Looks Like This Is The End
Hello, Blogfans. Or maybe, more appropriately, goodbye. This post is to let you know I, Nick Vogt, am discountinuing my posting here on World Heroes. But, I’m not stopping blogging all together! No, sirree. You can read more rambling by me at my new blog Awesome Town over at Blogspot.
Why the move?
A) World Heroes is a very themed blog, and it was an assignment for a class. Not that I don’t think I wrote some kind of sort of interesting stuff here, but I’d rather have a blog that’s more just general stuff.
B) While WordPress is very nice and aesthetically pleasing, it doesn’t have all the features I want in a blog. Blogspot is clunkier and less sexy, but it can do a couple o’ things I really enjoy. Things WordPress cannot.
So, goodbye, WordPress. If anyone read this blog ever, thank you. And maybe check out Awesome Town? It could be fun.
One For No Face
I’ll be honest: I was introduced to Junot Diaz because I was assigned to read his short story collection Drown for a class. I had heard of Diaz before that a bit, but not much. Mostly, I had heard about what he’s most famous for: his Pulitzer Prize winning book: The Brief And Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao.
I think like everyone who reads Junot Diaz, I liked his stuff basically right away. Which is great because as I’m sure yo you know, the stereotype with assigned readings is that they usually suck.
There’s a charisma and a sense of “realness” to Diaz’s writing that makes it acsessable and also profound. But, this post’s purpose isn’t just to talk up Junot Diaz. This is World Heroes, damn it! We talk about…well heroes. And in Drown, there is a real hero I want to talk about. And I mean he’s a real superhero type hero: No Face.
Probably Causes Paranoia
Last week I blogged about my fears of germs and sickness killing me. And, as if the gods of sick heard me, a few days ago, we’ve Pig Flu reared its ugly head. Of course, it had probably had its head out for some time before that. It’s just that just recently the news decided to let us know about its ugly head.
The Swine Flu has really devastated Mexico, killing almost 100 people now. It’s kind of interesting because the virus is half human virus and half pig virus. So, it’s some kind of weird hybrid. Hopefully the good people at the CDC can take care of it in this country. I think they’re doing a good job since no one’s died here. Oh well, we’ll see what will happen I guess.
It would be pretty awful if we got a big bad pandemic on our hands.
Anywho, here are some songs to listen to in the face of such a butt-nasty disease:
The Die
I got to sort of meet Amiri Baraka a little over a month ago, which was neat since he’s a pretty cool guy. Although, most of the people who will read this blog were there as well, so they probably know what I’m talking about.
I don’t Amiri Baraka was as “angry” or even as “radical” as he’s talked up to be. Of course, that’s fine. He just didn’t live up to the hype. The only real reason I think I was looking forward to the real angry and radical Amriri Baraka is because he’d have a lot of political things to say. I really expected that from of the intensity of the politics in his poetry. Maybe he was off his game that day. More likely, it was probably too presumptuous of me to expect to hear something earth-shattering from Amiri Baraka about society (what a loaded word that: “society”) or something enlightening. Maybe there’s nothing earth-shattering to hear anymore?
Of course, Amiri Baraka is a very wise man. He’s certainly been around for a long time, and like the people this blog is kind of about, he’s fought the good fight for his whole life. He’s been speaking out against all manner of oppressive problems: racism, imperialism, exploitation, greed…that list goes on and on. Amiri Baraka did have a lot of interesting things to say during our talk with him. But, I think one of the most interesting things he mentioned was who his heroes have been, and what it was like when a lot of them died.
Sick Sick Sick
I am surrounded by sickness. The guy who lives next to me keeps on coughing these wet, gargly coughs. The guy who lives below me goes into fits of howl-coughs. Respiratory illnesses seem to be out to get us all here at the College of Santa Fe. My friend Rex had Bronchitis a few weeks ago. And this week, my friend Andrew just got over it his battle with it. He’s still on anitbiotics. Everyone here seems to be “going bronchial”. I really feel like sickness is a predator. The germs are out there in the darkness and I’m just like the helpless deer, really hoping they don’t pounce on me.
Not Bliss
Like a lot of people, I’ve always been interested in mythology. Probably because of the monsters and the gods, and cool magic weapons and the sex (there’s a lot of that in most mythologies). What’s not to like, right? I also really like huge storylines, that exist in complicated, almost living universes. I mean, that’s a major reason I’m into comics, and why I like to follow TV shows, too. I mean, from Saturday morning cartoons to Buffy The Vampire Slayer to 24. The mythologies of just about every oldschool culture I’m aware of (or more importantly care about) certainly exist in those kind of universes. I mean, maybe we wouldn’t have TV shows without the world’s of mythology as a precedent. And, a lot of people say comics are a sort of “modern mythology”.
You Can Watch It All On TV
Michael Silverblatt, host of the NPR radio show Bookworm, was once so moved by Walt Whitman’s poetry, he read it out loud for 5 hours. That’s both amazing and very strange. I myself have never been affected like that by anything I’ve read. Granted, Michael Silverblatt is sort of a drama king, and he also loves reading probably more than anyone else. But still, looking back on everything I’ve read in my life, I can’t say anything has me moved to action. But, watching Saturday morning cartoons definitely did.
Villains
We used to play Explorers.
I remember walking along the rock wall in my friend Luke’s backyard. In Cummington Massachusetts, everybody’s yard has these walls behind them. The walls are very old. I think they’re from early colonial times. In New England we have a lot of ancient stuff like that. Especially in the “Hilltowns” like Cummington. The Hilltowns are what people in Western Massachusetts call the country. We also call it “The Woods”. Well, those of us who don’t live in The Woods call it that. I grew up there, but I live in the more urban parts of Western Mass now. I’m starting to call The Hilltowns “The Woods” more and more. It’s not all that developed up in the Hilltowns. Old colonial stuff is pretty conspicuous. Especially the weird rock walls.
They’re only 3 feet high, so I’m not sure what good they would do to keep anything out. Maybe they’re symbolic. Here’s my oldschool colonial impression: “Neighbor, this is my property. Stay you out. And God Bless”. That’s what the walls were supposed to mean. They would have to say “God Bless” at the end because they were all puritans back then. Some people in the Hilltowns still are. A whole lot of them are and don’t say they are.
Luke’s wall was an especially big one. You could walk on top of it all the way up it into the woods behind his house. It was like walking on a really mini Great Wall of China. I think it was late afternoon, and we were going into the woods like we did a lot when we hung out. I’ve known Luke since Kindergarten and we were in 3rd grade then. He was one of the few friends I had in Elementary school. We both lived on the same street and would hang out most days. We’d usually go to the woods and run around, pretending to be different things. Today, we would pretend to be explorers.
“So, I’ll be Magellan. Who will you be?” Luke asked me.
Joss Whedon On NPR
Joss Whedon, alright! Everyone knows him (Maybe? Probably everyone?). Alright!
He made Buffy. He made Firefly. He Made other other cool stuff including my favorite by him, the comic series Astonishing X-Men. He’s created in a bunch of stories in different genres, whether they be movies or comics or TV shows or even a web show: Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog. And, I think all his work deals with heroes and villains.I think everything he’s worked on is about that. I mean, especially Buffy or Astonishing X-Men or Dr. Horrible or his work on Runaways. Those are straight-up superhero stories. But, I think Whedon’s work on Firefly and Dollhouse also explores heroes and villains, too. I’ll probably post more about Whedon stuff especially Buffy The Vampire Slayer later. He’s always been a major inspiration to me for my own writing.
NPR, yeah! They…have cool news which isn’t all that corporate! Nice! And Fresh Air is a really good show for interviews. I grew up with my parents listening to NPR all the time, and so Fresh Air has a special place in my heart because of that. One of the best shows they have. What I like most is when he addresses how sketchy and controversial the premise for his new show Dollhouse is, and how he works with that. There’s also a lot of singing in this interview. It’s fun kind of.
The interview’s ‘s a bit old, it aired February 12th, 2009. It’s about his new show, Dollhouse. But, about other stuff, too. If you don’t know about Joss Whedon at all, he’s cool. But, you know, don’t take my word for it. Have yourself a listen.
World Heroes 