There and back again....and again.

  I took a different route out of the Shire, than most, to find my love of Tolkien's Middle-Earth.
Growing up, in the 70's, I had watched the Hobbit cartoon on network television(back when
everybody had 4-10 channels depending on which way you turned your antenna.) I liked it well
enough. I never knew it was a book, though. Then in high school, my dad and I rented the Lord of the
Ring cartoon and saying we hated it is really being too nice. Thus a Shadow fell over my interest in
Middle-Earth. Tolkien was as lost to me as the True Ring at the bottom of the Anduin.

 While taking a break during an overnight shift in a grocery I was reading an Entertainment Weekly
article about the films and the history of the books when I came across the line (and I'm paraphrasing)
"read by millions."   READ by millions. READ BY millions. READ BY MILLIONS! I'd barely even
heard of the books. Nobody I knew ever talked about the Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings and I
played Dungeons and Dragons. A percentage of my friends should have talked about it. So, I'm
I'm skeptic. I asked two guys, on the night crew, if they read them. They said, yes. I think I asked my
then wife if she read them. She may have said the Hobbit but not the trilogy.  The absolute BEST
response was my younger sister. Her response was; "Yes, back in high school." (13 years ago, at this
point.) I said, "We went to the same high school. I never read those." Her reply, "Well, you always
were a bit slow." Apparently.

 Needless to say, nobody likes feeling left out. I went to Border's bookstore, later that day, and bought
the trilogy and the histories but not The Hobbit. Since they weren't making that movie and the article
referred to it as a kid's story published almost two decades before I passed on it. The Fellowship of
the Ring, I loved. Absolutely, loved it. Personal 'Top Five' favorite of mine, now. I finished it right
before the first film hit. The next summer, I, totally, struggled through The Two Towers. I believe I
spent a month on a chapter with Frodo and Sam walking, somewhere. I had it read before the movie
came out though. Finally, the summer after, I completed The Return of the King. That one I liked
better than the second book but not anywhere near as much as I liked the first. I never did read the
Appendices or the Histories or the Elven language guide. I did, however, use the crap out of the A to
Z guide to Middle-Earth by Robert Foster. I also of course purchased all the extended versions of the
movies. I felt fulfilled, now. Like a hobbit smoking South Farthing tobacco.

 Jump ahead a few years and I finally get around to reading The Hobbit. I liked that book as well.
Then, like Bilbo at his 111th, I left the Shire. Until, I joined a role playing group and several of
us started debating the books, a lot. Even just going out for a beer we would talk about the books for
hours. Texts passing back and forth, even in the middle of the night, debating Middle-Earth 
economics, race relations and lines of lineage. Somewhere, in there, we determined Bilbo was
autistic. We caught the rerelease of the trilogy in theaters and caught the release of The Hobbit.

I started a book club. We had numerous meet ups on the Hobbit, over the summer. There's another 
one this Saturday. We've really gotten deep with Middle-Earth. I've gotten deep with Middle-
Earth. I've come to love it. I'll share it as I go. I just purchased a Blu-ray and the first thing I
bought was the Extended Edition Trilogy. Also, I've started rereading the Fellowship.

Since the holidays are coming and I get busier, at this time of year, this blog will be my outlet. I
didn't go deeper into what I've liked or my actual thoughts because I just wanted to give you my
history. I will cover many topics and what they mean to me.

                   My current collection and I know there's one missing. It's in my backpack.
     

I know. I lied.

This is post you can either read or ignore. It just all depends on whether you want to know the background of the characters now or discover them as I did as I read Starman each month.

Everything that follows next is a page out of the above pictured comic book: Starman Secret Files and Origins. All profiles were written by James Robinson. All pencils were drawn by Tony Harris.

Holy crap!! It's still here!!

    Through some inexplicable reason this blog stopped before it really got started.  I really don't have time to do it now but I need an outlet. So, I'm going to make time.

  It's going to be about anything and everything from my dogs, to places I go, the movies I watch, the teams I follow but it's mostly go to be about the books I read.

 Currently, I am rotating between the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, books about the Revolutionary War (mainly concerning George Washington's part and the latest Star Trek book series, The Fall, which I just finished the fourth book I the series The Poison Chalice. Lest I forget, Terry Pratchett's  Hogfather, my current book club selection.

The opinions are mine alone. I may be right I could be wrong. I definitely think a makeover is do.

Hell of a way to start a comic isn't it?

When you pick up a
new comic book about a new superhero you certainly do not expect to see this happening within the couple pages. Makes for a real short volume run for the book but instead of this being the end on page 3 this is the beginning of an 81 issue run of a book (not counting a couple of annuals, some specials, and a spinoff mini series) of a hero was totally unlike any other hero in a comic being sold in stores at the time.





Starman which was written by British author James Robinson and pencilled by Tony Harris debuted in mid-1994 for DC comics. It was not as edgy as something in DC's Vertigo line but was totally different than the other more commercial comics (i.e. Superman, Batman) being put out at the time.





The titular character on the cover is Jack Knight(some what based on author James Robinson himself)who is the son of the original Golden Age Starman, Ted Knight, and younger brother of David Knight, the Starman whose demise is pictured at the top. Oddly enough this wasn't David's last appearance through out the series. Pretty good for a dead man.





The series is set in fictional Opal City, situated in the Eastern-U.S. Later to be designated somewhere in Maryland. It is a city with a port but not on the coast.





This series also one of the most unusual supporting casts of comic history:The Shade, The Mist, The O'Dare family, Phantom Lady, the Black Condor and a few mainstream heroes as well.





I'm going to do this on an issue by issue basis as I have the complete run. So there will be a beginning, middle, and end to this blog as well. I'm trying to revisit something I enjoyed while I was younger and improve my skill set as well.





Next:Falling Star, Rising Son-Sins of the Father:Part 1

Snow White Redux

“Oh shit! Somebody is coming. I’m going to go hide in the bedroom. Since I can‘t fit through the windows.”
Sounds like more than one person. I thought this was a playhouse. Dammit. They’re armed.
The first voice asked, "Who has been sitting in my chair?"
Uh, me.
The second one , "Who has been eating from my plate?"
Still me.
The third one, "Who has been eating my bread?"
Look. It was only a couple of pieces.
The fourth one, "Who has been eating my vegetables?"
Really? Someone’s in your house and your first thought goes to your garden?
The fifth one, "Who has been eating with my fork?"
I am a fairy princess, not an animal.
The sixth one, "Who has been drinking from my cup?"
Sorry, bottle doesn’t cut it. Fairy princess. Shit, they’re coming to the bedroom. I’ll fake sleep.
How cute they think I’m beautiful. They need to watch it with the candles near my face. If they don’t touch me I won’t move. This is comfy. Wonder what the thread count is?
The next morning.
Is that the sun? Holy shit. I’m surrounded.
"My name is Snow White." No sense of recognition. There goes my ego.
"How did you find your way to our house?" the dwarves asked. May as well tell the truth on this. Give me time to think of a way to get word to somebody.
The dwarves spoke with each other for awhile and then said, "If you will keep house for us, and cook, make beds, wash, sew, and knit, and keep everything clean and orderly, then you can stay with us, and you shall have everything that you want." Oh great, they’ve got me confused with Cinderella. Do I smell like I’ve been bathing in mouse shit and pumpkin? "Yes," I answered with my prettiest smile, "with all my heart."
“For I greatly enjoy keeping a tidy home.” One man’s fairy princess is seven others whore.

Powder this.

In Tobias Wolff’s “Powder” it is not so much a story about father and son sharing a day but about the dynamic between father and son. It truly is a case of loving somebody for what they are and not hating them for what they aren’t. Every action that was committed this day by the father was just another in a long line of deeds that the son just chose to accept as ‘Dad being Dad’ with the underlying motive that the father really did want the relationship to continue. The father wanting to take his son on a skiing trip before Christmas must really put on a sale job to his wife, that he has been separated from and has had custody of the son since their split. This was referenced in the second sentence of a shockingly short two sentence opening paragraph- “He’d had to fight for the privilege of my company because my mother was still angry with him...”(2). This would say to me that this was a father who had love for his son and wanted to have him in his life and show him culture. As his crime was “….for sneaking me into a nightclub during his last visit, to see Thelonius Monk.” (2) The father wasn’t just taking him and introducing him to the night club scene but to see a musician who is considered to be one of the giants of American music. A non-loving father, in a similar situation, may have stood there like a batter who had gotten the ‘take’ sign from the third base coach and let the pitch, from the wife, go by for a strike. The father had to convince her like a child pleading to a mother.
Despite the promises, and the worsening visibility due to the oncoming snow, to have the son back early the father is clearly living in the moment. “He was indifferent to my fretting.”(9) This is an interesting case of role reversal with the father conning to stay for more runs down the slope and the son being the one to despair about getting home on time. As it is usually the parent with the weight of responsibility and not the child. The son’s love for his father comes forth when he admits, “By now I couldn’t see the trail. There was no point in trying. I stuck to him like white on rice and did what he did and somehow made it to the bottom without sailing off a cliff.”(13). It really is an admission of not only love but trust and faith to follow somebody blindly not just figuratively but literally in this instance through the powder. All traces of despair, spoken and unspoken, made trivial to the experience.
Then we have a role reversal of a role reversal. The father then steps up and accepts the responsibility but not in a way that would be considered normal. There begins a “Do what I say and not what I do?” paradigm. To get you home, I’m breaking the law by going through the barricade. Don’t you do it. To get you home, I’m driving down an uplowed road of fresh powder. Don’t you do it. The father even goes as far to explain why by admitting that his son has strong points that he doesn’t have, “Easy. You always think ahead.” (34) At that the son settles in and lets “Dad be Dad” for the rest of the trip.
They made it home in time for dinner. Did the dynamics change? Only when it came to the little lessons on the ride back. The son was still more the adult and the father more like a child. The son knows what his father is “…in his 48th year, rumpled, kind, bankrupt of honor, flushed of certainty.”(39)


Work Cited
Wolff, Tobias. “Powder. An Introduction to Literature Eds. Sylvan Barnet, William Burto, and William E. Cain. 15th ed. New York: Longman, 2008. 18-20