Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Iron Sean in the Christmas Kitchen Stadium
Monday, December 24, 2012
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Cranberry Christmas
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Carrion Christmas
In 1992 several members of the University of Alberta Star Trek Club gathered at Susan Neumann's place to celebrate Christmas. Jeff, Susan, Ron and I concocted a plan to start filming a horror movie and then turn late arrival Doug into our victim by ambushing him once he finally showed up. I titled the film "Carrion Christmas" as an allusion to the popular British Carry On... films.
The film took only a couple of hours to shoot, with a budget of zero dollars thanks to the loan of Susan's home and stuff as our location and props, respectively. Originally edited on VHS, I've left pretty much everything alone, using modern software only to add the title at the beginning and my director credit at the end.
Friday, December 21, 2012
A Gun in Every Christmas Stocking
I should really commission my friend Jeff to paint a Christmas stocking with the butt of a pistol emerging from the hem, if only to illustrate the absurd depths to which the American gun lobby has fallen.
After a week of silence following the massacre of teachers and children in Connecticut, the National Rifle Association has finally proposed their solution to spree killing: post armed guards in every school in the USA. I guess irony really is dead, because this reads more like something from The Onion than a serious proposal.
From the point of view of the NRA, though, I can see how this must seem logical. Post armed guards at schools and there's a chance said guards might gun down a madman before he can shoot children. I suppose this is at least theoretically possible. Never mind that public schools in the United States don't even have enough funding for textbooks, let alone security guards...let's assume that somehow funds for such a project are made available. Doesn't that just mean that madmen will find softer targets?
"I need to kill a bunch of people! Can't go to the school, too many guards. I know! I'll shoot up a nursery/old folks home/Little League game."
So the massacres simply migrate, and in response to each tragedy the NRA response would surely be "We need armed guards here too." And then the spree killers move on to the next unguarded target, and the next, until suddenly every major public and private institution is crawling with armed guards, at heaven knows what cost to the economy and the national psyche. But even then, people can still be victimized on the street, out in the open, and suddenly armed guards aren't enough because the NRA has sold the idea that the proper authorities can't protect you, that the only real defense is owning your own gun - or ideally, your own collection of guns.
Over time, everyone in the USA is packing heat, as if the Wild West were transformed from mythology to reality. Children get guns for Christmas to fend off bullies. (Heaven knows what the gun-toting bullies will do.) Once everyone is armed...utopia?
I know I'm taking the NRA argument to its most ridiculous conclusion, but it does seem as though they really would prefer a fully-armed society, with a gun on every hip. The NRA and many others blame movies and video games for perpetuating a culture of violence, but from my perspective the inherent threat of even a single real-life gun looms much larger than a thousand Schwarzenegger movies. I can easily imagine living in a world where everyone around me carries a gun, but it's not the kind of society I'd enjoy, a culture drowning in fear and paranoia.
I suppose I have to admit that a fully armed society might curb violent crime. I have to; we haven't tried the experiment yet, so we can't say it wouldn't work. But I'd much rather see if we can lower violent crime by reducing income inequality, treating mental illness, improving public services, fighting intolerance and raising quality of life. But then I've always been a "you catch more flies with honey than vinegar" kind of guy.
TL, DR: Let's try other solutions to violent crime before adding more guns to the fire.
After a week of silence following the massacre of teachers and children in Connecticut, the National Rifle Association has finally proposed their solution to spree killing: post armed guards in every school in the USA. I guess irony really is dead, because this reads more like something from The Onion than a serious proposal.
From the point of view of the NRA, though, I can see how this must seem logical. Post armed guards at schools and there's a chance said guards might gun down a madman before he can shoot children. I suppose this is at least theoretically possible. Never mind that public schools in the United States don't even have enough funding for textbooks, let alone security guards...let's assume that somehow funds for such a project are made available. Doesn't that just mean that madmen will find softer targets?
"I need to kill a bunch of people! Can't go to the school, too many guards. I know! I'll shoot up a nursery/old folks home/Little League game."
So the massacres simply migrate, and in response to each tragedy the NRA response would surely be "We need armed guards here too." And then the spree killers move on to the next unguarded target, and the next, until suddenly every major public and private institution is crawling with armed guards, at heaven knows what cost to the economy and the national psyche. But even then, people can still be victimized on the street, out in the open, and suddenly armed guards aren't enough because the NRA has sold the idea that the proper authorities can't protect you, that the only real defense is owning your own gun - or ideally, your own collection of guns.
Over time, everyone in the USA is packing heat, as if the Wild West were transformed from mythology to reality. Children get guns for Christmas to fend off bullies. (Heaven knows what the gun-toting bullies will do.) Once everyone is armed...utopia?
I know I'm taking the NRA argument to its most ridiculous conclusion, but it does seem as though they really would prefer a fully-armed society, with a gun on every hip. The NRA and many others blame movies and video games for perpetuating a culture of violence, but from my perspective the inherent threat of even a single real-life gun looms much larger than a thousand Schwarzenegger movies. I can easily imagine living in a world where everyone around me carries a gun, but it's not the kind of society I'd enjoy, a culture drowning in fear and paranoia.
I suppose I have to admit that a fully armed society might curb violent crime. I have to; we haven't tried the experiment yet, so we can't say it wouldn't work. But I'd much rather see if we can lower violent crime by reducing income inequality, treating mental illness, improving public services, fighting intolerance and raising quality of life. But then I've always been a "you catch more flies with honey than vinegar" kind of guy.
TL, DR: Let's try other solutions to violent crime before adding more guns to the fire.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
How I Experience Music
While I love music, I've often regretted my almost total ignorance of the art and science that makes it possible. I can't read music, nor do I have most of the vocabulary necessary to even speak intelligently about the subject.
Nonetheless, I feel compelled to throw caution to the wind and ask a question that's plagued me since junior high school: do others experience music in the same way I do?
When I listen to a song, especially in pitch darkness, my mind constructs structures of pulsing light, each piece of the structure corresponding to an element of the music. A song's bass line, for example, might represent itself as a coil of purple light stretching north and south to infinity, compressing and stretching like a spring being pulled in time with the music. Keyboard sounds (again, forgive my lack of proper vocabulary) might appear at right angles to the purple coil, again extending into infinity, perhaps represented as a jagged zigzag of a different colour: green or yellow. Drum impacts might burst like fireworks all around, while lyrics and supporting guitars might create spheres or pyramids that fade in and out of existence.
The effect is most intense with songs that, for lack of a better term, have a lot going on to my untrained ear, like "Heroes," above, or "Love and Anger," below.
It almost sounds as though I'm describing the common visualization effects that have long been seen on home computers, but my experience really isn't like that at all; it's much more vivid and three-dimensional, and there's also what I almost hesitate to call a transcendental feeling going on, a feeling of falling in multiple directions at once, like the music could carry me off somewhere if only I'd release my stubborn hold on conventional reality.
I've never spoken to anyone of this, and there's no pressing reason to do so now except that it's been on my mind for some time. It's quite possible that many people experience music this way and that I simply haven't been around when others speak of it. I'd certainly be very interested in knowing if others go through the same process, or one similar.
Nonetheless, I feel compelled to throw caution to the wind and ask a question that's plagued me since junior high school: do others experience music in the same way I do?
When I listen to a song, especially in pitch darkness, my mind constructs structures of pulsing light, each piece of the structure corresponding to an element of the music. A song's bass line, for example, might represent itself as a coil of purple light stretching north and south to infinity, compressing and stretching like a spring being pulled in time with the music. Keyboard sounds (again, forgive my lack of proper vocabulary) might appear at right angles to the purple coil, again extending into infinity, perhaps represented as a jagged zigzag of a different colour: green or yellow. Drum impacts might burst like fireworks all around, while lyrics and supporting guitars might create spheres or pyramids that fade in and out of existence.
The effect is most intense with songs that, for lack of a better term, have a lot going on to my untrained ear, like "Heroes," above, or "Love and Anger," below.
It almost sounds as though I'm describing the common visualization effects that have long been seen on home computers, but my experience really isn't like that at all; it's much more vivid and three-dimensional, and there's also what I almost hesitate to call a transcendental feeling going on, a feeling of falling in multiple directions at once, like the music could carry me off somewhere if only I'd release my stubborn hold on conventional reality.
I've never spoken to anyone of this, and there's no pressing reason to do so now except that it's been on my mind for some time. It's quite possible that many people experience music this way and that I simply haven't been around when others speak of it. I'd certainly be very interested in knowing if others go through the same process, or one similar.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Mush, Mush
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
The Voyageurs of Yx
Transcribed as closely as possible from the narration of last night's dream.
The people of Dymansthya were climbers, nimble tree folk who explored the vast deciduous forests of Homeworld by clambering from branch to branch, sometimes fashioning rope bridges to allow them crossing from tree to tree when a creek or canyon drove a wedge of relative emptiness through the otherwise close-knit huddle of moss-blanketed trunks.
These curious and agile people were known collectively as the Folk. Though wise in the ways of science and technology, the Folk lived what would seem to us lives of relative simplicity, dressing plainly in earth-toned garments of cotton (or what appeared to be cotton). The Folk were spread wide across the world, in small bands of some fifteen to twenty-five members, about equally divided in sex; children and the elderly were rare, for the Folk generally lived thousands of years in a state of perpetual young adulthood.
Their lives were not perfectly idyllic. Though wars were rare, the Folk were vulnerable to folly once in a great while and every few generations there would come a self-inflicted culling. And as with any people, they endured the small everyday tragedies that none may yet escape: the broken heart, the trust betrayed, the opportunity lost.
But by and by the Folk were happy and lived as close to a state of grace as any member of the great human family scattered among the stars. Most members of that larger family ignore Dymansthya for that very reason; outsiders consider it a world lacking the intrigue and adventure that lend spice to the less harmonious worlds of the human sphere.
As is so often the case, this is a judgement made in ignorance, and my tale, if it should have purpose at all, is to show why the Folk's adventures rival even those of the Metaphorians or the Calumny. I bore witness to only the final half of the grand journey I am about to relate; but my sources for the beginning of the tale are impeccable, related to me by the very Folk who experienced the first days of an impossible quest: to follow the endless River Yx to its source.
The River Yx is the vast blue-green ribbon of fresh water that girdles Dymansthya twice. Yx terminates at the Yx Delta on the northwestern coast of the continent Mu, at the great port city of Nogar, a metropolis home to nearly one hundred of the Folk. Nogar is nestled comfortably between the gentle ocean and the looming trees, into which the river winds, deep into the shaded dark. Most Folk of Nogar were content to while away the centuries playing games, frolicking on the beach, creating art or making love. But a few of the younger Folk - no one remembers exactly who first proposed the idea - grew restless and decided one day to follow the Yx into the wood.
They numbered five. There were three women: Zel, Pyv and Landa. There were two men: Jus and Ax. I was the sixth member of that party...but I came later.
The blue sun hung low against the horizon when the five Folk waved goodbye to the well-wishers of Nogar and began their ascent into the trees. Golden Pyv would die first, only a month into a journey that would last another two years. Pyv was fleet-footed, agile and possessed remarkable balance; it was merely the worst luck that she slipped on a rope bridge in the passage from one side of the river to the other and landed in shallow waters, knocking herself unconscious on a rock and drowning before the others could reach her.
It was the first tragedy; I would arrive just in time for the second.
The people of Dymansthya were climbers, nimble tree folk who explored the vast deciduous forests of Homeworld by clambering from branch to branch, sometimes fashioning rope bridges to allow them crossing from tree to tree when a creek or canyon drove a wedge of relative emptiness through the otherwise close-knit huddle of moss-blanketed trunks.
These curious and agile people were known collectively as the Folk. Though wise in the ways of science and technology, the Folk lived what would seem to us lives of relative simplicity, dressing plainly in earth-toned garments of cotton (or what appeared to be cotton). The Folk were spread wide across the world, in small bands of some fifteen to twenty-five members, about equally divided in sex; children and the elderly were rare, for the Folk generally lived thousands of years in a state of perpetual young adulthood.
Their lives were not perfectly idyllic. Though wars were rare, the Folk were vulnerable to folly once in a great while and every few generations there would come a self-inflicted culling. And as with any people, they endured the small everyday tragedies that none may yet escape: the broken heart, the trust betrayed, the opportunity lost.
But by and by the Folk were happy and lived as close to a state of grace as any member of the great human family scattered among the stars. Most members of that larger family ignore Dymansthya for that very reason; outsiders consider it a world lacking the intrigue and adventure that lend spice to the less harmonious worlds of the human sphere.
As is so often the case, this is a judgement made in ignorance, and my tale, if it should have purpose at all, is to show why the Folk's adventures rival even those of the Metaphorians or the Calumny. I bore witness to only the final half of the grand journey I am about to relate; but my sources for the beginning of the tale are impeccable, related to me by the very Folk who experienced the first days of an impossible quest: to follow the endless River Yx to its source.
The River Yx is the vast blue-green ribbon of fresh water that girdles Dymansthya twice. Yx terminates at the Yx Delta on the northwestern coast of the continent Mu, at the great port city of Nogar, a metropolis home to nearly one hundred of the Folk. Nogar is nestled comfortably between the gentle ocean and the looming trees, into which the river winds, deep into the shaded dark. Most Folk of Nogar were content to while away the centuries playing games, frolicking on the beach, creating art or making love. But a few of the younger Folk - no one remembers exactly who first proposed the idea - grew restless and decided one day to follow the Yx into the wood.
They numbered five. There were three women: Zel, Pyv and Landa. There were two men: Jus and Ax. I was the sixth member of that party...but I came later.
The blue sun hung low against the horizon when the five Folk waved goodbye to the well-wishers of Nogar and began their ascent into the trees. Golden Pyv would die first, only a month into a journey that would last another two years. Pyv was fleet-footed, agile and possessed remarkable balance; it was merely the worst luck that she slipped on a rope bridge in the passage from one side of the river to the other and landed in shallow waters, knocking herself unconscious on a rock and drowning before the others could reach her.
It was the first tragedy; I would arrive just in time for the second.
Monday, December 17, 2012
LOEARLCAT
"Hello, kitty!" he said, leaning over to pet the harmless-seeming animal. Temperamental Alex responded by carving three deep slashes into Jeff's cheek, who yowled in a manner familiar to anyone who's known luckless Jeff for more than six months. Mom ran for the hydrogen peroxide and Jeff was none the worse for wear. When Steve Fitzpatrick visited a little later, Alex hid out of sight for a time. Steve and I talked in the living room, Steve on one couch, me on another, when suddenly Alex leaped across the room and pinned Steve's arm to the wall for an instant or two before scampering off again.
Alex calmed down as he aged, but not without leaving a few scratches in other people, myself included. He also enjoyed exploring the nooks and crannies of the basement ceiling, and often Sean and I would hear him walking around up there. Once he got into a fluorescent light fixture, and the panel wasn't strong enough to bear his weight; it shattered, raining shards of translucent plastic down onto Sean, who was working at the computer. Alex himself landed (appropriately cat-like) heavily upon Sean's startled shoulders before zipping off to safety.
Despite (or because of) my allergies and acknowledged general disdain for pets, Alex seemed somewhat sadistically fond of me and we often played hockey with plastic bottle caps. He also enjoyed rubbing cat fur all over me, which caused no end of sneezing, skin irritation and watery eyes. Aggravating cat.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Harrier vs. Locomotive
Mom and Dad dropped in for a short visit today, and in passing I mentioned that I might accompany my friends Stephen and Audrey and their family to Churchill, Manitoba in August. I knew that Dad had made the trip, but until today I didn't know that his train voyage in 1972 also involved a game of chicken with a Harrier jump jet.
Dad was sent to Churchill by Acklands Ltd. on a business trip, who generously paid for a sleeper berth, which gave him access to the dining car and "the best prime rib I've ever had." The trip from Thompson to Churchill takes many hours, and the train would periodically stop in the middle of the bush to allow fur trappers to snip into their snowshoes and egress into the wild.
As the train approached Churchill station, Dad noticed a Harrier jump jet flying about. As he and other passengers craned their necks out the windows for a closer look, the jet swooped down to hover over the tracks, directly in the train's path. It was perhaps the deadliest game of chicken ever played, with the train's horn shrilling angrily and the exhaust from the jet's powerful engines blasting ground debris everywhere.
Of course in a game of chicken with a locomotive even a multimillion dollar fighter aircraft must yield, so at the last possible second the pilot cranked up the throttle and leaped forward and upward, soaring over the rumbling train.
"What happened to the pilot?" I asked Dad, who had made inquiries after the incident; the fellow was a British national.
"He got sent home," Dad answered solemnly.
What a photo or painting that would have made.
Dad was sent to Churchill by Acklands Ltd. on a business trip, who generously paid for a sleeper berth, which gave him access to the dining car and "the best prime rib I've ever had." The trip from Thompson to Churchill takes many hours, and the train would periodically stop in the middle of the bush to allow fur trappers to snip into their snowshoes and egress into the wild.
As the train approached Churchill station, Dad noticed a Harrier jump jet flying about. As he and other passengers craned their necks out the windows for a closer look, the jet swooped down to hover over the tracks, directly in the train's path. It was perhaps the deadliest game of chicken ever played, with the train's horn shrilling angrily and the exhaust from the jet's powerful engines blasting ground debris everywhere.
Of course in a game of chicken with a locomotive even a multimillion dollar fighter aircraft must yield, so at the last possible second the pilot cranked up the throttle and leaped forward and upward, soaring over the rumbling train.
"What happened to the pilot?" I asked Dad, who had made inquiries after the incident; the fellow was a British national.
"He got sent home," Dad answered solemnly.
What a photo or painting that would have made.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Everyone Loves a Parade
Friday, December 14, 2012
Another Day of Mourning
I don't often remark upon the day's tragedies. I avoid doing so for a couple of reasons: I have little wisdom to offer that hasn't already been said elsewhere, and there's so much sadness in the world that if I remarked upon each instance there would be nothing else to talk about.
My original plan for today was to blog about having just wrapped up the popular culture course I was tutoring online for MacEwan University. It wasn't until after sending a thank you note to Leslie for providing my first teaching opportunity that I turned my attention to the news and learned about the violence against children and teachers in China and the United States. It's hard to write something upbeat after reading those stories.
My recent work for MacEwan and the Alberta Teachers' Association has done a lot to put me back in touch with the educational experience. Over the last few weeks I've renewed and deepened my respect for teachers and my long-held belief that students deserve the best possible public education our society can provide. It goes without saying that schools and universities should be safe places for learning and freedom of expression.
Statistically, of course, the odds of being assaulted or murdered at school remain low. Any public policy should be guided by research, not emotion. But statistics are cold comfort to the victims and their families.
2012 was a violent year, all across the world.Surely the human family can do better.
We should start by paying closer attention to mental health. For years, Alberta's Auditor General harshly criticized our provincial government for not properly funding mental health care. Even here, in arguably the richest province in the richest country in the world, we are failing a significant percentage of our citizens because so many of us share the attitude that mental illness can somehow be overcome with will power, or the problem isn't real, or it's less significant than cancer or heart disease or other ailments. Early detection and treatment of mental illness would prevent a whole host of debilitating social problems. Ignoring mental illness causes the kinds of awful tragedy we see today, along with everyday misery with incalculable cumulative impact.
We cannot call ourselves truly civilized in a world where children are assaulted and the mentally ill go untreated. May time and the love of friends and family comfort those around the world who lost someone today.
My original plan for today was to blog about having just wrapped up the popular culture course I was tutoring online for MacEwan University. It wasn't until after sending a thank you note to Leslie for providing my first teaching opportunity that I turned my attention to the news and learned about the violence against children and teachers in China and the United States. It's hard to write something upbeat after reading those stories.
My recent work for MacEwan and the Alberta Teachers' Association has done a lot to put me back in touch with the educational experience. Over the last few weeks I've renewed and deepened my respect for teachers and my long-held belief that students deserve the best possible public education our society can provide. It goes without saying that schools and universities should be safe places for learning and freedom of expression.
Statistically, of course, the odds of being assaulted or murdered at school remain low. Any public policy should be guided by research, not emotion. But statistics are cold comfort to the victims and their families.
2012 was a violent year, all across the world.Surely the human family can do better.
We should start by paying closer attention to mental health. For years, Alberta's Auditor General harshly criticized our provincial government for not properly funding mental health care. Even here, in arguably the richest province in the richest country in the world, we are failing a significant percentage of our citizens because so many of us share the attitude that mental illness can somehow be overcome with will power, or the problem isn't real, or it's less significant than cancer or heart disease or other ailments. Early detection and treatment of mental illness would prevent a whole host of debilitating social problems. Ignoring mental illness causes the kinds of awful tragedy we see today, along with everyday misery with incalculable cumulative impact.
We cannot call ourselves truly civilized in a world where children are assaulted and the mentally ill go untreated. May time and the love of friends and family comfort those around the world who lost someone today.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
2978
One of my friends had the number 2987. This always blew my mind, but in a town that small and with everyone using only four digits, the odds of close numbers were actually pretty good.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Secret of the Super-Sons
But unless Bob Haney is even more clever than he's already given credit for, readers should probably assume that these 1970s tales were not intended as underground endorsement of alternative lifestyles. Indeed, most of the stories of the Super-Sons revolved around the then-current Generation Gap, with Clark Jr. and Bruce Jr. often agonizing about how they could never measure up to their dads and how their square fathers just didn't understand what it meant to be a teen in the swinging 70s. Taken at face value, as these stories probably should be, what we see here is simply close friendship between two young men, men who aren't afraid to express how much they need each other as they lean on one another for emotional support.
In chuckling at this scene and others like it, I have to ask myself if the laughter isn't simply some kind of strange defensive reaction. Intimacy between men, even in these relatively enlightened times, is still seen as somewhat effeminate (another moral land mine - assuming that femininity is somehow "weaker" or a bad thing) or at best, overly expressive. Or at least this seems to be true among WASPs; members of other cultures are often less inhibited.
I suppose the point I'm clumsily trying to raise is this: when we take a work of popular culture out of context and laugh at it, are we saying something about the artifact's failure to transition to our era, or are we saying something about our own inability to work past our own deeply ingrained attitudes and prejudices?
According to Rule 34, someone out there has already answered some of these questions by writing Super-Sons slash fiction. I'm not quite brave enough to look there for answers.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Thoughts on Man of Steel Trailer #2
I've been fooled by more-sizzle-than-steak director Zack Snyder before, but nonetheless I'm very excited by this new trailer for his upcoming Superman movie, Man of Steel. It looks as though Snyder will at least attempt to capture some of the more important elements of the mythos: why Superman does what he does, what it means to be a good person, the pain of balancing two sides of a dual nature, the enduring love of two sets of parents, the importance of supporting the rule of law when it's the right thing to do.
Judging by the trailer this film will probably overplay the angst-ridden elements of the Superman story while underplaying the joy and wonder so important to the character. If it manages to tell a compelling story I can live with that choice in the hopes that sequels will show a Superman who's grown into the role and a public that's more supportive of a guy who's trying to give them a helping hand. In fact, that sort of development would nicely parallel the evolution of the character in the comics: he started as a rather anarchist rogue, feared by criminals and the public as much as Batman was. Only later did he become the "big blue boy scout" most fans are familiar with today.
There's one pretty awe-inspiring moment in this trailer: when Superman launches himself into space. The short sequence really captures the otherworldly majesty of Superman's ability to fly.
My expectations are still tempered by Snyder's track record, but now my opinion is one of hopeful, guarded optimism.
Monday, December 10, 2012
Crashdown
I've been a big space buff since I was a child. I've devoured innumerable books, documentaries, television shows and films about the still-new history of human spaceflight. But it was only this weekend that I began to wonder about an improbable but not impossible scenario.
Back in the days of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, space capsules with returning astronauts would land at sea; they'd parachute into the ocean in a target zone relatively close to ships of the US Navy. Said ships would retrieve the capsule and astronaut.
Sometimes capsules would land quite far away from their intended landing zones, meaning astronauts would have to wait, bobbing in their capsule, for the Navy to find them. But what if the opposite occurred? Sometimes capsules splashed down within a mere kilometre of the recovery zone. What if one of those capsules came down right on target - onto the deck of one of the recovery ships?
There are many factors at play here. Presumably radar and spotters aboard ship would quickly figure out that the capsule was going to land really, really close. Is an aircraft carrier nimble enough to dodge a falling capsule once the captain realizes there could be a collision? If so, no problem, and an easy pickup. But if not...
Weight is another factor. Mercury capsules held one astronaut, Gemini, two, Apollo, three. None had braking rockets, unlike Soviet capsules, designed to land on dry land. Even landing on water could be quite rough for the astronauts, so slamming into a flight deck might be disastrous. Would the astronauts survive? Would the flight deck be severely damaged? What if a capsule landed in the middle of a patrol boat rather than an aircraft carrier? Or what if it came down scraping along the side of the conning tower before it actually hit the deck? Would there be an earsplitting yet cartoonish "BONG" as the capsule slammed into the ship?
I wonder about these things sometimes.
Back in the days of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, space capsules with returning astronauts would land at sea; they'd parachute into the ocean in a target zone relatively close to ships of the US Navy. Said ships would retrieve the capsule and astronaut.
Sometimes capsules would land quite far away from their intended landing zones, meaning astronauts would have to wait, bobbing in their capsule, for the Navy to find them. But what if the opposite occurred? Sometimes capsules splashed down within a mere kilometre of the recovery zone. What if one of those capsules came down right on target - onto the deck of one of the recovery ships?
There are many factors at play here. Presumably radar and spotters aboard ship would quickly figure out that the capsule was going to land really, really close. Is an aircraft carrier nimble enough to dodge a falling capsule once the captain realizes there could be a collision? If so, no problem, and an easy pickup. But if not...
Weight is another factor. Mercury capsules held one astronaut, Gemini, two, Apollo, three. None had braking rockets, unlike Soviet capsules, designed to land on dry land. Even landing on water could be quite rough for the astronauts, so slamming into a flight deck might be disastrous. Would the astronauts survive? Would the flight deck be severely damaged? What if a capsule landed in the middle of a patrol boat rather than an aircraft carrier? Or what if it came down scraping along the side of the conning tower before it actually hit the deck? Would there be an earsplitting yet cartoonish "BONG" as the capsule slammed into the ship?
I wonder about these things sometimes.
Sunday, December 09, 2012
A Pair of Superb Teachers
Saturday, December 08, 2012
Blue Snowmobile
Friday, December 07, 2012
December Frost
Yet here I stand among the frosted trees
Trees weighed down with skins of ice
Ice blanketing snow
Snow blanketing earth
Earth leaning back languidly
Languidly condemning us to five more months of yuck.
Thursday, December 06, 2012
Star Trek Into Darkness...But Then Back to TV, Please
I enjoyed Star Trek (2009) immensely, and I'm hoping that Star Trek Into Darkness will be even better. But as exciting as this trailer looks, it also further convinces me that Star Trek's best destiny remains on the small screen. Huge, action-packed adventures are fine for feature films, but whatever happened to boldly going where none have gone before? Whatever happened to exploring strange new worlds?
Star Trek has always been at its best when it addressed questions of philosophical, moral or scientific importance. We haven't seen a true science fiction issues-based film Trek since The Voyage Home, and even that was in the context of saving Earth (again). You can do the big stories on weekly television too (if not on as grand a scale), but you can also craft more thoughtful stories. And you don't have to wait four years between adventures...
Nonetheless, I've enjoyed most of J. J. Abrams' work thus far and I'm sure that Star Trek Into Darkness will be a rollicking adventure. But I'd like to see more science fiction in my science fiction, please.
Wednesday, December 05, 2012
Of Christmas Parties Past
I have several fond memories of this event: Sylvia in her Emma Peel-esque spy dress, Lois' very kind remarks about my work during her speech to the staff, chatting with Lois' aides-de-camp and administrators. In a way, serving as Lois' speechwriter was a queer sort of prologue to my work at the Alberta Legislature; I'd run into quite a few familiar faces after making the transition from Hole's to the Official Opposition.
Unfortunately this Christmas affair of 2003 was Lois' last; by Christmas of 2004 she was too sick with cancer to host another, and she passed away in early 2005. But her memory lives on in the many thousands of lives she touched during her tenure as author, philanthropist, gardener and inspirational political figure.
Tuesday, December 04, 2012
Sherman Style
While I greatly enjoyed my time at the Official Opposition, I always had mixed emotions about one annual project: the video required for the Legislature Press Gallery Christmas party. They were fun to script and shoot, but assembling the required resources always took a disproportionate amount of time and energy at a very busy time of year. So when I congratulate my former colleague Amy McBain for pulling this together, I do so with complete sincerity because I know how much work this sort of thing requires. Good work, Amy! My favourite moment: Dr. Swann's dance in the parking garage.
Monday, December 03, 2012
A Tale of Two Bonds
Warning: Spoilers for SKYFALL, the latest James Bond film, follow.
Skyfall ranks among the best of the Bond films, but it does suffer from two weaknesses: there are a number of plot holes and continuity errors, and the film's two themes are somewhat at odds with each other.
As with many Bond films, Skyfall opens with an exciting and elaborately-staged chase scene. This time Bond is after a stolen list of undercover Western agents who've infiltrated various terrorist organization. The list isn't really that important; it's the film's plot device, meant only to set the movie in motion, and as such it is at least a more realistic conundrum than the various conquer-the-world plots we've seen from previous Bond movies. Like the previous two Daniel Craig Bond efforts, Skyfall remains relatively grounded in reality, outrageous stunts and improbable coincidences aside.
Unfortunately Bond is accidentally shot by a fellow agent just as he's about to recapture the list. He falls off a moving train while it's crossing a high trestle, and Bond's limp, seemingly lifeless body crashes into the river far below, becoming part of the elaborate opening titles sequence. This time around Adele provides the opening song, a haunting and dramatic melody foreshadowing the big changes to come to the franchise.
While Bond is presumed KIA, Dame Judi Dench's M is left to deal with the fallout of the loss of the list and several agents, Bond included. In many ways Skyfall is very much M's story, and the film is all the stronger for it. Not only is she being forced into retirement, M will be called to face a public inquiry into her competency and that of MI-6 while also facing the wrath of a rogue agent who's intent on revenge for perceived wrongs. Dench's M handles all these troubles with aplomb and steel; as a character, she is in many ways more admirable than Bond himself.
When MI-6 is subjected to a terrorist attack orchestrated by the film's as-yet-unseen villain, he returns from the dead and shows up on M's doorstep, willing to take up the fight for Queen and country yet again. But is he really ready to go back on duty? Exhausted both mentally and physically, Bond throws himself back into action despite his many weaknesses - and lives are lost because of it. When Javier Bardem's Raoul Silva shows up - charismatic, intelligent, powerful, sexually voracious and perhaps insane - Bond is ill-prepared to deal with him, and in fact winds up inadvertently furthering Silva's plans. Bond allows Silva to get dangerously close to M, and in the end Bond and M go on the run, eventually finding themselves with only one option: make themselves Silva's only targets to reduce further MI-6 casualties and hope they can ambush the villainous ex-agent before he kills them both...
Sam Mendes' direction is well-suited to what turns out to be largely a character piece punctuated with the requisite action beats. Bond, M, the new Q, Silva and a couple of new characters I shan't spoil any further are well-drawn and believable, with commanding performances all round. The cinematography is typically lush, making the most of the film's various exotic locations; a night-time battle is particularly gorgeous and compelling.
However, there are some flaws. A continuity issue with Bond's wounds is distracting, but not fatal (pun intended). Silva's omnipotence stretches credulity, and at least three characters make stupid decisions that serve only to move the plot forward - a transparent flaw of lazy screenwriting that annoys audiences and harms the credibility of characters.
But the film's inability to balance two competing themes is what really detracts from the film's final impact. Without giving too much away, Skyfall is clearly meant to serve as a bridge of sorts, showing the final maturity of the Craig Bond and settling him into more conventional Bond adventures. The "reboot" phase is over. In order to prepare audiences for what's to come, Bond's dialogue is now peppered with one-liners and puns of the sort we're more accustomed to seeing from earlier Bonds like Moore and Connery. A couple of scenes are a little ham-handed in their efforts to reference the earlier films while at the same time differentiating between old and new; it gets a little schizophrenic. And while part of me cheered the nostalgic setup that serves as the film's coda, another part rebelled: after taking remarkable chances with the Craig reboot, have the producers at last lost their courage? That remains to be seen.
Despite these flaws, Skyfall is almost as good as Craig's first outing as Bond, Casino Royale, better than most of the Roger Moore outings and even better than the weaker Sean Connery installments. The character arcs of both M and Bond are compelling and believable, the supporting players are likeable and the emotional beats fitting and quite correct. 008 out of 0010.
Skyfall ranks among the best of the Bond films, but it does suffer from two weaknesses: there are a number of plot holes and continuity errors, and the film's two themes are somewhat at odds with each other.
As with many Bond films, Skyfall opens with an exciting and elaborately-staged chase scene. This time Bond is after a stolen list of undercover Western agents who've infiltrated various terrorist organization. The list isn't really that important; it's the film's plot device, meant only to set the movie in motion, and as such it is at least a more realistic conundrum than the various conquer-the-world plots we've seen from previous Bond movies. Like the previous two Daniel Craig Bond efforts, Skyfall remains relatively grounded in reality, outrageous stunts and improbable coincidences aside.
Unfortunately Bond is accidentally shot by a fellow agent just as he's about to recapture the list. He falls off a moving train while it's crossing a high trestle, and Bond's limp, seemingly lifeless body crashes into the river far below, becoming part of the elaborate opening titles sequence. This time around Adele provides the opening song, a haunting and dramatic melody foreshadowing the big changes to come to the franchise.
While Bond is presumed KIA, Dame Judi Dench's M is left to deal with the fallout of the loss of the list and several agents, Bond included. In many ways Skyfall is very much M's story, and the film is all the stronger for it. Not only is she being forced into retirement, M will be called to face a public inquiry into her competency and that of MI-6 while also facing the wrath of a rogue agent who's intent on revenge for perceived wrongs. Dench's M handles all these troubles with aplomb and steel; as a character, she is in many ways more admirable than Bond himself.
When MI-6 is subjected to a terrorist attack orchestrated by the film's as-yet-unseen villain, he returns from the dead and shows up on M's doorstep, willing to take up the fight for Queen and country yet again. But is he really ready to go back on duty? Exhausted both mentally and physically, Bond throws himself back into action despite his many weaknesses - and lives are lost because of it. When Javier Bardem's Raoul Silva shows up - charismatic, intelligent, powerful, sexually voracious and perhaps insane - Bond is ill-prepared to deal with him, and in fact winds up inadvertently furthering Silva's plans. Bond allows Silva to get dangerously close to M, and in the end Bond and M go on the run, eventually finding themselves with only one option: make themselves Silva's only targets to reduce further MI-6 casualties and hope they can ambush the villainous ex-agent before he kills them both...
Sam Mendes' direction is well-suited to what turns out to be largely a character piece punctuated with the requisite action beats. Bond, M, the new Q, Silva and a couple of new characters I shan't spoil any further are well-drawn and believable, with commanding performances all round. The cinematography is typically lush, making the most of the film's various exotic locations; a night-time battle is particularly gorgeous and compelling.
However, there are some flaws. A continuity issue with Bond's wounds is distracting, but not fatal (pun intended). Silva's omnipotence stretches credulity, and at least three characters make stupid decisions that serve only to move the plot forward - a transparent flaw of lazy screenwriting that annoys audiences and harms the credibility of characters.
But the film's inability to balance two competing themes is what really detracts from the film's final impact. Without giving too much away, Skyfall is clearly meant to serve as a bridge of sorts, showing the final maturity of the Craig Bond and settling him into more conventional Bond adventures. The "reboot" phase is over. In order to prepare audiences for what's to come, Bond's dialogue is now peppered with one-liners and puns of the sort we're more accustomed to seeing from earlier Bonds like Moore and Connery. A couple of scenes are a little ham-handed in their efforts to reference the earlier films while at the same time differentiating between old and new; it gets a little schizophrenic. And while part of me cheered the nostalgic setup that serves as the film's coda, another part rebelled: after taking remarkable chances with the Craig reboot, have the producers at last lost their courage? That remains to be seen.
Despite these flaws, Skyfall is almost as good as Craig's first outing as Bond, Casino Royale, better than most of the Roger Moore outings and even better than the weaker Sean Connery installments. The character arcs of both M and Bond are compelling and believable, the supporting players are likeable and the emotional beats fitting and quite correct. 008 out of 0010.
Sunday, December 02, 2012
Sunflowers and Corn, 1974
Saturday, December 01, 2012
Pieces of The Paranoid Web
Long before I started this blog, I took advantage of Shaw's old web hosting service to set up a primitive web page. I've long since forgotten how to do this sort of work, but I remain proud that I managed to slap something together. Here are some of the page elements:
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