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Where have all the comic stores gone?
What’s a girl-nerd to do? Some people take to booze, some drugs, some a little bit of both, others chocolate… Comic book stores used to offer a paradise of fantasy for those who need a little something more than the life of an urban odyssey. You’d save your allowance, or blow your measly first-job paycheck on X-Men, X-Force and Excalibur, crossing over to DC territory only for a Supergirl or Wonder Woman. Inside the pages of a comic book, bodies are perfect, men are heroes, you can sore through the sky and toast people who are bad. But now… now where are all the comic book stores? Big Apple? All that’s left of you are the markings of of where your bricks were ripped away to give way for the building of a new race of condos on the Upper West Side. Oh, the agony of seeing what is left of you advertised on the streets like a billboard: lines and lines of scratches against the building where you were once nestled, like a trail of scratches from bloodied fingernails.
I suppose the comic book stores have went the way of all small mom and pop shops, the predecessors of the plight of independent bookstores… No, don’t comfort me with the selection at Barnes and Nobles or Borders… I don’t even care for the comic book store near Union Square (if it’s still there) not because I have anything against it… it’s just not my hood.
Ode to the comic book store! A recently rejected-by-a-literary-agent- nerd-girl’s strip club, drug den, and escapist paradise.
Lord of the Frappes
If the link doesn’t work, click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaHb8grTIUk
Summer Book Rec: How to Be Idle
I am reposting something from last year because it’s summer (in the northern hemisphere) and your minds are more easily prone to indoctrination by this manifesto. Free your soul!
“I have a dream. It is called love, anarchy, freedom. It is called being idle.”
-Tom Hodgkinson
On another travel note…
Tribeca, NYC April 2010
Another way to have an odyssey. Let the world move around you.
Life along the Railroad Tracks
One doesn’t need a television, book, or laptop when your odyssey takes you on the lines of Amtrack. Amtrack affords you not the traumatizing experience of a greyhound bus or the 24 hour day-long military-like operation of airline flying. It is more low-key and has better views that you can actually enjoy.
Railroads cut through some interesting places, unlike the terrifying view of clouds above a very-far-away earth, or the monotony of a never-ending concrete highway with spotted lines (that will hypnotize you if you stare at them too long). On the train, you cut through some pretty amazing places of nature, cross over rivers, fields… and see the scars of human habitation and time.
Lest you leave with a romanticized view of the railroad, it is when your eyes are above the railroad horizon that all seems serene. Lower your eyes to what lives right beside the railroad track and you begin to wonder when the great comet of the apocalypse will come raining down on us as punishment for being born human.
Life along the railroad tracks is pretty grim. It is as if humans can’t resist throwing all their waste down any type of slope or cliff. Though I am willing to consider that floods of water may also be the culprit, the evidence is pretty convincing; the household garbage that splays out from the houses along the railroad all seem to carry the fingerprint of the litterer. You can see it in how the shreds of plastic, tattered clothes, fast food containers all hang from the sides like someone’s squeezed out shit. Life along the Railroad Tracks – continue reading …
a festival of lights
Watchers: Thanks to yahoo news some of us were alerted to the magnificent annual Geminids meteor shower. Who knew that once a year, the twilight sky is streaked with the orange, yellow and green remains of the extinct comet, Phaethon?
I stumbled upon this fact at 12am, Dec 14th, 10 minutes before the supposed peak for NYC viewing. That didn’t stop this superhero: I rushed outside in my pajamas, in clumsy snow boots, a puffy winter coat, winter hat and (what else?) my tri-corder (iphone). Sky gazing is a great way to reconnect yourself with a certain peace: to witness the vastness of the universe, its glories and mysteries.. it humbles you and reminds you that you are something outside the persona of your offices, families, friends… The fact that this meteor shower happens during the month of Chanukah, the Festival of Lights, and Christmas and the Winter Solstice, the Return of Light, makes this spectacle even more special. Take your little watchers outside for a real holiday gift next year: it’s only going to get stronger and more visible with every year. And if you have a cool iphone Star Maps application, you can aim your tri-corder into the sky and sing out the names of each star to your tyke like a soothing lullaby.
Star maps
Watchers of all sorts and space travelers: this iphone app is a must for your urban space odyssey. With the new gps capability of the phone, you just aim your Star Trek tri-corder into the sky and it outlines the celestial mosaic for you, name, coordinates and all. Looking to catch a ride on a passing comet? To figure out where to aim your ship if Venus is in your vacation plans? This app will help you.
Further evidence that Star Trek is becoming a reality. Who is laughing now, non-Trekkies?
Mission: Space
Wannabe Astronauts, Trekkies, and Nova-sympathizers, listen up: If you want the thrill of your life and don’t have millions of dollars or the balls for the real thing, Mission: Space should be your pilgrimage in life. It might very well be the closest thing you’ll have to a real space odyssey. A spiritually uplifting moment (to make up from the tears of joy shed on the Silver Golf Ball, to be blogged about soon) that I can only describe as a mind-f*ck if it wasn’t real and I didn’t really go to Mars. Mission: Space – continue reading …
