#michael chabon

Barda was up to the fight—any fight and then some. The world of fire that she was born into and the way she was raised had obliged her to learn to be strong, vigilant, resourceful, and submissive to no one. But her intelligence told her that conflict is a waste, of life and time and energy, and she regretted it. She had her own narrative—a history of sorrow, hardship, and achievement—and though it constituted only one part of the larger mythology of Kirby’s epic; it was her part; she had earned it. She saw the wrongness, the wickedness, the unreasoning cruelty of the world, and though had been trained to withstand it, her heart rebelled. Mighty, she used her strength and risked her freedom to help the weak. In time she would mutiny against the might-makes-right strictures of her home and attempt to form a partnership of pyhsical and intellectual equals—with Mister Miracle, her paramour, the love her life. In his company in rare moments of quiet, she doffed her armor, laid down her Mega-Rod, and made him a gift—both of them knowing full well its value—of her vulnerability, her sorrow, the pain of her childhood and youth. She was a Valkyrie with a brain and an aching heart.

This is Chabon on Big Barda.

Sometimes I see red when I read Chabon. Like—why even bother? I reread, but it does no good. Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop trying so hard to be like someone other than yourself. It’s like he knows and is dangling that carrot in front of me, a mile down the road knowing I’ll never close the gap because I have flat feet and running is hard for me.

Seriously: get over it and strive for it as a goal, keep being you, continue to give yourself the platitudes of cliché AA motivational posters. Strive for the best version of you, rather than you as Michael Chabon. Why can’t I get over this? Because I think about it too much.

Like every essay book there are selections that are good and some selections that are dull. The LEGO one comes to mind. This book is a book by a nerd becoming a Capital M-Man, father, husband, brother and I liked it for those reasons. There are some particular selections that got me thinking about my relationship; Chabon helped by enhancing the overwhelming awe I have for the amazing woman I’m seeing. She’s so sure, confident, worldly, and—unlike me—has it together. Like Nick from New Girl said: “I am not a complete adult!” She is. She helps me get over myself, peeling away my frantic neuroses like we’re repainting a room, driving away my lack of confidence, and finally getting me to be okay with whatever it is I’m doing. She’s leveling me out, together we’re building some amorphous thing that embodies both of our lives, and I’ve never been this okay with change in my life.

“I Feel Good About My Murse” is what did this for me. In it, Chabon reflects on getting a man purse, something I’m guilty of, but totally okay with.

“There is nothing brave or courageous or remotely Robinson-esque about my contemplating the carrying of a purse, any more than there is in my taste for pink shirts, though I was once informed by a mother of my acquaintance, half disapprovingly, that wearing a pink shirt was a brave thing for a man to do. It’s simply the case that as I get older, I seem everyday to give a little bit less of a fuck what people think or say about me. This is not the result of my undertaking to exercise a moral program or of increased wisdom or of any kind of willed act on my part. It just seems to be a process, a time-directed shedding, like the loss of hair or illusions.”

What I realized when reading this, thinking about my neuroses in my new relationship, is that I just need to let go of my little obsessive qualities, rather than trying to be as good as someone, because there is someone spending her weekends with me and she likes me for being me rather than who I’d like to be.

There’s another passage where Chabon and his wife are looking at a painting of a sailboat crashing through rough seas. He makes the analogy that the boat is their relationship—he’s waffling between wondering who is the rudder and who is the sail or the body of the ship. It hardly matters, because you’re navigating the rough seas together and because we’re suited to each other we can get through it—just by being ourselves. 

mattfractionblog:

michael chabon and i talk comics, books, writing, and our mutually embarrassing mutual fanclub. all that and the casanova joke i’m trying to make a reality. actually i dunno if it got edited out or not. listen and find out!

(sunday at 6 GMT)

Gah, more required reading/listening with Chabon and Fraction. These two occupy spots in my top five favorite writers today. 

Michael Chabon and Junot Díaz talk genre fiction. Some of my favorite bits here: 

I argue that genre fiction seems to be enjoying an acceptance that didn’t exist a decade ago. Writers like Lev Grossman, Jonathan Lethem, Colson Whitehead, Heidi Julavits, Justin Cronin, Tom Perrotta are all blurring the line. Chabon disagrees.

“You think it’s changing?” Chabon asks Díaz.

“I don’t think it’s changed at all, I think it’s worse,” Díaz says, before turning to me. “Name to me a genre writer who’s won a Guggenheim,” he says. “Name to me a genre writer who’s won a National Book Award.”

“Well, they gave that lifetime [award] to Stephen King, and that caused this huge fuss,” Chabon says.

“We seem to think that things are changing because the people with privilege dabble across the board,” says Díaz, growing more animated. “I’ve noticed that genre fiction writers are more isolated than they’ve ever been. I think that they’re less likely to win any prizes. Listen, we’ll talk about Justin Cronin all day, and I could trot out 12 other novelists who’ve been writing zombie novels, but because they’re genre writers, they’re not going to get a f–king profile inThe New York Times.

“We’re willing to talk about how one side is benefitting, how one side is taking these experiments, but this other side has been doing this for so long, and nobody wants to give them any love,” he continues. “I’m sorry, I don’t give a f–k what the f–k my side of the equation is doing. … It doesn’t stop us from getting MacArthurs. I want somebody who’s writing theFantastic Four to get a MacArthur, get a Guggenheim.”

This is Michael Chabon’s X-MEN movie treatment from 1996, found by Sean Howe, because he knows how to find all the good stuff.

I love these, especially the Wonder Boys design, which is what introduced me to Chabon. I have most of these books, but would totally buy new editions for these designs, via nocontxt: Michael Chabon

(via bigredrobot)

Chabon’s Kavalier and Clay and Vaughan’s re-imagining of the Escapist is literally how The Worst Writer Ever began. I love this book and how it ties literature into comics and how the two can work together. Both of these works are so important to pretty much everything I’m working on now. 

Yes, I’m totally the sort of person who will keep WONDER BOYS on the DVR for weeks at a time. Upon realizing this, someone has ganked my dvd copy of the movie.  I should hunt down and slaughter this person.