The Lost Art of Handwriting

We live in a digital age. Word processors are the standard in this world. If you are going to write something, no matter what it is, you’re most likely doing so on a word processor. I guess the death of handwriting really begun with the typewriter, but regardless of when it happened, nothing handwritten really exists anymore. This, in many ways, makes me sad. And I’m technically part of the “problem;” most of my articles are written on a word processor, but whenever I write something for class, or some snippet of creative writing on my own, I always hand write it first. I don’t know if I can really explain why; it’s something I’ve always done.

Part of this is because of the Pilot pen company. I wrote exclusively with pencils for the early part of my life. The idea that you couldn’t erase pens just bothered the hell out of me. I only used pens if it was required. My dad changed everything. He would always throw random stuff in our stockings for the holidays, and one year he included some Pilot G2 black and blue gel ink pens. I had already started writing as an ongoing concern at that point, but I was doing it in pencil. Even back then I hand wrote nearly everything. I tried it for a quick little short story project I never finished (one of many, including “Going Home Again,” but I swear I’m going to get back to that one after my class ends). I’ve never looked back. The lines are smooth and vibrant, the ink is consistently strong. But the biggest thing it has on any other pen in my opinion (save fancy fountain pens, I would assume) is the way it scratches when you write with it. You can hear it and feel it. It’s tactile in a way that the standard ball points aren’t. It’s like writing with a quill, but not nearly as messy. That’s what changed things. That’s what made me a pen convert. I used gel ink for the rest of high school. Every now and then, I’d settle for something that wasn’t a Pilot G2 07 (or the dreadful Pilot G2 05’s, which is far too fine a point for aesthetic purposes), but it was never the same. I did Calculus and Physics work with those pens. My blue books were a mess at times, but they looked good. And that, to me, is what matters. You see a pen written manuscript and you see everything. I hate the fact that pencils can erase now. It hides the process. Spelling errors, syntax changes, entire paragraphs deleted, you can’t hide these in a pen-written manuscript. It’s a fascinating look into the writer’s process.

I still obviously type everything up, because that’s the age in which we live. But I think some of the charm was lost when our society stopped writing things by hand. You don’t even get the crazy doctor’s prescriptions with illegible writing these days; it’s all computerized. It’s soulless. Which is not to say I’m some kind of technophobe or anarchist when it comes to computers. Far from it. Computers and electronics dominate my life, and I’m happier for it. But I love the fact that I have an old concert band folder in my closet with almost 130 pages of handwritten manuscript for the novel I never finished when I was in high school. It’s got a different feel. You can discern my general mood or confidence level with a certain portion of writing by the way my handwriting changes. If I’m on a roll, the letters get larger, more exaggerated, sloppier, as I’m trying to get everything down as fast as possible before my notorious short term memory fails on me again. You can tell when my prose is deliberate because the writing is smaller, clearer, more cramped. It’s a sign that I’m focused on making the right choices as opposed to actively spewing things from mind to pen to paper. This is what I love about handwriting. It has its own language unto itself. Margin notes, mistakes, changes, it’s all there for the eye to see. An unadulterated look at the writer’s process.

Another thing I appreciate about handwriting things first is the fact that when you take the hand written work and type it up, it’s an automatic editing process. The mind never stops working or looking for ways to improve. As such, I always make edits when I type up something hand written. The original manuscript is very much a first draft, and while I don’t often do multiple drafts (to either my benefit or detriment depending on the situation), I am given the opportunity of improving my prose during that step. I think it’s an essential part of the process. It’s made me the writer that I am today, and I think that I’m a pretty good one, all things considered.

———————

This post was written to the tune of The Police’s Outlandos D’Amour

The Fall 2009 TV Season

I’m trying to keep this blog rolling after having actually updated it on a semi-regular basis beginning last week. Today, I wanted to give some thoughts on the fall television schedule and go over the shows I’ve been watching this season starting with Mondays.

There is the potential for spoilers in the course of this article (predominantly for Smallville). Keep that in mind.

How I Met Your Mother – CBS Mondays 8:00 to 8:30

I’ve liked this show for quite a long time. As far as the sitcom format is concerned, it’s a pretty pure structure. The key is that the show is allowed some wiggle room in its humor, and tends to go for a lot of non sequitur that usually works without being too completely over the top. One thing I can say is the show is somewhat in danger of overstaying its welcome. There were definitely parts of season four that dragged, and while there have been individual moments in season five thus far that have been greatly enjoyable, I’m noticing much more of a lack of direction here. It’s a little odd to see a sitcom that is in its own way pretty heavily serialized, and I think it’s beginning to suffer from the sort of Lost syndrome, in that it does not have an end date and they seem to be artificially extending the core storyline without any sense of forward momentum. I still like the show, and it’s still scripted strongly, but it’s not at the top of the heap like it has been in recent years.

The Big Bang Theory – CBS Mondays 9:30 to 10:00

When The Big Bang Theory first started, it seemed very much to be a heavily clichéd show. Look! Geeks! And they live across the hall from a hot girl! Who they can’t interact with because they’re socially awkward geeks! Shenanigans! Of course, there are moments like that in almost every episode. But what matters here, and what makes the show the best half hour comedy on television right now is twofold. First of all, all the characters have levels, are treated with respect, and rise above their clichéd origins. These are obviously caricatures of personality types, but they’re fully realized and feel like real people. Secondly, the writers have made sure that they know what they’re doing. They get the references to science, sci-fi and comic books right. This reinforces the feeling that the show is genuine, which helps immensely.

It should be noted that I am also recording House, but have not finished the latter episodes of the previous season, and as such have not begun watching the new season.

WWE Monday Night Raw – USA Mondays 9:00 to 11:08 (or so)

I’m reaching the point that if I don’t care about the guest host of Raw, I’m just not going to watch it now. I recorded last night’s because I wanted to see if they would actually pull off setting up the theme of the Bragging Rights Pay Per View in two weeks, but Nancy O’Dell isn’t going to make me watch a show full of wrestlers that are either annoyingly overexposed (DX, to some extent Randy Orton and Legacy, John Cena), annoyingly bad at what they do (John Cena again, Hornswoggle, anything involving the Divas) or annoyingly not given enough time to do their thing (Evan Bourne, Kofi Kingston, Jack Swagger, basically everyone on the midcard). The only saving grace right now is the team-up of Chris Jericho and the Big Show. But that’s usually not worth two hours of television unless the guest host is perceived to be possibly entertaining.

The Ultimate Fighter: Heavyweights – Spike TV Wednesdays 10:00 to 11:00

Oh, Ultimate Fighter. You’re so ridiculous this season. From the constant war of words between Rampage Jackson and Rashad Evans to the undeniable appeal of guys like Marcus Jones to the obvious draw of Kimbo Slice and Roy Nelson, it’s certainly one of the more interesting seasons of the show. It’s a good thing that the off cage politics are so damned enjoyable to watch, because these big boys CAN’T FIGHT TO SAVE THEIR LIVES. Sure, a lot of the fights on Ultimate Fighter shows in the past have been lousy, but not to this point. Wes Shivers literally doubled over, both hands on his knees sucking in air like it’s going out of style, and James McSweeney (supposedly one of the better fighters on the show) couldn’t finish him? Even the Madsen/Wagner fight from episode one, which was notable because it featured arguably the worst gash I’ve ever seen in UFC history, sucked. It’s a hell of an entertaining show, but if you’re only interested in the fights themselves, you might want to stay away.

Smallville – The CW Fridays 8:00 to 9:00

Over the past three weeks or so, I’ve managed to watch all of seasons seven and eight of Smallville, as well as the first two episodes of season nine to get myself practically caught up to the show as it airs. It’s gotten immensely better. Seasons five and six were pretty rough. Seasons seven and eight were very much mythos seasons, with a lot of emphasis on Krypton, and its connected properties (Doomsday, the Houses of El and Zod, Supergirl, etc.), as well as the added wrinkle of Veritas and The Traveler, which was really the highlight of season seven, and added a nice mystique to the daily goings on. Season nine has been decent. I really liked the design on Metallo, and the beginnings of the Major Zod story arc look to pay dividends down the line (and hey, any geek worth his salt is going to go nuts for a “Kneel before Zod” line). It’s looking to continue the positive movement of the last two seasons, and I’m proud to say I watch Smallville again.

Dollhouse – Fox Fridays 9:00 to 10:00

Oh, Dollhouse. You’re quite the schizophrenic show, aren’t you? So many flashes of brilliance in a short period make you think the show is destined for greatness (“Man on the Street” and the two-part finale from season one, “Epitaph One,” and moments from the season two premiere),  and yet there are still parts of it that just don’t click. “Epitaph One” was quite the gamble, and while it was an abjectly brilliant episode, I’m not all that sure it was such a good idea considering the series was eventually picked up to continue.  Amy Acker, who was by all degrees the best part of the show, has the best moment of the season two premiere and then proceeds to leave the show. It’s moving without a rudder. It’s trying to decide if it’s going to be a procedural or a mythos show, and it needs to decide fast or it might lose me.

Friday Night Smackdown! – MyNetwork TV Fridays 8:00 to 10:00

Ah, good wrestlers. I remember you. It’s really the only watchable pro wrestling show on TV I have access to (Sorry, Ring of Honor, I no longer get HD Net). CM Punk is the man. Morrison and Ziggler are great. You’ve got more Chris Jericho/Big Show love. The better wrestlers combined with storylines that have some semblance of sense makes this the only pro wrestling show worth watching.

Saturday Night Live – NBC Saturday 11:30 to 1:00

Wow, SNL is not off to a good start. We’re going on three straight nigh unwatchable episodes. The writing is not up to par. The guest hosts have been used badly. There has been one decent digital short. Bill Hader remains a bright spot, but things are not looking good for SNL considering its start.

Dexter – Showtime Sunday 9:00 to 10:00

I go back and forth on Dexter a lot. The main storyline is almost always enjoyable, especially with the added wrinkle of John Lithgow playing the baddie. But the subplots, which have bored me to tears since the show started, continue to bore me to tears. I don’t care about a single character on that show other than Dexter and the villain he tracks. This has been the case every season. And while I’ll still enjoy the show and watch it for the immediate future, I can’t actually say that the show itself is actually good per se, because it has such glaring flaws. It’s an odd dichotomy.

Overall, I would say this TV season has been decent edging toward mildly disappointing. There are some top shelf shows that I know I will always enjoy, and that list should grow when Chuck and Lost return to the airwaves, but a lot of the shows I’ve liked in previous seasons are on a bit of a decline.

——————————

This post was written to the tune of Sponge’s Wax Ecstatic

Coming Soon…

I took a trip back to Pennsylvania the first weekend of October. While I was there, I was given a printout of my original version of The Machine of Dreams from 1999-2000. I’m going to type it up and post it to the blog this weekend. I have to make a couple of typographical fixes, but otherwise, it will remain untouched. You’ll be able to see the tense inconsistencies, the couple of BLATANTLY (we’re talking word for word here) stolen jokes from other media (namely, Red Dwarf, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Simpsons, and possibly the movie Airheads. Not too proud of that last one) in all their glory. You have been warned.

Contentment in the Form of a Film Score

Short entry today that was inspired by my ride home on the T after work on Monday. Usually when I’m taking the T home, I try to get on one of the old style trains, find a single seat and relax while listening to music on the ride from St. Paul Street to Chiswick Road. On Monday, I had gotten a nice seat to myself right at St. Paul’s and made the decision that I was going to get some reading done. I pulled The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (which I have since finished. It’s great) out of my messenger bag, and right as I was going to turn off my iPod (really don’t like reading and listening to music at the same time. I’ve found that lyrics get in the way of my enjoyment of a book), “The Last Man” came up on the shuffle. “The Last Man” is the opening song from Clint Mansell’s score to The Fountain. Now, I’m quite the fan of Darren Aronofsky. Loved Pi, Requiem for a Dream, and The Wrestler. But The Fountain holds a special place in my heart for being so damned emotional and personal in a way that his other movies aren’t. I think it’s his strongest work, and it’s right up there with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and I Heart Huckabees (more on both of those films in a later entry) as one of my favorite dramas of the last ten years.

A large part of that love comes from Clint Mansell’s score, as he again called upon the Kronos Quartet after the grand success of his score for Requiem for a Dream (the central theme, entitled “Lux Aeterna,” has been used constantly in movie trailers because it’s just that damned good). It’s a gorgeous score that works incredibly well on its own just as an isolated piece of neo-classical music. Lush violin arpeggios, piano movements, and minimalistic drum tracks create a sort of slow rumble throughout the entire album that finally climaxes in “Death is the Road to Awe,” an eight minute piece that features a slow crescendo that explodes out into full splendor at the six minute mark. This is of course also the film climaxes as well, with its own explosion of color and light in a moment that I absolutely refuse to spoil in greater detail. One of the best things about the actual score that was released on CD is the way that it flows seamlessly within itself as a piece of music completely separate from the film for which it was created. There are many films that have great scores. But not all of them work well on their own. I think Requiem for a Dream is actually a really good example of a great score from a movie that does not really work on its own. “Lux Aeterna” and its derivatives are great songs on their own, and the rest of the work is fine enough, but it’s not cohesive. The pieces seem more random because they’re less unified in an overall theme and more suited to specific actions happening on screen. It’s one of the reasons why I think The Fountain is the better of the two scores.

There was something very serene about that train ride, as the subtle sounds of the Kronos Quartet wafted through my headphones and I read a rather enjoyable section of Kavalier and Clay about an upscale party the titular characters go to featuring Salvador Dali’s near death and many other surrealist moments. I’m really enjoying the book, which shouldn’t surprise anyone considering its ties to comics and its status as a sort of alternate version of the Jerry Siegel/Joe Shuster story. It’s got the sort of slow paced slice of life feel that has a tendency to work much better in books than movies (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, I’m looking at you), and the combination of the book and the music and the fact that I had had a nice lunch with my father that afternoon just made me step back and think about how far I’ve come since the beginning of the new year. I got a job, decided to finally get moving about losing weight, and many other things have happened to really make 2009 a year to watch. It’s been good, and I think it will continue to be good.

This post was written to the tune of Clint Mansell and the Kronos Quartet’s The Fountain (natch)

Anxiety in its Various Forms

It’s nearly 2:30 and I can’t sleep. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that in seven days, I will have moved my entire life to Boston (well, technically Brighton, but let’s not mince words). In so doing, I will have to drive a truck rented from the good folks at Penske the 350 miles through five states to get from Bucks County, Pennsylvania to Brighton, Massachusetts. Now, I’ve made this trip at least fifty times, if not probably more. But I’ve never done it on my own, and I’ve never driven the whole way by myself, let alone in a truck. I also haven’t driven an automatic transmission vehicle in close to five years, so I get to look forward to a lot of reaching for a gear shift that doesn’t exist. To say that there’s a bit of anxiety revolving around this would not exactly be a stretch. The added weight of not yet having a job or any interviews lined up isn’t necessarily helping. So this is what we would like to refer to as “bad anxiety.”

At the same time, in forty eight hours, I’ll be in a hotel room in Reading, Pennsylvania with my good friend Bill, presumably having just returned from the bar Third and Spruce, which is the first official meeting of the folks coming to Reading for the Comic Geek Speak podcast’s first annual Super Show convention. I was present at the Episode 300 get together last year, and while I literally knew no one there, I still managed to make a few friends (it’s funny; you get a bunch of socially awkward geeks in a room and lubricate them with alcohol, and things have a tendency to loosen up a bit). So I’m not as worried of the wallflower syndrome going into things like I was last year. Bill might have a few issues, but I’ll be there to coach him through it an introduce him to people, which probably would have helped me a great deal last year. So I can go into this thing purely with fun in mind. It’ll be fun to catch up with the Geeks, as well as folks from last year, especially the Texas contingent of Brad and Frank from the Half Hour Wasted podcast and Jun Bob Kim (who will have a purty Thanos sketch for me). I’ll have to keep my spending in check (for reasons why, take a gander at that first paragraph again), but I still plan to have a lot of fun. And stay out past eleven o’clock. Last year was a bit sad in that regard. So this would be an example of “good anxiety.”

Now, I’m not exactly speaking from the perspective of being an expert where things like anxiety are concerned. I can confidently proclaim that terms like “good anxiety” and “bad anxiety” are quite a load of bunk from a specifically scientific or physiological perspective. But it makes sense in my head, and in both cases, it certainly leads to trouble sleeping. In point of fact, I’ve been having some degree of trouble sleeping for the past two weeks or so, dating back to my last day of work. It sure does start to pull on you after a while, and I bet my attempts to sleep Tuesday night (which will be especially difficult, considering that my bed will be in the back of a truck) will fall on deaf ears. Not looking forward to that, really.

Ah well. It’s 2:40 now, so I guess I’m just exacerbating the problem.

This post was written to the tune of The Exit’s Home for an Island.

The Last Hurrah of My VS System Career

The move is less than ten days away, and this past Sunday was my last day spent at my local card gaming hang out. Because of this, our TO made sure that we could squeeze in the Marvel Universe City Championships before I left. I’ve been selling cards on eBay like it’s going out of style, and that included all of my Mobilizes, so that certainly restricted the number of decks I had an opportunity to build. So I decided to go with an old standby that doesn’t rely heavily on search, but still packed quite a lot of it: Marvel Knights/Birds of Prey. Here’s the list:

MKGKKO

Characters:

4x Lady Blackhawk, Zinda Blake

3x Black Cat, Thrillseeker

4x Daredevil, Fearless Survivor

2x Huntress, Vicious Vigilante

4x Barbara Gordon <> Oracle, Hacker Elite

1x Blade, Independent Contractor

4x Wolverine, Covert Predator

1x Vixen, Mari Jiwe McCabe

2x Cassandra Cain, Death’s Daughter

1x Punisher, Captain America

1x Captain America, Loyal Patriot

1x Dinah Laurel Lance <> Black Canary, Cry in the Dark

1x Hulk, Savage Hulk

Plot Twists:

4x The Hook Up, Team-Up

4x Flying Kick

4x Savage Beatdown

4x Quick Kill

4x Pathetic Attempt

3x Wild Ride

3x Bat Signal

3x Finishing Move

3x Blinding Rage

So it’s MKKO with Barbara’s draw engine. I must say that in general, the act of cycling all those extra characters into pumps and KO effects is really satisfying. We had five people show up in total. So let’s get to the results.

Round 1: Los (JSA/Marvel Defenders)

Atom Smasher with 8 counters on him and a T Spheres is REALLY ANNOYING (I finally Quick Killed the little fucker on turn five after I had to team attack my four and five into him). Despite the fact that I missed on one and two, we were pretty even throughout the game until we hit turn six. Los played Darkseid, The Omega and tried to swap one of my Quick Kills for his Rock of Eternity. I was ready for him with a Pathetic Attempt, but I wasn’t ready with a second Pathetic Attempt when he substituted Darkseid for himself. So I was completely locked down and had to scoop up. This was the first time Los ever beat me in a tournament. I think my overall record against him is around 20-1 or so.

0-1

Round Two: Bye

Very Exciting!

1-1

Round Three: Keith (Heralds of Galactus Silver Surfer Abuse)

I know this deck in and out. And I should. I built it. He actually managed to get Surfer hidden with his board before I was able to see a Quick Kill and take over the game. He made a play error on four, stacking Galactus, Devourer of Worlds on top of his deck during the build phase to set up for some Shape Change shenanigans, only to be forced to draw him into his hand thanks to Frankie Raye’s trigger at the start of combat. I then proceeded to pulverize his board with Daredevil taking down Morg with the aid of a flying kick, Lady Blackhawk taking out Frankie Raye with a Blinding Rage, and Wolverine waltzing over to the hidden area in order to feast on the defenseless Silver Surfer. It was pretty much all over at that point, but the 38/38 Savage Hulk that showed up on my initiative turn six probably didn’t help matters for him.

2-1

Round Four: Bryan (Clash of Dooms)

This was a tense game. I managed to KO both his three and four drop Dooms before Omnipotence called Finishing Move and my KOing days were over. The moment that clinched the game happened on turn five, when a team attack by Daredevil and Wolverine into five drop Doom led to him dumping his hand of power ups and a Supersize, but he did the math wrong and still came up short. This left him without a six drop to play and no search to go get one, and he scooped the second I dropped Black Canary, as the board of five drop Doom versus Black Canary, Cassandra Cain, Wolverine and Barbara Gordon was not going to end in his favor. Close game.

3-1

I managed to sneak into the top two due to tiebreakers (my win over Bryan at 3-0 allowed me to leapfrog Los into the finals), and it was time for a rematch.

Top Two: Bryan (Clash of Dooms)

This was a somewhat similar matchup to last time. I KO’d his three drop Doom after he KO’d Lancer to replace a resource, so he had no board going into four. I didn’t have the Quick Kill to take down four drop Doom, so he managed to live a turn. Turn five I wiped his board (after he faced me for 23 with some Doomstadt powered Dooms swinging direct) and ended up short one power-up from ending the game on five. We went into turn six with the endurance totals at 2 (me) to 1 (him). On my initiative, I went with Savage Hulk (who pumped up to an amazing 14/14!) and he dropped Dreadnought Tank, bouncing my Daredevil back to my hand at the start of combat. Doom was standing in front of his tank, so I decided to team attack everyone but Hulk into him to ensure the stun. Both five drops went down, and the score was -4 to -3. However, the 14/14 Savage Hulk swinging on the 12/11 Dreadnought Tank with a Savage Beatdown was enough to shift the negatives in my favor, and Bryan scooped when he saw the Beatdown.

4-1. City Champion!

So in my last VS System tournament for at least the near future, I came out a winner and walked away with quite a lot of swag (I think I got a bit extra due to it being my last day). I stuck around a little bit afterwards to watch the WoW guys play their tournament, and ended up taking off halfway through. I spent nearly every Sunday with these guys for close to two years. It’s bittersweet to know that I probably won’t see the crew for a very long time, if I ever do. Even if I come home for a weekend to visit the ‘rents, I’ll be travelling back to Boston on Sundays, which is the day they play. Even still, I had a blast playing there, won far more games than I lost and got so many cards. Hell, I even got a Mobilize out of my Legion of Superheroes prize packs that day (I ended up selling it to Bryan at a discount). It was a good day.

I should hopefully get back to blogging this sucker more often, as I’m pretty much done packing and don’t have a lot to do over the next two days before I leave for CGS Super Show on Friday.

This post was written to the tune of The Dresden Dolls’ No, Virginia