Literary Gibberish

Yes, yes we’ve continued the sporadic postings around these parts. What can I say? But at least today you’re in luck with a pleasant game for your Friday afternoon. Part maze, part race The Line Game tasks you with guiding a snake-like orange line through maze-like orange levels frought with obstacles. Huh!? Don’t worry, you’ll get it.

The makers of this game - like most games nowadays - offer some simple tutorial levels to ease you in. After those are over you are warned that “The levels are hard. I make no apology for this.” Fair enough. Good fun nonetheless, so head on over and get playing.

The good folks over at Slate are doing an interesting crowdsource photography project:

We want to know what the recession looks like to our readers—and we want to tap into your creativity and resourcefulness to capture this perilous moment.

They’ve created a flick group for folks to post their own shots it seems like an interesting project. I have submitted my favorite below - clicking through will take you to the photo page and you can get to the group from there. You can also jump directly to Slate’s Shoot the Recession on Flickr.

The hamsters that power our servers are apparently underfed, overworked and generally disgruntled this afternoon. So while I have acces to the site here’s a quick fun ‘n’ games with little comment. Place the blocks to bounce the laser from Points A to B. Sometimes you need to pick up “keys” to open up Point B. Avoid all hazards, obstacles, etc. Happy bouncing and happy weekend!

Bounce

After seeing William P. Young’s The Shack flying off our library shelves as fast as people could return it, and after hearing from at least one person who’s opinion I respect that liked it I took the plunge. Bad move on my part. Not only is the writing suspect, the theology is fairly shallow and the characterization of God as the Trinity borderline offensive.

But let’s start at the beginning. In The Shack the main character, Mack, loses his youngest daughter to a serial murderer on a camping trip. He later receives an invitation - apparently from God - to return to the shack where his daughter’s bloody dress was found. God then proceeds to put the hard sell on Mack to get over his anger and realize that God is bigger than personal tragedy.

What Mack is struggling with is what the theologians refer to as theodicy. Theodicy, as a friend recently put it can be viewed as “the only theological question that really matters because it’s the only one that doesn’t have a very good answer.” Theodicy asks how a God who is all powerful, and all benevolent can allow suffering to happen in the world. Or, “why do bad things happen to good people?”.

Unfortunately, after finishing with The Shack¹ I am not entirely sure that it’s possible for a novel to tackle the question of theodicy overtly. This is to say I am happy when fiction deals with tragedy, reconciliation and such weighty moral questions of human existence. I am not so happy when the narrative format turns pedantic, and even less so when it takes aim in it’s pedantry at one of history’s most prominent theological questions.

As this is a blog post and not a final essay for a graduate seminar, I will follow the format used in my previous post on Their Eyes Were Watching God. Bullet pointed musings on what I liked and disliked coming right up!

• Early in the novel there is a useful illustration of a bird that was designed to fly but was able to limit itself to walking. This is how we are to understand the idea of God becoming fully human to enter into relation with his creation. OK - I’ll bite.

• The idea of the Trinity embodying the principle of living in relationship is another point well made. The father, son and holy spirit form a circle of relationship without hierarchy. The ability of humans to enter into this same type of relationship not only with each other but also with God is reasonably compelling theology

• It’s pretty much bad from there…

• I’m willing to suspend disbelief about God sending one man an invitation to meet one-on-one to overcome personal tragedy. Sort of. I’m less willing to let pass God as “a large beaming African American woman”. Methinks we smell a wee bit of white guilt here. Not to mention that Young’s characterization of this beaming African American woman is a base stereotype of the head-scarf wearing Mammy figure full of sass, homespun wisdom and just the right amount of dropped consonants in her dialect.

• Jesus and the Holy Spirit aren’t much better.

• During Mack’s visit to the shack, he has his recurring nightmare about his daughter’s abduction and killing. He wakes up and pitifully asks why God won’t make the dream go away. This is beyond simpering.

• For all the talk about relational living, this sure seems like an individualistic quest for satisfaction from the Almighty. There is little talk about what role a community of fellow believers plays in the common life.²

• There’s actually a chapter titled “Here Come Da Judge” in this book.

• And here’s where the novel lost me for good: Eventually Mack gets to see his daughter. He is also reassured that his daughter knows he’s there and that this experience is real. Letting go the notion that we will still be who we were on earth when we get to heaven this is still hugely problematic. It answers the question of tragedy by glibly pointing to the afterlife. Oh everything works out for the best because no matter how painful your loss you get a do-over in heaven. What does it say for faith that Mack has to see his daughter alive in order to let go of his loss, forgive God and move on?

• I really tried to keep reading but couldn’t do it. The characterization felt artificial, God kept telling Mack that he (Mack) couldn’t understand him (God) but the author treats the Trinity as thorougly knowable in each incarnation throughout the book. Plus the Heaven answer to theodicy is just ridiculous. Not that it’s the only answer the author posits, but Mack seeing his daughter is the definite turning point of the novel - the next page reveals that The Great Sadness that had ruled his life was now gone. Sheesh.

So, in conclusion, save yourself some time and don’t read The Shack. No, really, don’t read it. Take a swipe at a good translation of Job, C.S. Lewis’ The Problem of Pain or even Harold Kushner’s Why Bad Things Happen to Good People. Theodicy is a question that writers, thinkers and artists have struggled with for ages. Just because The Shack is a new, trendy, popular take on an old question doesn’t make the question new, and it doesn’t make the treatment measured. You’ve been warned.

^{1 N.B. I “finished” with The Shack after about 180 pages - leaving about 40-50 pages unread
2 props to Rainey, the preacher lady, for the catch on that one}

We’re keeping the streak alive this week with another puzzle game - our favorite type! Enter Block Drop a game where all you have to do is jump on each block once to sink it, and end up on the checkered block to ferry you across the River Styx to the next level. Jump one block in any direction using the arrow keys, two blocks using the shift+arrow keys. That’s all there is to it. Happy jumping, and happy weekend!

Here at ye ol’e Public Liberry we try and put on programs that enlighten, entertain and generally raise the level of discourse among the unwashed masses. As such, we participated this year in the NEA’s Big Read Program. Being clever little librarians, we picked Zora Neale Hurston’s Thier Eyes Were Watching God and scored a twofer with Black History Month.

Since I am the Adult Services Librarian¹ around here, I was tasked² with leading the book discussion. Having not read the book since college, and having no intention of re-reading this fine novel, I felt pretty confident in my ability to carry out this task. To wit - a conversation between me and the Bossman:

Bossman: “Hey, this audio introduction from the NEA is pretty good. If you listened to that you probably wouldn’t have to re-read the book before you lead the discussion.”

Yours Truly: “I was an English major - I don’t need to have read the book in the first place to lead the discussion!”

Nonetheless I diligently prepared myself so as not to seem uneducated. I read biographical sketches, author interviews and criticism. I listened to the aforementioned audio introduction³. I even re-read sections from the book. The result? Three white ladies from our regular adult book club⁴ came for the discussion. We talked just as much about foreign exchange students reading Shakespeare as we did about the novel in question. On balance I’d say we really brought the community together on that one. And celebrated the heck out of Black History Month to boot!

So - having gone to all that trouble preparing, I share with you some impressionistic musings on Their Eyes Were Watching God. If you’re looking for something to read, go to your local liberry, check it out and celebrate Black History Month while Reading Across America!

• On balance I liked such Harlem Renaissance novels as Cane and to a lesser extent Invisible Man better than this one. Maybe because I’m male and this was largely a woman’s coming of age story.

• There’s no denying that the novel is well written, and Hurston’s background in anthropology shines through in her treatment of the work’s dialogue⁵.

• It sometimes feels like think Hurston over romanticizes the plight of the black working poor, but it’s hard to criticize an author who died anonymously and almost had her entire remaining possessions lost in a bonfire behind her house. Certainly she’d know better than I do about the plight of the black working poor…

• Reading Hurston really reminds me of what I’ve read by Toni Morrison. Earlier stuff like Song of Solomon, The Bluest Eye and Beloved. Would be interested to do a comparison of those two authors to trace Hurston’s influence on Morrison.

• The passage that gives the novel it’s title evokes the end of Job for me. Appropriate in some ways, but somewhat incongrous in a work that doesn’t seem overly concerned with religion.
  

  The wind came back with triple fury, and put out the light for the last time.  They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against crude walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God. (p. 236, U of Illinois Press ed., 1978)

  And the Lord said to Job:
  ²‘Shall a fault-finder contend with the Almighty?
  Anyone who argues with God must respond.’
  

  ³Then Job answered the Lord:
  ⁴‘See, I am of small account; what shall I answer you?
  I lay my hand on my mouth.
  ⁵I have spoken once, and I will not answer;
  twice, but will proceed no further.’
  

  6 Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind:
  ⁷‘Gird up your loins like a man;
  I will question you, and you declare to me.
  ⁸Will you even put me in the wrong?
  Will you condemn me that you may be justified?
  ⁹Have you an arm like God,
  and can you thunder with a voice like his?
  (Job 40:2-9; NRSV)

That’s probably enough for the moment. Feel free to continue the discussion in the comments. Yes, even if you’re a white lady who occasionally participates in a local book club.

^{1 Whatever that means…
2 Read: Stuck with
3 Very good - as advertised
4 Yup - we couldn’t even get the whole book club to attend
5 One of the ladies who came to the discussion didn’t even read the book - “Ah’ve nevah been able to read negro dialect. Haven’t been able to since childhood…” Nice.}

The Friday Fun ‘n’ Games is Back! And we’re celebrating our re-launch with a new version of an old favorite. Your mission in Totem Destroyer 2 is to destroy the required number of blocks without letting the Golden Idol hit the ground. What’s new in version 2 is that blocks interact in new and different ways. If you haven’t played the first one, head on over to Totem Destroyer 1 for a few minutes, and continue the game playing goodness with the sequel. Happy gaming - it’s good to be back!

This is real people. This is not a drill. Pride and Prejucide and Zombies drops in April and the world of classic literature may never be the same. OK - it probably won’t change that much, but what a great idea!

I think I have mentioned before that the fun part of my job is trolling the publishing world for interesting books to add to our collection. Consider this one added. A brief snippet from my conversation with my lovely wife when I first learned this was an actual title:

Me: “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies - sweet! I’m totally buying that for the library”
Rainey: “That sounds stupid, who’s going to check that out?”
Me: “Oh - it’ll circulate.”

And indeed it will circulate - an opinion backed up by each and every colleague I’ve shared this with today. In fact, as of this afternoon it’s #86 on Amazon’s list of best selling books. Apparently there are already talks about adapting this adaptation to the big screen. Quick someone call George Romero!

For more fabulous zombie fun you can check out this brief news article/interview about the upcoming book, or head on over to the author’s Amazon.com blog. Happy hunting.

I’d like to state that we’ve been maintaining strict radio silence over the past two months as a means of subverting an insidious government conspiracy against us and our loved ones.

Unfortunately, the truth is a subtle combination of sloth, busy work schedule, other pursuits and inertia have contributed to the slow-as-molasses posting schedule at this here fine blog. My thanks go to Walter for keeping the content coming and preventing the site from becoming the Internet equivalent of a boarded up lean-to taken over by spam comment squatters.

All this is to say that I’m back and solemnly vow to make my best effort at posting at least once each week. It feels good to be back!

Patrick McGoohan
Patrick McGoohan
Fare thee well
A prisoner no more
Of this earthen shell.
Be seeing you.

I’m not one to make resolutions for the new year, but it occurred to me that perhaps I should reserve one for shorter, but more frequent, musings on the moving pictures that I had in the year past promised would come at you oh, every week or so. So, weary reader, I’ll try not to bore you with such philositudes (I made that up; see, it’s already exciting!) as before, and, well, get on with it!

To ring in the new year, I bring you no grand epic films, no artsy fodder for discussion of what the hopes and fears of man might hold in light of the upcoming inauguration, no space oddities…. Winter is a good time for television, methinks. And there’s not much better television than British television—thankfully for them, as they’ve not got the weather, the cuisine, nor the haute couture (ok, I do like them tweeds…) going for them. We watch a lot of British tele through Netflix at the Walter household, and here’s a list of my current favorites:

Black Books takes place in a small bookstore owned by Bernard Black, a curmudgeony [young] dodger if ever there was one! Black is irascible, filthy, drunk, and smart, and the interpersonal foibles between Black, his assistant, and the female shopkeeper next door are hilarious. Short episodes (20-25 min.) make this show work.

Hotel Babylon is new and flashy, and I like it! Based on the confessional novel by Imogen Edwards-Jones and Anonymous (how scandalous!), the show centers on life inside the five star Babylon hotel in London, from the staff’s perspective. The show is narrated by the Babylon’s front-of-house manager, Charlie, and is at times surprisingly touching and thought-provoking. Super hip, we eat this stuff up! Tip your concierge, by god!

Waking the Dead is a “cold case” police procedural, though I’m not sure if it’s what our American Cold Case is based on. Each story is told over two separate hour long episodes, so they get really involved, which is something the Brits, it seems, always have over us dumb Yanks and is a large part of what draws me to these shows. Unlike some similar shows, Waking the Dead has so far focused more on the actual police procedures of digging through the old case files rather than the gruesome acts of violence that [may] have been perpetrated.

And lastly, I’ve been watching through a show that I watched with my brother back when I was in high school—Lovejoy, based on the Jonathan Gash mystery novels. Our hero, Lovejoy, is an antiques dealer of sorts, though “miscreant” might be the more apt term (antiques dealer who wears a leather biker jacket), and he’s always finding himself in the midst of situations that need solving—usually to prevent his landing in jail or owing someone a huge sum of money. Surrounded by a delightful cast of other miscreants (one’s a drunk named Tinker) and taking place in the beautiful English countryside, Lovejoy is a real pleasure and a treasure, especially if you like antiques at all.     

Happy viewing, and if you’ve never given British television a chance, you’re a right ninny!

OK slackers, I know you depend on these games to keep you entertained so I’m doing my best here. Sadly, parenting obligations and increased activity at work have stemmed the tide of posts from your fearless blogger. Take heart! Your game awaits.

Cute Planet Puzzle is, um, a cute variation on a classic puzzle standby. Use the arrow keys to guide your little man around the screen and push gems of the same color together. This makes them disappear and magically tansports you back to the stage select screen. The first several stages are effectively your walkthrough so I’ll stop explaining and let you get to the playing. Enjoy!

We’re back with our semi-regular offering of casual games for your casual Friday. Today’s game, a simple but devious little puzzle game that gets pretty hard pretty quick. In enDice, the trick is to move the dice into their outlined homes on the board by clicking and dragging. The number on each die shows how many times it must be moved before reaching it’s final destination. If the die says three and you only move it twice then you can’t move on to the next level. The first few levels are tutorials and then you’re on your own. Maybe not as rewarding as a hot streak on the Craps table in Vegas, but lots safe than throwing the bones in the back alley! Enjoy, and happy weekend…

After a brief sabbatical from my sidewhites duties, I return this week with a fine Italian offering of familial turmoil and decay, with undertones of incest, overtones of matricide and fratricide, dashes of slapstick, and a protagonist plagued by migraines and epilepsy. Appropriate holiday fare, no? Marco Bellocchio’s Fists in the Pocket (1965) is a wonderfully engaging, beautifully filmed piece that could be the setting of a Faulkner novel, as it peers into the shadowy corners of a rural Italian country manor and the dysfunctional family residing within. The film rarely leaves the house and thus really is simply about these people. And yet, there is an unrest throughout the film, much like that parenthetical statement, “and yet…,” that seems to pervade everything, every last shot of the film, down even to the very faces of the actors, that acts as a harbinger of unrest and change on the horizon.

At the outset, the film is about a choice that the protagonist, Alessandro (Ale or Sandro, for short) makes to free his older brother, Augusto, who, as the only healthy and financially capable amongst them, has born the brunt of responsibility for many years, from the burden of his ill and eccentric family. Wouldn’t it be better, he asks his older brother, if he did not have to support their blind mother and retarded, epileptic younger brother, not to mention Sandro himself with his attacks and their sister who is, well, lazy and weirdly sexual with all the brothers? Augusto does not take Sandro’s question seriously, but on the other hand, he doesn’t take it seriously, leaving us to wonder whether he really would just like to pick up and leave it all behind. Sandro’s initial plan of throwing his family off a cliff, himself included, while careening down a twisty road in the family car gets sidetracked, and everyone arrives back home safely, leaving Augusto with the knowledge that Sandro is, for the most part, still pretty incompetent.

But Sandro’s initiative in concocting such a plan and almost carrying it out proves to Augusto that he is ready for more responsibility and can take on some of the routine duties of the household, such as driving their mother to the family cemetery plot to visit their father’s grave. It is on one such drive that Sandro and his mother pull over at the precise spot where Sandro had planned to execute his entire family, save Augusto, to catch some fresh air. Sandro leads his mother to the edge of the cliff, explaining that there is a wall upon which she can sit, and then simply pushes her with one finger over the edge. This is no violent outburst, nor is it quite cold and calculating. He doesn’t really want to touch her, and this seems to be the point. It’s as if he’s waiting to see what happens too. The whole scene is like some strange ceremony where nothing happens and yet the consequences are incredible, some weird communion where the priest touches his finger to your tongue and you vanish into thin air.

Out with the old, and burn it! There are two scenes that stuck with me the most from Fists in the Pocket, and both are the aforementioned harbingers of something bigger going on. The first is when the family is mourning the death of their mother. The house is full of fellow mourners and the coffin is set up in the middle of the room with curtains drawn around it. Sandro relieves his sister, Giulia, of her duty of sitting with their mother, and she goes to sit on the other side of the curtain to talk to her brother. Hearing a noise, she looks over the curtain to see her brother doing calisthenics over their mother’s body, using the coffin as a balance beam. It seems that finally carrying through with his plan, if only in part, gave young Sandro a sense of accomplishment he had rarely before felt. Sandro reveals what he has done, Giulia is smitten, and the two later decide to begin cleaning the house, beginning with their mother’s room. It is snowing outside as they throw countless armfuls of furniture and papers and the rest of their mother’s possessions out into the yard. They set fire to the pile and watch it burn, laughing and happy with themselves. This scene is not merely celebration of the wanton rebellion of the young against the old, however. It is all so strikingly reckless and careless, and the camera lingers on the smoldering pile of rubbish long after the two have gone back inside as Leone, the retarded younger brother, comes by and begins to pick out what is salvageable, including his mother’s old reading glasses (we don’t know how long she’d been blind). It’s a stirring scene, to say the least, and I think it is important to note that Bellocchio was a young filmmaker at the time. Is there room for responsibility within revolution?

Sandro’s quest is for freedom. With their mother out of the picture, Augusto moves to the city, leaving Sandro and Giulia in the big country house, their only burden being young Leone. This is not a problem for Sandro, though, as he now knows how to relieve himself of his burdens. He gives Leone an overdose of his epilepsy medicine, and while he is passed out in the bath, simply pushes him under with his fingertips and holds him there until he drowns, some strange baptism in the church of the mind of Allesandro. Giulia realizes what Sandro has become, and falls ill. I won’t ruin the ending of the film, because it’s really worth seeking out and watching Sandro try to discover who he is and what he wants. There is a scene earlier in the film, after he has killed his mother, where he is at a party in the city at the apartment of his brother’s fiance. Everyone is dancing some ridiculous line dance and Sandro is sitting on a bench at the front of the room, facing them. He is apart from them quite literally, sitting and not dancing, but also socially, living secluded out in the country. He seems to disdain them all and yet also to want to be a part of their scene, having just before been approached by a young woman. It is unclear whether the freedom Sandro seeks lies in breaking free from his familial bonds to forge new bonds with people like this or, quite literally, breaking free of bonds entirely and killing them all, every last one of them.

I was amazed to learn that Fists in the Pocket was Marco Bellocchio’s first film. I don’t know why, as first films are often fine films. This was just so good. As so often is the case, this is likely due to the magnificent editing of Silvano Agosti. The film flows effortlessly, and no frame is superfluous. On Bellocchio’s part, and cinematographer Alberto Marrama, the film offers beautiful black and white that only enhances scenes such as the bonfire mentioned earlier. I would be remiss if I failed to mention the score by Ennio Morricone, exceptional as usual—I should devote a post to Morricone. Fists was a first for Lou Castel as well, the actor who played Allesandro. Castel was not an actor, and that probably brought an authenticity to the character that an experienced, and certainly a known, actor could potentially have spoiled. He was compared by someone in a special feature on the DVD to Marlon Brando, and I think that’s accurate, both in intensity and style, if not beefy good looks. While he may not have gone on to enjoy the same success as Mr. Brando, Castel is utterly captivating at the center of this strange menagerie, as are his supporting players, one and all, from the beautiful and absurd Giulia to the august Augusto to innocent Leone and blind Mama. What a tale!

Well, we’ve ditched the scuba gear and bailed out the library. And so the triumphant return of the Friday Fun ‘n’ Games. We favor puzzle oriented games here, and today’s not different. In Splitter, your object is to get the smiley face from point A to portal B. At your disposal is a wicked butcher’s knife that you can use to sever various parts of the apparatus that stands in your way. Just be careful not to cut yourself! Some of these levels get wickedly hard and may even require quick action. Have fun and happy weekend!

I arrived at my place of employment this morning to the sounds of dripping water and visions of soaked books.

Apparently our roof has been leaky since the building, but rather than replace it the county has been repairing it piecemeal for years. Last week another crew came in to “fix” the roof and after some significant overnight rain the section above the reference area finally gave up the ghost. At least the torrents of water missed most of the super-expensive reference books. Our Civil War collection was not quite as lucky.

After a week or so of radio silence due to vacation and no internet access, the Fun ‘n Games is back! We submit to you 99 Blocks, an interesting take on the classic game of Tetris. Instead of lining up blocks to make the disappear, the blocks stay on the screen and the highest tower wins. If you see a block coming that doesn’t fit, you can discard it by using the “c” key but you only get 99 blocks so each discard lowers your potential ceiling.

Guaranteed fun for your Friday - so head on over and play to your heart’s content!

OK, we’re back to our regularly scheduled cynicism this afternoon. I couln’t pass up the chance to put this dandy bit of video editing in front of a few more eyeballs. Using their own words against each other, John McCain and Sarah Palin debate each other for the future opportunity of heading the Republican presidential ticket. Enjoy.

Feeling fairly confident of a Democtratic victory around 8 PM last night I began rehearsing in my mind the snarky witticisms with which I would open my gloating victory post. But after staying up to hear Barack Obama’s pitch perfect victory speech I was left with no lingering animosity and only warm fuzzy feelings about the direction our country is heading. A true breath of air after the last eight years.

While I do try to keep the blog a generally politics-free zone, I don’t think my personal leanings are any real secret. I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to hear a president speak and immediately reveal that he understands nuance, has grasped the magnitude of his position and has a clear and inspiring vision for the country. So if you didn’t stay up past midnight to hear the speech and you didn’t tivo it, do yourself a favor and watch the whole thing. Invoking Lincoln and evoking Dr. King, change has indeed come to America and not a moment too soon. Yes we can.

Part 1

Part 2

Did you ever want to be a cow boy or girl? Do you crave the satisfaction of herding things into smaller and smaller spaces? Well then Shrink is the game for you. You are a assigned to shrink the outer box around the bouncing squares until it reaches a predetermined size. What these squared did to deserve such cramped confinement we may never know, but it’s not our job to ask.

Move the outer boundaries of the square by pressing the arrows and the sides constrict accordingly. The only catch? If the moving squares inside touch a wall while you’re moving it the jig is up and you have to start back over. Squares get faster, smaller and more numerous as the game goes on so perfect your technique early and become a master of Shrink.

As my close associates (and attentive readers of this blog) know, I heart Thomas Pynchon. I heart him in all his obfuscationist, unravelably dense glory. So I take joy in both the photo and the news to be had below. First, the news - looks like our inimitable author is planning a new book. According to this LA Times Blog post, a 400 page “noir detective story…with lots of psychedelia as background.”

My initial reaction? Woo Hoo! Although I never latched on to Against the Day enough to finish, I still have plans. I read Mason & Dixon as a recent college graduate with nothing to do but drink good beer, watch bad TV and read huge novels.  The advent of parenthood has made it far more difficult for me to read these beasts. The new novel, according to rumor, is to be much shorter and hopefully something I can finish in under a year.

My next reaction? This could be poppycock. The Times’ post gives reason to hope that this is indeed true, but a Pynchon novel a mere two years after his previous one puts us in unfamiliar territory. Let’s keep our fingers crossed people.

And, to keep the blog visually interesting, I embed the photo that the Times’ author dug up from flickr user bjohnson. That pretty much says it all:

At least twice weekly I am reminded of the scene from Airplane when we hear that memorable phrase “Oh stewardess, I speak jive.” The stewardess in question needed a certain patois translated for her into plain English. My co-workers often seek similar translation from yours truly. You see, friends, I happen to speak nerd. The truth is, I dabble - a sort of liason between the normal world and the realm of videogames, comic books, anime movies and command line computer users.  Two brothers in engineering, a childhood of videogames, a college roommate who traded VHS tapes of Japanese anime by mail - let’s just say I have some experience in the field. So in some ways I felt right at home reading Juno Diaz’ The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

In other ways I was, as the saying goes, out of my element. The story of Oscar Wao is both familiar and fantastical. We meet Oscar as a Dominican Adolescent. An overweight adolescent, who as I suggested earlier is deeply involved in the overlapping worlds of science fiction, video games and alternate reality. Oscar is painfully awkward, desparately lonely and eternally in search of, shall we say, female companionship. Complicating this is Oscar’s nationality. You see, Oscar is Dominican, a people who’s males our narrator makes clear pride themselves on their libidinous prowess.

Indeed our narrator is just one such libidinous Dominican male. And the Dominican angle is where Diaz lays it on thick, heaping overlapping layers of meaning on to Oscar’s ample framed body and just as frail psyche. Politics, social commentary, economic disparity, violence and power all rear their heads as we follow Oscar from the projects, to college, to his prominent Dominican Relatives back home. Overshadowing the story are Oscar’s inimitable, once-beautiful, mother and the Baddest of all Baddies for the Dominican characters, Dictator Rafael Trujillo.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a story of dislocation and a bittersweet love song to a country and a people. Trujillo and Oscar’s indomitable mother are just as much the subject of the book as Oscar himself. Through the histories of these three individuals Diaz traces what it means to have and lose your nationality, he lays out the puzzle of being a minority among minorities, and he serenades us about a flawed but beautiful country forgotten and abandoned by Americans - Diaz’ primary audience. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao does not - as the title and cover art confirm - end well for Oscar. But the book is a satisfying read, for who among us has not had his or her life shaped by tragedy. Plus, you just might learn something about Klingons, The Watchmen, or the Dominican Republic.

Settling into a chilly Friday October evening at the Walter household, we put on a random horror flick, available from Netflix’s instant viewing feature, entitled Timber Falls (2007). The description promised something about creepy backwoods folk with a religious agenda terrorizing hikers—nothing to get all hot and bothered over, but we thought it might provide some mild thrills and, I must admit, I was curious about the religious bent. Within minutes we had declared the film less than sub-par, but stuck with it, stubbornly, for another twenty minutes or so before tossing it aside and putting on an old favorite, The Amityville Horror (1979), a film which, after countless viewings, continues to deliver the creeps and the heebie jeebies and all those other Friday night fright delights. Sadly, this experience—being sorely underwhelmed by the efforts of the modern horror genre and looking to the past for comfort—is an all too familiar one. As Halloween looms near, the subject of this post, then, will be a listing of some of my favorite films of the season. I only hope it can be a sort of guide, a helpmeet, if you will, to make this most ghoulish time of year even more special for you and your loved ones. Making a list is always a tricky affair, and I have a hard time ascribing “all-time-favorite-totally-awesome-number-1” status to anything, so what follows is simply a list of films, in no particular order of preference.

Halloween (1978). Ok, ok, if I was forced to pick a favorite, I think this would be the one. I watch this film a couple of times a year, and I never tire of it. Much like The Amityville Horror, it shows us that less is more, and that so much of film rests in the storytelling. Halloween was made on a shoestring budget, but it doesn’t really show because there aren’t many things in the film that call for a big budget—there is simply a simple story with a few characters that unfolds over the course of one afternoon and evening in a small town and yet manages to concern itself with, well, Pure Evil! Well acted, sublimely paced, and full of inspired cinematography, I absolutely love this film! There are scenes that still make me jump, even after all these viewings. Part of what I adore about Halloween is that so much of it takes place in the daylight, where the perfectly mundane becomes perfectly terrifying. My favorite example of this is when Jamie Lee Curtis, looking out the window, thinks she sees a man standing amongst the laundry hanging on the line. Doing a double-take, she decides there is no one there, but then the camera cuts back and we see that it is indeed Michael Myers, the dreaded escaped mental patient, simply standing there plain as day. My heart skips a beat every time, and I know it’s coming! Watch the Halloween Trailer.

A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984). This is one of those films I saw as a young child that scared the crap out of me! For one thing, Freddy Krueger is a monster’s monster, to be sure, complete with burned-up face and razor blade fingers. And something about that red and green striped sweater is so freakin’ sinister! Unlike Halloween’s daytime haunts, Elm Street’s terrors truly go bump in the night, as Freddy preys on the fears running rampant through children’s nightmares. Pretty frightening stuff, even now that I’m all grown up. This was Johnny Depp’s first role, in case you were wondering. I’m a big fan of Wes Craven in general, and find most of his films to be a good bit smarter than a lot of their contemporaries. He’s always concerned with psychology and the interplay between what is real and not real, or real and perceived. Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994) is a fascinating continuation of the Nightmare story, where Freddy begins infiltrating both the dreams and reality of the actor who played the girl in the first film. Craven plays himself in the film, revealing that Krueger plagues his dreams as well, and that the only way to attempt to control Krueger and the evil he represents is by capturing him/it in a story—a technique as old as time itself. See Wes Craven discussing the film New Nightmare. Other favorites by Wes Craven: Scream (1996), The Serpent And The Rainbow (1988), Shocker (1989).

Just about everything by Dario Argento. Really, just about everything! Argento’s films are full of a particular ambience, flamboyance even, that helps set them apart from a lot of other similar Italian films I’ve seen. His recent efforts have not been as memorable as the films he’s most famous for from the 70’s, but they’re still fun. At their best, his films are full of rich and vibrant colors, elaborate sets, kitsch, fantastical music (much of which is composed and recorded by Argento’s own band, the Goblins), and plots as twisted and twisty as they come. Argento does gruesome torture and grisly death really, really well! All are done, however, in the context of the film and are often quite artsy, so that the point of viewing the horrific event becomes not so much the viewing of the horror, nor the horror itself, but more so the almost magic-show nature of the staged technique. My chief complaint with so much contemporary horror is its inherent torture-porn quality. This is not that. My favorite Argento: Suspiria (1977), Deep Red (1975), (these first two are likely available at most video rental stores, should you wish to check out this Italian icon), The Bird With The Crystal Plumage (1970), Opera (1987, featuring my favorite Aregento terror—sewing needles taped to the lower eyelids, forcing the victim to keep their eyes open or else endure much pain upon closing them… wicked!!), Tenebre (1982). I should note that I saw Tenebre some years ago on television, and it was this introduction to Dario Argento that caused me to begin a quick slide down a steep and slippery slope. I had watched horror movies as a kid, but the discovery of Argento and Italian giallos opened up a whole new can o’ worms, so to speak. If you’re looking for a good Halloween night movie, I highly recommend any of the above! Catch a clip of Argento’s classic Suspiria here.

Another director I’m fascinated with is George Romero. He has shunned Hollywood and success in order to make his films his way in his hometown of Pittsburgh, often employing friends and family members along the way. His zombie films offer fine social commentary, interesting special effects (it’s nice to watch a film and think, ok, with five gallons of corn syrup, red food coloring, carrots, a pot roast or two, some ground beef, chicken bones, and string, I could do that!), and enough post-apocalyptic warning that they ought to be shown in schools ‘round the country! It is interesting to see a theme carried across a body of work—Romero has made five zombie films to date: Night Of The Living Dead (1968), Dawn Of The Dead (1978), Day Of The Dead (1985), Land Of The Dead (2005), and Diary Of The Dead (2007). All are fine films, but my favorites are Dawn and Land. Dawn takes place in a shopping mall and is at times truly funny. It is worth noting that Dario Argento shares a production credit on this film, and edited the Italian release of the film. Land Of The Dead, set much later, sees the effects of widespread zombism and the government’s self-preservation methods of walling-off their remaining cities, protecting those who can afford to stay within the walls. The film also shows some humanization and socialization of a group of zombies, as they begin to work together to break down the walls surrounding the city. While chiefly known for Night Of The Living Dead, Romero has written and directed some other fine films as well which deal not at all with the undead. My favorites of his non-zombie fare: The Crazies (1973) and Bruiser (2000). The Crazies may be my favorite Romero film, actually. None of Romero’s films are particularly scary or horrific, but zombies eatin’ brains is enough for the genre, I suppose.

The Last Broadcast (1998) is a mockumentary about the Jersey Devil. The film is a “documentary” attempting to solve the bizarre events that occurred when the hosts of Fact Or Fiction, a cable-access investigative journalism show, ventured into the New Jersey Pine Barrens to do a report on the fabled Jersey Devil. They had employed the aid of a psychic who may or may not have been a charlatan, things went horribly wrong, people died, and now our filmmaker is trying to sort out the “facts” through interviews and recreations. This is a really fun film that is also, at times, pretty spooky! It predates The Blair Witch Project by a year.

Rosemary’s Baby (1968) pretty well sets the tone for Spawn-of-Satan films. More thriller than horror movie, perhaps, it’s still a good supernatural tale that’s a real nail-biter, full of twists and turns that’ll have you second-guessing everybody and everything. Exquisitely paced, you can’t help but get caught up in Rosemary’s plight!

I could go on for pages and pages, but I’ll leave off with some honorable mentions:
Jaws (1975–one of the scariest movies I’ve ever seen!), They Live (1988), Candyman (1992), The Shining (1980), It (1990), The Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954), The Wicker Man (1973), The Exorcist (1973), and, because it’s a list of favorites and not greats, Killer Klowns From Outer Space (1988).

What’s the scariest movie you’ve ever seen?

OK people, the fun ‘n’ games are back after a brief hiatus. I had initially planned a triumphant return, posting a half dozen or so games but with the economy the way it is, I figured we don’t need a global loss of productivity on that scale this afternoon.

So instead I bring you the humble but entertaining Assembler.

This one’s pretty easy to grasp and most of the levels aren’t too bad. There are some tricky ones though so never fear. All you have to do is set the green-tinted object (usually a box of some sort) into the outlined green box on the wall. Do so by clicking and dragging the various boxes, beams, etc. around the room until you can set the green one in its place. Nothing to it. Happy assembling and we’ll be back soon…

It’s generally understood that in polite conversation one does not stray into the murky waters of either politics or religion. It’s generally understood that large swaths of the so-called “blogosphere” rely on just these topics as their raison d’etre. In an attempt to split the difference, here are a few interesting links that are somewhat related to this election that I keep hearing about.

First, the (somewhat) practical. Glassbooth is a “nonprofit organization that is creating innovative ways to access political information”. More specifically, it’s a site that allows you to prioritize your interest in general issues, take a quiz on specific questions and returns a result on who your ideal candidate might be. Full disclosure: it turns out I’m some sort of radical leftist who chums around with domestic terrorists - my ideal candidate (84%) is Cynthia McKinney. Besides the quiz there are some other interesting features letting you explore what the candidates postions, records, etc. are on all the major issues.

Now for the less practical, but more fun tidbits. Please find here a cut-outable, foldable, Barack Obama paper toy. And, of course, the visual:

In the spirit of non-partisan fairness I searched for similar effigies of both Senator McCain and Governor Palin but, alas, came up empty. If you, dear readers, have any more luck than I in such a quest, please post links in the comments. In the interest of equal representation I suggest that you assemble the following, as it would probably be just about as absurd a figure as the “Killa from Wasilla” in the Oval Office.