Rathaus

June 12 | 12:12 pm | Vienna

Men of Tomorrow

I just finished reading Men of Tomorrow, a book about the birth of the comic book industry. As usual, I stumbled upon it while wandering aimlessly though the library, though I do remember hearing good things about the book when it came out and may have even given it to a friend as a Christmas gift a few years back. While I found some of the writing a bit labored, the book presents a ton of information in a well-organized and coherent way. You don't need to be a comic book enthusiast (or former enthusiast) to enjoy the book, but it certainly would help. Still, there's enough really interesting stuff about the socioeconomic history of comics, especially in the first half of the book, to appeal to anyone who is interested in the history of mass media, business, entertainment, labor, or politics.

Thai Not?

Thai is the gateway drug of ethnic food.

I said this during a discussion about ethnic food today. I was trying to be funny, but I think it's pretty accurate.

It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World

I normally don't pay much attention to the Emmys in particular and award shows in general, but I was pleased to hear that one my favorite shows, Mad Men, won the big prize last night. If you haven't been watching, you should tune in. If not for its richly developed characters and intricate plot lines, then for the influence it will soon have over everything that you wear.

Peeping Hi

Poor Hi - it looks like Lois has thwarted his favorite Saturday afternoon activity - sitting around the house "reading" his porno mags. I guess "Peeps" could be interpreted as a play on People Magazine instead of a stag rag, but sitting around the house reading People is arguably an even more depraved activity for a wholesome family man like Hi. A final possibility is that he subscribes to some sort of weird underground Mashmallow Peeps fetishist magazine, which is certainly the most depraved interpretation of them all.

Juror #47

A few weeks ago, I received a jury duty summons. I'd never been called to serve on a jury before, so I was kind of excited but, like any good American, I was also kind of dreading the whole thing. As it turned out, I didn't get called to serve on a jury. In fact, no one in the pool of potential jurors was called to serve. I was a little bummed, but I guess it was better than having to be one of the alternate jurors on a trial that spends two weeks in deliberation and ends in a mistrial.

Immaculate Reception

September 13 | 6:22 pm | Grand Rapids, MI

The Gay Nineties

I finally got around to checking out Hulu. It's pretty cool and all, but that's not why I'm mentioning it here. I wound up watching a recent episode of The Simpsons that essentially rewrote the entire history of the series. It was kind of shocking, though I've been paying so little attention to The Simpsons lately that perhaps this kind of stuff is happening on weekly basis now. In case you don't feel like watching the episode, it's a flashback to Homer and Marge's post-high school courtship, during the early 1990s. The Simpsons has often taken a fairly laid-back approach to geography and the passage of time, and the show has even pointed out its own inconsistencies for a laugh a few times, but as far as I know, the show had always treated the past as a fixed point a time. I guess that's no longer the case. I'm not angry or anything, the Simpsons is still one of the all-time great TV shows, even if it's gotten a bit long in the tooth as of late. Still, it is a little disappointing that they felt the need to upend the entire Simpsons space-time continuum just to cram in a few lame jokes about grunge rock, political correctness, and Bill Clinton.

Days of Thunder

I've seen more movies in the theaters this summer than I have in a long time. I think it has more to do with circumstances than a noticeable uptick in the quality of the films being produced in Hollywood. That being said, I did enjoy Tropic Thunder on my most recent trip to the local cineplex. It wasn't as quotable as I thought it was going to be, but it was still funny. One of my favorite characters in the star-studded cast was the special effects assistant, an actor named Dempsey Silva with a single line on his IMDB resume. If there's an Oscar for rookie of the year, he's my nomination.

Beyond Compare

I had a friend in high school who was a Dinosaur Jr. fanatic. In fact, he was such a huge fan that he refused to call them anything but their original name (Dinosaur). So while I've been familiar with Dinosaur Jr. and many of the original member's side projects for a long time, I never actually got around to listening to any of their music until recently. I recently picked up Beyond, which I later learned is result of the band's recent reunion after 19 years apart. It's a great album, and it's the first time I've really gotten excited about anything new in the rock/alt rock genre in a long time. I think that one of the reasons I've never been too big on a lot of the alt rock/indie rock bands is a lot of them don't rock all that hard. The stuff on Beyond rocks pretty hard. It's generally more of a punk influenced sound than the blues rock sound that I really dig, but I've never had a problem with punk rock, providing that it actually rocks.

As an aside, in addition to just getting around to discovering Dinosaur Jr., I'm also still getting my feet wet in the digital music world. I was considering just purchasing a single track from the album (This is All I Came To Do), since it was the only one I was familiar with before making my purchase, but I decided against it. While I like the idea of being able to pick and choose songs individually, I still think that for any reasonably serious artist, the album, while it may be a completely artificial construct in the digital music world, is still an important artistic statement.