tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post9169965788987400960..comments2024-03-28T07:08:58.221-04:00Comments on Todd Seavey: Book Selection: Lawyers, Guns, and Money (and Dick)Todd Seaveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589187886030112999noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-75815612114040499452009-01-19T21:06:00.000-05:002009-01-19T21:06:00.000-05:00[...] Yesterday, I corrected a typo that I noticed...[...] Yesterday, I corrected a typo that I noticed in one of this blog’s first entries, from two years ago (a review of a book by Brian Doherty, who also wrote one of last week’s Book Selections), and that typo led me free-associatively to ten musings that warrant a book-length explanation. I’m slowly working on that book-length explanation, as it happens, but for now this one blog entry will have to suffice. [...]Todd Seaveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589187886030112999noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-89669244407690196562009-01-13T12:26:00.000-05:002009-01-13T12:26:00.000-05:00Here’s something (pointed out to me by Marc Steine...Here’s something (pointed out to me by Marc Steiner) _parodying_ shows that may occupy a very similar spot in Gen Xers’ brains to the one occupied by _Labyrinth_ in millennials’ brains, care of _Mr. Show_: <br><br><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHqcNj0Pv6c&feature=PlayList&p=CCF1AC5C3CA08778&playnext=1&index=23" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHqcNj0Pv6c&feature=PlayList&p=CCF1AC5C3CA08778&playnext=1&index=23</a>Todd Seaveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589187886030112999noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-85994588156438688482009-01-13T07:15:00.000-05:002009-01-13T07:15:00.000-05:00melancholy, yeah. Agreed. Particularly Scanner D...melancholy, yeah. Agreed. Particularly Scanner Darkly, Brain, which has left me deeply depressed the 3 times I’ve read it. That’s OK though.<br><br>I agree, Crap Artist is a great piece of work, and different from PKDs other works.pulpnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-10253420661454565322009-01-13T01:09:00.000-05:002009-01-13T01:09:00.000-05:00_Man in a High Castle_ is a fine book, but I rerea..._Man in a High Castle_ is a fine book, but I reread it a little while ago and I did not understand the ending.<br><br>A great, but little appreciated novel he wrote was _Confessions of a Crap Artist_. It’s a beautiful portrait of the ordinary madness and longings for meaning and social belongiong we all suffer from. Contrast the role of architecture in “Crap Artist” to Rand’s use of it in _The Fountainhead_, and you appreciate the difference between an artist and an ideologue.<br><br>***Spoiler Warning****<br><br>You needed to read _Solar Lottery_ a little closer, Todd. The only thing that the solar lottery covers is the right to be Supreme Leader, which all people have, at birth, an original right to. But this right is tradeable, so people sell theirs to sectional leaders, in return to be protected as vassals. But the best part is, that the game is fixed. From a property-aficionado’s point-of-view, there’s a lot of neat stuff going on here.<br><br>***End Spoiler Warning***<br><br>But what has always struck me about P K Dick’s writing is the melancholy. His worlds are always very small and sad (even if the stakes are universal), very touchingly human, very hopeless, full of imperfect love and unintended betrayals. It’s remarkable how many of his strories were made into successful movies.Brainhttp://michel.evanchik.net/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-59899713387247626792009-01-12T13:22:00.000-05:002009-01-12T13:22:00.000-05:00Woah — another neat bit of superhero/political new...Woah — another neat bit of superhero/political news, coincidentally:<br><br>The aforementioned Geoff Johns, in order to write the zillion comics mentioned above, is leaving the writing position on the comic book _Justice Society of America_ — that being the name of the Word War II-era predecessor of the Justice League, now charged with grooming a rising generation of young heroes.<br><br>Well, right on cue, the incoming new JSA writer, Bill Willingham, says he’s had enough of darkness and decadence in comics and wants superheroes to live up to the genre’s implicit high ideals — and he says it on a conservative site, which is in turn quoted on this comics site (I would not be startled to learn that Johns himself is some sort of moderately-religious moderate-conservative, incidentally, given the friendly treatment faith gets in several of his scenes — but I don’t want to mislabel anyone):<br><br><a href="http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2009/01/willingham-no-more-superhero-decadence-for-me/" rel="nofollow">http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2009/01/willingham-no-more-superhero-decadence-for-me/</a>Todd Seaveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589187886030112999noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-11800140609614241322009-01-12T12:26:00.000-05:002009-01-12T12:26:00.000-05:00One last _Labyrinth_ thought: Helen says she likes...One last _Labyrinth_ thought: Helen says she likes it in part because it’s the kind of movie in which Muppets are _harmed_, not merely cute — a sentiment that makes sense coming from a taxidermist like Helen: <br><br><a href="http://cigarettesmokingblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/honor-among-taxidermists.html" rel="nofollow">http://cigarettesmokingblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/honor-among-taxidermists.html</a>Todd Seaveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589187886030112999noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-57528049947139734012009-01-12T11:42:00.000-05:002009-01-12T11:42:00.000-05:00The young ACSH intern, Lizzie Wade, echoes Helen a...The young ACSH intern, Lizzie Wade, echoes Helen and Jasmine’s pro-_Labyrinth_ sentiments, so I’m pleased to see they’ve achieved three-way intersubjective confirmation. We have a real trend on our hands, I think. <br><br>I would also like to note that the best scene, with Bowie mesmerizing Connelly into thinking she’s at a fancy ball — until she smashes a mirror and makes gravity go haywire for a moment — looks like anime, which I understand the twentysomethings also like.Todd Seaveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589187886030112999noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-55292446348904443142009-01-12T10:08:00.000-05:002009-01-12T10:08:00.000-05:00I also really liked _Man in the High Castle_ — and...I also really liked _Man in the High Castle_ — and will make an exception for comics that the writer himself urges me to read, I should add (I don’t want to be a jerk about it).Todd Seaveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589187886030112999noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-12792317167903337822009-01-12T07:10:00.000-05:002009-01-12T07:10:00.000-05:00Brian Doherty is becoming a really strong writer, ...Brian Doherty is becoming a really strong writer, that’s good for him. I’ve enjoyed a lot of the stuff he’s written.<br><br>Man In The High Castle ranks as my favorite PK Dick novel. A convincing and perhaps accurate scenario in which the US lost WW2 to Germany and Japan. It deals with a US both militarily and mentally defeated by fascism, frightening.<br><br>PK Howard’s thesis is so self-evident, and it is so clear that we are no where as a society near the point where we will, “simply repeal virtually every regulation we have and restore the concept of reasonable assumption of risk,” that reading this book will only piss me off more than I already all pissed off. I am coincidentally re-reading T Paine’s Common Sense now.<br><br>If you’re going to make something the “last” comic book you’re ever going to read, you might as well pick something good–rather than these “infinite crisis” things. I would say Morrison/Quietly’s All-Star Superman pretty much says it all, as far as DC Comics is concerned.pulpnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-53493007049072381182009-01-12T06:15:00.000-05:002009-01-12T06:15:00.000-05:00Honest, I swear I’m not trying to be a jerk leavin...Honest, I swear I’m not trying to be a jerk leaving these links here, but Gillespie had a great review of the McDonald book:<br><br><a href="http://www.reason.com/news/show/130437.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.reason.com/news/show/130437.html</a>Markhttp://scribesandscoundrels.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com