If Music Could Talk

Silent Majority wrote: ↑

28 Jul 2020, 12:14pm

50) Tomb of Dracula #1 - 25 - Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan. Comic. 1972 - 1975. Marvel Dracula is pretty much the definitive take on the character, easily kicking Stoker's novel and all the films to the curb. Arrogant, self obsessed, grandiloquent, forever being bettered by his perceived inferiors (at one point, a fucking mountain goat!) and with a healthy dose of charm, he's as compelling an anti-hero as you could ask for. The highlights include the artwork which is beautiful and in the EC comics tradition, the first appearance of a very blaxpoitation Blade, and the delight of the plotting, like the endless sequels you always wished for. Man, I love this shit so much.

OK, I have like 2 Omnibuseses of that, I i think I read like one and a half of them a few years ago. Yeah, he's arrogant as fuck for sure. He uses the word "clod" too much though.

tepista wrote: ↑

28 Jul 2020, 2:46pm

Silent Majority wrote: ↑

28 Jul 2020, 12:14pm

50) Tomb of Dracula #1 - 25 - Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan. Comic. 1972 - 1975. Marvel Dracula is pretty much the definitive take on the character, easily kicking Stoker's novel and all the films to the curb. Arrogant, self obsessed, grandiloquent, forever being bettered by his perceived inferiors (at one point, a fucking mountain goat!) and with a healthy dose of charm, he's as compelling an anti-hero as you could ask for. The highlights include the artwork which is beautiful and in the EC comics tradition, the first appearance of a very blaxpoitation Blade, and the delight of the plotting, like the endless sequels you always wished for. Man, I love this shit so much.

OK, I have like 2 Omnibuseses of that, I i think I read like one and a half of them a few years ago. Yeah, he's arrogant as fuck for sure. He uses the word "clod" too much though.

A clod is a lump of mud, what is Dracula doing out on the farm?

101Walterton wrote: ↑

28 Jul 2020, 5:15pm

tepista wrote: ↑

28 Jul 2020, 2:46pm

Silent Majority wrote: ↑

28 Jul 2020, 12:14pm

50) Tomb of Dracula #1 - 25 - Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan. Comic. 1972 - 1975. Marvel Dracula is pretty much the definitive take on the character, easily kicking Stoker's novel and all the films to the curb. Arrogant, self obsessed, grandiloquent, forever being bettered by his perceived inferiors (at one point, a fucking mountain goat!) and with a healthy dose of charm, he's as compelling an anti-hero as you could ask for. The highlights include the artwork which is beautiful and in the EC comics tradition, the first appearance of a very blaxpoitation Blade, and the delight of the plotting, like the endless sequels you always wished for. Man, I love this shit so much.

OK, I have like 2 Omnibuseses of that, I i think I read like one and a half of them a few years ago. Yeah, he's arrogant as fuck for sure. He uses the word "clod" too much though.

A clod is a lump of mud, what is Dracula doing out on the farm?

He'll also call someone a dolt at the drop of a bat. I started reading these years ago and didn't finish the first part of the trade paperback, was great to start again.

tepista wrote: ↑

28 Jul 2020, 2:46pm

Silent Majority wrote: ↑

28 Jul 2020, 12:14pm

50) Tomb of Dracula #1 - 25 - Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan. Comic. 1972 - 1975. Marvel Dracula is pretty much the definitive take on the character, easily kicking Stoker's novel and all the films to the curb. Arrogant, self obsessed, grandiloquent, forever being bettered by his perceived inferiors (at one point, a fucking mountain goat!) and with a healthy dose of charm, he's as compelling an anti-hero as you could ask for. The highlights include the artwork which is beautiful and in the EC comics tradition, the first appearance of a very blaxpoitation Blade, and the delight of the plotting, like the endless sequels you always wished for. Man, I love this shit so much.

OK, I have like 2 Omnibuseses of that, I i think I read like one and a half of them a few years ago. Yeah, he's arrogant as fuck for sure. He uses the word "clod" too much though.

51) Yesterday's Man: the Case Against Joe Biden - Branko Marcetic. Kindle. 2019. Biden has always been an curiously incurious man, a hawkish unreflective centre right guy who prides himself on the ability to move more to that right in the name of some collegiate compromise. He's apt to get caught up and obsessed by moral panics and the man's brain, such as it was, is abandoning him in his old age. The thesis of the book is that Biden is the worst candidate to pit against Trump and even should he beat Dangerous Donald, he's going to exacerbate the conditions which gave rise to his reign.

Book's a little dated from having been written pre-primary, with many comparisons to what Bernie Sanders was doing while Biden was campaigning against bussing and the like, which is pretty much an irrelevance now (though it does show you can't blame his moral lapses on the time they occurred in). Actually a little exhausting to read, around the time he's stumping to invade Iraq, you just wish the guy would get something right. Then it gets worse when he becomes Vice President and he actually has a serious ability to shape the position of the Overton window.

Silent Majority wrote: ↑

30 Jul 2020, 4:39am

The thesis of the book is that Biden is the worst candidate to pit against Trump and even should he beat Dangerous Donald, he's going to exacerbate the conditions which gave rise to his reign.

What sort of examples does it cite here?

Kory wrote: ↑

30 Jul 2020, 12:14pm

Silent Majority wrote: ↑

30 Jul 2020, 4:39am

The thesis of the book is that Biden is the worst candidate to pit against Trump and even should he beat Dangerous Donald, he's going to exacerbate the conditions which gave rise to his reign.

What sort of examples does it cite here?

His long and storied embrace of Reaganomics/Thatcherite neoliberal economic policy, founded in an austerity which strips bear programs aimed at assisting the public to further enrich the wealthy with tax cuts. His personal tone deaf bullshit on race. His hawkishness on foreign policy. The compromises he'll make to shake hands with sociopathic Republicans.

Silent Majority wrote: ↑

30 Jul 2020, 12:33pm

Kory wrote: ↑

30 Jul 2020, 12:14pm

Silent Majority wrote: ↑

30 Jul 2020, 4:39am

The thesis of the book is that Biden is the worst candidate to pit against Trump and even should he beat Dangerous Donald, he's going to exacerbate the conditions which gave rise to his reign.

What sort of examples does it cite here?

His long and storied embrace of Reaganomics/Thatcherite neoliberal economic policy, founded in an austerity which strips bear programs aimed at assisting the public to further enrich the wealthy with tax cuts. His personal tone deaf bullshit on race. His hawkishness on foreign policy. The compromises he'll make to shake hands with sociopathic Republicans.

Makes sense.

Finished Applebaum's Twilight of Democracy, which, more accurately, is twilight of Anne's party days. A strangely incurious book that doesn't care to ask why so many have turned against neoliberalism. Liberals are so cosmopolitan and invite so many views and love open debate, but now people are angry and don't want to talk to others and have lost faith in democracy. Seems like there's a question there to be asked, Anne. Instead, she constantly returns to stories of past parties with other enlightened liberals (some in the centre, some right of centre) and laments how many would no longer attend the same parties because they're so angry and closed minded now. Boo hoo. The book made me more and more contemptuous as it went on because it's intellectual cowardice mixed with self-pity masked as lament. That I loathe the authoritarian right and faux populists doesn't rescue this from being fundamentally lazy.

Next up:

I loves me the initial burst of Parker novels, so I've got the first five loaded up. Don't think I've ever listened to audio versions, but they're all fairly short.

52) Bloodchild and Other Stories - Octavia E Butler. Audiobook.1996. An exemplary collection of great short stories. Wonderful prose, great, mind enhancing concepts and a very humanist message. Highly recommended.

53) The Price of Fear: The Film Career of Vincent Price in his own words - Joel Eisner. Kindle. 2013. A pleasant and lightweight run through the horror icon's full career. He lived a happy life, it seems, being nice and funny to everyone (except Charles Bronson, who he couldn't stand) and made more shit films than great.

54) Batman: A Death in the Family. Comic by Jim Starlin and Jim Aparo. 1988. A low grade post-Frank Miller story about Robin being killed by the Joker. Insane fascist Miller may be, he has an individual twisted greatness about him while this feels like the work of a journeyman imitator with a tone that never settles. The absurd stuff which should be fun (like the Joker getting diplomatic immunity by becoming Iran's ambassador to the UN) sits uneasily next to an adolescent understanding of what's realistic and grittiness. My back was frankly up from the first panel where the dynamic duo are breaking up what Batman's internal monologue describes as a "kiddie porn factory". I'm unlikely to make many exceptions to my new rule of not reading comics from after 1986. The excellent artwork elevated a hackneyed script, but the rendering of the bad guy with a giant chin didn't work for me.

55) Stan Lee: A Marvellous Life - Danny Fingeroth. Audiobook. 2019. A fun run through of the life of a cheerful survivor. Surprised to learn he'd been in the industry for twenty years before the Fantastic Four kicked off the Marvel age of comics. Like Kirk whimpered in Spock's eulogy, he was the most human. Flawed but well meaning. He genuinely believed that the characters were his own creation, despite Ditko and Kirby's massive contributions. On the whole, he led a happy life, though there was the well publicised downturn in quality of life after his wife died which is still hard to read even at this remove.

Silent Majority wrote: ↑

09 Aug 2020, 9:22am

55) Stan Lee: A Marvellous Life - Danny Fingeroth. Audiobook. 2019. A fun run through of the life of a cheerful survivor. Surprised to learn he'd been in the industry for twenty years before the Fantastic Four kicked off the Marvel age of comics. Like Kirk whimpered in Spock's eulogy, he was the most human. Flawed but well meaning. He genuinely believed that the characters were his own creation, despite Ditko and Kirby's massive contributions. On the whole, he led a happy life, though there was the well publicised downturn in quality of life after his wife died which is still hard to read even at this remove.

Completely agree. I listened to that book last year. He was a corny booster, but I think it was sincere. He saw his life as proof that anyone could be successful.