The Killer Inside

I sealed my own doom with a silly offhand remark last Halloween.

"What if, inside of each one of us, there's an evil skeleton just itching to get out?" I asked my date, a pale redhead named Alison, she with the haunted eyes. We were surrounded by the city elite, a shambling parade of clockwork capitalists, each of us perfectly groomed, perfectly dressed, perfectly dull. Everyone wore masks, and yet it was easy to tell whose predatory gaze peered through the eyeholes. It was the one feature that distinguished each of us.

"Don't joke!" Alison gasped, swatting me on the arm. I shrugged, a little annoyed that she hadn't found the idea as clever as I. What better time for gallows humour than Halloween night?

I tried again.

"No, imagine it," I said. "What if your skeleton grew tired of bearing all your burdens? What if it suddenly seized control of itself and started to...I don't know, flex and rip at the flesh surrouning it? Like it wanted to burst free, kaboom!"

She made a face. "I thought you were in finance, not cheap horror movies," she said.

With that humourless dismissal, I knew the evening was going to be a chore, despite how much I appreciated the curves that filled her black evening gown. Once again my wandering eye had betrayed me; my impulsive invitation at the library had surely backfired.

Still, perhaps there was yet some amusement to be had, if she were really this skittish.

"Oh yes," I whispered, nodding a perfunctory greeting to a passing associate, "That queer assemblage of bone, growing inside us from birth, supporting us all our lives, but trapped within our flesh. Imagine if skeletons could walk and think and need, like the creatures in the movies, swordfighting Greek heroes or hunting down randy teenagers."

"Gross," she hissed, her frown wiped away by a somewhat desperate, "save me" smile as she waved merrily at another guest bearing a tray of pinkish-orange punch. From that moment on, I started counting the minutes. Any one of the skeletons decorating the hall might have been a better date. Soon Alison was chatting amiably with the punch-bearer, ignoring me.

I don't recall the rest of the evening, other than the dull generalities: we drank, talked, discovered we didn't like each other very much, left the party early, went home alone.

But the evening hadn't been a total waste, I thought as I prepared for bed. My strange idea would probably bother the board to no end next week, for I had already promised myself to share it at the first opportunity with those boring old stuffed shirts. I had an eccentric reputation to uphold, after all. Ha! They'd look round the table at each other, wondering how to react, unsure whether they were supposed to laugh.

I slipped into bed with a smile on my face.

A short time later, the first nightmare came.

***

I was late for the board meeting. Mumbling an apology, I slipped into my seat, trying to appear inconspicuous. Fortunately no one seemed to notice my tardiness, because Maxwell was stabbing his pointer at the whiteboard with such violence that he was putting small dents in it.

"Buxom redheads are not our target market!" Maxwell bellowed, and to my surprise there was Alison on the whiteboard, tacked to it with huge pushpins, moaning in pain as Maxwell jabbed her in the abdomen with his pointer. Suddenly I felt far more warmth and sympathy for her than I had at the party, and I stood up to protest - but her body started to spasm against the whiteboard, limbs thrashing, her head whipping up and down so violently I was afraid she'd break her own spine.

"Stop that, Maxwell!" I shouted. Rage in his eyes, he viciously snapped his pointer across the back of my hand and I recoiled in pain, nursing my hand. Alison started to scream, her eyes bulging, blood oozing from the corners of her mouth, dripping over her chin, down her pale throat. Her jaw was snapping open and closed, her teeth savaging the insides of her cheeks, biting through them until her gory smile reached all the way back to her molars.

The skin on her right shoulder was bulging, stretched thin, and suddenly it split, blood-drenched bone surfacing violently. Her entire body wrenched itself first one way then the other, and with horror I watched as the bones of her arm pulled free of the flesh, as if they were removing a long glove. The arm, emptied of bone, sagged like a balloon drained of air, the empty hand still pinned to the whiteboard.

The room emptied with screams and panic, but I stood frozen, watching as the skeletal hand started to claw at Alison's face, leaving bone-deep gashes in her lovely features. One thin fingerbone thrust into her left eye, popping it like a grape -

- and then I awoke, drenched in sweat, frozen facedown on the bed, heart pounding.

***

When morning finally came, I felt an irrational need to call Alison. I wanted to warn her (about what?) or at least apologize for being a jackass at the party.

But I couldn't bring myself to dial her number. It was just a dream, and she probably wanted to forget about what had been, for her, just another bad date, probably not the first nor the last she would ever experience.

So rather than pick up the phone, I tried to complete my morning routine as if it were any other day. And sure enough, within an hour the nightmare had faded, as dreams often do, details once vivid dwindling to nothing more than hazy impressions of a fleeting twilight world best forgotten.

Still, those hazy impressions were more than enough to decimate my appetite. I ate only a bit of yogurt and a slice of melon for breakfast, and even that felt like too much. When invited to lunch by my colleagues, I made excuses about my workload and stayed at my desk. I didn't even think about dinner; instead, I cycled on the stationary bike for forty-five minutes, took my dog out for a walk, and responded to the day's emails.

The nightmare came again that evening. If anything, it was more disturbing than the first.

***

Yogurt and melon became my daily meal; the recurring dream of Alison's gruesome death was killing any desire I had to eat. I'd always been thin, but before long people started making remarks - my secretary even called me "gaunt," one day, a word I'd never even heard before. After looking it up I had to admit that the description was accurate. When I looked in the mirror my cheekbones looked like axe blades. When I lifted my shirt, my ribs looked like they were ready to burst right through my skin.

Six weeks of this nightmare diet took its toll. I fainted one afternoon at the office, and when I woke up I found myself in a hospital bed, hooked up to an intravenous line. A very young, very serious doctor told me that I had to start eating or I'd whither away to the bone.

That made me laugh, but the doctor didn't find it funny at all.

On my third night in the hospital, an intern strolled into my room, pushing a life-sized model skeleton into the corner.

"What's that for?" I asked, pointing to it.

"Need to move some stuff around - need some surge capacity for the flu pandemic," he said, and skittered away before I could protest.

Well, after all, it was only a model. And in a single room, what other company did I have?

But when I drifted off to sleep that night, no smile crossed my lips, not even an ironic grimace.

***

My eyes snapped open at once when I felt the I.V. being yanked from my arm. I gasped in pain and then shrieked in horror as the skeleton crawled up into bed with me, one bony fist wrapped around the intravenous line. Its hollow eye sockets glared at me, its teeth frozen in a loathsome grin as it flung the plastic tube to the floor. I screamed for help, pushing myself backward toward the head of the bed, but the skeleton crawled after, one bony knee pressing onto my thigh, its fingers wrapping into my hair, the back of its hand caressing my cheek as its mouth opened.

And suddenly I felt my own mouth being forced open, as if my jaw were moving of its own accord, opening for a kiss as the skeleton leaned over me, lowering its lipless mouth to mine. Inside my arms, I felt my humerus, my ulna, my radius wrapping themselves around the skeleton's ribs, my muscles protesting, my skin crawling in revulsion. I screamed as if I were going mad as I felt the skeleton's bare teeth pressing against my own with a horrid, grinding scrape -

- and I awoke again, staring at the ceiling, not daring to glance over to see if the model skeleton were still hanging in place. I stayed frozen still all night, waiting.

***

I was discharged some time later, a few pounds heavier, with a referral to a therapist and orders to eat regular meals. The therapist was very good, and within a few months the nightmares had stopped and I was back to my normal weight. A little heavier, even. My colleagues were surprisingly kind when I came back to work, and I felt a little ashamed of how I'd thought of them that Halloween night when this all started, as stereotypes rather than people. Maybe I'd do something extra at the company Christmas party - organize a food bank drive or arrange a sleigh ride, something people would feel good about.

I even phoned Alison, finally, to apologize. It took her a few minutes to remember who I was, but I wasn't offended - it was one date, months ago, and she didn't even recall the stupid skeleton idea. She even suggested we might go out again - but not on Halloween, she said with a laugh. We arranged to get together for a movie on Sunday...November first, as it turned out.

***

But the night before we were to meet, I dreamed again. And in this dream, Alison and I were running through the moonlit woods, terrified. I knew that she was being compelled to run by the skeleton inside her; it was propelling her toward a cliff, where it would fling her over the side to burst open her flesh on the rocks below, and at last her skeleton could escape her prison of skin and muscle.

But before the skeleton could fling her over the precipice, I overtook them, grabbing Alison by the hair and throwing her to the ground. I snatched up a rock and, with tears in my eyes, I started pounding the skeleton with the stone, smashing the bone, crushing it, rendering it helpless, unable to hurt Alison. I smashed the stone into her traitorous skull, her fiendish ribs, her diabolical femur over and over, until at last the skeleton was still.

At first I laughed in relief; it was over; I had saved her. But in the dream, Alison didn't move. Her green eyes stared into nothingness. I'd failed - the skeleton had killed her after all, from within, without even needing to escape. Her beautiful skin was covered in blood and bruises, broken open in places where the skeleton had tried to free itself. Enraged, I started to beat my fists against my own skull, as if warning it not to try the same thing with me, as if wanting to punish one skeleton for its evil even if the first had escaped me in death...

***

The next morning I told myself that I wouldn't mention the dream to Alison. No reason to remind her of our first, unpleasant date. I was a little annoyed that even after months of therapy I should still be having skeleton dreams, but perhaps it was my own fault; perhaps the prospect of seeing Alison again reminded me of how the whole silly idea started. I was sure that this was just a momentary relapse, not to be repeated.

I arrived at the theatre just a few minutes before we were to meet. The appointed hour came and went. I called her cell phone, but there was no answer - just a chirpy voice mail message. I waited an hour, called again, again received no answer.

I waited another half hour before I gave up and drove home. On the way, a police cruiser sped into my rear-view mirror, blue and red lights flashing, swerving by me to disappear into the night.

I decided not to call Alison again. She probably realized that a second date was a bad idea after all, and I didn't fault her for the choice.

My left arm jerked a little as I pulled into my driveway, a violent spasm that startled me a little. I put the car in park, shut off the engine and stared at it, but nothing happened.

I favoured myself with a self-deprecating grin, shrugging off the whole experience, resolving to be a nicer guy so that maybe the next time I met someone like Alison I wouldn't spoil my chances. It had taken some bad dreams and a medical crisis, but I was finally starting to feel comfortable in my own skin.

Zombieland: A Nice Place to Visit...

Like any right-thinking individual, I have a great deal of affection for the Zombie Apocalypse sub-genre of horror. My favourite zombie film remains George Romero's Dawn of the Dead, aka "the one in the shopping mall." That film has just the right mix of tension, satire, horror and laughs to make it an undead classic.

Zombieland isn't in Dawn of the Dead's league, but it is funny, heartfelt and even romantic. It's sensitive and sincere. The four characters - known initially only by their hometowns - each have their own quirks, and while broadly drawn, they grow and change throughout the course of the film to outgrow their stereotypes: neurotic nebbish, redneck, spunky little girl, slick con woman. Each character has a growth arc, even though they're kept busy killing zombies and scavenging the wasteland throughout the film. The film plays the apocalyptic situations for laughs most of the time, then stuns the viewer by reminding us of the very human cost of the end of civilization. The redneck's obsessive quest for a popular snack food masks the pain he's really feeling, while the nebbish's obsession with his rules of survival clearly shows that his coping mechanisms need to change if he hopes to experience emotional growth. The women, too, are faced with the necessity to make themselves vulnerable, to trust in others in the worst possible circumstances. Yes, this is just a zombie film, but because the characters are more than cardboard cutouts, the audience gets invested in the story. We care about these people, because they're very much like us.

The film makes clever use of special effects to transform credit sequences and pop-up subtitles a living, breathing part of the film, a technique that reminds me of nothing so much as Will Eisner's technique in his famous comic strip, The Spirit. This sort of thing is becoming more common - I've noticed it on Fringe, for example. Some people might find the device intrusive, but it struck me as quite clever.

Horror film sequels have a mixed track record, so I won't call for more adventures in Zombieland - the ending is satisfying enough for this film to stand on its own. But if a sequel does come along, so will I - not for the zombie mayhem, but because I wonder if these characters have more room to grow.

What's in a Label?

Most of my readers know by now that I work for the Official Opposition here in Alberta. Here's a little something we released this morning.

Earl J. Woods Reports on the War of the Gurus

War of the Gurus is Howard Rheingold's second (and presumably final) novel in his Savage Report series. Compared to 1994, reviewed here, Gurus is a little humdrum. The copyediting has improved somewhat and the weird metaphors, awkward neologisms and hyperbolic action are still in evidence, but the proceedings this time around are somewhat laid back. The prose has gone from purple to mauve or something. Don't get me wrong, it's still insane, but Rheingold seems to have lost some steam with this installment. Of course, after the madness of 1994, what could compare?

The story takes place just a few months after the climax of 1994. Our hero, Jack Anderson, is relaxing on a tropical island when Smoky Kennedy parachutes back into his life, naked of course, bringing a new mission and some afternoon hanky-panky to start things off on the right foot.

This Report's red herring is something called TRIGGER, a kind of worldwide, interactive electronic voting system to enable all Earth's citizens to have their say on important issues - shades of the Internet. In the novel, this is seen as a transformative device that will finally allow all people of the Earth to cast off the shackles of oppression and participate in a truly functional global democracy.

In real life, when and if such a system is ever set up, it'll be used to vote for Earth Idol and share opinions on obscure 1970s science fiction novels.

Smoky reveals that a mysterious conspiracy is attempting to sabotage TRIGGER, using warring cults to...you know, I'm not entirely sure how the cult war is supposed to tie in with the TRIGGER sabotage. Something about manipulating cult leaders into starting a riot in Anaheim and there's an underground computer lab in New Jersey and Dr. Tek is behind it all (of course) except he's a hologram or a bunch of clones and Jack bites all his teeth at the same time to escape and he's caught in the explosion and everyone thinks he's dead, but aha there's an epilogue and he and Smoky attend their own funerals disguised as Jack's parents and they escape to another tropical island laughing about all the wonderful adventures they'll have and poor Eve Savage kind of sits in the sidelines and wonders what the hell is going on even though she's supposed to be this amazing media guru...hey, War of the Gurus, I didn't even catch that.

Sorry about that. The plot's a little hard to follow this time around because Rheingold isn't too big on transitions; scenes jump around willy nilly and sometimes I thought I was reading one scene only to find myself suddenly within another without any handy chapter breaks or those little squiggly lines authors sometimes use or heck, even a new paragraph. It's just like BAM, you were following Smoky a second ago but now you're in Eve Savage's studio OH BUT NO now Jack Anderson is glued to a wall and can only escape by ripping his own skin off.

William S. Burroughs probably enjoyed it, anyway.

Thou Art What Thou Eateth

While shopping with Sylvia tonight, I came up with a breakfast sandwich to express First-world gluttony and excess:

Three buttermilk pancakes, a slice of ham, four strips of bacon, a generous helping of maple syrup and two pats of butter sandwiched between two pieces of French toast.

With the right pitch, I'll bet I could get this on the menu at Denny's. I'm thinking of calling it the Catastrophe or maybe the Carbon Footprint, but I invite creative alternatives.

It Seemed Funny at the Time

When I was in grade six, our class went on a field trip to Drumheller. Inspired by an episode of The Flintstones, in which Fred takes a photo of a man sleeping while resting on a "Men Working" sign, I shot this similarly ironic moment.

Hey, I was 12.

Report on 1994: The Savage Report

1974...1984...and now the year 1994! Live your own future today...and discover the romance and fury of The Savage Report!

The hyperbolic tagline and arresting cover art stopped me in my tracks when I spotted 1994: The Savage Report nearly 20 years ago at a used bookstore in Calgary. Or at least I believe it was Calgary - the details are somewhat murky. I remember my friend Jeff Shyluk was there with me, and possibly his wife-to-be Susan Neumann, her brother Steven, and perhaps Tony Longworth and Ron Briscoe.

In any event, Jeff was there, and his jealousy was palpable: had I not spotted it first, he surely would have snapped up the tome, for we were both avowed lovers of bad books, and based on the cover copy this novel promised to be very bad indeed, perhaps even as bad as Michael Butterworth's Space:1999 tie-in book Space Brain. ("It hurt - it hurt like nothing had ever hurt her before!")


Jeff Shyluk and Earl J. Woods do some reading in the University of Alberta Star Trek Club office at 620 SUB.

As it turned out, Jeff and I shared custody of 1994 over time, perhaps in unspoken agreement that a novel of this diabolical nature should not fester on one shelf for long. This August, Jeff returned the book to my possession when Sylvia and I visited the Shyluks in Port Coquitlam, at last giving me the opportunity to re-experience a one-of-a-kind book.

The covers themselves are enticing enough to satisfy any lover of kitsch. 1974...1984...and now the year 1994! Ah yes, that far-future year of 1994. (I shouldn't laugh; if my memory serves, 1994 was still one or two years in the future when we found the book.) 1994, the title lovingly rendered in that oh-so-futuristic Checkbook font so popular at the time. 1994, ten years after 1984, a (much better) book the publishers obviously hoped people had heard of, and twenty years after 1974, the date of publication. 74, 84, 94 - that's one way to settle on a title.

Respected cover artist Kelly Freas doesn't seem to know how to depict "the crackling epicenter of the mile-a-second world that is the planet Earth, 1994," so he settles for a collage of violence, cheesecake and confused retro-futurism. My favourite is the man in sunglasses who seems about to punch an explosion.

Speaking of explosions, you get one on the very first page. Rheingold kicks off the action with sabotage at the Los Angeles Shuttleport:

Behind the bar, the blonde lesbian bartender let out a guttural shout of horror and dropped a shaker. It took hardly more than three seconds to react - two more than usual - and when he did, it was to leap across the room, dash through the door, and sprint across the concrete toward the explosion with maniacal vigor, chewing the bitter emergency capsule of neurostimulants which was stored in the third molar on the right side of his lower jaw.

In such emergencies, Jack became a well-oiled reaction mechanism, programmed into motion by his own instinctive computer system. He did not have to think in order to react correctly; his first movement always happened to be the right one, a talent that had saved his life more times than he liked to remember.

As promised, the book delivers fury in the opening pages, though so far its idea of romance is to describe one character as a "blonde lesbian," certainly a valid enough description, but rather clumsy. How do we know the character is a lesbian? The author simply states it as fact, before the reader needs to know or should even care.

As for Jack Anderson, our hero, he's already too smug to like even as the victim of cloying third-person narration. His first movement always happened to be the right one, eh? So much for any sense of suspense with regard to this character's fate.

Jack grabs a MacGuffin from the wreckage and returns to the bar to ruminate on what he's just seen:

"Its (sic) not energy I need now...its (sic) an angle. Have to grasp what's happening, and fast," flashed through his mind. Rafe Bartlett and his anonymous female companion...her wet-look bag...and the destruction of several hundred people. The elements of disaster were adding up.

He then pauses for a flashback, and several paragraphs of prose that I find difficult to categorize. I can't decide if this passage is progressive or reactionary:

Although it seemed like a long time ago it was less than a half hour since Jack first sat down on that same barstool and ordered a drink from the sultry viking goodess (sic) who was glaring at him across the slab of polished mahogony (sic). She was quite a specimen: well over six feet tall, long butter-yellow braids falling to either side of her breasts, gold slave bracelets encircling her bronzed biceps. A tapestry of mirrors and bottles formed a motley backdrop for her beauty, and Jack had duly registered her look of defiance...as well as the erotic potential of that incredible body. There was a time, he mused, when bartenders were nice cynical fellows with paunches and racing tips...what was the world coming to?

Jonathan Emeric Anderson had a well-controlled and selective obsession for women, and in that sense he considered himself to be old-fashioned and un-liberated. He cultivated his heterosexual decadence with patrician detachment, but he loved his state of dependence and treasured his archaic emotions. In a world that had long since travelled beyond bisexuality, he was proud to be old-fashioned, sexy, open to any and all feminine seductions: a happy dinosaur, a man who rerely (sic) slept with more than two women at the same time and never ever felt the need for a boy.
Women in the nineties were quite different from what they were in his college days. Super-smart, ultra-educated, ruthlessly competitive in and out of the sack...modern women were taking a royal revenge against the male race for centuries of what they called oppression. Terrific teasers, with a hangman's instincts; modern woman had largely succeeded in reducing the male population to virtual eunuchdom. There were still quite a few women one would be able to talk with, and do other things with too, thank God. But it took the training of a super-voyeur to avoid ugly surprises. Fortunately, Jack was confident that he had it under control. He knew that even that butch barkeep in front of him could still be turned around...by him. And she knew it, that's why she was sending him those furious vibes! He looked up and their eyes met; she winced visibly as he flashed his most insulting macho grin at her.

Okay, definitely reactionary. Super-voyeur? That would make quite a comic book character...

Throughout the course of the novel, Jack fills the hero's role in pedestrian fashion: he's fast, tough, smart and sexy in the manner of Bond, Buck Rogers, and Batman before him.

Jack had several extra molars in his head...one of the hazards of the profession. He could get himself into a lot of trouble if he panicked and bit the wrong tooth...

...It just turned out mighty convenient that Jack, as a reporter, knew a dozen ways to kill and could pick locks with his fingernails.

And yet there is another dimension to the character, or at least to the world he inhabits: Rheingold clearly wants to portray a global society on the verge of change for the better. So while some passages might seem reactionary, the setting shows hints of progressivism, with titular heroine Eve Savage, Jack's boss, at the forefront of the movement for a better tomorrow:

"Good morning, world. Today is the 17th of January, 1994. This is the Savage Report." That sentence, and the way she said it, was Eve's trademark in the eyes of nearly 4 billion people. Eve's weekly news report had been the first globally syndicated holo program when the medium of three-dimensional transmission was perfected in the early eighties....

...Eve managed to inject her own rare brand of humor into the grim business of the news...not an easy job to do in 1994! Ecological catastrophe was the catch-phrase of the day. Political conflict had palled (sic) in comparison to the planetary disasters which were piling up at an alarming rate. Multinational corporations and ideological cults maneuvered (sic) for battle stations in an approaching Armageddon that the old prophets would have never imagined. Astounding breakthroughs in the uses of technology for the survival and expansion of humanity were occurring as rapidly as breakthroughs in the continuing science of mass destruction. Hundreds of millions had banded together to form co-ops, attempting to replace the old pirate economy with a new ethic to spread the planet's wealth fairly. The excitement, the hope, the vitality that Eve gave to the events of the day were a reflection of her conviction that she...and every one of the 7 billion inhabitants of Earth...were engaged in determining the ultimate future of our planet.

With its endorsement of collective action and vision of common humanity, this passage seems remarkably jarring when contrasted with Jack's thoughts on women just a few pages earlier. But then, who among us does not contain multitudes?

Smoky Kennedy, Jack's assistant, is the book's chief femme fatale, beautiful and deadly:

Smoky weighed a feather over a hundred pounds...but she was an expert in the "white crane" school of kung-fu. The "burning hand" was her favorite technique. Outwardly, it resembles a light slap. According to the amount of chi applied to the blow, it could inflict momentary unconsciousness, third-degree burns, or instant death...

When it's dark, and you don't know how many there are, you can't afford the luxury of disabling blows. Within a matter of seconds, Smoky and Jack found themselves surrounded physically by the inert body of five husky assassins, and mentally by a pall of suppressed and meditative sadness.

Despite the sadness, Smoky and Jack pick up their fevered lovemaking where they left off, "with five bodies growing cold around their bed."

That's a form of compassion for your fallen foes, I guess. And how hard would you have to slap someone to give them a third-degree burn? Could you deliver a blow of such force without also killing the victim? It's all in the chi, I guess. Remo Williams has nothing on Smoky Kennedy; later on, she even performs brain surgery on
Jack and hacks into the Pentagon database:

"I didn't even move from my lab bench," she said with professional pride and a touch of womanly drama. "I used a little device of my own design to sneak through the public televid lines into the Pentagon intracomputer communications trunk."

This just after Jack and his mouthful of molars take down another half-dozen armed men and shoot down a helicopter with a pistol. Rheingold actually alliterates "abashed assassin," and, ack, additional a-words abound anon.

Sorry, when reading Rheingold, you start to think like him, too, a disturbing, heady feeling. Suffice it to say that by the time a man shows up at Eve's office only to say a few cryptic words before his head implodes, most readers will feel the same sense of dislocation.

There's plenty of erotic horseplay, too; Jack alludes to past sexual liaisons with Eve, there's inappropriate employer/employee fondling, Smoky has casual sex with a Mexican - "Mad" Marcus Murillo - and a mysterious redhead is introduced thusly:

She threw back her head when she laughed, actually threw her mane of copper hair over her shoulders...exposing a fine sinuous neck with a throbbing carotid. Jack had the urge to take her between his teeth.

Hot, throbbing carotid action! There's more:

There no doubt existed computer dossiers in half a dozen capitals on the sexual tastes and proclivities of Jonathan Emeric Anderson. Whoever had selected Charla Boyd knew exactly what they were doing; she looked as if she had been literally materialized out of Jack's own sexual fantasies. The best strategy (he realized with a familiar warmth below his belt), was to let nature take her course. If this one was out to kill him or 'plant' him or interrogate him...she'd better plan to love him first.

Anais Nin really has nothing on Rheingold. Eventually this femme fatale "enclose[s] him anemone-style," on the beach, and Jack muses silently to himself as to whether or not he's going to have to "snap her beautiful neck" before the night is through.
And then there's this sentence:

A piercing poised ocular interlock occurred.

Wha-huh? I know what the individual words mean, but I still don't understand what Rheingold is trying to say. "Jack was stunned," I suppose, but yeesh.

More great lines:

"Oh shit," said Jack, as was his wont in situations like this.

"This fellow doesn't like me," thought Jack at some level of consciousness when Black suddenly slapped him in the face with the back of his hand.

The mixture of mysticism, megalomania, military might, and cybernetic fascism taxed the processing capacity of Jack's cranial computer.

"How charmingly stated," replied Eve dryly. Smoky had her by the balls...a discomfiting position to be put in by another woman.

"WOW!" exclaimed Smoky, "That flash sequence nearly tunnelled my skull! My nerve tracts are still ringing."

Oscillating wavemess of nauseating voltage combined with the foul-tasting asphyxiation of polymerized air: they awoke vomiting plastic on the floors of separate cells.

The book climaxes with an on-air debate between Eve Savage and the renegade General Burns, who is engineering a rise to the American Presidency. Eve represents the forces of progress; Burns is the reactionary, lamenting the co-ops and rising social consciousness Eve champions. Unfortunately, he's also a straw man, a simple right-wing caricature, and while I find myself sympathizing with Rheingold's none-too-subtle point of view, it's not exactly satisfying to have the villain reduced to incoherent babbling with hardly any provocation from heroine Eve, destroying himself on air. Meanwhile, Smoky and Jack battle the bad guys in an honest-to-goodness underground lair, complete with henchmen, torture chambers and a cyborg mad scientist named Dr. Tek, the man pulling the strings on this whole affair. Picture a cross between post-accident Captain Pike, a Conehead and Dracula; that's Dr. Tek, complete with maniacal laughter. Smoky and Jack manage to transmit video (or "holo," I suppose) of the cabal's meeting to Savage during the debate, and the conspiracy is exposed

...in that totally unprecedented manner in the history of human communications, every man and woman in the entire world will be able to see, understand and judge the high drama which is being brought to a conclusion during the course of this present declaration, and during the course of the Burns-Savage debate which is to terminate in a few minutes - and although we have not seen the last segment of that debate, we are confident that it can only have served to consolidate General Burns' image in the eye of the American public.

Shortly thereafter, Dr. Tek causes the heads of all his co-conspirators to implode on live TV - sorry, live holovision - and escapes to menace the world once more. The epilogue features a chilling final message from the antagonist:

"THIS JUST PRACTICE.
AU REVOIR.
DR. TEK."

Rheingold's 1994 is far more technologically advanced than our own, with roboservants, working holography, a form of antigravity (there's a "heliflivver" made of "hydrovinyl" for crying out loud), commonplace laser weapons, exotic textiles and a universal credit cube of some kind that seems to give the bearer unlimited wealth. (Eve gives one to Jack, but he never uses it; the plot point just disappears.) The Savage Squad (actually referred to that way in the book) relies on high-tech weapons and heavy doses of "neurostimulants," chemicals that accelerate reflexes, speed and agility for brief periods. In other words, Rheingold's world doesn't bear much resemblance to our own world in 1994, or 2009, for that matter. This isn't unusual for science fiction, and I certainly don't blame Rheingold for his overly optimistic predictions of technological advancement. It's just another artifact of a time when anything was possible; after Apollo, science was ascendant, and seemed capable of radically transforming life and politics on every level. Instead of holovision, we have the Internet; instead of heliflivvers, we have hybrid cars and Segways. On the other hand, we're not menaced by insane cyborgs, at least so far as we know...

1994: The Savage Report is replete with purple prose, a disjointed plot, very bad copyediting, macho clichés, cartoonish characters, abusive alliteration, and a too-obvious narrative bias. That being said, I can't help but smile while reading this crazy book. Rheingold's heart seems to be in the right place, and he's clearly attempting to explore a pretty big idea: that of a world undergoing a revolution in consciousness, with the free press as defender of a more equitable new society. Unfortunately, the cardboard heroes and heroines defending this brave new world don't do his argument any favours.

Nonetheless, I don't intend to mock Rheingold or the novel. I have enormous respect for anyone who actually finishes a novel and gets someone to publish it, a task requiring phenomenal perseverance and at least a modicum of talent. I wish I had Rheingold's discipline. And speaking of the author...


When I searched the Internet for information on 1994 and its writer, I was surprised to find only a few meagre links, all of them connecting to online bookstores offering old copies. No one, it seems, has written anything about the book. Wikipedia includes an article on Howard Rheingold, a writer born in 1947 with an interest in virtual reality and, ahem, teledildonics. The science-fictional subject matter of the work and its preoccupation with human sexuality could indicate that Wiki-Rheingold did indeed write 1994. If so, he would have been in his mid-twenties when the book was published in 1974. But his webpage makes no mention of the novels, listing only his non-fiction works.

A cursory search reveals only one connection between Wiki-Rheingold and the one credited as the author of 1994: a listing of books by Howard Rheingold on LibraryThing includes 1994, its sequel War of the Gurus, and several of Wiki-Rheingold's more famous works.

(Yes...there is a sequel. When I discovered the existence of War of the Gurus, I immediately ordered a copy. The book arrived in my mailbox yesterday, in excellent condition - far better shape than my tattered, coffee-stained, dog-eared copy of 1994.)

As far as I can surmise, if Rheingold did indeed write the two Savage Report novels, he soon turned away from science-fiction to focus on essays and non-fiction works. The titles certainly sound interesting, and any mind that can produce a wacky, dizzying, over-the-top novel like 1994 deserves further exploration.

If any readers have read 1994, its sequel War of the Gurus, or any of Rheingold's non-fiction, I welcome your thoughts in the comments section. I'd love to learn more about these crazy books, and to figure out once and for all if the famous Howard Rheingold did indeed write the Savage Report series.

And now, if I may close in the manner of Eve Savage...

My Name is Earl (J. Woods) is now over for today, but we of My Name is Earl (J. Woods) are with you, we are your eyes and your ears, we are your security, your protection against the unknown.
Good night, world.

Coming Attractions

Up the Long Memory Ladder

Click to embiggen!

I've long been preoccupied with the problem of memory as it relates to identity. In this photo, I can be seen perched on a ladder, helping raise a painted backdrop for the Leduc Junior High Grade 9 Farewell ceremony of 1984.

I remember the backdrop; I remember the ceremony. (As Student Council President and MC, I delivered a pretty good speech - or at least, a speech that was well-received - I'm a little afraid to read it now.) But I have no memory of climbing that ladder. It may as well have happened to someone else.


Earl's speech. Note backdrop.

I realize that this is pretty sophomoric observation, but I find it quite chilling that everyone I know would claim that I am or was the person pictured on that ladder, but if I have no recollection of the event, how can I really claim to have experienced it? Can I really lay claim to that young man's identity? Is his experience of that day equally my own?

I feel bad for that kid. Maybe that was an important day for him. Maybe he thought to himself, "I want to remember this forever." Who knows what else happened on that day?

If he wanted me - his future self - to be the guardian of some special moment, some important learning experience, then I've failed him.

On the other hand, maybe it was just another day. I was a bit of a geek during my grade school years (shocking, I know), participating in a lot of activities - scenes like this were actually pretty common. Maybe it would only have been memorable if I'd fallen off the ladder. Or maybe I did fall off, and that's why I don't remember - concussion!

"The cells I am at the moment will soon die, but I will be here...yes I'll still be here..."

There's a New Blog in Town

Note: This image does not appear on Sean's new blog (yet).

My brother Sean has returned to blogging with The Warehouse District. Sean's a gifted writer with a unique perspective, and I encourage you to give his work a try.

Right vs. Wrong

Remember those tough teachers who only begrudgingly offered multiple choice exams and used the right minus wrong formula to discourage guessing? Every incorrect answer was subtracted from the total of correct answers, so if you weren’t sure of your response, it was better to leave the question blank than to guess. This led to some pretty agonizing moments at test time, especially when you were only 95% sure of your answer.

The best teachers were the ones who encouraged us students to work through our math and science problems step by step, showing our work as we went. When our tests came back, those good teachers would often point out where we went wrong, and lo and behold, we learned something. You could almost feel the light bulb going off in your mind. And as a bonus, you usually received some credit for your work. This sort of positive reinforcement helps students grow in both confidence and competence.

The Alberta government is taking the easy way out by moving to a multiple choice only format for diploma exams in math and science. Apparently this will save the public about $1.7 million a year in marking fees, costs of preparing the exam, extra paper and so on. But what price will be paid by young Albertans? No longer will they receive partial credit for the problems they come close to solving, a daunting reality when diploma exams count for half of the year’s grade.

How long before multiple choice only diploma exams are the standard for social studies and language arts, too?

a) When the provincial deficit hits $15 billion
b) When a flashier scandal distracts the media
c) When moderate Tories in the government caucus lose yet another battle to their right-wing colleagues
d) Any and all of the above

Multiple choice exams have their place. But when I was a student, I always felt like I was learning more when I had to show my work, whether analyzing a novel or play with an essay or solving a problem in chemistry or trigonometry step by step. Removing long-form questions from science and math diploma exams is a step backward for education in Alberta, and it’s unfair to students.

It feels like the government is taking its own multiple-choice test when it comes to solving their financial problems. But when Alberta’s social, economic and cultural progress is on the line – and it is – they need to remember that wrong guesses, like those old right minus wrong exams, have dire consequences.

Earl and Sean vs. the Flying Saucers, Part II

Click here to read part one!

As the sleek sedan containing EARL, SEAN and SYLVIA approaches the X-74 installation, smoke rises from the ruins of the ravaged base. Aliens brandishing weapons can be seen mercilessly gunning down the hapless survivors. Inside the car, our heroes debate their options:

SEAN: The butchers are ray gunning down those men!

SYLVIA guns the engine and the car lurches forward, bearing down on the alien invaders.

EARL: Are you crazy? You're heading right into their line of fire!

SYLVIA: Welcome to Earth, space bastards!

The sedan crashes into a group of surprised aliens, sending them flying like tenpins. But crafty MOONTOR, taking cover behind some rubble, blasts a ray-beam into the car's rear tire, making it spin out of control and roll onto its top!

Inside the sedan, EARL, SEAN and SYLVIA hang upside-down, stunned but alive.

EARL: That was some maneuver, lady. Now we're sitting ducks!

SEAN: Upside-down sitting ducks at that!

SYLVIA: Unfasten your seat belts, boys - it's going to be a bumpy night!

The three heroes unfasten their seat belts and tumble to the roof of the car. They scramble out just in time to stand face-to-face with MOONTOR, VOLUPTUA and the other aliens, ray pistols, ray rifles and ray bazookas steadily trained upon them.

EARL: Uh-oh.

VOLUPTUA: Uh-oh indeed, foolish Earthling! Now you'll pay the price for using your primitive Earth conveyance to kill my valiant soldiers!

MOONTOR: Blast them to atoms, my faithful Moon men!

VOLUPTUA slaps MOONTOR across the face.

VOLUPTUA: Fool! Do not presume to anticipate my orders! Take them into custody and place them in the restraining room!

MOONTOR, face burning, begins to say something, but instead nods to his men, who use glowing handcuffs to ensnare the earth people. EARL, SEAN and SYLVIA are marched up the loading ramp of the nearest flying saucer, the ruins of the base still smoking.

EARL (sotto voce): They can't have found the X-74. Otherwise, they'd just vaporize us. They must think that we can lead them to it.

SEAN (sotto voce): How? It has to be back there in that smouldering wreck somewhere. They'd be better off asking a Venusian bloodhound or whatever beast passes for a good hunting dog on their crazy world.

SYLVIA: He's right. It doesn't make sense.

A moon guard jabs SYLVIA in the back with her rifle.

MOON GUARD: Silence! No talking!

EARL (sotto voce): Shh. I have a feeling that Queen Personality back there might know who I work for. She must figure that since she can't find the X-74, it must be in a different location. Unfortunately, I'm afraid it's simply been destroyed in the wreckage - she just can't bring herself to admit failure.

The heroes are led into the depths of the ship and placed in a spartan cell - seemingly without bars. But then, one of the moon guards flips a switch on the wall and beams of light, much like prison bars, crisscross the front of the cell.

SEAN: Holy space prison!

The moon guards walk away, leaving the Earth people alone.

EARL: As I was saying, it's almost certain that the X-74 went up in smoke with that base and all the people in it.

SEAN: Looks like it's down to plain old fisticuffs and cunning. But first, we've gotta get out of this cell.

SYLVIA: I have an idea about that. Look, they didn't confiscate my purse...or my compact.

EARL: Your makeup looks fine.

SYLVIA shoots EARL a withering look.

SYLVIA: The mirror, dummy. Watch.

Carefully, Sylvia opens her compact and slides it into the path of one of the ghostly force-beams. The mirror reflects the beam and sparks erupt from the walls, the light-gate system shorting out. Our heroes cough, sputter and wave the smoke out of their faces as they leap from the cell.

SEAN: It worked! And now it's time to bust out the NAES.

SEAN puts four large, heavy rings on his left fist, each ring emblazoned with a backwards letter of his name: N-A-E-S. He holds them right up to the camera so that they fill the movie screen.

SYLVIA: What the...?

EARL: Don't ask. But he could be right - as much as I hate violence, this situation seems to call for it.

Suddenly, a gaggle of MOON GUARDS appear from around the corner of the curving corridor.

MOON GUARD: The prisoners! They've escaped! Seize them!

SEAN: Seize THIS!

SEAN punches the lead guard in the forehead with his ringed fist, leaving the word "SEAN" in all caps imprinted on the moon man's bloodied forehead. The moon man collapses, eyelids fluttering closed as he loses consciousness.

SECOND MOON GUARD: He's branded Bluthwap! Use your ray beams!

SYLVIA karate-chops the ray pistol from the second moon guard, while EARL three-stooges the eyes of a third. SEAN belts the remaining guard in the mouth with his NAES fist.

SEAN: Looks like it's lunchtime for you, pal! A knuckle sandwich - with extra ketchup!

EARL points to the hatch of the flying saucer - a hatch that is quickly closing, as if the ship is preparing for liftoff.

EARL: The hatch! It's closing!

SYLVIA: We'll be in for an out-of-this world vacation if we don't get out of here!

They run for the hatch, but it closes just as they reach it, trapping them inside.

EARL: Trapped!

A low-pitched hum begins and quickly transforms into a high-pitched whine as the deck starts to vibrate.

SEAN: We're lifting off!

An exterior special effects shot shows the flying saucer rapidly lifting away from the demolished base. Several alien foot soldiers wave goodbye, including VOLUPTUA and MOONTOR.

MOONTOR: Do you think they took the bait?

VOLUPTUA: Of course. By now, they'll have escaped their cell and are probably planning to take over the saucer. A couple of carefully arranged obstacles will convince them that they've seized a highly advanced space weapon for their military. But once they fly it to their capital...

MOONTOR and VOLUPTUA look at each other knowingly.

FADE TO BLACK...

Click here to read part one!

My Kingdom for Some Potato Skins

A couple of weeks ago, I ordered potato skins from Boston Pizza. That is, I attempted to order potato skins from Boston Pizza.

"Sorry, we only serve the Southwest Skins now," said the BP representative.

"All right," I answered reluctantly.

The Southwest Skins arrived some time later - potato skins laden not with delicious cheese, chives and bacon bits, but with BBQ sauce, chicken and some kind of white stuff. I ate them with little relish, wondering why Boston Pizza would choose to eliminate such a staple appetizer in favour of this weird-tasting mess. But I consoled myself with the thought that many restaurants carry potato skins, and I could simply order them from somewhere else.

Tonight, I felt like potato skins. I thought I'd try Tony Roma's - they have excellent skins.

Or they used to. They're no longer on the menu.

All right, maybe Red Robin...

No.

Royal Pizza?

No...

I was getting desperate. Denny's?

No.

Swiss Chalet? No. Montana's? No. Outback Steakhouse? No.

What happened? Have potato skins suddenly fallen off the map as an appetizer of choice? Am I going to be forced to (choke) MAKE MY OWN POTATO SKINS????

If anyone knows where I can acquire some potato skins in Edmonton, preferably on the west end, please leave a comment below. I really need a fix.

Whopping Woods Windfall

I checked my account balances yesterday and saw something that surprised me: a credit to my Visa account for $8.66, listed as "TD - CLASS ACTION."

A little research indicated that I'm part of a class of citizens who were charged "undisclosed or unauthorized fees to its cardholders who incurred credits or debits in foreign currency transactions on their TD VISA (or Chargex) Cards." (See here.)

Before this, I've never been the beneficiary of any sort of lawsuit. $8.66 may not be much, but hey, every dollar hacked off your Visa bill is N dollars in interest that doesn't need to be paid down the line.

Poles Apart at the Polls

On Monday night, my old friend Joanne came over for a visit. It was great to reconnect with someone I haven't seen in probably fifteen years.

Joanne and I attended the University of Alberta together, and even lived on the same floor (Main Kelsey) of Lister Hall for a couple of years. And of course, we were in the U of A Star Trek club together.

Joanne had some great stories to tell about her journeys, and one of them is even available on the web. Read The Alberta-France Divide in See magazine to learn Joanne's thoughts on French democracy, and how it differs from our own democratic life here in Alberta.

Joanne didn't plan to be in France during their elections, and that reminded me of my own accidental exposure to another sort of election, years ago, in Singapore. During the Christmas/New Year season of 1996/97, I went to Singapore to visit my friend Parvesh, another Main Kelsey resident and U of A graduate. And like Joanne, I arrived while the campaign was at its height.

I was somewhat troubled by what I experienced. The governing party blatantly threatened people who were thinking of voting for the opposition; government announcements clearly stated that public housing developments and other perks would be withheld from districts that elected opposition candidates. Public figures like media representatives were quietly but strongly discouraged from being seen with opposition candidates. The opposition leader himself was frequently hounded by the police.

I watched election night with Parvesh and some of her family friends, good people who were disappointed but not surprised to see that the ruling party had captured all but two (or it may have been four) seats. (Incidentally, that night I enjoyed one of the best meals I've ever eaten.)

Comparing Joanne's experience with my own, I can't help but compare Alberta's political landscape to both. As a progressive liberal in Canada's most conservative province, you can probably guess which political climate I feel most resembles our own.


When Earl's optimism about democracy was THIS BIG!

Zorball Revealed

A couple of posts back I mentioned that as a child in Leaf Rapids, I used to play in a bin of Zorball. For those who were wondering, and who missed my answer in the comments, Zorball is/was a brand of some kind of rocky, itchy pinky/orangey powder used to absorb spills - oil spills, grease spills, industrial/automotive stuff.

I spelled it incorrectly in my original post, which probably frustrated Google searches. Sorry about that!

It appears that Zorball is still for sale.

Also, the Zorball I played with was not this kind of Zorball, more's the pity:


Love to ride that thing down into the sinkhole!

That One Dream You Always Have, You Know the One

Jeff's entertaining analysis of my Captain America dream, combined with tonight's visit from my old Lister Hall friend Joanne, reminded me of one of the consistent recurring themes of my dreams: an imagined failure to earn my degree.

The circumstances are nearly always different, but there are common recurring elements:

1) The sudden recognition that I forgot to take a certain course, therefore my degree is invalid. The course could have been as early as junior high, invalidating all my progress from that point on.

2) An academic or professional setting.

3) Panic that I'm going to have to go back to school all over again.

4) Realizing that some important test - not necessarily an academic one - is imminent, and I've forgotten to prepare for it at all.

5) Confusion: wait a minute, I earned my degree years ago. What year is this? Oh wait, it's 2009...wha--

And then I wake up.

I've always been fascinated by dreams. Mine have always been very vivid and real, to the point that sometimes I'll wake up a little startled, as if I've been suddenly yanked from one reality to another. This is no fun when the dream is a nightmare, but when it's something more pleasant, such as a dream of flight or an adventure story...it's sublime.

Usually, writing about dreams or describing them to friends is an exercise in frustration. Rarely are my dreams as compelling to others as they are to me, perhaps because words are inadequate (or my facility with words is inadquate) to explain the sheer spectacle and emotional power of any given dream.

And yet, from time to time I'll try, because they can be that special. But perhaps dreams are meant only for the dreamer.

Earl and Sean vs. the Flying Saucers

Boldly by day they came, the saucer-slayers in their sinister ships of silvery steel!

They ravaged the countryside, burned the cities with deadly beams of unstoppable terror!

Greatest weapons of super-science helpless before the awesome might of the menace from beyond!

First there was...

EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS

Then there was...

EARL VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS

And now, the greatest shock-spectacle of the silver screen!

EARL AND SEAN VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS

*********

SCENE ONE. A hot summer day in southern Manitoba. EARL and SEAN are visiting the abandoned farm of their grandparents.

SEAN: It sure is neat to see this place at last.

EARL: Yes, these decaying buildings are a solemn reminder of the fact that one day, death comes to claim us all!

SEAN: Boy, you're gloomy today! Try to enjoy the heat of the sun on your face, the smell of grain, and the memories of a simpler time.

EARL (chuckling): Perhaps you're right. It's just that all this secretive talk about the X-74 project is starting to wear on my nerves.

SEAN: X-74, eh? Isn't that the secret plan to set up a defence against the so-called green men from outer space you government types are so concerned about?

EARL: Apparently it's not so secret as we would have liked! Yes, X-74 involves the fused transmission of microwaves, interspliced into a beam lattice that -

(a low humming can be heard from offscreen)

SEAN: Hold it - what's that?

EARL: I don't hear anything - wait. It's coming from over there.

SUDDENLY, three flying saucers zoom over the farm, shooting ray-beams into the barn and surrounding buildings, which EXPLODE INTO FLAMES!

SEAN: Run!

EARL and SEAN run from the flying saucers. The flying saucers pursue, shooting deadly ray beams at the brothers, which narrowly miss the men, setting the grass on fire!

EARL: The farmhouse basement! It's our only chance!

EARL and SEAN leap into the front door of the farmhouse and down the stairs into the cellar. The flying saucers fire their beams into the house, which EXPLODES in fury!

FADE TO BLACK

ROLL OPENING CREDITS

OKR RODEO PICTURES PRESENTS

AN ORVILLE Q. BLISTERSON FILM

EARL AND SEAN VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS

FILMED IN SCARE-O-SCOPE

STARRING

EARL J. WOODS
SEAN E. WOODS
HOMER BALTHAZAR SHAMBLY
SYLVIA F. BOUCHER
COUNT VLADIMIR R. RAZANKOFF III
SHAKIRA NINA FLORES
ABIGAIL ROSS

AND INTRODUCING

V O L U P T U A

AS HERSELF

**********

SMOKE BILLOWS FROM THE DESTROYED FARMHOUSE. BUT AFTER A COUPLE OF BEATS, HANDS EMERGE FROM THE WRECKAGE, AND TWO BODIES EMERGE, COVERED IN SOOT: EARL AND SEAN.

SEAN: That was close!

EARL: We've got to warn headquarters! But my televisor screen was damaged in the blast!

SEAN: If I knew about X-74, it's a cinch those moon men know about it, too! And they're on their way to destroy it before it becomes a threat to their empire!

EARL: Right!

CUT TO THE INTERIOR OF THE LEAD FLYING SAUCER. VOLUPTUA AND HER SECOND IN COMMAND, MOONTOR, ARE OBSERVING THE MAIN VIEWSCREEN OF THEIR CONTROL SAUCER, LOOKING OUT AT THE DEVESTATION BELOW THEM.

MOONTOR: With those fools Earl and Sean out of the way, our conquest of this pathetic planet is all but assured!

VOLUPTUA SLAPS MOONTOR VIOLENTLY.

VOLUPTUA: Fool! Such brazen overconfidence has no place aboard my royal flagship!

MOONTOR COWERS.

MOONTOR: A thousand pardons, my mistress!

VOLUPTUA SLAPS MOONTOR AGAIN.

VOLUPTUA: Fool! Such simpering obsequiousness hs no place aboard my royal flagship!

A BEAT AS MOONTOR TRIES TO FORMULATE A RESPONSE. FORTUNATELY, VOLUPTUA'S ATTENTION IS DISTRACTED BY A FLASHING ALERT-BEEPER ABOVE THE VIEWSCREEN.

VOLUPTUA: Silence! The so-called "secret" bunker that houses X-74 lies just ahead! FIRE THE DESTRUCTOR RAYS!

A CREWMAN PRESSES THE APPROPRIATE BUTTON. A FLASH OF LIGHT FLARES ON THE UNDERSIDE OF THE SAUCER, THEN TRANSFORMS INTO A COHERENT BEAM OF DEADLY ENERGY, WHICH LASHES OUT TO VAPORIZE THE BUNKER.

MOONTOR: You've done it, O mighty one!

VOLUPTUA SLAPS MOONTOR.

VOLUPTA: Fool! I don't need yes-men to point out the obvious! Send down a landing party to survey the wreckage! Ensure that the X-74 is destroyed! And kill all survivors!

MOONTOR: Yes, O heavenly one!

*******

EARL AND SEAN FLAG DOWN A PASSING SEDAN, DRIVEN BY A YOUNG BLONDE WOMAN. THEY ENTER THE CAR.

SYLVIA (TO EARL): Where to, handsome?

EARL (sternly): No time for flirting, honey! We need to get to the abandoned airfield at Virden, and fast!

SYLVIA: Oh, you mean the abandoned airfield that's really a secret research laboratory?

SEAN: She's got you there, brother.

EARL (nonplussed): Uh - yes! But make it fast, doll - there's no time to lose!

THE CAR SCREECHES OFF INTO THE DISTANCE, HEADING FOR THE LAB.

...to be continued..?

Paperback Ranter

Internet pundit rants impotently! Film at 11.

I hate the trade paperback format. You know the one - the same size as a hardcover book (though sometimes smaller), but without the hard cover. They're less expensive than a hardcover, but more expensive than a mass-market paperback, my favourite book format.

I prefer mass-market paperbacks because they're cheap (relatively), portable and easy to handle. They're also small, and when you have thousands of books, shelf space is always at a premium.

I really hate it when a publisher switches from mass-market paperback to trade paperback format in the middle of a series of books. Years ago, Harry Turtledove's alternate history of the American Civil war followed the normal publishing pattern: hardcover first, followed by a mass-market paperback about a year later. But then, midway through the series, the books started appearing as trades. No problem, I thought, I guess it's an intermediary stage; they'll keep this on the market for a while, then release the mass-market paperback.

Almost ten years later, I'm still waiting. The series is finished, and the three or four books I need remain stubbornly fixed as trades. I have only two choices: keep waiting, or buy the trade paperbacks, which will look goofy on my shelves next to all the smaller books before them. I suppose I should just buy the trades; I'm sure the mass-market editions will appear on store shelves as soon as I do so, just out of spite.

Please sir or madam publish your good books
In the smaller size, they'll fit in my nook
Paperback ranter...
Paperback ranter!

Super-Hero by Night

Last night I dreamed that Sylvia and I had teamed up with Captain America to fight a super-villain by moonlight on an old abandoned farm. The villain was a humanoid blob of glowing yellow light that shot firebolts; I don't think I had any super-powers, I was more of a Rick Jones-style sidekick.

Captain America was having a tough time against this guy, barely able to deflect the firebolts with his shield. I flailed my arms around uselessly. Sylvia, however, used her telekinesis to grab hold of a hay bale and slam it down on top of the villain, leaving him trapped cartoonishly inside the centre of the bale with only his head visible.

I whooped in triumph and shouted, "Hey, Captain America, she really BALED us out! Get it? Because she used a hay bale..."

The last image of the dream was Captain America's annoyed glare, gazing straight at me.

Condo for Sale - Huge Stacks of Books Not Included

Sylvia and I are looking for a bigger place to live, chiefly because I have accumulated too many books. If anyone's interested in a very nice two and a half bedroom, two bathroom apartment-style condo, let us know.

Photos from the Edge of Nowhere

For those of you who would like to see the pictures Sean and I shot on our trip to Manitoba, look here:

Sean's first album

Sean's second album

Sean's third album

Earl's first album

Earl's second album

Back from the Edge of Nowhere

Midafternoon today, Sean and I returned from our 4,000 km voyage through southern and northern Manitoba. We were sunburned in the south and feasted upon by bugs in the north. We have hours of video footage to sort through and hundreds of photos to examine, so my plan is to spend the next couple of days combing through that material in order to prepare the final chapter in the Woods of Leaf Rapids Saga: Return to the Edge of Nowhere.

Some of the HD footage we shot has to be seen to be believed. It's going to take me a while to edit it down to a manageable and interesting length, but I hope the end result will be worth it.

Journey to the Edge of Nowhere, Part VII: The Land that Never Was

The sign was the first thing that had changed.


When we first moved from Thompson to Leaf Rapids, the "Winter Survival Equipment Essential" sign caught our family's eye. It was the most striking indication that this was a new frontier, a brand new model community on the edge of nowhere, an experiment, a townscape designed by government and corporate needs and yet integrated with nature...to the extent a town fuelled by a strip mine could accomplish that. To my delight, the warning was still there when Sylvia and I arrived, in its original spot next to the town, though the physical sign itself had been replaced with a newer model. Perhaps I could go home again, homilies notwithstanding.


It was late afternoon by the time we arrived, so we had time for only a quick tour of the little town before we needed to find lodging. So I showed Sylvia the Town Centre, a faux-Brutalist, rust-coloured edifice that crammed all the town’s most vital businesses and public services into one compact mall.


This is where I attended kindergarten and grades 1-3, plus half of four. This is where I played the coveted part of the Wizard of Garbage, thanks to drawing the lead role from a hat. It’s where I played the second shepherd in the school Christmas play and shouted my one and only line, “I am sore afraid!” It’s where Sean was born. It's where my one dollar a week allowance bought three thirty-five cent comics at the Town Centre drug store (Mom or Dad always gave me the extra nickel).


With no real idea of where we were going to sleep, and with the one and only hotel in Leaf Rapids long closed, we drove slightly north of the town, across the Churchill River bridge, where we found a tiny clutch of cabins. At first it looked as though the place was abandoned, but then a fiftyish man appeared and asked if we needed a place to stay.

“How much for one night?” we asked.

“A hundred bucks,” he said. I had exactly one hundred dollars in my wallet – a fortunate coincidence, since the nearest ATM was three hours away and cash was the only payment option here. Strangely enough, when we got to talking we discovered that the man remembered Dad, and had in fact bought the Acklands building; he was using it for storage now.



The cabin turned out to be quite nice – very roomy, with a fireplace, comfy beds, and a terrific view of the lake.


We started a fire to get us through the night, and as Sylvia slid onto the couch before it, I went down on one knee and asked her to marry me. I’d brought her here so she could understand who I am and what she was getting herself into – and yet, despite all that, she said yes. We talked, enjoyed the fire and the view, and played some Scrabble, honouring that game’s place in the flowering of our relationship. Sylvia kicks my butt more often than not in Scrabble, and I’ve always respected her for it.


We looked up at the stars. Northern Manitoba must be one of the best places on Earth to view the universe; it was spectacular. The pitch-black sky was thick with stars and a heavy moon, all of it reflecting off the lake, Northern Lights dancing overhead occasionally – not as strongly as they would in the winter, but having lived through many winters there, I was willing to accept the tradeoff.
And then the day broke. We packed up our things and drove back across the bridge and into town. It was July 20, 2006, thirty-eight years since men walked on the moon, an event I watched on my mother’s lap some distance south of here.


I showed Sylvia the town’s industrial park, the northern half of the town, which included a half-dozen or so businesses and the Manitoba Hydro building. Most were boarded up, including Dad’s old workplace, the Acklands branch he’d set up and managed, the job that brought us (further) north in the first place.
Acklands was a hardware/supply store. It had a Telex machine, which fascinated me. Telex machines were a kind of combination typewriter/fax machine, an outgrowth of telegraph technology. I loved the cacophony it generated when a new message came through, a chattering of keys hammering ink into paper, typing without anyone touching the keys – it seemed like magic. When I was bored, Mom or Dad would set me up at the Telex and I’d type out stories or just play with the keys.

I also enjoyed playing in the bins of Zorbal at the back of the store, although I remember the stuff itched an awful lot. And I cut out the middle pages – that is, the colour inserts – of my Star Wars novelization and photocopied them in Dad’s office. I was disappointed with the quality of the reproduction, and mad that I’d ruined my book for nothing. (Incidentally, I only just recycled that book, finding one in far better condition, and from an earlier print run, than the one my parents bought me at the Town Centre’s drug store.)


Next door I found the abandoned remains of the Midi Mart, land of Pink Elephant popcorn and Wigwag bars.


We looped around the town a couple of times, past house after house that was boarded up and long abandoned. We saw perhaps twenty-five different people, even though the town still officially boasted a population of 500; I’m not sure where everyone was that day. I was hoping to find the empty lot where Churchill Place had once stood; I knew that if I could find that lot, I could navigate my way to the sinkhole.
That plan failed until we circled around and wound up at the Town Centre again, and I found that wooded path I’d followed to school and back. I was excited – this was it! We left the car and made our way down the path.


Sylvia was immediately swarmed by sandflies and blackflies, great black clouds of them surrounding her. They left me alone, perhaps recognizing a native son, perhaps simply attracted by the scent of Sylvia’s makeup.


But Sylvia suppressed her natural fear and loathing of insects and followed me into the forest as best she could, snapping the occasional photo, then handing off the camera to me as the bush thickened.


I knew that the sinkhole, my gateway to not only yesterday but to my child-self’s dreamworld, was very close.


But with every step I took, the brush grew thicker, more impenetrable. I knew I was heading in the right direction, but the paths I took as a child had grown over, and all I could see of the sinkhole was the effect of its depths on the treetops in the distance, lower than the ones over my head. I could tell that those trees were growing out of the depths of the sinkhole, and that I was close, very close, to to precipice...

But the woods held me back, and I could hear Sylvia calling my name from a great distance. Frustrated and bitterly disappointed, I turned back. I felt as though some force had found me wanting, as if I weren't yet ready to return.

The woods denied me, and so I turned back. The other world my childhood self had explored was closed to the man, and now there was nothing left but the formalities.


Sweaty and dirty from my futile attempt to breach the forest guarding the sinkhole, I decided to visit one of my favourite places in town the old library, which backed onto the school. And lo and behold, there was Lois Hole's Favorite Bulbs, one of the gardening books I'd co-authored at Hole's. Something of me had made it back to Leaf Rapids even before I did, and this simple thing relieved a good deal of my frustration.



After taking a quick look around the mall and paying for some gas at the Co-Op, we left, as simply as that. A journey of many hours - and in a sense, many years - ended in the space of an afternoon, an evening, a morning. Only this and nothing more; an exploration I'd anticipated for years, dwindling in the rear view mirror as we started down the long road home.



It’s been almost exactly three years since Sylvia and I travelled to the edge of nowhere. We’re married now, and since coming home from the edge of nowhere we’ve had a few adventures: our big fat geek wedding, coming face to face with Barack Obama in Hawaii, running for office in the last provincial election. These are the pursuits of adulthood, and if I couldn’t recapture the dreams of my childhood, perhaps Leaf Rapids was sending me a message, after all. I left my childhood behind in the fairy world beneath Leaf Rapids, but I came away with something more valuable still: a partner, a fiancee, my wife to be.

But I’m compelled to try one last time. Just a few hours from now, Sean and I will journey together to Manitoba. First we’ll join our parents in Virden, to participate in a ceremony honouring our grandparents’ donation of Salt Lake to the surrounding community. Then we’ll head north, following a different path than the one Sylvia and I took in 2006. Sean will see a birthplace he no longer remembers, and I, armed with my new insight, will search for the sinkhole one last time.

It will almost certainly be the very last time I return to Leaf Rapids. Not long from now, I’ll let you know what we find there.

POSTSCRIPT
For those of you who started reading this story wayyyyyy back in 2006, I apologize it's taken this long to finish what should have been a simple travelogue. I'll try to be more timely when Sean and I Return from the Edge of Nowhere.

10

The following conversation takes place on Thursday night, before a showing of the Woods condo, between 7:40 and 7:50 pm. Events occur in real time.

"Just put some vinegar in the pail, and some hot water."

"Where's the vinegar?"

"Under the sink in a clear bottle."

"Is this it?"

"No."

"Wait, is it in this one that says 'vinegar?'"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you tell me that the bottle says 'vinegar?'"

"I didn't think of it."

"Okay, now what do I do?"

"Pour the vinegar into the pail along with some hot water."

"The whole bottle?"

"NO. This is enough."

"Okay, now just the hot water?"

"No, add some dish soap."

"Wait, you're not supposed to mix chemicals. Besides, you can't wash the floor with dish soap. Dish soap is for dishes. For that matter, vinegar is for French fries."

"JUST DO IT."

"Wait, I have to write this conversation down before I forget it."

...

"EARL! Wash the floors!"

"Just a minute! I'll just be a second!"

"Well hurry up, I have to take a shower and I have to pee..!"

BOOP...BEEP...BOOP...BEEP...BOOP...BEEP