Daily Miltonian

By 2012, “the plummeting price of storage and its increasing volume-to-size ratio will give iPods almost unlimited potential to hold music and video.” This is really not an unimaginable feat to those of us on whom the wonderful strangeness of carrying around your entire music collection in something so small is not lost.

Google is talking about how it will be very easy for a whole lifetime’s worth of video on the iPod with increased quality and capabilities in the coming years. So now it’s a “Price Volume Game” - “Searching for the price point at which content will take off for the mainstream.”

It seems to me that these specialists are missing something…don’t they watch sci-fi movies? Don’t they read tech blogs, or watch youtube videos? Rather than little magic tv-mobile phone-music player-devices (and you know most people can’t imagine much past the little apple designs), the reality of the future of portable entertainment will be more like little helio displays and acoustic scattering mechanisms that can be used to play music that can only be heard inside a 2ft square “bubble”.

Something like this maybe?

Also when envisioning the future of technology, we must all recognize that touchscreen and extremely accurate voice recognition software (especially when used in conjuntion with algorithms with which one can speak to a program) will very soon render the computer mouse and keyboard obsolete. We move one step further and the iPod touchwheel - which really is more of a design hindrance than a useful tool - will be obsolete as well.

A full article by Jo Best for silicon.com can be read here.

Just go buy it, because it is beautiful, and you know had badly you need more beautiful things.

So as it turns out, the spindle cells in our brains that make us “human” (providing us with the ability to love, empathize, feel emotional pain) are now discovered to be present in the brains of some species of whales as well. Not only that - they have proportionally three times as many as we do, and they have had them for 30 million years - twice as long as we humans and apes have.

Humans have these cells to help with visceral reactions, like pleasure, and determination of the feelings of others. Wikipedia still classifies these cells as a strictly human and great ape occurrence - and also as only appearing in two restricted parts of our brains. The hominid fact now must expand to make room for the humpback whales, fin whales, killer whales and sperm whales in which it has been proven that these cells exist. Also, the only areas of the brains of hominids that have spindle cells are the anterior cingulate cortex and frontoinsular cortex. However, in whales, the cells are found throughout the entire brain and especially in the frontopolar cortex at the back of the brain.

This is a huge breakthrough. The actual function of the spindle is like having a brain synapse take the Wilmington express bypass rather than the business Ports of Wilmington route when driving on 95 South. Spindle cells allow our brains to skip unnecessary functions that would slow reaction time. That way we can act quickly on events that seem to us like “gut instincts” but in reality are complex procedures. This is especially useful in social situations - like say you are at the Empire Lounge and are having a conversation with a group of people but suddenly you hear your ex’s name called and you feel like you are about to be sick - it’s thanks to your spindle cells that you just felt that synapse fire off before the first syllable was even cognicized.

What this means is that whales probably feel nearly the same thing - which, as can be judged from behavioral studies of the big wonders - is true. Questions arise as to the purpose of the spindles that are peppered throughout the whale brain and in areas where humans don’t have them - is it some kind of sixth sense? The frontopolar cortex handles higher cognition - so why would whales need to speed that up if we don’t? Fort Saint Davids is jealous. What are they planning down there?

What if somehow whales are the actual kings of the planet and humans are just too far behind evolutionarily to figure it out? What if adaptation to life at sea in higherintellignces leaves them so docile, peaceful, and comfortable with their aquatic world that they couldn’t care less what higher mammals are doing on land? When we hunt whales and they lose one of their own to our harpoons, what if it is not unlike your cousin getting mauled by a wild dog? What if they have been so highly evolved for so long, that they have built secret technologies with their minds and evasively tunneled to the center of the earth to hide their advanced civilizations from us?

Fort Saint Davids bids you to go watch Hitchiker’s Guide and then, just for further meditation on possible future human evolution and the notion of comfort conditioning, Logan’s Run. Back to back. Then, get back to us on your thoughts on what these big guys could possibly be up to.

FSD would also like to admit: holy wow, this is the first X-Men comic we — I mean me, meaning Erik — I ever read. I too fell in love with Kitty…but it’s that damned Brood (the spooky Aliens-esque aliens on the cover) that gave me such bad nightmares that my mom wouldn’t buy me another X-Men comic until 1984, which I’ll tell you about in a bit. But let me pass the mic to Brady for now:

My Fetish Fetish: A Spinner Rack review of The Uncanny X-Men #166
Marvel Comics Group
February 1983

I grew up with a crush on a girl named Kathryn Pryde, who does not now
and never did actually exist. She retains a few distinctions in the
history of comic books. She was one of the first major Jewish
superheroes and has gone through more aliases than almost any character
in the history of the artform. She’s best known these days by her
family’s nickname for her, Kittypryde.

She has three other distinctions that knocked my socks off as a young
boy: she’s a tech-whiz, a demi-ninja and she has a pet dragon.

That’s right, a pet dragon. His name is Lockheed.

You know what Lockheed thinks of you? Here’s what he said when I asked
him about you. He said: “pfui.”

When I was a kid, I realized I had another fixation besides Kittypryde -
strange pets like Lockheed the Dragon. Kitty’s best friend, a member of
The New Mutants, Magik, had a pet demon named S’ym. Kitty later got a
second pet, a floating robot head named Widget. I got completely hooked
on “Books of Magic” when the young wizard star stole another magician’s
golem and renamed it ‘Happy.’

In fact, you want me to be sold on a story, stick a golem in it. I love
golems (not counting the Tolkien “Golem,” who isn’t a golem at all). Big
stone pets that follow you around and do whatever you say.

Why do I love He-Man to this day? Two words: Battle-Cat.

What I really wanted was a freaky, semi-intelligent pet of my own. When
I went through a brief flirtation with playing the White Wolf role
playing game, Vampire, I tried to talk the Gamemaster into letting me
have a little stone monster that could come to life and run little
errands for me. Pretty cool, huh? My request was denied. Even in
pretend, I can’t live my dream.

The Uncanny X-Men #166 is important to X-Men history because it is the
climax of their first battle with the unutterably nefarious (and
obviously ALIEN derivative) Brood, a race of parasitic alien colonizers.

I love it, though, and keep it in my “favorite comics box” solely
because it’s the first appearance of the dragon later named “Lockheed.”
Later on, we’d see Lockheed flying around wherever Kitty went, making it
quite clear that he understands most of the human talk around him and
that anyone who screwed with Kitty got severely singed by his dragon-fire.

The great thing about pairing Lockheed up with Kitty is that her powers
didn’t really make her an offensive asset but Lockheed did. She was
great as a spy and great for making sure a bullet passed through you,
but she couldn’t really fight. Why do I love comics creators? Because
at some point in time a comics editor said to a comics writer: “The
problem with this character Kittypryde you’ve got is that no one
believes a super team would want to keep her because she’s no good in a
firefight.” To which said writer replied: “All right, then I’ll stick a
dragon on her shoulder.” And the comics editor looked at him and smiled
and said: “That’s a great idea! It makes perfect sense!”

When a genie shows up at my door one day and says, “Okay, son, I know
you’ve been wanting a strange, supernatural pet all your life, so here’s
your chance. What will it be?” I’ll tell that genie, “I want a dragon
just like Lockheed.”

Bader here again. So yeah, that Brood really messed me up, no X-Men for a year. So how the hell did I get Mom to buy me THIS freaky-as-shit issue:

More nightmares ensued. Kulan Gath is one spooky-ass motherfucker, am I right? Not to mention we’ve got Xavier somehow fused with Caliban — you know, the Morlock who lives in the sewers? The whole issue made absolutely no sense. Everyone was transformed into either a pirate or a barbarian. And goddamn did I love it.

As always, feel free to submit your own Spinner Rack reviews to info@truejersey.com.

Applied Astrology 101

Figure out your friends’ signs. Then do what I tell you to do, so that you can make someone else happy for a change. It’s my contribution to counteracting the mass-scale holiday rage that seems to course unchecked through the streets of the city this time of year like volcanic runoff in an apocalyptic comic strip. Run along now, my salty little elves, and spread some goodwill if it fucking kills you.

ARIES: The Rambunctious Ones aren’t happy unless they’re plotting out some enormous project that will eventually affect the entire world. If you want to make an Aries smile, ask them about their latest plan. Listen intently to every last detail, no matter how farfetched or ridiculous it sounds. Then tell them that it’s amazing, even if it isn’t. Encouragement for an Aries is basic sustenance. They won’t be mad or think less of you later when they realize how stupid whatever idea you were supporting really was.

TAURUS: These folks go to parties for the sole purpose of receiving hugs. That’s easy enough, isn’t it? Bonus points for bringing cookies.

GEMINI: Feed them three Wikipedia links about completely random and unrelated things. Then pick up the phone when they call you two hours later with the solution to whatever it is they think you wanted them to learn from this. Buy into it. You might learn something yourself. If you run out of things to talk about, just make some spaceship noises. Geminis totally understand those.

CANCER: Show up equipped with a plan as to where you’re going and what you’ll do when you get there. Be prepared for Cancer to sneakily overrule this plan with their own after you’ve finished laying it all out for them. When you get there, it is your job to make them have fun with you. Do this according to your own definition of fun until Cancer also sneakily overrules that. Something Cancers think is really fun is to dissect your entire life and what you’re doing wrong with it. You should agree that this is, in fact, kind of fun, especially coming from them, because you know it’s 100% love.

LEO: Of all the signs in the zodiac, Leo is the one that most enjoys a hearty session of shameless butt-kissing. They’re great. They’re brilliant. They’re hilarious. They uncannily know how to do and say all the right things at all the right times. You can do the butt-kissing yourself, but even better is to put them in a situation where a lot of people can do it all at the same time. Bring them around your most boring friends and sit back to enjoy the Leo show. You will not be enjoying it half as much as they are.

VIRGO: Humble Virgo won’t ask you to tell them about them. But they would love to hear what you have to say about it. They’re trying to be on top of themselves; no angle should remain unexplored or unaccounted for. So tell them what you know. It’ll give them some new stuff to chew on for at least a week.

LIBRA: Librans are the zodiac’s answer to the practically alchemical herb saffron, which enhances the flavors of each dish it shows up for without adding much of its own distraction. Because of this, they’re almost universally likeable. All you have to do is like them. Abandon your plans and float around through a day like you’re two aimless billiard balls who broke free from the pool table.

SCORPIO: Let them know that you’re prepared to ride or die, even though the years you’ve been friends do not have you entirely convinced that they don’t hate you. Scorpios have a skewed sense of social contracts. It’s impossible for them to be casually warm and fuzzy on an even keel; it’s more like flood and drought. Just sew it up and say hello first. Suppress your shock if they get all I-love-you-man.

SAGITTARIUS: Engage them in some activity that will make a good story later. Allow yourself to be sucked into the celebration of what seems to you like an ordinary day. Propose a lot of toasts. Clap for Tinkerbell. Embrace the absurd, the bathetic, and the singular. Prepare for the birthday to go on for at least a week. Whatever else you do, don’t let go of their hands on a busy street. Even if they weren’t planning on flitting off with the next interesting person to cross their path, they’ll appreciate the gesture.

CAPRICORN: The cloven-hoofed get off on feeling useful, so give them something eminently possible to do for you. This will make them feel good about themselves, which is a priceless gift to these people. You need a ride to Target? Done. You feel like sushi, but don’t want to get off the sofa? Done. You need all the chocolate cows hand-picked out of your Vermonty Python ice cream? Done. There’s no way to fulfill a Capricorn’s wishes except to let them fulfill yours. Buy them a Santa outfit and let the grape-feeding commence.

AQUARIUS: Aquarians tend to be so busy making sure every single person in a given room approves of their existence that they often forget that they don’t actually care. They are secretly dying for some outlaw scenario in which the two of you can team up in telling the world to fuck off in a socially acceptable, whimsical kind of way. You don’t have to actually rob the bank, but if you happen to have two ski masks, Aquarius will be delighted to wear one.

PISCES: Often accused of being wishy-washy types, it’s amazing how practical the Piscean system of checks and balances can be. If they do something nice for you, they want to bear witness to your unbridled enjoyment and hear thank you later. A little R-E-S-P-E-C-T goes a long way, too. Try not to pick your nose where Pisces can see it, no matter how comfortable you feel in their presence. And if you enjoy being appreciated for everything that you are, bad and good, you need to step up and appreciate the appreciation, too.

This has ruined my day. The second tree to go down on FSD’s block this year (the first was chopped down by the Spirit), it brings up the question of what trees do for a neighborhood. Both business’s responsible claim that the trees are insurance liabilities (acorns or those stinky/mushy seeds falling on the sidewalk) and attract crime (shady kids like shade to do drug deals/graff whatever). Lots of people will tell you that trees reduce crime but tell that to a Fishtown deli owner tired of picking up used syringes on his front stoop every morning. Yes, we considered chaining ourselves to the tree. But the thought of never getting serve at Fran’s Deli was more terrifying than being mutilated with a chainsaw.

It all just really, really sucks to think that when we write you tomorrow there will be no more dry-leaf branches waving in the wind outside the window ever again, or the magic shadow-splashes dappled all across the street in the summer. Everyone at FSD is wearing black today.

No cash today, only the card. Just tell me, should I get the Taco Bell?

That’s right. Nuclear science. In the basement. In some place in Michigan. And…he’s only the 18th amateur in the world to ever do it. How on earth did he do something that basically anyone with some money and two years can do? Read here.

iMac: $898-$1958
MacBook: $998-$1398
.Mac: $68
iPod Nano (except Reds): $138-$228
iPod: $228-$318
Wireless Mighty Mouse: $58
Shure earphones: $78-$238
Contour iPod Cases: $14-$24
Belkin TuneBase FM: $58
JBL On Stage Micro: $78
JBL Spot Speakers: $108
LaCie Hard Drives: $148-$888
Incase Sling Pack: $48
Xtreme Mac Micro Memo Voice Recorder: $48
Sonic Impact Video-55 Display: $238
Nike+iPod Sport Kit: $24

Anyone want to give FSD a ride to the Christiana Mall? Tax free, save big!

The Spinner Rack is the Daily Miltonian’s extremely infrequent but always satisfying review feature about individual issues of comic books. This post-Turkey-wrapup-edition was written by our good pal Brady Dale. This is Brady:

Brady was going to write about some sort of indie obscure scratchy art zine comic something-or-other but here’s an important fact: Brady can’t get enough of Marvel Comics heavy-as-lead mega summer-into-winter cross-over extravaganza Civil War. Did we mention Brady also loves the Punisher? Oh because he so does. Then Brady went to his local comic store and oh shit will you look at this! There’s a new Punisher series. And you know what else? It’s a Civil War crossover! So Brady, not being able to stop himself (and can you blame him?), decided to write about said issue. And you, you lucky bastard you, get to read it. To wit:

“Dance With the Girl that Brung Ya” - A Spinner Rack Review
Punisher War Journal, vol. 2, #1
Writer: Matt Fraction
Artist: Ariel Olivetti
Marvel, $2.99

When Garth Ennis brought back the Punisher a few years ago in the
groundbreakingly sadistic mini-series, “Welcome Back, Frank,” he
imagined Frank Castle as a superhero that couldn’t stand other
super-heroes. Ennis has had a hell of a run with the Punisher and, I
suspect, a hell of a lot of fun. As it went on, I would get so excited
about new Punisher work that sometimes it felt like he was my new
favorite character. Or maybe Ennis is just my favorite comics writer.

That’s why I met the news that a new Punisher title was coming out with
considerable skepticism. How much would I enjoy another title if Ennis’s
was not the sick and twisted mind devising new ways for the Punisher to
increase his unbelievable body count? Fortunately for me, Marvel pulled
their current trump card on me. The blacked out the bottom half the
cover and stuck two words in that blackness that I now notice they’ve
had the audacity to trademark: “Civil War.”

That’s right, Punisher War Zone is a Civil War crossover. Currently,
there are only two circumstances under which I buy a floppy comic book
these days: it either has the number ‘52′ real big up at the top, or it
has that crazy half-blacked out cover that indicates its a Civil War
tie-in.

When I heard about this issue I thought, well, here’s a quandary:
Ennis’s Punisher is almost superhero-free. You can’t have a Civil War
tie-in without lots and lots of superheroes. So how far from outside
Ennis vision I so enjoy would Punisher War Journal fall?

In the Ennis world of the Punisher, other superheroes only show up so
the Punisher can humiliate them. He doesn’t humiliate them by beating
them up, either. No, no. That would be pedestrian to the charmingly
twisted mind of Garth Ennis. His Punisher tends to acknowlege the other
heroes definitely could beat the crap out of him, if they were ever
given a shot at a fair fight. The Punisher never lets them have that
shot, though. He always finds some way to prevent them from ever getting
close, usually using their own moral limitations against them in some
manner that makes a larger point about how useless their crusades are
when they aren’t willing to kill killers.

Anyway, not to digress into ethical pondering about whether or not the
Punisher’s methods are right or wrong, the larger point is that Matt
Fraction is picking up where Ennis has left off. He has no choice but to
pick up there. See, the Punisher had been a revolutionary character, the
first major anti-hero. As such, he became one of the hottest tickets in
the Marvel line, but then somehow he lost his charm in the 90s and they
killed Frank Castle off. For years, no one cared. In fact, I remember
just sort of not picking up the Punisher in the middle of some story arc
and always vaguely wondering how it had ended.

And why I never noticed Punisher on the spinner racks anymore?

Then, Ennis brought him back from the dead. Both literally and in the
public imagination. He did such a good job that they went ahead and made
a Punisher movie that borrowed heavily from the first Ennis mini-series.

So what’s Fraction end up doing with what Ennis left him with? As it
turns out, great things.

He’s no Ennis, but that’s fine. He’s still good. Fraction gives us a
Punisher that’s a normal guy. A normal guy who happens to be able to
beat ten trained men to the ground and knows how to fire heavy tank guns
while under fire. A normal guy with Black Ops training. A normal guy
stuck in a world over-populated with costumed clowns, some of whom are
murdering lunatics and all of whom get in the way of his one man war on
violent criminals. They all annoy the Punisher.

He tells the story of how the Punisher gets sucked into the current
costume on costume Civil War that the big crossover is named for. Along
the way, the Punisher has to slowly wade deeper and deeper into the
world of superheroes, super-tech and super-mentality. He is amusingly
disdainful of it all the whole way. He delights in watching Stilt-Man
get ripped from his stilt legs and fall to the ground as his old armored
appendages writhe. He calls the tracking device a mad scientist loans
him a ‘doohickey.’ He refers to a rifle he lifts off of disabled
S.H.I.E.L.D. agents a “government space-gun.” When he almost dies at one
point in the issue, it isn’t death itself that scares him but
death-by-cutesy-robot.

You also have to love the characterization of the Punisher’s foil in the
story, Commander Bridge. Bridge is a tough old bird from the same school
as Frank Castle: the old school. They don’t see each other, but they
each know who they’re fighting. They respect each other. They’d rather
not be on opposite sides. Bridge is the sort of guy who jokes about
flooding New York’s storm drain system with liquid fire and stands
around drinking coffee and reading the paper while ordering
twenty-somethings into a tunnel after the nation’s most notorious
killing machine.

Bridge gives voice to the reason why such a flagrant law-breaker as the
Punisher goes free in New York City, despite all the security there (if
you read the main series, you already know the answer: cops like him).
When he decides that principle will force him to resign in order to
better do the work he’s been assigned to do, he doesn’t do it without
worrying a bit about losing his pension. After all, Bridge is an old
guy. He’s got a paunch. He wants to quit doing this stuff someday.

The only thing noticeably absent from Punisher War Journal is, well, the
War Journal. Once upon a time, the Punisher’s thoughts and narrations
were narrated as entries into his “War Journal.” He did this for years.
“Punisher War Journal entry #XY993256″ - just fragged the fucking
Ringmaster. Finished his pizza and came home.” That sort of thing. No
mention of the war journal in War Journal #1. Perhaps no one remembers
that that is where they got the title for Punisher’s second book from,
back in the day, or maybe no one cares. I don’t really care, I just
think its funny.

I also think it’s funny that Fraction brings back a version of Microchip
(Castle’s old tech backup), because I know that as soon as Ennis reads
that he’s going to come up with an excuse to kill the new Microchip,
too, over in the main title. Wouldn’t it be funny of Ennis and Fraction
got into their own little one character civil war over the Frank Castle
myth?

Anyway, as for the first issue, I’ve read it a few times now and I just
bought it at noon today. In case this wasn’t all that obvious yet, I’ll
make it simple for you: I liked it. I like Fraction’s blue collar
Punisher. If I had any criticism of the Ennis Punisher, it’s that
Ennis’s is a little snooty. Fraction’s Punisher is a guy you could have
a beer with.

I also have to give a nod to the broader Marvel editorial regime. This
month, a lot of different books are intermingling with each other.
Punisher War Journal is mixed up in Civil War #5 and Amazing Spider Man
#536. It’s all managed artfully and elegantly. This is a neater, more
tightly packed crossover event than I have ever seen a comic book
company manage (though I have also been out of the scene a little while).

Fraction has kicked off his new book with all the indications of a good
run to come. The next issue’s title is promising: “How I Won the War:
Pt. 1 - Bring on the Bad Guys.” Yes, please do bring them on. We have
seen little of Marvel’s super-villainry since the Civil War started, and
you’d think there are all sorts of advantages they could take amidst
hero-on-hero chaos like this. Who better to answer the question of where
the bad guys have gone than the anti-hero so good at sending evil-do’ers
to their final destination?

Let’s just hope that Fraction’s work is good enough that when they quit
putting these Civil War banners on the bottom half of comic covers that
they he still draws a big enough crowd that Marvel take his books into
trade paperback reprint, because that’s the format I take the rest of my
comics in these days.

Punisher War Journal, vol. 2 - his stats so far: 4 guns, 5 body bags, 1
good issue.

Any of you freaks got a Spinner Rack to submit — any comic, any era, any issue — just mainline that shit straight into our veins via info@truejersey.com and it’ll be up on here faster than Fishtown casinos. Oof.