No post yesterday

Technically speaking there was no new post yesterday, but I did replace an earlier post with all-new content, and I also wrote some of a post that will eventually show up on my main blog, and I decided that was sufficient. Oh, and this counts for today, so there.

Oops

I removed the post that was originally here. I decided that I wasn't comfortable with singling someone out like that, and I wouldn't be able to defend it if called upon to do so. Fortunately, it's unlikely that anyone read it. (Edited 10/30)

Followup to yesterday's post

Following up on yesterday's post about John Stanley's stories in The Toon Treasury of Classic Children's Comics, recently people have taken to regarding everything Stanley did as a masterpiece on the same level as Little Lulu. But if you compare "Five Little Babies" and "Two Foots is Feet," the two Little Lulu stories in Toon Treasury, with the non-Lulu related Stanley stories "A Day in the Country" and "Mice Business" (the latter a Melvin the Monster story), the non-Lulu stories simply aren't in the same league. Considering the writing alone, the Little Lulu stories are works of genius, while the non-Lulu stories are merely competent humor strips.

On John Stanley and Irving Tripp

In their introductory material to The Toon Treasury of Classic Children's Comics, Spiegelman and Mouly write that "[John] Stanley wrote and visually planned out his Lulu stories, but most were simply rendered by journeyman cartoonist Irving Tripp, without the deftness of touch visible in Stanley's own drawing, as seen in the ... Tubby story we selected" (p. 12). On the contrary, the art in the two stories in Toon Treasury on which Stanley collaborated with Tripp is classic, while the solo Stanley art in the Tubby story referred to looks like a poor imitation.

Robert Walser

Robert Walser is one of those writers who I feel like I ought to like but have never read more than brief snippets of. (I actually own one of his books but have never gotten around to reading it.) But today in the library I saw Speaking of the Rose, a collection of his short prose pieces, and leafing through it I was intrigued enough to borrow it. We shall see.

No title

I wound up returning Four Freedoms to the library without reading further. I have too many books waiting to be read or reread, and too much other stuff I'd like to do, to force myself to read something I don't really want to.

Micro-post: Nocturnes

Again, not enough time to write a full fledged post. I just read Nocturnes, Kazuo Ishiguro's recently-published collection of short stories. If I had to pronounce upon it right now, I'd have to say that it's not as good as his novels; but I suspect there's more to it than meets the eye. I hope to post more on the book after I reread it, either here or on my main blog.

Micro-post: Stella

Too tired to write a substantive post, so I'll just say that I watched the first forty-odd minutes of the Stella DVD (a sort of cross between standup comedy and sketch comedy) and didn't like it.

Manga Corner: 20th Century Boys, vol. 5

Although it's frequently said that 20th Century Boys is Urasawa's best work, the first four volumes didn't really grab me. In fact, I was considering dropping the series. But volume five, which I bought today, for the first time has me feeling impatient for the next volume. It helps that about halfway through the focus shifts to a new protagonist who is, frankly, more interesting than Kenji.

Comics corner: Stitches

I just finished reading David Small's acclaimed graphic memoir, Stitches. My quick reaction is that while it's absorbing, it's absorbing like a disaster is absorbing. We don't get any insight into Small or his dysfunctional family. Nor was I impressed with either the visual storytelling (except for a few places) or the art. As I said, though this is just a first impression based upon one quick reading.

Commentary tracks to documentaries

Following up on yesterday's post, when the director and producer did their commentary track, they were expecting Orny Adams to do one. He didn't, although there's a short film called "Where Is Orny Now?" (iirc) among the DVD's special features. Documentary theorists sometimes worry about the imbalance of power between documentarians and their subjects. Giving unhappy subjects the chance to do commentary tracks would seem to be a way to reduce this imbalance and to introduce "oppositional voices," as theory would put it. But I don't know any instance of this. Seinfeld and his friend Colin Quinn (who appears in the film) do a commentary track on the Comedian DVD, but they're happy with the film, as far as I can tell. The two high school basketball players who are followed in Hoop Dreams do a commentary track on the DVD to that film, but they likewise express no complaints about the film. The only "oppositional" commentary tracks by a film's subject that I know of are to mockumentaries, where sometimes the main characters will do a commentary track in character. The examples I've heard are on the DVDs of This Is Spinal Tap and Nothing So Strange.

Movie Corner: Comedian

I've been watching the documentary Comedian on DVD. It's primarily about Jerry Seinfeld's post-Seinfeld struggle to build a completely new standup act after retiring his old act, but there's a subplot about an up-and-coming standup comedian named Orny [sic] Adams, who is potentially on the verge of his big break. I think it's safe to say that he comes off in the film as a conceited, arrogant jerk. I know that when I watched the film for the first time, I was rooting for him to fail. This may not be fair: there are indications that his "conceit" and "arrogance" (which he only displays talking to the camera, not to other people in the film) are really intended to build up his own confidence, which standup comedians obviously need a lot of. But these come later in the film, after one's impression of Orny has been formed.

In their commentary track, the director and producer aren't exactly apologetic, but they do say that Orny is "misjudged." It could be that they were too close to the material to realize how it would look to an audience, or that they overestimated the extent to which they could get viewers to revise their first impression. On the other hand, having a "villain" -- Orny -- does make the film more compelling dramatically, and I would have liked them to take more responsibility for how they portrayed Orny. (To be sure, they didn't have to say anything.)

As for the film as a whole, I didn't like Seinfeld and am not a fan of standup. While the film didn't change my mind about either of these, it gave me more respect for Jerry. You have to respect someone who is as devoted as he is to his craft, which in this case is making people laugh. Bear in mind that there was no need for him to retire his entire act, and indeed, judging by the film and the commentaries, for an established comedian to set about building a new act from scratch is almost unprecedented.

Get Real

I just read Get Real, Donald Westlake's final Dortmunder novel. I've never been a fan of the Dortmunder books: I prefer the Parker books, and of his comic novels my favorite is The Spy in the Ointment. In Get Real, too, I find the satire of "reality" show production (which is portrayed here as virtually 100% staged) funnier than Dortmunder and his gang. One thing I realized, though, is that Westlake is a good writer at the sentence level. His style isn't flashy, so it's easy to overlook this; but his descriptions are crisp, vivid and sharply observed, and free of flowery language and cliches.

Four Freedoms

John Crowley's fantasy Little, Big is one of my very favorite books, so I was excited when I saw a new novel by him, Four Freedoms, in my local public library yesterday. I have now read the first eighteen pages and my excitement is gone. In fact, nothing in those pages made me want to read further. The slackness of the prose is particularly disheartening. Of course it might get better later on, but looking ahead I'm not optimistic.

No post yesterday

No post yesterday because:

1) I was extremely tired, and

2) when I finally got around to trying to write, I was unable to stay connected to the net long enough to post anything.

The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya

I recently read The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya, the second book in the series of Haruhi Suzumiya novels (at least in the U.S.). I've seen some negative reactions to it, but I'm not sure why. Haruhi's absurdity and Kyon's acid responses are still funny. There are also hints of a larger plot running through the novels as a whole.

Ground rules

The ground rules of this blog, for those who may find their way here by chance or otherwise:

1. I write for myself alone (this post, and any other meta-posts, excepted).

2. I write something every day, except on days when I post something on my main blog.

(Edited 10/11 to add the final clause. By no coincidence, I posted something on my main blog today.)

Hello

Hi! There should be content here shortly. If you've stumbled across this blog by accident, my main blog is here.