In the chill of night

[austin_dern]

I'm happy to report midtown Manhattan is well-protected by costumed characters. You may have expected that, but on my trip to New York City yesterday about which much more anon, I found an abundance of licensed theme characters. The first: quintessential yet whiny New Yorker Spider-Man, who I spotted while I was coming out of a restaurant on 44th Street. He wasn't attracting any interest from the passers-by, which shows how routine people in full-body lycra suits in the middle of December when it's below freezing are. I don't know if he was going to any particular restaurant.

Later, in a move that'll seem cute when I tell you what I was in town for, I went to Rockefeller Center. Among the crowd of approximately ten billion taking pictures of the tree was a side crowd blocking off an impassable road. This was a lineup of costumed characters. I saw The Grinch, The Cat in the Hat, Dora the Explorer, some character I couldn't identify except he was kind of tan, Elmo, and the iconic Christmas character, Disney's Chicken Little. They were working for tips, and many people were squealing with delight and had to get photos, which shows what kind of hard, whimsy-free people New Yorkers are. (Admitted many are tourists or pretending to be tourists so they can be near the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree.)

Around Times Square Minnie Mouse was waving cheerily at a small child who was about seven feet away, leaning forward delighted while also slinking backward terrified. That's about normal for the child's age. A bit farther along was Mickey Mouse, dressed in the popular The Nutcracker/Overdressed 1920s Hotel Doorman/Prussian General Staff Officer style, again being photographed and waved to and fussed over. I bet Spider-Man is jealous of them all, and will be sulking about this for the next two days. In the comic strip this two days will last until the end of time.

Trivia: The September 1626 ship which brought news of the purchase of Manhattan to the Hague also carried a cargo including 34 rat skins. Source: The Island at the Centre of the World, Russell Shorto.

Currently Reading: The Age of Voltaire, Will and Ariel Durant.

Comments

[patchoblack.livejournal.com]

Now, don't be too hard on the old Web-Head. It's been having a rough time lately. First, he after he reveals his secret identity, he then has to turn around and fight the government, loses both his teaching job and his photography job, his family is forced to live underground, his Aunt May has been shot, and now a demon is forcing him to choose between letting his aunt die or giving up his marriage to Mary-Jane! I think he has reason to grumble... =^_^=

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and, in the comic strip he's moping over how his wife makes more money than he does, thereby proving his inadequacies as a man, and he's routinely being beaten by ``villains'' whose gimmick is dressing like Matthew Lesko and making their hands wiggle.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Well, there are always worse villains yet. (http://community.livejournal.com/scans_daily/4577405.html#cutid1)

--Chiaroscuro

[patchoblack.livejournal.com]

o/` Nobody knows who you are... o/`

I loved those segments on The Electric Company.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

The Electric Company is its special universe, certainly. Although you do have to consider that in at least one of those circumstances, Spider-Man had to battle with an anthropomorphized segment of the outfield wall at Shea Stadium.

[patchoblack.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes. I remember that, with Spidey taking off his baseball cap before confronting the villain.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

``He's so dumb he's trying to eat a hot dog with no mouth.''

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Of course, of the two mongoose-connected superheroes I know of, one of them is terribly embarrassing.

The raccoon family has maybe even less representation in the superhero line, though, so who am I to get snarky?

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

...two? Okay. I know of The Whizzer, Marvel's Flash-knockoff; the other being Marvel's Mongoose who is a supervillian, and perhaps more embarassing. Especially his costume.

Raccoons have Rocket Raccoon, of course; and... uh.. okay, perhaps.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that matches what I know. I'm guessing raccoons get little representation in comic books because there's so many lines to draw on top of the regular characters.

The Whizzer would probably have been fine if only he didn't have that name. I didn't realize The Mongoose was a super-villain, but some of the pages I saw on it used CSS to make sure the page started an inch to the left of the actual browser window, and I wasn't going to bother dealing with that.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Indeed. He's been poorly origined, perhaps hacing something to do with the High Evolutionary; He's most notable an enemy of Thunderstrike, which isn't going out get you anywhere these days, and never quite made sense. Guy in a vaguely mongoose-looking costume that calls himself Mongoose faces off as arch-enemy of... a guy who's Thor Lite.

While Marvel has a perfectly good Serpent Society to fight against, too.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Well, don't worry. Sooner or later they'll come up with an Ultimate Zombie line or something like that and he'll get rewritten as something more dreary and depressing but not more satisfying.

[patchoblack.livejournal.com]

Hey! Spidey is a modern super-hero and is not threatened by the fact his super-model wife makes more than him. Besides, being married to a sexy red-head has other advantages. Also, Batman is the one famous for fighting a villain who takes fashion tips from Mr. Lesko.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

How would you explain ``The Persuader'', then?