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Happy APA Heritage Month 2019! (or AAPI or APIA, for that matter).

NBC News’ NBC Asian America section has a couple of interesting features on May 1, 2019:

“An Asian Pacific American Heritage Month reading list: Nonfiction” by Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, with a deep list of recent non-fiction books or other writings by and about APAs.

And “An Asian Pacific American Heritage Month reading list: Fiction” by Lakshmi Gandhi, with a deep list of recent fiction books, graphic novels, or other writings by and about APAs.

Obviously, my too-long, perpetual never-ending to-read list will continue to grow… — ssw15

(cross-posted at sswslitinmotion.tumblr.com)

“By giving us superheroes that proved all too human, [Stan] Lee has assured himself a permanent place in pop culture.” — Beth Accomando, NPR, Obituary of Stan Lee.

The news of Stan Lee’s passing was released, and there are a lot of thoughts and observations coming.

I wasn’t much of a Marvel reader, but I’d remember the days when I’d pore through my cousins’ copies of Marvels and DC Comics, and I watch all these cartoons…

And, yeah, Superfriends were more my thing back in the day, but I had watched Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends before it occurred to me that X-Men were a thing.

And, 1990s animation were never the same once the X-Men series came on.

Oh, and all the MCU movies! I’m not sure what true believers would have done without Stan Lee.

NPR’s Glenn Weldon was eloquent in his observations of Stan Lee:

Stan Lee’s origin story lacks the cataclysmic, life-altering trauma suffered by the many heroic characters he co-created. But it is just as relatable, as it is marked by the kind of dashed hopes and frustrated dreams so many of us experience. The son of a dress cutter, [Lee nee] Lieber dreamed of becoming a novelist — but he had taken a job as an office boy at Timely Comics, which was owned by his cousin’s husband. By age 18, he had been hired as an editor. And that was, essentially, that: The work was demanding, yet he clung to the notion that he would one day find the time to become Stanley Lieber, Great American Novelist, author of high-minded short stories, novels, essays, plays. To keep that possibility alive, he determined to churn out his comics work under the name Stan Lee.

Those novels? They never happened. Stanley Lieber never found the time to write them, because Stan Lee became too busy. The characters and stories he created instead — with a lot of help from artists and co-plotters like Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby and others — have infiltrated the cultural ether, the very semiotic air all of us breathe. Around the planet, they are not merely recognized, they are embraced, imitated, argued over. Especially that last thing.

It’d be facile and fawning to call Stan Lee a superhero (a word best read in Lee’s punchy Brooklynese: “SOO-puh-HEE-row!”). There’s that mild, quiet-desperation origin story, for one thing. Plus he was a far more complicated character than even his most nuanced superhero creations. But you can’t say the guy didn’t come with a distinctive look, and a set of skills and abilities that set him apart.

So if not a superhero, then certainly something akin to one.[….]

Lee’s history with sharing credit was a spotty one. He would overstate; then, when challenged (often by [Jack] Kirby), he would show contrition and correct the record. Yet his public reputation — cemented by his frequent Marvel-movie cameo appearances — is that of a man who single-handedly created a comic book universe.

He didn’t. But having helped birth it, he assumed a role his co-creators shied away from. He became its tireless salesman, its cheerleader, its pusher, its benevolent god-king.

We probably won’t be getting more Stan Lee cameos after next year, and that’s terribly sad for those of us True Believers for whom the mere sight of the guy could trigger a wistful smile. It was complicated, that smile — it’s an upwelling of fondness for the man himself, and for the kids we were, back when we’d be reading one of his Bullpen Bulletins and hear his voice — that performatively goofy, hipster-swinger Noo Yawk voice — inviting us into a world that he helped create, but that belonged to us. [….]

Read all of that Weldon essay. It’s good stuff worth reading.

Stan Lee had quite a legacy, and even if it was complicated (like, what isn’t complicated?), it had quite an impact. Thanks for starting it all, or being there when it started, Stan Lee!

[cross-posted at sswslitinmotion.tumblr.com]

I hope that we take a moment to reflect on this Veterans Day. Let’s do more than just say thanks to veterans; may we be able to better understand and help each other.

C-Span aired the World War I Armistice Centennial Commemoration (and will air it again for primetime).

I embedded above Yo-Yo Ma’s performance (h/t WQXR‘s Facebook page post link on November 11, 2018).

On this day of reflection, it’s a relief that we remember the arts that move us.

The Atlantic shared “How the Great War Shaped the World,” by Jay Winter, an article from 2014, to commemorate the impact of World War I (2014 having been the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I).

(h/t The Atlantic‘s Facebook page post link on November 11, 2018).

See here for The Atlantic’s photo gallery for the prep for the centennial of the Armistice, and here for The Atlantic’s photo gallery of the haunting and haunted battlefields of World War I.

See here from the NY Times about the commemoration.  See here for a very expansive look at “A 100-Year Legacy of World War I,” over at the NY Times, from 2014.

On the 100th anniversary of armistice of World War I: at “the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month”: may we one day ever have a world without wars.

It’d be nice to hope that we learned and will learn the lessons of the war that created the modern world as we know it.

(cross-posted at sswslitinmotion.tumblr.com)

After a dramatic week of turmoil with the US Supreme Court confirmation hearings (coverage of which you  may find elsewhere), I was really looking for solace.

September 29, 2018, was something for being David Wright Day, on the penultimate game of the year for the NY Mets, playing against the Miami Marlins.

I had mixed feelings because we had started the season with such positive energy – all to watch everything go to blech, and meanwhile, David Wright, the captain of the team, kept trying to come back.

“Fourteen years and over 1,500 games later, Wright is wrapping up a career that has been both brilliant and heartbreaking.” – Kristie Ackert, NY Daily News.

I was reading the above line in the dead tree edition of the Daily News and all I could think was: yeah, David Wright sums up the Mets’ years of roller coaster rides – “brilliant and heartbreaking” indeed.

More heartbreak than not (I was reminded of the recent video clips of the say goodbye to Shea), but I do appreciate happy times.

As the Associated Press report notes, Wright got a nice ovation.

It was a celebration, not merely a farewell, but I hadn’t felt that sad in so long when watching a Mets game (that is, unrelated to seeing the score). All of it was such a bittersweet TV moment.

(I watched the game on TV; I’ve managed not to go to Citfield for awhile now).

And, thankfully, after such a long game (zero to zero for so many innings, even extra innings), what a relief that the NY Mets won on David Wright Day after all (in typical, extra-innings, too many men left on base, and oh well, fashion).

Thanks for all you’ve done as a Met, David Wright. Tip of the baseball cap back right at you.

Speaking of what feels like observing changes in eras: I had been somewhere earlier on Saturday, September 29, 2018, and I heard “Free Fallin’” in the store background music.

I then remembered: oh, wait, Tom Petty’s not around.

By coincidence, I then saw from NPR that there’s going to be a posthumous release of Petty’s music from Petty’s vault.

It’s weird to realize that we’re in a world without anymore Prince or Tom Petty (see here for FC’s post from last October, and here for mine from when Petty passed last year) – and even, as of this year, Aretha Franklin.

I remain not hip to music, but still: these were performing artists who were the soundtracks of our lives.

See here over at Vulture for an interesting interview with the archivist tasked to archive and sort Prince’s vault and, unsurprisingly,  NPR covered a posthumous release of a Prince recording.

Between Petty and Prince, it’d be curious to know what is in their respective vaults…

The Star Trek folks posted a link on their official Facebook page that it’s the anniversary of a classic ST: The Next Generation episode, 27 years ago on September 30, 1991: “Darmok.”

I liked that the linked article over that the Star Trek official site, by Mark Newbold, covered how “Darmok” was made, what happened during the episode, and the significance of it on trivial and deeper levels.

I was a kid back when I first watched the episode, and I hardly understood what was going on in that episode.

But, I recognized that it was the great character actor Paul Winfield under the alien makeup, and that something very interesting was happening with how Picard, as played by Patrick Stewart, was trying to find a non-violent way to interact with another species.

As I got older and re-watched the episode, the episode became more powerful because I had a better understanding of what was happening and realizing the metaphors involved.

“Darmok” is an episode worth watching more than once, to really appreciate how shared stories – and overcoming language barriers with finding something in common, like stories – may bridge gaps.

That lesson is probably still an important thing to think about in today’s world. I’d make this episode a required viewing for leadership and negotiations courses, in addition to linguistics and literature (but that may be just me).

Plus, Patrick Stewart matched up so well with a great actor like Paul Winfield, whose charisma, warmth, and tragic aura shone brightly.

(Spoiler/not-spoiler after so many years – hmmm… kind of weird to realize that Winfield played two characters in the Star Trek world universe who died terribly sadly).

To a much lesser extent: as Newbold pointed out in the linked article, the episode of “Darmok” was the first appearance of Ashley Judd as Ensign Robin Lefler  (a character who had her moments in TNG, and in Star Trek books), and the first appearance of the Picard jacket.

The Picard jacket usually signaled Action Hero Picard – but was just as much about the active mind in Picard, because he had to be a hell of a lot clever than usual to get out of sticky situations, and that seemed to occur a lot when Picard wore that jacket.

I wouldn’t have realized either points about Ensign Lefler and the Picard Jacket until Newbold noted that, and I had to nod over how much fun that was to realize that.

We’re living in weird times. Find fun where and when you can…