Who's Watching Watchmen?

Well, Sylvia and I are watching Watchmen, and we both found the new HBO series suspenseful, compelling, and even, as Sylvia put it, "dangerous." Dangerous because the show, at least based on the first episode, is about a long-simmering race war that's ready to boil over. In an alternate Oklahoma where black people seem to be finally getting ahead, a white supremacist backlash looms. Masked vigilantes work alongside the police, who are majority black and also masked to protect their identities from racist retaliation. But that protection seems to be ending, as violence suddenly and brutally strikes a police force that has seen peace for several years...

If this sounds nothing like Watchmen--the comic book--it's because the show is using the Moore/Gibbons story as backdrop rather than having it drive the narrative. Watchmen (the TV show) is set in the same alternate history as the original work, but the foci--geographic, character, and thematic--are all new and different. Veidt, Rorschach, the Silk Spectre, Nite Owl, Dr. Manhattan and other characters from the comic are barely hinted at, seen in newspaper headlines or on televisions in the background. This storytelling choice delivers a fascinating look into a world that could have been, and how the people of that world are trying to come to grips with the challenges of racism, violence, and, judging by previews, human extinction--that last the plot driver of the comic. 

I was skeptical that Damon Lindelhof and his team could craft an adaptation that respects the original while seeming anything other than exploitative. So far, they've succeeded brilliantly. 

Quick Take: Young Guns

Turns out mixing the 1880s with the 1980s is a bit like combining spaghetti and ice cream; they're great on their own, but not terribly palatable together. 

John Santos on Political Polarization

My friend and Alberta Legislature colleague John Santos had an article about political polarization published on the CBC website yesterday. John uses polling data to come to some interesting conclusions about how Canadians feel about other Canadians who support different political parties. Check it out, and don't forget to vote on Monday!

Quick Takes: Escape from New York

As much as I love the performances, the action, the music, and the simple but perfectly effective plot, it's the worldbuilding in Escape from New York (John Carpenter, 1981) that I find most compelling. Through production design, costuming, and dialogue, Carpenter has created a compelling alternate America, a fascist police state made mean by a cold war turned hot and a never ending battle against its own citizens. Carpenter makes it so easy to imagine this plausible alternate destiny for the United States, one that could so very easily still come to be.

Spy Deterrent

Last week I had to have radioactivity injected into my veins for some medical testing. When I returned to work, I mentioned that the nurses had had to inject extra radiation, because there wasn't enough for imaging purposes the first time around. I joked that perhaps I would get super-powers, and that if I could choose, I would choose stretching abilities, since those have the most potential to annoy.

I elaborated: "For example, I could stretch my eyeballs over the barrier to Stephanie's cubicle, here, to spy on her."

"I'd spray them with Windex," she replied dryly.

A good countermeasure, I thought. 

Quick Takes: Hercules in New York

Hercules in New York (Arthur Allan Seidelman, 1970) is a painfully unfunny fish-out-of-water tale, cheaply told, embarrassing in almost all respects. Even poor "Arnold Strong" (that is, Arnold Schwarzenegger) gets dubbed, robbing audiences of the pleasures of the man's outrageous accent.

This gives me an idea. I should write a film called Hercules Inn: New York. Hercules comes down from Mount Olympus to start a charming hotel in Athens. His goal is to reinvigorate the Greek economy through demigodlike hospitality, boosting tourism. The inn is a mild success, and Hercules is disappointed until an American tourist and venture capitalists suggests Hercules open a second inn in New York to promote Greek culture and serve as a "live commercial" for the authentic inn in Athens. The gods, displeased by Hercules' mercantile ways, rain down all kinds of hijinks, and to make matters worse, Hercules runs afoul of the Russian mafia. Can Hercules clean up New York, appease the gods, and save the Greek economy? Find out in Hercules Inn: New York! 

Skyscraper Sunrise

Thanksgiving Gourds

What gourds are these?

That lie in wait

For this Thanksgiving dinner plate

An autumn breeze

That westward tacks

These gourds are coated in thick wax

A tough repast

For hungry souls

Feasting on fine dinner rolls

The Shack on Turnbull Beach

Jeff and Susan Visit!

Earl 'o the Wisps

It was raining when Sean shot this photo of me at the site of the former 8 Churchill Place, our home in Leaf Rapids in the 1970s. Several raindrops landed on the lens and marred this photo, and now I've marred it further with my attempt to turn the water spots into wills-'o-the-wisp. 

The Accidental Panorama

When Sean and I visited Leaf Rapids in 2009, I shot three black and white photos of the hydro station, an old CO-OP building, and the abandoned Midi Mart. I don't remember if I was consciously trying to shoot something I could later stitch into a panorama, but I just noticed the other day that the photos match up pretty well, so I gave it a quick and dirty try. It's far, far from perfect, but not bad, I think, for images shot on film without the benefit of any kind of in-camera stitching aids. All I did in Photoshop was try to equalize the light levels of each image (as you can see, I failed, but it's better than it was) and use the clone tools to try and erase the edges of the photos (again, a failure).

All told, this took me about ten minutes to pull together. I'm sure with a bit more time and practice I could create a more convincing panorama.