Asimov to Zelazny?

It's funny that I don't talk more about books here considering how much reading I do.  Not a day goes by when I don't read a e-book or a paperback or a hardcover, and my daily round trip commute gives me at least an hour of reading, regardless of what else is on my schedule.  My brother John once asked me if I read while eating - I laughed and replied, "John, I read while I'm brushing my teeth."

However, I'm not buying as many books as I used to.  Part of the problem is the fact that I'm out of shelf space again - it's not just a case of buying another shelf, I need to reconfigure my apartment in order to find room for that new shelf.

I'm also torn between on-line shopping and the more limited opportunities of retail outlets.  The down side of physical book shopping is that, quite frankly, I no longer remember each and every book that I own. This has not been helped by the e-book phenomenon, which has resulted in confusion between books I own on paper, downloaded, or which I may have borrowed from someone to read and never owned myself.  As a result, I sometimes find myself purchasing books that I already own, which is counterproductive. Online shopping allows me to check possible purchases against existing stock, so to speak.

Unfortunately, I seem to experience some sort of basic disconnect in the online browsing experience. Something in the manner that Amazon in particular has set up its system completely disagrees with the way in which my mind processes information - or at least the way that it browses for books.

All other issues aside, unless I'm missing something incredibly basic on their website, they won't let me look at their inventory in alphabetical order!  I realize that alphabetical order is an obsolete holdover from the pre-digital age, but you know, Amazon, I think you'll find that a lot of people still sort their books by author's name.  In fact, you still do it in your stores.  Would it really be that hard to add a "Sort by author" to the options?

Oh, and if anyone's curious, I'll be happy to do a posting on how to brush your teeth while holding a book and turning the pages with the other hand - but trust me, don't try it while you're shaving, there are some things you really do need to watch in the mirror.

- Sid

 

Aren't we all?

Purchased at Kimprints in Gastown on Saturday. The button, that is, I've had the windup robot for decades. In fact, it was one of the centrepieces on my wedding cake...but that's another story.

- Sid

 

With great power comes great responsibility.

"I mean, Marvel has certain hard and fast rules, like about the spider bite — you have to have Peter get bitten by a radioactive spider, and Uncle Ben’s death has to transform Peter Parker into Spider-Man, you know what I mean? He has to learn a lesson by that. But I’m trying to find new inflections and new context so that the story feels new. Because I do think the character is different; you want to honor the iconic elements of Spider-Man but you also want to reinvent the world around him so that it feels interesting and new, and that’s a tricky line to walk."

The Amazing Spider-Man director Marc Webb in a Movieline interview.

All evidence would indicate that the Spider-Man reboot is going to be a big success à la The Avengers. I've read positive comments on line, it's doing well at the box office, all well and good, but hints in the previews suggest that the script has taken some liberties with the traditional version of Peter Parker's accession to arachnid abilities.

Sam Raimi's version is completely faithful to the original, simple, iconic version:  a radioactive spider bites Peter, bang, done.  (And Tobey Maguirre's WTF experience when he wakes up the next morning and looks in the mirror is a great little moment in the first movie.)  But the previews for the reboot hint about a deeper, darker aspect to this transformation, suggesting that Peter's parents had somehow genetically modified him in order to create the potential for his wall-crawling abilities.

 Sigh...as with the now-infamous plan on the part of Michael Bay to reboot the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as aliens, why do these people want to mess with success?  After all, Spider-Man's origin isn't really the radioactive spider bite - it's actually the moment of trauma when his actions cause the death of Uncle Ben, that discovery of consequences and responsibilities.  Why diminish that moral epiphany?

On the other hand, I have to give credit to Marc Webb's comments in the opening quote.  Isn't the whole purpose of doing a reboot is to "find new inflections and new context" - otherwise, why bother?  Sadly, the answer to that question may also be "in order to make millions of dollars by springboarding off a proven box-office commodity that may have another mile in it."

Regardless, I'll undoubtedly catch The Amazing Spider-Man in commercial release, so that I can experience it in 3-D, and see what they've actually done to the story. And who knows, maybe I've done the film an enormous injustice.  After all, it looks like they went back to the original web-shooters, so they're not completely evil.

- Sid