I just finished reading Kit Reed's new novel "The Baby Merchant" a few days ago, and I’ve gotta say hats-off for another brilliant success!
The story revolves around a group of characters living in America of the not-too-distant future where birth rates have tanked (due to reasons speculated on only briefly), domestic adoptions have become more difficult than applying for a bank loan to build a paper mache donut shop in the middle of Tornado Alley, closed borders prevent trans-national adoption, and childless couples are becoming increasingly desperate to get children any way they can. Into this void steps Tom Starbird, a low-key black market operator who, for the right (and very high) price, snatches “unwanted” babies from their biological parents and puts them into the hands of his rich clients. Tom finds himself at the mercies of attack-dog journalist Jake Zorn who tosses ethics by the wayside in his crusade to get a baby for himself and his wife Maury. In the middle of the mess is Sasha Egan: pregnant with an unplanned child, escaped from the birth/adoption centre she’d chosen and on-the-run from the child’s father Gary, a one-night-stand hired by Sasha’s grasping grandmother to bring the baby back to the family compound.
I think what the book is really about, though, is imprisonment. How a person deals with it and most importantly, how they escape. And we’re not just talking about physical imprisonment here (although entrapment in institutions certainly is a factor for some characters at some points in the novel), but psychological and emotional imprisonment imposed upon one character by another or by society, and by one character upon him/her self.
Nearly every character in this book is imprisoned in some way at some point.
Sasha begins the tale imprisoned in the birthing/adoption agency. While she’s there by her own choice, once inside she’s confined and harassed like a prisoner by staff who seem to have taken their cue from “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest”. She’s there because she’s fleeing from the likelihood of virtual imprisonment if she’s found by her grandmother. Sasha views her pregnancy as a sort of shackling as well: her body isn’t capable of doing what she wants it to in terms of escaping from Gary and her girth doesn’t allow her to disappear into the crowd once she’s left the institution. The confines of her motel room in Savannah quickly start to feel like a prison to her. When the baby’s born, Sasha initially feels hostage to its needs and schedules. And in the end, when her baby, Jimmy, is stolen, she certainly feels entrapped by the police who interrogate her like a suspect after she’s called them in to help her find the child.
And yet, despite these many manacles that seemingly weigh upon Sasha, she manages to overcome all obstacles and create a freedom for herself and her baby on her own terms. Sasha enters the birthing/adoption centre as a means of eluding capture by her grandmother. She escapes the centre to get away from Gary, but it feels also to reclaim control of her life and her baby’s destiny that’s denied to her by the staff. The prison of the motel room is transformed into a home of sorts once she begins adding personal touches. Sasha endures pregnancy and the early crises of caregiving and transforms herself and is transformed by those circumstances into a mother who bonds with her son and comes to the realization that he’s a part of her life that she can’t part with and which she doesn’t want to lose. This expands within her exponentially once the baby’s taken and she goes on the warpath, turning the tables on the cops who suspected her and forcing them to give her everything she wants to get her son back. Sasha ends the novel having recovered her baby and redefining her life on her own terms, answerable to no-one other than her son.
For his part, Tom Starbird is imprisoned right from the start by the events of his own childhood – by his need to ensure that the few babies left in the country are safely with parents who want them and who will love them and provide them with the very best. Despite coming from an unaffectionate home, Tom is also trapped by the love every child feels for its mother. What’s Brandon Lee’s line from “The Crow”? Something like “Mother is the name for God on the hearts of children everywhere”? Why do many abused children desperately crave the affection of the very parents who hurt them? Tom is one of these, who, even as an adult who is determined to make sure no child is raised by a mother who doesn’t want him, still is willing to allow Jake Zorn’s blackmail and violate his personal code of conduct in order to protect the mother who ditched him front of a mall. Tom’s also a prisoner to his frigid philosophy of refusing to allow any emotion in his business dealings. While this protects him from forming attachments that could interfere with his kidnapping and baby selling, it also serves to completely alienate him from all other human beings.
But Starbird also (and I think this is obviously why his last name is such an allusion to the phoenix) is reborn into some kind of freedom. First by re-defining his life along minimalist lines so that he can focus on looking into himself. But most importantly by his growing unease with his trade and final project, and his eventual breakthrough where he watches Sasha’s tirade on TV and realizes that what he does is wrong. This motivates Tom not only to arrange to have the baby returned to Sasha, but to put Zorn in his place. And more importantly still, it forces Starbird to reach out to Sasha, to contact her, and in the process knowingly expose himself to the law, to try to apologize. He is transformed into a human being through this. So, despite the fact that he will be imprisoned and possibly executed for his crimes, Tom is able to attain a freedom of spirit.
Then there’s Maury, the intelligent, attractive, confident lawyer who has it all – except a child. She’s trapped by her desire to be a mother. So much so that she’s willing to force down her unease, suspicions and legal training as her husband strings her along with his secret plan to get her a child. Maury’s shackled by her repeated, unsuccessful pregnancies in the past. By her past suicide attempt after yet another stillbirth that hospitalized her and now makes it impossible for her to get a child through a proper adoption agency. By society’s expectation that a woman isn’t a woman unless she’s a mother.
But Maury rises above it all in the end by using her intelligence and legal skill to adopt a child – legally - in need against all odds and without the interference of Jake.
Jake Zorn, the so-called “Conscience of Boston”, is a prisoner of his own ego. He must get everything he wants when he wants it, and he must show his targets that he is the utter master of the situation. Jake is a man who ultimately wants to be a god, to tell the public what he thinks they need to know, to hold the fate of her prey/interview subjects in the palm of his hand, to provide his wife with everything she wants to make her happy, to rear a son to be an everlasting symbol of Jake’s own greatness. What irks him the most is that he can’t get a baby for his wife. The system defies him. And he is denied again when he initially tries to go through Starbird. Which is why he decides to blackmail Tom into doing the job, all the while preparing to take Starbird down anyway. Jake is then literally imprisoned when Tom comes clean in the media and provides evidence of Zorn’s involvement.
Does Jake manage to escape total imprisonment though? I think so. The conclusion of the novel seems to indicate he’s not completely despicable. Despite Maury’s complicity in the attempt to illegally obtain a baby, Jake falls on his sword and makes sure the wrath of the law comes down on him and him alone. Sure, Maury’s lawfirm helps keep her clean, but what’s most important is that Jake does his best to protect her. You might, in a cynical moment, say this is another example of Zorn hogging the spotlight, but I think he takes the fall solo because he does actually care for Maury. Because of that, he is not entirely out of grace.
There are a whole host of secondary and minor characters in “The Baby Merchant” who also grapple with imprisonment.
Tom’s mother has been institutionalized in psychiatric hospitals twice. She’s been medicated to control her mood swings. She’s been in Jake Zorn’s sights. And she’s been shackled with the twin burdens of professional mediocrity and the duties of motherhood – a motherhood that initially was intentional, but came with a legion of unwanted responsibilities and no creative reward.
Sasha’s grandmother is trapped in her need for an heir to the family empire. She’s also denied access to little Jimmy by Sasha at the end.
Jimmy Egan was imprisoned in a box and a pet carrier when he was kidnapped by Tom. You might also say that his time in the womb was imprisonment of a sort, which required his birth and subsequent bonding with his mother to truly escape.
Gary, the one-night-stand who fathered Jimmy, is subject to his own greed, and is eventually killed as a result of it.
Marilyn, the owner of the motel is a prisoner to an unsatisfying life that offers no escape beyond her brief attempts to fool herself through an abuse of makeup or clothing or go-nowhere affairs.
Marilyn’s tubby son Delroy is a prisoner to his own greed and lack of morality, as well as bottomless appetite and his mother’s heavy hand.
Even the police are held captive by Sasha’s rage once the truth comes out that the baby has actually been abducted.
What’s also interesting, is that imprisonment seems to be a theme of one of Reed’s other books “Thinner than Thou”, where characters grapple with the confines of institutional confinement, mental illness, physical problems and social intolerance.
I must say, it is intellectually freeing to read Kit Reed’s takes on what it means to be imprisoned and what is necessary to escape.
babbling relentlessly about science fiction, fantasy, and all points in between
Friday, October 27, 2006
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
A Bountiful Harvest Season For Sci-Fi Nuts
It’s been a good harvest this year for speculative fiction fans as far as television is concerned.
For years sci-fi fans were starved for decent entertainment, our hope being kept alive by the occasional successful crop in the form of “Babylon 5”, “The X-Files”, “Firefly” or the odd good season in the hit-and-miss hodgepodge of Star Trek franchises (which have averaged-out to stagnation – especially since some channels insist on running them all back-to-back endlessly – I like Trek once in a while, but not that much!). Oh sure, there were bushels of new “Red Dwarf” series’ that came in from the Brits once in a while, and I’ll even give the nod to the “Stargate” and “Buffy” franchises on behalf of friends who got a big kick out of them (I only bothered to watch a handful of episodes of each myself, and while I wasn’t thrilled, I wasn’t disappointed either). I’ll even grudgingly and somewhat sheepishly admit I’m still on the fence as to whether “Hercules” and “Xena” had any value (again, some friends loved ‘em, others hated ‘em, and I saw the odd episode that inspired respect or derision once in a while). But for the most part, television’s contributions to sci-fi over the past decade or so have been loaded with campy, televised junkfood like “Relic Hunter” or rehashes of “Conan”, “Sinbad” or “The Beastmaster”. The formula: throw some leggy lady or pumped dude into leather, contrive a quest, and set them in the backwoods of New Zealand or Canada pitted against whatever bad guy has come up again on the extras roster. In fact, for a while there, these types of visual cholesterol were all but completely clogging the arteries of Canada’s Space Channel. I haven’t a clue as to whether it was this bad on other SF-dedicated channels across the globe. On one hand, I hope not – I wouldn’t wish that kind of waste of airtime on any other culture. On the other hand, I kinda hope it was bad all around, ‘cause then it wouldn’t mean that programming here in the Great White North was leading the world in lack of quality and imagination. For a few years there were stretches where you’d be lucky to get one worthwhile show per week. Maybe two if the stars were aligned. Yeah. The harvest was bad for a while.
But things have been on the upswing for the past two years or so. And this autumn, oh, this autumn has been a bounty for tasty produce indeed. Some series are returning, putting all their energy into raising the bar, while some new shows are hitting the air with plenty of promise. It’s not like there’s something on every night, but the average is now more along the lines of at least 2 good nights out of 7, sometimes more, depending on your local programming schedule.
Coming in at the number one position: “Battlestar Galactica” season 3. This is the best show on television. It has been since the debut of the initial mini-series. I will go out on a limb and say it is easily one of the best shows of any television genre. Ever. I could easily write a whole blog entry (and there are some fans who devote entire websites) to why this show is so great. In a nutshell: unparalleled story-telling delivered by some of the best actors around, backed by top-notch directing, production, special effects and musical score. Its leap from the inspiration of the original 1970’s Battlestar is equivalent of going from cavemen eating raw grain to modern people creating all manner of baked goods like French bread or cake or Chinese soup buns. Even my wife, who’s a loyal follower of the mainstream “Law & Order” and “CSI” franchises, has become an avid “Battlestar” fan. The stories and realistic characters in “Battlestar Galactica” are so compelling that you don’t even have to have been on board with the series from the beginning – you could just pick it up on any given episode and without the back-story (although you do get a rough set-up in the opening credits) still get drawn into the lives of the people on screen. The new “Battlestar Galactica” is a shining example of how television can rise above the trough of mediocre swill to provide the ultimate in fine dining for storytelling.
I’m also quite impressed with this fall’s new network series “Heroes”. The show chronicles the lives of a group of diverse people from around the world who begin to discover they have super powers. The story lines have been solid and interesting and the cast has held its own. While my jaw hasn’t hit the floor watching this show, “Heroes” certainly has not disappointed and I haven’t regretted making a point of tuning in every week to watch. I’m eager to see where they go with this concept.
Then there’s “Eureka” a creation of the Americans’ Sci-Fi Channel that’s essentially the bastard child of “Northern Exposure” and “Men in Black”. A cop becomes the sheriff of a small town that just happens to be a genius colony. Many zany inventions toted by quirky brainiacs. Normal-guy cop tries to keep his bearings as adventure and mystery ensue. I missed the pilot, but have watched a few episodes and have been reasonably entertained. Something that I’d watch if it was on, but not a show I’ll be actively pursuing. If this degree of quality becomes the bench-mark for “average” TV sci-fi fare, I’ll be satisfied.
And there’s the much-applauded “Jericho”. I have to admit, I haven’t seen more than a few minutes of this one. It’s not because I dislike the show, merely that I missed the pilot and since then, by chance, I haven’t had time to watch a full episode. That being said, I have friends who’s opinion I respect who are giving “Jericho” high marks, so I’ll keep my mind open and at some point I figure I’ll catch it in reruns and get up to speed.
Last on my boob-tube list is the new season/series of “Dr. Who”. Now, this is a show that’s got more than a little nostalgia value for me. I grew up with The Doctor running on TV Ontario. My favourite of the previous incarnations was the gangly Fourth Doctor with his long scarf. Fast-forward many years (no Tardis required) to last year when the new series hit the airwaves here in North America. For some reason, maybe it was the portrayal of the Doctor, maybe it was the story lines, I wasn’t terribly impressed with the revival. This year is a whole other story. I’ve managed to catch a couple of episodes with David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor, and the show has been terrific. Maybe it’s the Doctor’s vacillation between serious scientist/explorer and his tendency to behave like a wacky 10-year-old on a romp with some cool toys. Maybe the story lines are a little more interesting. I’m not sure. I do know that what I’ve seen has given me plenty of incentive to start watching the new “Doctor Who” on a regular basis.
Of course, regardless of the show in question, the real test of the truly good ones is whether they can maintain their quality and better yet, exceed the benchmarks they’ve already set and offer us new flavours, or whether they’ll tire and sink back into blandness. I’ve got my fingers crossed for all of the shows listed above.
So what are you watching this season? Is there something the rest of us should be keeping an eye out for?
For years sci-fi fans were starved for decent entertainment, our hope being kept alive by the occasional successful crop in the form of “Babylon 5”, “The X-Files”, “Firefly” or the odd good season in the hit-and-miss hodgepodge of Star Trek franchises (which have averaged-out to stagnation – especially since some channels insist on running them all back-to-back endlessly – I like Trek once in a while, but not that much!). Oh sure, there were bushels of new “Red Dwarf” series’ that came in from the Brits once in a while, and I’ll even give the nod to the “Stargate” and “Buffy” franchises on behalf of friends who got a big kick out of them (I only bothered to watch a handful of episodes of each myself, and while I wasn’t thrilled, I wasn’t disappointed either). I’ll even grudgingly and somewhat sheepishly admit I’m still on the fence as to whether “Hercules” and “Xena” had any value (again, some friends loved ‘em, others hated ‘em, and I saw the odd episode that inspired respect or derision once in a while). But for the most part, television’s contributions to sci-fi over the past decade or so have been loaded with campy, televised junkfood like “Relic Hunter” or rehashes of “Conan”, “Sinbad” or “The Beastmaster”. The formula: throw some leggy lady or pumped dude into leather, contrive a quest, and set them in the backwoods of New Zealand or Canada pitted against whatever bad guy has come up again on the extras roster. In fact, for a while there, these types of visual cholesterol were all but completely clogging the arteries of Canada’s Space Channel. I haven’t a clue as to whether it was this bad on other SF-dedicated channels across the globe. On one hand, I hope not – I wouldn’t wish that kind of waste of airtime on any other culture. On the other hand, I kinda hope it was bad all around, ‘cause then it wouldn’t mean that programming here in the Great White North was leading the world in lack of quality and imagination. For a few years there were stretches where you’d be lucky to get one worthwhile show per week. Maybe two if the stars were aligned. Yeah. The harvest was bad for a while.
But things have been on the upswing for the past two years or so. And this autumn, oh, this autumn has been a bounty for tasty produce indeed. Some series are returning, putting all their energy into raising the bar, while some new shows are hitting the air with plenty of promise. It’s not like there’s something on every night, but the average is now more along the lines of at least 2 good nights out of 7, sometimes more, depending on your local programming schedule.
Coming in at the number one position: “Battlestar Galactica” season 3. This is the best show on television. It has been since the debut of the initial mini-series. I will go out on a limb and say it is easily one of the best shows of any television genre. Ever. I could easily write a whole blog entry (and there are some fans who devote entire websites) to why this show is so great. In a nutshell: unparalleled story-telling delivered by some of the best actors around, backed by top-notch directing, production, special effects and musical score. Its leap from the inspiration of the original 1970’s Battlestar is equivalent of going from cavemen eating raw grain to modern people creating all manner of baked goods like French bread or cake or Chinese soup buns. Even my wife, who’s a loyal follower of the mainstream “Law & Order” and “CSI” franchises, has become an avid “Battlestar” fan. The stories and realistic characters in “Battlestar Galactica” are so compelling that you don’t even have to have been on board with the series from the beginning – you could just pick it up on any given episode and without the back-story (although you do get a rough set-up in the opening credits) still get drawn into the lives of the people on screen. The new “Battlestar Galactica” is a shining example of how television can rise above the trough of mediocre swill to provide the ultimate in fine dining for storytelling.
I’m also quite impressed with this fall’s new network series “Heroes”. The show chronicles the lives of a group of diverse people from around the world who begin to discover they have super powers. The story lines have been solid and interesting and the cast has held its own. While my jaw hasn’t hit the floor watching this show, “Heroes” certainly has not disappointed and I haven’t regretted making a point of tuning in every week to watch. I’m eager to see where they go with this concept.
Then there’s “Eureka” a creation of the Americans’ Sci-Fi Channel that’s essentially the bastard child of “Northern Exposure” and “Men in Black”. A cop becomes the sheriff of a small town that just happens to be a genius colony. Many zany inventions toted by quirky brainiacs. Normal-guy cop tries to keep his bearings as adventure and mystery ensue. I missed the pilot, but have watched a few episodes and have been reasonably entertained. Something that I’d watch if it was on, but not a show I’ll be actively pursuing. If this degree of quality becomes the bench-mark for “average” TV sci-fi fare, I’ll be satisfied.
And there’s the much-applauded “Jericho”. I have to admit, I haven’t seen more than a few minutes of this one. It’s not because I dislike the show, merely that I missed the pilot and since then, by chance, I haven’t had time to watch a full episode. That being said, I have friends who’s opinion I respect who are giving “Jericho” high marks, so I’ll keep my mind open and at some point I figure I’ll catch it in reruns and get up to speed.
Last on my boob-tube list is the new season/series of “Dr. Who”. Now, this is a show that’s got more than a little nostalgia value for me. I grew up with The Doctor running on TV Ontario. My favourite of the previous incarnations was the gangly Fourth Doctor with his long scarf. Fast-forward many years (no Tardis required) to last year when the new series hit the airwaves here in North America. For some reason, maybe it was the portrayal of the Doctor, maybe it was the story lines, I wasn’t terribly impressed with the revival. This year is a whole other story. I’ve managed to catch a couple of episodes with David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor, and the show has been terrific. Maybe it’s the Doctor’s vacillation between serious scientist/explorer and his tendency to behave like a wacky 10-year-old on a romp with some cool toys. Maybe the story lines are a little more interesting. I’m not sure. I do know that what I’ve seen has given me plenty of incentive to start watching the new “Doctor Who” on a regular basis.
Of course, regardless of the show in question, the real test of the truly good ones is whether they can maintain their quality and better yet, exceed the benchmarks they’ve already set and offer us new flavours, or whether they’ll tire and sink back into blandness. I’ve got my fingers crossed for all of the shows listed above.
So what are you watching this season? Is there something the rest of us should be keeping an eye out for?
Sunday, October 15, 2006
More On VCon 31
Just came across two other favourable reviews for VCon31. Check out author Robert J. Sawyer’s blog entry from October 10th: http://sfwriter.com/blog.htm
And another from Ahmed A. Khan that Sawyer recommends on his site: http://ahmedakhan.journalspace.com/?cmd=forward&entryid=217
I’ve gotta say, one of my regrets about not being able to take in Saturday & Sunday at the con was that I wasn’t able to meet Sawyer and congratulate him on an amazing body of work. My favourites among his novels are “Calculating God” and “Flash Forward”. Sawyer is a writer who excels at combining high concept plot points like being able to get a glimpse of the future with hard science to form the background of stories involving believable, three-dimensional characters. Admittedly, I’m not a ravening fan who grabs everything he publishes as soon as it’s out – I haven’t bothered to pick up the last couple of issues of Analog just to get my hands on the serialization of his newest creation “Rollback”, but you can bet that once the installments have been gathered and printed out in the form of a single novel, I’ll add it to my collection at some point. I haven’t come across a Sawyer novel yet that hasn’t been a good read.
And another from Ahmed A. Khan that Sawyer recommends on his site: http://ahmedakhan.journalspace.com/?cmd=forward&entryid=217
I’ve gotta say, one of my regrets about not being able to take in Saturday & Sunday at the con was that I wasn’t able to meet Sawyer and congratulate him on an amazing body of work. My favourites among his novels are “Calculating God” and “Flash Forward”. Sawyer is a writer who excels at combining high concept plot points like being able to get a glimpse of the future with hard science to form the background of stories involving believable, three-dimensional characters. Admittedly, I’m not a ravening fan who grabs everything he publishes as soon as it’s out – I haven’t bothered to pick up the last couple of issues of Analog just to get my hands on the serialization of his newest creation “Rollback”, but you can bet that once the installments have been gathered and printed out in the form of a single novel, I’ll add it to my collection at some point. I haven’t come across a Sawyer novel yet that hasn’t been a good read.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
A Busy Weekend: Thanksgiving, Mid-Autumn Festival, Our Anniversary and Getting Conned - VCon 31
Happy belated Thanksgiving everyone! For those of you from other corners of the internet marketplace of ideas, Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving at the beginning of October, unlike our friends to the south who don’t tend to have fowl dreams until well into November. The advantage of scheduling the festivities at this time of the season is that after the initial feast at a dining room table groaning under the weight of a massive, juicy roast turkey with crisp, brown skin and rivers of thick, heady gravy flowing down mountains of garlic mashed potatoes across the plains of your plate to crash into cliffs of flakey butter buns, and then after the weeks of piling through leftovers in the form of re-plated bird, ‘taters, stuffing and the like, or turkey soup, or gravy bread, or turkey sandwiches, or turkey burritos, or…you get the idea, after we’ve slogged through all of that, we can turn our minds to the sweet gluttony of Hallowe’en and then have the better part of two months to let it mellow into a fond memory simmering just below the surface to prime us for eager anticipation of another turkey dinner come Christmas. The Americans, on the other hand, get a turkey double-tap with scarcely a month’s gap – so close it’s surprising they can even tolerate the thought of a second face-off with a gobbler mid-winter. At any rate, Thanksgiving was good this year. Although the holiday was technically on Monday, we celebrated on Sunday for convenience – easier to do prep on Saturday, cooking & feasting on Sunday, and contented recovery on Monday. Lots of good food and a bunch of good friends gathered around the table.
We also celebrated the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival this past weekend. Take your pick of the many legends behind this holiday, whether they have to do with goddesses in the moon or heroes shooting down burning suns with their bows. The season sees Chinese children staying up late to play with lanterns and candles under the moon while everyone munches on Moon Cakes. Salty or sweet, depending on your preference, and the more duck egg yolks buried in the Moon Cake’s centre, the more money you’ll be paying to buy them – never mind how much you’ll spend trying to get your cholesterol down later!
What do these holidays have to do with speculative fiction? You might argue not much. But, there is a certain magic to these celebrations… epic myths from ancient China, mighty Thanksgiving feasts in the West that harken back to harvest revels in days of yore where stories would be shared over a groaning mead-board piled with good food as everyone sought comfort before the coming winter. There is a magic to any time that brings people of many backgrounds together in friendship. Sentimental? Sure. But no less true. I think of the almost-four-year-old son of our friends who were over for the feast on Sunday night, playing with his golden lantern, still content from a Mid-Autumn festival celebration the night before, as he chomped on turkey dinner or a pumpkin-shaped cookie at the first Thanksgiving his family had taken part in, and I think there’s a certain magic in that too… where a boy can grow into the future enjoying the best of two different cultures. What fiction can equal that? Like I said, sentimental but true.
This past weekend also marked our first anniversary. My wife and I took some time Monday evening to talk about the past year and watch our wedding DVD for a few laughs.
And if that wasn’t enough, I took in day 1 of VCon 31 – the Vancouver Science Fiction, Fantasy and Gaming Convention on Friday, which I enjoyed immensely. I must confess, it’s only the second con I’ve attended. The first was ConAdian – the 52nd World Science Fiction Convention held in Winnipeg, Manitoba back in Sept. 1994.
It’s not that I haven’t wanted to attend other cons, it’s just that higher priority family events, work obligations or money or timing issues (or combinations of the four) have interfered. And even if none of the above had stood in the way, I’m not sure that I would have attended all the annual cons in whatever province I was living in, or some of the bigger national or international cons here in Canada or the US. I think that while I am, as a fan, a member of this community, I don’t feel the need to immerse myself in it all the time. I’m more of a passive observer who occasionally dips into the experience. I guess if the con scene was a city and the people who attend it were its citizens, I’d be someone content to live in the suburbs who makes the odd foray into town to keep in touch and see what’s happening.
That being said, I do enjoy these trips into Conville, and where time, money and personal and work scheduling permit, I may find myself making more excursions. This year was a no-brainer: Vcon 31 was held at a hotel in Richmond (just south of Vancouver) just a stone’s throw from the house – I could have walked there in 20 minutes, instead, pressed for time, I drove there in 5. And the stars were aligned for scheduling, because I was actually able to make some time to attend this year. So I went. To be sure, the seeming convenience of holding the con over the Thanksgiving long weekend was actually problematic – if you’ve got family, it’s difficult to be able to take in the entire event. In fact, the holiday might have prevented some from attending altogether who would otherwise have come. For my part, shopping and prep work nixed the chance of attending on Sat, and Sun was out because of the cooking during the daytime and feasting in the evening. So it was Friday, opening day, by default. And while there were a number of panels I would have loved to attend on Sat & Sun, what I was able to take in on Fri did the trick.
It was a small turnout on Fri (I expect, given the number of people I saw checking in at the end of the day, things were busier later during the weekend), but that didn’t detract from the appeal of the con. In fact, it’s actually nicer to have your choice of seats in the rooms holding the panel discussions, or to be able to take your time checking out the art displays or browsing in the dealers’ room.
Hats off especially to the organizers for assembling some great writers' panels with interesting, intelligent themes. In fact, I think that’s what impressed me the most: the commitment to intelligent discourse about speculative fiction, writing in general, about science and history. No crowded halls of drooling fans quizzing actors about pointless minutia of their shows. No authors expounding on their own greatness (something that really turned me off of one grand matron of the genre back in '94 - but that's a story for another time). These sessions encouraged the panelists, and for the most part, the fans, to debate moral and scientific issues, to investigate literary style.
I was fortunate enough to attend the following panels: How Stories End, Near-Future SF, Living on the Moon and Mars and Historical Fiction: Where Does History End and Fantasy Begin?
My favourites, without a doubt, were How Stories End and Near Future SF. Both featured lively debate among smart panelists with some interesting questions and comments from the audience.
How Stories End explored why authors write the endings they do - what literary logic is involved in steering the story’s course, how much does the author have a responsibility to the demands of the audience for a particular ending and how much should this be taken into consideration, the impact of focus groups on television and film and whether this “tool” of Hollywood would have corrupted the endings of pre-focus group movies of the past, along with many other issues. The session also featured a bit of tension between a couple of the panelists, but that served to add a little more energy to the debate and things did remain professional. Another panelist, during the "how would focus groups have affected the outcome of older movies" discussion, dropped a quick reference to my guilty pleasure: "Walt Disney's The Black Hole". It came during another panelist's pause for a breath, so I don't think too many other people caught it, but I'll grudgingly admit it gave me a surge of pure fanboy glee. That being said, it does raise the strange question (which would have made a great discussion if the panel had seized on it) of whether a focus group could actually save a movie from a bad ending. Would it have been possible for a randomly selected collection of yokels representing the "average" moviegoer to have moved the mighty Disney machine to change the ending of "The Black Hole" to make it, well, make sense? One can only wonder.
Near Future SF was not, as some might fear, a simple checklist of what author made what prediction and was it right or wrong. Rather, the panel examined the effects of technology, nature and changing human psychology and sociology on culture and humanity itself, and how authors have interpreted these factors and reflected them in their fiction.
I’d say the only real downer on the day came during the Living on the Moon and Mars panel. It was a display of utter crassness from some audience members that became the perfect example of where fandom can get a bad name. And, to be clear, I'm not talking about the stereotypes of how fans look. Personally, I don't care whether someone is dressed in non-descript clothing like I was, whether they look like the epitome of the computer geek with the coke-bottle glasses, whether they're in Renaissance period costume, whether they're muscled and sporting flowing tresses, or whether they're a 350 pound transvestite goth. All of those physical types and more were present at the con and these panels, and pretty much all of them had worth-while comments to share and behaved with caring and consideration towards each other, the panelists/guests and the organizers. No. I'm talking about the shitty attitude a very small minority of people (without reference to any physical type of mode of dress) carry around that makes them think that they, even though they've probably never been published or been publicly acknowledged or applauded by any member of the speculative fiction community or have any degree of scientific or cultural expertise, are intellectual giants who have the right to take cheap pot-shots at anyone who's from outside their own limited experience or who has the guts to address a crowd. I'm talking about the self-deluded few who's snideness has transformed them (likely without their knowing) into living charicatures of the worst aspects of fandom - the Comic Book Guy from "The Simpsons". What's saddest of all is that society in general tends to hold the mistaken belief that this tiny percentage of fandom actually represents everyone who loves speculative fiction. These fuckers give us all a bad name and I'm sick of it.
Here's how the debacle went down: Sci-fi author and retired physics and astronomy prof James C. Glass and David Bigelow, who builds electrical control panels and is a sometime writer, were the panelists. Things took a turn for the pointless right from the start. During the introductions, Bigelow identified himself and made some mention of a particular career he is or was involved in (I can’t remember what) - a pursuit that was not related to astronomy. Without missing a beat, some complete jackass in the audience pounced on Bigelow, saying something to the effect of “Then I guess you don’t know anything about what’s involved in traveling to or colonizing the Moon and Mars!”
There’s no excuse for putting a guest speaker down, especially not before the discussion’s even begun. Clearly this idiot in the crowd is so high on himself that he’s incapable of considering that maybe, just maybe, the con organizers chose Bigelow to take part in the panel because even though he’s not a pro astronomer he may have put a hell of a lot of research into this kind of stuff on his own time and might just know what he’s talking about. Or maybe that his different field of expertise might be relevant in some way that this loser can’t conceive. Or maybe that he's read a ton of the stories in the field that concern colonization and can comment on its literary portrayal. More to the point, the know-it-all doesn’t understand or care that the rest of us in the audience who are aware of the concept of respect didn’t pay our con membership fees to listen to the likes of yappy little freaks like him. The fact is that while Glass, as the expert in the room, spoke in the most detail about the practicalities of colonization and deep space flight, Bigelow did have a number of worthwhile things to say. For his part, the idiot in the audience did not.
And that brings me to the other matter that bugged me about that session: a general problem at cons… outta control fanboys. Audience participation at panel discussions, when kept focused and carefully moderated by the panel, can be intelligent, entertaining and worth while. But some members of audiences should be actively ignored or better yet, shut down quickly by moderators, and never allowed to speak their minds (or their pathetic excuses for minds) either because they have nothing to say beyond “you know what’s cool…” or because they’re rude, or because they won't shut up - they believe in their heart of hearts they're members of the panel too, or because they're determined to steal the spotlight for themselves because they’re not actually interested in listening to the panel.
The Living on the Moon and Mars presentation was an example of where two losers in the audience took every opportunity they could to hijack the session and pontificate on their own views of what deep space exploration and colonization would be like, irrespective of the actual science involved that Glass and Bigelow were discussing. It bugs me that these two fools wasted probably 10 minutes with their blather, taking full advantage of the politeness of the panelists who allowed them to speak. I would rather that time had gone to the panelists to make their sound predictions, or even that we had been able to use that 10 minutes to leave the room early to stretch our legs before the next seminar, than to a pair of dweebs interested only in masturbating their own imaginations in front of the rest of us. You wanna share your half-baked notions? Write a story, produce a television pilot or movie, or launch a blog. If the rest of the human race is remotely interested, people will read, watch, or log-on, and maybe then you'll eventually earn your place at a panelist's table to share your views with an audience. Until then, on behalf of everyone else who's parents and/or life experience taught them basic respect for others: sit down, shut up, and quit wasting our time! We didn't come to the con to listen to you!
Of course, that begs the question, why didn't ol' bloginhood or someone else in the audience take the initiative and shut these jokers down? Simple: respect for the panelists. The two idiots had already hijacked enough time, and getting into an argument with them would have just wasted more. And getting into a scene in the hallway afterward (in addition to being waaaaay too highschool) would have also probably failed to achieve results, and would have interefered with getting to the next panel on time. No, I think in these cases, it's up to the panel moderator to stare the grandstander in the eye and say "Thanks for your comments, but you're off topic and we'd like to give the panelists a chance to speak." In the case of out-and-out rudeness such as the insult at the beginning of the panel in question, I think it's up to the moderator, on behalf of the con organizers, to either give the offending fanboy a warning or to ask him to leave.
But, I guess there’s no such thing as a perfect con and if there were only two losers in an entire day of panels at the event, then the con was batting a pretty good average. And that being said, what Glass and Bigelow had to say about underground colonies, supply issues, radiation dangers and other practicalities was quite interesting.
I was also quite happy with the dealers’ room. Granted, some of the tables were empty Fri afternoon (I got the impression the room would be full by Sat), but I was able to spend some time chatting with the friendly folks at the Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing table, where I picked up some very nice back-issues of anthologies that you just can’t find on bookstore shelves anymore. I was able to secure copies of the “Tesseracts” anthology – volumes 1, 3 and 4, “On Spec: The First Five Years” and “land/space: An Anthology of Prairie Speculative Fiction”. The bonus: they were all old warehouse stock, so I was able to get them for the original cover prices! He shoots, he scores!
All in all, a good weekend.
We also celebrated the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival this past weekend. Take your pick of the many legends behind this holiday, whether they have to do with goddesses in the moon or heroes shooting down burning suns with their bows. The season sees Chinese children staying up late to play with lanterns and candles under the moon while everyone munches on Moon Cakes. Salty or sweet, depending on your preference, and the more duck egg yolks buried in the Moon Cake’s centre, the more money you’ll be paying to buy them – never mind how much you’ll spend trying to get your cholesterol down later!
What do these holidays have to do with speculative fiction? You might argue not much. But, there is a certain magic to these celebrations… epic myths from ancient China, mighty Thanksgiving feasts in the West that harken back to harvest revels in days of yore where stories would be shared over a groaning mead-board piled with good food as everyone sought comfort before the coming winter. There is a magic to any time that brings people of many backgrounds together in friendship. Sentimental? Sure. But no less true. I think of the almost-four-year-old son of our friends who were over for the feast on Sunday night, playing with his golden lantern, still content from a Mid-Autumn festival celebration the night before, as he chomped on turkey dinner or a pumpkin-shaped cookie at the first Thanksgiving his family had taken part in, and I think there’s a certain magic in that too… where a boy can grow into the future enjoying the best of two different cultures. What fiction can equal that? Like I said, sentimental but true.
This past weekend also marked our first anniversary. My wife and I took some time Monday evening to talk about the past year and watch our wedding DVD for a few laughs.
And if that wasn’t enough, I took in day 1 of VCon 31 – the Vancouver Science Fiction, Fantasy and Gaming Convention on Friday, which I enjoyed immensely. I must confess, it’s only the second con I’ve attended. The first was ConAdian – the 52nd World Science Fiction Convention held in Winnipeg, Manitoba back in Sept. 1994.
It’s not that I haven’t wanted to attend other cons, it’s just that higher priority family events, work obligations or money or timing issues (or combinations of the four) have interfered. And even if none of the above had stood in the way, I’m not sure that I would have attended all the annual cons in whatever province I was living in, or some of the bigger national or international cons here in Canada or the US. I think that while I am, as a fan, a member of this community, I don’t feel the need to immerse myself in it all the time. I’m more of a passive observer who occasionally dips into the experience. I guess if the con scene was a city and the people who attend it were its citizens, I’d be someone content to live in the suburbs who makes the odd foray into town to keep in touch and see what’s happening.
That being said, I do enjoy these trips into Conville, and where time, money and personal and work scheduling permit, I may find myself making more excursions. This year was a no-brainer: Vcon 31 was held at a hotel in Richmond (just south of Vancouver) just a stone’s throw from the house – I could have walked there in 20 minutes, instead, pressed for time, I drove there in 5. And the stars were aligned for scheduling, because I was actually able to make some time to attend this year. So I went. To be sure, the seeming convenience of holding the con over the Thanksgiving long weekend was actually problematic – if you’ve got family, it’s difficult to be able to take in the entire event. In fact, the holiday might have prevented some from attending altogether who would otherwise have come. For my part, shopping and prep work nixed the chance of attending on Sat, and Sun was out because of the cooking during the daytime and feasting in the evening. So it was Friday, opening day, by default. And while there were a number of panels I would have loved to attend on Sat & Sun, what I was able to take in on Fri did the trick.
It was a small turnout on Fri (I expect, given the number of people I saw checking in at the end of the day, things were busier later during the weekend), but that didn’t detract from the appeal of the con. In fact, it’s actually nicer to have your choice of seats in the rooms holding the panel discussions, or to be able to take your time checking out the art displays or browsing in the dealers’ room.
Hats off especially to the organizers for assembling some great writers' panels with interesting, intelligent themes. In fact, I think that’s what impressed me the most: the commitment to intelligent discourse about speculative fiction, writing in general, about science and history. No crowded halls of drooling fans quizzing actors about pointless minutia of their shows. No authors expounding on their own greatness (something that really turned me off of one grand matron of the genre back in '94 - but that's a story for another time). These sessions encouraged the panelists, and for the most part, the fans, to debate moral and scientific issues, to investigate literary style.
I was fortunate enough to attend the following panels: How Stories End, Near-Future SF, Living on the Moon and Mars and Historical Fiction: Where Does History End and Fantasy Begin?
My favourites, without a doubt, were How Stories End and Near Future SF. Both featured lively debate among smart panelists with some interesting questions and comments from the audience.
How Stories End explored why authors write the endings they do - what literary logic is involved in steering the story’s course, how much does the author have a responsibility to the demands of the audience for a particular ending and how much should this be taken into consideration, the impact of focus groups on television and film and whether this “tool” of Hollywood would have corrupted the endings of pre-focus group movies of the past, along with many other issues. The session also featured a bit of tension between a couple of the panelists, but that served to add a little more energy to the debate and things did remain professional. Another panelist, during the "how would focus groups have affected the outcome of older movies" discussion, dropped a quick reference to my guilty pleasure: "Walt Disney's The Black Hole". It came during another panelist's pause for a breath, so I don't think too many other people caught it, but I'll grudgingly admit it gave me a surge of pure fanboy glee. That being said, it does raise the strange question (which would have made a great discussion if the panel had seized on it) of whether a focus group could actually save a movie from a bad ending. Would it have been possible for a randomly selected collection of yokels representing the "average" moviegoer to have moved the mighty Disney machine to change the ending of "The Black Hole" to make it, well, make sense? One can only wonder.
Near Future SF was not, as some might fear, a simple checklist of what author made what prediction and was it right or wrong. Rather, the panel examined the effects of technology, nature and changing human psychology and sociology on culture and humanity itself, and how authors have interpreted these factors and reflected them in their fiction.
I’d say the only real downer on the day came during the Living on the Moon and Mars panel. It was a display of utter crassness from some audience members that became the perfect example of where fandom can get a bad name. And, to be clear, I'm not talking about the stereotypes of how fans look. Personally, I don't care whether someone is dressed in non-descript clothing like I was, whether they look like the epitome of the computer geek with the coke-bottle glasses, whether they're in Renaissance period costume, whether they're muscled and sporting flowing tresses, or whether they're a 350 pound transvestite goth. All of those physical types and more were present at the con and these panels, and pretty much all of them had worth-while comments to share and behaved with caring and consideration towards each other, the panelists/guests and the organizers. No. I'm talking about the shitty attitude a very small minority of people (without reference to any physical type of mode of dress) carry around that makes them think that they, even though they've probably never been published or been publicly acknowledged or applauded by any member of the speculative fiction community or have any degree of scientific or cultural expertise, are intellectual giants who have the right to take cheap pot-shots at anyone who's from outside their own limited experience or who has the guts to address a crowd. I'm talking about the self-deluded few who's snideness has transformed them (likely without their knowing) into living charicatures of the worst aspects of fandom - the Comic Book Guy from "The Simpsons". What's saddest of all is that society in general tends to hold the mistaken belief that this tiny percentage of fandom actually represents everyone who loves speculative fiction. These fuckers give us all a bad name and I'm sick of it.
Here's how the debacle went down: Sci-fi author and retired physics and astronomy prof James C. Glass and David Bigelow, who builds electrical control panels and is a sometime writer, were the panelists. Things took a turn for the pointless right from the start. During the introductions, Bigelow identified himself and made some mention of a particular career he is or was involved in (I can’t remember what) - a pursuit that was not related to astronomy. Without missing a beat, some complete jackass in the audience pounced on Bigelow, saying something to the effect of “Then I guess you don’t know anything about what’s involved in traveling to or colonizing the Moon and Mars!”
There’s no excuse for putting a guest speaker down, especially not before the discussion’s even begun. Clearly this idiot in the crowd is so high on himself that he’s incapable of considering that maybe, just maybe, the con organizers chose Bigelow to take part in the panel because even though he’s not a pro astronomer he may have put a hell of a lot of research into this kind of stuff on his own time and might just know what he’s talking about. Or maybe that his different field of expertise might be relevant in some way that this loser can’t conceive. Or maybe that he's read a ton of the stories in the field that concern colonization and can comment on its literary portrayal. More to the point, the know-it-all doesn’t understand or care that the rest of us in the audience who are aware of the concept of respect didn’t pay our con membership fees to listen to the likes of yappy little freaks like him. The fact is that while Glass, as the expert in the room, spoke in the most detail about the practicalities of colonization and deep space flight, Bigelow did have a number of worthwhile things to say. For his part, the idiot in the audience did not.
And that brings me to the other matter that bugged me about that session: a general problem at cons… outta control fanboys. Audience participation at panel discussions, when kept focused and carefully moderated by the panel, can be intelligent, entertaining and worth while. But some members of audiences should be actively ignored or better yet, shut down quickly by moderators, and never allowed to speak their minds (or their pathetic excuses for minds) either because they have nothing to say beyond “you know what’s cool…” or because they’re rude, or because they won't shut up - they believe in their heart of hearts they're members of the panel too, or because they're determined to steal the spotlight for themselves because they’re not actually interested in listening to the panel.
The Living on the Moon and Mars presentation was an example of where two losers in the audience took every opportunity they could to hijack the session and pontificate on their own views of what deep space exploration and colonization would be like, irrespective of the actual science involved that Glass and Bigelow were discussing. It bugs me that these two fools wasted probably 10 minutes with their blather, taking full advantage of the politeness of the panelists who allowed them to speak. I would rather that time had gone to the panelists to make their sound predictions, or even that we had been able to use that 10 minutes to leave the room early to stretch our legs before the next seminar, than to a pair of dweebs interested only in masturbating their own imaginations in front of the rest of us. You wanna share your half-baked notions? Write a story, produce a television pilot or movie, or launch a blog. If the rest of the human race is remotely interested, people will read, watch, or log-on, and maybe then you'll eventually earn your place at a panelist's table to share your views with an audience. Until then, on behalf of everyone else who's parents and/or life experience taught them basic respect for others: sit down, shut up, and quit wasting our time! We didn't come to the con to listen to you!
Of course, that begs the question, why didn't ol' bloginhood or someone else in the audience take the initiative and shut these jokers down? Simple: respect for the panelists. The two idiots had already hijacked enough time, and getting into an argument with them would have just wasted more. And getting into a scene in the hallway afterward (in addition to being waaaaay too highschool) would have also probably failed to achieve results, and would have interefered with getting to the next panel on time. No, I think in these cases, it's up to the panel moderator to stare the grandstander in the eye and say "Thanks for your comments, but you're off topic and we'd like to give the panelists a chance to speak." In the case of out-and-out rudeness such as the insult at the beginning of the panel in question, I think it's up to the moderator, on behalf of the con organizers, to either give the offending fanboy a warning or to ask him to leave.
But, I guess there’s no such thing as a perfect con and if there were only two losers in an entire day of panels at the event, then the con was batting a pretty good average. And that being said, what Glass and Bigelow had to say about underground colonies, supply issues, radiation dangers and other practicalities was quite interesting.
I was also quite happy with the dealers’ room. Granted, some of the tables were empty Fri afternoon (I got the impression the room would be full by Sat), but I was able to spend some time chatting with the friendly folks at the Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing table, where I picked up some very nice back-issues of anthologies that you just can’t find on bookstore shelves anymore. I was able to secure copies of the “Tesseracts” anthology – volumes 1, 3 and 4, “On Spec: The First Five Years” and “land/space: An Anthology of Prairie Speculative Fiction”. The bonus: they were all old warehouse stock, so I was able to get them for the original cover prices! He shoots, he scores!
All in all, a good weekend.
Friday, September 29, 2006
An Animated Discussion
It was the animals that started it. My wife and I had finished enjoying Miyazaki’s “Porco Rosso” on DVD last night and were flicking through the TV channels when we came across an ad for Sony Animation’s new flick “Open Season”. It prompted my wife to remark that Japanese animators had more creativity because they stepped boldly into the weirdest realms of their imaginations, as opposed to North American animation story-tellers who tend to stick with comfortable repeats of animal stories.
I’m not so sure about that.
Now, it should be noted that the two of us come from different backgrounds with different animation influences as we grew up. She’s a Hong Kong Chinese who had a lot of Japan’s anime on the TV and movie screens of her childhood, seasoned liberally with Western animated fare brought in by that freeport’s English masters.
Myself, being a Canadian boy brought up in south-western Ontario, I had the expected hefty dose of Disney (the first movie my parents ever took me to see as a little tyke was “Pete’s Dragon”), Looney Toons, and the Walter Lantz fare (“Woody Woodpecker” and “Chilly Willy”). Credit too to various other North American sources like Hanna Barbara (“The Flintstones”, “Yogi Bear”) and Filmation (“Fat Albert”, “He-Man”, “Gilligan’s Planet”) and later on whoever produced “G.I. Joe” and “The Transformers”. And my TV hours were also spiced with a bit of anime in the form of “Starblazers” (the sanitized, Americanized import of “Space Cruiser Yamato”) and “Battle of the Planets” (“Gotchamon” to the Japanese, again, sanitized and Americanized) and later “Robotech” (“Macross”, yadda yadda). There was even some British flavouring here and there in the form of “Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings” (ever seen Mike Myers’ old skit from SNL? This was the inspiration,) or “Dr Snuggles” (the wacky adventures of an English inventor – voiced by Sir Peter Ustinov – and his animal friends). Sadly, with the exception of the excellent "The Secret Railroad", there wasn’t much in the way of homegrown animation. Most of the good Canadian stuff was live action (it took a long time for quality like “The Cat Came Back” to come along).
Since then, through our teens and as adults, we’ve both seen a lot of animation from different sources, and not all of them feature-length productions from major studios.
But I’m still not comfortable with the question of who’s more imaginative, Japanese animators or their North American counterparts. It smacks of apples and oranges. But beyond that, I think there are more similarities than differences, and that puts them all pretty much on a level field on the imagination landscape.
What differences there are in the manifestation of their creativity no doubt arises to some extent from the different realities of modern life and cultural backgrounds. The Japanese are a numerous people crammed into towering cities of glass and steel on a cluster of smallish islands. In the past 150 years they’ve transformed radically from a feudal, mostly agrarian society to a wanton embrace of high tech, and seen their imperialistic world view brought to heel at the hands of foreign powers. Landmarks like “Akira” clearly illustrate artists trying to deal with the crushing weight of urban life and technology run rampant. A culture that demands homogeny has given rise to multiple movies and TV series where a single, freaky-haired, plucky, young fella at the controls of a giant robot (take your pick of any of the giant robot or cool tank serials) can save his city or even the world and get the girl. “Princess Mononoke” is a longing for a pastoral, mythical past where Shintoist connections with the spirits in the land and everything on it were not only relevant, but immediate. Mankind is brought low by seemingly unstoppable alien invaders in “Macross” and has to adapt the aliens’ own technology in creative ways to survive, and in victory join forces with some of those same invaders – not unlike the Japanese loss in World War II and subsequent economic recovery and rise to manufacturing and financial global superpower. Not a lot of animals to make life interesting in the megacities? Just invent a horde of them with special powers – your basic “Pokemon” and its ilk.
North American animators are coming from post-colonial cultures, where the imagination fostered in modern times is rooted in practical concerns of our forefathers who wondered and dreamt and worried about what was lurking in the dark depths of the forest that started at the edge of their farms, and what strange lands unseen by Western man lay beyond. We live in lands that despite our ever-encroaching suburban sprawl, resource exploitation and pollution, still manage to have huge tracts of uninhabited land where it is still common for people to disappear without a trace. Encounters between man and various animals, and opportunities for man to observe the behaviours of the animals, were par for the course in our cultures’ infancies, and are still fairly common. And in the remaining wild animals we see a freedom of behaviour, an innocence, a care-free life that we like to delusionally imagine our ancestors may once have had. Despite the Judeo-Christian foundations of our cultures that dictate that man is far above the other residents of the animal kingdom, it’s still a fairly common instinct to anthropomorphize the animals around us. No wonder the bulk of major animated features are about the misadventures of bears and dogs and cats and other critters, either in the wild, or navigating the perilous world of man. Modern urban life for human beings is turned into the stuff of animated entertainment in the form of Bill Cosby’s “Fat Albert” or “Undergrads” or blurring into fantasy or science fiction (for a much older audience) with MTV’s “The Maxx” or Ralph Bakshi’s “Spicy City”.
Do these differences in culture and style show on the balance some sort of superiority of one over the other? No. Merely that they are different.
And we can see many instances where each culture’s creativity is amplified by interaction with the other. Take the “Animatrix”. Not a single feature, but a collection where animators from both sides of the Pacific came to play in a world created by a pair of American film makers who were clearly inspired by classic science fiction stories from authors around the world. What about features from the 80’s like “The Last Unicorn” (yes, I know, Peter S. Beagle is a Brit, not North American, but it’s still a good example of Japanese adaptation of a product of Western culture) or “Flight of Dragons” where Japanese animators breathed life into stories by Western authors? “Ghost in the Shell” may be a high-water mark in Japanese anime, it may involve a hefty dose of cyberpunk, but it owes its form to classic American film noire – Bogart could be slouching the streets next to those cyborg cops, trying to figure out what was going on as he lit up another cigarette. The new “Martin Mystery” is clearly an updated “Scooby Doo”.
We should also be aware that there are many similarities – instances of parallel evolution: “The Transformers”, while it starred alien robots, was really a superhero show, and a good one at that. On this side of the pond, so was the “Spider Man and his Amazing Friends and the Incredible Hulk Adventure Hour”. Japanese animators have long had a fascination with trains – we see that in “Galaxy Express 999” or “Midnight on Galactic Railway”, but when I was growing up I was extremely fond of the adventures of a boy names Simon and his sidekicks Mr. Passenger and Melanie the cat on “The Secret Railroad”.
Let’s also not forget that both traditions also have left behind great, steaming piles of imagination-and/or-quality-deprived shit on our TV and movie screens. The Japanese really do need to put aside their pride (and weird school girl fetishes) and apologize to the world for the “Sailor Moon” garbage that slammed into the rest of the world during the 90’s. For our part, North America must openly admit that Bakshi’s attempt at “The Lord of the Rings” is one of the greatest abominations in animation history.
And if you’re going to argue repetition, that many North American features are about animals (and let’s face it, it does tend to be a zoo at the cinema), remember that the Japanese also have a tendency to keep banging on the drum once they find a formula that seems to work – especially one with toy marketing potential. Case in point: “Pokemon” which was quickly followed by “Digimon” and a whole host of other ‘mons.
Ultimately, both the Japanese and North American animation traditions have soared to stellar heights in their presentation of this world or the worlds of imagination, in their ability to challenge our intellects and/or tug at our heartstrings, in their ability to tell a good story. And both have committed terrible sins against this art form. Examples of the successes and failures of each are legion, and if I were to be even more long-winded than usual and start detailing my all-time favourites (many of which are not mentioned here), we’d be here for a month. I will be brief in this pronouncement: both are equally creative and are to be applauded for their attempts to sow the seeds of dreams in succeeding generations.
I’m not so sure about that.
Now, it should be noted that the two of us come from different backgrounds with different animation influences as we grew up. She’s a Hong Kong Chinese who had a lot of Japan’s anime on the TV and movie screens of her childhood, seasoned liberally with Western animated fare brought in by that freeport’s English masters.
Myself, being a Canadian boy brought up in south-western Ontario, I had the expected hefty dose of Disney (the first movie my parents ever took me to see as a little tyke was “Pete’s Dragon”), Looney Toons, and the Walter Lantz fare (“Woody Woodpecker” and “Chilly Willy”). Credit too to various other North American sources like Hanna Barbara (“The Flintstones”, “Yogi Bear”) and Filmation (“Fat Albert”, “He-Man”, “Gilligan’s Planet”) and later on whoever produced “G.I. Joe” and “The Transformers”. And my TV hours were also spiced with a bit of anime in the form of “Starblazers” (the sanitized, Americanized import of “Space Cruiser Yamato”) and “Battle of the Planets” (“Gotchamon” to the Japanese, again, sanitized and Americanized) and later “Robotech” (“Macross”, yadda yadda). There was even some British flavouring here and there in the form of “Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings” (ever seen Mike Myers’ old skit from SNL? This was the inspiration,) or “Dr Snuggles” (the wacky adventures of an English inventor – voiced by Sir Peter Ustinov – and his animal friends). Sadly, with the exception of the excellent "The Secret Railroad", there wasn’t much in the way of homegrown animation. Most of the good Canadian stuff was live action (it took a long time for quality like “The Cat Came Back” to come along).
Since then, through our teens and as adults, we’ve both seen a lot of animation from different sources, and not all of them feature-length productions from major studios.
But I’m still not comfortable with the question of who’s more imaginative, Japanese animators or their North American counterparts. It smacks of apples and oranges. But beyond that, I think there are more similarities than differences, and that puts them all pretty much on a level field on the imagination landscape.
What differences there are in the manifestation of their creativity no doubt arises to some extent from the different realities of modern life and cultural backgrounds. The Japanese are a numerous people crammed into towering cities of glass and steel on a cluster of smallish islands. In the past 150 years they’ve transformed radically from a feudal, mostly agrarian society to a wanton embrace of high tech, and seen their imperialistic world view brought to heel at the hands of foreign powers. Landmarks like “Akira” clearly illustrate artists trying to deal with the crushing weight of urban life and technology run rampant. A culture that demands homogeny has given rise to multiple movies and TV series where a single, freaky-haired, plucky, young fella at the controls of a giant robot (take your pick of any of the giant robot or cool tank serials) can save his city or even the world and get the girl. “Princess Mononoke” is a longing for a pastoral, mythical past where Shintoist connections with the spirits in the land and everything on it were not only relevant, but immediate. Mankind is brought low by seemingly unstoppable alien invaders in “Macross” and has to adapt the aliens’ own technology in creative ways to survive, and in victory join forces with some of those same invaders – not unlike the Japanese loss in World War II and subsequent economic recovery and rise to manufacturing and financial global superpower. Not a lot of animals to make life interesting in the megacities? Just invent a horde of them with special powers – your basic “Pokemon” and its ilk.
North American animators are coming from post-colonial cultures, where the imagination fostered in modern times is rooted in practical concerns of our forefathers who wondered and dreamt and worried about what was lurking in the dark depths of the forest that started at the edge of their farms, and what strange lands unseen by Western man lay beyond. We live in lands that despite our ever-encroaching suburban sprawl, resource exploitation and pollution, still manage to have huge tracts of uninhabited land where it is still common for people to disappear without a trace. Encounters between man and various animals, and opportunities for man to observe the behaviours of the animals, were par for the course in our cultures’ infancies, and are still fairly common. And in the remaining wild animals we see a freedom of behaviour, an innocence, a care-free life that we like to delusionally imagine our ancestors may once have had. Despite the Judeo-Christian foundations of our cultures that dictate that man is far above the other residents of the animal kingdom, it’s still a fairly common instinct to anthropomorphize the animals around us. No wonder the bulk of major animated features are about the misadventures of bears and dogs and cats and other critters, either in the wild, or navigating the perilous world of man. Modern urban life for human beings is turned into the stuff of animated entertainment in the form of Bill Cosby’s “Fat Albert” or “Undergrads” or blurring into fantasy or science fiction (for a much older audience) with MTV’s “The Maxx” or Ralph Bakshi’s “Spicy City”.
Do these differences in culture and style show on the balance some sort of superiority of one over the other? No. Merely that they are different.
And we can see many instances where each culture’s creativity is amplified by interaction with the other. Take the “Animatrix”. Not a single feature, but a collection where animators from both sides of the Pacific came to play in a world created by a pair of American film makers who were clearly inspired by classic science fiction stories from authors around the world. What about features from the 80’s like “The Last Unicorn” (yes, I know, Peter S. Beagle is a Brit, not North American, but it’s still a good example of Japanese adaptation of a product of Western culture) or “Flight of Dragons” where Japanese animators breathed life into stories by Western authors? “Ghost in the Shell” may be a high-water mark in Japanese anime, it may involve a hefty dose of cyberpunk, but it owes its form to classic American film noire – Bogart could be slouching the streets next to those cyborg cops, trying to figure out what was going on as he lit up another cigarette. The new “Martin Mystery” is clearly an updated “Scooby Doo”.
We should also be aware that there are many similarities – instances of parallel evolution: “The Transformers”, while it starred alien robots, was really a superhero show, and a good one at that. On this side of the pond, so was the “Spider Man and his Amazing Friends and the Incredible Hulk Adventure Hour”. Japanese animators have long had a fascination with trains – we see that in “Galaxy Express 999” or “Midnight on Galactic Railway”, but when I was growing up I was extremely fond of the adventures of a boy names Simon and his sidekicks Mr. Passenger and Melanie the cat on “The Secret Railroad”.
Let’s also not forget that both traditions also have left behind great, steaming piles of imagination-and/or-quality-deprived shit on our TV and movie screens. The Japanese really do need to put aside their pride (and weird school girl fetishes) and apologize to the world for the “Sailor Moon” garbage that slammed into the rest of the world during the 90’s. For our part, North America must openly admit that Bakshi’s attempt at “The Lord of the Rings” is one of the greatest abominations in animation history.
And if you’re going to argue repetition, that many North American features are about animals (and let’s face it, it does tend to be a zoo at the cinema), remember that the Japanese also have a tendency to keep banging on the drum once they find a formula that seems to work – especially one with toy marketing potential. Case in point: “Pokemon” which was quickly followed by “Digimon” and a whole host of other ‘mons.
Ultimately, both the Japanese and North American animation traditions have soared to stellar heights in their presentation of this world or the worlds of imagination, in their ability to challenge our intellects and/or tug at our heartstrings, in their ability to tell a good story. And both have committed terrible sins against this art form. Examples of the successes and failures of each are legion, and if I were to be even more long-winded than usual and start detailing my all-time favourites (many of which are not mentioned here), we’d be here for a month. I will be brief in this pronouncement: both are equally creative and are to be applauded for their attempts to sow the seeds of dreams in succeeding generations.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Another Welcome To The World
Great news! My good friend and former pupil James has just become a father! The twin boys, Treton and Kaden, are a bit small (just under and just over 4 pounds, respectively), so they're in for a hospital stay for a while until they're a little more robust, but all things considered, they're doing really well. Their mother, Kat, is fine too - James was probably more nervous than she was during the delivery.
What does this have to do with a blog about speculative fiction? Nothing. Aside from the fact that it makes our peering into the future a little more concrete when we see two new little lives that will explore all that is and what is to come with fresh perspectives. In a way, you have to envy them for some year down the road when they'll get to read Shakespeare's "Mid Summer Night's Dream" or Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" for the first time, or their first viewing of "Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope" (let's hope dear old George has finally learned to stop tinkering with his masterpiece or ceased his annual re-issuing of its various incarnations by then). As much of a pleasure as it is to go back to these old favourites, there's nothing that compares to the wonder of the first time.
Okay, some of you may accuse me of getting sentimental and schmaltzy, but hey, I'm entitled once in a while. If nothing else it's a change from my usual litany of complaints about this, that, or the other.
So welcome to the world, Treton & Kaden! You're in for quite a ride.
What does this have to do with a blog about speculative fiction? Nothing. Aside from the fact that it makes our peering into the future a little more concrete when we see two new little lives that will explore all that is and what is to come with fresh perspectives. In a way, you have to envy them for some year down the road when they'll get to read Shakespeare's "Mid Summer Night's Dream" or Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" for the first time, or their first viewing of "Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope" (let's hope dear old George has finally learned to stop tinkering with his masterpiece or ceased his annual re-issuing of its various incarnations by then). As much of a pleasure as it is to go back to these old favourites, there's nothing that compares to the wonder of the first time.
Okay, some of you may accuse me of getting sentimental and schmaltzy, but hey, I'm entitled once in a while. If nothing else it's a change from my usual litany of complaints about this, that, or the other.
So welcome to the world, Treton & Kaden! You're in for quite a ride.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Jumping On The Blue Man Bandwagon
Everyone else seems to be doing it, so, since I don’t disagree, I may as well too. Yep, I’m adding my voice to the chorus of praises for Nick DiChario’s “A Small and Remarkable Life”.
If you love intelligent storytelling – literature that examines what it means to be human, without being pretentious, then you should read what one reviewer on the SciFi Channel’s website called this “small and remarkable book”.
The fact that this story is science fiction makes it so much better. Not because one needs little blue aliens that just don’t stay dead to make a good story, but rather this book adds to the stack of stories proving that speculative fiction is, at its best, exquisitely literate and though unnoticed by the vast majority of mainstream reviewers, is a genre whose fare often leaves the more widely noticed regular fiction in the dust when it comes to quality.
The story is presented in two interweaving parts. The first begins with the funeral of Tink Puddah (the afore-mentioned little blue alien) in a mountain village in pre-Civil War America. The town preacher is desperately trying to reconcile how a “man” who rejected God could have been so loved by the townsfolk. This as he obsesses over his perceived inability to bond with his flock, his life under his father’s shadow, and the fact that despite his chosen profession, he has never felt a divine connection. From here, the preacher begins to spiral into insanity. While this half of the story deals with the deconstruction of a man, the other half of the novel concerns the development of a young alien. It is a bildungsroman (speaking of writing that gets pretentious, I apologize) – a novel of growth about Tink Puddah’s violent entry into our world and his quiet struggles to come to grips with his isolation in it and with who he is. He tries to figure out what it means to be human, even as he wades into what it means to be an alien from Wetspace.
In fact, I would say the only part of this book that isn’t worth reading is the “book club guide” at the back. Anyone who could read this tale and sit back and reflect on it doesn’t need to be led around by the nose by questions provided by the publisher. Anyone who needs those prefabricated thought-provokers probably doesn’t get the book to begin with, and likely won’t even benefit from a series of directed questions. It’s a pity these publishers with their eyes on the book club niche don’t give the denizens of those gatherings more credit for their intelligence. Let people reflect and discuss and dig deep internally and discover on their own, without some all-powerful, all-knowing outside guidance. It worked for Tink Puddah.
If you love intelligent storytelling – literature that examines what it means to be human, without being pretentious, then you should read what one reviewer on the SciFi Channel’s website called this “small and remarkable book”.
The fact that this story is science fiction makes it so much better. Not because one needs little blue aliens that just don’t stay dead to make a good story, but rather this book adds to the stack of stories proving that speculative fiction is, at its best, exquisitely literate and though unnoticed by the vast majority of mainstream reviewers, is a genre whose fare often leaves the more widely noticed regular fiction in the dust when it comes to quality.
The story is presented in two interweaving parts. The first begins with the funeral of Tink Puddah (the afore-mentioned little blue alien) in a mountain village in pre-Civil War America. The town preacher is desperately trying to reconcile how a “man” who rejected God could have been so loved by the townsfolk. This as he obsesses over his perceived inability to bond with his flock, his life under his father’s shadow, and the fact that despite his chosen profession, he has never felt a divine connection. From here, the preacher begins to spiral into insanity. While this half of the story deals with the deconstruction of a man, the other half of the novel concerns the development of a young alien. It is a bildungsroman (speaking of writing that gets pretentious, I apologize) – a novel of growth about Tink Puddah’s violent entry into our world and his quiet struggles to come to grips with his isolation in it and with who he is. He tries to figure out what it means to be human, even as he wades into what it means to be an alien from Wetspace.
In fact, I would say the only part of this book that isn’t worth reading is the “book club guide” at the back. Anyone who could read this tale and sit back and reflect on it doesn’t need to be led around by the nose by questions provided by the publisher. Anyone who needs those prefabricated thought-provokers probably doesn’t get the book to begin with, and likely won’t even benefit from a series of directed questions. It’s a pity these publishers with their eyes on the book club niche don’t give the denizens of those gatherings more credit for their intelligence. Let people reflect and discuss and dig deep internally and discover on their own, without some all-powerful, all-knowing outside guidance. It worked for Tink Puddah.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Summer's End & Guilty Pleasures
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?
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?
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?
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