I've been on a couple of episodes of the Hugo-nominated Skiffy and Fanty (i.e. Science Fiction and Fantasy) podcast before, but this is the first one when I did the audio production for it. I noise-filtered it and took out most of the "um"s (though I left a few for flavor), and I also learned how to split tracks for fine-tuning the editing and then to recombine them. I copied the intro with movie quotes from a previous episode, but fading the music into our opening was my work, along with the outro. I'm proud of how it turned out.
Also, the book, Heroine Complex, was very entertaining, and interviewing author Sarah Kuhn with my co-host Mike R. Underwood was fun.
https://skiffyandfanty.com/2016/07/06/299sarahkuhn/#more-6587
Saturday, July 9, 2016
Tuesday, May 17, 2016
Civil War review, with Captain America context and mild spoilers
After the hot mess of Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War was a heartening return to form for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with wonderful action, great character work, and some really moving moments — one that actually had me crying a little. It’s almost on a level with The Avengers and CA: The Winter Soldier, in my opinion; I know some people say it’s better. The only thing that lessens it slightly for me is the narrowed scope of the “civil war” itself, compared to the comics.
It has really great action scenes. I definitely recommend seeing it on the big screen if possible to enjoy it fully, but I believe it will still be good when it hits smaller screens. Battles are coherent: While there’s a whole lot going on, it’s also not hard to keep track of what IS going on. Fights are crisp and punchy, unlike the boring ones in Ultron that just dragged on and on. Individual moves are often clever, and I laughed in delight at some of the combinations, as well as laughing at the banter.
Oh yes, there’s a lot of humor in CW, despite the tense and sometimes world-weary tone of the movie. Some of it is from funny lines from quipsters, but just as much is situational humor rising from characters and their conflicts.
Character interplay and development is my favorite part of the movie, even better than the action! Continuing characters keep evolving in interesting and satisfying ways, and the new characters introduced are by turns entertaining and compelling.
Captain America is great as always, both here and in the comics. What really makes me love Cap and Chris Evans’ portrayal of him is the demonstration that a good person with ideals doesn’t have to be simple or boring. The opposite of a jingoist, he considers and takes moral stands. Cap’s “old-fashioned values” have to do with truth and fairness, and that puts him in conflict with today’s dominant realpolitik worldviews, but he makes people think about who they want to be and how they want the world to be, and that’s great.
For more background on Captain America, I recommend this TV special that I happened to catch on the Saturday before CW opened. It had apparently aired this winter, before the second season of Agent Carter. Anyway, I was really pleased with how well it was put together.
http://abc.go.com/movies-and-specials/marvels-captain-america-75-heroic-years
It was pretty sweet; in the beginning, they talked about how involved Jack Kirby was in the comic books, doing a lot of the writing as well as the art, before he served in WWII; near the end, they talked about how much he would have liked the movies. One guy (not Stan Lee) got teary-eyed, and the camera just stayed on him, waiting silently until he collected himself and was able to continue talking.
They mentioned how gutsy and controversial it was to launch the series with Cap punching Hitler before America even got into WWII. They also discussed how Cap ended up fighting conspiracy at the highest levels of government during Watergate, and continued with his legacy after that.
Here’s a fairly comprehensive history of the character:
https://medium.com/@BBW_BFF/loyal-to-the-dream-the-history-of-captain-america-b9931a2a6dab#.vos4a46hc
Given Cap’s origins, I’m glad they let the comic lapse soon after WWII instead of converting him into a Red Scare Commie-basher. Here's a great essay by John Seavey from several years ago arguing why Steve Rogers (Cap) may have been raised in a Communist, or at least Socialist, household in the 1930s (it meant something a bit different back then):
http://mightygodking.com/2010/04/30/things-id-like-to-write-someday-247654932/
"He might not have been a card-carrying Communist himself, but his parents almost certainly were. Because being a Communist had a different meaning during the Great Depression than it did twenty years onwards, in a Cold War America. During the 1930s, when unemployment was high and a privileged few were almost completely insulated from the Depression’s effects, lots of people joined the Communists because they believed in things like unionization, racial equality, and fighting back against the rise of totalitarian dictatorships in Europe."
And here’s a great post-Avengers fanfic about how Steve’s straight talk and eagerness to act on his beliefs stresses out a SHIELD publicist. She’d expected to have to handle a racist, sexist grandpa type, but hot, but instead she got a crusader:
http://idiopath-fic-smile.tumblr.com/post/117149098318/steve-rogers-pr-disaster-gen-4k
From here on out, there will be SPOILERS.
It has really great action scenes. I definitely recommend seeing it on the big screen if possible to enjoy it fully, but I believe it will still be good when it hits smaller screens. Battles are coherent: While there’s a whole lot going on, it’s also not hard to keep track of what IS going on. Fights are crisp and punchy, unlike the boring ones in Ultron that just dragged on and on. Individual moves are often clever, and I laughed in delight at some of the combinations, as well as laughing at the banter.
Oh yes, there’s a lot of humor in CW, despite the tense and sometimes world-weary tone of the movie. Some of it is from funny lines from quipsters, but just as much is situational humor rising from characters and their conflicts.
Character interplay and development is my favorite part of the movie, even better than the action! Continuing characters keep evolving in interesting and satisfying ways, and the new characters introduced are by turns entertaining and compelling.
Captain America is great as always, both here and in the comics. What really makes me love Cap and Chris Evans’ portrayal of him is the demonstration that a good person with ideals doesn’t have to be simple or boring. The opposite of a jingoist, he considers and takes moral stands. Cap’s “old-fashioned values” have to do with truth and fairness, and that puts him in conflict with today’s dominant realpolitik worldviews, but he makes people think about who they want to be and how they want the world to be, and that’s great.
For more background on Captain America, I recommend this TV special that I happened to catch on the Saturday before CW opened. It had apparently aired this winter, before the second season of Agent Carter. Anyway, I was really pleased with how well it was put together.
http://abc.go.com/movies-and-specials/marvels-captain-america-75-heroic-years
It was pretty sweet; in the beginning, they talked about how involved Jack Kirby was in the comic books, doing a lot of the writing as well as the art, before he served in WWII; near the end, they talked about how much he would have liked the movies. One guy (not Stan Lee) got teary-eyed, and the camera just stayed on him, waiting silently until he collected himself and was able to continue talking.
They mentioned how gutsy and controversial it was to launch the series with Cap punching Hitler before America even got into WWII. They also discussed how Cap ended up fighting conspiracy at the highest levels of government during Watergate, and continued with his legacy after that.
Here’s a fairly comprehensive history of the character:
https://medium.com/@BBW_BFF/loyal-to-the-dream-the-history-of-captain-america-b9931a2a6dab#.vos4a46hc
Given Cap’s origins, I’m glad they let the comic lapse soon after WWII instead of converting him into a Red Scare Commie-basher. Here's a great essay by John Seavey from several years ago arguing why Steve Rogers (Cap) may have been raised in a Communist, or at least Socialist, household in the 1930s (it meant something a bit different back then):
http://mightygodking.com/2010/04/30/things-id-like-to-write-someday-247654932/
"He might not have been a card-carrying Communist himself, but his parents almost certainly were. Because being a Communist had a different meaning during the Great Depression than it did twenty years onwards, in a Cold War America. During the 1930s, when unemployment was high and a privileged few were almost completely insulated from the Depression’s effects, lots of people joined the Communists because they believed in things like unionization, racial equality, and fighting back against the rise of totalitarian dictatorships in Europe."
And here’s a great post-Avengers fanfic about how Steve’s straight talk and eagerness to act on his beliefs stresses out a SHIELD publicist. She’d expected to have to handle a racist, sexist grandpa type, but hot, but instead she got a crusader:
http://idiopath-fic-smile.tumblr.com/post/117149098318/steve-rogers-pr-disaster-gen-4k
From here on out, there will be SPOILERS.
Monday, January 11, 2016
My Continuing Cross-Time Crush on "Hamilton"
I can't claim any brilliantly original insights about "Hamilton," since so many good writers have already shared their raves for this historic Broadway sensation. But since today would have been the 259th birthday of the real man, Alexander Hamilton, I'm assembling some of my thoughts and discoveries here in tribute.
Like many people, I'd long been vaguely aware of Alexander Hamilton as one of America's Founding Fathers, who wasn't ever president but who was memorialized on the $10 bill. That awareness sharpened slightly in 1993 with the award-winning Got Milk? commercial portraying the history fanatic who couldn't make the name of Hamilton's killer, Aaron Burr, intelligible (Aawoh Buuww! AAWOH BUWWH!) for a radio quiz show.
I became a fan of Alexander Hamilton this June, when I learned more about him as the controversy erupted over Treasury plans to minimize him on the $10 bill to make room for a woman on the currency, instead of booting Jackson from the $20 bill as originally urged by the #womenon20s campaign.
Here's a well-reasoned, informative response to this poor decision.
Here's a wonderfully entertaining rant about this: "To take Hamilton off the currency while leaving Jackson is to actively make America a worse place. It is picking your awful DMV photo as your headshot."
I read about how Hamilton overcame his humble origin to become a Revolutionary leader (and early abolitionist) and one of the foremost thinkers of the Republic. He wrote over half of the Federalist Papers that convinced states to ratify the Constitution, and founded the country's financial system (along with the Coast Guard and the New York Post, etc.). Not that I'm at all happy with what banks and financial institutions have been doing and getting away with for the last 10 or 20 years or more; however, Hamilton's ideas not only brought stability to chaos, but in so doing fostered investment, innovation, and growth, and brought the Union closer together.
I read about how Hamilton overcame his humble origin to become a Revolutionary leader (and early abolitionist) and one of the foremost thinkers of the Republic. He wrote over half of the Federalist Papers that convinced states to ratify the Constitution, and founded the country's financial system (along with the Coast Guard and the New York Post, etc.). Not that I'm at all happy with what banks and financial institutions have been doing and getting away with for the last 10 or 20 years or more; however, Hamilton's ideas not only brought stability to chaos, but in so doing fostered investment, innovation, and growth, and brought the Union closer together.
Also this spring, summer, and fall, I was intrigued by what I heard and read about the hit "Hamilton" musical and its creator. Then in September, the original cast recording was released, and I fell in love.
Before I get to that, let me set the stage. Here's creator Lin-Manuel Miranda performing what later evolved into the musical's opening number, back in 2009 when Hamilton was just a concept album he was working on, at the White House. I should probably mention that there's some explicit language. And lots and lots of clever language.
And now here's the original cast recording, all 46 songs (the embedded YouTube sends a little ad revenue to the creators). After I listened through once, I bought the CDs and the digital download.
I should mention that there's some explicit language. And lots and lots of brilliant language and interwoven rhyming and stirring music.
I really love the lyrics in Hamilton, and also how the music helps drive the stories. Together the songs are by turns energizing, funny, beautiful, heartbreaking and inspiring.
(I adored reading the reactions of writer Sunil Patel (@ghostwritingcow), who livetweeted his reactions as he listened to #Hamiltunes for the first time. Here's the Storify. Beware, his language is even more explicit than the musical itself! This one sentence of his may sum up "Hamilton" the best: "The personal is political, the political is personal, huge massive undertakings are undertaken by individual people.")
It's also fascinating how certain phrases and themes transform their meanings when used at different times by different people. For instance, Alexander's wife, Eliza, sings "Helpless" when they meet to show how she's falling in love with him, and later sings "Look around, look around at how lucky we are to be alive right now" in an effort to get him to slow down and appreciate their life together instead of always driving on toward the next thing; later, he sings the "Look around" lines back to her to explain that he has a duty to his country and he has to serve when called upon, so she sings the word "Helpless" again, meaning she can't change his mind.
Here's a chart of "Lyrical Motifs and Reoccurences in #Hamiltunes" by @beatricks on Twitter.
To see the fantastically clever lyrics, with many annotations and explanations, visit the Genius site.
Obviously, I also love the stories that "Hamilton" tells. Hamilton's greatest strength — his driving passion to create a legacy — is also his greatest flaw, ultimately leading to his self-destruction; it's classic tragedy. He's also arrogant about his "top-notch brain," which alienates potential allies, and he's rashly impulsive. He's neither an angel nor a saint, but he's absolutely a hero. Miranda makes me care so much about him!
(Warning: Listening to the second half while at work or driving may be a bad idea. After hearing the album quite a few times, I'm crying MORE when I listen rather than getting inured to what happens.)
Burr's character and evolution are also fascinating, as are Eliza's, and many of the other characters have some great moments. This is history (a dramatization, but based reasonably closely on Ron Chernow's Hamilton biography and other sources) brought to vivid life with passion and intrigue rather than just being dusty dates and descriptions.
And now here's the original cast recording, all 46 songs (the embedded YouTube sends a little ad revenue to the creators). After I listened through once, I bought the CDs and the digital download.
I really love the lyrics in Hamilton, and also how the music helps drive the stories. Together the songs are by turns energizing, funny, beautiful, heartbreaking and inspiring.
(I adored reading the reactions of writer Sunil Patel (@ghostwritingcow), who livetweeted his reactions as he listened to #Hamiltunes for the first time. Here's the Storify. Beware, his language is even more explicit than the musical itself! This one sentence of his may sum up "Hamilton" the best: "The personal is political, the political is personal, huge massive undertakings are undertaken by individual people.")
It's also fascinating how certain phrases and themes transform their meanings when used at different times by different people. For instance, Alexander's wife, Eliza, sings "Helpless" when they meet to show how she's falling in love with him, and later sings "Look around, look around at how lucky we are to be alive right now" in an effort to get him to slow down and appreciate their life together instead of always driving on toward the next thing; later, he sings the "Look around" lines back to her to explain that he has a duty to his country and he has to serve when called upon, so she sings the word "Helpless" again, meaning she can't change his mind.
Here's a chart of "Lyrical Motifs and Reoccurences in #Hamiltunes" by @beatricks on Twitter.
To see the fantastically clever lyrics, with many annotations and explanations, visit the Genius site.
Obviously, I also love the stories that "Hamilton" tells. Hamilton's greatest strength — his driving passion to create a legacy — is also his greatest flaw, ultimately leading to his self-destruction; it's classic tragedy. He's also arrogant about his "top-notch brain," which alienates potential allies, and he's rashly impulsive. He's neither an angel nor a saint, but he's absolutely a hero. Miranda makes me care so much about him!
(Warning: Listening to the second half while at work or driving may be a bad idea. After hearing the album quite a few times, I'm crying MORE when I listen rather than getting inured to what happens.)
Burr's character and evolution are also fascinating, as are Eliza's, and many of the other characters have some great moments. This is history (a dramatization, but based reasonably closely on Ron Chernow's Hamilton biography and other sources) brought to vivid life with passion and intrigue rather than just being dusty dates and descriptions.
Here's a long but very interesting text interview with Miranda. There's a lot about his creative process and how he came to identify with and write about Alexander Hamilton. He came to understand that the stories of the founding of the United States were still very relevant today and have bearing on what decisions are being made now:
"The fights that I wrote between me [Hamilton] and Jefferson, you could put them in the mouths of candidates on MSNBC. They’re about foreign relations; they’re about states’ rights versus national rights; they’re about debt. These are all conversations we’re still having, and I think it’s a comfort to know that they’re just a part of the more perfect union we’re always working towards, or try to work towards, and that we’re always working on them."
An aspect of Miranda's brilliance is in bringing these people and topics into the current vernacular so that what is often dismissed as dead dry history focused on landed white males becomes not only relevant to today, but important in a way that could hardly be dreamed of before. Miranda combines hip-hop, pop, ballads and other musical forms throughout the show/album in a way that seems smooth and effortless and natural, although he worked on it for six years. His racially diverse casting makes it easier for all modern Americans to envision themselves as George Washington and other people who seemed so remote before.
So, the "Hamilton" album came out in September. Since then, I've listened to at least part of it nearly every day. I have never been obsessed with any musical, or any creative work I can think of, the way I am with this. I still discover new nuances every time.
I can't say I have a favorite song, because that depends on my mood and what I've listened to most recently. The song I've listened to most is the opening number ("Alexander Hamilton") because it's so infectiously energetic, and because I decided to memorize it and perform it with my twin sister for our other relatives over the holidays, but other songs have deeper emotional impacts on me.
Because of this musical, I'm reading Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton. (I've read the first three chapters and the last three, and now I'm working on the middle 600 pages or so.) Moreover, my twin sister and I have a milestone birthday coming up soon, and we've decided to celebrate by going to New York City to see the show!
So, the "Hamilton" album came out in September. Since then, I've listened to at least part of it nearly every day. I have never been obsessed with any musical, or any creative work I can think of, the way I am with this. I still discover new nuances every time.
I can't say I have a favorite song, because that depends on my mood and what I've listened to most recently. The song I've listened to most is the opening number ("Alexander Hamilton") because it's so infectiously energetic, and because I decided to memorize it and perform it with my twin sister for our other relatives over the holidays, but other songs have deeper emotional impacts on me.
Because of this musical, I'm reading Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton. (I've read the first three chapters and the last three, and now I'm working on the middle 600 pages or so.) Moreover, my twin sister and I have a milestone birthday coming up soon, and we've decided to celebrate by going to New York City to see the show!
Alexander: Where are you taking me?
Angelica: I'm about to change your life!
Alexander: Then by all means, lead the way.
If you're reading this and haven't listened to "Hamilton," I can't promise that it will change your life, but I'm here to testify that it changed mine. It gave me an appreciation of hip-hop and rap and made me feel more connected with various communities, and it made me want to write more, do more, and be more. "Hamilton" makes me want to be a better person.
One last note: I am charmed by the Hamilton crew's re-creation of the Got Milk? ad, this time starring Odom as the hapless historian, that they released this summer in preparation for their move to the Richard Rodgers Theatre (Broadway) from the Public (off-Broadway). It's a warm tribute that shows their love of history and meta-history as well as a healthy sense of humor.
(Search for the hashtag #HBH2016 to see birthday tributes to Alexander Hamilton by the U.S. Coast Guard, the AHA society, and more.)
(Edited to Add: Or maybe this essay is in honor of his 261st birthday, depending on which sources are right.)
Update 1/19/2016: Here's a fascinating technical analysis of the music and how it evolved, with "Hamilton" musical director Alex Lacamoire.
One last note: I am charmed by the Hamilton crew's re-creation of the Got Milk? ad, this time starring Odom as the hapless historian, that they released this summer in preparation for their move to the Richard Rodgers Theatre (Broadway) from the Public (off-Broadway). It's a warm tribute that shows their love of history and meta-history as well as a healthy sense of humor.
(Search for the hashtag #HBH2016 to see birthday tributes to Alexander Hamilton by the U.S. Coast Guard, the AHA society, and more.)
(Edited to Add: Or maybe this essay is in honor of his 261st birthday, depending on which sources are right.)
Update 1/19/2016: Here's a fascinating technical analysis of the music and how it evolved, with "Hamilton" musical director Alex Lacamoire.
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