New Soul, Strange World, Savage Faith, Joyous Grace

If, buried in the heart of this monster, collected in a deep pool of memory, there is an experience which contains the chronicle of God's ferocious attack on my sensibilities, it might be expressed visually in this way:

LommelWatch '08: Fear of Girls 3 in Pre-production!

One of my top 5* actors on the planet, Tom Lommel, has made it through contract negotiations with Dangerously Adorable Productions, and is slated to begin shooting on Fear of Girls III (Working Title: Dodecapocalypse) in June.

Huzzah!

To celebrate, I'll venture deep into the heart of my cavernous internet vault of rare, hard-to-find outtakes from the very first Fear of Girls. This deleted scene is a basic metaphor of the sometimes strained, but always hopeful, attempts by Christians and Druids to respectfully engage one another. Sometimes it takes a knife.



*The other four, of course, being Scott Jorgenson, Paul Giamatti, Felicia Day and Boris Karloff.

CLASSIFIED: Obscure Cryptids

Because it is probably the most important, most relevant item to the enrichment of your life, I thought I'd note three obscure reported but probably non-existent (certainly unproven) animals that nobody seems too interested in making movies about:

Carl Sagan's "atmospheric beast" - Lighter than air, these hypothetical creatures have been set forth as an example of life that could theoretically exist in the atmosphere of Earth or even on another planet. Sagan wasn't the first to propose such an idea, but was the first to approach it outside the realm of fantasy.

Nords - We've seen little grey men coming out of UFOs all the time (on television, at least!) but the Nord is an alien type most likely to be reported in Europe (In the U.S., the majority of sightings are the "greys"). They look sort of like Vikings (or Nordic. Thus - "nords") Which just goes to show that, even after a millenium or so, we Norwegians still have a somewhat invasive reputation.

Thunderbirds - These are one of my favorites. Some Native American tribes have stories about great thunderbirds ruling the skies, even going so far as to portray them in artwork. There's an old hoax (or tall tale) about some cowboys gunning down the last of the thunderbirds back in the 1880s.

There. I feel much better now.

The King of NothingStats

I love statistics for what they cannot tell us, particularly polling statistics. My favorite NothingStat that gets trotted out from time to time is the "Wrong Track" poll, purported to measure the country's mood at the moment.

Although in analysis, the question is usually tied to follow up questions on the economy or other issues of personal interest, this is how the question reads:

"Do you feel things in this country are generally going in the right direction or do you feel things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track?"

That's it. With such quantifiable descriptives as "direction" "things" and "pretty seriously" the collective answer becomes a ready catalyst for a sort of panglossian pessimism.

Theoretically, if the country is going the "wrong" direction, this poll should give guidance on the "right" direction, yes?

No.

Anyone can answer the poll. And anyone does. Some will answer the nation is on the wrong track because of its culture of abortion, others will argue that it is on the wrong track because abortion rights are threatened. Some will answer the nation is on the railway to hell because of who is President at the time. Another because of Congress. Some might have just seen an episode of South Park. Some a rerun of Three's Company. Some might be furious at the local school board. Others might just have had their favorite crooner kicked off American Idol.

Everybody's right track is individualized, which is why it isn't surprising that anywhere from 65 to 80% of people never think we are on the right track. Because we aren't on theirs.

According to the lates measurement, only 19% of all Americans think the country is running exactly as it would were they in charge of it.

I'm surprised it is that high.

What do you do with a poll response like this? What can you do?

Nothing. It is a NothingStat. It is the Seinfeld of phone call polling. Nothing is its job. And it performs it famously. I think it may be onto something.

St. John in Exile

I need to point out a stage performance that thankfully has been archived on DVD. St. John in Exile is an amazing one-man show, with Dean Jones in the lead. It has to be more than twenty years old, but I saw it again a few years ago and it hasn't lost a bit of its luster.

I wish the small film companies who are nobly dedicated to themes meditating on Christ would turn to this production format more frequently. Blow the talent budget on one outstanding, impeccable stage actor, put the rest of the money into set design and staging the production, and shoot it very, very well. I would bet that for about $500,000, give or take, you could develop outstanding, admittedly small, but profitable movies. I prefer that to a lot of the movies I see that stretch the talent budget and end up simply having to pay for at least one or two devastating casting missteps.*

Of course, I'm a sucker for televised one-man shows. But I would have to say that of that somewhat narrow genre, St. John in Exile is the funniest and most moving. I like it better, just on a production and performance level, than Nimoy's Vincent, James Earl Jones' Paul Robeson, Robert Vaughn's FDR and even Hal Holbrook's Mark Twain Tonight (which would be my second-favorite.)

In any case, track down a copy of St. John in Exile one of these days.

*Incidentally, I'd like to see everything take on Felicia Day's The Guild model, too. I think the studios should completely overhaul the pilot system, and break those pilots up into tiny webisodes. I think that would be a far more effective way of measuring audience response than a) either scheduling a pilot in a time slot when people aren't looking for it or b) killing the pilot before ever once testing it on an international audience.

I also would like to see the Guild people do a stage show, film it, and distribute it online (for cash up front. I may be a skinflint, but I'm no slavedriver! Sheesh.)

Holy canolli. I believe I just broke the "one idea per post" rule. With a hammer. And a nuke.

Ana Ng Musically Mispronounced

Sure, sure, the vowel is off, but the song can't be beat with a shoehorn.

The Omega Point in Science Fiction

The Omega Point* is a significant spiritual concept that pervades (unnoticed, for the most part) in our culture, many religions, some scientific circles and most definitely in a lot of great science fiction.

I think the best example of the Omega Point in literature can be found in Isaac Asimov's classic tale, The Last Question. It isn't a long read: if you've got a minute, go there.

As charming and well written as many of the Omega Point-type stories are, they also all contain a persistent and strange combination of naivete and dystopia. Although the godlike evolution of mankind is presented as a wonderful and expansive rise in our history, why are my favorite characters in The Last Question the two drunk scientists who are most closely identified with "modern" (i.e. "no further evolved than the present") people? Why does the near-godhood that mankind develops over billions of years seem not just alien, but neuter, bland, and without identity?

On the one hand, the story would have us believe that advancement on the evolutionary scale is a net good, racing against the universe's immenent doom. But when I read it, I become less and less emotionally attached to the characters who eventually become pawnlike subjects of the "Mind"/"Computer"/Omega Point. I think it would be just nifty if they all blew up. Which they do.

No one resists the Multivac or its descendants? No one thinks independently of the enormous, world-saving device?

The Omega Point holds a lot of science fiction writers in thrall, but its weaknesses seem to have caught up with it. Although it has been the source of some great stories in the past, the theory has run out of literary gas. There's a reason why Piltdown Man doesn't show up in science fiction today at all, whereas in another era, the fellow appeared in all sorts of weird tales, even some classics. Piltdown Man was a fascinating concept exposed over time to be unreliable. The same is true for the hope of verifiable, historical, and real Omega Point.

*I'm speaking hear of the concept advanced by Pierre Tielhard de Chardin - that mankind (and all matter, really) is evolving to a point of supreme complexity, by which all things will merge to a supreme collective consciousness, or Omega Point. Think 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Omega Point pre-exists the Big Bang, and is also an idealized evolutionary state in the future. One of the basic assumptions is that man is improving exponentially over time, physically, technologically and even ethically.** There are applications of the term "Omega Point" in other fields that are unrelated to the spiritual concept of the same name.

**Which doesn't exactly account for the Khmer Rouge, but that is another subject for another day.

Tax the Money and Run

I wish our government taxed yaks, because I really, really like the idea of a yak tax.

It's All About Meme: Book Memories

Ugh. A human touched me.

Apparently, the only way to rid myself of the mental infection is to respond and pass it on.

1. Do you associate reading particular books with the places you read them or events of the time you read them?

Generally no. There is one exception. I've read the Lord of the Rings probably eight times so far in my life. The very first time was by candlelight, at a dilapidated antique writer's desk.

Believe it or not.

2. Do you remember the books you read or do they fade quickly? Or do you remember some better than others? How about remember details like character names, not just overall plot?

I stop reading any book after page 100 if I determine I'm not making memories with it. I think any author I pick up has earned a hundred from me. If they can't skewer me with something good by then, there's no match to be had. I'll give every author a second shot with a subsequent novel, but if that one doesn't do anything by the 100 page threshold, it'll take a lot for me to try a third time with them.

If I make it through to the end of the book, it is highly likely that it'll stick with me. If the story was great or rotten, it will stick with me forever. If it had some engaging qualities, but nothing spectacular (or embarrassingly bad) it has a shorter half-life in my brain.

It has been a long time since I've come across a new plot, so, while those are easy to remember, there are characters and scenes too vivid to ever let go: Tod Clifton, The Unman Weston, The Child at the Window (Salem's Lot), The Seventh Circle, Sancho Panza, Mrs. Prest, Jo March, Frankenstein's Monster, Bunny Corcoran, The Misfit, Lucian and on and on. I still remember the final sentence of Stephen King's "The Long Walk" and the brilliant mix of release, uplift, defiance and glory it evokes as I recall it today, twenty years after my first (and only) read.

3. Have you ever forgotten you’ve read/own a book and borrowed/bought it again?

Quoting Luke Skywalker on the scaffolding - "No. That's impossible."

+++

The problem with memes is that you must have some sort of relationship with humans in order to complete its requirements. I eschew such things, save when my belly rumbles.

So I'll just tag some people who wouldn't know me from a passing bus, which distinguishes them in no way from my closest (imaginary) friends:

Nicole Petrino-Salter

Tom Lommel

Tosca Lee

Felicia Day

E.E. Knight

Evelyn Waugh was a Man, or Glory for Dummies

I'm sitting in the corner with my dunce cap on, meditating on the theme of glory:

"Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction." - Evelyn Waugh

"I have foresworn myself. I have broken every law I am sworn to uphold. I have become what I beheld and I am content that I have done right." - Elliot Ness (The fake one who looks like Costner)

"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it." - Flannery O'Connor

"Reason, thou see'st, hath all too short a wing." - Dante, in Paradiso

"Sit tight, hold the fort and keep the home fires burning. And if we're not back by dawn, call the president." - Jack Burton

"There is a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue. " - John Bunyan

"That'll do, pig. That'll do." - Farmer Hoggett

Hollywood Yesterday and (to)Day

Hollywood motion pictures and television have been taking a beating lately. Between the writer's strike, tanking ratings for the Oscars, drops in network ratings, the consolidation of media corporations and frankly, something of a boom in anti-audience (or perhaps postmodern "audience neutral") fare, on the surface, it seems as if Hollywood has come unglued from its former lifeblood: the paying customer. I'm not talking about cashflow, necessarily. I'm talking about relevance and warm bodies and pairs of eyes.

Of course, there are exceptions to this, but many of those exceptions seem to come as a surprise to the industry. While the studios trumpet George Clooney (whom I love as Danny Ocean and Everett in O Brother) as the next Cary Grant, there are times when I'm not even sure he is as good as the last George Clooney.

There are still some stalwarts: Will Smith consistently delivers major blockbusters, and is incredibly smart about the non-major films he chooses. Tom Hanks has shifted a lot of focus to production of documentaries and historic dramas, but will still draw folks in from across the audience spectrum.

However, often the success of 300, of Tyler Perry films, of no-budget smashes like My Big Fat Greek Wedding (which, incidentally, wouldn't have gotten off the ground without Hanks' and Rita Wilson's bankrolling) and the The Passion of the Christ often come despite Hollywood's low expectations.

As budgets for films continue to bloat while receipts fall, there are legitimate complaints that Hollywood doesn't get it. I thought this the other day as I set foot in a Blockbuster for the first time in six months (and not to rent a movie. It was next door to the Papa Murphy's and I was waiting for a pizza. You don't think I keep my cinderblock-and-gristle figure on a diet of yams, do you?)

As I browsed the aisles, I noticed an awful lot of bloody axes, a bunch of obviously boring political movies, and one animated (you know, the kind that change depending on the angle you see it at) cover of a barfing zombie. Now, as a self respecting troll, I'm all about the barfing zombie: we use their natural projectile acid reflux as a household cleaner...but my type is a somewhat narrow demographic. And who wants to watch a movie about dirty bathrooms, anyhow?

Anyway, what I noticed even more than the cheap sequels of remakes of remakes, the talkfests, the hashbrown horror movies, and the really exhausting "sex" "comedies" was something more significant: an absence.

There wasn't a single cover of a DVD, not a single new release, that inspired me. No saber-wielding Luke, no steadfast Queen Gorgo, no dashing Indy, no Joan of Arc (no Joan Wilder, either), no Frodo, no Ripley, no Titanic, even. No heroes (heck, not even any anti-heroes!), no complicated women, no orignial concepts.

Just zombie barf and the impossibly long legs of presumably topless girls.

So Hollywood has fallen, yes?

I'm not so sure.

Even as an atheist, I knew Moses. Sure, he looked a lot like Charlton Heston, and with his passing I am reminded of how one talented bloke can take a run-of-the-mill "cast of thousands" bible epic and create a deep and meaningful story - one that might even contribute in some small way to a viewer's transformation.

Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney and Bill Cobbs proved that a trio of septagenarian lifelong actors can together contribute a critical component to the depth and storytelling of a movie like A Night at the Museum.

The half-mad and oft-scorned Orson Welles single-handedly challenged the Hollywood mindset to get great work (like Touch of Evil) to an audience. Sure he paid dearly for his ambition/arrogance, but you can't argue with the resulting masterworks. He wasn't the only one to do it either.

Heck, even the late great Colleen Moore proved you can change things with the right haircut, (or change a child's life with the right dollhouse.)

So I know it can be done. The question is: is it?

I think yes, but not necessarily where we expect it, and probably not always from the people we expect.

For one, the John Adams mini-series airing right now on HBO is the greatest mini-series in the history of the world. Paul Giamatti vanishes as the lead role into the perfectly constructed world of Colonial and Revolutionary America.

For two, one of my favorite short film series, as you well know, is Fear of Girls, starring Scott Jorgenson and Tom Lommel. This has been produced and made free for consumption by obsessive little monsters like myself.

For three, I do think that there is some good old-fashioned, un-"ironic" (although i notice that the cool "irony" kids these days, like Fezzini's ignorant use of "inconceivable" in Princess Bride, are unaware of what "irony" really means. Which would be ironic if that's what ironic meant. Which it doesn't.) entertainment available on television and in theaters. Yes, I said it. There are still good movies and good t.v. shows to be found. Perhaps nothing attaining the greatness of Candleshoe or Quincy, M.E. respectively, but, we just need to deal with the fact that God needed those blessed diversions more than we did. I believe St. Augustine wrote about this in City of God.

For four, there are strange, geeky talents like Wil Wheaton who have somehow developed into some sort of income-generating single-employee metaentertainment megacorporation.

But probably the best example for what I see as the new rise of Hollywood is The Guild and its writer and co-producer Felicia Day. It may not be the first to have done it, nor the most widely known - but this is an ongoing short webisode series that knows its target audience (and, importantly, doesn't insult them) and operates on donations. Right now, the actors are doing it for free, hoping to raise enough money to keep things going. You know, kind of like Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, putting on a show. And, despite all the challenges they faced, it worked for Rooney and Garland every time. Although life is less certain than the movies, The Guild has won numerous awards, and seems to have a growing fan base, and, one can hope, a donor base to match.

Performing for the people, and asking for our pennies.

That, my (imaginary) friend, is Hollywood.

James Cagney, Bette Davis, Lauren Bacall, Clark Gable, Anthony Perkins, Ann Margaret, Boris Karloff, Christopher Walken, Kathleen Turner, Orson Welles, Katharine Hepburn, Danny Kaye, Sally Field, Faye Dunaway...

...and Felicia Day?

Yeah. Yeah, I think so.

Improv Everywhere Strikes Out, Wins Game

You know the drill on Improv Everywhere - they know what they are doing, the public that they perform before has no clue.

I never thought they'd top the musical in the mall.

They did.

Robot Overlord Overload

I know far, far too many robots.


Created by OnePlusYou

Rachel Marks Revises Start of The Willow Door

Rachel Marks has a revised first chapter of her work in progress, The Willow Door. I think writers who post unfinished "WIPs" are crazy, but that is because I revise my work ten thousand times and then bury it under an unmarked rock in hopes that it improves, before ever submitting it.

Of course, because the rock is unmarked, I can never find the story again.

Hm. Perhaps she's on to something after all.

Give her a little feedback 'ere.

Molly Spoofs "Anyone Else But You"

Doggone, girl's got a gift.