We’ve seen Lord knows how many different takes on Batman, “Star Trek,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “Dragnet,” and any number of other literary creations.
But I have to say, I was completely unprepared for this bold new take on Harry Potter, as shown just now on the LA Times website.
We’ve written here before about our enjoyment of Sir Ian McKellen. Here’s a photo of his participation in the recent protest against the Pope. (To quote a gay friend of mine, “Just say nope.”)
By the way, posting this image earlier a little bit ago on my Facebook page resulted in the following dialogue with a Facebook friend (whom I actually know but haven’t seen in… 10 years?). This little exchange really shows how issues of sexuality, politics, and Sir Ian McKellen, all intersect over the all-important topic of Marvel Comics.
LEE: Mind you, I had my doubts about Gandalf, but I did not realize that Magneto was gay. What about his two children, Wanda (The Scarlet Witch) and Pietro (Quicksilver)? Which brings us to the question of “how exactly do you define ‘gay’?” At least with regard to Marvel comics characters. By the way, Magneto himself is confused — 40 years as a villain, but with recurring stints as a hero. What’s up with that?
FB FRIEND: And ‘Scarlet Witch’ married an android — what do we call THAT orientation?
LEE: And then they had “children” who, it later turned out, where magical constructs who destabilized the entire Marvel universe. Things were so much simpler when relationships were between one human and another. Now you’ve got mutants and androids and magicians and supervillains. And whatever The Beast is, what with the blue fur and flews and all.
FB FRIEND: I didn’t know that about their kids. (Sorta wondered how they could…you know.)
OTHER FB FRIEND (whom I also haven’t seen in at least 10 years, and probably more like 15): I think he is saying he is both Gay (Gandolph) and Straight (Magne to),,,right?
FB FRIEND: I want to go on record, though, in supporting equal marriage rights for mutants, androids, Inhumans, aliens, cyborgs, wizards, ghosts, angels, demons, demigods, elementals, monsters, talking animals, and humans exposed to radiation (that somehow made them stronger, faster and better looking).
LEE: What kicked off Avengers Disassembled was the Scarlet Witch’s discovery that her “children” were magical constructs accidentally created by her chaos magic. From there, things got worse: She wished into existence the notion of “No …More Mutants,” which recast the entire universe into one without mutants. When the “real” Marvel Universe was finally reconstituted, most of the mutants were gone, and no new mutants were being born — a problem that has bedeviled them since. Recently, the first new mutant, named, of course, Hope, and related, of course, to Scott Summers (as, seemingly, all red-haired women in the Marvel Universe are), was born. Once you put it all down in writing as I just did, it’s easy to understand, though it does give succor to the notion of certain Evangelists and U.S. Senators that mutants and androids should not procreate. (Lest we all wind up in an alternate universe. Which seems like a danger we’d all want to avoid. Unless we’re working a dead-end job at 7-11.)
FB FRIEND: Yeah, “Disassembled”, “House of M”, “Civil War”… Ya notice that all the major trouble used to come from the bad guys, but now it’s mostly traditional heroes causing all the strife? Is this meant to mirror the divisions in our own “real”… universe?! Hmmm… The Republican party IS disassembling itself, and the Scarlet Palin’s ‘House of Tea’ is taking over. Whoa! I need to get current in my comic reading! I believe ‘Daredevil’ is the heavy now? Who could he represent? Maybe Rahm Emanuel quitting the White House to run Chicago. Yeah…I see it now…
A friend posted on his Facebook page that he just missed getting hit by an SUV running a red light. Had he not taken a right turn, he would’ve gotten creamed — so the BMW driving next to him got hit instead.
Below his post was this comment: “How great is our God! He said He would be our shield and He just gave you an awesome testimony of the manifestation of His word for you!”
Well, maybe.
But what about the poor guy driving the BMW? What did he do to deserve this?
And why is God personally intervening in traffic accidents? Where was he during Hurricane Katrina (if not the Holocaust)?
My wife and I spent the ninety minutes after dinner helping our kids with their homework. Our 12-year-old daughter labored over subtracting fractions by first converting them to decimals and performing long division, a task that I first demonstrated, then wondered about, then completed by saying “Ask your mother” and returning to my reading. Our 8-year-old son’s homework involved rounding numbers to their nearest hundred.
Wife: “Does he know how to round?”
Me: “More or less.”
I give her this: She laughed, and it even seemed genuine.
Later, she and I were discussing the degree to which he understands sarcasm.
Him: “I understand sarcasm just fine, Dad.”
Me: “You’re just saying that.”
Him: “My head hurts.”
I bought the Jonathan Franzen book, the rest of the pile be damned. I know, you’re not surprised either.
Fox “News” playing tricks with editing. Again.
Every politician running for office should watch this video. It provides a primer in what not to do. The rest of us will find it equal parts hilarious and terrifying.
Continued evidence that newspapers are approaching their end: The Pew Research Center reports that even as Americans are consuming more news, they’re reading fewer newspapers. Two notable findings:
Overall, the proportion of daily print newspaper readers decreased from 38% in 2006 to 30% in 2008, before slipping to 26% this year. That represents a 32% drop in the size of the newspaper-reading population in just four years.
In a stark illustration of the shifting generational dynamics of news consumption, just 8% of the 26% cohort who read a print newspaper every day was between the ages of 18 and 30, compared to about 20% of the U.S. population.
In other words, they’ve lost two generations. (I started reading the newspaper at age 11. None of my kids reads the newspaper.) The report also finds that the proportion of people who get their news from newspapers, even the digital editions, is declining as well.
On a side note, the grammarian in me can’t help correcting the headline, “Pew: Americans Consume More News, Less Newspapers.” Rather than “less,” they mean to say “fewer.” Going forward, I think that fewer and fewer of us will know that.
I’ve written here before about my friend Gerald Locklin. Gerry is a poet who somehow made a career in academia while being shunned by it. That fine distinction — being in academia while not being of it — has resulted in a fine poet. Gerry’s work is insightful and accessible, which practically makes it unique today. This poem, which I’ve printed here before, states the case:
all the food critics hate iceberg lettuce.
you’d think romaine was descended from
orpheus’s laurel wreath,
you’d think raw spinach had all the nutritional
benefits attributed to it by popeye,
not to mention aesthetic subtleties worthy of
verlaine and debussy.
they’ll even salivate over chopped red cabbage
just to disparage poor old mr. iceberg lettuce.
I guess the problem is
it’s just too common for them.
it doesn’t matter that it tastes good,
has a satisfying crunchy texture,
holds its freshness,
and has crevices for the dressing,
whereas the darker, leafier varieties
are often bitter, gritty, and flat.
it just isn’t different enough, and
it’s too goddamn american.
of course a critic has to criticize:
a critic has to have something to say.
perhaps that’s why literary critics
purport to find interesting
so much contemporary poetry
that just bores the shit out of me.
at any rate, I really enjoy a salad
with plenty of chunky iceberg lettuce,
the more the merrier,
drenched in an italian or roquefort dressing.
and the poems I enjoy are those I don’t have
to pretend that I’m enjoying.
If you like that poem (and I hope you do), here’s some good news: the online poetry zine Rusty Truck is dedicated this week to the work of Gerald Locklin. Here’s the announcement, and here’s the first day’s poem. And here, on the same site, you’ll find an interview where Gerry discusses his friendship with Charles Bukowski, the conflict between “underground” and academic writing, and just how one goes about writing more than 125 published books. Gerry’s work embraces Wallace Stevens’ maxim that a poet looks at the world the way a man looks at a woman. It’s a pleasure reading him, and knowing him.
Because 15 years later, Jerry Brown will still be making fun of you for it.