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Happy Happy Hump Day
It’s the middle of an otherwise tedious week but I have some wonderful news to share with you.
Good News
Here’s a press release on my daughter’s impending graduation.
Emmeline Knowlan, host of Emme Knows on KUR, is graduating magna cum laude with a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Social Media Theory & Strategy. During her time at KU Emmeline took part in the KU Honors Program, and was given the opportunity to do research alongside the KUFDI in Preston, England. She also completed an internship with Women in Technology International (WITI). Emmeline was also involved with several extracurricular activities, including performing in Allies’ 2019 production of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, as well as taking part in Governor Wolf’s March 2020 press stop at KU. After graduation Emmeline will attend East Stroudsburg University where she will continue her education in their Communications Masters of Arts program. She will also continue hosting Emme Knows at their college radio station, WESS.
My son, Connor, will be graduating from Northampton Community College and will also be moving on to East Stroudsburg University to continue his studies in theater.
My daughter, Dorothy, will be graduating from homeschooling and will be moving on to cosmetological studies at Empire Beauty School.
My son, Allan, will be working on his Eagle Project (whenever the general quarantine ends) and will hopefully achieve Eagle Rank later this year.
Sweet little Rose has a veterinarian’s appointment this afternoon to see to her continued well-being. She’s a silly little bundle of energy with a lot of fun toys to play with. She’s getting used to the great outdoors little by little.
Birdies!
Beautiful Relaxing Music
Calm Piano Music & Guitar Music with Birds Singing
Nothing like some mellow piano music with nature sounds to put you in a tranquil state of mind. If you can’t get out and about, there’s some lovely scenery to enjoy in the video.
Darkness of Men’s Hearts
To send light into the darkness of men’s hearts – such is the duty of the artist. ~Robert Schumann
One of the appeals of superhero genre fiction is the ability to examine some of the darkest aspects of human nature in a slamtastic way. No matter how dark the Joker gets, he’s still a clown and Batman can still outwit and punch him in the face for his latest round of dastardly deeds.
I watched Code 8 yesterday where all of the people with super powers were marginalized. Essentially, if you had powers, you were a supervillain. It followed a theme originally set by the X-Men (mutants were generally marginalized and viewed suspiciously even in a world where superheroes were fairly common) and echoed by stories like The Incredibles (supers had once been popular but due to legal costs and property damage concerns, all superheroes were required to retire and take up “normal” lives).
It was essentially a heist story driven by the marginalization of people with super powers and the black market that was created by the presence of superbeings with nothing better to do. It’s got all of the plot twists, low-key super action and dystopian vibe to appeal to a world stuck at home.
I see the presence of this film and so many others in the super genre as a positive sign for my Sentinels series. I’m examining some of the effects that the presence of supers have on a world like ours. The team starts off small and fairly low-powered. I was never really a fan of the ultra-bombastic potentially world-ending storylines.
Having Batman or Spider-Man swing around the city stopping burglars and muggers was always more appealing than seeing the Fantastic Four trying to stop Galactus from devouring the Earth or the Justice League stopping Steppenwolf’s legion of parademons. Epic superhero stuff is fun, but it’s essentially too big to be interesting. Nobody believes in world-ending stakes because nobody believes you’ll actually end the world.
The storyline of Infinity War and Endgame handle this a little more artfully because only half of the world ends. The stakes are horrific and the loss is palpable. Fortunately, they have a way to fix it. That’s another appeal of super genre stories. Things usually have a way to get fixed. Even half the universe can come back from being disintegrated.
Uncle Ben and Ferro Lad will always be dead, but most things in the superworlds can be fixed one way or another. Sometimes, the fix is slightly jacked up (as in half of the universe having to catch up on being 5 years out of sync) and sometimes the fix is worse than the original problem. Either way, the writers understand that while a world-ending scenario is unbelievable a semi-world-ending scenario has a lot of potential to be interesting.
The impending alien threat in The Sentinels series will eventually rise to the level of semi-world-ending stakes, but the book I’m working on now simply examines the implications of a world with a couple of known superbeings and how they interact with their community. It follows five viewpoint characters through a concurrent series of events. One is an established superhero. One is a newly minted superhero. One is the son of an established superhero. One is a fan of the superheroes. One is an unwitting member of a centuries-old conspiracy.
Each character has his/her own perspective on the existence of superheroes in Empire City and their own reactions to the sequence of events that threaten to tear the world’s only superhero team apart. It’s only a matter of time before they find out if the Sentinels can save the city and themselves from the darkness of men’s hearts.
That’s it for the middle of this week. I’m pressing on and hoping for an end to the COVID19 drama sooner rather than later.