Because I knew that I wouldn’t be going, having no reason to believe, at the time that I learned about it that tonight would be anything other than a work night, I forgot that Neil Gaiman was going to be in DC doing a reading and signing.
Of course, had I remembered sooner it’s not as though I would have driven in to DC on a Friday night by myself anyway, but it might have been nice to remember that there was something that I could have potentially done with my time off.
In fact, I could have planned to make a night of it and gotten a hotel room, as the National Book Festival is tomorrow.
Again, I wouldn’t have done that, but it would have been nice to be able to consider it.
Oh well.
There’s nobody at the Book Festival that I want to see this year. The only name I really recognized was Brad Meltzer, the bestselling author of The Book of Fate and current writer of the latest incarnation of the Justice League of America.
Meltzer also wrote the controversial Identity Crisis mini-series for DC a while back, a storyline that pretty much shook the DC Universe to its foundation.
It was an interesting and compelling story, but has proven to be one that has had some rather unfortunate side effects and spawned a lot of really, really bad story ideas.
So far I haven’t been impressed by his work on Justice League either. Despite the more “adult” turn, it seems to be caught up in nostalgia as it attempts to hearken back to the last days of comics’ Silver Age while still maintaining a modern sensibility. It just doesn’t quite work, and it seems rather fanboyish to me.
You would think I would find it a little more appealing. After all, Meltzer and I are roughly the same age, and the cherished stories of his childhood are likely to be the same cherished stories of mine, but there just seems to be a disconnect somewhere that prevents me from really enjoying it. Maybe it’s because I’m not especially nostalgic about most things.
Beyond that, though, while there have been a lot of things that have gone wrong in comics in the last 20 years or so, there have also been a lot of things that have gone right, and I find myself distressed to see some of those ideas and developments tossed aside to return to old, abandoned concepts, particularly when the only motivation for doing so seems to be a desire to satisfy the inner fanboys of the creative teams.
Anyway, the point is that Meltzer just isn’t enough of a draw to make me want to go to the Festival.
Knowing that I was on vacation, my friend Kevin called last night.
I wasn’t especially talkative because…well, because I just wasn’t especially talkative, and, quite frankly, it can be difficult to think of things to say to someone who reads my blog. I mean, what can I tell you about what’s going in my life that you didn’t just read about?
Still, it is nice, despite my general lack of nostalgia, to have people from another time in your life still want to maintain contact. There are so few people like that in my life.
Basically there’s Kevin.
Well, there’s also “Zalfiro,” but he was part of my life more recently.
Of course I do generally get in touch with Gretchen when I go home.
So three people.
But that’s okay.
It’s not that there aren’t other people that I’d like to have some contact with, but really I just don’t see the point. Besides, outside of Kevin and a few others, most of the people in my past were people who were involved with me solely during the worst periods of my drinking, and as such being in contact with them wouldn’t be especially healthy.
Speaking of which, my niece Jourdan, whom I mentioned earlier, recently moved out of her apartment (located, coincidentally, directly below Kevin’s), and into a house with several other people.
My mother had described the house briefly and it sounded familiar. I asked her for a little more information on it and it turns out that it’s a house that a couple of my friends from that period had lived in. It was just a short distance from where I lived, and I actually spent many a drunken hour there.
I’d say there is a good chance that the place is haunted by some drunken aspect of my spirit.
Still, it’s not too terribly surprising that Jourdan would first move into the same building as a friend of mine and then move into a house where other friends of mine used to live given that when it comes to the U.P. the phrase “small world” doesn’t even come close to giving you a true sense of scale.
No One Is Ever Around To Hear My Best Material Department:
A while ago I was in the kitchen fixing a snack when I heard a commercial for a video game on the TV.
The announcer’s voice said, “Welcome to The Third Street Saints. Rated M for Mature.”
I responded instantly with “Kiss My Ass. Rated E for Everyone.”
…
At least I laughed.
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