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Professor Bummer's Tenure Track

I have a new nickname. Or deejay name. Or maybe it’s a superhero name: “Professor Bummer.” The moniker was bestowed on me by Matt Fraction, writer of the comic books Iron Man and Casanova, at the comic creators panel, a part of the University of Oregon’s “Understanding Superheroes” academic conference that ran a week ago on campus in conjunction with the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art’s exhibition Faster Than a Speeding Bullet: The Art of the Superhero. The conference sported panels with names like "Being and Super-Beings: Existentialism, Temporality, and Eschatology." (Yes, really.)

In fact, I have written previously about the exhibition and conference for local media.

Fraction appeared with fellow Oregonian comic writers Kurt Busiek (Trinity, The Avengers, Astro City) and Gail Simone (Wonder Woman, The All-New Atom, Birds of Prey). In the panel’s wrap-up Q-and-A, I asked the creators what it’s like writing for these sprawling, decades-old mega-storylines, considering that the DC and Marvel Universes have been rolling along since the 1930s and 40s, respectively. I may have asked it a bit bluntly, I’ll allow, as I phrased it along the lines of “…considering that you could stop writing for comics at any time, take a break of 20 or 30 years, and come back to find the same story had been told in your absence?”

Fraction’s response: “I’ve ever thought of my work in such Sisyphian terms. Thanks, Professor Bummer.”

That kind of wit was on display through the whole thing. Prof. Ben Saunders of the UO English department, conference organizer and guest curator of the exhibition, opened the panel with, “I apologize for the less than ideal angle some of you may have of our esteemed guests.”

Busiek: “Head on?”

As often happens when comics geeks and academics gather in real or virtual spaces, much of the chit-chat revolved around the agony and ecstasy of comic book continuity, the sprawling web of interconnected stories that compose a shared fictional universe, the violations of which give fanboys ample opportunity to praise or lambaste creators.

“I think continuity is the devil,” Fraction asserted, his usual timid, reticent self. He went on to explain that, so long as characters and story scenarios operate in a basically consistent manner, he’s happy with his writing.

Busiek, who along with Mark Waid represents perhaps the largest walking repository of superhero continuity lore in the industry, countered with a quote his mis-attributed to John Donne, but which actually belongs to Ralph Waldo Emerson: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”

(Coincidentally, Saunders specializes in Donne and Shakespeare. Reckon he was gritting his teeth.)

“I personally get continuity fatigue,” added Simone.

Affection and Nostalgia

The UO’s Jordan Schnitzer Museum gives comic books a hero’s welcome

This article, which first appeared in the September 24 issue of Eugene Weekly, afforded me the opportunity to sort of wallow in my own special brand of hedonism, thinking and reading and talking at length about comic books.  I can guarantee you I'll be returning to the museum multiple times before the exhibition has concluded, to commune with the spirits of my gurus.  I was also pleased to discover a kindred spirit in the University of Oregon's Ben Saunders, a man who walks the walk in terms of comic book nerdery.  This guy isn't taking advantage of a pop cultural trend; he's advancing an art form about which he has been passionate for decades.

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“Can I touch this?” I ask, gesturing to the 70-year-old magazine sitting on the glass top counter of Nostalgia Collectibles, a Eugene comic book store. Darrell Grimes, the owner of both the shop and the comic book in question, gives his assent, and I lift the object carefully, reverently, as if I’m handling an illuminated manuscript from the Dark Ages.

Even encased as it is in clear, hard, protective plastic, the illustration on the comic book’s cover exudes a kinetic sense of exuberance: a boyishly grinning Superman leaps high above the rooftops, his cape billowing behind him.

This is a copy of Superman #1, published in 1939. Fewer than 200 copies are thought to exist. It’s worth $50,000. The very fact this comic book resides in Eugene makes this city noteworthy, in some circles.

And I’m holding it. For me, comic book nerd that I am, that’s like touching the Holy Grail.

This comic, and the nearly 200 pieces of original comic book art it will soon be joining on the campus of the UO, matter to the dozens, perhaps hundreds, of hardcore comic book aficionados in the area.

But they’re also a point of pride to the citizens of Eugene as a whole, or at least they should be. Because the artwork that has been collected for “Faster Than a Speeding Bullet: The Art of the Superhero,” an exhibition opening Friday, Sept. 25, at the UO’s Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, is one of the most expansive gatherings of superhero comic book art ever assembled. And it’s not hanging on a wall in N.Y. or L.A. or London, or even Portland. It’s here.

“I do think this is the best museum exhibition of superhero comic art to date,” says Ben Saunders, an associate professor of English at the UO, and curator of the exhibition. “‘Best’ in the sense of broadest, most historically comprehensive,” he continues, “and with a large number of key pieces by key artists from the 70 years of the genre.”

It may sound as if Saunders is bragging about the show he’s assembled. But to be frank, the man has a right to brag: Works are on loan from the Library of Congress as well as from 18 private collectors from around the country.

But this show is about more than just volume. Saunders is an expert on this stuff, and he has taken care to present the original artwork. Originals are created on card stock pieces larger than the comic book pages to which they will eventually be reduced, in a manner that tells a story: not just the thrilling tales of spandexed champions or the story of good winning out over evil, but the story of the creation of a wholly new and inherently American way to tell stories in the first place.

“I went in pursuit of key works by key artists,” says Saunders, who revels in name-dropping from the collection’s impressive catalog: “Not just ‘something by Jack Kirby,’ but Jack Kirby’s cover to [Fantastic Four] #74. Not just Bill Sienkiewicz, but one of his large collage poster/covers from the mid ’80s. Not just Neal Adams, but Neal Adams on Batman.” Care has also been taken, Saunders says, to include “once-influential masters of the form” of the 1940s Golden Age of comic books, “who deserve to be better known.”

Continue reading "Affection and Nostalgia" at Eugene Weekly.

Photo by Todd Cooper.

Grease is the Word: Will Dickie Jo's sizzle or be fried?

This article, which originally appeared in the July 1 issue of Eugene Weekly, may have come out a tad more negative than I intended.  I really do appreciate what the Wests are doing, aesthetically.  How can I not love the checkered floor and pre-Elvis blues rock?  In researching this piece, I was surprised to learn that there seem to be no middle-of-the-road opinions on Dickie Jo's; Eugeneans feel passionate about their hamburgers, I guess.  Everyone seems to either adore the place, or detest it.  I don't think I fall into either category, but I will state for the record that I've been back twice since my initial reporting foray.  I do love me some Mucho Gusto carnitas, so, you know, bueno on ya for that one, Wests.

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The new Dickie Jo’s Burgers has a prominent spot on 13th between Pearl and High, and likely the first sign of the diner’s presence detected by many Eugeneans was the new paint job applied to the south wall of the abutting office building. And what a paint job. Snappy and sharp to some, a garish eyesore to others, the commanding, mid-20th-century-styled tile design of alternating red, pink and white visually drowns the compact building like a busy computer wallpaper overpowers a desktop icon. The owners, restaurateur siblings Jim and Phil West, are counting on the business as a sort of hardware upgrade for their family name, as well. 

The “Westraunt Concepts” partnership founded by the brothers may have a cutesy name, but don’t be fooled: These guys are playing for keeps. The company also created local Mexican eateries Mucho Gusto and Fina Taqueria, and Jim, the elder West, is already casting an eye northward, envisioning a day Portland will be home to combo outlets, with a Mucho and a Dickie’s under a single roof. The Wests planned to return to their roots by converting Fina Taqueria’s south Willamette location into a variation on their early 1990s barbecue joint, but those plans have been scrapped to concentrate on burritos and burgers.

Jim West proselytizes a form of dining known as “quick-casual,” a couple of steps above fast food but with a pointed lack of spendy table service. According to West, the lack of niceties translates to more cash in diners’ pockets. That no-frills style extends to the Wests’ day-to-day, as well. “We haven’t created any corporate positions,” Jim says. “I’m the bookkeeper,” while “Phil does all of our design.”

Continue reading "Grease is the Word" at Eugene Weekly.

The UpStairs Lounge: Dead Men Do Tell Tales

This article originally appeared in the Winter issue of Etude: The Journal of Literary Nonfiction.  A much expanded version of this story was incorporated into my final project for my graduate program.

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The psychic is already on his second glass of cheap red wine, and he’s been in the bar only ten minutes.

Phillip is in his late thirties, slight of stature, intense in disposition and nearly bald. He sits stoically, cloaked in the gloom of murky bar air at the head of the table, regarding his fellow ghost-hunter Kalila, her dark, straight hair bobbing as she dances along to the routine of four muscular young men, a Village People tribute group.

The costumed performers, on break from a show at a competing club down the street, are in the throes of an impromptu performance of the disco hit “Y.M.C.A.” here in Jimani Lounge, an Italian bar at Chartres and Iberville, in New Orleans’ French Quarter. Kalila seems especially enchanted by the cop character, a friendly African-American man in an incredibly tight tee shirt.

Phillip is hitting the red hard.  He’d much rather be ogling the beefcake, but he’s already picking up strong psychic impressions from the floor above, and the wine, he explains, “smoothes out the edges.”  He’s more forthcoming when pressed: wine drowns out the telepathic barrage of voices and impressions constantly battering at his consciousness. His daily intake is in the neighborhood of fifteen glasses.  Phillip makes a point of never beginning a supernatural investigation without first bellying up.

Instead of watching the high kicks, Phillip has busied himself unscrewing the top of a plastic salt shaker.  He neatly dumps the contents into a small plastic baggie he has produced from somewhere on his person. Phillip twists the baggie tightly closed and pockets it, as if squirreling away an ounce of cocaine.

“Do you believe in coincidence?” Phillip drawls at me, in an accent that reveals his backwoods Oklahoma origins. “I don’t,” he states flatly. We’re here tonight to investigate the site of the gay bar that occupied the space one floor above us in the 1970s, and Village People look-alikes “randomly” showing up feels like fate.  Or prescience.   

Just a quarter-hour ago, Phillip left his night job at Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo, a French Quarter occult supply shop catering mostly to tourists. Phillip is one of the store’s in-house psychic readers, advising vacationing secretaries and sloshed frat boys how to get laid or get loved.

 The Jimani, pronounced like “Gemini” but misspelled to incorporate the given name of its founder, Jimmy Massacci, Sr., occupies the first floor of a building whose second story once housed the UpStairs Lounge, the gay club. The UpStairs had been a gathering place for the Quarter’s nascent gay scene, even hosting homosexual-inclusive church services, until a Sunday evening in June of 1973, when someone lit an incendiary device, lobbed it into the stairwell leading up to the club and locked the street-side door from the outside.

Twenty-nine people, mostly homosexual men, died in the flames that night, while another three victims succumbed in the following days.  The destruction of the UpStairs was the most deadly fire in the city’s history, and an event that quickly evolved into a rallying point for gay rights in the Crescent City. The arsonist-murderer was never caught.

Continue reading "The UpStairs Lounge" at Etude.

Falling Into the Reflection

Over the past week I’ve been working on my publisher’s letter for the upcoming summer issue of Eugene Magazine.  It’s our Top Doctors of Eugene-Springfield issue, and, seeking to draw from my own experience, I open the letter with an anecdote about what it was like growing up with two psychotherapists as parents.  

In the letter, after I set the scene and (hopefully, presumably) draw the reader in with personal detail, I expand my theme and apply the anecdote’s simple lesson to the larger world. Lots of nonfiction is structured the same way… this blog post, as a matter of fact.

The publisher’s letter is a prime example of a frequent writer’s dilemma: How much of myself should I put into this thing?  Writers of fiction have to ask themselves the question, but it becomes even more pertinent to writers of poetry and nonfiction. 

Even writers who produce literary nonfiction have to gauge their involvement.  John Berendt is a central character, for example, in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.  But I’d argue that Erik Larson may communicate almost as much about himself in The Devil in the White City (perhaps my favorite book), a narrative that takes place a good six decades before Larson was born.

The writer wants his work to convey something about himself, his values, what matters to him.  But it can be difficult to tread the line between self-inclusion and self-absorption, between personal storyline and base narcissism.  (And no, I’m not ignoring the narcissistic overtones of writing about narcissism in a personal essay, appearing on a personal blog.)

Though in essence, the writer conjures only the illusion of personal connection. After reading this mini-essay, for example, you, the reader know that I wrote a publisher’s letter, but not what was going on at the same time, or whether I produced two drafts or twenty, or whether the writing took ten minutes or ten hours, or how I feel about it, or whether I even like the thing.  You can guess, based on clues I might include here or what you know of me outside this writing, but you can never know for sure.

So how about it, writers?  Or creatives in other fields?  How much of yourself do you insert into your work?  How do you avoid sharing too much?  How much of the “you” in your work is illusion, and how much is genuine contact with your readers or audience?  My comment corral is feeling snubbed…

Secret Origin

News of the impending Geoff Johns/Gary Frank miniseries Superman: Secret Origin has got me thinking about the Superman mythos, and about its implications for modern storytelling.  Superman’s world and story are filled with unrealistic storylines and absurd plot points – and I ain’t talkin’ super-speed, alien worlds, or mad scientists, either.  Let’s take a quick (x-ray) look at three of the most unrealistic plot points of Superman’s universe.

The Farm

Clark Kent’s moral core, the values that make him Superman every bit as much as his alien heritage, derive from his simple upbringing on a Kansas farm.  Out in the boonies, Clark had a safe environment to experiment: accidentally flying into the grain silo, tipping cows faster than a speeding bullet, and training those x-ray, telescopic peepers in Lana Lang’s direction.  Or hey, maybe toward Pete Ross.  We all experiment in our teen years, right?

Frankly, it’d never work today.  Large corporation agri-business has replaced the family farm through most of the U.S.  I can just imagine Pa Kent bowing and genuflecting as he shows Greg Kinnear from Fast Food Nation around the plant, er, farm, motioning behind his back for all the undocumenteds to go hide behind one of those laughable “Home of Superboy!” billboards of which the municipality was so fond in 1960s. 

Heck, If Clark had made his debut more in the neighborhood of 2009 rather than 1938, likely our teenaged Smallville rustic would hold some crappy, after-school agri-job like juvenile delinquent Kevin Bacon.  (Forget the hormone-fueled dance halls, though: Clark’s petulant, adolescent stand against The Man would culminate in a rally at Town Hall to lobby for an ordinance making glowing green space rock a controlled substance.)

Or maybe he could just help Napoleon with the chickens.  They do have large talons, you know.

Ghosts of the Future

A couple nights ago I dreamed about my departed friend Paul Carlile, and perhaps those thoughts are fueling today’s writing. 

As anyone who reads this blog for any length of time can attest, I write and blog a good deal about ghosts.  Ghosts figured centrally in my graduate school final project work, and I’ve always liked ghost stories.  Ghosts are intrinsically tragic, sad figures.   Like all the monsters of folklore, ghosts stand for something specific in the human psyche and inn our popular culture.  Emissaries of the past thrust into the present, ghosts inform us of our sorrows, our disappointments, our regrets.  Our failures.

DC Comics, home of Superman and Batman, has known this for decades, resulting in one of my favorite comic book franchises.  One of the company’s earliest heroic characters, co-created in 1940 by Superman’s proud poppa Jerry Siegel, is the Spectre, a leering, chalk-white Reaper type sporting a green hooded cloak. 

The undead spirit of a murdered police detective tasked directly by God with exacting vengeance from killers (how’s that for a secret origin?), the Spectre isn’t a particularly nice guy.  He habitually slices and dices his way through the criminal set, wreaking divine punishment that almost always ends in the perpetrator’s grisly, and often darkly ironic, death.  Yeah, ol’ Spec probably shouldn’t keep hitting ‘Refresh,’ hoping for that eVite from the Superfriends Membership Committee.  The Spectre represents remorse, and sadness, and anger over past mistakes.  The Spectre represents human emotion in a much more visceral fashion than the usual capes-and-tights types.

Little Writers

Yesterday while I was cleaning the kitchen, my wife was in the next room watching the 1994 film version of Little Women. In one scene, the narrator and protagonist, Jo March, as played by Winona Ryder, has moved from Massachusetts to New York City, and wants to describe to her family back home what her new friend Professor Bhaer is like. Because the story unfolds during Reconstruction, Jo is limited in her writing efforts to… wait for it… pen and paper.

Allowing my mind to wander as I scrubbed the pan from the morning’s bacon, I conjectured how differently such a scene might unfold if it took place this year. Jo wouldn’t be limited to writing about the prof, to help her family gain an appreciation of his personality; she’d have multiple technological means to support her. Not only could our 2009 Jo chat with Marm March and the girls on the phone, she could upload a short video about her pal, or refer them to the man’s profiles on MySpace or Facebook or LinkedIn. Or heck, Friendster if the good professor is old skool. If Jo wanted to effect a meeting, of sorts, Second Life would be waiting. And of course, Jo could always blog about her buddy.

Two writers I know personally, both of whom I respect and admire, each recently penned an essay gently denouncing social media and networking for writers. Blogs are too easy, too informal, and frankly, full of crap, argues one essay. Twitter’s seductive micro-blogging format saps artistic creativity, argues the other. And so I, the official Luddite of my family, find myself cast as a reluctant Don Quixote championing the virtues of such tech applications, my windmill the common gripe that real writers write real essays, real books, with, I don’t know, a quill pen or something.

So what’s my point, aside from needlessly needling my colleagues?

Et in arcadia ego.

As a theatre major at Northwestern once upon a time, I got hung up for awhile on Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, a fantastic play melding past and present, life and death.  The play features “Et in Arcadia ego,” a Latin phrase  that translates as “And in Arcadia, there am I.” Even in paradise, death is never far.  It’s a recurring sentiment in art and culture of the Baroque period.  The concept stuck with me for over a decade.  In early January I was in a pensive mood for some reason, and even incorporated the phrase into a post on my Twitter stream.

A week and a day later, my friend Paul Carlile took his own life.

I wasn’t able to write for several days thereafter.  And I wondered why.  Other bloggers successfully and eloquently expressed their feelings for Paul in the wake of his death, but I have always been a writer who keeps something of himself reserved from his writing.  I’m the son of two clinical psychologists, and I always think a great deal about processing emotion.  But writing is seldom the way I do it.

The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick Maker, and the Writer who gets it all down on paper

After writing all day and then writing all night, I can’t believe I’m about to write just a wee bit more for the blog.  But Inkville needs its mayor.  (And, for that matter, its village idiot.)

I’m midway through my second week in two new part-time jobs, having finally chucked the ol’ desk jockeying, hopefully for good.  The first is the position of Publisher of Eugene Magazine, a glossy lifestyle quarterly for which I’ve been writing freelance for a few years now.  For some horrid, self-loathing reason, I decided to jump on the bandwagon just two weeks before we go to press on the Winter 2008-09 issue, so I’ve basically been behind the 8-ball from the get-go.

Fortuitously, my genial bosses Steve and Lanny have assembled a fantastic staff who are patiently guiding my transition, chief among them my colleague Vanessa, the mag’s Editor.  The magazine offices are delightfully devoid of the red tape and niceties that characterize university environment.  Until my office is ready, I’ve been parking my laptop a few feet from the Janus-like ad sales staff: honey-tongued and smooth on the phone with a client, foul-mouthed and raucous as soon as the receiver hits the cradle.

My second position is Web Content Editor for the University of Oregon’s Office of Admissions, my old stomping grounds, where my boss is my close friend Holly, an inventive thinker and creative leader.  One of the most exciting vistas of this new job will be experimenting with social media, recruiting kids where the kids already live.  The job also allows me to edit such lovely student quotes as “It's just the two of us working with bacteriorhodopsin, a protein that converts light energy into chemical energy.”  Well, of course it is.

So far, my new lifestyle is glorious and hectic and frightening in all the best ways, not the least of which is hoofing it across Eugene during lunchtime, with a laptop tucked under my arm.  I’m enrolled in parallel crash courses in two completely different careers, and honestly, I’m having the time of my life.

More to come.  I hope.