Confessions of a stay at home Dad

Hamilton Nolan wrote a piece on gawker entitled “Steve Jobs is not God”. His argument is simple:

Real outpourings of public grief should be reserved for those people who lived life so heroically and selflessly that they stand as shining examples of love for all of humanity. 

People like, for example, the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, who—along with his family—was bombed, beaten, and stabbed during his years of principled activism in the US civil rights movement. Shuttlesworth died yesterday, the same day as Steve Jobs. He did not die a billionaire.

Until recently (by which I mean yesterday) I could have written this article myself. I had nothing but contempt for people who got very demonstrative about the death of a celebrity.  I recall when Michael Jackson died; I could not have cared less.  ”Why are all these people crying?” I said.  

I recall the day Princess Diana died back in 1997.  5 days later Mother Thersea died.  The rant I went on (with my friends, as it was 1997 and the “blog” had not really been invented) was precisely what Hamilton is arguing in his article.  Why are we so worried about a Princess  when an actual saint has died?  What a shallow waste of time all of you are.  This is ridiculous. Amy Winehouse, John Lennon, Kurt Cobain.  Nothing.  I could not have cared less.

Then Steve Jobs died yesterday. And I understood.  It almost seems silly.  it certainly seems silly to the 1997 me.  That I could be moved by the death of a stranger was an alien concept.  When I read Dan Benjamin on twitter saying he had heard of of Steve Job’s  death my chest tightened.  My eyes started to sting.  My shoulders slumped and I looked around to tell someone, but I was alone. So this is what it felt like for some people when Michael Jackson died.

What i realized yesterday is that people can’t help but invest their dreams in someone else.  Creating is hard.  It is the most difficult and most valuable thing that a human can do:  make something they feel they needed to make, and put it out into the world.  And most of us don’t.  That is not a criticism, but a fact.  So when we see someone who is doing what we wish we had done, or could do, we latch on to them.  They become our proxy in a way, and we attach our self worth to them.  I think this is only human.

I suspect that Nolan Hamilton just hasn’t had the right person die yet.

From Ebert’s review:

This is a very good haunted house film. It milks our frustration deliciously. The adults are forever saying and doing the wrong things, and making stupid decisions, and Alex is bullheaded, and Kim is conflicted. And the shadows are deep and dark, and the screws in the grating of the flue seem to turn themselves, and no one will pay attention to little Sally, and somewhere in the audience will be a kid who gets inspired to make his own horror films.

A repost from daringfireball.net, of this interview

 

The most terrifying fact of the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death — however mutable man may be able to make them — our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment.

However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.

This is the subject of many excellent books.  It is also something I think about a lot, and something I have run into a lot recently.  I love it when a creator manages to convey a story or idea without words.  I love words, but telling a story with just pictures fascinates me.  I had forgotten my fascination with until a couple years ago I took my daughter to see Wall-E.  The way the action in the first act of that movie unfolds without words is astounding.  Too bad my daughter did not like the movie, but I have since realized PIXAR does not actually make movies for children under the age of 10.  Which I am cool with, I just wish they would quit advertising them that way… moving on…

Recently I have run into three examples of word-less storying telling that blew me away.  The first was a great comic omnibus called The Age of Reptiles.  The stories feature the battles between various tribes of dinosaurs.  Their births, deaths, battles and betrayals.  It is completely gripping (and also not really for little kids.  Sorry Graham, I hope there is not any permanent damage from this one).  And there is not a word to be found.  it does not hurt that the art by Richard Delgado, and colors by james Sinclair and Jim Campell are excellent.  

The example I saw on Wednesday was astounding too.  Rise of the Planet of the Apes.  I am not even fucking with you.  Good movie. My friend javi and I are always complaining that movies spend too much time telling us what is going on and then just inserting meaningless action scenes (*cough* *cough*).  The best movies (like Raiders of the Lost Ark) use the action set pieces to advance the story.  Essentially, the old maxim “show, don’t tell”.  That is what is so great about Rise of the Planets of the Apes.  Our main character, the ape Caesar, spends much of the film (spoiler) with other apes.  No one can speak. But the plot is advanced beautifully with facial expression, excellent camera work, and evenly paced direction.  

Finally I read a fun little comic with my kids called Korgi.  It does not hue that the draftsmanship is sweet. The story is not nearly as good as the previous two examples, but it is pretty kid friendly.  And both my son and daughter enjoyed it.  Again, not a word in it (except for a brief introduction), and the story moves right along.  I recommend them all, not only as examples of this kinds of wordless story telling, but as great stories to experience.

What a fun movie!  I thought the whole thing was well acted, and well put together.  It had everything you need in a good comic book movie.  It made having super powers fun!  And there was melodrama.  I do not what comics you were reading in the 1980s, but I was reading The Uncanny X-Men, and the level of melodrama in this movie was pitch perfect.  The people behind me were complaining that it was too corny.  I should have offered to buy them a ticket to Transformers and gotten them out of a movie I was really enjoying.  Best X-Men movie by FAR.  I wish this guy had directed the other movies.  And it was LONG, but it did not feel that way.  One of the best compliments I can pay a movie.

The trash-man.  John Byrne’s Next Men?  really? why is that still here? The standard comic sized reboot of Love and Rockets? PUH-leeeeze.  Those comics with a strong nostalgic yearning were spared (Jon Sable, Nexus, Sandman), but the rest must go.  Sadly, I became a comic snob somewhere in the 1990s and all of the comics I would LOVE to give to the boy are already gone.  I still have some stuff (his favorite is the Batman/Captain America team up by John Byrne), but all my old Spidey’s and X-Men vanished long ago.

I am looking through these books (Stray Cats, Artbabe, Tad martin) and wondering just how insufferable it must have been to discuss comics with me back them.  

At least my soul feels lighter after the purge.  More purging to do…