If The Bugs Ever Gang Up On Us, We're Screwed

The other day, I had a dream - almost a nightmare, actually - that woke me up in a bit of a panic. In the dream, I chased a small, green bug around my apartment. Now, this isn't an uncommon occurence - I'm in a ground floor apartment that's usually pretty full of bugs (one of the reasons I'm getting kinda excited to move). However, what happened next...

I must have tripped, because, before I knew it, I was on the floor. I could see the bug, hiding in the corner of the room. The bug suddenly turned and jumped towards me, covering the ground between us with terrifying speed. I crawled away as quickly as I could, but the bug was faster. It made a last leap and landed right on the side of my neck. I heard it bite me, and it made a terrible noise, a mix between a metallic grating and a choir of the damned.

That's the part that woke me up.


Worst part about the dream? I woke up at, like, 9:30. On a Saturday, when I'd normally sleep in until 11:00.

That's TRULY evil!

Braddy Reads... Like a Writer

Every now and again, I feel a tinge of guilt that I did NOT actually read all of the texts I was assigned to read back in college. I still wound up reading approximately 36 books a semester, though, so I don't usually feel all THAT guilty. Still, I like to go back sometimes and read some of the books I was assigned in school but never actually got around to.

I just finished Francine Prose's Reading Like a Writer, which was an assigned text for one of the many, many creative writing courses I took. Prose's thesis is that a writer learns best how to write not through the workshop method so popular these days (and ironically the method that made up the very class wherein I received this book) but through methodical study of the writing styles of the masters of the past.

To get her point across, Prose includes vast excerpts from novels and short stories of the past 200 years, which she then meticulously breaks down to analyze why the writing is so good. She makes her point pretty well, but... well, she doesn't do much to prove her OWN writing talent. I'll just say it's gotta be nice to put a book out there that's only 50% what you wrote yourself.

I kid. Prose's writing is just fine. In fact, she concludes her analysis of some lengthy Chekhov passages with a passionate little appeal that may well become a mantra of sorts for me:

Come back! I've made a mistake. Forget observation, consciousness, clear-sightedness. Forget about life. Read Chekhov, read the stories straight through. Admit that you understand nothing of life, nothing of what you see. Then go out and look at the world.

Still, Prose's purpose in writing her book is to... convince people to go and read OTHER books. And... well, she was successful. I've compiled a list of books Prose recommends EVERYONE read that I'll personally be hunting down to read for myself - and hopefully fill in some gaps in that English major education of mine.

Here's the short list (in no real order):

• Flannery O'Connor, A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories
• F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
• Philip Roth, American Pastoral
• Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep
• Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
• Raymond Carver, Where I'm Calling From: Selected Stories
• Paula Fox, Desperate Characters
• Henry James, The Turn of the Screw
• Richard Price, Freedomland
• Stuart Dybek, I Sailed with Magellan
• Heinrich von Kleist, The Marquise of O-
• Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (shut up)
• George Eliot, Middlemarch
• Gustave Flaubert, Sentimental Education
• Henry Green, Doting and Loving
• Scott Spencer, A Ship Made of Paper
• Joy Williams, Escapes
• Harold Brodkey, Stories in an Almost Classical Mode
• Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis and Other Stories
• Anton Chekhov, Tales of Anton Chekhov
• Ivan Turgenev, First Love
• Samuel Beckett, The Complete Short Prose, 1929-1989
• Juan Rulfo, Pedro Paramo

And, yes, that's actually the SHORT list.

Now I guess it's on to the next book - cuz this list might take a while.

Little Happy Secrets: An Unusual Mormon Play

The Salt Lake Acting Company recently put on a production of Melissa Leilani Larson's short play, Little Happy Secrets, which I caught Friday night. The play tells the story of a young woman named Claire, a good little Mormon girl who served a faithful mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, studied at BYU, and fell in love with her female roommate.

So, yeah, it's not exactly another fluffy Mormon show.

The LDS church has a difficult history with its gay and lesbian members (and, if that's news to you, you may want a stronger sunscreen to keep your skin all pasty pale after all those years living under rocks). The church does not support same-sex marriage and teaches that a homosexual lifestyle is sinful. As a result, homosexuality is a difficult subject to talk about among members of the church.

Going in to Little Happy Secrets, I expected some discomfort during the show. After all, I consider myself a faithful, almost-orthodox Mormon - one who loves bawdy humor a bit too much, maybe, but practicing nonetheless. I did find the play a LITTLE uncomfortable, but not for the reason I expected.

See, I could RELATE to Claire on all of the little things she spoke about during the play. Boiled down to its simplest element, Little Happy Secrets is a story about a girl in love with someone who does not love her back, and that's something I, like most people, know too well. And, really, how hard is that to sympathize with?

Little Happy Secrets wisely avoids the political tangles surrounding homosexuality and focuses on the human side of things. The story doesn't seek to change people's minds or convert them to a particular point of view. Rather, it simply presents a human story and invites us to be compassionate for the person. Whatever your opinions on same-sex attraction (and, please, keep them to yourself - my blog is NOT the forum for this discussion), can you really say that there's a single person undeserving of some compassion?

And that's the great thing about art: it's non-judgmental. The rest of the evening, I kept having this line running through my head - a modification of 1 Corinthians 13: "Art suffereth long, and is kind... seeketh not her own... but rejoiceth in the truth."

I was also dwelling on that line from Hamlet: "I say, we will have no more marriages. Those that are married already—all but
one—shall live; the rest shall keep as they are." Not quite sure why.

Since you may be wondering, the aspect of the play that made me uncomforable was the presentation. Little Happy Secrets is written as an extended monologue/flashback - thus, a good 90% of the dialogue comes from one person, whose inner turmoil is reflected so well in the text that the entire play comes out in a near emotional monotone. There's a bit of a shouting match towards the end, and the last five minutes or so contain an emotional gutpunch that make the rest of the show worth it, but the rest of the show felt a bit too bland in comparison.

It's also a very talky production - most of the feelings are described to us rather than shown to us. That's not NECESSARILY a bad thing, but I've always been a "show-don't-tell" kind of guy (a phrase which, in this context, contains unfortunate echoes of "don't ask, don't tell").

In the end, though, I'm glad I saw Little Happy Secrets. It's not quite Living Scriptures, but it's not The Book of Mormon musical, either.

Complacency Is For The Weak. You're Not Weak, Are You, Punk?

I'd hardly be the first to note that his college years were full of change. I moved probably six or seven times over the course of those four years. As a result, when I graduated from college and moved to Salt Lake, I did so with the intention of creating a more or less permanent home - which I've done fairly successfully for the past three years. This past year, though...

2011 is shaping up to be the year when the universe conspired against me to prove I'm not nearly as independent and self-sufficient as I thought - which is a pretty devastating blow to my ego.


Very first day of the year, I got robbed. A couple months later, my car died. Then my social circle was upset when the LDS church decided to mix up their young single adult program.

The biggest kick in the face, though, came last night, when my new landlord came by to introduce himself. The conversation started all friendly, but then he told me that my rent's going up $15 in September, and, unless I sign another year-long lease, it'll go up another $20 a month thereafter.

Now, I like my apartment... but not that much. It's a rat hole. Not LITERALLY a "rat hole," though. Maybe a "roach hole." I can't afford to pay even that extra $15 a month, ESPECIALLY since I'm already scrimping to pay off the car I just bought four months ago.

I've been able to live more or less comfortably on my own for several years, but apparently no longer. So I'm apartment shopping - and likely roommate shopping, too. I've got a good lead already on WHO I can live with, but I really need to find a WHERE.

And soon. September's almost here.

Man Is The Most Dangerous Game

Ultimate frisbee's about the only sport I can actually play - because it's super easy.

Five Favorite Webcomics

I read a lot of comics when I was a kid - usually in the newspaper - but I wasn't a huge enthusiast of the medium until I hit adulthood. My renewed interest in comics may have actually been spurred on by the number of quality webcomics I encountered while in college. While print in general (and print comics in particular) have been hyped as dying media, the webcomic seems to be blooming - and no one's happier about that than I am.

Here are a couple of my favorite webcomics:

XKCD

Easily among the most famous of webcomics, xkcd mixes math and science with a sharp and sometimes vicious sense of humor. Dabbling in subjects ranging from pop culture to maturity back to modern technology, xkcd is usually good for a chuckle and almost always relevant. Also, it's had a palpable influence on some of my own silly cartoons.

Sample Strips

Grownups
Duty Calls
Dental Nerve

AWESOME HOSPITAL

The newest of the webcomics on my list. While not strictly a superhero comic, Awesome Hospital often nods towards (and mocks) current goings-on in mainstream superhero comics. Beyond that, though, the doctors and nurses of Awesome Hospital exemplify everything that is "awesome" and crank it up to 11. I find the stories a good dose of over-the-top fun.

Sample Strips

I Am Hendrix
Dr. New Country
Dr. Pennyfarthing

NEDROID

Nedroid chronicles the adventures of Beartato and Reginald, two best friends who... do... stuff. Okay, so there's not much of a "plot" to speak of. It's the friendship between the giant bird and the odd little bear monster that makes these jokes so effective - there's a bit of cruelty in their behavior, but it's usually good-natured, born of ignorance rather than malice. Plus, Nedroid revels in absurdity - some strips feel like verbatim conversations I have with my friends in our sillier moods.

Sample Strips

Dare Master
Nice Try Though
You Comics

HARK! A VAGRANT

There aren't enough comics out there that poke fun at history and literature. Hark! A Vagrant tackles subjects on the far end of the nerdery scale from xkcd, revealing that poking fun at Jules Verne is a lot more enjoyable than one would initially think. The artwork seems a bit simplistic, but clever writing and an uncontested control over a particular niche in comedy make this comic a must-read - if your sense of humor's a bit crass.

Sample Strips

Another Case of Watsons
The Younger Self
Jane Austen

Order of the Stick

I've been reading Order of the Stick since college. This comic's probably the most niche-interest of all the webcomics I read - and I'm not even IN that niche. It's a parody webcomic couched in the trappings of an epic fantasy that mocks conventions of role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons. Now, I'm not a big fan of either fantasy novels or role-playing games (even though I understand most of the rules of both), but I absolutely love this comic - one of the best examples of long-form comic storytelling I've ever seen.

Sample Strips

Armor Begone
Proof That I Am Deeply Disturbed
The Test of the Mind

You're Never Too Old For Space Camp

There are very few things that I - a well-documented geek with an abiding love for fancy books, complex board games, and Batman - hesitate to admit to the general public anymore. I like to think that I'm over the perceived "nerd stigma," especially considering public perception that it's "cool" to be a nerd. However, there are still a COUPLE of subjects in the Nerdcyclopedia that I'm hesitant to look into for fear of the ink rubbing off on my fingers and branding me forever a social pariah. For example, I long ago decided that LARPing is an activity too silly for me to EVER indulge in. Same with Star Trek, with its embarassing spandex, dry dialogue, and William Shatner saturation.

Put the two together, though, and you'll know how I spent my Saturday. Double dose of nerd shame.

I took a trip with some friends this weekend to The Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center, based in Pleasant Grove, where we acted out a Trek-themed scenario aboard a mock space station. I have a friend who really likes Star Trek and often organizes these little outings. He needed 10 people for this group and asked me if I'd go with.

Our "mission" was to facilitate the transportation of supplies to a mining colony at the edge of Federation space under siege by Orion space pirates. I filled the role of weapons technician - it was my job to fire the phasers, photon torpedoes, and our top-secret weapon: a planet-destroying laster jokingly named THX 1138 (a joke I, sadly, did not need Wikipedia to recognize). Of course, since all my weaponry was located on the outside of the space station, I was pretty much useless when the Orion pirates boarded our ship and took us all hostage. Luckily, we had a cache of weapons hidden from the invaders and were eventually able to fight them off.

Just as we retook the bridge, though, an Orion fleet flew in and opened fire on the ship. Thus, it fell to Starfleet's handsomest weapons technician to fight them off. A healthy barrage of photon torpedoes later, and we won the day and delivereed the supplies safely.

So, yeah, I enjoyed the outing a lot more than I expected to, which unfortunately leads to more shame. See, if you clicked the link to the Christa McAuliffe Center above, you may notice that all the pictures of the participants feature twelve-year-old children in Star Trek vests. The Orion Pirates that boarded our station were played by elementary school boys with red headbands and plastic light-up guns.

I guess that makes me the equivalent of the 300-pound McDonald's employee who boasts about schooling the local Cub Scout troop in basketball.

Why I'm Still Single 36

Self-Understanding: The Rheti Sampler

I, like many others, desire to understand myself better. However, I feel that the time spent in meditation, introspection, and perhaps counseling could better be used unlocking PS3 trophies. Thank goodness for easy-to-complete online personality tests like the RHETI Sampler.

The Riso-Hudson Enneagram Type Indicator identifies nine distinct personality types and organizes them in a neat pentagrammy-looking thingy. There's a lengthy questionnaire you can take, but I, not having $10 and 40 minutes to spare, took the free sample to see what it's about.

(If this looks familiar to some of you, you may recall that Larissa tried this about a month ago.)

So here are my results:


Pretty much all over the map, except for personality type number 2. Guess that means, if you need something from me, you know where to go.

The highest scores were in type 3 and type 5:

3 - The Achiever

Threes are self-assured, attractive, and charming. Ambitious, competent, and energetic, they can also be status-conscious and highly driven for advancement. They are diplomatic and poised, but can also be overly concerned with their image and what others think of them. They typically have problems with workaholism and competitiveness. At their Best: self-accepting, authentic, everything they seem to be—role models who inspire others.

Basic Fear: Of being worthless
Basic Desire: To feel valuable and worthwhile

5 - The Investigator

Fives are alert, insightful, and curious. They are able to concentrate and focus on developing complex ideas and skills. Independent, innovative, and inventive, they can also become preoccupied with their thoughts and imaginary constructs. They become detached, yet high-strung and intense. They typically have problems with eccentricity, nihilism, and isolation. At their Best: visionary pioneers, often ahead of their time, and able to see the world in an entirely new way.

Basic Fear: Being useless, helpless, or incapable
Basic Desire: To be capable and competent

According to the website, I'm in pretty good company: I share personality traits with Billy Dee Williams, Tim Burton, and the X-Files's Fox Mulder.

Maybe you do, too.

The Lists: Top 5 Books

In writing about Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, I realized that I've read some of the best books I've ever read just in this past year. Just for kicks, I thought I'd write up a quick list of my favorite books - books that I haven't just enjoyed reading, but that have inspired me to try something a little different with my own writing. This is by no means a definitive list - things'll likely shuffle around quite a bit, even in the next year.

So, in no particular order, here are Braddy's Favorite Books (for Right Now):

FAVORITE NOVELS:

1. Chaim Potok, My Name is Asher Lev
2. Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
3. Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale
4. Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange
5. William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

There's value even in the snootiest of literature.

FAVORITE POETRY COLLECTIONS:

1. Billy Collins, The Trouble with Poetry
2. Louise Glück, The Wild Iris
3. William Stafford, Even in Quiet Places
4. E.E. Cummings, E. E. Cummings: Complete Poems, 1904-1962
5. Langston Hughes, Selected Poems of Langston Hughes

Just because poetry's obsolete, that doesn't make it not awesome.

FAVORITE YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE:

1. Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak
2. Walter Dean Myers, Monster
3. Nancy Farmer, The House of the Scorpion
4. Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street
5. Ray Bradbury, Farenheit 451

Twenty-seven counts as young adult, right?

FAVORITE CHILDREN'S LITERATURE:

1. Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
2. Jerry Spinelli, Maniac Magee
3. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
4. Neil Gaiman, Coraline
5. Sharon Creech, Love That Dog

How do I distinguish between children's lit and YA lit? Poorly.

FAVORITE GRAPHIC NOVELS:

1. David Mazzucchelli, Asterios Polyp
2. Art Spiegelman, Maus: A Survivor's Tale
3. Grant Morrison, Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on a Serious Earth
4. Jonathan Hickman, The Nightly News
5. Stan Sakai, Usagi Yojimbo v. 22: Tomoe's Story

Every list is better if Batman is on it at least once.

MISCELLANEOUS FAVORITES:

1. Mark Doty, Still Life with Oysters and Lemon (memoir)
2. Keith Johnstone, Impro for Storytellers (textbook)
3. Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (play)
4. Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia (nonfiction)
5. Shaun Tan, Tales from Outer Suburbia (picture book)

Some things can't be defined. For everything else, there's MasterCard.

Braddy Reads The Sun Also Rises

I was a total HACK of an English major. I spent three years in advanced English classes in high school, studied literature intensely all throughout college, and graduated college at 24. Yet I'd never read a single novel by Ernest Hemingway until now.

The Sun Also Rises now probably sits near the top of the "Best Books I've Ever Read" list (and it's been a fine year for those). Hemingway's terse, unadorned prose actually conveys more than enough information to get across, not just the plot, but the subtext as well. For something so seemingly simplistic, it's surprisingly elegant.

There isn't much going on in the plot. Jake Barnes is a journalist in Paris, and he is in love with Lady Brett Ashley. He was shot in the war. They go to Spain and watch the bull fights, and they all get very drunk. The end. However, Hemingway crafted a group of characters that feel more grounded in reality than just about any I've read elsewhere (the fact that they may be based on actual colleagues of his certainly helps). As a result, their problems feel more severe than melodramatic crises of other novels.

Hemingway's style of writing is sometimes referred to as the Iceberg Theory, wherein most of the substance of what he writes is not readily apparent, or "under the surface." With that in mind, reading the novel becomes something of a psychological study. All that drinking certainly becomes more worrisome...

Hemingway's writing style probably isn't for everyone, but I found it nearly revelatory. The Sun Also Rises is about the perfect novel for me: quick to read, engaging, and stylistically unique. Once I finished it, I wanted to start reading more Hemingway right away - and that's a pretty big compliment.

This Isn't a Game!

One of my coworkers went to see Cowboys and Aliens. I asked him to tell me how it was, and he responded, "Well... it can't be GOOD." So I went and checked it out for myself on Friday with my buddy Dashbo. And it was... appropriately terrible. Still a fun movie, though.

But, oh, I had no idea just how surreal the experience would be. And the worst part happened about ten minutes before the movie actually started, when we were subjected to this.

That's a trailer for Battleship, a movie that, somehow, is not a practical joke. The trailer opens up depicting sexy times between Brooklyn Decker and Alexander Skarsgård, who plays a character named "Stone Hopper." Also starring in the movie are Liam Neeson and pop singer Rihanna.

And, again, this is a real @$$ thing.

Normally, this type of announcement would have me completely irate, condemning Hollywood for its complete lack of originality and unwillingness to take a chance on ANYTHING that hasn't already been part of the cultural consciousness for twenty years already... except I think this is kind of a cool idea. In fact, I think MORE movies should be made based on games with plots thinner than the cardboard they're printed on. In fact, I've got a couple of suggestions:

• Leonardo DiCaprio plays Arthur Creed, a young man who moves to Atlantic City with a small fortune left him in his father's will. He is determined to use the money to renew the Creed family's failing real-estate empire. Unfortunately, he finds his efforts blocked at every turn by the mysterious Shadow Bankers Association and their enigmatic chairman known only as "Mr. Pennybags." Oliver Stone directs Monopoly
• Master of suspense M. Night Shyamalan brings you a tale of madness and imagination. A troubled author, tormented by thoughts that are not his own, begins to see words never before heard by mortal ears. Are these words truly keys to power as he believes, or are they just the gibberings of a madman? Timothy Olyphant stars in Scrabble
• An alien craft crash lands in the Nevada desert. There are no survivors... at first. The United States is under attack by an aggressive insectoid race capable of regenerating themselves from a single severed leg. Jensen Ackles stars in Cooties. Directed by Michael Bay.
• Desperate for work so she can earn money to feed the six starving orphans under her care, Elizabeth Doherty (played by Academy Award winner Hilary Swank) finds work on a large Washington farm. She thinks she may have finally found the means to make ends meet, until her boss (Carey Elwes) starts to make unwelcome advances on her. Even when her job is threatened, Elizabeth must keep an outwardly cheery appearance to keep her children from despairing. Steven Spielberg directs Hi-Ho! Cherry-o.
• Better watch those labels! A crate meant for the San Diego Zoo somehow winds up in the office of Principal Mike Jones (played by Jack Black) who runs a neat and tidy elementary school. He opens the box, and out jump dozens of monkeys - and they mean business. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll learn a lesson or two about life and love in Barrel of Monkeys
• It's the year 2076, and the world's first AI president has gone haywire. If he can't be repaired quickly, humans across the planet will riot and tear down their robotic neighbors, plunging humanity back into the stone age. Can the computer hacking whiz known only as Joseph (Jesse Eisenberg) stop armageddon in time? Hugo Weaving voices Simon
• Candyland is a sweet place - a children's dream come true... on the surface. But as Erin and Tammy Drake (played by Chloë Moretz and Hailee Steinfeld) soon find, the land is thick with more than just a caramel cream center. They enlist the help of Mr. Mint (Cilian Murphy) and Princess Lolly (Ellen Page) to unravel the complex history of Candyland. They must depose the wicked Queen Frostine (Marion Cotillard) and reinstate good King Kandy (Michael Caine) before Candyland is destroyed... forever. Christopher Nolan directs Candyland, a darker chocolate than most.

I could do this all day. Seriously.

In Which Braddy Wonders if He Isn't Racist

NOTE: The following is my personal response to the movie The Help - not a review. I'll likely spoil a lot of plot developments for people who haven't seen the movie, so if you want a spoiler-free review, please disconnect from the internet, because you're looking in the wrong place.

Maybe it's because I come from one of the most culturally homogeneous states in America, but movies about African-American history always provoke a LOT of thought... and, sadly, a lot of skepticism. I watch movies like Glory Road and Remember the Titans, for example, and can't help but feel that the stories are a tamed and a bit white-washed (if you'll forgive the deliberate and racially-charged pun). The racism always feels a bit cushioned and tailor-made for optimum drama - almost as if Hollywood doesn't actually WANT to promote open and frank discussion of some of America's most historically shameful behavior.

I felt similar unease after watching The Help - which, for the record, is very well-done and thought-provoking. The film balances its presentation of discrimination and hate with scenes of real human heart and comedy, so the whole thing never feels too oppressive.

And that may be my biggest problem with the movie: The Help treats the race issue in 1960's Mississippi almost as if it were the plot of a sitcom, with a despicable, baby-eating villain who gets an ironic and "cah-RAZ-y" comeuppance by the end of the show. The film tries to be a comedy and a drama, but it really can't have it both ways. As a result, we wind up with some... awkward moments.

The character Minny (played by Octavia Spencer) best exemplifies what I'm talking about. She is something of a comic relief character: sassy, sarcastic, and headstrong, with a deep and abiding love for fried chicken. Now, maybe I'm overly sensitive, but I saw that as a potentially negative stereotype.

Then, about halfway through the movie, I experienced about the most uncomfortable laugh I've ever had in a movie. Minny visits her employer - a lower class white woman who is, herself, quite comical. Minny tries to speak to the woman through a locked door, but the woman repeatedly tells her to go home. Finally, Minny charges into the door and breaks it open. The audience bursts into laughter... and then we cut to the woman, lying on the floor and covered in blood. She just miscarried.

I've been thinking about the character Minny ever since, wondering if she was an unintentional stereotype, or maybe she represents a purposeful attempt to reclaim negative black stereotypes in the same way Dick Gregory tried to reclaim the word "nigger" with his autobiography (worth checking out for anyone interested in the Civil Rights movement).

In the end, I have to say it doesn't really matter what she "represents." Minny's portrayed sympathetically and, more importantly, three-dimensionally. True, she's a poor woman with several kids, an abusive husband, and a love for fried chicken, but she also has a strong sense of justice, a good sense of humor, and powerful friendships Mr. Rogers would be envious of. So maybe I'm the racist one here.

The Help, though, is worth seeing whether I'm racist or not.

Damsels and Heroines: A Closer Look at Disney's Princesses (*UPDATED for 2013*)

Even though I'm not a little girl anymore... *ahem*... I still love a good Disney animated film. That said, I've taken some issue with how the company chooses to market itself ("If you don't go to Disneyland, your childhood is incomplete and your parents hate you"). I've been most fascinated by the recent emphasis on "princesses," long a staple of Disney's stories. Now, Disney Princesses are a brand unto themselves, marketed towards little girls' romantic fantasies - and I have to say I'm not sure these ladies are the best role models a girl could have.

My family's full of Disney fans, so the shows often pop up in conversation. My brother and I just had a discussion about the Disney Princesses - we tried to figure out which ones were dynamic characters who grew over the course of their story and which were static and unchanging. Going one step further, I've decided to take a look at the "official" Disney princesses, one at a time, to figure out which ones I'd want my hypothetical daughter to adulate.

Specifically, I'll look at whether these animated young women are convincingly empowered protagonists ("Heroines") who fail and overcome in true heroic fasion, or whether they're passive players in their own stories ("Damsels") who wait for someone else to solve their problems for them.

Note (and this really should go without saying): I make no claim to impartiality. I am, as always, EXTREMELY biased.

Snow White (Snow White)

Arguably, Snow White's one of the more passive Disney princesses. Her problems are out of her control almost entirely - it's not her fault that she's so pretty. Her jealous stepmother tries to kill her a couple of times out of jealousy - nearly succeeds, too, thanks to that poisoned apple. Poor, trusting Snow White never learned to be wary of ugly strangers...

The closest Snow White comes to actively participating in her own fate is through the service she provides the dwarves - they protect her, and, in return, she cooks and cleans for them. Is that proactive? Maybe, but it's hardly progressive.

Greatest Strength: Domesticity
Greatest Weakness: Gullibility
Verdict: Damsel


Cinderella (Cinderella)

Again, we've got the classic fairy tale trope - evil stepmother inflicts hardship upon a beautiful and undeserving child. Now, I find Lady Tremaine's favorable treatment of her natural children over her adopted child an understandable impulse from a stepmother (not sympathetic, perhaps, but understandable). So, again, it's not really Cinderella's fault that the world's so cruel to her.

...except the world's NOT cruel to her. Everyone loves her - dogs, mice, princes... Heck, she even has a laws-of-nature-breaking fairy godmother come in to salvage her big prom night. A "bibbidi bobbidi ex machina," if you will. I doubt I'd do much for myself if I could convince birds to do it for me.

Greatest Strength: Animal Charisma
Greatest Weakness: Poor Familial Relations
Verdict: Damsel


Aurora (Sleeping Beauty)

The poster child of passive princessdom actually gets a bit of a bad rap. True, Aurora spends at least half the movie asleep, literally waiting for a man to "bring her to life," as Amy Lee would say. She does absolutely nothing to avoid her fate.

I tend to be a bit more sympathetic towards Aurora, though, since she is kept in the dark by everyone around her. The fairies who look after her never bother to explain where she came from, and her parents didn't so much as write her a note.

I feel bad for Aurora. I hate to call her a "Damsel" - "Victim" is more like it, although that term's not big on dignity, either.

Greatest Strength: A Mean Three-Step
Greatest Weakness: Chronic Fatigue
Verdict: Damsel


Ariel (The Little Mermaid)

The most sexualized of all the Disney princes is also the most under-aged. Shame on you, Disney.

Going chronologically, Ariel's probably the first of the Disney princesses to take any real action on her own. She decides on what she wants (a man) and does everything she can to get him, up to and including making a deal with the devil. So, in an almost refreshing change of pace, Ariel's actually the cause of her own problems.

Unfortunately, Ariel's never really called upon to change as a result of what she's done (well, I guess she changes from a mermaid to a human, but... shut up). She doesn't really atone for her mistakes, and her father and boyfriend are the ones who wind up fixing everything. Ariel's just a flighty teenage girl who falls in love with a boy her dad doesn't approve of. All Eric needs is a leather jacket.

Greatest Strength: Daddy's Girl
Greatest Weakness: Hormones
Verdict: Damsel


Belle (Beauty and the Beast)

At first glance, Belle appears pretty helpless. She can't keep Gaston from courting her, she can't run away from the Beast without getting attacked by wolves, and she can't break out of the cellar to run and rescue her love. So, really, it seems like she belongs right smack dab in the center of the "Damsel" camp with a guitar singing "Michael Row Your Boat Ashore."

However, Belle's not powerless just because she can't bust through an oak door. She bravely offers to trade her life for her father's, amd she refuses to put up with the Beast's anger and childishness. I'd call Belle a "Heroine," even though she's more Florence Nightingale than Xena, Warrior Princess.

Greatest Strength: Literacy
Greatest Weakness: Weak Arms
Verdict: Heroine


Jasmine (Aladdin)

Jasmine's the only Disney princess I have no strong opinions about. Let's see if I can change that...

Agrabah's princess undergoes SOMETHING like character development, I guess - she runs away from home because she's dissatisfied with palatial life, falls for a homeless guy, and... umm... eventually gets to marry him? Like so many characters from romances, Jasmine doesn't seem to actually grow out of her weaknesses as much as she forgets about them because she's so "in love."

Still, Jasmine does come off a bit more confident and self-assured than a lot of the other princesses on the list. She stands up to Jafar, even when threatened with death and... other discomforts (Jafar basically threatens to rape her - intense crap for a kid's flick). Oh, and her singing voice is done by Lea Salonga, which is pretty cool.

Greatest Strength: Stubbornness
Greatest Weakness: Stubbornness
Verdict: Heroine


Pocahontas (Pocahontas)

Say what you will about the movie itself (and there's a LOT to be said), the titular character herself ranks among the strongest, most selfless of Disney women. True, she's dissatisfied with life for no real reason. I guess deep down she was waiting for her great white prince to come...

Awkward.

Well, in any case, literally throwing yourself in harm's way to protect someone you love earns you hero points on just about any rubric.

Greatest Strength: Selflessness
Greatest Weakness: Historical Innacuracy
Verdict: Heroine


Fa Mulan (Mulan)

It'd be too easy to look at Mulan, imagine her swinging a sword, mark down "Heroine," and be done with it. However, that's only half the story. While it's true that Mulan becomes a great soldier (she's perhaps the only Disney princess who can actually fight), it's important to remember that Mulan's story is kicked off when SHE SCREWS UP.

Mulan makes mistakes - a lot of them. She embarrasses her family, runs away from home, and impersonates a soldier. She breaks a lot of rules, and a lot of laws.

She also does her best to make things right on her own, rather than waiting for someone else to fix everything. That, to me, is what sets her ahead in the grand tally.

Greatest Strength: Transvestism
Greatest Weakness: Eddie Murphy
Verdict: Heroine


Tiana (The Princess and the Frog)

You know, for a movie set in colorful New Orleans, I found The Princess and the Frog to be a bit... bland. Tiana's perhaps one of the least well-rounded characters on the list, including the girl who spends the entirety of her own movie ASLEEP.

Okay, maybe that's a bit harsh. I'm just bothered by the fact that Tiana's main goal (to open her own restaurant) is stalled by her magical transformation into a frog - an obstacle that has NO thematic relation to her character arc.

As a character, though, I think Tiana's great. She works hard to be the best at what she loves to do, and she turns that into her career.

Also, there's an alligator or something in there.

Greatest Strength: Culinary Genius
Greatest Weakness: Umm... she works TOO hard?
Verdict: Heroine


Rapunzel (Tangled)

Man, I love this character.

Rapunzel is one of the few Disney heroines whose growth actually FEELS like growth. She starts off the film naive, immature, and unsure of herself. Eventually, she matures into a self-sacrificing yet strong young woman. She makes the difficult decision to leave the only mother she's ever known and sacrifice the thing that makes her special to get out from under Gothel's tyrrany. Yeah, the AUDIENCE knows Mother Gothel is evil, but Rapunzel clearly doesn't. So the audience gets the privilege of watching everything her life is built on crumble.

To her credit, Rapunzel handles it all well - mostly. She comes out in the end a little sadder, a little wiser, but still the same cheerful young woman she was when she started.

Greatest Strength: Follicle Fortitude
Greatest Weakness: That ^#$%in' Horse!
Verdict: Heroine

Merida(Brave)

Yes, Brave was a Pixar film, not a Disney one. Merida was coronated, though, so she belongs on the list.

Merida's an interesting character. She's a fiery redhead with a fierce sense of independence and a desire to break out of the role society demands of her - both attributes which cause problems for her nation and her parents. So she's basically Ariel with legs and a Scottish brogue.

Merida comes off better than Ariel, though. She takes responsibility for her actions and tries to fix them. Unfortunately, she isn't really forced to grow up by her experiences. Her mother changes more than Merida does.

Still a pretty awesome character, though.

Greatest Strength: Archery
Greatest Weakness: Combs
Verdict: Heroine

Anna and Elsa(Frozen)

Does... does Disney get it now?

Here we have two great characters - Anna, an excitable young woman whose wild emotions tend to cause problems, and Elsa, a literal "ice queen" who fears her own capacity to harm. Both get into trouble in equal measure, and both, from time to time, need help getting out of it. Individually, I may have had problems with these two, but together they make for one of the most interesting relationships Disney has ever depicted.

The relationship is so good, in fact, that I'll let it slide that Disney basically made a movie where the conflict was instigated by one woman's mood swings.

Greatest Strength: Sisterly Affection
Greatest Weakness: Global Warming
Verdict: Damsel AND Heroine (but which one's which?)

CONCLUSION

It looks like Disney has made an effort to make their female leads more proactive as the years go by. In years past, the princesses themselves were almost completely devoid of personality, standing in the center of their stories while the plot happened around them.

Disney's come a long way since then. The most explicit efforts to make strong female leads in Disney films (especially Mulan and Tiana) feel a bit insincere, almost like pandering. But the women of Disney have started to feel a lot less like perfect oil paintings and more like real people with the ability to influence their own destinies. Well done, indeed.

Can You Tell Me How To Get to Braddy's Blog?

I've been compiling for a while a list of some of the more common/entertaining search terms people type in to Google that lead them to my blog. Here are some of the stranger ones:

• tuba player
• 4 weeks beard growth
• azazel x-men
• i’m single (also can be “i’m x years old and still single”)
• wolf whistle for girls
• fedora fights
• fiery cocktail of absinthe and crack
• my humps

Of course, I've saved the best for last. Far and away, "rapunzel" is the most common word people type in that leads them to "The Life and Times of S.R. Braddy." Unfortunately, that includes some questionable... ah... "additional qualifiers," including:

• disney rapunzel hot
• disney tangled rapunzel booty

And most shockingly:

• rapunzel nude sex

I hope whoever was searching for Rapunzel-themed porn wasn't TOO disappointed when they found my in-depth character analysis instead.

Actually, scratch that. I hope they were TOTALLY disappointed. And embarrassed.

Why I'm Still Single 35

Wish I Said It First #14

#14

"If you don't like the way your company is doing business, walk into your employer's office and demand change. If things don't change, quit and tell everyone why.

Just. Do. Something.

And I truly believe you would, if you weren't so busy surfing the Internet instead of doing your #^@%ing job."

-Jonathan Hickman's The Nightly News, chapter 5

I think THIS is the moment when I decided the book in my hands was something extra-special.

The quote is censored by me, which... well, the censorship's pretty ironic given the text I'm referencing. Sorry.

Braddy Reads The Nightly News

Jonathan Hickman's a writer that's been making a splash in the comic book world recently. I've read some of his work, including Pax Romana (the story of a militant Catholic church with access to time travel) and the first part of his run on Fantastic Four (marking the only time I've ever actually cared about the Fantastic Four as a franchise). I didn't think these stories were SPECTACULAR, but I enjoyed them - solid plots, fun twists, good characters...

Then I read Hickman's The Nightly News and understood exactly what all the hype is about.

For those keeping track, The Nightly News is the second shocking, subversive read from my weekend. It's a book chock-full of ideas and heady concepts. Also, there's anger. A LOT of anger.

I get the impression that Jonathan Hickman's a pretty dissatisfied customer (and that's not meant to be derogatory - he also strikes me as intelligent and level-headed). In The Nightly News, he takes out his frustration with the media by telling the story of a cult whose sole purpose is the assassination of prominent newscasters and journalists.

The Nightly News indulges in two of the three "no-nos" I described yesterday - violence and language. And there's a lot of each. Of course, when you're pissed off, violence and language are easy to indulge in.

Just like Lolita which I reported on yesterday, The Nightly News presents characters whose emotions are understandable but whose actions are morally questionable at best. I don't know if we're meant to fully sympathize or root for ANY of the parties involved in the conflict.

What we are meant to do after reading The Nightly News is think - and Hickman provides a lot of information for us to mull over. He includes several charts and graphs full of statistics regarding corruption within large media corporations and America's abuse of Ritalin (usually prefaced with tongue-in-cheek disclaimers like "If you're like me and only care about your own personal entertainment, keep reading on the next page"). Whatever the author's personal stance on the issues is, he makes it abundantly, almost violently, clear that SOMETHING is not right.


Visually, The Nightly News is unlike anything I've seen before - blending traditional comics artwork with graphic-design sensibilities. The result is a pseudo-futuristic look for a war of brands - which is what the whole conflict boils down to, even though one of the brands is more revolutionary than the other.

Summation: The Nightly News is a difficult read emotionally, but it's powerful. It's exactly the kind of comic I've been looking for for a long time.

Braddy Reads Lolita

(Google Image search wouldn't allow me to even find a picture of the book cover I read, as the term "Lolita" is blocked by Safe Search. Given the subject matter, I decided not to alter the Safe Search restrictions.)

I spent the weekend up at my sister-in-law's cabin. Between long naps, near constant eating, and the screaming of several small children (I've got a three-year-old niece with lungs like machine guns), I managed to finish two incredibly insightful and rather shocking books. I'll be posting more about the second book tomorrow. For today, though, you get my response to Vladimir Nabakov's Lolita.

A lot of my fascination with Lolita stems from the time I heard about "that book by Nabakov" in a Police song (no, not "Message in a Bottle"). Since then, Lolita has come up in conversation a lot, usually with English students or professors who say it's one of the greatest books of the twentieth century. I read the book, then, with more than a little apprehension.

Of the three great moral "no-nos" of fiction (cussin', sexin', and killin'), Lolita commits only the second. For those who don't know, Lolita is the story of a "romance" between Humbert Humbert and his young ward, a girl named Dolores, or "Lolita" (and let me just say that "Humbert Humbert" actually FEELS like an appropriate name for our lustful protagonist). Humbert Humbert takes Lolita across the country to various motels and make a pretense of reserving two beds. I found it almost ironic that, while the author describes their physical relationship almost pornographically, he edits out the worst of the lanugage.

On the cover of the book, Vanity Fair calls Lolita "the only convincing love story of our century," a thought which depresses me greatly if it's true. See, as you might expect, Dolores doesn't really reciprocate Humbert Humbert's feelings for her (in fact, there are evidences throughout the text that Humbert Humbert realizes he's hurting his little Lolita, but he ignores those impressions).

We never question Humbert Humbert's feelings for his Lolita, but I found myself constantly questioning his sanity. The book is written from the first-person perspective, and I never once found myself able to fully trust what I was being told (a lovely trick that's difficult to pull off but highly successful when done right).

Which leads me to the main impression Lolita left on me: This is a beautifully written book. The subject matter is horrific, the characters unlikable, and the morality questionable at best, but Nabakov's book may be one of the best-written I've ever seen - an impressive feat, especially considering Nabakov wasn't writing in his first language.

That said, I can't bring myself to pass a moral judgment on the book. I don't believe Lolita is meant to condone pedophilia and rape, nor do I think it's meant to be a celebration of "forbidden love." I don't even think the book is pornographic (erotic definitely). Lolita possesses artistic merit, although, if you ask me to describe what it is, I'd have a difficult time providing an acceptable answer.

It all goes back to that question, "What is art?" (a question I ask myself a lot with literature these days). I believe it is appropriate for art to challenge our perceptions of morality. I don't know that it's always appropriate for art to DEFINE "right and wrong" (that sounds more like propaganda to me). I leave that to the reader.

In short, Lolita now belongs on the list of books that for literary purposes I'm glad I've read, but for moral/religious reasons I feel no need to read again (1984 belongs on that list, too, as does Disgrace).

Sure was a pretty book, though.

Why I'm Still Single 34

I don't know why. If I did, it'd be explicable.

(Still love Enchanted, though)

An Onslaught of Strange Dreams

In the past week, I've been having night after night of utterly BAFFLING dreams. Heck, just last night, I had three:

• Someone broke into my apartment by tunnelling in through the kitchen wall and stole my Playstation. I wound up on my knees in the street and the rain, crying like Stanley Kowalski.
• I attended a concert put on by David Bowie at the USU library, where the music legend performed the complete discography of... Prince. My improv buddies heckled his show for about a half hour and drove everyone else away. By the end of the show, I was the only one left in the audience. Bowie and I became best friends.
• I had a brief, ill-fated romance with Lauren Graham... or maybe it was actually Lorelai Gilmore. Either way, it was weird - I'm uncomfortable with my own fantasies.

Even stranger to me, though, is a pair of dreams I had last week:

• In the first dream, I was hanging out on the monkey bars with one of my old college roommates, who told me he was getting a divorce. I left the playground and ran into my oldest brother, who was ALSO getting a divorce. Finally, I wound up in my apartment, talking to my little brother about our OTHER brother, who was ALSO getting a divorce.
• The second dream was about the most emotional unreal scenario I've ever envisioned. I was talking to my dad in his trophy room (side note: my dad does not actually hunt), trying to dissuade him from separating with my mother.

I don't know if these dreams MEAN anything, but they definitely indicate a fear of relationships far beyond my usual phobias. As always, I'm open to interpretations.

Except about that Lauren Graham thing. I mean, she's a pretty woman and all... but I don't want to know what that dream says about me.

More Monsters - Hunchbacks, Zombies, Gorgons, and Robots

I've had some fun drawing monsters in the past, so I decided to try with a different breed of beastie.

Never again. Medusae are TOUGH to doodle. Took for-bloody-ever.


"And ooouut there, living in the sun..."


Still more monster sketches... The leaping zombie in the back is my favorite.

I've been focusing a lot on these "big-headed" character models recently. It's been fun, but something about some of the hairstyles feels a bit off (in drawing hair on these guys, I treat the hair more like a helmet, or like the hair on a Lego figure). Then again, I've never been great at hair.

Also, there's a (not so subtle) hidden literature joke in this sketch. I like slipping those in sometimes.


I hadn't drawn my little robot buddy in a while. This time, conveniently, all the little chains in his arms were obscured, and, since I've changed his feet from those absurd little wheels into actual feet, this was about the easiest drawing ever to whip out.