Michael Chabon, et al, �The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist Vol. 1 � 3�
Ok, so Chabon reads a lot of comic books. He then writes a book about comic book creators and wins the Pulitzer Prize for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. The characters from the book create comic book characters, and those characters have now been made into actual comic books.
Sheesh.
The problem with this idea is Chabon allowed over a dozen writers in these volumes to do any take on the character (called The Escapist, for those who didn�t read his novel), they wished. Some stories come across as campy, others with jaw-tightening seriousness.
Some of the areas where the differences are most jarring has a small summary reading as pseudo-history of the character along with a description of the political and social mores of the time, and this helps, to an extent. But there the jarring interpretations from different writers make the character seem like a spaz.
Which is exactly how I feel. Tonight is the night I�ll be playing DJ at the dive bar. I think I�ve taken my role tonight far too seriously. There isn�t a DJ set up at this bar, with the two turntables and the fader and all that high-tech nonsense. Instead they have one of those fold-open box turntables, not unlike the kind I had as a child, except mine was covered with Muppets.
Anyhoo, they�ve connected this turntable to a guitar amplifier. That�s the entire setup. You play one song, take the record off, try to hurry while putting the next record on, and then start it. He said this is why he primarily only plays the first songs from records.
But I�m so obsessive about music that I can�t bring myself to do that. There are certain songs that I have to play. To try and make up for this, I�ve spent the last couple of days playing the songs I wanted to play to make sure they don�t skip, and then wrote out post-it notes showing the track and side so I won�t have to fumble around in the dark.
Even though I know this is exactly what is going to happen.
Worse is that I don�t know how long they�re going to let me do my set for. I�m assuming five minutes, particularly after they find out exactly what I�ve chosen, but I think I�m carting enough music in my bag to play for 38 continuous hours. And why?
Because I�m a spaz. I just hope this bag doesn�t get stolen tonight.
Oh, shit � I nearly forgot � I just found out that the television program 48 Hours just did a segment on Mia Zapata. The A&E Network also just did a show on her. I missed both of these segments because I don't watch TV. So please, all you television watchers out there, if you hear of another one of these programs, could you let me know before it airs so I can actually see it?
