This weekend marks the return of a cultural touchstone of our generation.
What? Yes, I know there’s a lot of vague, loaded terms in that grand declaration. “Generation” itself could spawn an entire graduate curriculum based around its vaguaries, as could trying to figure out what the hell a “cultural touchstone” is, anyway.
But you know what? We stand by our opening line. Because this weekend is when the new season of The Venture Bros. starts on Adult Swim.
At last!
If you haven’t had the illuminating pleasure of watching The Venture Bros…. We are deeply sorry for that hole in your life. On its surface, it’s a cartoon, a comedic re-imagining of Hardy Boys or Johnny Quest for the modern day. But the reason the Ventures have such a dedicated fanbase is that the series is so much beyond the surface: it’s an emotionally-gripping look at flawed and yet hopeful characters. It turns an electron microscope onto failure, expectations, disappointment, American exceptionalism, absurdity, and what superheroes & super science looks like when faced with accountants and bureacracy.
Oh, and it’s riotously funny in unexpected and creative ways.
In anticipation of the new season, Addisonians Alex Bean and J. Michael Bestul have decided to put the reasons why they love this series into terms gushing and supposedly erudite. There may be minor spoilers ahead.
Then again, if you haven’t watched Venture Bros. yet, you still have 48 hours (give or take) to rectify that. GO. DO IT. Or continue reading. Your call. [Read more…]
The Recorder’s Guide to the 2013 Stanley Cup, Round 1
I must say, I was having a smashing time in Portland, OR, last week. It was a lovely bit of relaxation after the awesome madness of C2E2 the week before. In a surpisingly beautiful weekend in the Pacific Northwest, I was catching sun and swimming in whiskey while I was guided around the Rose City.
Who needs to watch this so-called Gatsby film? Not I, for one.
Why, I even had the opportunity to catch some junior hockey – game 1 of the WHL championship series between the Edmonton Oil Kings and the Portland Winterhawks. I walked away from the game disappointed but enlightened by the following lessons:
The Winterhawks’ jersey & logo look damn near indistinguishable from the NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks. This made it rather easy in choosing for whom we would cheer.
There were a lot of scouts erm, former players in the crowd. It’s almost as though the NHL just held a lottery for its draft, and the two teams were chock-full of draft-eligible players.
Making all those centering passes won’t do shit if you don’t have someone in front of the goal to put said pass into the bloody net! Looking at you, Portland. That’s a damn good way to lose by a few goals, in fact.
Thankfully, the Winterhawks also seemed to learn this last lesson, as they’re now one game away from winning the WHL championship.
It was upon my return from this West Coast foray that my fellow Addisonian broke some troubling news to me: it was his distinct opinion that the Stanley Cup playoffs were getting lost amongst all the flim-flammery of other sports – even the off-season ones!
A quick perusal of the Worldwide ‘Leader’ in Sports lent credence to my associate’s troubling observation. Item after item flashed on the TV without the barest indication of the Stanley Cup excitement! We at the Addison Recorderwish to rectify this situation, which is why I shall be providing you with our pop-culture-infused look into the NHL playoffs, one round at a time. Grab some whiskey (or whisky, for our Canadian audience), and let’s get on the ice. [Read more…]
I think I’ve got everything re-arranged for those of you out East. Now to get back into character–
What? No, I didn’t see the Madness today. That’s kind of the point of this, isn’t it? My news feed told me that there were almost a couple of Cinderella stories, but I was distracted by the Women’s World Curling Championships. No, seriously. The U.S. team defeated Russia Thursday to force tie-breaker games Friday, and U.S. skip Erika Brown had a sick shot to seal the game in extra ends.
But we’re getting off-topic. This is about evangelizing for hockey, spreading the Good Word from the puck. We’re over in the East tonight, testifying about Crosby and the Pens, bringing light to the darkness in New York and Philly, illuminating the success up in Canada. The East is in an exciting race, with teams like the banged-up Ottawa Senators fighting mightily for points in the standings with every game. [Read more…]
It’s a liminal time of year. A young man wakes up on March 18th, bleary-eyed and barely remembering his last two days. He fumbles for his phone, checking texts and e-mail and—
Wow, that’s a lot of messages. Each one seems to implore him to complete something known as the Almighty Bracket. The only messages that don’t require his thoughts on the Bracket are messages telling him what to think about the Bracket. BRACKET. This rite of passage has signaled that spring is merely days away. It’s time for Bracketology. It’s time for the Final Four.
It’s time for March Madness.
Or not.
Watch out, corporate sponsors! March Madness is destroying the floor, with gravity and lens flare! RUN! SAVE YOURSELVES, CORPORATE SPONSORS!
Thankfully, the message I bring you today has nothing to do with the hype machine that is the NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Championship. I’ve never been keen on following college athletics – and don’t get me started on the bullshittery of NCAA’s “amateurism” – so I’ve got nothing to offer on the Madness.
Maybe you’re of a similar mindset. Or maybe you’re really tired of seeing FINAL FOUR plastered over the same bar banners that, only days ago, excoriated us to make other poor life choices – choices that somehow celebrated an Irish saint. Or maybe you’re a sports fan, but aren’t buying the Madness (or that other basketball thing… y’know, that NBA thing). Meanwhile, Major League Baseball is still a few weeks away, and America forgot about the World Baseball Classic (SPOILER ALERT: Dominican Republic won), so… what can one do other than succumb to the Madness?
Well, I’m here to tell you what – you don’t mind if I grab a seat, do you? I’m here to introduce you to a world of ice and vulcanized rubber. If you have not been baptized in the church of the NHL, I would like to offer you a glimpse into what you’ve missed. There’s been sport a-plenty happening on the ice since October erm, since the start of this year. Why succumb to Madness, when you can follow the wisdom of our Lourd and saviour, the Almighty Hockey Puck? [Read more…]
Welcome to “Recorded Conversations,” an occasional feature where all the Addison Recorder editors contribute their thoughts about a question, idea, or prompt. Everyone will chime in, and then we see where the conversation wanders.
Question: To ring in the New Year on the Recorder, we look to our recent past and ask “What new thing (or things) that you discovered in 2012 has become one of your favorites?”
Wait, seriously? It’s 2013?
Well… crap. Last I recall, it was September, and suddenly I look and I’ve been on a hiatus nearly as long as Homestar Runner (.com). But I shall clear the cobwebs and my fuzzy memory of the past twelve months to talk about discoveries and my new favorite thing(s). Before we get to the Favorites, let’s look at those that came oh-so-close:
THE WARM-UP
Once upon a time, I kept up with the cutting edge of music. Oh, sure, I continue to discover more quirky Scandinavian groups each year (Of Monsters & Men this year, Katzenjammer this year or last) to add to my tally, and put them in heavy rotation in my playlists. And I haven’t been totally absent in discovering new bands. I’m enjoying the debut album of critical darlings alt-J, but nothing this year has dethroned TV On The Radio’s Nine Types of Light, the 2011 album that is still my favorite. (If you have a spare hour, check out the album’s music video anthology:)
Other realms of popular culture fared similarly. I was poised to count the Minnesota Wild and the NHL as rediscovered new favorites… until the lockout killed half the season. [Read more…]
Welcome to “Recorded Conversations,” an occasional feature where all the Addison Recorder editors contribute their thoughts about a question, idea, or prompt. Everyone will chime in, and then we see where the conversation wanders. For today’s conversation, J. Michael Bestul looks forward to a few drinks over the Labor Day weekend, and wonders aloud what might be drinking.
Prompt: You’re at a bar, restaurant, or pub that you’ve never been to before. The place has a pretty good drinks list, and on it, you notice ____________. And because this is one thing you always have to try when you’re at a new place, you order it.
Question: What is ____________, and why is it the libation you order?
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This question sprang up last month, when I went to a relatively new bar with a good whisky list. On this list was a particular single malt, Caol Ila 18-year. And I ordered it, as I always do, with the full expectation that I would not get it. Someone would (and did) come along to tell me that, sorry, but they were planning to get the 18-year, but were unable to do so.
I expect this answer because you can’t find a bottle of the 18-year for sale in the U.S., but its distributor seems to give the impression to restaurants that they can. I’ve yet to order a Caol Ila 18-year and actually receive it. But I keep asking for it, since it was the first single malt I’d ever tasted.
If only…
I thought it would be fun to put the question to my fellow Addison Recordercolleagues, as it is broad enough to include responses ranging from “anything with grapefruit” to “locally-brewed porter” to a specific single malt Scotch.
Forgetting the Caol Ila, there is one drink I will always try if it’s on a bar’s menu: the Blood & Sand cocktail, or any variation on it.
Ten days in, one week to go, and the Summer Olympics in London have been… Well, they’ve been the Olympics.
Depending who you are, that statement will mean different things:
The Olympics have provided compelling, once-in-a-lifetime narratives that we will never forget; the Olympics is the one time every four years where we buy into teary storylines and spend a few weeks deeply caring about sports cut from university budgets.
The Olympics are a shining example of the ideals of athleticism, amateurism, and community; the Olympics are cash cow controlled by a corrupt governing body and served up by exploitative corporations.
The Olympics are a beautiful display of the world’s finest athletes; the Olympics are fifteen minutes of fame for folks who’ll be back to the ‘real world’ when the global audience gets bored and goes back to watching the major sports.
So far, the Olympics have done everything possible to fulfill those pre-conceived notions, and many others. Personally, I fall on the positive side of those notions. I mean, you could weigh very similar platitudes and criticisms against NCAA football – the only difference being that I don’t really care about NCAA football.
Which is why I am about to attempt an entry in the Addison Recorder’s diary of the Olympics. I will try to cover angles that haven’t been plastered across magazines, blogs, and websites by hundreds of others. Some people might call it a Quixotic attempt, and those are the people who probably own the same thesaurus that I do. [Read more…]
Welcome to “Recorded Conversations,” an occasional feature where all the Addison Recorder editors contribute their thoughts about a question, idea, or prompt. Everyone will chime in, and then we see where the conversation wanders. After the annual pop culture festival that is San Diego Comic Con, and shortly before fall semester starts at universities, J. Michael Bestul has posed this quandary:
Question: You’re teaching a class in popular culture, literature, or the like. As part of your curriculum, you need to incorporate one graphic novel or comic book series, and only one. Which one do you use, and why?
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I came up with the “one and only one” limit to make this challenging for myself, and to the other sequential art geeks that may inhabit the Recorder’seditorial board. As someone who’s taken a university course that focused on nothing but comic books in culture, and presented a conference paper on them – and whose wife works at a comic book shop – the challenge is in the limitation.
So let’s start with what kind of hypothetical class I’d be teaching. Since I get the unrealistic ability to choose my class in this scenario, it would likely involve American fiction, speculative or supernatural fiction, or mythology in modern — and Modern (and Postmodern) — storytelling. The comic book in question would need to:
tie back to other class readings, and
illuminate other facets of popular culture in its own unique manner.
With that in mind, my series of choice would be Mike Mignola’s Hellboy. I’d prefer to utilize the entire Mignola-verse (Hellboy, BPRD, etc.), but if I could only use one book, it would likely be Hellboy: the Conqueror Worm.
Since there would be a heavy focus (in this hypothetical class I’m teaching) on genre fiction (Bierce, Lovecraft, Howard, Borges, García Márquez, Asimov, Pratchett, Gaiman, Hill), and the theoretical underpinnings of mythmaking & intertextuality (Campbell, Jung, Eco), I would want a superhero comic book that could easily connect with these foci.
Tying the Mignola-verse together with these other readings is the easy part. Hellboy is a variation on our old friend, the heroic monomyth, but it also is a study in intertextuality. Mignola is very open about where he derives his stories from – whether he is retelling a piece of Asian or Celtic folklore, or utilizing the cosmic monsters (and their amphibian/human hybrid minions) that are a direct reference to Lovecraft’s Mythos.
But more than intertextuality, there are other pop culture connections that can be taught via Hellboy. One is the difference in storytelling between media (say, the Hellboy / BPRD books, graphic novels, and films – as well as Geek & Sundry’s “Motion Comics”), and another is the conventions of the comic book medium itself. As fellow Addisonian Alex pointed out in our last Conversation, sitcoms always tend to wrap up by the end of the episode. That is, they are episodic – after the conflict is resolved (or pushed back), the fictional world returns to its neutral state in time for the next episode.
Superhero comics are very, very similar. Even if a series-changing event occurs (e.g., death of a main character), at some point the series will only bend so far before that event must be undone or unwound (e.g., character comes back to life, or was not dead) — thus snapping the series back to its neutral state.
The Mignola-verse series defy that convention. The author has acknowledged this defiance in a recent story arc, indicating that in these series, when something is broken, it stays broken. The first dramatic example of this was with Hellboy: the Conqueror Worm, wherein Hellboy is pushed into a situation that goes against his character. When the tale ends, this causes him to reject the neutral state, thereby moving the narrative beyond episodic conventions.
And in the years since, Hellboy has only further broken from the episodic “return to neutral.” In the latest tales, for example, Ragnarok actually happens. Populations are wiped out. The world doesn’t go back to the old normal:
That’s what Professor Bestul is offering up this semester. How about the rest of you gents?
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Read the responses from the other editors,Andrew, Bean, and Travis, as they are published throughout today.
I’ve been wracking my brains for a few weeks on how to present this.
‘This’ being a discussion or analysis of tabletop games, a topic that, once upon a time, didn’t require the adjective in front of ‘games.’ But with the advent of video games, and the blurring of lines between sports and gaming (whether referring to betting, fantasy sports, or poker & darts on ESPN), I’ve felt that the grand tradition of tabletop games has become the long-lost brother of Western pop culture and entertainment.
And this led me to an idea: if we can break down & analyze movies, books, and music, why not do the same with games? Sure, I can go to Boardgamegeek.com and find such writing, but why can’t we also bring it to a more general audience? Hence the experiment that is my new series for the Recorder, “Games on Addison.”
The goal of this series is to explore and analyze tabletop games in the same manner as other forms of popular entertainment — film, music, video games, books, and the like. It is not meant to be a ‘review’ of these games, but a means of bringing attention to and discussion of games in a popular culture forum (that is, the Recorder).
This idea has been percolating in my brain for years, though the advent of the Geek & Sundry web channel (and its gaming series, Tabletop) brought it back to the forefront. Thus, for the first entry in this series, I’ll hearken back to a game I briefly mentioned when I wrote about Tabletop and digital media: 7 Wonders.
Check out all that Wonder.
7 Wonders is a recent and award-winning game from Repos Productions, wherein each player is takes the role of one the civilizations that built the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (hence the name). It’s a game that rewards resource management and adaptability, and once the players get the hang of the mechanics, it plays exceedingly quick.
or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Puck
According to my esteemed Recorder colleague, there was an insanely-important, mega-massive sporting narrative that occurred around the same time the northern hemisphere officially welcomed summer’s arrival.
It was about a ‘King’ finally winning a trophy, or some other such story.
Really, it confused me. Who cares about a King winning a trophy, when the L.A. Kings won Lord Stanley’s Cup for the first time in franchise history?
But this was the only signal of summer’s advent: besides the Cup finding a brand new home, I won my NHL Playoff fantasy league, Adam Henrique didn’t win the Calder Trophy, Pavel Bure did get elected to the Hall of Fame, the Draft came and went, and the NHL free agency season came to life.
Despite my excitement, I can’t say my priorities were always aligned this way. Once upon a time, the bleak months after the Super Bowl were a dead time before the catchers & pitchers reported to Spring Training. This is because, for much of my life, I had turned my back on the NHL. But I was saved from this ignorant hockey darkness by the trinity of friends, family, and fantasy sports.
Meanwhile, the other theme here is that I care not one jot for David Stern’s NBA.
My up-and-down relationship with the NHL began back in my childhood. I had attended a couple Milwaukee Admiral games (who were, at the time, part of the IHL). When I started to watch hockey on TV, which wasn’t too often, I found myself rooting for the Minnesota North Stars.
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