Remembering the Fallen: Tiananmen Square June 4, 1989

YESTERDAY



TODAY

Bildungsroman

The five volumes of Doris Lessing's Children of Violence follow a protagonist over the course of her life. At the start we meet Martha Quest in her youth and over the course of the books see her develop well into adulthood, the entire work hung together by the consciousness of the heroine. This is a revolutionary work. Lessing has broken through the boundaries of the traditional Bildungsroman form, extending the central character's journey well beyond what has come before.

What, you may ask, is a bildungsroman? It denotes a work of self-development, a fictional tale along the lines of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations wherein we follow along as the central character grows and develops within the context of a defined social order. It can be described as a quest tale the object of which is to find meaningful existence within society. Typically such a tale is limited to a single novel; what's more, coming into the twentieth century it applied exclusively to male protagonists.

Lessing has done more than change the gender of the hero. She has also made the development of the heroine's self contingent on relation to the greater collective. Whereas the dominant motif of the bildungsroman has been that by the novel's end social values become manifest in the individual, Lessing leaves the question open; an undetermined future remains open to Martha Quest whereby she will continue to pursue education and experience.

Beyond Doris Lessing's invaluable contribution to novel forms, there is more to the "female" bildungsroman yet to explore. Circularity, according to Helen Paloge, is foundational to the evolution of the form, "cyclical" time characterized by non-linear events. What is not remembered from the protagonist's past, and how is memory manipulated to create the sense of a fresh start? Events are revised as they are repeated, thus laminating the self over history. Without incorporating these new features to the form, a bildungsroman is doomed to being chained to the dusty past.

The Manuscript

The manuscript is in a good place. It has come together in the latest draft and my efforts now are focused on polishing up dialogue and chapter transitions. It doesn't help to have a scattered approach, an hour each morning before I start work and evening editing sessions when there are no other obligations -considering the state of my social existence, there is rare competition for evenings. Nevertheless, progress is at an excruciating, glacial pace, which thanks to practical concerns cannot be helped.

What I've noticed happening is a shift in focus. Whereas in prior drafts I worried over plot developments, now that the story requirements are established I am using my ears to find proper rhythms for the story to unfold. If this sounds more like musical than literary composition, perhaps that is the best analogy. An unpublished author can settle for plodding movements on the page. These are less demanding on the reader and service the plot in necessary fashion, allowing it to unfold logically if not musically. I avoided doing this is in earlier drafts, to my detriment. As an insightful reader so aptly put it, I was too "precious" about my words. I've learned to let go of phrases I find clever, because they are obvious to the canny reader and all but obliterate the rhythms that allow someone to settle in and enjoy a story. By letting go, I was able to complete a draft and be totally miserable with it -which is not as easy as it might seem!

Being miserable with a creative effort is part of the process. I've had to put aside preconceptions of existing in some kind of blissed-out, creative zone when writing. Sessions like that produce a usable line or two, at best, and if I expect more (as I all too often have) the natural result of looking at what I've written is a screaming depression. By allowing part of the process to be harsh criticism of your own work, this actually enables forward movement far better than anything else. Mistakes provide richer fuel than success.

UP!

Saw Up this weekend and enjoyed it more than anything else I've seen this year, with the notable exception of Coraline. Heart-warming and -wrenching by equal turns, I laughed, I cried, I laughed again, all the while amazed that Pixar has yet again outdone itself. The Incredibles and Toy Story leap to mind as representing what Pixar does so well, marrying great story with awe-inspiring imagery to create films that stay with you well after you've left the theatre. Up deserves to be ranked with their best.

Homogeneous Science Fiction

The most original retrofit to Star Trek in the new film is a sidekick for Scotty. This igneous-headed, onyx-eyed dwarf serves some purpose, I'm sure, purloining cask malt whisky perhaps. Lacking any clear function beyond being so ugly it's cute, the little guy has become my poster alien for what is wrong with the movie: the creative minds rebooting this classic science fiction series have done everything they can to make Star Trek so much like other action-adventures in space that it is nearly indistinguishable. Misunderstood young hero with a destiny to fulfill? Claustrophobic fisticuffs, zany pratfalls, menacing CGI-beasts and epic explosions in space? All of these and much more can be enjoyed at a theatre near you.

Don't misunderstand: we're talking about a very entertaining couple of hours, made even moreso at an IMAX cinedome. This is a spectacular adventure. When you emerge, it might trouble your thoughts a moment to remember what the movie was -Star What? It not only shares several tropes with Star Wars but piques crowds not necessarily inclined toward scifi with hyper-action that owes more to the Bourne Identity series than any other.
Let's talk about what has made Star Trek work in the past. Do you know anyone that doesn't hold Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan as the peak achievement of the series? This is assuming, of course, that you know people who care that much about Star Trek. What makes it stick? Literate script and a memorable villain are two qualities that leap to mind. Jump ahead and consider the villain of Star Trek (which is not numbered or sub-headed), a Romulan with a huge grudge who meets his fate gaping at a flash of light. Really? Compare this with Khan, who dies creating a new planet and quoting Melville. Then again, don't bother -because there is no comparison.

I don't mean to compare Star Trek with older episodes so much as hold it up to scifi greats in general. The second Star Trek film (I'm weird and prefer the first) holds up to, say, the second Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes Back, which is arguably one of the finest scifi films there is; it isn't laughed off the screen if 2001 or Blade Runner are mentioned, and not merely because it has a great villain. It has substance and leaves us with something more. What Star Trek leaves me with is a homogeneized afterglow indistinguishable from many other action-oriented movies I've seen in the last few years. Don't hate me if I'm looking for something more!

The basis of science fiction is to explore unknown territory rather than repeat what has come before or strive to resemble other presentations of familiar narratives. The best example of this is Dune. It's space opera, yes; it's a recycled messiah myth, yes; it's a philosophic tractate on the nature of reality... well, yes, and isn't that all at once wonderful and strange? It breaches the limits of our expectations and takes us where we never imagined we could ever go. This to me is the essence of what makes great science fiction, which more than any other genre has the potential to show new ways of thinking, feeling, and experiencing what is beautiful about life.

I was entertained by Star Trek, and for a popcorn matinee that is sufficient. For science fiction it is retrograde in more than its recreation of what came before; that it strives mightily to be another blockbuster entertainment and fails to astonish or take any chances at all is what disappoints. We need more than a rock-noggined sidekick to tell this one apart, but sadly that's all we get.

2010: The Meaning of Caprica

58 Years Before the Fall.

These are the first words you see when Caprica begins, and from the opening frame there is a clock ticking. Instantly we are plunged into a raging dancehall, where a myriad of decadent behaviors are openly displayed, from rapine to murder and culminating in human sacrifice. Before long we see that all of it is illusion, unfolding behind the eyes of a young girl, a virtual reality that she can access electronically. And why not? All the Caprica kids are doing it.

Zoe Graystone is the daughter of Caprica's leading industrialist and a devout follower of the One True God. This is tantamount to heresy on Caprica, where the pantheon of Kobol Lords are integrated into all aspects of life; to deviate from belief in them is to invite sanction and societal rejection. How this dovetails with her virtual existence at the V-Club is the jumping off point for a story that grows to impact all levels of civil society on the planet.

Her father, Daniel Graystone, is a tech genius in the class of Wozniak and Jobs. He is developing a CYbernetic LifefOrm Node -an acronym that will be revealed in all its clunkiness as CYLONs. Things are not going well in honing these robots for the military, and to make matters worse, Graystone is competing with a Caprican version of the mafia for a vital processor. His ambition will intersect with his daughter's spirituality in startling ways and lay the groundwork for what could be a fantastic new television series.

This is a small part of what is presented in the pilot for Caprica. Rather than risk saying more, I'll leave you with the preview and say that here is something worthy of the Battlestar Galactica legacy.

What is the fall? Beyond the reference to the Christian fall of humanity, the implications are that it is total and profound. Watchers of Battlestar Galactica will have an idea of what the fall represents, but Caprica is not relying on knowledge of the show to appreciate the questions it raises. Viewers new and old will find something to fascinate them in 2010, when the series is scheduled to air.

Two Hundredth

To mark this, our two hundredth year at zeitheist, with proper panache and pomp, there is going to be a subtle shift in tone. While I'll continue posting about entertainments that catch my eye -I'm excited to see Moon and my next post will be a review of the BSG-spinoff Caprica- there will be a greater focus on work I'm doing to get my novel published. Thus far I've limited references to it, playing the protective papa to a still-burgeoning child. Now that it is further along and ready to be shopped to agents, I want to share the experience and maybe learn something along the way about how to do it better next time -in the eternal words of HoJo, "Things can only get better!"

Speaking of entertainment, I've been honored to have correspondences with the creator of what was one of my favorite comic strips at The Stranger, a Seattle weekly paper. As "Smell of Steve Inc.", Brian Sendelbach amused and inspired me on a regular basis back in the early part of this decade. He has put up his quill and entered the publishing game, doing his damnedest to crack that toughest of nuts: children's book publishing! Since this is the kind of trouble I am seeking to bring into my own life, albeit in non-children's books, I thought it only appropriate to share a column he wrote about his (thus far) frustrated attempts at getting published. Read about it here... and then come back and gaze some more at Bougle Gluce (pictured).

Green Lantern film update

Soundtrack provided by Men at Work. Read about it here.

Will GL exhibit a newfound love of vegemite? It's what all the space cops with power rings are eating these days.

Sleep Dealer

Intriguing science fiction film from Mexico:

2009: The Meaning of Greatness (Part Two)

Cylons were created by humanity. They evolved and developed a plan. What was this plan? Even now with the series finished, this question has not been answered completely. A sexy cylon in Baltar's head seduces him with hints at what the plan entails, implying that humans have strayed from belief in the One True God. Through apocalyptic measures, created wishes to put creator back on the path of righteousness... if any are left by the time they are done.

President Roslin is on a mystic journey when we first meet her, concluding that pragmatism wins over spiritual promise. She retains awe and wonder in the face of an inscrutable cosmos, but without the visionary aspect. Arguably she passes from one pagan philosophy to another. There is a clear connection between her and the cylons, the nature of which is undefined -have the cylons failed? A strong woman of conviction is no less convicted when we last see her. What exactly it is that commands her spirit is left open to interpretation, never definitely rooted in the One True God cylons espouse; in this respect, she is a failed experiment and human, all too human.

Gaius Baltar undergoes a very different transformation. He is convinced of God's perfection and beauty, proclaiming it to all and sundry. Knowing what we do about his character, the depth of his conversion remains unanswered. Without question he comes to his prophetic hysteria having endured experiences devastating to lesser folk, and provides the series' dynamic of how we come to recognize what it is we truly believe.

Is Baltar a cylon success story? He is like Paul of Tarsus, born a persecutor and reborn in fire, blindness and long wandering to become God's man.

All of this to say, Battlestar Galactica undertakes a great storytelling challenge: to tell of spiritual renewal without lapsing into cliche and preordained outcomes. As the series progresses, it is never certain where Roslin or Baltar will end up. When we see them at the end, it is a marvel. How amazing, too, that it unfolds within the trappings of a science fiction television show.

Moon Trailer

Watch this and tell me you aren't jazzed to see Moon:

Because Screaming Lady Says So

Film lovers, there are fresh posts at 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.

2009: The Meaning of Greatness (Part One)

It was a surprise to learn that cylons believe in God. Not the gods humans worship, but the One True God. At the time period during which Battlestar Galactica is set, humans thrive on the planet Caprica and devotedly worship a pantheon, the Lords of Kobol. After the planet is razed by nuclear attack and survivors flee in a rag-tag fleet, everything they believe is thrown into disarray, just as the cylons planned it...

On Caprica Laura Roslin was Secretary of Education. In the aftermath, she is ranking survivor and named President. A woman of deep conviction and faith, she accepts the position hesitantly and soon proves to have the necessary fiber to lead. Her faith is in the Lords of Kobol, which puts her at odds with the cylon mission. Her nemesis? Gaius Baltar.

Baltar is the great traitor of his race. He gave up the planetary defense codes that let cylon bombs fall. In his head is a sexy cylon who preaches the gospel of the One True God. Wittingly or not, this puts him in direct conflict with the President. She works toward a better day for all, while Baltar, flawed savant and slicker than slick, craves one more night with his cylon lover.

As Roslin becomes increasingly obsessed with prophecy that will lead humanity to a new homeworld, she begins to exhibit mystic behavior that is not far removed from madness. It doesn't help that she is battling breast cancer; her meds are warping her mind. Could the Lords of Kobol be false? As the first season progresses, the question persists and the cylon's siren song in Baltar's head starts to sound more alluring...

Next: God's plan is never complete, but sure makes for great science fiction

Sacred Vectorfunk

In this week leading up to Easter, I've been on the peep for sacred expression. Matt W Moore's "Sacred Vectorfunk" puts me in the right kind of reflective mood, brilliantly espousing mystery and essence.

Check out more of his work here.

Daily Glitter

I think of Twitter as litter. The strobing updates are like flotsam cluttering up the web and one day soon I won't be surprised if we see adverts floating across our screens in like fashion. It's already happened on tv. During the Super Bowl, that bellwether of advanced promotion, we saw a split-second beer ad:
Could this be advertising's next big thing? I liken it to Twitter, which as far as next big things go has arrived and overstayed its welcome.

Litter. Pieces of forgotten things drifting in and out of view. Almost as soon as an update hits the screen, it is as quickly forgotten.

The closest I come to participating is on my gmail chat box, which I have come to think as "glitter", a cachinateun that follows the example of latching the letter "g" to the front of a noun -see the Uncyclopedia for numerous frivolous examples.

Moon

Hot off the griddle: a new SF film starring one of my favorite actors, Sam Rockwell! I know next to nothing about Moon, other than that its director is David Bowie's son and the premise is man (Rockwell) stranded on moon. My friend Jeffrey Overstreet, who's seen a preview screening, says it is the next milestone in SF cinema.

Check out the lovely poster and read tidbits here.

1978: The Meaning of Feldercarb

I was a child when Battlestar Galactica premiered in the fall of 1978. It was my favorite thing to watch and set lasting precedents for the type of science fiction I enjoy now.

To love as a child is glorious; the object of such uncritical devotion is observed without pause from eye to heart, blooming into the brain's deepest chambers with lasting effect. What are the chances that something so beloved is translated into maturity? Certainly Battlestar Galactica-as-was has lost a great deal in translation and is indeed a painful thing to view decades later. Which makes it all the more incredible that the re-imagined version that premiered in 2003 is such a treat; it goes entirely against expectations by taking the germ of what gave the old show such staying power and transforming it into the fine television series that finished its run last week.

The basic premise remains: a ragtag fleet of holocaust survivors fleeing into the universe in search of a new home, the planet called... Earth. The survivors, as one might easily imagine, are a mouthy lot. They don't hesitate to use colorful language. This aspect of the show has carried over into the updated version and there is no lack of futuristic euphemisms when tensions run high. "Frak" and "gods dammit" are the two most heard; what is not heard very often is "feldercarb".

Feldercarb is a word meant to describe situations that are unfair or undeserved to the person uttering it. According to Urban Dictionary, it should be associated with what can politely be described in contemporary speak as "bullpucky". While frak seems to be find sympathy among viewers, feldercarb is hardly if ever mentioned, on- or offscreen. And why should it be, when the locutive effort required nowhere near matches the impact of bullpucky.

Next: Setting the standard for 21st century science fiction!

Battlestar Galactica: an appreciation by a lifelong fan

At least it feels like a lifelong affection, despite discovery in childhood followed by a gap of over twenty years -why quibble over numbers? Even when the television series was reimagined for this century, I paused before embracing it: what is loved in childhood does not necessitate automatic acceptance when it returns in the fullness of our years. The flame had not died, burning all the brighter once I gave the new series a proper viewing. That was a few years ago. Now the series has ended and the finale has aired and friends let me tell you, it has never been better than this.

More to come...

Battlestar Galactica at the UN

BSG ends tomorrow night and tears will flow, mine not least among them; along with West Wing and Arrested Development, Battlestar Galactica is the best thing that ever happened on tv, a bang-up space opera with unforgettable stories and fully-realized characters. I will miss experiencing that special anticipation for new episodes.

Before leaving us forever, the crew showed up at the UN this week to discuss how real-issues have been represented in the show. Amazing... especially when you see how Edward James Olmos used this moment to make a great statement.

Stay tuned for my reflections on the show following its last broadcast.

Watchmen

Watchmen is terrible, a bad adaptation of an over-rated book, a big budget over-hyped turd that leaves a slick of grease on your brain. Where it postures with high-minded hautuer translated directly from the source, it takes the (comic) book's provocative conceits and renders them into so much high cholesterol junk.

The actors are superb and perfectly cast for their parts, especially Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach. Haley embodies the character and makes him sympathetic, arguably more sympathetic than originally fashioned, in a performance that sadly is not supported by the film as a whole. A psychotic crimefighter, Rorschach is the soul of Watchmen. He is allowed long pontifications of voice-over to remind us what a horrible cesspool this world is. Does this sound familiar, perhaps like Notes From The Underground, Camus' The Fall, or Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver? We know this man, this voice, this rant. It is updated for juveniles everywhere in the shifting face of Rorschach.

In Notes From The Underground, when the narrator visits a prostitute he is made vulnerable and confesses how the rot of the world is reflected within himself; the pompous narrator of The Fall reveals his own failings in a philosophy that does not encompass hope or virtue; more recently, we see Travis Bickle driven to the edge of sanity as he impotently rationalizes a growing cascade of venality and avarice. In all three cases, context serves to illustrate the point that humanity is in trouble and looking for answers. Watchmen attempts the same and comes up short, in both versions; since this is a criticism of the film, I'll not address what I see as the book's failings but focus on the adaptation.

The author of Watchmen is Alan Moore, a gifted and educated writer. If you look at a body of work that includes From Hell and V for Vendetta, I don't think it's a stretch to say that Moore finds common cause with Rorschach (Moorschach?). Like V and Dr Gull, Rorschach is entirely bent on correcting society, and Moore is savvy enough to craft narratives that support their mission. This enables us to see them as heroes battling a world gone wrong -is this not the definition of a superhero?

At the close of Watchmen, when we witness Rorschach's fate it is an incisive blow to optimism made all the more profound by our sympathy for the erstwhile but clearly misguided hero. In the written form, illustrated by Dave Gibbons, the story capably and efficiently delivers the tragedy. Here is where the film adaptation goes wrong.

When the book portrays sex and violence, it does so in obligatory fashion. We see that these elements of life are prevalent and ordinary, part of the human condition. Given that the context is costume-clad low-grade sociopaths finding their way in a world that no longer accepts them, this is a brilliant accomplishment by the author and illustrator. The film adaptation goes to great lengths to portray Rorschach as written -and then undermines our sympathies entirely with raunchy fights and coupling, thereby rendering the audience as the object of the hero's contempt; by gratifying the very impulses the hero decries, we are turned (fairly or not) into the thing Rorschach so despises and fights against with every fiber of his being (is being truly fibrous, like bran cereal?).

The tragedy that makes Watchmen so stark and effecting on the page becomes an attack on the audience. Because of the film's commercial aspect -boffo box office or bust!- the story's integrity is undermined. When we see Rorschach's fate in the film, it is no longer anything more than pathetic and superficial, and we are left with nothing more than an ill feeling as if we've had a greasy meal that churns inconsolable in our guts.

In news reports we hear about Alan Moore's refusal to participate in adaptations of his work, or to even watch them; in this case, I can hardly blame him. For an adaptation that so clearly holds the source material in high esteem, this is a terrible failure of execution. Director Zach Snyder says that if sales of the book are increased, he has done his job. Judging by how copies of Watchmen are flying off bookshop shelves, I'd say mission accomplished. Too bad that in the process of selling Watchmen he did it such a disservice.

Coraline Jones

I'm a sucker for handmade films. The work of Jan Svankmajer leaps to mind as paragon of the form, especially his seminal interpretation of Alice. Now there's another magical adolescent in the arena: Coraline Jones.

A true indicator of a film's awesome factor is its effect on youth. Bored kids in the theatre are worse than a bout of Dengue fever, talking on the phone or with each other, hurling epithets at the screen and generally running amuck, caring nothing for the experience of anyone else unfortunate enough to be there. If you are at a screening of Wild Strawberries, it would be entirely in keeping with social mores to soundly evacuate the ruffians and restore necessary calm; at a matinee of The Nightmare Before Christmas, on the other hand, you might need to take the chaos as an indicator that the film has failed to reach its target audience. Fortunately Henry Selick, the director of Nightmare, knows how to create an engaging story for all ages and there have been a dearth of riots at screenings of what is recognised as a handmade classic. Selick has struck again and dare I say surpassed himself with his adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Coraline.

I arrived at the evening show ready to enjoy the film. It was my birthday and judging from the buzz surrounding Coraline, I was expecting it to be good. Just how good, however, I could not imagine. Nor could the noisy adolescents who came rumbling into the theatre in the midst of previews. Great, I thought, the night is ruined. They settled in a couple rows away and proceeded to mock the 3D glasses and whatever preview happened to be showing, either Pixar's UP (the simple premise of which could be promising) or Dreamworks' Monsters vs Aliens (a Pixar wannabe that nevertheless could be fun). Within a few minutes their racket died down, coincident with the start of Coraline, and was never heard again: they were completely and utterly silenced by the film, and like me found themselves in a mesmerized state for the next 90 minutes.

What stronger recommendation do you need?

1001 Movies You Must See

Friends, there is a new blog where myself and other film aficionados will be posting reviews as we wind our way down a very long list of "must see" movies. Come check us out!

Farewell Andrew Wyeth

The great American painter Andrew Wyeth died peacefully in his sleep today, abed in his beloved Pennsylvania. His works have been a profound source of encouragement and joy for most of my mature existence and I mourn his passing as I would a dear friend.

What Spidey Can Teach Obama

Yesterday a special issue of Spider Man's comic hit the stands in which he meets President-Elect Barack Obama (no, I did not buy it). Other than being a tawdry method of generating sales, as the fan website newsarama points out, there is a valuable lesson Spidey can impart to the incoming President:

The Press Isn't Your Friend!

As our friendly neighborhood wall crawler has learned time and again, getting your name in the headlines is not always grand. While Obama is unlikely to be called a "masked menace to society" any time too soon, as Spidey is daily in the editorial pages of the Daily Bugle (the comic book version of The New York Post), he will surely be the subject of many pundits ugly or uglier than J Jonah Jameson.

Note to Obama: Spidey usually responds by webbing Jameson's pants to a chair

96 Films To See Before Dying

The ever-intrepid Rollerkaty introduced me to a book that is sure to dominate the rest of her natural existence: 1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. Katy and her husband never have to worry about what to watch again, it's all right there in the book.

Pondering the huge commitment of watching more than one thousand "must-see" movies, I've found myself breaking out in cold shakes and developing strange skin afflictions -the pressure is too much! Don't get me wrong: an avid filmgoer since an early age, I have no doubt that I've seen at least a thousand movies. Putting it into such a formal list, however, makes the wieght of such viewing all too palpable and is for one so sensitive as myself an intolerable burden.

What to do? I've a notion...

What if the number were less? What if one were asked to watch two movies a week for one year in order to achieve cinema legitimacy? -the suggestion that movies exist we must see before death implies that not having seen them makes us somehow less. Wouldn't a lower number be more realistic?

While I do not necessarily adhere to the idea that you have to see certain movies in order to have "lived", there is nevertheless something wonderful in experiencing the arts that brings greater dimension to life. Stay tuned as I progress in narrowing the "96 Films To See Before Dying".

I'm open to suggestions. Please feel free to share a film or three that you consider essential.

Two Great Tastes...

The Shaw for Delicious Gluttony Must Be Stopped But Can't goes to: Haagen Dazs' Chocolate Peanut Butter ice cream.

It gets inside. The other day I was reading that there's a parasite, toxoplasma gondii, that creates in its host an attraction to the smell of cat urine. I've got one of those, but for the smell of chocolate peanut butter ice cream.

Cal-Raven's Ladder

The Shaw for Most Anticipated Sequel in Books is...

-the third in Jeffrey Overstreet's Thread Series: Cal-Raven's Ladder. Auralia's Colors (image above) is the first, Cyndere's Midnight the second in Overstreet's four-part fantasy series. With each book, the storytelling gets better and the characters more engaging, and from what I've seen of the third book so far the author is continuing to take us onward and upward.

Check out this series to see why I am eagerly anticipating Cal-Raven's Ladder.

A World of Music and Ideas

This year's Shaw for Consistent Excellence in Radio Diversity goes to...

I am a recent convert to KBCS 91.3, having stumbled across them after my cassette player gave up the ghost. Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, they have the most diverse/eclectic radio programming I've seen in a single station, mixing social consciousness with funk, jazz, soul, electronica, medieval, latin, zydeco, R&B, Indian ragga... the list goes on and on. They stream online and maintain an excellent archive of past shows: definitely worth checking out.

Spoiler Alert

I can always count on Wooster Collective for good material, and they have earned the Shaw this year for Best Spoiler Art for Family Film, with this graffiti:


(watch out, it's a spoiler)

The Shaw Award

Are you like me, fed up with all these award shows that operate on the same template? How many different ways do we want to be told what the best album/film/book of the year was? Oscar has one opinion, the Golden Globes another: different ceremonies, same award categories. Zzzz...

I'm looking for a more personal approach. We live in an age of You/Space/Book, where the things we love as individuals have a public platform. Rather than continue operating off the old model, I wish to suggest a new standard: The Shaw Award.

The Shaw Award is a cascade of highly-peculiar categories that directly respond to specific things that made a year great. Watch this space for the month of January to see just what I mean. In the spirit of the Oscars, these will be referred heretofore as "The Shaws".

The Shaw for the I'm Not Heath Ledger Performance of the Year award goes to:


The Joker!
(Not to be confused with Heath Ledger's other masterpiece, A Knight's Tale)

Seriously, watch The Dark Knight and see if Heath Ledger doesn't completely vanish inside his performance. It's one of the most incredible transformations of an actor I've ever seen.

Eartha Kitt 1927-2008

Like many of you, my first time seeing Eartha Kitt was as Catwoman on the cornball 60's Batman tv show; what placed her permanently in my heart was listening years later to her rendition of "I Want to be Evil":

Yuletide Wish List

Inspired by my good friend over at Rollerblog, here is my wish list for the season: an archery kit and laptop (because I haven't gotten around to buying them for myself), Star Trek: The Motion Picture dvd (so I can stop listening to the soundtrack and driving my housemates batty), and a nice 1964 paperback edition of I am Legend by Richard Matheson (because Will Smith does not belong on the cover of this excellent novella).

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

This is one of those films we like to call a "hum dinger"...

As you can tell from the above image, Donald Sutherland is not pleased with you. Or to be more precise, the alien pod thing that has taken over Mr Sutherland's existence is not happy, really, with any human being remaining in the city of San Francisco. When he sees a human, he points, he squints, he screams. Not a happy moment for anyone involved, especially if you're human.

Wonderful film. Check it out if you happen to be in the mood for pod people (and when are you not?).

Why I Enjoy Fringe

My one hour of television viewing each week is on Tuesday to watch Fringe. Last night sidling up to the tube, my housemate was watching the end of her show and when I sat down she said, "Are you watching 'Cringe' or whatever?" That's the love in our house. Against the grain go I. Esoteric science mixed with conspiratorial derring-do, smart dialogue and enough mystery to generate a thousand harebrained theories -what's not to enjoy?

Yesterday's was the last episode for a few weeks and quite eventful it was. One of the "fringe" elements in the show is memory overlap, specifically between the main character, Olivia Dunham, and the man who betrayed her, John Scott. In the show pilot (sadly the worst episode of the season thus far) Olivia entered his memory to retrieve information crucial to that week's plot. This was tricky: John was dead at the time.
Subsequently she has seen him pop up in random places. It turns out that parts of his memory overlapped with hers and now reside in her brain, and as a result she sometimes experiences his memory as her own.

Sound confusing? Over the stretch of several episodes, the show has worked admirably to explain this phenomenon to the audience, culminating in a great moment last night when Olivia mistook one of John's memories for her own. In a previous episode she actually went into one of his memories to search for clues, very Charlie Kaufman-esque with creepy overtones of lost love gone terribly wrong.

One of the show's core strengths is the relationship between Dr Walter Bishop and his son, Peter. They are wonderful. Joshua Jackson plays Peter with a lot of soul -which I suppose fans of Dawson's Creek will recognize. John Noble, last seen as Denethor in the Lord of the Rings, treads a thin line with his character, teetering between cute nonsense and scientific brilliance, finding at the intersection a fascinating study in obsessive behavior.

The show has it's problems. One of the villains is a Hannibal Lecter knockoff, while others are under-cooked. The actress who plays Olivia could use some coaching on how to act outside of the one-note range. Nevertheless, there's nothing else so weird and fun like Fringe on tv these days, and to judge from the season so far, it's just going to get better.

Farewell Old Friend

13 years ago on the eve of moving to San Francisco, I purchased a double-deck Sony cassette player. Last night the last of its belts gave out. After blasting Al Green in the late evening, I flipped the tape and after pressing PLAY was met with the telltale squeals of a tapehead belt that no longer rolls at the correct speed. This was the right-hand deck. The left-hand deck wore out a few months ago in the midst of a dubbing session. It was only a matter of time...
Thirteen years. Not bad. Nobody expects a cellphone to function that long, let alone the medium of a defunct technology. (Oddly enough, the CD player was the first component to fail, lasting less than a year.) I will miss my friend and companion.

The Proposition

Damn good film.

It was inevitable that I would see a film written and scored by Nick Cave, and this was well worth the wait. Fittingly enough the director John Hillcoat is adapting Cormac McCarthy's The Road for the screen. Should be a perfect fit.

Paradoxing

Though I am not versant with cooperative multiplayer gameplay online, I am aware that it is extremely popular. Call it the virtual option for competitive personalities who are not otherwise inclined to athletics. Folks get heated in these games, facing off against each other in virtual sports and shooter arenas, and often the language used reflects players' passion for victory. By hurling racial epithets, a player seeks to disorient others and thereby distract them from playing effectively.

Psychologists call this behavior “paradoxing,” and it’s a classic attempt to gain the upper hand, to become dominant. Competitively, writes Owen Good, this frustrates and angers and diverts player concentration out of the game. Cooperatively, this aggression trumps decision-making and leadership on the arena of play.

What's unique here is that online you cannot see your fellow players. Consequently, you can out-paradox someone and undermine their crude strategy by simply asking, "What if I told you I was a minority?" While you may or may not be someone sensitive to the epithets, this question causes the other player to stop and wonder and effectively fall victim to their own behavior.

Then again, you can always take advantage of another unique aspect of online play and simply hit "mute" on the other players and listen to your favorite mix of zen techno.

Inspirations

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

The opening paragraph of Shirley Jackson's novel, The Haunting of Hill House, should scare the beans out of any aspiring writer. The grace and impact of the simple prose are awesome.

Music is a large part of my writing process. Of late, the 4th symphony of Brahms plays constantly on my decrepit cassette deck. Symphonies in general are conducive to the writing of novels, I find, and are in regular rotation when I am locked away inside my blue light pod pummeling at the page. The symphonies of Brahms lately drive me on, as well as those of Dvorak and (inevitably) Beethoven.

The Arc of History

"The arc of history is long but it bends toward justice." -Dr Martin Luther King, 1963
"Americans put their hands on the arc of history and bent it toward the hope of a better day." -Barack Obama, 2008

Don't Forget to Vote

"Gum Election is a guerilla art project which started in New York City in October 2008. It should encourage people to vote on November 04th and also not to spit out their chewing gums carelessly on New York Cities already dirty streets."

Poehler and Arnett Talk About The Baby

Two of the funniest people on the planet now have a baby son, Archie. Awesome news and a terrific name, but it looks like they expect him to be a brooding, "little baby Sean Penn":

(Footage cribbed from the Blades of Glory dvd, in which Amy Poehler and Will Arnett presumably play a hilarious ice-skating duo; presumably, because I fear the Will Ferrell and have not seen the movie.)

Bravo Paul Krugman

Pundits are decrying the Nobel committee's selection for economics this year as just another jab at the current US administration. They are selling short on Mr Krugman and one would think by now, in light of the current economic meltdown, that short-sellers would be silenced. While Mr Krugman is unapologetically harsh when it comes to Bush, he should be recognised for his true talent: making economics comprehensible to noodniks like myself. His weekly op-ed column has been of immeasurable help during these tumultuous times, and I wouldn't understand half of what's gone down were it not for his concise, plain-spoken breakdowns of US capitalism.

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio

From this year's winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature:
My message will be very clear; it is that I think we have to continue to read novels. Because I think that the novel is a very good means to question the current world without having an answer that is too schematic, too automatic. The novelist, he's not a philosopher, he's not a technician of spoken language. He's someone who writes, above all, and through the novel asks questions.

Robert Redford on Paul Newman

REDFORD: There were a lot of times we played these gags on each other and they were great fun. And one of them was that he used to -- when he went into racing, he just drove me crazy talking about racing, because he was obsessed with it, and, obviously, great at it -- by the way, great at it.

And I said, "Geez, can't we talk about something else?" He said, "Well, I want to take you up to the track and we'll do this and we'll do that." So for his 50th birthday, I happened [to be], in Connecticut, to find a trashed Porsche and it was just totally demolished and I had them wrap it up and leave it on his kitchen back step, wrapped in paper with a ribbon around it, that said "Happy 50th."

And so a couple weeks went by and I didn't hear anything, and then I went up to my house a couple weeks later and walked in the living room and there was this gigantic box in the living room, and it was so heavy you couldn't lift it.

In fact, it was so heavy, it had created an imprint on the floor, and this was a rented house. Well, by the time I crobarred it out, there was just this block of metal that had been taken down.

The [towing service] came and took it away ,and they said, "This is great." I said, "OK, look, hang on." And I called a friend of mine who was a sculptor in Westport.

I said, "If I give you some material, can you create a sculpture." He said, "That's great, absolutely." So these guys come take the thing over to her, and she did a sculpture. I said, "Make it a garden sculpture."

So she did. Had the towing guys take it to Newman's garden and just plump it there. Now, to this day, neither of us had ever spoken about that, never even -- that was -- there were many other situations like that, but that was ...

QUESTION: No one ever says "gotcha?"

REDFORD: No, no. That would diminish it. No. The idea was you just never acknowledged it.