Nonsense and Other Chewy Delectables

Fall 2013: the semester I taught five classes, with four different preps, at three different universities. Pretty impressive, if I do say so. But there are some—well—side effects. For example, since I spend the majority of my waking hours (and sometimes even in my sleep) reading student essays and Literature (“L” capitalized purposefully) for my classes, I have an even greater taste for comic books. In fact, I am completely caught up with all of my current favorites Saga, Unwritten, Fables, and Justice League Dark. And I needed something to read.

Fine. I admit it: I am a comic book junkie.

So I had a coupon from Barnes & Noble*, so I thought I would try the second spinoff series from Fables, even though the first spinoff series, Jack of Fables, was not only painfully awful, but also painfully sexist. So, I was prepared for Fairest: Wide Awake from Bill Willingham and Matthew Sturges, in that it is supposed to be about the female characters of Fables to also be sexist and painfully terrible. The first volume, which features Briar Rose, Snow Queen, Beauty, and introduces Hadeon, the evil fairy who cursed Briar Rose to die in the first place, is not as bad as I had feared.

The story, thank goodness, is not overly sexist. The gifts which Briar Rose is given by the fairies are not unchanged from the original story: beauty, grace, kindness, all traits specifically associated with women, and not with power or men. But, fine, there is only so much that can be manipulated from the original story. And, of course, there are lots of skinny women with big boobs, but you can’t expect for the artists to switch that up, when the male readers have expectations and needs from their comics. Fine. But the tellers of the stories are predominately male. First, there is the Imp, Jonah, who, though not human, is drawn to be male. He orchestrates the first two-thirds of the book, convincing Ali-Baba to pursue Briar Rose, on the promise of riches, and then to confront the Snow Queen. As Jonah seems to be Ali-Baba’s helper, the story belongs more to him than to Briar Rose, who does not choose who wakes her and also has no guarantee on the true love that is supposedly needed to wake her.

The female characters, though they are not necessarily the main players, do have some agency. The Snow Queen, after being under the control of Geppetto for much too long, has finally broken free from his influence, and as Jonah points out, now gets to choose what kind of character she is going to be. At the same time that he is encouraging and manipulating the Snow Queen, Jonah manages to attract the attention of Hadeon, the evil fairy who is simply evil and has no intention to be anything else, and shows just this by picking a fight with the Snow Queen for no other reason than that she can. So, ultimately, the story points out that women have the opportunity to break out of their type casting (although it might mean stepping right into another unoriginal role), and also discusses love in a more realistic, albeit also pessimistic, way.

Following the main story is a short about Beast chasing a beautiful and deadly woman. Though she harms many men, he cannot bring himself to hurt her, just as she seems to have no control over her desire to lure in men with her looks and then to murder them, with great pleasure.

In conclusion (as I cannot get my students to quit writing)**, I will probably read the next volume, but I do not expect the same greatness as the first story line of Fables.

*Don’t fret—I still frequent Labyrinth, the local independent bookstore, and Fallout Shelter, my comic book dealer in Highland Park. 

**I kid—my students are pretty freaking awesome. 

For Your Viewing Pleasure: Cat in a Box. Nothing to do with Fairest, really, but she's pretty cute.

We're All Stars Now...in the Dope Show

Well, nerds, it is time to welcome another to your rank. To induct a green, yet eager geekling. Yes, I am ready. Since I am not able to go to the Clarion Writing Program this summer, as I had hoped, and since Neil Gaimen told me, in no uncertain terms that I must go next year, then I will spend this time learning the ways of the science fiction and fantasy writer.

I just finished The Illustrated Man, Ray Bradbury’s brilliant collection of short stories which predict and undo humanity. Take, for example, “Marionettes, Inc,” about an underground company who make robotic clones for their clients, and which ends with a horrible truth about marriage—no one is telling the truth.

Several of the stories I had seen before, either in written form or as filmstrips in Mrs. Dunn’s seventh grade Language Arts class. Mrs. Dunn had an affinity for dark short stories with twist endings, and somewhere she had found a trove of filmstrips, as well, some of them based on Bradbury’s stories. I vividly remember “Zero Hour,” in which a mother slowly realizes that what she and all the other adults had assumed was a game is actually a plot by aliens to invade the earth. The children, empowered by the terrestrials, will also rid the planet of all adults—mainly, their parents. It was, I believe, my introduction to creepy children in horror films.

Several of the stories are quite scary. “The Veldt,” for example, also features parents who underestimate not only their children, but also the power of technology. Set in a future world in which our homes are completely automatic and do everything for us, two distant and complacent parents begin to worry for the health of their children. They decide that the source of the children’s odd behavior is the enormous interactive television in their playroom. As of late, the set has been trained to an African veldt, complete with menacing lions. It turns out, much to the parents’ chagrin, that the television has more power than just a hold over their children.

Bradbury stories do not have happy endings. They do not, with few exceptions, show the goodness in humanity. One of the exceptions is “The Other Foot” about a community of African Americans who have been moved to Mars, and they are waiting for the first white man to arrive. The community becomes a crowd becomes a mob. They plan to put whitey on the back of the bus and make him shoe shine boy. They even show up to the rocket landing with ropes for a lynching. Unlike so many of the other stories, no one dies.

When I was a little seventh grader, it was the year I read Roots and The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Both books, though they had horrible and violent scenes, ended with the message that we, as a nation, can grow and become more accepting and kinder to each other. They suggested that we will not ultimately destroy each other, but will, instead, find love. Not so with The Illustrated Man, in which, even when the tattooed man of the title seeks to find peace with his wife, he ultimately destroys their marriage. I was able to appreciate the stories in The Illustrated Man better than I did when I first encountered them at the age of twelve. And yet, there is still a part of me that cries out that people are good! We are good! Most of the time we will do the right thing! Perhaps.

If Bradbury can cause the cynic in me to rebel and believe in the goodness of people, perhaps his writing can encourage at least the fear of our evil capabilities in his readers. And if we fear, we are aware, and can change. The ending, unlike a Bradbury story, is not inevitable.

The Cocker Spaniel from Beyond the Grave

My Inheritance

The day before yesterday, in a pre-Valentimes package, the memento from my dead grandmother’s belongings arrived in the mail: a porcelain cocker spaniel figurine. The choice is well-meaning, as I have a beautiful cocker spaniel, the indestructible old-man-pup, Boogie. It’s cute. Sure, it’s cute. But it does not remind me of her.

Grandma was not shy to tell you why she loved me: my smart mouth. And she loved my smart mouth because she had one, too. She was forthright and funny, and if she hurt people's feelings once in awhile, well, maybe she helped make them stronger for it. When you have eight children, like Grandma did, you have to have a sense of humor. My mom is the oldest, and the youngest is nearly twenty years behind her. That’s not just a lot of kids, that’s a long time spent raising them.

She and Grandpa didn’t have an easy time financially, so she worked. Up until she moved out of the house they lived in for as long as I could remember, she worked part-time cleaning houses. Caryn Kadavy, figure skater, was among her clients. She was of the ilk that does not enjoy being idle, but she was not shy about telling you you could serve yourself. One Thanksgiving, as the pumpkin pie and Cool Whip were brought out, she asked if anyone would like ice cream to go with it. When we all refused, she said, “Good. I don’t have any ice cream anyway.” She did, however, go out of her way to be sure she had all of our favorite treats when we visited, including an entire bag of Doritos reserved for my younger brother.

Unfortunately, Grandma and I were not close. When I was little, we visited on major holidays and her birthday. When I was older, and moved down South, I didn’t see her for five years. When I decided to convert to Judaism, it was not something I ever discussed with her, though when I did see her again, and had a coffee at the restaurant while everyone else ate, it was explained that I was “on a diet” and later, my parents must have been more forthright, because sometime during the year before she died, she called me, and we had a brief chat. “Are you still on that diet?” she asked. And I knew that she meant keeping kosher, the Jewish diet according to Torah restrictions. And in fact, I was. I had converted the winter before. When I said yes, she said, “Good for you.” And that was the end of it.

When I brought home a Jewish boyfriend, she was welcoming, and did not even blink an eye at his yarmulke. In fact, she sent me a card simply to tell me how much she liked him.

And of all the amazing things that my grandmother did, that was the most precious to me. It was not easy for my family when I converted, and it could not have been easy for her. There were years when she attended church nearly every day, and she did her best to raise my mother, aunts, and uncles to be good Catholics. For her to offer her blessing was a real act of chesed.

I could tell you, of course, of some of Grandma’s less stellar moments, but in the end, it seems unnecessary. I am beginning to understand how death washes out the lighter stains and brings us closer, at least in the memories of those still on earth, to Gan Eden. More importantly for those still in this world, holding onto the old hurts committed by the dead does not do the departed any good, nor does it serve us. They cannot give us the satisfaction of an apology, and gripping the hurt just continues to hurt. Likewise, guilt for our own action or inaction. We cannot change the past, only the present and future. Learn from your errors and do better to those still close to you.

So, instead of a critical memory, I will celebrate my grandmother by telling a story, which is now part of family lore. One of my aunts had taken my grandmother and her two boisterous sisters out for a drink. Having enjoyed themselves perhaps a bit more than they should have, they began to flirt with the bartender. When he did not show the interest they thought their attention deserved, they began to pelt him with peanuts.

My grandmother and her sisters were kicked out of the bar. She was over the age of eighty at the time. May we all live to see such feistiness. 

Ardys Moniot