Post-Easter Blues

Actually, they're more of the "I have to go back to a day job" blues, but yeah, it's Monday. In fact, it's been a complete and utter Monday from beginning to end... though there are a few cool things to report:

To any knitters out there: I'd like a pair of these.

The season 4 trailer for Doctor Who is now online -- show debuts April 5 on the BBC. Woot!

Torchwood continues to hurtle its way through its second uneven season. I don't know if the show will ever find its feet, but -- as promised -- there was hot action between Captain Jack and Ianto in the last episode. It seems like the BBC is burning off the last couple of episodes in advance of Doctor Who's return.

Lost ended the mini-season strong. Note to show creators -- flashbacks about interesting characters like Michael are good. Ones about boring ones like Juliet, well not so much.

Spoil the upcoming Battlestar Galactica season 4 for yourself and friends.

And with 30 Rock coming back soon, the spring actually promises to have new episodes of nearly all the TV shows I care about (Pushing Daisies will be back next fall; hopefully the British IT Crowd will make a return sooner rather than later).

Childhood's End

Returning from the grave... well, a rather intense temp assignment, with  a few thoughts and stuff:

Arthur C. Clarke has died. I devoured his books as a teenager and they helped to lay the foundation for what science fiction should be in my young mind. I may have turned aside a lot of those assumptions over the years, but like the works of Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein, Clarke's works were -- and still are -- essential for anyone who really wants to understand the genre.

After reading a number of accounts from last week's South by Southwest music whatever it was (conference, convention, excuse to party for a week?), I realize that the whole affair sounds like hell to me: long lines, crowded venues, tons of people trying to act cool, all for a lot of bands that no one will remember in a couple of months.

Lost continues on its merry way, with a pair of recent peaks surrounding a deep valley in the last three episodes. I don't think it's a surprise that the valley was one that advanced the underlying mythology more than characters. Yes, the backstory to Lost is intriguing, but it's not what makes the show so enticing -- it's the bevy of interesting characters who are constantly forced to make difficult decisions, and often make the wrong ones.

There was a bit of a discussion on spoilers on io9, a supremely geeky science fiction site. For those of you visiting here -- once a show has aired on television, book has been issued or movie has been in the theaters, it's fair game. It's not a spoiler anymore after its escaped from captivity, so don't pretend people are causing you grief because they have the audacity to talk about a movie from two years ago you haven't gotten around to watching yet. By the way, Rosebud was his sled.

Speaking of spoilers -- word is that Captain Jack and Ianto will be seen in bed together on the next BBC-broadcast Torchwood (whoo hoo!) and that the Daleks will be back in season 4 of Doctor Who. Now, does either of these facts surprise anyone?

Another passing; and some bonus thoughts

Gary Gygax, the founding father of Dungeon and Dragons, has died. For those of us who spent our youth (and adulthood as well) buried in thick manuals full of charts, monsters and descriptions that opened the door to a new world, I offer my condolences.

The New York Times offers another story of a memoir that turned out to be absolutely false. From all reports, the book is a compelling read -- so why go the route of memoir in place of a novel? I'm sure there are some market pressures here, and there certainly is a perception that a "true" story is more real, even though that runs counter to millennia of storytelling. Whether or not the incidents in the Illiad, or in the writings of Charles Dickens or Virginia Woolf or any other master author took place is immaterial. It's about the truth within the characters and the stories, not whether or not you actually lived with foster parents and had to duck drug deals.

After reading the recent Charles Schulz biography, I found myself with a desire to reread his run of comics. The first 15 years or so have been reprinted by Fantagraphics -- though that doesn't get to a point where I am most interested in from the run. The book more than implies that an affair Schulz had in the early 1970s appeared in not-so-veiled code within the run of the strip (it involved Snoopy romancing a girl with "soft paws"). Peanuts was also far more complex than it appeared on the surface, reflecting Schulz's well developed anxieties and fears, but who would have guessed there was real "puppy love" behind the story line?

My illo is finally up at MinnPost! As is a fantastic article about a recently donated comic book collection.