[Yes, I have become so pathetic that I am letting school essays double as blog posts. Although, this is something I've been meaning to write for a long time, and it was actually going to be a blog post before it found a home as my critical review for my Advanced Composition class. Like most of my blog posts, it's a first, mostly-unedited draft.]
“Tell me are you free?/ Tell me are you free?/ In word or thought or deed/ Tell me are you free?” So begins post-hardcore group Thrice’s opus, The Alchemy Index. This four-CD album, released in Spring 2007 and Fall 2008, is based on the four classical elements—Fire, Water, Earth and Air, with one EP-length CD devoted to each of them. This album was released to wide critical acclaim. Despite the fact that the sound on each volume is different—fire with its decidedly hardcore guitars and screaming vocals, water with its synth and whispered lyrics, air with its, well, airiness, and earth with its acoustic, unplugged sound—the songs hang together remarkably well. They interconnect and build on each other, yet each explores unique territory.
Much has been written on the musical quality of The Alchemy Index; most of the “experts” seem to agree that it is musically rich, and a very unique and special composition. I, personally, am not terribly qualified to comment on the music, apart from my own personal opinion. I do, however, know a bit about literature and what makes good writing, and this is the aspect of The Alchemy Index I intend to examine.
Dustin Kensrue has long been Thrice’s song-writer, and has long been admired as a great lyricist. From uncomfortable guilt-ridden anthems like “Under A Killing Moon,” to the comforting yet still hardcore “Music Box,” he has shown great diversity as well. He is a Christian, and much of his work shows strong Biblical influence, but he is unafraid to draw from other sources as well. (The song “Of Dust and Nations” makes reference to Matthew 6, to the book Children of Dune, to a CS Lewis quote, and possibly to the Percy Bysshe Shelley poem “Ozymandias.”) It should not be surprising, then, that he finds inspiration in a paradigm—the four classical elements—that has inspired many other great poets and songwriters through the years.
The opening words of Volume I: Fire, and indeed the opening song, “Firebreather,” set the tone for the rest of the Index, and introduce one of the major themes running through the album: that of freedom from oppression—not just physical freedom, but mental freedom. “When the gallows stand and bullets lance the bravest lungs/Will I fold my hands and hold my tongue/Or let the flames lick at my feet/ And breath in fire and know I’m free?”
“The Messenger” is one of several songs that take direct Biblical inspiration—this one a musical reformatting of Isaiah 6:
Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.
-Isaiah 6:6-8 (KJV)
How can I carry such a heavy burden?
How can I move when I am paralyzed?
I see a fire behind a heavy curtain.
I lean in closer and I close my eyes
and kiss the coals;
breathe in smoke,
and I say, "HERE I AM, SEND ME."
-Thrice, “The Messenger”
The rest of the Fire album deals with similar themes, themes of breaking free from oppression (“Burn the Fleet”), and of being a messenger to a people who will not hear (“The Arsonist”). The disc ends with “The Flame Deluge,” a sonnet set to music, in which fire itself speaks to mankind, lamenting man’s treatment of it: “I feel that I was meant for something more, /My curse, this awful power to unmake./ And ever since you found your taste for war,/ You've forced me onto those whose lives you'd take.” The song’s title is a reference to the book A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter Miller, a post-apocalyptic novel in which the world has been destroyed by what the characters call “the flame deluge”—presumably nuclear war of some kind.
Each volume of the Index ends with such a sonnet, with an element of nature berating mankind for one of its numerous faults. Kensrue is not playing with the form here, either, not writing lazy half-fulfilled sonnets in the name of “experimentation” or “fusion.” These are Elizabethan sonnets, written in strict iambic pentameter, with the classic format of four quatrains ending with a couplet. And they show the poetic quality and expression of a truly great lyricist.
The second volume, Water, is a decidedly different twist. This is evident not only in the softer tone of the music, but in the writing as well. Where Fire is very martial, sounding a call to action, Water is more like a lament.
The opening song, “Digital Sea,” is a lament and possibly even an elegy for man in a digital age. It is a song of existentialist despair. “I am drowning in a digital sea/ I am slipping beneath the sound/ Here my voice goes, to ones and zeroes/ I'm slipping beneath the sound.” It contains one of the most significant verses of the album: “And the ghost of Descartes/Screams again in the dark,/ ‘Oh, how could I have been so wrong?’/ But above the screams still the sirens sing their song.” It speaks elegantly of the disconnection man experiences in an age based on “Cogito Ergo Sum,” the ultimate damage a philosophy of pure reason engenders—and, despite this, the enticement that our age holds.
“Lost Continent” questions whether there was ever a golden time, a utopia of any kind (akin to the supposed golden age experienced by the lost continent of Atlantis), and concludes that there never was. “Open Water” contains the chorus, “I’m starting to believe the ocean’s much like you/ Because it gives and it takes away.” Kensrue implicitly compares the ocean to God (“The Lord gives and the Lord takes away), which sets up an interesting paradigm for the concluding sonnet “Kings Upon the Main.”
In this song, the ocean berates man for his foolish pride--“When kings upon the main have clung to pride, /And held themselves as masters of the sea, /I've held them down beneath the crushing tide/ Till they have learned that no one masters me.” Kensrue knows his Scripture, and this sounds like an angry God berating man for his pride—the Tower of Babel comes to mind, among others. If this is true, perhaps the concluding couplet is fitting: “But grace can still be found within the gales;/ With fear and reverence, raise your ragged sail.”
Air is in some ways the simplest, and in other ways the hardest Volume of the Index. It starts with the song “Broken Lungs,” which is an obvious (though poetic) call for new insight into the 9/11 tragedy. Kensrue doesn’t seem to accept the “official story” of what happened that day. Though it has obvious parallels to “Firebreather” and the societal concerns evident throughout the album, this is my least favorite song. It shows what happens when one is too wary of authority, too ready to accept anything but what the government says.
“A Song for Milly Michaelson” is worthy of note here, because it shows the broad range of Kensrue’s influences. This song is inspired by “The Boy Who Could Fly,” a 1986 movie written and directed by Nick Castle. It is about an autistic boy who, well, can fly. The song is written from the boy’s perspective, and uses simple language to create potent imagery—“There's a way where there's a will./ You know I got no need for stairs. /Step out on the window sill,/ Fall with me into the air… I love the night. /Flying o'er these city lights./ But I love you most of all.”
The song “Deadalus” retells the story of the Greek inventor who, reaching for the glory of flight, lost that thing which was most precious to him—his son. This song encapsulates many of the themes of the Index: man’s arrogance, his foolishness, his desire for glory tempered by his penchant for failure.
The final volume, Earth, is perhaps the most biblically-inspired of the entire Index. “Moving Mountains” is based on 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal…”) “Come All You Weary,” one of the most popular songs on the album, is based on Christ’s words in Matthew 11:28-30. “Digging My Own Grave,” while not directly Biblical, has the tone of a Psalm or a confession of sins, a prayer to God for help—“Lord, don’t I know, I’m just digging my own grave?/ Can someone please save myself from me?”
The final sonnet, “Child of Dust,” is perhaps the best of all the sonnets. The earth, calling itself mother, mourns the way its child (man) treats it. Yet she welcomes man back into her fold when he dies. The final couplet is buried, literally—the sound of earth being piled on top of the microphone muffles the final two lines: “Now safe beneath their wisdom and their feet,/ Here I will teach you truly how to sleep.” The Alchemy Index, a portrait of life, ends appropriately with death.
Not until this final volume do we see what The Alchemy Index ultimately is. It is not a story, it is not a clever conceit, it is not even primarily a cycle of interconnected songs. The Alchemy Index is a portrait, it is a mirror, poetically holding up the looking glass to show us who we are, where we are going, and what we need. It is both an elegy and a call to action. It accuses, it condemns, and it points the way to salvation. It reaches into the past to create a portrait of our modern age, and in creating this portrait, shows us man as he is through all of time.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Friday, August 22, 2008
Lies
[I wrote this last school year, because it wanted to be written. I don't know what I think of it, but I don't care about it enough to improve it any. I published the first part in The Inkwell, Bethany's literary magazine, where it got fourth place (out of 50-60 entries) in the semester. That won me a $10 gift card, so that if nothing else buys some affection for this piece.]
This is true.
My brother died at the age of 14, in a horrible car crash that probably wasn't his fault. We weren't in the car, so we can never know, but he obviously wasn't driving and the guy in the car that hit him was drunk so there's that. We attended his funeral and mom cried and dad never cries because that's not something men do or something, but he took off his hat and stared at the ground and there was this look in his eye like a piece of him had been destroyed, which in a sense I suppose it had. And I, of course, was terribly sad. I think I cried for about a day. Literally. If you added up all the time I spent crying, it would probably be at least twenty-four hours. My aunt too, who lives like an hour from here, cried a lot—she didn't have any kids and she always wanted a boy and my brother was a favorite of hers. But he was gone and there was nothing we could do about it.
This is also true.
My brother comes out of his room every day and eats and washes himself. He is fourteen, and his face is spotless, all the acne that used to spatter it having cured itself. He makes messes, and my mom yells at him to clean them up, and he grumbles and does. And she grumbles about what an awful little urchin he is, but then she smiles and there's this light in her eyes and you can tell she doesn't really mean it, not a word of it, that she loves this fourteen-year-old boy.
My brother has been fourteen for three years.
After his funeral, my mom was unbalanced for quite a while. Couldn't bear the grief, I suppose. She went from crying to not making any sound at all to not getting up in the mornings to getting up too early and not being able to sleep. The only thing she couldn't do was work, in any form, provide any sort of compensation for her existence to those around her. She was, essentially, a dysfunctional person. The doctors said something drastic had to happen.
So my dad went to this place. He had to seek it out, kind of, for while it was not an illegal establishment it was one which people would rather not think about. He put in a certain order, brought them certain documents and tissue samples, filled out myriads of personality test forms. Six weeks later he went there one last time and brought back my brother.
When my mom saw him, she screamed and cried, but it was a happy-sounding cry. Then she said, “He's...”
My dad looked her in the eye, waited until he knew he was holding her gaze, then shook his head. “It's best to just accept it.”
She nodded, and then she did. She was an English major in college; she appreciated the usefulness of stories in motivating people.
My mom's behavior I've described; after that day my dad simply ignored my brother, pretended he didn't exist. Ha. The government did that too; my brother no longer ate or consumed in any way, and he was frozen—he wasn't a legitimate tax claim, and he didn't use the school system.
My aunt came over one afternoon, and she caught sight of my brother and dropped whatever it was she was carrying, I've forgotten, and just screamed. Then she calmed down but she was still breathing fast and my dad and I appeared in the living room at the same time—my brother was still there, staring at her oddly—and she turned on my dad and her eyes were as cold as the sort of air that will freeze the snot in your nose, and she just said, “That is cruel.” My dad raised his hands, conciliatory, and started to explain. But she picked her stuff up, or maybe just left it, and turned around and left.
We've never heard from her since.
My friends and I saw this advertisement on this computer one evening; I think I got it over e-mail. It was for a place opening in the city, about half an hour from my house (the city that is, the actual place would be a bit farther). They called the place All Party All The Time! Because that's literally what it was, though it wasn't technically All The Time! because it didn't open until seven o'clock in the evening. It was a house, a big house, that from seven until seven in the morning was this giant party. Like, you could go into different rooms and there were different types of party going on—one room would have people dressed all metalhead and loud thumping music, and another room would have people dressed old-fashioned and swing-dancing, and another had people just chilling and playing pool, and another drinking hardcore. You could rent rooms and have birthday parties, or graduation parties or retirement parties or whatever you want. Each room was a different party, and for the twenty dollar cover charge you could go and go to one party or wander in and out of a bunch of parties.
That's what the advertisement said. We heard some inside scoop from other people. Apparently the way they kept these parties going was to hire people, a sort of “skeleton party crew,” to act like people ought to act in whatever setting the party was. They hired people to be metalheads, and skinheads, preppy, “typical” or nondescript kids, and so forth. Apparently they had an almost literal army of caterers, supply trucks coming and going all day and all night. They had a massive staff, and a massive budget. The amount of waste produced there rivaled that of some nuclear power plants, though it was somewhat less deadly.
After a couple weeks of speculation and hearing about it from other people, my friends and I finally went into town to go to the Party. (That's what we were calling it by then, just the Party, differentiated from other parties by the capital P.) The people going were me, my best girlfriend Justina, Ruby and her boyfriend Steph (short e), and Gloria and Peter, who were friends with all of us and pretended not to like each other and failed to fool anyone but each other.
The place was this Tudor-style house, but huge and with all its attributes exaggerated, and you could tell it was just honeycombed with rooms because there were so many windows all lined up next to each other. Light was spilling out all the windows, and you could just see all kinds of partying going on.
We went in the front door on the bottom floor and there was this big guy with a frown that looked permanent who took our money and gave us a map of the rooms and told us generally where the types of parties were—the clique parties, the hard core parties, the more genteel parties. Since we were all under 21 we had to wear red nametags that had our names on them and would also alert various bartenders to only serve us virgin drinks. Peter wrote Sir Lancelot on his and grinned as if he was clever.
We chose one of the more genteel parties to start off with, a cocktail party kind of thing with chips and dip and drinks and pool and ping-pong and people talking and flirting pleasantly. I got a Virgin Mary from the bar and settled on my stool, wondering if people would flirt with me. There seemed to be quite a mix, teenagers through middle-aged. I wondered which were the actors.
Ruby went off to the bathroom after a while and Steph went to the bar and ordered something. He was leaning against the bar still when a girl, woman, I don't know, she could have been anywhere from 18 to 25, anyway she was wearing a tight sequined red dress and she kind of slunk over to Steph and asked him what his name was.
“Steph,” he said, and as always there was that note of triumph in his voice, as if it were something special that his parents had decided to steal a stupid Russian name instead of using a stupid American one. (His real name, in case you hadn't guessed, was Stephan, still with the short e.)
“That's a cool name,” the lady in the red dress cooed at him.
“Ya think?” said Steph, grinning more broadly.
“Sure,” she said.
They made small talk for a while. I got bored and so I drowned out the specifics, but it seemed to go along with her cooing and him getting all full of himself—he seemed to really enjoy flirting with her. After a while there was a pause, and I looked over to see him regarding her with narrowed eyes. She was looking back at him, a mysterious indefatigable smile splayed across her features.
“You're one of them, aren't you?” he said.
“One of who, darling?” she said, and there was laughter in her voice.
“Them, the actors this place hires to keep us entertained. You thought I looked bored, so you came over here to make me feel good about myself so I'd come back here and tell my friends what a great place this is.”
“Would I do that?” she said, and oh she was very prettily offended. She gestured to encompass the entire building. “Look at this place. Do you think the owners here really need the business of you personally?”
He continued to look at her with narrowed eyes.
She sighed. “Look, suppose I am. Have I said anything about you that you don't already believe? Also, didn't you get a thrill out of flirting with me? There's nothing fake about that, is there?”
He continued to watch her, and she grinned again and batted her eyes.
“Or maybe I really am an actor, but I'm actually taken by you. Did you ever think of that?”
“Yes,” he said. “I did, actually. But how can I know?”
She smiled, and batted her eyes again and now she was really pouring it on thick. “Well, ask me to get out of here and find a quieter place with you.” Her smile widened, and it was almost a predator's grin. “A paid actress wouldn't do that, would she?”
Just then Ruby got out of the bathroom. Steph saw her walking towards him. “One minute,” he said to the lady in red. He took Ruby by the arm, and found the rest of us and announced they were ready to try another room.
Look around you. They're everywhere.
Your history is riddled with them.
Your country's history,
Your personal history,
Your world's history.
No matter what religion you subscribe to (even atheism), there's somebody out there lying about it.
Your job requires a lot of it,
And especially any school you might happen to be attending.
Your nights,
Your days,
Your resumes,
Your life.
And yes, this is one of them.
This is true.
My brother died at the age of 14, in a horrible car crash that probably wasn't his fault. We weren't in the car, so we can never know, but he obviously wasn't driving and the guy in the car that hit him was drunk so there's that. We attended his funeral and mom cried and dad never cries because that's not something men do or something, but he took off his hat and stared at the ground and there was this look in his eye like a piece of him had been destroyed, which in a sense I suppose it had. And I, of course, was terribly sad. I think I cried for about a day. Literally. If you added up all the time I spent crying, it would probably be at least twenty-four hours. My aunt too, who lives like an hour from here, cried a lot—she didn't have any kids and she always wanted a boy and my brother was a favorite of hers. But he was gone and there was nothing we could do about it.
This is also true.
My brother comes out of his room every day and eats and washes himself. He is fourteen, and his face is spotless, all the acne that used to spatter it having cured itself. He makes messes, and my mom yells at him to clean them up, and he grumbles and does. And she grumbles about what an awful little urchin he is, but then she smiles and there's this light in her eyes and you can tell she doesn't really mean it, not a word of it, that she loves this fourteen-year-old boy.
My brother has been fourteen for three years.
After his funeral, my mom was unbalanced for quite a while. Couldn't bear the grief, I suppose. She went from crying to not making any sound at all to not getting up in the mornings to getting up too early and not being able to sleep. The only thing she couldn't do was work, in any form, provide any sort of compensation for her existence to those around her. She was, essentially, a dysfunctional person. The doctors said something drastic had to happen.
So my dad went to this place. He had to seek it out, kind of, for while it was not an illegal establishment it was one which people would rather not think about. He put in a certain order, brought them certain documents and tissue samples, filled out myriads of personality test forms. Six weeks later he went there one last time and brought back my brother.
When my mom saw him, she screamed and cried, but it was a happy-sounding cry. Then she said, “He's...”
My dad looked her in the eye, waited until he knew he was holding her gaze, then shook his head. “It's best to just accept it.”
She nodded, and then she did. She was an English major in college; she appreciated the usefulness of stories in motivating people.
My mom's behavior I've described; after that day my dad simply ignored my brother, pretended he didn't exist. Ha. The government did that too; my brother no longer ate or consumed in any way, and he was frozen—he wasn't a legitimate tax claim, and he didn't use the school system.
My aunt came over one afternoon, and she caught sight of my brother and dropped whatever it was she was carrying, I've forgotten, and just screamed. Then she calmed down but she was still breathing fast and my dad and I appeared in the living room at the same time—my brother was still there, staring at her oddly—and she turned on my dad and her eyes were as cold as the sort of air that will freeze the snot in your nose, and she just said, “That is cruel.” My dad raised his hands, conciliatory, and started to explain. But she picked her stuff up, or maybe just left it, and turned around and left.
We've never heard from her since.
My friends and I saw this advertisement on this computer one evening; I think I got it over e-mail. It was for a place opening in the city, about half an hour from my house (the city that is, the actual place would be a bit farther). They called the place All Party All The Time! Because that's literally what it was, though it wasn't technically All The Time! because it didn't open until seven o'clock in the evening. It was a house, a big house, that from seven until seven in the morning was this giant party. Like, you could go into different rooms and there were different types of party going on—one room would have people dressed all metalhead and loud thumping music, and another room would have people dressed old-fashioned and swing-dancing, and another had people just chilling and playing pool, and another drinking hardcore. You could rent rooms and have birthday parties, or graduation parties or retirement parties or whatever you want. Each room was a different party, and for the twenty dollar cover charge you could go and go to one party or wander in and out of a bunch of parties.
That's what the advertisement said. We heard some inside scoop from other people. Apparently the way they kept these parties going was to hire people, a sort of “skeleton party crew,” to act like people ought to act in whatever setting the party was. They hired people to be metalheads, and skinheads, preppy, “typical” or nondescript kids, and so forth. Apparently they had an almost literal army of caterers, supply trucks coming and going all day and all night. They had a massive staff, and a massive budget. The amount of waste produced there rivaled that of some nuclear power plants, though it was somewhat less deadly.
After a couple weeks of speculation and hearing about it from other people, my friends and I finally went into town to go to the Party. (That's what we were calling it by then, just the Party, differentiated from other parties by the capital P.) The people going were me, my best girlfriend Justina, Ruby and her boyfriend Steph (short e), and Gloria and Peter, who were friends with all of us and pretended not to like each other and failed to fool anyone but each other.
The place was this Tudor-style house, but huge and with all its attributes exaggerated, and you could tell it was just honeycombed with rooms because there were so many windows all lined up next to each other. Light was spilling out all the windows, and you could just see all kinds of partying going on.
We went in the front door on the bottom floor and there was this big guy with a frown that looked permanent who took our money and gave us a map of the rooms and told us generally where the types of parties were—the clique parties, the hard core parties, the more genteel parties. Since we were all under 21 we had to wear red nametags that had our names on them and would also alert various bartenders to only serve us virgin drinks. Peter wrote Sir Lancelot on his and grinned as if he was clever.
We chose one of the more genteel parties to start off with, a cocktail party kind of thing with chips and dip and drinks and pool and ping-pong and people talking and flirting pleasantly. I got a Virgin Mary from the bar and settled on my stool, wondering if people would flirt with me. There seemed to be quite a mix, teenagers through middle-aged. I wondered which were the actors.
Ruby went off to the bathroom after a while and Steph went to the bar and ordered something. He was leaning against the bar still when a girl, woman, I don't know, she could have been anywhere from 18 to 25, anyway she was wearing a tight sequined red dress and she kind of slunk over to Steph and asked him what his name was.
“Steph,” he said, and as always there was that note of triumph in his voice, as if it were something special that his parents had decided to steal a stupid Russian name instead of using a stupid American one. (His real name, in case you hadn't guessed, was Stephan, still with the short e.)
“That's a cool name,” the lady in the red dress cooed at him.
“Ya think?” said Steph, grinning more broadly.
“Sure,” she said.
They made small talk for a while. I got bored and so I drowned out the specifics, but it seemed to go along with her cooing and him getting all full of himself—he seemed to really enjoy flirting with her. After a while there was a pause, and I looked over to see him regarding her with narrowed eyes. She was looking back at him, a mysterious indefatigable smile splayed across her features.
“You're one of them, aren't you?” he said.
“One of who, darling?” she said, and there was laughter in her voice.
“Them, the actors this place hires to keep us entertained. You thought I looked bored, so you came over here to make me feel good about myself so I'd come back here and tell my friends what a great place this is.”
“Would I do that?” she said, and oh she was very prettily offended. She gestured to encompass the entire building. “Look at this place. Do you think the owners here really need the business of you personally?”
He continued to look at her with narrowed eyes.
She sighed. “Look, suppose I am. Have I said anything about you that you don't already believe? Also, didn't you get a thrill out of flirting with me? There's nothing fake about that, is there?”
He continued to watch her, and she grinned again and batted her eyes.
“Or maybe I really am an actor, but I'm actually taken by you. Did you ever think of that?”
“Yes,” he said. “I did, actually. But how can I know?”
She smiled, and batted her eyes again and now she was really pouring it on thick. “Well, ask me to get out of here and find a quieter place with you.” Her smile widened, and it was almost a predator's grin. “A paid actress wouldn't do that, would she?”
Just then Ruby got out of the bathroom. Steph saw her walking towards him. “One minute,” he said to the lady in red. He took Ruby by the arm, and found the rest of us and announced they were ready to try another room.
Look around you. They're everywhere.
Your history is riddled with them.
Your country's history,
Your personal history,
Your world's history.
No matter what religion you subscribe to (even atheism), there's somebody out there lying about it.
Your job requires a lot of it,
And especially any school you might happen to be attending.
Your nights,
Your days,
Your resumes,
Your life.
And yes, this is one of them.
Vehement Apathy
It's what happens when you really, really, really don't care.
I experienced it a lot working at Target.
More on that, possibly, to come.
I experienced it a lot working at Target.
More on that, possibly, to come.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Two Thoughts, Based On Recent Experiences
1. The Dylan version of "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" is infinitely superior to the Guns 'N Roses version.
2. Though I've read critics who say that it's one of Fitzgerald's "immature" novels, This Side of Paradise is one of the best books I've ever read.
2. Though I've read critics who say that it's one of Fitzgerald's "immature" novels, This Side of Paradise is one of the best books I've ever read.
Monday, August 11, 2008
100 Posts
Yes, I know a 100-posts post is trite, and cliche, and all those other things we try to avoid being. However, I need a post, and I can find nothing better to write about at the moment. So.
If you went back and counted my published posts--well, you would be either very pathetic or very bored or both. You would not, however, find 100 posts. Blogger, when I sign in, tells me how many posts I have, but it includes those that I start and do not publish and for one reason or another (usually forgetfulness or negligence) do not get rid of. So, and I reiterate, I have nothing better to write about, I have decided to tour through these unpublished posts, starting with the oldest, and see what there is to see.
The oldest post that for some reason never saw light (I don't know why, it seems to have been finished) is called ""Literature."" (There are quotes in the title but I was quoting the title.) It contains my reviews of two works, Louisa May Alcott's A Long Fatal Love-Chase, which is a Gothic-esque thriller she wrote that remained unpublished until about ten years ago, and The Song of Roland, an epic poem set in the time of Charlemagne (dated the High Middle Ages, if I remember right). It is very nearly the only viable piece of literature to come out of France.
Instead of recapitulating the whole thing, I will give the short versions: the ostensible editor of A Long Fatal Love-Chase rejected it because it was "Too long and too sensational." I read it and found it too long and, well, too sensational. The Song of Roland is boring until you get to the fighting, then it's worth the boredom.
Next we have two posts that I think I didn't publish because I realized they were stupid. Then we have the Master List of Good Fantasy, which was my project last summer, which I abandoned because between the formatting and the project itself, the bloody thing became too unwieldy. (I still have a Master List of Good Fantasy, but it's mostly in my head now.)
The next unpublished bit is called "College Tour," and is my attempt at a summary of the college tour Aaron and Heidi and I did back in ancient history, near the end of our senior year of high school. I didn't published it because through some glitch large sections of the summary were erased, and I didn't want to spend the time recreating them and then I forgot about it. I will send it to interested parties, but be warned, the experience of reading it is like watching a movie that randomly skips several scenes forward.
Next are two posts entitled "Stormfield Goes to College," dated 9/3 and 10/8, and a post called "Stormfield's Return From Blogatory" which I think was meant to be the same idea. The first is blank, and the second contains the perfunctory statement "Here it is, the off-to-college post I should have written a month ago." The third says the same and also mentions my intention to do NaNoWriMo. (I managed it, despite being in college; not sure how.)
A month or so later, we have a somewhat emo-ish rant, which I didn't publish because I don't read emo-ish rants and in fact find them embarrassing. Then there is "Rebuilding Civilization," a short post I don't know why I didn't published, reproduced below:
And, really, that's the pinnacle. So, there you are (wherever you go). 100 posts, 0 coherent points.
If you went back and counted my published posts--well, you would be either very pathetic or very bored or both. You would not, however, find 100 posts. Blogger, when I sign in, tells me how many posts I have, but it includes those that I start and do not publish and for one reason or another (usually forgetfulness or negligence) do not get rid of. So, and I reiterate, I have nothing better to write about, I have decided to tour through these unpublished posts, starting with the oldest, and see what there is to see.
The oldest post that for some reason never saw light (I don't know why, it seems to have been finished) is called ""Literature."" (There are quotes in the title but I was quoting the title.) It contains my reviews of two works, Louisa May Alcott's A Long Fatal Love-Chase, which is a Gothic-esque thriller she wrote that remained unpublished until about ten years ago, and The Song of Roland, an epic poem set in the time of Charlemagne (dated the High Middle Ages, if I remember right). It is very nearly the only viable piece of literature to come out of France.
Instead of recapitulating the whole thing, I will give the short versions: the ostensible editor of A Long Fatal Love-Chase rejected it because it was "Too long and too sensational." I read it and found it too long and, well, too sensational. The Song of Roland is boring until you get to the fighting, then it's worth the boredom.
Next we have two posts that I think I didn't publish because I realized they were stupid. Then we have the Master List of Good Fantasy, which was my project last summer, which I abandoned because between the formatting and the project itself, the bloody thing became too unwieldy. (I still have a Master List of Good Fantasy, but it's mostly in my head now.)
The next unpublished bit is called "College Tour," and is my attempt at a summary of the college tour Aaron and Heidi and I did back in ancient history, near the end of our senior year of high school. I didn't published it because through some glitch large sections of the summary were erased, and I didn't want to spend the time recreating them and then I forgot about it. I will send it to interested parties, but be warned, the experience of reading it is like watching a movie that randomly skips several scenes forward.
Next are two posts entitled "Stormfield Goes to College," dated 9/3 and 10/8, and a post called "Stormfield's Return From Blogatory" which I think was meant to be the same idea. The first is blank, and the second contains the perfunctory statement "Here it is, the off-to-college post I should have written a month ago." The third says the same and also mentions my intention to do NaNoWriMo. (I managed it, despite being in college; not sure how.)
A month or so later, we have a somewhat emo-ish rant, which I didn't publish because I don't read emo-ish rants and in fact find them embarrassing. Then there is "Rebuilding Civilization," a short post I don't know why I didn't published, reproduced below:
So a while ago I posted a question on Facebook: If civilization as we know it were ending, and you could choose one book to preserve for those who would have to build society back again from the rubble, what book would it be?
My choice would be The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. One might say, Why such a confusing novel? Why not something along the lines of Common Sense? Well, despite some of the fairly spectacular things about our current governmental system, the fact is that the world is a mess, always has been a mess, and always will be a mess. Once human beings got back on their feet after whatever theoretical catastrophe did them in, I'm sure we'd have no problem recreating said mess.
However, if Mr. Shandy's book were to be the only thing saved, surely it would also be closely studied, and perhaps even understood. It is my opinion that if more people today understood this book (granted, it's a cursedly hard thing to do), there would be exponentially greater happiness in the world. If a whole civilization grew up understanding it... well, it would be a sight to see.
And, really, that's the pinnacle. So, there you are (wherever you go). 100 posts, 0 coherent points.
Saturday, August 02, 2008
A Tribute to Fedoras
[I am posting this because I need another post but I am too lazy to write something new. Also, my brother threatened to post it for me if I didn't. It was my "Special Occasion/After Dinner Speech" for speech class last semester. It was a manuscript speech, meaning I had the whole thing (rather than merely an outline) on the podium before me. My speech prof said embarrassingly complimentary things about it.]
"Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
This is the last thing Humphrey Bogart says at the end of the classic movie Casablanca. But what is the last thing we see? The camera rises and fades backward, and we see Rick and Louis from behind. All we can see of Rick--Bogart's character--is his trench coat, his slouch--and his hat. Bogart was almost never onscreen without his hat. The image of him, with his trench coat tied shut, hands in his pockets, slouched over with a cigarette dangling from his upper lip, is incomplete without the hat, without the fedora.
Cary Grant, who might be described as the quintessential ladies' man, was also rarely without a fedora. At the end of The Philadelphia Story, when his character marries Katherine Hepburn's for the second time, he takes it off--but only reluctantly.
Think of It's a Wonderful Life. Towards the beginning of that movie, Jimmy Stewart's George Bailey is visiting the woman he will eventually marry. They get into a sort of lover's tiff, and he storms out of her house. He returns with the excuse, "I forgot my hat." That hat? A fedora.
And for modern fedora-wearers there is, of course, the one and only Indiana Jones. Indy's fedora is unique--made of a little sterner stuff, the better to take the desert heat and the jungle mist, to survive falling into pits and falling out of planes, and snakes. I hate snakes. The brim of Indy's hat is a little funny too--turned down in the back, atypical. But it doesn't matter. It is a fedora, and whether rolling beneath a stone gate to escape hostile natives, fleeing Nazis on horseback, or jumping from truck to speeding truck--he never loses it.
Now, I am no Indiana Jones, no Jimmy Stewart, no Cary Grant and certainly no Bogart. At least not yet. But I and many of my friends habitually wear fedoras as well. What is it about this hat, this quintessence of felt and ribbon, that so excites us, that inspires such loyalty and admiration?
Well, half of it is practical, but only half. The fedora really is a well-designed hat. It sits securely on your head, but it does not sit strictly--the only people who feel constricted by a fedora are those with big heads wearing small sizes. Because of this, and because of the sweat band on the inside of the hat, strenuous activity doesn't upset the fedora--it keeps a stiff upper lip and plods along, right with you. It's an easy-going hat, and versatile. You can wear it in the rain, and it will keep you dry; you can wear it in the heat, and its long brim will shield your face and the back of your neck. If you're bored, you can talk to it, and it will at least pretend to listen. I don't recommend this last in public, though.
A fedora is durable, as well. A fedora belonging to a friend of mine blew off his head on a windy day. It blew straight into the path of an oncoming car, which ran it over. My friend picked it up, popped it back into position, and it was good as new.
There is another half to the fedora's attraction, and this is the side that is difficult to put into words. There's a sort of metaphysical, spiritual bond between a fedora and its owner. A fedora looks, if you'll pardon the much-overused colloquialism, cool. There's something about walking in the rain, with your head down and the fedora shielding your face and taking the rain so you don't have to--it's like being in trouble and having a friend, uncomplaining, who takes the rap for you. You feel more like yourself, in a fedora. As though your best features are exaggerated, and your worst ones, hidden away.
Whether saying goodbye to the love of your life, escaping angry Nazis, or just going to class every day, the fedora adds some dash, some panache, some whiplash to an outfit. It makes life more interesting, cool, and ultimately more enjoyable.
"Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
This is the last thing Humphrey Bogart says at the end of the classic movie Casablanca. But what is the last thing we see? The camera rises and fades backward, and we see Rick and Louis from behind. All we can see of Rick--Bogart's character--is his trench coat, his slouch--and his hat. Bogart was almost never onscreen without his hat. The image of him, with his trench coat tied shut, hands in his pockets, slouched over with a cigarette dangling from his upper lip, is incomplete without the hat, without the fedora.
Cary Grant, who might be described as the quintessential ladies' man, was also rarely without a fedora. At the end of The Philadelphia Story, when his character marries Katherine Hepburn's for the second time, he takes it off--but only reluctantly.
Think of It's a Wonderful Life. Towards the beginning of that movie, Jimmy Stewart's George Bailey is visiting the woman he will eventually marry. They get into a sort of lover's tiff, and he storms out of her house. He returns with the excuse, "I forgot my hat." That hat? A fedora.
And for modern fedora-wearers there is, of course, the one and only Indiana Jones. Indy's fedora is unique--made of a little sterner stuff, the better to take the desert heat and the jungle mist, to survive falling into pits and falling out of planes, and snakes. I hate snakes. The brim of Indy's hat is a little funny too--turned down in the back, atypical. But it doesn't matter. It is a fedora, and whether rolling beneath a stone gate to escape hostile natives, fleeing Nazis on horseback, or jumping from truck to speeding truck--he never loses it.
Now, I am no Indiana Jones, no Jimmy Stewart, no Cary Grant and certainly no Bogart. At least not yet. But I and many of my friends habitually wear fedoras as well. What is it about this hat, this quintessence of felt and ribbon, that so excites us, that inspires such loyalty and admiration?
Well, half of it is practical, but only half. The fedora really is a well-designed hat. It sits securely on your head, but it does not sit strictly--the only people who feel constricted by a fedora are those with big heads wearing small sizes. Because of this, and because of the sweat band on the inside of the hat, strenuous activity doesn't upset the fedora--it keeps a stiff upper lip and plods along, right with you. It's an easy-going hat, and versatile. You can wear it in the rain, and it will keep you dry; you can wear it in the heat, and its long brim will shield your face and the back of your neck. If you're bored, you can talk to it, and it will at least pretend to listen. I don't recommend this last in public, though.
A fedora is durable, as well. A fedora belonging to a friend of mine blew off his head on a windy day. It blew straight into the path of an oncoming car, which ran it over. My friend picked it up, popped it back into position, and it was good as new.
There is another half to the fedora's attraction, and this is the side that is difficult to put into words. There's a sort of metaphysical, spiritual bond between a fedora and its owner. A fedora looks, if you'll pardon the much-overused colloquialism, cool. There's something about walking in the rain, with your head down and the fedora shielding your face and taking the rain so you don't have to--it's like being in trouble and having a friend, uncomplaining, who takes the rap for you. You feel more like yourself, in a fedora. As though your best features are exaggerated, and your worst ones, hidden away.
Whether saying goodbye to the love of your life, escaping angry Nazis, or just going to class every day, the fedora adds some dash, some panache, some whiplash to an outfit. It makes life more interesting, cool, and ultimately more enjoyable.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Crossroads
I was out running this morning (It's true! you people stop gasping, and you stop snickering). I turned down the bike trail that cuts through the center of town because it's a cool, wooded place that serves to conceal me from a large number of those likely to point and laugh.
Except then, I came to the Bridge. It's an old wooden bridge--describing it as an old railroad bridge with the train tracks taken out and slabs laid down so real people could travel across it would be exactly accurate. (The bike trail used to be a railroad line.) If I were in a more romantic mood, I would spend a couple of paragraphs describing said bridge in mythological terms. It's old, and worn down in the middle were probably hundreds of thousands of feet and bike wheels and snowmobiles have traversed it. It has a tendency to bounce and buckle when you cross it, just a bit, just enough to make you nervous.
Anyway, I stood in the middle of it and looked out in four directions, and realized it was sort of a four-dimensional crossroads. Before and behind me, running underneath the bridge, was Main Street in the place where it widens in preparation for becoming The Highway. To the north, it ran through the newly developed portions of town to said Highway, out past warehouses bearing the name of a grocery store and Walgreens and the Library, past the golf course where what pathetic Rich and Elite this town has hobnob with each other. Thus the new side of town.
About-face, and you see trees that were old when my father was young, buildings with gabled roofs hidden from the public by grandiose false fronts. Entire blocks of buildings squashed together in what, come to think of it, is probably an incredible firetrap. Old, roomy houses with honest-to-god towers built into them. The graveyard, neglected, its headstones crumbling into a dust comparable to that of their graves' inhabitants. And trolls. I can find no way to romanticize trolls. Thus, Old Town.
The other two directions were back and forward (relative to me) along the bike trail. Behind me lay Civilization--Kwik Trip, the investment office and antique shops and other businesses that make their homes here in town. Before me lay (at least, what looked like) The Wild. Trees of a rich green grew up and leaned out over the trail to form an arch under which the brown of the gravel trail ran, and it was a somehow richer brown for associating with all that Nature. The road beckoned to me with all the overblown symbolic virility of a womb symbol, or the Hero's Call to Adventure.
I wandered toward Nature, down that (as it were) Hero's Road, until I realized with regret that there were other things I wanted to do this day, and I went home.
(Now, there probably is some symbolic meaning I could draw forth from the above--that is, more than I have already hinted at. And by probably and some, I actually mean definitely and a ton. However, to go into it would be cruel to my readers, probably make them want to hurt me, and might actually lead to me wanting to hurt myself. So, in the interests of self-preservation and altruism, I will end here.)
Except then, I came to the Bridge. It's an old wooden bridge--describing it as an old railroad bridge with the train tracks taken out and slabs laid down so real people could travel across it would be exactly accurate. (The bike trail used to be a railroad line.) If I were in a more romantic mood, I would spend a couple of paragraphs describing said bridge in mythological terms. It's old, and worn down in the middle were probably hundreds of thousands of feet and bike wheels and snowmobiles have traversed it. It has a tendency to bounce and buckle when you cross it, just a bit, just enough to make you nervous.
Anyway, I stood in the middle of it and looked out in four directions, and realized it was sort of a four-dimensional crossroads. Before and behind me, running underneath the bridge, was Main Street in the place where it widens in preparation for becoming The Highway. To the north, it ran through the newly developed portions of town to said Highway, out past warehouses bearing the name of a grocery store and Walgreens and the Library, past the golf course where what pathetic Rich and Elite this town has hobnob with each other. Thus the new side of town.
About-face, and you see trees that were old when my father was young, buildings with gabled roofs hidden from the public by grandiose false fronts. Entire blocks of buildings squashed together in what, come to think of it, is probably an incredible firetrap. Old, roomy houses with honest-to-god towers built into them. The graveyard, neglected, its headstones crumbling into a dust comparable to that of their graves' inhabitants. And trolls. I can find no way to romanticize trolls. Thus, Old Town.
The other two directions were back and forward (relative to me) along the bike trail. Behind me lay Civilization--Kwik Trip, the investment office and antique shops and other businesses that make their homes here in town. Before me lay (at least, what looked like) The Wild. Trees of a rich green grew up and leaned out over the trail to form an arch under which the brown of the gravel trail ran, and it was a somehow richer brown for associating with all that Nature. The road beckoned to me with all the overblown symbolic virility of a womb symbol, or the Hero's Call to Adventure.
I wandered toward Nature, down that (as it were) Hero's Road, until I realized with regret that there were other things I wanted to do this day, and I went home.
(Now, there probably is some symbolic meaning I could draw forth from the above--that is, more than I have already hinted at. And by probably and some, I actually mean definitely and a ton. However, to go into it would be cruel to my readers, probably make them want to hurt me, and might actually lead to me wanting to hurt myself. So, in the interests of self-preservation and altruism, I will end here.)
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Jackanapes, Blackguards and Knaves, Oh My!
Here, from yourdictionary.com, is an excellent piece which laments the fall of the English insult, and suggests some classic alternatives to our modern mishmash of misconstructed malapropisms. (You know what? Alliteration is sometimes like falling in a hole. You get in to it, and you can't get back out.)
Anyway, read the above, and clean up your language!
(Exit, pursued by a blackguard)
Anyway, read the above, and clean up your language!
(Exit, pursued by a blackguard)
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Twilight
Because several of my friends read it and recommended it with varying degrees of enthusiasm, and because it's enormously popular and I like keeping up on current literary trends, I recently read the book Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer. It's a new, populist, and much better-than-average incarnation of the vampires-in-high-school form of YA fiction. I quite liked the book, as light reading: it's the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries (or, to extend Gaiman's metaphor even further, a non-alcoholic Pina Colada).
However, it was not until I noticed the similarity between the two covers pictured above (while browsing Barnes and Noble) that I began to think of certain things that now seem painfully obvious.
When looked at through the lens one would use to view a book by, say, CS Lewis, certain interesting aspects begin to show themselves. (WARNING: spoilers beyond this point, and it will probably only make sense to those who have read the book.)
Several of the characters in the book could be, or at least have certain aspects of, Christ figures. In fact, on the very first page, when our heroine is contemplating her death, she does not regret it because she is dying in the place of someone she loves. Edward, too, in his constant protective role, could be seen as a Christ figure; his father, actually, could be seen in both the Christ and the Creator roles--he more or less raises Edward from the dead, for example, and grants him eternal life, and he has created this family of vampires out of loneliness--out of, we may infer, a desire to be loved.
The main character's name, Isabella Swan, is interesting too. Isabella means "My God is my oath" or "Devoted to God"; Bella, the name she prefers, comes from the Italian word for "beautiful." The Swan, of course, has multiple possible symbolic meanings--it is a symbol of innocence and purity, but also of self-sacrifice. And of course, there is the old story of the swansong, the piercingly beautiful song sung by the swan only when it is about to die.
Which brings us to the book's climax. The dance studio where Bella waits for the hunter, both because of the way dance studios look and specifically the way this one is described, has the possible appearance of a coffin or a tomb. Long, enclosed, with mirrors on all sides (resembling the smooth stone walls of a tomb or the smooth sides of a coffin), windowless. She has given herself up to the grave; but at the last minute, and without her doing (and, in fact, despite her best efforts), she is found and rescued. The heroine descends willingly to her doom, and is rescued, basically, by grace. This has every appearance of classical Christian symbolism.
Of course, it could be that I'm reading stuff into it that's not there. It's interesting to think about, at least. I'll have to see if the next two books uphold my theories.
Soundtrack
Because there has been too much posting that could be mistaken for intelligent around here recently, and I thought this game looked like fun. Stole it from someone on Facebook.
IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?
Here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool...
7. Include commentary
Opening Credits: Dead to the World, Nightwish [Ha, this would be great if my life movie were either angst-ridden, dark, or a dark comedy; I like the last two choices.]
Waking Up: Seven Swans, Sufjan Stevens [Complete change of pace from the last one, but it'd make an excellent waking up song--especially since the first words are, "We didn't sleep too late..."]
First Day At School: The Story So Far, Flogging Molly [Doesn't quite work; it's more of an old man song; though the lines, "All that you know means nothing to you, but it's the loss of control, shatters the truth" seem oddly fitting...]
Falling In Love: Donald McGillavry, Rising Gael [Hmm. It's got a cool beat, and it is kind of a fangirl song for the titular Celtic hero; it might work.]
Fight Song: Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn, White Stripes [It would be a very loopy fight scene, but that seems to fit with the rest so far.]
Breaking Up: Sister, by Sufjan Stevens [This would be excellent. Downbeat melancholy instrumental with some gorgeous melancholy lyrics at the end; perfect]
Prom: The Wanderlust, by Flogging Molly ["Well I'd love to photograph your hand, shake it for a while, because you learn so much, about someone, a brother or a swine..." Actually, being that proms always seem to bring out my extreme romantic streak, and so does the idea of Wanderlust, this seems to fit; it may only work for me, though]
Life's OK: Digital Sea, by Thrice ["And the ghost of Descartes screams again in the dark, oh how could I have been so wrong; But above the scream still the sirens sing their song."--Actually, these is more like "life sucks, but in the same way it has from the Fall." Which would work, for the dark or the dark comedy. Or the angst. Dang]
Mental Breakdown: Kings Upon the Main, Thrice [I suppose. Maybe I could go crazy and imagine the sea talking to me...]
Driving: The Queen of Argyll, by Wolfstone [More of an 'In love' song, but it could work. The blazing bagpipe solo could be when I get mad and swerve around people...]
Flashback: Devil in a Midnight Mass, by Billy Talent [Great for a dark flashback, but I wouldn't want to have one to the particular subject of this song. *shudder*]
Getting Back Together: Anywhere But Here, by Rise Against [hahaha... "Destination, anywhere but here, away from you..." Oh, the irony.]
Wedding: Missed the Boat, Modest Mouse [Again, it would work, in a loopy and dark sort of way; it would be the oddest wedding ever, I'd have to say]
Birth of Child: Last of the Wilds, by Nightwish [A dark, metal-ish instrumental; I have strange forebodings about this child :P]
Final Battle: Beauty of the Beast:Long Lost Love/One More Night to Live, by Nightwish [Oh wow, this would make an incredible last fight, especially the "One More Night to Live Section"; I could see this as the first part being a parting scene with the love interest, the second being the battle itself. I really really really want to use this in a movie now.]
Death Scene: Between a Man and a Woman, by Flogging Molly [Oh this would work spectacularly, if only for the irony]
Funeral Song: Birdhouse in Your Soul, by They Might Be Giants [Oh this would be awesome too; comic funeral ftw!]
End Credits: Dulaman, by Anuna [Excellent ending, a choir singing Gaelic]
Man, I seem to have bizzare music...
IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?
Here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool...
7. Include commentary
Opening Credits: Dead to the World, Nightwish [Ha, this would be great if my life movie were either angst-ridden, dark, or a dark comedy; I like the last two choices.]
Waking Up: Seven Swans, Sufjan Stevens [Complete change of pace from the last one, but it'd make an excellent waking up song--especially since the first words are, "We didn't sleep too late..."]
First Day At School: The Story So Far, Flogging Molly [Doesn't quite work; it's more of an old man song; though the lines, "All that you know means nothing to you, but it's the loss of control, shatters the truth" seem oddly fitting...]
Falling In Love: Donald McGillavry, Rising Gael [Hmm. It's got a cool beat, and it is kind of a fangirl song for the titular Celtic hero; it might work.]
Fight Song: Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn, White Stripes [It would be a very loopy fight scene, but that seems to fit with the rest so far.]
Breaking Up: Sister, by Sufjan Stevens [This would be excellent. Downbeat melancholy instrumental with some gorgeous melancholy lyrics at the end; perfect]
Prom: The Wanderlust, by Flogging Molly ["Well I'd love to photograph your hand, shake it for a while, because you learn so much, about someone, a brother or a swine..." Actually, being that proms always seem to bring out my extreme romantic streak, and so does the idea of Wanderlust, this seems to fit; it may only work for me, though]
Life's OK: Digital Sea, by Thrice ["And the ghost of Descartes screams again in the dark, oh how could I have been so wrong; But above the scream still the sirens sing their song."--Actually, these is more like "life sucks, but in the same way it has from the Fall." Which would work, for the dark or the dark comedy. Or the angst. Dang]
Mental Breakdown: Kings Upon the Main, Thrice [I suppose. Maybe I could go crazy and imagine the sea talking to me...]
Driving: The Queen of Argyll, by Wolfstone [More of an 'In love' song, but it could work. The blazing bagpipe solo could be when I get mad and swerve around people...]
Flashback: Devil in a Midnight Mass, by Billy Talent [Great for a dark flashback, but I wouldn't want to have one to the particular subject of this song. *shudder*]
Getting Back Together: Anywhere But Here, by Rise Against [hahaha... "Destination, anywhere but here, away from you..." Oh, the irony.]
Wedding: Missed the Boat, Modest Mouse [Again, it would work, in a loopy and dark sort of way; it would be the oddest wedding ever, I'd have to say]
Birth of Child: Last of the Wilds, by Nightwish [A dark, metal-ish instrumental; I have strange forebodings about this child :P]
Final Battle: Beauty of the Beast:Long Lost Love/One More Night to Live, by Nightwish [Oh wow, this would make an incredible last fight, especially the "One More Night to Live Section"; I could see this as the first part being a parting scene with the love interest, the second being the battle itself. I really really really want to use this in a movie now.]
Death Scene: Between a Man and a Woman, by Flogging Molly [Oh this would work spectacularly, if only for the irony]
Funeral Song: Birdhouse in Your Soul, by They Might Be Giants [Oh this would be awesome too; comic funeral ftw!]
End Credits: Dulaman, by Anuna [Excellent ending, a choir singing Gaelic]
Man, I seem to have bizzare music...
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Just Gimme Some Truth: Reading the Old Masters of Fantasy (Part 2)
This is simply a continuation of my last post with a similar title, and, as such, should not contain this introductory paragraph. It does, however. What follows will have less to do with Moorckock and more to do with the works to which his book led me. So, onward.
E.R. Eddison: The Worm Ouroboros
Between Dunsany, William Morris (whose The Well at the World's End I recently bought, and which might become Part 3 of this post), and Eddison, we apparently have the three strongest contemporary influences on Tolkien's trilogy. And with its grand quests and sub-quests, massive battles punctuated by thrilling single combat, and overarching aura of Dark Magic, it reminded me of nothing more than Return of the King. There were some, er, aesthetic oddities about the book. At the beginning , a man and his wife seemingly astral project to Mercury, where they are apparently watching the action take place. This framing device takes up, or is mentioned frequently for about the first 50 pages; it is mentioned once again at about page 150, and then disappears, never to be heard from again. The names, too--the chief rivals are Witchland and Demonland, and other locales include Impland, Pixyland, etc. The Mercury setting is immaterial--this is an alt-world fantasy, through and through. Also, the Witches and Demons, despite being described early on as having horns and forked tails, resemble nothing more than mortal men in Hallowe'en costumes.
However, all this is immaterial. The central points, the principal attractions of this book, are the story and the language.
The story contains all the best elements of Viking sagas--great battles, single combat, quests both to slay monsters and destroy enemies. There are some great sub-stories too, which I'd talk about save that it would give too much away. At the same time, we have a great deal of court politics and political intrigue, reminiscent of certain of Shakespeare's plays. Combined with these two strong elements is the third of, names aside, very strong world building. And the ending is one of the best I've ever read.
But the language is what truly sets this book apart. Whereas Tolkien and Dunsany used a simple, lyrical archaic style, Eddison goes whole hog with a 16th/17th century flowery archaism. It's fantastic; it's like Shakespeare wrote a fantasy novel. Opening at random, we get:
The dialogue, too, is excellent. It's also in that high archaic style, but is somehow never overdone or melodramatic:
Another excellent thing about this book is the women: Eddison writes some of the strongest female characters I've ever seen in epic fantasy. Sure, they're all (or mostly) conniving, and backstabbing, but then so are all (or most of) the men.
Linguistically, this is probably the most challenging book I'll recommend, but it's a great book--the payoff is worth the effort.
(It's been reprinted in the "Barnes and Noble Library of Essential Reading," so check B&N's fantasy section. Otherwise, I know it's been reprinted by at least two small publishers.)
James Branch Cabell: Jurgen
James Branch Cabell cut his literary teeth on authors like Horace, Montaigne, Marlowe, Moliere, and Wilde--in short, romantics long on symbolism and imagery. However, his own highly symbolic writing came in the late 1910's through the 30's--a period whose vogue involved writers like Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway--that is, realists. Cabell hated realism, and refused to write it. Though some of his peers--Sinclair Lewis and Mark Twain, for example--praised him, Cabell's work was never hugely popular with the critics or the reading public.
Ironically, it was an attempt at censorship that brought Cabell both his most lasting fame and his largest audience. In 1919 certain members of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice picked up on some of the double entendres in Jurgen (more on these in a bit), and it was put on trial for indecency (or some such). However, being that these were true double entendres--in that they all had perfectly legitimate, unscandalous meanings--the case was thrown out. However, this brought Jurgen into the public eye, and gained Cabell some measure of public exposure.
Enough of that. What of the book itself?
Well, the main character, a middle-aged pawnbroker named Jurgen, does a good turn for the Devil and, in gratitude, the Devil decides to do a good turn for him. Subsequently, Jurgen's wife (who seems to be rather a nag) disappears. Jurgen realizes he must set out in search for her. His journey takes him through various strange lands, including heaven, hell, and the place where the "real" master of the universe resides.
The first 50 pages (7 chapters) or so of this book contain some of the best, truest writing I've ever encountered. I spoke before of encountering in this old fantasy things which seem ultimately true, and Jurgen had several such instances for me. Near the beginning, Jurgen follows a Centaur to the "Garden between dawn and sunrise,"--he must follow a Centaur there, as the Centaur says, "Because... there is no other way. For this garden does not exist, and never did exist, in what men humorously call real life; so that of course only imaginary creatures such as I can enter it."
He is taken by the centaur to the garden:
A bit later, we have this:
I could quote Jurgen all day, were it not for things like time and space complaints and the fact that some of my readers are unafraid of doing me harm.
One of my favorite sections was added to the second edition of the book, after the obscenity trials: Jurgen travels to the land of Philistia, and is put on trial for indecency by the Philistines. The judge, a dung-beetle, marches into the courtroom with three pages, bearing a staff, a sword, and a lance. The judge declares to Jurgen, "You are offensive... because this page has a sword which I choose to say is not a sword. You are lewd because that page has a lance which I prefer to think is not a lance. You are lascivious because yonder page has a staff which I elect to declare is not a staff." Yeah.
One reason I think Jurgen has fallen into obscurity is that its chief theme is love, specifically romantic love; but this from an entirely male perspective, to the extent that females might have problems relating to it. And I don't mean love in a moral sense, here. Jurgen has his own idea of morality that would make an interesting essay unto itself, but that is in no way the focus of the book. What is dealt with is the feelings, the urges, the desires, the messy stuff--love as it is, not as it should be.
Jurgen is one book I can't really recommend across the board. For one, I think a person should be 18 to read it: not because of any adult themes or double entendres (though those are there), but because I think you'd have to be at least 18 just to know what Cabell is talking about. I was 19 when I read it, and I'm not entirely convinced I was even ready. Secondly, you really do have to have a strong appreciation for symbolism to get anything out of this book. However, because of the double entendres present, it may make one regret having an aptitude for symbolism.
A review on Amazon, here, quotes a letter by one Deems Taylor, who says thus:
This, a bit melodramatically, pretty well summarizes my personal reaction to Jurgen. It made me want to laugh, and to cry, often at the same time; and it gave me the sense that those two actions may not actually be that far apart.
Well. If after all that, Jurgen sounds at all attractive or interesting to you, I do highly recommend reading it. I have a fairly nice version published by Dover; a search on Amazon turns up editions by a few other publishers.
Something about Eve
Another Cabell, in a similar vein to Jurgen, though not as good. My choices here are between expounding at length or keeping it short, and considering my treatment of the last several books, I choose the latter. Read Jurgen first; if you find that at all enjoyable, read this.
Hope Mirrlees: Lud-in-the-Mist
I could swear I first heard of this book from Moorcock, but paging through W&WW I can find no trace of it. It must have been, then, Lin Carter's Imaginary Worlds, the only book I've been able to find whose purpose is similar to Moorcock's. (It's an excellent one for recommendations and author background, but absolute crap for criticism, mainly because Carter is, to put it bluntly, an ass. This despite the fact that he likes LotR.) At any rate, it makes sense that it wasn't in Moorcock--it's not really heroic or epic fantasy, despite being set in an imagined world.
It is set in the town of Lud, in the country of Dorimare. Lud, despite being a prosperous trade town, feels very much like an English hamlet, very much a small town; though its setting in an imagined kingdom mutes any specific English-ness and gives the setting a somewhat timeless feel. To the west of Lud lie the Debateable Hills, beyond which is, of course, the Land of Faerie.
However, the citizens of Lud have outlawed Faerie's existence, and forbidden the importation or existence of Faerie fruit. (It is referred to in the books of law as 'silk.') So when there is an epidemic of children apparently having consumed the fruit, the town's mayor, Nathaniel Chanticleer, must find out where it is coming from and stop it.
This is, apparently, another of Neil Gaiman's favorites. He describes it better than I can: "The book begins as a travelogue or a history, becomes a pastorale, a low comedy, a high comedy, a ghost story and a detective story. The writing is elegant, supple, effective and haunting: the author demands a great deal from her readers, which she repays many times over."
I spoke of encountering in Jurgen instances of apparent truth: in Lud-in-the-Mist, there were instances of this that were pages and pages long. This truth, as I've been using it, is a slippery and loosely defined concept; it may just be too many drugs on my part. I don't think so, though: it seems to me that people with great insight into how things truly are are drawn to fantasy, with its mystery and its symbolism: and it seems to me that they write books that are wonderful and soon forgotten.
Anyway, that was a digression, and it reminds me of something else: Hope Mirrlees has awesome digressions. An example, from the few pages devoted to describing Nathaniel Chanticleer:
The more time passes since I read it, and the more I think about it, the more I realize that this is literally one of the best books I have ever read, up there with Twain's best and The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy and Hamlet and Something Wicked This Way Comes. If you never read another book I recommend, read this one.
--
Well, that is all I have for now. Anybody who has read this far will probably get that chocolate- and gold-covered prize. There may be a part three to this post, though probably not for a while: I recently picked up Morris' The Well at the World's End, Dunsany's The Charwoman's Shadow, and Cabell's Figures of Earth; these need reading, along with many others.
A few final remarks:
I have been doing some research into whether certain works of fantastic fiction can be regarded as literature. I have come to no conclusion, yet, but one thing I have noticed: classics of fantastic literature, like the ones I've been talking about, have often been subversive, rebellious, populist, often flying in the face of what is accepted by literary critics. As such, perhaps it has doomed itself to this obscurity. However, all the authors I've listed--and I've barely scratched the surface--ought to be read. Not because they're great writers and their works are incredible (though this is true), but because they have insight into the way the world works and what it means to be human that no one else has. If you care at all about fantastic literature, you would be doing yourself a huge favor and presenting yourself with an enormous treat to read any and all of these books.
E.R. Eddison: The Worm Ouroboros
Between Dunsany, William Morris (whose The Well at the World's End I recently bought, and which might become Part 3 of this post), and Eddison, we apparently have the three strongest contemporary influences on Tolkien's trilogy. And with its grand quests and sub-quests, massive battles punctuated by thrilling single combat, and overarching aura of Dark Magic, it reminded me of nothing more than Return of the King. There were some, er, aesthetic oddities about the book. At the beginning , a man and his wife seemingly astral project to Mercury, where they are apparently watching the action take place. This framing device takes up, or is mentioned frequently for about the first 50 pages; it is mentioned once again at about page 150, and then disappears, never to be heard from again. The names, too--the chief rivals are Witchland and Demonland, and other locales include Impland, Pixyland, etc. The Mercury setting is immaterial--this is an alt-world fantasy, through and through. Also, the Witches and Demons, despite being described early on as having horns and forked tails, resemble nothing more than mortal men in Hallowe'en costumes.
However, all this is immaterial. The central points, the principal attractions of this book, are the story and the language.
The story contains all the best elements of Viking sagas--great battles, single combat, quests both to slay monsters and destroy enemies. There are some great sub-stories too, which I'd talk about save that it would give too much away. At the same time, we have a great deal of court politics and political intrigue, reminiscent of certain of Shakespeare's plays. Combined with these two strong elements is the third of, names aside, very strong world building. And the ending is one of the best I've ever read.
But the language is what truly sets this book apart. Whereas Tolkien and Dunsany used a simple, lyrical archaic style, Eddison goes whole hog with a 16th/17th century flowery archaism. It's fantastic; it's like Shakespeare wrote a fantasy novel. Opening at random, we get:
Surely to be in Morna Moruna was to be in the death chamber of some once lovely presence. Stains of fire were on the walls. The fair gallery of open wood-work that ran above the main hall was burnt through and partly fallen in ruin, the blackened ends of the beams that held it jutting blindly in the gap. Among the wreck of carved chairs and benches, broken and worm-eaten, some shreds of figured tapestries rotted, the home now of beetles and spiders. Patches of colour, faded lines, mildewed and damp with the corruptions of two hundred years, lingered to be the memorials, like the mummied skeleton of a king's daughter long ago untimely dead, of sweet gracious paintings on the walls. Five nights and five days the demons and Mivarsh dwelt in Morna Moruna, inured to portents till they marked them as little as men mark swallows at their window. In the still night were flames seen, and flying forms dim in the moonlit air; and in moonless nights unstarred, moans heard and gibbering accents: prodigies besode their beds, and ridings in the sky, and fleshless fingers plucking at Juss unseen when he wet forth to make question of the night.
The dialogue, too, is excellent. It's also in that high archaic style, but is somehow never overdone or melodramatic:
Now spake Spitfire saying, "Read forth to us, I pary thee, the book of Gro; for my soul is afire to set forth on this faring."
"Tis writ somewhat crabbedly, said Brandoch Daha, "and most dambably long. I spent half last night a-searching on't, and 'tis most apparent no other way lieth to these mountains save by the Moruna, and across the Moruna is (if Gro say true) but one way..."
Another excellent thing about this book is the women: Eddison writes some of the strongest female characters I've ever seen in epic fantasy. Sure, they're all (or mostly) conniving, and backstabbing, but then so are all (or most of) the men.
Linguistically, this is probably the most challenging book I'll recommend, but it's a great book--the payoff is worth the effort.
(It's been reprinted in the "Barnes and Noble Library of Essential Reading," so check B&N's fantasy section. Otherwise, I know it's been reprinted by at least two small publishers.)
James Branch Cabell: Jurgen
James Branch Cabell cut his literary teeth on authors like Horace, Montaigne, Marlowe, Moliere, and Wilde--in short, romantics long on symbolism and imagery. However, his own highly symbolic writing came in the late 1910's through the 30's--a period whose vogue involved writers like Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway--that is, realists. Cabell hated realism, and refused to write it. Though some of his peers--Sinclair Lewis and Mark Twain, for example--praised him, Cabell's work was never hugely popular with the critics or the reading public.
Ironically, it was an attempt at censorship that brought Cabell both his most lasting fame and his largest audience. In 1919 certain members of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice picked up on some of the double entendres in Jurgen (more on these in a bit), and it was put on trial for indecency (or some such). However, being that these were true double entendres--in that they all had perfectly legitimate, unscandalous meanings--the case was thrown out. However, this brought Jurgen into the public eye, and gained Cabell some measure of public exposure.
Enough of that. What of the book itself?
Well, the main character, a middle-aged pawnbroker named Jurgen, does a good turn for the Devil and, in gratitude, the Devil decides to do a good turn for him. Subsequently, Jurgen's wife (who seems to be rather a nag) disappears. Jurgen realizes he must set out in search for her. His journey takes him through various strange lands, including heaven, hell, and the place where the "real" master of the universe resides.
The first 50 pages (7 chapters) or so of this book contain some of the best, truest writing I've ever encountered. I spoke before of encountering in this old fantasy things which seem ultimately true, and Jurgen had several such instances for me. Near the beginning, Jurgen follows a Centaur to the "Garden between dawn and sunrise,"--he must follow a Centaur there, as the Centaur says, "Because... there is no other way. For this garden does not exist, and never did exist, in what men humorously call real life; so that of course only imaginary creatures such as I can enter it."
He is taken by the centaur to the garden:
"Why, but it is Count Emmerick's garden at Storisende," says Jurgen, "where I used to be having such fine times when I was a lad."
"I will wager," said Nessus, "that you did not use to walk alone in this garden."
"Well, no; there was a girl."
"Just so," assented Nessus. "It is a local by-law: and here are those who comply with it."
For now had come toward them, walking together in the dawn, a handsome boy and girl. And the girl was incredibly beautiful, because everybody in the garden saw her with the vision of the boy who was with her.
A bit later, we have this:
"For in this garden," said the Centaur, "each man that ever lived has sojourned for a little while, with no company save his illusions. I must tell you again that in this garden are encountered none but imaginary creatures. And stalwart persons take their hour of recreation here, and go hence unaccompanied, to become aldermen and respected merchants and bishops, and to be admired as captains upon prancing horses, or even as kings upon tall thrones; each in his station thinking not at all of the garden ever any more. Bit now and then come timid persons, Jurgen, who fear to leave this garden without an escort: so these must need go hence with one or another imaginary creature, to guide them about alleys and by-paths, becaise imaginary creatures find little nourishment in the public highways, and shun them..."
I could quote Jurgen all day, were it not for things like time and space complaints and the fact that some of my readers are unafraid of doing me harm.
One of my favorite sections was added to the second edition of the book, after the obscenity trials: Jurgen travels to the land of Philistia, and is put on trial for indecency by the Philistines. The judge, a dung-beetle, marches into the courtroom with three pages, bearing a staff, a sword, and a lance. The judge declares to Jurgen, "You are offensive... because this page has a sword which I choose to say is not a sword. You are lewd because that page has a lance which I prefer to think is not a lance. You are lascivious because yonder page has a staff which I elect to declare is not a staff." Yeah.
One reason I think Jurgen has fallen into obscurity is that its chief theme is love, specifically romantic love; but this from an entirely male perspective, to the extent that females might have problems relating to it. And I don't mean love in a moral sense, here. Jurgen has his own idea of morality that would make an interesting essay unto itself, but that is in no way the focus of the book. What is dealt with is the feelings, the urges, the desires, the messy stuff--love as it is, not as it should be.
Jurgen is one book I can't really recommend across the board. For one, I think a person should be 18 to read it: not because of any adult themes or double entendres (though those are there), but because I think you'd have to be at least 18 just to know what Cabell is talking about. I was 19 when I read it, and I'm not entirely convinced I was even ready. Secondly, you really do have to have a strong appreciation for symbolism to get anything out of this book. However, because of the double entendres present, it may make one regret having an aptitude for symbolism.
A review on Amazon, here, quotes a letter by one Deems Taylor, who says thus:
I have finished Jurgen; a great and beautiful book, and the saddest book I ever read. I don't know why, exactly. The book hurts me -- tears me to small pieces -- but somehow it sets me free. It says the word that I've been trying to pronounce for so long. It tells me everything I am, and have been, and may be, unsparingly...I don't know why I cry over it so much. It's too -- something-or-other -- to stand. I've been sitting here tonight, reading it aloud, with the tears streaming down my face...
This, a bit melodramatically, pretty well summarizes my personal reaction to Jurgen. It made me want to laugh, and to cry, often at the same time; and it gave me the sense that those two actions may not actually be that far apart.
Well. If after all that, Jurgen sounds at all attractive or interesting to you, I do highly recommend reading it. I have a fairly nice version published by Dover; a search on Amazon turns up editions by a few other publishers.
Something about Eve
Another Cabell, in a similar vein to Jurgen, though not as good. My choices here are between expounding at length or keeping it short, and considering my treatment of the last several books, I choose the latter. Read Jurgen first; if you find that at all enjoyable, read this.
Hope Mirrlees: Lud-in-the-Mist
I could swear I first heard of this book from Moorcock, but paging through W&WW I can find no trace of it. It must have been, then, Lin Carter's Imaginary Worlds, the only book I've been able to find whose purpose is similar to Moorcock's. (It's an excellent one for recommendations and author background, but absolute crap for criticism, mainly because Carter is, to put it bluntly, an ass. This despite the fact that he likes LotR.) At any rate, it makes sense that it wasn't in Moorcock--it's not really heroic or epic fantasy, despite being set in an imagined world.
It is set in the town of Lud, in the country of Dorimare. Lud, despite being a prosperous trade town, feels very much like an English hamlet, very much a small town; though its setting in an imagined kingdom mutes any specific English-ness and gives the setting a somewhat timeless feel. To the west of Lud lie the Debateable Hills, beyond which is, of course, the Land of Faerie.
However, the citizens of Lud have outlawed Faerie's existence, and forbidden the importation or existence of Faerie fruit. (It is referred to in the books of law as 'silk.') So when there is an epidemic of children apparently having consumed the fruit, the town's mayor, Nathaniel Chanticleer, must find out where it is coming from and stop it.
This is, apparently, another of Neil Gaiman's favorites. He describes it better than I can: "The book begins as a travelogue or a history, becomes a pastorale, a low comedy, a high comedy, a ghost story and a detective story. The writing is elegant, supple, effective and haunting: the author demands a great deal from her readers, which she repays many times over."
I spoke of encountering in Jurgen instances of apparent truth: in Lud-in-the-Mist, there were instances of this that were pages and pages long. This truth, as I've been using it, is a slippery and loosely defined concept; it may just be too many drugs on my part. I don't think so, though: it seems to me that people with great insight into how things truly are are drawn to fantasy, with its mystery and its symbolism: and it seems to me that they write books that are wonderful and soon forgotten.
Anyway, that was a digression, and it reminds me of something else: Hope Mirrlees has awesome digressions. An example, from the few pages devoted to describing Nathaniel Chanticleer:
Spiritually, too, he passed for a typical Dorimarite; though, indeed, it is never safe to classify the souls of one's neighbors; one is apt, in the long run, to be proved a fool. You should regard each meeting with a friend as a sitting he is unwittingly giving you for a portrait--a portrait that, probably, when you or he die, will still be unfinished. And, though this is an absorbing pursuit, nevertheless, the painters are apt to end pessimists. For however handsome and merry may be the face, however rich may be the background, in the first rough sketch of each portrait, yet with every added stroke of the brush, with every tiny readjustment of the "values," with every modification of the chiaroscuro, the eyes looking out at you grow more disquieting. And, finally, it is your own face that you are staring at in terror, as in a morror by candle-light, when all the house is still.
The more time passes since I read it, and the more I think about it, the more I realize that this is literally one of the best books I have ever read, up there with Twain's best and The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy and Hamlet and Something Wicked This Way Comes. If you never read another book I recommend, read this one.
--
Well, that is all I have for now. Anybody who has read this far will probably get that chocolate- and gold-covered prize. There may be a part three to this post, though probably not for a while: I recently picked up Morris' The Well at the World's End, Dunsany's The Charwoman's Shadow, and Cabell's Figures of Earth; these need reading, along with many others.
A few final remarks:
I have been doing some research into whether certain works of fantastic fiction can be regarded as literature. I have come to no conclusion, yet, but one thing I have noticed: classics of fantastic literature, like the ones I've been talking about, have often been subversive, rebellious, populist, often flying in the face of what is accepted by literary critics. As such, perhaps it has doomed itself to this obscurity. However, all the authors I've listed--and I've barely scratched the surface--ought to be read. Not because they're great writers and their works are incredible (though this is true), but because they have insight into the way the world works and what it means to be human that no one else has. If you care at all about fantastic literature, you would be doing yourself a huge favor and presenting yourself with an enormous treat to read any and all of these books.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Quick Reviews
I AM going to get back to the old fantasy, but I feel the urge to post some quick movie reviews. I'll make them quick, because opinions about movies are about a dime a dozen and usually worth even less.
Prince Caspian: Well. It was fun, I have to give it that. I hadn't read the book in too long to do a detailed comparison, but anyone going into this movie not already knowing it was a Christian allegory would be unlikely to pick up on it, Aslan aside. As a CS Lewis fan, I was disappointed. On the up side, the battles are cool, and almost all the actors, especially the kids, are excellent.
Iron Man: Not a whole lot to say about this movie. Highly entertaining fluff. Somewhat of a let-down having theatre-hopped from Indiana Jones. Good if you want to while away two hours.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: This movie was to the Indiana Jones series everything The Phantom Menace should have been to Star Wars and wasn't. An enormously fun movie, with enormously fun action scenes and dialogue. Great acting, from Harrison Ford, Shia Labeouf, Cate Blanchett (you can feel the evil coming off the screen when she appears), and most of the others. Oh, and the janitor from Scrubs is in it, which I found awesome. The henchman still can't shoot, and Indy's hat (a fedora, of course) still stays on. There are a couple plot points that remain unexplained. But of course, that's all part of the fun. I haven't seen a movie this fun since... Well, probably the last Indiana Jones. A couple points of interest: this movie is set in 1957, the bad guys being Russian. So the original movies were Cold War era movies with Indy fighting Nazis; this latest is a 9/11 era movie with Indy fighting Soviets. Second, it's set at the height of the Red Scare, and some of the things certain characters say are reminiscent of things heard after 9/11. Not politically, really, at least in a partisan sense, but more along the lines of, "You can't trust anybody, these days." This lends the movie both a sense of timeliness and one of timelessness: timeliness, in that this story can be applied to our climate today; but timelessness, in that this very fact makes you realize that the last generation felt this way, and probably the one before them and the one before them.
Well, I'll quit here and pretend that still counts as "short."
Prince Caspian: Well. It was fun, I have to give it that. I hadn't read the book in too long to do a detailed comparison, but anyone going into this movie not already knowing it was a Christian allegory would be unlikely to pick up on it, Aslan aside. As a CS Lewis fan, I was disappointed. On the up side, the battles are cool, and almost all the actors, especially the kids, are excellent.
Iron Man: Not a whole lot to say about this movie. Highly entertaining fluff. Somewhat of a let-down having theatre-hopped from Indiana Jones. Good if you want to while away two hours.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: This movie was to the Indiana Jones series everything The Phantom Menace should have been to Star Wars and wasn't. An enormously fun movie, with enormously fun action scenes and dialogue. Great acting, from Harrison Ford, Shia Labeouf, Cate Blanchett (you can feel the evil coming off the screen when she appears), and most of the others. Oh, and the janitor from Scrubs is in it, which I found awesome. The henchman still can't shoot, and Indy's hat (a fedora, of course) still stays on. There are a couple plot points that remain unexplained. But of course, that's all part of the fun. I haven't seen a movie this fun since... Well, probably the last Indiana Jones. A couple points of interest: this movie is set in 1957, the bad guys being Russian. So the original movies were Cold War era movies with Indy fighting Nazis; this latest is a 9/11 era movie with Indy fighting Soviets. Second, it's set at the height of the Red Scare, and some of the things certain characters say are reminiscent of things heard after 9/11. Not politically, really, at least in a partisan sense, but more along the lines of, "You can't trust anybody, these days." This lends the movie both a sense of timeliness and one of timelessness: timeliness, in that this story can be applied to our climate today; but timelessness, in that this very fact makes you realize that the last generation felt this way, and probably the one before them and the one before them.
Well, I'll quit here and pretend that still counts as "short."
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