Daily Batman: Yucky love stuff feat. advice from Bob Marley

The ideal.

“How We Roll” by bubbabae on the deviantart.

Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement.

“Geeks in Love II” by Blood On the Moon on the deviantart.

They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever.

Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colors seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon.

“Friends for a reason” by Pookaburra on the deviantart.

You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.

(Bob Marley.)

Daily Batman: Flimsy allusion edition, feat. special guest star Alessandra Torresani’s breasts

Pretty flimsy allusion to Catwoman, but … it’s my blog. I mean, I can chuckle sheepishly, but I’m not truly sorry. If you feel it is too tenuous and I’ve pushed the envelope too far, start your own blog with stronger and super-safe-for-work daily connections to Batman and watch me never visit it.

Daily Batman: All the news that’s fit to meh!

So the big news of the world from the NY Comic-Con is this whole Avengers movie dealie. (Because, you know, The Dark Knight Rises is so passe).

photograph by brainybrimstone on the flickr.

Aw, geez, man. Here’s the thing: I don’t like the Avengers. I haven’t seen a single one of their setup movies. Not even the Iron Man flicks, and that’s in direct violation of a personal blood oath I made to Robert Downey, Jr. in the 1990s. (Chances Are, Heart and Souls, Only You? — totally irrestible.) I can’t help it: I just don’t care about the danged Avengers. On the plus side, I can finally see the viewpoint of all those good but non-dorky friends whose sphincters clench when I start in on Batman.

Daily Batman: Just Another Auden October

No human being is innocent, but there is a class of innocent human actions called Games.

(W.H. Auden, The Dyer’s Hand. 1962.)

Short-shrifted Mr. A last year and I’m looking to remedy. Welcome to Just Another Auden October.

Daily Batman: To make up for yesteday’s DB

“Kei #1” for “Naked Girls With Masks,” photographed by Ben Hopper. 2007.

Follow the above link for more from Mr. Hopper, right here on the wordpress.

Daily Batman: The worst of my faults … a profound duplicity of me

Photograph by Sylvain Norget.

The worst of my faults was a certain impatient gaiety of disposition, such as has made the happiness of many, but such as I found it hard to reconcile with my imperious desire to carry my head high, and wear a more than commonly grave countenance before the public. Hence it came about that I concealed my pleasures; and that when I reached years of reflection, and began to look round me and take stock of my progress and position in the world, I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of me.

(Robert Louis Stevenson. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 1886. p. 81.)

Daily Batman: The type

via.

I’m the type who’d be happy not going anywhere as long as I was sure I knew exactly what was happening at the places I wasn’t going to. I’m the type who’d like to sit home and watch every party that I’m invited to on a monitor in my bedroom.

(Andy Warhol.)

Et tu?

Heinlein Month — Daily Batman: Play nice with kitties

The lovely and talented Alessandra Torresani as le Chat.

If you would know a man, observe how he treats a cat.

(Robert A. Heinlein, The Door Into Summer. 1957.)

I guess. I’m not much of a one for cats, and I don’t think that speaks poorly of me. I think the one about how someone treats the waiter is probably a better indicator of personality. I think that’s especially true of women. The kind of woman who sends food back or says, “Hope he doesn’t want a tip,” is going to put you through Some Shit. Depend on it. I don’t know, I’m awful at figuring people out, so don’t listen to me, maybe.

Daily Batman: Wild cats

“Milk” by devoteeofart on the d.a.

All cats are wild. They only act tame if there’s a saucer of milk in it for them.

(Douglas Adams)

Daily Batman: Talk nerdy to me, “Grok this” edition

Photograph by mandysparky on the d.a.

“Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.”

(Robert A. Heinlein.)

Grok it, dudes.

A whopping happy FIFTIETH FUCKING BIRTHDAY to Stranger In A Strange Land. Can’t believe Valentine Michael Smith has been rolling through the cultural landscape for half a century. R.I.P. to wonderful Robert Heinlein, who died on a May 8th, by the by, in case you’re keeping track of my apocalyptic ramblings.

You are only an egg. Now get out there and make some water brothers in Heinlein’s memory.

This is what the cover of my copy looks like.

You know what? This was going to be Bradbury Month but let’s bump that to September: that’s nice synchronicity anyway because that’s my birthday month and he’s my fave-ohs. July is now officially Robert Heinlein Month! Balloons and confetti just fell on us all!

Daily Batman: the crippling human inability to be alone

via.

“All of our unhappiness comes from our inability to be alone.”

(Jean de la Bruyere)

The headwaters of the river of pain.

Daily Batman: You don’t need a plane to fly

This one’s for my goddaughter — SpongeBob Batpants.

You don’t need a plane to fly,
Plastic wings can make you cry.
Kites were meant for windy days,
Lawn chairs with balloons fly away,
Inflatable pants, you might as well skip,
If you want to fly, all you need
Is friendship!

(SpongeBob Squarepants. “The Sponge Who Could Fly (The Lost Episode).” Season 3, Episode 16. Originally aired March 21, 2003.)

Last night after sushi I headed back to panda eraser’s pad and had a bonding moment or ten with Little V, my goddaughter. She was giving me a tour of her toys and suddenly started saying, “Bubbo, Bubbo,” which I finally figured out was a reference to SpongeBob coming on the television at that moment. I said, “I know that guy. He lives in a pineapple under the sea,” and she laughed and stuck the bottom half of a bisected doll in her mouth. She’s pretty rad.

Daily Batman: Bat Life With Batpecker

via.

If civilization is ever going to be anything but a grandiose pratfall, anything more than a can of deodorizer in the shithouse of existence, the people are going to have to concern themselves with magic and poetry. …

Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.

(Tom Robbins. Still Life With Woodpecker. New York: Bantam, 1980.)

Really grok this. My estranged husband loaned me this book when we were dating. This part always stuck out to me. Do I feel like a Robbins month? I’ll need to think about it. Maybe June?

Daily Batman: The war against reality

via.

Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.

Jules de Gaultier

I think there is this idea that Generation X (and Y or Z or Post-bicentennials or what-have-you) are somehow clinging to materialistic memorabilia from their past as a cop-out on adulthood. But I have been thinking about it and I’m not so sure that’s true.

It’s not about immaturity or being afraid to grow up — it’s about refusing to lose an innate sense of play, defending your imagination from the cobwebs and creeping dullness that comes of disuse. Playing games and indulging fantasies is not just fun, I think it is vital. It’s not about being childish. It’s about remaining childlike.

Daily Batman: Hidden underneath

I think hidden underneath a lot of teachers are very sexy women.

(Andie MacDowell).

I know I have been a total slug about posting lately and the last time I did that was because I nearly croaked, but fear not. This time it’s nothing so dire, and is good news instead. I’ve been scrambling to get my shit together to make this whole substitute-teaching my Scamps thing in to a full-time gig, and I felt that I had to put all my fire under that. I was busy being well-dressed and using my gracious telephone voice while applying to a credential program, throwing my hat in the ring for an open position at the private school where I teach, and sending out queries for letters of recommendation — my least favorite thing to do on the planet. I don’t just burn my bridges: I dynamite them in my wake and launch the ashes in a coffee can in to space and I sow the land around where the bridge used to be with with salt and then I seek out the bridge-builder and I rough him up and cut out his tongue in front of his family. You cannot imagine how horrible I am at looking back, seriously.

And I’m even worse at admitting I need a favor. I’d rather drink bleach then ask for help. I’m working on all this, honestly.

But now it’s basically all in other people’s hands so I’m back.

It was recently pointed out to me during my absence that even though I like plenty of comics and link them to literature and artistic tropes all the time in conversation, I don’t focus much on anything except the Bat on this journal. That’s true. It’s lazy and misrepresents the entirety of my interests. I’ll work on remedying that more often. I’ll try and throw something up today as an example.

Daily Batman: Year of the Cat

“Year of the Cat” by RealityMisfit06 on the d.a.

You’ve probably heard by now that Anne Hathaway, as I speculated and fervently hoped in the past, has been cast as Selina Kyle in the new Christopher Nolan film The Dark Knight Rises.

I’m reading sassy molassy left and right about how Ms. Hathaway is unsuited to the role because she is “too nice” and wholesome. I guess you just don’t know her like me, fans of Havoc, GQ readers, the FBI, and the Vatican do.*

I predict this beautiful, complex, and plenty dark actress will prove the doubters wrong. Yes, I’m biased, because I’ve said before that she’s one of the best and most interesting actresses out there today, but even I am prone to take the long view when it comes to my number-one all-time favorite comic book character, so I hope my defense does not get dismissed out of hand.

I further add that she has merely been cast as Selina Kyle, and we have no idea in what direction the character will go in this particular film, as Nolan is slowly developing his own universe in his Batman movies — and, as a final warning to those who are up in arms about this casting choice, you think all people everywhere in the world were in unanimous excitement when Michelle Pfeiffer was cast in Batman Returns? Was there unilateral rejoicing at the decision to put Halle Berry in the Catwoman movie of which it’s best I just stop speaking?

Of course not. This is an iconic character. There will always be rumblings of discontent, no matter what. All I can say is, remember how you felt when you first heard Heath Ledger was tapped as the Joker? Misgiving-less? I wasn’t: I thought it was an inexplicable and potentially terrible decision. And how do I feel about that choice now? How do you?

Exactly.

Give Nolan, and the lovely and talented Anne Hathaway, a chance.



*The Vatican?? What am I talking about? Answer: I’m talking about taste in men almost as historically bad as that of your hostess. Read all about the sad affair. Saw her mock herself on SNL for it, though. You have to really respect a good sense of humor.

Daily Batman: Begin to be now what you will be hereafter

“I am not Batman,” by Doug Gentry on the photonet.

Begin to be now what you will be hereafter.

(William James.)

All right, dudes. Fourteen days ago, I gave the rotten spots on my soul two weeks’ notice. Now it’s time to start working on those New Year’s resolutions.

Flashback Friday, New Years’ Resolution Reality Check #2 — Daily Batman: It Begins

This entry was originally posted on Jan 19, 2010 at 6:02 pm. It contains the fourth of my New Years’ Resolutions for 2010. Over the next several Flashback Fridays, I will be taking them out, dusting them off, and seeing how well I followed through. I do not anticipate it always being pleasant, but the truth can’t be.

A confession: When I was a kid, I kind of always wanted to be the Joker. The whole Catwoman thing mainly started because I knew that a girl Joker wouldn’t fly. I remember vividly that when I explained this to my older cousin, he patiently said, “Well, what about Wonder Woman?” and I threw my hands up in disgust: clearly, he was missing the point entirely. I wanted to be the guy across the street from this kid (below), staring him down from my front porch, smirking and wearing a purple suit. Maybe smoking, too. You know. For maximum badass effect. “In your face, Smarmy McSavesalot — this is what I think of The System!”

I think this career goal still haunts me and is responsible for my general dissatisfied lack of commitment as a working adult. How you going to find me dutifully plugging away in a cubicle when I promised my babyself always to rage against the machine?

So, putting that insight together with Ben Okri’s quote, I guess what this chain of thought is telling me is that I need to learn to keep my eyes open for signs and portents of a destiny that can dovetail with my dreams.

I cannot believe that I was meant to go either rudderless through this world, or chained in a galley, desperately wheeling my arms around for a ship I already hate, which is bound only to sink no matter whether I keep paddling or get consistently whipped for refusing to row. I won’t believe that. I can’t accept that that is the plan for me or for anyone.

E’s fourth resolution for 2010: Look for signs. Keep hope alive. And, really, there is no reason not to wear a trimly-tailored purple suit while I do it.

Reality Check: I did my best on this one, really far better than I did on making a joyful noise. Next year, I will just have to keep on looking for more hope and signs. I ditched the job I disliked and work now for far less financial reward, but with much more passion and satisfaction. What I think I gained back this year, particularly in the face of almost fatal illness, was some of the credulity that must predate a quest for hopeful signs. My dream has been fulfilled, as Mr. Okri suggested, in ways I did not expect. I have grudgingly begun to place more belief in miracles again. And that is encouraging.

Final note: When I originally posted this last January, Wrasseler left me this lovely poem-prose comment that I wanted to be sure to add to this post now.

Signs in Space that is not Space do not appear as the signs we Approach and Contemplate. Signs in Time become mathematical. Then signs take meanings. Our hearts and minds move mountains through History. That’s a long way.

Everybody Else lives in Time. In the Renaissance Garden of Statutes turn past your liberties. Continue on toward your Statute of Limitations. Your Limitations are not the sign. The sign is not beyond your Limitations.

Dreams making history do not lose Time. They let Time lose them. This is the sign. Woman as Joker. How natural. Natural History. Another sideline for the woman who Time lost.

The sign is not beyond my limitations. Thanks again for that, dude!

Daily Batman: the little Robin has a holiday package to share

via fyeahbatman on the tumblr.

Burt Ward goofin’. I am planning a Green Hornet post where I’m going to talk about an incident between Ward and my darlingest bamf Bruce Lee on the Batman set, but for now just enjoy this provocative pose from television’s take on the irrepressible Boy Wonder. (And if you’re feeling particularly gleeful and trashy, pick up Burt’s autobiography. It’s a hoot.)

Daily Batman: A naked leg being the invitation, or, “Who’s your Dada?”

Photographed by JonWilksBeyond on the d.a.

To impose one’s A.B.C. is only natural — and therefore regrettable. Everyone does it in the form of a crystalbluff-madonna, or a monetary system, or pharmaceutical preparations, a naked leg being the invitation to an ardent and sterile Spring.

Photographed by brutalb4rbie on the d.a.

The love of novelty is a pleasant sort of cross, it’s evidence of a naive don’t-give-a-damn attitude, a passing, positive, sign without rhyme or reason. But this need is out of date, too. By giving art the impetus of supreme simplicity — novelty — we are being human and true in relation to innocent pleasures; impulsive and vibrant in order to crucify boredom.

(Tzara, Tristan. “Second Dadaist Manifesto”. Cabaret Voltaire. Zurich, Switzerland. March 23, 1918. Speech.)

Is a drawing from a comic printed on underwear anti-art enough to be Dadaist? Oh, but how angry the capitalist product tie-ins might make them. Best not to ask.