I Am Back

 

Well, this has been an interesting week. Tuesday, I went for an out-patient procedure to have cataracts removed from both eyes.

I admit that I was quite apprehensive about the operation. Yes, these are routine, and surgeons perform them daily, all that is very good in the abstract but when it is your eyes getting sliced, well abstract becomes concrete quite quickly.

Overall, things went well. The most irritating aspect of the surgery itself was that it took three nurses 5 attempts to get the IV needle into my vein. One the table and thanks to the drugs pumped into my system I was awake for the entire procedure but relaxed and calm. The visuals were off, bright indistinct shapes as the doctor removed my lenses and replaced them with artificial ones.

That afternoon and evening I was unable to see anything clearly and light sources presented rainbows induced by chromatic aberrations and I passed the time listening to podcasts. Sleeping was far more difficult.

I had been given the two plastic shields to cover my eyes, they were transparent with holes to allow gas exchange and served as a barrier to prevent me from accidentally rubbing my healing eyes. Meaning I had to wear them to bed and these shields were too close to my lips with my lashes sweeping across them every time I blinked. Worse still was they tended to direct sweat into my eyes, frequently waking me with burning sensations. Luckily, I saw my Doctor the next morning and when I told her the issues, she gave me a new set of metal ones that were adjustable, and these work a hell of a lot better.

Wednesday I could see much better and by the evening I could watch TV, yay LOKI!, and playing video games. Thursday I was very nearly back to normal and today I have returned to my day-job.

Now I can get back to work on my novel, edit the first few chapter and write a new one for the tail end of the story based on the feedback my beta readers kindly gave me.

 

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Noir Review: Kiss of Death

Noir Review: Kiss of Death

It was difficult to find a copy of Kiss of Death to watch but I eventually managed the task. The film, starring Victor Mature, is particularly notable for as the first screen appearance of one
Richard Widmark as the vicious and psychopathic Tommy Udo a screen debut that scored
Widmark an Oscar nomination.

Mature plays Nick Bianco a thief nabbed in an armed robbery that goes wrong and rather than cooperate with the district attorney’s office takes his hard time sentence rather than squeal. However, when events intervene Nick has a change of heart and begin working for the state which brings him into conflict with Udo who has an intense hatred of those who turn on their criminal brothers. There is a romantic sub-plot between Mature and a younger woman, Coleen Gray, but the film’s real focus is Bianco and Udo.

This is one of Mature’s best performances and the conflict Nick suffers as his world crumbles if evident on his feature but without a doubt the standout performance is Widmark’s Udo. If you have watched any documentaries about the film noir movement, you have undoubtedly seen the clip of Udo sending a helpless woman tumbling down a long flight of stairs. While this capture the cruelty of his character the performance is much more than acts of wonton violence. Widmark manipulates every muscle in his face, creates a perverse curl to his upper lip, and give a joker-like grin as Udo that radiates that this person has no empathy for anyone.

Kiss of Death plot wise is fairly standard and the voiceover narration could have been dropped to improve the movie, but it should not be missed for the performances.

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It’s Hard Being Defenseless

 

Saturday, I held the Zoom meeting and discussion for the beta readers of my most recent novel.

Beta readers for those who may not be aware are people who are willing to read a work that is complete but may, nearly always, need additional editing or writing to correct flaws that were invisible to the author.

The discussion was fruitful and represented a diverse set of opinions, some things worked for some and not for others, but there was enough commonality to give me some direction in edits, alterations, and revisions.

The most difficult element of the process is also one I consider to be the most vital; never defend the work.

As an author you will not be present when an editor, agent, or person skimming books off a shelf is reading your work. The work stands alone, and you cannot expand or explain or clarify anything. When beta readers have comments that something was missed, that it might have worked better if you had established this or explained that you cannot stop the feedback and point out where you did exactly that. Whatever it was you did it clearly did not work and defending your choices, your text, or your edits will not change that. Also, once you start defending it is very easy for the conversation to turn into attack and defend as people construct fortresses of logic for their position. At that point all valuable feedback has been lost. An author who is out to be ‘right’ about an interpretation has stopped truly listening. Defending is the antithesis of hearing.

It is hard to be defenseless. Author often are opinionated people and as such used to vigorously supporting their position but when it comes back to a reader’s feedback it is more important to remember that no honest feedback can be wrong it is what they person honestly took away from the work and if that’s not what you intended then it’s your job to diagnosis why and to fix it.

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The Return of In-Person Gaming

 

This Saturday for the first time since the pandemic sent the nation and the world into shut down, I am getting together with my friends for in-person role play gaming.

The game that I had been running when COVID-19 came along and upended everything was FGU’s Space Opera, a complex sci-fi game setting with tons and tons of complex calculations and table as it attempts to model nearly every kind of sci-fi setting you might want for you enjoyment.

I used to run campaigns of this way back in the 80s and they were very popular with my friends. It was a challenge getting back into the swing of Space Opera particularly finding that groove where I am willing to let the wild and free nature of such a setting run free, but I think I was getting there when the pandemic suspended the game.

In the interim I have lost one player and a dear friend to the disease and I have plans to give his character a fitting exit from the campaign to honor his own unique quirky nature.

I have also taken quite a bit of time creating spreadsheets to help me run this campaign. Back in the primitive 80s when personal computers were little more than stone knives and bear skins, I used a lot of notes, notebooks, and guestimates to run the game but now with laptops, iPads, and smartphone I have more options and I am quite proud of the Excel sheets I have crafted to manage skill learning, transit time, system generation, and time keeping.

Here’s my hand drawn and letter and thus hideous sector map for the current game. I am so looking forward to this weekend.

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Movie Review: Cruella

 

Confession: I have no memory of every having watched in its 101 Dalmatians making a feature film about the origin story of its chief villain an unlikely movie to interest me. But then repeatedly people whose taste I trust reported the film fun and worthwhile and so after re-instating membership in AMC’s A-List subscription service for up to 3 movies per week I ventured for a late-night screening.

Cruella, starring Emma Stone as the titular character, is an origin story for the Disney villainess, a period London centric crime comedy, and plants a feminist flag for taking command of your life with verve and individuality. The film boasts a voice-over track as Cruella narrates her life for the audience and it is one of the examples of how to do a good voice over as it is always in the tone and viewpoint of the character and not simply a voice describing what is one the screen or hastily created world building.

Orphaned at a young age Cruella, whose actual name is Estella with the more recognizable name an identifier of her more aggressive traits, struggles at first as a petty criminal on the streets of London as she dreams of becoming a fashion icon and designer. When finally, life presents her with this opportunity she finds herself engaged in a battle of fame and fashion dominance with ‘The Baroness’ and no it’s not the villain from G.I. Joe but rather a domineering designer played perfectly by Emma Thompson. The remained of the film’s two hours plus running time is the war between the two women. Elaborate displays are engineered, and secrets revealed before the story resolution all done to period and anachronistic needles drops of a truly great songs featuring styles as diverse as The Clash to standards such as Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps.

Screenwriter and novelists C. Robert Cargill may have found the perfect description for Cruella, “CRUELLA is like Guy Richie re-imagined THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA … “

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The Faux Patriots

 

I am a child of the Cold War; born the same year the Communist constructed the Berlin Wall. For those who are perhaps too young to know or remember the Cold War was a global struggle between the The West, The United States and her Allies, also called the Free World and The East, The USSR and her client states. (If a nation belonged to neither group it was referred to as the Third World and overwhelmingly these nations were destitute, and that label became synonymous an impoverished country.)

The Free World was hardly perfect. At the start of the Cold War the English still ruled their global Empire and the United States remained a heavily segregated nation with its large black population surviving as second-class citizens. How could this state of affairs justify the honorific ‘Free’?

The answer is that the governments of the Free World were accountable to their people. Even with the stain of America’s Jim Crow laws the free, fair, and open elections in America held the government of the United States answerable to its people. The very fact of that accountability held the seeds to the changes that destroyed Jim Crow and to this day drag us further along the road to actual justice and equality.

The Soviets and their client states held no free, fair, or open elections and were immune, until revolution, from the will of their subjects. This is the essence that separated the West from the East, the crucial factor that drove the Cold War, and fuels decades of conflict, open and clandestine, costing lives and fortunes, and held the shadow of thermonuclear annihilation over the entire world and it is this bedrock foundational principle that the Modern Republican Party has abandoned.

Make no mistake about it. The GOP as it currently stands, wedded and inseparable from Trump and his grifters unwilling to issue a party platform in its most recent presidential election favoring instead to commit itself to the ever-changing messages from its leader, has abandoned free, fair, and open elections. The Republican Party, a party that once defined itself by its opposition to the Soviet Block now openly plats to subvert election and dismiss violent attempts to prevent the transfer of authority because of a free, fair, and open election did not produce the results they desired. This, not corporate tax rates, no abortion, nor gun control, is the defining issue of our time and no person supporting the Republican party has any moral justification in calling themselves a patriot.

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The Gravest Feedback Mistake

 

I am engaged in a regular writer’s group that meets twice a month and of course as a novelist I also solicit for beta readers for works in progress all of which gives me a prime perch to watch and hear people giving feedback on a writer’s work.

Now, there are plenty of different styles in how to give feedback, personally whenever possible I try to sandwich the critique as good stuff – stuff that didn’t work for me – and more good stuff. Opening and closing with things worked and that you like I think makes it much easier for the harder material to be heard and digested.

There is one approach that see repeatedly used and it’s not one that the critique is choosing but rather falls into without be actually aware of it that hampers giving good feedback, and that is wanting the story to be a different story all together.

Except for a few beta readers those giving feedback are usually writers themselves and there is often an unconscious attempt to mold the story being critiqued into one they would have written and that is not helpful to the author.

Say I am critiquing a story about a woman on the American Plains in the mid 1800s and it’s about her coming to grips with her sexuality and desires for women after the passing of her husband. Okay that is one story and one with lots of potential but if I come to author and suggest that it’s not exciting because there isn’t lots of combat with the local native tribes and it would be much more interesting if we had more characters from the cavalry involved then I am not critiquing the story before me but rather trying to get one written that I might write.

(Not that I have ever had a desire to write western fiction this is merely example.)

It is vital that even if it is not the kind of fiction you would ever write you keep in the forefront of your mind what story that writer is actually trying to tell and not the one you wish for. Critiques that fall into the trap aren’t bad or trying to sabotage the work they have simply fallen into a very natural but not helpful case of mirroring. They are thinking of the story they would write and not this one. Once you are aware and on the alert for this you can give much better critiques that will help your fellow writers.

 

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Streaming Review: A Song Called Hate

 

My sweetie-wife is a fan of an Icelandic BDSM inspired metal band called Hatari. This weekend a documentary about the band’s entry into the 2019 Eurovision contest dropping on the streaming service Vimeo but region locked against the US and the UK. Luckily, I had just upgraded my Norton anti-virus subscription to include their VPN (Virtual Private Network) capability and after resetting out location to Finland managed to unlock and rent the documentary.

First time documentary director Anna Hildur follows the controversial band noted for their outspoken style as they prepare to play in Tel Aviv Israel with a clear intention to violate Eurovision’s prohibition on making any political statement as part of the contest.

As anyone who really knows me understands Metal is not one of my preferred musical genres. However, that doesn’t impede my ability to enjoy a good documentary and have respect for artists willing to risk standing and cash in order to make a stand for what they believe is right. Art, on some level, is always political. Even if an artist makes even conscious choice to avoid political statements or stands that itself is a political stand. I am not here to comment on the correctness or fallacy of Hatari’s position concerning the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, but I will respect that they did not take their position lightly or without forethought.

A Song Called Hate does a very admirable job of revealing the member of Hatari as people and moves beyond the surface level of their costumes and performance. Without having been told there was nothing about the production that would have informed me that this was a first-time feature documentary director. At 90 minutes the run time perfectly balances the need to probe deep into its subjects but without overstaying in any particular scene.

All in all, thought the music is not to my taste and I am far from equipped to judge its quality A Song Called Hate is an illuminating and well-crafted piece of documentary cinema.

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Streaming Review: The Last Drive-In; Ginger Snaps

 

This weekend I decided to give Shudder’s original series The Last Drive In a test spin. Hosted by Joe Bob Briggs the series is a throwback to local television stations hosting horror themed fare. Briggs dismisses using an overtly horror inspired host gimmick instead going for a ‘regular’ country guy on his porch approach while provide production details and commentary during breaks in the presentation. Overall, I am not sold on this approach except for possibly campy and over-the-top titles which Ginger Snaps is not.

Ginger Snaps is a Canadian werewolf movie from 2000 starring Emily Perkins and Katherine Isabelle as sisters Brigitte and Ginger respectfully. Ginger is the older sister at sixteen while Brigette is just a year younger. Both are outcast, fascinated by the dark and morbid and thoroughly devoted to each other. When the film opens the suburban development where they live Bailey Downs is already in turmoil as some unknown beast has been killing the dogs of the area. While out on a nocturnal mission of revenge for Brigette’s abuse at the hand of a local bully the girls are attacked by the beast and Ginger bitten starting a chain of events that drives a wedge between the sister as Ginger embraces her new condition.

This film, while a very entertaining horror movie with a fresh take on the werewolf myth, blatantly discarding most of the tropes introduced in 1941’s The Wolf-Man is at its heart a coming-of-age story and deals with the tragic and traumatizing transformation from adolescence to adulthood by way of blood, gore, and horror. Written by Karen Walton the film has a distinctive female perspective and never losses focus on the sisters and their relationship. While modestly budgets at just 4.5 million dollars Ginger Snaps retains a high level of production value with lovely cinematography that provides an atmospheric mood of dread in a dull suburban setting.

The film found its following on home video and repeat broadcasts on HBO mainly because it never got distribution in the United States. It had an offer, but the distributer wanted a PG-13 rating and the direct was unwilling to censor the films prodigious use of ‘fuck’ in the script. (Good for him.) Still, it found enough success to develop a cult following and spawn a few sequels of questionable quality.

Ginger Snaps is a fun, thrilling, and thoughtful film that uses the lycanthrope trope to talk about identity and growing up. It is well worth watching.

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Buffy’s Broken World Building

 

The feature film Buffy the Vampire Slayer made little impression upon the world and vanished with little notice but the television series that followed became a cultural sensation skyrocketing its show runner Joss Whedon into celebrated creator status that only recently crashed back to Earth with scandal and controversy.

Running for seven seasons, the first five being well made with the final two in my opinion suffering from turnover in the writing that’s that severely damaged the integrity of the series the series followed the trial and adventures of Buffy Summer the titular Slayer a young woman mystically selected to protect the world from demon, supernatural threats, chiefly vampires.

In the pilot episode Buffy’s watcher Giles explains that contrary to legend the world did not start out as a paradise but rather was thoroughly infested with demons who were eventually dimensionally expelled with the Slayer now the appointed guardian of the barrier between the demon dimension and our own. A clear and unambiguous refuting of Christian cosmology. (One that Whedon in the audio commentary for the episode said he expected to initiate a flood of letters and complaints that somehow never arrived.) Dismissing Christian cosmology for your won is perfectly acceptable world building and, in many cases, a preferrable one but it left the series with an unanswerable question.

Why do crosses repel vampires?

It is not because there is any actual truth behind the symbol, Gile’s ‘actual’ history dispels that possibility. It also cannot be because the user has actual faith that powers the repulsion as when it became necessary to mystically revoke a vampire invitation to Willow’s home a required element was a cross on the wall and not a symbol from Willow’s Jewish faith.

This also raises the question about historical vampires from before the common era. In pre-Christian Rome or other parts of antiquity there were slayers and vampires did the cross repel them even before the advent of Christianity?

I know that these may seem like pedantic and pointless questions. After all it was just a TV series and used as the basis for much of its mythology concepts incorporated into vampire lore from a struggling Irish stage manager and a century of horror films, but it is exactly these sort of the backstory question that bedevil my mind. I would invite you if you were writing vampire stories to ask these sorts of questions and think deeper on the why of your mythology and not simply copy and paste from a century of cinema.

 

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