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The Greatest

Three cheers for Tommy Douglas, voted Greatest Canadian!

It was neck-and-neck there for a while between the father of social health care and Canada’s favourite cyborg, but for once in our nation’s history, the NDP came out on top.  The runners-up, in order: Terry Fox, Trudeau, Banting, David Suzuki, Pearson, Don Cherry, Sir John A., Alexander Graham Bell, and Gretzky.

But let’s look at the full list, shall we?

Shania Twain ranked higher than Nellie McClung?  (Nellie shoulda worn sluttier tops whilst winning The Vote.)

Céline Dion ranked higher than Gordon Lightfoot?  (Dear Las Vegas—please keep her.  We don’t want her back.  I mean, we’re sorry about you guys losing Siegfried and Roy and all, but honestly, we’re washing our hands of this whole Dion thing...)

Brett ‘The Hitman’ Hart ranked higher than Wilfred Laurier? (I can see the sweaty mullet on our five dollar bill already.)

Avril Lavigne ranked higher than Leonard Cohen? (First we take Napanee... seriously, what the hell?  _Here I stand; I’m Your Boi._ It doesn’t even rhyme!)

Pamela Anderson ranked higher than Marshall McLuhan? (Clearly the _mammaries_ are the message.)

And poor Mordecai Richler all the way down at #98.  Where’s the _Jacob Two-Two_ love?

It looks like the Armchair Garbageman will be spending some time in the kitchen this week… sucker.

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Martz Attacks!

No, it’s not a giant space nipple!  It’s my very own crater on Mars!  And it’s not some piddly little hole in the ground either—it’s a biggun!  Okay, it’s not mine—but it is named Martz after Edwin P. Martz, the astronomer who took the first colour photos of the Red Planet (named, like me and Edwin, after the Roman god of war).

I bet you don’t have your very own crater! Suckers!

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Who Knows What Evil Blurks…

I’m stealing this question from James.  Blurkers are visitors to a blog that leave no evidence: regular readers who remain in the shadows and don’t leave comments, or those who read via RSS and never actually come to the site to marvel at its design (it’s very bluey!).

So it’s time for the silent to speak up!  Give a shout if you’re a blurker, or an RSS reader, and, if you’ve also got a blog.

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The Comfort Zone

When the subject of comic strips comes up in conversation, and I espouse an undying love for Peanuts, invariably someone will say, “I never liked Peanuts… it’s just not funny.”

I usually then burst into a rant about how it’s not about the jokes—it’s about loss and sadness and longing and humiliation and the beauty of it all.  It’s a mess of words that is usually met with a look that translates as “Give me a break.  This is Snoopy we’re talking about.”

Jonathan Franzen just published a story in the New Yorker entitled The Comfort Zone: Growing Up with Charlie Brown that I will defer Peanuts naysayers to from now on.

In the true-life account, Franzen illustrates how, perhaps even unknowingly, Peanuts played an integral role in his growing up. And he, too, has had his love of the strip questioned.  He points the blame at the commercialization of the characters in later years that overshadowed Schulz’s bittersweet message. 

What first made Peanuts Peanuts was cruelty and failure, and yet every ‘Peanuts’ greeting card and tchotchke and blimp had to feature somebody’s sweet, crumpled smile.

He knows that those who question his fandom simply didn’t make the same connection with the strip during their childhood—at least, not enough to look past the lunchboxes and greeting cards.  To me, Peanuts was as much a part of my childhood as any of my real friends or family.  Charlie Brown was a kindred spirit.  I thought I was Charlie Brown.  There was a realness and a magic to it that other cartoons didn’t have, which is perhaps why I never questioned the strip’s funniness.  I read Peanuts to absorb myself in its world; I didn’t read it for the jokes.

Franzen points out a strip that says it all:

In another archetypal Peanuts strip, Violet and Patty are abusing Charlie Brown in vicious stereo: “go on home! we don’t want you around here!” As he trudges away with his eyes on the ground, Violet remarks, “It’s a strange thing about Charlie Brown. You almost never see him laugh.”

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It Crawled From the North

After being yanked into consciousness by the sound of a phone ringing this morning, I was greeted by my throbbing head to the world of the most deadly of hangovers (thanks to one too many birthday pints from a seemingly endless free-flowing Steamwhistle fountain).

However, I did not stop to nurse my throb-a-thon—I jumped right into the day’s focus: sketchcrawl.

I didn’t spend too much time outside, but the moments I did I was busy struggling with an endless stream of Santa Claus parade attendees that all wanted to get onto the subway at the same time as me.  So with that and my late rising, I didn’t get as much drawing done as I would’ve liked (or as much variety).  But it was otherwise great, and I’ll being doing it again soon…

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Return to Me

In preparation for tomorrow’s sketchcrawl, I christened my as-yet-untouched Moleskine with a self portrait beneath the book’s “if found please return to” message.

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Just Because

Picked up 1953-1954 today.  Just what the doctor ordered.

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Lay the Podium Down

Last night I went to see Kevin Smith speak at Roy Thompson Hall.  He was filming a sequel to An Evening with Kevin Smith.

I don’t like Kevin Smith’s movies that much… _Clerks_ is good, but overrated.  And the rest is, well, just overrated.  But even though I don’t like his movies, I like _him_.

He makes a lot of blowjob jokes, and audience questions are always along the lines of “would you read my screenplay?” or “wanna smoke a fatty later?” which makes for a pretty juvenile experience, but when he gets on a roll with a rant or story he’s quite entertaining and captivating.

Truthfully, the guy is at his most entertaining when he’s ripping into other celebrities.  In this case: Ben Affleck.  When asked how he got Affleck to cry in _Jersey Girl_, Smith said, “Easy.  I brought a psychic on set to read his cards for the next two years of his career.” He even told Affleck himself, “I know we haven’t talked recently.. but I’ve been busy… dodging a falling star!”

And to the overweight, pimply, self-pimping fanboys who come to these events and expect Kevin Smith to be your best friend and NOT shoot you down when you ask him to read your script or be in your movie or hang out with you and tell you everything’s gonna be alright: It would be wise to focus your energy elsewhere.  Like on girls maybe.

I went home ultimately disappointed.  Maybe I was expecting better stories like the Jon Peters or Prince stories from the first _Evening With..._ and all I got was a bunch of cock-sucking jokes and stoner geeks yelling, “DUDE!!! JAY AND SILENT BOB ROCK!!!! SNOOCH TO THE NOOCH!!!”

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Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here.  This is the War Room!

AFI has found yet another way to construct a TV special out of a Top 100 list: 100 Years… 100 Quotes.  The 400 nominated quotes are available for viewing, and while it’s filled with some classics, it’s also filled with some duds.

AFI seems to confuse “great quote” with “great character” or “iconic actor”.  Inspector Clouseau is a great character but “Is this your dog?” doesn’t really stack up to “Here’s looking at you, kid.”.  But then again, this is a list that has quotes from Ace Ventura and Austin Powers alongside those from Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz.

Some favourites that were overlooked:

“You know—for kids!”—The Hudsucker Proxy

“Hey you… get your damn hands off her.” —Back to the Future

“We’re all in it together.”—Brazil

“How are the twins?”
“Triplets!”
“My how time flies!”—Brazil

“I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark.”—Annie Hall

“Don’t worry. We can walk to the curb from here. “—Annie Hall

“That’s the way it crumbles… Cookie-wise.”—The Apartment

“Don’t drink that poison!  It’s $4.00 an ounce!”—A Day at the Races

“I’ve got a mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it!” --Duck Soup

“You can’t really dust for vomit.”—This is Spinal Tap

“Such a fine line between stupid and… clever.”—This is Spinal Tap

“It’s like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.”—This is Spinal Tap

“Who designed these costumes? It looks like Edith Head puked, and that puke designed these costumes.”—State and Main

“I have a vewy good fwiend in Wome named Biggus Dickus.”—Life of Brian

“A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.”—Willy Wonka

“I’m sorry, but all questions must be submitted in writing. “—Willy Wonka

“So much time and so little to do. Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it.”—Willy Wonka

“The suspense is terrible… I hope it lasts.”—Willy Wonka

“For what we are about to see next, we must enter quietly into the realm of genius.”—Young Frankenstein

“I had a mad impulse to throw you down on the lunar surface and commit interstellar perversion with you.”—Manhattan

“You ought to put handles on that skull. Maybe you could grow geraniums in it.”—The Lady Eve

“It’s K-k-k-ken!  Coming to k-k-k-kill me!”—A Fish Called Wanda

“Now you see that Evil will always triumph because Good is dumb.”—Spaceballs

“...and call off Christmas!!”—Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves

“People always mean well. They cluck their thick tongues, and shake their heads and suggest, oh so very delicately.”—Psycho

“Back off, man.  I’m a scientist.”—Ghostbusters

...oh, and Office Space in its entirety.

What are yours?

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Celebrity Haiku: Harrison Ford

Checking my stats, I see that someone found their way here by using the search term “Indiana Jones haiku”.  Unfortunately, until now no such haiku existed on this site (although you _will_ find my series of Superhero Haiku).

So, for the benefit of future searches by Indyphiles and poetry-lovers alike, I now present to you some haiku—not just of everyone’s favourite whip-wielding archaeologist, but the entire career of that grumbly, mumbly, chin-scarred leading man, Harrison Ford:

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Uncanny!

My article on Pixar and the Uncanny Valley seems to have been mildly popular on the Internets.  It’s been picked up by everyone from Cartoon Brew and Comicon to Roy Disney himself. 

And what most people seem to be pointing out is something that I ignored entirely: that the perfect contrast to _The Incredibles_’ character design is its direct box-office competition: Robert Zemeckis’s _The Polar Express_.

Comicon.com has this image of the movie’s main character, which shows how nightmarishly corpselike and unnatural looking the characters are.... 

But forget about the boy for a moment and check out that _elf_!

If that doesn’t give your children bed-wetting night-terrors, I don’t know what will…

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Hogwash #7

Here’s the penultimate batch of Hogwash cartoons, a series I did in highschool.  Unfortunately, this seems to be the least funny of the entire collection, so I’ll hide the rest of it comfortably behind the “more” button… Be warned.  These are awful.

Just one more set after this, and then—all gone!  The final ones are black and white, and judging by how impatiently I seem to have coloured this batch, I think that’s a mighty fine thing.

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The (Circadian) Rhythm is Gonna Get You

Am I the only one who always ends up feeling exhausted around this time of year when we revert from Daylight Saving Time?

I love the “fall back” because for one night I can pretend that I’m getting an extra hour of sleep, when in reality I’m just staying up one hour later.

But now that it gets dark at 5:00 (5:00!!), my body has yet to convince itself that it’s not actually night-time.  My whole body feels affected by the darkness, and I feel lethargic, unproductive, and cranky as a result.

Any hints on snapping out of it without forking out the dough for one of those ridiculous fake-sunlight machines?  Any readers in the Yukon?

Or Mole-people?

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Customer Zupport

I was just on the line with the (American) customer support staff at Maxtor to replace a failing hard drive, and when I spelled out my last name, I instinctively used the Canadian “zed” instead of “zee”.  It wasn’t until the letter had leapt from my lips that I realized that the guy on the other end might have been thinking, “what the hell is a zed?”

I know, because it’s happened before when on the phone with American operators.

*WOMAN:* And your name, sir?

*ME:* John…

*WOMAN:* Last name?

*ME:* Martz

*WOMAN:* Can you spell that for me?

*ME:* Certainly.  EM-A-AR-TEE-ZED

*WOMAN:* I’m sorry?

*ME:* EM-A-AR-TEE-ZED

*WOMAN:* So that’s EM-A-AR-TEE-ZEE-EE-DEE?

*ME:* Martzed?  No no no… Zed… er.. Zee… gah…

*WOMAN:* Sir?

*ME:* Sigh… EM-A-AR-TEE.... ZEE.

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Sketchcrawl

Enrico Casarosa (creator of Mia) wants artists all around the world to draw irrevocably for the whole day on Sunday, November 21st.  He calls it a Sketchcrawl.

I have birthday celebrations the night prior, so I will surely be nursing a throbbing head that morning, but what better cure than a marathon of burying my nose in a sketchbook?

Can’t wait!

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