Brr!

This morning I had to dig my wool winter coat out of storage and put it on. It’s chilly out! It really feels like autumn out there! As they said on the news, it’s A Taste of Fall! Brr!

This is all due to the recrudescent Polar Vortex, which has again come screaming down from the north. This is otherwise known as the jet stream dipping down a little farther than normal for summer. But that’s not fun or catchy. I don’t know about you but I like my weather report with as much melodrama as possible!

I might have to turn the heat on later! I’m really wondering how cold it’s going to get. Last winter during the Polar Vortex, it got down darn near zero but I’m hoping this July cold snap is a little more merciful. It really does feel like fall this morning! I look at the forecast for the week, with highs only in the 80s, and it really does remind me of those brisk November days!

Anyway, fall! This weather makes me want to make my special ginger snap casserole, dump a piping hot pumpkin latte over my head, and then douse myself with Calvin Klein Burning Leaves cologne!

I’m also taking this opportunity to make broad conclusions about the state of our climate. How can I trust the reports of climate change when we’ve had a few brisk mornings? So I’m extrapolating that to the entire planet. I don’t know much about science but I sure know what I see outside my window!  

Midnight Thunderstorm

The clock says it’s midnight so you did get a few hours of sleep after going to bed early. Still, it’s annoying that the lightning awakens you. You’ve never been one to sleep through thunderstorms or anything else, really. Some people say the rain makes it easier to sleep but it just keeps you up.

Earlier you thought it would rain because it got cloudier and darker well ahead of the sunset. The clouds were building to the north and west with big gray ripples within them, the sign of some great cold front arching its back over the region. The front moved in slowly and that means it would move out slowly, with the storm drawing out its thunder as long as possible. At bedtime, there were only a few flashes of lightning in the sky, vague enough to be mistaken for car headlights turning on the street outside, too far away for thunder to trouble itself.

Just about midnight and you wonder why if you awaken at night at all, it is always just about on the hour. Is it because bedtime is so regimented on these work nights? For years you have wondered when you awaken for the storm, is it because your body somehow senses the disturbance moving eastward or did some peal of thunder shock you awake?

At first the lightning is just a few weak flashes and you’re groggy enough that you can roll over and go back to sleep. Dreams and lightning merge so the lightning is in your dreams and you feel like you’re dreaming as the flash cubes of light awaken you. The dream at first seems alarming. A moment after awakening it just seems stupid. A moment after that and it’s forgotten altogether.

The rain starts dripping a warning and then all at once bangs down on the awning with all its force. You’re just about awake now. You figure you might as well check out the light show but in the rainy midnight haze you can’t see the individual bolts and it’s just an uninteresting sheet of white. You could get some writing done but what seems brilliant when you’re half-asleep would just seem laughable in the daytime.

You’re just about awake and the day’s troubles begin to trouble you. Bills, chores, deadlines, real estate and the vague maw of the future open up and throw a baby’s tantrum at you with the thunder some clichéd soundtrack for dread.

Why does the thunder have a specific sound? Tonight it sounds like a plastic recycling can banging on a metal trashcan a few driveways over. Maybe the air quality and distance affect the sound. The lightning is constant now, piercing your eyelids. It’s been a half hour and though you love thunderstorms, you wish it would pick a more convenient hour when you could enjoy it.

Somehow you sleep again. Just after 2 a.m., you awake again, amazed that there is still some remnant of lightning flashing in the eastern sky. You wonder when the storm will get to the ocean.

A few hours later, the sound of the shower awakens you earlier than normal. On the one morning when you could have slept a little later, you have to be up early for a dentist appointment. It’s Monday.

Dumbphone Hell

Having to use a 10-year-old cell phone is hell. Absolute hell. M*A*S*H war-is-hell hell. Devils-with-pitchforks-tossing-you-lovingly-to-and-fro hell. This is the lesson learned by a writer for Gizmodo who decided to (WHY WOULD SHE DO THAT) torture herself by using the abacus-esque Motorola Razr phone for a month. In 2014.

I can feel her pain, although mine will not dissipate after a mere month. Mine burns forever. I don’t have a smartphone. A few years ago, when my (HUMILIATING) 2005 flip phone died, I went to the AT&T store and asked them to sell me the cheapest phone they had. It’s just … a phone. I’m not sure what it’s called but it’s black and says “AT&T” on it and has buttons with numbers on them and an on/off switch.

Why don’t I own a smartphone? I’m not a Luddite; I just don’t care. I don’t see a reason to spend money I don’t have on something I don’t need. True, there are times I wish I could have apps and experience what other people experience, but I don’t feel like I’m missing too much in the long run. I may not always be in reach of my email or Facebook (you probably don’t want me to have to that since there would be more complaining blogs) but you can still text or call me. But don’t call me because it’s the worst thing in the world to have to call someone and checking my messages is a very onerous process that I can’t bring myself to do.

Still, I have some survival tips for this Gizmodo writer as she tries to navigate Dante’s lowest circle with technology that even the Neanderthals snicker at.

This woman found out that without the help of map apps, she can’t navigate that well. She could just go to a laptop and get directions and print them but uuuuugggghhhhh. Here’s what I do: I just find directions online and print them and take them with me. I partially memorize them so I have a good idea of where I’m going and don’t have to take my eyes off the road much to check them. But she doesn’t have a printer so now what? Here’s another hint: You can actually take the onscreen directions and copy them onto paper using a pen. Paper and pen? Who am I, Woodrow Wilson? Fewer people write things by hand nowadays but writing supplies are still cheap and readily available at Staples, CVS, Walgreen’s, Rite Aid, Office Max, Target, Wal-Mart, Acme, Pathmark, Duane Reade, Office Depot, Wawa, 7-Eleven, FedEx/Kinko’s, Giant, Hallmark, Shoprite, regional drug stores and supermarkets or various mom and pop stationery stores or you can write on the back of some junk mail and get some pens from your workplace for free. So that’s an option.

Navigation is only the beginning of your problems when you don’t have a smartphone. But it’s not all gloom and doom. It’s a grueling challenge but if you really buckle down like I did, you can find a way to live. It may not be the most glamorous or convenient existence but you’ll still be living. And in this workaday world, that’s something.

Sent from my ENIAC

Hey, didn't Nick Fury used to be white?

He sure did. The director of SHIELD didn’t always bear a striking resemblance to Samuel L. Jackson. For about 40 years, Col. Nick Fury was a white guy.

The story I got was that in the early ‘00s, the Ultimate Marvel line, set in an alternate universe, introduced Nick Fury depicted as looking very much like the actor. When the time came around to cast the Marvel movies, they figured, “What the hell. Let’s just cast Samuel L. Jackson.” So you see an African-American Fury in the movies and he’s been very good at the part, because he’s usually good in whatever he’s in.

This confused me because I hadn’t picked up a comic in awhile and once I did I thought, “Why is Nick Fury black?” It seemed odd that someone who had been around since the Silver Age would be a different race. I thought it was the same person but it turns out the new Fury is the long-lost son of the original.

I don’t know if there’s been any backlash but now that my confusion has been cleared up, I’m fine with this. If anything about the change bothers me, it’s the fact that father and son both have eye injuries that force them to wear an eyepatch. Come on.

I support any attempt at increasing diversity in comics. Kids read comics because they like to imagine themselves in costumes and capes, flying around and saving the day. It was easy for me to do that because most of the heroes looked like me. I wonder if it was harder for a kid of a different race to find a role model, especially in the early days of comics, when every hero was a white male. For years, even the African or African-American heroes had the word “black” in their code names. This made sense for someone like the Black Panther, with a black costume, but it was gratuitous and patronizing for people like Black Lightning or Black Goliath. What was it about that lightning that was black?

Marvel is also making its characters more diverse by introducing a new African-American Captain America. Sam Wilson, who appeared in The Winter Soldier as the Falcon, is taking over for Steve Rogers in the comics. I’m fine with this. The Falcon has a 40-year-plus history of heroism and if it’s anyone’s turn to take over for the Star-Spangled Avenger, it’s him.

Speaking of African-American characters, if the comics and movies really want to highlight them, they need to do more with Storm. Ororo Munroe is one of my very favorite characters. She’s been a fascinating, fully-drawn powerhouse for 40 years. It’s been a shame that she’s been sidelined in many of the X-Men movies as she was a leader and the heart and soul of the team for a lot of years. Storm is such a badass that she once temporarily lost her powers and was still able to beat Cyclops in Danger Room combat to retain leadership of the team. Yet in the movies, Halle Berry is lucky to have any lines.

Speaking of attempts at diversity, Marvel has announced that the new Thor is a woman. I’m fine with this but the semantics are misleading. This is not a transgender character. Thor is not becoming a woman; a woman is becoming Thor. A woman has been judged worthy to wield the Mjolnir. The male Thor is still a character but without the hammer. This confuses me because Thor is Thor’s real name and not a code name and even without the hammer, he’ll still have the considerable power of an Asgardian. So I guess there are two Thors. This actually happened once before in the great miniseries Earth X, which prophesied a future Marvel Universe in which Loki tricked Odin into turning Thor into a woman. Loki himself has also been a woman and reduced to a child, which I think highlights how fluid Asgardian identity can be and the fact that the gods are made in the image of their human worshippers and only have the aspects that their worshippers want them to have. The Norse people believed Loki to be evil so he became evil.

But I digress. Next week, we delve into the never-ending soap opera of Jean Grey. Wear something comfortable. This may take awhile.

I had the most paranormal dream

I dreamed that although I was home alone, I was hearing a spooky voice coming from upstairs. There was some kind of ghost up there. Cerys was sitting at the bottom of the steps, looking up with her saucer eyes and seeming as if she were listening intently to the voice. It reminded me of when Carol Anne was listening to the static on the TV and answering its questions in Poltergeist.

Greg, Peter and Bobby Brady later stopped by to help me figure out what to do about my haunted house. We sat outside and talked about it. No solution was forthcoming from the male Brady Bunch kids.

I’ve never actually had a paranormal experience. I’ve never once seen a ghost of heard a voice or seen something move across the room or anything spooky. I’m not discounting the experiences of others but it’s just never happened to me. I wonder why that is? Is there something about my personality that keeps the ghosts away?

I have to admit I was happy to wake up from this dream. When I woke up I was a little freaked out and kind of looked over my shoulder to see if a ghost was hovering there. It was one of those dreams that seems horrifying when you’re having it but in the light of day is stupid.

I guess I believe in the paranormal. I’m certainly not closed off to it. I just believe in the supernatural differently than it’s portrayed in movies and TV. That stuff is invented to be as cinematic as possible and I don’t know how much basis it has in reality. Honestly, the paranormal is not a subject I care enough about to think about too much.

Who are the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver?

Two of the most venerable institutions in the Marvel Universe, the Avengers and the X-Men, have teamed up and squabbled for decades in print. However, if you’re looking for an on-screen team-up, you’re out of luck due to each property being owned by a different movie studio so the franchises stay in separate universes. The two characters who bridge both worlds are Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, two twin mutants who have been stalwart members of the Avengers for decades.

You’ve seen Quicksilver in X-Men: Days of Future Past as the speedster, identified only as Peter, who helped Wolverine break into the Pentagon. You’ve seen both Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch as “the twins” post-credits in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. They are apparently captives of Baron von Strucker, an ex-Nazi with a comics history with Professor X and Magneto, which the Avengers movies will never mention since they cannot acknowledge the existence of mutants.

The Maximoff twins were born in the fictional Eastern European country of Transia and raised by the Roma Papa Django Maximoff. Magneto recruited them into his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and they fought the X-Men in its earliest days in the ‘60s. However, the twins’ days as villains didn’t last long and they soon joined the Avengers as two of the team’s earliest recruits. Pietro was sort of on and off the team for awhile, marrying Crystal, a member of the royal family of the Inhumans, with whom he had a daughter, Luna. Wanda has been a near-constant member of the Avengers since the ‘60s with her husband, the synthezoid Vision. Whenever the team reorganized its membership, they usually saved a spot for Wanda.

The identity of the Maximoffs’ birth parents was a matter of speculation for years. For awhile, they believed their parents to be the Golden Age heroes the Whizzer (another speedster) and Miss America (who looked just like the Scarlet Witch). However, in the late ‘70s, Marvel planted the seed that they were Magneto’s children. They telegraphed this in subtle scenes in two different comics in the same month. In the Avengers, the Scarlet Witch learned her birth father had terrible powers, like Magneto. In the X-Men, Magneto revealed that his late wife looked just like Wanda. So sharp readers could put two and two together and figure out the parentage.

A few years later, the family confronted the truth of their relationship and … didn’t become a big, happy family. (Wanda and Pietro also have a half-sister, Polaris, the magnetic-powered daughter of Magneto.) Although Magneto started as a mutant terrorist, Chris Claremont made great efforts to humanize him, retconning him to be a Holocaust survivor and having him realize the error of his brutal methods in Marvel’s greatest redemption story. But after years of violently promoting mutant interests, it was hard for his children to trust him.

Anyway, the Scarlet Witch went on to have twins, Tommy and Billy. She conceived by magical means as the Vision had an artificial body and could not impregnate her. A few years later, she and the Vision later separated after his personality was erased and he had no emotions tied to her. Then the two children were revealed to be not real but two pieces of the shattered soul of the demon Mephisto. When Mephisto reclaimed the two pieces of his soul, the children ceased to exist. Writer John Byrne rationalized that the two children could not exist since the Scarlet Witch’s hex powers, while considerable (she is one of the few Avengers who can damage the adamantium robot Ultron), were not great enough for her to create life from thin air. The witch Agatha Harkness erased all memory of the children from Wanda’s memory, judging it kinder that she never have to mourn them.

So it went for about 15 years, with Wanda having no memory of Tommy and Billy. In the “Avengers Disassembled” story, writer Brian Michael Bendis had the Scarlet Witch suddenly remember having children and go mad with grief. At the time, she had an unexplained surge in power, which led to a dangerous situation. Normally Wanda could create quasi-magical “hex spheres” with unpredictable effects like causing a gun to jam or a wall to collapse. However, she had become a reality warper and created chaos for the Avengers, destroying her ex-husband the Vision, and killing Hawkeye, Ant-Man and the Jack of Hearts.

In the aftermath, Professor X tried to heal Wanda’s mind as she was suicidal with guilt and still had no control over her powers. As the Avengers and X-Men approached to subdue her, Quicksilver feared that they would kill his sister. In the House of M story, he convinced her to create an artificial reality in which the heroes all got their heart’s desire. The heroes rebelled against the Scarlet Witch playing god. Wanda, realizing how messed up the situation was, uttered the infamous phrase “No more mutants,” stripping most of the world’s mutants of their powers and killing some of them. After that, she disappeared to live life in Transia with no memory or powers.

These developments broke my heart and drove me from comics for a few years because the Scarlet Witch was always one of my favorite characters. I liked her combination of mysterious powers and vulnerability, as well as her quest to lead a traditional life while super-heroing. I could have dealt with her death because they could have just resurrected her. But these stories disgraced Wanda, made the reader look back with distrust on her long history of heroism, and made some of the Avengers hate her. It was especially unfortunate since some earlier writers made an effort to move her out of the shadows of her brother and husband and give her more self-confidence as an Avenger. It’s also another example of the unfortunate comics trope of “women go crazy and evil when they get too much power.”

The Scarlet Witch has since found some redemption in recent years with the revelation that her actions were (I believe) due to the manipulation of Doctor Doom. Her two children even returned in reincarnated form. She rejoined an Avengers team but recently died. We’ll see how long that lasts.

Next week we investigate Nick Fury’s malleable race.

Snubbed

We need to talk about the Emmy nominations. There was a lot about them that I agreed with, including nominations for the shattering back half of season five of Breaking Bad and acting nominations for the excellent cast of Orange Is the New Black.

But Captain Negative isn’t here today to talk about the positive. He’s here to talk about the snubs.

For the second year, except for a Guest Actress nomination for Margo Martindale, The Americans has been shut out of the drama categories. The show didn’t even get a nod for hairstyling even though the wigs are some of the best things on it. Season two was maybe even better than season one and the last episode had revelations that left me rattled and had disturbing implications for season three. It should have been a Best Drama nominee in place of the entertaining but really stupid House of Cards.

Where are the acting nominations for The Americans? Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys give high-wire performances within performances as spies who take on multiple roles and bring their own anxieties into their disguises to the point where it’s hard to tell if the characters are acting or not. Noah Emmerich and Annet Mahendru are equally fantastic as characters with complex motivations who are ultimately unknowable. Not a lot of people watch The Americans but the critics love it so I don’t understand why the Emmy voters don’t.

I am happy Mad Men got its nominations but the only acting nods seem to be for Jon Hamm and Christina Hendricks. I love Hendricks but Joan hasn’t had much to do in season seven. I’m surprised Elisabeth Moss didn’t get a Best Actress nomination since she was wonderful again, particularly in her all-nighter with Don and her Burger Chef pitch. They can’t let Peggy walk away without an Emmy. It’s criminal that nobody on Mad Men has won an acting Emmy but I guess they ran into the acting buzzsaw of Breaking Bad. Maybe next year, Jon Hamm.

Speaking of Breaking Bad, it’s a shame that Dean Norris and Betsy Brandt will go unrecognized. I really like what they did with their characters over the years. It would have been nice to spread the awards around to as many cast members as possible.

The Emmys showed way too much love to American Horror Story. It was entertaining to watch Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, Angela Bassett and Frances Conroy chew the scenery but it was not a good season by any definition. When I saw the Big Revelation of who was the new supreme, my reaction was, “Oh. It’s the daughter. Yawn.” The show should lose points for the actress who played Zoe because I can’t staaaaaand her. In two seasons, she has shown one facial expression: sad sack. They should play a sad trombone whenever she walks in the room.

Other than all that, I liked the nominations.