WHAT IT IS -- week ending 4.21.2019

This past week, I was in New York City.  Not the entire week, but my wife and youngest son and three of our closest friends packed a lot in for three days (much of that being driving, for days one and three, but that's how it goes when you live in Maine).  It was an amazing, and tiring, trip, but incredibly worth it. 

DAY 1: 

Baseball.  Perhaps the greatest sport ever.  Played on a field of green, with boundaries that have stood the test of time and the advancement of athletes' physicality (even today, 150 years after the first professional baseball team was formed, the difference between an infield hit and an out is the thinnest of margins), lacking a time clock, a game of patience, of long, quiet moments, where one must be prepared to react in a split-second with a burst of speed.  It's a game of mental toughness, where one player tries to outthink another, where, if you fail 7 out of 10 times at the plate or if your team loses 1/3 of its games, you're a success.  It starts with the words, "Play ball," and the objective is to get home safely.  It's a beautiful game, full of grace and athleticism, and it is wonderful.  And, if you're in New York City, you go to a ballgame.  (In this case, we went to Yankee Stadium, because our Red Sox were playing the hated evil empire) 

The game . . . was a blowout, and not for the good guys.  (Though my son will argue the point, being a Yankess fan . . . and a Blue Jays fan . . . and a Cubs fan . . . why not my beloved Sox????)  Chris Sale was starting -- that puts me at 4-for-4 with attending Red Sox games and having their #1 starter on the mound (3 times in the early 90s I saw Clemens pitch in Fenway; those were good times) -- and while we stood in line to get in, he breezed through the first two innings like a champ.  As we were finally entering, things began to unravel.  2 Yanks scored.  The next inning 2 more scored.  We left men on base, when they got on base.  Pinstripe flyballs went over the fence.  Red Sox flies dropped into the Yankees' gloves.  In the end, we went down 8-0.  The Yanks had 3 dingers.  And it was time to head back on the subway, to where we were staying. 


DAY 2:

This was the big day for us.  The one where we got to spend the whole day in the city.  The one we would end with a Broadway show. 

After getting coffee and bagels at the deli just down from where we were staying in Brooklyn -- some of the best coffee I've ever had from a small shop; it didn't even need sugar, just creamer -- we took the train into the city and stopped at a food truck to grab something to drink, as well as a sweet to top off the impromptu breakfast, for our walk around the city.  First stop was the tram ride to Roosevelt Island.  Only a few minutes, it provided an interesting view of Midtown Manhattan and was a good start to our day.  Then we found a Nike Town for our boy, and he spent his money on a new pair of kicks.  They're definitely cool, since they're nothing I would ever wear.  At that point, he was happy, and the day could progress nicely. 

From there, we headed to the Argosy bookstore (they had some amazing, old maps, but the price tag was far out of range), and then went to the New York Public Library, one of the places we absolutely had to see.  It was magnificent.  The architecture, from the marble railings inside, to the woodwork and paintings in the rotundas, and everything else about the place was just amazing.  Plus, I got a PB&J at the food counter to share with my little man, along with a couple of Boylan Bottling Co. sodas, so that was the bee's knees, yo. 

We continued heading downtown and checked out a couple more book places -- Forbidden Planet for comics and collectibles, and the Strand, for boooooooooks.  (you might be noticing a theme with this trip)  These were great, especially the Strand:  so many books, so many levels, and not enough time in the day or money in the pocket to do it justice.  Forbidden Planet could have been cooler, for me, if there were boxes and boxes of old back issues to dig through, but they, smartly, have transitioned to selling collections and original graphic novels, and their selection was fabulous, including a great manga section and areas organized by creator, so you can go directly to the Alan Moore or Grant Morrison spot and grab some of the best comics ever published. 

After all that walking, it was definitely time to relax.  We found a pub near the Strand and Forbidden Planet, Old Town Bar on 18th Street, where we could sit down, have a drink, eat something, and just let our bodies recuperate a bit.  It was a well-earned rest, and we (the boys) got to partake of the 110-year-old urinals, as advertised outside the men's room, which, when you stood in front of them looked as if you could possibly fall in and never be found -- they were something else.  Once we'd spent enough time there we went in search of dessert, found something that satisfied that craving, and then headed back uptown for . . .

THE MAIN EVENT:
SPOILERS AHEAD

Aaron Sorkin's adaptation of Harper Lee's TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, starring Jeff Daniels, directed by Bartlett Sher, at the Shubert Theatre.  

Sorkin manages to rework Harper Lee's masterpiece and give audiences a fresh perspective on "Mockingbird," while highlighting its relevance for the divided America, and divided world, we live in today.  Certainly, Sorkin retains much of the scaffolding and details of Harper Lee's novel, but the changes he incorporates into this adaptation, though often relatively small, are quite significant. 

As the play opens, you know something is different.  Scout's narration begins at the end, rolling over the question of how one could possibly fall on one's own knife, and leads into the initial legal proceedings of Tom Robinson.  This is Sorkin's biggest change, telling the story with a non-linear approach.  He intersperses scenes of the trial with those in Maycomb, giving us the lead-up to Tom Robinson's accusation while revealing the testimony of the witnesses, such as Sheriff Tate, Bob Ewell, and Mayella Ewell.  But within those trial scenes, we also get one between Atticus and his client, Tom, offering audiences a deeper, in relative terms, understanding of Tom Robinson as a person.  It's effective, and poignant, especially when, toward the end of the trial, the advice Atticus offers during their first meeting -- for Tom not to say he helped Mayella Ewell with her chores because he felt sorry for her, a sentiment a black person should never have for a white person, even a poor, white woman -- is ignored by Tom, as the prosecutor badgers him, and he admits to why he helped her, revealing the honorable character of this black man.  It provides for a powerful moment in the play and informs Atticus's closing argument to the jury. 

Another major change is the underlying tension between Calpurnia and Atticus.  During their interactions throughout the play, Atticus continually asks Calpurnia what he's done to make her angry with him.  She denies it, and Atticus notes an article he'd recently read citing passive aggression as a newly understood form of anger.  Calpurnia is steadfast, though, pushing aside the idea of passive-aggressiveness and going about her work in the Finch house.  In the end, we finally discover what it is that has put a bee in her bonnet.  She tells Atticus that she heard him, heard him say, "You're welcome," under his breath when he revealed to Calpurnia that he was going to take on Tom Robinson's defense, as if he, a white man, were doing the black populace of Maycomb a favor.  It's a sentiment not found in the book or the film, and some might argue it goes against the characterization of Atticus Finch, but to my mind, this humanized Atticus in a way that he'd not been before.  Though he is acting honorably, doing the right thing in defending Tom Robinson, he is still a white man in Depression-era Alabama, and despite his high moral aptitude, Atticus Finch is still a human being, with all the flaws concomitant that truth.  And to have a chink revealed in his armor makes Atticus not only more real, but also more relatable.  Though we may try, it is impossible to do the right thing all the time.  This bit of characterization may be new, but it feel true, none the less. 

My biggest takeaway from watching this play, even with the above mentioned changes that, in my opinion, added much to the story, was how funny it was.  Genuinely funny.  So many lines in this play got a laugh, and none of them felt forced.  While discussing it later, my 11-year-old son made a comment about what a dark story "Mockingbird" is, and yet, as I noted, it was really funny.  It's a writing maxim that drama should be laced with humor and vice versa, but I've rarely seen it utilized to such an accomplished level.  The humor came from character -- primarily from the narration of the three children, Scout, Jem, and Dill, all of whom switched from speaking at a point roughly twenty years into the future of the play to that of its present.  Dill, especially, provided a goodly number of laughs, through his commentary and interaction with others.  And again, it never felt forced, everything flowed naturally, and people reacted accordingly.  To have this levity in the midst of an ugly tale certainly helped to keep the audience engaged without overly burdening them with the weight of the primary narrative.  This, more than anything else, is what I will take with me into my own writing.  If I can even approach the level of Sorkin's craft, I'll be doing well. 

This was a phenomenal experience.  The Shubert theatre is a classic building, from 1913, which has staged many notable Broadway productions, and it was beautiful, inside and out.  The writing, as noted above, was exceptional.  The acting, superb.  And the play's relevance makes it an important event, today, right now.  Overall, I could not have hoped for anything better. 


FINAL DAY:

This was our getaway day, but we still had one place we'd not visited that had been on our itinerary.  MoMA.  Since the museum didn't open until 10:30, we slept in a little and took our time getting into the city.  Once we got breakfast at a Greek Diner, Astro Diner, we headed to the MoMA.  It was packed, naturally.  We got tickets rather quickly, but then discovered the major impediment to seeing the artwork, checking our bags.  We were a half hour getting through the line -- duly noted for next time.  Once we got through, though, and knowing we had 8+ hours of driving ahead of us, we went directly to level 5, where the classic artwork is on display. 

Van Gogh's Starry Night.  Monet's Water Lilies.  Picasso.  Jackson Pollock.  Matisse.  And so many more.  It was wonderful.  Even though we were quick, I got to discover a handful of new artists and works I'd never seen before, while also reveling in the works I came to enjoy.  Another great experience, but one that was too short.  Someday, I would love to come and spend an entire day, or at least a few hours, slowly moving through the galleries.  That would be amazing. 

WRITING UPDATE:

You see the bulk of the writing I did this week, right here.  I knew I wouldn't have the time to put toward a proper revising of the novel, so I set that aside for the week.  The two mornings in New York, I did work on another piece I'm writing for the W27 blog, but it's not coming together the way I'd like (might have something to do with the physical toll I put my aging body through this past week . . . ah, well).  And the last couple of days have been used for recuperating.  But tomorrow I jump back on that horse and start the push to revise the 100,000 words left on the novel.  I'm looking forward to it. 

What It Is – week ending 1 February [2015]

With apologies to Dave the Thune (as well as Mike Baron & Steve Rude).

WRITING:

Every day.  1000 words.  That’s the goal. 

Completed chapter 15 of the novel (draft 1) this week, and in the process a throwaway name from an earlier scene – tossed in to make it feel more like a coming home party – evolved into a full character, with multiple narrative threads expanding in my mind as she “came onstage” that will make her a very important person in this second part of the book.  It was one of those surprises these made-up characters throw at you that you hear authors discuss all the time, and it was exciting.  I look forward to seeing where she goes.  

With the close of January, it was also time to take stock of my writing progress so far, for 2015.  With the novel, I am 65,000 words into this first draft, which translates to 240 manuscript pages.  And for the year, I’ve written 33,400 total words with only one day that I did not write, which puts me ahead of last year’s pace.  I can’t remember the exact number, but in January, 2014, I know I wrote just over 30,000 words and that total may have been at 31,000, but it wasn’t any more than that.  So, my goal to improve on last year’s writing total is on pace, so far.  But there are eleven more months to go.  We’ll see. 

READING:

I read Michael Lewis’s book, Boomerang, which examines the recent global financial crisis.  Lewis visited Ireland, Germany, Greece, and did some reporting in the U.S. to get a better understanding of what went wrong in these countries to lead to the historic economic collapse experienced throughout the world.  What he found is interesting, and he puts it forth in as plain language as possible.  It was a quick read, and a depressing one, and it doesn’t leave me hopeful for the future, especially considering the United States seems to be the only country, of those he profiled, unwilling to take to task those who put us into this fix. 

Also reading the second Grendel collection, Grendel’s Legacy, written by Matt Wagner with art from the Pander Bros.  I’d read this a number of years ago, but did not remember much of it.  It’s a great follow-up to “Devil by the Deed,” the first Grendel story.  It expands the mythos through Christine Spar’s seizing of the Grendel mantle, as well as the introduction of Tujiro, a white-furred Japanese vampire whom Spar vows to take down for his kidnapping and killing of her son – a crime the police are unable to investigate fully, spurring her to steal the mask and blade of Grendel and take on that persona.

Wagner takes a different approach to the storytelling this time – a more traditional comic narrative, while incorporating a “journal” from Spar that allows him to get into the head of his main character without thought balloons – and the art from the Pander Bros. is dynamic and distinct without moving too far away from the style utilized by Wagner in Deed.  It’s a top-notch book, and I’m looking forward to completing this and moving on through the Grendel cycle.  Well worth checking out, if you’re a fan of the medium or of Wagner’s mainstream work. 

WATCHING:

I’m making my way through Quentin Tarantino’s body of work and watched Jackie Brown this week.  I remember not enjoying this film as much as his previous two, when it first came out, so I was curious what my reaction would be this time. 

Loved it. 

Though another crime film, this is a different movie for Tarantino.  Specifically, it varies from his first two film in the structuring and the tone and the violence.  Not that he doesn’t play with time or have a string of dead bodies scattered throughout the film.  Mainly, I’d say, it’s the tone.  Though it hinges on violence and crime, Jackie Brown is a quieter film – no Steve Buscemi rolling over a car and smashing the windshield as he flees the police, no loud diner stickup that goes wrong when Tim Roth gets to Sam Jackson’s character, and no gimp.  And I think it suffered, in my mind, by comparison to Reservoir Dogs & Pulp Fiction.  But, damn, this is a great movie. 

I love the characters in this.  I love the fact that Tarantino isn’t afraid to linger on them and let us try and get to know them (think Max Cherry in the music store to get a Delphonics tape), and I like how this quietude helps to punctuate the big score toward the end of the film.  When Jackie hands over the money to Melanie (Bridget Fonda) and then comes out of the dressing room, frantic and panicking, Tarantino’s choice of music, the hurried motion of the camera as it circles and then follows Pam Grier, and Pam Grier’s acting in that scene, all work so effectively to enhance the drama and the anxiety, in the audience, and it wouldn’t have worked as well if, up to that point, the film hadn’t had all of these long, quiet takes.  The frantic camera is such a contrast to what’s come before, it immediately pulls you into the scene, and the tension rises.  Smart filmmaking, and a great film.  Now, I’m looking forward to plunging into uncharted territory with Kill Bill and Django. 

Also finished up season 2 of the Newsroom this week.  I am an unabashed fan of Aaron Sorkin, and I thoroughly enjoyed this.  This season followed an interim producer, who came up from the D.C. office, and the war crimes story he tracked down.  Like a pitbull, Dantana (the interim producer) would not let go of this story, no matter how unlikely it seemed.  He felt so strongly about it – because, he felt, the government had been given a pass for five years, despite violating myriad civil rights in their war on terror – that he ended up doctoring a video interview, in order to help prove his case.  It was riveting, and the fallout from this revelation had dramatic repercussions that, beautifully and naturally, tied into the personal issues Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) had with his executive producer, MacKenzie McHale, with whom he’d been romantically involved, years before. 

Sorkin seems to be a firebrand for television and film critics, often revolving around his characters – though I can’t speak to these criticisms fully, since I’ve only skimmed those articles, but I think I want to change that and find out what their beef is.  I realize his characters are often idealized – overly idealized – and there are moments when this infringes on my appreciation of a scene.  But those infringements are rare.  Sorkin is the opposite side of the coin with David Simon – something I want to write about at some point, in more depth – he gives us the ideal that is possible, while Simon shows us the ugly underbelly we refuse to see.  He also likes to write the “smartest man in the room,” which seems to have become a TV trope in recent years.  Sure, that could be annoying.  But if one is aspirational, at all, and if one wants to hear people on TV say really smart, snappy things rather than bland, trite things, then Sorkin (and Simon and David Milch and Vince Gilligan and Matthew Weiner, etc. etc. etc.) is your guy. Can’t wait for season three.

MISCELLANY:

I also wrote a short piece on Sandman: Season of Mists, volume four of Neil Gaiman’s magnum opus.  The Comic Geek Speak guys are going through the entire series, one volume at a time, with their Book of the Month Club, and, this being one of my favorite all-time comic series, I felt compelled to add my voice to the discussion.  You can check out what I had to say here. 

SIGN OFF:

As always, check out my friends – Brad& Matt and Don McMillan for their own weekly recaps on things comic-y and geeky, and we'll see what's what in seven.  

-chris

What It Is - the week ending 19 October [2014]

With apologies to Dave the Thune.

So...I don't update here as often as I should be (that's an understatement).  But seeing friends like Brad & Matt, as well as Don McMillan, offering regular posts at their respective sites, it's obvious I need to do something to keep up - and, really, who's going to check Warrrior27 out when the top post never changes?   Time to face reality.

Why haven't I been posting here more often?  Easy answer - time.  There's never enough time to get everything done you want.  I have a day job.  I'm a father and husband - and I do not want to take away my family time for writing, as a general rule.  And there's always working out and sleep, along with all the books & comics to read and the films & television shows to watch (I'm still two seasons away from finishing LOST and have yet to watch Battlestar Galactica, while Locke & Key is still unfinished [should remedy that soon] and the latest David Mitchell novel hasn't even made it to the to-read pile).

So, time.  It's not going to materialize out of nothing.  I'll need to carve that time out somewhere to make this a regular - read: weekly - thing.  But I can do that.  And here's that first baby step.

WRITING PROGRESS:
Preamble:  My daily writing goal is 1000 words.  This takes roughly an hour (though I think about what I'm going to write throughout the day; it never stops).  For a long time, I was aiming for this but having trouble achieving it.  Again, it was that constriction of time.  I needed to make the time.  So I decided to schedule an hour, after my son was in bed and my wife was heading to bed to read, within which to get this writing done.  And it worked.  So well, that I began carving out an hour at sunrise on weekends, to get my writing done before everyone got out of bed.  Not surprisingly, my output increased and my writing has certainly improved.

Writing regularly - at a similar time each day - has certainly made it easier to sit down and get the words out.  The muse shows up more regularly when you train your mind to expect that you will be writing at the same point each day.  Also, I approach my writing in a wholly different manner now.  I am thinking more about craft, about the plot, about how to "upset the apple cart" and add tension to the scenes I am putting down.  Scheduling your daily writing is, perhaps, the most important thing any aspiring writer can do.

So, this week.  I've written roughly 5500 "new" words, while dropping 2400 words onto critiques at the Comics Experience creators' online workshop, which comes to about 8000 words for the week.  For the year, I just passed 248,000 total words (broken down into New Words, First Revisions, & Critiques).  My goal is to hit 300,000 for the year, and I think I'll make it.

The project on the front-burner right now is a novel called "On the Ledge," which is an expansion of a short story I wrote a number of years back.  Thus far, it seems to have legs, and I feel this could be a breakthrough piece of fiction for me.  Currently, I'm at 141 manuscript page, totaling 37,900 words (an average novel runs about 100,000), and I just passed one of the major plot points in the outline.  So, I'm feeling good about that.

And I had a short comic story, drawn by the incomparable Angela Allen, accepted for a quarterly independent comic anthology.  I'm really excited for this to see print.  If you want to check out a sample of Allen's art check this post out - which is just below this one, as it is.

THOUGHTS ON WHAT I READ THIS WEEK:
I'm currently reading volume 3 of Harlan Ellison's Brain Movies - collections of his screenplays and television scripts (both filmed and unfilmed).  Volume 3 includes two versions of an unfilmed story, Cutter's World, from the late 1980s.  I finished the first script, written for television.  It was classic Ellison, with fantastic ideas and cool characters.  Next, I'm going to read the film script and am curious to see the changes between the two versions.

I also finished volume 4 of Joe Hill's & Gabriel Rodriguez's amazing comic series, Locke & Key.  That volume ended with a plot twist that was brilliant, for a number of reasons.  One of the tropes (or maybe accepted realities) in horror fiction is the fact that the people being terrorized are never very smart.  They always make the dumb move, the foolish decision, that the audience yells for them not to make, that inevitably ends up with someone bloodied and butchered.  With volume 4 of Locke & Key, Hill & Rodriguez show up characters, in the Locke children, who are not dumb, who are able to see connections and begin to figure out who it is, in their midst, that is causing all of the harm and horror.  And they take action to stop him/her/it.  But, with a brilliant and elegant twist - playing off something first seen in volume 1 - Hill & Rodriguez bring the terror even closer to the Locke family, while making them believe that maybe, finally, there can be a respite to the craziness.  It was fantastic.

A MISCELLANY:
Started watching season 1 of the Newsroom with my wife (I did mention I was way behind in my TV viewing above).  It's Aaron Sorkin.  On HBO.  I loved it.  Sure, the hectic pace of the dialogue can, at times, become irritating and problematic.  But that is easily overlooked for the brilliant lines that come out of the mouths of many of these characters.  Loved it.  We watched the first two episodes, and are all in on this one.  One of the things I greatly appreciated came, in the second episode, when the newscast lost their major interviewee and did not come through, in the end, with someone to equal the person they'd been advertising for that night.  It was refreshing to have the "heroes," for want of a better word, lose.  Well played.

Also, with the return of Twin Peaks in 2016, I bumped the original series to the top of the Netflix queue.  What a great show.  Damn.  David Lynch is a genius.  Looking forward to rummaging through this seminal series, which helped spawn so much of today's "new golden age of TV."  3 episodes in, already, and, I have to say, the series holds up and would not feel out of place next to Mad Men or Breaking Bad or the Sopranos.  Great, great, stuff.

SIGN OFF:
So, we'll see if I can keep this up.  One week down, an infinity to go.  And, hey, if you made it this far head on over to In the Mouth of Dorkness and Donist World, and check out what Brad & Matt and Don have to say on all things, geek, nerdy, and cool.  You won't be disappointed.

Thanks,
chris