A girl in a wine-colored dress,
a short set of stairs to walk down,
and America's boss finds his eyes come across
a booty that's worth much renown.
She's a hot young Brazilian, she's one in a million,
she's young and she's svelte and she's fair,
she's quick-witted, keen, and -- HOW old? she's SIXTEEN?!
...um, I'll just have a seat over there.

So Marvel's got MARVEL DIVAS and DC's got DC SIRENS or something, apparently. I haven't been paying attention to it, but neither of them seem to be pleasing my flist. The only one I've glanced through is MARVEL DIVAS, which is kind of tooth-grating in that there are a couple of glimmers where you say, "Oh, hey, I see how this could be a half-decent comic, if they only changed pretty much everything about it." DIVAS is a laughably transparent SEX AND THE CITY rip, and Marvel apparently thought this would appeal to the female reader. I won't deny that a lot of women apparently really like SEX AND THE CITY, but the flaw is that *the vast majority of these women do not read comics or find themselves in circumstances where they might buy one.* So, of course, Marvel's doing promotion that reaches outside traditional comic avenues for this untapped audience, right? ...

*crickets*

Yeah. So this makes no sense. The people who would like this don't even know it exists, and the women in comic book fandom are going to find it annoying as hell. I really wish that Marvel would just pick up that bit from AMAZING SPIDER-MAN SUMMER SPECIAL with MJ, Clea, Scarlet Witch, Millie the Model, Hellcat, Marvel Girl, and She-Hulk taking on the Enchantress. Oh, well.

So, a question: who's on your all-female comic book team? I think for DC I'd go with Power Girl, Mary Marvel, Empress, and Onyx. Mary Marvel and Empress both having magic-based powers might be a little bit eh, but I think it could work. And I liked Onyx's appearances in the Batbooks; it'd be fun seeing her as the only non-super person on a superpowered team. Maybe they could recruit Spoiler, too; get her out of the Batbooks for a while and be her own character.

Or go the other way, and have the superpowered person be the odd one out. Okay, maybe I'm crazy, but listen to this line-up: Manhunter, Mary Marvel, Onyx. Two cynical-as-hell normal people and one peppy, optimistic super. Bonus points if they all have to live together, and Onyx has to put up with Mary being chirpy at disgustingly early hours while Onyx fumbles for the coffeemaker.

Marvel, I'd go the other way. Have a team of A-list superheroines... who don't fight crime. They act as mentors and advisers for young, up-and-coming superheroines, who do. Or decide they're not cut out for it. Basically, a coffee-club organization to give advice to girls developing superpowers. The focus is on the kids, who form and dissolve various efforts at superteams, but the big heroines make guiding appearances. (To me, this organization is something that the Invisible Woman would head up.)

There used to be a bounty, fabled, it is told,
for glory and delight to every man.
You found it in the barrooms -- yes, sir, even in the dives;
and it spread its gift of joy across the land.
But then came Prohibition, and its habitation died,
and extinction was the order of the day.
Repeal of prohibition came, but couldn't turn the tide,
for something had forever gone away.

The free lunch is what it was called, a thing of glory true,
a little piece of splendor in your day.
Go into the barroom and then drink a beer or two.
And the spread was there so you could eat away.
One beer alone sufficed, but the bartender would scowl,
but a second pleased him moderately well
and if you drank a third -- why, then you're a real guest, now,
so just you go ahead and eat your fill.

Pickled eggs and onions, pigs' knuckles, fresh from brine,
a tongue of cow, and bread to put it on,
and more and more and more besides -- oh, wasn't that a time!
a shame to say: for years it's all been gone.
The lunch of blessed memory, by foul temp'rance slain,
a curse on Carrie Nation and her crew.
Would that some good man's saloon would bring it back again,
but there ain't one now, alas, that's true.

This girl works all day in a cannery.

It's like something out of a horror movie. Those eyes.

If you view it on full, it's even scarier.

Y'know, I've mostly been avoiding the endless Michael Jackson news -- I cannot believe that ostensible news organizations carried his funeral live -- but I did run across a little clip that quietly horrified me. It was Michael Jackson's young daughter speaking at the funeral, saying that he'd been a wonderful father and she loved him very much, and then breaking down in the sobs she'd been holding back. She was surrounded by other family members; as she spoke, and wept, they were all around her, crowding close, touching her -- and I realized: they're not comforting her; they're trying to make sure they're in the shot.

Those poor kids are so, so screwed.

Whether or not you think Michael Jackson was truly a pedophile -- and lemme tell ya, folks, if you looked through the auction house catalogs of his stuff when he was having the big Neverland yard sale, you would have no doubt whatsoever that he was -- you have to admit that the man was deeply screwed up. Something about him started ringing bells with me recently, and it took a few days to figure it out. Y'know who Michael Jackson reminds me of? Timothy Treadwell.

If you're not familiar with Treadwell, he was a bear enthusiast -- obsessive, actually -- who went camping in remote wilderness for months to film, observe, and, in his mind, "protect" wild bears, until a bear ate him and the girlfriend who had the misfortune to put her faith in him. Treadwell was the subject of GRIZZLY MAN, a brilliant documentary by Werner Herzog. I realized that the accounts of Michael Jackson living the fantasy life of a Peter Pan figure were reminding me of one scene in that movie. Herzog's interviewee, a museum curator, is Native American, and he looks awkward, a little embarrassed, as he carefully tries to explain why Treadwell's actions really squicked him. The traditional view, he explains, is that bears are bears and people are people. You respect them, absolutely, but you're separate from them; you give them their space, and stay in yours, and that shows respect. Studying the bears isn't disrespectful, but Treadwell went farther than that. In the curator's view, Treadwell didn't want to study the bears, he wanted to *be* a bear, and that was nineteen kinds of wrong.

And that's Michael Jackson and children. I make no claim to be an expert on child abuse or deviancy, but I wouldn't be surprised if Michael Jackson's pedophilia was an aspect of his all-consuming obsession with childhood. He loved the idea of childhood, he loved children, he wanted to have the childhood he never had -- but he was a grown man, and he had a grown man's sexual desires, which he turned on the objects of his obsession. Jackson wanted to be a child, but he couldn't, so he became something else. And then he wanted to make the children he knew into something else, too.

So Hollywood is remaking everything these days, and as you'd expect they're only remaking the good movies (like ROBOCOP) rather than the movies that should have been better (like ROBOCOP 2). One wishes they'd take a cue from history: THE MALTESE FALCON was remade several times, and when Hollywood got it right they stopped. But they're at it again. There's only one good thing about the fact that Hollywood is remaking THE STEPFATHER, and that is that the original is finally being released in the US on DVD.

For those who don't know it: THE STEPFATHER is a masterpiece of a thriller. Jill Shoelen plays a a teenaged girl who has an uneasy relationship with her stepfather. What she doesn't know, but the audience does, is that she has every right to be uneasy. Because in the first scene, we saw Terry O'Quinn get washed up, dress, and walk out the door right past the murdered bodies of the family he just hacked to pieces. O'Quinn is a serial killer who is fixated on family. He finds a family, becomes part of it, lives there until something upsets his balance, and then he slaughters everyone and starts over. Wonderfully nightmarish premise, and the screenplay is by none other than grand master Donald E. Westlake, so you know it's note-perfect.

The remake has made two major errors. First, they changed the sex of the kid. Instead of a teenage daughter, it's a teenage son. And his hot girlfriend, because of course for the young roles they cast pretty plastic people. This immediately poses a problem. The original, like many horror films, was rooted in the hero's social and physical vulnerability. It absolutely depends on power imbalance. (This is one reason that hero-protagonists of horror movies are so often small women facing male threats.) If you want a male protagonist in a power-imbalance story that involves a physical threat, you have to stress his vulnerability; he has to be an unassuming, unthreatening, even meek figure. You want somebody like DJ Qualls. But they cast Pretty Plastic Boy, and that ruins the dynamic right there. Jill Schoelen runs from Terry O'Quinn; Pretty Plastic Boy looks like he can kick Dylan Walsh's ass.

That's the second error: they cast Dylan Walsh as the bad guy. Yeah, NIP/TUCK's Dylan Walsh. In the role originated by Terry O'Quinn. Let's be clear: O'Quinn is a magnificent actor. His face is marvelously expressive. He can go from warm and friendly to terrifying in an instant, and back; he can use his features to terrific effect, or keep his face neutral and play it through the eyes.

Dylan Walsh's face, by contrast, pretty much has only one expression, and this is it.

He's a puddin' face. You can't be scared of a puddin' face.

If I were you, I'd avoid the remake of THE STEPFATHER. Don't even watch the trailer, because the morons blow one of the eeriest, most magnificent moments in the film -- not that it plays that way, of course, because it's Dylan Walsh, but. Wait for the DVD of the Terry O'Quinn/Jill Shoelen version to come out, and watch that.

blow out the candles
suddenly feel very old
eat the cake, dumbass

this is it, doll,
said the man
whose gun
was big
onscreen
like mine

he plugged
two guys
and then
he laughed
his laugh
like mine

he got away
and hid
but the cops
found him
in his hideout
like mine

he went to trial
and then
the judge
read out
his sentence
like mine

his movie runs
twice a week
on cable
locked
to schedule
like mine

and when it ends
like always
it's the same
like always
it ends
his story
like mine

Go back to where you began.
Go back to where you began.
When you find you're in trouble, and then that it doubles,
Go back to where you began.

Remember the things that you knew.
Remember the things that you knew.
When you find you're regretting, don't bother forgetting.
Remember the things that you knew.

Eat all the pie that you can.
Eat all the pie that you can.
When you find you're hungry, cook up some sundries,
and eat all the pie that you can.

Wear all the socks that you own.
Wear all the socks that you own.
When you've got to darn 'em, then knit 'em and yarn 'em,
and wear all the socks that you own.

Dawn comes! The morning! Hear the sun sneeze?
The birds are all chirping and burping in their trees
the world's awaking from its bed --
-- except for you, you sleepyhead.