Obsession

After talking to Lyda abut anime, I decided I needed an obsession, something I could pour energy into that was not immediately useful. I think what you learn from an obsession can be useful later. What is the emotional hook? Why do you care so much? Can you (assuming you are a writer) find a way to make your own writing comparably compelling?

So I am obsessing about Marvel action movies at the moment. I have posted about Iron Man and Thor on my blog. (The link is to the right.) I like Thor because of the basis in Norse myth. Yes, the myth is twisted, but it's still there; and the movie is visually amazing: Asgard and Jotenheim are science fiction book covers come to life and the New Mexico sections are wonderfully gritty and down home. I like Iron Man because Robert Downey Jr. is an awesome jerk, and because the two Iron Man movies are about weapons and the use of weapons, an interesting and important theme.

I'm not sure how long this obsession will last. There aren't really all that many Marvel action movies; and I'm not sure the effects of an action movie -- based so much on special effects and really big explosions -- can be transferred to fiction. But I really like the moral ambiguity of Iron Man and the use of myth (Norse and science fictional) in Thor.