A little over a year ago I wrote a post entitled “J.F. Bierlein Ruined This Post”, Bierlein being the author of a book on world mythologies which I was reading at the time. Remember it? Of course you do. You remember it very well, I’m sure. But you know who remembers it more, if not most? J.F. Bierlein. I never mentioned it back in the day, but Bierlein himself replied to my post, thanking me for the internet shout-out.
Awesome, right?
Well, kind of.
See, the post itself wasn’t really about him, like, at all. In fact you could say the post was (like most things) an inside joke to myself (but read by many people who are not myself). Kind of a dick-move, I agree, and I’ve always felt kind of bad about it. UNTIL NOW! I’m officially writing this wrong (pun!) and giving a very rare official shout-out. Here we go:
J.F. Bierlein! Thank you for writing the single greatest book on mythology I have ever read. Seriously. That semester I read no less than 7 separate books on world mythologies, and I cited yours more than any other. IN FACT, I wrote an essay largely concurring with many of your theses. Your book, “Parallel Myths” was comprehensive and well organized. If I remember correctly, it also had a bit of humor in it, as well. Kudos to you and your book!
If you would like to contact J.F. Bierlein and echo my sentiments, feel free to do so at: hdiehl@satx.rr.com , which is his actual email address. I assume you may also feel free to address him informally as Juancho, which is what the “J” in “J.F.” stands for (and not “jammin” or “jazzy” as one might imagine).
Also, if you google image search J.F. Bierlein, page 3 gives you a ton of images I've used here on The Glass City.
All right, now that that’s out of the way, new paragraph!
I recently read a news story about a survey that was conducted 11 years ago to find out how learn’d we Americans really are. Now, before I get all nationalistic or, I guess, anti-nationalistic, I should point out that the same survey was conducted in Britain a few years prior with virtually the same results, and likewise with Germany. So, yeah, both allies and axis covered there. Anyway, the survey was a mere three questions. These three questions were (in no particular order): 1) What is the specific historical event celebrated on the 4th of July? 2) What is the country from which America gained its independence? 3) As far as you know, does the earth revolve around the sun or does the sun revolve around the earth?
Pretty simple, right? I thought so, too. Well, as for #1, a staggering 55% correctly said that it commemorated signing the Declaration of Independence (which, you know, isn’t exactly true, because it wasn’t actually signed until about a month after it was submitted by congress, but close enough). For question #2, America proves its intellectual prowess with an impressive 76%. This means that 24%, or 1 in 4, weren’t entirely certain who we fought in the Revolutionary War. Some thought it was Mexico, some China, so, you know. But where we really shine is question #3, which 79% answered correctly. Again, fractionally, 1 in 5 people insisted the sun revolved around the earth. Actually, there was a rogue 2% in there that admitted they had no fucking clue how the solar system worked.
Then Ptolemy pointed at the sun and with a furrowed brow replied, "Seriously?"
You can read the full study by clicking here, but needless to say I was damned excited about these results. I mean, gadzooks! If even 20% of our country is a vast and sickly void of gaping ignorance, imagine what brilliant bits of wisdom I may be able to impart on our nation! I mean, I’m constantly learning new things. Just last week I read a book on black holes and stuff, and I learned the fuck outta that book. It was awesome. So I’ve prepared a few preliminary bits of knowledge for that 20% out there for their convenience. Depending of feedback, I will gladly do this on a regular basis because KNOWLEDGE INFORMATION IS POWER.
- America won independence (sometimes alternately but still correctly spelled “independents”) from the viking warlord Mephistopheles in the Battle of the Bulge. The spat was over a certain ring of power that the elves were trying to steal from the Morlocks underground. We won, though, by sending Kevin Bacon to the moon to blow up an asteroid.
- Rock ‘n Roll as a musical genre was invented by Marty McFly by improvising “Johnny B. Goode” which many artists, including Chuck Berry stole from him after McFly vanished out of time. Later, McFly would also invent the hoverboard, jackets with retractable sleeves, and the wild west. He was, in fact, the color yellow.
- Hulk Hogan was the indisputable inspiration for Marvel action hero “The Incredible Hulk”, along with many political personalities including John McCain and Michele Bachmann. They’ve only once appeared all together at the same time, and it was for a charity function in New Jersey that doubled as a grand re-opening for a Somerset Diner. They managed to raise over $125 for awareness.
Be sure to look for more to come, should it be demanded.
IN OTHER NEWS:
“Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep” was released last week on the 7th, and I’ll be damned if I’m not going to go buy it. It is a fully functioning stand-alone action RPG prequel to the KH games, and is fully written and directed by Tetsuya Nomura. That’s all you should really need to know.
Also, Weezer’s new album “Hurley” is out today and is (naturally) entirely themed on the series LOST. I will have to get this, too.
What if this album is a sacrifice The Island demands?
Oh and, right, that’s what I was gonna do,
I beat Final Fantasy XIII about a month ago, and have since been in the slow and at times agonizing process of collecting 100% of the trophies (you know, because I’m still playing videogames from 1991). And, while I don’t have all the trophies yet, I can pretty much give an accurate review of the game as a whole. It’s damn good. Really. Aside from attaining gil and a slightly longer-than-necessary introduction to the gameplay, the entire game is ridiculously balanced to perfection. Everything in this game borrows from some element of Final Fantasies past and improves the fuck out of it to the point where you’re sitting there playing it wondering “why in the hell haven’t they done this before?” On top of that, the voice acting is terrific and the story’s pretty compelling to boot. At around 45hrs of narrative, XIII easily tops 8, 9, and 10 in story length. Where it gets confusing, though, is that the game wants you to beat the narrative, then come back and do all the side missions. I think this makes sense in the weird next gen economic model in which they originally planned to release downloadable content for continued trophies etc. But, being an old-school RPGer, I like my sidequests before my final dungeons, so that when I beat the final boss, I can rest the controller down and enjoy some serious self-satisfaction. XIII rather selfishly denies me of this tradition, and I blame it for that. ASIDE FROM THAT, though, it’s an absolutely beautiful game. It’s like what a fully 3D version of the old FF7/8 rendered backgrounds would be. Lastly, the music is… passable. Don’t get me wrong, Hamauzu is a pretty great composer, and some of the tracks are absolutely brilliant. But, um, you know, a lot of them aren’t. A lot of them are just kind of BGM, so, yeah. Kind of miss Uematsu. OVERALL: A-.
Sazh automatically boosts any piece of media a full letter grade.
Okay, that’s all for now. See ya next time!
The Glass City 