All About Christmas

I love Christmas, all of Christmas, even the consumer bits like crowded malls. Not that I go to the crowded malls very often, but when I go during Christmas, I let myself enjoy the experience--no "I'll just be a minute" thinking; you have to let yourself be pummeled by other shoppers; you have to be prepared to wait in lines for twenty minutes; you have to get used to feeling overheated and sweaty. It's all part of the experience.

The only Christmas experience I can't say I like is getting stuck overnight in an airport, which happened to me once. There was really nothing redemptive about the experience. It just stank. But otherwise, I really, really like Christmas.

So below is a list of Christmas books/movies/traditions for your perusal:

1. The Bishop's Wife with Cary Grant (Movie)

The movie, which is practically plotless, is about an angel who comes down and goes ice-skating with an (Episcopalian) Bishop's wife, which somehow ends up convincing the Bishop that he should concentrate on connecting with his flock instead of building his big cathedral.

Best moment in the film: Cary Grant, named Dudley, sits down with the Bishop and his wife at the dinner table. The Bishop's favorite dog gets up and moves from beside the Bishop's chair to beside Dudley's chair. The Bishop looks nonplussed, and Dudley grins at him. Cary Grant is such a goofball that Dudley's grin, far from looking angel-like, is more of the "devil-may-care/boy, aren't we having fun!" variety. And he just keeps grinning. It's very funny.

2. "Journey of the Magi" by T.S. Eliot (Poem)

I know T.S. Eliot is considered terribly politically incorrect these days, but he was a good poet. "Journey" is told from the point of view of one of the magi; it's a sad poem about the death of an age: a unique perspective.

3. Miracle and Other Christmas Stories by Connie Willis

Not one of her best short story collections, but fun anyway. She makes gentle mockery of things like It's a Wonderful Life and the Christmas card obsession. One story is about a woman realizing that people are being taken over by aliens; she figures it out because they've started being nice to each other during the holiday season--at the post office and the airport, etc. The best story is the last, "Epiphany" which is about the Second Coming of Christ and how all the imagery in Revelations, instead of referring to some cataclysmic event, refers to a Carnival. The Christ figure is the guy who drives the Carnival truck. (See below.)

Connie Willis has her own list at the end of Miracle. It includes, naturally, the Christmas story as it appears in the New Testament and, furtherly naturally, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson.

4. Fireside Book of Christmas Stories (Book)

I used to read from this all the time growing up. After I got older, I would get it out of the library every year until my mother got me my own copy through Amazon. My favorites are "The Pasteboard Star" and "The Husband of Mary." The latter is nice because Joseph doesn't get a lot of press, and he must have been a pretty cool guy.

5. Buffy (TV show)

Specifically "Amends" when Angel is saved from suicide by unprecedented snow in Sunnydale. Whedon willingly took on issues like sin and redemption--the natural outcome, I suppose, of creating a (sort of) consistent mythology. I think this creation of mythology may be one attraction fantasy/sci-fi holds for viewers/readers--the genre isn't afraid to tackle Joseph Campbell-like/religious ideas that, otherwise, get cloaked in sentimentality, angst or glib phrases. Touched By An Angel, for instance, was far less spiritual than either X-Files or Buffy.

6. Holmes for the Holidays (Book)

A collection of Sherlock Holmes stories written by admirers, not Arthur Conan Doyle. However, Doyle did write "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle," a Christmas story, which justifies take-off Holmes Christmas stories, if such justification is necessary. My favorite from Holmes for the Holidays is "A Scandal in Winter" by Gillian Linscott. It is fantastic. It is not told from Dr. Watson's point of view, yet it captures Holmes perfectly.

7. Speaking of mysteries . . . (Books)

Tied Up in Tinsel by Ngaio Marsh
Hercules Poirot's Christmas by Agatha Christie
The Nine Tailors by Dorothy Sayers (which actually begins at New Years)

8. Church Mice at Christmas by Graham Oakley (Book)

Not all in print anymore but The Church Mice series are incredibly funny picture books--one of those series where the illustrations coupled with the dry, tongue-in-cheek text provide a great deal of between the lines humor.

9. The Little Princess (Movie)

No! Not the Shirley Temple version (gag gag) but the BBC version which is now impossible to track down. It isn't really a Christmas movie, but the second half starts at Christmas time. There's some great scenes with the family next door, including discussions of going to the pantomime, as well as some very ironic scenes showing the disparity between the "Christian" values of Miss Minchin and the way she treats her staff.

10. Last but not least, some traditions from our family--

Weird fruit from California plus coffee table books.

Sweet cereal for Christmas (and only at Christmas).

Santa and his village set that had been played with so much all the reindeer had two or three legs. It was Santa and his specially challenged reindeer!

Star Wars' presents two years in a row, including a lightsaber that didn't look anything like a "real" lightsaber: I must have thought I could actually request and get a heavy metal object that produced a laser that slashed through people's bodies. Kids are very odd. Recently, I saw a lightsaber at Border's that actually looked more like the "real" thing. I even considered buying it but decided that shelling out $100 for sentimental reasons is not altogether a smart idea.

The Sears catalog--and I've just dated myself.

Woolworths crèche.

Weeble-wobbles & the parachute men in our stockings.

The mechanic peered over [Mel's] shoulder. "Oh, an ad for that crazy carnival," he said. "Yeah, I got a sign for it in the window."

A sign. "For behold, I give you a sign." And the sign was just was it said, a sign. Like the Siamese twins. Like the peace sign on the back of the kid's hand. "For unto us a son is given, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Prince of Peace." On the kid's scarred hand.

It got very dark. They continued west, through Glorieta and Gilead and Beulah Center, searching for multicolored lights glimmering in a cold field, a spinning Ferris wheel and the smell of cotton candy, listening for the screams of the roller coaster and the music of a merry-go-round.

And the star went before them.

--Connie Willis

CATEGORY: FARES

Thoughts of Kate Rewind

I don't know if anyone remembers the (short-lived) show Century City, but here's what I wrote about it at the time:

I watched Century City this week, and it's pretty bad.

As in bleeech.

I usually stay away from law firm shows, mostly because I find them boring as in "this is less interesting than my job." [At the time I wrote this review, I was working at a law firm as a legal secretary.] Law firm shows are basically soap operas with court room scenes.

The exceptions have been Law & Order and The Guardian, the latter mostly because why pass up an opportunity to watch Simon Baker do anything? but The Guardian went soap two seasons ago, and I gave it up. [The Guardian is now off the air; I really did like it for its first couple of seasons; Dabney Coleman played the father--he also played the father in the Tom Hanks' movie You've Got Mail--and I thought the father-son dynamic was well-played. The downside was that the father-son dynamic was basically two emotionally stunted men trying to relate to each other, which meant lots of dead-end conversations, which I found amusing--rather like watching lots and lots of Spock & Sarek--but apparently, the powers-that-be decided the relationship needed more DRAMA. That's when the show went soap.]

[Back to Century City.]

However, the idea of Century City is so very cool, I thought I'd give it a try. It's set about sixty years in the future, and the legal debates are over things like human clones, etc. etc. Very cool and moreover, an interesting juxtaposition between sci-fi and contemporary culture, since sixty years isn't that long but long enough.

It was possibly the dumbest show I've seen on TV in a long time, and yes, I am including My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé (which had some interesting sidelights on human nature). Century City was mind-numbing in its stupidity. The "hero"-—the brash, young lawyer who is going to save the world—-was so annoying, I wanted to dropkick him through the plate glass window, and if it had been an Angel episode, he would have been. It makes me appreciate that however bad the shows I like get, there's bad and then there's REALLY bad.

The brash, young lawyer ends the trial sequence with this big, emotional argument that is completely groundless legally and instead of, well, dropkicking him through the court room's plate glass window, the judge lets him go on and on and on at the jury. His argument? It’s okay to break the law in this one case because it's, you know, really, really, really important.

So much for the law. I'd like to see my lawyer try that one in court: "Yes, he smashed into her car, resulting in permanent bodily impairment of 75%, but in this case, he really, really, really didn't mean it, so you should let him off."

They also used up something like fifteen of their ideas in one episode.

It's a failure waiting to be dropkicked into TVland's oblivion bag. [And it was!]

Unless this is par for the course on legal-eagle shows, and I just missed it up until now. If so, they're hideous! Ban them all!

[And, regarding my final statement, I don't appear to be wrong. Crime shows in general seem to do okay, but legal shows have a hard time treading the line between Boston Legal-what-do-we-care-we're-just-having-fun-besides-where-else-would-ex-Star-Trek-actors-go?-dom and accuracy. Perhaps because real law is kind of tedious and kind of dull and kind of mind-numbing and kind of goes on for hours and hours before anything remotely fascinating happens. This is also true of forensics, but, as the one CSI episode points out, you can always cut the time it takes to do a lab test to make it look more exciting. The end result IS still accurate. But if you try to cut a lawyer's argument to make it more exciting, you cut all the times the other lawyer said, "Objection! Objection!" while filing annoying documents with the judge, and the end result isn't accurate at all, at all.]

CATEGORY: TV

Mulder & Scully: True Romantic Friends

I'm a huge fan of Mulder and Scully. I think they fall into the "Friendship" category of romantic partners rather than the "Knight and Damsel in Distress" or "Instant Attraction" categories. (There are more categories, but the last two are the ones that popped to mind.)

For example, although Mulder does sacrifice himself for Scully, he also plays Mulder as rather remote. While Scully, however logical and scientific, is clearly (I think) enamored with Mulder by the time of the first movie (though being enamored never stops her doing her job), Mulder always seems to be holding Scully at a slight distance. He cannot live without her, and his enemies know that. But at the same time, he will never fully commit, never get too close, never (really) admit any consuming need for Scully (I'm referring specifically to Seasons 1-6). Duchovny often plays his feelings for Scully "off" or sideways.* I don't know if this is Chris Carter. I suspect not. I suspect it is Duchovny.

And I think this is fairly clever. The point, for me, of the Mulder-Scully relationship is that the final "I love you! I love you!" confrontation is unnecessary because they have already been living a "marriage" for most of the seasons. Their relationship is the relationship of people who are so far gone in terms of intimacy with another human being, Mulder's "Back off!" signs are completely pointless. Which will not, of course, stop Mulder from putting them up. And Scully is willing to put up with Mulder putting them up. Which consequently gives the relationship more edge, more reality, than most romantic TV relationships.*

*My favorite indication of this "offness" coupled with reality is in "Memento Mori" when Scully tells Mulder that she has cancer and instead of getting maudlin, he says, "I refuse to accept that." I LOVE that line: "I refuse to accept that." Somehow, it makes Mulder so much more real and more passionate than the usual romantic hero and yet, at the same time, gives you a sense of Mulder's remoteness. (Mind you, that sort of inaccessibility is great to watch on the screen but not so great to fall for in real life.)

This post originally addressed some other aspects of X-Files. The first comment below refers to my theory that Skinner is in love with Scully. I find the commenter's objections odd since Skinner, while obviously in love with his wife, can still be in love with Scully. "In love with" doesn't mean "will act on."  However, I am working through the remaining seasons (7-9) as the commenter suggests!

Voyage(r) Over

I started watching Star Trek: Voyager, starting with its pilot, two years ago on April 8, 2004 (no, I didn't memorize the date; I looked it up on Netflix). This Saturday, I finished the saga (meaning I can now start all over again!). Following are my overall reactions to the show and my specific reactions to the finale.

Overall, I think the show is the most consistent of the Star Treks in terms of writing. It has few "classics" on the order of "The City on the Edge of Forever" (from Star Trek: Original) or "Sarek" (from Star Trek: Next Generation), but the overall writing is consistently high and seems to entail much more thought than many Next Generation episodes. I have compared Next Generation episodes to old, old stories being told in a science-fiction setting--hence, the mythic and implausible, if delightful, nature of Next Gen plots. Voyager's episodes are more about character interactions or "what ifs" (for instance, what if we contacted a planet that underwent its entire history while we watched).

Of course, the problem with such stories is that while it is possible to lay out a myth in under sixty minutes, it is very difficult to do the same thing with a character or what-if plotline. Voyager episodes tend to aim for complexity, bringing up all the variables and problems of an issue, and then, oops, only got ten minutes left, falling back on a deus ex machina after all. Consequently, as I have often maintained, Star Trek: Voyager has some of the best 2-parters in all of Star Trek history, since in the 2-parters, the writers can work out all the variables and problems without the easy short-cut. ("The Killing Game" is a great example.)

Now, one solution to the deus ex machina resolution is the Babylon 5 approach where you have endlessly complicated and ongoing plot lines. But that sort of thing makes me tired, so I'm glad that, overall, Voyager avoided it.

On the other hand, as Eugene points out, "[O]n Voyager, a few episodes after supposedly going through a . . . cataclysmic confrontation, it's like somebody's rich uncle showed up with a platoon of lawyers, handed out wads of cash, hauled the vehicles off to the body shop, and made the accident 'go away.' Presto chango. The next day you'd hardly known it happened. A good day's work for the insurance company, but bad day for storytelling." This is, I agree, one of the weirdest things about Voyager. One of the best 2-parters is "Year of Hell" (with the multi-talented Kurtwood Smith--That 70's Show). It is a very dark, very gripping episode which explores the problem of time manipulation. Kurtwood Smith's character keeps trying to change single events in the past, hoping that each single event will change his own time period back to the way he wants it. It doesn't work, of course--each change alters the universe in various ways, but he can never recreate the exact conditions he is hoping for. It's a great episode: Kurtwood Smith's character is very much the flawed Ahab beloved by Star Trek writers; as a by-product of "Ahab's" choices, Voyager is caught up in these (mostly negative) alterations and is practically destroyed.

And then, oops, our two hours are almost up, so someone flicks a switch and Voyager is back to its usual self, all clean and new and pretty again.

Now, granted "Year of Hell" was one of those back-to-the-future-we-can-pretend-it-didn't-happen episodes, but the new and improved Voyager shows up even after battle-intensive shows that don't involve time-manipulation. And I always wonder, "Who are the planets that keep repairing this ship?" and "Will they send the bill to Starfleet?"

I think Voyager could have afforded to look a *little* damaged--one of the things I like about Deep Space Nine is O'Brian's constant struggle to keep the station from exploding, especially as he stumbles across Cardassian booby-traps (a great Deep Space Nine episode is when a Cardassian booby-trap goes off, Gul Dukat shows up to gloat and then can't leave the station.)

On to Voyager's finale--when I first saw the finale, I was disappointed. I thought the beginning was very smart (start with the end!) but the end of the episode has none of the gentle sentimentality of "All Good Things" (Next Generation). (I demand sentimentality at certain times.) I also remembered the episode as a cop-out. I don't mind time-manipulation episodes for fun, but I hate having the denouement, the final achievement, rely on time-manipulation.

After seeing the finale again, I have to qualify my initial reactions (to a point). First of all, time travel is an ongoing theme of Voyager (what with the Federation "Timeship" chasing them all 7 seasons). Also, the Borg was Voyager's primary enemy (and such a useful one!). And Janeway's regret over stranding her crew in the Delta Quadrant is, while not a recurring theme, a returning issue (meaning, it crops up when the writers want it to). The finale dealt with all these things. It also dealt with what I think is the true theme of the show: Voyager retains its standards even though it is far from home. Yes, yes, in practical human terms it seems highly unlikely that the ship would retain its crew or its culture. But this is the mythic aspect of the show, and, I think, one of its strengths. Janeway has to hold her crew together and hold them to an ideal without any backup (i.e. Starfleet breathing down her neck). There's an X-Files "The truth is out there" religious element to the whole thing, and it makes for a great theme.

And I think Janeway, as acted by Kate Mulgrew, plays up to this theme very well. The underlying problem, of course, is that while it's fine for God to expect everyone to hold themselves to a standard, it's much less fine when a flawed human does it, and people tend to resent the flawed human in spades. By necessity, Janeway's command style was more in line with the demi-god nature of Star Trek's Original captains than with the administrative, diplomatic nature of Next Generation's captains. Yet I also thought it within character for Janeway's older self to regret the choices she had made. And I thought it within character for her younger self to stick to the rightness of those decisions.

But I sure wish the writers had emphasized all this. The idea--that it isn't worth getting home unless Voyager can get home with integrity--is there in the finale, but it is bypassed rather quickly for the sake of all the other stuff. And the other stuff isn't even the Borg! The finale focuses a lot on the Voyager crew in the future. I would have preferred more emphasis on the Voyager crew after they got home (the second time): Does 7 go see her aunt? Do Tom and B'Elanna maintain their relationship? Does the Doctor really decide to go with 'Joe' as his final name choice? More than anything, though, I would have liked them to focus on the problem of "What is more important? Getting home or how we get there?" I realize that some resolution was needed, but I kind of wish the episode had ended with Janeway making the same decision that had stranded Voyager in the Delta Quadrant in the first place--that is, I wish she had opted for the "Hey, if it takes us sixteen year, it takes us sixteen more years!" option. Thematically, I think that would have been great. It would have underscored the show's repeated claim (shown through the Doctor and 7-of-9) that life, despite suffering and risk, is worth being lived.

As I continue to mull the show over (and begin watching it again), I will probably have more blog posts. For now, as the good Doctor would say, "I must say there's nothing like the vacuum of space for preserving a handsome corpse."

CATEGORY: TV

House Stuff

In case it happens, I want to go on record as stating that I think House and the horrible cop should become friends. (And I don't check spoilers so if it happens, it means I am really brilliant.)

Yes, yes, I know the horrible cop is horrible and is harassing everyone and making everyone's lives miserable, etc. etc. etc. (And I think the resulting dynamic between House and Wilson is excellent writing.) And I also think the cop has crossed a line that House himself wouldn't cross (after all, House stops harassing people once they leave his vicinity). But I think that the cop perceives House as a cancer and all his associates as bad cells feeding the cancer. In other words, he is House, only with a badge and a gun and way too many warrants. (I think the House comparison is deliberate: I got a kick out of the scene, several episodes back, where the cop said to Foreman, "Everybody lies," and Foreman did this little double-take.)

In any case, I think it would be nice for House to have one more friend. He could have nice friend (Wilson) and horrible friend (cop). And THEN he would get in on cases and stuff. The cop could a warped Dr. Watson to House's Holmes.

Of course, how to bring about this "beautiful friendship" is anybody's guess.

CATEGORY: TV

Two Types of Science-Fiction

There are, of course, many, many more, but for the purposes of this post, I am narrowing the types to two: in the first type, the story grows out of a postulated change or advance in science: cloning sheep leads to cloning humans which leads to . . . ; string theory leads to contact with other dimensions which leads to . . .

In the second type of science-fiction, the science-fiction provides the setting but has very little to do with the story. That is, the story doesn't grow out of the science-fiction. The science-fiction simply exists so that a story may be told in that setting.

C.J. Cherryh, Whedon's Firefly, Asimov (sort of) all fit into type 1. Star Trek (and occasionally Asimov) fit into type 2.

I postulate these types in response to my brother Eugene's post The Brave Old New World of Star Trek. While I agree with his description of the Star Trek universe as fundamentally static--and the Federation as an internally rotting utopia that finally, thankfully, gets the boot--I do not consider that the silly, even mind-numbing, philosophy behind the show has much of anything to do with the show itself. I think there are a number of us Trekkies who watch the show for its stories, not for its conceptualization of the future--just as there are a serious number of us who enjoy X-Files while considering the whole government conspiracy angle to be too too jejeune (however, the comparison is not really very fair; Roddenberry seems to have truly believed in his rose-colored concept of the future, but Chris Carter, like Whedon with Buffy, deliberately created a X-Files mythology, and the mythology itself is not jejeune).

In any case, for me, the point of Star Trek has never been to watch the Star Trek crew surviving in the Star Trek universe, but to watch old, old stories with classic structures (problem, climax, resolution) being translated into "sci-fi" (or quasi sci-fi) terms. The best example of this is the episode "The Offspring" where Data creates a child. The plot is from the Greek myth "Pygmalion" where the gods bring a statue to life. In this case, the "statue" is an android similar to Data but more human than Data can possibly be; like all good Greek myths, that situation ends with pathos. It is a terrific episode. There is also "Starship Mine" which is simply just the movie Die Hard, only on a starship not in a bank. Additionally, I've always liked "A Matter of Perspective" which is a murder mystery seen from several different angles. And I get a kick of "Royale" which is one of those you-have-to-complete-the-story-to-win episodes (and involves a you-have-to-beat-the-casino-to-get-out-alive subplot). Due to Picard's archaelogical interests, there are also a few Rider Haggard-type episodes.

It's one big borrower-fest! Which I don't mind and actually enjoy. I like watching old stories in new settings. I love reworked fairtyales (like Tanith Lee's version of "Beauty and the Beast" which takes place in the future and involves aliens) as well as Shakespeare plays set in the 18th, 19th, 20th centuries (anything but the 16th, which is good because 16th century costumes always look so uncomfortable). Voyager is somewhat of an exception since it has the underlying plot of the crew trying to get home. (Check this blog for an upcoming post on Voyager, and its underlying plot line.)

To sum up, most Star Trek episodes are individual stories that just happen to use the same setting and the same characters as that episode you saw last week. With that in mind, I'm not sure the comparison to Firefly is altogether fair. Allowing for the fact that Firefly is possibly the only perfect season 1 on record, it definitely belongs to type 1, presenting a plausible future based on present information/trends. Unlike Whedon's work, Star Trek also has no mythology (or at least, no mythology that anyone who reads history would take seriously). Most importantly, the static nature of the Star Trek universe is necessary. You can't borrow and rework individual stories every week if the universe keeps changing (yes, I know Whedon did it, but like I said, Firefly is the only perfect season 1 on record).

I won't go into the debt that science-fiction owes Roddenberry's attempt but imagine a world without Galaxy Quest, which is as much a tribute as it is a spoof. No Star Trek, no Galaxy Quest. Now, isn't that sad?.

CATEGORY: TV

Howl's Moving Castle

In general, I've never been a big fan of scenery. It remains one of the biggest weaknesses in my writing (specifically, using scenery to create atmosphere) and when I do read books or watch movies, more than not I am absorbed by the dialog and the relationships, not the background.

One huge exception to this is Hayao Miyazaki. Hayao Miyazaki is the producer/director of My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, Princess Mononoke and others. Recently, and for the second time, I watched Howl's Moving Castle. I was struck, once again, by how gorgeous the setting is. Yeah, the story is creative; the characterizations and theme are intelligent; the action is rollicking and fun. But oh my, oh my, the settings just blow your mind.

Howl's Moving Castle is based on a book by Diana Wynne Jones; for people who get upset about this sort of thing, DWJ was Rowlings long before Rowlings was Rowlings. She wrote young-magicians-dealing-with-life stuff starting back, I believe, in the 80's. (If you can ever get a hold of Tony Robinson [from Blackadder] reading Charmed Life, get it and keep it! Or get it and sell it to me!). For a closer look at Rowlings & Jones, check out my brother Eugene's blog post Chrestomanci vs Harry Potter.

In any case, the book Howl's Moving Castle and the movie are not exactly alike. Miyazaki used a large number of Jones' ideas and some of her overall plot structures; however, he also excised several plot lines and added an overarcing problem (a war). However, I don't see Miyazaki's changes as either in line with Jones' vision or out of sync with Jones' vision (this is usually my criteria for judging movies made from books). Rather, the book and the movie complement each other--almost like two different visions of the same place. It's quite effective to watch the movie and then read the book. Or vice versa. It doesn't ruin the experience of either. (As is so often the case.)

And one reason for this lack of comparison is that while you are watching the movie, you are being fed Miyazaki's stunning visions. His image of Howl's castle is effective, but the thing that blows you away is the countryside through which the castle trundles. You are given not only lake and mountain scenes, but lake and mountain scenes at their most quinessential. They draw forth an emotional reaction, a catch at the heart. Miyazaki also gives you (in this movie and others) these great quasi-European, quasi-fantasy towns with cobblestones and trains and trolleys and flying boats. Marvelous stuff.

When I was little, before I stopped believing in magic (and I did believe in it, in a rather practical way--that is, I didn't believe it was impossible), I thought how neat it would be to transport myself into certain pictures, illustrations. I even half believed it would be possible if I cared enough to try. And then I got all old and 10+ years and realized that one had to take cars and spend money to do stuff like that. But Miyazaki comes pretty close to instilling that magical sense of "Yes, I could exist there. I could go there, in reality, any time."

It's amazing to think that animation can do this, but Miyazaki does. As well as scenery, the movie Howl's Moving Castle is great in other respects--one of these is the choice of Jean Simmons for the voice of Sophie. Sophie is a young girl who is enchanted, or thinks she's been enchanted, into an old woman. Jean Simmons plays the older Sophie (Emily Mortimer plays the younger Sophie). It is marvelous casting since Jean Simmons' voice, despite her age, has the lightness, the freshness of a young girl.

Christian Bale plays Howl (by the way, this is the English dub, sponsored by Walt Disney but really brought about by the head of Pixar). For a skinny, English dude, Bale has the loveliest baritone. And Billy Crystal plays the voice of Calcifar. He is very funny, right on the mark, without the movie becoming, as it so often does with Robin Williams, the Billy Crystal show.

Moreover, the movie proves what I've suspected for several years now--Keats and Byron aside, the most romantic people in the world are the Japanese.

Recommendation: It will probably end up on my wish-list for Christmas; you should at least rent it!

CATEGORY: MOVIES

Confessions From the Stand

I like forensic shows (CSI, Criminal Minds, House), but I don't much care for court room dramas. I'm excepting Law & Order here; I haven't watched L&O in a long time but from what I remember, it was more law and less drama, which I prefer.

The reason I don't care for court room dramas, in general, is that inevitably there is this big confrontational scene where the hero(ine) lawyer confronts a recalcitrant witness and, whilst ignoring about twenty-billion procedural and lawyery rules, breaks the witness down.

I don't buy it. I don't buy it even a teeny, weeny bit. I think criminals or liars or whatever are much more likely to behave on the stand the way they do on CSI and People's Court--that is, they are far more likely to justify themselves and argue and become defensive or just go on shrugging their shoulders and protecting themselves.

After all, once a case reaches trial, the supposed criminal has already been questioned and requestioned and probably deposed. If there is any lingering sense of guilt, it has had many, many chances to come out. This struck me recently when I watched the HBO movie Mrs. Harris, based on the real-life murder of the Scarsdale doctor. Like many made-for-television-real-life-cases movies, it was kind of a nothing, but afterwards, I watched some of the interviews with the real-life people. They had an interview with Mrs. Harris (post-trial). "It was both our faults," she said about the murder, and then, "I guess the mistake was going to see [the doctor] that night."

Ya think? Ya think that maybe if you hadn't driven five hours with a gun to see a guy you were angry at, he might not be dead? It may have been an accident. It may have been murder. But I'm not sure Mrs. Harris woman ever realized or accepted, no matter how much she claimed to love the guy, that her actions, her choices, led to another human being no longer existing in mortality. Don't give me that extenuating circumstances stuff. She drove five hours with a gun, and the guy died! And it was both their faults?

But I think Harris's type of reaction is much more likely in a court room than sudden tearful confessions. Alan Tudyk's masterly portrayal of the murdering pedophile on CSI:LV is another case in point. The character keeps making excuses without realizing that to normal people, the excuses are as bad, if not worse, than the crime. But he has a moral hole in his conscience. (Which still does not, in my opinion, justify witch-hunting pedophiles.)

I'm not saying that all people who commit criminal acts and all people who go to jail are like this, but in a court-room, the attorney, judge, and jury are dealing with a person who is either innocent (and shouldn't be confessing all over the place) or is guilty and has already run the gauntlet of guilt-inducements and, whatdayaknow!, still hasn't confessed. So the idea that suddenly, miraculously said party will suddenly, miraculously break down and confess from the stand is very, very unlikely.

In sum, I don't believe that people can be broken down by having other people yell THE TRUTH at them. Anne Perry uses this technique in a number of her mysteries, and Orson Scott Card uses it in Speaker for the Dead. It seems to me that most people, even people without moral holes in their consciences, get rather tired of being yelled at and, since most things in life are rather complicated, find plenty of ways to pick apart the yeller's statements without taking them to heart.

Watching People's Court, I've been struck by how human people are, how much they rely on impressions, tones of voices, imagined scenarios, expectations when making decisions and how much they think their actions are justified by impressions, tones of voices, imagined scenarios, expectations.

All in all, real court room dramas are mostly sad, not triumphant. I prefer forensics, those tiny bits of test-tube triumph.

[Note: I do enjoy Matlock, but Matlock's courtrooms aren't real courtrooms--just settings for Shakespearean  drama. And even Matlock's reliance on sudden confessions gets tiresome after awhile. I prefer Columbo's reliance on little clues, like fingerprints in the right place for the wrong reason.]

CSI, Haggard and Fun Television

CSI: Vegas

So far, this season of CSI: Vegas has been all over the place. It has produced rather pointless dramas--glitzy but utterly substanceless. And then it has given us some good episodes, such as last week's about the priest. When the priest says to Grissom, "I wanted to be a father and a husband," I thought, "Yes! Finally, a believable motive!" When Ballykissangel had Father Clifford contemplate leaving the priesthood, they couldn't come up with a plausible motive, and the show suffered. In order for a believing, committed priest to leave the priesthood (and not lose his concept of his own soul), he would have to believe that he was "called" to another role in life. CSI got that bit of psychology dead on; the other interchanges regarding religion were also well-written.

On the other hand, the episode with the evil teenagers was awful in terms of plot development and preachy dialog. I mean, what was that all about? I felt like the writers sure wanted to say something, but sure didn't know how to say it, so we got a bunch of platitudes instead. Again, the episode relied too much on the visuals. Don't get me wrong. I think the music video quality of LV's visuals can be downright stunning. But I start feeling manipulated when the visuals take the place of plotting or insightful dialog.

I do like the way Grissom and Sarah's relationship is playing out in the workplace.

Rider Haggard

Rider Haggard was the original Da Vinci Code guy. He didn't write gnostic-gospel type stuff, but he wrote the original archealogist chase novels. And I have to say, Dan Brown looks pretty wimpy in comparison. In She, which I'm reading now (Haggard also wrote King Solomon's Mines), Haggard invents an ancient text, obligingly translates the ancient text into Greek letters, then translates that into Greek cursive and THEN, translates that into English. There's about a chapter of this kind of thing in She. Well, thank you, Haggard. This creation of a whole imagined past is much more in the Tolkien tradition than the Brown tradition.

Poirot and Cool Television

I was watching a Poirot episode the other day. Hastings and Inspector Japp are walking along a wharf. They skirt a couple of men playing a chess game with huge pieces. I've seen this episode before, but this time, I thought, "Wait a minute," and backed up. Yup! Two guys in 30's style dress, playing chess with human size chess pieces. I went back a few more frames and yup, you can see them from the window of the hotel before the close-ups.

This is so cool. You see, Poriot is a period piece, and the episode is set at a seaside resort. What the chess pieces mean is that someone, whilst researching 1930's seaside resorts, came across this huge chess piece stuff and decided to stick it in the episode. For all of 1 minute!

I love that. I love that people care to do stuff like that. I love that there are writers and craftspeople and set designers and directors out there who think that it is worth the expense to hire two non-speaking actors, design extra props (or borrow them from somewhere) and film a sequence including said props, even though the props are mainly background. All for the sake of . . . ambience, tone!

Of course, this sort of thing gets really expensive, which is why Joss Whedon, who does it quite often, makes networks nervous. But I love it that there are people who think it is worthwhile to do stuff like that.

CATEGORY: FARES

Star Trek Kids

I'll start with Star Trek: Next Generation since Star Trek: Original did not have an ongoing child star (unless one counts Chekhov). Wesley: Wesley was supposed to be the brilliant genius boy of the show. Hence, he immediately became the recipient of all the loathing people feel towards "I can fix the warp engine in six easy steps" type characters.

This was a pity since the actor (Wil Wheaton) was a somewhat better actor than he was given credit for. Not a great actor. Just better than the aura of genius-child led viewers to believe.

Out of the Next Generation children, I myself far preferred Alexander, and I thought the Worf-Alexander episodes were some of the best Next Gen did. Alexander is Worf's kid and a small bundle of constant and opinionated motion.

Overall, however, I credit Deep Space Nine with the best children: Jake and Nog. The wonderful thing about Jake and Nog is that neither of them was expected to be part of the operations on the space station. Secondly, Jake especially was a downright likable kid, being decent without being either overly Pollyanish or overly bratty.

The nice thing about Nog was that he pushed beyond the assumptions of his culture but didn't become too human. This was true, actually, for the entire House of Quark, wherein Quark (who lives far from his home world) remains wholly himself while expanding beyond his culture's expectations. (This was to an extent one of the themes of the show; Odo and Garak also experience separation from their homelands and are thereby required to adjust and adapt against their wishes.)

On Voyager, interestingly enough, most of the children were seen in relationship to 7-of-9: Naomi Wildman and Icheb. I thought the Icheb character especially effective. In his case, the bright boy of Starfleet persona was somewhat more believable than with Wesley. You feel that this isn't a little adult but a somewhat gawky yet kind teenager who just happens to be bright. He was also a good counterfoil to 7-of-9, and I count it a point in the actor's favor that a (tepid) sexual tension existed between Icheb and 7-of-9; a 17 year old boy, no matter how long he was kept in stasis, would have to deaf, dumb and comotose NOT to react to 7-of-9.

As I understand it, Enterprise had no children. Archer does have a dog which brings one back around to Next Gen and Data's cat, Spot. Not that children and animals are necessarily equated, but I did grow very fond of Spot. (I enjoyed Data's poetry on the subject). I would have liked to see Data get a kid. Like Voyager's Doctor, Data could always supply good fodder for the plot mill.

CATEGORY: TV

Read Read Read Read Read Read Read

I am one of those people who checks out way more library books than I actually end up reading. I don't feel guilty about this because I worked at a library in my early 20's and learned then the connection between circulation numbers and increased budgets--as well as the connection between circulation numbers and discards, so occasionally I'll even check out a book I own in order to strengthen that book's circulation numbers. (My apologies to my sister who is a librarian and prefers "real" numbers over deliberately manufactured ones.)

Books are like candy to me. Or like beer to people who frequent bars (although I'm sure there are poeple who frequent bars for other reasons--friends, etc.--than the alcohol, just as there are lots and lots of people who attend libraries for the sake of the internet and the soft arm chairs). In general, choosing a book is almost an instinctual process for me. I am a sucker for well-designed covers, but a well-designed cover, or blurb, isn't enough to move the book onto my pile.

With non-fiction, I will often read the first paragraph or skip to the middle and read a passage. With non-fiction, the author's style is paramount. I have read great non-fiction books on subjects that don't especially interest me simply because the style was attractive. And I've put back books about subjects that interest me because *yawn* *yawn* the style put me to sleep on my feet.

With fiction, slightly different approaches ensue. I am, I admit, a tad careful over new authors. I almost always glance at (even if I don't check out) the sci-fi, fantasy and mystery books. Every now and again I get lucky and start up a new author. I discovered Sarah Monette this way. And Holmes on the Range. With fiction, however, the emotional commitment is far higher than with non-fiction. The book, if I like it, will take over my world for a day or three days or a week (however long it takes to finish), and I want to be prepared. And yes, I am the sort of person who reads the end in order to see if I really want to put myself through the rest (see the movie Alex & Emma).

All other selections fall into the categories "Tried and True" or "New Book/Known Author." Agatha Christie is tried and true. As are Georgette Heyer, Ngaoi Marsh, Catherine Aird, J.R.R. Tolkien, Connie Willis. I love rereading books although some, like the Narnia books, I have to put off rereading for long stretches. There isn't much point in rereading when you can practically recite the stuff by heart.

"New Book/Known Author" is more of a crap shoot. There are authors like C.J. Cherryh of whom I will read anything she writes (although currently, I'm sticking with the Foreigner series for time management purposes). I trust her utterly. Connie Willis is the same. The same is true of Alexander McCall Smith. Others, like Charlaine Harris and the truly creative Kerry Greenwood and even Patricia McKillip, I respect but am more leery towards. Some of their books are really good. Some aren't and in some cases, as with Harris' vampire series, the series starts to fade on me.

And some authors I read once and never touch again. It isn't that I get bored with the series or that I think one book is less rewritten than another. Often, it is simply that the one book interested me and nothing else does. Douglas Coupland's Microserfs is an example of this. I loved Microserfs, yet I've never wanted to read anything else by Coupland. The other books might actually be better. But with so many books and so little comparative time, one must be (a little) choosy.

And then, of course, there are the books, like Da Vinci Code and Gibbons' The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, that I get out and don't read and get out and don't read and get out and . . . why don't I just give up already!

Books I've checked out recently:

I'm in the middle of Agincourt by Juliet Barker--great style, not finished.
The Aeneid by Virgil--pretty stellar, almost done; never read it before!
Revolutionary Characters by Wood--good beginning, seems interesting but due tomorrow
Virtu by Monette--sequel to Melusine; I'm rereading Melusine first
Three-Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie--one of her least known mysteries
Collected Plays of Agatha Christie--I own it but it's in a box somewhere, and I don't want to bother to fish it out
Holmes for the Holidays--tried and true; great collection of Sherlock Holmes stories
New Alexander McCall Smith book--Dream Angus
Exodus: Why Americans are Fleeing Liberal Churches for Conservative Christianity--finished; quick read; okay, not great
Blenheim--will probably never get to
Behold, Here's Poison by Georgette Heyer--tried and true
A bunch of books on film criticism for my Comp class
A bunch of books on science/general knowledge--for referencing
A book on writing; I always get these out, don't read them and take them back unopened.
Jane Eyre--read it before; might be time to read it again
Evolution-Creation Struggle by Ruse--pretty interesting but a bit slow in parts; 1/3 of the way through

CATEGORY: BOOKS

The Confessable Pleasures of People's Court

I am occasionally home in the afternoons these days and sometimes, while making lesson plans, I catch some of that wacky daytime television. It is admittedly pretty awful, and the number of psychology-lite shows is truly astonishing. So when I want some real grit, I turn to People's Court.

I get a huge kick out of People's Court for several reasons. The first reason is that the announcer makes zero attempt to be suave. It's pure over-the-top Barnum & Bailey ringmaster stuff: "He's accused of being a cheapskate." "She's a woman with a mansion and SHE wants payback." The point being that I don't mind trite and tacky as long as everybody knows it is trite and tacky.

The other reason I enjoy it is Judge Marylin Millian. She really is the pick of the crop amongst daytime judges. First of all, she is fun to watch. Second, she has a real knack for sizing up people (the trick with these shows is to remember that the judge has seen all the complaints and whatnot before the case gets on TV; she just uses the television portion to verify evidence; so when it looks like she is cutting people short--and this is true for all the TV judges--she is really just moving on from evidence that she has already looked over) as well as her ability to put in plain speak commonsense rules of life.

I look on it as a kind of therapy. I can get very frustrated with my students sometimes, and it is refreshing to have someone else say all the stuff I'd like to say but can't.

For example, there was a lady on one day who agreed to take care of another lady's dog (for money) and then the dog got out and the lady who was supposed to take care of it didn't want to pay for the lost dog. The judge pointed out that if you agree to take care of someone's dog as a service, and you lose the dog, it really doesn't matter much whether or not you INTENDED to lose the dog. You still lost it.

This is enormously refreshing although I'm sure that, like Dr. Laura, it'll get old after awhile, and I'll go back to watching Rumpole of the Bailey episodes while I figure out how to make grammar interesting. I never did understand why people who listen to Dr. Laura would NEED to call her. I KNOW what she is going to say. How could you possibly be surprised that she doesn't think you should have a baby by your drunken, abusive boyfriend who is twenty years older than you? Why would you bother to call and get yelled at?

I think it is "But this time it is different" syndrome. Now, in matters of the heart, I think there is some truth to the "But this time it is different" protestation. I'm not advocating relationships with drunken, abusive boyfriends, but I really don't think there is a one-size-fits-all solution to personal relationships out there. (But people sure want to believe that there is--hence all the psychology-lite shows.)

But with the law, well, the law is the law. Even when Judge Millian feels sorry for people, hey, if you don't have the proof, you don't have the proof. And if you came to court without proof, nice having you but you just lost your own case. And boy, that's nice to hear. I don't think of myself as an especially harsh person, but I get very weary sometimes of all the reasons students have for not getting their work done each week. (Although I try to remind myself that from their perspective, it is one excuse; from my perspective, it is number one thousand and three hundred twenty eight.) If you want to earn 3.0 credit hours, come to class and do the work. Why complicate it with a bunch of excuses?

I think this means I'm getting old.

In any case, it's nice to watch a show where people who behave badly by commonsense standards are told they are behaving badly by commonsense standards. And where women who have babies by drunken, abusive men are told they are stupid. But the men still have to pay child support.

CATEGORY:TV

Sherlock: Brett and Everett

I recently watched Rupert Everett as Sherlock Holmes in The Case of the Silk Stocking. I enjoy Everett in general and, on paper, you'd think he'd make a perfect Holmes. He is almost too handsome, but he has the classic Holmes' profile. He is tall, saturnine. He exudes an off-kilter vibe.

As Holmes on the screen, however, he is all wrong. He comes across as bored aristocrat, a la his role in The Ideal Husband. He is too genial on the one hand, too off-hand on the other. At one point, he comes into Watson's apartment and sprawls on a sofa opposite Watson's fiance. As he exchanges witty conversation with her, he does not come across, even vaguely, as a highly critical and intense misogynist. Most disappointing, he doesn't even come across as particularly brilliant.

I think it is a misuse of Everett. As a detective aristocrat, he would be perfect. He is far more Wimsey than Holmes.

To be fair, I am comparing Everett to Jeremy Brett. I consider Granada's Sherlock Holmes series to be the most brilliant on record with Brett as the standard bearer for all future Holmes. Brett not only has the perfect profile, his face has more roughness, more vulture-like qualities than Everett's. He is a coiled spring, a contained manic-depressive who leaps, at a moment, from low to high energy. He NEVER sprawls. He is private, self-contained with a brain that works 24/7. He is much more Monk than Wimsey. He is also intensely middleclass (this is important to the context: Watson and Holmes are gentlemen, but they are NOT aristocrats; they came out of a class that considered its middleclass status preferable to aristocracy; Queen Victoria had made middleclass conservatism cool).

I also love Granada's Watsons: David Burke and Edward Hardwicke. They play Watson as an intelligent professional man. His intelligence makes Holmes' brilliance more apparent. Neither of them are buffoons. And both of them, Hardwicke especially, have an immense kindliness of manner, displaying decent, gentleman-like behavior at every turn.

Finally, what is so wonderful about Granada's Holmes, produced by Michael Cox, is that it captures the feel/essence of the stories without being simply retellings. Brett's influence and the director's influence on the outcome is apparent. The stories are fleshed out with more details, more perspectives, more nuances--you feel that this is truly Holmes come to life. On the other hand, the series displays a great deal of respect for Arthur Conan Doyle and for the stories.

This is a huge contrast to the latest Miss Marple mysteries (2004) where the writers continually alter HUGE hunks of the original stories. I endured them for awhile, but eventually the producer(s)' contempt for Christie's craft got to me. They alter plot lines. They change Christie's characterizations. They even switch murderers! It never seems to occur to them that the reason people like Christie is because she tells a good story. She wasn't an intellectual writer, but she was a stunning craftswoman, and these would-be adapters aren't even half that good.

And I don't expect them to be. But when you are offered decent material, use it! In comparison, both Michael Cox and Brian Eastman (who does the Poirot movies) have exhibited a strong comprehension of the power and structure of the original stories as well as an ability to transform and visualize that comprehension.

Back to Everett--it didn't bother me that they made up a new story. Making up new stories about Holmes is a time-honored tradition. But their Holmes simply wasn't Holmes. Why not just make the film about some 1890s aristocrat who gets dragged into doing a bit of detecting? (Answer: they wanted to make money off the Holmes' name.)

CATEGORY: TV

New Season

I wasn't too happy with the season premiere of How I Met Your Mother. I thought Season 1 very funny and just plain cute. However, it is a show with a resident bombastic jerk, Barney (Neil Patrick Harris). Harris is perfectly cast and very good at his job (see my post below about great jerks), but he needs to be reined in. Otherwise the show just turns into, well, Two and Half Men: lots of potty humor. Yawn. Yawn. I felt that Barney was expected to carry too much of the premiere. It would be like Hodges (another excellent jerk) being expected to carry an entire CSI episode. In doses, he is fantastic. An hour of him simply wouldn't work.

Hopefully, the show will even out as the season continues. (It could be that they just need to get Alyson Hannigan back into the mix).

Speaking of CSI: Vegas, I was disappointed. The set-up for the cases was blow-your-mind gorgeous. But the mysteries themselves were ho-hum. Even by ho-hum standards. Half-way through the show, I thought, "Oh no. Oh no. They're going to do the Without a Trace thing" where you have fifty minutes of character development to ten minutes of mystery. It was just so "here's another scene where we show you characters reacting to each other." Yuck.

However, the last two mysteries were pretty darn interesting. So I won't give up hope yet.

I didn't see the premiere of House but based on the next two episodes, I would say it is right on the money, as usual. I recently read an article about Hugh Laurie. The article mentioned that a number of networks are now trying to create "hero jerk who tells it as it is" shows. (Justice and Shark, for instance.) Such shows might take off, but the writer correctly expressed some doubt. The fact is House works because of Laurie. It's a British thing. In America, we tend to think of character actors as one-trick ponies. In Britain, a character actor can be fully complex while still remaining on-task (Atkinson in Black Adder; Dawn French as the Vicar of Dibley). Consequently, Laurie doesn't act like a jerk and then act like Mr. Smiley. He retains an inner consistency of idiosyncrasies (and as far as I can tell, never forgets them) along with his flawless American accent and his limp and cane.

Hasn't anyone gotten rid of Ghost Whisperer yet? Yes, I stay home on Friday nights, and I'd like something else in that time slot.

Criminal Minds still has lousy music (although they seem to have punched it up a bit). This is a show that could actually use some more character development (with Mandy Patinkin as the House character). Serial killings are frankly too gruesome for long term consumption. All in all, I thought "The Fisher King, Part 2" was a success. I also have to mention that Gubler (who plays Reid) is possibly the oddest sexy guy I've ever seen on television. He really is sexy, but boy, not at all typical. Kudos. He and Patinkin and Gibson form a kind of triumvirate of intense, sexy, odd guys (with Gibson's "normalcy" offsetting the other two). They are the best part of the show although I like all the other characters, and I think Glaudini is an especially strong character.

Bones was good. I don't really get the point of Tamara Taylor. I don't think scooby gangs benefit from too many additions. Keep it tight and small is my recommendation. I really enjoyed David Boreanaz in the premiere. I think he and Emily Deschanels have great sexual tension, and he was at his most charming. It was like a time warp back to Angel: nice Angel, of course.

CATEGORY: TV

Pet Peeves

Friendly Drivers

Don't get me wrong. I always appreciate a driver who lets me into a single line of traffic on a right hand turn. Mucho thanks. What drives me crazy are extra friendly drivers who try to get me killed.

Here is the scenario: you're trying to make a left hand turn out of a driveway or a shopping center across two lanes of traffic. It's all very legal, but if the lane you want to turn into is at all busy, it can be a bit, well, tense.

Friendly driver comes along and stops. Usually, the friendly driver stops in the lane closest to you. So now you can't see the second lane. On top of that, none of the cars behind the friendly driver have a clue why the friendly driver stopped, so they start to go around the friendly driver. In the meantime, the lane you want to turn into is jammed with cars (or it temporarily clears but you can't get to it because of all the cars going around the friendly driver).

And the friendly driver looks at you and waves. Like "Go on. I'm looking out for you." The more you stall, the more puzzled the friendly driver gets. And because there's several inches of glass, metal and air between you, you can't yell, "I don't want to die!!" Because there is no way you are going to get safely across that second lane of traffic AND find the lane you want to turn into magically clear. All of a sudden like.

It's one of the few times in my life when friendliness doesn't exert much pressure on me. In the case of friendly drivers, I consider what they are doing so incredibly dangerous, I don't much care how they feel. Neither do I feel obliged to play "No, you go. No, you go" hand signal games with them. So I just ignore them--eyes to the sky--and eventually, they go away.

I'm all in favor of courtesy on the road. What I'm against is people who try to exercise noblesse oblige on the road. It's one thing to do it when you're walking into a restaurant. It's quite another when you are dealing with a ton of steel.

Sitcoms in Syndication

Why don't they show them in order? I have probably seen the same Frasier episodes about four times now, but I've never seen the continuing storyline for when Roz gets mad at Frasier and takes another job. I would prefer to watch shows like Frasier in syndication, rather than renting them, but I get frustrated at the lack of consistency. (I consider syndicated sitcoms to be the equivalent of eating cotton candy; I enjoy them very much as freebies, but I'm not going to invest in the stuff--except British sitcoms, that is.) Does showing episodes out of order really pay off for networks? Or do the TV people show the episodes based on requests?

The Gerund

It's evil. The gerund is the -ing form of the verb. My family and I have discussed reasons why college freshmen feel compelled to use the gerund in every single sentence that they write: "Singing, I was in the middle of thinking about going to my uncle's to be seeing him." My sister Beth suggested that we ask students questions that invite the gerund response: "What are you doing?" "I'm snorkeling." If anyone has any ideas on the subject, please let me know! The gerund must be stopped!!!

CATEGORY: FARES, ETC.

Stupid Historical Inaccuracies

So in general I don't mind historical novels although I've never enjoyed historical novels where people speak forsoothly and whatnot. Just because their language sounds archaic to us doesn't mean it sounded archaic to them.

I can't write historical novels because I'm too self-conscious about the problem of decades. In the movie Somewhere in Time, the character played by Christopher Reeves meticulously researches the time period of his great love and then buys the appropriate clothes to match. But when he actually shows up in the past, he is wearing a suit that is about twenty years out of style. (A lady praises him for showing off his grandfather's suit.) Think of it this way: suppose some future writer created a 1950's drama and stuck DVD players in everybody's homes? Not a big deal to future historical fiction readers, I will grant, but a very big deal to us. Anyway, I'm always afraid that I'll make those sorts of errors, which is why I stick to fantasy.

Normally, however, when I read historical fiction, that kind of inaccuracy doesn't bother me so much as a lack of historical understanding. I don't fuss if Jane Eyre is wearing the wrong kind of crinoline, but I do fuss if Jane Eyre starts acting like Gloria Steinman.

I recently began reading a take-off novel about Elizabeth and Darcy (not the original and not mine; in fact, this post--which was written a few years before I wrote my adaptation--was in my mind when I wrote my adaptation). I got about ten pages in and gave up in disgust. The author has Darcy watching Elizabeth breastfeed, during which he comments on how odd his newborn baby looks. It's a sort of "oh, isn't it cute how dumb the new father can be" moment.

Oh, pleeeaase.

First of all, Darcy is the owner of an estate, an agricultural estate. That is, he makes his money off of pigs and sheep. Specifically, he makes his money off of his tenants' pigs and sheep although it is likely that Darcy would have some of the land farmed directly for the estate.

In addition, Darcy is a good landlord. The [original] book makes that very clear. A good landlord means that (1) Darcy gets along with his tenants; (2) Darcy has a clue about agriculture; (3) Darcy doesn't spend all his time gallivanting around spending his income elsewhere. (See (1) and (2).)

In other words (and this is something the last movie, which I otherwise enjoyed, got completely and utterly and stupidly wrong), this is not a guy who runs around buying marble statues. This is a guy who pays very close attention to his estate, visits it regularly and has a working relationship with his tenants. (Very few people seem to realize that you don't fund a big estate like Pemberly with the views. Darcy is collecting income--think rent only more of it--from his tenants on a regular basis. That's where the $10,000 a year comes from. The fact that he can do this without them hating his guts means he does it wisely.)

Second of all, Darcy grew up on this estate and regularly rode his horse to the nearest village. Darcy's "rank" did not prevent him from associating with villagers or, for that matter, his gamekeeper's son (Wickham). There is a point here that I'm not sure Americans grasp. We think class is the Astors or the Van der Bilts who enforced their sense of superiority through a rigid untouchability factor. But for someone like Darcy, the fact of his class would be so engrained into his soul, he wouldn't need to enforce it. (If you doubt me, read Middlemarch, where the gentry have a far easier give and take relationship with their tenants than they do with the burgeoning, ambitious middleclass in the town. Also check out BBC Emma and Mr. Knightly's easy, but lordly, relationship with his tenants).

Darcy's pride is at fault NOT because anyone (least of all Elizabeth) thinks class doesn't matter (like us Americans) but because his pride prevents him from making Wickham's character known. In his efforts to protect himself, he exposes another gentleman's daughter to risk. When Elizabeth claims her right to love Darcy, she does not say, "Because, after all, who cares about rank?" She says, "I'm a gentleman's daughter. I am in the same class. Get over it." (Or, specifically, "Get over my crazy mother.")

The point is that Darcy's sense of class is not something he would need to protect by holding aloof from the uncouth lower classes. It is likely that Darcy, being Darcy, would find it easier to associate with his tenants, where class would be an acknowledged but unremarked-on reality, than in more ambiguous social engagements. One of the things that the last movie got absolutely right was the Bennett father's easy relationship with his servants. Darcy, also an agricultural landowner (albeit with a lot more land), would have the same relationship ... as his housekeeper attests (and he wouldn't be a collector of marble--blech).

Finally, people in Regency England (and for that matter, Victorian England) were a lot less obsessed about privacy and childbirth and other bodily functions that we Americans.

What this all means is that the boy Darcy, running around on his father's estate, in and out of his tenants' cottages, and taking rides into the nearby village, would have seen women with newborns ALL THE TIME, funny-shaped, dead and otherwise. And he would have seen them nursing ALL THE TIME. And he wouldn't have thought anything about it. The man Darcy, an agricultural landowner, would have had a working knowledge of birth, maturation, breastfeeding, etc. etc. etc. And he wouldn't have cared much.

And he certainly wouldn’t have had time to watch his wife breastfeed. (Supposing Elizabeth would breastfeed her own children which, no matter how enlightened she was, is unlikely. But not impossible.)

I Get Artsy and Talk About Poetry

At the community college where I work, a truly astonishing number of the adjuncts are poets and writers. Which just goes to show that Paglia is right and the real creativity of academe is not to be found in its upper echelons. Or it just goes to show that poets and writers make no money and must supplement their precarious financial existences with adjunct work.

In any case, they are surprisingly good. I say this because I once attended a poetry reading at the local library, and the poems read were horrible: pretentious drek posing as unique but actually just poor copies of Frost, cummings, etc. The poets struck me mostly as academic poets while the poets I've encountered at the community college are what I think of as working poets: people who write poetry when they aren't driving trucks. Working poets take their writing seriously because writing, the craft, is what they want to do; that is, their poetry isn't merely the approved vehicle for expressing angst.

I really can't analyze it more than that. Poetry is a blind spot in my mind. Writing prose is NOT the same thing as writing poetry. Poetry is much more mathematical, for one thing. I was always reasonably proficient in algebra, but then algebra tells a story. Abstract math like trigonometry completely bewilders me. And yet poetry seems to draw on that aspect of the brain.

Poetry is also much more emotional. Prose is, to a certain extent, about hiding emotion. Or at least, it is about revealing emotion under carefully controlled circumstances. But poetry seems, well, naked to me as well as being much more autobiographical. In my fiction, I may use personal experiences, but the characters are never me. In poetry, it seems the "I" is always the author.

Due to my blind spot, I can't really comment on what makes good poetry good. But, as many a person has said when staring upon a Jackson Pollack, "I may not understand it but I know what I like."

Some favorites:

A.E. Housman: "To An Athlete Dying Young"

Rilke: "The Panther" Okay, I heard it first in the movie Awakenings, but I really, really like it.

Shakespeare: Well, yes, of course. (And actually, that isn't just a knee-jerk famous-guy-must-be-great reaction. He truly is astonishing. A kind of genius of geniuses.)

Keats: actually, I think Coleridge was the better poet, but I've always gotten a kick out of Keats. I have a picture of him on my wall. He was this short, rambunctious, passionate and off-kilter guy who then upped and died very romantically. And he got taken over by the Pre-Raphaelites whom I've always liked, despite their garish taste.

T.S. Eliot: "The Journey of the Magi"

Randy Newman: well, yes, that's music rather than poetry. But I admire Randy Newman.

Ezra Pound's translation of "The River-Merchant's Wife"

Walt Whitman's "Oh Captain My Captain" (but I never much cared for that incredibly long poem he wrote: "America, America")

Yeats, another strange dude: "Leda and the Swan" and "The Second Coming" (it's the one that ends "Slouching towards Bethlehem to be born")

Masefield's "Sea Fever"--I love this poem. I know it isn't great poetry, but it has always solicited an emotional response from me. I've reproduced it below.

Some non-favorites:

e.e. cummings: I liked e.e. cummings for about 2 seconds when I was a freshman in college. It passed very quickly. I can't stand e.e. cummings now. It isn't so much the pretentious writing
withoutcapitals
or for that matter
grammar
It's just, I don't think the stuff is very good.

Archibald MacLeish: I adored MacLeish when I was eighteen. Eighteen year olds are very odd. I adored him so much, I bought his collected poems, special order. I still like him, but I don't adore him. He's a tad too heavy handed.

Recommended Anthology:

Disenchantments: An Anthology of Modern Fairy Tale Poetry: one of the few poetry collections I own (T.S. Eliot's Wasteland and Archibald MacLeish's Collected Poems--see above--are the others).

Sea Fever

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

CATEGORY: BOOKS

Superman Stuff

The movie Superman Returns is a piece of artistry. It wasn't at all what I expected. It is a tribute to Christopher Reeves and the original Supermans. Not only is the music/intro the same, not only do they use the Marlon Brando footage but the star (Routh) does an uncanny embodiment of Reeves as Clark Kent. Apparently, he was a huge Superman fan as a kid. Well, it certainly rubbed off. In his stills, he doesn't really look like Reeves, but as the character, the resemblance is so close, it is somewhat disturbing.

Kevin Spacey does not exactly embody Gene Hackman but he conveys the same ham-it-up villainy. He strikes me as more dangerous than Hackman's Luther, which I think is to the good. And he also has his Miss Kowalski.

But the thing that struck me the most is that the movie isn't really about the villainy. It is really about Superman or, to be more precise, the vision of Superman as conveyed in those early movies. And here I think Routh parted company from Reeves. Routh's Superman is possibly the most introverted Superman on the screen. (Dean Cain being the least, which is the most amusing thing about Lois & Clark: that the most normal, all-American guy in the world, of which Cain is one despite his penchant for bleached hair, turns out to be Superman.) Reeves' Superman was rather charming, even flirtatious. Routh's Superman is remote, self-contained, untouchable. The sense of him as "Other" is much stronger.

As a result, the movie relies much more on show than it does on tell. Which means a complete lack of exposition. We never get inside Superman's head. We are supposed to see Superman, not experience the story from his perspective. At first, I thought this was a failing of the movie, but now, I'm not so sure. I think the movie is supposed to be a visual tribute, and in that it absolutely succeeds.

On to more Superman. I have become a Smallville watcher. I needed a fantasy show! (I love my CSI and my House, but still.) And, okay, I like it. Except for Lana Lang, who is possibly the most useless character ever created. I want to like her since she will keep showing up. But she is thoroughly annoying. She does nothing. Clark does stuff. The Kents do stuff. Chloe does stuff. Lex is always doing stuff. Lana . . . sits around and mopes. Or complains about her boyfriend. Or her life. She has more angst than anybody on Buffy ever did, and they had more reason. (Since dead parents are awful but dead parents and monster boyfriend and vampires trump that any day.)

I think the really bothersome thing though is her lack of humor. She has none of Buffy's one-liners, Cordelia's eye-rolling or Willow's whimsy. Granted, the show isn't really geared towards Whedon's type of humor. But it reduces the character of Lana to mere eye candy.

Now, according to several male acquaintances, Kreuk pulls off her eye candy duties very well. But this show is supposed to be about Clark Kent/Superman. His long-term soul mate is Lois Lane, who also fulfills eye candy duties but does them while being smart, competitive and independent. Why is he wasting his time on this pretty but pointless girl?

Granted, teenagers can be a bit dim about long-term relationships. It would be nice to believe that the creators of Smallville are establishing Clark's disillusionment with Lana's ethereal but ultimately boring personality.

It would be nice to believe that.

In any case, I must give extra kudos to Michael Rosenbaum. I think he ranks up there with Faith as disturbed young person who goes progressively from bad to worse. That is, his villainy is entirely human and understandable. He does a magnificent job of conveying overweening ambition at a disturbingly young age. But then, if you think about it, Alexander the Great and Caesar probably did the same. Of course, we the audience know he goes bad, but I think it is an indication of real ability on Rosenbaum's part that although Lex's offers to protect the Kents are probably sincere, we don't want the Kents to accept. That is, Rosenbaum manages to do what James Marsters did: convey ambiguity (sincerity and intimidation) without weakening either sensation and without making the character just kind of bland. The sincerity and intimidation are both are work at the same time.

I was also mucho impressed by the last episode I saw, the one where a vision of Lex's future kills the woman in the old folks home. Rosenbaum played the scene perfectly: his surprise, then horror followed by a stumbling retreat were more than believable and took him from budding arch-enemy back into disturbed young man territory.

CATEGORY: MOVIES

There are Aliens and Then There are Aliens

While watching Star Trek:TNG recently, I thought about the ways in which we humans think about aliens or the concept of aliens. There are basically three models:

Star Trek model: this is also, kind of, the Star Wars model. Aliens are seen as potential friends or at least potential neighbors. Granted the Star Trek model depends on existentialism, reducing all alien races to a few existential characteristics (so that all Vulcans are logical, all Klingons are warrior-like, etc.). Granted, too, the function of Star Trek aliens is to allow human issues to be discussed that, for reasons of political correctness, can't be discussed about humans. Hence, even though all the humans in Star Trek are rational and vaguely agnostic, they are still able to discuss religion with Bajorans and with Worf.

Star Wars follows this model in that the Star Wars universe is peopled by aliens working side by side with no one much remarking on the fact. I prefer the Star Trek version, simply because I loathe (as in detest to my heart's core) Ewoks. Star Trek aliens may be existentialistic but at least they aren't cute!

All in all, this model is remarkably inclusive. It is one of the better side-effects of liberal humanism. Aliens, however problematic they prove at first, can be loved and understood in the long run.

Interestingly enough, however, even in Star Trek, the scariest enemies are bug-like creatures. The Borg is Starfleet's main enemy, but the Borg are still comprehensible. When Star Trek wanted to created a worse enemy than the Borg, what did they do? They brought in the bugs.

Which leads us to model 2: Independence Day. In model 2, the aliens are buggy and evil. They can't be reasoned with. They don't seem to have reasons, just superior technology (that can, nevertheless, be brought to a standstill by a mild, little earth-created computer virus. Yeah, right.) And well, thank goodness for Will Smith, I say.

The X-Files model: In the X-Files model, the aliens are big and bad and buggy, BUT they aren't the real enemy. The real enemy is the government that hasn't told us, the American people, about the big, bad, buggy aliens. In fact, in X-Files, the aliens, or rather the existence of aliens, represent for Mulder belief and hope. The problem is the humans who get in the way of that belief and hope. Men in Black is this model turned on its head. (Yes, the government isn't going to tell you, but they aren't going to tell you for your own sake.)

Personally, I don't know. I think it is possible aliens are out there, although I don't spend a lot of time tidying my apartment for a possible visit. Like any good Star Trek fan, my own sci-fi universe follows the many-aliens-functioning-together-in-the-same-universe scenario (although I leave open the possibility that said alien societies are a tad more complicated than they appear on the surface).

But truthfully, in my heart of hearts, I think Douglas Adams is right. If there are aliens, they don't pay us much mind. They are no more good than your average pompous liberal (such as the Vulcans of Enterprise). And no worse than your average bureaucrat who wants to build a bypass through our galaxy. And if they do make contact, they will be Ferengi wanting to trade. Face it, they won't go looking for the Dalai Lama or George Bush or Al Gore or sincere Hollywood stars or even Queen Elizabeth. They're going to be dialing Donald Trump's number.

CATEGORIES: TV

More X-Files

I've spent the last three weeks teaching unappreciative students at the local business college, but I'm not going to rant about that. (Other than to remark that some people never leave Junior High--sad, but true).

I've actually moved on from X-Files back to Lois & Clark, but I recently watched episodes from the sixth season of X-Files. I'd heard that some fans felt that Season 6 was a cop-out, the season when--gasp, gasp--X-Files got popular and just went downhill and gave up the, you know, truth and all, man.

Usually, I disregard that kind of complaint. In High School, I had these friends who got SOOO upset when people who hadn't been listening to U-2 before Joshua Tree became U-2 fans: Like, they are so fake, like, you know. I would stand there, feeling bemused, thinking, But aren't you happy that now more people like what you like?

As I've said, some people never grow out of Junior High.

Having said all that, I have to confess that the Season 6 X-Files episodes I saw, although I enjoyed them, didn't have the grittiness . . . no, that's the wrong word, the oddity, the off-kilterness of the earlier seasons. The cases were bizarre, and there was a great deal of humor, but everything else was kind of . . . normal. It was like watching Mysterious Ways, which, don't get me wrong, I liked* but which was not exactly filled with the X-Files mystique.

On the other hand, it is usually so difficult for a show to last beyond its fifth season with any credibility that just the existence of good storytelling in X-Files Season 6 is fairly impressive.

*I really like Adrian Pasdar, although I don't watch much of the stuff he has been in recently (Judging Amy, for instance). Mr. Pasdar is THE GUY who played the psychotic businessman in the short-lived television show Profit. I saw about one episode of Profit when it first came out. I really liked it (it was the episode where he sticks nails in his shoes to pass the lie detector test), but I promptly forgot the show's name and completely disassociated the actor from that Mysterious Ways guy (I mean, Adrian Pasdar showed up on Touched by an Angel!--I just didn't make the connection to psychotic businessman). Nice to know Adrian Pasdur is something of an oddball when it comes to picking parts.

CATEGORY: TV

X-Files: Make It Personal

I wrote a story in college (this is college fifteen years ago, not college two months ago) based on Sleeping Beauty, only my "Sleeping Beauty" was a prince and was cursed with unending sleep if he should ever pick up a sword (rather than a spindle). And I put him in a warrior-type culture; basically, here's a guy who can't relate to any of the male figures in his society, not to mention he has nothing to do all day, and he's really brassed off about it all.

And the witch, instead of being some Walt Disney hag-like take-off was young and sophisticated and rather ruthless. She was one of the first female characters I created who wasn't just me dressed up in someone else's clothes (I was about 20). Her motivation for cursing the prince was her hatred of war.

Now, even at the tender age of 20, I wasn't much of an anti-warmonger, but that didn't much matter because the character wasn't me. The problem with giving the witch this abstract reason was that it was abstract, and abstract people--Kierkegaard excepted, I suppose--are rather boring.

So, somewhere along the line, I changed her motivation. She hated war, but she hated war because it kept killing off her lovers. She wants one lover who will stick around for more than a couple of months. So, she curses the prince, and, since witches don't die and don't get old, as soon as he gets old enough, she takes him for her own. A sort of Chia Pet homegrown boyfriend!

The story really wasn't about her manufacturing a lover for herself. The story was about free will--how much the prince had or didn't have, etc. etc. But the story didn't work until the witch's motivation become something close and personal, rather than abstract and faraway. Not that it ever worked completely, since it never got published, but editors have assured me that the problem with the story is that I wrote it in present tense--and there's a whole nother can of worms!

Now . . . as Bill Cosby would say, I told you that story to tell you this one:

I'm not a huge X-Files fan. It isn't like Star Trek which I can watch any time in any weather under any conditions. I have to be in an X-Fily mood. I watch a whole bunch of episodes and that takes care of that for another year or so.

But every time I watch it, I am once again impressed by how good it is in terms of scripting and characterization and concept. I am always impressed by how complete Mulder and Scully are as characters and how truly excellent they are in their roles. David D. is great, of course, a tightly wound oddity with just a tiny bit of ham actor inside. And Gillian Anderson in this particular role is truly classic.

While watching it recently, I decided that another of the things the show got spot on was in making Mulder's quest personal. He has that backup group of conspirary theorists, the Lone Gun Men, and although I believe one of them has a personal story behind his obsession, these guys are more or less obsessed for the sake of being obsessed--the abstract motivation: The Truth is Out There. And they make fine minor characters. But for a major character, abstract motivation isn't enough. (Which may be one reason the spin-off show with the Lone Gun Men didn't fly.)

By making Mulder's obsession personal (his sister) and then giving him Scully as a sounding board, the creators of X-Files gave the show the kind of relationship and existential grit that every show since has tried to copy. In a way, Scully becomes Mulder's safety net. He can allow himself to go crazy because he knows he has this cautious voice-of-reason to hold him down.

In terms of plot, I never did get the whole "Scully was given to Mulder to discredit his work and Mulder is allowed to continue to keep him from becoming a martyr" stuff since, as far as I'm concerned, dead men tell no tales. Mulder dead would be less of a problem to the bad guys than Mulder with Scully. (I agree with Phil Farrand here that, actually, Cigarette Smoking man is Mulder's dad and came up with all that "can't make him a martyr" crap to keep Mulder alive.) But in terms of writing, the Scully-Mulder pairing is pure genius. Scully does legitimatize Mulder, but, more importantly, she makes it possible for him to have faith. Her rationalism gives him ballast. Otherwise, he would just be scary wacko guy. But, with her as his fall-back position, he becomes instead believer guy. This kind of symbiotic relationship between science and religion is, I think, one of the most insightful aspects of the show. At its best, the show explored attitudes and complexities of belief. But it did it through focusing on the personal, not the abstract.

The writerly rule seems to be: You can't sell abstract by getting abstract. You can only sell abstract by getting personal. (Unless you're Kierkegaard and then nobody will read you.)

CATEGORY: FICTION

Am I Getting Old or Is it Just Buffy?

When I was in college, I must have seen the movie Buffy about twenty times. I loved it. So, when our library bought it recently, I checked it out. And I hate to say it, but it was kind of dull.

The screenplay was written by Joss Whedon, but the film wasn't produced or directed by him; I think this makes a difference. Whedon is the American TV version of Kenneth Branagh; both have the ability to draw from actors a kind of transcendence. Unfortunately, in the movie Buffy, only Donald Sutherland (a wonderful pre-Giles) and, oddly enough, Luke Perry, seemed to have a clue how their characters should be played. Everyone else either hammed it up or played teen movie angst (á la Pretty in Pink). The point with Buffy is that it has to be played seriously humorous.

This means that first of all, the world of Buffy has to be accepted as absolutely real with real consequences. When the director said, "The movie isn't about vampires. That's just the milieu," I thought, "Lady, you have so missed the point." It is real. It has to be real. When, in the show, Buffy says to Jonathan, "My life sometimes sucks beyond the telling of it," you have to believe that she isn't just hamming it up. This is a world where teeny-boppy-dom meets eschatological world-dom and works.*

The solution isn't angst or hamminess. The solution is whimsy, the slide-by-and-miss-it humor that Whedon constantly employed. The movie has its moments but in general it feels surprisingly non-Whedon-like.

Second of all, Buffy has to stay Buffy. I gained an immense appreciation for Sarah Michelle Geller while watching the movie. Kristy Swanson starts out as a kind of Cordelia character, but as soon as she becomes a vampire slayer, she turns into tom-boy jock girl. And that isn't Buffy. The point with Buffy is that she never does turn into the proper image of the slayer (only in alternate universes). Not only does Buffy herself preserve her ultra-feminine Buffy-ness, her intrinsic personality is protected by Giles. I'm rewatching Season 2 right now, and I was struck by how, despite his many many complaints, Giles resisted turning Buffy into a friendless, fighting machine. It bothers him when she becomes obsessed. This, I think, is fantastically important. The reason this vampire slayer matters is because this time, the tale went different. (Despite my loathing for the new-age-women-have-power ending to the show, I think there was a kind of a metaphysical pay-off: Buffy got what she wanted--she got to be ordinary, one slayer amongst many.)

So why did I love the movie so much when I was young? Well, it’s a teeny-bopper film, and I was just out of my teens. But I think, too, that I loved it because it was early Whedon. After all, I hadn't been spoiled yet by the show and Angel and Firefly, etc. etc. When you don't have the real thing, you take what you can get.

*One of my favorite episodes with that transcendent, eschatological feel is the one where Cordelia wishes Buffy had never come to Sunnyvale. Her wish is granted by the to-be Anya. When Giles figures out how what has happened, he decides to smash Anya's amulet. She sneers at him: "How do you know that other world will be any better?"

"Because it has to be," Giles says, and I swear, I always tear-up at that point. There's so much pathos in Giles' desperation. And he is serious. Like I wrote, the Buffy universe must be taken seriously but not dead-seriously (ha ha), or rather not earnestly--yuck--which is why the whole new-age thing bugged me. It was so look look we're making a relevant statement about important stuff look! I hate that sort of thing. (And that was even before grad school.)

I think the difference between seriousness and earnestness is that when Giles says, "Because it has to be," he is talking within his world, his perspective. The viewer is satisfied, but it doesn't matter what the viewer thinks. It seemed like the end of the show got way too obsessed with what the viewer might be thinking and therefore became pitiably earnest.

CATEGORY: MOVIES

It's Official!

The Graduate

I received my diploma from the University of Southern Maine. I now have a Master's degree in American & New England Studies. Now that I have finished, I should be able to tell you what one does with a Master's in American & New England Studies. I will use my graduate level training to answer: "One is able to reflect on the interconnectiveneness of the reciprocity of dialectical imperatives enclosed in the ideological codification of perceptional, nay, liminal, social processes in which commodification, marginalization and imperialistic contracts are envisioned."

Oh, and lots, lots more.