The Dream vs The World

I didn't grow up wanting to be a writer. I grew up wanting to be a paleontologist. I saw my very first dinosaur sometime around the age of three, and I was instantly captivated. It was on a gas station of all places. I'm not sure if it was meant to be ironic or not. It's hard to know those kinds of things at three. My mother has told me, though, that I was hooked from that moment on. Everything was dinosaurs. In many ways, I learned to read by reading about dinosaurs.

In first grade, our teacher asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up and, then, went around the room letting everyone answer that question. All of the usual answers came up. Fireman. Policeman. Doctor. Someone may have even said scientist. I know all of the other answers were normal because the teacher would nod and go on to the next person. Until she got to me. I said paleontologist. She told me I was making that up. We had an argument. She said if it was a real thing, then, I should I write it on the chalkboard. I'm sure she thought that there was no way I could spell a word that long even if it was a made up word. But I put the word on  the chalkboard spelled correctly. I won the argument.

All of my science fair projects while I was in elementary school dealt with dinosaurs in some capacity or another. Well, except for that one year where they actually told me I couldn't do dinosaurs again, so I did my project on the solar system. Generally speaking, I knew more about dinosaurs than anyone else at any school I was ever in, including the teachers.

Typically, kids' ideas about what they want to be when they grow up change quite a bit. I don't remember the exact numbers, but I think most kids change their minds a couple of times a year before adolescence, meaning that the typical kid has had anywhere from 6 to 12 things s/he has firmly wanted to be as a grown up by the time s/he hits middle school. I only ever wanted to be one thing: a paleontologist.

Ironically, it was middle school that changed that for me. Two things happened: Earth science and Careers class. In Earth science there was a unit about rocks. I  hated it. Absolutely hated it. And the test on rocks at the end of the unit? The test where we had a bucket of rocks on the table, and we had to name them. No, not things like Bob and George. We had to identify them. That was my only non-A grade all year. I'm not talking about just in that class, I'm talking about all year. All of my classes. Everything except the rock unit. I hated rocks. And, thus, my Dream came face-to-face with the reality of the World and the World won. Between that and a project I had to do in Careers class about the profession I wanted to go into, I realized that no matter how much I loved dinosaurs, I would never enjoy being a paleontologist.

I first dreamed of being a writer sometime in high school. It had to do with Shakespeare, whom I didn't like, at the time, but that's another story. You can blame it on Romeo and Juliet. At any rate, I remember thinking about how cool it would be to write something that people were still reading, even studying, hundreds of years after I was dead. I mean, really, how cool is that? That was the dream... to write something that people would be still be reading and enjoying, maybe even learning about in school, after I was dead.

At some point, there was a new dream. Wouldn't it be cool to walk into a book store and see a book that I wrote sitting there on the shelf. I mean, how cool is that? Right? I'm sure we all have that dream. Just like I'm sure that, at some point, all guys dream/wish they were great poets. Usually, right around the time they fall in love for the first time. For most guys, though, that's just a brief phase. heh

So, here I am, 20 some odd years later, staring that dream in the face. Just like I had to stare that dream of paleontology in the face. Because dreams are great, essential, but, often, not realistic. Or, even worse, not what we really want.

When I was a kid, paleontology was not really my dream. Dinosaurs were my dream. I was like the kid  in Ray Bradbury's excellent short story, "Besides a Dinosaur, Whatta Ya Wanna Be When You Grow Up?" Not that I actually wanted to be a dinosaur, like the boy in the story, but I thought I wanted something that I didn't really want.

After I finished my novel, I had this same sort of experience. I was grappling with the replacement dream, the dream of "wouldn't it be cool to walk into a book store, or, even, a Target or Wal-Mart, and see my book sitting there on  the shelf?" I think as writers, most of us start out with that dream somewhere in our heads. Possibly, that's the only dream we're having. The cool factor of being a name on a bookshelf. But I started delving into the data about the publishing industry to work out all of this how to get published stuff, and I didn't like what I was finding.

Now, I already knew about the huge amount of waste that publishing industry produces every year in conjunction with book stores, because I worked in a used book store when I was in college, and the owner used to rant about people bringing coverless books to him. But that was just the tip of ice berg. And all of this is a topic for another post, so I'm not going to go into it, now. As I found things out, I would comment on them to my wife. In a, um, negative way. That way she takes as me complaining when, really, I'm just commenting. She knows in my mind there's difference, but it affects her the same either way. Anyway...

Don't tell her I said this, but my wife is a smart woman. At some point in there, she said to me, "Well, what is it you want? Do you want to be published [i.e. have my book in bookstores] or do you want people to read and enjoy your books?" That's really what it comes down to, in the end: does your dream, the dream that drives you, match up to what you really want? For me, the dream of "being published" was at odds with what I really and truly actually want, that other people will read and enjoy my books.

Yes, yes, I hear you. "But being published is the way that other people will get to read and enjoy my books!" Except that's not true. I'll concede the point that it used to be true, but, now, today, there are so many other options. And most books that go through traditional publishing (and when I say most, I mean almost all), never sell 5000 copies. At this point, we could get into the huge debate over traditional publishing vs, well, whatever else, but that's also not the point. I will say, though, that, I think, we often defend traditional publishing not because it deserves defending but because we're defending our dream of being on a bookshelf in a book store.

I had to look at that dream and evaluate it. Is that what I really wanted? To be published and be able to walk into a store and point and say, "that's my book!" That would be so cool! I get it. It would be. But is it what I really wanted. No, it's not. What I really want is for people to have the chance to read and enjoy my book. On top of that, I don't want to support an industry I feel is wrong in so many ways. My Dream came up against the reality of the World, and the World won. Again. But it's okay, because that dream... it's not what I really wanted, anyway.

It's great to have dreams. We should have dreams. We need them. They fuel us. They give us goals. They keep us striving to achieve. However, we shouldn't just cling to dreams because they're our dreams. We need to evaluate those dreams on a fairly consistent basis so that we know if they are worthy of still being our dreams. Do they match up with what we really want? Do they align with reality? Which is not to say that, even, having impossible dreams is not okay. Some great things have been accomplished due to the "impossible" dreams of some people. But it's a pretty horrible thing to achieve a dream, to get there, and find out that, although you reached your dream, it wasn't what you wanted.

Here's what it boils down to: I see so many blogs from people striving, reaching, investing everything in the dream of being published, but I have to wonder if that's really what all these people really want. If it is, that's great. But when confronted with the question, and looking at it honestly and objectively, I couldn't say that that is what I really wanted. And, if it's  not what I really want, why pursue it so single-mindedly? I'll admit, that dream of being published still worms its way around in my head causing conflict, so I have to, pretty constantly, remind myself about what I really want. Make my work available for people to read and enjoy and do my best to let them know it's out there. After all, it's the same work I'd have to do even with traditional publishing. Maybe I'm the only one that this is true for.

This whole thing about evaluating our dreams isn't just for writers; everyone should remember to do this. I need to remember to do this more often. Is the dream we're pursuing, whether it's growing up to be a T-Rex or having a book published, actually the dream that we want? With all the changes in the publishing industry, right now, though, I think this is an even more important question for writers to be asking themselves. What is it you want from your writing? Does your dream of being published actually fulfill what you want?

Harrison Ford and the Raw Deal

For over a decade, Harrison Ford held the distinction of being the biggest grossing star in Hollywood. That position is now held by Samuel Jackson, but it took more than twice as many movies for him to get there. Ford still has the highest average film gross of any actor (although Tom Hanks isn't far behind). Ford has done something that actors are very rarely able to do; he has become, not one, but two, iconic characters. Almost three, but the Jack Ryan movies never quite became the franchise it was expected they would become (and possibly would have if Alec Baldwin hadn't dropped out after Red October).

He's Han Solo and Indiana Jones; how could he possibly be getting any kind of raw deal? The problem is that he has done that specific job too well. He is so much the rough and tumble action hero that audiences have become incapable of seeing him as anything else. They just won't accept him in any other type of role.

There was excessive grumbling when Regarding Henry came out in 1991. It underperformed, and people blamed it on Ford. The truth is is that he did a fine job in that movie, but people didn't want to see him in that role, so he was attributed with a bad performance. He tried Sabrina. It was felt that Ford was the Bogart of his time, so he would be perfect for the role, but audiences didn't accept him in that role, either. Audiences began screaming with the release of Six Days Seven Nights. There was no lovable scoundrel  in Quinn Harris; in fact, audiences generally felt the character of Quinn was unlikeable, and the film barely broke even. And despite doing well at the box office, I remember the horrified wails that accompanied What Lies Beneath as people everywhere refused to see Ford as a villain. More than any other, it was, perhaps, that movie that drove the final spike into Ford's career as anything more than an action hero. Or, even, anything more than one of his iconic roles (but maybe that will change with the release of Cowboys & Aliens later this summer). Of the seven movies Ford made between Clear and Present Danger and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, only two were hits at the box office: Air Force One and What Lies Beneath. None of the three he's done since Crystal Skull have been hits.

This is unfortunate, because he does have a broader range than that of the lovable scoundrel. It's really not his fault that the American movie going audience can't separate him from his most famous roles. And, in  the end, it's their loss.

We just watched Morning Glory. This movie has a stellar cast. Not only does it have Harrison Ford, but it also has Diane Keaton, Rachel McAdams, and Jeff (does anyone even remember him?) Goldblum. They are all wonderful, and it is an excellent movie. Ford plays a washed up reporter, a former legend, the "3rd worst person in the world." Although I'm sure it wasn't intentional, the role is somewhat a parody of Ford himself. He's become a crotchety old man who can't escape what he used to be to accept what he's become. It would not have surprised me he'd slipped in "I was Han Solo!" as he gave  one of his many diatribes about his former accomplishments.

The sad part is that no one saw this movie. As a Hollywood movie, it was fairly low budget. Only $40,000,000. Yes, that's low in Hollywood terms. Scary, I know. It didn't make a profit. By a lot. Didn't come close. But it was so good, and Ford was... actually, he was spectacular. He played the role to perfection. They all did. Possibly, if Rachel McAdams had slightly more drawing power, people would have gone to see it for her, but that didn't happen. In fact, Ford's non-iconic star has fallen so far, that McAdams got top billing for the movie.

We talk frequently about entertainers only being capable of doing particular types of things, and, sometimes, that's true. More often than not, though, I think it's not true. We've just decided that they are only capable of particular types of roles, certain kinds of movies, specific genres of novels, and we, the audience, won't allow these people out of the boxes we've put them in. I mean, Kevin Smith tried to break away from his formula, partially due to criticism that he was a one-trick pony, and he produced Jersey Girl, a great movie that no one saw, because it wasn't want his fans wanted.

We trap these people into "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situations. Granted, some of them are quite satisfied with the boxes they get put in. Michael Bay comes to mind. He's good at what he does, and he seems satisfied with that. For now. But what if he decides that he wants to make a "serious" movie. To prove that he can do more than blow things up. No, I'm not saying I believe he's capable of more than that, but I'm also not saying that I believes he's not.

If you haven't seen Morning Glory, I suggest you give it a shot. Forget, as you should, that it's Harrison Ford. Don't think about Han Solo or Indiana Jones or, even, Jack Ryan. Think about Mike Pomeroy. Allow him to be that character. I think you'll be surprised and find that he's more than capable of filling those shoes, too.

Zombies: A Cultural Metaphor

Society has changed in the last four decades. This is not to say that society isn't always changing, but the change that has occurred recently (recent being a relative term) is one that we've never seen before. Technological progress, throughout the ages, has always been seen as a good thing. I don't mean scientific discovery, which has not always been viewed positively, but the actual trinkets of technology that scientific progress has made possible. Mankind has always had an innate sense that he could do no wrong. That belief has dissipated like morning mist.

Four decades ago, a zombie was still just a zombie. A re-animated corpse. Slow. Stupid. No will of its own. It was something created by man that man controlled. The only exception to this rule was Frankenstein's monster, but the Frankenstein monster became a special case and has never really been viewed as a zombie. Even though zombies could be controlled, they were still dead things. Just animated. They had no more need of sustenance than does a marionette. They did not hunger. They did not want. They only obeyed.

That all began to change in 1968 with the release of Night of the Living Dead. For the first time, the dead, en masse, rose up against the living to devour them. It was the first use of zombies to symbolize that man might, just possibly, be playing around with forces he didn't understand.

The 80s arrived and, with it, a culture of teenagers that didn't believe they would live to be adults. Post-apocalyptic literature/entertainment hit its stride. Not that it hadn't existed, but, prior to the 80s, (and I am now going to lump all of this together into the dystopian category) dystopians had really been isolated events.
And I mean it when I say we didn't believe that we would make it through high school without nuclear holocaust being thrust upon us. In middle school, for a Christmas door decorating contest, my homeroom did a whole Nuclear Winter theme. We even re-wrote several popular Christmas songs with lyrics like, "I'm dreaming of a nuclear winter."

However, the cold war ended, and we don't really believe an actual nuclear holocaust will happen anymore. No, now, we believe man will destroy the Earth in much more subtle ways. Like a zombie apocalypse. Zombies have become the representation of our fear that mankind will, ultimately, be unable to control the technology that he plays with. Zombies have evolved. They are no longer re-animated corpses. They're fast. They're smart. They're hungry. They want to destroy us. Destroy life. They're smart, but they are unthinking. Their intelligence is applied only to achieving their goal. Devouring us Destroying life. Hmm... somewhat like the single-minded way in which corporations pursue financial success.

In short, zombies have become a cultural metaphor for all the ways in which technology will destroy us.

However, that's only  the metaphor in its simplest form. The obvious one. The one that has to do with our nightmares over what secret things governments and corporations are doing in the dark. It lives off of our fears that we'll wake up, shivering and drenched in sweat, and find out that society has collapsed. No rules. Only chaos.

The deeper part of that fear extends down to where we believe that technology is actually turning each of us into zombies. Especially the generation that's growing up around us. The generation of technological zombies. You know it's true. People refuse to be detached from their technology. People that grew up without it and know it's possible to leave home without a phone and still survive refuse to go without, so how do we show the (little) people who have never known life without cells that it's possible to go without? It's with us everywhere. And it's scary. But, still, we embrace it. We can't help it.

Despite the data that the use of cellular devices, in whatever capacity, while driving is more dangerous than driving while intoxicated, we choose to believe that we can handle it, and we don't have the excuse of impaired judgement that intoxication brings. Despite the new warnings by WHO (the World Health Organization, not the Doctor. Or the band.) that cellular devices bring a greater risk of brain cancer, especially in children and adolescents, we will go on using our bits and pieces of technology and deal with any consequences later. Despite the continued statements of desire to connect with people in actual face-to-face contact, we will, more and more often, forsake physicalness in favor of a virtual reality that we can "control."

We are becoming the zombies that we fear. Soulless creatures walking through life but only seeing things through the tiny input devices we hold in our hands. And just wait till they can actually put that stuff right inside our skulls. Is it any wonder that we have become so incredibly fascinated with zombies? After all, vampires could be defeated. How do we defeat ourselves?

Another Day, Another...

Blogfest!

Bess Weatherby is hosting a blogfest that starts today.

 I  think I may have acted rashly in signing up for it. See, this 'fest is all about setting goals, and I'm just not much of one for any kind of long-range goal setting. Ask my wife. She hates it. She likes making plans and lists, and I'm not that kinda guy. Okay, well, I do, sometimes, make lists. Because, I'm finding, that I'm forgetting more and more things that, once upon a time, I would never have forgotten. I blame it on my kids, and I know that I'm right to do so.

I do have a list of writing goals sitting next to my computer. It's a list. Things I need to work on. In fact, I had to get up in the MIDDLE of the NIGHT, last night, and add something to it. I HATE that. But, as I was falling asleep, I had this thought. A really good thought. And my brain kept telling me that I was going to forget about it if I didn't get up and write it down. I kept telling my brain that I wouldn't forget, because it would remember, but it kept saying, "No, I won't remember. Get up and write it down." I argued with my brain for a long time. Maybe an hour. I lost. I got up and wrote it down. My first thought this morning when I got up was that idea. Without looking at the list. So I was right, but I still lost the argument. Here's a one word teaser about the idea: zombies!

Okay, so... the blogfest has two parts:

1. What your current WIP looks like:

Darn, I don't what that means. I don't even know what my current WIP is. I mean, does The House on the Corner count because I'm not quite finished with my revision? I'm almost finished. I'm actually slightly behind schedule on that. I wanted to be finished with it by the end of May. All of the major re-writing is finished. I just have to finish going through it making word corrections and such.

Or is my current WIP Brother's Keeper? I mean, that is my next major project. I'm also behind on that. Because, originally, I had intended to start it in February, but that was a goal I set back before I started blogging and revising, and, see, that's why I hate long-range plans. They never work out the way I want them to. At any rate, the first chapter of Brother's Keeper is posted up in the tabbies at the top, but I'm not much further than that.

2. What your writing goals are for the summer:

Okay, writing goals for the summer... that's... difficult. See, I have these parasites that hang around all summer interrupting me constantly. I'm not one of those people that can write in bits and pieces. I have to have solid chunks of quiet without interruptions. It's annoying. However, I'll give it a shot.

a. Have the manuscript for The House on the Corner: The First Person Edition ready by the end of the day June 17 (I actually wanted that to be June 10, but, I think, since I have all these end of the school year parent/teacher conferences, that I'm not quite going to finish that, this week).

b. Have some sort of cover worked out for The House on the Corner: The First Person Edition by June 24. That's going to be a hard one. I have no artist, and I don't really know how to turn any art I may decide to do into a cover.

c. Starting next week, do (at least) 2000 words a week on Brother's Keeper. I'm not sure how that will work since I'll have afore mentioned parasites running loose.

d. Post 2-3 times a week on the blog.

Those are the have to's. There are some other things I'd like to do, but, looking at that list, it might actually be too much considering there will be swimming lessons in there, music lessons, and, um, I'm not even sure what else.

So there you have it. I wish everyone else doing this the best of luck with both the setting of the goals and the achieving of them!

A Jumble of Nonsense

I was thinking. Yes, that's usually a sign that you need to duck and cover, but, sometimes, I just can't help myself. Usually, it happens on accident, and most of you are pretty far away, so you're probably safe. This time. These blog award things, theoretically, should spread geometrically and infect the whole blogging world. They don't seem to be doing that, so someone must have developed some sort  of anti-viral thing or something. I was also thinking that, for the first time in a really long time, I feel like one of those kids from The Cat in the Hat stuck inside staring out at the rain. I want to do something, but it's raining, still raining, raining to the point where they're beginning to wonder if it's going to have a negative impact on the grape harvest, this year. The house is all closed up (because of previously mentioned rain), 2/3 of the kids are gone, the one that's left is piddling around with Pokemon cards, I have no games on my computer, and I feel cooped up. Let me just say, that the feeling of being cooped up is not conducive to writing. Not even to writing blog posts. Unless, you know, you write about being cooped, which I'm  not going to do. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

>sigh<

In other news, I have some loose ends from this last week I need to tie up. Three loose ends to be precise. I suppose, with three of them, I should make a braid, but I never learned how to do that, much to my daughter's dismay. Not to mine, though. My daughter knows how to braid, but she's part of the 2/3 of the children that are presently missing, so I'm left to muddle through that on my own.

Thing Number 1:
I got tagged by Bess Weatherby to answer a bunch of questions. Part of this is to tag a bunch of other people, see what I was talking about? How is it that anyone escapes? Well, other than people getting re-tagged and stuff, but still! So here goes:

What do you think of when you the hear the word tag?
I think of TAG: The Assassination Game. I always wanted to play that. I mean really play that. I plotted about it with some of my friends when I was in high school, but we all went to different schools, so it just didn't work out very well.

Do you think you're hot?
Actually, no. I spend the vast majority of my time these days being cold. To the point of wearing a jacket in the house on a regular basis. Yes, I could turn the heat up and discomfort my kids, but it's just easier to wear the jacket and not deal with the whining. This is related to why I'm so tired of the rain.

Upload a picture or wallpaper that you're using at the moment.
Um, I can't really do that. I used to have a Star Wars wallpaper on my computer, but a little over a year again, my computer got sick, and I had re-format it, and I've never put most of the stuff back on my computer. This is also the reason I have no games.

When was the last time you ate chicken?
Two nights ago.

The song(s) you listened to recently.
I am, at this very moment, listening to Phil Collins. I wanted to listen to Genesis, but, for reasons that remain unfathomable, rhapsody.com wouldn't load the Genesis stuff.
I just want to add that I highly disapprove of all the anti-Phil sentiment that continues to run rampant these days. I realize that the market got over saturated with him back in the early 90s, but there was a reason for that. Because he was good.

What were you thinking as you were doing this?
Hmm... that I'd rather be playing Magic: The Gathering, at the moment. The fact that my younger son is sorting Pokemon cards isn't helping. Maybe even Risk, but he's right; it's just not fun with only two people.

Do you have nicknames? What are they?
Currently? No. Dad. I grew up Andy, not Andrew, which is me, now.

Tag 8 blogger friends:
Well, I'll do my best not to tag anyone else that's recently been tagged. And, I'm assuming, no tag backs.
1. Shannon Lawrence
2. Rusty Webb
3. Jennifer
4. Barbara Kloss
5. Alyssia Kirkhart
6. Marie Rearden
7. J R Pearse Nelson
and last but certainly not least, not by any means,
8. Michelle Davidson Argyle

Who's listed as No. 1?
Well, that's rather obvious to anyone that can read, which I'm assuming you can, since you're here. If not, well... Seriously, Shannon was the first person I thought of. I love her blog. I'm still waiting for her to let me read her book. I mean, she's read mine.

Say something about No. 5.
She lives down in my old stomping grounds. I empathize with the heat and humidity she's experiencing, at the moment, but I don't miss it. Well, maybe some of the heat, but certainly not the humidity.

How did you get to know No. 3?
Jennifer's blog is great. I love her sense of humor. And she always comments on my posts, so, really, how can I not like her? I strive to be included in her BBFs.

How about No. 4?
I stumbled across Barbara's blog post about Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkin and had to warn her away from the rest of that series before she got inescapably sucked into it.

Leave a message for No. 6.
Hey, how's it going? Thanks for letting me do that guest movie review. It was a lot of fun!

Leave a lovey dovey message for No. 2. [Hmm... maybe I should have planned out who would be where on the list a bit better than this.]
Rusty, I love the title of your blog. I've wanted to ask you this for a long time, but I've just been too shy, but how did you think of it? It's just sooo awesome!
[Seriously, I love your blog title.]

Do 7 and 8 have any similarities?
Now, see, I think 7 and 8 are getting the short end of the stick down here. They're both great ladies, and they both write, but this question doesn't leave any real room to talk about them. Individually. Everyone else gets a question all to themselves! Where's the fair in that?

At any rate, these are all great blogs. A few, well, 8, to be exact, of the handful of blogs I try to make sure I catch every post posted. Posting. Pasted? You should rush right over and check them out. And since I'm plugging their blogs, I'm also going to plug Michelle's book. Her book, Monarch, is due out in September. I'm looking forward to reading it. No, she didn't ask me to do that.

Thing Number 2:
Recently, I entered the Made of Awesome contest over at Shelley Watters blog. This was an interesting experience in that I got almost no comments on my entry. I don't know what this means. In perusing the other entries and posting comments on the ones I had comments for, I noticed that the typical entry had 30+ comments attached to  it, even for people who had fewer than 10 followers on their blog. I didn't see a single entry with less than 15-20 comments. Except mine. I got 3. Anyway...

The comments I did get centered on my first paragraph. Now, I like  this paragraph. I read the comments, I read my paragraph, read the comments, read my paragraph, waited for more comments, none came, and left my paragraph unchanged. Like I said, I like this paragraph. I'll even tell you why I like it, but not right now. Before I tell you why I like it and why I wrote it the way I did, I'd like some more feedback on it. Before, you know, I go to press with it. So to speak. Just because I like it doesn't mean it's in a state that's understandable for the general reader, so I'd like to know what you guys think about it. Pick it apart if you need to, but let me know what you think. I'm attaching the second paragraph with it, just so you can see where it's going, although, if you click on the tabby thing up top entitled The House on the Corner, you can read the whole first chapter. In advance, thanks!

The last bell of the school year is like waking up on Christmas morning. The last day of school waiting breathlessly in the dark straining for some sign of life out in the world so that you know it's time to get up. The bell finally rings and dawn breaks through the window springing you out of bed and three months of days lay glittering before you, presents waiting to be opened.

Thinking about those days of summer is all consuming at the end of the school year just like obsessing over Christmas presents all through the month of December. Planning. Anticipating. Day dreaming.

Thing Number the Last:
Because no one asked for it, but because I feel like posting it, I'm giving you the expanded scene from the Power of Tension blogfest. No, I'm not one of the finalists, but, then, I didn't expect to be. I glanced over many of the entries for that one before I chose which scene I was going to use, and all of the ones I looked at were... well, they all had either a vampire, werewolf, or hellhound stalking someone. Needless to say, I wanted something different. Not just not a vampire, but not a fight with a monster. So I chose a low level tension scene. One that was just creepy. I was very glad to see that not all of the finalists had to do with fighting some kind of monster. And, since I'm on the subject, here's my pick from the 6 finalists: The Bird Hater.
I didn't get as many comments on my piece for this blogfest as everyone else did, either, but I did, at least, break 10. heh Anyway... the expanded scene:

From the middle of the ceiling, hanging down on chains, was a large bowl. It was sort of cream colored and covered with little vines that started at the center of the bottom of the bowl and crawled up to the top. They had little leaves and flowers that curved off of them periodically. I guessed that must be the light, but I had never seen anything like it before. It made me want to try the lights or wake someone up to ask questions, but I knew if I did that, I wouldn’t get to explore on my own.

I decided, instead of opening any new doors, I would just use the one that was open. The one that led to the stairs. I stepped into the hallway and around the open door, pushing it almost closed. I didn’t want it to make any noise, so I didn’t close it all the way.

As I turned toward the staircase, a chill washed over me, and goosebumps broke out all over my arms. To the right of the staircase going up was another going down. The stairs started out wooden, just like the stairs going up, but, then, they turned to stone. The stairs just kept going and going down into the earth. Why was there a tunnel going underground in our house? I could feel the cold, damp coming up out of the tunnel and what felt like a long sigh. Without wanting to, I stepped down the first step. And, then, the next.

There was a low moan from the dark, and my heart started beating faster. My skin chilled as I broke out in a sweat. I didn't want to go down there, but I took another step anyway. I could almost feel the darkness on my skin as I took another step down. And another. And...

And I stumbled forward into a door, because there were no more steps. I was standing on a little tiled floor at the bottom of a short staircase in front of a door leading out of the side of the house. I felt weird. Kind of dizzy. Like I wasn't all the way in my own head.

Well, there you have it. I suppose I've rambled enough, too much, for one post. I hope a few of you held on all the way to the bottom.

Pop Culture Class featuring the X-Men!

Yes, it's that time again. Time for another lesson in pop culture, so put on your pop culture hats and let's get started. Oh, and remember; it always stays crunchy in milk!
Before we get into the movie itself, let's talk about some trailers. I'm a big fan of trailers. My wife frequently gets upset with me for wanting to watch them on DVDs. She wants to just go straight to the movie, but I like to watch the trailers. Today, two trailers I hadn't seen before.

First up is the trailer for Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Now, I've been seeing blurbs for this  one for a while, but I've been ignoring them. I still remember the disaster that was Tim Burton's attempt to revive the Apes franchise, and I couldn't keep the bad taste out of my mouth whenever I saw anything about this new one. I haven't been interested in checking out the trailer for it, so it took having it shoved in front of a movie that I was watching for me to pay attention to it. The first hook was James Franco. I can't help it; I like the guy. I'm not saying he's the best actor ever, but, my gosh, he's impressive. He took over 60 hours of class in one semester (and I thought I was impressive when I did 24 hours one semester). The next hook is that this isn't simply another ape movie. It's a morality tale about what we're doing to our world and the irresponsibility with which we use technology. I went from having less than zero interest in this film to really wanting to see it.

I have only thing to say about the other trailer: Hugh Jackman. Okay, well, Real Steel, surprisingly, looks like it may prove to be a decent film even without Mr. Jackman. However, Hugh being in it almost makes it a must see for me. Which, actually, is surprising, since, when I first heard they were making a movie based on Rock'em Sock'em Robots, I was aghast with disbelief. I mean, what's next Operation: The Movie? Or, maybe, Monopoly? Wait, I know! Battleship! The producers have, wisely, done away with any ties to the toy, at this point, and, what's left, is what looks like a genuinely good movie.

At this point, have you forgotten what movie we're here to see?

X-Men: First Class gets the opening exactly right. It returns to the same scene that opened the first X-Men movie, so we see, again, young Erik Lehnsherr being dragged away from his parents in a Nazi concentration camp. We get slightly more of what happens to Erik, this time, though, and we also get to meet Sebastian Shaw, played expertly by Kevin Bacon.

However, from there, the movie bounces around and forward through time and feels a little rushed. Like there was more they should have been showing but had to cut it all out. That's always difficult when they're trying to provide enough back story and introduce several characters all at the same time, and they almost pulled it off smoothly, but not quite. Things (mostly) smooth out when we get to the present day of 1962. Oliver Platt gets a role, and, I have to say, I love Oliver Platt, so it was a joy to see him in  the movie. Rose Byrne, of Bridesmaids, is in as Moira MacTaggert, and she is also quite good.

The main failing of the movie may just be a failing in me, although I'm not convinced. It might be one caused by the studio, in  this case Fox, not Marvel, not really knowing what audience they want to target. Marvel seems to have worked this out, for the most part, in  their own movies, but the X-Men franchise seems to be struggling with it. The conflict lies in how to deal with fans of the actual comic books. If you stray too far from the comics, the fans get into an uproar, but, sometimes, if you stay too close to the comic, the broader audience won't go see the movie at all (I could be wrong, but I think Warner Brothers is about to have this problem with Green Lantern (which is not to say that the movie's not going to have a big opening, but I think that may be where it ends)). When movies adapted from comics first started getting popular, that's how the studios approached it, balancing fans against people that never read comics, people who only knew of the characters peripherally. I'm finding my issue lies in a third area, that group of people that at one time followed comics but has been away from them for an extended length of time. This is the audience, the nostalgia audience, that Fox keeps messing up with. And it's a much larger audience than the audience of current fans. These are the people with the kids who, if the movie is good, will take their kids back to the same movie over and over again.
All of that to say that one particular character in the movie really bothered me. Bothered me to the extent that it was distracting to me. For someone currently following the X-Men comics, this character shouldn't be an issue, but, as I watched the movie, not having even looked inside an X-Men comic published in the last decade, I couldn't see Azazel as more than a cheap Nightcrawler rip off. That character, in particular, decreased my enjoyment of the movie, because Nightcrawler has always been one of my favorite X-Men.

Of course, I came home and did my background research before I started this post and discovered Azazel is a character that's been introduced since my sojourn in the comic book world ended. And he's such a Nightcrawler rip off because he's, yes, Nightcrawler's father. I won't go into my issues with that, since they have nothing to do with the movie. Most people, though, aren't going to go home after the movie and look up the character and find out there's a (unspoken) reason he's in the film. Again, maybe my reaction is just mine, but I would be surprised.

The only real failing of the movie is that it succumbs to that long held movie tradition of the crash course training event whereby a completely untrained individual or group becomes expert at what they're doing in a matter of moments. In this case, the training of the X-Men lasts an entire week, and they actually comment on it during the movie, "Look at what we've accomplished in just a week..." For a movie that spans 18 years, you'd think they'd have worked out a better way than to cram all the training into that last week of the storyline, but no... It's unfortunate.

Other than that, it's a good movie. Fox seems to have learned from its mistakes with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, although they may have also created some continuity issues between the two movies. Maybe they'll work those out at some point, but I doubt it. Now that I know Azazel is a real character, I'd actually go see it again. There's a lot to absorb in a movie like this, and it would just be nice to watch it without getting prickly every time Azazel pops onto the screen.

As for the cast and characters, as I already implied, Kevin Bacon made an excellent villain. He's undervalued as an actor, so it's good to see him in a high profile role, again.

January Jones is perfectly cast as Emma Frost, the white queen of the Hellfire Club. She goes from the role of the ice queen Betty Draper (Mad Men) to embodying that image literally. She doesn't show a lot of range, but, then, she doesn't need to.

James McAvoy is a pleasure as Professor X, or, really, just Charles. There are glimmers of the character as performed by Patrick Stewart in McAvoy's performance, and, really, what more can you ask for than that? The only issues with the character come from the writing and not the acting. The issue stems from the desire to create a more basic conflict between Charles and Eric than one just of method. They play Xavier not just as wanting peaceful co-existence between mutant and human but as wanting the humanizing of mutants. Not that he wants them to not be mutants, but he wants them to be indistinguishable from humans. He sort of comes off as a bigot in this respect.

The purist is, of course, Magneto. He believes in embracing mutantness, and, well, if you've seen the other X-Men movies, you know where this goes. Michael Fassbender does an admirable job in the role. Once he dons the helmet, he even rather looks like Ian McKellen.

It was nice to see Banshee included. He's another of those X-Men that I really like that's often overlooked. He's an interesting character that they're really never delved into enough, so it was cool to see him in the mix. Caleb Jones did an adequate job in the role, but, honestly, I just kept seeing Rupert Grint superimposed in the role.

Which brings us to Jennifer Lawrence. I'm sure all of you fans of The Hunger Games have been wondering when I'd get to her. Unfortunately, I don't have anything really positive to say about her. No raving about her performance. There's also nothing bad to say about her performance; it just wasn't anything that stood out. Possibly, the role didn't require anything of her other than to stand around and be herself, look pretty, but Mystique never really came into focus. There was a lack of emotional intensity that should have been present.

Oh, and there's an awesome Wolverine cameo. That alone is almost worth the movie even if it had been horrible. Since it wasn't horrible, the Wolverine cameo really is icing on the cake. Not awesome cake, but good cake. With awesome icing.

Sorry, Charlie!

I didn't read correctly as a child. Wait, wait! I knew perfectly well how to read. I just didn't follow conventional developmental patterns in my reading. I've probably mentioned this. The main reason for this was that I had no one to suggest books to me. Neither of my parents were readers. In fact, I don't think my father has ever read a book, and I know my brother has never completed a book, not even for school. My mom reads occasionally, but she's not a "reader" nor did she grow up spending a lot of time reading. I'm somewhat of an aberration, since how much a child reads is almost always determined by how much the parents read and how much encouragement they give the child in reading. But I started reading early. Before kindergarten. I just didn't know what I was supposed to be reading.

I started out reading science books. Non-fiction. Yes, I'm serious. I was into dinosaurs, so that's where I started. In fact, in 1st grade I got accused (by my teacher!) of making up the word paleontologist when asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. She made me go to the board and spell it for her. Because, you know, if I could spell it, somehow, that meant I hadn't made it up. No, I don't really follow the logic, either, but there you have it. I spent the first few years of my schooling reading texts about dinosaurs and astronomy, mostly. I branched into history next. I was in 4th grade before I really discovered fiction. The Hardy Boys. By that time, some school counselor or something had told my mom that I had some kind developmental delay in reading, because I wasn't reading what other kids my age read.

And I still haven't read a lot of those books. I just didn't know about them. Make a list of books you read and loved as a child, and I would bet I haven't read most of them. Some of them, I may not have even heard of. My wife, after more than a dozen years of marriage, still reacts with shock and dismay when she mentions books she read and loved as a kid that I've never read. Like The Wizard of Oz. The Edward Eager books. The Phantom Tollbooth. Of course, I've been trying to correct some of these oversights, and I have to say, if you haven't read it, go, right now, and get Tollbooth. It's awesome!

To make this even more clear, I loved, loved, loved Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (this being the movie, not the book) when I was a kid. I still adore that movie. Gene Wilder is amazing. As much as I love Johnny Depp, he will never come close to Gene Wilder as Wonka for me. In fact, I really don't much like Burton's movie version of the book. Here's the thing, I grew up thinking that that was just a movie. I had no idea that there was a book, and I was, probably, in my 20s before I even heard of Roald Dahl. After all, he's not exactly high school reading.

Last year, my younger son had to read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for school. That was 3rd grade. I just want to point out, that I didn't have to any read any books for school until I was in, oh, 5th or 6th grade, when we started having to do book reports, and we got to choose the books. My kids started getting books assigned in 2nd grade. I don't know if this a difference caused by evolution in the wider school system or if it's because I live in California, now, and not Louisiana (not exactly known for its stellar educational system). At any rate, I remembered, at that point, that I'd never read a Dahl book and decided that I should fix that. I ordered both of the Charlie books.

I finally got around to reading them, recently. I was disappointed. And I was disappointed that I was disappointed. I went into it fully expecting the like the heck out of the books. I mean, I loved the movie! I'm not sure there's been any other movie from a book where I've liked the movie and not the book. It's unprecedented. The cliche response is always, "The book was better." But not this time. I should have whizzed through the 150 pages of chocolate factory, but I disenjoyed it so much that it actually took me two weeks to read it. I felt bad about it, too. And my son... well, my son is still in disbelief that I didn't like the book. Maybe, I shouldn't have told him? However, I did know enough to know that my daughter, our not-reader, would like it and passed it on to her, and she did like it, so that was good.

I've tried to reconcile this whole issue of not liking the book. Maybe, it's just because I'm an adult, now, that it didn't click for me. That's totally possible, although I haven't had that issue with other books. I still love Narnia, after all. So, I thought, maybe the movie just got in the way for me. Because I love the movie. Have I mentioned that? I still do. But, really, the movie is not exactly the book, and, maybe, I just wasn't liking it because it didn't mesh for me. I thought, I'll read Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, and that will be better, because I won't have any false expectations for that one.

I didn't like it either. I felt really bad. Part of that one, though, is that it takes place, mostly, in space. What? That's not where Charlie belongs. I couldn't come to grips with that. We've gone from a book about a magical chocolate factory to an adventure in space? I'll say it again: What!?!? But it goes beyond that. I really just don't enjoy Dahl's style. It's too... sporadic, for lack of a better term, for me. He seems to have the attention span of a teenager in the way he writes. I couldn't deal. Glass Elevator also dragged for me and took much longer to read than it should have.

My wife, also, can't believe that I don't like the books. But I can't help it. I'm fairly certain I won't try any more Dahl.

Now, I'm not saying that there weren't clever bits of writing in there or even that I may not have chuckled once or twice, but the books just didn't take hold in me. I'm glad my kids like them, though. Maybe, if I'd followed a more conventional reading path as a child, things would be different, but I can't say I'm sorry for the path I took. Although, I do wish I'd had someone along with me that could have said to me, "Hey, why don't you try this? I think you'll like it." I could have augmented the path I took if I'd had someone there to do that. More than anything else, I try to be that person for my kids.