2025-W28 EOW Report

Anti-Goal Cycling

• Missed last week update as it was just really busy and I was tired, but last-last week and this-past week were mostly devoted to re-reading, editing, and rushing to finishing the second draft of prj:MUSIC. Expanding the final scene was the biggest priority, and I did that, but hated how there were revisions to deal with in the first few scenes, so I jumped to that, but frankly, I dunno. I found most of the edits super-minimal because while I agreed with most of the feedback I got from it, I also didn’t feel like “fixing it” required a LOT of fixing. Which is good I suppose? I expanded the penultimate scene as well because folks wanted more conflict or suggested more conflict and tension there. As of yesterday, I’m “done” in quotation marks, but I don’t want to lock in V2 for prj:MUSIC until I have another read through. I’m going to pass it off to Garage Fiction and a few others for a beta read afterwards.
• In the meantime, opened up prj:SAVED again. I can’t seem to find Nigel and Abby’s feedback, but I recall it was really minimal. I might fire that off to Garage Fiction for a read through as well. But ultimately, both might be ready to the submission process. I’m tempted to send it to OWW as well… but it might be getting to the point where I’m just getting feedback for the sake of getting feedback and that doesn’t sound productive either. Eventually I know I’ll have a better system in place. But it’s all exploratory right now.
• At the 75% mark for Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (1978) by Peter Burke. Michael Tworek also sent over over 200 pages of EME Church stuff so I can understand the religious side of things.

Four Thousand Weeks

• So last weekend. Friday night, went out with wife and neighbors to Patch Brewery. Saturday night was Legally Blonde the Musical. Sunday was random shops like Pomme, H-Mart. It was just a lot. I just needed a day to zone out but didn’t get it. This weekend, saw Superman on IMAX. Saturday was a zone out day after groceries as youngest and eldest was out. Needed that zone out day because this past week with Client A was rough. Almost fifteen hour day on Monday, 10 or 12 on Tue/Wed. Just a lot of stuff that needed to be done. This coming week will have some difficult conversations as well.
• McFarlane Toys continued to be a bad addiction. Right. Last weekend on the Saturday morning of Legally Blonde, I had won Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow on eBay because I really wanted it and I drove out all the way to Kingsway and Fraser to pick it up as the guy was local. Driving all the way out to get a toy forty minutes both ways was probably not good for my low energy weekend when it was already brimming with events. And then this past week, Hawkgirl and Power Girl arrived, and I put in a preorder for Wesley Dodds, Mister Miracle, and Golden Age Wonder Woman. And crap, I also won another eBay auction for Wildcat and Orion (with a Jokerized Robin I couldn’t give a flying fuck about, but it was actually cheaper to get him with the other two than some of the other auctions that only had the two I wanted). AND THEN – I tried posing Hawkgirl and Power Girl on one leg as if they’re flying and Hawkgirl is too top heavy with her gigantic wings and Power Girl also can’t stand properly on one leg… so then I looked at Tamashii Nations Act 5 flight stands and also the Octopus Flight Stands… POINT IS – It’s getting to be a lot, and they just announced Doctor Mid-Nite… wait, I also got Mr. Terrific, the one with the jacket that comes off and not the Edi Gathegi movie one where it doesn’t, but then again, mine doesn’t have Fair Play written on it….. yeeeeeeaaaaahhhh, OK. This is not the hobby I thought I’d get into at 44, but here I am. I think I like this hobby because it’s low maintenance. You buy the toy, you pose it, you get your endorphin kick. Time-wise for intensive initial attention is small, but the half-life of joy lingers fairly long, whereas Lego and board games requires two to six hours of intense attention (provided you can coordinate the logistics for getting people to the table, and/or schedule the time)… and there’s very little half-life. I mean, I guess you could look at the lego set once it’s constructed, but I dunno. I don’t think I’ve looked at a set affectionately post-building. Board games are similar. You don’t look at the game and have any half-life joy. Maybe some memories of past games. With an action figure of a beloved character, I am immediately emotionally attached due to the stories I’ve read. Maybe that’s it. The built-in stories of said character. Like the Supergirl figure from Woman of Tomorrow. I look at the figure and I’m reminded of key scenes from Tom King’s miniseries.
• Been thinking a lot about ritual and discomfort the last few months since my uncle’s passing. Ritual because of the funeral, being in proximity to my church going days. I keep thinking, I wish there was a way for a large group of strangers to hang out once a week, sing songs, listen to talks about shared values, but have ZERO made-up stuff like God and religion. I think those community rituals are important for us as humans. I just don’t want a made-up entity to be involved. Related to my church days and my youth… after I got bitten alive by mosquitos at the Malkin Bowl during Legally Blonde, and being in this drained, exhausted state with bites that kept bothering me… I feel like I’ve forgotten (over the last several years) what it was like to be uncomfortable more often than not. I think as a child I was uncomfortable a lot. We were outside in the hot sun, sweating, or I had my allergies, or bites, or cuts, or scratches from falling off my bike or just falling, or whatever. Sprained ankles from hikes. And mosquito bites. As an adult – I mean aside from being sick once a year or less, and the one time I got COVID… I have done so much to make my life comfortable. Middle class privilege and wealth yes. But also – purposefully building my life around that. I’m not being macho about this, like, let’s add more discomfort to my life on purpose so I can “feel more real”, but it is something I noticed the last month. Of course, I do have aches and pains from age and being a sedentary office worker, but it’s not… the sharp, persistent kind like the oppressive sun and mosquito bites and cuts from my childhood, you know? This is a blog about nothing.

Story Introspection

• James Gunn’s Superman… ultimately didn’t work for me. That’s the hard decision I’ve made after flip-flopping over the last two days. A lot of it worked, but the net result is that it wasn’t tight. The good stuff first: The tone, colors, humor, goofiness, the jokes, the characters, the actors and their portrayals, the aesthetic of it all… All excellent and exactly what I wanted from Gunn to reboot the DC cinematic universe. I also like that Gunn created a lived-in universe where the citizens of Metropolis are totally unfazed by Superman and metahumans fighting Kaijus, giant robots, and villains. I like we won’t have to suffer origin stories. I’ve fully converted to DC this past year, pulling 40% of all their titles at one point. I love it for its epic absurdity. It’s goofy in a way that Marvel isn’t. I don’t know how to describe it otherwise. So Gunn nailed that. I’m super excited for everything else that’s coming out next. I can’t wait for Lanterns, Supergirl, and whatever else they do. This film sets the FOUNDATION for it all. But on the MOST important aspect of the film, the STORY CRAFT of it… it’s good, but not great. The emotional ARC of Superman from “I’m an alien here to do good” to “I don’t know who I am” to “I’m a human here to do good”… just felt… rushed. Or didn’t take time to develop. The tension wasn’t there. The stakes weren’t set down clear enough. Or maybe they were and this arc just didn’t work? At the end of the day, I just didn’t care, and that annoyed me. I wanted to care about Clark. Gunn made us care about Quill in the first 10m of the first Guardians. But I don’t know how to fix it either. Luthor’s takedown of Superman was necessary. It had to establish FIRST, that Superman is proud of his alien status, and then the expose made him question it, and finding his humanity via his Kansas parents gives him a new identity. Maybe the arc is just wrong? Maybe Clark needed to START with doubting his identity ALREADY in the first scene and Luthor’s expose all but confirms his shame at his alien identity? OR OR OR… the shame at his Krytonian past was the WRONG MOVE to begin with? Because I was NOT COOl with that. The more I think about it, the more I dislike the harem thing. Because now Superman is ashamed of his roots and I don’t think that’s a clean message for the immigrant theme either. I think if you want to be woke about this, you should be OK with both your homeland AND your adopted country… and what this film does is it makes the Kryptonian past a shameful thing. Maybe that’s the crux of what’s bothering me. I don’t like that this film basically cuts off potential Kryptonian stories because it’s clear Krytonians are horrible people.
• In other Superman news… I mean, might as well right? It’s the “Summer of Superman” after all… I read Mark Waid’s “Birthright” on DC Compact. That was an excellent origin story along with a great backstory of Lex Luthor. Also finished Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow and The Authority. The Authority, I tell you. That is definitely a story of its time. Very early 2000s edgy (mostly because Warren Ellis), but not all of it holds up well. Oh and burnt through Ram V’s Dawnrunner. That’s an amazing Mecha story.
• Watched The Joy Luck Club (1993) because the middle one finished the book after starting it back in January. I know I saw it before but it’s interesting the only scene I remember is Lena St. Clair and Harold’s storyline about him being a dick about expenses, splitting everything 50/50. Could be because that was the one of two major things my parents fought about? Money? I don’t know what that one of eight stories stuck and the rest just vanished. Regardless, wow… it is very much a nineties movie. The hair, the costumes, the style. I guess the stories hold up well, but the execution and style of it is very much trapped in a way we made movies back then. Actually, I don’t know if an anthologized film like this would work in 2025 either tbh.

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