wait, what?

So I'm puzzled about a few things. Well, really one thing in particular, but I'm being distracted.

Distraction Puzzling Thing is... how the hell can our grad-student neighbors, who live in a complex in which there are No Dogs Allowed(tm), expect that their Yorkshire terrier puppy will remain unnoticed when they a) walk him openly between the buildings and b) let him stand on their balcony and be a puppy--which is to say, bark at every damn thing that moves. Now, I think the no dogs rule is stupid, and I don't find a puppy's puppy-ness any more loud or invasive than the toddlers and preschoolers in the area, who also run about making noise for its own sake and chasing the rabbits and birds, but still. This seems like a fast way to get thrown out of the apartment.

Unless, of course, the rules have changed and dogs are allowed now, in which case... in which case Nous will have to put his husbandly foot down and forbid us from adding to the family. Not that it would be wise to add a puppy to a house with three cats, two of whom are elderly, one of whom is flat-out chemically imbalanced and still hisses at Other Elder Cat, with whom she has lived for 10 years now. But hey! Going to grad school wasn't a wise choice, either, and here we are!

But that's a little puzzlement, and since the puppy has stopped barking, I can think more clearly about the other, greater puzzlement, which is--that I was asked yesterday, in my writer's group, "where I get my imagination from."

It's not that I have not been asked that question before, but always, before, it's come from non-artist-types who seem baffled at this whole making-things-up/creating stuff business. I learned, as a child, that most people did not make up worlds in their heads, or draw pictures of dragons or unicorns or write stories about telepathic cats (I was TEN, people. Leave me alone) or weird aliens or even horses, because most people did not imagine things that were not there. Which, okay, fine. I felt sorry for those people, but my parents (neither of whom are artists) encouraged my creativity, so it was all good. Then I found the Rat in high school and realized there were other people out there who made up stories in their heads, too, and even better! Her stories looked a lot like mine. Space. Aliens. Energy weapons. Dragons. Goblins. Cyborgs.

Anyway, my standard answer, when I was a kid, was, "I don't know." Because I didn't. It was like breathing. I just imagined stuff. I liked the worlds in my own head better than the one I lived in (dogs and cats are great, but dragons!? COME ON. Way better.). There, I could be the hero, the main character, the one who Did Things, rather than the one who had things done to and around her by other people. I guess I could blame the patriarchy, and a lack of women characters, but that's too simple. I hated Nancy Drew. She was boring. No dragons. No normal animals, even. Ugh.

But I'd gotten out of the habit of answering that question, or even thinking about it. Where do I get my ideas. I still don't know. I just get them. (Well. Sometimes I know. Finnish mythology. Norse mythology. Roman history. Racism. Classism. Sexism. Science. A chance comment from a stranger on an autumn morning.)

I never expected to hear that out other writers. Sure, no one there writes SFF, and only one of them reads it much, but still! They imagine drug addicts and detectives and sad old men and Native American grandmothers. I imagine airless environments and hardsuits and soldiers and cyborgs. What's the difference? That their imaginings could happen, and mine won't?  The woman asking--a sweet woman, I know she didn't mean it like that, but she was so sincere in her inquiry. I tell you. I felt like a total freak. I mean--this was the reason I didn't go after an MFA back in the day. So-called genre writing isn't real.  I was reminded in that moment that I am the late-comer, the youngest, the weird one who wears black skull sweaters with safety pins in the sleeves and has 9 earrings and two tattooed half-sleeves. And I said the ancestors-honest truth, "I don't know. I guess I'm not too fond of this world that I live in. I like the ones in my head better."

Then the moment passed, and I got some great advice about the story that had something wrong with it, which I have proceeded to mend insofar as I am able. I take it as a good sign that nonreaders of SF got and liked the story (although one woman was continually thrown by the terms used; but they were science lingo and slang so I wasn't too bothered; I won't spell EM or HUD out) and believed the world. I wonder if part of my problem is that I am too literary-fiction for the genre crowd, and too genre for the lit-fic crowd, and too mainstream in my plots for the slipstream and avant-garde. Or maybe my problem is chronically underwriting my stories and leaving key bits out, and once those bits are back in, the damn thing will find a home.

I think, next meeting, I will bring part of the novel with the Marine who sees ghosts and and the war goddess who is also a lion.

a tale of two brothers

I didn't go to Thor expecting to see Norse mythology. I was not disappointed. Actually, I was relieved. Thor is a comic-book movie based on source material conceived of in the pro-science boom post WWII. Everything can, and will, be explained by science! We just know it! There's no fate or magic! But there's logical causal reasons behind everything!

So the gods are aliens and Bifrost is a wormhole, and Odin's characterization owes more to Wagner than the Eddas, and I'm okay with that.

JMS co-wrote the story for Thor, so I was reasonably confident that it wouldn't suck. JMS does good epic, and he's thoughtful and reasonable and not a sexist ass, even if most of his characters are Male with a capital M (speaking for B5, here). Anyway. Story didn't disappoint, although there were moments in the screenplay where I thought the writer(s)--and I know screenwriters are not story writers--went for the cliché easy way out, and that was because of The Love Interest, who was the weakest element of the film.

Kenneth Branagh directed, which gave me both hope and pause. I have not forgiven him for the excrescence that was Frankenstein, you see. But I was encouraged by reports that he was approaching Thor with an eye to Henry V. And I admit that I did a little dance when I read that he had Hemsworth learn and perform the St. Crispin's Day speech from Henry V as a "regal diction and cadence exercise." Only thing I kept wondering about was the framing. Why the happy hell is everything tilted all the time...? I get that tilted and canted framing is meant to inspire a sense of off-balance in the viewer, but that works better in fast-action scenes and horror. In the big slow deep focus shots, it made me tilt my head and watch sideways.

So what did I think? It was a fun movie. Probably one of the best comic movies I've seen, behind the Hellboys. Better than the first Ironman. Not really comparable to Dark Knight, because that was, well, dark. A different palette. I think I do have a preference between them, but we'll set that aside for now.

There may be spoilers after this point. Just sayin'.

A tale of two brothers, light and dark, force and cunning, warrior and wizard, saved from cliché by a solid story and good acting/actors. Loved both Loki and Thor, loved their dynamic, loved their complication and their honesty. I believed that Loki really did want what was best for Asgard, and that he did love his brother and father. I believed his horror when he realizes his parentage, although I wish the story had allowed Odin to actually be his father, instead of making him the adopted/stolen child. Thor is a simpler personality--in some ways a pretty poor successor to the wily, Wagnerian Odin. He does not seem as complex, on the surface--but he grapples in a way that Loki does not with the responsibility of leadership and sacrifice. Thor has a heart. Loki has a brain. And since this is Hollywood, Marvel, and the USA, we know which one's going to be valued. 

Besides. Thor gets the girl. 

Which brings me to my only major objection to the story.  I get that we want women to come to comic films, and the way to do that is write in a romance, but good grief. Let's at least make it a romance, then, shall we?  Jane Foster was not particularly interesting or compelling. I mean, yay for smart women! and all that, but there wasn't much there. I wish the story had focused more on the brothers' dynamic, and left off the cliché "what changed you, brother? was it that girl? Then I should pay her a visit!" crap--because that wasn't Jane who played catalyst to Thor's moral and emotional evolution. The line should've been: "What changed you, brother?" --"You did."

When Thor fails to retrieve Mjolnir, he breaks. He could've fought his way out of the compound, same way he fought his way in. He didn't have the heart for it. And then Loki comes down and kicks him, metaphorically, telling him lies that have just enough plausibility that Thor, not the brightest crayon in the box, believes him. That was awesome. So later, when the brothers fight again, it's a letdown that they quarrel over The Girl when as far as we know, Loki doesn't really know who she is, and when Thor should be rightfully pissed that his brother lied to him about, oh, everything. That was the place to have the moral showdown. Does peace justify genocide? Can one lie for the right reasons? Not--hey! I'm gonna rape your woman when this is all over, brother! That was so...not Loki, as he'd played so far in the movie. He was smart. Sneaky. Clever. Ruthless. Not given to little emotional freakouts and childish taunting and being, oh, stupid. I mean, come on. You're fighting with the badass of Asgard. Do you really want to make him all territorial like that?

That said--I think I liked Thor better than Dark Knight. I know, I know (and I'm generally a DC girl, too). Heath Ledger's Joker was the best bad guy ever, and I loved him, but that movie went on too long, going deep and hitting bottom and then scraping along for another quarter hour. Thor stopped too soon and did not go deep enough--but it made me want more, and even better, made me believe that there was more. Maybe I'm just tired of onscreen angst and over-determined emotional manipulation. Thor and Thor are not particularly complicated, but they're honest, and they don't sulk and brood. I like that.

progress comes slowly

...and sometimes with people running in front of it, screaming no! no! I hate this! instead of turning the hell around and just, you know, dealing with it. Progress is not the zombie horde. Or maybe it is. Turn around, check your ammo, and start shooting. 

I know it seems counterintuitive to run forward from progress, but that is exactly what my parents --mostly mom--are and have been doing with the whole online-internet thing. You know. That thing that's been going on for what, 20 years? Yes. Well. Mom and Dad acquired internet at their house in the past two months. (Dad had to; the church communicates through email, and he's a deacon or something that he wasn't when I was growing up but has become since his conversion and resolution to be more Catholic than the Pope). Not that Dad checks his email more than once or twice a week, but baby steps, people!

And then there's Mom. Oolala. On my recommendation, they got her an iPad (she fears my father's laptop, and all she wants is something to 'check email and maybe surf', so that seemed like a good choice. Also, big buttons! Bright screen! Not scary!). She's played with it three times, counting today, in the past month. And today was a landmark: we learned how to check Gmail from the browser. I think we also learned the word 'browser,' and maybe 'email client,' too. I talked her through it from California. ("Aitch-tee-tee-pee--H as in horse. T as in tiger. Right. Horse-tiger-tiger-pony...) She was poking at the screen and Dad was in the background, helping, which is really the one-eyed helping the blind. But we did it! She found my email from 4/19 in the spam folder, which is where I reckoned it had gone, and then she viewed the attachment (and oh, that was a fun conversation. Dad telling her 'see the paperclip? Click on it!' and her going 'I AM clicking! It's just not working!' and I was glad to be 1500 miles away). She even sent a reply. She added my address to her contacts list, and wrote down all the steps so she can do it with my cousins in Germany, too.

I tell you, this is momentous.

She complained the whole time of course. Hates this damn thing, stupid internet, this is hard, etc. But she did it! I am so proud.  I'm good at teaching hostile beginners.

I'm just good at teaching, really, which is why the burnout with the Not Student part of my job is so wretched. Because it's exactly the Not Student part that will contribute to me walking away in the semi-near future. I feel like a high-ranking rogue in DA. I can see the traps on the floor, I can disarm or avoid them, but ugh! There are traps! I have to watch every damn step I take. Still--I need this job next year (gods know where we will live, or what Nous will be doing for a paycheck, but at least I will have employment), and so I will step carefully and watch my back.

I'm going to teach zombies again, but I'm shaking up the syllabus. Goodbye, World War Z. I have read enough essays about you. DotD can stay because you cannot teach zombies without Romero, as can 28DL and SotD, but we need some fresh corpses for the pile. I'm thinking the Walking Dead comic, paired with the first episode. Maybe the Simpson's 28DL parody, too. I might even try to teach a video game--but Left for Dead and LfD2 are kinda pricey, if I am making them buy a graphic novel, too. My boss thinks zombie apps for the smartphones are the Best Things Ever, but I am unconvinced. Real game, or no game. That is my rule.