Men Will Be Webslingers

So, as I ponder the fate now of both name and image for this blog (see below, and here), it's nice to know that certain things that shouldn't change don't change. My posse of ex-art-school buddies and I were able to carve out a slight niche in our respective family/fiancé/job-centered schedules to meet in the Telephone Bar last night to toss back a few and make serious plans for the future, sleeves rolled, elbows on the table. John, who's getting married in a few weeks, set his pint down sharply and leaned forward, gathering us all in with his no-nonsense glare. "So, listen... Spider-Man 3 is out real soon. We're going, right?" Anthony the architect eased back in his chair and smirked. "Dude, you're gonna be on your honeymoon." John's eyebrows shot upwards in dismay, which sent his glasses down his nose an inch. "Yeah, but can't you guys wait a week?" We all cracked up and reassured him. I was a bit surprised, though. "John, I didn't realized you were so excited by this one. Doesn't your cynicism level normally go up with each sequel?"
"Hey man, the second one was better than the first!"
"Oh— yeah?" Wayne the painter sounded doubtful.
"True," I said, "but this one's with Venom. Isn't he more of a Gen X thing?" I exchanged glances with Wayne, who nodded, frowning thoughtfully. John counted off on his fingers. "Dude: Venom. Sandman. Hobgoblin."
"And Gwen Stacy," Anthony pointed out.
"Holy shit, that's right." I had a sudden vision of myself explaining this to my feminist sweetie. ("Honey, we've got to see this movie. Gwen Stacy's gonna be in it."
"Who's that? Some super evil chick?"
"No. She's Peter Parker's original girlfriend. Before Mary Jane. His true love."
"Wait, I'm confused. This is from a comic book?"
"Think of it—— as something on Lifetime." A low blow, trying to appeal to her post-academic indulgences. Wouldn't work.)

Spider-Man is the great equalizer of males, five-year-olds to fifty-year-olds. I realized this back in the heady days leading up to the release of the first movie; there was a sharpness to the air, a charge settling down over NYC like the flush of a coming summer storm— like Spider-Sense. I remember a swank, professional couple in their forties walking past me on the sidewalk. The woman moved briskly, distracted, looking as if she were reeling off a Filofax in her head. Her husband, apparently unencumbered in his business suit and tie, ducked and dodged alongside, jabbering excitedly and firing his web-shooters, fingers twisted into that familiar proto-devil-sign salute. I continued on my way, smiling to myself. I understood. He was resorting to sign language, because she was just not wired to make sense of the words. He was pleading for a change in the schedule, a little niche of time, that's all, to be a webslinger again.

Sighted!

Well what do you know, the damn thing actually existed!
Above is an 1868 photo of the Albatros Two, the real life counterpart to my blog's brittle mascot flying machine (see masthead, at top). Designed and built by French aviator Jean-Marie Le Bris, it was the second and less sucessful Albatros, although it was the first flying machine ever photographed. Albatros One is on record as having gone airborn in December 1856 to a height of about three hundred feet, for a distance of six hundred feet, making it a contender for first heavier-than-air craft to lift higher than its point of departure (will have to review what the criteria for actual flight is, since Orville and Wilbur Wright still hold the distinction of official First Flyers in December of 1903). Albatros Two didn't fare nearly as well, despite the support of the French Navy in its production and the addition of a few supposed "improvements" in its design.

At first I was delighted, well, jazzed, actually, to discover the Albatros when I was researching the celebrated Parisian photographer Nadar (he took the picture); but I soon realized I preferred the jaunty little flying machine when it was just a bit of whimsy, kith and kin to the likes of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or the obligingly psychedelic Yellow Submarine. I find instead that the Albatros was patented, tested, sweated over, and most likely cursed and abused in the end. In other words, not exactly "Hokum."

We're all at least a little disappointed when the blurry but uncanny monster photo turns out to be a hoax, or at best a case of wishful thinking. But feelings can be a bit more complicated when the reverse happens and the myth is revealed as fact. Schliemann's Troy and Layard's Nineveh were of course astounding archaelogical discoveries in their time, bringing Homeric antiquity and Biblical scripture to life, respectively; yet I can't help but feel that all the excitement must have been tempered by some small sense of loss, as the collective imagination yielded up its treasures to the cold light of day.

You could say that my old bit of hokum has become, for now, a bit of an Albatros around my neck.