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Friday, July 09, 2004 ( 7/09/2004 07:27:00 AM ) Bill S. GREAT RESPONSIBILITY – Jim Hensley ponders the riddle that is Steve Ditko, noting that Spider-Man's big thematic line about power and responsibility is at odds with Ditko's personal Randian philosophy: "Scare-quote altruism is close to the First Deadly Objectivist Sin." As Stan Lee originally wrote the line, though, it wasn't a quote at all (later retellings of the origin – like the first Spider-Man movie – would attribute it to Uncle Ben), just a tidy Serling-styled capper imbedded in the narration: a hold-over from all those years writing neat twist ending stories with Ditko for the monster mags and Amazing Adult Fantasy. Perhaps, Ditko originally saw it as just one more example of Lee's cornball (an adjective Lee himself would use self-mockingly) writing style. "There goes Stan, hammering home the irony again!" NOTE: From a recent article in the Winnipeg Sun (link courtesy of Mark Evanier) comes this line from a columnist's recent correspondence with the man himself: "Power doesn't corrupt. It's neutral. Someone always wants to corrupt power. It's the way a shotgun is not a deadly weapon until someone chooses to use it irrationally." This doesn't quite connect with Spidey's power and responsibility line, but it does offer a tiny window into Ditko's presentday beliefs. # | Thursday, July 08, 2004 ( 7/08/2004 08:46:00 PM ) Bill S. TALES FROM SUBURBAN BOHEMIA – Okay, I like the Stonesy guitar licks and "hoohoo" chorus of the Dandy Warhols track presently being used as background music to the new GM commercial, but, c'mon, do we really associate being "Bohemian Like You" with General friggin' Motors? # | Wednesday, July 07, 2004 ( 7/07/2004 02:44:00 PM ) Bill S. "IT'S SCARING ME RIGHT OUT OF MY MIND" – The week's packed with projects & commitments – work-related, plus writing outside the blogosphere – so it looks like posting'll be light in these parts. I did want to briefly note, though, that Bob Christgau is an old poop for relegating Brian Wilson's first solo album in years (Getting' In Over My Head) to the Duds bin of his last "Consumer Guide." I'm playing the CD as I type this, and I find it an enjoyably old-fashioned, totally summery musical experience: more poppishly listenable than Wilson's last solo effort, Imagination, or his collaborative effort with Van Dyke Parks. Am I making allowances for poor ol' ravaged Bri after all these years? Most likely. Does the disc compare to the Beach Boys at their best? Of course not. But it's near close to the Next Best Thing. . . Will definitely have more to say about Head after I've played it a dozen more times. # | Tuesday, July 06, 2004 ( 7/06/2004 05:32:00 AM ) Bill S. SEBASTIAN – Spent late afternoon yesterday digging a space in the backyard for one of our cats, a sixteen-year-old Siamese named Sebastian. We had Sebastian put to sleep after he was diagnosed with Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP) and began failing (severe weight loss that we were not able to stop through hand feeding, difficulty swallowing, dehydration, yellowing skin and progressive weakness). It's never an easy decision to make, but we feel it was the right one: per our vet, he was also showing signs of liver failure and was mainly looking to three to four weeks of basically starving to death. We are a major animal house – four cats, three ferrets and two dogs – and, with the exception of Sebastian, every one of the creatures has been a rescued pet. Sebastian was part of a litter that we bred sixteen years ago with his mother, a mixed Siamese, and a pure-bred Siamese studboy named Don Juan (for obvious reasons). He did not show the stereotypical behaviors associated with the breed: he was not stand-offish and, indeed, was one of those cats who loved doing lap duty. Back when my wife Becky worked at an animal hospital, he was diagnosed with a heart murmur, but we never could get a confirming second opinion: whenever we took him to the vet's, his purr was so loud, the docs couldn't hear his heartbeat. The diagnosis of FIP is worrisome, since it's a carcinovirus that can be easily transmitted from cat to cat through their saliva. (Other animals don’t seem to get it.) Two years ago, we adopted a trio of young cats from a group called Sterile Feral (they specialize in rescuing wild felines), and we lost one of these three within a few short months to FIP, so it's likely that the virus came from that poor doomed cat and remained dormant in Sebastian until he grew too old to fight it off. Reading up on the disease, I see that while it can be easily passed around, a significant percentage of cats who come into contact with it never get the disease (one study of catteries that were exposed to FIP noted that 10 – 20% of the other cats tested positive for the disease), though it's unclear from the material that I've read whether these were short-term or long-term exposures. There is a nasal vaccine for the disease, but the jury's still out on its effectiveness. We're getting the rest of our menagerie tested, but since the virus also can remain dormant, we don't plan on bringing any more cats into the current mix. With so many animals in the house, it's probably inevitable you have favorites: of all our cats, Sebastian was the one I most enjoyed because his friendliness was almost doglike. (I'm the dog person in the home; Becky's the cat.) He had a nice, long life in our home, but, as usual, it's never long enough. . . # | Sunday, July 04, 2004 ( 7/04/2004 08:13:00 PM ) Bill S. A GOLDEN OLDIE – Gearing up for Spider-Man 2, I immersed myself in one of the Marvel Masterworks collections this weekend. And while reading the Green Goblin story from AS-M #40, I revisited a moment I'd forgotten: in the story, Peter's estranged first love Betty Brant is standing in a Chicago train station, preparing to return to New York. In the background, a radio is broadcasting deejay Art Roberts on WLS, who wonders why "nothing has been heard of Spider-Man these past few days." Living in the Chicago 'burbs at the time this story was originally published (1966), I was familiar with both the station and disc jockey. WLS (the call letters stand for what used to be the "World's Largest Store") at the time was one of two Top 40 AM stations in the Windy City (the second being WCFL – no, I don't know if the call letters stood for anything). The station devolved into an all-talk radio format ages ago, but when I was a teenager, it was a glorious purveyor of sixties pop 'n' roll. How'd Art Roberts, the station's night deejay, wind up making a faceless cameo in a Marvel Comic? Can't say for certain. (Makes you wish that they reprinted the Marvel Bullpen Bulletins from those old issues, so you can track some of this minutia down.) Perhaps Roberts did an on-air interview with Stan the Man? Whatever the answer to this profoundly trivial question, it sure was a kick happening on his name. . . UPDATE: Greg Gatlin (of Raw Feed) alerted me in the Comments section below to a webpage devoted to reprinting all of the Marvel Bullpen Bulletins – and in the June 1966 page, I see Art Roberts is included in a list of radio d.j.s who are members of the Merry Marvel Marching Society, the company’s fan club. Mystery solved. . . # | |
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