Spring

April is in my mistress’ face
And July in her eyes hath place
Within her bosom is September
But in her heart a cold December

– Thomas Morley

It’s such a beautiful day out! It’s bright and sunny and warm, and the sky is a deep blue. Outside getting lunch, I see people without jackets on. April is here. I love the sound of the word “april”; I think it’s the most beautiful-sounding of all the months.

April.

April.

April!

Back in college, the arrival of spring would make everyone on campus giddy. Any UVA alum can rhapsodize about a warm spring afternoon on the Lawn. On days like this I sometimes check out the RotundaCam to see if there are any students hanging out on the Lawn — lying out on blankets, or playing frisbee golf, or just relaxing. It makes me miss it.

I finished reading The Object of My Affection this morning, and wow — Hollywood really screwed around with things when they turned it into a movie. So much is different: characters missing, new characters added, characters completely changed, not to mention some major plot changes. But the movie and the book were both great, each in its own way, despite these differences.

But the whole time I was reading the book, I couldn’t get Jennifer Aniston out of my head. I tried, I really did, but I just couldn’t picture Nina as anyone but Jennifer Aniston.

Ah, well.

More Superhero Stuff

Oh my gosh… The Mad Doctor’s Custom Action Figures. I always wanted to do something like this. I love his Playmobil figures, particularly the Playmobil Joker and the Playmobil Batman and Superman. And I don’t know what this is, but I think it’s funny as hell, particularly the Village People near the bottom.

Crisis on Infinite Earths

I’ve wanted to post some links about this ever since I saw the trade paperback version for sale a few weeks ago. Here’s the Annotated Crisis on Infinite Earths — a very in-depth site — and here’s a shorter explanation for those of you who just don’t care as much as I do.

Crisis on Infinite Earths was pretty much the greatest comic book miniseries ever, and it came out around the time that I started collecting comics in 1985. It was done in honor of DC Comics’ 50th anniversary, and it was intended to restore order to the sprawling DC Multiverse; by the time the yearlong series was over, universes had disappeared and numerous heroes had died, including such well-loved characters as the Flash and Supergirl. DC Comics would never be the same. The series had an epic scope and contained some heart-rending moments; it also had terrific artwork by George Perez, including portrayals of what seemed like almost every superhero or villain who had appeared in a DC comic in the previous 50 years — including two Supermen, two Wonder Women, and so forth. (Here’s an early picture of the two Flashes — they started the whole problem years ago.)

I kicked the comic book habit a long time ago, but for a while there, I was so into them. (Only DC, though; no Marvel for me. Batman, Superman, even Booster Gold — I was a DC loyalist through and through, maybe because I grew up on “The Superfriends.”) My entire collection is still in the basement of my parents’ house, each comic in its own plastic bag with a piece of acid-free cardboard, and all organized in boxes by title and within that by issue number…