Stan Lee has passed away and all of comicsdom is in mourning.
The term ''comicsdom'' never made any sense whatsoever - of course; my using it does not mean I condone it! ''Comics'' implies comedy - yet there has never been a real focus on it; not anymore, not since the 1970s, perhaps...! Comics or comic-books were called as such because they were primarily funny animal, cartoony things - in their early days. They were the simplest form of amusement. The term has been replaced, anyway - it has become FANDOM; and it adheres more strictly to FILMS now, as comic-book creatives themselves have shifted focus, considerably, from their actual niche to viewing themselves as full-fledged Hollywood people...! Publishers DC and Marvel have since relocated their offices from New York to Tinseltown. Stan Lee himself was seeing himself, in his twilight years, as a Hollywood consultant and executive producer - that says it all, does it not?
Now that we got all that baggage out of the way - this: Bill Maher, radical TV personality that he is, never hesitates to call a spade by its name. He will fearlessly tackle any politician there is - Trump, most of all, these days... Why would anyone be surprised he would be bashing Stan Lee now?
Hell... I'll bash Stan Lee now too!
But not for the same reasons Maher did - oh, no!
Some feel as though Bill is biting the hand that fed him - because he made one tiny cameo in one of the damnable Marvel movies. BIG EFFIN' DEAL. Just like Garry Shandling, for example, Bill Maher was asked to appear and basically be himself - just as he is in real life (isn't that his tribune's title, too: Real Life With Bill Maher? Whatever!) but within the context of the wildly unrealistic ''Marvel Cinematic Universe'' which has been made wildly successful by sheer out of control fandom support alone! Well... Boo-hoo now, that all the Marvel Zombies out there fail to realize that, those cameos are there just to help the impossible freaks that their favorite characters are become... borderline more relatable to the real world indeed. BORDERLINE - because it can never be achieved without massive doses of suspension of disbelief - and comic relief, too. Hence, maybe, the term ''comicsdom'' is justified, even in 2018 after all... Comedy it is! But that's another story!
Bill bashes Stan's LEGACY - which may well be to drive Hollywood completely bankrupt if the world keeps revolving around the sun - long term! (Cameron and Foster think so, too...!)
Me... I bash Stan Lee's PHILOSOPHY. Not the core message - but its deep, inherent, totally insufferable contradiction!
Both of us make total complete abstraction of the well-known fact that Stan was a glory hound - he got credit - and took it, also- when credit was due to his collaborators: Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, John Buscema to name but a few... It was ''Stan Lee Presents'' all those years - when, in fact, he would simply insert some witty repartee (and it was not even witty, sometimes!) onto pre-existing artwork, detailed panel-by-panel stories already all done, really - it only missed some dialogue. For that is, and it was so admitted by all involved in the process, the ''Marvel Way'' of creating comics...
Originally, this ciphering and usurping propelled Stan onto the main spot, on top of the hill - but it was not enough for Stan Lieber, initially, thought of himself as doing this ''just for a while'' until he could launch his ''real writing career''...
And, now that he has passed, people will latch on to the basic message his stories appeared to be telling: FIGHT EVIL... but that came with a warped view of just how it could be done and, ultimately, it led to the widespread desensitization that we can witness now, in all audiences, of all ages and creeds - practically...
Since the French language is so appraised in Sofia, Bulgaria, we shall begin with a French expression indeed... Or donc... À tout seigneur, tout honneur... We have to start with the invaluable historical documentation that constitutes the body of work of one Zahari Stoyanov. Verily, his work is saturated with the mark of a humanist, the idealistic view of the revolutionary in its purest form, the most luminous desire to achieve happiness and freedom when faced with tyrannical oppression of the basest kind. Many are those who believe that this testament will resonate for all time to come with all manners of people; be it the persecuted, the set-asides, the downtrodden in our societies or the irremediably poor layers of the populace - and they are right. For throughout the often graphic but, also, quite often poetic -or poeticized- passages chronicling those traumatic events that took place between 1876 and 1889, the year of the author's death during imprisonment, the tension is deftly rendered and the hope kept alive, despite all that occurs. Each poignant chapter tells of the Turkish brutality in trying to quell the Bulgarian population that had had enough of this barbaric occupation which had reached four centuries of bloodshed already. Stoyanov conveys each and every emotion during this dark period in Bulgarian history in such an effective way that the reader can only feel as if he was personally involved in the uprisings himself. How could it be otherwise when one has such a masterfully rendered first-hand account of those events that saw so much Bulgarian blood spilt each time a nation tried to change its fate and reclaim its land, its identity, its freedom? The uprisings had its heroes and, invariably, they were all its tragic figures as well: how ironic that its chronicler would become one such, too, in time. Professor Alexander Balabanov, an eminent classical scholar, hailed Zahari Stoyanov as the ''Bulgarian Thucydides'' and a classic of Bulgarian prose, back in 1922. In the foreword to the ''Notes...'' this is recalled, as well, by one Ivan Popivanov who concludes that Stoyanov is unquestionably ''an immortal part of Bulgarian culture'' as the text resonates through time with so many facets of life that are still very much of actuality: for there is still oppression in the world, there is still strife. Popivanov concludes: ''in many respects it is in harmony with our own times'' - and it so obviously, so painfully still is, indeed.
With Yordan Radichkov's writings, we get something totally different: anecdotal, sometimes moralistic, folklorish fictional accounts of everyday life under a communist regime - complete with all of its absurdities. contradictions and deeply-ingrained passions, too. It is said that, within the first decade of his penmanship, Yordan Radichkov developed his trademark style and an idiom all his own that set him apart from everyone else, all at the same time marking him as a profoundly original and modern voice of Bulgarian literature. He was a playwright and novelist too; although as a mere introduction to his world, the shorts are perfect in and by themselves. In this rather short collection of his nouvelles one can get a solid idea of the quality of the scribe with, for instance, The Leather Melon which masterfully blends social commentary with elements of science-fiction and even horror, no less! That comes with Radichkov's style; at the most unexpected moment, he will insert into his story some mention of folklore legends such as the vampire or the sprite, as in the case of the extremely-short and amusing The Sprite...! But the latter is an exception rather than the norm - for, usually, the supernatural is only an extra element inserted to spice up the ensemble and it is not the main focus of the tale. In the headline short, Hot Noon, we have a spontaneous rescue operation that quickly becomes a metaphor for the entire planet; is it not the wordsmith's task, after all, to convey subtle and not-so subtle messages to his readership on how to better all facets of humanity? And it can certainly and assuredly be said that Radichkov was one well-placed sage to advise his fellow man on how to better the everyday and general fate of the human condition. The author passed away just over a decade ago - it was about time he garnered some praise on the literati blog!
A portrait of Zahari Stoyanov
circa 1888
Now, for the 1%... For you know it was coming! It remains unclear (even with the case of one ''Peter Tempest'' - penname?) where the translators of these works grasped the English language - and since it is, in my own personal case, my third language, I shall not be too harsh at all... However, some passages are just a trifle more than awkward and one wonders if it is not due to the fact that the translation process got stuck in the time-honored trap of trying to convey as much of the original meaning as one could... being in total respectful awe of the source material and its author... and failing to find any possible cultural equivalent in the language one is translating into? I will dispense with any specific example here - when you read either book, they will jump at you by themselves! And this should not be made into such a big deal at all either: for these two books are gems for all of posterity to look up to - and learn from.
The Luminous Lavish Writing Experience was, for the briefest of times, a beacon of light for those venerable wordsmiths, realized, true and true in the eyes of the world or, more evidently, who write for the simple pleasure of the exercise - for themselves, first and, perhaps, foremost too...
Hosted by the famed website for causes, concerns and worldwide activism of all sorts, Care2Connect.com, ''LLWE'' was... is... a haven for all writers who aspire for more; and especially those who haven't been as fortunate as, say, Coelho, King or Rowling.
From my thirty-seventh year through my fortieth, I was the sole group administrator of the ''Experience'' - originally titled ''Luminous Lavish Writing Experiment'' as it was extremely tentative and not meant to be a ''forever thing'' by any stretch of the imagination either; well, so what, as nothing is forever, hmm? Subsequently, for simplicity's sake, it became known as ''Luciano's Luminous Writing Experience'' - 45 members strong, though none has time to pen a word, really... On a website where 25 million people drop by ''on occasion'' (to quote care2connect administrators themselves) it is indeed nothing more than a drop in the ocean; however, it was better than nothing at all, either. The group reached a high point, even, as it peaked in participation and interest - so much so that a co-host was adjoined to the task: Annette P. (no relation) became a fellow administrator, although the page would remain eponymous only for little ol' luminous me... (It wasn't my deliberate choice; just for the continuation of ''the brand''s sake... that's all! Indubitably!)
In the early days of its existence, the group became an ebullient place -for but a brief moment in time- where creatives would gather and congregate on a regular basis; projects and ideas were thrown around, without anything concrete ever being done, really. Still, it mattered not: for the objective was to be creative, to remain in that state where ''anything is possible'' and remain positive about all of those opportunities that lay -or didn't, really- out there... For such was the luminous quality of this; and such was the lavishness, too!
I linked up the updates from this very blog -and other sites just like it- to that page, so that, in the advent that I would no longer have the strength nor the will (or simply the time) to continue updating the group, these would inject continuous life into it and keep the members interested, reading and participating, exchanging between themselves... All that influx was meant to stimulate those ideas, keep that nourished and forever coming; inspire the scribes, as one feeds the chicken and the geese in a fairy tale farm, perhaps? Golden eggs may be laid, eventually...! Who knows!? Hmm? Anyway... I remained available, reachable, through my profile there and e-mail, all that time. It is important to note that unlike, say, a ''writing.com'' administration that did attempt to reach me over time (to complain of my occasional prolonged virtual absences from their site) care2.com never contacted me about this group's administration or lack thereof - they just allowed it to become, eventually, a phantom place, an ethereal dwelling, a ghost group. Unlike the ''writing.com'' web (or community) service, therefore, they did not just unceremoniously delete it... obliterate it... yank it off the net. It is that, at least.
All Care2 did was tweak a little bit... mess around a tiny wee bit... change, without warning, rhyme or reason, the URL of my page overnight, just like that, out of the blue - giving it the aura of being gone, at first click... What a difference a simple underscore can make... hmm?
(The problem with ''writing.com'' BTW -if one may make a parenthesis and a parallel at this time- is simply that it seems to exist in another realm all of its own, complete with ''credits'' or ''GPs'' or whatever fictitious currency that acts as rewarding virtual tokens -of affection- and stimulus for all possible participants. To be fair, Care2 also has a ''system'' of rewards and credits -butterflies are dispensed, in their case, for the most inspiring and benevolent shares, really- but it isn't quite the same thing going on there... Care2 is firmly entrenched in reality - set to make changes in the real world. Not quite so with writing dot com. Though a fine creative exercise by itself -one that may, yet, get ''creative juices flowing'' indeed- this practice on writing.com leaves the writers ill-prepared for the ''real world'' out there - and that should be the primal objective of such a website - as opposed to Care2, where signing petitions is the primordial writing being done there, really. Writing.com is like a fantasy world all on its own - and there are already enough sites like that without this one, with the name that it bears, having to be just like all the others. With a site called "Writing.com" one would expect a site preparing yourself to be a real writer, nothing less! Therefore, it should set you up to deal with those most dreaded preditors, repugnant readers - but radiant ones too- the business side of the craft, basically - along with all its possible branches out (selling movie rights, securing a competent agent -not a svengali nor a bloodsucker- contending, also, with eventual fanbases...) and no - there is none of that there.
The truth is that so many of those ''creative exercises'' that permeate that writing dot com website and take up considerable bandwidth as well as the time of its users -things such as their polls, quizzes and, most of all, those crazy ''madlibs'' and other games that they have in spades over there- well, it all appears to be such a killing of time, really, for us scribes who should not have time to kill at all as each and every minute should count here - in order to get your writing *out there*. Alas, the activities that are proposed appear as nothing other than time-wasting indeed, ultimately... A wordsmith like me and my ilk, we struggle enough as it is with indecision, lack of contacts in the biz (agents, publishers, even though they might turn out to be vampires, leeches) - so, we do not need Time Wasters on top of that! Though designed to create a community spirit and basic interaction as well as mutual assistance, in the end, everyone involved is simply going around in circles in that tiny little pond, when each and everyone of them aspires to break out and swim in the great big oceans beyond... And make a very real impact in the literary world! It will not come to be with sites like that, exercises like those and "madlibs" - for sure not those! But I digress... and have digressed enough, as it is!)
Now, the Luminous Lavish Writing Experience was devoid of any such games and it limited itself to the most relevant creative exercise of all: writing what you want to write, plain and simple! It encouraged one and all to do so, whether in collaboration with me or all by your lonesomeness - for such is the way of the writer after all, is it not, usually? It could have acted as a support group, where writers would discuss all of those pitfalls encountered along that solitary journey, as it should be expected... It might have been used as a platform or brainstorming *en masse* - I would have loved that, really! And it might have catered to the closeted tabloid fandom -just a tiny bit there- as it threw an occasional spotlight upon those fortunate ones, the lucky quills that got uncanny amounts of success, somehow, somewhere, somewhen... But one thing that was for sure: it was never going to become another such web resort where people live a fantasy, with virtual rewards cajoling them and their ego, where, ultimately, one could feel like they are in fact wasting their time and not making one iota of progress towards realizing their goal... their life's dream.
More so than that old ''writesight'' virtual showcase, also (though its given handle was so clever) - much more so than the ultimately disappointing and utterly useless ''writing.com'' (where one can basically play silly little games all day long rather than indulge in real writing and practical networking) - and considerably more so than that ''writingUP'' thing too, the Luminous Lavish Writing Experience will be sorely missed for its interactivity with fellow scribes and readers alike, true equals and cohorts aspiring for the greatest honor that can be bestowed upon the modern man - to be read. It was well-intended and set-up, all within the context -and greater overall frame- of the most honorable cause-awareness and concrete action-taking to better one's environment that is CARE2connect. ''LLWE'' was the ideal platform in which to exchange ideas, brainstorm, share tidbits of plot and development, perfect one's knowledge of the various pitfalls of the writing industry indeed, in order to hopefully survive all of those inevitable pratfalls along the way... and not give up. It was ideally-suited to seek further courage in order to launch that next barrage of unsolicited material - in the wake of the latest formal rejection slip (or several such!) received... Beyond other such ephemeral web losses (as GeoCities... Yahoo 360`... and others) the specter of losing LLWE, too, is almost too much to bear... almost.
''LLWE'' was the place ideally designed for scribes and wordsmiths of every ilk to learn how to circumvent the usual cutthroat atmosphere of the literary business - where those darn preditors, publeech-ers, shar-ké-gents and other bloodsuckers hide at every corner, ready and primed to get you... Or, rather, to get your words away from you, since ''ideas cannot be copyrighted'' - need I remind you...? ''LLWE'' was conceived (and populated, too) by wordsmiths imbued with a totally different spirit; that of collaboration, that of servitude, that of kinship. After all, ''Care2Connect'' was its birthplace and is it not the spirit that is supposed to be permeating that place already...?
Oh well; we'll always have Writers' Café...! ;-)
(LL)WE HOPE...!
Here's to all 45 care2connectors - and all the others, spread out all over the web...
And Bookee! But ''E'' came first, waaaaaaay first; and since it is a lady that we are writing about here, primarily, all the more reason to have ''E'' coming first here, as well...!
EDITH HAMILTON
was born in 1867 and it wouldn't be until the time
when she turned a quite venerable sixty-three years of age
that she finally saw her life's work PUBLISHED.
And, nowadays, that life's work is readily available
ENTIRELY FOR FREE fifty years after her death
on this wondrous world wide web of ours
courtesy of a non-profit website called
GetBookee.org
(well... sort of!)
Check out the previews below...
But, first, read on!
The one book in particular,
from that remarkable life's body of work,
that this luminous blogger affectionates
above all
would have to be this one
right here:
The version still adorning my personal library today
is still graced by the very same cover (dust-jacket, really)
A giant of contemporary literature (and not merely science-fiction) has left us today: a personal great influence and all-time favorite, the king of dystopian fiction, Ray Bradbury.
Once you've reached your 9th decade, you have got to be expecting a visit (or several per week) from the Grim Reaper. And the latter has only to win but once for you to pass on... No matter how preserved from life's many harshnesses, sooner or later, it will be your turn to go too. And so it was the Great Bradbury's time - and American literature will never replace hi nor see his like again.
I will always remember the introduction of of his old television show: when he narrates that the one question he was asked most often was "where did he get all the ideas for his writing" or something along those lines. And his answer inspired my own personal home decor, for years to come: he sat in this cumbersome home office, amidst stacks of books, magazines, newspapers; it was a room strangely decorated too, indeed, with all sorts of weird mementos from the fabulous fifties I'd imagine, for there were several old-style toys simply not manufactured anymore, not even by the old guard of the industry, like Parker Brothers and Kenner. And the implication was very strong that it was these old things that inspired all of his tales: he's look around as he sat himself in front of the old typewriter (not the computer, no: I bet it was a Smith-Corona too, just like mine...) and he'd let his imagination get inspired from any old thing there, in a first stage of the creative process. On a second stage, he'd build around that, extrapolating on the origins of the object or of its myriad possible uses in any given life. Thirdly, and most importantly, he would let all this take him to the logical and, oftentimes, not-so-logical limits of wherever these elements would take him; for, as all of us creatives know very well indeed, characters dictate their own stories and that is true whether the subject-matter is a purported-to-be living being or even an inanimate object...
Of the many great reads that Ray Bradbury provided (me, personally, but all of us generally speaking) over the years, the classic Fahrenheit 451 will always stand out, evidently, for very obvious reasons: moreso than Orwell's 1984 ever could be, its allegory is more actual than ever, as we blog this very minute...!
As with many great writers of the past, up to a certain degree (thank God!) the weirdness and horrendous things that they wrote about came to be, to a great extent, quite prophetic indeed. Unlike the likes of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne however, to name but these two, Ray Bradbury never had much vanity about this apparent vaticinating gift that he might have had.
Like all good writers, Ray Douglas Bradbury simply wrote about life as he observed it: and tried to inspire humanity to be the best that it could be, through the tales that he would weave so well.
Rest in peace, Ray Bradbury.
You have now joined the elite literary club Up There: you will be exchanging with your peers from all over the world, from all eras - Tertullian, Socrates, Plato, Pessoa, Camoes, Cyrano, Dickens, Twain and so many more lit-wits, so many unpublished too...
Matthias Rascher is German and must have either a fixation on getting something difficult published in the classic sense - or he has a huge one on pubescent girls too. Lolitas being less and less fascinating these days, I wager that it is the former rather than the latter that afflicts him - like so many other authors out there, verily. And so he idolizes Vladimir Nabokov for his obvious accomplishments - even those that are post-mortem indeed. For Nabokov had quite a tough time convincing someone to pick up his Lolita for publication. It is safe to assess that no one ever received such rejection letters as he did. And he had a tough time in other areas as well... Did you know that Nabokov's "day job" was being the curator of lepidoptera at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology? That had him thinking of other things than just lolitas; indeed, in his obsession, he sort of crossed them over and had both lolitas and butterflies occupying his every waking moments - and maybe his dreams too. He did not say much about his dreams, mind you: only that they were vastly different from what Freud spoke of. But that does not say much, nor is it all that relevant here...
As the curator of lepidoptera at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, Nabokov elaborated a theory concerning butterfly migration that stood out from the previous beaten ground in that field. Biologists flat out ignored his ideas on the subject, back then. But, these days, genetic research has come and vindicated him quite spectacularly - as you can read here. And so the author was not only a misunderstood wordsmith; he was also an underrated scientific thinker.
And he got the last laugh in both cases.
No wonder he's an inspiration to Rascher - and to so many others as well.
The results of these triumphs over adversity were amusing to the main party involved, years later especially. Watch as he admires various odd editions of the book no one wanted to publish, at first:
The harshest pre-publication literary review it ever got suggested the book "be buried under a stone for a thousand years," nothing less!
How many agents, editors, leeches and preditors have sent you away with your writing with thinly-veiled similar sentiments, hmm?
Born in the Age of Aquarius, destined to seek out truths in many an art form, trained as a historian and a journalist but truly a prose-lover... Luciano is out to dispel any clichés and reinvent them all both to the tune of a little something called the truth as also to his own image - and being old-fashioned, he does not mind that distinction one infinitesimal tiny bit at all...! "There are two ways to spread the light; be the candle... or the mirror that reflects It." I have chosen to be the latter... okay? ~*~
"To be not only a seeker of light... but a dream weaver of light" ~*~ For as surely as the moon reflects the light from the sun, you and I can reflect the Light from Above - and be, indeed, the light of this world! ~*~*~*~ NOTE: THERE ARE COOKIES ~ from at least three parties~ ON ALL OF MY BLOGS! ~*~ accept it!
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