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The Corner of My Eye

I had this moment the other week, catching sight of myself in the bathroom mirror, when I realized that I really could see my dad stare back at me. It was a disorienting instant, because for the most part, I don’t think that he and I look that alike at all — but I think that’s as much rooted in a misremembering of what he actually looked like versus the version in my memory, and my own mild body dysmorphia. (I say that somewhat glibly, but I always imagine myself taller and skinnier than I actually am.)

But, no: there he was, for the shortest of seconds. I could see him not only in my face (and in the whiteness of my beard, something that’s consistently a surprise to me; I feel like that went so white so quickly, as if it were just waiting for an excuse and then it received one in the stress of the past few years), but in my belly, my posture, my body as a whole. I looked in the mirror, and there he was, looking back.

It was something that stuck with me for awhile afterwards, as the shock of the moment mellowed out into something at first less stressful, and then almost grateful and happy for the feeling of continuity in my own life, and my family. A long time ago — a long time ago now, a lifetime, it feels like — I fretted and worried about essentially leaving my family to move to the States, and what that meant in an existential sense for me as… well, as a “McMillan,” whatever that might mean. Was I surrendering some essential part of me that I couldn’t put my finger on, in leaving my home country?

Seeing myself transform, even for the briefest of seconds, into my own father in the mirror was a surprise, welcome reminder that some things linger and remain, even when you’re not aware of them, even when you don’t think that they’re there.

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The Movies of March 2024

Lord, I think this is the first time a post has run late in… months? Longer? The key to the problem, as silly as it sounds, was that I needed to edit two different screenshots together to make the image below and I kept putting it off because my attentions were elsewhere. I should know better than to do such things, and yet, if I don’t procrastinate, who am I…?

Anyway: here are the movies I watched last month — of note should be the fact that I binged the entire Ocean’s series over the course of a few mights, but also that I finally managed to check out Dune: Part Two at the local theater, and it was every bit as good as I could’ve hoped; I keep thinking about the way in which director Denis Villeneuve managed to communicate a real sense of space throughout the movie, including in the climactic battle, with minimal signalling. It’s a movie I’m going to return to over and over, I suspect.

But what else did I watch? Well… this:

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The Comics of March 2024

In which I spent a surprising amount of time (to me, at least) visiting a lot of 1990s output from DC that I hadn’t really spent a lot of time with before: Priest’s The Ray, for example, I’d stayed away from because I wasn’t a fan of the art, even though the earlier Joe Quesada-illustrated mini had been a favorite of mine at the time. The Alan Grant-written L.E.G.I.O.N. was similarly something I dipped into and then almost immediately back out because I wasn’t so enthused about Barry Kitson’s art at the time, but looking back now, maybe I should’ve spent more time realizing that the story is… not the best, shall we politely say…?

  1. Kingsman: The Red Diamond #s 1-2
  2. Somna #1
  3. Kingsman: The Red Diamond #s 3-6
  4. Superman (2023) #12
  5. The Flash (2023) #7
  6. Green Arrow (2023) #10
  7. Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps: Rebirth #1
  8. Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #1
  9. Captain America (2023) #3
  10. Project Superpowers (2018) #s 0, 1-6
  11. Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #s 2-8
  12. JLA/Avengers #4
  13. Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #s 9-12
  14. It’s Jeff! #32
  15. Void Rivals #s 1-6
  16. Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #13
  17. Prodigy #s 1-3
  18. Alan Scott: The Green Lantern #5
  19. Amazons Attack (2023) #6
  20. Spider-Man Annual (2023) #1
  21. Iron Man Annual (2023) #1
  22. Fantastic Four Annual (2023) #1
  23. Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #s 14-18
  24. Blood Hunt Diaries #1
  25. Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #s 19-33
  26. Prodigy #s 4-6
  27. Ordinary #s 1-3
  28. Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #s 34-50
  29. It’s Jeff! #33
  30. L.E.G.I.O.N. #s 1-4
  31. Transformers (2023) #6
  32. Batman (2016) #146
  33. Birds of Prey (2023) #8
  34. L.E.G.I.O.N. #s 5-8
  35. Nacelleverse #0
  36. Petrol Head #5
  37. Cobra Commander #2
  38. Duke #3
  39. 2000 AD Prog 2374
  40. Judge Dredd Megazine #466
  41. L.E.G.I.O.N. #s 9-10
  42. Radiant Black #s 27, 27.5
  43. The Hawk and The Dove (1968) #s 1-4
  44. Prodigy: The Icarus Society #1
  45. L.E.G.I.O.N. #s 11-18
  46. Adventures of Superman Annual (1987) #2
  47. L.E.G.I.O.N. Annual #1
  48. Prodigy: The Icarus Society #s 2-5
  49. Aquaman: Rebirth #1
  50. L.E.G.I.O.N. #s 19-26
  51. Mysterius the Unfathomable #1
  52. The Invincible Iron Man (2022) #13
  53. X-Men (2021) #29
  54. Daredevil (2023) #4
  55. Fantastic Four (2022) #14
  56. Avengers (2023) #8
  57. Vision and the Scarlet Witch (1982) #s 1-4
  58. Sentry (2023) #1
  59. The Darkstars #s 1-10
  60. The Ray (1994) #s 1-2
  61. Legends (1986) #s 1-6
  62. Underworld Unleashed: Apokolips – Dark Uprising #1
  63. The Ray (1994) #s 3-6, 0
  64. Deathlok (1990) #s 1-4
  65. Deathlok (1991) #1
  66. L.E.G.I.O.N. #s 27-35
  67. Jughead #1
  68. L.E.G.I.O.N. #s 36-41
  69. The Ray (1994) #s 7-8
  70. It’s Jeff! #34
  71. Astonishing X-Men (2004) #1
  72. Shazam! (2023) #10
  73. Green Lantern (2023) #10
  74. The Ray (1994) #s 9-18
  75. Cobra Commander #3
  76. The Ray (1994) #s 19-20
  77. Justice League Task Force #s 0, 17-21
  78. 2000 AD Prog 2375
  79. Silver Age: Green Lantern #1
  80. All-Flash (2007) #1
  81. DC Comics Presents (1978) #s 12-13
  82. The Maze Agency (1988) #1
  83. DC Comics Presents (1978) #71, 79
  84. The Spirit (1984) #10 
  85. DC Comics Presents (1978) #81
  86. The Saga of Crystar, Crystal Warrior #3, 8
  87. Justice League Task Force #s 22-27
  88. The Maze Agency (1988) #s 4-5
  89. Justice League Task Force #s 28-29
  90. The Maze Agency (1988) #s 8-9
  91. Alien: The Illustrated Story
  92. Swamp Thing: Green Hell #1
  93. The Maze Agency (1988) #17
  94. The Punisher (2023) #2
  95. The Immortal Thor #5
  96. Captain America (2023) #4
  97. X-Men Red (2022) #18
  98. Guardians of the Galaxy (2023) #s 8-9
  99. Weirdworld (2015) #s 1-3
  100. Action Comics #1064
  101. Batman and Robin (2023) #8
  102. Justice League Task Force #s 30-37
  103. The Maze Agency (1988) #s 18, 20
  104. The Ray (1994) #s 21-28
  105. JLA #s 28-31
  106. Trinity (2008) #1
  107. Moon Knight (2021) #s 28-30
  108. Spider-Gwen: Smash #1
  109. Con & On #1
  110. It’s Jeff! #35
  111. Trinity (2008) #s 2-6
  112. DC Comics Presents (1978) #73
  113. Vigilante (1984) #s 1-3
  114. Vigilante (1984) #s 4-19
  115. Thunderbolts (2023) #1
  116. Thunderbolts (2006) #101
  117. Dark X-Men (2023) #5
  118. What If…? Dark: Tomb of Dracula #1
  119. What If…? Dark: Moon Knight #1
  120. What If…? Dark: Loki #1
  121. Ex-Con #s 1-5
  122. DC Comics Presents (1978) #43
  123. Justice League: No Justice #s 1-2
  124. 2000 AD Prog 2376
  125. Duke #4
  126. The Six Fingers #2
  127. Local Man: Bad Girls #1
  128. The Maze Agency (1988) #21
  129. The Maze Agency Annual (1990) #1
  130. DC Comics Presents (1978) #s 50, 58
  131. Detective Comics (1937) #s 569-754
  132. Justice League: No Justice #3
  133. Trinity (2008) #7
  134. JLA #s 107-109
  135. Captain America: Cold War Prelude #1
  136. King of Spies #s 1-4
  137. Vampirella (2001) #s 1-6
  138. Justice League: No Justice #4
  139. Justice League Odyssey #1, 25
  140. Justice League of America: The Nail #s 1-3
  141. Justice League of America: Another Nail #1
  142. DC 2000 #s 1-2
  143. Uncanny Avengers (2023) #5
  144. The Incredible Hulk (2023) #7
  145. Wolverine (2020) #40
  146. Doctor Strange (2023) #10
  147. Original X-Men (2023) #1
  148. Superior Spider-Man (2023) #2
  149. G.O.D.S. #3
  150. Star Wars: Revelations (2023) #1
  151. Alien (2023) #s 1-5
  152. Alien Annual (2023) #1
  153. Alien (2023 2nd series) #1
  154. Superman (2023) #13
  155. Titans (2023) #10
  156. Nightwing (2016) #113
  157. Crucible: The Final Impact #s 1-2
  158. Action Force (1987) #s 1-2
  159. Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #26
  160. Wonder Woman (2023) #8
  161. Alien (2023 2nd series) #2
  162. Crucible: The Final Impact #s 3-5
  163. Justice League of America: Another Nail #s 2-3
  164. Jay Garrick: The Flash #6
  165. Crucible: The Final Impact #6
  166. Aliens: Horror Show
  167. Aliens: Earth Angel
  168. Aliens: Sacrifice 
  169. Green Lantern: War Journal #8
  170. The Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom #s 1-4
  171. Aliens: Rogue #1
  172. Aliens: Rogue #s 2-4
  173. Aliens: Taste
  174. Aliens: Backsplash
  175. Daredevil: Black Armor #s 1-2
  176. Iron Man & The Armor Wars #1
  177. Memoir of a Man in Pajamas OGN
  178. Batman: The Brave and the Bold #12
  179. It’s Jeff! #36
  180. Titans (1999) #1
  181. Titans Secret Files & Origins #1
  182. The House OGN
  183. Batman, Incorporated (2010) #s 1-6
  184. Aliens: Labyrinth #s 1-4
  185. Star Trek: The Motion Picture – Echoes #1
  186. Justice League International (1989) #s 51-55
  187. Justice League Spectacular #1
  188. Action Comics (1938) #674
  189. Superman: The Man of Steel (1991) #9
  190. Superman (1987) #65
  191. Adventures of Superman (1987) #488
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Shit Shit Shit

So, I watched the Ocean’s series again recently.

If we judge the idea of our “favorite” movies by the number of times we’ve watched them, there’s a very strong argument to be made that Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven, Ocean’s Twelve, and Ocean’s Thirteen are three of my favorite movies of all time. Certainly, they’re movies that I probably watch once a year if not more often than that, despite not owning them. (They’re always streaming somewhere, somehow; you just have to look and see where.)

It’s neither the writing nor the acting that brings me back to these movies over and over again, as good as both are throughout the trilogy. Thirteen is a bit ropey in terms of writing, but apparently the version people see on screen is very, very different than the original screenplay, being the result of significant after-the-fact edits and reshoots in order to make something that moved faster and had a significantly different tone; when you know that, you can see the joins pretty easily on a rewatch. Instead, it’s the sense of style that both Soderbergh and soundtrack maven David Holmes bring to proceedings.

(Holmes’ music — his score, but also the tracks from external sources that he brings in, especially in Twelve, the ultimate style-over-substance installment, and my favorite of the three — cannot be overestimated in how much it impacts the final product in these movies; I’d argue that Thirteen only gets away with working because of his contributions.)

The concept of “cool” is, at best, a fool’s errand, because it’s so subjective and equally so changeable — what’s in today is, as everyone who watches Project Runway knows all too well, out tomorrow. Despite that, there’s an inescapable cool to Soderbergh’s Ocean’s movies that, the more I rewatch, seems to come down to the purposefully relaxed feel of all three movies. For heist movies, it’s impressive how not tense these films really are, how the audience is never really able to believe for more than a couple minutes that any of our heroes is actually in trouble. Instead, each of the three feel like you’re getting to hang out with a bunch of people who have just worked out some cosmic truth and are just breezily moving through the world in an entirely different way than you and I, and you get to ride in their slipstream for a few hours.

What’s instructive, though, is to see the way that Ocean’s Eight, the after-the-fact spin-off/sequel to the trilogy centering around Danny Ocean’s previously unmentioned sister, fails to match up to its predecessors. Again, special attention should be paid to the music, with Daniel Pemberton (the man behind killer scores for both The Man from UNCLE and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse) understanding the assignment, but director Gary Ross just fails to make the movie as weightless and stress-free as Soderbergh did the earlier trilogy, and as a result, it drags and ultimately fails to match the energy of what came before. You get the feeling that everyone involved isn’t just trying, but visibly trying too hard, and that’s just not what people come to Ocean’s for.

(Of course, now I want to re-watch Soderbergh’s own Logan Lucky, which I suspect might more readily match Eight. Hmm…)

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Waiting for Something to Happen

I’m very familiar with the concept that we end up looking just like our pets, in no small part because I should be so lucky — if I had the deceptive baby face of the old dog Gus, I’d be thrilled; if I had the unavoidably adorable charm of Alfie, or the inexplicable charm of Ging, I’d be similarly excited. I think you get what I’m saying here; I think all of my (many) pets are at the very least cute, if not downright beautiful, and I can only wish that my own physical features matched up to their standards.

Instead, though, what I’ve found myself thinking about with increasing, concerning regularity across the past few months, is what I would be like were I suddenly transformed into an animal — how my personality would show up in my behavior, how I’d interact with the world at large.

What brought this on, of all things, was watching the two dogs interact with the backyard when they go out to piss or shit, Alfie, the younger of the two by some distance, attacks the world and collapses all over it energetically, investigating but with such enthusiasm that he’s a perpetual motion machine just moving and moving and moving until suddenly it happens, whatever the it of the moment happens to be.

I feel much more in tune with Gus, who cautiously circles where he wants to go and then waits, patiently, crouching or with his leg cocked, as if knowing that something has to happen eventually if he can just… get there. I watch him when all of this is going on, and I think, that would be me if I were a dog, if I had to go through everything a dog has to go through to go to the bathroom. And maybe it’s true; I feel as if there’s some accidental attempt to self-compliment hidden in there, a “I could be as patient and zen as he is,” when I’d likely be grumbling and unhappy with the discomfort.

Whether or not I’ll ever end up looking like any one of my pets, I remain unconvinced, but I’ll say this: I’m pretty sure I could learn from their approaches to life.

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The Words, Made Flesh

That whole thing about “Never meet your heroes” is, I’m sure, a truism for a reason; I can only imagine the number of people who have had the misfortune to spend time with those people who have shaped their lives, only to discover with an unfortunate comment (or worse, an awkward silence) that things are not going well. I’ve had more than enough experiences meeting… well, not exactly “heroes” as much as “people who I thought I admired or respected from some distance,” that started uncomfortably and ended far worse, after all.

Meeting my “heroes,” though? It’s happened no less than three times, and in a surprise twist of fate, each time they turned out to be either exactly what I wanted them to be, or somehow even better. (Technically, one of these meetings is more “talked to repeatedly over Skype, Zoom, and other forms of internet communication,” but that counts, surely…? It feels as if it should, at least.)

Rather than embarrass myself with listing all three of these experiences here right now, I’ll mention just the first, in large part because it’s the one I was arguably the most nervous about. There was a period of time around the turn of the century — I really can’t remember which side of the changeover it was, because there was a lot going on in general at the time — where I was helping out a local arts group I’d gotten myself involved in; I did their newsletter and, when I was in the same town as them (which was not often, for awhile; like I said, there was. a lot going on), I’d sit in on meetings or help out in their rented art space. At one of the meetings I missed, it was decided to get a visiting artist in to help bring people to said art space. It was also decided that that artist would be Bill Drummond.

When I found this out, I re-arranged what would I self-consciously avoided calling my schedule to make sure I’d be in town to meet him. This was Bill Drummond, after all — co-founder of the KLF, artist, musician, and for the intents of my hero worship, writer of 45, a book that was as friendly, curious, and kind about pop culture as I could imagine. He was, in many ways, who I wanted to be when I grew up. I had to meet him, if I had the chance, I thought, even as I winced at the possibility of embarrassing myself as soon as I opened my mouth.

By the time he showed up, I had managed to get myself entirely wound up by the paranoid certainty that it would go badly. I’m going to say something stupid, I thought to myself, or he’s going to be terrible. There’s no other way this can go. For days leading up to the event, I just got more and more convinced that disaster was around the corner, but I still had this need to meet him, no matter what. When would I get this chance again?

I needn’t have worried; he was charming, patient, and chatty. He was odd, and off-kilter, in the best of ways, with stories that seemed to go on too long and not long enough at the same time. I remember him as being tall, which I have no idea if it’s true or not, but feels like it should have been, just because of how it felt after I’d met him — as if something magical had happened, in the most literal sense of that phrase: something nonsensical and meaningful, but outside of the realms of logic or common sense. I remember walking home that night more clearly than I remember actually meeting him, just feeling awash with the possibilities of a world where such a thing had happened, when there was no reason why it should have.