Important Life-Lesson for the Day!

So we pretty much all have times in our life when we feel powerless. We sometimes feel that the other party has all the cards or chips, and the only thing we can do is either beg or fall into the inevitability of defeat.

This, in a word, is absurd!

If I would ask you to remember one thing, it's this: if you think you have power and act powerfully you will have (some) power. If you think you are powerless, you will act accordingly and, lo and behold, you will become powerless.

Consider this story:

A pathetic prisoner sits in solitary confinement. He has no belt, and so has to hold up his emaciated frame with one arm. He has no shoe laces (both were removed to prevent him from doing to himself what the authorities will to do him later).
His food is slop and he refuses to eat.
Thus, his frame is emaciated, skin and bones.
Suddenly, he smells a Marlboro cigarette.
He loves cigarettes! Particularly Marlboros.
He notices his guard is the one smoking.
Desperate, the prisoner respectfully asks for a cigarette.
The guard thinks to himself:
This guy is powerless! Ha, the loser! He snorts derisively and continues smoking, turning his back.

The prisoner, on the other hand, knows different.
He knows he was never truly powerless. He's aware of his options. He can always test his assumptions and take risks. The closer to bottom you are, the less you have to lose, the more risks you can take, after all.

So, he knocks on the door to his cell one last time, this time commandingly and authoritatively.
The guard, annoyance obvious in his voice, asks: What is it THIS TIME?
The prisoner answers:
Please give me one of your cigarettes within the next thirty seconds. If I don't get a cigarette, I'm going to bang my head against the concrete wall until I'm a bloody mess and unconscious. When the prison officials pick my body up off of the ground, throw some water in my face and revive me, I'll swear YOU did it.

Now, they'll never believe me of course. But just imagine all the paperwork you'll have to do (in triplicate even!), all the hours you'll have to spend giving testimony at hearings, and reporting to your superiors. All the administrative bullshit and red tape. Hell, it might even go on your permanent record!

All that time and energy wasted versus one tiny little cigarette! Just give it to me, and I promise you, I wont bother you ever again!

Does the guard give the prisoner the cigarette? Of course! Does he even light it for him? Absolutely! The guard isn't too stupid and can do quick cost-benefit analysis.

Now, you are almost certainly NOT a prisoner in an isolation chamber, you are almost certainly not on death row.

What does this mean? It means that if even a guy like that has power, we all do!

According to negotiation expert Herb Cohen (author of You Can Negotiate Anything!, and the guy from whom I got this story: "Within reason, you can get whatever you want if you're aware of your options, if you test your assumptions, if you take shrewdly calculated risks based on sold information, and if you believe you have power" (54).

So, whoever you are, whatever your situation: Follow this Cause-and-Effect Chain and You'll Stop Being a Victim and Start Being a Victor!

1. Know firmly: You Have the Power! thus...
2. You Will Seem Self-Confident to Others, thus...
3. You determine how they see you!

In other words, power, in its most fundamental essence, is the PERCEPTION by others that one can make things happen that will either help or hurt them. Power is a property solely of perception, but it all comes back to You!

And that's my life lesson for the day, thanks to Herb Cohen!

J'ADORE LES B.D. EN FRANCAIS

On last week's radio show, I discussed some of my favorite French comics.

Here are some images to go along with that discussion and some more descriptions and analysis. I hope you can see why I love these comics:



A brilliant example of the fare typical of Oubapo, the experimental French comics group. Here's a link for further information:

Oubapo is actually cousin to Oulipo, those crazy cats who wrote a novel in French without using an e!

For those who love Herge's Tintin, but want something a little more science-fictional and escapist we have Blake and Mortimer:



Here's the official site (Blake and Mortimer remain quite popular in France):

The Official Blake and Mortimer Website!

Moebius' Blueberry remains one of the great Western 'heroes' in comics, as Clint Eastwood was for the film Western, so Blueberry was for the comic:



Jean-Claude Forest's work shows the strong stylistic influence of the great Continental illustrators (such as Gustave Dore, to give the most prominent example), it demonstrates a strong voice that remains wholly faithful to the great European tradition and is an excellent cleanser for those who love comics but have become too inured to more customary (American, Japanese, Franco-Belgian) trappings:



Lambiek is perhaps one of the best sources of information on French, European, and even American comics on the web

and has a good deal of information about both Forest and Dore.
Gustave Dore
Jean-Claude Forest

Here's a look at a page from Ici Meme, another work by Forest, this time in collaboration with Jacques Tardi, it's a kafkaesque or Borgesian tale of utter brilliance; and really shows off Forest's range:


For those who may think my tastes have ossified with the immediate post-war generation, Yves Chaland (also under the alias, Gert Dooreman) was a modern master of the form and showed it consistently, he seems to have a slight 1950s EC influence in this piece (but maybe that's just me):



Here's some more work he did as Dooreman, and some information about Chaland.
Warning, it's in French.

Finally, here's another piece by Chaland. This one is a gag strip called "Bob Fish". Comparing this piece to the one immediately prior, it really shows off the enormous range Chaland possessed, though, at least under his given name of Chaland, he always represented various aspects of the 'Atomic Style' he pioneered.



The Lambiek entry on Chaland

Is He Strong? Listen Bud, He's Got Sambuca Blood!

Quite funny:

A Late Unlamented Start

Hello Cruel World!

Myles Lobdell here,

Please excuse the meager furnishings apparent at the moment, this being the first post and all.

Perhaps this is an exercise in futility (an attempt to keep a daily blog): after all, I'm not particularly noted for my efficiency or prolificacy. It's not my first attempt at a block (Proust-Punk was an errant first attempt, more brass tacks class project than sentimental effusion), nor is it my first essay in self-expression, my radio show on KRNL (89.7 FM!) "The Myles Hour" often enters personal narrative.

In part, this is intended as an annex to my weekly radio show. Those who like the show can come here and find more of the same, here I can find the space to go further in-depth on various and sundry that may come up on the show.

It's also a personal record, a marker, yes, even a (ugh!) Myles-stone, indicating the life-experience passed from day to day, and showing where I've been and where I'm going.



Eh, well, introductions are requisite, yet, inherently, of a kind.

Those who know me, great!
Those who don't, soon will, if they continue reading...

For the record, I'm your typical everyday genius, college-attending contrarian in his mid-20s. Born and raised in the wilds of northern New England (a short walk from the White Mountain National Forest), I'm currently Iowa residing. I love to pontificate (a fair warning: my internal monologues usually come replete with footnotes and obscure references to Burton, Gibbon, etc.) about history, culture, and anything else possible to over-analyze.

I'm an amateur historian, researcher, reviewer, radio dj, and (mostly unpublished) creative writer. I've assisted with several books (comic book annotations, etc.)

Feel free to respond uncensored, but a note of caution: I'm perfectly happy publically responding in whatever manner I see fit, thus don't post here if you don't want to engage in a public forum and expose your "close and cloistered virtues" to public review and criticism.

I read some of the OED every day, and I don't get out from behind the books much.

As you can probably tell, I like to bloviate...

And that's it. For now...