BookBin2013: N0S4A2

~ LobaBlanca

n0s4a2

I suppose it was inevitable that I would finally encounter a work from my latest literary heart-throb that simply didn’t enrapture me in the same ways as his other works. I just wasn’t expecting that moment to come so quickly in our relationship. Yet so it went with Joe Hill’s latest offering N0S4A2.

In this particular world of Hill’s devising, there are people who are able to create conduits to other places, either real or fictional, through the power of their minds. For young Victoria “Vic” McQueen, she learns that she can find missing items for people by using her ability to create conduits thanks to her Raleigh Tuff Burner bike and the “ghost” of the Shorter Way Bridge that once stood in ruins near her house. On the flip side, there are people like Charlie Manx, who uses his ability to create a conduit through his connection to his Rolls Royce Wraith (a rather possessive possessed car, if you ask me, Christine) to steal children away to “Christmasland,” a place of his own devising that allows him to drain the children of their life rather vampiristically (in a metaphorical sense) while letting them live in what he considers to be the perfect childhood utopia…a place where it is always Christmas, always happy, always festive. Of course, McQueen and Manx cross paths early in the novel (it only makes sense since one is a stealer and one is a finder), and cross paths again years later, to settle the score from the previous encounter.

Hilarity…well, you know the drill.

I’m not really certain what exactly didn’t click with me with this newest tale from Hill. I enjoyed the fact that the protagonist was a strong-willed girl with a wicked imagination and a pretty fascinating secret ability…and who would grow up into a flawed but still likeable, still imaginative young woman, damaged by that ability and seeking respite from the scars of that damage.

The supporting characters were also quite interesting and multifaceted, for the most part. I think, though, that the ultimate failing of this book, for me, was in both the story and its antagonist. First, I’m kind of through with vampires. And while this book isn’t exactly a vampire tale, the invocation of vampirism through the slightly-too-cute-for-its-own-good title forces me to envision Charlie Manx’s draining of life from the children he kidnaps as akin to the actions of that fabled creature of the night. Plus, there’s the hook teeth and the only traveling after dark that really hit it home.

Really, though, more than vampires, Charlie Manx slowly began to evolve into one particular character in my mind, based on descriptions of his physical appearance, his age, his mannerisms, his olden-days slang…halfway through the book, I realized that I was picturing Manx as an even more ill-tempered C. Montgomery Burns.

I’m willing to bet that Hill would not think this was excellent at all.

Of course, I then began to imagine Manx’s latest henchman, Bing Partridge, as a cross between Smithers and Barney. I even started picturing Vic McQueen as sort of like Lisa Simpson. Unfortunately, I also started to picture her lover as Comic Book Guy (for reasons that are quite obvious if you read this book). Again, all this was not helping at all with the horror element.

Worst. Comparisons. Ever.

Plus, there’s the fact that Hill crammed as many in-jokes as possible into this book, both in reference to his own previous books and most definitely in reference to his father’s works. N0S4A2 contains a panoply of Kingian references and allusions, which I admit both amused and irritated me. I’m glad that Hill is starting to be a little less tetchy about people knowing he is King’s son. However, a few times his “wink-wink” throwbacks to some of his father’s greatest hits (Cujo, Pet Sematary, Christine) teetered very, very close to too cute. I don’t want “cute” in a horror novel.

It wasn’t until after I read the book that I learned that I probably should have looked for the audio version instead. The entire book was read by none other than Kate Mulgrew. You have no idea how intriguing and frightening this is to me. I feel like I need to experience this story as narrated by Captain Janeway. I will absorb her powers and make a nice Kiev (and if you get that joke, Red’s got a place on her kitchen staff just for you).

Final Verdict: I’m still very much enamored of Hill as a writer, but I definitely did not consider this to be one of his better offerings. Still, if I can get my hands on a copy of Kate Mulgrew reading it? You bet your sweet Cujo I’m gonna give that a whirl.

Flashback Friday: The Craft

~ lobablanca

“Now is the time. This is the hour. Ours is the magic. Ours is the power.”

Running with a bit of a theme for a theme today, denizens. I realized last week that I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to remember all the strange and wonderful things from my childhood…but I’m forgetting all the strange and wonderful things from my older years. You know, that magnificent wasteland of adolescence. That wonderfully traumatizing time of your life in which you are discovering who you are and what that means, not just to you but to how you fit into the world around you and how you click with the people in your life.

Sometimes, it means realizing that you’re not really going to fit in and the people around you are more than likely going to find that you’re a bit…un-click-able. (Or is that un-clique-able?) Years after the fact, you’re going to look back and realize that all that was okay. Not being like everyone else around you can serve to strengthen you in many ways. Also? Not being like everyone else around you means that you’ll never have to conform to something you’re not, just to be accepted. What? Did you really think that all those high school cliques comprised people who all happened to be exactly the same? Nah…it takes a lot of work and lying to fit in, denizens. Much easier to just be yourself.

Of course, I can say that now, nearly 20 years after graduating high school. Back then, though, I struggled with a lot of stuff, including what was necessary for me to fit in. And then I chose black nail polish, black leather trench coats and knee-high boots, and massive metal hair. I guess I lived by that Alice in Wonderland line: “I often give myself very good advice, but very seldom follow it.”

So what does all this have to do with today’s Flashback Friday entry? Quite a bit, actually.

thecraft

Remember The Craft? No? Allow me to refresh your memory. Young Sarah (Robin Tunney) finds herself in a new home and a new town and a new school, all things done by her father to try to make things better for his daughter, who has been having a bit of a rough time ever since her mother passed away. All the internal turmoil tends to set Sarah apart from others, so of course, she’s not really fitting in all that well at the Catholic school she’s now stuck attending. That is until she’s accepted by three other misfits

Flashback Friday: Wayne’s World

~ LobaBlanca

As I was driving home this evening, listening to one of the greatest movie soundtracks ever put together, it occurred to me that I have yet to write about the movie that spawned said soundtrack. This, denizens, is a travesty of epic proportions.

waynesworld

Sha. Right.

Seriously, Wayne’s World is one of the few movies from which I still consistently quote, even more than 20 years after its release (some might say that’s sad; I say it proves I’m completely committed to Sparkle Motion in ways that only true film geeks can understand). I adore Mike Myers in possibly unnatural ways…although not enough to forgive him for the third Austin Powers movie…and definitely not enough to even go near that Love Guru movie.

Of course, I love Austin Powers (mostly the second one, but some of the first). I also think that So I Married an Axe Murderer is one of the most brilliant comedies in existence. And, yes, I even own the first two Shrek movies. But? My heart belongs to Wayne Campbell.

Hi, Wayne.

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/175DTYVpJOQ

[Loba Tangent: Hey, did you know that Patricia Tallman was Lara Flynn Boyle’s stunt double in that scene? Well, now you do.]

Simply put, Wayne Campbell and his best friend and co-host Garth Algar just worked. They worked right from the start as a Saturday Night Live skit all about two guys who obstinately refused to grow up, instead seeking refuge from a fast-paced, demanding world for which they had no use…in Wayne’s mother’s basement, of all places, playing TV hosts for a cable access channel in Aurora, Illinois, and not only tapping into the pop culture lexicon of that moment in time, but ultimately shaping it.

Plus, they interviewed Aerosmith.

[hulu id=md4lshsv4nuxbad8sf-mdw width=512]

We’re not worthy! We’re not worthy!

I can’t even call Wayne and Garth slackers, because they weren’t. They were doing exactly what they wanted to do…what they were meant to do. And they worked damned hard to be the very best cable access channel hosts they could possibly be. Plus, theirs was a humor instantly accessible to my generation. We immediately grasped their reverence and references and we loved them in ways that made us feel kinda funny, like when we used to climb the rope in gym class.

Schwing!

Enough pontificating. This is just a damn funny movie. It’s not the kind of movie that you have to be “in a mood” to watch. It’s the kind of movie that puts you in a better mood. It’s silly, it’s clever, it’s funny, it’s got Alice Cooper giving a history lesson and Rob Lowe as a slime ball and random Chris Farley and Tia Carrere in a “Ballroom Blitz” and Garth…Garth, adorable, wonderful Garth…and the Mirthmobile and Babe-raham Lincoln and sexy Bugs Bunny as a girl bunny and “She will be mine. Oh Yes, she will be mine” and Wayne and Garth dressed up like Laverne and Shirley and a million other moments that need to be captured and quoted and remembered and adored if only for the simple fact that when you watch this movie, you laugh and you forget about everything that makes Wayne and Garth stay in that basement, broadcasting their late-night show in the first place.

Plus, as I mentioned at the very beginning of this post, the soundtrack can still lift me straight out of whatever foul mood I might be in at the moment and send me skyrocketing into a far happier place. With names like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jimi Hendrix, Alice Cooper, Eric Clapton, Black Sabbath…really, you’re just guaranteed a solid set of songs designed for rocking out. And, of course, the greatest song of them all…the one that the entirety of the universe knew by the time this movie was out of theaters. The one that I still know every word to, and will sing along (and bang my head at the duly appointed moment) whenever I hear it…the very song that made me realize that I needed more Freddie Mercury in my life…

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/d7nOO4BeG54

Yes. Yes, I did just bang my head when I watched to this video. And I’m going to do it again as soon as I post this flashback. I suggest you do the same.

Party on, Wayne! Party on, Garth!

BookBin2013: Locke & Key 2

~ lobablanca

I can’t believe that it’s been more than a year since Joe Hill welcomed me to Lovecraft. More than a year since I first encountered the Locke family as they began their long emotional journey back from the brutal home invasion in their San Francisco home that left their father murdered and their mother broken in many ways.

It’s been too long. It’s time to catch up on old times, denizens.

lak2-4

That’s right, I recently succumbed to my need to enter a library and binge on whatever I could find of interest…and part of what I found were the next three graphic novels from Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez’s Locke & Key series: Volume 2: Head Games; Volume 3: Crown of Shadows; and Volume 4: Keys to the Kingdom.

More revelations about the truth behind Rendell Locke’s murder as well as his life in Lovecraft. More keys. More secrets. More discoveries. More darkness.

This is a seriously dark story. I would expect nothing less from Hill

BookBin2013: Lucille

~ LobaBlanca

lucille

You might just want to skip this review, denizens, because I’m going to let you know right now: It’s going to be short and unsatisfying.

And, yes, that’s what she said. [ba-dum-tssh]

Ludovic Debeurme’s rather large graphic novel Lucille (I do believe it’s slightly more than 500 pages) is the story of two troubled teenagers

BookBin2013: My Friend Dahmer

~ LobaBlanca

mfd

I confess that I borrowed Derf Backderf’s graphic novel, My Friend Dahmer, from the library for equal parts earnest interest in and morbid curiosity about the early life of Jeffrey Dahmer. For those who don’t know who Dahmer is, he was found guilty of incredibly heinous crimes and sentenced to prison, where he was later slain by a fellow inmate. I don’t really want to go into any more detail than that, simply because I’m willing to bet you already know more than enough about what he did.

What you don’t know is why he did what he did. Neither do I, even after reading this novel. I suppose I didn’t really expect to find any concrete answers. I did expect a bit more insight than what Backderf provided. I think, though, for all his claims that he was doing this project out of a need to explore his past relationship with Dahmer and try to understand what happened that led Dahmer from who Backderf knew in high school to who he became, Backderf simply wasn’t up to the task of providing the “objective” look that he said he wanted to give readers. In fact, even though he claims at the beginning of the novel to want to give a more sympathetic look at the events of Dahmer’s youth that could have led him to commit such horrific acts, he then almost immediately calls Dahmer a monster undeserving of empathy.

For a bit of backstory, “Derf” Backderf (his real name is John) was in the same high school class as Dahmer, ran in the same circle of maligned geeks, nerds, and social misfits

Poster Picks: X-Men: Days of Future Past

~ LobaBlanca

Foregoing Flashback Friday this week because…well, because I’m not really in a reminiscent mood this evening. Although, I suppose that’s a bit of a lie, since I’m instead reviving a lamentably ignored featured series (lamented, I’m sure, mainly by me).

As I’m sure you’ve no doubt deduced, I’m a bit of a geek about many things, including comic books. I’m not quite Comic Book Guy-level geeky (Worst. Confession. Ever.), but I can hold my own when it comes to certain comics. One of my absolute favorite series belongs to those band of merry mutants, the X-Men. I was massively disappointed in the last of the first round of X-Men movies (so disappointed that I apparently wanted to try Bryan Singer for multiple counts of mutanticide).

I must confess, though, that I was pleasantly surprised by the…whatever they want to call X-Men: First Class (What was it? Reboot? Prequel? Preboot?). By going back to the very beginning, the movie succeeded in at least distilling the horrible taste left by X-Men: The Last Bland Stand.

Needless to say, First Class did well enough to actually warrant a sequel (Sequeboot?). Thus, X-Men: Days of Future Past. I’m equal parts excited and terrified about this one, denizens. It’s based on another John Byrne/Chris Claremont story, just like part of X-Men: The Last Stand. It’s also directed by Bryan Singer, just like Last Stand was supposed to be before Singer bailed to give us Stripper-Pole Panty Superman.

Thanks for that. Really.

Regardless of my worries and excitement about the movie, I’m here now to share what I consider one of the most wonderful movie poster designs I’ve seen in a very long time. Surprisingly enough, the entirety of the design is a massive head shot, one of Sir Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier and one of Sir Ian McKellen as Magneto. You might remember in my first Poster Pick that I took the piss out of posters that relied heavily on showing only head shots of the movie’s star(s) rather than putting any effort into a creative design.

These two head shot posters, however, actually do rely on a lovely bit of creative zing, incredibly simple in concept but a tricky gamble in execution. You see, while the primary design elements are close-ups of Stewart and McKellen, each face contains a great surprise. A red X cuts across McKellen’s face. Look closely and you’ll realize that the X has revealed the face of Michael Fassbender, the young Magneto from First Class, beneath the older Magneto’s skin. Same with Stewart’s face

Flashback Friday: Etch-a-Sketch Animator

~ lobablanca

Hey, look! It’s time for another episode of “80s Toys Loved by Very, Very White Kids”!

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/lj8xfyc-pD4

Nice Mondrian print on the wall. Cubes. Get it? Yeah. I guess a Picasso would have been too subtle.

Of course, I was one of the few very, very White kids to receive an Etch-a-Sketch Animator.

Loba Tangent: I don’t know why I keep focusing on race with this…I’m sure that plenty of kids of other races were frustrated to death by their very own Animator. Really, I just enjoy making fun of the kid in this commercial, who just happens to be White and nerdy. And now we need to stop and watch this:

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/N9qYF9DZPdw

I have no cute story to tell about this toy. Actually, it was incredibly tedious and wore down my limited reserves of child patience very quickly. I could only work with it for a little while before the tedium of “Draw It. Save It. Draw It. Save It.” became too much. I still have it though, in storage and in its original box:

animatorbox

Yes, it’s still in its original box. IN ITS ORIGINAL STYROFOAM. I don’t have an explanation, denizens. I have a problem.

BookBin2013: Walk This Way: The Autobiography of Aerosmith

~ LobaBlanca

wtw_aerosmith

Here it comes, denizens: Finally, the review of the book I have been wading through for more time than I ever expected it to take. However, when you’re trying to read up on the history of one of the longest-lasting (and still-going) hard rock bands in American history…well, it’s going to take a little bit of time.

And so it went with the Aerosmith autobiography Walk This Way. Released in 1997, this “autobiography” is more a running transcript of author Stephen Davis’s extremely long, extremely in-depth conversation with each member of the band, their managers, their producers, their road crew, their wives, their exes, their dealers, their groupies, their pets, their instruments, their cars, their everything.

Okay, not that in-depth. Still, Davis does a fantastic job of capturing every last snortable, injectable, drinkable side of this quintessential hard rock quintet. It’s all there: The beginnings, the early fame, the women, the drugs, the breakup, the drying out, the resurrection, the continuation, the very essence of what makes this band so very…Aerosmith. Two things you will undoubtedly walk away pondering if you read this book will be that: 1) the original band is still together; 2) the original band is still alive.

I already knew that Aerosmith was a heavily drugged band back in the 70s. Honestly, I already knew quite a lot of what the band talked about in this book. I didn’t grow up listening to a lot of current music when I was a kid, so I was way late to the rock bandwagon. It probably explains why I have such eclectic musical preferences. I had a lot of catching up to do. It also might explain why I have a small group of musicians to whom I am rabidly devoted. And Aerosmith? They’re right at the top of this very short list. I’ve written before about how this was pretty much the band that kick-started my journey into popular music, thanks to that saucy video for their song “Dude (Looks Like a Lady).”

From that point on, I was hooked on this group. They were the first band I ever saw in concert (and I count myself incredibly lucky to have seen them when Tyler was still able to do his trademark backflips…without tumbling off the stage into the audience). I have almost every single one of their albums, minus a few bootlegs (unfortunately, yes, I also bought Just Push Play…no one is more saddened by this than me, I can assure you). This is probably the only musical group for which I can actually name every single band member. For years, I devoured everything I could about them. I know all about the Toxic Twins World Tour (and have yet to give up on my search for my own T-shirt), their ups, their downs, their fights, their comebacks…whatever. And I still love them. I always have and I always will.

The one thing that I don’t really love is their history with substance abuse, which this book details to excruciating levels. I know that drugs play an overwhelmingly prevalent part in many creative fields, but especially music. Perhaps drugs help release parts of our creative energy and abilities that we might never explore without their help. Maybe they help slow down the creative flow enough for us to be able to handle it all. Maybe there are other factors there that I have never considered. I don’t know. I do know, however, that each member of Aerosmith nearly killed themselves in one drug- or alcohol-related way or another. Perry ended up having seizures. Kramer, Hamilton, and Whitford all had major auto accidents, and Tyler admits that he lost almost everything, including about 20 years of his life, because he was busy “snorting my car, my plane, my house, and half of Columbia.”

Drugs and alcohol pretty much nearly destroyed the band’s future as well. Their collective relationship is a tumultuous one anyway, which I suppose is not that odd considering it’s five exceptionally talented musicians all vying for their place in the band’s pecking order while trying to write new music, tour, do PR, enjoy their success, keep their success going, while also trying to live life in the two seconds of downtime they get before the cycle starts all over again. However, add cocaine, heroin, crystal meth, booze, pot, Tuinals, and…well, there is a reason why Steven Tyler and Joe Perry were known as the Toxic Twins. The drugs didn’t enhance the creative energies when the group was knee-deep in China white. All the drugs did was exacerbate problems, deepen wounds, increase egos, and speed up the inevitable fallout when Joe Perry left behind his Toxic Twin for his own record deal, and Brad Whitford soon followed him.

Whatever my feelings about drug use might be (and it’s an admittedly muddled one), I’m so glad the group cleaned itself up and came back together, because the end result is what I would consider to be the strongest era of their professional careers. As much as I love so much of their early music (and, I don’t care how cliched many people consider it to be, I still think that Tyler’s “Dream On” is one of the most honest and beautiful songs I have ever heard, and becomes increasingly more poignant the older he gets), to me, quintessential Aerosmith spans from their 1987 release Permanent Vacation through their 1997 release Nine Lives, with their 1989 release Pump being, hands-down, my all-time favorite of their albums. While there are many individual songs from their career that I might select above any of my favorites from this particular album, Pump is the one I choose whenever I want a nice solid, uninterrupted injection of what I consider pure Aerosmith. Plus, I have to give the MTV influence its due once again. The videos for songs from this album also stand as some of my favorites, including the David Fincher-directed video for Tyler’s amazing song “Janie’s Got a Gun.”

Okay, I’ve been fighting the urge to turn this book review into a video and photo gush fest, but I have to leave this here:

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/RqQn2ADZE1A

And now that I’ve opened that floodgate, I’m just going to stop now before it gets worse. Just know this: If this rather long-winded review (which hasn’t really been a review…but it has been…kind of like this is an autobiography, but not really) actually piqued your interest in this group rather than made you want to run screaming in the opposite direction, then you might want to give Walk This Way a go. It’s straight from all their mouths, and I kind of get the impression that there wasn’t a whole lot of filtering going on, either on their parts or on Davis’s part. Plus, it’s strewn with photos of the guys pre-Aerosmith, early years, and up to Nine Lives, which is when this book finally concludes. Who doesn’t love photos? Who doesn’t love Aerosmith?

Be very careful how you answer that last question…

Final Verdict: Do you really need to ask this? Here, just enjoy this early photo of Aerosmith instead…

youngaerosmith

A Decade of Howling

~ LobaBlanca

On July 15, 2003, I wrote the following on my newly launched Web site’s blog, which I had originally named “incite.thought”:

7.15.03
I suppose this part of my site now makes me a blogger. I’ll try to be pithy and poignant in my ramblings. Sometimes I hope I’ll even be funny or provocative. This entry, however, is for something that’s been driving me crazy all summer: The Dixie Chicks. I have three things to say about this “issue,” and then I’ll let it rest: 1) The First Amendment to the very American Constitution reads in part, “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech…”; 2) Theodore Roosevelt stated in 1918, “To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public”; and 3) French philosopher and writer Voltaire stated, “I may not agree with what you have to say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say it.”

So, rage more, Natalie…

And thus I began what has turned into a decade-long, rip-roaring road through politics, geekery, PhotoShop trickery, Flashback Fridays, Poster Picks, BookBins, DVDDregs, snarkiness, weirdness, writing snippets, travels, photos, MOAR RAMBLING, and all variety of loopy lupine craziness.

True, recent changes have currently made it a bit more difficult for me to find the time or creative energy to visit the lair with as much frequency as I used to (or still want to), but I love my little corner of teh Interwebz and I love all my wonderful denizens (especially those who have been visiting here so long they remember when I used to call you all my “snoggees”) for continuing to be interested in whatever it is I’ve got on the menu here at Chez Loba.

Thank you all for sticking with me, for finding me anew, for stumbling upon me and not wanting to leave just yet, or for just passing through. I have no plans to stop rambling just yet, so keep me bookmarked and keep that RSS feed loading!