Falling Bell

It's not really art, just me playing with Photoshop. 

Lost in a Corn Maze

Cloudbusted

Personalized junk mail! Nice try, Kia West Edmonton, but no, I'm not trading in my car for the sake of having a newer model. I will drive it until it wears out. 

Doorbell in Stone

Genocide in the Catacombs

I have locked myself in the bathroom, leaning hard against the bucking door. The two blonde thugs on the other side are doing their best to kick it down with their jackbooted feet. It is my last, desperate stand.

Inevitably, my strength gives way. I hop backwards, raising my hands in surrender as the door bursts open. One of the thugs, sneering, preppie-menacing in a white cardigan, grabs me by the upper arm and hauls me through the living room and out of the apartment, into the great underground concrete warrens I call home.

The second fascist is uniformed and rigidly formal. There is a lovely young woman with long brown hair waiting in the corridor; she’s frightened, and looks like she wants to flee. But the uniformed fascist hands her a large glass beaker, the size of a full-grown pumpkin; it’s filled with swirling, cloudy green gas. He orders the woman to take it down a short flight of steps to a furnace room. We follow, and the fascist in the white sweater directs the woman to pour the gas into an empty brick fireplace that’s connected to the air vents.

I suddenly realize what’s happening. “That’s nerve gas, you fools!” I scream. “You’ll kill us all!”

Already the young woman spasms in agony, her eyes wide, terrified, as she’s enveloped in the deadly cloud. I sprint away in a blind panic, expecting the fascists to give chase, but they only smile knowingly, not caring as they disappear into the spreading cloud of mist. I dart into a supply room and hastily cover myself in the blue fluid that offers some minimal protection from nerve gas, but I know it won’t be enough, and I charge down the corridors looking for an exit. Around me people gasp and stagger and fall as they’re overcome.

There! A ladder to the surface. I grab hold of the rungs and start to climb, but it’s too late; my vision flashes blue and green, and every muscle seizes up at once. Everything goes black, and I awaken into the darkness of our bedroom, wide-eyed. 

Discovering Discovery

WARNING

SPOILERS for the first two episodes of STAR TREK: DISCOVERY

After a dozen years, Star Trek returned to television last night in its newest incarnation, Star Trek: Discovery. Set ten years before the events of the original television series, Discovery is the story of Michael Burnham, (Sonequa Martin-Green), a Starfleet officer and orphan raised on Vulcan by none other than Sarek (James Frain), father of Spock.

When we're introduced to Burnham in the first episode, "The Vulcan Hello," she's serving as the First Officer of the USS Shenzhou under Captain Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh). After rescuing some friendly crab-like aliens from a drought, the Shenzou is tasked with investigating a malfunctioning relay beacon at the edge of Federation space. When Burnham discovers the cause of the malfunction and the familiar aliens behind it, the stage is set for what I assume will be the series' first-season arc: war with the Klingons, reimagined here as a brutish "Make America Great Again" analogue.

The two-part opener (comprised of "The Vulcan Hello" and "Battle at the Binary Stars" gets the show off to a strong start. While burdened with some clunky exposition, moments of stilted line delivery, and one eye-rolling moment in the pre-credits teaser, Star Trek: Discovery succeeds where it counts, telling an interesting, meaningful story with flawed but sympathetic characters. Burnham makes a series of serious mistakes that arguably cost a great number of lives--and she faces believable consequences for her actions. The Klingons have an understandable motive for their actions, and they have depth; these aren't cookie-cutter cartoon villains. The supporting characters are well drawn, with the alien Saru (Doug Jones) a real standout.

As is usually the case with Star Trek shows, production design, costuming and special effects are all state-of-the-art for the era. The opening credit sequence is quite handsome and a real departure from those that preceded it.

Perhaps most importantly, the show takes chances. The two opening hours end without a trace of the titular USS Discovery or most of the show's main cast. Presumably they'll be introduced next week, in episode three, "Context is for Kings." Instead of a traditional pilot episode, we're given what amounts to two hours of backstory--but entertaining backstory it is, and should, in theory, add resonance to the show's first season arc.

Given the show's behind-the-scenes production drama and the involvement of Akiva Goldsman, my expectations for Star Trek: Discovery were very low. But I find myself pleasantly surprised. It's too early to say whether or not this will reach the heights of the original series, The Next Generation, or Deep Space Nine, I think it's safe to say it's already off to a more promising start than Voyager or Enterprise. 

Autumnal Geekquinox 2017

Yesterday Pete, with Ellen's sterling assistance, brought us yet another moutwatering, belly-bursting Geekquinox feast. "I can't break away!"...from the table, because I'm stuffed to the brink of drooling unconsciousness.

This is candied bacon, with brown sugar and a hint of heat. I've been somewhat skeptical regarding the candied bacon trend, but it works - this went down very smoothly.

I love seafood and I love bacon, so I wound up downing three or four of these delectable bacon-wrapped shrimp. Utterly heavenly.

The chili verde was my favourite dish; it was incredibly savoury, with generous chunks of tender pork. I may actually ask Pete for the recipe; I love this stuff so much that I'm motivated to try to cook it myself, since I can't very well ask Pete to come over and cook it for me once or twice a week.

A Facebook request from Sylvia, though she didn't know it, inspired Pete to create these remarkable prosciutto potato roses. Actually, maybe this was my favourite dish...no, the chili. But it's close.

I was too busy gulping down the main course to get a photo. For the record, it consisted of porchetta (very, very tender pork belly with some sort of incredible stuffing) bacon mashed potatoes (too delicious by half), grilled cabbage (surprisingly excellent), and green beans with...some kind of pork I can't remember. In lieu of dinner, here's a shot of dessert: ice cream with chocolate sauce, maple bacon and homemade toffee. The homemade toffee alone was delectable, but in combination with all this--exquisite.

Another incredible meal, another great evening with a group of dear friends. Thanks again, Pete and Ellen! As ever, I am amazed by your dedication and near-insane level of commitment to this event. 

Mirror Maniac in Colour

Today I painted my custom Mirror Maniac figure, my avatar for my adventures in the four-colour world of Villains & Vigilantes. As you can see, my brushwork is a little, er, crude. But at least it looks better than the unpainted original...I think? Argh, the flesh paint is pouring over his mirrorshades.

Here's the rear view. I tried to colour the shield so as to look wooden, but with metal parts. Results: decidedly mixed.

I'm actually happier with the Zeppelin in the background; that's a game piece from my copy of Fortune & Glory, a board game. Mind you, it was a lot easier to paint. 

Primed for Painting

Tomorrow, I will finally prime the many board game and RPG miniatures I've accumulated over the years. Then, I shall attempt to paint them, the better to create a sense of immersion while I game. Stay tuned for the results! 

Another Lost Video Project

Another two hours lost trying to create a video for the blog. I've tried to have fun editing video for years, but only rarely does the software - and I've tried many, many kinds of software - cooperate. Usually, my computer crashes and loses all of my work, as it's done yet again tonight. Tons and tons of raw footage and nothing to show for it because of this persistent curse.

Blogging while angry again. Never a good idea. Does anyone know of PC video editing software that can handle multiple file formats and WON'T CRASH? I bought a high-end computer precisely so I could do this stuff. ARRGGHHHHH.

Earl's ABCs

In 1971, Mom used our reel-to-reel audio tape recorder to capture my three-year-old voice. You can hear mom suppressing a laugh when I clearly fail to understand that she wants me to count to ten, but I make up for this initial obliviousness by making it all the way up into the teens. A somewhat garbled recitation of the ABCs follows, and then Mom asks me what I want for Christmas. "The aiport," I answer. I think I must have been talking about the Fisher-Price airport toy, which I did indeed receive, and loved. Thanks, Mom and Dad! 

Search My Blog!

Did you know that Blogger includes a search function? I just discovered it now, despite having curated this blog for...zounds, over a decade! You can search The Earliad by typing your search terms into the little window in the upper-left corner of your browser, as illustrated above. This'll make it easier for me when I'm attempting to follow up on old posts!

Fight of the Century

A 40 Year Old Box of Washers

All About Alliums

At least, I think these are alliums. Shot at Hole's, St. Albert, Alberta, 1998. 

The Mirror Maniac

This is a plastic 30mm representation of my Villains & Vigilantes hero, the Mirror Maniac. He started out by calling himself Mirror Man, but his penchant for laughing at violent pratfalls during battle led the media to add the extra syllable. 

This is the first thing I've ever had 3D-printed; I used Hero Forge to design the character, and then the company printed and shipped it. I'll paint it soon. 

The Mirror Maniac is so named because of his ability to reflect the attacks of others right back at them, and his secondary ability to shape-shift, with perfect fidelity, into a wide range of inanimate objects. 

Earl's Film World

Here's the last of the stats Letterboxd Pro currently tracks - a world map that reveals how many films you've seen by country of production. Unfortunately, the map includes a whole bunch of Hollywood films that had elements of production taking place outside the USA, which makes it look like I've had a lot more exposure to world cinema than it would first appear. I have seen my fair share of legitimately British, Japanese, Indian, French and German films, but this map should be taken with a grain of salt. 

Earl's Directors

According to Letterboxd, this is my list of most-watched directors. Having watched all but one of Charlie Chaplin's many films, it's no surprise that he's at the top. But who is William K.L. Dickson, you ask? He's one of the pioneers of film, and as I've been watching a bunch of films from the early days of the medium, folks like Dickson, Georges Melies, Louis Lumiere and William Heise wind up on my list. Of course, a bunch of their films are only a few minutes, or even just a few seconds, long.

The Stars in My Eyes

Letterboxd Pro tracks the films I watch, and from that database it's generated a list of my most-watched actors. I'm dismayed that there are only two women and one actor of colour on the list, but I'm unsurprised by the rest of the tally, save perhaps for the inclusion of Dick Miller, who as it turns out was in a bunch of 80s genre films I've seen. (In fact, I've actually seen 25 of his films - reviewing his list of credits reveals that I forgot to log InnerSpace, which I saw in theatres way back in 1987. It's these haphazard connections that have helped me make my Letterboxd inventory more accurate as time goes by.)

I didn't recognize Bess Flowers when Letterboxd first generated this list. As it turns out, she's one of Hollywood's most prolific actresses, appearing in over 700 films, including 23 Best Picture nominees, five of which won the award. Bess probably appears on a lot of Most Watched Stars list for this reason - if you're a film fan, it seems you can hardly avoid her. 

A Life in Film: Genres and List Progress

A few days ago, I wrote about my Letterboxd Pro subscription and the cool stats it generates about my film-viewing habits. This is another set of my Letterboxd data: my genre, country of origin, and language breakdown, my progress on some notable lists, and my most-watched films, which comes with a huge caveat I'll explain below.

Friends of mine might be surprised that science fiction isn't at the top of my genre list, and indeed I'm surprised that it manages to rank only fourth. However, I don't know how Letterboxd assigns genres to films - there could very well be a number of films I would call miscategorized - and given my proclivity for attempting to watch all the films of certain directors like Hitchcock and Chaplin, who produced very little SFnal content, the results start to make a little more sense.

I seem to be doing pretty well on most of the lists Letterboxd deems important, though I clearly need to catch up with Sight & Sound's top 250, one of the most important of the film crit lists. I'd never heard of Edgar Wright's 1,000 favourites before these statistics were generated, but apparently I've seen nearly half of his choices.

The "Most Watched" list is only as good as the data any given user inputs, and even I'm not crazy enough to log every single instance of every film I've ever watched. I'll log re-watches now, of course, but I've resisted the temptation to go back and try to reconstruct every single time I watched Star Wars, for example.

The five films you see on this list are there because once I saw the data was being generated, I figured I may as well try to nudge it in a reasonably accurate direction. For example, I know I've seen Star Trek: The Motion Picture:

• During its original run
• At the Paramount Theatre during the 1991 Sit Long and Prosper event
• When it was first released on VHS
• When it was released again on VHS in a box set with the other films
• When it was first released on DVD
• When it the Director's Cut was released on DVD
• When it was released on Blu-Ray

Of course I watched the VHS tape many times in the 80s, and I've seen the DVDs more than once. The same is true for the other films in this section. But trying to reconstruct this particular movie ephemera is hardly worth the effort. 

Return of Villains & Vigilantes

Some months ago, Sean and I and Jeff and Jeremiah Pitts supported a Kickstarter for the third edition of Villains & Vigilantes, a game we'd all enjoyed back in the - gulp - 1980s. Last night we gathered, along with Jeff's son Connor, for the first game of V&V we'd played in many years, save for a short one-off adventure back in 2007, part of my bachelor party. My character, seen here in the foreground, is the Mirror Maniac, a young man with reflective powers and the ability to turn himself into different inanimate objects. (I'm using a HeroClix Invisible Kid to stand in for my character while I await my custom-built miniature in the mail.)

Last night's short adventure saw the four of us attempt to stop a robbery on Whyte Avenue. I was in my civilian identity, shopping at Chapter's, when the call for help rang out. I quickly changed into my costume and dashed across the street--but I failed to look both ways, and was hit by a passing car. I was flung 30 feet and lost six hit points. It was an ignominious debut for the Mirror Maniac, but we managed to capture the villains and recover the artifact they'd attempted to steal. Huzzah! 

Some More Thoughts on Twin Peaks: The Return

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR SEASON THREE OF 

TWIN PEAKS

In my last post about the return of Twin Peaks, I neglected to mention some of the factors that contributed to my admiration for the third season:

• Each episode completely captured my attention, holding me riveted to the screen. It's been ages since any television show achieved that feat. 
• Miraculously, the production team kept the show's secrets held very close; no episodes were spoiled. 
• I never knew what was coming next. Having watched countless hours of film and television, I've gotten very good at spotting formulas and predicting character and story arcs well before their conclusion. I utterly failed to predict anything about Twin Peaks. 
• I didn't dare hope for it, but Major Briggs' beautiful vision about Bobby's future from season two actually played out in season three. Bobby's redemption and growth were beautiful to see. 
• I absolutely love that several important characters from the show's first two seasons had pivotal roles to play in the unfolding of season three, particularly Deputy Andy, probably my second-favourite character, who has a great extended moment in one of the later episodes. 
• I loved the many touches of quirky, absurdist humour, most especially Sheriff Truman's pop-up wooden computer and Carl Rodd's superheroic action van. 
• Episode 8, in which Lynch and Frost take the audience inside a nuclear explosion to witness the birth of evil, is perhaps the most insane and spectacular thing I've ever seen on television.
• This season of Twin Peaks frankly captures the passage of time and refuses to gloss over its impact on the aging original cast. How could we ever have expected Dale Cooper to just pop out of limbo and join his law enforcement buddies as if only days had passed? He spent 25 years in there, while in the outside world people got old, died, or otherwise moved on. It's easy enough to wonder why Donna Hayward, for example, rated not a single mention on the show (save for one line of dialogue in archival footage), considering her importance in seasons one and two. But there's a simple explanation: she left Twin Peaks behind and built a new life. 
• Perhaps most importantly, I appreciated the show's unflinching refusal to compromise its own artistic integrity. There were no easy solutions or lazy storytelling choices to be found, even when making the hard choices upset the audience, including me. 

Twin Peaks can be utterly confounding, baffling, frustrating. But it is, without question, a singular work of art that people will be debating for a long time to come. I'm just grateful it exists, and that I lived to see it return. 

Six Word Story 17

Love letters, Sent from my iPhone

Six Word Story 16

Damn it, Steve, it's seven words! 

A Life in Film...So Far

About a year ago, I signed up for a Letterboxd account to track the films I've seen, from the first film I saw as a toddler (to the best of my recollection) to today. More recently, I shelled out a few dollars for a Letterboxd Pro account, which adds some cool features including year-by-year stats. Here's a sampling of my all-time stats as of today: 3,727 films from 1,736 directors in 58 countries. My highest rated decades are the 1930s, 1940s and 2000s.

I also found it interesting that I've seen more films from 1984 than any other year, and that 2016 comes in at a close second.