After all the fuss, after the film breaking all the box office records at Pocklington Arts Centre, we finally managed to see Mamma Mia today.
Just like High School Musical 3 it did exactly what it was meant to do; entertained for nearly 2 hours and had all three of us smiling and laughing throughout.
And to be honest, even Pierce Brosnan’s singing was nowhere near as bad as I’d been led to believe.
I alluded to the crappy mood I’ve been in these last couple of days in the little Christmas report a couple of days ago. But I still can’t really do any more than that. It’s one of those strange, reasonless depressed states that I seem to fall victim to so easily.
It’s been a strange Christmas holiday really. Very low key. Molly has loved it all of course, and Louise had more time off than she normally gets and enjoyed it as well. But me? I let things get to me more than I should have done, got too stressed out and fed up with things, hit a bout of depression head on just after the big day and just about kicked it in time for New Years.
The house has been playing up again. Again. Some days I really feel we just can’t catch a break with this and there are times when I really feel that, although I wouldn’t change where we live in terms of the town, I’d certainly change where we live in terms of the house. The roof still leaks and the outside walls are showing a few signs of the water penetration coming back. The main problem lies with confidence in the builder. He’s messed us around so much over the 18 months that this has all been going on that if he were to turn up tomorrow and tell me the sky is blue I’d not only go and check but I’d want a second opinion on it.
We’re deep in the complaints procedure with the NHBC at the moment and it really looked for a while that the builder had completely washed his hands of us. Which was great. That meant that the NHBC would have to sort out their contractors to come in and put things right. I’d get my second opinion and all would be well. But then builder boy comes in at the very last minute and says he’s possibly going to be able to sort it out. Not great.
Like every big organisation the NHBC just loves it’s rules and notice periods. So it has to give the builder another couple of weeks to organise something. I’m really hoping that he doesn’t bother. But he’ll just end up getting in touch at the very last minute and stringing it out again. And then if he fixes it and tells me it’s all okay this time, I’m going to be left wondering if it really is. After all, he’s said it was all sorted last time. And the time before that. And the time before that. And the time …..
You get the idea.
Hence no confidence in what he says. We’re seriously considering spending the extra money to get someone independent in if the original builder does do something. It’s worth the extra expense just to have that peace of mind.
In fact, if I had one real wish for 2009, it would be just that: peace of mind over the house. I’ve spent the better part of two years continually worrying about something or other to do with the house and i’d just like the worry to stop.
So that rather sullied the wonderful christmastime I was planning on having. Maybe this time next year I’ll be able to look back on the season with a lighter heart and more enjoyment. Yes, there’s always next year.
Pete linked to me earlier today with this:
Rich Bruton’s wife on the tone of his blog – “Sometimes you just seem like a single dad, sometimes you just plain get it wrong but most of the time you just sound like a chronic manic depressive, fucked off with everything and thoroughly fed up with the world.”
Louise’s comment upon seeing this little nugget:
“This means I’ve made it then? Getting linked by the great blogging god?”
Cheers Pete!
Jonathan Cape
In the hands of a lesser writer this would be a memoir full of venom, hatred and a self pitying abasement in front of the reader. But this is Alison Bechdel. She’s been writing accessible yet ground-breaking graphic fiction for years in the pages of the brilliant Dykes To Watch Out For, and it should be no surprise to anyone that this, her first major piece of autobiography is a strong contender for inclusion on the ever-growing list of classic graphic novels.
Bechdel’s moving and insightful story centres on her father and her difficult relationship with him that is investigated in flashback after his suspected suicide under the wheels of a truck. She details a cold and distant man who combined teaching English with running the family funeral home (the Fun Home). Throughout her childhood she grew used to his his distance and difficult behaviour; quick to temper, obsessively houseproud, prizing a love of literature above love for his family. But as she struggled through adolescence dealing with obsessive compulsive disorder and her growing awareness of her homosexuality she somehow managed to overlook her father’s unusual behaviour as he too struggled with his sexuality. The truth emerges years later, when Bechdel comes out to her parents. Her mother’s response is to inform Bechdel that her father has had affairs with his male students and with the family babysitter. Somehow Bechdel’s revelation doesn’t seem so grand anymore at that stage.
Bechdel’s tale takes no linear route but instead circles dramatically around the central facts of the tale; Bechdel’s sexuality, her father’s death and his secret life. It’s Bechdel’s sensitive and considered investigation of these moments that turns Fun Home from run of the mill shock autobiog into something far richer and important. Throughout the book, literature plays an vitally important role, as a bond between father and daughter, a means of Bechdel’s sexual education and a way for her father to express his true sexuality. Bechdel sometimes leans too heavily on the literary referencing, but it’s a minor mis-step along the way to telling a masterful tale of family and self-discovery.
Fun Home’s serious content is softened by Bechdel’s cartoony artwork. Her simple character linework contrasts with her highly detailed backgrounds all augmented by a green wash. Her art never allows the story to overwhelm the reader, no matter how mournful the moment is. Bechdel’s writing is clever enough to deliberately lighten the mood throughout the book, almost descending into high farce at times before once more coming back to the inherent sadness of the tale. It’s only rarely however that she allows her art to become as serious as her words, but when she does it’s beautiful, poignant and deeply moving:
(A poignant moment from Fun Home that perfectly captures one little girl’s wish to be closer to her cool and distant father. A wish that sadly, never came true.)
At it’s close Fun Home proves itself to be a beautiful, complex and profoundly affecting work that, although it focuses on the troubled relationship of father and daughter, is primarily about Alison Bechdel herself, her relationship with words and the safety of the literature. In Fun Home she writes: “My parents are most real to me in fictional terms” and it’s obvious that the disfunctional family was kept at bay by Bechdel and her father by a retreat into fiction of many different forms.
Her father was by no means perfect, but his influence on Bechdel has been far reaching, and her subsequent choice of career as a writer and cartoonist is directly attributable to the father. That Bechdel uses her talents and her joy of writing to tell the tale is fitting.
(Bechdel reading from Fun Home in 2007. Photo borrowed from Exism’s Flickrstream.)
Alison Bechdel’s next major project is further autobiography, this time concentrating on her relationships. If it is anywhere near as good as Fun Home it too will be essential reading.
And it barely even began. Between various house woes, molly being under the weather with a bad cough and me being generally a bit inexplicably down it’s been a bit of a low key Christmas really. But Molly’s had a great time apart from being kept up some nights with this horrible hacking cough.
Christmas Eve passed a lot easier than previous years and I managed to sneak my way to bed about 3am after Santa had been. We even had a slight lie-in from previous years and were woken by a very excited little girl at 6am and wandered, bleary eyed but happily downstairs for this:
Lots of very happy present opening moments followed. She got quite a few of the things she’d put down on her Christmas list and much more. Santa had obviously been listening this year. The main thing she got was this:
It’s a Roby doll. 63cm tall in all it’s glory. It may look rather scary, but she really, really wanted it and who are we to argue with that. Plus he gets his own pushchair, which frankly is big enough to actually hold a proper baby in. She’s lovingly looked after him since Christmas Day, getting him changed, introducing him to the zoo of cuddley toys in her bedroom and proudly pushing him around Pocklington today.
My main present of course was this thing that I’m typing this blog post out on, the gorgeous asus eepc. I’m still getting used to it, and the keyboard in particular is proving a little small, but I imagine after another month of use i’ll have it sussed and will be typing about as fast and as accurately as i manage on a full size keyboard.
The rest of Christmas Day, Boxing Day and today passed by in rather a blur of nothingness, the way Christmas has a tendency to. Somehow it’s now Sunday and we’re in that post Christmas lull. A couple more things have gone wrong with the house and I’ve rather lapsed into a fit of the black dog tonight. Nothing in particular has triggered it, just a combination of many little things and possibly a sense of end of another year ennui. I imagine I’ll snap out of it sometime before new years.
One thing I really must do is try to sort out my shitty sleep patterns. New Years seems as good a time as any to do something about it. I’d love to be the sort of person who gets up with the lark, raring to go for another new day. I’m also desperate to tackle the smoking / exercise double header i’ve been promising myself for so very long now. Christmas has rather dented the healthy eating / diet I was on over the course of December and I really need to get back on that in january as well.
So all in all, it’s been a fairly low key and down Christmas for me at bruton mansions. But for Molly, it’s been an absolute triumph. She’s loved this one possibly more than any other. being that little bit older has meant even more excitement, even more involvement and even more magic if that were possible. Like I’ve said before we’re hoping this isn’t the last proper Christmas we have with her as a believer, but if it is, I think it’s been a wonderful one for her to go out on. But I’m really keeping everything crossed that we’ll have Christmas 2009 as well. After that, she’s at secondary school for Christmas 2010 and we don’t hold out much hope of having her believing at that point. It’s such a shame that she has to grow up.
The Hellblazer holiday special and a celebration of the 250th issue is reviewed over at the FPI blog:
Nearly forgot – I’ve just posted my personal best of 2008 over at the FPI blog. The main feature’s here, but the highlights are……
In no particular order, here’s the five I loved most this year.
Trains Are … Mint – Oliver East (Blank Slate) (review)
Badger – Howard Hardiman (self published) (full review here)
Laika – Nick Abadzis (1st Second) (review)
Hondle – Matthew Craig (self published) (review)
Spirit Volume 2 – Darwyn Cooke & J. Bone (DC Comics) (review)
And now I’m finished with my favourite 5, my 9 year old Molly wanted to chip in with her favourites. Molly’s no stranger to the FPI blog and this year saw her first ever interview about the DFC appear on our pages. Needless to say, all of her three faves this year are from the DFC. Every week, without fail, she scours the comic for these three:
Crab Lane Crew – Jim Medway (review)
Vern & Lettuce – Sarah McIntyre (review)
Sausage & Carrots – Simone Lia (review)
And there’s more at the FPI blog. Go look.
That pretty much covers how I feel right now. I’ve tried to write four different things tonight. Nothing major, just little christmas writeups and suchlike. But nothing has flowed, nothing has gelled, nothing has seemed to work at all. I just can’t seem to find the words right now to do anything and it’s really, really ticking me off.
I knew the Christmas period would mean a little break from writing but it somehow seems to have robbed me of the ability to actually sit down at the keyboard and write anything meaningful. The FPI blog reviews just aren’t happening and the stuff i’m trying to write for the Fictions blog is just coming out as either simplistic shite or overly complicated rubbish. Either way I’m just not happy with it.
I have no idea what the solution is to this little dilemma. I fear it may be a case of just having to sit back completely from all writing to recharge a little more than I thought I’d have to over this christmas period and just see what happens in January.
Until then, I suppose going to sleep earlier wouldn’t be a bad idea at all.
For some reason Molly seems to have invented her own set of cartoon characters: The Peacocks. She’s got a whole notebook full of character designs, sketches and stories now. But this one really tickled me, with Mr Peacock having a complete colour make over:
JLA: New World Order & JLA: Earth 2
By Grant Morrison, Howard Porter, Frank Quitely
DC Comics
First, a word of warning, my obsession with all things Grant Morrison goes towards fetish. If it’s got his name on it, I’ll look at it. The Invisibles is one of my favourite titles & St Swithin’s Day, the comic he did with Paul Grist in the 80s, is my all time favourite. It’s only been recently with first The Authority and then Final Crisis that I’ve been willing to take a more reasoned look and criticise some of his work.
But I recently picked up his first JLA book; JLA: New World Order just through nostalgia and a curiosity as to whether my younger obsession had blinded me to the books or whether they were as good as I recalled.
But I shouldn’t have been worried. As simple superhero writing, it’s quite brilliant. The characters are spot on & the dialogue & situations are crisp & clear. The best & most obvious thing Morrison did with the JLA was to make it iconic again. Because they’d kind of lost their way at this point and it took Morrison to bring back the big heroes and make the JLA a massively important and powerful team once more. Morrison seemed to instinctively understand how to make it all work and it’s obvious in every nuance; Batman is hunched, feral, dangerous, Superman is pratically royalty in the way he behaves and moves, whilst the comedy that has always made good team books so readable is provided ably by Flash and Green Lantern. It was also obvious that Morrison had done his homework. This entire fiirst storyarc is a classic JLA story; rival superteam takes over world, JLA splits up to deal with theat. Perfection in superhero form comes along rarely but this is right up there with Claremont and Bryne’s X-Men or Jack & Stan’s FF.
Similarly his collaboration with Frank Quitely on the later JLA: Earth-2 is just as bloody good as I thought it was years ago. It’s beautiful to look at, as you would expect from Quitely and a wonder to read with a deceptively simplistic plot; Earth 2 is a mirror of Earth 1, good becomes bad, JLA meet evil Earth-2 JLA, Earth-2 Luthor is the only good guy on the planet, that sort of thing. When the good JLA are transported to the evil Earth-2 it’s Morrison’s brilliance that it takes a while for the good guys to realise that what they do by default anywhere else, save the day, just isn’t going to cut it. This time they have to lose. It’s that shift that really makes the book special.
So I’m relieved to see that I was right. Morrison is a genius, it’s just the last couple of new things I’ve read with his name on prove he’s a flawed genius. But all the best ones are, aren’t they?
fictions 