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Lit Literature member interviews

Discussion in 'Literature' started by Point Given , Jun 6, 2013.

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  1. Point Given

    Point Given Manager star 7 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Dec 12, 2006
    Not as much as your team disappoints you. :p

    (Assuming I'm thinking of the right one)
     
  2. instantdeath

    instantdeath Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 22, 2010
    Just the comics?
     
  3. dp4m

    dp4m Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Nov 8, 2001
    Hoojibs originated from Marvel, yes.

    Or am I misunderstanding what you are asking?
     
  4. instantdeath

    instantdeath Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 22, 2010
    Only meant to point out that the Hoojibs may just be the greatest thing in any medium, not just comics. Then again, they do have pantsless pirate extraordinaire Crimson Jack to contend with....
     
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  5. dp4m

    dp4m Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Nov 8, 2001

    Okay, fair point (re: Hoojibs; Crimson Jack, less so...)...
     
  6. dp4m

    dp4m Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Nov 8, 2001


    Well, at this point it's now been a lot. Some when I was much younger (or, in my opinion, too young to properly appreciate) like Sweden, Russia (the first time), Italy, Kenya, Somalia -- and now a bunch more when I'm adult enough like France, Russia (again), England, Canada, Iceland, Czech Republic, Ireland (for beer only), Hong Kong and airport transfers in Norway, South Korea and India. I'm traveling quite a bit for work now (mostly Hong Kong, with some England/Canada thrown in) and have usually been re-upping on American AAdvantage Gold in January or so...

    In terms of my favorite, it's hard to say. From just a sheer nature-geek standpoint, I'm not sure that anything will beat Iceland until I visit some Antarctic/near-Antarctic type place. I'm firmly convinced that, when the natural resource wars start, Iceland will be the first to fall and a key economic foothold -- what with the basically unlimited fresh water and thermal energy. One of the things that fascinated me about touring even just the SW portion of the island is that there is SUCH an eco-conscious movement... while doing things that would ordinarily be deemed "not eco" -- whale farming still, aluminum (or aluminium for the others) refining is one of the key industries in the country and they've specifically imported an invasive coastal/volcanic-growing plant from Hawaii to try and kick-start some of the natural processes for making the land more fertile that just takes a while (they admit they don't know what the long-term outcomes/consequences of this import will be). It's a pretty interesting place.



    The Yankees come out on top of nearly any qualitative and/or quantitative measurement.





    In terms of other sports, I generally root for the New York team (with one exception below -- castigation from Point Given to follow), but functionally:

    Basketball: New York Knickerbockers (the Isiah Era drove me away something fierce though)
    Hockey: New York Rangers
    College Football: Rutgers, with a new edict for West Virginia University (mavjade)
    College Basketball: St. John's Red Storm

    And then... NFL.

    AFC: New York Jets (buttfumble and all... the Geno Smith era cannot come fast enough), but...
    NFC: Dallas Cowboys (let the yelling begin)

    One note:



    I remember exactly where I was for that. It may be my sports equivalent of the JFK assassnation (or maybe Aaron Boone's 2003 walk-off HR, who knows). I don't dislike the Mets -- I actively want them to do well, right up until they play the Yankees, but that was still one of the most impossibly amazin' things I've ever seen in sports.

    On that subject, I generally like sports. I like the competition of sports; when I was just on vacation in California I watched Angels and Dodgers because that's what was on (I went to the Yankees/Dodgers game in LA and was amazed by Puig, just like everyone else). I cringe when the awesome players get hurt. I marvel at what the human bodies that are not mine can accomplish (or, in some cases, horses -- but I'm biased in the case of Secretariat). Though all of the Boston Red Sox can die in a fire.


    In a shocking turnaround for Lit interviews I think, I'm not a music guy. When the 80s ended, so did much of my music tastes. I'm more of a movie music guy and often put on movies as "background noise" (I work from home 99.44% of the time) rather than music. In terms of music-music (rather than scores -- though John Williams is obviously the man), my tastes generally run towards 80s music. I love me some Billy Joel, Simon and Garfunkel (fraternity brothers!), Police, Van Halen, Twisted Sister, Michael Jackson, etc. Give me a good synth beat and I probably like it.

    The greatest video of all time:



    How they made that is still amazing for 1985/6 even now. One of the things I do like, even if I'm not a huge music guy, is how music videos and commercials can drive special effects technology as it gives a fairly benign, small area to play versus trying to do them the first time in a movie (which is why James Cameron is amazing because he says "**** THAT!!!"). I'm not a huge fan of those DIRECTORS necessarily getting full-length movies on the "strength" of those music videos and/or commercials, but sometimes it turns out okay...
     
  7. instantdeath

    instantdeath Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 22, 2010
    While I'm not the biggest mainstream new-wave fan in the world (though Tears for Fears were pretty great, as were Talk Talk, and the Talking Heads and New Order if you're one of those barbarians who considers them New Wave), the Take on Me video completely deserves its legendary status. There are very, very, very few music videos that I truly feel enhance the song, and that's one of them.
     
  8. dp4m

    dp4m Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Nov 8, 2001

    Here are some other "good videos" (excluding Thriller -- which is its own category really):







    Most of the Cyndi Lauper videos enhanced their stories as well, but really were just the "best" of the story-videos.

    There were a bunch of videos that were significantly more advanced in what they were trying to tell than ordinary videos (even the story videos like We're Not Gonna Take It or Hot for Teacher).
     
  9. GrandAdmiralJello

    GrandAdmiralJello Comms Admin ❉ Moderator Communitatis Litterarumque star 10 Staff Member Administrator

    Registered:
    Nov 28, 2000
    I hope somebody asks him what it's like to live in New Zealand.


    Misa ab iPhono meo est.
     
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  10. blackmyron

    blackmyron Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Oct 29, 2005
    Having a deep love for the music video oeuvre myself, I would have to put forth Devo's entire output. Talking Heads had some great ones. The classic Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer"... and I'll stop here before I derail the thread.
     
  11. dp4m

    dp4m Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Nov 8, 2001

    That's a JCC joke though!


    See, I never ever found Sledgehammer to be a great video, other than the very beginning -- the "live-action short: concept part of it maybe just didn't work for me. And don't get me started on Money for Nothing and that beating a-Ha at the MTV Video awards... worse CGI than existed in 1982 in Tron is nothing to be proud of...
     
  12. GrandAdmiralJello

    GrandAdmiralJello Comms Admin ❉ Moderator Communitatis Litterarumque star 10 Staff Member Administrator

    Registered:
    Nov 28, 2000
    Oh you haven't heard of the upcoming Lit-JCC merge? It's bound to be a hit!


    Misa ab iPhono meo est.
     
  13. dp4m

    dp4m Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Nov 8, 2001

    Yes, but then we'd have to split them again since no one would moderate properly...
     
  14. Point Given

    Point Given Manager star 7 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Dec 12, 2006
    We're agreed on the Knicks and Rangers, though I'm a Mets fan. But the Jets and the Cowboys???? :eek:

    9. I know you receive advance copies of Star Wars books months before release. How did they select you for this? How long have you been receiving them?

    10. How would you rank the Star Wars movies?
     
  15. Arrian

    Arrian Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 15, 2011
    Everytime I hear Take On Me, I think of this:
     
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  16. CooperTFN

    CooperTFN TFN EU Staff Emeritus star 7 VIP

    Registered:
    Jul 8, 1999
    Michel Gondry says hi.
     
  17. dp4m

    dp4m Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Nov 8, 2001

    So does Spike Jonze and, to some extent, McG among others. But the misses are usually a) more frequent than the hits and b) much, much worse than normal misfires.
     
  18. dp4m

    dp4m Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Nov 8, 2001
    As I said, I presumed castigation would follow...

    So, the Jets were on my own. It's sort of my own, personal level of Hell coming to that realization. The Cowboys are entirely my brother's fault; he got me hooked when I was younger, influenced heavily by one of his own friends no doubt, and I never kicked the habit. I certainly root for the Giants if they're left standing -- especially against Tom Brady -- but they're not my thing normally. Going out to sports bars with all of the games on Sundays becomes interesting towards the end of the season that way...

    [​IMG]

    On the old IGN boards, years and years ago, there was a singular account called DelReyPublicity and it was managed by, gosh, I think Colleen Lindsay back then. We didn't really have that much formalized interaction back then -- really just a few people popping in and out and death threats against authors. The usual. We had a previous manager He Who Shall Not Be Named (aka TheGatherer) who was friendly with some of the Aussie authors and got some books in advance as I've been told, but it wasn't a formalized thing I was aware of. When he... left... the Lit forum was sort of bereft of any official contact, even on the TF.n Books side of things. So I reached out to Colleen, on a number of subjects, and basically set-up a relationship between the then-moderating team and the Del Rey/Random House team that lasted for a good while.

    We did a lot of cross-promotion between then and things like Author Q&As, things like that. As well, since authors like MWStover and JohnJacksonMiller are allergic to spoilers, we arranged for 1-2 of the staff to get advanced copies to avoid anything like "L'Affaire De Jimmy" ever again (no, really, it was fun... even if I wasn't fully in Lit at the time...). For those that don't know, spoilers of Anakin Solo's death in Star By Star began hitting the forum about 6-8 weeks early due to ARCs and the translation copies. Since no one at the time could verify the spoilers, though people were fairly confident at the time something was going down, the nickname for Anakin Solo became "Jimmy." So all talk of "Jimmy's death" was at least partially masked. And so the team could monitor spoilers going forward after that point; I still keep the moderating team involved with information (some choose to remain spoiler-free as is their wont) like characters (DPs) and major plot points, so that anything truly spoilerific can be handled in advance. I'm not quite as quick on the reading as I used to be, given all of the travel and usage of a Kindle therein, but it's usually still a bunch in advance. I still haven't read Revan yet though, which I think Havac said is for the best.

    And I think this has been going on for near on nine-ish years at this point, so it at least appears to be working "okay."

    They're all my babies!

    For real, it's obviously The Empire Strikes Back at the top, but it's not like I dislike the others overall. Each has pluses and minuses but they all still have amazing scenes and/or other items that make them amazing.

    The Phantom Menace: Podracing, the handmaiden dresses (for real, they're amazing), Duel of the Fates (especially the post-Qui Gon, Obi-Wan v. Maul portion).
    Attack of the Clones: A Jedi murder mystery in space! The Arena scene. The Jango v. Obi-Wan asteroid portion. Obi Wan in a bar. Dex. Clones. Jimmy Smits.
    Revenge of the Sith: The novelization, the entire opening sequence, the novelization, anything with Obi-Wan, the novelization, Order 66, the novelization, the ending. And the novelization, if I forgot to mention it.
    A New Hope: It was made in 1977. That still blows my mind. It started something that changed everything forever.
    The Empire Strikes Back: The asteroid chase is the single-greatest piece of music in all of the films. I think the only things Williams has done that dwarfs it are the Superman theme and the Indy theme, period. Plus, it elevates Star Wars from space opera to SPACE OPERA.
    Return of the Jedi: The escape from Jabba's sail barge portion over the Sarlacc is one of my favorite scenes in all six films; it doesn't hurt that the end duel scenes on the second Death Star are awesome and there is an immense space battle.

    PS - I like the blu-rays, don't hurt me (I'd prefer the original THX-remastered VHS versions converted to Blu Ray but I'll take what I can get!)
     
  19. Point Given

    Point Given Manager star 7 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Dec 12, 2006
    Matt Santos Jimmy Smits is a very underrated part of the PT. Unfortunately he gets overlooked a lot

    11. What are your hopes for the sequel trilogy? What do you think about the selection of J.J. Abrams and Michael Arndt for director and screenwriter?

    12. If you could re-do canon post NJO, (or in your case, pre-NJO) what choices would you make, if any?
     
  20. RC-1991

    RC-1991 Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 2, 2009
    What exactly was the deal with TheGatherer? I gather he was a Lit mod at one point, and had some sort of dramatic departure from TF.N.
     
  21. blackmyron

    blackmyron Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Oct 29, 2005
    I'm not going to fault you for Sledgehammer, because Thriller - which so many people adore - isn't interesting to me.

    But Weird Al - I forgot Weird Al. Always awesome... even the Beverly Hillbillies. ;)
     
  22. mavjade

    mavjade Former Manager star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 10, 2005
    Ha! Two WVU-ish references in one post. My plan is proceeding as expected...
    *maniacal laugh, maniacal laugh*

    Hey now...
    I feel an obligatory "Yankees Suck" coming on! (You sent me the batcall) :p
     
  23. CooperTFN

    CooperTFN TFN EU Staff Emeritus star 7 VIP

    Registered:
    Jul 8, 1999
    My memory of the Gatherer situation is very muddled, but for the record, all the ARCs I got in my TFN days were via Scott Chitwood, who would get a handful himself and mail one along to me; after he left to do Red 5 Comics they slowly dried up. If you-know-who played a role in any of that I never heard about it. I remember very distinctly that Betrayal was the last one I got because it was the first to be an actual manuscript copy rather than a final printing.

    Come to think of it, I don't even remember how I ended up with that one...it wasn't you, was it? :p

    EDIT: ha, checked my ancient PMs--it was you. ;)
     
  24. instantdeath

    instantdeath Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 22, 2010
    See, I've actually never been impressed with the Thriller video. I'd liken my opinion of that video to my opinion of The Sex Pistols; while I appreciate its place in music history, and will begrudgingly acknowledge it advanced the form in some way, in so many ways I feel it did more harm than good. Where The Sex Pistols arguably get more credit for their fashion and controversial behavior than their music (there were numerous better punk bands at the same time), Thriller invited a whole wave of overly long, pompous music videos that don't actually make any attempt in enhancing the song, but seem to be more interested in making nonsensical short films. Even ignoring the music video's influence and just looking at Thriller itself, though, I still feel it's not in the same class as something like Take On Me.

    Nothing against the Thriller album, though. Great pop album, even if its innovations are in my opinion often overestimated.
     
  25. dp4m

    dp4m Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Nov 8, 2001

    You will understand, of course, if I can't share specifics. If the JCC goes back far enough, you can search for him there and get a pretty good idea though.


    Weird Al is awesome; made only better by the story behind Amish Paradise. People forget just how long he's been around, doing what he's doing at a high level and, similarly to the Grateful Dead, thumbing his nose at some parts of the cult-artist vs. music business methodologies. I recall when people would say "Weird Al did a parody of me, so now I know I've arrived!!!"

    In terms of Thriller though, the reason I discount it is that it's... not really a music video. It's a short film based around a song/music video but it drove a ton of business, both with Michael Jackson and then with the concepts of film directors (Landis) "slumming" for a big enough project on MTV, as well as there being some where-smoke-possibly-fire charges of racism by Jackson against MTV prior and ensuring the legacy that some pop stars could cross-over and be a total multimedia star (The Sinatra Effect for the 80s, I suppose).


    Scott was the reason I came here, since I stole crap off his Texas A&M site back in the day when I was at college like Star Wars pictures, etc. Though I initially started in FanForce (*shudder*), I made my way over here. And I told Point Given that I know where most of the bodies are buried... ;)

    Scott left and/or was not around frequently by 2003 though, even though I believe you came on later, so as I said nothing was really ever formalized to my knowledge. I was very briefly Staff as well, and no one ever mentioned it.
     
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