20
Dec
17
Dec
So although I was snubbed by the Canadian Blog Awards this year for reasons not involving me being too big for that sort of thing, I am noticing that, as usual, there is a great injustice. This time it is that the incredibly shit-ass Mike’s Bloggity Blog, which is quite possibly the lamest website I have ever seen in my life, is leading in the Best Humour Blog award voting because Mike Bloggity or whatever the fuck the guy’s name is is a total clickwhore who even set up a Facebook page to get votes.
Seriously, what the shit is this? Look at that website. Crappy little ad-links in every post. Posts consisting of nothing more than “hey guys look what you can get off iTunes this week.” Regurgitated celebrity news. This is not “humour.” This is dogshit.
However, there is a cure. Also nominated is the MGK-endorsed Way To Suck That Dick! This site has the dual benefit of A) actually being funny and B) not being total net.doggerel. Plus, if it won, it would be the first completely NSFW winner in the short history of the Canadian Blog Awards. So I hereby encourage you to go vote for them, and vote for Bloggity-Fuck dead last because it is a ranked ballot.
17
Dec
I was gonna do this week’s entry starting out by making fun of Strong Bow’s listed abilities, which include the fact that he has very strong legs since he walks a lot. But then I looked at him and I changed my mind.
I changed my mind because fucking look at him. This is not some happy nature warrior. Look at the face. This guy is a stone-cold killer. He’s not a psychopath or a kill-crazy fun-seeker or a berserker ninja samurai Canadian possibly descended from a race of werewolves or something. He’s not somebody who kills people for fun; there’s no pleasure in it for him. It’s just what he often ends up having to do, and he’s just really, really good at killing people. You can tell just by looking at him, and by the way he holds that giant fucking knife.
This, my friends, is a total one hundred percent badass. Look at the background art, where he is stabbing a dinosaur to death. Maybe he needs meat for a long journey. Maybe the dinosaur decided to try and kill him, and found out the error of its ways. It doesn’t really matter. Strong Bow doesn’t care either way. It’s nothing personal. It’s just that the dinosaur has to die. Somewhere in the universe’s cosmic planner, somebody wrote “today, Strong Bow kills dinosaur,” and the reasons are really besides the point; there’s need for him to kill a dinosaur, so he kills the dinosaur.
Maybe I’m basing all of this on one bit of art, but so what? Look at it.
16
Dec
So I’m just going to put up the annual “Christmas drive” post right now, because the simple truth is this: keeping this site up and running costs me a fair chunk of change and a lot of work. I like doing the work and I don’t really mind paying the money: that is why there are no advertisements on this site (and never will be for anything other than things I am personally involved in creating).
But that doesn’t mean I mind occasionally holding out the hat; after all, I only do it three times per year (on Christmas, my birthday, and the site’s anniversary in August). Because while I would do it for free and indeed mostly do just that, I still like offsetting the cost a bit.
So this time I present you with not one but two options. The first option is the ever reliable Amazon.ca wishlist (Amazon.com shipping is too prohibitive, alas, to make giftgiving from it really worthwhile). The second and newer option is that I have finally caved and included a Paypal donation button on the sidebar there for people who might just want to tip a buck or two into the hat rather than buying me large impressive presents that show how amazing your genitalia are (and I am certain they are quite splendid).
(Hey, if every one of this site’s unique readers chipped in just one dollar a year, this could be my job! Except, on second thought, that is kind of disturbing on multiple levels.)
16
Dec
It begins when a man in a Santa outfit is found dead in a New York alleyway, his face ripped apart beyond recognition and every drop of blood in his body exsanguinated. But it doesn’t end there. The very next day, a second Santa is found hanging from the London Bridge, his eyes gouged out – later during the autopsy, it is revealed that several of his organs have gone missing, even though there is no scar indicating a place where they might have been removed. A third Santa shows up in the middle of a Vancouver plaza on day three, with skin the consistency of melted wax; on day four, a headless, limbless torso in a Santa coat shows up outside the Sydney Opera House.
But these are not just any Santas. These, every one, are members of the Santae.
The Santae are a very, very old brotherhood, not just of humans but indeed a plethora of supernatural creatures as well. Wizards, sorcerers, spirits, ghosts, monsters, angels, demons, lawyers, you name it – the Santae don’t care what you are so long as you’re willing to contribute to their crusade. Which, in a word, is Christmas.
You see, a long time ago, a number of magicians and influential citizens of ancient Rome came together to discuss a growing threat – an enemy from elsewhere, which fed on human fear, sorrow and misery. This emotional vampirism empowered these entities ever more greatly, but the Romans understood that you couldn’t simply stop people from being afraid or sad; it didn’t work. Human nature is a bit too pessimistic to allow it on a mass scale. The entities were growing ever more powerful and standard magic grew less and less effective; their tendrils reached into this world to create moments of fear and pain that were occultly significant and gave them ever more power. They wanted to come here and turn this world into a new hell of their own design.
Then one of the group that would become the Santae, a penitent demon by the name of Krngl, had an idea. What if people could be convinced to spread joy, cheer and love? Not all the time – just enough that the Santae could use these outpourings of positive emotion as the equivalent of spiritual and cosmological booster shots for the entire planet, working behind the scenes to create the circumstances where occultly significant shows of hope and love and other fine emotions could be tuned to attack the entities. The group didn’t have any better ideas (they were frankly pretty desperate by this point) and were cheerfully surprised when it turned out that this plan actually worked at that year’s Saturnalia.
From that moment the Santae worked tirelessly to serve their planet, using winter festivals and holidays as their cover. The Santae used whatever was convenient: the Festival of Sol Invictus, Diwali, the Chinese New Year (which they made sure spread to most of the eastern half of Asia), Yule, Eid, Chanukah (recently, Jewish members of the Santae have taken to calling themselves “Chanukah Harries,” mostly because they like a good joke as much as anybody else), and of course Christmas. It was the Santae who made sure that Oliver Cromwell died of “malaria,” ending his Puritan Parliament, and it was a member of the Santae working in the Coca-Cola corporation who suggested a new Christmastime marketing campaign using Santa Claus, popularizing his image throughout the world. Every year, they turn hundreds of shows of virtue into magical weapons in the Earth’s defense; every year, they protect the planet anew.
And now, somebody is killing them off. That’s when the Santae go to the one man they know can help them: the Sorcerer Supreme.
16
Dec
The fall season, which started out hobbled by baseball pre-emptions preventing voting, limps to a close with a six-person finale! No group dances! No single-gender pairings! That’s not “sweeps.”
Kathryn and Ryan: samba. Two weeks where Kathryn and Ryan get a Jason Gilkison ballroom number, two weeks where they absolutely nail it to the wall. This one was arguably even better than their cha cha last week, which up until this point was probably the best ballroom number of the entire season – but this killed. On every possible level. Kathryn should simply not be this good at ballroom, but she was, completely. Ryan was as predictably excellent as one could expect. An exceptional opener to the finale.
Ellenore and Jakob: Broadway. A perfectly acceptable Broadway by Tasty (who’s had a really strong season overall). There is not much else to say here other than that it was good and they were good. Not superbly excellent and it wasn’t anywhere close to routine of the night, mind. But it was good enough not to offend.
Ashleigh and Russell: contemporary. Well danced by both of them; Sonya really put together a decent little number here, and I’m glad she’s moved away from the rut she seemed to be in for most of season five. Nigel remarks that Ashleigh disappeared into the background, which A) isn’t true and B) isn’t her fault considering the routine focused on Russell (who will likely win the season despite not really having had a single truly balls-out great routine, which saddens me), but hey, it’s perfecly understandable because Ashleigh took away the spot Mollee deserved in Nigel’s mind, so what can you expect. Shut up, Nigel.
Ellenore and Ryan: jazz. Yeah, this wasn’t really even close to being jazz: this was straight-up Australian Dance Theatre ultra-mod contemporary, but given that the show basically treats jazz and contemporary as being interchangeable labels, whatever. I am a huge fan of Garry Stewart’s choreo – it’s just so fucking cool – but I have to admit that the performance here was not quite perfect: there were one or two moments where the synched movements were not quite synched, and in this routine they became just so noticeable. That having said, this is a minor quibble for what was otherwise a very strong performance by both dancers and a good partnership.
Ashleigh and Jakob: foxtrot. Jakob was genuinely not that great in this foxtrot; lukewarm top 12 fodder at most, and he’s been better in most of his ballroom performances by half. Ashleigh was very strong, which is not surprising. Nigel comments that choreographers keep giving Jakob jetes, which REALLY WHAT FUCKING SEASON HAVE YOU BEEN WATCHING NIGEL LYTHGOE.
Ellenore and Russell: paso doble. Dear Russell: do not grin ever during a paso. Yeesh. Anyway, Russell’s performance in this was mostly a triumph of character over technique; his footwork was occasionally clumsy and his turns a bit stiff to say the least, but once he stopped grinning he really got down into character. Ellenore, however, was far superior to Russell, but since Ellenore is allowed to talk about her training and Russell isn’t, she is officially Not Inspirational Material. Tough luck, Ellenore! Maybe next time you’ll have a dead sibling or something that makes you cry, rather than just being “the quirky one.” You got to plan these things.
Kathryn and Jakob: contemporary. One of the best performances on this show, ever. Desmond Richardson and Dwight Rhoden, on top of two Jason Gilkisons, a Jean-Marc and Sonya? They’re really bringing on the best choreographers right at the end. Anyway. Yes. Easily the best performance of the entire season, and although both dancers were flat-out excellent I think I have to give more credit to Kathryn than Jakob simply because her parts were less intuitively “contemporary.” Christ, this was a good fucking dance!
Ashleigh and Ryan: contemporary. So that makes two contemporary numbers, two “jazz” numbers, plus a jazzy Tasty bit of Broadway. GOSH I WONDER IF THERE IS AN INSTITUTIONAL BIAS ON THIS SHOW TOWARDS A PARTICULAR FORM OF DANCE! This dance was honestly kind of basic (sad truth: Ashleigh is probably the least technically able dancer ever to advance to a “finale” – even Twitch or Evan were much more advanced than she), but it made up for that by being genuinely lovely and sweet as Ashleigh and Ryan got to dance with one another. I would have preferred to see them fucking rip up the floor with a salsa, but this was nice. Nigel “I Hate You For Taking Mollee’s Spot Ashleigh” Lythgoe comments that Ashleigh has better chemistry with Jakob than her husband, which is fucking retarded. Shut up, Nigel.
Kathryn and Russell: hip-hop. Nappytabs? Well, at least it wasn’t stupid-storyline Nappytabs but an attempt by them to straight-up kick it. I’m not sure how successful it was on that score – there were a couple of bits where the choreo just seemed to lag. But mostly it was very solid. (We will not comment on there being one hip-hop number out of nine fucking dances on the season finale. Well, other than just having done so.) Russell was completely on point through the entire routine and fucking murdered it. Kathryn fell slightly behind at two points, but I’m more inclined to blame that on the choreo rather than her dancing, because at all other moments of the dance she was just on. So really, this was quite good, although I would have preferred to see more Shane Sparks.
Final order should be: 1.) Kathryn 2.) Jakob 3.) Ellenore 4.) Russell 5.) Ryan 6.) Ashleigh
Final order will be: 1.) Russell 2.) Kathryn 3.) Jakob 4.) Ellenore 5.) Ryan 6.) Ashleigh
14
Dec
14
Dec
So here’s my deep, dark, horrible secret: Despite posing as someone who’s extremely conversant with the history of superhero comics, I had never read the Chris Claremont/John Byrne Dark Phoenix Saga before this week. I had just never really been able to track down a TPB or reprints before.
Understand, between summaries and secondhand sources, I knew all about the storyline, down to specific panels I’d seen reproduced dozens and dozens of times elsewhere; it’s rather like how not every NFL fan might have actually sat down and watched the Ice Bowl, but you might know some of the big plays and significant stats, or at least that it is considered to be An Important Game.
Well, this week I sat down and watched the Ice Bowl of superhero comics, and I thought I’d write a little something about it. You don’t need me to review it or tell you that it’s good, because you already know, or you’ve already heard. But I thought I might venture an opinion about why it’s so good. I think it’s something that’s sorely missed in today’s superhero comics, and that is collaboration.
Because the Dark Phoenix Saga as we know it today, as a landmark in superhero storytelling, was really a happy accident. The original plan was that as a result of Mastermind’s interference, Jean would turn into the Dark Phoenix, a villainous threat to both the X-Men and the universe. Before she could do any major damage, the Shi’ar would then “psychically lobotomize” Jean so that she was no longer a threat, but the Dark Phoenix persona could come back every couple years as a big-time villain in the same way that Magneto or Doctor Doom were being used at the time. You get some drama, a small-to-medium-sized shakeup to the status quo, and seeds for future storylines; a very serviceable, if not exceptional, superhero story.
But then Byrne decided to up the ante and give Dark Phoenix some more villain cred by having her kill five billion inhabitants of an alien world when the star she consumes destroys their planet, and Claremont went along with it and scripted a still-quite-haunting haunting description of the alien civilization’s final moments. This ended up working even better than Byrne had expected, because Jean was now such a horrible villain that Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter demanded at the last minute that she die, because after ending five billion lives, the old “Oh, thank heavens I’ve been cured of my evil side and can’t be held accountable for my actions” bit was not going to cut it. Thus forcing Claremont and Byrne to scrap their original, “safe” ending and kill Jean off, thus producing some of the most particularly poignant melodrama superhero that the genre had ever seen.
Of course, you probably have heard this story already, but I bring it up to make my next point: This would probably have never happened in today’s comics industry.
The Dark Phoenix story that finally saw print was very much a collaboration between writer, artist, and editorial. Claremont on his own would have written a fairly standard superhero story, but Byrne took the initiative to add some risk, and they both were forced to move outside their safe plan by editorial interference.
But I don’t see that degree of collaboration in today’s superhero comics. I don’t believe many comics are done according to the old “Marvel Method” anymore, instead relying on a full script from a writer. But working from a full script, Byrne wouldn’t have the freedom to have Dark Phoenix wipe out an inhabited planet. Similarly, I wouldn’t imagine too many editors would do what Shooter did in stepping in like that so late in the game. If editors are not outright acting as showrunners and telling writers what to do themselves, they seem to be fairly hands-off. Brian Michael Bendis and Geoff Johns, for example, seem to get very free reign; there doesn’t appear to be very much that’s been made off-limits to them. And anyway, these things are planned at big editorial/writer summits years in advance, so everyone’s on the same page from the beginning.
I have no doubt that these sprawling five-year plans lead to fewer headaches and better planning, but aren’t we sacrificing spontaneity? I think one way to get that back would be to stop taking such an auteur approach to superhero comics and spur collaboration by getting the artists to contribute more to the storytelling side of things.
It’s true that Claremont and Byrne disagreed on a lot of points during their collaboration, but each brought out something in the other that wouldn’t be present otherwise. Byrne the traditionalist seemed to be able to rein in some of the self-indulgent excesses that Claremont would become infamous for in later years; at the same time, Claremont the trailblazer was less interested in the comfortable status quo than Byrne and shook things up more than the artist might have on his own. Oppositional collaboration can be extremely fruitful; the Lennon/McCartney songwriting team was so effective precisely because they had two very different approaches.
What I am suggesting is that it’s possible that the popular writers are becoming too comfortable with the amount of creative control they exert in the industry today. If Geoff Johns, for example, was paired with an artist who was less inclined to go for the gore, or more interested in new characters than the Silver Age originals, the resulting synthesis might result in more interesting comics. Similarly, if Bendis was working with an artist who was given to designing elaborate action setpieces instead of talking heads, perhaps it would force him to move outside his comfort zone and grow as a superhero writer. Of course, the results could very well be terrible, but they might also be very innovative and bold. What if…? Right?
The Dark Phoenix Saga is one of the most influential stories in the history of the superhero genre. But perhaps the lesson to be learned from it shouldn’t have been “Killing off a longtime character makes for good drama,” but rather, “Sometimes Plan B turns out to be the better plan after all.”
12
Dec
11
Dec
This week: A Wish For Wings That Work, the only Berke Breathed TV special ever.
10
Dec
So I am looking at the World Cup draws and MGK was complaining about how “fucking Italy gets a walk to the semis,” and he doesn’t like Italy because he thinks they play the game like dicks somehow. I’m not up on soccer beyond the basics, but I assume they try to bribe referees or grab the microphone before the soccer match and they run down the local fans, like “hey we slept with all your sisters last night and they weren’t even that good, not like the girls in Italy,” or something like that. Because that’s what I’d do if I were a pro wrestler, and I figure it translates to other sports.
But that’s not the point. The point is that North Korea is somehow in the World Cup this year, which is fantastic, because the entire country is apparently, like, insane or something. And insane countries will do anything to win a soccer match. It might not make sense to anybody else, but you got to understand that North Korea, being a crazy country, will think their plans are all sensible and rational no matter what they might be otherwise. Because they are crazy.
Like, maybe they capture a bunch of whales. And then, they put the whales on their team as goalkeepers. They get two defensemen to swab down the whale with water and feed the whales buckets of mackerel, and the other teams are all “how do we get the balls past these whales? The whales are bigger than the net!” And the other teams can’t score against North Korea (well, except for Brazil, because Brazil will always find a way to score a goal somehow – if Brazil wasn’t allowed to travel to South Africa for the World Cup for some reason, they would invent intercontinental ballistic corner-kicking technology) and North Korea gets into the semifinals based on tie scores. Then Portugal threatens to sue FIFA, and they go to court, and Portugal’s lawyer at a key moment clutches his knee and falls down to the courtroom floor and starts rolling around in agony. The North Koreans say “this is blatant anti-whale discrimination and those whales are North Korean citizens,” but when the judge asks the whales to sing the North Korean national anthem, the whales just go “eewwwwoOAAAAAAAuuuuuuuuh.” And then North Korea quickly says “well, that’s our anthem,” and to prove it they have a thousand North Koreans assemble and sing just like the whales, in unison, because the North Koreas believe in being prepared for all eventualities and are willing to use whips to get what they want. And they go all the way to the final, where they lose to Brazil.
Or maybe the North Koreans decide that the key is misdirection! So they disguise themselves as South Korea, and go play South Korea’s matches! Their opponents, not expecting the radical North Korean strategies and being prepared for South Korea’s disciplined orderly style of soccer (I don’t actually know what South Korea’s style of soccer play is, but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that it is disciplined and orderly, because the South Koreans are the Germans of Asia and everybody knows it) lose terribly. Meanwhile a team of elite North Korean secret agents work to confuse the South Korean team into playing North Korea’s opponents for them, and South Korea loses to Brazil for them. At the semifinal ceremony (there is a ceremony, right?), the North Korean team takes off their South Korean jerseys and say “a HA, we were the North Koreans all along! Now we will advance to the semifinals!” And then they lose to Brazil.
Or maybe the North Koreans get their asses kicked in their own division, and then in the first semifinal round the Ivory Coast team is playing Spain, but then the speakers start blaring Ted DiBiase’s old WWF theme song “Money, Money, Money.” And the North Koreans come out with briefcases and the briefcases are filled with Euros and they say, “look, Ivory Coast, we understand that your average per-capita income in your country is like sixteen hundred dollars, because we read it on Wikipedia. Would you rather lose right now, to Spain, or would you like to let us play Spain instead and you can take home all this wonderful money?” And then the Ivory Coast team looks all ashamed and the crowd cheers them because they don’t want the Ivory Coast players to sell out but ultimately the Ivory Coast players have to take the money because their country is poor. And then North Korea whispers in their ear that now they are their slaves because they took the money and that means it is a binding contract, so the Ivory Coast team goes to the trucks the North Koreans brought and releases the bulls, which stampede onto the field because they are the mortal enemies of all Spaniards. North Korea wins by default, and progresses to the next round, where they lose to Brazil.
So many ways this could go!
9
Dec
Hoo boy.
Kathryn and Ryan: disco and cha cha. Wow, Ryan really got lucky this week: a good partner and two dances firmly in his wheelhouse. The disco was fine; Ryan’s skill at partnering combined with Kathryn’s general skill period made for a perfectly good disco. Not a great one, but that’s more on Doriana Sanchez’ boring, boring choreography than any fault of the dancers involved.
The cha cha was fucking tremendous, as is to be expected when you take the aforementioned skill levels of Ryan and Kathryn and combine them with Jason MOTHERFUCKING Gilkison choreo. Seriously, Gilkison’s choreography can make even bad dancers look good, and Ryan and Kathryn were not bad in this: their technique and performance were simply just about perfect on all levels. One of the best dances of the season. (Which, given that this season has been mediocre compared to others, may be damning with faint praise, but whatever.)
Kathryn’s solo: Better than last week: more unique and heartfelt. This was a major step up for her.
Ryan’s solo: Standard ballroom cheddar.
Mollee and Jakob: Viennese waltz and Broadway. Speaking of Jason Gilkison making even bad dancers look good HEY EVERYBODY IT’S MOLLEE. Okay, in fairness, this waltz was probably the best she’s been all season. However, she was still pretty bad – the same unsteady feet (especially coming out of lifts), the same three pageant faces she always has, the same lack of anything resembling connection or chemistry. Managing to dance adequately at the top 20 level in the top 8 episode is not an accomplishment. Jakob, for his part, was fine, although he does that thing a lot of contemporary dancers do in ballroom where he was overstepping on his steps and exaggerating his rise and fall a little too much – but this is a minor quibble because Jakob, as we know, is quite good.
The Broadway was there. Jakob was good. Mollee was tolerable with a couple of fairly glaring mistakes (that final spinning arabesque was… not good). Shankman compares Mollee to Ann Reinking, which… no. Just no, okay? Jesus Christ, Shankman. I get that you love everybody but yeeeesh. Nigel says Mollee should go to Broadway, which – also no. However, Jakob as reminiscent of Joel Grey I can see.
Jakob’s solo: Technically brilliant, artistically meh. (He’s young, it’s to be expected.)
Mollee’s solo: Certainly it was an interesting artistic choice to try and give a “stripper” vibe for one’s solo. Good work there, Mollee.
Ellenore and Legacy: contemporary and hip hop. If you wanted proof that Travis Wall is still very hit-or-miss when it comes to choreography, this would definitely be evidence in the “miss” column: the entire routine felt off-beat and awkward, and Legacy’s B-boy tricks incorporated into the routine felt forced rather than organic (as Stacey Tookey managed to do in top 19 week). Ellenore and Legacy did well enough with what they were given, but they weren’t given anything really that great, and Legacy especially felt a bit desperate. Nigel talks about Emmy nominations because Nigel is an idiot.
I am beyond amazed that Nappytabs finally got called out for choreographing shitty hip-hop! It only took, like, a dozen bad routines! That having been said, I think the reason they finally got called out is because they dared to stray away from “boy meets girl” or “boy breaks up with girl,” which are Such Universal Truths that they always demand a judge tonguebath. Frankly, this wasn’t as bad as the terrible Evan/Randi routine they did for top 12 in season 5, or the mediocre routines they’ve been choreographing all this season. But it wasn’t good, to be sure, and Ellenore demonstrated once again that hip-hop is her Achilles’ heel. Legacy couldn’t carry the routine; he’s just not good enough to do that.
Ellenore’s solo: About as good as last week’s, which is to say: good and not boringly contemporary-traditional.
Legacy’s solo: Much weaker than last week’s tremendous solo and this was a bad week to do a bad solo.
Russell and Ashleigh some blond chick and some Bollywood dancer assistant: hip-hop and Bollywood. Russell had a really great week despite Ashleigh’s injury (and what a bad week for her to have one – I think she would have had a hell of a time with these two dances). Firstly, let me just say “thank you” to Shane Sparks for saying straight-up he wasn’t going to do any stupid lyrical hip-hop bullshit. Shane Sparks, you are awesome. Shane’s assistant was… very bad, and I get that she jumped in at the last moment but even so: wow, bad. Russell was excellent and there is nothing else to say here.
The Bollywood was likewise a triumph for Russell, although he was almost outshined by the Bollywood dancer assistant (which – holy shit! Seriously, that’s half a day’s notice?). My only complaint here is that Russell was a bit in perma-grin mode, but other than that it was very good: his execution and musicality were both superb.
Russell’s solo: “Interesting choice.”
Should go home: Mollee and Legacy.
Will go home: Ashleigh and Legacy.
9
Dec
I’m a big fan of K’naan, so to hear that Wavin’ Flag is the official anthem of the 2010 World Cup makes me happy.
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