It came Friday night. An October wind. It blustered past a bright crescent moon and the cold, clear stars and through the leaves of the crabapple tree out back. This is it. The official signal. The end of summer. Oh sure, the days are still warm and sunny and the beaches are still packed, but once that precocious fall breeze comes skipping into town of an evening, it’s time to start looking to the harvest and warm jackets on cool nights and trees of a million colours and if you’re in the right part of the country a witch’s perfume of burning leaf piles laced with acorns caressing the air ahead of Hallowe’en. Autumn, the best time of year. Soon.
And so, as summer lumbers to a close, I thought it would be appropriate to talk about that season’s biggest contribution to speculative fiction: the movies. In fact, lately I found myself in a discussion with a friend, not about this year’s box office offerings, but about our favourite movies – and specifically, the ones we usually won’t admit to owning.
You see, it’s not terribly interesting just to gush about all of our respective top ten lists of cinematic brilliance. That’s been done. No, it’s confessions that are truly worthwhile. I’m talking about guilty pleasures.
That’s right, the movies that everyone else hates – and probably for good reason (otherwise they wouldn’t be guilty pleasures), but that you have some secret love for that you tenaciously cling to over the years. Those are the ones that incur avalanches of derision from those around you, but where you feel yourself intellectually backed into a corner and thus come out fighting in defence of what entertains you with utmost ferocity. You’ll hear some of the most creative arguments ever made to justify not only watching, but repeatedly watching and maybe owning a piece of celluloid most people would just as soon forget ever existed.
Don’t be shy. Everyone’s got ‘em. Most especially those of us who love sci-fi and fantasy. This genre is built on the bones of the stinkers. And we keep disinterring them not just out of fascination with the grotesque, but for the love of bold or even wacky dreams that had the guts to try, and despite all their flaws, worked on some level for us. Heck, that was the bread and butter of Friday nights on independent local TV channels across North America for decades until the rise of the big cable TV networks at the end of the 80’s and beginning of the 90’s. Who among us remembers with fondness (if also a healthy dose of disgust once in a while) the height of tributes to SF movie cheese: “Mystery Science Theatre 3000”. Whether you can’t miss a rerun of “Battle Beyond the Stars” or a classic hunk of formage like “Tobor the Great” (let me just say right now, neither hold a special place in my heart, they’re merely examples, and no, I’m not “protesting too much” out of some uber-secret love), there’s something about that one film, whatever it is, that makes you watch it any time it hits late night TV (pretty rare these days) or covet it in a place of honour on your DVD/videotape shelf.
And I’ll come clean. I’ve got a guilty pleasure too. It’s “Walt Disney’s The Black Hole”. Laugh away folks. I know I am.
What was “The Black Hole”? Was it Disney’s attempt to cash-in on the post-Star Wars sci-fi craze? Was it a futuristic fusion of “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”, “Moby Dick” and “The Tempest”? Was it a Twilight Zone-esque take on the often-rehashed story about a gang of friends out for a joyride who take a wrong turn down a dark road, stop at a creepy house and run into trouble? All of these mashed together or none? It was still entertaining.
I’ll freely admit, the flaws in this flick are legion: the shots of the robots VINCent and BOB hovering along, complete with wires showing; the “meteorites” plowing through the Cygnus like glowing globs of cotton candy the size of apartment buildings; occasionally campy dialogue; heroes clambering around the outside of a ship (at close range to the crushing gravity field and merciless radiation of a black hole) and still managing to breathe; and, of course, that utterly bizarre on-the-other-side-of-death sequence involving Dr. Reinhardt at the end of the film. I’ve never heard of anyone who’s been able to figure out what the point of that bit is. Even Disney special effects wizard Harrison Ellenshaw, who’s been interviewed for a featurette on the Anniversary DVD, admits they didn’t have an ending when they were putting the film together. He says he can’t figure out this ending himself (granted, he does note the ending he suggested was shot but left on the cutting room floor).
So what.
“The Black Hole” is a beautiful relic of film-making of its time. You’ll never see matte paintings or physical special effects like that again. The paintings, the set design, the robots and costumes and special effects – you can tell the crew at the Disney factory cared about what they were crafting. And then there are the ships, from the sturdy little Palomino to the huge, gothic, gloomy prettiness of the Cygnus. I can watch the movie just for the exterior shots. From a set direction and special effects point of view, this is the height of what the old studio system of film making could do, as opposed to the modern era of farming-out just about every service possible.
And (hold your snorts of derision just a while longer, folks) the story isn’t bad either. At least up until the damage from the “meteorite” storm becomes so great that the heroes are exposed to the vacuum but still managing to breath just fine and dandy. The mystery is set early on and the tension is effectively ratcheted up as more and more oddities are observed until the final secret is revealed of the lengths Reinhardt would go to pursue his dream. It is, in fact, a story about people in search of dreams – explorers in search of alien life, the mad scientist in search of godhood, a lesser scientist’s search for his own glory in the shadow of another, monsters in search of power, a daughter’s search for her lost father, castaways in search of a way home.
There are also elements of “The Black Hole” that curiously foreshadow the fate of space exploration in recent decades. Reporter Harry Boothe (as played by Ernest Borgnine – who’s girth challenges the set crew with a wire flying sequence in the beginning) observes the construction of the Cygnus and its ultimately failed mission were “the costliest fiasco of all time”. We can see in the movie the portrayal of the Cygnus as an old style of space exploration where bigger was better, and vessels had to have all the bells and whistles (including artificial gravity), while newer vessels like the Palomino are built small and cheap. Could the writers and special effects designers have known that the era of space probes being built big with all manner of equipment, like the Viking probes, was about to end, and that the later decade of the 90’s would see the introduction of smaller, cheaper, more quickly-built space probes and satellites like the “humble” space telescope (at just a metre or two, tiny compared to the freight-car bulk of Hubble) as NASA’s budget was hacked into near-beggery.
And some of the acting is worthwhile. The robots on the side of the heroes are entertaining enough (Roddy Macdowell as the uncredited voice of VINCent). Maximillian Schell is convincing as a man who’s probably brilliant and charismatic but definitely a nut. And Robert Forrester is bang-on as a ship captain. Having interviewed more than a few military and police officers in my former role as a reporter, I can say Forrester has got the quiet, self-assured, observant reserve of a competent military man with nothing to prove down pat. It’s a similar performance (though nowhere near as good) to that of Edward James Olmos as Commander Adama in the new Battlestar Galactica.
Ultimately though, “The Black Hole” has also got a hefty dose of nostalgia value for me. I saw it as a kid, back in the era when Disney was thinking big and was eager to go toe-to-toe with any other studio on any type of movie it wanted, beyond its traditional inviolate animated kingdom, and its big vision made an impression on me. And now, years later, for all its flaws, the “The Black Hole” still has plenty of charm to carry it through its generous amount of cheese.
So fess up. What’s your guilty pleasure?
babbling relentlessly about science fiction, fantasy, and all points in between
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Thursday, July 13, 2006
The Passing Of The Tower Guardian
“All that is visible must grow beyond itself and extend into the realm of the invisible.” With those words, Dumont the Tower Guardian allows the video game hero Tron, in the Disney movie of the same name, to pass and interface with his user.
Sad news in reading the daily update on the Hypaspace page today: page host Jonathan Llyr quotes Moviehole in reporting that Barnard Hughes, the actor who played Dumont, has died.
Hughes deserves credit for being a character actor who could play his part well. Admittedly, many of his parts may have ultimately been the same – the crusty old wizard/hermit/scientist who’d be just as likely to smack you upside the head for asking a stupid question as he would be to impart some pearl of wisdom. It probably helped that he looked the part too: short but firm, grey whiskers, glittering eyes, a defiantly thrust chin. But rather than sleepwalking through his gigs like many character actors do, you could see Hughes focusing on each role with vigour. Whether he was playing Dumont and his alter ego - a company founder being squeezed-out by an ambitious executive, or whether he was the timeless magician in “Mr. Merlin” taking a 20th century boy under his wing, the crotchety, vampire-hating grandfather in “Lost Boys”, or the old town physician in “Doc Hollywood” (okay, okay, I know, it’s not SF, but the character type fits the pattern) Hughes applied himself to his craft.
Barnard Hughes passed away in a New York hospital after a brief illness. He was 90.
Sad news in reading the daily update on the Hypaspace page today: page host Jonathan Llyr quotes Moviehole in reporting that Barnard Hughes, the actor who played Dumont, has died.
Hughes deserves credit for being a character actor who could play his part well. Admittedly, many of his parts may have ultimately been the same – the crusty old wizard/hermit/scientist who’d be just as likely to smack you upside the head for asking a stupid question as he would be to impart some pearl of wisdom. It probably helped that he looked the part too: short but firm, grey whiskers, glittering eyes, a defiantly thrust chin. But rather than sleepwalking through his gigs like many character actors do, you could see Hughes focusing on each role with vigour. Whether he was playing Dumont and his alter ego - a company founder being squeezed-out by an ambitious executive, or whether he was the timeless magician in “Mr. Merlin” taking a 20th century boy under his wing, the crotchety, vampire-hating grandfather in “Lost Boys”, or the old town physician in “Doc Hollywood” (okay, okay, I know, it’s not SF, but the character type fits the pattern) Hughes applied himself to his craft.
Barnard Hughes passed away in a New York hospital after a brief illness. He was 90.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
A Nod To The Neighbours South Of The Border
Seeing as how it’s the Fourth of July (at least when I started writing this entry), I figure it’s only fair to give a tip of the hat to our neighbours south of the 49th Parallel.
To be sure, I’m admittedly one of many Canadians who are somewhat suspicious of the Americans. That whole business where we had to drive them off in 1812 leaves a bit of a bad taste, especially when they deny the facts and claim they came out on top. And let’s not even talk about that “Manifest Destiny” crap written into their Constitution. Then there’s the current administration’s foreign policy madness, willful violation of NAFTA and WTO rules, unwillingness to acknowledge our relief efforts for disasters in the US over the past 5-and-a-half years, and a bullying attitude to try to force Canada to change its social and legal policies. There’s the disturbing rise in religious zealotry. The persistence of a frightening gun culture. The lack of adequate funding for education or a workable health care system. The paranoid armed camp that’s being created along what we all used to brag was the “World’s Longest Undefended Border” (now stalked by trigger-happy “Minutemen”), as if Canadians jacked up on maple syrup and Newfoundland Screech, with mighty blizzards from the Arctic roaring at their backs, might suddenly come storming across on snowmobiles, armed with hockey sticks and leashed polar bears, bent on forcing Americans to start using “eh” at the end of every sentence. The rest of the world is coming together into political and economic trading blocks and the US wants to build walls at its northern and southern borders. Real foresight there. There’s an inscription on the Peace Arch border crossing between White Rock and Blaine that reads something to the effect of “children of the same mother”. Well, we’re nowhere near as bad as Romulus and Remus, but one of the kids here has a tendency to throw tantrums like a spoiled brat and it’s getting stale.
BUT don’t get me wrong… I’m NOT saying that all Americans are bad. On the contrary, I’ve known many Americans over the years who are/were great folks – warm, intelligent and open-minded.
And the people of the US should be applauded for their many positive contributions to the world. One of the tops on my list is barbeque. Many cultures around the world have engaged in that finest mode of cooking meat using similar, yet often regionally unique techniques for thousands of years. But there’s just something about good old fashioned, down-home American barbeque, in all of its regional styles that just grabs you way down deep inside and makes you feel good. Let’s hear it for the pit masters!
And of course, for a speculative fiction-obsessed site like this, there must also be a hearty shout out for all the American contributions to science fiction, fantasy and all genres in between over the years.
Three cheers for Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) for his wry chestnuts like “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”, “3,000 Years Among the Microbes” or “The Secret History of Eddypus, the World-Empire”.
Kudos to Edgar Allan Poe for “Some Words with a Mummy” and “Mellonta Tauta”.
A hearty handshake to Isaac Asimov for building a “Foundation” and for casting off the shackles of Frankenstein and showing us that his robots with their Three Laws (four, if you count the Zeroth from “Robots and Empire”) could grow beyond their human masters while still caring for them.
And bravo to Ray Bradbury for putting us aboard rockets to Mars where the journey was as much into the soul as across space, and for taking us on a lark back in time with “The F. Scott/Tolstoy/Ahab Accumulator” to comfort dying authors, or to hang a jack o’ lantern on the “Hallowe’en Tree”.
How about a high-five for George R.R. Martin for dealing out the “Wildcards”, but most especially for singing us “A Song of Ice and Fire”?
Let’s give a hand to Kim Stanley Robinson for his breadth of vision for a world that might have been if the plague had been just a bit nastier in the middle ages in “The Years of Rice and Salt”.
And then there’s Dan Simmons, who’s “Hyperion” should be ranked as one of the most intelligent, one of the most gripping, one of the most touching – one of the best novels in the English language.
On the big screen, let’s acknowledge the mastery of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, and yes, even some of the crews at the Disney factory over the decades.
On the small screen, a nod to the geniuses (both behind the scenes and on the screen) involved with the new “Battlestar Galactica”, and an honourable mention for Gene Roddenberry, who’s “Star Trek” franchise may have been the height of cheese at times, but also provided us with solid entertainment, a social conscience that gave us some long-overdue television firsts, and a vision that’s inspired many people to get into science with the dream of taking us to the stars.
Thank you, America for your great contributions to SF. Happy birthday this July 4th!
To be sure, I’m admittedly one of many Canadians who are somewhat suspicious of the Americans. That whole business where we had to drive them off in 1812 leaves a bit of a bad taste, especially when they deny the facts and claim they came out on top. And let’s not even talk about that “Manifest Destiny” crap written into their Constitution. Then there’s the current administration’s foreign policy madness, willful violation of NAFTA and WTO rules, unwillingness to acknowledge our relief efforts for disasters in the US over the past 5-and-a-half years, and a bullying attitude to try to force Canada to change its social and legal policies. There’s the disturbing rise in religious zealotry. The persistence of a frightening gun culture. The lack of adequate funding for education or a workable health care system. The paranoid armed camp that’s being created along what we all used to brag was the “World’s Longest Undefended Border” (now stalked by trigger-happy “Minutemen”), as if Canadians jacked up on maple syrup and Newfoundland Screech, with mighty blizzards from the Arctic roaring at their backs, might suddenly come storming across on snowmobiles, armed with hockey sticks and leashed polar bears, bent on forcing Americans to start using “eh” at the end of every sentence. The rest of the world is coming together into political and economic trading blocks and the US wants to build walls at its northern and southern borders. Real foresight there. There’s an inscription on the Peace Arch border crossing between White Rock and Blaine that reads something to the effect of “children of the same mother”. Well, we’re nowhere near as bad as Romulus and Remus, but one of the kids here has a tendency to throw tantrums like a spoiled brat and it’s getting stale.
BUT don’t get me wrong… I’m NOT saying that all Americans are bad. On the contrary, I’ve known many Americans over the years who are/were great folks – warm, intelligent and open-minded.
And the people of the US should be applauded for their many positive contributions to the world. One of the tops on my list is barbeque. Many cultures around the world have engaged in that finest mode of cooking meat using similar, yet often regionally unique techniques for thousands of years. But there’s just something about good old fashioned, down-home American barbeque, in all of its regional styles that just grabs you way down deep inside and makes you feel good. Let’s hear it for the pit masters!
And of course, for a speculative fiction-obsessed site like this, there must also be a hearty shout out for all the American contributions to science fiction, fantasy and all genres in between over the years.
Three cheers for Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) for his wry chestnuts like “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”, “3,000 Years Among the Microbes” or “The Secret History of Eddypus, the World-Empire”.
Kudos to Edgar Allan Poe for “Some Words with a Mummy” and “Mellonta Tauta”.
A hearty handshake to Isaac Asimov for building a “Foundation” and for casting off the shackles of Frankenstein and showing us that his robots with their Three Laws (four, if you count the Zeroth from “Robots and Empire”) could grow beyond their human masters while still caring for them.
And bravo to Ray Bradbury for putting us aboard rockets to Mars where the journey was as much into the soul as across space, and for taking us on a lark back in time with “The F. Scott/Tolstoy/Ahab Accumulator” to comfort dying authors, or to hang a jack o’ lantern on the “Hallowe’en Tree”.
How about a high-five for George R.R. Martin for dealing out the “Wildcards”, but most especially for singing us “A Song of Ice and Fire”?
Let’s give a hand to Kim Stanley Robinson for his breadth of vision for a world that might have been if the plague had been just a bit nastier in the middle ages in “The Years of Rice and Salt”.
And then there’s Dan Simmons, who’s “Hyperion” should be ranked as one of the most intelligent, one of the most gripping, one of the most touching – one of the best novels in the English language.
On the big screen, let’s acknowledge the mastery of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, and yes, even some of the crews at the Disney factory over the decades.
On the small screen, a nod to the geniuses (both behind the scenes and on the screen) involved with the new “Battlestar Galactica”, and an honourable mention for Gene Roddenberry, who’s “Star Trek” franchise may have been the height of cheese at times, but also provided us with solid entertainment, a social conscience that gave us some long-overdue television firsts, and a vision that’s inspired many people to get into science with the dream of taking us to the stars.
Thank you, America for your great contributions to SF. Happy birthday this July 4th!
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Happy Canada Day!
Happy Canada Day, everyone! 139 years since Confederation and we’re still going strong. In fact, as more people from more cultures around the world have come here over the years to live side by side and make this place their home, the great buffet of Canadian society (as opposed to the bland melting pot culture of our neighbours to the south) has become more complex and delicious. Whether we chomp on burgers on the patio at sunset, partake of smoked salmon at a potlatch, quaff beer and scarf down bratwurst at Octoberfest, savour samosas and sweets on South Main Street, dive into some chicken with hoisin and a box of dragon’s beard candy at the Richmond Public Night Market, slurp on buttered corn fresh from the field, tuck into some jerk at Caribana, nosh on smoked meat in Montreal, hunker over a kettle of lobster and clams on a beach along the Bay of Fundy, or indulge in a box of Laura Secord’s finest, we’re all serving up a society our children can be proud of. Is that to say that things here in the Great White North are perfect? No. Far from it. But at least we can agree to engage in that fundamental aspect of Canadian culture that unites us all, regardless of background: debate, without resorting to blowing each other up.
A-propos, but entirely by coincidence, I find myself reading a new anthology of Canadian speculative fiction this long weekend: “Mythspring – From the Lyrics & Legends of Canada”, edited by Julie E. Czerneda and Genevieve Kierans. It’s something of a patriotic duty to buy a copy of these anthologies as they crop up once in a blue moon and support the growing Canadian speculative fiction establishment. But I’ve never really seen it as a duty since most of the fare within the pages of books like this one, or the periodic “Tesseracts” series, is really good. It’s not hard to find talented Canucks like Minister Faust, Corey Doctorow, Robert J. Sawyer, Nalo Hopkinson, Jack Whyte or dozens of others featured prominently on the shelves of your local bookstore. As many have remarked, Canada is the new frontier of speculative fiction.
As for “Mythspring”, so far, I’ve quite enjoyed submissions like Kierans’ own “Mirror, Mirror”, “All the Cool Monsters at Once” by James Alan Gardner, “Walking with Wolves” by Alison Baird and “This Is the Ice Age” by Claude Lalumiere. What a wonderful display of home-grown talent.
I even have to give a grudging nod of respect to Lorne Kates for his attempt to reinvigorate the tired, old plot device of following a protagonist through a story only to discover at the end that he’s a ghost in “Over Lunar White”.
Of course, not every tale was a hit. Lynda Williams’ “The Harpy” was predictable and Daniel Archambault needed an editor to tell him to leave well enough alone and cut two unnecessary pages off of the end of “The Ghost of Watson’s Mill Is Online”. I’ve also got a bit of a problem with Kierans being a co-editor and having not one, but two of her own stories in the collection. No matter how good they are, that’s an editorial abuse of power. Don’t tell me there weren’t good submissions by other authors, or more authors who could have been approached for submissions in order to fill a few extra pages. If they couldn’t dig anyone up on their own, the editors could’ve put in a call to On Spec or Neo Opsis or any of the other SF magazines for suggestions or contacts. I also wonder why Czerneda and Kierans couldn’t settle on either myths or songs as the theme. There are so many of both in this country, and so many good Canadian authors who could breathe new life into them, that the editors didn’t have to have both themes in one volume.
That being said, “Mythspring” is an anthology worth adding to your collection, especially during this holiday.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to head off to the barbeque and find out what kind of celebration is in the works.
A-propos, but entirely by coincidence, I find myself reading a new anthology of Canadian speculative fiction this long weekend: “Mythspring – From the Lyrics & Legends of Canada”, edited by Julie E. Czerneda and Genevieve Kierans. It’s something of a patriotic duty to buy a copy of these anthologies as they crop up once in a blue moon and support the growing Canadian speculative fiction establishment. But I’ve never really seen it as a duty since most of the fare within the pages of books like this one, or the periodic “Tesseracts” series, is really good. It’s not hard to find talented Canucks like Minister Faust, Corey Doctorow, Robert J. Sawyer, Nalo Hopkinson, Jack Whyte or dozens of others featured prominently on the shelves of your local bookstore. As many have remarked, Canada is the new frontier of speculative fiction.
As for “Mythspring”, so far, I’ve quite enjoyed submissions like Kierans’ own “Mirror, Mirror”, “All the Cool Monsters at Once” by James Alan Gardner, “Walking with Wolves” by Alison Baird and “This Is the Ice Age” by Claude Lalumiere. What a wonderful display of home-grown talent.
I even have to give a grudging nod of respect to Lorne Kates for his attempt to reinvigorate the tired, old plot device of following a protagonist through a story only to discover at the end that he’s a ghost in “Over Lunar White”.
Of course, not every tale was a hit. Lynda Williams’ “The Harpy” was predictable and Daniel Archambault needed an editor to tell him to leave well enough alone and cut two unnecessary pages off of the end of “The Ghost of Watson’s Mill Is Online”. I’ve also got a bit of a problem with Kierans being a co-editor and having not one, but two of her own stories in the collection. No matter how good they are, that’s an editorial abuse of power. Don’t tell me there weren’t good submissions by other authors, or more authors who could have been approached for submissions in order to fill a few extra pages. If they couldn’t dig anyone up on their own, the editors could’ve put in a call to On Spec or Neo Opsis or any of the other SF magazines for suggestions or contacts. I also wonder why Czerneda and Kierans couldn’t settle on either myths or songs as the theme. There are so many of both in this country, and so many good Canadian authors who could breathe new life into them, that the editors didn’t have to have both themes in one volume.
That being said, “Mythspring” is an anthology worth adding to your collection, especially during this holiday.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to head off to the barbeque and find out what kind of celebration is in the works.
Friday, June 30, 2006
Superheroes For All Seasons
Continuing with the comic-related discussion from the last posting here on the old SF soapbox, my wife and I took my parents’ godchildren out to see “Superman Returns” last night, and on the drive home after dropping the kids off, we had that classic discussion: if you could be any superhero, who would it be?
First of all, as an aside, I can’t resist giving a review of Bryan Singer’s take on The Man Of Steel. All of us (my wife, who likes a good action movie and who’s growing into a speculative fiction fan, but who never read comics; my parents’ 12-year-old goddaughter who doesn’t really go in for the action movie scene; the 14-year-old godson who likes action movies and reads a little SF but isn’t into comics; and then there’s yours truly) thoroughly enjoyed it. To be sure, I didn’t think it was as good as Richard Donner’s 1978 version starring the late Christopher Reed. This take lacked it’s predecessor’s sense of the wonder of believing a man can fly, the majesty of an alien civilization with vastly superior technology but tragically human flaws, and the pathos of a hero bound to protect the world when he only wants to be with one woman. But “Superman Returns” was never billed as a redo – rather as a sequel to “Superman, The Movie” and “Superman II” (wisely choosing to ignore the half-hearted “Superman III” with Richard Pryor and the execrable “Superman IV – The Quest For Peace”), and I think Singer has done an admirable job in that respect. Part of what made the story so entertaining was the inclusion of many overt and sly nods to the previous incarnations of Superman. And speaking of previous incarnations, let’s also give the nod to Singer for weaving bits of the late Marlon Brando’s dialogue as Jor-el from the 1978 version into this story to act as a nice bridge between the two and to underline the flavour of Krypton in Superman’s life that would otherwise be absent from the movie.
Brandon Routh was believable as Kal-el, and I’m completely on the bandwagon with those who say at times Routh bore an uncanny resemblance to Reed.
Kudos to Frank Langella for his portrayal of Daily Planet editor Perry White – an actor (aided by a well-thought-out script) who has the rare talent and wisdom (let’s include Robert Duval in this exclusive club for his performance in “The Paper”) to portray a newsdirector (there’s my broadcast background rearing its ugly head again) as an intelligent, caring and even-keeled individual (as most of them are), rather than the soul-less, immoral, childish, frothing-at-the-mouth attack dog cliché that most actors, writers and directors wrongly believe populate the industry.
The real applause needs to go Kevin Spacey for his performance as the arch-villain Lex Luther. Okay, you’re probably all saying Spacey could give a great performance in his sleep, and you’re right. But the point is that where he could have been sleepwalking through the film, he wasn’t – Spacey was very much alive in his crafting of Luther to evolve in his villainy. Spacey kept the laissez-faire goofiness Gene Hackman gave Luther, but matured it at times with a frightening coldness and dashes of spicy viciousness. And then there was his wardrobe: three-piece suits and combat boots. I found myself thinking back to the character of Hans Gruber in “Die Hard” talking haute couture with a prisoner and referring to an expensive haberdasher’s in London: “I hear Arafat buys his suits there.”
And the special effects were very cool – we saw it in Imax with 20 minutes (at various points) in 3D. I thought at times the 3D was a little blurry, but that could have been simply because we didn’t get there early enough to get good seats, and being forced to sit in the 2nd row and cran our necks up 90 degrees admittedly may not have given the screen the perspective intended to make the effects work.
The story, for the most part, worked. Was it perfect? Far from it. I think my biggest problem was Singer’s decision to remove the much-talked-about act showing Superman’s exploration of the wreckage of Krypton. Singer’s excuse in cutting the 20-30 minute segment from the film was that it didn’t add anything to the story. I disagree. The story is about Superman’s reintegration into a world that’s learned to get along without him during his 5-year absence. While, admittedly, the focus of the story should be about that reintegration, if the lure of exploring the remains of his home was so great to draw Superman away from Earth, Singer should have given us a clear picture of it - even if only for 5 minutes - something that would let us see Superman’s human side as he reacts to the ancient devastation confronting him. The presentation of the reality of Superman’s original home being a disaster, being something inaccessible in its deadness, would have been a poignant reflection of the reality of life back on an Earth where his world involving a love with Lois Lane is equally inaccessible because of her new life. Singer certainly should have given us more than a big bang with the opening credits and a recently-returned Clark muttering “It was a graveyard.” to Ma Kent. I also found it a little odd that Superman was able to lift into space, with his bare hands, an entire island (that was continuing to grow) that had an unhealthy percentage of its mass made of Kryptonite, when minutes earlier touching that same island had weakened him severely. Never mind that this was done with a nasty little shank of Kryptonite in his kidney. I briefly wondered if the lifting of an entire island itself was pushing it, but then again, in ’78 Superman flew backwards in time to prevent Lois Lane’s death, so, being that he is The Man Of Steel, we’ll allow it. The other oddity that struck me was that the island, with its hexagonally-pattered topside facing outwards and its jagged bottom facing planetside, once adrift in space, looked an awful lot like the Black Fortress of the Beast in “Krull”.
In any event, “Superman Returns” is certainly worth the full price of admission.
But getting back to the original point (that was along aside, even by my standards, wasn’t it?), on the drive home, my wife and I had that classic discussion about who you would choose if you could become any superhero.
Some people are very quick on the draw and will tell you they’ve always wanted to be ________ ever since they were a little kid, and are still drawn to movies, comics, books, action figures, Underoos Funderwear, what have you that involve their favourite hero.
Some people can’t make up their minds. Such party-fare discussions always result in somebody asking Brody’s questions from Kevin Smith’s “Mallrats” about whether to choose a character based on powers, skills or ability to banter well with villains.
Some don’t have an answer at all because, for whatever reason, they never watched Saturday morning cartoons or read comics or played with action figures or went to movies featuring superheroes.
But it occurred to me that at least in my own case, the answer to the question of “who would you be?” has changed over the years of my life. The choice has matured as I have. (okay, okay, enough with the cheap cracks about my nonexistent level of maturity, wisenheimers!)
I think Brody’s questions about basing a choice on certain skills or powers or personality traits reflects, to some extent (and I’m still not sure how much) a person’s desires, fantasies, ego, flaws they think they need to compensate for, and other aspects of their personalities. And I think some of this has to do (sometimes) with a person’s level of maturity – their stock of experiences, what they’ve made of them, and what they make of their current place in life.
As a young boy, it was Superman. Hands down. Most little boys in the neighbourhood wanted to be Superman (with the exception of one or two who leaned towards Batman or the Flash – no Captain Marvels, thank-you very much) while the girls were all lined-up to be Wonder Woman. To me, what was great was that Superman could fly. He had super strength, super speed, super vision, laser vision, super hearing and no-one who didn’t have a fistful of Kryptonite could stop him. And Superman always did the right thing. He helped people. Being enamored of the physical powers was typical of your average suburban munchkin who thinks the universe is his playground and that there should be no boundaries to his exploration of it that he can’t overcome by using his wits and abilities. Being unstoppable would’ve been handy to deal with the depredations of the neighbourhood bullies – 9-year-olds who needed someone to show them that it wasn’t right to pick on 4 and 5-year-olds. And knowing that Superman helps people in trouble earns points after the little tyke has seen those bullies beat up his friends and steal their bikes, and maybe pounded him too when he’s jumped in to try and help his friends. It was tough to learn that sometimes you can do the right thing and try to help people in trouble and still get hurt bad and maybe face odds so great that despite all your trying and all the suffering you endure, you can’t make things right. But what Superman taught us was that in spite of that you have to try, and, as cheesy as it may sound, that’ll make you super inside, and you’ll know it when the little girl who had her bike stolen says thanks for trying.
Then the late teenage years. Ah, testosterone explosion fuelling feelings of invincibility, a desire to change the world damaged by the stupidities of your forebears, an excess of righteous indignation, and a smartass streak about as wide as the country. For me, those years saw the solitary god Superman give way to the seemingly irreconcilable twin idols of Spiderman and Ghostrider. (the Ghostrider version 2 from the late ‘80’s and early ‘90’s, that is, not the circus-stuntrider turned cackling cornball of the original 1970’s version – what was with the obsession with circuses in the ‘70’s, anyway?)
Spiderman was cool not for his powers (which were acceptable), but because of his ability to banter well with supervillains in the heat of combat. In fact, Spiderman’s ability to taunt should have been listed as a power in itself. What teenager doesn’t respect the smartass? The Webslinger’s observations of absurdities (including his own) helped maintain the crucial element of fun in comics. That’s not to say I disapprove of action or suspense or drama-oriented comics – I don’t, in fact I quite enjoy those as well. But when it comes to superhero fare, a comic can’t take itself too seriously without becoming boring. Spiderman also worked because Peter Parker was basically just a regular guy trying to do the right thing. Sometimes he failed – a bad guy would defeat him and escape or an innocent victim would die – but in his moments of triumph Parker never let it go to his head and never saw himself as greater than the average Joe who’s ass he’d just saved.
Ghostrider, on the other hand, was a bad-ass without being a bad guy. Silent and deadly (unlike his previous chopper-straddling incarnation from the ‘70’s who just couldn’t shut up). A leather-clad specter with a flaming skull, a flaming bike, a rumble chain with some real flexibility in its use, super strength, near invulnerability, and the penance stare that reduced all but the most implacable of villains to sobbing jelly. Even for mild-mannered teens like I was, there’s always a hormone-driven desire to be the tough guy. Never mind that the conflagration during the host-kid’s transformation into the Ghostrider looked really, really painful. It was just a matter of me and my fellow comic-readin’ buddies saying: hey, there’s a dude even Wolverine had to give the nod to.
Of course, when Todd MacFarlane had Spidey and the Ghostrider team up in one issue of his short-lived “Spiderman” comic, he brought their fundamental natures into collision, even though they were working together. Peter Parker had no trouble telling his demonic partner that he had no respect for the final-solution/extreme measures, no exceptions style espoused by Ghostrider and the rest of the horde of popular antiheroes patrolling the streets. And ultimately I had to come down on Spidey’s side, cause the real world’s far too complex of a lot of oversimplified extreme measures.
During my 20’s, I think I would have identified most with the Turtle from George R.R. Martin’s collaborative “Wildcards” series. A basically likeable, normal guy, endowed with unparalleled telekinetic abilities, but who has to hide in an armoured shell for fear of being vulnerable to physical attack that might distract him from using his powers. What was best was that the Turtle was a three-dimensional character. He had personal flaws and unlike most superheroes he had real doubts about some of things going on, and wasn’t always comfortable with what he had to do. When New York was threatened by an army of malicious teens with the ability to hijack people’s bodies, Turtle was part of the assault on their island hideout and ultimately had to use his powers to sink the thing once and for all. Once it was over, Turtle left in disgust - disgust with himself and everyone else for allowing a situation to develop where hundreds of teens had to be slain, as much of a threat as they were. This is not to say that at the time I was involved in anything remotely close to this kind of moral trauma, but it was the appeal of a normal guy with real human reactions to superhuman insanity that appealed to me.
Now, dwelling in the thirtysomething region (no reference intended to that bucket of ‘80’s yuppie swill TV show), I find myself again thinking that I’d have to choose between two superheroes. On one hand, there’s Mr. Incredible. Super strength and super durability, and basically a nice guy living next door who loves his family and wants to help people. (cue the sappy “awwww!”) On the other hand, there’s the rolly-poly goofiness and explosive energy of Captain Chaos. You heard me. Captain Chaos. The superhero alter-ego of Victor Prinzi (as played by Dom Deluise), the sidekick of Burt Reynolds in that classic romp (or, ode to drunken speeding) “The Cannonball Run”. Admittedly, part of my attraction here is the similar physical profile – a tubby dude with a moustache. But ya gotta love Captain Chaos’ heart. Here’s a hero who’ll jump in full-bore to help his friends when they need him – whether it’s blasting down the highway in a fake ambulance weaving between racing Ferraris and Lamborghinis, or forgoing winning the Cannonball to rescue a drowning dog, or single-handedly tackling a squad of surly bikers to save a pair damsels in distress – regardless of the fact that he has no superpowers. He’s even got the guts to launch into a verbal performance of his personal theme music (“Dah-duh-DAAAAAH!”) every time he makes an appearance. Long live the Captain!
So, as you prepare to amble into your local googleplex theatre to watch the adventures of the X-Men or Superman or the Super Ex-Girlfriend this summer, answer me this: if you could be any superhero, who would you be?
First of all, as an aside, I can’t resist giving a review of Bryan Singer’s take on The Man Of Steel. All of us (my wife, who likes a good action movie and who’s growing into a speculative fiction fan, but who never read comics; my parents’ 12-year-old goddaughter who doesn’t really go in for the action movie scene; the 14-year-old godson who likes action movies and reads a little SF but isn’t into comics; and then there’s yours truly) thoroughly enjoyed it. To be sure, I didn’t think it was as good as Richard Donner’s 1978 version starring the late Christopher Reed. This take lacked it’s predecessor’s sense of the wonder of believing a man can fly, the majesty of an alien civilization with vastly superior technology but tragically human flaws, and the pathos of a hero bound to protect the world when he only wants to be with one woman. But “Superman Returns” was never billed as a redo – rather as a sequel to “Superman, The Movie” and “Superman II” (wisely choosing to ignore the half-hearted “Superman III” with Richard Pryor and the execrable “Superman IV – The Quest For Peace”), and I think Singer has done an admirable job in that respect. Part of what made the story so entertaining was the inclusion of many overt and sly nods to the previous incarnations of Superman. And speaking of previous incarnations, let’s also give the nod to Singer for weaving bits of the late Marlon Brando’s dialogue as Jor-el from the 1978 version into this story to act as a nice bridge between the two and to underline the flavour of Krypton in Superman’s life that would otherwise be absent from the movie.
Brandon Routh was believable as Kal-el, and I’m completely on the bandwagon with those who say at times Routh bore an uncanny resemblance to Reed.
Kudos to Frank Langella for his portrayal of Daily Planet editor Perry White – an actor (aided by a well-thought-out script) who has the rare talent and wisdom (let’s include Robert Duval in this exclusive club for his performance in “The Paper”) to portray a newsdirector (there’s my broadcast background rearing its ugly head again) as an intelligent, caring and even-keeled individual (as most of them are), rather than the soul-less, immoral, childish, frothing-at-the-mouth attack dog cliché that most actors, writers and directors wrongly believe populate the industry.
The real applause needs to go Kevin Spacey for his performance as the arch-villain Lex Luther. Okay, you’re probably all saying Spacey could give a great performance in his sleep, and you’re right. But the point is that where he could have been sleepwalking through the film, he wasn’t – Spacey was very much alive in his crafting of Luther to evolve in his villainy. Spacey kept the laissez-faire goofiness Gene Hackman gave Luther, but matured it at times with a frightening coldness and dashes of spicy viciousness. And then there was his wardrobe: three-piece suits and combat boots. I found myself thinking back to the character of Hans Gruber in “Die Hard” talking haute couture with a prisoner and referring to an expensive haberdasher’s in London: “I hear Arafat buys his suits there.”
And the special effects were very cool – we saw it in Imax with 20 minutes (at various points) in 3D. I thought at times the 3D was a little blurry, but that could have been simply because we didn’t get there early enough to get good seats, and being forced to sit in the 2nd row and cran our necks up 90 degrees admittedly may not have given the screen the perspective intended to make the effects work.
The story, for the most part, worked. Was it perfect? Far from it. I think my biggest problem was Singer’s decision to remove the much-talked-about act showing Superman’s exploration of the wreckage of Krypton. Singer’s excuse in cutting the 20-30 minute segment from the film was that it didn’t add anything to the story. I disagree. The story is about Superman’s reintegration into a world that’s learned to get along without him during his 5-year absence. While, admittedly, the focus of the story should be about that reintegration, if the lure of exploring the remains of his home was so great to draw Superman away from Earth, Singer should have given us a clear picture of it - even if only for 5 minutes - something that would let us see Superman’s human side as he reacts to the ancient devastation confronting him. The presentation of the reality of Superman’s original home being a disaster, being something inaccessible in its deadness, would have been a poignant reflection of the reality of life back on an Earth where his world involving a love with Lois Lane is equally inaccessible because of her new life. Singer certainly should have given us more than a big bang with the opening credits and a recently-returned Clark muttering “It was a graveyard.” to Ma Kent. I also found it a little odd that Superman was able to lift into space, with his bare hands, an entire island (that was continuing to grow) that had an unhealthy percentage of its mass made of Kryptonite, when minutes earlier touching that same island had weakened him severely. Never mind that this was done with a nasty little shank of Kryptonite in his kidney. I briefly wondered if the lifting of an entire island itself was pushing it, but then again, in ’78 Superman flew backwards in time to prevent Lois Lane’s death, so, being that he is The Man Of Steel, we’ll allow it. The other oddity that struck me was that the island, with its hexagonally-pattered topside facing outwards and its jagged bottom facing planetside, once adrift in space, looked an awful lot like the Black Fortress of the Beast in “Krull”.
In any event, “Superman Returns” is certainly worth the full price of admission.
But getting back to the original point (that was along aside, even by my standards, wasn’t it?), on the drive home, my wife and I had that classic discussion about who you would choose if you could become any superhero.
Some people are very quick on the draw and will tell you they’ve always wanted to be ________ ever since they were a little kid, and are still drawn to movies, comics, books, action figures, Underoos Funderwear, what have you that involve their favourite hero.
Some people can’t make up their minds. Such party-fare discussions always result in somebody asking Brody’s questions from Kevin Smith’s “Mallrats” about whether to choose a character based on powers, skills or ability to banter well with villains.
Some don’t have an answer at all because, for whatever reason, they never watched Saturday morning cartoons or read comics or played with action figures or went to movies featuring superheroes.
But it occurred to me that at least in my own case, the answer to the question of “who would you be?” has changed over the years of my life. The choice has matured as I have. (okay, okay, enough with the cheap cracks about my nonexistent level of maturity, wisenheimers!)
I think Brody’s questions about basing a choice on certain skills or powers or personality traits reflects, to some extent (and I’m still not sure how much) a person’s desires, fantasies, ego, flaws they think they need to compensate for, and other aspects of their personalities. And I think some of this has to do (sometimes) with a person’s level of maturity – their stock of experiences, what they’ve made of them, and what they make of their current place in life.
As a young boy, it was Superman. Hands down. Most little boys in the neighbourhood wanted to be Superman (with the exception of one or two who leaned towards Batman or the Flash – no Captain Marvels, thank-you very much) while the girls were all lined-up to be Wonder Woman. To me, what was great was that Superman could fly. He had super strength, super speed, super vision, laser vision, super hearing and no-one who didn’t have a fistful of Kryptonite could stop him. And Superman always did the right thing. He helped people. Being enamored of the physical powers was typical of your average suburban munchkin who thinks the universe is his playground and that there should be no boundaries to his exploration of it that he can’t overcome by using his wits and abilities. Being unstoppable would’ve been handy to deal with the depredations of the neighbourhood bullies – 9-year-olds who needed someone to show them that it wasn’t right to pick on 4 and 5-year-olds. And knowing that Superman helps people in trouble earns points after the little tyke has seen those bullies beat up his friends and steal their bikes, and maybe pounded him too when he’s jumped in to try and help his friends. It was tough to learn that sometimes you can do the right thing and try to help people in trouble and still get hurt bad and maybe face odds so great that despite all your trying and all the suffering you endure, you can’t make things right. But what Superman taught us was that in spite of that you have to try, and, as cheesy as it may sound, that’ll make you super inside, and you’ll know it when the little girl who had her bike stolen says thanks for trying.
Then the late teenage years. Ah, testosterone explosion fuelling feelings of invincibility, a desire to change the world damaged by the stupidities of your forebears, an excess of righteous indignation, and a smartass streak about as wide as the country. For me, those years saw the solitary god Superman give way to the seemingly irreconcilable twin idols of Spiderman and Ghostrider. (the Ghostrider version 2 from the late ‘80’s and early ‘90’s, that is, not the circus-stuntrider turned cackling cornball of the original 1970’s version – what was with the obsession with circuses in the ‘70’s, anyway?)
Spiderman was cool not for his powers (which were acceptable), but because of his ability to banter well with supervillains in the heat of combat. In fact, Spiderman’s ability to taunt should have been listed as a power in itself. What teenager doesn’t respect the smartass? The Webslinger’s observations of absurdities (including his own) helped maintain the crucial element of fun in comics. That’s not to say I disapprove of action or suspense or drama-oriented comics – I don’t, in fact I quite enjoy those as well. But when it comes to superhero fare, a comic can’t take itself too seriously without becoming boring. Spiderman also worked because Peter Parker was basically just a regular guy trying to do the right thing. Sometimes he failed – a bad guy would defeat him and escape or an innocent victim would die – but in his moments of triumph Parker never let it go to his head and never saw himself as greater than the average Joe who’s ass he’d just saved.
Ghostrider, on the other hand, was a bad-ass without being a bad guy. Silent and deadly (unlike his previous chopper-straddling incarnation from the ‘70’s who just couldn’t shut up). A leather-clad specter with a flaming skull, a flaming bike, a rumble chain with some real flexibility in its use, super strength, near invulnerability, and the penance stare that reduced all but the most implacable of villains to sobbing jelly. Even for mild-mannered teens like I was, there’s always a hormone-driven desire to be the tough guy. Never mind that the conflagration during the host-kid’s transformation into the Ghostrider looked really, really painful. It was just a matter of me and my fellow comic-readin’ buddies saying: hey, there’s a dude even Wolverine had to give the nod to.
Of course, when Todd MacFarlane had Spidey and the Ghostrider team up in one issue of his short-lived “Spiderman” comic, he brought their fundamental natures into collision, even though they were working together. Peter Parker had no trouble telling his demonic partner that he had no respect for the final-solution/extreme measures, no exceptions style espoused by Ghostrider and the rest of the horde of popular antiheroes patrolling the streets. And ultimately I had to come down on Spidey’s side, cause the real world’s far too complex of a lot of oversimplified extreme measures.
During my 20’s, I think I would have identified most with the Turtle from George R.R. Martin’s collaborative “Wildcards” series. A basically likeable, normal guy, endowed with unparalleled telekinetic abilities, but who has to hide in an armoured shell for fear of being vulnerable to physical attack that might distract him from using his powers. What was best was that the Turtle was a three-dimensional character. He had personal flaws and unlike most superheroes he had real doubts about some of things going on, and wasn’t always comfortable with what he had to do. When New York was threatened by an army of malicious teens with the ability to hijack people’s bodies, Turtle was part of the assault on their island hideout and ultimately had to use his powers to sink the thing once and for all. Once it was over, Turtle left in disgust - disgust with himself and everyone else for allowing a situation to develop where hundreds of teens had to be slain, as much of a threat as they were. This is not to say that at the time I was involved in anything remotely close to this kind of moral trauma, but it was the appeal of a normal guy with real human reactions to superhuman insanity that appealed to me.
Now, dwelling in the thirtysomething region (no reference intended to that bucket of ‘80’s yuppie swill TV show), I find myself again thinking that I’d have to choose between two superheroes. On one hand, there’s Mr. Incredible. Super strength and super durability, and basically a nice guy living next door who loves his family and wants to help people. (cue the sappy “awwww!”) On the other hand, there’s the rolly-poly goofiness and explosive energy of Captain Chaos. You heard me. Captain Chaos. The superhero alter-ego of Victor Prinzi (as played by Dom Deluise), the sidekick of Burt Reynolds in that classic romp (or, ode to drunken speeding) “The Cannonball Run”. Admittedly, part of my attraction here is the similar physical profile – a tubby dude with a moustache. But ya gotta love Captain Chaos’ heart. Here’s a hero who’ll jump in full-bore to help his friends when they need him – whether it’s blasting down the highway in a fake ambulance weaving between racing Ferraris and Lamborghinis, or forgoing winning the Cannonball to rescue a drowning dog, or single-handedly tackling a squad of surly bikers to save a pair damsels in distress – regardless of the fact that he has no superpowers. He’s even got the guts to launch into a verbal performance of his personal theme music (“Dah-duh-DAAAAAH!”) every time he makes an appearance. Long live the Captain!
So, as you prepare to amble into your local googleplex theatre to watch the adventures of the X-Men or Superman or the Super Ex-Girlfriend this summer, answer me this: if you could be any superhero, who would you be?
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Popcorn Ideals – Why It’s Not A Bad Thing To Cuddle Up With A Hot Buttered Bowl Of Comics
I was given a copy of the first issue of a new comic series recently, “Darkness Falls”, published by The Healthy Aboriginal Network, and it got me to thinking about the value of discussing moral, ethical, mental health, medical and spiritual issues in comics, and by extension, in comic book movies. Admittedly, this had already been on my mind in recent weeks because of the theatrical release of “X-Men: Last Stand” and all the promo hype for “Superman Returns” and the accompanying resurrection of discussions of the Man of Steel’s philosophical implications.
For now, let’s put aside the whole debate about high vs. low culture, pop vs. the classics. Let’s not get into an epic, bicep-flexing, taunt-throwing, electrified slugfest about why the so-called elite lump comics as a body together, making no distinction between Wolverine and Maus, as they dismiss this nearly hundred-year-old art form as vulgar or scripted pose-offs, while extolling the pretentious dreck of Margaret Atwood and Louis Hemon. Let’s just treat comics and their movie spin-offs as pieces of our larger cultural tapestry.
Issue number one of “Darkness Falls” centres on a pudgy young artist struggling with life as he deals with bullying from teachers, fellow students and parents, as well as the harsh realities of existence on his first nation’s reserve. All of this causes him to question his self-worth and to consider suicide. During a tale spun by a native elder, the boy connects to his culture through a trickster spirit-turned-superhero who battles the evil phantom that preys on those who become lost, confused or despairing. In the end, the boy defeats the evil spirit and his suicidal feelings by declaring that he wants to live.
Right off the bat, I’ll tell ya this book has got some great art. The superhero and monster are standard fare, but it’s the vivid bleakness of the prairies at sundown that’s so perfectly captured as it both contrasts and compliments the brooding claustrophobia of a high school or household where you think everyone’s out to get you.
And the comic is to be credited for its cultural empowerment value. It’s important for youth of all cultures to see themselves positively represented in media, and this is especially true of first nations kids who must learn to hold on to their heritage as they deal with today’s challenges. Allowing the kid who’s seemingly the victim of a problem to step in and not only assist, but save his own hero by himself driving off the bad guy is an example more youth (from every culture) need to have more often.
Some may say, and rightly so, that the storyline itself isn’t terribly complex. That it’s the hit-you-over-the-head simplicity of dealing with tough issues that’s typical of Saturday morning cartoons, that it’s the light and fluffy, buttery sweet fare of movie theatre popcorn.
Admittedly, the reality is that suicidal feelings sometimes take a lot of councilling and soul-searching to overcome, and simply constructing a superheroic adventure around an elder’s story, all presented over the course of a single day in a single comic issue, probably wouldn’t be enough to work through a crisis.
And to be sure, this sort of treatment of “the big issues” is par for the course in comics. The cheap presentation of good vs. evil, of justice and social responsibility, friendship, loyalty and true love are played out every week in volumes galore of Marvel and DC. This is taken off the page and onto the screen in their movie adaptations, as we’ve seen recently with “X-Men: Last Stand” and its treatment of genetic tinkering and revision, social acceptance, pride in being what you are, revenge, self sacrifice and genocide.
Critics may argue this simplistic presentation of complex issues is harmful to youth, giving them a black and white view of a very grey world, or that it gives the impression that such issues can be solved quickly and relatively easily, or that a “good guy” facing a challenge can succeed by sheer force of being right and the possibility of failure is an empty fear.
I say there’s nothing wrong with comics or their movie spin-offs dealing with the big tough issues, even if they do it simply.
I’ve known a number of people over the years, and seen and heard interviews with others, who’ve said reading comics early on gave them important lessons on right and wrong because comics were an entertaining medium that was easy to identify with and the simple presentation of the morals within made them easy to grasp at a young age. As such, it’s eminently wise for aboriginal groups to get into comics to affect how those moral are illustrated and to present to youth the tough issues, such as suicide, which face some of them. They’re taking a widespread and youth-accepted pop culture medium and making it their own to present positive role models to their youngsters and to deliver messages that youth can get help with problems, that youth can empower themselves, and that there is hope.
But most importantly, I think the presentation of big issues in the comic format is valid because comics (like literature, movies, paintings, television, sculpture, music, theatre, photography – did I leave any out?) are ideally the beginning of dialogue, both internal and external, as well as entertainment. They are not, as some critics would warn, a closed system where a youth is fed an idea and never given the opportunity to explore it further. We all know that when kids lock onto an idea that interests them, or touches them emotionally in some way, they’re relentless in their pursuit of more information about it – especially now in the computer age. Whether they talk with friends, parents, elders or hunt down information on the internet or in a library, youth who want information usually know how to get it. Presenting issues such as suicide on a comic book platform is a way of getting kids thinking about how they can help themselves or others deal with crisis. It’s the creation of talking points where the youth can bounce the issue off of other people and perhaps get a deeper understanding of the issue and get directed towards sources of help. In an age where many adults complain about how hard it is to talk to youth, the wise person finds common ground or language – finds out what a kid is interested in so that they can talk with the kid about something that interests him in order to build mutual understanding, trust, and meaningful dialogue about important issues.
Maybe then, you might say that a better metaphor for big issues in comics is that of a salad, instead of popcorn, because it comes before the more complex and filling entre, as opposed to popcorn, which usually doesn’t come before anything else, unless you’re dining out at the local pub and the entre is 5 cent wings, and if that’s the case, it’s entirely possible (as a critic might worry) that you may not be having wings at all and the popcorn itself might constitute the entire solid portion of the meal. But I’ll stick with popcorn because to use salad for some reason leads me to soup, and that makes me think of Sean Connery’s line in Finding Forrester about “soup questions” which have to do more with obtaining information useful to oneself, instead of presenting ideas for discussion – although, you could argue they’re kind of the same thing. But I digress. I’m babbling.
I also like popcorn as metaphor for the big issues because the reality is that popcorn by itself is attractive, it’s a draw. How could you not like that combination of airy crunch, salt, and buttery sweetness (unless of course, you break a tooth on an errant kernel or choke on a bit of kernel husk – okay, I’m babbling again)? Go to any movie theatre or sports arena and you’ll see the popcorn stand keeps everyone, young and old, coming back for more. And what invariably happens when the popcorn they get is good? They talk about how good it is with each other. And when it comes to looking at, and hopefully later discussing, the big issues like suicide, that’s a pretty good start.
If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal feelings or other problems, remember that you’re not alone. Help is available. Contact your local distress line, crisis centre, mental health office or councilling service to get help. Contact information is usally available in your local Yellow Pages or online.
For now, let’s put aside the whole debate about high vs. low culture, pop vs. the classics. Let’s not get into an epic, bicep-flexing, taunt-throwing, electrified slugfest about why the so-called elite lump comics as a body together, making no distinction between Wolverine and Maus, as they dismiss this nearly hundred-year-old art form as vulgar or scripted pose-offs, while extolling the pretentious dreck of Margaret Atwood and Louis Hemon. Let’s just treat comics and their movie spin-offs as pieces of our larger cultural tapestry.
Issue number one of “Darkness Falls” centres on a pudgy young artist struggling with life as he deals with bullying from teachers, fellow students and parents, as well as the harsh realities of existence on his first nation’s reserve. All of this causes him to question his self-worth and to consider suicide. During a tale spun by a native elder, the boy connects to his culture through a trickster spirit-turned-superhero who battles the evil phantom that preys on those who become lost, confused or despairing. In the end, the boy defeats the evil spirit and his suicidal feelings by declaring that he wants to live.
Right off the bat, I’ll tell ya this book has got some great art. The superhero and monster are standard fare, but it’s the vivid bleakness of the prairies at sundown that’s so perfectly captured as it both contrasts and compliments the brooding claustrophobia of a high school or household where you think everyone’s out to get you.
And the comic is to be credited for its cultural empowerment value. It’s important for youth of all cultures to see themselves positively represented in media, and this is especially true of first nations kids who must learn to hold on to their heritage as they deal with today’s challenges. Allowing the kid who’s seemingly the victim of a problem to step in and not only assist, but save his own hero by himself driving off the bad guy is an example more youth (from every culture) need to have more often.
Some may say, and rightly so, that the storyline itself isn’t terribly complex. That it’s the hit-you-over-the-head simplicity of dealing with tough issues that’s typical of Saturday morning cartoons, that it’s the light and fluffy, buttery sweet fare of movie theatre popcorn.
Admittedly, the reality is that suicidal feelings sometimes take a lot of councilling and soul-searching to overcome, and simply constructing a superheroic adventure around an elder’s story, all presented over the course of a single day in a single comic issue, probably wouldn’t be enough to work through a crisis.
And to be sure, this sort of treatment of “the big issues” is par for the course in comics. The cheap presentation of good vs. evil, of justice and social responsibility, friendship, loyalty and true love are played out every week in volumes galore of Marvel and DC. This is taken off the page and onto the screen in their movie adaptations, as we’ve seen recently with “X-Men: Last Stand” and its treatment of genetic tinkering and revision, social acceptance, pride in being what you are, revenge, self sacrifice and genocide.
Critics may argue this simplistic presentation of complex issues is harmful to youth, giving them a black and white view of a very grey world, or that it gives the impression that such issues can be solved quickly and relatively easily, or that a “good guy” facing a challenge can succeed by sheer force of being right and the possibility of failure is an empty fear.
I say there’s nothing wrong with comics or their movie spin-offs dealing with the big tough issues, even if they do it simply.
I’ve known a number of people over the years, and seen and heard interviews with others, who’ve said reading comics early on gave them important lessons on right and wrong because comics were an entertaining medium that was easy to identify with and the simple presentation of the morals within made them easy to grasp at a young age. As such, it’s eminently wise for aboriginal groups to get into comics to affect how those moral are illustrated and to present to youth the tough issues, such as suicide, which face some of them. They’re taking a widespread and youth-accepted pop culture medium and making it their own to present positive role models to their youngsters and to deliver messages that youth can get help with problems, that youth can empower themselves, and that there is hope.
But most importantly, I think the presentation of big issues in the comic format is valid because comics (like literature, movies, paintings, television, sculpture, music, theatre, photography – did I leave any out?) are ideally the beginning of dialogue, both internal and external, as well as entertainment. They are not, as some critics would warn, a closed system where a youth is fed an idea and never given the opportunity to explore it further. We all know that when kids lock onto an idea that interests them, or touches them emotionally in some way, they’re relentless in their pursuit of more information about it – especially now in the computer age. Whether they talk with friends, parents, elders or hunt down information on the internet or in a library, youth who want information usually know how to get it. Presenting issues such as suicide on a comic book platform is a way of getting kids thinking about how they can help themselves or others deal with crisis. It’s the creation of talking points where the youth can bounce the issue off of other people and perhaps get a deeper understanding of the issue and get directed towards sources of help. In an age where many adults complain about how hard it is to talk to youth, the wise person finds common ground or language – finds out what a kid is interested in so that they can talk with the kid about something that interests him in order to build mutual understanding, trust, and meaningful dialogue about important issues.
Maybe then, you might say that a better metaphor for big issues in comics is that of a salad, instead of popcorn, because it comes before the more complex and filling entre, as opposed to popcorn, which usually doesn’t come before anything else, unless you’re dining out at the local pub and the entre is 5 cent wings, and if that’s the case, it’s entirely possible (as a critic might worry) that you may not be having wings at all and the popcorn itself might constitute the entire solid portion of the meal. But I’ll stick with popcorn because to use salad for some reason leads me to soup, and that makes me think of Sean Connery’s line in Finding Forrester about “soup questions” which have to do more with obtaining information useful to oneself, instead of presenting ideas for discussion – although, you could argue they’re kind of the same thing. But I digress. I’m babbling.
I also like popcorn as metaphor for the big issues because the reality is that popcorn by itself is attractive, it’s a draw. How could you not like that combination of airy crunch, salt, and buttery sweetness (unless of course, you break a tooth on an errant kernel or choke on a bit of kernel husk – okay, I’m babbling again)? Go to any movie theatre or sports arena and you’ll see the popcorn stand keeps everyone, young and old, coming back for more. And what invariably happens when the popcorn they get is good? They talk about how good it is with each other. And when it comes to looking at, and hopefully later discussing, the big issues like suicide, that’s a pretty good start.
If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal feelings or other problems, remember that you’re not alone. Help is available. Contact your local distress line, crisis centre, mental health office or councilling service to get help. Contact information is usally available in your local Yellow Pages or online.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
DaVinci Dementia
I’m officially joining just about every other loudmouth in the universe weighing in on the bloody DaVinci Code pop culture tidal wave.
Just to make it clear right off the top, I have not read Dan Brown’s book. Yep, I’m one of those 5 or 6 people left in the world you’ve probably heard about who hasn’t bothered to pick it up. This is not because of some irrational contempt like that vomited by the frothing fundamentalist idiots calling themselves the Christian right. Nor have I ignored it out of pure snobbery – although, admittedly, I have dug my heels in and kept my focus firmly on the pile of books I already have because I hate the whole peer-pressure thing associated with big book releases these days: I do not have to read anything just because everyone else has. No, the simple fact is that since its release I’ve had far too many books to read which I know will definitely be worthwhile to bother with that pile of over-hyped pages. No, if you’re looking for a review of the book, I’d suggest you check out Diane Walton’s great review “Cracking the Code” on the On Spec magazine blog
No, aside from hearing the odd tidbit from my wife and several friends who’ve read it, and what the reviewers have given away, I went into it cold when my wife and I went to see the movie version of The DaVinci Code at a matinee on Victoria Day.
DaVerdict: it wasn’t a bad movie. But it wasn’t that good either.
On my movie ratings scale of :
-Must see on opening night
-Definitely worth paying full price to see in the theatre
-Wait until cheapo Tuesday or the second-run cinema
-Wait to rent it on video
-Wait to see it for free on TV
-Not worth seeing at all
-Risk of causing brain death
I’d say The DaVinci Code was probably worth waiting to see on TV.
To be fair, Ron Howard has shot a beautiful movie to look at.
But the plot is absurdly predictable and the characters are clichéd. I mean, come on, Silas the albino assassin monk? Does anyone know if George Lucas has launched litigation for copyright infringement of Darth Maul?! And Sir Lee (with all due respect to the great Sir Ian McKellan) may as well have been one of Heilein’s curmudgeons (minus the bevy of nymphos) screaming “Front!” when he wants a servant to bark orders at.
My suggestion is to find superior alternatives from the big and small screens. If you want to see the adventures of a raven-haired beauty (and her faithful sidekicks) who finds out she’s the descendant of Christ, get yourself a copy of the hilarious and clever “Dogma” by Kevin Smith. Want something a little more serious but keeping with the religious “artifact” theme, go to those solid standards: the Indiana Jones movies. Is it conspiracies you’re looking for? Why not the X-Files series and movie, or, if you’re in the mood to wind the ol’ way-back machine, try The Prisoner (word on the street is they’re fixing to do a remake). And if you just like looking at pretty old European buildings, any number of films will do, but I’ll suggest the jolly good romp of “Four Weddings And A Funeral” or even the utter ridiculousness of “Blame It On The Bellboy”.
I think the real conspiracy of the DaVinci Code isn’t so much the fictions or real allegations built around the Catholic Church (not that I’m a defender of Rome, ‘cause I’m certainly not), rather it’s the push to get people to see a film or buy a book that’s ultimately forgettable.
Just to make it clear right off the top, I have not read Dan Brown’s book. Yep, I’m one of those 5 or 6 people left in the world you’ve probably heard about who hasn’t bothered to pick it up. This is not because of some irrational contempt like that vomited by the frothing fundamentalist idiots calling themselves the Christian right. Nor have I ignored it out of pure snobbery – although, admittedly, I have dug my heels in and kept my focus firmly on the pile of books I already have because I hate the whole peer-pressure thing associated with big book releases these days: I do not have to read anything just because everyone else has. No, the simple fact is that since its release I’ve had far too many books to read which I know will definitely be worthwhile to bother with that pile of over-hyped pages. No, if you’re looking for a review of the book, I’d suggest you check out Diane Walton’s great review “Cracking the Code” on the On Spec magazine blog
No, aside from hearing the odd tidbit from my wife and several friends who’ve read it, and what the reviewers have given away, I went into it cold when my wife and I went to see the movie version of The DaVinci Code at a matinee on Victoria Day.
DaVerdict: it wasn’t a bad movie. But it wasn’t that good either.
On my movie ratings scale of :
-Must see on opening night
-Definitely worth paying full price to see in the theatre
-Wait until cheapo Tuesday or the second-run cinema
-Wait to rent it on video
-Wait to see it for free on TV
-Not worth seeing at all
-Risk of causing brain death
I’d say The DaVinci Code was probably worth waiting to see on TV.
To be fair, Ron Howard has shot a beautiful movie to look at.
But the plot is absurdly predictable and the characters are clichéd. I mean, come on, Silas the albino assassin monk? Does anyone know if George Lucas has launched litigation for copyright infringement of Darth Maul?! And Sir Lee (with all due respect to the great Sir Ian McKellan) may as well have been one of Heilein’s curmudgeons (minus the bevy of nymphos) screaming “Front!” when he wants a servant to bark orders at.
My suggestion is to find superior alternatives from the big and small screens. If you want to see the adventures of a raven-haired beauty (and her faithful sidekicks) who finds out she’s the descendant of Christ, get yourself a copy of the hilarious and clever “Dogma” by Kevin Smith. Want something a little more serious but keeping with the religious “artifact” theme, go to those solid standards: the Indiana Jones movies. Is it conspiracies you’re looking for? Why not the X-Files series and movie, or, if you’re in the mood to wind the ol’ way-back machine, try The Prisoner (word on the street is they’re fixing to do a remake). And if you just like looking at pretty old European buildings, any number of films will do, but I’ll suggest the jolly good romp of “Four Weddings And A Funeral” or even the utter ridiculousness of “Blame It On The Bellboy”.
I think the real conspiracy of the DaVinci Code isn’t so much the fictions or real allegations built around the Catholic Church (not that I’m a defender of Rome, ‘cause I’m certainly not), rather it’s the push to get people to see a film or buy a book that’s ultimately forgettable.
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Protoculture, Patios, and Attempts at Godhood
Spring came stampeding down Vancouver’s Robson Street like a flock of flamingos this week. To be sure, we’ve had a fair share of sunny days here on the Wet Coast over the past two months, but often grudgingly, and never terribly warm. This week though, ah, sun and summery highs in the mid to high 20’s. (That sound you hear now is the collective grating of teeth from every inhabitant of Ontario and Quebec still slogging through spring rains, with nothing to look forward to afterwards but a summer forecast of brutal record heat and the usual psychosis-inducing humidity)
The point here is not to gush about how great I think Vancouver is (if I wanted to do that, I’d strap on a kilt, doff my drawers and launch into a rendition of that old Scottish chestnut “These are my mountains and this is my home!” – which would probably drive off every other resident of the Lower Mainland and insure that it was my home and no-one else’s), or to thumb my nose at easterners (as fun as that is – and I say that as someone born and raised in Ontario). No, the point is to illustrate how a stray thought can transform the mundane into the surreal.
-Which is not to say I see parts of the ordinary world in a Charles De Lint sort of way, as a fusion of the normal and the supernatural, rather in a Bradburian sense: as a loam to grow metaphor.
Grasping my hand as though she were holding a dog’s leash, my wife dragged me on an afternoon odyssey of shoe-hunting (for herself, naturally – I get brought along because she’s short and the store bags hang too low and get too heavy after she’s made 7 or 8 purchases – not an unusual sight: pushy little Chinese women dragging lumbering white guys behind them is par for the course in this town) and I glanced around: at the usual horde of women with pink tank-tops plastered across boobs propped up by every conceivable means to look like twin zeppelins at dock and white pants tight enough to see not only the panty line but the colour of the knickers in question as they ride up into the unknown and dye jobs in every shade of blonde (frequently on the same head), at the exasperated American tourists dragging their portly children along wondering where all the igloos are and why their dollar isn’t going so far, at the occasional dude with a dog and the mandatory shit bag hanging at his side, at the juice monkeys in their tight white T-shirts who’ve pumped weights until their chests and arms would put a gorilla to shame but who’ve left their legs in the same sparrow condition they were born with, the teenage girls pillaging yoga stores for the fashions more than any real desire to contort their bodies and achieve clarity of mind and soul, the matrons who are long on money and short on class parading around displaying all of their jewels and brand-names and botox work with their noses elevated above their eye level and leading harried Filipino nannies suffering under the squalls of their mistresses’ pampered larvae, the Goths, the sporty college boys with their retro-80’s mesh-backed ballcaps mounted at every conceivable angle, frazzled store clerks in the black and white uniforms of their caste just coming off shift, and every other type of rabble to stalk The Scene.
Watching the tide of bodies ebb and flow around the Starbucks, the gelato place, the Milestones, Fogg ‘N Suds, Zin, Shinnanigans, and even A Taste Of India, my attention was drawn not as much to the faces and bodies on the street, as it was to the faces and bodies on the patios abutting the street. And I wasn’t the only one. No-one could pass the fenced-off patches of concrete without looking at the denizens ensconced within.
I was reminded of a similar moment last year, when seeing the gaggle of people seated out into the sidewalk hit me with a japanimation flashback – it made me think of one sentence in particular, in fact. I’ve been chewing on an idea about our society ever since that Macross moment.
Remember that scene in Macross: Superdimensional Fortress where Breetai and the other fleet commanders are getting a history lecture from Supreme Commander Dolza? Breetai haltingly asks “What… is… pro-to-cul-ture?”
That’s what hit me looking at the outdoor seating. “What… is… pro-to-culture?”
You may wonder what the hell a term from an early 80’s anime classic has to do with drinking or dining out-of-doors.
Nothing. It was the turn of phrase.
I found myself twisting it and asking: “What is patio culture?”
Thinking about it a little longer (yes, there was steam coming out of my hairy ears and sweat beading on my bespectacled face with the effort), it occurred to me that our varieties of modern patio culture are more than just accommodations for smokers or platforms for dining al-fresco. They’re metaphors for types of religion.
Start with the easiest: restaurant patios on Robson - The Scene (pick your city, the attitudes of the people in the cool places to be – as officially sanctioned by local pop culture outlets – are all the same). People on the patios – especially the street-level patios – are self-styled gods from some ancient pantheon. That gaggle of university girls there nursing their grande caramel lattes are Aphrodite, Diana and the Muses. The ballcapped gym rats leering at them from the next table are really Thor and Baldur tearing into 10-cent wings and quaffing pints of Gastown Amber Ale. Notice how rare it is for you to see a non-hipster on the patios in the heart of The Scene? That’s the job of the hostess, the ultimate gatekeeper and judge of cool to keep the human advertisements for good times in full view in the outdoor sweet spot, and the rest of us schmucks safely tucked away in the dark inner recesses where we can’t be seen amongst the kitsch. Nightclub doormen have got nothin’ on her. You can ask all you want, be as nice as you want, make comments about the great weather until the cows come home, or even dangle a 20, but you ain’t getting in unless the girl in black with a tasteful amount of cleavage showing judges you to by worthy. She is the gatekeeper. The new Hades or Osiris. Sending you to your final eating and drinking destination, with the decision having already been made before you’ve even opened your mouth.
The patio is the place to see and be seen. It is the new Olympus. The godlings can bask in the sun, watch the breeze waft away their cigarette clouds, and feel the cool night air caress their alcohol-fired cheeks. More importantly, the diners can gaze aloofly out at the world and judge the beauty of the passers-by (or equally likely the inadequacy of their couture). They are satisfied in knowing that their comments to this effect can probably be heard by the same pedestrian. Zeus thundering his wrath above a temple never had it so good. The patio also elevates their egos – their need to be worshipped (anybody thinking about Apollo’s pathetic speech to Captain Kirk in the classic Star Trek series?) - by allowing them to see those on the outside gazing at them with envy – they know you’re thinking “Wow, She/He’s got it all! That place looks happening! Must be hard to get a table on that patio! Wouldn’t it be great to cozy up to that hottie there and down a wobblypop or five?” It abuts into the sidewalk, thrusting the cool people into the midst of the marching throng, but keeping them safely separated from the great unwashed by the unbreachable line of the waist-high iron fence. And yet, it allows for interaction. The old gods walk in the world and take part in it, even though they are protected by their divinity. Any one of the patio loungers can wave to someone on the street and say “Hey, why don’t you come and sit with us and have a few drinks?!” and that lucky soul will be admitted onto the hallowed ground, where he will have a napkin bestowed upon him which will then blow away in the breeze. In this, it’s like the woodland abodes of the ancient gods – places where Bacchus and his cronies could party it up while mere mortals trembled in the bushes at the sight, until they were invited to partake in the festivities.
It’s also like the home of ancient gods because nearly everyone wants onto the patio – it’s where the good times are! You can see those good times right there in front of you, just a metre or two away! People will queue up for hours just to get a patio seat – unless you know the hostess or look cool enough, then you’re in right away. It’s like a host of antsy Vikings petitioning to get into the mead-halls of Valhalla.
And like any home of the gods, it’s perfectly manicured and controlled in its attempt to create a precise image of the kind of cool it wants to generate. Plants only in pots where they should be. Heat lamps standing tastefully at attention at strategic distances from the restaurant door or suspended like red suns of Krypton from the eaves to gently bake the bar nymphs as they daintily sip their ambrosiac bellinis on otherwise chill late spring or early fall nights.
Ultimately, the patio is also like a pantheon because it is doomed. As the Norse gods knew Fenrir the wolf waited for the dinnerbell of Ragnarok, so those-who-would-be-gods who assume mastery of the patio know that it’s only for a span of a few months before the onslaught of winter forces the chairs and tables off the sidewalk.
And we can see other types of patio culture as illustrations of other kinds of ancient religions.
Take settin’ out on the front porch (your choice of open or mosquito-mesh-enclosed) on a sticky summer’s night. Something you see more in Ontario, Quebec, the Maritimes and maybe some neighbourhoods in parts of Manitoba, than here out West. This laid-back patio lifestyle is the perfect analogy for aboriginal shamanism.
The porch on a summer’s eve is the crossroads of the worlds of man, nature, and spirit – or rather, it is the illustration that they’re not separate worlds, but intertwining facets of the same existence.
The porch, though man’s creation, is side-by-side with the yard, but neither is mutually exclusive. The grass or weeds from the lawn may spill over onto parts of the porch. The leaves, flower petals, grass clippings and dandylion down all blow freely onto the porch. Bird crap is often allowed to fossilize onto the railings. And man’s creations spill into nature: splinters from the railings, coins, cigarette butts, ice cubes, broken glass, marbles, toys and all manner of snacks may slip, blow or be kicked off the edge and into the grass or flower beds or fall through the cracks between the boards to the dark places beneath. The porch itself, while man-made, is often weathered. Even on the most fastidiously maintained front stoops, there’s bound to be faded or peeling paint, warped or cracked boards or concrete, and possibly old furniture, maybe rusting, maybe bleached by the sun and smelling faintly of mildew from the rain making it past the awning.
It’s a place of levels, where one can sit on a chair, slightly lower on a step, lean on a railing, in some cases crawl into the dark spider-and-worm cavern underneath, hang from rafters, step through a creaking screen door into the house or tumble down onto the lawn. It is the manifestation of the idea that a man or spirit can freely move from the village to the dreamtime and back to the forest.
And just as shamanism acknowledges that man shares the world on an equal footing with the animals and spirits – all moving freely into and out of the world, that life and death are intertwined and that power relations can shift, so too does the porch. Grandpa may sit on the steps, the family dog gnawing a sheep’s kneebone on the porch as both watch the kids running around the maple tree in the middle of the lawn; a sparrow roosts on one of the beams above; Gramma knits in the rocking chair, a cat on her lap; the afternoon’s lazy flies give way to the evening’s more determined mosquitos; Dad leans over the railing to inspect the moss crawling up the concrete on the foundation of the house; a spider inspects the day’s catch in her web in the corner; Mom puts down her book and goes into the house to get a jacket; a neighbour comes ambling over from the sidewalk to say “hi”; an owl alights on top of the awning as twilight deepens; and two teenagers cuddle on an old couch against the side of the house after everyone else has gone inside.
As shamanistic cultures become sparse as they’re marginalized by “modern” societies and their members are absorbed into the dominant traditions, so too the way of the porch is becoming rare. Suburbs continue to explode into what was once farmland, but the increase in housing has seen a decrease in neighbourhoods. People don’t know their neighbours any more. Horror stories on the news make people distrustful of their neighbours too. How many people stop weeding the garden or mowing the lawn to chat with the guy next door and maybe have a beer? Gone is community parenting. Fading are the impromptu block road-hockey games and baseball games in the empty lot at the end of the street. They’ve been replaced by carpools to organized sports leagues and protracted video game campaigns. Kids don’t go and bang on their friends’ doors anymore. Now they have “play dates” arranged over cellphones with individually-identifying ringtones. Neighbourhood barbeque or block party? Nope. Street garage sale? Can’t – might violate the strata bylaws. Jane Jacobs warned in “Dark Age Ahead” that this growing isolation is a forerunner of societal collapse, and look what’s happened to aboriginal cultures stripped of their heritage by colonization and imposed values. Jacobs’ words might not be so far-fetched. Even if you don’t take this kind of apocalyptic view, even if you take all the nostalgia with a hefty grain of salt, you have to admit those easy-going evenings of only 20 years ago were a lot nicer.
To be sure, there are pockets of resistance, where settin’ out on the porch of a summer’s evenin’ is still a way of life. I hope it’ll see a resurgence.
That brings us to a more modern form of religion: monotheism. That is the apartment/condo balcony.
The Judeo/Christian/Muslim tradition teaches that God is all-seeing, all-powerful, and perched in his distant heaven that’s attainable for mortal man only through strict adherence to certain values. That’s not too removed from the realities of the balcony: it’s owned by one person/family, it’s usually physically high up – mounted on the side of a building with a view either of scenery, other apartments or the city streets below, and if you, as an outsider/non-owner are ever to hope to rise above the crowd on the sidewalk and get up to where the air might be fresher or the view of the fireworks/festival/sunset might be better, complete with drinks and snacks, you’ve got to prove your worth to the Power above (otherwise known as the guy with his name on the lease/deed).
That’s right, merely knowing in your heart that the balcony, complete with its view and beer and barbeque, exists isn’t enough! No, you’ve got to be friends with the owner, which means you have to share the same values (more or less) and spend countless hours in communication (your choice of in person/by phone/over the net) – so, let’s call a spade a spade and say “in prayer”.
Moreover, while anyone can imagine a balcony, not just anyone can see the owner. No, up there he or she can look down at you and see just how much you’re balding on the back of your head or whether you scratch your balls when you think no-one is looking, but if you look up, it’s unlikely you’ll catch a glimpse of the high one unless they want you to. If the Lord works in mysterious ways and appears only to the chosen, we can see the symmetry with the apartment-dweller who chooses when he’ll lean over the railing and wave and call down to you, and when he’ll simply stay away from the edge and appear to not be at home.
And if you, oh lowly one, are deemed worthy, your pleas at the holy call box at the front door (and let’s face it, some building entrances are ornate enough to compete with churches/mosques/synagogues) will be answered, and you will be granted admittance. You’ll rise (in an elevator of course, which may or may not contain cheap advertising panels displaying curious combinations of restaurant brochures, sex service ads and pamphlets offering to help you find true faith and enlightenment – wait a minute, does that make those panels like the grail?) to that “de-lux apartment in the sky-y-y”, far above the great unwashed and mosquitos and the pollen to that perfectly controlled environment hovering in the air where there will be fine whiskeys and sizzling steaks and binoculars and witty conversation and comfortable chairs and all manner of salty snacks. And like heaven, once you’re there, you’ve got to abide by the rules and whims of your host or be judged as wanting, cast out, and forced to descend back into the crowd and the heat and the false light of neon and the danger of mugging and the noise and the fumes of the street, never to return. Were Dante and Milton writing from 19th storey 2-bedroom strata lots?
Lastly, we arrive at agnosticism and atheism – respectively the belief that there might be something out there, but we don’t know its nature, and the denial in any sort of deity. That’s an apartment without a balcony. Nothing outwardly visible up there except windows glittering like stars and nothing beyond your imagination hinting at whether anyone’s behind them, or if there is, if that person’s even bothering to look down at you or cares one whit whether you’re there or not. The apartment dweller in front of his TV isn’t even a part of the world at all to the man on the street.
On the flip side, is the man who may be behind the window like the Buddha, having left the chaos of the world behind for some inner quiet? Or is he merely Narcissus substituting a TV, book, piano, porno mag, computer or stereo for a pool to mirror his own ideas?
So what is patio culture? Well, Commander Breetai, it’s where the mundane world becomes metaphor, where life unwittingly gains spirituality, whether the aspiration (conscious or unconscious) of a hipster toward godhood, the gentle acceptance of coexistence with other elements of the world – both seen and unseen, the desire to rise above the common to a better place, or a great mystery or absence.
Where do you sit when you’re outside?
The point here is not to gush about how great I think Vancouver is (if I wanted to do that, I’d strap on a kilt, doff my drawers and launch into a rendition of that old Scottish chestnut “These are my mountains and this is my home!” – which would probably drive off every other resident of the Lower Mainland and insure that it was my home and no-one else’s), or to thumb my nose at easterners (as fun as that is – and I say that as someone born and raised in Ontario). No, the point is to illustrate how a stray thought can transform the mundane into the surreal.
-Which is not to say I see parts of the ordinary world in a Charles De Lint sort of way, as a fusion of the normal and the supernatural, rather in a Bradburian sense: as a loam to grow metaphor.
Grasping my hand as though she were holding a dog’s leash, my wife dragged me on an afternoon odyssey of shoe-hunting (for herself, naturally – I get brought along because she’s short and the store bags hang too low and get too heavy after she’s made 7 or 8 purchases – not an unusual sight: pushy little Chinese women dragging lumbering white guys behind them is par for the course in this town) and I glanced around: at the usual horde of women with pink tank-tops plastered across boobs propped up by every conceivable means to look like twin zeppelins at dock and white pants tight enough to see not only the panty line but the colour of the knickers in question as they ride up into the unknown and dye jobs in every shade of blonde (frequently on the same head), at the exasperated American tourists dragging their portly children along wondering where all the igloos are and why their dollar isn’t going so far, at the occasional dude with a dog and the mandatory shit bag hanging at his side, at the juice monkeys in their tight white T-shirts who’ve pumped weights until their chests and arms would put a gorilla to shame but who’ve left their legs in the same sparrow condition they were born with, the teenage girls pillaging yoga stores for the fashions more than any real desire to contort their bodies and achieve clarity of mind and soul, the matrons who are long on money and short on class parading around displaying all of their jewels and brand-names and botox work with their noses elevated above their eye level and leading harried Filipino nannies suffering under the squalls of their mistresses’ pampered larvae, the Goths, the sporty college boys with their retro-80’s mesh-backed ballcaps mounted at every conceivable angle, frazzled store clerks in the black and white uniforms of their caste just coming off shift, and every other type of rabble to stalk The Scene.
Watching the tide of bodies ebb and flow around the Starbucks, the gelato place, the Milestones, Fogg ‘N Suds, Zin, Shinnanigans, and even A Taste Of India, my attention was drawn not as much to the faces and bodies on the street, as it was to the faces and bodies on the patios abutting the street. And I wasn’t the only one. No-one could pass the fenced-off patches of concrete without looking at the denizens ensconced within.
I was reminded of a similar moment last year, when seeing the gaggle of people seated out into the sidewalk hit me with a japanimation flashback – it made me think of one sentence in particular, in fact. I’ve been chewing on an idea about our society ever since that Macross moment.
Remember that scene in Macross: Superdimensional Fortress where Breetai and the other fleet commanders are getting a history lecture from Supreme Commander Dolza? Breetai haltingly asks “What… is… pro-to-cul-ture?”
That’s what hit me looking at the outdoor seating. “What… is… pro-to-culture?”
You may wonder what the hell a term from an early 80’s anime classic has to do with drinking or dining out-of-doors.
Nothing. It was the turn of phrase.
I found myself twisting it and asking: “What is patio culture?”
Thinking about it a little longer (yes, there was steam coming out of my hairy ears and sweat beading on my bespectacled face with the effort), it occurred to me that our varieties of modern patio culture are more than just accommodations for smokers or platforms for dining al-fresco. They’re metaphors for types of religion.
Start with the easiest: restaurant patios on Robson - The Scene (pick your city, the attitudes of the people in the cool places to be – as officially sanctioned by local pop culture outlets – are all the same). People on the patios – especially the street-level patios – are self-styled gods from some ancient pantheon. That gaggle of university girls there nursing their grande caramel lattes are Aphrodite, Diana and the Muses. The ballcapped gym rats leering at them from the next table are really Thor and Baldur tearing into 10-cent wings and quaffing pints of Gastown Amber Ale. Notice how rare it is for you to see a non-hipster on the patios in the heart of The Scene? That’s the job of the hostess, the ultimate gatekeeper and judge of cool to keep the human advertisements for good times in full view in the outdoor sweet spot, and the rest of us schmucks safely tucked away in the dark inner recesses where we can’t be seen amongst the kitsch. Nightclub doormen have got nothin’ on her. You can ask all you want, be as nice as you want, make comments about the great weather until the cows come home, or even dangle a 20, but you ain’t getting in unless the girl in black with a tasteful amount of cleavage showing judges you to by worthy. She is the gatekeeper. The new Hades or Osiris. Sending you to your final eating and drinking destination, with the decision having already been made before you’ve even opened your mouth.
The patio is the place to see and be seen. It is the new Olympus. The godlings can bask in the sun, watch the breeze waft away their cigarette clouds, and feel the cool night air caress their alcohol-fired cheeks. More importantly, the diners can gaze aloofly out at the world and judge the beauty of the passers-by (or equally likely the inadequacy of their couture). They are satisfied in knowing that their comments to this effect can probably be heard by the same pedestrian. Zeus thundering his wrath above a temple never had it so good. The patio also elevates their egos – their need to be worshipped (anybody thinking about Apollo’s pathetic speech to Captain Kirk in the classic Star Trek series?) - by allowing them to see those on the outside gazing at them with envy – they know you’re thinking “Wow, She/He’s got it all! That place looks happening! Must be hard to get a table on that patio! Wouldn’t it be great to cozy up to that hottie there and down a wobblypop or five?” It abuts into the sidewalk, thrusting the cool people into the midst of the marching throng, but keeping them safely separated from the great unwashed by the unbreachable line of the waist-high iron fence. And yet, it allows for interaction. The old gods walk in the world and take part in it, even though they are protected by their divinity. Any one of the patio loungers can wave to someone on the street and say “Hey, why don’t you come and sit with us and have a few drinks?!” and that lucky soul will be admitted onto the hallowed ground, where he will have a napkin bestowed upon him which will then blow away in the breeze. In this, it’s like the woodland abodes of the ancient gods – places where Bacchus and his cronies could party it up while mere mortals trembled in the bushes at the sight, until they were invited to partake in the festivities.
It’s also like the home of ancient gods because nearly everyone wants onto the patio – it’s where the good times are! You can see those good times right there in front of you, just a metre or two away! People will queue up for hours just to get a patio seat – unless you know the hostess or look cool enough, then you’re in right away. It’s like a host of antsy Vikings petitioning to get into the mead-halls of Valhalla.
And like any home of the gods, it’s perfectly manicured and controlled in its attempt to create a precise image of the kind of cool it wants to generate. Plants only in pots where they should be. Heat lamps standing tastefully at attention at strategic distances from the restaurant door or suspended like red suns of Krypton from the eaves to gently bake the bar nymphs as they daintily sip their ambrosiac bellinis on otherwise chill late spring or early fall nights.
Ultimately, the patio is also like a pantheon because it is doomed. As the Norse gods knew Fenrir the wolf waited for the dinnerbell of Ragnarok, so those-who-would-be-gods who assume mastery of the patio know that it’s only for a span of a few months before the onslaught of winter forces the chairs and tables off the sidewalk.
And we can see other types of patio culture as illustrations of other kinds of ancient religions.
Take settin’ out on the front porch (your choice of open or mosquito-mesh-enclosed) on a sticky summer’s night. Something you see more in Ontario, Quebec, the Maritimes and maybe some neighbourhoods in parts of Manitoba, than here out West. This laid-back patio lifestyle is the perfect analogy for aboriginal shamanism.
The porch on a summer’s eve is the crossroads of the worlds of man, nature, and spirit – or rather, it is the illustration that they’re not separate worlds, but intertwining facets of the same existence.
The porch, though man’s creation, is side-by-side with the yard, but neither is mutually exclusive. The grass or weeds from the lawn may spill over onto parts of the porch. The leaves, flower petals, grass clippings and dandylion down all blow freely onto the porch. Bird crap is often allowed to fossilize onto the railings. And man’s creations spill into nature: splinters from the railings, coins, cigarette butts, ice cubes, broken glass, marbles, toys and all manner of snacks may slip, blow or be kicked off the edge and into the grass or flower beds or fall through the cracks between the boards to the dark places beneath. The porch itself, while man-made, is often weathered. Even on the most fastidiously maintained front stoops, there’s bound to be faded or peeling paint, warped or cracked boards or concrete, and possibly old furniture, maybe rusting, maybe bleached by the sun and smelling faintly of mildew from the rain making it past the awning.
It’s a place of levels, where one can sit on a chair, slightly lower on a step, lean on a railing, in some cases crawl into the dark spider-and-worm cavern underneath, hang from rafters, step through a creaking screen door into the house or tumble down onto the lawn. It is the manifestation of the idea that a man or spirit can freely move from the village to the dreamtime and back to the forest.
And just as shamanism acknowledges that man shares the world on an equal footing with the animals and spirits – all moving freely into and out of the world, that life and death are intertwined and that power relations can shift, so too does the porch. Grandpa may sit on the steps, the family dog gnawing a sheep’s kneebone on the porch as both watch the kids running around the maple tree in the middle of the lawn; a sparrow roosts on one of the beams above; Gramma knits in the rocking chair, a cat on her lap; the afternoon’s lazy flies give way to the evening’s more determined mosquitos; Dad leans over the railing to inspect the moss crawling up the concrete on the foundation of the house; a spider inspects the day’s catch in her web in the corner; Mom puts down her book and goes into the house to get a jacket; a neighbour comes ambling over from the sidewalk to say “hi”; an owl alights on top of the awning as twilight deepens; and two teenagers cuddle on an old couch against the side of the house after everyone else has gone inside.
As shamanistic cultures become sparse as they’re marginalized by “modern” societies and their members are absorbed into the dominant traditions, so too the way of the porch is becoming rare. Suburbs continue to explode into what was once farmland, but the increase in housing has seen a decrease in neighbourhoods. People don’t know their neighbours any more. Horror stories on the news make people distrustful of their neighbours too. How many people stop weeding the garden or mowing the lawn to chat with the guy next door and maybe have a beer? Gone is community parenting. Fading are the impromptu block road-hockey games and baseball games in the empty lot at the end of the street. They’ve been replaced by carpools to organized sports leagues and protracted video game campaigns. Kids don’t go and bang on their friends’ doors anymore. Now they have “play dates” arranged over cellphones with individually-identifying ringtones. Neighbourhood barbeque or block party? Nope. Street garage sale? Can’t – might violate the strata bylaws. Jane Jacobs warned in “Dark Age Ahead” that this growing isolation is a forerunner of societal collapse, and look what’s happened to aboriginal cultures stripped of their heritage by colonization and imposed values. Jacobs’ words might not be so far-fetched. Even if you don’t take this kind of apocalyptic view, even if you take all the nostalgia with a hefty grain of salt, you have to admit those easy-going evenings of only 20 years ago were a lot nicer.
To be sure, there are pockets of resistance, where settin’ out on the porch of a summer’s evenin’ is still a way of life. I hope it’ll see a resurgence.
That brings us to a more modern form of religion: monotheism. That is the apartment/condo balcony.
The Judeo/Christian/Muslim tradition teaches that God is all-seeing, all-powerful, and perched in his distant heaven that’s attainable for mortal man only through strict adherence to certain values. That’s not too removed from the realities of the balcony: it’s owned by one person/family, it’s usually physically high up – mounted on the side of a building with a view either of scenery, other apartments or the city streets below, and if you, as an outsider/non-owner are ever to hope to rise above the crowd on the sidewalk and get up to where the air might be fresher or the view of the fireworks/festival/sunset might be better, complete with drinks and snacks, you’ve got to prove your worth to the Power above (otherwise known as the guy with his name on the lease/deed).
That’s right, merely knowing in your heart that the balcony, complete with its view and beer and barbeque, exists isn’t enough! No, you’ve got to be friends with the owner, which means you have to share the same values (more or less) and spend countless hours in communication (your choice of in person/by phone/over the net) – so, let’s call a spade a spade and say “in prayer”.
Moreover, while anyone can imagine a balcony, not just anyone can see the owner. No, up there he or she can look down at you and see just how much you’re balding on the back of your head or whether you scratch your balls when you think no-one is looking, but if you look up, it’s unlikely you’ll catch a glimpse of the high one unless they want you to. If the Lord works in mysterious ways and appears only to the chosen, we can see the symmetry with the apartment-dweller who chooses when he’ll lean over the railing and wave and call down to you, and when he’ll simply stay away from the edge and appear to not be at home.
And if you, oh lowly one, are deemed worthy, your pleas at the holy call box at the front door (and let’s face it, some building entrances are ornate enough to compete with churches/mosques/synagogues) will be answered, and you will be granted admittance. You’ll rise (in an elevator of course, which may or may not contain cheap advertising panels displaying curious combinations of restaurant brochures, sex service ads and pamphlets offering to help you find true faith and enlightenment – wait a minute, does that make those panels like the grail?) to that “de-lux apartment in the sky-y-y”, far above the great unwashed and mosquitos and the pollen to that perfectly controlled environment hovering in the air where there will be fine whiskeys and sizzling steaks and binoculars and witty conversation and comfortable chairs and all manner of salty snacks. And like heaven, once you’re there, you’ve got to abide by the rules and whims of your host or be judged as wanting, cast out, and forced to descend back into the crowd and the heat and the false light of neon and the danger of mugging and the noise and the fumes of the street, never to return. Were Dante and Milton writing from 19th storey 2-bedroom strata lots?
Lastly, we arrive at agnosticism and atheism – respectively the belief that there might be something out there, but we don’t know its nature, and the denial in any sort of deity. That’s an apartment without a balcony. Nothing outwardly visible up there except windows glittering like stars and nothing beyond your imagination hinting at whether anyone’s behind them, or if there is, if that person’s even bothering to look down at you or cares one whit whether you’re there or not. The apartment dweller in front of his TV isn’t even a part of the world at all to the man on the street.
On the flip side, is the man who may be behind the window like the Buddha, having left the chaos of the world behind for some inner quiet? Or is he merely Narcissus substituting a TV, book, piano, porno mag, computer or stereo for a pool to mirror his own ideas?
So what is patio culture? Well, Commander Breetai, it’s where the mundane world becomes metaphor, where life unwittingly gains spirituality, whether the aspiration (conscious or unconscious) of a hipster toward godhood, the gentle acceptance of coexistence with other elements of the world – both seen and unseen, the desire to rise above the common to a better place, or a great mystery or absence.
Where do you sit when you’re outside?
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Lost in Hypaspace
First of all, folks, sorry for my month-long hiatus from the old SF soapbox. It’s been one of those Dickensian periods – the best of times, the worst of times. The positive distractions have taken the form of babies – the birth of my nephew, the imminent births of a number of friends’ babies, and the announced pregnancies of many, many more friends. All of these have been accompanied by a chorus of friends insisting that it’s time for my wife and I to think about having one of our own. Career obligations mean that’ll be a couple of years off though. On the down side, a family friend has died in the prime of his life and we’ve been quite concerned for his widow and their two pre-teen kids. Throw in day-to-day work and a flurry of technical problems as I try to cobble together our wedding video here on our home computer, and you’ll understand why I’ve been a little remiss.
Anyway, I’m back.
For this installment, I’d like to bitch about problems with the navigation of Hypaspace. That’s Hype-a-space, not hyperspace – referring to an SF news/gossip show airing on Canada’s Space channel. The navigation problems I speak of don’t involve me having lost my tv remote control or suddenly forgetting what channel the station’s been assigned or problems finding the station & show’s web address. No, I mean the damn show’s gone so far off course it’s in imminent danger of being lost. Lost from what it originally was intended to do – to give news and reviews of speculative fiction in movies, tv, literature and comics. And by extension, at risk of being lost from the attention of fans.
Over the past year, Hypaspace has watered itself down and surrendered to commercialism. By watered-down I mean the content has now become dominated by movie previews, many of which do not remotely involve any elements of science fiction, fantasy, horror, magic realism, or anything else vaguely off the beaten path. How many hours of programming have been lost to trailers, interviews and gossip about movies like Mission Impossible III? Leave that to mainstream dreck like Entertainment Tonight. It’s not a question of not having enough SF-related material to talk about either – for years Hypaspace kept exclusively to the world of SF and managed to fill its half hour dutifully. This recent change smells like the Hollywood movie distributors who buy ad time for their movies are flexing their financial muscles to drive the content of the channel’s programming and the producers are caving like the house at the end of “Poltergeist”.
And speaking of sponsors running rampant with the content, what’s going on with the incessant new toy previews? Two years ago new figurines or ugly stuffed toys would have come up as an occasional feature, maybe during the toy industry conventions. Now they’re a 5 to 10 minute staple of every episode. For a show that only airs once a week, that’s a hell of a lot of air time. Really, the majority of the audience probably isn’t frothing at the mouth waiting to hear about the new line of Simpsons figurines that’s being released (don’t get me wrong, I love the Simpsons like everyone else – the Hallowe’en episodes are great tv).
Having been in the broadcast business, I can say the station’s getting greedy. The show’s always had a low production value, and with the consistent sponsorship they were pulling in, they must have been pulling in at least modest profits. Now they’re goin’ for the motherlode. You may argue that broadcast is a business like any other, and company owners like CHUM have to pursue profits where they can, but where that alienates the audience (no pun intended), the risk is losing the viewers who convince the advertisers to sign those fat cheques.
What they’ve sacrificed by slapping in the irrelevant content and freebie advertising are the interesting SF-related pieces of news and gossip, and the intelligent interviews with authors. There hasn’t been a decent installment of the “Shelf-Space” segment in months. Time was they’d keep track of the releases of all kinds of good books, by authors from around the world, but especially by Canadian writers (gotta inform the home audience about local talent while scoring Can-con brownie points with the CRTC) and run interviews, either conducted by their own staff at conventions, or gathered from other sources. The loss of regular book reviews and author interviews has seriously dumbed-down the show.
Even the comic feature has become infrequent. Granted, I haven’t collected comics since I graduated high school (not ‘cause I think they’re for kids, ‘cause they’re not, and I still buy one every now and again, it’s just other spending priorities like food and shelter have come up over the years), but it was always good to see what was new on the off chance that something was interesting enough to send me down to Golden Age Collectibles to check out the shelves. To be fair, last week they previewed the Simpsons comic’s upcoming issue with the return of Hank Scorpio, but they recycled their preview of “Batman: Year 100” that they’d cooked-up a few months ago. The producers are getting undermotivated as well as greedy in their old age.
Lastly, I’ve gotta gripe about the host. Bringing Kim Poirier in last summer was the worst mistake Space and its owners at CHUM have made – worse than selling-out on their content. The former host, Jonathan Llyr, sounded natural and conversational and gave the impression he actually knew what he was talking about. Not sure why, but he’s been relegated to a short gossip section at the end of the show. Even if he’d tired of doing the whole thing or had fallen out of favour, they should have used their reporter and stand-in host Natasha Eloi. She too looked like she knew what she was talking about. She’s been banished to the toy report and little else. Ms. Poirier, on the other hand, is hogging the spotlight but has no business being there. Granted, with her elfin beauty, it might be nice just to look at Kim, except she’s so utterly annoying in every other aspect. You can see how completely insecure this young actress is as she postures and arbitrarily tries to show the camera her best body angles and sassy smiles for no apparent reason – really, she’ll engage in a pose-off while delivering a poor read of something off a cue-card that she clearly neither knows or cares anything about! It’s as though she’s just trying to assemble a collection of shots to add to her portfolio to send off in advance of her next audition in an attempt to salvage her flagging on-screen career. And her delivery of the dialogue is over-the-top cheerleader style. This kid wouldn’t know how to use her voice if her life depended on it. I really can’t say enough bad things about her. She’s helped make the show nearly unwatchable.
So after this extensive rant, you’re probably wondering why, if Hypaspace seems to be so lost in space, I bother giving it any attention. I’ve often wondered that myself. But, in the end, I think it’s the minimal presence of Jonathan Llyr that draws me back. And no, for any of you out there who’ve watched the station since it hit the air, I’m not saying this for any fondness for his role as the inebriated alien in the “Space Bar” hosting segments for movies they’d run in the old days, ‘cause those were lame. No, it’s because Llyr’s entertaining and has the scoop on a lot of the SF news drifting around (when the producers and bogging him down with mainstream gossip that can be had elsewhere). In fact, his column on the Hypaspace portion of the Space website has become better than the show. The fact that he can come up with new material every day proves there’s enough out there to fill the show like they used to in the old days. Many’s the time these days when I skip the weekly tv show entirely and just do a quick check of the website to see what Llyr’s serving up.
A basic rule of broadcasting that CHUM has forgotten with Space and it’s show “Hypaspace” is audience and purpose. You need to focus. If you’re catering to a niche market like Space is, find out what the audience wants and who can best deliver it. By watering the show down with mainstream garbage and bringing in a host who’s clearly too young, dumb, and self-absorbed, the company’s shown it’s lost touch with its audience. In an age where plenty of programs are available on-line, and where production companies aren’t shy about getting tv shows out on DVD asap to boost their revenues, there’s little reason for an audience to pay attention to a station that’s lost interest in them.
Anyway, I’m back.
For this installment, I’d like to bitch about problems with the navigation of Hypaspace. That’s Hype-a-space, not hyperspace – referring to an SF news/gossip show airing on Canada’s Space channel. The navigation problems I speak of don’t involve me having lost my tv remote control or suddenly forgetting what channel the station’s been assigned or problems finding the station & show’s web address. No, I mean the damn show’s gone so far off course it’s in imminent danger of being lost. Lost from what it originally was intended to do – to give news and reviews of speculative fiction in movies, tv, literature and comics. And by extension, at risk of being lost from the attention of fans.
Over the past year, Hypaspace has watered itself down and surrendered to commercialism. By watered-down I mean the content has now become dominated by movie previews, many of which do not remotely involve any elements of science fiction, fantasy, horror, magic realism, or anything else vaguely off the beaten path. How many hours of programming have been lost to trailers, interviews and gossip about movies like Mission Impossible III? Leave that to mainstream dreck like Entertainment Tonight. It’s not a question of not having enough SF-related material to talk about either – for years Hypaspace kept exclusively to the world of SF and managed to fill its half hour dutifully. This recent change smells like the Hollywood movie distributors who buy ad time for their movies are flexing their financial muscles to drive the content of the channel’s programming and the producers are caving like the house at the end of “Poltergeist”.
And speaking of sponsors running rampant with the content, what’s going on with the incessant new toy previews? Two years ago new figurines or ugly stuffed toys would have come up as an occasional feature, maybe during the toy industry conventions. Now they’re a 5 to 10 minute staple of every episode. For a show that only airs once a week, that’s a hell of a lot of air time. Really, the majority of the audience probably isn’t frothing at the mouth waiting to hear about the new line of Simpsons figurines that’s being released (don’t get me wrong, I love the Simpsons like everyone else – the Hallowe’en episodes are great tv).
Having been in the broadcast business, I can say the station’s getting greedy. The show’s always had a low production value, and with the consistent sponsorship they were pulling in, they must have been pulling in at least modest profits. Now they’re goin’ for the motherlode. You may argue that broadcast is a business like any other, and company owners like CHUM have to pursue profits where they can, but where that alienates the audience (no pun intended), the risk is losing the viewers who convince the advertisers to sign those fat cheques.
What they’ve sacrificed by slapping in the irrelevant content and freebie advertising are the interesting SF-related pieces of news and gossip, and the intelligent interviews with authors. There hasn’t been a decent installment of the “Shelf-Space” segment in months. Time was they’d keep track of the releases of all kinds of good books, by authors from around the world, but especially by Canadian writers (gotta inform the home audience about local talent while scoring Can-con brownie points with the CRTC) and run interviews, either conducted by their own staff at conventions, or gathered from other sources. The loss of regular book reviews and author interviews has seriously dumbed-down the show.
Even the comic feature has become infrequent. Granted, I haven’t collected comics since I graduated high school (not ‘cause I think they’re for kids, ‘cause they’re not, and I still buy one every now and again, it’s just other spending priorities like food and shelter have come up over the years), but it was always good to see what was new on the off chance that something was interesting enough to send me down to Golden Age Collectibles to check out the shelves. To be fair, last week they previewed the Simpsons comic’s upcoming issue with the return of Hank Scorpio, but they recycled their preview of “Batman: Year 100” that they’d cooked-up a few months ago. The producers are getting undermotivated as well as greedy in their old age.
Lastly, I’ve gotta gripe about the host. Bringing Kim Poirier in last summer was the worst mistake Space and its owners at CHUM have made – worse than selling-out on their content. The former host, Jonathan Llyr, sounded natural and conversational and gave the impression he actually knew what he was talking about. Not sure why, but he’s been relegated to a short gossip section at the end of the show. Even if he’d tired of doing the whole thing or had fallen out of favour, they should have used their reporter and stand-in host Natasha Eloi. She too looked like she knew what she was talking about. She’s been banished to the toy report and little else. Ms. Poirier, on the other hand, is hogging the spotlight but has no business being there. Granted, with her elfin beauty, it might be nice just to look at Kim, except she’s so utterly annoying in every other aspect. You can see how completely insecure this young actress is as she postures and arbitrarily tries to show the camera her best body angles and sassy smiles for no apparent reason – really, she’ll engage in a pose-off while delivering a poor read of something off a cue-card that she clearly neither knows or cares anything about! It’s as though she’s just trying to assemble a collection of shots to add to her portfolio to send off in advance of her next audition in an attempt to salvage her flagging on-screen career. And her delivery of the dialogue is over-the-top cheerleader style. This kid wouldn’t know how to use her voice if her life depended on it. I really can’t say enough bad things about her. She’s helped make the show nearly unwatchable.
So after this extensive rant, you’re probably wondering why, if Hypaspace seems to be so lost in space, I bother giving it any attention. I’ve often wondered that myself. But, in the end, I think it’s the minimal presence of Jonathan Llyr that draws me back. And no, for any of you out there who’ve watched the station since it hit the air, I’m not saying this for any fondness for his role as the inebriated alien in the “Space Bar” hosting segments for movies they’d run in the old days, ‘cause those were lame. No, it’s because Llyr’s entertaining and has the scoop on a lot of the SF news drifting around (when the producers and bogging him down with mainstream gossip that can be had elsewhere). In fact, his column on the Hypaspace portion of the Space website has become better than the show. The fact that he can come up with new material every day proves there’s enough out there to fill the show like they used to in the old days. Many’s the time these days when I skip the weekly tv show entirely and just do a quick check of the website to see what Llyr’s serving up.
A basic rule of broadcasting that CHUM has forgotten with Space and it’s show “Hypaspace” is audience and purpose. You need to focus. If you’re catering to a niche market like Space is, find out what the audience wants and who can best deliver it. By watering the show down with mainstream garbage and bringing in a host who’s clearly too young, dumb, and self-absorbed, the company’s shown it’s lost touch with its audience. In an age where plenty of programs are available on-line, and where production companies aren’t shy about getting tv shows out on DVD asap to boost their revenues, there’s little reason for an audience to pay attention to a station that’s lost interest in them.
Monday, March 27, 2006
The Monsters and the Critics
It was a near-miss dream of watching a movie – the uber-cinema experience: an ancient epic brought to life on the big screen, the theatre nearly all to ourselves, fresh popcorn, no mulish parents failing to pay attention to their yowling spawn in the flickering shadows of a story wildly inappropriate for youngsters… pity the film itself was wanting.
Last week the family and I trekked to our local labrynthine theatre complex to see “Beowulf & Grendel”. (Hence my borrowing of the title of a famous essay by the esteemed Professor J.R.R. Tolkien for the title of this not-anywhwere-near-so-famous blog posting.)
The fact that we even knew the movie existed, let alone that it was running in a nearby theatre was a stroke of luck even the famous beast-battling Geat would have been grateful to have. In all the previous months of production, the weeks before the premier, and even now, more than a week after it’s hit the silver screen, there has been no advertising and next to no buzz on this film. It’s a fluke we knew it existed.
To be sure, there was a blurb on Canada’s Space Channel sci-fi news show “Hypaspace” – one day after the movie hit the screen. And there was the odd review in the occasional paper, like the one my parents caught in the Ottawa Citizen. But no ads? No previews in the cinema? What the hell were the producers thinking? Granted, as a Canadian/British/Icelandic production (and admittedly, I have no idea if anything ran in the UK or Iceland), there’s no way any ads would ever hit the air on major American networks, and by extension, no chance of it ever making it to the review line-up of Ebert and his brainlessly yappy sidekick. Granted too, because it wasn’t an Alliance/Atlantis production, it would be difficult to make inroads on the Canadian networks. But no ads at all?
You can’t tell me they didn’t have the budget for it, after filming the whole thing in Iceland, one of the most expensive countries in the world to do anything, especially make a movie! If they could cobble together the funds to film this beast, the producers ought to have been able to trot out a 30 second spot or two on Space, CBC, CTV, CHUM or some of the other, smaller players. Most of the networks probably would have bit if only to write off the production & some of the cast for CanCon requirements! I mean, if they could make airtime to run commercials for “Men With Brooms” back in 2002, I think they could have given away a discount time slot for “Beowulf”. The total lack of advertising has automatically, and unfairly, set this movie up to fail, regardless of the quality of the film. I’m reminded of that old piece of broadcasting wisdom Mother Carlson told Dr. Johnny Fever on WKRP: “Sometimes you put money into a radio station because it succeeds, and sometimes you put money into a business because you need a tax write-off.”
The fact there was such a near absence of publicity makes me wonder if the theatre chains were showing “Beowulf & Grendal” as a personal favour to some member of the production team. I’d suggest the possibility of the afore-mentioned tax write-off, but the cinemas aren’t in any financial position to be losing money these days if they can help it. Moreover, I doubt it will get any more screentime beyond the end of the week.
So like I was saying, my wife and I, along with my folks (visiting from Ontario for the birth of my nephew) were the only ones in the theatre until about 5 minutes before the show started, at which point we were joined by three other couples. And that was it. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to guess most other showings had about the same turnout, if they were even that packed.
As for the movie itself… “Beowulf & Grendel” wasn’t a bad film (insert sympathetic wince). It wasn’t a great film either. It wasn’t what it could have been, not by a long shot.
To give credit where credit is due, the cinematography was magnificent. Beautiful shots of the wild grandeur of Iceland that would make a Viking weep.
I also enjoyed how the 21st century dialogue was punctuated with snippets of the original Old English dialect when the skop among Beowulf’s gaggle of thanes (most certainly not the “merry band of psychopaths” as they’re dubbed by the satyr poet Martin Silenus in Dan Simmons’ “Hyperion”) tries to compose a poem to tell the kiddies and the folks back home the tale of their adventure. In debating this with my brother (one of the only other people on the planet, it seems, to have paid to see this flick), he complained it was jarring to have the odd snatch of the old dialect flung at the audience. I thought it was an effective (if obvious) way of underlining Beowulf’s unease with poetry’s tendency to magnify men and events beyond their banality.
And to be fair, I think the movie did a great job of creating two important portraits: that of Beowulf, effectively played by Gerard Butler as the hero who’s really just a guy who’s a bit smarter and tougher than his chums but is embarrassed by and wary of having his reputation elevated to that of some sort of godling, and that of Hrothgar, a king mouldering under his impotance as his kingdom wastes away as its warriors die and its survivors are overcome by despair, and as his people turn from the old ways to the false comfort of the new Christianity.
Hats off to Stellan Skarsgard for his performance as the king tearing himself apart with guilt and alcohol for ultimately being the cause of his people’s misfortune and for not being able to admit it to the foreigner who comes to his rescue and circles ever closer to the truth. With a modified script and better editing to make the movie tighter, Skarsgard’s performance could have been the entire focus of the film – would have been a brilliant movie on its own.
And the writers should be commended for following in the footsteps of a number of other, smarter writers in trying to make Grendal more than just a monster. We feel sorry for him from the opening scene of the movie when the not-so-little tyke is forced to witness his titanic daddy being hunted down and slaughtered by Hrothgar’s gang of surly Norse. And it is easier to by sympathetic to a Grendal who looks basically human except for his enormous size and the presence of a beard during his childhood. For all that the Danes and Geats call him “troll” throughout the film, Grendal’s appearance is more that of the thursir, the frost giants, than the demons of Norse folklore. It’s also harder to fear a Grendal who spends more time teasing Beowulf and his gang (and peeing on the door of their sleeping quarters) than slaughtering them, and we feel pity for the poor soul who, in the end, is desperate enough to escape the Geats that he saws off his own arm at the shoulder rather than be captured.
Let’s also give credit to the mad Irish priest who cavorts around the Danish village trying to convince the worried Norse to head down to the local freezing waterfall for a dip and a conversion. He adds a laugh or three to an otherwise dry flick – that is until Grendal’s drippy momma comes sloshing up the garden path with blood on her mind and takes his head off.
Oh yeah, Grendal’s bowling with heads scene was pretty funny too – in a gruesome Bastille sort of way.
But that being said, the flaws in this film are more fatal than the dragon that comes a’callin’ on Beowulf at the end of his life (sadly, not an episode shown in this trollkind family values film). As mentioned before, the flick’s too damn long. Hrothgar’s mental collapse could have been done just as effectively in a shorter period of time (this criticism from a guy who takes 3 pages to get to the point). There’s so much chin-scratching on Beowulf’s part, so much “aw, let’s get it over with” from his buddies, so many mocking stares from the village witch, and so many Hrothgar’s falling apart yet again scenes that the tension was completely bled out of the movie.
Then there were the accents. To be sure, in a period piece like this, casting directors will do their damndest to round up every British accent they can lay their hands on to sound vaguely authentic. Hats off to this crew for netting Skarsgard and some other northern European actors to actually sound, well, Norse. Problem is, there were about half a dozen different accents going on. If that wasn’t jarring enough, there was Sarah Polly, with her Canadian non-accent, not even trying to affect any kind of British or Danish/Icelandic/Norwegian/Swedish/Finnish accent. It was like listening to a version of Beowulf performed by 1st year university students on a theatre exchange summer study course in Bermuda or something. Yet another sacrifice on the alter of lack-of-consistency.
I’ve earlier bemoaned the lack of the final chapter of the poem, Beowulf’s fatal encounter with a dragon. But maybe the dragon really was in this picture. Maybe it was stalking the film all along, the spirit of an ancient poem that wants to be read, preferably in the original (though not ruling out fitting tributes like Parke Godwin’s “The Tower of Beowulf”), and so tearing the guts out of the editing and script of a film that hasn’t been thought through or produced properly. In essence, guarding the hoard of the imagination from those who would cheapen it.
Last week the family and I trekked to our local labrynthine theatre complex to see “Beowulf & Grendel”. (Hence my borrowing of the title of a famous essay by the esteemed Professor J.R.R. Tolkien for the title of this not-anywhwere-near-so-famous blog posting.)
The fact that we even knew the movie existed, let alone that it was running in a nearby theatre was a stroke of luck even the famous beast-battling Geat would have been grateful to have. In all the previous months of production, the weeks before the premier, and even now, more than a week after it’s hit the silver screen, there has been no advertising and next to no buzz on this film. It’s a fluke we knew it existed.
To be sure, there was a blurb on Canada’s Space Channel sci-fi news show “Hypaspace” – one day after the movie hit the screen. And there was the odd review in the occasional paper, like the one my parents caught in the Ottawa Citizen. But no ads? No previews in the cinema? What the hell were the producers thinking? Granted, as a Canadian/British/Icelandic production (and admittedly, I have no idea if anything ran in the UK or Iceland), there’s no way any ads would ever hit the air on major American networks, and by extension, no chance of it ever making it to the review line-up of Ebert and his brainlessly yappy sidekick. Granted too, because it wasn’t an Alliance/Atlantis production, it would be difficult to make inroads on the Canadian networks. But no ads at all?
You can’t tell me they didn’t have the budget for it, after filming the whole thing in Iceland, one of the most expensive countries in the world to do anything, especially make a movie! If they could cobble together the funds to film this beast, the producers ought to have been able to trot out a 30 second spot or two on Space, CBC, CTV, CHUM or some of the other, smaller players. Most of the networks probably would have bit if only to write off the production & some of the cast for CanCon requirements! I mean, if they could make airtime to run commercials for “Men With Brooms” back in 2002, I think they could have given away a discount time slot for “Beowulf”. The total lack of advertising has automatically, and unfairly, set this movie up to fail, regardless of the quality of the film. I’m reminded of that old piece of broadcasting wisdom Mother Carlson told Dr. Johnny Fever on WKRP: “Sometimes you put money into a radio station because it succeeds, and sometimes you put money into a business because you need a tax write-off.”
The fact there was such a near absence of publicity makes me wonder if the theatre chains were showing “Beowulf & Grendal” as a personal favour to some member of the production team. I’d suggest the possibility of the afore-mentioned tax write-off, but the cinemas aren’t in any financial position to be losing money these days if they can help it. Moreover, I doubt it will get any more screentime beyond the end of the week.
So like I was saying, my wife and I, along with my folks (visiting from Ontario for the birth of my nephew) were the only ones in the theatre until about 5 minutes before the show started, at which point we were joined by three other couples. And that was it. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to guess most other showings had about the same turnout, if they were even that packed.
As for the movie itself… “Beowulf & Grendel” wasn’t a bad film (insert sympathetic wince). It wasn’t a great film either. It wasn’t what it could have been, not by a long shot.
To give credit where credit is due, the cinematography was magnificent. Beautiful shots of the wild grandeur of Iceland that would make a Viking weep.
I also enjoyed how the 21st century dialogue was punctuated with snippets of the original Old English dialect when the skop among Beowulf’s gaggle of thanes (most certainly not the “merry band of psychopaths” as they’re dubbed by the satyr poet Martin Silenus in Dan Simmons’ “Hyperion”) tries to compose a poem to tell the kiddies and the folks back home the tale of their adventure. In debating this with my brother (one of the only other people on the planet, it seems, to have paid to see this flick), he complained it was jarring to have the odd snatch of the old dialect flung at the audience. I thought it was an effective (if obvious) way of underlining Beowulf’s unease with poetry’s tendency to magnify men and events beyond their banality.
And to be fair, I think the movie did a great job of creating two important portraits: that of Beowulf, effectively played by Gerard Butler as the hero who’s really just a guy who’s a bit smarter and tougher than his chums but is embarrassed by and wary of having his reputation elevated to that of some sort of godling, and that of Hrothgar, a king mouldering under his impotance as his kingdom wastes away as its warriors die and its survivors are overcome by despair, and as his people turn from the old ways to the false comfort of the new Christianity.
Hats off to Stellan Skarsgard for his performance as the king tearing himself apart with guilt and alcohol for ultimately being the cause of his people’s misfortune and for not being able to admit it to the foreigner who comes to his rescue and circles ever closer to the truth. With a modified script and better editing to make the movie tighter, Skarsgard’s performance could have been the entire focus of the film – would have been a brilliant movie on its own.
And the writers should be commended for following in the footsteps of a number of other, smarter writers in trying to make Grendal more than just a monster. We feel sorry for him from the opening scene of the movie when the not-so-little tyke is forced to witness his titanic daddy being hunted down and slaughtered by Hrothgar’s gang of surly Norse. And it is easier to by sympathetic to a Grendal who looks basically human except for his enormous size and the presence of a beard during his childhood. For all that the Danes and Geats call him “troll” throughout the film, Grendal’s appearance is more that of the thursir, the frost giants, than the demons of Norse folklore. It’s also harder to fear a Grendal who spends more time teasing Beowulf and his gang (and peeing on the door of their sleeping quarters) than slaughtering them, and we feel pity for the poor soul who, in the end, is desperate enough to escape the Geats that he saws off his own arm at the shoulder rather than be captured.
Let’s also give credit to the mad Irish priest who cavorts around the Danish village trying to convince the worried Norse to head down to the local freezing waterfall for a dip and a conversion. He adds a laugh or three to an otherwise dry flick – that is until Grendal’s drippy momma comes sloshing up the garden path with blood on her mind and takes his head off.
Oh yeah, Grendal’s bowling with heads scene was pretty funny too – in a gruesome Bastille sort of way.
But that being said, the flaws in this film are more fatal than the dragon that comes a’callin’ on Beowulf at the end of his life (sadly, not an episode shown in this trollkind family values film). As mentioned before, the flick’s too damn long. Hrothgar’s mental collapse could have been done just as effectively in a shorter period of time (this criticism from a guy who takes 3 pages to get to the point). There’s so much chin-scratching on Beowulf’s part, so much “aw, let’s get it over with” from his buddies, so many mocking stares from the village witch, and so many Hrothgar’s falling apart yet again scenes that the tension was completely bled out of the movie.
Then there were the accents. To be sure, in a period piece like this, casting directors will do their damndest to round up every British accent they can lay their hands on to sound vaguely authentic. Hats off to this crew for netting Skarsgard and some other northern European actors to actually sound, well, Norse. Problem is, there were about half a dozen different accents going on. If that wasn’t jarring enough, there was Sarah Polly, with her Canadian non-accent, not even trying to affect any kind of British or Danish/Icelandic/Norwegian/Swedish/Finnish accent. It was like listening to a version of Beowulf performed by 1st year university students on a theatre exchange summer study course in Bermuda or something. Yet another sacrifice on the alter of lack-of-consistency.
I’ve earlier bemoaned the lack of the final chapter of the poem, Beowulf’s fatal encounter with a dragon. But maybe the dragon really was in this picture. Maybe it was stalking the film all along, the spirit of an ancient poem that wants to be read, preferably in the original (though not ruling out fitting tributes like Parke Godwin’s “The Tower of Beowulf”), and so tearing the guts out of the editing and script of a film that hasn’t been thought through or produced properly. In essence, guarding the hoard of the imagination from those who would cheapen it.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Unca Bloginhood?
Good news from the SF soapbox in the marketplace today: I'm an uncle!
My brother's wife gave birth this afternoon to an 8 pound, 8 ounce boy. Mother and child are doing well. They've tentatively decided to name him "Fin", though not in any reference to the ancient Irish hero Fionn mac Cumhail (Finn MacCool), nor, apparently, in any sense meaning "the end".
I think in a couple of years we'll get him started on the classics like "Where the Wild Things Are" and "Professor Wormbog in Search for the Zipperump-a-zoo", then J.K. Rowling's misadventures of Harry Potter.
Later we'll move on to appreciation of J.R.R. Tolkien, Shakespeare, Dan Simmons, Ray Bradbury, H.G. Wells, Robert J. Sawyer, Douglas Adams and Corey Doctorow, with a little of the SF musings of Mark Twain and Edger Allan Poe to boot.
He'll learn why Babylon 5 and the new Battlestar Galactica (shot right here in the rainy confines of what's now being called "Caprica City" in the press) are not only the best SF TV series' ever made, but the best TV series' - period.
We'll watch Star Wars (Episode IV, thank you very much), 2001, Bladerunner, the new and the old King Kong, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Akira, Monty Python's The Holy Grail, Princess Mononoke, and of course, Big Trouble in Little China.
Welcome to the family, Fin.
My brother's wife gave birth this afternoon to an 8 pound, 8 ounce boy. Mother and child are doing well. They've tentatively decided to name him "Fin", though not in any reference to the ancient Irish hero Fionn mac Cumhail (Finn MacCool), nor, apparently, in any sense meaning "the end".
I think in a couple of years we'll get him started on the classics like "Where the Wild Things Are" and "Professor Wormbog in Search for the Zipperump-a-zoo", then J.K. Rowling's misadventures of Harry Potter.
Later we'll move on to appreciation of J.R.R. Tolkien, Shakespeare, Dan Simmons, Ray Bradbury, H.G. Wells, Robert J. Sawyer, Douglas Adams and Corey Doctorow, with a little of the SF musings of Mark Twain and Edger Allan Poe to boot.
He'll learn why Babylon 5 and the new Battlestar Galactica (shot right here in the rainy confines of what's now being called "Caprica City" in the press) are not only the best SF TV series' ever made, but the best TV series' - period.
We'll watch Star Wars (Episode IV, thank you very much), 2001, Bladerunner, the new and the old King Kong, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Akira, Monty Python's The Holy Grail, Princess Mononoke, and of course, Big Trouble in Little China.
Welcome to the family, Fin.
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
The Obsidian Stare Behind Citizen G'Kar - In Memorium
I heard the word on the Space channel’s “Hypaspace” a couple of days ago, and have since verified on Associated Press, that actor Andreas Katsulas has died.
With those eyes blazing like collapsars crouching beneath his brows, Katsulas looked the typical heavy, like he could be putting philosophers on trial in Athens or conspiring against Julius Caesar.
And he did play innumerable bad guys. You might remember him menacing Dudley Moore with a tiny set of sparking jumper cables and asking for verification of his English vocabulary (Katsulas: “…or I’m-a gonna fry your, how you say…?” Moore: “TESTICLES! TESTICLES!”) in that Disney ode to the follies of a Bronson Pinchot stint in the tourism industry in Venice called “Blame It On The Bellboy”.
More of you probably remember that flat, midnight tombstone stare of his as the One-Armed-Man with a haute couture addiction in “The Fugitive”.
But his finest role, the part that showed the greatest breadth and depth of his craft was that of Ambassador/Citizen G’Kar in “Babylon 5”.
To be sure, he played the bully to the hilt in the first season. But as the story evolved, so did G’Kar. Granted, J. Michael Straczynski’s writing is to be credited, but so is Katsulas for breathing life into the lines. Katsulas made us feel G’Kar’s frustration and desperation as the Centauri bombed his beloved Narn back to the Stone Age. In what was one of the finest, most powerful moments of drama on North American television – ever – Katsulas used subdued tones to deliver a tightly chained supernova of rage and contempt outside of an elevator, droning “Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.” for each drop of blood falling from the wound he’d sliced into his own hand – and not stopping! – ratcheting up our level of discomfort at home until we were squirming under the weight of those very many droplets as much as poor Vir Cotto (who was sympathetic to the Narns and only trying to apologize), followed up by a question so flat that his voice was as dead as those droplets and those Narns: “Can you apologize to them? Then you can never apologize to me.” Along the way, Katsulas’ G’Kar stumbled upon understanding and unearthed a measure of peace beneath it. Enough to show compassion for a sworn enemy. He even made us laugh a time or two.
Am I saying no other actor could have done a good job playing G’Kar? No. I am saying very, very few could have. So delicate became the portrayal of this seemingly obvious malcontent from the first season that few actors would have been able to convincingly show us his growth and enlightenment. Under another’s ministrations, G’Kar’s character could have been clumsy and unworthy of attention, let alone respect or the care of the audience. In fact, so crucial to the serious dramatic themes of “Babylon 5” was G’Kar that a performance by anyone of less skill would have gravely injured the entire show.
Much is made of Katsulas’ enduring the tons of makeup and costume for every day of shooting. I say his real trial was bearing the monumental weight of his character.
Andreas Katsulas died of lung cancer in his Los Angeles home on February 13th at the age of 59. He is survived by his wife and two children from a previous marriage.
“You see, I believe that when we leave a place, part of it leaves with us, and part of us remains behind.”
-G’Kar
“Objects in Motion”, season 5, “Babylon 5”
With those eyes blazing like collapsars crouching beneath his brows, Katsulas looked the typical heavy, like he could be putting philosophers on trial in Athens or conspiring against Julius Caesar.
And he did play innumerable bad guys. You might remember him menacing Dudley Moore with a tiny set of sparking jumper cables and asking for verification of his English vocabulary (Katsulas: “…or I’m-a gonna fry your, how you say…?” Moore: “TESTICLES! TESTICLES!”) in that Disney ode to the follies of a Bronson Pinchot stint in the tourism industry in Venice called “Blame It On The Bellboy”.
More of you probably remember that flat, midnight tombstone stare of his as the One-Armed-Man with a haute couture addiction in “The Fugitive”.
But his finest role, the part that showed the greatest breadth and depth of his craft was that of Ambassador/Citizen G’Kar in “Babylon 5”.
To be sure, he played the bully to the hilt in the first season. But as the story evolved, so did G’Kar. Granted, J. Michael Straczynski’s writing is to be credited, but so is Katsulas for breathing life into the lines. Katsulas made us feel G’Kar’s frustration and desperation as the Centauri bombed his beloved Narn back to the Stone Age. In what was one of the finest, most powerful moments of drama on North American television – ever – Katsulas used subdued tones to deliver a tightly chained supernova of rage and contempt outside of an elevator, droning “Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.” for each drop of blood falling from the wound he’d sliced into his own hand – and not stopping! – ratcheting up our level of discomfort at home until we were squirming under the weight of those very many droplets as much as poor Vir Cotto (who was sympathetic to the Narns and only trying to apologize), followed up by a question so flat that his voice was as dead as those droplets and those Narns: “Can you apologize to them? Then you can never apologize to me.” Along the way, Katsulas’ G’Kar stumbled upon understanding and unearthed a measure of peace beneath it. Enough to show compassion for a sworn enemy. He even made us laugh a time or two.
Am I saying no other actor could have done a good job playing G’Kar? No. I am saying very, very few could have. So delicate became the portrayal of this seemingly obvious malcontent from the first season that few actors would have been able to convincingly show us his growth and enlightenment. Under another’s ministrations, G’Kar’s character could have been clumsy and unworthy of attention, let alone respect or the care of the audience. In fact, so crucial to the serious dramatic themes of “Babylon 5” was G’Kar that a performance by anyone of less skill would have gravely injured the entire show.
Much is made of Katsulas’ enduring the tons of makeup and costume for every day of shooting. I say his real trial was bearing the monumental weight of his character.
Andreas Katsulas died of lung cancer in his Los Angeles home on February 13th at the age of 59. He is survived by his wife and two children from a previous marriage.
“You see, I believe that when we leave a place, part of it leaves with us, and part of us remains behind.”
-G’Kar
“Objects in Motion”, season 5, “Babylon 5”
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Eagles And Canines And Balrogs - Oh My!
Gung Hei Fat Choy everyone! A belated welcome to the Year of the Dog.
I’ve gotta confess: events around Chinese New Year’s celebrations in my neck of the woods this year went to the dogs in some respects, but there was some good mixed in with the bad. Dinner for the holiday with my wife’s family was a dog’s breakfast as usual (had to keep with the canine motif). Imagine 14 people going to a nice restaurant and the uncles in charge only ordering enough food to feed 8 light eaters. And these are only mediocre dishes too. It’s kinda like taking a date out to Morton’s and ordering a hotdog for both of you. They proceeded then to swipe the lai-si away from us as quickly as we could take them out of our pockets, but gave us nothing in return – exploiting the technicality that says once you’re married they don’t have to give you lucky money any more, even though most families continue to give, and if we fail to give them their red pockets, even though they’re married, they’d scream bloody blue murder. I know tradition says it’s good luck to give red pockets and it’s not about receiving them. But this is one of the reasons why my wife refers to them as “the beggar tribe” and refuses to associate with them at any other time of the year. On the up side, the following evening we had an orphan’s Chinese New Year’s dinner for some friends of ours with no family here on BC’s Lower Mainland, and that was a lot of fun. Ultimately, I guess you could say the holiday was in balance, which is very appropriate in a Buddhist sort of way.
And, of course, no Chinese New Year would be complete without a screening of that John Carpenter/Kurt Russell masterpiece: “Big Trouble In Little China”. My wife thinks it’s absurd and refuses to be in the same room when I watch it. I’d like to point out for the record that it is absurd, and that’s the point, and that’s why it’s so good. A movie with action, humor and weird monsters running around that doesn’t take itself seriously is a definite must have. How can you not love Russell’s character Jack Burton as he swaggers around with his bad John Wayne impression that only lasts as long as he’s comfortable showing off and fades like gunpowder smoke as soon as the water starts to rise in the elevator that stops in The Hell Of The Upside-down Sinners. What makes it more interesting is that for once, the swaggering, good-looking, tough-guy, white American is only the sidekick – completely in the dark and playing second fiddle to the wily little Chinese hero Wang who’s in search of his bride-to-be. And I can’t say how many times I’ve seen that movie over the years, but it still leaves me in stitches when the villain Lo-Pan in his “little old basketcase” form snaps at the captive Russell: “You were not put on this earth to ‘get it’, Mr. Burton!” Like Carpenter and Russell say on the commentary track: there are only two kinds of moviegoers, those who love “Big Trouble In Little China” and those who don’t get it and hate it. Sign me up for a big ol’ mug of Egg Shen’s magic potion.
Anyhow, getting back to the title’s topic of beasties in speculative fiction these days, I found myself realizing there’s been a bit of an animalistic theme to my reading of late.
Back in January, just prior to the advent of the Year of the Dog, I was coincidentally going through Kit Reed’s new collection of short stories “Dogs of Truth”. I was looking forward to this book after reading her biting, funny and disturbing attack on the ramifications of modern fitness flexing its muscle on pop culture and self-image in “Thinner Than Thou” this summer. “Dogs” however, was, like an over-bred purebred, somewhat hit and miss. I enjoyed her take on the classic midnight haunting scenario in “The Zombie Prince”, as well as her wry tale of codependency amidst the apocalypse in “Captive Kong”. It’s hard not to like the sense of humor in this author who’s seen every high school movie ever made and who suggests in “High School High” that an individual’s life and personality is formed by their prom night experience. But the writing in “High School High” and “Grand Opening” illustrates a flaw in Reed’s style, because in all too many of her stories, her narrative voice wastes time by stopping the story and talking to the reader. It’s like a car pulling out of a garage with the parking break still on, but the driver does it on purpose. I think one of the reasons I so dislike a narrator talking to me is because it’s rarely done well. Unfortunately, Reed is among those lacking the necessary skill. Her stories without a narrator interjecting like a wino on the bus are infinitely superior for that choice of subtlety of style.
From dogs of truth to birds of prey, I next dove into Jack Whyte’s latest addition to his realistic take on the Arthurian legend: “The Eagle”. It picks up the tale of the man who will be the inspiration for Sir Lancelot. Clothar the Frank is a post-Roman trooper who’s rank of lancerius and skill at hurling his bamboo spears earn him the nickname of “Lance”.
From the outset, Clothar, despite being an uncouth outlander, is the man closest to Arthur and yet he’s doomed to be kept at a distance. As the High King’s most skilled knight commander and one of his wisest advisors, Clothar is dispatched to the north and later home to Gaul, where Arthur intends him to stay permanently to train cavalry for the Gallic kings as a first line of defence against the threat of the rampaging Huns. Whyte does a brilliant job of conveying the Lance’s frustration as he’s torn between his duty to the king’s orders to serve as ambassador and military advisor on the mainland, and his desire to return to Britain and help his ailing friend hold his realm together.
While Clothar does, in fact, have Gwinnifer for his own by the novel’s conclusion, Whyte sidesteps the sappy melodrama of the French tradition of the legend, and does not embroil the knight and queen in a treacherous extramarital affair against Arthur that tears the kingdom apart. Instead, Gwinnifer remains a loving and loyal wife, mirroring Arthur’s own love, and Clothar stays their dutiful friend. The union of Clothar and the former queen comes only after Arthur and the dream of Camulod are nothing more than memories. Even Mordred is portrayed in a better light, having no part in his father’s downfall.
But it is Clothar’s distance from the events that bring Arthur and Camulod down that show the depth of skill in Whyte’s writing, even if they are a little exasperating to readers who naturally want to see every detail of the kingdom’s collapse. We truly experience Clothar’s frustrations by not seeing those events first hand, caught-up as we are in his own efforts to brace the Gallic kings against the barbarism to come, and in his journey to his roots on Lake Geneva. As Clothar hears of events in Britain only through increasingly infrequent dispatches from Camulod, so are we limited in our knowledge – there is no smug omniscient narrative to spoon-feed the reader with all the details poor Clothar is not privy to. Being as much in the dark as he is makes him more real to us.
It also heightens the feeling of the speed of Camulod’s collapse. While hundreds of pages can be devoted to Clothar’s travels and political machinations and military adventures in the course of his duties, the dispatches he receives are not day-by-day experiences, but short summaries of many events occurring over months or years. Having witnessed Britain slip into darkness so quickly from so great a distance away, we find ourselves like Clothar, regretful and feeling powerless. This distance from those events also adds to the sense that they are somewhat unreal – we see the foundations of myth being laid in actual events only heard about through the fog of time, location and individual interpretation. This is most blatantly illustrated by Clothar’s sifting through and discarding of the various versions of the tale that have come to him over the years – the popularized versions where he and the queen cuckolded Arthur, or where Mordred was his father’s bane.
And in the aftermath, as with any good story, the reader who’s soldiered through all nine books in the series is left wondering, “What happens now? Will the author ever fill in the blanks and tell me what I missed?” Sadly, but appropriately, the answer is no. The tale now passes into myth and speculation. Whyte begins his author’s note at the end of the book by saying this was the last book in his saga. Clearly then it is Whyte speaking as much as Clothar at the end of the tale when the knight writes of how eventually all of the people who made Camulod great eventually died and how he will miss all of them. As will the rest of us.
So what to read now?
R. Scott Bakker’s “The Thousandfold Thought”, the third book in his “Prince of Nothing” series has finally hit the shelves and I’m trudging through it now (as I write this, I’m through the first quarter) and feeling like his Inrithi crusaders as they dragged themselves through the desert in the last installment. I want to like this series because it’s a large-scale fantasy that’s been thought-out in great detail, and because the author’s from London, Ontario and there’s a bit of a patriotic drive to support a Canadian with a vision and the guts to try to get his story published, and because London’s not too far from my old hometown.
But I just can’t bring myself to say it’s more than mildly interesting.
Maybe it’s because the story hasn’t yet convinced me that it isn’t anything more than a Tolkien knock-off with a crusades angle to it. Maybe it’s the deliberately overwrought tongue-twisting names. Maybe it’s because I’m getting tired of the author’s overuse of pronunciation marks on his vowels (Bakker does love his umlauts, doesn’t he?). Maybe it’s because as I read it I get the sense that if the author was reading it aloud he’d be using weighty, highly significant tones to indicate edginess and the portentousness of every sentence - like truly pretentious people often do when they read the sputum they regard as their own brilliance (and I should know, having had that flaw on occasion – we can smell our own). Maybe it’s that extremely pretentious picture of Bakker on the rear fold of the cover, half in light, half in shadow with that just-on-the-verge-of-a-sneer oh-boy-aren’t-I-ever-so-intelligent-and-cool-and-now-all-of-your-who-mocked-me-in-the-junior-high-locker-room-will-have-to-deal-with-your-shame-at-my-success stare affected on his face.
But I think it’s really because I’m not satisfied with his portrayal of his warrior-prophet, mega logician, uber psychologist Anasurimbor Kellhus. It seems (and who knows, I may be proven wrong by the end of the book/series) that Bakker’s taking the easy way out and casting Kellhus in the role of “The Chosen One” (insert an orchestra’s thunderous Da-da-DAAAAAAA!!!! music for effect).
Wouldn’t it be so very much more interesting and complex for this armed Aristotelian monk to actually be a fallible human being, and for the other human beings around him to be that much more fallible for falling under his spell?
Wouldn’t it be far more sophisticated if Kellhus made a mistake in his incessant calculations, as Cnaiur (anyone else slip and think/say Conan on this one?) the grasslands destroyer did during the battle of book two?
Wouldn’t it be refreshing for Kellhus to have to deal with a serious personal crisis that he wasn’t equipped to handle, much as he forces others around him into introspective nightmares? To be sure, Cnaiur is the voice of doubt in Kellhus’ infallibility for readers. But Bakker subverts that by undermining Cnaiur’s doubts at every turn and conveniently driving Cnaiur mad with his inability to reconcile the truth of Kellhus’ might (yawn). And yes, Kellhus does have the threat of his jedi-esque popeish father looming in the wastelands ahead. But Bakker never turns aside from his portrayal of Kellhus as the cold and controlling next step in human evolution destined to either defeat “the evil power” or (maybe he’ll throw in a bit of a twist, though not unexpected) and supplant it.
In maintaining this course, Bakker utterly fails at creating a three-dimensional character who, heavens to betsy, might actually be interesting. Man-plus had its day of SF chic, but that’s long gone. It’s not like he’s merely an alien figure who we never get to ride along with and thus never get to know and who provides a backdrop for a study of the humanity of the characters around him who the story is truly focusing on – Kellhus’ point of view is imposed on us, reinforcing that he is infallible, and consequently a bore. Paul Muad’dib Atreides may have seen the roadmap of possibilities laid before the people of Dune, but he had his doubts and moments of weakness, which is why we, as readers, give a damn about what happens to him.
Sounds kinda stupid then that I keep buying his books, doesn’t it? But there’s that whole bit about wanting to support Canadian SF authors. And part of me keeps hoping Bakker will pick up a little more skill in his storytelling and, like Kellhus, truly win me over. Hasn’t happened yet.
With that in mind, I’m planning ahead to something that I will thoroughly enjoy once I’m done with the Book of Nothing. Lots of choices on the old bookshelf. We’re in the middle of a curiously clear cold snap here on the Wet Coast right now, and granted, it’s not the real cold that squats like a sumo wrestler over the rest of the Great White North every winter, but –10 is cold enough for these parts. The biggest surprise has been no rain for the past week. And that’s afforded me a rarity in the BC winter – a view of the stars. That’s got me to thinkin’ it’s time again to walk with the elves beneath the stars at the dawn of Middle Earth. Time to crack open Tolkien’s Silmarillion again. I tend to read the good professor’s works in cycles, alternating from year to year between “The Lord of the Rings”, “The Hobbit”, and the afore-mentioned collection of tales about the formation and early years of Middle Earth and the dwindling of the elves. Once in a while I’ll pick up “Tales From the Perilous Realm”. It’s been decades since he first put pen to paper, but no one beats Tolkien. Someone once asked me why I bother rereading books, since I already know the story. My response was that’s the true test of how good a book is, whether you can read again and still love it. Even if you’ve read it a few times and mined all the possible meanings and subtleties out of it, if you can still appreciate the crafting of it, and most importantly, get the same emotional charge out of it, the book’s worthy of an honoured place on the bookshelf and worthy of the time and attention to reread it.
I’ve gotta confess: events around Chinese New Year’s celebrations in my neck of the woods this year went to the dogs in some respects, but there was some good mixed in with the bad. Dinner for the holiday with my wife’s family was a dog’s breakfast as usual (had to keep with the canine motif). Imagine 14 people going to a nice restaurant and the uncles in charge only ordering enough food to feed 8 light eaters. And these are only mediocre dishes too. It’s kinda like taking a date out to Morton’s and ordering a hotdog for both of you. They proceeded then to swipe the lai-si away from us as quickly as we could take them out of our pockets, but gave us nothing in return – exploiting the technicality that says once you’re married they don’t have to give you lucky money any more, even though most families continue to give, and if we fail to give them their red pockets, even though they’re married, they’d scream bloody blue murder. I know tradition says it’s good luck to give red pockets and it’s not about receiving them. But this is one of the reasons why my wife refers to them as “the beggar tribe” and refuses to associate with them at any other time of the year. On the up side, the following evening we had an orphan’s Chinese New Year’s dinner for some friends of ours with no family here on BC’s Lower Mainland, and that was a lot of fun. Ultimately, I guess you could say the holiday was in balance, which is very appropriate in a Buddhist sort of way.
And, of course, no Chinese New Year would be complete without a screening of that John Carpenter/Kurt Russell masterpiece: “Big Trouble In Little China”. My wife thinks it’s absurd and refuses to be in the same room when I watch it. I’d like to point out for the record that it is absurd, and that’s the point, and that’s why it’s so good. A movie with action, humor and weird monsters running around that doesn’t take itself seriously is a definite must have. How can you not love Russell’s character Jack Burton as he swaggers around with his bad John Wayne impression that only lasts as long as he’s comfortable showing off and fades like gunpowder smoke as soon as the water starts to rise in the elevator that stops in The Hell Of The Upside-down Sinners. What makes it more interesting is that for once, the swaggering, good-looking, tough-guy, white American is only the sidekick – completely in the dark and playing second fiddle to the wily little Chinese hero Wang who’s in search of his bride-to-be. And I can’t say how many times I’ve seen that movie over the years, but it still leaves me in stitches when the villain Lo-Pan in his “little old basketcase” form snaps at the captive Russell: “You were not put on this earth to ‘get it’, Mr. Burton!” Like Carpenter and Russell say on the commentary track: there are only two kinds of moviegoers, those who love “Big Trouble In Little China” and those who don’t get it and hate it. Sign me up for a big ol’ mug of Egg Shen’s magic potion.
Anyhow, getting back to the title’s topic of beasties in speculative fiction these days, I found myself realizing there’s been a bit of an animalistic theme to my reading of late.
Back in January, just prior to the advent of the Year of the Dog, I was coincidentally going through Kit Reed’s new collection of short stories “Dogs of Truth”. I was looking forward to this book after reading her biting, funny and disturbing attack on the ramifications of modern fitness flexing its muscle on pop culture and self-image in “Thinner Than Thou” this summer. “Dogs” however, was, like an over-bred purebred, somewhat hit and miss. I enjoyed her take on the classic midnight haunting scenario in “The Zombie Prince”, as well as her wry tale of codependency amidst the apocalypse in “Captive Kong”. It’s hard not to like the sense of humor in this author who’s seen every high school movie ever made and who suggests in “High School High” that an individual’s life and personality is formed by their prom night experience. But the writing in “High School High” and “Grand Opening” illustrates a flaw in Reed’s style, because in all too many of her stories, her narrative voice wastes time by stopping the story and talking to the reader. It’s like a car pulling out of a garage with the parking break still on, but the driver does it on purpose. I think one of the reasons I so dislike a narrator talking to me is because it’s rarely done well. Unfortunately, Reed is among those lacking the necessary skill. Her stories without a narrator interjecting like a wino on the bus are infinitely superior for that choice of subtlety of style.
From dogs of truth to birds of prey, I next dove into Jack Whyte’s latest addition to his realistic take on the Arthurian legend: “The Eagle”. It picks up the tale of the man who will be the inspiration for Sir Lancelot. Clothar the Frank is a post-Roman trooper who’s rank of lancerius and skill at hurling his bamboo spears earn him the nickname of “Lance”.
From the outset, Clothar, despite being an uncouth outlander, is the man closest to Arthur and yet he’s doomed to be kept at a distance. As the High King’s most skilled knight commander and one of his wisest advisors, Clothar is dispatched to the north and later home to Gaul, where Arthur intends him to stay permanently to train cavalry for the Gallic kings as a first line of defence against the threat of the rampaging Huns. Whyte does a brilliant job of conveying the Lance’s frustration as he’s torn between his duty to the king’s orders to serve as ambassador and military advisor on the mainland, and his desire to return to Britain and help his ailing friend hold his realm together.
While Clothar does, in fact, have Gwinnifer for his own by the novel’s conclusion, Whyte sidesteps the sappy melodrama of the French tradition of the legend, and does not embroil the knight and queen in a treacherous extramarital affair against Arthur that tears the kingdom apart. Instead, Gwinnifer remains a loving and loyal wife, mirroring Arthur’s own love, and Clothar stays their dutiful friend. The union of Clothar and the former queen comes only after Arthur and the dream of Camulod are nothing more than memories. Even Mordred is portrayed in a better light, having no part in his father’s downfall.
But it is Clothar’s distance from the events that bring Arthur and Camulod down that show the depth of skill in Whyte’s writing, even if they are a little exasperating to readers who naturally want to see every detail of the kingdom’s collapse. We truly experience Clothar’s frustrations by not seeing those events first hand, caught-up as we are in his own efforts to brace the Gallic kings against the barbarism to come, and in his journey to his roots on Lake Geneva. As Clothar hears of events in Britain only through increasingly infrequent dispatches from Camulod, so are we limited in our knowledge – there is no smug omniscient narrative to spoon-feed the reader with all the details poor Clothar is not privy to. Being as much in the dark as he is makes him more real to us.
It also heightens the feeling of the speed of Camulod’s collapse. While hundreds of pages can be devoted to Clothar’s travels and political machinations and military adventures in the course of his duties, the dispatches he receives are not day-by-day experiences, but short summaries of many events occurring over months or years. Having witnessed Britain slip into darkness so quickly from so great a distance away, we find ourselves like Clothar, regretful and feeling powerless. This distance from those events also adds to the sense that they are somewhat unreal – we see the foundations of myth being laid in actual events only heard about through the fog of time, location and individual interpretation. This is most blatantly illustrated by Clothar’s sifting through and discarding of the various versions of the tale that have come to him over the years – the popularized versions where he and the queen cuckolded Arthur, or where Mordred was his father’s bane.
And in the aftermath, as with any good story, the reader who’s soldiered through all nine books in the series is left wondering, “What happens now? Will the author ever fill in the blanks and tell me what I missed?” Sadly, but appropriately, the answer is no. The tale now passes into myth and speculation. Whyte begins his author’s note at the end of the book by saying this was the last book in his saga. Clearly then it is Whyte speaking as much as Clothar at the end of the tale when the knight writes of how eventually all of the people who made Camulod great eventually died and how he will miss all of them. As will the rest of us.
So what to read now?
R. Scott Bakker’s “The Thousandfold Thought”, the third book in his “Prince of Nothing” series has finally hit the shelves and I’m trudging through it now (as I write this, I’m through the first quarter) and feeling like his Inrithi crusaders as they dragged themselves through the desert in the last installment. I want to like this series because it’s a large-scale fantasy that’s been thought-out in great detail, and because the author’s from London, Ontario and there’s a bit of a patriotic drive to support a Canadian with a vision and the guts to try to get his story published, and because London’s not too far from my old hometown.
But I just can’t bring myself to say it’s more than mildly interesting.
Maybe it’s because the story hasn’t yet convinced me that it isn’t anything more than a Tolkien knock-off with a crusades angle to it. Maybe it’s the deliberately overwrought tongue-twisting names. Maybe it’s because I’m getting tired of the author’s overuse of pronunciation marks on his vowels (Bakker does love his umlauts, doesn’t he?). Maybe it’s because as I read it I get the sense that if the author was reading it aloud he’d be using weighty, highly significant tones to indicate edginess and the portentousness of every sentence - like truly pretentious people often do when they read the sputum they regard as their own brilliance (and I should know, having had that flaw on occasion – we can smell our own). Maybe it’s that extremely pretentious picture of Bakker on the rear fold of the cover, half in light, half in shadow with that just-on-the-verge-of-a-sneer oh-boy-aren’t-I-ever-so-intelligent-and-cool-and-now-all-of-your-who-mocked-me-in-the-junior-high-locker-room-will-have-to-deal-with-your-shame-at-my-success stare affected on his face.
But I think it’s really because I’m not satisfied with his portrayal of his warrior-prophet, mega logician, uber psychologist Anasurimbor Kellhus. It seems (and who knows, I may be proven wrong by the end of the book/series) that Bakker’s taking the easy way out and casting Kellhus in the role of “The Chosen One” (insert an orchestra’s thunderous Da-da-DAAAAAAA!!!! music for effect).
Wouldn’t it be so very much more interesting and complex for this armed Aristotelian monk to actually be a fallible human being, and for the other human beings around him to be that much more fallible for falling under his spell?
Wouldn’t it be far more sophisticated if Kellhus made a mistake in his incessant calculations, as Cnaiur (anyone else slip and think/say Conan on this one?) the grasslands destroyer did during the battle of book two?
Wouldn’t it be refreshing for Kellhus to have to deal with a serious personal crisis that he wasn’t equipped to handle, much as he forces others around him into introspective nightmares? To be sure, Cnaiur is the voice of doubt in Kellhus’ infallibility for readers. But Bakker subverts that by undermining Cnaiur’s doubts at every turn and conveniently driving Cnaiur mad with his inability to reconcile the truth of Kellhus’ might (yawn). And yes, Kellhus does have the threat of his jedi-esque popeish father looming in the wastelands ahead. But Bakker never turns aside from his portrayal of Kellhus as the cold and controlling next step in human evolution destined to either defeat “the evil power” or (maybe he’ll throw in a bit of a twist, though not unexpected) and supplant it.
In maintaining this course, Bakker utterly fails at creating a three-dimensional character who, heavens to betsy, might actually be interesting. Man-plus had its day of SF chic, but that’s long gone. It’s not like he’s merely an alien figure who we never get to ride along with and thus never get to know and who provides a backdrop for a study of the humanity of the characters around him who the story is truly focusing on – Kellhus’ point of view is imposed on us, reinforcing that he is infallible, and consequently a bore. Paul Muad’dib Atreides may have seen the roadmap of possibilities laid before the people of Dune, but he had his doubts and moments of weakness, which is why we, as readers, give a damn about what happens to him.
Sounds kinda stupid then that I keep buying his books, doesn’t it? But there’s that whole bit about wanting to support Canadian SF authors. And part of me keeps hoping Bakker will pick up a little more skill in his storytelling and, like Kellhus, truly win me over. Hasn’t happened yet.
With that in mind, I’m planning ahead to something that I will thoroughly enjoy once I’m done with the Book of Nothing. Lots of choices on the old bookshelf. We’re in the middle of a curiously clear cold snap here on the Wet Coast right now, and granted, it’s not the real cold that squats like a sumo wrestler over the rest of the Great White North every winter, but –10 is cold enough for these parts. The biggest surprise has been no rain for the past week. And that’s afforded me a rarity in the BC winter – a view of the stars. That’s got me to thinkin’ it’s time again to walk with the elves beneath the stars at the dawn of Middle Earth. Time to crack open Tolkien’s Silmarillion again. I tend to read the good professor’s works in cycles, alternating from year to year between “The Lord of the Rings”, “The Hobbit”, and the afore-mentioned collection of tales about the formation and early years of Middle Earth and the dwindling of the elves. Once in a while I’ll pick up “Tales From the Perilous Realm”. It’s been decades since he first put pen to paper, but no one beats Tolkien. Someone once asked me why I bother rereading books, since I already know the story. My response was that’s the true test of how good a book is, whether you can read again and still love it. Even if you’ve read it a few times and mined all the possible meanings and subtleties out of it, if you can still appreciate the crafting of it, and most importantly, get the same emotional charge out of it, the book’s worthy of an honoured place on the bookshelf and worthy of the time and attention to reread it.
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