White's Wounded Women

Some of St. Elsewhere's Season Three Players.
Fans of Babylon 5 might recognize Stephen Furst in the middle. 

I guess you could say that Doctor Peter White's story began with some whimpering, and ended with a bang. A couple of days ago, I wrote about my amazement regarding the character's dark turn, and how I wondered how the writers could possibly bring him back for a third season. 

They found a way. White is a deeply troubling foil for the first third of the season, shoving his verdict of innocence in the faces of his colleagues while continuing to brazenly rape women--including a second attack on one of his prior victims, who winds up deeply psychologically damaged on top of her physical trauma (and little wonder). 

Three of White's victims: Nurse Shirley Daniels (driven to murder), Doctor Wendy Armstrong (victim of attempted rape, assaulted, driven to suicide), and Doctor Cathy Martin (raped and assaulted twice, driven to madness. Also, Ed Begley Jr.

Having White parading around St. Eligius as if he wasn't a violent rapist gets to be too much for Nurse Shirley Daniels (Ellen Bry), who steals a weapon from a police officer in the ER, hunts white down, and shoots him. White survives for a couple of hours, but ties before he can name is killer. It doesn't matter, because while it took forever for the police to arrest White for his crimes, poor Nurse Daniels is caught within hours. Hmmmm. 

The whole arc has, thus far, shone a lot of light--maybe accidentally, maybe not--on how women are treated at home, in the workplace, and in fiction. Wendy Armstrong (Kim Miyori) lasted only a season and a half on St. Elsewhere, and I can only think of one episode in which she was the focus and got a win--a "win" defined as a moment of respect from the male doctors. Even worse, Cathy Martin (Barbara Whinnery) was written from the beginning as a flighty, promiscuous eccentric--part of the reason her testimony is dismissed by the jury. The show neglected Armstrong and killed her off--without much real buildup or even proper connection to her frustration with White's trial or her assault. It just felt like the writers didn't know what to do with her. But Martin fares even worse, treated as comic relief for most of her appearances, then as a victim--twice--and then to madness. (She might recover; I haven't watched the whole series yet.) And the formerly level-headed Nurse Daniels becomes erratic enough to take revenge on White, resorting to a murder that she surely knows she can't get away with. She also confesses to a crush on Doctor Jack Morrison (David Morse), without any hint of having those feelings in previous episodes. One of the episodes I watched tonight culimates with Nurse Daniels being captured by the police, so I assume that she'll be written out shortly, as well. 

David Morse as Doctor Jack Morrison

The somewhat hapless Jack Morrison has, all the while, stuck by his friend, Peter White, despite everyone else at the hospital believing White to be responsible for the attacks. At one point, White asks Morrison "Why do you believe me?" Jack says something like "Because you told me you didn't do it, and that's good enough for me." He believes his male friend, but not the multiple women colleagues who were victimized. This really puts a dark stain on Jack's character, who I really want to like because he's the most compassionate doctor of the bunch. But wow, his reaction here is completely tone-deaf, and he seems to be confident in it even after White is shot! (Morse is a superb actor, by the way; I still remember him as a police officer blinded in the line of duty in Homicide: Life on the Streets.)

Eric Laneuville as Luther Hawkins. 

To be fair to Jack, in the last episode I watched tonight, "Sweet Dreams," it appears as though Jack does indeed have doubts. Jack, Dr. Victor Ehrlich (Ed Begley Jr.), and orderly Luther Hawkins (Eric Laneuville) are all involved in a dream study. Ehrlich, true to his character, dreams of being stranded on a tropical island with beautiful warrior women who sentence him to death by, er, snu-snu. Hawkins' dream is a wonderful spoof of the ZZ Top music video for "Legs," complete with the music track, several members of the cast dressed as the band and sexy models, and the ZZ Top roadster famous from the video. 

Jack, on the other hand, has a terrible nightmare about Peter White. Only in the dream do Jack's doubts materialize, and though he asks "Who killed you?" (White says "That's classified"), he does not ask "Did you do it?" 

But he doesn't need to, because the dream shows that he knows the answer is "yes" and hasn't been able to accept it. White bids Jack farewell, then puts on his ski mask and laughs manically, mocking Jack for his unearned trust. It's a very chilling sequence, and redeems Jack a tiny bit. I hope he apologizes to the women he dismissed. 

The Ear Iris

Earlier this summer, Sean and Sylvia and I were travelling from Leduc to Edmonton. A discussion of laziness, chores and perceived roles of men and women ensued. We often ask Sean to help with household chores, and I joked that when one of these requests is detected, a mechanism in Sean's ears closes like an iris to prevent him from hearing about the chore. I extrapolated that most men have this ability, which made both Sylvia and Sean laugh.

This would seem an handy mutation. 

Sexist Villain

From Wonder Woman #219, 1975. The story itself is called "World of Enslaved Women!" The villain is called Mchsm, which almost seems like a vowel-less spelling of masochism...nah...couldn't be. 

I'm Looking Through You

Today I took a leisurely stroll downtown to meet my friend Leslie for lunch. While heading north on 105 street I noticed a woman walking toward me. I glanced at her as passers-by do, and noted that her top was revealing enough to show the upper portion of what appeared to be a full-torso tattoo.

My eyebrows moved upward imperceptibly as I realized what the tattoo portrayed: a cutaway view of the woman's internal organs. There were her ribs and sinew, her lungs, a network of veins and arteries. In the brief glimpse that politeness allowed, I had enough time to assess the tattoo's merit: somewhat macabre, but, from what I know of anatomy, remarkably accurate and realistic, with a very convincing three-dimensional quality.

As I said to Leslie a few minutes later, I can't decide whether I admire the tattooed woman's gumption or if I'm appalled by the gory garishness of the art. Either way, it's certainly her right to express herself, and I can't help but think of the tattoo as an interesting way to combat the male gaze. 

100 Books a Year 2012

In 2010, Bruce and Leslie asked me if I thought I read 100 books a year. As noted, I tracked my reading in 2011 and came up a little short. But I kept tracking my reading this year, and as it turns out I finished the year's 100th book earlier this afternoon.

Here's the list, in order of completion:

Shoeless Joe (W.P. Kinsella, 1982)

The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien, 1937)

The Wild Girls Plus… (Ursula K. Le Guin, 2011)

Star Trek The Next Generation: Indistinguishable from Magic (David A. McIntee, 2011)

In War Times (Kathleen Ann Goonan, 2007)

Directive 51 (John Barnes, 2010)

The Bible Repairman and Other Stories (Tim Powers, 2011)

Daybreak Zero (John Barnes, 2011)

Star Trek Department of Temporal Investigations: Watching the Clock (Christopher L. Bennett, 2011)

Who Has Seen the Wind? (W.O. Mitchell, 1947)

Icehenge (Kim Stanley Robinson, 1984)

40-Year Evolution: Planet of the Apes (Lee Pfeiffer & Dave Worrall, 2008)

7^th Sigma (Steven Gould, 2011)

Fuzzy Nation (John Scalzi, 2011)

The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made (David Hughes, 2008)

Colonel Sun (Kingsley Amis writing as Robert Markham, 1968)

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (J.K. Rowling, 1998)

Worlds Apart (Joe Haldeman, 1983)

Worlds Enough and Time (Joe Haldeman, 1992)

Wonder (Robert J. Sawyer, 2011)

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (J.K. Rowling, 1999)

Hex (Allen Steele, 2011)

Tales from Development Hell (David Hughes, 2011)

Star Trek Department of Temporal Investigations: Forgotten History (Christopher L. Bennett, 2012)

In Search of the Multiverse (John Gribbin, 2009)

Fevre Dream (George R. R. Martin, 1982)

Carte Blanche (Jeffery Deaver, 2011)

The Hallowed Hunt (Lois McMaster Bujold, 2005)

All the Lives He Led (Frederik Pohl, 2011)

The Scarlet Plague (Jack London, 1912)

The Wind Through the Keyhole (Stephen King, 2012)

Forsake the Sky (Tim Powers, 1986)

A Bridge of Years (Robert Charles Wilson, 1991)

Vortex (Robert Charles Wilson, 2011)

A Pleasure to Burn: Fahrenheit 451 Stories (Ray Bradbury, 2010)

The Call of the Wild (Jack London, 1903)

The Night Sessions (Ken MacLeod, 2012)

The Murders in the Rue Morgue (Edgar Allan Poe, 1841)

Feed (Mira Grant, 2010)

The Complete Peanuts 1983 to 1984 (Charles M. Schulz with an introduction by Leonard Maltin, 2012)

The Walls of the Universe (Paul Melko, 2009)

Surfing the Gnarl Plus… (Rudy Rucker, 2012)

Report from Planet Midnight Plus… (Nalo Hopkinson, 2012)

Tin Woodman (David F. Bischoff and Dennis R. Bailey, 1979)

Year’s Best SF (David G. Hartwell, Editor, 1996)

The Company of the Dead (David J. Kowalski, 2012)

Year’s Best SF 2 (David G. Hartwell, Editor, 1997)

After the Golden Age (Carrie Vaughn, 2011)

Omnitopia Dawn (Diane Duane, 2010)

Year’s Best SF 3 (David G. Hartwell, Editor, 1998)

Dandelion Wine (Ray Bradbury, 1957)

Farewell Summer (Ray Bradbury, 2006)

Florida Roadkill (Tim Dorsey, 1999)

Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels, 1985-2010 (Damien Broderick & Paul Di Filippo, 2012)

Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels (David Pringle, 1985)

Super Sad True Love Story (Gary Shteyngart, 2010)

Year’s Best SF 5 (David G. Hartwell, Editor, 2000)

Firebird (Jack McDevitt, 2011)

Animal Farm (George Orwell, 1945)

Hammerhead Ranch Motel (Tim Dorsey, 2000)

This Dark Endeavour (Kenneth Oppel, 2011)

Orange Crush (Tim Dorsey, 2001)

The Poison Belt (Arthur Conan Doyle, 1913)

Triggerfish Twist (Tim Dorsey, 2002)

Star Trek New Frontier: Blind Man’s Bluff (Peter David, 2012)

Star Trek Voyager: Unworthy (Kirsten Beyer, 2009)

Star Trek Voyager: Children of the Storm (Kirsten Beyer, 2011)

Triggers (Robert J. Sawyer, 2012)

Fifty Who Made DC Great (Barry Marx, Editor, 1985)

The Adventures of Superman (George Lowther, 1942)

The Stingray Shuffle (Tim Dorsey, 2003)

Carnelians (Catherine Asaro, 2011)

The Red Badge of Courage (Stephen Crane, 1895)

Star Trek Voyager: The Eternal Tide (Kirsten Beyer, 2012)

After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall (Nancy Kress, 2012)

The Toynbee Convector (Ray Bradbury, 1988)

Klingon Bird of Prey Owners’ Workshop Manual (Rick Sternbach and Ben Robinson, 2012)

The Nerd Who Loved Me (Liz Talley, 2012)

Osama (Lavie Tidhar, 2011)

The Stepford Wives (Ira Levin, 1972)

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain, 1884)

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (L. Frank Baum, 1900)

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)

Through the Looking-Glass (Lewis Carroll, 1871)

The Complete Peanuts, 1985 to 1986 (Charles M. Schulz with an introduction by Patton Oswalt, 2012)

This Perfect Day (Ira Levin, 1970)

The Boys from Brazil (Ira Levin, 1976)

Rosemary’s Baby (Ira Levin, 1967)

Son of Rosemary (Ira Levin, 1997)

The High Crusade (Poul Anderson, 1960)

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (Walter Benjamin, 1936)

An Introduction to Studying Popular Culture (Dominic Strinati, 2000)

211 Things A Bright Boy Can Do (Tom Cutler, 2006)

The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway, 1952)

Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad, 1899)

Star Trek: The Next Generation 365 (Paula M. Block and Terry J. Erdmann, 2012)

Federation: The First 150 Years (David A. Goodman, 2311)

Year’s Best SF 6 (David G. Hartwell, Editor, 2001)

Dancing with Bears (Michael Swanwick, 2011)

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (J.K. Rowling, 2000)

Fiction: 89

Nonfiction: 11

Science fiction: 47

Fantasy: 14

Romance: 1

Star Trek: 10

Peanuts collections: 2

Mainstream: 16

Female authors: 13
Male authors: 60

Top Authors
Tim Dorsey (5)
David G. Hartwell (5)
Ira Levin (5)
Ray Bradbury (4)
Kirsten Beyer (3)

J.K. Rowling (3)
John Barnes (2)
Christopher L. Bennett (2)
Lewis Carroll (2)
Joe Haldeman (2)
David Hughes (2)
Jack London (2)
Tim Powers (2)
Robert J. Sawyer (2)
Charles M. Schulz (2)
Robert Charles Wilson (2)

Books by Decade
1840s: 1
1850s: 0
1860s: 1
1870s: 1
1880s: 1
1890s: 2
1900s: 2

1910s: 2
1920s: 0
1930s: 2
1940s: 3
1950s: 2
1960s: 3
1970s: 4
1980s: 8
1990s: 10
2000s: 17
2010s: 40
2310s: 1

Oldest Title

The Murders in the Rue Morgue (Edgar Allan Poe, 1841)

Newest Title

Federation: The First 150 Years (David A. Goodman, 2311)

Final Thoughts

As might be expected, my list is a little genre heavy. Gender and temporal balance are also askew. Next year I'll see if I can increase the number of women authors and mainstream titles, as well as older works and nonfiction.

Tim Dorsey is my favourite find of 2012. His novels about murder, mayhem and mental illness in Florida are uproariously funny, but they can also be quite moving and insightful. I have another five of his books in my library, and I look forward to devouring them.

After having long read about Ira Levin, I finally sampled the man's work, reading five of his seven published novels. It's too bad he didn't write more; Levin's one of very few writers who can make me angry, and he did so in both The Stepford Wives and Rosemary's Baby, both of which centre around good women betrayed by their husbands.

This year I also knocked a few of the essential classics off my longstanding to-read list: The Old Man and the Sea, Heart of Darkness, Shoeless Joe, The Hobbit and a few others. The Hemingway was wonderful, but I found the Kinsella a little too syrupy, the Conrad too overwrought, and Tolkien, despite his nerd cred...well, maybe he's just not my sort of thing, but I'll give The Lord of the Rings a go in 2013 anyway.

After a three-decade break from Ray Bradbury, I returned to one of the greats this year and found his work as compelling (if sentimental) as ever. I read three of the four Bradbury titles on this list before he died, and I felt irrationally guilty about it. Maybe he would have lived if I hadn't picked up another of his books, or if I'd never stopped reading his work. Crazy, of course.

A few of the books on this list were duds, notably some of the media tie-in novels, but that's to be expected; as Theodore Sturgeon famously wrote, "Ninety percent of everything is crap." But we keep reading in search of those hidden gems.

Speaking of reading, thanks to everyone who read the blog this year - there seem to be more of you, and I'm happy that you're finding something entertaining here.

Happy New Year!

Bonds of the Super-Sons

Back when I was a kid in the early 1970s, World's Finest was one of my favourite comic books. The stories - particularly those penned by the delightfully wacky Bob Haney - were often nonsensical, spat in the face of continuity, and featured bizarre faux-hip dialogue that tried, unsuccessfully, to capture the youth lingo of the day. But they were also delightfully imaginative and surreal.

In 1972 Haney came up with the idea of the Super-Sons, Clark (Superman Jr.) Kent Jr., and Bruce (Batman Jr.) Wayne Jr. The first story of the Super-Sons opened with a text blurb assuring readers that this was not an "imaginary story" or a put-on, that the Super-Sons were "real" - within the context, of course, of the larger DC Universe. Anticipating questions from befuddled readers, Haney explained that not even the myriad stories published by DC about Superman and Batman could cover every aspect of their lives, and this was a heretofore unrevealed aspect of the mythos. Of course every other DC comic steadfastly ignored the existence of the Super-Sons and their mothers - whose identities are never revealed in these stories, their faces always in shadow.

As seen above, Bruce Jr. and Clark Jr. shared a deep emotional connection thanks to their shared anxieties about living up to the legacies of their famous fathers. Viewed through that lens the scene above is understandable enough, but modern audiences will probably snicker a little at Bruce's treatment of poor Debbie and the dialogue that seems to hint the younger Super-Sons share more than mere friendship.

It's a little unfair - Bruce Jr., at least, is portrayed as aggressively heterosexual. Indeed, Haney's treatment of women in this run feels a little off-kilter. I've already mentioned that we never learn the identities of the boys' shadowy mothers, and most other women in these stories are either villainous tricksters or damsels in distress capable of capturing the boys' attention only for a brief time, never for a committed relationship. Given the era this is to be expected from any comic book aimed at children or teens, but unlike other DC books the women in these stories never even get the chance to be treated as friends or equals; there's no room for a Black Canary or a Wonder Woman here.

While other writers pretended that the Super-Sons never existed, Haney had fun writing his own stories his own way, heedless of continuity, ignoring the fact that in contemporary stories Superman and Batman were explicitly childless and that Superman had a relationship with Lois Lane. None of that mattered to Haney!

Ten or fifteen years after the last appearance of the Super-Sons, other writers took it upon themselves to "explain" this odd discontinuity in DC storytelling. It turns out that all of these stories were simply an extremely complex simulation run by Superman and Batman to...well, it's been too long since I've read the story, and frankly I don't feel like digging the comic out of the boxes in the garage. It's not that the story was bad, per se, but the revisionism seemed to me to miss Haney's point entirely: that rigid adherence to continuity could sometimes stifle good (or at least weird) stories. Seen with modern eyes, Haney's World's Finest run can appear absurd and dreamlike, but it held its own rewards for those willing to explore the weird side of comics.

Batman and Marriage

In Brave and the Bold #95, a tycoon asks Batman to rescue her missing fiancee. Startled, Batman unwittingly reveals his somewhat strict view of marriage. Apparently to Batman, marriage means possession, domination...well, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised; look at his outfit.