Issue 52: Don't Bother Me, I'm Thinking
By Amdnarg Toh

Flight of the Conchords

So what happens when you combine an “ogre who looks like a librarian” with a scruffy, skater wannabe and a clueless ginger haired part time pseudo manager? The fourth best folk pop duo in New Zealand of course silly! My introduction to Brett McKenzie and Jemaine Clement, also known as Flight of the Conchords, was through a guy at work, who insisted that it was probably the funniest show on TV, and that he had just bought the season one DVD compilation. But alas, since I didn’t have HBO, I wouldn’t to partake… So I filed it away as one of those shows to check out when I’m traveling….

A few weeks later, my PHD (Pretentious Hipster Douchebag) buddy at work had a clip of some song playing on his computer and was almost literally falling out of his chair, so of course I had to check it out. He was playing a clip from Business Time, which I must agree was totally hilarious. Fast forward a week and I’m at PHD guy’s house playing poker. He hands me the DVD and says “If you thought that clip was funny, you’ve got to watch this”. I took it home the next day, cracked it open to see what comedic nuggets it might hold, and found myself four hours later still entranced by the sheer genius of these guys… I actually watched the entire season in just two sittings - the spousal unit spending just enough time in the room to say “Are you STILL watching that stupid show???”. Needles to say, a couple of months later when I found out that the guys had released a CD of the songs from the show, I was determined to get it. And I’ve got three words to describe my response - LUH HUV IT!!!

The only problem is that the whole CD is very contextualized. If you haven’t seen the show, many of the songs don’t make much sense. You have to immerse yourself in the whole experience before the more subtle points of some of the lyrics come together, and often, the visual comedy in the TV episodes provides some necessary sensory input to the interpretive process for most of these tracks. (Isn’t that what videos are supposed to do anyway?) However - this CD isn’t just a soundtrack of some esoteric show with a huge cult following… Ok - maybe it is…

Of course, I’m a sucker for parody - a vice which started in junior high with me tuning my boom box to the faraway FM station on Saturday nights when the Dr. Demento show aired.

But these guys take the parody to a new level - by participating as the object of their own self-parody - the way these guys “deadpan” their whole performance, on screen, and off, leave you wondering whether or not they actually take themselves seriously.

My recommended favorite tracks -
Foux de Fafa
Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenocerous

And… Leggy Blonde brings a tear to my eye every time ;D

Not all of the songs in the series are on this CD, so if you’re a die hard fan, and your favorite isn’t included, you’ll have to stick with the grainy , low-fidelity tracks floating around out there on the internet, as extracted from the DVD… But for the songs that are included, we can enjoy FoC nirvana as we listen to The Most Beautiful Girl(In the Room) to escape the cubical world as we cruise down the two lane towards home - that is, if home is a sonic “Alice in Wonderland”…

Issue 51: Various and Sundry
By Amdnarg Toh

An Appreciation: Douglas Hofstadter’s Godel, Escher, Bach - An Eternal Golden Braid

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is William Thomas Fairport III, and I write this letter holding the utmost contempt for a recent review of Douglas Hofstadter’s Godel, Escher, and Bach published within the pages of your modern electro-zine. After the egregious review of this book by the most esteemed M. Vesuvuis, I found myself taking serious umbrage to the most villainous caricature of this classic work by Mr. Hofstadter. How could the journal of our Fair City be so horribly wrong?

As support for my thesis, I present a small excerpt from another expert, the Beligerent A. Toh:

My favorite quote in this book? On page 559 we read ‘We can now construct one of the main theses of this book’… And it took me three months of reading to get that far. And this is my second time through this book!!!

And it really does take a lot of that 559 pages to really get to the point. The reader is led through a fairly interesting discussion of symbolic logic and basic number theory, illustrated not by graphs, charts, and tables, but by an overarching series of narrative vignettes starring the recurring characters of the Turtle, Achilles, and Mr. Crab.

And…

But… This book isn’t for the faint of heart. I wouldn’t recommend it to the uninitiated, unwashed, unenlightened masses of non-geekdom. Even those with a fairly refined love of math, art, or music (or even all three) are sometimes lost in the highly technical descriptions of the MIU and TNT systems, and are totally lost when the discussion of self-referential languages, mathematical systems, and even biology turns to the technical. I’m glad it wasn’t recommended to me until I was well entrenched in grad school, and had a fair grasp of Turing Machines and automata of various stripes.

What’s significant about this book, though, is that for those “in the know” (wink, wink), it is the best work that pulls the esthetic elements of art and music into the world of mathematical theory, artificial intelligence, and graduate level computer science topics. And what’s REALLY surprising is that this book was written over 30 years ago, yet the topics discussed and theses postulated are still being validated and discussed. In a sense, it has become the “classic” work that all computer scientists should read.

And further:

Several epiphanic moments came after reading about crab canons (You’ll have to read the book). While playing the guitar, a certain pattern seemed to arise from the chord progressions and the melodies I was playing. It made some sense to me finally, but not in an aesthetic sense, but in a structured, patterned way. And the chapter I was reading in GEB provided the handles for me to be able to understand why it had “clicked” for me… Math… Patterns of numbers… The music of the spheres!!!

So… I suggest you find some REAL book reviewers, and leave the serious books to the less namby-pamby staffers out there – or I shall have to contact my close compatriot Herman T. Zweibel, whom I believe is still editor-at-large for that most heavenly paper The Onion, and have him give you a thorough tongue-lashing.

Signed,

WTF

Issue 48: Life in Space
By Amdnarg Toh

The Sounds of Cylons

Hello Apollo, my old friend,
I’ve come to talk with you again,
Through the ship they’re slowly creeping,
They plan to kill us while we’re sleeping,
Alarm bells that pierce my waking brain
Still remain
It was the sounds of Cylons.

In restless dreams we walked alone
In this huge ship that we call home
In the glow of an emergency lamp,
We aim our blasters at the lifeless camp

Then our eyes were stabbed by the flash of a laser light
That split the night
And broke the sound of silence.

“Fools” we said, “you do not know
Their numbers like a cancer grows.
We’ve really got to take the fight to where
They make these metal men of war I swear”
So they asked us to destroy the factory
This they plea
It’s the war with the Cylons

And in the factory light we saw
Ten thousand robots without flaw.
Cyborgs talking without speaking,
Machines hearing without listening.
We plant the bomb and leave like we were never there
And we swear
We left the sound of silence.

And the bulkheads bowed and swayed
As lasers ‘cross the ship were splayed.
And the klaxon flashed its warning,
The alarm that it was forming.
And the sign said, “The Galactica is under attack”
and then the lights went black
And all we heard
Were the sounds of Cylons.

Issue 46: Superhero Information Initiative
By Amdnarg Toh

What the Buck???

Ok… As if my opinion on this mattered to the “head shed” at Marvel… And as if my previous musings on the whole Captain America thing hadn’t already been made abundantly clear… LEAVE THIS GUY ALONE! HE’S DEAD!

The whole Marvel Civil War thing seemed to me to be a case of blatant political bullshit, but in spite of itself, having an overarching storyline provided a lot of room for some fairly significant development of both the minor and major characters. Of course, when you basically “out” over half of the worlds’ superheroes, you introduce a human element that makes the characters a bit more believable. And the assassination of Steve Rogers, Captain America, was the capstone to this whole shebang. Kill a major character, let the world mourn, have some random heroes carry the mantel of the fallen hero for a while… Boo freakin hoo! So all that’s left to fill the cookie cutter plotline that’s been used for oh, fifty years or so, is for the fallen hero to be resurrected.

So guess what?

Bucky Barnes was the sidekick to the Cap’n for a number of years during the WWII era. He was just an orphan kid (another tired sidekick theme) who hung around the Army base where his Dad was stationed. He accidentally walked in on Steve Rogers changing into his Captain America outfit, and vowed to keep his secret if the Captain would train him. So Bucky Barnes became one of the few Marvel teen sidekicks. However, as destiny would have it, he didn’t last long. During the same ill-fated mission that left the Captain in suspended animation, frozen in an iceberg, Bucky was supposedly killed, never to be brought back… Until it was convenient.

So we have the story of the Winter Soldier, who is really Bucky Barnes. After the accident that supposedly killed him, the Soviets found a body floating in the Arctic, missing an arm. They nursed him back to life, gave him a cybernetic arm, and reprogrammed his mind, occasionally reviving him from his semi-permanent suspended animation to go on missions of ultimate importance.

Eventually he meets up with Captain America, who eventually is able to restore Bucky’s memories, but before they can fully reconcile, Steve Rogers is shot and killed. Blaming Tony Stark (Iron Man) for Steve’s death, Bucky plans to kill him, but ends up just stealing the Captain’s shield, hoping to keep Mr. Stark from appointing someone else to replace Steve. It is finally revealed that before his death, Steve had secrety written Tony Stark, asking him to take care of Bucky. Bucky decides to take on the mantle of the red, white, and blue, and Stark decided to secretly support him, even though it would be illegal for him to do so since Bucky intends to keep his secret identity.

So now we’ve got a new Captain America.

But if you’re really going to kill off a major character, then do it. Make it final. Retconn him or her in 20 years, not in 6 months. Captain America’s “resurrection” is only slightly justified by the fact that it’s really Bucky under that shield and mask. But I guess it was destined to happen - many have worn the shield from the Punisher to Power Man, to the cadre of miscellaneous guys in the 50’s and 60’s. They could at least give him some long-forgotten vial of the Super Soldier serum to give him something other than a shield, gun, and a cybernetic arm. I’ll bet it doesn’t even shoot lasers!!! Sheesh!

Issue 44: Superhero Information Initiative
By Amdnarg Toh

Kingdom Come

I’m usually not a huge fan of mixing apocalyptic biblical metaphors with current events, or even fiction. I get enough of that watching overdressed, overweight, sweaty TV preachers with prophecy charts trying to convince me that Saddam Hussein is the antichrist, that there are 88 reasons why Jesus is going to come in 1988, and why the european union will somehow become the devil’s political pawn. But after recently reading the Kingdom Come story, I’m going to bend this particular rule just a bit.

We’re told the story through the eyes of a preacher, who comes to the aid of the Specter, and is assigned the task of viewing the events and passing judgement on the evil doers. The story is set some decades in the future, where the current generation of heroes have aged a bit, and the world is a considerably different place. Superman is in self-imposed exile. Green Lantern has established an outpost in space, and guards against an alien invasion that may never come. The Flash can no longer even move at normal speeds, and is in constant motion. Etc, etc. Most, if not all of the superheroes we know and love have “stepped back” from active duty for one reason or another.

But the beat goes on, or so the story goes. The vacancy left by these heroes is filled by a younger, more brazen group of super-powered beings, some of whom are hard to discern whether they are hero or villain. One super-dude in particular, Magog, becomes the catalyst for much of the conflict. We’re also told that Magog was the reason that Superman went into retirement, when, after killing several people that worked at the Daily Planet, including Lois Lane, the Joker was brought to trial. As he was being escorted into custody, the Joker was killed by Magog. Superman brought Magog in to be tried for murder, and found out that the public sided with Magog. Hopelessly depressed by the public’s loss of confidence in him, and by the death of Lois, Superman went into retreat at his fortress of solitude.

The point of crisis in this story comes as a group of semi-heroes, called the Justice Batallion, led by Magog, attempt to capture a villain known as the Parasite, and in the ensuing battle, Captain Atom is killed, his nuclear energy released on the surrounding Kansas countryside. The fallout kills many and leaves a significant portion of the Midwestern United States irradiated and unlivable. This event drives Superman to come out of retirement and confront the new heroes - his “second coming” of sorts.

Of course, these new heroes think that Superman is hopelessly outdated and clueless about the nature of reality. And a new conflict is birthed out of the ethical and moral cleansing that Superman begins to institute. Essentially anyone who refuses to submit to the “higher” morality that he presents is captured and imprisoned.

And in a nefarious sub plot, Lex Luthor has plans of his own to eliminate the heroes altogether, and give humanity “freedom” from the oppressive presence and rule of the meta-humans. The climactic battle - Armegeddon - comes as the villains escape the prison built for them, and are confronted by Superman. The United Nations are convinced to launch nuclear weapons sufficient to kill all of the metahumans, and as they are being launched, Lex Luthor initiates his plan, and releases Captain Marvel, who has been brainwashed by Luthor, and is sent to keep Superman from diverting the nuclear warheads from the battlefield. Captain Marvel almost defeats Superman, and at the final moments of their battle, is forced back into his human form, Billy Batson. With insufficient time to divert the warhead from the battlefield, Superman forces Billy to make the decision to either save the metahumans by allowing Superman to sacrifice himself, which would allow the metahumans to rampage without control, or to allow the metahumans to die in the explosion. Batson decides to become Captain Marvel and save both the metahumans and Superman by sacrificing himself. However, Captain Marvel was not fast enough, and was only able to contain part of the blast, and few of the metahumans survive.

In the aftermath, Superman flies to the UN building to confront the humans that launched the nuclear weapons. Not realizing that some of his friends survived the blast, he flies into a rampage, until the Specter shows him that he had become what the humans feared in the younger metahumans- a vigilante above the law. Dismayed at his own behavior, Superman vows to cease being a “god”, and will more fully participate in human affairs. He takes it upon himself to renovate the Kansas landscape, hitching himself up to a giant plow (swords to plowshares reference anyone?)

So… We’ve got an apocalyptic event of HUGE proportions, almost as big as The Day After, the 80’s TV movie. You’ve got Superman in a ponytail. Wonder Woman on some kick-ass battle armor. And sub plots involving most of my favorites DC heroes - all the makings of a shut-me-up comic burrito/enchilada combo. Me like!!!

And I can’t help but comment on the ending - a little too much “peace on earth goodwill to men” to suit me. Essentially the message we’re left with is that after the end battle, good will prevail and the earth won’t need heroes to curb evil anymore, and they will focus on bettering mankind through humanitarian deeds. Although I agree with this vision on a personal level, I say “Keep that crap out of my comics!!!” I mean- Lex Luthor as a nurse in Batman’s hospital? Come on… All it cost was the genocide of the majority of the metahumans, (read bad guys), on the planet. I’ll leave the political commentary for some other time.