Getting graphic

For a few months last year, I really loved going to the CLASS. It was called the CLASS in my mind because regular lowercased letters did not do justice to it. I loved the teacher, I loved the crowd, I loved the volume, I just loved it. Even though it was really hard and hurt a lot, I loved it. Looking back, I don't even know why I stopped going. I wish I hadn't. Anyway. Bygones.

So the other night a few girlfriends (one CLASS veteran, one newbie) and I decided to go back to CLASS. We knew it was a new teacher and were sort of sad about that in advance, but we had no idea that the CLASS would turn out to be the class. Instead of using the whole gym with 12 stations of 10-12 people apiece, only half the gym was used, with only 7 stations, with only 4 folks max per station. Where did all the people go? I guess they left when the teacher did.

The new teacher was perfectly fine in that he was superfit and pushed the group hard and all, but he did not tell randomly yell out, "LOVE YOURSELF!" or give us sweaty high fives when it looked like we might fall over and collapse. He just did not inspire the passion or the self-love that the other teacher did. He also wanted us to do lunges in a giant circle around the 1/2-gym with no alternative exercise, which I think is ridiculous. Part of what is awesome about the concept of this CLASS is that if you can't do what someone else is doing, you can always modify whatever equipment you're using (mat, bike, jump rope, bosu ball, whatever that heavy basketball thing is, those stretchy ropes, the heavy bars, I don't know the names of anything) to suit your own fitness level. I could not do all those lunges without my knees feeling like they were going to explode, so I would just go get water. Which kind of broke the spell and took me out of the moment. Anyway, it was very disappointing.

I did some Googling and found that the old teacher has started his own gym! Good for him, but it's kind of far away. Not so far that I might not try to go some time, though, just because that is how great of a teacher he is. OH, CLASS.

Meanwhile, because I am a nerd, I've decided to try to read some graphic novels in advance of the course I'm thinking of taking this summer. Let me preface this by saying that I've only ever read Persepolis and its sequel and the two Maus books and Autobiography of My Dead Brother, so I'm not exactly an expert of the genre.

First up was Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth because (a) it's one of the required books and (b) B. said it's awesome. And I have to tell you, that upon starting this book, I hated it. I hated it loudly. "This book is terrible!" I complained. B. told me to stick with it. But I had no idea what was going on, who was who, and when things were taking place, and what was real and what was imagined. Fed up, I went online to read a little about it. First, I saw that it has won multiple awards. Second, I read this, which said, in part, "Some pieces of art, literature and music survive into the decades and centuries to come. Among the bits of 20th-century knowledge that may make the leap are two collections of cartoons. One is Art Spiegelman's 'Maus,' a breathtakingly engaging and nuanced cartoon document of the Holocaust. Chris Ware's 'Jimmy Corrigan' is the other." Now, like I said, I haven't read many graphic novels, but the Maus books are beautiful, powerful, devastating, incredible works of art that I will carry in my heart for the rest of my life. So for someone to put Jimmy Corrigan in the same category made me think that maybe I needed to give this book a real chance.

And I'm very glad I did. Once I gathered from a few reviews that the book skipped around between generations and time periods and characters, I was able to understand who was who and when was when. I stopped and read the author's note in the back cover about his relationship with is father, or lack thereof I should say, and it added a whole level of sadness to the whole book as I read it. I stopped being frustrated and confused and realized I was reading something special, and I finished the book last night and plan to go back and re-read the first half. It's such a painful book, but it's so beautifully done. So, thumbs up. Difficult, kind of, but very good. It occurs to me now that both of these stories -- Maus and Jimmy Corrigan -- are about fathers and sons. Interesting. I had to get the latter via interlibrary loan because neither the public library nor the university library has it. Which is quite frankly bizarre considering that even though I'm new at this, I kind of don't see how a proper graphic novel collection is complete without it.

Today I tackled another of the required books, my first Manga. And based on how much I liked it, I hope it's my last. Oh My Goddess! Wrong Number. What? Why? No. It was not interesting, it was not compelling, and frankly it was sort of a spin on the whole male fantasy of a subservient female who, due to a magic spell, literally cannot leave his side and does things to save him, protect him, please him, and barf. I suppose it's possible that the (male) author was being ironic, but it doesn't really come across that way. Not that the male character really LIKES being waited on and tended to because gee whiz, she's such a trouble maker (see: Jeannie, Samantha Stevens, etc.) and she's so exasperating when trying to please him! But he is definitely sexually attracted to her and wants to sleep with her. And overall, I just found the whole thing annoying and gross. Maybe I just don't know enough about Manga to get what it's all about. But it was certainly no Jimmy Corrigan. And now I need to figure out what to read next.

What are your favorite graphic novels?