Operation AXIOM
Today is the feast day of Saint Patrick, one of the three patron saints of Ireland. In my beloved United States & in other places around the world, a great many persons, many of them non-Catholic & even more of them religious in the only most lukewarm sense, will observe this occasion as "St. Paddy's Day," an orgy of drunkenness, cultural mockery, & the crassest consumerism. The question that confronts us on this dark day is this: Is my long-standing, vociferous hatred of St. Paddy's Day more righteous now that I've been to Ireland, now that I've spent a week visiting Dublin & perusing many of her public houses?

The Queue
The Goon is a tremendous series, but I cannot escape the conclusion that fame ruined it to a degree. Eric Powell, The Goon's creator, writer, & artist, has won multiple Eisner Awards, possibly the comic-book industry's most prestigious award for creativity (compare to the Oscars for cinema or the Emmys for television). These awards are well-deserved & I am glad Powell's achievement has been recognized. But, corresponding roughly with the awarding of Powell's first Eisner & the increased attention paid to the series, something changed: The Goon gained a new & not unwelcome emotional heft, & lost much of the zaniness that was so great a part of its charm. The early Goon stories are a madcap delight; the later Goon stories aren't completely joyless, they're just mostly joyless. Mayhap it is unfair to blame this on the fame that accompanied the Eisner Award wins; it could be genuine coincidence that The Goon changed creative direction at roughly the same time. Back to more respected (which is not the same thing as respectable) fare.

Recently
Len Deighton, City of Gold
Steve Martin, Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life
Eric Powell, The Goon: Wicked Inclinations (Vol. 5), Chinatown and the Mystery of Mr. Wicker (Vol. 6), A Place of Heartache and Grief (Vol. 7), Those That is Damned (Vol. 8), Calamity of Conscience (Vol. 9), & Death's Greedy Comeuppance (Vol. 10)

Currently
Victor Davis Hanson, A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War

Presently
Steve Martin, An Object of Beauty
Rudyard Kipling, The Man who would be King and Other Stories
Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Gods of Mars

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
They Might Be Giants, "Why Must I Be Sad?" from John Henry (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: Welcome to a week-long series of songs of lamentation. I'm sad not because the valiant Wolverines were ejected from the N.C.A.A. Tournament, but because of the ignominious manner in which they were ejected from the N.C.A.A. Tournament.

"…I spit at the Sun!

Sad, sad, sad, sad,
Why must I be sad?"