alphabet meme responses: part four
hannahrorlove asked me to ramble about
The smells of yeast, and of freshly-baked bread, are intrinsically comforting. They're sensual pleasures in a cozy sort of way, much like the smell and feel of laundry that's just come out of the dryer and is still warm. Freshly-baked bread, for me, conjures up rainy Saturday afternoons, and of packets of yeast being ripped open, and of the way the bread dough gives under your hands when you knead it. Of the sweetness of melting butter, and of the sharper taste of jam, the way the seeds crunch between your teeth when you bite down.
I like restaurants that have good bread. There was an Italian place over on Robertson that we used to go to sometimes for lunch, when we were still in the old office building. The food was good, but the best part was the bread, which was always fresh-baked and still warm from the oven; there were several different kinds, all different grains and flavored with different combinations of herbs. They served it with some kind of fancy oil that was more like a dipping sauce, not just the usual olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette combination, and people would practically wrestle each other to get to the bread first. They'd always have to refill our bread baskets at least once.
If I have bread at home, I usually get whole wheat, but sometimes I get a craving for cinnamon toast, and that calls for plain white bread. Toasted just so, a thin coating of butter, and then cinnamon sugar sprinkled across the top until the bread is dusted with it. I can make a meal out of that.
I don't know much about reptiles, truthfully. Snakes sort of wig me out if I think about them too long.
I've mostly only seen reptiles in the zoo, although once I found a lizard in the kitchen in my old apartment. It was tiny and green and clinging to the side of the laundry basket. After my initial surprise, I managed to get the lizard into a bowl, then took it outside and deposited him-or-her over the fence into the neighbor's garden, a state of affairs that I'm sure both I and the lizard were both much happier with.
Although I live closer to the mountains now, the most exciting wildlife I've ever found in this apartment has been, twice, a cricket. My response, though, was pretty similar to how I handled the lizard: I captured them, then took them outside and set them free in the rosebushes.
Superpowers strike me as something of a mixed blessing. It's not just the Peter Parker "with great power comes great responsibility" trip, although that's part of it; it's the identity question. At the heart of that, I think, is the question of who the real person is: the one who wears the mask, or the daylight person, the one who goes out and about with the civilians, and who everyone knows only as Diana Prince or Dee Tyler or Michael Holt, not as Wonder Woman or Phantom Lady or Mr. Terrific.
I think Quentin Tarantino summed it up best, in the speech about Superman Bill gives toward the end of Kill Bill:
Superman stands alone. Superman did not become Superman, Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he is Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red S is the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears, the glasses the business suit, that's the costume. That's the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent? He's weak, unsure of himself... he's a coward. Clark Kent is Superman's critique on the whole human race, sort of like Beatrix Kiddo and Mrs. Tommy Plumpton.
Then, of course, there are superheroes who have no intrinsic superpowers of their own, like Jack Knight and Batman. Those two raise a whole other set of issues, and the heart of why they do exists, I think, in how I just referred to them. The preceding sentence wouldn't have worked, or at least would have read very differently, had I concluded it with "...like Starman and Bruce Wayne." Jack Knight makes it clear, over and over again, throughout the course of his series, that he is first and foremost Jack Knight, that he may be doing the job of Starman (and providing Opal City with a Starman, something he recognizes that it needs), but that he himself is not Starman. This changes over time, as his attitude toward the role changes, but Jack never loses sight of who he is. Jack Knight is never subsumed by Starman; he doesn't even wear a costume. (Which is one of my favorite things about him.)
Batman, on the other hand...Batman is a whole other problem. Because who is Batman, really? More to the point, who is Bruce Wayne when he's not being Batman? Tarantino is right about Superman, in that he is Superman and that Clark Kent is the disguise, but at the same time, I think there is a level on which Superman is, truly, Clark Kent. Not the bit of Clark Kent that's the costume, that's the bumbling, unassuming reporter who he uses to deflect attention from himself, but the Clark Kent who was raised on a Kansas farm, who loves his adoptive parents and would do anything for them...that Clark is a real person, and he's part of who Superman is. He's not part of the mask.
But who is Bruce Wayne? Not Batman, not the playboy persona he puts on. Who is Bruce Wayne when you strip away both of those things?
There may be no real Bruce Wayne, at least none who exists independently of Batman. And, having no superpowers, he created himself through sheer force of will. That takes guts. So does being Starman when you're really Jack Knight, and when you don't even have the blind, burning belief in the righteousness of your mission to drive you forward the way Batman does. Jack isn't even really sure he has a mission; what he does have is a family that he loves, and a city. He rejects the former at first, but in the end he takes on the mantle and attempts to carry on his father's and brother's legacy the best way he can.
But he's still, always, Jack Knight. Batman is only Batman, and I think he abandoned Bruce Wayne long ago.
The smells of yeast, and of freshly-baked bread, are intrinsically comforting. They're sensual pleasures in a cozy sort of way, much like the smell and feel of laundry that's just come out of the dryer and is still warm. Freshly-baked bread, for me, conjures up rainy Saturday afternoons, and of packets of yeast being ripped open, and of the way the bread dough gives under your hands when you knead it. Of the sweetness of melting butter, and of the sharper taste of jam, the way the seeds crunch between your teeth when you bite down.
I like restaurants that have good bread. There was an Italian place over on Robertson that we used to go to sometimes for lunch, when we were still in the old office building. The food was good, but the best part was the bread, which was always fresh-baked and still warm from the oven; there were several different kinds, all different grains and flavored with different combinations of herbs. They served it with some kind of fancy oil that was more like a dipping sauce, not just the usual olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette combination, and people would practically wrestle each other to get to the bread first. They'd always have to refill our bread baskets at least once.
If I have bread at home, I usually get whole wheat, but sometimes I get a craving for cinnamon toast, and that calls for plain white bread. Toasted just so, a thin coating of butter, and then cinnamon sugar sprinkled across the top until the bread is dusted with it. I can make a meal out of that.
I don't know much about reptiles, truthfully. Snakes sort of wig me out if I think about them too long.
I've mostly only seen reptiles in the zoo, although once I found a lizard in the kitchen in my old apartment. It was tiny and green and clinging to the side of the laundry basket. After my initial surprise, I managed to get the lizard into a bowl, then took it outside and deposited him-or-her over the fence into the neighbor's garden, a state of affairs that I'm sure both I and the lizard were both much happier with.
Although I live closer to the mountains now, the most exciting wildlife I've ever found in this apartment has been, twice, a cricket. My response, though, was pretty similar to how I handled the lizard: I captured them, then took them outside and set them free in the rosebushes.
Superpowers strike me as something of a mixed blessing. It's not just the Peter Parker "with great power comes great responsibility" trip, although that's part of it; it's the identity question. At the heart of that, I think, is the question of who the real person is: the one who wears the mask, or the daylight person, the one who goes out and about with the civilians, and who everyone knows only as Diana Prince or Dee Tyler or Michael Holt, not as Wonder Woman or Phantom Lady or Mr. Terrific.
I think Quentin Tarantino summed it up best, in the speech about Superman Bill gives toward the end of Kill Bill:
Superman stands alone. Superman did not become Superman, Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he is Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red S is the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears, the glasses the business suit, that's the costume. That's the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent? He's weak, unsure of himself... he's a coward. Clark Kent is Superman's critique on the whole human race, sort of like Beatrix Kiddo and Mrs. Tommy Plumpton.
Then, of course, there are superheroes who have no intrinsic superpowers of their own, like Jack Knight and Batman. Those two raise a whole other set of issues, and the heart of why they do exists, I think, in how I just referred to them. The preceding sentence wouldn't have worked, or at least would have read very differently, had I concluded it with "...like Starman and Bruce Wayne." Jack Knight makes it clear, over and over again, throughout the course of his series, that he is first and foremost Jack Knight, that he may be doing the job of Starman (and providing Opal City with a Starman, something he recognizes that it needs), but that he himself is not Starman. This changes over time, as his attitude toward the role changes, but Jack never loses sight of who he is. Jack Knight is never subsumed by Starman; he doesn't even wear a costume. (Which is one of my favorite things about him.)
Batman, on the other hand...Batman is a whole other problem. Because who is Batman, really? More to the point, who is Bruce Wayne when he's not being Batman? Tarantino is right about Superman, in that he is Superman and that Clark Kent is the disguise, but at the same time, I think there is a level on which Superman is, truly, Clark Kent. Not the bit of Clark Kent that's the costume, that's the bumbling, unassuming reporter who he uses to deflect attention from himself, but the Clark Kent who was raised on a Kansas farm, who loves his adoptive parents and would do anything for them...that Clark is a real person, and he's part of who Superman is. He's not part of the mask.
But who is Bruce Wayne? Not Batman, not the playboy persona he puts on. Who is Bruce Wayne when you strip away both of those things?
There may be no real Bruce Wayne, at least none who exists independently of Batman. And, having no superpowers, he created himself through sheer force of will. That takes guts. So does being Starman when you're really Jack Knight, and when you don't even have the blind, burning belief in the righteousness of your mission to drive you forward the way Batman does. Jack isn't even really sure he has a mission; what he does have is a family that he loves, and a city. He rejects the former at first, but in the end he takes on the mantle and attempts to carry on his father's and brother's legacy the best way he can.
But he's still, always, Jack Knight. Batman is only Batman, and I think he abandoned Bruce Wayne long ago.