A few weeks ago I traveled to NYC for the day, and attended the MoCCA Art Fest - an indie comic convention that I’ve been to twice before.
As I did last year, I drove to Norwalk, CT, and then took the train into Grand Central Station. I was able to walk to the convention from there, as they were holding it at a new venue - the 69th Regiment Armory on Lexington Ave. It was about 16 blocks South of the train station.
On my way down to the con, I discovered that several blocks (6 to 8?) of Lexington were closed off for a street market of some kind:
There were several booths selling clothing, jewelry, souvenirs, etc. as well as lots of food and drink booths. I needed to get some lunch, so I got a chicken kabob/pita sandwich, and ate it while I walked the rest of the way.
The con was supposed to start at 11:00am. I got to the building at 11:40 and found that they hadn’t started admitting people yet. Apparently, movers were late getting con supplies there and unloading, so the organizers were still getting setup. The line to get in snaked around the corner and halfway up the block on 26th St. After I got in line, many more people lined up after me, eventually snaking around the next corner.
Here’s the line in front of me:
and behind me:
I was standing in the sun, and hadn’t brought a hat (or any sunscreen). Fortunately, I had my laptop bag with me (sans laptop) that I was able to hold on top of my head (and managed to balance it there for quite a while). It provided much needed shade.
While waiting in line, I saw this gold topped building:
Not sure what it is (I haven’t tried looking it up - anybody know?).
The line finally started moving around 12:30, and within 10 minutes I was inside. Unlike previous years in the Puck Building, they had all the exhibitors in one big space (so big I couldn’t get it all in one picture):
A brief rundown of people whose tables I visited, in no particular order:
Jim O. was supposed to be debuting his new book at the con. It’s called T-Minus, and it’s about the space race leading up to the moon landing. It was written by him and drawn by Zander and Kevin Cannon. Unfortunately, Jim’s agent, who was supposed to be bringing the copies of the book for Jim to sell, never showed up. Jim sold plenty of his older books, but it was still disappointing for him. The Cannons were there as well, at a separate table, and they had some copies they’d apparently gotten from their local comic store. I ended up buying the book from them, and then taking it to Jim for a signature.
I went to a few panels during the day. The first was the Comics Bakery panel. That’s the name of a collective of 4 artists: Raina Telgemeier, Dave Roman, Marion Vitus, and John Green, and the panel was them going through the history of how they all met and started collaborating, and eventually got married (well, they’re 2 married couples). Here’s a pic of 3 of them (Vitus, Green, and Telgemeier) during the panel:
The room where the panels were held had murals on all 4 walls of scenes from the Revolutionary and Civil Wars (it is a National Guard building), which made for an unusual backdrop for the presentation (why no, there’s nothing distracting about Confederate soldiers being bayonetted by the Union Army!).
The second panel I sat through was less interesting. It was about the state of comics publishing, and had 7 publishers on it. Not much to report from it.
The third panel was about the humor magazine Humbug. I had never heard of it before this con, but it was apparently published for 2 years in the late ’50’s, and involved 5 writers/artists, some of whom had worked for MAD Magazine. Two of the founding members were on the panel: Arnold Roth and Al Jaffee (left and center, respectively):
They talked about working on Humbug, and various other topics that may or may not have been related, and were pretty funny throughout. Jaffee was the reason I was there, as I am very familiar with him from reading MAD.
This was him talking to the moderator after the panel.
Al Jaffee wrote and drew various features for MAD, including ‘Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions’. He also was responsible for the MAD Fold-In, which was always on the inside back cover of the mag, and featured an image and question, which yielded a different image and the answer when you folded the right side over to meet the left side.
After the panel, Roth and Jaffee were doing a signing. I have a bunch of old issues of MAD from the ’60’s that my Dad had collected, and though they’re falling apart, I still have most of the covers. I brought a few fold-ins with me for Jaffee to sign.
Click here to see the fold-ins, and to “fold” them.
The con ended for the day at 7, I went and had a lovely dinner at a Middle Eastern deli, and then walked back to Grand Central to head home. The end.
In an update of my previous post, the 2 little mourning doves did not live. It’s possible that they were already dead when I photographed them - it was hard to tell. But later on there was no movement, and the parents seemed to abandon the nest, so I eventually climbed up and cleaned out the gutter.
Other denizens are thriving, though. We knew that there was a groundhog living underneath our shed, but just this past weekend, I spotted some smaller ones with it:
I also spotted a little baby rabbit last night, but didn’t have a camera handy before it hopped away. Of course, the downside to these little ones being around is that there are that many more mouths that might chomp on our flowers and vegetables. We have to be vigilant…
We have a few new residents around our house. And when I say around, I mean outside.
First off, it appears that the mourning dove has hatched her eggs. We never saw the eggs themselves, but now that there are chicks, the mama is off the nest getting food somewhat often. I got a couple of pics where you can make out the babies, though I can’t tell how they’re doing (when I watched from the bedroom window I didn’t see them moving at all).
I climbed up on a stepladder to get a better picture (though I couldn’t observe the nest directly - I held the camera above my head):
Also, while doing some gardening, I noticed someone the likes of whom I hadn’t seen before on our property. It was in this raised bed in front of the porch:
Behold:
It sat there and looked at me as I photographed it, just enjoying the heat. A little later I saw it had moved a bit closer to the porch. Later in the day it was nowhere to be seen. We’ll see if it appears again.
We discovered recently that we have a tenant staying in our garage. Actually, it’s not technically in the garage, but in the rain gutter on the outside of the garage. Specifically, a mourning dove has built her nest there, in the end opposite the downspout. From the driveway, you can just make out the head and tail:
Dove
A better view can be had from an upstairs window:
Dove in nest
We’ve been spreading birdseed on the driveway and lawn for her and her mate (according to an expert, doves prefer to collect seed off the ground), and we wait for a glimpse of eggs. Apparently the eggs should be apparent when they are present, as doves aren’t very competent at nest building, and so the eggs will often stick out from under the mother.
A couple of weeks ago, we went to see a special screening of the film Sleep Dealer. It’s a political science-fiction film, dealing with a (very?) near-future time when the U.S.-Mexico border is completely closed physically, but workers in Mexico are able to connect their minds to a network and control robots to do work in the States.
The director, Alex Rivera, is a graduate of Hampshire College (which we live just up the road from). He was on hand to introduce the film and answer questions after the screening. He mentioned being influenced by quite a bit of current events (including immigration, remote military technology, control of natural resources, all sorts of aspects of the Internet) in creating the story and coming up with the concepts in the movie. Certainly, like most good sf, the film not only indicates a direction society might take, but offers commentary on where we are now.
The ideas in the film, technological and sociological, are very interesting, as are many of the visuals. While it contains many elements that have been seen in other sf film and literature, what Rivera has put together feels fresh, and comes from a unique point of view. I would advise any sci-fi fan to check it out, especially if you like politically-oriented work. If I had to name a downside to the film, I thought that, while it was had intriguing ideas, and an engaging plot, it didn’t have a lot of emotional impact. There were instances in the film that should have been emotionally powerful, even cathartic, where I didn’t have a strong reaction at all. I think this can be chalked up to a couple of things: first, that Rivera admitted that it was a struggle to come up with a plot, when he mainly wanted to play with ideas, and second, that he has made a number of short works before, but this was the first time he really worked with actors. The acting was good, but more experience in writing and directing might have given the movie more feeling.
Nevertheless, it was very worth seeing, and I highly recommend it. For those living in Western Mass., the film is playing this week at the Amherst Cinema. Enjoy.
Last month I attended the first ever New England Webcomics Weekend (NEWW). It was pretty fun. It was billed as the first comic convention (in the U.S anyway) that was all webcomic artists - nobody who works mainly or solely in the print realm. Given how popular webcomics have gotten this decade, it’s surprising that there hasn’t been an event like this before. What’s been interesting to me, in fact, is the way that webcomics have had a presence at various kinds of fan conventions. They’ve been at comic conventions, sci-fi cons, anime cons, and even some computer/software cons. They seem to appeal to a wider audience that comic books typically have reaching perhaps the kind of audience that newspaper comic strips have in the past (of course, as the newspaper industry seems to be dying a slow death, those strips’ audience is shrinking). Now a critical mass has been reached or passed, and webcomics fandom itself may spawn multiple gatherings (there’s already talk of doing something similar in the Pacific Northwest).
Check out the NEWW site to see who was there (it’s a long list). Don’t bother checking out the forum on the site - it was overrun by spammers just after the event happened.
I volunteered to videotape a few of the panels. Below are links to the stuff I recorded - 2 panels and the webcomics awards ceremony. Each video is broken into parts because of YouTube’s time limits. My apologies for the lighting in some cases - I had no control over it.
Panel: Print vs. Web vs. a Bear
Panel: Creative Partner Newlywed Game
Webcomics Awards Ceremony
Even though the news is a bit old now, I wanted to post in commemoration of 2 more U.S. states gaining same-sex marriage. For those who haven’t heard the news:
- On April 3, the Iowa Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a state law limiting marriage to a union between a man and a woman. The ruling means that any 2 consenting adults can get married in the state, provided they meet the other usual criteria that the state sets.
- The following week, the Vermont legislature overrode a gubernatorial veto, enacting a law that made same-sex marriage legal.
In the span of a week, the number of states allowing same-sex couples to marry doubled (Massachusetts and Connecticut already were allowing such marriages, in both cases as a result of legal rulings similar to Iowa’s). Vermont is unique so far in achieving the goal legislatively, and I must admit I am encouraged by seeing a state reach marriage equality through the democratic process. I think public opinion in a lot of places in the country is shifting towards acceptance of LGBT people, including in the arena of marriage, and this is both a reflection of that opinion (in Vermont), and something that can help influence opinion in other states (perhaps showing that “gay marriage,” as it’s often imprecisely termed, won’t cause the apocalypse, and might actually strengthen the fabric of society).
Having said that, it is the Iowa result that I find more surprising, and exciting, and about which I worry more. I lived in Iowa for 4 years, and I experienced the climate for the LGBT community there. At that time, about a decade ago, people were still working on trying to prevent job and other discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Such protections were in place in a couple of cities, but not statewide. I helped with an effort to get the city of Cedar Falls to add sexual orientation to its human rights law, and the city council ended up voting the change down 6 to 1 (with some council members who had seemed favorable to the change being swayed the other way by their constituents). The governor at the time, Tom Vilsack, issued an executive order to grant health benefits to same-sex domestic partners of state employees, and the legislature passed a law to rescind the benefits (fortunately not by a veto-proof majority).
Many Iowans may have become more comfortable with the idea of same-sex marriage, but opinion polls seems to indicate that the majority of residents still object to it. It’s wonderful that people will now be able to marry whomever they want in the state, but I worry about whether this will last. We saw what happened last year in California - the supreme court there declared that it was unconstitutional to prevent same-sex couples from marrying, and then the constitution ended up getting amended to prevent those marriages. At least one thing is in equal marriage’s favor in Iowa compared with the situation in California: in California it is much easier (almost ridiculously easy) to amend the constitution. A sufficient number of signatures needs to be collected to put the amendment on an election ballot, and then a simple majority of voters must support the ballot measure at the polls. In terms of process, Iowa is better compared with Massachusetts.
In both Iowa and Mass., a constitutional amendment has to be proposed in and passed by the legislature, and then passed again by the next session of the legislature, before it can go on a ballot. In the case of Massachusetts, there was an attempt to amend after the court ruling, and enough signatures were collected that the legislature was forced to consider the amendment proposal. A constitutional convention was held, and the measure did get passed on for consideration by the next legislature, but then in that session it didn’t get enough votes to go on to a referendum. Our good state representatives (and senators) stopped the amendment in its tracks. I do not think this is as likely to happen in Iowa. I would expect that Iowa lawmakers are still conservative enough, or will be swayed enough by pressure from their conservative constituents, that an amendment will end up on the ballot. Then we’ll get to see how Iowa voters really feel about the issue.
The good news is that the process won’t bring anything to Iowa voters for another 3 years. That’s 3 years in which public opinion could possibly be influenced in a more favorable direction. There will certainly be organized efforts to influence that vote long before it happens, and, hopefully, a plethora of newly married couples will be able to demonstrate to their neighbors that the court decision was just and right.
This is the last catch-up post - again posting about something that happened in October. I went to see They Might Be Giants at the Calvin Theater in Northampton, just as I’d done the previous October. Seating was different this time - the last time I’d been there, there were additional chairs setup in front of the fixed seating, and all tickets were assigned seats. This time, the area in front of the stage was open, and tickets for that section were general admission, which was what I bought.
Unlike many previous times I saw Them, there was no opening band. Then again, you could say They opened for Themselves. They played 2 sets, the first of which was composed of all the songs from the album Flood, played in order.
I arrived soon after the doors opened, and was surprised to be able to get a spot right up by the stage. It was over to one side, but right in front of John Linnell’s keyboard! I took a few pictures of the stage before they came out, some of which didn’t work so well without a flash.
The sign hanging in front of the backdrop:
Confetti cannon:
I think it’s self-explanatory what this is:
And of course, Mr. Linnell’s most famous instrument (and his coffee cup):
The Flood set was great, as They played some songs I’d never heard in concert (and that They rarely play live). They had horn players with the band, who joined in on appropriate songs, such as Your Racist Friend (on which I think Flans screwed up the lyrics by repeating part of a verse).
Flans broke out a marching bass drum for Whistling in the Dark:
That’s the best photo I have of it. I tried often not to use my flash, partly because there was a ‘no cameras’ sign in the lobby, and I didn’t want to draw the attention of the theater staff. Eventually, I got tired of blurry photos and turned the flash back on.
At one point (I don’t remember which song), Flans passed his guitar into the audience so people could play it.
During the intermission I got a picture of the non-Flood backdrop:
and the setlist for the second half:
to spell out the listed songs:
The first thing written under the name of the venue looks like “rompy”. I believe this just refers to Their intro music as They came out on stage. They then played:
- Hey, Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had a Deal
- S.E.X.X.Y.
- Alphabet of Nations
- The Mesopotamians
- Memo to Human Resources
- Experimental Film/New York City/Why Does the Sun Shine?
- The Sun Is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma (from an upcoming album of science songs)
- Don’t Let’s Start
- Drink
- Spider/Damn Good Times
- Dinnerbell
- Here Come the Horns (written to introduce the horn players in concert)
- Withered Hope
- Seven
- Dr. Worm/Clap Your Hands/The Guitar
- Mr. Me
They went right from Dinnerbell to Here Come the Horns. The setlist has written “I Hit My Head”, which would refer to a Mono Puff song, but They didn’t play it or anything like it.
They did 2 encores:
The first was Older/James K. Polk, during which Flans thanked the crew, and the second was just the song Fingertips. Normally, the confetti cannon is used during James K. Polk, but Linnell decided (couldn’t tell if it was planned in advance or not) to shoot it off earlier. If memory serves, it was during Clap Your Hands or The Guitar.
Here’s a few random shots of Linnell:
After the concert was over, the drummer, Marty Beller, came out on stage to say Hi to fans:
And so ended my 10th time seeing TMBG in concert.
This is a catching up post, which I intended to put up here months ago. Back in October I went for a hike - my longest one to date. I hiked all of section 8 and most of section 7 of the M-M Trail. Total distance was about 10 miles, over lots of rising and falling terrain (including a few small mountains - or big hills by some standards).
I had done both of these sections before, but on separate occasions. To start out, I drove to Skinner state park, and left the car near the Western end of section 7. I had taken my bike with me, and I then biked home. A bit later in the morning, I got a ride to the Eastern end of section 8, and started walking. As we had recently moved into a house with a wood stove, and needed to start making fires in the near future, I collected birch bark as I went (it makes the best tinder).
Just past the first summit (Long Mountain), there is a nice vantage point looking ahead to the West. Above is a picture of Mount Norwattuck seen from that vantage. Here’s a closer view:
From here I descended a ways, and went through some low areas. Eventually the land rises to a ridge, which has a lookout facing back East. Here’s a picture of Long Mountain from there:
Just after this, one starts to ascend Norwattuck. The top of it is the highest point in this hike. It was a nice place from which to see the Fall colors.
The descent from Norwattuck is fairly long, and drops one off at the Notch visitors’ center. I stopped there to eat lunch. The center was closed, since it was after Columbus Day, so I couldn’t go in and refill on water. Fortunately, I’d been careful, and had only drunk half my supply.
In the Notch, I crossed highway 116 and started section 7, which begins with a steep climb up Bare Mountain. Here is a pic from the top of Bare, looking at the other side of Norwattuck:
Near the base of Norwattuck, just South of the visitors’ center, is a gravel quarry which you can see a bit of in the picture above. You can also see a random person who is not me (the hair is a dead giveaway).
There is a lot of up and down climbing after Bare Mt., but not much in the way of views. I was getting pretty close to Skinner Park before there were more vistas to look at. From one of those, I took this shot of the Connecticut River, and farmland on the other side in Northampton:
Asthe trail enters Skinner, it goes down to the park’s access road, in Taylor’s Notch. From this point, the trail continues up to the summit of Mt. Holyoke, which is where the road winds its way as well. I was pretty tired out by the time I got to the road, though, so I walked downhill on the road, to the parking area at the bottom where I’d left the car. My total time was about 6 hours, including the stop for lunch. Hopefully more longer hikes will happen this year.
In mid-July I went on a solo hike through the Mount Tom Reservation, which I had done with a friend in 2007. Since I was doing a one-way hike by myself, I had to park the car at one end of the trail and ride my bike back to the starting point. Unfortunately, this involves riding up a steep hill on Mass. route 141, just before getting to the trail head. It was quite a warm day, and I had to rest a few times on the way up the hill. I also used up 20 to 25% of my water supply, and had to rest up a bit before starting to hike.
The trail does start out easy, and is almost completely level for the first 10-15 minutes. Then it ascends and ascends and ascends. I took the above picture at the summit, but didn’t need to take many, as I have plenty of the same view from last year.
Further along, when I was near the second summit (Whiting Peak), I noticed something that I’d missed the previous time: wild blueberries were growing among the rocky slopes.
I ate several handfuls of them as I worked my way along the cliffs.
The total hike along through the reservation is about 6 miles, but about 60% of the way through one descends to a park road and picnic area, and there is a drinking fountain where one can refill on water, which I did. In the remaining part of the hike, I crossed Goat Peak and Mount Nonotuck, each of which had features that we’d not taken the time to see last year.
First, on Goat Peak, just off the path a little ways, there is a lookout tower:
I went up and took a look. What’s great about this tower is that you have a 360-degree view. All the vantage points on the trail just look to one side of the mountain range (Northwest). Here are pix from the top of the tower, looking in various directions:
The path passes near, but not directly over, the summit of Nonotuck. It does cross an old road, though, that you can follow up to the summit. At the summit are the ruins of an old hotel, The Eyrie House, which burned down about a century ago. Here I’m looking up at the ruins from below:
and here I explore a little bit:
Those are all the pictures from that hike, and nothing too eventful happened on my way down to the car.
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