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.

Getting "activated" by the other side

So, I'm flipping through the Sunday Hartford Courant as I am wont to do for clipping coupons, etc. Then I come across a full-page ad telling readers to call their legislators and tell them to enact legislation to protect the sanctity of marriage. I clipped out the information because I'm going to call and tell them to protect the sanctity of same-sex marriage. How useful it was to have the numbers printed for me!

In other gay marriage news, did you catch Stephen Colbert's parody of the National Organization of Marriage "gathering storm" or how-the-gays-will-get-us-all-wet-and-confused ad? NOM actually thanked Colbert for the exposure. Now I know that I'm preaching to the choir here at the Idea of Order and I really don't want to turn this into a ranting, screaming match in the comments, but the more I see these ads defending marriage, the more I am bewildered and the more hope I have for same-sex marriage to succeed.

It starts so innocently

One day I'm standing outside looking at a bird soaring in circles in the sky, and I wish that I could figure out how to identify it. Then I mention casually to my neighbor, who is a consummate birder, that I need a hobby that will get me out of the house and is cheap. He gives me my first birding book, and we traipse into the woods. I am an utter neophyte and can't identify even the most common birds (Is that a starling?). Fast forward to some travel -- Los Angeles, in particular -- where I can spy pretty exotic fauna even for the West Coast given the campus' proximity to various landscapes (marsh, cliff, sea, suburban turf). My skills are weak. I spend an hour puzzling over what should be an obvious ID (a group of American Kestrels which I don't identify until I see one fly and the telltale "falcon" wings. Please note, gentle readers that NOTHING looks like a kestrel).
A few seasons pass and I even venture on my own, now easily seeing the common birds and then I find myself at dusk with a group of Audubon birders in a marshy field in the middle of nowhere, listening to the guide trying to flush out a bird in the shrubs with his iPod nano so he can hit it with a spotlight and we can see it. This must be how cults start.

Thursday evening, I paid cash money to attend this outing. We were in search of the American Woodcock, a rarely seen bird except during its mating season in early spring. It's kin to the sandpiper and sticks to its little marshy bogs until it feel compelled to draw out its mate with spectacular aerial acrobatics. It's pretty weird to see a sandpiper like creature in the woods but let me explain its mating dance to those who are still interested enough to be reading (it was the cult comment that got you, right?). After the sun has set, the male woodcock begins to beep in the shrubbery. No, really, it beeps. It sounds like a smoke detector whose batteries are running out (except maybe a little more robot-ey). Then, when the mood strikes it, it begins to beat its wings which make a tremendous noise and it lifts up into the sky, wheeling into wider and wider circles a hundred meters up. I have no idea how the wings make that noise as it flies (and it does so throughout the process), and I lack the metaphoric skills to explain. If you feel so inclined, check out the Cornell Lab where you can hear a recording. Keep in mind that besides the "beeps," all the other noises are from the wings. Then it circles back down rapidly and swoops back to the little patch of land that it is fiercely defending from other males and apparently nosy birders.

The bird we saw that evening flew over our heads to land and it danced around from us after a few spirals (the guide would whisper frantically after it had taken off -- move!! and the group would reposition itself.) We finally got a good look when it was completely dark, and he hit it with the spotlight. Every one trained their binoculars on our prey -- except for me because silly me thought I wouldn't need them at night -- a logical assumption, right? A guy loaned me his so I could get an upclose look which was very nice of him. The light didn't seem to bother the bird but thankfully the light dimmed and we had to leave before we did pester him too much.
I was happy to see it because its behavior is so interesting. I don't know if I will make a habit of going with these groups because I like the peace and quiet of going alone or with only one other person. However, I know that I would never have found this guy without a little assistance of the Pomfret CT Audubon Society.

So ends my tale of adding another bird to my "life list" and it also goes on the list of double-entendre bird names -- the tufted titmouse, the white-breasted nuthatch -- that would make my students laugh.

And I asked about owl walks but apparently fall and winter are the best time to see them. In the spring they just hunker down apparently.