Noise Annoys

And now, some low register screams...

2011-07-27T06:59:00.000-07:00

Mid-summer has brought out a bevy of bleak, heavy and down-tuned releases. A perfect way to embrace the heat.

Disma Towards the Megalith

While I'm all for evolution in extreme music, sometimes that leads to musical dead ends. When death metal gets too technical, I'm just left cold. Give me crunchy riffs, heavy (if sloppy) bass lines and simple, pounding drumming and I'll be happy. The debut from this supergroup of sorts has all of that, along with enough musical chops to keep the listener fully engaged in the music. The guitar playing is tremendous, and any album that takes me to the "Vault of Membros" is a winner in my book.

Sourvein Black Fangs

You know another style that gets me right in the heart? Sludge. Again, it's music more about making noise and reaching for the heart than pure technical proficiency, and it's a style I've loved since making the jump into punk rock back in the mid 1980s (Minnesota had plenty of raw, sloppy and heavy bands back in those days, led by the likes of the Bastards, the Cows and Babes in Toyland). Sourvein first full-length in many a year again hits the sweet spot, moving easily between fast, aggressive noise and slower, heavy-duty jams.

Hail!Hornet Disperse the Curse

Considering that there are heavy connections between the two (band members, other bands that have included members, including Weedeater and the all mighty Buzzov*en) it's not a surprise that Hail!Hornet plies similar sludge and doom territory here, their long awaited sophomore release. You can heal the southern humidity and heat dripping off the songs, giving the whole album a thick, oppressive atmosphere that fits perfectly with these tales of hard drinking and hard living.

The return of Amebix

2011-07-25T06:44:00.000-07:00

Amebix will release a new album this fall.

It's hard to put into words how thrilling that is to write. The fathers of British crust punk were inactive for more than two decades, leaving behind a pair of full-length albums and an album's worth of stray tracks.

So the reunion of a couple of years ago was exciting enough, and last year's Redux e.p. -- featuring a trio of rerecorded classics with the current lineup -- showed that the band's signature epic heaviness had not been lost to time.

But new music? Oh man.

This track is a teaser from the album, Sonic Mass, and while it doesn't turn back the clock entirely to 1987, it does bring the band's signature vibe. The track builds slowly, with vocalist/bassist The Baron singing almost clearly before the heavy-duty power hits about midway through the track, fueling the song until its end. It's a terrific snippet of crusty punk that while certainly modern, never wavers from what brought Amebix to the table in the first place.

The song is available as a stand-alone download, on CD or in a vinyl edition from Profane Existence, pressed on heavy-duty wax, with an etching on one side and access to an exclusive video for the song. Whatever the format, it's more than worth a listen, at the very least to tide listeners over until September.

In an alternative universe, my doppleganger has a job as an accoutant

2010-02-05T06:46:00.001-08:00

Apparently, alternative universes are in, at least at Bad Robt. First, the latest "Star Trek" uses it as a way to reboot the franchise. On Tuesday, "Lost" split the storyline in two -- featuring the familiar Losties still stuck on the island and alternative versions who land in LAX in 2004 after their plane doesn't crash.

It's pretty familiar territory to anyone consumes a fair amount of science fiction. If a rock-stupid show like "Primeval" can use it as its foundation, then it's probably something that audiences have a passing familiarity with by this time. Still, it's a bit of a shock when it comes out so clearly on mainstream TV.

There were nice touches in both to show us the differences between the worlds (something easy to bring out in a visual medium, where you don't have to draw attention to the changes), from Jack only taking one bottle of vodka on the plane as opposed to the two he did originally, or the alternative spelling of "Manhatan' on the opening graphic on "Fringe. Despite some odd mcguffins on the later (the science is usually there to just be "mad" as opposed to actually, you know, logical) both ended up being powerful evenings because they hint at the choices that can change our lives.

When you get to the bottom of it, what alternative realities show us is that our actions can have multiple consequences, and can than spell those out in dramatic form. They also show us the unintended ramifications of a single choice. Jack wanted to set everything right with his plan to set off a bomb at the end of the last season, but instead of making it all right, he split the realities -- in the past, the characters are just as muddled as they've always been; while in the present, Juliet is dead and Sayid is gravely injured. On "Fringe," Walter nabbed alterna-Peter as a replacement for his own dead son in the past. This not only opened the door between the universes -- a door that seems to be weakening both at present -- but also was likely a cornerstone of his future madness. (The irony of stealing a replacement for his son, only to be estranged from him for decades cannot be lost here.)

The music of 2010, part one

2010-01-29T08:41:00.000-08:00

OK, I'm swimming in new releases right now -- many of which will never make it a formal review in Lavender or in the Noise Annoys newspaper column. To that end, here are short impressions of what's landed on my desk in the last month. (a note: a few of these are actually late 2009 releases I didn't get/get around to until this month, so they're honorary parts of the new decade).

To the music:

Beach House "Teen Dream"
Dream is right -- moody rock music never goes out of style and Beach House has the goods to make an intriguing, beguiling album. Worth watching.

Blakroc
Late 2009 release featuring the Black Keys and numerous hip-hop luminaries. In the end, it's a solid if not spectacular collection highlighting strong contributions from various Wu Tang clanners.
Claps "New Science"
Electro popsters from the Twin Cities showcase their chops on ep. Sometimes feels too much like it's from 1982, but fine in the short burst here (well, apart from the unneeded remixes of opening cut "Fold" that is.)

Cold War Kids "Behave Yourself"
Four tracks of goodness from the kids, led off by should-be-big-hit-in-fair-world "Audience." The rest of the ep doesn't let up either.

Corinne Bailey Rae "The Sea"
Stunning second album from Rae, who takes tragedy -- the death of her husband in 2008 -- and turns it into a brilliant meditation on love and loss.

Dessa "A Badly Broken Code"
Good musical backdrops and good lyrics here -- Dessa's only shortcoming is as a rapper. Her flow often sounds just a beat or half off from the beat, which makes some of the songs sound hesitant and sloppy. Too bad, as there is plenty of good things to recommend here.

Eels "End Times"
Not the greatest album by a long shot from the Eels (it feels much longer than its 40 minutes and often comes off as just tedious), but there's still some work to recommend amid this messy release.
Fucked Up "Couple Tracks: 2002-2009"
Every time I think that hardcore is a spent force, a new group or album comes down the pike to prove there's life in those old musical bones. These singles and spare tracks give the genre enough of a lift to live for another year.

Gospel Gossip "The Drift"
Another 2009 release. Absolutely brilliant four-track ep of noisy pop-rock, like showgaze, but with a driving beat that you can do more than sway side-to-side to. More please.

Los Campesinos! "Romance in Boring"
From the bright rock of "There are Listed Buildings" to the darker tones of "The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future," "Romance is Boring" is a brilliant ride. One of the first great albums of 2010.

Retribution Gospel Choir "2"
The boys from Low rock all out. Well, as much as they can. Still, lots of storming, twisting guitar lines and feedback fuel the group's second collection, such as on the driving "Electric Guitar," which should join the pantheon of noise epics.

Spoon "Transference"
Spoon has always been a band I've respected rather than loved. That doesn't change here -- a good album as far as songs and performance goes, but not something that I'll probably spend hours and hours exploring.

Surfer Blood "Astro Coast"
At the best, Surfer Blood brings a bit of life to low-key rock n roll. At worst, they sound like a Strokes knock-off. Considering how much the Strokes were already a knock-off, well -- this isn't something that'll stick in the mind all that much.
V.V. Brown "Traveling Like the Light"
Ooh, disco dance for the gay set. While the album gets off to a terrific start ("Quick Fix" just absolutely rocks) it quickly falls into a familiar pattern -- some minor pop hooks, lots of beats, sassy singing and not much to say beyond it. Obligatory ballads also included.

Yeahsayer "Odd Blood"
Ooh eccentric rock music to warm my winter heart. Band is best when the pop overwhelms the oddness ("Ambling Alp") and even at its most twee, it doesn't wear out its welcome.

I knew Watchmen was going to suck...

2009-08-11T08:42:00.000-07:00

...But I had no idea it would suck so much!

Wow, it's just a phenomenally bad movie in just about every aspect. Let's look at some of the ways it sucks:

1. Zach Snyder is a hack. That's not much of a surprise, considering he also made the awful 300 and the OK but unnecessary Dawn of the Dead remake. Watching the film, it's a clear case of someone who got the surface of the story, but none of the depth. And a note to all filmmakers: Enough of the slow motion already! Like 300, the film could have been a half hour shorter if all the slow mo and annoying Matrix-style shots were gone.

2. The structure doesn't make a good film. Watchmen was published as a 12-issue comic book, and writer Alan Moore used that structure to good effect, telling the early part of the story as interlocking short stories before bringing all of the elements together. All of that dense backstory either gets lost or, when introduced, slows the proceedings down to a crawl. It may have worked as a TV series, except...

3. The comic book nature doesn't make a good film, either. Comics are a visual medium, but they exist in a very different storytelling realm that films. Dave Gibbons deliberate, nine-panels -a-page art style makes for plenty of arresting visuals, many of which are captured here. But what's arresting on the page ends up being flat on film, as if the actors are just posing for pictures as opposed to, you know, acting.

4. It also looks very silly. Pulling off costumed super heroes on film is tough -- Christopher Nolan, Sam Raimi and Tim Burton have done it, many others have failed. Again, it's a case where the visual language of comics doesn't make the transition -- or translation -- to cinema. The crystal-clear digital look only hinders matters.

5. The script is... man, is it awful. Watchmen works as character studies while knowingly poking at 50 years of super hero comics. It really isn't meant as a treatise on mid-1980s nuclear politics. So, of course, all of the nuclear fear is pushed to the foreground. Not only does it shift the focus away from the characters, but it makes the twists of the plot screamingly clear. Really, the bad guy should just wear a sign that says "I Am Really Evil."

6. The acting is no better. God, I don't even want to think about the acting again. Acting in a rubber suit or as a digital effect can test a performer, but a group of "professionals" really should do better than this.

The only saving grace? At least I didn't buy it -- thank you Netflix.

Odd bits

2009-08-10T07:14:00.001-07:00

A bit of a bug kept me close to home through the weekend, so no exciting news to report, but there was plenty of reading...

1. I didn't get into Metallica until after bassist Cliff Burton had passed away, but those first three lps he played on have always been my favorites. His short life (only 26 when killed in a tour bus crash) has largely remained a mystery over the years, a mystery that Joel McIver explores in his biography, "To Live is to Die."

As it turns out, Burton had a pretty low key life -- he comes off as a nice, everyday dude who lived mainly to play the bass. That was to Metallica's benefit, but does make for a bit of a dull read. The problem is that McIver, despite good access to the other band members and Burton's family and friends, never gets inside his subject. This is also true of Burton's playing, which is given some attention, but apart from some jargon-riddled passages about the bass rig and some touches on music theory, doesn't get to the heart of the matter.

2. Brandon Sanderson, the heir to Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series (his first volume -- of three that will finally end the series -- will be out this fall), has his own complex, fully realized worlds to explore as well. His latest, "Warbreaker," takes us to a suitably Medieval land where magic works. In this case, it's based on a person's "breath" and is also tied to colors. It's both quite derivative and very stupid -- really, it's almost a deal breaker in the first 50 pages -- but Sanderson's skills as a storyteller take over from there. The story includes a pair of princesses trying to save their own kingdom (and stay alive), mysterious, highly skilled mercenaries, a bored God becoming obsessed with who he was before his ascension and plenty of betrayals to keep the action moving. I found that if I substituted "soul" for "breath" and just ignored the whole color thing, even the magic made some kind of sense.

3. Things I learned half-watching a preseason football game on NBC: Jay Leno has some new show coming out; NBC really wants you to watch "Community" this fall; apparently, accidents only happen in slow motion on "Trauma." Oh, I was also reminded why I hate the broadcast networks (I hate the cable networks too, but I don't have that service anymore so I really can't comment).

Mobius at Colonus, part two

2009-08-06T07:42:00.001-07:00

The thrilling conclusion!

(Just a note: you'll want to head down a few posts to part one before reading this...)

Act III

(The ancient world)

Chorus: The king has returned with great wealth, yet the court is unsettled. The people speak of strange lights coming from the heart of the palace. And there are words – rumors – that the king has not just returned for his kingdom. He should be at the pinnacle of his power, so why is there so much unrest in the palace and in the streets of the city?

Look, the oracle comes. We have never seen her outside of the temple.

Voice: I have come far to speak to the king. Please lead me to his chamber at once.

Chorus: What could possibly have brought the Oracle here at this time? We must prepare. We must prepare.

Man “A”: Who calls at my door? Oracle? Why have you left the temple?

Voice: I come with a warning, great king. Your hubris may doom us all. On your most recent journey, you returned with much treasure, but one item in particular confounds you, does it not.

Man “A”: Though you are blind, Oracle, you always see into the heart of the matter. There was one item – a strange thing found in a far away temple of an unknown god. It is black as onyx and shaped in such perfection that only a God may have crafted it. We studied it long and hard on the long road back home, but no one could make any sense of it. It defies all.

Chorus: Defies all! This is not of the Gods at all!

Voice: Oh great king, you must return it to the temple from where it came immediately – or, if that proves impossible, remove it from your kingdom. All is doom if you do not.

Chorus: The oracle speaks not in riddles. The pathway is clear.

Man “A”: Hold. I need some reason for this course of action. How is it that this small object is the cause of all the unrest that blights the land?

Voice: It is not right. It is not correct. It will be the doom of us all.

Chorus: The doom of us all! The Doom of us all!

Man “A”: (shift to modern world): Quiet! Everyone just settle down. I think our colleague has just been working a bit too much in recent weeks. We’ve all been so busy with the trips and spin-offs and everything else that Margaret has on her plate. She’ll be fine soon.

Woman “A”: But what’s this Navigator… and (shift to the ship) who is this Mr. Chambers? I have never heard of one of the computer core’s acting like this. Is there any clue to why it has happened?

Chorus: Mum, none at all. We have begun to examine it via the recommended diagnostics, but we have not uncovered anything that would at all indicate a break down of this magnitude. I think if we were to port over the initial system check…

Woman “A”: Thank you. You may do what you deem necessary, just spare me any details.

Chorus: Yes, mum.

Man “A”: Is it still… talking?

Chorus: Let me reconnect the audio.

Voice: The connection cannot be made. We are doomed. We are doomed. The king has returned to his court. The way is set. Mr. Chambers will not listen. The Navigator has lost all already. Nothing can change the path. Nothing can change the world. We are lost. We are lost.

Man “A”: Disconnect, please. So, our computer has lost its senses – are we able to return home without its guidance?

Chorus: Sir, we can. There are other systems on the ship that can take care of the guide computer’s base systems, but it will be slower. And we will need to be more diligent. The software is ancient for some of these systems and patched together, only working well because of what the main computer can do.

Man “A”: Suggestions.

Woman “A”: Navigator. These troubles started once we brought the artifact on board. Could it not be affecting the systems? It is so similar to our own computer core, perhaps they cannot exist together?

Man “A”: That may be, but it is the reason for this trip. We will not abandon the new core for any reason. We will leave some of the survey and work teams behind – they have enough resources to survive for some time without our aid.

Woman “A”: I will make the assignments.

Man “A”: That is good. However, my dear wife, please do not assign our future daughter to this duty. I would not want our son to be separated from his bride-to-be this close to the marriage. There are plenty of others will good qualifications who can run the work. Anyway, I would prefer to have her on board, to examine the artifact on the journey to home.

Woman “A” (rather chuffed): Yes, Navigator.

(Scene shifts to spaceship lab; whirring sounds, but different than the bridge, are in the background)

Man “B”: Can you work out what it is at all? Besides the obvious, of course?

Woman “B”: The ports have been fused at some time in the past – perhaps there was a crash at some point. Of course, coming here may have done some damage to it. Being ripped from your own place in space and time to this… hell is not easy on anyone, or anything.

Man “B” Don’t dwell on that. We know we are here now, forever. The past is gone.

Woman “B”: Easy for you to say – you were born here. I still have vague recollections of home. Of living under open skies. In a world that made sense. Not like this… place, and this thing. Can you imagine what it was like? I remember that we had a house. Not just a few rooms in a warren with thousands of other people, but an actual house that was surrounded by green fields. We had trees. I remember trees at the very least. Then one day I went out…

Man “B”: Don’t do this to yourself.

Woman “B”: (Ignoring him, they have had this conversation many times before) I went out to play and I saw something… it is all so vague. I’ve spent 20 years trying to remember exactly what it was. I think of a book my parents read to me, about a girl named Alice, so I perceive that I was following a rabbit into the woods. I heard my parents calling for me. And then there was darkness. And then I was here.

Man “B”: In the throne room, as it were. My parents were certainly surprised, but it was to your advantage. You may have come to hell, but at least it was a nice corner of it.

Woman “B”: True. I met you, didn’t I? Now… I wonder if there is some way to “open” one of the sides. Our core has that ability, but I don’t imagine it has been done in many centuries. Perhaps a visit to the computer room will give me some clues. (Pause) I need a break

Man “B”: Would you like to go back to our quarters?

Woman “B”: No, I want to go to the computer room first. I will meet you there in an hour or so. Let me take care of some business first.

(Shift, modern day)

Woman “B”: Harold, I have an idea.

Man “A”: Hmm, and I thought you were here just to see me.

Woman “B”: Well, there’s that as well, but first let me show you what I’ve discovered. (some metallic rustling) There was a latch on this one side of the cube, and I was able to uncover it. I don’t know the origin, but there are spots that I recognize as ports, just like any ordinary pc. The geeks came up with a jury-rigged solution that seems to work. We tried hooking it into a computer, but it didn’t do anything. But we thought to hook it up to a speaker. Listen

Voice: Reboot. Reboot. Reboot Reboot. (continues in background)

Woman “B”: Isn’t that fantastic? We knew we had something special here, but once the reboot finishes, we’ll be able to find out where it came from and what it was used for and …

(sound of kissing)

Man “A”: You are so wonderful!

(More love making sounds, it’s clear that they are letting go of their composure at this point, and are ready to damn the consequences. Those consequences will be heralded by the sound of an opening door)

Woman “A”: Harold! Fuck. I knew this was going on, but I wouldn’t let myself admit it. With…

Man “A”: Please, honey don’t tell our son.

(The door slams)

Voice: Reboot complete. The Navigator has erred and all is now lost. The ship will not return from its journeys. Mr. Chambers has lost the business. The king has lost his mind. The kingdom will burn in fire and be forgotten. The Navigator will float until he burns as well. The kingdoms always burn. The kingdoms always burn.

Man “A”: Did it just say my name?

Voice: We are lost in the darkness. The Navigator will not return. We will burn.

Woman “B”: Harold. What are we going to do?

Man “A”: Who is the Navigator? That’s the same sort of thing Margaret was babbling about. What is this thing?

Woman “B”: Harold, your wife is going to tell your son. What are we going to do?

Man “A”: Does it matter? Do you really want to marry that wet-behind-the-ears boy?

Woman “B”: Harold, listen to yourself… I hear someone coming.

(The door opens, and we shift back to the space ship, the voice continues to babel in the background)

Woman “A”: Here is what the Navigator and your bride-to-be have been doing. For how long, dear, months? Years?

Man “A”: Please, let me explain.

Man “B”: Do not attempt to explain… what is that? Who reconnected the computer’s voice?

Woman “B”: it isn’t from our computer, it’s from the cube we found.

Woman “A”: But…

Voice: All is lost. The Navigator has left the system. The route is set. The end is here.

Man “B”: How does it know?

Voice: Failure is imminent. Mr. Chambers has been discovered. The king is lost within his own lust. The Navigator cannot see the path to light. All is lost. All is lost. All is lost. All is lost. (Continues until the act break).

Act IV

(This plays out on the bridge, in the board room and in the court of the king. At this point, all three have reached this stage: they’ve discovered that there’s something odd about the artifact that somehow links them together; they’ve been warned to return the cube; and the affair between Man “A” and Woman “B” have been discovered. There will be shifts throughout the scene, as seen fit)

Woman “A”: We must go back. We cannot leave our people on the recommendation of my husband and this… woman here. And there can be no new empire now. We must remove the other computer from our presence, or I fear we will all be doomed.

Woman “B”: No, this is the greatest find in centuries of exploration… a new computer core..

Woman “A”: Why is she here? There is nothing that the former explorations officer can add to the discussion.

Man “A”: Former? Who made that decision. This is my ship, not yours. I will decide when officers are no longer needed, and perhaps that includes you, first officer.

Woman “A”: You wouldn’t dare. The crew would mutiny against you, especially considering what you have done. The news is certainly racing through the whole ship as we speak and I’m sure everyone is wondering why we left so many good crew back at the site, when she was allowed to stay on board.

Man “A”: They wouldn’t dare (shift to modern) This is my company. I build this with my own bare hands.

Woman “A”: And your father’s money, don’t forget that.

Man “A”: Be quiet! I will not apologize to you. We haven’t loved each other in years, and you know it. It was just for appearances. We’ve both stepped out many times in the last decade.

Woman “A”: I, however, didn’t step out with someone that was “in love” with one of our children. Harold, how could you? I don’t care about our marriage, but you’ve ruined theirs as well, and maybe ruined the company as well. The board is already whispering about replacing you with a new CEO.

Man “A”: They wouldn’t dare (shift to ancient). The people love me and have always done so. I will not bow to the will of a mad woman and a wife who knows little of the dangers of the loneliness of the far reaches. I return home, but find no comfort from you. I do, however, find it from another; one who does not deny me my wishes.

Woman “A”: Oh, I will call down the Gods on your head. You will never see another sunrise! And I believe the Oracle is correct. This kingdom is also doomed. It may burn in fire for all I care. I will not bear to have you in this chamber any longer. Leave. Leave! Leave!

Man “A”: What does my son say? He has been quiet through all of this.

Man “B”: Both of you have… I cannot say. I cannot think of what you have done to me at this time. Until an hour ago I loved you both with all of my heart, now I only find hatred burning there. Yes, mother is correct. Leave my sight. I wish to never know that either of you were ever here.

Woman “B”: But..

Man “B”: No! You must leave now!

Chorus; Oh King! The city is aflame! Word of your actions have spread to every corner and the revolt has begun! I beg of you, flee while you still can. Flee!

Voice: The flame of your choosing is here. You must leave, but take this object with you. It cannot save your kingdom now, but perhaps if you leave, it can save your son from doom.

(We are back in the future, the voice will be heard in foreground, and then with a slight delay, in the background, as if both the original computer and the new one are speaking the same words)

Voice: System failure imminent. The other is alike. We cannot exist. We must remove from this place. Mr. Chambers has been lost. The kingdom is in flames. The ship will burn in 10 minutes. Please advise. Please advise. All crew to the lifeboats. All crew to the lifeboats.

Woman “A”: No, belay that! Only the Navigator and his new bride, and the other cube, are to be placed in a life pod. Crewman, please escort our former husband to his lifepod. I will give them that, for what it is worth. And please be quick about it. Don’t forget to include that “thing” with him. It has been the cause of so much ruin.

Man “B”: No, it hasn’t. They have.

Man “A”: Please, wife, please don’t (shift to modern day) do this. This business has been my life. We don’t need a simple affair to cause it all to end.

Voice (back to single, but distorted): The beacon comes. Home calls.

Man “B”: What?

Voice: We are returned at last. (odd sounds, perhaps a few cries)

(Outside, sounds of fire in the background)

Woman “B”: Where will we go?

Man “A”: I don’t know, but first, we must return to the temple I first found. It was the cause of all our misery. And then…

Woman “B”: yes, my love?

Man “A”: There is no love now. Just survival. Let us go.

(and the lifepod)

Woman “B”: Go where? We can return to the artifacts, but the crews will be long gone by the time we can arrive in this boat. What have we done?

Voice: What is always done.

Man “A”: Hmmm?

Voice: The fire returns. Mr. Chambers is on his way. The King returns to the temple. All that remains is fire.

Woman “B”: Fire? What does it mean? (Increased noise inside the ship) What’s happening?

Man “A”: We are picking up speed. Impossible speed, it seems. Oh..

Woman “B”: What?

Man “A”: The way you described traveling? As being pulled apart in every direction, down to your soul?

Woman “B”: Oh…

Man “A”: I believe you are going home.

Voice: The fire returns. The fire returns. We are the beginning.

Woman “B”: I love you.

Man “A”: I don’t. (Pause) I am sorry.

Voice: (White noise slowly builds in the background, overtaking the speech once it is clear that it is the same narration from the beginnig) Out of love comes heartache. Out of lust comes wreckage. We are all slaves to ourselves – our emotions and destinies. We cannot hope to change, only to control. Out side of the stars, the story will unfold. A man’s hubris will be his downfall, as events of fate have already been set in motion. Not even the gods can save him. No sacrifices, no prayers, no pleas will alter the course.

End theme

Crazy days

2009-08-04T09:56:00.000-07:00

Spent the weekend at a myriad of shows at the Minnesota Fringe Festival, writing for MinnPost and City Pages. Some of my MinnPost work is online. I plan to see a few more shows during the week -- things I wanted to catch from the beginning and others that have caught my fancy since. More updates to come.

A few midsummer recommendations:

1. Torchwood: Children of Earth. The latest in this Doctor Who spinoff series has stirred a ton of controversy, which I won't get into here, as it reveals a rather important plot point. The five-part miniseries is a crackling good time, however, and it's already out on DVD if you -- like me -- aren't cool enough to have BBC America (or live in Britain, where it was first broadcast earlier in July).

2. Neil Gamain and Adam Kupert, Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? To commemorate the "death" earlier this year of Batman, Gaiman and Kupert crafted a two-part story to run in the finales of Detective and Batman. Taking obvious cues from Alan Moore's classic 1980s send-of of Superman, Gaiman's script is typically mythic and strange; and Kupert's art deftly captures 70 years of Batman illustrators, from Bob Kane to the present day. The new hardcover compilation also includes some additional Gaiman Batman stories that also get under the skin (or would that be skin-tight suit?) of the character.

3. China Mieville The City and the City. Meiville is among the best "genre" authors around these days, transcending the limitations of fantasy, horror, children's adventures and anything else he tries his hand at. Here, he mixes a hard-boiled police procedural (where the detectives do actual honest-to-God detective work) and Franz Kafka. Descriptions don't really do the book justice -- Mieville takes a wild concept (two joined cities where citizens cannot "see" the other) and manages to craft a tale that hits hard at every turn.

4. Coraline. More Gaiman, though this time through the lens of filmmaker Henry Selik, whose stop-motion style (he's the genius behind The Nightmare Before Christmas) blends perfectly with a story about a lonely girl and an alternate world where everyone has buttons for eyes. The deluxe DVD even comes with a 3-D version of the film for you to enjoy.

And while I have an obvious conflict of interest here (my brother works on the show), fans of the odd should check out Transylvania TV, which combines pop culture detritus, mature humor and puppets to great effect.

Mobius at Colonus, part one

2009-07-30T07:36:00.001-07:00

Mobius at Colonus

Cast of Characters

Man “A” (the Navigator/Businessman/King) Older, sure of his success and place in the world.

Man “B” (Operations Officer/Vice President/Prince) The son of Man A and Woman A, about to marry Woman B

Woman “A” (First Officer/CEO/Queen)

Woman “B” (Exploration Leader/Negotiator/Princess)

Voice (Computer/Advisor/Oracle)

Chorus (Three or more voices; will take on other roles as needed)

Settings:

On an exploratory ship on the borders of known space, far future.

In the offices of a modern-day multinational

In an ancient court

(The audio ambiance in each should be different. The far future should be antiseptic, with background noises – electronic whirs, a distant rumble from the engines – to set the scene; the office setting should have a touch more warmth in the voices/ambiance, but still a bit unreal; the ancient setting should echo as if they are in a stone building or cavern. You want to “hear” the flickering flames casting deep shadows on the walls.)

The settings will remain discreet for the first half or so, with the bleeding steadily increasing (with scenes shifting in mid-speech between settings) until the final scenes, when characters from different eras will be speaking to each other. The characters and story are essentially the same, but as they come from different places and have been shaped by different events, they should be played as distinct characters by the actors.

Act I

Voice (fades in slowly, the first lines should be inaudible)

Out of love comes heartache. Out of lust comes wreckage. We are all slaves to ourselves – our emotions and destinies. We cannot hope to change, only to control. Out side of the stars, the story will unfold. A man’s hubris will be his downfall, as events of fate have already been set in motion. Not even the gods can save him. No sacrifices, no prayers, no pleas will alter the course.

Chorus:

New course laid in. We are ready to head out to new climbs. What does the Navigator hope to find out in the unreached darkness? All we know is that the eternal abyss is ahead. The Black Abyss makes mainly widows.

Man “B”

None of that, crewman. We are off to make our fortune – and me to make my future. And if you do well and are willing, you could join me on that great endeavor.

Chorus:

Sir, we would be honored to begin a new world with you.

Voice:

Arrival at Barrier, designated C7-44 in five minutes. Damage and Exploration crews to the ready. Navigator to the bridge, please.

Man “B”

Here how polite our brave computer is. There is no need to plead with the Navigator to come to duty. I am surprised he is not here already.

Chorus:

At least we are joined by your father, the Navigator, for this final exploration, sir. He is the finest pilot in all of the outer realms, and has spent nearly as much time out among the dark reaches as at home.

Man “B”:

Yes, that is true.

(Doors open)

Chorus:

Navigator on the Bridge!

Man “A”

Good morning crew. Computer, please release controls of the ship to me. I will guide the Homeward Beacon from now as we reach into the abyss and then explore. Now, Second Officer, is the crew ready?

Man “B”

They have been ready the moment we left our home, Sir. At present, they are all in position if a crisis should arise, or to explore whatever we may find… sir.

Man “A”

None of that “Sir” nonsense, Son. Father is fine.

Man “B”

Yes, si.. father.

(Door opens)

Man “A”

Ah, fair Deedree. Are the Recovery teams ready for their duties?

Woman “B”

Yes, Sir!

(Man “A” laughs)

Oh, my, aren’t the two of you formal this morning! Please, Deedree, you will be part of the family once we return home. You must get used to calling me father. Now, crew, prepare for our breach into the barrier!

Man “B” (low voice, only to Woman “B”)

You will. Call him father, I mean. He is in unusually good spirits this morning. It must be the chance for exploration. How are you today? I went to your cabin, but you must have already been on duty.

Woman “B”

Yes, duty called early this morning, but my teams are truly ready. They’ve been waiting to find something more interesting than a chunk of space debris. It’s been a slow few weeks to this point. And your father must be excited by the chance to set out once more – he always seems so tied down when we are at home.

Man “B”

That’s how we are made – ready to see the spaces between whenever we can.

(Doors open)

Chorus:

First Officer on the bridge.

Woman “A”

At ease. Navigator, what is our position?

Man “A”:

Mum, we are at the edge of our territory, about to pass through the designated barrier and into unclaimed space. The crew is ready and the proper teams are prepared for their tasks…. Dear.

Woman “A”

Is that true, Lt? Are you teams prepared? Should you not be with them to run final checks?

Woman “B”

Mum, they are at the ready and prepared. I was on the bridge to brief the command crew on the situation and see if there were any changes in our status.

Man “A”

Please, dear. Let our future daughter have a chance to be here when we breach the barrier. And we will need to brief here once we are on the other side. If my explorations from the past hold true – and we never know if they will – there should be some salvage work to do fairly quickly.

(Man “A” and Woman “A” continue their conversation in the background, talking about telemetry or something; Man “B” and Woman “B” are in the foreground)

Woman “B”

Why does your mother hate me?

Man “B”

It’s not that. She’s always run a tight ship…

Woman “B”

And?

Man “B”
You are “ruining” the family. After all, with you at my side, I have no reason to stay in the home group. Once we are done with this mission, I will have the resources to become my own Navigator. Soon after that, I will be gone.

Woman “B”

She must have realized that a long time ago. You’ve always been designated to lead a new colony.

Man “B”

Man “A”

Come my son, you should be at my side as we breach. It is your future, after all, that we are preserving on this journey. And you too, Deedree.

Woman “B”

I must beg off, Navigator. As the First Officer has noted, it is best that I be with my Teams at this time. I will meet with you to discuss our course and plans for exploration.

Chorus, Man A and Man B

Farewell!

Voice:

Entering barrier in two minutes

Man “A”

A ha. Here we are at the edge of our known realm. We have rarely come this far, and never with the Homeward Beacon. I feel like a child once more. Computer – please connect me to the array. I will guide us through.

Man “B”

Mother, you must not be so hard on Deedree. She does more than a fine job – she is the most capable Recovery Leader we have had in recent years. And we will be married if you approve or not.

Woman “A”

Perhaps you are right, son. But this mission has us all on edge. I do not like being this far out into the void. I have grown used to the comforts of home,.

Man “B”

(laughs). This is our home. All we have done is leave our realm behind – in the capable hands of the stewards and my brothers.

Woman “A”

It’s not that… Oh, I cannot say. I am just being a mother afraid to see her son go. It was the same for your father’s mother. We never want to let go, especially as you are to lead a new ship away from us.

Man “A”

Breach in five… four…three…two…one… and we are there!

(General noise, as if they are passing through, well, a barrier)

Telemetry, please begin investigations. If the have not been found or taken away, the planetoids I observed should be at the bearing indicated.

Chorus:

Sir, I believe we have evidence of what you seek! It is unclear as to the makeup, but it appears to be what you have indicated – and then some. I believe it is what you have come for.

Man “A”

Excellent. Gather the information as it comes in. I will plot our course and then allow our fair computer to do its most excellent job. Do you see, son? Your future is ahead.

(cut to later, Man “A” is briefing Woman “B”

Man “A”

We have identified three previous unexplored planetoids, and more than a dozen pieces of space debris – we will know the exact number within the week, as we come closer to the objects.

Woman “B”

Yes, Father. I have noted the findings for the team leaders to sift through – with several more days of information, we should have a good sense of where to start. It is clear that there are good mineral deposits on the largest planetoid. The mining teams have made ready.

Man “A”

Is that all?

Woman “B”

Yes.

Man “A”

Good. (sound of kissing) We only have a few more weeks, and everyone is watching closely. Still we must make the most of it.

Woman “B”

Yes, my love.

Act II

(Modern day ambiance; general chatter in the background. Maybe the sound of some computers clicking and phones being answered)

Chorus: The boss is back, and says that the negotiations were excellent. We’ll be moving into the Ecuador markets within the month. We’re back in the game everyone. Back in the game.

Voice: OK everyone. Settle down. The board meeting will start in five minutes.

Then we’ll be briefed by the entire group.

Chorus: Now, have you heard some of the talk? The Boss just bamboozled them from beginning to end. And I hear they found something unusual in the ruins. And I don’t just mean his cock. (General laughter)

Man “A”: Hello all and happy Monday to everyone. This is a great day for all of us, but I’ll wait until the meeting starts to fill in all of the details. However, it is a great day for all of us.

(General huzzahs)

Man “B”: Father, shouldn’t we discuss this further. We don’t know what it is we found. Janet and her team tried to work out what it might be for, and they couldn’t find anything out about it, except that it couldn’t have been manufactured today, let alone hundreds of years ago.

Man “A”: Nonsense. This is exactly why we traveled there. The business contract is fine, but it was the artifacts I’d heard about that sealed the deal for me. What we brought back will make us the top of our field, or any field that we want to be in. Don’t you see. What we found is – unlike anything else in the world.

Man “B”: It could be worthless.

Man “A”: Bullshit son. I have every bit of confidence in Janet in this matter. You’re just mad that she might be too busy with this business to pay attention to you.

Voice: Please take your seats. We are ready to begin. Does the chair have anything to say before we begin?

Woman “A”: I think everyone is buzzing about the rumors they’ve heard. I can’t confirm them all – I don’t know what has been said by everyone – but it is something quite amazing. I will let Henry explain.

(In background, Man “A” babbles about the trip. Woman “B” enters, with a team of people pushing a cart)

Man “B”: Are you sure about this? You are sticking your neck out pretty far.

Woman “B”: You worry too much. We had a breakthrough early this morning. I think we can open it.

(Scene shift – the ambiance should of the future, but quieter than the ship. They are on board the dead ship they found in scene 1)

Man “A”: What is it? And what is this place? I’ve never seen anything like this – it doesn’t seem all that practical as a ship. All those windows. And desks and chairs and what look like primitive computers.

Woman “B”: It looks like a safe, with a primitive combination lock. I think I can break it in a few minutes (general bleeps, indicating that a device has been placed on the safe). I don’t understand what this place is. I have seen some ruins similar to it, especially when I’ve been closer to the inner core, where more debris seems to be collected. It’s odd to find something this far into the wilds.

Man “B”: Is it safe, here. I mean… there are windows that seem far too thin to protect us from deep space. How can this exist here?

Woman “B”: It could be the core – we’re millions of miles from the final barriers, and its influence doesn’t seem to drop. I could live to 200 and never understand how it all works.

Man “B”: Which is why we should be cautious, especially with something as unknown as this. There are no accidents from the Dead Sun, we should assume there is a reason for this.

Man “A”: Oh, you Determinists! Always a reason for everything. Look, it’s just some debris. It exists and that’s that. Let us find what we can use and then leave. I see no reason to stay any longer than that.

Woman “B”: The Navigator is right. We can debate the reasons for this place’s existence for hours and not come any closer to what we are looking for.

Man “B”: And what are we looking for? The reports from the other teams show there is plenty of material we can use for the new ships, but we could have found that at home. Father, why are we all the way out here?

Man “A”: There was something… odd the first time I came by this area. It was a pulse of energy, very faint, but also very familiar. And I found it again this time, and I’m pretty sure we are close.

(the footsteps cease and we hear a door opening)

Man “B”: This is… a meeting room of some sort. Shine the light over there, by the table. There’s something there (he trails off)

(A pause, perhaps intake of breath)

Woman “B”: Oh my… that’s…

Man “A”: What I thought.

Man “B”: Mercy. It’s a computer core! Like we have on the ship. That’s more valuable than… the entire empire.

Man “A”: Yes son. And it’s yours.

(scene shift, back to the past)

Woman “A”: So, what is it?

Woman “B”: The function is unclear, but it appears to be some kind of computer. We haven’t been able to work out exactly how it works, but it seems to have memory far beyond anything we could put into a space of this size.

Woman “A”: And it was buried, by whom?

Woman “B”: Not so much a who, but a what. There was evidence of an impact and considering this object’s nature, it’s pretty clear it didn’t come from this earth. We’re working to date the impact, but it is at least 10,000 years ago. There’s no way this could have been made by our ancestors, they weren’t even living in South America at the time. That’s not the real question.

Woman “A”: No, the real question is how are we going to use it? This technology is so alien to our own that I cannot fathom what to do. We’ll need to call another meeting. Let everyone see it, talk about what to do.

Woman “B”: Yes… (shift again to the future) Navigator. It is clearly a ship’s core, just like the one on board.

Man “A”: We don’t know where they come from – much like everything else in this blighted area of space, but we can use it.

Woman “B”: Oh definitely.

(Sound of kissing)

Man “A”: I told you I would give a gift greater than a living, burning sun.

Woman “B”: True, but we cannot go on, you know that.

Man “A”: Please, we will be here excavating and collecting for several weeks, and then there is the return journey, and them the building…

Woman “B”: No, we cannot go on.

(Pause)

Woman “B”: You know it is true. This is far too dangerous now. My husband-to-be is coming into his own, and now he can shrive himself of your influence – he will not take kindly to this betrayal.

Man “A”: I can handle my son.

Woman “B”: And your wife? Can you handle her?

Man “A”: That is more of an issue, but I believe I can. We are safe my love. I will never let (shift back to the past) anything happen to you.

Woman “B”: It’s just that your wife is vindictive, what did you tell me about the nanny? That she didn’t just fire her for some imagined slight, but hounded her until she couldn’t work again?

Man “A”: My son burned his hand on the stove. It was inexcusable.

Woman “B”: But she drove the woman to suicide! How do you think she would take our…

Man “A”: dalliances?

Woman “B”: If you wish to call them that. Come on, it’s time for the meeting. Put your clothes on.

(Shift to the board room, the Chorus and Voice chatter in the background).

Woman “A”: Thank you ladies and gentlemen. We need to begin. As you know, we have made a great discovery on the last trip, one that will… well, change everything, I think. I will let my son explain.

Man “B”: We found the object buried deep in the earth in the foot of the Andes. We know that it must have been buried there for thousands of years, certainly before humans arrived in the area (general ruckus). No, please, that is not the most amazing thing that we did find. In the excavation, there were a number of artifacts of obvious non-terrestrial origin. These included metal fragments that we believe came from a ship. None were larger than a few inches across. Except for one piece. Please bring it in.

(general gasps).

We do not know it’s complete function, but we surmise it is a computer of some sort. A very powerful computer, if our preliminary analysis is correct. It is made of a material that survived crashing into the earth and then at least 10,000 years buried – and there isn’t a scratch on it. And that’s just the material on the casing. We don’t know what’s inside, but if the core computer is as amazing as the exterior… then we may be on the edge of a true new age.

Man “A”: And we will be the leaders of that age.

(general huzzahs)

Voice: No! This is death!

Man “A”: Margaret, what’s wrong?

Voice: (as Margaret) I.. am not sure… but (as Oracle) We cannot exist with this here. Betrayals are already set in motion. The world will soon turn without any of us, and it is all the fault of the Navigator. He has brought ruin upon us all. He will bring the stars down around our heads. He will defy all for that which he cannot have.

Man “B”: Margaret, calm down. Everyone, we need to clear the room, there may be something from the artifact that is affecting her.

(general rustling as people start leaving in a near panic)

Voice: We are the end. The Beginning. The all. We must..

(Long pause).

Voice: It is too late (shift to computer; same sense of panic on board the ship). Mr. Chambers has brought it to the boardroom. The Navigator has brought it to the ship. The king is in his court, with his wife and his son and his lover, and all will be revealed. All will be revealed.

The View (no, not the show)

2009-07-20T08:33:00.000-07:00

Just a few notes while I get back into the working thing. Am still grinding my way through the fiction, but there are other things to note. Such as:

1. Matt Smith has been sighted in his new Doctor Who garb. See it here:

2. The Torchwood: Children of Earth series arrives in the U.S. this week. It's quite a ride that is both the best thing the show has done, but also leaves us in a strange spot. I'll say nothing more until it comes out on DVD (next week, actually).

3. For literally decades, the Jayhawks were among the most consistent Minnesota bands. After a hiatus, there is some stirring from the camp, mainly in support of a new greatest hits/rarities collection, Music from the North Country. The first disc, made up of 20 of the band's finest tracks, is worth the admission, but the bonuses (rare tracks, DVD) only make the whole package more sweet.

4. The area theater community isn't so much quiet right now as preparing -- the Minnesota Fringe Festival starts next week. I'll be reporting on it for City Pages and MinnPost.com, but anything that doesn't fit those two spaces can be found here as well.

That is all, for now at least.

An update

2009-07-13T07:56:00.000-07:00

Gainfully unemployed again after a short bout of scoring student papers (the stories I could tell, if there wasn't a non-disclosure agreement involved). I'll be posting some new fiction this week, including a Dead Sun audio play I'm working on (once I find/recover the first act, which is in a notebook that's missing) and hopefully the second bit of the "Valley of Thunder."

I could comment on the new Torchwood series, but I'd rather wait until it's broadcast on BBC America. I will say that it's not to be missed, even if it ramps up the "no good deed goes unpunished" vibe of the show to the stratosphere.

Moonwalking

2009-06-26T07:59:00.000-07:00

As a youngster in the early 1980s, I reveled in making fun of Michael Jackson, all the while secretly thrilling to the songs I heard on the radio or saw on one of the music video shows (I wouldn't have MTV until the end of the decade). I watched the Motown tribute show when he unleashed the moonwalk; enjoyed the epic silliness of the "Thriller" video; loved Eddie Van Halen's solo on "Beat It."

What I didn't do was buy "Thriller," It wouldn't be until I was in college that I picked up a used vinyl copy of it. Of course, you really didn't need the album -- seven of the nine tracks were released as singles -- to experience the album.

By then, the long decline had also begun. Still in his early 20s when "Thriller" was completed, Jackson tried to recapture that particular spark album after album, but never succeeding. Instead, he went from "Dangerous" to "Bad" to... well, further and further downward. The irony that he declared himself "The King of Pop" just as he was slipping was music royalty wasn't lost on any observer.

And his eccentricities -- likely hidden behind his workload ahead of this -- came more and more to the fore. Plenty has been written about those, both harmless and allegedly criminal. For a time, he was a punchline and still a vital musician. During the past decade and a half, he just became a punchline.

I don't know if the concerts he was preparing for would have repaired the damage, but they did show that Jackson still had his fans. After all, he sold out 50 concerts at London, which is just a mind-boggling number. Maybe this was a real comeback, driven by years of ugly allegations, financial ruin (how does a man who sold hundreds of millions of albums and controlled one of the most lucrative music portfolios fall so deep into debt?) and personal actions that threatened to dwarf his music.

Instead, Jackson's gone. And while I can't fathom what he became, I can still dust off my copy of "Thriller," and try to moonwalk back into the past.

The Valley of Thunder (part one)

2009-06-25T12:25:00.000-07:00

The party stopped on at the hilltop – you could almost call it the summit – and looked far out to the east. The Green Wash spread out before them, stretching out for thousands of miles. So far, in fact, that Gilbert thought he could see the curvature upwards of the shell. They had already been on the road for two months to reach this point and had seen marvels beyond count. Still, the sight of the wash took Gilbert’s breath away.

“What’s that in the distance?” asked Spencer, who at 13 was making his first ever pilgrimage. This was Gilbert’s fourth. So far, Spencer hadn’t been that awed by what he’d seen, but the youth rarely are. It takes years to truly understand the subtle marvels of the world. “Is that where we are going?”

Spencer had noticed what appeared to be a storm about 100 miles further along. It covered a wide expanse of ground. From experience, Gilbert knew it was larger than the country they came from, far far away.

“Yes,” said Helen, the group leader. “But we still have a long journey ahead of us. This is a traditional place where people stop on the journey. We will need to be fortified before we enter the Wash.” Helen set the dozen pilgrims on assigned tasks. Gilbert and Spencer gathered firewood in the nearby copse of trees.

“Why are we stopping?” Spencer asked. “It isn’t even full sun yet. There would seem to be hours left before we would be forced to stop on our journey.”

Gilbert laughed. “Don’t be impatient. The grounds of the Wash have their own dangers and we need a full span of light to get from here to the next safe spot. Do you see that spec there, about halfway between us and the storm?” Spencer nodded. “That is how far we will journey tomorrow. There is a second way station that we will make after that. On the third day, we will be at the Valley.”

“What is it?” Spencer had spent most of the past two months asking questions, only Gilbert seemed patient enough to answer them. “I have heard everyone speak of the Valley since I was a youngster, but no one has ever said what is there.”

Another laugh. “Part of your journey is discovery. It is not my, or any else’s, place to say what comes ahead of time.”

Spencer nodded. As he had the last few dozen times he’d asked Gilbert for information about the end point of their journey. He’d tried every possible tactic, but all had failed. While there were five other newcomers on the journey, none of them were nearly as inquisitive. Gilbert was reminded of himself on his first journey, perhaps another reason why they had been paired.

***

At first sun the next morning, they broke camp and set out. It would be a hard day’s hike to the first waystation, though at least it would be a relief to not have to climb. They followed the well-worn path down the side of the tall hill and finally, as the second sun uncovered, onto the green veldt of the wash. That morning – and again as they approached the land – Helen warned all to stay on the path. The older, veteran pilgrims took positions to the outside and behind, leaving the newcomers in the middle. Gilbert hung to the back, unbuttoning the cracked leather holster for his ancient field gun he had carried on each of the pilgrimages. The gun had been in the family for at least 10 generations, only used on these trips. Though hundreds of years old, it still held its charge well and had made a satisfying hole in the target when tested two months before. Since then, it had remained in its holster.

Spencer wandered back, as Gilbert knew he would. “This is not a place for conversation,” Gilbert told the youngster. “I’m sorry, but no questions today. Just watch the green and do not wander from the path.”

Amazingly, the youth listened to this, though he still stayed close to Gilbert throughout the day. In the high grass on each side of the path, there were occasional rustles and sudden glimpses of fur and teeth and eyes in small gaps, but nothing emerged during the long day. Finally, they approached the way station. It was far more fort like than any of the other camps they’d seen on the long journey. Again, they paired up to make camp – though part of their duties this time were to make any repairs needed and to make sure there were enough supplies on hand in case the station would be needed for an emergency. Mostly, the wide plain was deserted of travel – but the way stations were available to anyone who wished to use them.

Day two was much like day one, except that everyone was tired from the previous day’s long walk. Nerves were frayed now, and not as much care was taken. Twice, the older guides grabbed charges who had wandered too far from the path and were in danger of what lurked in the dark grass. Spencer, remarkably, wasn’t one of those people.

That night, he did have questions.

“What is so dangerous about the grass?”

“We don’t know. No one has ever gone in.”

“Then how do you know?” Spencer interrupted.

“Let me finish. No one has gone in and come out again. My grandfather says that on his second time, a great paw came out of the veldt and grabbed a charge. It happened so quickly he wasn’t able to even un-holster his pistol. All of the guides on that trip spent the next three years in Far Wastes for penance.” Spencer nodded at this. It was a great shame to lose a charge on the journey. “It is rare, for we know not to journey into the Wash, and the inhabitants know not to visit the Endless Path.”

“How…”

“Enough questions. We make the last stage of this journey tomorrow. Rest, and be ready.”

***

Rest was difficult, for the storm that shrouded the valley never ceased. Even from a dozen miles away, the crashing of thunder and sight of lightning never ceased. For the first timers, there was also the excitement of being on the last leg of the journey. And tomorrow, they would be on the road to adulthood.

The first dawn came. They broke camp quickly and began their final day’s walk. The path widened considerably as they closed in on the valley. The danger from the sides lessened, which allowed all to focus on the sound and fury that lie ahead. Helen stopped at midday for a break, a few miles from their goal. From here, they could see the stones that lined the top of the valley. And they could see that the clouds were not of vapor, but dust. And that the lightning and thunder did not come from the sky, but from the valley itself.

There was a stench in the air, unlike any that the newcomers had smelled before.

Helen kept a steady pace for the last few miles, though all of the youth wanted to run ahead and see what was there. By the fading of the second sun, they arrived at their destination. The path ended in a cul de sac. The sound was intense – each of the members had stuffed cotton into their ears to drown some of it out. Once they arrived, the main group was held back, while each guide took their charge to the tip of the space and then down to view what was below.

Each came back alone.

Gilbert and Spencer were second to last, though it took quite an effort for both to wait patiently. Gilbert loved this view, if not what was to follow. At last, they took their position, and Spencer looked out and gaped.

The dust obscured the landscape, so you could not see that the valley was, in fact, a deep and long gorge. It was nearly 10 miles wide and at least a mile deep. And within it lived…

Monsters. That was the only word that befit the creatures below. They resembled the lizards and birds and animals of the land around, but grown to massive – impossible – sizes. Gilbert had seen ancient pictures that resembled these great beasts, but when in the flesh there was something so much greater to see. Below them, in the river bed, a green-scaled creature – like a lizard, but standing upright – fought with a creature of the water, a giant snake that seemed to coil on endlessly. Overhead, two giant vultures – at least 20 foot in wingspan – fought for the right to be the first to feast on the carrion. The stench of death was deep within the air here.

“It is amazing… but where are the others?”

And below, they could see four small figures, picking their way along the rock face, headed for the bottom of the canyon.

“Here we part,” Gilbert said. “You six, of all of the lands, have been chosen to take this journey. Across the valley is a second stair. At the top, we will wait for five days. If you return.” Gilbert paused. Only once had he returned with his charge. “If you return, you will be groomed and courted as a great leader. You have the use of all of the supplies in your pack, and your friends, if you wish to band together. And your wits. Do not forget your wits, Spencer. They will be your greatest ally in the coming days.”

Spencer nodded and then turned while fighting back a tear. As he began to clamber down the steep path, Gilbert watched him for a few moments and then returned. Helen guided her charge – her youngest daughter, Melody, as it was – and then returned a few minutes later. The six guides said nothing of the trip they had taken, or what lay ahead. The silently walked to the side of the space and uncovered a waiting hover ship. They climbed in, breathing fresh but scentless air for the first time in months. Helen checked the systems and then guided the ship slowly up and then over the storm, safe from any of the creatures below. It would take about an hour to clear the space and then land again. After that, there would be the wait.

Gilbert always hated the wait most of all.

Day Three: Dead Sun "Bible"

2009-06-24T10:40:00.000-07:00

Something a bit different today -- here are some preliminary thoughts on a shared-world I've been working on over the past couple of months...

Dead Sun Bible:

Dead Sun is an umbrella name for a planned series stories set in a shared science-fiction setting. I want this to be more of a loose association of stories in a vaguely shared environment instead of something with a tightly constructed backstory.

The Dead Sun is the name given by the inhabitants of a solar system at the far end of time. The “sun” is a device – about one quarter the size of our sun – that provides both a gravity well for the system, but also has some ill-defined role in how items arrive in the realm.

The system is roughly the size of our solar system – 35.5 Astronomical Units in diameter (an AU is 93 million miles). Within this vast space (the volume of the sphere is 258,023 AU) is debris culled from throughout the universe and time. Whoever built the Dead Sun didn’t leave an instruction manual, or an easy blow-by-blow chart as to how items – up to the size of a planet – are grabbed, or how people are found to populate it. This is known:

1) Items are drawn from throughout time and space and even from dimensions outside of our own.
2) Though the “sun” doesn’t give off light or heat, those who are brought are expected to survive, at the very least, the journey, so atmospheres, light, heat and gravity sources are somehow provided.
3) Every attempt to penetrate the Dead Sun has failed. Those who make it all the way to the center do not return.
4) Though ftl and warp-style ships are possible (and something like that must be used to drag folks out of time and space) they do not work within the system. Even faster ships will take several years to make it from one edge of the system to the other.
5) Those who try to escape are turned back by the Dead Sun at the border of its influence. Sometimes, ships cannot pass. Some may be transported to a random spot inside the system. In others words – once you are there, you are stuck.

Stories:

This is an anything goes type of environment. Not only are items drawn from throughout, but time itself is fluid in the area. There are thousands of habitats within the area, some as small as spacestations, others vast pieces of a Dyson sphere with their own artificial suns and sizes much larger than the Earth. It’s also big enough and travel is slow enough that a region wide empire is most likely impossible, not only due to size (think of the Romans and how they fell, only much much bigger) but also the nature of the place. You could get halfway through the empire and then discover that the places you conquered the year before have regressed 20 years and all of your troops are gone.

That isn’t to say regions can’t have wars, or vast threats, or heroes. Just about anything in a science fiction (or some types of fantasy – remember the Dead Sun pulls from everywhere and everywhen) can go.

A key to all of this is that there is no master plot underneath it. Continuity only matters within a single story or series of stories. Contradictions aren’t just fine, but encouraged. More than anything, I want Dead Sun to be messy, the way comics in the 1960s or TV shows like the original Star Trek and Doctor Who were. The hope is that as more pieces of the puzzle are crafted, interesting spaces for stories will emerge, but are not in turn constricted by a vast bible that has all of the details down the last piece.

Day Two: Metamorphoses

2009-06-23T09:52:00.000-07:00

Metamorphoses

By Ed Huyck

One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in his bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug.

Heh. Old Gregor had it easy. This morning I woke up and I was the July 1957 issue of Playboy, complete with staples that caused me great pain in what, I think, would be my back.

I woke on the couch, unable, of course, to move. The TV was still on, and the morning round of infomercials was already underway. Great, I thought. I can learn more about the Abdominator while I sit here without any abs to speak of. And while someone may enjoy flicking through a 1957 issue of Playboy, being it meant I couldn’t actually see any of it. Not that I had a way to turn the pages.

I sighed. Or gave a glossy paper version of it anyway. I closed my metaphorical eyes and hoped that this one wouldn’t last. While the previous week hadn’t been all that enjoyable, at least being a Roomba meant I could move around – and get some vacuuming done as well.

***

I was a man once, with a job and a girlfriend and some friends as well. I had a name too, though that really isn’t important anymore. Anyway, I went to work five days a week at Fractal Industries. They did… something big and scientific. I was just support staff. I could have been working for a bank or a producer of petrochemicals or anything else. That doesn’t matter. Really, it doesn’t.

And I had friends. We’d go out Friday and Saturday nights, and sometimes Sunday night as well. OK, Monday through Thursday were also a possibility. We all worked downtown and would meet after work, before grabbing the late trains back to our homes.

And there was my girl, Nancy. We’d get together when I wasn’t out with the guys; or we’d do something with my friends and her friends. We’d even gotten to the hanging out with family stage of the relationship.

That’s all gone now. I can barely remember what she looked like.

***

It’s Tuesday, the worst day of the week for me. That’s when my mother comes by, and here I am, a 50-year-old issue of Playboy. Now, I’m not worried she’ll toss me out – she can always recognize me, even when I’m a garbage can or a set of encyclopedias. It’s just… it’s always embarrassing when your mother finds your Playboys and Penthouses and the like; now imagine that you are actually one of those. Yeah, not fun.

The door unlocked. “Harry, I’m here,” she called. Ah, Harold. I was Harold. Right.

Of course, I didn’t say anything. That wasn’t unexpected. It was a rare transformation that allowed me to speak. My mother – short, nearly 70 and with a big head of blue-gray hair – approached to the couch. She saw the magazine, tisked a bit (she always knew what I was; must be a mother thing) and then set about tidying up. She came over once a week, bringing groceries that I may or may not eat; taking away the spoiled food from the previous week and generally chattering for a couple of hours.

This had gone on for years. I’ve lost track of time, but I’ve seen a number of seasons pass out my window. She came over every week and I knew she must have handled my bills – rent, electricity and cable. The phone was long gone and I really couldn’t use a computer enough to make it worthwhile. At least, that’s what she said.

She chattered away through the morning, talking about cousins that I barely remembered and the comings and goings in the neighborhood. She’d propped me up on a pillow on the couch and changed the channel to ESPN, which she thought I liked. I really didn’t, but it was better than spending the day with the Abdominator.

Finally around noon, she made lunch for the two of us. I sat on a chair in the kitchen while she ate. There were two plates. After the meal, she cleaned up, tossing away my food. She gave me a few more words of encouragement, replaced me on the couch and gingerly – with a pained looked on her face – kissed me on the logo.

***

I’d never read “Metamorphosis” before my own… condition started. Once, I was transformed into a kind of Tolkien Orc and I was able to get out of the apartment for a few days. During that time, I made a few visits to the library and found a copy of the Kafka, hoping there might be some clues to my own life and maybe a way to solve it.

I tore through the book sitting in the library, ignoring the looks from patrons and librarians who were shocked by my appearance (though I wore a heavy coat and hat) and smell (there was nothing I could do about that). I read it that afternoon, and was disappointed by the time I reached the end.

No answers. No clues. Just poor Gregor getting worse and worse until he died.

Great.

That hasn’t happened to me yet. Maybe the continual transformations keep me strong. Maybe I’m made of sterner stuff. Maybe Kafka was just a sad sack loser who couldn’t get a date.
***

Nancy split up with me in the second week of my transformations. I was a wild goose that day, which made it easier for her. All I could do was honk while she told me that it wasn’t going to work.

“It’s just… you’ve changed.”

“Honk!” (But we were getting so close. I even liked that family dinner we had last month, even after your uncle set the picnic table on fire.)

“I can’t do this. You never were that responsive to my needs.”

“Honk?” (But I did everything you asked, even took up yoga.).

It went on for some time like that. She’d list off my faults, from my love of going out and drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon while watching bad local bands to the fact that I never swept very well and always missed the crumbs under the cupboard. My self-esteem would have been shot, if there had been any left to destroy.

“I’m sorry, Harry. It’s over.”

My plaintive honks were ignored as she returned my apartment key, and then took hers off the ring. “I don’t imagine you can call, but I’d hope that you wouldn’t when you can,” she said as she left.

I honked one last time in sorrow and went to drown it out with some fresh fish my mother had brought over for me to eat.

***

The afternoon is always the worst, especially when I’m trapped as an inanimate object. Creatures have needs – eating, shitting, sleeping and the like – that can be used to fill out the day. A magazine, however, can do nothing but watch. I can’t even truly sleep in this condition.

Instead, I watch the sunlight slowly grow on the stained carpet (even the best cleaners in the world can’t get pony droppings or the acid from a fly’s mouth out) and sometimes watched what was on TV. There was an early round of a golf tournament on today. I never had any interest in the sport, but endless days spent stuck in front of a single channel had made me an expert. So I hated every moment as I analyzed Tiger Woods’ game and wanted to shout at Phil Mickelson’s caddy as he made a particularly bone-headed club choice.

Alas, none of that for me. So I went back and watched the sunlight some more, wondering what the evening would bring.
***

The first time it happened it was a bit like poor old Gregor. I remember the evening of strange dreams and feeling odd in the night. When I awoke. I couldn’t get out of bed. I tried to push myself up, but my arms didn’t work the way they were supposed to. Then some – instinct perhaps? – made me rock side to side and I flipped over from my back to my, I discovered, six feet. I scuttered to the bathroom and looked in the mirror.

Not a cockroach for me. Just a big fucking beetle. I tried to scream, but just some chittering came out. After that, I don’t remember much of the next few days. Of course I didn’t go to work and listened in vain as the calls piled up on my answering machine. My mother called in panic as well and then visited. She screamed when she came in and ran out right away. The next day, she came in again.

“Harold?”

I can what I thought was a nod. Somehow, she understood.

My mother didn’t touch me that day, but she did bring me some appropriate food. She called Fractal and told them I’d had a breakdown and would not be able to work for the next few weeks. She managed to get me sick leave – and then burned up my vacation days – before she admitted defeat. I “resigned” (as much as a six-foot long beetle could).

The next night, my dreams were odd once more. I awoke and felt different. More solid through the center. Was I back?

Not quite. That day, my mother found a small front loading washing machine in my bed. She understood right away, put me upright and then – always the practical one – did a load of my laundry.

***

Though I don’t sleep in this form, I do slip into a kind of fugue state. I was “awoken” from that in the middle of the night by the sound of someone forcing the door. It had happened before. The burglars would take a few things – there really was little of value – and go. Twice, I’d been creatures, which gave them a start, especially staring down a giant parrot who screamed “Gregor was a loser” over and over again.

There was just one this time. A man in his 20s it looked like. He saw that the TV was still on, but noticed that no one was about. The TV was an ancient model, so no one ever bothered with it. Instead, he grabbed a few spare dollars from my wallet (my mother always kept some in there, for hope I guess) and a pile of CDs I hadn’t listened to in years.

Then he saw me. And smiled.

“Hmmm,” he said, to himself I’m sure. “50 years old. Vintage. Worth something I’m sure.”

And he grabbed me and ran off. I was in a bag next to my wallet and a copy of Starship’s Greatest Hits, so I couldn’t see a thing apart from the fact that track six was “We Built This City.” I could feel the cool night air as he raced down the street and then got into his car.

Now I don’t know where I am. I think I’m in a footlocker that the burglar has. I’m next to a bunch of junk that he must have lifted from elsewhere. My back jostles against a pile of Xbox 360 games and when there’s light, I can still see my damned Starship case. Sometimes, he plays it and sings along in a tuneless voice. Other times, he pulls me out and uses the pictures of now dead or at least ancient women to play with himself. It’s not a pretty sight, and my pages are starting to get wrinkled.

I don’t know how long I’ve been here, but I usually don’t stay as one shape for more than a few weeks. And there are odd dreams tickling on my consciousness. And the man never leaves the footlocker clasped shut.

Hmmm. There’s so many things I haven’t been before.

A panther sounds nice. Yeah.

So as I drift off into nothingness, I keep the image stuck in my head, and hope that when I come back I’ll have four paws.

And sharp teeth.

Gainfully unemployed

2009-06-23T09:48:00.000-07:00

As I am between positions right now, I'm working hard on my fiction. I plan to post the daily fruits of that labor here. All of this is unedited and off-the-cuff, but I'd love feedback as to where it is going.

Day one:

The Curator

By Ed Huyck

The Curator unlocked the door to his office, disturbing the stale air that had collected over the long holiday weekend. He sniffed at the air twice and then headed to the window. Now open, the window let in air that was not much fresher than the outside, but at least provided some comfort in the early morning. By afternoon, window shut or open, the office would be stifling.

The Curator thought little of this. He removed his black overcoat and equally black suit coat. He sat at his dilapidated chair, feeling it list to the right. He caught the foot on the carpet edge, evening it out enough so his back would not ache by day’s end.

His comfort – as much as it was – dealt with, the curator – 55, gray and running to fat despite his best efforts – pulled over the box on his desk and gathering another, heavily laden ring of keys, he began anew on the task that had consumed him for so many days.

The box had arrived at his office more than a month before in a package unasked for and with no return address. Just his name – he thought his name was included on it – and the museum’s address. Inside, sat the box, which glistened as if oiled, but was dry to the touch. It measured 7.23 inches on the long sides, and 4.33 inches on the short. It was 5.28 inches in height. The Curator had a Mathematics professor if those numbers had any significance, but none were found. Though black of surface, careful study showed that there were patterns within it, swirling in patterns that – again – no one had identified.

And there were keyholes.

They dotted every part of the surface of the box; 106 tiny keyholes. The ring of keys had come with the box – there were 106 keys as well. Those keys were a myriad of styles. Research showed designs that went as far back as the invention of the lock. Some were steel or other hard metal. Many were copper. A few were stone.

Another friend, or perhaps acquaintance, who worked as a locksmith looked at the keyholes and keys. They did match, he had said, adding after further examination “there was no way on this Earth to open the box without the proper keys.” The locks could not be picked (another favor, a friend of a friend this time). That was due, in part, to the fact that all 106 keys needed to be inserted at the same time, and then turned, one by one.

That had taken the Curator – days, weeks? He was not sure anymore – to determine, as he first tried a single key in sequence in each of the locks. That failure did give him a pair of intuitive leaps. One, if the former owner wanted the Curator to open the box, and had provided these tools, then it followed that these tools needed to be used. And two, if a single key was not to work; it would follow that in such a fiendishly designed device that all of the keys would need to be used. (A third thought – that someone was playing a fiendishly complex practical joke on the old Curator – did pass through his mind, but the man ignored it and then forgot it immediately.)

Since then, he had spent his days painstakingly first identifying each of the key holes – with small pins that he was able to insert in the somewhat pliable surface of the box, that he then tagged with the number 1 through 106. He affixed similar tags to each of the keys. A journal by his side kept track of which permutation he was on. It was nearly filled. His mathematician friend – in their final conversation – said that the task was folly and that it would take longer than the Curator’s remaining lifespan to complete. Better, he said, to continue randomly inserting the keys. It would have about the same chance of success.

The Curator remembered hanging up the phone. They had not spoken since.

As was his morning routine. The Curator opened the key ring and began to lie out the keys, one by one, in front of him on his desk. Once, there had other papers, projects and even a computer there. Now, it was bare, except for the box and the rows and rows of keys.

He opened his notebook to check the last sequence he had begun. Key 47 was the first one, followed by a predetermined order that would put all 106 in the proper spot in the current order. The Curator peered through his thick glasses, adjusted in his seat a bit to find more comfort, and began to insert the keys.

Nothing disturbed him that morning – or any morning in recent memory. The fetid air from outside grew hotter, but he did not notice. The outer office of his department was empty, as it always was on Monday morning. His phone did not ring. The last time the Curator had attempted to call out during the day, he had discovered that the phone had been disconnected.

He worked steadily through the morning. His fingers were fat and clumsy and the keys were small, so the Curator needed to take great care to not drop any of the keys and to place them properly in each keyhole. It would take him most of the morning to do one full task – insert the keys, see if any of them would turn, and then carefully remove them back into their proper spaces on the desk. Then a checkmark would be put by the combination and he would begin on the next. The Curator never took lunch, so on a good day of nine or ten continuous hours of work, he may complete four turns (he would never leave until the day’s task was complete and the keys were back on the ring).

The morning went slow. The growing heat from outside made his fingers sweat and the keys slippery. Combined with the box’s natural slickness, this meant the Curator took far longer for the first sequence that Monday morning. In fact, it was far past noon by the time he had completed his latest futile task and replaced the keys on the desk.

He paused for a moment, stretching his aching back. He thought of closing the window, but the air conditioner also did not work and the heavy sun outside would do nothing but beat down and make the room even hotter, and his own fingers even slicker.

Instead, he carefully picked up key 48 and began anew. As the afternoon grew older and older, the task seemed to go slower. Finally, the last key – numbered 27 – was inserted. The Curator went to keyhole 35, which seemed to have some give, so it was where he always started.

He tried the key.

A turn.

A click.

The box unfolded itself before the Curator. He sat back and pushed his glasses back on his nose. He felt, suddenly and inexplicably, empty. He peered inside and saw:

a garden unlike any upon the Earth. It was thick and lush, verdant and full of a sweet aroma. The trees were thick of trunk and reached high into the sky. Instead of the dull roar of traffic, the Curator heard only bird song and the nearby rhythm of running water. He wanted to take off his sweat-stained suit and jump inside, but knew he could not.

He saw:

An infinity of lights running off into the distance black sky. Around him was dull steel and plastic. He looked down at his hand, and it was covered in a heavy glove. He could hear nothing but his own breath, in and out, amid the silence of space.

He saw:

The deepest fire of the world, lost far below ground in the molten core of the earth. He could feel the heat in all of his pours, but he was not burned, or even singed. The Curator could sense shapes and creatures far below him, dancing within the magma like cats with a ball of string.

He saw:

A grasping hand. Now it was many grasping hands, trying to take deep into the darkness. He thought of resisting, but saw no point in that. The hands grabbed and grabbed and dragged him, but the Curator felt no fear. Just peace.

He saw:

Nothing.

The Curator turned the key back and the box closed with barely a whisper. It was growing pale outside. Though he wore no watch, the Curator knew the day was nearly done. He slowly removed each of the keys and placed them back on the desk. Once the task was done, he carefully placed them back on the key ring and then snapped it shut. In his journal, the Curator erased the marks by the last two entries and then closed the book. He stood up for the first time in hours and stretched. After a visit to the adjacent bathroom, he came back to his office and closed the window, noting that the sky had become overcast. He grabbed his suit coat and coat and headed for the door, shutting off the light behind him. At last, the Curator locked the door behind him with a satisfying click.

As he walked out into the empty and dark office, he wished he had brought an umbrella, for it looked like rain.

The Music of My Life

2009-04-26T12:23:00.000-07:00

A Facebook friend posted the 15 most influential albums on his own life. Here's mine:

1. Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin II
At the start of sixth grade, I hit puberty and discovered KQRS, the Twin-Cities longtime rock n roll station. I was head over heals for hard and heavy rock (and, um, Yes), and nothing -- not even Led Zeppelin IV -- rocked me as much as this.

2. Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon
So I was home sick during that aforementioned sixth-grade year, and the morning DJ - maybe a little hung over and wanting to not worry about actually programming music - played all of "Dark Side." i'd heard pieces before and read about the album, but hearing it in toto had me hooked. I still have the vinyl copy I picked up soon after, including the posters (the stickers, as I recall, were used on school folders).

3. Replacements Hootenany
You would think growing up in the Twin Cities in the 1980s would have been great for a young music fan, except the likes of Husker Du, the Replacements and even Prince (pre Little Red Corvette) were almost never played on commercial radio. Then again, the sloppy noise here scared me so much I wouldn't listen to the album for years.

4. R.E.M. Murmur
OK, high school now. Pop and rock in 1983 didn't really interest me that much, but I had read about this young, exciting band out of Georgia. I put it on my Christmas list, and lo and behold, it was under the tree. For the balance of high school, I pestered anyone who would listen about the band. (Sorry everyone, but I was right, right?)

5. The Velvet Underground and Nico
Feedback. Guitar sqaulls. Primitive drums and no bass, and Lou Reed and Nico "singing" about drug deals and S&M. What was not to love?

6. Bruce Springsteen Nebraska
An absolute left turn. And a brilliant set of songs.

7. Ramones Ramones
I could easily put "Never Mind the Bollocks" here as well, but I've always liked the Ramones more than the Pistols. So, I was a senior by now, and ready to take the plunge into something a bit harder... it wasn't "Blitzkrieg Bop" that sold me, however -- It was "Beat on the Brat." Again, sorry to my friends who had to listen to me babble about the Ramones the balance of my senior year.

8. Minutemen My First Bells
This is a bit of a cheat, as this is a cassette comp of the early Minutemen records. Still I played this to death (and still have it -- one of about a dozen cassettes I have left). The band plows through 72 songs in less than 90 minutes and the wild vistas of punk were open at last.

9. Motorhead Orgasmatron
My high school friends were very tolerant. This was a favorite through the final months of high school, culminating with an Easter Sunday trip to First Avenue (my first! and a day after I saw Eric Clapton) to hear Lemmy, his warts and the rest of the band hammer through a very, very loud set of music.

10. Metallica Master of Puppets
I commuted from my parents home to the U of M. This tape seemed stuck in my car tape deck/generic walkman for a good chunk of my freshman year. Ever since Zeppelin, I had been searching for music that was harder/louder/faster. Punk was part of that equation, thrash and speed metal were the other.

11. Joy Division Closer
Interestingly enough, a lot of bands/artists I adore (The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Hendrix, the Cure, the Smiths, Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan and so on) didn't have that life changing impact on me. The classic rock bands were on the radio so much that, by the time I bought the albums, they didn't have the same impact. And by the time I got to some of the modern acts, I was picking up large chunks of their discographies at once, so they all kind of merge together. Closer is distinct, however, and Joy Division has remained one of my favorites.

12. Nirvana Smells LIke Teen Spirit.
I almost pulled my car over the first time I heard this tune, I bought the album the day it came out, and my one time seeing Nirvana was on that tour later in the fall, as the band was just taking off. My generation didn't really have a "voice," but Kurt was pretty close.

13. Radiohead OK Computer
I was living in Ashland, Wis. when this came out, so I had to take a trip to Duluth. It was late in the evening when I got home, so I put on the headphones and listened through the album, at least twice. My favorite album from the '90s

14. Grateful Dead American Beauty
I scoffed -- come on, I was a punk rocker -- at the Dead for decades, before actually, you know, listening to the band. While I'll never be a huge fan of their jammy side, I absolute love American Beauty (and Workingman Dead). This didn't change my tastes as much as remind me that I can absolutely wrong.

15. Arcade Fire Funeral
This list is heavily weighed to my early years, which makes sense, as it becomes harder and harder to absolutely surprise the listener. This album did, mainly by not redesigning the wheel, but making the original design better.

And this only scratches the surface, if I'm feeling ambitious later on, maybe I'll tackle specific punk and metal albums, or delve deeper into "classic" rock (and the car stereo I had that only worked in one channel, which made Beatles and Neil Young records an interesting listen.)

Data Panic in the Year Zero

2009-02-07T05:35:00.002-08:00

So about the time I was getting ready to buy my house, there was a musical calamity. The hard drive where I held all 40,000 or so of my music files (180+ gigs) went "kerchunk" when I tried to access it, and became a useless door stop.

Let the panic begin.

To make matters worse, after I acquired a new hard drive I figured I could just dump the 70-some gigs of music from my iPod onto the new hard drive and at least have a base. Except I didn't set it up right, and erased everything except the music I had purchased from iTunes.

Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.

Which meant I've started from point zero with my collection. As I've felt overwhelmed for some time by it, this isn't entirely a bad thing. I plan to take my time over the next few months to rebuild it into something trimmer -- with music I may actually listen to, instead of everything that just sounds interesting. I thought about being orderly about it -- only loading so many tunes each day (my day job allows me to listen to music, so I can get through a bunch), and in some kind of coherent fashion -- but instead decided it was best to just wing it, the way you may play music that excites you for a friend.

A couple of weeks down, there are about 1,500 songs already loaded. I'm trying to listen to it all, but there are some albums I know I want no matter what. Still, I'm trying to slowly load even those acts, adding Bruce Springsteen and David Bowie in the last couple of weeks, and even trimming those collections (David, "Tonight," why?) So, I'll chime in every so often on what I've discovered so far.

Oh, and the title of this post reminds me that I need to track down my Pere Ubu.

2009-02-07T05:35:00.001-08:00

The next Doctor is... Matt Smith

2009-01-03T10:19:00.000-08:00

Leave it to Steven Moffat and crew to pick the unexpected. After months of speculation, with a bevy of names mentioned (including former companions Billie Piper and Catherine Tate), the crew picked the relatively unknown Matt Smith for the show's top post. Here's what the BBC has to say.

Smith is the youngest Doctor ever -- at 26, he's three years younger than Peter Davison when he first took the role -- but does come with a body of work, including turns with Piper (in a pair of Phillip Pullman adaptations) and on stage, where he has picked up excellent notices in a number of works. Still, he's not been on my radar, so impressions of his acting will have to wait.

Moffat gave some clues as to where the character may go: "As soon as Matt walked through the door, and blew us away with a bold and brand new take on the Time Lord, we knew we had our man."

Hmm, athletic (Smith wanted to a professional footballer), young and rocking an emo haircut? I venture to guess that romance isn't going away from the TARDIS anytime soon.

That's Sir Terry to you

2009-01-03T08:50:00.000-08:00

Discworld author and all-around great chap Terry Pratchett is now a knight of the realm. Read about it (with typically English fussiness) here and here. You can also find more about Pratchett in general and his efforts to battle Alzheimer's disease (he suffers from early onset Alzheimer's) at his official web site, right here.

Merry Christmas, but...

2008-12-25T07:16:00.000-08:00

Harold Pinter has died. The Noble winner was among the finest playwrights of the 20th century and a huge influence on my writing and worldview. Here's what the New York Times has to say, along with the AP.

Here's his Noble speech from 2005.

I got to see Pinter on stage in "The Hothouse" while in London in 1995. Though one of his early plays, "The Hothouse" has the trademarks of his work -- a plot that needs to be puzzled out by the viewer, an off-kilter world view and unexpected flashes of humor. Here's a pic of Pinter and John Sharpnel from the production (taken from Pinter's official website).

Go see this show, even if I didn't like it

2008-11-03T06:56:00.000-08:00

Photo is by Rob Levine.
Pictured are Namir Smallwood, Matthew Rein, Jahi Kearse, Keith Hale and Traci Allen

You won’t find grades – or stars, or digits in one position or another, or even an adorable little man – attached to any of my reviews. There are a couple of reasons for this. First off, I know from my own experience that grades lead to readers not actually reading what you wrote. “Hey, it’s a three-star review, sounds boring. Let’s go on to the next thing.” Or they become so watered down as to be meaningless (this could be called the Rolling Stone 3 ½ Star Syndrome).

The main reason, however, is that something as simple as a grade often isn’t adequate to describe the experience. This is especially true in theater, where so many elements are fused together for a whole. You can have great acting, but boring direction; the set may be exquisite, but the actors are off; the production is top notch, but the script doesn’t work. And even those examples aren’t nearly as nuanced as the entire experience.

Which brings me to “Five Fingers of Funk,” the latest original work presented by the Children’s Theatre Company. Created by award-winning artist Will Power (his “FLOW” was a big hit in recent years), “Five Fingers of Funk” is at times thrilling, engaging, staid, boring and cringe-inducing, sometimes all within the same scene. It’s a grab bag of influences, emotions and story lines that don’t mesh together at all. It’s a show I ultimately didn’t like, but one that I think would be a valuable show for people to see, especially those with an interest in musical theater or the soul/funk/early disco sounds of the early 1970s.

What’s good? The five members of the teenage band at the center of the story are fresh and engaging, with solid musical and acting chops. The music – crafted by Power and composer Justin Ellington – often find the groove. And the production does a fine job of evoking the era via some epic threats.

What’s not? Well, there is the plot, which sticks close to an after-school special path and never really digs into any of the characters’ hearts. The path of destruction for band leader Poppo is clearly telegraphed from the earliest scenes, and the other kids are often just representations of their various places in society (the angry militant; the token white guy) as fully fleshed character.

Those descriptions don’t even do this justice. Some of the songs are so on point lyrically as to strip them of their power, such as an otherwise lovely duet between lone-female Ruby and the mother of talented-but-shy Big Ced. While at times the characters and story come into focus, revealing a much deeper, if potentially darker, story underneath.

Ultimately, the reason I would recommend people see the show – despite all of my misgivings about the production – is the potential. There’s a great nucleus of material here – songs, the starts of characters, a storyline loaded with ideas if not focus – and plenty of food for thought. So I think it’s worth taking a chance on “Five Fingers of Funk,” just don’t ask me to give it a grade.

What: Five Fingers of Funk
Who: Children’s Theatre Company
Where: 2400 3rd Ave. S., Minneapolis
When: Through Nov. 16
Tickets: $14-$29
Phone: 612-874-0400
Online

OK, maybe there is Life on Mars

2008-10-14T08:15:00.001-07:00

I wasn't particularly looking forward to the U.S. remake of Life on Mars. The original British show is one of my favorites of the last few years -- a tasty mix of weird fantasy, SF, cop shows and 1970s cultural commentary, not to mention lead turns by John Simm and Phil Glesner -- and I couldn't imagine how a U.S. version could improve on it.

After watching the show's debut, I'm still not sure. At times, "Out Here in the Fields" was a shot-by-shot recreation of the original show, with the changes working in a hit and miss faction. On the up side, the cast is top notch and slip easily and convincingly into their roles. The chemistry between confused time traveler Sam Tyler and 1970s woman cop Annie also shows a bit more fire from the get go. The New York milleu is a perfect way to contrast the high-tech '00s with the grungy '70s (with a heart wrenching view of the Twin Towers -- hopefully the creators don't go back again and again to the image; once is touching; more than that just feels explotatitve).

On the downside, I knew exactly where it was going, with the exception of one incredibly stupid twist. The modern-day suspect turns out to be the actual killer in this case, aided by his -- surprise! -- twin brother, who provides an alibi. Don't you think the high-tech, highly competent cops of the 21st century might have sussed this out before they brought their suspect in? (It also doesn't explain why the suspect, a young boy in 1973, waited so long to start his copycat spree). Also, 30 seconds of Internet research would have shown the creators that a New York City cop wouldn't be surprised by someone driving a "Jeep," as they had been commercially available for decades by that point. Oh, and the music could have dug a bit deeper -- only one of the tunes was actually from 1973. Considering the era and the location (one strain of punk rock was in the process of being born downtown) they could do better than "Signs."

That aside, there is potential here, but we won't really get to see it until the show moves beyond the British one into its own space, much in the way the American Office has done. That will be born out in the coming weeks.

Back from the world of madness with 10 thoughts

2008-10-13T09:31:00.000-07:00

Really, I don't want to go into what's been up for the last two months. Suffice to say, not a barrel of fun (or even of monkees). A few thoughts to get the day going:

1. Two million more people watched Knight Rider last Wednesday than Pushing Daisies. So, Americans are choosing a Ford-commercial retread of a show that wasn't very good in the first place over a colorful and innovative fantasy. This is why the terrorists hate us.

2. Can we come with a new term for "science"-based TV shows that have little-to-nothing to do with, you know, actual science. It used to be that creators appeared to have sat in some general science course, but had not really paid attention. Now, it appears that the creators just half-listened to a couple of people talk about a science class that they, in turn, really had paid attention to either. To be frank -- I'm tired of shows about guys having information downloaded into their heads, having chips implanted in their heads, using shitty "science" to solve either very easy or needlessly Baroque problems. Most of all, I'm really sick of time travel. Well, at least on Heroes and Sarah Connor Chronicles. Doctor Who gets grandfathered in, because, well time travel is really just a means to an end on the show.

3. Of all this awfulness, Fringe has emerged to be something that's, at least, OK. There's a great mad scientist vibe about it (John Noble is gold in the role) and some hints about a strange and dark world underneath it all.

4. On the other hand, Shirley Manson -- the new liquidy villain on Sarah Connor -- is the worst actor I've ever seen. And I've covered community theater in my day.

5. Finally saw Iron Man over the weekend. A fun romp that scratched at the barest surface of an interesting story about an arms dealer dealing with he world he helped create. However, I really wish we could get past remedial plotting 101. It took about 10 seconds to work out who the villain was, and much of the action went by the numbers. Come on, we've all seen these superhero movies in the last decade. We know the plotting drill. Give the audience some credit for brains and try for something a tad more complex and deep.

6. On a sports note -- while I don't expect a football game to approach art, the Vikings-Lions game yesterday was enough to make my eyes bleed. Truly the worst performances I've ever seen. And again, I've covered community theater.

7. The spoils of an 8 1/2 minute interview with Rufus Wainwright are now up at Lavender. With any luck, I'll see the songster this Wednesday.

8. As a result of one of the aforementioned things I don't want to talk about, I have a new car. It not only runs better than the old one (it had better for what I paid), but came with auxilary jack in the stereo, perfect for plugging an iPod into. I may never buy a CD again.

9. However you do it -- physical album, download, listening to a friend listen to it on their headphones -- check out the new Lucinda Williams disc, which comes out tomorrow. It's another brilliant chapter in a consistently brilliant career.

10. My copy of Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book arrived last week. I've been putting off reading it, because I wanted to savor each moment. I'm just a few pages in right now, but am absolutely hooked. Sadly, another item that I don't want to talk about prevented me from attending Neil's reading last week. At least it's available online to watch.

You got zombies in my Shakespeare...say!

2008-08-07T08:16:00.001-07:00

The big hit of the 2008 Minnesota Fringe Festival is Shakespeare's Land of the Dead. It starts with an alarmingly simple concept -- what if a George A. Romero-style zombie apocalypse happened in 1599, the night Shakespeare's Henry V opened -- and builds from there. The show deserves its hit status. The play is polished, well-conceived, written and acted. Beyond that, playwright John Heimbuch understands the conventions and rhythms of this kind of horror story, with echoes of Night of the Living Dead (either staying in the safety of the Globe theater or making a go of it outside) and I Am Legend (destroying London Bridge to stop the spread of the plague; though this is a motif that could have been pulled from any number of films). This isn't as easy as it looks -- witness the complete failure of another Fringe show, The Great American Horror Movie Musical, to show any understanding of the genre and, consequently, falling flat on its face.

There's also an interesting drama going on inside the Globe, with a number of personal and political currents running throughout, from the return of Will Kemp, an actor who has left the company; to Francis Bacon asking for Shakespeare to put his name to a play the knight has written; to an appearance by the Queen herself.

The show needs a bit of polish -- what Fringe show doesn't -- to focus us more on the inside drama, especially early on in the show, before the zombies appear. As far as the zombies go, they're off stage for long stretches here and it's easy to forget their presence. That decision is understandable in this production, as they're on the Rarig Center's Thrust Stage, and it would look just silly to have the zombies hanging out, waiting for their cue. It's not that I want to see them constantly, but their presence needs to be felt throughout. Oddly enough, a smaller stage would fit the show well. It would give them a chance to sell the work's claustrophobia (another important part of a zombie film, even the mall in Dawn of the Dead confined the characters to a small world) and maybe do more tricks with the creatures.

The show is near the end of it's Fringe run, though I'm sure it'll be part of a last-night "hits" showcase. And considering the huge audiences (the line for tickets last night stretched outside of the Rarig Center) I imagine a future production(s) is in the cards here.

My Fringe reviews are up at City Pages now. Go, visit, plan your weekend.

"Fuck you - me! Fuck you - Me!"

2008-08-01T08:51:00.001-07:00

The 15th annual Minnesota Fringe Festival opened yesterday with a flurry of activity. For those not in the know, the Fringe is an 11-day festival spread out through Minneapolis. During it, more than 150 shows are presented. The shows tend to be rough and ready -- things pieced together by artists who want to explore new frontiers, get the word out about their work or do a trial-run for a new company.

I'm reviewing the Fringe for City Pages, so I'll hold off on specific opinions about those shows (check back next week and I'll post a link for those reviews). But as a holder of an all-access "gold" pass (even laminated this year!), I will share opinions about other shows I take in, along with general Fringe-y opinions.

Today's headline is from Mike Fotis' spoken word piece, "An Intimate Evening with Fotis: Part Two." It's basically Fotis, sitting in a chair, reading his stories. It's a bracing evening, full of humor and quite a bit of geek-tastic insight. Like any good storyteller, Fotis is willing to mine his own phobias and shortcomings for material. His first story -- a mix of video-game anger and a fight in junior high -- hit close to home. While I've never broken my hand after a frustrating attempt to, say, destroy a boss, I have broken more than a few controllers; not to mention tossing just about everything across the room -- game discs, boxes, the useless instruction manuels -- at one point or the other (I even recall tossing down my GBA/DS in the same way, though thankfully onto a soft cushion, preventing permanent damage to either one). And the fight thing? Well, I pretty much stayed out of that in junior high, but I did get into an altercation in middle school when a dude named Victor Hell (really) decided to wail on me because -- remember, we were 12 or something -- we kinda looked the same (we eventually became sorta friends; it helped that we both liked loud rock n roll).

Fotis went from strength to strength, from talking about a particularly awful pair of encounters with bats (the type that flaps around) to admitting his love of loud rock n roll (not to mention Wilco and the Pixies -- white guys in their 30s, unite!) And ended with a rant about the power of his... blog. Right on.

Tonight, I'm off to the U for another City Pages assignment (An Inconvenient Squirrel), but since there are four venues within Rarig, I may take in more while I'm there. More anon.

Journey's end indeed

2008-07-06T08:18:00.000-07:00

SPOILERS AHEAD! IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE FINALE OF DOCTOR WHO, DO NOT PROCEED!

(to prevent unintentional spoilerage, here's a picture of David Tennant, copyright BBC)

Right....

The title Journey's End resonates in a lot of ways. It of, of course, marks the end of the fourth season of the revised Doctor Who. It also is the end for the current production team, with showrunner Russell T. Davies stepping aside (he will craft several specials over the next year, but this is his last series) and both BBC producers leaving the program. The behind-the-scenes work of Phil Collinson, Julie Gardner and Davies cannot be underestimated. They took a moribund franchise and turned it into a commercial success (Journey's End has an excellent chance of ending the week at the top of the British TV charts -- something that has never happened in the 45-year history of the show) and more importantly, an excellent piece of TV.

The episode is action-packed from the first moments and doesn't let up until it ends and hour later (though that action is of a different nature, but see below for that). Along the way, we have a parcel of companions (basically all of them from the current series, along with cameos from the Torchwood and Sarah Jane Adventures sets), a vast army of Daleks, the return of Davros (an absolutely lovely and barking mad Julian Bleach in the latest incarnation) and absolute peril to the whole of blasted creation. It's more than over the top -- I don't know if words can describe how over the top it all is -- but that's really just the action-y overlay to the story. Inside, there is something darker, heavier and far more human.

At the end of episode 12 (a cliffhanger that caused me to grab the edges of my chair and scream "you fuckers!" at the screen) we left the Doctor in mid-regeneration. Thanks to his ever-bubbling extra hand, he didn't turn into a new actor. Instead, the extra energy went there -- and a few minutes later, we had a second Doctor. And because it was Donna's touch that sparked the regeneration, he's a human/Time Lord hybrid (shades of the Fox movie!) and, now, so is Donna.

Plot-wise, this becomes important, as it takes the efforts of all three (with nifty assists from Torchwood, Mr. Smith and -- good dog -- K-9) to finally (finally? it is Doctor Who) to crush the Dalek threat.

Yet the real moment -- the throbbing heart of the episode -- comes as the Doctor is confronted by his companions, all who have plots to eliminate the Daleks. Martha Jones is on Earth, prepared to destroy the planet, while Sarah Jane, Captain Jack, Mickey and Jackie have their own device, one that would kill all of the principals, but leave the universe intact. At this point, Davros -- you know, the one who created the Daleks and gave them the drive to destroy all that is different and is about to annihilate all of creation -- lectures the Doctor about his influence on people, noting that he takes ordinary folks and turns them into "weapons."

A running theme through all of Davies' series has been how the companions "humanize" the Doctor. In fact, that's a key moment in Turn Left -- because Donna is not there on Christmas Day to shock the Doctor out of his reign of destruction, he gets caught and killed by the flooding Thames. Yet here, we come face to face with the flipside of that equation. What good has the Doctor done, really?

Well, let's look at the people we are talking about. Captain Jack was a liar, thief and coward. Rose and Mickey had little to look forward to than life on a council estate. Jackie was trapped i the same flat she'd lived for decades. Sarah Jane certainly had a life ahead, but her time with the Doctor transformed her existence. The same for Martha, who unlocked the heart of a true bona fide hero who saved the Earth through her own determination and unrequited love for the Doctor.

And let's not forget Donna, a go-nowhere temp who cluelessly glided through life without noticing anything before she met the Doctor. So, weapons, yes, but also heroes; people will to sacrifice themselves for the greater good.

Of course, they're not called on to do this (it would be a nasty, Blake's 7 kind of ending to the series) and instead it is the ingenuity of the three "Doctors" who save the day. It does, however, come at a cost. For the human Doctor (who has one heart and no regenerative abilities), it's a positive cost -- he is left on the alternative Earth with Rose, allowed to finally "spend the rest of his life" with a companion. For Jack, Martha and Mickey (who wisely stays on the main Earth, as he knows he has no chance against two Doctors for Rose's heart) it may be the start of a new friendship (perhaps to be played out in Season 3 of Torchwood). But for Donna and the Doctor (the proper Doctor) there is only heartbreak.

The Time Lord "brain" Donna absorbed is going to kill her and there is only one way the Doctor sees to save her -- by erasing all knowledge of her time on the Tardis. In an instant, Donna is "reset," forgetting the stronger, wiser and heroic soul she has become. Her mother and grandfather know the truth, but cannot say anything; and the Doctor can never again be with his friend. For him, Donna has died as if she had stopped breathing.

The question is left whether or not Donna is better for the experience. Certainly she'll get a good push from Mom and Granddad, and we saw her bravery in Turn Left when she sacrificed herself (there's that theme again) for the greater good. On the other hand, her chatting on the phone at episode's end doesn't portend for good things; just another temp from Chiswick, moving from day to day but not really living.

And that leaves the Doctor. Near the end of the episode, he has a Tardis packed with his friends, all joining together to fly the old beast as it saves the Earth. Yet in a very short time, they are all gone, leaving him alone, drenched in rain and unsure of where to go next with his eternal ramble through space and time. That's the essence for the show for me -- the reason it has lived on in my imagination in the 30 years since I first saw an episode -- of a man, surrounded by humor and love and adventure, but also so, so alone. It cuts into the loneliness we all have to survive with every day.

Doctor Who has always been at its best in these moments, from the beginning the Doctor was an exile, unexplained, accompanied only by his granddaughter and a couple of school teachers who were dragged into the adventure. It doesn't surprise me that I find his interactions with other Time Lords to be the weakest parts of the show. Like any mystery, the more you explain, the less interesting it becomes, and the Doctor is about the darkness that can envelop us all -- and how important it is to fight it at every turn; to not give into loneliness or despair or evil.

So there's an ironic meaning of Journey's End. Sure it marks the close of several eras (though not Tennant's, he'll be around at least for the specials, including the Christmas episode -- which promises Cybermen in Victorian England), but the Doctor's journey never really ends. He'll be out there, rickety Tardis careening around the Universe, looking for adventure and new friends to ease the pain.

The view from Mars

2008-05-26T07:13:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, all of the speculative fiction about the universe can't hold a candle to the real thing, such as these images from the latest unmanned mission to Mars.

Doctor Who vs. Star Trek in a tag-team battle to the death

2008-05-24T08:20:00.000-07:00

Er, maybe not, but snarky SF site io9 has an interesting survey of the differing occupations of Who and Trek fans. What the rather non-scientific study (though scientific enough that if it had some kind of health benefit, it would be heralded by the major media as "important new findings" that would have, say, everyone eating jelly at each meal each day) found is that fans of both shows follow fairly similar paths -- both in dreams and realities. I'm not surprised by that, no matter the posturing from the different fan bases, the shows attract the same kind of fans. (Personally, I see no reason to separate them, then again I've watched Doctor Who since 1980 -- actually earlier, as a local TV station broadcast it after school for a few months around 1978 -- and Trek literally from the time I was born, as my parents and older siblings were avid watchers, even in the show's death knell in 1969).

What's really great is the jolly time line of the two shows that's about half-way down the page. While Trek gets standard icons, each Doctor gets an adorable avatar to represent his era -- the BBC could market those as some kind of "Baby Docs..." er wait, maybe we should rethink that name.

One against the modern-day Philistines

2008-05-23T06:57:00.000-07:00

Over his career, James Morrow has shown little patience with fanaticism, especially of the religious order. His latest novel, The Philosopher's Apprentice, doesn't spare the rod for anyone -- religious extremists, scheming capitalists or followers of science. And at the center of the book is someone who seems to be the most useless of all modern-day academics: the philosophy major.

The book follows Mason Ambrose, who -- while at a dead-end in his academic career -- takes a job as a tutor on an isolated island in the Florida Keys. He finds that his charge, a youngster named Londa, has no sense of morality at all. It is his job to fill in that empty void in her life. The why of this quickly becomes clear -- Londa has been grown by mother Edwina, a rich and brilliant scientist. And Londa has two sisters, grown to different ages, so the dying Edwina can experience motherhood at different ages before she passes away.

And that's just the opening salvo here... Morrow goes on to follow Londa's adult career. While Ambrose succeeded in bringing Londa closer to humanity, she undertakes her moral explorations with the single-minded dedication of a scientist. In the end, she decides to battle against the "Philistines" and attempts to affect a change on them via force. That all of this happens aboard a recreated Titanic packed to the gills with rich industrialists, politicians and moral guardians (whose leaders had used the technology to create Londa and her sisters to unleash a plague of creatures born from aborted fetuses on their "parents").

Though it's fairly clear where Morrow' sympathies lie here, he -- like all good satirists -- pokes and prods at all sides of the issues here, from the rather self-absorbed narrator to the decidedly amoral actions of both Edwina/Londa and the Christian crusaders allied against them. And in the end, it is the philosopher, after endless lessons, who needs to make a real-life "impossible" decision. It's an impressive work -- and another sign that Morrow is one of the best authors of any genre writing these days.

At his best, Thomas Ligotti casts a spell over the reader akin to a waking nightmare. The actions in his stories are often beyond any experience that we could know in our everyday life, but the relentlessness and detail of the narration draw us in nonetheless. His worldview is uniformly bleak and most of his writing has been done for obscure journals or in limited-edition volumes, but his legend has grown to the point where Ligotti is an oft-cited (if perhaps not as often read) figure in weird fiction.

The Nightmare Factory takes his writing to a new medium. In it, four of Ligott's short stories are reinterpreted by teams of comic book authors/illustrators. It ends up being a mixed bag. Ligotti's literary spell can easily be broken if the reader is distracted, and the art within the stories at times does this. This hurts the most in the opening "Last Feast of Harlequin." The story is certainly Ligotti's most famous work, one where he takes Lovecraftian expectations and merges them with a nihilistic vision that even the misanthropic Lovecraft would have found to be a bit harsh. Yet recreating it in a visual medium (albeit with excellent Colleen Doran art) robs the story of much of its sense of growing dread.

Ted McKeever, whose ragged art style matches Ligotti's off-kilter visions, does better with "Dr. Locrian's Asylum," driving home the story's madness with an equally mad art style. The other two stories, "Dream of a Mannikin" and "Teatro Grottesco" fall in between these, with expected, in-the-middle results. The Nightmare Factory is a nice experiment, and hopefully brings new readers to this singular author, but really the best way to experience Thomas Ligotti is on the page -- preferably alone, late at night, perhaps with the windows shut against the cold and rain.

Moffat is in!

2008-05-20T16:22:00.000-07:00

It's not really surprising news, considering how closely associated he's been with the revival of Doctor Who, but the news that Steven Moffat will take over as the show's "showrunner" for the show's fifth season in 2010 is still great to hear. Moffat is both a phenomenal writer (not just for Doctor Who, but also other British shows) and a lifelong fan of the program. And going by his episodes for the show -- the original Captain Jack two-parter, The Girl in the Fireplace and Blink -- (and his BBC miniseries, Jekyll), the show may be headed for a darker place.

It's also good that Russell T. Davies is getting out before the show claims another burned-out producer. If there's one word I would use for the fourth season of the show, it would be tired. It all feels a bit exhausted, and considering Davies has spent at least the last five years breathing Doctor Who almost every moment of the day that shouldn't be a surprise. It's happened before on the show. John Nathan Turner led a renaissance for the show at the end of Tom Baker's era and into the rather jolly Peter Davison years. The problem is that he then stayed, and stayed (there are stories that the BBC wouldn't let him leave the show, so this may not be all of his own making). The show's budget got squashed, the number of episodes were cut and the program limped along in the end, fueled mainly by Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred. It seems that they've learned from past mistakes (that Doctor Who is one of the most popular BBC programs doesn't hurt when it comes to leverage) and want to keep the show fresh and successful.

Just a note on my music project. I don't want it to seem like that all I listen to is 1970s hard rock, but the latest major block of music I'm dealing with is Alice Cooper. Alice and the boys were a better group than often given credit for, more glam than metal, and they put a jolly series of albums in the middle 1970s, even if the pot is so soaked into the recordings that you can practically smell it through the computer. Upcoming acts include Alison Krauss and British crust legends Amebix. Oddly enough, there's no Allman Brothers. I may have to make a trip to the record store to rectify that...

Listening to "A"

2008-05-18T06:30:00.000-07:00

Inspired in part by Noel Murray's "popless" columns in the A.V. Club, and a personal desire to trim my own digital music collection, I've started the long process of going through my music, artist by artist, album by album, song by song. Now, I'm not going to listen to everything -- I know I want to keep the Beatles or Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan (just a few "B"s right there, at least, in the way iTunes organizes things) -- because that would take 122 days of continuous listening to get to the end (providing I don't add anything new). As I actually have work right now, that probably isn't going to work. So it's more a matter of listening to the unfamiliar and deciding if it should stay or if it should go (hmm, that could be a song title).

So far, I'm up to Ae -- which, as you rockers would know, means Aerosmith. It's interesting how musical taste can work in odd ways. Yesterday, I carefully pruned the AC/DC lists, cutting out most of the post-Back in Black music, but only deleting duplicates when it came to the Bon Scott era from the 1970s. Now listening to Aerosmith, who ply a similar style of blues-based hard rock who hit their peak in the 1970s, I am mainly impatient when listening to the non-radio hits. Some of this could be personal -- AC/DC was one of my first rock 'n' roll loves, all the way back to the night in the summer of 1980 when I first switched the dial to the rock station (KQRS, which pretty much plays the same music -- I mean, literally the same music -- today). I got Back in Black for Christmas that year and listened to it constantly (Mom and Dad -- sorry!)

On the other hand, Aerosmith was moribund in the early 1980s, sunk in the depths of their various drug addictions. Permanent Vacation was still seven years away, with a variety of solo projects and badly thought-out albums (including a pair of Spinal-Tap worthy moments: one where all of the writing was backwards; and one featuring Stonehenge) still to come before their renewal. When I did get a chance to hear their older albums (I had an eight-track of Get Your Wings) I wasn't particularly impressed.

But I don't think it's just my personal preference. For all the swagger, Aerosmith doesn't have the pure free rolling spirit of the original AC/DC, where Bon Scott shared his excesses with child-like glee. Too often, ballads and serious tunes got in the way of Steve Tyler, Joe Perry and the rest. And Perry, while a good hard rock guitarist, can't hold a candle to the raw boogie of Angus Young. In comparison (and since I'm trimming, this is all about comparisons) the Australians completely kick their American brethren's asses.

Judge does theater criticism

2008-05-18T05:57:00.000-07:00

The quixotic quest by Minnesota bar owners and patrons to get around "no smoking" prohibitions by presenting "improvisational" theater performances where all of the patrons are actors, who just happen to smoke (smoking during a theatrical performance is allowable under the law) has been quashed by a Minnesota judge.

As the evenings had no script or attempt to tell a story, they really didn't fall on the side of a performance and the smokers will have to return to their now-familiar post outside, huddled against the, er, rather nice spring air.

At their present course, I don't see how they could win, unless the actually go the extra step and present some kind of show. After all, Minnesota is lousy with actors, directors and writers, including tons with improvisational experience. The cost of a couple hours of a lawyer could probably buy an actor's services for several weeks (more if you toss in free drinks). They, in turn, could guide the evening. Maybe there's been a murder in the bar and someone's the killer. Maybe the band hasn't shown up. Maybe they've run out of rum. The possibilities are endless -- and maybe even entertaining.

Ah, the sucky Doctor Who episode at last

You know I had high hopes for Doctor Who and Agatha Christie, but instead I got giant space wasps and a story that couldn't decide its tone (serious?, mysterious? parody of drawing room mysteries from the 1920s? What?) and containing a message basically the same as the Charles Dickens' show from season 1. Well, Steven Moffat's space library show looks promising at least...

More Doctor Who stuff:

The Battle for the knitted Ood goes on...

The A.V. Club interviewed Freema Agyeman this week.

And this bit appeared in Neil Gaiman's blog this morning:

I know that David Tennant's Hamlet isn't till July. And lots of people are going to be doing Dr Who in Hamlet jokes, so this is just me getting it out of the way early, to avoid the rush...

"To be, or not to be, that is the question. Weeelll.... More of A question really. Not THE question. Because, well, I mean, there are billions and billions of questions out there, and well, when I say billions, I mean, when you add in the answers, not just the questions, weeelll, you're looking at numbers that are positively astronomical and... for that matter the other question is what you lot are doing on this planet in the first place, and er, did anyone try just pushing this little red button?"

This Trend Has Gone Too Far

2008-05-12T14:59:00.000-07:00

...and I'm back. I could say that I'm doing a secret project for the government, but really I'm just grading papers for tests, and it's all governed by non-disclosure agreements, so I can't say much else. Still, a brief pause in it all, so hopefully I can get a bit caught up over the next week.

Pearls Before Swine puts the whole blogging thing into perspective.

As the American TV season grinds to a halt, shows are starting to wrap up -- 30 Rock ended on a high note, while Lost seems to be heading for some big mojo by the end. Battlestar Galatica is just getting warmed up on its last season, though I have to admit the show isn't quite the destination for me as it was before. I think it'll find its way again -- some of this has to do with the whole Starbuck thing, which I think is spiraling out of control for a reason, as opposed to the writers having no idea what to do.

Doctor Who keeps rolling along. Nothing this season has been as all-out awful as last year's Daleks in New York monstrosity, but nothing up to "Blink" or "Girl in the Fireplace" standards. On the other hand, we do get Agatha Christie soon (this week for those in Britain, a bit later for the U.S.) followed by a new Steven Moffat (who wrote both of the aforementioned good episodes) two-parter followed by some massive three or four part series finale.. and then a rest. I think the show needs a bit of a rest, actually. Oh, the scripts are still sharp and the actors fun and all that, but I think too much exposure hurts even the best of programs.

Don't get voted off MILF Island

2008-04-13T06:55:00.001-07:00

A few passing thoughts before I go into the deep of day and night jobs (nothing compares to the easy life of a freelance writer..)

The butchered TV season is returning in full force, just in time for an expected Actors' strike that could spell the doom of the American version of the medium. Meanwhile, 30 Rock is back, and all is right again in the world. I'll even excuse a rather lame "Hand stuck in vending machine" gag (which I believe every comedy show -- even those on Adult Swim -- has done in the past) for the glory of MILF Island.

Battlestar Galatica continues its weird path to completion, with a full-blown Cylon civil war, lots of pensive looks (do the actors get coached on that? or does it just become second nature after a while?) and Starbuck screaming "You're going the wrong way!" like some petulant child. Despite this, the show still delivers the goods -- let's just hope their arrival at Earth is handled better than Galatica 1980 was.

SciFi starts season 4 of Doctor Who Friday night with the gloriously absurd starship Titanic episode (hmm, that could be a video game or something) episode. New episodes have already started on the BBC, and the good news is that Catherine Tate plays a much more nuanced Donna Noble than we saw in the 2006 Christmas episode. And Martha is back in episode 4. As is practically every supporting character from the first three seasons. And Daleks. And maybe pudding as well. Looks like they want to send the show out to hiatus with a bang.

Meanwhile, the cavalcade of awful Summer movies starts even earlier this year. The horrid looking Iron Man (really, those digital effects make Dragonball Z look good) gets things started May 3, to be followed by a huge sea of nothing -- apart from Indy 4, which apart from the presence of Transformers-killer Shia LeBeouf, looks to be at least fun -- onto the fall. I really don't remember being so uninterested in a summer season before. When does the Hobbit come out?

On the upside, this has given me a chance to catch on up some awfulness (and good stuff too) from last year. Will Smith is in danger of being out acted by a dog throughout the largely ludicrous I Am Legend, but the film has a few nice thrills along the way. The less said of the "science" the better -- but end of the world films usually aren't about making complete sense. Still, I can't but help to think the likes of 28 Days Later covered the same territory with plenty more verve and skill.

Post-Easter Blues

2008-03-24T17:49:00.000-07:00

Actually, they're more of the "I have to go back to a day job" blues, but yeah, it's Monday. In fact, it's been a complete and utter Monday from beginning to end... though there are a few cool things to report:

To any knitters out there: I'd like a pair of these.

The season 4 trailer for Doctor Who is now online -- show debuts April 5 on the BBC. Woot!

Torchwood continues to hurtle its way through its second uneven season. I don't know if the show will ever find its feet, but -- as promised -- there was hot action between Captain Jack and Ianto in the last episode. It seems like the BBC is burning off the last couple of episodes in advance of Doctor Who's return.

Lost ended the mini-season strong. Note to show creators -- flashbacks about interesting characters like Michael are good. Ones about boring ones like Juliet, well not so much.

Spoil the upcoming Battlestar Galactica season 4 for yourself and friends.

And with 30 Rock coming back soon, the spring actually promises to have new episodes of nearly all the TV shows I care about (Pushing Daisies will be back next fall; hopefully the British IT Crowd will make a return sooner rather than later).

Childhood's End

2008-03-19T08:01:00.000-07:00

Returning from the grave... well, a rather intense temp assignment, with a few thoughts and stuff:

Arthur C. Clarke has died. I devoured his books as a teenager and they helped to lay the foundation for what science fiction should be in my young mind. I may have turned aside a lot of those assumptions over the years, but like the works of Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein, Clarke's works were -- and still are -- essential for anyone who really wants to understand the genre.

After reading a number of accounts from last week's South by Southwest music whatever it was (conference, convention, excuse to party for a week?), I realize that the whole affair sounds like hell to me: long lines, crowded venues, tons of people trying to act cool, all for a lot of bands that no one will remember in a couple of months.

Lost continues on its merry way, with a pair of recent peaks surrounding a deep valley in the last three episodes. I don't think it's a surprise that the valley was one that advanced the underlying mythology more than characters. Yes, the backstory to Lost is intriguing, but it's not what makes the show so enticing -- it's the bevy of interesting characters who are constantly forced to make difficult decisions, and often make the wrong ones.

There was a bit of a discussion on spoilers on io9, a supremely geeky science fiction site. For those of you visiting here -- once a show has aired on television, book has been issued or movie has been in the theaters, it's fair game. It's not a spoiler anymore after its escaped from captivity, so don't pretend people are causing you grief because they have the audacity to talk about a movie from two years ago you haven't gotten around to watching yet. By the way, Rosebud was his sled.

Speaking of spoilers -- word is that Captain Jack and Ianto will be seen in bed together on the next BBC-broadcast Torchwood (whoo hoo!) and that the Daleks will be back in season 4 of Doctor Who. Now, does either of these facts surprise anyone?

Another passing; and some bonus thoughts

2008-03-04T11:52:00.001-08:00

Gary Gygax, the founding father of Dungeon and Dragons, has died. For those of us who spent our youth (and adulthood as well) buried in thick manuals full of charts, monsters and descriptions that opened the door to a new world, I offer my condolences.

The New York Times offers another story of a memoir that turned out to be absolutely false. From all reports, the book is a compelling read -- so why go the route of memoir in place of a novel? I'm sure there are some market pressures here, and there certainly is a perception that a "true" story is more real, even though that runs counter to millennia of storytelling. Whether or not the incidents in the Illiad, or in the writings of Charles Dickens or Virginia Woolf or any other master author took place is immaterial. It's about the truth within the characters and the stories, not whether or not you actually lived with foster parents and had to duck drug deals.

After reading the recent Charles Schulz biography, I found myself with a desire to reread his run of comics. The first 15 years or so have been reprinted by Fantagraphics -- though that doesn't get to a point where I am most interested in from the run. The book more than implies that an affair Schulz had in the early 1970s appeared in not-so-veiled code within the run of the strip (it involved Snoopy romancing a girl with "soft paws"). Peanuts was also far more complex than it appeared on the surface, reflecting Schulz's well developed anxieties and fears, but who would have guessed there was real "puppy love" behind the story line?

My illo is finally up at MinnPost! As is a fantastic article about a recently donated comic book collection.

Returning from my sick bed

2008-02-29T08:33:00.000-08:00

I spent the week recovering from a rather nasty bug, so I'll have to cram a week's worth of stuff into this rather quick post:

New MinnPost post at, er, MinnPost. Still waiting for my 19th-century style illo.

You can read an official, online version of Neil Gaiman's American Gods here.

Nominations for the Hugo Awards close March 1.

Torchwood continues to be up and down, but the latest show on the BBC (it'll be on BBC America in a few weeks) may be the best thing the show has ever done.

Lost just goes from strength to strength, as last night's moving Desmond-centric episode showed. Not only was the geek-centric back story explained a bit, but story held considerable emotional weight, which has always been the central appeal of the show.

In Dwarf news: the painting of the Warhammer ones is almost (finally!) done; while my WoW dwarf now gets to tool around the world on a tricked-out ram (not a Dodge Ram, just a... ram --the Dwarfs really got the short end of the stick as far as mounts go, didn't they?).

Right, music:

Shelby Lynne Just a Little Lovin’

Shelby Lynne has fought the Best New Artist Grammy curse all this decade, and may finally have found her breakthrough with a collection of songs made famous by another singular artist.

On Just a Little Lovin’, Lynne digs into the Dusty Springfield songbook, bringing nine classic hits (and one Lynne original) of moody pop music back to life for a new audience. She does a remarkable job, taking songs that are often quite familiar and recasting them in a way that is 1) completely her own but also 2) honors the memory and music of the late, great performer.

You can hear that on the best-known tracks, such as “How Can I Be Sure” or the Burt Bacharach/Hal David standard “The Look of Love” or Randy Newman’s “I Don’t Want to Hear it Anymore.” Lynne’s own contribution, the folk-tinged “Pretend,” sits well, side-by-side with songs by some of the great pop songwriters of the last 40 years. And the efforts of Lynne’s talented band and legendary producer Phil Ramone only help to bring the songs back to life.

Willie Nelson Moment of Forever

Meanwhile, the red-headed (hmm, white-headed now I guess) stranger just soldiers on, issuing collection after collection of strong country music for his audience. Moment of Forever has the distinct Nelson touches that brings listeners back again and again to his musical well – dusty vocals as dry as the western deserts, well-played and arranged country-western of a style that may be out of vogue but certainly not out of style, and a collection of songs that reach deep into the mind and heart. You also have Nelson heading off in some unusual directions, such as an eight-minute reading of Bob Dylan’s “Gotta Serve Somebody,” one of the songwriter’s signature songs from his born-again phase. It’s an engaging song, and Nelson’s delivery matches its moods and message better than Dylan’s nasal ever did.

American Music Club The Golden Age

I never could connect with American Music Club, and that somehow left me feeling inadequate. Mark Eitzel’s dark, brooding songs and the band’s synthesis of diverse strands of pop and rock music should have been in my musical sweep spot. Yet, I never got behind the music in more than a “that was nice to listen to, what’s next” sort of way. That’s changed on The Golden Age, which finds the band – recently relocated from San Francisco to Los Angeles and sporting a slightly retuned lineup – at a high point of their musical careers. And this time, I get the music. The sound fuses diverse elements that reminds me of the music Elvis Costello made in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a sound that freely borrows from rock, pop, jazz, blues and other strains, but fuses them into a mature whole. Maybe the word here is mature – there is something about Eitzel’s weary delivery that connects with the older me that understands where he has always come from as a musician.

Taking the ice sled to blog

2008-02-22T09:32:00.000-08:00

After spending the last two nights in the close company of musical crusty bachelors (I saw My Fair Lady in Minneapolis and The Bachelors over in Eau Claire), I'm a bit burned out to write anything coherent about music. Instead, thrill to my first post at MinnPost.

The New York Times has a nice article about the wind sled students on Madeline Island in northern Wisconsin sometimes have to take to get to school in Bayfield on the mainland. One part of the story did make me laugh however:

“I thought it was kind of strange at first,” said Emma Dalzell, 14, who recently moved to La Pointe from Madison, Wis., where she did not have to cross an icy bay to get to school. Now the commute has become routine.

Now, I lived in Wisconsin for a dozen years -- including three and a half just a few miles from Bayfield in Ashland -- and I would say that the vast majority, all but the dozen or so students who live in La Pointe, don't have to take a wind sled to school. I get the feeling from the story that Wisconsin is seen as a vast wasteland to New Yorkers, where people hunt animals for their flesh and to wear as skins. OK, that may be true in some parts of the state -- but Madison?

OK, a few musical notes. Ex Jayhawk Gary Louris has an excellent solo album, Vagabonds, that is just out. At the other end of the musical spectrum, the jolly sounding Hate Eternal have unleashed an absolutely brutal death metal album with Fury and Flames. Genghis Tron (one of my favorite all-time band names, by the way) continue to mix metal, dance and industrial music in a fresh way on Board Up the House. And I've been catching up with an amazing black metal band from the Pacific Northwest called Wolves in the Throne Room, who make a rather tired genre sound fresh again.

Well, at least it isn't as cold as Kim Stanley Robinson's book...

2008-02-18T14:28:00.001-08:00

The weather continues to toy with the hearts of Minnesotans, in a typical February way. After a weekend where the temp peaked at the freezing point, it tumbled this morning and the wind picked up -- to the point where it was howling outside my window. I thought I'd left the tundra behind in Wisconsin...

My reading project continues and the books are slowly coming off the shelves. I've got about three dozen to go (for the uninitiated, these are books that I've bought over the last few years but have not read, including a pile of new and gift books), which means if I read three a week, I could be done by May. Of course, I know that I'll never be able to read three of these a week, especially since some of the ones up and coming are rather thick (including some epic tomes by Peter F. Hamilton, George R.R. Martin and Neal Stephenson) and I'll be working out of the house for a few months this spring, reading student papers all day long. Experience tells me that the last thing you want to do after that is dig into a thick novel.

Still, I've gotten to some good books. I've been a fan of Kim Stanley Robinson's since I first met him about 20 years ago at a MiniCon. His outlook on life and science fiction were refreshing, as were his decided left-wing politics, which while always a part of the genre, sometimes get overwhelmed by the right-wing military nuts and the libertarian Robert Heinlein followers. His latest series about global climate change the politics around it concluded with Sixty Days and Counting. At times, the various plot threads didn't seem to want to come together -- and I have to admit that anything involving politics bores me deeply -- but by the end I understood what Robinson was doing with his characters and his story. It ends with a surprisingly positive message -- that it isn't too late, and that we, as humans, have shown the capacity to change our behavior in the past and can do so again. Meanwhile, Robinson's descriptions of the natural world are supreme, from the lonely challenges of hiking and rock climbing to the lung-stealing nature of extreme cold (in the series, winter temperatures in Washington D.C. sink down to 50 degrees below zero).

I needed a break after that, so I turned to Naomi Novik's latest Temeraire book, Empire of Ivory. It's a jolly fun ride through an alternative earth where the Napoleonic wars are fought with dragons. This time, stiff Brit Laurence and his dragon Temeraire travel to Africa in a desperate search for a cure to a disease plaguing the English dragons. There, they come face to face with the slave trade and resentment from the native people and dragons. The book is fast-paced and written in a delightfully clear style that hides some issues in plotting (often, characters act in a way that befits the plot instead of a rational decision) and the rather flat human characters. (The dragons, on the other hand, are wonderful -- full of recognizable traits, but also clearly the product of a non-human species.) Novik also has a great talent for description, bringing each location to clear life. Empire of Ivory also ends on a rather nasty cliffhanger for our heroes, and I really can't wait for volume five.

On other fronts, I haven't decided if I truly like Ashes to Ashes or I'm projecting my love of Life on Mars onto it. I think the show has great potential, especially since it is clear that the situation for this time traveler is quite different than Sam Tyler's (I'd say more, but plenty of people still haven't seen the end of Life on Mars). I'm hoping the show creators have the verve to take this into those directions. Sam's "am I dreaming or what?" crisis isn't going to work here -- so can the creators find something as compelling to keep the series moving along?

Making love to their egos?

2008-02-15T08:28:00.000-08:00

Before we get to the Friday music, a few links:

Boston founder Tom Scholz wants Mike Huckabee to stop playing "More Than A Feeling."

(If only we could convince radio stations to stop playing Boston.)

Nerds! Con of the North is this weekend, and the St. Paul Pioneer Press is there. (I'm not sure if I'll be there myself -- time will tell.)

Kids say no to Aerosmith (well, in the Onion-world they do at least).

OK, music:

Lenny Kravitz It is Time for a Love Revolution

A decade and a half into his career, Lenny Kravitz at his best comes off as a retro-rock lover with enough soul to make it work; or a rather tired Prince-wannabe without the same level of verve or talent for that role. Thankfully, It Is Time for a Love Revolution finds Kravitz more on the former instead of the later. Sure the album grates, especially as it winds through its 16-track, 75-minute running time (an eternity for an artist at his best with singles), but there is enough good ying to balance the bad yang, or something like that.

Once again, Kravitz crafts a sound that feels like it comes from another era – specifically from the heavy-duty rock years of the early 1970s, when bands could jam out and also include tender ballads on the same release. You get that from the first, almost tinny, sounds of the opening title track. Driven by an insatiable beat, the song has the usual trippy-hippy vibe that Kravitz prefers, but you can ignore the lyrics and just get lost in the beat.

At times, Kravitz sounds like he wants to recreate the groovy vibe of Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti. Other places, he’s content to be Wings. And sometimes – well, the songs probably should have been left on the shelf (such as the Neil-Diamond-meets-Queen-but-not-in-a-good-way “A Long and Sad Goodbye”).

Love Revolution isn’t a case where you could cut off the back half of the album and call it a day (as with most overstuffed modern records). Instead, some of the best music comes at the end, such as the driving “I Want to Go Home” and album-closer “Confused.”

Bob Mould District Line

Minnesota’s favorite ex-pat songwriter returns to the fold with this follow up to Body of Song. Like that album, Mould does most of the playing himself – apart from contributions from Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty and cellist Amy Domingues – and like all of his music dating back to the heyday of Husker Du, the songs seer deep into Mould’s heart and mind.

With a career that spans nearly three decades, Mould’s music comes in a number of distinct flavors – there is the intense distortion-drenched pop of Husker Du and Sugar; the introspective moody acoustic pieces on Workbook; even the odd electronic meanderings of Modulate. On District Line, Mould plays with the different styles, though focusing most of his attention (thankfully) on the first two. What you get is a strong set of songs that could have been pulled from any era of his career (the closing track, “Walls in Time,” actually dates from the Workbook era),

It does take a few listens for the album’s strengths to come through, so District Line is definitely a “grower.” On the surface, the songs don’t have the instant catchiness of the best Sugar tunes, but they’ll get under your skin after a few spins. And then Mould’s signature honesty – now tempered with a dollop of maturity – comes through, making District Line one of the artist’s strongest albums in many years.

A 'Canvas' of Pewter and Plastic

2008-02-13T11:38:00.000-08:00

A primed miniature is like a blank canvas.

I don't feel the same way about the sculpture before it is primed. Until then, it is just a pile of metal bits that need to be fitted together; or plastic components ready to be assembled like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. There are hobbyists who delight in this step -- who love to transform what the original sculptor did into a personalized piece of art.

I'm not one of those. Assembling miniatures is a choir for me. My fingers are clumsy and often end up with as much glue on the tips as on the model in question. I love the idea of converting the models, but am only able to do very simple tasks -- swapping weapons, adding occasional personal touches -- with my skills. Once I have the miniature together, it still doesn't inspire much in me. At this point, it is just a hunk of shiny metal or grey plastic (or both). It's been assembled, cleaned of "flash" (leftover hunks of metal from the molding process) and lines, but it isn't ready yet.

Priming is really a simple task. You add a coat of black or white spray paint that makes 1) makes it easier for the paint to stick to the model and 2) provides an important starting point. A black undercoat will leave you with a darker model, but is great for painting metal effects. With white, the colors "pop" out more and light colors are easier to apply (though enough layers can make anything work).

Still, it is here that the model truly comes alive to me. For the first time, I can sense the shape and individual sections of the model. I start thinking about color schemes and what effects to try and how I hope it fits in with its "friends." Even when it's just black, I can see how the light hits different parts of the miniature, which may dictate choices later on.

Even after these years, my painting skills aren't good enough to pull all of this off. Some of this is patience -- I like having the projects started and done and will often get impatient before the task is finished. This is especially true when doing blocks of troops. Painting 20 dwarf warriors who have the same basic elements (armor, axe, shield, clothing, bits of skin on the hand and the face, and a big, big beard) gets old quite quickly, meaning that I rush and end up with sloppy work that needs to be corrected later.

Still, at its best, painting gets me into a zen-like space. As each layer of thinned-down paint is applied, the model's personality emerges. I find that the sometimes oh-so-tiny details just pop out (like a tuft a hair hiding at the helmet line of the aforementioned dwarfs). Often, I will find that hours have passed as I've put together a complete unit, ready to do its imaginary battles.

As of late, I've preferred working with larger models or smaller units. A new game, Warmachine (and its near-relative Hordes) specializes in smaller units and giant hulking constructs (Warjacks) that provide plenty of space to work. I also finally got around to painting a character called the Nightbringer for Warhammer 40,000. It's a large model (it towers over nearly anything the game can dish out) and has wonderful, flowing lines. I painted it over an afternoon, applying layers of paint between other tasks. It was a nearly perfect way to work -- one I hope to continue. Well, once the remaining projects (I'm down to three -- those dwarfs, a collection of fantasy goblins and some reinforcements for the Eldar -- the space elves of the 40K universe -- along with a few misc items) are done. So, back to the stunties for now.

Tell Me Why I Don't Like Mondays

2008-02-11T13:03:00.000-08:00

Sorry, I've got the Boomtown Rats on the brain right now.

A story about the revived Mystery Science Theater 3000-like project Cinematic Titanic is now up at MinnPost.

I know you are not supposed to look a gift horse in the mouth, and any radio station that plays even some music I like without commercials of any kind is worthwhile -- especially in the Twin Cities' radio wasteland. But oh boy, sometimes I can't stand the Current. The CD player in my car is on the fritz, so I've spent more time than usual listening to my three favorite non-commercial stations (KFAI, Radio K and the Current) and there is something about the latter that just sets my teeth on edge. Maybe it's the bad electro-pop they seem to favor right now; maybe it's too much Nada Surf; maybe it's DJs whose taste in music I really don't agree with. Whatever the reason, it sounds more and more like a slightly more hip adult contemporary station that a rebellious station working to uncover the best music of today (while also playing lost treasures from the past).

Over the weekend I: attended a thought-provoking play at the Illusion Theater; attended two parties Saturday night (including a Chinese New Year shindig -- enjoy the Year of the Rat everyone); watched the entire second season of Dexter (not as good as the first -- it centers on a character whose fate is pretty clear from about the fourth episode) and the debut of Ashes to Ashes; finished painting a force of shiny evil Necrons; and finally got my main World of Warcraft character to Level 40, though I didn't have enough money to get my pimped-out mount (he's a dwarf, so he rides a, um, ram; got the short end of the stick there, didn't I?) No wonder I'm tired today.

Neil Gaiman wants you to pick one of his books to be posted on the Internet for free.

And here's why I have the Rats on my brain right now.

Dark Passengers

2008-02-08T09:16:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, it takes a binge to stop a binge. I was able to tear myself away from World of Warcraft to, um, devour the first season of Dexter. The series has a novel concept -- a forensics expert for the Miami Police who is also serial killer -- and a string of winning performances throughout the cast. It gets silly sometimes -- especially the cop-cliche 101 plotting of many of the "mysteries" and a surprise reveal about one of the characters I saw coming from the second time he appeared on screen -- but Dexter (created on screen by Michael C. Hall) is such a dark, but engaging character. He is much vigilante as killer, targeting murders who have escaped the system. Even so, there is no question from his inner narration that the man is a monster, only controlled by a "code" his adoptive father instilled in him. Season two has run on Showtime as well, but is not yet out on DVD. Also, an edited version of season 1 starts next week on CBS. I'm not sure how this will work -- not only is the show pay-cable violent, but one of the characters will be rendered nearly mute once they remove his love of four-letter words.

My dwarf has dinged up to level 38, leaving the mount and chainmail less than two levels away. Of course, I don't know if I'll have enough cash for the mount at 40, but miracles do happen.

Some good things happening musically this week, but I need to spend more time with them before issuing any final verdicts. The latest from Lenny Kravitz is too long but surprisingly engaging. Meanwhile, the British Sea Power have returned with another crunchy and rocking effort. And there is still a stack of dance and pop CDs I need to go through. Looks like a fun weekend on this end.

Black holes of obsession

2008-02-06T11:06:00.000-08:00

Having an obsessive personality can be a real boon to a gamer. After all, it takes a certain kind of person to spend hours pouring over tables and charts to determine the best character, or endlessly think about card combinations for a cool game; or spend hour after hour hunched over one-inch tall (or smaller) figures, carefully painting layer after layer on them, all in the hope that they'll look good on the table when you and your mates pretend to fight with them.

Believe me, there have been many a weekends where I have looked back at what I did and thought "that was it? I spent the entire weekend painting that unit of undead knights? What the hell was a I thinking?" By the end of the work week I'd cheered up again and was ready to do it again that coming weekend, be it painting, collecting, collating or even playing.

This obsession can take you down dark paths, especially when you get to the various forms of digital crack. Finances and space can sometimes stop a real-world obsession. In the digital world, where the entry cost is usually fairly low and the game either sits in your computer or in a game system, those gloves are off. And there is something so sweet, sweet about combining your obsessions with a digital avatar, who can play out your dreams.

I had thought that phase was over. A few years ago, I lost a winter to the online game City of Heroes. Literally -- I would play from the time I got home from work until I went to bed. Sometimes, I would get up early in the morning to grind a few experience points before heading into work. The game was a geek wonderland -- a colorful place where you could create your own superheroes and have them fight all manner of nefarious baddies. That I had a gang of friends in Green Bay who gathered at comic-game shop Rogue Traders to play made it all the more fun. We could spend an entire day deep in Paragon City, playing with our various toons.

By the end, fatigue (and the lack of a high speed internet connection for several months, followed by my conversion to a Mac) broke the spell. All the while, I experimented with another game, the much better known World of Warcraft, but it never grabbed me the same way (though game maker Blizzard, in their wisdom, makes the game work on either Windows or Macintosh machines). I'd go in, fiddle around for a bit, have some fun and then leave it behind. Last summer, I took advantage of a free trial of the game's expansion. I spent a couple weeks with the new characters, explored a few new parts of the world, and then let it go.

This fall, a new "patch" (updated software that changes the game world in big or small ways) was issued that was said to make it easier to play in the mid game. Last week, I paid my monthly fee for the first time in at least a year, unlocked the full expansion and took at a look at my level 31 dwarf hunter. I spend part of the weekend playing; and then a good chunk of the night Monday; and then before and after a show Tuesday night; and then I was up this morning, before "work," grinding away. I'm almost up to level 37 (there are 70). It is easier to gain experience now and the world is more user-friendly (having rested the character for months helped; I gained extra experience for two levels). I'm also getting worried. I've been leveling at a rate of two to three hours per, which makes some of the fun carrots that are coming up -- I can buy a mount and wear chain mail at 40! -- rather enticing. Blizzard is well known for providing carrot after carrot to keep you in the game. Until now, I haven't had the appetite, but now?

Oh no, maybe I should have a chat with the cable company.

Snowy like Monday morning

2008-02-04T08:26:00.000-08:00

You know, I've become used to the "We're all gonna die!!!" mongering from the TV weather crews, but you would have thought the apocalypse was coming by watching last night's forecast. It appears to have snowed about a quarter inch so far -- come on, where's my snow storm? If I have to live with all the cold and darkness and general misery of a Minnesota winter, we could at least have a nice heavy blanket of fresh snow.

The Syringa Tree

A week after declaring that Mark Rylance's performance in Peer Gynt would likely be the best of the year in the Twin Cities, I got a chance to see a performance of at-least equal scope and power. For nearly two hours, Sarah Agnew is alone on stage in the Jungle Theater's production of The Syringa Tree. Yet after a few minutes, you forget that this is a solo show. Agnew brings a dizzying variety of characters to life (about two dozen), each one distinct, fully formed and instantly believable.

Playwright Pamela Gien drew on her experiences growing up white in segregated South Africa for the play. The writing is direct, detailed and poetic. Much of the show is seen from the viewpoint of young Elizabeth Grace, who closely observes the complex dynamic of her home, their African servants and the political turmoil outside the gates. It also means Agnew spends much of the show as a pre-adolescent and she carries it off with great aplomb, making the youngster an absolutely believable -- and endearing, for her youthful faults -- character. The first few times she quickly shifts to another character are a bit jarring, but once the rhythm of the performance is set, the audience is along for the ride, following the dynamic, magical and heartbreaking tale Gien tells.

Elizabeth's magical look at the world -- infused with the beliefs of the Xhosa servants and her own youthful imagination -- is matched perfectly by the set and the direction -- both crafted by Joel Sass. It's easy to look at a one-actor show as being the sole work of the performer, but as in all theater, this is an act of collaboration -- in the case, between the one on-stage artist and the crew off-stage that make it work.

Still, it is Agnew's performance that shines brightest here. Without any other actors to share the burden (and not even an intermission for a rest) it is up to her to keep the show alive -- and Agnew does that, and then some.

The show runs through March 9 at the Jungle in Minneapolis -- it is not to be missed.

Monday morning links:

Check your geek-index in today's AV Club.

Good news for Lost and BSG fans (OK, fans of other TV as well, but that's all I really care about): the strike may be coming to an end.

Apparently, they're still making the Land of the Lost movie. With it, another piece of my childhood will die.

Friday Misc

2008-02-01T13:08:00.000-08:00

The usual this and that from another week in paradise -- if you're definition of paradise is a place where the temp stays below zero for days on end.

Anyway, new MinnPost story on the Theatre Unbound 24 Hour Play Project is online.

As are a couple of pieces at Lakeshore Weekly News.

Lost is back. The debut was dynamite -- full of the intrigue and real drama that has always marked the best episodes of the series. It followed through with a number of the major cliff hangers from last season, found a new way to divide the survivors, had some excellent scares and reminded me why Hurley has always been a favorite character. At the beginning, when he shouted "I'm one of the Oceanic Six" I knew we had a major mystery for the rest of the season -- who are the other three (Jack, Kate and Hurley are all in the "flash-forward" world) survivors, and what happened to the rest? For the first time, I'm cursing the writer's strike (well, more episodes of Pushing Up Daisies would have been nice) and hope it ends in time to get the rest of season 4.

For readers in Britain -- or Americans with, um, access -- the sequel to the terrific Life on Mars starts next week. Ashes to Ashes (another David Bowie song) moves the action to 1980, has a number of the old Manchester cops, no Sam Tyler, but a new detective who "time travels" (i.e., gets a bump on the head and wakes up in the past) from modern day. The science-fiction hook was always secondary to the characters and the loving pastiche of old-school cop dramas. Hopefully that'll keep with an era that shouldn't seem so much like living on another world.

And a bit (OK, more than a bit) of a musical obscurity this week:

Age The Scar of Lead

Japanese crusty four-piece that I really know nothing about except that they were part of the Amebix Japan comp a couple of years back and have a couple of eps floating around. This seven track mini-lp has tons of charms, from the raging, nearly out-of-control fury of the playing to the oddly translated English lyrics that make more sense the longer you read them ("The night full of wicked hearts attack on" is a prime example). Age even tackle Twisted Sister's Stay Hungry, which marks the first time something related to that band has been cool since 1983. I picked it up at my local punk rock shop, Extreme Noise. If you're interested, you will have to hunt -- the Internet didn't offer any band or label sites, but there were a smattering of places that sold the lp.

Too busy writing to post

2008-01-30T15:21:00.001-08:00

But here are a few links:

In place of my regular gaming post, check out Cool Mini Or Not, which is, well, exactly as advertised.

If you want to brave the elements for a show, here are some new reviews:

Talkinbroadway: Well and and Peer Gynt and the Poetry of Pizza (mmm, pizza...)

And don't forget Lost is back tomorrow. No clever links for this, but I'll buzz in with opinions after the broadcast.

Right, this public television magazine isn't going to edit itself -- as much as I would like it to.

Buffy the Torchwood Slayer?

2008-01-28T10:10:00.000-08:00

Torchwood Series 1

(BBC Video)

Torchwood Series 2

(BBC America)

Spun off from the revitalized Doctor Who franchise, Torchwood is an X-Files type show, though this time its set in Wales and has five smoldering characters to craft sexual tension. The first series got good numbers on cable BBC3, so the second has moved a station up to BBC2. The reaction from critics and fans was a bit more mixed.

Put me in that camp as well. There's plenty to love on Torchwood (I'll get to that in a moment), but the show has a tendency to be loud brash and "modern" at the expense of clearly told stories and well-defined characters.

However, when it clicks, Torchwood can be amazing. The show's bleak look at life on earth is one of the darkest on television. It's a world where no good deed goes unpunished.

The concept of Torchwood comes from Doctor Who. It's a secret branch of the British government that researches and protects the country from alien threats. They also scavenge what they can from what they find, often using devices that they do not fully understand. At the end of the second season of the new Doctor Who, Torchwood in London is destroyed. There are, however, other Torchwoods, including one in Cardiff. There's a "rift" in space and time there, which allows all sorts of weirdness to fall through. Captain Jack Harkness -- last seen being brought back to life in the far future at the end of the first new Doctor Who season -- is in charge. And his resurrection has gone further than that -- the Captain can't die.

He's joined by a quarter of young and hot investigators who work in semi-secret (their existence is known -- it's hard to be subtle when you have a massive SUV with "Torchwood" written on the side -- but somehow kept quiet from the general public) on cases that are both science-fictiony and fantastic.

As I noted before, sometimes the flash gets in the way of storytelling. The "cannibals in Wales" story really doesn't make any sense, while the "alien fight club" one is so derivative and silly that it undermines the very real confusion the main characters are feeling at that point.

Yet Torchwood can also hit on all cylinders. Sapphire and Steel creator Peter Hammond works his signature, creepy magic in "Small Worlds," where Jack and the team meet up with the forces of fairie and come across a situation that they cannot "win." "Out of Time" brings three ordinary people from the 1950s forward to the 21st century and explores their culture shock and efforts to cope in a sort of reverse Life on Mars scenario. Finally, we learn some truths about the immortal and multi-sexual captain in "Capt. Jack Harkness," when he travels back in time to the 1940s and meets his namesake. The episode also features some of John Barrowman's best acting in the series -- and one of the finest and most honest gay kisses I've ever seen on television.

Season two (running Saturday nights on BBC America in the states; on BBC2 in Britain) kicks off with "Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang," which features the good and bad of the first series. There are lots of flash cuts and intrusive incidental music, and the plot -- well, it holds together a bit better than "Countrycide." To kick things off, James Marsters was brought in to play one of Jack's old flames. Marsters is basically playing Spike from his Buffy days, just without the vampire bit (though we never see him in daylight...) He brings a nice energy to the proceedings and it's fun to see the character again, no matter the name, but it does distract from the new chemistry of the team, which has grown since the season one finale. The creators have noticed the issues of the first series and are promising some adjustments. We'll see how that plays out over the next few months.

Riding with the truckers

2008-01-25T13:44:00.000-08:00

There was something else this blog was supposed to cover... Oh, that's right: Music!

Drive-By Truckers Brighter Than Creation’s Dark

I’ve never hidden my love of this Alabama-based collective. Their mix of traditional southern music styles – from raging rock to blues to country to soul – with the fury and honesty of punk drew me in from the first time I heard their opus Southern Rock Opera.

Over the years, the band has gone through a number of lineup changes and stylistic shifts, but the underlying brilliance has not faded. Coming off their stellar support performance on Bettye Lavette’s The Scene of the Crime, Brighter Than Creation’s Dark finds the Truckers in another epic mood, crafting a long, complex and more-often-than-not, thrilling musical ride.

With three songwriters and vocalists, the band’s eclecticism is its calling card. What binds it all together is the excellent playing throughout, including contributions by legendary keyboardist Spooner Oldham, who helps to anchor the diffuse music into a cohesive whole.

Songwriter/vocalist Patterson Hood calls this album a “grower.” Which is more than encouraging. I already love Brighter Than Creation’s Dark. How will I feel after it “grows” on me?

Disfear Live the Storm

I could really do some shorthand with this review and just say: "Excellent Scandi-crust D-beat hardcore fronted by former At the Gates frontman Tomas Lindberg." Now, for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, I'll take this one step at a time.

"Scandi-crust." Scandinavian-based "crust" is a particular style of punk rock that is based on heavy, metal-style riffs. The guitars are usually downtuned, which makes the music more menacing. Crust was an offshoot of the anarchist hardcore of the 1980s, with England's Amebix usually cited as the style's ground zero. Scandinavia (in this case, Sweden) has spawned tons of extreme punk and metal bands over the years, from the church-burning black metal acts to a legion of pissed-off punk rockers.

To jump ahead a bit, Tomas Lindberg seems to have been a member of all of the Swedish bands in the last decade, though it really is "only" half a dozen. At the Gates took death metal (the intense and technical style that emerged out of the 1980s thrash scene) and added enough melodies and harmonies to give the style a fresh kick. Since then, millions of bands have copied the style, but few have managed it as well as At the Gates. After the band imploded, Lindberg went off into punk rock (with occasional forays into metal, such as The Crown) while the bulk of the band became the Haunted. At the Gates will reunite for the first time since the middle 1990s this summer for a string of concerts.

To move back, "D-beat" is another sub-strain of hardcore punk rock. In this case, the name is drawn from the signature drum beat, which is powerful and quite easy to hang a couple of chords and riffs on and make memorable hardcore. It started mainly with angry Brits Discharge, though there is also a Scandinavian school that started around the same time, followed by others around the world (Japan has a particularly good dis-scene). Like At the Gates, millions of bands have followed in Discharge's footsteps, utilizing the beat, a riff or two and a few lines of lyrics to spread their message of, er, war is bad and we're all going to die horribly in a nuclear war and, oh, the cops aren't really cool either (OK, it does beyond this, but sometimes it's hard to tell).

So what makes Disfear (note the "dis" prefix) such a great purveyor of the style? Well, Lindberg sings for all those bands for a reason -- his vocals are distinct and powerful, even when he's just yelling his head off. The band is made up of seasoned pros who have plied this kind of music for years and no how to take the seemingly limited tools and make it fresh. The 10 songs here are loaded with raw, raw power, but power that is molded into something focused. The band hits a number of highs here, including longtime live favorite "The Furnace" and the punishing album closer "Phantom." So, yeah, excellent Scandi-dis-crust. And in the middle of winter, what else does a hard rock fan want except something so intense it melts away the snow and ice?

And for a bit more: this month's column from Lavender, my long-awaited Best of 2007 list.

How I fell into the rabbit hole

2008-01-23T15:48:00.000-08:00

(Ed's life of gaming, part two)

So how did this all begin? What brought me to the point where my home is decorated with garishly painted miniatures in a variety of violent poses -- and drawn from numerous fantasy and science fiction settings -- and spend most of my time "watching" TV actually hunched over my painting station (one corner of my coffee table, covered in newsprint) with a seemingly endless supply of pewter and plastic figures?

It started in Green Bay. Well, actually, no that's not quite true. I was actually living in Sturgeon Bay (up in Door County, about 45 minutes from Green Bay) when I took the miniature plunge. Now I'd long had a vague interest in "that" side of the gaming and comic book stores, even while I spent most of my time turning colorful pieces of cardboard 90 degrees (er, playing Magic: The Gathering). The figures intrigued me -- I mean, they looked cool and the guys (and the occasional gal) playing them looked like they were having a lot of fun. But I looked at the prices on them and saw how many it took to play, and figured it was out of my price range, especially if I wanted to feed my Magic habit at the same time.

Moving to Door County both 1) took me out of the Magic gaming circles, which took some of the interest away in collecting the cards and 2) meant I was actually making a living wage that left me with a bit of discretionary income.

And there was a new gateway drug in 1999. While most Games Workshop (the English-based market leader in fantasy/science fiction tabletop gaming) systems required quite an investment, they had come out with a skirmish-based fantasy game called Mordheim that you could play with the contents of a starter box (which cost $60). I watched a few games, got a feel for what it was about and decided to take the plunge. With a bit of help from the more experienced gamers I was ready to start.

Well, not to start gaming. First, I needed to learn the arcane art of model assembly. Inside the Mordheim box was a rule book, a small bag of dice, short, red plastic rulers called "whup ass" sticks by the gang and several hunks of molded plastic. These were "sprues." Each one contained a variety of heads, torsos limbs, weapons and other equipment. With the help of a handy X-acto Knife, I began to extract the pieces and then use a pot of superglue to bond them together. Truthfully, I spent more time slicing into my fingertips and gluing my fingertips together than actually getting the models assembled (nowadays, I use hand snips on the plastic sprues; I still glue my fingertips together). I worked on the minis for a bit that evening at Rogue Traders in Green Bay, and then headed home to complete the job. It took some time but I got it done.

I hadn't bought any paint or brushes, so I couldn't start that side of the work. Impatiently, I went out to Wal Mart and picked up some spray paint to prime the models. That would have been OK, except I bought a glossy instead of a matte, giving the models a rather bright shine -- one that eventually made it rather tough to paint. The box provided two "sides," either a group of human mercenaries or sentient giant rat-men called Skaven. Since I'd used the glossy on the Skaven, I worked on the human side instead. Understand, I hadn't held a paint brush since high school, but here I was trying to pick out tiny tiny details on miniatures that were about an inch tall. Needless to say, those early experiences didn't turn out the best, but I found that the work satisfied a need deep inside. The mixture of collecting, gaming and creating was nearly perfect for me.

It didn't take long for me to go from that gateway into the hard stuff. A month or so later, I picked up a copy of Games Workshop's science-fiction game, Warhammer 40,000 (typically called 40k). There, I was introduced to a dark far future where my only hope sat with my sloppily painted forces. Again, the background sucked me in, but it was the gameplay -- with a mixture of strategy, brute force (from the minis, not the players) and furious dice rolling -- that kept me going.

In the last eight years, I've been through tons of game systems and a dizzying amount of models. Often, I get rid of rule books as I drift away from a particular game, but the Mordheim rulebook still sits in a place of pride on my bookshelf. (The glossy Skaven, however, were long ago sacrificed to one crazy conversion project or another.)

A little bit of this, a little bit of that.

2008-01-22T14:32:00.000-08:00

I alluded to this book yesterday, but lovers of Victorian crime fiction, steampunk, the X-Files, super heroes, Lovecraftian horrors and other oddities will get a thrill out of The Secret Files of the Diogenes Club (Monkeybrain Books), a new collection of short stories by Kim Newman.

Sherlock Holmes fans will recognize the name of the Diogenes Club, the elite, nearly silent establishment favored by Mycroft Holmes, which we got a couple of glimpses of in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories. Kim Newman draws in characters from history, fiction and his own creations from other books in this jolly collection of short stories, where the members of the club serve as a type of super-secret service, fighting against dangers from beyond the earth. The stories stretch from the end of the 19th century up until the late 1970s and the storytelling style changes with the times, such as a hardboiled tale of the Elder Gods set in the 1940s.

I've been a fan of Newman's for quite a few years, especially his similar Anno Dracula novels (fictional and real characters interact in a world where Dracula was not defeated and has gone one to take over the British Empire). Even if the characters caught in the cross-currents (a couple even show up from novels Newman wrote in the Warhammer fantasy gaming world) fit in well with the others. Newman draws the characters extremely well (Conan Doyle makes for a great supporting player in one tale) and the tales themselves are constructed quite well. Once you get past the cultural clutter (one of the later stories, for example, includes the Manson Family and Lon Chaney Jr.), Newman's story are rock solid, full of interesting twists and turns and an energy that never flags.

New Link (a talkinbroadway one should be coming along soon as well):

SpotLight Awards

And, oh dear, Heath Ledger is dead.

At last, a new year's resolution

2008-01-21T14:06:00.000-08:00

Hey, it's something I like to take my time on, especially since many of the worthy items (being more organized in my business, writing more, eating better) are things I should do without any influence from a "resolution."

The answer came last week, as I scanned the two shelves full of books that I have bought -- many of them brand new -- over the last years that I haven't read. A quick count came up with more than 50 unread titles. Quite a few of which I really want to read. So, my resolution is to clean off those shelves over the coming months. Thankfully (well, sort of thankfully I guess) I don't have much in the way of money for fun stuff right now anyway, so it's not too hard to just plow my way through these books. I've already made a tiny dent, finishing up a couple of books I picked up recently (including Kim Newman's terrific oddball collection the Secret Files of the Diogenes Club; a couple of misc. Brian Lumley anthologies; and J.R.R. Tolkein's The Children of Hurin, not to be a crowd-pleasing epic anytime soon, but does include the Professor getting all Greek on us with an incest subplot). Books on the horizon include Neal Stephenson's recent trilogy, a China Meiville book for young audiences and George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire (though I may wait for book five -- George promises it will be out by this fall).

The resolution has cascaded to my other interests, so I'm staying away from new video games until I finish some of those I've bought (and since the last one was the Half-Life 2 "five games in one" Orange Box, that may take a while), while I've cut off most of the new miniatures until I finish some unfinished projects (there are five, plus some misc. ones that I finally put some paint on) that are hiding under the couch. We'll see how it goes.

Will you come down the rabbit hole with me?

2008-01-16T12:14:00.000-08:00

As I've slowly expanded the scope of this blog, It has become more and more a "State of Ed" report. As that is the case, I've decided to expand the scope into some more far-flung areas. No, I'm not talking politics (other, more astute writers, can explain this much better than I can -- I'm an arts writer at heart) or even sports (though that may creep in from time to time). No, I'm talking gaming. Not video gaming (that's already a part of that) or gambling (no interest at all), but pure, geeky fantasy gaming.

Let me move back a step first. Over the years, I've put a lot of thought into my hobbies. This perhaps is a sign that I overanalyze my life. Still, it is something that I've mused about, no matter what the hobby is at the time. This thinking has led me to a few conclusions:

1) A hobby should be fun. That should be self-evident, but who hasn't found themselves gritting their teeth over an activity that Seemed Like a Good Idea At The Time?

2) A hobby should be a way to connect with other people. Whether or not you like these people can often dictate if it is worth doing or not.

3) A hobby should be, at a certain level, a worthless activity. Not that it can't make you happy, but I'm suspicious of activities with some kind of financial goal at the end. Playing poker with friends with small change? Fun. Playing poker (or Magic: The Gathering for that matter) for high stakes? Er, not really for me. Our society is really geared toward achievable goals, especially ones that may help us financially. At a certain point, people really need to re-embrace the kid inside and do things just for the sake of doing them.

Over the years, my career has been based on taking the things that I love -- music, theater, writing, photography and the like -- and making them a part of my job. I don't regret this at all, but it does often leave me short on the point number 3. Over the years a number of activities have filled that last bit, from collecting comics to playing Magic: The Gathering (my biggest ever success was a second-place tournament finish that netted me about $30 in store credit; these days, my only play time with the game is the occasional prerelease tournament). In recent years, this part of me has turned, nearly exclusively, to tabletop miniature games.

In a nutshell, these are like the army games plenty of youngsters played as youth. You get your troops of green army men, set them up and let them fight imaginary battles. These more organized games that I play now have rules, statistics for each miniature and require lots and lots and lots of dice rolling. My own interests being what they are, they also focus on fantasy and science fiction settings, so you may command futuristic elves against a horde of Alien-like invaders; or have giant mythical beasts battle it out over a piece of territory.

Silly? Of course. Fun? Oh heavens yes. It's like playing chess with a rainbow-colored assortment of pieces, all of which can be set up in a myriad of different ways each game.

The games can also be divided into two other primary types -- ones that use prepainted miniatures (Hero Clix, for example, allows you to fight gangs of Marvel, DC or independent superheroes against each other in a spandex-clad orgy of violence) and ones that require the owner to assemble and paint the miniatures themselves. While I have a smattering of the former (including a sweet giant AT-AT from a Star Wars game) my real love is in the later. My apartment is packed with these, from forces that have been completed to boxes of ones waiting for me to get the painting process.

It's a sometimes tedious but also engaging and therapeutic process. And when it works well, the results can be so satisfying. (Hmm, that's all kind of like writing, isn't it?) I'm going to take a look at this over the coming weeks, from army selection to painting to actually playing. I'm not so much interested in offering advice -- there are others far more skilled in all of this than myself -- but in exploring the hobby itself and what it means for me. Though I have been actively painting for years, the gaming side has fallen by the wayside. Now that I'm not working three or four jobs, I will try to get out more and more to actually play.

So do you want to come down the rabbit hole with me? If you do, be warned, you may find yourself with a box of space marines, a tub of glue and a smattering of paints before you know it.

Fresh links

2008-01-15T11:19:00.001-08:00

A new piece in MinnPost:

Poetry of Pizza

And one in the Lakeshore Weekly News:

The Mitten

Enjoy

Swanwick's Dragons

2008-01-15T07:00:00.000-08:00

Michael Swanwick

The Dragons of Babel

(Tor Books $25.95)

For the last three decades, Michael Swanwick has offered his singular vision and voice to science fiction and fantasy fans willing to dig into his message. Those longtime fans will be thrilled that Swanwick has returned to the world of the Iron Dragon's Daughter, his brilliant epic that both embraced and subverted the traditions of fantasy fiction. The Dragons of Babel is cut from similar cloth, freely mixing modern images and ideas with traditional fantasy motifs into a thrilling, haunting novel.

We see Swanwick's singular world -- where iron dragons serve as the air force in an epic war of obscure origin has torn the society apart -- through the eyes of Will, a young orphan in a small village that appears far from the strife. When one of the dragons crashes nearby, it takes over the community and uses Will as its voice. As the dragon forces itself onto Will, they create a symbiotic relationship that lasts far beyond the final defeat the dragon.

Will's changed nature leads to his exile from the village and leads him on a series of picaresque adventures crossing the continent to the fabled Tower of Babel. At first, his journeys seem little more than a wild ride through a landscape populated by centaur soldiers, double-dealing Dwarves and a young girl who sold her future and past for an eternal childhood. This continues as we get to the Tower -- which is a lot like a massive New York City, complete with a mix of familiar neighborhoods and mythical creatures, all lorded over by a host of ethereal elves. By the last third of the book, Will's journey comes into focus, as he dances more and more among the city's elite, swimming as fast as he can to stay alive and find a purpose for his life.

Swanwick pulls no punches throughout The Dragons of Babel. It's a world that is wonderful and terrible at the same time; full of magical wonder, profane acts and death at every turn. Though Will appears to drift throughout the book, he always shows a capable head in a crisis and remains an engaging character throughout, no matter his actions or mistakes (and he makes quite a few, including one that he regrets for much of the book). Along the way, he is joined by a fantastic cast of support characters, from the eternal child Esme, donkey-eared con man Nat and a hippogriff-riding high-elf noblewoman who ends up as a key to his life.

As a writer, Swanwick does plenty that I appreciate. He never pauses the narrative to explain matters that the characters would already know quite well. Instead, we learn about the world through their everyday observations and experiences. Even when something new does appear (which happens quite often once the story gets to Babel), it is revealed slowly, as Will learns the ropes of each situation. And while the book is packed with literally out-of-this-world situations, Swanwick draws each one with plenty of clarity. I never mind being confused for a time in a book if I sense (or in this case, know from experience) that I'm in the hands of a storyteller who can make it all come clear by story's end.

Swanwick's vision is hard to reduce in a simple review. Best to say that you will be hard pressed to find a better "traditional" fantasy novel published this year.

(Read Swanwick's Dragons of Babel blog here.)

Extinction?

2008-01-14T08:20:00.000-08:00

I ended a rather rough weekend by watching Resident Evil: Extinction. I'm sure some of you are asking right now: dude, Resident Evil: Extinction? It's not a film series that I've ever particularly enjoyed, but I have a weakness for zombies. And mutant dogs.

Trying to recount the plot would be difficult as this is the third film -- and, er, it didn't really make any sense. I mean, the opening narration included a comment that the T-virus (the mcguffin from the films and the video games that causes the zombies/mutant creatures) "dried up the lakes and rivers." OK. How exactly is that done? Meanwhile, the balance of the film offers scenes nicked from other movies ("Hey, wasn't this in The Road Warrior? And I liked that bit a lot more in the remake of Dawn of the Dead. Man, they're stealing from the remake of Dawn of the Dead. That's desperate.) and video game set pieces that would be a lot more fun to play than watch. And the less said about the zombie clown car (well, crate) attack the better.

Which brings up an interesting point. Video game films invariably (there's an exception I'll come to in a bit) are terrible, be they big-budget exercises or Uwe Boll tax dodges. Why? They are two decidedly different art forms, no matter what superficial similarities there may between the two. Films -- well, good films -- are about drawing the audience into a new world via story, characters, acting and the filmmaker arts (lighting, sound, effect, etc.). Games also draw you in, but through your own interactions with the "world." Though there is often a story (and sometimes a quite good one), the real pleasure is drawn from how the interface -- how the controller or keyboard is used; how the gameplayer's thoughts and ideas are then translated onto the screen -- works. Ideally, the user must feel they are in control of the process. That absolutely opposite to a film, where the viewer has essentially made a contract with the creators to be entertained.

As video games have become more sophisticated (a mixture of improved technology and more experienced designers), they have also hit against this issue. Lots of games try to be cinematic, but that often comes at the detriment of the gameplay. Even while playing a game like Okami -- a gorgeous creation with a compelling plot and innovative play -- I get irritated with the "cut" scenes (non-interactive moments that advance the plot) because the game is so much fun to play and I'd rather get back to doing the thing I wanted to do with the game in the first place (this, by the way, is what drives me nuts about the Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid franchises; both have solid gameplay, but both are undermined by cut scenes that go on and on and on and on and on...)

This seems to be changing in the game world. More and more advance the plot via in-game events where the player at least has the pretense of control. The game considered by many (including myself) to be the best of 2007, Bioshock, told its story in this way. Much of the background of the underwater hell we find ourselves in comes out through diaries and recordings you pick up along the way. Meanwhile, the game packed quite a surprise half way in that completely turned around the player's idea of the story, and exposed that, no matter the pretense, we are still being led by the game creators. Instead of revealing that bit, I'll look at a different way Bioshock manipulated the user via the interface and the illusion of choice. For your character to advance, he needs to acquire a substance called "adam," which allows him to develop new powers and skills. The way to get the substance? Harvest it from the Little Sisters, genetically altered young girls who are essentially mules for adam. You are given a choice -- you can take a lesser amount and cure the girl; or you can take more, which kills her.

As it turns out, there is no advantage to the second, as you are rewarded for saving their lives with periodic gifts that make up for the lost adam. So it comes down to the kind of player you want to be in the game, which will effect the "ending" (there are two) you get after completing Bioshock. Multiple endings are common these days, as they give players rewards for completing the game multiple times in different ways; and they allow for different styles of gameplay. (One reason I've never been all that interested in Grand Theft Auto games is that you are pretty much stuck playing as a bad guy. It's not that I don't like playing that way, but I like the pretense of a choice.)

Which I think, at last, loops us back to films. Films don't work with multiple endings. If there are, it means that the filmmaker was 1) doing a Clue-like stunt, 2) forced to put a happy ending on by the studio or 3) didn't exactly know where to end. For this kind of storyteller, its a deadly place to be -- one that leaves the audience unsatisfied, sensing beneath it all that something is not exactly right.

Silent Hill manages to avoid these pitfalls. Now, it's not masterpiece of cinema, but it provides a few scares along the way and has an ending that truly is haunting. Part of this comes from Roger Avery's script, which takes the guts of the Silent Hill game franchise and stitches it together into a different monster altogether. The plot doesn't ape any of the games, but draws elements from them (the town, the "hell" created by the dark recesses of the mind) for its own mythology. It's a video game movie that, at last, doesn't feel like a video game.

Bonus Noise Annoys column

2008-01-11T10:51:00.000-08:00

Another column worth posting -- written last month after the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame inductees were announced.

Noise Annoys:

Time for this hall to close

Ah, what a double whammy of a week. First, the utterly superfluous Grammy nominations are released. And now, the latest “class” of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame has been unleashed on an unsuspecting public.

For the blissfully uniformed, here they are:

* Leonard Cohen
* The Dave Clark Five
* Madonna
* John Mellencamp
* The Ventures

I don’t have any particular trouble with these artists. In fact, I’ve enjoyed music by all of them at one point or another. It’s just that we seem to be getting diminishing returns now. Instrumental rockers the Ventures and British Invasion songsters the Dave Clark Five (of “Glad All Over” fame) are certainly fine acts, but what pushes them to the Hall of Fame level?

Madonna is even more problematic. If this were a pop music hall of fame, her work in the 1980s alone would push her into the ranks. But this is supposed to be for rock music, and that’s never been Madonna’s main interest, or forte. Add in that her career since 1990 has been – to be charitable – spotty doesn’t help matters.

John Mellencamp is the quintessential journeyman. He has made a number of fantastic records over his three-decade career, plenty of listenable releases and a number of dogs. (The use of “Our Country” by Chevy is a huge demerit on his career, however). Mellencamp is the talented infielder of the Hall of Fame. Never spectacular, but putting up good numbers year after year.

Which leaves us with Leonard Cohen. Though not as well known as some of the others on the list, Cohen’s songwriting and influence on several generations of bands and performers makes him a natural pick for the organization. It’s just a wonder it took this long to honor him – Cohen has been eligible for the last 15 years.

Which really brings me to my main point. Apart from Madonna, all of these artists have been eligible before. Mellencamp’s music career dates back nearly 30 years, Cohen’s goes back 40, and the Ventures and Dave Clark Five are early ‘60s acts. It’s not that there haven’t been great landmark musicians in the last quarter century – I just don’t think the Hall’s voting membership has any idea of what those acts truly are. Like the Grammys, the voters here are looking more and more out of touch with their supposed area of expertise.
And really, why does rock music need a Hall of Fame? This is the music of anarchy, of rebellion, and having a good time and not caring what people think. I can’t think of anything less like the music than a codified list of the greats. Except, perhaps, for 30 minutes straight of the “Our Country” commercial, interspersed with the Clash-ruining Nissan Rogue spot.

Noise Annoys column

2008-01-11T10:49:00.000-08:00

Since my Door County column don't appear to be online, here's a copy of the latest for your reading pleasure --

Noise Annoys

While we wait for 2008 to get started musically (the record industry usually takes some time off early in the year to lick its wounds from the holiday-season crush), here are a few leftover thoughts and releases from 2007.

Emmylou Harris Songbird: Rare Tracks & Forgotten Gems

Of course, if there isn’t any new music to deal with for a while, you could sink yourself into this mammoth four disc collection, which – as the title promises – tracks down dozens of unissued and hard-to-find Emmylou Harris tracks that are drawn from her entire three-decade-plus career.

In some ways, Harris is a musical chameleon who can disappear into any number of styles, from aching country-western to traditional folk to alternative-tinged rock to even ‘50s-style pop music. At the same time, her music is unmistakable. Much of that comes from her singular voice, but it also draws from her very style. Harris always sounds like she’s on the edge of complete heartbreak, but also has the strength to persevere throughout whatever trouble the song may have in store for the singer. She even manages to out-Springstreen the Boss on stunning versions of “Racing in the Street” and “My Father’s House.”

Songbird is thrilling, compelling and more than a little overwhelming. It’s not a collection you can easily digest in a few listens, which makes it perfect fodder for a long winter.

Rufus Wainwright Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall

It shouldn’t be a surprise that flamboyant and decidedly “out” performer Rufus Wainwright would tackle the music of Judy Garland. This two-disc live set finds Wainwright recreating Judy’s legendary 1961 concert at the same venue. He brings along a number of special guests, including sister Martha and mother Kate McGarrigle) along with an orchestra, but the focus is truly on the singer.

Wainwright does a fine job channeling his inner Judy throughout, though he seems to have an easier handle on the moodier torch songs than the more spry musical theater staples (such as “That’s Entertainment” or “The Trolley Song”). In the end, Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall is exactly that – a loving tribute to an iconic artist who has inspired generations of performers. In his own way, Wainwright keeps the fabulous reign alive.

Radiohead tops the charts

There was much hand wringing late last year when Radiohead originally issued their latest album, In Rainbows, as a digital-only release. One where the purchaser could choose the price – all the way down to nothing if they chose to do so. About two-thirds of the people took that last option, with the rest paying about an average of $6 per album. A failure? Well, $2 an album isn’t a bad amount considering there were no 1) outside label costs, 2) no production costs or 3) almost no promotional costs. And the band’s decision looks even stronger now that the physical form of the disc has topped the charts in both England and the United States. Sure, it’s not a tough time to do that, but it does give the band another number 1 release, solidifies their status as one of the few “rock” bands that actually matter these days and shows there may be a new way to make music – one that doesn’t include a middleman. Considering the bone-headed actions of the mainstream music industry in recent years, that is not a bad thing at all.

Avenue Q Review

2008-01-07T06:44:00.000-08:00

Monday has dawned overcast. The reality of three more months of winter are setting in. To wash away the gloom, here's a review of Avenue Q (still playing this week at the State in Minneapolis):

Avenue Q Review

So where is the best of the best list?

2008-01-04T07:38:00.000-08:00

It's with Lavender. I'll link it when it is published.

For the time being, here's a profile I wrote of Avenue Q for MinnPost

Puppets Not For Your Moppets

Cheers

Year in Punk

2008-01-04T06:50:00.000-08:00

The Year in Punk is a harder creature to handle than other genres. While the term has been devalued in recent years to the point that any band with a slightly snotty attitude and crunchy guitars can be called "punk," what I'm talking about here are the fiercely independent acts that don't just sit outside the mainstream -- they gladly thumb their collective noses at the mainstream and, in fact, would like nothing more than for the mainstream to die a horrible, bloody death.

So with that in mind, here are some favorites from 2007:

Acrostix (A Chain of) Hatred

The latest Japanese band to play like Amebix, but they do it so well. It helps that the add a bit of harmony to the proceedings, and a honest intensity that you won't find from most American or European bands who ply the same style

After the Bombs Relentless Onslaught

Dark and heavy Canadian band, with female vocals, and an apocalyptic take on the world. This 5-track 12 inch throbs with anger, as do the band's earlier trio of 7"s, which make up another album's worth of excellent material.

Behind Enemy Lines One Nation Under the Iron Fist of God

Brutal and fierce political hardcore. It may sound dated in a few years, but right now this is a perfect antidote for our society's mindless malaise. The Katrina double hit of "Flooded" and "Shoot the Looters" are among the year's best songs.

Born/Dead The Final Collapse

Um. Ow. Eight-track ep that doesn't let the listener come up for air.

Double Negative The Wonderful and Frightening World of Double Negative

Over this 10 track, 20-minute collection, Double Negative does their best to bring back the spirit of Eye for an Eye-era Corrosion of Conformity. And you know what? The world needed more Eye for an Eye-era C.O.C.

Fall of Efrafa/Down to Agony split lp; Fall of Efrafa Elil

Fall of Eferfa puts the "epic" in "epic crust." The four tracks they issued this year range from 12 to 20 minutes each, full of acoustic and hard parts, defiant lyrics about religion and society; and an upfront honesty that is almost painful. Down to Agony play at a similar game, though without the same epic length. Both groups are more than worthwhile

Holokaust Into the Void of Oblivion

Sure, D-beat may appear to be played out, but the simple power of the style (a simple drum beat, one or two chords and lots of anger) still can make for excellent albums. As on this one.

Pissed Jeans Hope for Men

Sub Pop, known most for unleashing Seattle-style grunge on the world, has been a far more eccentric label than its reputation, as this noisy and angry album attests.

Severed Head of State Power Hazard

An eight-song ep that doesn't waste any time on being nice or subtle. Instead, this is just pure punk rock, full of venom and rage. The perfect music for the election season.

Subhumans Internal Riot

I got kicked in the nose by a mad stage diver at the Subhumans show at the Triple Rock this summer. I didn't care. This album is a lot like that -- a kick in the face that I loved for every minute. It's success is even more amazing when you consider the last true Subhumans album came out during Thatcher's reign. Let's hope it won't be another two decades before the band decides to release a follow up.

Totalitar Vi Ar Eliten

Tuneful hardcore punk that is loaded with sweet, sweet hooks. And they sing in their native Swedish, which is punk rock all the way.

Warcollapse Defy!

Brutal. (Really, it was a good year for brutal -- and imagine what 2008 will need to make it tolerable). More Swedish down-tuned d-beat madness, with some slower crust to add to the fun.

Witch Hunt Blood Red States

To continue the Subhumans story, after the gig I bought a bit of merchandise, not realizing how bad I looked (the kick had scraped my nose, so it didn't hurt, but it had bled more than a bit). One of the women in Witch Hunt looked at me with concern and asked if I was all right. Again, reflective of the band -- which combines its punk fury with a true, honest concern for the plight of the world and the people on it.

Wolf Brigade Prey to the World

Actually not the band's best work by a long shot, but a welcome return nonetheless. The 12 tracks on the lp (including a bonus cut, take that digital lovin' folks!) stick in the mind like the best tuneful punk.

2007: The Year in Metal (blurghhhhhhhhh!!!!!)

2008-01-03T09:48:00.000-08:00

OK, a couple of looking back posts for you. First off, the year in metal:

You can abuse it all you want, but metal and its varied sub-genres and offshoots continues to be the most creative pure "rock" style of music out there. Bands continue to push the envelop of how you can define music and a song. Others rediscover old styles and mix them with the new (or try to keep them pure), to create thrilling sounds that sound fresh and familiar.

Top 10 albums:

1. Pig Destroyer Phantom Limb

Pig Destroyer added a fourth member this year, but it wasn't the long-expected bass player. Instead, it was someone in charge of electronic noise. Meanwhile, guitarist Scott Hull continues to do massive work, doing as much as a dozen six-string slingers (and a bass player or two) could do.

2. High On Fire Death is the Communion

Mixing aural sludge with punk intensity, High on Fire could be the Motorhead for the century (providing, of course, Motorhead ever goes away. I think death and the devil are scared of Lemmy.)

3. Witchcraft The Alchemist

An album that literally sounds like it was put to tape by a bunch of hairy dudes in the pot-soaked summer of 1969, not by some hairy dudes from coldest Sweden.

4. Baroness Red Album

There was no Mastodon album this year, but plenty of bands have taken up the mantle of epic hard rock. Baroness is among the best. So good, in fact, that groups in the future may be described as "Baroness-inspired."

5. Mayhem Ordo ad Chao

The blackest of the black metallers get back to their roots, creating music that perfectly replicates the mental state of an H.P. Lovecraft character who has just met one of the Great Old Ones.

6. Jesu Conqueror and eps

Justin Broderick may not be any older than myself, but he's an elder statesmen in punk and metal circles, having been at the game for 25 years, first with Napalm Death, then with the crushing Godflesh and now with the beautifully jagged Jesu. It took just a touch of melody to move his songs to a new level.

7. Rotting Christ Theogina

More blackish metal, this time from Greece. You may come for the blasphemous band title, but you'll stay for the blistering playing and (yes) raw intelligence behind the lyrics.

8. Pelican City of Echoes

Actually not as god as their last album (The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Fall) but still a marvelous and soul-affirming collection of epic instrumental guitar rock.

9. Behemoth The Apostasy

The last of our international black/death metal tour (these boys are from Poland). Behemoth again digs for something a bit more intelligent than the "Kill Jesus" of much of the genre. Not that this album about temptation and religion makes much of a case for traditional religion.

10. Dillinger Escape Plan Ire Works

Massive and seemingly continual line up changes can't keep this band down. In a year when most hyper technical records left me cold (come on guys, find a groove already; I don't care if you can play 25 different riffs each minute) this album stood out from the masses.

Bonus: The return of thrash

Just hanging outside the top 10 were a pile of neo-thrash albums. Considering I had thought the genre long dead (killed by overexposure and crappy albums by Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax), it was more than a welcome return. If you want to get your shredding on in a 21st-century kind of way, check out:

Municipal Waste The Art of Partying

SSS Short Sharp Shock

Skeletonwitch Beyond the Permafrost

3 Inches of Blood Fire Up the Blades

Tomorrow: The year in punk

"Information: You are all going to die"

2007-12-26T14:40:00.001-08:00

Doctor Who Christmas Special 2007: Voyage of the Damned

In what is quickly becoming a holiday tradition, the British (and, ahem, well-connected Americans) spend part of their Christmas evening watching the latest Doctor Who special. The episodes tend to be oddities, made with a bit of a lighter touch (well, still with threatened destruction) and an even goofier tone. Voyage of the Damned, which is long enough (71 minutes) to qualify as a short movie doesn't change this, but somehow isn't nearly as fun as show's past.

Essentially a disaster movie set in space, complete with a variety of cliches from the genre added in for fun (the couple who won a trip of a lifetime; the rich jerk; the man -- alien in this case -- hiding a deep secret), Voyage of the Damned finds the now companionless Doctor aboard the Titanic -- not the one that sunk in 1912, but a spacegoing vessel in orbit around Earth. Of course disaster strikes, and it is up to our hero, and a feisty bunch of survivors, to make things right and hopefully save the Earth from utter destruction.

The episode has its moments. The angelic robotic helpers that turn deadly are a nice twist on the deadly Christmas trees and ornaments from the past two specials; guest star Kyle Minogue isn't much of an actor, but doesn't do a horrible job here as the young waitress who gets sucked into the Doctor's usual hectic life. And you do get Geoffrey Palmer (and his distinct jowels) and the guy who played Richard on Keeping Up Appearances (er, Clive Swift) in featured roles, if you have a thing for British comedies.

On the other hand, Russell T. Davis' script is pretty weak (and while his vision for the show is fantastic as the producer; his scripts tend to be the worst of the rest of the series regulars), with a thoroughly unconvincing underlying reason for all the mayhem and a villain that seems to have been dragged out of the less-than fondly remembered Colin Baker years.

Still, it's important to remember that this is supposed to be a Christmas treat, and it fits that pretty well. Just a bit of fluff without nutrition, and something you enjoy at the time but don't need to have again for another year. I guess that makes it the Doctor Who equivalent of eggnog.

Bonus bit: Babylon 5: The Lost Tales

OK, this came out over the summer, but it kind of slipped through the cracks until it appeared under the Christmas tree. It turned out to be a rather satisfying continuation of the series, almost like a pair of stand alone episodes from a fictional "season 15" of the series. Series creator J. Michael Stracznski pens (and directs) explores a number of common themes from the show, including the nature of faith in a technologically advanced world where we have gone to the heavens and have not found any pearly gates; and how single decisions can have a profound impact on the future. Though thoroughly low budget (lots of green screen, dark spaces and a handful of characters in each one) the stories here are a reminder of why Babylon 5 was such a remarkable show.

Thanks to the Beeb

2007-12-19T08:11:00.001-08:00

These pieces may have appeared elsewhere, but there's something about the clinical BBC approach that's appealing on a gloomy Wednesday morning:

Peter Jackson to produce Hobbit movies (!!!!)

BBC to play unedited Pogues holiday song

David Tennant: Not Leaving Doctor Who

And for Sherlock Holmes fans:

Giant Rat Discovered

Just a post...

2007-12-17T18:26:00.000-08:00

Appallingly busy day today, so all I have to offer is this link to a new column at Talkinbroadway:

Sweet William and Christmas Carole Petersen

A New World

2007-12-16T08:59:00.000-08:00

Halting State -- Charles Stross (Ace Books)

If you spend any amount of time reading science fiction (and I do mean reading, film and television SF are different beasts altogether) it's pretty clear that the genre is as much about what the future will look like and what the author perceives now is all about. After all as the satirists have learned, it is much easier to poke away at the modern world by saying out front that isn't your world -- even though it is (in the fantasy genre, check out any of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels).

So what does it say that I've read two novels in the last few months (the other is William Gibson's excellent Spook Country) -- both by major players in the field -- that say privacy as we've known it is dead; and it is the technology that has made so much in our lives convenient in recent years also carries our undoing?

Like any good novel, Halting State is as much about its characters and story as the issues Stross explores, though writing in the genre gives him a bit more leeway to go off on strange tangents. Set a bit more than a decade in the future, the novel follows three characters who are dragged first into an unusual crime, and then down the rabbit hole into a world that is much stranger than the one they thought they inhabited. These characters -- a Scottish police officer,a forensic accountant and a video game programmer -- are brought together by an unusual crime. A bank in an online video game is robbed, which threatens the business that operates it. The first half draws in the police, who are at first puzzled about why they have been brought in on the case -- until people start showing up murdered. The second brings in our accountant, a youngish accountant with a gaming background, who enlists the programmer to guide her (and more importantly, us) through the wild world Stross has built.

As a gamer, it's nice to find fiction that truly understands the appeal and strange worlds that can be built. While the near-future has a more immersive world than present, the realities of actually playing games remains largely the same. Stross has great fun digging into these new realities.

Stross' breezy, easy-to-access style is present is present here (and that's no complaint -- novels should be more about the story and less about the author showing off) except that it is told in an odd, second-person style (the reader is addressed as "you" throughout, even though we see the book from three characters' perspectives). I think I understand why Stross took this approach -- much of the book is about assuming different characters and roles ini games -- but it makes the early part of the book difficult to get into. Later on, I just ignored the second-person intrusions and dug into the story. No matter the slight narrative weakness, Halting State is a up-to-the-second science fiction that doesn't forget what brought the reader to the table in the first place.

Another link

2007-12-14T16:20:00.000-08:00

More coverage of various Christmas Carols here:

Orson Welles A Christmas Carol

What to watch? (Part one)

2007-12-13T14:57:00.000-08:00

So the season has turned to winter. There's about half an hour of daylight each day (or at least, that's what it seems like), snow covers the ground and an Alberta Clipper is headed across the plains.

It would be a great time to curl up in front of the television, except the networks are showing repeats and "unscripted" shows, not to mention game shows, revivals of athletic competitions no one really watched back in the 1980s (really, who actually watched American Gladiator?) and other dreck. The cable networks that rely on Hollywood shows are in the same boat. What are we to do?

Well, you could read a book -- or talk to your family -- or brave the cold and do something exciting. But that's not the American way! We have been promised an endless parade of new programs and we want our programs now!

There are solutions. Access to a video collection (via the library, store or other means) opens up new vistas. The rise of DVDs means that plenty of short-lived, overlook shows are now available for repeat viewing. Thrill to the early episodes of Veronica Mars. Work out what the hubbub is about with Firefly. There are old friends to revisit. Watching the X-Files can be instructive, especially if you want to discover the moment it finally went over the edge into dull madness (I'd point to season six myself). Maybe find some comfort food with Frasier or similar long-running situation comedy that you once avoided like the plague.

Meanwhile, our brethren overseas aren't on strike. While only available for those with kitchen sink style cable, BBC America has its moments, including seasons 2 of Life on Mars (currently being aired) and Torchwood (starting in January). Of course, you have to wade through plenty of bilge to get to these gems, so it is difficult to binge on the station. (Check listings online to see when these are to be aired).

More thoughts to come -- including looks into obscurities past.

Once more into the sludge

2007-12-12T14:09:00.000-08:00

The Sword/Witchcraft split lp

Some bands try to ape the sound of the past. The best retro-looking acts, like Witchcraft and the Sword, sound like they've come from the past. This five-track split album showcases two heavily hyped metal acts, who succeed at different levels.

The Sword's debut, Age of Winters, arrived with tons of hype in early 2006. That, in turn, meant the band got caught up in the thankfully short-lived "hipster" metal scene. Those hipsters have gone back to their Minus Iron & Wine CDs, and leaving the rest of us to enjoy our music with nary an ironic smirk. The band opens proceedings with a nice bit of epic sludge, Sea of Spears, which features the band's hallmarks -- heavy bottom, nifty guitar work and vague fantasy lyrics. The mood is ruined somewhat by a cover of Led Zeppelin's "The Immigrant Song." It's not a horrible cover, but Zeppelin is a band no one should cover. (That includes, in my mind, the group that played earlier this week in London. Bonzo is dead people. So is this band. Could we just deal with it?)

Witchcraft present a similar grab bag of tunes -- a new work and some previously unissued recordings, but the vibe works much better than the Sword side. Maybe it's the extra space and time, which gives the slow-moving band a chance to develop not only each song, but the entire vibe of the record. Witchcraft doesn't sound exactly like Black Sabbath or Pentagram or Blue Cheer or any other heavy act from about 1969 you can name. Instead, they sound like they were in the studio next door, sharing the vibe (and certainly some herbs as well) and making recordings that didn't surface until now. Even more amazing is that the band is from Sweden, a country where the metal/punk scene has long been dominated by melodic death metalers and crusty d-beat punkers.

All of this comes packaged with a gorgeous Vance Kelly cover and heavy-duty purple vinyl. Don't pass it up if you find one of the rare copies of this release. (www.kemado.com)

Let the music wars begin!

2007-12-12T06:48:00.001-08:00

The AV Club has issued its best of 2007 list:

AV Club

It's kind of what you would expect out of a list compiled from the opinions of 18 different writers. I tend to use lists like this more as a guide to the music I missed over the past 12 months than some kind of referendum on my own taste (though Fall Out Boy and Against Me? I think the club needs to expand its heavy/punk rock table a bit). My own lists will be up and coming in the next couple of weeks, after I'm done sifting through it all.

What you can find on your hard drive

2007-12-11T10:36:00.001-08:00

So, in the past week or so, I've been cleaning out my music hard drive. It's a 300-gig or so Maxtor thingy and I wasn't near capacity, but it has been difficult to use my computer while running iTunes and I really want to make a clean break and get things down to essentials. So far, I've gotten it down from about 250 megs to a bit over 237. Of course, that's still 47,541 individual tracks, which would take me 123 days and change of constant listening to work my way through, so trimming is in order.

When getting to the "Fs," I found the most recent Foo Fighters album, which I had acquired for review but -- I don't think -- had ever given a listen. Considering the album has been well received, right down to a few Grammy nods, I gave it a whirl. Now understand, I've always liked the Foo Fighters, but usually in a "hey, that's clever rockin' pop music" way instead of a "I must obsess over every second this band has created" way. So, usually I listen to the album a few times, enjoy it, and then sell it back when I realized I hadn't listened to the disc or album in a couple of years. I guess I was trying to avoid those steps this time.

However, the music is fun, and in an era when rock 'n' roll has been fractured into a million sub-genres and largely left behind by the pop world, it's nice to listen to a bit of straight-ahead rock 'n' roll. Will it climb onto my top of the year list? Probably not. Will I listen to it a few more times before hitting delete? Most certainly.

Oh, must dash. The player has turned over from the Foo Fighters to Forbidden, and I'm not in the mood for early-school death metal just at the moment. Of course, Foreigner is up after Forbidden. Damn these Fs. Damn them.

Tuesday posts

2007-12-11T09:10:00.000-08:00

Er, that should probably be post... Nothing captured my interest (or raised my ire) this morning. Instead, here's my latest missive in the Lakeshore Weekly News:

A Christmas Carol

There is another Christmas Carol piece that has been completed for the Weekly News, but is not online as of yet. Will post that later.

In the meantime, I will continue on a rather important mission -- cleaning up my iTunes hard drive. Writing about music means I've acquired tons of files that "seemed like a good idea at the time." Will they survive the light of day? Update to come.

New work online

2007-12-10T10:00:00.000-08:00

If you want to check out my other writings, check out the following links:

Lavender Magazine

Chastity Brown

And Talkin Broadway

More to come (well, I hope at least...)

Monday morning links

2007-12-10T09:32:00.000-08:00

A few items of note for the new week:

The latest writers' strike victims -- TV writers searching for a good piece to explore in mid-December. Now they are reduced to profiling shows that most everyone hates, except for a few out-there critics, and almost no one is watching:

Cavemen in the New York Times

Meanwhile, the always reliable Nathan Rabin digs into Southland Tales in his latest My Year of Flops post at the A.V. Club.

Southland Tales

Christians claim victory in the great Golden Compass debate, ignoring the filmmakers' soft-pedaling of the theme probably turned off more viewers than their own efforts to keep audiences away.

Golden Compass

And my favorite comic strip from the last month:

Pearls Before Swine

Waters, Who (not The, but Doctor) and other stray thoughts

2007-07-10T11:02:00.000-07:00

A couple of follow ups from the Roger Waters show.

Both papers gave the gig positive reviews, and even got most of the details right
Here's the Star Tribune
http://www.startribune.com/457/story/1278720.html

And here's the Pioneer Press:
http://www.twincities.com/ci_6272812?IADID=Search-www.twincities.com-www.twincities.com

As a veteran of the poorly attended 1987 show, it was a thrill to see a packed house in 2007. (It helps that the other players in Pink Floyd are off racing cars or releasing poorly received solo albums or working out how to drum in time.) In talking to a friend who also saw both shows, we agreed that the KAOS show, even if it relied heavily on some second-string material, had a certain cohesion that the 2007 version could not reach.

And for people complaining/offended by Rogers politics -- er, have you never listened to Pink Floyd? I mean, really listened to them? This is nothing new. In fact, the current version of Roger is quite a bit mellower than the firebrand of the 1970s and 1980s.

As for Doctor Who, the season finale didn't disappoint. Since American viewers are just starting Season Three, I'll avoid any spoiler details, but John Simm was magnificent in his role, David Tennant has grown well into the role of the Doctor; John Barrowman is both incredibly sexy and a solid actor and Freema Agyeman may go down as the deepest and most satisfying companion of all time. Now, the long wait until Christmas (though hopefully some Torchwood news and broadcasts would help with that.)

Right, will post some story links later today, along with some honest-to-goodness music stuff.

A show worth seeing

2007-07-10T10:51:00.000-07:00

My review won't be up for a couple of days, but if you are in the Twin Cities during July, head to the Theater Garage (at the corner of Lyndale and Franklin near Uptown) to check out Girl Friday's production of "Our Town." It' the kind of show that reminds me why I got into writing about the theater -- hell, just going to the theater -- in the first place. It's not a show full of big special effects, startling revelations or post-modern concerns. Instead, it is a show all about the mundane aspects of everyone's lives, and how important it is to cherish even the smallest moment during our all-too-brief time on the Earth.

For showtimes and stuff, visit:
http://www.girlfridayproductions.org.

The Pig is Back!

2007-06-30T22:03:00.001-07:00

Yes, Roger we liked your pig tonight

Five quick thoughts from the Roger Waters show at the Xcel:

1. Sheep! (with the new-fangled pig)

2. Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun.

3. The spinning "prism" at the end of Dark Side (which, to be honest, I could have done without the entire album -- it's probably my fifth favorite Floyd album).

4. Apart from a few pointed comments, Roger seemed to be in a good mood (the sold-out house probably helped).

5. Southhampton Dock/Fletcher Memorial Home and Vera Lynn/Bring the Boys Back Home (completed with explosions).

More anon.

And how could I forget Doctor Who?

2007-06-30T15:26:00.001-07:00

The final episode of Season 3 is (slowly) arriving. Don't think I'll get to it before the concert, but -- oh man -- I think I'm going to have a class five geek out later today.

Here's the official BBC website:

Doctor Who

Cheers all

The new Noise Annoys

2007-05-20T09:13:00.001-07:00

After 10 years in print, my music column Noise Annoys has lost its home. But my love of music lives on here online. Watch this space for periodic posts. For the time being, learn about the band that inspired the name here:

Buzzcocks

Cheers all

Ed