I’m not sure what sort of wine vibe “Freakshow” has —
— but it’s certainly eye-catching. Perhaps that’s enough.
Epstein, Mamdani and Walters
As Jeffrey Epstein and Zohran Mamdani are ongoing news stories, here’s some links to recent news, first Epstein:
The Felon claims he broke off with Epstein for hiring employees away from Mar-A-Lago. At the link, a discussion of why that’s not so clean-cut (and what does it say that that set the Felon off, but not statutory rape?). And an upcoming book says the Felon stayed chums with Epstein for years after.
Ghislaine Maxwell, panderer and abuser of children, claims Jeffrey Epstein’s original sweetheart-deal of a plea bargain should get her out of jail. If nothing else, her meeting with the Felon’s attorney got her moved to a club fed prison. Small wonder that Sen. Schumer “released a statement on both Xitter and Bluesky on Thursday first arguing that sending Donald Trump’s personal lawyer to meet with Ghislaine ‘stinks of high corruption.’”
Markwayne Mullin, one of the Felon’s allies, tries to blame Epstein’s sweetheart deal on Obama. Nope, it happened under George W. Bush, Republican. And Rep. James Comer is subpoenaing the Clintons, former AG William Barr and multiple others for an Epstein-related hearing — but not Alex Acosta, the guy who gave Epstein his sweetheart deal.
Someone in Scotland asked the Felon about Epstein. “Trump indeed turned up his golf cart boombox to blast “Memories” from the Broadway musical “Cats.”
“Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Monday demanded all recordings and transcripts of the July 24 and 25 Justice Department interviews with Ghislaine Maxwell” By contrast,
There’s a missing minute in the tape of Epstein’s suicide — and it’s in the FBI’s possession, apparently.
Gibbering right-winger Mark Levin wants us to think about the evil schemes of Hilary Clinton and Obama, not Epstein.
Unsurprisingly Vance blames the Felon’s Epstein coverup on Obama and Biden.
A deep dive into the rules for redacting names in cases like this.
I don’t think Jamelle Bouie was talking about Epstein but I think this is good advice: “the thing thing about the admonition to “not take the bait” is that while it makes sense in the context of an election — where you are trying to communicate a narrow set of ideas broadly — it does not make sense in the context of “how do we make this president as unpopular as possible””
Now Mamdani. If a man is known by the enemies he makes, NYC’s developers declaring undying opposition to him winning the election is a good sign. Politico similarly finds that the freak-out over Mamdani’s candidacy is winning over voters to support him.
As for Andrew Cuomo, the former NY governor running against Mamdani, here’s a look at the massive legal counterattack against the women who accused him of harassment. Horrifyingly, the law says the state has to cover most of the costs so Cuomo has no reason not to go for a long, expensive legal fight and wear the other side down (with taxpayers now on the hook for more than $10 million). And yet it seems a lot of Dem officials think he’s the better choice for mayor.
So does Donald “Friend of Epstein” Trump. No surprise: Cuomo would probably be happy collaborating with the Felon Administration. And the Felon seems to gravitate to harassers, abusers and rapists (Epstein, Kavanaugh, Hegseth) — game recognizing game.
In what may become an ongoing story, Oklahoma’s Superintendent of Schools, Ryan Walters, is an outspoken Christian theocrat … with (allegedly) porn on his computer. The surprising thing is, it’s reportedly adult heterosexual porn. Walters now claims he’s the victim of a smear attack but he’s already been busted lying about the case. Just like he lied about the Tulsa race massacre. Here’s some more of his greatest theocratic hits. In fairness, it’s not like a devout Christian would do anything sexually inappropriate. Except this one. And a few more.
Filed under Politics
I’m dubious about this book cover
Sophisticated and tangy? That’s an interesting mix of adjectives. And am I correct to think “wife swiping” is an error — that is, are we reading about wife swapping or adultery?
Art is uncredited.
Jekyll and Hyde on the small screen
While I haven’t finished my reviews yet, I have now watched every Jekyll and Hyde film that I’m a)aware of and b)can access (there’s one or two that simply aren’t available on a US-compatible DVD). Now I’m moving into TV. Unfortunately the initial results have been dismal.
Long before Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf, the original Scooby Doo, Where Are You? series gave us “Nowhere to Hyde” as the first episode of the second season. The Ghost of Mr. Hyde is robbing and looting at will with his uncanny powers; is it possible that Dr. Jekyll’s descendant is up to his ancestor’s own tricks? There’s nothing much to say about this other than there’s no reason anyone should have identified the ghost as Mr. Hyde — he doesn’t name himself (or talk at all), doesn’t look like Hyde (none of the usual Victorian clothes) so why assume it?
“Sandy Duncan’s Jekyll and Hyde” was an equally forgettable episode of The New Scooby Doo Movies, the second series featuring the characters, this time pairing them off with guest stars ranging from Sonny and Cher to Batman and Robin. In this case the guest star is Sandy Duncan, appearing in a Jekyll and Hyde film when a real Mr. Hyde shows up and kidnaps her — except he got Daphne, appearing as her stunt double. From my perspective there’s even less to say, other than noting it exists.
The 2014-16 BBC series PENNY DREADFUL is another example of the monster mash-up, centering around Mina Harker’s father recruiting a werewolf, a psychic and Victor Frankenstein in his efforts to get revenge on vampire kind. As I said when I tried the first season it’s The League of Slightly Above Average Gentlemen and comparably uninteresting. Rewatching didn’t change that but as it did have Dr. Jekyll (Shazad Latif) in the third season …
The plotlines this season are splintered, which doesn’t make them any more interesting (I skipped a lot of scenes). The Jekyll part has Frankenstein recruit Jekyll, a psychologist and neurologist, to find a way to control the Bride of Frankenstein (Billie Piper), who rebelled against her mate and her creator to make her own way; Frankenstein’s in love with her and wants Jekyll to find a drug that will repress her mind to the point she’ll submit docilely.
In return, Jekyll wants Frankenstein to help him master the duality of man. Running an asylum, Jekyll has become convinced the human mind is balanced on a fulcrum between good and evil, and that to function we repress the evil. His patients have lost that ability; can Frankenstein help Jekyll find a treatment? The subtext is that Jekyll himself is intensely angry at his colleagues rejecting his ideas and that makes it even harder to win them over.
Frankenstein and Jekyll develop a successful treatment that cures at least one lunatic, and that’s the last we hear of it. They capture the Bride but Jekyll in the end sets her free. And at the end, Jekyll learns that his despised father has finally died, meaning Jekyll now inherits the family title — Lord Hyde. It doesn’t work for me but nothing in this series did.
2015’s JEKYLL AND HYDE stars Tom Bateman as Robert Jekyll, raised by foster parents in Ceylon. They’ve assured him they don’t know anything about his father, nor about why Jekyll becomes freakishly strong and violent without the drugs he takes. Then a letter from Maxwell Utterson (son of Jekyll’s solicitor) reaches him and Robert discovers his foster parents lied — they did know his dad (Louis, son of Henry). Hot with anger, he refuses to listen to their warnings and heads off to London to learn more.
What follows fits Jekyll and Hyde into an urban fantasy set-up, a war between MI-O (Military Intelligence Other) and the Tenebrae, demon-gods and their followers. On MI-O’s side we have Bulstrode (Richard Grant); the leader of the Tenebrae is Captain Dance (Enzo Cilenti). Hyde is in some fashion tied to the Tenebrae; he can free their dark god, Lord Trash (and who the hell came up with that name?) or he can perhaps destroy him. Both sides can make use of him.
This doesn’t make much sense: shapeshifting is a Jekyll family supernatural trait so why did he need drugs to make the change to Hyde? We might have learned in S2 but that never happened (the show-runner says we might as well assume the big explosion at the climax of the final episode killed everyone). On the plus side the cast are good and Bateman manages the change with very little physical difference; people can’t always tell by looking which persona they’re facing but it becomes clear fast (though this raises the question of why almost all the other Jekylls have a bigger physical change).
I also like that the two personas’ women are different from the usual. Lily (Stephanie Hyam) turns out to be manipulating Jekyll for MI-O while Bella (Natalie Gumede) is a music-hall owner rather than a streetwalker, both tougher and more independent than most of Hyde’s lovers in earlier incarnations. The show doesn’t grab me — the Tenebrae are standard foes for a series of this type — but it’s more fun to watch than Penny Dreadful.
I’ll add that while the 1930s look is great (the clothes, cars, fashions) there’s no sense of the politics or customs of the times and nobody smokes tobacco (though I’m sure it’s hard finding actors who are willing to light up and I don’t blame them for that).
All rights to images remain with current holders.
Filed under TV
The small-government lie
Last week I blogged about how the Felon demanding the Washington Commanders become the Redskins again revealed a lot about Republican thinking. One thing I left out is that it also touches on one of their standard lies: they’re the party of small government.
According to Republicans, the scariest thing to hear is that the government wants to help you (another lie). We’re better off if government gets out of the way and lets churches or the free market or whoever do the job. Small government that does nothing but the minimum (law enforcement — somehow that’s never covered by “government helping you is scary” — and the military). And government definitely shouldn’t tell Americans what to do. Americans hate being told what do do. That’s why they hate liberals who are always in their grill.
Riiiight. But a president telling a sports team to change their name doesn’t count. Nor do the examples I listed last year: restrictions on lab-grown meat, restrictions on black hairstyles, banning employers from vaccine mandates. Banning drag shows. Supporting parental rights but not to take kids to drag shows or to support them transitioning. And in general, imposing laws on gays.
A new law in Tennessee allows doctors to refuse to treat patients for not only religious concerns but “ethical and moral” ones — which are not covered by the First Amendment — as a result of which some pregnant single women are being denied care. Meanwhile Trump and Epstein attorney Alan Dershowitz is shrieking because a pierogi vendor had ethical and moral objections to serving him He’s threatening to sue. Admittedly these are two separate things — Dershowitz has not, as far as I know, supported the Tennessee bill — but I’m sure anyone who exercised their rights in Tennessee would scream in outrage if they were on the receiving end.
Conservatives get to dish it out; government should protect them from taking it. If religious conservatives who support the right to refuse doing business with gays were denied service or a marriage license (“Reverend Small, I know you and Helen hooked up when you were both married — I can’t stomach adultery.”) we’d hear fury about the judgy liberals interfering in personal decisions.
Similarly I’m sure the Felon administration giving federal employees the right to “persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views, provided that such efforts are not harassing in nature” will be interpreted to give right-wing Christians the freedom to harass and bully as much as they like; a liberal Christian arguing politely in favor of gay rights or women’s rights will be classed as harassing (similarly, I’m sure the “bias monitor” CBS has agreed to set up as part of the Felon’s FCC supporting a merger will interpret anything other than “Little Donny is the bestest and cutest little baby in the whole world!” as biased against the Felon). The FCC decrees it’s now the Felon’s right to tell the media what works on TV.
It’s the same logic as when they claim criticizing them is oppression while them criticizing others is just free speech. Which is to say no logic at all other than, as I said, they want to dish it out and never have to take it.
Filed under Politics
Demons, ghosts and the apocalypse: books read
DANDELION by Alex Bledsoe is set in a small Tennessee town slowly withering as a Big Box sucks away the local economy and seeds the town with demonic possession (people who choose to shop there rather than support small business are literally selling their souls for low prices). The protagonists include Carlyss, a girl freed from a demon who still trails her around; Haven, her therapist; another teen, seduced into becoming a demon’s host; and Deacon Elder, a lecher and exorcist (“No, I perform deliverance — exorcism is for Catholics.”).
The results are slow, moody and very Southern as the forces of good and evil slowly line up and struggle against each other. Unfortunately the climax suddenly shifts into urban fantasy mode to the point it doesn’t feel like the same book. It includes a literal deus ex machina and a lot of set-up for Book Two. Overall it was still worth reading but Stinger did a better small-town apocalypse and Bentley Little’s The Store did a better job with a Satanic Big Box Store (and IIRC wasn’t so judgmental about the customers).
DEAREST by Jacquie Walters has new mom Flora floundering over her worries she can’t make parenting work, particularly with her husband deployed out of town. Good thing Flora’s estranged mom answered her cry for help — and isn’t it funny Flora’s childhood imaginary friend Zephie turned up at the same time? Total coincidence, of course … and so are all the strange things Flora seems to be doing to her baby, right? This was creepy, though I skimmed a lot of the paragraphs devoted to Flora’s new-mom angst. I’m not sure the plot holds together though.
EVERYDAY APOCALYPSE: The Sacred Revealed in Radiohead, the Simpsons and Other Pop Culture Icons by David Dark argues that the apocalyptic (in the original sense of revelation), by revealing the importance of this world and the people in it, counters the assumption that Christianity is all about saving our souls in the afterlife. Dark’s dissection of The Simpsons, Flannery O’Conner and Coen Brothers films (he cites Barton Fink for the gulf between the protagonist’s supposed love of the common man and his complete lack of interest when he meets one) is frequently sharp but just as frequently slides into the pretensions Pooh Perplex mocked so well. Interesting enough I may have some thoughts down the road, though probably nothing deep enough to share here.
All rights to image remain with current holder.
Filed under Reading
Creatures and Kryptonians: James Gunn takes over the DC Movies
James Gunn’s first contribution to the relaunch of the DC Cinematic Universe was last December’s Creature Commandos. I wasn’t thrilled. Now I’ve seen the Gunn-written, Gunn-directed Superman movie and I’m much happier. Fair warning, there will be some movie spoilers below.
Debuting in Weird War Tales #93, the Creature Commandos were three GIs who had been transformed, scientifically, into versions of the Big Three monsters, a werewolf, a vampire and Frankenstein’s creature. They were sent into the European Theater of Operations on dangerous missions, with the military gambling they’d freak Germans out simply by their presence. IIRC, the ugliness of war and the willingness of the high command to treat people as cannon fodder was a constant subtext.
I was puzzled why Gunn would pick them for his first production — they’re far from a name to conjure with — but watching the first episode I understood. In this take, Amanda Waller, having been banned from recruiting regular people, even criminals, for Task Force X, has recruited freaks held in government custody: The G.I. Robot, Dr. Phosphorus and Frankenstein’s Creature, among others. The vibe between them is very much that of the Guardians of the Galaxy, a gang of outcasts making a found family of sorts (the premise also reminded me a lot of Monsters vs. Aliens).
The trouble is, while I enjoyed the Guardians of the Galaxy movies I didn’t feel any need to listen to the same kind of banter for seven episodes. It wasn’t bad banter but I could not get into it. I did wonder whether that was a bad sign for the DCCU going forward.
It turns out no. I was very satisfied with Superman (2025), starring David Corenswet as Superman/Clark and Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) as Lois and Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor.
The plot has Luthor steal the message that Superman’s parents sent with him to Earth. The hologram is so fractured Superman’s only been able to hear the beginning, which appears to encourage him to help humanity. Among other attacks on the Man of Might, Luthor cracks and publicizes the complete message: Jor-El and Lara want Superman to rule humanity, break them to his will and impregnate enough Earth women to start the Kryptonian race over again. The world turns on Superman (“He probably has a secret harem already.”) and he finds himself questioning the reason he does everything or anything. Fortunately the Kents (Pruitt Taylor Vince, Neva Howell) are there to remind him his roots and his values come from Kansas more than Krypton, giving him the strength to rise up and renew the fight.
And in case you’re wondering, Gunn has said that the translation is accurate, not a trick by Lex. His parents wanted Kal-El to be Brightburn, but they failed.
The first thing that stands out about Superman is that it isn’t an origin story. Thank god. It was done as well as possible in the Chris Reeve Superman, badly in Man of Steel, and I doubt there’s anyone going to this movie who doesn’t know it. This takes place three years into Superman’s career, he’s already dating Lois, Luthor is his mortal foe.
The big rewrite of the origin — Jor-El and Lara aspiring to conquer Earth through their son — didn’t shock me much. It’s a good character problem for Superman but ever since John Byrne’s 1986 reboot Krypton has been an unpleasant place, either coldly scientific or militaristic. Jor-El and Lara were the exceptions; having them turn out rotten to isn’t that catastrophic.
The cast is good. Corenswet’s excellent as the good-hearted alien (“Maybe that’s the real punk rock.”), Brosnahan makes a somewhat harder edged Lois and Hoult nails Luthor as an arrogant techbro. His motives for destroying Superman are partly profit (I won’t detail the scheme) and partly jealous resentment that people look up at the Man of Might as a greater hero. My only reservation is the Kents, and that’s more Gunn writing the small-town couple as (in the words of Blazing Saddles) “the salt of the Earth — you know, morons.”
Much like the MCU, the movie seeds for the future. Along with Superman Metropolis’ Hall of Justice is home to Green Lantern Guy Gardner (Nathan Filion), Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi, more serious and competent than the Arrowverse version) and Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced — and why not Hawkwoman, I wonder?) as the “Justice Gang.” We later meet Metamorpho in Luthor’s pocket-universe prison. The opening screen crawl says metahumans have been a thing for 300 years. There’s a mural in the Hall of Justice showing that history, though I don’t see anyone who fits being the ur-meta of 300 years ago. This is not a dealbreaker; embracing figures from DCU history such as Super-Chief, Miss Liberty and Max Mercury is a plus. More broadly, there’s no doubt the DCCU is going to be very comic-book going forward rather than the toned-down version we get in Marvel movies.
There are elements borrowed from multiple incarnations of DC’s characters. The Fortress is modeled on the one from the Reeve films (it’s been the definitive comics version since Byrne’s reboot adopted it). The Hall of Justice from Super-Friends. Krypto, the Dog of Steel (TYG’s not a comics fan but she still loved him). A cameo by Supergirl modeled on Tom King’s take in Woman of Tomorrow, flying off to red-sun planets to get drunk.
And the movie emphasizes this is not the Zach Snyder Superman of Man of Steel, the one who engages in city-smashing battles without regard for collateral damage. Here he’s all about minimizing the damage: saving a dog, saving a squirrel, getting between people watching his fights and the flying debris or ray blasts. In one scene he even tries to save a kaiju attacking Metropolis rather than kill it.
More like this please.
“Krypto — fetch the toy.”
Covers top to bottom by Joe Kubert, Curt Swan, Nick Cardy, Swan, Gil Kane and Bilquis Evely.
When things go well, blogging about them can be dull
I’m willing to live with that. This was a good productive week. And working until 5 PM rather than 4PM still gets good results. That may change eventually — most time hacks require a reboot or a reset — but until then it’s a go.
Other than an interview with Carrboro’s town manager, this was an all Jekyll and Hyde week. Watching movies, watching a 2015 TV series, watching the third season of Penny Dreadful for its use of Dr. Jekyll. The Local Reporter took a summer break — most of the editorial staff were on vacation — so I wasn’t writing anything for them.
At the Atomic Junk Shop I posted about Jack Kirby departing Marvel — a seismic event in comics fandom and the industry when it happened — and a story on writer Paul Levitz’ attempt to untangle the Spectre’s continuity, though that was really just an excuse to post this glorious cover by Marshall Rogers.
I also blogged about something my fellow Boomers (and maybe older Gen X) remember, the Columbia Record Club.
And the Con-Tinual panel on using Olympian gods in fiction is live on Facebook. I’ve written several stories that incorporate Greek myths, including a couple in 19-Infinity (links on my Behold the Book page).
19-Infinity cover by Kemp Ward. All rights to images remain with current holders.
I’ll probably never read it but I’m glad this book exists
Because there’s something cool about a world where trad publishing (my own publisher McFarland) is still putting out niche titles. And I think this one is quite niche, which is not a criticism.
I’m curious if Tucson had particularly notorious red light districts or if the appeal is the specifics of regional history. Either way, I hope Mr. Grassé’s book finds an audience.
Filed under Miscellanea
This rant by the Felon is surprisingly revelatory
“President Donald Trump called on the Washington Commanders to “immediately” change their name back to Redskins and said he might not make a deal with them if they do not, inserting himself into a debate that the franchise considers settled as it seeks to build a new stadium on federal land at the site of RFK Stadium.
Trump previously said he believes the franchise should not have abandoned the former name, a dictionary-defined slur against Native Americans that it dropped under corporate pressure in 2020.”
First and obviously, this is racist as shit. Almost gratuitously so — it doesn’t advance white dominance like eliminating DEI — but then again, it does tell Americans that a)you as a minority have to shut up and take it. And any gains you think you’ve made, we’re taking them back. b)every pissed-off old fart who wonders why they get criticized for saying things like “redskin” or other words (I’ve seen more than one conservative rant over the years about how unfair it is they can’t say the N Word) — back in the good old days, nobody complained about that crap! — can see that Republicans have their back.
Second, the Felon lies, as always. According to him, “our great Indian people, in massive numbers, want this to happen. Their heritage and prestige is systematically being taken away from them.” In reality, the indigenous people of America have no interest in dying on that hill.
And it’s another reminder that the Felon is really, really old (something I touched on in this post). Like so many of older people he’s nostalgic for the days of his youth, when everything was easier (at least in memory), he had more fun, and he was in so much better help. But it can’t be that he’s an aging, sluggish old fart — no, it’s the times that have gone bad! And so he struggles to turn back the clock to a world of factory workers, high-flush toilets, oil and gas instead of wind and solar, and nobody worrying about the environment. This isn’t a consistent ethos — solar-related manufacturing is big business but the Felon’s happy to throttle it — but logic ain’t his strong point.
Not that that’s the only reason. The oil and gas industries will be happy to kneecap solar and wind. Lots of people on the religious right hate environmentalism as nature-worship (I’ve no idea if they’re deluded but sincere, taking kickbacks from Big Oil or have a visceral reaction to anything liberal). Obviously corporate America has a stake in shredding environmental regulation. But the Felon’s age is, I think, a factor.
It’s depressing to realize that America’s collapse can be brought on so easily, by such a pathetic excuse for a human being. As one commenter put it at Lawyers, Guns and Money recently the things Republicans are doing “are going to be horrific and leave an impression on our society like every fascist regime does, warping and twisting it in various ways for generations to come …One aspect that will haunt me for the rest of my days is not just that this was self-inflicted but that it self-inflicted because of the cult of Donald Trump. I come back to it over and over. I can’t sleep because of it. THIS GUY? WE’RE DOING THIS OVER THIS GUY?”
Depressingly, Republicans are.
