(Originally posted on Wednesday December 17th 2008)
I have always been interested in the esoteric and the strange, had a tendency towards the fantastical and far-fetched. Sometimes it is the only logical response to a world that really does not care about the feelings and wishes of the individual at all. So it happens that I have heard most of the enduring legends and seen the fleeting images that we have of them. Bigfoot, Area 51, the Bermuda Triangle, the Nazca Lines...and Atlantis.
I am currently laid up with the flu and as a result seem to find myself watching many of the documentaries on the National Geographic Channel that I have seen in the past. And today it was the one on "Altantis in the Andes" that reminded me of the most frustrating elements of such unproven myths and legends.
The documentary focuses for the most part on a cartographer who thinks he has found evidence of the existance of a civilisation on the Alta Plana in South America that he claims fits Plato's description of Atlantis better than any other. The man is no loon, he has a convincing argument that there is a very advanced civilisation just waiting to be discovered in the area which could rewrite the history of that part of the world.
I just don't see why it has to be Atlantis?
The usual intellectual squinting and selective siting of evidence presents a somewhat questionable claim that this is Atlantis, but one of the "experts" used the stance that must be so tired by now:"Heinrich Schliemann found Troy!"
This statement falls into the same catagory as the: "they laughed at insert pioneer in the field the crackpot is supposedly working in here" line. It seems that when no good evidence presents itself for a radical claim this statement is somehow thought to be wise and sage, pointing out that people have ignored pioneers and visionaries in the past and look foolish for it in hindsight.
On an intellectual level this annoys me due to the fact that it mistakes scientific and logical method for arrogance. Exceptional claims require exceptional proof and the burden is with the party making the claim. On the occasions that science accepted knowledge have been proven wrong they have been changed, theories discarded and textbooks re-written accordingly. On the reverse it is seldom seen that those making outlandish claims do the same, they instead plead prejudice and conspiracy against their ideas.
Because the Wright Brothers, Gallileo, Copernicus and Einstein proved the doubters wrong does not mean every outspoken lunatic can claim them as precedent!
On the actual level of factual accuracy this one statement in particular galled me in that a so called expert would claim Schliemann discovered "Troy", when he in fact did not.
Schliemann discovered an amazing site in modern Turkey that has yielded fascinating information and rightly been named as a sight of world heritage by UNESCO, but that site is the remains of a Hittite city named "Wilusa" not the Troy of legend. The overwhelming probability that this was the inspiration for the Homeric Troy was established by careful and dogged research after Schliemann. All this evidence was gathered inspite of the fact that he had named his find Troy simply to attract popular attention when he had no real evidence that it was so.
What we have here and in so many cases is the failure to differentiate between myths and legends and that which inspires them. Wilusa was the settlement that inspired Homer's Troy, but that does not make it Homer's Troy anymore than a historical film that takes liberties with a historical figures character represents the person in question.
It would be nice to think that there is something sparkling and fantastic behind all such legends, but looking at them in that way blinds one to the truely wonderous nature they really hold. Troy and Atlantis are fantasies spun by a talented storyteller around a more mundane reality.
Looking for the fantasy that never existed is a one way path to disenchantment.
The true miracle is that these stories have endured over the countless generations and come to engender so much shared cultural significance to us to this day. Through them we can walk alongside Achilles and Odysseus, gaze upon the fatal arrogance of the Atlanteans and see the fate that would befall Camelot.
What do you say when you find that there were only 100 men involved in the siege of "Troy", that your "Atlantis" was an abandoned midden pit, that Helen of Troy looked rather like Jade Goody?
Pick at something long enough and you'll destroy it.
Thursday, 18 December 2008
Wars vs Trek
(Originally posted on Wednesday December 10th 2008)
If there are two scifi franchises that really define what is the heart of the genre in the modern western conception, they have to be Star Wars and Star Trek. Nothing else comes close to having the same breadth of undersatnding and popularity as well as acceptance as a part of modern popular culture than the legacies of George Lucas and Gene Rodenberry. While older generations might look to the works of pioneering authors in the genre or the tv serials that dominated in the middle of the last century, for my own there is nothing more powerful than the Rebellion and the Millenium Falcon on one hand and Starfleet and the Enterprise on the other.
As a kid in the UK there was no real way of avoiding either franchise as you grew up. ITV seemed to show Episode IV every xmas without fail and the BBC almost always had TOS running in an evening slot one day of the week. But Star Wars always seemed to have the edge, what with the comics, the action figures and then the cartoon series Ewoks and Droids (pants additions to the Star Wars Universe, perhaps a forboding omen of what was to come?) that kept the flame burning. Star Trek on the other hand was a series mired in kitch and bad effects that did nothing to arouse the interest of the average kid. Sometimes you saw the films, but they were as lumpy as the series itself.
All that changed in the early 90s, when the BBC got its hands on TNG and finally I was the right age to appreciate the Rodenberry message of tolerance and understanding. That was coupled with the fact that the new captain was a figure of gravity and quiet dignity rather than the bombastic and somewhat sweaty man in the corset who seemed to be the centre of the films. Granted it took a while to get going, but the ideals of TNG soon began to feel more real than the vague mutterings about the "Living Force" of the other franchise. In TNG people did not solve problems from the cockpit of a fighter or with the business end of a lightsabre, often it took intelligence, diplomacy and hard decisions to win the day.
But by then Star Wars was already the greatest cult phenomena of our time (and probably always will be) and the interest was reignited big time by the release of the original trilogy with added scenes that sometimes enhanced and sometimes detracted from the experience. More importantly, these saw cinematic release and provided the first opportunity for many fans to see the films on the big screen. News that the mysterious backstory would be told in a new trilogy brought the franchise fully back to life like an old man with a new hip.
In the meantime Star Trek kept things going with DS9 and later Voyager as well as a typically mixed bag of cinematic outings which peaked with the still enthralling First Contact (which in my opinion beats all the Star Wars prequels hands down). All three series broke new ground and the march should have gone on with the prequel series Enterprise, killed off at the very point that it had started to gel and really make something of itself. With that and disappointing box office results for Insurrection the last TNG era film, Paramount pulled the plug.
Back in Star Wars land everything was in place to cement this as the greatest franchise of all time and Lucas as a genius who could do no wrong. I walked into the cinema, sat down and listened to the music roll...and watched it go downhill from there. You see for me Star Wars was a wonderfully baffling combination of mysticism and tech as idelists, warrior monks and charismatic rogues faced off against the implacable evil of the Empire. Instead we had claggy dialogue, villains who looked like kitchen appliances, cgi characters only slightly less annoying than the Crazy Frog and Jedi who were crushing bores. Two more films and I was begging for mercy.
Now it seems as though Trek may have the chance to change everything as it joins so many other defunct franchises on the track to a major revamp. I had my doubts and my flesh crawled at the first trailer, but the new ones and what I read about the plot have me hoping that something fantastic could emerge. Let's face it, all they have to do is produce something watchable and coherant to outstrip the Star Wars prequels!
I always wondered why Trek seemed to be the poor cousin of the two, why its fans were seen as wierdos and nerds who flocked to conventions whilst Star Wars was the epitome of mainstream. Even Samuel L Jackson wanted to be a Jedi.
Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Star Wars is a space opera, filled with mythical themes and having very little to do with the real world other than making vague noises about politics and spirituality. It's so wide open that people can almost interpret it in any way that suits them as the modern Japanese do with Samurai in the modern day.
Star Trek on the other hand is a distinctly political and ideologically driven franchise that has unapologetic stances on both who we are in the present and where we are going in the future. While we can escape to fictional worlds in Wars, in Trek we always have to come back down to Earth...or Terra, if you prefer.
If there are two scifi franchises that really define what is the heart of the genre in the modern western conception, they have to be Star Wars and Star Trek. Nothing else comes close to having the same breadth of undersatnding and popularity as well as acceptance as a part of modern popular culture than the legacies of George Lucas and Gene Rodenberry. While older generations might look to the works of pioneering authors in the genre or the tv serials that dominated in the middle of the last century, for my own there is nothing more powerful than the Rebellion and the Millenium Falcon on one hand and Starfleet and the Enterprise on the other.
As a kid in the UK there was no real way of avoiding either franchise as you grew up. ITV seemed to show Episode IV every xmas without fail and the BBC almost always had TOS running in an evening slot one day of the week. But Star Wars always seemed to have the edge, what with the comics, the action figures and then the cartoon series Ewoks and Droids (pants additions to the Star Wars Universe, perhaps a forboding omen of what was to come?) that kept the flame burning. Star Trek on the other hand was a series mired in kitch and bad effects that did nothing to arouse the interest of the average kid. Sometimes you saw the films, but they were as lumpy as the series itself.
All that changed in the early 90s, when the BBC got its hands on TNG and finally I was the right age to appreciate the Rodenberry message of tolerance and understanding. That was coupled with the fact that the new captain was a figure of gravity and quiet dignity rather than the bombastic and somewhat sweaty man in the corset who seemed to be the centre of the films. Granted it took a while to get going, but the ideals of TNG soon began to feel more real than the vague mutterings about the "Living Force" of the other franchise. In TNG people did not solve problems from the cockpit of a fighter or with the business end of a lightsabre, often it took intelligence, diplomacy and hard decisions to win the day.
But by then Star Wars was already the greatest cult phenomena of our time (and probably always will be) and the interest was reignited big time by the release of the original trilogy with added scenes that sometimes enhanced and sometimes detracted from the experience. More importantly, these saw cinematic release and provided the first opportunity for many fans to see the films on the big screen. News that the mysterious backstory would be told in a new trilogy brought the franchise fully back to life like an old man with a new hip.
In the meantime Star Trek kept things going with DS9 and later Voyager as well as a typically mixed bag of cinematic outings which peaked with the still enthralling First Contact (which in my opinion beats all the Star Wars prequels hands down). All three series broke new ground and the march should have gone on with the prequel series Enterprise, killed off at the very point that it had started to gel and really make something of itself. With that and disappointing box office results for Insurrection the last TNG era film, Paramount pulled the plug.
Back in Star Wars land everything was in place to cement this as the greatest franchise of all time and Lucas as a genius who could do no wrong. I walked into the cinema, sat down and listened to the music roll...and watched it go downhill from there. You see for me Star Wars was a wonderfully baffling combination of mysticism and tech as idelists, warrior monks and charismatic rogues faced off against the implacable evil of the Empire. Instead we had claggy dialogue, villains who looked like kitchen appliances, cgi characters only slightly less annoying than the Crazy Frog and Jedi who were crushing bores. Two more films and I was begging for mercy.
Now it seems as though Trek may have the chance to change everything as it joins so many other defunct franchises on the track to a major revamp. I had my doubts and my flesh crawled at the first trailer, but the new ones and what I read about the plot have me hoping that something fantastic could emerge. Let's face it, all they have to do is produce something watchable and coherant to outstrip the Star Wars prequels!
I always wondered why Trek seemed to be the poor cousin of the two, why its fans were seen as wierdos and nerds who flocked to conventions whilst Star Wars was the epitome of mainstream. Even Samuel L Jackson wanted to be a Jedi.
Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Star Wars is a space opera, filled with mythical themes and having very little to do with the real world other than making vague noises about politics and spirituality. It's so wide open that people can almost interpret it in any way that suits them as the modern Japanese do with Samurai in the modern day.
Star Trek on the other hand is a distinctly political and ideologically driven franchise that has unapologetic stances on both who we are in the present and where we are going in the future. While we can escape to fictional worlds in Wars, in Trek we always have to come back down to Earth...or Terra, if you prefer.
Review: The Steel Remains, by Richard Morgan
(Originally posted on Friday December 5th 2008)
Much was made of this title in magazines when it was released a few months ago and it was praised as something refreshing in the fantasy genre. Maybe the fact that Morgan was already a well respected writer of sci-fi coloured some of the reviews of this book, becasue while it's good, it's not the startling redefenition of the genre that they made it out to be.
Humans once shared the world with the technologically advanced Kiriath, but the black-skinned race have long since retreated into legend leving behind only relics and a few abandoned half-breeds. But the human nations of now fidn themselves threatened by an even more ancient race known as the Dwenda, feared even by the mighty Kiriath and a mystery to mankind.
War hero Ringil Eskiath is drawn into the intircate plots and politics as he searches for a lost relative. Kiriath half-breed kir-Archeth Indamaninarmal is dispatched by her masters in the Yheleth Empire to investigate rumours of strange attacks on remote settlements. Egar the steppe nomad is deposed and driven into exile by the treachery of his own people. All are old friends and all are eventually brought together by their fates.
Morgan certainly brings new elements to the mix by making two of his three central characters openly homosexual in a voilently homophobic soceity, but some of his efforts to move away from the common elements of the genre are obvious and often jarring.
In particular the replacing of elves and dwarves with dwenda and kiriath is at times rather annoying as the lengths to which the writer has gone to make them different means they lack any real feeling. The reader feels that their difference to the norm is somehow meant to make up for the lack of characterisation. In reality they simply come across like humans in prosthetics rather than distinctly different races with unique motives.
The world is also quite a disappointment as it strangely seems to be the one area in which Morgan makes no effort whatsoever to break with cliche. There is the motley collection of squabbling city states, the decadent and arrogant empire ruled by a degenerate and the steppes with their horsebound nomads thought of as barbarians to the rest of the world. That could be almost any fantasy world!
Another uncomfortable element is the treatment of sexulaity in the book. The homosexuality of two of the main characters seems somewhat overplayed as an element of the story and at times rather the reason for the character's existance as opposed to simply an aspect of their broader personality. For once it would be nice to have a character in this genre who just happens to be gay rather than a persecuted martyr or crusader for gay rights!
Perhaps these are all elements that work far better in the sci-fi settings that Morgan is used to writing in, but here they seem forced and out of place.
I'll read the inevitable sequel, but I hope it'll be a more easy read that focuses on the story rather than the sexuality of the characters.
Much was made of this title in magazines when it was released a few months ago and it was praised as something refreshing in the fantasy genre. Maybe the fact that Morgan was already a well respected writer of sci-fi coloured some of the reviews of this book, becasue while it's good, it's not the startling redefenition of the genre that they made it out to be.
Humans once shared the world with the technologically advanced Kiriath, but the black-skinned race have long since retreated into legend leving behind only relics and a few abandoned half-breeds. But the human nations of now fidn themselves threatened by an even more ancient race known as the Dwenda, feared even by the mighty Kiriath and a mystery to mankind.
War hero Ringil Eskiath is drawn into the intircate plots and politics as he searches for a lost relative. Kiriath half-breed kir-Archeth Indamaninarmal is dispatched by her masters in the Yheleth Empire to investigate rumours of strange attacks on remote settlements. Egar the steppe nomad is deposed and driven into exile by the treachery of his own people. All are old friends and all are eventually brought together by their fates.
Morgan certainly brings new elements to the mix by making two of his three central characters openly homosexual in a voilently homophobic soceity, but some of his efforts to move away from the common elements of the genre are obvious and often jarring.
In particular the replacing of elves and dwarves with dwenda and kiriath is at times rather annoying as the lengths to which the writer has gone to make them different means they lack any real feeling. The reader feels that their difference to the norm is somehow meant to make up for the lack of characterisation. In reality they simply come across like humans in prosthetics rather than distinctly different races with unique motives.
The world is also quite a disappointment as it strangely seems to be the one area in which Morgan makes no effort whatsoever to break with cliche. There is the motley collection of squabbling city states, the decadent and arrogant empire ruled by a degenerate and the steppes with their horsebound nomads thought of as barbarians to the rest of the world. That could be almost any fantasy world!
Another uncomfortable element is the treatment of sexulaity in the book. The homosexuality of two of the main characters seems somewhat overplayed as an element of the story and at times rather the reason for the character's existance as opposed to simply an aspect of their broader personality. For once it would be nice to have a character in this genre who just happens to be gay rather than a persecuted martyr or crusader for gay rights!
Perhaps these are all elements that work far better in the sci-fi settings that Morgan is used to writing in, but here they seem forced and out of place.
I'll read the inevitable sequel, but I hope it'll be a more easy read that focuses on the story rather than the sexuality of the characters.
Jingle on this...
(Originally posted Wednesday 26th November 2008)
Well, they managed it again this year. We're still more than a month away from xmas and the advertising industry has already managed to make me tired and irritated by the mention of the holiday. All I want for xmas is either to sleep through until it's all over or somehow escape from the incessant ads urging me to rush out on some crazed shopping trip like all the other poor bastards trying to get a bargain before the shops close.
In the UK one could miss the point of the season of goodwill entirely and instead think it was something vaguelly to do with buying a Nintendo Wii, watching awful comedy specials on ITV and listening to the Queen demonstrate her total lack of connection with the real world with her annual speech. All that considered, one can really start to see the sense of the heavy drinking that goes on around this time of year.
No doubt we'll also be treated to another round of silly stories in the media intended to foster the delusion that secular institutions are trying to remove the "religious message" from the holiday.
Amazing how many people who couldn't give a toss about faith and wouldn't know the inside of a church from the inside of a strip-club crawl out of the woodwork and moan about the fact that their kid's school has decided to put on something other than the nativety this xmas.
Arseholes.
"You can't spell Christmas without 'Christ'!" they blather.
Well, all I can say to that is thank Dawkins for the word "xmas" and the fact that people on these islands were happy to call it "Yule" long before the lunacy of the Christian religion infected our minds!
Well, they managed it again this year. We're still more than a month away from xmas and the advertising industry has already managed to make me tired and irritated by the mention of the holiday. All I want for xmas is either to sleep through until it's all over or somehow escape from the incessant ads urging me to rush out on some crazed shopping trip like all the other poor bastards trying to get a bargain before the shops close.
In the UK one could miss the point of the season of goodwill entirely and instead think it was something vaguelly to do with buying a Nintendo Wii, watching awful comedy specials on ITV and listening to the Queen demonstrate her total lack of connection with the real world with her annual speech. All that considered, one can really start to see the sense of the heavy drinking that goes on around this time of year.
No doubt we'll also be treated to another round of silly stories in the media intended to foster the delusion that secular institutions are trying to remove the "religious message" from the holiday.
Amazing how many people who couldn't give a toss about faith and wouldn't know the inside of a church from the inside of a strip-club crawl out of the woodwork and moan about the fact that their kid's school has decided to put on something other than the nativety this xmas.
Arseholes.
"You can't spell Christmas without 'Christ'!" they blather.
Well, all I can say to that is thank Dawkins for the word "xmas" and the fact that people on these islands were happy to call it "Yule" long before the lunacy of the Christian religion infected our minds!
The British Media and the Cult of Disapproval
(Originally posted Wednesday November 12th 2008)
Some time ago now a professional footballer by the name of Luke McCormick was jailed for a period of seven years for the serious offence of causing the death of two young children while driving under the influence of alcohol.
The sentence was just and I fully agree with the fact that McCormick was guilty of a heinous and awful crime for which he will pay with seven years of his life and career as a sporting professional added to the fact that his name will be blackened by the affair for the rest of his life.
I was amazed though, by the lengths to which the media in this country will go to pull others into the spotlight and expose them to ridicule and harassment over what in reality is nothing.
After scoring a goal in a match, McCormick's former colleague and friend David Norris made a gesture in the air in celebration. The gesture involved him raising his arms above his head and crossing his wrists.
The gesture was immediately interpreted as being symbolic of handcuffs and intended for McCormick and Norris later confirmed that it was, stating: "Luke is a friend of mine...He mande a massive mistake."
Calls followed for all kinds of measures to be taken against Norris, suspension, fines, firing and all the usual hysterical outcries in the papers that he was a disgrace and disrespectful of the children killed by McCormick.
But no one seems to have thought very deeply about the issue, rather than just becoming outraged and demanding he be punished.
Norris made a gesture intended for a friend, to remind him that no matter how far away he is there are people who still love him and will be there for him.
McCormick is not a murderer, he is a fool who thought he could drive whilst drunk and he is paying the price for his crime.
No one has the right to deny McCormick the attention and affection of the friends who have chosen to stand by him and to object to even a simple gesture of solidarity and friendship like this is both churlish and gross on the part of the media.
The man has been sentenced and convicted for his crime, that is his punishment. It is not fair or just for the media to continue to punish an individual beyond this, prolonging the pain for both the victim's family and the criminal who must struggle with their guilt for the rest of their life.
When taken into addition that they are only doing this to sell papers, the act becomes sickening to a terrible degree.
Some time ago now a professional footballer by the name of Luke McCormick was jailed for a period of seven years for the serious offence of causing the death of two young children while driving under the influence of alcohol.
The sentence was just and I fully agree with the fact that McCormick was guilty of a heinous and awful crime for which he will pay with seven years of his life and career as a sporting professional added to the fact that his name will be blackened by the affair for the rest of his life.
I was amazed though, by the lengths to which the media in this country will go to pull others into the spotlight and expose them to ridicule and harassment over what in reality is nothing.
After scoring a goal in a match, McCormick's former colleague and friend David Norris made a gesture in the air in celebration. The gesture involved him raising his arms above his head and crossing his wrists.
The gesture was immediately interpreted as being symbolic of handcuffs and intended for McCormick and Norris later confirmed that it was, stating: "Luke is a friend of mine...He mande a massive mistake."
Calls followed for all kinds of measures to be taken against Norris, suspension, fines, firing and all the usual hysterical outcries in the papers that he was a disgrace and disrespectful of the children killed by McCormick.
But no one seems to have thought very deeply about the issue, rather than just becoming outraged and demanding he be punished.
Norris made a gesture intended for a friend, to remind him that no matter how far away he is there are people who still love him and will be there for him.
McCormick is not a murderer, he is a fool who thought he could drive whilst drunk and he is paying the price for his crime.
No one has the right to deny McCormick the attention and affection of the friends who have chosen to stand by him and to object to even a simple gesture of solidarity and friendship like this is both churlish and gross on the part of the media.
The man has been sentenced and convicted for his crime, that is his punishment. It is not fair or just for the media to continue to punish an individual beyond this, prolonging the pain for both the victim's family and the criminal who must struggle with their guilt for the rest of their life.
When taken into addition that they are only doing this to sell papers, the act becomes sickening to a terrible degree.
Death to the "Normal"
(Originally posted Monday September 15th 2008)
Like most people I tend to have something going on in the background whilst I'm working, either some music, BBC Radio 4 or a historical documentary on the tv. Yesterday I'd settled upon a programme called "Britiain's Worst Home", because I have to admit that there's a part of me that loves the aggro you can get on a reality show where someone is deliberately having their buttons pressed.
On the surface this one looked like a good bet, showcasing the homes of some eccentric people around the country and trying to help them overcome their issues as relates to decor. Firstly there was a woman who had filled her home with pictures, books and other crap all relating to the royal family. She had a lifesize cutout of the queen with a sleeve and glove attached to it so that one might simulate the experience of shaking the royal hand, a disturbing doll that looked more like Chucky than Prince Willam as it was supposed to, but not one picture of her own children.
Next came a man who had spent the last decade filling his flat with the rubbish other people threw away. He had a room full of airfix models, mountains of cardboard boxes and compoments from almost every model of home computer marketed in the UK over the past thirty years.
But the next woman was a mother of two whom the voiceover described as: "Still proud to be a goth". Now that should have set the alarm bells ringing and had me expecting the usual mess of ouijia boards, black candles and inverted crucifixes. But it was not the case in the slightest.
The woman's front room was filled with shelves full of "Living Dead Dolls", the line of dolls that look like a cross between an average doll and Sadako from Ring. Not my cup of tea, but nonetheless a line of products that I think are both original and appealing in their design.
Next we were shown the murals she had painted on the walls of the house: a well executed Egyptian style piece on the corridor wall, an excellent blue dragon in the kitchen and an evocative white and painting of a gothic mansion and female vampire (on the wall of the toilet!).
The voiceover mentions in a smug manner that a meeting of the local resident's association was once held there and never again since. Then we are treated to the opinions of the head of said association as he wanders around this woman's house commenting that he would: "Bury the dolls in the garden" and moaning constantly as he asks the question: "Why can't she have something normal, like a clock on the shelves?"
Now this was comming from a portly man with a shaven head who was fast approaching his middle years and seemed to have as much dress-sense as a slice of roadkill.
I recount all this because it has never failed to amaze me the number of boring and quite sad little people who seem to want to force anyone who thinks, acts or dresses in any way differently to themselves to submit to them, surrender their individuality and become "normal".
Often I imagine the programmes these sad bastards would come up with, somewhat like the "Re-Neducation" centres in the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode, where men will be shaved of all hair and forced to wear shirts, jeans and watch football whilst drinking gassy lager.
Women on the other hand will be brainwashed with fashion magazines and tattle-rags, made to listen to the Pussycat Dolls and Girls Aloud and develop vapid and shallow personalities.
My point is that these people are seemingly so sad and insecure that they can't deal with difference or diversity in any way, shape or form.
Please understand them for the pathetic and laughable creatures they are.
And don't pick up a gun against them as has happened in the past.
Just pity them, for they are weak, pathetic and insignificant in the extreme.
Like most people I tend to have something going on in the background whilst I'm working, either some music, BBC Radio 4 or a historical documentary on the tv. Yesterday I'd settled upon a programme called "Britiain's Worst Home", because I have to admit that there's a part of me that loves the aggro you can get on a reality show where someone is deliberately having their buttons pressed.
On the surface this one looked like a good bet, showcasing the homes of some eccentric people around the country and trying to help them overcome their issues as relates to decor. Firstly there was a woman who had filled her home with pictures, books and other crap all relating to the royal family. She had a lifesize cutout of the queen with a sleeve and glove attached to it so that one might simulate the experience of shaking the royal hand, a disturbing doll that looked more like Chucky than Prince Willam as it was supposed to, but not one picture of her own children.
Next came a man who had spent the last decade filling his flat with the rubbish other people threw away. He had a room full of airfix models, mountains of cardboard boxes and compoments from almost every model of home computer marketed in the UK over the past thirty years.
But the next woman was a mother of two whom the voiceover described as: "Still proud to be a goth". Now that should have set the alarm bells ringing and had me expecting the usual mess of ouijia boards, black candles and inverted crucifixes. But it was not the case in the slightest.
The woman's front room was filled with shelves full of "Living Dead Dolls", the line of dolls that look like a cross between an average doll and Sadako from Ring. Not my cup of tea, but nonetheless a line of products that I think are both original and appealing in their design.
Next we were shown the murals she had painted on the walls of the house: a well executed Egyptian style piece on the corridor wall, an excellent blue dragon in the kitchen and an evocative white and painting of a gothic mansion and female vampire (on the wall of the toilet!).
The voiceover mentions in a smug manner that a meeting of the local resident's association was once held there and never again since. Then we are treated to the opinions of the head of said association as he wanders around this woman's house commenting that he would: "Bury the dolls in the garden" and moaning constantly as he asks the question: "Why can't she have something normal, like a clock on the shelves?"
Now this was comming from a portly man with a shaven head who was fast approaching his middle years and seemed to have as much dress-sense as a slice of roadkill.
I recount all this because it has never failed to amaze me the number of boring and quite sad little people who seem to want to force anyone who thinks, acts or dresses in any way differently to themselves to submit to them, surrender their individuality and become "normal".
Often I imagine the programmes these sad bastards would come up with, somewhat like the "Re-Neducation" centres in the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode, where men will be shaved of all hair and forced to wear shirts, jeans and watch football whilst drinking gassy lager.
Women on the other hand will be brainwashed with fashion magazines and tattle-rags, made to listen to the Pussycat Dolls and Girls Aloud and develop vapid and shallow personalities.
My point is that these people are seemingly so sad and insecure that they can't deal with difference or diversity in any way, shape or form.
Please understand them for the pathetic and laughable creatures they are.
And don't pick up a gun against them as has happened in the past.
Just pity them, for they are weak, pathetic and insignificant in the extreme.
Advertising warps reality
(Originally Posted Saturday 19th July 2007)
I have always had issues with the wonderful world of advertising for the way in which it presents the world and often steals the creative work of talented individuals without a second thought and passes it off as its own. I agree with Bill Hicks's equating of advertising with the defenition of pornography.
I was reminded of this fact today whilst watching an advert in which Andie MacDowell frowns and shakes her head at her wrinkles and the espouses the virtues of the anti-wrinkle cream the advert is hawking. She comments that the really deep wrinkles are the thing that everyone notices.
Of course, if I met her in person, that's the first thing I'd think: look at her wrinkles. I wouldn't think; there's that stunning American actress who looks as good now as she did when she was 20 years younger.
No wonder we live in such a shallow society, so filled with pointless worries and concerns.
When we should look at a beautiful older woman and admire her, we have to think that she does it by using a pot of expensive crap made in a lab.
It's very sad.
I have always had issues with the wonderful world of advertising for the way in which it presents the world and often steals the creative work of talented individuals without a second thought and passes it off as its own. I agree with Bill Hicks's equating of advertising with the defenition of pornography.
I was reminded of this fact today whilst watching an advert in which Andie MacDowell frowns and shakes her head at her wrinkles and the espouses the virtues of the anti-wrinkle cream the advert is hawking. She comments that the really deep wrinkles are the thing that everyone notices.
Of course, if I met her in person, that's the first thing I'd think: look at her wrinkles. I wouldn't think; there's that stunning American actress who looks as good now as she did when she was 20 years younger.
No wonder we live in such a shallow society, so filled with pointless worries and concerns.
When we should look at a beautiful older woman and admire her, we have to think that she does it by using a pot of expensive crap made in a lab.
It's very sad.
Deep Thought
(Originally posted on Friday November 30th 2007)
Man creates god to encompass all that he does not comprehend and understand. As man matures and comes to understand more, so god becomes reduced in importance as the knowledge ascribed to him comes into man's possesion. Eventually all that man had ascribed to god is now his own and therefore he exceeds god and his need for him. Thus god ceases to exist as man destroys him in awakening to reason.
Man creates god to encompass all that he does not comprehend and understand. As man matures and comes to understand more, so god becomes reduced in importance as the knowledge ascribed to him comes into man's possesion. Eventually all that man had ascribed to god is now his own and therefore he exceeds god and his need for him. Thus god ceases to exist as man destroys him in awakening to reason.
History vs His Story
(Originally posted on Tuesday June 5th 2007)
Reading a combination of modern historical texts and accounts of past ages written in ages closer to the present is often a strange experience. Almost instantly the reader is struck by the fact that these are two very different ways of looking back at the past and recording the lives of our distant ancestors.
Pick up and read any of the ancient texts that have survived from Roman times and you have what was defined as history in its day, and at the same time something that to the modern reader seems more like a work of romantic fiction than an account of the past.
When no record existed of a great speech made by a barbarian king before a decisive battle - regardless in reality of his having made a speech at all - the historian was expected to compose one for him. The audience took from the speech the cues as to how the speaker was being presented by the history.
Compare that to the percieved duty of a modern historian, who is expected to scrutinise his sources and filter them through his academic training in order to arrive at an account that strives to be as accurate and unbiased as possible. The modern historian is more an analytical collector of facts and weigher of evidence than a teller of a grand tale.
Things become interesting when the lines begin to blur and one spills over into the other. Take for example the story of the discovery of Troy, which had been supposed an invention of Homer for so long. A passionate individual found the city that fitted Ilium very well, and no more than a few months ago another announced the discovery of the kingdom of Ithaca.On the other hand there are clear cases of modern historians who are less than dilligent in gathering their facts and screening their sources. Washington Irving needed an antagonist for Columbus in his somewhat fictionalised biography, so he inserted a backwards church that claimed the Earth was flat and sailors who feared to sail off the edge. Many people still believe that the same delusion was widely held in past ages, despite the numerous texts from the ancient world that theorised of a spherical Earth.
Another more recent account in a modern text amused me when a writer commented that he had been stunned to find a mass grave in the English countryside that was filled with headless bodies. All sorts of wild theories sprang forth from him, but never once did he look into the religious practices of the ancient Britons and and note that head-taking was a great honour amongst the warrior elite.
Again a modern historian writing about the period of history in which Herodotus penned his own infamous Histories was more than a little scathing of this ancient colleague's style (at the moment it seems to be in fashion to bash Herodotus...perhaps The English Patient is to blame?). Strange when you consider that the widely travelled Herodotous made a point of collecting accounts from both the Greeks and the Persians about the invasion of Greece and the famous confrontations between the great empire and the bold citystates. Telling both sides of the story would hardly land a modern historian accusations of bias.
Sometimes the reality of an ancient time and place is preserved only in the form of legends and tall tales that come down through the years and it takes a combination of both intelligence and not a little heart to rediscover them.
At the same time even events within living memory are clouded by rumour and fanciful retellings of so-called witnesses.
Modern historians would do well to think long and hard before discounting out of hand the legends and stories embroidered with magic and wonder as they have been handed down the ages. And anyone who thinks that he can tell a story without adding even a little spin of his own into the narrative is a fool.
Reading a combination of modern historical texts and accounts of past ages written in ages closer to the present is often a strange experience. Almost instantly the reader is struck by the fact that these are two very different ways of looking back at the past and recording the lives of our distant ancestors.
Pick up and read any of the ancient texts that have survived from Roman times and you have what was defined as history in its day, and at the same time something that to the modern reader seems more like a work of romantic fiction than an account of the past.
When no record existed of a great speech made by a barbarian king before a decisive battle - regardless in reality of his having made a speech at all - the historian was expected to compose one for him. The audience took from the speech the cues as to how the speaker was being presented by the history.
Compare that to the percieved duty of a modern historian, who is expected to scrutinise his sources and filter them through his academic training in order to arrive at an account that strives to be as accurate and unbiased as possible. The modern historian is more an analytical collector of facts and weigher of evidence than a teller of a grand tale.
Things become interesting when the lines begin to blur and one spills over into the other. Take for example the story of the discovery of Troy, which had been supposed an invention of Homer for so long. A passionate individual found the city that fitted Ilium very well, and no more than a few months ago another announced the discovery of the kingdom of Ithaca.On the other hand there are clear cases of modern historians who are less than dilligent in gathering their facts and screening their sources. Washington Irving needed an antagonist for Columbus in his somewhat fictionalised biography, so he inserted a backwards church that claimed the Earth was flat and sailors who feared to sail off the edge. Many people still believe that the same delusion was widely held in past ages, despite the numerous texts from the ancient world that theorised of a spherical Earth.
Another more recent account in a modern text amused me when a writer commented that he had been stunned to find a mass grave in the English countryside that was filled with headless bodies. All sorts of wild theories sprang forth from him, but never once did he look into the religious practices of the ancient Britons and and note that head-taking was a great honour amongst the warrior elite.
Again a modern historian writing about the period of history in which Herodotus penned his own infamous Histories was more than a little scathing of this ancient colleague's style (at the moment it seems to be in fashion to bash Herodotus...perhaps The English Patient is to blame?). Strange when you consider that the widely travelled Herodotous made a point of collecting accounts from both the Greeks and the Persians about the invasion of Greece and the famous confrontations between the great empire and the bold citystates. Telling both sides of the story would hardly land a modern historian accusations of bias.
Sometimes the reality of an ancient time and place is preserved only in the form of legends and tall tales that come down through the years and it takes a combination of both intelligence and not a little heart to rediscover them.
At the same time even events within living memory are clouded by rumour and fanciful retellings of so-called witnesses.
Modern historians would do well to think long and hard before discounting out of hand the legends and stories embroidered with magic and wonder as they have been handed down the ages. And anyone who thinks that he can tell a story without adding even a little spin of his own into the narrative is a fool.
Genius goes "Clunk"
(Originally posted on Tuesday May 15th 2007)
I'm a romantic at heart, although I'm sure you wouldn't know it to look at me. I can't hear a reading of "The Lady of Shallot" without sheding a tear and the ending of "Dr Zhivago" broke my heart.
When I first owned a DVD player, that same romantic streak drove me to collect a number of films that have never been epics or hailed as the greats of their genre, but nevertheless they were films that I had seen over the years and come to have a soft spot for. Most were fantasy films from the brief period in the eighties before Hollywood turned back to sci-fi for so long.The first was "Highlander", that over the top tale of duelling immortals throught the ages fuelled by a wonderous Queen soundtrack and the daft casting that saw a Frenchman cast as a Scot and a Scot cast as an ancient Egyptian swinging a katana. A film that should never have been cursed with a sequel (let alone more) and most people misunderstand by taking too seriously rather than just enjoying the ride."Conan the Barbarian" followed as possibly the greatest role ever handed to an overgrown Austrian. For me that film would have been nothing without the opening monologue from Mako. After hearing that I was set for the overacting and the silliness that is John Milius.
I had to add "Legend", the film that works far better as a series of visual images rather than a motion picture. The opulence and beauty of the unicorns in this film still stands up today as one of the best portrayals of a horse on the cinema screen.And then there was "Willow", twee, confused and full of terrible acting it was still one of those films that had enough humour and spirit to stand out a little. What author could not appreciate the scene in which the humble Willow almost turns the evil Badmorda to stone with an acorn and then fools her with a simple sleight-of-hand trick?
It was my fondness of "Willow" that led me to track down a copy of "Shadow Moon" the colaboration between George Lucas and Chris Claremont, which continues the story more than a decade later. As a somewhat cynical type, I was prepared to be let down by it due to the fact that there seemed more hype around the names of the authors than the actual content of the book. And thus far I've been proved right.
The opening 100 pages seems both confusing and needlessly dark as the world has been shattered by the pretty common fantasy cataclysm. Willow is wandering about as an intinerant mage and under the assumed name of "Thorn Drumheller" and steeped in angst at the death of his loved ones.
The authors throw in muddled ideas and obscure terms as they please and characters sound terrible ("Saw what I saw, an' tha's a fack" is a pretty standardly mangled piece of dialogue). But while I could have expected such a mess from Lucas, who can't write dialogue to save his life, I would have expected more from Claremont who's bio proclaims him to be the man behind seventeen years of the X-Men and a novelist in his own right.
Maybe it'll get better as I read on, but I can't help but think that this is a good example of how being a romantic can lead you to spend your time reading some of the most awful crap out there.
I'm a romantic at heart, although I'm sure you wouldn't know it to look at me. I can't hear a reading of "The Lady of Shallot" without sheding a tear and the ending of "Dr Zhivago" broke my heart.
When I first owned a DVD player, that same romantic streak drove me to collect a number of films that have never been epics or hailed as the greats of their genre, but nevertheless they were films that I had seen over the years and come to have a soft spot for. Most were fantasy films from the brief period in the eighties before Hollywood turned back to sci-fi for so long.The first was "Highlander", that over the top tale of duelling immortals throught the ages fuelled by a wonderous Queen soundtrack and the daft casting that saw a Frenchman cast as a Scot and a Scot cast as an ancient Egyptian swinging a katana. A film that should never have been cursed with a sequel (let alone more) and most people misunderstand by taking too seriously rather than just enjoying the ride."Conan the Barbarian" followed as possibly the greatest role ever handed to an overgrown Austrian. For me that film would have been nothing without the opening monologue from Mako. After hearing that I was set for the overacting and the silliness that is John Milius.
I had to add "Legend", the film that works far better as a series of visual images rather than a motion picture. The opulence and beauty of the unicorns in this film still stands up today as one of the best portrayals of a horse on the cinema screen.And then there was "Willow", twee, confused and full of terrible acting it was still one of those films that had enough humour and spirit to stand out a little. What author could not appreciate the scene in which the humble Willow almost turns the evil Badmorda to stone with an acorn and then fools her with a simple sleight-of-hand trick?
It was my fondness of "Willow" that led me to track down a copy of "Shadow Moon" the colaboration between George Lucas and Chris Claremont, which continues the story more than a decade later. As a somewhat cynical type, I was prepared to be let down by it due to the fact that there seemed more hype around the names of the authors than the actual content of the book. And thus far I've been proved right.
The opening 100 pages seems both confusing and needlessly dark as the world has been shattered by the pretty common fantasy cataclysm. Willow is wandering about as an intinerant mage and under the assumed name of "Thorn Drumheller" and steeped in angst at the death of his loved ones.
The authors throw in muddled ideas and obscure terms as they please and characters sound terrible ("Saw what I saw, an' tha's a fack" is a pretty standardly mangled piece of dialogue). But while I could have expected such a mess from Lucas, who can't write dialogue to save his life, I would have expected more from Claremont who's bio proclaims him to be the man behind seventeen years of the X-Men and a novelist in his own right.
Maybe it'll get better as I read on, but I can't help but think that this is a good example of how being a romantic can lead you to spend your time reading some of the most awful crap out there.
Confession: My name is Carmine, and I am a fantasy Writer
(Originally posted on Wednesday May 9th 2007)
Here I am again, banging on about another aspect of the fantasy genre that has always seemed contentious to me as both a reader and writer.
Recently the UK sci-fi and fantasy magazine SFX published an article which listed ten well known and much loved authors who had at one time or another professed that they did not "write fantasy" but rather "speculative fiction".
In the case of the authors who were more associated with science fiction than fantasy, this was a credible if still pompous position to adopt. But in the case of the writers of those often very dense and numerous tomes that sit on the shelves of almost all bookshops, dominating the fantasy section; who are they trying to convince? The hundreds of thousands of people who read their books as fantasy fiction, or themselves?
On the simplest level it is true to say that all literature is both speculative and a fantasy dreamed up by the author, but there are certain factors that one has to accept about the genre of fantasy. Science fiction might be boiled down to give the air of a scientist, but applying the same process to fantasy simply produces a fantasist and perhaps some authors are afraid of this title. Maybe they fear being catagorised as a storyteller rather than as a literary prophet, as Hans Christian Anderson rather than H G Wells.But if an author is struggling to distance himself from the genre whilst still producing material that his readers are persuing due to their love of that genre, is someone not being sold short? If a thing has four legs, a tail and barks like a dog then more often than not it is a dog no matter what the man holding the lead might tell you. How jaded is an author who hates the genre in which he writes, and will he not also come to hate his audience in time as well?
I began writing in the fantasy genre years ago, for a while I wandred away from it, but now I'm back in there and trying to rediscover what made me want to write fantasy in the first place. I'm trying to see the conventions and stereotypes for what they are and use what might at first seem a problem instead as an opportunity to make a change or do something different.
I am standing up, raising my voice and saying: "My name is Carmine, and I am a fantasy writer!"
It's the first step on the road to recovery and I would urge anyone questioning their commitment to the art to join me.It's a powerful experience.
Here I am again, banging on about another aspect of the fantasy genre that has always seemed contentious to me as both a reader and writer.
Recently the UK sci-fi and fantasy magazine SFX published an article which listed ten well known and much loved authors who had at one time or another professed that they did not "write fantasy" but rather "speculative fiction".
In the case of the authors who were more associated with science fiction than fantasy, this was a credible if still pompous position to adopt. But in the case of the writers of those often very dense and numerous tomes that sit on the shelves of almost all bookshops, dominating the fantasy section; who are they trying to convince? The hundreds of thousands of people who read their books as fantasy fiction, or themselves?
On the simplest level it is true to say that all literature is both speculative and a fantasy dreamed up by the author, but there are certain factors that one has to accept about the genre of fantasy. Science fiction might be boiled down to give the air of a scientist, but applying the same process to fantasy simply produces a fantasist and perhaps some authors are afraid of this title. Maybe they fear being catagorised as a storyteller rather than as a literary prophet, as Hans Christian Anderson rather than H G Wells.But if an author is struggling to distance himself from the genre whilst still producing material that his readers are persuing due to their love of that genre, is someone not being sold short? If a thing has four legs, a tail and barks like a dog then more often than not it is a dog no matter what the man holding the lead might tell you. How jaded is an author who hates the genre in which he writes, and will he not also come to hate his audience in time as well?
I began writing in the fantasy genre years ago, for a while I wandred away from it, but now I'm back in there and trying to rediscover what made me want to write fantasy in the first place. I'm trying to see the conventions and stereotypes for what they are and use what might at first seem a problem instead as an opportunity to make a change or do something different.
I am standing up, raising my voice and saying: "My name is Carmine, and I am a fantasy writer!"
It's the first step on the road to recovery and I would urge anyone questioning their commitment to the art to join me.It's a powerful experience.
Fantasy vs Reality...Imagined vs Real...Credibility
(Originally posted Tuesday March 8th 2007)
Over the weekend I was asked by a friend of very long standing to act as an adviser on a multi-media project that he is undertaking, a project which he hopes will eventually encompass live action, comic art and prose. In particular he wanted me to help him out in terms of the direction and dialogue as it was the one point on which he felt he was sticking a little.
Being asked to contribute to another artist's projects is on one hand quite daunting and on the other a real ego boost as someone has singled you out of all the creative types they know to solve a problem for them. The compliment my friend was paying me had both effects, but what it did most of all was cause me to take another look at the way in which I approach the issue of dialogue.
Fantasy is a genre that has many more negative stereotypes attached to it in the mind of the average person than any other non-offensive prose that I can think of. Even if someone has never read what would be considered to be a "cannon" piece of fantasy, everyone associates it with pointy-eared elves, gruff beareded dwarves and treasure-hoarding dragons.
Thrown in on top of this is the fact that one of the true pioneers of the modern genre was an Oxford Don and a wizard as far as medaeval languages were concerned. Tolkien had all that time and interest in dreaming up his languages and legends as was his passion, the stories only came afterwards, which is an important fact to remember.
Contempory authors are by and large not writing as a hobby or to indulge a whim, they're doing it to pay the bills (or in the hope of their writing being able to replace whatever else they do to pay the bills). The ineviatble result seems to be that we end up with stories that have bizarre words drempt up in an attempt to stick to the Tolkien rule of strange tongues. More often than not these are simple nonsense with a liberal amount of meaningless punctuation tossed in for colour.
There is also the temptation to fill the air with characters who proclaim: "Forsooth", "Verily", "True-Spoken" or even "Gadzooks!". And in this the author forgets the vital fact that they are not writing about the Middle Ages, the Jomon era or the conquest of the Americas. They are writing fantasy, a genre which suffers when made to ape bad historical fiction.
I recall reading Shakespeare and noting how much his Romans sounded like witty Elizabethans. I also recalled the way in which Romans themselves put speeches into the accounts they wrote of historical figures so as to put them in a contempory context. And even Homer, writing in the Bronze age, recasts the ancient warriors of the Trojan War as soldiers from his own time.
My characters might sound like blokes down the pub on a Friday night or even at times like football hooligans chanting at the opposing supporters, but I'd feel a fool if they sounded like a piss-poor amatuer dramatics society portraying an "authentic" historical dialect.
Over the weekend I was asked by a friend of very long standing to act as an adviser on a multi-media project that he is undertaking, a project which he hopes will eventually encompass live action, comic art and prose. In particular he wanted me to help him out in terms of the direction and dialogue as it was the one point on which he felt he was sticking a little.
Being asked to contribute to another artist's projects is on one hand quite daunting and on the other a real ego boost as someone has singled you out of all the creative types they know to solve a problem for them. The compliment my friend was paying me had both effects, but what it did most of all was cause me to take another look at the way in which I approach the issue of dialogue.
Fantasy is a genre that has many more negative stereotypes attached to it in the mind of the average person than any other non-offensive prose that I can think of. Even if someone has never read what would be considered to be a "cannon" piece of fantasy, everyone associates it with pointy-eared elves, gruff beareded dwarves and treasure-hoarding dragons.
Thrown in on top of this is the fact that one of the true pioneers of the modern genre was an Oxford Don and a wizard as far as medaeval languages were concerned. Tolkien had all that time and interest in dreaming up his languages and legends as was his passion, the stories only came afterwards, which is an important fact to remember.
Contempory authors are by and large not writing as a hobby or to indulge a whim, they're doing it to pay the bills (or in the hope of their writing being able to replace whatever else they do to pay the bills). The ineviatble result seems to be that we end up with stories that have bizarre words drempt up in an attempt to stick to the Tolkien rule of strange tongues. More often than not these are simple nonsense with a liberal amount of meaningless punctuation tossed in for colour.
There is also the temptation to fill the air with characters who proclaim: "Forsooth", "Verily", "True-Spoken" or even "Gadzooks!". And in this the author forgets the vital fact that they are not writing about the Middle Ages, the Jomon era or the conquest of the Americas. They are writing fantasy, a genre which suffers when made to ape bad historical fiction.
I recall reading Shakespeare and noting how much his Romans sounded like witty Elizabethans. I also recalled the way in which Romans themselves put speeches into the accounts they wrote of historical figures so as to put them in a contempory context. And even Homer, writing in the Bronze age, recasts the ancient warriors of the Trojan War as soldiers from his own time.
My characters might sound like blokes down the pub on a Friday night or even at times like football hooligans chanting at the opposing supporters, but I'd feel a fool if they sounded like a piss-poor amatuer dramatics society portraying an "authentic" historical dialect.
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