Once Upon a Time

I have nothing against fan fiction.  I grew up on the Star Wars movies and when I realized that there were several different authors writing in the Star Wars universe, I was snapping up as many novels as I could make time for.  Han and Leia’s three kids are just as much a part of the story in my mind as any other character, and Mara Jade remains the perfect girl for Luke.  (I am going to be heartbroken if in the next trilogy, they decide to leave the kids out.)

The thing about fan fiction, though, is that it’s a pretty exclusive club.  If you’re not a fan of the original works, you will find yourself very lost, very quickly.  It’s why I never read more than a couple Star Trek novels.  I was vaguely familiar with the characters, but they were all having adventures that I barely understood or related to.  Eventually, I left most fan fiction alone, including Star Wars.  See, the other thing about fan fiction is that there is little cohesion or connectedness between each author’s take on that universe.  They have their tale to tell about each character with little relation to another author’s story.  Each author can be telling an equally cool tale, but any character development one author gives can be completely forgotten by the next author’s story that takes place one year later.  It’s like having a permanent reset button for each tale.  Not ideal.

So I left it all alone: Star Wars, Star Trek, Forgotten Realms, Warhammer, StarCraft, Dungeons & Dragons, the whole shebang.  I’m only aware of these titles because of my work at Barnes & Noble; after shelving that many books daily, they start to stick in your mind.

I do make one exception: fairy tales.

Everybody grows up with fairy tales, and all these retellings of our favorite childhood stories are fan fiction, pure and simple.  And since there’s no copyright (as far as I’m aware) we’re allowed to enjoy these favorite characters and plots in as many varieties as we care to.

I haven’t just read or seen different fairy tales, one of my first short stories was a reboot of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”  (It’s still one I’m quite proud of, despite the warts in it.)

Cinderalla has hundreds of incarnations, and a couple of them start to reach towards my list of greats.  Gail Carson Levine’s Ella Enchanted and the movie Ever After feature prominently in my mind.

But perhaps the true creativity is explored in stories that bring the fairy tales into the modern world.  The TV miniseries The 10^th Kingdom was pretty cheesy but still a lot of fun, and despite the meandering through the middle, the plot was well-planned out and earned its climax.  I’ve written a couple times about how much I love the gritty and epic Fables comics.

With my penchant for the fairy re-tales, you’d think that I would have been one of the first to watch Once Upon a Time.  Instead, I waited until this Christmas; then I was on Netflix and for the next three days, I did nothing but watch that show until the second season’s finale.

I’m kicking myself for waiting this long because Once Upon a Time is making a bid to be the best of the fairy re-tales, if not ever, then definitely for the small screen.  The idea is simple: Regina (the evil queen who poisoned Snow White) placed a curse on all our traditional fairy tales.  The curse wiped out all of their memories and brought them to our world.  The now live in a town called Storybrooke that nobody can leave and time is frozen so that they don’t age and remain Regina’s blissfully unaware prisoners.

It’s the perfect except for one catch: Snow White and Prince Charming’s daughter, Emma, escaped the curse as an infant and she’s been brought to Storybrooke to break the spell and free everybody in town.

What shocked me is how horribly addicting this program is.  And perhaps I should amend this being a fairy re-tale; because ABC is this show’s station, Once Upon a Time is a Disney fairy re-tale.  The dwarfs are named Doc, Grumpy, etc., and Mulan shows up in season two.

I am a huge fan of the casting decisions: Lana Parilla as Regina is sheer perfection as the queen who has a concept of what good is but constantly lies to herself that her crimes are justified; Jennifer Morrison, Ginnifer Goodwin, and Josh Dallas convinced me as the family and individuals of Emma, Snow White, and Charming. 

But the true gem is Robert Carlyle as Rumplestiltskin.  Creepy and loveable do not belong in the same sentence, and yet that is how I feel about his character.  Unbeknownst to everyone, including Regina, he has pulled all the strings for his own selfish ends, ruined countless lives, and yet, as the series goes on, you find that all the double-dealing, crimes, and plots has all been to correct one mistake he made as a young father.  And thanks to Belle (played gorgeously by Emilie de Ravin) he starts on the path of redemption, and the shock for me is that I really believe that he might change to the good side.

(And when I say Belle loves him, you are to understand that Rumplestiltskin is the Beast of that fairy tale—and also, it turns out, the Crocodile who took Captain Hook’s hand.  That’s a fun story there.)

I can’t wait to start on the third season.  The heroes go to Neverland and have to deal the villainous Peter Pan; I am excited.

For all the praise, though, I have one serious complaint and it still may keep me from watching the rest.  Lana Parilla has done an amazing job with the character of Regina, but the writers have ruined her.  Regina is evil and manipulative, and despite her few attempts to change her nature, she never learns her lesson and plots to harm or kill everyone around her.  Despite all that, the good guys keep giving her another chance.  A chance she never asks for and spurns every time it’s offered.

This is completely influenced by Star Wars.  Darth Vader lives a life of murder and mayhem, but because in the end, he saves his son, that somehow redeems his soul to where he is on the same level as Yoda, Obi-Wan, and all the little children he sliced up in Revenge of the Sith.  I call bullsh—.  Regina is just the same as Vader, and she might be even worse.  She places curses, rips out hearts, falsely imprisons, wages war, and gives orders to kill entire towns in her own kingdom; yet when she’s finally caught and put on trial, Snow White lets her go because she believes Regina “still has good in her.”

I have a hard time believing that that’s true; actions are the fruit of what’s in our hearts.  Bad people can become good, but only when they replace what’s inside.  But assume Snow White is correct, so what?  At the end of the day, setting an unrepentant mass murderer free in your own country is so negligent in your responsibilities as a ruler that any crimes the murderer commits are now also on your hands.

This is such a black mark that if the writers don’t learn from their mistake and realize that Regina has worn out her welcome on this show, I may yet stop watching this show.  And that would be a shame because there is brilliance in this show that could make it one of the best stories of our decade.

Train Trip and the Wedding

So I went to Utah this past week for my brother’s wedding, and I took a train.  Now, except for the fact that a plane would have gotten me there in just over an hour while the train took 15, I enjoyed the trip far more than I ever had with flying.

First off are the seats.  The last couple times I’ve flown, I’ve felt as cramped as a sardine in a tin can.  I always plan on taking a nap but forget it.  The seats were so close together even in first-class, and when I was in coach, the engine was so loud I couldn’t hear myself think, This sucks.  On the train, though, the seats are so far apart that you can recline, pull up a footrest, and the only sound is that of the wheels going over the tracks.  And from my second floor seat, that wasn’t loud at all had a rather hypnotic effect.  I slept over half the ride.

That, and you can get up and move around whenever you want to stretch your legs, visit the lounge car, or get a bite to eat.

Oh, that’s the other thing.  You can bring as much food as you want on the train.  The folks sitting in front of me were coming home from working on a farm and another had made a major grocery run before getting aboard.  There was constant trading of food, from bagels to wheat berries, and it just fascinated me.  I felt under-prepared, for I’d only brought snacks.  But then, I’d planned on just paying for at least one meal on the train.

The prices were exorbitant, especially for this poor student.  I’d hoped to do a sit-down dinner, but the cheapest dish was $16.50 and I can’t justify a single meal for that much at this point in my life.  So I went to the snack bar and got a burger and chips.  The price for those might have seemed outrageous, but frankly, it wasn’t any worse than what I’ve paid for food at a carnival or state fair.

On a personal level, though, there’s a certain magic about trains and I fell under its charm.  I loved trains when I was a kid, and one of my favorite memories is the one train ride I took with my grandma when I was five.  Being on the train was simply invigorating because of the personal connection and this may probably only work its way in me.  And that’s okay since I’m the one that bought the ticket.  I got exactly what I wanted.

                        ***

The wedding went well.  The ceremony was performed in the Mt. Timpanogos temple, which really excited me.  I went to that temple once when I was 10; it was the first time I ever went inside a temple and that only because it hadn’t been dedicated yet.  Before dedication, temples have open houses where anybody in the world can take a tour through the temples, see all the rooms, and listen to some explanations about the work and worship that’s performed there.  After dedication, the work begins and only members with temple recommends are allowed in for the ceremonies performed there.

It’s been over 17 years since I’ve been to the Mt. Timpanogos temple and I was really pleased with the experience.  As architecture goes, this is one of my favorite designs.  It feels like a palace, and the exterior designs are simple but gorgeous.  I especially loved the moon stones placed around the walls.  Each moon stone is etched to show the moon at its different phases: full moon, half-moon, gibbous, etc.  It was fun to look at.

Can’t say much for the grounds, but it’s snowing in Utah right now so all the flowers are dead.  I imagine that come when spring arrives, the place will look gorgeous.

Temple weddings are typically quiet affairs.  Very few get to see the actual ceremony take place, partly because the sealing rooms aren’t that big so seating is limited (if you try to fit too many in, you’re in danger of breaking fire code, and nobody wants that.)  The other reason is also that not every Latter-day Saint has a temple recommend, so even many family members never get to see the wedding ceremony take place.  I didn’t get my temple recommend until the week before I turned 22.  I don’t recall seeing a marriage ceremony of any sort until around that time of life.

Being in the temple’s sealing room is quite an experience.  There’s an altar in the middle of the room, and the couple sit on either side facing each other.  There are two mirrors on opposite walls facing each other.  This creates an interesting effect where the images are reflected forever.  The couple can look into the mirrors and see infinite images of themselves kneeling at the altar while the temple sealer (the man performing the ceremony) pronounces the marriage covenant.  There’s a lot of symbology behind this, but one that I particularly like is that it represents that starting from that day on, they will be together for all eternity.

The ceremony itself is short.  Most of the time taken up is from the sealer giving advice and a sermon before performing the ceremony.  I don’t think we were in the room for more than 20 minutes.  After that, it was outside for another half-hour of wedding pictures.  Given that I am unused to the snow and every photo was outside, I couldn’t help but feel this took too long.

But I’m also a grouch.

                        ***

I may not have been to many weddings in my life, but I have been to a lot of wedding receptions.  This is where the party happens and where the brides invest the most planning.  Flower arrangements, wedding colors, the music, the dancing, more photo shoots, presents, cutting the wedding cake, tossing the bouquet, decorating the honeymooners car (they don’t plan that, but we all know it’s going to happen), table decorations, and the food.  Guess which part I’m most interested in.

My brother’s reception was rather nice.  They held it in a sort of third-story ballroom, and it was prepared beautifully.  It felt classy.

As for the food, my sister-in-law decided on doing just desserts, which was fine.  I didn’t plan ahead very well; I didn’t eat dinner until after I got home from the reception, at which point I discovered I couldn’t eat very much because I’d put in two much sugary goodness in my stomach.  I had to wait until breakfast the next day before I felt somewhat healthier.

And that’s been some of the highlights of my week.  Otherwise, Christmas is coming!  Merry Christmas everyone!  Hope it’s a good one!  Eat lots of food!  Enjoy your families!  I’ve never put in so many exclamation points in a single paragraph before!

Older Movies I Never Got Around To

This is completely meant to brag: I passed both my 140 WPM tests in one day.  I feel incredibly accomplished and filled with trepidation, because I won’t be getting any practice done on my machine over the Christmas break.  The 160s class is going to feel miserable by January.

                        ***

It should come as no surprise to anyone who reads this blog that I am so very often behind on pop culture.  This should not have been the case with the Terminator series.  I watched them repeatedly throughout college and still own the trilogy.  Much as I love it that particular universe, I never got around to the latest movie, Terminator Salvation, or The Sarah Connor Chronicles TV show.

I had an excuse for the movie: it came out near the beginning of my mission.  Missionaries are not allowed to watch movies (it has something to do with avoid distraction and focusing on service.)  When I came home, I had two years of movies left unseen and Terminator Salvation just wasn’t priority.

Which is too bad for me because that film is a pretty good installment for the franchise.  The earlier films were about preventing a disaster, and learning that even though the choices you make do change the future, calamities still come to pass and it’s your duty to carry on despite the opposition.

Terminator Salvation leaves these themes behind and gives us a straight-out war movie.  It does try to go deeper into other themes, such as the relationship between man and machine, but these are well-explored ideas in the sci-fi genre.  This movie really doesn’t bring anything new to the table, even in its own series.

And yet, I had a great time watching it.  The action was awesome, Christian Bale and Sam Worthington chewed a lot of great scenery, and it was really cool to see this post-apocalyptic world that has been hinted at but never shown.  I thought it was completely worth it.

                        ***

Much as I love a good action flick, though, I have to admit I get a little tired of what passes for jeopardy in today’s film culture.  We only have two modes: life-death situations or relationships falling apart.  Now, I’m not knocking it entirely, but I’m kind of bummed that we never seem to be reaching for more.

It’s why I like going to the older movies, the black-and-white dramas, and I’ve finally gotten around to seeing Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.  This may be the best movie I’ve seen all year.

James Stewart plays Jefferson Smith, a kind of a Boy Scout leader (although they call the organization something else) who is appointed a senator out of the blue.  It’s not long before this humble man gets embroiled in the political intrigues and finds that by being honest and standing up to the powers-that-be, his reputation is smeared and integrity is called into question.

This is the kind of story that inspires me.  Not once is Mr. Smith’s life ever threatened.  Nobody’s coming to put a bullet in his head.  What’s at stake is character and his willingness to hold true to his ideals.  It’s a magnificent story that everyone should make time to see it at least once in their lives.

Before I leave it alone, though, I also have to mention Jean Arthur’s role as Clarissa Saunders, Mr. Smith’s cynical secretary who turns into his biggest advocate.  I was as invested in her journey, where she begins jaded with the culture she’s lived in so long and ready to quit to becoming a firm believer and fighter for the world both Mr. Smith and she wants to live in.

I want more stories like this filling my life.

#56--Mr. Ripley, Poltergeist, and Rothfuss

I usually have a lot to say about the books that are on the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die list, but in the case of The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith, I really don’t have much.

Tom Ripley is a rather unique antihero (a story’s leading character that doesn’t have certain or all of the heroic virtues.)  Ripley is a moocher, liar, whiner, and coward, and an incredible opportunist.  During a vacation in Italy, he murders the friend he’s been staying with and assumes the man’s identity, living off the fortune, reputation, and possibilities.

I am glad I read it.  I was fascinated with this from a moral standpoint; by the end of the book, Ripley gets away with it all, but I can’t help but think of the cost.  The fact is, when he was “living the dream” of going to all these European cities and living in the high hotels, getting the reputation he felt he earned, he never once seemed fully able to truly enjoy any of it.  In his mind, he was just worried that he’d get caught.  But it becomes clear that it’s not capture that sickens him the most, it’s the guilt he feels for his crimes.  The irony is that he won’t admit the guilty feeling and lies to himself more than he lies to anybody else that he had no choice in the matter.  So even by the end when it all works out well for him, I just know this character will be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life.

This is what I like about crime fiction: the audience is going to have to spend a lot of time in the heads of truly horrible, awful monsters, but crime stories tend to be some of the most honest tales told.  After all the criminal goes through and suffers in order to come out on top, the question I ask myself is, Was it worth the cost?  I can answer for myself that it never is.

In that way, it was worth reading before I died.

                        ***

There are a lot of movies I haven’t seen, even ones that are considered classics.  I’ve been trying to remedy that situation, which is why when I saw Poltergeist in the library, I borrowed it immediately and watched it that night.

Wow.  Can’t believe I never saw it before now.  This is probably the coolest ghost story I’ve ever watched (although I’d have to re-watch The Sixth Sense before I make final that decision.)  I’m not one who looks away from a movie over horror.  I will leave the room during moments of shame; embarrassment is a much stronger emotion, and it’s why I have a hard time with certain comedies.  I get to a point where I’m so embarrassed for the characters on screen that I don’t want to be around them anymore.  But leaving the room out of fear?  No.  Very little bothers me.  I usually won’t even turn my head once.

Poltergeist made me look away from the screen twice.  I think it’s a The Turn of the Screw-effect.  Fear is always magnified when one child is in danger, and in this movie, there are two children in danger.  Everybody else connected with the house is in danger, but what the ghosts really want are the kids, and both times I looked away was when the children were at the center of the screen.

Hard to watch, but so worth it, mostly for the family.  The majority of the horror genre deals with flawed people, and I don’t mean in the “nobody’s perfect” sort of way.  I mean that there is a major sin the victims’ are committing that almost makes them deserve their fate when the monster comes out.  That is not the case in this movie.  Somebody sinned, but it was not the family.  The parents love each other and their children, and the kids are being raised right.  They aren’t being punished for anything they did, but they take those hard times and actually grow closer together.

                        ***

I’ve been aware of Patrick Rothfuss for a while.  He’s only published two novels and the third one is nowhere near completion as far as I’m aware, and yet he’s become one of the most talked about names in the fantasy genre.  I finally took the time to read The Name of the Wind and I’m happy to say that it is worth the praise.

There’s plenty to make the fantasy audience happy; rich worlds, original mythologies, magic, demons, dragons, poetry, and the rise of a hero.

At its heart, though, this is a love story.  I’m tempted to add a doomed love story.  The hero Qvothe chases the wandering Denna and never seems quite able to catch her.  Now, I’ll admit that I don’t care for the girl at all.  I’ve met her type before, and yes, girls like her a beautiful and exciting, and there’s plenty that has happened in their past that you can only sympathize with them, but for all that, they are utterly selfish.  Denna goes through men like they’re toilet paper and treats them about the same.  The main reason no guy stays with her is because they know it’s not worth putting up with her s—.

Yet the romance still works for me because of Qvothe.  In a lot of ways, his experiences with women, love, feelings, and utter regard for chastity mirror my own.  Rothfuss has captured this aspect of my personality—except for the fact that I am not nearly as suave.

This might only be true for this book.  For all I know, Qvothe turns into a sex-pot by the next book, The Wise Man’s Fear (which I think is likely.)  But for this one, I am very much entranced and completely captured by this sweet moment of young love.

My Stroke of Insight

I have pushed, prodded, and persuaded my mom to read a lot of books I like.  Once in a while, I feel compelled to do the same for her.

For half a year, she’s been telling me to read My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D.  Since I don’t live at home, it’s pretty easy to ignore her.  However, I came back for Thanksgiving and while things were quiet and she didn’t have me help brine the turkey yet, somehow the book fell into my hands and it was implied I had no excuse to not read it now.  (It ended up being the fourth book I read that week.)

I went into it with some trepidation.  Dr. Taylor is a brain scientist and I have studiously avoided anything to do with that subject since college.  I took one psychology class and dropped out two months later.  Not because I wasn’t doing good—on the contrary, I was getting an A and it undoubtedly would not have hurt my GPA.  It was at least filling my GE credits to get my degree.

However, I was only doing well because I actually did the homework.  And if the tests weren’t open book, I would have failed.  After realizing I couldn’t remember anything since the class began and I had no desire to go back and review anything for comprehension, I walked out and never looked back.  I might need my brain to think, but I don’t need to think about how it thinks.

My mom thinks that’s stupid, and since I’m obviously wrong, I needed this book in my life.

My Stroke of Insight is Dr. Taylor’s story about her stroke at age 37 and her eight years of recovery that followed.  It’s a short book, but it’s valuable for three different reasons.

The one that mattered most to me were Chapters 2 and 3, which is a basic look at the brain.  I’ve seen the pictures and come across the terms dozens of times over my life, but this is the first time I can honestly say I understand the difference between the amygdala and the hippocampus, or what the limbic and cortical systems are for.

That in no way means that the rest is not worth your time.  They very much are.  The majority of the book is focused on her experience having a stroke and all that occurred as she tried to make herself well.  This portion of the story is not really for the stroke victims but for those who care for them.

One tip that stuck with me is that when you talk to stroke victims, you don’t need to shout.  They aren’t deaf; their hearing is just fine.  What can be problematic is comprehension.  What’s more effective is to talk s-l-o-w and be willing to repeat yourself as often as needed until they understand.

The last important point about this book is her unique (and rather spiritual) perspective on the roles and functions of the right and left hemispheres of our brains.  Her point is that these two sides of our brains tend to control us and how we feel.  Many seem to live so that we seemingly have no control over what we think or how we feel.  Dr. Taylor disagrees with this view, and shares her opinions based on her current understanding of how the brain and chemicals in our body work, and from her own personal experiences.

It’s certainly given members of my family hours of things to talk about and still never getting tired of it.

Steelheart

One of the best parts about being on vacation is the opportunity to just take a day to read.  I’ve always been a fast reader, but after I took nearly a month to get through Atlas Shrugged, I was worried that I was losing my touch.  Turns out that, no, Atlas Shrugged was just exceptionally awful.

Brandon Sanderson’s Steelheart is the first book I’ve read within 24 hours for a long time.  If Sanderson has written a bad book, I haven’t read it yet.

The premise is simple: a significant percentage of humanity has been given superpowers, and these supposed superheroes (they’re called Epics) instead become they’re oppressors.  Steelheart is the worst of them.  He now rules the city of Newcago and is seemingly invincible.  But one young man, David, has seen Steelheart bleed and wants to see him bleed again.

Steelheart is a bit of a departure from the Sanderson works I’m familiar with.  Sanderson began his career writing epic fantasy: Elantris, the Mistborn series, Warbreaker, the last three books in The Wheel of Time series, and his planned magnum opus of The Stormlight Archives.  These are books that are grand in scope, are shown from the perspective of several characters, and really take their time to develop.

Steelheart feels like a thriller more than a fantasy.  Scratch that—Steelheart feels like it wants to be a comic book.  Between superpowers and the almost non-stop action and short chapters, I get the feeling that if Sanderson had ever been interested, he could have had a reputation like Michael Crichton.

If anything, though, this shows that he’s versatile.  It’ll be exciting to see where he takes his career from here.

                        ***

I spent the first week of my two-week hiatus planning out the next six weeks of blog posts.  I was really excited about this.  I had topics planned for each Sunday through Thursday, and I’d even started writing these blogs ahead of time.

Last week became the roughest week of my year.  While I was able to sort these problems out, it made me reexamine my priorities.  With my church responsibilities, school, my brother’s upcoming wedding, the general holiday preparations, and two other slight personal emergencies that have arisen, keeping up this blog is stretching me too thin.  At least to the extent that I have been.

I intend to keep updating once a week, Mondays.  Hopefully I can go back to the four-a-day before long, but until then, thanks to everybody who has been reading as long as you have.

I'm Taking a Break

I said I was going to give my Monday through Thursday pattern for five weeks to see how I liked it, and I gave it eight.  I’ve been so happy with the results.  I’ve gotten to publish on a regular schedule, write about a multitude of topics that interest me, and hopefully is fun for others to read.

It’s been fun and unlike before, I haven’t felt overwhelmed to get something out.

This past weekend, though, I realized that my well is dry and some of my other obligations have taken a lower priority than they should.  So, apologies to those that want to keep reading, but I’m taking a two-week break to pursue my other priorities.  I’ll be back on November 25 to continue this enterprise for another six weeks.

Until then, enjoy the beginning of your holiday seasons!

Solitude

Diana Peters in her little car
was driving oh so very far
through mountains, desert, valleys deep,
and looking for a quiet place to weep.

Wherever she could possibly go
she found it in a place of snow.
The car could find its traction not at all.
Her solitude found, no help came to her call.

Funhouse

I’ve been a fan of P!nk for a long time.  Her singles “Don’t Let Me Get Me” and “Just Like a Pill” were part of my high school experience.  Her work has only gotten better with time and, if possible, even more raw.

I’ve heard several of her songs from her Funhouse album on the radio or seen the music videos for them on YouTube.  To listen to them all collected is an experience.  The album was put together after she and her husband separated, and the songs go through different emotions that come with such a breakup, from blind anger to desperate vulnerability.

I’ve been a fan of “So What,” “Sober,” and “Funhouse” for a while, but the real treasure for me was “Crystal Ball.”  “Crystal Ball” is all about experience; it’s about bad decisions made and facing the scorn of the world, and yet you wouldn’t trade it because those mistakes taught you more than anything else could have.  In the end, others are not able to judge your flaws because you are stronger than any of them could ever believe or understand.

Be warned:  like most rock albums these days, the language is terrible in places, and she deals with some tough subject matter.  However, I feel that the issues she sings about and the music accompanying it is not just powerful, it’s important as well.  P!nk is talking entirely about her pain and struggles, but in the process, she practically speaks for this generation in our loss of safety and the heartbreak we suffer but rarely find a proper outlet for.

Card Games

There is something magical about that standard 52-card deck.  It’s one of the most versatile forms of social recreation ever invented.  Board games don’t possess this.  Despite all the thousands of different versions it has spawned, you can only play Monopoly on a Monopoly board.  Parcheesi only permits Parcheesi.  The same goes with Risk, Clue, Checkers, Chess, Backgammon, Othello, and so on and so forth.

The same is true with most other specifically designed cards.  Phase 10, Uno, Rook and the like only permit you to play those games.  They aren’t built to allow anything else.

But with the 52-card deck… I can’t count how many games have been created using these cards with their nondescript numbers and faces.  I’ve been playing with these cards since I was seven and I’ve lost count of how many rounds of Golf and Spades I’ve been through.  The most popular group game I’ve played is Japanese Trump, which I’ve also heard called Ace Trump, Scum, President, and just regular Trump.  Chances are it has three other names I haven’t come across but will in the future.

Last weekend, I learned a brand new game called James Bond.  It was for just three players with our deck that we had, it was very easy to learn, quick-paced, and so much fun.  I’d love to give the rules for it here, but I’ve never been good with written instructions and that would be pretty boring reading.

Fortunately, I can direct you to where you can find the rules to James Bond.  Go to www.pagat.com, which is the ultimate site for the rules to all card and tile games.  It’s a fun site to explore and who knows, you might find something more to play and fill time at any parties or gatherings you happen to be at.

Ender's Game

Ender’s Game is in theaters and it is awesome!

Yeah, I’ve been waiting for this movie to come out ever since I first read it in high school, and many others have been waiting much longer.  The story about a kid being brought into space to be trained as a military commander has stuck with me a long time and to see it come alive is exciting.

Battle School is gorgeous.  It’s been a long time since we’ve had a genuinely unique space station and they accomplished it in flying colors.  But I was especially impressed with Command School and the simulator.  The simulator might be the most breathtaking part of the whole show.

So, for the spoilers:

The pacing is much more condensed than the book, which only makes sense considering how much time the movie has to work with.  Instead of watching Ender grow from 6 to 11, he’s roughly 11 for the entire film; instead of years of training, it’s been condensed down to months.

The Battle Room is the main setting throughout, but only two battles actually take place in the room.

The subplot with Ender’s siblings is gone.  Peter only has two appearances in the whole movie, and while Valentine is given significantly more screentime, her role is still the same as Peter’s: they influence Ender but they have no relationship with him.  Which is how it is in the book, but we get no glimpse at what they want and what they dream.

With their subplot gone, the colonization theme that is so crucial to the entire Enderverse series is nonexistent.

I agree with every decision made thus far.  They decided to make the movie entirely about Ender and not only how brilliant a tactician he was, but about his most deeply cherished beliefs: that when you know someone completely and you can’t help but love them completely, even your most hated enemy; and that it isn’t enough to win one battle, you have to win all the future battles.  The only way to stop an enemy is rob them entirely of their will to fight you.

His leadership is believable.  The danger in this film was not just to accept that kids would follow him, but making us believe the adults would trust the fate of their species to this young, young child.  I bought it, not only that they would trust him but that they would love him.

I only have one quibble: the thing that got condensed were character personalities, specifically among Ender’s friends.  Fair enough, they didn’t have the time to develop everything relationship.  So what they did was combine several characters attributes into one.  In this case, Petra took over the roles that Dink Meeker and Bean played in the novel, and that does bother me a bit.  What makes Petra’s character fascinating to me is that she is Ender’s mentor and friend, but she’s also extremely competitive and really jealous of Ender’s talent at one part in the story.  There was always a distance between the two in the novel.  It was always Bean that was closest to Ender; they thought alike, they were treated alike, and there was nothing Ender knew that Bean didn’t.  And considering the role Bean plays, not just in Ender’s Game but in many of the sequels, I was hoping that they would give him a much larger role.

Oh, well.  This movie’s good.  I hope it makes enough money to put out not just Enderverse sequels, but more Orson Scott Card adaptations.  There are stories that deserve to be on the big screen.

Sarah: Part 3

There’s a point when you start to realize that the Bible may not always be told in strict chronological order.  I reached that moment in Genesis 20.  After all the storytelling of Abraham and Sarah’s promise that they would have a son in their old age, suddenly we’re given a story that is almost an exact repeat of their experience in Egypt.

While Abraham and Sarah travelled, they “journeyed from thence toward the south country…and dwelled in Gerar.  And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah.”  (Gen. 20:1-2)

The story itself is very interesting.  Abimelech never touches Sarah, but while he kept her in his house, he was visited by God and told that he was a dead man for taking another man’s wife.  A curse is put on him and all the women in his household, where none of them can have children.  Abimelech returns Sarah to Abraham, along with many treasures and permission to dwell in any part of his kingdom as recompense for taking her.  Abimelech does censure Sarah for her part in deceiving him, but by the end, all is well and he and all the women in his house are healed.

The reason I’m sure that this takes place before the promise of Isaac’s birth is that Sarah is 90 years old when she conceives.  Somehow, I don’t see Abimelech kidnapping an old lady who passed menopause years before.  I’m willing to admit I could be wrong and this is still chronologically correct.  But when I look at the placement, this seems more like a backstory to help explain their relationship with Abimelech in future events; after Isaac is born, Abraham has a property dispute over a well with Abimelech’s servants.  It gets solved calmly by both men, and I think a lot of that has to do with their prior experience with each other.

Well, anyways, Sarah has Isaac, and it’s quite a miracle, what with both her and Abraham’s age.

“And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me.  And she said, Who would have said unto Abraham, that Sarah should have given children suck? for I have born him a son in his old age?” (Gen. 21:6-7)

As I wrote in my last “Sarah” post, “laugh” can be interpreted as “rejoice,” which I actually prefer, as it eliminates some confusion “laugh” has engendered among other people.  “Rejoice” also packs a punch of sheer exultation in this moment of Sarah’s life.

There was a problem, though: Hagar and her son, Ishmael.  Last week, I mentioned how Hagar was cruel towards Sarah, and even though she eventually returned and submitted herself, I imagine she must have been bitter ever since.  Her bitterness towards Sarah would have been noticed by Ishmael, and emulated by her.

“And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, which she had born unto Abraham, mocking.” (Gen. 21:9)

That’s a little vague.  What or who was Ishmael mocking?  We get insight into this from the apostle Paul, who in his epistle to the Galatians spoke about Isaac and Ishmael.  “Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.  But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.” (Gal. 4:28-29)

Ishmael was persecuting, or attacking or troubling, his half-brother Isaac, who was 14 years younger than him.  Ishmael was a danger to Isaac, and Sarah acted to make sure that her son was safe.  “Wherefore she said unto Abraham, Cast out this bondwoman and her son: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.” (Gen. 21:10)

Abraham struggled with this one, and you can feel for him.  Ishmael was his son and he loved him dearly.  But “God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called.” (Gen. 21:12)

Sarah might seem harsh, urging her husband to exile Hagar and their son, but bear in mind that the Lord fully supported her decision.  In this case, she was perfectly in tune with what the Lord’s will was.  Ishmael was not only a danger, he was not the heir the Lord chose.  We get insight into this from Paul in the above scripture, when he said that Ishmael was born after the flesh but Isaac was born after the Spirit.  Ishmael was born because Sarah decided to solve her and Abraham’s lack of children her way.  It was her decision to give Hagar to Abraham.  But the Lord was the one who brought about Isaac’s birth.  The Lord showed through Sarah’s barrenness and old age that he commanded miracles and that he was in charge over every aspect of their lives and blessings.  Also, Isaac’s miraculous birth to Sarah in her old age can be viewed as a type of Christ’s miraculous birth to Mary.  The Lord uses all things to testify of his divinity.

On top of that, because of this, Sarah remains an inspirational figure for us today simply by seeing her faith.  Paul would testify, “Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.” (Heb. 11:11)

I don’t believe the miracle of Isaac’s birth would have happened if Sarah had not had the faith necessary for it.  But because she believed, the Lord worked the miracle, and the testimony of that has carried out after all these millennia.

Sarah was 127 when she died, and “Sarah died in Kirjath-arba; the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan: and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her.” (Gen. 23:2)

As wealthy as Abraham was, he was effectively a nomad, and though the Lord had promised him that his posterity would possess the land of Canaan, that time was yet still in the future.  At that time, Abraham had no land to bury his dead.  There is a rather sweet story about how he purchased some land from Ephron and the children of Heth for 400 shekels, “the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field, and the cave which was therein, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all the borders round about, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession in the presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gather of his city.  And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre: the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan.” (Gen. 23:17-19)

I don’t know where any of these places are on the map, but this is significant because this would be the place not only where Sarah would be buried, but Abraham, and later their children and grandchildren.  This cave may be one of the holiest sites in ancient scripture, the resting place for these holy men and women whose faith has carried on after all this time and will carry on through eternity.

Happy Halloween: "The Infant"

I’ve been trying to write a Halloween poem for three weeks and finally got fed up.  No matter what I did, it just looked and sounded horrible.  So I took the story idea and decided to try something I’ve never done before:  flash fiction.

Flash fiction is a story told in 100 words or less.  I wrote it in 156, and finally pared it down to 99.  I cannot tell you how much of a headache that was.  You wouldn’t think it would be that difficult to get rid of over 50 words, but you’d be wrong!

But anyways, it’s the holiday for the eldritch and freaky, and this is me sharing a taste of what happens when you leave me alone with my imagination.

                        ***

I’d killed the vampire but couldn’t sleep.

I stood in the hall outside our bedroom.  My wife slept as a hibernating bear.  The vampire refreshed himself from her last week.  She miscarried right after.

I heard her cry and ran inside.  She lay atop the covers, the naked invader nestled at her breast.  It was smaller than my hands.  I watched it suckle at her throat, slurping her blood like milk.

I killed the vampire but left his child.  I saw my wife’s smile and how she caressed the infant.  The baby was still hers, and she happily nursed.

Ghostbusters

Do I need to say anything about Ghostbusters?  No, but that’s never stopped me before.  This movie is a classic.  The special effects, which undoubtedly were pretty decent at the time, look so ridiculous, but that’s just part of the fun.  It’s was never supposed to be a serious film; they go from doing “serious” science work to cashing in on an unexplored business field.  Despite rescuing the damsel and preventing the apocalypse, they really don’t have any other goal in mind except to make a lot of money, and they assume most everybody else is as greedy and fiscally minded as themselves.

My favorite moment in the film is when they’re talking themselves out of jail, trying to get the mayor on their side, and Bill Murray says, “You will have saved the lives of millions of registered voters.”  Yeah, it’s not about morality or good versus evil.  They appeal strictly to the modern sensibility.

I think perhaps this is partly why Ghostbusters 2 wasn’t as successful as the first.  It wasn’t any hokier than the first; less so, actually.  It ended up having a different tone and developed the characters differently.  In the first, everybody only cares about themselves.  In the sequel, it’s not just about making it in the world, they’re actually trying the change the world.  The characters actually grow up and deepen just a little bit.  It makes for good storytelling, but it wasn’t as much fun.

Carrie

I first read Carrie towards the end of my high school senior year.  I was at a park and it only took me a day to get through the entire thing.  It wasn’t the first Stephen King novel I read, but it was the first to stir me so emotionally that it changed not only the way I view relationships, but how I look at my own childhood.

The novel is about Carrie White, an abused high school senior with telekinetic powers, and after a series of horrendous events from her mother and classmates, she slaughters her high school and a good portion of the town.  Carrie is a monster, but never is she the villain.  That goes to Chris Hargensen and Carrie’s mom, Margaret.  Both are bullies and Carrie is an easy target for all sorts of abuse.

I sympathize with Carrie because from elementary school through junior high, I was Carrie.  Not so much the home abuse, but at school, life was awful.  I remember a long series of humiliation, taunts, and spoiling of any good thing I thought I had.  There were only three or four who actively sought to make me miserable, but it was enough to throw me off, and considering how awkward I was, I was generally ostracized from everyone.  Since reading Carrie, I’ve often wondered what would have happened if things hadn’t changed for me in high school.  I highly doubt I would have tried to take out my school, but I can relate to her rage.  After a long series of abuses, something breaks and you search for release.

Considering how much I love the story, there was no way I wasn’t going to see the Carrie remake in theaters.  I not only like it better than the 1976 version, I almost like it better than the book.

The casting is superb; Chloë Grace Moretz is luminous as Carrie.  Even when she goes murderous, it was impossible for me not to still love her, and Julianne Moore is incredibly frightening as Carrie’s mom.  I don’t know if anybody has captured insanity better than her.

There are moments of cheesiness, mostly at the end when they fall into the cheap horror tricks of one more scare just to make the audience jump.  Carrie’s mom should have just stayed dead after being stabbed in the heart.  Making her gasp on for another half-minute was ludicrous, and the final scene at Carrie’s grave is as pointless as the hand coming out the ground in the original.

But these are nitpicks.  I was impressed, very impressed, with everything else.  I dreaded the shower scene; the 1976 version made that opening sequence feel lurid, almost like it was encouraging the audience to ogle high school girls.  The 2013 version takes pains to avoid this and instead focuses on making it the truly frightening and traumatic start to Carrie’s story, as it should be.

Updating the story to fit in with today’s technology was also a clever move.  It never felt intrusive but developed Chris’s awful nature and even made the prom night more believable.  And the prom rampage was, of course, amazing.  I wish this movie great success.

Halloween's Coming!

Halloween represents different things not only for different people, but also for different times of life.  When I was a kid, Halloween was about dressing up in awesome costumes and getting candy.  I got older and it became just about the costumes, to which I put in less and less effort.  Then I got even older, and it became looking at other’s costumes.  The time spent preparing these are comparable to the outfits some bring to sci-fi conventions, and that’s saying no small thing.

But what Halloween has truly become for me now is the massive influx of spooky movies.  I enjoy scary movies and there seems no better time of year for them than now.  So this week is devoted to nothing but Halloween films, starting with one I can’t stand.

The House on Haunted Hill could have been good.  It’s one of those old black-and-white classics about a group of people who take a bet to stay in a haunted house for an evening, and in the morning, if they’ve survived, they’ll be given a tidy sum of cash.  Weird crap happens, ghosts appear, people die, and then…it’s shown that it wasn’t ghosts but an elaborate and really hokey con to commit the “perfect” murder.

It’s like being promised The Sixth Sense and being given a bad episode of Scooby Doo.  I was so mad by the end of it I played an episode of X-Files I’d already seen, just to remember that there is quality entertainment.