Tag: movies

Quarantine All-stars

I’ve come to realize that living life in quarantine isn’t that much different than my daily life. Less nature than I would like, and my work schedule may actually be busier working from home, but on the whole I dig being at home. In the case of the Coronavirus and everyone being home, and teenage girls having to change their mindset; and just the general mental and emotional uneasiness of a global pandemic, there is something different afoot.

When we look back, everyone will have different things that buoyed them, or helped them re-acclimate, helped them connect. So I thought I’d look at some of my quarantine all-stars to date.

You can’t overstate the importance of music. I concur with Friedrich Nietzsche when he wrote, “Without music, life would be a mistake,” and Kurt Vonnegut who said his epitaph could say, “The only proof he needed for the existence of God was music.”

I am a fan of Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats. I’ve dug hearing them on 103.1 WRNR. Hearing the title track from his new solo album, “And It’s Still Alright” on the radio, I’ve always let it play. Then multiple people started weighing in with how good the whole album is. Rateliff started writing the album at the unraveling of his marriage and later had to get through the death of a close friend. From his website, talking about the album, and how he worked through what the album wanted to be:

“out of his restless subconscious, helping him address some big life questions — the ones that have stumped philosophers, statesmen and profound thinkers since time began, exploring the unsteady terrain of love and death. But in the end, what he really was doing was creating an homage to his friend.”

It’s an album about questions; it’s an album about getting through things; it’s an album with lines that stick in my head, such as, “If the world goes strange, its dying flames / Would light the end of the last morning.”

Questlove, live from his house, paying tribute to Bill Withers.

A different take on quarantine soundtrack has come from Questlove of the Roots. With the band staying home, Questlove has been holding DJ sessions from his house, raising money for different causes, and paying tribute to eras of music, with his Native Tongues Review, and to Bill Withers who just died, with Bill Still. I am telling you, if you want to put something on in your house and let it play for a couple hours, Native Tongues brings back an era of hip hop with A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, the Jungle Brothers, you name it, some formative bands, and just blending it altogether. And Bill Withers, man, the whole session is just smooth and flowing and feels good.

I’m used to Questlove being the drummer and front man for one of my favorite bands. He’s written books and been featured in great articles, and this social media scholar and DJ is just another aspect of a guy who carries the cool banner for this, and other eras.

From music to movies. I’ve watched Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out,” multiple times now. I didn’t catch it in the theaters, so one night I kicked back and pulled it up at home. And I knew I needed to check it out again. So a few nights ago, I pulled my daughters into the next screening. Both girls loved it, Anna (18) said it was the best movie she’d seen in a long time, and maybe one of her favorites. It’s a great whodunnit-typed movie; it’s got James Bond (Daniel Craig) and Captain America (Chris Evans), who play roles nothing like their famous characters; and as someone who likes to figure movies out, even when halfway through the movie you think you know everything, you don’t. Not even close.

Screens certainly dominate media these days. And I am psyched that “Cheers” is now on Netflix; “The Office” is a constant connection, time-filler, and connector between the girls and I, who quote it back and forth frequently; and I have them part-way through the series “Lost,” which was a favorite show of mine while it was on TV.

You know I have to finish with books. We have had substantial reading going with work–studies of John’s Gospel, which started last October, a quick devotional through Matthew’s Gospel for Lent, and looking for our next online classes–but in this case, I am looking at the just for fun reading.

On the graphic novel front, Kieron Gillen’s “Once and Future” plays King Arthur’s legend into our modern world, which is a trippy, mythical, re-imaging as a kind of ghost story. I ate Arthurian legend stuff up growing up (named our Golden Retriever “Morgan” after King Arthur’s sister when I was nine) and Gillen has become a writer who I try to read about everything I can from. Christian Ward is known as an artist, but is trying his hand at writing and in Machine Gun Wizards, he looks at Eliot Ness and prohibition, but if prohibition was outlawing magic, not booze. And what can I say about Neil Gaiman’s “Sandman,” which was cited as one of the 100 best books (not graphic novels, books) of the century. It bears reading and re-reading. And since a friend and I are currently taking Gaiman’s masterclass on storytelling, this seemed like a great time to dig back into the world of dream and open my imagination.

I’m 180-something pages into Emily St. John Mandel’s “Station Eleven,” which we will be doing an online/Zoom book club for in the very near future. I am having a lot of fun with it. It’s set after the collapse of civilization due to a global pandemic virus. This is one of the blurbs that pulled me in:

“An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.”

A motto of one of the main characters is “Survival is insufficient.”

Sometimes when we enter new territory, it’s not novelty we need, but familiarity. We need something to ground us and help us get our footing. I’ve written a lot about Jim Harrison, who I consider one of the writers to have the biggest impact on me, both through his writing, his persona, and how he lived his life. And despite having written numerous great novels, novellas, and short stories, it’s often his poetry that I end up keeping nearby.

I was reminded recently of Harrison’s poem, “I believe.” He lists things he believes in, which include: steep drop-offs, empty swimming pools, the overgrown path to the lake, abandoned farmhouses, gravel roads that end, leaky wooden boats…”

You know what? I’ll let you read it for yourself, noting that the poem ends with “struggling to stay alive in a world that grinds them underfoot.” Let me just say that music, movies, books–these thinks aren’t just diversions that distract us from what’s going on in the world; instead, they are connection, connecting us to the artists, connecting us to something bigger than ourselves; connecting us to each other through music, art, and stories; and in the process of creation, connecting us to God.

Surveying the Sensational

Sometimes the coolest ideas begin as a conversation. The kind where you talk about every subject under and above the sun, laugh your face off, and find yourself frequently running down paths of wonder. The kind of conversation where when it’s done, you wish you had recorded it, or at least written parts down.

I had one of those conversations with Gary Skirka this winter on our way to Third Eye Comics in Annapolis for a book signing with writer Jason Aaron (who writes the Avengers, Thor, Conan, has written Wolverine). Both of our imaginations have been and continue to be shaped by comic books; we both lead groups at different churches; we both have two quickly growing up daughters; we are both trying to read more, get ourselves back into shape. The discussion jumped from faith to favorite comics; from the Wu-Tang Clan to John’s Gospel; from cosmology to kung fu.

Jason Aaron signing books at Third Eye Comics for the release of his Conan book for Marvel Comics.

Gary mentioned that for a number of years now he’s wanted to do a podcast about comics, pop culture, faith and spirituality, with people you wouldn’t think of as the geek culture type.

Fast forward to earlier this week. Seven of us got together and laid out our own origin stories when it comes to faith and comics. We’ve got a few guys that work for churches, a couple police officers, a former Army medic. In one case, comic books had been an outlet during chemo and childhood cancer. In another comics were a bond between father and son; one found he could draw superheroes to pass the time or sell his art. In terms of faith, it was all over the map–from one-time adamant non-believers, to lifelong church goers; former philosophy students. It was a melting pot from a number of different churches and theologies, with maybe the constant being guys who wouldn’t be told what to think or do or what box they had to fit in, but who found their own path to God.

Grant Morrison is one of the most acclaimed comic book writers of all time. He’s written everything from Superman to Batman, the Justice League to Green Lantern, shaped the DC Universe, as well as creating new characters, universes, and books that transcend the medium. In his book “Supergods,” he looks at what superhero stories might say about our culture:

“We live in the stories we tell ourselves. In a secular, scientific, rational culture lacking in any convincing spiritual leadership, superhero stories speak loudly and boldly to our greatest fears, deepest longings, and highest aspirations. They’re not afraid to be hopeful, not embarrassed to be optimistic, and utterly fearless in the dark. They’re about as far from social realism as you can get, but the best superhero stories deal directly with mythic elements of human experience that we can all relate to, in ways that are imaginative, profound, funny, and provocative. They exist to solve problems of all kinds and can always be counted on to find a way to save the day. At their best, they help us to confront and resolve even the deepest existential crises. We should listen to what they have to tell us.”

Yeah, what he said 🙂 Add to that, graphic storytelling is currently doing some of the most creative and imaginative storytelling going, and are often just plain fun to read and experience as art at the same time.

Comics and dime detective and science fiction novels have their roots in pulp culture. Not the orange juice kind, the “Pulp Fiction” kind. Merriam Webster gives a definition of pulp as:

PULP (noun), a magazine or book printed on cheap paper (such as newsprint) and often dealing with sensational material.

Merriam Webster Dictionary

As we all got talking back and forth, we dug the ideas of podcasts, interviews with different guests, blogs, articles, videos, road trips, movie and book reviews on any and all things pop/pulp culture as well as faith, spirituality, theology, etc. And we wanted a name to go with the pulp idea. Something big, reaching, something that calls your imagination into action. And who knows, maybe something that calls “Young Guns” or Nate Dogg and Warren G. to mind.

Revelators. Why revelators? Why not! You could ask Blind Willie Johnson, or Son House, who both have stripped down, bare bones versions of the song “John the Revelator,” or you can go with the dressed up version the used in the show “Sons of Anarchy.” You get the idea.

With “Pulp Revelators,” we are starting a discussion. We hope you’ll follow along on different social media channels and look for a website to be up and running before long. We hope you’ll join in, ask questions, tell us what you think, and what topics, characters, or subjects you’d like to hear more about. We’ve got some fun adventures ahead. In a nutshell, what we hope to be doing is “surveying the sensational.” Stay tuned.

It started with Stan Lee

“Stan Lee and Dr. Seuss and Ray Bradbury. That’s where it begins and ends with me.” That’s how Josh Brolin, who plays both Thanos and Cable in the current Marvel movies, began his remembrance of Marvel legend, founder, and storyteller extraordinaire, Stan Lee. Lee died yesterday at the age of 95.

I heard the news from my cousin, who works at the Miami Herald newspaper, which is fitting, because he is the same cousin that introduced me to comic books; the same cousin who I would spend hours with at Alternate Worlds Comic Book Store in Cockeysville, pouring over Stan Lee’s creations. The comics I collected and couldn’t stop reading were Daredevil, the Avengers, the X-Men, Black Panther–all first created by Lee and artist Jack Kirby, and all current Marvel movie blockbusters.

My teenage daughters don’t read. And I’m not overly worried because I didn’t read growing up. Except for Marvel comic books, something that started when I was 10 and went obsessively on through middle school and into high school (though it wasn’t something you wanted people to know back then). And then graphic novels found their way back onto my reading list in my 40s, again the same Marvel titles being the mainstay.

Stan Lee lived every writer’s dream: to see his characters become household names, loved across generations, spur imaginations, and touch people’s lives. And the coolest thing is that it wasn’t about him, it was and is about the stories and the characters–he passed them on to subsequent writers who try to build on and expand his vision. Here is what those who continue Lee’s stories (three of Marvel’s top writers and an actor) had to say on Lee’s passing:

Stan Lee made the word, “Excelsior!” his sign off and tagline. It’s generally translated to mean, “ever upward,” “higher,” or striving.  Chances are, if you hear it in today’s culture, it’s because of him.

Marvel does a nice job of giving the skeleton/chronology of Stan Lee’s career as a storyteller. It’s heartening to realize that Lee almost quit writing comics after 20 years and didn’t really breakthrough until he was 39.

When someone dies at 95 years old, having lived a life people dream about, it’s not tragic; it gives us a moment to remember and appreciate what they brought to our lives. For me, my love of stories, and my desire to read them, to consume them, look for them, think about the shape of them, the imagery of them, to get to know characters–started with Stan Lee. I remember paying $5 for Black Panther #4 in its clear, plastic bag and feeling like I had a small piece of a legacy in my hands. I would walk out of the store with hours of stoke and fuel for my imagination. And I smile now, when I pass on something to my nephew, who sits transfixed, shuts out the world around him, and dives into the Marvel universe.

And these same stories, Stan Lee’s creations, having hit the big screen in ways we didn’t know could happen back then–cinematic storytelling has caught up to what was being done on the page–I now share with my daughters, who have seen all the movies, and suggested Marvel marathons without prompting–always looking for Lee’s comedic cameo in each film.

When I picked 13-year-old Ava up from school yesterday, I told her that an older famous person who she knows died. The first guess out of her mouth was, “Stan Lee??”

And last night we watched “The Avengers.” Tonight we’ll pick another. The stories keep going. But it started with Stan Lee. “Excelsior!” is how he lived.

To Call Each Thing By its Right Name

No one wants to be a grown up on Charlie Brown. No one wants what they have to say to amount to WA-WAH-WA, sounding off in the background, unintelligible. And yet, that’s what happens to the majority of words, of communication that comes our way and a good bit of what we put out into the world. We talk too much and say too little.

…only at a time when the fresh creation of meaning has become a rare occurrence, a time when people commonly speak in conventional, ready-made ways, “which demand from us no real effort of expression and… demand from our listeners no real effort of comprehension”–at a time, in short, when meaning has become impoverished. – David Abram, summarizing Maurice Merleau-Ponty in “The Spell of the Sensuous”

When meaning has become impoverished, what we get, and what we become, are grown ups from Charlie Brown.

But this isn’t what language is for or what it is meant to do. Language, words, gestures, expression, body language, is supposed to be us trying to convey, to express our wants, needs, fears, questions; trying to get someone to understand something of vital importance–otherwise, why bother?

If we go back to the feeling of being alone, unheard, not understood, language works miracles, it attempts to do the impossible: to communicate with another being something that is inside us. But only if we find the right words or the right way to get something across.

Abram talks about language also being physical and touching our senses as well. Maybe we can all reach back to a time, place, way we have felt someone’s words wash over us, where a gap has been bridged. But Abrams doesn’t just limit it to people.

If language is always in its depths, physically and sensorially resonant, then it can never be definitely separated from the evident expressiveness of birdsong, or the evocative howl of a wolf late at night. The chorus of frogs gurgling in unison at the edge of a pond, the snarl of a wildcat as it springs upon its prey, or the distant honking of Canadian geese veeing south for the winter, all reverberate with affective, gestural significance, the same significance that vibrates through our conversations and soliliquies, moving us at times to tears, or to anger, or to intellectual insights we could never have anticipated.

There have been times where I have physically felt God was communicating me without a word spoken, simply with the sounds and language of the landscape alive around me. In the mornings, I sit with coffee and listen to birds, cicadas, neighborhood dogs, the buzz of hummingbird’s wings as it goes to the feeder. Sometimes that language means more and says more than what we hear from people.

If our own language, our own words, are going to mean more, it’s up to us to use them wisely, and maybe less frequently; to look for, and listen for, the right words to speak our hearts and minds. And to listen to others who are making the effort to do the same.

I’ve had this notion in my crawl about reclaiming language, trying to come to meaning, to get back to the primacy of saying something worth saying. And then was moved all over again by words I’d heard before.

In the movie version of “Into the Wild,” towards the end, there is a scene on the magic bus in Alaska, where Chris McCandless is reading Boris Pasternak’s “Dr. Zhivago” and comes across this notion:

For a moment she discovered the purpose of her life. She was here on the earth to grasp the meaning of its wild enchantment and to call each thing by its right name.

Maybe that’s the challenge we need to give ourselves. To strip away the static, the clutter, the convention, the emptiness of the words so often around us. And to call each thing by its right name.

Let things sink in. Let them wash over us, trying to come to our own truth about them. And when we talk, when we pray, when we write, when we see, when we hear, to call each thing, and each other, by our right names.