Once again I tried to sit down for a pleasant read. The last time I tried this was with a collection of Cordwainer Smith’s short science-fiction and, well, it wasn’t exactly pleasant. Enjoyable and stimulating yes, but it didn’t really relax me or set me at ease, which was what I was hoping for. Now, pleasant is definitely not what I’m usually looking for in a book. I usually prefer the challenging or weird over pleasant, but last week I was so sick and stressed out that it was definitely needed. My wife suggested I read, “my Superman book.” The Superman book being Elliot S! Maggin’s geek-famous Miracle Monday, published in 1981 and now out of print.

Maggin wrote for DC Comics in the late seventies and early eighties working primarily on Superman. In my opinion, he’s the author of the real Superman. Most writers before and after him have struggled with how to portray the Man of Steel realistically. He’s too strong, needing to be weakened or stripped of his powers for interests sake – hence, kryptonite – and no one is really sure why Superman doesn’t just take over the world or fly off some place where he can be left alone. Maggin solves the problem of the realistic treatment of Superman quite easily. He stops treating him realistically.

His solution is simple and profound: Superman is super-good. That settled he just tells better stories, setting Superman against the lore of his past and a hinted at future destiny, where the character can sit most comfortably, in the realm of myth. In fact, Maggin’s Superman stories are the only ones I’ve found where the idea of Superman as a modern mythological character, Superman as a fable for our times, doesn’t seem wholly contrived.

Maggin’s solution to the too powerful and fascist Superman, a creature of super-goodness and super-power, pretty much provides the framework for Miracle Monday. If you have an infinitely capable and good Superman there really is only one opponent worthy to face him: The Devil. I hope I’m not giving anything away here but Superman wins.

Miracle Monday is full of great stuff. I’ll leave you with five things:

1. The first chapter, Thanksgiving, is a perfect short story about Superman. I wish more people concerned about Superman would read it. You can read it, the whole book actually, at Superman Through the Ages. Oh, and if Plato can be concerned with children reading stories about Achilles or Odysseus you should be concerned with Superman.
2. Superman sees Kirlian auras. He can tell if someone is healthy, sick, innocent or guilty by the color of their aura.
3. The first time Superman gets sick. A young Clark Kent is a passenger on a bus that hits and kills a dog. The idea that he was somehow involved in the death of a living thing puts Superboy into a day long fever.
4. Lex Luthor proves the existence of the Soul and, by inference, the existence of God. What does he do with this information? Why, he uses it to escape from prison, of course.
5. Everyone has a demon, a particular obsession that prevents them from fulfilling their true purposes and potential; alcohol, stamp collecting, whatever. Superman’s demon is Clark Kent, the character he invents because he’s too afraid to relate to the world as he is. He even gives Clark a demon: videotaping funny commercials and showing them to his friends.

I’m back after my week-long unplanned vacation. There’s nothing quite like stress and sickness at the same time is there? I feel like I’ve been abducted by aliens or something.

I return with five days of somewhat related content: Cartoons, Super-Fantasy and Theology. Trust me it will all fit. Specifically, I will be talking about Superman writer Elliot S! Maggin and Batman scholar Rabbi Cary Friedman. I’ll also be posting three of my cartoons of characters from the Old Testament, part of an abandoned art project from last year.

A note about Rabbi Cary Friedman: He’s not only one of the coolest people on earth, he’s also one of the most generous. He mailed me two of his books, Wisdom from the Batcave and Spiritual Survival for Law Enforcement! Prepare for an embarrassing, gushing, public thank you: Thanks, Rabbi Friedman! Your email and the gift of the two books was really appreciated. Getting the two books in the mail last week made me feel like a kid at Christmas. Which is weird, a Rabbi reminding me of Christmas. Anyway, again, everyone, Rabbi Cary Friedman, super-cool, Batman, awesome.

The cartoon above, though it may not look like it, is titled “Adam, off to work.” Hopefully Adam’s begrudged trudging under a watching moon won’t be a bad omen for the blogging week.

My favorite blog, Claw of The Conciliator, is on hiatus. Silver lining: I get to troll the archives for hidden gems.

Here’s one: An awesome sci-fi snippet from a non-existent novel about a “Victorian gent who is flung into the far future to discover syncretist Rastafarians battling an extra-galatic threat.”

Read Break that stone.

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. I’ve been crazy-busy at work and I have the flu. I should be back to my regular schedule on Monday.

I’ve been super busy this week. It’s the busy time of year at work – I had a thirteen hour day this week – plus the usual hectic schedule. As a result, I’ve read next to nothing. Not nothing exactly, mind you. But not as much as I wish I could have read. Reminds me of what I once chose to not read ever.

When I was sixteen I decided never to read anything that wasn’t written in the twentieth century. I couldn’t see the point of it. Someone was, clearly, going to have to be reading those works. But not me. If I needed to understand something written before “my time” I would look to those readers and the new works they had produced to summarize things for me. Just like with a foreign language. Most people don’t pick up Italian to read the latest, Eco, right? That was the thing really. A book written before “my time” felt like it was written in another language. I needed a translator.

This radical reading plan came about after I failed to make it through Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. I didn’t understand why I should bother with a boring murder-mystery that had no mystery. A couple of years later I tried to break my plan with, of all things, Moby Dick. The plan held fast, however, and I was soon back reading books like Since Then and Man in Black.

Funnily enough, Dostoevsky is now one of my favorite authors. I took up The Brothers Karamazov like it was The Gospel after I read it. I went around telling everyone who would listen that it was the only work of fiction worth reading. And I’ll soon be making a second attempt at the great white whale. I guess that sixteen year old me is no longer of “my time.”

I’ve been thinking about musical covers lately. Since Imani’s comment in an earlier post. A cover is when a band takes an older, usually popular, sometimes obscure, song and records it for themselves, adding their own personal touch. For some reason this seems to be happening in the world of fiction. A few examples, recent and not-so-recent:

The 1992 sequel to Gone with the Wind, Scarlett “word-processed” (in the words of J.O. Tate) by Alexandra Ripley.

Peter Pan in Scarlett by Geraldine McCaughrean. No, not that Scarlett. He grew up, yes, but not that much.

And the apocalyptic tale of Huck’s pop, Finn by Jon Clinch. I actually want to read this one. I suppose I should actually read Huck Finn first, though.

Two sequels and a prequel. But all essentially reinterpretations of an original work, playing off them. Now, I’ve never read these books. And, realistically, I probably never will. But if you’re planning on reading any of these or any similar project I’ll offer up my two cents on what makes a good cover.

There’s really only two paths one can take here:

1. Make the song better. Or
2. Make the song different to great effect. Be it humorous, serious, sexy, dangerous or whatever.

In the first category The Wailin’ Jennys are a fine example. The addition of killer three person harmonies to Neil Young’s original Old Man is a big improvement. The crossing of gender adds something too. I’ll always prefer the original but I’ll still turn up the Jennys when they come on the radio. Like most good covers it makes me want to hear the original again. I suppose when trying to judge a fictional cover you may want to look for something similar. A feeling of meaningful dialogue between the two works would be a good sign.

In the second category I’ll suggest my favorite cover of any song ever: Jimmy Hendrix’s version of Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower. How can I explain the brilliance of this interpretation? Jimmy Hendrix’s cover is to Dylan’s original as the moonshot is to Dedalus’ wings. Reviews seem to suggest Jon Clinch is trying to make his home in this category. Whether he succeeds or not is another matter. Sometimes you have to pick the right song to cover. Starting out your career with an old standard isn’t always the best idea.

For your amusement:

Jimi Hendrix rocking socks off vs. Dylan frightening them off

The Quest of the Historical Jesus by Albert Schweitzer
An attempt, well, the attempt, to catalogue and lay to rest rationalism’s attempts at discovering, uncovering, or recovering the historical Jesus. That is, the real Jesus of history. The one that sort of hides between the lines of the texts. Schweitzer might actually say its more like an attempt at laying to rest rationalism’s attempt at autobiography. You see, the Jesus produced by most of these efforts was a lot like the kind of spiritual leader a nineteenth century rationalist would like to see. So far so good.

The New Testament
A little known codex collecting the manuscripts of an atheistic first century mystery cult. Very controversial. I can understand if you’re not familiar with it. It’s not like you can just buy it in any old bookstore.

Education for Ministry: Year Two edited by Patricia Bays
An extended commentary on the aforementioned codex.

The Book of Virtues edited by W.J. Bennett and The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
I could probably get rid of every book in my house and get by on just these two books for a good long while.

So, a book about Jesus, or at least who Jesus isn’t, the Bible, a textbook about the Bible, a book of virtues and a kid’s book where every page has a new moral struggle. You can see why I need some help picking out my entertainments.

I really am terrifically amusing. Really. I promise.

The Tangram is an old Chinese puzzle game where one makes simple images out of very simple geometrical shapes. It’s an old, old game. The idea of putting books on shelves, one of my many worries, is not only older, of course, but also a puzzle. As in, where am I going to put all those books?

Why not put the two together?

More at Lago. I’m really not even cool enough to link there.

I’m getting quite excited about reading Gene Wolfe’s sci-fi fantasy magnum opus The Book of the New Sun. It’s a constant temptation to drop-kick the stack of books in my office, take a long weekend and just blow through them.

It’s the constant praise for them that gets me. I’ve been telling my wife it looks like Wolfe’s Book all of a sudden crept up on the best-of lists, right up to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, and it seems to me, that it could easily supplant Frodo and Sam’s big adventure in the next few years. If it weren’t for the fact that people don’t seem ready to let go of their old favorite.

I wish they would actually. It doesn’t even have to be for Wolfe’s Book either. The whole Lord of the Rings best-of thing reminds me of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. It seemed to me that Sgt. Pepper’s was the consistently boring number one on best-of albums lists all throughout the 80s and 90s. Things really needed to change. Now we have OK Computers and Revolvers and Pet Sounds taking the top spots, opening up new trails for those looking to explore the best twentieth century electronic folk music. Very Good.

Here’s hoping that Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun will be that good, better than Tolkien good. Or, at least, good enough to meet my ridiculously high expectations of it.

And if you don’t know who Gene Wolfe is you should. Everybody loves Gene Wolfe.

“Is this for real?” That’s the first thing I said after staring in dumbfounded silence at my computer monitor for a full 30 seconds. Turn your speakers up for Dylan Hears a Who.

via Petrona.