The Mimosa Effect 2

I see your guitar playing cat and raise you a piano playing cat.  (Now with improved cuteness!)

One of the coolest things about being part of this generation, is being able to watch with fascination as stories turn into legends; as characters born of one person’s mind get transferred into the worldwide pop-culture subconscious and take on a life of their own.  It’s a process that’s been happening throughout the ages, but at no time has the process been so swift, so globally widespread as it is now, thanks to that ephemeral greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts entity, the world wide web. 

When I first read the Lord of the Rings, it was an old dog-eared paperback given to me by a friend of the family fresh off the boat from Britain, and none of the other kids in my class had ever heard of it.  Superman started as an idea shared between two friends; Harry Potter started in the imagination of a mom writing in a cafe with her infant daughter by her side; at one time, all superheroes wore tights, and the only ones who followed their adventures were kids and the socially maladjusted; Star Trek was a fringe cult show that needed the rallying of its fans even to get renewed from one year to the next.

Science Fiction may still not get the props it truly deserves; and let’s face it, those of us who were geeks then are still geeks now; but we’re sharing our dreams with the rest of the world - we’re no longer huddled alone in a dark basement.

Where all this came from, for me, was yet another incarnation of the ever-changeable Kryptonite (now in flattering Blue), which as a mythical substance has been around so long that it has its own Wiki page.  So I just had to dig up the old list I posted way back on the original ME, for anyone who’s interested (even if you would never admit to it in public).

The Uber-Geek’s Guide to Kryptonite

(original version posted by Dr. Doom on www.killermovies.com/forums)

Green Kryptonite – In superpowered Kryptonians, causes immediate physical pain and debilitation and kills within hours. Has no short-term effects on humans or non-superpowered Kryptonians. The most common form of Kryptonite. [ed. note (dr): this has varying effects depending on which show/movie/comic book it's in, sometimes it seems to just take away all S-man's powers and make him really weak]

Anti-Kryptonite – Has no effect on superpowered Kryptonians, but has the same effects as green Kryptonite on non-superpowered Kryptonians.

Red Kryptonite – created from green Kryptonite that passed through a mysterious red-hued cloud en route to Earth, the 3rd planet from the sun; the planet on which we live. Red Kryptonite inflicts random effects (physical transformations, mostly) on Kryptonians. Each specific chunk of red Kryptonite has the same effect on all Kryptonians, but no two chunks have the same effect as one another. Red Kryptonite effects typically last for 1-2 days, after which the Kryptonian in question is forevermore immune to that specific chunk of Red Kryptonite.

Gold Kryptonite – removes superpowers from Kryptonians permanently.

White Kryptonite – kills all plant life, whether Kryptonian or not. Induces decay immediately upon exposure, with a range of about 25 yards.

Blue Kryptonite (updated 2008) – The result of using Professor Potter’s “duplicator ray” on some green Kryptonite. Blue Kryptonite kills Bizarros, but has no effect on Kryptonians. In the Super Friends TV series, Blue Kryptonite is used to reverse the effects of Red Kryptonite on Superman; in the Smallville series, it takes away Supe’s powers without making him sick the way green kryptonite does, and also makes him immune to the negative effects of the green stuff.

X-Kryptonite – Created by Supergirl while experimenting with green Kryptonite. It has no effect on Kryptonians, but bestows temporary superpowers on Earth lifeforms, most prominently Supergirl’s pet cat Streaky.

Jewel Kryptonite – Jewel Kryptonite amplifies the psychic powers of Phantom Zone residents, allowing them to project illusions into the “real world” or perform mind control. It was made from what was left of a mountain on Krypton called Jewel Mountain.

Slow Kryptonite – A modified variety of green Kryptonite produced by a Terran scientist that decelerates the speed of nerve impulses, and movements of both Kryptonians and Terrans.

Silver Kryptonite – A fictional variety of Kryptonite that was used in a hoax perpetrated by Superman’s friends in honor of the 25th anniversary of Superman’s arrival on Earth.  [ed. note (dr): in the Smallville TV show, silver kryptonite made Clark paranoid delusional]

Yellow Kryptonite – Another fictional variety, this one used in a hoax masterminded by Lex Luthor.

Pink Kryptonite – From an alternate timeline in Supergirl, this variety of Kryptonite turns Kryptonians (apparently) gay. However, this was intended as a joke, not part of normal comics continuity.W-T-F?

Black Kryptonite – First used in the Smallville TV show. This variety of Kryptonite was used in the episode “Crusade”. It is apparently able to separate certain entities from people.

(p.s. If you can’t play this video on your machine, don’t worry; you don’t need the internet to hug people. Go for whoever’s standing or sitting next to you. Unless it’s a cactus. In which case, you might want to find a pillow first.)

Because we all need to be distracted by cute kittens now and then.

Although there ain’t a chance in hell I’ll be letting our kitties jump around on my new laptop.  (No liquid beverages allowed withing spilling range either; I’m very much in that shiny-new-expensive-thing-paranoia stage; or is it more like new-baby-phenomenon? Running downstairs in the middle of the night to make sure it’s still breathing, kind of thing… okay, maybe not quite that bad.)

Since my writing time has mostly been taken up with novelling lately, here’s a little bit that I scribbled down in my green book while between buses in Toronto, back in December ‘07.

I don’t see what everyone has against pigeons. When I look down at the sidewalk in a big, busy city, I see far more evidence of human waste and detritus than anything created by birds.

There are pigeons that live in the Toronto downtown bus terminal. They fly in freely through the constantly opening doors and wander the tiled floors looking for scraps. No one feeds them on purpose here, it seems, not like the ducks and swans in High Park, or the old people in overcoats throwing crumbs from a park bench.

Sometimes people aim a kick at the pigeons when they venture too near. Being mildly annoyed I can understand, especially if you’re the janitor who has the unenviable task of cleaning the floors every day. But then again, the strictly human-occupied public washrooms are in a far less lovely state than ever are the upstairs rooms, pigeons or no.

Seeing the mottled, speckled dark grey and white birds pecking at the cracks, or waddling by on pink feet, I find it hard to understand how someone could feel active hatred, or even disgust towards such a simple, honest creature. They are what they are, and personally, I admire their tenacity and adaptability. The derisive moniker of “rats with wings” is hardly accurate; technically that would more aptly apply to bats (another misunderstood creature that deserves far more admiration and respect than fear and revulsion).

Living in a relatively quiet suburban neighbourhood has not engendered any bad feelings on our part towards our so-called pests either. Starlings and black squirrels abound, making a nuisance of themselves whenever possible, to be sure. But it is hardly through any pre-planned malice on their part; they are merely doing their best to survive, the same way we are. The starlings do us the honour of eating the berries off the vine that tangles and winds its way over the bricks of our house. The squirrels steal bulbs and bury them and then forget about them, causing tulips to come up in the most unexpected and surprising places. The parking lot sparrows always make me smile, and I was glad to see that someone at the St. Catharines bus station had left out seed for them.

If only the people that have such a hate-on for the remarkable creatures that share our living spaces could see a world without them. How dull and lifeless indeed would be our cities without the tough, enduring nature that has adapted to them; how barren would a sidewalk be with nary a clump of crab grass poking through its cracks; how silent would it be without the cries of gulls and sleepy chuckling coos of those grey feathered miscreants more properly known as rock doves. As for me, I wish them well.

[formerly cool interview video no longer accessible to the public]

Pretty succinctly summed up why the stories work (almost despite themselves), why the mythos persists, and why the movies always suck.

Update: Unfortunately the video was taken down due to copyright issues (don’t you just love the litigious world we live in?). Status here. If it ever makes its way out of copyright jail, it’s worth checking out.

Even more fierce than a lion, and much chillier. 2008 has blown in on a great gust of flying snow, blanketing everything in white, encouraging extended hibernation everywhere. I’ve taken advantage of my still-semi-incapacitated-yet-slightly-improved state to get caught up on my writing over the past three days, and I’m happy to say I made my updated goal for 2007, ending the year with a whopping 321,348 words written in total, which averages out at around 642 single-spaced pages. Somewhere around 200 pages of that went towards continuing my now-13-months-old novel Sleeping Underwater; the rest was divided between my new novel (the John Dresden story, title pending, now at over 130 pgs long, and the main project I worked on this month), and various and sundry shorts and snippets when I wasn’t feeling novellish.

Here’s to another year of furious scribbling and typing, not to mention a whole whack load of editing (I’m lining up my red pens now).

To quote Neil Gaiman:

“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.”