Skyfall: Random Observations

• My goodness, the Bond franchise really is 50 years old now, ain't it!
• Good to see this franchise reboot has completed the character-development arc begun with Casino Royal, of Bond transforming from an angry, reckless young recruit into the classic Connery-era gentleman, complete with fine Oxford suit, Q, and Moneypenny.
• I only wish the Martin DB5 had had more to do.
• The caretaker of Skyfall lodge: that role was totally written for Sean Connery, wasn't it.
• Man, Javier Bardem really just played his same character from No Country For Old Men, didn't he.  When he and Bond first met, I half expected him to flip a coin and ask Bond to guess which side.  At least I got to see Javier die this time.  (I admire the Coen brothers' technical proficiency, but seriously, I hated No Country For Old Men).
• "And what is your hobby, Mr. Bond?" "Resurrection."  Given the stubborn tenacity of this franchise's vitality through multiple actors, directors, incarnations, etc, that was probably the most meta line of the movie.
• Javier Bardem's character was also just a rehash of 006 from Goldeneye.
• Come to think of it, he was also the computer hacker from Goldeneye, as well.
• I think it's officially time we retire the ol' "He wanted to be caught!" plot-twist--the Joker already used it 4 years ago in The Dark Knight.  Shoot, Loki used it just this last summer in The Avengers!
• The motorcycles atop the rooftops feels like it was from a Bourne film--and James Bond needs to be the O.G., not the copycat of his manifold imitators.
• I believe this is at least the third time Bond has faked his death--first time in You Only Live Twice and again in Die Another Day.
• But maybe I'm being too harsh on all of Skyfall's Bond-trope re-treads: perhaps these re-treads were all, like the Martin DB5, winking references to how this film was taking the series back to its farthest roots, to the point of actually showing us Bond's ancestral birthplace.  In order to take this series into the future, this film first had to go deeper into Bond lore than any previous film had dared go.
• If so, then perhaps the film's most meta moment instead belongs to Bond's decision to finally be one step ahead of Bardem by returning to the distant past.  
• Final verdict: Skyfall's better than Quantum of Solace (which I still defend, btw), but Casino Royal remains the best of the reboot series.

Election Day Facts

I hope I have treated my conservative roommates and friends with the same respectful deference as I am sure they would have shown me if Tuesday's outcomes were reversed.  Nevertheless, I feel the need to express my gratitude, for as I woke up Wednesday morning, I was reassured of certain American facts:

• My friends with pre-existing conditions will continue to have access to health care.
• The uninsured and underinsured (myself included) will not be left all alone in a medical crisis.
• Rape apologists do not get elected in this country.
• Millionaires and billionaires cannot just buy elections, Citizens United be damned.
• Voter-restriction laws backfire.
• Bosses cannot intimidate employees into voting a certain way, for we are free Americans.
• Anti-Union referendums get voted down across America--including the South.
• Auto-workers will keep their jobs.
• Minorities believe their voice can be heard--and they are growing.
• Those who would make the rich richer through further tax-breaks while expanding the world's largest military, all at the expense of literally everyone else, will not be setting policy.
• A Utah Democrat in a gerrymandered district can still defeat a Tea Party radical.
• A brazenly opportunistic and flagrant liar will no longer serve as the most prominent face of my faith--nor will he be leading my country.
•  And perhaps most comforting of all: after living near all my 20s in the ultra-conservative bubble of the Idaho-Utah corridor, I was reminded that there are far more Americans who think like me than I realized.  

Please don't get me wrong, none of us are naive--this country still faces many grave and perilous problems in the coming weeks, months, and years, none of which magically disappeared Wednesday morning.  We are as divided and polarized as before.  But for all the manifold things wrong with America, it was nice, for once, to wake up reminded of all the things that are still right.

Young Goodman Brown: How It Should've Ended

(Please first read the classic Nathaniel Hawthorne tale of devils and witches meetings in Puritan Salem here.  The original ending is one of those Inception-y ambiguities that leave the reader unsure of what exactly happened.  But as one of my students said yesterday, the story really should've ended like so!)

...Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest, and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch-meeting?

Be it so, if you will. But, alas! it was a dream of evil omen...for Salem!

Our Goodman Brown, thou seest, was Salem's truest black-smith, and didst spend the remaining day in shop.  With fire burning and furnace blazing, Young Goodman Brown swung hammer upon anvil, ceaselessly and with great exertion preparing for the great cleansing he knew must shortly come to pass.

As the Salem sun lowered upon another day, Young Goodman Brown didst at last emerge from the doors of his iron smithy, his face and clothing blackened with the soot and ash of his forge; a most curious sight didst the Goodman present as he marched down the streets of Salem town, with multiple muskets of black-powder, loaded and ready, strapped across his backside, and blades of steel in crucifixes dangling from his sides.  

Again was the good old minister taking a walk along the graveyard, to get an appetite for dinner and meditate his sermon, and again did he bestow a blessing, as he passed, upon the most curious of visage of Goodman Brown. Hardly had the good minister spoken, however, when Goodman Brown didst straightway remove his first musket from his arsenal, and without warning or remorse blew away the good minister with thunder.

In a fright, Old Deacon Gookin didst emerge from his stately old home in a wonder at the thunder--"what wizard dost thou pray to!" shouted the Goodman, and didst thrust a blade of steel through the air, and direct into the heart of the poor Gookin.

Continuing down the streets of Salem, Young Goodman Brown didst again spy Goody Cloyse, that excellent old christian, catachising the young girl delivering her evening milk.  With one fluid motion, Goodman Brown didst launch a lasso with one hand, by which means he grappled and drew away the endangered child, and with the other hand removed yet another musket and blew the witch through her front porch door.

In great alarm didst all of godly Salem emerge from their habitations, armed hurredly with pitchforks and torches and a general aclaim of, "Forsooth!  A devil hath possessed Young Goodman Brown and he dost go on murder spree!  Burn him, burn him!"

"Ha-HA! Hypocrites, villains, fiends, devils!" cried out Young Goodman Brown, a fresh loaded-musket in each extended arm pointed at the encircling townsmen, "Didst I not behold the each of thee in the Devil's worshipping assembly the night previous?  Clamber not to confuse nor distract me, for I have beheld thine true visages.  Dissemble no longer!  It shall not save thee."

"Goodman! My dearest Goodman!" came the plaintive cry of his goodly wife Faith; her voice was strained and her eyes redenned by her hours of sorry weeping since her husbands stern reproach of that morning, "Of what dost thou speak?  I knowest not what wickedness hath possessed thee, but I pleade, drop thy instruments of death, by the love of all that is just and holy--"

"Just and holy, BAH!" shrieked our Goodman, "Seek to deceive me no longer my wife, for didst we not behold each other in the wicked one's awful baptism of yon fortnight!"

"Goodman!  Oh, dearest Goodman, I knowest not of wost thou speakest!" cried Faith despairingly, "Dost thou not well discern and behold, that it be not we who deceive thee, but the devil himself, who hath gained possession of thy soul?"

"Be it so?" said Goodman, "Then what of this?!"  And from his left gun hand, Goodman Brown let fall a single pink ribbon.

Absently did Faith Brown check her own hair for the pink ribbons.  "Why, Goodman Brown, thou hast, um, recovered mine purloined ribbon --"

"Fiends!" cried out Goodman Brown at the steadily closer creeping crowd, brandishing his muskets wildly, "Stay back or feel my holy vengeance!  Tell me this alone, my dear Faith, didst thou resist the wicked one?  Art thou a witch as Goody Cloyse?!"

"Witches?  Good Cloyse?" cried Faith, "Really?  The woman who taught thee thy catachism?!"

"Aye, yeah verily," intoned Young Goodman Brown deeply, "and she was all anointed with the juice of smallage and cinque-foil and wolf's-bane--"

"Mingled with fine wheat and the fat of a new-born babe!" came the cackle, as Goody Cloyse, a most awful and otherwise-mortal ball-and-powder wound gaping from her face, emerged from her front porch and on broomstick, "Thou knowest the recipe well--and be that thy epitaph!"

And with another cackle and a cry, she flew threw the air at Young Goodman Brown.  In an instant, he dived to the side and escaped her assault, but not before his lasso latched the sweep end of her broom and was carried off into the sky with her.

Wildly did she navigate her broom between the buildings and over the trees of Salem town, struggling to smash the dangling Goodman into any of the edifices and obstacles below.  But Young Goodman Brown held fast, climbed the short length and onto the flying broom itself.  With a bloody thrust, he drove a steel blade through her heart, threw her desecrated corpse to the streets below, and now rode the flying broomstick like a surfboard.

"Behold!  Forsooth Young Goodman Brown hath uncovered our secret forms!" cried the townsfolk, "The need for appearances is past, destroy him!"

Quickly and frighteningly, the Salem townsfolk didst transform into werewolves, vampires, and witches, and with one accord attacked the rampaging Goodman Brown.

But Young Goodman Brown was prepared.

Soaring close to the ground his broom stick, Goodman pulled out his specially-forged three-shot repeating-musket, and fired trios of molten-silver-bullets into the charching werewolves, killing them instantly. 

The witches flew after him, launching fearsome fireballs from their accursed hands--Goodman on broomstick avoided these weapons adeptly--allowing the fireballs to destroy the surrounding stately buildings--and as he did so, let loose spinning steel blades that didst sail through the air and decapitate the witches, each in turn.

The vampires set flight through the air blood-curtling screams--yet before they could react, Goodman Brown lassoed them in with strings of garlic cloves, and whilst they now screamed in painful agony, he didst drive a crucifix-handled-stake into their hearts.

But then, without warning, an awful lightning bolt pierced the sky, which threw Goodman Brown from off his broomstick and into the Salem graveyard.  Quickly recovering from this most unwelcome shock, Young Goodman Brown arose to his feet, to behold in the cemetary gates, sillouetted against the burning hell-flames of Salem town, the sable form of he, the traveler with the withered staff, with whom he had discoursed the night before.

"Well, well, well..." said the image of his grandfather, Old Goodman Brown, "It appears the Young Goodman has disavowed the heritage of his race..."

"Thou art only of a race of fiends!" cried Young Goodman Brown, preparing a pair of blades—one emblazoned with John 3:16, the other with Romans 12:19— "And thou art not my grandfather!"

"Indeed!" laughed the sable form, "Thou art not, for mine children cannot die!"  And with a maniacally laugh, he raised his hand, and the corpses clawed their way out their graves. 

Suddenly zombie-Puritans marched on Young Goodman Brown with a wicked moan, intent on tearing him limb from limb. With violence and precision, Brown swung his blades through the air, decapitating each of the walking-corpses with a speed and swiftness that defied the eye to follow.

The cemetary was now littered with putrid corpses, and filthy buckle-hats and bonnets strewn about.  Young Goodman Brown turned to face the sable form.  "No more images," he intoned, "No more tricks.  Show yourself!" The traveler dropped his withered stick, cracked his knuckles, and said with a suddenly deeper voice, "As you wish."

In an instant the Old Man’s clothes ripped off, as his red-muscles greatly expanded to three times their size, his cloven-feet tore open his boots, and great horns sprouted from his head. The terrible form towered high over head, his eyes glowing red.  Young Goodman Brown prepared his battle stance.

But at critical moment, as the Demon fired his lethal lightning bolts from his eyes, a witch on broomstick sped by and snatched away our Goodman. "Faith!" cried out Young Goodman Brown, "Thou hast saved me!"

"I didst not resist the wicked one," confessed Faith, "And was indeed initiated into his assembly, and became a witch myself, my beloved husband.  But now I repent, and use only my witch's powers for good!"
"I'll allow it," said Young Goodman ruefully.

But now the Demon had turned around and was firing lightning bolts from his eyes at the erratically flying pair of lovers.“I’ll destract him,” said Faith to Goodman, “Do what you must!”  And with a passionate kiss, Goodman leaped off the broom and into the burning town, sprinting to his blacksmith shop.

The Demon roared with rage, as Faith flew wildly through the air, defying his eye-bolts.  So enraged was the wicked form that he did not notice Goodman Brown emerge with a shoulder-cannon of sorts, loaded with a barrel of holy-water.

He took aim.  “Hasta la vista,” he said, and fired his artillery into the beast’s open, roaring mouth.

The Devil stopped, chocked, staggered—bright beams of holy light shot out of his mouth, eyes, and ears, as he screamed in pain—and then, in a massive mushroom cloud, the Devil was blown to smithereens, taking wicked Salem with him.  Young Goodman Brown only walked away, not looking behind him.

Faith snatched him up on her broomstick, and they kissed passionately as they flew across the sky before the rising full moon.  “Let’s haul ass to Rhode Island!” said Faith.  “You got it babe!” said Goodman.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Prometheus

Enough students have asked me what I thought about Ridley Scott's sort-of-Alien-prequel Prometheus that I finally rented and watched it this last weekend.  Here's my initial, scattered thoughts [this post assumes you've already seen the film]:

The big mystery of course left at the end of the film, as articulated by sole-survivor Dr. Shaw to decapitated-android David, is, "First they created us, then they changed their minds.  I deserve to know why."

Now, there are numerous problems with this film's understanding of biology, linguistics, physics, even consistent plotting, but we won't get into that now.  Instead, I want to focus on this film's themes of unwanted children.


That theme is perhaps best expressed in the infamous "alien abortion" scene, wherein Dr. Shaw uses an automated-medical-chamber to remove an alien-face-hugger from her abdomen, in a sequence that is visceral, grotesque, clautsrophobic, and intense. 

Dr. Shaw had earlier revealed, and lamented, the fact that she's infertile.  But, the news that she is suddenly pregnant instead freaks her out, and she rushes to have the abomination removed.  The first indication for why, perhaps, the Engineers changed their mind about humanity, is implied by the fact that humans, like these aliens, turned out to be something far more grotesque and frightening than the miracle of life that the creators had hoped it would be.

We also get a theme of unwanted children in Vickers and Weyland--the latter is the CEO whom it turns out had snuck himself on board the Prometheus in cryo-freeze in hopes of meeting his maker before he died; the former is the corporate representative on Prometheus who, in a reveal, turns out to be Weyland's daughter.

In a less visceral yet still emotionally-fraught scene, we see that Weyland has, for all intents and purposes, disowned his own daughter.  When I rewatched Prometheus the next day, I noticed how resentful Vickers appears when a hologram of Weyland calls the android David "the closest thing I have to a son."  Weyland had replaced his own creation, his child, with another creation, a robot.

This scene mirrors how the Engineers had apparently decided to replace humans with the xenomorphs of the Alien franchise.  Parents are forsaking and replacing children left and right in this film.

The android David especially complicates the film's themes in intriguing ways--as human-like as he appears, the crew is constantly reminding him that he is not human.  Even his creator, Weyland, straight up says David "lacks a soul"--and yet it is David that swoons with the most affected gazes upon the incredible technology of the Engineers throughout some of the film's most stunningly-gorgeous visuals.  If David can appreciate beauty as the audience can, how then can he be soul-less?  What does the term soul actually mean?

All this is intriguing because it is never quite clear if David is really as robotic as he appears; when David asks Charlie why they created him and he replies "Cause we could I guess," David replies, "Imagine how disappointing it would be to hear your own creator say thus."  When Charlie rejoins, "Well, it's a good thing you can't feel disappointment then, can you,"  David...while not contradicting him...does not exactly agree with him either.  David poisons Charlie shortly thereafter.

The implication, perhaps, is that the Engineers turn on mankind because, as their copies, they perhaps believe we lack souls worth considering...and our resentment at this dismissal may cause us to turn on them.  Freud's castration complex, of the father's fear of being replaced by the son and vice-versa, is on full, predictable display in this film.

The fact that both the ship and the movie are named for the Greek Titan who battled his own children, the Greek Olympians, in order to help their children, mankind, and was thus punished with eternal castration at the hands of the eagles for his trouble--further underlines the themes of fraught parent/child relationships permeating this film.

Also significant is that David is he that first attempts to communicate with the living Engineer.  That is, mankind's own creation speaks to mankind's own creators!

But then the resuscitated Engineer turns on his children and even his children's children, as he kills Weyland, decapitates David, goes on homicidal rampage, and prepares to fly his ship of death to Earth--a scene that mirrors Shaw's own abortion of the alien fetus.

The children, then, turn on their creators, as the Prometheus crashes into and destroys the alien craft; meanwhile, the alien fetus, which survived the abortion, grows far larger and kills the Engineer trying to kill Shaw.  That is, the creation the creator created to kill his first creation instead kills the creator, which in turn creates a second creation that gestates by killing its creator.  It gets complicated.

Yet thankfully, there are also positive parent/child relationships in this film.  Shaw is shown to have had a close relationship with her beloved late-father.  She also remains steadfastly religious (Catholic, specifically) throughout the film, in spite of all that happens--showing her faith and closeness to her heavenly father.

In fact, when her husband Charlie says she can now quit wearing her cross-necklace, since "now we know who actually created us," she rejoins simply with, "and who do you think created them?"  Just as David desires to meet the creators of his creator, so also does Shaw wish to meet the creators of her creators.

The penultimate scene, then, is of Shaw and David hijacking a 2nd alien ship to still seek out the Engineer homeworld.  As they launch into space, she says, "It is new year's day, in The Year of Our Lord, 2094."  She still seeks to meet her makers.

The actual last scene, however, is of the xenomorph from the main Alien franchise being born out the corpse of the dead Engineer.  A life affirming scene is followed by a life-destroying one.  We have a healthy parent/child relationship contrasted against a decidedly unhealthy parent/child relationship.  Decide for yourself what the difference between the two was.

Joyce's Exiles

For Halloween, I thought it'd be fun to spend all October with just the "Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe."  But, my "Complete Poe" is a bit unwieldy to carry to work (curse you e-readers, you win this round!), so I'm also reading a series of slimmer volumes to read at lunch.  This seemed as good an excuse as any to finally check out James Joyce's sole play, "Exiles."

As more dates than I'm proud of have learned, I have sort of a man-crush on Joyce.  I'm a fan.  Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, even that lovable lunatic Finnegans Wake, they all make me happy.  It's not even a literary-snob thing, I genuinely love Joyce's books--it makes me honestly sad that the general public doesn't read him--I'm even sadder when fellow English majors merely respect him, as opposed to enjoying him, like he was meant to be, like I do!

And "Exiles" is standard Joyce--it features yet another Joyce stand-in with Richard, a prominent Irish writer returning to Dublin after 9 years abroad.  He finds his old friend Robert still has feelings for his wife Bertha...who may or may not reciprocate.  Robert is willing to risk him and Richard's friendship to find out...and Richard is willing to let him to find out to in the name of freedom...and Bertha is (understandably) pretty peeved with the behavior of both...I won't spoil the ending--though like all Joyce, the ending merely marks a termination of the text, not any sort of final resolution.

So how is it I've never gotten round to "Exiles?"  Probably cause what's enthralled me most about Joyce has been the music and precision of Joyce's prose, the stimulating complexity of his texts; Plays, by their very nature, cannot feature those elements. Hence, with so many other books to read, I'd never considered "Exiles" to be canon, required Joyce.

Yet though "Exiles" cannot portray Joyce's innovations, I'm grateful for the play, because by restricting itself only to dialogue, it throws into sharp relief another element of Joyce's fiction that often gets lost amidst all the erudition and theory--namely, the characters.  Joyce's characters, from Dubliners to Ulysses, all feel disconcertingly familiar, passionate, fleshed-out, real.  All the textual experimentation in the world wouldn't mean a thing, his books would all just be parlor tricks, forgetful high-wire acts, novelty for novelty's sake, flash-in-the-pan stunts, if it weren't for the desperate realism of his characters.

It's Joyce's characters that give his books their blood and guts, their strum und drang, their heart and soul.  They are too much like us you see, they are a highly-polished mirror held up to our own selves.  And it's in "Exiles" that one can no longer take refuge in over-literate-allusiveness and High-Modern-irony, oh no--what's left in "Exiles," stripped of all other pretentiousness, is the characters alone--people with hopes and dreams, depression and despondency, loves, passions, and genuine friendships that they wouldn't trade for the world, but maybe would for their own souls.

"Exiles" is a quick read, easy to miss between the much more demanding Portrait and Ulysses, but worth your attention, worth the cursory attention of an hour or two it asks for.  It is Joyce.

A Poem I Just Wrote *Ahem*

My greeny, fresh from the MTC, trained in the PMG
(yet also a bit of an SOB, quite frankly)
(And though he said he was of the GOP
on the DL was LGBT, as his DL told me)

Nevertheless became AP, and studied the GRE
to enter, as an RM, the ROTC, and eat MREs
Well, he went to the ER, and received 20 ccs
For during a PPI, he OD'd on PCP
In the ECI, we read to him from the D&C, and PoGP
While he received a blessing from his EQP
QED

You're welcome, America.

On the quieter impulse behind Seasonal excess...

When I was a child I spoke as a child, and parroted the childish complaints of some adults--the most seasonal of which was that the Holidays have stretched too long, have intruded too far, that Christmas encroaches upon Thanksgiving, and now threatens even Halloween, all while Halloween spreads out into September and even Labor Day.  Where is the restraint! the boundaries! where will the madness end! seems to be the hue and a cry.  Reasons for seasons are lost, stresses elevated, budgets strained, etc and etc.

But now that I'm a little older, a little more tolerant, a little more wounded, I...maybe don't excuse the increasingly-bloated holidays...but understand the impulse, a little more charitably.

Time flies fast you know; and the older you get, the faster it moves, and the swifter you approach the day when time won't move at all.  Holiday seasons that seemed to last a lifetime as a child, are suddenly over almost before they begin.  Even now, I'm aware that Halloween will be over in less than a month, and I haven't even started to do anything to enjoy this quirky little season that was once so saturated in childhood wonder. No, I now have papers to grade, lessons to plan, bills to pay, and a myriad other real responsibilities that ration off my attention away from the holidays that once meant so much to me. And if October passes this fast, then what of December?

So what can we do?  Maybe we're a little weak, maybe more sentimental than we'd care to be, but we let the season expand a bit, last a little longer, not protest as loudly when the store-front decorations go up a little earlier, perhaps proportionally let the season fill the same amount of our lives that it felt like it filled when we were kids, all in our inevitably-losing battle against the end of time, lest we turn our heads and find we've barely acknowledged yet another of our limited allotment of Christmases...