ser·en·dip·i·ty

ser·en·dip·i·ty

the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for.

Omar is a bad man. Bad. Appealing to the geek in me, he dropped the idea of a fan fiction-type project in my head – writing our own versions of comic books online – and it’s like the time I was introduced to Pokemon! We hit St. Mark’s Comics Friday night to refresh my memory as I haven’t actively bought comics since the late 80’s and I realized my taste in comics was pretty similar to my taste in other things: the underdogs, the unrespected, the b-listers. I knew Moon Knight was never on Batman’s level but I didn’t realize people laughed at you for naming him as a favorite! Others that I remember collecting were the Micronauts, Power Pack and (it took a while to remember this one) Arion, none of which appear on too many Top 10 lists. Anyway, the idea is – for me, at least – to approach it as a regular writing exercise to recharge the fiction side of my brain that’s been dormant during the poetry years. We’ll each (there’s at least 5 of us, I think) pick a character or two and post a new chapter to our stories every month. I have to do some research on both fan fiction and on some characters I might want to use. Only fan fiction I’ve seen is some pretty bad Pokemon stuff a few years back. Picked up copies of a new (to me) Micronauts series, an old Moon Knight one-shot and an issue of Wizard. I’m leaning towards a reimagining of Moon Knight.

Caught an early show of the Matrix Reloaded yesterday. Woah! Great job balancing the exposition and the action without falling into the Phantom Menace trap of being pure setup with not much payoff. The first fight scene with the multiple Smith’s and the highway sequence were mind-blowing. I was out of breath at several points in the movie. Visually, it is probably the most stunning movie I’ve ever seen. The whole mythology is fleshed out a bit more and they did a good job of explaining things without ruining the necessary suspension of disbelief. The love saves all thread continues here and walks a real thin line of hokiness. It’s one of those things you accept if you’re into the movie and you don’t if you’re not. The play on destiny and choice and beginnings and endings was extremely appealing. The best movies tell their stories while keeping some aspects open to interpretation and this is one of them. It also gave me some ideas about my anything goes piece tomorrow night.

Written by Guy LeCharles Gonzalez

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez is the Chief Content Officer for LibraryPass, and former publisher & marketing director for Writer’s Digest. Previously, he was also project lead for the Panorama Project; director, content strategy & audience development for Library Journal & School Library Journal; and founding director of programming & business development for the original Digital Book World.