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stranger-who-writes-fiction · 4 years ago

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Alright HERE WE GO...SOME PRESS!

By which I mean, Tom King was on ComicPop discussing Supergirl! So we have CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND INFO! WOO!

Gonna get into it below, but my recommendation, as always: the best way to have an informed opinion is to get the info firsthand, so don’t just take my word for it! Go forth! Watch the thing! (Language advisory, though. There is some swearing.)

Okay. With that out of the way, LET’S GO!

Gonna lead off with a summary of the Supergirl bits, as they discuss a variety of things, from Strange Adventures to Batman/Catwoman to the canned New Gods project:

How Tom King came to be the writer of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow:

King’s longtime editor, Jaime Rich, was moved from the Bat books to the Super books.

King, historically, likes to take on characters that ‘need help.’ He cites the example of Kirby who, upon coming to DC, asked what their lowest-selling title was, which is how he ended up on Jimmy Olsen.

So, when King asks which character needs help, Rich, to King: Supergirl. We have trouble selling that book.

King, describing Supergirl: ‘She’s singular in a way Mr. Miracle and Vision are not.’ Says that if you ask any four year old who Supergirl is, they know.

Editors asked him, ‘what’s your take? what are you gonna do with her?’

King then discusses the difference between his approach to Bat people vs. Super people.

Bat people: It’s a deconstruction approach. King brings up Kite Man from his Batman run. You tear the character down and build them back up, a la Dark Knight Returns

Super people: It’s not about deconstruction. Let them be themselves. They’re wonderful, let them be wonderful.

But he does mention sort of stripping down the character to their purest form; he describes it as chiseling off the barnacles that have built up on the character, over the years.

Additionally, he says ‘evil doesn’t work for the Super family of characters.’

He mentions Superman: Up in the Sky. He says that there’s deep stuff in Up in the Sky, but the theme of every page is simply: Superman is awesome.

King: “I don’t want to make Kara mean or sad. I want to test her.”

The host compares ‘angry Kara’ stories to ‘evil Superman’ stories in that there are many of them, such to the point that people think Kara is relatable because she’s miserable and angry all the time.

The host: I don’t get that.

(Same dude, same.)

King talked to Steve Orlando

They discussed the fact that Supergirl knew her planet; the people who died were her friends, family, classmates.

King summarizes Kara’s original Silver Age origin: she witnessed three huge, traumatic losses of life. First, when Krypton exploded. Then again when the Kryptonite started killing Argo residents, and then again when the meteorites destroyed the lead shielding that was keeping Argo safe.

King: “That’s some f-ing trauma! I don’t know if you’ve read my books, but I love the trauma in characters.”

King thus describes Kara as world-weary, she swears, ‘she has seen some sh*t’.

On the new character, Ruthye:

She’s a child on a vengeance quest.

She’s named after King’s niece, Ruthie.

The pronunciation for the comic character, though, is Ruth-Eye.

One of his sons told him to add the ‘e’ on the end to make it look cooler.

Further discussion of Kara herself:

King noted that there’s sometimes a tendency to be very precious with the character.

King: ‘Let’s not be precious with Supergirl.’

This is not the story of a sixteen-year-old girl discovering the world; King says that Supergirl has been that sixteen-year-old for a long time now.

He describes it more as a move from Supergirl to Superwoman.

Art and Influences:

Talking about the red sun planet that Kara visits for her twenty-first birthday, King says he was reading a lot of Conan, which influenced the look of that portion of the story.

The impetus for getting Evely on the book: King said his editor emailed him, ‘Hey, how about Bilquis?’ King: “And I did a happy dance!”

Evely sent King a mood board of the types of things she wanted to draw; Moebius, Kirby, Wally Wood, landscapes in particular.

Also, King says Evely is fast! She’s already halfway through the book, art-wise, and King is confident the book will release on time.

The host asked him, following up on King’s description of the book as a fantasy/western, ‘Is this True Grit?’

King: “It’s True Grit inspired. The novel AND the movie.”

If asked to give the Hollywood pitch: ‘It’s True Grit in space with Supergirl as Rooster Cogburn.’

Details about this book, as compared to Other Tom King titles:

He’s using captions on this comic--he’d thrown out captions as a storytelling device after Batman, but he found a ‘good voice’ for this comic.

King was prepared to do his usual twelve issues, but they said no one buys Supergirl comics, so it’s eight issues.

King says that Strange Adventures, Rorschach, and to a lesser extent, Batman/Catwoman, were written at a time when the world felt very apocalyptic.

He considers them to be angrier books; they are about what happens when evil is in our life, and how we deal with that.

Supergirl is the start of the ‘next generation’ of titles.

It was written during the pandemic, but King hoped that by the time it was released, the pandemic and this very dark time in our history would be past.

He says it’s a ‘roaring 20s’ book. Not about anger, or trauma, it’s about stepping into the future and kicking a**.

THUS CONCLUDES the Supergirl portion of the interview.

Okay, so! Now that we’ve been objective and presented the information in a straightforward, unbiased manner...SOME THOUGHTS AND OPINONS!

The thing I was most curious about was how King got the book, so I was EXTREMELY PLEASED to get the full story.

This wasn’t like. King desperately wanting to do a Supergirl book, nor was it DC coming to King like, ‘Take Supergirl!’

Sadly, it was, ‘which book needs the most help right now? In the Superman lineup?’

He even said that Supergirl was kind of just sitting around, no one was doing anything with her/there were no plans.

(So the idea that King stole this opportunity from a woman is not true. There were NO PLANS.)

(Also it’s not based on the FS stuff, I suspect they gave the FS team some ideas from his pitch to work with, as that entire event was sort of a stop-gap/fill-in as they hurried to relaunch their line.)

Anyways!

My initial thought that this is DC’s attempt to sell some dang Supergirl books? Not that far off! XD

Boy, I hope it works.

(Important to note: This is not news. Supergirl has historically always sold poorly. I’ve heard from actual Supergirl writers that the trades do not sell, which is a huge problem.

So King, who is KNOWN for having really good trade sales, is as solid a gamble as they could probably hope for.

He said Superman: Up in the Sky is his third best-selling trade. A WAL-MART BOOK! Is just behind Vision and Mr. Miracle!

Basically: If this doesn’t work, I don’t know that anything will.)

As for the specifics of King’s take in particular!

Again...I really want to see it, before I pass judgement on it.

I liked the Andreyko run! And that was pretty edgy!

Also, we have never seen a twenty-something Kara, post-Crisis. She’s always been a teenager. Thus I’m pretty willing to go along with this approach because it’s entirely new territory.

And it does seem like King is enjoying leaning into the idea of a Super who swears and kicks butt and is just a little ‘done’ with it all.

It might not mesh with my ideal Kara but again. I need to see it, before I come to any firm conclusions.

Honestly the thing that gives me the most pause? Is that King says this book really focuses on Supergirl, not Kara, which is a more recent identity for her.

(That is somewhat true! The ‘Kara Danvers’ identity is wholly new to the show; she’s always been Linda Lee, Linda Danvers, Kara Kent, or Linda Lang, when she has a secret identity. Sometimes she doesn’t.)

(Also of note: Tom pronounces it ‘Care-a’, like the cartoon.)

(PERSONALLY I like KAHr-a, like in the show, because it creates a phonetic consistency with ‘KAHl-el’ but that’s not really relevant to a comic book. You can mentally pronounce it however you choose! XD)

So, yeah, I like the Kara Danvers part of her identity, I like earth-bound Supergirl stories, but. This isn’t that. Which I’ll need to make peace with, I guess. XD

Otherwise? Tell me a story, Mr. King. Even if I hate it, Evely will draw it beautifully, Lopes will color it masterfully, and that’s half the battle, right there.

I’m sad King didn’t mention the Gates/Igle run! But I also understand he’s probably been looking at more recent stuff; those Gates/Igle comics are fifteen years old, oh man, oh geez, how are they that old already.

King did confirm that this is 100% in-continuity, and will affect the character going into the future.

But, IDK, given the sort of. Grim beginnings of how this book came to be, what with the reminder that the Supergirl title doesn’t sell well...who knows what the future will look like, for Kara!

I stand by my guess that Kara will graduate to ‘Superwoman’ and the Supergirl mantle will pass to someone else, maybe Ruthye? She might be a bit young, though.

Mmm. What else, what else?

Oh, this is pretty funny, IMO: when King first teased the new character, Ruthye, a bunch of SG fans rushed to google to see if there was any clue as to like. What it could mean.

And they freaked out over some obscure connection where that name appears but hey, turns out! It’s just a made up name! Based on King’s niece!

It’s funny because SG fans never learn, man. Just chill out, read the dang book, then get all upset and huff and puff and blow your twitter house down.

They briefly mentioned the Peter David run; King said the PAD stuff was great.

He’s already teased that ‘treat’ and, okay. Time for some rumination on that specifically.

I’ve read the whole PAD run. It wasn’t my cup of tea, I don’t really like the DnD, angels and demons stuff. Also, it wasn’t Kara; it’s an entirely different character who uses the name ‘Supergirl.’

Also, stuff from that run didn’t age well.

And on top of that, PAD turned out to be...kind of a jerk! As so many folks in the comic industry are.

There’s also...an extremely weird, mean-spirited vibe through the whole back half of the run; I thought maybe I was imagining it at the time, but I recently went back to “Many Happy Returns”, the final story arc of the title, and David’s introduction in the trade...it doesn’t read like a guy who was in it for the love of the character, you know?

All of which to say! I’m not excited about connections to the PAD stuff.

But I know a lot of fans who love that run, love that version of the character.

So like. Eh! Not for me, but to the folks who enjoy it, I hope it’s cool/fun, whatever it is.

(Still think it’ll be a variant or an easter egg or something, but we’ll see.)

(Oh, hmmm! Evely *did* post a WIP of like. Some creepy skull gate that they presumably encounter...hmmmmm.)

Okay, this is crazy long, and there’s no fun art or anything to go with it--OR IS THERE?!?!?!

BOOM. From Bilquis Evely’s twitter today. (GO. FOLLOW. HER. FOR THE GOOD ART.)

(LIKE!!! I look at this and I just! Can’t! Bring myself to not be hyped as all heck! LOOK AT THIS! AND iT’S JUST THE PENCILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

God, wish that Supergirl sold better, so we could get a full year of this. HNNNNGGGGGGG.

Oh! That was another thing King discussed in detail; that 8 is way different from his usual 12, in terms of pacing and story. The beats fall at different places (obviously) so it was a bit of a challenge for him.

Actually, now that I’m thinking about it...maybe 8 will be good. Issue 10 just dropped for Strange Adventures, and wow, it has felt LONG. (I mean, the last four? Three? issues are also bi-monthly so that doesn’t help but. Still.)

(Superman: Up in the Sky was twelve issues but half the length, because it was a Wal-Mart book, so it was more like six.)

OKAY! For real, I’ve gone on long enough. XD

SOON. Soon. June 15th, to be exact. Mark yer calendars!

#stranger speaks #supergirl: woman of tomorrow #long post #LONG!#dc comics

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pagetgram · 4 years ago

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Paget Brewster, Bay Dariz, and Oliver Thompson at the 18th Annual Dance With Films Festival Opening Night Party (x)

Paget: “I had worked with Kyle and Molly before. Molly sent me the script and my first thought was, “Ugh, first-time indie director — oh man, I don’t know!” And then I read it and instantly fell in love with the story. I’ve never read anything like it. So I emailed Molly back right away and said, “What do I have to do to get on this film?”

(full interview below)

Interview: Oliver Thompson’s ‘Welcome to Happiness’ Is the Most Original Indie You’ll See This Year

by Danny Miller, for Cinehiled

Welcome to Happiness is a wildly entertaining metaphysical drama about a children’s book author, Woody (American Sniper’s Kyle Gallner), who is the secret gatekeeper to a magical door in his closet. Strangers show up at his apartment and go through a series of questions and tests, provided to Woody by an old dot matrix printer that seems to work autonomously, letting him determine whether or not they are worthy to pass through the door. Where they are headed and what they will encounter on the other side, however, is a mystery. Oliver Thompson’s first feature is one of the most refreshingly original films that I’ve seen in a long time. It had a jam-packed screening last night at the 18th Annual Dances With Films festival in Hollywood and recently won the Outstanding Achievement in Filmmaking Award at the 2015 Newport Beach Film Festival. Welcome to Happiness boasts an impressive cast including Nick Offerman, Paget Brewster, Frances Conroy, Brendan Sexton III, Olivia Thirlby, Molly C. Quinn, Keegan Michael-Key, and Josh Brener. Just before the film’s Los Angeles premiere, I sat down with writer/director Oliver Thompson, producer Bay Dariz, and cast members Paget Brewster and Brendan Sexton III. I sat down with writer/director Oliver Thompson, producer Bay Dariz, and cast members Paget Brewster and Brendan Sexton III.

Danny Miller: I loved this movie but as I was watching it I kept thinking that no studio would have allowed you to make it. They probably would have forced a lot of changes on you because they wouldn’t have trusted that audiences would “get it.”

Oliver Thompson: Oh, they absolutely would have, yes.

Paget Brewster: This could never have been a studio film.

Oliver: I mean, those are absolutely necessary people who are just doing their jobs.

But are they absolutely necessary? I guess I’m thinking of the 22-year-old studio executives giving you pages and pages of insane notes to make the film less “challenging.”

Ooh, that’s pretty accurate.

What I love about movies like this is that they’re like Rorschach tests — I doubt two people seeing it will have the same impression of what’s going on.

Brendan Dean Sexton III: We’ve certainly heard from people who completely identify with different characters.

Brendan, I think I identified most with your character, Nyles, I’m a little terrified to admit.

Bay Dariz: When you say “challenging,” I think that’s true in the sense that the movie challenges the way audience members look at life, but I don’t think it’s some weird art film that’s inaccessible.

Right. It’s more challenging for studio executives who think moviegoers need to always have the answers and know what’s happening.

Brendan: Yeah, I think “challenging” is a good word to use. The characters in the film are challenged to make some decisions after they walk through the door and the film challenges you in terms of how you think about humanity and the meaning of life.

I loved that we didn’t see what happened when they went through that door. Oliver did you ever consider showing that more explicitly?

Oliver: Never! It was suggested to me one time by a producer but I really think that would have wrecked the film.

Paget and Brendan, you are both such busy actors and you and the rest of the cast obviously don’t choose to be in a film like this for a big pay day. What drew you to the project?

Paget: I had worked with Kyle and Molly before. Molly sent me the script and my first thought was, “Ugh, first-time indie director — oh man, I don’t know!” And then I read it and instantly fell in love with the story. I’ve never read anything like it. So I emailed Molly back right away and said, “What do I have to do to get on this film?”

Bay: Molly showed us that email, by the way, did you know that? We all said, “Whaaat?! Paget Brewster is excited about US?”

Paget: Oh my God, really? But it was such an evocative script and I think the movie came together even more beautifully than what you see on the page. The themes are just extraordinary, you don’t find that very often.

Brendan: Yeah, I thought it was a visually compelling literary script that moved really well. Not only was it a great role and a great script, it also tackled big things. Just reading a great script is such a rare thing — getting a chance to be involved with one is an even rarer treat, especially a film that really tackles the human condition.

I love all the little touches like making Kyle Gallner’s Woody a children’s book author.

Oliver: I wanted him to have a certain innocence about him. I used to be a music teacher at a small private school in Michigan — I wanted to have him involved with kids in some way. I toyed with the idea of making him a teacher or even a nanny, but then I went with a more literary approach.

I love that you showed all those children’s books that he wrote. I know they weren’t real but I so wanted them!

What’s crazy is that there’s so much more to those fake books that what you see on the screen. We show the cool front covers but they all have back covers, too, with a photo of Woody, a bio, bar codes, even prices for the U.S. and Canada. Some of those books were completely written and illustrated by Bay!

I love that attention to detail, you should really sell them! How has it been showing the film to audiences?

Before Dances With Films, we only screened it at the Newport Beach Film Festival so far. The audience reaction was overwhelmingly positive — it was just fantastic, better than we could have ever imagined.

It’s crazy that you don’t have a distributor yet but I’m sure that will change very shortly.

We’ve had some people from that world sit down with us and try to prepare us for what we’ll probably hear: “You have to cut the film down to 90 minutes! Change the title! What were you thinking starting your title with a ‘W’?!”

Why is that bad?

Because when you’re on HBO GO, it’ll come up at the end of the alphabetical list.

Oy. Do audience members try to get you to tell them what the film means?

At Newport Beach, we had a phenomenal Q&A after the film. People asked very meaningful questions about things we couldn’t even believe they noticed. We went so long that the theater finally had to kick us out because they were turning off the lights. As far as what the film is about, I don’t think I’m in a place yet to pull the David Lynch “you figure it out on your own” card, but I’d love to get to that place. I think I have to be a little more giving but to tell the truth, it’s fun to talk about that.

You should give wildly different answers every time someone asks you to explain the film.

(Laughs.) That would be great. Did you see that documentary Room 237 about all the supposed meanings behind Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining?

Paget: Oh, that was great! All these conspiracy theorists saying that Kubrick was trying to tell us that we faked the moon landing.

Oliver: Yeah, they presented several different crazy theories including that it was really about the genocide of Native Americans!

You want it to be like that Marshall McLuhan scene in Annie Hall when McLuhan appears in that movie line to tell the pretentious blowhard that all of his theories about his film were total bullshit!

Oliver: I haven’t heard any crazy theories about Welcome to Happiness yet, but who knows?

Brendan: I think the world Oliver created here is so rich and compelling it could lead to crazy theories. I think it would make a great TV show, too.

Oliver: Well, two of my biggest influences for this film were Twin Peaks and Lost. They were buzzing around my head when I wrote this script.

Brendan: You could have a new case every week or maybe focus on three different characters each season who go through the door and see how they intertwine.

Bay: Sshhh! It’s been discussed!

Just promise me you’ll have a series finale that’s less aggravating than the one on Lost!

Oliver: I don’t know. I realize that ending didn’t really answer a lot of questions but I was pretty moved by it. In my opinion, people think they want all the answers, but they really don’t.

Paget: And we’re still talking about that finale five years after the show went off the air! I think that kind of response is a lot better than an ending that is just “meh.”

Oliver: I heard director Nicolas Winding Refn say that if you’ve made something that half the people love and half the people hate, you’ve made something great. But if you make something that everyone loves or everyone hates, you probably haven’t succeeded because it didn’t really penetrate.

He doesn’t have to worry about the lack of people hating his most recent film!

The truth is, I’m very aware that this movie is not for everyone. But look at how many viewers Lost had each week. There was never a more challenging hour on TV! “What did I just watch? I have no idea what’s going on!” And yet people tuned in. I really believe there’s an audience for that kind of stuff. People are smart — they like to think. It’s just that a lot of people controlling the money don’t always realize that people like to be engaged or challenged with thought-provoking material.

Bay: One thing I noticed about our Q&As is that we don’t get a lot of those typical film festival questions.

Oliver: Right. “What did you shoot it on? How long was your shoot?”

Ugh. Who gives a shit?

That’s the thing. In this case, people got right to the heart of the film and wanted to talk about the characters and the themes. People were so engaged by what was on the screen that they didn’t care about what was behind the screen.

#05.28.15 #may #2015 #other #article #s: original post #image #Paget Brewster #Oliver Thompson #bay dariz #Welcome to Happiness #dance with films opening night party #blue floral dress #link in x #content source #dance with films

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whisker-biscuit · 6 years ago

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Harley Quinn is Not A Good Role Model: Chapter 23

Rated T-M for language and graphic descriptions of violence

Pairing: Dr. Flug/Black Hat

Summary: Dr. Flug Slys is a successful psychiatrist working at one of the world’s most respected mental institutes for the criminally insane. But this new patient is unlike anything he’s ever encountered. Flug is determined to help him, nonetheless.

Black Hat has other ideas.

Chapter 23: Coffee Shop Confessions

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Flug hadn’t met a coworker outside of work in over ten years, and the last time he’d done so it had almost cost him his life. But that particular life - and that particular coworker - were long gone and buried, so he really had nothing to worry about today.

He paced another tight circle around the living room, fully dressed with his keys in hand, and stared at the microwave clock visible from the kitchenette across the room. 9:55 am. It was almost twenty minutes before he even needed to leave, much less be at the cafe he and Susie had planned on meeting at.

Nothing to worry about at all.

The psychiatrist pressed his palm into his goggles, taking little comfort in the sharp ache it left around his eyes underneath. He needed to calm down. So what if he was already ready to go out, and had been for a solid ten minutes now? So what if he hadn’t engaged this much with anyone else since - well, that only really counted if he didn’t include his patients, which was so much more daunting on a daily basis than something like this. Honestly, he was just psyching himself out at this point.

Flug double-checked the straightness of his bag and looked at the clock again. It had changed by one number. He groaned, turned on his heel, then went for the front door.

It’s better that I’m leaving early, he nodded internally to himself as he locked his apartment and triple-tested the locks. There’s bound to be traffic, and I don’t want to be late.

There wasn’t any traffic.

And thus the nervous wreck of a doctor found himself passing the time at a hair salon across the street from the cafe, sitting in a dryer chair as it took the sweat out of the lines of his bag. He tactfully ignored gawking customers and the hairdresser who was side-eying him while counting the money he’d slipped her to get this spot by the window.

God, what was he doing with his life.

Eventually, finally, 10:30 am was beginning to roll around and Flug caught a glimpse of Susie pulling a little green Volkswagen Golf into a parking spot outside their meeting place. He jumped out of his seat and almost got decapitated as the dryer snagged his head and snapped his body backwards.

Coughing air back into his throat, Flug waved off the few distressed hands and even more disturbed stares and stepped outside, taking a moment to brush his hands over his bag and clothing ensemble to remove wrinkles. Then he put his hands in his pockets and casually made his way to the nearest crosswalk, watching as Susie paid the parking meter and entered the cafe without seeing him.

Breathing a quiet puff of relief, the psychiatrist found his way to that side of the street and followed suit into the bistro. It was a decent enough place – a little too much cat regalia for his tastes, but there were more than enough hidden booths to make up for that fact.

Susie was already standing in line, face tilted upwards toward the chalkboard menu. Flug padded up a distance behind her and tried to clear his throat. Apparently his throat was still mad at him about the dryer, because it devolved into another coughing fit instead. The nurse turned around and her eyes widened.

“Dr. Slys! Are you alright?” She wavered to his side, hesitant between wanting to pat his back and wanting to respect his personal space.

Flug brought a hand up as he leaned forward and worked the spasms out of his mouth. After an awkward minute he was finally able to stand straight, which he did with a heavy dose of embarrassment.

“……….Hi.”

“Hello – um, are you alright?” She repeated.

“Fine, I’m fine. What were you ordering?”

He tugged at the bottom hem of his shirt to remove wrinkles, trying to keep his gaze on her face without looking at any of the café patrons who were still staring at the fiasco. Susie gave him a bit of a skeptical look, but turned back to the board anyway, which he was thankful for.

“I was, well, I was thinking about getting that one there, see?”

Flug looked up to where she was pointing. It was very obviously a coffee pun in Spanish, but he didn’t trust himself to pronounce it correctly. While the nurse ordered her drink, he scanned the chalkboard until he found the espresso section.

The barista did a double take when he asked for six shots, but it wasn’t like she was going to drink it, so Flug lifted his chin in challenge. The girl, wisely, didn’t say anything except to call out the order to another worker.

The two got their respective drinks with no other fanfare and found a private booth near a back window. The psychiatrist toyed with the straw he’d asked for and unwrapped it slowly, watching the woman across from him.

“So, what did you want to talk to me about?”

“Hmm?” Susie blew over her mug and lifted her eyes to meet his.

“You wanted to talk to me, last Tuesday. And then you wanted to meet up today. What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Ah, well,” she dithered, “how have you been lately? These last few days.”

“I’ve been –” Flug stopped when the usual stressed, emotional, overanalyzing didn’t come to the forefront of his mind. “Good, actually. I’ve been pretty good.”

Fixated. Logical. Planning. Those were the words that came up instead, and he mulled over this mental change as Susie took a deep sip of her coffee and appeared to steel herself.

“Doctor, please forgive me if this is too unprofessional but, are you…” She tilted her head to look him dead on. “Are you in a bad situation right now? One you can’t get out of?”

“What?” His brain stalled.

“Are you in a bad situation right now?” The nurse repeated, more firmly this time.

“Why, why on earth would you think that?”

“I just noticed that, well,” she was losing her confidence again. “I noticed. Some things, and I was worried for you. Are you doing okay?”

Video footage of Bautista getting glitter-bombed flashed behind Flug’s goggles, and he stabbed the straw into his drink with more force than necessary.

“Yesterday and today have been just fine. I’m doing fine.” Then he took an aggressive sip out of that straw to prove it.

“Oh.” Susie blew on her coffee again to avoid his gaze. “You know, Doctor, you can – you can tell me anything. I’m a confidential listener.”

He saw the flicker of movement as her eyes went from his straw to his bagged face, and something clicked in his mind.

“I’m sorry, do you…think I’m in a domestic situation?”

The nurse’s shoulders hunched a bit. “There won’t be any judgement from me, I promise.”

“What.”

“I just thought you might want someone to talk to.”

“What.”

“But only if you’re comfortable with it! It’s completely up to you. We don’t even have to talk today, I just wanted to extend the invitation.”

“Hang on, hang on hang on, do you think I wear this,” he gestured at his bag, “to hide – bruises or something? Is that what this is about?”

Susie’s mouth shut with a click of her teeth and her eyes became cautious. She didn’t deny the allegation.

Flug slumped in his booth, covering his goggles with his hands. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this is happening right now.”

The nurse made a noise in her throat, and although he couldn’t see her, Flug was pretty sure she was becoming as embarrassed as he was. He continued hiding his face for a solid minute until the blood finally stopped making his face heated.

“How long have you been wanting to ask me this question.”

“Um, well, not very long. I mean we haven’t spent much time together beyond these last two weeks so I hadn’t – noticed anything until recently. If that makes sense. Does that make sense?”

“…Yeah.” He thought about the last few times they’d interacted, how one or both of them always ended up skittish or anxious. “Yeah, I think I can see where you’re coming from.”

She took a cautious taste of her drink. “You don’t have to say anything. If you don’t want to. I might be misreading things, and I’m sorry about that. I just…thought it might be nice to offer a listening ear.”

“I appreciate it.” Flug said, sincere. He pointed to his paper bag. “But this isn’t hiding any – it’s not covering up bruises, I promise.”

Her breath evened out a little bit, and she looked very relieved. “Thank god. I wasn’t going to pry anyway, but I’m so glad that’s not the case.”

The psychiatrist put his straw to his mouth to avoid replying to that. On the inside, he was kicking himself for giving off signals that were obviously catching attention. If a nurse who he barely interacted with had come to this conclusion, what would Dr. Rorschach think? Or Bautista?

Black Hat?

His problem patient’s name brought another thought to Flug’s mind, one that was probably crazy and could backfire if he wasn’t careful. But he’d taken more risks this week than he had for the last several years, all working to his advantage, and it wasn’t quite Sunday yet.

“Let’s say, uh, for the sake of argument here, that someone is…in a situation. But they can’t, mmm.” He tilted the coffee mug a bit. “Going to the authorities about it is. Too late?”

Her eyes widened and Flug realized how that might’ve sounded.

“What I mean is, that there’s not much they could do at this moment.” He backtracked, trying for reassuring laughter that came out too unsure. “Maybe later, maybe. But just not right now.”

“Oh. Well, is yo- is this person in danger physically?”

“Not as long as they’re careful.” He resisted the urge to touch his neck. “Um. It’s more about…attempting mental manipulation, I suppose. And emotional.”

“When is it not?” She asked bitterly, half to herself. “Ah sorry. I’m not really a therapist or anything, but I guess the best way to watch for that is to find a grounding point. Learn your values, learn what you care about for yourself, and don’t let anyone make you second guess it.”

Flug watched as Susie held her arms close to her chest. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m sorry.” She shook her head and gave him a small smile. “Does that answer your question?”

The nurse hadn’t let go of her elbows. Flug looked at his half-empty coffee, contemplating her words. “I think it does just fine, thank you.”

The drinks were finished in silence after that, and the two of them walked out of the café together. They took a shared moment to readjust to the noisy street.

“You know, my door’s always open to chat. If you want to. Oh, and here’s my number.” Susie pulled a crumpled napkin from her coat and scribbled a set of numbers across the top, then folded it up and offered it to Flug. He took it on autopilot.

“Would you,” he paused to pocket the napkin. “Would you be interested in doing this again next weekend? This was, actually really pleasant.”

“Oh sure!” Her face brightened considerably. “I’d love to! Does the same time and place work for you, or would you rather do something different?”

“Same time and place is exactly what I’d like.” Flug could use some more structure in his life, really. “I’ll, uh, text you first so you know it’s me.”

“Wonderful!” She rubbed her arms briefly and looked back towards her car. “Well I’m afraid I really need to go, I promised my partner I’d help her make lunch. But it was great getting to know you, Doctor. Please let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”

“I will, thanks.”

He waved goodbye as Susie got into her car and pulled away, then stuck his hand in his pants to fiddle with the numbered napkin. It was bizarre, being in touch with a coworker for something non work-related. Bizarre but not unwelcome.

Maybe. He wasn’t going to let his guard down just yet.

Heading back home was both relieving and depressing. Relieving because Flug didn’t have to worry about appearances or interact with people anymore, and depressing because he had very little work to catch up on and didn’t know what to do with himself.

Lunch was a quick TV dinner of chicken, peas, and potatoes, and the psychiatrist went over the encounter with Susie while he ate. Beyond her advice, there was something about it that struck him, something that he couldn’t quite pinpoint but was significant enough that it was driving him to distraction.

Finally the realization came; she had been completely sincere in her actions. Or as sincere as he could tell, at least. The thought was unusual to him because he wasn’t used to it. Most everyone he had met wanted something at one point or another, especially from people they thought they could get it from.

He thought about Bautista, and other awful coworkers. He thought about inmates who wanted freedom or release from their own inner turmoil. He thought about Black Hat.

He thought about himself.

In a fit of inspiration, Flug jumped out of his seat at the table and tossed his finished meal in the trash, then went running for his computer chair and landed almost perfectly in it. He pulled up a document on his monitor and started typing immediately.

EPPA Speech First Draft Thing

The first thing I always tell myself when meeting a new patient is to expect the unexpected. I cannot anticipate a situation, crime, or personal background of any new patient, and so I cannot have preconceived notions when meeting one for the first time. Most people can tell what someone else thinks of them within a few minutes, and inmates it often only takes seconds. They expect hostility or self-righteousness and are prepared to combat that.

Flug paused to read over his work. Then he made a new paragraph.

What most aren’t expecting is sincerity. Most of you have probably heard the phrase ‘kill them with kindness’? Sincerity is much more potent. It drops barriers, removes preconceptions, and tells patients that above all else I’m there for them and not for myself. Let me give you an example…

And so the psychiatrist typed through the rest of the day and well into Sunday. He added and removed sentences, reworked paragraphs, and grouped themes together as the speech grew longer and more intricate. Eventually he crashed, nearly slept through his Monday morning alarm, and had to rush so he wasn’t late for work.

Bautista’s office had a giant ‘DO NOT ENTER’ sign plastered on his closed door, and Flug coughed to mask his giggles as he passed it. He was feeling much better than he had in a while, and after considering Susie’s words of encouragement and how that applied to him, Flug was now armed with newfound determination not to let Black Hat get to him.

He was ready to see what the upcoming week would hold.

----------------------------------------

A/N: Well I’m back! Got a new summer job so I have more time to write full time and the Villainous pilot pulled me back head over heels into the lives of these amazing characters. I’m super excited to get to what I have planned for this story.

On a related note, thank you so much to everyone who has waited so patiently for updates, through works in other fandoms to long months of radio silence. I never would have made it this far without your incredible support. I love this fandom and I love all of you amazing readers! Take care :)

#villainous #villanos #dr flug #black hat #paperhat #asylum au

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evanvanness · 5 years ago

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Annotated edition for the June 14, 2020, Week in Ethereum News

It was a bit of a slow week on the Ethereum front. Last week’s glut of layer2 was a bit lighter this week.

The Eth2 multi-client testnet was quite stable and they’re going to be spinning up a new one (mildly different spec, so new testnet). Prysmatic has their own testnet and they launched a new one

If you’re a dev, then you probably already know about how ethers v5 is out, though the blog post is still forthcoming.

$COMP mining is happening now. See below.

Finally, Bank Frick is offering customers the option to use USDC instead of SWIFT for cheaper and faster transfers. A glimpse of the future.

Also, this newsletter now has a jobs section! The ads certainly aren’t cheap, but it beats paying $20,000 to a headhunter. I’ve had the idea for a long time, but generally thought I’d have a recruiting side business. But ultimately job listings feels more natural for me than being a recruiter.

Here’s the most clicked for the week:

Hasu tweeted to his audience of mostly bitcoiners, “Elastic blocksize caps and congestion control systems could become an important building block in securing Bitcoin post block subsidy.” That’s an interesting argument, but can anyone even imagine it happening though? Can’t see Blockstream ever agreeing to it, so at best a bitcoin fork could put it in.

Every week I mention a few higher level articles for Eth holders:

Analysis of EIP1559 (fee market change) from Hasu and Georgios Konstantopoulos

A framework to compare and evaluate layer2 solutions

These aren’t that high level this week, but there’s only 2 of them, so you can sacrifice quantity for quality.

In the long run, for "crypto” to be successful at any meaningful societal level, most things will happen at layer2, so you might want to have an idea about the tradeoffs in layer2 system. Matter Labs helpfully provided a framework and comparison chart.

As for 1559, it’s a big change and requires a lot of thought and testing - might get included in the hard fork at the end of the year, but it might not.

Eth1

Analysis of EIP1559 (fee market change) from Hasu and Georgios Konstantopoulos

Latest core devs call. Notes from Tim Beiko: STATICCALL likely to be repriced to 40 gas, account abstraction prototype, option 2 for EIP2565, discussion of eth2 deposit proxy contract, YOLO ephemeral testnet issues

Geth v1.9.15 includes implementations of Berlin fork EIPs

Not much to say here that wasn’t already said

Eth2

Latest what’s new in Eth2, Witti multi-client testnet quite stable, next testnet in a week called Altona

Latest Eth2 call. Notes from Ben, discussion of validator key hygiene

Prysmatic successfully launched their Onyx testnet. An updated guide to staking on Onyx

Lighthouse client update – getting to the final spec, discv5 rewrite for CPU optimization, tiny RAM use

Updating and generating Kate witnesses in amortized sqrt(n) time

An explainer for phase zero of eth2

IvanOnTech’s eth2 explainer

Protecting withdrawal keys

Most of this has no further elaboration necessary, but I love how this section slips in “updating and generating Kate witnesses in amortized sqrt(n) time” right next to high level eth2 explainers. Basically, that’s a mathy way fo explain Verkle Trees, which might replace Merkle trees if they can solve a bunch more problems.

Layer2

A framework to compare and evaluate layer2 solutions

Formally verifying state channels with TLA+

Volition: hybrid onchain/offchain data decision by users at the transaction level from StarkWare

Arguably the state channels verification post was more appropriate in the stuff for devs section.

Probably the best summary of the Volition post is their own graphic.

Volition is an interesting attempt to change the “offchain vs onchain data” paradigm. Basically, they’ll let users decide for each transaction whether they want to put the data onchain.

This newsletter is made possible by Trail of Bits!

Contract upgrades are not as safe as you think. Trail of Bits has catalogued 17 different ways that upgrades can go wrong, and built tools that help validate upgrades before you run them. Use Crytic to keep your contracts safe from these flaws.

Stuff for developers

ethers v5 is on npm, though RicMoo is still updating documentation

web3js v1.2.9 – better transaction submission tracking

Brownie and React starter tutorial

Querying your eth2 validator balance with Infura

Async event-driven app architecture with EthVigil

17 checks to make upgradeable contracts safer with Crytic

Diamond Setter manager for your Diamond Standard upradeable contracts

If you’re starting a new project, use ethers.

Other than that, stuff mostly speaks for itself I think.

Ecosystem

Transaction pool analyzer tool

Deanonymization using transaction time and gas price analysis. Use good privacy hygiene and this isn’t a problem

3 transactions with massive transaction fees (1, 2, 3). First 2 paid over 10k ETH each for a transaction fee. Lots of speculation about who screwed up and how.

Trueblocks: how accurate is Etherscan?

Zengo’s tx pool analyzer is very neat.

I don’t want to get into the speculation about what’s going on with those crazy transaction fees. Looks like some kind of bug to me; what’s odd is that they haven’t caught it.

Ethermine decided that after 4 days without having heard from them, that they were going to distribute it to their miners. It’s always been a nice part of Ethereum that pool operators have generally returned these mistake fees, so Ethermine got a bit of flak. But as a mining pool operator, you don’t want to be in the position of custodying large amounts of money for indeterminate time periods.

Now that a pool operator has distributed a large fee, you have to wonder whether that puts them in a competitive position versus other mining pools.

Immediately after publishing, I saw that security firm PeckShield claims to have identified the victim:

Enterprise

Baseline protocol explained

Baselining business process across Microsoft Dynamics and Google Sheets video

DAOs and Standards

TheLAO is extending Moloch v2 with Raid Guild’s Minion (programmatic proxy) framework for non-accredited investor baby DAOs

DAOs: governance as a service

EIP2711: Separate gas payer from msg.sender

EIP2718: Typed Transaction Envelope

It’s been interesting to see a lot of groups pick the Moloch codebase up and adapt it. If I understand it correctly, Minion is a proxy that will let the DAO vote and adopt any bit of code. Very neat, and will make the Moloch family of DAOs even more powerful.

Application layer

Unstoppable Domains launches blogs on the dweb using 3Box and IPFS. Etherscan launches BlockScan, a dweb search engine

Use Balancer pools as swing trading

a Foundation Markets technical primer, automated market makers for artists

Austrian post office returns with CryptoStamps v2

LexDAO’s personal token factory with dispute resolution via their DAO vote

Opyn now has call options

TokenSets upgraded with better rebalancing for less slippage (ahem: higher returns!)

PodsFinance: Money legos with options, lock aUSDC as collateral when selling American put options. Live on testnet

Between the publication of Week in Eth News and this annotated edition, COMP started distributing its token.

In a word: 🚀

Lots of people are now mining for COMP, because the market cap exploded up to a billion (it’s come down a bit at time of screenshot)

So people are putting their assets into Compound to get the (now quite valuable) COMP token. This screenshot from DeFiPulse shows the ETH locked has migrated to Compound

You can check how much you’d get of the $COMP token through various actions. If you start mining, be careful with your leverage!

On retrospect, I could have written much of this about Balancer last week, though it was a bit different because the Balancer token does not yet exist. $COMP exists and is on Uniswap (and presumably Balancer soon as well, though Balancer uses Coingecko data for their token distribution, which is why I suppose no one has added it at the moment)

Tokens/Business/Regulation

Bank Frick lets customers replace SWIFT with USDC for faster processing

ConsenSys starts KYC/AML compliance service

Ontario Securities Commission report on Quadriga: Gerald Cotten lost 143m trading

Tim Swanson: 40 crypto controversies to look into

Dove Mountain Data – crypto venture investor directory and their deals

Opolis live – HR/benefits solution for the US

The oddest thing about the ConsenSys compliance service is the paranoid conspiracies. It’s worth remembering that half the people got into “crypto” because, like a Rorschach test, many Bitcoiners can see conspiracy in anything.

These compliance services are a fact of life. You may not like them, but with ConsenSys increasingly an enterprise-focused company, it makes sense that they have their own compliance offering, especially since they had Alethio already built.

Speaking of regulatory bodies, the Ontario Securities Commission found that Gerald Cotten lost AT LEAST 143m, the vast majority of which was lost on his own exchange. How bad at trading do you have to be to see all the data of what people are doing on your exchange AND STILL LOSE MONEY?

General

Crypto data breaches so far in 2020

Crosstalk: Cross side channel attack on Intel CPUs; can exploit SGX

SGAxe: Cacheout attack targeting SGX

Lamphone: measure light bulb variations from up to 80 ft away to record audio conversations

Gavin Andresen: Ethereum can scale Bitcoin

Checkout the job listings below!

I saw a tweet a few weeks ago about how SGX exists so that security researchers can write papers about how they broke the “secure enclave.”

That Lamphone attack is something else though. I remain skeptical that this is something that can ever really be used, sounds a bit more like Van Eck phreaking than it does an attack likely to be pulled off in the wild.

Job Listings

Reflexer Labs (RAI): smart contract dev lead, fullstack JS dev, python/devops lead

Aave: Solidity Rockstar? let’s build the future of DeFi together [email protected]

Nomic Labs (Buidler): join our dev experience & tooling engineering team!

Chainlink: Lead Test Engineer and Senior Software Security Engineer

0x is hiring full-stack, back-end, front-end engineers + 1 data scientist

OpenZeppelin is hiring! To apply, visit: https://openzeppelin.com/jobs

Celer Network: Android developer

Trail of Bits is looking for masters of low-level security. Apply here.

Want your job listing here? $250 per line (~75 character limit including spaces), payable in ETH/DAI/USDC to evan.ethereum.eth. Questions? thecryptonewspodcast -at-gmail

Housekeeping

Follow me on Twitter @evan_van_ness to get the annotated edition of this newsletter on Monday or Tuesday. Plus I tweet most of what makes it into the newsletter.

Did you get forwarded this newsletter? Sign up to receive it weekly

Permalink: https://weekinethereumnews.com/week-in-ethereum-news-june-14-2020/

Dates of Note

Upcoming dates of note (new/changes in bold):

June 15 – Gitcoin CLR matching grants begins

June 16 – deadline to apply for Gitcoin’s Kernel incubator

June 17 – Stateless Ethereum call

June 29 – Swarm first public event

Aug 2 – ENS grace period begins to end

Oct 2-Oct 30 – EthOnline hackathon

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alexanderwrites · 7 years ago

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The A-Z of TMBG

Introduction

They Might Be Giants have forever been one of those bands that, when asked my opinion on, I would say “Oh, I adore them”. But similarly to my relationship with The Mountain Goats, I have gaps in my knowledge of their history that are so big that they rival the amount that I do know about them. I always list them as a favourite band, but if I turned up to one of their shows I’d be the asshole excited by every other song, then trying to work out if I knew the rest, nervously mouthing the odd lyric here or there. “Duhh muhh duhh BAG OF GROCERIES duhh duhhh muhh muhhh EXPIRATION DAAAAATE”.

This is because I have a very silly way of listening to music in which I discover a band, love a couple of their albums to death, then struggle to move on from those because those are the ones that I love so much. Most people who have good critical thinking skills would say “Gee, I loved this album so much that I should probably try another of their albums”. Not me! Figure 8 by Elliott Smith, Entroducing by DJ Shadow and This is Our Music by Galaxie 500 are some of my favourite albums of all time, and guess what? They’re pretty much the only albums i’ve listened to by those artists. Now, I have listened to quite a lot of TMBG, but I haven’t often sat down to dig into their music (or stood up! I don’t exclusively listen to music sitting down on a couch like some record producer trying to feel the vision or fall asleep). It’s time to change that, and i’m going to be going through each of their studio albums over the weeks, one by one, and giving them a bit of an appraisal, and a bit of a praise, because, as hard and objective as I wish I was, i’m going to be gushing over TMBG a lot. But if any band, or any album, deserves a hot torrent of gush, it’s this band, and this album....

#1: Untitled, or, The Pink Album, 1986

“We were the most stoppable force in rock music”

- John Flansburgh

John Flansburgh and John Linnell’s (or the Johns as everyone, and now I, call them) first album is quite a rorschach test of an album. Whatever you see in it, and whatever you want it to be, it is. Musically adventurous and avant garde? Check. Goofy and hilarious? Check. The one thing I don’t think anyone could see it as is boring. It feels like an album that will elicit strong feelings and strong opinions from its listener, primarily because it truly does not sound like anything else. While Flansburgh self-deprecatingly refers to the band during their early days as a stoppable force, their music right from the off sounds determined, self assured and insuppressible. What Flansburgh means by stoppable is that they had no record label and no publicist, and that the only people who could really support the band were the few locals who’d catch their shows in Brooklyn. It wasn’t their music that was stoppable, but their situation.

In more ways that one, the music on this album is unstoppable. In their huge bursts of energy and ideas, and in how easily listenable the album is, it is unstoppable. Once I start the opening track on this album, I cannot and do not stop until the album is over, because it’s such a damn fun and specific world to be in. You know that feeling when you’re so deeply into a TV show that when the episode finishes, no other show on the planet can hit the spot? That’s how listening to this album feels.

I’d heard it a couple of times before, but sitting down (again, I don’t just sit down to listen to music! Sometimes I even have a nice little walk!) and paying proper attention to it really opened my eyes to what an incredible debut it is. Though it’s basically an adapted version of a DIY cassette, its distinctive sound is really professional and well recorded, and the songs themselves are fully-formed statements by a band who know what the fuck they’re about. Everything Right is Wrong Again is a legitimate contender for best opener on a debut ever, and it summarises everything that the band is about. It’s a mission statement and a litmus test; a song that, based on your reaction, tells you whether or not this’ll be your new favourite band. Linnell’s distinctive nasal vocals, the prominent drums machine patterns and a huge array of synthesised instruments underneath (is that a fucking harpsichord??) all tie together to make a pop song that sounds nothing like any other pop song around at the time. The lyrics on the opening track touch on a common theme for TMBG, that things feel out of step, and that confusion and even pain are weird damn things to deal with. I mean, take a look at the lyrics. It’s pretty unusual that such a fun and bizarro song would contain lyrics as precise as “The healing doesn't stop the feeling” and “Everything right is wrong again, every movement false, every four is waltz again”.

TMBG are demonstrating that as silly and playful as they might get, they write real songs that sometimes touch on very real ideas and feelings. And then they have songs called Toddler Hiway that describes a highway of toddlers that leads to Toys R Us. Their ability to mix the astute with the absurd is unique in that they often do it at the same time. Whereas a more traditional band might have a track alternation of serious song - silly song - serious song - silly song, this album blends the two so idiosyncratically that it creates a flavour unlike any other. All their serious songs sound silly, and all their silly songs sound serious. The album takes musical influence from all over the place which results in tracks that boil over with the enthusiasm of two very smart music-buffs who know how to use their inspirations. Number Three has a bluegrass rhythm to go with its self-referential storytelling (”I got two songs in me, and I just wrote the third”), while Alienation’s For The Rich has a country swing to complement its lamenting lyrics. And while these influences are never repeated in a straight forward manner, they also are more than parodies or pastiches of a genre. They’re influences that are put on a conveyer belt and processed through a strange and beautiful machine that mashes them up, flips them upside down and releases them as strange mirror images of themselves. What makes the difference is the skill the Johns have as songwriters, and how intelligently they use references and influences.

And so, accordions and harpsichords don’t feel parodic, or “how weird ARE WE”, but instead complementary tools used to build very specific little worlds. It might seem strange to start the song Youth Culture Killed My Dog with a James Bond riff (fittingly, TMBG would years later write Dr Evil’s Theme for Austin Powers) but it all gives off a mood, a vibe, and sometimes a good fucking laugh. The album feels like the Johns are saying “Look, this is the music we have to make. It has to have silly skits, it has to be ridiculous, because that’s what we care about.” Or as Flansburgh says in Put Your Hands Inside the Puppet Head: “Memo to myself: do the dumb things I gotta do”.

The album is built on smart absurdity, a kind of dadaist desire to reveal the strangeness of its characters, and of the music itself. Youth Culture Killed my Dog seems to parody the conservative’s public to youth and counter cultures:

“Bacharach and David used to write his favorite songs

Never, never, never would he worry/he'd just run and fetch the ball

But the hip hop and the white funk just blew away my puppy's mind”.

They seem to be tackling the topic of music itself, and the expectations on what music is and should be. They subvert this by making music that doesn’t sound like what traditional pop music is supposed to sound like. You could call it experimental, but the Johns seem to know exactly what they’re doing. They’re art school weirdos who mercifully don’t take themselves too seriously, and instead have a post-punk, Talking Heads-esque idea of deconstruction and why-the-hell-not attitude. And like Talking Heads, aside from all the oddness and whimsy, what TMBG sound like on this album is a really, really good alternative rock band. Their guitars sounds consistently excellent; Don’t Let’s Start in particular has a great surfer-y guitar sound in the verses that sounds like Pixies’ Here Comes Your Man (but a few years before that song was released), and She’s An Angel, which is the loveliest track on the album, has gorgeous, almost slide-like guitars giving a wonderful texture to the song. And songs like Don’t Let’s Start and (She Was A) Hotel Detective speak to the fact that as well as being a niche, cult item, the Johns create songs that are indisputable alternative classics. The songs might not be as well known as the Blue Mondays and Killing Moons of their era, but they are just as important, clever and classic.

This album makes it clear that the Johns probably won’t go on to be the biggest rock stars on the planet, but it does make it clear that they are truly worthy of their cult status and their passionate fan base, and that they have a hell of a lot in them to look forward to. It’s an album that, if you’d heard it in 1986, you would’ve rooted for it. You would’ve gone up to your friends who liked Devo and Oingo Boingo and told them to please listen to this. You would’ve attended their shows and bought cassettes and written reviews, like the one i’m inspired to write now. The album connects to me in an immediate sense, the songs instantly working their way into my ears and heart. They’re songs that i’m always happy to hear, and to instantly incorporate into my life. Songs that I want to live with. What I mean by that is, there are songs that are always swirling around in my head, so that when something even tangentially connected to them is mentioned, the songs barge their way to the front of my brain. Someone on TV a couple of days ago said “Not to put too fine a point on it”, and I instinctively said “Say i’m the only bee in your bonnet”. Because that’s who TMBG are for those who love them: a band that are constantly right there, dancing around in your head and giving you a wealth of songs, lines and tunes to enjoy.

And as an album, there really is no better example of their talents and their personality. It’s a surprisingly cohesive set of songs, the 19 of them flying by in just 38 minutes (they do have a lot in common with punk!). It strikes a good, even balance that spreads the tentpole tracks across the two sides, and though there are shorter songs that really are goof offs, they don’t feel like filler. It’s not like they’re saying “shit, we need to throw a 25 second a-cappella about a toddler highway in there to pad the album out”, they’re just giving you sort of...bonuses? Little treats, really. The album would be full enough without them, they’re just the weirdo icing on the cake. If the singles on the album are the equivalent of a comedian doing a longer monologue, then the shorter tracks are one-liners, and having both means you’re spoiled for choice. A lesser band trying that might not be able to hold your attention for so long, but the Johns do it effortlessly. I kind of think of them and this album as Pee-Wee Herman: Self aware, subversive, a little anarchic, but also completely warm hearted. The kind of thing that those who love it, really deeply love it.

It’s hard to imagine them breaking the mainstream, but looking at the few videos they produced from this album, they begin to make a bit more sense. Because as goofy, nerdy and joyful as they are in these videos, they’re also really fucking cool.

They look like the art-school weirdos that they are, but the kind that like to have lots of fun and make fart jokes. In the Don’t Lets Start video, Linnell is dressed sharply in black and has his hair long and floppy, and he instantly looks like a dweeby counter-culture hero. They dance like David Byrne and seem to be having the most fun of any band in any video. In the Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head video, they look like Tears for Fears letting loose with an accordion, which sounds like the uncoolest thing ever, but The Johns pull it off. It’s their enthusiasm and sweetness that sells it.

(She Was A) Hotel Detective has some great vintage Nick-At-Night vibes which (pardon the pun) illustrates their playful style, which is interspersed with self-mocking clips of the Johns playing, with the word “MUSIC” hanging behind them.

Please, if you haven’t seen them and if you get a few minutes, watch these videos. There are not many examples this good of such pure joy and fun. And there aren’t many bands who have music videos that feel like such an accurate extension of their ideals, and it’s in these that you can start to see how they carved out their niche.

Seeing this play on MTV would’ve been eye and ear catching to say the least, and though it might’ve made many ask “what the fuck is this”, there had to be those people in between who this connected with. And it turned out, there are a lot of those people, and they are now the TMBG fan base, as passionate and excited today as ever. TMBG don’t necessarily speak for them, but they speak to them. The Pink Album says it loud and clear “be weird, have fun, feel things, do the dumb thing you gotta do”.

#they might be giants #album review #TMBG A-Z #John linnell #john flansburgh #the pink album

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gublernews · 7 years ago

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Fantasia 2017 Interview: Trent Haaga and Matthew Gray Gubler on 68 KILL, Death, Love, Sex and Biting

Trent Haaga has a new film out produced by Snowfort Pictures -- 68 Kill -- but he’s been in the gore and exploitation biz for a while now, with his earliest professional beginnings at Troma. Creative people often have a myriad of interests, and Haaga is no exception.

He’s written several screenplays, most notably for Cheap Thrills (directed by Evan Katz, and also produced by Snowfort) and Deadgirl, but moonlights as an actor, too. Similarly, the cheerful Matthew Gubler is a popular actor, most known for his role on Criminal Minds, and he’s directed some episodes and a few shorts, as well.

So, what happens when you mix the talents of Haaga, Gubler, Snowfort, AnnaLynne McCord, Alicia Boe, Shelia Vand, AND an adaptation (screenplay by Haaga) of a crazy novel by Bryan Smith? 68 Kill -- a kickass, nonstop explosion of Southern Gothic gone awry. I was able to chat with Haaga and Gubler at Fantasia 2017, who were at the festival for their Canadian premiere. Check out a bit of the madness they’ve created in the trailer for the film -- now out on VOD --below.

Tell us how 68 KILL came to be adapted from the book.

Trent Haaga: I was a big fan of Bryan Smith; he’d published four novels under the Leisure imprint. I’m a voracious reader. When Leisure shut down, their authors got the rights back to their work. They started self-publishing on Kindle and dusting stuff off. Smith was hyper-prolific, and I liked his horror stuff a lot, but he also published three novellas that were pulp, which was really my bag. I came up in the horror world, but I really like pulp thrillers. I read 68 Kill, and I thought Smith was really great, but no one knew about him, so I thought about getting the word out and how the book would be an amazing movie.

When you pick an author like that, it’s real easy to find and reach out to them. He doesn’t have a manager or agent, and neither do I. We were able to just exchange emails and do a handshake kind of deal. Being an independent artist, I scraped up some good faith money and we created a simple option deal.

Then when Snowfort got involved, I’m sure they had some paperwork, but I had nothing to do with that. Bryan was happy, he had some money to pay some bills. A lot of these authors don’t believe that a GOOD film adaptation is ever going to happen. A lot of indie filmmakers want options for free for backyard productions, so that’s what the authors expect. (Gubler laughs in the background.)

When I approached Bryan, I told him I’d done some stuff and sent that over, but when I say I’m going to do something, I’m really going to get it done — we’re going to get this thing made. I might end up filming it in Indiana for $20,000, but I’m going to get this thing made.

Is that where you filmed it?

TH: No, Indiana was where my parents are, where I grew up. But I did some location scouting in Ohio, because we had a producer there. Eventually, because of the tax incentives, a deeper cast pool, and more able crew, we ended up going to Louisiana and shooting there.

But every step of the way, I’d write to Bryan, like “you know what, man? We’ve got a great producer on board, and we’re gonna try to get slightly bigger names — rather than just people that I know. (Gubler laughs again.) And it kept happening in steps; we got a little bit more money than the $20,000 that I raised.

Everything exceeded my expectations — the idea is to push it as far as you can. Here’s the budget; okay, but I’m still going to these locations and do the car chases, even though a lot of people with my experience wouldn’t try those things. The entire thing was, “oh, you’re gonna give me an inch? Let me see if I can take a mile!” And that was for every step of the project.

What special flavor did Snowfort bring to the film?

TH: I’ve known Travis for years; I wrote Cheap Thrills, which is a Snowfort movie. I acted in American Muscle and Starry Eyes, and I got cut out of that. But I’ve known and worked with Travis for awhile and knew he was the right guy for this material. If I made something that was worthy, I knew Travis could get on the phone and get people to watch it. He was on set the entire time, too. We have a friendship where we can yell at each other if we need to (Gubler laughs), or hug each other if we need to — it’s not like he was a guy in a suit standing over there with a calculator, you know?

Let’s talk about your awesome cast. Did you have to do a lot of screen tests or audition rounds?

Matthew Gray Gubler: This was after Trash Fire (Ricky Bates, Jr.’s film, another Snowfort production, also starring Gubler), but I’d never met Travis until this.

TH: It’s like anything; you announce you’re gonna make a movie and they ask you how much money you have. And you go: “I don’t know yet; what kind of names do you think we could get?” People start punching numbers into a column and figure it out , and the money guys have their own ideas. Meanwhile, I’m making my own list with Matthew Gray Gubler at the top. (Gubler: “Awww.”)

You know I would have chosen Gubler immediately, but we had to go through this list with their guys. We do that, and we exhaust all those. Then I get to say, “Let’s try Gubler, we have a Snowfort connection to him, and I really want him — at least get me a meeting with this guy.” After that meeting, it had to be him.

I don’t want to say it was the power of “The Secret,” but it was about mentally projecting me making the movie with Gubler in the role. Then Ricky helped us out with AnnaLynne, and I think Shelia Vand came to us through a casting director, yeah Samy Burch. Sam Eidson (who plays Dwayne), I’d seen in a movie and wanted to cast him in this role. They asked who he was, and I said, “don’t worry, he has Zero Charisma" — that’s Zero Charisma, the movie, guys! We reached out to him directly and he didn’t have an agent, so we were able to reach out to him directly.

Obviously, there’s a lot of violence in the film. Can you tell me about your stunts?

TH: You get some stunt guys and coordinators. It’s interesting — I’ve made way more violent movies! (Gubler laughs again.) If you choose the right moments and create the right impact, people think it’s so gory and violent. In reality, I’ve done way more violent movies that had less impact.

We had a stunt coordinator from Louisiana named Kevin Waterman that was great, and a deep pool of people there that’ve been working for awhile, but Kevin helped us out with a lot of fisticuffs, gunplay, car chases, and things like that.

It’s very tricky; shooting these things take up a lot of time for what ends up being a small portion of the running time of the film. It’s a balance; I can’t take five hours to shoot what will make up two seconds of a 90-minute film.

MGG: That car chase was two days, right?

TH: One night. It’s always a constant balance between making it look good and the amount of time it takes to shoot.

Now, I had a lot of fun watching the crazy, kickass women in the film, but I wanted to give you the chance to answer back to those who might say the film is misogynist. I don’t get that feeling personally, but I wanted to see how you felt about that, and give you a forum to do so.

TH: It’s one of those things where I feel that it’s a statement more about those people and their beliefs, more than about me or what I’m trying to do, ultimately. I’m juggling a 150,000 things, from costume decisions to performance choices to whatever. As the artist, it’s not my to job to go, “here was what I was trying to say.” Subconsciously, things come out, but I’ve been married to a very strong woman for over twenty years.

MGG: Raised by a strong woman.

TH: I love, respect, and admire strong women.

MGG: It’s a movie ABOUT strong women!

TH: I think so, too!

MGG: I never got the misogynistic thing, because to me, I read it and thought, “oh, this is going to be a movie that’s going to be awesome for the females!”

TH: Right. I also did a movie called Deadgirl, which dealt with toxic maleness; part of that movie’s theme is a male character who sees a woman chained up and dehumanizes her and puts another female character on a pedestal. But what if you have a character who’s beautiful, sexy, and owns her sexuality, but what if she’s a bad guy? She can be that!

MGG: I love that! Yeah, why not?

TH: Exactly! To say that she’s super tough AND virtuous… All I’m doing is not making you a character, but making you representative of all women. That’s not my job. (Pointing at Gubler:) He’s not representative of all men. He’s Chip, the character. Each of these people are their own character, I’m not looking at it in broad stokes, or looking at it like, these women are representative of all women. They’re not. Liza is Liza.

MGG: Violet is lovely! I’m lost. I can’t believe that anyone would think that! What movie are they talking about? 68 Kill?

TH: (laughs) I can understand it; you do have to be prepared for this. The more people you show the film to, the more opinions you’re going to get.

MGG: It’s a Rorschach test!

TH: But I thought the message of Deadgirl was completely clear and concise — these boys were toxic, and clearly not good — but people told me I was a monster and I endorsed raping of women. If that’s what you want to think, cool, but that’s you. How you feel about it is how you feel about it. No matter how much talking I do, I probably won’t change your mind.

(To Gubler) Well, I imagine you must have had fun being tossed around by beautiful ladies?

MGG: I’m used to it in real life! I legitimately mean that.

What’s the difference between the film and the book?

TH: I’m glad that you asked that.

MGG: It’s massively different, but the book is great!

TH: The author is super happy about it. It was important to me to who loved the book, then watched the movie NOT know what exactly was going to happen. I’d like the fans of the movie to also be surprised by the book and get a whole new experience.

There are certain things in the book that are great, but a movie has different beats. For example, in the book, Liza and Dwayne disappear after Chip runs away. It was an interesting choice. But for a movie, I felt they were part of the main story, so I brought them back. Violet in the book is more of a maneater, she doesn’t represent the possibility of love. The oral pleasure requests at the convenience store were also made by a man, not a woman. But when Matthew has to do it (at the request of a woman in the film), it turns into comedy.

(To Gubler) Last time you were here at Fantasia, I heard someone trying to get close to you got angry she couldn’t, and bit someone.

(Haaga and Gubler explode into laughter.)

MGG: Where’d you hear that??

Publicist Kaila Hier (in the background): It was legendary.

Did you know about that?

MGG: I don’t know about that!

Kalia, do you want to tell them?

Hier: I wasn’t on the ground for that. It was one of our Fantasia volunteers who got bit trying to keep the women away from him.

TH: What the fuck!

MGG: They were probably relatives!

TH: Is this what we’re looking forward to, man?

MGG: No, no, no! I doubt it!

TH: Oh… this is my favorite!

#68 Kill #Matthew Gray Gubler #Trent Haaga

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jbuffyangel · 8 years ago

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Misfire: Arrow 5x13 Review (Spectre of the Gun)

This isn't going to be a typical review because, honestly, I don't even know what to do with this episode. (Thanks for the gif suggestion @lipstickandwifi)

Let's dig in...

Everyone except Thea Queen

Back in the day, when television shows had "very special episodes" it served as a time out. The show would depart from their usual format and address a serious issue in present day society. For example, a "friend" would offer Punky Brewster drugs, forcing her to stop joking around and face a crisis. She would wonder what to do until Mrs. Reagan showed up at her front door to tell her, "Just say no." Mrs. Reagan would provide a concrete avenue to address Punky's problem and a solution to them as well. All's well that ends well. We could go back to our regularly scheduled slapstick comedy routine next week.

"Spectre of the Gun" isn't that. Television has evolved past the kind of “very special episodes” I described above, but that doesn’t mean the endeavor is always successful. While I admire Arrow for attempting to address a relevant social issue, the episode fails on multiple levels for me for multiple reasons. It is uneven, contradictory, and characters acted out of character to become mouthpieces for political ideologies. I don't feel Arrow adds anything new to the discussion and, even worse, I don't think they offer any solutions as we move forward.

Is Arrow the right show to address gun violence? Well... yes and no. Certainly yes because gun violence is so prolific on the show, but also no for the exact same reason. As James Edlund begins shooting up the mayoral office, and the camera closes in dramatically on the carnage he leaves in his wake, I found myself asking, "How is this violence any different than the violence we've seen in the other 112 episodes?"

The answer is simple. There isn't any difference, but this is a "very special episode" of Arrow, so now they are going to address it as an issue. But next week we'll go right back to dropping bodies with guns.

So, I do take issue with Oliver Queen hopping up on his moral high horse about gun control. I don't think he is the right character to voice that side of the debate. In anything it should be Oliver who is the silent character, while perhaps other characters like Felicity (a victim of gun violence), could argue for the gun control.

Why do I say this? Because I watched Oliver drop 12 men, without a second thought, with a gun last week during a flashback. He broke someone's neck in the premiere.

Oliver is a killer and he's embraced that side of himself again. He's going to kill when necessary and he will determine the terms of that necessity. Not the law. I've had a beef with this for awhile, so anyone who reads my reviews on the regular won't be shocked by this attitude. I find this whole "gray zone" particularly frustrating because Arrow willfully ignores an easily achievable middle ground: Lian Yu and the ARGUS prison that holds Slade.

Why can't we use that again? Oh that's right. Because we're not at the end of the fifth season. Sigh.

"That's not your call to make."

Oliver argues with Edlund that despite his anger and pain he does not have the right to decide who lives or dies. The Green Arrow finds himself in a similar moral debate with The Vigilante after he guns down a criminal Oliver tied up and interrogated.

"I'm you. The only difference between us is I use a more efficient weapon."

Here's the problem. Oliver is making life and death decisions on a nightly basis. He has elected himself judge, jury and executioner.

Is killing only okay when Oliver does it? Is he the only one who has the corner on life and death decisions? Isn't Prometheus’ entire beef with Oliver that he cannot see his own hypocrisy? Yes, of course, and that is the problem in "Spectre of the Gun." While Oliver is willing to address gun violence, he isn’t willing to address his own history of violence. When the hero makes you think the Big Bad has a point, you've got yourself a narrative issue.

Perhaps this is intended to push Oliver towards an enlightened moral code that he embraces at the end of the season once he becomes the Green Arrow. That's all well and good, and wholly welcomed by yours truly, but it doesn't make Oliver's perspective in "Spectre of the Gun" any easier to swallow.

My second issue is the contradictions. Edlund's family is killed during a mass shooting. He believes if Star City had pushed through the gun registry it would have protected his family. So... he shoots up city hall and the hospital to make it happen. WHAT???

Then, in his face to face with Oliver, it's revealed the shooter bought his gun legally, so there was nothing the city could have done to protect Edlund's family. His response is, "I know." Again, I say...

Then why is he going around shooting everyone? It makes absolutely no sense. If Edlund is mentally disturbed, then no gun registry or gun control law is going to stop him either. His motives are illogical and contradictory thus rendering them, from a narrative perspective, pointless.

My third issue is with balance. Marc Guggenheim promised a fair and balanced debate. We listen to Curtis lecture Felicity about the wonders of fair and balanced debate. Arrow committed itself to presenting both sides of the issues.

I don't love guns. I wouldn't have a problem if every handgun, semi automatic, automatic, etc. was confiscated. However, I am also an "originalist" (the constitution should be interpreted as closely as possible to the way America’s founders conceived it. ) Even though the 2nd Amendment isn't my favorite amendment, I recognize the right to bear arms. We don't get to pick and choose which amendments we follow. I've grown up around responsible gun owners, friends and family alike, who use guns for hunting and sport. These people are also ardent 2nd Amendment advocates and they have legitimate points of concern, as do people who are proponents of more gun control.

However, Arrow did not present the "pro gun" argument tonight. Marc Guggenheim is an admitted unapologetic progressive, which is absolutely his right, but what is presented is the unapologetic progressive's version of the "pro gun" argument. This is an entirely different thing.

Essentially, “pro gun control” Oliver goes head to head with a city councilwoman who is for 2nd Amendment protection. Oliver is concerned with doing the right thing, while the councilwoman is more concerned with the political fallout (a not so subtle dig at the NRA and anyone who argues 2nd Amendment rights). While she argues 2nd Amendment protection, she never quite articulates those concerns in a concrete way. I believe Marc gave it his level best, but this falls short of the balanced realm.

"Spectre of the Gun" is essentially a PSA for gun control. However, I don't think Arrow added anything new to the argument, which is a massive missed opportunity in my mind. Rehashing points made in other forums isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I was hoping there’d be a little more new blood injected into the discussion.

My fourth issue is with solutions. Arrow spent a great deal of time talking around the concept of a gun registry, but they don't really delve into any details on how this limits gun violence.

The entire point of Arrow, the entire reason Oliver is the Green Arrow, is because he believes the system doesn't work. That's why a vigilante is required.

“It does need to stop, and if it's not gonna be the courts and it's not gonna be the cops... Then it's gonna be me.” - Oliver Queen, “An Innocent Man” 1x04

Now that Oliver is mayor he is the system. So, I was rather interested in seeing what solutions he was able to come up with.

Keep in mind this isn't "Earshot" on Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Buffy isn't talking Jonathan down while he holds a high powered rifle in the school clock tower.

This isn't One Tree Hill when a student opens fire on the school.

The entire episode takes place within the political construct of the mayoral office. The whole point is to see Oliver solve a problem as mayor. Marc and Wendy repeatedly said in promotion the concept is for Oliver to go an episode without wearing the Green Arrow suit. Although, he wore the suit, so color me mystified.

And then, we arrive at the climax, and what the episode has been building towards. Pro Gun Control Oliver and 2nd Amendment Defender Rene, come up with a gun control policy that protects people against gun violence, but doesn't limit the freedom of gun owners. Arrow beats its might chest because they manage to find a solution that serves both sides. Everybody leaves happy.

And the new gun control policies are...? And they achieve both by doing what...?

No details are given.

I read all the interviews before I watched the episode. I know Marc and Wendy were going for a nondescript, even debate, without providing any solutions. "Spectre of the Gun" is our Rorschach test.

Umm... or it was a freaking cop out.

When the entire episode is built towards finding a political solution and then you fail to offer that political solution, that is an EPIC fail.

This is a fantasy world. Make it up! If there is an easy way to achieve BOTH (gun control that protects 2nd Amendment rights) then PRESENT IT. Let some good come out of this. Throw it in the debate mix. Let's get it in front of Congress. Let's use this vehicle we call television to actually DO SOMETHING.

Here's why Arrow didn't present their mystical "everybody gets want they want" solution. It's not easy to achieve both. That's why this issue is so controversial. That's why this war rages on and on and on. At least when Punky Brewster said no to drugs, you understood how she was going to do it. Mrs. Reagan gave her the road map. Sometimes she even brought visual aids. Arrow wants the neat bow, and feel good wrap up, Mrs. Reagan provided without actually showing the visual aids. Nope.

If the audience isn’t meant to receive any easy answers, then neither should the characters. Instead, Oliver & company find the answer, but we don’t get to know what it is.

Perhaps, Arrow's intent is to simply spark the debate. This ties in closely with Curtis' lecture to Felicity about the necessity of healthy debate. I agree with Curtis. Healthy debate is a necessity and is the life blood of a democratic society. However, I don't agree that we've stopped talking to one another. I don't think Arrow needed to jump start this debate again. This debate has been waging for decades now. Talking isn't the problem. The problem is... we've stopped LISTENING to one another.

I didn't see a lot of listening on Curtis' part in that "debate" with Felicity. Rather, it is Felicity being lectured to. I don't necessarily think Felicity is the right character to represent the "talking about politics is impolite" group. A strong stance about gun control would have made a little more sense to me coming from Felicity, the person who uses weapons the least on Arrow, rather than Oliver.

However, Felicity can, on occasion, shut down and retreat. So, I didn't find it wildly out of character, but it is frustrating. Instead of being talked to, it feels like she was being talked at. Once again, it feels like Felicity is being silenced to prop other characters. The reason why many get particularly upset about Felicity is because she is the female lead of Arrow. We heard from Dinah, who has all of two episodes under her belt. We heard from random councilwoman. Yet, we didn't get a clear view on Felicity's perspective. She is the front and center female character on Arrow. Her silence feels a little illogical. In an episode that's all about characters' viewpoints, we'd like to hear from the primary leads.

That's not to say Felicity didn't have some legit points. She did. Healthy debate is all well and good, but it also has an appropriate time and place. That's not always the workplace for some people, or other environments in which they don't feel comfortable discussing something as personal as political views. This doesn't suddenly make them a problem. It doesn't suddenly make them less American either, which I felt Arrow implies by Curtis' lecture.

This debate is also prohibiting actual work from getting done. The work is more important than Curtis and Rene's differing views on guns and Felicity calling attention to this fact doesn't make her any less engaged or concerned about the issue.

Diggle is also conspicuously silent too. He is too busy finding Dinah an apartment with a garden. Well, that is a crisis. Best get on that.

I found this shocking as well. Most military people I know have strong opinions about guns. Does leaving two of three members of Original Team Arrow out of the discussion feel odd to anyone else? It felt odd to me. Perhaps this is a protective technique? They don't want to embroil some of their fan favorite characters in such a sensitive issue and risk alienating audience members? So they offer secondary characters like Curtis and Rene as sacrificial lambs? Perhaps. No real way of knowing.

I did enjoy Wild Dog. While some characters felt like they were taking a leave of absence from their bodies to become political mouthpieces, Wild Dog did not. His attitude and perspective made a lot of sense, especially when we see his flashback. Rene going for his gun in the safe is an argument I've had with many friends and family who keep guns in the home. I've always questioned the logistical ability to get to the gun and load it, when an intruder is in the home. Arrow did a good job of showing that.

That said, they lost me at the random bullet killing his wife. The argument presented is the bullet wouldn't have fired if Rene didn't fire his gun. It's an unbelievably heavy handed commentary on keeping a gun in the home in an already heavy handed pro gun control episode. Subtle isn't Arrow's strong suit, but this was bad even for them.

They've also left room for Wild Dog's exit without having to kill him. He could get custody of his daughter again and want to leave all of this "violence" behind to give her the safe environment he craves. We shall see.

While the attempt is valiant, ultimately “Spectre of the Gun” is a misfire for me. This episode is a massive pause on all character storylines and development. Hopefully, next week we can return to our regularly schedule programming. And the next time Arrow feels the urge to do a “very special episode” let’s just... not.

Thea Queen

I pledge my allegiance to Thea because she is QUEEN. Where she goes so goes my nation. Oh my darling girl, how I have missed you. Come here to me.

I live for Thea's insanely on point snark.

Susan was the absolute WORST to Thea. So, she is well within her rights to believe Susan is shady. Also, Susan is shady. (Quit telling me she's not Arrow because she is.)

"She's a good at her job and she's a good person. So there."

I really can't even believe Oliver ended an argument with "so there."

ARE YOU SIX? Feels like a Stephen Amell adlib.

If we're defining "good at her job" as using her sexapades with Oliver to investigate him, then Susan gets a gold star.

While Oliver isn't comfortable leveraging his personal relationship with Susan for political gain, she has no problem leveraging their personal relationship for PROFFESIONAL gain. These two might want to have a talk.

It's a little mind boggling to me how Oliver willfully ignores the obscene conflict of interest with dating a reporter. Though, to be fair, on the list of stupid things Oliver has done, it doesn't even rank in the top 5. I can also recognize dating the exactly wrong person occupation wise is intentional on Arrow's part. Still, it's irritating.

Thea's unrelenting distaste for Susan, in spite of Oliver's increasing anger over her attitude, is pretty freaking fantastic. Thea respects Oliver's right to date whoever he wants. That doesn't mean Thea has to like her. I am pleased Thea is holding her ground on this issue. She's not interfering. She's not actively trying to break them up. Thea is just being honest and, as I've said, she has good reason to feel how she feels about Susan.

Thea is generally supportive of anyone Oliver dates, so I think the bigger misstep here is on his part. Maybe he should be paying attention to some of those red flags Thea is drawing attention to. Will there eventually come a point when Thea needs to zip it? Sure, but we're nowhere near that point. Nor do I believe Susan and Oliver will be together long enough to reach that point. Thea is essentially the audience's ambassador. She is us. We are Thea. She is our mouthpiece, so we can swallow the remaining few episodes of this Olicity roadblock masquerading as a relationship. Bless you Thea. You are doing God's work.

Stray Thoughts

I see no problem with the term Dragon Lady. Feels on point to me. Dragon Lady it is.

Curtis being the counterpoint to Rene’s perspective is a nice continuation of their evolving partnership. It builds off their opposite personalities, and their banter/bickering, shown in previous eps well.

Feel like Quentin could have remarked on Dinah thing. Cause it's a thing.

I liked that Oliver, and not the Green Arrow, talked Edlund down. It’s a step in the right direction.

This line is exceptionally beautiful and shows how much Oliver has learned over the years. He’s starting to realize what a real legacy is about.

How many Canaries has Diggle rehabilitated now? He should form an official non profit and take the tax deduction.

"So, we needed to find Dinah a place to live, but can someone tell me where OLIVER lives?" - @callistawolf asks the important questions y'all.

I liked Canaries (3x13) better. CANARIES Y'ALL. That's how much I disliked 5x13.

*** I questioned whether I was even going to write a review, primarily because this is such a hot button issue. My goal in writing it is simply to critique the episode and move on. Not ignite a gun control debate on the blog. If others want to continue the discussion in the comments, please keep it respectful. I will be moderating, but this is probably where I tap out. As always, thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts.

#arrow #arrow spoilers #arrow 5x13 #arrow reviews #oliver queen #wild dog #curtis holt #arrow season 5 reviews #arrow season 5 episode reviews #season 5 episode review

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limejuicer1862 · 5 years ago

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Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.

The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Gary Barwin

is a writer, composer, and multidisciplinary artist and the author of twenty-one books of poetry, fiction and books for children. His latest book is the poetry collection No TV for Woodpeckers (Wolsak & Wynn). His recent national bestselling novel Yiddish for Pirates (Random House Canada) won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour as well as the Canadian Jewish Literary Award (FIction) and the Hamilton Literary Award (Fiction). It was also a finalist for both the Governor General’s Award for Fiction and the Scotiabank Giller Prize. His interactive writing installation using old typewriters and guitar processors was featured during 2016-2017 at the Art Gallery of Hamilton. Forthcoming books include, A Cemetery for Holes, a poetry collaboration with Tom Prime (Gordon Hill Press, 2019) and For It is a Pleasure and a Surprise to Breathe: New and Selected Poems, ed. Alessandro Porco (Wolsak and Wynn, 2019.)

A finalist for the National Magazine Awards (Poetry), he is a three-time recipient of Hamilton Poetry Book of the Year, has also received the Hamilton Arts Award for Literature and has co-won the bpNichol Chapbook Award and the K.M. Hunter Arts Award. He was one of the judges for the 2017 CBC Poetry Prize.

A PhD in music composition, Barwin has been Writer-in-Residence at Western University, McMaster University and the Hamilton Public Library, Hillfield Strathallan College, and Young Voices E-Writer-in-Residence at the Toronto Public Library. He will be Edna Staebler writer-in-residence at Wilfrid Laurier University in Winter 2019. He has taught creative writing at a number of colleges and universities and currently teaches writing to at-risk youth in Hamilton through the ArtForms program. His writing has been published in hundreds of magazine and journals internationally—from Readers Digest to Granta and Poetry to the Walrus—and his writing, music, media works and visuals have been presented and broadcast internationally. Though born in Northern Ireland to South African parents of Ashenazi descent, Barwin lives in Hamilton, Ontario. He is married with three adult children and lives in Hamilton, Ontario and has never been Governor of Louisiana. garybarwin.com

Nothing the Same, Everything Haunted (novel, Random House Canada, forthcoming Spring 2021)

New and Selected Poems (poetry; Wolsak & Wynn, forthcoming 2019)

A Cemetery for Holes (poetry with Tom Prime; Gordon Hill Press, forthcoming 2019)

Muttertongue (poetry recording/book with Gregory Betts & Lillian Allen, forthcoming 2019)No TV for Woodpeckers (poetry; Wolsak & Wynn, 2017)

Yiddish for Pirates (novel; Random House Canada, 2016)

The Interview

1. When and why did you start writing poetry?

The first poem I remember writing was written on filing cards. I was smitten by the way the cards seemed to belong in the world and how they fit in their little filing card box. I had heard of “rosewood.” My parents had furniture made of rosewood. I assumed, however, that rosewood meant the wood from a rose plant and so I found a small stub of dried rose vine and brought it to my bedroom. I was perhaps 8. I wrote an incantation for the rose wood. The wood seems druidical. Magic. Elemental. And so what I wrote was not English, but numinous, potent sounds. I remember writing it in Roman script but highly stylized and with diacritics. This idea of the immanence of things, of language as an invocation, as an object in itself, made of the elements of the world but rearranged into something different, something that allowed a deep engagement with thought, a sense of things, tactility, pataphysics and a sense of being a particular time and place while being highly conceptual was formative to me.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

I was introduced to poetry in waves. When I was young, I recall going to synagogue and hearing the chanted prayers in Hebrew which I didn’t understand but being captivated by its allusive and inscrutable beautiful. I remember Mr. Calvert, my P.5 teacher in Inch Marlo school in Northern Ireland reading us Robert Service. There were the often cosy and mythic words of hymns and Christmas carols. “Without a city wall.” Not not having a wall around the city, but outside. Then my parents had copies of Seamus Heaney in the house. And various poetry anthologies. And once I stole a complete Shakespeare from someone who kids I was babysitting when I was 13. And then I went to an arts boarding school where my roommate, Jay Frost, would recite The Waste Land—from memory. And we had poetry workshops with guest writers, such as Robert Bly, Mark Strand and Etheridge Knight. I was surrounded by this poetry. And finally, I attended York University where my little Seamus Heaney-limited poetic world, my “eye clear as the bleb of icicle” was blown open by studying with bpNichol. Poetry as curiosity, as investigation, as an appreciation and exploration of the materials of language and their possibilities.

3. How aware are and were you of the dominating presence of older poets traditional and contemporary?

“Dominating” is interesting. Just like a word doesn’t function as a word without other words, without past and current uses of words, I don’t think poems (or poets) can either. We write and read in the context of other work. So, I don’t think of being dominated, rather as existing in a poetic ecosystem. I came to writing and I have stayed here by experiencing other writing and also language. So reading and listening comes before writing. And in fact, writing is a form of reading and listening. In one eye or ear and out the fingers as writing. Some processing may be involved. Other writers have made me aware of what is possible, what ways language can be explored, how it can be taken apart and put together differently, how I can follow the myriad forces that it embodies, how it can be used as a tool to explore, a vehicle to ride. All of which helps me spelunk the human, the non-human, the world, the linguistic and the non-linguistic both.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

This changes depending on what I’m working on, however, distraction and diversion is a standard part of my routine. I often start by avoiding a project and instead creating a visual piece—lately, works exploring the ampersand—or a poem based perhaps on a whim or something I tumble onto on social media. I’ve been working on a novel for the last year and a half and so my goal for my daily minimum is 500 words. I write until I’ve written 500 words. Often this includes figuring out what is going to happen in those 500 words as I don’t write from a premeditated plan, except in a very general sense. In order to keep motivated, I keep a chart of words written compared to words projected (i.e. if I actually wrote 500 words five days a week vs. what I actually managed to write.) Sometimes I write more than the 500, sometimes less, or, more likely, I have something else to do that day and so don’t manage to work on the novel at all, except in my head. Some days, I schedule time to work on collaboration. These days, I’m writing a poem or two once a week with Tom Prime. We Skype each other and open up a Google doc. Then we write. I like the idea of writing as dialogue and so work often emerges from interactions on social media, riffing off an image, a phrase, a discussion, or some other writing that I encounter.

I like the energy of the impulse or the distraction. Sometimes it’s fuelled by nervousness or uncertainty about the project that I’m “supposed” to be working on. But I’m ok with channelling that into something else, knowing that I’m getting work out of it. Of course, at some point, I have to confront the procrastination, and buckle down and actually work on the main project, otherwise it won’t get done. The other good thing about distraction is that one can be surprised by a sudden confluence of ideas or inputs and connect things or write in a way that enables something unexpected to occur.

5. What motivates you to write?

This seems like a very simple question, however, it isn’t so easy to answer. Certainly, my writing comes from curiosity. I am intrigued to explore what is possible—what is possible in language, in writing. What it is possible to say. Where the language might guide me, what it might draw out of me, what it might draw out of itself through my engagement. There is something about communication. About connection or engaging with people (readers) — the impulse for interaction. There is something elemental, something fundamental, somatic, about the act of making. Writing is about exploring writing, but also about exploring the world and the act of writing. About exploring the writing self and the self writing. And also, I want to be so rich I can buy all the letters of the alphabet, bronze them in solid gold and then, when the sun is bright, signal to it with its own light.

6. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

I am young. At least when compared to English. Or a rock. Or that obscure jarred thing in the back of my fridge. But I am always reminded of the elemental and preternatural power of language—and of poetry specifically—of its ability to be a trickster, a Rorschach test, a finger in a socket, a consoler, debunker, debater, songster, and seducer, and how, even though my knowledge was limited, I immediately got the sense of what might be possible. And so with the writers that I read in the past. From Spike Milligan and Ogden Nash to Wordsworth, Heaney, Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg, Trakl and so on, to religious texts (the Jewish translations direct from Hebrew as well as King James and the others.) I have the sense, as I did with reading poets when I was young, that there was more just around the.corner: more confusion, more understanding, more meaning, less meaning, more technique, more chances.

7. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

The way your question is phrased is interesting. You ask about which “writers” I most admire rather what “writing” and so it leads me to think about what are qualities that I value in a writer. Passing over the issue of what happens when the work is good, but the writer is perhaps ethically or morally compromised in some way, I do think about what it is to be a writer in society, what it is to be a writer in community and (to paraphrase Sheila Heti) “How should a writer be?” and what does creativity look like.

I admire writers who mentor, support and build community. But I also admire those who are able to forge their own paths and remain true to their values both aesthetically and politically even if that leads them to pursue an individual path, perhaps one not comfortable with the prevailing fashion. (Of course, this only makes sense to me if they are sensitive, thoughtful listeners who consider how large-scale historical, political and systemic issues shape aesthetics and the writer’s life and opinions and continually check in to ensure that they haven’t gone astray or been seduced by their own solipsism into thinking that their view is the only authentic one. And here I’m making a distinction between “fashion” and “developed contemporary understanding.” A writer and their writing can’t exist outside of the systemic influences on them and the culture, whether legible to them or not, but they can write outside of the prevailing fashion or taste.

I also consider the kind of writer who is curious about everything and explores many creative avenues—perhaps different forms, media, aesthetics and so on. I tend to be like this, creating music, art, poetry and fiction, using digital and analogue means, exploring both more lyric as well as more experimental approaches, creating, performing, exhibiting, publishing in a wide variety of ways. The other type of writer is one who hones their craft to an almost laser-like concentration, working within one approach or aesthetic. Samuel Beckett was like this. He spent his life focussing his work more and more acutely, stripping away everything extraneous to the essential vision.

I’m hesitant to begin naming who I “most” admire. I resist hierarchies and ranking as too fraught. But since I had a conversation yesterday about her yesterday, I will say that I follow Kai Cheng Thom’s online presence with great respect. She is thoughtful, articulate, earnest, compassionate and willing to consider positions with great insight, even if they reevaluate what may appear to be the consensus opinion or approach.

8. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

For me, a writer is someone who writes. So, regardless of who you are, if you write, you are a writer. I believe everyone can be a writer. Everyone can have a particular and personal relationship to language, whether spoken or written. Becoming a good writer involves reading a lot, trying many things, really thinking through what you’ve written and what it is doing. Considering what assumptions you’ve made about what the writing should be, or things you haven’t considered? So, becoming a writer involves reading and thinking intently. Others’ work. One’s own.

One of the hardest things is to write what you actually want to write rather than what you think you should write. Well, that and seeing what is actually going on in the writing one is doing. And keeping going. Because becoming a writer involves keeping doing it. I feel that it is important to keep writing. That’s how one becomes a better writer. But it is important to keep pushing, to try to see more of what is possible, to try to learn to make one’s writing more resonant, or to contain more, if not multitudes then multivalences or multiverses. Tumult or mulch. Unless you’re a born genius like Rimbaud, I feel the difference between the path of someone who writes and someone who learns to make really good writing is that for the good writer it isn’t about being a writer, but about really trying to make the writing the best it can be, to learn to really read the work in front of you and edit or develop it so that it truly is the best it can be. For me, becoming a writer is about learning to really be attuned to your creative process, and also about really trusting the writing and, like a dowser, learning to see how it pulls you, learning to sense the subterranean before you, learning to be attuned to the language and where it wants to take you. And to keep learning to follow it more places, to be more keenly attuned to it. It is a kind of dance—the language leads you, sometimes without you even realizing it, and you follow it, waltzing or polkaing around the dance floor. I know this sounds like I’m Yoda, and I’m saying, “Follow the Force.” But I guess I am. Though I have more restrained ears and a better barber. And I’m (usually) less green.

9. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

I have many specific projects that I am working on, but I also relish the opportunity to explore a whim or particular inspiration and create something on the spur of the moment. Sometimes these get folded into a larger project and sometime they exist as confounding outliers. I am an advocate of allowing the moment to suggest something to you. Often this results in creating something fresh and surprising, something which subverts your usual expectations of what it is that you do.

The main project that I’m working on is a novel, Nothing the Same, Everything Haunted. It is a Wild West Holocaust novel set in 1941 Lithuania. My protagonist is a Don Quixote-type middle-aged Litvak who imagines himself a cowboy. It makes connections between the Holocaust and North American Indigenous genocide via the Western novels of Karl May. Also, my protagonist is looking for his testicles which became frozen in a Swiss glacier after being shot off 20 years before. It’s scheduled to come out in 2021. I’m also writing a new book of collaborations with Tom Prime (we’ve just published our first one, A Cemetery for Holes). A chapbook of prose poems with Kathryn Mockler will appear next year as will a collection of ekphrastic works I created with the artist Donna Szoke. I’m also working on a big public art piece about persecution and refugees with Tor Lukasik-Foss and Simon Frank for a park in Hamilton. (I’ve never worked in bronze before!) I’m working on a collection of my ampersand-based visual poems and finishing a book and recording with Gregory Betts and Lillian Allen. Greg and I are also part of the band TZT and will be releasing a recording of sound poetry and sound works we did with a variety of sound poets.(We’re hoping for vinyl!) I’m also doing a collaboration with Shane Neilson involving hurricanes, naming and class photographs. I’m also working on a continuing poetic project of my own based on experimental translations of a variety of poems, from William Bronk and Rilke to Medieval poetry. It combines a kind of oblique lyricism with a variety of conceptual and experimental transformational practices. (Maybe that’s our life. Oblique lyricism and conceptual and experimental transformations.) Also, any minute now, my “New and Selected Poems” will come out with Wolsak & Wynn. And while writing this, I just got an email inviting me to create some visual poems out of scientific papers, something I’ve done before. It’s really intriguing to explore technical language and a very specific textual form (the scientific paper) about which I know nothing and is just on the border of intelligibility for me.

This kind of disorganized multidirectional chaos—this whole mess of projects—seems to work for me. Because, as they say, if it’s not one thing, it’s another.

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Gary Barwin Wombwell Rainbow Interviews I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me.

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vrenaewrites · 6 years ago

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CIVIL BLOOD’s COVER: the evolution.

ICYMI: Civil Blood has a cover. And a release date.

IT’S FINE I’M FINE DON’T WORRY NO I’M FINE.

That’s right! In just a few short days (26 but lol who is counting NOT ME LOL) you’ll be able to hold that sexy beast in all its glory.

But...I’ll level with y’all. This book did NOT always look like this. Not even a little.

For those of you who don’t know, my writerly journey with this iteration of Civil Blood began last October-ish. I decided to take a leap of faith and submit to a now-defunct contest through Amazon called Kindle Scout. I wrote a blog about my experience. It was...lackluster.

But! I was submitting my BOOK for people to look at! For a contest! I had to make a sickening cover! I had to make it look AMAZING. The cover is the biggest selling point to a book! People say don’t judge a book by its cover for a reason - because we all do it! So I pulled out all the stops I could think of on my budget of -37$ and came up with:

Which...I mean, yeah, if you’ve read the book. That’s a fine cover. But if you haven’t…

Well, I guess that’s why a lot of Christian authors started following me. And then unfollowing at a breakneck speed.

But, whatever, fine. We have a cover. Let’s submit. So KS is going on, and I get a random FB message on my writer page - oh right, because the Kindle Scout program is what inspired me to start writerly social medias, including this blog right here! - about my cover. The message basically says I should be prepared to change my cover if I want to be published through KS because this person’s friend was told when offered his contract that they don’t allow religious, political, or violent iconography on their covers.

Whoops. So let’s try to design some covers for this violent, religious book without being violent or religious.

I’m still partial to that rose one but whatever.

Anyways, so I don’t get selected for Kindle Scout. Which, fine, they went under a few months after anyways.

But I do get picked up by New Traditions pretty soon after that. So we still need a bigger better cover! I’ve realized at this point that the original cover was, well...underwhelming. And confusing.

So I put my subpar skills to the test. And I popped out this bad boy.

I’m still obsessed with this cover. But there was one problem. The resolution on an actual book’s cover was going to look...how can I put this?...like hot garbage.

So, NTP got to work for me. I got EIGHT different covers to choose from. EIGHT.

I asked my friends. I asked beta readers. I asked in blind polls on my instagram stories for y’all to pick a number.

And then I had a dream about this one. So this one it was. Thanks, subconscious!

Mainly because I loved the way the blood split the book into two sides. Very symbolic of the main conflict in the story. Also, if you look closely, you can see some shapes on both sides that sort of mirror the two warring families. It’s like a weird Rorschach test. Or maybe I’m WAY too engrossed in my little fantasy world and I’m seeing things. That happens when you write a series, guys. You think you live there.

But my point is, a cover is HARD work. It takes a lot of thought and planning and hits and misses. That’s why the YA section all looking the same is so frustrating. And that’s why I’m so glad I got something unique and symbolic for my first little book baby.

#fiction writer #writers blog #writers of tumblr #am writing #writer woes #writers be like #ya fiction #ya paranormal #ya thriller #young adult #writing a trilogy #indie author #civil blood #book promotion #debut novel #ya spec fic #grassroots promotion #ya horror #thistlewolf

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aion-rsa · 8 years ago

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X-POSITION: Marc Guggenheim Gets Back To Basics With X-Men Gold

ResurrXion is upon us, and readers have now experienced the debut issues of the X-Men line’s new flagship titles. With its release last week, “X-Men Gold” #1 featured a return to form for Marvel’s mutants as the new lineup, led by Kitty Pryde, took on Terrax and proved to the world that the X-Men are still in the business of saving the day. Thanks to the book’s twice-a-month shipping schedule, readers will get to see where Marc Guggenheim takes the team next in a fast fashion.

RELATED: X-Men Gold: The New Brotherhood X-Plained

This week in X-POSITION, “X-Men Gold” writer Marc Guggenheim returns and answers all of your questions about the new team, the potential for an Excalibur reunion and more. This interview was also conducted prior to the recent controversy surrounding “X-Men Gold” artist Ardian Syaf.

CBR News: Welcome back to X-POSITION, Marc! Let’s start with a big picture question from Anduinel.

On a project like this, where the theme is explicitly “back to basics,” how do you judge which elements of the franchise should be considered classic enough to bring back to the forefront intact, which ones to update, and which ones perhaps haven’t aged so well over the decades?

Terrific question. For me, the most important element of the franchise to bring back is the notion that the X-Men are heroes working to protect a world that hates and fears them. That conceit is my north star and it drives all the other creative choices. Admittedly, some of those creative choices are driven by my own sense of what’s “classic,” my own sense of nostalgia. The team lineup is probably the best example of that. The first issue of “X-Men” that I ever read was “Uncanny” #139. With the exception of Rachel (and, if one wants to quibble, Old Man Logan), the lineup I chose for “Gold” is drawn from what, for me, was a seminal read.

That said, I think there’s a reason why a lot of elements of the franchise have endured and even thrived for decades. I see my job mainly as presenting those elements as best I can, in the most interesting ways I can. That’s the other piece of the “back to the basics approach” — reducing the X-Men back down to their core conceits — returning to “first principles,” as it were — then building up from there.

There’s another classic team that your lineup resembles, and Askanipsion has a question about it.

Thank you for having Kitty, Kurt and Rachel on the team. Any chance we will get a reunion with Brian Braddock & Meggan?

Totally a possibility. I love “Excalibur.” I thought it was such an interesting premise for an X-book. And I’d love the opportunity to revisit the history that Kitty, Kurt and Rachel have with Brian and Meggan.

It’s a real testament to the strength of the X-Men franchise that there are so many beloved characters. I feel like I could write the book for as long as Chris Claremont did and never get to them all.

With the X-Men now acting as public heroes, Valamist has a question about the role “X-Men Gold” plays in the Marvel Universe.

Given how a part of Kitty’s plan as leader seems to be making the X-Men into more recognizable heroes to the world, is there any plans to see the “Gold” team interact with the wider MU? Such as the Avengers, Defenders etc?

Absolutely. Kitty moved the X-Men to Central Park so they wouldn’t be segregated off from the rest of society, and that includes the various other heroes of the Marvel Universe. The first example of this will be in Issue #6.

Next up, Maestroneto wants to know more about one of the book’s potential romantic subplots.

How are we supposed to feel about Colossus’ feelings over Kitty? He’s moved into her room when she left to get married and now he’s hanging around her. Is this supposed to be romantic or creepy?

Oh, boy.

Thanks to my work on “Arrow,” I’ve got a little familiarity with how everyone’s mileage varies when it comes to romantic subplots. For some fans — not all, but some — relationship storylines are these Rorschach tests where people see what they want to see in the story. I can absolutely see where some people might find Peter’s behavior creepy, while others find him extremely romantic. And I’m sure that there are other people who would place his behavior somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. I will say that my intention isn’t to turn Peter into “creepy stalker guy.” Make of that what you will — so long as my Twitter isn’t full of “Guggenheim thinks creepy behavior is romantic” mentions…

Don’t “@” him! Moving on, we have a question from Purplevit about a certain Ragin’ Cajun.

Will Gambit join the Gold team or just appear as guest star? Did you like to write him?

For the moment, he’s just a guest star — albeit a pivotal one — in our second arc. But I love Gambit and he’s enormously fun to write. He’s got buckets of charisma and a devil-may-care attitude that defies you not to like him.

“X-Men: Gold” #4 cover by Ardian Syaf

Since “X-Men Gold” is set at the school, ţh€ €жţяą-๏яďɨɲąя¥ Tycon wants to know if we’ll see one student in particular.

Considering some of the X-Men graduated, most of them seem to be heading out with other teams or ending up back at the school. One glaring problem is the missing members of the New X-Men — especially Dust, who we haven’t seen have an important role since “Schism.” I know you loved using Dust in “Young X-Men,” so is there a chance we may see her soon in “X-Men Gold”?

You’re right, I love Dust. And I think given the current political climate, it’s more important than ever to include a Muslim in the X-Men’s ranks. My hope is to get her into the book for our “Secret Empire” tie-in.

Here’s a question from Steroid about a character you did use in “X-Men Gold” #1 — although not in the way people expected.

Loved the first issue. My question is what made you go with the decision to create a new Pyro instead of resurrecting the classic old one?

First, thank you. Glad you enjoyed the first issue.

Second, great question. The answer lies in the fact that Daniel Ketchum and I share a great affection for Pyro and Avalanche. Both of us wanted to see them represented in some way on the roster of the New Brotherhood of Evil Mutants? (Or is that New New New Brotherhood of Evil Mutants? It’s hard to keep track.) But Pyro and Avalanche both being dead presented something of a problem, as you might imagine. It made more sense to me to create new iterations of them rather than have dual resurrections. Also, when the truth comes out about the New Brotherhood, I think you’ll see why it made more sense to have new iterations of Pyro and Avalanche.

Our next question comes from Scott. (EDITOR’S NOTE: This X-POSITION interview was conducted before recent news broke about “X-Men Gold” artist Ardian Syaf.)

You’ve got an aggressive release schedule for “X-Men Gold,” coming out every two weeks. How are the art duties being split up? Will Ardian Syaf be just churning out a book a fortnight? Seems unlikely. Rotating artists? One arc each? I know it’s a little “inside baseball” but I haven’t seen anything about any other artists being involved.

Well, lemme tell ya! We have a murderer’s row of rotating artists. RB Silva is drawing our second arc and Ken Lashley is drawing our third arc.

“X-Men Gold” #7 cover by Ken Lashley

Here’s a question from Kamose1234 about the franchise’s central metaphor.

In issue #1 we saw the Gold team express some anger over the renewed racism against them, but will they have to deal with it more forcefully given Ms. Nance’s organization? As a person of color, I’ve always appreciated the X-Men’s fight against intolerance and I feel we need to see more of this given today’s real world condition.

I absolutely agree with you. I think the X-Men franchise is at its best when it holds a mirror up to real world events. That’s absolutely what I’m trying to do with “Gold,” albeit without turning the book into a polemic. You guys will tell me if I’ve struck the right balance.

As to your question, I think what makes the X-Men so heroic is that they don’t get angry in the face of prejudice and bigotry. Rather, they respond with greater resolve. You’ll see a confrontation between the X-Men and Lydia Nance sooner than you might expect. It might be my favorite moment of my run thus far.

And we’ll close out this week with a question from Chad about one character fans want to see more of.

Will Magik be making an appearance? During the “Prime” issue, Kitty tells her she has a job for her to do….was it to bring the X-Mansion back? Will she still serve with the team? I need you to say “yes”!

The “job” was certainly to move the X-Mansion from Limbo to Central Park, but that doesn’t mean we’ve seen the last of Illyana. At the moment, I have her in the script I’m writing presently. We have so many great characters to play with, things can and do change as this stage of the writing, but I promise you haven’t seen the last of Magik.

Special thanks to Marc Guggenheim for taking on this week’s questions!

Keep checking CBR for information about the next X-POSITION!

The post X-POSITION: Marc Guggenheim Gets Back To Basics With X-Men Gold appeared first on CBR.

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