Fangasm Central

Books Read 2011

2012-01-23T11:42:00.000-08:00

Sorry I've been posting even less than usual. I only have internet access at work these days! This list is everything I read in the year 2011, not including most short stories, graphic novels, or manga. I only included novels, collections, and anthologies I actually completed. It comes to 41 books, if I can be trusted to count. I didn't have any particular goal last year, but I think I'm going to up the ante just a bit for 2012 and aim to read 50 books. I've already read three or four so far, so I'm pretty sure it's possible even with my schedule.

John Wyndham's Day of the Triffids

James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Colin Tudge's The Day Before Yesterday

James Joyce's Dubliners

George R.R. Martin's A Clash of Kings

Primo Levi's Survival in Auschwitz (read it twice, actually)

E.M. Forster's Maurice

Robert J. Sawyer's Hominids

James Joyce's Ulysses

Mikhail Bulgakov's Master and Margarita

Art Speigelman's Maus 1 & 2

Samuel R. Delany's Einstein Intersection

George R.R. Martin's Storm of Swords

Alfred Bester's The Stars my Destination

Angela Carter's Shadow Dance

Haruki Murakami's Wild Sheep Chase

China Mieville's Embassytown

William Gibson's Neuromancer

Christopher Barzak's One for Sorrow

Jeff Vandermeer's Veniss Underground

Ian Bank's The Wasp Factory

George R.R. Martin's A Feast for Crows

Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone

Ursula K. Le Guin's Cheek by Jowl

Mervyn Peake's Titus Groan

Michael Moorcock's The Final Programme

George R.R. Martin's Dance with Dragons

Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast

Gene Wolfe's Claw of the Conciliator

Lord Dunsany's The Charwoman's Shadow

Primo Levi's The Drowned and the Saved

Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl

Elie Wiesel's Night, Dawn, & The Accident/Day

Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Paolo Bacigalupi's Pump 6 and Other Stories

China Mieville's Iron Council

Binjamin Wilkomirski's Fragments

Zoran Zivkovik's The Last Book

Michael Moorcock's Fortress of the Pearl

Nothing new, really, but...

2011-12-06T10:08:00.000-08:00

I haven't started any substantial work on "Splash Page", but I think I know where I want to go with it. I'll get my final exam paper out of the way and be in the clear for the rest of the month to do what I want. I wont have school-related responsibilities to deal with for an entire month. It's such a novel feeling!

I've been feeling the urge to sketch and paint, but I think it's just me trying to distract myself from working on a story. I'm very good at finding such distractions. It's been fun to experiment with a new creative media and all, but I know I'll never be anything but an amused amateur smearing charcoal all over my desk.

I'm developing a taste for classical music and poetry. Is this a sign of greater maturity, or am I just getting old? Ovid and Ezra Pound are rocking my world right now, and I've been on the hunt for a cheap (but complete) edition of T.S. Eliot's poetry. Now that I want one my bookstore is out of stock. Grr. I've learned that Aaron Copeland's music doesn't do it for me, but Bruckner is pretty freaking fantastic. And Chopin, combined with the recent rainy weather, makes me want to snuggle on my couch with a cat, a cup of hot chocolate, and a book for the rest of my life. I may be turning into a snob in addition to being a recluse. I will never be seen in public again.

December is the month of madness. I don't know why we do this to ourselves. I'm going to go home, make brownies for the family dinner party tonight, and read until I go to bed. Tomorrow I'll spend getting my Christmas crafting in order, and the next few weeks (once I'm finished with that paper) I'll spend making one project after another, including - hopefully- "Splash Page".

No Excuses.

2011-11-30T13:12:00.001-08:00

I've just been slacking off. Well, I was also legitimately sick for a little while, but otherwise I've been slacking off. "Wild" is still in desperate need of revision but the more I look at it the more frustrated I become. I do already have a few ideas for the next story on my list though, so I guess I haven't been totally wasting the last month.

What I have been spending my time on is coming up with ideas for DIY Christmas gifts. I made the mistake of joining Pinterest and I've been totally sucked into the vortex of homemade handicrafts. This is probably going to take up a good deal of my spare time this December, but I'm going to make a point to find some time to write. Working title of the next story? "Splash Page". I'm all about comic book references, after all.

I'll also try not to let so much time pass by between posts here. I want to have something new up every two weeks at least. Between the holidays, finals week, my upcoming legal issues, and getting to work on "Splash Page", I'm looking at a very busy month. Here's to January, when everything slows down!

November already?

2011-11-09T13:02:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I've already broken all the promises I made a few posts ago. "In a Land Still Wild" is finished but I haven't done any significant revisions yet, and I haven't touched Fairway. I should have the revised portions of "Wild" by next week though, so keep an eye out for that. Of course, this means I'm already behind schedule for this month's short story. Eh, oh well.

Have you ever tried to write while intoxicated with cold medicine? Everything is so WEIRD.

Oh, speaking of weird, the Vandermeers have a new anthology out of Weird fiction. It looks awesome, as always, but of course it won't be released in the States until next year. Boo.

I'm wanting to go on a massive rave about Steampunk and genre fiction, but I'm still way too out of it. I may scribble a bit tonight and post next week when I put up the revised portions of "Wild". Right now, however, I'm going to go home, read my class assignment, bake Autumn cup squash for dinner, and revise, revise, revise. There may be more cold medicine in my future as well.

Experiment in Revision

2011-10-11T14:16:00.000-07:00

This post is going to be an experiment, and any reader who haplessly wanders on to this blog in the near future will be my guinea pig. Muahaha! Now you are mine!

I'm going to post fragments of the story I'm currently working on, and when I finish writing and revising the story I will re-post the edited fragments in another blog post. This way I can see in print (and not on my MS Word document) how much I've changed and how far I've come with the story. Why don't I just use Word's built in features, such as 'Track Changes'? Because I hate these special features, that's why. As much as I love looking over my handwritten notes done in four different inks on crumpled paper, there's something about seeing every little alteration highlighted, boxed, and colored in that frankly freaks me out. It's a little overwhelming for me, so I'm doing this instead.

How did I select what passages to post? It's partly random and partly decided by what I feel may have to change. There are a few passages posted because I want to challenge myself to revise something I initially like. There are a few passages posted because I know I really, really, really need to find a better way.

The children have been playing in the woods again.

I can smell the fragrance of pine needles on Katie’s jacket, and Jon has a stash of smoothed river stones in his closet beside his rain boots. I’ve found autumn wildflowers in the fridge twice this week. I may have to teach one or both of them how to press flowers and leaves, or I’ll have a bouquet of the mountain’s finest next to the eggs.

And to think Eugene and I were concerned that the kids wouldn’t like it here. Katie more so than Jon; he’s too young to really remember traffic-jammed city streets and overcrowded classrooms, and anyway he likes being Daddy’s little Indian. Before this summer his favorite weekends were those he spent playing with his cousins on the Reservation, gathering shells and pebbles and an assortment of gross slimy things so easy to come by on a lakeshore. Here he loves the colors of the changing trees and the sound of the slow river tumbling over rocks. He’s probably the culprit behind the flowers in the fridge. Katie, though, is a city girl like me and was something of a socialite in her fourth grade class. By the end of the last school year her grades began to slip and words like “disruptive” and “unfocused” appeared on her report cards. She begged for a cell phone and a computer and her own bedroom, far away from her little brother, and wouldn’t have picked up a frond of algae if her life depended on it.

I think they may have found a dog out there.

I noticed a package of corned beef went missing out of the fridge this afternoon, and I found the empty wrapper on the ground behind the tent. I only buy it for Eugene; Katie hates corned beef, and Jon almost never eats foods his sister disapproves of.

I also saw Katie cut another length of twine from the ball she used to string up the tent. She tied one end into a loop and walked into the shade, beyond my line of sight.

If they have found a dog, it’s likely they’re hiding it. I told them when we moved in we weren’t getting a dog, not yet, not until Jon is older. They may be trying to keep it from me so I won’t say they can’t keep it.

I wonder what kind of dog it could be, that it could have survived out here among the bears and the mountain lions and the frost-fanged mountain winters? Maybe it’s a stray, an Indian mongrel wandered up from the Res?

To be honest I’m kind of regretting not having a dog around here. I think I’d feel better, knowing there was an extra set of protective eyes to watch the kids. And this house is really meant for a dog, these woods are meant for long roving walks under the trees and for chasing summer-fat squirrels. Maybe I’ll say something to Eugene when he gets home tonight. A pet wouldn’t be so bad, and the children would love it.

“My apologies, ma’am. The roads are a bit sharp and the light’s a bit dim, and my eyes aren’t what they use to be. My name’s Wallace,” he took his hand off his gun, satisfied that the madwoman wasn’t violent. “You’re Eugene Whitefeather’s wife, I take it?”

I nodded and fidgeted with the metal flashlight. On, off, on, off.

“Is he inside, ma’am?”

I nodded again.

He walked past me and I felt my rage focus and sharpen, targeting this old, useless man dressed in a uniform he should have left long ago.

Where was he going? What did he think he was doing? Don’t talk to my husband, raise the hounds, find my daughter!

“I didn’t want to go back out there but Katie made me. I told her you’d be mad, but she wanted to make sure he was still tied. He was ugly and he didn’t have fur, but she wanted him, even though he was mean.”

He started crying again and pushed his face against my chest, soaking my shirt with tears and snot and the grief that is also a kind of fear. I clutched him tighter and bared my teeth at the darkness around us.

It took him a few minutes to calm down again. He shook and choked and sputtered and I held him close to me while he cried, trying to take his fear away.

“He chewed through the leash. Katie got to him first, before she saw he’d eaten the rope, and he got up and bit her. He let go, though, because she was hitting him and he couldn’t stand on two good paws and keep biting her. They fell, and Katie got up first and grabbed me. She dragged me back toward the house, and we could see him trying to follow us. Katie pushed me up a tree and kept running.”

Jon pushed away and looked up at my face. His eyes were wide and owlish and tired and bloodshot like no child’s eyes should be. “She’s faster than me,” he continued. “She was going to lead him away and come back for me. He stopped at the bottom of the tree and looked at me with his big red eyes. Just like the Big Bad Wolf. He just looked at me. Then he kept going, following her. I wouldn’t have come out of the tree, but I could hear you.”

Eugene and Dennis were in the trees somewhere behind me calling my name. I wanted to call out for Katie but I didn’t dare raise my voice. Eugene and Dennis might not have been the only things hunting in the woods, and it would have been terrible enough if one of them had caught up with me. For the moment, silence was safety.

Trees come alive in the dark in a way they never do in sunlight. Roots arched out of the ground as the oaks and birches sought to mingle and migrate, to trade places in rhythm to a moonlight score only they could hear. Branches swept low, contributing to the darkness of the multitude of shadows that lay moon-soaked and drunken on the earth.

More than once I saw, or thought I saw, a moving shadow flitting between the clumps of dry brush alongside my path. The closer I came to the river the less frequently I saw it, until my feet splashed into the cold, slow snow-melt in the riverbed and the shadow was gone.

The water soaked into my shoes and socks and chilled me from the toes up. Icy prickles dug into my skin as I splashed through the shallow water to the far shore.

Had there always been so many pine trees on this side of the river? The pines enveloped me, hid me from the overcast sky and my husband’s searching light beam. They welcomed me into the evergreen scent of bitter cold winters and warm, well-tended hearths. A thick blanket of long dead needles softened my footfalls until I could no longer hear them, except for the faint squelch of cold water seeping from my soles. Here and there among the pines a bleached birch tree gleamed like old bone, but otherwise there was no color, no break in the wall of dark green that surrounded me.

--------

I apologize if there's anything funny with the formatting. Word doesn't like to cooperate with Blogger sometimes. There, four short fragments of a short story. That there are a few flaws should be obvious, and these flaws are why I'm doing this in the first place. Maybe I should put the entire thing up. I may yet, but I'll wait until I've finished the body of the story before I do.

New Look

2011-10-11T13:34:00.000-07:00

Is this easier on the eyes than the last design? I'll never be a pro at webdesign, but I'm trying to make this blog look at least somewhat decent. I like this new format, but we'll see how it ages. I was really starting to hate the last design there at the end. I'm a fan of the color green, but I may have gone a bit overboard...

My goal is to one day make this blog look like a newspaper. You know, those flimsy, cream-colored things your mother used to buy out of a box in front of a grocery store? I know there aren't many around these days and those that are tend to be used to line the puppy's crate. I've always liked the clean lines and straight-forward, in-your-face professionalism the best newspapers had. A box for everything and everything in its box, knowhatah meen?

I just checked my stats for the first time ever, and I want to share my amazement that there actually seems to be a few people wandering on to this blog every once in a great while. Hello, strangers! Drop a comment somewhere and keep a lonely geek and writer company for a little while! I'm going to make more of an effort to keep this blog updated and interesting, and I'd love feedback as to whether I'm going a good job or not.

Also, maybe I should go back and edit some of the more retarded things I've said on here... there are plenty to chose from.

I have to blame Jeff Vandermeer for this decision (gawd, his blog is always full of the weirdest, most delightful shit), so if you need to blame someone for my continuing desire to post my blatherings on the interwebs take it to him. I've been sampling his book on living as a professional writer and he's lit a fire under my ass.

Booklife has given me a few ideas of what I can do to get my writing life together, starting with actually making room for myself to write. After all, that is numero uno in how one becomes a writer, yes? I'm starting with a few simple goals to motivate myself.

First, I will write one short story every month.
My goal is to reach between 750 and 1000 words per sitting, and this number will go up as I gain speed and endurance. I'm already pushing the upper limit of this goal most times I sit down to write, and twice last week I stayed strong through over 1500 words in a sitting. I'm going to try for another mega-session tonight.
I will write at least three times a week, possibly more once I get a better grasp on what my schedule will need to become for me to meet my goals.
Any and all editing will not be considered as a writing session. Maybe later, when I'm more comfortable with my level of productivity, but at this initial stage I'm worried that I'll use "oh, but I did some editing" as an excuse not to sit down and write. I'm old enough to know the way my brain works.
I'll work on something Fairway related at least once a week. I'm more concerned at this point with writing short stories, but I'm not going to let this novel sit on the back burner forever. I want to go somewhere with these characters, even if I'm not entirely sure where.

Fairway is still so much a work-in-progress that I'm sort of embarrassed to bring it up, but I haven't given up on it completely, oh no. I've been indulging in my bad habit of deleting things after I write them because they don't make me happy. Starting today I will not continue this habit, and may I do penance for a thousand years if I ever hit "delete" again. No more deletion, only revision. This I swear.

I'm almost finished with a horror story that I started fiddling with at the end of last month. I think with one more significant push I can end the story and get on with revising a few things I can already see have gone wrong. This is the first real effort I've put into fiction writing in some time, and I'm so excited and relieved that I'm relearning how to tap into this energy. I'm already looking forward to putting together the pieces for next month's story.

Between Vandermeer's guidance and Damon Knight's advice, I just might find my motivation to do what I've been talking about doing for years.

J-pop, J-pop, and more J-pop

2011-09-21T13:04:00.000-07:00

I got on the computer to deal with school stuff, look for present ideas, and hunt down information about various artists. What did I do all day instead?

Do you know how many An Cafe, Gackt, and Dir en Grey music videos one person can watch in an afternoon? My ears are ringing.

Better posts coming soon, I swear! What little free time I've had lately I've spent either writing or reading. I may post a fragment of what I've been working on (a segment from Fairway that may become its own thing. We'll see) or I may put up something completely unrelated.

To be honest, though, all I want to do is read some yaoi and listen to An Cafe's "Maple Gunman".

Am I Still Here?

2011-09-14T15:08:00.001-07:00

I'm trying to revive my interest in actually keeping this blog going. Not that I want to ditch it, I just don't have tons of time to put something together to post. But I'm not giving up! (I am, however going to avoid J-pop music videos for a little while. I think my brain is adapting too quickly to translation-language. "We can do this together!" I don't want to sound like a walking subtitle).

I may have spoken to a few of you about what I'm planning for my geek-tastic tattoos. Granted, I'm broke as sin at the moment, but if I ever obtain money again I'm walking down to the neighborhood parlor and slapping these ideas down on the artist's table.

Right leg- I'm taking the sakura design from Yoshitaka Amano's cover art for the first issue of The Sandman: Dream Hunters. The branches will begin on the top of my foot and reach around my ankle, going higher across my calf. I'll have my black fox climb these branches, looking over his shoulder at the viewer. Again, artwork will be derived from Amano's work in Sandman. I just have to put together a composite of the images I want and presto.

Back/shoulder- Mostly shoulder, for the moment. This time the artist I'm looking at is Charles Vess (another Sandman artist, actually...) for the most part. I want chrysanthemum blossoms to curl over my left shoulder blade and over my right shoulder, ending just above my right collarbone. I'm taking the blossoms from traditional Asian tattoo styles, not Vess. Vess' work will supply the design for Hal Duncan's Jack and Puck, who'll get to chase each other across my back for the rest of my life. I know I can find a faun in Vess' repertoire to base Puck off of, but I'm expecting Jack to be a bit more difficult. I'm also leaving the bottom edge of the tattoo alone for hte time being, because there's no telling what I may want to add to it in the future. Payul and Leland?

Left arm?- Chain of narcissus blooms. "Nuff said.

Yeah, I'm still working on the final designs. Hopefully I'll be able to get to work on these before too much longer. Being poor sucks.

Currently reading: Peake's Gormenghast and various stories from Peter Straub's American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny From the 1940s Until Now. Loving both, especially Gormenghast even though it's taking me forever to read it. I still have half the mini-series to watch when I get the chance.

Intertexuality and Star Trek: DS9

2011-08-24T13:38:00.000-07:00

Intertexuality in Star Trek: Deep Space 9

Star Trek as a franchise belongs to the tradition of those frequently derided, brightly-painted monthly science fiction magazines and their descendants, weekly space opera television shows like Buck Rodgers and Flash Gordon. The writers of Star Trek: Deep Space 9, more so than any other Star Trek series, were aware of the pressures of genre and canon on the show and the need to play to the audience to build and sustain success. This was especially true after the writers brought on board characters from earlier series who required careful attention in characterization for the sake of the fans, such as the beloved Lieutenant Worf from The Next Generation, but from the start DS9 catered to its audience of Trekkies, Trekkers, and people who just like sci-fi by providing viewers with “a completely furnished world so that its fans can quote characters and episodes as if they were aspects of the fan’s private sectarian world” (Eco, “Casablanca” 199). From the first episode, “The Emissary”, Deep Space 9 displays a close knowledge of Star Trek history and careful attention to detail that gives each major character a role in the recent history of this future. However, no DS9 episode reaches so far into Star Trek and science fiction history as does “Far Beyond the Stars”, which manages to intertextualize science fictional history from the boom of genre magazines in the postwar period onward to the creation of Star Trek itself while still managing to pay homage to ‘traditional’ science fictional tropes such as time travel in the midst of a metanarrative about science fiction.

“Far Beyond the Stars” features the usual cast members of Deep Space 9, albeit in new guises, “to remind the reader that mediation/representation [as] the name of the game [is], in itself, nothing new” (Delany 223). In this case it is the viewer rather than the reader who comes to realize that who and what is present on the screen is infinitely transmutable into new forms and interpretations and that Star Trek is by its science fictional nature open to altering characters and changing actors in order to have them represent whatever it is the story needs. DS9 in particular is exemplary for reusing actors in a multitude of roles. Actor Jeffrey Combs plays a major villain in the series, but reappears under heavy makeup as a number of other characters not only in DS9 but in other areas of the Star Trek franchise such as The Next Generation and Enterprise. He shows up in “Far Beyond the Stars” playing ‘himself’ as Weyoun in addition to portraying a violent, racist police officer who brutalizes Avery Brooks’ Benny Russell. Other actors double their roles in the episode as well, playing both characters fans recognize from the show and new ones created just for the episode’s story. Doubling the actors’ performances like this brings the viewer’s attention sharply into focus on the narrative and highlights not only the natural intertextuality of the episode’s toying with established Star Trek canon, but also jars the viewer into recognizing that what the viewer is seeing is, after all, a televised science fiction show. Samuel R. Delany calls this textual mediation, and claims that “textuality is mediation per se. To experience textuality for moments as invisible is to confirm mediation’s strength—not to deny it” (221). However, the audience never escapes the text, even when as a reader or viewer the text seems most obvious in its rhetoric of self-referencing, nor are they meant to in works like “Far Beyond the Stars”. The self-references are part of the story and an integral element in building the narrative around the idea of the episode being Star Trek as Star Trek and science fiction as science fiction. The audience at some point will begin to recognize the textual building blocks of the episode, regardless of how many viewings it takes, and at that point the episode transforms from a simplistic space adventure to a more complicated story about space adventures and the people who create them.

To experience textuality as visible likewise confirms the strength of textual mediation by giving the audience a significant amount of room to interpret the episode. According to Umberto Eco, audience members can be divided up into two categories- the first level of readers or viewers simply enjoy the episode as it is written and the second level of audience members who get the jokes and bring into their viewing a background which allows them to put the show in context. Eco does not push the idea that either level is necessarily a ‘superior’ method in which to read a text or watch a movie, though he does explain that “the first-level model reader wants to know what happens, while the second-level model reader wants to know how what happens has been narrated” (Eco, “Intertextual Irony” 223). To become a second-level reader one must have been a first-level reader, perhaps for a long time in order to accumulate the sort of knowledgeable background a text may need for a second-level reading. “Far Beyond the Stars” is no exception. It is perfectly possible to watch the episode as merely a progression of plot- aliens make Captain Benjamin Sisko hallucinate he is an African American science fiction writer in post-WWII New York, and in addition to deciding which reality he belongs to he must come to grips with his responsibilities in the ‘real’ world as a space station captain. Taken this way, the plot is rather campy but still an enjoyable watch, even if the viewer fails to recognize Sisko’s fellow writers as being stand-ins for genre greats like Issac Asimov and Leigh Brackett, not to mention that the characters are played by other members of DS9’s main cast, adding another layer of complication and self-awareness for the alert viewer. Eco’s second-level viewer, however, would bring to the table a working knowledge of the early magazine history of science fiction as well as familiarity with Star Trek canon, especially that of the series in question. In theory, this viewer would notice and understand the show’s many references to the shoddy pay and disrespect given to early magazine writers, and perhaps make the jump to thinking about how genre fiction and those who create it are treated now, especially by more mainstream readers and critics. This reader would perhaps recognize the allusions to Bradbury, Sturgeon, and Heinlein and probably the namedropping of W.B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, and Richard Wright as well. Perhaps some viewers would even have had direct contact with the works of some of these authors and could delve deeper into the literary heritage this episode has to rifle through so quickly. Though these references have little to do with the main storyline of Sisko’s struggle and are not strictly necessary to a viewer’s first-level interaction with the episode, those viewers who do carry with them this body of knowledge will have a very different experience than those who come to the text empty-handed, looking for straight-forward entertainment that involves green alien women, disruptor blasts and warp-core breaches.

In addition to classifying and defining readers, in discussing the fragmentation that often creates cult hits such as Star Trek Eco defines his own breed of modernized intertextual archetypes which some contemporary writers make use of in order “to indicate a preestablished and frequently reappearing narrative situation, cited or in some ways recycled by innumerable other texts” which “can belong to a rather recent textual tradition” (Eco, “Casablanca” 200). Star Trek is a model example of this complex incorporation of a multitude of literary work, including itself. Star Trek: The Original Series calls on famous works ranging from Hamlet to The Bible in order to legitimize its place in storytelling and literature, and every subsequent series has followed suit. The Next Generation turns to Melville’s Moby Dick to explain Jean-Luc Picard’s obsession with the Borg, and DS9 repeatedly calls on poetry from both World Wars to make a case for universal peace. Meanwhile, Captain Benjamin Sisko can no more escape the shadow of one James T. Kirk than Sisko’s analogue Benny Russell can hope to buck the racial and artistic codes of his day. Both characters played by Avery Brooks invoke a particular ‘new’ archetype here. Sisko retains echoes of those Star Trek captains who have gone before him in the canon, namely Kirk and Picard, and hybridizes Kirk’s swaggering captaincy with Picard’s intellectual leadership into his own blend of rough-and-tumble adventurism and thoughtful humanism. Benny Russell epitomizes the ostracized Sensitive Artiste who suffers grandly for his creative vision in a conservative society that is simply not ready for his groundbreaking masterpiece about race relations in a utopian future. Both characters are meant to “[provoke] in the addressee a sort of intense emotion accompanied by the vague feeling of déjà vu” that hopefully keeps the audience coming back for more adventures of Sisko and his crew (Eco, “Casablanca” 200). In Sisko, audience members are supposed to see both the captain they would want to have and the captain they would want to be, while Benny seems to more closely represent the audience members as they are. He’s the quiet nerdy type who likes stories about extraterrestrials and ray guns, and is trying to make a living through writing science fiction. His character is clearly aimed at garnering sympathy from the literate audience member who is presumably well read in science fiction and perhaps interested in producing more of the fiction he or she finds so intriguing. Any of these representations are also generalizations, all of which play off of stock characters, situations, and concepts that can be found in the best and the worst of not just genre fiction but literary works of all stripes. These intertextual archetypes are not meant to be mythic in scale, but are merely intended to characterize a person or situation the audience will recognize and respond to, presumably due to earlier encounters with similar representations in other works. Every audience member who meets DS9’s Captain Sisko will remember his notorious predecessor due to his ubiquitous presence in contemporary pop culture. Watching Star Trek: The Original Series is not a prerequisite to understanding Sisko as a Star Trek captain when Kirk is so well situated in his own archetypical role as The Captain.

Eco’s idea of intertextual archetypes ties in to his concept of the intertextual frame, which differs from what he calls ‘common frames’ by representing scenes and situations drawn from literary traditions rather than real-life experiences. Naturally, Sisko’s alien-induced hallucination falls more into the science fictional tradition than into what most people would consider reality or realistic fiction. However, it’s not such a strange idea for audience members who are familiar with such science fictional concepts as aliens, time travel, and the role-playing of historical and fictional characters. That isn’t to say that DS9 viewers, even those most thoroughly seeped in Star Trek lore and science fiction history, believe what they are seeing is true or based in some kind of reality outside the text and those texts preceding it. Rather, the episode is tailor made to invoke those earlier literary works, either indirectly by having Sisko ‘time-travel’ to postwar New York or through characters on screen directly referring to H.G. Wells and his science fiction involving time travel. Not only do these invocations amuse and interest viewers who can relate them to their experiences with these earlier texts, but by referencing science fiction’s traditional works the episode actually explains its own plot. The episode’s straight-forward evocation of H.G. Wells is a perfect example of such a draw on literary canon. Even non-readers of science fiction have been exposed to Wells’ socially far-reaching work, either by children’s storybook editions of his more famous tales or through any of the multiple movie adaptations, including several remakes in recent years. Many viewers of DS9, even those who aren’t habitual watchers of science fiction, probably know The War of the Worlds and, here more importantly, The Time Machine. Wells provides the framework to understand one of the trickier parts of the episode’s narrative, that of scientifically improbable time travel, simply by being the H.G. Wells who provided so much literary material for later modern science fiction to build upon. The point viewers are to take home after the episode isn’t that time travel is impossible, it’s that within the tradition of Star Trek and science fiction at large there exists a narrative language that seeks to accomplish and explain the impossible within the texts themselves.

Star Trek comes from a rich background of literary history encompassing a huge range of legitimate speculation and fanciful misapplication of science and reason, and the show itself has used this background to inform its own growth, sometimes even turning to feeding on itself when its storylines demanded it. This maze of self-references and cross-references to other texts have kept fans busy since the show first aired over a quarter of a century ago, and every subsequent series, movie, book or comic adds yet another twist to the labyrinth. Fans have kept the show alive to this day because of their love of Star Trek’s free use of trivia and information. Alternate histories, alternate futures, alternate universes, and holodeck illusions merge with legitimate scientific inquiry and exploration to entertain and inform multi-generational audiences. Episodes such as “Far Beyond the Stars” up the ante on the monster-of-the-week episodes that characterized The Original Series and strive for a more inclusive view not just of overreaching storyline but of the genre as a whole by incorporating the literary traditions that gave rise to the show in the first place. There is no question that Star Trek owes a great deal to the Golden Age science fiction magazines and the writers and editors who built the genre from the basic building blocks of rationalism, modernism, and romanticism, and there’s no doubt that Star Trek has in turn influenced later works of science fiction, not least of all itself. The writers of DS9 would have written a very different show if H.G. Wells, Theodore Sturgeon, and Ray Bradbury had never written science fiction and if Gene Roddenberry had never dreamed of making the world a better place through space exploration. If the goal is to seek out new life, Star Trek has succeeded by giving new life to old and new literary forms alike.

Works Cited

Delany, Samuel R. “Sex, Race, and Science Fiction: The Callaloo Interview.” Silent Interviews: On Language, Race, Sex, Science Fiction, and Some Comics. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1994: 216-229.

Eco, Umberto. “Casablanca: Cult Movies and Intertextual Collage.” Travels in Hyperreality. Trans. William Weaver. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986: 197-211.

---. “Intertextual Irony and Levels of Reading.” On Literature. Trans. Martin McLaughlin. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 2004: 212-235.

“Far Beyond the Stars.” Star Trek: Deep Space 9.Writ. Ira Stephen Behr and Hans Beimler. Dir. Avery Brooks. Paramount, 1998. DVD.

J-Pop: An Cafe

2011-08-24T13:31:00.000-07:00

Will my sporadic presence online recommence? We'll see.

These guys are totally rocking my world right now. Especially this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaekLMnv9lM&feature=related
I would karaoke this all day long.

Tracy Letts and Intellectualism in the Southern Family

2010-04-09T06:50:00.001-07:00

In August: Osage County, Tracy Letts examines the role of intellectualism in the home of an educated Southern family. The Westons and their descendants represent an element of Southern society usually ignored in American culture. Instead of 'typical' white trailer-trash usually associated with the poverty-stricken state of Oklahoma, the Weston family is mostly comprised of intelligent, educated men and women with moderate success in their careers, if not in personal relationships. In fact, professional and academic recognition seem to come to the Weston family at the cost of personal happiness and the ability to relate in an efficient manner with other human beings. However, even failure to find this kind of success is no guarantee that a Weston descendant can achieve contentment, mostly due to familial and cultural pressures which keep the Weston scions perpetually attached to the physical location of their childhood home and the psychological traumas associated with it. Geography toys with the family members, leaving them to cling to one another in the Southern landscape usually depicted as unfriendly toward academic 'impracticality' and 'elitism'. However, this reliance upon family seems to breed resentment between family members, and education becomes less a tool of self-improvement and more of a weapon for venting social and familial anxieties. Education, and even the lack thereof, also becomes a shield, not only from attacks but from taking responsibility seriously.

The Southern intellectual, especially in states such as Oklahoma, is often portrayed as something of a rare breed. American culture at large seems to assume that there is no such animal, or that the creature is a rare enough aberration that its Southern roots can safely be ignored. The South is not generally known as a hotbed of intellectualism, and those people with interest in scholarship and learning are often isolated in their community. The Westons formed their own conclave of educated individuals, though this act of circling the wagons did little more than isolate the Weston family from the larger community. This larger community is less a fixed geographical point to be marked on a map, and more an idea composed of rather uncertain, metaphorical boundaries which almost seem to shift with the characters as they move (Jackson 5). No matter where they go, Oklahoma stretches out to follow them and remind them of their roots as educated people in a world where higher education is not the ticket to success. The house shared by Beverly and Violet Weston embodies the isolation and slow decay of the Southern intellectual- Letts describes the house as "a century old", with "additions, renovations and repairs [which] have essentially modernized the house until 1972 or so, when all structural care ceased" and the house entered into a state of decline (Letts 9). Though occupied by two human beings, the house has been shuttered and left to rot in the heat of the Oklahoma sun. The intellectual capacity of the house's inhabitants is no match for their sense of abandonment in a region devoid of intellectual drive. Characters such as Ivy and Barbara try to find ways to leave the Oklahoma plains for better prospects elsewhere, but the family home acts as a magnet which draws them back time and again for more punishment. Ivy in particular shows an interest in escaping her life on the Plains and fixates on the city most famous for being a place to escape and find new meaning- New York, a city as known for being as metropolitan and diverse and intellectual as Osage County isn't. Ivy feels entrapped by the limitations of her hometown, and by the close-knit nature of her Southern community. Entrapment is a common theme in Southern literature, and is usually seen either in captivity narratives or in depictions of doomed marriages written by Southern women (Busby 99). However, Letts examines captivity in a geographical sense, essentially locking his characters into place and tying them down to a single location from which they can't escape, no matter how much physical space they attempt to put between themselves and the county they grew up in.

Education doesn't act only as a community barrier in August: Osage County. It also behaves as a weapon for various characters, most notably in Bev Weston and in Barbara and Bill Fordham. Bev utilizes his intellect as a defensive measure against his responsibilities as a husband and father. He plays the part of the wounded poet to avoid dealing with his wife's addiction to pills and the emotional failings of his children. Bev also relies on his status as the misunderstood and maligned artist to excuse his own alcoholism and emotional unavailability. His methods of escape are easy enough to trace as they develop. In the early stages of his marriage to Violet, he found release in books and in writing his poetry. Once he tasted critical acclaim for his academic work, it is likely that he lost some of the feeling of independence his writing may have inspired and turned to drinking as a new source of protecting himself from the daily demands of living which "have over time made burdensome the maintenance of traditional American routine" (Letts 11). When alcoholism no longer blocked out the discomfort of living in a dark, empty house with an unstable wife and the memory of three unhappy daughters, suicide became Bev's final answer. In his case, what started out as a shield of academic success turned into a double-edged knife of isolation and alcoholism, made worse by Bev's genuine intelligence and his difficulty in reconciling his intellect with what he considered to be a mundane world of paying bills and driving the wife to chemotherapy. Meanwhile, Bev's daughter Barbara and her soon-to-be ex-husband Bill put their education to a slightly different task. Instead of leaning on their education to further themselves, Barbara and Bill use their intellects as weapons against one another. Both are highly intelligent people with potentially fulfilling careers, but neither can navigate their relationship without turning a disagreement into an intellectual competition. On one occasion, Barbara accuses Bill of abandoning their daughter, to which he responds "I have not forsook my responsibilities" (Letts 76). She jumps on his use of the word "forsook" and turns the subject of the argument from their daughter's happiness to the lesser issue of her husband's word choice, all for some vague hope of upstaging him on an intellectual issue. Her concern with her husband's intelligence, and more importantly her worry over his perception of her own, reappears in a later scene in which Barbara is speaking to Sherriff Gilbeau. She mentions that Gilbeau's occupation is ironic, given his family history She corrects herself a moment later, stating "it's incongruous. I think I misused "ironic." Oh, if my husband could hear that", showing that even when Bill isn't in the same room she can't escape the need to defend her intellectual capacity while attacking his in a twisted form of self-defense (Letts 125).

Education and the thirst for knowledge affect the lives of the entire Weston family. Little Charles Fordham illustrates the family attitude toward learning in an interesting manner. He is the only 'failure' in the family with relation to his drive to learn and showcase his knowledge. He is the family black sheep for lacking interest in Bev's constructed community for intellectuals and preferring his non-scholarly puttering to any pursuit of higher learning. In the larger Oklahoma community, this would hardly be abnormal and may even be perceived as a more practical endeavor than Bev Weston's poetry, but within the Weston family Little Charles is a failure. His mother lashes out at him verbally on several occasions, making no secret of her disappointment in him. Ivy and his father attempt to protect him, but Little Charles often seems content to be run over by the hostility the other family members hold for him for not fitting into the Weston model of the capable intellectual. He seems to feel that he deserves their derision and makes no attempt to prove to anyone but Ivy that he is anything more than the family fool. By playing the helpless child, he dodges the familial responsibilities he would otherwise have to shoulder- he even manages to skip attending Beverly's funeral through intentionally "accidentally" sleeping through his alarm clock. The Weston family sees his lack of interest in scholarly activities as a symptom of his lifelong aversion to adulthood and the duties he is expected to perform. Likewise, Ivy accuses Barbara of abandoning her familial duties under the guise of furthering her career in Colorado. Like Little Charles, Barbara uses her intellectual status as a way to dodge her supposed responsibility to take care of her mother Violet. She escapes to her new teaching job and her growing family and leaves her younger sister to deal with their mother's insecurities and whims. She is only able to do this, of course, because she is herself of the intellectual class, just as her father was, and other than her sister there is no one in the family who will call her out on her abandonment. Any other character who would accuse Barbara of skirting her duties would open him- or herself to an equal accusation, as the entire family is guilty of putting personal gain first and familial responsibilities second at some time or another. Even Ivy, for all her talk of how "the obligation of caring for [their] parents was [hers] alone" wants to cut her ties with Violet and flee to the distant, almost-mystical city of New York where freedom waits and no angry old women horde bottles of pills in rehab (Letts 103). Still, because she is the oldest daughter, tradition would dictate that Barbara should be the one calling the shots in what remains of the family after the various breakdowns suffered by her parents, sisters, and husband. However, Barbara leans upon her academic responsibilities as a way to deflect her familial duties onto other people, much as Little Charles uses his academic ineptitude to avoid responsibility altogether.

Letts seems to believe that intellectualism plays an odd role in the lives of Southerners with academic aspirations, especially in people imprisoned in the South with only other family members to share their academic aspirations with. The Westons created a community in miniature to support their academic pursuits in a region where academia is not the usual career choice, but their ring of scholarly 'support' is rife with competitiveness, feeling of inadequacy, and outright hostility to any form of either success or failure. The Weston mini-community is less a circle of academic thought and more a boxing ring which allows for familial jealousies to air and for family members to attack one another either verbally or, on several occasions during the course of the play, physically and with intent to harm. Repressed anger does not stay repressed in this family for very long, and almost all of the family members spoil for a good fight at some point in the play. Academia and aggression are not commonly associated with one another in this manner, but Letts does not seem to want to depict his scholars as pacifists and do-gooders- he wants the audience to know that the people walking on his stage have problems stemming from jealousy and insecurity and a great deal of pent-up anger, and that these issues are likely fed by the family's awareness of their own isolation from one another and from the Southern community they seek to escape. Responsibility to the family is a secondary concern to the extended family of the Westons, and it falls after scholarly success which does not seem to provide emotional fulfillment for any of the characters. Instead, seeking recognition in one or more fields of study rather than working out issues within the family in a way forces the Westons to view one another as competitors rather than family members, therefore perpetuating the cycle of hostility and undercutting. Intelligent and self-aware though they are, the Weston family members are more concerned with arming themselves against one another and deflecting blame than in seeking out one another and truly being a family.

Works Cited

Busby, Mark. "The Significance of the Frontier in Contemporary American Fiction." The Frontier Experience and the American Dream. Ed. Mogen, David, Mark Busby, and Paul Bryant. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1989. 95-103.

Jackson, Robert. Seeking the Region in American Literature and Culture. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 2005.

Letts, Tracy. August: Osage County. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2008.

R.U.R. and the Mechanization of Humanity

2010-03-11T12:43:00.001-08:00

Karel Capek, the playwright of R.U.R., or Rossum's Universal Robots (1921), wasn't a scientist like Issac Asimov or Arthur C. Clark, both of whom came along later to redefine and streamline the modern concept of robotics in fact and fiction, but he was still a concerned intellectual living in a changing world. He was the first to coin the term "robot", but his concept of the word differs slightly from what modern audiences associate with it. To Capek, the term merely meant an artificial human, almost a golem from Jewish mythology, created by humans through rapidly growing knowledge of science and technology and destined for a short lifetime of servitude and dismissal. To a modern audience, a robot is an entirely mechanized creation, lacking organic substance and composed entirely of artificial elements. The creation of robots in his play borders on the mystical, the alchemical, and the unknowable, which may have been how the advent of science looked to those people living in the early part of the century. Science was taking humanity to new and frightening places, and the increasing mechanization of the workforce and the rise of military technology in World War I gave the future a grim face. To Capek, the ability to create a life solely through the use of new technology was a terrifying prospect, both for what it meant for humanity's future and for what it would mean to the things which were to be brought to life. Capek feared that humans would become both neglectful tyrants and ineffectual antiques if a new class of inhuman worker drones was to be created, and he was deeply concerned about what it would mean to the everyday human to be replaced by this new class.

Modern robots are mechanical structures formed of inorganic materials and pre-determined programming. Most modern robots cannot perform tasks or learn new skills unless they are programmed with the ability to learn. Most robots are not programmed to do this, or are programmed to learn in a very limited way, and science fiction films and books are full of examples of robots and computers gaining sentience and taking over the world. Capek's robots are organic constructions, supposedly made of the same or similar biological substances as human beings and seemingly lacking in what a computer-age scientist would recognize as programming. To modern eyes, Capek's robots are closer to clones or androids than to mechanical robots, and are really more frightening because of it. Helen, upon her arrival on the island, cannot distinguish the robots from the human workers and scientists who live on the island. He deliberately leaves the process behind the robots' creation vague, letting neither the audience nor the robots themselves know what the source of life really is. Left in ignorance of their origins, the robots have no history, no culture, and no way to find autonomy from human rule. They are forced to obey their human creators and exist in a state of almost feudal serfdom and dependency. Capek did not believe that such a society, where the underclass relied so exclusively on the upper class for protection and procreation and where the upper class relied so heavily on the lower class for consistent productivity and obedience, could function efficiently for long. This is especially true for a society in which the oppressed underclass, in this case a very inhuman and dehumanized underclass, begins to grow a very strong, and very human, desire for autonomy and the right to exercise free will. By claiming the right to enjoy basic human freedoms, Capek's robots move themselves up to be equals with their human creators. In fact, the robots are almost humanity's superior in that they are faster, stronger, and smarter than the average human. However, without the ability to procreate without human ingenuity, the robotic race has little chance of survival. This almost complete dependence on humanity prevents the robots from fully achieving autonomy. Even in the ending scene where the robots Primus and Helen discover love, it is uncertain whether they will manage to find the secret to propagating their species. Capek leaves their fate vague, allowing the pair to journey into the future beyond the play either to die alone in a wilderness devoid of humanoid life or to found a new Garden of Eden for future generations of artificial life.

Though Capek may not have feared the robots themselves, either of his own brand of or the mechanical variety that followed, what he did fear was humanity's reaction to the creation of robots. He believed that the invention of robots would make it far too easy for humans to give up toil and struggle, which have classically given humanity its definition. Human society is not equipped to deal with a majority of humans who have no jobs, no need for work, no jobs at anything approaching a 'lower level' and nothing to do with copious amounts of spare time and energy. These elements have sparked countless labor strikes and protests, and have led to violence against the offending class on many occasions. Robots may make a life of luxury possible by taking the detestable, unwanted jobs no human should condescend to do, but without a severe restructuring of human society those humans who would normally be forced to take those jobs would have nowhere to turn to, no one to help them, and nowhere to place their frustrations except on the class of cheap, efficient, inhuman workers who replaced the more 'deserving' human laborers. The same arguments have a long history of creating violence and hostility toward Irish American immigrants, people of African descent, or in contemporary politics against Mexicans and Mexican American laborers, as well as many other groups around the world. Perhaps Capek was attacking capitalism by highlighting these growing frustrations in the human community. When a business cares more for cutting production costs than for creating a job market for human workers, humans are placed out in the cold so robot laborers can produce more items faster and for less money than the old outdated model of humanity. The robot underclass is just one more victim of human prejudice in this case, one more instance where greed, fear, and resentment come together to spark a war not of ideology or resources but of hatred and desperation.

War may have been another of Capek's concerns. He wrote the play shortly after the end of World War I, where new advances in modern technology were put to use on the battlefield, leading to devastating results for the human combatants and even those people who never saw a killing field. Medical technology had also advanced to a point where soldiers could survive the infections that would usually follow an injury, so they were able to walk, or crawl, off of the battlefield and tell tales of the new horrors of war, tales of machine guns and air raids and miles upon miles of entrenchments, bare fields, and barbed wire with an enemy on the other side. War had reached a new brutality unmatched by the bloodletting of the past, and to Capek and his contemporaries technology was to blame. Capek's robots may look human, but at least initially they really were little more than machines, built with a specific purpose in mind. Among the various reasons why robots could be desired is the possibility of sending the robot to war rather than a human soldier. Not only is a commander assured of obedience, but an artificial soldier would not feel fear, nor pain unless it was the pain warning of injury, nor anxiety about preserving its own life. A robotic soldier is the perfect soldier, and the perfect replacement for the human soldier. However, if that perfection was to be turned on a civilian human populace, the devastation would be incalculable and, of course, perfect. Capek, along with a number of other writers in the early and mid part of the century, feared that humans were creating technology they would not be able to control and would ultimately be the undoing of humanity. By replacing human soldiers with robotic ones, humanity would be saving generations of young men and women from shell-shock, death, and battle scars, but without some element of humanity in the robot warriors, war would become even more horrific and devastating. Even if warfare should avoid conflict with humanity at all, the havoc caused by battle would disrupt daily living for humans. Travel, food distribution, even politics would be affected by the creation of a war that has no need to end. When all of the soldiers can persevere despite conditions that would break down even the heartiest of human warriors, and when the soldiers can be replaced with relatively little difficulty or expense, whatever forces and motives behind the war effort can push on more or less indefinitely. With no human cost, the only issue is acquiring the resources to continue the manufacturing of robot soldiers to throw at the enemy's gates, possibly for the reason of acquiring the resources to create even more soldiers. Such warfare would begin a dangerous cycle of violence that would be exceptionally difficult to break, especially in a world of growing technological capability where the manufacture of these robots would become easier with every successive year.

Capek's concerns did not come to pass in the way he feared they would. Many factories switched to mechanized labor with relatively little violence from disgruntled workers, and human soldiers still fight and die on the frontlines of a dozen different wars every day. Modern robotics has provided humanity with a number of comforts as well as inconveniences, but adaptability to an ever changing environment is merely another part of humanity's ability to survive almost anything, including, mostly, itself and all its clever ideas. Capek's play addresses humanity's attitude toward itself as much as to any burgeoning relationship toward advancing technology. He believed technology, while dangerous in the wrong human hands, would ultimately rely on human goals and ambitions to actually be dangerous. After all, robots must be programmed for their tasks, and if a robot cannot learn how to program another then it is up to a human creator to set forth a robot's tasks and goals. Now the field of robotics has advanced to the point where there are robots building other robots, but there are humans involved in manufacturing every step of the way. Perhaps this isn't quite the future Capek envisioned when he sent Primus and Helen into the unknown in R.U.R., when he foresaw either robots wiping themselves out along with humanity or robots surviving alone after the destruction of the last human. Rather, it is a future where humans and their robotic creations live more or less harmoniously, at least for the time being, and few of Capek's fears have truly come to fruition. Nonetheless, his play still stands as a formidable warning to those who care to think about what human abuses of technology could lead to.

The Crucifixion of Bartley in Riders to the Sea

2010-03-03T08:16:00.001-08:00

The final three pages of Synge's Riders to the Sea depict a scene which portrays an uncanny resemblance to a much older work of literature- the Biblical record of the Crucifixion of Christ. Synge achieves this through invoking echoes of the tradition of the Crucifixion in his dialogue, his stage setting, and his selection of prop pieces. Synge does not necessarily push the imagery of the sacrificial ceremony to the audience, but he leaves enough creative space for the director and actor to explore various possibilities of depicting this final scene. Bartley's death and the ceremonies devised to mourn his passing play a vital role in solidifying Christian custom in Maurya's household, and in turn the entire spiritual tradition of Western Ireland.

There are a number of things a director can do in this play to emphasize the visual idea of a crucifixion on stage. Lighting would play an enormous part, as would the positioning of the characters. Certain props could also permit a certain emphasis on the ritual sacrifice of Maurya's youngest son. Lighting permits the director to focus the audience's attention on certain actions or props, such as the approach of the mourners in the final scene or the white boards in the background throughout the play. A low, mellow light with a slowly increasing intensity as they get closer would go a long way in directing the audience to follow the procession's movement. As for the white boards, a steady white spotlight would prevent the boards from fading into the background while still permitting the action around the boards to continue uninterrupted. Staging the characters' movements would also be key, especially during the keening ceremony in the last scene. Ranging the characters, under half light, in a half circle around the drowned Bartley, with the spotlight still emphasizing the white boards in the background, would invoke neoclassical paintings depicting the crucifixion of Christ without requiring much exaggeration in the set itself. By allowing a certain simplicity in the set, the director would find more room to work with the props permitted by the play's stage directions. The red sail, white boards, and forgotten nails all provide creative fodder here. The red sail, besides being a memorable color, acts as a classic shroud and also coordinates with the red skirts of the mourners. Red has the advantage of being associated with blood and violence, which works exceptionally well with the concept of a sacrificial crucifixion. The white boards would, of course, play the stand-in of an actual cross, warranting the constant spotlight. The nails would be a bit trickier to emphasize, since they are never shown on stage. Bringing the audience's attention to these non-existent bits of metal would rely on a certain stress on the dialogue which would depend on the relative acting abilities of the performers.

It may seem that Bartley deviates from the standard Christ mold, as he does not die with any sort of blatant promise to pave a path to safety and security for his family. His death instead appears to leave his mother and sisters stranded in a dangerous world without any sort of protection and without anyone to provide for them. However, Maurya's last, mourning speech gives a few clues into the truth. Instead of bewailing her sudden bereavement, Maurya views the death of her last son as a step toward reuniting her family, emphasizing the connectedness of the Irish family over the isolating experience of living and dying. As she stands over the corpse of her youngest son, Maurya states that her children are "all together this time, and the end is come…Michael has a clean burial…Bartley will have a fine coffin out of the white boards, and a deep grave surely…No man at all can be living for ever, and we must be satisfied" (p 67). Though the physical bodies of her children are scattered through the world, in death they have rejoined one another and reinforced the bonds of the family. Bartley's death offers hope, in a way, of an eternal life where the family cannot be separated again. However, until she and her daughters die as well, the family will indeed be separated, which is where her final "we" comes in. Her concern in providing her sons with a proper Christian burial, though purportedly for her sons' sakes, is in actuality simply a way for Maurya and her daughters to come to terms with the loss of Bartley and his brothers. Maurya's love for her family and her belief in the Christian God are closely intertwined, even in the face of overwhelming grief, and through Bartley's death Maurya's family is able to prepare for eternity. Throughout the play, the family is concerned with providing a proper Christian burial to each of the fallen sons in order to ensure that Maurya's family will be guaranteed a place in eternity with the family members who have already died.

Bartley makes for an unusual Christ. The audience is only exposed to him as a living character for a short period of time, so his death relies heavily on cultural familiarity with Christian tradition in order to carry the concept of crucifixion. He never stands before the audience to preach about universal love or proper Christian behavior or even the importance of a decent burial. He merely asks one sister where a bit of rope is and tells the other sister to get a good price for the pig, before he goes off to die at the hands of his ghostly brother. Left to fulfill a role which has been traditionally unusual for women, Maurya is left to teach her daughters and the audience the importance of observing traditions and holding tight to family connections, because to Maurya there is nothing in this world worse than being left alone. Her identity is the group identity, and the idea of undergoing something like death by herself is unbearable. Now she faces the isolation she so fears, and she turns to the traditions of her culture to empower her and her family in their time of need.

Auden and the Politics of Creativity

2010-03-03T08:12:00.001-08:00

W.H. Auden's "The Novelist" reads both as an assault on the militarism and conformity of mainstream popular fiction and as a guide to his fellow writers who may be seeking something more from their work than simplistic popularity and shallow gratification. Auden's dismissal of 'hacks' from the ranks of his contemporaries is followed closely by a description of what a writer actually is and what he or she seeks to accomplish, with or without the adoration of either an audience or even the approval of other writers. To Auden, mainstream success does not connote immediate status as a 'real' writer as to him a writer exists to write, even if the book or poem never sees publication. Creation, creativity, and maturing as an artist are far more important to Auden than public recognition and success. "The Novelist" explores Auden's idealism and details his perception of what it truly means to be a worthy, creative writer.

The first two lines of the poem introduce Auden's seemingly negative attitude toward his fellow poets and artists:

Encased in talent like a uniform,

The rank of every poet is well known.

By invoking this regimented, militaristic image of his contemporaries, Auden implies that most poets of his day seem more interested in mass producing acceptable, popularized and 'safe' works than in breaking ranks and exploring unmapped territory. The public that consumes his contemporaries' works has come to expect a certain product from each writer, and now that these writers have discovered these expectations, they pander shamelessly to them in order to maintain popularity. It is interesting that Auden uses the work "rank" to describe the standing of these poets, as the word could have two readings here. In one sense, it indicates that the writers march along in perfect lock-step with one another, producing the same book or poem again and again in a bizarre sort of production line until authorship is irrelevant as the works are inseparable clones of one another. The other reading would imply that as though authorship may be irrelevant, brand-naming of popular authors creates a kind of hierarchy with writers 'ranked' by their popular status and financial success rather than by actual talent and real creativity. As each writer in these ranks is "well-known" to create a certain product, and the product itself is "well-known" for being a certain type of novel or poem, any deviation would frustrate readers and publishers and would ultimately be detrimental to the writer's rank. By sacrificing creativity for marketability, poets deny both themselves and their audience a chance for growth. It would be an unfair and untrue generalization to accuse all of Auden's contemporaries as lacking originality and creativity, but as with every generation of writers there were certainly a fair number of pretentious, derivative hacks and 'popular' writers with little interest in enlarging the literary canon and a great deal of interest in financial gain and public notoriety. Auden's lines would appear to be a shot at these poets, a challenge to take off those encasing, imprisoning uniforms and step out of the tightly regimented lines in order to create something worthwhile. It may also be something of a warning to these poets to get out of the way of those writers who have the will and the talent to break formation.

The next two lines seem to act as a bridge between Auden's stern-faced warning to his declaration on what a poet should be:

They can amaze us like a thunderstorm,

Or die so young, or live for years alone.

Here, Auden precludes the idea that a poet must live a certain way in order to be a poet. He dismisses the concept that in order to write, one needs to be an emotionally sensitive, opium smoking odd-man-out with an overwhelming sense of doom and injustice. This stereotype does nothing to help a poet actually accomplish any noteworthy work, and Auden sees it as little more than a self-harming lie that inhibits creativity and originality. Some writers may find comfort in this cycle of self-creation and self-destruction, but others may find it to be a hindrance which interferes with creative productivity. The idea that every artist must suffer for every piece of his or her art has no hold with Auden and contrasts sharply with his view of how writers behave. What is ultimately important isn't the way a writer behaves or what he or she does when not writing. The only thing that matters is the art the writer produces, and biography and personality are secondary elements in the creation of poetry.

Following this pair of lines is Auden's description of what a poet is, rather than his attack on the popular notion of what it means to be a poet:

They can dash forward like hussars: but he

Must struggle out of his boyish gift and learn

How to be plain and awkward, how to be

One after whom none think it worth to turn.

Auden knows how important it is for a writer to grow through his or her work. Though some might read these lines as reinforcement of the very stereotype of the struggling, agonized artist Auden spent the previous lines shooting down, it is possible to instead see them as both clarifying and expounding on the first two lines of the poem where Auden attacked false poets and writers. Here, Auden contrasts a truer definition of the creative writer against those authors with little sense of art. Auden's ideal poet does not seek adulation for writing his or her works, unlike the fashionable poet with a great deal of nothing to say. Auden would say that a poet would not care if any audience found him or her worth turning to, as popularity is not this poet's goal. Publication and recognition are always welcome to the writer who deserves it, but if achievement alone is the writer's mission than the work will suffer and fail to take root in order to grow into a larger, more complex form. To leave the childish need for attention behind while still remaining accessible to the reader is a worthy though likely difficult goal for any writer, and to complicate that goal still further is Auden's declaration that the writer must also change as he or she matures. To write the same first novel over and over again must be a kind of purgatory for any writer who wishes to accomplish something beyond mediocrity, though it may be a satisfactory existence for a writer with few desires beyond popular acceptance and notoriety.

Auden's final stanzas continue his examination of what it means to write as a creative form of art, but on a more personal level with the writer:

For, to achieve his lightest wish, he must

Become the whole of boredom, subject to

Vulgar complaints of love, among the Just

Be just, among the Filthy filthy too,

And in his own weak person, if he can,

Must suffer dully all the wrongs of Man.

Here Auden dances again with the Romantic stereotype of the poet, and this time the purpose behind the writer and his or her work is called into question. A common belief holds that a writer's job is to explore humanity and enrich the human experience, but this task is far more complex than it may seem on the surface. Every human experience is the human experience, and to express them all has taken lifetimes of work from talented individuals and will continue to do so, as this mission to encompass every human story is an impossible one to finish. Auden surely knows this, yet he recognizes that there may be something to it all the same. However, here he seems to advocate something a little different from the usual frivolity and sentimentality usually associated with the fiction or poetry commonly associated with writing about the all-important 'human experience'. He seems to advocate a kind of normality in the writer's life, going back again to his declaration that a poet or novelist does not necessarily need to feed back into the unhealthy and unproductive cycle of the damaged artist in order to experience the best and the worst offered by the gamut of average human emotions and come out on the other side with something to show for it. In this way he gives permission for the writer to be a normal human being, and for the normal human being to be a writer. There is nothing for a writer to fear in undergoing the everyday trauma of human living, and if the ultimate goal of writing is to portray the human experience, then there is no reason to avoid human life. The writer is and should be no different from other human beings, and this is what makes the writer's work possible in the first place.

Auden's "The Novelist" spans a wide array of topics without ever really leaving one. Altogether, the fourteen lines of "The Novelist" read as a manifesto of what a writer can expect from a creative lifestyle in a modern context. In a world of shallow bestselling lists, print-on-demand vanity presses, and ever-increasing competition from both worthy contemporaries and the ever-present derivative hacks, no imagination, no creativity, is needed to see why poets, novelists, and writers of every other description might struggle with the pressures of creating meaningful work and finding meaning in creation. As a poet and a devoted conversationalist, Auden knows the importance of creativity and expression and knows the impact that being a writer can have on an individual. Over the course of his life, he also saw how that impact could alter his fellow writers, leaving them encased in uniforms of conformity or perhaps outgrowing boyish talents into fully fledged artists. He acted as a mentor and a friend to dozens of writers of many types and interests, most of whom were either already respected or would achieve some status as worthy creators. Some, of course, never made it as household names, but Auden still saw real talent where real talent wrote and certainly wouldn't have held any lack of fame against his cadre of 'true' poets.

Best Books of 2009

2010-02-05T08:02:00.000-08:00

Last year, I just listed five books of whatever category that rocked my world in 2008. I decided to split up this year's selections into a few categories, partly to be just a little more organized and partly as an excuse to post more books. These aren't necessarily books that came out in 2009, and in fact most are probably a few years old. I just happened to have read them in 2009! I also tried to limit myself to 2 or 3 in each category.

Fiction
City and the City by China Mieville
I liked Perdido Street Station and its sequel, The Scar, but City and the City is easily Mieville's best book so far. Its storytelling is tighter than in Perdido and Mieville's talent for creating and developing an interesting, fully-formed world does not weaken in this book in the least. I'm looking forward to his other new book, Kraken.

The Love We Share Without Knowing by Christopher Barzak
I've blogged about this one before, and I still stand by my claim that it is a truly superb book.

The Orphan's Tales: City of Coin and Spice by Catherynne Valente
This is the sequel volume to The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden, which made my best-of list last year. Valente's use of various (uncommon) mythologies and her creative narrative structure make this volume an excellent follow-up and a fantastic read.

Non-Fiction
Science Fiction by Adam Roberts
This is another book I've already blogged about. Go figure.

Anthologies
Wastelands edited by John Jacob Adams
Not only do nearly all of the stories in this anthology rock, but the editor pieced together a handy bibliographic list of must-read apocalyptic literature. It's not a conclusive list by any means, but it makes for the perfect finishing touch on an anthology that already would have had my vote for this list.

Paper Cities edited by Ekaterina Sedia
This book took the 2009 World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology, and against some stiff competition, too. And, what's more is that this book deserved to win against such competition. It's worth reading just to take a close look at urban fantasy (though I think Hal Duncan's contribution for Nova Scotia would have been just as at home here as the story Sedia selected.)

Nova Scotia edited by Neil Williamson
Amazon claims this book doesn't exist, but I have a copy so I know they lie. Perhaps on the U.K. version of the site...anyway, there's not a flop in this anthology. There were definitely a few I liked more than others, but overall this may be one of the most solid anthologies I've ever read.

Young Adult/Children's
Vintage: A Ghost Story by Steve Berman
I've already written more about this book here, and just as with Barzak's book I stand by my recommendation.

The Blueberry Girl by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess
Gaiman and Vess make my favorite team in book writing and illustration. McKean is cool and all, but I've always preferred Vess's work. This is a very simple storybook, but it has a fantastic message and beautiful art, and I can't wait to give this book to my niece when she starts reading.

Playing Catch-Up

2010-01-12T15:18:00.000-08:00

So, blogging time seems to be rather difficult to come by even when I'm not caught up in a whirlwind of school- and work-related chaos. I've been offline for about a month now, actually, just trying to catch up with myself and my household to-do list. Well, today I'm house (and dog) sitting for some friends, and I'm taking the opportunity to post a little something here, just to prove that I'm still around and in the game.

Shamefully, though I was so excited about the Outer Alliance's formation back in September, I haven't really been active on the site at all. However, every time I manage to drop by they have something cool posted. Every Friday sees another GLBT writer spotlighted on the site, and I'm not on nearly often enough to keep up. How do they find these people? I suppose the internet really has made the world a smaller place (though sometimes I get the feeling that everybody interesting lives on one of the coasts or another country all together. The pickings seem a bit slim in this region...)

I recently finished Richard K. Morgan's fantasy novel The Steel Remains, and I hope to pick up one of his earlier SF books before too long. The Steel Remains is an excellent, violent, bloody, and actually pretty funny book featuring a gay warrior who makes no apology for his queerness. It's a welcome change from the flouncy fag best friend/sidekick who dies halfway through the story. I like seeing a gay guy beat the crap out of somebody else for once. The book is by no means perfect, but if you're in the mood for a fun, rough-and-tumble fantasy that maybe happens to include one or two very interesting sex scenes (very well done, coming from a straight man!) then The Steel Remains is definitely for you.

I'm in the midst of reading Adam Robert's Science Fiction and China Mieville's The Scar. The Adam Roberts title comes from a series of literary criticism works, the New Critical Idiom. From what I've heard and from my experience with the series, it's a pretty magnificent collection and well worth the effort of tracking the individual books down. I'd like to get my hands on a few other volumes, such as Magic(al) Realism, Myth, Gothic, Postmodern, and possibly Genre, just because. All of them would be cool to have though, since there's such a high quality of scholarship that goes into each volume. Roberts' book covers the basic history of science fiction and takes a stab at defining the genre, which is something I think has been turning up more and more lately on blogs with much higher traffic than this one can expect (such as Hal Duncan's column on BSCReview). Also, Roberts looks at the role of women and race in SF (using Star Trek and Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness as case studies, so what's not to like?) and also examines the use of technology. I haven't read this last segment yet, and I was honestly a little surprised to see it included, though upon further thought it seems obvious. After all, what would science fiction be without science? My surprise is based mostly on the fact that I simply take science for granted and accept it in whatever role it is presented in, though one of my biggest gripes with the latest Star Trek movie is its misuse of (disregard for) science. But more about that later- it'll be a whole other blog post. I'll probably write more about Roberts' book when I finish it. So far it's been an education and a joy to read, and it's only made me want to read his novel Salt even more than I already did.

Mieville's book The Scar has also been an intriguing adventure. I love his city made of ships- but then his settings always astound me. This book maybe isn't as good as The City and the City but so far it's a worthy follow-up to Perdido Street Station. I'll be reading his YA novel Un Lun Dun before too much longer, and I'll also pick up the leather bound copy of King Rat from the bookstore I work at. It is...very pretty. This guy pretty much rocks everything he tries his hand at.

I'll compile my best-of-2009 list before too long. I may extend it to include more categories than I did last year- perhaps a separate YA category, maybe a non-fiction thing. I already pretty much know what's going to be on the list, I just have to make a few last decisions.

Cory Doctorow, New Arrivals

2009-11-13T13:50:00.000-08:00

This entry was originally going to be my paper on Rousseau and Matthew G. Lewis' The Monk, but Blogger freaks out every time I try to transfer the text from my Word document. Maybe I'll upload it somewhere and post the link instead...I had the same problem with a post on mythology I went through the trouble of typing, only to find out I couldn't put it up here. Grr.

So instead of posting my paper, which probably no one wants to see anyway, I decided that today's entry would be a review of Cory Doctorow's YA novel Little Brother. This book was up for this year's Hugo Award, and deservedly so, I think. As you can probably tell by the title, Little Brother pulls heavily (and quite beautifully) on George Orwell's 1984, and would probably be an awesome follow-up to any teen reading Orwell's masterpiece.

I've been on a major kick with this whole "classics-updated-for-the-new-age-of-politics" thing (just ask me how I feel about the incredible Gundam Wing revamp that is Gundam 00) and Little Brother does not disappoint on that front. I just wish Doctorow had written this novel a few years earlier, while I was still in high school and growing up in the shadow of 9/11 inspired domestic fear-mongering legislation like the Patriot Act. I can just imagine the uproar his book would have caused in my little reading circle! I've already been advocating it to several of my friends, many of whom went to high school with me.

Honestly, at first I was a little put off by Doctorow's use of 'hip slang', which occasionally...wasn't that hip. I got a good snicker or two (at at least one moment of "WTF, srsly?") but after a few chapters I didn't even realize I was listening to a 17 year old techie geek speak. All I was aware of was how rocking awesome the book had become once it started really taking off. Doctorow's knowledge and use of technology is both frightening and seriously cool, and kind of makes me want to pick up a computer programming book or two so I can learn how to actually do some of the bad-ass tricks Marcus pulls off in the novel. Also, he managed to piss me off all over again about the U.S. running rough-shod over MY personal rights and privacy. Ooh, I felt 16 and angry again!

The plot summary on Amazon covers everything else you probably want to know. I simply felt the need to share my exciting discovery with the world! If you see a copy of this book, at least pick it up and look it over. It may be one of the best books you read this year.

---

In addition to Last Drink Bird Head, I have a copy of Richard K. Morgan's fantasy The Steel Remains on its way to my doorstep. It's shipping all the way from London though (isn't it sad when directly importing something is cheaper that buying it used from a middle man?) so it may be a few weeks before it arrives.

Next review- possibly Max Brooks' World War Z? Seriously, it totally rocks. Or perhaps Greg Pak's and Carmine Di Giandomenico's X-Men: Magneto Testament. Guys, when a graphic novel is good, it's really, really good, and Magneto Testament is AWESOME.

I'm Still Alive!

2009-10-27T08:05:00.000-07:00

My apologies for disappearing for so long. Class and work have been keeping me occupied from dawn til far past dusk, and I haven't had time to wash dishes, much less blog. In fact, I'm only on here because I'm taking a break from writing my latest paper. I have a few announcements to make, just to catch up with myself-

Miyavi will be performing in Dallas on my 21st birthday (in less than one week). I'm not going. I don't want to discuss it.

Last Drink Bird Head is on its way to my doorstep! It's the latest anthology from Ann and Jeff Vandermeer, and I'm terribly excited about it! It's a limited edition, 160 page collection of flash fiction from 80 writers (if my counting can be trusted) including Hal Duncan, Felix Gilman, Jon Courtney Grimwood, Jeffery Ford, K.J. Bishop, Jay Lake, Cat Rambo, Ekaterina Sedia, and Jeffrey Thomas. I'm so excited about this book that I sacrificed Miyavi's concert for it. Even better, all proceeds from the sale of this book go to ProLiteracy.Org, which is just as totally awesome as the book itself. Anyone who hasn't bought a copy yet should order one- it's a guaranteed keeper and it benefits a great cause. Now I just have to order Jeff Vandermeer's Booklife...after another paycheck or two.

Halloween is this weekend! I have to work on Saturday, sadly, but I'll be working in my costume. Beware the zombie elf behind the counter at the bookstore!

World Fantasy is also this weekend. Again, I won't be there, but this year's lineup for the World Fantasy Awards is, naturally, pretty freaking badass. I may have to stream the ceremony at work, because (except for every category Gaiman is in) there is some seriously stiff competition. I'm not even sure who I want to win in some cases...

In fact, Ekaterina Sedia's The Rhetorics of Fantasy , which I've already posted about here, is up for an award, and I just found out that she's written another book on the genre with Edward James, A Short History of Fantasy. Jeez, I'm going to need another shelf by the end of the week. That, and another job.

Artists Need to Eat, Too

2009-10-14T17:16:00.000-07:00

Amanda Fucking Palmer on why artists actually do need to be paid for their art. (A la Hal Duncan, again, in reference to his recent experiment in selling his stories directly to his readers.)

Shakespeare gotta get paid, son.

New Anthology (And Awards)

2009-10-06T07:37:00.000-07:00

The Vandermeers have done it again. Once again, they've got an AWESOME anthology with a totally bad-ass lineup on the way- Last Drink Bird Head, due out in October/November. (Basically on my 21st birthday. I may need to buy myself a present.) It's a limited print, and the release party will be held at the World Fantasy Award ceremony (where the Vandermeers will be holding their own award ceremony for the newly inaugurated Last Drink Bird Head award.) Yes, it's a strange name. Yes, it's probably a very strange anthology. And yes, I want the damn thing so bad I can taste it. Hey, it's only $30...plus shipping...maybe I can sell my TV. You only turn 21 once, right? I deserve it.

And damn Vandermeer for also releasing Booklife in the month I am the most broke. (I think it's coming out this month, at least. Maybe not!) And I missed the very short print life of Steve Berman's latest book, Mr. October's Naughty Bedside Reader. Damn, damn, double damn. It was released in August and it's already out of print and unavailable. I knew I should have pre-ordered the damn thing. I wonder if he'll be putting out another Wilde Stories anthology this year?

Peadar O'Guilin Interview

2009-09-21T14:45:00.000-07:00

Cool interview with Pedaar O'Guilin, author of The Inferior and the upcoming The Deserter. I have the first and loved it, and I'll definitely be picking up the sequel when it comes out. I also stalk Peadar's blog, because he cracks me up. It's a strange thing for me to discover someone new who has my same sense of humor.

Zombies! Zombies!

2009-09-20T14:41:00.000-07:00

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Prepare yourselves! The invasion is nigh!

Muahahahaha!

Ten Things

2009-09-18T09:09:00.000-07:00

Ten Things

Ten things I have learned about writing -- a la Elizabeth Bear and Ben Peek. This can also be read as a Stages of Writing thing, as these are largely consecutive "steps", to my mind. So:

1. Don't eat the crayons, even if "purple tastes gooooood". No, really. Put that down; it's not meant for that.*

2. Young talent must be nurtured. A child who has a certain knack for, say, writing stories in English class needs to be taken aside and told it in order to make them realise that they're special, to encourage them and (more importantly) alienate them from the dickwad jocks around, breeding a seething resentment of their low status in the high school pecking order. Compensatory arrogance and narcissistic rage are the powerhouse of the creative impetus.

3. Writing is 100% inspiration and 100% perspiration. It's what you breathe and what you sweat, all of it, equally. It often stinks for that reason, but not devouring shit will usually improve this state of affairs.

4. Flattery is for fuckwits; ruthless critique is the only critique of any value. Workshops can be valuable then, but if a workshop session doesn't make you want to kill someone** it's not worth shit. Even if it does you probably won't listen to the content and rewrite your crappy mood-piece / novel fragment / background summary so it's an actual fucking story. You will however want to a) get your own back on the bastards b) show these fuckers that you really are a genius, so there. In attempting to achieve the first you will hone your critical skills. In attempting to achieve the latter you will apply those skills to your own writing.

5. Learn to kill your darlings. But torture them first. And after you've killed them, strip the meat from their bones, take them apart and build them into one motherfucking huge serial-killer-style shrine. Alternatively, put them back together and reflesh them with muscle and sinew sliced from your own naked body (or neighbourhood pets) and vat-grown in your underground laboratory; raise them from the dead as a glorious army of skeletal warriors, unquestioning servants in your plan for world domination.

6. Shoeboxes full of adolescent scribblings make pretty fire. Should your army of undead sentences rise up against you, ceasing to obey your every whim and becoming instead an unruly mob seeking equal rights and inclusion in every story or novel you try to write, putting all of them -- every last motherfucking one of them -- to the torch will liberate you to start anew, utilising the skills acquired over five-ten years of twiddling and tweaking. As a wise man once said: exterminate all the brutes.

7. There is really only one way to be a writer: start writing, carry on writing, and keep on writing until it's five in the morning. A mix of uppers (e.g coffee) and downers (e.g. cigarettes) can keep you balanced for an indefinite period on the knife-edge between consciousness and complete collapse. This is known as "the Zone". Remember: sleep-deprivation is the poor man's hallucinogen.

8. Bad writers burrow; good writers steel themselves and face the fucking consequences when the monster they've created gets loose and runs amok inside their heads, raping innocent memories and pillaging knowledge, growing in might and violence until the landscape of the mind is all but consumed in chaos. Fear not. Once you have tamed the monster it will be a loyal friend and ally, demanding only the occassional virgin sacrifice. And that's what virgins are for.

9. "Art" is a poncy term for craft combined with flair. What distinguishes the talented writer from the good writer (c.f. Delany) is having the audacity to take on an insanely difficult project and the panache to fail gloriously, shrug it off and start on another even more insanely difficult project. Pretentious writing is only pretentious because it is not ambitious enough. Your detractors will not make this distinction, but what do they know? Bastards.

10. Fuck that shit.

* 1a. This simple childhood rule applies also in adult life to: playing computer Solitaire; browsing the interweb; checking email; surfing for p0rn. If you are doing any of this you are eating the crayons. Stop it now.

** 4a. If the someone that ruthless critique makes you want to kill is yourself then you are not a writer and never will be. You are a delicate flower... to be snipped off and worn as a buttonhole by men of cruel wit and savage passions.

...
Once again, I have stolen something off of someone else's blog. This time it's Hal Duncan's, since I was on there for the last post looking for something else entirely. Also, read the comments on his page!

"Good Books Don't Have to Be Hard"?

2009-09-18T08:45:00.001-07:00

Ok, I respect Levi Grossman. However, I have to call bullshit on his article in the Wall Street Journal. Catherynne Valente (my hero) beat me to the punch here, and in fact brought Grossman's wrong-headed meandering to my attention. However, I still need to grouch a little bit.

Grossman seems to think there is some sort of vast intellectual conspiracy, which looks down upon contemporary literature and plot and calls it 'popular fiction', 'entertainment', 'escapist', and not at all literary. The crap he spews on the 'evils' of Modernist literature stands on its own.*

I'd spend more time on this, but I need to go home and write my book. Read his article, Valente's response, and if you have a few dozen hours to kill read Hal Duncan's blog. All of it. (I tried to skim through really fast and locate a few of Duncan's posts on genre and on literary fiction vs. popular fiction, but of course since I'm actually looking for them they are nowhere to be found. But, they are there, and they are excellent, so I encourage you to go on the hunt.)

Also, on a completely unrelated note, I want this book- Rhetorics of Fantasy by Farah Mendlesohn. Fuck yeah.

*All the words in quotes are mine, not his.

Punk Subgenres

2009-09-15T10:58:00.000-07:00

I have mixed feelings about this trend- mannerpunk? Really? Stitchpunk? What the fuck? Splatterpunk made me laugh, though. Mythpunk I like, steam/clock/dieselpunk etc., and of course I've always loved cyberpunk...but this feels like we're just overdoing it, now. Not everything has to be punk, you know? Or else there would be no point to being punk...

Anyway, here's the article I'm fussing about.

Bookstore Horror!

2009-09-11T15:49:00.000-07:00

I was shelving history books downstairs. The store had just had a recent influx (or rather, glut) of history titles, and it was taking a team of us to get everything put up in a timely manner. So, I was happily humming to myself, shifting British history books along the shelves to fit everything, when I noticed a slim black paperback tucked behind the Margaret Thatcher biographies. Take note of that- behind the Margaret Thatcher biographies. Then, imagine my horror when I pulled out the book and read the title.

How to Impress Any Woman.*

Margaret Thatcher.

I cried a little, laughed hysterically, cried a little more, and ran upstairs to share my discovery with my coworkers and now the world.

* OK, so I'm not totally sure if that's the actual title- I was a little traumatized and I don't have the book with me at the moment. But, you get the idea.

Outer Alliance

2009-09-10T09:02:00.000-07:00

So...I'm way late in doing this (the day everyone was supposed to post was actually the 1st...but we'll pretend) but I figured I'd join in the fun anyway.

*Deep Breath* (Wow, it's like coming out all over again!)

As a member of the Outer Alliance, I advocate for queer speculative fiction and those who create, publish and support it, whatever their sexual orientation and gender identity. I make sure this is reflected in my actions and my work.

The next step is supposed to be a link or an excerpt or something something something reflecting one's work in queer spec fic...but, um, yeah. What I want to post is still just a title and an idea in my head, and I've convinced myself that everything else I've written is crap (or just WAY too long to deal with...or on the computer without internet access!) so I refuse to post here. That said, I have the vague goal of getting the particular piece mentioned above written soon enough to submit it to Crossed Genres, which is doing a LGBTQ themed issue. We'll see if I can get my head together soon enough to pull that one off- and we'll see if it's even remotely good enough to get published.

Speaking of coming out- submitting my "I want to join" post on the Outer Alliance's page may have been the most intimidating thing I've ever done in my life. Calling myself a writer when I've never been published (I'm not counting my local junior college magazine- especially since they wouldn't take genre fiction), and calling myself a blogger when I have one reader (hello, Aeri) seems a wee bit pretentious and insubstantial. That, and the Outer Alliance's membership list is composed of a number of my personal heroes- Hal Duncan and Cat Valente, guys! There are so many heavy hitters on the list, and more sure to come...and here I am, saying "Oh, um, I'm really nobody, but can I listen in on the awesomeness going down here? I'll be quiet and good, I swear..." and hoping no one tags me for an impostor.

Oh dear...class starts in an hour and a half and I need to find lunch. I sort of like having a computer lab to hang out in for the four hours between my classes! I think I'll be able to blog a little more often now.

(FYI- The Monk by Matthew G. Lewis is one of the funniest freaking books I've ever read. Am I alone in this?)

I WANT

2009-09-10T07:51:00.000-07:00

This shirt...and this shirt. Both are available on The Softer World's website, which also has various other awesome goods floating about. I'm not a huge fan of the comic strip itself, but their merchandise (well, at least the shirts) kicks ass.

And holy hell, this is the second post in two days! I'm on a roll! (Though probably now I won't post for a month. Oh well.)

20 Facts About Neil Gaiman

2009-09-08T09:08:00.000-07:00

I stole this from Book Spot Central (which apparently stole it from Jim Hines). It was too good to pass up. (My favorites are 5 and 11.)

1. Neil Gaiman once wrote a Nebula-winning story using only the middle row of his keyboard.
2. Harper Collins has taken out a 2.5 million dollar insurance policy on Neil Gaiman’s accent.
3. If you write 1000 words and Neil Gaiman writes 1000 words, Neil Gaiman has written more than you.
4. Neil Gaiman does not use Microsoft’s grammar-check. Microsoft uses a Gaiman-check.
5. Neil Gaiman once did the New York Times crossword puzzle in pen. In fifteen minutes. He won two Hugo awards for it.
6. Neil Gaiman is who the Ghostbusters call.
7. Most agents charge a 15% commission. Neil Gaiman’s agent pays him an extra 15% for the privilege of saying “I’m Neil Gaiman’s agent.”
8. William Shakespeare once came back from the dead to ask for Neil Gaiman’s autograph.
9. Neil Gaiman is the reason nobody teaches “I before E except after C” anymore.
10. Some writers take inspiration from the muse. The muse takes inspiration from Neil Gaiman.
11. Neil Gaiman once groped Harlan Ellison.
12. The pen is mightier than the sword; Neil Gaiman has mastered fourteen different styles of penmanship.
13. Rumor has it that a NY editor rejected Neil Gaiman’s first book. This can not be confirmed, as the editor in question was never heard from again.
14. Neil Gaiman can tweet 175 characters.
15. Neil Gaiman’s personal library includes an autographed copy of the Necronomicon.
16. Hitler actually won World War II. Then Neil Gaiman wrote an alternate-history story in which the allies won, and reality was too intimidated to argue the point.
17. Some authors write in omniscient point of view. Neil Gaiman lives it.
18. Neil Gaiman’s next novel is expected to win the Nebula, the Hugo, and the Heisman Trophy.
19. In any given week, 7 of the top 10 books on the NYT Bestseller List are by pseudonyms of Neil Gaiman.
20. Neil Gaiman has never written a deus ex machina ending. However, God once wrote a Gaiman ex machina ending.

New Kid's Book from Neil Gaiman!

2009-08-28T17:03:00.000-07:00

Gaiman and Charles Vess are collaborating on another picture book! This one is based on Gaiman's poem "Instructions", and Vess' illustrations look completely stunning, as usual.

Gaiman's Blog-
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/08/your-instructions-should-you-choose-to.html

Vess' Blog-
http://greenmanpress.com/news/archives/447

I love posting blog links today, apparently. Oh, I'm so excited! Blueberry Girl was amazing- I can't wait to see the final product for this one! Sadly it looks like it's not due out until 2010, but it'll be worth the wait, I'm sure.

Wired's 5 Worst Sci-Fi/Fantasy Books

2009-08-20T15:44:00.000-07:00

This link amused me. I agree with it with the most part (though I haven't read the Heinlein and I won't read the Meyer, so...)

5 Science Fiction/Fantasy Books We Wish Had Never Been Written

WorldCon

2009-08-12T18:11:00.000-07:00

WorldCon.
Montreal.
Canada. (Where it's not 102 degrees outside.)
Peadar O'Guilin.
Neil Gaiman.
Catherynne M. Valente.
Hugo Awards.
Panels on EVERYTHING.

Guess where I wasn't this weekend?

Gackt Update

2009-08-03T13:03:00.000-07:00

Got the album in. It is everything I could have hoped for, and more. Oh, so pretty... I'm going to make the upstairs neighbor hate me for playing this thing...(unless I convert her to Gackt fangirl-hood as well...hmm, new mission, perhaps?)

Then Again...

2009-07-31T08:55:00.000-07:00

The last post may have been about restoring my faith in humanity just a bit...but this one isn't.

U.S. Troops Accused of Damaging the Hanging Gardens of Babylon While Converting Them into a Base

It's things like this that make me ashamed of living in this country.

Hope for Humanity

2009-07-31T08:51:00.000-07:00

This is a beautiful thing.

Bookstore Moment

2009-07-23T16:02:00.000-07:00

The phone rings. I pick it up, give my usual greeting. I'm juggling an armload of history books and watching more customers walk in the store with things to sell back. It's been crazy all day, and I'm stressed and sweaty and sore and I really need to get downstairs to check these history books because there are stacks of other things to be looked at and added up still waiting on the counter...and I'm really hoping that the customer on the phone just wants to know our hours or something because there's so much to do and I need to hurry up and do it...and do you know what the oh-so-pressing question is that this customer has? The question which was so important she had to call us up and make sure before she came all the way to our store?

"Do you carry John Grisham?"

...

Head + Desk = Satisfying Thud.

Yes ma'am, we carry John Grisham. In paperback and hardback, and in multiple copies. Or would you like a free collection of Grisham novels someone donated to the store this morning? Or perhaps the collection someone donated yesterday, which we've already thrown in the dumpster out back? (For that matter, check the dumpster down your street. Grisham novels have been known to spontaneously appear there.) We are, after all, a bookstore.

Gundam 00

2009-07-21T16:16:00.000-07:00

Today was the day the first season was due to be released. I have credit built up from selling things back at Hastings. So, can someone tell me why it is 6 o'clock in the afternoon and I'm not at home watching Ritsuka-look-alikes (such a sour face!) and robots blow things up?

Because Hastings doesn't have my box sets.

BASTARDS.

I want my Gundam 00 and I want it now!

On a somewhat related note, this is why I love cosplay and cosplayers. It warms my heart a little.

Gackt!

2009-07-21T16:03:00.000-07:00

Yes, today I not only bought a CD (which I never do- they've been proven to be Not Worth the Investment, in my opinion) but I totally scored a freaking Gackt import album for $8.92! I've NEVER seen one of these damn things for less than $20- ever. Ever, ever, ever. And believe me when I say I've been hunting for years... dammit. The album is Mars, and it contains the outstanding tracks Vanilla, Mirror, and Oasis, as well as a number of other songs I'm not as familiar with. I like what I heard on the little soundbytes offered on Hasting's website, though, though I do believe I will be thoroughly pleased when the disc comes in. (Holy cow, I just bought a CD! I haven't done that in AGES!)

In the meantime, here's a (translated!) video of a live performance of Vanilla...complete with Gackt in tight snakeskin pants, humping his guitar player (Masa) onstage. Life is good, people.

And have I mentioned how much I hate this man for being so damn pretty? Gah! Just look at him! It isn't fair!

Catbus

2009-07-17T09:38:00.001-07:00

Seriously.
Yes.

Robots!

2009-07-12T10:27:00.000-07:00

I've been absent for a while, what with moving and getting settled and all, so I've been neglecting my blog. I'm still a bit rushed, so for now I don't have a real blog post (though one on forms of mythology is on the way), so today you get stupid-cute robot cupcakes. Enjoy. (Click on the picture to see the whole thing.)

Best Twilight Review Ever

2009-06-23T10:09:00.000-07:00

From respected fantasy writer Elizabeth Hand, published in the Washington Post. (And thanks to Hal Duncan for posting a link on his blog, where I found it.)

Awesome Video

2009-06-20T15:35:00.000-07:00

Dr. Who Meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOuOTOl-3gA

(Since I can't figure out how to embed video, you must go clicky on the link.)

Kenzaburo Oe

2009-06-14T08:11:00.000-07:00

I have found a new adorable old-man author for my collection. This is Kenzaburo Oe, a Japanese author whose fiction revolves mostly around the Post-WWII years (and especially post-Hiroshima) in Japanese history.

My favorite of his novels is Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids. It follows a group of young boys (juvenile delinquents, if their paranoid elders can be trusted) as they are shunted from one village to another, seeking shelter from the elements and the air-raiding armies. They are finally abandoned by their adult supervisors in a mountain village and left to fend for themselves for a few days, only to be punishedfor finding ways to survive when their supervisors return. I won't give away all of the surrounding circumstances or the conclusion, but I can say that I defiantly recommend the novel. It's a short read- I read it in about a day, and it's not even two hundred pages long. It's a bit of a mix between Battle Royale and Lord of the Flies without the campy flavor of the first or the...well, actually it's almost as disturbing as the latter, and it's a good study of the tension, paranoia, and social insecurity caused by war and the mistrust of youth.

I've also got a copy of his Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness, which contains four short novels including a semi-autobiographical story about a man coming to grips with having a mentally challenged son (that is the PC term these days, isn't it?) and another story following the dying days of a man with liver cancer (which he's probably imagined).

Latest Fangasm

2009-06-06T16:57:00.000-07:00

Guess what?!?!?!?!?! Guess what?!?!?!?!? Guess what?!?!?!?!

Eeek! There are TWO Gundam 00 mangas coming out this year, and those are just the ones that have been announced so far!

Also! Also! There's a lite novel due for release this December! Squee!

And I'll be able to figure out what the difference between these season one box sets is once they've been released this summer...all I can really tell is that they've got different cover art, and I have NO IDEA why one is more expensive than the other...

This show is my new Gundam Wing, and I'm having ISSUES, in case you haven't noticed. I have a feeling I'll be collecting everything 00 related like I do with Wing...and yes, I've definitely been lusting after those Gundam figurines. I have been for years now.

(And Flashback: I've watched the first half on Rurouni Kenshin, season two in the last two days. I'd forgotten how much I freaking love that show, and now I have to hunt down affordable copies of the other seasons.)

Latest Orders

2009-06-05T12:22:00.000-07:00

Ummm... I'd do a "Latest Arrivals" post, but other than Gaiman's Mirrormask and Lorca's Selected Letters I can't actually think of anything I've brought home recently. So, instead, I've decided to post a quick list of those books I'm expecting to arrive soon! Also, no pictures this time, because I'm lazy.

First off is The City and the City by China Mieville. A murder mystery novel set in another one of Mieville's imaginative settings, this promises to be a great read on par with his earlier novel, Perdido Street Station.

I also got fed up with waiting for a copy to show up in any local bookstore and finally ordered Catherynne Valente's Palimpsest. I read a short story set in the same world as this novel and (as usual) fell in love with Valente's prose... which broke my will and forced me to bump this up on my reading list.

Another book I just had to have because of a short story- I read M. John Harrison's contribution to The New Weird anthology (edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer) and decided I had to have his novel, Viriconium. The book and the short story are, again, set in the same world. Roman culture meets high tech society. Sweet!

Kelly Link's Trampoline: An Anthology is also on the way. It contains stories by Christopher Barzak (see my blog on his book The Love We Share... here), Carol Emshwiller, Jeffrey Ford, Karen Joy Fowler, Christopher Rowe, and a number of other people. Link is a top-notch editor and writer, and several of the names in this anthology make me positively drool.

Speaking of Christopher Barzak, I've got his other book One for Sorrow in the mail. This one seems to be worlds away from his story collection, The Love We Share Without Knowing, and actually looks like it may have something in common with Steve Berman's YA gay ghost story, Vintage (which I have another blog on... here).

And... speaking of Steve Berman... Trysts: A Triskaidecollection or Queer and Weird Stories is also on the way. Again, I seem to be developing a fixation on a handful of certain authors. (No Hal Duncan in this week's shipment...Not even a short story. That's a first. Although I'm still stalking his blog.)

Puppy Face

2009-05-30T18:23:00.001-07:00

National Spelling Bee 2009

2009-05-28T18:13:00.000-07:00

So, even though I (somehow) manage to watch the National Spelling Bee almost every year, it never ceases to amaze me how incredibly freaking good these kids are. I'm jealous, really. Even when they don't actually know how to spell a particular word, they know enough about the rules of forming words that they can piece together an almost always accurate spelling. Personally, I'm proud of myself for getting the word origin right on most of the spelling words (I swear they were all French- even the ones that weren't), though that really had no effect on my ability to actually spell them.

This year, the winning word was "laodicean", which is a Greek to Latin word with an English combining form meaning "lukewarm or indifferent in religion or politics". My favorite word, however, was "bouguiniste", a word that went from Dutch to French and which means "a dealer in second-hand books". Guess what I'm going to tell people I am from now on?

I can't help but wonder if there'll be another volume of stories like Logorrhea: Good Words Make Good Stories. It's a great concept for an anthology, and every one of the writers involved is a powerhouse in his of her own right, so unless they get an equal collection of stories for a sequel volume it may not be a good idea...but if they do, it is.

New Arrivals

2009-05-25T20:34:00.000-07:00

Saints and Strangers by Angela Carter

De Profundis by Oscar Wilde

The Crimson Labyrinth by Yusuke Kishi

Eidolon by Jonathan Strahan

Three Plays: Blood Wedding, Yerma, and The House of Bernada Alba by Fredrico Garcia Lorca

The New Weird edited by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer

50 Hottest SF Women

2009-05-25T20:31:00.000-07:00

I don't really agree with the order of this list, but I'm sharing it anyway.

http://www.ugo.com/movies/top-50-hottest-sci-fi-girls/?cur=mikaela-barnes&cmpid=ppc_ggl_ugo_hsg_081508&gclid=CODy2t_D1poCFQghnAodUmL72w

Genre and Literature

2009-05-23T16:03:00.000-07:00

To start off with, I want to make this clear that this isn't a scholarly essay of any sort- I'm just blathering about something that's been on my mind lately. For the last month or so I've been coming across various blog posts and web pages discussing the differences between 'genre' fiction (science fiction, mysteries, romances, etc.) and 'literary' fiction (a bit of a redundant term meaning anything that isn't sf/f, mystery, etc.) and why the two are for some reason considered to be antithetical to one another.

Now wait just a damn minute.

While I agree with everything Hal Duncan says on his examination on literary fiction (not all that surprising- I tend to agree with him on most things) I can't help but wonder- why isn't anyone else talking about how literary fiction is, by it's very nature of being fiction, a fantastical genre? That's right, I said it- literary fiction is the same basic thing as that oft-derided 'genre' of fantasy fiction.

Why do I make this claim? Well, it's an argument of semantics, really. Fiction is made-up. You can dress is up as 'contemporary' or 'classic literature', you can call it slipstream or urban literature or whatever-the-fuck-else, but at the end you're still left with fiction. Fiction isn't true. Non-fiction is true (don't get me started on that 'creative non-fiction' crap. That's a separate blog post of fussiness) and can be considered to be in the same realm of literature as, well, literary fiction. However, if you're writing non-fiction... and unless you're writing 'creative non-fiction'... you're writing something that's well researched and created in order to inform or incite, and you're presenting it as truth and usually not as entertainment. There are exceptions to this, of course, in the form of gossipy bio-pics and collections of trivia and humorous tales that have no point other than to amuse. But, I'm wandering. My point is that while non-fiction can be just as literary as, say, Hemingway's Farewell to Arms, fiction in general is a sort of fantasy by virtue of being made-up, no matter if it contains dragons and elves or soccer moms and knitting clubs (which is another trend which pisses me off- but again, different topic).

And do you know what? There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. The whole swords-and-sorcery connotation associated with the fantasy 'genre' is off-putting to many readers, I know, but at the heart of every novel, regardless of its literary aspirations, there is an echo of the word 'fantasy'. Hal Duncan mentions the suspension of disbelief being vital to reading fantasy (as we know the genre), but I can't help but ponder about all those slightly odd 'contemporary fiction' novels, those classified as 'strange fiction' or slipstream'. Does 'legitimacy' in the more 'literary' fiction depend on being 'predictible' and 'realistic'? Or can we admit that simply by being fiction, even the most literary novel has a little spark of the fantastic at its core?

Thor 2011!

2009-05-20T17:20:00.000-07:00

Holy cow, Kirk's daddy is going to be Thor in Marvel's 2011 adaptation of the comic! They've cast Loki as well, but he's not listed on Imdb yet.

Imdb.Com's Thor Page

Marvel's Announcement of Loki's Actor

What's next? Confirmation that Samuel L. Jackson will in fact be Nick Fury? (Who seems to be white again in the comics...except in Ultimates, where he's still black...jeez, I can't keep up with this guy's racial changes...)

Christopher Barzak's The Love We Share Without Knowing

2009-05-16T15:21:00.001-07:00

I have my first contender for 2009's top five books.

Christopher Barzak's The Love We Share Without Knowing is a collection of interlinked short stories which explore the concepts of identity and nationality, namely Japanese and American. The stories follow a varying cast of characters, some of whom meet at various points of the book and some of whom vanish altogether after one fateful event. Each character, however, is linked to the others by a twisting thread of love (some would say fate, others chance), giving the collection its name. Not every character gets a chance to tell his or her story before vanishing from the overall storyline, which makes me wonder if maybe, just maybe, there will be a sequel volume of a sort. (I especially wanted to read the story of the man who spends hours alone in a Japanese love hotel and writes in the love hotel's diary, expressing his views on the heartbreak and joy that other patrons, and humans in general, all share.)

I'd read "In Between Dreams" in The Solaris Book of New Fantasy (which is included in this volume as well), and was at first very intrigued by Barzak's use and re-interpretation of Japanese myth in a contemporary (Japanese) urban setting. It helps, of course, that this particular story deals with the kitsune, or fox spirit, which is probably my favorite aspect of Japanese mythology. Barzak uses the kitsune in several of the stories, tying the stories together by playing off of the spirit's mischievous and rather untrustworthy cleverness. I was also very curious to see if The Love We Share Without Knowing delved into the past of the gay American character, Danny, who is trapped in a supernatural coma by his jealous Japanese lover, Kenji. To my delight, Danny got his very own story, though sadly Kenji's side of the tale remains untold.

Overall, I was very impressed with the collection, and I've been thinking about picking up Barzak's other book, One For Sorrow. I've also ordered a short story collection that happens to have one of Barzak's stories, but I haven't read it yet. (It's still in the mail, actually.) I'm looking forward to what else Christopher Barzak comes up with.

This Week's Books (And a New Author's Blog)

2009-05-09T20:26:00.000-07:00

I've been on the hunt for Christopher Barzak's work since I came across his story in the Solaris Book of New Fantasy. I eventually found his blog, and realized only a few hours ago that he in fact has two books out (and is working on a third). His current releases include The Love We Share Without Knowing and One for Sorrow, both of which I plan on eventually adding to my collection. I swear neither of these books were listed a few months ago when I first searched for him!

Anyway, in the course of the last week (or so) I've bought or rescued a good ten or so books...not all of the books I ordered have come in, but I've listed them here anyway so I don't forget. And all of them are listed on LibraryThing, or will be shortly.

Today's Prize Find:

Charles Vess' Book of Ballads-

Rescue Cases:

Nigel Barley's Grave Matters-

Howard Engel's Lord High Executioner- I wish the cover shot were of higher quality. It's actually a pretty nice looking book. Um...sort of.

Larry Townsend's Run, Little Leather Boy- Sadly, there's no image available of this one.

Recent Purchases:

Samuel R. Delany's Dark Reflections and The Bridge of Lost Desire-

Jonathan Carroll's Bones of the Moon- (Which was actually also a rescue, come to think of it.)

Brian W. Aldiss' The Twinkling of an Eye: My Life as an Englishman- (Also somewhat of a rescue!)

Andrew J. Wilson's Nova Scotia: New Scottish Speculative Fiction- Sorry, no image available.

Bought, But Still Drifting Somewhere in the U.S. Postal System:

Ekaterina Sedia's Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy-

Theodora Goss' In the Forests of Forgetting-

Steve Berman's Wilde Stories 2008: The Best of the Year's Gay Speculative Fiction-

Delia Sherman's Interfictions:An Anthology of Interstitial Writing-

I was going to post a review of the new Trek movie, but I'm still running it over in my head, and at any rate I think I'll go back to see it again soon. I will say now that though I don't feel as if I can accept the film as truly canon, it is the most beautiful fanfiction ever written. Futher opinions will be forthcoming when I've come to grips with the movie.

Wolverine: Origins

2009-05-02T15:07:00.000-07:00

I'm rather disappointed with the new Wolverine movie.

I haven't heard what other people have said about the film (other than the group I went to the release with, but we were all pretty much on the same page) so maybe someone out there had a slightly more positive experience...but I don't see how. I don't think there was a single aspect of the storyline that caught me off guard or made me think. Oh no- my friends and I were crowing about "ooh, that's *spoiler's* dad! I betcha it is!", "oh, that guy is so going to die" and "she's really a traitor! Five bucks says she turns on him!" and in every single case, we turned out to be right (sadly) except for the time I said "oh, the elevator is going to be empty when it arrives on the floor" and Deadpool (err...just Wade, actually. They weren't calling him Deadpool yet, I think) was still in plain view when the elevator landed. That may have been the only surprise in the entire movie- and I haven't even read the Origins comics, so it's not like I was cheating! (That also means I don't know how close the movie followed the comics, or indeed if they follow them at all, so don't take this review of the movie as a commentary on the comics.)

As if the transparent plot wasn't insult enough, the special effects wound up leaving the same acidic aftertaste in my mouth as the cheap-as-fuck special effects employed by none other than the SciFi (SyFy now) channel. Granted, they weren't as God-fucking-awful as the SciFi/SyFy effects are, but they were way below par for a movie with the kind of history and fanbase (and one would think with the funding!) usually associated with the X-Men movie franchise. Granted, this is a prequel, and we all know how much those suck, but I still find it difficult to believe no one somewhere along the line of production said to his friend "hmm...do Wolverine's claws look a bit... I don't know, flat? Unfinished, maybe?" because the first thing I thought when Wolvie unsheathed his newly-minted adamantium claws was "those look totally fucking fake", especially in the farmhouse bathroom scene where Wolvie examines his funky snow-white claws in excruciating detail. (Also- am I the only person who asked "when and how the hell did we wind up in Smallville?" when Wolvie showed up at that farmhouse? Seriously- what the fuck?) The explotions and most of the fighting was so-so in quality, pretty much what you'd expect in any typical action flick, though I really dug the one awesome scene torward the end when Sabertooth and Wolvie teamed up against a teleporting Deadpool (for reasons that I'm choosing now to spoil).

Gambit. Oh, for the love of God, why? I spent way too freaking long to see my dear Remy in a movie for THAT to be all I get. Weak accent, not a word of French, very little screen presence and 90% of his fighting techniques were annoying rather than awesome. And, to add insult to injury, he had normal eyes. That's right, not the infamous red-on-black- he had normal eyes. They glowed a wee bit when he used his powers (and only when he used his powers during a closeup), but generally he had normal pupils, normal irises, the whole works. I am PISSED. First they screw up Rogue, now they've gone off and screwed up Gambit, too.

Cheap cheap cheap fucking cheap.

On the plus side, I loved Ryan Renolds as Wade (for the all of five minutes he was actually on the screen), and Liev Schreiber's performance as Sabertooth was excellent- much, much better than the stuntman they had play his part in the X-Men films. And what's more is I've heard there's an extra scene at the end were Deadpool shows up, breaks the forth wall (his trademark in the comics) and shushes the audience, after his *spoilers!* decapitation in the film. Healing powers for the win! The scene I saw at the end of the credits in the particular theater I attended just showed Wolvie drinking at a Japanese bar and being mopey. *end of spoilers*

Bookstore Moment

2009-04-29T15:31:00.000-07:00

So, I've always heard tales of people requesting odd books, getting titles wrong in strange ways, and in general getting literary information very, very mixed up, but I've never really had to deal with these bizarre mistakes myself.

Well, I guess I can't really say that anymore. Today I was shelving a stack of graphic novels (all very mediocre and cheap) when a woman walks up to me and asks if we have a book by "Alex Scrub".

"Alex Scrub"? Well, needless to say, I'm not familiar with the author, so I ask if she knows what "Alex Scrub" writes. I'm assuming young adult, but she doesn't seem to know- she's looking for the writer for her brother. Ok then, we'll go ask the computer. Let's see what books "Alex Scrub" has written so I can help her find them.

Well, an Amazon search for "Alex Scrub" doesn't turn up any hits, so she calls her brother to make sure she has the writer's name right.

"Alice"? Alice? Alice in Wonderland? Is she looking for a title, not an author?

"Oh, no, no, Atlas!" Atlas? What? "Atlas Shrugged! Do you have a book called Atlas Shrugged?"

"Upstairs in classic literature, ma'am. You'll see it first thing on your right. Have a good day."

Currently Reading

2009-04-28T13:22:00.000-07:00

Just Finished-
The Orphan's Tales: Cities of Coin and Spice by Catherynne M. Valente

This was every bit what I was expecting and hoping it would be. The mystery of the orphan girl's origin finally comes clean in this volume, and the story was beautifully told and just as mesmerizing as the first. I think the first is still my favorite book of the two, but that's due mostly to the fact it surprised me. I went into the second book knowing what Valente was capable of, and boy-oh-boy did she deliver!

On Hold?-
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh

I'm not totally sure why I seemed to have stopped reading this book. I was enjoying it, but I didn't really click with it, you know? I'll give it a week or two and try to pick it back up once this semester's over and I have a little more spare time and energy. (And did anyone else find that the book wasn't nearly as gross as its reputation implied? I was expecting to be disgusted and appalled through the whole thing, but so far there have only been two or three little moments where I went "ugh!")

Reading-
Trouble on Triton by Samuel R. Delany

Actually, I only started this one this morning, but I've been moving along at a good clip (except for the little break from reading I took, where I watched The Corpse Bride and cooked lunch) and I'm nearly as far along in Triton as I am in Mainspring. It's much harder reading than Mainspring, too- damn you, Delany, and your complicated scientific and philosophical passages that make me slow down, read, re-read, contemplate, and play connect-the-dots in my brain. This isn't easy for me to do first thing in the morning! Delany, if you weren't so damn good at it and totally worth the struggle, I'd hate you.

Mainspring by Jay Lake

I've waited how many months now to get my hands on a copy of this fucker? Too many, that's certain. I've read a few of Jay Lake's short stories and browsed his blog (livejournal? don't remember now) a time or two...and I've waited. And waited. And waited. Every time I saw a copy at B&N or Half-Price- not that I ever shop at bookstores other than the one I work in, of course- I'd talk myself out of buying it (I can't support the competition, right?) because eventually- EVENTUALLY- we'd get a copy at my job and I'd get my employee discount and all that jazz. In fact, a copy came in a few months ago- and my coworker (it's a good thing I like him!) snatched it up before I saw it! So I waited. And waited. And Waited. And lo and behold, what comes in last Saturday but my very own copy of Mainspring! I even did a little victory dance for the benefit of my coworkers (especially the one who nabbed the other copy!) and I bought the little fucker before I left that night. I win. (And the book's been pretty damn fun, too!)

Awaiting-
Dark Reflections by Samuel R. Delany

Yes, there are still some Delany books I don't own. And yes, that number keeps shrinking. This particular Delany book is somewhat semi-autobiographical in that the main character- a probable stand-in for the author- is a black, gay poet, as Delany was before he turned to science fiction (and then to 'literary' fiction...but whatever). The character's life is told in reverse- that is, he starts out as a succesful older man and as the story progresses, the reader is gradually introduced to him as his younger and more ambitious self. At least, that's what all of the reviews and summaries I've seen have said. I'll have the book by the end of the week, and then I'll know more.

Nova Scotia: New Scottish Speculative Fiction edited by Andrew J. Wilson

This was a 2006 finalist for the World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology, and holy hell but does it have a great line-up. Ken MacLeod, Jane Yolen, Charles Stoss, Neil Williamson, and seventeen others contributed to this collection, and I have no fucking clue as to how in the hell this thing is out of print. (Why? WHY?) After all, "forget, the Loch Ness monster, Brigadoon and all the usual tartanalia: Nova Scotia examines the Scotland of the 21st century and offers 22 unique insights on living in this New Scotland". And yeah, I totally stole that from the website.

New Additions to My Wish List-
The Secret History of Moscow by Ekaterina Sedia

My friend (the coworker who snagged that first copy of Mainspring, actually) swears by this woman's writing, and from what little I've seen I must say I'm excited. Hopefully I'll like her as much as my coworker does, which is frankly very possible.

In the Forest of Forgetting by Theodora Goss

This is a short story collection by a writer who I've read in Lady Churchill's (well, ok, I've only ever seen The Best of compilation), and every time I've fallen a little more in love with her work. Now that I've found a collection of her stories, I have to get it.

Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy edited by Ekaterina Sedia (not so new on my wish list, but it will probably be one of the next few things I order online)

Sedia again. This anthology contains works by Jay Lake, Hal Duncan, Anna Tambour, Forrest Aguirre, and Catherynne M. Valente, and I'm starting to see a trend in the authors whose short fiction I collect. Anyone else detect a trend?

There are a number of other anthologies that I've been eyeing, but I'm trying to keep my consumption level down for the time being. But just wait. They will be mine!

Kunoichi Says Hello

2009-04-27T10:37:00.000-07:00

New (Online) Toy!

2009-04-26T21:18:00.000-07:00

I recently joined LibraryThing.com, which allows users to keep an online record of their books (and allows for book voyeurs such as myself to peek at the shelves of other collectors without getting the cops called on us). Sadly enough, it's very entertaining, and you can check out the libraries of your friends and your favorite authors. I think there are even forums and such...though I've been so busy scoping out who has my favorite books that I haven't really paid much attention to those features. Neeways, my profile page is located at http://www.librarything.com/profile/bookjockey18 and I'd love to have company. Plus, I'm a book whore and I love to look at other people's shelves, and the more the merrier, right? Right.

Oh, and that shadow that's been hovering near your bookshelf... You know, the one behind you? It isn't what you think! I was just... Please don't call the cops...

(More) New Books

2009-04-25T17:39:00.000-07:00

I was bad this week- I bought more books, even after my spending spree last week and after paying on my gigantic expensive layaway. I also adopted a few abandoned books from our donation closest at work, but that only makes up for it a little bit.

Anyway, this week's new acquisitions list contains-

Mainspring by Jay Lake

The Great Book of Amber by Roger Zelazny

The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki Shikibu (though I prefer this edition, which I also own)

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (Norton Critical Edition)

The Eternal Champions Series, Volumes 1, 2, and 3 (The Eternal Champion, Von Bek, and Hawkmoon)

And, because I'm a loser who can't kick the deadly habit...

Han Solo's Revenge by Brian Daley (sorry, no accurate Amazon image)

The Trouble With Tribbles: The Birth, Death, Sale, and Final Production of One Episode by David Gerrold

The Search for Meaning in "American Beauty"

2009-04-23T21:26:00.000-07:00

Throughout the film “American Beauty”, the audience watches as the characters argue, fight, cry, and seduce their way through life, seeking to understand what it all means and why sometimes life has to be so difficult. As friends, lovers, and family members, they use one another as scapegoats and as modes of escape to avoid dealing with life- or, perhaps, to deal with life in the only way they know how. Most of the characters are self-obsessed, materialistic, and insecure to the point of neurosis and are completely unable to connect with other people, or really even themselves.

Carolyn Burnham is one of the neediest, most insecure characters in the movie. She spends most of the film trying and failing to find some source of reassurance to offset the isolation she feels. She chants mantras to herself, promising that she will do one thing or she will not do another, though she can’t fool even herself into thinking she has a chance of following through and finding happiness. The only character Carolyn connects with for even a little while is the arrogant Buddy Kane, who winds up abandoning her when her husband discovers their affair. Kane is far more concerned about his professional appearance than his romantic entanglements, and he selfishly leaves Carolyn behind to deal with the mess their affair has created. On the other hand, Lester Burnham, Carolyn’s husband, is not terribly upset about his wife sleeping with another man. He has felt isolated from his unfeeling wife for quite some time, and in fact finds it liberating that Carolyn is no longer trying to bend him to her idea of what a proper family is. He takes his new freedom from his wife’s control and runs with it. He starts smoking pot, working out, and quits his white-collar job to flip burgers, all in order to relive the happiest time of his life- his teens. He then takes the hunt for his lost happiness and youth a step further and seduces (and allows himself to be seduced by) his daughter’s best friend, a terribly insecure ‘beauty’ named Angela. Angela, meanwhile, is using both Lester and his daughter Jane to fuel her own search for herself. She puts up a front of confidence and success, when really she’s a scared little girl who is desperate for a way to feel special and loved. Angela feeds off of Lester’s sexual attention and off of Jane’s ‘plainness’ in order to separate herself from the ‘ordinary’ people she sees every day. The arrival of Jane’s new boyfriend, Ricky, makes this increasingly difficult for her. He calls her out on her behavior, declaring that Angela was never actually Jane’s friend but was really using her to increase her own confidence. Ricky also sees through Angela’s pretentious disguise and says to her face he finds her boring and plain. Ricky is himself an odd character. He toys with the emotions of other characters on several occasions, from egging his father on into two unnecessary physical confrontations to exposing Angela’s cruel method of finding self-assurance. On the other hand, he seems to be the only relatively happy character in the movie. His obsession with filming ordinary and sometimes gruesome things stems not just from a morbid sense of curiosity, but also from a deep-seated appreciation of the beauty that exists in the everyday world. He alone has a sense of self-confidence, and doesn’t feel ‘exposed’ or ‘naked’- even when Jane is filming him when he is very much physically naked.

Ricky is, sadly, the only character in the movie with a perception of his own self-worth. The other characters spend the entire movie flitting from one argument to another as they try desperately to find their calling, their soul mate, or their place in the crazy world they live in. Like families and neighbors often do, these characters have formed tight relationships- or perhaps just loose ones- which enable them to find new ways of learning about themselves and each other in meaningful ways. Even the missteps and missed opportunities offer lessons in how human beings interact with one another and how those interactions change the way people see each other and themselves.

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I wrote this one for a sociology class (Marriage and Family Relationships). Again, I had a two page limit, which I went over by just a tiny bit, once I put in the heading and everything. I'd never seen the movie before, and I've got to say- it's delightfully screwy.

Vintage: A Ghost Story by Steve Berman

2009-04-20T14:24:00.000-07:00

Does this make the third post in a row that mentions Steve Berman? It does, it does! Berman gets a gold star!

So after spending the last two or three months waiting to come across a copy of any Berman book (I don't know why, but I had a huge aversion to ordering one used off of Amazon) I finally located a copy of Vintage: A Ghost Story. I've already complained in a previous post about how I feel about finding his YOUNG ADULT novel in the literature section- it's not that I don't feel young adult books can be literature, but rather that I have a horrible sneaking suspicion it was shelved among more 'adult' literature to avoid scandalizing anyone (parents, namely) since it is a gay ghost/love story. To make things worse, I found it there after hearing about the Amazonfail controversy. The whole thing just rubbed me the wrong way.

At any rate, I bought the book Friday night, started reading it Saturday morning, and had it finished by midnight Saturday. It's a fairly slim book and an easy read, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. It was a great book to help me recover from my hellish day at class and work- it's a very sweet love story between two boys (and between one boy and a ghost boy) that refrains from becoming too sappy and saccharine to stand. The main character and Mike, one of the main love interests, are simply too cute with one another, especially in the very early stages of their budding relationship when neither of them are too terribly sure of what is expected of them. I was not, however, too fond of Josh (the ghost and the main character's other potential love interest) and found him to be selfish and controlling. My reaction to him may be a complement though- I'm not totally sure Berman made him in order to be liked (or perhaps Josh just isn't my type). Forget the pig-headed jock, guys- the cute little artist boy is way, way better for you.

The story itself is fairly predictable. Goth boy meets ghost boy, falls in love, and realizes ghost boy may not be quite as good for his health as perhaps he'd like. Then goth boy meets (or actually realizes he's been there all along) the artistic little brother of his best friend, starts falling for him, and realizes that a relationship with a living person who can't kill you with a mere touch may be a much better thing overall. Did I mention this was a gay teen love story? In the 'grown-up' fiction section? Anyway. Cute, refreshing story, if a little simple.

What made the book was Berman's portrayal of what it's like to grow up gay in a small town. I'm not talking about all that coming-out, woe-is-me shit that every gay teen movie ever produced has tried to pass off as a tear-jerking story, I'm talking about how it feels to live in a constant state of anxiety and hope. Did that cute guy waiting on your table at dinner pay a little more attention to you than the diners in the next booth? Was that pretty girl looking at your shirt, or your...well, I'm sure we all have imaginations. Was that sharp look you got from the customer you just helped a disdainful glance because of your youth, or do they know and are they planning on waiting for you outside with a lynch mob? Maybe your parents know, maybe they don't, and wouldn't we all like to have an aunt like the main character's, who takes him in after he runs away from home and his angry parents? I have an aunt I like to think would have done so, if I had asked, and as a consequence whenever the character appeared in the book I pictured her as my own aunt.

The main character isn't ashamed of his sexuality- his reluctance to be open about his gayness stems rather from a fear of reprisal. He fears being attacked and targeted, though he doesn't at all feel that he deserves such treatment. The issue of being completely out in high school is also examined through one of Berman's lesbian characters- she's upfront about her sexual orientation from the start, and while she doesn't receive any shit about it from other characters she does unnerve the main character with her frankness. She lives on the edge of what he perceives as dangerous territory, and while he respects her for it and desires that level of honesty for himself he can't help but measure the costs against the benefits. His own experiences have taught him that other people don't always accept homosexuals- he told one student at his previous school about his sexual orientation, and within a week was turned into a victim of harassment and verbal assaults from a number of people in his community, including his own parents (every gay teen's worst fear- that Mom and Dad won't understand). At the same time, is slightly oddball aunt loves him no matter what he does or who he loves, and while she makes him agree to basic ground rules of behavior (his boyfriend is not allowed to spend the night- which is the same rule she would impose if he had a girlfriend instead) the rules are made in love, not for punishment. She parents and guides him, without trying to change something that is very integral to his nature.

Berman also explores teenage drug and alcohol use in a manner that neither vilifies nor glorifies getting drunk, huffing, or even trying out Ecstasy. That is to say he doesn't condemn kids for experimenting with things they really shouldn't experiment with, but he does look at the consequences of careless actions, from mild ones like hangovers to much more serious ones such as cheating on a partner while drunk or the tragedy of accidentally killing oneself while huffing. Parents probably wouldn't like this aspect of the book, but it's a more honest look at drugs and teenagers than the majority of young adult books I've seen would dare try. There are no scare tactics here, only a calm pointing out of the potential risks and an acknowledgement that kids will be kids, no matter what parents think.

I will be awaiting the next arrival of a Steve Berman book on my shelf now. He's edited several titles that intrigue me as well, and we all know what a whore I am for short story collections! I'll be sure to keep posting. (Also, my apologies if any of this isn't terribly logical. I'm rather tired at the moment and it's all I can do to keep my spelling somewhat accurate.)

New Arrivals

2009-04-18T12:26:00.000-07:00

I went on a bit of a spending spree yesterday and came home with a few new books. Most importantly, I added to my Delany collection, and then I finally found a Steve Berman novel! It's amazing how hard it is to find his books around here. I can't believe Barnes & Noble actually had a copy, though I have a bit of a problem with how they had the book shelved in the general fiction section when the book explicity states "Young Adult" on the cover and is aimed at gay teen readers. After the Amazon fiasco last week (link is to Gaiman's journal on the subject), I'm not too pleased to see what could be construed as a form of censorship in my local B&N.

Anyway, on to the books.

Camp Concentration Thomas M. Disch

Vintage: A Ghost Story Steve Berman

Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia Samuel R. Delany

Babel-17/ Empire Star Samuel R. Delany

Ode to Walt Whitman Fredrico Garcia Lorca

In Search of Duende Fredrico Garcia Lorca

Also, I just realized that every single one of these authors is (or was) gay. What does that say about the prominence of GLBT writers and titles, Amazon?

Upcoming Releases- 2009

2009-04-12T19:12:00.000-07:00

So instead of reading or writing or really doing anything remotely productive, I spent the evening browsing Amazon and checking out upcoming releases by my favorite writers. I already have Anne Bishop's new book The Shadow Queen (which I'm not as pleased with as I had hoped, unfortunately) which snuck under my radar until I stumbled across a copy at Barnes & Noble. To keep this from happening again, I decided to compile a list here for books I'm gonna have to order A.S.A.P!

First off is Jeff Vandermeer's Booklife: Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21st Century Writer. Though I normally avoid books on writing like the plague on society they are, I think I'll have to break my own rules and check this one out. Vandermeer's non-fiction is, strangely enough, the reason I started reading him in the first place, and this book looks like it's going to deal with issues that actually are important for modern day writers including, as Amazon.com claims, "personal space versus public space, deadlines, and networking, [and] the benefits of interacting with readers through new technologies". This one is due out in October, so I've got a while to wait before I can get my hands on a copy.

China Mieville's new novel, The City & The City, is coming out this May. I'm fighting the urge to pre-order it...at least until it gets a little closer to the release date and my willpower breaks. I'm a little behind on my Mieville books, but this one looks pretty intriguing and I just might have to bump a few things down on my reading list to make room for it.

I was hoping to get a copy of Catherynne M. Valente's Palimpsest at one of my local bookstores, but once again I forgot how weak the fantasy sections in my Hastings and Barnes & Noble are. I'll be buying this one off of Amazon before long, I fear.

Neil Gaiman has another children's book (Crazy Hair) due out at the end of May. I already have a copy of his other new children's book, The Blueberry Girl, and I love it. Charles Vess' artwork is unbelievably beautiful in The Blueberry Girl, and I'm sure Dave McKean's illustrations in Crazy Hair will be as odd and wonderful as they always are.

Oddly enough (for me), I'm greatly tempted to read Drood by Dan Simmons. Like books on writing, I tend to avoid fiction about writers, but I think Simmons may be on to something with his novel about Charles Dickens and his last, unfinished manuscript, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Besides, this is one giant sucker of a freaking novel, which hopefully translates into plenty of reading entertainment for me!

I'm also looking out for a copy of Steve Berman's Mr. October's Naughty Bedside Reader, which doesn't have a release date yet, sadly. Like Valente, I'll probably have to order this one off Amazon, since my local bookstores don't know who he is, either (ugh! I need to have a chat with the people who pick stock. Whoever these Robert Jordan and R.A. Salvatore guys are, they need to quit taking up so much room on the store fantasy shelves!).

Bookmarks!

2009-04-11T17:19:00.000-07:00

These are just awesome-
Stolen from
http://www.miragebookmark.ch/be_0_exhibition.htm

Marvin especially makes me squee!

Red Meat- Philip K. Dick Comic

2009-04-11T17:09:00.000-07:00

Blogger's being cranky so I can't get the image to load, but here's a link. It's pretty funny.

http://bp3.blogger.com/_z5vpNAABjv8/RzyoTGVBInI/AAAAAAAAAY4/9sbJ86PlGio/s1600-h/index-1.gif

Parallels and Dissimilarities in Babylonian and Biblical Myth

2009-04-09T13:45:00.000-07:00

Mythologies from around the world have a surprising number of similarities, from trickster characters to malevolent water demons and from sun gods riding through the skies to creatures ferrying the souls of the dead to the underworld. Two mythologies with obvious, though often ignored, parallels are Babylonian myth and Biblical myth. Though the two have their differences, as evidenced by their disparate creation myths, they have strong correlations with one another in several other major legends, especially through their flood myths and through their God resurrection cycles. These three myths- the creation story, the flood myth, and the resurrection of the God figure- form a trinity of mythological similarity and possible one of continuity, as the Babylonian version of these tales predate Biblical records by approximately a millennium and a half (Gilgamesh 99). Other mythical traditions from across the globe have their own varieties of these three stories, but rarely are the parallels as predominant as they are in the Babylonian and Biblical accounts.

The Creation

The creation story of the Babylonians starts out using very similar language as what would eventually be used in the Biblical version. Sandars’ translation states that “when there was no heaven, no earth, no height, no depth, no name…” the gods existed in an empty void with no humans to worship them, and proposes that the entire story reads more like a hymn than a work of literature or even a fairy tale, with no main character or plot tension (11, 16-17). The tale goes on to describe how the Babylonian gods battled one another to establish dominance over primordial forces- which they also created- and each other. Mostly at this stage, the gods are not concerned with intentionally creating the universe or mankind, but are far more concerned with establishing a sort of hierarchy between themselves and with carving out a niche of influence within the new world they will create. It isn’t until the end of the tale that one of the gods, Marduk, having achieved his victory over the goddess Tiamat, takes her remains and splits her body in half, using one half to create a roof for the sky and one half to make the earth to keep the subterranean waters below. He uses her saliva to make clouds and rain, her ‘poison’ to make fog, and her slit eyes to form the Euphrates and Tigris rivers (McCall 52-59). Having built the world on the body of the defeated goddess, Marduk calls for the creation of followers and worshippers to revere him and his compatriots in their victory. He also wants these followers to do the mundane daily work that is beneath the status of a god or goddess, such as growing crops and herding animals. Of course, these new creations are human beings, formed out of clay by the gods to act as servants (Sproul 114-116). Though a foreign idea to most people living with religious thought today, to the ancient Babylonians the idea of being created for the sole purpose of serving the gods was not only generally accepted by the Babylonian people, but was in fact the principle theology of the day (King 65).
The Biblical myth is very different in many ways. Springing from a monotheistic religion, the Judeo-Christian God did not have other deities to battle against in a primordial war for control. There were certainly other religions, and therefore other gods and goddesses, to contend with on the mortal plain, but as far as the Judeo-Christian tradition went their God was the only God with any real power over the world. Still, the language used to describe the Biblical creation of the world closely parallels the Babylonian tradition. Bierlien’s account of the Genesis story reads “[in] the beginning, God created the heavens and earth. Now the earth was a formless void, there was darkness over the deep, and God’s spirit hovered over the water” (73). This water may possibly be a throwback to the subterranean waters covered by the body of Tiamat, or it may be a reference to the primordial forces that the Judeo-Christian God was meant to rule alone. The reference to water as part of the creative process is not an uncommon one in mythology. Neither is the reference to clay- like Marduk, God creates mankind out of earth, first molding a bit of clay into the form of man then breathing life into the figurine (Gabel 114). Again, earth is a recurring element in creation stories from around the world, and in this case may be a bit of a stand in for the goddess figure- being the only deity in the Judeo-Christian tradition, God has no feminine force to correspond to his masculine principle, and most earth deities are regarded as female in nature. This includes the goddess Marduk killed in order to form the earth.
Though the stories themselves are very different, the presence of these creation myths is a powerful indicator of a universal truth- all complete mythologies have a creation legend. It stems from a worldwide need to explain the origins of humanity and the world itself, which is the strongest correlation between mythologies of any source. Often these stories share common threads, such as the presence of certain elemental or primordial forces influencing the formation of the world. These elemental forces can be men made of earth, rivers made of tears- the most human source of water- or the battle for order and civilization to emerge from chaos and wilderness (Stewart 11, 13). In any instance, the creation story is itself a sign of similarity between cultures which may have never been in contact with one another. In fact, it is a worldwide testament to human curiosity and the need to name and explore the unknown.

The Flood

Unlike the creation story, which varies in its explicit content, the flood stories shared by Babylonian and Biblical tradition have such direct, obvious parallels in the way they are structured and in the events that transpire within the tales that when the first tablets containing the Babylonian flood myth were discovered and then translated in the early years of the last century, interest in comparing the Old Testament story to the ancient Babylonian tale surged (King 58). The Babylonian story can be found today in the epic poem documenting the adventures of the ancient hero Gilgamesh. In one tablet describing his journey though the Underworld in search for a way to achieve immortality, Gilgamesh seeks out his ancestor, Utnapishtim, who received warning from the god Ea that the world would soon be flooded and destroyed due to the capricious whim of the gods. Utnapishtim, with the help of his family and a few friends, built a boat and filled it with all of the known animals of the world, then sought refuge within the boat themselves when the gods sent massive storms to drown the world (Gilgamesh 79-80). The floods were so severe that the gods themselves were frightened- Ishtar, or Inanna, whose complaints had convinced the other gods to allow the flood, was so appalled to see her ‘children’ killed she wept with grief and shame (Bierlein 126). Seven days and nights passed for Utnapishtim and his family in their boat before they came to rest on a mountain peak. Utnapishtim sent out a dove, a swallow, and a raven in succession over the next few days to see if there was enough land for his passengers to leave the boat and begin their lives again. The dove and the swallow came back, signifying that the floods hadn’t abated enough to leave, but the raven never returned and Utnapishtim allowed his family to leave the boat (Gilgamesh 79).
The Biblical story covers much of the same territory. Noah, who alone of the men of his day had ‘found favor’ with God, received warning from his God that a flood was on its way to wipe out the corruption, violence, and evil in mankind. God directs Noah to build an ark and fill it with all the animals in the world, and to take on board his family as well. Like in the Babylonian account, for seven days and nights it rains in a torrential downfall that wipes out all life on land, and when Noah’s ark finally lands it comes to rest on a mountaintop. This time, Noah sends out the raven first. The bird does not return, not because it found land but because it flies back and forth across the sky until eventually the land dried enough for the bird to find a roost. Noah then sends out a dove, which returns the first time it is released but not the second, showing that there is finally enough dry ground to live on (Bierlein 121-124). The reversal of the crow and dove’s roles in the Biblical account, if the writers of the Old Testament story were aware of the Babylonian account, could have been an intentional way to subvert the older myth. The dove is a popular symbol among Christians, while the crow is often viewed as a negative harbinger of death or at the very least an unattractive animal.
The similarities between the Babylonian story and the Biblical account of Noah’s ark are startling. Both are warned in advance by a god that tragedy is imminent, both build a boat to save their loved ones and the animals of the world from destruction, both are stranded on a mountaintop at the end of the flood, and both release birds to determine if it is safe to leave their haven. The greatest difference between the two stories lies in the reason behind the flooding- in the Judeo-Christian tradition, God sent the flood to wipe out evil men and corruption, while in the Babylonian tale the gods send the flood essentially because a goddess complained about having a bad day with the mortal servants. Though in both cases it is the folly and sin of mankind that causes the flood, it is only in the Biblical story that the sin is named and the punishment is sent for a specific reason. The Babylonian account also claims that the floods were sent as a result of mankind’s offenses, though what those offences are remain abstract (Heidel 225).

The Resurrection of God

Most of the world’s most exciting and enduring literature revolves around a hero or god descending into the Realm of the Dead and rising again, forever changed. Though it is impossible to tell if the story is the first of its kind, one of the oldest surviving stories of such a journey is the account of Inanna’s voyage into the Great Below. The Babylonian goddess, also referred to as Ishtar, sets out for the underworld to console her sister Ereshkigal, the ruler of the Great Below, over the death of Ereshkigal’s husband. Before she leaves, she instructs her servant to wait for three days and, if Inanna doesn’t return from her unpredictable and dangerous sister’s realm, her servant is to go to the gods Enlil, Nanna, and Enki to beg for help so Inanna does not die. As Inanna enters the kingdom of her sister she must pass through the seven gates of the underworld. As she enters each gate, another symbol of her office is stripped from her. Her crown, her lapis beads, a double strand of beads, her royal robe, her breastplate, her gold ring, and her lapis rod and line, all of her accoutrements signifying her rank and divinity, are taken from her before she is allowed into her sister’s presence. Ereshkigal rises from her throne upon seeing Inanna and “[fastens] on Inanna the eye of death. She [speaks] against her the word of wrath. She [utters] against her the cry of guilt. She [strikes] her” (Wolkstein 60). Struck dead where she stands in her sister’s throne room, Inanna collapses and is hung on a hook on a wall like a butchered sacrificial animal. When three days have gone by, Inanna’s servant goes to the three gods specified by Inanna. Enlil and Nanna refuse to help, claiming that by setting foot in the Underworld Inanna doomed herself to die and she deserves to get what she set herself up for. Only Enki takes mercy on Inanna’s plight and forms a plan to revive the goddess. He creates two creatures, the galatur and the kurgarra, who are neither male nor female. He sends them to the Underworld after Inanna with the water of life and the food of life, and with instructions on how to please Ereshkigal so they will be able to retrieve Inanna’s body. When they enter Ereshkigal’s throne room, they sympathize with her various pains and ailments, offering her their complete support and understanding for everything she wants to complain about. Pleased that these two strangers empathize with her so much, she offers them any gift of their choice. They ask for Inanna’s body hanging on the hook, and insist that it is all they will take. She complies, and the galatur and the kurgarra feed Inanna’s body the food of life and the water of life. When she rises, restored to life, the Annuna, or the judges of the afterlife, proclaim that if Inanna wishes to rise from the Underworld she must find someone to take her place. She is chased through and out of the Underworld by demons who scream out at her the names of people, all beloved to her, who could take her place in death. She refuses to surrender her closest friend and her sons, but when the demons turn to her husband, Dumuzi, she relents, and the demons snatch her husband and beat him mercilessly. Dumuzi escapes, but only by turning to Inanna’s brother, Utu, the God of Justice, and begging for help. Utu turns Dumuzi’s hands and feet into snakes, making it impossible for the demons to keep hold of him, and Dumuzi runs for his life (Wolkstein 52-73).
The Biblical story of resurrection differs from that of Inanna in a variety of ways, most notably in that Jesus’ story does not include a true voyage through the Realm of Death in the sense that the Realm of Death is a physical place, as in Inanna’s tale. Like Inanna’s Jesus’ body is left on display for all of his enemies to see his apparent defeat, and like Inanna, his loyal followers and companions anticipate his return. Jesus knows in advance that he will die and that some of his most trusted companions will turn on him or deny their connection to him. He tells Peter, one of his disciples, that before the rooster crows on day of Jesus’ arrest that Peter will deny three times being acquainted with Jesus. Jesus is arrested, Peter denies knowing him, and Jesus faces trial before Pontius Pilate, Herod, and the Jewish leaders of the day who demand his execution. Convicted of inciting rebellion, Jesus is condemned to die by crucifixion. After nine hours of hanging on the cross, Jesus dies and is placed in a tomb. When three days pass, the women who followed Jesus to Galilee enter the tomb with spices and perfumes to adorn the body of their Messiah only top find that his body is no longer in the tomb and only a few strips of linen remain. Excited about Jesus’ apparent resurrection, they spread the word to his disciples. Jesus himself then appeared to his disciples and instructed them one last time on the meaning of the Scriptures before ascending into the heavens (Holy Bible 584-586).
Though different in content and in purpose, both of these stories exhibit striking similarities in structure. In Jesus’ resurrection in the New Testament of the Bible, the act of dying is a metaphor. In Christian doctrine, bodily resurrection isn’t the same thing as immortality. Immortality is achieved by the soul, which goes on living even after the body has been killed (Gabel 179). Inanna’s death was meant a bit more literally. When Ereshkigal killed her, it was a complete physical death as well as the termination of her soul, and Inanna needed the help of a living god to rescue her from death’s grip. Jesus also relied on the power of living divinity to return from death in order to spread his final teachings before leaving the land of mortal humanity behind. Just as her journey through the Realm of the Dead forced the goddess Inanna to determine what the price of life really is, Jesus’ death was the final chapter in his own voyage through mortality and human suffering. Another interesting parallel between these two stories is the re-occurrence of the number three. Inanna’s servant is to wait three days for the goddess’ return, then she is to go to three different gods in search of help. When Jesus speaks of Peter’s upcoming denial, he predicts that his disciple will deny Jesus a total of three times. Then, after dying on the cross, Jesus returns to the world of the living after three days in the tomb. The number three is a popular, powerful number in myth and spiritual teachings, and its appearance in these stories lends a feeling of completion.

Babylonian and Biblical Myth

Though it is impossible to determine how much influence the ancient Babylonians ultimately had on the stories written into the Bible, it is obvious that despite contrary belief systems and religious origins, the two traditions have an astounding number of parallels in their teachings and stories. Naturally they have their differences, as do any two systems of belief and mythology, but, as according to Leonard W. King, a British classical scholar at the turn of the last century, the striking similarities between the two traditions “…leave no doubt that the Hebrew cosmogony…[is] derived ultimately from the same original as the Babylonian narratives…” (7). Other mythologies have stories revolving around the creation of the world, tales about floods that wipe out entire civilizations, and epics about heroes and gods who rise from the dead and return to the land of more ordinary mortals. These stories even take shape in modern literature and entertainment, such as in fantasy novels and disaster movies. Tales like these capture the human imagination, ensuring that they will be passed on from generation to generation and across cultural barriers. No matter what forms they take, some element of these myths will live on in the world’s mythology.

Works Cited

Bierlein, J.F. Parallel Myths. New York: Ballantine, 1994.

Gabel, John B. et al. The Bible as Literature: An Introduction. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University, 1996.

Gilgamesh. Trans. Herbert Mason. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,2003.

Heidel, Alexander. The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1949.

The Holy Bible. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2001.

King, Leonard W. Legends of Babylon and Egypt in Relation to Hebrew Tradition. Forgotten Books, 2007.

McCall, Henrietta. Mesopotamian Myths. Austin: University of Texas, 1990.

Sandars, N.K. Poems of Heaven and Hell from Ancient Mesopotamia. London: Penguin, 1971.

Sproul, Barbara C. Primal Myths: Creating the World. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979.

Stewart, R.J. The Elements of Creation Myth. Dorset: Element Books, 1989.

Wolkstein, Diane and Samuel Noah Kramer. Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer. New York: Harper & Row,1983.

Most Beautiful Bookstores in the World

2009-04-05T14:33:00.001-07:00

I found this link on Bookfinder.com's journal. I think my favorite is the bookstore in Portugal (it's the one shown above)!

http://www.miragebookmark.ch/most-interesting-bookstores.htm

That link also lead me to a link for the most interesting libraries in the world. Here's one in Seattle.

http://www.miragebookmark.ch/most-interesting-libraries.htm

Good News on the Marriage Front!

2009-04-03T10:35:00.000-07:00

For once, something positive to report! (And I promise, this is as political as I think I'll get on this blog)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090403/ap_on_re_us/iowa_gay_marriage

Now if California will just get the message...

Japanese Cinema and America

2009-04-02T12:27:00.000-07:00

Japanese cinema has invaded the Western hemisphere, and most Americans don’t even realize it. Every year it seems there are more Americanized remakes of Japanese horror or science-fiction films, and not long ago samurai movies were a popular source of material for Western flicks. More anime and manga titles are translated and distributed every day, and the rising popularity of these mediums attest to the appetite Western audiences have for Japanese creations. That said, many Americans don’t even realize that what they see on the screen is Japanese in origin. When asked to name a Japanese movie, most Americans would answer Godzilla, but would be unable to name more than two or three movies out of the dozens in the franchise.

How could Japanese cinema permeate Western markets without Westerners being aware of it? To start with, many films brought over to the United States are remade to give them a more ‘American’ flavor, and since the majority of Americans aren’t aware of the Japanese film industry in the first place, these remakes fly under their radars as new movies by new directors. With the release of The Ring, this disregard for the original Japanese films began to dissipate. The American version was so popular and so incorporated into mainstream American cinema that the audiences began to wonder about what Ringu, the original, must be like. Though the popularity of the sub-titled Japanese film never quite rivaled its English-language remake in the States, Americans came away from both movies with a new awareness of the presence and quality of Japanese films (Mes, 261).

The most recognizable film product to emerge from Japan is, of course, Godzilla. Toho Studios, the same company that released such estimable titles as Seven Samurai and Spirited Away, found a cash cow in the King of Monsters. Godzilla has starred in nearly thirty films, including one released in America (Schilling, 20). Despite this proliferation of titles and Godzilla’s worldwide recognition as a huge Japanese success as well as his status as a popular character in Western pop culture, relatively few Godzilla titles have been translated into English or subtitled for release in America, and the American film based on the King of Monsters faced ridicule and critical reviews from the start. In fact, the entire franchise has become so well-known and been spoofed so often in Western culture that the films have unfortunately lost face. Few cinematic scholars will approach seriously the subject of the world’s most famous kaiju eiga (giant monster film) due to the stigma of pop culture (Mes, 309).

New movies with Japanese origins are released in the United States every year, from old classics like Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood and Rashomon to newer releases such as Takashi Miike’s Sukiyaki Western Django and Hayao Miyazaki’s interpretation of Howl’s Moving Castle, and even more movies are remade for mass release in American theaters, including titles like Dark Water and One Missed Call. Japanese movies abound in modern American culture, indicating that there is something about these films that speaks to a part of American audiences that is otherwise ignored by Western filmmakers.

Works Cited

Mes, Tom. The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 2005.

Schilling, Mark. Contemporary Japanese Film. New York: Weatherhill, 1999.

This was a small (2 page, double spaced) essay for an anthropology class. Not my favorite thing I ever wrote, but it was pretty fun to look into the history of Japanese film. I just wish I'd had more room to play with it!

Star Trek XI

2009-03-29T19:15:00.000-07:00

Will it be good? Better than Search for Spock, Wrath of Khan, or First Contact? Will it be bad? Worse than Insurrection or Nemesis? (Good God!)

More importantly, when am I going to order by Bajoran nose prosthetic so I can cosplay for the release?

And even more importantly, does anyone else see the subtext in this picture?

Godzilla: King of the Monsters!

2009-03-25T08:03:00.000-07:00

Godzilla and Postwar Japan
William M. Tsutsui (Univ. of Kansas) explores the role of the Godzilla film series in popular culture

By Richard Gunde
Click here for UCTV's video-on-demand version of Prof. Tsutsui's talk.

William M. Tsutsui (University of Kansas) began his talk on May 23 on the role of Godzilla movie series in global popular culture by noting that a New York Times/CBS News poll in 1985 asked 1,500 Americans to name a famous Japanese person. The top three responses were Hirohito, Bruce Lee (who was not even Japanese, of course), and Godzilla. "This is," Professor Tsutsui commented, ". . . a stinging indictment of American public knowledge of Japan. But it is also a testament to the impact which a Japanese movie monster has had on popular culture around the globe. Godzilla is the world’s oldest and longest film franchise, as well as one of Japan’s most enduring and pervasive cultural exports. Godzilla’s admirers are a large and varied lot, ranging from mild-mannered college professors in Kansas to enigmatic, bouffant dictators in North Korea (Kim Jong-Il is . . . a big film buff and apparently a world-class fan of Godzilla, to the extent that he commissioned his own giant monster film, entitled Pulgasari, in 1985)."

In the United States, Tsutsui continued, Godzilla has attained true megastar status. "A big flowery Godzilla once adorned a float at the Rose Parade, the king of monsters has won an MTV lifetime achievement award, and Mia Farrow famously declared at the Oscars that Godzilla was her favorite movie."

Despite Godzilla’s remarkable public presence, it is surprising, Professor Tsutsui observed, "how little scholarly attention this giant radiation-breathing reptile has received, either in Japan or in the West." Donald Ritche, whom Tsutsui described as "the dean of American film critics of Japan," once damned Japanese cinema as "'a plethora of nudity, teenage heroes, science-fiction monsters, animated cartoons, and pictures about cute animals.'" Only a handful of scholarly essays on Godzilla have appeared, and few "have attempted to contextualize the film historically." In his talk, Tsutsui set out to correct that: "I would argue," he declared, ". . . that the Godzilla films can provide us valuable insights into Japanese culture since World War II."
The Birth of Godzilla

In 1952, the U.S. move King Kong was re-released in Japan, followed in 1953 by the Warner Brothers film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. Both of these were, in Tsutsui’s words, "smash hits. This implanted the idea of giant monsters into the minds of Japanese film studios, which have never been loathe to steal a good idea from Hollywood."

Godzilla’s genesis "was also conditioned by Cold War tensions and atomic age anxieties." In March 1954, a Japanese fishing vessel, Daigo Fukuruyu Maru (Lucky Dragon No. 5) strayed into the U.S. nuclear bomb testing zone near Biniki Atoll. The crew was exposed to "massive amounts of radiation, one crew member died (after a cynical American cover-up), and some of the irradiated tuna on the ship made it onto the market in Japan. . . . This was big news in Japan (and was called 'the latest atomic bombing of Japan' in the media), especially, of course, since Hiroshima and Nagasaki remained fresh memories."

The production of Godzilla was a very serious matter and the movie itself was "intended to be very serious fare." The movie was "the brainchild of Toho Studios producer Tanaka Tomoyuki. . . . Tanaka recruited top talent for the picture. . . . Toho Studios invested a lot in Godzilla -- 60 million yen, about three times the budget of the average Japanese film at the time (though far less . . . than Hollywood would have spent on a run-of-the-mill B-movie at the time)."

Godzilla as the title of the movie is an English rendition of the Japanese original: Gojira. This name, Tsutsui pointed out, "was allegedly the nickname given to an overweight press agent at Toho, and was a combination of gorira (gorilla) and kujira (whale)."

The American version of the movie -- Godzilla, Kind of the Monsters -- opened in the U.S. in 1956. Tsutsui explained that this "was a cleverly re-edited version of the Japanese original with the unfortunate addition of Raymond Burr as a voyeuristic American reporter who witnesses the destruction of Tokyo. This version was considerably altered from the original Japanese film -- notably in that all references to World War II and the atomic bombs were removed. Another interesting fact," Tsutsui continued, "is that the American version was subsequently subtitled in Japanese and released in Japan, where it in turn was very successful."

Godzilla: The Series
Professor Tsutsui pointed out that no less than twenty-eight Godzilla movies have been made by Toho, fifteen of which appeared between 1954 and 1975 ("at which point the series petered out"). "The series was reborn in 1984 after Toho recognized the continued popularity of Godzilla. Seven films were made between 1984 and 1995. . . . The latest run of Toho-produced films began with Godzilla 2000: Millennium, and a new film has been released annually. . . . A fiftieth anniversary blockbuster, Godzilla: Final Wars, premiered here in Los Angeles in 2004."

Over the life of the series, the quality of the movies and their intended audience changed drastically. By the 1970s, with an intended audience of preteen boys, the movies became "cynical money spinners, they were dumbed down, [and] production values plummeted." By the 1980s and 1990s, the movies "were intended to be more serious and take Godzilla back for adults. They generally boasted better special effects . . . as well as better overall production values, but most scripts were still weak and the acting was astonishingly poor at some points. The films released since 2000 have generally been quite strong -- with significantly improved screenplays . . . -- but many fans still criticize them for a lack of creativity and a continued pandering to preteen audiences."

Godzilla: The Plot
Professor Tsutsui described the plot of original Gojira movie of 1954:
Gojira begins with a clear reference of the Lucky Dragon Incident: Japanese fishing boats in the South Pacific are destroyed by some mysterious and lethal force from beneath the seas. The rustic residents of nearly Ôdo Island believe that the boats have been destroyed by Godzilla, a legendary monster lurking the ocean’s depths. A paleontologist, Dr. Yamane, is dispatched from Tokyo and discovers that a prehistoric creature has been awakened from undersea hibernation by recent hydrogen bomb tests and is now itself radioactive. Yamane reports his findings to the Japanese parliament, the Diet, and argues that Godzilla is a scientific specimen which should be studied, not destroyed.

The monster, however, has set its sights on Tokyo and begins a series of devastating nighttime attacks that the military and civil officials are powerless to stop. The destruction is depicted vividly and in very human terms in the film, in scenes that were certainly intended to bring to mind memories of World War II, the firebombings of Tokyo, and, of course, the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

One of the most surprising aspects of the 1954 Gojira . . . is how little time the monster actually spends on screen. Indeed, as much attention is given in the film to a melodramatic, sentimental subplot as the rampages of Godzilla. This subplot focuses on a classic love triangle: Emiko, daughter of Dr. Yamane the paleontologist, is engaged to marry her father’s colleague Dr. Serizawa. Emiko, however, does not love Serizawa, who has suffered greatly in World War II and bears the emotional and physical scars of the experience. Emiko instead is in love with Lieutenant Ogata, a dashing naval officer, and she is torn with guilt as she tries to tell her father and Serizawa that she wishes to renege on her arranged betrothal.

Emiko visits Serizawa in his creepy, vaguely Gothic laboratory, intending to confess her love for another. Serizawa, however, makes his own confession: He has developed a device called an Oxygen Destroyer that is vastly more powerful than even nuclear bombs. Serizawa is racked with guilt over his creation of such a potent technology and he fears that his discovery will fall into the wrong hands and be used as a weapon. Emiko vows to keep Serizawa’s Oxygen Destroyer a secret yet, later, after she witnesses firsthand the devastation wrought by Godzilla, she realizes that the device could be used to kill the monster. Emiko and Ogata convince Serizawa that destroying Godzilla with the doctor’s fearsome invention is humanity’s only salvation.

Godzilla sleeps by day at the bottom of Tokyo Bay and Ogata and Serizawa, all rigged up in deep-sea diving gear, carefully place the Oxygen Destroyer by the napping monster. Ogata returns to the surface, but Dr. Serizawa does not. He cuts his oxygen cord . . . and falls to the bottom of the bay to die by Godzilla, taking his awesome secret -- the formula for the Oxygen Destroyer -- with him to a watery grave. In the end, the people of Japan mourn the sacrifice of Serizawa and continue to fear the unintended consequences of nuclear testing, but rejoice in the demise of Godzilla (indeed, some commentators have read the self-congratulatory celebrations at the end of the film as a symbolic and therapeutic rewriting of the end of World War II, with Japan emerging triumphant this time around).

Godzilla: The Themes
After describing the plot of the original Godzilla movie, Professor Tsutsui turned to the question of the "message," if any, of the Godzilla series. "The first Godzilla film clearly had a strong anti-nuclear message. . . . Yet it becomes increasingly hard to conclude that the films have had a consistent message over time . . . . The only constant about the Godzilla films is a deep ambivalence, a kind of moral and intellectual ambiguity, that precludes drawing any firm, unitary conclusions. The message of Godzilla," Tsutsui explained, ". . . is complex and reflects . . . a fundamental ambivalence on the part of the Japanese when they look at issues like modernity, technology, science, nature, politics, and the world outside Japan."

The Godzilla series, however, does have a number of consistent themes, and it is to this subject that Professor Tsutsui turned next.

Anti-Americanism
"Through the Godzilla series, beginning with the 1954 Gojira, we see a fairly consistent expression of anti-American sentiments and, at the same time, a strong sense of pride in Japan and Japanese accomplishments."

Godzilla as a Defender of Japan
As the series progressed, "Godzilla changes over time from being an enemy of Japan . . . to being a defender and champion of Japan against legions of other monsters, credulity-stretching aliens, and even residents of a reclusive undersea civilization." Tsutsui mentioned that Godzilla, in the eyes of historian Yoshikuni Igarashi, was "'tamed and transformed'" as a hometown superhero, "'a guardian of postwar Japanese prosperity.'"

At the same time, Tsutsui remarked, "this is where the ambivalence comes in: Godzilla is never entirely friendly and protective -- he always remains surprisingly hostile toward Japan -- and he never, of course, can become truly Japanese."

Vulnerability of Japan
Tsutsui argued that the Godzilla films reflect the concern among the people of Japan with the country’s vulnerability: "Godzilla is portrayed, from the original 1954 feature on, as an unpredictable and uncontrollable force of nature, much like the earthquakes, volcanoes, typhoons, and tidal waves that batter a helpless Japan. Moreover, the Godzilla series also seems to reflect a sense of vulnerability to international political and economic forces beyond Japan’s control -- the Cold War, the oil shocks of the 1970s, protectionism, Japan bashing, and so forth."

Ambivalence toward Science & Technology
"In common with most works of science fiction," Tsutsui said, "whether Japanese or Western, the attitudes toward science and technology revealed in Godzilla movies also appear quite ambivalent." Godzilla reveals, for instance "science gone wrong: anti-pollution, pro-environment messages appear in many movies." Moreover, "Godzilla himself often appears to be anti-progress: He trashes cities, destroys industrial areas, and just about always manages to trample Japan’s most modern and impressive real estate developments."

At the same time, the Godzilla films "often revolve around scientists and scientific discovery, and it is often the heroic efforts of dedicated researchers that save Japan from Godzilla. . . . And so, as is typical of sci-fi, the overall impression of science and scientists ends up being rather ambiguous."

Ambivalence toward Authority
In common with other movies in the science fiction genre, the Godzilla films highlight ambivalent attitudes toward authority.

"The movies consistently underline the weakness of traditional authority figures in times of crisis. . . At the same time," Tsutsui remarked, "the films actually have a much darker subtext and . . . their message is actually rather conservative, even reactionary."

For instance, in the original 1954 Gojira movie, the monster comes upon the Diet Building, and does not hesitate to walk through it, turning it into "a pile of monumental rubble. . . Might Godzilla have been rendering a judgment on democracy writ large, his actions a damning statement on the divisiveness, infighting, and ultimate impotence of democratic politics and, specifically, of Japan’s fracture red postwar political system?"

In addition, the Godzilla movies, particularly the early ones, could be described, in Tsutsui’s words, as "military porn." After World War II, and with the promulgation of Japan’s so-called peace constitution, Japan forever renounced the right to wage war. According the famous Article 9 of the Japanese constitution, "the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation. . . . Land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained."

However, the early Godzilla movies showed the Japanese Self-Defense Forces "in action in a positive light, despite the constitutional renunciation of war and a general tendency in society towards pacifism. . . . One should note," Tsutsui continued, "that the pro-military theme has become even more overt in recent films, especially the remarkable 2001 offering, Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-out Attack, which is a virtual paean of praise of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces."

Godzilla: Subversive or Reactionary?
In conclusion, Tsutsui argued that "Godzilla sends a mixed message: as both an enemy and a defender, both a force of nature and the product of high technology, as both an outsider and yet somehow truly Japanese. . . . Godzilla, like the modern world, was both a curse and a blessing, both something alien and something Japanese."

http://www.international.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=24850

I found this essay while digging for online material on my own Godzilla essay and decided to share. Credit goes to where credit is needed.