Thom Dunn is a Boston-based writer, musician, and utterly terrible dancer. He is the singer/guitarist for the indie rock/power-pop the Roland High Life, as well as a staff writer for the New York Times’ Wirecutter and a regular contributor at BoingBoing.net. Thom enjoys Oxford commas, metaphysics, and romantic clichés (especially when they involve whiskey), and he firmly believes that Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" is the single greatest atrocity committed against mankind. He is a graduate of Clarion Writer's Workshop at UCSD ('13) & Emerson College ('08).
Here's some fun weird history for your Friday enjoyment!
From Wikipedia:
"Boulevard du Temple", taken by Louis Daguerre in late 1838 or early 1839 in Paris, was the first photograph of a person. The image shows a street, but because exposure time was over ten minutes, the traffic was moving too much to appear. The exception is the man at the bottom left, who stood still getting his boots polished long enough to show.
I'll be at the Arisia sci-fi / fantasy convention in Boston this coming weekend, speaking on a few panels and generally hanging around. I've never been to Arisia before, nor have I ever been on any convention panels, so I'm doubly excited (and very much hoping that I don't say anything too stupid).
Anyway, here's where you can find me. Come say hi!
DC Comics on the Small Screen: 2015 Edition
Saturday, 5:30-6:45pm in Marina 2 (2E)
For all of DC’s much-disdained recent lack of creative success on the big screen, they’ve put together a string of received cartoons going back over twenty years ranging from episodic (Batman) to serialized (Young Justice) to goofy (Teen Titans Go). They’ve also launched multiple TV series, including Arrow, The Flash, and Constantine, even as their actual comics have become a pit of creative despair. We’ll discuss DC’s success (and occasional flop) over the years on television.
—with Nomi S. Burstein, George Claxton, Jaime Garmendia, Dan Toland
Behind the Bristol Board: Comics as a Profession
Saturday, 7-8:15pm in Marina 4 (2E)
If you’re a comics fan, odds are you’ve thought about what it’s like to actually work in the comics industry. This panel will feature working professionals explaining the ins-and-outs of everything from writing and drawing, to editing and publishing. It’s everything you ever wanted to know about being a comics pro, but were afraid to ask.
—with Ken Gale, Bettina Kurkoski, Alisa Kwitney Sheckley, Mercy E Van Vlack
Superman and Religion
Sunday, 11:30am-12:45pm in Burroughs (3E)
Superman remains an enigmatic figure in American mythology. Created by two Jewish kids from Cleveland, perhaps as a metaphor for Jewish assimilation, Superman also represents a Christlike figure in many stories, and the screenwriter of Man of Steel consulted, among other sources, the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh. Does the wide cast of Superman’s religious influences render him a defender-of-all-faiths? Can any religion claim him as one of their own? Come explore this thorny issue with Arisia 2015.
—with Michael A. Burstein, Ken Gale, Alex Jarvis, Daniel Miller
Story Autopsy
Sunday, 2:30-3:45pm in Alcott (3W)
Our group of panelists takes a few well-known works of genre fiction and picks them apart to show you how they work, why they work, and in some cases point out the parts that don’t work at all. If you don’t like spoilers this is probably not the panel for you.
—with M. L. Brennan, James L. Cambias, John P. Murphy, Ian Randal Strock
The Medium and the Message
Sunday, 5:30-6:45pm in Hale (3W)
A story can be told in a multitude of formats. Anything from short stories and epic poems to graphic novels and screenplays can be used to convey a narrative. How do the various formats compare? Do certain genres work well in one but not another? What about translations from one medium to another? How can you tell which works best for your story?
—with Heather Albano, Alexander Feinman, John G. McDaid
Writing and Racial Identity
Monday, 1-2:15pm in Hale (3W)
What does your race have to do with what you write? Depending on your race, are certain topics forbidden to you? Obligatory? None of the above? If your race matters, how do you know what it is? By what people see when they look at you, or by what you know of your genetic background? By your cultural upbringing? By what you write?
—with John Chu, Mark Oshiro, Victor Raymond
I read an article by a man named Ronald Chase, a neurobiologist (and apparently gastropod sex expert?) who made the decision to pursue his field instead of going to law school after his brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia:
"I began to believe that mental illnesses—at least the major disorders like schizophrenia—are not in the mind but, rather, in the brain. I reasoned that no nonphysical thing, a mind, could possibly govern a physical thing like the brain, and it was the brain that mattered, because it controls behavior. The mind, I concluded, must be an aspect of the brain’s function."
This got me thinking about the differences between mental and physical health. I thought about the 24-year-old woman who was recently found to have been living without a cerebellum, and my friend's token "crazy ex" in college whose irrational behavior towards the end of their relationship was found to be literally caused by a benign tumor in her brain that was putting pressure on the part of the brain that controls reasoning. As much as we like to think of our personalities and intelligence and higher processes in general to be something ethereal or mystical, the truth is that we are all organic machines, and our brains aren't that different from computers — or, for that matter, any other organ in our bodies. The difference between depression and Irritable Bowel Syndrome is really just about which part of your body the problem exists in (one makes you feel like shit, and one makes you literally shit?).
Read More...according to this uplifting article by Ramez Naan, anyway, but also according to Spider Jerusalem, my favorite fictional anti-authoritarian druggie bastard liberal journalist of all time, whose voice and opinion are clearly superior to any non-fictional persons real or dead (other than Warren Ellis or Hunter S. Thompson).
So before you pop that bottle of bubbly, here's one of my favorite short comic book stories of all time—about winters, futures, and totally sweet snowblaster guns. Happy new year!
Legal-y things: Transmetropolitan
Also, thanks to Jenna Scherer for reminding me of my own annual posting of this delightful message.
I feel like I'm supposed to make a snarky comment about Peter Jackson* in order to contextualize this, but the truth is, I haven't even seen The Desolation of Smaug or Battle of the Five Armies yet, because I found An Unexpected Journey to be little more than an overlong cut-scene from a corny Tolkien-themed Disney ride. But anyway, this is still fun!
*For the record, I was even skeptical when Jackson was first announced as the director of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, because he was one of my favorite go-to directors for my frequent Horrible & Horribly Offensive B-Movie nights back in high school. Don't get me wrong, Beautiful Dreamers and The Frighteners are both pretty fantastic — but Meet the Feebles? Dead-Alive? Bad Taste? Let's just say that he's better telling someone else's story than his own.
Although, he did give us this:
Obviously I talk a lot about mental health and the fair treatment of human beings on my website; as such, it would be unfair for me to make light of the "rare neurological condition" with which pundit Glenn Beck has been recently diagnosed.
...
Everyone got the giggles out now? Okay. Because he's also working on a new gritty action-adventure book/movie about an immortal warrior called Santa Claus who roams the — desert? tundra? — protecting the wee Baby Jesus, presumably from the legions of Hellish MainstreamLiberalMedia Spawn.
(but like no really why are there camels and also snow?)
Here's what Beck himself had to say about it:
My Santa, the Immortal is a very different guy. He starts out right before the birth of Christ, and he is up in the mountains. And he is a warrior. He has lost his wife, and he’s a sad individual. And he’s got a son who loves dearly, and he lives up in the mountains, and he hunts for food.
He eventually is hired by three wise men because he can negotiate, because nobody is going to rip them off, and he knows how to get the very best gifts. And so he negotiates with gold, frankincense, and myrrh and then has to go protect that gold, frankincense, and myrrh and then through a series of events is left there to protect the Christ child, never interacting, just watching.
He doesn’t know who he is, and he goes darker and darker in his whole life as he watches this boy grow, but he’s always touched by him, but he doesn’t realize it until the Sermon on the Mount. [. . .]
He makes a pact. Little does he know in that pact he has now become immortal, because as he watches the crucifixion from afar and cannot get close to it, cannot stop it, he feels he fails again. He runs off before the resurrection. A thousand years pass until he meets another little boy, a little boy that happens to grow up to be what we know as Saint Nicholas...
Beck does ultimately go on to make some salient points about mythology — how Santa Claus as we currently know him has in fact evolved over the years, an amalgamation of multiple cultural incarnations filtered through the veil of Clement Clarke Moore and years of Coca-Cola ads. As such, this badass eternal ninja warrior version of the man in red is just Beck's contribution to the ongoing memetic traditions of the Santa Claus, in the same way that Greek and Norse mythology (and, of course, comic book superheroes) has changed and been re-appropriated over time. It's a high aspiration, sure, to deem yourself The One To Revolutionize The Santa Claus Myth For Future Generations, but then, I guess he can't be blamed for trying. After all, my friend Aisha did put out that fantastic controversial piece last year about Penguin Santa Claus, which I thought was a great idea (and which Glenn Beck surprisingly didn't say anything stupid about?) — so I guess that change has got to start somewhere, right?
Then again, Glenn Beck's last attempt at a Christmas revolution featured him and — ah, you're right, I'm sorry. Rare neurological condition and all that. It's not polite to laugh.
I thought they smelled good on the outside!
It’s an age-old story: A loyal Tauntaun sacrifices itself to provide life-saving warmth for a future Jedi in its steamy entrails.
Now recreate the legend at your own dinner table. The Tauntaun—faithfully played by the baked potato on your plate—serves himself up to a young Jedi master, aka a lump of butter frozen into a Luke-like shape using the included freezer mold. Reenact the fateful moment when Han eviscerates the beast: slice open your erstwhile companion and insert Luke inside.
Add some salt, a sprinkle of The Force (or sour cream), and enjoy your mouthwatering dinner.
This is incredible. It's like all the misogyny and police shootings and CIA torture and climate change and other things making me horribly, horribly depressed have all been wiped away like clean white snow on Hoth's frozen tundra!
The Baked Potauntaun Team is currently trying to raise $75,000 on IndieGoGo. As of this posting, they have....$700. But I have faith! Because who doesn't want a Baked Potauntaun?! Plus, that Luke Butter Mold and Lightsaber Butter Knife would go great with my Han Solo in Carbonite ice cube trays. So, ya know, if you're looking for a Christmas gift for that special me...
There's lots going on at Camp Thom Dunn (is there ever not?); and so, I interrupt your regularly scheduled weird nerd pop culture discoveries & progressive political rantings to, ya know, talk about myself for a minute.
Ladies and gentlemen, Dave Ganjamie
Oh yeah, and then after all that stuff's done, I'm getting married, but ya know, that's a minor event.
Trevor Christensen is a Utah-based photographer who had the brilliant idea to take nude photographs. As in, he himself would be nude, and he would photograph people (with their permission, obvi). Hilarity ensues.
From the artist's statement:
As a photographer I’m deeply interested in the experience subjects have during portrait shoots. When I guide subjects through the process of making their photo, I seek to create a calm, comfortable environment where they can be at ease in front of the camera. Despite my best efforts, subjects often feel a sense of vulnerability during the process. No matter the scenario, this power imbalance seems like an almost inescapable part of the experience.
The photographer/subject paradigm is one of inequality. Nude Portraits is about leveling the playing field in an unorthodox way. Instead of focusing on bringing the subject to a place of ease, where I am, this project brings me to a place of vulnerability.
This vulnerability is achieved by making portraits without clothing. These are nude portraits in the sense that I, the photographer, am nude, while the subject is not.
Take a look below. And oh, fair warning — totally safe for work.
Compare with...
And yet, we don't see this...
All comics (which are separate, but thematically connected) written and drawn by Matt Borrs.
Presented without comment, because it's self-explanatory.
From Live Freaky, Die Freaky!, the post-apocalyptic stop-motion Charles Manson sci-fi musical. Yup.
In celebration of his upcoming nuptials, I thought I'd remind you of my personal favorite piece of weird Charles Manson history (not that I have like, a running list but...ugh, whatever).
See, once upon a time, just a year before the fully-public crazy and the murder and stuff, Charlie Manson was shacking up with Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys. Sure, they shared some concubines, but more importantly, they made music together.
That's right, the Beach Boys collaborated with one of the most notorious Neo-Nazi cultist murderers in American history.
Read MoreWritten/drawn/narrated by Molly Crabapple for Fusion. Presented without comment.
Kurt Vonnegut would have been 92 years old today, Veterans Day 2014 — which is particularly ironic because although Vonnegut was a veteran himself, his anti-war sentiments were anything but subtle ("I'll be damned if it was worth it," he once wrote in a letter to home when he was deployed). Admittedly, he may have been biased, seeing as how he was held as a POW in World War II during the bombing of Dresden, which inspired his psuedo-autobiographical-time-travel-alien-abduction novel Slaughterhouse-Five. That's the power of science fiction, kids: when a personal experience is so traumatic that you struggle for years to find a way to write about it, just add some Tralfamadorians and some non-linear structure, and somehow through all that fantastical dressing, you will find the heart of the story that you were otherwise too close to and too scared to find...
Read MoreYeahhhhhhhhhhh this pretty much sums it up. Happy post-election day.
It's Witching Season once again, which means it's time to engage into the centuries-old practice of SPOOKY STORIES! WOOHOO! Here are a few personal favorites that I thought I would share...
Read MoreThere was a great piece on NPR the other day where Glen Weldon tried to explain to a curious friend the convoluted insanity of superhero comic book continuity — how the intrinsic nature of the genre's cyclical storytelling patterns is both endlessly frustrating but also part of its charm.
Or, as the saying goes — Comics, Everybody!
This weird cynicism towards death even seeps into the stories themselves. I recall a great issue of X-Factor where Siryn learned about the death of her father, the X-Man Banshee. She just laughed and laughed and laughed, which everyone around her found, well, pretty insensitive. "Come on, you guys," she explained. "We're superheroes! He's dead for now, sure, but he'll be back. I'm not worried about it." It made the rest of the team uncomfortable and concerned for mental well-being, but personally, I thought it was a pretty shockingly accurate depiction of mourning and the different ways that people learn to cope — particularly in a world where no one stays dead (except for Uncle Ben...so far).
There have been some great superhero death stories over the years (Ed Brubaker's Captain America comes to mind), and there have also been some great stories deconstructing the cyclical nature of superhero deaths (Grant Morrison's runs on both Batman and New X-Men...and also Flex Mentallo, and to a certain degree All-Star Superman and...yeah Grant's really into that, huh?). Weldon is correct to use the Asgardian "Ragnarok" to describe this phenomenon, and not just because of Thor. There's a longstanding tradition of death and resurrection in Western storytelling — Jesus being the obvious example, but really, nearly every major epic hero throughout history has had to undergo some kind of death or Underworld trial, and of course, the cycle of death and return also reflects the ever-changing seasons, and the orbit of the Earth, and so on. If we're running on the belief that superheroes are modern (corporate-owned) mythology, well, then the ubiquity of death makes perfect sense.
That being said, it's a particularly weird thing when it comes to narrative devices — death ups the stakes in any story, but at the same time, the promise of resurrection (no matter how much the company insists that this one will stick) robs the story of those stakes, and it turns death into a rote plot device, just another stage in the story. Death in comics is never "The End," which is either incredibly screwed-up, or a touching perspective on how our loved ones might live on in real life. But when death is just another phase in your story, I think that makes it harder to approach with the appropriate gravitas.
Meanwhile, "Death of [Superhero]" comics continue to sell incredibly well, and as long as people keep buyin' 'em, publishers will keep on killin' 'em and bringin' 'em back. Which, on a meta-reading level, means that comic book readers are trapped in the same endless cycle as the characters they read about, alternating between disillusionment and infatuation with the genre they grew up with. And we're stuck in it just the same.
Remember those wacky mail order ads for weird pulp fiction products that you used to be able to find in the back of old comic books?
This little gem from 1979 — limited to only 5,000, get yours today while supplies last! — was supposedly an attempt to capitalize on the release of yet-another Dracula movie that same year. I probably shouldn't be so dismissive, that was obviously well-before there were way too many vampire things around, but 1979 was considered by some to be 'The Year of the Dracula,' as Werner Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre (which, it should be noted, was not about Dracula) and Love at First Bite were also released that same year. So in that case, I guess that an amulet of "genuine" soil isn't the worst bit of opportunist merchandising possible? (he says, from a strange future world where pretty young vampires all love and sparkle)
If this was 2014, that little necklace would cost you $40 with shipping, all because some shkeevy marketing guy paid some Romanian dude $10 to dump some dirt into a box and ship it off to America. Forty bucks — and it doesn't even grant the wearer any mystical powers! (although if you ask me, that little disclaimer text is a prime example of "Thou doth protest too much"...)
However, it does include a certificate of authenticity, which makes me wonder — who exactly signed that certificate, and what sort of qualifications did that person have? Truly, what makes one an expert in vampire soil? Are there real vampire archaeologists out there who do this stuff? If so, the official Vampire Archaeology Authentication Council should probably review their application process, because "Dracula's Castle" isn't even a real place. Presumably, this soil comes from Bran Castle, which does claim itself to be "Dracula's Castle" as a tourist attraction due its location near the border of Transylvania and Wallachia. Although previously owned by Hungarian kings, the castle was actually repossessed by the city of Brasov in 1533 after Vlad II Dracul failed to pay some other loans he'd taken out — Vlad II Dracul being the father of Vlad III aka Vlad Tepes aka Vlad the Impaler, the supposed inspiration for the fictional character of Dracula, who was never known to have spent any time in or around Bran Castle during his life.
Supposedly, Stoker's inspiration for the physical layout and appearance of Dracula's castle in his novel is based on New Slain Castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, according to Clare Haworth-Maden in The Essential Dracula. Despite popular opinion and prevailing cultural imagery, Dracula may have his roots more in Gaelic traditions and history than those of Eastern Europe, especially when you consider that Stoker himself was Irish. Fun fact: while "dracul" in Romanian does indeed translate to "Son of the Dragon," "droch fhola" in Irish Gaelic (pronounced "droc'ola") translates to "bad blood." Curious? Consider then the legend of Abhartach, an Irish warlord with dwarfism (but not one of the Daoine Maithe or Tuatha Dé Danann!) from present-day County Derry who was supposedly immortal and was said to have drank the blood of his enemies. From The Origin and History of Irish Names & Places:
There is a place in the parish of Errigal in Derry, called Slaghtaverty, but it ought to have been called Laghtaverty, the laght or sepulchral monument of the abhartach or dwarf. This dwarf was a magician, and a dreadful tyrant, and after having perpetrated great cruelties on the people he was at last vanquished and slain by a neighbouring chieftain; some say by Fionn Mac Cumhail. He was buried in a standing posture, but the very next day he appeared in his old haunts, more cruel and vigorous than ever. And the chief slew him a second time and buried him as before, but again he escaped from the grave, and spread terror through the whole country. The chief then consulted a druid, and according to his directions, he slew the dwarf a third time, and buried him in the same place, with his head downwards; which subdued his magical power, so that he never again appeared on earth. The laght raised over the dwarf is still there, and you may hear the legend with much detail from the natives of the place, one of whom told it to me.
Regardless of Dracula's origins, or the origins of his alleged soil from Castle Dracula, I suspect that this exclusive offer is no longer available. Fortunately, Darling Pet Munkee, a Boston-based band that just writes songs about ridiculous ads from the backs of old comic books, was kind enough to immortalize this rare necklace in song for our enjoyment:
This is the way the world ends: not with a bang, but a mortgage.
Read More
