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1. Does Sunshine have a smell? I've decided it does. Smells warm and fresh, clean. Not like dirt or flowers. More subtle. I'm not sure it can be reproduced. My granny used to say that it was better to line dry clothes because they would smell like sunshine. As if a warm hand had touched them with love. Sunshine smells like love. Or like a warm piece of blanket. Cottony. Today, I filled my apartment with the smell of sunshine washing away the floral taste of insect repellant, a rancid smell, sweet and acrid (the insect repellant not the sunshine.) It made me happy. The type of happiness that is almost fleeting and comes from nothing other than the knowledge that one is alive and happy to be on earth, soaked in sunshine.
2. Cleaned. Which included doing something I've been putting off for well like forever. I threw out my collection of cassett or music tapes. This was a heavy box, filled with well over 1000 tapes, most of which dated back 20-30 years. I stopped listening to them when I got the ipod and CD's. And well, my tape player, much like my VCR went kablooey. That got thrown out too - the tape player, not the VCR (VCR was thrown out about five-six years ago). Had interesting conversation with landlord about this...he was busy reinstalling the pigeon defense grid - ie plastic spikes to keep pigeons off the roof and away from my window. One of the spikes apparently fell off.
( conversation with landlord about disposing of my tape cassett collection and how we both feel old. Landlord is admittedly five years younger than me, but technically we're the same generation. )
Getting rid of the tapes wasn't as painful as I thought. Actually sort of freeing. I was becoming allergic to that box in my bedroom.
3. After all the cleaning, which included more than just getting rid of the tapes - was an all day affair, I decided to enjoy the lovely weather and ran errands. Walked up to neighborhood comic shop, which was mobbed with the stereotypical comic book buyer - heavyset, bearded dudes, and little boys (as in ten - twelve and able to crawl under tables, and who come up to my knee or waist. I more or less stood out, being the only woman in the joint - outside of the pretty girl at the desk. There were a few women who came in after me, but not for the comics, more as companions to the guys or their sons. It was free comic book day.
Anyhow...I realized reading through the offerings, that most comics (not all obviously) are in some respects the equivalent of a male romance novel. This is a term I coined after seeing the Frank Miller flick Sin City based on Miller's comic of the same name - which was all the rage back in 1980s, but I found rather derivative and ignored, even though comic book shop boy was literally begging me to try it. For Buffy fans - Sin City is notable in one respect - it is how the writer's came up with the back story for Spike's leather jacket, they borrowed the idea from Miller's Sin City. So if you hate that back story, think the whole Nikki/Spike bit is offensive and a lot of people do, you might want to skip Frank Miller's graphic novels.
Darker and more graphic than the worst Raymond Chandler offering, (don't get me wrong, I like Raymond Chandler, was weaned on Chandler). These comics, which I like to call noir horror or noir crime - and they have a special category in the store all their own, are all pretty much a like. And few if any are written by women - for much the same reason that few if any female romance novels are written by men, I suspect. This unfortunately bodes true of the other comics as well, not just the noir ones. Even comics that are based on books by women or stories by women have been adapted by men. There was one that was free - which was based on a woman's YA sci-fantasy novel - but adapted by a guy.
I bought the only comic I could find in the whole store that was written by a woman, granted didn't look at all the bound and expensive volumes, just the magazine issues. The store was crowded since it was free comic day.
This is by way of an introduction to my perusal of all of Bill Willingham's Angel comics in the comic store. As noted in an earlier post - the IDW editor Mariah H, got me curious about the comics. So thought I'd check them out, see what all the hubbub was about for myself.
What did I think? Short version? Well, I guess it is notable that although I did actually buy two comic books today, Willingham's Angel books were not amongst them.
( Long version of what I thought of Willingham's Angel comics, in case you are at all curious, no reason you should be, but just in case... )
2. Cleaned. Which included doing something I've been putting off for well like forever. I threw out my collection of cassett or music tapes. This was a heavy box, filled with well over 1000 tapes, most of which dated back 20-30 years. I stopped listening to them when I got the ipod and CD's. And well, my tape player, much like my VCR went kablooey. That got thrown out too - the tape player, not the VCR (VCR was thrown out about five-six years ago). Had interesting conversation with landlord about this...he was busy reinstalling the pigeon defense grid - ie plastic spikes to keep pigeons off the roof and away from my window. One of the spikes apparently fell off.
( conversation with landlord about disposing of my tape cassett collection and how we both feel old. Landlord is admittedly five years younger than me, but technically we're the same generation. )
Getting rid of the tapes wasn't as painful as I thought. Actually sort of freeing. I was becoming allergic to that box in my bedroom.
3. After all the cleaning, which included more than just getting rid of the tapes - was an all day affair, I decided to enjoy the lovely weather and ran errands. Walked up to neighborhood comic shop, which was mobbed with the stereotypical comic book buyer - heavyset, bearded dudes, and little boys (as in ten - twelve and able to crawl under tables, and who come up to my knee or waist. I more or less stood out, being the only woman in the joint - outside of the pretty girl at the desk. There were a few women who came in after me, but not for the comics, more as companions to the guys or their sons. It was free comic book day.
Anyhow...I realized reading through the offerings, that most comics (not all obviously) are in some respects the equivalent of a male romance novel. This is a term I coined after seeing the Frank Miller flick Sin City based on Miller's comic of the same name - which was all the rage back in 1980s, but I found rather derivative and ignored, even though comic book shop boy was literally begging me to try it. For Buffy fans - Sin City is notable in one respect - it is how the writer's came up with the back story for Spike's leather jacket, they borrowed the idea from Miller's Sin City. So if you hate that back story, think the whole Nikki/Spike bit is offensive and a lot of people do, you might want to skip Frank Miller's graphic novels.
Darker and more graphic than the worst Raymond Chandler offering, (don't get me wrong, I like Raymond Chandler, was weaned on Chandler). These comics, which I like to call noir horror or noir crime - and they have a special category in the store all their own, are all pretty much a like. And few if any are written by women - for much the same reason that few if any female romance novels are written by men, I suspect. This unfortunately bodes true of the other comics as well, not just the noir ones. Even comics that are based on books by women or stories by women have been adapted by men. There was one that was free - which was based on a woman's YA sci-fantasy novel - but adapted by a guy.
I bought the only comic I could find in the whole store that was written by a woman, granted didn't look at all the bound and expensive volumes, just the magazine issues. The store was crowded since it was free comic day.
This is by way of an introduction to my perusal of all of Bill Willingham's Angel comics in the comic store. As noted in an earlier post - the IDW editor Mariah H, got me curious about the comics. So thought I'd check them out, see what all the hubbub was about for myself.
What did I think? Short version? Well, I guess it is notable that although I did actually buy two comic books today, Willingham's Angel books were not amongst them.
( Long version of what I thought of Willingham's Angel comics, in case you are at all curious, no reason you should be, but just in case... )
