While I was a little disappointed in BenBella’s THE MAN FROM KRYPTON, Amazon recommended a couple of other books on the man of steel that were even better. The best of their selections was a book every fan of Superman should read. Jake Rossen has written the definitive book about Superman’s history, not in the comics but in mass media. SUPERMAN VS. HOLLYWOOD starts with the 1941 radio serials (which started just a couple of years after the character’s creation) and goes all the way through to Superman Returns. In the introduction Mark Millar says that he thought he knew the story of Superman on film but he learned several things that were new to him while reading the book. Likewise, before starting the book I was familiar with several decades of Superman film mythology. I had watched George Reeves in black and white on my television when I was just a child. I had sat in a crowded theater (three friends and I were ushered into seats far apart because the theater was so crowded) watching Christopher Reeve give life to the character. I own the “making of” for the 1979 movie. I had rented the Max Fleisher short cartoons in the early days of VHS. I watched the Chris Reeve sequels and followed the first couple of seasons of LOIS AND CLARK, saw some episodes of the Bruce Timm Superman, and followed the development of Brian Singer’s reboot of the franchise. I thought I knew a lot about the history of the character on film. Boy was I surprised! Millar is absolutely right. There is seldom a page that doesn’t include a revelation!
Did you know that, for instance, One of the first Lois Lanes on radio (there were three) was Rolly Bester, wife of Alfred Bester who was writing Green Lantern at the time? That Perry White, Jimmy Olsen, and Kryptonite were invented by the radio writers, not in the comics? That Kevin Smith did not just have numerous meetings with the Warner Brothers brass as recounted in his AN EVENING WITH KEVIN SMITH but actually wrote two complete scripts? That the Tim Burton-Nick Cage reboot SUPERMAN LIVES was going to feature a superman with a new costume, a heavy reliance on gadgets (to please the toy makers), and would fly with the aid of a jet pack? (!) That the first season Superboy of the 1988 series was fired because he was arrested for DUI, violating his “morals clause” (at the same time that he was asking for a 20% raise)? (It isn’t mentioned in the book but one local rumor circulating at the time in Orlando, where the series was being made, was that he was also a little too conspicuous at The Parliament House, the largest gay club in town.)
Superman even destroyed the KuKluxKlan! Really! Seems that in 1946 writers for the radio show were fed information by Stetson Kennedy, who had infiltrated the Klan but had little effect since so many southern politicians and policemen were Klan members. The writers used this information to broadcast Klan secrets in a two part episode where Superman fought the racist organization. Seems that after this, Klan membership, especially among younger people, started to dwindle.
I could go on and on with fascinating stories from the book but instead you should just link over to Amazon and buy it. It is extensively researched, well written, and just plain hard to put down. Most highly recommended to any comics fan.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
MOVIES- Earth Girls Are Easy
EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY is a science fiction film in exactly the same way that THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW is a horror movie. And it wants to be ROCKY HORROR so badly. It’s the same type of Rock musical- satirical, silly, and Southern California all the way. But it’s ROCKY HORROR by 80s MTV culture instead of 70s counterculture. And so it’s not ROCKY HORROR at all.
But it’s still interesting in a sort of not-as-bad-as-I-remember-it kind of way. The swipes at SoCal culture are dated, the songs are abysmal, and the whole thing is terribly juvenile. But the direction is sprightly, the musical numbers are staged well, and the performances make the material watchable. And there are even a few genuine laughs hidden in there. For instance when a child at a gas station is yelled by by his mother, Michael McKean (playing the fortyish burnout surfer dude- swimming pool man) yells, “Leave home kid.”
But at best it’s a trifle. Notable more for it’s trivia surrounding its characters than for any cinematic accomplishment.
Some of the trivia is sad. Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum wasted the height of their careers on this movie. They had finished THE FLY two years earlier to rave critical and moderate box-office acclaim. And by the time EARTH GIRLS was released Gina had already stared in another surprise genre hit,Tim Burton’s BEETLEJUICE, and would be up for an Oscar for her supporting actress performance in Laurance Kasdan’s THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST (also released that year). Both would go on to star in bigger movies and bigger roles; Davis would headline Ridley Scott’s THELMA AND LOUISE and also star in Penny Marshal’s A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN with Tom Hanks. While Goldblum would turn up in roles in even bigger movies such as JURASSIC PARK and INDEPENDENCE DAY. But the beginning of the 1990s saw their divorce and the end of the 90s didn’t see them much at all. After the blockbusters it seemed casting directors had Jeff Goldblum fatigue. And lets face it, what had started as a unique delivery quickly became a self-caricature. Davis, OTOH, married Rennie Harlan and his influence killed her career like cyanide. ‘Nuff said. Hasn’t been in a hit movie since.
The movie was really a vehicle to launch the career of Julie Brown (an MTV favorite) but instead was the place that Jim Carrey and Damon Wayans would get the notice of the public. Carrey would also get the notice of Wayans, who introduced him to his brother Keenen Ivory Wayans. It just happened that said brother was trying to get a TV show called IN LIVING COLOR launched. The show wound up being home to both for several years and also wound up making both famous. Wayans would work in movies steadily during this period but Carrey didn’t really do much while working on IN LIVING COLOR. However, after leaving the show Carrey would make two movies in 1994 that would launch him into A-List status- ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE and THE MASK. Damon Wayans would eventually get his own TV show, which would break the mold (set by Tim Allen and followed ever since) of the sitcom man of the house being a retard that his wife and kids had to constantly save from virtually infinite stupidity. Both would still be viable actors to this very day. Julie Brown, on the other hand, is now a question for Trivial Pursuit.
I caught this on cable in SD the other night so it was the worst possible way to see a movie that depends so heavily on its visual presentation. It was a good reminder why movies transferred to television by the “pan and scan” method are so disappointing. There are multiple scenes where either a reaction shot is lost or the camera has to jump frenetically from one side of a composite shot to the other to cover both sides of a conversation. An artificial two-shot where once there was a master. You don’t have to have graduated from film school to know that such major changes must matter.
But really, here, they don’t. This is a movie built around the master shots, not the coverage. A director trying to move into a new medium by attempting what every new director has attempted since Orson Welles. To show the old folks how it’s done. That’s why the loss of the wide screen matters in a movie shot during a time when video was driving everything, and most directors were being careful to compose shots that would translate to the conventional home screen and it’s 4:3 aspect ratio. MTV was also trying to find its way; as its original paradigm of being a video version of traditional radio was aging badly. In spite of all this, director Julien Temple would follow the path of Davis and Goldblum rather than Wayans and Carrey. For the rest of his career he would direct more music videos and produce long form music video and compilations. For all intents and purposes his movie career was over. And it may have been a loss. We’ll never know. All that we can say is that EARTH GIRLS could have easily been an embarrassment if not for his ability to give the audience a pastiche of the right style with enough new flourishes to keep it from being silly. Camp is perhaps the hardest form of comedy to do correctly. Here Harlan does it almost effortlessly.
I’m not recommending that you hunt out EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY on Netflix. It really isn’t worth that kind of effort unless your favorite movie is ROCKY HORROR or your favorite director is John Waters. But if you come across it some lonely evening, it might be worth a look.
But it’s still interesting in a sort of not-as-bad-as-I-remember-it kind of way. The swipes at SoCal culture are dated, the songs are abysmal, and the whole thing is terribly juvenile. But the direction is sprightly, the musical numbers are staged well, and the performances make the material watchable. And there are even a few genuine laughs hidden in there. For instance when a child at a gas station is yelled by by his mother, Michael McKean (playing the fortyish burnout surfer dude- swimming pool man) yells, “Leave home kid.”
But at best it’s a trifle. Notable more for it’s trivia surrounding its characters than for any cinematic accomplishment.
Some of the trivia is sad. Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum wasted the height of their careers on this movie. They had finished THE FLY two years earlier to rave critical and moderate box-office acclaim. And by the time EARTH GIRLS was released Gina had already stared in another surprise genre hit,Tim Burton’s BEETLEJUICE, and would be up for an Oscar for her supporting actress performance in Laurance Kasdan’s THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST (also released that year). Both would go on to star in bigger movies and bigger roles; Davis would headline Ridley Scott’s THELMA AND LOUISE and also star in Penny Marshal’s A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN with Tom Hanks. While Goldblum would turn up in roles in even bigger movies such as JURASSIC PARK and INDEPENDENCE DAY. But the beginning of the 1990s saw their divorce and the end of the 90s didn’t see them much at all. After the blockbusters it seemed casting directors had Jeff Goldblum fatigue. And lets face it, what had started as a unique delivery quickly became a self-caricature. Davis, OTOH, married Rennie Harlan and his influence killed her career like cyanide. ‘Nuff said. Hasn’t been in a hit movie since.
The movie was really a vehicle to launch the career of Julie Brown (an MTV favorite) but instead was the place that Jim Carrey and Damon Wayans would get the notice of the public. Carrey would also get the notice of Wayans, who introduced him to his brother Keenen Ivory Wayans. It just happened that said brother was trying to get a TV show called IN LIVING COLOR launched. The show wound up being home to both for several years and also wound up making both famous. Wayans would work in movies steadily during this period but Carrey didn’t really do much while working on IN LIVING COLOR. However, after leaving the show Carrey would make two movies in 1994 that would launch him into A-List status- ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE and THE MASK. Damon Wayans would eventually get his own TV show, which would break the mold (set by Tim Allen and followed ever since) of the sitcom man of the house being a retard that his wife and kids had to constantly save from virtually infinite stupidity. Both would still be viable actors to this very day. Julie Brown, on the other hand, is now a question for Trivial Pursuit.
I caught this on cable in SD the other night so it was the worst possible way to see a movie that depends so heavily on its visual presentation. It was a good reminder why movies transferred to television by the “pan and scan” method are so disappointing. There are multiple scenes where either a reaction shot is lost or the camera has to jump frenetically from one side of a composite shot to the other to cover both sides of a conversation. An artificial two-shot where once there was a master. You don’t have to have graduated from film school to know that such major changes must matter.
But really, here, they don’t. This is a movie built around the master shots, not the coverage. A director trying to move into a new medium by attempting what every new director has attempted since Orson Welles. To show the old folks how it’s done. That’s why the loss of the wide screen matters in a movie shot during a time when video was driving everything, and most directors were being careful to compose shots that would translate to the conventional home screen and it’s 4:3 aspect ratio. MTV was also trying to find its way; as its original paradigm of being a video version of traditional radio was aging badly. In spite of all this, director Julien Temple would follow the path of Davis and Goldblum rather than Wayans and Carrey. For the rest of his career he would direct more music videos and produce long form music video and compilations. For all intents and purposes his movie career was over. And it may have been a loss. We’ll never know. All that we can say is that EARTH GIRLS could have easily been an embarrassment if not for his ability to give the audience a pastiche of the right style with enough new flourishes to keep it from being silly. Camp is perhaps the hardest form of comedy to do correctly. Here Harlan does it almost effortlessly.
I’m not recommending that you hunt out EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY on Netflix. It really isn’t worth that kind of effort unless your favorite movie is ROCKY HORROR or your favorite director is John Waters. But if you come across it some lonely evening, it might be worth a look.
Friday, July 4, 2008
MOVIES- Jumper
Jumper seems, on the surface, to be an uninspired fantasy that’s part Jaunting from Bester’s The Stars My Destination and part attractive young people doing bad line readings. The plot has the same relationship to reason that psychoteleportation has to physics and Haden Christensen has to acting. (I can’t wait to see him try to wrap his high school play delivery around William Gibson’s technobabble.) The movie is only interesting if you consider “jumping” as a metaphor for epilepsy which during the middle ages was thought of by religious folk as being possessed by devils. That this is the subtext of the movie is further evidenced by how much time the screen is taken up by bright flashing lights, loud noises, and that apparently only epileptics in the midst of seizures were employed as camera operators.
COMICS- The Man From Krypton
More on the SmartPop books published by BenBella press.
While Batman is one of the most popular characters in comic books, the other crown jewel for National Periodicals is Superman. It’s hard to understand the affect Superman had on comics and popular culture. The character is a true icon. And his iconic status has been reaffirmed by every generation that has passed or remains since the first time Jerry Siegal and Joe Shuster were first able to see their creation in print in 1938.
I have a special affinity for the character, I must admit. My best friend has the same sort of affinity for Batman. We often have discussions like the ones in the book about the various strengths and weaknesses of the two characters. I was always bigger and stronger than the other children while he had to bare the scars of the loss of a parent while he was still a child. I identify with Clark Kent and his struggle to fit in among people he has to be careful not to hurt. I identify with his feeling of being alone in a crowd because he is so different.
All the more reason that I was a little disappointed in this particular BenBella book, THE MAN FROM KRYPTON. It’s not the fault of the folks writing the essays contained in this book. They dissect Superman with the same kind of aplomb that the writers in the first book I discussed, BATMAN UNAUTHORIZED, apply to Batman. There are chapters devoted to Superman’s creation, his early years, the Mort Weisenger era (where we get most of our ancillary back story for the character- variously colored kryptonite, Jor-El with a sunburst crest on his chest, Supergirl, Superboy, Krypto, etc.), his mythical progenitors (everything from Samson and Gilgamesh to King Arthur), the effect Max Fleisher had on the character in his early years, the John Byrne reboot, even the inherent problems with writing a character so powerful. All of this is fodder for the SmartPop gristmill, but somehow misses the point. To me, at least. I don’t think the fault is with the writers of the book. The fault, I think, lies with the current paradigm of the last son of Krypton.
The only Superman series to really deal with the problems of being Superman (and, let’s face it, drama is all about problems and therein lies the rub) is SMALLVILLE. And while it is touched upon here, it is from the point of view of messianic views of the hero and his relationship to his future enemy, Lex Luthor. You can’t blame the authors for dealing with the way the character has actually been portrayed rather than the way that the character SHOULD have been dealt with. Kurt Busiak did a better job showing us the heart of the character in his first issue of ASTRO CITY than over 60 years of Superman scribes have been able to. (Except for a single story by Alan Moore. WHAT DO YOU GET FOR THE MAN WHO HAS EVERYTHING is such an extraordinary Superman story that even the creators of the Justice League cartoon had to adapt it.) Even the first Superman movie showed the character through his limitations better than the comics have (or rather than it would have if Lois had died rather than allowing him to turn back time by spinning the earth backwards or whatever he did- a plot contrivance even Weisenger wouldn’t have allowed).
I’m not saying that THE MAN FROM KRYPTON isn’t worth reading. It is still a wonderful book for anyone interested in the character. The purchase price alone is justified by the inclusion of Larry Niven’s 1967 short story MAN OF STEEL, WOMAN OF KLEENEX. I’m just saying that for anyone who is looking for the true heart of the character, it hasn’t been written yet.
But there is a book that gives the reader great insight into the character of the last son of Krypton. It just isn’t a BenBella book. But let’s save that for tomorrow.
While Batman is one of the most popular characters in comic books, the other crown jewel for National Periodicals is Superman. It’s hard to understand the affect Superman had on comics and popular culture. The character is a true icon. And his iconic status has been reaffirmed by every generation that has passed or remains since the first time Jerry Siegal and Joe Shuster were first able to see their creation in print in 1938.
I have a special affinity for the character, I must admit. My best friend has the same sort of affinity for Batman. We often have discussions like the ones in the book about the various strengths and weaknesses of the two characters. I was always bigger and stronger than the other children while he had to bare the scars of the loss of a parent while he was still a child. I identify with Clark Kent and his struggle to fit in among people he has to be careful not to hurt. I identify with his feeling of being alone in a crowd because he is so different.
All the more reason that I was a little disappointed in this particular BenBella book, THE MAN FROM KRYPTON. It’s not the fault of the folks writing the essays contained in this book. They dissect Superman with the same kind of aplomb that the writers in the first book I discussed, BATMAN UNAUTHORIZED, apply to Batman. There are chapters devoted to Superman’s creation, his early years, the Mort Weisenger era (where we get most of our ancillary back story for the character- variously colored kryptonite, Jor-El with a sunburst crest on his chest, Supergirl, Superboy, Krypto, etc.), his mythical progenitors (everything from Samson and Gilgamesh to King Arthur), the effect Max Fleisher had on the character in his early years, the John Byrne reboot, even the inherent problems with writing a character so powerful. All of this is fodder for the SmartPop gristmill, but somehow misses the point. To me, at least. I don’t think the fault is with the writers of the book. The fault, I think, lies with the current paradigm of the last son of Krypton.
The only Superman series to really deal with the problems of being Superman (and, let’s face it, drama is all about problems and therein lies the rub) is SMALLVILLE. And while it is touched upon here, it is from the point of view of messianic views of the hero and his relationship to his future enemy, Lex Luthor. You can’t blame the authors for dealing with the way the character has actually been portrayed rather than the way that the character SHOULD have been dealt with. Kurt Busiak did a better job showing us the heart of the character in his first issue of ASTRO CITY than over 60 years of Superman scribes have been able to. (Except for a single story by Alan Moore. WHAT DO YOU GET FOR THE MAN WHO HAS EVERYTHING is such an extraordinary Superman story that even the creators of the Justice League cartoon had to adapt it.) Even the first Superman movie showed the character through his limitations better than the comics have (or rather than it would have if Lois had died rather than allowing him to turn back time by spinning the earth backwards or whatever he did- a plot contrivance even Weisenger wouldn’t have allowed).
I’m not saying that THE MAN FROM KRYPTON isn’t worth reading. It is still a wonderful book for anyone interested in the character. The purchase price alone is justified by the inclusion of Larry Niven’s 1967 short story MAN OF STEEL, WOMAN OF KLEENEX. I’m just saying that for anyone who is looking for the true heart of the character, it hasn’t been written yet.
But there is a book that gives the reader great insight into the character of the last son of Krypton. It just isn’t a BenBella book. But let’s save that for tomorrow.
MEDIA- Why $4 a Gallon Gas is Good
Just in case you had any naivete left about what passes for “news” from the “media”, Time magazine gives you 10 reasons why $4 gas is a good thing. To keep you from having to plod through Time’s glacial website for almost a dozen pages for almost twice as many short paragraphs with superfluous generic pictures, I’ll give you the 10 reasons quick and dirty.
1. jobs sent overseas return home.
2. the four day work week
3. Sprawl Stalls
4. Less pollution
5. More frugality
6. Fewer Traffic delays
7. Cheaper Insurance
8. Less traffic
9. More cops on the beat.
10. Less Obesity
So let’s get this straight. You won’t have cheap food and manufactured goods because of the brake on globalization. In addition to spending more for everything, your home energy bills will go up much faster than the rise of inflation because your employer is only letting you work four days a week- causing a spike in much more inefficient residential energy consumption. Because of all this you may have to give up owning a car entirely and move back into the city. This will offset how much more you are spending to live by relieving you of both the time you spend tied up in traffic and the amount you spend on car insurance (not to mention car payments, oil, tires, etc). Luckily the cops will be on foot as well so the city streets you and everybody else are walking should be safer (just don’t get robbed on the next block over). In addition you will be healthier, thinner (a combination of the extra energy requirements of your walking lifestyle and the price of food), and the skies will be bluer.
Gosh! We should have thought of this years ago! Who knew that not being able to afford gasoline would bring a human utopia?
1. jobs sent overseas return home.
2. the four day work week
3. Sprawl Stalls
4. Less pollution
5. More frugality
6. Fewer Traffic delays
7. Cheaper Insurance
8. Less traffic
9. More cops on the beat.
10. Less Obesity
So let’s get this straight. You won’t have cheap food and manufactured goods because of the brake on globalization. In addition to spending more for everything, your home energy bills will go up much faster than the rise of inflation because your employer is only letting you work four days a week- causing a spike in much more inefficient residential energy consumption. Because of all this you may have to give up owning a car entirely and move back into the city. This will offset how much more you are spending to live by relieving you of both the time you spend tied up in traffic and the amount you spend on car insurance (not to mention car payments, oil, tires, etc). Luckily the cops will be on foot as well so the city streets you and everybody else are walking should be safer (just don’t get robbed on the next block over). In addition you will be healthier, thinner (a combination of the extra energy requirements of your walking lifestyle and the price of food), and the skies will be bluer.
Gosh! We should have thought of this years ago! Who knew that not being able to afford gasoline would bring a human utopia?
Thursday, July 3, 2008
COMICS- Batman Unauthorized
Before my internet access debacle I had premised a number of reviews of the BenBella SmartPop series. Here is the first.
…
BenBella books puts out a series of trade paperbacks (those are the ones the size of hardcover books but with laminated card covers rather than covered cardboard) on pop culture topics. Called the SmartPop series, each of these books features a series of essays on a subject by a bullpen of writers from areas as diverse as psychology to physics. (With a liberal dose of writers, mostly from the science fiction genre.) The books cover such topics as comic book heroes (Superman, Batman, the X-Men), popular television (NYPD Blue, Alias, House), genre television (Farscape, Star Trek, Buffy and Angel), genre movies (Star Wars), and other various related subjects (such as the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books).
There are few things I love more than spirited discussions by very smart people on completely irrelevant topics. So when I found the BenBella books I bought a half dozen and tore through them. They are highly recommended but vary according to the depth of the subject material. I don’t want to give away too much but thought I’d bring up a few of the topics discussed and add my own thoughts.
BATMAN UNAUTHORIZED was the first I read and remains one of the better ones. The book is edited by Denny O’Neal, writer and editor of various Batman titles since the 1970s. There isn’t much about the character that isn’t covered. Topics include psychological speculation about Bruce Wayne, an excellent exploration of Bill Finger’s involvement in Batman’s creation (often credited to Bob Kane solely for reasons discussed in the essay), why Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns is a rather grotesque fascist take on the character (Duh- see my Picasa mock up of a poster for Dark Knight returns staring Clint Eastwood), and would Superman and Batman really be friends. Arkham Asylum is targeted as being the real reason there are so many cuckoo supervillans in Gotham. Robin’s place in the mythos is considered in depth (far more so than Robin- The Boy Target as Miller once postulated or even the current Miller rationalization in All Star Batman). Seemingly nothing is left unexamined, even how much it costs to be Batman to be Batman, or even how the orphan Bruce Wayne learned the facts of life.
Let’s back up there for a minute. Alex Bledsoe writes a short essay imagining how just such a thing might happen using the characters of Batman and Alfred from each of the main movie franchises. The idea is that since Bruce is entering puberty and the only male figure around is his faithful family retainer, well, who’s going to explain the facts of life to him. I was afraid that his essay, TO THE BATPOLE, was going to be tasteless but it turned out to be one of my favorite chapters. Episode one uses the Batman mythos from the 1960s television series (with Alfred played by the Shakespearean actor Alan Napier) and episode three details Bruce having “the talk” by imagining the characters as defined by Michael Caine and Christian Bale. All three are inspired but the gem of the bunch is his parody of the Bruce and Alfred from the first Tim Burton Batman movie. Personally I think the Batman\Bruce Wayne split personality has never been done better than Michael Keaton did it and Bledsoe gets the vocal cadences of the characters perfect. Let me share a bit with you.
What is there left to say? This is a must-own for any Batman afficianado and an interesting read for anyone who loves comics. Buy this book!
Tomorrow we tackle the SmartPop book on Batman’s counterpart, Superman.
…
BenBella books puts out a series of trade paperbacks (those are the ones the size of hardcover books but with laminated card covers rather than covered cardboard) on pop culture topics. Called the SmartPop series, each of these books features a series of essays on a subject by a bullpen of writers from areas as diverse as psychology to physics. (With a liberal dose of writers, mostly from the science fiction genre.) The books cover such topics as comic book heroes (Superman, Batman, the X-Men), popular television (NYPD Blue, Alias, House), genre television (Farscape, Star Trek, Buffy and Angel), genre movies (Star Wars), and other various related subjects (such as the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books).
There are few things I love more than spirited discussions by very smart people on completely irrelevant topics. So when I found the BenBella books I bought a half dozen and tore through them. They are highly recommended but vary according to the depth of the subject material. I don’t want to give away too much but thought I’d bring up a few of the topics discussed and add my own thoughts.
BATMAN UNAUTHORIZED was the first I read and remains one of the better ones. The book is edited by Denny O’Neal, writer and editor of various Batman titles since the 1970s. There isn’t much about the character that isn’t covered. Topics include psychological speculation about Bruce Wayne, an excellent exploration of Bill Finger’s involvement in Batman’s creation (often credited to Bob Kane solely for reasons discussed in the essay), why Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns is a rather grotesque fascist take on the character (Duh- see my Picasa mock up of a poster for Dark Knight returns staring Clint Eastwood), and would Superman and Batman really be friends. Arkham Asylum is targeted as being the real reason there are so many cuckoo supervillans in Gotham. Robin’s place in the mythos is considered in depth (far more so than Robin- The Boy Target as Miller once postulated or even the current Miller rationalization in All Star Batman). Seemingly nothing is left unexamined, even how much it costs to be Batman to be Batman, or even how the orphan Bruce Wayne learned the facts of life.
Let’s back up there for a minute. Alex Bledsoe writes a short essay imagining how just such a thing might happen using the characters of Batman and Alfred from each of the main movie franchises. The idea is that since Bruce is entering puberty and the only male figure around is his faithful family retainer, well, who’s going to explain the facts of life to him. I was afraid that his essay, TO THE BATPOLE, was going to be tasteless but it turned out to be one of my favorite chapters. Episode one uses the Batman mythos from the 1960s television series (with Alfred played by the Shakespearean actor Alan Napier) and episode three details Bruce having “the talk” by imagining the characters as defined by Michael Caine and Christian Bale. All three are inspired but the gem of the bunch is his parody of the Bruce and Alfred from the first Tim Burton Batman movie. Personally I think the Batman\Bruce Wayne split personality has never been done better than Michael Keaton did it and Bledsoe gets the vocal cadences of the characters perfect. Let me share a bit with you.
“Michael Gough, in serving the needs of Michael Keaton in Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992) (we will completely ignore his stints with Val Kilmer and George Clooney under the aegis of Joel “Man-Goat” Schumacher), gave us an Alfred whose main task seems to be compensat-ing for his employer’s frequent absentmindedness. In fact, he is so in tune with Bruce that he can anticipate even where his master might set down a champagne glass during a crowded party This Bruce Wayne is so preoccupied with thoughts of his alter ego that when left entirely to his own devices, he simply sits around in the dark waiting to be summoned by the bat-signal. Only in costume does he become focused, certain, and relent-less; in his civvies (or skivvies), his mind is always a million miles away
It seems unlikely that this Bruce Wayne would consciously seek out Alfred at the onset of puberty Instead, the loyal manservant might enter the main sitting room, where young master Bruce would be sprawled on the couch, legs askew, watching TV, and absently exploring his new pri-orities. After all, this Wayne Manor was a dark, grim edifice filled with shadows into which a vengeful young man would later vanish, only to emerge, Mr. Hyde-like, as a walking shadow himself. Why wouldn’t the adolescent Bruce forget which room he was in, and presume privacy?
Suitably appalled, yet ever the loyal servant, Alfred would most cer-tainly avert his eyes and say, “Master Bruce.” Pause. “Master... Bruce.”
“Huh? Oh... hey, Alfred. What. . . .h....” Young Bruce might be a bit surprised himself to be so flagrantly improper.
“Hey, wow… where did that... wow.
“Master Bruce, I believe it’s time we had a talk.”
“A talk. You mean about . . . oh! Yeah, I guess . . . sure.” Bruce would sit up, hands clasped, elbows on his knees, ready to listen.
Another pause. “Your trousers, sir?”
“What? Oh. Sorry” Zipping sound.
Alfred would stand beside the couch, hands properly folded behind him. His eyes would focus on some point in the middle distance. “Wayne Manor is your home, sir. You may conduct yourself as you like. But I fear your pen-chant for distraction may one day do you a disservice.”
“My ... oh! Yes, you . . . yes. I see.”
Alfred would choose his next words carefully “Master Bruce, do you understand the concept of puberty?”
“Puberty, ah ... yeah, I mean . . in class we ... so . . . sure.
Alfred would at last meet Bruce’s gaze. “And do you realize you are experiencing it right now?”
Bruce might look down at his lap. “Huh. That explains it.”
“Indeed. Do you wish to discuss it?”
“Talk about it? I don’t ... could . . . talk about it?”
“Yes. It can be a confusing time, and with your father gone, I thought you might need a sympathetic ear.”
“An ear? Oh ... you mean to listen with. Well, I guess . . . sure, if... sure.
Along pause might fill the room.
“You have to begin, Master Bruce,” Alfred might point out.
“Oh! Okay, uhm... how long does it get? I mean last. How long does it last?”
“It is a permanent change, I’m afraid. Eventually you should be able to control it, but for awhile it may be quite a distraction.” Pause. “Master Bruce?”
“What? Oh—distraction. Yeah.”
“I’m certain we can find some medical texts to explain the exact bio-logical mechanisms involved. It brings with it a set of responsibilities of which you should be aware.
“That might be good.”
“And if you would like to discuss it further. . .
“No, that’s all right, Alfred, I ... thanks.”
“At any time, sir.”
This Bruce Wayne would compensate for his physical slightness by designing body armor and an array of gadgets that made him appear larger and more intimidating. Was this also a compensation for some-thing else? Only Vicki Vale and Selina Kyle know for sure. ...”
It seems unlikely that this Bruce Wayne would consciously seek out Alfred at the onset of puberty Instead, the loyal manservant might enter the main sitting room, where young master Bruce would be sprawled on the couch, legs askew, watching TV, and absently exploring his new pri-orities. After all, this Wayne Manor was a dark, grim edifice filled with shadows into which a vengeful young man would later vanish, only to emerge, Mr. Hyde-like, as a walking shadow himself. Why wouldn’t the adolescent Bruce forget which room he was in, and presume privacy?
Suitably appalled, yet ever the loyal servant, Alfred would most cer-tainly avert his eyes and say, “Master Bruce.” Pause. “Master... Bruce.”
“Huh? Oh... hey, Alfred. What. . . .h....” Young Bruce might be a bit surprised himself to be so flagrantly improper.
“Hey, wow… where did that... wow.
“Master Bruce, I believe it’s time we had a talk.”
“A talk. You mean about . . . oh! Yeah, I guess . . . sure.” Bruce would sit up, hands clasped, elbows on his knees, ready to listen.
Another pause. “Your trousers, sir?”
“What? Oh. Sorry” Zipping sound.
Alfred would stand beside the couch, hands properly folded behind him. His eyes would focus on some point in the middle distance. “Wayne Manor is your home, sir. You may conduct yourself as you like. But I fear your pen-chant for distraction may one day do you a disservice.”
“My ... oh! Yes, you . . . yes. I see.”
Alfred would choose his next words carefully “Master Bruce, do you understand the concept of puberty?”
“Puberty, ah ... yeah, I mean . . in class we ... so . . . sure.
Alfred would at last meet Bruce’s gaze. “And do you realize you are experiencing it right now?”
Bruce might look down at his lap. “Huh. That explains it.”
“Indeed. Do you wish to discuss it?”
“Talk about it? I don’t ... could . . . talk about it?”
“Yes. It can be a confusing time, and with your father gone, I thought you might need a sympathetic ear.”
“An ear? Oh ... you mean to listen with. Well, I guess . . . sure, if... sure.
Along pause might fill the room.
“You have to begin, Master Bruce,” Alfred might point out.
“Oh! Okay, uhm... how long does it get? I mean last. How long does it last?”
“It is a permanent change, I’m afraid. Eventually you should be able to control it, but for awhile it may be quite a distraction.” Pause. “Master Bruce?”
“What? Oh—distraction. Yeah.”
“I’m certain we can find some medical texts to explain the exact bio-logical mechanisms involved. It brings with it a set of responsibilities of which you should be aware.
“That might be good.”
“And if you would like to discuss it further. . .
“No, that’s all right, Alfred, I ... thanks.”
“At any time, sir.”
This Bruce Wayne would compensate for his physical slightness by designing body armor and an array of gadgets that made him appear larger and more intimidating. Was this also a compensation for some-thing else? Only Vicki Vale and Selina Kyle know for sure. ...”
What is there left to say? This is a must-own for any Batman afficianado and an interesting read for anyone who loves comics. Buy this book!
Tomorrow we tackle the SmartPop book on Batman’s counterpart, Superman.
PERSONAL- Back to the Blog
Well, two entries for the month of June. Not my fault this time. I finally got sick of paying Charter Cable for malfunctioning equipment, bad service, high prices, and a complete inability to fix any of the above despite dozens of phone calls and attempts.
I’ve loved technology and been an “early adopter” starting back when audio was called Hi-Fi and stereo was a new technology. When the IBM PC was introduced I had already owned a few computers. My first videogame was PONG and my first VCR was a JVC 6800 Vidstar. (Their first 4-head design- with a wired remote control!) I owned a few Laserdisc players, a couple of Betamax machines, a first gen CD player (with two whole disks to play on it), and at least one of virtually every new technology since. I’m no stranger to technologies that require a lot of savvy from the user and sometimes don’t work anyway.
I even had cable as soon as it was available in my area. But for the last several years I had DirecTV. I found them to be reliable, easy to deal with, and decent value for money. But the grass is always greener and I decided to try Cable again for the sake of price, faster internet service, and because I was frustrated with the slow roll-out of HD.
My local cable company is Charter Communications. They SUCK. I originally ordered two HD DVRs. I never got the second even after a year. When first installed my premium movie channels were not enabled and my cable modem didn’t work. Fixing this took three phone calls. Charter cares so much for their customers that they don’t even list their local phone number in the phone book. Once I spoke to someone in the Philippines, another time someone in Nova Scotia. When my first bill came I had been charged for the Internet connection and movie channels even though it had taken two weeks to get them running. Another call to customer service and I was given a new balance to pay. When the next bill came it showed that I hadn’t paid the balance in full and still owed for the first two weeks of Internet and HBO even though I thought that I had straightened that out. This prompted yet another call. That’s when I found out that when you call Charter they don’t seem to write down what the conversation was about. They had no record of my adjustment in the first bill even though I could tell them whom I had spoken to and when the conversation had taken place. I eventually wound up paying for something I didn’t get because it was obvious that they weren’t going to budge.
The first DVR I got didn’t work. That one got changed to one that worked intermittently. Finally a firmware update was supposed to fix the problem and enable the USB connection for the addition of an outboard hard drive. This was welcome news since the I had been used to the Phillips TIVO for DirecTV, which had about 30 hours of HD space. The Charter DVR only had about 10. So I immediately bought a 500 GB drive and hooked it up. The result was that not only did the new drive not work but the machine started to refuse to record intermittently. Disconnecting the HD didn’t help but did allow me to learn that the DVR had reformatted the drive so that it was now useless. That unit was replaced with yet another HD DVR (my third in 6 months).
After that the DVR worked, but only after a fashion. The software was full of bugs. For instance, if you had four things scheduled for the same time it wouldn’t allow you to select which ones you actually wanted to record. Once it had assigned a program to a particular tuner, it was an either-or proposition. And if you wanted to cancel all 4 recordings it would enable at least one anyway. (Low storage space and the inability to cancel recordings- there’s a winning combination for you.) In short, while my HD TIVO had been reliable, intuitive, programmable, and had adequate storage and simply the best interface I’ve used in a new technology, the Charter DVR was none of those things. What it was instead was, in a word, frustrating.
And yet, calling on the patience I had cultivated as an “early adopter” I hung with them. Numerous calls to customer service during this period resulted in a new DVR (which worked- mostly), a 500GB doorstop, and a tentative truce with the company. Then two things happened that would be the last two straws.
First my bill went up 50% after my introductory period ended. I had expected this and wasn’t bothered by it. Or rather I should say that I wouldn’t have been bothered by it. But then my Internet service started being troublesome. After getting the thing turned on, my Internet connection had been cable’s saving grace. It was fast (nowhere near as fast as advertised, but Internet connections never are) and relatively reliable. But suddenly I started to be unable to access the Domain Name Server. I did what I could do. I rebooted the modem. This worked sometimes but sometimes it didn’t. So I called Customer Service. They told me to reboot the modem. Another call prompted a service call. In the meantime the service went up and down intermittantly. When the tech came by the service was working so he told me that they had been “having problems in this area” and did nothing. Then the service went out again.
That sound you hear is the fracture of dromedary vertebrae.
Let’s wrap this up. I called them to get a final balance and have my service cut off. I couldn’t explain to the rep that cable is paid in advance so I only owed for half the current month (she got snippy but still missed the point). I took my equipment apart and took it to the local office where I was told that my service was still working in spite of my request for cut-off by the person I spoke with (she got snippy but missed the point). I walked out of there and drove directly to a local DirecTV dealer and then to the local phone company.
So I’ve been without television (you can’t pick up a terrestrial broadcast in my area without a considerable antenna) and internet access for the last 20 days or so. For those of you considering a Luddite lifestyle all I have to say is that, for a voracious reader such as myself, loss of TV is no big deal but loss of internet access is a problem. I used to keep an extensive library of reference books and almanacs. Nowadays I use the net for reference. Being without a fingertip reference library was the thing I hated the most.
But I’m back. I’ve got a backlog of blog articles but rather then dump them online I’m going to dole them out as I can format them. Hopefully that will allow me to supply a constant stream of useless information to add to the ocean of useless info of which the Internet is mostly comprised.
Sorry I’ve been gone. Glad to be back. Don’t buy Cable.
I’ve loved technology and been an “early adopter” starting back when audio was called Hi-Fi and stereo was a new technology. When the IBM PC was introduced I had already owned a few computers. My first videogame was PONG and my first VCR was a JVC 6800 Vidstar. (Their first 4-head design- with a wired remote control!) I owned a few Laserdisc players, a couple of Betamax machines, a first gen CD player (with two whole disks to play on it), and at least one of virtually every new technology since. I’m no stranger to technologies that require a lot of savvy from the user and sometimes don’t work anyway.
I even had cable as soon as it was available in my area. But for the last several years I had DirecTV. I found them to be reliable, easy to deal with, and decent value for money. But the grass is always greener and I decided to try Cable again for the sake of price, faster internet service, and because I was frustrated with the slow roll-out of HD.
My local cable company is Charter Communications. They SUCK. I originally ordered two HD DVRs. I never got the second even after a year. When first installed my premium movie channels were not enabled and my cable modem didn’t work. Fixing this took three phone calls. Charter cares so much for their customers that they don’t even list their local phone number in the phone book. Once I spoke to someone in the Philippines, another time someone in Nova Scotia. When my first bill came I had been charged for the Internet connection and movie channels even though it had taken two weeks to get them running. Another call to customer service and I was given a new balance to pay. When the next bill came it showed that I hadn’t paid the balance in full and still owed for the first two weeks of Internet and HBO even though I thought that I had straightened that out. This prompted yet another call. That’s when I found out that when you call Charter they don’t seem to write down what the conversation was about. They had no record of my adjustment in the first bill even though I could tell them whom I had spoken to and when the conversation had taken place. I eventually wound up paying for something I didn’t get because it was obvious that they weren’t going to budge.
The first DVR I got didn’t work. That one got changed to one that worked intermittently. Finally a firmware update was supposed to fix the problem and enable the USB connection for the addition of an outboard hard drive. This was welcome news since the I had been used to the Phillips TIVO for DirecTV, which had about 30 hours of HD space. The Charter DVR only had about 10. So I immediately bought a 500 GB drive and hooked it up. The result was that not only did the new drive not work but the machine started to refuse to record intermittently. Disconnecting the HD didn’t help but did allow me to learn that the DVR had reformatted the drive so that it was now useless. That unit was replaced with yet another HD DVR (my third in 6 months).
After that the DVR worked, but only after a fashion. The software was full of bugs. For instance, if you had four things scheduled for the same time it wouldn’t allow you to select which ones you actually wanted to record. Once it had assigned a program to a particular tuner, it was an either-or proposition. And if you wanted to cancel all 4 recordings it would enable at least one anyway. (Low storage space and the inability to cancel recordings- there’s a winning combination for you.) In short, while my HD TIVO had been reliable, intuitive, programmable, and had adequate storage and simply the best interface I’ve used in a new technology, the Charter DVR was none of those things. What it was instead was, in a word, frustrating.
And yet, calling on the patience I had cultivated as an “early adopter” I hung with them. Numerous calls to customer service during this period resulted in a new DVR (which worked- mostly), a 500GB doorstop, and a tentative truce with the company. Then two things happened that would be the last two straws.
First my bill went up 50% after my introductory period ended. I had expected this and wasn’t bothered by it. Or rather I should say that I wouldn’t have been bothered by it. But then my Internet service started being troublesome. After getting the thing turned on, my Internet connection had been cable’s saving grace. It was fast (nowhere near as fast as advertised, but Internet connections never are) and relatively reliable. But suddenly I started to be unable to access the Domain Name Server. I did what I could do. I rebooted the modem. This worked sometimes but sometimes it didn’t. So I called Customer Service. They told me to reboot the modem. Another call prompted a service call. In the meantime the service went up and down intermittantly. When the tech came by the service was working so he told me that they had been “having problems in this area” and did nothing. Then the service went out again.
That sound you hear is the fracture of dromedary vertebrae.
Let’s wrap this up. I called them to get a final balance and have my service cut off. I couldn’t explain to the rep that cable is paid in advance so I only owed for half the current month (she got snippy but still missed the point). I took my equipment apart and took it to the local office where I was told that my service was still working in spite of my request for cut-off by the person I spoke with (she got snippy but missed the point). I walked out of there and drove directly to a local DirecTV dealer and then to the local phone company.
So I’ve been without television (you can’t pick up a terrestrial broadcast in my area without a considerable antenna) and internet access for the last 20 days or so. For those of you considering a Luddite lifestyle all I have to say is that, for a voracious reader such as myself, loss of TV is no big deal but loss of internet access is a problem. I used to keep an extensive library of reference books and almanacs. Nowadays I use the net for reference. Being without a fingertip reference library was the thing I hated the most.
But I’m back. I’ve got a backlog of blog articles but rather then dump them online I’m going to dole them out as I can format them. Hopefully that will allow me to supply a constant stream of useless information to add to the ocean of useless info of which the Internet is mostly comprised.
Sorry I’ve been gone. Glad to be back. Don’t buy Cable.
Friday, June 13, 2008
POLITICS- McCain's 100 Year Occupation
I haven’t been writing about politics lately because (like most of the country) I’ve gotten so tired of the permanent presidential campaign show that it’s all I can do to keep up with who lost the last staff member due to revelations about their past. But now that Barrack has finally dropped a house on Hillary once and for all, things are already starting to return to normal. And by normal I mean Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.
On the war front, the initial volleys have picked off a few individual soldiers (a financial adviser here, a vice-presidential committee member there) doing no real damage to either force. Initial peace offerings have been made but it’s still to early in the conflict for them to be taken seriously. The nuclear option has already been discussed by the Republicans, but they always do that (well, the fucking penis envy Neocons, at least). Forward divisions have launched mostly ineffective ordinance in the hopes something will do some damage out of pure luck. Positions are being fortified and countermeasures are being undertaken. It’s going to be a long war.
But enough with tortured metaphors. There are a couple of interesting platform planks that the candidates have discussed in the last week or so.
Going from the metaphorical war of the campaign to the actual war where brave American men and women are dying, still. First is the idea of John McCain’s 100 years in Iraq. The quote has been played almost as much as the Reverend White tape. McCain says that it’s taken out of context and honest Dems have mostly agreed. But what McCain actually seems to mean, in that and subsequent statements this week (which he is also claiming were taken out of context), is that while he doesn’t want a 100 year WAR in Iraq, he is perfectly happy to establish a 100 year occupation. You know, like the relationship we have with so much of Europe and Japan- we’ll house troops in your country indefinitely. This idea is further supported by the fact that the President is trying to get the Iraqi leaders to sign off on a treaty that places over FIFTY US MILITARY BASES in the country. Now I could go into how this is exactly the kind of thing that prompted 9/11 in the first place (American troops in Saudi Arabia) but I don’t think that’s exactly true (I think the “they hate us for our freedom to have women get boob jobs and dress like tramps on the street” meme has some tread). Or I could go into how we really need to be getting our troops out of Europe and Japan instead of looking for new countries to spend billions of military dollars on every year. Or I could discuss the limited strategic value of having a staging area in the Middle East (in addition to the ones we have in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Israel). Or I could mention that this Middle East Domino Theory the Bush administration seems to be pursuing is a more ridiculous idea than the Maginot Line (still fighting the last war, but ignoring any lessons from that to try to fight the last war we won).
And I’m somewhat torn that we don’t owe the Iraqis as much long term stability as we can afford. Since we went and broke their country and all.
But the real reason is that what we promised the Iraqis was democracy, and I don’t think they are going to have it until we leave. As long as there are thousands of troops on the ground, we are going to be outsiders supporting a particular regime. And that kind of meddling in the Middle East was the real spark plug for 9/11. I understand that to the administration this looks like Saddam II: Democracy Boogaloo, the new and improved way to establish a US friendly regime while avoiding the old “our pocket dictator went rogue on us and now we’ve got to take him out” eventuality. The whole time wrapping it up in a “but they are a democratic country” teflon package. But it isn’t going to work. I’ve said from day one that the biggest mistake of this war wasn’t that Iraq was a threat or that democracy was good, it was the idea that an Arab country was going to be Pro-American and Pro-Israel just because we toppled a dictator that we had been supporting for years. The whole thing misses the point that democracy in other countries has been a two edged sword for American foreign policy over the last 60 years (we prefer friendly autocrats).We just need to get out of the nation building mindset. We need to bring our troops home and let the Iraqis decide what they are going to do with their country. If we really want to give them freedom.
But was that ever really the motivation?
On the war front, the initial volleys have picked off a few individual soldiers (a financial adviser here, a vice-presidential committee member there) doing no real damage to either force. Initial peace offerings have been made but it’s still to early in the conflict for them to be taken seriously. The nuclear option has already been discussed by the Republicans, but they always do that (well, the fucking penis envy Neocons, at least). Forward divisions have launched mostly ineffective ordinance in the hopes something will do some damage out of pure luck. Positions are being fortified and countermeasures are being undertaken. It’s going to be a long war.
But enough with tortured metaphors. There are a couple of interesting platform planks that the candidates have discussed in the last week or so.
Going from the metaphorical war of the campaign to the actual war where brave American men and women are dying, still. First is the idea of John McCain’s 100 years in Iraq. The quote has been played almost as much as the Reverend White tape. McCain says that it’s taken out of context and honest Dems have mostly agreed. But what McCain actually seems to mean, in that and subsequent statements this week (which he is also claiming were taken out of context), is that while he doesn’t want a 100 year WAR in Iraq, he is perfectly happy to establish a 100 year occupation. You know, like the relationship we have with so much of Europe and Japan- we’ll house troops in your country indefinitely. This idea is further supported by the fact that the President is trying to get the Iraqi leaders to sign off on a treaty that places over FIFTY US MILITARY BASES in the country. Now I could go into how this is exactly the kind of thing that prompted 9/11 in the first place (American troops in Saudi Arabia) but I don’t think that’s exactly true (I think the “they hate us for our freedom to have women get boob jobs and dress like tramps on the street” meme has some tread). Or I could go into how we really need to be getting our troops out of Europe and Japan instead of looking for new countries to spend billions of military dollars on every year. Or I could discuss the limited strategic value of having a staging area in the Middle East (in addition to the ones we have in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Israel). Or I could mention that this Middle East Domino Theory the Bush administration seems to be pursuing is a more ridiculous idea than the Maginot Line (still fighting the last war, but ignoring any lessons from that to try to fight the last war we won).
And I’m somewhat torn that we don’t owe the Iraqis as much long term stability as we can afford. Since we went and broke their country and all.
But the real reason is that what we promised the Iraqis was democracy, and I don’t think they are going to have it until we leave. As long as there are thousands of troops on the ground, we are going to be outsiders supporting a particular regime. And that kind of meddling in the Middle East was the real spark plug for 9/11. I understand that to the administration this looks like Saddam II: Democracy Boogaloo, the new and improved way to establish a US friendly regime while avoiding the old “our pocket dictator went rogue on us and now we’ve got to take him out” eventuality. The whole time wrapping it up in a “but they are a democratic country” teflon package. But it isn’t going to work. I’ve said from day one that the biggest mistake of this war wasn’t that Iraq was a threat or that democracy was good, it was the idea that an Arab country was going to be Pro-American and Pro-Israel just because we toppled a dictator that we had been supporting for years. The whole thing misses the point that democracy in other countries has been a two edged sword for American foreign policy over the last 60 years (we prefer friendly autocrats).We just need to get out of the nation building mindset. We need to bring our troops home and let the Iraqis decide what they are going to do with their country. If we really want to give them freedom.
But was that ever really the motivation?
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
PERSONAL- A Return to the Blog
Sorry for the long absence. My internet connection has been (hopefully not “still is”) out of commission and anyway, I’ve been reading, working extra, and enjoying the summer.
On the reading front: I had been on a non-fiction kick most of the winter and spring. Brushing up on chemistry, physics, history, and some biology. This was a pendulum swing from a early winter graphic novel binge. Having indulged my strange affectation for science I was ready for something lighter and at just about that time I happened upon the SMART POP books published by BenBella press. This is a series that dedicates a book to a particular pop icon and collects a dozen or two essays exploring various aspects of that pop icon. Topics include Superman, Batman, Farscape, Star Trek, Star Wars, Alias (the TV show), House (ditto), etc. This is a kind of geek heaven. Smart people writing seriously about not very serious subjects. It's why I read the COMICS JOURNAL during the '70s and '80s. I have a soft spot for serious literary criticism devoted to not-so-serious literature. So far I’ve read a half dozen in the last couple weeks and branched out into similar books such as Danny Fingeroth’s SUPERMAN ON THE COUCH and the excellent SUPERMAN VS. HOLLYWOOD by Jake Rossen (neither published by BenBella). I have some things to say about the books and whether you should read them.
On the working front: I haven’t got much to say about that. The interesting thing about my job is that it forces me to keep up with what’s happening in medical science. OTOH, the day to day performance of my job is full of human drama and occasional insights into the human condition but that’s not what this blog is about.
Well, perhaps some stories later.
On the enjoying the summer front: I took a trip out of town last weekend and it was as good a holiday trip as I have ever taken. I plan to break the rule of blogging about personal stuff so I’m going to leave that for a later entry. It will include science, sex, cars, and good food. What more is there than that?
I’ve also seen a few more movies, watched some GREAT television (yes, that’s right, great television. Not an oxymoron just something as rare as a blue moon), listened to some new music, bought a new car, built a new garage, and done some other stuff that defies description. Sorry to have been gone but one of the ironies (God is far to fond of irony) of life is that the more time you spend living it, the less time you have to write about it.
(Have you seen Valerie Bertinelli on the new Jenny Craig commercials? For a woman on the leeward side of forty she looks GREAT!)
But now on to smart people writing about silly subjects.
On the reading front: I had been on a non-fiction kick most of the winter and spring. Brushing up on chemistry, physics, history, and some biology. This was a pendulum swing from a early winter graphic novel binge. Having indulged my strange affectation for science I was ready for something lighter and at just about that time I happened upon the SMART POP books published by BenBella press. This is a series that dedicates a book to a particular pop icon and collects a dozen or two essays exploring various aspects of that pop icon. Topics include Superman, Batman, Farscape, Star Trek, Star Wars, Alias (the TV show), House (ditto), etc. This is a kind of geek heaven. Smart people writing seriously about not very serious subjects. It's why I read the COMICS JOURNAL during the '70s and '80s. I have a soft spot for serious literary criticism devoted to not-so-serious literature. So far I’ve read a half dozen in the last couple weeks and branched out into similar books such as Danny Fingeroth’s SUPERMAN ON THE COUCH and the excellent SUPERMAN VS. HOLLYWOOD by Jake Rossen (neither published by BenBella). I have some things to say about the books and whether you should read them.
On the working front: I haven’t got much to say about that. The interesting thing about my job is that it forces me to keep up with what’s happening in medical science. OTOH, the day to day performance of my job is full of human drama and occasional insights into the human condition but that’s not what this blog is about.
Well, perhaps some stories later.
On the enjoying the summer front: I took a trip out of town last weekend and it was as good a holiday trip as I have ever taken. I plan to break the rule of blogging about personal stuff so I’m going to leave that for a later entry. It will include science, sex, cars, and good food. What more is there than that?
I’ve also seen a few more movies, watched some GREAT television (yes, that’s right, great television. Not an oxymoron just something as rare as a blue moon), listened to some new music, bought a new car, built a new garage, and done some other stuff that defies description. Sorry to have been gone but one of the ironies (God is far to fond of irony) of life is that the more time you spend living it, the less time you have to write about it.
(Have you seen Valerie Bertinelli on the new Jenny Craig commercials? For a woman on the leeward side of forty she looks GREAT!)
But now on to smart people writing about silly subjects.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
POLITICS VIDEOGAMES- Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid
As you’ve probably heard, an intelligence contractor for the US gov. released pictures they found on a “password protected” (you know, like your home wi-fi network) internet site which were supposedly Al-Qaeda photoshops of plans for a nucular (George Bush) attack on Wershington (John McCain). They turned out to be pictures from a Bethesda Softworks website for Fallout 3- Homunculus Homeland Security: Keystone Kops Edition. The contractor, SITE Intel Group, is based in Bethesda, Maryland as is the eponymously named Bethesda Softworks.
It’s a good thing that Al-Qaeda is a bunch of middle eastern rednecks (you know, hateful, ignorant, inbred, opinionated, bigoted, losers who have to resort to mandates from omnipotent imaginary friends to bolster their self image in the face of the fact that they seem to be on the bottom half of the bell curve- rednecks) because otherwise we’d be in a heap of trouble when you consider that the people supposedly defending us are so…clueless. The Katrina syllogism is in full effect. The major premise is that Katrina was like a terrorist attack with several days of warning. The minor premise is that the government should be able to protect us from terrorist attack. The conclusion is that we’re fucked.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
COMICS- The Rocketeer is Dead
Dave Stevens has died.It was over a month ago, but since my connection with comic books is tenuous at best these days I only found out about it today. I was finishing BATMAN UNAUTHORIZED edited by Denny O’Neil (yes- THAT Denny O’Neil!) and part of the SMART POP series which I have just discovered, when a suggestion for a link caused me to do a Google search on Stevens’ name. Imagine how shocked I was to find that what Google was most interested in was his recent death.
Dave Stevens? If you don’t know, how can I tell you? Disney made a movie from his greatest and, perhaps only, creation in 1991. He was a gifted artist and comic book creator who transformed the comic zeitgeist in the early 1980s, riding the wake of the (relative) financial success of the first wave of independent comic creators into a chance to devote himself to a love of 1950s pop culture. He single handedly brought Bettie Page back from obscurity (truthfully, he introduced Bettie Page to the biggest audience she would ever have) and was no doubt the reason a movie was made about her a few years ago. (With an uncanny performance by Gretchen Mol.) He influenced a generation of comic book artists and remained a shining light in graphic illustration long after he gave up sequential narrative to do spot illustrations and covers.
Stevens’ artistic style hearkened back to a different era. In a time when comic books had been transformed by the independently published work of artists such as Wendy Pini and Dave Sim and when the work of Frank Miller and John Byrne was beginning to make the established publishers look for new talent, Rocketeer burst on the scene almost fully realized. Here were none of the inventive panel layouts of Miller’s Daredevil or the Kirby inked by Adams influence of John Byrne’s X-Men. Stevens drew his inspiration, not from the silver age but from the best of the classic golden age artists- Alex Raymond, Wally Wood, Frank Frazetta. His drawings were somehow both more cartoony and more realistic than mainstream comics yet without resorting to the illustrative shortcuts that were so common among the independent artists of the time. His panel layouts were simple yet dramatic. His inking showed a mastery of line weight that was all but forgotten in mainstream comics. His art style completely eschewed the overwrought cross-hatching and moody shadows that had blighted the industry in the wake of Adams and Miller. Instead of the strum and drang of the last twenty years of the medium trying for mainstream acceptance, his draftsmanship and story sense was more like a breath of cool air from a vintage Frigidaire.
So great was his influence that it broke though one college students current obsession with DaVinci and Rembrant to once again imprint upon him the comic book aesthetic that has interested him in art long before his first day at school. Evidenced by a very Stevens influenced portrait of a fellow classmate in an elective art class.
Stevens died of leukemia last month at the age of 52. Like Dave Cockrum and Wally Wood, he was taken so much earlier than we expect for people live in our society. Perhaps there is some universal law of conservation of talent that causes gifted artists and creators to meet their end too soon (Mozart and Poe would also give one pause to think). More likely it is just the law of averages. But there was nothing average about Dave Stevens. His work in the medium was brief but influential.
He will be missed.
Monday, May 19, 2008
MOVIES COMICS- Spider-Man by James Cameron
Not a lot of heavy commentary on this one because I wanted to share it with you ASAP. It is truly one of the coolest things I’ve ever bumped into on the web.About a year ago Escape Pod featured one of my most favorite stories they’ve done. Episode 105 Impossible Dreams is a rather simple and uninspired alternate universe story where a fellow periodically finds himself in a video rental store from a parallel universe. The thing that makes the story so delightful is that in this video store there is almost every movie you wish you could see but that doesn’t exist. Mention is made of Tim Burton’s Death of Superman with Nick Cage in the title roll, I, Robot with screenplay by Harlan Ellison, an entire Welles filmography including a director’s cut of The Magnificent Ambersons, and many others, all of which are available in this otherworldly rental store.
I kind of feel like I just stepped through the door of that shop myself.
In 1992, fresh from the success of the second Terminator, James Cameron was all set to start production on a Spider-Man movie. Due to a lot of Hollywood and Comicworld bickering over rights and other stuff, the project was shelved and Cameron instead did TRUE LIES. But he did get as far on the Spider-Man project as writing a script treatment that had a few deviations from comic book cannon. The treatment has been available on the web for years (along with other great scripts that were never made- such as William Gibson’s treatment of Alien 3- of which the only thing that survived into the actual movie was the idea of a character with a bar code tattoo) but lacked for images. Artist Daniele Tomasi has fixed that. His web site features a copy of Cameron’s work which he has illustrated in a very realistic style (which makes one wonder if he’s a Neal Adams/Continuity alumni). It isn’t the same as seeing the movie, but it’s pretty damn good. And the artwork is nothing short of fantastic. Why is this guy not working in comics?
I don’t remember if IMPOSSIBLE DREAMS references this particular movie that never was. But here it is as close as you’re ever going to see. I think the Spider-Man movie that we finally got is one of the top three comic book movies ever made. I was initially worried about Sam Rami (visions of the more outlandish scenes in Darkman or Spidy with a chainsaw instead of a hand) but, just as with worries about Michael Keaton as Batman, he made perhaps the best film of his career. And since we won't see Avitar for another year and a half here is what might have been. In an alternate universe, perhaps?
Sunday, May 18, 2008
PERSONAL- My Best Friend
I have a best friend. He’s not a usual type of person but I guess that’s only understandable since I’m not either. His father was a professional man who was killed in a robbery attempt when he was 10 years old. The event changed his life in ways that even he is probably unable to understand. His childhood world was visited with perhaps the most feared event at that stage in someone’s life. The death of a parent. There is a period from about 6 years old to about 11, that the death of a parent is a particularly traumatic event in the life of a person. Walt Disney made a movie about it. It was called BAMBI and, when it was first released, parents took their children to see if their children would cry when Bambi’s mother is killed. My friend had this tragedy visited on him. But as Nietzsche said, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger”.(I use the old comcs icon since it was based on him)
He is perhaps the most moral person I’ve ever known. I have never known him to lie. The idea of him stealing is unthinkable to me. I’ve never known him to be malicious to anyone. That isn’t the same as saying that I’ve never known him to kick some ass. He kicks a lot of ass, a lot, actually.
He lives in this great house but rarely has visitors. And even those rare guests seldom know about the downstairs area. It’s the real heart of his living space- far more representative of his true psyche than the above ground areas. Those few invited into the above ground space- the public area as little as the word public means- admire his taste, avariciously desire his wealth, but come away thinking they have discovered something about him when they only have seen what he wants them to see.
He has had a few close relationships with women, and dates quite a bit, but he disdains any close attachments. He’s too much of a loner. He’s too much of an iconoclast. Women are drawn to him but find him incomprehensible. The more they actually get to know him the more he unnerves them.
His parents are dead but he does have a sister though. Like most people, I don’t think she really understands him. He’s a little too smart, too disciplined, too aloof, and too sure of himself for most people to really “get” him. Not to say that he isn’t gregarious, he’s hard not to like but almost impossible to really get to know. His public face is very charming but he keeps a tight hold on who he really is.
He’s the best best friend a person could ever want. I have no doubt that if I were in trouble he would be right there for me. In fact, he’s proved it time and again. There was a time just a few short months ago when I thought I was going to die and asked him to take over for me. It went against his own personal dictates but he was willing to do it anyway. I’m sure we would see more of each other but we live in different cities and the busyness of our lives prevents us from socializing very often. Still, there is seldom a week in which we don’t talk at length. He is truly the one person on the planet that I go to for council when I am faced with a dilemma. I cannot express how much I trust him.
Part of this trust is because, just as I may know him better than any other person, he knows me better than anyone else. I have no secrets from him. He knows both the best and worst of me. My history is similar to his but different. I too have known the loss of a parent. But while he had someone to take care of him, I was a mystery to both the parents I grew up with. I was also different, though I was different from the start. Not through any real effort on my part. I was born different. I grew up being bigger, stronger, smarter than any of the other children around me, or even than most of the adults. At an early age I became enamored of space and spaceflight, which led me to a lifelong affair with science. But because so many things came so easy to me I never developed the discipline that my friend has. OTOH, I’m not nearly as guarded as he is. I too have a hyperactive moral compass but I think mine is more a product of my genetic heritage. As long as I’ve been self aware I had strong convictions about right and wrong. Part of why I admire his honesty so much is that I have no choice but to be honest to a fault. It isn’t that I’m morally superior, it’s just that I don’t lie worth a damn. I can’t lie well, so I don’t. He could, but doesn’t. I have a strong streak of the messianic in me. He is more rooted in the mundane day-to-day activities of the people around him. I sometimes put people off because I am alien to them. He puts people at ease so as to attain his goals. I find that often I don’t understand what other people do. He seems to have a far better understanding of what motivates others.
I too have a secret place where I go when I want to be left alone. But most of the time I’m on public display. My regular job causes me to interact with people on a more regular and intimate level. In some ways this allows me to have a different knowledge of what people really are. But it is the clinical viewpoint of someone who is always an outsider. I help them. I save their lives frequently (that doesn’t seem to be something that motivates my friend). They see me as everything from a servant to a savior. Him they see differently. It’s a strange dichotomy. A friendship borne on similarities as well as differences. In spite of his pragmatism, I find that he shies away from ultimate sanctions. I am more practical in this way. There are some things that I find so reprehensible that they should be countered with ultimate force. I try to use this force sparingly, but knowing that it’s there, ready whenever I need it, I am not averse to leveling the ultimate sanction. I consider it a necessary evil and to be used only for ultimate evil but there are individuals who are so dangerous that they require it. My friend thinks that use of ultimate force is unthinkable. I once talked to him just prior to leveling it. He talked me out of it in that instance and, as I have come to expect, he was proved right that time.
I wish everyone had a best friend like the one I have. A couple of times I’ve thought that my romantic interest could be a best friend. They were, but there is a gap of understanding that is doubled by being of a different gender. There are, of course, far greater advantages to having a member of the opposite sex as a “best friend”. I put the term in quotes because have come to learn that there is a definite difference in the term when applied to relationships involving sex that those which don’t. Not that I’m not equipped to have profitable sexual relations with either sex. It’s more that I’m only sexually attracted to one particular sexual situation. I’ve been devoted to my romances. But none of them, even that one that is more special than any other could ever be, is like the bond I have with him.
Diana might understand. Maybe. But I could never ask her. She always thought he was a rival and not something different. Anyway…
I’m just not good at this. I’m trying to explain something profound in simple terms. My business is explaining things. I write for a living. But I am a writer that can’t put their most innermost feelings down on paper. Every other writer either bares his soul of the souls of others. I am an objective observer of the souls of everyone around me, but I can’t tell them what I see because I know they can’t understand my perspective. A purely alien perspective. Alien but not unique. Your species has known the truth, many humans have told you before I landed on this world. But you don’t listen. You didn’t listen to them and I have no reason to think you will listen to me.
That’s why I need him. He lets me know the truth about the best and worst of your species. Because he is both and all. The most in control and the most I’ve ever met completely without control. The master of the minute while being the slave of the life. He has to be the way he is. It was a decision he made a long time ago, so long ago that the point where he was still able to affect it, was still able to be different, is long past him. Still, it’s hard to fault a man for deciding to be the best and all when he was a child and then doing it. In spite of everything that he’s dealt with since then. All the sorrow. All the pain.
Pain he would, of course, never admit.
Just like I don’t admit my pain. A lot of being bulletproof is not to let them know that even if they don’t kill you, they may be hurting you. One thing life teaches everyone is that you either stick out your chest out and take it, or you cover your head and run away because it hurts. At least I learned that lesson. He learned it too. One of his call signs on the net (of which he has many, do you think someone so alone would not gravitate to an anonymous medium?) it that it’s better to let go of your pains as quickly as possible because dwelling on them isn’t helpful. He’s right. Lamenting over lost parents is a dead end as much as lamenting over a lost world.
Shame that everyone is a product of their losses as much as their victories. Maybe that’s the gift I give him. He can’t afford to admit his failures and I’ve learned that you have to do that. You have to admit that people die and there's nothing you can do about it. But you have to greet the dawn every day, not the fall of night. I have known the night, far more than his brief experience with it.
He thinks he is alone. But, except for him, I am the one that is truly alone.
Friday, May 16, 2008
COMICS and VIDEOGAMES- news that gives you the blues
(Video games artwork coming!)A couple of miscellaneous news items that were interesting:
Microsoft has denied rumors that they are planning for a Blu-ray drive upgrade to the XBOX 360. While I normally consider anything that MS says to be of probable equal veracity to anything the current presidential administration says, this time I believe them. Not only would it be a useless upgrade for gaming (any new game dependant on the extra storage would be unplayable in the old systems and there is no reason to use BR if you don’t need the extra space because it’s more expensive). It would be a useless upgrade for watching movies (The whole idea behind the HD-DVD add on was to push the format and hurt Sony. They never sold enough to make it worth their while even with the sweetheart deal they got from the OEM. A deal they would definitely not get from Sony.) And it would be a tacit admission from MS that they lost and Sony’s tech was better. And if the other two weren’t deal killers, that one right there is. I hope I don’t live to see the day that MS has to admit that even 800 pound gorillas don’t always get their way. (I’ve already seen GM and IBM have to do it and it isn’t pretty.)
Time-Warner\Warner Bros.\DC Comics (Does Time-Warner have a parent company?) has reminded us why corporate citizenship is an idea that could only be supported by a braying jackass or a prostitute. Seems they are shutting down an original art auction on ebay because it included some images or their property. The fact that the auction was intended to benefit children with cancer didn’t seem to matter. But why would it? Corporations are soulless constructs that have no compassion and no loyalty except to their stockholders. The only way they resemble citizens is that they have an instinct for self preservation which is often overridden by greed and stupidity. They are usually right wing, but I don’t think it’s for the reasons you would suppose. You might think it’s because they want small government and minimum interference. After all, that makes sense. But I think the real reason they are right wing is because all right wingers have a single defining characteristic that sets them apart. They are blind to irony! The irony in this case is that DC doesn’t actually own the copyright to Superman. The legal hocus-pocus is too long to go into here, but read the article. Seems when Disney decided to change the term of copyright to the-life-of-Mickey-Mouse-plus-one-year they were a butterfly (an 800 pound butterfly, if you will) that flapped its wings and created a tornado for other intellectual property holders. (Frankly, I prefer the analogy Phillip Jose Farmer used for this chaos theory meme in RIDERS OF THE PURPLE WAGE- If a bear farts at the north pole does it cause a big wind in Chicago?) I’m not in favor of dynasties, and truthfully I have to say that Paul Levitz at DC has been a mench about kicking some chickenfeed back toward creators (after Neal Adams led the fight to get the creators of Superman a paltry pension in the last years of their lives) but it’s good to see a little power revert to some folks that actually knew (and share genes with) one of the two guys that invented a character that has given me so much joy throughout my life. How much better is that than having some 29 year old douchbag buy his Maserati with profits from Superman when he’s never come closer to creating something than making excrement.
MOVIES- Cloverfield
It’s hard to pack any excitement into the horror genre nowadays. In the wake of 9/11, the war(s) in the middle east, 70 years lived with the specter of nuclear annihilation, urban crime, and even the fact that most commuters pass a horrific car wreck on their way to work once a month, horror permiates our daily lives. Horror ranges from the calm tones of a doctor giving you your biopsy results to the tallest buildings in New York collapsing. Fuck a vampire, yesterday I passed a woman crushed to sausage on the way to work. Please let me meet a vampire, I’ll take the hickey of death over a doctor with the hidious “look of sorrow” plastered on his professional face any day.I’ve seen a few terrible horror movies lately. THIRTY DAYS OF NIGHT was boring. ALIEN VS. PREDATOR II was tedious. Ghosts are assurance of an afterlife, not something to be feared. The Mummy is scary unless you can escape a monster who needs the services of a good physical therapist. Werewolves are feared only by mailmen. And Frankenstein is looking more like a cryogenic utopian vision than something you’d be afraid of. What is there left to scare you that isn’t too real or anachronistic?
CLOVERFIELD is high-concept and high conceit. I finally saw it yesterday. The hype had put me off so I wanted to wait until there was a little distance between the movie and the marketing. A few weeks later (June 8) would have allowed me to see it on Blu-ray but I’m not sure it would have made much of a difference on any level other than seeing what the Prosumer cameras were really capable of. As it is, the DVD is just fine for viewing this movie (and that may be the last time you hear me say that).
The high-concept is, of course, what if you made a Godzilla movie from the point of view of the little people running around trying not to get stepped on. The high conceit is to tell the whole movie as if it was a found artwork. In this case a videotape confiscated by the government after a natural disaster, shot by someone who just happened to be filming when the excrement hit the air conditioning. The result is a non-interactive videogame. A first person perspective that persists during the whole narritive. A movie made expressly with the YouTube vibe. The result is a truly involving film that allows the viewer no distance from the horror. It’s the 21st century equivalent of the epistolary style that Bram Stoker used in Dracula.
The filmmakers are highly aware of this. There's a scene when the head of the Statue of Liberty tumbles to the ground and immediately the crowd gathers with cell phones aloft to take pictures. It's a bit of self-referential comedy. (BTW, according to IMDB the head is twice the size of what the actual Statue's noggin would be because initial viewings found audiences unable to accept the size the head really was.)
Critics have found numerous nits to pick with the film. They say the perspective is dizzying if not nauseating (which reminds me of DOOM motion sickness syndrome). I can’t imagine this being a complaint of the current generation. To me it sounds more like an audience complaint that might have been leveled at D. W. Griffith for not shooting a film like a stage play. Jump cuts and time compression were revolutionary 80 years ago. At first they confused audiences. Nowadays they are part of the lexicon of film. I don’t think first person POV is going to revolutionize film, but I don’t think audiences are unable to deal with it.
Much has been made of the idea that the characters are not fully realized. I feel this is motivated more by critics who need to be critical than an actual flaw in the film. It’s a slice of life because of the very nature of the storytelling. The idea of using shots from a previous recording on the same tape is nothing short of inspired. At almost random moments in the film the viewer is given snippets of the back story. The idea that the main narrative is recorded over a tape that was made earlier is a way to juxtapose normal life into a story where nothing is normal. A single 90 minute videotape is the only window to these people’s lives. Still they seem like real people. They aren’t fully realized because anyone you might get to know from a single home video can’t be. The characters are sometimes banal, sometimes superficial, but filled with veracity. Just like most of the people you know in real life. And that’s the whole idea. I felt like I knew these characters. Though I was only able to see the tip of the iceberg I got the sense of the large unseen weight that was below the surface.
Some critics have said that the film is frustrating because you often can’t see what you want to see. Again, have you never watched a home video? That’s a common frustration. Shooting in real time is an exercise in trying to capture the essence of what is going on. And in this case, it adds to the ambience. The most remarkable thing about this movie is that it never deviates from its central idea. The horror comes from the audience being a character in the movie.
The last critique is that the introductory scenes at the party last too long. Again, I think it’s a mistake that only a film student could make. The viewer has to be lulled into a sense of normalcy and the time has to be taken to establish the banality of the characters. The party scenes do just that.
So, CLOVERFIELD is a success on a number of levels. It has real people in an unreal situation that anyone could imagine themselves being in. The special effects are invisible (a nod to the Phil Tippet Studio, and if you don’t know who Phil Tippet is then you haven’t seen a Star Wars movie). The characters aren’t the normal film heroes, just regular people. And the result is that everything the filmmakers were going for- a horror movie that makes the viewer a participant.
J.J.Abrams has gotten all the credit for this film. With his stint on ALIAS and LOST, and his upcoming revamp of the Star Trek franchise, he’s the Hollywood wunderkind. But he didn’t write or direct this film. He’s a producer, a position on movies that is usually not the kind of hands-on position it is in television. Here he seems both the creative force and the enabler of his creative people. In this case he deserves a lot of the credit but lets not forget director Matt Reves and writer David Goddard. Even the cast, who aren’t asked to do much more than run around and look scared, step up and add reality.
CLOVERFIELD is a short movie and doesn’t overstay its welcome. See it, and turn the lights in the room down low. And get ready to be taken away.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
MOVIES- Ferro Americans
Well, Iron Man has gone to a fast lead in the Summer Superhero Sweepstakes. Due largely to inspired casting and a snappy script. (And it being the only one out of the gate so far helps too.) Robert Downey Jr. pretty much plays his standard character, but it works. His Tony Stark is cynical, funny, and obviously has something going on upstairs. Downey adds layers to what was a rather two-dimensional character even for comic books. Gweneth Paltrow is spunky and competent as Pepper Pots (they even kept the trademark Stan Lee alliterative name). The only sour note is Jeff Bridges rather lackluster performance. Not that he was bad, he just didn’t bring anything new to a rather cliched role.The script was full of holes but saved itself with a number of pleasing one liners. Most of the origin remained intact and the changes were better for the story than the “Tony builds an artificial heart that looks like an iron lung and decides to go ahead and turn it into a robot suit”. And it’s just as well, Iron Man has been upgraded more than any other Marvel superhero already. He started out as a guy in a flexible metal suit with repulsor rays and has grown into full exoskeletal glory. A good start to a possible franchise for Marvel. And I say keep Farveau at the helm. He isn’t a strong action director but that actually worked in the movie’s favor. And every time Iron Man is on screen somebody at ILM is doing the directing anyway.
(Also, the Stan Lee cameo is even better than his turn as Willie Lumpkin, and pay attention to the music being played at the awards benefit- its a recurring theme and hauntingly familiar.)
The trailers before the movie reminded me that summertime means superheroes nowadays. The biggest reaction was for The Dark Knight trailer, but Hellboy and Speed Racer (apparently a new two hour screening test for epilepsy) also got love from the crowd. My money’s on the Bat because Nolan got so much right the last time. But I’m looking forward to several hours at the local Cineplex this summer in spite of the fact that the picture, seats, and concessions are better in my home theater; and that I can buy any of these movies on Blu-Ray by Christmas for less than the cost of a couple of tickets and some popcorn.
(And for grown-ups that still think summertime is for frivolous entertainment but get chaffing from rubber suits, David Mamet's REDBELT looks promising. So I think I'll also find out if Mamet can turn Tim Allen into Bruce Willis some day before I go to lunch, go to lunch, just go...to...lunch.)
POLITICS- How Do You Kill A Zombie?
Does anybody know how you actually kill a Zombie. There are several definitive references for vampires (holly stake through the heart, chop off the head, etc), and authorities seem to agree that a pesky werewolf can be put down with a silver bullet (explains the Lone Ranger), but I’m not sure about Zombies. Shotgun blasts to the head at close range seem to work in the movies. And I seem to remember that removing the head with a spade is recommended. Or is it just to inflict enough physical damage that they can’t continue any more?
The reason I’m asking is that my Democratic friends keep calling, wanting to know.
The reason I’m asking is that my Democratic friends keep calling, wanting to know.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
PERSONAL- Christmas in May- Hairy Fish Nuts
Several years ago, when the web was smaller and the world was still a little larger, I found a humor site dedicated to exposing the hypocrisy in religion in all its forms. It’s written by a self-educated Canadian high school dropout who now runs his own design company specializing in web design and is an aspiring stand-up comic. But for years he has taken it upon himself to rail against the religious, political, and societal forces that eschew reason for rhetoric, discussion for dogma, and the need to stare into the sun for the kind of blind faith that is, well, blinding. It has been said that he was born with his brain backwards and his genitals upside-down. Some say that he is the latest incarnation of the wandering Jew. But all know him as Salvage, proprietor of HairyFishNuts.com.
The title is, of course, a reference to the Bloom County comic strip by Berkeley Breathed. The story goes that Opus, the character that would eventually become the centerpiece of the strip, was originally intended to be temporary. In one of his final few appearances he meets a woman asking for money for “prayer temples for Hare Krishnas”. Opus is completely unable/unwilling to understand what she is talking about. “Pear pimples for Hairy Fishnuts?” he asks. (Breathed would later say that the response to this strip was so overwhelming that he decided to keep Opus.) Likewise Salvage seems completely unable/unwilling to understand what draws people to ideologies based on things other than logic and reason.
The title is, of course, a reference to the Bloom County comic strip by Berkeley Breathed. The story goes that Opus, the character that would eventually become the centerpiece of the strip, was originally intended to be temporary. In one of his final few appearances he meets a woman asking for money for “prayer temples for Hare Krishnas”. Opus is completely unable/unwilling to understand what she is talking about. “Pear pimples for Hairy Fishnuts?” he asks. (Breathed would later say that the response to this strip was so overwhelming that he decided to keep Opus.) Likewise Salvage seems completely unable/unwilling to understand what draws people to ideologies based on things other than logic and reason.
Friday, May 9, 2008
PERSONAL- Christmas in May- iwatchstuff
Today’s gift is a funny web site that keeps me abreast (you’ll get the joke later) of the latest in film. Not the kind of film where there are subtitles or where low budget independents do things that draw attention to parts of a film that perhaps should best be felt and not seen. This site glories in the mainstream with a geek twist. Comic movies, Action-adventure, comedy, drama, the movies that will be playing some weekend in the near or distant future at your local multiplex. But it’s not the kind of fan site that gushes over every Hollywood schlockfest. They are irreverent and often bitingly cynical about much of what comes out of Tinseltown. They are a clearing house of the kind of COMING SOON stuff that happens all over the web with their own share of exclusives. And they are so up to date that you have to visit the site every day if you want to see everything, since often their hottest scoops are taken down only hours after being posted because the studios have found them out. If you want to see the newest trailers, posters, info, and behind the scenes pics don’t waste your time with Aint’ It Cool News (they sold their soul for inside access years ago and Harry Knowles can’t tell shit from shinola on a movie screen), don’t go to Empire (they are in England and get everything late anyway), don’t go to IMDB (an excellent research site but their info on new movies is all advertising). Go to IWATCHSTUFF.COM. That’s where the good stuff with untarnished commentary winds up.
Iwatchstuff.com has several sister sites and they are worth a look too, but they all cross pollinate so you’ll see the best of all of them with a single stop. In addition to movie news you’ll get a smattering of celebrity news, photos of beautiful women caught by paparazzi (mostly while they enjoy themselves on the beach for some reason), and the occasional tech snippet.
IWATCHSTUFF.COM because you do.
Iwatchstuff.com has several sister sites and they are worth a look too, but they all cross pollinate so you’ll see the best of all of them with a single stop. In addition to movie news you’ll get a smattering of celebrity news, photos of beautiful women caught by paparazzi (mostly while they enjoy themselves on the beach for some reason), and the occasional tech snippet.
IWATCHSTUFF.COM because you do.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
TECHNOLOGY- EA is Watching You
Well, it looks like Electronic Arts has just taken the first step in what might be the biggest incitement to pirate computer games since the invention of the floppy disk. PC versions of Mass Effect and Spore are going to require a computer connection. Not so you can play online, they are single player games. No, they’re going to need a net enabled computer so they can CALL HOME EVERY TEN DAYS to re-authenticate their DRM! If this catches on I can see a future where every piece of software, movie, CD, toaster, hell, anything, will have to be online to work. Vista’s Big Brotheresque tendencies may spread like electronic kudzu to everything you own. I don’t know about you, but I’m not crazy about companies knowing more about my gaming and viewing proclivities than I do.Oh, I know. Advocates of totalitarianism in the guise of piracy protection will say that EA isn’t going to keep tabs on individual gamers. And that’s probably true, if you believe that businesses would never do any thing unethical just because they can.
Hell, my DVR already keeps tabs on my viewing, my government monitors my phone calls and emails, my cell phone company knows who I call, and for all I know somebody is actually reading this blog. I thought is was illegal to install a hack on someone’s computer so you could monitor them. I can’t open my television to fix something without the possibility of violating some reverse engineering law but EA can hack my computer because I want to play a game they make? Guess that law is only for citizens.
PERSONAL- Christmas in May- Death's My Destination
So yesterday my gift to you was the best movie ever made- Citizen Kane. Today the second of my beloved media that had a pinnacle that lasted for decades was Science Fiction. For years the best SF novel ever written was also a creation from a relative newcomer. He didn’t write that many books but the mark he made on the genre was immense. Early in his career he wrote comic books. In fact he wrote the Green Lantern oath. And it looks like this may be his most lasting accomplishment, in spite of penning the novel considered for so many years to be the best SF novel ever written. You all know it. “In brightest day, in blackest night; no evil shall escape my sight. Let those who follow evil’s light beware my power- GREEN LANTERN’S LIGHT!”
He was also editor for Holiday magazine for many years. He was also offered the editor position for a magazine named “Status” and tells the story that the publisher told him that if you don’t say “state-us” you’ll never have “stat-us”.
But the two novels he wrote that cemented his status as a science fiction great were written 50 years ago. The first was a detective novel set in a world where telepathy was a quantifiable talent. A businessman kills his main rival and simultaneously falls in love his that rival’s daughter. How does he conceal his crime and woo the object of his heart’s desire at the same time while being pursued by a telepathic detective on the case? The novel was full of graphic representations of telepathic conversations, an ingenious way of establishing a psychic shield out of the art of advertising, and a way to kill someone with a firearm that leaves no forensic evidence that could be traced back to the gun used in the murder. These are just a few of the devices and situations that this complex novel includes. . A complex murder mystery using science fiction devices yet completely plausible to the layman. A single novel that would make the author’s name so associated with the idea of telepathy that over 40 years later Babylon 5 would name their most infamous Psi-Cop after him- Alfred Bester. Such was the intelligence of the author
But that isn’t the novel we are going to discuss today. That isn’t the best SF novel ever written, as numerous polls have named it. That novel was based on the accounts of Japanese soldiers stranded on Pacific Islands long after WWII. Soldiers who didn’t know the war was over and continued to fight.
THE STARS MY DESTINATION starts with a major change in human society. What if personal teleportation was possible as a simple act of will? No transporter ala STAR TREK required. What if some scientific researcher (in this case with the apt name of Jaunt) was to teleport in front of witnesses who were trained to observe scientific phenomena? What if the Outer Satellites were at war with the Inner Planets? What if there were specific limits on how far and under what conditions a person could teleport (Jaunt, the eponymous obvious)? What if a common man was placed into uncommon circumstances and had to unlock the inner greatness that was inside him to survive?
What if that common man found himself the sole survivor of an attack in space and survived in a single pressurized locker the size of a coffin for over six months? What if he saw his rescue only to have that hope snatched away. What if he somehow managed to save himself? What if after doing that he found himself in numerous circumstances that took him (1) to a degenerate sect that considered the scientific method to be a religion, (2) to being a terrorist against no government but instead against the most powerful economic interest in the world as he knew it, (3) to being a prisoner in the Geoffre Martel, the most elaborate prison in the solar system, one designed to keep prisoners in a world where most people could think themselves somewhere else, (4) to being a fugitive with a tiger tattoo on his face, (5) to being at the mercy of a sadistic doctor who keeps a zoo of the most hideous genetic anomalies in the known universe, (6) to being the richest man in the solar system, (7) to being a commando with his nervous system enhanced with the most advanced implants available for any amount of money, (8) to chasing the most advanced weapon ever designed by human beings, (9) to finding out that, in fact, he was the most advanced weapon that humans had ever created, (10) to winding up as the next step in human evolution who negates the war and changes the balance of power as much as the ability to teleport changed transportation.
I hope I’m not giving too much away but the novel is so chock full of unique ideas and exciting situations that its hard to begin to explain it. The first paragraphs pay homage to A Tale of Two Cities, the middle third is evocative of The Man in the Iron Mask, the ending is set in a Star Chamber where all is turned on its figurative head. The novel is pure excitement from start to finish, with rich ideas and excellent writing. Perhaps it isn’t the best SF novel ever written but it would have to rival Foundation, Dune, Neuromancer, Childhood’s End, or any other book for the title.
Why had this novel never been made into a movie? It is the ultimate science fiction adventure. It is full of strange ideas and locations. In many ways it could be the Citizen Kane of SF movies (the two stories are strangely evocative of each other with their tales of obsessed men).
Nah, better to leave it just the book. That way we wouldn’t get some Hollywood lobotomy scar to turn it into a cop drama with car chases like they did with I, Robot.
He was also editor for Holiday magazine for many years. He was also offered the editor position for a magazine named “Status” and tells the story that the publisher told him that if you don’t say “state-us” you’ll never have “stat-us”.
But the two novels he wrote that cemented his status as a science fiction great were written 50 years ago. The first was a detective novel set in a world where telepathy was a quantifiable talent. A businessman kills his main rival and simultaneously falls in love his that rival’s daughter. How does he conceal his crime and woo the object of his heart’s desire at the same time while being pursued by a telepathic detective on the case? The novel was full of graphic representations of telepathic conversations, an ingenious way of establishing a psychic shield out of the art of advertising, and a way to kill someone with a firearm that leaves no forensic evidence that could be traced back to the gun used in the murder. These are just a few of the devices and situations that this complex novel includes. . A complex murder mystery using science fiction devices yet completely plausible to the layman. A single novel that would make the author’s name so associated with the idea of telepathy that over 40 years later Babylon 5 would name their most infamous Psi-Cop after him- Alfred Bester. Such was the intelligence of the author
But that isn’t the novel we are going to discuss today. That isn’t the best SF novel ever written, as numerous polls have named it. That novel was based on the accounts of Japanese soldiers stranded on Pacific Islands long after WWII. Soldiers who didn’t know the war was over and continued to fight.
THE STARS MY DESTINATION starts with a major change in human society. What if personal teleportation was possible as a simple act of will? No transporter ala STAR TREK required. What if some scientific researcher (in this case with the apt name of Jaunt) was to teleport in front of witnesses who were trained to observe scientific phenomena? What if the Outer Satellites were at war with the Inner Planets? What if there were specific limits on how far and under what conditions a person could teleport (Jaunt, the eponymous obvious)? What if a common man was placed into uncommon circumstances and had to unlock the inner greatness that was inside him to survive?
What if that common man found himself the sole survivor of an attack in space and survived in a single pressurized locker the size of a coffin for over six months? What if he saw his rescue only to have that hope snatched away. What if he somehow managed to save himself? What if after doing that he found himself in numerous circumstances that took him (1) to a degenerate sect that considered the scientific method to be a religion, (2) to being a terrorist against no government but instead against the most powerful economic interest in the world as he knew it, (3) to being a prisoner in the Geoffre Martel, the most elaborate prison in the solar system, one designed to keep prisoners in a world where most people could think themselves somewhere else, (4) to being a fugitive with a tiger tattoo on his face, (5) to being at the mercy of a sadistic doctor who keeps a zoo of the most hideous genetic anomalies in the known universe, (6) to being the richest man in the solar system, (7) to being a commando with his nervous system enhanced with the most advanced implants available for any amount of money, (8) to chasing the most advanced weapon ever designed by human beings, (9) to finding out that, in fact, he was the most advanced weapon that humans had ever created, (10) to winding up as the next step in human evolution who negates the war and changes the balance of power as much as the ability to teleport changed transportation.
I hope I’m not giving too much away but the novel is so chock full of unique ideas and exciting situations that its hard to begin to explain it. The first paragraphs pay homage to A Tale of Two Cities, the middle third is evocative of The Man in the Iron Mask, the ending is set in a Star Chamber where all is turned on its figurative head. The novel is pure excitement from start to finish, with rich ideas and excellent writing. Perhaps it isn’t the best SF novel ever written but it would have to rival Foundation, Dune, Neuromancer, Childhood’s End, or any other book for the title.
Why had this novel never been made into a movie? It is the ultimate science fiction adventure. It is full of strange ideas and locations. In many ways it could be the Citizen Kane of SF movies (the two stories are strangely evocative of each other with their tales of obsessed men).
Nah, better to leave it just the book. That way we wouldn’t get some Hollywood lobotomy scar to turn it into a cop drama with car chases like they did with I, Robot.
MOVIES- Alien vs. Predator Requiem
What did the Alien movies do to David Giler and Walter Hill to cause them to crap on them this way? Besides making them rich? Predator was always just a vehicle for Arnold Schwarzenegger to fight something as big and ugly as he is. Your typical low-brow high-concept monster movie. But the Alien movies were something more. There were enough ideas to make the initial outing more than a simple horror movie in space- spaceship refineries, labor disputes, hypersleep, the Space Jockey, androids, the Company. You got the feeling that there was a whole society behind the incidents on the Nostromo. Excellent acting and superb direction added to the film, making it an instant classic. And what can you say about H.R. Giger’s alien designs?Aliens, the sequel, expanded the premise to include a jump 50 years further into the future, terraforming, Colonial Marines, hundreds of aliens rather than just one, and another excellent cast and young director with real talent and something to prove. Gone were most of the contrivances of the horror genre, replaced by something more akin to Heinlein’s Starship Troopers. The movie was called a roller coaster ride by many critics, and for good reason.
Alien 3 (Alien cubed in the actual title, an unintended pun) was when the wheels started coming off the wagon. Insider stories say that Sigourney Weaver was sold on the premise with the idea of “Ripley- bald!” and one wonders if that was the most thought that went into it. Another first time director and fine cast, but this time without the stellar results. “Aliens in prison” might have been another attempt to fuse the series with an older movie staple (women in prison films?) or was perhaps a return to the franchise’s roots by trying for a haunted house with aliens motif. Whatever the initial idea, the movie made several serious mistakes. It summarily disposed of Newt and Hicks, characters that the audience had bonded with, without even giving them a noble death. It tried to go for a less-is-more philosophy when it came to the alien, which didn’t work after the battle scenes of the second film. It tried to build suspense but only accomplished being painfully slow. And, worst of all, it wasn’t scary. The most frightening scenes in the movie involved close-ups of needles being sunk into flesh. For that kind of fright you can just hang out at the local clinic to watch the preschoolers getting their inoculations. (In fact, the heart-rending screams that accompany such an activity might actually make it better for the horror connoisseur.) There were good ideas. That the alien bonded on a genetic level with whatever host the face hugger found was one. Another one was the death of Ripley. But for the most part the inspiration was too scant.
Alien 4 was an odd duck that tried to meld both the Space Truckers idea of the first movie and the Colonial Marines of the second. It jumps 200 more years into the future and adds a few ideas of its own- cloning, more intelligent aliens, and the further evolution of the alien creature itself. Again the cast is not the problem, and in this case neither is the script or direction. But it seems like it was just too much of a good thing. Alien fatigue had set in. And what fans really wanted was for the Aliens to reach earth. It had been hinted at in an early teaser trailer for Alien 3, but the idea had been abandoned during pre-production. The readers of the Aliens comic book had seen both the aliens on earth and a real expansion of the ideas in the first and second film- a grown up Newt, Hicks dealing with PTSD and the toll of severe acid burns, who the space jockey was and why he was hauling a shipload of aliens across the universe before he crashed. None of these themes were dealt with. Instead the audience was given what amounted to just another Alien episode.
Then came Alien vs. Predator. Having missed the boat on doing what comics had done with the franchise this time the producers decided to outright steal an idea from the comics. Unfortunately, once again this was where the ideas stopped. The aliens finally reach earth but we learn that they did it thousands of years ago. So did the predators, who built a giant pyramid under the ice at the south pole. We see the founder of Weyland-Yutani, who happens to look just like the android of the second film. We take a group of disparate adventurers into the pyramid and mass carnage ensues. But again there is no real science fiction to be found. The series has degenerated to being an old fashioned monster movie. As a result Alien vs. Predator more closely resembles Frankenstein Meets Dracula than the first two movies.
So now we finally come to AVP Requiem. Now all pretense of science fiction has been abandoned. It is set in the present, the Predator ship crashes into the Rocky Mountains, it has aliens on board. That’s a complete plot synopsis, by the way. Characters are established. Some of them live, others don’t. Nobody is given anything even remotely interesting to do. Nothing is added to the cannon. The most interesting shot in the move it right at the beginning and is stolen from a McFarline toys action figure. And at the end you realize that among the casualties were two hours from your own life. Funny thing is, that isn’t the most annoying thing about the movie. The most annoying thing is that you can’t see what the hell is happening anyway. The movie is DARK. And not in a metaphorical sense. It’s just plain not lit! The whole thing seems to have been shot with only the headlights of a car for lighting. Did the cinematographer stare at the sun too long when he was a child? Are the film makers so ashamed at the lack of an interesting script that they didn’t want to show you what was (or wasn’t) happening? You can’t see the alien, the predator, anything. There’s one scene in a diner and it even it looks like it’s lit by candles. And then halfway through the movie the predator blows up the local power station and it gets even darker. At this point you’re making fun of the thing anyway so it doesn’t matter. I saw the movie on Blu-ray and even that didn’t help. I imagine on regular DVD its close to indecipherable for much of the time.
But watch the special features on the disk. The “making of” featurettes are a great piece of unintentional comedy. It’s like watching a modern Ed Wood talk about his latest masterpiece. Early on John Ortiz says “Holy shit! I’m in an alien movie” and several folks in the room shouted “A SHITTY ONE” in unison. Less than a minute later another actor says that the movie is “kind of a metaphor for… what if something awful happened in your home town?” “Like they made you watch this movie!” Honestly, this stuff writes itself. The production vignettes go on like that for almost an hour. Everybody talks like they have made a cinematic masterpiece and everybody is apparently unaware that the movie stinks. There are also TWO commentary tracks! One has the sibling directorial team, Cliff Claven Strause and his brother Henchman 23 Strause, and the other has some other accomplices to the murder of the Alien series. I didn’t listen to the commentaries since I had enough pompous self-congratulation to last me for awhile. Perhaps that was a mistake. Maybe they describe what’s happening on screen that you can’t see BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS TOO FUCKING DARK!
So, goodbye Alien franchise. Lets hope they don’t resurrect you again until Ridley Scott or James Cameron decide to come back. Hell, even Fincher has redeemed himself since his time at the helm (though he’s a little too uneven to be classed with the other two alumni). Or maybe they could get Chris Cunningham to direct. Give the guy a shot, he couldn’t do any worse.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
POLITICS- “I didn’t get into this race because I thought I could avoid this kind of politics..
But I got into this race because I thought I could end it.”
That’s a quote from Barack Obama’s speech last night. This is the essence of his platform. It’s why he doesn’t have to be specific about what he plans to do (though he has). Because the platform he’s running on is more basic than a passel of promises. Promises that won’t be kept in any case. He running on the single promise that he’s not going to do “business as usual”. The kind of business the government has dealt in for so long. The business of lying to the people and acting as if it was an oligarchy, a plutocracy, an imperialist state, a fascist state. He touches those who know what America really stands for. For liberty, for idealism, for individualism that isn’t rooted in cynicism and the idea that only the rich are smart or worthwhile, for stupidity, for our being sold politics the same way we are sold soap, for being married to a political party the same way we are married to a sports team, for betting on the electorate being too dumb to see through the bullshit.
Obama may be peddling bullshit too, but if he is it’s a better brand of bullshit than we’re used to. It’s the prevarication of an obviously smart man who brings the oratory to a level seldom seen in the last 50 years. If, indeed, it is prevarication. But to my mind that isn’t even the main question. The main question is not about the honesty of the candidates (which is always in doubt) but the soul of the American people. I see this election as being more about my faith in American politics as a whole than it is about any particular candidate. Do we really want to have a discussion about the major issues that we face or are we willing to still have the political arena be the same as the sports arena. You can’t have a reasonable discussion of the relative merits of sports teams with many sports fans because they are dogmatic and rigid. They are on the side of their team and, good or bad, win or lose, they have a sort of loyalty that blinds them to reality. We’ve seen what that kind of rigidity allows our leaders to do in the last eight years. In a democracy the people have to be able to discuss, debate, decent, and decry the choices the government makes on their behalf. A democracy (or a republic, for those who think the difference is germane) is dependant on people discussing the choices they have in front of them and deciding the best course for them to take as a people. In a democracy it is simply the job of government to carry out the wishes of the people. Do the people follow their representatives as if they were a kind of nobility, or do the people determine the course the government should take as their servants.
Are we a sovereign people, with a government whose mandate is to carry out our wishes, or are we subjects of our government who have only the job of supporting our leaders? Obama may not truly believe in the former, but both other candidates are obviously supporters of the latter option. Given the option of being a free man who is the tiniest unit of an American government that is representative of the wishes of those tiny units, I take that option over being a subject in the American hegemony any time. It’s the same choice that the founding fathers had to make. To be subject to royalty, or to believe in the common wisdom of the common people and to let every person alone to find their own path to happiness.
I find all the “patriots” who think it is best to support the government in their folly to be laughable. I’ve engaged dozens, perhaps hundreds of them online to see what kind of intellectual foundation they have for their opinions. I have sadly found little to make me challenge my own opinion among them. They tend to be dogmatic, unreasonable, bigoted, anti-intellectual, ignorant, and, in short, living examples of everything the liberals portray them to be. It’s a cause for great sadness for me. I long for a political discussion that involves equally adult, informed, thoughtful discussion of policy. But what I find, all too often, is parroting of mindless arguments on both sides. The trouble with democracy is what Garrison Keillor (accurately) says about humanity, “Half the people you meet are below average”.
That’s a quote from Barack Obama’s speech last night. This is the essence of his platform. It’s why he doesn’t have to be specific about what he plans to do (though he has). Because the platform he’s running on is more basic than a passel of promises. Promises that won’t be kept in any case. He running on the single promise that he’s not going to do “business as usual”. The kind of business the government has dealt in for so long. The business of lying to the people and acting as if it was an oligarchy, a plutocracy, an imperialist state, a fascist state. He touches those who know what America really stands for. For liberty, for idealism, for individualism that isn’t rooted in cynicism and the idea that only the rich are smart or worthwhile, for stupidity, for our being sold politics the same way we are sold soap, for being married to a political party the same way we are married to a sports team, for betting on the electorate being too dumb to see through the bullshit.
Obama may be peddling bullshit too, but if he is it’s a better brand of bullshit than we’re used to. It’s the prevarication of an obviously smart man who brings the oratory to a level seldom seen in the last 50 years. If, indeed, it is prevarication. But to my mind that isn’t even the main question. The main question is not about the honesty of the candidates (which is always in doubt) but the soul of the American people. I see this election as being more about my faith in American politics as a whole than it is about any particular candidate. Do we really want to have a discussion about the major issues that we face or are we willing to still have the political arena be the same as the sports arena. You can’t have a reasonable discussion of the relative merits of sports teams with many sports fans because they are dogmatic and rigid. They are on the side of their team and, good or bad, win or lose, they have a sort of loyalty that blinds them to reality. We’ve seen what that kind of rigidity allows our leaders to do in the last eight years. In a democracy the people have to be able to discuss, debate, decent, and decry the choices the government makes on their behalf. A democracy (or a republic, for those who think the difference is germane) is dependant on people discussing the choices they have in front of them and deciding the best course for them to take as a people. In a democracy it is simply the job of government to carry out the wishes of the people. Do the people follow their representatives as if they were a kind of nobility, or do the people determine the course the government should take as their servants.
Are we a sovereign people, with a government whose mandate is to carry out our wishes, or are we subjects of our government who have only the job of supporting our leaders? Obama may not truly believe in the former, but both other candidates are obviously supporters of the latter option. Given the option of being a free man who is the tiniest unit of an American government that is representative of the wishes of those tiny units, I take that option over being a subject in the American hegemony any time. It’s the same choice that the founding fathers had to make. To be subject to royalty, or to believe in the common wisdom of the common people and to let every person alone to find their own path to happiness.
I find all the “patriots” who think it is best to support the government in their folly to be laughable. I’ve engaged dozens, perhaps hundreds of them online to see what kind of intellectual foundation they have for their opinions. I have sadly found little to make me challenge my own opinion among them. They tend to be dogmatic, unreasonable, bigoted, anti-intellectual, ignorant, and, in short, living examples of everything the liberals portray them to be. It’s a cause for great sadness for me. I long for a political discussion that involves equally adult, informed, thoughtful discussion of policy. But what I find, all too often, is parroting of mindless arguments on both sides. The trouble with democracy is what Garrison Keillor (accurately) says about humanity, “Half the people you meet are below average”.
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