Obviously I'm posting today's entry with mere seconds to spare before midnight, and I'm posting it from home. Yes, I have used the internet at home in February. Not as much as I would've otherwise, but it has happened. I'm going to try to choke it off further as the month progresses, but going cold-turkey simply didn't work. If I do have one driving personal ambition, it's to be able to cultivate a stronger sense of self-control and the kind of mindset that can get things done and steer me away from my bad behaviors. The results are not immediately encouraging, but we're still in early days...

I am a Democrat, as anyone who's even sort of paid attention to me for any length of time can probably figure out, and as of right now, I'm supporting Hillary Clinton for President in 2008. As I see it, there are only three real contenders for the Democratic nomination:

--Hillary. The bottom line is that I like her. She's profoundly intelligent, she's tough under pressure, her experience is unmatched among the current crop of nominees, her stances on issues are always thoughtful and considered, and even when I don't agree with her I can trust her to never advance a policy that's flat-out batshit insane. She's obviously a shit-magnet on a level that politics rarely sees, but at this point I really think I do subscribe to the argument that there is nowhere for her to go from here but up. She actually is a likeable politician, and as Americans start to see something other than the caricature, I think they'll get on board. Obviously she starts with a pretty broad-based "no" vote staring at her that will never switch, but it's not enough on its own to deny her a victory.

--Barack Obama. There's certainly plenty to like about Obama, but I honestly do feel he's both too young and too inexperienced. In fact, pursuing the nomination this early in his political career tarnishes him as a person and a professional, in my opinion. There's also the fact that really, from a policy perspective, just what the hell does he stand for? I do think a Clinton / Obama ticket would be unbeatable, even with the whiff of patronization it entails, but at this point it is, sadly, kind of a distant pipe dream. Oh well.

--John Edwards. I'm the least drawn to him in general, for two reasons: one is simply the fact that he was part of a losing campaign, which is a crippling liability in the modern super-saturated political landscape, and the other is that he's got kind of an untenable position on gay marriage -- from an ethical standpoint, anyway, though I guess the "I'm conflicted" line is potentially saleable to the part of the American demographic who shares his views. (Don't get me wrong, I'm not deluded enough to think any of the Democratic nominees will legalize gay marriage with one fell swoop the moment they get into office. I could foresee it as an outside-shot second-term development for Hillary, but that's about it. However, the way you talk about the issue matters.)

So yes: Go Hillary. I want a female President (though a black one would be great too [and a gay atheist one would be even better. Maybe a polyamorous Hispanic one with a lot of tattoos and piercings]). The good news is, I wouldn't be upset if any of these three people won the nomination, or the Presidency. So things are already looking bright for 2008, when (cue game show voice) one of these three contestants will face... JOHN MCCAIN! Seriously, I'm going on record, if he doesn't win the Republican nomination I will burn a $20 bill and photograph it. Hold me to this. Also, read this depressing article on McCain's recent campaign hires... oh, Mr. Ethics, where are you now. Though I suppose there's a reasonable counter-argument to say that he's locking up this kind of firepower in order to make sure that somebody with an even shakier moral grounding doesn't get their hands on it...

It's hard to say where it "started" per se. As a child, my house was full of collections of newspaper comic strips -- Garfield, The Far Side, Calvin & Hobbes, Bloom County -- and I devoured them over and over from an exceptionally young age. Those latter three especially are probably responsible for 90% of my intellectual sensibilities and sense of humor, if we're being honest. There weren't many seven year olds out there who found jokes about Conway Twitty funny, but I can still picture every panel of that Bloom County gag. (Best Christmas present received this year: at last, the gorgeous three-hardcover slipcased set of Complete Calvin & Hobbes.) Upon reflection, it's hard to tell if they were bought for me -- I assume they were for my brother, who's ten years older than me, but I never saw him reading them. Maybe because I'd horded them all away in my room.

At some point, like virtually every male American who was a child in the late 80s and early 90s, the Ninja Turtles happened to me. I started reading the Archie Comics series, which starred the animated version of the characters and was significantly toned-down from the Frank Miller-parodizing, much more sophisticated original indie books (though collections of those were given to me as a gift at some point during my Ninja Turtles obsession by a relative who didn't realize there was a whole other strain of Ninja Turtle out there; as a result, again, I was one of the few nine-year-olds who knew who Cerebus was). The chronology's a little hazy, so I'm not sure if reading actual Archie comics, in the form of the digests available at supermarket checkouts, pre-dated my Ninja Turtles period or not, but for a long time they were all I read. I was actually given a dog-eared issue of Marvel Premiere, starring Doctor Strange, by an uncle who'd found it in his garage, but it never grabbed me enough to pull me from the world of teen romance.

It was in fifth grade that the superhero comics shift started. I had a lengthy ride to school on the bus, and I found myself seated next to an older boy (whose name was Joel, and who I now realize was a hopeless nerd, but obviously at the time he seemed so knowledgeable and enviable) who was trading Marvel Universe trading cards, the craze of the moment for everyone, nerd or no, with the other kids. For a while I was collecting those without reading the comics at all, simply absorbing the immense amount of trivia printed on the cards' back. But not for long. One night, before dinner with my parents at the mall, I bought Wolverine #69 and Uncanny X-Men #300 (I think there might've been another, but it escapes me). And that, as they say, was that.

Describing what drew me to specific comics, like the X-Men, is largely beside the point in a post like this. It's the medium I wanted to discuss when I chose this topic. To this day, I'm haunted by my application interview to Harvard: no, I didn't get in, and while I'm sure there were plenty of reasons why I didn't, the one that's always stuck in my mind is that, when confronted with a point-blank question -- "What is it about comics that makes them worth pursuing to you as an art?" -- I completely miffed it. I've never been a great extemporaneous speaker -- I think on the page, not on the fly -- but at the time I simply hadn't put the thought into the topic that it, and Harvard, demanded. Have I now? It's hard to say.

The most common defense of comics I see bandied around is a simple one-liner, generally attributed to American Splendor's Harvey Pekar: "Comics are just words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures." It's true, of course, and they do offer aesthetic possibilities that other mediums can't match. Just one example: in comics, space and time can be conflated in ways that no other art form can match. How a moment or a storytelling beat is conceived intellectually and emotionally by the reader is directly connected to its status as an object, as a form in space, printed on paper: in the rudimentary sense, a big panel equals a big moment, but when linear panel structure is abandoned that relationship can be made infinitely more complex. And as a content distribution system, they're immensely satisfying to tinker with: serial storytelling? Graphic novel? Webcomic? One-panel gag? Each of those formats changes the artistic toolbox a creator draws from in ways it can take a lifetime to master. Comics are generally lauded (or derided) for their "simplicity," for their easy readability, but to go beyond readability and into serious aesthetic accomplishment, a skillset must be developed that rivals a director's eye or a novelist's discipline.

We're finally getting to a place where comics as a form can be separated from comics as content in the historical sense: comics have traditionally meant lurid stories, with superheroes dominant and pulp-themed genre material as the only secondary market, but years of smart, creative people who were raised on the ambitious comics of the 70s and 80s are finally growing into their roles as cultural tastemakers who can counteract those stereotypes, either from within the medium or from outside in other art forms. I couldn't be happier about this: comics are not just about superheroes in the same way novels aren't all about lawyers (thank you John Grisham), and I feel profoundly blessed to be part of a generation who can read comics and not have to deal with that ghetto mindset their entire lives. But there's of course no denying the charm in comics' humble roots, and the unique sensibilities that grow out of a childhood steeped in intense fantasy, be it superhero or otherwise. It's the same for any nerd subculture, I suppose, but I'm proud of (many) comics nerds: they're passionate people who value, well, fun, and people who value both fun and artistic expression are always going to be my tribe. The almost infinite detail of the shared super-hero universes, the dream-logic that holds their rickety parts together, the berzerker imaginations that created them... there's a lot to love there.

Which is not to say a lot of reprehensible traits don't get bred into some comics fans. One of the things that continues to drive me absolutely batshit is the simply despicable sexism that still pervades just about every level of the industry and the culture: from the oftentimes questionable treatment (and costuming*) of too many female characters, to the social organization that excludes girls and women who read comics from the "club" (currently visible in the profound disconnect between the predominantly female-oriented manga market and the still-phallocentric American market), to the institutions that have kept female creators and other professionals from equalling male influence. It's most visible in the mainstream, but the art-comics scene certainly isn't blameless either.

But again: that's just what's been built on top of the medium, the art form. And while I do have an immense (if occasionally misplaced) affection for the comics industry, and the comics culture, and while it's becoming increasingly evident that I'm going to try to spend my entire professional life immersed in both, it's important to me that my experience of comics never stop simply at those, that I always continue to read comics with an analytical eye, with a focus on teaching myself how to make great art with these tools, or how to even come close. As I've said before, it could take a lifetime, and while I'm well aware of the fact that I'm immersing myself in something that so very many people will never see, or benefit from, or even understand, I believe it's right for me.

*OK, here's a mini-rant for you, which was perhaps more relevant in the mid-to-late 90s then it is now, but which sadly still needs to be said. In a universe where every pornographic image you could ever desire is available to you for free, on the Internet, in the privacy of your own home, then why in God's name would you want your titillation delivered to you in the form of drawings of half-clothed women? I mean seriously, what's hotter about a superheroine in a thong and thigh-high boots, with an anatomy -- from the breasts right through to the length of the torso -- that couldn't ever possibly exist... what's hotter about that than about a real woman having real sex, even when filtered through pornography's concept of "reality?" I'm sure I know the answer to that question, but it's such a depressing answer. Is even the suggestion of a real human being -- even a still photograph of one, robbed of all context -- really too frightening? Is an infinitely compliant drawing the only thing the sexual imagination of these people can properly engage with? I mean, don't get me wrong, I have no problem with comics characters being attractive (here's looking at you, Cyclops, Connor Kent, and Kyle Rayner), or incorporating a sexual dimension into their characters. Sex is great, sex is awesome, sex will be a topic in this essay series later. But please, please, please, can't it have SOME bearing on the kind of sex and bodies that exist in the real world? Can't it be about sex, and not something so far removed from sex that it ceases to be a recognizable or even semi-healthy social or emotional experience?

So yes: this is Day 1 of the great No Recreational Internet Challenge (in which I prevent myself from using the internet at home for the entire month of February). Whither this blog during that time?

I hereby announce the "On Everything" experiment. Every weekday this month, I will publish (from my office on my lunch break) a new entry in the On Everything series -- one post a day in which I simply speak my mind on a given topic. I'm currently drawing up a list of subjects, but they will range from the weighty to the absolutely absurd, and might range in length from serious treatises to one-line gags. I'm sure I'll be able to think of enough topics to fill the time, but if you have suggestions, kick 'em into the comments.

This is predominantly a brain-training exercise, but it's also one little notch of structured time, as I'll have to sit down each night and compose the next day's entry in advance. I have absolutely no concept of how long I'll keep it going, but it be nice to get straight through the month. That said, if you stop by one day and don't see a post, it is possible that maybe I've just got that post behind privacy protections. Of course if you stop by two days in a row and there are no posts, well, I've probably fallen off the wagon. Oops.

Anyway, yes, it's a slight cop-out to use this introduction as today's post, but I'm going to do so. It's possible I'll kick a bonus post or two in at a later date to make up for it. And so, andiamo!