Posts Tagged ‘ gutter

Hippasus Gurgles: “I am a DJ, I am what I play”

On most Fridays, Michael Carlisle examines the world “outside” sequential art to find… more sequential art. Expect mathematics and a dash of pessimistic optimism.

I spend a lot of time thinking about the difference between sequences of things and the “time series” those things make. I’ve been straying somewhat from the standard ideas of “sequential art” in what I talk about on this blog; I’m not about to stop now.

Even though I’ve already stated that music, as a temporally-based art, isn’t a sequential art, I firmly believe that the careful construction of a sequence of pieces of art is an art in itself, regardless of the type of art being sequenced.

As a species, we’ve been recording sound for about 130 years. From the beginnings, the wax cylinder and gramophone recordA1 allowed the rich, then the public, to have recordings of audio in their homes. It also allowed, with radio, the evolution of a societal position – the Master of Ceremonies – to move from the religious meeting or performance hall into ever-shrinking boxes in people’s homes. The MC could also become the DJ, gaining the power to sequence acts from their recordings instead of collecting them into one room to perform live. The little discs could be swapped in a two-turntable setup which allowed a predefined (or on-the-fly) sequence to be constructed. The art of the DJ is not the music; it is the sequence of music.

I got two turntables and a microphone
I got plastic on my mind….A2

Read more

Mind in the Gutter: Origins

On alternating Fridays, Leah Schnelbach waxes rhapsodic about comics, education, religion, and postmodernity. David Foster Wallace would be proud.

Okay, so it’s been a busy week, so this is going to be a short one – the obligatory comics geek origin story. (I’m fine with the term “geek”, btw, my friends and I wore the term as a badge of honor just slightly before it was cool – and anything was better than “nerd” – so I’m kind of attached to it.)

I’m 15. My best girlfriend keeps talking about this writer she’s heard of, Neil Diamond or something.

I’m like, “Neil Diamond writes comics?”

Read more

Mind in the Gutter: Ooh, ooh, I know! Watching the Watchmen!!!

On alternating Fridays, Leah Schnelbach waxes rhapsodic about comics, education, religion, film and postmodernity.

This week, a very interesting issue of The New Yorker hit the stands. It’s interesting first and foremost because of the excellent and heart-wrenching article on David Foster Wallace (my favorite writer) along with an excerpt from his last novel, which is being published posthumously. They also have one of the most frustrating movie reviews I’ve ever seen. The reason that I’m mentioning it on this site is that it’s a review of Watchmen.  Full disclosure – I haven’t seen Watchmen yet. [Ed.: Watchmen is released nationally today.] I’ll probably see it at some point next week, after the first throngs have strained and shuddered and spent themselves. So I’m not reviewing the review of the film, or disagreeing with it. Why bring it up, then, you may ask?  On reading this review, looking only for the writer’s opinion of the film, I found myself disturbed and eventually angered by the tone of distaste it shows, not for the film, but rather for comics culture as a whole.  Now, if the review simply expressed an opinion that the film wasn’t very good that would be fine  (Although, for the record, he seems to prefer The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen as a film to the adaptation of V for Vendetta, and while neither was great, there is a fucking yawning chasm between the two….)

My real problem is that the film, as a film, isn’t really reviewed.  The author discusses enjoying the opening credits, but from there contents himself in swipes at Alan Moore as a writer (even though he states early on that Moore had nothing to do with the film), itemizes the acts of violence in the film (as though containing scenes of violence disqualifies a film from also being interesting or at least dealing with interesting topics), and finally resorts to a creaky kids-these-days style rant against comics readers. At least, those comics readers who don’t mind if characters throw a cape over their shoulders now and then.

Read more

Mind in the Gutter: Illiterature

On alternating Fridays, Leah Schnelbach waxes rhapsodic about comics, education, religion, and postmodernity. David Foster Wallace would be proud.

“Graphica in Education: Bringing Graphic Novels Out from Under the Desk,” a conference on the use of comics in education, was hosted by Fordham University on January 31st. It was a mixed bag, in a good way. It looks like the organizers were happy to let many different topics come to light, and didn’t worry too much about promoting any agenda other than the idea that comics work well with education. So, we got panels about the body in comics, the semiotics of gender, using comics as texts for varying grade levels (including a side note on their effectiveness in the education of autistic children) and a great presentation on the definition of graphic novel for a college-age audience.

The day was kicked off by the always-high-energy John Shableski, followed by morning keynoter James Bucky Carter, who told a very heartfelt account of the impact of comics on his poor childhood at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains. Not only did he literally learn to read from the X-Men and Spider-Man comics his mother bought for him, he also learned of a larger world beyond his town. The discrimination faced by the X-Men helped him see racism in his own community, and Nightcrawler’s spiritual struggles helped him work through his own discomfort with the Southern Baptist church he was raised in. He used these personal anecdotes as a platform to talk about his own work as a teacher, when he was assigned a class who had all failed an 8th grade-level reading comprehension test. His kids were all high-school-aged, but no one in the school really expected them to pass the test at the end of the year. So, drawing on his own past, Dr. Carter used comics to explore topics of diversity and cultural awareness, all while strengthening his students’ literacy and vocabulary. He used one particular issue of X-Men to guide the audience through the richness and depth that comics are capable of as a sort of teaching demo. Now, I’ve never been one to tear up at academic conferences (except perhaps out of despair), but, when he ended his speech by telling us that his kids scored nine points higher than the next-best class on that end-of-year literacy test… well, some like inspirational sports stories, some inspirational math stories, and some people like Michelle Pfeiffer, but anytime you show me Wolverine helping some poor kid dream of a better future, well, you’ve got me, bubbe.
Read more

 
Better Tag Cloud