I am closing this weblog after 20+ years of posts. The World Wide Web is dead and what is left is a bunch of AI garbage I find to be, and note that I do not use this term lightly, a Sin against humanity. Goodbye.
Horrortober 2023
1 The Stepford Wives (1975)
2 Mad Love (1935)
3 Night of the Living Dead (1968)
4 Jennifer’s Body (2009)
5 Santo In The Wax Museum (1963)
6 Santo and the Treasure of Dracula (1969)
7 Carnival of Souls (1960)
8 The Living Skeleton (1968)
9 Ginger Snaps (2000)
10 Santo v The Riders of Terror (1970)
11 Santo In The Vengeance of the Mummy (1971)
12 Giant Spider Invasion (1975)
13 The Lighthouse (2019)
14 Sisters (1972)
15 Death Line (1972)
16 Santo v Frankenstein’s Daughter (1972)
17 Santo & Blue Demon v Dracula & Wolf Man (1973)
18 Humanoids From The Deep (1980)
19 The Old Dark House (1963)
20 Masque of the Red Death (1964)
21 Santo & Blue Demon v Dr. Frankenstein (1974)
22 Santo y Mantequilla Nápoles en La Venganza Del La Llorona (1974)
23 Nightbreed (1990)
Bloomsday 2024
A colleague of mine and I were invited for the second time to speak at a local Bloomsday event. This is a fun event and I have been happy to see it grow from last year.
Books Read 2023
Graphic Novels
A lot of rereads because I picked up print copies…
Superman: A Celebration of 75 Years
Lois Lane: A Celebration of 75 Years
Wonder Woman: A Celebration of 75 Years
The Love and Rockets Companion: 30 Years
Alias Omnibus by Brian Michael Bendis
Batman Adventures: Mad Love Deluxe Edition by Paul Dini
Transformers : Evolutions - Hearts of Steel by Chuck Dixon
Batman: The Brave & the Bold: The Bronze Age Vol. 1 by Bob Haney
Love and Rockets: The Covers by Gilbert Hernández
Penny Century by Jaime Hernández
Maggie the Mechanic by Jaime Hernández
Esperanza: A Love and Rockets Book by Jaime Hernández
Tonta by Jaime Hernández
Angels And Magpies by Jaime Hernández
Perla la Loca by Jaime Hernández
The Girl from H.O.P.P.E.R.S. by Jaime Hernández
Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? The Deluxe Edition by Alan Moore
Transformers: Lost Light, Vol. 1 by James Roberts,
Marvel Masterworks: the X-men 3 by Roy Thomas
Marvel Masterworks: the X-men 4 by Roy Thomas
Gaming
Dungeons and Desktops: The History of Computer Role-Playing Games by Matt Barton
Boss Fight Books #28 Final Fantasy VI by Sebastian Deken
Hardcore Gaming 101 Presents: Castlevania by Kurt Kalata
The Secret History of Mac Gaming by Richard Moss
The Apple II Age: How the Computer Became Personal by Laine Nooney
Super Nes Works Volume I: 1991 by Jeremy Parish
NES Works Volume III: 1987 by Jeremy Parish
50 Years of Text Games: From Oregon Trail to A.I. Dungeon by Aaron A. Reed
Fiction
Again, some rereads because I picked up print copies…
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene
Sweeney Astray by Seamus Heaney
The Midnight Verdict: Translations from the Irish of Brian Merriman and from the Metamorphoses of Ovid by Seamus Heaney
The Testament of Cresseid & Seven Fables Robert Henryson, Seamus Heaney (Translator)
The Translations of Seamus Heaney
The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan
The Call of Cthulhu and Other Dark Tales by H.P. Lovecraft
A Doll's House and Other Plays (Penguin) by Henrik Ibsen
Minor Detail by Adania Shibli
The Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson
Non-Fiction
The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years: From The Next Generation to J. J. Abrams: The Complete, Uncensored, and Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek
Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire (edited by Jehad Abusalim)
The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction: 1948–1985 by James Baldwin
Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights by Omar Barghouti
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Norton Critical Edition (translated by Marie Borroff)
Confronting Authority: Reflections of an Ardent Protester by Derrick A. Bell
Frames of War: When is Life Grievable? by Judith Butler
Life Against Dementia: Essays, Reviews, Interviews 1975-2011 by Joe Carducci
Abolition. Feminism. Now. (Edited by Angela Y. Davis)
Cinema 1: The Movement-Image by Gilles Deleuze
Our Team: The Epic Story of Four Men and the World Series That Changed Baseball by Luke Epplin
Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle by Silvia Federici
Silence is No Reaction: Forty Years of Subhumans by Ian Glasper
Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone by Sarah Jaffe
Superheroes, Movies, and the State: How the U.S. Government Shapes Cinematic Universes by Tricia Jenkins
Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages by Dan Jones
The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors by Dan Jones
Abolition for the People: The Movement for a Future without Policing & Prisons (edited by Colin Kaepernick)
Our History Has Always Been Contraband: In Defense of Black Studies (edited by Colin Kaepernick)
Negro League Baseball: The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution by Neil Lanctot
The Ninety-Five Theses and Other Writings by Martin Luther
Knowledge Socialism: The Rise of Peer Production: Collegiality, Collaboration, and Collective Intelligence (edited by Michael A. Peters)
Daily Life in the Medieval Islamic World by James E. Lindsay
Care: The Highest Stage of Capitalism by Premilla Nadasen
Jean Arthur: The Actress Nobody Knew by John Oller
Revelations of Divine Love (Penguin) by Julian of Norwich
Cities of Ladies: Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries, 12-1565 by Walter Simons
Making It So: A Memoir by Patrick Stewart
The Hours Have Lost Their Clock: The Politics of Nostalgia by Grafton Tanner
Wages for Housework: A History of an International Feminist Movement, 1972-77 by Louise Toupin
As Serious As Your Life: Black Music and the Free Jazz Revolution, 1957–1977 by Val Wilmer
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and A Vindication of the Rights of Men (Oxford) by Mary Wollstonecraft
Best Of 2023
My best of 2023 list is now posted over on Signifying Nothing. Click here to read.
Armistice Day 2023
This year I co-hosted our Armistice Day event again. Here are my comments…
I recently read a quote from a book about Shell Shock where the author describes World War I as “a war on the…scale…no one had ever seen…the varying degrees of metal breakdown among soldiers or experienced it in such massive numbers.”
What was called Shell Shock during World War I is now called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The language we use to describe the horrors of war have become needlessly complex and take away from the severity of it. Think about how many people use the phrase “PTSD” rather frivolously. I’m not a vet, but I have been through significant, life changing traumas that make me very resentful towards people who use the term in a superficial manner. I hear this criticism from our veteran students as well.
There is a George Carlin clip from the early 1990s that is frequently shared online where he talks about the de-evolution of language and uses the example of Shell Shock. What was Shell Shock in World War I becomes increasingly complex and less declarative language that ends up meaning something that is vague and not direct.
The top comment on that clip focuses on Carlin noting that the phrase Shell Shock “sounds like the guns themselves.” I think about that a lot too.
Something those of you in the audience that have been my students can attest to is that I am constantly telling students to be more declarative. Narrow the scope of your argument. Use precise language. Shell Shock is precise. How we talk about this issue in modern times is not.
During the Modernist era, war, particularly in the Intermodern period between the world wars, was constantly on the minds of writers. Beyond war, Modernism also focuses on how individuals can become deathly alienated from society. One of the best works of literature during this period that describes the horrors of shell shock is Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway.
The co-protagonist, Septimus Smith, has horrible nightmares, when he can even sleep at all, and feels a deep disconnection from those around him including his wife. He feels alienated from society and after hearing a car motor backfire, shows how shell shock robs someone of their ability to properly process themselves and those around them.
Reading from Mrs. Dalloway