sufficit [translation]

Oh yeah, apparently I forgot to mention: I now work somewhere else. The commute was just too much; now I work about a mile from where I live, which is much nicer than the 90-minute, 35-mile commute I'd been stuck with for the past 2.5 years.

Talking with my new co-workers yesterday about their respective commutes and the horrors of gridlock freeway traffic, I was suddenly struck by the realization that I've never had a commute that could be described as "rush-hour." This intrigues me—though friends and co-workers think Sh and I are a little odd for living car-free (we're the only couple we know who do so, after all), I've recently thought it was more my following H's example in living without an automobile.

But I'd been moving away from the car for a long time. I got my first (and only) car in high school, and drove it around town to work and school, but once I went off to college, I usually would walk or bicycle to work and school. After college, even, my commute was less than a couple miles, then shrunk to a couple blocks. Even when the shop relocated, I usually rode my bike instead of driving, and never drove on freeways.

Once I relocated north and sold the car, there was no more freeway commuting for me. Though my commutes have generally been an hour or longer, it has always been a chance to sleep, read, or stare out the window and ruminate.

It's a pretty good way of doing things. I recommend it to everyone who can—sure, there are environmental benefits to an un-car commute, but I think the personal benefits are the bigger draw.

Shorter distances are nice, too, but then I kinda miss all the chances to read books.

Last updated by eric Sat Aug 11 14:21 2007 | omission | link

oleo tranquillior [translation]

This past week, Kim Stanley Robinson's new book Sixty Days and Counting came out, and I hadn't found a chance yet to visit the good folks at Borderlands Books here in San Francisco. Over the weekend I was at WonderCon, so I wouldn't be able to visit Borderlands yet again.

But they were at WonderCon! Hooray!

But they didn't have any copies yet. Much sadness.

I hope to pick up a copy from them this weekend, but by now I'm almost chewing pencils in my excitement. It doesn't help that Salon.com features a nice write-up on the book, with an amazing, incisive excerpt. The first part of the rant had me bouncing up and down with joy:

"Damage from carbon dioxide emission costs about $35 a ton, but in your model no one pays it. The carbon that British Petroleum burns per year, by sale and operation, runs up a damage bill of fifty billion dollars. BP reported a profit of twenty billion, so actually it's thirty billion in the red, every year. Shell reported a profit of twenty-three billion, but if you added the damage cost it would be eight billion in the red. These companies should be bankrupt. You support their exteriorizing of costs, so your accounting is bullshit. You're helping to bring on the biggest catastrophe in human history. If the oil companies burn the five hundred gigatons of carbon that you are describing as inevitable because of your financial shell games, then two-thirds of the species on the planet will be endangered including humans. But you keep talking about fiscal discipline and competitive edges in profit differentials. It's the stupidest head-in-the-sand response possible."

Last updated by eric Wed Mar 07 08:13 2007 | omission | link

dramatis personae [translation]

[Martin Sheen] came into the room and said, "The only thing that matters is: did you like the people you worked with? Did you like where you were?" And I thought, well, that's not quite right, is it? It's about work, it's about doing a great job, it's about amazing performances. But this is a man who had a heart attack on Apocalypse Now and had found a way to live his life where he's happier. And it occurred to me that he's right. In the big scheme of things that is all that matters.

— Nick Cage in The Guardian

Last updated by eric Tue Feb 20 19:42 2007 | omission | link

maior e longinquo reverentia [translation]

Mongo: San Francisco needs its own superhero.

Bernice: What, we're not enough?

Mongo: I do not dispute that we are mighty, but I'm thinking more in the fictional sense. Gotham has Batman, Metropolis has Superman, New York City has Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, and every other Marvel character who has nothing better to do than hang out on the East Coast, but San Francisco?

Bernice: The Teen Titans Tower sprouts from San Francisco Bay!

Mongo: — but when do their adventures ever actually take place in San Francisco?

Bernice: ...

Mongo: Exactly. I can't think of any occasion where they have, either. I also know of the protagonist in Less Than Hero, whose adventures definitely take place in San Francisco. The Punk fit the city fairly well, I thought.

Bernice: Ah, so it's not just about a hometown hero, there also has to be a "good fit"?

Mongo: If I'm casting for the role, yes.

Bernice: Well, let's see — what makes for a good San Francisco superhero? Our buildings are probably too short for a Batman or Spider-Man style of mobility, using the height of buildings as their urban Tarzan routines.

Mongo: True enough. And I don't think a flying hero would suit the nature of the city.

Bernice: A flashy automobile wouldn't really work, either. Perhaps a super-powered bike messenger?

Mongo: Ooh yeah, I like that! Does his power come from the bike, or from within?

Bernice: "His"??

Mongo: What? You didn't say "bike messenger...ess".

Bernice: ...

Mongo: What?

Bernice: But maybe this has been done already. Dark Angel was a bike messenger in post-apocalyptic Seattle. Her abilities were supplied by the current trends in venture capital, even.

Mongo: Damn you, James Cameron!!

Bernice: We don't want to just copy Seattle's established superheroine.

Mongo: Yeah. [pause] And I never said superheroine, so "he" was just fine! Ha! Ow!

Bernice: So: no cycling, swinging, or souped-up automobile. No flying, and no stealing from other localities.

Mongo: I feel like I should be writing all this down.

Bernice: — it seems we're just left with speedsters like Flash or Quicksilver.

Mongo: Superpowers that involve ready water transit would be valuable here as well. Maybe I shouldn't rule out the flying types — I could see Sub-Mariner doing pretty okay in San Francisco, especially with his occasional ecological bent.

Bernice: What about drawing on the sizeable gay population? Perhaps have a brick-style hero named "The Bear", kinda like Mastadon from D.P.7?

Mongo: Mastadon was gay??

Bernice: Well, no, but he definitely fit the big and hairy part well.

Mongo: True. I was thinking along similar lines, but I just envision the situation of: Crime in progress, and "The Bear" steps around the corner, points majestically and loudly proclaims, "Halt, miscreant!" The bad guy runs, and "The Bear" huffs and puffs trying to catch up, but eventually just lets the baddie get away.

Bernice: Just because that big guy tried picking up on you that one time is no reason to —

Mongo: Look, I've said this a million times, I'm NOT A HOMOPHOBE!

Bernice: — you should just take it as the compliment it was meant as and move on in life, Mongo.

Mongo: Plus, the gay population isn't the sum total of the city. I don't disagree that the rogue's gallery for our hero would need to be drawn from the diverse populace, it just seems like gay superheroes are getting a little cliché, is all.

Bernice: Uh-huh.

Mongo: Maybe the best superhero for San Francisco would be "The Obsessive Hipster", who attacks his foe The Unconsidered Life with great gusto and verve as he drives useless topics deep into the earth with his ceaseless barrage of barely-educated musings!

Bernice: Well, step on up to the counter and claim your title, then!

Last updated by eric Thu May 18 21:17 2006 | omission | link

audi alteram partem [translation]

Mongo: There are a lot of blind characters in comic books.

Bernice: Blind characters?

Mongo: Yeah. Daredevil, of course. And the guy in PvP.

Bernice: "The guy"?

Mongo: I'm not sure what the character's name is. Anyway, there are a lot of blind characters in comic books.

Bernice: By "a lot" you mean "two"?

Mongo: [glares]

Bernice: Do you have a point?

Mongo: My point is, where are all the deaf characters?

Bernice: You mean like Daredevil's girlfriend?

Mongo: Elektra?

Bernice: No, another one. I think they called her "Echo".

Mongo: "Echo"?

Bernice: Yeah, might as well call Daredevil "Mirage". But Echo's a deaf character.

Mongo: Huh. Didn't know that. [pause] And Splinter! Wasn't Splinter blinded at some point?

Bernice: You're probably thinking of Stick, the guy who trained Daredevil.

Mongo: Yeah, him! But, like I was saying, why the obsession with blindness? Why not deafness?

Bernice: Well, it's a visual art, after all.

Mongo: But that's my point! If it's possible that we read comics to live out our own fantasies, then I would think we'd want to have something in common with the characters. How are blind people going to appreciate a Daredevil run?

Bernice: We're only supposed to read stories about ourselves?

Mongo: Well, not exactly. You're kinda ruining my point.

Bernice: It's not much effort, really.

Mongo: It just seems to me that portraying deaf people in a comic book format has some interesting opportunities. How do you convey their signing? Do you show a highlight of the sign, with moovles suggesting the signing going on?

Bernice: Do speaking characters usually have their mouths frozen in mid-plosive, and wiggle marks drawn around their chin?

Mongo: Right, that's what I'm saying! There's a challenge there, and no one's taken it up. Why is that?

Bernice: For all of the emphasis on sequential art being a visual medium, the script weighs heavily for most mainstream comics. To have a deaf character, you have to have characters who can understand that deaf character, whereas blind characters can still interact vocally with the usual inhabitants of comic worlds.

Mongo: True. It'd probably end up with some strange arrangement of a sidekick providing vocal translations, which would completely undermine all the cool stuff bumping around in my head. Ah well.

Bernice: Does Awesome Andy count?

Mongo: Count...?

Bernice: In Dan Slott's recent She-Hulk comics, Awesome Andy is mute, but communicates with other characters via a chalkboard. We rarely see him writing on it, though.

Mongo: Yeah! Stuff like that. For a signing character, should standard word bubbles be used? Generally the "tag" on a word bubble will point to a character's head or mouth, indicating the words come from there. Should a deaf character have the word bubble pointing at their hands?

Bernice: Ugh.

Mongo: Or should it be something like how translated text is usually bracketed? I'm just saying, there's potential there, and a deaf audience would be able to appreciate such stories, I would think.

Bernice: Ah, because deaf people aren't able to properly appreciate a Daredevil story arc as it stands?

Mongo: You are no fun whatsoever.

Last updated by eric Sun May 14 14:32 2006 | omission | link

asinus asiunum fricat [translation]

Though I really appreciated Sedition's April Fool's gift for 2006, I think my favorite overall is The Cure for Information Overload.

Last updated by eric Fri Apr 07 09:37 2006 | omission | link