Another Book post: Black Inventors in the Age of Segregation

The other thing I've been reading recently is Rayvon Fouche's Black Inventors in the Age of Segregation. It takes a look at the lives of three turn of the century Black American inventors, Granville T. Woods, Lewis H. Latimer and Shelby H. Davidson.

The greatest thing about this book is its scope and the depth of research that obviously went into writing it. Fouche isn't happy with just rattling off a list of inventions and the circumstances under which they occurred. Instead there is a detailed look at the circumstances surrounding the life of each inventor. This ends up involving the most detailed historical account of turn of the century upper class, educated Black America that I have ever come across. He also goes into great detail about the personal politics of each inventor and their engagement, or lack thereof, in the civil rights movement. Its interesting how little has changed philosophically a century later. In the end, we get a living, breathing image of these men and the world in which they lived that is absolutely fascinating. For anyone with an interest in history its a great read.

Another Comic Book Post: Fierce

This weekend, I ended up in New York City hanging out with an old friend. While I was there I passed by Midtown comics specially to see if they had a copy of the Fierce Trade paperback. Fierce is a product of Ghettosake comics(link in sidebar), the brainchild of brothers Robert and Jeremy Love.

The plot is action movie fare. Actually, the entire movie has an espionage thriller type feel. It would work great as a movie. Jamaican-born psychic Jonathan Fierce work for Razor, a special FBI unit. Someone betrays the unit and they all end up dead except for him. In their search for vengeance, the former members of his team all lend him their skills, turning him into a world class shot, hacker, martial artist, explosives expert and driver. With these new skills he returns to Kingston to find out who betrayed his team and exact bloody revenge. As with any good story, there is also a romance between him and the FBI psychiatrist assigned to help him deal with his psychic visions.

The writing is pretty much what you'd expect for something this action oriented. Its enough to develop the characters and make us empathize with them, but not so much that it interferes with the action. The great things about this book are the art and the action scenes. Every single panel is beautifully drawn. Honestly, I can skip the words and just enjoy the images. That's really rare for me. Usually I'm more about the writing than the art. As for the action, like I said before its more than ready for the big screen. I was really impressed with how well the scenes were imagined. I'm guessing the brothers are both huge film buffs. Either way, this takes up a well deserved spot in my collection and I have no qualms about recommending it to anyone.

Sidenote: Below is the cover of Ghettosake's next project, Chocolate Thunder. Its supposed to be a mesh of blaxploitation and martial arts movies on page. Personally, I can't wait.
I also picked up the first issue of Kyle Baker's latest project, Nat Turner. Seeing this art makes me wonder why he was unable to turn out work like this for Marvel's 'Truth' miniseries

My long awaited bookreview

I was supposed to get this out a week ago. I've already finished two other books and am working on a third. This still remains so far the best book I've read this year so I owe it some publicity.

"The Coyote Kings of the Space Age Bachelor Pad" is the first published work by black Canadian radio personality Minister Faust. You'll find a link to his blog on the right. I first came across this book while reading Nalo Hopkinson's blog a while back. I kept meaning to pick it up but then school started up and left me with almost no time for anything else. This summer, my local Borders had it on display so I scooped it up and was sucked in straight away. Of course with recommendations by Sheree Thomas, Tananarive Due, Steven Barnes and Nalo Hopkinson I really should have expected that.

The plot is basically about the coyote kings, two friends named Hamza and Yehat. Yehat is an engineering genius who builds remarkable inventions as a hobby and yet works as a video store clerk. Hamza is a brilliant writer who got kicked out of college just shy of his english degree and now works as a dishwasher. In their spare time they run a school of sorts for the kids in their extremely racially diverse neighborhood. They're both damaged in their own ways, but they are always there for each other. Into this weird frindship comes Sherem, a mysterious woman who hamza immediately falls for and who leads them both through a wild and supremely entertaining adventure.

So...... what do I like about this book? Well for one, its written by a fanboy who isn't ashamed to be a fanboy. Its chock full of references to Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5, RPG's, comics, De Niro movies and lots of other nerd pop culture icons. In addition to that, it unashamedly afrocentric in its focus and setting. As much as most SF fans would deny it, a vast majority of the genre is written with western perspective. This book is one of the few out there that considers things from a different cultural context altogether. Although I have slight issues with the focus on Egypt that tends to dominate popular afrocentric thought I still like the idea of other cultures getting a chance at the spotlight. Above all though, its just very well written and is one of the few books I've read recently that made me feel the emotions it was trying to convey. If for no other reason than that, its worth the money.

Sidenote: I was surprised to see that this wasn't published by Warner Aspect (long stary. Anyone who was around during the 'race and science fiction' discussion on Steven Barnes' blog knows what I'm talking about) Hopefully this means I can expect more mainstream recognition for black writers in the genre.

Short absence

I've been gone for the last couple of days seeing to some friends and my father as well as doing a little bit of entertaining and installing 64-bit gentoo linux on my computer. I'm back to my daily posting schedule now though. Interestingly enough, the more I write, the more there is to write. The writer's block is definitely gone now. so the plan is to keep going until I run out of ideas. First there's a book review I know Tiel has been waiting for, then I'll start sorting through other things I want to talk about. Definitely expect a post on anime, one on my increasing loathing of what passes for media in this country and at least one on the conclusions I have come to in about half a decade of martial arts practice. That one I'm hoping people will pick apart and tell me if I'm headed in the wrong direction.

Tomorrow then people.

Day 4: By special demand, The Beer Wall

Ever since i got my first apartment, I've kept a bottle from any alcoholic beverages (usually beer) that I buy and consume at home. About once a year or so, I take a picture of the collection that has built up. I figure its a good conversation piece plus its a great way to track how my tastes have changed with time. Here's what two different years look like.

June 2004


This was a crappy picture I took with a camera phone. From left to right, we have

A bottle of port (can't remember which brand)
This I bought as a graduation giftfor a couple of close friends. It was just sitting there until I took it over.

Dos Equis
A decent mexican import. A step above Corona but not quite at the lofty heights that others in the collection acheve in terms of taste. When I can't find the stuff I really want it makes a good substitute.

Jim Beam bottled Jack&Coke
In my defence, I had guests coming over when I bought a six pack of that and the Jack Daniels version two bottles over. That being said, they weren't bad. Since all drinking activities at home don't involve me getting drunk they are a good substitute for days you don't feel like a beer.

Goya Malta
Not alcoholic, just something I enjoy drinking. One of the side benefits of always living in the 'ethnic' parts of town is that I've never had issues finding stores that carry 10 different brands of the stuff. My favourite remains Malta Guiness, which is pretty hard to find outside of speciality African stores.

Heineken
Aah, Heineken, the default import beer of choice for most people who actuallylike to drink beer, instead of chugging it in the hopes of getting drunk before you fill up. Incidentally, why do people do that. If you're trying to get drunk as fast as possible, take shots of the strongest liquor you can find. If you actually like to taste what you drink, find a good beer. Anyway, back to heineken. For a long time this was my beer of choice until it was unseated by another beer on that rack, which was in turn unseated by a beer on this year's rack.

Corona
In my early beer drinking days, before I knew any better, I was a huge fan. Now its something I only but reluctantly for mixed company. I guess I've run across so much better that's its been steadily falling down the ladder.

Bitburger
This beer is currently tied with Spaten Premium (no pictures, sorry) as my favourite beer when I don't want something darker. Great tasting, but unfortunately fairly hard to find. I used to shop at a Trader Joe's that carried them. Great way to unwind.

Smirnoff Ice
This, I'll admit to buying for myself. I like the taste, so sue me.

So that was last year. Since then I've been drinking even less (those were accumulated over an entire year) and have developed a taste for darker beers. Which brings us to this year's much shorter list

June 2005


As you can tell, I've been drinking very little of late. Also, Flavour has become more imortant to me, hence the shift to darker beers. From right to left, we have

Mike's Hard Lemonade
This is part of a set my brother gave me for helping him move out of his apartment. He didn't have any space so I got them. I must admit to liking the taste though.

Dos Equis Amber
A decent dark beer. If I can't find the other two to the left of it, it makes a reasonable substitute. It does, however, fall a little short in the taste department.

Negra Modelo
My favourite mexican beer and second favourite dark beer. The name and bottle alone are distinctive enough to get it noticed and it tastes great in addition,

Spaten Optimator
My absolute favourite beer on the planet. Nothing out there that I've run across beats the taste of this German dark beer. Apparently Its a product of the first brewery ever established in Munich and honestly it shows. If you're any kind of fan of darker beers, you owe it to yourself to try this. Between it and a good book or movie, any stresses in your life can be handled.

Day 3: Library books

I finally got a library card today. Its sad that I've been living in Newark for almost a year and it took me this long. Pretty much every place I've lived I have spent a little too much time in libraries. The Newark library is a little weird. For one thing its obviously underfunded when compared to other American libraries I have seen. Since I have some time on my hands this week, This is what I picked up


1. Richard K. Morgan - Broken Angels(already done)

I read his first book 'Altered Carbon' maybe a year ago and was really intrigued by the basic idea of a world where immortality can be bought and people's digitized consciousness transferred across space to be downloaded into engineered bodies. This is the second in the series, keeping the same main character Takeshi Kovacs, sort of an interplanetary mercenary, and using him to explore another world. I need to find the rest of this series. I enjoy them

2. Ursula K. LeGuin - The Left Hand of Darkness

As a long time fan of both science fiction and Ursula Leguin, I am ashamed to admit that I have not fully read this book *collective gasp from the crowd*. Yes people, I have revealed to you my secret shame . I must now resign from the society of sci-fi biblioholics until I finish this book. Especially since it popularly considered her best work.

3. Samuel R. Delany - Trouble on Triton

Continuing with my aim to read everything Delany has ever written, I will finish another of his works this week. Hope its good

4. Mat Johnson - Hunting in Harlem

I first became aware of him when he started writing the Papa Midnight Comicbook series. Generelly speaking, I liked his writing so i decided to check out his books. I'll let you know how it goes.

5. Rayvon Fouche - Black Inventors in the Age of Segregation

This book follows the lives and achievements of three black inventors ion the 1800's/early 1900's and chronicles their inventions and the setbacks they faced. As a physicist/tinkerer I enjoy this kinds of stories.

6. Terry Pratchett - Monstrous Regiment

Perhaps the only pratchett book I haven't read. I am really looking forward to this, especially since his writing has yet to disappoint me

Day Two: Kwasi's martial arts past (part 2)

When we left off, I had just given up on the Aikido club since it became the refuge of people who either wanted to play at being Japanese (asiaphiles, really sad people) or just wanted to sound cool by telling people they were learning Aikido. Both groups were experts at whining over the least bit of discomfort and so they gradually sucked out any semblance of hard training from the group so a bunch of us left.

It just so happened that around this time, a little group calling itself OMAI (Oberlin Martial Arts Initiative, horrible name I know) was looking for new members. It was more of a free sharing space where people from dozens of different backgrounds hung out, trained together and taught each other stuff. I'll call the two guys who ran the group poser and sifu. Poser was just that, the worst example of a martial arts poser I have ever met. Imagine someone who'd read hundreds of books and gone to a few seminars but had no real steady experience outside of a couple of barfights acting as though he was an expert and you'll have a good idea. Basically Mushtaq minus all his life experiences and everything else that makes him interesting. Sifu, on the other hand, is the real deal. When I met him, he was a black belt in American kempo, a senior student at a close by kajukenbo school and had years of misc. training in longfist and excrima(his mother's family is Filipino). As of now, He's a second dan in kenpo, first in kajukenbo, a BJJ blue belt and just opened up a school in a suburb outside New Your City. I apparently have free sparring priviledges any time I want to pass by.

Among the people who trained there were the aikido refugees, refugees from the karate club and people with backgrounds in japanese and brazillian jujitsu, hung gar, tai chi, wing chin, jkd concepts, hapkido and muay thai. We worked lots of basics, learned some forms and spent a air amount of time sparring under several different rulesets. Everything from grappling to sticks to rubber knives to clinch work. It was hard and sometimes brutal but great fun. Eventually we got rid of poser and the club lost a couple of less motivated people, which was fine with the rest of us. I stuck with them for the rest of my college years. Some people came and went but it remained a pretty solid group where i learned a lot. In that time, we had a fairly well known capoiera teacher come through and then a brazillian foreign exchange student who had been training since childhood so I took the opportunity to pick up a decent amount of both capoera regional and angola. I plan to get back to it some day.

After college I was inactive for a while then I moved to NJ to live with my brother, look for a job and decide what I wanted to do with my life. There, by a weird turn of events I ended up studying dachengquan, northern mantis and hsing-yi with the teacher I am currently returning to. His main focus was on breath and alignment so we spent hours in standing and moving meditation. In his opinion, what separated styles were differences in 'flavor' and combat philosophy. The ability to remain calm, maintain proper alignment and generate power through intergrating breath and movement was the true skill to aim for regardless of the style you practiced. His methods seemed to work for me, so I see no reason not to stick to them for now.

Anyway, I ended up going back to Cleveland for a year during which time all sorts of weird stuff happened in the family and I hit a brick wall with regards to training and school. Now I'm slowly getting back into the game. As far as objectives go, I want to learn as much as I can and get better control of my body and mind. Plus I really want to get in more competition practice while I'm still young enough so getting banged up is not an issue. Now that Mushtaq is relatively close, I might drive or take the train up that way sometime so he can toss me around a little. I'm also paying close attention so Scott Sonnon's work since people I hold in high regard hold him in high regard.

I'll probably talk about specific training in my fitness post coming sometime this week.

Day one: Kwasi's history with the Martial arts (Part 1)

The post that plunged me into full scale writer's block. This is going to involve parts of my childhood which weren't necessarily pleasant, hence the reason I have been finding any and all reasons not to post on it. Its a good thing I told people it was coming, otherwise I'd duck it today too. The story starts from waay before I ever began seriously training. I could skip ahead, but then you'd be missing a large chunk of the story and the stuff in my head I'm trying to flush out, which is one of the purposes of this blog.

This story starts with me entering junior secondary school (junior high for the Americans). I skipped two classes in primary school so I was probably one of the smallest kids in an incoming class of about 300 people, and I was one of the smarter kids too, which really didn't help things. Suffice it to say that bu the time my three years were up, I had learned how to run, take a punch and keep my mouth shut. By the time I left I had made enough bigger friends so people left me alone. I had also learned a very important lesson. It doesn't matter if you are the more rational or the one with better ideas if the other guy can still just beat you up. Pacifism is nice but it only works if everyone does it. In the real world, some people choose to be predators and unless you have the means to fight them off, you always run the risk of being prey. Therefore, for me, one of the purposes of all my MA training has always been effectiveness.

From junior high I tested into a fairly exclusive private secondary school. Switching educational systems dropped me back a year so I was closer in age to my peers, though still the youngest. Since puberty kicked in late for me, I was still one of the smaller people and still one of the smarter ones, so the cycle repeated itself. At that point I was also really physically and socially awkward. I barely had enough confidence to look anyone in the face, which didn't help matters any. Things got better, I found friends. learned how to avoid most of those who didn't like me and just blend in. Puberty hit, I shot up a couple of inches and got tired of being a target. I started reading every thing I could on martial arts and exercising like crazy. In my last year there, one of my tormentors caught me on a bad day, I lost it and slammed him into a concrete post. Not particularly something I'm proud of, but it got me some peace once people realized I was strong enough to fight back. I got tested a couple of more times but generally people started to let me be.

The insecurity and anger from those days is something I still carry around these days. The reason I wanted to learn martial arts was partly some kind of Charles Atlas type fantasy of being able to confront my tormentors and beat the crap out of them. In my head I knew that was the wrong attitude to have but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that a part of me wanted an excuse to be violent, preferably in defence of myself or someone else, so I wouldn't feel as weak or as frail. Somewhere inside me there's still a little kid scared of the bigger people around him and looking for a reason to lash out. In someways I've gotten past that need, in other ways I haven't.

So, what did I actually study? Well, in college it started with Aikido. I suspect one of the reasons I started there was my better nature looking for a less outwardly violent way to deal with my fears. Either that or Steven Segal movies. In the winter term of my freshman year I was signed up for two 2 hour classes a day, six days a week. Oberlin has a pretty old club that is affiliated with the Cleveland Aikikai, which was ironically founded by Oberlin alumni. That winter they were hosting a travelling sensei whose name I'm ashamed to say I can't remember. He was my first real teacher. His focus was heavily on basics. Hundreds of rolls and falls daily and long hours of randori where he stressed moving from your center, remaining mobile at all times and 'blending' with your opponents force. He was also pretty open to the use of atemi as set ups for throws and locks. It was long hours of fairly intense work and I loved it. After winter term he moved on and was replaced by a series of instructors from Cleveland or the school club. The quality of training fell quickly as the club became more and more accomodating of people who wanted to say they were doing aikido without actually doing any hard work. I pretty much left the club at this point. I continued to train with them on and off because I was friends with those in charge, but it got too 'nice' for me.

Part 2 of the story tomorrow kids, plus a special post on one of my favourite topics, Beer

Summer preview

I've been having a wierd case of writer's block recently. One single post has been taking me almost a week to get out. I suspect this is because of the emotions attached to the parts of my past I'll be exploring. To try and get out of it, I'm just going to set myself a schedule and make sure I spend at least half an hour a day doing nothing but blogging. That means I need topics. I plan to do this for at least a week so lets assume a minimum of 7, maybe more. Depending on how this goes, I might just stick to a regular daily schedule.

Anyway, the topics you will be reading about this week include:

Martial arts
For something that has been (and is rapidly becoming again) a large part of my life, I'm very hesitant to talk about it in public. This is actually the post that caused my writers block. Hopefully being open about it here will help deal with its associated demons from my past. Plus, a large chunk of my active readership are people who have so much more experience than I do. I need to pick their minds more.

Family
My parents are in town and as usual, it is proving interesting. They just recently started treating me as an adult, which is so incredibly wierd and gratifying all at once. My father will be here for a week where I will have a flexible enough schedule to spend most of it with him. I expect that there will be some passing off fatherly advice over dark beer.

Book Review
I just finished reading Minister Faust's "The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad". Actually, I finished it almost a week ago. Loved it. Geeky and bohemian. I'll definitly be looking forward to his next book.

Sexuality
Another topic I'm learning to be more open about. I don't know where this one will go. I'm open to questions or suggestions though

The workout plan
This has seen some changes, and will probably see more as I learn more about my body and exercise science in general. I'll just outline my fitness/dietary goals and where I am now.

I'll probably come up with more stuff. I can usually find something to talk about. All questions and suggestions are appreciated. Help me help myself people.

Batman Begins

I've seen this movie twice since opening day. Once by myself and again with the geek crew (two of my brother's friends, both engineers and comic book geeks). I can honestly say its tied with Spider Man for best comic book movie. Then again, I'm biased.

Batman has always been my favourite comic book character, followed closely by Spider Man. Its really not that hard to understand why if you've ever met me. Batman has no powers. He's just a normal man who has developed his mind and his body to the absolute best of their potential. Granted, he's an emotional cripple, but he still represents the potential inherent in a trained, disciplined body and mind to accomplish great things. Kind of the reason I've always been a fan.

Sidenote: How many times is Morgan Freeman going to have to take a minor character and make him into someone memorable before hollywood gets the message that he deserves much bigger and better roles? Lucius Fox is a minor character at best in the comics. However, in the movie, he is transformed into someone as important to the story as Alfred, in no small part because of Mr. Freeman's acting skills

Tag, I'm it

I just picked up another meme courtesy of Mushtaq,

1. Total number of books I've owned:

Overall, between textbooks and stuff I bought for my own enjoyment, probably close to a thousand. I refuse to count comic books on the grounds that the total number would scare me

2. Last book I bought:

Non school or comic related,

Steve Perry - 'Black Steel'

Aaron Mcgruder, Reginald Hudlin and Kyle Baker - 'Birth of a Nation'

I bought them together

3. Last book I read:

Jess O'Brien - Nei Jia Quan: Internal Martial Arts : Teachers of Tai Ji Quan, Xing Yi Quan, and Ba Gua Zhang

4. Five books that mean a lot to me:

(in no particular order)

Musashi - The Book of 5 Rings

David Eddings - Belgarath the Sorceror

Isaac Asimov - Caves of Steel

Ayi Kwei Armah - The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born

Richard Feynman - What Do You Care What Other People Think

I would pass this on to

Pam

Jef

SB

Random 10

I have such a huge (and growing) music collection that these days unless I really feel like listening to something in particular, I use Amarok's '50 random songs' feature to decide what I'll be listening to. Its proving to be a great way to explore my collection. Since a couple of blogs I read feature 'random 10' lists, I figured, why not. So, my first 'random 10' list.

Sidenote: Amarok is easily the best media player I have seen on any OS. And its a Linux app! The future approaches.

1. Aaliyah - 4 Page Letter
2. Zero 7 - When It Falls
3. Thelonius Monk - Hornin'in (alt. take)
4. Santessa - Phased
5. Soul Position - Candyland pt. 3
6. Talib Kweli - I Try
7. Outkast - My Favourite Things
8. DJ Spinna - Surely
9. Maxwell - Everwanting: To Want You To Want
10. Floetry - Say Yes

Mr. Nice Guy

I spent a large chunk of this evening involved in a futile and somewhat irritating discussion on Okayplayer (which, incidentally takes up way too much of my spare time) on the issue of the idea that 'nice guys finish last'. This was an issue I had planned to discuss on this blog at some point. Since its fresh in my mind now, and I'm frustrated at people on both sides of the fence for refusing to own up to their side's complicity or consider points of view other than their own I figured, time to write it down so I can get it out of my system and sleep better. Here goes.

The complaint is that nice guys, here taken to be quieter, more soft spoken men who treat their women as human beings rather than ambulatory sex toys, generally lose out to the 'bad boys'. They are stereotypically louder, more arrogant and more inclined to treat their women with minimal amounts of respect. Now. my reasoning here may offend some men and women equally. If you are one of the offended, I apologize. I'm here to tell the truth as I see it. If you think I'm wrong anywhere, please feel free to call me on it. Last time I checked I was far from the ultimate authority on human interaction.

Lets start off with a bit of harsh truth. Both men and women generally make incredibly wrongheaded and idiotic decisions about love/dating/mating, usually due to blindly following societal standards without ever stopping to think through whether or not those standards make sense for them. Hypermasculine, arrogant men have always been put on a pedestal as the male ideal. Don't believe me? I invite you to spend time watching male images in television, movies, music or any other aspect of pop culture. Women have certain specific ideals of appropriate female appearance and behavior. Men follow the appropriate female image even when they either have no chance of obtaining said woman or would be unhappy with the result if they were to obtain said woman, a point I attempted to make in my 'know your audience' post. Women make exactly the same mistakes in the other direction, all going after the portrayed masculine ideal, with all the problems it embodies.

Basically the problem nice guys have is that we are not what pop culture considers manly, no way around that. Accept that you aren't cool in that way and probably never will be. Also, stop chasing the socially constructed ideal for a second and figure out what truly works for the person you are. If you don't like who you are, change or go into therapy to learn to love you. Whoever you end up as, look for who fits that person. Women, the same applies. If your last 5 boyfriends treated you like hell, you might want to take a step back, figure out why you want those men, who you are and which men actually make sense for you.

That being said, there is something nice guys need to do. In the immortal words of Denzel Washington, man the f$&% up. There is a difference between confidence and arrogance, between assertiveness and obnoxiousness. We tend to not be comfortable in who we are partly because we sense that we aren't 'sexy'. This lack of confidence hurts us. It keeps us from stepping honest with ourselves and women about who we are and what we want. I've been guilty of this more times than I'm comfortable admitting. Its something I'm still working on. Its something we all need to work on. At the end of the day, the only definitions of who we are that should matter are those we make for ourselves.

Black Comic book characters: Blackjack

For those of you who have been reading this blog since the beginning, my reasons for making a post, or series of posts even, on blacks in comic books will not be hard to understand. For the rest of you, take a look here. Incidentally, there will also be similar posts concerning science fiction and I still need to address the entire 'white male power fantasy' issue.

The subject of today's post is the gentleman in the picture above carrying a rather large gun, which he uses rather frequently throughout the book. He's Aaron Day, otherwise known as Blackjack. A soldier of fortune and explorer in the same pulp vein as Indiana Jones and Alan Quartermain, except he's also an educated, wealthy black man in the 1930's, with all the problems that brings. I own several Blackjack comic books but today we'll restrict ourselves to the 'Blood and Honor' graphic novel since, as far as I know, its the only one that's easily available.

In this book, Blackjack and his Chinese indentured servant(yep, you read that right) head to Japan and then China to protect the life of a Japanese minister against the more militant elements of his own government. In the middle of all the predictable violence. Aaron must also come to terms with the fact that he effectively owns another human being. There are several other subtexts to the book which I can't reveal without spoiling the book. I'll just assure you that it is action packed, really well drawn and deals with a lot of issues you will rarely ever find in comic books. If you get a chance, pick it up. you won't be disappointed.

Sidenote: Blackjack's writer, Alex Simmons, was responsible for the creation of Orpheus, the first compelling take I saw of a black character in a Batman book since Steven Barnes' 'Underground Railroad' story arc. Unfortunately every subsequent batman character had no idea what to do with him so he was depowered, shuffled aside and then killed off. An action that brought to an end my support of all bat-related titles besides Gotham Central and Gail Simone's run on Birds of Prey

Keeping things in perspective

A couple of days ago, I was tolking to a lovely young lady (who shall remain nameless) when the topic of discussion ended up becoming my sense that I have been working below my pontential. I realized that a large part of that is my lack of perspective on my achievements.

I've developed this incredibly unhealthy habit of paying attention to my failures instead of my successes and letting them weigh me down. For instance, I'm working on getting myself back into fighting shape (bodyweight exercises, lots of basics and single movement work, standing meditation) and trying to study for my phd qualifiers. Increasingly, whenever I have a hard time getting started, miss a training session or miss a study session its because I'm remembering times when I failed to get things done in the past. I basically psych myself out by assuming that, since i messed up before I will again. This probably ties into the fact that I have never really been secure in my abilities. Why? well I could speculate on the reason but it wouldn't change the fact that I need to get used to the idea of paying attention to the things I do right and using my missteps/failures as learning tools instead of instruments to punish myself with.

In order to get here, I forged ahead and succeeded more times than I fell back and failed. I have worked long hours through serious hardship on my body, my mind and my soul. Somehow, I 've never really appreciated that part of me. That was a huge mistake I must now make an effort to rectify.

This also means that I have to learn how to let go of the fear of seeming arrogant that drives me to false modesty without simultaneously losing track of all I have left to do. True humulity isn't found in lying to everyone, including yourself, about what you are capable of. Instead it is found in being absolutely honest with yourself about all your strengths and weaknesses. Including those you are afraid to admit to yourself or to other people. Since I already know this, I just need to do it. But that discussion is for another post.

Science Fiction that shaped my childhood

Whenever I start getting to know people, at some point the issue of my love of Science Fiction and Fantasy always comes up at some point. Apparently I don't exactly look like someone you'd expect to be a fan of the genre, whatever that means, Anyway, I grew up on the genre, and dozens of others. A large chunk of my childhood was spent reading everything I could possibly get my hands on. I stuck with SF for several reasons, among them being that I have a heavily overdeveloped imagination and a tendency to ask questions. The strength of the genre is its ability to create new worlds from scratch and also to ask deeply fundamental questions about this one. A great science fiction story is one that does both. So, without ado, the SF books that influenced me as a kid. As a tribute to 'High Fidelity' which I rewatched this weekend, I'll make it a top 5 list.

Incidentally, as soon as I made this list, I thought about other books that have fair claim to being on this list. I guess I'll have to do another one at some point.


1. Isaac Asimov's 'The Caves of Steel'



For those of you who have no idea who Asimov is, shame on you. He is easily one of the greatest SF and general science writers of all time. If it weren't for him, I would probably have ended up as a history major instead of a physicist. He's also the only stranger whose death I can honestly say I was affected by. The recent 'I Robot' movie was an entertaining perversion of his most enduring creation, the three laws of robotics. One of these days, you guys will get a post solely dedicated to him, but for now, I'll stick to the script.

When people talk about his works, They usually consider the 'Foundation' books or his Robot stories to be his best work. Me, I've always been partial to the Elijah Bailey and Daneel Olivaw books, perhaps because they combine good detective stories with very effective commentary on race. This is the first in the series.

In Asimov's fictional future, humanity is split up into 'Earthers', human beings bound to the planet earth, and 'Spacers', a spacefaring group who have longer lives and access to better technology, like robots. Urbanization plus population growth means that most earthers live in ultra large cities from which the book derives its name.

One of the main characters, Elijah Bailey, is an earther police officer who hates spacers and robots equally. When a high ranking spacer is murdered, he gets assigned to the case. Because of the sensitivity if this case, however, the spacers insist he take along a robot partner, Daneel Olivaw, a robot made in the image of the dead man. The rest of the book is part detective story, as they track down the murderer, and partly about the nature of prejudice, as Elijah is forced to confront his feelings, and those of general Earther society, about both Spacers and robots. To a certain degree, the two of them even bond and form a sort of friendship.

2. Ursula K. LeGuin's 'A Wizard of Earthsea'



Ursula Leguin's most beloved series. I still remember the first time I read this book. Actually, it was just the first chapter. It was part of an anthology of SF short stories that a girl I liked 'liberated' from her parents bookshelf for me (sidenote, I wonder what happened to her?). I remember reading it over and over, instantly drawn in by the images her words created.

Oh, for the record, I will not be discussing the Scifi channel's whitewashed and destroyed show that was supposedly based on this book. Ursula said it better than I ever could and I really don't need to get agitated today.

The basic story has to do with the growth of the main character, Sparrowhawk. Through him, we learn valuable life lessons. Among them, that power is only to be used in moderation, unless the situation demands it and that in all people there exists both the good and the bad, and they are both necessary to balance each other out. The other great thing about this book, which was apparently missed by a lot of people, was the fact that Sparrowhawk and his people weren't white. As a woman in the genre, Ursula became sensitive to the fact that a lot of science fiction was little more than a space for the heroic white male power fantasy. In response, she made her protagonist Native American as her way of challenging that perception (BTW, the entire idea of white male power fantasies in SF and comic books is one I shall revisit sometime soon).

3. Arthur C. Clarke's 'Rendezvous with Rama'



Arthur C. Clarke, allegedly the R-Kelly/Michael Jackson of SF writers (along with Piers Anthony, if the rumors are true). This is the man who invented the concept of the geosynchronous satellite. One of the things that always interested me about him was the fact that he was actually a practicing physicist for a large part of his life and it tended to show in the small scientific details in his books.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking, why not '2001'? Why 'Rama', which isn't anywhrer near as well known? Simple. This is my list and as a kid I enjoyed reading Rendevous with Rama far more than I enjoyed 2001 which, in my opinion, has a tendency to be overrated because of the brilliant Kubrick movie. Maybe, if Morgan Freeman gets his way and the Rama movie gets made it'll finally get the respect it deserves.

The story behind it is fairly simple. In the near future a cylindrical object enters our solar system. After it becomes obvious that there is nothing natural about it, a team if investigators are sent into space to explore it and figure out what its doing here. Once they get there, they find that its hollow and contains a small city. The rest of the book is mainly about their attempts to figure out the purpose of Rama, as they decide to call it.

What made this book great for me was the fact that it seamlessly merged 'hard' science with good storytelling without compromising either. It was also one of the first books I read to step away from the paradigm of the humanoid alien and seriously allow for the possibility that life could exist in forms that we can't possibly imagine. While this also holds true for his 2001 books, I always preferred the execution in these better.

4. Frank Herbert's ''



Frank Herbert was a genius. There is little more to it than that. In the 'Dune' books, he created a huge, painskaingly detained world and then used it to tell great stories while meditating on a wide range of issues including religion, politics and ecology. I could probably ramble on about his work for hours if given a chance. The books were incredibly dense in terms of themes explored and yet they were entertaining enough to spawn movies, spinoff books and video games. Honestly, I still don't remember if I saw the movie first or read the book. It really doesn't matter either way. Both hold a very special place in my childhood.

5. Douglas Adams' 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'



What can I possibly say about these books that will do them justice. Douglas Adams still remains, in my mind, one of the funniest human beings to ever pick up a pen. Actually, I blame my sometimes quirky sense of humor squarely on him. Since the movie just came out, you probably don't really need me to explain the basic premise behind the story to you. I'll just say that this book was responsible for many hours of enjoyment for me as a kid. I always related to Arthur Dent, the person who never quite fit in anywhere. Watching him grow and learn was a great thing for me.

Incidentally, it holds a very special place for me because of a link to the very first girl to break my heart. Long story but basically we took turns checking it out of the school library and spent long hours talking about it (I wasn't lying when I said I like geeks. Always have)

Anyway, thus concludes my list. Considering what else could have been on this list, I'll probably have to make another one soon.

Random musings

1. I've been listening to Common's new album 'Be' almost exclusively since it was released on Tuesday. In my opinion its an early candidate for album of the year. Granted, at 11 tracks its not the longest CD you'll ever hear but every track is quality. From what I hear its also shaping up to be his highest selling album to date. I'm really happy for him, Especially after the violently negative reception his last album 'Electric Circus' received. Personally I liked Electric Circus, still do. The exploratory nature of its production really turned people off though, unfortunately. Ironically, most of the same people loved Andre 3000's 'The Love Below'. I can't explain it.


2. Has everyone else heard R.Kelly's latest multi-part auditory abortion? Otherwise known as 'In the Closet parts 1-3' these songs are so horrifically bad it feels like one of those really bad science fiction movies that were the staple of 'Mystery Science Theater 3000'. Its so incredibly horrible that you find yourself watching it in amazement that an actual thinking person came up with this and had the bravery to release it. From the generally positive reaction that this, and other crappy R-Kelly songs have received, I believe that he should consider giving up his singing career (well, that he should do anyway for the sake of humanity) and become a cult leader. If he can convince people that putting bad soap opera scripts to music is an act of genius, what else can he get them to do? Honestly I wish I had that gift. I'd use it to put together a harem.


3. Two of my favorite TV shows are not being renewed. The Sly Stallone reality boxing show 'The Contender' and UPN first decent prime time drama 'Kevin Hill'. For those of you who missed both if these, you missed out. Especially The Contender, which, along with Spike TV's 'The Ultimate Fighter' actually made me regularly watch reality TV. At least 'The 4400' is coming back. For those of you who haven't seen it, think 'Lost' but better.

Know your audience

A while back, Swann said I should write about my views on dating/relationships. She seems to think that they are unusually wise. Personally they strike me as little more than good common sense. Either way, I have some time on my hands so I figured I'd throw something together. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, here goes.

I will be starting with a very simple but often ignored rule. Know thyself. Too many times I have seen men and women go after people who were obviously wrong for them because they couldn't be honest with themselves about who they were and what they wanted. For instance, I am a geek. I'm a physics grad student who loves science in general. I read comic books, read a lot of old and new literature, don't really listen to a lot of commercial hip-hop or R&B and love anime and cartoons in general. While I may have a slight obsession with martial arts in general, I'm not a particularly aggressive or violent person. Generally I try to treat people with respect until they give me a reason to do otherwise. I posses very few, if any, of the characteristics of the 'thug' or 'baller' types. Therefore, obviously, women who are looking for overly aggressive men to control their lives, or men who will lavish large sums of money on them aren't looking for me. It would be a waste of my time to even try talking to them. Plus, even assuming they would talk to me, how long would the conversation last before I would be willing to give up a vital organ to get them to shut up? I like discourse. I like my women intelligent, knowledgeable about a wide range of things and willing to laugh at themselves and the world around them. Therefore if I decided to hang out in places where the thugs and ballers, or, far more likely, people pretending to be them, go to look for women what are the chances I would find someone I'd actually be attracted to?

If I decided to invest my time in those women, I'd probably manage a series of horrible relationships that would end in them leaving me for someone who fits their ideals better. I'd probably end up bitter at women and believing that they are all gold diggers or want thugs. The real truth would be that I'm just not 'cool'. I never have been and honestly I have no desire to be. I would have been playing in a world I have no place in.

There, of course is the part people refuse to accept. You can choose to live like one of the 'cool' people. If you choose not to, that's not your world. Be honest with yourself about who you are and then go looking for someone who compliments that person. I love female geeks. We generally get along really well and I don't have to pretend to be someone I'm not.

So, children, the moral of this slightly confused story is, learn to be you, then go looking for someone who you are attracted to, who is attracted to the true you. Regardless of whether or not it works out it will be a lot less stress not having to hide who you are.

Religious Zealotry vs. Science

I've been out of things for a little bit because of schoolwork so i missed the beginnings of the debate in Kansas. Thankfully Mushtaq has been talking about it and so between him and this blog by a grad student at the University of Kansas, I have bees speedily brought up to date. For those of you who are similarly clueless, I'll summarize. Basically, the state Board of Education in Kansas is holding hearings about whether or not to teach Intelligent Design "theory" (and I use that word extremely loosely) beside evolution in classrooms. Not being satisfied with that, they are also trying to get the school board's definition of science changed. They want to omit the part about science looking for natural explanations to phenomena so they can tie religion in to every aspect of science education. Their reasons for doing so are spelled out here.

For now, I'll ignore the larger implications of what they are doing and focus on why Intelligent Design is not a valid scientific theory and evolution is. There seems to be some confusion over the use of the word 'theory' so I'll start there. In regular english use, a theory is merely a reasonable idea. In order for an idea to qualify as a scientific theory, it must endure rigorous and ongoing challenges to its validity and must be capable of explaining all the available data as well as predicting any new data that appears on the same topic. In other words evolution is a widely accepted theory because it provides a coherent and testable explanation for everything we currently know about the history of life on earth. Certain parts of the theory are still being refined but those are the specifics. The general framework is accepted by the majority of scientists as being valid. If tomorrow we find evidence that plainly contradicts evolution, that will be the end of it and they'll start looking for a new theory that incorporates everything we now know.
Intelligent Design doesn't really explain anything. Ignoring the fact that its just a way to backdoor creationism into schools, the basic idea behind it is that nature is too complex to have come into being on its own so it must have been created. No real mention is made of the creator(s), their origin and the means by which creation took place. This 'theory' can never be tested because all contradicting data can also be ascribed to the same intelligent designer, automatically rendering it useless as a scientific theory. If there is no possible way to prove it false it can't be a scientific theory. Its defenders ignore the mountains of evidence supporting evolution and instead nitpick at areas that are still being investigated as proof that the entire theory is flawed. When they're not doing that, they make ridiculously incoherent and obviously uninformed arguments that seriously call into question their ability to think rationally about anything.

Now, lets return to the larger issue behind this, the attack on naturalism. One of the core beliefs of the scientific method is that nature follows specific rules and that we can deduce these rules by observing nature without invoking any other outside powers. The Universe, whether it was created by god or randomly came into being, follows these rules. The fact that you are sitting at a computer reading this and didn't need to utter a prayer or make a sacrifice in order to get it to work is a fairly convincing argument for this point of view. Its not that we don't believe in god, most scientists I've met have some kind of spiritual faith. Its just that we don't consider ourselves in the business of proving or disproving god's existence. Nothing about the rules of nature confirms or denies the existence of god(s). You can believe or not, just don't expect help from us either way. It wouldn't be a belief if you could prove it.
Anyway, religious zealots hate naturalism because it provides an explanation for the world that doesn't necessarily require a holy man or holy book, thus threatening their power. They want to be the ones with all the answers and if that means dismantling centuries of human scientific progress, so be it.

Personally, the people I really feel sorry for are the kids who are going to have their heads filled with all this nonsense. Someday they'll have to deal with the real world. By choosing religious dogma over reality, their parents will be doing them a disservice too great for me to properly describe. Plus, if this spreads you might as well move all science related institutions overseas because your kids will be too stupid and uninformed to man them. So either bring us here or move them to our homes and cut down on airfare. Might I suggest putting a nanotechnology R&D lab in Ghana, my parents will be glad to see me move home and I will no longer have to deal with the winter.

The insomnia comic book post

My last final is tomorrow and I'm having a hard time going to sleep. At the same time, I've studied so much for this thing that my brain is about to start leaking out of my ear. Since I have nothing else to do and I'm already seated behind the computer, I figured I'd do some blogging. Since this past Saturday was free comic book day, I figured I'd let you guys know what I have been reading these days.
As you will probably notice, a lot of these are written by black writers or feature black characters. This is partially due to the fact that the writing is good and partially because I figure if I have the time to complain about the lack of representation in comics, I can put my money where my mouth is and support well written black comics. Plus I'm getting tired of the culture of sensationalism that the big two comic companies are working from these days so I'm going further afield in search of good writing and decent art. Anyway, without further ado, here is the list.

Black Panther




I was huge fan of Christopher Priest's remarkable run on Black Panther and was really unhappy when the book got cancelled. I was livid when the series he moved on to, The Crew, was cancelled without ever getting off the ground. But that's a story for another day.

The new relaunch of the Black Panther comic is being written by Reggie Hudlin, director of House Party and Boomerang as well as co-writer of the incredibly funny Birth Of A Nation. Unsurprisingly, he's proving to be one hell of a writer. So far, I have been loving every issue of the new 'Panther' and I've even managed to turn a couple of people unto the book.

For those of you who are unaware of the story behind the Black Panther, he is the monarch of Wakanda, a fictitious African country that also happens to be the most developed nation on the planet. He has no actual superhuman abilities of his own, a special herb gives him heightened strength and senses but he is mostly a superbly trained human being with access to an arsenal of the most technologically advanced equipment on the planet. Basically, Imagine a black Batman with significantly greater resources at his disposal and you'll get an idea of the potential of the character. When he was first introduced into the Marvel Universe he hunted down and captured the Fantastic Four as a test. Of course, immediately after that he spent the majority of his comic book time as a glorified cheerleader for the Avengers until Priest brought him back to life as a credible character who was always several steps ahead of his enemies. Reggie's work seems to be continuing very much in this direction and if definitely worth picking up if you're a comic fan.

Incidentally, for those interested in Priest's excellent run on the character, there are two trade paperbacks available that I highly recommend. This and this.


Angeltown



This book is the latest crime series by novelist Gary Phillips. I was actually unfamiliar with his work until I started reading rave reviews for this series. Which is sad because I'm a huge fan of crime novels. He's pretty high up on my summer reading list now.

Anyway, back to the book. Its a modern day noir-ish detective story about a private detective trying to track down a professional basketball player accused of murdering his white ex-wife (I wonder where the idea for that could have come from)
Of course, nothing is what it seems and this case ends up attracting the attention of people high up on both sides of the law leaving our detective to stay alive long enough to figure out the truth and find his man while avoiding a lesbian bounty hunter trying to snatch up the same target. Of course there's a huge amount of sex, violence and strong language, all staples of the genre. If you like crime stories you'll probably like this one. Its well paced and really well written


Ocean



I'm a huge Warren Ellis fan. I have been since Transmetropolitan, which, I believe, is one of the best critiques of the modern media I have encountered in a work of fiction. Plus the main character uses a weapon called a 'bowel disrupter' on people. Some people i know find him too cynical and suspicious of people in authority. Personally, I share a lot of his misgivings in those areas so I tend to agree with his stuff. Plus I enjoy his somewhat twisted sense of humor.

Ocean is a straightforward science fiction thriller about a UN weapons inspector who gets called to one of the moons of Jupiter when an exploration crew finds the cryogenically preserved citizens of an alien race and their weapons. Of course, it just happens that the only other people in the area are he crew of a weapons research station belonging to one of the largest corporations in the known world. This being an Ellis book, the company is evil and the manager of the station is insane. Plus the aliens might wake up at any minuye and the only thing we know about them is that they are prone to violence and have bigger guns than we do. It's funny, violent and very thoughtful in parts. Pretty much what I expect from him. Plus, as usual, he provides a diverse cast of characters and even throws in a black male lead. That's actually the other thing I really like about him. He creates incredibly diverse worlds and makes them seem perfectly natural, as opposed to a lot of writers who toss in one non-white character and them write them as a token.


Cannon Busters



This I picked up almost on a whim this weekend. The creator of the series, Lesean Thomas, is apparently one of the new generation of black comicbook artists and writers. His art seems to be very anime/manga inspired, which is not that unusual these days. i have a teenage cousin who also wants to become a comic book artist and also draws heavily from the same sources.

The book itself is set in a magic - meets - technology style world and apparently draws heavily on The Wizard of Oz for its story about a young robot and her friends who are on a quest. So far, we've just been introduced to the world and our main character when all hell breaks loose. The art in this issue is very well put together. I hope the story lives up to it. For now, it gets three issues to prove itself to me.

Papa Midnight




Like Angeltown, this book is also being written by a novelist who has decided to try his hands at comic books. In this case, Mat Johnson gets to write the origin of Papa Midnite, a character from the Hellblazer comic book series and the movie Constantine.

Papa Midnite is a nightclub owner in New York who serves both humans and supernatural beings. In the movie he maintains a strict neutrality while in the comics he is somewhat of a crime lord and definitely has an agenda of his own. Mat Johnson creates a story rooted in Akan mythology and the history of slaves in New York to put together a very interesting tale of Midnite's origin and his true purpose. I'm biased towards this book since my father's side of the family are Akan(Ashanti and Akyem for those who are interested) and there is obviously a lot of attention put into getting certain aspects of the culture and mythology right. That aside, its a really enjoyable read that I would recommend to anyone.

Anyway, thats enough nerdy behavior for one day. I'm going to bed now. Wish me luck tomorrow.