Advice requested

Hm.  I just spent over 2 hours browsing the Marvel Database, a wiki devoted to everything to do with Marvel Comics.  Seems I’ve been missing out on a huge array of graphical entertainment and stories of derring-do dating back decades.  Now, I haven’t been living in a cave for the past 30 years.  I know all about the various denizens of the Marvel Universe and even some of the funky stuff that’s happened to them.  I know who Stan Lee is and I once owned a mint edition of She-Hulk #1.

But I have never sat down and seriously worked my way into the storylines of any Marvel book.  It appears I should. There’s a whole realm of geekdom I’m missing out on.

Where do I start?  All I know is that I’m most interested in the X-men of all the teams and titles out there.  The Avengers seem a little stodgy and the Fantastic Four. . . . .well, dull.  I could be wrong.

There are millions of X-men titles and graphic novels/collections out there.  I’m not really interested in “collecting”, but in reading stories with good art, characters and plot.  Where should I begin this little quest into the unknown?  What are the best X-men books?

Incidentally, I’ve always been a small Batman fan too.  What belongs in the essential Batman library?

Townie Bastard, I’ve an odd feeling you might be able to help with this. . . . .

Woo-hoo!

We drove down the road, Katherine, Vicky and I,

And then a small sign Katherine chanced to espy.

“Aha!” she exclaimed, a smile lighting her face,

“These glyphs finally did fall into place!”

“See-ay-are spells Car!”, she pronounced with a grin,

And wondered why her parents’ heads did suddenly spin.

Tales told on the way to Canterbury

It’s mediaeval literature time!  I’ve been a fan of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales ever since I was introduced to them by one of my first-year university English profs.  In case you’re not familiar with the Tales atall, here’s the basics.

My favourite character in all this crowd is the Yeoman.  He’s a servant of the Knight and is one of the fellowship who does not tell a tale. Here he is, from www.canterburytales.org:

101	A Yeman hadde he, and servantz namo
102	At that tyme, for hym liste ride soo;
103	And he was clad in cote and hood of grene,
104	A sheef of pecok arwes bright and kene
105	Under his belt he bar ful thriftily-
106	Wel koude he dresse his takel yemanly,
107	Hise arwes drouped noght with fetheres lowe-
108	And in his hand he baar a myghty bowe.
109	A not -heed hadde he, with a broun visage,
110	Of woodecraft wel koude he al the usage.
111	Upon his arm he baar a gay bracer,
112	And by his syde a swerd and a bokeler,
113	And on that oother syde a gay daggere,
114	Harneised wel, and sharpe as point of spere.
115	A Cristophere on his brest of silver sheene,
116	An horn he bar, the bawdryk was of grene.
117	A Forster was he, soothly, as I gesse.

So here’s a pretty complete picture of a tough, competent fellow.  He’s heavily armed, with sword, dagger, buckler, bow and arrows. He knows how to care for his equipment and he’s expert in his craft.  The very model, not of a modern Major-General, but of a trusty companion to a knight-errant.  With these few lines, Chaucer captured an icon of English folklore and history: the Archer.  Men like this stood at Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt, three battles of the Hundred Years’ War that infused the British conception of their place in history for centuries.  The notion of the common-born English longbowman defeating the steel-clad flower of French chivalry in a deadly arrow-storm stood all through English history as an integral part of the British national character.  See Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The White Company for details.

An equally fascinating cast of characters marches through the Tales.  Here’s another one, whom I have not read since I was admitted to the bar. . . . .the Man of Law:

311	A Sergeant of the Lawe, war and wys,
312	That often hadde been at the parvys,
313	Ther was also, ful riche of excellence.
314	Discreet he was, and of greet reverence,-
315	He semed swich, hise wordes weren so wise.
316	Justice he was ful often in assise,
317	By patente, and by pleyn commissioun.
318	For his science, and for his heigh renoun,
319	Of fees and robes hadde he many oon.
320	So greet a purchasour was nowher noon,
321	Al was fee symple to hym in effect,
322	His purchasyng myghte nat been infect.
323	Nowher so bisy a man as he ther nas,
324	And yet he semed bisier than he was;
325	In termes hadde he caas and doomes alle,
326	That from the tyme of Kyng William were falle.
327	Therto he koude endite, and make a thyng,
328	Ther koude no wight pynche at his writyng.
329	And every statut koude he pleyn by rote.
330	He rood but hoomly in a medlee cote
331	Girt with a ceint of silk, with barres smale;-
332	Of his array telle I no lenger tale.

It’s interesting to note that lawyers gathered as many flippant comments 600 years ago as they do today.  Seems somehow right and proper.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

It occurred to me today, in a pondering sort of way, that I was never possessed, from an early age, of a desire to become a lawyer. Still, here I am, and it’s fun, so I guess I’ll keep doing it. I took that ponder out for a walk, and came up with the following list of cool jobs that I’ve wanted to do, at some point or other in my life. In no order at all:

• carpenter
• knight
• dragon
• firefighter
• police officer
• truck driver
• master art thief
• master jewel thief
• mountain climber
• wilderness guide
• historian
• archaeologist
• archivist
• wizard
• commando
• foreign news correspondent
• journalist
• bowyer
• swordsmith
• photographer
• spy
• intrepid explorer
• diver
• wildlife biologist
• ninja
• space shuttle pilot
• regular airplane pilot
• helicopter pilot
• Jedi Knight
• toy tester
• race car driver
• highrise construction worker
• veterinarian
• musician
• magician
• escape artist
• writer
• librarian

Notice the complete absence of lawyers in there. I still think I’d have made a great dragon.

What did you want to be when you grew up? I asked Katherine that question today. She said, “Bigger.”

Higher math

Katherine stares at a brick wall.  It’s about 20′ high and 10′ wide.  Just into numbers, she starts to count the bricks, gets to twenty and then stops.  I ask her how many there are.  She gazes up, up, up, to the very top of the wall, and says exasperatedly, “I can’t count that high!”

Blink

Oh, right.  I’ve a blog.  Must do something with that soon.  Here goes.

It seems that down on the Southern Shore of Newfoundland, in the Avalon Wilderness Area, a protected conservation region, there was a strain of the Canadian Lynx unique to the island; a distinct subspecies, as it were.  Like lynx everywhere they subsisted primarily on the snowshoe hare.

As with all things, the health of the lynx population was inextricably linked to that of the hare.  As the numbers of one rose and fell, so did the other.  Kind of like the fishery.  Some twenty years ago, however, when I was but a wee lad, a virulent fever of myxomatosis swept through the ranks of the snowshoe hares, leaving their numbers so low that the provincial biologists feared that their recovery would take years, if they recovered at all.

Of course, as the hares sickened and died in mid-wuffle, the lynxes started finding food scarcer and scarcer.  They too started dying, not of sickness, but starvation.  The population fell and fell and not the best efforts of conservationists province-wide could break the downward plunge.

At last, the Southern Shore lynxes were down to two females and one male.  Notoriously shy, like all their kind, they eluded capture, until, at last, weakened by chronic malnutrition and the endless, fruitless quest for sustenance, the male died.

Bereft of their Y-chromosome provider, it mattered not that hare population rebounded and the two remaining females lived out long and happy lives in a wilderness booming with game.  The future Newfoundland subspecies of Canadian lynx died with that male. . . . . . .

Thus proving the old adage that a strain is only as strong as its weakest lynx.

(Actually, the Newfoundland lynx is doing just fine, thanks for asking.)