More Than Half

A few weeks into October, and I sit on a dark, Autumn night in Aberystwyth. It's a familiar scene to last year, save one big difference: I'm 31.

Age has never been a big hang-up of mine. Especially not since I've hit most of the major age milestones in my life: 16 - able to drive, 18 - able to vote/graduation, 25 - able to rent a carpet shampooer. Once I hit about 27 or so, my birthday has become a sort of blurred melding of ages that loosely represent another span of time that has passed, but nothing has really changed.

Which is, of course, not true. I've done a lot since that storied time I realized I could shampoo carpets: I've gotten a Master's degree in English, my Dad has died, I started a PhD in English, I've become an Uncle a few times over, etc. etc. The thing is, none of these changes in my life happen on my birthday, so it's hard to associate that day with something awesome.

This summer I got to meet up with long time friend, fellow Logos leader, and similar life-moment sharer Victoria...who I am incapable of calling anything but Vicky. It was good to see old friends, and Vicky is always good conversation, especially since, like me, she has had a mass of achievements happen in her life, mostly after 25. I called another friend of mine, Claire, on the ride to Catherine's house. Claire, likewise, went to Benet with me, and was the second person I made friend with there (the first being John Z).

What dawned on me, especially closer to my birthday, is that I've known Claire and Vicky (and John, who will remain parenthetical) for more than half my life. See, I met Clair in August of 1994, a fresh faced 13-year-old, wearing a tie and scared out of his mind at the prospect of high school. Luckily, Claire had a deck of cards and we amused ourselves through the rest of homeroom by playing some card game.

This, as an idea, was not completely surprising. I mean, there are always moments in your life when you have been doing something for more than half the time you've been alive. If you started walking by one, by three you've spent more time walking than not walking. 31, though, is a more significant time in my life, because I have entered a stretch of years where I have been doing adult things for more of my life than not doing adult things.

For example, when I turn 33, I will have been driving for more years of my than not. At 37, I will graduated closer to the day of my birth than my current age. And so on. It's almost as if I am hitting "more-than-half-my-life" milestones. As each new year approaches, I can think celebrate having spent most of my life doing something.

31 was not too terribly earth shaking, since I didn't get my driver's permit until I turned 17. But, in September of 1995, I was given my first bass guitar, which has started me down a long road as an amateur musician. You see, when I was in high school, (John) and some other of my friends, Paul and Ryan, wanted to start a band. At this point in my life I was playing the tuba for Benet's symphonic ensemble, so it seemed like a natural fit. After trying to work the band around a tuba, and horribly failing, my friends got together and bought me a learner bass. From there, Bovus Solis was born (and if you know Latin, then you know we got it wrong, but the name comes from The Odyssey, when in book five, Odysseus and crew stop to relax on Apollo's island; there, they are warned not to eat the Cows of the Sun God, etc. etc.; you can read more here). After college, we didn't stay together, but I still endeavored to be a musician, playing in: NPE (Monmouth College, cover band), several church bands (St. Dominic: Life Teen, formal choir and Spanish masses; and St. Elizabeth Seaton: Life Teen), Cicatrix (post-Monmouth/pre-SIU hardcore punk band), Primal Seed (post-Monmouth, pre-SIU jam band of sorts with Monmouth Alums), and the Adam Van Winkle Harmonic experience (SIU jam band). Since that first bass, I've purchased four more, three electric guitars, two acoustic guitars, and a mandolin. When I was teaching at St. Dominic, I formed two bands to play at the yearly talent show (Mr. Clean and the Disinfectants) and performed solo one year. When planning on coming to Aberystwyth, I was gutted (Americans: read deeply saddened) by the fact that I was not going to be around my electric equipment. I did manage to get my acoustic over here, and have played with several of my friends here in Wales.

Music is a large part of my life, and I've been making it for more than half my life now.

So, from here on out, I will have been working towards being and adult for the majority of my life. In retrospect, 15-year-old Keegan imagined more. But 31-year-old Keegan is pretty happy with where's he been, and is particularly excited to see where he's going.

The Problem with Forks; or, Why I Would Never Live There

I have not been quiet on my dislike of Twilight, the series, or what it does to women and their conception of Romance. I also find it troubling how old women can go and yell explicitly sexual things at young men and aren't arrested for it. Had I showed up with a sign like the one in the article for a Harry Potter Premier, telling a teenage Emma Watson that I loved her, I would be branded a pedophile and looked at with disdain.

That said, while driving through Washington's Olympic State Park, I was forced to go through Forks, Washington, which anyone familiar with the books and movies will know is the setting for the fictional love story where a woman has to choose between her necrophiliac or bestial deviancy. I was with my British friend and Twilight enthusiast, Lizzie, who was more than happy to stop and have a look around the town. Really, more of a hamlet than anything else.

Olympic National Park, which was quite impressive and full of stuff for nature lovers and hot tub fans alike, is ringed by the historic two-lane highway, US 101. And that's really about it. Most of the land west of Seattle and east of the ocean is either owned by the National Parks Service or is set aside for Native American reservations (and not the kind that are chock full of casinos). The landscape is beautifully untouched, and probably full of indigenous wildlife, but the human population is noticeably lacking. Because of this, it draws a certain type of recluse to the small towns that dot the 101.

Forks is probably the largest town for about 50 miles (Port Angeles is about 50 miles E/NE of Forks), but in all told, it really sits in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing, separated from civilization by a large, snowy range of impassable mountains. Which is the only reason I can discern that it has an airport. According to Wikipedia, Forks has about 3,500 reclusive citizens, which is slightly less than my hometowns high school attendance (approximately 3,600 people). That said, there were restaurants and places to go shopping for sundry goods and luxury items. On a whole, though, Forks was like any other small, isolated community: dingy, a little suspicious looking and no entirely friendly. This is probably why Stephanie Meyers choose it for her vampire novels. Where else could century old vampires live and work without gaining the attention of other town folk (who, as media has shown us, will rise up with pitchforks and drive them out).

Unfortunately for Forks, the books became wildly famous. And when things are wildly famous, they draw fans - devoted fans with fists full of cash to spend on trinkets and collectibles that will commemorate their time in this place. This is why tourist spots like Times Square and Gatlinburg, TN are overrun by t-shirt stands and trinket dealers. Forks would be stupid to pass by some opportunities to bring money into their economy during these struggling times. However, a town of people who are comfortable living 150 miles from the nearest city (and 50 miles from the nearest town) are not exactly in the mind for figuring out how to elicit attention to their community. This creates an awkward tension between those who moved there to be away from everyone, and those who are there to make money off of the tourists.

There were the usual type of fare: Twlight tours, restaurants with specifically designed menus, places advertising Twilight inspired paraphernalia and t-shirts. There were also some people hoping to make money off idiots, like the guy selling Twilight firewood and kindling. There were some places that were aware of the demand for Twilight things, and they prepared to attract this demand with professional signs and cutouts, vehicle decorations and prominent advertisement. Others seemed less enthusiastic, using hand-made signs on a single sheet of typing paper, taped somewhere near the door.

As a counterweight to these stores and restaurants were dark, dingy buildings that made no effort to cater to Twilight fans. The complete lack of interest was as loud a statement as the gaudiest sign: this place is not for fans. It might be unfair to suggest that place who did not reach out to Twilight tourists were openly hostile, but what other reason could there be to not grab on to that tourist cash cow? Fans are going to go to Forks, so why not get them to go to your restaurant? The only logical reason is because you don't want them there. And without some nod to the movies and books (or vampires in general), this money is going to pass right on by.

The Forks Chamber of Commerce is keenly aware of this, and as such, has tailored their website to draw the tourist's dollar. There is an interactive map that lets users find all the "places of interest" in and around Forks (presumably these places have some connection with the book or movie, though I doubt the movie was filmed there). Honestly, while this sort of attention might not sit well with all those who live there, people would be making a huge mistake to pass by this easy money. No one can blame Forks for succumbing to it.

But, as you will read later in my post about LA, it lends a sense of disingenuousness to Forks. There are probably very lovely things about Forks that don't have to do with vampires. There might have be a little store that sold or imported handmade goods, a restaurant where the waitress knew the regulars by name and order, and a gas station that was always fairly priced. Now, though, anything that was unique to Forks has to have a veneer of vampirism to continue to survive. It's not big enough to survive these labels like Seattle has for grunge music, or Chicago for senseless gang violence. Forks can no longer be known as a community that lived on the edge of Washington's most sprawling forest with an inexplicable airport; it will forever be known as the fictional setting for a love story between a personality-less woman and a dead thing. Maybe Forks will be better for it, and maybe it can grow to become a mid-size city like Peoria, IL, or Indianapolis, IN, but there is no way that it can't be that. It will, from here on out, be an attraction, and that does not make it a good place to set up a home.

Why I Would Live in Seattle

I was trying to think about how I could incorporate my trip this summer into this blog which is mostly about my travels in foreign countries (or rather, what has happened to me as I pursue a degree in a foreign country; several articles have been more navel gazing and considered some of the less-than-pleasant things that have happened while away). I came up with this idea when a friend of mine, Mark Bruesch, mentioned that he wanted to live in Seattle and Portland. See, for some time now I have wanted to live in UK, and really only in the UK...or Europe or Australia, but decidedly NOT America. It's not that I have anything particularly against America. America has given me a lot of things that I am really fond of, including but not limited to:
1. Big cars.

2. Peanut-butter M&Ms.

3. Freedom, and clothes with eagles celebrating freedom.

4. Epic Meal Time videos (and YouTube.com for that matter; where would the world go for videos of animals riding animals?).

5. All-night diners that serve pancakes and milkshakes simultaneously.

6. Baseball hats.

Despite loving a lot of what America provides, I figured I needed to expand my life experiences to become a better person. I worried that I was making a lot of similar mistakes because I had not seen enough of the world to better understand alternative ways to deal with things. Also, I wanted to see other parts of the world and live somewhere entirely outside of my comfort zone. Essentially, I was worried that I had grown as much as I could in Illinois, and it was time for something decidedly not Illinois.

But, with recent trips to San Diego for Comic-Con, and now to Seattle for Lizzie's Induction to America Road Trip, I have found myself enjoying other parts of the country in ways similar to how I enjoy Aberystwyth, and even considering living in these parts of the country. To better help me understand what about these places appeals to me, I have decided to discuss each city here. This will also save me from the incredibly uninteresting posts that detail every little trip I take. Context, my readers, will make things more interesting.

Installment 1: Seattle.

On coming to Seattle, I had considered it to be a Pittsburgh of the Pacific Northwest: a city big enough to have a downtown, but really with little in it to make it more exciting that Chicago. Let's be honest: Chicago is the third largest city in America (which is itself a country full of large cities). What could any city, other than New York and Los Angeles have over it? Especially Seattle.

Here's what I new of Seattle: a lot of good music comes from this part of the country due in no small part to the crazy amounts of rain dumped annually on the city. A lot of bands which were influential to rock and roll today came from Seattle: Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and a host of other grunge rock bands stripped glam-rock of the hair, make-up and general douche-i-ness and gave America angsty, simple songs about anger, disappointment and rain. The music was dark.

Also, a lot of people drank coffee and read used books. Good rainy weather activities.

With this rain, grunge music and an obsession with cheap copies of Tolstoy comes another commonly repeated fact about Seattle: suicides. I have heard it told, and this is totally on hearsay alone, that there are a surprisingly high percentage of suicides in Seattle every year. The teens are dark, confused and embittered which leads them to make horrible mistakes.

So why would anyone want to come here? I like Nirvana as much as the next man raised in the 90s, but it seems like a horrible place to start a vacation (particularly one that would end in sunny California).

Happily, though, my three days in Seattle have proven that I actually don't know anything about this place. For starters, unlike Pittsburgh or Indianapolis (both cities I have visited and been horribly disappointed with), Seattle has a vibrant and functional downtown area. This is in no small part due to Pike St. Market - the worlds oldest, long-running outdoor market. This market provides Seattle residents with a lot of nice perks: cheap fresh cut flowers, fresh fish and other seafood, cheap carry-out foods, and somewhere to just go and watch humanity walk by. This is a famous part of town, known for the stall that tosses fish and for giving birth to Starbucks. Besides providing entertainment for the locals, it also draws a lot of tourists every year. This provides jobs for locals, both in the Market and around it.

Which brings me to my second point: the downtown area is rather well-trafficked, even at night. Go to Pittsburgh (sorry, I really didn't like Pittsburgh) after five PM and the city shuts down. The downtown area is used primarily for business, so once business closes for the day the city shuts down. To a certain extent, this is true for Chicago's loop, too. The difference being that Chicago is a bigger city with more neighborhoods near the Loop, allowing for this shut down of the business district to ghost the entire town. Seattle, though, seems to keep a lot of bars, restaurants and clubs open in and around the Market for some time after the stalls have been cleaned out. Lizzie and I walked the sea-front at about 9:00 pm one night, and there were still plenty of people milling about.

That said, there were at least two distinct neighborhoods outside the central areas (Pike St. and the City Center, featuring the Space Needle) that both had unique vibes, and seemed, from my limited experience, to be interesting places.

First was the University of Washington's campus. As anyone who goes to Yale knows, the area surrounding a campus can be kind of dodgy. This was true of Monmouth (to some extent) and Carbondale (definitely). The influx of students can ruin the neighborhood, trashing the houses and drawing in dive bars, late-night liquor stores and pawn shops. The trifecta of college survival tools. The Ave, as it is known to locals, is not at all like that. Our hotel, The College Inn, is quite literally down across the street from the western entrance to campus. From the looks of the website and the reviews, it looked like a student hostel, and I was worried it would have student hostel-like accommodations: leaky, poorly lit bathrooms with moldy showers and warped linoleum; squeaky, lumpy mattresses with moth-eaten blankets and stained sheets; a piss-poor breakfast of stale bread and warm juice. The College Inn was none of these things. The bathrooms are clean, the beds comfortable (and clean), and the breakfast is quite nice for something included in the price. The building itself is on Seattle's Historic Register, having recently been restored to it's glory days from the early 1920s. All in all, for a cheaper hotel, this was the best you could ask for. Hell, I've slept in more expensive hotels with less fineries than this.

The surrounding neighborhood is an eclectic mix of restaurants and clothing stores. Despite there being a mass of college students, there was not a single McDonalds in the six or so blocks that Lizzie and I walked looking for food. There were hundreds of Asain restaurants, including Thai, Vietnamese, pan-Asian noodles, Chinese, and Himalayan. There were several kabob shops, gyro joints and burger places. There was even one place that featured fish and chips. There wasn't a dive bar or cheap liquor store to be found, and to that end, there was not a lot of publicly drunken teenagers trashing the street. There were cafes to do school work or chill out, bars to have a friendly pint or watch sports, and coffee shops. Always plenty of coffee shops. The constant presence of young people made the place feel more vibrant.

Further down the I-5 Interstate was the trendier, older Capitol Hill. As an example of how trendy this place is, Lizzie and I met Kat (the owner and driver of Barbie's Dream Hearse) out at a late-night cappuccino bar for a board/card game night. There, people raucously played Settlers of Catan, Apples to Apples and other board or card games. There was cake eaten and a lot of coffee or coffee like beverages consumed.

And this was not the only place. Of course, being in Seattle, there were a LOT of trendy coffee places and wine bars. There were a lot of pizza places and other late-night food joints open. But with all of these trendy places comes trendy people. There were more ironic mustaches and cut-off skinny jeans shorts than I cared to count (and really one of each is more than one should have to see). At the game night, there was a general hipster vibe that followed me out the place and around Capitol Hill. It's not that I hate hipsters, I just have a hard time taking anyone who is that constantly ironic very seriously. However, sometimes you have to take the bad with the good. If listening to someone argue that the Beatles only sound good in mono means I get to play Settlers of Catan, then that is one bitter pill I will happily swallow.

Now, if money were no option and I wanted to live in Seattle, I would choose - without a shadow of a doubt - Bainbridge Island. This island, accessible by ferry, was nothing too special in and of itself. It had a downtown that boasted some niceties, but nothing as quaint as Martha's Vineyard or Mackinaw Island. What it did have, though, were houses on the coast facing the Seattle skyline. Sitting across the bay, these houses provided spectacular views of the city. On a clear day like today, Mt. Rainier's constantly snowy slopes loomed large to the South. A half-hour ferry across the bay seems a small price to pay for such inspiring views. The houses, on the other hand, were in reality no small price to pay. A two bedroom, two and a half bathroom house cost upwards of $1,000,000 dollars. With price tags like that, the ferry ride suddenly seemed like a lot to ask of a person.

In short, I liked Seattle. From here, Lizzie and I are going to rent a car and drive to Oceanside, Washington, taking the 101 around Olympic National Park (through, of all places, Forks - the home of fictional vampire and teenage wet dreams Edward Cullen). This will give me a peek at the natural respites that Seattle has to offer, and hopefully will soldify my feeling that Seattle might be a pretty cool place to live.

America = Entrepreneurial

America was founded by people who wanted to do what ever they wanted to do. Settled by Puritans (who wanted to pray however they wanted), criminals (who were caught doing some extreme things that, in some cases, only they wanted to do), and fur traders (entrepreneurs who sold you things you didn't know you desperately needed), this country has long had the notion that with enough hard work, anything was possible. Having flown over a large expanse of the West, I can see where this idea comes from. It would take a hard will and determination to continue to push West past the Mississippi where you were faced with hundred of miles of flat nothingness, and then a wall of insurmountable mountains.

Because of this, America is flooded with inventors, particularly on TV late at night. There are swarms of infomericals (it's a commercial that also has a lot of information in it) selling rotisserie chicken ovens, miracle stain removers, and blankets with sleeves. This branch of capitalism has made some celebrities, most famously former boxing great, now shapeless smiling sack of man George Foreman who taught the world to "knock out the fat" with his line of countertop grills. Or Billy Mays who sold everything from KaBoom! to Herculues Hooks until God called Billy home early when a suitcase was dropped on his head and he died of some brain condition later that night. Or Vince Shlomi who slap-chopped a hooker that bit him in the face after he refused to pay her. The success of this cottage industry has lead to "As Seen On TV" stores and sections, particularly in Bed, Bath and Beyond.

There is something romantic about the idea of doing what you love in the way that you love and having people pay you money to do it.

Enter: Kat Taylor. Kat and I went to Benet together, though she went on to graduate from a different high school. After spending some time in Austin and New York, she put together a plan while, and I'm quoting her here, "smoking and drinking tea on a balcony in China," to trick out a hearse and drive it around as a limo. Thus: Barbie's Dream Hearse.

Buying a 1992 Cadillac Brougham hearse in Glendale, California, Kat drove up the coast and began modifying the hearse for limo services. To make ends meet, she wrote technical manuals for Microsoft and other technology firms around Seattle. With most of the modifications completed and after deciding to leave Microsoft (see Douglas Coupland's Microserfs for examples of why), she drove the car as her sole means of income.

It might sound like an odd thing to do, but there is a growing niche market of hearse drivers in cities around America. This, like the infomercial, can only flourish in a country that fosters an entrepreneurial spirit. By the looks of her blog, Kat does fairly well, using the car in photoshoots, driving for proms and weddings, and parking her sweet ride to attract patrons to local bars in the Capitol Hill area of Seattle. She was even named Seattle Bride's Best of the Best 2011 for limos.

When I was headed out to Seattle, I knew I had to book the Dream Hearse. As I stood on the curb with a mass of others waiting to be picked up, the hearse came around the corner. I can only imagine what went through people's minds as I piled my luggage into the back of a hearse dressed in pink and white. The ride, though, was as comfortable as it was a novelty. Honestly, if you are in the Seattle area, you would be doing yourself a disservice to NOT hire Kat and her awesome car.

One thing was clear though, as we merged onto the highway, leaving the airport in our mirror, Seattle's downtown rising up on the horizon: this is only possible in America. Only here could I go to a town famous for creating the modern computer industry in hearse decked out to look like something Barbie would have driven. U!S!A! I chanted to myself, U! S! A!

A Blog for Jer (and Jer's People) [Revised]

On September 10th, at the Montrose Harbor on Chicago Lakefront, my family comes together for the ALS Walk4Life. We do this in memory of my Dad, Jerry Lannon, who died of ALS in 2007. Generally, to raise funds, I write a note about the horrors of ALS, more popularly known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

This year, I want to talk about birds.

One of the things my Dad loved about this house (and possibly a reason he never left) was that this little split-level sits on good amount of land. A drainage creek that runs through the back of a stretch of houses, and this provided about an extra 100 feet of land the width of the plot. This puts the house on somewhere between a 1/3 and 1/2 acre (we think). The creek and extra green space has provided our yard with a lot of wildlife. Everything from raccoon, skunks, the occasional beaver, herons, ducks, geese to a plethora of song birds.

It was these birds that my Dad, late in life, took interest in. As ALS robbed his body of the ability to move, he retained all of his cognitive faculties; essentially, my Dad was left trapped inside a body with immeasurable stretches of time. He spent most of this time in the family room in front of the large sliding door that looked out on to a small circle garden surrounded by bird feeders. Like anyone trapped in a prison and little else to occupy time, my Dad started to watch the birds come and go in the backyard, mentally cataloging which species he had seen on that day. When my Mom would come home, he would report to her on all the birds that he had seen.

One bird my Dad was particularly interested in was the elusive humming bird. These flighty, easily frightened birds are picky at best, and stuck-up or snobby at their worst. Coming through Illinois in the Spring, the birds look for specific flowers - delicate, generally red and trumpet shaped. My Mom planted red salvias by the back door to attract the birds, and each day they would show up, my Dad would excitedly (well, if you knew my Dad...excitedly for him) report on how many and what colors he had seen. Watching for those birds became one of the last things that made my Dad's life livable.

There is, or rather was, little hope for people with this diagnosis. There is no cure, and until just recently, the medical community was not even sure what caused ALS. There is some frustration felt by those affected by the disease (either directly or indirectly), because there is nothing to be done. The Les Turner Foundation, run out of Northwestern Hospital in Chicago, IL, has been tirelessly working to raise awarness and, if nothing else, provide just a little bit of hope. Like the hummingbirds that would buzz around the back door, that small glimmer of hope arrived on Aug. 22nd when research believe they found a common factor in all ALS cases. More than hope, though, this research is directly funded by dollars raised by the ALS Walk4Life. So, for all of those who have donated in the past, and for those who are going to donate today, you have made a difference. And as my brother Kiernan said, "I promise you that two years ago, everyone who donated to the team helped make a difference in people's lives. You've never met many of the people you've helped... and you probably never will... but you definitely know one person for whom your donation mattered greatly... me."

Since my Dad has passed, the humming bird garden has grown over, and the weeds have choked out the more delicate plants the birds like. This summer, though, one iridescent green humming-bird has been poking about, even buzzing by my Mom's legs as she waters the more hearty petunias and black-eyed susans. I'd like to think it might be a sign my Dad is still hanging around the house, checking in from time to time. It would be poetic justice if, after being robbed of his ability to move, my Dad comes back as the hummingbird, the only bird that can fly backwards. The sky would, at last, be the limit for him.

So, with that, I ask that you consider donating to my family's Walk4Life team. Just click the previous link to visit our team's webpage. No donation is too small, and your donation will make a tangible difference in the life of someone who, at the end of the day, is just looking for hope - looking for their own hummingbird.

The Reluctant America

In an attempt to figure out the mettle of Steve Rogers, Dr. Erskine (played in the movie by Stanley Tucci), the German scientist who created the Super Soldier Serum, asked Rogers (played by Chris "I'm In Every Superhero Movie" Evans): "So...you want to kill Nazis?" This line of questioning, coming from a German, seems odd, and Rogers is taken aback. But after some pushing he finally admits, "I just don't like bullies. Where ever they are."

This is an important sentiment, not just for Captain America's character, which was thankfully well-rounded and intricate in the movie, but for America itself.

Captain America is often misunderstood, and for this reason most foreign releases of the Captain America movie were simply titled, The First Avenger. There is good reason for seeing Captain America (and as you will see later in this entry, all of America) as being this brash, arrogant jerk who tries to tell you how it is all the time: that's how he was conceived. Born from Timely Comic's team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, Captain America was little more than a propoganda piece for an America that was wondering what it's involvement would be in the rising war. The first cover of the first issue that hit stands in December of 1940 showed Kirby's dynamic Captain America punching Adolf Hitler in the face. The message was clear: America needed to do the right thing. Captain America, throughout the war, fought the good fight.

Interestingly, in the movie, Evans' Captain America was originally used to drum up interest in War Bonds, helping to finance America in World War II. This is one way that Marvel does comicbook inspired movies well: it defers to the continuity, while not feeling hemmed in by it. By adding this part of the story to the movie, it pays homage to Captain America's less than auspicious beginnings while propelling the narrative forward.

It also helps to play a useful metaphor in America's relationships with other countries. In the movie, Evans, wearing the original 1940's Captain America shield and costume, tours around America, initially reluctant to be a part of a dog-and-pony show while other Americans (and Europeans) are stuck fighting. However, as his popularity grows, he starts to enjoy his role. At the height of his popularity, Captain America is shipped overseas to perform as part of the USO Tour, and there he is greeted with much less happy crowds.

It's at this juncture in his life, dodging tomatoes from those he's tried to drum up support for, that he realizes he is a sham. At home, punching out fake "Hitlers" for 12-year-old kids did what it needed to: diverted attention from the atrocities to help raise funds to continue sending young men to die on foreign shores. However, hip deep in those atrocities, the same brightly colored costumes and uniforms seem oddly inauthentic. There were real people dying, and the last thing they need is some caricature of an ideal telling them to keep up the good work. It was insulting, demeaning, and frankly unwanted (what they did want, and asked for, was more girls dancing).

Captain America decided there that his role should be more active, and less auxiliary. Donning a leather jacket and helmet, he used his Super Soldier abilities and rescued 400 prisoners from behind enemy lines and the Red Skull's clutches (Nazi Germany's own Super Soldier). For the first time in his life, Steven Rogers acted on his ideals rather than just representing them. He took charge, lead the fight and did good in the world.

Here is where I see an interesting parallel between Captain America and his own struggles to be what he represents, and America's relationship to the world. America has always had a troubled relationship with other countries, particularly those that disagree with her central tenants of freedom and justice for all. Since World War II (and I realize my understanding of World History, even US History, is cursory at best, so I might be off on some dates; the general idea, though, I feel is sound), America has tried to represent all the good that comes from Democracy and Capitalism. And America has been a shining example. In this country, there is (or was, before the Republicans seem to initiate class warfare against the middle percentage of the country) nothing stopping someone from working hard enough to attain one's dreams. Throughout the history of America, everyone has been given (sometimes more reluctantly than others) the right to try and better themselves. If there is some sort of inequality, the country tries to debate the gap in rights, and come to a conclusion (again, sometimes more slowly than it should, but eventually, with enough people pushing, there can be a push towards equality).

But there in lies the problem. At what point does America, representing what it feels is the best form of societal living, turn from shining light of Democracy to overblown, offensive caricature? How can America suggest that everyone demand freedom when such demands might be met with horrific punishments? When does representing an ideal not carry enough responsibility? When is it that America has to walk the walk that it's talk has talked?

This issue, though, begs a question: where is the fine line between liberator and aggressor? In the Captain America movie, clearly he was a liberator, freeing the world from the terrifying, tyrannical nature of the Red Skull. Captain America stopped us all from living under the rule of a mad despot, but in reality the situation is rarely that black and white. Take, for example, Iraq: no one wants to say that Saddam Hussein was just misunderstood, but he certainly wasn't causing much of an international stir when America decided to invade. Granted, he was not providing a life for the Iraqis that jelled with the American understanding of living, and in some sense, our unyielding since of justice and equality should dictate that we go in there and free the people from their own Red Skull. However, not everyone saw it that way. Because of their natural resources, and because Hussein lacked a strong American relationship, some outside observers saw our invasion as more motivated by money than our core ideals. From one perspective, America could be seen in a similar vein as the Red Skull: forcing our views on humanity by use of the Biggest Stick.

Remembering that Steve Rogers is eventually found again, reanimated and inserted into contemporary culture, it's important that Captain America dies at the end of World War II (more so in the comic than in the movie, which was really just a way to set up the Avengers movie). Captain America and his black and white sense of justice might not make sense in contemporary America. With the end of the war, Hitler and the Red Skull went the clearly defined bad guys of comic book lore. Today's America is faced with an endless sea of gray choices which ripple into other decisions and force even more cloudy, blurred and gray dilemmas. Captain America can't just punch Hussein in the face, since that act will be scrutinized for it's agenda and motivation. What seems like a bad guy might not be as bad to other people.

Or it could be that Captain America's approach to foreign policy is exactly what is missing in this world: punch the bad guys, protect the good guys, and never back down from bullies.

What is certain, though, is that America can learn something from Captain America: doing the right thing is always going to be hard, but doing nothing will be much worse. All that's left is the far more complicated issue of deciding what's the right thing to do.

Comic-Con: A Retrospective

Sitting in the San Diego Airport, waiting for my flight to Denver and the connection to Chicago, I looked around at the other passengers. Most everyone was sitting around reading comic books or fantasy novels (a lot of George R.R. Martin). One guy near my had a Pan-Am collectors messenger bag stuffed with Comic-Con collector big bags. People were carrying on rolled posters and signed prints in safety tubes, and there were countless t-shirts, some of which were exclusive to Convention. There were a lot of knowing smiles and nods passed between strangers whose only connection were both being one of the 145,000 people per day that went through the Convention. Everyone looked tired, overstimulated and ready to go home, happy and full of new collectibles, books and t-shirts.

This is what the Convention, known to pros as "The Con," does to people: provides a sense of belonging on a massive scale. Hundreds of thousands of people descend upon the San Diego Convention Center, turning the grey, concrete structure into an epicenter of popular culture. Everyone is there for the same reason: to be at the crest of the next wave of popular culture. There were panels for new seasons of popular shows that have a connection to comics (some more tenuous than others). Actors and producers for shows like Game of Thrones, Big Bang Theory, Twilight, True Blood, Archer, Community, and the Adult Swim line-up showed clips from the new seasons and answered fan questions.

There are two massive ballrooms at the Convention Center that hold near 5000 people, and for the panels in these ballrooms, the lines started queuing hours before the doors opened. For the sneak preview of the next Twilight movie, dedicated fans lined up and camped out for two days, sleeping outside the Center in the warm San Diego nights, just for a twenty minute clip that these said fans could then claim to have seen while others have not. There were a few panels I wanted to see in these ballrooms, namely the Bones panel, so that I could kidnap David Boreanas for my Mom, and the Game of Thrones panel so that I could kidnap Emilia Clarke for myself (just kidding Catherine...or...am I?). However, as it becomes apparent to anyone having attended Comic-Con, these panels are essentially an all-day wait. Standing in line, alone, for upwards of four or five hours is not really why I went to the Convention. Ultimately, I had to pass on Game of Thrones for other activities.

My interest in the Convention is to find out about new books. All the publishers, both the massive, multinational conglomerates like DC and Marvel, and the smaller, more independent presses like Top Shelf and Drawn and Quarterly, have booths selling their wares. A good number of the books are unreleased yet. For example, Top Shelf was pimping Kagan McLeod's Infinite Kung-Fu, Nate Powell's Any Empire and a re-release of Craig Thompson's seminal Blankets in hardcover. The larger booths have a lot of name recognition, and lines for meeting and getting signatures from people like Alex Ross and Geoff Johns were quite long. However, smaller artists like McLeod, Powell, Anders Nilsen (and his INSANELY beautiful collected volume of Big Questions, which was just released by Drawn and Quarterly for the show), and even Thompson, on whose book Blankets I presented a paper, were at their respective publisher's booths signing books and answering questions.

This was a better use of my time. As an academic who is writing about living authors, it is essential that I make connections with these authors and artists so that I might get heads-up, early releases, interviews and what not for my work. Having these connections to living writers will give me an edge over other academics, both when I need to pull one in for a Convention or to help give my writing a more human touch.

Initially, I wasn't expecting so many creators to be at their respective booths. As I wandered the small press booths, I ran into the Flight booth, where Kazu Kibuishi and friends were selling their awesome anthology (now in Volume 8). There were a few other books published on Random House imprint Villard, one of which was Tory Woollcott's Mirror Mind. The book, with a stark black-and-white cover, caught my eye. The book tells the story about Woollcott's struggles with dyslexia while in primary school. I had been kicking around the idea of a paper on the representation of mental illnesses for a while, so I started to flip through. A woman behind the counter smiled at me, and asked if I was dyslexic (which I don't think that I am, but sometimes see letters and words upside-down). We got to talking, and I decided to buy the book. She asked who she should sign it to, and I paused.

"You're Tory Woollcott?" I asked.

"Sure am. And you are..."

"Keegan. This is great. I'm buying this because I want to write about how authors represent mental disorders in comics. Also, I want to look at how comics can be used to convey stories in a medium that might help those who struggle with reading."

We talked for some time about her choice to write the story in the comic form.

"Is there a way I can reach you later?" I asked. "Do you have a card or something?"

She proceeded to write her email address right in the book and told me that I should contact her if I have any questions. Which I do. And I will.

I went on to meet some other artists and authors. Some were new to me, like Nate Powell, whose book Swallow Me Whole has been on my Amazon Wish List for a while. Some were my favorites, like Nilsen and Thompson, both of who said they would try to make my talk (neither did, though Thompson signed a copy of his book for me, even saying as much in the inscription). Some were surprising, like Ryan North of the very excellent Dinosaur Comics. I got cards and email addresses for many of these authors and creators, and now can pepper my papers and publications with interviews and quotes from the authors I write about.

Beside meeting writers and cartoonist, the Convention also gave me an opportunity to meet with other academics. Peter Coogan and Randy Duncan have been putting this event together for several years, and every year there are more and more impressive academics that present papers and pimp their latest books. This year, I was really excited to hear David Beronä would be present, talking about his work in woodcut novels. Beronä, who has a book out, Wordless Books, is a formalist critic that I make use of in my own writing. His work on early woodcut novels of Lynd Ward and Frans Mansereel is groundbreaking.

One day, overwhelmed by the mass of people milling about the Convention Center, I decided to take a walk and get a sandwich. As I was cutting down a pedestrian path, I noticed Beronä crossing the street in the same direction, by himself. Now, randomly approaching strangers on the street has never been my forte, but this was an opportunity that I needed to take. So, with a deep breath and my balls up in my chest, I got his attention, introduced myself and started talking. We walked along the pedestrian path, discussing the Convention, comic criticism and San Diego. I found him to be far more approachable and down to earth than a lot of critics and academics who spend their time enshrouded in books and journals. Like the contacts I made among the creators, knowing Beronä is bound to help my career (in fact, he asked that I send my paper to him to discuss possible avenues of publishing).

On Saturday, when my friend Jonathan Talbert and his fiancee Lisa came to visit me, hearing my talk, we went to a party thrown by the Comic(s) Art Conference. I sat at a table with young academics, many of whom presented papers and posters at the conference, and we all reveled in our nerdity. One academic from North Texas was blissed out over having met Scott McCloud. Another was just excited to meet a popular and credible feminist critic. We talked about the new comics we bought and the panels we attended. I had gone to the party knowing Talbert and Lisa, but left having a table full of new friends.

Comic-Con, for all the press it gets for the weird things that happen at it (the costumes, the fanaticism, the stabbings over seats), is really a place were fans of comics and comic-culture can come together to enjoy the company of like minded individuals. On the bus one morning, three guys dressed like characters from Star Wars boarded the bus and made their way to seats behind me.

"Dude...nice Thundercats shirt," one said as he went by.

Sunday, at the Denver Airport, waiting for my connecting flight, I sat on the ground, watching the mass of strangers mill about going to hundreds of locations around the US. Most people didn't make eye contact, kept focus on finding their next terminal, the baggage claim, a taxi or what not. I started reading Ryan North's Dudes Already Know About Chicken when a young man walked past carrying a hard cover edition of Blackest Night. We nodded at each other, understanding the shared experience, and he disappeared into the disinterested crowd.