
I wish to leave no doubt unturned like a stone that might have treasure hidden under it. I love the works of Samuel L. Clemens, better known as Mark Twain.
I have read and studied his writing for a lifetime, starting with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer which I read for myself in the seventh grade, after seeing the musical movie Tom Sawyer starring Johnny Whittaker as Tom. I caught a severe passion, more serious than a head-cold, for the wit and wisdom with which Twain crafted a story. It took me a while to acquire and read more… but I most definitely did. I took an American Literature course in college that featured Twain, and I read and analyzed The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I also bought a copy of Pudd’nhead Wilson which I would later devour in the same thoroughly literate and pretentious manner as I had Huck Finn. Copies of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and The Mysterious Stranger were purchased at the same time, though I didn’t read them cover to cover until later during my years as a middle school English teacher. I should point out, however, that I read and re-read both of those, Connecticut Yankee winning out by being read three times. As a teacher, I taught Tom Sawyer as an in-class novel assignment in the time when other teachers thought I was more-or-less crazy for trying to teach a 100-year-old book to mostly Hispanic non-readers. While the lunatic-inspired experiment was not a total success, it was not a total failure either. Some kids actually liked having me read parts of it aloud to them, and some borrowed copies of the book to reread it for themselves after we finished as a class.
During my middle-school teaching years I also bought and read copies of The Prince and the Pauper, Roughing It, and Life on the Mississippi. I would later use a selection from Roughing It as part of a thematic unit on Mark Twain where I used Will Vinton’s glorious clay-mation movie, The Adventures of Mark Twain as a way to painlessly introduce my kids to the notion that Mark Twain was funny and complex and wise.
I have also read and used some of Twain’s most famous short fictions. “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” and “The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg” are both masterpieces of Twain’s keen insight into the human psyche and the goofy and comic corruptions he finds there.
And now, retired old me is reading Tom Sawyer Abroad. And, though it is not one of his finest works, I still love it and am enthralled. I will review it and share it with you when I am finished. But I will never be through with Mark Twain. Not only is there more of him to read, but he has truly been a life-long friend .



The first big surprise came from Muck Lad. Muck Man chose the Friday showing at Valley View Mall because Muck Lad had to work both Saturday and Sunday and couldn’t attend otherwise. His job at the Asian Market making and serving boba tea is the most important factor in his life right now. He needs the money to buy a gaming computer. You know how important that is to a teenager in this day and age. But when the time came to go to the movie, as much as he really wanted to see it, his headache was too much to allow him to go. He needed to stay in the Muck Cave with Muck Dog and play RPG computer games instead.















The Iron Fist
Comic books are not real life. They are better than real life. They allow you to go forward in your own story with the myth of the super power to bolster your courage. You can face your daily devils and demons secure in the knowledge that, while no one is perfect, we can all at least imagine holding firm to an ideal in spite of the trials we face… being true to a power and a goodness beyond ourselves… being a hero.
I have followed Iron Fist’s adventures since the 1970’s. It is true that I haven’t been as devoted to him and his heroics as I have been to Spiderman and the Avengers. But I love the idea of a good guy in white standing up to the bad guys in black and beating the poop out of them with a good heart and a bare fist, not resorting to guns and bombs and gratuitous killings. Danny Rand, the Iron Fist, has always been such a character to me. Noble because he does not intentionally kill the enemy, like Batman, Superman, Captain America and so many other favorite super heroes.
I admit it, this love-gush of a post is only happening because I finished binge-watching the new Iron Fist series on Netflix. I depend on Netflix now to deliver to me effortlessly what I used to endlessly hunt and scrabble for in the way of idea fuel and motivational electricity. And even though I am a notoriously uncritical critic, I have to say, it was not as heart-thumpingly good as either Daredevil or Luke Cage. But it brought an old friend to life in a way that I never before believed could happen. And I love the way it fit this puzzle piece into the overall jigsaw of the Marvel superhero stories on Netflix. It used characters like the ER nurse Claire and the villainous Madam Gao to connect plotlines in Daredevil and Luke Cage, and the evil but helpful lawyer character from Jessica Jones. Will I watch it again? Definitely. Will I need to draw Iron Fist for myself? Probably. But this is a hard experience to either explain or recapture. Television using comic book heroes, sometimes, at its best, makes life better than it really is.
Leave a comment
Filed under comic book heroes, commentary, heroes, humor, review of television, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Tagged as binge watching, comic book heroes, Iron Fist, Netflix, television