Though the current project started as a series of posts charting my grief journey after the death of my mother, I am no longer actively grieving. Now, the blog charts a conversation in living, mainly whatever I want it to be. This is an activity that goes well with the theme of this blog (updated 2018). The Sense of Doubt blog is dedicated to my motto: EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY. I promote questioning everything because just when I think I know something is concrete, I find out that it’s not.
Hey, Mom! The Explanation.
Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.
Marjorie Ellen Tower - 70th Birthday October 8, 2006
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #298 - 300 Days Ago
Hey Mom, I am still a day behind on posts, but I am catching up.
So, Mom, you died 300 days ago. This number feels like a milestone, so I am acknowledging it.
It's also the home stretch. I devoted myself to writing daily blogs to you for a year, much like my year of T-shirts. Having reached 300, I am in the last part of the year with 65 days until July 4th and 67 days until I shut down the daily transmission, since I started the blog two days after you died.
I still think of you every day.
I still talk to you every day.
I still hear your voice every day.
I still miss you every day. In fact, the other day, in Meijer, I was struck by how much I miss you. From 2001 to 2014, I took you to Meijer so many times. So much so, that I wrote about it here: Hey Mom #14.
I don't have much else to say today.
300 days. Wow.
But I will close with this: I know my experience is not unique. I know many people have lost a loved one, a mother, a child. Some people have lost many loved ones and come through more intense tragedy and pain than I can imagine. I have had it easy. I know that. I have been lucky. I know. For anyone who is reading, I am not writing this blog because my experience is unique; I am writing because I need to do it. I need to continue to feel the closeness that came with conversation and sharing. I need to be mindful of how I am feeling, how I am coping, how I am evolving. This blog journey has really helped me. Much like the T-shirts blog, I am healing; I am growing. I persist.
Reflect and connect.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1604.30 - 10:10
NOTE on time: When I post late, I had been posting at 7:10 a.m. because Google is on Pacific Time, and so this is really 10:10 EDT. However, it still shows up on the blog in Pacific time. So, I am going to start posting at 10:10 a.m. Pacific time, intending this to be 10:10 Eastern time. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom. But I am not going back and changing all the 7:10 a.m. times. But I will run this note for a while. Mom, you know that I am posting at 10:10 a.m. often because this is the time of your death.
Boney James - State Theatre - Kalamazoo
April 29, 2016
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #297 - Boney James Tonight
Hi Mom,
A benefit of writing these entries after the fact is that I can write about the concert and back date to the day of the concert. It's Sunday May 1st as I type, and I am writing about Friday night April 29th when I saw jazz saxophonist Boney James at the State Theatre with my good friend Bruce "Fris" Johnson.
Check out the photo above. Boney came out into the audience, stepped up on a seat, and played basically right in front of me hence the close photo with the people all around.
I love when the performers come into the audience. Erykah Badu did that when I saw her in Chicago, and back in the 1980s, I saw Peter Gabriel do a trust fall into the audience while performing "I Have The Touch."
This was a great concert. I love how the audience was so into it. Everyone was happy, groovin', dancing, smiling. People were still grooving on the sweet soul after the show.
Also, it was a great show for older folks. It started promptly at 8 p.m., no opening band. Boney played with his band for about 90 minutes, did one encore, and retired for the night, though he stayed to sign CDs in the lobby.
I owned two Boney James prior to the concert -- Body Language and Seduction -- and now I own the most recent, Future Soul, one song from which, "Vinyl," is featured her (see below).
It was a night of smooth, cool, smokin' jazz and soul.
Music has healing power.
Thanks, Boney.
BONEY JAMES - "Vinyl" - From Future Soul
BONEY JAMES - "Body Language" from Body Language
Boney James - "Send One Your Love"
Reflect and connect.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1604.29 - 10:10
NOTE on time: When I post late, I had been posting at 7:10 a.m. because Google is on Pacific Time, and so this is really 10:10 EDT. However, it still shows up on the blog in Pacific time. So, I am going to start posting at 10:10 a.m. Pacific time, intending this to be 10:10 Eastern time. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom. But I am not going back and changing all the 7:10 a.m. times. But I will run this note for a while. Mom, you know that I am posting at 10:10 a.m. often because this is the time of your death.
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #296 - Calculus Final Today
Hi Mom,
It seems a bit dis ingenuous for me to write "Calculus Final Today" when it was yesterday and it's over, and now it's Friday evening, and I am just now getting to posting this, though the date and time stamp will read as Thursday April 28th at 10:10 a.m. Pacific Time.
I was going to do a whole series of photos, but maybe one (okay, two) is/are enough.
And who doesn't love PUPPIES?
These are pictures of Satchel from when she was only a few weeks old (six-ish) and when she had only been our puppy two or three days,
She was so little.
Anyway, since I am writing this after the fact, the Calculus final went all right. I think I did about how I expected to do. Then, I went to see Batman vs. Superman. More on that movie later.
Reflect and connect.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1604.28 - 10:10
NOTE on time: When I post late, I had been posting at 7:10 a.m. because Google is on Pacific Time, and so this is really 10:10 EDT. However, it still shows up on the blog in Pacific time. So, I am going to start posting at 10:10 a.m. Pacific time, intending this to be 10:10 Eastern time. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom. But I am not going back and changing all the 7:10 a.m. times. But I will run this note for a while. Mom, you know that I am posting at 10:10 a.m. often because this is the time of your death.
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #295 - Judgment Day - studying for finals day three
Hi Mom,
Still studying for finals, so this week will be short conversations as they would be on the phone, as they are with the Big Guy.
I think I did all right on my Java final. Afterwards, I went and spoke with Trenary and got some feedback on last year's 2240 final, finally. This is something I tried to do when you were dying, so it was long overdue.
So, some cartoons to share with you today. I was going to share just one, but then I decided to share three as it's day three of finals week. And three is a magic number.
Visiting http://xkcd.com/ is well worth anyone's time. Please support a great comics site.
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #294 - JAVA JAVA JAVA JAVA JAVA JAVA and JAVA ^n
Hi Mom, I have waded all the way to the deep end of the pool, and the water is up to the bottom of my nose as I study for my Java coding final exam, which is at 17:00 today.
I was going to write about my adventures with recursion, polymorphism, and big O notation, but the water is too deep, and I must study.
Calculus final is Thursday, so tomorrow may be a "deep in Calculus studying" item.
Thanks for your patience, Mom. I feel you with me, guiding me, supporting me.
Reflect and connect.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1604.26 - 10:10
NOTE on time: When I post late, I had been posting at 7:10 a.m. because Google is on Pacific Time, and so this is really 10:10 EDT. However, it still shows up on the blog in Pacific time. So, I am going to start posting at 10:10 a.m. Pacific time, intending this to be 10:10 Eastern time. I know this
only matters to me, and to you, Mom. But I am not going back and changing all the 7:10 a.m. times. But I will run this note for a while. Mom, you know that I am posting at 10:10 a.m. often because this is the time of your death.
"Music “says” things about the world, but in specifically musical terms. Any attempt to reproduce these musical statements “in our own words” is necessarily doomed to failure. We cannot isolate the truth contained in a piece of music; for it is a beauty-truth and inseparable from its partner. The best we can do is to indicate in the most general terms the nature of the musical beauty-truth under consideration and to refer curious truth-seekers to the original." - Huxley
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #293 - Musical Monday - music for 1604.25
Hi Mom, Back again with another Musical Monday and a return to the Brain Pickings article about this Aldous Huxley book so obscure, rare, and expensive that my university library does not own it.
I have some great selections today, some of which were chosen from a list of songs selected by Brian Eno as powerful for singing and healing. More on this issue next week.
I have the new Eno song, a cover of "I'm Set Free" by VU and then the Velevet Underground original.
After some of those good singing songs and a Beethoven clip featured in the Brain Pickings article, then three for Prince who died last week, ending with "Nothing Compares 2 U" in the original Sinead O'Connor video with the song written by Prince.
But first some key quotes by Huxley shared in this Brain Pickings article linked next.
"From pure sensation to the intuition of beauty, from pleasure and pain to love and the mystical ecstasy and death — all the things that are fundamental, all the things that, to the human spirit, are most profoundly significant, can only be experienced, not expressed. The rest is always and everywhere silence.
"After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." - Huxley
"Silence is an integral part of all good music. Compared with Beethoven’s or Mozart’s, the ceaseless torrent of Wagner’s music is very poor in silence. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why it seems so much less significant than theirs. It “says” less because it is always speaking.
"In a different mode, or another plane of being, music is the equivalent of some of man’s most significant and most inexpressible experiences. By mysterious analogy it evokes in the mind of the listener, sometimes the phantom of these experiences, sometimes even the experiences themselves in their full force of life — it is a question of intensity; the phantom is dim, the reality, near and burning. Music may call up either; it is chance or providence which decides. The intermittences of the heart are subject to no known law.
"Listening to expressive music, we have, not of course the artist’s original experience (which is quite beyond us, for grapes do not grow on thistles), but the best experience in its kind of which our nature is capable — a better and completer experience than in fact we ever had before listening to the music." - Huxley
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BRIAN ENO - "FICKLE SUN (iii) I'M SET FREE" - from The Ship album, out tomorrow
"I'm Set Free" - THE VELVET UNDERGROUND
"Love Hurts" - Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons
"Bring it on Home" - Sam Cooke
BEETHOVEN from MISSA SOLEMNIS: BENEDICTUS
PRINCE - "LET'S GO CRAZY" from PURPLE RAIN - live Super Bowl - 2007
Prince and Lenny Kravitz cover "American Woman" - live - 2015?
ORIGINAL VIDEO - "Nothing Compares 2 You" - Sinead O'Connor - written by Prince
RIP Prince. :-(
Reflect and connect.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
“Up the Hill Backwards” is a cryptic anti-self-help manual (Bowie mocks the quintessential ’70s life guide I’m OK, You’re OK in the lyric), its central message suggesting a late Dylan line: I was born here and I’ll die here/against my will. Accept that you have no control, that the course that life takes has little, if anything, to do with you, and gain some hard comfort. Whatever you believe, the earth keeps on turning, the witnesses of its endless cycles keep dying off. That’s what the four verses suggest; the refrain denies them. “Up the hill backwards—it’ll be alright” seems like a booster—keep on keeping on—but it’s a dark form of encouragement. There’s a poem for children that begins, “He walked up the hill backwards/So as not to see how high it was.” That’s how we make do, stumbling blindly towards a future that we can’t (or won’t) imagine, our eyes trained on the ground that we’ve already crossed. Up the hill backwards! A pep talk that tells us to blind ourselves. The lyric is chanted/sung by Bowie, Tony Visconti and Lynn Maitland, Bowie’s voice submerged in the collective. It’s the first time in his recorded life that Bowie’s truly shared the vocal spotlight; his voice is a flavor, rather than dominating the mix (the vocal sound is close to the David Byrne-Tina Weymouth chorus in the Talking Heads’ “The Good Thing”). Bowie said he intended “Backwards” to be “very MOR voiced,” so as to sound like the “epitome of indifference,” and never more so than in its first verse:
The vacuum created by the arrival of freedom And the possibilities it seems to offer, It’s got nothing to do with you, if one can grasp it.
"Up the Hill Backwards" - SCARY MONSTERS (and Super Creeps) - 1980
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1604.25 - time
NOTE ON WHY THE DAILY BOWIE IS NO LONGER DAILY: For 53 days, I completed daily Bowie posts. My schedule is too demanding to make a post every day, so this will now be a feature that is called The Daily Bowie, but it will not be daily. I will post as I can. I will post often. But if I miss a day, I will skip it. Otherwise, I get in the position of making five Bowie posts all in one day, and that's a lot of Bowie for people to swallow all at once... (yeah, leaving that badly phrased, innuendo packed statement. I bet Bowie would have laughed at it).
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #292 - Dreams - part Five - the flight speed of grief
1604.09
Often, I have had the dream about arriving at the theatre and not knowing my lines but having to go on stage and perform, or showing up at the theatre to find out I was in a show that I did not even know I was in. In recent years, this dream has taken a new form in that instead of being a failure and unable to perform, I am able to improvise.
This time you are in the audience, Mom.
This dream changed up the improvisation scheme. I am at a theatre and learn that I am playing Thomas Jefferson in a straight play of 1776. I improvise an entire scene with two women characters. Then I am trying to get ready for the next scene, asking people what my character wants in the scene, what is his motivation. I ask to be given one line from the script, so I can extrapolate from that line. I know I have no chance to learn the entire script, but I can surely learn one line. I am not getting a lot of cooperation from people and not being told the information I need.
Later, in the dream, I have left the theatre during intermission with another cast member to get some food, but we are delayed in returning and afraid we may miss the start of the second half.
In part, this dream is about me conquering fears. Like all the dreams I have in this sequence, unlike the previous dreams, instead of failing, I am able to improvise and succeed, though there is still the shadow of potential failure in not getting the information I need and not returning to the theatre in time. But unlike past dreams in which I simply improvised, this dream was about preparation. It definitely keyed into my recent efforts with preparing for success and analyzing how best to prepare to succeed.
I did succeed in the dream. It felt like a positive dream, despite the shadow of potential failure.
1604.11
This dream was very convoluted, but the heart of it was anxiety and loss of freedom. I was in angst over having committed some crime with a group of friends. We were on the run for some time, but then we were caught and awaiting arraignment. My biggest worry in awaiting the first moment in court was what T-shirt to wear.
The dream started as we waited to change clothes and get the car at the Frayers house if my friends lived on a lake. In any case, me and one of my friends, were sitting on a hill watching the sun rise over the lake when the Frayers came home and we had to explain that we would be leaving soon. I think I was sitting next to my friend Laura, but actually the friends were never identifed in my dream.
Prior to being caught, we left some cabin in a car to which we had to hook a trailer. In my dream, I have precise visuals about hooking up the trailer using a flat, magnetic hook up. We had several guns. Hand guns, but also large assault rifles, such as the M16A4 or the AK-102.
We drove the car and trailer all over, eventually into a large court house with big meeting rooms like Versailles, where we we feared we would surely be caught, but we were not.
Later, we were caught, and we were awaiting trial. I was worried that it would look bad that we had guns because we never used them, but I spent more time worrying about which shirt to wear. I wanted a shirt image that would evoke sympathy and could not possibly offend anyone.
I woke up before the trial actually happened or the anxiety resolved.
1604.13
I dreamed I was Superman. But in the dream I knew I was not Superman but that I was dreaming about being Superman. No cape. The jeans and t-shirt Superman look. I had been taking care of you Mom, and we were at the Boathouse restaurant in Traverse city, across the small cove of Bower's Harbor from where I always stay. But then I had to go to the Neahtawanta to get something. I started to run at super speed, but then stopped myself and chose to fly. But though my run started at a burst of super speed, my flight started very slowly, like a by a dolorous glide.
I just looked up what "dolorous" means because the word just popped into my head and I thought it meant slow, but it means sorrowful.
The flight was slow because it was a flight of grief.
1604.23
I dreamed that I was teaching a class in the basement of my home on West Gull Lake Drive in the big room we called the family room. A face to face class, not an online class. Students had to drive out from Kalamazoo to attend the class. It was our first class of the semester. There's more details that I have lost to this dream since I woke up, but it was obviously a variation on the anxiety dreams I often have about teaching in a new place or not being able to find the place I need to teach. This anxiety is solved in this dream as I am teaching out of my home. It's just another in a series of dreams in which I solve previous anxieties in the dream, like the first dream in this blog entry, which I have had often over the years about being unprepared for a performance that's about to start. I do not dream as often about being unprepared for classes. I dream more often about not being able to find my classes, which here is solved by holding the class in my house.
1604.24
Let me cut right to the heart of this dream, Mom. You told me not to leave you. This was at the end of the dream, so I am working backwards. Dad and I had gone to where I had attended kindergarten, which I know is in Traverse City, but in the dream, we were somewhere more pioneer-styled and possibly Amish. We were in this building and I saw a big interior wall that spanned two stories. It had a decorative wood lattice. I said, "I remember this wall." Then turning around I saw an opening in the second floor, a rectangular opening, wide and thing, so people could look down from a second floor. This is where our class room had been. I spotted some cut-out Christmas decorations in the room, long sequences of people or reindeer, probably at least ten feet wide or more, decorated with metallic spray paint. I wanted to investigate. Suddenly, you were there, Mom. You had not been there before. Dad has transferred you to another chair, and you were sliding out of it as you often did because your legs so stiff. You were all bundled up. You had a royal blue bandage around your head and covering one eye because you had some injury. As you know, this is not something that you actually ever wore. And we were going to go upstairs at the decorations, and you reached out with your good arm and hand, took hold of my forearm, and said "Don't leave me" several times. I hugged you, kissed you, and we rubbed noses, and I said "I will never leave you." This is where the dream ended.
Your entreaty to not leave you alone was so strong, a beseeching, pleading repetition, insistent, PRESENT. It's still lingering around me in a warm embrace as I write this. Not creepy or haunting. Loved. Love.
Apparently blurry photos are a thing in our family... and in dreams...
Prior to that, Dad and I were driving. At one point, his car flew off the road. Or rather, the road ended, and the car kept going, as if it had come off a jump and had not landed yet. There was water below us, but I didn't know how deep. Would it be too deep for the car? I was very worried. But then Dad steered the car back to a different road, avoiding the water, and we continued on our way.
Even earlier in the dream, my dog Satchel was both dead and not dead. There was a living Satchel, but there was also a dead, at least for the moment, Satchel in many pieces. Liesel and I were cleaning the pieces and putting Satchel back together. I wanted to know if when we did this, if Satchel would be alive. Liesel said she did not know. I am missing details of this part because as we cleaned the pieces, Satchel was not there any more, not alive, but she had been just prior to the pieces cleaning part.
TONIGHT "TONIGHT"
Harsh words... I am not as harsh on either "Tonight" or Tonight (the album).
FROM PUSHING AHEAD OF THE DAME - "TONIGHT" Bowie’s Tonight is essentially Pin Ups II: a record rushed out to capitalize on an uptick in Bowie’s stock, and it’s filled with uninspired cover songs (three Iggy Pop songs, Chuck Jackson’s “I Keep Forgettin'” and the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows,” along with a handful of new originals). He named the record after his reworking of “Tonight,” but even at the time, interviewed by Charles Shaar Murray, Bowie all but admitted that his remake was a travesty, a concession to common tastes. Calling the original “Tonight” “such an idiosyncratic thing of Jimmy’s that it seemed not part of my vocabulary,” Bowie said he had decided to “change[ ] the whole sentiment around,” he said, adding that he’d managed to preserve a “barren feeling” in his new version. Bowie said he ditched the dead girl in the opening because he had wanted Tina Turner to sing it with him, and suggested to Murray that Turner might have balked on singing the full lyric (which was a bit insulting to Turner, who was of built of sterner stuff: she had just covered Paul Brady’s“Steel Claw”, which has lines like “sometimes I’m contemplating suicide” and opens with a “rich bitch lying by the swimming pool”). Worse, the new “Tonight” manages to make Tina Turner superfluous. In the Pop original, Bowie and the Sales brothers flit in and out of the song like ghosts, howling over Pop’s baritone. But Bowie sings the remake with a soft, easy croon, leaving Turner no natural entry point, so she just winds up singing over him. The rest of the remake is just dross. The original Pop recording is fervid and tense, the band holding it together seemingly by luck and sheer force of will, with Ricky Gardiner’s guitar runs appearing like small moments of grace. In the Bowie version, Gardiner’s guitar solo is replaced by a marimba reverie, a wretched brass section, known as the “Borneo Horns,” do what they can to worsen things and even Carlos Alomar, the sole holdover from the original record besides Bowie, is a whisper of his former self.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1604.24 - 7:00
NOTE ON WHY THE DAILY BOWIE IS NO LONGER DAILY: For 53 days, I completed daily Bowie posts. My schedule is too demanding to make a post every day, so this will now be a feature that is called The Daily Bowie, but it will not be daily. I will post as I can. I will post often. But if I miss a day, I will skip it. Otherwise, I get in the position of making five Bowie posts all in one day, and that's a lot of Bowie for people to swallow all at once... (yeah, leaving that badly phrased, innuendo packed statement. I bet Bowie would have laughed at it).
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #291 - Loserville - Go see live theatre!!
Hi Mom, Well, this is original and substantial content, but it's the review I did last week of the show I saw at Kellogg Community College. I had not been there in a while. I like what they have done with the place. Very nice.
Overall, the show was very good. It had its uneven elements, but for the most part, it rocked. These performers gave it their all; they left it all on the stage and that alone is impressive.
Two shows left.
I am including the link here, but my full review follows. My editor really hacked up my review this time.
KCC will continue its 2016 theatre season this month with the musical “Loserville,” playing at 7:30 p.m. April 15, 16, 22 and 23, and at 3 p.m. April 17 and 24 at the Binda Performing Arts Center, on campus at 450 North Ave., in Battle Creek. Tickets are $5 for KCC students and employees with a current KCC ID and $10 for the general public. To make reservations or for more information, call 269-965-4154.
"Loserville”
a production of Kellogg Community College’s Arts and Communication department
at the BINDA Performing Arts Center
Attended Date: April 16, 2016
reviewed by Christopher Tower
There are no losers in “Loserville.” The Kellogg Community College’s Arts and Communication department launched its spring musical production last weekend with a high-energy, nerdy joyride of British pop-punk with the show “Loserville.” “More than likely, you’ve never heard of the show you’re about to see,” said director Brad Poer, “but hopefully after tonight you won’t forget it!” And the audience showed that they won’t forget by receiving the cast of “Loserville” with cheers, infectious laughter, and thundering applause Saturday night after a heartfelt thank you by Poer in pre-show comments: “Thank you for coming out to see a show you don’t know. It’s not like we’re doing ‘The Sound of Music’ here.” Though the talents of the performers at times leave a bit to be desired, their commitment to the show and to giving their all in performance is strong. This cast leaves it all on the stage, and the final effect – though not flawless – is stunning and impressive. Following up the one album of British pop punk band from 2005 called Son of Dork, James Bourne and Elliot Davies turned their one hit “Ticket Outta Loserville” and other songs in a stage musical in 2009, with a production in London’s West End. Now, “Loserville” makes its Michigan premiere at KCC under the guidance of Poer and a cast of college students and community members because as Poer reminded the audience, the theater program at the college is a program that is open to the community. Flavored with references to “Star Trek,” “Star Wars,” and other nerdy canon, “Loserville” chronicles the birth of the Internet with the first communications between computers. Set in 1971, it follows the lives of four friends, who are hardcore geeks back before things like the “Big Bang Theory” made being a geek cool: Michael Dork (Jesse Cowles), the main computer nerd;
Lucas Lloyd (Patrick Lucas), a science fiction writer; Francis Wier (Hunter King), a smooth talking dweeb with Boy Scout patches on his sweater; and Marvin Camden (George Martinez), who is dressed like Spock throughout the show. Like all geeks in the 1970s, the four are bullied by jocks like Eddie Arch (Cole Tompkins) and his cronies (Andy Yerby and Richard Lowe). The main story focuses on Michael’s computer work to allow computers to send messages back and forth, but he is banned from the school computer room after some corporate espionage at Arch Industries, Eddie’s father’s company. Michael is unable to make progress in his computer work until Holly Manson (Kaylin Howell) moves to town and offers to help him. She is trying to shed her old cheerleader image and establish herself in her new school as a brain, though her past will follow her and make up one of the show’s more unclear plot points. Holly’s arrival causes a rift between best friends Michael and Lucas, which she also helps to heal in the show’s somewhat convoluted plot about the computer work. Side stories are actually more interesting the main story of Holly and Michael’s blooming relationship, which help to show case Eddie’s girlfriend Leia Dawkins (Julia Beffrey) and her friends Elaine (Heaven Papendick) and Samantha (Alicia Brunner) among other characters including exchange students Ivanka (Amanda Irwin) and Marina (Staci McLain). The show’s plot is a bit contrived and cliché with its reference to “Star Trek” episodes and “Star Wars” characters. The latter we are to believe are to be Lucas’ brain child as he is writing a book called “Galaxy Battles,” which will ultimately feature Princess Leia, R2D2, and C3PO. The show does make some good use of quotes from “Star Trek,” but the jokes are more forced than clever, but fortunately, the heart and soul of the show is the music, which is quite good. The best songs are those that were adapted from the 2005 album “Welcome to Loserville” that had three singles that charted in the top ten in UK singles charts. “Ticket Outta Loserville” closes Act One with a strong performance by the entire cast. “Sick” is the highlight of the second act with strong performances by Beffrey (Leia), Howell (Holly), and Lucas (Lucas). Lucas also shows off good singing talents on “Holly, I’m The One,” and “Slacker” also shows good singing skills by the four main friends.
The songs written for the show lack a bit of the “kick butt qualities” of the Brit pop hits from Son of Dork, but they are fun in their own right. Stand outs include “Living in the Future,” which opens the show; “Genius,” which shifts a critical plot point in the computer work; and “Don’t Let ‘Em Bring You Down,” which gets the whole cast involved and moves some company members, such as Aubrey Lynae Shore, front and center. Shore may be the best company member and serves as dance captain with Anna Lucas. Gabby Reyes, Isaac McKinley, and Jessie Diamante also shine in small roles. Talent levels are a bit uneven, but what some of the cast lack in talent and experience, they make up for with energy and giving the performance their all. Though some of Cole Tompkins’ physical comedy as Eddie is fun, his signing is often drowned out completely by the band. Jesse Cowles is a perfect Michael with unpretentious acting, but at times his singing drones ineffectively, but at other times he’s strong and clear. Howell is fantastic as Holly, especially singing in a sweet voice, but her choice of dialogue delivery in a clipped, computer-esque speech pattern did not work all the time. But Hunter King and George Martinez are hilarious in their roles, and Julia Beffrey has great physical comedy as well as some spot on line delivery and is reminiscent at times of Lucille Ball. The set – designed by Big John Strzelecki – that mirrors a giant computer is clever but often seems cumbersome and in the way of actors. The band led by Lori Hattfield jams smartly. Though at times choreography seems over-involved and breaches plot points by bringing characters in proximity that should not be together, the work by Dwight Trice is overall inventive and fun. The entire production is masterfully composed by director Poer, who surely has wrung every drop of effort out of these young performers. As the cast cries out, “there are no losers in Loserville,” and it’s true. “Loserville” should be renamed “Winnerville.”
FROM PUSHING AHEAD OF THE DAME: "In concerts, compelled to make “Glass” more substantial, Bowie repeated verses and made a dramatic close-out, with everyone chanting “I’ll never touch you” over drum fills. A piece of chamber music, it sometimes struggled on stage, notably when Bowie opened a victory-lap Milton Keynes Bowl concert in 1983 with it. Here the performance seems to be a desperate attempt to prevent the song from dissipating in the summer air. A horn section and ceaseless guitar wailing do what they can to distract, Bowie sings his lines with cool assurance, but something’s off-putting about the performance: it’s like a homicidal diary entry being read on a Jumbotron screen."
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1604.23 - 8:00
NOTE ON WHY THE DAILY BOWIE IS NO LONGER DAILY: For 53 days, I completed daily Bowie posts. My schedule is too demanding to make a post every day, so this will now be a feature that is called The Daily Bowie, but it will not be daily. I will post as I can. I will post often. But if I miss a day, I will skip it. Otherwise, I get in the position of making five Bowie posts all in one day, and that's a lot of Bowie for people to swallow all at once... (yeah, leaving that badly phrased, innuendo packed statement. I bet Bowie would have laughed at it).
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #290 - Doctor Strange - T-shirt reprint and MOVIE TRAILER
Hi Mom,
It's time for another T-shirt content reprint.
As I mentioned the other day, I promise some original and somewhat substantial content soon, but I am in the end of the semester mode with classes I am taking and some of which I am teaching. I have exams next week, and the usual grading and such.
So, I have been a bit preoccupied.
And then, I learned Prince died. This is a bigger blow for my wife than for me, but given that Bowie had just died, YOU have recently died, Mom, not to mention all the others as I wrote about here: Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #248 - People keep dying.
Just wow. Both Bowie and Prince were like magicians, like sorcerers supreme, so, maybe fitting now...
But I wanted to share the teaser trailer from the new Doctor Strange movie due out in November (of this year, 2016) and I decided to reprint one of the blog entries I was MOST proud of from 365 T-shirts.
And this Doctor Strange entry is significant as it features a photo of your handwriting from one of my Doctor Strange books. Thank you for that, Mom. I think I will return to the subject of your handwriting soon, especially since its a key subject, especially after the meningitis.
I love Doctor Strange. I should start today's entry with that confession. I would be hard pressed to select a favourite Marvel superhero, but if I was forced to do so, the good doctor would definitely make the top five. (Do you sense a list coming? Yes, you should.)
Doctor Strange has one of the coolest CAPES in all of superhero comics.
PREPARE for a HEFTY posting.
*sigh*
PROCESS
Today's blog entry had been in the works for several weeks, like an elaborate magic spell. I do not think it is fully crystallized yet but I have grown weary of re-numbering and delaying writing it, so here is what I have so far.
Right now, I am working about a week ahead with the blog. This may not be as fascinating to you as it is to me, but I do like to analyze process continually and in depth.
I have found that sketching the entries and planning ahead helps with composition, though this only works well when I am actually working ahead, drafting at least a day in advance, and spending time thinking about the composition of each entry.
As I shared, this entry has been in the works for weeks. Originally, it was to be T-shirt #89, and as I listed the topics between then and T-shirt #100, I kept moving my draft of this entry as my process evolved. One such evolution came about when I realized that I did not need to compose one, long, contiguous essay for each blog entry (in fact, some people are now muttering "please,don't" under their breath), and that I could work with labeled sections in short (or what I think of as short) inter-related topics. Though today's work hardly constitutes short by any definition.
And, yes, I have a Doctor Strange toy.
How could I not?
DOCTOR STRANGE RESEARCH
Meanwhile, I often research in bed at night using my Nexus-7 tablet. I look up various sites on the Internet, usually starting with the Wikipedia site.
I found some strange and wonderful things on the Internet devoted to Doctor Strange.
And, of course, there is talk of a Doctor Strange movie (tentatively for 2016) with many posts one can find via Google for Joseph Gordon Leavitt as the front runner to play the good doctor.
Crazy and wonderful stuff. First of all, the Vishanti book is compiled by Cat Yronwode. I recognized that name when I started reading but I could not place it. Luckily, all these questions are answered on the Internet. Cat Yronwode is one of the leaders/founders of Eclipse Comics, which I wrote about back around the time I first conceived of writing about Doctor Strange in T-shirt #89: Lone Wolf & Cub. I mentioned Mai the Psychic Girl in that blog entry, and how this comic and Cat Yronwode connected to another blog entry I had already started, which is this one, Doctor Strange. It all comes full circle, eh?
Eclipse Comics published all sorts of great stuff back in the 1980s, such as Miracleman (Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman), The Rocketeer (Dave Stevens), and Zot! (Scott McCloud) among many other great and wonderful things.
Apparently, Catherine "Cat" Yronwode is one of the biggest Doctor Strange fans on the planet. She also happens to be a practitioner of folk magic.
Cat's LESSER BOOK OF THE VISHANTI was a project she originally completed in the early 1970s as she was an active participant in various Zines and APAs (Amateur Press Associations). A decade later, I belonged to one devoted to the Teen Titans as I described in T-shirt #62: Nightwing. I wish I had been active in fandom when Cat created this book. It's astounding and super cool.
In 1979, Yronwode printed 177 copies of THE LESSER BOOK OF THE VISHANTI and sent copies to everyone she knew in fandom and in the comics industry. The publication became highly respected, and many creators who tackled Doctor Strange thereafter sought copies for its meticulous research and as a compendium of Doctor Strange lore, spells, and facts.
The contents page shows dozens of links and related articles and appendices.
One core of the work which has many cores is found in the second link I posted in which Yronwode compounds a "Vishanti Cosmology" from what readers have learned of the Vishanti through Doctor Strange comics. It is a 15 page essay with an enormous glossary following. This is the kind of crazy and wonderful thing that makes me love comics even more than I already do. And I think Cat Yronwode is amazingly cool.
If you like comics even a little, but more so, if you like fantasy (as in fiction or role playing games) or magic (as in real spells that actually work in our world), then you might want to do some exploring on your own of the links for Vishanti book and Lucky Mojo. The materials and links and content are all a bit overwhelming, but there is amazing stuff to be uncovered, such as "A proposed Revision of the Theory of Fractional Dimensions" and the "Sacred Sex Home Page."
A MOST INTERESTING SECTION FROM THE COSMOLOGY ARTICLE: "This brief survey of the Vishantist faith would be incomplete without one final note: on the letters page of STRANGE TALES 129 a reader wrote to ask whether the deities mentioned in hte stories were "the gods of some long-dead religion" or whether Stan Lee "made them up as [he] went along". Lee offered "a late-model no-prize" to the person who could come up with the best answer to this question...The Vishantist faith, as documented above, embraces a world-view which can best be labeled "intersubjective." If one were to ask Baron Mordo or Dr. Strange whether their deities had been "made up" or were remnants of an ancient cult, they would probably laugh and turn away. To even ask would be to reveal oneself as a cowan, an outsider. Actually, to the subjectivist-magician, the question, as phrased, is utterly meaningless. It matters not at all whether the deities were or were not at one time "made up" because they are now in Dormammu's words, "a shared belief" and, as such, they have become the goddesses and gods of a cult as ancient and as "real" as its collective adherents believe it to be...The existence of "other dimensions" cannot be disproved by any known objective science, at least not at this time, and the nature of "other dimensions" is open to any interpretation one chooses to make. One theory of "other dimensions", the so-called "Omniversal Theory", postulates that "all 'fiction' is 'real' -- somewhere" and that there are "alternative universes" where "comic books" are "reality." Omniversally speaking, the Vishantist pantheon was neither "made up", nor is it the remnant of "some long-dead religion." Vishantist deities are exactly what they purport to be -- the living goddesses and gods of an active Occult Order on another continuum, the "alternative universe" we call Earth-Marvel. 'Nuff said, Hoggoth-lovers -- and may your Amulet never tickle!"(Yronwode, 1978-2010).
MAGIC NOT MAGIC THE GATHERING
Given that I have written about my affection for and current playing of Dungeons and Dragons on this blog before, it should come as no surprise that I also played Magic the Gathering, the customizable "trading card" game. Though I think re-sale is a more accurate term as I have not seen so much trading where this game is concerned. I am not going to write about also playing Magic the Gathering, at least not today. In the mid-1990s, I was quite obsessed with the game. I made decks. I planned strategies. It all ruined a relationship (which was best in the long run).
So, at this point, I do not own a Magic the Gathering shirt, but you never know. If you have not figured this out, I like T-shirts.
Now, why am I mentioning MTG? Well, Dr. Strange is one of the most magic-oriented of superheroes, and magic makes me think of Magic The Gathering as well as the magic spells in D&D, the latter I borrowed many of the greater spellcaster/creators, such as Oshtur, Hoggoth, and the Vishanti for magic in the game. I mean, really, the "Crimson Bands of Cyttorak" and the "Flames of Faltine" are just too cool not to swipe and use in D&D.
PERFORMING MAGIC
I performed magic semi-professionally as a young boy (ages 13-19). I went by the stage name El Christo. As a freshman in high school, I was cast as the Wizard in Gull Lake High School's production of Once Upon a Mattress, and I had to devise a costume. My aunt sewed the costume for me, and the cape was based on Doctor Strange's cape. You can see the cape in the two photos here (above and left). Obviously, these are not photos from my magic performing days. I have no scans of those handy. However, I may add some at a future date in an update here or in a future blog entry.
These photos also reveal a future T-shirt for Captain Marvel or Shazam as he is known by many for the name he utters to activate the hero within. I will feature this shirt separately another time and probably include the rest of the photos from this party at the home of my friend Darrough West.
My goal in dressing up in these photos was to attend a superhero-themed party in which I was attempting to dress like Doctor Strange; however, I did not have the actual shirt with the symbol Strange wears, so this was the best I could do.
As for performing magic, I do not perform anymore, though I am still interested. I am considering going to the magic get together in Colon for the first time since I was 17 or 18 years old. I do not have any T-shirts featuring magic as an entertainment and performance art form, like theatre. But that may change...
DOCTOR STRANGE - PSYCHEDELIA
Of all the heroes of the 1960s and early 1970s, Doctor Strange is probably the best example of one that embodies the psychedelic culture of the times.
I do not usually dump so much quoted material (and quotes within quotes for which I provided the Wiki reference list), but all of this is written so clearly that I can hardly improve on it. AND if I have kept your attention this far, dear reader, then I am honored to serve, much like Wong is honored to serve Doctor Strange despite the racist-laden stereotypes of the original depiction.
"Comics historian Mike Benton wrote, "The Dr. Strange stories of the 1960s constructed a cohesive cosmology that would have thrilled any self-respecting theosophist. College students, minds freshly opened by psychedelic experiences and Eastern mysticism, read Ditko and Lee's Dr. Strange stories with the belief of a recent Hare Krishna convert. Meaning was everywhere, and readers analyzed the Dr. Strange stories for their relationship to Egyptian myths, Sumarian gods, and Jungian archetypes"[3]. "People who read 'Doctor Strange' thought people at Marvel must be heads [i.e., drug users]," recalled then-associate editor and former Doctor Strange writer Roy Thomas in 1971, "because they had had similar experiences high on mushrooms. But ... I don't use hallucinogens, nor do I think any artists do."[4] As co-plotter and later sole plotter, (in the "Marvel Method"), Ditko would take Strange into ever-more-abstract realms. In an epic 17-issue story arc in Strange Tales #130-146 (July 1965 - July 1966), Ditko introduced the cosmic character Eternity, who personified the universe and was depicted as a silhouette whose outlines are filled with the cosmos.[5] As historian Bradford W. Wright describes,
Steve Ditko contributed some of his most surrealistic work to the comic book and gave it a disorienting, hallucinogenic quality. Dr. Strange's adventures take place in bizarre worlds and twisting dimensions that resembled Salvador Dalí paintings. ...Inspired by the pulp-fiction magicians of Stan Lee's childhood as well as by contemporary Beat culture. Dr. Strange remarkably predicted the youth counterculture's fascination with Eastern mysticism and psychedelia. Never among Marvel's more popular or accessible characters, Dr. Strange still found a niche among an audience seeking a challenging alternative to more conventional superhero fare.[6] From the beginning, Doctor Strange used magical artifacts to augment his power, such as the Cloak of Levitation,[7] the Eye of Agamotto,[8] the Book of the Vishanti,[9] and the Orb of Agamotto.[10] From the first story, Strange's residence, the Sanctum Sanctorum, was a part of the character's mythos" (DOCTOR STRANGE WIKIPEDIA, 2013).
[3]^Benton, Mike (1991). Superhero Comics of the Silver Age: The Illustrated History. Dallas, Texas: Taylor Publishing Company. p. 63. ISBN978-0-87833-746-0.
[5]^"Strange Tales #134". Grand Comics Database. "Indexer notes: Part 5 of 17. First mention of Eternity. Strange would finally find it in Strange Tales #138 (Nov. 1965)."
[7]^The blue "novice" version first appeared in Strange Tales #110 (July 1963), with the red "master" version first appearing in Strange Tales #127 (Dec. 1964).
[9]^Lee, Stan (w), Ditko, Steve (p), Ditko, Steve (i). "Return to the Nightmare World!" Strange Tales 116 (January 1964)
[10]^Lee, Stan (w), Ditko, Steve (p), Ditko, Steve (i). "The Possessed!" Strange Tales 118 (March 1964)
JUNG? Did someone say JUNG? Look for more Jungian rhetoric hereabouts soon since I already have some posts in the works. I am a huge Jungian, and I take every chance I can get to pander and promote, advocate and proffer the ideas of Carl Jung.
Surreal landscapes have always been a favourite of mine, and Steve Ditko's work in this arena is unparalleled in comics. Many great artists followed creating their own excellence with Doctor Strange, such as one of my all-time favorites: Gene Colan.
And yet, I could not include Steve Ditko, as much as I love his work, in the top five favourite 1960s comic artists, which I detailed in T-shirt #83. After Kirby, Kane, Adams, Colan, and Romita, I would surely place Ditko sixth.
THE POCKET BOOK CIRCA 1979
I like collected editions. Back in the 1970s, there were few collected editions of comic books. Origins of Marvel Comics and the series of books that followed were among the very few.
As you know, and if you don't know it, then you are learning now, I am an extremely sentimental soul. So not only is this Pocket Book of Doctor Strange dear to me, but so is the inscription written by my mother. It was a tradition in our family to inscribe books given as gifts, as this one was for my birthday in 1979. I debated sharing such a personal thing as this inscription written by my mother. But since my mother has lost the ability to write at all, examples of her careful and beautiful cursive handwriting are very dear to me.
REMEMBER WHAT I SAID ABOUT CAPES?
Cape are cool. It's a rule. Doctor Strange's cape is the special Cloak of Levitation given to him by the Ancient One in Strange Tales 126-127. It is a magical artifact that floats of its own accord.
How cool is that?
Very. MARVEL TOP TWENTY NON-FLAGSHIP SUPERHEROES - MEN
Yes, here it is, the list you have been waiting for. It was difficult to make this list. I had to confine myself to male Marvel heroes who either did not have their own books or who had/have solo books but are not considered the pillars of the Franchise (like Spider-Man and Captain America). Doctor Strange heads the list.
Doctor Strange
The Silver Surfer
The Black Panther
The Vision
Adam Warlock
The Black Knight
Son of Satan
Iron Fist
Killraven
Falcon
Ka-Zar
Deathlok
Hawkeye
Black Bolt
Ghost Rider
3D Man
Machine Man
Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu
Quasar
Captain Marvel
Reflect and connect.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
