Issue 43: Don't Bother Me, I'm Thinking
By Medulla Vesuvius

“I’m a dinosaur. Somebody is digging my bones.”

Just last week the National Geographic Society unveiled the discovery of a new dinosaur. (Well, it’s new in that it’s the fossilized skeleton of a dinosaur 110 million years old.) Discovered by Paul Sereno, it’s called Nigersaurus taqueti, after the country of Nigeria, where it was hiding out and paleontologist Phillippe Taquet. The thirty foot long skeleton is interesting in that it suggests the herbivorous animal sucked up its food like a vacuum cleaner, kind of like a cross between a large-mouth bass and an anteater, (the latter being my personal favorite of the animals at the zoo, by the way.) What fabulously efficient construction! I wonder why every dinosaur didn’t work this way!

Two things struck me about this story. One- sometimes we forget that we live in an age of scientific discovery. The domesticated nature of research- controlled, orderly laboratory conditions, the implementation and manipulation of all kinds of super-specialized “knowns” like the tiniest amounts of hormones that trigger certain small behaviors in mice, that only highly-skilled and trained scientists can even discuss- can lead us into a false sense that we already know pretty much all that’s knowable. The rest is just nitpicky details.

But then this oafish beast Nigersaurus enters our scientific house like a plodding, clumsy uninvited dinner guest, unintentionally smashing all of our good crystal and china. The nigersaurus didn’t require an electron microscope to be found. Some adventurous African kid could have tripped over his bones at some point.

And that kind of serendipity and “good fortune” make life much more interesting, reminding us of potential wonders all around us, and not just those at the microscopic level for guys in lab coats. But this is not to say that there was no science behind this discovery. I’m sure that lots of highly-skilled intelligent people pieced together this skeleton and its former way of life. But what a discovery on a “macro” scale!

Two- what exactly is it about dinosaurs that is so intriguing to youngsters? Doesn’t every kid go through a dinosaur phase? I know I did. (If you want to know just how deeply entrenched the nerdiness is in my life: when I was about ten years old I took a week-long summer class about dinosaurs as well as a class about space, the highlight of which was watching the movie Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend.) Does it have to do with the mythos surrounding them? Are dinosaurs as real to us as fantasy? You kind of have to use your imagination to complete the story and reality of dinosaurs. Maybe kids like using their imagination. Whatever the reason, kids just have a dinosaur-shaped hole in their hearts. Why else would a goofy purple tyrannosaurus rex serve as babysitter and pacifier?

Issue 43: Superhero Information Initiative
By Amdnarg Toh

Comics in the Digital World

Marvel is doing a – pardon the pun – marvelous thing… They are going to start publishing their older comics online. See the CNN article.

This can’t be anything but good for everyone-the proverbial win-win. But really – it’s about time. The world wide intra webs have been around now for at least forty years or so since Big Al invented them in college. And a lot of folks had access to their favorite comics online anyway, just not in the most “legal” way, if you know what I mean.

It’s the age old problem – how to get readers to buy new stuff so the companies can pay the writers and artists to produce quality stories and product. If you don’t have readers to pay for product, your quality suffers, and then you lose readers, which causes quality to suffer even more as the dollars dwindle furiously.

Part of the problem with getting new kiddos (and I mean kiddos in the most liberal way) interested in comics is that most, if not all, of the more mainline comic book heroes have SIGNIFICANT back stories, many of which reach back to issues decades old. How accessible are twenty, thirty, or forty-year old comics to the newbie who simply wants to read such stories? Impossibly inaccessible I tell you. Even if you could find the one person who has all of the issues you want to read, it’s likely that they are one of those picky types who don’t really read their comics, but place them in hermetically-sealed containers for safekeeping. Perhaps that jazzes some folks, but it’s only depressing for the kid who can’t afford the $50-$100 eBay price for that back issue. Nevermind that the multi-dollar price for single NEW issues is probably out of the range of a lot of youngsters.

So… Now we have Marvel and DC finally coming around to the digital age. With their archives available digitally on the internet, my prediction is that they’ll see a huge influx of new readers. Not only those who are interested in the back stories of more popular characters/groups, but they will find interest in the less mainline groups and characters. One of the effects of the decline in comic book readership in the late 80’s and 90’s was that many of the less popular titles were dropped entirely because it was too costly to produce titles that didn’t sell in volume. Remember PowerMan and Iron Fist? Captain Carrot? If DC and Marvel follow the best of what the music industry has done, they will make considerably more titles available at a much reduced cost. Eventually, I can envision that paper copies will be only for dyed-in-the-wool collectors, and that all new publishing will be done digitally over the internet. Cheap comics for the masses = more sales = more money to introduce new titles and pay artists and writers better for their product.

Hopefully they won’t go the way of the music industry and try to hold onto a profit model that is based on control of the distribution medium. Once you go digital baby, you have to embrace all if stands for - liberation from tightly controlled distribution channels, more power given to the artists, etc…truth, justice, and the American way…

Issue 43: Escaping Life
By Rascal Stallion

36 hours in Vegas

Through my friend’s misfortune I was the lucky recipient of a free trip to Fabulous Las Vegas. Here’s a recap of my time in the greatest city Nevada has to offer:

Our flight arrived a little after Midnight on Thursday. After a taxi ride to our hotel and a quick change of clothes we were off to see what the strip had to offer. Famished, our first stop was Fatburger where by 1:30 I wolfed down a big ass burger with egg, cheese and bacon on it. It was so good I didn’t mind the month or so it shaved off my life expectancy.

We saw a guy in Fat Burger who looked just like former Buffalo Bill Thurman Thomas. He had the right build and his face was a perfect match. I don’t think it was him, though, since he wore no jewelry and the lady he was with was about 20% as pretty as his wife.

With full bellies we started off down the Strip making stops in each of the casinos along the way. We’d gamble a little bit here and a little bit there and were sure to make sure we drank a lot. When walking like that you must be very careful not to get dehydrated. I don’t know if I just never noticed before or if there really were more hookers out but we saw whores everywhere.

As someone who used to enjoy the Aladdin I was more than a little apprehensive about its transition into Planet Hollywood. I may not like the changes they made to the Desert Passage shopping area but there are some very nice differences to the casino. A new gambling area called the Pleasure Pit is about as perfect a gaming environment as I could imagine. There are eight tables grouped together with smoking hot dealers in their underwear and at either end of the table is a pedestal with another girl in her undies wriggling to the music. The bet limits on the tables were too rich for my blood but if I was more of a high roller you can bet where I’d be. Adjacent to the Pleasure Pit is a new bar called The Love Bar that has several of those same dancing girl pedestals throughout.

We spent the next few hours gambling up and down the strip. I had a particularly nice streak of luck at the Venetian but neither my buddy nor I managed to win a car at a slot machine no matter how hard we tried. After traveling up and down the strip we finally ended up back in the room a little after 5. I soaked my aching feet in the bathtub and then made some phone calls to friends who I knew would be just heading to work back home.

We got up about 11 the next morning and took the monorail down to the Hilton. On the monorail I watched a group of old people eating Worther’s Originals and going on and on about how good they were. I couldn’t believe my luck. I love it when I get to see stereotypes play out in real life.

After messing around at the Hilton we walked up to the Riveria. After fiddling about there for a while we were drawn across the street to Slots O’ Fun by their gigantic 99-cent hot dogs. One sign claimed the dogs were 1/2 lb and another that they were 12oz. I don’t know, but either way it was a gigantic wiener. I managed about three bites and couldn’t do anymore. My buddy managed to eat the whole thing but everyone knows he likes wieners a lot more than me.

After lunch we went next door to Circus Circus. We didn’t do any gambling there but rather headed upstairs to the carnival games. I dominated the game where you slam the frog with a hammer and send it flying into a pot. We didn’t want to carry the prizes around though, so we gave them to some loser kids who were watching us and couldn’t win their own.

After some more gambling and drinking and some time at the car museum in the Imperial Palace we went back to the room to get changed into some nicer clothes. We had a big night ahead of us what with the Little Legends show we had tickets to.

Little Legends sounded like fun but in reality was far and away the worst show I’ve ever seen in Vegas. It was advertised as a midget celebrity impersonator show but that is a generous description. They had one girl midget who just continually changed costumes. She played Alanis Morrissette, Cher, Britney Spears and maybe a few others. She sang along to an accompaniment track. Her routine would commonly be called karaoke. She was a little bit sexy though, and was the highlight of the show. Another performer was a white male midget who played drums along with a Motley Crue song. They said he was Tommy Lee. Later in the show he would reappear as Sonny Bono. The final two midgets were black males who danced as Michael Jackson and Milli Vanilli. That was fitting since the most appropriate description of the male performers would be lip-synching. Round out the cast was a full-sized terrible hack of a magician who mc’d the show. The final act featured all the midgets dressed as the Village People only there were just four of them. We got the tickets for half price and I felt ripped off.

After the show we hit the buffet at Paris where I ate about $100 worth of crab before tackling the prime rib and dessert table. Holy cow that was a great meal.

After dinner we wandered the strip for another 6 or 7 hours making sure to make plenty of stops for gambling and booze. We made sure to spend another hour or so back in the Love Bar at Planet Hollywood. It really was about as good as it gets. I was sitting in a nice comfy chair throwing down White Russians and Witty Chucks. I was surrounded by lovely ladies wriggling in their underwear and when I got tired of watching that, I could look up at a giant screen replaying an NBA game from earlier that evening.

Thirty seven hours after landing we were taking off to go back home and I was glad I had a day to recover before going back to work. I’d like to especially thank the Venetian, the Sahara and New York, New York for helping me to come home with a bit more money than I came with.

Issue 43: Sydney Brown's Sixty Seconds
By Sydney Brown

Movie Review: The Taking of Pelham One Two Three

A few months ago I was blown away by a movie, and not a recent one, although this year has produced some very entertaining films. And after seeing it again a few weeks ago, a mere sixty seconds just won’t do,

So this go around, an essay about The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.

Not a very catchy title, is it?

Pelham is a 1974 film based on the novel of the same name with an ingenious premise. Four criminals who seem to be strangers to each other and have colors as names, (gee, I wonder who ripped that idea off……), take a subway train and its passengers hostage. They demand $1 million in one hour. And they will kill a passenger for every minute they don’t get it. The film stars Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Martin Balsam, Hector Elizando, and Jerry Stiller.

There are four strokes of genius in this film:

1. The score. I can’t even describe it. Angry 70’s funk doesn’t do it justice. One of the best musical scores of any movie. Period.
2. The plot. Think about how ludicrous the plan seems to be. You’re underground. You can be identified. There are cops at every exit. How the hell are you supposed to escape?
3. The hero. When you think of action heroes, Walter Matthau doesn’t come to mind. But he delivers one of the most realistic everyman heroes you’ll see. No acrobatics, no death-defying stunts. Hell, he isn’t even terribly bright.
4. The villain. Most people know Robert Shaw as Quint from Jaws. Not after this. Shaw as Mr. Blue is one of the most awesome villains of the screen. Cold. Calculated. Polite. Brilliant. He does only what he has to do, yet does exactly what he says he is going to.

Is this the best movie ever made? No. Surrounding this is a rather silly subplot involving the mayor of New York, and there are some pretty cornball lines you’ll see coming miles away. But despite that, you’ll get a sharp thriller and one of the single best closing shots in any film.

A smart, sharp thriller with a brilliant payoff. What more do you people want?

Issue 43: Various and Sundry
By Medulla Vesuvius

Book Report: The Great Brain Series

Imagine a world…

Before there were Hogwart’s and Harry and a whole host of humorously literary hijinx…

It’s the late 1800s in rugged Utah. The small town is Adenville, populated by regular, pleasant people. Nary a one of them can perform mystical, Latin-sounding spells, but there are plenty of quaint little adventures and amusing events revolving around the life of one pre-teen kid, Thomas D Fitzgerald, aka “The Great Brain.”

John D. Fitzgerald wrote a series of seven books in the late sixties and early seventies that, philosophically, were a precursor to the Harry Potter books. With titles such as The Great Brain at the Academy and The Great Brain Does It Again, they were a rare achievement in that they were stories of childhood that kids could read and not be talked down to by the author.

I read The Great Brain at the Academy when I was in third or fourth grade, just discovering the wonderful world of books and bookstores, and decided to revisit the entire series just to appease the child inside and I can tell you from experience there is a little bit to think about in these books as an adult as well.

For one thing there is the issue of narration. The tales in these books are told from the perspective of JD, younger brother to “The Great Brain.” You see, the bulk of these stories are about Tom’s schemes to make money off of other kids in town. He pulls off all kinds of plans, usually involving betting or fixed games of chance, and JD is almost always one of those feeling swindled at the end. So what we have here is a wonderfully unreliable narrator and part of the fun for an adult is to try to separate the facts from the coloring of the facts.

Another interesting thing to look for in these books is-how are adults portrayed through the eyes of a child? In general, in JDs world, adults are capable of all manner of things: robbing trains, being outlaws, sheriffs, homemakers…Case in point-Papa. As the editor of the town newspaper he is pretty much assumed to be the smartest man in town. Yet, he also has a history and reputation of being a first-adopter of all kinds of wild-eyed inventions that don’t work. This is a typical youthful depiction of adults as being dullards. Yet he and Mama are capable of great compassion as they adopt a young boy whose parents died in a landslide.

There is a realistic roundness to the main adults that contrasts with the static-ness of the kids of the neighborhood, who mostly play to type: the swindler, the fat kid who speaks in rhymes, the bully, etc.

Another more humorous aspect to these books is the mind-body separation. Over and over, Tom refers to “my great brain” as a separate entity from himself. The idea of someone being able to openly appreciate his or her own intellect without egotism is funny enough, but the idea of separating it from who you are is even more amusing.

And finally, I come to the most intriguing element of these stories, JD’s very perceptive discussion of the motivation behind Tom and his cheating ways. Over and over, when discussing the possibility of Tom’s reforming from his swindling, JD makes the point that it’s not Tom’s great brain that causes him to cheat people, but rather it’s his “money-loving heart.” This is a very adult discussion to make and provides food for thought as you read about all of the trouble that Tom gets into, as well as the few times that he saves the day. (But you better believe he does it with the expectation of reward.)

Coming in at just about 120 pages per book, you can read the entire collection of Fitzgerald’s Great Brain books, including the posthumously published The Great Brain is Back, in about the time it takes to read a single volume of the Harry Potter series and, having recently fed the third grader living inside of me with these books I can confidently say that the humorously simple portrait it paints of the American family at the turn of the century provides for some enjoyably fun reading.