Maps

Sometimes I open Google Maps, zoom out a bit, and just stare. I think of my work schedule and where I could reasonably drive to to steal a few days of solitude and quiet. One weekend soon, I'll throw some clothes in my bag and hop in my car.

the fire rises

Permit me, for a moment, to enter nerd mode. I'm excited for The Dark Knight Rises, as I'm sure are many of you. Really what I'm most looking forward to about it, though, is Chris Nolan's interpretation of Bane. The Dark Knight was really an order of magnitude better than Batman Begins. Begins was silly and cartoonish and more like an episode of the animated series (which was excellent, don't get me wrong). After Begins was successful and Nolan had a blank check to do whatever he wanted, he was able to do what he does best. Nolan is at his best telling stories that subtly subvert ones perception of reality. Even considering TDK, my favorite Nolan movies are still Memento and The Prestige. He was able to use Joker as his mind-fuck in TDK, with considerable thanks to Heath Ledger. Movie tropes notwithstanding, the Joker has always traditionally been the villain that was Batman's mental equal. TDK was one of the first major comic films that had a real rival to the hero. No megalomaniacal plot for world domination/destruction, no crazy technology. Just a dangerous villain to be dealt with intimately and purposefully (to be fair, Spiderman 1's final face-off with Norman Osborn was quite good). In this regard, Bane is a better foil for Batman even than the Joker.

While Joker is arguably the most dangerous figure in Batman's rogues gallery in a volatile sense, Bane has always been the most direct threat. Joker could construct elaborate, psychopathic scenarios to torture Batman, but he could never stand up to him in a straight fight. On the other hand, Bane is both a genius and a super bad-ass. Having both deduced Batman's true identity and outsmarted him, he humiliated Batman by literally breaking him and assuming control of Gotham. Now, in a Chris Nolan world, I fully expect Bane to be realized as the cerebral, urban tactician that he deserves to be and the hulking monster most people identify him as. But I really dig the aesthetic that Nolan's gone for in TDKR. It's not cartoonish. No lucha libre mask. Just a bad-ass Tom Hardy with a guerrilla army at his back. Bane is Batman's true equal and the recent release of posters and banners really highlight that rivalry.

One of my few complaints about TDK (I have more for Begins) is that, for everything else that he does so well, Nolan is not that great of an action/fight director. His action is often muddled and incoherent. As he's done more action movies, it's improved. I'm really hoping TDKR is able to deliver a great Batman/Bane fight. I hope it's intimate and brutal, but most of all I hope it's spatially legible and well edited!

I'm also currently reading Scott Snyder's run on Batman in DC's reboot, the New 52. It's pretty fantastic.



/nerd

Happenings

So life has been fairly uneventful lately. I've more or less settled into the work life routine. I spend my free time and weekends doing things to distract myself. Hiking (see previous post), shows (I saw Andrew Bird last week and he was awesome), planning hypothetical vacations (anyone want to travel late summer?), and eating a lot of good food. Of the last point in particular, I've entered into something a little more official. I've recently become a D.C. area contributor for the food blog, Serious Eats, and I've had a couple of posts up so far. It's a little difficult for me to write in a voice that's not totally my own and for a public audience, but I suspect I'll get the hang of it. I figure, I search out good food and blog about it here sometimes anyway, it'll provide somewhat of a tangible aspect to recreational eating/blogging.



This was what I ate today and will write up for a post for SE's "A Sandwich A Day" column. It's ChurchKey's fried chicken Luther (fried chicken + bacon + doughnut). My post will go up on SE in the next couple of days, so to avoid a duplication of effort, look for my write-up there!

[Edit: It's up here.]

On another note, since I've started this blog, there have been periods of decreased activity during times where I've had a lot of schoolwork or was just stuck in the doldrums of routine. I think, despite my best efforts, I'm in a period of the latter. For all my years of being bothered by this, I've yet to come up with a good solution to this. I'm beginning to think it's my fault. There is, however, one major distraction coming up this week. To avoid outing myself as a total nerd (for those not already privy to this fact), I'll just say, May 15th will be an interesting day.