I just hit another multiple of 25 for my Fictional Beekeeper Reviews, so obviously I have to think about that. Last time I calculated that the average rating was 2.68 out of 5. Now, let’s see how things have changed in the years since that. The new average is:

2.77 out of 5.

Once again, it’s a pretty minimal amount of growth. I suppose if I actually sought out particularly powerful examples of apiarists I could get that up, but I do like to just review what feels right at the moment.

I should add that over the last couple years of reviews, I’ve really been thinking that this would have worked better if I’d been rating out of 6 this whole time. When I look at the dozens of reviews that have resulted in a 3 rating, I feel like there is a real “high 3 and low 3” divide that I can sense. Changing the rating system retroactively would be a lot of work, though. So I’m just not gonna. I will live with the knowledge that 3 is a wide field.

Transcript of Rec#000433 19/08/15: I spoke to Myrtle in the newly renovated kitchen of Adam’s Extra-Fancy Honey Shop. In the lead-up to the grand opening she has been working tirelessly. She agreed to let me record the conversation but refused to stop baking while we talked. In fact, she put me to work stirring some mixture of dry ingredients, though ultimately I don’t think I was much help. I started recording as I was explaining why I was questioning her.

OCTOBER: I’ve spent the last few years investigating the paranormal. All over town and even in other cities. Just trying to make sense of it all, you know? And now I’m here, with this weird group of people. I feel closer to understating than ever before, but I still don’t actually have a clue about anything. I was hoping you could help me understand.

MYRTLE: Understand what, exactly?

OCTOBER: The, uh, the supernatural I guess. You’re an expert on the supernatural and magic and stuff, right?

MYRTLE: Right, right. That’s what I’m here for, they tell me. Supernatural intel.

OCTOBER: You said you were part of some mystic group before?

MYRTLE: The Brazen Alchemists. We thought we were going to revolutionize the world.

OCTOBER: And that’s where you learned to do magic?

MYRTLE: That’s right.

OCTOBER: Could you show me some magic?

(At this point Myrtle picked up an egg and handed it to me to confirm it was a real and ordinary egg. I was satisfied, so she took it back and held it against the table, blew on it, and took away her hand. The egg remained standing upright.)

MYRTLE: Ta-da.

(After a moment she handed me the egg again tried to get me to replicate what she’d done. I had no success.)

OCTOBER: (laughter) Okay, I admit that I’m impressed, but this is just a magic trick, right? I was hoping for more.

MYRTLE: Well, if you have a match, I can do the one where I make the egg go into a bottle. Or if there’s a deck of cards around here. Or a mirror–

OCTOBER: No, but… I… I was hoping to learn about real magic, you know?

MYRTLE: This is about as real as any magic I know.

OCTOBER: But what about the supernatural? You know, actual physics-defying magic.

MYRTLE: I never said I could deny physics.

OCTOBER: But what about back in the rooftop fight? I saw you do something that made all the smoke go away.

MYRTLE: Right. Cleared the air. Didn’t defy physics to do it. Nothing I do defies physics, as evidenced by the fact I can do it.

OCTOBER: But you know what I mean, don’t you? How did you do do the smoke thing?

MYRTLE: Just the right tools. I had a bag of audokeen powder on hand and I know a few tricks with that stuff.

OCTOBER: What’s audokeen powder?

MYRTLE: Just some kind of powder. Reacts to sound and air and stuff. If you’re asking what it actually is, I don’t know. I know how to work with it, but I wouldn’t know how to make it any more than I’d know how make a mirror from scratch. I just buy the audokeen from an occult supplier I met back in the day.

OCTOBER: So you’re the supernatural expert of this outfit and you don’t believe in magic?

MYRTLE: I fully believe in magic, I just seem to think it’s a different thing than you do. Magic is just tricks. One person knows how to do a thing another person doesn’t know, and that other person calls it magic. I spent my youth learning little tricks like that. Especially the ones that involve rare materials, because then even less people know them so it looks even more magical.

OCTOBER: But what about the supernatural? Like ghosts and stuff? Don’t those disprove science in some way?

(Myrtle was silent for a moment, thinking, while she placed a cookie tray into the oven and set a timer.)

MYRTLE: Look. It sounds like you have some division in your thinking where something is either magic or science and I don’t understand that. I don’t know what you think science is, but it’s just the method we use to understand the universe. Somebody studied the universe, that’s science, and they learned that putting a match in the bottle means you can suck in an egg. The magic trick came from the science.

I was never the smartest member of the Alchemists. I was a decent researcher and I got a knack for picking up the tricks. I rarely made up tricks of my own, and I certainly never designed any of the tech we used, but I became pretty good at doing magic. And I still believe in science. Strongly.

You can’t “disprove science,” kid. And trying to do it is just doing more science. Science is just learning about how this dumb universe works.

I mean, I’ve seen shit that I don’t understand, stuff like it sounds like is what you’re looking for, but that doesn’t mean “science is fake” or whatever you’re trying to get at. It just means I don’t understand it yet, so someone else gets to trick me. If that’s what you’re calling supernatural, then by definition I don’t have any answers for you because I don’t understand it myself.

(Another moment of silence. I think I was staring at the bowl I was supposed to be stirring.)

OCTOBER: I guess that’s makes sense.

So, uh, what’s some of the stuff you’ve seen that you don’t understand?

MYRTLE: Oh, there’s too much to list it all. The universe is infinite and that’s too much room to understand most of it. I mean, those snakes upstairs. I have no idea what that’s about.

OCTOBER: Yeah, weird, right?

MYRTLE: And back in the Alchemists, there was a guy named Blake. Good guy. He had… powers.

OCTOBER: Powers?

MYRTLE: He could do this thing where he could understand any written language by running his fingers over it. Latin, Greek, secret codes, computer language. He don’t know a word of anything but English, but he can read anything that way. Obviously useful for a group like we were. None of us knew how he did it and neither did he really. He used to say a voice came to him when he was young and just told him how he could do it, and then he could.

OCTOBER: What happened to him?

MYRTLE: Still with the Alchemists last I heard.

OCTOBER: Oh, I assumed they’d disbanded or something. Why aren’t you still with them?

MYRTLE: Well, kid, that has nothing to do with the supernatural, so I don’t need to tell you about that today. No offence.

OCTOBER: That’s fair.

MYRTLE: Now, I don’t even know if I should say this, but…

OCTOBER: What?

MYRTLE: You know who has seen a lot of weird shit? Dante.

OCTOBER: Yeah. What’s his deal?

MYRTLE: Honestly, I don’t know him that well.

OCTOBER: He was the one who brought you onto our team though, right?

MYRTLE: He was, but still. I spent maybe a month with working with him a few years back. He needed my help with something. But I can tell, if you want stories, talk to him.

OCTOBER: Right.

MYRTLE: Anyway. Sorry if I’ve disillusioned you or anything like that.

OCTOBER: No, I guess this is what I’m trying to learn.

MYRTLE: Okay then. Tell you what: when the moving company gets my stuff here, you can look at some of my occult books and stuff. If you’re actually interested in learning about this stuff, it’ll give you a good grounding.

OCTOBER: I’d like that.

To the Beekeeper Chronicles

“That man invented the riddled hive with its rows of cells, and made a settled place for the labours of the wandering bees, which flit from flower to flower over the meadows and flutter on clusters of fine-fruiting plants, sucking dew from the top with the tips of their lips. He covered every limb from toenails to hair with a closewoven wrap of linen, to defend him from the formidable stings of the battling bees, and with the cunning trick of smothering smoke he tamed their malice. He shook in the air a torch to threaten the hive-loving bee, and lifting a pair of metal plates, he clapt the two together with rattling hands over the brood in the skep, while they buzzed and humblebumbled in ceaseless din; then cutting off the covering of wax with its manypointed cells, he emptied from the comb its gleaming treasure of honeydripping increase.” –Nonnus, Dionysiaca 5. 212

Aristaeus is a pretty big deal as far as apiarists are concerned, what with being none other than the Greek God of Beekeeping. As I mentioned in the Friar Tuck review, being a legendary figure elevates a fictional character to another level, and the Greek Gods start at that level. Aristaeus may not have as many stories as Heracles or Odysseus, but you can be sure that there are many stories about Aristaeus that go together or contradict. Even for such a relatively minor figure of myth, I can’t cover them all. But we can look at the basics.

Aristaeus is the son of Apollo, the god, and Cyrene, a nymph or mortal princess depending what tale you’re listening to. In any case, Aristaeus may have been born mortal, but was elevated to godhood either because of his family or because of his skill making honey. What we do know is that he learned to keep bees alongside a lot of other skills such as herblore and cheesemaking, because even the best Beekeepers know that it pays to expand one’s knowledge base. But the thing about Aristaeus is that he shared his knowledge with humans. He travelled the world educating mortals and teaching them things that might help them get by. This sort of Promethean kindness goes a long way with me.

But there are things I don’t care for when it comes to our man here. I’ve read several accounts that describe him “enslaving” the bees, and I don’t like that, so I have to chalk it up to a translation thing. More significant is that, in some tellings, he had a role in the death Eurydice. Apparently he was enamoured by her and “chased her” which led to her running into a snake pit and getting bitten. I don’t like the idea of anybody actually physically chasing someone like that because it makes you wonder what he intended to do if he caught her. He may not have been intentionally responsible for her death, but geez. We do have stories that follow up on this event. The gods decide to punish Aristaeus for his role in her death and they kill off all his bees. To get them back he has to perform a lot of sacrifices and do rituals to make it up to Eurydice and Orpheus. He does all this and is apparently forgiven because he gets his bees back. As it is presented, he does this for his bees rather than because he actually feels bad about what he’s done. But that’s the thing about legendary figures, we don’t get much of their interiority unless someone rights that story. Anyway, none of this comes up in Hadestown, so I don’t even really need to consider canonical if I don’t want to.

There’s more to the guy. I’ve seen at least one account of him solving a murder, which is a big Beekeeping plus for me. He eventually marries a princess named Autonoë and from what I can see their marriage is above average for Greek gods, if we ignore what happened to one of his children. Oh, and his name literally means “The Best”.

Five Honeycombs out of Five. He’s a literal God of Beekeeping. I feel like I couldn’t go any lower than this.

A few days ago a lot of the people I follow on Twitter to see their Superman-related thoughts were all answering the same set of questions, which began with this post. It’s one of those things they do on social media to get to know each other better and feel like they’re all being fans of the things they love together, y’know?

I’ve said it before, but I always feel kind of outside of the Superman fan commuity. A lot of my “takes” feel so contrary to the accepted mainstream views that I feel like when I chime in, I’m being overly negative.

But then I find I don’t feel comfortable in “fandoms” in general. One of the primary reasons for that is I don’t often see the value in ranking and picking favourites among the things I enjoy. But hey, even as an outsider, I can feel the fun in participating. And I gotta put something on this darn site. So here goes:

1. Favorite member of the Superfam?

So, to translate into PDRese, which of the Superman-related cast of characters do I like best? Realistically, without Superman himself, would I even be here? But I’ll give some honorable mentions: I have high hopes for Natasha Irons to become a great character. Lois Lane is nearly as iconic as her husband and with good cause.

2. Adding onto the other one, who’s your favorite ‘Superman’? Like whether it be Kenan, Jon, Clark, or some other world variant.

At this point, if I’m deciding which person who has gone by Superman is my favourite, the boring answer of Clark is the truest.

3. Who do you believe is Superman’s best rogue and/or your personal favorite?

Different supervillains serve different purposes and which one is “best” really depends which purpose your story is going for. Lex is good for scheming superscience and corruption. Zod is a nice stand-in to be the kind of fascist strongman that Superman is occasionally incorrectly called. Really, I just have more thoughts on Superman villains than my head can contain.

4. Thoughts on Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen?

They kick ass. As I’ve said before, if you want Superman to be a character who inspires people to be their best selves, it is handy to have Jimmy as someone in-text who is living that inspiration. And Lois is great because she shows the audience that you can be as driven as Superman and fighting the same kinds of battles even without being a godlike superhuman.

5. Thoughts on Jon Kent as both Clark’s son and successor?

I like Jon a lot. His current iteration, where he’s been trapped in other dimensions and whatnot throughout his childhood isn’t something I care for, I’d rather he was born and raised in Metropolis and had a childhood that is at least somewhat more relateable, but I still love him. I’d love to see him become an eternal and iconic part of the mythos. I’d also like him to go into school to be a psychiatrist.

6. Do you prefer Superman with or without trunks?

With. Mostly I like it just because it is how Superman has looked for most of his career and it has become iconic. It also helps that I have zero self-consciousness about goofy stuff in the stories I like. I feel like a lot of the trunks-haters are still kind of embarrassed to like Superman and want to make it less goofy so they don’t need to feel that way. I don’t care about that. And also, if we’re going to have other Supermans like Jon and Kenan around, leaving Clark his trunks gives them to have their own unique trunkless looks.

7. Follow up to the previous one, what is your favorite suit that Clark has worn?

Assuming this means Superman suit and not just a suit-and-tie combo he wore to the Planet, I’ll just go with the classic look that you can find through most of the Silver and Bronze Ages and beyond.

8. Preferred origin story?

I don’t think my preferred version of the origin has been told yet. I generally find retellings of the origin to be useless to me at this point. They’re easily skimmable at best.

9. Favorite Superman writer?

No strong opinion.

10. Favorite Superman artist?

No strong opinion.

11. What do you believe is Superman’s best story? And what is your personal favorite(s)?

I can’t pick a single best. Just give me stories with a mix of science fiction and journalistic mystery where some threat to the world is opposed by Superman and his allies. I’ll be happy.

12. If you could make any change to Superman’s lore/ mythos, what would it be?

This would admittedly be a hugely sweeping one, but I’d want to sever any and all connections between Superman and the DC Universe. This is definitely a PDR opinion that is not shared by the masses.

13. Favorite adaptation of big blue?

I have a fondness for the radio show. It’s not perfect, but no representation of Superman has been perfect and this one does a lot of things right. Not everything though. It never really delved into Lois and Clark as a romantic couple and I never like the loud dramatic stings that are so overused. But it gave a good mix of Superman sci-fi plots and social causes and fighting supervillains and character stuff.

14. Favorite live action actor?

No strong opinion.

15. Favorite voice actor?

No strong opinion. I guess Collyer would be the reasonable choice.

16. Favorite Superman theme?

I dunno, the Williams one I guess. But what really bugs me is that all of Superman’s themes are these big orchestral deals when what I want for him is a theme that compares to the 60s Batman or Spider-Man themes. Superman needs a theme that a four-year-old could sing.

17. Favorite and least favorite Superman takes?

I think my most and least favourite takes on Superman are kind of the same one. Does Superman represent “Hope”? I have gone on the record that I don’t think so more than once. I think Hope is meaningless without followup and I think we need to keep fighting even when it’s hopeless. But all the same, some of the people who espouse the Superman = Hope stuff are coming at my ideas about Superman from a different angle. They want him to be a figure that shows us what we can aspire to and should be fighting for. I’m fine with that.

18. Who is your favorite Superman ‘analogue’?

Supreme, the Image character, specifically when written by Alan Moore. That run was one of the big steps in the path that made me the Superman fan I am now. It showed me that you can use Silver Age-style silliness, but still take the story seriously. There are flaws in the run (and its incomplete nature is frustrating), but I enjoyed the heck out of it.

19. Your favorite shield?

I don’t really care, but lets just go with Fleischer-style. I will say that I prefer it to just be an S for Superman over it being the Kryptonian symbol for the House of El.

20. Finally, why do YOU like Superman?

As a child I watched Superman movies and the Lois and Clark show and recognized Superman as a fun action hero. At some point in my teens I got into the weirdness and imagination in the stories from the 50s and 60s and realized the potential for sci-fi plots closer to Star Trek and Twilight Zone instead of always just being about fights. I followed that path into the Golden Age stuff when I was in my twenties, and there I saw Superman angry about corruption and fighting to better the world. Finally I looked back to the 90s comics (which realistically should have been where I started, but I missed them somehow) and saw the fantastic worldbuilding built around the character. Those all added up into a single franchise that had so much potential to give me what I enjoy. And sometimes it even lives up to that potential. Sometimes.