Hi there. Nice to see you again. It’s been a while.
In fact, it’s been, let’s see…ah. Yes. More than a year.
Wow. Time flies.
So, lots has happened since I was here last. I’m a year older, for one. There’s been a lot of life going on that I won’t get into here. But I still work at the same place. I still come home to the same family. I still love the same woman, the same daughter, and the same God.
From a fan standpoint, there has been a whole Star Wars movie released that I haven’t even mentioned here. A new Star Trek movie is in the theaters right now, and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to see it until it comes out on Blu-ray. A new Harry Potter story is in bookstores as we speak. I’ve commented on none of it here.
In fact, there’s been an appalling lack of any kind of anything her for the past two years. No personal stuff, no fan observations, no nothing. Why?
Well, for one thing, I’m a born introvert. I have an fierce and abiding inner conviction that nobody wants to hear what I have to say on a given subject. And my total readership for the bulk of this blog has borne this out. I’ve been limping along here for some seven years now, and I am comfortable certain that no one has read this blog that is not a blood relation.
Please don’t think that bothers me. Anytime I write anything that I’m not getting paid to write — and I’m certainly not getting paid to write this — I’m doing it for myself. But I must admit, if I had an audience of 400 instead of four (all of whom I’m in regular contact with), I probably wouldn’t have stayed away so long.
Another thing is I write a lot. I write for a living, and I do my best writing between 7-10:30 a.m. And I can count the number of times that I’ve been able to write something of my own choosing during those golden hours in the past two months on the fingers of one hand.
After about 1 p.m., it gets harder and harder. It's about 8 p.m. now, and creating new sentences is starting to feel like running through wet concrete.
Either way, I’m back now. I didn’t start this blog just to let it rot. Amid the miasma of social media — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr, and whatever else have you — I still have a soft spot for the long form.
I’ve got some ideas that will hopefully bring me back here more often. I know — the guy who can’t even make a regular Facebook or Twitter post thinks he can blog again. All I can do is give it a try, and see what happens.
You’re also probably going to see some changes around here. A new look is in order, for one thing. And probably, a new name. I’ve always disliked the name ‘Padawan Pause.’ I chose it because somebody had already beaten me to the name I wanted to use. It was alright for a while, but now, it just doesn’t fit. Its time has passed. It’s time for a new name, and possibly, a new home for this blog when I come up with one.
That’s all for now. I don’t know when this will happen, or when I’ll be back. So, no promises, pledges, vows or definitive plans; just know that we’ll talk again soon.
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
Friday, July 31, 2015
An ongoing problem
Since announcing my intention to try my hand at short, speed entries, I decided to test the waters by talking about Ernest Cline, a new author I'm becoming a fan of. I started writing a blog post on Monday. It's now Friday, and I've revised it at least twice, but have yet to actually post the thing.
Herein lies my problem. So let's try this again:
I'm reading Armada by Ernest Cline. I really like him. He's a geek like me. I loved his first book, Ready Player One, and I'm planning to read everything he writes from now on — that's how much I like him.
Now, was that so hard?
Herein lies my problem. So let's try this again:
I'm reading Armada by Ernest Cline. I really like him. He's a geek like me. I loved his first book, Ready Player One, and I'm planning to read everything he writes from now on — that's how much I like him.
Now, was that so hard?
Sunday, July 26, 2015
In which I contemplate why I've been gone so long
Other people write blogs. Why can't I?
I've had this space on the internet for several years now. I write long pieces on topics near and dear to my heart — editorials, really — every six months or so. But there's nothing in between. No short notes. No mid-range opinions. Just these long screeds every so often.
As you've probably noticed, I don't have time to write a long piece very often. So there is silence, and lots of it, interrupted by large, and often unasked for, pieces of my mind.
I think it might be nice to write something that didn't require me to stitch complex ideas together. May just a few off-the-cuff thoughts here and there — not a magnum opus every time I sit down at the keyboard.
This should hopefully make less pressure on me to create a perfect entry, encourage me to write more often, and allow me to write on more varied, and heck, even personal topics.
We'll see how it goes.
I've had this space on the internet for several years now. I write long pieces on topics near and dear to my heart — editorials, really — every six months or so. But there's nothing in between. No short notes. No mid-range opinions. Just these long screeds every so often.
As you've probably noticed, I don't have time to write a long piece very often. So there is silence, and lots of it, interrupted by large, and often unasked for, pieces of my mind.
I think it might be nice to write something that didn't require me to stitch complex ideas together. May just a few off-the-cuff thoughts here and there — not a magnum opus every time I sit down at the keyboard.
This should hopefully make less pressure on me to create a perfect entry, encourage me to write more often, and allow me to write on more varied, and heck, even personal topics.
We'll see how it goes.
Saturday, December 6, 2014
...in which I learn to stop worrying about Google and love the constant surveillance.
Wow — has it really been that long since my last post?
I recently adopted a new policy about Google, and wanted to share. Not the earth-shattering topic one would expect for my first blog post since late May, but maybe my serious lack of earth-shattering topics is why I haven't done anything here in a while.
Anyway, for years, I have been Mister Privacy when it comes to what I share with Google. Like most people, I had flirted with a couple of the company's offerings; I had a Google+ account along with my Gmail, and had experimented with things like Google Docs and its Calendar. But I sharply limited what I let the company know about me and my Internet habits. I had saving my search results turned off, I used other search engines when I could. and I certainly, certainly didn't let Google track where I was as part of its Google Now program — an initiative that tries to present you with necessary information based on what the company knows about you from it's myriad technological tentacles.
A lot of the reason for this is because I am a die-hard Apple enthusiast, and am frankly distrustful of the company, largely because of the way that Google, in my opinion, blatantly ripped off the design of Apple's iPhone for its Android software. The theft made me mad, and distrustful of the search giant's motives. Any large company, even Apple, shouldn't be trusted too far with ultimate world power, and the theft made me very suspicious indeed of Google's famous "Don't Be Evil" mission statement.
So for years, I kept my Gmail use to an absolute minimum, kept my searches secret from the company, and avoided Google+ like the plague. Not that anyone I cared about ever really used Google+.
Here's the thing, though — Google has some really, really smart people working for them, that make some really cool stuff. And the stuff they offer is not only free (to users like us), it's also pretty useful. None of it was anything I couldn't do better with Apple's ecosystem, but the tech geek in me still thought it was neat.
A couple of things happened this week to make me give Google another look.
The first was this posting from Chris Messina, a former Google+ developer, which I'm linking to here with a profanity warning. In it, he offers the first defense of Google's jealous hoarding of user information that I actually found reasonable. He talks about things like the digital identity in such an urgent, idealist way, I find myself actually wanting one. Mind you, he thinks that Google+ has failed, and that Google is rapidly squandering its chance to keep Facebook from being the only digital identity site out there. But he makes some good arguments as to why letting someone like Google build up a huge amount of user data can, and is, a good thing.
What he doesn't say, to the best of my memory, that this experience comes at the expense of user privacy so they can sell advertising. But I already knew that. What impressed me was his real, genuine wish to give people something genuinely valuable in return. He still passionately believes in the work he did with Google, even though he thinks the Google+ project has lost its way.
If he'd still been an employee when he wrote about how great data collection is, I would have been much more skeptical about his arguments. But the fact that he's not and employee, and that he still seems to have genuine regret that more people don't avail themselves to the benefits of being "data positive," as he puts it, gave me pause. And when he said that we are, to companies like Google don't really care about our data, specifically, I very nearly believed him.
And please, before you pass any judgements on my mangled paraphrasing of his arguments, you owe it to yourself to go and read what he actually said. As a college history teacher of mine managed to convince me, primary sources are nearly always superior to secondary sources.
If he'd still been an employee when he wrote about how great data collection is, I would have been much more skeptical about his arguments. But the fact that he's not and employee, and that he still seems to have genuine regret that more people don't avail themselves to the benefits of being "data positive," as he puts it, gave me pause. And when he said that we are, to companies like Google don't really care about our data, specifically, I very nearly believed him.
And please, before you pass any judgements on my mangled paraphrasing of his arguments, you owe it to yourself to go and read what he actually said. As a college history teacher of mine managed to convince me, primary sources are nearly always superior to secondary sources.
Here's the thing: I know for a fact that there are many apps that have a legitimate need for your personal information. A mapping app that doesn't know where you are is twice as hard to use for directions, for example, and impossible to use safely when you're driving a car. It's possible that good things can come from letting the machines know more about us, as frightening as that is to say out loud.
Mind, I think there's still a huge potential for abuse if you hand over information about yourself to complete strangers. For example, a lot of the apps on my phone have absolutely no reason to be able to track my location. But everything Google wants from me can, with a few clicks, be turned off and erased. I know this because I've done it. Of course, the company's apps were practically screaming at me not too the whole time (and, by practically screaming, I mean there were repeated warnings about the dire consequences of my actions at each and every step. So maybe "screaming" is a little melodramatic). But it can be done — the genie can be put back in the bottle with a minimum of fuss.
Mind, I think there's still a huge potential for abuse if you hand over information about yourself to complete strangers. For example, a lot of the apps on my phone have absolutely no reason to be able to track my location. But everything Google wants from me can, with a few clicks, be turned off and erased. I know this because I've done it. Of course, the company's apps were practically screaming at me not too the whole time (and, by practically screaming, I mean there were repeated warnings about the dire consequences of my actions at each and every step. So maybe "screaming" is a little melodramatic). But it can be done — the genie can be put back in the bottle with a minimum of fuss.
I may be wrong, but I don't think that's the case with something like Facebook. Oh, there are privacy controls there, but they change an awful lot. I can't speak for Android users, but Facebook's iOS apps update like clockwork every two weeks. Given the company's past track record of using privacy updates as a way of switching user privacy settings to "wide open," I'm a little suspicious each and every time they update. And actually deleting a Facebook account is, when I last heard, worthy of one of the Labors of Hercules.
The other part of this is that I get a lot of enjoyment from experimenting with technology. Computers and the Internet have developed to the point where it's a form of electrical necromancy; what companies like Apple, and Google, and yes, even Microsoft, are doing often feels like magic, even though it's not. I take great joy from discovering the little wonders the programmers and developers have built into our laptops, tablets and computers. It was what made me fall in love with Apple's approach. And it's what keeps me excited, year after year, about what's coming next.
So, despite my sincere and somewhat justified misgivings about Google's past, I'm going to let my guard down, open my mind a bit, and go play in someone else's garden for a bit. I really don't expect to come away wanting to switch to Android — as Jason Snell recently observed, I still bleed six colors, and think I always will. But I hope, if nothing else, it will be fun. And just maybe, it'll make it easier to see the other guy's point of view. And, heaven knows, we could all use more of that.
Saturday, May 17, 2014
I have a bad feeling about this
I've always been of the mind that any new Star Wars story, even if it was bad, was inherently a good thing. After all, it's chance to take a fresh trip into that world, even if it doesn't tell a story with the same magic and excitement that the Original Trilogy.
I suppose that is why it's always been easier for me to overlook the flaws of the Prequel Trilogy, and yet be so harsh on those of the EU. The prequels were, at times, bad story telling, most of which I lay at George's feet. I had quibbles with the world — for example, I never liked the fact that most of the human Jedi on Coruscant dressed like they were on Tatooine. Oddly enough, my favorite Jedi uniform came from a comic book, which showed Obi-Wan Kenobi in a flashback to his days as a Jedi Knight. His dress? The same black outfit that Luke wore in Return of the Jedi.
If you will allow me a brief side-trip, I will always think that George missed a great chance when he based the Prequel Jedi uniforms on what Ben Kenobi was wearing on Tatooine, rather than what Luke was wearing as a Jedi Knight in Return of the Jedi. Ben was wearing that because he was on Tatooine. It would be silly in the extreme that a man hiding out from the Empire walk around in the same outfit he wore as a famous Jedi Knight. I think George missed two "oh, cool" moments in the prequels — the first, when we see that the old Jedi are dressed like Luke Skywalker did at the end of the first trilogy; and the second, when we see Obi-Wan leaving Luke with the Lars family garbed as Ben.
But, like it or not, the Prequels are Star Wars, so whatever we are not comfortable with in those stories must somehow be reconciled. Not so the EU. I won't waste time recounting what I found troubling in the EU, since I've already done it elsewhere. But in the end, it doesn't matter; all of those many tales were never part of the official story, painful as that is for the people who loved them. I never thought they were part of the "real" story, even though there were some in the Lucasfilm world who have said so.
For better or worse, that changed a few weeks ago. The announcement that the now non-canonical EU would be rebranded under a new Legends banner was a welcome development for me. I stated in my earlier blog post why I never thought those stories were canon; to have that authoritatively in print was a welcome development.
That announcement was coupled with a second one: that a second EU would be created: one that absolutely would matter, and which would bear equal weight to the films. At first, I was encouraged by this; I always had a sense when I was reading a Star Wars novel that I was, in some sense, wasting time because, in the end, it didn't really matter. It was fun, but it didn't really count — only the movies did. This is a lesson that was brought home to me rather early on, with the first EU book, Splinter of the Mind's Eye. I loved Splinter when it was released. It was both the priceless gift of new Star Wars, and it was absolutely the way I wanted the romantic triangle of Han/Luke/Leia to pan out. Plus, it was enormous fun, or so I thought at the time. Despite that, I had no trouble jettisoning it as a harmless bit of fun when Empire was released a couple of years later.
So it sounded like a good thing when Disney said that, from now on, the books were going to join the films as part of a larger story. It would, I though, be nice to read a book and have it be part of your experience with the films. Do you have a hunger for more Star Wars after the last movie? A book can now add to that experience. For example, the first New EU book is a prequel to Star Wars: Rebels. I may not be interested in it before I see the first episode of that series, but if I like Rebels enough, you can be sure I will be seeking it out after the fact. How much more will this be the case after a new Star Wars movie, when I am seeking out as much to do with that movie as I can afford to lay my hands on (as George's accountants know all too well).
Then a couple of things changed my mind; or, at least, made me think twice.
The first was a comment that a couple Del Ray book representatives made during an interview on RebelForce Radio. To paraphrase, he said that everything counts now — movies, television shows, novels, comic books, games, and even children's books, are all on equal footing. What happens in one now affects the other.
As I listened in the car, that sentence kind of echoed as I mulled the implications.
Movies...
Well, yeah, sure — the movies have always been canon. For most of us, anyway. If you want to throw away half of them, that's your affair.
…television shows…
Okay, sure, I guess, if they're done well enough. Clone Wars didn't strike me as canonical back when it started (Anakin with a padawan? Really?), and I still haven't seen the bulk of it. But it was really, really good when it left the air after the Disney acquisition, and if anyone can do canon-level Star Wars now, it's my fellow Pittsburgh boy, Dave Filoni.
…novels…
Umm, okay, if you say so. I've been burned a lot in the past on this score, but I'm just going to have to trust you.
…comic books…
Seriously? With the sheer volume of comic book stories, that's a lot of plot line to have to keep straight.
…games…
Uhh...no. I still remember the scene in The Force: Unleashed where the main character pulls a freakin' Star Destroyer out of the sky by using the Force. A STAR DESTROYER!!! None of the other characters in the movies, not even the Chosen One or Master Yoda, even hinted at abilities of this scope, yet this character whose name I can't even remember could do it. Yet it worked within the game, because games are supposed to be fun, and big-league Force powers were a big part of that game.
…children's books…
Okay, you've left the planet on this one. Who drops a key plot point in a children's book?
For me, the idea that The Force Unleashed could hypothetically be on an equal canonical footing as The Empire Strikes Back is beyond ludicrous, and somewhat frightening. I don't know how Disney plans to make this work, but there is a huge margin for error looming on the horizon that, frankly, frightens me.
I am also concerned by the shape of things to come in what I'm already seeing going on the Marvel Universe. As you may have heard, the excellent show Agents of Shield is now tracking the same storyline as the Marvel movies. This was brought rather forcibly home with the April 8 episode, which tied in with the also-excellent film Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Fans of the show were given precisely one week from the April 1 episode, which ended with a scene from Winter Soldier, to go out and see the movie before key and crucial elements of the plot were laid bare in the next episode. Watch that episode, and you would be completely and irrevocably spoiled for Winter Soldier.
Fortunately, my wife and I were warned in time, and endured a six-week hiatus from that show until we could manage to make it to Winter Soldier before it left the theater altogether. If we hadn't, we would have had no choice but to delete all of the episodes we had DVRd, and wait for the release of both Winter Soldier and the Agents of Shield boxed set before we could catch up.
It felt more than a little like narrative blackmail — to enjoy this story, you must go out and purchase this one. If you don't, well, you won't mind knowing every big surprise that's in it, will you? After all, you didn't see it as soon as it came out, so you must not care.
Disney has practiced this sort of thing before. I'm still annoyed at the forced demand created by their "back into the vaults" practices with the DVD and Blu-Ray releases. If I'm remembering correctly, an average of seven years elapses between these releases. Want your five-year-old to see of Beauty and the Beast but didn't buy the DVD release two years before she was born? That's too bad. Maybe she'll still want to know about Belle when she's older.
Don't get me wrong: I truly love Disney. I think the people who are a part of it really, passionately care about quality, and giving their audience a good experience. But they are a corporation whose goal, at the end of the day, is to make money. And if they can do something like they just did with Captain America, it's only a matter of time before they do it in Star Wars.
I suppose that is why it's always been easier for me to overlook the flaws of the Prequel Trilogy, and yet be so harsh on those of the EU. The prequels were, at times, bad story telling, most of which I lay at George's feet. I had quibbles with the world — for example, I never liked the fact that most of the human Jedi on Coruscant dressed like they were on Tatooine. Oddly enough, my favorite Jedi uniform came from a comic book, which showed Obi-Wan Kenobi in a flashback to his days as a Jedi Knight. His dress? The same black outfit that Luke wore in Return of the Jedi.
If you will allow me a brief side-trip, I will always think that George missed a great chance when he based the Prequel Jedi uniforms on what Ben Kenobi was wearing on Tatooine, rather than what Luke was wearing as a Jedi Knight in Return of the Jedi. Ben was wearing that because he was on Tatooine. It would be silly in the extreme that a man hiding out from the Empire walk around in the same outfit he wore as a famous Jedi Knight. I think George missed two "oh, cool" moments in the prequels — the first, when we see that the old Jedi are dressed like Luke Skywalker did at the end of the first trilogy; and the second, when we see Obi-Wan leaving Luke with the Lars family garbed as Ben.
But, like it or not, the Prequels are Star Wars, so whatever we are not comfortable with in those stories must somehow be reconciled. Not so the EU. I won't waste time recounting what I found troubling in the EU, since I've already done it elsewhere. But in the end, it doesn't matter; all of those many tales were never part of the official story, painful as that is for the people who loved them. I never thought they were part of the "real" story, even though there were some in the Lucasfilm world who have said so.
For better or worse, that changed a few weeks ago. The announcement that the now non-canonical EU would be rebranded under a new Legends banner was a welcome development for me. I stated in my earlier blog post why I never thought those stories were canon; to have that authoritatively in print was a welcome development.
That announcement was coupled with a second one: that a second EU would be created: one that absolutely would matter, and which would bear equal weight to the films. At first, I was encouraged by this; I always had a sense when I was reading a Star Wars novel that I was, in some sense, wasting time because, in the end, it didn't really matter. It was fun, but it didn't really count — only the movies did. This is a lesson that was brought home to me rather early on, with the first EU book, Splinter of the Mind's Eye. I loved Splinter when it was released. It was both the priceless gift of new Star Wars, and it was absolutely the way I wanted the romantic triangle of Han/Luke/Leia to pan out. Plus, it was enormous fun, or so I thought at the time. Despite that, I had no trouble jettisoning it as a harmless bit of fun when Empire was released a couple of years later.
So it sounded like a good thing when Disney said that, from now on, the books were going to join the films as part of a larger story. It would, I though, be nice to read a book and have it be part of your experience with the films. Do you have a hunger for more Star Wars after the last movie? A book can now add to that experience. For example, the first New EU book is a prequel to Star Wars: Rebels. I may not be interested in it before I see the first episode of that series, but if I like Rebels enough, you can be sure I will be seeking it out after the fact. How much more will this be the case after a new Star Wars movie, when I am seeking out as much to do with that movie as I can afford to lay my hands on (as George's accountants know all too well).
Then a couple of things changed my mind; or, at least, made me think twice.
The first was a comment that a couple Del Ray book representatives made during an interview on RebelForce Radio. To paraphrase, he said that everything counts now — movies, television shows, novels, comic books, games, and even children's books, are all on equal footing. What happens in one now affects the other.
As I listened in the car, that sentence kind of echoed as I mulled the implications.
Movies...
Well, yeah, sure — the movies have always been canon. For most of us, anyway. If you want to throw away half of them, that's your affair.
…television shows…
Okay, sure, I guess, if they're done well enough. Clone Wars didn't strike me as canonical back when it started (Anakin with a padawan? Really?), and I still haven't seen the bulk of it. But it was really, really good when it left the air after the Disney acquisition, and if anyone can do canon-level Star Wars now, it's my fellow Pittsburgh boy, Dave Filoni.
…novels…
Umm, okay, if you say so. I've been burned a lot in the past on this score, but I'm just going to have to trust you.
…comic books…
Seriously? With the sheer volume of comic book stories, that's a lot of plot line to have to keep straight.
…games…
Uhh...no. I still remember the scene in The Force: Unleashed where the main character pulls a freakin' Star Destroyer out of the sky by using the Force. A STAR DESTROYER!!! None of the other characters in the movies, not even the Chosen One or Master Yoda, even hinted at abilities of this scope, yet this character whose name I can't even remember could do it. Yet it worked within the game, because games are supposed to be fun, and big-league Force powers were a big part of that game.
…children's books…
Okay, you've left the planet on this one. Who drops a key plot point in a children's book?
For me, the idea that The Force Unleashed could hypothetically be on an equal canonical footing as The Empire Strikes Back is beyond ludicrous, and somewhat frightening. I don't know how Disney plans to make this work, but there is a huge margin for error looming on the horizon that, frankly, frightens me.
I am also concerned by the shape of things to come in what I'm already seeing going on the Marvel Universe. As you may have heard, the excellent show Agents of Shield is now tracking the same storyline as the Marvel movies. This was brought rather forcibly home with the April 8 episode, which tied in with the also-excellent film Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Fans of the show were given precisely one week from the April 1 episode, which ended with a scene from Winter Soldier, to go out and see the movie before key and crucial elements of the plot were laid bare in the next episode. Watch that episode, and you would be completely and irrevocably spoiled for Winter Soldier.
Fortunately, my wife and I were warned in time, and endured a six-week hiatus from that show until we could manage to make it to Winter Soldier before it left the theater altogether. If we hadn't, we would have had no choice but to delete all of the episodes we had DVRd, and wait for the release of both Winter Soldier and the Agents of Shield boxed set before we could catch up.
It felt more than a little like narrative blackmail — to enjoy this story, you must go out and purchase this one. If you don't, well, you won't mind knowing every big surprise that's in it, will you? After all, you didn't see it as soon as it came out, so you must not care.
Disney has practiced this sort of thing before. I'm still annoyed at the forced demand created by their "back into the vaults" practices with the DVD and Blu-Ray releases. If I'm remembering correctly, an average of seven years elapses between these releases. Want your five-year-old to see of Beauty and the Beast but didn't buy the DVD release two years before she was born? That's too bad. Maybe she'll still want to know about Belle when she's older.
Don't get me wrong: I truly love Disney. I think the people who are a part of it really, passionately care about quality, and giving their audience a good experience. But they are a corporation whose goal, at the end of the day, is to make money. And if they can do something like they just did with Captain America, it's only a matter of time before they do it in Star Wars.
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
An unexpected turn of events
I had intended this post to be about the unexpected resurgence of my interest in Star Wars. It was supposed to be about how the simple announcement about the EU being jettisoned had rekindled my enthusiasm for the Saga. I was even going to talk about how I, after a long-time and publically-documented indifference to the EU, was considering reading some of the "new canon" books, and was even eager to do so.
I even had a name for the post — Yesterday's News.
Then things changed.
As I began to write, the fine folks at starwars.com finally did what Star Wars fans around the world have been waiting for months for them to do — they announced the cast of Episode VII.
I immediately penned some initial thoughts, determined for once to be A) quick, and B) timely. Unfortunately, through a combination of family and work concerns, I was neither. However, I'd still like to put my thoughts out there, so that my dedicated audience of Canadian pharmacies and work-from-home opportunities aren't deprived of my witty and wise repartee.
First, I know next-to-nothing, if not actually nothing, about new cast members John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, and Oscar Isaac. I also have no clue about what roles they are supposed to play; whether they are good guys or bad guys, etc. My initial impression from their IMDb pages was that they were a vaguely diverse looking group. They are also, to a man, relative unknowns — just like the original trio was back when. I'm actually happy about this; unknown actors mean a clean slate. It will be much easier to see them as their characters, rather than "that guy from x"
I'm very happy about the new names that I do know. Domhnall Gleeson is on my radar because he played Bill Weasley in the Harry Potter films, and Andy Serkis is a modern-day Lon Chaney who's very presence on this film is, for me, highly reassuring. I don't who, or what, he's playing, but I can't wait to see it.
Finally, there is Max Von Sydow. Again, I'm not sure what role he will be playing. I'm guessing it's a heavy, but as he's known for villains (his turn in Needful Things was a particular favorite) and good guys/mentors (he's played both Jesus and St. Peter, for crying out loud), it could easily go either way.
Finally, there were a few names that brought a broad smile to face just by reading them: Kenny Baker, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, and, most importantly, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill.
I've written elsewhere of my desire to see Leia Organa-Solo, Luke Skywalker and Han Solo as older, wiser versions of their young selves. Now it appears that I will get that chance. Whether I will like it or not when I do is another matter. For now, for today, I am going to pretend that I will, and hope for the best.
While I have always been, and shall always be, much more of a fan of Luke Skywalker than of Han Solo, I am actually just a little bit happier that Ford has returned. For one, he was always very vocal about disliking the character, and never wanting to do Star Wars again. So just the fact that he's gotten past that, for whatever reason, is good news. (I'm sure there was a large check involved at some point, but I hope it's more than that).
The second reason is more selfish. I never really "got" the character of Han until much later in life. When I did, the sheer "wrongness" of what happened to his character in RotJ became much more painful. He was a different character, and largely good only for comic relief. And I still cringe at his final 'romantic' scene with Leia — from the way he kissed her at the end, you'd think he was her brother, and not Luke. He started out a dangerous space pirate who accidentally fell in with the good guys; he ended as an emasculated buffoon.
I try to rationalize it by saying Han came out of two-plus years of carbon sleep a radically changed man, but I suspect most of the blame can be laid at the feet of the late Richard Marquand, the director, although George Lucas probably bears a good share of the blame himself. My wife thinks it's because they wanted to make Solo safe for kids in Jedi, which is also a good theory. I think it probably came from a combination of bad directing choices, and an actor that just threw up his hands, and resigned himself to getting through filming so he could move on to other roles.
Whatever the reason, it no longer matters. Because now, finally, Harrison Ford is going to have another crack at Han Solo. Hopefully, we'll see flashes of the same guy we knew from A New Hope and Empire. Time will tell. Whether we do or not, I am excited about the possibilities for this film, and still largely (albeit cautiously) optimistic for the future of Star Wars in general.
I even had a name for the post — Yesterday's News.
Then things changed.
As I began to write, the fine folks at starwars.com finally did what Star Wars fans around the world have been waiting for months for them to do — they announced the cast of Episode VII.
I immediately penned some initial thoughts, determined for once to be A) quick, and B) timely. Unfortunately, through a combination of family and work concerns, I was neither. However, I'd still like to put my thoughts out there, so that my dedicated audience of Canadian pharmacies and work-from-home opportunities aren't deprived of my witty and wise repartee.
First, I know next-to-nothing, if not actually nothing, about new cast members John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, and Oscar Isaac. I also have no clue about what roles they are supposed to play; whether they are good guys or bad guys, etc. My initial impression from their IMDb pages was that they were a vaguely diverse looking group. They are also, to a man, relative unknowns — just like the original trio was back when. I'm actually happy about this; unknown actors mean a clean slate. It will be much easier to see them as their characters, rather than "that guy from x"
I'm very happy about the new names that I do know. Domhnall Gleeson is on my radar because he played Bill Weasley in the Harry Potter films, and Andy Serkis is a modern-day Lon Chaney who's very presence on this film is, for me, highly reassuring. I don't who, or what, he's playing, but I can't wait to see it.
Finally, there is Max Von Sydow. Again, I'm not sure what role he will be playing. I'm guessing it's a heavy, but as he's known for villains (his turn in Needful Things was a particular favorite) and good guys/mentors (he's played both Jesus and St. Peter, for crying out loud), it could easily go either way.
Finally, there were a few names that brought a broad smile to face just by reading them: Kenny Baker, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, and, most importantly, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill.
I've written elsewhere of my desire to see Leia Organa-Solo, Luke Skywalker and Han Solo as older, wiser versions of their young selves. Now it appears that I will get that chance. Whether I will like it or not when I do is another matter. For now, for today, I am going to pretend that I will, and hope for the best.
While I have always been, and shall always be, much more of a fan of Luke Skywalker than of Han Solo, I am actually just a little bit happier that Ford has returned. For one, he was always very vocal about disliking the character, and never wanting to do Star Wars again. So just the fact that he's gotten past that, for whatever reason, is good news. (I'm sure there was a large check involved at some point, but I hope it's more than that).
The second reason is more selfish. I never really "got" the character of Han until much later in life. When I did, the sheer "wrongness" of what happened to his character in RotJ became much more painful. He was a different character, and largely good only for comic relief. And I still cringe at his final 'romantic' scene with Leia — from the way he kissed her at the end, you'd think he was her brother, and not Luke. He started out a dangerous space pirate who accidentally fell in with the good guys; he ended as an emasculated buffoon.
I try to rationalize it by saying Han came out of two-plus years of carbon sleep a radically changed man, but I suspect most of the blame can be laid at the feet of the late Richard Marquand, the director, although George Lucas probably bears a good share of the blame himself. My wife thinks it's because they wanted to make Solo safe for kids in Jedi, which is also a good theory. I think it probably came from a combination of bad directing choices, and an actor that just threw up his hands, and resigned himself to getting through filming so he could move on to other roles.
Whatever the reason, it no longer matters. Because now, finally, Harrison Ford is going to have another crack at Han Solo. Hopefully, we'll see flashes of the same guy we knew from A New Hope and Empire. Time will tell. Whether we do or not, I am excited about the possibilities for this film, and still largely (albeit cautiously) optimistic for the future of Star Wars in general.
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Having their cake...
I just went to starwars.com for the first time in a while, and I admit to being equal parts excited, disgruntled and confused.
I'll deal with the excitement part first. I just noticed that they've updated the front page of their website, which for some reason, gave me a little thrill of excitement when I saw it. I've been following Star Wars long enough to have been through home page redesigns, so I don't know why this one is any different. Maybe it's because I've been doing it long enough that "new look" is somehow associated with "new Star Wars movies." I only know that it was the first flair-up of the old excitement for the Saga that I've felt in a long time.
The confused bit came from two stories on that saidsame website. The first was the official announcement that the massive Expanded Universe of novels, comics and games that take place after Return of the Jedi officially, once and for all, is not canon. J.J. Abrams & Co. will not be forced into trying to incorporate Grand Admiral Thrawn and Mara Jade into whatever story they're making if they don't want to. They can do so if they wish, but the filmmakers, wisely, have been given a clean slate to create a new, and hopefully, exciting story.
So far, this is exactly what I've been hoping for. My official position on the EU can be found here, but in short, I follow the same take that Lucasfilm claims to be taking; namely, that the six Star Wars films are, once and for all, IT when it comes to the story of the Skywalker family. That is the only part of the massive fictional output of massive narrative factories of Lucasfilm from the past 37 years that cannot be ignored. Sorry, Jar-Jar haters — that means the Prequels, too.
Except that they left themselves a rather large loophole. The filmmakers are free to use whatever part of the EU they wish. If they want to use elements from the EU, they can — the same way that Lucas himself took the name of Coruscant for the capital planet of the Republic/Empire from the Zahn trilogy.
The confusing bit comes from the fact that they have, in one stroke, thrown out the entire EU for the filmmakers, but allowed them to keep the parts they wanted to use, while creating a NEW EU that will be overseen by a new story department to keep it in harmony with the films, but they're still going to keep publishing stuff from the OLD EU because they can still make money on it.
Did I miss anything?
So now we have two EUs, not one. One is a "real" EU, and the other is basically professionally produced fan-fiction. It is not the canonical Saga that the people who have loved it for so many years have maintained that it was. That is now the job of the new EU, which will produce officially sanctioned back story for the characters.
Forgive me for being cynical, but Lucasfilm has tried this before. When Star Wars fiction came out, they took a hard look at the morass of unconnected stories that made up the Star Trek novels, and decided they were going to have all the EU novels be part of one, big story. My main problem with the EU stemmed from this decision, because what was laid down by these authors as canon was, in my humble opinion, unworthy of so great an object. So even if you hated one of the books, you were stuck with it, because it became canon for the other writers. This was especially true for the granddaddy of the EU, the Thrawn trilogy by Timothy Zahn, which created characters and situations (Luke's wife, Han and Leia's kids, etc.) that dominated all the other books, good or bad.
So now, all that is gone, and we're going to try again with a new set of books. Only it's going to count this time. I understand that this is probably being done to give the books an added sense of weight; of importance. With fan fiction easily and cheaply available, both really, really good, and really, really bad, the stuff that you pay for has to be worth it; you have to get something extra from it. So the first book will be an official backstory for two primary characters in the new Rebels series. We'll see how it goes, but the whole thing smacks of having your cake, and eating it, too.
The disgruntled part comes from the great, gaping void of news about the new Star Wars movie. It has, according to most reliable sources, has not only been cast, is set to begin shooting in May. The official site has next to nothing on this fact. The only information on Episode VII was this press release, which promised a "trio of new young leads along with some very familiar faces."
I really, really like following selected things about the filming of any new Star Wars film. It helps feed my interest over the long haul, and even helps get me excited about it, in moderation. I try to stay away from spoiler-ridden sites like theforce.net, especially as the release date nears and entire shooting scripts find their way onto the site, and instead confine myself to the Official Site. Usually, about a month before release, I decide even the Official Site is too dangerous, and adopt a strategy of plugging my ears, putting my hands over my eyes, and saying "La-La-La-La-La" as loud as I can. Which makes driving kind of tricky, as you might guess.
I have the exact opposite problem right now. There is absolutely NOTHING out there to whet my appetite for a film that will supposedly be released at the end of next year. Rather than turn to dubious "news" sites, or even the semi-official Force.net, I am, for the moment, opting to wait. I'd really like to start thinking about the "what ifs" of this film; to pleasantly mull the future from a few tantalizing clues about what is to come. Apparently, Mr. Abrams and Ms. Kennedy have decreed that we must still be patient. Unfortunately, for the moment, I have no choice but to do otherwise.
Maybe I should read an old Star Wars novel while I wait.
I'll deal with the excitement part first. I just noticed that they've updated the front page of their website, which for some reason, gave me a little thrill of excitement when I saw it. I've been following Star Wars long enough to have been through home page redesigns, so I don't know why this one is any different. Maybe it's because I've been doing it long enough that "new look" is somehow associated with "new Star Wars movies." I only know that it was the first flair-up of the old excitement for the Saga that I've felt in a long time.
The confused bit came from two stories on that saidsame website. The first was the official announcement that the massive Expanded Universe of novels, comics and games that take place after Return of the Jedi officially, once and for all, is not canon. J.J. Abrams & Co. will not be forced into trying to incorporate Grand Admiral Thrawn and Mara Jade into whatever story they're making if they don't want to. They can do so if they wish, but the filmmakers, wisely, have been given a clean slate to create a new, and hopefully, exciting story.
So far, this is exactly what I've been hoping for. My official position on the EU can be found here, but in short, I follow the same take that Lucasfilm claims to be taking; namely, that the six Star Wars films are, once and for all, IT when it comes to the story of the Skywalker family. That is the only part of the massive fictional output of massive narrative factories of Lucasfilm from the past 37 years that cannot be ignored. Sorry, Jar-Jar haters — that means the Prequels, too.
Except that they left themselves a rather large loophole. The filmmakers are free to use whatever part of the EU they wish. If they want to use elements from the EU, they can — the same way that Lucas himself took the name of Coruscant for the capital planet of the Republic/Empire from the Zahn trilogy.
The confusing bit comes from the fact that they have, in one stroke, thrown out the entire EU for the filmmakers, but allowed them to keep the parts they wanted to use, while creating a NEW EU that will be overseen by a new story department to keep it in harmony with the films, but they're still going to keep publishing stuff from the OLD EU because they can still make money on it.
Did I miss anything?
So now we have two EUs, not one. One is a "real" EU, and the other is basically professionally produced fan-fiction. It is not the canonical Saga that the people who have loved it for so many years have maintained that it was. That is now the job of the new EU, which will produce officially sanctioned back story for the characters.
Forgive me for being cynical, but Lucasfilm has tried this before. When Star Wars fiction came out, they took a hard look at the morass of unconnected stories that made up the Star Trek novels, and decided they were going to have all the EU novels be part of one, big story. My main problem with the EU stemmed from this decision, because what was laid down by these authors as canon was, in my humble opinion, unworthy of so great an object. So even if you hated one of the books, you were stuck with it, because it became canon for the other writers. This was especially true for the granddaddy of the EU, the Thrawn trilogy by Timothy Zahn, which created characters and situations (Luke's wife, Han and Leia's kids, etc.) that dominated all the other books, good or bad.
So now, all that is gone, and we're going to try again with a new set of books. Only it's going to count this time. I understand that this is probably being done to give the books an added sense of weight; of importance. With fan fiction easily and cheaply available, both really, really good, and really, really bad, the stuff that you pay for has to be worth it; you have to get something extra from it. So the first book will be an official backstory for two primary characters in the new Rebels series. We'll see how it goes, but the whole thing smacks of having your cake, and eating it, too.
The disgruntled part comes from the great, gaping void of news about the new Star Wars movie. It has, according to most reliable sources, has not only been cast, is set to begin shooting in May. The official site has next to nothing on this fact. The only information on Episode VII was this press release, which promised a "trio of new young leads along with some very familiar faces."
I really, really like following selected things about the filming of any new Star Wars film. It helps feed my interest over the long haul, and even helps get me excited about it, in moderation. I try to stay away from spoiler-ridden sites like theforce.net, especially as the release date nears and entire shooting scripts find their way onto the site, and instead confine myself to the Official Site. Usually, about a month before release, I decide even the Official Site is too dangerous, and adopt a strategy of plugging my ears, putting my hands over my eyes, and saying "La-La-La-La-La" as loud as I can. Which makes driving kind of tricky, as you might guess.
I have the exact opposite problem right now. There is absolutely NOTHING out there to whet my appetite for a film that will supposedly be released at the end of next year. Rather than turn to dubious "news" sites, or even the semi-official Force.net, I am, for the moment, opting to wait. I'd really like to start thinking about the "what ifs" of this film; to pleasantly mull the future from a few tantalizing clues about what is to come. Apparently, Mr. Abrams and Ms. Kennedy have decreed that we must still be patient. Unfortunately, for the moment, I have no choice but to do otherwise.
Maybe I should read an old Star Wars novel while I wait.
Saturday, April 5, 2014
Still here
It's Opening Week here at my house; only the second I can remember paying attention to. When Opening Day broke last year, I was a baseball neophyte. I was getting reacquainted with the team, the players, the stadium and nearly everything else about this new version of the Pttsburgh Pirates. There was also a metric ton about the game itself that I was ignorant of.
To my surprise, I had the good fortune to re-discover the game during the best season the Pittsburgh Pirates had had in two decades, getting all the way to October before falling to the very skilled, and very determined St. Louis Cardinals. I have the good fortune to know a fiercely loyal Cardinals fan through my work, and I spent much of last year, and have started this one, with an enjoyable mixture of friendly rivalry and mutual respect.
All through last year, and through the winter I expected the love for baseball to disappear, only to be replaced by something else. My typical pattern is to be captivated with a subject like, say, Star Wars, for a brief and intense period, only to see it slowly diminish, and be replaced by other subjects. For some reason, I always kept expecting that to be the case with baseball — "last year was fun, but I'm kind of over that; that was then, this is now."
Brother, is that not the case.
This year, I seemd to have graduated from neophyte to acolyte. For the first time, I watched Spring Training, and actived the MLB At Bat 14 app the morning it was released. I followed the Bucs, not through just a few spring training games, but through the entire 30 days — a period that another vastly experienced fan at work disdains as "practice." By doing so, I got to know some of the players in our future, and was even sorry when some were sent back to the minors. Last year, I was somewhat amused by fans who knew minor league prospects — now, I are one.
Last year, I was timid about started my subscription to At Bat, worried that I'd never use it enough to justify it. This year, I am eyeing both the MLB.tv Internet streaming service and the MLB Extra Innings package on TV. I doubt my finances will allow me either, but if money were not a factor, I would do it in a heartbeat.
So, here I am, grateful to still find myself a fan, and for the second straight year, looking forward to the new season with a sense of optimism and excitement. Let's go Bucs!
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Old habits die hard, new habits die easily
We are two weeks into the new year, and I find myself with a welcome sense of optimism as I face 2014. Per my usual custom, I ended 2013 with a review of my journal, and a final, reflective entry on New Year's Eve day. I began New Year's Day, again, according following tradition, by creating a new journal file for 2014, which I began by stating my hopes and goals for the coming year.
Please note that I do not call them "resolutions,' even though that is what they are. Perhaps it is because I associate New Year's resolutions" with words like "abandoned" or "failed."
One of my goals for 2014 is simply to exercise more. I'm no one's gym rat, and my exercise regime has, so far, been confined to walks in the park, and extremely sporadic work with free weights. Hardly an Olympic champion's daily routine, and not even a proper maintenance regimen for a normal human being.
So my goal for this year is to, no pun intended, step up my game. I'm eschewing goals like walking every three days, or five times a week. Those are for later. For now, I'm aiming at simply exercising more this month than I did last month. Since last month's total was exactly three, and I'm already at two this month, I have to like my chances.
Helping me will be some nice little high-tech tools, I do not run, but I have a Nike+ app that tracks my indoor and outdoor walks, even though it insists on calling them 'runs.' It's been a vaulable tool to document my exercises, and it's only gotten better since I first downloaded it.
Another new tool is access to a new treadmill. In an invaluable bit of timing, my father's old treadmill broke down just as I was eyeing using it again. It was replaced by a new, whisper-quiet treadmill, that now sits next to the inversion table I use to treat my back. I call it "Dad's Gym," in a nod to the Gold's Gym franchise. All we need now is a weight table, and we can start charging admission.
I've always tended to reconsider my fitness level (or lack thereof) after Olympiads, so I'm pleased that I'm starting this newest push before the Sochi Games. Getting ahead of it for a change, unprompted by (justifiably) moving stories of dedicated athletes, or even by Nike ads.
This is the easy part. I'm enjoying my workouts, and getting famillar with a new treadmill. It's easy to keep coming back to new things. It's when the newness wears off that it fades into the background. In the case of exercise, it's when you find reasons not to work out, and eventually, forget to entirely. It's when resolutions fail.
So here's to the hard part. This year, I am going to try to ignore that voice that says "I don't have time for that," or "I don't feel like it." I'm going to try to put the work in. And I'm saying so publically.
It would be nice if I ended this year with a couple inches off my waist, and 20 pounds off my frame. But I'd be happier if I was able to turn exercise from an occassional thing into a full-blown habit. I'd just like to say I put the work in, and take whatever results came from that. It feels easy enough now, when I'm enthusiastic about it. I promise to check back in three months, and tell you how it's going.
Wish me luck.
Friday, November 22, 2013
Jack and me
I grew up in the shadow of John F. Kennedy's murder, and in the long period of national mourning that followed. Something about the stark tragedy of his death captured my young imagination, and by the time I was eight, I was obsessed with him. I read books, starting with a beginning readers biography that was one of my prized possessions, and culminating in Robert Donavan's record of his wartime exploits, "PT-109." During my youth, I collected things like memorial records, a small white bust of the fallen president that melted the first time I tried to clean it, and a collector's plate showing John and Jackie. I also built the Revell model kit of PT-109 at least three times before I reached 18.
Early in my youth, one of my favorite things to do was to read through a Pittsburgh newspaper that had been published within one or two days of the tragedy, and which my parents had wisely kept as a memento. I don't remember which newspaper (I think it was the Post-Gazette) and don't recall the publication date, but it became almost like a holy relic to me — handling the frail pages, and reading the stories written within hours of the tragedy, became as close as I could get to going back in time to that day. As befitting a priceless relic, it was kept safe in a metal safe deposit box, and I had to ask permission to read it. That not only made it more special, it makes the times I did read from its pages that much more memorable.
I read all of the paper, including advertisements, and stories that had nothing to do with the assassination. I remember that one of these stories was a brief item about an author named C.S. Lewis, who lived in England, and who had died the same day as JFK. I honestly don't remember anything else about the article, but that name jumped out at me then, and stayed with me for years. From that time on, I noticed Lewis' name as if it were written in red ink, even though I continued to have no clue about who he was, what he'd written, or why he was important. I simply saw and recognized the name each and every time I saw it.
After we moved to Tennessee, I was given a whole attic room to myself, amongst several long shelves full of paperback books (heaven!). One of the titles I remembered was a playbook titled "Dear Wormwood," which was, the cover promised, a play based upon The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. Later, I found a copy of this same book, with my oldest sister's name written in the front cover. I filed this information in my head to go along with the name I'd been carrying around, but took no further action on it until I reached college.
Now, I had grown up as a somewhat conflicted young man when it came to spiritual things. I believed in God, but had no real concept of Jesus, and had a growing dislike of some of his followers. By the time I'd reached college, this had mushroomed into an active dislike of organized religion. What I loved was music, including the band Rush. A frequently-used piece of Rush iconography was the star of the Solar Federation from the 2112 album, which many erroneously thought was a satanic pentagram. A few, no doubt well-meaning, young believers had noticed this logo about my person (I had it on at least one T-shirt that I wore constantly, as well as a three-by-four-foot wall hanging in my room). One or two (although it seems more than that today) made it plain that my fascination with bands like Rush and their ilk would lead me straight to hell, and they proceeded to shun and disdain me.
Back then, attacking the bands I loved was a far more grievous offense than attacking me personally, although it amounted to the same thing. But if these believers were trying to convert me with this fire-and-brimstone ultimatum, they were mistaken; there was no question whom I would side with. And while it hurt to find myself on the outside looking in, the wounded pride of the small boy inside me led me to embrace to the role I had been placed in.
I began to find organized Christianity more and more ridiculous, and to think of Christians as a great, unenviable Them — either delusional, or willfully hypocritical, or both. What I learned later — that there are millions of believers who are neither of these things — had not yet been made clear to me.
But even as I was growing more hostile to religion, there was a small, tiny part of me that wanted it be true. I have always, from boyhood, believed in God, even if I could not believe some of the things that were said about Him (or, if you like, Her — I simply follow the habits of my upbringing). I would have loved for Christianity to be true, but as I understood it, it simply didn't make any sense. There were simply too many doubts, and too much illogic.
Happily, about this time, I met my future wife, who saved me in a hundred splendid ways, not the least of which was my own warped and jaded take on the Divine. She was a Christian, and of a variety that I hadn't before encountered. And while she wasn't perfect, even to my completely smitten eyes, the faith she practiced began to win me over.
Instead of making her judgmental and hostile, her beliefs tended to make her generous and loving. She nearly always gave people the benefit of the doubt, and was quick to come to someone's defense. She was forgiving of others, at a time when I scarcely knew what that word meant. And, best of all, her beliefs were reasoned — she knew why she believed what she did, and could argue the point; a far cry from the "God said it, I believe it, end of story" theology I was expecting.
Finally, and most importantly, she had a real relationship with God. He wasn't some abstract concept, and He wasn't some malevolent all-seeing headmaster, waiting for a chance to punish her. She loved Him, and trusted Him. The God she worshiped seemed real, and not at all the Great Boogeyman in the Sky that others had warned me not to run afoul of.
In short, she, and a few friends, helped to unlock a door. The writings of C.S. Lewis would soon push it open the rest of the way.
Somehow, as a newly-married man, that copy of The Screwtape Letters that had belonged to my sister had found its way onto the headboard of my bed. Today, I'm not sure why I'd brought it from my parent's home. I think it was the nagging, lifelong sense that there was something important about the name C.S. Lewis. It may have also come from a sense of simple curiosity — I'd heard about Screwtape all my life, and I may have just wanted to see what the fuss was about. In any case, I took it down to read it, with absolutely no clue that my life was about to change forever. As Lewis himself said of himself in Surprised by Joy, "A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading."
Today, I have little memory of that first read. I remember liking the author's self-effacing tone at once. He mentions the brisk sales of the book in preface's second paragraph, the counters in the third with this:
Lewis' assertion, born out in his later books, that the journey towards God began not with large gestures, but with small, steady, and sometimes event shaky and hesitant steps, slowly won me over. I was still wary of other believers, and could still be wounded by them. But, to my amused chagrin, I was slowly becoming one of them. Every time I opened a new book by Lewis, or re-read a much-loved older one, I was nudged closer and closer to what his character Screwtape called "The Enemy's Camp."
As I read more and more of his books, I quickly grew to love the man holding the pen. Particularly in his apologetics, Lewis' personality beamed from the pages. He was fiercely intelligent, vastly educated, keenly insightful, and yet possessed a warm, wry and often self-effacing humor. He seemed to shy away from criticizing others for their shortcomings, but was quick to hold up his own failings so that others could learn from them. And he was quick to confess his ignorance of a topic, and begged you throw away his arguments if they did not help his readers to understand. And through it all, his writings were cloaked in warmth and love, not judgement and condemnation. Best of all, he found a way to make Christianity make sense to me that no one has ever has, or, I think, ever will.
Lewis became much more than a writer to me; he became a friend, and a teacher. This man who I had never met helped to guide me through the mine field of my past, and helped me to discover a faith that I cannot now imagine being without. Once I found out that he had abandoned his given name — Clive Staples Lewis — around the age of two, and insisted on being called "Jack" (the same name as the family dog), I, too, began to call him Jack. I know it is presumptuous of me, and could even be seen as disrespectful. But I have come to love him so much through his writings that to call him Lewis seems cold and distant (for some reason, I have made an exception for this writing).
As I write this, we have reached the very day that, fifty years ago, saw the deaths of both C.S. Lewis and John F. Kennedy (who was, ironically, also known as Jack by friends and family). As I think of Kennedy's death today, I am gripped by grief, sadness, and a sense of injustice, as I have always been.
But I am much more moved by my remembrance of Lewis, who has grown from a few terse paragraphs on a newspaper page into an imagined friend, and a very real teacher (albeit one separated from me by time and space). He is for me, just as he once described George MacDonald, my master — the teacher that helps to shine a light onto the universe, and into yourself.
So much of the story today is about Kennedy's death, and rightly so — his foul murder began a pollution of our national psyche that continues to this day. It was, in a lot of ways, our first national loss of innocence. There would be more: Vietnam, Watergate, John Lennon, Challenger, Columbia, and 9/11. But JFK's murder was the first, and perhaps, the deepest.
But when I think of Lewis, today, I think of life. I think of what he brought to the world, and the countless people that he helped — myself among them — by merely trying to explain and convincingly argue his faith. As an Oxford Don, he had no need to do this, and indeed, some saw it as an interference with his "real" work. But he seemed to be compelled to, as he explained in the preface to Mere Christianity.
Early in my youth, one of my favorite things to do was to read through a Pittsburgh newspaper that had been published within one or two days of the tragedy, and which my parents had wisely kept as a memento. I don't remember which newspaper (I think it was the Post-Gazette) and don't recall the publication date, but it became almost like a holy relic to me — handling the frail pages, and reading the stories written within hours of the tragedy, became as close as I could get to going back in time to that day. As befitting a priceless relic, it was kept safe in a metal safe deposit box, and I had to ask permission to read it. That not only made it more special, it makes the times I did read from its pages that much more memorable.
I read all of the paper, including advertisements, and stories that had nothing to do with the assassination. I remember that one of these stories was a brief item about an author named C.S. Lewis, who lived in England, and who had died the same day as JFK. I honestly don't remember anything else about the article, but that name jumped out at me then, and stayed with me for years. From that time on, I noticed Lewis' name as if it were written in red ink, even though I continued to have no clue about who he was, what he'd written, or why he was important. I simply saw and recognized the name each and every time I saw it.
After we moved to Tennessee, I was given a whole attic room to myself, amongst several long shelves full of paperback books (heaven!). One of the titles I remembered was a playbook titled "Dear Wormwood," which was, the cover promised, a play based upon The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. Later, I found a copy of this same book, with my oldest sister's name written in the front cover. I filed this information in my head to go along with the name I'd been carrying around, but took no further action on it until I reached college.
Now, I had grown up as a somewhat conflicted young man when it came to spiritual things. I believed in God, but had no real concept of Jesus, and had a growing dislike of some of his followers. By the time I'd reached college, this had mushroomed into an active dislike of organized religion. What I loved was music, including the band Rush. A frequently-used piece of Rush iconography was the star of the Solar Federation from the 2112 album, which many erroneously thought was a satanic pentagram. A few, no doubt well-meaning, young believers had noticed this logo about my person (I had it on at least one T-shirt that I wore constantly, as well as a three-by-four-foot wall hanging in my room). One or two (although it seems more than that today) made it plain that my fascination with bands like Rush and their ilk would lead me straight to hell, and they proceeded to shun and disdain me.
Back then, attacking the bands I loved was a far more grievous offense than attacking me personally, although it amounted to the same thing. But if these believers were trying to convert me with this fire-and-brimstone ultimatum, they were mistaken; there was no question whom I would side with. And while it hurt to find myself on the outside looking in, the wounded pride of the small boy inside me led me to embrace to the role I had been placed in.
I began to find organized Christianity more and more ridiculous, and to think of Christians as a great, unenviable Them — either delusional, or willfully hypocritical, or both. What I learned later — that there are millions of believers who are neither of these things — had not yet been made clear to me.
But even as I was growing more hostile to religion, there was a small, tiny part of me that wanted it be true. I have always, from boyhood, believed in God, even if I could not believe some of the things that were said about Him (or, if you like, Her — I simply follow the habits of my upbringing). I would have loved for Christianity to be true, but as I understood it, it simply didn't make any sense. There were simply too many doubts, and too much illogic.
Happily, about this time, I met my future wife, who saved me in a hundred splendid ways, not the least of which was my own warped and jaded take on the Divine. She was a Christian, and of a variety that I hadn't before encountered. And while she wasn't perfect, even to my completely smitten eyes, the faith she practiced began to win me over.
Instead of making her judgmental and hostile, her beliefs tended to make her generous and loving. She nearly always gave people the benefit of the doubt, and was quick to come to someone's defense. She was forgiving of others, at a time when I scarcely knew what that word meant. And, best of all, her beliefs were reasoned — she knew why she believed what she did, and could argue the point; a far cry from the "God said it, I believe it, end of story" theology I was expecting.
Finally, and most importantly, she had a real relationship with God. He wasn't some abstract concept, and He wasn't some malevolent all-seeing headmaster, waiting for a chance to punish her. She loved Him, and trusted Him. The God she worshiped seemed real, and not at all the Great Boogeyman in the Sky that others had warned me not to run afoul of.
In short, she, and a few friends, helped to unlock a door. The writings of C.S. Lewis would soon push it open the rest of the way.
Somehow, as a newly-married man, that copy of The Screwtape Letters that had belonged to my sister had found its way onto the headboard of my bed. Today, I'm not sure why I'd brought it from my parent's home. I think it was the nagging, lifelong sense that there was something important about the name C.S. Lewis. It may have also come from a sense of simple curiosity — I'd heard about Screwtape all my life, and I may have just wanted to see what the fuss was about. In any case, I took it down to read it, with absolutely no clue that my life was about to change forever. As Lewis himself said of himself in Surprised by Joy, "A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading."
Today, I have little memory of that first read. I remember liking the author's self-effacing tone at once. He mentions the brisk sales of the book in preface's second paragraph, the counters in the third with this:
"Of course, sales do not often mean what authors hope. If you gauge the amount of Bible reading in England by the number of Bibles sold, you would go far astray. Sales of The Screwtape Letters, in their own little way, suffer from a similar ambiguity. It is the sort of book that gets given to godchildren, the sort that gets read aloud at retreats. It is even, as I have noticed with a chastened smile, the sort that gravitates towards spare bedrooms, there to live a life of undisturbed tranquility in company with The Road Mender, John Inglesant and The Life of the Bee."In the book itself, I found something I hadn't expected. Lewis tackled many of the usual Christian themes, but focused through the lens of "the other side," who were working at to turn the main character away from Joy, and towards suffering. According to Lewis, Hell was not a place where people were hurled after failing to make one crucial decision; instead, it was reached after a lifetime of wrong decisions. People weren't hurled into to Hell by an angry God; they walked there, step by step, and locked themselves away, while resisting all His entreaties that they could be set free.
Lewis' assertion, born out in his later books, that the journey towards God began not with large gestures, but with small, steady, and sometimes event shaky and hesitant steps, slowly won me over. I was still wary of other believers, and could still be wounded by them. But, to my amused chagrin, I was slowly becoming one of them. Every time I opened a new book by Lewis, or re-read a much-loved older one, I was nudged closer and closer to what his character Screwtape called "The Enemy's Camp."
As I read more and more of his books, I quickly grew to love the man holding the pen. Particularly in his apologetics, Lewis' personality beamed from the pages. He was fiercely intelligent, vastly educated, keenly insightful, and yet possessed a warm, wry and often self-effacing humor. He seemed to shy away from criticizing others for their shortcomings, but was quick to hold up his own failings so that others could learn from them. And he was quick to confess his ignorance of a topic, and begged you throw away his arguments if they did not help his readers to understand. And through it all, his writings were cloaked in warmth and love, not judgement and condemnation. Best of all, he found a way to make Christianity make sense to me that no one has ever has, or, I think, ever will.
Lewis became much more than a writer to me; he became a friend, and a teacher. This man who I had never met helped to guide me through the mine field of my past, and helped me to discover a faith that I cannot now imagine being without. Once I found out that he had abandoned his given name — Clive Staples Lewis — around the age of two, and insisted on being called "Jack" (the same name as the family dog), I, too, began to call him Jack. I know it is presumptuous of me, and could even be seen as disrespectful. But I have come to love him so much through his writings that to call him Lewis seems cold and distant (for some reason, I have made an exception for this writing).
As I write this, we have reached the very day that, fifty years ago, saw the deaths of both C.S. Lewis and John F. Kennedy (who was, ironically, also known as Jack by friends and family). As I think of Kennedy's death today, I am gripped by grief, sadness, and a sense of injustice, as I have always been.
But I am much more moved by my remembrance of Lewis, who has grown from a few terse paragraphs on a newspaper page into an imagined friend, and a very real teacher (albeit one separated from me by time and space). He is for me, just as he once described George MacDonald, my master — the teacher that helps to shine a light onto the universe, and into yourself.
So much of the story today is about Kennedy's death, and rightly so — his foul murder began a pollution of our national psyche that continues to this day. It was, in a lot of ways, our first national loss of innocence. There would be more: Vietnam, Watergate, John Lennon, Challenger, Columbia, and 9/11. But JFK's murder was the first, and perhaps, the deepest.
But when I think of Lewis, today, I think of life. I think of what he brought to the world, and the countless people that he helped — myself among them — by merely trying to explain and convincingly argue his faith. As an Oxford Don, he had no need to do this, and indeed, some saw it as an interference with his "real" work. But he seemed to be compelled to, as he explained in the preface to Mere Christianity.
"I am not trying to convert anyone to my own position. Ever since I became a Christian I have thought that the best, perhaps the only, service I could do for my unbelieving neighbours was to explain and defend the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at all times...That part of the line where I thought I could serve best was also the part that seemed to be thinnest. And to it I naturally went."Today, on the 50th anniversary of his death, I, and millions like me, are eternally grateful that he did.
Sunday, August 4, 2013
A link to the past
I continue to be stunned by the performance of my Pittsburgh Pirates. Last year, I am led to believe, we had a promising first half, followed by a complete meltdown after the All-Star break. As I type this sentence, we have a 1.5 game lead over the St. Louis Cardinals, and are not only leading our division, we have the best record in baseball. Only a fool would be crowing with such a slim lead, and much can still happen in the 50 or so games remaining until October. But I have enjoyed myself immensely so far this season, and am still stunned that I happened to return to baseball, and to being a Pirates fan, at such a seemingly perfect moment. Again, kudos to my wife, who lingered on just the right game at just the right moment — it means much to me that I started following the Bucs at the start of the season when they scrapped the bottom of their division, and not after they had 60 wins under their belt.
I'm sure my grandfather is loving this. I didn't know my Mom's father all that well, as he passed away when I was 10 or so. My Dad's father was "Pap;" I called my maternal grandfather "Pap on the farm," because he was an ex-chicken farmer, and lived in a rural area of Pennsylvania. He and my grandmother relocated to Florida when I was 8 or so, and I think we visited him there one time before he died. While my father's father was the one who gave me a Willie Stargell bat, my other grandfather was, according to everything I have learned, much more of a die-hard Pirates fan. My mother has told me stories about how she used to be sent to bed at 8 p.m., very much against her will, and would lie awake in the next room listening to the games on the radio on the Pirate's home station, the storied and historic KDKA-AM.
Times have changed, but not that much. My own principle method for following the Bucs is not the family radio, or even our TV (although I have been blessed with being able to watch several games this year), but my iPhone, which carries the MLB's At Bat app. At Bat allows you to watch play-by-play descriptions, stream at least one TV game each day (or buy seasonal access to all of them if you have deep pockets) and, even better, listen to live radio broadcasts of the games for the bargain price of $3 a month. And If you're a Pirates fan, this means you'll be hearing the play-by-play on none other than good old KDKA.
Last night, as my wife and I cooked dinner, I plugged a speaker into my phone, and we listened to the Pirates playing the Rockies at PNC park. There is something indescribably magical about listening to a radio game; it doesn't have the immediacy of television, nor the instant ability to check player stats and monitor other games that smartphones, tablets and computers have. But there is something about hearing a game described as it happens by your home town announcers that has an anachronistic charm that is undeniable. When I hear a game on KDKA, I feel connected; connected to the thousands of fans around Pittsburgh who are listening along with me at that moment, and to generations of Pirates fans who heard games exactly the same way.
To my surprise, I also feel a strong connection to one Pirates fan in particular. More than once, as the friendly tones of the Pirates' announcers have filled my home, I have thought of my grandfather, sitting in his own living room all those years ago, listening the ups and downs of the Battling Bucs on KDKA, and been warmed by the thought that his grandson is doing the exact same thing 60-odd years on. It is a link to the past that I never expected, but am surprised and grateful to have found.
I'm sure my grandfather is loving this. I didn't know my Mom's father all that well, as he passed away when I was 10 or so. My Dad's father was "Pap;" I called my maternal grandfather "Pap on the farm," because he was an ex-chicken farmer, and lived in a rural area of Pennsylvania. He and my grandmother relocated to Florida when I was 8 or so, and I think we visited him there one time before he died. While my father's father was the one who gave me a Willie Stargell bat, my other grandfather was, according to everything I have learned, much more of a die-hard Pirates fan. My mother has told me stories about how she used to be sent to bed at 8 p.m., very much against her will, and would lie awake in the next room listening to the games on the radio on the Pirate's home station, the storied and historic KDKA-AM.
Times have changed, but not that much. My own principle method for following the Bucs is not the family radio, or even our TV (although I have been blessed with being able to watch several games this year), but my iPhone, which carries the MLB's At Bat app. At Bat allows you to watch play-by-play descriptions, stream at least one TV game each day (or buy seasonal access to all of them if you have deep pockets) and, even better, listen to live radio broadcasts of the games for the bargain price of $3 a month. And If you're a Pirates fan, this means you'll be hearing the play-by-play on none other than good old KDKA.
Last night, as my wife and I cooked dinner, I plugged a speaker into my phone, and we listened to the Pirates playing the Rockies at PNC park. There is something indescribably magical about listening to a radio game; it doesn't have the immediacy of television, nor the instant ability to check player stats and monitor other games that smartphones, tablets and computers have. But there is something about hearing a game described as it happens by your home town announcers that has an anachronistic charm that is undeniable. When I hear a game on KDKA, I feel connected; connected to the thousands of fans around Pittsburgh who are listening along with me at that moment, and to generations of Pirates fans who heard games exactly the same way.
To my surprise, I also feel a strong connection to one Pirates fan in particular. More than once, as the friendly tones of the Pirates' announcers have filled my home, I have thought of my grandfather, sitting in his own living room all those years ago, listening the ups and downs of the Battling Bucs on KDKA, and been warmed by the thought that his grandson is doing the exact same thing 60-odd years on. It is a link to the past that I never expected, but am surprised and grateful to have found.
Sunday, July 28, 2013
A matter of time
This will be an uncharacteristically brief post, and composed on my iPad at that. I have noticed that all of spring, and mot of summer have fallen away without me adding to this blog. And while I have a fair amount to discuss and report, I have little time at present.
My lack of attention can be partially blamed on two things: a lack of time, and a lack of conviction. The time problem is self-explanatory — none of us have enough of it, and if we do, that is likely a problem in and of itself. Nevertheless, "not having enough time" is something of a poor excuse; it is more accurate to say that my attention has been elsewhere, and beg your forgiveness.
The lack of conviction is more complex. I have long felt that the world did not need me to say something on the various social media sites I belong to unless I have something substantial, or at the very least, entertaining to say. There is also a reluctance to reveal too much of myself; I will not discuss anything work-related, since I think it's unprofessional to do so, and I will not turn this into an online diary about my personal life.
That leaves mundane details about my life, random thoughts, and similar shorter fair. And for the first time, I think this might be a good thing to start including. After all, long pieces are fine, but are not always desired — often, we lack the time to read them. And often, we can learn as much, if not more, about someone by observing the little things over time, rather than trying to digest quarterly speeches.
So we have come full circle. I lack the time to write the longer pieces, and if I were a reader, I would lack the time to read them. So with the words of the immortal Bard, who wrote "brevity is the soul of wit," I shall close.
Saturday, March 30, 2013
The Rites of Spring
It snowed a few days ago. In late March. In full sun, and with flowers blooming, and green grass on the ground. Weird.
Despite this atmospheric anomaly, I'm definitely seeing signs that Spring is about to emerge. Plants are beginning to bud, and birds are beginning to sing. The former pleases my wife, who is an enthusiastic amateur gardener. She seems to possess an internal clock that sends her to the local lawn and garden center a week or two before Winter's last frost — probably similar to the urge that sends salmon upstream. Whenever I find myself driving home from Lowe's with a new collection of potted plants nestled safely in the back seat, as I did two weekends ago, I know that Spring is just around the corner.
The bit with the birdsong is my part of our hearth-and-home equation. While my wife is the family gardener, I find, to my great surprise, I'm slowly becoming a bit of a birder as I get older. Oh, not the sort that takes to the local refuge with high-powered binoculars on the weekends. Not yet, anyway. But I am definitely much more conscious of our avian friends as I go about my day; increasingly to the point of distraction. More and more frequently, I will stop in mid-walk as I try to identify the tweeting thing perching on the light pole in the parking lot. And, more and more often, I remember to refill the bird feeders parked outside my window.
If all goes well, I am able to spare a little time on Saturday mornings watching the flurry of warblers and sparrows as they vie for sunflower and thistle seeds. And slowly — very slowly — I am trying to become acquainted with the birds that call the habitat of our nearby woods home.
This morning, there was the odd Tufted Titmouse (which I particular like for its slate blue and white coloring), one or two Cardinals (my favorite since boyhood) and — just identified — a sizable family of Pine Warblers, with olive backs and yellow chests. My chief challenge at the moment is identifying a mottled brown sparrow, some of which have highlights of bright yellow hidden amid their wing and tail feathers, and some of which do not. It is our most common houseguest, and so far, our most mysterious.
It is this sort of thing that I find appealing about birdwatching — the challenge of identifying specific species amid the dizzying variety that God has given us. It appeals to my intellectual curiosity, and gives me a tiny window into the diversity of His creation. Plus, I just like the cheerful little things; hearing birdsong has raised my spirits on many a grim morning.
The other herald of Spring is, for me, rather unexpected. The other day, my wife (good woman that she is), was channel surfing, and felt the urge to stop for a moment on a pre-season Pittsburgh Pirates game. Those that know me will remember that, as an 8-year-old, I was a fiercely dedicated Pirates fan. One of the highlights of my life was when my father took me to Three Rivers Stadium, and I was able to see legendary players like Bill Mazeroski, Roberto Clemente, and my hero Willie Stargell, play in person. Later that year, I watched eagerly as that same team brought home a World Series trophy. So in my first years as a fan, my team went on to take the championship — in retrospect, a bit of a mixed blessing, but one I wouldn't trade for anything.
Since the 1971 World Series, my enthusiasm for baseball has waxed and waned — mostly waned. I slept through the 1979, when my hero led the team to another World Series win. I was awake in 1992, when we vied for the pennant, but walked away in disgust after we were shut down by the Atlanta Braves. And for a long time after that, I simply didn't have it in me to care anymore. The once-and-future worst team in the league, the Bucs had lost their shot at redemption, and (even worse) at the hands of the hated Braves. Since baseball now only evoked pain, anger and bitterness in me, I more or less walked away.
My master, C.S. Lewis, says in The Great Divorce that for a thing to be resurrected, it must first be killed. And the type of fan I was then was certainly deserving of death, in the metaphorical sense. Baseball only brought out the worst in me, though that was only a symptom of a deeper problem that I will not touch on here. As such, it was good that I ceased to follow it, and that my love for the game, twisted and warped by bitterness and disappointment, was allowed to die.
Imagine, then, my surprise when those few minutes of Grapefruit League ball woke up the 8-year-old boy who had once loved the game. Since then, I have downloaded the MLB app for my phone and tablet, begun following the team's schedule, and have taken the first steps to learn this year's lineup. I haven't watched a baseball game in years, and I've got a lot of catching up to do. But that's part of the appeal — like birding, there is a complexity to baseball that appeals to my intellectual curiosity. There are players to learn about, rules to sort out, and standings to keep track of. It's early days yet, but there seems to be lots here to sink my teeth into.
The Pirates are, according to the admittedly meaningless Grapefruit League standings, among the worst teams in the league. But right now, I don't care. Opening Day is Monday against the Cubs, and as it stands right now, we all have the same record win-loss record. And so, it is with the spirit of optimism endemic to opening seasons that I close with a hopeful, and grateful, Go Bucs!
Despite this atmospheric anomaly, I'm definitely seeing signs that Spring is about to emerge. Plants are beginning to bud, and birds are beginning to sing. The former pleases my wife, who is an enthusiastic amateur gardener. She seems to possess an internal clock that sends her to the local lawn and garden center a week or two before Winter's last frost — probably similar to the urge that sends salmon upstream. Whenever I find myself driving home from Lowe's with a new collection of potted plants nestled safely in the back seat, as I did two weekends ago, I know that Spring is just around the corner.
The bit with the birdsong is my part of our hearth-and-home equation. While my wife is the family gardener, I find, to my great surprise, I'm slowly becoming a bit of a birder as I get older. Oh, not the sort that takes to the local refuge with high-powered binoculars on the weekends. Not yet, anyway. But I am definitely much more conscious of our avian friends as I go about my day; increasingly to the point of distraction. More and more frequently, I will stop in mid-walk as I try to identify the tweeting thing perching on the light pole in the parking lot. And, more and more often, I remember to refill the bird feeders parked outside my window.
If all goes well, I am able to spare a little time on Saturday mornings watching the flurry of warblers and sparrows as they vie for sunflower and thistle seeds. And slowly — very slowly — I am trying to become acquainted with the birds that call the habitat of our nearby woods home.
This morning, there was the odd Tufted Titmouse (which I particular like for its slate blue and white coloring), one or two Cardinals (my favorite since boyhood) and — just identified — a sizable family of Pine Warblers, with olive backs and yellow chests. My chief challenge at the moment is identifying a mottled brown sparrow, some of which have highlights of bright yellow hidden amid their wing and tail feathers, and some of which do not. It is our most common houseguest, and so far, our most mysterious.
It is this sort of thing that I find appealing about birdwatching — the challenge of identifying specific species amid the dizzying variety that God has given us. It appeals to my intellectual curiosity, and gives me a tiny window into the diversity of His creation. Plus, I just like the cheerful little things; hearing birdsong has raised my spirits on many a grim morning.
The other herald of Spring is, for me, rather unexpected. The other day, my wife (good woman that she is), was channel surfing, and felt the urge to stop for a moment on a pre-season Pittsburgh Pirates game. Those that know me will remember that, as an 8-year-old, I was a fiercely dedicated Pirates fan. One of the highlights of my life was when my father took me to Three Rivers Stadium, and I was able to see legendary players like Bill Mazeroski, Roberto Clemente, and my hero Willie Stargell, play in person. Later that year, I watched eagerly as that same team brought home a World Series trophy. So in my first years as a fan, my team went on to take the championship — in retrospect, a bit of a mixed blessing, but one I wouldn't trade for anything.
Since the 1971 World Series, my enthusiasm for baseball has waxed and waned — mostly waned. I slept through the 1979, when my hero led the team to another World Series win. I was awake in 1992, when we vied for the pennant, but walked away in disgust after we were shut down by the Atlanta Braves. And for a long time after that, I simply didn't have it in me to care anymore. The once-and-future worst team in the league, the Bucs had lost their shot at redemption, and (even worse) at the hands of the hated Braves. Since baseball now only evoked pain, anger and bitterness in me, I more or less walked away.
My master, C.S. Lewis, says in The Great Divorce that for a thing to be resurrected, it must first be killed. And the type of fan I was then was certainly deserving of death, in the metaphorical sense. Baseball only brought out the worst in me, though that was only a symptom of a deeper problem that I will not touch on here. As such, it was good that I ceased to follow it, and that my love for the game, twisted and warped by bitterness and disappointment, was allowed to die.
Imagine, then, my surprise when those few minutes of Grapefruit League ball woke up the 8-year-old boy who had once loved the game. Since then, I have downloaded the MLB app for my phone and tablet, begun following the team's schedule, and have taken the first steps to learn this year's lineup. I haven't watched a baseball game in years, and I've got a lot of catching up to do. But that's part of the appeal — like birding, there is a complexity to baseball that appeals to my intellectual curiosity. There are players to learn about, rules to sort out, and standings to keep track of. It's early days yet, but there seems to be lots here to sink my teeth into.
The Pirates are, according to the admittedly meaningless Grapefruit League standings, among the worst teams in the league. But right now, I don't care. Opening Day is Monday against the Cubs, and as it stands right now, we all have the same record win-loss record. And so, it is with the spirit of optimism endemic to opening seasons that I close with a hopeful, and grateful, Go Bucs!
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Great Expectations
I'm back in Middle-earth this week, thanks to the home video release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. To celebrate, I burned two of my Audible credits to pick up the unabridged Rob Inglis narrations of The Two Towers and The Return of the King. As a result, I now carry all of The Lord of the Rings on audio, and am thinking of making yet another run at the series, this time on audio.
How many copies of The Lord of the Rings do I actually need? It depends: how many are there?
I honestly don't know how many times this will make for me reading LOTR. I first picked it up in January 1978, I believe, and have read it at 2-5 year intervals ever since. My last one was in 2009, when I was laid up with a back injury, so it's about time again.
I'm writing today because, in the midst of my internet snooping about The Hobbit movie, I've discovered several reviews that expressed disappointment about the film. Chief among these disappointments is the fact that the first Hobbit movie pales in comparison to The Lord of the Rings films. Blame for this goes all over the map, including, but not limited to, Peter Jackson's obsession with too much detail, stretching too little material over too much screen time, too much dependance on fighting and walking sequences, and so on.
So far, no one I've found has hit on what I think is the real reason someone might find The Hobbit a disappointment after The Lord of the Rings: as a story, The Hobbit isn't in the same league as The Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien started dabbling in Middle-earth as a young soldier in the first World War. The Hobbit itself didn't come about until the early 1930s, when, as the famous story goes, professor Tolkien scribbled the line "In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit" on the back of an examination booklet. In 1933, the book was published to an enthusiastic enough reception that Tolkien was asked for a sequel. Five years after finishing The Hobbit, he began writing The Lord of the Rings. It was published in the latter part of the 1940s, after about 12 years of work.
Twelve years versus two or three. A children's story versus a novel. An inexperienced writer versus a well-seasoned one. An adventure story versus a fabricated history. All of these are, I think, solid reasons why one should not expect as much from the story of The Hobbit as one does The Lord of the Rings.
As a story, The Hobbit is delightful, but it is not in the same league as its successor. In fact, several of my copies of The Hobbit, including my cherished original, label it as "The Enchanting Prelude to The Lord of the Rings." The Lord of the Rings is that rarest of birds: a sequel that eclipses its progenitor. As such, The Hobbit cannot fail to be a bit of a let-down if one happens to stumble across it after reading or watching the sweeping epic that is LOTR.
Second, I'm not entirely sure it was wise to spread The Hobbit, which is thinner than the thinnest of the LOTR books, across three nearly three-hour films. Mind you, I'm not complaining — I will take as much as PJ wants to give me. But for those who's lives were not inexorably changed by Tolkien's world; for those whom it is (shudder) "just a story," it could be seen as killing them with kindness.
Happily, I do not share their fate. I am delighted to have fresh PJ/Tolkien in my life, and indeed, am a few minutes away from a sneak preview of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Sadly, in a few short years, it will all be over. I very much doubt that PJ will want to make another 3-film epic of The Silmarillion, even if he could get the rights to it (a very large if indeed). Eventually, the final Extended Cut of The Hobbit: There and Back Again will be released, followed, very likely, by an anniversary cut of LOTR, including new footage from The Hobbit cycle. After that, I fear it will be over.
But for now, we will, in the words of Gandalf, "make the most of the time that is given to us." And now, if you will excuse me, I have a conference call to New Zealand waiting for me.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Exquisitely bored
I'm about to break one of my cardinal rules of the internet. Namely, never blog about religion, politics or technology; you'll just make someone mad. I'm breaking it because I just used 50 minutes of my valuable weekend time to watch the unveiling of the Samsung Galaxy S4, the new flagship Android-based smartphone.
Why did I, a documented fan of Cupertino-based technology, check out the competition? It wasn't to make fun of "the other guy," although Samsung certainly has no qualms about making fun of iPhone users like me. If anyone from Samsung is reading this, ridiculing people = not a great way to make them customers. For the record, I've been using Apple gear since 2005, and I've never once had to queue for it — of course, common sense, aided and abetted by my bank account, have cause me to wait for a couple months after product launches. I have also never bought a Samsung phone for any of my non-smartphone-using family, and hopefully, never will.
Despite the fact that I pretty much loathe Samsung, I decided to watch, Mostly, because I really do love new tech, and I'm always intrigued with what we can do with it. While economics and an extreme dose of common sense dictate that I limit my technology buying to one platform, I sympathize with, and am even a little jealous of, comedian Stephen Fry, who currently uses five different phones — a Samsung Galaxy III, a BlackBerry Z10, an iPhone 5, an HTC Windows 8x and an LG Nexus 4 — because he loves exploring the differences in their varied approaches and capabilities. If I had the deep pockets that he had, I'd be strongly tempted that way myself.
So that curiosity, coupled with an inexplicable interest in product unveilings and informercials, was one of the reasons I decided to watch. The other was that I'd heard that it was weird — "Samsung weird" — and was really curious what that entailed.
I came away thinking the event at Radio City Music Hall was a perfect illustration of the differences of approach between Apple and Samsung, the two undisputed giants of the smartphone trade.
For starters, there are the phones themselves. The new advances in the iPhone 5 are increasing the screen from 3.5 inches to 4, making it lighter and thinner, improvements to the camera and processor, and the addition of 4G LTE. There's also the addition of the panorama function on the camera. Great stuff if you own an iPhone 4 or earlier, but not compelling reasons for an upgrade if you own last year's 4S.
While I'm not as well versed on the Galaxy series, the S4 seems to be a similarly incremental upgrade: slightly bigger screen (from 4.8 inches to 5 inches), more megapixels on the camera, faster processor, more internal RAM, and so on. Again, good news if you're in the market for a new phone, but not a vast improvement over the S3, from what I'm led to believe.
To differentiate the new phone, Samsung has piled a series of features on it. Things like being able to pause a video by just looking away from the screen. Or scroll by gesturing at the screen (called, I believe, air gestures). Or a built-in translator app. Or a built-in pedometer, thermometer and barometer. Or the ability to share the song you're listening to with other S4 users (one would be the left channel stereo, another right channel, etc.)
Very few of these strike me as either practical or useful. For example, the scrolling gestures are done, not with short, quick Jedi-like hand flicks, but with broad arm swipes that look kind of silly, and not as efficient as just tapping the screen. I seldom have call for translation services, and while I know a few people that have my make and model of smartphone, the times when we would want to kick out the same jams are almost non-existent. In the end, it seemed like Samsung was adding more stuff, not because it was something people needed or wanted, but just for the sake of adding more stuff. Some of the reviews I've read have pretty much nailed what these features are good for — used once or twice to show off the new phone to coworkers, then forgotten about. It is, as I said, more for the sake of more.
The product launch was absolutely a demonstration of this philosophy. As an Apple follower, I'm used to product keynotes being emceed by one guy — typically the CEO — who brings on department heads to help explain features or products; Steve Jobs bringing out then iOS-head Scott Forstall to demonstrate iOS 4, for example.
Samsung had two emcees: an actor, and the company's head of marketing. One would have sufficed — preferably, the marketing guy, who actually talked specifics about the phone, while the actor provided asides.
These were aided and abetted by a top executive who's title escapes me, a full orchestra, and a cast of about ten who demonstrated how the phone was going to make your life easier by using a series of flat jokes and ostensibly amusing stereotypes, including a lady who could benefit from air gestures because she didn't want to put down her drink (CNET's Molly Wood has a great rant on how sexist the whole thing was here). Again, the whole over-the-top production number seemed to be more for the sake of more.
To be fair, Apple sometimes leans too far the other way where the products themselves are concerned. While the iOS interface is unfailingly intuitive, there are times when I wish I had a tad more control over things: at the top of that list is being able to change the resolution of YouTube videos myself instead of having it done for me depending on my internet connection speed. But I can think of very few features built into the iPhone that I haven't picked up and run with at some point (at the top of the list is Passbook, an electronic ticketing app that I'm still waiting for companies I actually use to adopt).
At the end of the day, I think it comes down to a question of focus. Apple often talks about developing products by looking at them from the perspective of the user — keeping what is useful, and discarding what is not; Samsung, on the other hand, seems to be throwing features and technologies at the wall and hoping they'll stick.While both have apparently made a very good phone, I know which approach I prefer.
The good news for everybody is that either of these devices are absolutely amazing, multi-faceted wonders that would have been unimaginable when I was born, and that are now becoming quite commonplace. Matt Honan of Wired did a piece when the iPhone 5 debuted called "The iPhone 5 is Completely Amazing and Utterly Boring"in which he says that, while the iPhone 5 is an amazing device, it's an evolved product that is now commonplace. It's still quite cool, but it's also the latest version of old news. Which means that this pocket computer/gps/video recorder/gaming device/media player/e-reader/digital camera/cellphone I carry around that makes the communicator from Star Trek look crude is now an everyday object. And that, in itself, is extremely cool.
(By the way, Honan's latest piece came out Friday. The title? "The Samsung Galaxy S4 is Completely Amazing and Utterly Boring." A nice way to keep the trolls on both sides happy, and a nice elaboration on the themes he explored in his piece on the iPhone).
I am becoming more and more convinced we are living in the future we used to talk about when I was a boy. Yesterday, my parents and I talked to my sister and my niece using Apple's Facetime videoconference app on an iPad. We had a face-to-face conversation across 1,800 miles using a 10-inch sheet of glass and aluminum about as thick as my little finger. My sister touched a screen on one side of the country to make the call, I touched a screen to answer, and the technology did the rest.
When I leave work, I routinely push a button, and tell my phone to send a text message to my wife that I'm on the way home. It transcribes what I've said, knows who I mean when I say "my wife," and sends her a (mostly) accurate version of what I just said.
At one time, I thought this was pretty amazing stuff, and it still is. But increasingly, though, it's just the way things work. Like the car, and the airplane, and the phone, and the computer, the smartphone is becoming commonplace. The same phone that millionaires and software designers carry can also be found in the hands of schoolteachers, shopkeepers and grandparents.
Personally, I think that is completely amazing, and not the least bit boring.
Why did I, a documented fan of Cupertino-based technology, check out the competition? It wasn't to make fun of "the other guy," although Samsung certainly has no qualms about making fun of iPhone users like me. If anyone from Samsung is reading this, ridiculing people = not a great way to make them customers. For the record, I've been using Apple gear since 2005, and I've never once had to queue for it — of course, common sense, aided and abetted by my bank account, have cause me to wait for a couple months after product launches. I have also never bought a Samsung phone for any of my non-smartphone-using family, and hopefully, never will.
Despite the fact that I pretty much loathe Samsung, I decided to watch, Mostly, because I really do love new tech, and I'm always intrigued with what we can do with it. While economics and an extreme dose of common sense dictate that I limit my technology buying to one platform, I sympathize with, and am even a little jealous of, comedian Stephen Fry, who currently uses five different phones — a Samsung Galaxy III, a BlackBerry Z10, an iPhone 5, an HTC Windows 8x and an LG Nexus 4 — because he loves exploring the differences in their varied approaches and capabilities. If I had the deep pockets that he had, I'd be strongly tempted that way myself.
So that curiosity, coupled with an inexplicable interest in product unveilings and informercials, was one of the reasons I decided to watch. The other was that I'd heard that it was weird — "Samsung weird" — and was really curious what that entailed.
I came away thinking the event at Radio City Music Hall was a perfect illustration of the differences of approach between Apple and Samsung, the two undisputed giants of the smartphone trade.
For starters, there are the phones themselves. The new advances in the iPhone 5 are increasing the screen from 3.5 inches to 4, making it lighter and thinner, improvements to the camera and processor, and the addition of 4G LTE. There's also the addition of the panorama function on the camera. Great stuff if you own an iPhone 4 or earlier, but not compelling reasons for an upgrade if you own last year's 4S.
While I'm not as well versed on the Galaxy series, the S4 seems to be a similarly incremental upgrade: slightly bigger screen (from 4.8 inches to 5 inches), more megapixels on the camera, faster processor, more internal RAM, and so on. Again, good news if you're in the market for a new phone, but not a vast improvement over the S3, from what I'm led to believe.
To differentiate the new phone, Samsung has piled a series of features on it. Things like being able to pause a video by just looking away from the screen. Or scroll by gesturing at the screen (called, I believe, air gestures). Or a built-in translator app. Or a built-in pedometer, thermometer and barometer. Or the ability to share the song you're listening to with other S4 users (one would be the left channel stereo, another right channel, etc.)
Very few of these strike me as either practical or useful. For example, the scrolling gestures are done, not with short, quick Jedi-like hand flicks, but with broad arm swipes that look kind of silly, and not as efficient as just tapping the screen. I seldom have call for translation services, and while I know a few people that have my make and model of smartphone, the times when we would want to kick out the same jams are almost non-existent. In the end, it seemed like Samsung was adding more stuff, not because it was something people needed or wanted, but just for the sake of adding more stuff. Some of the reviews I've read have pretty much nailed what these features are good for — used once or twice to show off the new phone to coworkers, then forgotten about. It is, as I said, more for the sake of more.
The product launch was absolutely a demonstration of this philosophy. As an Apple follower, I'm used to product keynotes being emceed by one guy — typically the CEO — who brings on department heads to help explain features or products; Steve Jobs bringing out then iOS-head Scott Forstall to demonstrate iOS 4, for example.
 |
| Photo from The Verge |
These were aided and abetted by a top executive who's title escapes me, a full orchestra, and a cast of about ten who demonstrated how the phone was going to make your life easier by using a series of flat jokes and ostensibly amusing stereotypes, including a lady who could benefit from air gestures because she didn't want to put down her drink (CNET's Molly Wood has a great rant on how sexist the whole thing was here). Again, the whole over-the-top production number seemed to be more for the sake of more.
To be fair, Apple sometimes leans too far the other way where the products themselves are concerned. While the iOS interface is unfailingly intuitive, there are times when I wish I had a tad more control over things: at the top of that list is being able to change the resolution of YouTube videos myself instead of having it done for me depending on my internet connection speed. But I can think of very few features built into the iPhone that I haven't picked up and run with at some point (at the top of the list is Passbook, an electronic ticketing app that I'm still waiting for companies I actually use to adopt).
At the end of the day, I think it comes down to a question of focus. Apple often talks about developing products by looking at them from the perspective of the user — keeping what is useful, and discarding what is not; Samsung, on the other hand, seems to be throwing features and technologies at the wall and hoping they'll stick.While both have apparently made a very good phone, I know which approach I prefer.
The good news for everybody is that either of these devices are absolutely amazing, multi-faceted wonders that would have been unimaginable when I was born, and that are now becoming quite commonplace. Matt Honan of Wired did a piece when the iPhone 5 debuted called "The iPhone 5 is Completely Amazing and Utterly Boring"in which he says that, while the iPhone 5 is an amazing device, it's an evolved product that is now commonplace. It's still quite cool, but it's also the latest version of old news. Which means that this pocket computer/gps/video recorder/gaming device/media player/e-reader/digital camera/cellphone I carry around that makes the communicator from Star Trek look crude is now an everyday object. And that, in itself, is extremely cool.
(By the way, Honan's latest piece came out Friday. The title? "The Samsung Galaxy S4 is Completely Amazing and Utterly Boring." A nice way to keep the trolls on both sides happy, and a nice elaboration on the themes he explored in his piece on the iPhone).
I am becoming more and more convinced we are living in the future we used to talk about when I was a boy. Yesterday, my parents and I talked to my sister and my niece using Apple's Facetime videoconference app on an iPad. We had a face-to-face conversation across 1,800 miles using a 10-inch sheet of glass and aluminum about as thick as my little finger. My sister touched a screen on one side of the country to make the call, I touched a screen to answer, and the technology did the rest.
When I leave work, I routinely push a button, and tell my phone to send a text message to my wife that I'm on the way home. It transcribes what I've said, knows who I mean when I say "my wife," and sends her a (mostly) accurate version of what I just said.
At one time, I thought this was pretty amazing stuff, and it still is. But increasingly, though, it's just the way things work. Like the car, and the airplane, and the phone, and the computer, the smartphone is becoming commonplace. The same phone that millionaires and software designers carry can also be found in the hands of schoolteachers, shopkeepers and grandparents.
Personally, I think that is completely amazing, and not the least bit boring.
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Checking in
With a third of March gone, I thought I slap a couple quick thoughts on the wall about my Facebook holiday.
On the whole, the thing is going fairly well. As I suspected, the traffic to my blog is pretty much unchanged. After all, I didn't specifically invite anyone, so my audience remains confined to my wife, my nephew (sometimes) and niece-in-laws (mostly) and the many, many people who leave anonymous posts directing me and my 6 readers to websites for payday loans, Canadian prescriptions and porn.
This latter group has actually been out in force lately — so much so that I reluctantly had to close down the ability to leave anonymous posts entirely. After I got four in one morning from the payday loan guy (or, more likely, payday loan comment 'bot), I decided I didn't need THAT MUCH attention, especially of the artificial variety.
I'm actually not at all a fan of anonymous anything on the internet, since it apparently brings out the worst in people. One of my friends from work has adopted a "never read the comments" policy. "No good can come of it," he says. I'm afraid I must agree; the mean-spirited often hide behind the cloak of the internet, though I have known some who haven't minded being known for who they are. Facebook is full of them. In any case, I think it will become my policy, too.
Unfortunately, I don't think I can adopt a no-Facebook policy for long. It's not because I miss it so much. Once the habit of checking went away, I got over missing it fairly quickly (apart from the odd "did you see what so-and-so said on Facebook" encounters). But I cannot shake the feeling that while this boycott has been good for me, it's ultimately a selfish act. I may be keeping my temper down, but it's at the price of being more involved in the lives of people I care about. We are supposed to care more, not less.
As for the hiatus itself, it's going pretty well. I was becoming amused by the increasingly persistent emails from Facebook reminding me of all the great stories from my friends that I was missing by not logging in. Unfortunately, shortly after that, a friend of my mother's told her that she was going to send me something for her. Since this lady didn't have any of my email addresses, I knew she could only mean Facebook. Reluctantly, I checked my message section (empty) and my wall (pretty much as I left it, safe for a few 'likes' from friends on my hiatus message. I still feel a little guilty about "falling off the wagon," but it was in a good cause.
On the whole, the thing is going fairly well. As I suspected, the traffic to my blog is pretty much unchanged. After all, I didn't specifically invite anyone, so my audience remains confined to my wife, my nephew (sometimes) and niece-in-laws (mostly) and the many, many people who leave anonymous posts directing me and my 6 readers to websites for payday loans, Canadian prescriptions and porn.
This latter group has actually been out in force lately — so much so that I reluctantly had to close down the ability to leave anonymous posts entirely. After I got four in one morning from the payday loan guy (or, more likely, payday loan comment 'bot), I decided I didn't need THAT MUCH attention, especially of the artificial variety.
I'm actually not at all a fan of anonymous anything on the internet, since it apparently brings out the worst in people. One of my friends from work has adopted a "never read the comments" policy. "No good can come of it," he says. I'm afraid I must agree; the mean-spirited often hide behind the cloak of the internet, though I have known some who haven't minded being known for who they are. Facebook is full of them. In any case, I think it will become my policy, too.
Unfortunately, I don't think I can adopt a no-Facebook policy for long. It's not because I miss it so much. Once the habit of checking went away, I got over missing it fairly quickly (apart from the odd "did you see what so-and-so said on Facebook" encounters). But I cannot shake the feeling that while this boycott has been good for me, it's ultimately a selfish act. I may be keeping my temper down, but it's at the price of being more involved in the lives of people I care about. We are supposed to care more, not less.
As for the hiatus itself, it's going pretty well. I was becoming amused by the increasingly persistent emails from Facebook reminding me of all the great stories from my friends that I was missing by not logging in. Unfortunately, shortly after that, a friend of my mother's told her that she was going to send me something for her. Since this lady didn't have any of my email addresses, I knew she could only mean Facebook. Reluctantly, I checked my message section (empty) and my wall (pretty much as I left it, safe for a few 'likes' from friends on my hiatus message. I still feel a little guilty about "falling off the wagon," but it was in a good cause.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Strange and unusual
I never thought it would come to this; I may be going into Facebook withdrawal. It's only been 24 hours since I made my decision to abstain from Facebook, and here I am, actually wishing I could go check my news feed. I'm actually missing be able to check on people. Hearing about how (INSERT POLITICIAN HERE) is the anti-Christ? Not so much.
Am I tempted to break my Lenten resolution? No. It was an impulse decision, so I didn't have enough time to prepare myself; hence, the weirdness I'm feeling right now. Also, see my previous post about my serious lack of impulse control. But I am resolved. It was doing bad things to me. But I had to at least acknowledge that this may not be quite as easy as it seemed yesterday.
And besides — my wife will tell me if anything real happens, so it's not nearly as self-centered as it sounds.
Am I tempted to break my Lenten resolution? No. It was an impulse decision, so I didn't have enough time to prepare myself; hence, the weirdness I'm feeling right now. Also, see my previous post about my serious lack of impulse control. But I am resolved. It was doing bad things to me. But I had to at least acknowledge that this may not be quite as easy as it seemed yesterday.
And besides — my wife will tell me if anything real happens, so it's not nearly as self-centered as it sounds.
Losing face
I've never been terribly good at the Christian Church's tradition of giving things up for Lent. To begin with, I have no willpower. Lent is, as I understand it, a time to deny one's self of a pleasure. It reminds us of Jesus' 40 days of temptation in the desert, as well as a way of preparation for the joy of Easter through denying ourselves certain pleasures. Well, self-denial has never been something I've excelled at, so there's that.
So, with the thought that most people actually do give up things that they enjoy, the fact that I swore off using Facebook for Lent yesterday is probably not at all in the spirit of the occasion. I initially created my Facebook account several years ago in order to see some photos posted from an overseas family member. Since then, it has served a valuable function by allowing me to contact friends that I would have never have otherwise been able to, and to get a better sense of the day-to-day activities of my far-flung family — both good things.
Lately, though, Facebook has become a tiresome exercise in the worst that the Internet has to offer. Every time I check Facebook, I am subjected to a daily dose of political vitriol from both sides of the political spectrum. Like anyone, this is tolerable enough when it happens to line up with my own views, but infuriating and anger-producing when it does not. Since one of the things I am trying to tame is my temper, a period of abstinence from the thing provoking the anger seems the wiser course.
I want to like Facebook — I really do. I want to know more about what my family is doing, and have even been tempted to do more frequent posting of my own comings and goings. But actually getting to the content that matters to me is increasingly becoming too much work, being, as it is, lost amid the political broadsides and humorous placards from well-meaning friends and family. For example, some vital news about one of my nephews was buried yesterday amid so many such posts that I would never have known about it if my wife hadn't seen it and told me.
I know my abstinence comes at a cost — by ignoring Facebook entirely, I'm throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Things that I might have seen from family are now, effectively, lost to me unless I see an email or blog post from them. And that alone tempts me to resume using Facebook come Easter Sunday. But if I do, we're going to have to put some ground rules in place.
So, with the thought that most people actually do give up things that they enjoy, the fact that I swore off using Facebook for Lent yesterday is probably not at all in the spirit of the occasion. I initially created my Facebook account several years ago in order to see some photos posted from an overseas family member. Since then, it has served a valuable function by allowing me to contact friends that I would have never have otherwise been able to, and to get a better sense of the day-to-day activities of my far-flung family — both good things.
Lately, though, Facebook has become a tiresome exercise in the worst that the Internet has to offer. Every time I check Facebook, I am subjected to a daily dose of political vitriol from both sides of the political spectrum. Like anyone, this is tolerable enough when it happens to line up with my own views, but infuriating and anger-producing when it does not. Since one of the things I am trying to tame is my temper, a period of abstinence from the thing provoking the anger seems the wiser course.
I want to like Facebook — I really do. I want to know more about what my family is doing, and have even been tempted to do more frequent posting of my own comings and goings. But actually getting to the content that matters to me is increasingly becoming too much work, being, as it is, lost amid the political broadsides and humorous placards from well-meaning friends and family. For example, some vital news about one of my nephews was buried yesterday amid so many such posts that I would never have known about it if my wife hadn't seen it and told me.
I know my abstinence comes at a cost — by ignoring Facebook entirely, I'm throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Things that I might have seen from family are now, effectively, lost to me unless I see an email or blog post from them. And that alone tempts me to resume using Facebook come Easter Sunday. But if I do, we're going to have to put some ground rules in place.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
A director with flare
A couple of nights ago, the final piece of the puzzle for new Star Wars movies, apart from the casting of actors (or, hopefully, the re-casting of actors), was announced. J.J. Abrams, Hollywood golden boy de jour, was confirmed as the new director for Episode VII by Lucasfilm.
Abrams is a favorite of many of my co-workers, particularly for his involvement on Lost. The only of his movies I'm familiar with is, of course, Star Trek. While I'm grateful that he and his team were able to kickstart that beloved franchise, I initially didn't think Abrams was the man for Star Wars. He seemed too trendy, and with a vision that was too specific and personal to take on someone else's world. If anything, the fact that he did Star Trek took him out of the running for Star Wars, in my opinion, since he put so much of himself in that film. I really don't want lens flare to start injecting itself into the Star Wars world ever 15 seconds.
There's also the fact that no one man should have that much absolute power over geekdom without some sort of general election, or something. Either, way, I thought it wasn't a good thing.
In one of the articles I read on this, the writer referenced a TED Talk where Abrams talks about his love of mystery — both in life, and in storytelling.
There are a couple of cool things that came out of this talk. For one thing, he sounds like an Apple Geek's Apple Geek, which makes me like him immediately. The main thing, though, is when he references the first Star Wars movie as his primary example of the importance of withholding information in storytelling. I won't pretend to do it justice here, so just go and watch it.
Abrams is a favorite of many of my co-workers, particularly for his involvement on Lost. The only of his movies I'm familiar with is, of course, Star Trek. While I'm grateful that he and his team were able to kickstart that beloved franchise, I initially didn't think Abrams was the man for Star Wars. He seemed too trendy, and with a vision that was too specific and personal to take on someone else's world. If anything, the fact that he did Star Trek took him out of the running for Star Wars, in my opinion, since he put so much of himself in that film. I really don't want lens flare to start injecting itself into the Star Wars world ever 15 seconds.
There's also the fact that no one man should have that much absolute power over geekdom without some sort of general election, or something. Either, way, I thought it wasn't a good thing.
Happily, after a couple days to reflect, I'm pretty sure I was wrong.
In one of the articles I read on this, the writer referenced a TED Talk where Abrams talks about his love of mystery — both in life, and in storytelling.
There are a couple of cool things that came out of this talk. For one thing, he sounds like an Apple Geek's Apple Geek, which makes me like him immediately. The main thing, though, is when he references the first Star Wars movie as his primary example of the importance of withholding information in storytelling. I won't pretend to do it justice here, so just go and watch it.
Before I started watching this talk, I was pretty indifferent to Abrams getting his hands on Star Wars. After I saw it, I was one board 100 percent. Because, like Michael Arndt, he seems to get what makes Star Wars special at a basic level. It's not the characters, or the worlds they inhabit, or the technologies they use — its the story, and how that story is told.
I love the Prequels; to me, they are just as much a part of that world as the Original Trilogy. But what was missing, particularly in the first two films, was a sense of suspense. I'm pretty sure that, between Arndt and Abrams, that won't be a problem for Episode VII. And that is a very good thing indeed.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Starting with a whimper, not with a bang
Since the announcement that Disney was going to buy Lucasfilm, Ltd., and all of the Star Wars movies, characters and other assorted ephemera contained within, I've been pretty upbeat about the future of the franchise. Here, at last, was the possibility of new (and canonical) Star Wars movies; a chance to see Luke, Leia (and, just maybe, Han) hand the Saga off to a new generation of Jedi. I had long thought that Saga wouldn't outlive George. Now, for the first time, and completely from left field, was the possibility that the Saga might outlive me. It is now entirely possible, and even likely, that R2-D2 will live on after George, just as Mickey Mouse has outlived Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. And since the Saga seemed to be in capable hands, I was very, very excited about the future. The Star Wars fan in me who went dormant between films need never die — starting now, there will always be a Star Wars, as long as there's an audience.
But judging from what aired on The Disney Channel Friday, I find myself agreeing with those that say this may not be such a good thing.
It has been several years since I've watched The Disney Channel, but I'm familiar with the types of programs it airs — upbeat, professionally produced fare, typically of a good, if forgettable, quality, starring attractive and ethnically diverse examples of the target age group, and often geared toward promoting other areas of the Disney brand. Often, it's not so bad, and is frequently entertaining — I survived both Hannah Montana and The Cheetah Girls with few, if any, scars, and my entire family genuinely enjoyed all three High School Musical movies. So I have no bias whatsoever against what the channel has to offer.
That said, I think that the first post-announcement collaboration between Lucasfilm and Disney that aired recently on the Disney Channel has all the earmarks of being exactly what everyone is afraid of.
The show in question is A.N.T. Farm — a sitcom about child prodigies that started airing on the DC last year. The Nov. 2 episode, "scavANTger hunt," has the main characters embarking on a scavenger hunt around San Francisco, and entering Skywalker Ranch in order to secure the autograph of one G. Lucas. Once there, they (naturally) meet R2-D2 and C-3PO (with the latter not voiced by Anthony Daniels). A brief sample of the horror can be found here — watch if you dare.
Bear in mind, I haven't actually seen the entire episode; I've only heard a 2 minute audio clip played by The Weekly ForceCast. But that was enough — it was exactly the kind of meaningless character prostitution that everybody fears will become the norm under the new regime.
Thing is, there's a long history of equally dopey stuff with George at the helm — and, in point of fact, he's still at the helm. The deal has to be cleared by regulators before it takes effect, and the episode was filmed before the Lucasfilm purchase was even announced. I'm hoping that no one involved in the writing and production of the episode in question had any clue about the Star Wars deal; or, at least, that they had no clue about the timing of when it was going air. Because what aired is exactly what fans are afraid a Disney Star Wars will become, and it would have been stupid in the extreme to deliberately show millions of nervous fans that episode as a first taste of the future.
Fears aside, I don't think this is the shape of things to come. I think the people now in charge of Star Wars will take every measure they can to make the best Star Wars they possibly can. I think the Mouse's marketing department will continue to pull stuff like we've just seen from time to time, but that it will be the exception, rather than the rule. I am still terribly excited, and optimistic, about the future of Star Wars — mainly because now, there actually is a future.
But my enthusiasm has been tempered ever-so-slightly by this misstep, intentional or not. The less I see of this sort of thing, the better.
But judging from what aired on The Disney Channel Friday, I find myself agreeing with those that say this may not be such a good thing.
It has been several years since I've watched The Disney Channel, but I'm familiar with the types of programs it airs — upbeat, professionally produced fare, typically of a good, if forgettable, quality, starring attractive and ethnically diverse examples of the target age group, and often geared toward promoting other areas of the Disney brand. Often, it's not so bad, and is frequently entertaining — I survived both Hannah Montana and The Cheetah Girls with few, if any, scars, and my entire family genuinely enjoyed all three High School Musical movies. So I have no bias whatsoever against what the channel has to offer.
That said, I think that the first post-announcement collaboration between Lucasfilm and Disney that aired recently on the Disney Channel has all the earmarks of being exactly what everyone is afraid of.
The show in question is A.N.T. Farm — a sitcom about child prodigies that started airing on the DC last year. The Nov. 2 episode, "scavANTger hunt," has the main characters embarking on a scavenger hunt around San Francisco, and entering Skywalker Ranch in order to secure the autograph of one G. Lucas. Once there, they (naturally) meet R2-D2 and C-3PO (with the latter not voiced by Anthony Daniels). A brief sample of the horror can be found here — watch if you dare.
Bear in mind, I haven't actually seen the entire episode; I've only heard a 2 minute audio clip played by The Weekly ForceCast. But that was enough — it was exactly the kind of meaningless character prostitution that everybody fears will become the norm under the new regime.
Thing is, there's a long history of equally dopey stuff with George at the helm — and, in point of fact, he's still at the helm. The deal has to be cleared by regulators before it takes effect, and the episode was filmed before the Lucasfilm purchase was even announced. I'm hoping that no one involved in the writing and production of the episode in question had any clue about the Star Wars deal; or, at least, that they had no clue about the timing of when it was going air. Because what aired is exactly what fans are afraid a Disney Star Wars will become, and it would have been stupid in the extreme to deliberately show millions of nervous fans that episode as a first taste of the future.
Fears aside, I don't think this is the shape of things to come. I think the people now in charge of Star Wars will take every measure they can to make the best Star Wars they possibly can. I think the Mouse's marketing department will continue to pull stuff like we've just seen from time to time, but that it will be the exception, rather than the rule. I am still terribly excited, and optimistic, about the future of Star Wars — mainly because now, there actually is a future.
But my enthusiasm has been tempered ever-so-slightly by this misstep, intentional or not. The less I see of this sort of thing, the better.
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