Thoughts on the State of the Thoughts (5-29-19)

Hello, everyone! I know it hasn’t been too long since I started maintaining this blog again, but I’m going to have to back off a little bit. Between this, work, and more important obligations, I just don’t have time in my week to continue churning out new content for a handful of readers. I also feel it’s a bit of a disservice to lean too heavily on older posts I wrote years ago to carry me for entire weeks at a time. That said, I’ll still be around and probably putting out a new post and a throwback post every week. I think I can handle that better. If you are reading this, or actively reading anything on this blog, let me know. I’d appreciate engagement and feedback. This type of writing is a relationship, after all. 😉 Let’s have a conversation!

 

If you’re a fan of books and hot beverages, check us out at Blue Spider Books. And check out our blog here!

7 Book Conundrum

A disaster strikes your home, and you have to get out quick. You’re risking leaving a lot of things behind, but the important parts of your life–your family and pets–are already safe. You only have a few moments to grab at most seven books from your shelves and run. What will those seven precious books–the backbone of starting over–be? Here are my choices. Consider sharing your own.

 

Forgive the condition of some of these; my books have been through a lot with me, which is why it’s nearly impossible to make this decision. This is a background anxiety I believe a lot of us with large book collections likely possess, and I wanted to interrogate mine a bit. If you had to pare it down and start over, where would you begin?

The Appeal of Bruce Wayne as Batman

For the weekends, I want to make throwback posts to my earlier pieces that will fit nicely into the theme of this series. Enjoy!

“Why do we love Bruce Wayne?” at Sourcerer:

https://wp.me/p44GO7-m0

 

If you’re a fan of books and hot beverages, check us out at Blue Spider Books. And check out our blog here!

The Appeal of Dracula

Poster image taken from IMDB @ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103874/mediaviewer/rm178840064

Don’t worry; I’m not going to try to defend the vampire sub-genre here. While some of the older, campier versions of Dracula can be fun, my favorite iteration is the one portrayed by Gary Oldman in the Francis Ford Coppola film from 1992. It also hearkens back to my favorite section of the original Bram Stoker novel, and what, for me, redeems the monster at the center of the entire story.

In the original novel, there is a scene where Dracula and Harker stay up all night just talking, and as dawn breaks Dracula has to run away to hide from the sunlight. I loved this moment. It demonstrates the lonely old immortal Dracula, and that he truly did just yearn for companionship. The novel gets really tedious after this when it swaps to Mina’s letter-writing perspective, but that one small section always gets me.

I feel that the lonely Dracula longing for a human connection (despite, you know, eating Gypsy babies) is the one best embodied in Gary Oldman’s performance. I love this movie, and I can’t recommend it enough if you have never seen it. The cinematography is fantastic, and the central story line that develops of an immortal, heartbroken being chasing a lost love throughout time is one certain to catch the attention of fans of horror, dark fantasy, and paranormal romance all at once.

 

If you’re a fan of books and hot beverages, check us out at Blue Spider Books. And check out our blog here!

The Appeal of Hellboy

Hellboy cover image taken from Goodreads @ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/102458.Hellboy_Vol_1?from_search=true

With a new film out, and this being the 25th anniversary of the character’s introduction, this week seemed like a good time to address Hellboy.

With Hellboy, Mike Mignola demonstrates a professor’s level of knowledge of history, myth, and folklore. Synthesizing this knowledge with elements inspired by Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft, Mignola has created a mythology of his own beyond comparison in comics and dark fantasy literature. And with that, nearly ever single compelling character of the story is in some way a monster, whether it be Abe Sapien the fish man, Roger the golem, or the half-demon Hellboy himself.

But it is also the heart of Mignola’s story to disregard that outward appearance and examine a character’s soul. Hellboy is a wonderful story about birth not defining a person’s worth, and outright thumbing one’s nose at destiny. Hellboy is a hero through and through, self-sacrificing and humble. Reading his comics chronologically, you can follow his incredible jaunt from one corner of the earth to another, to the bottom of the sea, and even into hell itself. And at every step along the way, moral choices follow him, and he ultimately proves his essential humanity through them.

 

If you’re a fan of books and hot beverages, check us out at Blue Spider Books. And check out our blog here!

A Glimpse of the Future

Happy Sunday, everyone!

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to do with this blog now that I’ve come back to it, and I have come up with three ideas I would enjoy that fit the theme of this, my thought collection.

First off, I want to start a new weekly column on par with my old Batman column over at Sourcerer. I’m thinking of doing cosmic characters from Marvel, especially the obscure ones, now that that side of the franchise is gaining traction in the movie universe. Who would be up for reading about a different cosmic Marvel character each week?

Image taken from Pixabay @ https://pixabay.com/photos/marvel-comics-cartoon-entertainment-1641554/

Second, I want to do a series of shorter, periodic posts on fictional characters exploring their appeal. This can run an endless gamut of any sort of fictional character; effectively, my mood that day will dictate who I decide to write about. These will also only run a maximum of a few short paragraphs.

Image taken from Pixabay @ https://pixabay.com/illustrations/painting-knight-night-oil-paints-3995999/

Third, I’ll continue with random short short posts of my thoughts in the moment. I feel like some of my sort-of Tweet-length thoughts might gain greater expression here. We’ll keep trying that out.

Image taken from Pixabay @ https://pixabay.com/photos/woman-face-thoughts-media-head-1446557/

Expect to see me get these off the ground this week and next week. I’ll keep to a pretty rigid publication schedule once I get back into the swing of things and knock all the rust off.

Thanks for stopping by, and be sure to keep coming back!

 

If you’re a fan of books and hot beverages, check us out at Blue Spider Books. And check out our blog here!

And Now I’m Back!

Good day, everyone! It has certainly been awhile, hasn’t it? Between work and life pursuits, various hobbies, and trying to get some more official writing out into the universe for consideration (fingers crossed), it has been an interesting past few years.

But I’m back, and I plan on generating new content regularly. Some of my posts will be a way for me to group together, record, or even expunge thoughts as I see fit, just as this blog was originally intended for. Other posts will be longer and more thoughtful. In fact, as a sign-on bonus, you’ll get the first of those this afternoon! I’ll also be sharing and linking to some of my golden oldies and other posts I’ve done elsewhere over the years.

All of that said, welcome back to my old-timey followers, and a hearty and genuine welcome to those of you who are new! Make yourselves at home and feel free to interact or not at your leisure. Also be sure to check out my other work with Blue Spider Books and over at the Apostrophe Box as well.

Thank you all for stopping by!

Thoughts – 8-7-14

Watch for my (possibly) long-awaited return to my column here at the Thoughts on diversity in Nerd Culture later today. It involves the color green. Don’t miss out!

Image of… well, green taken from http://hdwallphotos.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Green-Background-Image-CSS-Wallpaper.png

Thoughts – 7-28-14

Hello, everyone. This past week has not been very conducive to new blog content, but expect to see more this week. A few contributor posts are happening, and I hope to get more of my own work up. Thank you all for bearing with the downswings. Blogging, like life, is all about peaks and valleys.