Monthly Archives: August 2018

Let’s Talk About Thanos

Avengers: Infinity War has sparked debate and most of that debate, when it is not centered around Peter Quill’s actions, has focused on Thanos, his emotional life and his objective. For me I had not issues with Thanos either in his motivation, his plan, or his twisted, destructive, and maladjusted emotional landscape. This essay is more about how I see it and not how you should. I am not trying to convince you that I am ‘right’ and you, if you do not agree, are ‘wrong.’ In the matter of art no honest reaction can be wrong, it is how the piece resonated with you.

Naturally this post will contain spoilers but I will try to moderate them as much as possible; proceed at your own risk.

Is Love Objective?

This is the critical question when considering Thanos and his relation to his children, particularly when we look at his daughters, Gamora and Nebula. That Thanos is an abusive character is without question. Throughout their lives Thanos pitted the two daughters against each other in violent combat, making the loser, always Nebula, suffer surgical alteration and mechanical implants to ‘strengthen’ her. Gamora he stole from her home after murdering half of it population. That both of these woman emerged with any sort of functional moral compass is a testament to their strength of character. Thanos always favored Gamora, rebuking Nebula’s status in her presence by referring to Gamora as his ‘favorite daughter.’ When confronted by the guardian of the Soul Stone Thanos murders his favorite daughter to posses the Infinity Stone, but did he love her?

Can love be measured any outside observer? Is there a test for when a person loves another that can be objectively quantified? I do not think so.

Let me be clear, in my book abuse is never ever love. Thanos does not live by my book. Thanos, a character warped and twisted by trauma seems incapable of any true empathy and mistakes his anger, his displacement, and his terrible abuse for sympathy, for caring, for love. In that terrible when confronted by the Red Skull Thanos believes that he loves Gamora, his belief drives that scene not the objective reality that he is a terrible abuser. It is a quintessential example of the villain being the hero of their own story. Gamora is right when she says that Thanos does not, by any definition that an emotionally healthy person would use, love, but Thanos’ truth is not ours. Thanos is so twisted by his own trauma he is incapable of recognizing his true nature is it any surprise he cannot tell love from abuse?

Does Thanos’ Plan make any Logical Sense?

In a word, no, but when does logic matter to someone who has already become convince that they are right? Again to me the answer is in Thanos’ own trauma, the destruction of his home and the death of his people. Once Thanos became certain of his own vindication no amount of logic or objective fact could dissuade him. We can look around at our real world and see Thanos reflected from all too human behavior over and over again. Perhaps there had been a time when a reasonable person could doubt the safety of modern vaccines but that time has long since passed. Look around on line and you can find a photo of smiling women still promoting the idiotic and thoroughly disproved theory that vaccines harm, they are children of Thanos. There was a time when one could have legitimate doubts about climate change but every argument against humanity changing the climate has failed but those who cling bitterly to their denials are the children of Thanos. There was never a time when you could credibly believe in a vast world wide conspiracy that Jewish people controlled everything and yet the Nazi believed it so utterly that when the Enabling Act made Hitler into the dictator Gobbles Goebbels write in his diary that they were ‘free’ they too were children of Thanos. Certainty becomes monomania and impervious to reality this is the core of Thanos’ plan to ‘save’ the Universe. He knows he is right and there is no confluence of facts or logic that can dissuade him from his crusade.

These two elements strengthen not weaken the power and impact of Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War.

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A Hectic Week

The week is not yet completed and already I must declare that is has been terribly hectic. Monday, in addition to the usual baggage that comes with the start of a work week followed two very short weeks that surrounded the World SF Convention, making the return to the day job just a tad more tiring than usual. Things really got interesting Monday evening/Tuesday morning.

At 2:14 am Tuesday morning the power to our condo building failed. It had apparently flickered a little earlier, enough to set our electronic telephone beeping, waking both my sweetie-wife, and me but after the incessant beeping awoke us things looked fine. The full failure of course not only stopped the air conditioning but my CPAP machine as well. After years of using its therapy to treat my apnea trying to sleep without it proved very stressful. I awoke from my turbulent slumber Tuesday morning with a migraine.

Outside out building five SDG&E trucks and their crews, including a crane, were busily working to restore the electric service. Luckily the migraine medication worked quickly and I was able to report to work.

Naturally the stress, the headache, and the lack of sleep made that Tuesday a particularly long work day and distorting the day’s duration even more it was the day of our ‘all hands’ meeting. Dull at the best of time the long session of reports on the company’s plans and achievements wore quite thin.

I wish I could say that returning home that evening meant nothing but easy relaxation but that would not be true. While the power flowed again in our building I faced a submission deadline. Pitch Wars is a program that joins aspiring author with experienced professional author is help them polish their manuscripts, query letters, and culminate with an agents showcase, this year I needed to take part in the program. In order to get my material in I need to submit them Tuesday night, the deadline expired on Wednesday at 7 P.M. local time and I return from my day job about 6:15 leaving precious little time to submit. It had to be Tuesday or not at all. So stressed, exhausted, and with a headache I cut a three page synopsis down to a single page, got the rest of the application in order and sent it off.

I am hoping that the rest of the week proves to be easier and that on Sunday when I attend the Horrible Imaginings Film Festival this rush non-stop week will allow me a few hours of simple terror.

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John McCain 1936-2018

Over the weekend Senator John McCain of Arizona died from a brain cancer. There are many reasons to honor his service, both as a military pilot and officer, and as a public servant. There are also a number of reasons to criticize and critique his service, particularly in

Official Portrait wikicommons licence

the field of politics. Like all human beings he was a flawed person with mistakes in judgment and character. If you want to honor him or critique him as the nation considers the years he dedicated to it that is, beautifully, your right and your privilege.

I certainly had numerous disagreements with some of his judgment calls and I believe that there were too many times when he placed party loyalty over the good of the nation and the people of his state but I can also respect that courage with which he faces nearly incomprehensible adversity, of which his more than five years are a prisoner of war, tortured and denied proper medical care surely ranks as the most severe. McCain’s refusal to take an early release that his captors sought for propaganda purposes is truly heroic, a word too easily over used.

The Grim Reaper tried many times to take McCain, a number of aircraft that he piloted ended up as wrecks and he managed to survive. He was at the epicenter of the deadly fire aboard the USS Forrestal, which claimed the lives of 134 sailors and burned out of control for more than 24 hours. Cancer haunted him and in the end claimed the prize for its master, Death, but though his sense of humor remained a corny one, McCain kept it throughout his tough and difficult life.

He made many mistakes, some that we live with the consequences of today and will continue to suffer for many years to come, but he stepped up and served and there are far too many unwilling to do that.

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Thoughts on Jaynestown

Several weeks ago my sweetie-wife and I engaged in a re-watch of cult television show Firefly. The first series from Joss Whedon set outside of his successful Buffy The Vampire Slayer universe Firefly is a science fiction story following the adventures of a band of smugglers and outlaws as they attempt to scrape out a living in a civil war that tore their planetary system in two. Inspired by the book The Killer Angels about the U.S. Civil war the show leans heavily on a southern US cadence for its dialog and the settlement of the American West for it setting and tone. Airing from 2002 through 2003 the Fox Network canceled the show after less than a complete full first season. Unresolved storylines were tidied up by a feature film release titles Serenityand the show lived on in a comic book adaptation. Episode 7 of the 14 released on home video was the comic/tragic Jaynestown in which the crew of the Serenity discover that Jayne Cobb, the most criminal and violent member of the cast, is idolized, quite literally with a statue, by a town of indentured workers who years earlier mistook him for a Robin Hood style vigilante after he jettisoned strongboxes of money over their town in order to keep a crippled craft airborne. In a parallel that provides the crew with their method of escape when the local authorities freeze out the ship’s control the character of Inara, a woman of respectable status due to the society’s unusual view of sex work, engages professionally with the son of the local head of government. Her client is a man 26 years old but who, much to his father horror, has remained a virgin and the father has commissioned Inara to correct the situation. Over all Jaynestown is one of the series’ best episodes. Written by Ben Edlund it presents sharp in character comedy but lands on a note of pathos about the nature of hero-worship.

That said the episode has a timeline issue that had always bugged me. The young man with Inara is twenty-six years old and he speaks about when he was growing up that this man – Jayne- robbed his father and dropped the money on the people. We learn from another character that the heist took place just four years earlier, when the virgin was twenty-two. Hardly an age that most people would consider as part of their ‘growing up.’  Had they made the young man 18 then he could have been 14 when Jayne performed his robbery and still be old enough to dodge any issues that Fox’s Standards and Practices might have had about the whole losing his virginity sub-plot.

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A Grave Mistake

The American Civil War settled the question of State vs. Federal supremacy and ended chattel slavery in in the United States by way of the 13th amendment. In full the 13th amendment reads:

 

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

 

Over all this amendment corrected a serious sinful crime committed by the United States. I do not have a long list of things I consider to be an objective evil but slavery is certainly at the top of it. The evils of the race based chattel slavery reverberate throughout our society today and there is much to be done in addressing the wrong of the past and of the present.

However I do feel that the amendment contains a grievous flaw in carve out clause;

…”, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted…”.

Prisoners in the U.S. penitentiary system earn a paltry wage that ranges from 23 cents per hour to one dollar and fifteen cents per hour. Prisoner engaged in labor are not simply just working for the state, a number of corporations engaged prison labor to make products and provide services to the open market. In California prison labor is used in fighting wildfires and those prisoners earn between 2 and 2 dollars per day. (To make matters worse the skills these prisoners learn in firefighting have no applicability once they are released as they are barred from being hired by state fire crews.)

The injustice is compounded when for-profit prisoner enter into the mix. The labor markets are distorted by corporations owning and running prisons that are themselves a source of far below market prices for labor. Add in the deep pockets from the large corporations for political donations and lobbying and in my opinion the situation becomes deeply immoral.

This week prisoner across the United States had begun strikes protesting these unjust policies; they need our support.

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WorldCon Report: Wrap-up

My sweetie-wife and I have returned home and the 76th World Science-Fiction Convention has now passed into history. This was not the best Worldcon I have attended but neither was it the worst. On most days of the convention there are enough panels of interest to not only keep me going to morning until night but also to create conflict with wanting to be in several panels at once with the exception being the final day on the convention. In the morning I attended two panels, one very interesting one on bleeding and how to control it, and then my sweetie-wife and I departed the convention for a local attraction, a science and technology museum. (That was fun and cool but not as cool as the tech Museum in Chicago where we saw a full WWII German U-Boat.)

The convention did what I needed it to do, it let me spend time hanging with cool friends, revitalize my flagging spirits, acquire valuable tips and resources, and inspire creative ideas for further projects.

I saw almost nothing the ‘protests’ that occurred on Saturday and aside from the final day being thin on programing I had a lovely time.

I am now out of conventions until LosCon over Thanksgiving Weekend but I have one writer’s workshop in January paid for scoping out the Cascade Writer’s Workshop for next July.

Today and tomorrow are for relaxation and then back to the day job and pressing my nose back to the grindstone.

 

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WorldCon Report #3

From my perspective yesterday represented to busiest day of the worldcon. I do not know the final attendance number but the halls were packed and for most rooms finding a seat was challenging. That said the panels were interesting, the friends were numerous, and the energy was electric.

I had great day, perhaps the most entertaining panel was the ‘Late Bloomers and Old Veterans’ discussion that focused on the fact it is never too late to get started in the field as an author. Certainly that had resonance with me, but also the panelists, all friends, had a particularly good time and the room often pealed with laughter. My sweetie-wife and I took a break from panels in the middle the day to have a lunch with a dear friend. This was a pleasant respite from the hustle of the convention and it is always good to spend time with friends.

A panel I attended for sheer fun was Spy-Fi a talk about the intersection of spec fic and the spy thriller genres. It was lively and presented a number of perspectives including a Mexican author gave us the view from Mexico where spy fiction is popular but is often presented as against both international crime and government corruption.

We took it easy in the evening, skipping the awards ceremony, and after a leisurely dinner, my sweetie-wife and me retired to our room where we watched Youtube videos from the British show QI.

Today is the final day of the convention, things are winding down and tomorrow we return home.

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WorldCon Report #2

Yesterday was another good day at the 76th World Science Fiction Convention.  The most irritat8ing aspect of this year’s con is that the convention has done a terrible job of estimating which size room which events panels require. Over and over again the room are stuffed to capacity and beyond. It is good that there are numerous panels of interest and having an alternate is very advantageous.

I have run into old friend that I generally see only at panels, fellow writers, fans, and scientists. Two most useful panels for me yesterday were Idea to Story and primer on how to work one into the other and that sparked some fresh though I have for a story that was having trouble making the leap from concept to tale, and ‘Houston We have a Problem…” which about trouble in space and how your prepare and deal with it. One of the panelist in addition to being a fan was an astronaut who had served aboard the ISS and gave tiny facts about life in microgravity that were quite useful. (Such as that people when they first get into zero g move around in a ‘superman’ pose, but as they get more experienced they transition in an upright posture which seems odd but turns out to be efficient.

Least favorite thing was an evening film ‘Black Wave.’ The filmmakers tried to combine the zombie apocalypse story with a Lovecraftian elder god from the stars plot by way of a found footage approach. It was terrible. 90 percent of the run time was used for bland exposition and points were driven home again and again as though they did not expect the audience to remember what had happened just ten minutes earlier. Though to be fair those ten minutes felt more like an hour.

I am looking forward to another packed day at the convention.

TTFN

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WorldCon Report #1

I am on vacation at the 76th World Science Fiction Conventions, held this year in San Jose California. We arrived on Thursday, the first day of the convention, but luckily hours before the con actually started. One reason to booked early morning flights. Unfortunately, the only hotel I could book for the entire run of the con is half a mile from the convention center, so we get a lot of walking in each day. It looks like the average will be about 5 miles per day.

Now if you frame of reference in the San Diego ComicCon then you are off by an order of magnitude in the size of this convention. SDCC gets something like 150,000 people attending and the WorldCon this year is looking at around 6000. However that is a plus in my book. The smaller size makes for a more social environment and it is easier mingle with the program participants. SDCC is fun for a lot of people but it is not my cup of tea. (Though I did have a lovely cuppa with the talent Gail Carriger yesterday. The tea cured my headache, so score one for the Brits praise for their beverage.)

I have attended some great panels, the most informative one was on medical emergencies in space and the challenges for stopping bleeding or doing operations, and I have some great leads on writers’ workshop that may help me through this difficult period.

I will not be doing a daily post during the conventions but I will try to check in from time to time with a few thoughts.

Follow my Instagram and Facebook for photos and quick hits.

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Movie Review: The Meg

Saturday night I used one of my weekly A-List movie passes to go see the silly summer movie The Meg and I was not disappointed.

The Meg has a very straightforward storyline. Deep-sea research exploring a newly discovered area of the ocean, deeper than the Marianas Trench, finds an unknown ecosystem and accidentally allows a Megalodon to escape. The movie stars Jason Statham, a former specialist in deep sea rescue now drinking away his troubles on the beaches of Thailand, an outcast because of his insistence that something lurks at the bottom of the ocean and responsible for a rescue that went badly. When the deep-sea research station Mana One finds them with a submersible trapped on the ocean floor, Jason is called out of his drunken retirement to save the crew. He does, the Megalodon follows them to the surface and adventure ensues.

Despite the inherent impossibility of the premise The Megturned out to be a fun Saturday night movie.  Unlike my movie of Thursday night, Juarssic World: Fallen Kingdom, The Meg never took itself seriously; never insistent on a real world messaging that undercut the sense of fun, and stayed within its lane of adventure and excitement.  Avoiding the ‘tried to hard’ camp of movies like the Sharknado franchise this movie’s tone is much more akin to 1999’s The Mummy reboot. Park your brain outside, luxuriate in the air conditioning, and enjoy the spectacle.

One interesting side effect the film prompted in me was considering what it might have to say about the moment in global history. Not from the story, as I said it strenuously avoided having a message, but rather thinking about its international production.  The Meg is co-produced by a Chinese film studio and that is evident not only in the setting, with the nation’s mentions being China, Thailand, and Australia, but when there is talk about calling in the military to deal with the massive shark it is the Chinese navy that is mentioned and not the U.S.N. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was just one small data point in the curve of the US being replaced as the premier global power. It is a lot to read into a summer thriller and yet the thought will not leave my mind.

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