My Love of Chip: Samuel Delany

 

  While "Hard sci-fi" was about reliving the Second World War but with improved Nazis, faster and faster ships, and exploding, could be bigger explosions, technologies, Samuel Delany was writing moving beyond all that. He is talking about multi-generational travel between the stars and wars that killed centuries-old civilizations but lasted for only minutes. His discussion about the changes in language as well as grasping the the transference of how we talk about things from one generation to another, despite some very coherent talk about physics-bound science fiction conventions, was labeled "Soft Wave."
   I, as an avid science fiction reader reading, in my 6.1th Decade of age, have noticed a tendency for Hard Science Fiction to be blurts of the hip techno-babble proselytizing about the most ridiculous advancements in technology and militarism. Those prophesies have turned not only to be outdated by stuff like micro-chips and "social" networks within the span of four years since the works' publication. Meanwhile this author's, Delany, in case you forgot whom I was talking about, speculative fiction doesn't, at least to me, get stale. 
   First book, novella really, is Babel 17 . This is not out of any sort literary dominance. This was the first work that I read by the person. I'm not a literary scholar, I've just read a whole bunch of books. More than a fair share of those were paperbacks. This work introduced me, an already bilingual person, to the effects of language on those subscribing to Literacy Equals Language. I walked out of that dime-store book much wiser about the salesmanship that goes into the cultures around us.
   I went on to read about a billion books. While doing so, there was Delany's shorter works. His novels rocked me. The shorter works inspired me. Through all of those works, I learned about stuff like the speed of light, while more "Hard Core" sci-fi authors scrawled pages about more and better tanks, sex but with time travel, and "good" cultural warfare.
   While sci-fi booksellers will always have classifications, as a science fiction reader, I recommend not taking them at their word. Authors like Samuel Delany are standing proof of the fallacy of that. 

Every Time at the Table: Halloween 2025

   
   While previously planning to do Wobble session last night, around Wednesday (October 29th) I suddenly wanted to composed a Hammer horror film-style adventure. So by the next day, I scripted a quick scenario, what I'd call a  "room-crawl"  with a mystery to solve. So I announced "Assault on Castle Vulgarr" on Thursday and welcomed any player back to Blegovia (17th-19th themed horror).  Now I expected a couple regular players would be showing up, but this apparently excited a couple others.  Imran, from India, as well as S.  Dresser, an old friend from New Hampshire days, decided to show. Iron Curtis showed up wearing his best dress to top things off. 

So the main roles were the Inspector, the Fortune-teller, and the Scientist. Through random draws, Dresser was the Scientist; Peryton (Robin) was the Inspector; and Curtis had to fill the role of the Fortune-Teller. Imran was there to watch. Curtis's fortune-teller looked awesome in their purple dress. Later Kal Luin (Brett) showed up ready to play. I didn't bother with character creation, he was an interloping English consultant arriving to tell everyone already in the game how things should be done.

So we started out with a strange murdering of multiple people, a family, so the Police-Watch of the city couldn't just file it away. The Inspector found those closest to the deceased, namely the Fortune-teller, and, after concluding that they were not guilty, arrested them. A decision not only historically accurate, Robin's decision was wonderfully apt to 'get the party together.' She was about to arrest Dresser's Professor, when the English-Consultant, played by Brett, showed up. The combined PCs not only coped, they made the story rather awesome.

Things ended up at Ostruk Vulkarra, A vampire was defeated after all but one of the Party was slain. I was surprised that any Player-Character survived. 

The State of TV Science Fiction 2025: Foundation

One of the points in my life is where being successful means watching TV sci-fi  to give my opinion on the shows happening regardless of where the shows happen to be streaming. Now I don't mean what we'll kitchen table sci-fi, where a camera and one to four famous actors gets to equivocate about society's belly button for two, maybe three, seasons about time travel or hot chicks that are genetically modified to beat up battalions of faceless people because oligarchy or something. No. I want costumes. I want spaceships. I want striking visuals. A bit of soap opera doesn't hurt.

I actually gave the Apple Corporation an email address to watch their production of Issac Asimov's Foundation series. At least the first three seasons. I did this mostly out of guilt after watching five episodes of the first season from a friend that revels in bootlegging this sort of thing like two years ago. The 14$ that I spent was well worth it. I still haven't found the cancellation button anywhere to try to stop paying the named company without replacing my debit card. I actually have stopped the account from charging me, but not being able to just cancel a subscription for a while-- Fuck off phish-mining. 



Say what you will about "the Book versus the Movie" the TV series, is not afraid to be creative. You-Tube's asshole critics will be on about "It's not like the books!" or "gender-swapping!", they're missing out on how a sci-fi series has spaceships, androids, and explosions. This criticism ignores how boring the books, held to these critics breasts, were. 

So far the series has invented an empire that clones its most perfect ruler. Who needs elections when you have perfection? And then space elevators and brain transfers into machines happen without much of a mention. No. Indeed that brain transfer has its own subplot. This is all on top of the written material of the books,



Godsheads bless the books. The books that have to be mentioned because film and TV producers need titles and plots from the past to fund doing shows (or films) like this. Is it good? Yes. The show though keeps being compared what Issac Asimov might've envisioned. I'll add that it would have been filled with schlock and pretense.

This is some sphere romance presented not trying to explain anything but the passions of its characters. Decent sci-fi doesn't need much more. 

Andor: Well that Surprised Me

 

Finally some Star Wars in the damn TV show

So to fill out a Saturday night, I went ahead and binged season 2 of the show. My summation of Andor during the first season was something like, "A World War Two movie with androids but made in Albania".  It wasn't Star Wars but it was influenced by the makers of that movie franchise as much as it was a homage to the Austro-Hungarian Empire in fashion tastes. Then there were the prison episodes, which weren't as much The Grand Illusion (1937) as they wanted to be, so they ended up being like sitting in prison while watching them. Boy did the spaceships, prison breaks, and battle scenes suck. While I love a good kepi or toupee, I was not impressed with my first take of the show.

The opening of season 2, which figured almost nothing but a TIE fighter then, elsewhere, a princess's wedding plans, caught my attention. It was 8pm when I started. I promised to work a few hours the next day. I did not mind staying up to after 3am watching it. Okay. Okay. I had no where to be until after noon. Still I was caught up and swept away into the story.

 The hat collection was put into the back ground, but the 40s Italian naval uniforms made up for it. Both yarns were tying disparate parts of the narrative together showing the fiber and composition of Star War's  rebellious bits and pieces. The interactions of the Characters were full of their personal opinions and could be judged as right or wrong, but we, as the viewer, were privy to background information that showed them to be handling what they were given not paths that they were following. Friends warned me about the pacing of the first episodes, but slow presentations don't bug me in film and TV-- it kind of makes the media worth watching compared to most its content.

By the end of the shows, I'd given up on looking for where the influences were from or what Easter Eggs were there for fandom. I wanted to see where the Characters, the surviving ones, were going. Knowing that this is the prequel to Rogue One, it's all a half-hearted tragedy. I still won't mind making a long weekend of this series, Rogue One, and Star Wars (the movie) a future event. Lucas's prequels don't make me want to do that sort of thing.

A King Kong of a TV mini-series. A Godzilla of a Star Wars prequel.

So Dune, the Newest

 

As "franchises" go, this has been a rewarding one. I read the book in 1981. I watched the David Lynch production in 1984. I caught the Sci-Fi Channel's take in Aughts. I read all of the Herbert Dune books then. I tried the professionally published fan fiction afterwards and dropped it quickly. Now I have Denis Villeneuve's two movies. Watched the most recent of the iterations last night. I made a whole afternoon out of it even. You'll have to as well.

It has everything I expected, AND more it was more good than bad.

The casting is spot on, and I say this as someone that has read the books. Okay now that I said it, I should go on and clarify. Timothee Chalmet, born in NYC BTW, works as "Paul" so well, every guy below the age of 40 trying to not have a chip on their shoulder will relate. Whatever Zendaya is (I'm sure she has a full name somewhere), she takes the Muadid's squeeze to places where a real woman would actually go, as opposed to the book. Paul Baptiste as Rabban the Harkonnen is a piece of bronze set in glass for perfection in the role he was playing-- you want brutality based on overall insecurity? You got it.-- Josh Brolin as the uncle that we all wished we had? He's so there. And everybody else highlighted was great as well, complete with a lot of characterization, but the scripting didn't do them justice. More on that later.

The design of the overall work is almost beautiful. Repressed women from the Baltic in the 12th Century to most of the Muslim world today will look admiringly at the cocoons that the actresses that represented any female that had procreated already in the tale with awe. Once again, dudes wearing armor seem to be wearing the most ineffective protective gear ever. The most disappointing aspect of the artistic direction is the failure of producers to show why anyone would really want to, or not, live on Arrakis, err Doon, err "Dune, desert planet." Pools of water with dusty gatherings and a lot of shadow is a city block, not 3/4s of a planet.  That said, riding the giant sand worms of the planet as a mass transport system was rather believable.

The political and war dynamics depicted in the movie are as weak as it is in the book Dune. Something about a parliamentary of monarchs system subverted by an autocrat, their elected emperor, happening within that parliamentarian system using a faction of mean baddies. There is an awesome tactical combat scene. While it is meant to show that Villenuve's hyper-accurate understanding of managed violence, it is bonding moment between Paul and Chani despite the "hyper-detail." Overall though, the "warring" depicted in this take of the book is silly. Still the ornithopters as the solution between helicopters and airplanes shows why Herbert understood speculative science while writing fiction. If anyone can make sense of the movie's last part battles, please let me know. The Character dialogue did explain the premise changes nicely though.

Short points in the tale can only be blamed on the author, Frank Herbert. The bad part of the movie were the bad guys. There is the mean baddies, the Harkonnen. Then there is the two-faced Emperor which is supposed to be evil. The Director of this movie gets that and shows part of this point.

Big meanies get defined beautifully. Okay the Harkonnen of Gedi Prime are the worst of humanity. This translates as something akin to, umm Star-Finnish (FUCK YOU HERBERT). They live on a world where the suns themselves bleach humanity from its own selves. Pale, but fuckable apparently. The astrological and autocratic women, Jezzi-Jizz-habitat, not beholden to the autocrat, come up with designs trying to make an off-spring which they'll hate anyway when it shows up. In the end something about scheming women with a master plan covered up by the peanut butter-covered mystery box laced with grape jelly-flavored betrayal. Nothing but trouble, I'm sure.

The evil of Emperor though is stillborn. While Christopher Walken is the most powerful of any of the Padushah Emperors I've seen to date, he is just not given enough to do. He appointed Duke Leito AtTreesandWater to Planet Dune.Oil.and.Cocaine to replace Finns Gone Bad for some reason. His Supreme-ness then betrays his pick using his own roid rangers from heavy gravity to help out. I think he then posted a letter of confession in the mail to somewhere he was sure it'd never be found. Suddenly a white-bread messiah, the son of the betrayed tree-hugger Duke, comes forward and calls for hollywoodwar.Why that Herbert and Villeneuve have so much contempt for this Character could have been a bit more detailed. 

Overall, the movie is a Godzilla of a sci-fi movie. I'll still have to watch New Village's, my nickname for Villenueve, two movies about Dune together. I hear there there might be more movies about Dune coming. I'll go see them.

Flash Gordon: New Takes Don't Hurt

A great take!

Science fiction movies are not stagnating. It's not the reboot that is turning movies into tripe.  Reproducing these works is like new takes on Shakespeare, the artistic vision and thematic direction of each production allows the artists involved to get comfortable with epic scope without becoming Tolstoy or an abject failure. I bring this up after seeing so many YouTube critics are weary of basically anything J.J. Abrams and Marvel or Star Wars from Disney and most of post 2000 Star Trek. Me too, Brother and Sister, I am developing a bias against big money movies with catered-to internet fan bases. As for long standing stories, the reboot of a classic tale of speculative fiction whether it be a TV series or film, it is like fresh water from a nearby mountain stream that freshens up things up in a landscape well known the a person. Flash Gordon while fully trademarked and copyrighted by its owner Hearst Communications, is a cycle of speculative fiction that is right up there with John Carter of Mars, War of the Worlds, and even Frankenstein, in my opinion, in terms of potential and impact on imaginative stories to be told. As much as I bemoan the stagnation of fantastic culture losing its creative spark, I can't say I mind reboots for the most part.

My pick for Thun the Lion-Man in Flash Gordon: Disney Defeated available 2027

I still need to clarify this. TV shows shouldn't be rebooted or turned into motion pictures. That is at least without the original casts. If one wants to do an homage, do one; do not revamp a decent piece of culture into hardcore camp. Big name actors in movies "introducing new audiences" to "old television classics" from twenty years ago in a 90-120 minute with format-scripted modern changes should be left to realm of parody.

It's been a long ride with Flash for me. My first introduction to the Flash Gordon cycle was in Germany about '74. It was in English but had been produced in Berlin from the 50s with Steven Holland. I can't remember Ming or Mongo ever being mentioned. There was something about Pluto or Charon and a space-based FBI--kind of boring and hokey. In the States in like 1979, I started watching an animated series Flash Gordon: The Greatest Adventure of All on Detroit's Channel 20 (I think). There I started learning the classic Ming Vs. Earth saga. Someone drove me to the mall to catch the 1980s sexual chocolate take on Flash Gordon with Freddy Mercury as Ming (wink) and some dude with dyed hair as Flash's stunt double-- still a good movie, a lot of hot chicks and hawk-men.  When I got my license, I'd be introduced to the serials by late night TV on CABLE at my sister's apartment. It was all so cool. Throughout the years, I'd read works from the 30s and still be like "Wow. That is kewl." Most recently, I've been taking a look at comic books, mostly diminishing any respect I ever had for comic book producers and writers. Today, I catch a comic strip, which I think is net-based, but the writing is great. It is even adding to the vast lexicon of my favorite Science Fiction heroes and villains yet. It has been anything but a straight line, but now that I know the chronology of releases, it's only gotten better. I absolutely adore the CBC's take on Flash Gordon from 2007-- got problems with it? I'll fight you.



Indeed, with this "franchise" it still evokes excitement when I hear about the next take. I am much happier with my varied experiences with Flash Gordon, since the 1970s, than I have been with, say, Star Wars or Star Trek. I suppose it's because the milieu of this spaceship-laden folklore isn't based off of internet searches of vocabulary to determine what is the next popular thing, but has a long catalog of themes and ideas already discovered awaiting interpretation.

The Batman 2022: About Time

 Okay I am turning into an old chimpanzee. For all thoughts and musings about this or that, when it's new and shiny I just love it. For all my love of Zach Snyder's Batman, over the years after rewatching them over and over again, I couldn't help thinking, 'There is just too much going on.' Stop trying to get three storyarcs into each movie to show that the film producers got Batman. This film seemed to get that as well. While there was a lot going on, there is a lot that isn't.

I enjoyed that the city of Gotham gets defined more and not reinvented. In case you don't know this in the some old DC material back in the late 80s, the cities of Gotham and Metropolis are shown on a map. they actually correspond to cities in the real world. Gotham, New Jersey is on the east coast of the state. If one looks at a map of that city and turns it upside down and combine it with Ocean City, NJ, wallah; Gotham City, DC-verse. Yes that is how much of a fanboy that I am of Batman. In the movie past-takes on the details of Gotham are not discarded, but built upon. Allowances to the Joker movie is made with loose ties of a particular gang. There is even a bit of the infrastructure is hinted beyond a central water line following a subway to Wayne Towers making the Aftermath scenario that every Batman take has to have since the 90s more understandable than earthquakes or holding a city hostage by blowing up bridges with the threat of a nuclear bomb by inconceivably powerful terrorists. So the metroplex itself isn't just a metaphor for city-life and degeneration of true American values. One starts to get a grasp of how big cities and their peoples are entrenched in their environs as much as other people anyplace else.

Speaking of not reinventing, did I mention that the movie doesn't have the origin story. It builds upon it that origin story but doesn't Spiderman itself in the foot. Heck this movie might, could be related to the flix released in previous years. It assumes that the folks watching the movie don't need an explanation as to why a man is dressing up in a silly costume in a world where sometimes villains shoot lasers out of their eyes. In superhero movie sense, it allowed to viewer to smooth over the bumps in continuity from movie to movie like normal people do with, say, James Bond movies. When Disney does that everyone is like "so natural." When DC does it, everyone cries at the injustice of it all.

The characterization, overall, is rather awesome. So while Robert Patterson can't be bothered to wear anything but a tee shirt, because he works out and isn't terribly handsome to begin with, he makes a decent young Bruce Wayne. His Batman works, because he does have to hide behind the mask to show any sort of grim determination as opposed the depths of his eyes with their confused self-discovery look that teen idols tend to have. I could understand why the folks of Gotham liked the guy but couldn't figure out that he was "THE Batman".  Patterson's Billionaire-playboy-sad orphan's relationships with Alfred Pennyworth and the Cat Woman had a lot of Chemistry, not just chemistry, whether he was wearing a mask or not.

The villains hit on all cylinders. The Penguin was a people reader and as hard as Batman when seeing the failings and strengths of those around him. Plus he had Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum working the door. I did not like the Riddler's gimp outfit, just put the Court of Owls in there already, but as a character-arc, it worked. I am falling in love with John Turturro as a "that guy" in movies as well the lead in others. He's in his prime and knows how to read his part as Carmine Falcone.

As the cop fetish goes, the movie stays consistent with both Hollywood tropes and what we expect from law enforcement in a world where folks have to dress up in costumes to right the wrongs of the world. They're tough and smart, but they're dealing with the Batman and supervillains.  Lieutenant Gordon, was angled just right. Jeffery Wright is growing on me. 

They TOYS are awesome. Motorcylces, Batmobile, the Batarang, and the utility belt all used just enough to show it is all about the bling helps when it comes to higher purposes.

 Overall, a Loch Ness Monster, on the scale of Smurf to Godzilla. I hope Zoe Kravitz doesn't hate me for not focusing on her very good portrayal of Selina Kyle.

Hard Core Artists

Ah those days. Those days of before being Left or Right were already decided. I mean the right had such nice things as nice uniforms and nicely choreographed dance steps that could be called marches. While the left limped off into sympathy trips. I would go on to get my uniform, but I knew it was lie.

There is the abortion issue. So far removed from the knowledge that folks with a lot of hormones tend to group together and do things like have sex. This needs apparently needs to be hidden from mass consumption, except in every TV series and movie ever. It tends to make sex by folks way beyond the procreating age, well, profitable. But this consideration is for only old folks until cable news networks need to get involved. So explaining birth control is hidden but sex scandals are all the rage. In the end, no one can tell "kids these days" about birth control but they can preach about who should be the next president of the Untied States. The "left" according to our media input cannot explain the vagaries of sexuality let alone tell a young adult to tell their partner to put a condom on because of cultural considerations-- you see the listener might be Baptist or Muslim.

American Gun Control is a favorite frankly because of all the money around it. The money around it appeals to a lot of Americans because it's not really big money. Thanks to the Second Amendment, which is about people keeping governments from turning them into serfs, gun makers are an exploitative industry. Firearms are so available that folks can't keep their kids from participating in school shootings. And a person can't touch it because it's an Amendment to the constitution of America. Just like Slavery and the 3/5's compromise was actually written in the founding legal basis of these United States. Lord knows, we couldn't outlaw bazookas and assault rifles because they can sell for about half the paycheck of the average shop-keep. In the end, it keeps law enforcement agencies which are not allowed to do their jobs because of this amendment over-employed and looking for something to do. I guess it's all good, but we all know that it isn't.

So where the policing forces of these United States can't do much about armed oppression of minorities, they seem to have found their outlet in making sure our slums are full of suspected murderers and criminals to merit peacekeeping. This policing often leading to death sentences for people that can be accused of misdemeanors according to their State's legal code, and not providing much security for anyone living in those slums, still is the end result signifying LAW AND ORDER for people many miles away so that they can see the TV reports and proclaim that more anti-democratic laws need to be passed.To make sure the futility of reform is underscored, police will provoke riots and encourage looting.

So that leads me to the title of this post, Hard Core Artists. This not a solution to the problems that I have listed above. I use the label to indicate that we must be creative.

Eternals: Kirby was Kewl Before it was Hip

 While I had an encyclopedia of Batman since like 2nd Grade, I never bought a comic book until I came across Jack Kirby's The Eternals in the fall of 1976. I don't even think it was a first issue. As a side note, the second I bought was Kamandi which was being written by Gerry Conway and Chic Stone, not the title's original creator a certain Jacob Kurtzberg (Jack fukking Kirby). These two purchases were like mana from heaven, both delving into ideas that the two biggest movies, Chariots of the Gods and Planet of the Apes, that I had ever seen. This was the start of my love of Kirby and his works, especially the clunky 1970s stuff.

When I saw the trailer for the flik, with its less-than-Kirby looks and feel, I can't say I was overly excited. The focus seemed to be on minor characters mentioned as nods to tropes in various mythologies and then lost by the original author, until Marvel would start rewriting them using the hip and happening authors of the time. The works of these later authors were doing their best to fit the cycle into the rest of the publisher's comic book universe.

Still, the movie release this month happened at the right time. People are getting back out to movie theaters and Peryton and I could really use a dinner and movie night. So almost impulsively, I bought some tickets online mostly to find where in the heck the place was in my new hometown. I should mention there will be SPOILERS in the following text here.

Okay, as in the standard comics to film crossing there is a lot of to be outraged over. Not only was the premise of the Eternals somewhat altered, the Deviants, the essential foils to them, were generic Japanese video game space-holders in action sequences probably done before the movie's script was written. Gone were the analogies between gods and characters from fable and myth to superherodom. Then there was the gender-swapping and repurposing of many of the characters away from Kirby's yarns about them and into new roles that younger, meaning non-Cold War-raised North American males, audiences could find appealing. Can't really say much of the movie looked like it could've been designed by its author-artist. And the overall result was not a bad piece of celluloid at all.

Okay so the Eternals are ageless and nearly indestructible beings that are sent to act as the guardians of terrestrial humanity by the Celestrial, super-dooper big ass beings that kept the universe (as in the physical space) from going falling into entropy. As you'd expect, the main characters mark their time in millennia if not millions of years. Ajak, Ikarus, Thena, Makkari, snd Sersi are lumped in with supporting characters like Phastos, Druig, Kingu, Gilgamesh, and Sprite. Whoever the leader is gets to chat with the god-ish Arishem. These are the young lions that Babylon, the oldest city that the script writers think that anybody would recognize, would use to show order to early humanity. They shepherd our species here and there whenever a spindly, sinewy species that likes to resemble video game doodles of wolves or dragons with eight eyes known as the Deviants wants to eat us.
Well, it's all a sham. The Celestrials use planets of sentient beings as eggs to make omelettes that feed their young. Our characters are not here to establish peace and stability for the perfect civilization to emerge. The Eternals are the dogs which keep the foxes, as long as they're Deviants, away, until the Celestrial infant is ready for its birthday brunch. The immortal heroes die along with their foes and their charges and are rebuilt into new bodies. This iteration of Ajak sees this as wrong and works to undo this brutal ritual using the tools that she has, her compatriots. This is where the fun ensues. There is a good, if not surprising, plot twist, for once, in this movie.

The large cast is the thing I am seeing other ppl criticizing the movie for. I frankly think it works. The comic books always had too many characters and things going on; hive-minds, uniminds, and ultimate judgement being only the more notable ones. The writers, Chloe Zhao, Patrick Burleigh, with Ryan and Kaz Firpo, give each of them something to do in the tale going on around them. I frankly love how the two bigger names, Ma Dong-seok (Don Li) and Angelina Jolie are given roles where they get to phone it in when they need because of the familiarity that they have the roles that they are given.

My disappointment comes from the video game villains that the Deviants are. Okay Kirby's design for them was rather like evil muppets/goblins with a devil thrown in trying to still have an edge. But there are some rather kewl characters like Lord Tode, Kro, Reject and Karkas. The whole Thena/Kro relationship thing could've been a first movie and the events of this film an awesome sequel. I mean sheesh, Kro was voiced by Bill Skarsgard-- I suppose its chic these days to have bigger name, but not too big, name actors doing limited vocabulary (Groot, Shark, and now Kro).

The film does what it's supposed to which is work in the Eternals into Disney's rendition of the Marvel Universe. The gods of Asgard being human-like aliens already stole the science fiction take on mythology that Kirby was striving for with the series. Making them get into the deeper side of world-eaters like Galactus and world-destroyers like the Celstrails or say Annihilator. So things are getting ready for the more Jim Starling take on comic book sci-fi, that is when he wasn't forced to steal Jack Kirby's DC work (Thanos), so he can get wrapped around the axle with his take on religion before it got old and boring, Adam Warlock and the weird things that ensued from there in various comic sagas.

The movie was a Bigfoot on the scale of Smurf to Godzilla. Perhaps the following movies featuring any of the Characters presented here will be full enough of Easter Eggs from the comic books to keep them interesting, but they've kind of painted themselves into a corner story-wise.

Dune '21: New Tale with Old Eyes

 As a guy that read Dune from 6th until sometime in the 80s, I have been lucky enough to have witnessed three takes on the tale. When I say lucky I actually mean it. From David Lynch's take in the 80s, then the Sy-Fy Channel's (then called Sci-Fi) production, with some Jodorowsky's audio/visual scribblings, and finally this latest take by Dennis Villeneuve; it's been great fun. I have been able to not only watch how different productions interpret the book, to watching how the takes are influenced, or not, by each other. In a world of mega-corporation scooping up all brand names, Frank Herbert's quirky little franchise still provides a little fresh air on artistic expression in speculative fiction.

At the same time, I wish I could watch the movie without ever having seen the other films or read the books just to see what I really think of the movie. 

Get over the gender-swap outrage already

 Still I have only my old eyes. Maybe it's being simple, but I have found the latest take to be the most interesting watch. Its focus on characters that are not Paul gave a lived in feel better than any of the dust or heavy-looking equipment lying around on the sets. Characters such as Baron Harkonennen, Duncan Idaho, and Liet-Kynes are given not only a bit of depth but also things to do during the movie. While their portrayals have never been shirked upon by earlier productions, in this movie they have things do and say which are not just setting up the next plot point.

A strong point for me was the pacing of the movie. While true Dune-Fans will bemoan the parts that were left out, I like that when film seemed to be dragging a little, the script moved on to the next bit of development rather than introducing voice overs of the characters' inner dialogs. The deep thoughts might've been decent world-building in the novel but has always come off as sheer exposition in the medium of screenplay. A lot of the Herbet take on his universe is not there, but I already know what is going on. I have to admit, again, that I need to find somebody that isn't familiar with the setting from the books or previous movies to get their opinions.

Most of the Dune universe looks decent in Villeneuve's work. A lot of it reminds of the used paperbacks I read in the 70s and 80s, I believe they were printed in the 60s. Though I don't like the weird-beards of the Sadukar, I found the sequence on Secondus captivating and terrifying. This flick's take on the Harkonnen was the best to date-- Raban and his savagery is given just enough space while the Baron can be viewed as a one time warrior as well as a glutton. The spaceships and whatnot were passable, they were ovals and rectangles, big meh. Thopters were okay. While the battle scenes were thought out, I found them silly, ie. impaled people fighting on after a Constitution Saving Throw because of script-armor bonuses I suppose. 

The long time reader and viewer of Dune in me wonders if the forthcoming second part of this production's two-part film cycle wonders if it is going to fill in the missing parts. At the same time, I wonder what the overall work will look like if the missing parts are just left out. Is Villeneuve making an action and adventure story set in a sphere romance and not concerned about the "deeper" meanings its fandom worries about all the time. Well, only time will tell. Who even knows if the Hollywood system and the Canadian film board will even bother helping get the next movie off the ground at this point?

Comparing the takes, I have commend all the directors by not being overly bound to first the book or then the director(s) before them, still the tale comes out in the tellings. Now this current take may grow on me, I've only watched it once. It's a Loch Ness Monster in the Smurf to Godzilla rating system.

The Deep South

 The really deep south is about being owed. Somehow folks working at convenience stores are subject to the temperamental whims of folks needing lottery tickets regardless of the labor demands for the industry-- at least in the minds of the lottery ticket buyers. But somehow, saying "Sir" or "Mam" in every sentence makes everything okay. Because those assholes are "southern" and that is because how they raised. It's about about being subservient to folks with cash willing to spend or something or another.

Now about the White Supremacist thing about the south, well it's done.  At least on a working class level, there is only distrust between Spanish-speakers and guys wearing Thor's Hammers as a necklace while hitting on 19 year-old women. No one over 24 years old likes like 19 y/o women nor their boyfriends. Wile the rest of us deal with reality.

Only Spot of Disney Marvel TV Worth Mentioning

 

I wish froggies would stop spouting stuff like "heritage" about shows the Marvel Comics Universe when they obviously haven't read enough of the comic books to know who the characters are supposed to be. Instead focusing on who they think should be skinny, white, and/or male.

Case in point, Loki. Not great, but even I, who's read four to six Thor stories in 40 years, glancing at the "female" Loki recognized Marvel's Enchantress character. To be fair, the writers of show seemed not to know it as well as voiced by the TVA around the shows protagonists. I suppose that was Disney's sloppy way, already knowing the Swoon Juicers (SJWs) wouldn't be bothered to read any of the comic books either, of checking a gender-swap box without actually changing anything in the "canon."

 

About the show overall, a big meh. Not as much as a headache as say Wanda Meanders or Captain Falcon. The outside time kitsch was too Douglas Adams/SWAT fetish. Loki too Tom Hiddleston not a compelling anti-hero. The talkiness punctuated fist-fights was too format-machine driven.

 

SPOILER:

 

 

Had the TVA been so uptight about the timeline because of say a history of conquerors waging time/multiversal wars, the last two episodes might've come off as clever. Instead what we got was a poor tribute to the Wizard of OZ with a whole slew of cliche imagery not wrapped too well together.
The Enchantress of course was going to kill the man behind the curtain, the writing had led things to that inevitable point-- the Lokis would not take over control of an institution like the TVA unless the Disney's Marvel wanted to be known for being asinine. Finding out that the man behind everything was the most successful of the TVA's most notorious time bandito-lords, Kang, would have made the finale half way interesting.

Loki as a character was written a little too as a supporting role to whomever else was in the scene. Amping up the conflicts between the characters and showing the TVA struggle with him a bit more would have spiced all those talky scenes.

 

The series overall was cute. A Robo-Monster in the Godzilla to Smurf scheme of things.

The Rise of the Neo-Moderate

My views have not changed since 1984, the politics around me has though. While I have been moving further left from the center of policy done by the Feds and growing amounts of State legislatures, what I want has not changed slightly. Okay, I want single-payer healthcare and decent National Men's Team in international soccer. On top of those two things, getting immigrants that have a job a Social Security card for paycheck legality, regardless of rather pointless immigration standards, would be nice. 

The media mainstream played by cable "news" channels, manipulated by conservative-minded corporate types and their employers, have increasingly started using words such as "feminist," "socialism," and even "bipartisanship" as red flags. Red flags to be waved in front of the listener without much analysis with the expectations of being to stab them in back as they charge at the provided target.

Yes. Yes. I have been pinko from the start. People of color should have their votes counted and unarmed residents of the USA should not have to face the death penalty without representation in courts. At the same time, I believe in the merits of people serving in our military forces and reading the constitution of our United States to base political arguments upon. So it can't be said that I am really that extreme.

So here I am. An "extreme liberal," according to right-wing trolls' definition of polity, I don't support Death-By-Cop of American civilians for a person possibly selling single cigarettes allegedly without appropriate compensation for the state outside of a thrift store in broad daylight.

Though I have had Newt Gingrich as college professor, I'd still become more and more "extreme" in the eyes of One-State GoP.

During at least three decades I've watched the political spectrum be moved by the most disingenuous actors in the process, towards basically what would be a single party system, on the Right-wing of things of course. One thing to say about the last administration, the Dumpster Fire seems to be as far anyone really wants to go.  I am sure the next time around, and still within my lifetime, some assholes will be wanting to go for a little bit more.

Since the late '80s I've watched things swing rightward. While being doled out from the official Democratic National Congress, I am told by the first institutional political party in free America that these guys get me. Funny they didn't do so back when I was "Progressive' back in 1986. They also didn't get me in 1996 when I disagreed with bombing the Serbians, where I was serving as a soldier in that Hazard Zone already. They kind of got it right in 1999 when I supported Al Gore, but by then the One Party GoP was too entrenched to be stopped.

So now, after Trump and his insults towards civility as well democracy, I am told to support the "Neo-Moderate".  Somewhere around the Neoliberal war mongers that were supposed to fix the Middle East, as promised by the right-wing; the Libertarian that promised GOVERNMENT would be out of bedroom; and the Clinton dynasty that assured that racism was dead. The neo-Moderate is going to give me my treasured social security without the over-reach by the police state. Perhaps Joe Biden has not been a opportunistic corporate-lackey. Maybe if he was, perhaps corporation-based politics are thinking that some of my worldview is the appropriate key towards doing some good. Perhaps it's just someone lying to get into a political office and I will be upset later.

I am willing to give this late success to you my "Neo-Moderate" friends. You could be a space holder for rightwing policies or we can start redefining the objectives needing to be attained. At the end, it's about accountability.

Road Song 21

Road Poem Jan '21

Crows along the roadside

Pick at something's last bad decision,

Or was it fate?

I was awake too early.

 

The sun slipped behind my head in Memphis,

No longer needing amber,

I slipped off the glasses

To watch noon-shewn felons pick up litter.

Sleep dragged my eyes towards the firs,

A place to stop and refresh,

I ate like a Mexican,

But drank like a priest in Mississippi.

Sneaky gas pumps,

Locked bathroom doors,

Pointless yelling at clerks,

Alabama always on on the wrong side.

Mother already climbing into the box
Mind all wet and spiky
As an urchin roiling in salt
Poking at our shells and fabric.

I sat around and drank all night,

Until I understood,

It was a bleeding wound,

Though self-inflicted.

Here is the key

Here is the puzzle

Everything that is cast

Did you see that there?

I went down to the seaside
To see bad paintings of the seaside.
Stumbling upon the seaside,
It was no paint-by-number but I made due.

Rain pelted me as I started cutting string

Of events leading to the box.

By Tallahassee the sun.

Reminded me I had yarn yet to spin.

Your waters were indigo, Mobile.

Now your Moon is full.

For all the loops

I am kind of in love.

Mississippi so quiet,

Silver, chill, and shadow

If not for stoplights

I'd have checked my pulse.

Pine Bluff, full of Arkansas smog,
Yet dimming sight made me stop.
It paid off in digits,
I got a hot tub.

Back to the new home.
Back to the strange.
I can stop running,
Begin to set the stars just right.

2020 is Hindsight

 It hasn't been that bad of a year for me or mine. The Viddo shut downs did not affect my work at the milkshake factory, because transportation for sick people remains even during plague days. Indeed, my job itself became a lot more fun for me because my company started sending us to various small towns throughout the Midwest (Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin)-- one thing I love is visiting new places on coachman holidays, so to speak. For Peryton, she got to stay at home and works for a super kewl company, so the only thing to change for her was the lowering of her stress levels.

My gaming trip life has been shifting from in person to more and more video calls for years now. The lack of conventions and get-togethers around them, is what bugged me the most. My closest friends, those within my Pery Pubbers gaming clique, did a get-together anyway in August showing that we still had the spunk in us to do raw tabletopping when we had to. SO I guess this was a "B-" year, the meeting of new people being down but the quality of die-hard friends keeping life good.

I haven't enjoyed watching the world around me go from a lush landscape of diversions with scores of non-franchise restaurants and watering holes, to a desert where Amazon, Wendy's, and Wallmart were cemented into the fabric of the universe as its pillared foundations. This sort of crass over-reliance on exploitative outlets keeping semi-employed customers comfortable instead of a thousand micro-economies has lead to some ugly creeping up from the late 90s and Aughts, the age of conspicuous consumption. Variety is not necessary in the long run to most corporations. Human niceties can be hand-waved away because of mindsets that are concerned about their own well-being.

Some where beyond the obnoxious Outrage Brigade supposedly filled by SJWs and the ginger-haired frog-boys of the Alt-Right, I have been able to find my own happy middle. I look forward to seeing what franchises like Star Trek and Doctor Who are going to be up to now their producers have worked through their woke agenda. I also continue to watch as White and Male Rights advocates, err critics of these shows realize that for all their rales no one is listening to them. Away from the big money products, I am sure that producers of the smaller media, namely RPG products, will start noticing the market for slanted views is still a small market despite both sides' provocations over the last ten years.

What does 21, the start of the 2nd Decade, hold for me? Well, it truly is a new start for me as I am quitting a profession lasting in one form or another some thirty-six years, twenty of those of it at the same outfit. On top of that a major regional change is occurring. What I am hoping for is a lot more time, and the discipline to capitalize upon that time, to work on my own creative outlets more seriously. Failing that there is always prostitution and eventual drug overdose. So we'll see how it goes.

What Kind of Fantasy Freak Am I Anymore?

From 1999 until now, my tastes have been evolving as a fantasist. So much of what I thought was awesome when I was unable to spend much time delving into it has turned out to be so average if not bad. So much of the good stuff re-reads as rote compared to the works that came before it. And so many people just don't care unless it comes from Japan and has pedophile overtones done in cartoon. 

A more snobby Lovecraft fan than ever. By "Lovecraft" I mean "Cthulhu-ic" not so much the author. I enjoy most of radical, even edgy stuff that I read dealing in the mythos, Caitlin R. Kierman, comes to mind. While I am bored by all "I'ze got guns and important am" that so many wingnuts drool over these days Achtung Cthulhu anybody? Sure the sub-genre of horror known as dark fantasy needs to be kept topical, but does it always have to be from a History Channel scholar that happens to be wrapped around the axle about the 14th Amendment-- that stuff gets old.

The older I get, the more I don't mind being a Treckie of sorts. A Treckie that dislikes most of the episodes of Star Trek that he has seen but has seen them all up to the current franchise. I admittedly still am working my way through the latest, it's rough. The first movies do it for me, and the universe as written in the RPGs and their supplements, as well as chronicles of the STOLRPG (is that a thing wordly wise?) are just so interesting. Maybe that's because the franchise, except for the Star Trek: Discovery, looks back at itself and the creators therein like to talk about that universe that came before.
Even the animated series Lower Deck is interesting, if a bit too Mary Sue in its simplified structure meant for 40 y/o's but pretending to be for High Schoolers-- Hey it was easier to watch than my STtAS on Saturday morning TV in the 70s in Walnut Creek, TX and then Dresden, DE.

My nuts-and-bolts science fiction formulations are up there with the best. While I am not writing overfunded novels about the future, using free material and data that is out there for everyone, I know more about space and humanity in space theories than any TV writer for the Expanse series. Authors/presenters like Isaac Arthur start to get things right in my estimation, if they'd only get over all the mega structures and colonization of Venus (of all places). Rich coming from a guy that has written about twelve spacemen versus martian variations of the years. 

The loss is high fantasy. Ever since Peter "Big Eyes, Bigger Gut" Jackson's take on The Two Towers, it's all been depressing. A dude at work played the video game, released a month before the movie, and basically showed me almost every scene that I would watch later in the movie theater that weekend. While eating popcorn the next day, I discovered the parts of the movie I disliked were when Tolkien text was actually used. Then there was the whole Game of Thrones phenomena. I have always found George RR Martin to be a bit gimmicky. The HBO series where everyone who was anyone had to make an appearance, without a wig to make things look slightly not like their IMDB picture, in a gimmicky and rambling plot, err plots written by machines or immigrant workers using Word 99 to paste in screen footage from better fantasy movies. The movie take on The Hobbit just went on to prove the point. Then plots for various other video games making their way to Netflix, looking at you Witcher, have been no improvement either. 

SO I am just going to say it here, here's to all the whackadoodle CGI-technique inspired scripted movies (Like Valerian and The Dark Knight Rises) that have failed at least they were visually interesting in scenes that were not reproduced from others within the same movie during the run time. A couple movies have tried to be deeper in their fantasy subgenres, they boil to fist fights near the end and dating advice. Those flops though have tried harder than the "superhero movies" by far. 

 You see Marvel, the brand and the management style, has ruined the superhero subgenre. The task of taking visuals from comics and working in cheesy romance sequences to try and get "girls to read comic books" since the 50s, has given big budget studios a basis for making action movies for almost two decades. Sure it works for at least 20% profit growth for a year but does it really work. And after the big pay-offs keeping this or that studio financially solvent in China, how many do you, seated reader, really want to watch again?
Since the inception of "next level" CGI, none are going to be boring to look at even if it isn't top notch. So I want to see some comic book movies that are about style not an overriding continuity. Just remember how The Infinity War parts one and two flat out pointed out how you were being manipulated as a fan and you suddenly found child-focused movies from Disney interesting again. Almost gone is the inclination to do "single shot" movies for this or that lauded comic book hero. Some are going to be good, most will be mediocre and flawed. But it's not the 90s so very few will be bad. 

I suppose overall, I am still on about Lovecraftian themes, if a brought down to big-headed but grade-B budgeted vehicles. I like my brand name sci-fi campy as well. Well, there is a fine line between art and camp and I crossed it long ago.
 

The "Golden Age of TV" Lasted a Season

 The bad writing in the TV and Hollywood movies that we are seeing these days are due to producer decisions not a culture trying to represent its various ethnic segments in stories that sell to those various ethnic segments of any given population basis. Likewise, the bad writing in the TV and Hollywood movies that we are seeing these days are directly addressing social injustices are decisions made by producers wanting to make profits but not investing in creating culture. If you, drinking and smart analyzer of popular media, cringe when you see a child, a woman, or a man of color come up in the Brand Name TV show that you enjoyed as a child of not being born when it was released, it's not your fault.  And as well, if you as a social advocate view narrative fiction TV consumption as education, you are missing out on really informative stuff provided from else where. But truth be told, you're probably just perpetrating a fraud.

As for the white, racial purist on topics like the Marvel Comic take on Thor while not knowing exactly what to do with Captain America. Can you not find anything interesting to read?  There are about 1,700 authors of fantastic fiction that gets more than million sales upon any release. BUT you are fans of trademarks from the late 50s throughout the 80s. The world is meant to be yours, because you like did a web search back in 1997 or were born on the same day as well and have a white-minded penis. You read three comics on reprint and are now the shield maidens of Catholicism or something or another. And we both know, I am spinning.

Sales are marginal.

What WE not you and me? Notice how there is no separation between our demographics any more? So when you harp on about how media has disenfranchised your take on Captain Marvel because of your inherent manhood and genetic Catholicism you get Bree Marie as Kree-Purse One. That because, what is being viewed on your stream is provided by what I will call a box-lunch provider. You get the best and the "We" forget the rest. The rest might be really good, and you were out voted. You get what you get. The numbers decided that you wanted bullshit, and it worked at least in acceptable outcomes figured out.

I would go on about creative artists versus brand names, but it's hopeless right now. The creatives I am finding are all about stealing and/or selling out.

Should've Been Written By Manatees.

I just watched a movie totally cobbled together by an algorithm though three people are credited with typing it out after they read what a machine told them to. The process must’ve been:
“So like what do 30-50 y/o male comic book buyers like? According to sales of 40K per release Batman and Justice League. Then the whole supernatural caboodle with freshens things up for the younger crowd and hippies about 30K an issue in sales. Hey Nightwing, err Teen Titans pulls in the soccer moms and gays, they sometimes spend up to 20$ a pop. I hear the Frank Miller militia likes apocalypse, that’s another $2.11 for all ten million of their internet sock puppets. Stuff by Jack Kirby goes over big with the drunks, they spend 13k a year before their credit cards are declined. “Dark” sells and Matt Ryan is TV rates. Well there’s Justice League Dark and Darkseid. Two “darks” yeah. Let’s do this.
Don’t forget Harlequin because... Millennials.”

That’s what you get with Justice League DARK Vs DARKseid. Also called Justice League Dark: Apocalypse War which isn't any better.
So like Superman wants to defensively launch a preemptive strike on Apocalypse because Darkseid is bad and is coming for Earth one day. Just like the Netherlands did when they knew Nazi Germany was going invade as much of Europe as it could in late 30s, wait a second... . So despite coherent arguments to not do so, everybody sides with Superman. John Constantine known for his Justice League-ness these days, because supernatural comic books don’t sell over 20k an issue with their own names, is on the bus to Apocalypse. And the rest of the movie is a post-apocalyptic drama, see what the writers did there, where everybody gets what they want.

Superman being a self-entitled douche. Constantine being a douche canoe. 14 y/o’s saying “fuck” and dealing with parents. Kirby’s Fourth World gets mentioned as part of Darkseid’s milieu. The Suicide Squad does suicide with Louis Lane. Oh yeah Oa gets destroyed because why not?

A strength to the movie, if there is one, is the depth of characterization in the personas that weren't Superman, Darkseid, and the Swamp Thing. But that is not a hard thing when the task is write the closing act to a tale of doom and desolation. The movie should have been more interesting in the starting acts and then piece would've not been worthy of doing laundry while watching it. That would've taken humans thinking about how the characters should be presented at the start of it instead of doing coloring book plot exposition.

A definite Robomonster of a flick. I wish it had been written by manatees. Where was Jimmy Olsen and his Newspaper Boys?

NoGenCon Hoot 2020: When Cometh the Moth?

So with GenCon being cancelled this year, our gaming clique, the serious ones at least, got serious about doing the Mothman trip that we've been planning since like 'o7. Peryton and I started out a day earlier than everybody planning on attending. So on Wednesday afternoon we pulled off I-77 in New Philadelphia, Ohio for lunch.
"Hey look the Towpath Tavern." Robin noticed. "But we don't have time for that."
"We are headed to a Quality Inn along the Ohio River coal-burning Valley," I replied. "A day earlier than anybody."
"I wonder if they have decent onion rings, let's find out." She answered.
When we got moving again we decided to listen John Keel's The Mothman Prophesies to get into the right mood.

We made it around 5pm and did a driving reconnoiter of the Point Pleasant, WV/Gallipolis, OH before just settling on finding the named motel. Waiting for Caed and Ravish(Rodney, Caed's husband) to show up in the evening left us with some time to kill. It would soon be raining, so we had the excuse to sit around the room and read game books and nap all day. I still did a little walking and found where I think the original collapsed bridge was.

Getting text messages on my phone, I realized that it was already 6pm and that Robin and Rodney (Caed and Ravish) were there. We met in the lounge of the hotel, I stand corrected from my earlier assessment of Quality Inn, in our usual trickle in fashion. The men first, then the women; my wife of course being the last.
The Old Home Week Evening was awesome, as it usually is. If we all hadn't been practicing in front of mirrors for an entire month, there was some serious note taking and stage details worked out before hand. The storytelling with only four of us there was worthy of a Tony Award at least. Well, at least mine was. I mean who else would I be listening to hear my own beautiful and rich voice?

Rod the Ravisher being apprehended by Museum Security

The next day, everyone was a little hungover but I was able to wrestle everyone from their nap spots and out the door to do the shopping part of the trip done while we waited for new Tom and Saharrah (Tom Too and Sahar) to show up. We texted them and told them to meet us in town. When they arrived, after Pery had spent 200$, and treated my fake niece and her betrothed to admission to the world famous Mothman Museum.

After the pleasant afternoon in the hot sun and fresh air in a quaint smaller city's downtown area, it was time for big dinner with the whole gang assembled. Then it was time, after a quick nap, it was time for the important stuff. It rhymes with GAMING.

Everyone wanted to some serious D&Ding so I acquiesced and even played. Still Pery would not let me play an one-eyed half-ork general because her long session was set in Middle Earth. Hey I saw the movies, there were orks in them. She's was just being Character Class Racist. I need to get a Twitter account to rake up some fake controversy.  I mean somebody got to play an elf girl with no hit points to speak of.
The game ran from 9pm Friday and into the late afternoon of the next day. There was some sleep time and a big breakfast so we all could bug our latest favorite waitress, Lezza (just call her awesome). I believe this is what "true gamers" hope for. So unlike my three to four hour quippy sessions that I run at GenCon and online for the rest of the year. I had fun, but I couldn't help but feel like I was clocking in when restarted.

After that game, our gang deigned to allow me to run some Crawlspace. Came up with a session called The Funeral using a couple of seeds from some scenarios knocking around in my head already. Around midnight, we cleaned up our mess and everyone could get some real sleep. The last session at the Hoot is always a test of endurance.

The next day, everyone slept in. Caed and Ravish slipped out so Tom Too had to pay the bill on their shared room. I bought us all some brunch, so Pery and I dragged "the kids" out to the TNT Bunkers so central to the folklore of the Mothman cycles of Kultura Americana.

The bunkers are a nice low-level nature walk. Almost a mile and pretty well maintained, probably by the Department of Parks and Recreation. The bunkers are still temples of adolescent partydom, which sticks to fairly interesting graffiti. Our particular hike was just great. A storm system had rained just enough the night before to cool down the 90s into the high 70s. The scorching sun was mostly behind clouds (LOOK HOW MUCH SUNBURN I AM NOT!), and it's a real bog. The water was only mildly lawn fertilizer polluted, so while slime covered, it still looked like water not pea soup when big frogs would jump in. 

So we took our time getting home after hugging Sahar and Tom goodbye. We drove up to Pomeroy and up to Zanesville before finding the Mighty Road, I-77, to make our way home. We got to enjoy the lovely country air filled with smog from fracking facilities. Have to admit I was a little glad to get back to Cleveland where I get some fresh air.

Peryton Moth-Wenching it up Saturday night.