Scott Wegener of Beowulf: Prince of the Geats fame offers advice for young filmmakers. Oh, and by the way, this is a guy who dealt with death threats from neo-Nazis because of one of his films, so he knows more than most how challenging art can be.
Want to hang out with Professor Awesome and Vickie (of Geek Rock) this weekend? We’ll be at Dragon*Con!
Dragon*Con is a huge annual science fiction/fantasy/etc convention held Labor Day weekend in Atlanta. Although there are probably hundreds of smaller conventions held throughout the year (and I do recommend you visit a small, local convention — fewer celebrities, but greater passion), there are really three giants: Comic-Con, Gen Con, and Dragon*Con, which finishes out the season. Some of you, still buzzing from Gen Con three weeks ago, are already packing for Dragon*Con this weekend. Dragon*Con officially draws over 50k attendees to the conference proper every year, but also has a huge parade through Atlanta that draws tens of thousands more.
One of the special elements of Dragon*Con is the fan tracks. Honestly, the main Dragon*Con events are OK, but they’re a lot like the kind of programming you might expect, sitting in a room with hundreds of other people listening to a celebrity give an interview with well-worn responses. Worth it? Yes, but …
Even better are the fan tracks. The fans organize between 3000-4000 hours of programming over dozens of tracks, from Alternate History to Young Adult Literature. Animation, Podcasting, Puppetry, Stargate, Star Wars, Star Trek, Science, Robotics, Tolkien — if smart people like it, there’s a track for it. The main Dragon*Con events will always be pretty good, but rarely great, while the fan tracks can run the gamut from boring to insanely fun. And, as you can imagine, with thousands of hours of programming (not counting open-ended events like the gaming hall, the Walk of Fame, the unparalleled vendor’s area, and the wall-to-wall cosplay), there’s no way to do everything fun. You might get to see 1% of all the awesome stuff. So, you’ve got to pick and choose.
The absolute best sessions of all are the Comics and Popular Arts Conference sessions. Yes, I am one of the organizers of it, so you might accuse me of bias, but come to even ONE of our sessions and see if you don’t agree with me. Every single session someone says, “I can’t believe I didn’t know this was here!” It is not to be missed.
What is it? The Comics and Popular Arts Conference (CPAC) is a legit, peer-reviewed academic conference that runs within Dragon*Con. It’s not officially part of the Con and maintains an independent identity. CPAC has intentionally avoided having its own track, and instead partners with the regular fan tracks to provide programming. So, for example, the “Psychology and Gaming” session is part of the Tabletop Gaming track, “Comics, Semiotics, and Representation” is in the Comics track, “Gender in SciFi Film” is in the American Science Fiction Media track, and so forth.
Unlike any other session, CPAC sessions take serious academic discussions of these topics and bring them to the fans. They’re accessible, but not dumbed-down. And CPAC scholars aren’t just superfans — we are folks who study this for a living. Interested in philosophy and ethics in comic books? Professor Matt Brown is the Director of the Center for Values in Medicine, Science, and Technology. Interested in artificial intelligence? We’ve got Damien Patrick Williams, a.k.a. Wolven, author of “The Metaphysical Cyborg.” We’ve got Johnathan Flowers of San Jose State, author Kelly Sue DeConnick, Kari Storla (expert on female gamers) … well, just look at the schedule below to check out everyone we’ve got.
So, come to one of the CPAC sessions, meet an expert, and finally get the chance to really geek out about the things you love!
2014 COMICS AND POPULAR ARTS ACADEMIC CONFERENCE SCHEDULE [Printable version here, Professor Awesome’s University contributors in red below]
FRIDAY
10:00 AM – WELCOME (COMICS)
Description: Get a sneak peak at this year’s panel lineup, then hear from CPAAC’s keynote speaker Kelly Sue DeConnick!
Location: Hyatt, Hanover F
11:30 AM – GENDER IN SCI-FI FILM (AM SCI-FI MEDIA)
Description: Scholars @Joel Amnot & Johnathan Flowers investigate issues of gender, feminism, and masculine ft masculine ft in sci-fi films like Ender’s Game and Pacific Rim.
Participates:
Johnathan Flowers: Mako Mori is (Not) Your Feminist Heroine
Joel Amnott: Who is playing Ender’s Game? Whiteness, Masculinity, and Film Adaptation
Moderator: Vickie Willis
Location: Marriott, M301-M302
11:30 AM – PSYCHOLOGY AND GAMING (TABLETOP GAMING)
Description: Psychologists Josué Cardona, Woody Harris, & Charles Rohr discuss the use of tabletop games and RPGs in therapy and clinical psychology.
Participants:
· Josué Cardona & Woody Harris: Gaming Is Good for You: The Positive Effects of Video and Board Gaming
· Charles Rohr: Roll Knowledge (Psychology): Examining the Role of Tabletop Role Playing Games in Society, Psychology, and Treatment of United States Combat Veterans.
Moderator: Richard Nokes
Location: Hilton, Grand Salon C
2:00PM CPAAC PRESENTER LUNCH
4:00 PM – MYTH IN STARGATE (STARGATE)
Description: Scholars and fans examine the Stargate franchise as myth-building.
Participants:
Richard Scott Nokes
Location: Westin, Chastain HIJ
SATURDAY
.
10:00AM – LITERARY AND RELIGIOUS THEMES IN COMICS (COMICS)
Description: Scholars of comics, literature, & religion explore literary and theological themes in DC’s ‘New 52’ and ‘Swamp Thing.’ D. Humphries, N. Sheppard.
Participants:
Durf Humphries: Old Testaments and the New 52: Conflicting Religions of DC Comics
Natalie Sheppard: Abandon Hope, Y’all Who Enter Here: Swamp Thing and Dante’s Journey Through The Divine Comedy
Moderator: Richard Nokes
Location: Hyatt, Hanover F
.
2:30PM – SCI FI: GENDER & UTOPIA (SCIFI LITERATURE)
Description: Jennifer Hudgens discusses race & gender in Heinlein’s work, & Joseph Cadotte & Elizabeth Kidder discuss historical & fictional utopias & dystopias.
Participants:
Jennifer Hudgens: RAH, RAH, Womp: Race and Gender in Heinlein’s Science Fiction
Joseph Cadotte & Elizabeth Kidder: The Broken Paradise: the Dystopia Lurking Inside Every Utopia
Moderator: Vickie Willis
Location: Hyatt, Embassy A-B
SUNDAY
.
10:00 AM – POST-APOCALYPTIC SOCIAL CRITIQUE (APOCALYPSE RISING)
Description: Critical Social Theorist Clint Jones analyzes the Walking Dead, the Massive, and Snowpiercer to draw conclusions about modern society.
Participants:
Clint Jones: Post-Apocalyptic Human Society: An Examination of the End Times in The Walking Dead, The Massive, and Snowpiercer
Moderator: Damien Williams
Location: Westin, Chastain 1-2
.
2:30 PM – COMICS, SEMIOTICS, REPRESENTATION (COMICS)
Description: Comics scholars Spencer Chalifour and Jared Hegwood examine symbolic and representational techniques from Superman to Jeff Smith’s RASL.
Participants:
Spencer Chalifour: The Very Wheelwork of Nature: The Visual Representation of Alternate Realities in Jeff Smith’s RASL
Jared Hegwood: Subject, Signifier, Superman
Moderator: Matthew Brown
Location: Hyatt, Hanover F
4:00PM – CPAAC PRESENTERS MEETUP
Description: CPAAC Panelists meet and discuss experiences at this years conferences, and any improvements or adjustments to be made for the following year. (Closed Session)
10:00 PM DREAM LOGIC AND MURDER WIZARDRY (HORROR)
Description: A discussion of the narrative effects of psychological concepts and themes from MANHUNTER to NBC’s HANNIBAL
Participants:
Damien Patrick Williams
Cleolinda Jones
Location: Westin, Peachtree 1-2
MONDAY
10:00 AM – COMICS IN THE COMPOSITION CLASSROOM (COMICS)
Description: Comics scholar Karl Mohn and comics professional Kelly Sue DeConnick discuss the various ways that educators can use the comic medium to teach students about composition and narrative.
Participants:
Karl Mohn: Comics and Multimodal Composition in the First-Year Composition Classroom
Kelly Sue DeConnick
Moderator: Vickie Willis
Location: Hyatt, Hanover F
11:30 AM – STARGATE AS MYTH (STARGATE)
Panel Title: Stargate as Stories, Myths, and Personal Identity
Description: The panel examines the rise of new media, & its effect on how we virtualize & mythologize notions of the self & the Stargate community. R.S. Nokes, D. Williams
Participants:
Richard Scott Nokes & Damien Williams
Location: Westin, Chastain HIJ
1:00 PM – COMICS & FEMINISM (COMICS)
Description: Comics scholars Daniel Amrhein and Kari Storla trace feminist themes from the origins of Wonder Woman to the Tomb Raider reboot comic by Gail Simone.
Participants:
Daniel Amrhein: Why Wonder Woman? Tracing the Rise of a Feminist Icon
Kari Storla: “She’s just one girl”: A post (modern) feminist reading of the Tomb Raider reboot
Kelly Sue DeConnick
Moderator: Vickie Willis
Location: Hyatt, Hanover F
.
For official maps to help you get around the con, be sure to check here: http://www.dragoncon.org/
265 Peachtree Street Northeast,
Atlanta, 30303, US )
Saruman’s staff and Aragorn’s sword are up for auction this November, just in time for Christmas shoppers who have a few hundred thousand bucks burning up their pockets.
One little-known property of Saruman’s staff — it gives the power of breakdancing.
One of the main subjects in several chapters of the Geek Rock book is the connection between popular music and gender. I briefly discuss the “women want them, men want to be them†allure of Mick Jagger, Roger Daltrey, and Robert Plant, specifically with regards to the audience, in my chapter. Martina Topic’s essay on Captain Beefheart contrasts his stage persona and appearance with that of Robert Plant, which Martina described as the epitome of hypermasculinity: bare chest, a mane of locks, pants that are snug in all the right places, you get the picture. (That’s right, we picked on Robert Plant, not once, but twice, for being too good-looking!) Caroline Gates-Shannon did a wonderful examination of the Twee Pop genre, exploring notions of gender in covers of songs written by men, but performed by women – The Cars’ “My Best Friend’s Girl†and The Beach Boys “Surfer Girl†– as well as the nontraditional masculinity present in the music and performances of Beat Happening. Caroline’s chapter floats out the phrase “alternative masculinity,†that is to say a form of masculinity that deviates from the standard (whether it’s the Ron Swanson “manly man†or Robert Plant’s bulge is your pick. And I promise to leave Mr. Plant alone from here on out. It’s not his fault he’s criminally handsome.)
The Kinks are one of the most influential bands of their period; The Beatles’ impact was immediate – Fellas! Let’s start a band and have girls scream at us, just like THOSE GUYS! – while The Kinks’ influence on popular music took a little longer. Part of it is that they truly were ahead of their time. Part of it was that they were banned from performing in the United States from 1965 to 1969; it’s a long story, and one that varies depending on which author, journalist, or even Kink you are asking. Here come some lofty claims that I can comfortably defend with evidence: they invented heavy metal with “You Really Got Me†(courtesy of Dave Davies puncturing and slashing the speaker cone on his “little green ampâ€), their landmark album The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society is the Rosetta Stone of indie rock, they scored the first hit single that celebrates queer sexuality with “Lola,†and you know how bands these days change genres with each album like they’re changing their socks? Well, The Kinks did that first – bluesy garage rock, baroque British pop, hard rock, concept albums, a fabulous country/trad-jazz album (1971’s Muswell Hillbillies), and one of the greatest musical theater pieces of all time, Preservation Act One and Preservation Act Two.
Another pronounced influence The Kinks had was with how Ray Davies (the band’s lead singer and chief songwriter, though his younger brother Dave wrote some wonderful songs as well) presented, performed, and subverted the rock ideal of traditional masculinity. This can be traced as far back as the band’s first single, a cover of Little Richard’s “Long Tall Sally†(where the narrator’s uncle John is “having some fun tonight†with a woman who may or may not actually be a woman – shades of “Lola,†perhaps?) backed with an original, “I Took My Baby Home.†The single’s B-side has Davies’ narrator taking a date back to his place, where he finds himself sexually overpowered:
“She had some pile-drivin’ kisses, they really knocked me out
They knocked me oh-oh-over,
She had a hug like a vice,
She squeezes once or twice and I moan…â€
Okay, so Ray still had a little ways to go before becoming a man who Pete Townshend said should be England’s poet laureate, but consider this: the song was recorded in January 1964. At that point in time, The Beatles were ready to send all their loving to you, while their bad-boy counterparts The Rolling Stones were introduced to the British record-buying public with a press release (penned by their manager Andrew Oldham) urging the population to lock up their daughters. Across the pond, The Beach Boys were doing songs that treated women like objects. (Go read the lyrics to “California Girls,†a sublime melody and a textbook example in how to arrange a pop song that is also irretrievably sexist.) In “I Took My Baby Home,†however – Ray Davies’ first song on record – the man is the object, sexually submissive to his female partner.
Of course, this is only the band’s first single. There are countless instances throughout their catalog of Ray portraying himself as something less than a cock-of-the-walk alpha male, in defiance of typical rock and blues lyrics. Consider the narrator of “Sunny Afternoon,†where the man who has lost everything is hardly an object of pity, instead a newly-single abusive alcoholic who doesn’t pay his taxes. The Kinks also make plenty of references to queer sexuality, as well. There is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it gay reference in “A Well Respected Man,†while the male main character in “Dedicated Follower of Fashion†is described as wearing “frilly nylon panties.â€
On Preservation, Ray sings “Mirror of Love†in the voice of a female character, and it is hilarious, and yet this character is later voiced in the story by the great Maryann Price. There is a fey glam campiness in Ray’s onstage banter during the live cuts on Everybody’s in Showbiz (supposedly, he was hamming it up for members of Andy Warhol’s entourage sitting in the front row), while the eponymous track from 1987’s The Road (primarily a live album, this was its one studio cut) provided the title to this article. From 1978’s Misfits, “Out of the Wardrobe†portrays a married couple who not only cross-dress at home, they swap traditional gender roles entirely: “He does the dishes, she smokes a pipe.†Much like “Lola†eight years earlier, the depiction is one of bliss, however not normal it may seem by conventional standards.
[embedyt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwVw6x7lzGY[/embedyt]
Before wrapping it up, I would like to shift the focus from Ray and talk about Dave; occasionally overlooked, Dave deserves to be a focal point in any discussion of the band’s sound or appearance. At a time where the Stones’ shaggy hair caused an uproar and more than a few dirty looks while touring the American south, Dave sported shoulder-length locks. He writes at great length in his autobiography Kink about this, as well as his affinity for wearing campy stage makeup in their early days. Where Ray delivered subtle gay winks in his lyrics, Dave, the ever-smirking maniac whose guitar solos in the band’s early days injected an orgasmic rush into the proceedings, admitted to his own bi-curiosity in the 1960’s. (Homosexuality was illegal in the UK until 1967.)
As if you all needed another reason to listen to The Kinks. Do it. Now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixqbc7X2NQY
Weird Al’s latest is a love-letter to the literate. It really should be the soundtrack that accompanies me through life.
You can buy it and watch as he unveils eight videos from his new album on the official Weird Al site.
And here’s a bit more of Al’s grammar vigilantism.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAt7hK_zKr0
On the whole, I can’t stand love songs. Part of it stems from time as a wedding DJ, where every week I watched newly-hitched couples writhe to such formulaic, saccharine dreck as Lonestar’s “Amazed†(which paradoxically cribs a lyric from one of the best love songs of all time, Paul McCartney’s “Maybe I’m Amazedâ€), Hoobastank’s “The Reason†(remember that one from 2005?), and Bryan Adams’ “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You,†which spends its first 80 seconds without a drumbeat, the hallmark of any great dance number, am I right?
Part of it is also my own disposition, and I know I am speaking for my than just myself on this. I don’t go for all that lovey-dovey cutesy stuff. That’s not what love is. Sure, those moments of hand-holding, cuddling, and saying really sweet things to one another have their place – on waterfronts, behind closed doors, in a dimly-lit theater…just make sure that in any of the above scenarios that you stay the Hell away from social media. Nobody cares. Love isn’t just teasing one another about who really loves who more, it’s about sticking together no matter what work, family, or the universe as a whole decides to throw at you. It’s about being there for your partner, supporting and comforting them, but more importantly, it is about having someone in your life that you can turn to for comfort and support without hesitation, someone to whom you can expose your weaknesses, vulnerabilities, and shortcomings. They don’t exactly address that in “Love Will Keep Us Together.â€
There are two kinds of love songs that I do like: the realistic ones and the weird ones. The realistic ones include Ray Davies from The Kinks wondering aloud in their 1965 song “Something Better Beginning,†which captures a couple’s first meet at a dance, that “I found something I thought I’d never have / The only time I feel alive is when I’m with you / I wonder how long it will last.†The end result is a much more accurate glimpse into that first-night excitement than anything else from that period. I also love when married musicians write about love. Neil Young has been married to his wife Pegi since 1977, and the longevity of their relationship makes songs like 2010’s “Walk With Me†carry far more emotional weight. Paul McCartney’s Ram also exemplifies the realism of married bliss, where all the guy wanted was a horse, a sheep, and a good night’s sleep with his wife and babies in the heart of the country. (Be sure to also check out “Country Dreamer,†a Wings B-side from 1973. That song is all I want in life.)
The most exciting love songs, though, are the ones with the most unique approaches. I would much rather hear Iggy Pop’s “I Wanna Be Your Dog†than “Brown-Eyed Girl.†Who cares about all the times you sang sha-la-la when Iggy is beckoning, “Now we’re gonna be face to face / And I’ll lay right down in my favorite place?†Or, to return to The Kinks, how about “Lola,†the one tune that Ray has routinely introduced in concert as being one of his favorite love songs? In it, a young man, fresh to the electric candlelight of the London nightlife, encounters Lola and her dark brown voice. By the song’s end, the narrator declares, “I’m not the world’s most masculine man / But I know what I am, I’m glad I’m a man / And so’s Lola.†Not your typical tale, but there is no denying that the two are happy and comfortable with being themselves.
Perhaps my favorite of these off-beat love songs is “Kingdom of Love†by The Soft Boys, fronted by a young Robyn Hitchcock. Their second release, 1980’s Underwater Moonlight, laid the groundwork for some of the decade’s best music. (Naturally, this also means it sold poorly.) What made The Soft Boys so captivating was their ability to wear their influences on their sleeves – John Lennon, Captain Beefheart, The Byrds, Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett, and Davies – while still presenting a collection of songs that are wholly original, blending the psychedelic pop of their heroes with the lean vitality of punk. The album’s lead number, “I Wanna Destroy You,†is perhaps the best example of this, a catchy pop tune to be sure, but those Beatlesque harmonies are delivered with a sneer. The title track, which rounds out the album, is also a must-hear masterpiece.
However, it is “Kingdom of Love†that gets the heaviest rotation. I enjoy this song so much that I included it in my literature class at St. John’s University. Discussing the subject of love, we looked at a number of songs about relationships and explored notions of power, gender, and sex. Other songs discussed included Bob Dylan’s “She Belongs to Me,†“You Keep Me Hangin’ On†by The Supremes, “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)†by Beyonce, “Summer Boyfriend†by Lady Gaga, “Man†by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and this one. (That lecture and subsequent discussion should probably be its own article – I had a surprising mix of opinions on the narrator of “You Keep Me Hangin’ On†and whether she was a victim or, as one female student put it, “clearly just a crazy bitch.†She made a compelling argument.)
When I first heard “Kingdom of Love,†I was immediately captivated by the music. The intro and verses groove along with a cool swagger, a laid-back interplay between two guitars with a walking bass line and a relaxed drumbeat, while the choruses have a sense of urgency to them. Hitchcock’s sotto near-whisper is replaced with a near-monotone pair of vocals while the chilled-out guitars descend with bombast before going into its cathartic, major-key bridge. As stellar as the music is, the lyrics are even better.
In each verse, Hitchcock alludes to different places – a spiritual kingdom of love, a primitive jungle of love, and a physical kingdom of time. Every one of these places represents a different facet of being in a relationship: the mental connection of finding a soulmate, the physical connection that comes with sex, and the emotional connection that comes with companionship. Better still is the first chorus:
“You’ve been laying eggs under my skin
Now they’re hatching out under my chin
Now there’s tiny insects showing through
All the tiny insects look like you!”
I find that to be the perfect metaphor for the infatuation stage of love. (Note also that he is using a metaphor rather than a simile – it’s not “like†you’ve been laying eggs under his chin, you have been laying eggs under his skin!) The imagery of subcutaneous bugs works perfectly here; a person comes into your life and invades your psyche, the entirety of your being. This is reinforced in the song’s final line: “You’re the one I love, or so it seems / Because you’ve confiscated all my dreams.†This person has become such a part of the narrator’s life that they are omnipresent, even in dreams. The song’s bridge also has a lyric that I jokingly challenged my students to use as a pick-up line, but one that I will be including someday in my wedding vows: “All I want to do is be your creature.†If that’s not love, I’m afraid I don’t know what is.
There are other types of love song that I venerate, namely doo-wop ballads. However, I consider doo-wop to be a far more sophisticated form of music than (white) pop, especially from that same era, so we’ll just have to save my thoughts on The Penguins’ “Earth Angel,†“In the Still of the Night†by The Five Satins, and The Flamingos’ version of “I Only Have Eyes For You,†one of the most uniquely arranged pop songs in history, for another time.
Storyforge Productions has Part I of a great interview with Lex Fajardo, the artist behind the Kid Beowulf series. It’s entitled “Superheroes of Old.” Check it out!
