Author Archives: Bob Evans

A Rare Treat

For many years now most Sunday finds my Sweetie-wife and I at the World Famous San Diego Zoo. It’s a lovely way to get in a few miles of walking while seeing lovely animals from around the globe. If you follow my social media accounts you’ll often see photos snapped with my iPhone whenever I am lucky enough to capture an interesting moment.

In all the years and all the Sundays of these Zoo excursions we have never seen the mountain lion our side of its den.

This is not surprising as mountain lions are crepuscular, that is they hunt during twilight, the dim light of dawn and dusk are when they stalk their prey. Midmornings, when my Sweetie-Wife and I would arrive at the enclosure located near the back of the facility, the big can is found in its den, sleeping.

This Sunday was different.

We had crossed the recently completed canopy bridge that spans over the canyon where you can find the pandas, and emerged just outside of the Elephant Odyssey exhibit when she noticed that there was a crowd at the mountain lion enclosure. We walked over just as a zookeeper, standing in the enclosure itself, was completing a talk. Evidently we had arrived just as they were about to feed the feline. I scanned the enclosure and spotted the lion’s meal, a dead rabbit the usual meal offered carnivores at the zoon, placed on a tree limb. The keeper finished his and left the cage. A few moments later the mountain lion entered.

These two photos are the best ones I got and it was such a treat seeing that big cat stalking about his home.

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The 2018 WorldCon Kerfuffle

In the last few days the SF writer and fan communities discovered that apparently the WorldCon committee found a fresh pile of poo to step into. If you are not familiar with a science-fiction convention, and that is a different thing than a Star Trek or other Media focused convention, there are few standard and well loved elements to these gatherings; there are art shows where professional and fan artists display lovely pieces that often go up for auction, there are dances and parties, there are costume competitions and room after room of panel discussions.

These panel discussion ranges in topics form the nuts and bolts of the SF publishing and art businesses, to the latest films and television sensations. For me going to the panels is a central reason for attending conventions. The exposure to new ideas, breaking science, and writers that I have not been exposed to enrich my own writing, expand my knowledge, inspire new ideas, and introduce me to new favorite authors. Having a good mix of people on panels is a critical aspect to their success.

Before is get into the mess that appears to be this year’s Worldcon one more aspect that is important to understand, it is at the WorldCon where the Hugo awards, the best known and longest running award within in the SF and Fantasy community. Being nominated for a Hugo in any category is a big deal and a sign that an author or artist not only is talented but also has an active base of fans, as it is the WorldCon attendees that nominate the slate of potential winners. Winning a Hugo is a tremendous step up for a newly emerging artist or writer.

The 2018 WorldCon is held next month in San Jose and panel participants have been notified of their panel assignments. With WorldCon, a very important convention in the community, more people volunteer t appear on panels than can ever been accommodated. I myself submitted to appear, as I often do with smaller, local conventions. However I was not surprised when I was not invited to participate in any panels. I am still establishing myself but apparently a number of Hugo nominees have also been given the cold shoulder and were not invited to sit on any panels. The implication was that theses Hugo Nominees were not well known enough to get panel assignments.

This is madness.

A good panel should have a mix of opinions, styles, and experience. Not only are panels a great way for lesser known authors and artist to expand their audience, reaching new people, but fresh perspectives are critical to any growth of the medium. Authors and artists that are well established have much wisdom to share but also their views may be out of date and newer entrants into the field can give critical insights to the way things are working now.

A number of established authors have already publicly announced that they are willing to surrender their panel positions to make way for emerging people, a wonderful example of paying it forward.

This issue is not the only one to explode over the upcoming WorldCon and I hope that the committee is able to right this ship and host an inclusive, fun, and exciting convention next month.

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Why is Trump Deferential to Putin?

Even before last week’s terrifying and subservient joint press conference it’s been clear that Donald Trump not only admires Vladimir Putin, but also actively defers to the former KGB operative. On the world’s stage his displayed the true colors of his ‘America First’ philosophy, blame America first.

Without any reasonable question it is fact that the Russian government engaged in a wide-ranging, committed, and vigorous operation to influence the 2016 presidential campaign seeking to benefit Donald Trump and deny Hillary Clinton the office of President. Since taking office, with the American Intelligence community in rare unanimity concerning the Russian operation the Trump administration has taken no actions punishing the Russian for their attacks on our democracy, no measure to safeguard future elections, nor utter even a mild condemnation. Why?

Before I explore the theories as to why Trump takes no action and defers to Putin let me set aside, for the moment, the question of collusion. Those charges are being investigated and we should await the information produced before coming to a conclusion.

Theory 1: Putin has something on Trump.

This covers a lot of potential ground, everything from damaging salacious material to financial pressure due to the nature of the Trump Organization’s funding. The opaque natures of the Organization and Trump’s refusal to disclose his finances and tax records keep such suspicions alive.

Theory 2: Trump and Putin are simpatico.

It is possible that Trump and Putin share a worldview and as such come to similar conclusion about the world and what is happening.

Theory 3: Trump’s ego is too fragile.

The crux of this idea is that Trump is incapable of admitting any concept that weakens his electoral victory. His ego demands that his victory be a product of his ‘very stable genius’ and any condemnation or recognition of Russia interceding on his behalf undercuts this and challenges his fragile self-image.

Theory 4: Trump is naive.

This one speaks to the fact that Trump is in experienced as a politician and when confronted with news he dies not like, that the Russian decidedly interceded on his behalf, and a sooth experienced manipulator such as Putin telling him what he wants to hear, Trump is unable to separate what he wants from what is true.

There’s a lot of differences between those four theories, swinging from being in the pocket of a foreign power to simply being thick in the head but here is one thing I think is inescapable no matter which theory turns to to bets fit the facts:

ANY of these means he is incapable of being a proper president. No person cripple by any of these conditions can be trusted with the awesome powers of the US Presidency.

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Movie Review: The First Purge

A small digression; Back in the early 80’s a local theater used to have what was called ‘Dollar Night.’ Every Tuesday admission to all movies, all day, all showings, was just one dollar. Dollar Night was very popular and my friends and myself often took bold risks seeing all manner of movies because well, it was only a dollar. Granted there we endured a lot of bad movies, The Perils of Gwendolyn in the Land of the Yik-Yakcertainly comes to mind. However even with such cinema classics scarring us for life seeing the sheer number of movies that Dollar Night allowed was a pleasure. I am reminded of those days because earlier this month I enrolled in the AMC Theaters subscription program AMC’s A-List. For $19.95 per month subscribers can see up to 3 movies per week for no additional charge. Granted, even with inflation that does not reach the level of discounts that Dollar Night achieved but it does open up the doors for more films and more experimentation in which films I am willing to give a chance in the theater versus waiting for eventual home viewing by way of streaming, premium channels, or disc. It was utilizing that subscription and the strength of MovieBob’s review that lead to me going out last night for The First Purge.

The fourth film in the Purgefranchise (With a television series slated for airing this year) The First Purge is a prequel exploring the origins of the first story’s central premise; that for one evening a year all laws are suspended allowing the American people to cathartically expel their personal violence. (A concept Star Trekfans will remember from the TOSepisode Return of the Archons.) Utilizing footage from crises around the world The First Purge establishes the backstory of a grand economic collapse that lead the assent of a new American political party The New Founding Father of America. The NFFA sweeps in election gaining control at local, state, and federal levels. (Showing that the filmmakers of this franchise already understand the American political system better than more ‘serious’ storytellers.) Using the research of psychologist Dr. Updale (Marisa Tomei) they implement the first purge on a small-scale experimental basis, subjecting Staten Island to a twelve-hour period of lawlessness with hopes, if participation is great enough, of rolling it out nationally. Residents of the area are offered $5000 to remain on Staten Island for the experiment and even more to participate in cathartic violence. (A here the filmmakers display a typical Hollywood misunderstanding of the scientific process.) In addition to follow Dr. Updale and the NFFA party members implementing this experiment the film follows two principal groups of characters, the first centered on community activist and Purge opponent Nya as she attempts to keep her people safe and out of the purge, and the Dmitri, Nya’s ex-lover and leader of a local drug gang. Dmitri also does not believe in the purge but has far less concern for the community than the idealistic Nya. All the character, Updale, Nya, and Dmitri find their worldview and assumption challenged as the reality of the ‘experiment’ and it actual aims are discovered.

The First Purge is dystopian science-fiction prompted as an action/horror film and as with all dystopias it is inherently a political story. If you are a Trump supporter or Trump adjacent the political message is not for you. After all look at one of the movie’s official poster and you’ll see that they are not trying for subtlety. And while U can quibble with some of their statements I celebrate a story, a film, or any art having a point of view.

I mentioned MovieBob’s review, he gave The First Purge 3 out of 5 stars and I think perhaps he was a tad generous. There are glaring flaws in the film’s execution but nor are there any real moments that rise to interesting heights. I think The First Purge is a competent film and get in, tells it story, hits its marks and gets out. For a solid but not stellar performance I would give it 2.5 stars, right in the middle.

I started this review mentioning the long dead ‘Dollar Night.’ While I sat through the previews of coming attraction there were a few that I knew I would see now that the AMC A-List removed the ‘Am I $15 interested?’ hurdle for future films.

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Thoughts on Gone With the Wind

Over several nights via streaming I have re-watched the film Gone with the Wind.I ended up watching this movie because the other Olivia de Havilland The Adventures of Robin Hood was not available on streaming. I know I had seen Gone With the Wind before but it had been some time, decades, and I thought it useful to view the film and the story through my more experienced eye.

Directed by Victor Fleming with music by Max Steiner, and boasting one of the most colorful pallets ever, this movie stands as an achievement in cinema. Grand in scope and in scale and with a cast that is just terrific it is easy to see why this remained the most popular film for a very long time, but it’s impossible to ignore the propagandistic elements of the piece. The barbarity of slavery is utterly absent from the film. Every black character is actually a stereotype and evil of the plantation system is disregarded for a myth of noble benevolent slavers.

The story is about Scarlett O’Hara and follows her from her teenage years, starting right at the onset of the American Civil War, and though the ruin of her personal life as an adult. Scarlett loves Ashley but Ashley loves Melanie while rakish Brett Butler loves Scarlett. Through the war, reconstruction, and beyond we follow Scarlett as she schemes and uses people, always pining for Ashley who remains faithful to the clueless and naive Melanie. (Truly Melanie is tied right up there with Claudio from Much Ado About Nothing as the most gullible and naive character in western literature.) On this production I think Olivia de Havilland I think had the toughest job as an actor. She had to convince us that Melanie could be a real person and she did it. While Vivien Leigh deserve her accolades as an actor, I think Olivia did a far better job with much more challenging material.

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Not Knowing How

As I mentioned in this space several weeks ago my most recent entry into the Writer of the Future contest had scored a finalist. (At that time I though the finalist were six but it turned out there are eight from which the three winners are chosen.) My entry did not win.

Don’t worry about me; I’m good. Rejection is baked into the cake and its labeled right on the tin. Do not attempt traditional publication if you cannot take rejection for it will stalk you every step of the way and throughout any career. I’m proud and happy to have this odd little story score a spot on the finalist list and the contest may print it as a published finalist in next year’s anthology.

I am reminded of a story I once heard Charlton Heston recount on the Late Show with Johnny Carson. (Kids ask your parent or grandparents.) The great actor Laurence Olivier was in a stage production and the play had already been running for several weeks when one night his performance transcended into something beyond words. His fellow actors noticed the heights he suddenly has reached and were spellbound by the achievement. Afterward Maggie Smith, you kids know here from Harry Potter, came to his dressing room and asked if he knew just how good he had been that evening. Reportedly Olivier answered, “Yes, but I don’t know how.”

This is what separates art from science or engineering. You can learn rules, you can learn theories and in science those are unchanging, always producing the same results from the same inputs but art doesn’t work that way.

Under the current coordinating judge I have submitted a dozen stories to the contest, one made finalist, none have made semi-finalist, one scored an honorable mention, and the rest, ten out of twelve were passed over without comment or placement. Why did this story catch Dave’s attention?

I don’t know. A number of those stories that Dave did not care for have sold to other markets, several have gotten feedback and comments from other editors. This is not science and there are no hard and fast rules that assure consistent outcomes. Dave himself has a number of elements or rules that he thinks makes for good story telling and this story, the one he plucked for finalist, ignored or broke a number of the advisory guidelines.

When I have a new short story I will submit again but past performance is not guarantee of future results.

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The Double Lesson of ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf.’

I have written on this topic before but I think it bears a return engagement. Nearly everyone knows the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. A young boy is giving the vastly important duty of guarding a herd of sheep; twice it shouts false warning about a wolf and laughs at the panicked village when they respond to his alarm. When the wolf actually does appear no one answers his call and depending on the version you hear, the sheep, the boy, or both are eaten by the wolf. The moral of the story is do not lie for when you need to be believed you may not be. And that itself is a good moral, but the concept if false alarms and the deadened of people to those alarms run deeper than deliberate fabrications.

Consider if the boy had thought that there might be a wolf and he raised the alarm without taking stock of the situation and verifying that the flock was in danger. The result of the story remains unchanged.  Twice the village runs to the flock only to discover that there is no wolf and when the boy raises a legitimate alarm they are unlikely to respond quickly or with any conviction. The moral does not need to be about lying but about making sure you are right before you sound that alarm. There needs to be a fire before you pull the fire alarm lever.

This lesson applies to politics as well as other areas of life. One the conservative side of the aisle anything that increases regulation, no mater how rationally or required is met with calls of ‘Socialism!’ Obama was not a center-left politician but a man out to destroy the American way of life and who plotted to institute ‘hard socialism.’ So far we have not been treated to a firebrand eat the rich socialist who has the potential to gain real power but should it happen the right will learn that they have devalued their alarm call into meaningless noise.

Fascist has also become meaningless. The term has been bandied about so often as to be devoid of definition.  I can remember people on the left constructing careful arguments that Reagan was a fascist, as was George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. It seemed that everyone to their right was automatically a fascist. Is it any surprise that now with a Republican politician who openly admires dictators, jokes about violating the constitution and remaining in power beyond two terms, applauds the slaughter of peaceful protesters, and sided with our geo-political foes over our own intelligence community that the charge of fascist still lacks punch?

The misuse and abuse of such charges, turning them into mere insults has robbed us of a vital tool of information and alarm. There is a wolf about but few are willing to listen and more than ever we must be vigilant.

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I Do Not Believe in Conspiracy Theories

First off let me split the hair between a conspiracy and a conspiracy theory. Clearly people do conspire and that process is a conspiracy. People conspire to smuggled drugs, contraband, and people across boarders, they conspired to evade their taxation debt, they conspire to conceal evidence of guilt and all manner of things. The real difference is the scale by which real world conspiracies operate and the vast global coordination required for many popular conspiracy theories. A few conspiracy theories that serve as example to me of this deluded impossible thinking:

AIDS was a created disease to eliminate certain racial groups.

The Moon landing was faked.

The US Government has possession of alien technology.

Marxists, after their ideology was discredited, disguised it as post-modernism to infiltrate it into popular culture.

Vaccines cause Autism or mental defects.

International ‘globalist’ (and we all know what that’s code for) control world events. (That one gets tied to Marxists as well.)

9/11 was an act of the US Government.

I admonish everyone to demand proof, not conjecture, not assumption, but evidence before believing vast glob spanning causes for events.

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How A Movie Tormented Me for a Decade

It must have been about 1983 or early 1984 when this started. I was in the apartment of a friend and some movie was playing on HBO. From the dialogue track someone referred to a character named Mr. Devereux. Unrelated to the film playing on the television my memory pulled up a scarp of dialog from another film:

“My Name is Estan Devereux.“

In my memory I could hear the voice quite clearly but I could not visualize the scene. I could not call up the line right before or the one that followed only that fragment of a conversation.

My Name is Estan Devereux.“

For the rest of the day it haunted me. I know it was a minor character and I knew it came from some film I like but I simply could not remember the scene, the characters, or the movie.

It continued into the next day. It was definitely an old man, his voice weakened with age, a horse whisper, but I simply could not remember the movie. Not the genre, not the style, nothing but that annoying voice repeating the fragmentary line.

My Name is Estan Devereux.“

Eventually it faded from my mind and I went on with my life. But a few weeks later something triggered my memory and the line played again, still without identifying context. I struggled, trying to force the epiphany that would answer this mystery but it would not happen. This became a familiar and frustrating cycle. Something triggered the memory and I’d spend hours or even days with it echoing through my mind but unable to resolve the mystery of the movie’s title.

Some may be wondering why not go to the Internet, or Google to find the title and kill the torturous puzzle? Take a look at those date my friends, this is long before any Internet. A few years later I would have my first personal computer and my online interactions would be with early chat rooms on a local Bulletin Board System, but there was no global repository of geeky and obscure knowledge.

This played out over a decade. I did not keep a record but it feels like the line resurfaced perhaps as often as once a month, never bringing with it more information or any sort of context always leaving me frustrated and without an answer.

In the early 90s I acquired my first DVD player and slowly began building my home library of beloved movies. I never had a great collection on VHS, and had possessed a decent collection on Laserdisc, but it was the DVDs where my home collection really took off. Bit by bit I picked up discs, eagerly playing them when I got home. Then one night with a new disc, after so many years, the mystery was solved.

I wish I could say that I got there simply by looking at the title. That picking up the case in the store prompted the floor of memory unlocking the resolution but that did not happen. I got the movie home, peeled off the wrapper and stuck it into the player. As the hero is penetrating the villain’s castle, seeking to rescue a trapped, noble, and foolish hero, he releases a number of prisoners from the evil King’s dungeon. An old man begins to speak and before the words tumble out of his mouth the memory floods my thoughts and the answer is playing on my television.

My Name is Estan Devereux. I was the King’s architect.“

I give you The Sword and Sorcerer the fun, silly, cheesy fantasy film that tormented me for over a decade.

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Star Wars: The Last Jedi and People who Cheat at Games

Having been a tabletop role-play gamer since 1979 I have seen my fair share of cheaters. People who produced character with fantastic statistics, math errors that always break in the players favor, and fudged die roll. One thing that seems to exist as a common trait among these varied cheaters over the decades is that the invested considerably in the game as part of their identity. Doing well at the game was not simply fun for them but a validation of their self-worth and confirmation of their superiority. Of course the fact that had to cheat to achieve these aims undercuts the effect. For everyone who was aware of the cheater the effect was quite the opposite and it is only with a heaping serving of denial and delusion can that ultimately weak faced me erected and maintained.

What does this have to do with Star Wars: The Last Jedi?

People invest more than just games with a sense of their identity. People do it with spectator sports, it’s part of why rioting occurs both for victories and defeats, they do it with religion, they do it with their artistic creations. And of course people take popular culture and make it part of their identity.

Several years a national news story centered on a woman who had arrived for her Jury duty wearing a starfleet costume from the Star Trek franchise. She insisted it was not a costume but a uniform and that it represented the high ideals and morality of the United Federation of Planets. She had taken the themes of Star Trek and incorporated them into her identity, binding them so tightly to her sense of self that she simply could not envision performing her civic duty in any other mode than the one she had adopted from the fictional Star Trek setting. Star Wars too has themes and ideals that it presents as a moral good, all fiction does this, and there are fans that take those ideal and meld them into their identity.

Let’s return to gaming for a moment. A strange thing often occurs when you confront someone who has been cheating, they get angry, really really angry. They’ll wail that it has been themselves who have been wronged, they’ll try to divert attention to the misdeeds of others, they’ll lash out at their accusers and not at all uncommon they’ll make it impossible for the game to continue, destroying the enjoyment for everyone. Attacks on the cheating are in effect attacks on their identity and this provokes powerful overreactions. It is far easier to displace that anger than to confront the awful truth of why it mattered so much to the cheater.

Sounds familiar doesn’t it?

It’s clear to me that there are a sizable number of Star Wars fans that have built a significant amount of the self-identity from the fantasy franchise. It’s perfectly okay to dislike a movie, to me disappointed in a franchise, Alien 3, and Star Trek V both leap to mind, but this sort of anger, vitriol, and poison indicates an unhealthy attachment to the fictional characters. There is something about the character Rey, Poe, Finn, and Kylo that strikes these fans right at their cores and is irreconcilable with their self-image.

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