Madiba

The death of Mandela was a celebrity death, but one where there was a lot of personal feeling.

There have been a lot of eulogies going around, and I don't really have anything to add to them. I was talking to my sister Maria on the way home from church, and we were talking about what people should know. I mentioned three points. They were the exact same three points that I then saw in a piece in the commentary section of the paper, and that was by a writer I have become sort of disillusioned with. It was pretty deflating; nothing original to say here. Move on.

However, the reason we were talking was not because Maria did not have her own love for Mandela, and memories of him, but because her Sunday School class (16 year olds) knew nothing about him. They knew there was a movie, Invictus, but they didn't really know anything about it.

It was not too surprising. One of the sad stories we tell is that when we were showing Invictus to some friends, we did have to explain a lot, and the worst was when one girl asked if that (Apartheid) was why South Africa split from North Africa. I initially didn't answer because I didn't believe it was a serious question, but it was.

Anyway, I was still kind of okay with that, but a friend posted that her kids didn't really know about him either. They were younger, so it was less surprising, but someone else commented that it was better that way, to not put hate in young hearts, and I knew that was absolutely wrong.

I'm not saying that it's impossible that anyone could get ideas on how to be oppressive from history, but I know that it is really possible for people to forget the very real ways in which people were oppressed, and then to minimize them.

Mandela died on December 5th, 2013. On December 5th, 1955, a mass meeting was held in Montgomery, Alabama to see if the bus protests that had started with Rosa Parks' arrest would continue. That boycott was a significant and important thing, and it still matters now. What is happening in United States prisons and with drug policy now is important. What is happening now with GOP-led efforts to disenfranchise large populations is important, and it is still real.

Studying this type of history is valuable because it reminds us of the good and bad of how people can be, and it shows us what works.

For my own memory of Invictus, they briefly mentioned some of the meetings and trips to get investment in South Africa, and it took me back to various efforts here to get countries and corporations to divest from South Africa. I have written before about the Black Student Union at University of Oregon asking the Student Union to not sell Coke products on one day a week. I remember thinking it didn't seem like it could have that much of an impact. Looking back now, I think they felt that if they asked for more, they would not be able to get it. I also realize that the focus on corporate activity may have been a direct result of feeling that there was no way Reagan was going to exert any pressure.

And I remember Artists United Against Apartheid, and "Sun City". When Paul Simon went to South Africa and worked with South African artists, I thought he was flouting it, though possibly in a good way, but I didn't understand what Sun City was, compared to the rest of the country, and why having popular artists boycott it would be important. There was so much that was poorly understood here.

Years later, having read more and seen more, there is still so much more. The story of how the power imbalances and racial divisions grew in South Africa may not be that different from many tales of colonialism and slavery, but we forget those stories. It was while reading Long Walk To Freedom that I began to make the connections between how Communism and Nationalism relate to each other; there are things there that relate to current politics, even if no one is calling themselves Communists or Nazis.

There are lessons in patience, and planning, and why some people might feel like they need to consider violence. And for the handful of people who still call Mandela a terrorist, it might be worth exploring how they spoke about the Contras, for example. And surely there is a lot we can learn from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

I want people to know more about Mandela, because he was a very special man. His ability to see the individual and the mass, going back and forth between small and big pictures, was invaluable, and his ability to find joy in it was inspiring.

But there is more to the story. I said I wanted to see a comic book about not just Mandela, but the ANC and Biko and Mbeki and de Klerk and Esterhuyse. Some of them are still alive, but they won't be forever. This is a good time for it.

So, last night I wrote to Top Shelf Comix, who put out March and The Montgomery Story, to request it, because I need to be the change I wish to see in the world.

Related posts:

First mention of wish for Mandela comic: http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/12/positive-words-and-images.html

Review of other Top Shelf Comix: http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/12/comics-review-march-and-montgomery-story.html

Really old post on college politics that mentions the boycott: http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2006/07/lame-ducks.html

Adjusting

"Jane went back into the kitchen to the inexorable tasks that death has no power, even for a day, to blot from existence. He can stalk through dwelling after dwelling, leaving despair and desolation behind him, but the table must be laid, the dishes washed, the beds made, by somebody."

from Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin

I first read that in grade school, I think, and it made a big impression on me then, and it's still something I think from time to time. Lately, it was because we had to put Jane down.

We got our first greyhound by accident, and then my mother started working with the adoption group around 1995. We have taken in a lot of old ones and ones with health problems, and we have had other dogs and cats, so I have been down this road before, but that never really makes it easy.

I read recently that children don't have a sense of permanence about things, so even if you deal them that death is permanent, they don't really believe it. My first thought from that was that parents should not shield young children from death, because it's better for them to get used to it early, while it doesn't seem so bad. Pets can be a good part of this. They are valuable for teaching caring and kindness and responsibility, but also for teaching us about death.

I've lost people that I love, but never someone who was a part of my daily life, so a lot of what I understand of grief comes from them. Normally Forest would be at my hip the moment I reached the door, or Jenny would be sitting there, but no, they're gone. Each jostle of memory retells the story until at some point it shifts mentally and we know they are dead.

With Jane it came really fast, because it happened the day before Thanksgiving, and Jane was our difficult dog. Normally we had to keep a basket on top of the garbage to keep her out even when there was nothing special in it, so turkey wrappers and giblets would need to be carried outside immediately, but not this time. There were doors that did not need to be closed, and things that did not need to get put out of reach, and if that had been a relief I would have felt guilty, but it was only sad.

Still, I needed to cook dinner, and we needed to clean up, and there were phone calls that I needed to make. I still have a job. With all the reminders we have of who is gone, there are even more reminders that we are still alive. We still get hungry and tired and being happy isn't a betrayal because it's a necessity.

We got Jane after Suzy died, and while we had thought we would be okay with two dogs, I noticed that our two older ones were sadder and slower, and so we got a young one. She annoyed them terribly, because of many of the traits that made her Jane, but she also cheered them up.

Jane's death left us with a single dog, and he was one we got for free due to the previous owners deciding, after four years, that they wanted a small dog. (I normally advise on not judging, you have a dispensation here.) Geno is very mellow, and very focused on people. Also, vet bills keep getting more expensive, and we were thinking, maybe we can be okay with one dog and one cat. Maybe we need to cut back.

It seemed like that was what we were going to do, but I noticed subtle things about him, where I felt like he wasn't doing as well. Mom was a wreck, too, and I started remembering how much getting Maeve helped after Max died, and how much Jane pepped up Jack and Randi. It is not a betrayal, it is a necessity. I knew we had to get another dog.

Now we have Adele. She is very shy, and she is straight from the kennel, so everything about having a home is new. We have had shy dogs who have been in homes, and we have had confident dogs who came straight from the kennel, but this combination is new.

It has its difficulties. She is scared to tell us when she needs to go, which makes it hard while we are still teaching her where to go. Tonight we will work on sitting in the living room, which as the social hub is the most desirable, but as the open space is the most terrifying. We'll get there.

That night after we put Jane down, many people said kind things, and I couldn't respond until I just got everything out, and I did that, but mainly the overwhelming thing was how connected I am to life. I am connected by my needs and my responsibilities, and sometimes the lines blue a little between them, but the best part is how much of the connection is love.

And then everybody died

There have been three recent deaths that will influence the posts this week, but today will focus on just one.

I wrote recently that there will always be someone who will tell you that you are doing it wrong. I was writing in the context of how to be a member of your marginalized group, but I have seen a lot lately that applies to internet use, after reading a piece on how basically posting anything at all makes you insufferable, one on the wrongness of selfies, and several reactions to the reactions (meta-reactions?) to the death of Paul Walker.

I have seen part of She's All That, but nothing else. I didn't think Walker was bad looking, but I wasn't particularly attracted to him. I did not know about his charity, his daughter, or his tendency to date 16 year old girls, or anything really, and I would not know those things if he were still alive. I was pretty indifferent, basically.

I still felt bad that he died. It didn't seem real, but it was, and you start seeing messages about it. Because I had been so indifferent before, I thought about whether it made sense to post something. Just "RIP Paul Walker" is pretty perfunctory. I have done it for others, though generally they meant more to me. Still, it meant something.

I was thinking about it more, because someone had tweeted recently about learning that Ken Ober was dead. He died in 2009. I knew it happened, and I was not indifferent on that one.

Ken Ober was the host of an MTV game show "Remote Control". I watched it in high school, and I loved it. When I was on Jeopardy, I was talking with some of the other contestants in the green room about other shows we would have wanted to do, and one of guys had attended a taping, so three of us were talking about the show, and how he had died, and it was important.

They never really announced a cause of death. Based on the symptoms and the time of year when he died (November), it sounds like flu, but he wasn't super famous, there was not a lot of press, and I think it kind of led to a lack of closure. Maybe you shouldn't need closure for a person you watched on a show over twenty years ago, but I know when I saw the one tweet, I had to reply. What I replied added nothing, and I felt kind of silly, but I had to, and if anyone else mentions Ken Ober in the future, I will have to say something, because that's how it is.

I think there is this process we go through in terms of coping with death, where we have to build this acceptance and comprehension that they are dead and we are not. With the people we know, there are memorial services, and commiserating with others, and we tell the story enough times that we believe it is true. We go over details, and are frustrated when we don't have details, and then sometimes we get details and are still frustrated because it still doesn't seem right.

We don't know celebrities, but we know of them, and so we know they are dead. Not being in their circle, we don't get to take part in the same way, but maybe we do need something.

I did not do a Facebook status update or tweet for Paul Walker, but I saw many people that wished him a peaceful rest, which I respect. This was shortly followed by complaints about the trite nature of them, though more with Lou Reed, because many people who did appreciate Lou Reed knew that others did not truly appreciate him enough. We'll now repeat the process with Peter O'Toole.

Having been through that thought process, I got what they were saying. Paul Walker was nothing to me, except a human being, whom I knew about, who died. That was enough to make me feel something, and for people who had seen his movies, or had thought about him more, well, I can't really criticize anyone for caring that someone is dead.

Later criticisms involved the lack of caring for others, like the other passenger, Roger Rodas. It does not feel the same, because we did not know him, but we could have. I saw a picture of friends trying to come to the rescue. I don't know their names, but there were emotions coming through in the picture, and I felt something there.

There is a powerful concept here, that has been tested. If you make a charity appeal focusing on a general problem, with a large number, or if you focus on one person, people respond more to the one person. If you try and combine the approaches, it can still be less effective than just focusing on the one. Therefore, the most important piece of recent journalism this week may be http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/invisible-child/#/?chapt=1, because there are many children and families who need help, which is daunting, but people can focus on Dasani, and they are responding to her.

A news story Saturday night added another thought. They were playing the final recordings of the Hotshots crew who died this summer. I did not know any of them, but I read John Maclean's Fire on the Mountain last year, about a different fatal fire. Because of the similarities, I felt things there. I understood what certain things meant, and what it would lead to.

Usually when we talk about death, we focus on how you need to appreciate life now, and the people you have now, and that is valid. What I am thinking about now, though, is needing to be open to more.

One theory about the charity campaign thing is that having a large number feels overwhelming. We feel free to care about one, but maybe we are scared to care about 22000 homeless children in New York, or 3.9 million people displaced by a typhoon, or 7 billion people on Earth.

As understandable as that is, we are capable of caring a lot more than we think, if we do it incrementally. In conversations and in books and in surprising ways, we expand. So talk more, ask more questions. Read more books. Make more eye contact. Smile at strangers, maybe even greet them if you're feeling really wild. 

And don't suppress your impulse to care about something, even if you are not sure how to express it meaningfully. Caring is one of the best things about us, so it the last thing we should leave latent.

Band Review: Benhur

This is getting posted very late. Some of that does relate to today being a busy day, but a big part of it was difficulty in listening to the band's music.

The video for "Lay Me Down" is pretty easy to find, and I was able to listen to "Walk On Through" pretty easily as well, but things that I thought I had found would not come up when I tried to find them again. They are on Spotify, but searches were frequently fruitless.

I think part of this is getting confused between searching on Benhur and Ben Hur, both of which I did multiple times, but a big part of it is similarly named search results. In addition to results related to Ben Hur (mainly movie, but the book could come up too), there are other musicians, including four unrelated albums on the profile when you find Benhur. And while Benhur is apparently only the title for Allahindan Bul's album, it seems to be the band name for the Sabor Latino AND the reggae guy, which is really only to say that my listening experience was disjointed and frustrating separate from the music, and so I still feel like I don't have a handle on it.

I can tell you that the albums that are definitely for this Benhur are Tryst from 2008, and this year's Between Flower and Hive. I have focused more on the more recent music, and I think it has a more mature sound, but I do like "Start Again" from Tryst pretty well.

The more recent music is generally kind of quiet, a little downbeat but still hopeful. "Walk on Through" is a little more rock - there is a beat that reminds me a bit of the Strokes or Queens of the Stone Age, and the band does have some guitar chops, but then is goes back to something quieter.

Still, the easiest starting place is the video for "Lay Me Down" which in muted sounds and colors goes somewhere you weren't expecting, and it goes where it should and comes out right, but there is still pain in that, which works with the song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJnKvOTRUz8

http://www.benhur.ca/

https://www.facebook.com/benhurband

https://twitter.com/benhurband

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJnKvOTRUz8&feature=youtu.be

Band Review: Ben Landis

Ben Landis is a pop-rock and chiptune songwriter. If that did not make immediate sense to you, we were in the same boat.

As I started listening, it was clear from all the beeps and boops that this was music inspired by classic 8-bit videogames. Wikipedia defines chiptunes as "synthesized electronic music produced (or emulated) by the sound chip of vintage computers, video game consoles, and arcade machines, as well as with other methods such as emulation.

With that in mind, it made sense, and it was pretty fun, but I was thinking that was probably something he was doing more for fun than as a career, and then I saw the link to buy Adventures in Pixels. This is an album/comic hybrid, where each track has a comic page embedded as album art, so you can listen and visually follow the progress of the story, making it, I think, my first legitimate concept album of the year.

And I still didn't know if that would be everyone's bag - a long time spent listening to the high-pitched sounds that you tend to get with 8-bit could be jarring for a lot of people - but still, what a neat, neat idea.

Going over the Soundcloud page, there is a lot of variety. There is collaboration with other artists, and there are different moods and styles, and there is quite a bit of nostalgia, because we have all played those game.

So this is something unique and fun, and there is a lot available on Soundcloud.

http://music.adventuresinpixels.net/

https://soundcloud.com/benlandis

https://twitter.com/benlandis

Positive words and images

I've been doing a lot of writing, rewriting, and rearranging for these last few posts. I will probably still wander a lot.

Monday's reviews were built on a few things, including some really nasty writing about Pretty Deadly, but also frequent slurs against female writers and artists, and against female characters. I thought about four female creators who mean a lot to me, realized they all had current projects, and so reviewing them seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

I came to Becky Cloonan because of Killjoys, but once there, she is the reason that I took any interest in Swamp Thing. Not only did she draw some of the most beautiful work I have ever seen, but she promoted it. Just seeing one page of Amy Reeder's art on Halloween Eve, I had to track it down. I did not know the name, but it was so visually compelling I had to know.

Back at the time of the MOOC I was still unfamiliar with a lot of this, but I was instantly drawn to Kelly Sue DeConnick's passion in talking about not just her work, but other work. Listening to her at ICAF has taught me so much about collaboration, and writing. Gail Simone has not just been a key figure in writing comics, but she is a consistent cheerleader for them. Comic stores need help, and she reached out to them, offering to re-tweet sales and specials, and then doing it. (And yes, I love her for her work on Women in Refrigerators, but that is not all she knows or does.)

So my first thought when I see any criticism of any of them is "What kind of idiot are you?" And I thought this might end up being a feminist piece today, but it appears to be getting a bit more complicated, because I nearly got sidetracked by a Facebook post.

It was a friend of a sister, but she read it to me, and it was so appallingly ignorant. It was wondering why young black men were so violent, because the jails are full, and that can't be that all the police are racist, and we really need to start using the death penalty.

That was just what I remember. Initially we both felt like there was too much ignorance there to even start, and then I decided I did need to say something, and wanted the exact text, and she checked back and it was deleted.

(Let me just throw out there that prison population is largely due to drug enforcement policy, which is very racist, the death penalty is not a deterrent, and many things correlate more with economic factors than race, though don't think racism didn't play a role in creating some of those economic factors.)

It is easy to be stupid about people you don't know, and it is easy to not get to know people outside of your own walk of life. It is a really good thing to get to know people who are different from you. That does mean race and gender, but also it means ages, jobs, religious background, economic status, and everything. It is good, but it doesn't happen enough.

Something that can help with that is seeing a variety of images in media, because that affects what we can imagine for ourselves. If the magazines only show tall, dangerously thin girls, which is a pretty unusual body type, it is hard for the rest of the population to feel attractive. If all of the professional positions are white males, and all of the heroes are white males, and girls only exist to be in distress, and black people only exist to die and provide some emotional resonance, that really only works well for white males. If you only see one story about your group, whether that story is crime or academic achievement, it feels limiting,

One of my teen girls is black, and she has written that she hates being black because people always look at her with suspicion. That is unacceptable. It is unacceptable for the human cost to her, because surviving adolescence is a difficult thing no matter whom you are, and no one needs added layers of difficulty. But there is also an unacceptable cost in terms of the loss to society of developed talents, service given, and resources provided.

(Half the Sky, by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wu-Dunn is a pretty good book on this, but also right now I am thinking of Dasani: http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/invisible-child/#/?chapt=1)

There are thousands of factors at work here, so the comics portion of it is only a small slice, but it can be an important one. Seeing Dayoung fly in Rocket Girl and be herself, yes, that is a great comic for young girls. I don't think the enjoyment has to be limited to them, but it is important for them to see.

Returning back to one of those annoying threads, an article about potential developed projects from comics mentioned White Tiger, specifically Angela Del Toro. One person, no matter how many points others made, kept arguing against it. She has no following, no strong story arcs, but yes, there was this undercurrent of "Cooties!"

What I say next may be hurtful and offensive to some, and I am sorry, but comic fans do not make movies successful. If a movie only gets people who read the comic there, it is a flop. It would be nice if each movie broadened the base of comic readers, but there's no guarantee there.

Also, movies based on comic books don't always adhere strictly to the comics. Sometimes they borrow plotlines or people - I love what they did with Lucius Fox in Batman Begins, but if someone sees just a spark of a character that may resonate with film or television audiences, that can be enough. They may end up creating a mess, or they may create something that doesn't find a big enough audience, because there are always those risks. However, sometimes an idea to turn a stereotype on its head can lead to a movie that while not incredibly successful on its own, spawns two successful series, several comics, and careers. There's always a risk, so why not try and do something good.

So I would love to see something happen with White Tiger, and something with Daughters of the Dragon. I could see that being a good television series. It doesn't have to be fictional. I would love to see a comic book series about Apartheid and the ANC. Feature Mandela of course, but also Biko and Mbeki and de Klerk and Esterhuyse. There's a lot to tell.

You know what other things could be good? Series based on Chang Apana (loose basis for Charlie Chan) and Bass Reeves (possible inspiration for the Lone Ranger). Because it's not that people of color have not been contributing all along, but their stories don't get told. The Old West has been especially white-washed.

And then we take that, and we create this idea of how things are, and whether it comes to various individuals as virulent racism, or a fairly "benevolent" racism, or an internalized idea that amounting to anything is impossible, none of it is good enough.

Comics know heroes really well. They can also be them.

Bad attitudes about comics

My love for comics is entwined with my love of rock, so I am going to use that to justify starting with a story that is not about comics.

It was about a year ago, and Fall Out Boy guitarist Joseph Trohman was asking people for the most overrated movies of the year. Someone suggested one that was actually a pretty good movie. I pointed that out, but he said it was still overrated, basically because people acted like it was great, when it was really just good.

This is the only time anyone in Fall Out Boy has responded to a tweet of mine, so that was kind of special, but I was sputtering with irritation. "This is how people become hipsters!"

And this is nothing against Trohman, whom I love. He is a great guitar player - underrated, I think - and smart and funny and his death in the last video made me very sad. (We'll be spending several posts specifically on Fall Out Boy when we get to music videos.) And, I haven't seen him tweet about overrated things lately.

It is an easy attitude to take of course. I did it too, with that crack about hipsters. Yes, people who are always thinking they are too good for everything would be annoying, but once I have that label in mind, it is easy for me to venture into Northwest Portland, see a bunch of people dressed in black and looking disaffected, and being annoyed, without really knowing anything about them, which is unfair.

So, this brings me to this summer, and a list of the Top 100 Overrated Comic Writers. Initially I thought it was a funny idea, especially seeing "Alan Moore's beard" at number 98. If you have seen the beard, it is really easy to get fixated on it, but I'm pretty sure it is not really its own entity. If you want to propose a theory about how the beard changes him or represents him, I'll listen.

Reading further into the list, though, you would find there are a lot of good writers on the list, and not so famous or highly-paid that overrated seems like a legitimate complaint. Then I started wondering if a top 100 would even make sense. I don't know how many writers are currently working in comic books now, but even if we accept that some of them are overrated, I don't know that there could really be 100. Rob Liefeld is listed three times though, so it is technically only 98. Hey, there's that sloppiness again!

Methodology was questionable as well. The post with the list says there were ballots distributed and they got back 3000, which would have been out of over 100,000 attendees. However, I read from someone else that they were holding up pictures and seeing if people recognized them. So, if anyone one in a comic-centric environment recognizes you from your work in comics, clearly you are overrated. There seems to be some self-loathing there.

And that was where it became really interesting. I recently finished a book on slut-shaming, and the double standard is a factor, of course, but another interesting factor is that most of the enforcement is done by girls. They could easily be the next victims, but by putting down someone else, it reinforces their secure spot. Since they are already marginalized as girls, any security they have becomes more important. Often the leaders are middle class (economic status is a huge factor), so their parents may have some anxieties about moving downward that they internalize.

(This is from Slut! Growing Up Female With A Bad Reputation, by Leora Tanenbaum.)

Sometimes the people who ended up outcast found it very liberating. I have seen tweets going around about how the metal people, with their tattoos and piercings, are the nicest people around. Some of them are, and maybe part of that is that they are free to be kind, having given up a place in the normal hierarchy.

Some of them can also be real jerks, which is another reason not to judge people. They could have some hurt and anger over being outcast, or they could also be setting up a replacement hierarchy where they can be the ones doing the rejecting.

Personally, my experiences in comics have been really positive, except for that Catwoman thing. Otherwise I have met really great, supportive people. I know there is a contingent out there that feels the need to play gatekeeper. What changed with the book is starting to see that maybe they feel really threatened, as a marginalized group, losing their one safe space. Or, they could feel so lacking in power and status they enjoy the chance to put anyone else down. It could go either way.

I do know that whether you are a teenage girl or comic-convention attendee (two things that are not mutually exclusive), you will get greater confidence and satisfaction out of being kind and inclusive. There can be an endorphin rush with destruction, but there is a lasting glow with creation.

That may sound pretty smarmy. I read a piece recently on snark versus smarm, and so I am sensitive on that. Also, this isn't that much different from my recent posts about writing and inclusion. And yet I keep doing it. Tomorrow there will be more, because it keeps coming up.

Comic Review: Demeter, Red Sonja, Rocket Girl, and Pretty Deadly

I know, two different posts reviewing comics within just a few days of each other is pretty unusual for me, but these are all pretty new, and I have just started reading them, and I wanted to take advantage of that. They vary in content and probably in target audience, but I will try and give some impressions.

Rocket Girl, written by Brandon Montclare, art by Amy Reeder (Image Comics)

Dayoung Johansson is a teenage cop from an alternate reality 2013, sent back to 1986 to prevent that alternate reality from happening. I guess it is sort of like the second Terminator movie, except instead of Arnold the protagonist is a freckle-faced girl, and so far there is no Robert Patrick. (And why it's more like the 2nd instead of the first has to do with some issues of how the technology develops.)

I'm not sure that's a good description, or that I would be interested in it from the description, but I wanted to see more by Reeder, and this seemed like a good chance. Her artwork soars, so having her work on someone who flies with a rocket pack was inspired.

Currently on the second issue, they are building some interesting relationships among characters, but the establishment of Dayoung has been the most important part. She is passionate, impulsive, and stubborn, so very 15.  You can relate to others who are frustrated with her, and still root for her. Those are not the qualities we look for in cops today, but in the alternative 2013 that is what is necessary, and that should be what carries the day.

Many of the other books being reviewed are more adult, but this one should be safe for teens, and really good for them to get into.

Red Sonja, written by Gail Simone, art by Walter Geovani (Dynamite)

This one is a little more adult, in terms of scanty clothing, violence, and general mayhem. I think it would still be fine for teens though; certainly for older ones.

What I appreciate most about it is the character of Sonja herself. She is impatient, but will put up with a lot, and is loyal. She is certainly given to excess, but even hung over she will try to give people options for not needing to be killed by her. So many refuse to take her up on that, but she still tries, and there is a humor about it all that makes her very likable. You understand why she inspires the same loyalty that she gives.

This is again only two issues in, so it would be easy to catch up. Gorgeous colors done by Adriano Lucas.

Pretty Deadly, written by Kelly Sue DeConnick, art by Emma Rios (Image Comics)

And this one is the most adult, with more violence, more sex and nudity (in a brothel), and also strange elements, like a rabbit skeleton telling the story to a butterfly. It's not for everyone, but it is fascinating.

I cannot tell in any way where this is going. I think I kind of understand the central conflict after the second issue, so that is big progress (for me) from the first. I'm not sure that matters though; it's something where you ride with it. Perhaps the riding is more literal, because there are horses journeying across the Western landscape here. Anyway, it gets under your skin, and I think it is the most visually inventive work I have seen to date. If nothing I have said about it already causes you to object to it, then you should probably check it out.

Demeter, story, art, and publishing by Becky Cloonan

You could view this as a stand-alone comic, or as part of a trilogy with Wolves and The Mire, or if we get lucky, it could be more, because I read recently that Cloonan is getting more ideas that could relate.

http://www.avenoctum.com/2013/12/inteview-becky-cloonan/

Of the existing three, none of them need to be read for any of the others to make sense, but taken together common themes emerge, where the environment exerts its own force, and no deceptions or betrayals can stay buried.

Cloonan has described these works as "the stories between the pages". I initially interpreted that as between the pages that she does on other series (Killjoys and Swamp Thing just to start). That can still be true, but I would also buy it as one where the plot points of the stories do not all happen on the page. The reader gets glimpses, but there is much that is hidden, and the apparent meaning may shift.

(I know this is very similar to my other review, but the works are related: http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/01/comic-review-wolves-and-mire-by-becky.html)

I go back to the pages, trying to understand them, but also because Cloonan's artwork is beautiful, and I can get lost in it again and again.

Band Review: The Black Sea

I believe if you enjoy Bruce Springsteen, you will enjoy The Black Sea.

It feels weird for me to say that. Although I have been gaining an appreciation for him lately, I'm not really a fan of the Boss. However, The Black Sea reminds me of him, and I nonetheless enjoy them.

It started with the first song I heard, "Now That We're Alone". It was a double punch. The music does some neat things with building and softening and is really well-constructed, so there is excitement, but there is also real poignancy from the lyrics, and it all works together.

I started noticing the resemblance to Springsteen later. There is a grittiness to the music, not only in the vocals, but also I think in the way the guitars are tuned. So there is that blue collar feel, though coming out of Leeds instead of New Jersey. There is still that feeling of being downtrodden, but not out.

Because of the reviews, I am always listening to at least two bands, which I like, but some weeks are more of a joy than others. This week was pretty good. I thought of giving them the Song of the Day today too, but I think it makes more sense to do that later.

Right now the band seems to be focusing more on getting gigs than on selling music. I have been doing my listening mostly via Soundcloud, which has five songs available. Check them out.

http://www.theblacksea.co/

https://twitter.com/TheBlackSeaUK

https://www.facebook.com/TheBlackSeaUK

https://soundcloud.com/theblacksealovesyou

Band Review: E-Mute

I was initially confused by who was whom in the band, but I think I have it now. E-mute is not just the band, but also a person, who sings, drums, and plays piano. He works with many musicians, but also has three other people - Svetlana Vassileva, Darren Ashford, and Tolis Zavaliaris - who play with him when he is doing his own material  So the one in the shocking red pants is E-mute himself.

Based on the "E", I was expecting a lot more synthesizer and beeping, but that has not really been the case. They self-describe as alternative/rock/electronica at their simplest (they have a more complex description too), and that seems fair.

There are some electronic components, but with so much piano and guitar, that does not end up being the main sound. The piano especially makes a difference, whether it is being funky on Elixir's "Wake Up Call" or moody on "Across the Sea".

The song that made the biggest impression on me was "Clock Moves Forward".

The clock moves forward when life goes backward,
Sane conclusions of past confusions, The older you get the wiser
Don't worry. Don't worry.

There is a video, and E-mute smiles charmingly as he says it, so I believe that he is sincere when he advises not worrying, though I am not sure he is correct. Anyway, that song sticks. You should also check out "The Darkness Inside"; the intro is lovely.

I did most of my listening via Soundcloud and Youtube.

Music is available via iTunes, Google play, and Bandcamp.

http://www.emute-music.com/

https://www.facebook.com/electricmute

https://twitter.com/emutemusic

http://www.youtube.com/user/emutemusic?feature=watch

https://soundcloud.com/emutemusic

http://emutemusic.bandcamp.com/album/too-proud-to-say-loud

Comics Review: March and The Montgomery Story

I mentioned a while back that I really need to catch up on the digital comics that I had before getting any more. That sounds so reasonable, but then I will see some deal I can't resist, and, well, I have a lot of comics I still get to read.

The deal that has been the most exciting to me lately was this one:

http://www.comixology.com/March-Book-One-Martin-Luther-King-And-The-Montgomery-Story/bundle/44

The timing was good, because I was reading about African-American history and civil rights, and also, how often do you get a comic book written by a Congressman? (Never before. This was the first, and the first comic to be presented to every member of Congress.)

http://comicbook.com/blog/2013/12/03/representative-john-lewiss-publisher-donates-hundreds-of-comics-to-other-congressmen/

It excited me. It excited me to think that maybe people who don't normally read comics will read March. I am excited that maybe comic readers who don't normally read a lot of history or a lot of multiracial material will read this. And I am excited to learn that a comic played a role back then.

I would be excited at the mere existence of these comics, but their importance in that way only makes it more necessary that they are good. So, let's take a look.

Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story, written by Benton Resnik and Alfred Hassler and drawn by various artists. Originally published by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, it is republished in connection with Top Shelf Productions.

That is probably the most complex set of credits I have ever done, but that makes sense for an issue with its history. The information says it "went unnoticed by the mainstream comic book industry, but spread like wildfire among civil rights groups".

The first thing I need to mention is that with various artists, it has a very uniform look, and one that I believe is very much in keeping with the styles of the time. The page layouts do change in some sections, but I don't think it is jarring.

There is an emphasis on the religious aspects which may seem outdated now, but the churches were a huge part of the Civil Rights movement of the time, and the religion of the participants was a key part of their motivation both for working towards progress and for doing so non-violently. It is clearly not merely a Christian idea either, with a section on Gandhi who was an important source of inspiration for the movement.

I suppose I was reading it largely as a historical document, but I was touched by the words about the importance of understanding and loving your enemy. It can be so hard, but that is what sanctifies the conflict. The section "How the Montgomery Method Works" is just as true now as it was then.

March: Book One, written by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, with art by Nate Powell (Top Shelf)

One of the things that struck me when reading Dr. Abernathy's book, And The Walls Came Tumbling Down, was the description of the drilling that they did. It gave a new comprehension of what militant meant, and its necessity made perfect sense, but it was a new thought. The Montgomery Story shows some of the drilling, but March gives a fuller view. They had to be ready to face horrible things. It is hard to see allies shouting abuse and pouring fluids, but it would have been harder to face it from your enemies without being prepared.

I guess I am saying that March is grittier than The Montgomery Story, and it is, but also, I am saying that seeing the images, rather than just reading about what happened, gives a new feeling.

The book does a beautiful job of humanizing Lewis, and giving you a feel for how events built on each other, leading to what will come. It starts on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, but the flashbacks will take a while to get us there. That's okay; there is a lot that goes into how people can do what needs to be done, and why it needs to be done.

The artwork is kind of stark, like early black and white television. This is history. There are things happening in the present day as well, but they are connected with the history.

March is lengthy, which is more of an issue for me as I am still not great at navigating digital books. The end of Book 1 occurs on page 121, and is very much at a point of continuations. Some victories have been achieved, but there is a lot more to do, then and now.

These are such important stories, and so close to my heart, and I am excited to see them in the medium of comics. I think there is room for wonderful things to happen.

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/08/why-pictures.html

Inclusion and intersectionality

Sometimes there is a nice synchronicity to things. Shortly after I started reading Suzanne Pharr's Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism, I saw a tweet:

"This really pisses me off, why is a boy called a 'faggot' for not objectifying women" and it linked to a "joke" from UK Banter that is not worth repeating.

I knew the answer now, though, because it was in the book, and replied "Because he is rebelling against the patriarchy by not objectifying women." And she knew that, but was still frustrated by it, which I get.

So, building on yesterday's post, since June I have been reading books that have related to African-American history and to feminist issues. During that time period there have also been several things coming up via the internet related to the intersection of different marginalized groups.

Most of them have been negative, like a hash tag going around at one point, #feminismisforwhitewomen, and a solidarity one, because prominent feminists often ignore women of color. There was also an article about black men not supporting black women. There are very valid reasons for the frustration, but I'm not sure it is always handled well.

There are two things that come to mind for me. One goes back to Pharr's book. It focused on lesbian issues, and I spotted those blinders on myself, because previously "homophobia" meant persecution of gay men to me. On one level I knew it was more than that, but men are the default, and I was subject to that, despite being a woman.

The other issue is something that has been bugging me for a while. When I read stories about women facing sexism and misogyny, and especially sexual harassment, women of color have it worse. Where I might just get something said to me, they will get groped.

This makes me feel like crying tears of rage. I have not done anything to deserve my privilege; they have not done anything to lose it. That is not anything small. The shame of the time there was physical contact is seared into my brain, and that was just once. To always have that increased risk - that lack of safety, and that lack of control over your physical space - I know I don't fully grasp how that feels, but it's wrong that it exists.

I am becoming more aware of how things vary. There also seem to be more stories of physical harassment from England. That may be centered on low income communities, because there is certainly privilege that goes away as your economic status drops, or there may be some cultural issue there; I don't know.

I do know that I am better off for being located in the Willamette Valley. If I was in a small rural area, or in the South, being female would have different ramifications, as would being a person of color. It doesn't make Portland paradise, but I'm still grateful to be here.

When one of the flare-ups was going on, I remembered something about Ida B Wells breaking away from the women's suffrage movement because it would not stand up for black rights as well. Women felt like they would lose support by including black men in their efforts. I tried to look into that, but what I found instead was something on how Wells criticized Susan B Anthony for letting her efforts take a back seat to raising her family. I guess these conflicts go back a long way.

I know that no amount of marginalization makes up for marginalizing others. I am really positive about that one. I also know that trying to throw all of those groups out and just being for humans doesn't work. There are specific things that happen that require examination, and there is a need for safe places.

I may not know the best way to balance all of that, but we need to listen to other voices. Privilege is so blind. There are things that I would never know about if I did not read, or talk to people from other walks of life. But just because you are not forced to think about something doesn't mean that you shouldn't think about it.

Apparently, there is always going to be someone who will tell you that you are doing it wrong, whether it is being female, being black, or being gay. Right now it seems very popular to tell poor people how what they are doing wrong. A lot of it makes me want to smack people, but that's not the answer.

We need to be listening to each other. Part of that listening means to quit making judgments. A lot of the criticism that comes at various voices is because they aren't speaking for a particular group. Well, yes, if all women were alike, then one could speak for all of us, but there is a great diversity of human experience, even when you start subdividing it, and it's not a fair burden to place on anyone. If any one man said he was speaking for all men, we'd know he was full of it, so why does one woman, or one gay man, or one Mexican, have to cover everyone?

At the same time, we need to be looking outward to make sure that we are not only listening to voices similar to our own. There is not true equality of opportunity now. That must change, and it has to be equality for everyone, not just some. The false idea that one group needs to put down another to get their own has the people with actual power laughing all the way to the bank. Keeping that division going works better for them than anyone else.

The dominant voices should not be the only voices. I appreciate Roxane Gay's work on this:

http://www.salon.com/2013/09/10/calling_for_submissions_by_feminists_of_color/

Technically that is closed to me, but it doesn't take anything away from me, and the pieces that come from this add to the dialogue. They are too easily overlooked in the current system. This kind of outreach is vital.

The chasm between how I would like things to be and how they are is discouraging some times, but there are things that give me hope. One thing that has been becoming clear is how many options there are to see another side better.

With Slavery By Another Name, there is a thick book, and I love thick books, but there is also a 90-minute movie. As I start my Native American Heritage reading for the year, because I saw some art in Chicago, I am going to explore that art more. There are plays and blogs and movies. And, there were two other things I read for my Black History reading that I was not expecting to be an option at all, and that please me greatly. They get their own post tomorrow.

Black History Month 2013

It is pretty common for me to be running late on these. Part of it this time is that I decided to work on my Black history reading along with my troubled teen reading, and so working on two different lists at once, along with anything else that happened to come up, definitely slowed things down. It also worked.

I had written before about thinking it was a good idea to intersperse comics with the history readings, because sometimes reading about hard topics requires some breaks. It did not work well then, because I had some pretty heavy comics in the mix. Here, it is still a lot of heavy material, so the idea of a break does not really work, but then the books go together in ways I might not expect, so that works.

It is messier, and part of that is that many things were unplanned, and changed, and there ended up being more multimedia, still working together. So, perhaps I am merely becoming more integrated, and everything is connected.

The first book was Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus: A Daughter's Civil Rights Journey, by Ana Maria Spagna. I had read good reviews a while ago, but I had not realized the author was white. This led to her feeling like an outsider at times as she tried to reconstruct her father's experience, but it also allowed her to see correlations between racism and homophobia, and to consider her own experiences differently.

The most important lesson was about the importance of recording memories and sharing them. Some memories and accounts disagree. You can guess how those tie together now, and some of the details may be unimportant, but having more written at the time would have helped. Many of the participants downplayed the significance of their actions. Maybe they did not realize it at the time, or they were uncomfortable with treating their actions as important, but it matters to those who come after.

Next I read Mirror to America, by John Hope Franklin. Franklin was the quintessential history teacher; I believe his text From Slavery to Freedom is still the standard African American History work. At times, reading his autobiography is like being in a lecture hall, with a sonorous voice that might lull you to sleep, though it was not boring. There was a lot that was interesting on the history of the time period, and how levels of acceptance varied, and even on academic history, because he knew the writers of all of those other standard texts.

Mainly I was touched by his warmth. He faced more than his fair share of mistreatment, and his brother's fate is heartbreaking, but there was still such a gratitude for the people who were in his life, and for the experiences he had. I ended up with feelings for him similar to those I developed for Ralph Abernathy while reading And The Walls Came Tumbling Down, though I did not end up dreaming about the book.

I had decided to start reading more poetry, so I checked out Selected Poems of Langston Hughes. I was surprised that some of the poems I knew were not included, and also at the recurring theme of "a dream deferred", which comes up in poem after poem. That made more sense after the next book. Mainly I felt like it gave me a peek into the Harlem of that time, with its rhythms and moods.

That next book was Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II, by Douglas A Blackmon, and it was the most devastating. I had to take breaks from it (show business autobiographies may be the answer for that). It was information dense, written at a fairly high level, and emotionally painful. It was like some of the Native American heritage reading I have done, where you realize it wasn't just sending them away once, but many times.

People have the idea that the slaves were freed over the war, and that was plenty of time to succeed, but it wasn't like that. The ridiculous laws designed to keep them down not only made economic success next to impossible, but kept slavery alive and a constant threat, just by another name.

I remember one of the men who came to the soup kitchen in Fresno. He was usually very quiet, but kind when he spoke. I was told by others that he had been a slave, and that he had scars all over his back. I didn't understand how that was possible. Now it makes more sense.

There was a documentary by the same name that was well worth watching (and more digestible), and a short making of film. One of the moments that struck me in the short was the author being about to meet Green Cottenham. This was a figure whose life he had used to tie the different pieces together, and yes, it was just that they had cast an actor, but it gave this feeling of immediacy and connection to "find" him.

There was also a lot of emotion in the interviews with descendants of the re-enslaved and of their abusers. It would have been a hard thing for some of them to face some really ugly things in their family histories. These people did evil things, but they still had families that they treated well, and who loved them and were proud of them, without knowing everything. There is a lot to think about there, especially about the things we do and believe now.

http://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/

I was planning on reading Before the Mayflower by Lerone Bennett Jr., and I found that I was not up for it. I do still plan to read it, but I was worn down, and I felt that with its length and some possible concerns about Bennett's style, I could not manage it now. There was still so much else, though, because everything related.

With For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf, by Ntozake Shange, I am not even sure whether that was more for feminism, and for my troubled teens, or for the African-American experience. It might even be poetry, a little bit. It transcends.

I had not specifically planned to watch a three-part series from The American Experience: The Abolitionists, but I did, and it was valuable. One of the people they covered was John Brown, and I have always been torn on him, because of the killing. I am still not sure he did right, but I see so much more clearly why he would do it.

The Independent Lens series gave me things about Wonder Woman and Native Americans, but also it gave me The House I Live In which goes well with Slavery By Another Name and with The New Jim Crow, and which becomes more disturbing in light of stories like these:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/09/19/are-governments-incentivizing-longer-prison-terms/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/15/throwing-children-in-prison-turns-out-to-be-a-really-bad-idea/

This goes beyond history, but history is how we got here.

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/house-i-live-in/

Also, you just learn about people. For example, we read one book by Michael Oher and one book by the Tuohy's as add-ons to The Blind Side, and both of them pointed out some of the same things that were wrong in the movie. You expect some of that in a movie, but it was interesting how important it was to them to have certain things understood. That also happened with John Hope Franklin. Maybe it is more important to know that the press misrepresented a Clinton program, or that a different administration tried to use Franklin to cover a faux pas, than it is to know that Oher did not need tutoring on football, but it is important to people to be heard. Everyone wants to feel understood.

History is humanity. There's a lot of ugliness there, and I deliberately delve into it, but I know it's important. I guess ultimately I believe that it will make me better, and help me to help others make things better. I always find beauty too.