I had a pretty interesting fall last year. The company (Borders) I was working for went out of business, so I started a months-long odyssey to find a new job just as the new TV season was beginning. Many of my regular decisions were affected by this, since I started staying at my sister's house and I deferred to her tastes a lot. Thankfully, we share some of the same shows, and I got to watch some of the stuff I really wanted to. Two notable exceptions were Cougar Town (didn't catch any of the new season) and Community (caught only a few episodes, but brilliant as ever).
What that really meant was that I got to watch two seasons of Biggest Loser (this spring's edition featured the very people who were probably never really going to benefit from such an experience, in the long-term), as well as my first season of Criminal Minds (I am now a fan).
I intended to watch more of the new shows from the season than I actually did. Never actually watched an episode of Terra Nova (oops!), and only caught a handful of New Girl (love it, though!). Person of Interest became my main lifeline to the freshman class, and it was totally worth it. Brilliant show. Never got to see Alcatraz, though, and I kept missing episodes of Awake, even though it was instantly a favorite. Tried watching Touch, but couldn't really get into it.
I watched a few episodes of Blue Bloods this season, and so can still count it as a regular viewing favorite. NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles were predictably entertaining. The season finale of CSI was brilliant, perhaps the best single hour of the series to date, and all it took were two strong new leads and a long-time regular reaching a fateful decision. I kind of hate myself for not seeing a single episode of the final season of CSI: Miami, but it's one of those timeslot things. If it had still been on Mondays, there's no doubt I would've.
I watched WWE Raw, so I enjoyed the rise of CM Punk as a regular member of the main event, and his subsequent (and ongoing) six month reign as champion, but this is not really a part of any specific season.
How I Met Your Mother took long strides toward making its characters more mature, which makes it ironic that the season ended with some of them acting irresponsibly. The show is still awesome.
Fringe had another brilliant season, perhaps its single best, and none too late, too, earning a shortened final season next fall.
The Walking Dead made a fan of me in its second season. I caught snatches of the first season, didn't like what I saw. But I liked just about everything from the second one.
The Big Bang Theory had another slam-bang season, but that's to be expected.
I saw enough of the second season of Raising Hope to know that the first season was not a fluke.
What else? Survivor had a couple of interesting seasons, but I'm not sure that they were some of the best ones the show has had. Some questionable casting decisions left contestants scrambling for fates that shouldn't have been such problems for them. Ozzy should have won. Troyzan should have won. Neither, ultimately, reached the finals, and it's a damn shame. They should play in the same season together, and ensure victory for one of them. I would compare both to Boston Rob. Given the right circumstances, they, too, can eventually win. That's the kind of show Survivor is. I'm not saying that the people who actually do win don't deserve to win, but that there are always contestants who actually deserve it more, and they just can't manage to do it. Amanda is another prime example of this. Jonathan Penner, too, but it looks like he'll have another shot next season.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
#413. Scouring Scribe
Yesterday I concluded "Who Killed Iron Joe?" and The Assassination at Magnumtown, two halves of the same story, part of the tapestry that is the Space Corps saga, a project I've worked on for two decades.
Space Corps began life as a bad knockoff of Star Trek and evolved from there, sometimes kicking and screaming, always assimilating other influences and interests, until 1998, when I first envisioned Seven Thunders, which became a story that would pivot around the framework of the often-overlooked War of 1812. If you're asking right now why anyone would bother to care about the War of 1812, or how it could possibly inspire a story worth your time, then you, too, have fallen victim to the notion that American military history falls either under the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, WWII, the Vietnam War, or the War on Terror, or otherwise it's vaguely irrelevant.
This being 2012, and you haven't heard anyone loudly commemorating the War of 1812 like they were last year for the Civil War's 150th anniversary, you might better understand the lack of respect and general awareness of what exactly the War of 1812 meant. Simply put, it's my contention that without this conflict, America as we know it today wouldn't exist. It was a generation removed from the Revolution, and everyone was wondering if there was enough inspiration to impart a new generation with the ideals of the Founding Fathers. The War of 1812, in case you didn't know, was also fought against the British. "The Star-Spangled Banner" was written during this war, the White House burned during this war, and, and the legend of Old Ironsides came from this war, too.
The politics of the war, which arguably sprang from the politics of every president after Washington, led to the conflicts of ideology that made the Civil War inevitable throughout the century, because no one was interested in addressing the issues that would have prevented it.
Anyway, so I shaped Seven Thunders around the framework of this conflict, and lived with it for many years. I shaped many other Space Corps stories in the meantime, and shaped a great deal of history, and most of the time, I lost sight of the fact that the central Space Corps story still revolved around the same conflict I'd envisioned in Seven Thunders, but only sometimes understood, the conflict between humans and the Danab (there's a vicious twist to this conflict involving the nature of the Danab that will make for a really good moment in Seven Thunders, so I'm reluctant to spoil it here).
So I started to circle back around to it, and when I finally decided that I was going to finally write Seven Thunders, and had a whole blog dedicated to stories, that it wouldn't be such a bad idea to write a little preview of the bad blood that rests at the heart of this conflict. It's like Native Americans, the state of Israel, and JFK all rolled into one, is what "Who Killed Iron Joe?" could be summarized as (again, to be found most conveniently on this page).
It's also something of The Iliad, which is a story I've read a great deal about in the past few months (visit Hub City for more details), and came to greatly admire its offbeat structure. There is not much actual resolution in "Who Killed Iron Joe?" but a lot of emotional resonance. I tend to write that way a lot, but the story was also meant to be something of a mystery, which was something I was interested in doing after the A-to-Z challenge, when one of the bloggers brought it up. I don't write a lot of mystery, once with a Star Trek story and again with Yoshimi, at least in its basic structure (Yoshimi is my forthcoming book, and you can read a bit more about it here, which will also give you a better idea of what kind of writer I am), so it's always interesting to try something out of the ordinary.
(And anyway, I wrote The Assassination at Magnumtown to serve the same function as all those tales that explain the rest of The Iliad, like how Achilles died and the war actually ended.)
"Who Killed Iron Joe" was a twelve-part, daily challenge for me, and I'll be doing it again with "Back from the Dead," which involves superheroes. Now, I write a lot about superheroes at Comics Reader, but perhaps more notably still, my existing (self-)published work also concerns superheroes.
I don't do a lot of publicity for The Cloak of Shrouded Men, partly because it was published in 2007, partly because that edition features typos I'd like to forget, and partly because it's hard to market superhero fiction that doesn't have pictures with it. And yet it remains one of my proudest accomplishments.
It is also agonizingly cerebral, as is most of my fiction. I determined at some point that cerebral fiction isn't exactly everyone's cup of tea (which is why Yoshimi is the least cerebral I've managed to make any of my novels), yet I am proud of what I did with it, beyond a shadow of a doubt. It's the kind of superhero story that every comic book writer tries to do, but instead of the kind of extended run most writers only hope to get, making a statement about the career of the characters they get to handle for a few years, I did it in one story, the epic highs and equal lows of a vigilante who tries to undermine the ineffectual system that has stifled him for years, sometimes at his own consent. He's Batman if Batman weren't written as an NFL quarterback, with Superman being his best wide receiver. The Eidolon's wide receiver is Godsend (how has no one used that name yet?), and they have the kind of relationship that explains everything that happens to him, and why he goes off the deep end. Literally. He loses his mind, develops split personalities, and causes a Trojan War. Anyone who's familiar with Watchmen will understand a lot of what happens in this book, but then, where Alan Moore is interested in sensation, I dive deeply beyond the surface to examine motivations, failures, triumphs, and moral ambiguity of the kind Ozymandias could only dream. Imagine if Rorschach was in charge of how everything turned out.
Anyway, so yeah, I've been trying for years to write comic books, and that's half the reason why I wrote The Cloak of Shrouded Men, and why I'm now writing "Back from the Dead" (start reading it here), about an equally complicated world of superheroes which should hopefully be compelling to read. That's what I'm always going for, something to stop and make you think. My writing style tends to be peppered with a lot of thoughts anyway, but they're designed to open a conversation.
Got any thoughts?
Space Corps began life as a bad knockoff of Star Trek and evolved from there, sometimes kicking and screaming, always assimilating other influences and interests, until 1998, when I first envisioned Seven Thunders, which became a story that would pivot around the framework of the often-overlooked War of 1812. If you're asking right now why anyone would bother to care about the War of 1812, or how it could possibly inspire a story worth your time, then you, too, have fallen victim to the notion that American military history falls either under the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, WWII, the Vietnam War, or the War on Terror, or otherwise it's vaguely irrelevant.
This being 2012, and you haven't heard anyone loudly commemorating the War of 1812 like they were last year for the Civil War's 150th anniversary, you might better understand the lack of respect and general awareness of what exactly the War of 1812 meant. Simply put, it's my contention that without this conflict, America as we know it today wouldn't exist. It was a generation removed from the Revolution, and everyone was wondering if there was enough inspiration to impart a new generation with the ideals of the Founding Fathers. The War of 1812, in case you didn't know, was also fought against the British. "The Star-Spangled Banner" was written during this war, the White House burned during this war, and, and the legend of Old Ironsides came from this war, too.
The politics of the war, which arguably sprang from the politics of every president after Washington, led to the conflicts of ideology that made the Civil War inevitable throughout the century, because no one was interested in addressing the issues that would have prevented it.
Anyway, so I shaped Seven Thunders around the framework of this conflict, and lived with it for many years. I shaped many other Space Corps stories in the meantime, and shaped a great deal of history, and most of the time, I lost sight of the fact that the central Space Corps story still revolved around the same conflict I'd envisioned in Seven Thunders, but only sometimes understood, the conflict between humans and the Danab (there's a vicious twist to this conflict involving the nature of the Danab that will make for a really good moment in Seven Thunders, so I'm reluctant to spoil it here).
So I started to circle back around to it, and when I finally decided that I was going to finally write Seven Thunders, and had a whole blog dedicated to stories, that it wouldn't be such a bad idea to write a little preview of the bad blood that rests at the heart of this conflict. It's like Native Americans, the state of Israel, and JFK all rolled into one, is what "Who Killed Iron Joe?" could be summarized as (again, to be found most conveniently on this page).
It's also something of The Iliad, which is a story I've read a great deal about in the past few months (visit Hub City for more details), and came to greatly admire its offbeat structure. There is not much actual resolution in "Who Killed Iron Joe?" but a lot of emotional resonance. I tend to write that way a lot, but the story was also meant to be something of a mystery, which was something I was interested in doing after the A-to-Z challenge, when one of the bloggers brought it up. I don't write a lot of mystery, once with a Star Trek story and again with Yoshimi, at least in its basic structure (Yoshimi is my forthcoming book, and you can read a bit more about it here, which will also give you a better idea of what kind of writer I am), so it's always interesting to try something out of the ordinary.
(And anyway, I wrote The Assassination at Magnumtown to serve the same function as all those tales that explain the rest of The Iliad, like how Achilles died and the war actually ended.)
"Who Killed Iron Joe" was a twelve-part, daily challenge for me, and I'll be doing it again with "Back from the Dead," which involves superheroes. Now, I write a lot about superheroes at Comics Reader, but perhaps more notably still, my existing (self-)published work also concerns superheroes.
I don't do a lot of publicity for The Cloak of Shrouded Men, partly because it was published in 2007, partly because that edition features typos I'd like to forget, and partly because it's hard to market superhero fiction that doesn't have pictures with it. And yet it remains one of my proudest accomplishments.
It is also agonizingly cerebral, as is most of my fiction. I determined at some point that cerebral fiction isn't exactly everyone's cup of tea (which is why Yoshimi is the least cerebral I've managed to make any of my novels), yet I am proud of what I did with it, beyond a shadow of a doubt. It's the kind of superhero story that every comic book writer tries to do, but instead of the kind of extended run most writers only hope to get, making a statement about the career of the characters they get to handle for a few years, I did it in one story, the epic highs and equal lows of a vigilante who tries to undermine the ineffectual system that has stifled him for years, sometimes at his own consent. He's Batman if Batman weren't written as an NFL quarterback, with Superman being his best wide receiver. The Eidolon's wide receiver is Godsend (how has no one used that name yet?), and they have the kind of relationship that explains everything that happens to him, and why he goes off the deep end. Literally. He loses his mind, develops split personalities, and causes a Trojan War. Anyone who's familiar with Watchmen will understand a lot of what happens in this book, but then, where Alan Moore is interested in sensation, I dive deeply beyond the surface to examine motivations, failures, triumphs, and moral ambiguity of the kind Ozymandias could only dream. Imagine if Rorschach was in charge of how everything turned out.
Anyway, so yeah, I've been trying for years to write comic books, and that's half the reason why I wrote The Cloak of Shrouded Men, and why I'm now writing "Back from the Dead" (start reading it here), about an equally complicated world of superheroes which should hopefully be compelling to read. That's what I'm always going for, something to stop and make you think. My writing style tends to be peppered with a lot of thoughts anyway, but they're designed to open a conversation.
Got any thoughts?
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
#412. Star Trek, Comics, Space Corps
I think one of the things that must've confused A-to-Z visitors during April was the fact that I blog not in a single blogs, but on a network of them. This is not totally unheard-of, but unusual enough so that it presents a problem when you're trying to decide how to keep reading me after all the hoopla of the challenge is over. Most of what I actually write here at Scouring Monk is redirection to these other blogs, too. (Most of it.) Anyway, why else am I here if not to help?
If you are a fan of Star Trek, you have to visit Fan Companion. I've been working away at this blog since 2010, since it became a surrogate for a community that all but died at that time. The whole point of Fan Companion was to post my thoughts on the franchise, pretty much in its entirety, since to my experience very few Star Trek fans actually like all of Star Trek, and by "all of Star Trek" I mean the six TV shows and eleven films (to date), and so the Fan Companion was literally that, the first steps to building something akin to what four of the six series have enjoyed thanks to various writers sanctioned by Paramount and published by Pocket Books to help fans navigate them, but from the perspective of an unabashed fan, one who wanted to make it easier to see what the franchise has been up to for the past forty-five years. This page is a handy compendium of those efforts (just as this one slightly expands on what all those April visitors saw on a daily basis).
That being said, this is work that is never complete. I'm still working on individual episodes, and still on Star Trek: Voyager, now in its second season (with "The 37s," "Initiations," and "Projections" now represented).
I had done a fair bit of other stuff at Fan Companion outside of Star Trek, including the popular movie thoughts that served as the main crux of my April musings, but I've also talked about professional wrestling there, and that basically killed any regular interest the blog previously enjoyed.
Anyway, I've got more Star Trek stuff at Sigild V, where I've been writing the "Star Trek '12" project, this week having a look at the Bajorans once again and their solar sailing ships. You can find more of my Star Trek fiction listed here, among other things inspired by other people's things. I'm always working on original material, too, including Space Corps, and the current, twelve-part "Who Killed Iron Joe?"
And I like comics books. I read a lot of them, new ones and old.
Oh, and I write poetry, too. Still have to plug that.
If you are a fan of Star Trek, you have to visit Fan Companion. I've been working away at this blog since 2010, since it became a surrogate for a community that all but died at that time. The whole point of Fan Companion was to post my thoughts on the franchise, pretty much in its entirety, since to my experience very few Star Trek fans actually like all of Star Trek, and by "all of Star Trek" I mean the six TV shows and eleven films (to date), and so the Fan Companion was literally that, the first steps to building something akin to what four of the six series have enjoyed thanks to various writers sanctioned by Paramount and published by Pocket Books to help fans navigate them, but from the perspective of an unabashed fan, one who wanted to make it easier to see what the franchise has been up to for the past forty-five years. This page is a handy compendium of those efforts (just as this one slightly expands on what all those April visitors saw on a daily basis).
That being said, this is work that is never complete. I'm still working on individual episodes, and still on Star Trek: Voyager, now in its second season (with "The 37s," "Initiations," and "Projections" now represented).
I had done a fair bit of other stuff at Fan Companion outside of Star Trek, including the popular movie thoughts that served as the main crux of my April musings, but I've also talked about professional wrestling there, and that basically killed any regular interest the blog previously enjoyed.
Anyway, I've got more Star Trek stuff at Sigild V, where I've been writing the "Star Trek '12" project, this week having a look at the Bajorans once again and their solar sailing ships. You can find more of my Star Trek fiction listed here, among other things inspired by other people's things. I'm always working on original material, too, including Space Corps, and the current, twelve-part "Who Killed Iron Joe?"
And I like comics books. I read a lot of them, new ones and old.
Oh, and I write poetry, too. Still have to plug that.
Monday, May 14, 2012
#411. First loves, Survivor, Space Corps
I'm making an unofficial entrant in the First Loves blogfest, for those who are taking part in that:
First Movie
My family has watched the original Star Wars films for as long as I can remember. As a result, it's impossible for me to select any other movies but A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. I have no doubt that prolonged exposure to this saga shaped me in ways I still have yet to understand.
First Band
Hootie and the Blowfish must stand as my first and still favorite band. In the general public their music quickly went out of fashion, but the current success of Darius Rucker as a country artists suggests that maybe it was that odd little name all along (Darius, for the record, is not Hootie, nor are Mark, Soni & Dean the Blowfish). They were always Southern-fried, but they were also one of the more universal acts to emerge from that era, and their catalog of songs remains one of the most cherished collections I have in any creative medium.
First Book
Thanks to a good friend of mine, I discovered Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee early on in grade school, about a boy who becomes something of a legend while trying to make a life for himself and struggling to fit in. It remains one of my most treasured reading experiences.
(Noticing a pattern yet?)
First Person
Gosh, who finds this one easy to select? My first person outside of my family that truly made an impact on my life has got to be Jonathan Lawless, the aforementioned friend who introduced me to Maniac Magee. He was a transfer student I think in second grade, and was the first friend I made after all but losing all the friends I'd originally made in school, and we remained pretty close until life finally took us in different directions. We remain in touch, but like everyone else I know, there are many states in between us.
***
I called it. Kim won Survivor: One World. She made it far more difficult than she needed to, and it was Troyzan who called her on it, and she had no answer, and Jeff pretty much ignored it at the reunion. But then he pretty much ignored Kim, too. She deserves the win, but she doesn't get a lot of respect for how she did it, relying heavily on alliances and two-facing and a personality so blandly likable she might as well have appeared in The Avengers. She's the evil version of Amanda, who did this kind of game while allied with stronger players than Kim kept around, and she was actually able to win.
***
For those interested, I'm working on another daily challenge, completing the twelve-part Who Killed Iron Joe? at Sigild V, the run-up to Seven Thunders, the big Space Corps story I've been working toward since 1998. WKIJ? is not so much heavy sci-fi action or big concept so much as an intimate look at some of the influences of the big events that will take place later on. I'll be following it with an unrelated superhero story, Back from the Dead, and then finally concluding Roadkill Cafe, and then I will begin writing Seven Thunders. Y'know, if you care.
First Movie
My family has watched the original Star Wars films for as long as I can remember. As a result, it's impossible for me to select any other movies but A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. I have no doubt that prolonged exposure to this saga shaped me in ways I still have yet to understand.
First Band
Hootie and the Blowfish must stand as my first and still favorite band. In the general public their music quickly went out of fashion, but the current success of Darius Rucker as a country artists suggests that maybe it was that odd little name all along (Darius, for the record, is not Hootie, nor are Mark, Soni & Dean the Blowfish). They were always Southern-fried, but they were also one of the more universal acts to emerge from that era, and their catalog of songs remains one of the most cherished collections I have in any creative medium.
First Book
Thanks to a good friend of mine, I discovered Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee early on in grade school, about a boy who becomes something of a legend while trying to make a life for himself and struggling to fit in. It remains one of my most treasured reading experiences.
(Noticing a pattern yet?)
First Person
Gosh, who finds this one easy to select? My first person outside of my family that truly made an impact on my life has got to be Jonathan Lawless, the aforementioned friend who introduced me to Maniac Magee. He was a transfer student I think in second grade, and was the first friend I made after all but losing all the friends I'd originally made in school, and we remained pretty close until life finally took us in different directions. We remain in touch, but like everyone else I know, there are many states in between us.
***
I called it. Kim won Survivor: One World. She made it far more difficult than she needed to, and it was Troyzan who called her on it, and she had no answer, and Jeff pretty much ignored it at the reunion. But then he pretty much ignored Kim, too. She deserves the win, but she doesn't get a lot of respect for how she did it, relying heavily on alliances and two-facing and a personality so blandly likable she might as well have appeared in The Avengers. She's the evil version of Amanda, who did this kind of game while allied with stronger players than Kim kept around, and she was actually able to win.
***
For those interested, I'm working on another daily challenge, completing the twelve-part Who Killed Iron Joe? at Sigild V, the run-up to Seven Thunders, the big Space Corps story I've been working toward since 1998. WKIJ? is not so much heavy sci-fi action or big concept so much as an intimate look at some of the influences of the big events that will take place later on. I'll be following it with an unrelated superhero story, Back from the Dead, and then finally concluding Roadkill Cafe, and then I will begin writing Seven Thunders. Y'know, if you care.
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
#410. Avengers, Comics, Star Trek
The Avengers is a flawed meme of an experience, building on expectations film-goers have been formulating since Iron Man first suggested this was going to happen, a pop culture experience that presents something new yet expected, instant familiarity and comfort, and yes, an epic experience.
Marvel has to be considered a house of evil genius, tricking so many people into accepting a series of flawed movies with the constant promise of fulfillment later on (not one of the associated films satisfies a complete experience, and not just because they all hint toward something else). If a film falls out of this sequence (and about half of the movies based on Marvel characters do), it is fairly quickly rejected based on the same qualities but without the associations that've made the Avengers sequence work. Not a single one of these things has approached the transformative brilliance of Richard Donner's Superman or Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, and yet they're at the vanguard of the geek phenomenon that has successfully made superheroes a regular genre at the box office, in much the same way the X-Men films and Sam Raimi's geeky Spider-Man flicks have.
(The Amazing Spider-Man, it must be said, looks to be the first one to break with this tradition, and is the true rival of The Dark Knight Rises this summer.)
The Avengers only truly rouses at its climax, when the novelty of seeing all the heroes in action at the same time finally trumps what any other film has so far accomplished, within or out superhero movies. Never mind that it's not so different from League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (or that Watchmen is leagues superior). A series of false notes and a lack of a central character makes most of the experience jarring, but then things finally start to click, and then the random aliens that serve as cannon fodder point toward Thanos, a truly worthy challenge, making even this cynical viewer once again hope for a payoff.
I won't talk about the actors. Almost everyone focuses on the actors in this one, but there is no real standout, except maybe Mark Ruffalo (but I wouldn't be the first one to say that, either) and Tom Hiddleston (with little to do except preen this time). This is really an example of the Joss Whedon model stretched to its limits.
So ends this fairly contrary opinion of the blockbuster.
(If you were amused by these films thoughts and/or what you read during A-to-Z, then maybe you should check out what I've written about other films here.)
***
At Comics Reader, I've got a good number of good stuff worth looking at that I hope to draw your attention to, starting with Long Tack Sam (the name alone should intrigue you), continuing on to Bottom of the Ninth (a comic book with motion), and also including Mike Mignola. Finally, I have a regular update on the new comics I've been reading.
At Fan Companion, I've finished out my look at the sixth season of Star Trek: Voyager, including looks at standouts like "Good Shepherd," "Live Fast & Prosper," "Life Line," and "Fury," which may just be the best episode most fans only think they're supposed to hate.
At Sigild V, I've continued "Star Trek '12," with a rare departure from TV/film canon. I'll be starting up Who Killed Iron Joe?, a twelve-part Space Corps story probably tomorrow. This is the story that ties directly into my forthcoming book project Seven Thunders, the one I've been building toward writing since 1998. May be worth checking out!
I've taken a brief break from Epistles from the New Fade, but I'm not quite halfway through the poem challenge yet, so of course I'm returning to it.
Marvel has to be considered a house of evil genius, tricking so many people into accepting a series of flawed movies with the constant promise of fulfillment later on (not one of the associated films satisfies a complete experience, and not just because they all hint toward something else). If a film falls out of this sequence (and about half of the movies based on Marvel characters do), it is fairly quickly rejected based on the same qualities but without the associations that've made the Avengers sequence work. Not a single one of these things has approached the transformative brilliance of Richard Donner's Superman or Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, and yet they're at the vanguard of the geek phenomenon that has successfully made superheroes a regular genre at the box office, in much the same way the X-Men films and Sam Raimi's geeky Spider-Man flicks have.
(The Amazing Spider-Man, it must be said, looks to be the first one to break with this tradition, and is the true rival of The Dark Knight Rises this summer.)
The Avengers only truly rouses at its climax, when the novelty of seeing all the heroes in action at the same time finally trumps what any other film has so far accomplished, within or out superhero movies. Never mind that it's not so different from League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (or that Watchmen is leagues superior). A series of false notes and a lack of a central character makes most of the experience jarring, but then things finally start to click, and then the random aliens that serve as cannon fodder point toward Thanos, a truly worthy challenge, making even this cynical viewer once again hope for a payoff.
I won't talk about the actors. Almost everyone focuses on the actors in this one, but there is no real standout, except maybe Mark Ruffalo (but I wouldn't be the first one to say that, either) and Tom Hiddleston (with little to do except preen this time). This is really an example of the Joss Whedon model stretched to its limits.
So ends this fairly contrary opinion of the blockbuster.
(If you were amused by these films thoughts and/or what you read during A-to-Z, then maybe you should check out what I've written about other films here.)
***
At Comics Reader, I've got a good number of good stuff worth looking at that I hope to draw your attention to, starting with Long Tack Sam (the name alone should intrigue you), continuing on to Bottom of the Ninth (a comic book with motion), and also including Mike Mignola. Finally, I have a regular update on the new comics I've been reading.
At Fan Companion, I've finished out my look at the sixth season of Star Trek: Voyager, including looks at standouts like "Good Shepherd," "Live Fast & Prosper," "Life Line," and "Fury," which may just be the best episode most fans only think they're supposed to hate.
At Sigild V, I've continued "Star Trek '12," with a rare departure from TV/film canon. I'll be starting up Who Killed Iron Joe?, a twelve-part Space Corps story probably tomorrow. This is the story that ties directly into my forthcoming book project Seven Thunders, the one I've been building toward writing since 1998. May be worth checking out!
I've taken a brief break from Epistles from the New Fade, but I'm not quite halfway through the poem challenge yet, so of course I'm returning to it.
Monday, May 07, 2012
A-to-Z Reflections (#409)
My journey was excellent. I planned my excursion in advance and pretty much stuck to my selections. To my surprise, there were a number of other movie bloggers, plus some Star Trek and comic book ones, too. I featured those guys two Sundays ago,l so now you'll just have to visit some archived posts (or simply click here).
What were the highlights for you (lowlights, too...we want to hear it all)?
The highlights were the many fascinating blogs I read throughout the month. The lowlights, as I've read from others, was the way the blogs were listed, which maybe for some people was easy to navigate, but not very structured, so was not very inviting. Early on I narrowed my search results to the suggested ten (or whatever it was) blogs after mine on the list, but then later tried to go through the list again. It was a really long list, and like I've heard from others, finding Wordpress on the list was never inviting, because the easiest way to bookmark on Blogger is for the blog to be...on Blogger. Maybe I'm just being simplistic, but I like the concept to be simplistic. Listing the participating blogs by category of interest, or even the theme the blogger will be using would have been extremely useful.
Did you enjoy posting daily? What was your biggest hurdle? What was your easiest task?
It became easy. My biggest hurdle was settling on a time of day. I started blogging early in the morning, found a new routine. My easiest task was writing about what I chose as my topics, which hopefully should have been the point.
Was time management an issue (I know, silly question, when isn't it? but worth reflecting on)?
It was only an issue because I kept finding it a little difficult to do my posts and also visit the challenge blogs I followed within the time I'd allotted myself.
And what about your content? Did you have a theme or dd you wing it? Was it easy to come up with ideas for each letter, or were some harder?
The only one that I had to manipulate was "z," mostly because I didn't think to actually watch Zelig before last month, and I only wrote about movies I'd actually seen. So I had to cheat that day.
How about commenting: Did you stumble upon lots of sites still using word verification? Did this prevent you from leaving comments? What worked for your blog?
One of the blogs I followed regularly (and hopefully you know which one you are, Michael *cough*) had word verification, but I put up with it. I found that it helped to have both movies and Star Trek, because if one subject on a given day didn't elicit comments, the other one did. It was funny to hear some commentators say they didn't know much about Star Trek, though.
What will you do different next year (yes, you are doing this next year, you know it, even if your brain is telling you to run for the hills; it appreciates the exercise)?
I guess I would link directly in my posts to the blogs I'm following during the month, so there's some continuity.
What pearls of wisdom do you want to share with the hosts of this event (we would love to hear from you and know what you think would make this awesome event even better)?
The hosts really have nothing to do once the events actually start, except maybe monitor the blogs that actually participate after signing up. Trends or maybe featured blogs could be spotlighted on the host blog, so anyone interested could see what's actually going on during the month without digging through the entire list.
That's all!
Saturday, May 05, 2012
Vantage Point: Lost (#408)
what it is: Lost
what category: television
vantage point: the story
I guess I'll always be surprised by the fairweather fans who distort the perception of success for anything popular. "Success" isn't defined by popularity so much as achieving the original goal.
The original goal of Lost, for instance, was to tell the story of the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 and the mysterious island they landed on. As with any TV show, that's exactly what the show was about. The fairweather fans started believing around the second season, and then definitely by the third, that the show had lost its mojo, and then the show's creators started to agree, and the network allowed them to produce shorter seasons, which was less to handle, easier to swallow, and therefore the series regained its favorable impression, until the final episode, "which was a huge letdown."
As you can see, I never shared the opinion that Lost was anything but what it always intended to be, and that it was a game of perceptions that suggested otherwise.
Simply put, the story was always king, even if it wasn't easy to see what that story was at the beginning or ending. In the first season, it became incredibly easy to misinterpret what exactly the story was, because of the wild success of the creators to establish an incredible cast of characters, each of whom had a compelling backstory, so that the greater picture became obscured in expectations that distorted what was actually going on, and at a certain level, sensationalism was built into the series, or at least was a main hook, trying to figure out what exactly was going on. The creators knowingly strung along certain fans who liked the concept of a mythology that seemed like it was actually bigger than the show, especially in the first two seasons.
Yet all of that work was merely a campaign to deepen the experience and to capitalize on a success that was greater than anyone could have anticipated. I mean, the last time a group of people got deserted on an island, it was a bad sitcom filled with stock characters and ridiculous gimmicks.
Lost was always the inversion of that. The first season was all about subverting expectations. The moment you thought you knew what was going on, something happens to reveal that it was actually something else all along. I think that idea was, well, lost on some fans, especially the ones who were just fans because the series was cool to watch. The second season was all about this, especially how it actually introduced an entirely separate group of survivors without actually stealing time away from the ones we already knew, and of course the introduction of one of the most important characters in the series, Benjamin Linus. (How long did it take you to stop thinking of him as Henry Gale?)
The third season seemed to frustrate a lot of fans, and I think it's because the story was slowly changing from the survivors being seen as in control of their own destinies to the island taking over, especially once we learned the truth about the Others, that they weren't the boogeymen we'd thought them to be but rather just another group of ordinary people, trying to figure out for themselves what was going on with the island.
The funny thing is, Lost continually went out of its way to explain that it was always a series about characters who couldn't figure out their own lives, couldn't solve their own problems, and that they needed extraordinary help. John Locke was the first character to realize and accept that the island was going to be the solution, and yes, he was also the first one to realize that it wouldn't provide easy answers, that he would still have to work at it, and his dramatic arc in the first three seasons, and especially his eventual fate, forced everyone to really begin thinking about how they had to depend on each other to figure it out.
By the time we meet Jacob and the Man in Black, we realize the scope of the story, that the pattern has been going on for far longer than we could have originally realized. It might seem to trivialize everything we'd been following from the start, but it actually gives that much more weight, because these are the people who finally figure it out, and they needed each other's help to do it. If Jack hadn't had such a complicated relationship with Lock, for instance, he would never have reached the point where he both accepted the responsibility of the island and voluntarily gave it up. If Hurley had never come to the island, he would never have found the courage to both trust and accept himself, and therefore become the unlikely new guardian.
And the finale really said, it's not really about the island at all, but about these characters using the island, using the extraordinary opportunity it presented, the clarity it provided them, to finally find peace for themselves, because before it, none of them had any chance of finding it. The island was always a metaphor, a way of guiding each character along a path to trusting others and in that way trusting themselves, repairing their individual damage, finding balance and peace.
That was the story of Lost. Some people came away from the experience wanting specific answers to every last detail presented along the way. That wasn't really the point. The point was the story, about redemption. Everything else supported that, and Lost was an experience where most of it was absolutely brilliant, far beyond the scope of anything else ever presented on television. Perhaps the fans who came to the experience just expecting something cool never allowed themselves to be prepared for what it was really all about.
And maybe, in time, they will be. That was the point.
what category: television
vantage point: the story
I guess I'll always be surprised by the fairweather fans who distort the perception of success for anything popular. "Success" isn't defined by popularity so much as achieving the original goal.
The original goal of Lost, for instance, was to tell the story of the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 and the mysterious island they landed on. As with any TV show, that's exactly what the show was about. The fairweather fans started believing around the second season, and then definitely by the third, that the show had lost its mojo, and then the show's creators started to agree, and the network allowed them to produce shorter seasons, which was less to handle, easier to swallow, and therefore the series regained its favorable impression, until the final episode, "which was a huge letdown."
As you can see, I never shared the opinion that Lost was anything but what it always intended to be, and that it was a game of perceptions that suggested otherwise.
Simply put, the story was always king, even if it wasn't easy to see what that story was at the beginning or ending. In the first season, it became incredibly easy to misinterpret what exactly the story was, because of the wild success of the creators to establish an incredible cast of characters, each of whom had a compelling backstory, so that the greater picture became obscured in expectations that distorted what was actually going on, and at a certain level, sensationalism was built into the series, or at least was a main hook, trying to figure out what exactly was going on. The creators knowingly strung along certain fans who liked the concept of a mythology that seemed like it was actually bigger than the show, especially in the first two seasons.
Yet all of that work was merely a campaign to deepen the experience and to capitalize on a success that was greater than anyone could have anticipated. I mean, the last time a group of people got deserted on an island, it was a bad sitcom filled with stock characters and ridiculous gimmicks.
Lost was always the inversion of that. The first season was all about subverting expectations. The moment you thought you knew what was going on, something happens to reveal that it was actually something else all along. I think that idea was, well, lost on some fans, especially the ones who were just fans because the series was cool to watch. The second season was all about this, especially how it actually introduced an entirely separate group of survivors without actually stealing time away from the ones we already knew, and of course the introduction of one of the most important characters in the series, Benjamin Linus. (How long did it take you to stop thinking of him as Henry Gale?)
The third season seemed to frustrate a lot of fans, and I think it's because the story was slowly changing from the survivors being seen as in control of their own destinies to the island taking over, especially once we learned the truth about the Others, that they weren't the boogeymen we'd thought them to be but rather just another group of ordinary people, trying to figure out for themselves what was going on with the island.
The funny thing is, Lost continually went out of its way to explain that it was always a series about characters who couldn't figure out their own lives, couldn't solve their own problems, and that they needed extraordinary help. John Locke was the first character to realize and accept that the island was going to be the solution, and yes, he was also the first one to realize that it wouldn't provide easy answers, that he would still have to work at it, and his dramatic arc in the first three seasons, and especially his eventual fate, forced everyone to really begin thinking about how they had to depend on each other to figure it out.
By the time we meet Jacob and the Man in Black, we realize the scope of the story, that the pattern has been going on for far longer than we could have originally realized. It might seem to trivialize everything we'd been following from the start, but it actually gives that much more weight, because these are the people who finally figure it out, and they needed each other's help to do it. If Jack hadn't had such a complicated relationship with Lock, for instance, he would never have reached the point where he both accepted the responsibility of the island and voluntarily gave it up. If Hurley had never come to the island, he would never have found the courage to both trust and accept himself, and therefore become the unlikely new guardian.
And the finale really said, it's not really about the island at all, but about these characters using the island, using the extraordinary opportunity it presented, the clarity it provided them, to finally find peace for themselves, because before it, none of them had any chance of finding it. The island was always a metaphor, a way of guiding each character along a path to trusting others and in that way trusting themselves, repairing their individual damage, finding balance and peace.
That was the story of Lost. Some people came away from the experience wanting specific answers to every last detail presented along the way. That wasn't really the point. The point was the story, about redemption. Everything else supported that, and Lost was an experience where most of it was absolutely brilliant, far beyond the scope of anything else ever presented on television. Perhaps the fans who came to the experience just expecting something cool never allowed themselves to be prepared for what it was really all about.
And maybe, in time, they will be. That was the point.
Friday, May 04, 2012
Vantage Point: Star Wars (#407)
what it is: Star Wars
what category: movies
vantage point: actors
There seems to be a great deal of confusion surrounding the Star Wars saga. For instance, many fans of the original films hate both the new prequel films and the fact that George Lucas has repeatedly gone back and "tampered" with those original films, believing both to be entirely unnecessary actions that have damaged the original impact they fondly remember.
First of all, unless you can alter memories, you can't do that. Secondly, don't be ridiculous.
Maybe it helps approaching approaching the saga from a different point of view. It's easy to think of Star Wars for all the pop cultural references and the giant impact it made, right from the start, about Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, the Force, the Rebellion, and the Galactic Empire.
Yet you also have to remember that Old Ben Kenobi himself, Alec Guinness, thought his role was a joke, that Lucas had scripted his lines horribly, and if you look at his performance that way, you'll see how stilted it is. You never really think of Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher that way, but they were working with the same material. There's a good reason why they didn't become stars and Harrison Ford did, because he understood the material and what he could bring to it, whereas they merely filled their roles.
What I'm saying is, if you look at the original films from an acting perspective, you may see them differently. They're not perfect. Many fans seem to think they are, but they aren't. I'm not just talking about Return of the Jedi. They're really good, really imaginative, but they're not perfect. They're not so different from the new films as some fans would lead you to believe.
Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen, and Ewan McGregor, aren't so different in the new films as Hamill and Fisher (though Portman is the closest to Ford that these films get, and Christensen did Shattered Glass, and hey, McGregor is a longtime star of indy films). It's the vision Lucas has and the visual splendor that makes these films what they are.
James Earl Jones and Ford brought the real charisma to the original films, just as Liam Neeson and Ian McDiarmid do in the new ones. They're supporting players who bring outsize personality to their roles.
When Lucas goes back and tries to make the visuals better in the older movies, it's to try and keep them relevant, not for existing fans, but newer ones, the same ones who are more likely to view the prequels the way old fans fell in love with the old films. Stop me when this makes any sense, because chances are either you understand what I'm saying or I'm making you see Star Wars for the first time.
Stop viewing Star Wars as Star Wars, is what I'm saying. Alec Guiness was not Kenobi in the same sense that Ian McKellen was Gandalf. Maybe that'll clarify things.
what category: movies
vantage point: actors
There seems to be a great deal of confusion surrounding the Star Wars saga. For instance, many fans of the original films hate both the new prequel films and the fact that George Lucas has repeatedly gone back and "tampered" with those original films, believing both to be entirely unnecessary actions that have damaged the original impact they fondly remember.
First of all, unless you can alter memories, you can't do that. Secondly, don't be ridiculous.
Maybe it helps approaching approaching the saga from a different point of view. It's easy to think of Star Wars for all the pop cultural references and the giant impact it made, right from the start, about Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, the Force, the Rebellion, and the Galactic Empire.
Yet you also have to remember that Old Ben Kenobi himself, Alec Guinness, thought his role was a joke, that Lucas had scripted his lines horribly, and if you look at his performance that way, you'll see how stilted it is. You never really think of Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher that way, but they were working with the same material. There's a good reason why they didn't become stars and Harrison Ford did, because he understood the material and what he could bring to it, whereas they merely filled their roles.
What I'm saying is, if you look at the original films from an acting perspective, you may see them differently. They're not perfect. Many fans seem to think they are, but they aren't. I'm not just talking about Return of the Jedi. They're really good, really imaginative, but they're not perfect. They're not so different from the new films as some fans would lead you to believe.
Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen, and Ewan McGregor, aren't so different in the new films as Hamill and Fisher (though Portman is the closest to Ford that these films get, and Christensen did Shattered Glass, and hey, McGregor is a longtime star of indy films). It's the vision Lucas has and the visual splendor that makes these films what they are.
James Earl Jones and Ford brought the real charisma to the original films, just as Liam Neeson and Ian McDiarmid do in the new ones. They're supporting players who bring outsize personality to their roles.
When Lucas goes back and tries to make the visuals better in the older movies, it's to try and keep them relevant, not for existing fans, but newer ones, the same ones who are more likely to view the prequels the way old fans fell in love with the old films. Stop me when this makes any sense, because chances are either you understand what I'm saying or I'm making you see Star Wars for the first time.
Stop viewing Star Wars as Star Wars, is what I'm saying. Alec Guiness was not Kenobi in the same sense that Ian McKellen was Gandalf. Maybe that'll clarify things.
Thursday, May 03, 2012
Vantage Point: Harry Potter (#406)
what it is: Harry Potter
what category: books
vantage point: characters
I was still in high school when I first heard references of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter, referenced in the arts section of USA Today. I bought the first few books while in my freshmen year of college, reading them in the winter of 1999-2000. My parents got me Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for my birthday, the first hardcover of the series in my collection. And like everyone else, I then started to attend the release parties for subsequent entries.
What is it that made these books so successful? It's my argument that Rowling succeeded because she did what any author does, found what she did best in the medium she chose to work in. With books, it's all about the characters. I'll choose to illustrate how she did it by focusing on Prisoner of Azkaban, because it's still my favorite entry in the series and because it best illustrates my point (and is probably the reason why it's my favorite).
Harry Potter is the most famous modern orphan in literature. Unlike Oliver Twist, he has the opportunity to discover his intrinsic worth in the world in a fairly sensational way, learning that not only is he a wizard, but that his parents died protecting him from the greatest evil the world has ever known, Lord Voldemort. Prisoner of Azkaban is the entry that pulls the whole story together for the first time. No, Harry never truly gets to meet his parents, only the remaining individuals who knew them best.
We've met Severus Snape already, and his story is the most fascinating one in the series, though Prisoner of Azkaban is the first time he seems human, even though it takes a long time in the book to realize it. He's hated Harry since meeting him, even though curiously, he's saved the boy's life on numerous occasions. Why can that possibly be? He doesn't like the new professor in Defense Against the Dark Arts, either, Remus Lupin, who harbors a dark secret, even though he's involved in a secret relationship Harry and his friends are not privy to throughout the book.
Lupin immediately takes to Harry, not just because of the dramatic rescue from Dementors on the way to Hogwarts. Where Dumbledore had been the kindly mentor in the first two books, there was a distance between them. Harry was very much a child to the headmaster. Lupin treats him like a peer. Why is that?
Harry's biggest concern is Sirius Black. He knows he should fear him, but why?
And Ron's rat Scabbers suddenly becomes the most important pet in the series.
The key to all these characters is that they're all connected to Harry's parents in weird and startling ways. Snape, as I said, begins to blossom thanks to Prisoner of Azkaban, but it's the discovering of Lupin and Sirius and even Peter Pettigrew as complicated members of the inner circle of a previous generation, friends and betrayers of James and Lilly Potter, that deepens the story of young Harry Potter.
For most of the series, and especially in the first few books, it may be easy to assume that Rowling is writing a narrative of education angst, but no, she's deliberately building a world of immense complexity, through the eyes of children, not in a childlike way, but through a dawning maturity, and it's Harry who's always at the center of things. His relationships define everything, and never before or after are the relationships and how he comes to understand them as important as those in Prisoner of Azkaban. Here is where we discover how important her characters are to Rowling.
Why love this series? Here's a good place to start, if you've ever been curious.
Wednesday, May 02, 2012
#405. Star Trek, Dean Motter, Poetry
At Fan Companion, I've taken a look at five characteristic episodes of Star Trek: Voyager's sixth season, which has sometimes been called the show's most disastrous year, arguably responsible for the decline of the franchise at the start of the millennium. While I celebrate the popular success of the J.J. Abrams reboot, I was never of the opinion that Star Trek had gotten so horrible that it needed a break (I should clarify by saying I never found it to be horrible in the first place).
Perhaps as a companion to that, I've got a new "Star Trek '12" piece up at Sigild V exploring the Caretaker entities from the first (and later in the second season) episode of Voyager. "Star Trek '12" is a journey through the history of the franchise's timeline, century by century, with the central gimmick that these events all occur in that century's twelve year, which happens to be what this year is. There's a certain amount of perspective inherent in this tour, since you may not have expected, say, the Jem'Hadar to have been created by the Founders so close to Surak's Vulcan reformation, or the Vidiians succumbing to the Phage at the same time, but these are events I've had to juggle, because that's exactly how they fall. I'm a big fan of Star Trek, but not in ways a lot of people normally think of. I've been writing Star Trek fiction for more than a decade, but not in ways that Pocket Books appreciated when I submitted to several consecutive Strange New Worlds contests. I wish the publisher were less interested in sustaining their own version of the franchise and more in the literary possibilities in handling something as inherently visionary as Star Trek. But then, I don't get a lot of respect from publishers in general, so what do I know?
I write about another visionary, Dean Motter, at Comics Reader. Motter's best known for Mister X, but he's not really that well-known. I'm always trying to correct things like that.
I'm still writing poetry at Epistles from the New Fade. I don't write typical poetry, either. Most poets litter their works with images. I litter mine with ideas. I figure that's the way it ought to be, and the way the most important poets have always done it.
In coming days, as I've said, I'll be writing more here at Scouring Monk about some of the more broad pop culture topics A-to-Z readers might have come to expect, but I'll also be writing more about my journey as a writer, including my self-published book, Cloak of Shrouded Men, whose cover is too bland (yet awesome!) to paste everywhere on this or any other blog. Visitors during April might have caught three excerpts from my forthcoming book Yoshimi, but I'll be giving similar treatment to Shrouded Men, as well as my two existing, unpublished manuscripts, Finnegan and Ecce Homo. I noticed a trend among my fellows bloggers to self-publish their books as a matter-of-course, but that's not my ambition. It's great to build a readership and support group, but if you self-publish, chances are greater than not that your readers will most likely be pooled from those existing readers and a limited selection of others of that kind. I self-published Shrouded Men in 2007, out of an interest to see my work in published form. I didn't expect sales, and haven't gotten them, so far, because I hadn't earned them. I had no public awareness. I value blog awareness a great deal, but to me that's just the first step, like any advertising. I want people to read me, but practically speaking, blogging is more about awareness than it is reading (which is why this blog post is so short!). There's a difference between being seen and being heard. This blog is about being seen. Hopefully if you care about me you'll also want to read me.
That being said, any writer who really wants to be heard should have something worth saying. That's why I write about what I'm passionate about, rather than writing for the sake of writing. The idiot teachers who suggest writing everyday just to get the experience don't really know what they're talking about. Write about what you're passionate about, rather than learning to write like everyone else. A writer theoretically already knows how to write. Their authentic voice is more important than anything else in their writing. That voice is a product of their interests and what they have to say about them. The sentences will form themselves. If your readers are only interested in your ability to string along sentences, then they're not really supporting you.
Perhaps as a companion to that, I've got a new "Star Trek '12" piece up at Sigild V exploring the Caretaker entities from the first (and later in the second season) episode of Voyager. "Star Trek '12" is a journey through the history of the franchise's timeline, century by century, with the central gimmick that these events all occur in that century's twelve year, which happens to be what this year is. There's a certain amount of perspective inherent in this tour, since you may not have expected, say, the Jem'Hadar to have been created by the Founders so close to Surak's Vulcan reformation, or the Vidiians succumbing to the Phage at the same time, but these are events I've had to juggle, because that's exactly how they fall. I'm a big fan of Star Trek, but not in ways a lot of people normally think of. I've been writing Star Trek fiction for more than a decade, but not in ways that Pocket Books appreciated when I submitted to several consecutive Strange New Worlds contests. I wish the publisher were less interested in sustaining their own version of the franchise and more in the literary possibilities in handling something as inherently visionary as Star Trek. But then, I don't get a lot of respect from publishers in general, so what do I know?
I write about another visionary, Dean Motter, at Comics Reader. Motter's best known for Mister X, but he's not really that well-known. I'm always trying to correct things like that.
I'm still writing poetry at Epistles from the New Fade. I don't write typical poetry, either. Most poets litter their works with images. I litter mine with ideas. I figure that's the way it ought to be, and the way the most important poets have always done it.
In coming days, as I've said, I'll be writing more here at Scouring Monk about some of the more broad pop culture topics A-to-Z readers might have come to expect, but I'll also be writing more about my journey as a writer, including my self-published book, Cloak of Shrouded Men, whose cover is too bland (yet awesome!) to paste everywhere on this or any other blog. Visitors during April might have caught three excerpts from my forthcoming book Yoshimi, but I'll be giving similar treatment to Shrouded Men, as well as my two existing, unpublished manuscripts, Finnegan and Ecce Homo. I noticed a trend among my fellows bloggers to self-publish their books as a matter-of-course, but that's not my ambition. It's great to build a readership and support group, but if you self-publish, chances are greater than not that your readers will most likely be pooled from those existing readers and a limited selection of others of that kind. I self-published Shrouded Men in 2007, out of an interest to see my work in published form. I didn't expect sales, and haven't gotten them, so far, because I hadn't earned them. I had no public awareness. I value blog awareness a great deal, but to me that's just the first step, like any advertising. I want people to read me, but practically speaking, blogging is more about awareness than it is reading (which is why this blog post is so short!). There's a difference between being seen and being heard. This blog is about being seen. Hopefully if you care about me you'll also want to read me.
That being said, any writer who really wants to be heard should have something worth saying. That's why I write about what I'm passionate about, rather than writing for the sake of writing. The idiot teachers who suggest writing everyday just to get the experience don't really know what they're talking about. Write about what you're passionate about, rather than learning to write like everyone else. A writer theoretically already knows how to write. Their authentic voice is more important than anything else in their writing. That voice is a product of their interests and what they have to say about them. The sentences will form themselves. If your readers are only interested in your ability to string along sentences, then they're not really supporting you.
Tuesday, May 01, 2012
#404. Comics, Poems, What Comes Next
Okay! So the A-to-Z Challenge is officially over, and business can return to normal here at Scouring Monk.
Some of it is business as usual. For instance, Epistles from the New Fade, my own personal challenge of a five blog with one hundred new poems, continues, now with more rhyming! So please check that out if you thought my writing was worth checking out in April. It continues on a pretty much daily basis.
Comics Reader also continues. I've started reading comics on a more regular basis (you can read some thoughts on that here), but this is probably the spin-off blog with the most regular activity, which I've maintained for more than a year.
I'll be starting a new Space Corps saga over at Sigild V, twelve installments of a story that serves as a prequel to the next book I'll be writing, Seven Thunders. I will still be working on the "Star Trek '12" project as well, because I have many years to touch on before I'm finished. (Speaking of that kind of project, if you read this Comics Reader post, you may also be interested in the "DC Decades" project I've postponed at Sigild, just one of many hopefully fascinating stories waiting for you to discover.)
I will also be starting a new feature here at Scouring Monk, aimed squarely at all the new followers I got from the challenge, which will be known as Vantage Point, covering a number of artistic mediums but most certainly including movies, and also TV, comics, music, and books. I figured I made a certain impression for expectations, and it really wouldn't make sense to just continue as I'd been doing before April and simply link to updates from my other blogs.
In the vein, I've got some thoughts on Survivor: One World, something I talked about in March, when I endorsed Troyzan and Kim as the most likely winners of the season. Well, Troyzan's gone now and Kim gone mercenary, turning on her own surefire alliance to throw in with a more random if numbers-rich female voting block. To say the least, I respect her far less now than I did at that time. She may still win, but I will no longer be particularly happy about it. There are some other options still in play. I may actually be rooting for Kat now, but we'll see how long she sticks around. Chelsea, the one with the conscience, may prove more interesting as a possible winner, too, and perhaps more likely than Kim if they both make it to the finals. How about Tarzan? He'd be a classic spoiler if they forget to actually eliminate him.
And professional wrestling! Readers who may exist from earlier times know I wrote about wrestling all the time. I'm a big fan (check out Fan Companion for proof). I'm glad CM Punk is still WWE champion, and that Daniel Bryan is his next PPV opponent. It's a good time to be a fan, actually. Lots of interesting things going on. Even TNA seems to have gotten its act together, turning Bobby Roode into a legitimate champion and making it interesting to see who may finally defeat him, if it actually is James Storm, his one-time Beer Money mate.
Anyway, to prove I'm not a cultural heathen, I'll also remind you that I love books, too (Hub City). I'm still working on my Homeric marathon. Tell me Achilles wouldn't recognize Brock Lesnar.
Some of it is business as usual. For instance, Epistles from the New Fade, my own personal challenge of a five blog with one hundred new poems, continues, now with more rhyming! So please check that out if you thought my writing was worth checking out in April. It continues on a pretty much daily basis.
Comics Reader also continues. I've started reading comics on a more regular basis (you can read some thoughts on that here), but this is probably the spin-off blog with the most regular activity, which I've maintained for more than a year.
I'll be starting a new Space Corps saga over at Sigild V, twelve installments of a story that serves as a prequel to the next book I'll be writing, Seven Thunders. I will still be working on the "Star Trek '12" project as well, because I have many years to touch on before I'm finished. (Speaking of that kind of project, if you read this Comics Reader post, you may also be interested in the "DC Decades" project I've postponed at Sigild, just one of many hopefully fascinating stories waiting for you to discover.)
I will also be starting a new feature here at Scouring Monk, aimed squarely at all the new followers I got from the challenge, which will be known as Vantage Point, covering a number of artistic mediums but most certainly including movies, and also TV, comics, music, and books. I figured I made a certain impression for expectations, and it really wouldn't make sense to just continue as I'd been doing before April and simply link to updates from my other blogs.
In the vein, I've got some thoughts on Survivor: One World, something I talked about in March, when I endorsed Troyzan and Kim as the most likely winners of the season. Well, Troyzan's gone now and Kim gone mercenary, turning on her own surefire alliance to throw in with a more random if numbers-rich female voting block. To say the least, I respect her far less now than I did at that time. She may still win, but I will no longer be particularly happy about it. There are some other options still in play. I may actually be rooting for Kat now, but we'll see how long she sticks around. Chelsea, the one with the conscience, may prove more interesting as a possible winner, too, and perhaps more likely than Kim if they both make it to the finals. How about Tarzan? He'd be a classic spoiler if they forget to actually eliminate him.
And professional wrestling! Readers who may exist from earlier times know I wrote about wrestling all the time. I'm a big fan (check out Fan Companion for proof). I'm glad CM Punk is still WWE champion, and that Daniel Bryan is his next PPV opponent. It's a good time to be a fan, actually. Lots of interesting things going on. Even TNA seems to have gotten its act together, turning Bobby Roode into a legitimate champion and making it interesting to see who may finally defeat him, if it actually is James Storm, his one-time Beer Money mate.
Anyway, to prove I'm not a cultural heathen, I'll also remind you that I love books, too (Hub City). I'm still working on my Homeric marathon. Tell me Achilles wouldn't recognize Brock Lesnar.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Z is for Zorro (#403)
Where would a tour of film essentials be without Woody Allen? Zelig (1983) covers a lot of ground, but I can't officially include it because, like a lot of Woody, I haven't actually seen it. So I have to go with Zorro, as in The Mask of Zorro (1998) and The Legend of Zorro (2005), the two rounds of the legendary pulp character Antonio Banderas has appeared in, not to mention, unofficially, Puss in Boots (2011), the Shrek spin-off released last year that finally brought that role full-circle and made its inspiration official, allowing Banderas to make another Zorro (and/or El Mariachi movie). Mask of Zorro was a minor sensation upon its original release, thanks to the firecracker presence of Catherine Zeta-Jones, who although having appeared in films prior to it, notably The Phantom, found the role that helped propel her as a cultural bombshell. There was also some controversy in having Anthony Hopkins appear as a Spanish-American icon, though I personally thought it was a signature role for him regardless of what he was supposed to be. A modern swashbuckling adventure, the film was an instant classic for me. The followup isn't as fantastic, and came maybe five years too late, but it's certainly worth viewing.
Star Trek bonus!
Z is for Zimmerman, Lewis
(from Star Trek: Voyager, Deep Space Nine)
Eccentric and egotistical creator of the Emergency Medical Hologram, Lewis Zimmerman was also played by Robert Picardo and managed to make a number of appearances, first as a delusion and then in the flesh, thanks to Voyager's increasing links to home (in one episode, "Life Line," The Doctor gets to actually save him), not to mention a fun little visit to Deep Space Nine, in one of the franchise's most welcome bits of continuity. Perhaps one of the best-known bits of trivia was that "Zimmerman" was also going to be The Doctor's name until the producers scrapped the idea and instead made a running joke of the fact that he could never bring himself to choose one (until an alternate future timeline in the final episode, in which he anticlimactically goes with, simply, "Joe").
That's it! Thanks again to everyone who stopped by during the challenge, and who may continue to do so afterward. The A-to-Z Challenge has been fun!
Star Trek bonus!
Z is for Zimmerman, Lewis
(from Star Trek: Voyager, Deep Space Nine)
Eccentric and egotistical creator of the Emergency Medical Hologram, Lewis Zimmerman was also played by Robert Picardo and managed to make a number of appearances, first as a delusion and then in the flesh, thanks to Voyager's increasing links to home (in one episode, "Life Line," The Doctor gets to actually save him), not to mention a fun little visit to Deep Space Nine, in one of the franchise's most welcome bits of continuity. Perhaps one of the best-known bits of trivia was that "Zimmerman" was also going to be The Doctor's name until the producers scrapped the idea and instead made a running joke of the fact that he could never bring himself to choose one (until an alternate future timeline in the final episode, in which he anticlimactically goes with, simply, "Joe").
That's it! Thanks again to everyone who stopped by during the challenge, and who may continue to do so afterward. The A-to-Z Challenge has been fun!
Sunday, April 29, 2012
#402. A-to-Z Thank-yous
With one day remaining, I've just got to say that this has been an incredible experience. For one thing, going into this, I didn't have any followers, and now I've got a bakers dozen, and I'm incredibly grateful for that, no matter how much you read me after the challenge is over.
Early on, I expressed some concern that it would be difficult to find a lot of overlapping interests, but I was quickly proven wrong because I soon found, and was found by, a lot of fellow bloggers who contradicted that view. Here I will acknowledge all of the blogs I've followed and regularly commented on (a complete list of the ones I follow can be found somewhere along the left of your window, assuming you're still looking at Scouring Monk when you do so):
Alex J. Cavanaugh
One of the lead promoters of this event is also fittingly how I originally found out about it. He receives about a billion comments every day.
The Blutonian Death Egg
Rusty drove himself a little crazy with sketches this month. It was for a good cause!
Civil War Horror
Sean McLachlan maintains this as a shrine to Civil War experiences in Mississippi and other regions of the Western frontier. He wrote a book called A Fine Likeness that he has been successfully promoting all month in clever and subtle ways.
Cruising Altitude 2.0
I originally thought DL was writing about actual cruising. No, no he was not. He's a kindred spirit in the budding writers game.
Empire's 5-star 500
wizzardSS has been writing about Empire magazine's favorite movies, but took a break this month to participate in the challenge, and as such is one of many movie bloggers I discovered.
Jabblog
The life story of Alice has been serialized all month here.
Meme Express
Another movie blogger.
Michael Abayomi
Another movie blogger, and my main buddy in this enterprise!
Shreds & Shards
effervescencia has been writing about literary characters all month. I did not help her with the "x" one, but I tried.
Star Trek - Sci Fi Blog
Spacerguy is a fan of Star Trek! So as such knew what I spent the other half of my month doing, besides the movies. Glad to have found this one!
Stay on Target...
MOCK! shares my love of comics. Yay!
Vibrant Oxymoron
T'Laina is the other great Star Trek fan I discovered thanks to the challenge. She's also into Doctor Who!
Yadin Bromberg
Bromberg is another movie blogger!
Yes, This Will Be On the Test
Leslie has been a faithful supporter of mine this month, and has herself been blogging about various pop culture things.
Zyogbv
Althea has been describing their alien culture all month. Translator off!
Again, thanks to everyone for making April so memorable!
Early on, I expressed some concern that it would be difficult to find a lot of overlapping interests, but I was quickly proven wrong because I soon found, and was found by, a lot of fellow bloggers who contradicted that view. Here I will acknowledge all of the blogs I've followed and regularly commented on (a complete list of the ones I follow can be found somewhere along the left of your window, assuming you're still looking at Scouring Monk when you do so):
Alex J. Cavanaugh
One of the lead promoters of this event is also fittingly how I originally found out about it. He receives about a billion comments every day.
The Blutonian Death Egg
Rusty drove himself a little crazy with sketches this month. It was for a good cause!
Civil War Horror
Sean McLachlan maintains this as a shrine to Civil War experiences in Mississippi and other regions of the Western frontier. He wrote a book called A Fine Likeness that he has been successfully promoting all month in clever and subtle ways.
Cruising Altitude 2.0
I originally thought DL was writing about actual cruising. No, no he was not. He's a kindred spirit in the budding writers game.
Empire's 5-star 500
wizzardSS has been writing about Empire magazine's favorite movies, but took a break this month to participate in the challenge, and as such is one of many movie bloggers I discovered.
Jabblog
The life story of Alice has been serialized all month here.
Meme Express
Another movie blogger.
Michael Abayomi
Another movie blogger, and my main buddy in this enterprise!
Shreds & Shards
effervescencia has been writing about literary characters all month. I did not help her with the "x" one, but I tried.
Star Trek - Sci Fi Blog
Spacerguy is a fan of Star Trek! So as such knew what I spent the other half of my month doing, besides the movies. Glad to have found this one!
Stay on Target...
MOCK! shares my love of comics. Yay!
Vibrant Oxymoron
T'Laina is the other great Star Trek fan I discovered thanks to the challenge. She's also into Doctor Who!
Yadin Bromberg
Bromberg is another movie blogger!
Yes, This Will Be On the Test
Leslie has been a faithful supporter of mine this month, and has herself been blogging about various pop culture things.
Zyogbv
Althea has been describing their alien culture all month. Translator off!
Again, thanks to everyone for making April so memorable!
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Y is for Yes Man (#401)
Jim Carrey movies can usually be described either as Jim Carrey being a fairly weird individual to begin with (Ace Ventura, The Cable Guy, Man on the Moon), or a weird situation being forced on an otherwise fairly normal individual. Surprisingly, there are a lot more of the latter than the former, and he's been able to sustain a career where he's been able to explore a lot of those scenarios. Yes Man (2008) is one of those, where the weird situation is self-help guru Terence Stamp convincing Carrey that the answer to his problems is simply to start saying "yes" to everything so he'll stop feeling so inadequate. So that's exactly what Carrey does. Some fairly predictable zaniness ensues, but much of it leads to Zooey Deschanel (Carrey tends to have a lot of really awesome female co-stars, and she's probably the most awesome one). This was one of my first exposures to her singing ability (before She & Him, and well before I'd seen Elf, which also makes it obvious, even though she does not yet have her trademark look, so you might not even know it's her), and that's another reason I enjoy this movie, that and there's Bradley Cooper right before he blew up in popularity thanks to The Hangover. So you can either enjoy Yes Man as a fairly typical Jim Carrey movie, or how it points to a few other stars, much as, say, Bruce Almighty helped launch the popular career of Steve Carell.
Star Trek bonus!
Y is for Yar, Tasha
(from Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Stop me if you've heard this one. Series regular begs to be released from what will in two years have been indisputably the biggest success of their career. Isn't it ironic, doncha think? It's true, Denise Crosby was miserable, after just a handful of episodes into the first season of Next Generation. I don't mean to whitewash history, because the second Star Trek series was not a guaranteed success, and in fact took two seasons to really get a handle of itself, but not even in hindsight it seems rash for Crosby to have decided that she couldn't make it work as security officer Yar, no matter what her personal expectations were for the role. Just as ironically, "Skin of Evil" is arguably the best episode to that point in the series, and that's the one that marks Yar's death in a random incident that gives Deanna Troi her first meaningful moment, and also elevates Worf to a position of significance. Crosby did get the chance to make periodic visits, notably in "Yesterday's Enterprise" and the series finale, not to mention as Yar's Romulan daughter, but she basically threw away the role of a lifetime. I personally wonder if she will ever admit to regretting it.
A-to-Z Challenge!
Star Trek bonus!
Y is for Yar, Tasha
(from Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Stop me if you've heard this one. Series regular begs to be released from what will in two years have been indisputably the biggest success of their career. Isn't it ironic, doncha think? It's true, Denise Crosby was miserable, after just a handful of episodes into the first season of Next Generation. I don't mean to whitewash history, because the second Star Trek series was not a guaranteed success, and in fact took two seasons to really get a handle of itself, but not even in hindsight it seems rash for Crosby to have decided that she couldn't make it work as security officer Yar, no matter what her personal expectations were for the role. Just as ironically, "Skin of Evil" is arguably the best episode to that point in the series, and that's the one that marks Yar's death in a random incident that gives Deanna Troi her first meaningful moment, and also elevates Worf to a position of significance. Crosby did get the chance to make periodic visits, notably in "Yesterday's Enterprise" and the series finale, not to mention as Yar's Romulan daughter, but she basically threw away the role of a lifetime. I personally wonder if she will ever admit to regretting it.
A-to-Z Challenge!
Friday, April 27, 2012
X is for X-Men: The Last Stand (#400)
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) has a reputation for being the bastard stepchild in the movie franchise, having the unlucky distinction of not only not being directed by Bryan Singer (as the first two were) but having actually been directed by Brett Ratner, a guy who can't get any respect (and apparently will only hurt himself further by making unfortunate comments). The truth is, Ratner is a talented guy (not only was he deeply involved in one of my favorite TV shows, Prison Break, but he has also done films like The Family Man, the Rush Hour films, and Red Dragon, my personal favorite Hannibal Lecter flick). That is to say nothing about The Last Stand itself. Thematically, it's the most complete X-Men experience to-date. Last year's First Class came close, but it was comparatively shallow, focusing on elements fans in the series already knew and doing obvious things with them. Last Stand took the stance that Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) was finally the most interesting mutant in the room, after doing her fair share of stealing the preceding entries by being so essential to Wolverine's best moments. Yes, everyone knows that Hugh Jackman is the MVP of this franchise, but he works best when he's reacting to other people, and that's exactly what he gets to do here, especially in the dramatic final act. The X-Men series always has an embarrassment of riches in the acting department, and joining the usual gang (Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, James Marsden, Anna Paquin, Rebecca Romijn, Shawn Ashmore) is the best ensemble yet (Ellen Page, Ben Foster, Kesley Grammer, Vinnie Jones, Dania Ramirez, Shoreh Aghdashloo, Eric Dane, Cameron Bright, Ken Leung, Olivia Williams). It's just ridiculous, the talent in this one. Some of them get more impressive roles than others, and incredibly, it doesn't feel cluttered. Call any of the others the best if you want, but I've got my pick.
Star Trek bonus!
X is for Xon
(from Star Trek: Phase II)
This was going to be Spock's replacement in the planned second TV series once Leonard Nimoy decided to walk away from the budding franchise, before plans reshaped into The Motion Picture, Nimoy came back, and David Gautreaux was saved for a future that never quite happened (he does make a cameo in the film, but as a human). Xon was going to be a younger, full-blooded Vulcan, and so he was going to be, hopefully, completely different from Spock. But as such, he doesn't really exist in Star Trek canon, so there's not a whole lot to say about him. Maybe J.J. Abrams will resurrect the character?
Star Trek bonus!
X is for Xon
(from Star Trek: Phase II)
This was going to be Spock's replacement in the planned second TV series once Leonard Nimoy decided to walk away from the budding franchise, before plans reshaped into The Motion Picture, Nimoy came back, and David Gautreaux was saved for a future that never quite happened (he does make a cameo in the film, but as a human). Xon was going to be a younger, full-blooded Vulcan, and so he was going to be, hopefully, completely different from Spock. But as such, he doesn't really exist in Star Trek canon, so there's not a whole lot to say about him. Maybe J.J. Abrams will resurrect the character?
Thursday, April 26, 2012
W is for Warrior (#399)
Warrior (2011) was my favorite movie last year, and is to date Tom Hardy's best film. I've been a big fan of Hardy's since first discovering him in Star Trek Nemesis, though most people noticed him for the first time in Inception, though more savvy film fans caught him a little earlier in the sensational Bronson. Warrior casts him in what seems to be a signature role, a brawny fighter (in his career Hardy is not actually always brawny; those who may believe this will be surprised by some of his appearances) who in this permutation is an MMA fighter who through circumstances is forced into a family reunion with his brother, played by Joel Edgerton, and father, played by Nick Nolte, and this is the really crux of the film, because this is not a big happy family. Jennifer Morrison, recently known for the TV show Once Upon a Time, displays a real film presence as well.
Star Trek bonus!
W is for Weyoun
(from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
One of the signature roles for journeyman Jeffrey Combs, Weyoun was one of the main representatives of the Dominion, the evil coalition on the other side of the wormhole that sent the Federation into an extended war and produced the best drama on what some fans argue to be the best Star Trek series. Weyoun was a Vorta, and was actually divided into several iterations, because he could be cloned, and so was seen as dispensable even by his own people if necessary. The episode "Treachery, Faith, and the Great River" represents his best, most defining appearance.
A-to-Z Challenge!
Star Trek bonus!
W is for Weyoun
(from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
One of the signature roles for journeyman Jeffrey Combs, Weyoun was one of the main representatives of the Dominion, the evil coalition on the other side of the wormhole that sent the Federation into an extended war and produced the best drama on what some fans argue to be the best Star Trek series. Weyoun was a Vorta, and was actually divided into several iterations, because he could be cloned, and so was seen as dispensable even by his own people if necessary. The episode "Treachery, Faith, and the Great River" represents his best, most defining appearance.
A-to-Z Challenge!
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
#398. Flex Mentallo, the Escapist, Star Trek
I've been plugging away at my family of blogs again:
Comics Reader has a pair of new entries, one on Grant Morrison's Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery and another on Michael Chabon Presents the Amazing Adventures of the Escapist. Both feature superheroes with fake publishing histories!
Hub City features updates on my Reading List, continuing the Homeric marathon.
Fan Companion has thoughts on five more episodes from the sixth season of Star Trek: Voyager, including the not-to-be-missed "Pathfinder" and "Blink of an Eye."
Sigild is once again offering a selection from my "Star Trek '12" project, this time taking a cue from the oft-overlooked Animated Series, in perhaps one of the more quirky stories in the cycle so far.
And don't forget Epistles from the New Fade, offering new poems on a near-daily basis (I apparently missed a day this month).
Comics Reader has a pair of new entries, one on Grant Morrison's Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery and another on Michael Chabon Presents the Amazing Adventures of the Escapist. Both feature superheroes with fake publishing histories!
Hub City features updates on my Reading List, continuing the Homeric marathon.
Fan Companion has thoughts on five more episodes from the sixth season of Star Trek: Voyager, including the not-to-be-missed "Pathfinder" and "Blink of an Eye."
Sigild is once again offering a selection from my "Star Trek '12" project, this time taking a cue from the oft-overlooked Animated Series, in perhaps one of the more quirky stories in the cycle so far.
And don't forget Epistles from the New Fade, offering new poems on a near-daily basis (I apparently missed a day this month).
V is for The Virgin Suicides (#397)
The Virgin Suicides (1999) is Sofia Coppola's feature film directing debut, based on the book by Jeffrey Eugenides, starring Kirsten Dunst and Josh Hartnett. It's kind of a morose experience, perfectly tragic and heartbreaking, as a group of boys find themselves infatuated with sisters who are kept sheltered by parents James Woods and Kathleen Turner, who don't seem to realize how restricting their restrictions are. One by one the sisters commit suicide, as you might expect from the title. Dunst is her usual luminescent self (she also stars in Coppola's Marie Antoinette), while Hartnett, still thought at the time to be a future Hollywood leading man (he did become one, but has since been eclipsed by the similar and arguably inferior Channing Tatum and has slipped into obscurity) is his usual excellent self. Coppola achieved her greatest success to date in her next film, Lost in Translation, which seems to have occupied the bulk of anyone's interest in her career. She has also made Somewhere, another trademark intimate portrait of alienation.
Star Trek bonus!
V is for Vorik
(from Star Trek: Voyager)
After being something of a taboo following Spock's unexpected breakout status as Kirk's rival in popularity, Vulcans started making a resurgence in the last two Star Trek TV shows, snaring regular series roles as well as recurring characters like Vorik, who could wig out in all the ways that would be unseemly for Tuvok. Introduced in the third season of Voyager and portrayed by Alexander Enberg (who happens to be the son of Jeri Taylor, one of the chief architects of the third Star Trek era), he got to fulfill the promise of "Amok Time" and actually suffer all the worst effects of the famed pon farr (much to the chagrin of B'Elanna Torres) before fading back into the lower decks of the ship.
(That last line contains a deliberate joke; Enberg portrayed a different Vulcan in a Next Generation episode called "Lower Decks.")
A-to-Z Challenge!
Star Trek bonus!
V is for Vorik
(from Star Trek: Voyager)
After being something of a taboo following Spock's unexpected breakout status as Kirk's rival in popularity, Vulcans started making a resurgence in the last two Star Trek TV shows, snaring regular series roles as well as recurring characters like Vorik, who could wig out in all the ways that would be unseemly for Tuvok. Introduced in the third season of Voyager and portrayed by Alexander Enberg (who happens to be the son of Jeri Taylor, one of the chief architects of the third Star Trek era), he got to fulfill the promise of "Amok Time" and actually suffer all the worst effects of the famed pon farr (much to the chagrin of B'Elanna Torres) before fading back into the lower decks of the ship.
(That last line contains a deliberate joke; Enberg portrayed a different Vulcan in a Next Generation episode called "Lower Decks.")
A-to-Z Challenge!
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
U is for Unbreakable (#396)
Unbreakable (2000) was M. Night Shyamalan's second major film, and is arguably his best. Concerning the matter of Bruce Willis discovering his own superhero origin, it's highly unusual for the genre it is technically a part of, more contemplative and deliberate, only reaching what may be counted as typical moments at the very end, when Samuel L. Jackson is finally revealed as the villain. For a lot of people, Shyamalan seemed to be exposed as a one-trick pony after the wild success of The Sixth Sense as a visionary with only one vision, telling one story until the very end of his movies, when it's revealed that something else has been going on the whole time. That is certainly one way to view his films. The other way is to acknowledge that Shyamalan is looking at the world in a bold and compelling new way, peering behind the curtains of reality and perception, so that there are at least two ways to view every situation: 1) the way we see it the first time, and 2) the way things may actually be. In a way he is constantly asking us to look beyond the ordinary, and he uses elaborate plots as metaphors to suggest that the world may be more extraordinary than we are sometimes willing to admit. Bruce Willis, for instance, could very easily have continued living a fairly mundane life, until a series of circumstances (and not to mention the mad Mr. Glass) finally force him to accept that there's so much more to him than he ever really appreciated. Unbreakable, then, is the quintessential Shyamalan message, boiled down to its most simple statement, that you do not have to settle for a life that is not as good as it can be. Maybe you see ghosts, maybe you hold the key to stopping an alien invasion, maybe your sheltered world is hidden in something far bigger, maybe fairy-tales are real, maybe the key to escaping the end of the world is knowing when to create a little distance. Stop fighting what you don't understand. Figure it out and embrace it, because your greatest failing can turn out to be your greatest strength.
Star Trek bonus!
U is for Uxbridge, Kevin
(from Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Star Trek bonus!
U is for Uxbridge, Kevin
(from Star Trek: The Next Generation)
(photo from durfee.net)
I rarely include images on my blog, but Kevin Uxbridge, from the episode "The Survivors," merits one thanks to a disproportionately awesome wardrobe. Maybe it looks a little saggy now, but just imagine what he looked like in his prime. Kevin is actually a Douwd, an omnipotent being who ended up falling in love with a mortal and decided to pursue a mortal life with her. Only problem was she was murdered by aliens, and his response was to wipe out their whole species. Picard runs into Kevin and a facsimile of his dead wife, and eventually figures out what's going on. I was always impressed with the scope of this character, and so he gets to be one of the few relatively obscure characters referenced in this A-to-Z effort.
Monday, April 23, 2012
T is for The Truman Show (#395)
The Truman Show (1998) is Jim Carrey's best film, and is a truly visionary look at the concept of identity. It also happens to be an increasingly ironic look at reality TV, given that fifteen years later everyone and their mother thinks it's actually a good idea to live their life in front of a camera. Truman Burbank just happened not to choose that life, though he grew up that way, never having a clue, and most of what he's become having been shaped on an expansive studio lot, his family and acquaintances filled with actors who only sometimes care more about him than the demands imposed by executives (then again, this isn't about reality TV so much as corporate mentality). Directed by Peter Weir, written by Andrew Niccol, there's also an avalanche of excellent co-stars for Carrey to play with, including Ed Harris, Laura Linney, Natascha McElhone, Holland Taylor, Noah Emmerich, Peter Krause, Philip Baker Hall, and in one of the many supporting roles that helped him briefly achieve leading man glory, Paul Giamatti. I was already a devoted fan of Carrey before this, but The Truman Show just explodes his depth, and is not to be missed even if you never cared for him in any other film.
Star Trek bonus!
T is for T'Pol
(from Star Trek: Enterprise)
You might be mistaken to believe that T'Pol was just the next version of Seven of Nine, the token catsuit hottie. Yet even moreso than Jeri Ryan, Jolene Blalock had an infinite amount of talent and was integral from the start in the success of her Star Trek series. The first Vulcan since Spock to have real significance in the franchise, T'Pol was the rare adherent to the party line who came to understand the flaws in the system, and embraced new possibilities, even if the initial opportunities were forced on her. She originally found almost everything about humans to be repulsive, but chose to embrace logic so thoroughly that she came to find value even in the most human crewmate available, Trip Tucker (the real star of Enterprise), discovering a balance in her emotions that she never thought possible.
A-to-Z Challenge!
Star Trek bonus!
T is for T'Pol
(from Star Trek: Enterprise)
You might be mistaken to believe that T'Pol was just the next version of Seven of Nine, the token catsuit hottie. Yet even moreso than Jeri Ryan, Jolene Blalock had an infinite amount of talent and was integral from the start in the success of her Star Trek series. The first Vulcan since Spock to have real significance in the franchise, T'Pol was the rare adherent to the party line who came to understand the flaws in the system, and embraced new possibilities, even if the initial opportunities were forced on her. She originally found almost everything about humans to be repulsive, but chose to embrace logic so thoroughly that she came to find value even in the most human crewmate available, Trip Tucker (the real star of Enterprise), discovering a balance in her emotions that she never thought possible.
A-to-Z Challenge!
Sunday, April 22, 2012
#394. excerpt from Yoshimi
Here's another excerpt from Yoshimi, within forty pages of the conclusion, as things have reached their endgame and our girl is drawing ever closer to her final confrontation, within the halls of a private academy:
Ten minutes crawled by. Most of my food, and there had been very little to begin with, was still present and accounted for, and I saw Turner kiss Cat. Maybe I was more inexperienced in such matters than I thought, but it didn’t look like the first time. Maybe that made my friend a skank, I didn’t know, maybe just a good actor. At any rate, Turner got up soon after and I followed. In the hallway, there were a few other students milling about, and I awkwardly smiled at them, but never lost sight of Turner. I found myself thinking about the Scimitar again, and shuddered at the grimness of it. Maybe it was just that Turner didn’t seem worthy of such drastic measures. I actually tapped his shoulder to get his attention, and he spun around. His eyes were cloudy, like he was still thinking about Cat.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” he managed to say, and then sucker-punched me. “We knew what happened to him. What, did you think he was the only one you had to worry about?”
“It occurred to me,” I said, striking back. Despite his bravado, he was still distracted. Kamal suddenly appeared in the hallway, and Turner was just surprised enough to completely lower his guard. I scored another quick knockout victory. “Fancy your timing, friend-o.”
“You talk funny,” Kamal said. “Would you believe we have a detention room? Meant exactly for occasions like this, like a juvenile lockup. Not a dungeon, in case you were wondering.”
“I wouldn’t feel sorry for him if it was,” I said. “Wish I’d known earlier, though. Might have saved Corry from some potential agony. I’m still not sure these goons deserve to be caught in the crossfire. They seem kind of pathetic.”
“Most of their week is spent attending classes,” Kamal said. “Their attention has been dulled.”
“Glad mine hasn’t,” I said.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
S is for Source Code (#393)
A legitimate mind-blowing experience, Source Code (2011) seems like it's fairly straightforward, but the more you understand what's going on, you realize just how brilliant it is. All you have to do is pay attention to Jake Gyllenhaal (this is the movie that finally made me care about him), who at first seems very obviously to not be in control of his own life, for some very good reasons. And then, by the end of it, with a little help from Vera Farmiga, he proves Jeffrey Wright wrong in a very profound way. He also gets to spend a lot of time with Michelle Monaghan and repeating a lot of the same events over and over again (but again, he does a lot of this with Michelle Monaghan). From screenwriter Ben Ripley and director Duncan Jones, who also delivered Moon and happens to be the son of David Bowie. Jones shows every indication of being the most important filmmaker of his generation.
Star Trek bonus!
S is for Sisko, Benjamin Lafayette
(from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
What I love about Sisko so much is that he's the most nuanced of any Star Trek captain to date. You may not see it at first, because he spends most of his time fairly reserved, because he didn't after all accept the Deep Space Nine assignment willingly. In fact, you could say he really didn't want it. So at best he can come off as bemused. In the first episode, in flashbacks to his time as first officer of a ship lost in the famed Battle of Wolfe 359, Sisko comes off with more active confidence, and you can see what he could have been like in different circumstances. And once he becomes comfortable, Sisko is the most warm individual to ever fill the captain's role. You can see it anytime he interacts with his son Jake, or romancing Kassidy Yates. He can also be ruthless and cunning, as when he duels with Dukat or Eddington. He can be your best friend, as when he spends a few moments with "Old Man," Jadzia Dax. And he can be exasperated, especially when confronting his father. He's the very center of his corner of Star Trek, and Avery Brooks makes you wish the series had gotten more love. His crew would have shined on the silver screen. By the sixth season, it seemed like they were already there.
A-to-Z Challenge!
Star Trek bonus!
S is for Sisko, Benjamin Lafayette
(from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
What I love about Sisko so much is that he's the most nuanced of any Star Trek captain to date. You may not see it at first, because he spends most of his time fairly reserved, because he didn't after all accept the Deep Space Nine assignment willingly. In fact, you could say he really didn't want it. So at best he can come off as bemused. In the first episode, in flashbacks to his time as first officer of a ship lost in the famed Battle of Wolfe 359, Sisko comes off with more active confidence, and you can see what he could have been like in different circumstances. And once he becomes comfortable, Sisko is the most warm individual to ever fill the captain's role. You can see it anytime he interacts with his son Jake, or romancing Kassidy Yates. He can also be ruthless and cunning, as when he duels with Dukat or Eddington. He can be your best friend, as when he spends a few moments with "Old Man," Jadzia Dax. And he can be exasperated, especially when confronting his father. He's the very center of his corner of Star Trek, and Avery Brooks makes you wish the series had gotten more love. His crew would have shined on the silver screen. By the sixth season, it seemed like they were already there.
A-to-Z Challenge!
#392. Homing in on Homer
Yeah, so I've been writing away at Scouring Monk for many years, and starting back in 2010 I started having this crazy idea to split off various topics to their own blogs. A while back, I thought it would be a nice idea to chronicle my reading habits, which at that point had been streamlined into a Reading List to keep track of the many books in my personal library and the order of importance by which I would work through it. I began writing about this experience here, but last year began Hub City.
At first I was going to try and blog about each of my books, and also continue the Reading List in a fairly straightforward manner, but soon realized it would be a pretty good idea to go back and start writing reactions to the books in the List as I finished them. Lots of people spend a lot of time providing this very kind of feedback on bookstore websites like Amazon, to help others figure out what to read. Me, I decided to keep it in my own family, so to speak.
Anyway, I just finished reading The Lost Books of the Odyssey by Zachary Mason, which quickly became one of my favorite books. I've got my thoughts on it, as well as the next book on the List, and they happen to be part of a small marathon concerning books inspired by Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, which have long fascinated me.
If you care to see what kind of reader I am, have a look at Hub City.
At first I was going to try and blog about each of my books, and also continue the Reading List in a fairly straightforward manner, but soon realized it would be a pretty good idea to go back and start writing reactions to the books in the List as I finished them. Lots of people spend a lot of time providing this very kind of feedback on bookstore websites like Amazon, to help others figure out what to read. Me, I decided to keep it in my own family, so to speak.
Anyway, I just finished reading The Lost Books of the Odyssey by Zachary Mason, which quickly became one of my favorite books. I've got my thoughts on it, as well as the next book on the List, and they happen to be part of a small marathon concerning books inspired by Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, which have long fascinated me.
If you care to see what kind of reader I am, have a look at Hub City.
Friday, April 20, 2012
R is for Road to Perdition (#391)
Road to Perdition (2002) is still one of the more intriguing gangster movies I've seen, mostly because its real interest is the human side, which in these films usually means you're a Corleone trying to survive attrition. Well, this time the name is Sullivan and of all people it's Tom Hanks in the lead role, and his godfather is Paul Newman. Both are excellent in the film, as are Jude Law and Daniel Craig (if it seems like Craig is in a lot of my selections, it's coincidental except for Quantum of Solace; otherwise it's a testament to his versatility and overall skill). From director Sam Mendes and featuring some of the best cinematography you're likely to ever see in film, Road to Perdition is a gem that could use a little more exposure.
Star Trek bonus!
R is for Riker, William T.
(from Star Trek: The Next Generation)
The first officer who was repeatedly offered his own command but chose to stick with his family (even though he and Deanna Troi had some pretty bad commitment issues), Riker is one of the reasons Picard's crew and Next Generation ultimately proved such a worthy follow-up to the original series. For one thing, he was in many ways a reincarnation of Kirk, and yet never came off as a carbon copy. If anything, his studied cool in most situations helped set the tone of his series almost as much as his captain. Jonathan Frakes went on to direct his castmates in two of their movies, including the excellent First Contact, and appeared in all three subsequent TV shows in one incarnation or another. This guy, in fictional and real-life form, is arguably the MVP of the modern set.
A-to-Z Challenge!
Star Trek bonus!
R is for Riker, William T.
(from Star Trek: The Next Generation)
The first officer who was repeatedly offered his own command but chose to stick with his family (even though he and Deanna Troi had some pretty bad commitment issues), Riker is one of the reasons Picard's crew and Next Generation ultimately proved such a worthy follow-up to the original series. For one thing, he was in many ways a reincarnation of Kirk, and yet never came off as a carbon copy. If anything, his studied cool in most situations helped set the tone of his series almost as much as his captain. Jonathan Frakes went on to direct his castmates in two of their movies, including the excellent First Contact, and appeared in all three subsequent TV shows in one incarnation or another. This guy, in fictional and real-life form, is arguably the MVP of the modern set.
A-to-Z Challenge!
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Q is for Quantum of Solace (#390)
Quantum of Solace (2008) is effectively the first James Bond sequel, Daniel Craig's second go-around as 007, and still manages to work as a standalone experience if you want to view it that way, too, with Bond simply trying to survive a miserable set of circumstances, the death of his girlfriend, while also dueling with the latest villain. I'm not the biggest Bond enthusiast out there (mostly limited to a little bit of Connery, more Brosnan, and now two Craigs), but I am a big fan of Daniel Craig, who brings a uniquely studied ruthless intelligence to film. I also like that his Bond Girls aren't already famous, but can still keep step with the tradition. The featured ladies this time around are Olga Kurylenko (later to be featured in Neil Marshall's Centurion) and Gemma Arterton (later to be briefly ubiquitous and generally awesome). Also featured are Judi Dench, Mathieu Amalric, and Jeffrey Wright.
Star Trek bonus!
Q is for Q!
(from Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager)
"What a Q?" It's a letter of the alphabet as far as I know." The signature of John de Lancie's signature role is that you never see him coming. All-seeing and all-obnoxious, Q was the god figure taken from the pattern established in the original series to the nth degree, an imp who felt entitled and surprisingly chummy with both Captains Picard and Janeway, neither of whom were amused for one second (also, Sisko hit him; Picard never hit him!), even though clearly he was a fan favorite from the start. The best thing about Q was that he had considerable range, having managed to introduce the Borg, pose as the Sheriff of Nottingham, walk Picard through a near-death experience, and even have a philosophical debate on the merits of suicide. The fact that he was never featured in a movie baffled some fans.
A-to-Z Challenge!
Star Trek bonus!
Q is for Q!
(from Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager)
"What a Q?" It's a letter of the alphabet as far as I know." The signature of John de Lancie's signature role is that you never see him coming. All-seeing and all-obnoxious, Q was the god figure taken from the pattern established in the original series to the nth degree, an imp who felt entitled and surprisingly chummy with both Captains Picard and Janeway, neither of whom were amused for one second (also, Sisko hit him; Picard never hit him!), even though clearly he was a fan favorite from the start. The best thing about Q was that he had considerable range, having managed to introduce the Borg, pose as the Sheriff of Nottingham, walk Picard through a near-death experience, and even have a philosophical debate on the merits of suicide. The fact that he was never featured in a movie baffled some fans.
A-to-Z Challenge!
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
#389. Sphere Builders, Wasteland, Batman
At Comics Reader I've concluded my look at the existing trade collections of Oni Press's Wasteland, rounding out with the fifth and sixth volumes (which were published two years apart, thanks to art issues I mention), as well as talk about some of the recent comics I've read from recent trips to Heroes & Dragons in Colorado Springs and Toys 'r' Us (where I'm glad they have comics again).
Fan Companion features thoughts on five more episodes from the sixth season of Star Trek: Voyager, including standouts "Riddles" and "The Voyager Conspiracy."
Sigild, meanwhile, has another entry in the ongoing "Star Trek '12" project, this time having a look at the legacy of the Sphere Builders from the excellent third season of Enterprise.
Additionally, Hub City recently featured some updates from my Reading List, including thoughts on the book I just finished reading and the one I just started.
And Epistles from the New Fade continues to feature new poems. Hey, it's Poetry Month. You will read this blog. You can and you will.
Fan Companion features thoughts on five more episodes from the sixth season of Star Trek: Voyager, including standouts "Riddles" and "The Voyager Conspiracy."
Sigild, meanwhile, has another entry in the ongoing "Star Trek '12" project, this time having a look at the legacy of the Sphere Builders from the excellent third season of Enterprise.
Additionally, Hub City recently featured some updates from my Reading List, including thoughts on the book I just finished reading and the one I just started.
And Epistles from the New Fade continues to feature new poems. Hey, it's Poetry Month. You will read this blog. You can and you will.
P is for The Proposition (#388)
The Proposition (2005) raised Westerns to a new standard. A genre that went out of fashion decades ago (died along with the Duke, is more like it), Hollywood had tried to figure out what exactly Westerns mean in the modern era, but the answer was found Down Under. Director John Hillcoat tapped musician Nick Cave to craft his vision, which pits Ray Winstone and Emily Watson against a landscape neither wants, and a clan of brothers against each other: Guy Pearce is coerced into betraying his brother Danny Huston (thus the eponymous agreement), and really, nobody wins. That's what this genre really represents. For a long time, it was portrayed as a landscape of black-and-white morality, but the frontier was settled by people simply trying to survive. Apparently the truths of frontier life are universal.
Star Trek bonus!
P is for Picard, Jean-Luc
(from Star Trek: The Next Generation)
There would be no Star Trek today if not for the gentleman captain played by Patrick Stewart. And funny enough, Star Trek would not need to have been reinvented by J.J. Abrams had it not been for the same character. Simply put, Picard was a force of nature, the total opposite of James T. Kirk, and while his series launched to dubious acceptance from existing Star Trek fans, Picard became a phenomenon unto himself. And his success was so great, Star Trek expanded and then contracted around him. The only way to recover from this phoenix was rebirth. And there is no Picard without Patrick Stewart, so long as he's still living (even Tom Hardy couldn't change this Prime Directive). So the story went back to Kirk.
A-to-Z Challenge!
Star Trek bonus!
P is for Picard, Jean-Luc
(from Star Trek: The Next Generation)
There would be no Star Trek today if not for the gentleman captain played by Patrick Stewart. And funny enough, Star Trek would not need to have been reinvented by J.J. Abrams had it not been for the same character. Simply put, Picard was a force of nature, the total opposite of James T. Kirk, and while his series launched to dubious acceptance from existing Star Trek fans, Picard became a phenomenon unto himself. And his success was so great, Star Trek expanded and then contracted around him. The only way to recover from this phoenix was rebirth. And there is no Picard without Patrick Stewart, so long as he's still living (even Tom Hardy couldn't change this Prime Directive). So the story went back to Kirk.
A-to-Z Challenge!
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
O is for O Brother, Where Art Thou? (#387)
If George Clooney had only acted in the movies Out of Sight, Three Kings, and O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), he would still have made a seismic impact on film, at least in my estimation. He was plagued for years trying to establish a career for himself, before finally breaking through wit the TV series ER, but his early transition into movies was a difficult one. He encountered the same problem he'd always faced, and that's that being an actor who so closely matched the same appeal predecessors like Cary Grant first brought to the public meant that he was only going to seem like a throwback. But Clooney soon forced even his skeptics to accept that rather than being a detriment to his career, this strange appeal could be seen as a strength (even if sometimes his efforts to replicate some of the old experiences in film came back with the same lukewarm reception he knew so well), especially the older he got. O Brother is a testament to Clooney learning that lesson quickly. The Coen Brothers (I'm desperately deficient in their canon, having even missed Fargo, though I've since enjoyed No Country for Old Men, Burn After Reading, and their version of True Grit) reinterpret The Odyssey as a Southern-fried sojourn, with a celebrated soundtrack and Clooney's first performance where he truly understands his own potential. "Man of constant sorrow" no more, this clever Odysseus has since become an institution. Please remind yourself how he did it.
Star Trek bonus!
O is for O'Brien, Miles
(from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
Debuting in the very first episode of Next Generation, O'Brien took a long time to get a name, but actor Colm Meaney was so beloved that he became a regular and acclaimed commodity in film (just not in any Star Trek films, strangely or not), and eventually a lead actor in Deep Space Nine, where Lets-Torture-O'Brien episodes became an artform, beginning with the unlikely bond that formed between the stalwart engineer and obnoxious doctor Julian Bashir. Anyone who doesn't love O'Brien shouldn't be reading any of this, so I won't try to talk too much about him.
A-to-Z Challenge!
Star Trek bonus!
O is for O'Brien, Miles
(from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
Debuting in the very first episode of Next Generation, O'Brien took a long time to get a name, but actor Colm Meaney was so beloved that he became a regular and acclaimed commodity in film (just not in any Star Trek films, strangely or not), and eventually a lead actor in Deep Space Nine, where Lets-Torture-O'Brien episodes became an artform, beginning with the unlikely bond that formed between the stalwart engineer and obnoxious doctor Julian Bashir. Anyone who doesn't love O'Brien shouldn't be reading any of this, so I won't try to talk too much about him.
A-to-Z Challenge!
#386. Space Corps
Over at Sigild I've posted a short story called "Quagmire," which is actually an excerpt from an aborted novella I worked on a decade ago. But what makes it more interesting is that it was among the first fiction I actually wrote about a space opera I've been developing for almost a decade longer. This year I'll be working on the first draft of the book I've been planning since 1998, but I've got so much material for the Space Corps, "Quagmire" doesn't even deal directly with the central premise of this sprawling saga. Rather, it helps set up in a Tolkien sort of way elements that help explain how things came to be. (Never mind, but one story I just finished plotting actually explains some of the details in "Quagmire" to be lies.)
Though I posted "Quagmire" and other chapters from the novella on a personal website at the time, I've been extremely reluctant to make any of this saga public, always believing that I would become a bestselling writer either thanks directly to the book I'm finally going to write or because of something else I've written. Obviously that hasn't happened yet. It finally occurred to me that it doesn't make sense to not write something that has been so important to me, that it actually makes more sense to write it than to hold onto it. Does that make sense?
I've already written some short Space Corps material at Sigild, originally posted under the "Warship" heading, but since I'm writing some additional prologue material for the novel, I'm now going to have a whole page dedicated to the Space Corps. (Part of the reason I've been reluctant to make this stuff public is that I've tried to come up with a unifying title that I felt satisfied with, and I've gone through a lot of unsatisfying options in the meantime.)
Some of this may sound extremely silly. Hopefully you'll have the good grace to humor me.
Though I posted "Quagmire" and other chapters from the novella on a personal website at the time, I've been extremely reluctant to make any of this saga public, always believing that I would become a bestselling writer either thanks directly to the book I'm finally going to write or because of something else I've written. Obviously that hasn't happened yet. It finally occurred to me that it doesn't make sense to not write something that has been so important to me, that it actually makes more sense to write it than to hold onto it. Does that make sense?
I've already written some short Space Corps material at Sigild, originally posted under the "Warship" heading, but since I'm writing some additional prologue material for the novel, I'm now going to have a whole page dedicated to the Space Corps. (Part of the reason I've been reluctant to make this stuff public is that I've tried to come up with a unifying title that I felt satisfied with, and I've gone through a lot of unsatisfying options in the meantime.)
Some of this may sound extremely silly. Hopefully you'll have the good grace to humor me.
Monday, April 16, 2012
N is for The New World (#385)
The New World (2005) retells the story of Pocahontas and John Smith from the perspective of visionary director Terrence Malick. You may actually consider it the original Avatar (if you need pop culture context). Starring Colin Farrell and Q'orianka Kilcher and featuring Christopher Plummer, Christian Bale, and David Thewlis, did I mention it's directed by Terrence Malick? If you've seen The Tree of Life, then you might know what that means. If you've seen The Tree of Life, you might still not know what that means. What it means is that you're in for an immersive, emotional experience as few filmmakers can do, all in a signature style that's unmistakable. Since Farrell is one of my favorite actors, I cannot help but support this one as one of his major performances, combining his ability to convey both soft and hard emotions, something that sets him apart from his peers. Anyway, you need to see this one.
Star Trek bonus!
N is for Nerys, Kira
(from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
In Bajoran culture, the first name goes last, so every time you heard "Major Kira," you were hearing her last name, not the other way around. Only people she's close to know her as Nerys (that'd be, um, Vedek Bareil, before his death, and Odo). Played by Nana Visitor because Michelle Forbes opted out of continuing in Star Trek as Ensign Ro, the first officer of station Deep Space Nine had as hard an edge to her as any character ever seen in the franchise, but that was just one of her many facets. After appearing in the first season episode "Duet," Major Kira could no longer hide as one of the show's greatest assets, though many fans didn't enjoy the Bajoran episodes, so the later Dominion War arc saw her transition into a much more pronounced relationship with Odo. It didn't help that her earlier boyfriend was turned into a cyborg at the insistence of the vile Kai Winn, not that it helped him survive...Anyway, if you want to know about Deep Space Nine, you definitely need to know Major Kira.
A-to-Z Challenge!
Star Trek bonus!
N is for Nerys, Kira
(from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
In Bajoran culture, the first name goes last, so every time you heard "Major Kira," you were hearing her last name, not the other way around. Only people she's close to know her as Nerys (that'd be, um, Vedek Bareil, before his death, and Odo). Played by Nana Visitor because Michelle Forbes opted out of continuing in Star Trek as Ensign Ro, the first officer of station Deep Space Nine had as hard an edge to her as any character ever seen in the franchise, but that was just one of her many facets. After appearing in the first season episode "Duet," Major Kira could no longer hide as one of the show's greatest assets, though many fans didn't enjoy the Bajoran episodes, so the later Dominion War arc saw her transition into a much more pronounced relationship with Odo. It didn't help that her earlier boyfriend was turned into a cyborg at the insistence of the vile Kai Winn, not that it helped him survive...Anyway, if you want to know about Deep Space Nine, you definitely need to know Major Kira.
A-to-Z Challenge!
Sunday, April 15, 2012
#384. excerpt from Yoshimi
My current manuscript, Yoshimi, concerns an orphan who discovers the truth behind the death of her parents, and subsequently finds herself thrust along an unlikely path of vengeance.
“Anything I can do to help?” he ventured. “Nevin. Nevin Martell.”
“Well, Mr. Martell,” Ms. Wilson began, and then didn’t say anything for a while. She had obviously noticed how young he was, too, despite his demeanor, his attempted swagger. “I’m sure we can handle this. The question we both have on our minds,” she continued, indicating me inside the car, “is why you’ve been following us.”
“You noticed,” Nevin said, offering an innocent, insincere smile.
“We noticed,” she replied. “Those shades you’re wearing. They’re a signature element of a gang we’ve heard about. The Shadow Clan. Ever heard of it?”
“Can’t say that I have,” Nevin said. “Colorful name, though.”
“So are your shades,” she said. “You’re still wearing them.”
“It’s dark, I know,” Nevin said. “My choice.”
“So you say,” she said. “I’ve said we can handle it. There’s no reason for you to remain here.”
He reacted more quickly than I expected he would, but I was quicker. One kick was all it took, to the back of his head, and Nevin Martell was out cold. I took the moment to be proud of myself.
“Wipe that smile off your face and help me put him back in his car,” Ms. Wilson instructed. “We could have gotten him to talk.”
“I heard your whole conversation,” I said. “I didn’t think he was ever going to be forthcoming. I also didn’t find him very convincing.”
“On that point we agree,” she replied. “By the time he wakes up, we’ll be long gone.”
Not so much as a pat on the back, but I expected as much. She was slamming the hood back down as I was getting back into our own car. I didn’t pay attention again until we were back in civilization.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
M is for Munich (#383)
Munich (2005) is my favorite Steven Spielberg movie. A lot of people will go with E.T. or Schindler's List or Saving Private Ryan (there are certainly others to choose from), but Munich represents his most subtle filmmaking, his most mature work. Starring Eric Bana and Daniel Craig, two more of my favorite actors, it's a look at the reaction to another terrorist incident and how things quickly turn into a quagmire of moral ambiguity. The point is, everyone is forced to think about what they're doing, their motivations and roles in the events as they unfold. It doesn't hurt that on the surface Munich is a thriller with another excellent score from John Williams, or that the international cast is topnotch. It's a film where element has a purpose and it works on so many levels. For some people, anyone who failed to recognize its achievement (which was just about everyone), they didn't like the ambiguity, but that was exactly the point Spielberg was attempting to make. Maybe it's a better movie that says something definitively, but not in my book. Simply representing something, opening a dialogue (which was Spielberg's intent), is one of art's purest intents, and Munich is art all the way through. It's another film whose reputation I hope only grows in time. It doesn't hurt that a famous director made it. Eventually, succeeding generations will sift through his work and discover Munich anew.
Star Trek bonus!
M is for Mayweather, Travis
(from Star Trek: Enterprise)
Mayweather is the only recurring character to ever be featured in every episode of their Star Trek series. Everyone knew that Berman & Braga intended Enterprise to primarily feature the Big Three format of the original series, which meant that Archer, T'Pol & Tucker were always going to be the stars, with the rest of the cast filling in around them. Mayweather had a specific purpose, as did every other character, a particular vantage point to fill out, and in the first two seasons, he had a few episodes that fleshed out where exactly he came from and what it meant for him to have joined the fledgling Starfleet. The fans weren't too interested (I was), so that element of the series disappeared, and like Chakotay before him, bereft of what truly made him significant Mayweather faded ever more into the background. Played by Anthony Montgomery, he was never one of the more flashy personalities, but in the third season, he helped represent the alternative to all those MACOs that drove Reed up the wall (he did the same thing in the Mirror Universe episodes in the final season). Most of the supporting cast took a back seat in the last season, actually, so Mayweather was no exception there. But it's high time that people stop ridiculing Enterprise for its treatment of a character that was built for exactly the purpose he fulfilled. He still got more work than the ones he was patterned after (Sulu, Chekov, Uhura), after all.
A-to-Z Challenge!
Star Trek bonus!
M is for Mayweather, Travis
(from Star Trek: Enterprise)
Mayweather is the only recurring character to ever be featured in every episode of their Star Trek series. Everyone knew that Berman & Braga intended Enterprise to primarily feature the Big Three format of the original series, which meant that Archer, T'Pol & Tucker were always going to be the stars, with the rest of the cast filling in around them. Mayweather had a specific purpose, as did every other character, a particular vantage point to fill out, and in the first two seasons, he had a few episodes that fleshed out where exactly he came from and what it meant for him to have joined the fledgling Starfleet. The fans weren't too interested (I was), so that element of the series disappeared, and like Chakotay before him, bereft of what truly made him significant Mayweather faded ever more into the background. Played by Anthony Montgomery, he was never one of the more flashy personalities, but in the third season, he helped represent the alternative to all those MACOs that drove Reed up the wall (he did the same thing in the Mirror Universe episodes in the final season). Most of the supporting cast took a back seat in the last season, actually, so Mayweather was no exception there. But it's high time that people stop ridiculing Enterprise for its treatment of a character that was built for exactly the purpose he fulfilled. He still got more work than the ones he was patterned after (Sulu, Chekov, Uhura), after all.
A-to-Z Challenge!
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