My Favorite Stuff In 2018: Coffee, Stationery, & Folding Knives Edition

I hope to become an adult before I collect Medicare, but the odds aren't very good. I nerd out about a lot of stuff: comics, coffee, fountain pens, folding knives, and a host of shiny objects associated with each. As part of growing up, it seems prudent to try to discern what attracts me to each part, so I thought I'd start with a 2018 favorites list.

(I'm going to need some time to put together my favorite comics of 2018, but I am ready to rank the best stuff from my other esoteric interests.)

Favorite coffee: Koffee Kult Road Dog. It's described as "a highly aromatic blend features a full body complemented by spicy, earthy notes and just a hint of nutmeg." It delivers that, but what sets it apart is a pleasant long finish that doesn't degenerate into ashes.

Favorite notebook(s): This one is a tie. The Write Notepads "This Machine Kills Fascists" notepad is an awesome product currently being used as a commonplace book. The product description says it all:

Our Paper Journal edition pays tribute to the iconic folk artist Woody Guthrie. Guthrie's music was heavily influenced by 1940s social and political inequality and the burgeoning Civil Rights movement, and he used his music and influence to challenge the ideals of the time. His two favorite guitars were famously emblazoned with the phrase "This Machine Kills Fascists," a bold statement showcasing the simple power of words. We've replicated the phrase with the same sentiment in mind: ideas are powerful tools in the fight against injustice.

The Story Supply Company's "Ithaca" is a salute to The Odyssey that the mythology teacher in me could not resist.

Odysseus' desire to return to his home symbolizes the struggles we all have in our own lives. Each one of us has our own version of Ithaca—creative projects we put off, personal goals that feel out of reach, lost loves, the occasional flesh eating cyclops, vengeful gods who will stop at nothing to create obstacles that stand in our way. 

And yet, it is through these struggles that we learn and grow. It is through the journey that we come to understand what it means to be human. And so, we persist, and we endure, and we await the Rosy-fingered dawn that brings a new day.

Favorite new fountain pen: Purchased at the St. Louis pen show with the forbearance of my long-suffering wife, the Franklin-Christoph Model 19 with a SIG nib writes wonderfully and provides an analog escape from 2018's digital madness. If the past two weeks are indicative of what we can look forward to in 2019, both the pen and the notebooks will get a lot of use in 2019.

Favorite pocket knife: The operative word here is favorite. This is not the best pocket knife I bought in 2018, but when a bride on her wedding day asks if her gift includes "sharp objects," it seems in poor taste to refuse her request. When we got home, I ordered a pair of Ka-Bar Doziers for her and her new husband. Any tool that makes it easy to spread sharp object addiction has to top a favorites list.

A Fresh Start For My Geekiness

I started this blog a decade ago. I think I wanted it to be a comic book blog, but I never seemed to follow through, so it has long lain dormant.

In the past decade, I have continued reading comics, developed a penchant for fountain pens, and have acquired a wide assortment of what is euphemistically everyday carry gear. (My wife calls it junk.)

As a newly retired person, I hope to have more time on my hands to blog about these interests. I'll keep my political content on The Displaced Plainsman and do a mix of comics, fountain pens, and gear here. If I think the post warrants it, I'll cross post.

I hope to post here several times a week. New content should begin later today.

Why Can't We All Just Get Along?

The NY Times on Disney/Marvel vs. the Jack Kirby estate.

Keirsey Bates Continued

OK, so I don't post for nearly a year, that small fact doesn't mean that I can't pick up where I left off. I still think that I'm like the Hulk. I still think that comic book characters illustrate the Keirsey Bates temperaments.

According to the Keirsey website there are four temperaments: the SJs/Guardians, the NFs/Idealists, the SPs/Artisans, the NTs/Rationals. Each of the temperaments is broken down further based on factors such as introversion or extroversion, so there are sixteen total temperaments. This post is a quick overview with some guesses as to which characters fit each broad type.

Keirsey contends "[a]ll Guardians (SJs) share the following core characteristics:

• Guardians pride themselves on being dependable, helpful, and hard-working.
• Guardians make loyal mates, responsible parents, and stabilizing leaders.
• Guardians tend to be dutiful, cautious, humble, and focused on credentials and traditions.
• Guardians are concerned citizens who trust authority, join groups, seek security, prize gratitude, and dream of meting out justice. "

This one seems easy. Superman and Captain America are Guardians. Nuff said.

Keirsey contends "[a]ll Idealists (NFs) share the following core characteristics:

• Idealists are enthusiastic, they trust their intuition, yearn for romance, seek their true self, prize meaningful relationships, and dream of attaining wisdom.
• Idealists pride themselves on being loving, kindhearted, and authentic.
• Idealists tend to be giving, trusting, spiritual, and they are focused on personal journeys and human potentials.
• Idealists make intense mates, nurturing parents, and inspirational leaders."

Sue Storm, the Invisible Woman, seems to fit here. I think that Professor X also fits here.

Keirsey further asserts "[a]ll Artisans (SPs) share the following core characteristics:

• Artisans tend to be fun-loving, optimistic, realistic, and focused on the here and now.
• Artisans pride themselves on being unconventional, bold, and spontaneous.
• Artisans make playful mates, creative parents, and troubleshooting leaders.
• Artisans are excitable, trust their impulses, want to make a splash, seek stimulation, prize freedom, and dream of mastering action skills."

Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, and Spiderman both seem to fit here.

Finally, Keirsy contends "[a]ll Rationals (NTs) share the following core characteristics:

• Rationals tend to be pragmatic, skeptical, self-contained, and focused on problem-solving and systems analysis.
• Rationals pride themselves on being ingenious, independent, and strong willed.
• Rationals make reasonable mates, individualizing parents, and strategic leaders.
• Rationals are even-tempered, they trust logic, yearn for achievement, seek knowledge, prize technology, and dream of understanding how the world works."

I think that Batman, Iron Man, and the Hulk fit here.

This is just a shell of an idea, but if Star Trek, Harry Potter, and other pop culture franchises can be used to illustrate Keirsey's ideas, it seems that comics offer many other rich illustrations.

I've Discovered Who I Am

This morning, I came to realize that I share more with the Incredible Hulk than I want to admit.

I willingly concede that I do not have Bruce Banner's intellect or the Hulk's massive physique or prodigious strength. I am, however, reasonably intelligent, and I am a rather large man.

The resemblance becomes greater when I admit that rage is my controlling emotion. Like the Hulk, I'm perpetually angry. According to my wife, that rage is probably shortening my life. Like the Hulk, I want the stupid, puny humans to leave me alone. When they don't, I want to smash.

I wish that I could be a wisecracking Spiderman or the ever lovin' blue-eyed Thing. They seem too optimistic.

All this introspection, has got me wondering if the comic book creators haven't created some broad modern archetypes. The Kirk, Spock, McCoy triumvirate seem to fit some of the NT, NF, SJ Myers-Briggs or Keirsey-Bates types. Maybe comics, with their wider range of characters have developed examples of the full 16 temperament types.

More Reasons To Become a University Professor

A great post demonstrating that academicians have too much time on their hands. I am going to have to revise my thesis to meet these new criteria:

"Now that the New Historicism is waning in prestige, the New Skrullicism is making impressive advances. (I think it would be difficult to be hired out of an English department today without some familiarity.)"

Age of Bronze: Sacrifice

Because I am late to the Age of Bronze fan club, I am reading it in trades. I really don't remember if I heard about this book when it first came out and refused to pick it up because I am a myth snob. Maybe, I hadn't heard about it until six months ago. If I originally dismissed it, I was wrong. Eric Shanower captures the myths in all of their gore and glory

Shanower develops these well-know characters with both accuracy and originality. Myth snobs can reacquaint themselves with Agamemnon's pride, Paris's vanity, Odysseus's cleverness, Nestor's garrulousness, and Achilles's youthful lust for honor. Yet, each character is revealed in a original, modern way. Agamemnon's and Odysseus's inner conflicts are particularly well-done. Those who are new to myths get the story in chronological order with all of the necessary back story given although some little details, such as Poseidon's building Troy's walls, perhaps need a bit more detail. Speakers just seem to throw out these facts.

I have a few quibbles. Like other retellings of the myth including the movie Troy the gods are only tangential elements of the early parts of the story. It was the gods that originally got me interested in myth. Some of the art--like the splash page depicting the House of Atreus history--is tremendous. On the downside, the female characters, with the exception of Thetis all look the same to me. Perhaps, I just can't figure out black and white art work.

Even with with the quibbles, Age of Bronze has been one of my best summer reads and a book that I will push on non-comics readers.

Some Links

I'm old enough to remember buying a suit with two pairs of pants, but I never knew the word pants was so funny. (via Comicmix)

I agree that Burn Notice and The Bronx is Burning are must see summer television.

Buy a Dairy Queen Blizzard on August 9.

Every child needs one of these.

God Bless Scott at Polite Dissent.

The Order #1

I read The Order #1 last night, and was pleasantly surprised but somewhat perturbed as well. First I liked the use of mythological types and functions conceit. I liked Tony's little speech about the importance of symbols contrasted with Ares's embrace of the royalties. Then all the traditional myth seemingly went away.

Second, I wish that they had tried to work in the American types such as the American frontiersman or the taciturn, practical Yankee. The list of true American archetypes may be small, but there are also dozens of stereotypes that could have been used. For example, the village blacksmith could have replaced Hephaestus. On television, Heroes demonstrates that stereotypes such as the cheerleader or the geek can be creatively used.

By setting the story in Hollywood and recalling Tony's bouts with alcoholism, they unwittingly developed the Star and the Born Again Sinner, and as far as I'm concerned, Tony is the Gangster writ large. And therein lies the problem. Everything that Tony is doing from sending the Hulk into space to the Registration Act to the 50 state initiative all violate the American myth(s).

No one is supposed to plan our lives for us in the way that Tony, the self-proclaimed futurist, apparently is. If we screw up, the consequences are administered through the through the rule of law. Five super powerful individuals are not supposed to disappear a powerful, albeit extremely dangerous, rival, even with government sanction. And the idea that the federal government is going to create an army of superheroes and station them inside the United States to protect citizens against domestic threats seems akin to the frontier forts that were used to subjugate Native Americans, a part of our past that I doubt Americans want to revisit.

Marvel keeps insisting that the correct side won in Civil War. They keep insisting that Tony is not a super-villain. (The comparison to Magneto does allow for some wiggle room.) If Marvel is right, then the types that others have found in the American culture are myths as the word is commonly understood--they are total falsehoods. I continue to believe that they're true symbols that Marvel can't use because their story line totally violates the American story.

Of Time and Other Stuff

A short family vacation followed by a rushed family trip followed by mass confusion leads to nearly three weeks without a post, so I will do some random musing and promise to do better tomorrow.

1. I like Thor better than nearly everyone I have read on the web. I grant that it's slow, and I'll share many of the complaints about issue 1. Issue 2, however, had great art. I thought that the human reaction to Thor rebuilding Asgard and the country boys driving off with some of Asgard's gold was well worth the price.
2. I just finished reading Countdown 50-43 and it seems to be a jumbled mess designed to give DC the opportunity to kill off characters.
3. Speaking of messes, I'm getting tired of reading books like Countdown or WW Hulk or and other titles that are tied into a major crossover and being confused because I can't afford to buy the whole stinking line of both Marvel and DC.
4. People need to start seeing the difference between beefcake or cheesecake and porn. Everytime there's a provocative drawing of some character, the comics blogosphere seems to go nuts. So far the only warrented eruption of outrage has been the Heroes for Hire #13 cover.
5. Dynamo 5, The Lone Ranger (Dynamite) and Catwoman are becoming must reads.
6. Why did Top Cow need a joint project with Marvel to introduce their First Born story?

Enough for now.

Oh Shit!!! Another Massive Crossover??

I shouldn't be surprised, and I doubt that all of these predictions will be shown to be accurate, BUT the last one seems to be all too plausible. Of course Wizard will have far more access to corporate plans than I do, and I would look forward to a Hulk v Thor fight.