Gina Harris's Blog

Superhero movies: Thunderbolts*

I probably should have mentioned this earlier, but all of these posts have major spoilers. The movies have been out long enough that it shouldn't matter, but anyway, spoilers are here.

I was very tense while viewing Thunderbolts*; I had expected it to be more fun.  

I based that largely on the participation of David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov (Red Guardian). 

I know Red Guardian is not Ursa Major, but he is probably as close as we are going to get. (Though with DC actually putting King Shark in a live-action movie... what do I know?) 

He was fun, a little, and when Bucky is riding a motorcycle across the desert (rather than trying to be a competent member of Congress) things pick up, but there was this dread and worry all throughout for me.

I thought that maybe I just wasn't in the right frame of mind for action movies anymore, with their constant new complications and danger. 

Maybe I needed to stick to comedies, though that made it a shame that the trailers for comedies all looked so dreadfully unappealing and unfunny. 

If you will recall, the other movies I had seen were Clue and This is Spinal Tap, now joined by This is Spinal Tap: The End Continues. So, either comedies or movies with Michael McKean, and really only old comedies unless they had Michael McKean.

That made me a little nervous going into Superman, but then I really enjoyed it. There was lots of danger in Fantastic Four: Final Steps but it was also fine, so what was my problem with Thunderbolts*?

A lot of my dread had centered around Bob. He seemed so fragile, and so certain to die. It seemed like he had died a couple of times, and then it looked like while there was something left, it was not the part of Bob that I had cared about.

Combined with that, Yelena is in a funk. There is grief over the death of Natasha and guilt over her origins and she is in a pretty functional depression. Alexei has some of the same issues, though he is processing them differently. When they actually talk about it, it's not really dramatic, but it does help.

Putting it together, the stress that I was experiencing during Thunderbolts* was the emotional weight. It does have a different tone than the other movies, and fulfills a different need.

I've been carrying around some grief and problems too. 

There wasn't catharsis during the movie, much like there wasn't really catharsis for Yelena, just help. Maybe catharsis wouldn't even be realistic.

Regardless, it ended up being very affirming to see that these very isolated people with lots of problems who could easily be sent to pick each other off (and anyone left standing after that gets incinerated) could work together and help each other.

Yelena entered the void, not knowing what was there, but caring and believing there was some purpose. (And how brilliant is it that when you give a manic-depressive person godlike powers that they can create a shame spiral around your formative pain?)   

Then the others followed her. It's not that surprising that Alexei did, because he loved her and in many ways acting without overthinking suits him. 

It's maybe not even surprising that Bucky would go in. He is the more traditionally heroic, though he had his own path to get there.

It is pretty amazing that John and Ava went in. 

It turns out that if you don't let the darkness hold you back and hold on to each other tight, even the most apparently doomed people can be saved.

So while Thunderbolts* was the movie that I enjoyed watching the least, it was the one that had the greatest impact, and was perhaps the most important.

That weight was not only something to bring me down. 

Anyway, the next movie I am looking forward to is Coyote vs. Acme (James Gunn is one of the writers), but maybe I do need to see One Battle After Another. 

I don't know; I'll figure it out. 

Superhero movies: Superman

If I didn't see much criticism of the two Marvel movies, I saw plenty of criticism of Superman.

I don't know whether that was because Superman is just bigger. It could be fair to call him the quintessential superhero, though that is also used as a reason to call him boring: too perfect, too good, etc.

It could also perhaps be that this movie was more blatantly "woke". There were definitely commenters who did not like that.

I have also seen some people complain about the dog.

Look, I believe I have made it pretty clear that if you use "woke" as an insult... maybe you are not yourself an irredeemably bad person, but you are listening to the material of people who are; it's a bad sign. 

However, if "wokeness" was your problem with the movie, I might still be able to have a more productive discussion with you about that than if the issue is your not liking Krypto. 

The dog was great!

I mentioned in the first superhero comics post that it was clear to me that James Gunn loves comics. It was also clear to me that he loves animals.

That was not just Krypto, but also the squirrel and the woman evacuating the city with her turtle. Your emergency plans should always include your pets, and there may be ways where it is easier to clear out with one small turtle than six cats, hypothetically.

(That did remind me of an old Barney Miller episode where Wojo realized there was no evacuation plan for New York City and how impossible it would be.) 

As it is, I do agree that Superman can be too perfect. Krypto added an element of chaos. With no bad intentions, the dog caused problems -- sometimes solved them too -- but it kept things unpredictable. It reminds me of Shuri in Black Panther, knocking T'Challa off balance and humanizing him, while adding some humor.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2018/08/black-panther-as-adaptation.html 

I wasn't sure about the movie at first. When Clark's parents called, they were not just the opposite of tech-savvy but very easy to look down on. They were also beautiful. 

Clark knew it sooner than the audience did, but we got to see it too.

Is that the real punk rock?

Well, is the real punk rock the DIY kids with the can-do attitudes, or is it the rich kids who dress down, walk through literal crap and then put their feet up on your coffee table? Or is the real punk rock just music based on three power chords played really fast?

I mean, maybe it's more complex than that.

This may be the more important thing from the movie.

When Superman is at his lowest, and Metamorpho decides to help him -- largely to save his son, but also I think because the suffering bothers him -- the other prisoners of the pocket universe start trying to draw attention and stop them. While that is their best chance for rescue (and does ultimately get them out), their first thought is fear, and cooperating with their abuser.

That felt terribly real and applicable.

I thought the movie was very entertaining. I enjoyed that, and I wasn't sure that I would, which I will get into more in the next post.

There is the potential for well-made movies that I would not enjoy. One path to that is if the message of the movie was wrong.

There was a lot of caring in the movie, and intention to do right, even if things don't always work out, like when the Justice Gang swoops in and kills the kaiju that you were hoping to capture peacefully.

You can keep trying to persuade your attackers (one of whom is your clone) that they don't need to do this and then fail to convince them and it leads to the clone's demise.

It is still so important to try. Then sometimes, when you do that, you can save the dog and the squirrel. 

Superhero movies: Fantastic Four

Getting back to media, I am going to write about the superhero movies in the reverse order of my viewing them.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/09/superheroes-comics-movies-and-people.html 

Getting back to not being sure about where my blogging is going from here, I am writing about media on a day other than Friday. In fact, I hope to get all three of the movies done over the next three days, and then I don't know what I will do Friday.

It's wild.

I had mentioned that I was least familiar with the Fantastic Four, so it makes sense that I was surprised to see a female Silver Surfer, Shalla-Bal.

In fact, she has been around since 1968. It is not even particularly arcane knowledge, because I also learned that Joe Satriani has a track about her, "Back to Shalla-Bal" from 1989's Flying In A Blue Dream.

I had admired "Surfing With The Alien" from 1987 (on the same-titled album), but I had not initially realized that it was about the Silver Surfer, So, Joe Satriani knows more about the Fantastic Four than I do, as well as being better at music; I defer to Joe Satriani.

In terms of using Shalla-Bal versus the more familiar Norrin Radd, while either -- both having served as heralds of Galactus -- can explore the issue of collaborating to save your own (which seems like a good topic now), I thought Johnny's interactions with her helped us get to know him better in a way that Norrin Radd would not have delivered. That was well done.

I thought the movie also did better by Sue than was often the case in the comics. They would frequently give lip service to how important she was or how her powers mattered, but then she was either moping about her conflicted feelings for Namor or off buying designer dresses. It's like somehow over the years more people have become capable of imagining a woman as a complete being. 

I admit I did not see a lot of complaining about the movie regarding "wokeness". 

I am not sure about whether there was complaining I missed because I am distracted by school, or whether there really wasn't much because Disney did not do a great job of promoting either Fantastic Four: First Steps or Thunderbolts*. (That being said, if Disney did mess up the marketing, I could imagine it being a wokeness matter, based on Kimmell and Elio and Strange World.)

Regardless, I can imagine some comics fans being very irritated about the Silver Surfer being Shalla-Bal instead of Norrin; why do they always have to go changing characters!?!

I will admit that I rolled my eyes when I saw the ads for the 2015 Fantastic Four movie. Yes, adopted siblings exist, but Sue and Johnny Storm have been so consistently blond, wealthy white people, meaning well but affected by their affluence, that casting Michael B. Jordan (who will probably always be the definitive Killmonger) as Johnny did not feel organic. 

(I also say that as someone who has never seen any other Fantastic Four movies because they have consistently gotten not-so-hot reviews -- even with some really good actors in them -- that the fact that this one was well-made and entertaining is kind of miraculous. We should be celebrating.)

I do have two things to say on diverse casting.  

One is that historically when so much media has been centered on  white men, yes there absolutely should be representation and it is reasonable to take steps toward that representation. It's better when they are well-considered -- rather than obvious shoehorning -- but the move toward greater diversity and inclusion is fair.

Sometimes it works better. Having a modern-day Nick Fury be more like Samuel L. Jackson than Hugh Hefner is a great move, and not unreasonable if there is a father/son connection. For White Tiger, Ava was Hector's niece; family successions are not unknown.

In addition, one thing you have with long-running comics is that there are so many changes over time that there are other people and versions and these changes can very easily be incorporated. 

So just in the realm of Spider-people  there is Peter Parker but there is also Miles Morales and Miguel O'Hara and Jessica Drew and Julie Carpenter and Mattie Franklin and Charlotte Weber and Cassandra Webb. That's not even mentioning the various incarnations of Gwen Stacy, or What Ifs, or that there are different Earths. 

First Steps and Thunderbolts* are not even set on the same Earth, so that message from space in the teaser at the end of Thunderbolts* seemed like it could have related to First Steps, but it probably doesn't. I really don't know.

This can be very frustrating. 

Sometimes it is just that they keep needing to invent new problems to keep things going, so various heroes go bad, or villains collaborate and become heroes, and back and forth. There are "first steps" all the time, but final steps? It's like your grandmother's stories, but since they keep changing writers it's not Bradley Bell having Ridge unable to decide between Brooke and Taylor for the eighty-fifth time.

This is a major part of why when I had a chance to buy ghost stories as a kid, I tended to go with collections of ghost stories; there would be conclusions!

It also creates lots of opportunities and variety, which can be great, though it works better if the writing and casting are good.

That being said, I have avoided reading anything DC after the new 52 really, because I hated that, and I will never forgive (or read, and you do not have to read something to hate it) One More Day.

If you know, you know. 

I hope Joe Satriani would agree. 

Decisions, decisions

Last week I was out of town for three days. 

It was not even three whole days, but leaving one day, being gone, and returning the next.

I did not post songs or articles for four days, and this is my first blog post in longer than that.

Travel was a factor, but it wasn't the only factor. It's more school (which I did work on a bit while gone).

I am trying to figure out if I can blog while finishing school.

I am in the final third of my program, but it is not an equal third; it's a more involved one.

From demonstrating understanding of various concepts and completing sections or mock-ups, now I need to make things that are more complete and fully functioning. I also want to get it all done by the end of the year.

Given that limited time frame, a simple pause in blogging could be okay, but it affects momentum. 

I went through this before, though more gradually, when caring for my mother became more and more demanding.

I do have more choice in how much time to give to school than I had about the time I gave to my mother, but still, I want to finish. In the big picture that is worth some sacrifice. 

I have thought about simply doing fewer posts, but then if I want to go over certain concepts thoroughly, does that work?

Plus now it looks like a lot of what I write could end up being thought crime. 

I mean, I'm not sure how much I should worry about that part, in terms of how it will end up being executed and how much my contribution matters, but add that to the general fatigue of living under this particular regime.

So, I don't know.

I will say that finishing up Careless People, I have never considered abandoning Facebook more seriously, and yet there would be lost connections. My belief in people mattering makes that hard to accept.

What course is best? 

All I can really say for sure right now is that I will do something, eventually, and I apologize for the suspense.

Taking some time off

I meant to write this week, but after completing two papers that I had been stalled on for weeks, I didn't have much left.

I am refreshing and resetting and I will be back.

Be good to each other and yourselves.  

Superheroes! Comics, movies, and the people who love them

I've seen five movies this summer. That's pretty high for me lately; I used to go a lot more.

Two were old movies getting another run in the theater due to anniversaries: Clue and This is Spinal Tap. (The next movie I see will be The End Continues.)

The others -- in the order I saw them -- were...

Thunderbolts*

Superman

The Fantastic Four: First Steps

There is a definite theme.

I believe I am going to write about each of them individually, because there were thoughts with all of them, but I have also been thinking about the genre and its fans.

I am sure that is more true because so many people are complaining about the "wokeness" of the films. 

I rolled my eyes even typing that, so, that's not me, but I would also also not be considered the biggest fan. I have read a fair amount of comics, and will read more, but there are a lot of things that I am fine with not seeing or reading.

Of these three, I have probably read more Superman comics than any of the others. My Fantastic Four knowledge is probably the weakest, but then I have previously only seen John Walker from Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and I saw Valentina in that and Wakanda Forever, as well as Ava Starr in Ant-Man and the Wasp. Maybe I see about a third or a fourth of the Marvel offerings, and that is much more than DC. 

(I also read more Marvel than DC, so it is weird that Superman was the most familiar, except that Superman is a more major character than any of the others.)

If I feel like I am missing something, I will look it up. For example, in Superman I saw someone who could mimic elements, and wondered if it was Element Lad, Jan Arrah, but I only knew of him from "The Scavenger Vortex" episode of The Big Bang Theory. The character was actually Metamorpho, who was unfamiliar except reading about him I did remember Urania Blackwell from Sandman and I could see the resemblance in the character design.

That is my level of fandom, but I really appreciate the superfans.

For one example, I want to refer to this post from Gail Simone:

https://x.com/GailSimone/status/1955407214820331978 

She makes a well-reasoned point about the entrance of Galactus, referencing issue 48 and crediting Kirby.

I could never do that. I love that she can. I know that she loves comics on their own terms, respecting their history but also knowing the weaknesses.

One of the little thoughts that would come in watching Superman is that clearly James Gunn loves comics.

It just so happens that I had only seen one other thing by him before, The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special. That spoke to me of a great affection for Star Wars, but also an awareness of its shortcomings. Seeing Superman, I see the love for comics. And animals.

He may work with properties that don't interest me, but I trust him to handle what he does with respect and affection. 

I love that.

I didn't go into Fantastic Four expecting many connections. The most familiar name for me was Pedro Pascal . I did recognize Natasha Lyonne, but then I was just thinking "That's not Alicia!"

But then, at the end of the credits in the Special Thanks, there started being some names for whom I feel a lot of affection. Maybe I haven't read their Fantastic Four work, but I have read other things they have written, for Superman or Iron Man or they spoke at ICAF or a comic-con or were guests for one of the MOOCs, and, wait, Chip Zdarsky? Oh, he has a new Final Four book out.

I guess I will have to read that. 

Related posts (among many):

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/05/gender-through-comic-books-my-first-mooc.html  

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/04/greetings-from-stumptown.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/06/international-comic-arts-forum-source.html 

Communes

While writing yesterday, I kept thinking about Brook Farm and The Blithedale Romance. (I did a report on Nathaniel Hawthorne in high school.)

As it is, I think I have more to say about Orderville.

Orderville was an early commune in Utah, named as it was organized to practice the United Order, a Latter-Day Saint collectivist program.

It doesn't get talked about a lot, but we were told a story once that stuck with me. 

A teenage boy whose job was helping with docking the lambs collected the tails, shaved the wool off of them, and sold that as his private stash, then used it to buy a pair of jeans. 

Part of the collectivism was that everyone had the same clothes, as well as dining together and sharing everything, right? So the other teen boys saw this new fancy pair of store-bought pants and were jealous. 

The community leaders decided to copy that pattern, and that would be the new style of pants that everyone would get when their pants needed replacing. The other boys did not want to wait so they did things to wear their pants out faster.

The community leaders gave up and everyone got new pants.

Some people take that as a sign that with these attitudes it couldn't work out. Apparently what really did things in was the coming of the railroad and multiple arrests for polygamy.

I think the big problem is the attempt to maintain equality by strict control.

I remember being irritated with this in Utopia; why does everyone have to dress alike?

In Utopia it was even worse; everyone had to play the same games and eat the same food. That's what Thomas More thought was needed for peace. He just happened to make things look a lot like his own preference of monastic life but with families. Plato thought plays were bad for morality, so in The Republic you can't have plays, though Plato is putting his ideas in Socrates' mouth.

The first thing to take from that is how easy it is to assume your preferences will work for everyone else. That is an illusion, though not one that stops you from being a philosopher. 

The more important question is whether we can we have our differences and get along.

Well, let's get back to Brook Farm.

It started out fun, but then there were people who wanted to follow Fourier's principles more, and then they weren't making enough money, so they went vegetarian but not everyone wanted to do that and they were sitting at different tables and some people were paying more. 

Financial issues affect things -- that's part of what the railroad coming to Orderville did -- but it was the different ideas that Hawthorne noted the most in The Blithedale Romance. The main characters disagree about women's rights and criminal reform. Those disagreements gradually get more hostile.

A lot of hippie communes had issues with women still being expected to do the cooking and cleaning.

Here's something else interesting, from The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, a 2009 book by Richard G. Wilkinson and Kate Pickett.

In addition to discovering that more equal societies tend to do better, they also discovered that the method didn't really matter. Some countries had high taxes and then those taxes covered a lot of things. Others might have wage controls or universal basic income, but the point was the equality, and it helped, and people still got to pick out their own clothes.

Dominator culture, even with good intentions, leans toward exercising more control. They don't trust people to do right, so they will make them do right.

As scary as trusting can be, you can't force people to be good, but also, so much becomes about things that don't even related to goodness, like what style of pants you put on in the morning.

There are differences we can allow. 

Dominator culture knows all political affiliations

The title was nearly that it knows no political affiliation, but all affiliations is probably more accurate.

Over years of reading, I eventually came to understand that nationalism and communism were natural enemies. 

I suppose it started with World War II and the Nazis and the Soviets being against each other. In that context it would seem that the Soviets were the good guys, but that's not how it played out after the war.

Of course, just expecting there to be "good guys" is overly simplistic.

I might not have thought much about it, except that when I was reading a lot of South African history (after seeing Invictus), that kept coming up. The enemies of the South Africans, especially after Apartheid, were always the Communists. Then -- after seeing A United Kingdom and reading more about Botswana -- it came up again.

Also, looking at photos from the Civil Rights era, yes, you did see Confederate flags, but you saw Nazi flags too, waved by our homegrown racists. With that happening not long after WWII, it was disconcerting.

One point of that is the rise of the Nazis here isn't anything shocking; they have been building all along and the people who intend to be good people were not committed enough to anti-racism to stop it. We'll get back to that.

For now -- and this does relate to where "good guys" is overly simplistic -- how do you end up with such similar behavior on sides that are opposed, but clearly not opposite?

When we talk about political theory, even though there are things about it that are very real, the "theory" part is that things are not generally carried out perfectly. There are goals and ideals that don't get fully met. Sometimes that is part of the problem, and sometimes the theory part is so problematic that you have to be grateful for any failures.

I remember back in high school when people were talking about communism saying that it never has been carried out perfectly; that's why a lot of people preferred to use socialism instead. I am not sure those discussions were very valuable. It did allow some people to dismiss communism as an impossible ideal, where they were more pragmatic in their disdain.

Regardless, to the extent that communism is focused on the people controlling the means of production, and where nationalism is more about putting one's nation over other nations, those appear to be very different goals. Communism seems to be looking inward at welfare of the group and nationalism seems to be looking outward at their superiority over other groups.

It did not always work out like that. The German policy of "autarky" for self-sufficiency would seem like a reasonable policy for a communist state, even if invading other countries to get the resources seemed less appropriate.

Then, a lot of people under Soviet rule starved as grain was raised for shipment and sale to other places, rather than feeding the people who raised it. (That doesn't even get into what went on with the Cuban sugar harvest under Castro's early rule.)

A lot of the Communist failures were based on a desire to compete with other nations and show that they were superior. That almost sounds nationalistic.

One potential stumbling block is that both systems had enemies built in.

For nationalists, it was other countries, but for communists, it was the owner class. The philosophy included rising up against the oppressors. That was how you bring on the good times, but the good times never came.

Does it have to be this way? What if it started with something smaller?

More on that next time.

Dominator culture's invisible hand

I'm not sure this is a good title.

I know I want to talk about dominator culture. I keep seeing cases where that analysis is missing and desperately needed. 

(I also feel very pulled to write about various things in relation to Charlie Kirk's death, but a lot of those relate to dominator culture, so it should work out.)

Before getting into ways in which dominator culture works, I want to write first about how much it is accepted, where we don't even notice it.

That's where the Adam Smith reference comes up. His point was that with capitalism an invisible hand will often guide things for the common good. 

Without delving too deeply into capitalism right now, that premise looks a little shaky.

That being said, there are people who are going to be very comfortable with how and where dominator culture leads us. That can make the required examination uncomfortable.

First of all, what is dominator culture?

From the Center for Partnership Systems, "Dominator culture refers to a model of society where fear and force maintain rigid understandings of power and superiority within a hierarchical structure."

I want to emphasize the potential variety in those models. You can talk about patriarchy and racism and caste and white supremacy and ableism... it's not wrong to mention any of it. It is also not complete.

Because there are multiple systems leading to different positions in the hierarchy, you can -- for example -- have brown people prejudiced against Black people even though it would be in their best interest to avoid racism. You can label anti-Blackness a separate thing and even relate it to colorism, but the key is really about being able to be superior to someone, even if it means you have to be below others. 

Because it is scary to be below others, that might make you cling to the superiority you have, without even considering that there might be a world without that hierarchy and the fear and abuse that goes with it.

Therefore, some people find the phrase "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" very offensive.

They may not be the people on top, but they are more likely to instinctively fear being moved to the bottom rather than there no longer being a bottom.

Here are my examples of its subtlety.

Personally, I first came across the phrase "dominator culture" while reading bell hooks. I was like "That's it!" Here was a word that perfectly expressed this thing I had kept noticing. When I looked it up and saw that the opposite was "partnership culture", which valued men and women equally, I was disappointed, thinking that then the model is that couples lead, still leaving me out. 

When I actually read Riane Eisler's The Chalice and the Blade, expecting to be dissatisfied with that part... no, the opposite of dominator culture is that we are all working together. 

Having lived under and been influenced by dominator culture for years, it affected my expectations. Even though I had been bumping up against the system and reading material that made me want to challenge it, I was still limited by it.

The broader example was a recent post saying that when science fiction tries to create an alternate society as a matriarchy, it's just a role reversal with the women dominating, which has not been historically how they have worked. We just assume the opposite is only a change in who's in power, not how power works.

While I have to acknowledge that there is science fiction that does not fall into that, yes, that type of interpretation exists, and there is a reason for it.

Dominator culture limits our imagination and holds us back. Sometimes it doesn't need to use force because the fear is powerful enough.

Also powerful is the apathy and the ignorance and all of those other things where the issue isn't even in contention. 

But I know something better is possible.

Garden update, now with vocab!

This is not about books, music, or films, but it is partially about words.

I have realized that when I am telling people about my plants, I sometimes use words that they don't know, and that it is completely reasonable that they don't know. 

(Does this happen with my political writing?) 

It has come up more with "volunteers", but what really drove the point home for me was the look of disgust on my sisters' faces and their immediate objection to my maybe putting down "green manure". 

In January I had posted about some of the issues I'd had last year, and trying to figure out how to make it better this year. 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/01/three-things-gardens.html 

I decided what was really needed was to till and add soil. It was possible, but it did not go as expected. There were a lot of delays and I got a really late start on planting. 

I put in a round of pumpkins and sunflower seeds. The seeds were older, but I have had luck with that before; this time nothing was sprouting. I was thinking of augmenting with plants anyway, but again, due to the late start, no one had pumpkin plants.

I really love growing pumpkins, but I was giving up on it happening this year. Then I thought of this pumpkin farm we visit sometimes. I reached out to the farm store.

They don't normally sell plants, but she advised I check with the owner. He said he could probably find some volunteers, though there would be no way of knowing what they were.

First vocabulary term: "Volunteers" are the things that are growing that you didn't plant. Yes, that does mean your dandelions and crabgrass, which could be spread by wind or animal movement, but you can also get bigger things. 

We had to uproot a seedling for an oak tree that I assume was buried by a squirrel. It might have been an okay spot for temporary food storage, but it was a terrible place for an oak tree. One of my Master Food Preservation teachers had tried planting tomatillos, and they failed, but some of the seeds ended up in compost and spread around the yard, and they grew like, well, weeds.  

Since he had not planted them, he did not know what types of pumpkins they would be. Of course they could die or get too late a start, but this was my last chance for the year.

He found me three. 

One was in one of those big flower pots that you plant different flowers in for an arrangement; there was something there they had not planted. It was pretty small.

One was off to the side of one of the main pumpkin fields. The root system was really shallow, but the vine was strong.

One was in the middle of some grass near the house. That's the one that lived.

The small one withered right away. The shallow roots lasted longer, but did not make it. It was during a heat wave when I planted them, which was not ideal. 

But one hung on. It kept spreading forth bigger, greener leaves, but not vines. Yet it was still producing little pumpkin babies. 

It turns out there is this thing called "semi-shrub" that grows like a bush. I like the vines spreading all over the place and flowering everywhere, but I can see how for some plots this size would be more convenient. They do tend to produce smaller fruit and blossoms.

One friend tried a plant ID app that was torn on whether it was pumpkin or squash. Since it came from a pumpkin farm, I am assuming pumpkin, but there's no certainty.

Actually, this stirred up some memories. Pumpkins really are just a squash, which mainly divide into summer and winter squash, but they can interbreed. One year I planted pumpkins and yellow crookneck squash and harvested orange crookneck squash. 

This also reminds me of a cousin telling me about this section of a huge squash that he got at a flea market. He was trying to find out what kind it was, because it was really good, but they couldn't tell him. Now I assume that it wasn't any established variety; somebody planted the right other kind of squash next to a Hubbard to make it more delicious.

(For more fun on what makes pumpkins themselves, try reading Pumpkin: The Curious History of an American Icon by Cindy Ott.)

Three surviving vines would have done a good job covering the front yard, at least until the first frost. That's not what I got, plus there is the back.

"Punt" is a football term, when you kick the ball further away from your end zone. It's not because you think you can score -- you would try a field goal for that -- but because the other team is getting too close to scoring and you want to buy time.

My punt is that right now I am planting a lot of peas and green beans. They have a short growing season and should make vines. If nothing else I need to keep the new dirt from flying away or becoming a giant litter box for the neighbor cats.

Then, before the first frost, I have to figure out what I do next, and what to do between now and a good starting time for next.

One of those options is "green manure".

Green manure is a cover crop planted for the purpose of enriching the soil. Before the next year's planting, instead of harvesting you till it back into the soil. You can think of it as instant compost, except the "instant" is doing a lot of work there.

https://www.thespruce.com/what-is-green-manure-1761842 

It's not a coincidence that the other things I am planting are legumes. If I added in some corn, with the beans and pumpkins it would give me the Three Sisters, but it's way too late to plant corn.

https://www.almanac.com/content/three-sisters-corn-bean-and-squash  

There is a lot I have not figured out yet. That feels pretty normal for me as far as gardening is concerned.

For now, I am at least hoping to see some baby pumpkins getting bigger and turning orange.