New London has hit the big time!

Not since the city was burned by Benedict Arnold in 1781 has New London received such attention as it did this past weekend by the New York Times. Boldly, they picture the city as a cute little arts town that New Yorkers can visit. Oh, the artistic humanity!

By the by, I'm trying a new thing by NOT linking everything to Wikipedia. Let's see how long that lasts (even as I am tempted to link the word, Wikipedia, to its home page -- damn you, latent OCD!).

Re-establishing web presence in 3...2...1...

Yeah, well, it was a tough summer and a tough fall. I had so much going on, and, frankly, when I'm down in the dumps, I do not like to blog or reach out. Probably not a good habit. Anyway, what, may you ask, inspired me to write today? I just found out that awesome and acclaimed author, Salman Rushdie, has put out hints about doing a graphic novel. Though I did not watch the talk show event, I am curious what he had to say about Aquaman. (finally a novelization version of the Simpsons' quote "oh Aquaman, you cannot marry a woman without gills. You are from two different worlds!").

Though I should be packing, cleaning, etc

I just had to share this with all my friends. Guillermo Del Toro (he of Pan's Labyrinth fame) is planning a Frankenstein film. He's basing his character design on Bernie Wrightson's images. Very cool, no?

Great Caesar's Ghost!

In prep for my graphic novel class that starts (eep!) very soon, I decided that I needed more books. So, I just spent nearly 200 bucks on Amazon. Because a lot of my comics are not kid-friendly, I bought the following, with commentary

Single volume collection of Bone by Jeff Smith (hey, less than 27 bucks for 1300 pages). If you have never read it, it's a lot of fun just for the rat creatures (stupid, stupid rat creatures). I met Jeff Smith at a con a while ago, and he drew me the dragon. I have no idea where that thing is right now.

One Hundred Demons by Lynda Barry (which I should have anyway). I caught some of Barry's work at Krazy, a really weird exhibit of manga, comics, video games, visual art, etc.... in Vancouver last year. (It just closed in New York at the Japan Society). I meant to do a review of the exhibit, and I might on Anime Cake. Anyway, long aside, to my comment about Barry. They had some of her work there, and it's amazing to see in person because she makes a freakin' collage -- something that really can't be represented in print. Or, at least, she did this for her covers. She's just amazing.

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, the film by Hayao Miyazaki. The kids are reading the first volume of the manga and I figured I couldn't show them my fansub of it.

A Drifting Life by Yoshihiro Tatsumi, an autobiographical comic which may not be suitable for them, but I want to read it anyway.

Also, a maybe for them, The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard by Eddie Campbell. You may know as the artist from Moore's From Hell, and as the artist/writer for Bacchus.

Then, I got a bunch of theory related stuff including two books with essays from Mr. Gene!
A Comics Studies Reader (Gene's essay on Chris Ware)
The System of Comics by Thierry Groensteen (which Gene worked on). I have been meaning to buy this book for a long time. I hear it's a quick read! (ha!)
The Language of Comics (which has that same Ware essay I believe).

That's a lot of comics. I figured I could splurge since it's for teaching.

Bergman fest

So, I caught an Ingmar Bergman marathon last night on TCM. It's part of their month of great directors -- tonight is Steven Spielberg (no Jaws though). Before that, at 6:00pm, is Carol Reed who directed the fantastic The Third Man. I always forget how good TCM can be! Anyway, back to Bergman.

Well, it's ironic that I caught this group of films because I had just hit the Bergman sequence in my Netflix queue. Months ago, after watching Fanny and Alexander (a good one to watch around the winter holidays), I decided that I needed to see more Bergman. I had seen the Seventh Seal before as part of a film class in college but I wanted to watch it again. So, I had it at home when it was playing last night. I watched the last hour of it. Then, it went into Wild Strawberries, which has a Fanny/Alexander feel to it. Bittersweet. Lovely. I was completely drawn in. The other film I watched was Persona which was bizarre but equally compelling. Think David Lynch directing Single White Female -- which he kinda did with Mulholland Drive. Actually, I could see a great deal of Bergman's influence on Lynch. I am not even going to try to parse what happened in this movie, but the gist of it was an actress who, in the middle of doing Elecktra, decided to stop speaking. A nurse stays with her at a summer house and then things get weird(er). It was beautifully shot and I couldn't keep my eyes off Liv Ullman (the actress). It's obvious that Bergman started his affair with her during this shoot because when we look through the camera at her, you can't help but feel that as well.

The last film was The Hour of the Wolf but I couldn't stay up to watch. I was Bergmaned out. As a funny sidenote, my first introduction to Bergman was a really funny spoof of The Seventh Seal by the cartoon show Animaniacs.

Blah, blah, blog

Just checking in with all you good people. I'm leading services this Friday night if anybody is around and interested. Starts at 7:30. I'm also docenting on Sunday for Victorian Days in Willi. I'm at the Conant house. I'll try to go to other houses since I know some of you will be working, too (Cheryl, are you?).

I know this is a scattered post, but anybody needs a month of Netflix, let me know. I have a free month. Hmm, what else. Oh, and Kate, send me Brad and Liz's snail mail address and I'll send you notes from Connecticut. I'll e-mail you too but I forgot before I logged off there.

Yes, I'm still alive! More structured posts (yeah, right) later. Saw Star Trek with the Queen last Saturday. Review forthcoming. And did anybody read Crumb's Genesis in this week's New Yorker? What did you think?

Songs from the Heart

I don't know how many of you were listening to NPR this evening but there was one story that moved me. It's been a year since that terrible earthquake in China, and NPR has had a correspondent in the area following various stories. In this one, she interviews people who have put together an album of songs based on children's tunes (and enhanced with electronica and various ambient noise). "Song for Mama" opens with the "beat" of construction, then we hear the mother telling her son, who is living far apart from her, to study and be strong (or something like that). Then we hear the boy's plaintive song to the moon, asking it to carry his love to his mother. I was in tears because it was so lovely. Then, there was an amazing "Tibetan rap." You can hear the full story and the songs at npr.org. The title of the album is "Afterquake" and I've already bought it. Proceeds go to the reconstruction.