The pinnacle of our home’s 2024 Christmas diorama, which is something Anne does every year with our various pop culture Christmas ornaments and figurines.
Hey, kids! It’s that beloved holiday tradition where we just post a few recent Christmas-themed photos with some short yet sincere seasons’ greetings, and we give readers a break from my usual self-indulgent verbosity. It’s the most wonderful time of the MCC year! Click, scroll, ooh, ahh, and keep on frolicking down the internet superhighway!
Harry Fonseca, Dialogue with a Deer, 1995. (I’m reminded of the Deer Lady from Reservation Dogs.)
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: last weekend my wife Anne and I visited the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in our hometown of Indianapolis and checked out their annual, widely advertised Jingle Rails exhibit — a festive collection of elaborate toy train dioramas that recreate a variety of well-known settings using myriad natural materials to exacting specifications and festooned with Christmas trimmings. Walking laps around the hall in childlike, wide-eyed wonder was a neat feeling.
Obviously the Eiteljorg has more to offer beyond the one special happy-holiday attraction. I’ve worked a few blocks away from the Eiteljorg for years, but the last time we went there was waaay back in early 2007 to view a special exhibit of Roy Lichtenstein’s rarely mentioned Old West-themed works from his pre-Pop Art days. The two of us were online regulars back in that pre-MCC, pre-social-media era, but I don’t think we ever posted about it anywhere. I aimed to rectify that oversight for this special occasion and the rest of the museum.
Tonight on Wild Kingdom, an apex predator faces extinction! Or worse, irrelevance!
When Kraven the Hunter introduces our protagonist Sergei Kravinoff, he’s aboard a Russian prison bus on its way to a Siberian gulag, stopping at an abandoned gas station so the convicts on board can go take bathroom breaks all around it. The metaphor works pretty well for Sony’s “Spider-Man Minus Spider-Man” cinematic pocket dimension: the gas station is the hollow shell of a system still making these films, and the prisoners are the cast and crew who signed on and contractually had to see them through to the end, but nobody said they had to give their best. Or maybe theaters are the gas station and studio execs are those turning everything around them into a makeshift bathroom.
A cross-section of tiny downtown Indianapolis, not to scale and with some buildings rearranged or missing.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: sometimes we leave the house for Christmas activities here in Indianapolis! Last year my wife and I attended the Indiana Repertory Theatre’s annual take on A Christmas Carol and had primo seats in the front-row fake-snow splash zone. My coworkers and I have made the Indiana Historical Society’s Festival of Trees a team-building tradition. Anne and I also used to escort her Mamaw to the Christmas Gift and Hobby Show at the Indiana State Fairgrounds until her passing in 2018. We’re Christmas fans in search of more Christmas ’round town, even though our place is loaded with enough Christmas decor for three households. (I’m not complaining.)
Once again we were blessed with an opportunity for another local cultural experience whose advertising we’ve noted and dismissed till now — free tickets courtesy of my employer (one of their organization’s corporate partners) to the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art on the occasion of their annual Jingle Rails exhibit. Whatever’s normally in their Allen Whitehill Clowes Sculpture Court is carted off elsewhere and replaced with enormous dioramas that are festooned with Christmas decorations and toy train tracks. Li’l locomotives run laps nonstop around the hall while visitors gape in childlike wonder. I guess that’s the ritual? As I said, this was our first time.
Alex Raymond, the Rip Kirby strip for June 27, 1953.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife and I drove three hours from Indianapolis to attend the third annual GalaxyCon Columbus in the heart of Ohio’s very capital, met one of my all-time favorite performers, bought comics, chatted with fellow fans, and fled the place around 12:30 Saturday because it wasn’t the only comics-related event I wanted to check out in town. Fortunately we just missed the Great Convention Center Wi-Fi Crash of 2024 and the ensuing descent into temporary cash-only savagery.
We got our first taste of the Columbus comics scene in 2015 when we attended the inaugural Cartoon Crossroads Columbus and, while we were in town anyway, visited the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at Ohio State University, a graphic-storytelling tribute space with rotating exhibits and free admission. ‘Twas a fun Saturday for us, but for some reason we took and posted very few photos from the occasion.
This year GalaxyCon partnered with the Ireland for a bit of cross-promotion that included a Friday night VIP event attended by some of the con’s guests. We couldn’t work out the logistics to attend that soiree, but I wanted to see the museum’s latest showcase — a fascinating gallery of original art from the Golden Age of comic books and strips. We snapped quite a few more pics this time.
They’re back! And they brought their favorite tools!
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: in Walt Disney Pictures’ century-long quest to devote at least one major animated feature to every human community or geographic region ever, they turned their attention to the Pacific Islands for Moana, a rousing high-seas mythical adventure that featured the lyrical stylings of Lin-Manuel Miranda during his post-Broadway movie-musical phase and a strong duo at its core — Auli’i Cravalho as the titular heroine whose connection to her environment brought an end to her home island’s cursed isolation; and Dwayne Johnson (on break from like twelve other acting jobs) as the vain demigod Maui who helped save the day with his magic tattoos, animal shapeshifting, and enchanted Saw-hook.
Moana and Maui are back with Moana 2, which was conceived as a Disney+ series before execs remembered movies can make way more money than TV, especially if the movie doesn’t suck. The reworking of that proposed material may explain why we have three credited directors and only two writers (the latter of which include Jared Bush, who was one of eight on the first one), but it works well enough for anyone who simply wants more Moana and Maui and isn’t finicky about the rest. The tremendously upgraded budget helps, one befitting a Disney theatrical release rather than simply stapling together whatever rough animatics were already in the can. It isn’t perfect and the first one’s better, but it’s better than the dregs of, say, The Fox and the Hound 2.
The lovely lady dressed for winter and comic-con, in that order.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife and I attended the third annual GalaxyCon Columbus in the heart of Ohio’s very capital, met one of my all-time favorite performers, and…well, kinda wish we’d taken more cosplay photos. We also took photos of what we did before and after the show, but I left those out of the recap because most post-con Googlers rarely care about the little in-between moments and because 4500 words was already a hefty dosage of us without the scenes from the periphery.
Sure, cons are cool, but those little traveling moments are also our thing, especially when they happen someplace we’ve become fond of over time. We’ve visited Columbus quite a few times now — for this show, for the awesome Cartoon Crossroads Columbus, that time we tripped over a surprise Pokemon tournament, that other time I ordered a huge As Seen on TV burger, or when we spent my birthday checking out their children’s museum and their art museum, among other wonders. Columbus is a welcoming city with a thriving art community, close in size and temperament to our own Indianapolis hometown in many respects. If for some reason Indiana collapses and we have to relocate — like, say, when polio returns in 5-10 years and devastates our populace — Columbus is one of the top three places where I’ll consider seeking refuge, assuming they’re still standing when the rest of America collapses into a self-made black hole.
The man! The myth! The master of musical mirth!
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the third annual GalaxyCon Columbus in Ohio’s very own Greater Columbus Convention Center. The show returned with another lengthy guest list for fans of all media across the pop culture spectrum…though the two of us didn’t actually do a lot this time for a variety of reasons, and this year’s edition had a few logistical issues. Nevertheless, the show went on…
And what a show it was! We accomplished all our primary objectives, which was a shorter list than usual due to self-imposed budgetary restrictions. Frankly, we’ve had a long year of fiercely competitive, increasingly more expensive comic-cons and some non-geek expenditures we need to handle at fun’s expense. Also, unlike the last two GalaxyCons, there just weren’t a lot of actors on the list we wanted to meet that badly. We’d met several of them before, including the arguably biggest name, former teen star Hayden Christensen, who was at Indiana Comic Con last March. We had a couple of maybes on the list, but ultimately we had to be choosy.
I may also have been more nervous than usual because of an old comic-con war wound.
Granny and Yosemite Sam bring joy on behalf of the Looney Tunes.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Anne and I enjoy attending entertainment and comic conventions together, whether in our hometown of Indianapolis or in adjacent states (or sometimes beyond). She’s been doing them since the early ’90s, and invited me to tag along as our relationship evolved from classmates to coworkers to neighbors to BFFs to married geeks twenty years and counting. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.
This weekend we attended the third annual Galaxycon Columbus in Ohio’s very own Greater Columbus Convention Center. The con arose from the ashes of the top-notch but one-and-done GalaxyCon Louisville, and is a spiritual successor to the erstwhile Wizard World Columbus (née Mid-Ohio Con, which I used to read about every year in Comics Buyer’s Guide). The show returned with another lengthy guest list for fans of all media across the pop culture spectrum…though the two of us didn’t actually do a lot this time for a variety of reasons, and this year’s edition had a few logistical issues. Nevertheless, the show went on!
Before we showcase the latest additions to our celeb photo-op collection: it’s cosplay time! Per tradition we compiled an itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny gallery of the costumes we photographed during our day-‘n’-a-half in and around the exhibit hall whenever we weren’t trapped in long lines or traffic-jammed aisles. The humble duo here at MCC appreciates the makers and wearers who enliven every comic-con with their talents and their exaltation of various fandoms. We regret we can only represent a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the total cosplay wonderment that was on display this weekend. We’re just an aging couple doing what we can for happy sharing fun. Enjoy!
Emerald and Ivory, sing together in perfect harmony…
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: our family has traveled to New York City twice and caught a genuine Broadway show each time. In 2011 a Minskoff Theatre matinee of The Lion King overwhelmed us with the big, big, BIG differences between plays performed at your rather capable local theater versus the big-budget pageantry of Actual Broadway™. In 2016 we bypassed Disney’s ongoing Broadway domination in favor of the equally tourist-magnetic Wicked at the Gershwin Theatre. We went in with no preconceptions or spoilers, knowing the basic premise but having never heard a single note of it. Years after the original cast’s departure, songs such as “The Wizard and I”, “Popular”, and “Defying Gravity” were a powerful revelation to hear for the first time. After it ended, I kinda didn’t wanna leave and I was the only male waiting in the long line at the merchandise stand.
One drawback to the latter experience: our seats were not up close. When Anne bought our advance tickets, she was pretty certain we’d be somewhere in the middle. In reality, the Gershwin had a tremendous middle. The wall-to-wall sound system ensured every note would carry to one and all, and we were wowed by the sets, the visual effects, the sweeping gestures and the broader emotions. From our vantage, though, faces and expressions were inscrutable dots — even the Wizard himself, played at the time by TV’s Peter Scolari, the only cast member we knew. We were so far from the stage that I had absolutely no idea Elphaba was wearing glasses until another character mentioned them. That afternoon remains an unforgettable milestone for us, but we weren’t affluent enough to afford the perfect experience.
For anyone who won’t be traveling to Manhattan anytime soon, or for anyone who’d love an encore with off-Broadway perks, Universal Pictures has just the prerecorded roadshow version for me and you! From Jon M. Chu — the director of such musicals as the stage-to-screen adaptation of In the Heights as well as the last G.I. Joe movie that’ll probably ever be made in my lifetime — comes the latest rendition of Gregory Maguire’s alt-timeline branch of L. Frank Baum’s public-domain Oz Expanded Universe, the novel-to-stage-to-screen partial adaptation Wicked: Part I. At 160 minutes long it’s only five minutes shorter than the entire Broadway production and its 15-minute intermission, but it only covers Act One and the intermission will be at least a year long. Thankfully attendees are permitted to leave the cinema and continue leading our lives while we’re waiting for Act Two to commence, though it’s a total ripoff that we’ll have to buy whole new tickets before we can return to our seats.
Every pro review site that’s written about the film has used this same pic, so here’s me trying to be mistaken for one of them.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: this year’s Heartland Film Festival was a cinematic cornucopia that overwhelmed me with FOMO and forced some hard choices. I was largely pleased with the eight films I caught, but quite a few big ones got away. Among the most high-profile entries I missed was their opening-night feature A Real Pain, a buddy-trip dramedy from writer/director Jesse Eisenberg (yep, the ex-Lex Luthor, the Now You See Me guy, the Zombieland rules-lister, The Social Network‘s Mark Zuckerberg, and so on and on) about family tensions, unpredictable grief, awkward group tours, and letting Kieran Culkin run amuck as an unbridled man-child who’s fascinating to watch onscreen at a remove but whom, if you were stuck next to him in real life, might have you searching desperately for an exit or at least a different seat to escape his orbit.
Proud as a peacock! Decorations by WTHR Channel 13, our NBC affiliate.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: each year the Indiana Historical Society in downtown Indianapolis hosts a special Christmas exhibit called the Festival of Trees, for which dozens of local businesses and charities festoon a tree (or sometimes alternative objects) with decorations befitting their interests, causes, products, and/or colors. For the third year in a row my coworkers and I took a lunchtime field trip to their museum and immersed ourselves in holiday spirit, local pride, and tree-trimming cuteness.
Once again my wife Anne couldn’t be there because she has her own employer and perks, so I took pics to share with her and with You, The Viewers at Home. Trees are identified by their trimmers and/or donors. Links are provided for several — not affiliated links, mind you, because MCC has never been that kind of site. Enjoy!
The show-stopping tap-dancing abolition-loving certifiably Presidential finale!
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
In addition to our annual road trips, my wife Anne and I have a twice-yearly tradition of spending our birthdays together on some new experience. On past trips we’d visited the graves, tombs, mausoleums and virtual posthumous palaces of 24 American Presidents in varying accommodations and budgets. One of the biggest names ever to grace the White House kept eluding us: Abraham Lincoln, planted a mere three hours away in Springfield, Illinois. In May 2023 I figured: let’s make his tomb a trip headliner of its very own, not a warm-up act on the road to Branson or whatever. History is technically more Anne’s fervent interest than mine, but we found plenty to do beyond reading wordy educational placards…
…and it all comes down to this: last call for Lincoln! Two entries’ worth of Abe-centric attractions combined into one double-sized finale!
Old friends Milo, Opus, and Portnoy from back in the day.
New generations aren’t learning about Berke Breathed’s Bloom County from their schools, peers, or influencers. Comic strips in general seem a forgotten artform among The Kids These Days. Recently a young coworker looked at the Linus Van Pelt standing in the li’l Funko Pop collection on my desk and called him “Lionel”. I wept more than a little inside. But some of us olds will never forget the wisdom we picked up from the newspaper funnies.
Nearly 40 years since its original publication a couple weekends before I turned 13, I’ve never forgotten that simple quote from P. Opus, the world’s largest-nosed penguin. I’ve thought about it a lot ever since — offline and here. The voices in my head have found no reason to retire it yet, not when society keeps proving him true.
The third Springfield we’ve ever visited has a mural that peers into a fourth Springfield.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
In addition to our annual road trips, my wife Anne and I have a twice-yearly tradition of spending our birthdays together on some new experience. On past trips we’d visited the graves, tombs, mausoleums and virtual posthumous palaces of 24 American Presidents in varying accommodations and budgets. One of the biggest names ever to grace the White House kept eluding us: Abraham Lincoln, planted a mere three hours away in Springfield, Illinois. In May 2023 I figured: let’s make his tomb a trip headliner of its very own, not a warm-up act on the road to Branson or whatever. History is technically more Anne’s fervent interest than mine, but we found plenty to do beyond reading wordy educational placards…
…and Springfield had no shortage of engagement for us out-of-towners nestled among the numerous museums and points of Lincoln-based interest — food, art, a spot of geek shopping, and Saturday morning downtown street events we hadn’t expected.
Mary Todd Lincoln and Elizabeth Keckley, her personal dressmaker and confidante.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
In addition to our annual road trips, my wife Anne and I have a twice-yearly tradition of spending our birthdays together on some new experience. On past trips we’d visited the graves, tombs, mausoleums and virtual posthumous palaces of 24 American Presidents in varying accommodations and budgets. One of the biggest names ever to grace the White House kept eluding us: Abraham Lincoln, planted a mere three hours away in Springfield, Illinois. In May 2023 I figured: let’s make his tomb a trip headliner of its very own, not a warm-up act on the road to Branson or whatever. History is technically more Anne’s fervent interest than mine, but we found plenty to do beyond reading wordy educational placards…
…especially at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum, but they offered much more than excerpts from our old school textbooks. Most museums nowadays beat out my old textbooks, that’s for sure. Throughout our travels over the past 25 years we’ve found the subjects out there more varied, the exhibits filled with new names I never heard until I learned them through the magic of historical tourist attractions.
I was 8 when Cap declined the chance to run for President. Today I’d vote for him three times if I could.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: I’m an introvert, I suck at belonging to things, I don’t do sports or frats or hivemind collectives, I tend to be disqualified from group identification, and yes, sometimes I feel extremely sad about this weekly during Sunday church service. My misfit attitude — some of it my own fault, some of it everyone else’s — goes double for political parties. Were it up to me, all parties would be dissolved, everyone would be forced to deliberate their votes alone in a soundproof closet, and all candidates would be forced to run alone with no support system whatsoever, just their resume and their wits, exactly like any applicant for every ordinary job ever.
But I vote! Because I can and I should. I’ve voted in every Presidential election since 1992. I have never, ever been given the option to vote enthusiastically for a Presidential candidate who radiated wisdom through their every gaze and was demonstrably, empirically without sin. I’ll keep a light on for my future President Dulcinea, should they be born and ascend through the mud-slung ranks before I die.
If you liked Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy or Archie Meets the Punisher, you’ll love “Anne meets the Lincoln family”! This fall on C-SPAN 3!
How do you do, fellow olds! Here on Election Day Eve 2024, do you feel the despairing urge to retreat from the present-day reality’s endless shenanigans into not-too-distant days of yore, when Presidential candidates with far more character endured and even persevered through much worse times in American history? Have we got the escape hatch for you!
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
In addition to our annual road trips, my wife Anne and I have a twice-yearly tradition of spending our birthdays together on some new experience. On past trips we’d visited the graves, tombs, mausoleums and virtual posthumous palaces of 24 American Presidents in varying accommodations and budgets. One of the biggest names ever to grace the White House kept eluding us: Abraham Lincoln, planted a mere three hours away in Springfield, Illinois. In May 2023 I figured: let’s make his tomb a trip headliner of its very own, not a warm-up act on the road to Branson or whatever. History is technically more Anne’s fervent interest than mine, but we found plenty to do beyond reading wordy educational placards…
…which are even cooler when they’re paired with statues in action! We got all that and more when we departed the Illinois State Museum for our next stop, the much larger Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum. This huge edifice was opened in 2005 and contains the Lincoln Presidential Library and other research collections, in addition to a series of statues reenacting various moments in the sixteenth President’s life. The statues were sadly not animatronic, but that didn’t seem to bother the few dozen field-tripping students we had to wade through on our way in. A selection of relics were found here and there around the life-sized exhibits.
The Mirror Universe version of The Red Balloon.
Midlife Crisis Crossover calls Venom: The Last Dance the least worst Venom film in cinema history! Unless we count movies about snakes containing literal venom!
No, this wasn’t our house, but an office party I ran across a couple weeks ago.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: each year since 2008 I’ve kept statistics on the number of trick-or-treaters brave enough to approach our suburban Indianapolis doorstep during the Halloween celebration of neighborhood unity and no-strings-attached strangers with candy. I began tracking our numbers partly for future candy inventory purposes and partly out of curiosity, so now it’s a tradition for me. Like many bloggers I’m a stats fiend who thrives on taking head counts, even when we’re expecting discouraging results.
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 