It is indeed spring and with sunny days, warming weather, and the return of the beautiful colors of nature comes the desire to delve into the stories of P.G. Wodehouse. There is no other author who I consider as quintessentially ‘spring’ as Wodehouse. His work makes you happy and makes your heart light. He is one of the few authors whom I have read who makes me laugh out loud. There is a biography of P.G. Wodehouse here. Its a quick but fascinating read and I recommend that you nip over there quickly before continuing.

Mistaken identities, reckless engagements, tyranical uncles, looney aunts, genius butlers, madcap adventures, outrageous plots, thwarted lovers, and a royal pig are just some of the many things one can find in the farcical tales of Wodehouse.

Wodehouse is the English comic writer. I first discovered Wodehouse through his most famous characters, Bertie Wooster and his man-servant Jeeves.

I happened to catch a few episodes on PBS years ago and rushed out immediately and began consuming Wodehouse. I bought this entire set for Mary for Christmas 2 years ago and it is wonderful. If you have a chance to watch these you will not be disappointed.

Second only to Jeeves and Wooster in popularity is his fictional world of Blandings Castle. A few years ago a wonderful company called Overlook Press began releasing hardback versions of Wodehouse’s work in a series called The Collector’s Wodehouse. I much prefer hardback books when I can get them and so I slowly began collecting volumes that I had not yet read, impatiently awaiting the day that my favorite Wodehouse book would be released: Something Fresh.

I had pre-ordered this months ago from Amazon.com and was so excited when it came in the mail today. I’ve been aching to read this book again! Its a great jumping on point if you’re new to Wodehouse as it is the first of the Blandings Castle novels. I would also recommend the Mulliner books. They are a series of tales told to patrons in a local pub by Mr. Mulliner concerning his relatives. The tales become quite tall in the telling and usually involve a series of mishaps with the said Mulliner coming out all right in the end. The first of this series is Meet Mr. Mulliner.

They are great short story books that are marvelously amusing and are another great introduction to Wodehouse. And of course you can never go wrong with a Jeeves/Wooster novel.

At this point I may not have convinced you, but believe me when I say that Wodehouse is a pure delight to read. A few of the multitude of characters who populate his novels are:

Bertie Wooster, Oofy Prosser, Barmy Fungy-Phipps, the honorable Frederick Threepwood, Gussie Fink-Nottle, Pongo Twistleton, Roderick Spode, Lord Emsworth, and The Empress of Blandings (a pig).

And here is a sampling of the many amusing quotes from Wodehouse novels:

“She looked as if she had been poured into her clothes and had forgotten to say ‘when.’ “

“Marriage isn’t a process of prolonging the life of love, but of mummifying the corpse.”

“A melancholy-looking man, he had the appearance of someone who had searched for the leak in life’s gas pipe with a lighted candle.”

“There is only one cure for grey hair. It was invented by a Frenchman. It is called the guillotine.”

“As for Gussie Finknottle, many an experienced undertaker would have been deceived by his appearance and started embalming on sight.”

and

“She gave me the sort of look she would have given a leper she wasn’t fond of.”

In his 93 years of life Sir P.G. Wodehouse was quite prolific. He wrote more than 70 novels, wrote in excess of 300 short stories, contributed at least 800 pieces to about 80 journals and, by writing more than 200 lyrics for musical comedies, is acknowledged to be one of the founders of the modern stage-musical. (Man I feel like a slacker!!!!)

Wodehouse is English comedy at its absolute finest. Your local library and bookstore are filled with Wodehouse delights, partake of some today!

According to tnl.net today, April 11th, marks the date in 1814 when former French leader Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled to the island of Elba.

Its been a long time since I’ve taken a history class but I’ve always found Napoleon to be a fascinating, legendary character in world history. Being so far removed from that time period as well as that region of the world I’m not sure what my feelings are towards the man of whom Thomas Campbell once said, “He is the sworn foe of our nation, and, if you will, of the whole human race”. Most of this post will only be loosely associated with Napoleon Bonaparte but before I go on I wanted to point out a few great Napoleon sites. One is maintained by PBS and can be found here. The other is this site maintained by the Foundation Napoleon.

There are a couple of great movies which feature Napoleon and his exile. The first is The Emperor’s New Clothes:

Starring Ian Holm as the indomitable Napoleon Bonaparte, this movie chronicles the fictional last attempt of Napoleon to regain his throne and thus his empire. A double is found among the commoners and is trained to look and act like Napoleon. While the double remains in exile the real Napoleon steels away to Paris to retake his empire….the only problem is that the fake Napoleon will not give up his new found opulent lifestyle and shortly thereafter dies. With the news of the ‘death’ of Napoleon, the real Bonaparte must now decide how to proceed. In the meantime he meets the recent widow Nicole Truchaut and her son and begins to use his skills as a master strategist to revolutionize their daily lives.

This is a very sweet, romanitic movie. Ian Holm, per usual, is simply excellent as the gruff but good-hearted Napoleon and Iben Hjejle is wonderful in the role of Nicole Truchaut. The rest of the cast is terrific. I’ve seen this movie several times and highly recommend it.

The next is The Count of Monte Cristo.

Starring James Caviezel as Edmond Dantes/the Count, Guy Pearce as friend turned foe Fernand Mondego, and the lovely Dagmara Dominczyk as Mercedès Iguanada, this movie is the ultimate revenge fantasy. This movie begins with a chance encounter between Dantes and the exiled Emperor…an encounter that soon begins to unravel the fabric of our hero’s life. What ensues is a painfully long prison sentence, the germination of the seeds of revenge, and ultimately the opportunity for redemption. I love the colors and the lavish costumes in this movie, especially when Edmond becomes the Count. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the wonderful job done by Richard Harris in one of his final roles. I have yet to read the daunting novel by Alexandre Dumas so I don’t know how accurately the novel is portrayed. That being said I highly recommend this movie as well.

In my mind I cannot think of Napoleon without immediately thinking of Josephine.

The PBS site has a section dedicated to the courtship, romance, and ultimate demise of Napoleon and Josephine. It includes excerpts from letters passed between the couple which are very interesting. Thinking of Josephine brings to mind Tori Amos.

On her CD, To Venus and Back, Tori sings a hauntingly beautiful song entitled Josephine, one of my favorites on the album.

On her site you can go here to view the lyrics and you can click on load audio the hear a portion of Josephine.

and last, but not least, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to mention the wholly unrelated movie:

This directorial debut of Jared Hess, written by Hess and his wife, Jerusha, is funny, and sweet, and romantic, and touching, and just plain bizarre! The cast of relative unknowns does a great job in this film that is destined to become a cult classic. What I found most refreshing about this movie compared to other teen-movie fare is that the nerdy characters did not attempt to change their looks or personalities in order to become like the popular kids. They remained true to themselves throughout the film. I also liked the fact that the popular kids weren’t played by impossibly good-looking 20-somethings pretending to be teenagers, they were normal looking kids. And, although its a stretch, there was something Napoleon-like in the way that the title character took on the role of campaign manager for his friend Pedro Sanchez and laid out the strategy for Pedro’s bid for Class President.

This concludes your pop culture history lesson of the day!

Sorry its been so long since I’ve posted anything new. That overnight work-fest wore me out! This will be brief as I am heading to Nebraska to hook up my parents new Dell PC….hooray for them, they’re entering the 21st century!

I want to take a quick opportunity to welcome the newest member of our family:

My sister Abby and her husband Mike complete the adoption of Motley tomorrow. Welcome to the family little one, I hope your sibling (cat named Sunshine….name doesn’t match personality!) doesn’t eat you!

There are still conversations going on in several of the recent threads and a renewal of some conversations on this older post. Feel free to join in.

If you’re looking for something to do check out Snow Patrol‘s website. Their song Chocolate is one of my new favorites and the video is really interesting. You can see that video as well as the one for Run, another great song, on the site.

Have a great weekend everyone. I’ll be back to posting more regularly soon…..maybe now in fact!

This weekend was just a perfect Carl weekend…I feel so selfish about all the fun that I had. First I got to have a guys night out with great BBQ, Sin City, a visit with Jeff at A to Z Comics, and then (since Mary was at a women’s conference) a late night of computer time.

I woke up Saturday morning to hit Planet Comicon and later in the evening took a walk with my wife and introduced her to Jeff at A to Z Comics and then we spent a quiet evening together at home.

Sunday I got to take another pleasurable walk with my wife, then I headed over to Jimmy’s House…literally…so that we could GO EXTREME!!!

That’s right, I got to tag along with Alco Countertops to work on the latest house being reimagined by ABC’s Extreme Home Makeover team.

I’ll try to mostly share my own experience of this as Jimmy will be posting about this, hopefully with pics, at the Jimmy’s House site later today. It was a luscious 80 degrees when we loaded up the trucks and headed out to the house site. I arrived at James’ house around 2:30 and just returned from the makeover house at 9 a.m. this morning. Suffice it to say that I am plum tuckered out! 11 hours of total sleep in 3 weekend nights is not too much sleep! 🙂

The whole experience was very surreal. You know that you’re essentially working on a national hit television show for a day and yet it doesn’t really sink in. Although in 2 years of the show they have much of the work down to a science the reality is that not all science works well! 🙂 (James will share more about this). We were supposed to be able to start work at 6 p.m. I’m not sure what time it was when we finally got down to the house to start working but it was late. The house was cool, at least what was completed of it, yet it is not one of the bigger houses that they have done on the show. We were saddled with more work that we thought going into the job and a great deal of my night was spent moving the same boxes over and over again from location to location.

My brother-in-law Mike showed up to help about the time that my feet started to feel like they were being tortured by trained interrogators. 10 hours later they still feel horrible. Standing for hours on concrete, hard floors, and rock does not do wonders for the dogs!

I really felt like I was able to contribute. I got to help move MANY cabinets into the house and was able to help install a few of the kitchen cabinets. I also helped James’ dad Richard install cabinets in the hearth room. Mike and I put some of the finishing touches on those by putting the shelves in and Mike mentioned how cool it will be when the show airs to say that we put those shelves in!

Several times during the night I heard someone grumble about not seeing anyone famous. Around 7:30 in the morning I turned to him, pointed, and said, “there’s your somebody famous”. It was Michael Moloney coming to check out the house.

He said ‘hello’ and signed some t-shirts. My dogs were barking too loud for me to walk over and have him sign mine. I really wanted to see Constance Ramos:

as she is my personal favorite…alas, that was not meant to be. I did get a blue Extreme Home Makeover t-shirt out of the deal, however, as well as the honest satisfaction of not only doing some really satisfying labor but also knowing that I was giving of myself to help James and his dad as well as the family whose house we were working on. It was a true labor of love and sore feet aside it was a wonderful, wonderful day!!!

It is my understanding that the show airs May 15th with the How Did They Do That? follow-up on Monday the 16th. Make sure to watch as they had the camera on the crew several times. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll see some of our mugs on either one of the shows. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I feel so privileged to have been included. Thanks again for the invite, James…I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

To continue my comic-geek weekend I attended Kansas City’s own Planet Comicon. I moved to the Kansas City area in the fall of 1998 and every year Dame Fortune has conspired against me and thwarted my attempts to attend this convention. This year, however, Fate smiled upon me and I awoke to perfect weather and made my way to the Overland Park Convention Center to partake in all the comic convention goodness.

I was particularly excited about this year’s convention as Jeremy Bulloch, Boba Fett himself, was to be a guest. Boba Fett was a close second to Han Solo as my favorite Star Wars character growing up and I frequently was Boba Fett when we got together in the neighborhood to play Star Wars.

I had read that he was to be offering copies of his limited edition book Flying Solo: Tales of a Bounty Hunter.

The book is a biography interwoven with tales of Star Wars and the convention circuit. I’m a true book lover in that I not only love to read but limited edition books, especially slipcovered ones, get my literary blood churning. I determined that my one mission at Planet Comicon was to procure one of these at all costs. Upon arrival I made my way directly to the back of the convention area and got in a (thankfully) short line. Jeremy’s lovely wife Maureen was able to fly in from London with him to attend the convention and they were two of the most pleasurable convention guests that I’ve ever had the honor to meet. They were very kind and gracious with their time and Jeremy personalized my book for me. This version of the book is limited to 2000 copies worldwide and they were hand numbering them on the spot. Mine is #266 out of 2000! Yea for me! I didn’t have money set aside to get autographed pics of Jeremy Bulloch or Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) so after Maureen wrapped my book up as carefully as if it was a newborn babe I was off to do more of the convention rounds. (On a side note, I hope Mary and I age that gracefully!!!)

The next thing I did was make my way around to look at all the vendors booths. As I was walking I saw what I thought was a familiar face and lo and behold it was a guy from Starbase 21 in Tulsa, OK. I frequently shopped at Starbase when I lived in Tulsa and they sponsor a major Star Trek convention every year. He recognized me as well and it was fun to chat briefly with him. This was their first trip up to Planet Comicon and I hope they sell alot of merchandise this weekend. I usually don’t buy comics from vendors at conventions. Thanks to a good comic book guy (Jeff Smith) I usually already have everything I want. I tried to track down the first 2 issues of Mystique to complete the set I sent to Angela but the few they had were outrageously overpriced…sorry Angela! I was hoping to spy some cool action figure to add to my collection but didn’t find anything I just had to have. One vendor had some amazing holographic posters from Lord of the Rings…the Aragorn one would’ve been perfect to hang next to my sword…but not for $150!!!

After this I made my way to the Artist’s Alley, easily my favorite place at any convention. It is there that you meet the creators themselves. Some have already made a name for themselves and others are working their way up and you can always get great, inexpensive prints and comics. In addition it is inspiring to be able to chat with these individuals and watch them create comic artwork right before your eyes. Once I really started to get into comics I found that the self-published and small press stuff usually excites me more than the more well-known comic creators. I’m always looking to find that new, relatively unknown book that will turn out to be excellent and have me scrambling around the internet to find more stuff by that creator.

I picked up The Aviatrix and a fun little Princess Leia card by creator David Bryant:

I grabbed the latest Sketchbook A Fist Full of Dolls and a Faye Valentine print by artist Phil Moy who I’d met at the Wizard World convention in Chicago a few years ago. Phil Moy is best known for his work on the Powerpuff Girls comic book. Here is the sketchbook I bought and some examples of Phil’s work:

I picked up a copy of issue #0 of Julia Cruz: Evolution Cop and the Evolution Cop Sketchbook. This is a new book drawn by Rudy Garcia with art reminiscent of J. Scott Campbell.

I then stopped by to visit with Kelley Seda, a local Kansas City comic artist whose creation, Rare Creature, tells the creepy tale of a little girl named Amelia, alone in the big city. I heard about Kelley through this article last year and I was excited to go and say ‘hello’ and check out her work. Kelley was very pleasant and was taking time to draw sketches in people’s sketchbooks as well as answering questions and talking about her work. She currently does not have a website but you can check out some of her Rare Creature art at Slave Labor Graphics. I really look forward to reading this.

One of the last things I did before making my final rounds was to visit with local Kansas City artist Jennifer Janesko.

Jennifer is an amazingly talented artist who creates what could best be described as modern pin-up or glamour art. Some, but not all, of her work could be considered of an adult nature and while this is not the kind of art I would necessarily buy there is no denying her talent. Thankfully much of her artwork is stuff that I wouldn’t be afraid to show my mom so I picked up some postcards and had her autograph them.

She was a very sweet lady who seemed to genuinely enjoy talking with the fans. I was able to talk with her for awhile about the art scene in Kansas City which was very cool. She had several original paintings there and they were amazing. Looking at prints of someone’s work is one thing but looking at an actual original, with its layers of paint and brush lines is incredible. I really cannot fathom having the kind of talent to realistically render people. Its just amazing!

I made a few more rounds through the convention center before leaving. I took time to notice my fellow convention goers. Contrary to popular stereotypes, the majority of people attending looked like your normal, average human being. The high percentage of attractive women and men gave me hope that the comics medium is reaching out well past your stereotypical dork living in his mom’s basement. There were also a lot of parents who had brought their children which I thought was really cool. I saw a boy that I would guess was around 10 dressed in a homemade knight outfit with a helmut made out of cardboard and aluminum foil…it warmed my heart. I wish I had brought a camera as I would’ve asked to take his picture for the site. There were a few people whose fanatical devotion was obvious…and a few who desperately needed to introduce themselves to deodorant, but by and large there were no true freaks for me to write about.

I took my new prizes and hopped into my truck. Driving away I began to muse upon what I would write about and wrote most of the above paragraph in my head as I was pulling out of the parking lot. It was then that I looked in the rearview mirror and noticed the smallest of white pimples just under my nose which was not there when I entered the convention center. Though I hoped and prayed that this had just sprang up as I made my way through the parking lot I had to face the reality that I was the freak! I was the stereotypical pimple-faced thirtysomething male alone at a comic convention on a lovely Saturday morning. I couldn’t help it…I had to laugh and laugh….