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.

Some Comics Reviews

The local comics book shop (lcbs) is about 90 miles away. Yesterday, I spent around $20 in gas to buy $20 in books, probably not a good investment unless the psychic reward was really pretty big.

Omega Flight #4--I'm liking Talisman as a character. Beta Ray Bill needs to up the hammer usage a lot. The fight scenes just seemed confusing. Grade: C

JSA #7--I know that I'm close to AARP range, but I really had forgotten about the Nazi's raiding the picnic and I'm not sure that I needed to see that skirmish resolved. I like the idea that it takes time adjust to new super powers--the sidewalk and hospital floor destruction was amusing. The Superman/Starman exchange reminds me of conversations that I've had with my father--you know the one's that happen when fathers and sons talk past each other. The ending was too sentimental. Grade: B-

Dynamo5 #5--Great book--but the late? Captain Dynamo's illegitimate daughter doing an open mouth kiss with his widow--seriously, a little creepy no matter what form she's taking. Grade A-

The H1ghwaymen #1--I missed this one when it originally came out a few weeks ago. I like the old guys getting back in the game motif. It's worth looking at some more. Grade B+

WWH--Gamma Force--I bought it but I couldn't force myself to start it. I think that Marvel's release schedule turns the simple Hulk SMASH into a bewildered WTF? Plus, this one seems to be set long before Hulk was sent to Planet Hulk. Grade: Incomplete, but not looking too promising

GPA: C+ with the incomplete counting as a 0. I got Sonic limeade, so the trip was probably worth it.

I Am Such A Geek

I found this passionate attack on Marvel Comics post-Civil War Universe rather refreshing.

This intellectual analysis kept me interested.

I want to find and post answers to this list by tomorrow.

Some Christianity That I Just Don't Get

Yesterday, The Evangelical Outpost linked to this post “How To Turn Your Daughter Into A Whore In Two Easy Steps”. Step one is enroll your daughter into a public school. Step two is kick back and watch. According to the self-proclaimed public school math teacher, “[d]ay in, day out, I stand in the halls of my high school and wonder why half the girls are even trying to get a high school diploma–they would have such a promising career as street walkers” and that there is “no way in you know where my daughter would ever go to public school beyond elementary school.” He sums up his stance with a small confession: “I have a problem–I have values.”

Let’s start with step two first. I teach literature, so I’m going to adopt the idea of in media res for this post. His step two is a disaster for anything one’s child does. The conversations and arguments about what is and is not appropriate apparel, behavior, food, drink, friends, music, literature, spending, or worldview are part of parenting. Doing anything as step one and then kicking back to watch is going to lead to disaster.

On a more important level, the math teacher seems to have missed a metaphor. Isn’t it possible that the reason the girls in his school dress like provocatively is that too many Christian girls are in Christian schools? It’s tough to function as the salt of the earth if the salt is in a shaker on the shelf. The whole idea of being the light of the world is that the light isn’t hid under a bushel. Christian schools are the most effective bushels that I have ever seen. Let’s face it, it’s virtually impossible to replace Britney Spears with Rebecca St. James (or whoever the CCM pop starlet of the moment is) if no one except Christians knows who Rebecca St. James is.

On a more general note, the whole public schools cause prostitution, drug use, and foot fungus cant that certain elements of Christianity continually use is tired and useless. On the clothing question, many public schools have dress codes and do their best to enforce them. More importantly, how do the clothes teenagers wear to school differ from the clothes that they wear to the mall or a restaurant or any other public place? Unless one locks up one’s daughter like Rapunzel, I doubt that there’s any way to keep her from seeing her peers dress in ways that this guy disapproves of. By the way, in case the math guy isn’t familiar with the fables, the tower thing didn’t work so well for Rapunzel’s father.

Finally, what’s with the “I have a problem–I have values” snark? I admit that I did only a cursory check of the Bible sites on the web, but I didn’t find any translation that said “by your snark shall all men know you are My disciples.”

I promised myself that I was going to let this bit go, but I can’t, so here comes one more finally. When the people who “work in corporate America, or some job where you’re just in contact with middle and upper-middle class people” are exempt from society’s problems because “you have no idea . . . [that] our society [has] sunk to the level of pond scum, and it shows in the way our kids dress and comport themselves,” I get pretty irate. Aren’t the people who work in upper and middle class America the ones sending their kids out of the homes and to the schools? If they don’t know that kids are dressing too provocatively and coarsening the culture by forgetting common civility, they should. They’re the parents. Apparently, people who work with the poor and the poor themselves have acquiesced in the lowering of our cultural standards and know all about teenage prostitutes because it’s only the “upper and middle class” who have no idea about depravity. I’ll let James 2:6-7 sum up my point that the rich don’t have an exclusive hold on morality. “Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats? [7] Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by which ye are called?” Let’s not help the rich despise the poor any more than they already do.

Christians are called to be in the world not of the world. All posts like this do is give the world the impression that we want out and nothing to do with them. If we all get out, the only faces of Christianity that will be left are the Jerry Falwells and the Pat Robertsons among us. I don’t think they look much like Jesus. Instead let’s do the tough job of working on love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance in our own lives.

Some Stuff That I Enjoyed Reading This Morning

I had an enjoyable morning skimming the following:

This post about elegies

Cory's cutting of an intro to Robert's Rules

Spiderman and U2 together, sort of

A little rant about how we really do kids a disservice when we limit their imagination

This style guide which I should review a bit more because I'm know I'm guilty of dozens of errors

Some satire and some more satire and a little more satire

Some productivity links that I need to checkout.

And then I had to go to work

A Short List of Stuff I Believe Today

It’s not about you. The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness. (Rick Warren)

The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all. (Ecclesiastes 9:11)

Rivalry is better than envy. (Mongo Proverb)

An intelligent enemy is better than a stupid friend. (Senegal Proverb)

Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young. (Albus Dumbledore)

It is difficult/to get the news from poems/yet men die miserably every day/for lack/of what is found there. (William Carlos Williams)

Fiction is a necessity; literature is a luxury. (G.K. Chesterton)

A Quick Post

One of the best lines that I’ve read recently comes from Pascal”s Wager: The Man Who Played Dice with God. James A. Conner, the author asserts, “Perhaps genius begins with deprivation.”

Baseball and Presidents

The recent dust up caused by a group of historians naming George W. Bush as the worst president ever makes me think that the rating system of "Great," "Near-Great," "Average," and "Poor" needs to be changed, especially when it comes to living ex-Presidents. Therefore, I propose that Presidents be compared to retired major league baseball players. I willingly grant that this system will increase the number of arguments because baseball fans, the most statistic conscious and verbose fans of all sports, will weigh in and argue about both the Presidents and the MLB retiree, but isn't that the point.

I will start by offering a couple of suggestions. First, George Washington is Babe Ruth. Washington was "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of hearts of his countrymen." He set the standard that is used to judge future Presidents. I readily admit that Ruth's personal life might not live up to Washington's standards, although Washington apparently came home with the sunrise rather frequently as a young man. Ruth, however, set the standard by which future stars are judged. He was a great pitcher before he became the home run king.

Abraham Lincoln would be Hank Aaron, the guy who passed Ruth's stats and who is undeniably great. If Wills assertions are correct that Lincoln turned the founders on their heads by placing the ideals the Declaration of Independence over the specifics of the Constitution, then Aaron is even a better fit. Aaron was as quiet of a superstar and home run king as Ruth was boisterous.

On to our current President. I have to go with Dave Kingman. Kingman hit 422 home runs in his career. Bush had some home runs after 9/11, and even if I opposed the war, toppling a dictator should count as a home run. Kingman also struck out grandly and often. Bush mishandled Katrina and the occupation of Iraq. His civil liberties assault is a major strike out.

More arguments, baseball, political history and no absolutely correct answers. What could be better?

Random Musings and Notes For Future Posts.

1. This Joseph Bottom post makes sense.

2. I teach in the humanities. I love teaching literature because it's a place for those for whom the world doesn't seem to work. People on the fringes or in the shadows can find friends and a place to call home as they read. No one knows what to make of us because the humanities are not practical. We don't teach people to read tech manuals, and those stories and poems really get in the way of making money and conformity. Whether it's Huck deciding to go to hell and treat Jim as a full human or the X-Men trying to survive anti-mutant hysteria, the basic idea is that conventional morality is usually conventional but not necessarily moral. I need to do more with this idea, but I really think that professors and teachers in the humanities have to do more to defend and expand the teaching of the humanities.

3. Money magazine listed the 50 best jobs in America. They ranked the jobs based on the level of stress that each created, the amount of flexibility that the job allows, the amount of creativity that the job requires, and the difficulty of each job. Teaching's stress level and difficulty would probably rank a B. The creativity and flexibility that it allows are probably at a D.

Musings About The Past Week

I didn't post every day. I have to work on that.

Wednesday was a day when everything went wrong. I couldn't utter a coherent sentence to answer a simple question. The notes that I had carefully put together turned out to be rather sloppy. If I had been a baseball pitcher I would have given up 4 homeruns on 4 straight pitches unless I decided to aim at a hitter's head to break the streak. Wednesday reminded me that I try to teach. If doctors practice medicine and lawyers practice law, it seems presumptuous to claim that teachers teach. The best I can do is try.

During the week we got an email politely castigating us for not taking attendance properly or effectively. I know that attendance is part of the job, but I never thought it was worth an email. During the past 10 years, we have gotten emails or memos about all sorts of administrative tasks that were not being done properly. I don't recall a single email encouraging me to learn more about my subject matter or to try to each better. In fact, I don't recall a single department meeting devoted to learning to teach better. I have never worked in a business, but I wonder if every memo and meeting is about administrative details.

I found some good comic book blogs. This post is really good.

I was reminded that the electronic hand dryers really suck.

The singer/songwriter Pink seems to be the same sort of enigma that all humans are. She writes and sings a song that urges girls to think about being President of the United States, but then there is this article. (I got to watch videos with my daughter this morning. I don't get much time with her, so two hours of VH1 Countdown is really fun.)