Summer, Fours and a Cult
Drinking tea this morning – coffee is kinda bad around here. I never quite understood why coffee service coffee is just sooo bad but it is. I assume they use a lower grade of coffee but the stuff is so awful that a lot folks both in my company and elsewhere go to one of the Starbucks or the other coffee houses that are near by- so okay you’re saving money on coffee but at any given point in the day you have people wandering around the streets looking for coffee – when they would be at their desks if the coffee you had didn’t taste like battery acid.
It’s summer – it’s not official yet – but the sky this morning was that gray blue with a touch of slate color that you get in NYC when the air is heavy and humid and doesn’t move much. And it just thrills me to remember that I’m breathing this gunk.
Speaking of breathing – it seems that now we weren’t given the fully story on how bad the damn air near ground zero was – I went back to work about 4-5 days after the attack down town – and I remember the smell of and the smoke in the air. We were kind of split between is it safe? And trying to get back to work – we didn’t think that NYC and the Federal government would deliberately endanger us or the people working at the site if the air wasn’t safe. I doubt we’ll be that naïve in the future.
Off to watch The Fantastic Four tonight – although the reviews have been as they all can’t resist saying, less than fantastic. The Enemy Below thinks and I agree with him that the FF is really more of a fan boy movie than say Spider Man or especially X-Men. The X-men’s uneasy relationship to the rest of humanity can be used as a metaphor for the struggles of any minority in a hostile or mistrusting society. And spider man well – the thing with Spider man was his personal life was always falling apart and heck he even lost most of this fights – Schmeal as superhero.
The Fantastic Four are a different kettle of fish – they as heroes – with the exception of Ben Grimm as the Thing lack depth. The whole thing about the FF was that they didn’t get along all the time – like big whoop these days but in 1962 or so when it came out it was a revelation – along with the idea that maybe villains aren’t simply rotten people – there may be reasons they are doing what they are doing.
In some ways it could be just the blandness of the FF that made Stan and Kirby come up with the fantastic worlds and the series of foes and races that they came to fight over the ears. Their main sparing partner Doctor Doom has dark depths aplenty simply to make up I guess for the FF’s shallowness. I didn’t like what they did to him in the first film to have him be changed by the cosmic rays as well as the FF actually limits him as a bad guy – his mind, not ray blasts are his greatest weapon but well the screen writers decided not to do it that way (and added these weird psychological reasons as to why Johnny burst into flame, Sue vanishes and reed stretches and Ben’s well Ben.) So we’ll see.
Personally I’d like to have Galactus and maybe Namor the Sub-Mariner – but hell even Marvel can’t figure out how to handle Namor correctly so maybe that’s better left for some other time.
It’s summer so I’m listening to Blue Oyster Cult again – I don’t know why but when it’s hot they are one of the bands I pop on the headphones. Especially the first three albums – there is something distant and cool and unearthly about them and the thinness of the sound adds to it – their third album – Secret Treaties is the best of what they call their black and white period (the album covers were in Black and White) - At their best here there is a sense of emotional states so complex that words are sadly inadequate to describe them along with a sense of a dark mystery lurking just out side field of vision, you feel it you don’t see it – BOC would go on to huge success with Don’t fear the Reaper and
Burning for you but I have a fondness for their early stuff – later albums would show some of the Band’s lunkhead rock and roll star instincts come to the fore and it would get ugly.
Will be rewatching Starcrash along with Shark Attack 3 (megaton) Tuesday night – wish me luck. I may not be back.
Peace, Love, it’s Cobberin’ Time.
It’s summer – it’s not official yet – but the sky this morning was that gray blue with a touch of slate color that you get in NYC when the air is heavy and humid and doesn’t move much. And it just thrills me to remember that I’m breathing this gunk.
Speaking of breathing – it seems that now we weren’t given the fully story on how bad the damn air near ground zero was – I went back to work about 4-5 days after the attack down town – and I remember the smell of and the smoke in the air. We were kind of split between is it safe? And trying to get back to work – we didn’t think that NYC and the Federal government would deliberately endanger us or the people working at the site if the air wasn’t safe. I doubt we’ll be that naïve in the future.
Off to watch The Fantastic Four tonight – although the reviews have been as they all can’t resist saying, less than fantastic. The Enemy Below thinks and I agree with him that the FF is really more of a fan boy movie than say Spider Man or especially X-Men. The X-men’s uneasy relationship to the rest of humanity can be used as a metaphor for the struggles of any minority in a hostile or mistrusting society. And spider man well – the thing with Spider man was his personal life was always falling apart and heck he even lost most of this fights – Schmeal as superhero.
The Fantastic Four are a different kettle of fish – they as heroes – with the exception of Ben Grimm as the Thing lack depth. The whole thing about the FF was that they didn’t get along all the time – like big whoop these days but in 1962 or so when it came out it was a revelation – along with the idea that maybe villains aren’t simply rotten people – there may be reasons they are doing what they are doing.
In some ways it could be just the blandness of the FF that made Stan and Kirby come up with the fantastic worlds and the series of foes and races that they came to fight over the ears. Their main sparing partner Doctor Doom has dark depths aplenty simply to make up I guess for the FF’s shallowness. I didn’t like what they did to him in the first film to have him be changed by the cosmic rays as well as the FF actually limits him as a bad guy – his mind, not ray blasts are his greatest weapon but well the screen writers decided not to do it that way (and added these weird psychological reasons as to why Johnny burst into flame, Sue vanishes and reed stretches and Ben’s well Ben.) So we’ll see.
Personally I’d like to have Galactus and maybe Namor the Sub-Mariner – but hell even Marvel can’t figure out how to handle Namor correctly so maybe that’s better left for some other time.
It’s summer so I’m listening to Blue Oyster Cult again – I don’t know why but when it’s hot they are one of the bands I pop on the headphones. Especially the first three albums – there is something distant and cool and unearthly about them and the thinness of the sound adds to it – their third album – Secret Treaties is the best of what they call their black and white period (the album covers were in Black and White) - At their best here there is a sense of emotional states so complex that words are sadly inadequate to describe them along with a sense of a dark mystery lurking just out side field of vision, you feel it you don’t see it – BOC would go on to huge success with Don’t fear the Reaper and
Burning for you but I have a fondness for their early stuff – later albums would show some of the Band’s lunkhead rock and roll star instincts come to the fore and it would get ugly.
Will be rewatching Starcrash along with Shark Attack 3 (megaton) Tuesday night – wish me luck. I may not be back.
Peace, Love, it’s Cobberin’ Time.
posted by Unknown at 12:27 PM
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