(Source: theagonyofdefeat)
: On Heroes
In the classic debate of Batman vs Superman, I’ve always sided with The Dark Knight.
As a kid, it was mainly because Batman had all these cool toys and gadgets, and a costume that reminded me of ninjas. What boy didn’t ever wrap a t-shirt around his head pretending to be a silent assassin?
…
(Source: spiceweasel, via fwarg)
When I’m at the bar, and my friend suggests that I go over and talk to my crush
I’m just like,
Huang Sufang reacts as she sees a part of her house being taken down by demolition workers at Yangji village in central Guangzhou city, on March 21, 2012. Huang, who is a resident of Yangji village, clashed with demolition workers as they mistakenly took down a part of her home, which was not included in the demolition project. (Reuters/Stringer)
Huang Sufang tries to attack a worker with a brick after a part of her house was mistakenly taken down by demolition workers at Yangji village in central Guangzhou city, on March 21, 2012.
Huang Sufang lies on the ground after a part of her house was mistakenly demolished by workers at Yangji village in central Guangzhou city, on March 21, 2012.
Huang Sufang wipes her tears with her relative holding onto her after a part of her house was mistakenly demolished in central Guangzhou city, on March 21, 2012. Yangji is a former village of more than 1,000 houses that was slated for redevelopment and has been gradually demolished, making way for modern housing. (via The Atlantic)
(Editor’s note: This is happening all the time in China. Heart-breaking.)
(Source: youmightfindyourself)
Before George Lucas famously retreaded and went back on the established origins of many of his beloved Star Wars characters in the prequel trilogy to the original films, there were few if any villains more revered than Boba Fett. Most fans will remember his first appearance in 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back, hot on the tail of the Millenium Falcon and it’s crew, pursuing them not only for the Galactic Empire, but for the hot and heavy bounty weighed on Han Solo courtesy of Jabba the Hutt.
But who exactly is Boba Fett? Despite his seeming demise at the hands of the Sarlacc in The Return of the Jedi, Boba Fett was too cared for and developed to let go that easy. Many fans saw his death-by-millenial-digestion a cop out and perhaps the first sign of Lucas’ ease of reconfiguring his own mythology and universe like some harsh Zeus. But, as a fan-favorite, Fett was not nearly finished. The Expanded Star Wars Universe tells us that after being swallowed in the Pit of Carkoon, Dengar - another one of the many mercenaries introduced in Episode V aboard the Executor - came to Fett’s aide and retrieved him from the unending metabolic prison that is the Great Sarlacc. Nursing him back to health, Fett would soon return to the forefront of the Expanded Universe, making a splash in the much-loved (and in this writer’s opinion, the truest cannonical post-film series) Dark Empire comics. Again, Fett is bested by Han & Co. (this time Chewbecca sends him packing), but by reintroducing him - even if he’s send off licking his wounds - one of the greatest antagonists of all fantasy was renewed.
So who is Boba Fett? The origins of the character in the real world are tied directly with the development of Darth Vader. Artist Ralph McQuarrie, who is to thank for most of the preliminary and conceptual sketches that established the universe that is Star Wars, developed Fett and Vader in tandem. While Vader quickly shifted into more of a dark knight figure during the conceptual phase, Fett began to to stray towards a more loose-cannon depiction; McQuarrie eventually settled him into the position of a rogue bounty-hunter, but it wasn’t until Joe Johnson (one of McQuarrie’s cohort) got his hands on the character that Fett became who he is now. Conceived as an in-between to Vader’s towering darkness and the white-out rank & file of the Stormtrooper, Boba Fett became an intermediary, balancing the malevolent forces of the Star Wars Galaxy. His muted, nearly neutral color scheme highlights his “gray” and almost non-existent moral point of view, perhaps backing up his place as one of the more feared if not revered characters in the Rogues Gallery of the Star Wars Universe. And not to mention that he is a stand-alone character (before Lucas reneged on the original origins in his prequel trilogy with Jango Fett, Boba’s supposed father) for much of the series. He works alone, operates in the shadows, and serves those that pay the best - he is perhaps the most morally ambiguous character we see in the Star Wars films.
It is in that ambiguity that we find why fans hold such reverence for the character of Boba Fett. Once again, before George Lucas effectively rewrote the Star Wars Universe for the benefit of his enjoyable but ultimately “leaves-a-sour-taste-in-your-mouth” prequels, Boba Fett was the only character we ultimately knew very little about. Even down to his Mandalorian armor, adorned with trophies and tassels and winnings from a history we could only hope to comprehend and glimpse at, Boba Fett is the “unknownable character” of the Star Wars Universe. He strutted, almost silently through two films before his on-screen demise, but every time he would enter the frame, a hush would grip the action presented to us. Fett is that mythic badass who’s presence quiets and makes those around tremble in their boots. No less over the course of his two feature appearances he utters fewer than twenty-lines of dialogue. Fett is that both singular and separate; a league of his own, and perhaps one of the best science-fiction/fantasy characters ever developed.
Reblogged myself in honor of the recently departed Ralph McQuarrie, RIP.
(via itwonlast)
In the Land of the Non-Reader
By: Jonathan Gourlay
Bygone Bureau, 1/19/12A few months ago, I stopped reading books.
At night I crawl into bed and thumb my iPhone to life. I watch Star Trek: Voyager on the Netflix app. It’s not a bad show. But somehow it is difficult to compare the weeks it took to complete the seven-season voyage through the Delta Quadrant with Capt. Janeway and the weeks I spent reading my favorite books — thick books by Eliot, Laxness, Dickens, and Pamuk. I know there is an argumentthat serialized television drama is as complex and soul-nourishing as a good book, but, unfortunately, I don’t care for the shows that are usually held up as modern classics for non-readers: The Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, etc. I have never seen an episode of these shows. If you want to reach me, say it with alien explosions and busty cyborgs.
Back when I was a reader, it often troubled me when friends claimed that they had no time to read. Was it possible that their lives were so full of wonders that they could not spend five minutes here or there to read? How was it that my life, in comparison, seemed to offer so many chunks of reading time throughout the day? A train ride, a late-night break, and an office wait. Through marriage, babies, graduate schools, and new jobs, I always found time to read for pleasure.
Alas, dear reader, the term “pleasure” doesn’t capture the mental and physical need for books I once had. Without a book nearby I felt bereft, purposeless, barely human. Once upon a time I lived in a far-flung foreign swamp with an extended family of non-readers. I frightened them one night when I stumbled home drunk and ransacked the house for a lost tome. A nice cousin had cleaned the house and of course she, like most people, would never feel a deep compulsion to read all of Dickens. So my book got cast off or put away or tossed to the silent frogs in the swamp. (Yes, they were silent frogs.) I screamed, “Sid, where are my drugs!” in my best, cackling Nancy Spungen voice and I laughed for being woozily hilarious to myself but could find no rest without a page of my book to send me to sleep. Books were a long-time lover whose steady weight I needed to feel in bed before sleep was possible. It turned out that the swamp heathens had used Bleak House to balance a very wobbly chair.
Books can steady a chair and a soul. The former use is not recommended for Kindle.
The last book I read was Boethius’s The Consolation of Philosophy. That was months ago. After one day of non-reading I figured, well, perhaps some nights I can I go to sleep with visions of Neelix the Talaxian annoyer on Voyager, rather than Boethius’ prickly and combative angel of philosophy. What’s the harm? After a week of non-reading, I said to myself that I was busy. So busy. Too busy, really, to start a new book. After three weeks of non-reading, my brain felt a bit numb. I told myself that I was working so hard that I couldn’t engage with a book. I fell, instead, into a steady diet of Netlix, Hulu, Skyrim, and the NFL. Like an addict in the early stages of recovery, I felt a euphoric at being released from the bitter yoke of my addiction. As a non-reader I felt free to happily non-think all day. It was delicious. Almost animal. I craved red meat and raw sex and new episodes of Fringe.
Then I opened Skyrim and saw the following message: “48 hours played. Last played today.”
I must have some free time. Perhaps the “I don’t have time to read” line is just a cover. A way that people excuse themselves from the uncomfortable truth that they do, in fact, have time but that they would rather do something other than read with that time (such as pretending to be a wood-elf). We exalt reading as “good” like exercise and vegetables and so we are always making excuses as to why we avoid it.
After I saw that message I knew that I had taken up residence in the swamp of the non-reader. Here is what life is like in that swamp:
- The world is flat. Not in the sense of a level economic playing field (an idea I once read about, when I read). No, the world is flat because I see no depth. I make no associations. Life unfolds as a rather dull soap opera with bathroom breaks.
- I can no longer reason and cannot be trusted to make a decision. My brain is distracted by second-hand sensations. When the slightest complexity arises in my life, I crave the screen world – the simple goal of building a house in Minecraft or the easily dis-entangled one-hour conundrums that beset the Voyager crew.
- I can no longer relax. My Skyrim character now has a longer to-do list than my red-flagged Outlook task-list at work. My days at work and home consist of quests and side-quests leading to more quests and side-quests. I have lost the main narrative.
- I am empty, but not in a monkish way. I am just kind of dumb. Also, without the pleasing empathy that comes from engaging with new ideas, places, and characters, I am afraid of foreigners and easily manipulated by politicians and advertisements.
- I have the attention span of cocaine-addled four-year old. My mind is an ’80s Scorsese montage on fast-forward. It’s all sound and fury signifying – are you kidding me? Star Wars in 3D? WTF?
My iPhone has uploaded my fiery libido into the cloud, where it is currently carousing with a Beyoncé video. I crave that cloud. The endless gamboling streams of deathless entertainment… Heaven 2.0. Oh, to be formless, streamed, and exciting. To float above the earth in multiple formats. To be downloaded occasionally into the pockets of a soma-hazed populace. To walk a moment upon the warming globe and then ride in the aether of entertainment. Finding a thrill. A thrill. A thrill and no thought. And another thrill. And no thought.
An inner voice vibrates in the addled idle of my non-reading life. Somehow the words wormed through centuries to arrive upon a still-firing synapse and spin these lines:
What win I, if I gain the thing I seek?
A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy.
Who buys a minute’s mirth to wail a week?
Or sells eternity to get a toy?In conclusion: I started reading books again.
It’s my pretty friend’s birthday :)
