Sir Peter Siddell, 1935-2011

My father-in-law Sir Peter Siddell died peacefully Monday, nearly three years after being diagnosed with an incurable brain tumor, and nearly two months to the day since his beloved wife Sylvia passed away.

To say 2011 has been a tough year for our family would be an understatement. To lose two parents, two grandparents, in less than 8 weeks is the kind of thing I hope nobody has to go through. The deaths were not surprises -- in many ways, we've been preparing for them for several years now. The year has been filled with slow declines, fading away and too many vigils, hospital visits and emergencies to count. There hasn't been a lot of time for blogging, or whatever passes for ordinary life.

Now all that's over. But it really is going to take us a terribly long time to get "over" losing Peter and Sylvia. I'm apparently going to be speaking at Sir Peter's funeral in Auckland Monday, and one of the things I will mention is how unceasingly welcome he was to this strange American joining his family, dragging his daughter around the USA and eventually bringing her home again.

Sir Peter was one of New Zealand's most famous painters, and it's a great comfort that he lived long enough to see his work recognized -- a wonderful coffee-table book of his art came out this year. And the family has a tremendous legacy left behind of his distinctive, uniquely Kiwi work.

Passed almost unnoticed this week was that it's been exactly five years since we moved back to New Zealand. We didn't know then what we'd be dealing with, or that our son would have such a short time with his New Zealand grandparents. But I'm still glad we've been here for it, that we were able to be a part of their lives and that my wife and her sister were so supportive in their final days.

We don't always know what kind of family we'll get when we marry someone. I was extraordinarily lucky and honored to be part of this one as long as I was.

More on Sir Peter's passing from local media:

* New Zealand Herald

* TVNZ

* Auckland Art Gallery

* Artists NZ

* Beattie's Book Blog

* Siddell Art

Steve Jobs and the world he left us

Like a lot of people, I heard the news about Steve Jobs dying via my Apple computer – in my case, my iPhone.

There’s been quite the reaction to the death of Steve Jobs, at 56, too young, and many of these comments talk about how much he “changed the world.” Despite my distaste for hyperbole, I’d have to agree. He’s one of the few business leaders you can say that about. Steve Jobs didn’t single-handedly create the home computer, the iPod or the iMac or the iPad, but he was a driving force in getting his vision across to talented others, and even more than Bill Gates, he was the face of the ongoing technological revolution. And unlike Bill Gates, Steve Jobs managed to be bloody cool.

An article I quite liked today noted how Apple “stood in the intersection of utility and desire.” That to me really sums up the instinctive appeal to the Apple line, which more than any other computer system has taken us into the future. We may not have rocket jetpacks and laser guns, but I have a computer the size of a sheet of paper and I can do video live conferencing with my parents on the other side of the world at a moment’s notice.

Apples were the first computers I liked, and the only computers I’ve ever really owned. A friend of mine in junior high had some of the first Apple IIs in the mid-1980s, which dazzled me with their ease and intuitive use, even with the poky black-and-white games. I was too danged poor in the 1990s to own anything but hand-me-down PCs but when I finally achieved fiscal stability, one of those beautiful blueberry 1998 iMacs had to be mine. Since then it’s been MacBooks, iPhones, iPods galore – and just last week, I bought an iPad 2. I’ve used PCs when I’ve had to, but I have never felt as at home, as comfortable on them as I have on my Macs.

I don’t know much about Steve Jobs the human being, who apparently could be a bit arrogant, but I do know that whatever his flaws, he drove a creative, engaging business sense that made Apple what it is today. His management style drove the innovation that kept Apple rising from the dead, again and again. Oh, and during that brief period Jobs was “fired” from Apple? He went and helped create Pixar, the home of some of the biggest computer animated movies of all time.

Sure, Apple’s business practices aren’t perfect, and the “hip” factor might put some off. But there’s a reason every other tech company scrambled to come up with their own mp3 players, their own tablets and their own smartphones that aped Apple as much as possible. It’s because somehow, Steve Jobs knew what people want. He’s gone, but he left behind a world that’s very much shaped in his image.

DC Comics and the "new 52" gamble

I do worry about comic books. I’ve been buying them regularly since, oh god, 1982 or so, but the monthly floppy periodical business model may be something that, like a lot of good ol’ non-digital pastimes, is fading away.

So DC Comics shook things up quite a bit by deciding to cancel their entire nearly 80-year-old line of books (some up to #900 or so), and starting all over from scratch. I can’t get too fussed about that, really – there have been more “reboots” than I can count of comics universes in my 30 years of collecting and I’m sure there will be more.

I see this move, though – 52 new first issues of 52 series, all over the course of a month – as a real “hail Mary” pass for the future of comic books as a monthly concern. So far, fortunately, it seems to have at least for now been a financial success – because frankly, if it were a huge flop, it would be bad for the entire comics industry by proxy. While DC is far from the only comics company, they're one of the two biggest. I wouldn’t be half surprised if Marvel followed with some sweeping move of their own sometime soon.

I haven’t picked up a ton of the new DC 52 comics but I have generally liked the ones I tried. DC have put together a nice mix of mainstream heroes like Green Lantern and The Flash with more offbeat books like "Frankenstein" and "All Star Western."

The new “Justice League,” much touted as the flagship of the line, was a mixed bag – I’m over the “let’s take 6 issues to put the team together” decompression school of storytelling, and Jim Lee’s art has always been a bit overrated to me. But it wasn’t TERRIBLE – merely routine. Grant Morrison's new "Action Comics #1" is a far better relaunch -- a new vision of Superman that draws heavily on the nearly forgotten gangster-punching strongman of the early 1930s, but modernised with a twist.

I quite enjoyed the quirk-hero adventures of “Animal Man” (an old favourite of mine) and “Frankenstein and the Agents of S.H.A.D.E.” Also good fun were the medieval adventure “Demon Knights” and, surprisingly, the relaunch of conspiracy-heroes comic “Stormwatch” which combines a variety of franchises and DC’s venerable Martian Manhunter together and might actually make the characters Apollo and the Midnighter interesting for the first time in a few years. “Justice League Dark” was pretty cool, too, a kind of Vertigo-meets-mainstream caper with some excellent art.

More importantly, this whole "new 52" business has given comics a jolt of excitement that all the endless "big event" miniseries have failed to do. While there's a fair amount of junk among the new 52, I have to admit I've now suddenly got more DC Comics than Marvel on my monthly pull list for the first time in a long while.

In what is probably a testament to the problems comics sales are facing, I ended up downloading a couple of my very first comics on our new iPad too. It’s interesting to note that it was cheaper to download than buy them here and now that DC and Marvel are both doing day of release digital, it’s hard not to imagine that market taking off.

I was pretty impressed, actually, at how gorgeous “Superman #1” and “Justice League Dark #1” looked on the iPad – stunning colours, very user-friendly interface, and closer to “reading” a “real” comic than any other such digital endeavour I’ve seen. I'm still a sucker for the tangible object, though. I don’t think I’ll download often, but I have to say Comixology and the publishers have made reading a comic on an iPad a pretty satisfying experience.

Will DC’s “new 52” gamble pay off in the long run? I honestly don’t know. When you look at the figures a comic sells nowadays – if it breaks 100,000 copies it’s a huge hit, whereas 20 years ago some comics sold in the millions – it’s a tough fight ahead. However, whatever happens next I don’t ever think we’ll see the end of comics as a medium of expression – yeah, they may go entirely digital like so much else has, but the comic book is a sturdy, endlessly vast and variable way to tell a story, from “Love and Rockets” to “Archie.”

The comic book has its fingerprints all over pop culture these days. It ain’t going anywhere soon, no matter how it changes.

That's me in the corner: Farewell, R.E.M.

R.E.M. have called it quits, which saddens me -- not as much as it might once have, perhaps, but it's still worth taking a moment to remember how great they were at their zenith.

I know there's a lot of wags out there who expressed surprise they were still together, that the general consensus is that they peaked with 1992's "Automatic For The People" and it's been a slow downhill slope ever since, but I don't care what anyone else thinks -- they remain one of the finest bands of the last 30 years, and their influence can be felt on countless acts.

It's hard to be a band that makes it to that blockbuster level of a U2 or a Pearl Jam or Rolling Stones. Inevitably, you fall off the peak a bit. Name a band that sustains a 20+ year career of constant critical and commercial success, and it'd have to be a pretty small list. R.E.M. was a fluke as a mainstream success -- they were more comfortable in the shadows, in the cult icon category with people like their idol Patti Smith.

Like most things, I was a bit of a late bloomer to R.E.M. -- I didn't discover them until 1989's "Green," and it was appropriate that I discovered them in my first year living in Mississippi. In the early days, they were definitely a Southern band, steeped in kudzu, gothic mystique and fog. Someone in my college dorm was giving away some of his CDs and I snagged "Green." I remember playing one track over and over again that seemed directly written for me, freshly moved from the West Coast to the deep South -- "I Remember California," of course.

There was a big hoo-rah in the rock world around 1992 or so over who was better -- U2 or R.E.M. It's never been a contest for me. While U2 are grandiose, epic and often a bit overblown, R.E.M. were a cult band who briefly became mainstream through the sheer power and craft of their songwriting. Even now, 20 years on, I listen to the chiming mandolin chords of "Losing My Religion" and it still sounds fresh and peculiar on the thousandth listen, the urgency and murky universality of Stipe's anguished lyrics ringing true.

I love their entire career, which carved an arc from hushed Southern poets to stadium-filling anthems to the more hushed, emotionally open balladry that dominated their later work. Michael Stipe's gift as a lyricist, especially in the early days, was combining elliptical lyrics with heartfelt sincerity -- a song like "Fall On Me," "What's The Frequency Kenneth" or "Driver 8" could've been about anything, whatever you wanted it to be. Some of their more populist songs like "Everybody Hurts" or "Shiny Happy People" might've felt like sell-outs to the fans of the mumbling Stipe era, but even they had a dash of that R.E.M. mystique to them. R.E.M. never sounded like anybody but themselves to me.

I'd stick with them through thick and thin -- while they haven't released a truly great album since 1996's underrated, experimental "New Adventures in Hi-Fi," I usually found at least a few songs to like on their later work. I loved the hit singles like "Losing My Religion" but also the rare numbers like the soundtrack number "Fretless" or "Out Of Time's" sadcore masterpiece, "Country Feedback." 2001's "Reveal" I find particularly strong, with a gorgeous wanderlust on songs like "All The Way To Reno" and "Imitation of Life." They could disappoint toward the end -- 2003's "Around The Sun" was a dull bore -- but honestly, I don't feel like R.E.M. ever embarrassed themselves. Perhaps they chose to retire a bit later than they should have in order to get the proper amount of appreciation -- but I think in the end R.E.M. will be remembered as one of the giants of the "alternative rock" era.

The Angel-a-Thon: Season 4

It’s hard to top a peak. The third series of “Angel” was such a taut, exciting ride that season four had a lot to live up to. And while it’s rarely rotten, Angel’s penultimate series falls a bit short.

There’s great momentum at the start of this season, as the cliffhangers of Series 3 are wrapped up and the apocalyptic Beast comes to town, raining fire on the streets and blocking out the sun. There’s a real sense of danger and drama in these early episodes – the Beast is by far the most inhuman villain the series has had, and it really seems nothing can stop him. The various psychodramas continue as Angel bonds and brawls with his bad-boy, instantly teenaged son Connor, Wesley works his way back from his dark exile into redemption (it’s amazing what a bad-ass Alexis Denisof has become as Wesley, especially when you view his first few appearances way back in “Buffy”’s third season), while Fred and Gunn wind down their increasingly annoying relationship.

But then it all kind of turns to custard. The writers apparently feel they have to keep one-upping the threat level, and so the Beast turns out to be a pawn of a now-evil Cordelia, who turns out to be yet ANOTHER pawn of the smiling goddess Jasmine. Really, the Beast could’ve been a solid enough protagonist to fuel the entire season, and the ridiculously labyrinthine plot by Jasmine is insulting to viewers (apparently pretty much everything that ever happened since episode one has been a part of the plan). But the worst misstep is how the writers abuse poor Cordelia, who’d shown the most fascinating growth as a character over the first 3 years, moving from selfish diva to selfless heroine. Her “ascension” at the end of the third season was tearjerking and yet very right.

But it’s all dumped on this year, as Cordy’s forced into an icky affair with Connor, gotten pregnant, turns evil, then is clumsily just written out of the series entirely. It’s a real shame that poor Charisma Carpenter goes out on such an awkward note (although fortunately, she has a better swan song in Season 5). Jasmine, played by “Firefly” star Gina Torres, is a character with potential – an ancient god who is bringing enforced world peace – but she never quite comes across right.

There’s still a lot to like in series 4 – we get the return of Angel’s evil alter ego Angelus, who’s sinister fun, and a guest appearance by Faith (Eliza Dushku) always provides a lot of energy. There's lots of great moments, but the meandering of the overall season storyline and the egregious waste of Cordelia do spoil it all a bit.

Best episode: In a season filled with dark twists and turns, it’s the lighthearted change of pace episode “Spin The Bottle” that provides some much-needed levity, and a chance for the cast to show how much the characters have grown. While the “everyone gets amnesia” plot is beyond cliché, it’s played out in a very fun fashion as we witness the return of bitchy high-school Cordelia, foppish Wesley and medieval young Angel and everyone bounces off each other in a nice locked-room mystery. It's a good showcase for the actors and just nice to get a break from the never-ending apocalypses. Runner-up: “Home,” the energetic season finale, which delivers a much-needed change of setting and mission for Season 5 and gives the entire mauldin, overlong Connor storyline a fitting, bittersweet sendoff.

Rugby World Cup madness comes to town

In New Zealand, there's only one event right now -- the massive Rugby World Cup. If you're in America, you might not know much about this, but if you're anywhere else in the world, it's one of the biggest sporting events in the known universe.

We in the media have been preparing for this for months, and my colleagues in print and online at the NZ Herald have done an amazing job. It's a massive undertaking, and I have to admit knowing it's just the start of a 6-week, dozens of game tournament kind of makes you quake a bit. It'd be lovely if this was just for two weeks or something, but going on till the end of October? Egad!

In-between working on the website and the paper Friday, I'd duck out and check out the scenes outside the building. It was like every college football game I'd ever seen rolled into one roiling mass of people -- flags of many nations, screaming drunken boys, nervous tourists, honking horns -- it was fun but also rather insane. Nobody in power seemed to be prepared at all for the massive crowds. Clearly NZ has gone a bit rugby-mad.

Unfortunately, the big opening celebration Friday night was a bit of a debacle on several fronts -- after months of hyping Auckland's public transport system it failed badly, with stuck trains, cancelled ferries, even elementary measures like failing to close the city's major downtown streets until hours of traffic chaos had ensued. Downtown Auckland was pretty madhouse Friday night -- estimates of anywhere from 120,000 to 200,000 people poured into downtown, which in a country of 4 million people is a HUGE gathering.

Yet there were pretty awesome moments -- the opening ceremony was amazing, the All Blacks won the first game against Tonga, the sheer energy was invigorating, and the gigantic fireworks ceremony -- apparently Auckland's biggest ever -- was stunning. A bunch of us climbed up on the roof of the Herald building for some stunning views of fireworks erupting from the Sky Tower and buildings around us.

It's hard to compare an event like this to something you'd see in the United States -- the US has never been a big player in the soccer, cricket or rugby international tournaments, so perhaps something like the Olympics is the only comparison. I've never been a huge sports guy, but you have to get swept up in it all. It is cool to see how tourists from the 20 nations have swarmed into town -- a peculiar mix of countries from rugby standards like England, Australia and South Africa to a dashing of proud Pacific Island nations like Tonga, Samoa and Fiji and then a few "what the heck" countries like Romania and Namibia.

While there's a certain sense of craziness and inconvenience to it all it's also kind of a cool thing to witness. You either ride with something like this or you waste energy getting annoyed at it. Right now for rugby-heads New Zealand is the centre of the universe. And for the next six weeks, it'll continue to be.

Sylvia Siddell, 1941-2011

"Max Taming The Furies," Sylvia Siddell, circa 1999

...My mother-in-law, and a wife, mother, grandmother, artist. She will be missed.

Movie Review: Captain America: The First Avenger

It may have taken me a week or two, but I’ve finally seen “Captain America: The First Avenger,” the red, white and blue wrap-up to our summer of comic book movies galore.

I have to admit I wasn’t quite as excited to see Cap as I’ve been other superheroes on screen – I’ve just never been a gigantic fan of the character, who walks a thin line between inspiring and hokey. Most of my comics experience with Captain America has been as a supporting character in “The Avengers,” although writer Ed Brubaker has been doing some great stuff with him in recent years I’ve been catching up on. But “Captain America” the movie, while not groundbreaking, is a solid, fun time at the movies, a rip-roaring and mildly retro war action picture that is more Indiana Jones in tone than “The Dark Knight.”

What I liked:
Chris Evans has now played two Marvel heroes in recent years – first the Fantastic Four's Human Torch - but Captain America is a tricky role. He's idealistic and inspirational, which can make for a dull character. But Evans does a solid job presenting the man behind the icon, particularly in the marvellous early scenes with a pretty seamless special effect that makes him a 90-lb weakling as young Steve Rogers.

“Captain America” is quite tied into the whole overall Marvel movies mix, but it’s not done QUITE as intrusively as it was in “Iron Man 2” or “Thor.” There’s nifty little nods to the original Human Torch and Iron Man’s dad Howard Stark is a major character, and the ending is a natural lead-in to next year’s “The Avengers.” I love seeing old war comics heroes The Howling Commandos appear (seriously, did anyone ever imagine “Dum-Dum” Dugan would appear in a major Hollywood movie?).

Hayley Atwell makes a marvellous Peggy Carter, who’s both feminine and tough and has a naturalistic, unforced relationship develop with Rogers. Tommy Lee Jones is there pretty much for comic relief as the wisecracking old soldier commander, while Stanley Tucci provides a nice emotional heart in a few scenes as the doctor who gives Rogers his powers.

Director Joe Johnston did the beloved 1990s cult comic adaptation “The Rocketeer,” which “Captain America” almost feels like a sequel to. There's a great production design of 1940s New York that straddles realism and fantasy, and some fine visuals like the Red Skull’s flying wing of destruction and his proto-Stormtrooper armoured henchmen.

What I didn’t like:
Chris Evans, the flip side: once he gets pumped up into Captain America, oddly, I found Evans a little less interesting - the first half of the movie is captivating as we see how Rogers becomes Captain America, but once he does, it gets a bit routine. Probably my one big beef with Evans is that his Captain America lacks a certain authority, that leader of men feeling that the character needs. Even as the movie winds down, he seems a bit too green. I know it's the young Captain America here, but there's still a need for a bit more gravitas.

Hugo Weaving looks all grim and cool as the Red Skull, Captain America's evil doppleganger, but the character just feels a bit thin to me. Actually, I’ve had that problem with the comics Skull too, who’s just so darned evil and nihilistic that it’s hard to really feel any kinship with him. There's nothing that pushes him to a unique level like Heath Ledger's Joker or Terence Stamp's General Zod.

Overall, it hasn’t been a bad summer (or winter down here) for comics fans. I quite enjoyed both “Thor” and “X-Men: First Class,” and while “Green Lantern” was a financial and critical miss, it wasn’t the worst comics movie ever made and really suffers more because the bar has been raised so high the last five years or so.

Nik's Unheralded Albums #7: Joey Ramone, "Don't Worry About Me"

Death changes how you listen to an artist. You can't help it. Try putting on Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" this week and not thinking about her lonesome end. It's pretty much impossible. Of course, eventually the shock of death fades a bit and it's just another song by the Doors. There's a ton of famed posthumous albums, from Nirvana's "MTV Unplugged" to Roy Orbison's "Mystery Girl" to George Harrison's "Brainwashed."

Some after-death albums are better than others, some are obvious record-company attempts to catch in on leftover bits and bobs (hello, Tupac Shakur!). Occasionally, you get one that's a defining final statement by an artist who knows the end is near. Warren Zevon's "The Wind," the latter albums of Johnny Cash, and one of my favorites, Joey Ramone's "Don't Worry About Me."

Is it morbid? Hipster nostalgia? Probably a bit of all of the above. But 10 years after his death, I still find myself listening to and enjoying a Ramones fan curiosity -- the only solo album by lead singer Joey Ramone, released a year after his death from cancer in 2001.

"Don't Worry About Me" doesn't break the Ramones mold. Short, sharp and punchy, it's got that distinctive Ramones sound but shot through with a slightly more introspective air, and underneath the punk/pop you realize this is a loose concept album about Joey's life, and his battle with lymphoma.

"Don't Worry About Me" is a 34-minute catharsis for Joey, recording the album from his sickbed. Look at the song titles -- "Stop Thinking About It," "Like a Drug I Never Did Before," the marvelous "I Got Knocked Down (But I'll Get Up)". "I Got Knocked Down" is a song for anyone dealing with the horror of their body or a loved one's body failing -- "Sitting in a hospital bed / I want my life," Joey sings. There's nothing too deep or metaphorical about this -- it's Joey's very real frustration, delivered with the same blunt passion the Ramones would bring to lines like "Now I wanna sniff some glue." But "Don't Worry About Me" isn't a downer of an album. With typically goofy Ramones songs like "Mr. Punchy" or a cover of the Stooges' "1969," it's a defiant, resilient album. He doesn't ask you to feel sorry for him -- hell, the final song is the title track, "Don't Worry About Me."

Off-center covers of Louis Armstrong's "What A Wonderful World" are cliche by now, but man, I still love Joey's take on it, which opens the album with an ecstatic blast, a punch in the face of death and fate. Knowing the singer is gone now, too young, lends it an extra poignancy -- is that manipulative, I suppose? But something being manipulative doesn't mean it isn't also based on truth. As last blasts raging at the darkness go, "Don't Worry About Me" is one of my favorites. Play it at my funeral.

The Angel-A-Thon: Season 3

In “Angel” Season 3, the vampire-detective show manages to get even darker, if that’s possible. You could measure the torment and angst on screen in some of these episodes by the gallon. Yet at the same time, this is the season “Angel” really gels and the characters form a real “family” of outcasts and freaks – which makes it all the more painful when bad things keep happening to them.
 
This season Angel Investigations continue to grow – the nervous Fred joins the team, while Gunn and the demon Lorne both also become full-time cast members. Fred’s a strange addition at first, and I felt Amy Acker overplays the whole “naïve country girl with an accent” schtick. But she becomes an enjoyable cast member, although I couldn't ever buy into the idea that her and Gunn would have a relationship – they never make a plausible couple.  I also really loved the changes Wesley went through this year, completing the transformation from tweedy geek in his early “Buffy” appearances into a grim, haunted and authoritative figure. (Alexis Denisof proves himself a pretty solid actor this season.)
 
But the big ongoing story this season is the tale of Darla, Angel’s evil ex, and her pregnancy and the surprise child she delivers.  It’s a great tragic soap opera storyline, complete with a resurrected ancient foe of Angel’s, Holtz. Holtz, wonderfully played by Keith Szarabajka, was a vampire hunter 200 years ago whose entire family was slaughtered by the evil Angelus. Brought back to life to continue his hunt for Angel, Holtz is a fascinating character – seething with righteous rage over Angel’s past deeds. The whole Darla/Holtz plot comes to a great conclusion as Angel’s son is born – then through one of those magic/timey-wimey things, ends up a few episodes later as a scowling Pete from “Mad Men.” The grown Connor and his fractious relationship with his father give “Angel” another surge of energy as the third season comes to a close.

This season is the best yet, as it tangles fatherhood, guilt, love, and vengeance into one boiling mass of emotions and twists. I’d have to say this year is when the spinoff becomes as good as the parent show “Buffy” was at its peak. It’s a tribute to the skill of the actors and writers that the show doesn’t drown in its own bleak plotlines. Just enough humour and action are used to break up the gloomy bits.
 
Best episode: There’s several great ones this year, but I have to go with “Sleep Tight,” about as tense an episode “Angel” has produced, with Angel’s baby son becoming a football passed between a variety of players. Wesley’s betrayal of the team is startling, but what’s even more gripping is how horribly his behaviour damages the bond between the friends of Angel Investigations – the easy camaraderie between the gang is broken, and the fallout from this episode lingers through the rest of this season and into Season 4. The shocking finale of this episode, where Angel loses Connor and Holtz, seemingly forever, is a gut-blow to the viewer. (Runner-up status to the season finale "Tomorrow" which has a great cliff-hanger ending -- one character sinking into the sea, one ascending to higher realms.)