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.