90

Happy 90 months to my lovely wife, as we together hope that the power comes back on soon after the massive wind and rain storms last week. I think being huddled and shivering in bed together in our frigid little home shows that I'd rather be with you than anyone, even without power and heat and needing a flashlight to go to the bathroom.

I love you.

89

Happy 89 months to my loving wife, who never fails to believe in me. You are beauty and kindness. I love you.

88

Happy 88 months of marriage to my north star, my pillar of strength, my love. I love you so much

87

Happy 87 months to my wife, my love, my rock, my all.

86

To my wife, whom I love more than anything.

Happy 86 months together. I can't tell you how much I'm glad we are together.

To my wife

A very happy birthday to you.

As a gentleman, I shall refrain from passing on the age. That said, she is timeless in all the right ways.

I love you.

85

Today, 85 months ago, my wife and I were married. Even though I haven't written on here in a while, and because I can't bring him flowers on the 19th of every month (thanks to the cats), I feel it's the least I can do to stand up on my little e-soap box and tell the world how lucky I am to have her.

I love you, my dear. Happy 85 months (or 7 years, 1 month) to you.

84

To my darling wife, happy seven years of marriage together, through good times and bad. You are the one whom I love and wish to be with, above all others and without question. I'm lucky I married you, and an happy you are still with me (even though I'm currently curled up on the couch under the pitiless cloud of a cold). I loved our time in Victoria over the weekend, and I hope we can return for more explorations. And no, I don't mind all the times you have me stand in front of something for a picture (John in front of a totem pole, John with a cup of tea, John with a sandwich).

Now, I can hear you chopping onions and playfully scolding our kitten for being too curious about the dinner you are lovingly preparing. They are sounds of tranquility and domesticity. It makes me happy to be here, back in our little home, hearing you moving around, knowing you are there. It is the best anniversary present I could ask for. I love you.

Today's Word: Haste

The undeniably fury of the civilized human trying to quickly make a lasting mark in the world, a permanent measure of one's legacy, in the rapidly moving ether of history. They do this, knowing death approaches with silent, sure feet.

A Message From On High

Go get the new Halou album already.

That is all.

Today's Word: Roll

They plummeted down the ravine, tossing themselves over and over again, bones snapping and skin ripping open into small, bloody maws. As they reached the end of the fall, as they rested still as statues on the floor, the wounds healed. And they went again.

Enjoyable Errata

What follows is a random list of the cool and quirky that lights me up in joy (besides my wife, family, friends, and cats, of course).

*Apple Computer (including iPod and the Music Store)
*Peter Gabriel
*Amnesty International
*Lush
*The following TV series: House, Mystery Science Theater 3000, BSG, the Prisoner, the new Doctor Who, Robot Chicken, anything from the BBC.
*The new Halou album, and Halou in general
*Radiohead
*Massive Attack
*Nintendo/Shigeru Miyamoto
*World of Warcraft
*Babeland
*Audrey Tautou
*The books of Ruth Rendell
*Ben and Jerry's Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Ice Cream
*Netflix
*Mark Morford columns
*The Cursor.org Web site
*High-speed Internet
*Wikipedia
*The comics of Brian Vaughan and the comic art of Alex Ross
*Cirque du Soleil

More to come, when I think of it.

What about you?

Everything New

The give and take of new clothes. The fresh lines of new pants, bending and twisting to mold to your body. The tautness of new socks, comfortably clinging to your ankle as they still retain their factory-woven tension. The crisp utility of new boxers, as if you are being draped over and not confined. The seduction of a hot shower and fresh soap from your favorite store. The unavoidable reminder that it is the simple things that make life shine in the routine moments. You come out of a long weekend where you haven't shaved, you barely moved from a computer screen (whether playing Warcraft, your new addiction, or writing 5,000 words in 60 hours), barely aware of the destruction in Java or the growing truth that the military you pay for with your taxes slaughtered Iraqi civilians in cold blood. There's little you can do these days, but the freshness of the new skin gives you some arousal, some strength to drag yourself out of your long weekend and figure out how you remain human. You wonder just what you can do, after five long years of jackals in suits coming on TV and lying to you about war and society and Jesus. All you know is that it's sunny today and you have new clothes that feel like a cooling breeze on your skin. You are in a holding pattern. You are reshuffling your deck. But at least you look sharp, and these new threads signal a potential in you, as if you are emerging into something else, something were you have a sense of control and destiny. You are desperate to shed your old ways. You have taken the long weekend to distract yourself, only to sneak up on the demons which cause you much suffering, a long razor moving slowly across your soul. You've grown tired of their antics and you know you must be making progress, changing the way you think, because it hurts so much inside. You feel a shift taking place, a war waging when you close your eyes, and the victory would mean a way to be happy and be more functional. Summer's here, and it's a time to shine, and maybe you need to take a cue from that.

Today's One Word: Justice

You can't admit that this is something fair going on when the powerful are evil and the opposition is nowhere to be found. You don't want to quote Yeats, about how the just lack the conviction to rise, but sometimes it's painfully right.

Today's Word: Petal

the flowers bloomed inside the plastic case, which was a hollowed out computer from an age when there was still cheap power. Now, it was a gutted corpse, replaced with viable soil and given seeds so something could bloom.

Hadn't done one of these in a while. Feels painful and rusty, but liberating in a without-brakes sort of way. I need it. I need to break up my blocks in my head. I need to write more freely.

Taking a few days off due to Memorial Day here in the states. Will try to resume this blog as a living, breathing things instead of a beast I rarely shock to life. I'm a negligent blogfather these days.

83

Today, my wife and I have been married for one month shy of seven years. It's strange, a good strange akin to relaxy-spongey bliss of waking up thinking its Friday only to remember it's Saturday so you can sleep in, to realize that it's been about 30 days from being married for seven years, and yet you can't feel any of that mileage. While any relationship requires some work, some on-the-fly maintenance to keep going in a happy direction, I can't help but be amazed that the seven years has gone by so rapidly, so easily. I know if I think about I could recall harder times, gloomier moments, fights and things I shouldn't have said, but the grand mosaic suggests something else. To me, it says I made the right choice saying 'yes' 83 months ago, and that I'm lucky to have found my love. She helps me understand the world, and myself, better. I love her.

Happy 83 months, my love.

Press A to Start

Two posts in one day. I must be a madman.

Okay, I can take the wraps off some news.

I got the greenlight this afternoon that I will be the co-creator and contributing writer to a video game blog for the newspaper where I work.

It's been something that's been in the works for about two months, mostly in the "hey, you know what would be a good idea" mode of a couple guys just sitting around and b.s.-ing each other about trying to figure out how to have fun on company time. After we stopped laughing and thought about it, having us write about the video game industry as both players and cub reporters started to make sense. Too much sense. My new partner had been writing small game reviews for a year before we came up with this idea. Yours truly had been scanning the Web, dropping gossip and news to my cohort. Over time, our interest grew from "That game was awesome. Especially that one part with the chain saw and the flaming kitten" to "Man, I wonder if Nintendo's new handheld means the end of the Game Boy, and what's going to happen to Sony's handheld after Wal-Mart and several Hollywood studios just rejected the UMD format." In short, we schooled ourselves in PR speak, in reading quarterly reports, in sifting through the manic, juvenile postings of gaming fanboys to decipher the streetsense of what was working in the marketplace. We have been watched over by one of our business writers...he a sensei or our young grasshopper. After we rode as virtual wingmen to his E3 coverage, something tapped us on the shoulder, whispering tones of graduation to the next level. A week ago, my cohort and I looked at each other and said, "so, when do we start this thing?" It was a question of benign frustration. We were getting aggressive, and with a change in the management, we struck when our new boss was disoriented enough to say "Sure, fine" in that parental tone of "I don't care what you do, just don't burn the garage down."

We hope to get everything up and running in a week or two, just in time for coverage of a video game exhibit coming to a major Seattle museum. I'll let you know about it when I know something.

My mom asked if I would be getting paid extra for this. And after a second, I realized I wasn't. At least I was still proud of me. I'll be doing something more than data entry. I have no idea where this is going to go, but it's that whole "writing about what you love" thing. Can't be all bad.

So, there you go.

No, really. I have a blog

Sorry for the dead air for the past several days. Just a case of blogger's block (writer's blogk?) mixed with a busy life in meatspace. Living, writing, eating, sleeping, commuting. That's been about it lately, so I suppose that's why I haven't written here when I'm churning out more than a 1,000 words a night on the novel. There's more, stemming from an opportunity paralysis after sticking my head in an E3 porthole as well as the current eavesdropping scandal in this country. So much to write about, so unsure on how to say it. For the past couple weeks, I've been overwhelmed, and blogtalk was the first thing to the sidelines.

I'll try to write more later. Just wanted to say I didn't forget about this place, or anyone who drops by.

Varekai

Eventually, you run out of applause. "Wow" becomes meaningless. You understand kineticism as a language unto itself, even if you haven't been exposed to a single second of ballet. You start to listen in other languages, see in other cultures. Your brain races to assemble the nonsense and the chaos, since it all has some kind of meaning. And before you know it, there's this elation that results, an epiphany that all the colors and sounds and impossibly lithe humans up on stage is a screaming-yes to some optimistic vision of the future where humanity has given up junk food for art, anger for love, speaks through song and motion, and generally look like they've left behind racism, sexism, homophobia, militant faith...you know, the entire Republican Party...and got their groove in the most bootylicious, karmatasic way possible.

The second epiphany that marches its way across your brain comes when you wonder why there isn't more art like this, celebrating the wonder and the happy-lust of live instead of having your emotions blenderized from screaming talk show hosts, blood-n-sex nightly news, Jack Bauer finding new ways to cause pain in "24", that lingering feeling that everything in Washington is corrupt and no one there cares. Nearly everything about a Cirque du Soleil show is soaking in hope and wonder. From the moment you walk in, the ushers are smiling and polite, laughing, as if they want to be here, cheerfully sharing in the experience with you. You have to draw back for a second, scanning for the typical rude-shit behavior common with customer service these days. You look around. No one is shoving to go to the bathroom. Kids are playing near the entrance before the show begins. Everyone makes way for someone else, and we all swerve in polite arcs as we file to our seats, where more polite ushers direct us to our seats. There's color everywhere, as if you have been beamed straight into a Dale Chihuly glass flower. You see some of the ushers aren't ushers, but performers in disguise, revealing their clownish ways with members of the audience, who take it all in with good nature. They too are disarmed from the outside world, leaving behind their road-rage and terror alerts for the Cirque vibe.

And that's how the show is preceded. No ads. No countless movie trailers for cookie-cutter romantic comedies or cartoons with ourageous in-your-face animals who will be pimping biggie burger meals at a fast-food chain. The performers emerge in their lizard costumes, their fire costunmes, one of them looks like Bergman's chess-playing Death, another is Pan. Icarus descends from the ceiling in a crash. It's all too large, colorful, hypnotic and captivating. It's Dr. Seuss doing a Neil Gaiman-flavored acid with Hayao Miyazaki icing. There is no plot, or is there, as you watch as a wingless Icarus figures out the beauty and raw sensuality of the earth through experincing the elements of air, water, land, and fire until he means what I could only fathom as a sex goddess, whom he marries and they become rulers of the elements Icarus transcends the need to conquer the sky and just be in all places at once through his contentment and erotic awesomeness with his wife. If that's not a pro-marriage message, I don't know what is.

Or not. I don't know. That's the grand beauty of every Cirque Du Soleil show. It could mean whatever you want it to mena, or it could be nothing than seeing fit and funny humans in wild costumes bend in ways that require no magic yet make you believe in a kind of magic from start to finish. But it makes you want more. It makes you want to go on a diet, listen to opera, read the works of philosophers, contemplate silence, take up tantra sex, wash all of your petty rage away, and smile. It makes you want to strip your soul down and lose all the baggage that keeps you from leaping and soaring. You see a better world when you get in touch with something like Cirque's visual serotonin. There's very few things in live that gives you that organic high. And it makes you see what's important, what touches the soul, what should remain at the end of all things.

And if that's not art, I don't know what is.

Alien acrobats in human skins

Not much to report from Planet Seattle. My wife and I are seeing Cirque du Soleil tonight, thanks to free tickets I got from my work. Granted, I do have a soul-deadening job, but sometimes the perks make it all worth it. If I didn't have free tickets, my wife and I would have passed on the $200 entry fee for us to go in and see a group of highly talented superhumans bend in ways not even CGI can render. It's not that we don't like CdS. We've already caught one of their shows as well as attempted to get in to one of their many spectacles in Las Vegas (either the water one or the sex one, we can't recall).

It's just that about a year ago, "Cavalia" came through town. For those of you who don't know, "Cavalia" was a CdS offshoot that featured horses and humans performing the CdS-brand of "I'll never be able to bend like that in a thousand years of diet and yoga training" dexteries. After you see a couple of people get all double-helixy with each other on a moving stallion (good lord, the sexual imagery alone), the normal CdS seems kinda tepid. After all, the people can train for years in to be in that CdS limber franca. You add a horse, a thousand-pound animal that could go nuts and stampede at any moment, and the danger-voyeur level in the crowd is elevated. Of course, tonight, my wife and I will clap and be awestruck, but CdS does need to bump it up a notch. We're thinking something with monkeys and chain saws, or the Dr. Evilesque sharks with laser beams.

Now, that's entertainment.

Because it matters




More information here

Radar Scope

Noticed something over the weekend. For the first time that I can remember, there's nothing that I excited to see as far as summer blockbusters go. I can pass by Tom Cruise, the X-men, and every animated film coming my way. I can wait for them to come to Netflix in 6-8 months, but there's nothing I need to see. Same for upcoming video game releases (although E3 in eight days might change that). Nothing's coming on my radar that's got me genuinely in the "I so need that" category. I know have a few titles on reserve at my local game store, but I'll be damned if I can remember more than one.

No pinpoint on the cause, but I get the feeling that for movies, I can wait for the aforementioned Netflix release. For the price of a going to a movie once a month, I can get a DVD sporting better picture and sound quality than the theaters. I can pause when I want, rewind, watch special features, or listen to commentary. When I'm done, I'll send the movie back and get another one. Lather, watch, eject, rinse, put in return mailer, repeat. I've grown into the patience of an adult to see marketing hype for what it is. I don't need to stand in line anymore for a movie. I know it'll be there tomorrow, playing five times a day, seven days a week. I also know that big budgets don't lead to greater enjoyment. Explosions and other eye-candy may have dazzled me as a youngin', but there's a law of diminishing returns with the wonder of technology. With CGI, I'm less dazzled than I was before. For as shiny and sensational the new Star Wars movies looked, they were as sound story wise as a Faberge egg. Same goes for the remake of King Kong, which lingered close to Uncanny Valley. The humans looked hollow and the effects were delicious.

Add to this, the general avoidance static I feel at movie theaters. I'm not comfortable in the chairs, waiting through 30 minutes of ads without the benefit of a mute button. Being ad-free by getting into sneak previews and watching DVDs have spoiled me. I'm not huge around crowds, and I'm getting to a point where I like being control of the media instead of it being blasted into my face as if Dick Cheney wielded a multimedia weapon. I can start and stop a video game at my choosing. I can put down a book when the phone rings. I can pause DVDs, TV, and my iPod. All of which makes me wonder if I'm an outlier or part of a growing crowd who isn't into the communal experience of cinema, popular for most of the 20th century.

As for games, I suppose I'm wading in the desert here, a drought common between the start of the calendar year and up to E3 in nine days. E3, that video game wonderland held in Los Angeles, is like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, where Santa Claus arrived at the end and it's officially the start of the holiday shopping season. E3 marks the clock for new releases between now and, well, whenever. It's an orgy of marketing, a blender of hype and lights and swag and the id run amok. It's for kids and kids who are in their late 30s and barely able to fit their pudge into their stretch-waist khakis. It's where millions are spent in a full Zerg rush to colonize the minds of boys and men to buy whatever Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft tells them they have to buy. It is to us testosterone vessels what beauty and fashion magazines are to the XX set. Without the latest sequels to First Person Shooter X or Generic Sports Title, the menfolk in this country are nothing, and without the latest consoles, you might as well hand in your penis at the Man Desk upfront.

I've been playing video games for 25 years, and I think I've reached that point in the timeline where I can see the patterns in the industry. Shooter games, sports games, Japanese fantasy RPGs, movie licenses as games, and the weird eclectic stuff that are like foreign films: You know they are interesting but are too out there for mainstream (read: American) consumption. Looking over the gaming horizon, there's little that's innovative or exciting. Like with CGI-laden movies, there's lots of eye-candy but little fun to be had. The two things that register on my radar is "Lego Star Wars II," which is a sequel to last year's title which put a cute spin on the Lucas universe using the durable plastic blocks. The second is the new Nintendo console, unfortunately still named Wii. Moniker aside, the abilities it promised, from backwards compatibility to a gyroscope, motion-sensitive controller, could make for gaming to be what it should have always been: an aside to life's activities, not the central core. Gaming has gotten far too serious and demanded far too much loyalty and cash from consumers to make them feel as if they are on the inside of the cool clubhouse.

No, sorry, it's a hobby. It's an option. It's meant to be fun, an enjoyable time-waster, not some status symbol that miraculously enforces someone's masculinity. Not so long ago, I got over the need to frag aliens, zombies and Nazis. Once you move beyond that, a lot of gaming becomes invisible. Once you decide you don't need to hunt and kill, trample or conquer, humiliate and swagger, there's little left to actually play. Times like this, I think about my wife, who has gotten more into gaming the longer we've been married. I wonder how an industry like video games can still make money when it primarily chases one gender every year. Maybe that's Massive Multiplayer Online titles do so well with women, where the emphasis is on communication and community and not fragging each other.

Maybe MMOs are the answer to the question the gaming industry is avoiding: Has the video game generation grown up? For us in our 30s, we are the first full-fledged generation born and raised with video games on the market. We grew up in the neon lights of the arcade and wasted hours in front of the blue glow of Atari, Odyssey, Intellivision and further down the line to now. We've play countless versions of shooters, rpgs, sports titles, and more. As we get older, we like the idea of a virtual watering hole to play, to talk, to flirt, and maybe adventure. Us older folks look out at the valley below, where the sounds and flash from E3 make an artificial media storm of hype, and we shrug. It's a high school now, where the cool kids determine what you have to play to be in. We grimace at what's behind us, and then we turn back to our online sudoku, our guilds, our Second Lifes or Warcrafts. We bid adieu when dinnertime or bedtime happens in our real world. We play on our terms now, because we're old enough to understand the truth. It's just a game, and important stuff happens outside of the screen.

Diversion tactics

Last night, I finished a self-imposed dare, if I could write 30,000 words for a new novel in 30 days. I don't know what triggered the mad race for words. I have suspects: my lagging on my earlier novel, a general feeling of not being able to write on command, a growing inertia of creativity. I needed something new, something I didn't have a lot invested in. I've been working on the first novel, the serious one, for almost two years on and off. At that point, it becomes a Byzantine maze, growing darker and more muddled every time you turn a cold, marble corner until you feel the walls pitilessly closing in on you.

About six weeks ago, I broke out of my low-grade novel terror with an idea that seemingly sprung out of my head, Athena-style, with my poet friend Cori. Never felt an experience like that before, everything rushing out as I messaged her. Imagine a soothing electrical shock wrapped in an orgasm tortilla and it begins to cover it. I remember writing "electric blue Jesus in my veins" to her as I typed down details, history, primary conflicts, and within an hour I had the basic concept of the character. Within 24 hours, still peaking on the creative dosage in my veins, I had the feel of the novel, as well as solid, evolving plot.

I put the serious novel, which loomed over me like a buzzard, off to the side and decided to see if I could hold my own mini-NaNoWriMo, but set the goal for 30,000 words, instead of 50,000. 30 days in April, 1,000 words a day. No outline, but a gist of the course. I found I need some kind of deadline in order to produce something, even if I don't know just what I'm doing. It's a sense that "You need to get this done by X." All in all, it was exciting in that rollercoaster-terrifying way to see what bubbled up in the primordial ooze. I reckon I could most of it, and pieces will need to be altered or swapped around for consistency. I embarrassingly forgot the name of the lead character's boyfriend several times, inventing a new one as I went. Oh, at least there'll be some fun in the rewrite.

So, I'm writing again, albeit on a different project. I'm taking the next few days to scan what I've written, acknowledging that it's time to figure out how to break all this down by chapter. I'm a bit mushy on the middle, but then that's the biggest challenge for writers (and why it's called a "mushy middle"). At the same time, the first novel is calling me again. With my juices going, I feel like I can return to the bigger maze I built and hammer that thing into shape and get it to my former writing teacher to review. I've blown off an informal deadline already, and I would like to get it to her before August at the latest. Hrm. I sense another deadline in the making.

Short notes

1) Apparently, Nintendo chose "Wii" as its new name because "Revolution" is unpronounceable in Japan. Begs the questions: Why did a Japanese-based company go with "Revolution" for so long then. How did they talk about it during board meanings? How did the techs in the Japanese labs confer with each other on the project? How did marketing discuss it? The code-name "Revolution" has been circulating for more than a year. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has called it by name in speeches. Being Japanese, I reckon he found a proper word for it. And in the year or so since Revolution has been floating around, I can't recall seeing gaming news from Japan being stridently against the name.

So, what gives? Well, for starters, the name "Wii" won't. The name is final, according to IGN.

Favorite snippet

IGN Wii: Why announce the final name now and not at E3 2006?

Perrin Kaplan (Nintendo of America's VP of corporate affairs): Why are we doing it now? Well, let me just say that if you look at how much time people have spent online talking about it today and paying attention to it today, it really, I think, required that kind of attention and seeping in for people to let it settle a little bit. It would be really, really easy to lose that at the show. Also, I think it's important for us to go into the show with people knowing what we're talking about.

In shorter words: Nintendo knew that if they dropped "Wii" as the name at E3, the gamers and journalists would have rushed the stage and tore apart Iwata, Kaplan and anyone else in the way. Now, they have a couple weeks to have it dissipate in the public sphere before E3, and I'm guessing based on the reaction, Nintendo's hoping something bigger comes along to distract the public from this botching of nomenclature: Namely, the US nuking Iran.

2) I got myself a copy of Massive Attack's "False Flags" last night, which is available as an extra song on the "Live with Me" CD single and on Disc 2 of the band's new "Collected" greatest hits package. I have to admit that I was less than legal in getting my copy of "False Flags." Still, I got it and listened to it, if iTunes can be believed, about a dozen times. It's a chilling, brilliant, angry little song and I highly recommend it.

Lyrics here

Wii are not amused.

Seriously, Nintendo. What the hell is wrong with you? You had a winner with "Revolution" as the name of your next console. It does revolutionary things, namely in the controller with its gyroscope sensor and ability to track itself in three-dimensional space. Hell, the Madden game EA announced earlier today was damn revolutionary, what with the ability to use the controller as a proxy football. Sports games are a turn-off for me, but if I could pretend I'm the quarterback with moving around the living room floor and simulating a 50-yard bomb, I'm there on release day.

And then there's the whole Virtual Console aspect, where gamers can purchase from a 20-year catalog of Nintendo games, titles that revived an near-dead industry in the 80s. Youngin's will get the chance to play classics from the 8-bit era all the way up to today. Imagine a games version of Apple's Music Store and you get the idea. Feel like playing an old Zelda title? Go online, drop a couple bucks and it'll be downloaded to you. No more plugging in old consoles for those classic titles. It's all under one sleek, sexy, Applerotic hood. Add to this one more super secret feature that N was going to reveal at the upcoming E3 event in Los Angeles, and Nintendo, you mad-crazy darling, you looked ready to kick serious butt in the next-gen console war, showing the graphic addicts at Sony and Microsoft how gaming should be done. Again.

But no. That was too easy. That was too simple. Instead, you decide that Revolution wasn't expressive enough, didn't fit the bill. So, you came up with..

Wii.

Wii? As in We?

That's not a name, it's what you have left in your Scrabble rack after a boring turn. It's not even a word. It's the crude approximation of a word that already exists. It's not unique enough to be a Google or an iPod. It's not evocative enough to be a Lush or a Black Phoenix or even a Toys in Babeland. It's not fun to say like Yahoo or Mini Cooper. And it's not exotic like Revolution. Instead of giving their next console a number, like an awful, cookie-cutter Hollywood sequel, Nintendo's Revolution would be swirling, exciting event where gamers could plunk their money down and feel like "Yeah, this is different. This is the future."

It's so bad that I almost feel bad for Nintendo's PR team at this moment. Their jobs can't be easy ones, what with gaming message boards in an uproar over this. Maybe they knew that this was a terrible name, and so with a couple days head start they went to their meme workshops and built the best face possible.

Consider Pierre Kaplan, Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Affairs for Nintendo of America. In an interview today with CNN Money, she opts for a "learning curve" type of defense.

"I think people have to look back and let it settle in," she said. "I'm sure people felt the same way when Google was named – or the iPod. Napster. Yahoo. There's a whole host of unusual names that have become a part of everyday conversation and I think they're viewed now as unique."

Um, lady, that's not the point. You had a perfect name to start with. You talked about Revolution as "Revolution" for a year before Wii. We liked Revolution a lot because it fit. It'd be like Lucas going "you know Star Wars doesn't convey the film. I'll name it Wisdom Celestial Adventure. Yeah, that'll work." No, it'd be a disaster, and if you have go about and explain what "Wii" means then it's not a great name. iPod works because its unexplainable. Google? It just is. It's a curiosity, but it draws people in. Plus, Google sounds like giggle. It's fun to say. It makes you smile, but everyone knows it, uses it, loves it. Wii? That sounds like what you leave in the urinal.

It's a terrible name, and I hope that some force here in the states gets a petition together to have Nintendo of America change the American version of the product. It's not uncommon for products to have difference names in different markets around the world. Here, it makes sense. Bring back Revolution, Nintendo, or you might find yourself on the business end of one.

Attacked Massively

Last night, I got to cross one of my life's goals off that invisible to-do list. After an eight-year absence, trip-hop pioneers Massive Attack came back to America, came to Seattle, came to remind everyone of their elegant urban aural sculptures that court nightmares and love, riding techno and reggae backbones like it was no big deal.

I never thought I'd see MA in the states. Delays, side projects, long departures from the studios, they all kept the Bristol band from touring beyond European confines. The closest I got was my iPod crammed with everything the band ever did. To me, they were a studio entity, generating lusty shadows and haunting listeners with packs of animals that fed on alternative waves of dread or mad love. To have them on a stage, crafting their lush orchestrations, I wasn't sure it was possible.

My wife and I made it in to The Paramount and huddled on the main floor, about five layers of humanity away from the stage barrier, close enough to see the whites of the singers' eyes, close to enough to worry about performers sweating on us. We waited through an awkward hour of a guest DJ, spinning teched-out reggae tracks to a crowd who operated on the same Borg channel: It's been eight years. Get off the stage. One long hour passed, and the DJ bowed in thanks to relieved applause. His kit was broken down, and MA's stage-set (two drum kits, one bass, one guitar, five mikes upfront lined up like chess pawns) were groomed by roadies. We waited, we cat-called, we hollered.

Darkness. And then the first notes of "False Flags" hit the air. The wall of lights from the back of the stage shimmered as flags waving in electronic breezes. Lush and moody, intentional intense without posing. It was my iPod exploding and wrapping around me in light and sonic assault. I fell back to 1992, when I first heard "Unfinished Sympathy" while waking up on Houston morning. MA stepped forward out of the darkness, bringing their own audio humidity with them, filling the theater with something dark and haunting, powerful, wonderful. Yeah, this was it.

A good show all around, but it was plagued by mic problems from the start. The singers, five in total (including reggae legend Horace Andy and Cocteau Twins goddess Elizabeth Fraser), all looked off their game, awkward from either technical problems or from trying to shake the rust off their haunches after nearly three years of not being Massive Attack. The band itself was tight, fierce but coordinated, capable of making themselves impressively loud on showstoppers like "Safe from Harm" and "Group Four." I imagine once they get a couple more live shows down, they'll be fantastic. Seattle was the first show of its world tour, and I can only think that this was that one awkward show where all the kinks come out, a stumble, a trip, then a soaring. Rumor has it they'll be back through the states (they are only making three American stops this time around) in September. I don't know if I'm going again. I'm awestruck that I this close to MA. I was within 10 yards of the people behind "Unfinished Sympathy," "Teardrop" and "Future Proof." Flaws aside, drunk pushy twits forgotten, it was amazing, even a little life affirming as Fraser whispered the opening lines of "Teardrop" to a main floor crowd who sung along with tears and smiles.

One more thing, Massive Attack is touring pretty much for themselves at this point. There's a new album due out next year, but nothing was revealed from it last night. MA has a greatest hits album, which just hit stores. Wonderful, except I'd wager the crowd in attendance had everything the band ever did. Which leaves the realization that MA came out late night to be themselves, and we were there to celebrate, to cheer, to say thank you in the ways fans do, but raised hands (or lit cellphones) in praise. I got to hear "Teardrop" from Fraser's own lips. Heaven.

82

Today is the 82nd month that my lovely wife and I have been married, and since Blogger is finally acting properly, I can now step up and let my wonderful, kind, sexy, smart, and infinitely patient wife that I'm lucky to have found her. I know this might come out wrong, but with all the work we have done behind-the-scenes in regard to our wills and life insurance, I got a little more mature and childish at the same time with both roads leading to a newfound love for my one and only. When you write a will and set up a life insurance policy, it's a step where you say, "That's it. I'm ready to die. My spouse will be taken care of. That's all that matters." After my wife did her will, I dropped into a fear state, imagining her gone and me puttering around in my house living half of a life. After my funk, I went through a small renaissance, understanding how much I love her, how much she changed my life. It's strange that with six billion people roaming around how just one can affect you so deeply.

We are both in our early 30s, and barring something catastrophic, we'll be alive for a long time. We won't need to worry about who has to bury whom, and what to do with all the belongings that no longer have an owner. We can go about our modern lives, being who we are and enjoying ourselves, eventually retreating back along that dissonant line of thinking we will be around forever and all major worries are in some gray distant horizon. For me, there came a definite liberation when I signed my will. I don't need to worry. Everything will be taken care of. I kept it modest; I don't think I could legally get Radiohead to play at my memorial service if I just wrote it in the document. But the cats will have owners if we both die. My wife's jewelry will find a home. A couple of charities will be getting post-mortem donations. Writing a will gives you a feeling that you can still be a force for good, even if you aren't around. I reckon I'm rationalizing, but it makes death seem not that bad.

A bit of trivia: Microsoft Word for Mac has a Will template.

So, today my wife and I will have our little monthly celebration, rest assured that we're a little older and far too responsible, but we are still, always, immutably, in love.

I love you. Happy 82 months.

Two Women

Today is my grandmother's birthday. 89. All things considered, she's doing well. Yes, her eyesight is approaching nil, and she battled back after a near-fatal heart attack last July, but she's a tough specimen, defiant to the last in that modest, quiet way that has seen her through the death of her husband more than 40 years hence, the loss of a son in childbirth, the raising of another son and a daughter, being a working mom before such critters were acknowledged as a voting bloc by campaign consultants, a landlady, and a faithful Catholic of the old-school Chicago "I don't care if it's snowing, I'm walking to Church" stripe. She says on the phone this morning that she misses me as I wish her a happy birthday. She is living with my mom and step-dad in Chicago, and being in Seattle I miss her. I know I'll see her in October, when my wife and I attend my mom's 60th. And should my grandmother keep her spirits and health up for another year, I know I will be there as she laughs at a 90th birthday cake coming her way.

I know she doesn't get into the whole Internet thing, or can even read this, but I love you Grandma. Happy birthday, and may you know how much you are loved and thanked for all your help, kindness, and support you gave me when I was young.

Seeing your family extend into, and likely beyond, the octogenarian range, you can't help think about where you are going to end up on that invisible timeline that stretches out before you to some undisclosed horizon. As the man says, no one gets out of life alive. Add to that tiramisu a layer of newfound maturity when you hit your mid-30s, and you find yourself writing another rough draft as you write your novels. This time, it's a will.

My wife drafted up hers yesterday, and I have to admit I wasn't prepared for seeing my wife's post-mortem wishes in black and white, nestled in the sterile landscape of a Microsoft Word document. Even though I felt her next to me, even though I could smell her perfume and hear her voice, I suddenly felt as if she was gone, taken by some unseen force. And there was me, in the kitchen and alone, holding her wishes in my hands, just trying to find the courage to hand away her belongings to friends and relatives. A preview of grief as I projected myself to a future point on that timeline where I remain and she has gone ahead. Days and nights alone, and the house is deathly quiet, her life gone and mine reduced to a half-portion.

I held her later that night on the couch, asking her for something not rational, something primal and reassuring. I didn't want her to go. I don't want her to be absent, and I'm terrified that if she goes and I survive the shock, will I start to forget her in time. Will pieces of her vanish from me as I give her jewelry to friends and family, as I donate her clothes to charity? In Kevin Brockmeier's new novel "The Brief History of the Dead," the newly deceased, who occupy a sort of urban limbo, come to understand that they continue on in their spectral state because someone in the living world remembers them, and as a plague reduces the population in the living world, the strands get severed and the memories of the specters cannot be sustained. And it makes me wonder, in a depressive pallor, if the same can be said for her possessions. Once gone, will a complete picture of my wife remain? Will little bits of her exist in the necklace, in the shoes, in the perfume she collects? How long will her scent last on the bedding? What remains and for how long?

This weekend, I make my will. I'm not looking forward to it.

thirty-four

Just a short note. Today's my birthday, and I don't know exactly what to feel. When I was younger, I thought a birthday was akin to New Year's Day, where everything starts over again with you, a year older and this magical new coat of paint you get applied every 365 days. I desperately wanted to feel that sense of rejuvenation, that sense of everything is new once more. I suppose if I believed it enough I'd feel it.

However, I know (in that creeping adult sense of rationality) that it's just another day. I'm staying home from work, taking it easy. My lovely wife is making a cake. Going to get a haircut at long last. And, as usual, write another thousand words. To me, it's just like any other day, but with cake.

There is nothing special I want to do today, and I don't know if that's good or bad. I'm lucky enough to be not enough of a materialist to think I need gifts or a lot of attention on this one. My surprise party for my 30th, bookended with having my 31st in Paris, was probably as good as it's going to get, and I'm in the mood where I need to be thankful more often. I'm lucky. I have everything I really need in this life. I have a great wife, a nice cozy home, good friends (a couple of whom made a donation in my name to the ACLU), time to write, Massive Attack tickets, and a pair of cats who (as of this writing) haven't pooed in any of my shoes. I'm a king among men. And I'm getting cake.

Finally, a thank you for everyone who drops by to this little blog. I'm grateful you take a little time out of your day to read me.

Happy Potter and the Order of OfficeMax

From the AP wire

J.K. Rowling, well into her seventh and final "Harry Potter" book, says the writing is going fine despite one annoying obstacle: the lack of paper.

"Why is it so difficult to buy paper in the middle of town?" the author, a resident of Edinburgh, Scotland, lamented in a diary entry posted Wednesday on her Web site, www.jkrowling.com.

"What is a writer who likes to write longhand supposed to do when she hits her stride and then realizes, to her horror, that she has covered every bit of blank paper in her bag? Forty-five minutes it took me, this morning, to find somewhere that would sell me some normal, lined paper. And there’s a university here! What do the students use? Don’t tell me laptops, it makes me feel like something out of the eighteenth century."

Three things immediately leap out to me

1) Just how damn big will this last Harry Potter book be if she's consuming college-lined pulp like an addict.*

2) You are J.K. Rowling, whose books have defoliated whole forests. There's something darkly humorous about a woman who has so many books in print can't find paper to jot a day's work on. Maybe use the rejection slips given to the tens of thousands of other authors.

3) Again, you are J.K. Rowling. Flash your Almighty J.K. Rowling Badge of Power +5, and tell some office supply store you are commandeering their stash for the greater economic good of publishing and children's fantasy. Failing that, I'm sure you could hold the publishing world hostage by saying, out loud in a public venue, that you can't write another word of the most anticipated novel in the history of the world until someone gets you a pad of paper, a few pens, maybe a cup of chai tea, and a comfy pillow. I'm sure you could eventually work up to getting your own airplane or small island if you held out long enough.

I hear that's how Dorothy Parker did it, until she went too far, climbed the Empire State Building, and got shot down by marauding biplanes. Sad, really. All for the want of a pack of cigarettes and the head of Ernest Hemingway.

I'm not sure about the biplanes, so don't quote me.

*I should talk. I have a virtual sea of notes, from legal pads to post-its, in and around my office. But I can quit any time. Honest!

And my life is just an image of a rollercoaster anyway

Hello again. It's been nearly two weeks since last post, and at first I didn't think i'd post until my life got interesting. I had nothing of interest happen. Last weekend, ordered Massive Attack tickets and my lovely wife and I will be standing on the main floor, gazing up to stage. I have no idea what to expect, but the new single ("Live With Me") is worth your hard-earned 99 centsUSD at ye ol' Apple Music Store. It's a bluesy lament, caked in an imaginary cityscape where the streets are layered in a fresh coat of rain and the sun is coming up over the skyline, black outlines of telephone wires and buildings hiding their souls as they are backlit from a rising sun that can't burn off one man's sorrow.

My second birthday gift is coming in the mail, with the good folks at ThinkGeek and UPS letting me know visage del Miyamoto will be at my door by Monday. All is well.

Or was well. The writing had stalled out, and I was trapped with piles of pages and nothing unified or interesting. Imagine creating a skeleton and surrounding tissue, but unable to design and texture the skin to hold it all together, to give it a smooth, silky appearance to hide the guts and the alien bones underneath. For days I'd be trapped, unable to make any serious headway. I'd sit, and nothing strong would come. There's a saying that sometimes the definition of bravery is to say "I'll try again tomorrow," but really, we all know that's slipping into Lame Excuse Village. Stalling in the artistic void, and eventually the thermals would give out, leading to a catastrophic plummet.

And then everything just accelerated, moving laterally and in swerves. The aircraft morphs into an out-of-control sled that screams down a dark, wintry hill, and everything appears this ghostly blue-black, including the tree racing at you.

In brief.

1) My job might be evaporated sometime in 2007. The newspaper I work at is entering into arbitration with our cross-town rival. Years ago, the two entered into a joint-operating agreement with a clause that if one side could show that they were taking three consecutive years of losses, they could break from the JOA and go their own way. The bad news is, the newspaper I work at can't survive that divorce. We share the printing press as well as the sales/circulation staff. Imagine losing your mouth, legs and veins. It's that bad.

Well, our cross-town rival had dragged us to court a few years back saying that, yep, they lost three-years worth of money and now they want out. Our strategy? Stall and bleed them dry, because one of the JOA rules states that if they put their paper up for sale, we get the first shot. Plus, some of their accounting for three years of red ink looked questionable, so the thought was lose their complaint in the courts until they gave up, they went under, or until our future robot masters took over the world.

A couple days ago, the word came down: our rival and our lawyers were moving into arbitration. The good news: everything would be decided by or before May 2007. It would be over, and our rivals (if ruled against) would go back to their cave and lick some wounds and we could go on with thinking about kicking their asses on a daily basis in print and online. The bad news: Nearly everything else.

If the judge rules for them, then we're over with. If the judge comes back in, let's say, December, and says, "The other guys win," then the judge has to set a date for our dissolution that will be anywhere from six-12 months from the ruling date. No appeal. If that happens, then we are all crossing out fingers that our corporate overlords offer us the same severance package our sister paper in San Francisco got when their had their doors closed not too long ago. By my math, it would be six-months pay, a comfy cushion to soften the blow as I try to find gig that doesn't involve a paper hat.

2) Before the news came down, I came across a job listing on Seattle's Craigslist I couldn't pass up. It's a writer/editor job at a local gaming company, with requirements that sing to me with golden notes, practically crafted for yours truly. I submitted my resume and a trio of small writing samples two Tuesdays ago, but I haven't heard back yet. I try to tell myself that they are probably getting bombed with hundreds - if not thousands - of resumes from everyone who games and thinks he can complete a sentence, and that my Zen Jedi perfection is just trapped under a Word document avalanche.

Of course, I'm also reading it in the insecure junior high mindset of "Well, if they really liked me and thought I was pretty, they'd invite me to the big dance on Friday by now." And this was back when I didn't know my job might be lined up in some Death Star target station for demolition. I'm weighing the pros and cons of writing a follow-up note, considering nouns and verbs that don't reek of desperation. Ideally, I'd love to get the job after getting an offer of a severance package from here, but then again my wife wants a pony and we all can't get what we want.

3) I am writing again, but it's on a new project that I think my brain came up with in order to rescue me from the morass I'm in with the current novel. I'd love to spill all the beans on it, but I can't. I'll just reveal this: It's a superhero-ish story about an urban (likely Seattle) woman who inherits a timeless ability as well as set of siblings. It's in the vein of Piers Anthony and Neil Gaiman, a sort of magical realism and mythology of how the metaphysical world works. I'm taking lots of notes at this point, writing a couple fragments as I go in a running brainstorm. I'm not abandoning Rayelle or Divine, but I find myself enjoying this batch of fresh air. Lots of fun to be had here and the critic is almost silent as the glowing amber idea generator in me flares as bright as a supernova.

4) Oh, finally saw "Brokeback Mountain." Sucked, and not in the homoerotic way. As my wife put it, "How can a movie about two hot guys humping each other be so boring." I mean, I understand the movie intellectually, but emotionally it was a dead zone.

A much better mood on Monday

The sun's out in Seattle, and I'm getting the most awesome birthday present in the world.

Massive Attack is touring, at long last.

According to Ticketmaster, they have two U.S dates announced so far.

Denver and Seattle.

That's right, Seattle.

Tickets go on sale Saturday morning, and just last night my wonderful wife was wondering what to get me for my 34th birthday. Well, here you go. The tickets and maybe this to wear at the show. Or this. Or even this (been wanting to get this for a while).

Seeing Massive Attack as a b-day gift would make it the third coolest birthday ever. Second place was having my 31st in Paris (That's France, not Texas). The top vote-getter is a 30th surprise party, put on my wife in a truly Sam Fisher display of covert activity.

Hrm. My wife has been involved in all three. Coincidence? I think not.

St. Patrick's Day

I hate St. Patrick's Day.

I'm half-Irish, and I hate this time of the year, when spring begins to bud and the weather gets warmer. Every March, I know it's coming. I know this is supposedly the day of "my people" (as a teacher in Middle School once described it to me) and that today everyone is Irish. Beer is consumed, people wear green, parades are had, people drunkenly wail through "Oh Danny Boy" and then barf in the streets. Grew up in Chicago, seen it happen. Credit to my heritage, to see frat boys emptying their guts onto the sidewalk, let me tell you.

I don't mind cultural pride, and I don't mind the inclusiveness of St. Patrick's Day. I'm mildly bothered by people saying their Irish for one day, co-opting a culture under the guise of a good time. And yet if we couldn't have that, I couldn't have celebrated Cinco de Mayo or sat in a Buddhist temple in Houston. Plus, it's a celebration, and there's nothing wrong with that.

What does bother me is the following.

1) Co-opting a culture so you can get shitfaced. Look, just be a drunken asshole and stop with the rationalization that you can get hammered because of an Irish bishop who lived 1,500 years ago. St. Patrick and that Guinness you drink have nothing to do with each other. Just admit you're a lush and go on with your live. If you want to toast and boast, stand up on the table an hoist a pint to the good saint. Bellow that the man wasn't from Ireland, but likely from Wales or northern France. He escaped from the British slave trade and become a man of God, spreading the Good Word to everyone, no matter their class. A mean feat for the 5th century. He also didn't drive out the snakes from Ireland. That's a myth. More likely, his spreading the faith pushed out the Druidic sects from Ireland, and the snake has been linked to Druidism, so St. Patrick's most lasting legacy is a metaphor at best. Finally, Patrick (who wasn't born Patrick, by the way) lived a life dedicated to the abolition of slavery in all forms, something which made him a marked man. After his death, he was named the patron saint of Ireland. Not bad for a runaway slave.

2) We are not history's drunks. Sorry. The Irish are a profoundly stoic and artistic people. The Irish are one of the most resilient people on earth. Religious oppression, famine, discrimination. You name it, the Irish have survived it and come out more hardcore. And yet, there's a profound soul to the Irish. Until the conversion to the Euro, Irish money carried the visage of poets. On the euro coins, it's the harp. It's not a coincidence, either. The Irish have a tremendous history in the arts and letters. In fact, you probably have heard the Irish saved Western Civilization, with learned scholars preserving books and other written works from destruction, copying tomes and securing them so the world didn't fall into a permanent dark age after the fall of Rome. Again, when you hoist a Guinness, thank the monks.

3) St. Patrick's Day parades. Now, as I said, I love a good ethnic celebration as much as the next guy, but any celebration that promotes one idealized version of a group of people makes me shiver in a sort of existential dread. Case in point is the annual St. Patrick's Day celebration and parade in New York, reportedly the largest Irish pride parade in the world. Year after year, the organizers force to keep gay and lesbian Irish-Americans from taking part. And while it's a gross sight to see every year, this year it's coated with an extra topping of vile, trying to deny the New York City Council Speaker, herself Irish and a lesbian, from identifying herself as the latter in the parade. Great. The Irish migrate over from Ireland more than 150 years ago as bottom-rung immigrants, and now, once they have some power, they exclude their own for being gay. Makes me want to pull the organizers aside and scream "The Irish were the shitbucket of the British Empire, we came over to America to excuse discrimination, famine and oppression, and suddenly you want to act like a British asshole king with regard to gays? Short attention span much?" Embrace every Irish person, because at one point in Irish history, the British were content with wiping all of us out through the famines.

In the end, I know it's just a party, and I nod and smile, knowing it'll be over Saturday morning, save for the puke on the sidewalk. People will put away their green shirts and go back to the non-Irish heritage. Still, it'd be nice for once that on just one St. Paddy's Day, we stop the crap with the leprechauns and shamrocks and old-school U2 and the "Kiss Me, I'm Irish." If you're going to celebrate a people, then do it right. Understand where they came from, and once you know that, you'll be amazed at all the strife and heartache the Irish had to endure. And yet, they come out this odd but buoyant blend of stoic and singing. I've seen it in the Irish side of my family, and I know that through all the family trauma and chaos, they'll be there for each other. Get a big Irish family in a room, and you'll see what I mean. It's hard to keep the Irish down, tempered by faith and family and history and a slow-burning optimism.

And, yes, they brew some good beer, too.

A Verdict on Visionary Vindicating Violence

Or "V for Vendetta," the longer review.

First, if you are in love with the source material, you are going to get your heart broken. This isn't Alan Moore's and David Lloyd's flawed gem of a graphic novel about a modern-day Guy Fawkes running around a hyper-Thatcheresque London. No, this is more akin to Peter Jackson's version of the "Lord of the Rings" novels. Distilled to its essence, the story remains but the order is switched around, re-written, updated, polished. For someone who has read (meaning devoured and picked apart) the Moore/Lloyd work which was first published nearly two decades ago, it came as a shock to see characters acting differently, back plots and resolutions dropped, and subplots introduced. Bits and pieces of the original script from the novel float in and out, and observant viewers will get the nods given to the graphic novel laced throughout the film. If there's a way you can do it, put aside the original work before you see the film. It'll work out better in the long run.

Okay, that overture out of the way, it's time to get to the symphony (an in-joke left for you to discover). "V for Vendetta" is likely the bravest thing you'll see come out of Hollywood in a while. It's a film (if you haven't figured it out from the trailers) about a terrorist in a future fascist London who is bent on destroying the system. First by going after the people responsible for his past suffering, and then the whole she-bang itself. It's more of a study of fascism and power than an action film. V (the terrorist, placed by Hugo Weaving, who goes faceless throughout the film) isn't Batman or Wolverine. He relies far more on guile than guns, although he does pack a mighty nasty set of knives. With his Guy Fawkes mask in a perpetual smirk, he becomes a murderous ghost of Christmas Past, killing anyone part of the ruling class.

Which all leads to Natalie Portman as Evey, the young girl V rescues from plainclothes policemen who were about to rape her for violating curfew. V for Vigilante? Nothing so simple. Evey becomes the conduit for us to enter V's world. We learn about his plan, which is far larger than it first appears, and how the killing of a few party officials isn't the end, but merely the beginning of a much larger destruction. Evey's also the audience's voice, questioning how murder and mayhem can be good, if ever. Is there a point where violence works, and when, and can we live with the consequences? Can a society pacified by government-sponsored fear can aroused to take a stand? Is V justified in taking his revenge, once we learn the back stories of both his creation and the government that twisted him into being? And what if V is right, that there is a time when violence is the only solution left for a society rules by cruel masters? Speaking of which, V doesn't stop to console a fearful Britain. In one of the film's best moments, V hijacks the TV signal and speaks directly to the British people, giving them the hard truth that to find the true culprits of today's woes, they only need to look in the mirror. To paraphrase the man, it hurts because it's true.

There's nods and pokes at where we are now as a society. Hate-based pundits, fear-based newscasts to keep the populace cowering, government surveillance, heated political rhetoric labeling anyone against the system as a terrorist. It's achingly familiar, done to make the absurd (a man in a mask running around causing havoc, avoiding capture) a little more real. And compared to a mess of other graphic novel/comic book films out there, V for Vendetta has the bravery to not be about just the action, but to explore the ideas behind them.

"V for Vendetta" is a fable about living in fear, living in a society where anything is done for absolute control, and the power of standing up and saying "no." And V understands what other superhero/graphic novel-made movies don't: Heroes exist as part of the time they live in. And the smart ones play their cards to bow out at the right time. V lasts as long in any given room and with any given character he's supposed to, and his finale is masterfully played.

"V for Vendetta" is about finding a point past fear, and being liberated from a life of terror. It's a violent film, violent in ideas and actions, and it is as fearless as its lead character. It's slow and awkward in places, and there's at least one "wait a minute" moment involving the British Mail system, but on the whole it's worth your time in the audience and afterward, thinking about how (as Stephen Rea's police investigator character deciphers) the chain reaction of events in the film was arranged years in advance by V. It'll get you thinking about how the words "freedom fighter" and "terrorist" are easily interchanged. And yes, it'll get you thinking about war, terrorism and freedom. It's not an simple film, but a necessary one, an allegory for mad times. It is a film about an idea, which V tells us can't be killed.

And you should go see it.

V for Vendetta, first impressions

The bravest damn thing Hollywood's made in years. Not perfect, but then neither was the source material. It's a fable, an allegory, a hand at the back of your head making you see a slightly warped version of the world we live in now and dare call civilized.

And if you think the conservative screechers got their knickers in a twist over gay cowboys, just you wait until they get a load of that violent jester V.

Go see it when it invades the cinema near you.

More tomorrow.

Good Night, Good Luck, Good Gods (BSG spoilers below)

After a couple weeks of staring at a laptop screen until I nearly weep in frustration, I'm going to try to bypass my writer's block by writing another scene. Rayelle's going to have to be stuck for a while longer until she gets clever enough to come to me and tell me how she gets out her current jam, which resembles something out of "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" in terms of orchestration and believability. I mean, I am writing fiction, but fiction has its own rules and gravity that the audience accepts to a certain degree to start with. There's a contract there, and you best not make someone superhuman unless s/he has an S on the chest from the start. Rayelle's been through a lot to get to this point, and I'm not sure this scene she's mired in isn't real enough. I want it to be hellish and foreshadowing, but she just got out of a tight scrape a few pages back. I'm wondering if it's too much.

When I wasn't squinting in horror at my laptop, I was parked in front of a larger screen in another room. George Clooney's "Good Night and Good Luck" comes out tomorrow and I got an advance screener of his lauded, but Oscar-ignored feature about press freedom, government bullying, and the advent of television a medium for justice or tyrant, depending on who is holding the reins.

It's a low-scale affair, this film, shot in a crisp black and white, with a feel that it was shot for television, fitting since it's a piece of TV history. The music, which is done by Dianne Reeves, who serves as a velvet-voiced Greek chorus, is worthy of a listen on its own. "GNAGL" is one of those document films, a slice of Americana when we held an institution in better regard, and this time it's journalism standing up to one senator's vision of loyalty and "patriotism." It's a vital film not just because it document how far the American press has fallen, but that it shows that the truth is the only thing that can cut through paranoia, and how one man (and his team) risked their bond with the public to expose domestic tyranny in the face of a foreign threat (in the film, Communism is the boogeyman).

The best way to approach "GNAGL" is to not think of it as a movie in the terms of sweeping emotion or massive explosions, but as a piece of jazz inside a beehive. The queen bee among the CBS news team of the early 1950s, when TVs were beginning their steady march into American homes, was Edward Murrow, a veteran newscaster who cut his chops in radio before graduating to the talking head furniture set where he began helming "See It Now," a weekly precursor of the news affairs show "Nightline," in 1951. Murrow also started the weekly celebrity softball interview show, "Person to Person," and both shows are illustrated in the film, a desk being replaced with a comfortable chair, and Murrow looking uneasy asking Liberace when he's going to settle down with that right girl.

It's jazz in that Murrow (played with a hypnotizing reserve by David Strathairn, who lost Best Actor honors to Phillip Seymour Hoffman) barely says anything when on screen. You can tell he's thinking by the way his eyes dart among his colleagues who brainstorm around him and in the taut way he smokes one of an endless chain of cigarettes. He's waiting for something, holding back and thinking of what he'll say on camera, and when Murrow goes on air, it's with a clipped precision of a surgeon, a man who makes every word count. He is a soloist when the camera captures him, and he betrays no fear when taking on the biggest bully of the day (Sen. Joe McCarthy, playing himself from archive footage) and the network itself in the form his boss, William Paley (played with a stony dominance by Frank Langella). And when the mike and camera both go cold, Murrow recoils into silence, smoking again, being the quiet one in the bar as he and his CBS co-workers await the morning papers. It's strange. In other films, a passive, quiet, enigmatic performance would throw me off, anger me for not knowing more about the character, but Strathairn plays it quietly, showing in crisp pieces what Murrow values through his words and a seemingly force of will. It is in the final scene, when he lectures his co-workers about where television stands as it is about to enter the 1960s. It's a warning, but it's also a plea to understand the greatness televison can aspire to. To me, it sounded like the "Vast Wasteland" speech Newton Minnow would give three years later. Watching Strathairn as Murrow is a revelation, and not because the story of one man taking on McCarthy, but the amazement how people on TV talked back then. Watching "GNAGL," there's a pang that goes through the soul to see how far we've gone, from Murrow's eloquence to cable news screamfests. It makes sense in the pathology. Murrow came from radio, where words, not looks, mattered. Now, you have niche programming that has to scare you to bring you back, or outrage you so you channel the screaming newscaster as your champion. Murrow did neither. He told the truth. That, as the man says, is a radical act these days.

And finally a brief word about last Friday's "Battlestar Galactica," which can be paraphrased from Murrow: "Good luck" to Ron Moore, the show's majordomo, who took two years worth of stellar drama and action and dared to hit the reset button on the whole damn pot o' stew. The last 20 minutes of the 90-minute season finale hit me like a fever dream where I was unable to make out the edges as I stumbled along in new surroundings. The fleet is gone, New Caprica is overrun with Cylons, a fourth of the fleet nuked in one hell of a camera-rattling (nice touch) explosion, Baltar has served up humanity's demise to the Cylons twice in almost two years (must be a record). Like my wife says, I'm not sure about the changes. Too much all at once, and Ron Moore and Co. have their work cut out for them to come up with a damn good resolution by October. If they pull it off, BSG is going to be one of the best shows ever made. If they don't, the show is going to collapse harder than the Mulder-free "X-Files."

So for now, BSG takes a bow and the Sci-Fi channel is running the new "Dr. Who," which, like BSG, reset itself and won critical and audience acclaim. Glad to see the new "Who" is getting to American eyes at long last.

Tomorrow night, "V for Vendetta."

Disposable violence

American lawmakers Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton want the Centers for Disease Control to investigate if violent games cause violence in people.

Yep. That's right. Civil war coming in Iraq. War possible with Iran. Privacy rights being shredded. Abortion rights being eroded. Fiscal security deteriorating. And that's what two of the most powerful Democrats in the U.S. Senate want to have the CDC see if killing people on screen is going to be harmful. All this despite what could be the largest open clinical trial in the world, with millions of people playing games and no viable correlation between a gamer and a killer.

As you can imagine, gamers on the Internet are all in a tizzy about it. At first glance, I was too. Lieberman has had a bee in his bonnet about violence in gaming even since you could pull a fatality in Mortal Kombat. Clinton has distinguished herself with getting all hot and bothered about Hot Coffee, a section of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas that had to be hacked out of the source code to make playable. It's a waste of time and money, and only done by craven politicians who want to pick on something smaller and weaker while giving them the moral high ground of "doing something for the children." I've lost track of all the time I've rolled my eyes about violence in movies or in video games or on TV. I've defended violent games on the principal that a great game isn't great because it's violent or filled with sexual content. It's how the subject matter is handled. A great game will make the violence and sex in context, while a bad one goes down the sad road of exploitation. Case in point: the massively successful GTA series against BMX XXX. Which can you still find on store shelves? And more importantly, why?

I was ready to fire off an angry letter to Clinton and Lieberman, full of vinegar with claims that they can stick their legislation where the sun doesn't shine, or how I've been gaming for 25 years and I have a clean criminal record. No killing, no speeding, no drugs, no pimpin' hos. Nothing. My buddy Josh? Plays the most violent games on earth. He's a general manager of a furniture chain, and became a proud father in 2005. We went to see the "Doom" movie the day it came out and giggled ourselves silly at the cheese. I was ready, though, angry and righteous, and ready to give Joe and Hill both barrels (figuratively, of course).

And then a divine sunlight of wisdom pierced the clouds and gave me another answer, one that can't be argued with. A surefire scenario that would shut down moral prigs and opportunists like Lieberman and Clinton.

Let the CDC investigate gaming. Go right ahead.

Let the CDC field interview gamers, designers, developers...everyone who plays consoles or MMO-style titles. Let the CDC scour police reports and video game stores and urban myths and lawsuits and anything else it can find. Let's have the CDC researchers determine once and for all if games cause violence, and (here's the kicker Joe and Hill, you two should lean and listen very closely) when the CDC researchers come back and say that video games and violence can't be linked in a reliable and scientific manner, then no lawmaker can allege that video games are too violent and that they are a problem for society. Ever. Again. That's it. Close down the circus. End of discussion. Joe, Hill, find another straw man to beat on. Because if you get on this topic again, we'd know you are lying. We know that you are just out there to promote some lame moralist agenda when you should be tackling far more important things. Poverty. Women's rights. Privacy. That little ongoing war thingy you both voted for. Remember that? The little skirmish where real people point real guns and there are real deaths. Are you that out of touch?

Which brings me to another simulacrum. "Jarhead" is coming on DVD, and if you blinked in late 2005, you missed it when it was in the theaters. Based on Anthony Swofford's memoir of being a Marine in the first Gulf War back in 1991, it's a hollow, flat, dusty-yellow malescape of confused sexuality, anger, isolation and pain, especially when the action is set in the Saudi Arabian desert. There is homesickness and frustration peppered with the reminder that you could die at any moment, and yet it's sculpted with a near-palpable boredom. The film's essentially a travelogue, since there's no sense of peril or danger throughout. No sense of character evolution. We have no idea of who Swofford (played by a Jake Gyllenhaal who channels Edward Norton from "Fight Club") is or was before joining the Marines. We know he had a terrible home life. We know his father fought in Vietnam. He joined the Marines as an escape, but since Swofford knew papa wasn't right after Vietnam, you never know what the escape is.

But pay no matter. Swofford finds his groove as a sniper, mindlessly picking off targets, nearly threading the needle by almost putting a round through where the last round went. Swofford the machine. Swofford the long-distance killer. Swofford the lonely bookish type who suddenly can speak Arabic. Swofford the growing irrational. The trouble with Swofford is, we have no baseline, no understanding of Point A to see if he has fallen down or oddly gotten his life together, the archetype played via the Zen specter of Jamie Foxx, who recruits Swofford into the world of How to Spot Someone From A Long Way Away and Kill Them. Swofford eventually falls into the pack mindset with the rest of his platoon, filled by the Cliche Warehouse. The hick. The Hispanic. The vulgarian. The best buddy. All the way down to the cool African American sergeant (Foxx, who steals the film away from Gyllenhaal without trying).

Swofford goes to war. Swofford loses his mind in the desert. Swofford sees the fabled "highway of death," where hundreds of vehicles full of retreating Iraqis were immolated, likely by the U.S. or allies. Swofford sees death and empathizes with the enemy. Check it off the cliche list. And then Swofford heads off on a secret mission to find the end of the movie, which more or less eludes him and us.

What "Jarhead" lacks is a third act, some payoff for the ordeal. Swofford doesn't go as a character as much as he has his emotions put through a blender. Since we know Swofford made it home to write his memoir, we know he isn't going to be killed. Since we know that the Desert Storm groundwar took 100 hours, we know this isn't going to be a long, horrible slog. In real-time, thousands of Iraqi soldiers surrendered to the U.S. and allies. The war was over before it began, and so we are left with the troops celebrating the end of the war in a pagan display of bonfires and raw aggro, and Swofford standing castrated, mourning over being unable to have fired his rifle. Was Swofford's quest to kill? Did he fall into the quest? Is this the movie attempting to say that everything that was in Swofford is gone, to be replaced by a warrior who needs to be justified by killing? We never get a straight answer, even at the end, when Swofford returns home with the same numbed expression as when he left. The hero's journey is a null point for the viewer, and it's only when the hero returns home that something quakes. The audience can start to make out the landscape, and a relevance sets in. Swofford in the civilian world. Swofford out of his uniform. Swofford as one of us.

And yet, in the five minutes left after Swofford returns home, the film lurches down a gear. It's generic, distant, a movie on Ambien that only slides awake at the end of the tale as Swofford, back in the states, tries to merge back with American living. A colleague is dead, and Swofford flash-appearances at his funeral, where a few tears come out. It is a sentence that falters in a story-teller's mouth. There's not enough bravery to look headlong at what the preparation does to the human soul, and what the experience of combat does to further twist human beings. "Deer Hunter," a film that was a strange favorite among Swofford and his crew in the movie, did.

Here's what I think happened. I think Hollywood took a look at the summary of the memoir, noticed the current Iraq morass and greenlit the project before they could think twice about the substance. They made a movie about a war that was already a media spectacle. The special effects were more fascinating than the soldiers. There was no push to go beyond the war itself. The war the main character, and Swofford had a walk-on role. The result is a film that's as empty as the desert Swofford and his mates wandered in, looking to kill.

Say what you want about violence in video games. At least video games attempt to give you closure. And video games don't make themselves out to be important cultural documents of reality. "Jarhead" doesn't lie, but it doesn't have the strength to tell the truth about war and being a soldier, about what it means to be a killer and then try to stop. Swofford was trained by the government to be a killer. A video game didn't do it, but we did, the taxpayers...so we could have a warrior fight for us in a war more about oil than freedom. That's a sinister violence we really should look at and study.

It's hard being a blogger

Apologies for the lack of updates as of late. Very busy at home and at work. Still considering my "Jarhead" review, which I have to get out before my "V for Vendetta" critique Wednesday.

Stupid real life, always getting in the way of blogging. And writing. And gaming. And world domination.

From the Department of Missed Opportunities

I have no idea why this is not going be a launch title for this.

Monday

I'm allergy-free, having sneezed and slept it out of me all weekend. Did taxes and found out that we at Stately Ryan Manor are getting some money back, which will be ideal since I'm going to be part of a Nintendo mini-media day at the end of the month. Imagine going to grandma's house and seeing all the goodies she baked for you, laid out and glistening in some sanctified food pornography. That's what the Big N does for quasi-gamer/journalists like me. The meeting comes about a week after Nintendo sensei Satoru Iwata gives a highly anticipated speech at the Game Developers Conference, and about six weeks before E3, which is akin to Christmas to gaming geeks like moi. Lots of questions about the upcoming console (now due out about the time of Sony's upcoming behemoth) as well as the oft-delayed new Zelda title, "Twilight Princess." My co-worker (who formally reviews games at my job) and I need to start our plan of attack. This year is going to be big for video games. If we play it right, we might get a glimpse of Things to Come six weeks before all the hammers drop at E3.

Caught "Jarhead" on DVD. Will have a review soon. I'm still mulling it over in my head. So far, the sands are shifting to a negative result. Nothing really clicked, all very marginal, but very flashy and well executed. Sort of an "I get it, but I don't care."

Have a new-ish boss here at work (she was my boss about six years ago, and now we are working together on a new project). So far, so good.

Nothing to say about the Oscars, except I thought Jon Stewart did a good job (for the parts in which my wife and I tuned in). That, and the Academy can bite themselves for the incredibly condescending lecture (given by a visibly bummed-out Jake Gyllenhaal, who was snubbed for Best Supporting Actor early in the evening) for watching movies in theaters instead of in the comfort of one's own home, on DVD, where one can skip the ads, pause for toilet break, and (in my opinion) have a better picture and sound than in most theaters. Plus, no rude theatergoers behind you, whispering "what did he just say?" or "Why did he do that?" The best part about the Academy snit-fit? Here's this plea to come to the cinema to watch epics, and what wins Best Picture? "Crash," an ensemble film about race relations. The acid-tipped kicker? Film critic Roger Ebert is circulating the theory that "Crash" won because it was filmed for TV, and thus looked better when the DVD screeners were passed out to Academy voters.

So, to recap, the Academy begs you to go to the movies, and then awards the top prize to a small-scale drama.

Irony...I wish I knew how to quit you.

Chips and Salsa

Feeling wiped out today, and my angel of a new boss is letting me out of my shackles a little early so I can go home and germinate by my lonesome. "I'm not sick," I keep telling them. "It's just the aftermath of my allergies." But it's hard to sound convincing when you have the tone of Leonard Cohen after a bender.

Driving home last night, I caught a snippet of "Democracy Now," with host Amy Goodman talking about RFID chips, and how they'll be used to track where we go, what we buy, and just about everything about us. While the government use of such devices is certainly terrifying, I couldn't help being fascinated by the consumer aspect. Products can now be tagged at "birth" and followed from shipment to purchase to disposal. Even if we pick up a product and put it down again on the store shelf, that could be tracked. Every micromovement plotted on some database. Time used, time thrown away, shelf life duration. Everything metered and charted to garner even more fragments on who we are and how or why we buy things. More market research gathered, more analysis done. I can't help but think why all the obsession. It's as if marketers are some off-world sentience who are amazed by human behavior and need to chart it all down, all the way to the tiniest quirk, so they can safely put a tube of toothpaste the shelf.

Such devotion to studying humanity covertly reminds me of the underappreciated Alex Proyas film, "Dark City," where a bunch of menacing Nosferatu-like aliens have kidnapped thousands of humans, the latter of which are toyed with by the former, given memories, given new lives, in order to see what the humans would do. Such actions would reveal what made us us, and would give a dying alien race a chance to survive, through observational osmosis leading to injecting our memories (made up of a viscous fluid) straight into their brains. The aliens, of course, fail because one human figures out he's a lab rat, and begins to use the aliens' power against them (with some help from a pre-Bauerian Kiefer Sutherland, who channels Peter Lorre something fierce).

I'm not a marketer. I don't understand the pressure of having the public buy your razor or your shampoo or your car, but I'm shocked by the way companies lurk in the shadows to gather so much about what's in the end just disposable crap. Really, it is because we aren't filling out consumer surveys that you are spying on us? Just like products that say "fair trade" or "recyclable" or "dolphin safe," I'm guessing there's going to be a techno-organic market in the future where products will sold saying "Chip Free" or "RFIDon't!" Next to the farmer's market salsa. Yum.

Spring

For current and former Catholics (I'm so much in the latter I own real estate), today is the first day of Lent, that time of sacrifice for 40 days and nights, simulating what Jesus went through in the desert. These days, it's less about ash on the forehead and Friday fish and more about the coming of spring. More t-shirts, more sunlight, more green. A time to do some seasonal purging...clothes, winter flab, junk that's found its way into the house. Looking forward to turning the heat down and having my home office not be so bitterly cold when the sun goes down.

Spring, also the time where I remember that I have allergies that pass in a few days, but makes me miserable in the duration. It's a sign that the seasons are changing when I'm sneezing all the time, my nose is raw, and my face feels as if its hanging off my eyesockets. Let my trail of tissues lead you out of winter. Huzzah.

And I don't mean to taunt, but guess who got tickets to an advance screening of "V for Vendetta"?

Almost Makes Aquaman Look Cool

From Tom Tomorrow, it's Pepsiman. Making sure all good Japanese people have a Pepsi. That's it. That's his superpower. People out of Pepsi = Pepsiman saving the day.

I've been staring at the box for a good 10 minutes, and I can't figure why he as a crutch? Maybe due to cola-related diabetes? Yeah, and he has a snowboard.

Also, he has face to speak of but he has a big hole where is mouth should be, obviously to drink plenty of Pepsi. Simply, he is a walking mouth with no eyes, ears, or nose. Thanks for the symbolism and nightmare fuel, Pepsi.

Pepsiman (he must be a DC Comics figure; in the Marvel universe, he'd be Pepsi-Man) also smells like Pepsi. The front of the box goes out of the way to say (in a Japanglish that's so adorable for trying) "All Parts Made of Smelling Material." Frankly, I applaud this move. Too many kids are huffing the wrong things.

But the back of the box is also precious. "He is very confident of his physical ability." Well, good for him. PepsiMom and PepsiDad must be proud.

A quick romp through Google says Pepsiman starred in a game for the Playstation One. Only available in Japan. Busy fellow.

To be fair, this Pepsiman, in his hybrid Power Ranger/Munch's "The Scream"/smellable wearables, looks a far sight better than this version, who shall forever be "the walking yellow nipple."

A quick romp through Wikipedia. An entry on our Mr. Pepsiman (Pepsiman-san?)

Best part: "After delivering the crisp, refreshing beverage, some cruel and painful fate would always occur to him. Whether it's trying to leap through the window of a house, only to hit his head on the frame, or run toward the entrance of a fast food restaurant when the cashier told customers they "ran out of Pepsi", only to start his pshaa and smack into the clear Plexiglas doors, an odd ending never fails to manifest for Pepsiman. There have been more serious finishes, like a crippling fall off the side of a snow-covered mountain, as he yells falling over the ledge. There is no blood or gore, so it's more slapstick than anything."

Well, yeah, because it would suck to have blood and gore all over your target product. Or your mascot. Hyperviolent raping tentacles and apocalyptic motorcycle gangs are fine, same with Lolita comics and Hentai schoolgirls who are part cats (ahem), but don't get them near your product.

I just don't get the Japanese.

Three and out

A few little odds and ends after a long day thinking about Octavia Butler.

I was going to write up a few words about her, but I don't feel like I'm well-versed enough to sum up a titaness' life. I'd be too clumsy, too reaching. While I was staring off into space, trying to grasp the hole in the world she's leaving science fiction, I realized that the best epitath would be...herself. Her works will be the best way to celebrate her and remember her, and when you get to her most recent (and last) novel, "Fledgling," pause and in that stillness mourn a life that ended too soon.

Imagining Douglas Adams meeting her at the Great Beyond, giving her a tour of the place as he shows off this great celestial writing nook where he's been churning out pages. And in the days and years to come, they'll be great writing partners.

Back here in the mortal realm, a trio of things I wanted to hit before I forget.

1) My wife, who was on a tour of the "Veronica Mars" set as part of a blogger event, flies home tonight from her day of rockstar-ism.

2) James Wolcott, that literary scoundrel, got to see "V for Vendetta" early. Lucky bastard.

3) Fantasy author (and all-around good egg, according to my reliable wife) Tamora Pierce, who as been a staple of young female fantasy readers, has signed a deal with Marvel comics to helm a new superhero project titled "White Tiger." Keeping on eye on this one, seeing if Pierce can attract young female readers to this far-too-male genre.

Post-post P.S.

MM, what's going on in Manila?

Loss

Octavia Butler is dead at 58.

I can't seem to find the words right now.

The Length Between a Question and an Answer

A regular guest here Mrs. P finds out her homeland is under emergency rule after a coup attempt. It's chilling to see someone wax nostaglic and rosy about a democractic revolution in her home country 20 years ago suddenly amend her blog to say "School and work are cancelled. All permits for scheduled rallies are revoked. Police are now authorized to make warantless arrests."

Thousands of miles away, sitting in Seattle, I'm stunned. A shared moment of terror. Not knowing what to say or do. Unable to move, trying to comprehend. I think of her and her family, and hope for the best. There's nothing else I can do.

I think it has to do with the sudden shock of it all, what was once a relaxing event now laced with a gasp, then a held breath, waiting for the next shoe to drop. I link to Riverbend, who writes with razor clarity about the ongoing apocalypse around her Iraqi home. Riverbend's been stepped in the destruction for nearly three years now, and I'm ashamed to admit it's grown a little too routine for me. You need something big to suddenly get my attention again, say the destruction of a shrine. The ongoing carnage is a bloody white noise I've been lulled by, and reading the short entry from Mrs. P's blog, I realize that it's the squealing tires before the crash, and not the crash itself, that's the most terrifying. It's that split second before the horror comes to full fruition, and the gamblers have that last-second to place their bet, and nature and physics give it one more variant which could make the crash a mere scrape or the unholy grafting of metal and skin. You don't know if this is an annoyance or the end of a life. You are powerless to see the result, and you wait, finding a thread of faith and a lump in your throat as you ponder what comes next.

Lines Being Drawn

From SF Gate

After more than six decades fighting the Joker and Two Face, Batman is getting ready to take on perhaps his most complicated foe yet: terrorism.

Frank Miller, who changed the way people looked at comics with his noirish 1980s Batman graphic novel "The Dark Knight Returns" and his "Sin City" series, says he's started work on a book where the caped crusader will "kick a lot of al Qaeda butt."

"Not to put too fine a point on it -- it's a piece of propaganda," Miller told a group of about a thousand fans this weekend at the WonderCon comic book convention in San Francisco. "Batman kicks al Qaeda's ass."

Miller says the book will be called "Holy Terror, Batman." While there's no telling when it will be released -- Miller is known for taking his sweet time with his best projects, and he's in the middle of a different Batman series -- it's clear that the writer of "Sin City" is passionate about tackling the subject.

"I wish the entertainers of our time had the spine and the focus of the ones who faced down Hitler," Miller said. "I just think it's silly to have Batman out chasing the Riddler when you've got al Qaeda out there."

Wow, Frank Miller isn't going to be happy until he's deconstructed Batman into a hyper-violent, sociopathic shadow of his former self.

A few things stand out.

1) If "Holy Terror" (really clever name, Frank) is anywhere in quality as "Dark Knight Strikes Again" (which turned Robin into a gay pedophile serial killer) to "All Star Batman and Robin" (in which Miller bizarrely sounds as if he's a third-tier author trying to parody Miller), then this thing is going to be toxic. Will Batman use "I'm the Goddamn Batman" on terrorists?

2) Which Batman is going to show up? The vigilante who attempts to being his own sense of order to the streets? The scientist? The detective? The one who married the daughter of eco-terrorist Ra's al Ghul? If the vigilante shows up (Dark Knight Returns/Strikes Again), the "Holy Terror" is going to be pages of smash and crash, pain and suffering. The detective? Oh, just what would Batman do if he peered deeper into the al-Qaeda network and followed the money? Maybe took a look at just where Osama bin Laden got his early backing for his activities? Finally, is this going to be a flag-waving Batman or the cynical one from his "Dark Knight" series? Will he go from one to the other? Can he?

2.5) Has Miller forgotten that in his "Dark Knight Strikes Again," his Batman played violent terrorist revolutionary on the streets of Gotham City?

3) Will Wonder Woman take on anti-abortionists next? Will she go to South Dakota? Seriously, I remember when the Joker worked for Ayallotah Khomeini. Are we going to go "real" in comics from now are, or will al-Qaeda just be another villain of the week, akin to capturing the Joker, who will escape a few issues down the road so Batman can capture him again?

I understand there is a pull by an artist to respond to what is going on around him. Personally, I thought Miller did a potent job with his contribution to "9/11 Artists Respond." Somber, moving, brief. Miller joined his writer/artist comrades in trying to create a diverse, yet focused response to the terror attacks. Now, I don't know what to think of this. I can smell the bloodshed coming on this one, where Miller brings his "Sin City" pain and channels it through a character he even admits is a "dick." The trouble is, this isn't the Riddler anymore. This is terrorism, this is real, with attacks coming to the proxy New York of Gotham City. Do we need to revisit the pain and suffering almost six years on (street date for "Holy Terror" is slated for 2007)? Are we just looking to sate some primal feelings of revenge with an enraged Batman swinging his fists for us?

They're just comic books, you say. Sure, but comic books are a near-perfect arbiter of archetype. Samuel L. Jackson's comic-obsessed character in "Unbreakable" notes that comics "are our last link to the ancient way of passing on history" and follows up with "The Egyptians drew pictures on walls about battles, and events. Countries all around the world still pass on knowledge through pictorial forms. I believe that comics, just at their core now... have a truth. They are depicting what someone, somewhere felt or experienced. Then of course that core got chewed up in the commercial machine and gets jazzed up, made titillating - cartooned for the sale rack."

And that's what worries me about Miller, a man who does not write half-hearted or meek prose. If this is Batman swinging away, I'm wondering just what the message is going to be. Where was Batman before all of this in the War on Terror? Will he get shitty with Superman again, as Miller's Batman loves to do, saying that ol' Supes didn't do his duty on 9/11 and protect America? Is Batman going to be angry at American politicians for exploiting 9/11 for their own gain, or even making very questionable security deal with entities linked to the terror attacks? Is this Batman tale going to be just a disposable adventure? Miller is treading into the real here, and I wish him luck. He's viciously talented, and saying he has an eye for the visceral is an understatement. But there's delicate ground here, and Miller is going to have to figure out how to pack a three-dimensional world into just two.