Grave Considerations: Where We Are Going, and Where We Have Been

Well, it’s that time of the year again, the ending time, where we sit back after the conclusion of another long and punishing semester and get some well-earned rest. Additionally, with this posting, the Coffin will break its record for number of posts in a calendar year, set just last year. I often do this, but I wanted to take a bit of time and look back at where this year has taken us, and what directions we think we might be going in once 2019 starts up.

This semester was really, really hard. Taught nine Fall class, which is a whole lot, and more than what would rationally be considered “a lot” by people in my profession. I’m used to the shocked responses colleagues give when they learn how much work I’ll be doing for this or that 16 week interval, but I have done this nine class grind a few times prior to this semester, and apparently am going to do it again in January. Normally, the conclusion of such a semester sees us travelling somewhere, so the extra work translates to extra money, which translates to a vacation or an experience that feels absolutely worth the extra punishment. But this winter, we’ve decided to stay home, a marvelous decision, but one lacking that feeling of “this is why I taught nine classes” at its’ end. We haven’t stayed home in a long time, these last four years being an almost non-stop flurry of work then travel, or work then wedding then work then travel; or even this past year, work, then travel, then work, then moving, then work. We were due for a break, and I think we very, very wisely decided to take it this December. We have been finished with work and final grading for a week, and my wife and I are already at that point in the winter break where we have forgotten what day of the week it is. I have been having these horrifying surges in I guess anxiety, and I don’t really know why, other than one of the following two possibilities: either A) the sudden end of the non-stop-ness of the semester has left a void that needs to be filled by something, and so any and all potentially negative things are rushing in to set up camp, or B) because this is the first time in a few years I don’t have an idea of what my wife will be getting me for Christmas, I am on edge and filled with an unknowing that has grown unfamiliar over the last two or three years, and I am not able to remember how to cope with it.

But, as the wildness of the semester rolled so seemingly unrelentingly on, a thought began formulating in my mind. A sort of “why am I doing this?” thought. I have been keeping this blog for three and a half years now, and have used it to contain my thoughts on toys and video games and music and other things, but occasionally I find myself perhaps not entirely sure as to why. I used to frequent more communal fansites, until I eventually admitted to myself that I was just tired of their hivemindery and left them. That was when I began this blog.

Why do I do this? Two main reasons, I guess. The first is that, in the absence of fan boards and their generally unpleasant sludge of essentially uniform discourse, the Coffin allows me a place to talk about things that I love without having to tailor my ideas to the dominant oeuvre of the board in order to be validated. Many fan sites will boast of conversation, but will only accept a few canned responses to any particular topic. I’m currently giggling because an interview of the forthcoming “Bumblebee” movie just gave an interview where the article begins by disparaging the offensively clear diminishing returns of the Michael Bay live action “Transformers” movies, and how this article has suspiciously not yet been linked on a fan site that is much more monolithic of its exhalations of the Bay movies as being flawless. What are they going to do? Their blind loyalty demands they laud and accept “Bumblebee,” but to do so while saying something against the Bay ablutions? Quite a pickle indeed. Anyway, here I get to talk about what I want, and how I want to, with the only opinion that needs to be satiated is mine. I can talk about a figure without having to address it in relation to how something else is also great. I had experiences on the fan sites where, in order to talk about figure X, I’d also have to saying something good about some different figure, so as to placate those who could not handle a person liking a thing that wasn’t what they liked. This happened frequently with the live action movie toys. Yes, yes, Revenge of the Fallen Sideswipe is wonderful, but the “Classics” version is, in my opinion, very good as well. It got so tedious. Whatever was new was the greatest thing possible, and older things were just junk. Third Party products? Forget those, they’re nothing but KOs and garbage, toys without “personality”. Yes, that Third Party Starscream that looks EXACTLY like G1 Starscream? No personality at all. This tangled diamond of plastic and tattoos? Now THAT’S a Starscream, brimming with this “personality”. Like every day was Opposite Day.

The second major reason I keep this blog running is that it allows me to do something for myself during wildly busy semesters. It’s an outlet of sorts, a valve that I can use to be me again for a little while, so I’m not always Mr. or Professor whoever. The Coffin gives me the chance to talk about things that I personally value and enjoy, and it lets me feel like me at times when work is demanding so much of me that I honestly feel like I am fading away beneath my nonstop responsibilities. I often find myself stealing an hour from a week to hammer together some 1300 words on a figure or something, just as a way of making sure I’m still there, that I haven’t been replaced by the robot that our system of labor tries to make us all become. I also feel like I do a better job of talking about figures with other real live humans, since I’ve been running this project. I feel perhaps more critical of figures, across a range of topics from build to design to engineering to aesthetic and more, than I was before, as though my thinking on toys has changed since I tried to be more critical of them. I really feel this when we’ve been to conventions or something where there has been an upcoming figure reveal: like I can look at something and make certain judgments and statements on it because I’ve grown more critical of toys. I’ve been a toy collector for the last twenty years of my life, and before that was a fan of toys as a kid, so it’s not the case that I’ve only recently developed a taste for figures, no. I’ve only recently tried to be more serious about them. Kinda feel like that speaks poorly about years and years of my life and what I’d been doing with it, but really, what I’m saying does make sense, and in the way I mean it to as well.

So, what will we do with this blog in the coming year, since it makes me feel like a human being and is therefore totally priceless to me? Much of the same, as I’ve got a TON of pictures of figures right here on my desktop that are just waiting to be posted with accompanying words about them, as well as a litter of things yet to be photo’d. Some of what we still have to look at is super exciting stuff, and I’m pretty geared up to share some thoughts on it. In the closing months of this year, we started talking about video games and comic book figures, both things which are set to continue, and we’re thinking pretty hard about occasionally talking about movies as well. A Mass Burial is in progress, and will most likely add two more entries over the next few days. In April, my wife and I are going to Star Wars Celebration, being held in Chicago next year, so there will certainly be a write up on that experience. And I’m not planning on being finished for 2018 either, as I’d like to get another Mass Burial entry or two (I know I just said that. Sorry. . . .-mr) and another figure or two posted before the calendar flips.

There are some questions brewing in my mind about the future direction of my collection, which honestly were what I’d wanted to talk about at the beginning of this post, but a day spent waiting for the maintenance man did kind of side track me into something else, which I’d also wanted to write about. So, in the long run, no big deal. Collection direction talk was really just a fleeting idea of that particular moment anyway, as thinking about it now, I’m kind of just smirking and knowing that I wouldn’t truly follow that potential path anyway. It’s like that time I thought about getting in to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figures around 2013 or 2014, because I thought some of the villains and mutant characters looked kind of fun. Good thing I avoided that: my wife thinks live action Transformers figures are only temporarily in my possession before they are listed on eBay, and I can’t imagine the speed with which I’d have gotten over the TMNT phase.

Well, thanks for listening. I really appreciate it. I know it didn’t really go anywhere, but it means a lot to me that you stuck around for it. That’s the third main reason I keep writing this blog: it lets me talk about things, and it allows me to believe that someone is reading along, even if no one is. I swear, whenever Twitter purges bot accounts, traffic here decreases quite a bit. Lol.

But thanks again, truly.