Avengers: Endgame (a movie review post)

 

MCU #22

My original Endgame review, in which I mostly don't talk about the movie but still manage to get in a dig at Edward Norton.

I'm just going to say it: Endgame is the greatest achievement in cinematic history. This is not an opinion on the quality of the movie. Even if it had been a terrible movie, it would still be the greatest achievement ever in movies: the culmination of one storyline carried through more than 20 movies over the span of more than a decade. It's rather mind-blowing when you think about it like that. It also happens to be a great movie.

Here is what I'm going to say about that: It is not a movie you can legitimately watch or appreciate unless you've seen, minimally, all of the Avengers movies, but you really need to have seen everything MCU to... feel the full gravity of it. Not all pieces of entertainment are designed to stand on their own, and that's okay. In fact, it's good. It allows for more complex and interesting stories. You can all thank Tolkien for this. Prior to the release of The Lord of the Rings, it was thought by publishers that "the audience" wouldn't be interested by anything long and complex. Even once the concept that some people really enjoyed long, complex stories was introduced into books, it took a long time for movies and television to catch up. And you can probably thank Lucas for that because, without Star Wars, who knows when that idea would have worked its way into movies.

I am not one to cry at movies, not much or often, but I had tears during Endgame. The scene where Happy is sitting with Morgan before Tony's funeral is so touching. Not to mention the moment Peter has with Tony as he dies. It's hard stuff to watch. And it's part of what has made the MCU great. Real moments that can't be taken back or undone. Actions with consequences that the heroes have to live and deal with. We've learned over the years that you can't depend on that in comic books; comic books revert, always, to status quo, no matter who dies or what happens. The MCU is not like that and, I think, it elevates the MCU above the comics. Tony Stark died. Deal with it.

Not that he was the only one; he's just the example.

Endgame hits hard from the opening scene. It's also terribly difficult to watch Clint lose his entire family. This movie is, more than anything, about loss and how we deal with it. How to deal with it. Steve Rogers runs a support group. Barton murders survivors whom he has decided didn't deserve to survive. Both extremes are understandable. Everyone is dealing with their loss in the best way they can.

But you know that the heroes somehow have to win...
I do like that when they "fixed" "the snap" that they didn't just put everything back to the way it was. This, again, is living and dealing with the consequences, stuff we're getting to see play out in the various Disney+ series. It's a much different way than in The Infinity Gauntlet, which returned things exactly to how they were.

Anyway...
Favorite moment, and this is my favorite moment from the entire MCU:
When Captain America, after having his shield broken to pieces by Thanos, picks up Mjolnir. It's powerful.
And Thor's reaction is pretty priceless as well.

Endgame may not be the MCU movie I would pull out to watch for fun on any given night -- it's not that kind of movie -- but I do think it's the best of the MCU. Every character has a moment. The heroes win but not without cost. It's powerful and heartbreaking. It's great.

[One thing to point out: It's great in a way that, say, Return of the Jedi is not but possibly could have been. Lucas originally planned for Calrissian to die in the Falcon in the destruction of the Death Star but, in the end, Lucas couldn't go through with it. He didn't want the movie to end on a bummer. Endgame doesn't shy away from it.]

The new rankings:

1. Avengers: Endgame

2. Captain America: Civil War

3. The Avengers
4. Captain America: The First Avenger

5. Avengers: Infinity War

6. Spider-Man: Homecoming
7. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
8. Iron Man

9. Captain Marvel

10. Black Panther

11. Doctor Strange

12. Ant-Man

13. Thor: Ragnarok
14. Thor: The Dark World
15. Thor

16. Guardians of the Galaxy

17. Ant-Man and the Wasp

18. Avengers: Age of Ultron

19. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
20. Iron Man 3
21. Iron Man 2
22. Incredible Hulk (Edward Norton's ego is so strong that it actually survived the snap despite being part of the 50% chosen.)

Furies of Calderon (a book review post)

Any of you who have been around here for a while will know that I have a fairly high tolerance for reading -- let's say -- poor books. Sometimes really poor books. Sometimes really poor series of books. It's not that I enjoy it -- the pain of reading bad books -- I just don't like not finishing something that I start. Also, I tend to hold out the hope for some of them that they'll get better.

I suppose I was hoping this would be one of those, one that gets better, because I like Jim Butcher. The Dresden Files are great, at least the first dozen or so that I've read are, so I was expecting that The Codex Alera would be at least somewhere in the same range of quality.

But no...

Let's make a sports analogy, just for fun. If The Dresden Files were a major league baseball team, Furies of Calderon would be, like, a little league team. Except it would be grown men playing at a little league level and trying to go up against a major league team. It would be something worse than the Bad News Bears.

This book was bad.

Seriously, there was nothing in it that I enjoyed. Not even a single character. The plot was a pretty cliche. And don't get me started on the magic system.

Let me give some context:

I picked up the first two books when I got Furies. See, I really did expect to like it. Jim Butcher, right? By halfway through, I'd decided that there was no way I was going to read anymore of the books, and I hate not reading a book that I've already bought. It's a waste of money. But it was so bad I knew there was no way I could do it.

But I decided that I would, at least, go ahead and finish the one I was reading. I mean, Jim Butcher! It could get better! There was a chance, right? So I forged ahead... and got to within a hundred pages of the end of the book (and it's a long book, so 100 pages was, really, close to the end) and...
Well, I decided I'd had enough. Even with just only 100 pages to go, I couldn't bring myself to finish it. It wasn't worth wasting that much more time to do.

Here's my insight into this series:
Butcher has said that he always wanted to write epic fantasy. It was what he started out trying to do when he was a kid after reading Tolkien. I think this is the story he came up with when he was a teenager, maybe a middle schooler. Once he got famous enough off Dresden, he went back to this story he dreamed up when he was a kid and began writing it without any changes. Because it reads like it was written by a kid, and I've read enough stories by middle schoolers to recognize the style.

Oh, and possibly the worst thing in the book?
He uses the word "pace" all the time! No one walks; everyone paces. And it just doesn't mean the same thing. It broke me from the story every time he used it, sometimes three or four times on a page. It was awful. That wasn't the only word he used repetitively, but it was by far the worst.

All I can really say is don't read this book. I mean, I couldn't finish it. I couldn't finish it, and that's pretty significant.

Hidden Figures (a movie review post)

I know that I just got through saying that I had found my pick for Best Picture winner this year and that I didn't think that would change. Well, I was wrong. I'm glad I specified that I hadn't seen all the likely nominees yet, and even I am surprised that I'm going with Hidden Figures over Arrival. That should tell you just how good Hidden Figures is because Arrival is in just about every way my kind of movie. What can I say? I like sci-fi in my movies.

Or, maybe, I just like science, fiction or not, and Hidden Figures, also, pushes the science button.

Hidden Figures feels to me like a necessary movie for our time. But it's also just a great movie. Great and necessary is a combination that is difficult to overlook.

We have this pervasive view that every important accomplishment not just in the United States but in the world and throughout history has been done by white men -- I mean, we even hold the view, somehow, that Jesus was a white dude; how fucked up is that? -- and that's just not true. It's not even mostly true. And, yet, here we are.

Would we have gone to the moon without the contributions of these three women? Probably. Would we have done it when we did? Almost certainly not. Would the Russians have gotten there first? Maybe.  And, no, it doesn't matter that they have never been. They cut their program back once we had taken a lead that they could not overcome but, if we had never taken that lead, they very well may have retained theirs. Katherine Johnson was instrumental in us taking the lead away from Russia.

But why should we care about one individual mathematician among so many? It's not like we know the names of all of the faceless white dudes in white shirts working for NASA at the time, right? However, if you had looked into that room of faceless white dudes in white shirts, you would have noticed one person who didn't seem to belong, and that is significant. One lone African American. One lone woman. The same person. That she was allowed into that room at all is significant because that means that she was extraordinary, and she deserves recognition.

All three of the women do.
So it was way past time for this movie.

Add to the great story a top-notch cast, and you have what is a wonderful movie. There were seriously great performances all around. That said, two in particular stand out to me:

The first is Janelle Monae (also appearing in Moonlight). She is feisty and fiery as Mary Jackson, and I actually wish there was more of her in the movie. It's a completely different kind of role than she had in Moonlight, too, so it's cool to see her range in these two movies. In fact, I didn't even recognize her as the same actress while I was watching the movie. It's really a stand out performance.

And I hate to highlight a white dude from a movie like this, but Costner's performance as Al Harrison was... well, I'm not going to say it was amazing, but it might be Costner's best role ever. Harrison is an interesting character (which is all I can say since I don't know anything about the actual person), the only one of the group that Katherine Johnson is assigned to who appears to not be racist. He's just oblivious. But when he does take notice of the racism happening around him, he does his best to smash it, sometimes literally. At one point, Costner delivers what seems to me would be an awkward line -- something like, "At NASA, we all pee the same color." -- but he does it with all seriousness and sincerity, and it's a great moment in the film.

Most of all, though, what sells me on this film as the Best Picture is that I would say everyone should see this movie. I wouldn't say that about Arrival, because I know a lot of people who, for many different reasons, wouldn't get the movie. Or enjoy it. It's like my view of Tolkien: I believe everyone should read The Hobbit, but The Lord of the Rings is certainly not for everyone.

So, yes, go see Hidden Figures. If it doesn't give you a fresh perspective on racial inequality in the United States, there is, beyond any doubt, something wrong with you.

[Again this week, the movie review will serve as my political post.]

Dream a Little Dream... Or a Big One

Do you have a "dream"?
Do you even know what that is or what it means?
Is it a dream or a fantasy?
Yeah, I want to make a difference between those things.

But first:

I've been doing this a while, now, the whole author thing and, with it, the blog thing. I've changed the way I blog since way back in the beginning when I used a lot of my time to go and search out other blogs and be very interactive in the whole blogging process. It's time consuming, and I got to a point where I had to ask the question about what my dream was: Was it to write or was it to blog? But that's beside the point, though worth noting. The short of that was that I changed the way I blog, and I no longer go out searching for new blogs by other authors to get involved with.

The point of me telling you that is that I want to note how few blogs show up in my blog feed each day, now. Back when I was being heavily involved in blogging, there would be dozens of blog posts in my feed each day. It was seriously difficult to keep up with. When I changed the way I blogged, I didn't stop following people (even if I did stop visiting all of them), so all of those posts still showed up in my feed each day. Now, though, today, there were only two new posts in my feed. Monday, the heaviest day of the week, there were only eight, and there were none from Saturday and Sunday. [All of these numbers are as I write this on Tuesday, August 16.] Days without posts used to never happen. Never.

Sure, some of the missing people moved onto other platforms (InstaTwitter or whatever), but many of them just gave up on writing. Probably most of them. Okay, actually very certainly most of them. If I go down my list of people who no longer blog, most of them no longer do anything. They just quit.

And that is because of the difference between a dream and a fantasy.

For our purposes, we're going to call a "dream" something you yourself can accomplish.
We're going to call a "fantasy" something that happens to you.

So you can have a dream of buying lottery tickets, but any thoughts of winning the lottery are fantasies. Winning the lottery is not something you can achieve; it can only happen to you. Likewise, you can have a dream of being a writer (because you can sit down and do that), but you can only have a fantasy about being a rich and famous writer. You can be the best writer in the world and never become rich and famous because, as with the lottery, that is mostly luck. Maybe completely.

The problem is that it's easy to subvert your dream with the fantasy. Those things can be easy to confuse. When you believe your dream is the fantasy, you can become disillusioned. I know of several writers who quit, just gave up on it, because, after publishing a couple of things, they didn't become household names. It was crushing to them, and they just quit writing. They had a fantasy of becoming rich and famous and allowed it to take the place  of their dream. That's a dangerous thing, allowing your fantasy to squash your dreams.

How do you deal with that kind of thing?

Well, the first way is to identify your dream and recognize the fantasy for what it is.

However, it is perfectly reasonable to have a dream of being "rich," but you need to identify that as your dream. Your actual dream. If that is your dream, you need to choose a path that enables you to work toward that as a dream and, let me just say, writing is a poor path to riches. Pun totally intended. You could even choose fame as a dream, I suppose, although fame is a very elusive thing, and you need to find avenues that lead to that more readily than writing. I would suggest giving Will Smith a call. Evidently, he followed a very specific plan to get to where he was in the 90s.

Now, I want to take all of this back a step farther: What is your real dream? I mean, writing is my dream, but there is a deeper dream, Let's call the dream the "deep magic," but there is a "deeper magic," the thing that supports the dream. That dream for me is the dream of leaving something behind. Something lasting. Something for my kids but also something that goes beyond just them and, in one way or another, everything I have done in my life has worked toward that.

Let me put it another way:

My grandfather was a great man. I'm going to go into why that is because 1. it would take too long and 2. it's unnecessary to what I'm going to say. He was a great man but, once I and the rest of his grandchildren are dead, there will be nothing left of him. Nothing beyond a notation in a genealogy file somewhere. And a birth certificate. Nothing that anyone will ever take note of in the future. Even the farm he poured his sweat into and the house he helped build are all gone now, burned to nothing in the wild fires that swept through East Texas a few years ago.

I don't know what kinds of dreams my grandfather had; he was more than a little laconic. But it makes me sad that he will be forgotten one day. I want to leave something behind, and my writing serves that dream.

It's not that I have a dream of being the Shakespeare of the age. Or, even, the Tolkien. Or, even, the Lewis. But I would be more than happy with being a MacDonald. See, you people don't even know who that is, do you? Here, I'll help: George MacDonald. See, it doesn't matter how unheard of he is for the most part, because his books are still out there and he still influences people. Probably in more ways than we can even imagine.

So, yeah, I choose the dream of writing to fulfill the dream of leaving something behind that lasts. And, well, if fame and riches follow, well, that's a nice fantasy, but it has nothing to do with my dream.

So what is your dream? Is it small or is it big? And can you separate it from fantasy?




"'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains.

Parcivillian -- Part 4 (a local color post)

Technically, I know the above photo does not qualify as a successful photo, but I really like how it looks, so it's the one you're getting. Well, and the one below, too.

The photos are from a recent performance by Parcivillian and, whereas I would love to talk about that performance and talk about the rehearsal session I sat in on (which was fascinating!), I need to finish up the interview. The part I skipped over. See, being a writer, I felt compelled to ask the guys about, well, what kinds of things they read. In relation to that, I found it really cool that the name of their band comes from a book (see last week's post).

Me: The next question I'm going to ask is going to seem, possibly, weird or offtrack because it has nothing to do with music.

Elliot: How many pets do you have?

Me: No... [And that did make me laugh.] I'm a writer, and a lot of the people who follow my blog are writers, so, as a writer, do you read and what do you read?

Someone, at that point, said, "Oh, boy!" but I can'd tell who it was.

Me: Or have there been any influential books you have read? Even if it's like The Monster at the End of the Book.

Delek: John Steinbeck is my all-time favorite writer. I've read every book he's written.

Me: What's your favorite Steinbeck?

Delek: Actually, Cannery Row. Or, no... I always forget the name. The one about the pirate. That's my favorite one. [There followed a discussion where we (Delek, Elliot, and I) tried to figure out the book, but none of us could come up with which one he meant. I'm still not sure, because I haven't read whichever one it is.] Bukowski, too. I love Bukowski. [I redirected back to Steinbeck through some questions about Steinbeck's King Arthur stuff, so the next comments are about Steinbeck.] Mainly the things about California. And people. How he writes about people. His knowledge of what makes people human is probably what attracts me to his writing.... He's probably my all time favorite writer, but I've read countless books, and I'm still reading countless books. Some stuff in science, some in history. I just read this incredible biography about Benjamin Franklin. It's like music; I read a lot of stuff. I used to read a lot of fantasy.

Me: I went through high school reading fantasy.

Delek: Do you know David Eddings?

Me: Oh, yeah! The Belgariad, after The Lord of the Rings, I think is the best fantasy series ever written.

Elliot: I read that, too.

Delek: I liked that. I liked that actually better than The Lord of the Rings. I liked his writing a lot.
[There was some more discussion about Eddings (during which I do entirely too much of the talking), after which Delek turned to Stav and said, "What do you read?"]

Stav: That's the weird thing; I actually don't read that much. And it's weird because I love writing lyrics to songs but, as far as books and novels, I just don't do it.

Me: They're completely different beasts.

Stav: Yeah, that's right. I did read the Harry Potter books when I was a kid, of course. Those, I loved. They were great. Read books for school. But I'm a very slow reader so, as far as school goes, I kind of struggled through the books, so that's kind of where I'm at. But I love poetry, even though I don't know many huge poets. In school, I loved analyzing and studying the poems. As far as literature, I love poetry, and that's what I try to do when I write songs.

Me: As a song writer, I'd be surprised if you didn't have some kind of attachment to poetry.
[There was a bit more general talk of poetry before we moved on to Elliot.]

Elliot: My all time favorite book is The Pastures of Heaven by Steinbeck.

Me: I haven't read that one.

Delek: That one's amazing.

Elliot: It is. It's the most incredible perspective I've ever seen on the human being. [There's some discussion about Pastures and what it's about.]

Me: Y'all are going to make me have to pick back up on Steinbeck after this.

Elliot: Lately, I've gotten into more novels. Actually, this is a funny story [points at Delek]; he taught me how to read.

Me: Yeah? That's cool!

Elliot: He gave me the first Harry Potter book and worked through about the first chapter with me, I think, and said, "You're on your own." Then I read the whole thing.

Delek: That is a funny story.

Elliot: Yeah... I got into David Eddings. I got into Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett...

Delek: Yeah!

Me: Good Omens.

Elliot: Exactly. [There followed a back and forth discussion of Gaiman and Pratchett.] Somewhere after eighth grade, I got really into Shakespeare, including the poetry. I love that stuff. [Then, there was a discussion of Hamlet.]

Interestingly enough, this all moved into a discussion of the book Parzival, which is the book they took they name from (which you know if you read last week's post (link above)), but they didn't mention the connection at that point. They (Elliot and Delek) just went on and on about how good it is. Stav will have to read it this year, so he hasn't had that experience of it, yet.

Elliot: Of course, I've read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Actually, I like The Hobbit better. I've read [it] three times.

There was some other discussion about The Hobbit during which I talked way too much, and that's where we left the discussion of reading and went back to music. It was great for me to talk to them about what they've read and what's influenced them, and, really, I may have to pick Steinbeck up again. It's actually something I've been meaning to do anyway, so...

And that's a look inside an up and coming band. I hope great things for these guys. They're music is great, and they were a pleasure to meet and hang out with. I'm sure you'll hear a bit more about them from me in the future. They have a concert coming up, so it's not too unlikely that there will be a post about that. Until, then, check out "Lonely Road."

The Name of the Wind (a book review post)

I'm going to start out by saying, "I get it." I get why people rave over this book. It's epic fantasy, and it feels so big. Oh, the incredible world building! And it's told in first person! How can you get better than that? First person epic fantasy!

But it's all a trick. Smoke and mirrors. A lie. Whatever you want to call it. The world building, in actuality, is almost non-existent. What we have are constant views of the insides of wagons and inns. Beyond that, the only thing we have any experience of is the university, and we don't get much of that. Rothfuss fakes it all by telling us this other stuff exists, but we never see it.

Look at Tolkien: He never just tells us a place exists. We come across it, experience it, discover it then, maybe, he tells us about it. Even Robert Jordan and Terry Goodkin take us to and show us the places in his world. Rothfuss just mentions places and lets us assume that his world is big, but he never really even shows us the University. Thinking about it, now, I am realizing how little he gave us about this incredibly "important" part of the book. We know there's a big, box of a building with a bunch of sprawling stuff that was poorly planned. It's like Hogwarts with all the confusion except that Hogwarts has a reason for that to be. Rothfuss just wants to evoke the same kind of thing without having a reason for it.

And, speaking of Hogwarts, can we be through, now, with the young, brilliant student thing for a while? Seriously, how many times are we going to do that? And with, pretty much, the exact same formula: gifted student arrives at magic school, gifted student immediately makes an enemy out of one of the professors, gifted student immediately creates a nemesis in one of the students, gifted student is constantly getting in trouble but comes out the better for it each time, gifted student is generally gifted at everything.

But I think I'm getting ahead of myself, because I was tired of the book way before Kvothe ever got the University.

The book opens as a third person tale. I was good with that. Really good with that. In fact, I am very not good with the seeming overwhelming desire of everyone to write everything in first person these days. So we take this fine, third person story and, just as it's starting, we switch to first person reflection on the protagonists life. And it is so contrived! I could just feel the author thinking, "How can I get Kvothe to tell his own story?" So, you know, he has a guy show up who wants to make a book out of his story and convinces him -- Kvothe, who is supposed to be in hiding and doesn't want anyone to know who he is -- with almost not effort to do that. The whole situation felt completely out of character for Kote, the persona that Kvothe is playing, and it actually felt out of character for Kvothe, especially as we learn more about him, because he never displays any interest in having people know "the truth" and is perfectly fine with them making up whatever they want to further his reputation.

Then, it got worse. One of the first things Kvothe does is explain to us how to say his name. This is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen done in a book and was completely the author, for lack of a better way of putting it, showing off. Think about it. The guy he's talking to knows how to say his name. Even if he hadn't known who Kvothe was, all Kvothe needed to do was to say, "I'm Kvothe." See, there, he heard it. Only us out here in reading land didn't hear it, and Rothfuss, for whatever reason, wanted to make sure we knew the "correct" pronunciation, so he has Kvothe explain it to us.

Now, you might be saying, "But he was explaining for future readers of the story!" Except, well, Kvothe is already a legendary figure -- yes, even in his own time -- so everyone already knows how to say his name, because there are stories about him floating around everywhere. Suggesting that people in the future wouldn't know how to pronounce his name would be like suggesting that we should need Julius Caesar to explain to us how to say his name. Or, maybe, Kanye explaining... um, wait... But, still, the argument stands. I almost just put the book down, right then, when he started explaining his name.

And, then, he stopped to explain how magic works. Really? Why do that? There's no need for anyone to know except that the author wanted to show off how clever he is by explaining his magic system and how it works to the audience. In a world where magic is feared, no one would have stopped to explain that. It was gratuitous. And completely not clever since all it amounted to is that his magic system relies on the laws of conservation of matter and energy.

Except that didn't seem to apply to food, because the food, even in the dead of winter in the snow, seemed to always magically stay warm.

Yeah, right, whatever.

The worst bit, though, other than the name thing which was also the worst bit (and that's me making fun of Rothfuss saying about two different things about a page apart "it was the most beautiful thing I'd seen in three years") was the part where Kvothe suddenly takes off to go investigate a Chandrian rumor. This may be the most contrived situation I've ever seen in a book. Sure, we know that Kvothe is interested in the Chandrian and that he has very passively been trying to find out about them. Very passively. So passively you can barely tell. Then, he hears this rumor about a Chandrian attack and he just drops everything and runs off to investigate it.

There are two things about this:
1. It is clear from the context of the book that the land Kvothe lives in is very rumor infested. Therefore, it is unreasonable to suppose that this is the first rumor of the Chandrian that Kvothe has heard in the past few years, but he takes off specifically to investigate this particular rumor. It would be more believable if Rothfuss had shown us an ongoing interest in Kvothe tracking down these rumors, but he doesn't do that. We're left to believe that Kvothe, at 15, suddenly has an irresistible urge to check this one out.
2. The other option is that this really is the first rumor about the Chandrian that Kvothe has heard since they killed his family. Then, we have to wonder why that is. It's a superstitious land full of superstitious people and rumors about all sorts of mystical things. That there wouldn't be other rumors like this is even harder to believe.

Of course, when he gets there, he finds Denna there in the middle of it. Of course, he does.

And he kills a dragon. Of course, he does.

Which brings us back to blue fire and why there hadn't been any Chandrian rumors due to the blue fire of the dragon.

I could go on...

Basically, this book contained nothing new. It was every fantasy cliche there is out there, including the orphaned boy living on the streets, shaken up and redistributed less skillfully than the sources they came from. Especially, the Kvothe Potter sections. There was nothing charming or interesting about any of it, just Kvothe being better than everyone always.

The end is the only thing that saves the book from being a complete waste of time, but that's just there to entice you on to the next one, and I am tempted, but I'm pretty sure that one will be more of the same, meaning barely more than a complete waste of time. At the moment, I plan not to be lured into going on. Maybe if Rothfuss ever finishes the third one and I hear that it is just extraordinary... Of course, that's what I heard about this one.

The Influence of a Life

Terry Pratchett died.

I don't quite know what I think about this, because I haven't quite come to grips with how I feel about it. I mean, it's not like I was what you'd call a fan of Pratchett's writing in that I haven't read any of the Discworld books. The only thing by him that I've read is Good Omens, and I read that because of Neil Gaiman.

However, there is no denying the influence he's had, through Gaiman, on my writing "career." In fact, it would be safe to say that without Prachett, I would never have started writing. It was one of the first things I talked about way back in the time before time when I started this blog: 400 Words. So there it is, even without ever really reading anything Prachett wrote, I would never have decided to "sit down and do the writing" without him. He gave it a context for me as something that was possible.

Knowing that he's gone has left me with a... hollow feeling just below my sternum. You could say that I'm sad, and I am, but it's not exactly like sadness. It's just the feeling of something missing that ought to be there. It's left me feeling more than a bit out of sorts.

It's also made me think about "influence" and what that means. How we influence people. How often we are deliberate in our influence. What impact do we, do I, have on the people around me? All of that but, specifically, as a writer. What do I want my influence to be?

Of course, when writers talk about influence, they are usually talking about what influenced their style. Or their genre. If they are talking about the why, it's usually in some less practical way of "When I read Tolkien as a kid, I wanted to grow up and create worlds just like he did." And I have had unmistakable influences on the things I write about. There's a direct nod to Lewis in The House on the Corner and one to Tolkien in Christmas on the Corner and, when I needed to develop my villain for Shadow Spinner and was trying to think of the scariest thing I'd ever "encountered," it was a character of Gaiman's that came to mind.

But, still, none of that would have mattered if I had never sat down to do the writing, and I have no one else to look to for that influence other than Gaiman for telling the story about how Pratchett started out. Gaiman wouldn't have had the story to tell without Pratchett.

All of that to say that I feel a great sense of loss at Pratchett's passing. And, yes, while everyone knew it was coming (of course, death is coming for everyone, so we knew it was coming), this is one of those battles where knowing doesn't help anything. I knew my grandfather was going to die when I was 20, but it was still devastating when it happened, and we knew my mother-in-law was going to die, but that still rocked our family. I wish I could tell his family the impact that he had on me. Not that it really helps, except that it does.

Not to mention, if there's anyone out there that I may one day look like, it's probably Terry Pratchett.

According to my wife, I just need to make a shift to black.

And, yes, that really is how I go out. I had no idea about Pratchett and his signature black fedora until I was writing this post.

An Exploration in Fantasy -- Part Six: The Draw (an IWM post)

I suppose the real question is, "Why does all of this matter?" Of course, that's the real question for so many things, but let's just look at it in relation to fantasy for the moment. Why does it matter? Why should we care about fantasy or where it comes from?

And that could go in all kinds of directions and get all kinds of philosophical, but I want to look at it in relation to the fantasy model itself. You can find the list here.

So... Let's start with kids.

* * *

But let's start with kids over on Indie Writers Monthly. Yeah, I know you know the drill.

I'll see you there. I better see you there.

An Exploration in Fantasy -- Part Five: The Source (an IWM post)

Imagine you're a kid. Your father is a landowner and a knight. Your older brother is obviously being groomed as the heir, which is normal and natural. He is, actually, a knight in his own right. You, however, are not being trained as a second, a backup, which would also be normal and natural. You're being trained to take care of horses and muck stalls and do the upkeep on your brother's gear, but that's about it. Sure, you'll get to be a squire, but you can tell there's some... difference; you're just not sure what it is. Clearly, your father loves you, and it's not a matter of favoritism; your brother is held just as accountable for wrongs as you are. But there is something... something that sets you apart. Or is that just wishful thinking?

This tournament comes up, and your brother is going to take part. He's even one of the favored knights. But something happens. The morning of the tournament, there's a problem with your brother's sword. He's livid. Stomping around. He demands that you find him a new one. And that's where everything changes...

* * *

Raise your hand if you know where this is going.

Raise your hand if you knew you were going to have to jump over to Indie Writers Monthly to read the rest of this. Now, go!

An Exploration in Fantasy -- Part Four: The Darkest Hour (an IWM post)

Along our fantastic fantasy journey, so far, we've learned that we're special and could be the prophesied one, among other things. We've met a mentor and found some friends. We've also gone on a journey, probably in search of something. Hopefully, it's a been a learning experience, and we're fully prepared to meet the final challenge. It's a dark time for the rebellion, after all.

From the initial list I made (which you can see here), we need to cover three more points:

* * *

And, like always, to find out what those three more points are, you will need to hop over to Indie Writers Monthly. This one is all about technology and dark lords. Go read!

An Exploration in Fantasy -- Part Three: Who's Gonna Learn Ya? (an IWM post)

There's no teaser, today, for part three of my exploration into the origins of the modern fantasy arc. If you want to read it, you'll just have to go right over to Indie Writers Monthly and do that. And you totally should.
Today, we really get into what's Tolkien and what's not.

Go, now, and read THE POST!

An Exploration in Fantasy -- Part Two: Orphans and the Gum Under the Seat (an IWM post)

It may seem that the easiest way to find the origins of fantasy literature would be to simply follow the trail of fantasy literature back in history until we get to the earliest examples of it, but that would cause some problems. For instance, when does fantasy cease to be fantasy and become legend or myth? Are we going to call Beowulf a fantasy story? Or the tales of the Greek and Egyptian gods? Or Gilgamesh? It gets kinda messy if we do that. And that's not really what we're looking for, anyway. No, we're trying to establish where our current model for fantasy writing comes from. Look back at the last post to see the list.

So, although we're not going to go looking for historical beginnings, we are going to start at the beginning. Or, at least, where all fantasy stories start: the orphan boy. Sure, sure, it's not always a boy; Disney has given us plenty of girls, after all; but, when we start talking about the genre of fantasy literature, it's nearly always a boy. Or, even, outside the strict confines of fantasy. Let's take a look at some of the most popular examples (and some that I just like):

Oh! Wait! That list is over on Indie Writers Monthly, but it's a good list, so you should go on over and read it. Go see if your favorite fantasy character made the cut!

An Exploration in Fantasy -- Part One: The List (an IWM post)

Prior to Tolkien, fantasy writing was sparse. At least, what we think of now as fantasy was sparse. Because of that, Tolkien is widely considered the "Father of Modern Fantasy" or, specifically, the "Father of High Fantasy." Along with the title has come the assumption that it was Tolkien who established our model of how fantasy ought to be written, that it was Tolkien who originated the tropes. People, often people who have not read The Lord of the Rings, look at what Tolkien did and ascribe the origins of all that fantasy has become to him.

Now, I love The Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit, as you'll know if you've checked out my "Of Significance..." page on my own StrangePegs blog, is one of the three books that I think everyone should read. And I don't undervalue Tolkien's importance. There would be no fantasy genre as we know it today without him. However, I don't think that we can "blame" Tolkien for today's fantasy tropes. In fact, many of the things we think he did, he did not, in fact, do. No, for the origins of fantasy, we have to look elsewhere.

* * *

And that elsewhere is Indie Writers Monthly. Sort of. I mean it will be where to look. Today, we're just talking about the elements of fantasy. And there's a list! Everyone loves lists, right? So hop right over and check it out!

Desolation of The Hobbit (a movie review post)

[Warning: This post may (will) contain offensive language and/or concepts, things I don't generally have on my blog. Thinking about it, I should just send this post over to the Beer Guys and let them do it in the way they do best, but, hey, it's my review, so... just be prepared.]

Disclaimer: As I've mentioned before, the main problem with what Jackson has done with The Hobbit stems from his dishonesty about his intentions. If he had said upfront, "I'm going to adapt the book to fit with my version of Middle Earth," there wouldn't be nearly the problem. However, what he said for years, right up to the release of the first movie, was "I am being completely faithful to the book." Either he's just a liar or he's delusional (and, at this point, I'm leaning toward delusional).

The terms "rape" and "childhood" are often used when anyone of my generation talks about the Star Wars prequels. I don't actually feel that way about them. My view has more to do with the fact that Lucas has the right to do whatever he wants to do with his own stuff. It's like if I want to paint my living room in orange and green stripes, you don't get to tell me I should change it. I'm the one that lives in it, and, if I like it, it's no concern of yours. You don't have to come over and see it if you don't want to. And, if my house is full of all the coolest things in the world, which makes you want to come over, you still don't get to complain about the color scheme. That's the price you have to pay to come over and play with my toys.
And, hey, my kids love Jar Jar, as do all of the "Star Wars kids" I know.

However, The Hobbit does not belong to Peter Jackson. What he's done with The Hobbit is like you coming to my house and re-painting my living room in puke green and neon pink. Except, actually, it's more like Peter Jackson bending Bilbo and Tolkien over, reaching up their asses simultaneously, grabbing their intestines, and ripping them out through their assholes. Then he uses the intestines to decorate the room. And, by the way, the stench he creates from that just doesn't go away.

Seriously, I have never seen more disrespect delivered to source material than what Jackson has done in The Desolation of Smaug. With the first movie, An Unexpected Journey, Jackson at least held to some semblance of the story from the book: a group of dwarves seeking to reclaim their homeland from a dragon. However, Jackson wastes no time at all in destroying all of that in the very first moments of Desolation. He does a dance on the bloodied corpse of Bilbo and Tolkien while waving their innards through the air and splattering the walls with their blood.

In The Hobbit, Gandalf is never fully behind the trip to the Lonely Mountain. He's willing to help the dwarves along so that they have a chance of surviving, but he views the whole thing as more of a fool's errand. And (and this is a big "and") he never intends to accompany them on the entire trip. He just happens to be going in the same direction, so to speak, so travels along with them to keep them out of trouble as best as he can while he's there. But Jackson makes the whole venture into a plot by Gandalf. It's not Thorin who decides he wants to retake his homeland; it's Gandalf. And it has nothing to do with "homeland;" it's about finding the Arkenstone and uniting the various dwarven kingdoms under one king so that he can raise an army.

WHAT?

Gandalf wants to raise an army? Why the heck does Gandalf want an army? The implication is that the army is needed to fight The Enemy, but, see, even in Jackson's timeline, no one knows about that yet. The ring has not been found, no one knows the Necromancer is Sauron, there is no great threat to the world. But Gandalf wants an army and sends Thorin into the mountain for the sole reason of retrieving the stone.

And, of course, everyone knows what's going on except Bilbo and the other dwarves. When the dwarves are captured by the elves, Thranduil knows without asking that Thorin is after the Arkenstone. When Bilbo sneaks down to check out Smaug, Smaug already knows that it's Thorin after the Arkenstone. The whole thing is stupid. STUPID. I cannot express how much this whole thing violates the premise and the theme of the book.

And, see, I can't even give a breakdown of where the movie deviates from the book, because it would just take too long. There is virtually nothing from the book in this second movie apart from some characters with the same names.

The worst of it is that when I saw the trailer for the movie and saw the whole barrel thing (which is beyond ludicrous the way Jackson has done it with his "magic" floating barrels (they're not magic) that never fill up with water and sink despite the number of times they go under water), I thought, "Well, that's going to be even more dumb than the domino trees in the first movie," but, really, I thought that would be the worst of it. Just more stupid stuff like that. And the Pale Orc, of course, because Jackson had already started his descent into total depravity; I just didn't realize how far into the sewer he was willing to go. And not just willingly, he's actively swimming in shit and loving it.

Yes, it all makes me mad to think about.

Like I said, there is not time to go through all of the things that makes this movie so horrid, but here are some of the worst:
1. The aforementioned mess with the Arkenstone.
2. Kili doesn't have a beard. A dwarf without a beard? Seriously, what the heck? [And, yes, I suppose he didn't have a beard in Journey, but Kili wasn't highlighted in that one, and, I guess, I just didn't notice, but the whole thing is wrong.]
3. Elf/dwarf romance? Again, seriously, what the heck?
4. The dwarves split up and some stay in Laketown. WHAT THE HECK?
5. There is a huge battle in the mountain between Smaug and the dwarves. WHAT THE DOUBLE HECK?

Did Peter Jackson even read the book? I mean, it's bad enough that Jackson used the spiders as an excuse to feature the elves (just like he did with Helm's Deep in The Two Towers) and Legolas doing spider surfing (what the heck is up with Jackson and elf surfing?), but he's ripped the heart out of The Hobbit, put it in a blender, and... I don't know what. I suppose he drank it. Actually, he reminds me of Gollum singing to that fish in the LotR movies. Singing to the fish and, then, beating it on the rocks. That's what he's done with The Hobbit. Followed by ripping into it with his teeth.

I'd really like to be able to tell how the movie is just as a movie, but I can't do that with this one. The Hobbit has been with me for something like 35 years, and I can't think of it from the position of "What would I think of this if I had never read the book?" What that makes me think of is how Jackson is actually destroying the book for a whole generation of readers. Can you imagine having seen these movies first and then trying to read the book? You'd be wondering where all these other characters are: Radagast, Legolas, Tauriel. Even Azog. This issue, I think, is even worse than the movies. That's saying a lot, because Desolation is like all of the worst things ever mixed into one "worst thing ever" package. And that just doesn't approach the long-term damage Jackson may be doing to kids that want to read the book.

So, yeah, I have no way to independently evaluate this as "just a movie." There is no "just a movie" in this to me. This is the kind of thing that lives in my nightmares as a writer. I mean, we all know that Hollywood can be terrible with intellectual properties and strip mine them just to get at the money. Or, maybe, these days, I should say they frack them for all they're worth. But what Jackson has done to The Hobbit goes so far beyond what typical Hollywood has ever done. And that's where I'll end, because, to go on, I'd have to start making value judgements about Jackson and what he thinks of himself, but I don't actually know the guy. I do not, however, have any "benefit of the doubt" left for him.

The Hobbit: A Review (Part 2)

Disclaimer: The fact that I'm reviewing this right now has nothing to do with the release of the movie.

Note: Those of you who have read my "Of Significance..." page may remember that The Hobbit is listed there, so this is (by far) not my first reading of the book.

Part 1 of this review is here.

It is of great interest to me that Tolkien is considered the "father of modern fantasy" when so much of modern fantasy has nothing to do with what or the way Tolkien wrote. While it's true that The Hobbit is a classic fantasy story, it is not classic in the sense that it uses all the normal conventions of fantasy. In fact, despite that many (most?) people would say that modern fantasy is largely based on Tolkien, you will find few to none of what we consider basic fantasy tropes in The Hobbit (or The Lord of the Rings).

One of the most common bits of fantasy literature is the young, male protagonist. Young often means teenager. Most often, probably. The last couple of decades have finally brought us a bevy of female protagonists, but, still, youth is the most common theme. Bilbo, however, is not young. He's not even what we would consider middle-aged. He's not quite "old," but he's definitely on his way. Definitely "established" and definitely set in his ways. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any other piece of fantasy literature that's like that except The Lord of the Rings, because Frodo (and the other hobbits), also, is not young (something Peter Jackson conveniently forgot). [And it's not one of these things where hobbits are old but still young like elves can be, because hobbits are Tolkien's stand-ins for humans and age about the same way (when Bilbo is turning 111 in LotR, he is old, as in really old, as in ancient).] The closest other thing I can think of is Stephen Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, who is not old but is definitely not young.

The next piece is that this young protagonist is frequently (almost always) an orphan of some kind. Maybe, s/he has one of his/her parents, but the protagonist generally has lost at least one of them and almost always to some kind of violent circumstance. Maybe this is why the orphan princess is so common in Disney? Bilbo is definitely not an orphan. Which is not to say that his parents are alive, because they're  not, but, then, he's 50, and there is no indication that they died of anything other than old age. Or, maybe, boredom.

Then there is the requisite prophecy about the protagonist. The list of fantasy literature which feature a prophecy would probably exceed my usual word count, so I'll just remind everyone of Harry Potter and how he fits all three of these so far. Even The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe has a prophecy. The Hobbit contains no prophecy (neither does LotR). There is nothing "special" about Bilbo in that sense. He has not been chosen by fate to do what he does. This is a story about a hobbit that rises to the occasion. It's more like your boss at work needing a job done, choosing the person the boss thinks is most qualified, and that person choosing to do it.

And there is no "party" of adventurers. No, the dwarves don't count, because they're all interchangeable on the whole. And Gandalf abandons them half way through. So there's no wizard, no fighter, no ranger, no healer, none of that stuff we expect to find among the heroes band of followers. Just the burglar, and that's Bilbo.

Possibly the biggest break from convention is that Bilbo is not the valiant warrior that "saves the day" in the end. He does not slay the dragon, and he does not defeat the goblin army. He's not even conscious for most of that. Bilbo is a hero of another type, let's say a moral hero, which is so much more important and believable. Bilbo's bravest moment is when he walks down the tunnel to see the dragon. Not to fight the dragon, just to see him. I love that bit:

Going on from there was the bravest thing he ever did. The tremendous things that happened afterwards were as nothing compared to it. He fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait.

And his most significant contribution to the end of the story is standing up against his friends when they are set on a wrong path. Neville Longbottom's stand against his friends and Dumbledore's rewarding of it very much reminded me of Bilbo handing the Arkenstone over to Bard.

Basically, despite what everyone says about "all fantasy" being based on Tolkien, almost no fantasy is based on Tolkien. What Tolkien did was original and, amazingly, remains original to this day. No one else has written a story like The Hobbit (and, although people have attempted stories like The Lord of the Rings, no one has succeeded), and I have to wonder if that's because the story becomes so much bigger in our minds after we read it. Bilbo becomes this larger than life hero that he's really not in the book, and that's, frankly, amazing. We remember him fighting the spiders and riddling with Gollum and the dragon, but we forget that it's Bard that kills the dragon and the Eagles that save the day in the Battle of Five Armies. It really is like what Gandalf tells him in the end:

You are a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all.

We don't tend to have characters like that in our fantasy. Our protagonists are huge, essential characters who have the fate of the world hanging on their shoulders, and Bilbo is not that kind of hero.

He's just a guy that learns that he's capable of more than he believes he is, and I think that's an important lesson to learn. And I love that we see that change through the pages of The Hobbit. He goes from being a guy that runs away from just the idea of an adventure, of anything different, to the guy that gets them all caught by trolls, to the guy that everyone depends upon. There's no unlocking of the secret, magical talent that only he possesses; there is only Bilbo learning to use the "gifts" that everyone is given. There is only Bilbo deciding to go instead of stay and to do instead of not. It is Tolkien telling us that there is a bit of the Tookish inside of all of us... if only we can wake it up.

The Hobbit: A Review (Part 1)

Disclaimer: The fact that I'm reviewing this right now has nothing to do with the release of the movie.

Note: Those of you who have read my "Of Significance..." page may remember that The Hobbit is listed there, so this is (by far) not my first reading of the book.

As I've mentioned, I'm teaching a creative writing class at my kids' school. When it was discussed, back at the beginning of the school year, about assigning them a book to read to go along with the class, I immediately suggested The Hobbit. It was not on the "short list;" it was the list. I really can't think of a better book from which to teach writing form. Also, there is the part about introducing the kids to great literature.

My choice of The Hobbit as a book I think everyone should read has nothing to do with it being a great book. I do think it's a great book, but, mostly, I think it's a simple book. And, when I say "simple," I mean "straightforward." It is not a book with a complicated and convoluted plot. It doesn't have hidden meanings and subtleties. It is what it says it is, a fantastical adventure story. That's why I wanted to use it for the creative writing class assignment.

If you want to look at plot arc, you can. The story follows only one protagonist, and there aren't any twining branches or confusing twists. It's just "hero gets into trouble"/"hero gets out of trouble." It's easy to look at and map out and, most importantly, it's easy for them to understand.

If you want to look at character development, you can. Bilbo is not the same person at the end of the story as he is going in, and you can see the changes as they happen, and that's good for these young writers to see. Especially, it is good for them to see in a literary world where so few characters do any real changing these days other than becoming awesome fighters through some brief training montage. Actually, as I'm typing this, I think The Hobbit should be required reading for anyone hoping to be an author. These days, it's all about "voice," but I really don't care how good your voice is if your protagonist doesn't grow within the story. If the protagonist doesn't change, your story falls flat. [And, now, I'm thinking of a ton of books that I have been less than pleased with, and I think this is the reason: no character growth.]

If you want to look at how to deliver a message within a story, The Hobbit has that, too. Not hidden or veiled messages but messages told through the repercussions of the actions of the characters. I mean, you can't get more clear than when someone tells you to stay on the trail, you need to do it. And, no, that's not really what I'm talking about, but I don't want to get into the specifics until I actually get into the review. The book does, though, have strong messages about greed and war in particular.

The Hobbit, in many ways, is the perfect introduction to reading. It's a clear story that most of us can actually relate to in some way. It has humor and sorrow. It's fast and it's fun. It's simple enough for a child yet full of things only an adult can understand. It's the story that you would beg your grandfather to tell on a cold night in front of the fireplace, and Tolkien tells it that way. Right down to the hypothetical question, "What is a hobbit?" right in the middle of the narration. In short, the story is delightful. And scary. And exciting. And sad. It is full of life and what life is, and, yes, I think everyone should read it. Earlier is better than later, but, if you missed it when you were 10 or 12, there is always time to go back and make up for it.

Having said that, no, I don't think everyone will love it or, even, like it, but it's one of those things -- like chocolate or cheese -- that you just need to taste. Skipping it entirely is too much of a risk.

On Poetry (part 2)

I mentioned last time that people don't read poetry anymore, which is a true thing. Not that no one reads poetry, but, if you're not being made to do it for school or something, there's not a very strong likelihood that you're ever going to bother with poetry again. Less than 5% of you, in fact (and, maybe, by "you," I don't mean the "you" of you reading this blog, because that you reads more than other people, but the "you" of people out there isn't reading poetry, or reading much at all, for that matter). But... why? Why don't people read poetry anymore? It used to be that everyone read poetry. [And if, by chance, you want to read an exceptional bit of poetry, a piece (and a post) inspired by part 1 of this series (link above), just click here. Briane actually does a great job explaining his thoughts on why poetry requires structure, and he does it much more eloquently than I did. And he did it with a poem that he wrote in, basically, an afternoon, and that just blows me away, because poetry, writing it, is not my strong suit.]

I think the biggest reason people no longer read poetry is that people don't know how to read it. Any of it. And I think that the rise of free verse in the 20th century has played a big part in that. It has, in effect, untaught us on how to read poetry. Free verse tends to be fragmentary in that each line contains a complete thought, and you read it line by line. Now, let me be clear, this is not all free verse, and it certainly isn't the way free verse was when it was first becoming a "thing," back when actual poets were writing it (yeah, that sounds derisive of everyone else, but when you look at the free verse of, say, Walt Whitman, and, then, look at the free verse of the guy down  the street, well, I'm sure you understand what I mean (but, then, maybe Whitman's poetry is a little too structured to really be free verse? At least, free verse as it's become)). I'll just throw in at this point that it's not free verse as it was that I don't like but free verse as it is. [Just like it's not "modern art" as it was when Picasso was doing it that I don't like, but modern art as it is now (as Elizabeth Twist said, "after a while it's just so many paint splatters on canvas.").]

Let me just illustrate the point with a story:

Way back when I was junior in high school, I was one day standing around outside of the cafeteria (which are now, inexplicably, called lunch rooms) talking to my English teacher. No, not about anything in particular. Yeah, I was that kid that liked to hang out and talk to my teachers when they weren't busy. Which wasn't often, so we took those opportunities whenever they were available. [At my school, this wasn't actually an uncommon behavior.] So we were chatting, and another guy walked up with his English text in his hand which meant there was a question coming. We were doing some Shakespeare play or other at the time, and the guy, whom I will call Calvin, said, "I don't understand any of this, can you explain it to me?"

Now, I just want to say that not understanding Shakespeare was a pretty common occurrence, even at my school, but I'd never really understood why people struggled with it so. My teacher, though, knew what the problem was, and he said, "Read to me the part you don't understand."
[I'm choosing a piece from Macbeth for this example 1. because it doesn't really matter what I use as an example (it's still valid) 2. because, by the time I'd graduated from high school, I'd already had to read Macbeth three or four times, so there is every likelihood that this was the play in question.]

Calvin read:
"Is this a dagger which I see before me," [And, yes, I can't help reading that line without thinking of John Wayne.]
No problem without one, right? But he went on after a pause,
"The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee."
We're mostly okay, still, at this point, and the next one was okay, too.
"I have thee not, and yet I see thee still."
However, then, we get to
"Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible"
You have to understand, here, that, with each line, he's pausing and starting a new "sentence" every time he started reading a new line, so, as he went through
"To feeling as to sight? or art thou but"
and
"A dagger of the mind, a false creation,"
and
"Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?"
to
"I see thee yet, in form as palpable"
and
"As this which now I draw."
His face grew more and more confused the farther along he went, because, face it, "Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?" doesn't make much sense as a complete thought.

And I, because I was shocked at his reading, said, before I realized what I was doing, "You're reading it all wrong!" Calvin gave me a look that communicated something along the lines of "You're saying I can't read?" and said something like, "If I'm reading it, how can I be reading it wrong?"

My English teacher took the book from his hands and handed it to me and said, "What do you mean by that?"

"You have to follow the punctuation," I said, "not read it line by line."

"Go ahead and read it," my teacher said.

So I read:
"Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible to feeling as to sight? Or art thou but a dagger of the mind, a false creation, proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? I see thee yet, in form as palpable as this which now I draw."

As I read, Calvin got a minor look of amazement on his face as he suddenly understood the meaning of the passage. My teacher took the book from my hands and said as he handed it back to Calvin, "You were reading it wrong."

Which is nothing against Calvin, because, like I said, evidently, this was a pretty common issue, and it was still an issue when I was in college majoring in English even amongst other English majors. And it continues to be a problem, a steadily increasing problem, as far as I can tell. Not just with Shakespeare but with any poetry at all. We've, culturally speaking, forgotten how to read poetry, and it keeps people from understanding it, so they can't derive any enjoyment from it.

But, wait! That's not exactly correct, because you can read almost all free verse poetry, especially stuff from the past half century or so, in this precise line by line manner. The problem, then, is that most free verse poetry just isn't that good because it's written by people that have no actual ability to write structured poetry, so it ends up being thought fragments on paper. Or, at best, pretty prose written in verse form. In the end, though, the option for the "common man" is to read poetry they don't understand or read poetry that just, on the whole, isn't any good. Stuck between the veritable rock and hard place, most people just don't read it at all.

The whole thing is kind of sad. Makes me sad. There's a lot of great poetry out there. Personally, I'm partial to Wordsworth, Shelley, the romantics in general, actually, Burns, Frost, even Tolkien (because he wrote more than a bit of poetry, himself). Well, I could go on, but that's not really the point. The point is that if more people knew how to read poetry, maybe more people would write poetry. Real poetry. Not just emotional vomit on a piece of paper. Or, maybe, if more people took the time to learn how to write actual, structured poetry, more people would read it.

Or, maybe, we should all just be satisfied with the poetry that pop music offers us? But I don't think so...

"If you decide not to make things..." (an IWSG post)

"If you decide not to make things, all you've done is deprive the world of all the stuff you could have brought to it."
--Neil Gaiman

This is a great quote by Neil and not something that I haven't said before, but I've never said it like that, and I love the way he put it: "...all you've done is deprive the world..." That's just fantastic.

Often, people will feel great conflict over creating. It can be debilitating.
"Is it good enough?"
"Am I good enough?"
"What if it's no good?"
"Am I just wasting my time?"
Oh, it goes on and on and on, and, if you visit enough blogs of pre-published writers or, even, some post-published writers, you will run into all of it and more.

I think, maybe, we're asking ourselves the wrong question. Oh, I get it. "Is it good enough?" is an important question if you're trying to get traditionally published and all of that, despite the evidence that plenty of stuff that isn't really "good enough" gets traditionally published all the time. Some of that stuff that isn't "good enough" even becomes incredibly popular. But that question, that question about being good enough, isn't so important in a digital age of self-publishing. If it was ever important at all.

I think the better question to be asking is, "Is it me enough?" Is it the story that you want to tell? Is it the story that only you can tell? Are you bringing to the world that thing that only you can bring to it?

Of course, that circles back around to "am I good enough?" and "what if no one likes me?" Questions, really, about self worth and esteem, and those can be... well, those can be hard to ignore. But we need to ignore them. We need to ignore them so that we can focus on that story that can only come from us.

So... some examples:

George Lucas made a short film while he was in college called "THX-1138" which is supposed to be brilliant. When he graduated, he wanted to make a movie called American Graffiti, but he couldn't get anyone to be interested in that. What he found was people that wanted him to make a full length feature out of THX. He said THX wasn't a full length kind of thing, but that's what they wanted, so that ended up being his first movie. It didn't do as well as everyone else thought it would. Once he was able to make Graffiti, which he did for almost no money because THX had flopped, it became the most successful film ever made up to that point and held that title for something like 30 years.

Lucas was under contract with Universal for two movies, and the next movie he wanted to make was this thing called Star Wars which Universal wouldn't back. They wanted a sequel to Graffiti. Lucas said that story was finished and didn't want to make a sequel. Eventually, he got 20th Century Fox to take Star Wars, and Universal got American Graffiti 2. How many of you knew there was a sequel?

Tolkien wrote this whole history of this place called Middle Earth, but he couldn't get anyone interested in what he called The Silmarillion. He ended up getting an unrelated novel, The Hobbit, published. The publisher wanted a sequel, but Tolkien didn't have a sequel in mind for it nor did he want to write one. They insisted. He did try, but what came out of that attempt was more Middle Earth, The Lord of the Rings, which the publisher didn't want. They ended up taking it anyway, probably realizing they just weren't going to get what they wanted out of Tolkien. And, in the end, The Hobbit became part of Middle Earth.

Heck, even Twilight was something that came straight out of Stephanie Meyer, because, before that book, if you had asked anyone if they would have thought that sparkly vampires would be a good idea, I don't think you would have found a single person that would have said "yes."

I could go on and on with these examples and go one to debate the success or lack there of when artists strayed from what the story that was coming from them into other areas. For instance, the thing most criticized about Return of the Jedi is the ewoks, a thing which Lucas did not envision but fell back on because he didn't feel like he could realize his vision of an epic battle of wookies against the Empire. There's Kevin Smith and his decline in success as he tried to move toward making movies he thought people wanted rather than making the movies he wanted to make. And more and more and more.

The thing is, though, when you try to make what you think people want, everyone is disappointed, because you can't meet the expectations of everyone and, then, you haven't even made something you're happy with, so no one is happy. Make the thing that only you can make -- the book, the movie, the painting -- and don't worry about the rest. Don't deprive the world of that thing that only you can bring to it.

I'll leave you with this:


[This post has been brought to you by the Insecure Writer's Support Group.]

The U2 Countdown

I've made no secret of my love for U2. Their music is great, but the band itself is a source of great inspiration. Their road to success is one that writers should probably look at (I talked about that here), because it wasn't overnight. They pursued it and worked at it even after they achieved it. But they are so much more than just a band (a great book about that is Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas).

As my wife was saying, the reason for this post may just be an excuse for me to get to listen to a lot of U2. And, believe me, I've done just that. In the last few days, I've gone back through every album, some of them more than once (just because I'd forgotten how good, say, Zooropa actually is) and listed out all of my favorite songs from each album. Of course, there's also that I've been saying I should do this for, probably, over a year, so, since this is the list time of year, I figured it was as good a time as any. And, then, there was the listening to U2. What I've found is that boiling U2 down to 10 songs may be impossible, so let's see how I do with that.

But, before I go on to the list, I did make an interesting observation: the degree to which I like an album may not be related to how much I like the individual songs on it. For instance, I love No Line on the Horizon. It has a great overall sound and continuity, but I don't love the songs individually as much as I like songs on other albums, albums which I may not actually like as much as No Line. In fact, many of my favorite songs come from The Joshua Tree, but it's not higher than third on my list of albums from them (which does not change my mind on the fact that I think it's probably the greatest album of all time and, yet, I still love Achtung Baby more).

At any rate, U2 has probably been the most significant band in history, which is not to say that a lot of people wouldn't argue about that, but, mostly, people will argue from the place of what they prefer rather than what it means to be significant. The Beatles are probably the only real contender as most significant band, but, applying some objective measures to what each band has accomplished, other than make music, The Beatles didn't really accomplish all that much. Then, again, I'm biased, which is why I say people may want to argue about it. I'll say this as a comparison, though: I love the band The Alarm, but I would never try to make an argument for them being significant. Anyway... I don't suppose any of that is really all that important. A band's significance has nothing to do with whether anyone will like or not like their music. I don't much care for The Beatles, but I can't deny their significance.

One other thing I should say about me and music: I'm highly attracted to lyric content. By that I mean I want my songs to say something. It's not uncommon that I will like a song when I first hear it because I like the music, but, once I figure out the words, I will quit liking it either because I don't like the message or it just doesn't have one. U2 appeals to me in that their music is about something. Often, their songs are about conflict, both external and internal, and those contradictions appeal to me. That being said, some of the double listings (but not all) are for songs that are thematically equivalent (at least, in my mind). Mostly, the double listings are just because I couldn't pull a top 10 out of the 40+ songs I had listed.

Okay! On to the list! My top songs by U2 (links provided if you want to listen to the songs):

10. "October" from October and "40" from War

• "October" -- I just love this one. Beautiful music and a powerful message.
• "40" -- How could I not include the song they used to end all of their concerts with? Besides, the lyrics are pulled from "Psalm 40," just like the title says.

9. "Window in the Skies" from U218

• Like many of U2's best songs, this one has a meaning under the obvious one, not that the obvious one isn't good enough for a song. You'd have to do away with nearly every love song out there if love wasn't a strong enough message, but it's more than just a song about love, because it's a song about the transformative power of Love. And, then, the song goes deeper than that.

8. "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own" from How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" from All That You Can't Leave Behind

• These two songs speak to me on the same level; both are about people not being able to admit that they need help. Too many people can't or won't admit they need help, and, sometimes, I'm one of those people. I hate when I hit a situation that I just can't deal with. Often, there are people on the outside of those situations saying, "Hey, I can help," but we just don't want to listen.

7. "One" from Achtung Baby and "All I Want Is You" from Rattle and Hum

• These two songs are simultaneously alike and different. I mean, completely alike as in almost the same and, yet, completely opposed to one another. Listen to the songs if you want to figure that out.

6. "The First Time" from Zooropa

• I don't know what to say about this song without actually going through the whole thing, which I'm not going to do. It just has some amazing lyric images, especially about how we may respond to unconditional love.

5. "Elevation" from All That You Can't Leave Behind and "Pride (In the Name of Love)" from The Unforgettable Fire

• "Elevation" -- Immediately my favorite song from All That You Can't Leave Behind, which is probably my second favorite album and has a lot of songs on it that I just love. My oldest was four when the album came out, and we used to blast this song in the car and sing it together. Yes, it has some sentimental value to it. The video's a lot of fun, too.
• "Pride (In the Name of Love)" -- A tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. with an obvious meaning and message. It's a great song.

4. "New Year's Day" from War

• I almost put this song with "Pride," but I really do like it more. It's probably actually in competition for a spot higher than this, but it just gets edged down the list, hitting #4. It wants to be higher but can't quite overpower the powerhouse of Joshua Tree. "Gold is the reason for the wars we wage."

3. "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and "Where the Streets Have No Name" from The Joshua Tree

• "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" -- This is, in many ways, the quintessential U2 song for me. More than any other song, it openly displays the conflict between belief and, well, belief. I believe, but I'm not satisfied with the options. I'm still looking. I believe, help my unbelief.
• "Where the Streets Have No Name" -- This song is so linked to "Still Haven't Found" for me that I can't separate them. Different songs with a similar theme in that they both deal with what we, as humans, are striving for. This one, though, is the reach for a better place, a place where we are not judged by what street we live on, a place where the streets have no name. Heaven. When I was in high school, my youth pastor made a snide remark to me about listening to this song, to which I replied, "Mike, what place do you think they mean when they say 'where the streets have no name?'" He just sort of stared at me for a moment and turned and walked away. One of my favorite performances of this song was done by the band Mercy Me at a Christian music festival. They ended with this song, saying it was their favorite song from their teens about heaven. After they finished, the host came out on stage and said something like how "even a band like U2" can give us praise music... "even a band like U2." Talk about being ignorant of your subject matter. But, then, I suppose Jesus faced the same kind of thing from the pharisees. Which is not to draw a comparison between U2 and Jesus, but...

2. "With Or Without You" from The Joshua Tree

• This song, which I love, gets the #2 spot largely for sentimental reasons. I do think they have better songs, but this was the first song I ever heard by them, and it caught my attention the very first time I heard it. I had one of those "who is that?" moments, which I don't actually have all that often and had never had before. None of the people I was with knew who it was, either. I'm not sure what that says about any of us. Actually, I know what it says about me: Prior to U2 I listened to what was classified as "light" rock, stuff like Air Supply. "With Or Without You" was the first song that fit the music profile of the radio station I listened to back then, so it was the first song I heard by them because it was the first song my station ever played by them. However, I have nothing to say for my friends, since they all listened to rock music and really have no excuse for not at least knowing who U2 was.

1. "Bad" from The Unforgettable Fire

• Bono has said that the writing in this song isn't actually very good, but that it manages to be a good song anyway. In fact, he never really even finished writing it. Nevertheless, it's been my favorite song by them since shortly after I found it during my U2 exploration. I worked my way back through all of their albums, and, even with as much as I love Joshua Tree, I love this song more. It's the discordant images.

Honorable mentions:

"Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)" -- Not my favorite U2 song, but almost my favorite Christmas song. Yeah, sure, if I have to choose, there are Christmas songs I like more, but, still, it's not Christmas for me without this song. The one thing it does do is make me wish U2 would do a Christmas album.

"Sweetest Thing" -- U2 is the only band I know of that have had numerous B-sides go on to become hits. As it's been said by many people in the music industry, U2 discards songs to B-sides that most bands would be more than happy to lead with from an album. "Sweetest Thing" is my favorite of U2s B-sides, and it almost made the top "10."

"Silver and Gold" -- Another B-side that has become a big hit for them. Great song.

"Unchained Melody" -- My favorite cover by U2. I like the original, but I like U2's even better.

There you go, my top 15 "Top 10" U2 songs. Plus a few more. And, I just have to say, this post took me longer to research and write than any other post I've ever done, which is actually saying something. But it was great fun. And, yes, I know I probably know more about U2 than is normal, but I also know even more about Lewis and Tolkien, and I bet none of you think that's weird. And none of that comes close to what I know about Star Wars, and, hey, compared to what some people know, what I know about Star Wars is practically normal.