Accosting Random People, Retention and Anthologies

So, it is not a stretch for me to say that I am socially inept. This deficiency is not helped by my capricious nature to do random things...say like approaching people I have never met, who may very well be nice people that if approached differently may actually be people that I could have some sort of casual acquaintance nice-ness thing with (brunch, afternoon coffee, book clubs, you know, nice shit like that), but instead I bungle by following my gut instincts to look like as big an asshole as possible.

   Yesterday in following these impeccable instincts for ass-holery, I decided to ask random people on the street if they were feeling "coggy". Now this brilliant idea came about in my head after yet another lovely bout of tweeting with my virtual pal Babs, whom I adore and is in no way responsible for these behaviors (although I do like telling her about them), and I figured its a random weekday and I get bored easy so why not have a round of impromptu lets annoy complete strangers because nothing bad can ever happen with that, right? Thankfully no violence followed in my random polling of the everyman/woman I encountered while going for walks on the campus quad. I do have enough instinct to know that if I pushed that theory, I would probably at some point be accosted or at the very least insulted verily.

  I really do engage in such things because I do have a genuine curiosity of what people think about random things. Plus, sometimes, people really want to just talk to someone, anyone. It's lonely out there sometimes folks. Talking to strangers can pass the time. While it was for a giggle, and none gave me a real answer out of a combination of confusion/annoyance, if I had kept at it, I am sure someone would have stopped and given a great, curious, thoughtful answer.

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How long is your attention span? Have you ever really seriously thought about it? ( Wow, this sounds like an info-mercial all of a sudden).Recently I have become quite obsessed with it in regards to retention and developing new patterns that allow for better learning. Now I'm not invested enough to actually apply it to something like my dissertation data/research, but I am fascinated with it solely on a personal level. This last week, I have spent time taking a variety of  "cognitive" skills (reading, writing, drawing/sketching) and attempted to break them into various increments in no particular order. I have to say that in doing so, it has lowered my stress levels considerably, as my self-efficacy shoots through the roof by attaining short term goals. Even allotting time to write this blog this morning is part of this function. I guess I don't have any real success to tout with this, but when you are trained and pressured to concentrate on one task at a time in learning ( read the entire novel in a sitting, write the bulk of a paper in a few hours, etc.), I am beginning to see that I feel I am learning more effectively by broadening the amount of info I am taking in not only in a period of time, but also the types in a day. Perhaps variety, even on a daily and small way, is the spice of life (and learning).

With variety in mind, as I was picking up my comics this week, I decided to pick up two anthologies. First, Dark Horse Presents #2:

  As I get older, I realize that the power of the short, sharp, and well crafted story is very appealing. In teaching literature/writing, I have found that students prefer often to discuss the shorter works rather than the longer ones (although, that does not excuse them from the reading of longer works!). This is not laziness necessarily, but research in teaching and learning indicates that student retention is decreased due to the amount of information that they consume in a day via multi-media. Also, the way we have taught almost two generations of readers in the American public education system has continued to be in truncated ways, compounded with large amounts of information that is mostly skill and drill with standardized testing as the driving force. But that is another argument for another time.

  While American culture has continued to move away from the traditional novel as a favorite form of reading, it has a continuing love affair with the compact story in a variety of mediums; our 22 minute tv shows, 11 minute animations, flash videos, etc. While comic books that are published monthly are indeed short form, they have been constructed in the last two decades to be event and continuity driven, making it difficult and expensive to get into the mythology (Although DC comics is starting their universe "over again" in September to attract new readers put off by the aforementioned reasons). Originally, comics were created for anyone to pick up at anytime and be able to follow the events. Some "one-and-done" monthlies have found a way into the market (Jonah Hex by Palmotti and Gray for example), but they are few and far between. However, there has been indications of a return to the accessibility of comic stories through anthologies.

   The comics anthology, when put together well, provides readers with the technical and narrative capabilities of telling entertaining and eye-catching stories. While DHP #2 provides more abstract, multiple stories and ideas( very heavy on the sci-fi, if that is your thing), the anthology of Rocketeer Adventures #2 focuses on how different writers and artists are able to take one character and the universe that character inhabits and show multiple adventures in one issue.

  Now the drawback here of course is that you have to be into WWII rock'em sock'em adventure homage. In essence, Rocketeer Adventures is an anthologized love letter to a time, character, and creator (the highly regarded Dave Stevens, who passed away recently).




  In fact, there is such a devotion to the character and the time period, here is an example of a really fun animated fan film that was posted.




The Rocketeer 20th anniversary from John Banana on Vimeo.


  If you are more into the traditional hero set, however, there is the gorgeous DC comics collection from a few years ago titled Wednesday Comics. This loving tribute to the Sunday newspaper style of old, the introduction to long standing characters (and some rarely used ones) is in fine form here fro anyone and a range of ages. This is a pricey set, but in my humble opinion it is worth it.



So give the comic anthology a chance. You might just be surprised.

   The Coen brothers chronological film fest rolls on with a film we were not able to get in last weekend, The Ladykillers. I will of course tweet the time @jldprod2002, and will have a follow up here at the blog, in which as always please feel free to watch the film at your leisure and discuss here or on the post of my review, which should be up soon.