28 Weeks Later - A Review

“Life After the Fall”

Just when most people had written off zombies as a monster that had anything interesting to say about our life or culture (in favor of angst-ridden vampires), along came a British invasion of zombie movies: first 28 Days Later, then Shaun of the Dead (from the folks who then gave us Hot Fuzz), and now 28 Weeks Later. Revitalizing not only the creatures as a legitimate terror of interest, but also speaking to many of the fears bubbling beneath the surface of life as we know it.

28 Weeks Later features jittery camera movement often so dizzying, you can barely follow the action. Once again though, it produces an unsettling effect, both stylish and startling, not dependent on boo moments but an atmosphere of creeping terror. The movie only stops to breathe in order to set up the plot. Over six months have passed since the original movie. The rage virus has burned itself out and life is slowly being restored to London. The U.S. military, headed by Idris Elba (The Gospel, The Wire) and featuring Harold Perrineau (Oz, Lost), has stepped in to help restore order. It is their “we ain’t playin’” zombie protocols that sets up the bulk of the action, the U.S. military as much a threat as the zombies themselves.

“There are no survivors. It’s just us in here and them out there.” Jacob (Shahid Ahmed)

Zombies portray a resurrection to walking death. They are the living dead, with no hope, only the eternal existence in a “body of death” (Romans 7:24). They are particular reminders that there are worse things than death. However, this movie doesn’t stop at that level of spiritual connection. There is another story the movie seems to be telling.

London, District One specifically, stands terrifyingly empty, a green zone of safety and quarantine, Garden of Eden of sorts, waiting to be populated. People are slowly introduced into this new system, restrained only by one simple rule: do not cross into the forbidden zone. Free will being what it is, that one law can’t be followed.

“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned--” Romans 5:12

Donald Harris (Robert Carlyle, Trainspotting), the “first Adam,” introduces the virus into the new system after being tempted (burdened with the memories of his cowardice) by his wife, Alice (Braveheart's Catherine McCormack). The virus is like a sin contagion: like the nature of sin, it’s an infection that spreads and grows almost like a conscious disease. Because of the introduction of sin, the created order is disrupted, neither humanity (once infected with sin) nor creation are as they are meant to be. Donald now exists in a state of fallenness, no longer capable of living up to the potential of who he could be.

This virus transforms us, our way of life, our way of prioritizing what is important, our ways of thinking and going about life. Rage, fear, and insatiable desire seeking to be quenched only leads to a spiral of death. The U.S. soldiers become like angels caught up in this battle, both trying to seal off the Garden of Eden from any further intrusion/escape and being a judgment of fire.

"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."" --Genesis 3:15

Alice’s blood also acts as a carrier for a possible cure, so there is also a promise of future hope. Through her son, Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton), there is a hope for a cure for that way of life, as he becomes the “second Adam.” With the potential, the nature, to be one of the zombies, but not being like them: 100% them, 100% other. Through him, there is the chance of being completely liberated from this virus.

“We can’t get separated again. Whatever happens, we’ll stay together.” --Andy

Against a cultural context of an AIDs epidemic and wars on terrorism, 28 Weeks Later has a stunning resonance. Director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo establishes a claustrophobic horror, using both light and darkness to terrifying effect. And silence. Haunting images of an abandoned London, a civilization stopped dead in its tracks, provides a forlorn landscape to play out the wars. Like with most sequels, it doesn’t have the impact of the original because we’re now used to the language and rhythm of it. However, that doesn’t make it any less effective a horror tale, extending the original tale in a logical way and deepening its societal critique.


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Dresden Files - A Review

“Harry Potter, P.I.”

Murphy: What do you see?
Dresden: Just the world. A little darker.

Sci Fi Channel's original series, The Dresden Files, is based loosely on Jim Butcher's popular book series. I wasn’t familiar with the series, so if there are significant changes to it, I can’t have a nerd apoplectic fit. Harry Dresden (Paul Blackthorne, 24) is a modern day wizard (without the long beard and stylish hat, but with his hockey stick as his magic staff) and a paranormal investigator. Though he has a deadpan sense of humor, he also carries the burden of regret in his bearing. Lt. Connie Murphy (Valerie Cruz) of the Chicago Police Department, calls on him as a quasi-consultant for the police force. Rounding out the team is Bob (Terrence Mann), the ghost of a medieval alchemist, as a butler/mentor, the sardonic Alfred to Dresden’s Batman.

With its cast of characters, The Dresden Files will draw inevitable comparisons to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel . Angel especially as Harry, too, is a detective of sorts held accountable by a mysterious High Council/Higher Powers, h as more than his share of dark secrets, and is in search of redemption. Not to mention that Angel also began with a close/quirky relationship to a member of the police force. Still, I can’t help thinking this series is more Kolchak the Night Stalker meets the Rockford Files.

“For the working magician, the best tool in his toolbox is a little thing we like to call the false expectation. If played right, it can stun an audience into total submission.” –Harry

There are many spiritual connections in a show like the Dresden Files. The show reminds us that we live in a world of wonder, one of the reality of magic, where there is a spiritual dimension to our existence. Where characters like Liz realize “Safe? There’s no such thing as safe. There’s alive and there’s dead and anything in between is dumb luck” as they are confronted with the reality of evil and are caught up in the battles with the forces of chaos. The show speculates about that spiritual existence and what may come after it-- the other side, the middle, it’s the transition--revealing our fascination with “the other side”. Dresden concludes that “We all come from somewhere. We come here, we do this life thing, and we go back.”

Shows like Medium and the Dresden Files reminds us that the occult, unseen spirits, are serious business We don’t like to be reminded of the spiritual battles waged around us, forgetting that the Bible, from beginning to end, is a supernatural book where magic is treated as real. From the sorcerers that competed against Moses before Pharaoh to the diviners, magicians, and sorcerers of the Babylonian court to Simon Magus, the sorcerer who followed the apostles around trying to bribe them to show him how to do miracles.

But the one thing I keep coming back to, as far as a spiritual theme of the show, is the issue of faith.

“The false expectation is also known by more aggressive illusionists as the dashed hope.” –Harry

The only thing that I can think of comparing faith to is love: Finding faith is like falling in love. There is an element of mystery to both, and in any proposition, we’re uncomfortable with mysteries (the “I don’t knows”). There are times while we are falling in love where we feel like we have been chosen and times where we choose to do it. Falling in love catches us off guard and sweeps us up.

“Here’s the thing about the dashed hope: you hit someone hard enough with it at an early age and it can make a blind spot in one’s habitual search for closeness and affection.” –Harry

However, too often we simplify our faith and cling to false ideas of hope. It's akin to clinging to the idea of romance rather than the reality of love. Faith becomes a “don’t worry, everything will be fine” sort of endeavor that basically only sounds good in the sales pitch. The truth is more along the lines of accepting and following in faith will make your life harder. You will be thought of as intellectually simple, blind, irrational, or fanatical. And the experience of life quickly teaches us that things won’t always seem to work out for the best. We encounter sufferings, nastiness, and darkness and are expected to continue in faith despite these things.

“No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him.” Revelation 22:3

There is an expectation of hope, a faith, a reality, that won’t be dashed. Until then, we toil in mysteries and faith; with sights unseen while contending with principalities and powers. Leading many to echo Murphy’s reaction: “I can’t join you there because my rules don’t apply there and I need my rules.”

The Dresden Files has the usual first season bumps as the show/writers find themselves and fine tune the voices of the characters. However, the Dresden Files is off to a good start and I can’t wait for it to develop and deepen its mythology.


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Friday Night Date Place – Meet the Friends Part II

So what if meeting the friends doesn’t go especially well? [The same questions could be asked of meeting the parents or meeting the kids.] In the final analysis, the relationship is yours and it is your life to lead. Everyone has agendas, and those of your parents, your kids, and your friends, might not be as pure as we would like. For example, some from those circle may not be operating from a perspective of not having your best interests at heart. So you have to weigh those opinions for what they are worth.

However, let’s not be too hasty in dismissing their opinions outright just because we may not like their conclusions. Sometimes friends, because they aren’t so personally invested, can see things that you can’t. People in love develop blind spots, especially when they are too close to a situation. They can’t always see themselves, their significant others, or their relationship objectively.

Some blind spots you think would be obvious to anyone with eyes:

-if the guy has an alcohol problem
-if the guy is abusive or disrespectful
-if the guy has no interest in the things fundamental to you (such as your faith)
-if you are so desperate to be in a relationship, to be loved, that you’ll settle for whoever pays you attention

Sadly, that last item is what usually leads to the blind spots. Which means you want to have ears open enough to hear what your friends are saying if things along these lines are being said. If you are that friend, however, there are certain responsibilities that fall on you:

-Talk to your friend who is in that dating relationship and let them know how you feel. At least do them that courtesy rather than have “war councils” with the rest of the circle of friends that don’t amount to anything more than gossip times.

-Support your friend. Mistakes are theirs to make and we can’t live other people’s lives for them. We all have regrets, mistakes we can hopefully learn from.

It is tough seeing those you love about to make what you are sure will be huge mistakes. You don’t want to burn the bridge of friendship in the name of being heard (read: being right) or doing “whatever it takes” to sabotage the relationship in the “best interests” of your friend. A friend offers council and support, when asked and sometimes when not asked. But there comes a point after that when you need to step back and be prepared to catch your friend should they fall.


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Havoc After Dark – A Review

Written by: Robert Fleming
Published by: Dafina Books

After lamenting the state of the horror market for black readers as well as black writers, I stumble across Havoc After Dark, a horror short story collection by Robert Fleming.

The stories are thoroughly black stories--with black characters, black POV, and black sensibilities--without overwhelming the reader with “blackness.” Let me unpack that a bit. One can read a Stephen King, a Brian Keene, or a Gary A. Braunbeck and know you are reading about blue collar folks in blue collar worlds doing blue collar things. The stories feel natural and the reader is drawn into their world.

At the same time, the stories draw on the mythology and folk wisdom of African Americans, lending Havoc After Dark a historic feel at times. Fleming tells the tales of soldiers from World War II or the terror of being at the hands of a lynch mob. Some of the ideas feel a little tired, like the bluesman who makes a deal with the devil, but are saved by Fleming’s voice and narrative. Though sometimes the racial aspects of a story are forced, even intrusive, such as in “Bordering on the Divine”, told through the eyes of Edgar Allan Poe’s Negro servant.

“Do you believe in God?” the redbone man suddenly asked. “You know, all of that garbage about original sin, shame, guilt, and repenting your sins. Judgment Day, Satan, Heaven, the Bible, and all that foolishness.” –Speak No Evil

We are told to work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12) and at the root of what it means to “do” horror is the idea of fear. Part of the cathartic experience of horror is out exorcizing of some of the things that scare us, that shadow of fear that we live our lives under. Ultimately, horror is about the fear of death and horror is excited by the reality of evil. We fear for our lives and the lives of those we love. We live in fear of good being consumed by evil. Frankly, evil should be feared because we live with the consequences of evil all around us.

We have to wrestle with the idea of “the depravity of man”. Sometimes this comes out as wrestling with the theme of man having a darker nature to resist, restrain, or kill. It may have characters wondering, when confronted with personified evil, “Where is the part of God within him?” (Arbeit Macht Frei).

“He thought briefly about praying, but only briefly, since he wasn’t especially religious and not a person to be screaming and shouting in some Baptist church on Sunday. God had forsaken him anyway. He really didn’t want to think about what happened after Death or the final tallying of sins. All bullshit. But the notion of going to the Other side did sometimes intrigue him. Did you face Judgment Day immediately after dying?” –The Inhuman Condition

Horror not only acknowledges a spiritual dimension to life, but that transcendent reality often intrudes into our own. Even as we hunger for this transcendent realm and can’t help but grapple with the idea of its existence, nothing scares like the unknown. This is why speculation about the afterlife intrigues, if not terrifies, us.

“Value your life. Waste not even a minute. Life is a precious and wonderful gift.” –In My Father’s House (115)

We often sense, if not experience, an existential terror; a gnawing emptiness that claws at our souls. A darkness, the deep, that threatens to suck the joy for all aspects of our lives, that can lead to a spiraling sourness to life that makes us want to crawl into bed and never get out. The darkness helps focus us on what is truly important about life. Living life in light of death means to love without regrets and always be answering the question “how are you going to spend today?”

Havoc After Dark is ambitious, but falls short in execution. An inconsistent collection with stories that either come off like black Twilight Zone tales, too dependent on twist endings, or need to much longer. I was frustrated with each of the stories for the first third of the collection when it hit me: some of his stories want to be novels. Short story writing exercises a different set of literary muscles than novel, which leaves my quite hopeful of Fleming’s novel length work, Fever in the Blood.


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Walk for Breast Cancer

My story “Man-O-Gram” was first published in Morbid Curiosity #8 (and ran on this blog in part I and part II). Morbid Curiosity, a non-fiction market for true life tales of horror, sadly came to an end with its tenth issue, but copies of issues #3-10 are available at the website. Loren Rhoads, the editor of Morbid Curiosity, is doing the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer this year and asked me to help get the word out. I thought I’d do that by posting the note she sent me:

Dear Maurice,

I write to you in honor of your Manogram story, which is much on my mind these days. I'm doing the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer again this year -- and you're still the only man I've met who faced the possibility of the disease.

I'm starting to panic in the face of my fundraising for this year's Avon Walk. The Walk is a little more than 6 weeks away and I still quite a ways to go.

Would it be possible for you to help me out by blogging about the Walk? You could link to my Avon page or livejournal, where I've been talking about my training. Anything else you might like to add on the subject would be appreciated.

Contributions support medical research into the possible causes of and cures for breast cancer, early detection programs, and clinical care and support for women with breast cancer. There is a special focus on helping medically underserved women, the poor, minorities, the elderly, or those with inadequate health insurance (read: writers). Much of the money granted by the Foundation goes back to the communities where it was raised.

Donations can be made online at www.avonwalk.org. Click “donate,” then “donate to a participant,” San Francisco 2007, and enter Loren Rhoads. If you forward this email, people can simply click on the link at the bottom of this message. Every dollar helps!

This weekend I'm walking 20 miles. I'm almost up to the first day's walk of 26.2. Good thing I've got some time left to train.

Thank you so much for your help getting the word out.

Loren

I often get requests from folks who want to do something to help make the world a better place but don’t know where to start. For Loren, it starts with a walk. For you, it can be the simple click of a button and donating. Every little bit helps. You’d be surprised how quickly all of those little bits add up. Thanks in advance.


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Making Your Pastor’s Job Easier

“Give a bonus to leaders who do a good job, especially the ones who work hard at preaching and teaching.” I Timothy 5:17 (The Message)

I’ve often railed about our consumer mentality as church-goers, the “me, me, me” spirit of people coming to a gathering to have their needs met. To be spiritually entertained. There are times when you simply need the gathering to prop you up, to realign your spirit back into the rhythm of God. However, there are times when the gathering needs you. So how can participation in the gathering be your act of service?

-Prepare yourself for worship before you get there. Pray in the car on the way to church. Listen to whatever music pumps you up. Enjoy the silence in order to meditate on the things of God. I realize this is often easier said than done: I have two children.

-Regular attendance. Nothing deflates a speaker faster than speaking to empty chairs. Not that they write sermons directed at folks, but pastors talk to their people through the week. They know the concerns of their flock, what they are going through, what might speak to them. Only to see them not there come Sunday morning.

-Participate in the service. Pray. Pay attention. Communion. Being a member of the “bride of Christ” means participating in the worship (the purpose of the gathering). Reading the Scriptures, hearing them preached, reciting the creeds and confessions, and remembering our baptism with one another.

How might this spirit impact a community? To realize that you aren’t there for a service, but to serve. Not there to leech from others—even if it’s just a matter of being a pew potato/there to be “fed”—but rather to contribute.

You aren’t going to feel moved every week. The sermon might not be clicking, the music might have left you flat, the mood of the congregation (or more likely you) might seem off. You might check out of the gathering, go have a smoke, go hang out, find a quiet spot just to be. That’s fine. However, sometimes, you ought to consider staying in it, if only to encourage the pastor. Lord knows he’s heard enough of your complaints.


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Painkiller Jane

“Pain’s a Bitch”

Based on the comic book created by Jimmy Palmiotti and Joe Quesada few people had heard of, Painkiller Jane is now a SciFi channel original series. Kristanna Loken (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines) plays Jane Vasco, a DEA agent who discovers that she has an amazing ability to heal rapidly from any injury. She is then recruited by a secret government agency to help hunt Neuros, people who can do things with their minds.

“Perhaps we’re not meant to have all the answers to our questions.” –Jane

Here’s the thing, after watching a few episodes of the television series, I am ready to dig through my attic and re-read the original Painkiller Jane comics, because I don’t remember them being this uninteresting. Loken gives it a heroic effort, but the show surrounds her with a cast of cut out characters. Worse, the show is mired in clichéd and stiff dialogue, the just-this-side-of-hammy acting, an uninspired mission and an unclear mythology.

There is an over-the-top aspect to the show which is hinted at but not exploited. The show should go with its impulse to let loose and be campy fun, but it shows a restraint which only exposes all of its flaws all the more. There is little real drive--to use the technical language, no oomph--to the series. There is a rawness, a vulnerability to a woman who suffers intense pain that is ignored (or the writers have yet to figure out how to deal with).

“Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.” –Colossians 1:24

Painkiller Jane heals but she still feels pain. That was one of the fascinating aspects to her character. Despite being a “super hero,” she felt pain, she had to deal with the very real reality of pain. We see Batman slug it out with bad guys all the time, stabbed, shot, or otherwise taking a pounding. Spider-Man, even in the latest movie, regularly gets dropped or rammed into buildings. They might give a nod to the fact that they got hurt, but they keep going as if they have just stubbed their toe. What set Painkiller Jane apart was her constant hurting, which we don’t get to see on the show.

Suffering can be meaningful, if you let it. Granted, you can’t tell someone experiencing pain that it’s worthwhile. Pain is real, especially and particularly to the person experiencing it. Pain is individual, experienced alone. Pain is theirs to deal with.

However, suffering can also be a continual prayer, the flipside to thanksgiving. The idea that suffering can be redemptive seems contrary to how we experience and live life, but you can let it teach you, to make you more humble. As we go through pain and are transformed by it, so we can be there for others. Just as pain can be used for good if you allow it to be used for good, it can also make you bitter.

“I’m not convinced we’re brought up to deal with our problems. Mostly we just distract ourselves when something tough comes up.” –Jane

Drugs, sex, games, work. As Jane says, “Avoid [your problems] long enough, and you never lead a real life.” Suffering is a part of life, one which causes us to question “why?” in the face of it, one we are quick to want to dismiss as random, meaningless, and unfair. However, there are a couple points to consider: If suffering is meaningless, is joy and pleasure? Are you truly serving if it’s not some sort of sacrifice?

We see voiceovers done successfully quite a bit in television (Grey’s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, My Name is Earl), providing if not a moral then a unifying theme to the show. The voiceover helps sink Painkiller Jane: it promises a layer of depth but only further points out it’s strained writing and the fact that the show has nothing to say. The SciFi channel has no one to blame but itself for any disappointment with Painkiller Jane. It raised the bar with Battlestar Galactica and Stargate, so we now know to expect better from them. Painkiller Jane reminds me of the Witchblade adaptation on TNT, except with not enough Jane being Jane. But you keep watching because you see the potential in the series and each week you keep coming back hoping to see it find itself. I guess the show wants its fans to feel pain, too.


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Pipe Down, IPS

I wanted to skip my graduation.

As a Northwest High School grad, I was fairly certain I would be in for a dull proceeding, feature a speaker I didn’t care about, and be a long list of names being read. Two things prompted me to go: 1) my parents who wanted to see their eldest receive his diploma and 2) me knowing my people were going to act a fool in the stands. And not just my people, but the folks of friends of mine were going to keep it from becoming too turgid an affair.

Now they are going to cut back on half of the fun.

Some parents are leery of edict that urges cheering as grads enter and exit but not as names are read. Hold your applause or you'll be thrown off the property. That's the message Superintendent Eugene White is sending to the families of Indianapolis Public School graduates who will attend this year's commencement ceremonies.

This reminds me of the NFL cutting down on touchdown celebrations (and thus being dubbed the No Fun League). Boos I could understand. Total obnoxiousness I could understand. But this is a moment of pride for parents and some people need to celebrate loudly. There’s nothing indecorous about pride given voice. The ceremony isn’t a solemn occasion as much as a celebration of achievement, the excitement of clearing one of life’s rites of passage. Sorry if that breaks your precious sense of proper decorum.

Why don’t you tell us not to cheer or support your team at your next sporting event? If you fear that not each student will be able to hear their name, you’d think the person reading the names ought to have sense enough to go “hmm, they’re still cheering. Why don’t I wait another second or two before I read the next name.”

At every one of my kids’ graduation, I plan on embarrassing them. If it were my folks, they’d go ahead and cheer. It wouldn’t be the first time we were asked to leave a public place. Plus, they’d beat the crowd.


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Earn the Right to Complain*

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." --Theodore Roosevelt

Every now and then, I get the question “what does a facilitator do?” when folks wonder about my role at The Dwelling Place. Ideally, my job is to take people’s visions, things they’d like to see done or do themselves and put them into action. Practically speaking, however, I end up listening to complaints. From all sides. Members, pastors, visitors, everyone has a “suggestion” (read: complaint) about something.

Complaints are like nails on chalkboard to me. I don’t deal with them well. At my day job, my boss asked me not to answer the phones because “customer service isn’t my strong suit”. (I’m working on it.) Have you heard the axiom of the 80/20 rule? That 20% of people do 80% of work? I’m working on one called the 99/1 rule: that 1% of the people do 99% of the complaining.

“Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.” Psalm 1:1

At some point in our culture or in our mentality, church became about being about “me.” We go to church with a consumer mentality: we seek out churches based on who has the best show, where you don’t have to do anything and, heaven forfend, you don’t have to reveal anything. You can just sit and be “fed.” Coming with the attitude of “serve me” leads to a spirit of complaining. I can go anywhere and find something wrong and we all know “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.” How sad is that? The complainers get the attention because we want to shut them up. The reality is that people are often rewarded for their grumbling: someone pays attention to them. Most times.

Most folks don’t complain to me because I’m known to have a low tolerance for it. To be honest, I tend to tune complaining out; it just becomes this pleasant haze of white noise and I get this faraway, dreamy look on my face (since I have no poker face) that says “I’m no longer paying attention. I’m in my happy place.” Usually this translates into them going to the head pastor and complaining about me.

But there’s a reason I tend to quit listening to most complainers. The complaints typically come from the least involved or those who attend the least regularly. How much has complaining ever helped anything? When folks come to me with their “suggestions” the implication is that I (or the “staff”) am to fix the problem. Again, this isn’t entirely their fault. A consequence of the mega-church Sunday production is that a “few” put on the worship. The “up front” people do things. When folks are paid the thinking becomes “they earn their check by handling this”.

"But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night." Psalm 1:2

Let’s see if there is another way we can all come at this. Participation is your voice. Not everyone gets automatically ignored by me. The fact of the matter is that I do listen to the concerns of our members. In fact, I want to hear from our members. I want to know their concerns, I want to know how best to see their vision of what church should be about put into action. I want to help them to do it. Those members are present, doing something, already a part of things.

There’s also a big difference between complaining and constructive criticism. Again, this boils down to doing something. When folks come to me with their complaint or suggestion, they get the following question from me: what have you done to improve the situation? This usually separates the wheat from the chaff: complainers notoriously point out other people’s failings/where others fell short, that’s easy. Coming up with a solution, now that’s a bit more difficult.

(A part of my theory is that complainers complain because they weren’t consulted before hand. There might be some merit to consulting those most likely to complain during the design of a program since they are less likely to complain if they have ownership in it). If folks have thought of a way to address a problem, then the solution is already in front of us. You have the passion, maybe you should lead.

I suppose you could look at it as a chicken and egg sort of scenario: we’ve earned the right to speak into your life once you think you’ve earned the right to complain about things; but most folks only complain if they feel some sense of belonging (or prospective belonging).

"He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers." Psalm 1:3

*sigh*

And then for those who aspire to leadership, realize that the more “power” you have, the more you are called to serve. The more you have to be mature. The more you have to hear the complaints. Being missional is what you are every day, a church can’t do that for you. We are to try to be reconcilers wherever we go. Helping Christians. Helping non-Christians. Helping those within our church body. Helping those outside the church body. Discovering how to do that. Facilitating the process of learning within a community. Together.


*I might have to begin all blogs with what I call the Brian Keene disclaimer: “The following people should not read this entry … People who often read themselves into the things I say, even when I wasn't talking about them. Seriously, if you are the type that says, "Oh, I wonder if he means me?' then stop reading now ... Indeed, the people I'm talking about probably won't even realize that I'm talking about them. So don't start inserting your name.” Then again, if you see yourself in this, do something about it.


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Update on My Sister (Ro) - Updated 6/11/07

[I know, some of you have been wondering and I thought this was easier than having to keep telling the same story over and over again.]

My sister, who has already had a pretty rough year or so, has been on hospital bedrest for the last month or so. Unfortunately, her daughter was diagnosed with hydrops, so the pregnancy has been a series of complications and emotional ups and downs. Yesterday, I got a frantic phone call from her telling me the doctors said they were going to do the C-section then rather than try to wait another week. Six weeks premature.

I got to the hospital a little after four o’clock, having just missed my brother. Most of my sister’s bridal party was there (look, she had 10 ladies in her bridal party, so the room was crowded, plus some family). Ro had called in her people to support her no matter what happened. Just so you know, Broadduses only know one way to grieve or deal with tense situations: joke. Our role is to keep the mood light and I have been especially “gifted” with the ability to laugh in inappropriate situations.

As we waited on Eric, her husband, to arrive (his work wouldn’t let him out early), we prayed. Upon his arrival, the doctors then filed in to deliver the news. They presented a series of options, all of whom ended with prepare yourself for the worst, mortality in this situation is expected, usually within a few minutes to hours. The lungs would be underdeveloped. There were a series of procedures they were going to attempt, including traeching her while she was still attached to her placenta. And, as a premature delivery, her small size would be an issue. Once the doctors left, Ro in tears, we did another round of prayers.

A few minutes later, the nurses and doctors came back into the room to wheel Ro out, but then they suggested that we pray. I was all prayed out, so a nurse/chaplain led the prayer this time. After than came the interminable waiting – every time the doors open or footsteps came from down the hallway, we looked up expectantly, waiting for any sign of hope. If you have seen the movie Rize, you may have a bit of an image of what came next. We heard the footfalls first, interrupted only by the occasional clap, then we saw Eric steppin’ down the hallway.

Yalaina Symone was born at 6:18 pm May 11th, 2007, at 6’ 8 oz. There were able to not only get some of the fluid off from her stomach, but there was no swelling in her head, so they were able to do all of their procedures they didn’t think they could get done. In under a minute. Her lungs are doing okay and she is on an oscillator (a type of ventilator) right now. For now, she is doing as well as she can. The word “miracle” has been tossed about, including one doctor remarking that “you’d think with all the stuff we see, we’d get used to the idea that there might be a higher power.” So we remain cautiously optimistic.

Please join in our prayers: That as we come to the end of our ability to control things, we know God loves us. So help us to trust in that, no matter what happens. We thank Him for that love and for His love reflected in our friends and family. We continue to pray for the doctors and nurses as they attend to Ro and Yalaina. And we pray for Ro, Eric, and Yalaina, for their health and for their faith during this time.

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Here's what I said at Ro’s baptism (which was on Easter Sunday):

Ro made me promise not to say anything that’ll make her cry. That’s a tough promise to keep because she’s pregnant and hormonal. But also because I’m her big brother and she’s not used to me saying nice stuff about her. I don't have a particular story as a testimony of her faith, but more of an observation.

One of the duties of the big brother is to protect his little brother and sisters. It’s the same duty we feel as parents. It hurts us when we aren’t able to shield the ones we love from harm.

As I’ve watched Ro’s life, sometimes life happens that is out of her or anyone’s control. She’s gone through a lot of trials in the last year or two. I hate that so many of our lessons have to be learned through pain, but there are several things she’s taught me during her trials.
-she’s taught me how to question God. When things started happening in her life and she didn’t know why, she went to God and wrapped her community of faith around her to support her when she didn’t think that she could go on.
-she cried out to God, kept getting on her knees to pray, even when times kept getting darker.
-she showed me what it means to be faithful in times of doubt and how to persevere when it would be easy to give up

She didn’t know what God was trying to teach her, but I know what her faith taught me.

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5/29/07

This time has been quite instructive on the discipline of prayer. I have realized how much we've come to depend on the "prayer warriors" around us. It's been an emotional roller-coaster, good days followed by really bad days. So continue to keep everyone in your prayers.


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6/11/07

My wife sent out the following e-mail that I thought I would share:

Earlier tonight (6:50 pm) I got a text message from Ro

"The baby is doing worse right now than she has since she's been alive. It's really bad and she's in a lot of pain. Please Pray."

Then two hours or so later (9:35 pm) I get this message from Ro:

"In a few minutes she is gonna undergo an incredibly risky procedure on her lungs. If it doesn't work. they're pretty much out of ideas. Please pray hard."

then right as I sat down to write this e-mail (10:25 pm) I get this message from Ro

"the procedure didn't work so now they're gonna make her comfortable and hope for the best"

I don't know what God has in store for little Yalaina, but I hope for the best and she becomes a beautiful healthy big girl. (I started to say baby girl, but I want more than that) It's frustrating for me to think that Ro went thru all that stuff while she was pregnant and then be in the hospital on bed rest for a month just to give birth to an extremely sick kid and then have so many up and downs and now this... this can't be what's planned for Yalaina.

OK it's late, I'm tired and I am in a mood and very frustrated and that just leads me saying the wrong things... I will end by saying I place Yalaina in God's hand and will try to deal with the outcome of that if it ends up being not what "I want".

Please pray for Yalaina along with the Griffin Family (Ro, Eric, Emmy, and Calvin "Bubby")

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Friday Night Date Place – Meet the Friends

I have a friend who is terrified of the idea of her friends meeting her new boyfriend. It’s the ritual we go through every time: she meets a guy, hangs out with the guy, starts to like the guy, then makes noises about wanting him to meet everyone. Those noises are usually accompanied by pointed words, oddly aimed specifically at me, to “be good.”

Whatever. I’m a delight to know.

Beyond the pressure of presentation, the big deal made of first meetings, why is there this underlying fear? It is the beginning dance of integrating a significant other into the world of the rest of your friends. You like your friends, you like your significant other, and you want the two to like each other. Fair enough. (It’s easy to see how dating within your circle of friends may seem like a simpler prospect in this regards. Yes, this is one hurdle it clears, though the true risk lies should things go bad. We’ve all seen friend circles get disbanded by incestuous dating and breaking up within it).

For some reason, the risk of a serious relationship presents quite the precipice for one to leap from regarding their friends. It’s a shame that one’s other single friends may distance themselves from you or outright cut you off since you can’t hang like you used to. Your significant other just wants to be liked and be accepted, but at the same time, they are learning about you by the people you call friends.

Like with meeting your parents or meeting your kids, meeting your friends has its own dynamic it is working through. The specific dynamic in this case is kind of like presenting their significant other to be group interviewed. Your friends are another screen. They are judging their character, judging how the two of you interact, and the chemistry of your relationship. Friends, like family, can check your thinking. You may have blind spots in regards to your significant other, or yourself (believe it or not, some people are prone to make bad decisions rather than risk being alone).

You can sometimes become so focused on the person, on having someone in your life, that it’s good that you have friends may be able to see something that you’ve missed. Some people are so close that they hear no other opinions, which doesn’t bode well for the long term health of the relationship. Friends are people who know you, who care about you, and want to see you happy.

Mind you, this is the ideal situation, so allow me to make the qualifications of sanity: If you have sane friends, friends who have you best interests at heart, you want their opinion. If you’re a sane couple, wanting to have the healthiest possible relationship, you want to integrate your friends as best as possible. Of course there will be friends who don’t play as nice with others as some of your other ones, and they may be some friend distance accrued as your social circle changes. This is natural, relationships change over time naturally.


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Diversity in Horror

So with the upcoming release of Whispers in the Night: Dark Dreams III, again the issue of what purpose does an anthology like this serve comes up. Granted, I wrote once about what the genre could learn from Dark Dreams, and that was before I was in the series. Now the issue comes up again as discussions in the genre blogosphere has turned to the topic of diversity within speculative fiction. Tobias Buckell, Angry Black Woman (aka K Tempest Bradford), Jay Lake, and Nick Mamatas have all weighed in already, and each of their blog entries is worth checking out - so what’s there left to add?

For a start, it sounds like black folks may be better off in horror than we are in SF/F. I have to actually use two hands to count the number of black professionals working in horror (although, it still reminds me of the Chris Rock routine about “if you know exactly how many black people you’ve had over to your house, you’re racist like a …”).

I’d like to believe that submissions are blind and that only the story matters. The race of an author is almost impossible to discern from a story, so let’s talk about the diversity of the slush piles. I was intrigued by Nick Mamatas’ gender-dropping experiment. It’s harder to do with race, especially in horror. Of course there’s going to be an inherent bias to the stories. Markets want to see characters like them, that they can relate to and most of the core horror market is white males.* This might speak to my naivete of the genre, but the bulk of horror tales strikes me as blue collar white folks going through life when suddenly “horror” breaks in on them (or, to use ABW’s translation, “Blandy McWhitey White in Blandy McNeighborhood in America or Blandy McMedieval Europe or Blandy McDefaulty Man in any setting anywhere.”)

My gut tells me that editors want more diversity, that they too are tired of the same characters and settings. But don’t talk to be about how Dark Dreams is exclusionist because the phrase “by Black writers” is on it and that all of society’s ills would be cured if it wasn’t there, because “by white writers only” isn’t on any other anthology I’ve bought in the last year and that hasn’t changed the reality inside the covers.

I realize that over-priced limited editions and small press runs are de rigeur for the seemingly slimming genre markets, but rather than raking your core audiences over the financial coals, maybe there are audiences out there that go untapped. The fact of the matter is Dark Dreams seeks to grow the horror market pie by servicing an under-appreciated (if not outright ignored) potential market. It's a guarantee that Kensington markets the books in different venues than, say, a Cemetery Dance would. Looking toward the future, as the writers in the Dark Dreams series build our audiences, there will be more writers of color, going to Ralan’s, checking out markets, putting more stories in those slush piles.

Yes, Dark Dreams is a celebration, and people should have high hopes in that maybe by growing the market, all writers can be served. That’s my hope, but I suppose we could simply get bogged down in cries of “reverse racism” and the like. One day these sort of things won’t be an issue, but we aren’t there yet.



*Don’t give me “but Brian Keene …” I hate to break it to you, but we got Brian Keene in this year’s racial draft. It cost us a second round pick next year.

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I’m So Articulate

I don’t sound black.

I get that a lot. I neither sound nor act black by some people’s definition. [I’ve already done the dissection of the idea of ontological blackness (in I, II, III parts) so I’m not going to re-hash that now.] It’s one of the reasons I don’t do reading of my work very often. A good chunk of my family lives in England, another chunk in Jamaica, and the rest live in America. As a consequence, I picked up an ear for accents and write them pretty well. However, having purposefully lost my British accent as a child in my efforts to fit in, I don’t have much of an affect to my speaking. Not British, not Jamaican, not black – and I would sound ridiculous trying to affect one.

Let’s be straight though, when folks talk about anyone sounding black, we know what they mean: ghetto. I took a linguistics course in college and when we got to the topic of Black English Dialect (B.E.D.), she asked me, the only black in the class, to give an example of it. She caught herself pretty quickly (cause I would hate to have to snatch a professor in front of her class) and realized maybe that wasn’t the best way to have that discussion. However, it did lead to a dialogue in why we make such assumptions.

Here’s another one: on a recent episode of the show Boston Legal, Denny Crane (William Shatner) gets in trouble because he tells an applying associate (played by a grown up Urkel) that he doesn’t sound black and thus is a keeper. Shirley Schmidt (Candice Bergen) gives this defense to quell the brouhaha:

My name is Shirley Schmidt, I’m a senior partner at Crane, Poole and Schmidt, thank you all for coming. It’s nice to see you’ll turn out when there’s hard news. Yesterday my partner, Denny Crane, made some regrettable statements, the most offensive being when he told an African-American law student that he didn’t sound black. I know Denny Crane. He is not a bigot. When he used the word ‘articulate’, as I suspect Joe Biden used it, as I suspect our President used it, what he was attempting to convey was that he thought Mr. Givens would play well with white corporate America. The simple but ugly truth is we all look for that. Perhaps unconsciously, perhaps not, but we do. We have a primarily white client base. We hire associates we feel will best appeal to that base. Before you point your finger at us I would invite the media to look at its own industry. Consider the criteria by which you choose your anchors. Denny Crane’s statement speaks not to his own racism but to a much more insidious one that exists in a white collar society that prefers to take its blacks as it takes its coffee, with a little cream and sugar. I’m not proud of it. But until we confront that truth, we will not change it. Thank you all for coming.

Which dovetails with the comment left by Laura:

When you hear someone's voice you can't help but try to picture them. I don't think it is racist to say someone sounds black. You are just being honest, you are saying "when I hear your voice, I picture a black person." There is a blonde white woman televangelist (I can't think of her name) who I believe sounds "black" when she preaches. I could also say she sounds "southern,but not twangy, tough but not rude, with an attitude but a strict teaching kind of attitude" but I don't think you would get the idea as clearly as when I say she sounds "black." Her preaching doesn't appeal to me, probably because I am white and I am used to the "middle-class white" vernacular. But when the camera pans to her huge audience, you can see that she has many black followers. How cool, this tiny, blonde white woman leading a huge congregation made up mostly of black people. What does that say? I think it says the same as what "Shirley Schmidt" said above. People are attracted to those people who communicate in a manner they are used to. It is just easier to listen to someone who sounds like you. I think it also shows that we no longer are supporting people based on their similarity to our skin color, but on their similarity to our own lifestyle. Unfortunately our vocabulary has not caught up with us. There just isn't a word with the same kind of meaning as just saying "black." And I think saying black carries a nuetral meaning whereas saying "ghetto" or "gangsta" or "thug" are definitely words with negative connotations.

One of the things I hadn’t thought about in my ghetto crackery blog was the idea of speech. When people hear a Southern drawl, much like when they hear B.E.D., there is the assumption of being uneducated. It’s what leads people to ascribe words like “well-spoken” and “articulate” to black leaders they feel comfortable with, as if they are compliments.

Nope, I don’t sound black, so I’ve been told by black and white folks alike. From black people, it feels like the accusation of “selling out”, a warning that I risk being left outside of the community. From white people, there is sometimes an air of condescension, however well-intended it may be meant. Or, it would feel like that if I believed that being black boiled down to how people spoke or dressed. Still, it’s a shame that there is an undertone, even in this very blog, of middle class bourgeoisies trying to put distance between “us” and “them”. And that’s another simple, but ugly truth, one worth discussing further.


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Broaddus Family Doings

Due to the "outcry" of so many reviews in a row, I thought I'd share some random Broaddus family goings on. First, my wife has a blog up on Bedlam Banshee about one of her experiences as the wife of a writer. I breathed a sigh of relief when I read it ... it could have been much, much worse. Also, I received a note from my brother about his reflections on being a dad. I thought I'd share it (with his permission, not that it'd matter because I'm the big brother):


I went to see my daughter at a talent show yesterday at School #98.. By the way it was the most ghetto talent show ever (ha ha). Almost every act was dancing to the same rap song or a Beyoncee song.. It was cute though. There were some talented dancers there though and some would look good in a Ciarra or Missy Elliot, or Beyonce video. Anyway before Melissa's team came on she came and gave me a hug and she flew off.

When her dance team started dancing, I was totally shocked. I was so proud of her and her team. They totally rocked the house. Everyone was screaming and barking. I was high-fiving anyone I saw and saying , "That's my baby!!!" I was amazed how great of a dancer Melissa is. Don't get me wrong, those dances Melissa's dance team were ghetto as hell too (lol) but they were well coordinated and you could tell they practiced a whole lot to get every move right.

After the dance was over, it felt like an earthquake in the gym because everyone was yelling and stomping their feet (you know how us black folks get....lol). I got teary eyed a bit because I was so proud of Melissa. After the dance, she ran back to me and gave me a hug and I told her how proud I was of her. She gave me a kiss and asked me for some money (some things never change) and gave me another kiss and ran off with her dance team giggling and screaming. Everyone was shaking my hand and telling me that I should be proud of my daughter. I was very proud. Anyway, some little girl that sang a Gospel song won the competition. If I got mad at that, God would hit me with a lightning bolt driving on my way home.

I guess the reason I am writing this is because it only seems like yesterday that she was in Little Anthony's place [Editor's note: that's <-- Anthony MAURICE Broaddus], peeing in my face while I changed her diapers and keeping me up all night with her crying. Now she is a teenager, talking on a cell phone and going to the mall on a regular basis with her girlfriends. We have been through a lot together in her short time on this planet, from a lot of baby momma drama early on, to her worshiping the ground I walk on as a 3-8 year old, to her puberty which drove me nuts, to her getting a little depressed when I got married because she thought I would forget about her, to now as a preteen. She is back to being a daddy's girl now that she realized that she will always be my princess. She is growing up so the days of her holding on to my right leg while I dragged her all over the house are probably over forever. But her running back to me as soon as her dance was over made me almost cry, but I am an ex Marine and we don't cry. ;)

Anyway, I was kinda nervous about being a daddy again, but I now know I will be a great daddy to little Anthony ( I call him Rocky) [Editor's Note: No one else is going to call him Rocky]. I only had Melissa on the weekends for most of her life and I think that she turned out to be a great little girl. I put as much of my influence into her as I could when I had her and I think it has paid off. Thank God for that. I think that little Anthony will be fine because I will be with him 24/7 and he has a good (saved) mother. I am sure I will have to beat his behind a lot but he will be fine.

Oh and Debbie Kuhn, cajoler extraordinaire and all around great travel companion, sent along this pic of my boys that she took during her last visit with us:


Yes, they know they're cute. Resistance is futile.

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Spider-Man 3 – A Review

As Spider-Man 3 opens, we see a Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) that we aren’t used to seeing: accepted and happy. He has come into his own, reaping his long overdue reward, possibly even have struck a balance between his life as Spider-Man and as a man wanting a normal life with his love, Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst). Of course it can’t last, luckily for us.

If anything penalizes Spider-Man 3 it is the sense of having to out-do it’s previous chapters. Everything has to be bigger, more bang for our movie buck: more action, most spectacular fight sequences, more emotional drama, and more bad guys. Let’s see:

-new alien entity that possesses Peter and plays on his dark side
-a freshly empowered Harry Osborn (James Franco), bent on getting vengeance on Spider-man for the death of his father
-Mary Jane feeling isolated
-the introduction of Gwen Stacy as possible alternative love interest
-Peter trying to find the right moment to propose to her
-Sandman (Thomas Haden Church) running around
-Sandman who now may have been the one truly responsible for Peter’s uncle’s death
-competition from the workplace
-the introduction of fan-favorite villain, Venom

That’s a lot of balls up in the air that Sam Raimi (director and co-writer) attempts to juggle and the movie teeters under the strain of trying to fit it all in. Multiple villains can be done without that feeling of being unfocused (see Batman Begins for an example of the former case and Batman Forever for the latter). A lot of the movie rides on the not-quite-broad-enough shoulders of Tobey Maguire. Maguire wears the same half-pursed lips expression no matter what he seems to be emoting. When he finally lets his hair down, in the throes of the dark side, he finally seems to cut loose a little and brings the audience along with him. Sort of. One can’t help but wonder that with fewer villains, and more screen time devoted to their story arcs, the movie would have come together better.

“Whatever battles rages inside us, we always have a choice … it’s the choices that make us who we are and we can always choose to do right.” –Spider-Man

The uniting theme of the movie is how many of the central characters are all wrestling with their dark natures: Harry Osborn/Hobgoblin, Peter Parker/Dark Spider-Man, Flint Marko/Sandman, Mary Jane/failure and aloneness, and Eddie Brock/Venom. The alien costume, a symbiote that binds to its host, is a symbol of what they all struggle with: a corrupting influence that brings with it a cycle of destruction, warping their sense of right and wrong, and spirals into a pattern of fear, hopelessness, violence, and death.

“You want forgiveness, get religion.” –Peter Parker

We all have moments we wish we could take back. Bad decisions, regrets, battling our enemy within (or, as Flint Marko puts it “I’m not a bad person, I’ve just had bad luck”). Interestingly, both Spider-Man and Eddie Brock have their true selves revealed in a church. However, though we’ve all done terrible things, those choices have not placed us past the point of redemption. It begins with forgiveness.

Aunt May says, thoroughly stuck in the role of the Holy Spirit/spiritual conscience of the movie, says that “You start by doing the hardest thing: you forgive yourself.” We all have forgiveness waiting to be accepted, all we have to do is ask. That probably is the greatest take home lesson of Spider-Man 3: the movie demonstrates the power of forgiveness to heal and make people whole.

“I guess one person can make a difference. Nuff said.” --Stan Lee

On the whole, Spider-Man 3 doesn’t match, much less surpass, Spider-Man 2 in transcending the comic book-to-movie sub-genre into great film-making. Think of comic book movie franchise trilogy, from Blade to X-Men. Right around the third one they tend to peter out a bit, if not fall off entirely. So Spider-Man 3 gets a “close enough” as far as that goes. The dizzying action sequences of the movie begs repeat viewing in order to catch it all. With all of the stuff going on in the movie, not to mention three villains all vying for screen time, it’s a wonder Raimi managed to squeeze it all into its 2 hours and 19 minutes running time. The movie plugs along—pay no attention to the plot contrivances that clumsily move it forward—with plenty there to keep you distracted.


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Midnighter – A Review

Writer: Garth Ennis
Artist: Chris Sprouse
Publisher: Wildstorm
Price: $2.99
Release Date: November 1, 2006

The relaunched Wildstorm line seems like the product of a bunch of movie executives putting together a movie, one of those “great ideas on paper” sort of productions. Let’s get the hottest writers out and stick them on our most popular titles and see if we can relaunch this baby with a bang. A good strategy, especially since some of those creators made names for themselves originally in the Wildstorm line.

Thus we come to Midnighter, a member of the super-hero team The Authority, who has been handled by some of the best names in the business: Warren Ellis (The Authority, New Universal), Mark Millar (The Authority, Ultimate X-Men), and now, Garth Ennis (The Authority: Kev, Preacher). Midnighter is the perfect Ennis character. That movie executive-type ought to be patting themselves on the back for this (obvious) pairing. Few people can get to the brutal bastard essence of Midnighter like Garth Ennis ought to be able to.

Midnighter out-Batman’s Batman. He has the ability to anticipate and counter hostile action; basically, he knows the moves you are going to make before you do. Playing to Ennis’ strengths, he gets to do a lot of bad things, to bad people, with dark glee.

In the opening story arc, Midnighter’s been kidnapped out of the Bleed (don’t ask), his ability to "see" the outcome of fights has been taken away from him, and, after taking the rare butt-kicking, a bomb has been implanted in his chest to ensure his cooperation. All this so that the mysterious Mister Paulus' can entangle him in what boils down to the philosophical conundrum: if you had the chance to kill Hitler at a baby, would you?

“People love the idea of changing [the past]. They think that’s how they’ll solve all their crap. But it is inevitable: it’s over, it’s done with. It can’t be fixed like bad plumbing.” --"Sgt. Bitch"

The springboard for the story stems from Paulus wanting to protect the ones he loves. An idea that goes squandered in the story is how we can’t live from a place of fear; we can’t be afraid to love out of fear of losing those we love. All we can do is love without taking one another for granted, pray for one another’s continued safety, and anticipate the bad times while still being there for one another when the bad times come. Which should be what Midnighter is all about: fear and love.

The past is set, something to be learned from, but that’s no excuse for not trying to change the present. Or the future. Sometimes we find it impossible to just “forget”, or move on from, the past and we need a tool more active than simply “forgetting.” To move on, you have to have closure, and we have different ways of finding this closure. While Midnighter’s emotional closure typically stems from breaking necks, cracking skulls, and blowing up tanks, there are other ways.

While we’d all like to prevent pain, we just won’t be able to stop it all. Sometimes we have to wrestle with a spirit of forgiveness rather than a spirit of vengeance or well-intentioned prevention. Asking forgiveness opens dialogue. Forgiving, even if unasked, helps the process of healing, and may lead to an eventual peace. Returning hostility for hostility, Midnighter is the antithesis of reconciliation:

Reconciliation is much more than a one-time event by which a conflict is resolved and peace established. A ministry of reconciliation goes far beyond problem solving, mediation, and peace agreements. There is not a moment in our lives without the need for reconciliation. When we dare to look at the myriad hostile feelings and thoughts in our hearts and minds, we will immediately recognize the many little and big wars in which we take part. Our enemy can be a parent, a child, a “friendly” neighbor, people with different lifestyles, people who do not think as we think, speak as we speak, or act as we act. They all can become “them.” Right there is where reconciliation is needed.

The problem with giving superstar creators superstar characters is that they face raised expectations. In Midnighter, you don’t feel like Ennis is truly giving us any real insight into Midnight, merely a Midnighter adventure. He doesn't even have to “Ennis it up”: Midnighter is already basically an Ennis character. He’s unlikeable, a jerk with too much power, who leads a visceral existence of doing what he does. However, with no real exploration of him, the whole endeavor feels fairly superficial. Which is fine, but you can’t escape the feeling that this was written to fill out a contract (“you’ll pay me how much? I’ll do it!”). Like with his Ghost Rider run, you get the impression that Ennis doesn’t especially like writing super-heroes. His best work has at best been on the fringes of super-hero folk (Hitman, The Boys, even his The Authority work has centered around his character, Kev). However, even phoning it in, Ennis is better than most.


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newuniversal – A Review

Writer: Warren Ellis
Artist: Salvador Larocca
Publisher: Marvel
Price: $2.99
Release Date: December 6, 2006

I missed the whole “New Universe” experiment the first time around. Okay, “missed” isn’t the right word: “skipped” is more like it. Back in 1986, on the heels of Jim Shooter’s (Marvel’s then editor-in-chief) Secret Wars II (thus the reason why I skipped it), the premise was what if, on a world exactly like ours, a cosmic event granted people super powers. The comics line spawned such titles as Star Brand, Spitfire and the Troubleshooters, D.P.-7, Nightmask, Kickers, Inc. and Justice … and fizzled out after three years. Good idea, poor execution (which pretty much sums up my opinion of Jim Shooter on the whole). However, one could argue that the idea was a couple decades ahead of its time as the high concept is one that has been already explored quite a bit lately (see Rising Stars, Squadron Supreme, and Heroes). So apparently the conceit is one worth re-exploring.

There are certain creators that you turn to when you want something re-imagined, namely, your most imaginative creators. Topping that list are Alan Moore (V for Vendetta, Watchmen, most of his Wildstorm work), Neil Gaiman (Eternals), Grant Morrison (Batman: Arkham Asylum, and his Seven Soldiers experiment), and Warren Ellis (Thunderbolts, Fell, and Nextwave). In typical Ellis style, he reboots the universe as newuniversal and tinkers with the back story a bit. The story picks up after a cosmic “White Event”, which gives a small percentage of people special abilities. Basically, it sparks an evolutionary leap. The Event strikes an alternate Earth where John Lennon is alive and Paul McCartney is dead and China is a superpower ahead of America in the space race.

“This is a paradigm shift. Everything you know has changed. Please remain calm.” –Communications Station

The White Event is that moment when everything changes. Paradigm shifts can be shattering experiences, especially rocking some people’s faith and their sense of who they are. New chapters or phases in life are often ushered in by forms of depression since we’re talking about the loss of security in what we believe. Sometimes life throws things at you that your faith, as constructed, isn’t able to fit into what we’ve been taught. Too often we construct these theological boxes, easily understood models of interpretation, then force our idea of reality into them. When we run into some new idea or experience or, gasp, question, we have to force it into those boxes, no matter what kind of yoga contortions we have to do to those ideas in order to cram them into those boxes.

Eventually you run up against the principle of the lemon law: how much time, energy, and resources do you pour into your car before you declare it a lemon and get a new one? At what point does a “White Event” shatter your boxes?

“The web is not of nature. It is an artificial construct.” –Communications Station

When paradigm shifts rip out the foundations of how we see things, we have to rebuild a way of seeing things. Which is why the idea of a web is so intriguing. The way it is constructed, it has several contact points, it is flexible and more easily repaired when one of the contact points is knocked loose. Spiritually speaking, we could have several contact points: the story of our faith, the tradition of our faith, our personal reason, and our spiritual experience. These create anchor points, a point of view, stable yet dynamic since it moves within a context of larger forces and reality.

In the ensuing chaos that paradigm shifts bring, as we learn to let go of our old ways of doing things, we can emerge into new life, a new way of thinking and looking at things. It helps to have “alters sentients on that world to act as heralds”, teachers, who can guide or otherwise smooth the way.

“The world has skirted the edge of new universal structure before. We believe this instance of planetary contact with the web is, finally, a long-term one.” –Communications Station

newuniversal has plenty of those Warren Ellis big concepts we’ve come to expect, such as the Superflow (the interconnectedness of creation). However, the overarching theme is that a new age has been ushered in, a new way of living, and we stand on the brink of a new universal structure, a new heavens and new earth scenario. In light of this, we need to join in the mission of who we were meant to be and join in the mission of justice and reconciliation.

The best part about Warren Ellis working within the confines of already established characters is that he doesn’t get to default to his stock protagonists and turn it into a “Warren Ellis comic”. The art is crisp and clean and has a sense of … scale to it (kind of harkening back to that cinematic style that accompanied Ellis’ work on The Authority). Rarely is Ellis weird for weird’s sake (hello Morrison and Moore) and when he’s on his game, you pay attention. newuniversal is intelligent and exciting. Pay attention.


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Justice Society of America – A Review

Writer: Geoff Johns
Artist: Dale Eaglesham
Publisher: DC Comics
Price: 2.99
Release Date: December 20, 2006

The other day, I walked into my comic shop tell him that I have to get caught up on doing some comic book reviews. “You like DC comics?” he asks. “Yeah,” I said. “JSA’s the best comic out,” he tells me. So I go home and end up IM-ing a buddy who forwards me the link to a blog that photoshops comics (we were particularly giggling over the rendition of issue #7 – the conclusion – of Civil War). He then tells me I have to pick up JSA #4 (because, of course, his favorite villain is in it). So I decide that maybe I ought to get caught up on this once again re-launched title.

"The world needs better good guys."

Steeped in DC continuity, the team itself is a continuation of the very first team of superheroes, which had their first meeting in All-Star Comics #3 (published by then National Publications way back in the winter of 1940/41). The original members were Doctor Fate, Hourman,, the Spectre, Sandman, the Atom, Flash, Green Lantern, and Hawkman. Basically, these were all of the heroes who not quite popular enough to sustain their own series (though as they did, they were placed on honorary status). The team has seen many incarnation, as Super Squad, the All-Star Squadon, (Infinity Inc, has its roots in the JSA), and continues as a mix of some of the original members as well as some of the children of others.

I’ll spare you any suspense about the tenor of my review: I’m wondering when Geoff Johns will get tired of my love letter reviews about his books. From Green Lantern: Rebirth to Infinite Crisis to his recent run on Action Comics, Johns has been delivering the goods. He has an obvious love for this team and these characters. Mr. Terrific might be the best super-hero character DC has going right now (evidenced by the fact that he’s pulling triple duty right now: JSA, JLA, and Checkmate). The slightly mentally off-balance Starman is in close second.

Johns, like Kurt Busiek and Mark Waid, gets what makes comic book super heroes work. In the case of the JSA, the on-going theme is the idea of legacies and traditions. It is every bit about family carrying on their mission of being symbols and fighting injustice. Though gripping, the opening story line seems awfully dark and violent (the Ennis/Ellis-ation of comic books) as a villain seeks to cut off the branches of the family tree of the original members of the team.

However, the first issue demonstrates the great pacing we’ve come to expect from Johns, introducing the core cast of characters and the story arc (that doesn’t have that “stretched to six issues for eventual trade paperback feel”). It sets up the mystery of the plot while having the story of the recruitment of who will make up the eventual team.

The JSA has a mission of responsibility. They have a long history behind them, most of it good, some of it not so good. But they unite around the ideal of what they could be as a missional community. The simple truth is that heroes haven’t always lived up to their ideal, but despite that fact, they come together to live out what they were called to do. With respect to the past, they acknowledge their mistakes and with their eyes on the future, they set out to train those who will carry on the work in the next generation(s).

Somehow in the re-launch--and the break Johns took from the book, by-passing the opportunity to reach the milestone of issue #100--the book went from being good to being great. The depth of story-telling, excellent detail of the art - it is close to the pinnacle of what super-hero comics should be: plot and character driven, while well-paced, and well-drawn. Plus, the covers are magnificent and I’m waiting for a poster to collect them all.


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TMNT – A Review

“Upon this Leonardo, I will build my family.”

Without shame, I admit that I have followed the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles since their beginning. Yes, this includes their over-sized comics from many, many (has it really been that many already?) years ago. When Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird created the characters, they were a parody of Frank Miller’s (The Dark Knight Returns) run on Daredevil. That’s why you have the turtles sensei named Splinter (after Stick, Daredevil’s sensei) and why their arch-nemesis, Shredder, leads a group called The Foot (rather than the group of ninjas Daredevil so often fought known as The Hand). This was also before the property blew up into a life of its own and is on the cusp of its third wave of popularity.

The first came when the parody itself became parodied (Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters, Pre-Teen Dirty-Gene Kung Fu Kangaroos, etc.) ushering an explosion of independent black and white comics; the next came with the rise of the TMNT as television and movie properties; and now the CGI-animated TMNT movie.

“I just know something’s missing.” –Leonardo (James Arnold Taylor)

Set sometime after the defeat of their arch-nemesis, the Shredder, when we first encounter the turtles, they have drifted apart and lost their sense of purpose. Donatello (Mitchell Whitfield) has been reduced to tech support; Michelangelo (Mikey Kelley) to kids’ party entertainment; Raphael (Nolan North) as a dark night avenger, Night Watcher; and Leonardo in jungle self-imposed exile, a training period, becoming a kind of desert father as he trains to be a better leader.

“I’m not afraid of any myth.” –Soldier

Besides facing their own internal struggles, the turtles are pitted against an ancient evil. Headed up by the mysterious Max Winters (X-Men’s Patrick Stewart), four generals--ancient horsemen of the apocalypse--they seek to open a portal so that their dark armies can pour through and swarm the world.

“Friends you choose, but never your family.” –Mr. Winters

The main theme of the movie revolves around restoring families. Both the turtles themselves need to mend their fractious ways as well as Winter’s family which is at cross-purposes. The turtles have to learn that they cannot fight evil when you keep fighting each other. Actually, families are more fluid than Mr. Winters allows, as the turtles have adopted members, April O’Neil (Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Casey Jones (Fantastic Four’s Chris Evans). On the other hand, Max seeks penance, to pay back some of the wrong his life has wrought. He is a leader-servant who simply wants to be fully human, even if it means giving up his immortality.

The other thing about family is that each has strengths and weaknesses. Families aren’t going to be perfect, and each member brings their particular gifts as well as their weaknesses. Recognizing them and compensating accordingly is the strength of an ideal family. For example, Raphael battles his own nature. He is angry, short-tempered, and passionate to a fault. However, his passion fuels his need to fight for justice and also his loyalty. The key is to harness those gifts by, as Michelangelo points out, “training by doing.”

“You’re going to quote a rulebook that you ain’t been following for years?” --Raphael

What makes the turtles so formidable is that they follow a sensei, a Master-Teacher. The turtles are disciples under Splinter’s tutelage. As Robert Webber put it “discipleship is a long obedience in the same direction.” It’s basically apprenticeship., the goal of the student is to become as much like the teacher as possible. Discipleship would involve a changed in three areas: belief (as we turn to our Master-Teacher), behavior (our lives become slowly transformed, centering our lives around living out the kingdom mission; putting feet–action–to our faith and knowledge), and belonging (we join a specific faith community).

“So what happens now?”

The convoluted plot borders on nonsensical (something about thirteen monsters who have been loose in the world for the last 3,000 years, all in Manhattan, yet strangely have managed to keep an awfully low profile until now as they need to be collected). The CGI format is well-suited for the TMNT movie franchise, especially for the turtles themselves and the action sequences; however, any humans are poorly rendered (is it my imagination or are all the women in the movie in desperate need of a cheeseburger or two?).

Though a little overwrought and, yes, a lot of the goofy spirit of the television series is lost, this movie is much more in tune with the spirit of the original comic. (Didn’t we have this discussion when Tim Burton re-launched the Batman movie franchise? Many, many, years ago.) True, there’s no Shredder, but they have to save something for the next movie.


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The Reaping - A Review

Why is Hillary Swank in this movie? A two-time Oscar winner apparently took a left turn in her career (what we may want to consider calling “the Cuba Gooding Effect”) and ended up in a B-grade horror flick. Hilary Swank portrays Katherine Winter, a former Christian missionary who lost her faith after her family was killed. She then becomes a world-renowned investigator in disproving religious phenomena. But when she’s called in to investigate the not-too-subtly named small Louisiana town of Haven (featuring such church signs as read “A gentle Lord, but don’t push it.”), spooky hijinks ensue. She didn’t even have the decency to mimic Stephen Rea’s look of “yeah, I’m slumming. What of it?” portrayal of Father Costigan, her one-time friend/mentor. No, she seems to be really trying, which only makes her efforts all the more sad. (Idris Elba (The Wire) simply makes me happy whenever he’s on screen.)

“The only miracle is that people keep believing.” - Katherine

In this case, the miracle would have been our faith that this religious-themed horror movie would actually payoff. You almost get the impression that some movie executive was actually banking on Christians turning out in droves to see a horror movie trading off their story. Mind you, it’s actually a promising allure. However, I want real creepiness and horror, not boo moments and quick cuts. And The Reaping was simply horror movie by numbers:

-bump moments (check)
-dripping blood (check)
-jumpy camera action (check)
-Priest seeing portents (check)
-sex scene at 45 minute mark (check)
-CGI enhanced shadows (check)
-lone black character, not to mention lone believing Christian, might as well be fitted with a red shirt and volunteering for a mission with Captain Kirk as he goes off to explore the dark crypt alone. (check. Double check. And checked again)
-twist ending (check)

“It’s easy to lose faith … people need to believe in miracles.” --Ben

Sometimes when tragedy visits us, it can cause our faith to break and us to turn our back on the things we once knew and trusted. As a scientist myself, I appreciate the struggle of reconciling the pursuit of scientific facts with matters of faith. In Katherine’s case, as a “miracle debunker” , she discovers that Haven is suffering from what appears to be the Old Testament-type plagues. Hers attempts to be a journey of realizing that science can’t always explain what is happening and that sometimes faith is required to battle some forces that threaten a community. Yes, we saw this done better in the television show, Miracles. And, yes, I say “attempts” in case the first swing of the movie’s mallet to the forehead-like heavy-handedness somehow eludes you.

Why is this happening to us?” We underestimate “I don’t know” as a theological answer, though the scarier prospect might be that we aren’t alone at all. Which is why we continue to look for miracles. They are God’s calling cards. We believe that if only we could have some proof positive of God at work in our lives, in our world, then it would heal our faith and sooth our doubts. What we fail to take into account is that people can see the exact same things, the exact same set of circumstances and evidence, and come to very different conclusions … We can’t go through life solely seeking signs of the miraculous out in order to build our faith upon, nor should we deny them when we come across them.



Katherine: “How do I know? How do we know what’s real?”
Lauren: “Faith.”

We continue to look for miracles, to see some true sign of God’s presence in our reality. Miracles are God’s calling cards. We believe that if only we could have some proof positive of God at work in our lives, in our world, then it would heal our faith and sooth our doubts. We all have faith, good faith, bad faith, or misplaced faith. Likewise, we all go through periods of doubt. When you know something, you can’t have faith in it because there is no need for faith. God is big enough for us to question, doubt, and wrestle with. In fact, He expects us to.

I could go on making spiritual connections with this film: Lauren as the angel of the Lord; Katherine and Ben as the disciples; Father Costigan as an ersatz John the Baptist - but I don’t want to think about this movie anymore than I have to.

Rivers of blood. Frogs. Lice. Flies. Diseased livestock. Boils. Hail. Locusts. Darkness. Death. The biblical plagues are seen through the horror lens has so much potential for a religious horror film, a potential the movie shows no interest in stretching for. Instead it delves into utter nonsense about little known sects and a child who may or may not be the messenger of Satan, reducing the film to a kind of Rosemary’s Redneck Town. The Reaping doesn’t even make it as a horror movie confection.


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Book of Lost Souls – A Review

Writer: J. Michael Straczynski
Artist: Colleen Doran
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Price: 2.99
Release Date: October 26, 2006

“Maybe interesting things happen to you all the time, you’re just not paying attention.”

With that we enter into J. Michael Straczynski’s (Squadron Supreme, Strange, Amazing Spider-Man) new world, The Book of Lost Souls. In a comic book landscape dominated by the spandex wearing folks, we have an all-too-rare dark fantasy entry, and Marvel’s second title in their creator-owned imprint, Icon. The Book of Lost Souls has a familiar feel to it, at least for those fans of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman (or his novel, Neverwhere) or even Straczynki’s own Midnight Nation, both of which Straczynski seems to crib from.

The premise features a tragic, dark hero in the form of Jonathan (who looks a lot like Poet from Rising Stars), who lived at least a century ago, who finds himself in our modern world after a near death experience. Joined by his constant companion, Mystery, a talking cat, together they intrude into people’s lives. He suddenly has a purpose and a sense of mission as he comes to grips with who he is and who he is meant to be and find others like him. Straczynski slowly, emphasis on SLOWLY, builds a supernatural mythological world within an urban environment; a world within a world that promises that reality isn’t always how it seems.

The book is hard to get into. It may be the heavy inks on the art that doesn’t sit well with me. The dialogue and plot both lean too much on the vague, lacking some of the crackle I’ve come to expect from Straczynski. The potential downside to a creator owned book is that there is no one to reign him in from some of his excesses. However, I can’t complain about typical comic book story-telling styles and then turn around and complain too loudly when someone tells their story outside of convention.

“Everything starts with the book.” –Mystery

Jonathan clings to the story that undergirds his faith, this Book of Lost Souls that gives him purpose, without making it into something that not only is it not, but it never claims to be. It’s not an answer book for every question in your life or to govern every aspect of your life. It is not an encyclopedia. It’s not a scientific text. It’s not a history treatise. It’s not a self-help guide. To treat it as such would be to drive out the mystery from his life. The book is a collection of stories that should be an arrow, not a destination, an arrow pointing to a fuller way to live.

“We are all loved to the degree that we are mysteries … Some of us have to be answers and answers are always less interesting than mysteries.” –Mystery

Caught up in a greater story, Jonathan feels the pull of good and evil on his life, as to all of the “lost souls” that he encounters. For example, there is the presence of the Dark Man, who seems to represent temptation. He is a spiritual principality (“powers and principalities. But we all look alike in the dark. And here, in this time and this place, it is always dark.”); though other voices speak into his life, like the ways/mindset of the world and even his own weakness. However, there are other voices, voices of truth, voices of love, which he has to remind himself of: “And that voice, that truth, that love…is a promise…that even in darkness, doubt, or pain…we do not fight alone.”

The lost souls are trapped in empty lives: relationships that poison them, drugs, the “I am not …” lies (false ideas of themselves, false ways of seeing themselves), not knowing if they are running away from something or toward something else. They are people without hope. The “lost souls” are often on a road whose passage from it can only be paid in blood, finding themselves at crossroads when presented with the choice, the way out. So often when presented with a choice to a better way of living, they choose “the devil they know” and continue on their meandering road. Jonathan, like a Gaiman-inspired Christ, comes to give them hope, their dreams back, a new lease on life.

The Book of Lost Souls starts off uncharacteristically slow and unengaging for a J. Michael Straczynski project. Almost as if it takes its audience for granted, that his fans will forgive him the slow start so that he can tell the story he wants to tell. Yet there is too much exposition and if feels too … intentional. It’s heavy-handed – the reader knows they are going to be getting a message. As introductions go, there is not enough plot nor enough characterization. Just mood and portents. But I’m willing to wait for a Straczynski payoff.


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