Next Fall On the CW

The Winter of My Discontent

Another snowfall, another flat. Thankfully I was giving Sean a ride home - he gave me a big hand changing the tire and captured this annoying moment for posterity. 

Farewell, Weslyn

Former Alberta Liberal MLAs Bill Bonko and Weslyn Mather at a 2007 event in Calgary. 

I was fortunate enough to work with Weslyn Mather for two years during the latter half of her 2004-2008 term as an Alberta Liberal MLA. I was impressed by Weslyn's deeply sincere commitment to public service, particularly her advocacy for the welfare of children. She was also a powerful advocate for accessible child care for everyone, an issue Alberta struggles with to this day. I was very saddened when Weslyn lost her bid for re-election in 2008; she was a wonderful MLA and public servant, and the Alberta Legislature was a poorer place without her.

I'm even more saddened to learn that Weslyn passed away yesterday. She was a kind, compassionate human being, the sort of person you're grateful to have known, the sort of person you're glad answered the call to public service.

I hope Weslyn's family and friends will find some comfort in their memories of this remarkable woman. May she rest in peace knowing she did her part to help build a better Alberta. 

Earl on Letterboxd

I just discovered Letterboxd, which offers a means for film lovers to track the movies they've watched and get recommendations from other users. While I'm cognizant of the many downsides of social media (not least of which is our eroding privacy), I weighed the pros and cons and decided to give it a try. If you're on Letterboxd, let me know; my profile can be found here. If nothing else, I've used it to collect all of my reviews in one place. 

Flatly Denied

Last night I dreamed I was the executive assistant to Vic Mackie, who was the owner of a garage/oil well. He also happened to be a vigilante. One day, after bringing down a flying 18-wheeler by hurling a rubber tire through its windshield, killing the driver, Mackie asked me to rent a steamroller for him.

"How long do you want it for?" I asked nervously.

"I'll only need it for about five seconds," he answered.

It turns out that you have to rent steamrollers in increments of 3.5 hours, which I dutifully did. When the steamroller arrived at the garage, Mackie hopped into the cab and steamrolled two sobbing bad guys, gruesomely mashing them flat. They burst like blood-filled balloons.

I'm glad I don't have that job in real life. 

The Big Boom

Today I attended an introductory PowerPoint course at the University of Alberta. I picked up some pretty good tricks, while at the same time putting together a silly Star Trek presentation. If I knew how to turn it into a movie, I'd post the whole thing, but since I don't, here's the opening slide. 

Always and Never Coming Home

Jack McDevitt's two future histories portray stable interstellar societies that envision humanity at peace with itself and the universe around it. The Alex Benedict stories take place over 9,000 years from now, and people are comfortable, either living lives of leisure of pursuing employment if they feel like it. FTL travel is routine, and AIs are both helpful and personable. Some people create holographic avatars of themselves just in case relatives want to check in on them after death, though everyone involved knows these avatars are nothing more than sophisticated simulations.

Against this backdrop, Alex Benedict and his pilot Chase Kolpath search for artifacts of humanity's past, which they sell to private collectors. Their adventures typically involve chasing down particularly juicy pieces of history.

In Coming Home, the latest Benedict novel, there's an artifact and a cruise liner trapped in warp space, awaiting rescue. But what's most interesting about this book is McDevitt's world-building. In greater detail than ever before, the author fills in the blanks of his future history, and in doing so reveals that his characters are woefully ignorant of most of it, for the sheer weight of years has erased much of our legacy.

The people of the future know of Armstrong and Aldrin and the first moon landing. But the site itself lasted only a thousand years before a Dark Age lasting centuries resulted in panicked historians bringing what they could back to Earth for safekeeping, only to have it lost in society's centuries-long collapse.

Here's one passage that hints at what's been lost:

Alex thinks the worst disaster in the history of the human race occurred when the internet shut down, apparently without warning, early in the Fourth Millennium. "The breadth of the loss," he said, as we went in through the museum's front doors, "is best illustrated by the fact that we don't even know what disappeared."

The vast majority of books, histories, classic novels, philosophical texts, were simply gone. Most of the world's poetry vanished. Glimpses of Shelley and Housman and Schneider survived only in ancient love letters or diaries. Their work doesn't exist anymore. Just like almost every novel written before the thirty-eighth century. We hear references to the humor of James Thurber, but we have nothing to demonstrate it. Unfortunately, there was no equivalent this time to the monasteries that salvaged so much during the first dark age. Within a few generations of the electronic collapse, a few people knew Pericles was important, but hardly anyone knew why. And Mark Twain was only a name. 

...

The Albertson Museum, apparently, had locked down its reputation when it recovered a copy of The Merry Wives of Windsor. That had given us a total of six Shakespearean plays.

...

They had a theater where you could watch one of the movies from Hollywood's early years. Hollywood was where they manufactured most of the films when the technology was just getting started. Only seven have survived from that era...If anyone's curious, they are High Noon, South Pacific, Beaches, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Casablanca, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

...

Tarzan swung through jungles in a series of books that, in their time, are supposed to have outsold everything except the Bible. The search to identify him - it's assumed he is a male - is still on.

...

Superman and Batman got their start, we think, during the twenty-fourth century. Except for a brief period during the Dark Age, they've never gone away.

It's clear from context that there are whole cities and even nations that the future has forgotten, though Canada still exists in a sense; indeed, Winnipeg is Earth's capital, and it's described as a beautiful place. But most of the sports my friends follow are gone, except for soccer. In the future they think Dracula was a famous physician known for extracting blood. They know there's an asteroid in the solar system named Spock, but they have no idea what the word signifies.

(There's a clever reference to McDevitt's Priscilla Hutchins novels, his other major future history: at least one of those novels survives, and Chase Kolpath muses that she liked the main character. So in the Alex Benedict universe, the Priscilla Hutchins universe is fictional.)

As a lover of culture, I found the book pretty harrowing. What price Utopia? Apparently, most of our good works. And yet I can't deny that McDevitt's future seems all too plausible. Hang on to your paperbacks and photo prints.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Put a Cap In It

The Good of the One

Normally I'm not much for autotune and dubstep, but Melodysheep's tribute to Spock and Leonard Nimoy is pretty well done. Live Long and Prosper!

Projekt 3

Inspired by the Interstate

Last month I shared my character concept for Spirit of '77. At the time I thought I'd done a pretty good job of mixing and matching a bunch of disparate elements of 1970s pop culture into a fun homage suitable for tabletop roleplaying adventures.

Not long after I posted, however, my friend Jeff hinted that there were "connections" I'd somehow missed when composing my character's backstory. I searched my memory, but could find no connections other than those I'd drawn inspiration from, the most obvious sources.

But then, to my astonishment, Jeff posted a bombshell on his blog, JSVB, yesterday. I urge you to visit Jeff's site for the full details, but in brief, it appears as though I'd subconsciously lifted most of my character backstory from pulp author Steve Kaiser's action-adventure romp, Interstate 10. Even the cover art comes uncannily close to mirroring my protagonist and his prototype VW Beetle.

Naturally I'm stunned that some deep corner of my brain dredged up inspiration from a novel that I don't remember whatsoever, but I'm glad that Jeff's Uncle Thad sent along this obscure but revelatory gift. After Jeff has reread the book a couple of times, I hope he'll loan it to me so I can mine its pulpy contents for further inspiration - with all due respect, of course, to Kaiser.

This experience reminds me once again the fleeting and illusory nature of memory, and by extension, of existence itself; reliant upon our senses, our limited and subjective experience, it's difficult to know what is real and what unreal, a problem that preoccupied Philip K. Dick, who, as Jeff reveals, Kaiser met one afternoon. One wonders what they talked about. I like to think they debated how art reveals reality while at the same time obscuring it.

Peace After Earth

One day hence
After the sands shift their last
And all the flags flutter earthward
Casting their final shadows at the last sunset
The unquiet dead
Will rest at last.

The SPECTRE Spectacle

SPOILERS HO for SPECTRE, the latest James Bond film. 

The latest Bond film has a number of weaknesses that hamper its entertainment value:

• Monica Bellucci and Christoph Waltz are underused
• Bond escapes from SPECTRE twice, and does so with unbelieveable ease
• Bond and his latest Bond girl fall in love far too quickly, even for a Bond film
• The big Blofeld reveal doesn't work because everyone knew it was coming, and those who didn't know have no reason to care
• Once again, lazy writers tie a villain's origin to that of the hero, undermining Bond's backstory with tired cliche

Were I the man in charge of SPECTRE (the film), I would have retained Bellucci's character as the primary female lead; I`d make her Mr. White's widow (and naturally make Mr. White the target of Bond's opening assassination in Mexico). I`d keep Judi Densch's mission from beyond the grave, but have her suggest that killing White and showing up as his funeral could lead Bond to Quantum, the evil organization of the second Craig film. But have her hint that Quantum's reach may have been even bigger than they inititally suspected.

I would also have re-titled the film and kept SPECTRE's return entirely out of the news. It wouldn't be possible to keep the final resolution of the SPECTRE rights issue a secret, but you could deflect a lot of interest with some boilerplate to the effect of "We're very pleased to have the rights back, but we're not in a rush to bring SPECTRE back to the films. We have to wait until we have the perfect story for their reappearance." You could hint that perhaps SPECTRE would return in the fifth or sixth Craig Bond film.

But of course, you'd actually introduce them in this film, which I would re-title Property of a Lady - a double entendre that speaks to Bond's attraction to the Bellucci character and her possession of a diamond broach containing a holograph of a black octopus - a strange work of art that hides world-changing secrets. Furthermore, I'd make Bellucci more of a femme fatale in the classic noir mode, but with a genuine desire to mitigate her husband's crimes. And Bond would be drawn to both her dark side and her attempts to reform.

Bond and Bellucci would wind up on the run from Quantum (and MI6; I would keep the Nine Eyes plot as Quantum's supposed evil scheme of the week). I'd keep the "Welcome James" scene of the real movie, but Bond's escape would be far more intense, and this is how they'd wind up on the run, trying to get back to London with the broach so that Q can unlock its secrets. They would eventually do so, and with the information in the broach M can put a stop to the Nine Eyes plot. Bond's mission now is to tie up the big loose end that is Quantum itself; the information in the broach points him to the desert base that would have been Quantium's evil intelligence hub. He goes in with a team of British commandos; they mop up Quantum foot soldiers while Bond himself hopes to capture the group's leadership, which would have been there to witness the Nine Eyes activation. Bond does, in fact, manage to shoot up a bunch of Quantum executives in the control room, but Christoph Waltz leads him on a merry chase through the base as it falls to pieces around them in the best Bond fashion. There's a stunt setpiece in which Waltz' character makes it across a collapsing catwalk to an escape pod; the catwalk collapses just before Bond can follow. Waltz taunts Bond, which gives Bond time to take a photo of Waltz, much to his consternation. He snarls: "You think you've won? Quantum is nothing, James. Nothing." He escapes, and Bond returns to London.

He shows M the photo, and M files it away for future use; one day they'll identify him.

In a romantic coda, Bellucci and Bond are relaxing together, perhaps on a yacht, perhaps at some sunny resort. By happenstance, Belluci's character sees the photo of Waltz' character and responds with horror: "James - do you know who that is? It's -"

And then she's shot in the back by an assassin hidden in shadows. Bond holds her as she gasps out her last breath: "B-blofeld. Ernst...Stavro...Blofeld."

Roll credits, and end with "JAMES BOND WILL RETURN IN SPECTRE."

In other words, Spectre's central premise would have been far more effective had the film's producers behaved a little more like SPECTRE itself. Longtime Bond fans would have been thrilled by the reveal, and more casual audiences would enjoy a more effective thriller, or at least I like to think so.

Stress

To be clear, I'm not actually stressed; the title is inspired by the stress toy I'm beating on. I figure this thing will provide me with a good workout option at the office; I'll beat on it for 15 minutes each lunch hour. 

Muir Woods Tree

During the closing days of World War II, the United Nations charter was signed in San Francisco. President Roosevelt didn't live long enough to see the charter signed, so the delegates travelled north, to Muir Woods, for a ceremony honouring the man. Muir Woods is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been; it makes me wish I were a better photographer. I think I've improved since 1998, though, and I think I could do a better job today. 

Into the Wastelands

The long sleep ends now
Exit the vault, gun in hand
Into the wastelands

Good Grief, Earl J. Woods

Yes, I was shamelessly manipulated into promoting The Peanuts Movie by their "make yourself into a Peanuts character" gimmick. I chose the alarmed mouth because, well, I'm often alarmed, and doubly so here because I'm positioned next to Snoopy, which will surely set off my avatar's allergies. 

If I had been a Peanuts character during the strip's original run, I probably would have been a one-note joke like Pig Pen, my allergies used as a foil for Snoopy gags.  

Spectre of the Past

It doesn't have the punch of Casino Royale or the poignancy of Skyfall, but Spectre does return a much-missed nemesis to the Bond films and in doing so ties the four Daniel Craig outings into one thematically sound package. Craig's Bond has always been the most reluctant and battle-torn Bond of the films; more than any other actor who has worn the tux, Craig imbues his performance with pain and a deliberate lack of affect; this is a man who, as he admits here, doesn't think much about what else he could have done with his life; he feels as though there were never any other choices for him.

Character agency is very much in question here; the primary antagonist and his secret evil conspiracy give no true rhyme or reason for what they do; they are evil because they have always been evil and must always remain evil, for that is the role history, Ian Fleming and Kevin McClory have cast for them. Even the name says it all: they are Spectre, the phantom that lurks in the shadows and strikes out to undermine civilization at the worst possible moments. Christoph Waltz' villain gives only the vaguest justification for their actions: "Sometimes it takes something terrible to lead to something wonderful." Usually would be world dominators at least attempt to justify their actions with some promise of order and stability; not here.

The world itself lurches forward, too, driven by fear that leading to the ultimate surveillance state, one which James Bond and the gang at MI6 must stop...but we in the audience know that even if the heroes succeed on screen, the surveillance state is here; the battle has already been fought and lost.

It's hard to classify Spectre as good or bad; it is merely as inevitable as the closing credits promise that "JAMES BOND WILL RETURN." It's entertaining, beautifully shot, well acted (especially by the masterful Waltz), provides the requisite comic relief and breathtaking stunts. To its credit, it even attempts to address a topical and crucial issue.

And yet it still feels as though we, the audience, are just as trapped as Craig feels in the role of Bond, and as Bond feels as an agent of Her Majesty's Secret Service. Watching Spectre is fun, but when it's over you can almost feel oily tentacles slithering around your limbs, pulling you to a place from which there may be no return. 

Earlstralia

The Chilling Joke

What do you call it when someone insults your refrigerator?

FREEZER BURN.

Criminal Drive-Through Humour

Yesterday Sylvia wanted tacos, so I stopped at Taco Time on the way home after work. The restaurant was surrounded by police cars with lights flashing, and I made note of it at the pickup window:

"I see you have a lot of police here," I said.

"Yes," the teller said, "I don't know what's going on!"

"I hope it wasn't a..." And here I made the universal finger guns gesture, "...Taco Crime."

She laughed. 

The Dream Front War

I awoke this morning aching all over - aches and pains I can still feel as I write. I'm in pain because last night I was caught in the shockwave of two explosions and had to swim my way out of a vehicle sinking into the Ottawa River.

The dream began innocently enough. It was late spring, and Sean and I were taking a quick stroll through the woods, crossing the border from the log cabin we were visiting into Alaska, the U.S. state that occupies just the northern coastline of the Alaskan peninsula; the rest of the peninsula, of course, belongs to the Canadian province of Yukon.

As Sean and I meandered along a thickly-wooded path, we came across the smoking ruin of a Canadian fighter jet. Before we could even really process the sight, another jet streaked above us, dropping bombs just a few metres away, destroying about a dozen rail cars. Sean and I were blasted back by the shockwave, but we were spared serious injury thanks to landing in deep snow.

Clearly, we were at war. We attempted to cross the border back into Canada, but we were stopped by American soldiers, who packed us into an Army truck and deported us to Montreal. The trip took two weeks.

The next thing I remember is being in a luxurious apartment in an Ottawa high-rise. Sean and I were discussing possible plots for the next DC Comics film. We agreed there should be a scene in which Superman and Captain Marvel are on Wonder Woman's Paradise Island, which has been enchanted so that Superman is powerless there. Captain Marvel solves this predicament by throwing Superman away from the island like a discus.

While we were having this discussion, I glimpsed a flash outside the window. Peeling the blinds back, I saw a cruise missle flying along the course of the Ottawa River, quickly joined by another in close pursuit. The first missle dove underwater and struck a Canadian submarine, but the sub suffered no damage. Unfortunately, the second missle slammed into a glass-walled restaurant, destroying an entire wall and sending dozens of patrons into the river.

Attempting rescue, Sean and I drove my car down the stairs and across the river, but a secondary explosion ruptured the car's integrity and we started to sink. We had to swim free, and suddenly I was at Andrew Fisher's wedding. Niki Atwal spotted me and called me over to his table, but then Dad showed up and said it was time to go; Mom, Sean and Sylvia were waiting in the greenhouse. As we were leaving I wound up stepping on a box with a cat inside it, tipping it over, much to the consternation of the cat; Dad righted the box. We joined Mom, Sean and Sylvia in the greenhouse lobby, and a bunny hopped around us, leading us to the exit, where it jumped up to pull the door open for us. The greenhouse owner was amazed, saying the bunny had never done that before.

Belatedly, I pulled out my phone to post a Facebook update about being apprehended by the Americans. It caused quite a stir until I woke up and realized that I was dreaming and sent out a correction to that effect. And then I actually woke up, checked my phone and realized that I'd sent out neither dream-related update.

My muscles still ache, though.

Earl's Halloween Horrorthon

I booked a "me weekend" for myself this Halloween and spent it screening a slate of randomly-chosen horror films from my library. Utterly neglecting my poor wife, I pretty much did nothing but watch old movies all day and night Saturday and Sunday. Here's the tally:

Night of the Demon (1957)
Curse of the Demon (1957)
White Zombie (1932)
Night of the Ghouls (1958)
Tales from the Crypt (1972)
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1932)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)
The Walking Dead (1936)
Frankenstein 1970 (1958)

I also listened to the audio commentaries on Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, the 1932 version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Frankenstein 1970.

Night of the Demon (released in the USA in a cut-down version as Curse of the Demon), White Zombie and the 1932 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde were my runaway favourites, each very atmospheric and chilling in its own way. Night of the Demon in particular offers genuine creepy thrills, with its cheaply-made yet still somehow monstrous fire demon; where the special effects falter, the screenplay, performances and cinematography pick up the slack ably.

Night of the Ghouls is objectively the worst of the bunch; it is, of course, an Ed Wood film, part of the loose Plan 9 From Outer Space - Bride of the Monster - Night of the Ghouls trilogy. Indeed, I didn't even realize these films were connected until one character, a police officer, made reference to the other films; I checked, and sure enough the character is a consistent recurring presence. I'm delighted that Ed Wood was building his own epic chronology of SF/mad science films!

The Walking Dead is a great Boris Karloff film. He's a monster again, but this time he's a good monster, an avenging angel brought back to life to wreak havoc on the criminals who framed him and sent him to the electric chair. It's half Warner Brothers gangster film, half Universal horror movie, a bizarre combination of genres that nonetheless works.

Another Karloff picture, Frankenstein 1970, doesn't work as well, with the exception of a really wonderful "gotcha" opening sequence. Had the rest of the film lived up to the first five minutes, this would have been a classic; as is, it's a pleasant if hokey time-waster. 

Stream Trek

Today CBS announced that Star Trek will return to television in January 2017. You would think that I'd be thrilled, and I was - until I discovered the distribution model. The first episode of the new series will be broadcast on CBS, but all further episodes will be available only via CBS' proprietary streaming service.

I understand why CBS is doing this - they're trying to compete with Netflix, just like everyone else, and they think making Star Trek exclusive to CBS All Access will get them millions of new subscribers. Personally I think the move will spark a pretty huge fan backlash, but we'll see.

Lovers of television as an art form now have to wonder if the looming death of broadcast cable will really be the boon some of us imagined. Already there are two shows I'd be interested in that will require me to sign up for two different streaming services: Star Trek on CBS All Access and The Man in the High Castle on Amazon Prime. How long will it be before people are subscribing to five or six different services in order to see all the shows they like? It'll be like cable television all over again - pay for two hundred channels and watch half a dozen shows among them.

(Because I'm Canadian, it's a little more complicated; according to today's news, the CBS All Access deal is available only to people in the USA; international distribution is still being worked out. So Canadians might see the new show on Global or CTV or maybe even CBC.)

I'd be less disturbed if the new Star Trek were premiering on Netflix, mainly because their model is a little more consumer-friendly; the content isn't tied to any one particular network or studio.

In the end, of course, I'll just buy the Blu-Ray sets, assuming CBS releases the new show to physical media, which is no longer, sadly, a given.

Ball of Fire

I set the iPhone to capture light trails and this is what I wound up with. Sort of interesting, especially when you start to notice the bizarre composition. What was I thinking?