We have seen what the traction league has come to. We watched the battle for survival and the losses suffered by those who chose to simply fortify the mountain in place. We have combined the great engines and the mountain. We shall be safe in our fortress. We shall rule the sky.
This was originally published
Visions
Star Wars is a cultural phenomenon. It has become part of the culture of media. The first film hit screens more than forty years ago. Lately the franchise has come under new ownership. These new owners have pushed forward with many, many new works in the universe of Star Wars. There’s a lot out there, even for fans. I have considered myself a fan for a very long time. I was exactly the right age when the first movie hit theaters. I scrambled to get action figures and play sets as a kid and spent seemingly endless hours pushing my imagination out to all the various places in the Star Wars universe. The movies are deeply entrenched in my personal nostalgia along with all the entwined media. I can effectively say that I’ve ‘always’ been a fan.
I’m also a fan that just doesn’t want or need to devour the seemingly unending supply of hot off the presses Star Wars stuff. Maybe I’ve outgrown certain aspects of the story telling. Maybe the abundance of available material has taken the shine off the whole thing. I could just be tired of seeing the same old thing. This ennui is at the very root of this recommendation.
Star Wars, only done as anime. Imagine taking a team of amazing story tellers and artists from an anime studio and saying, “Go – play in our universe. Make something great”. That is precisely what they’ve done. Now streaming on Disney+ (because I think they own everything?) Star Wars Visions gives us seven all original stories in the same galaxy, using the same background and the same legendary ‘Force’. The stories vary in style, but never lack in beauty. The art is amazing. The stories are fresh. The look of it all is straight up anime. They’re short, so you can sneak them in between other things, or you can easily binge them. I would suggest one at a time, to give each the attention it should have. I think this may even be a way to draw new fans in; fans that might not have given a tired old franchise a chance otherwise. You should be watching Visions.
Check out the trailer:
Claiming something and doing something are two different things. I have told any number of people that I have the ability to walk to work at my new place of employment. This is an entirely true statement. It is another thing altogether to actually walk the walk as the saying goes.
So I did it. I walked to work today. I learned a number of things along the way.
First, walking to work should be a matter of personal and environmental health, but actually comes down to schedule and payload. Walking to work requires that I adjust my schedule. Takes me about a half an hour to get there. That’s significantly longer than when I take the car AND totally limits my ability to react quickly / get someplace quickly in an emergency. It also limits how much stuff I can drag with me. Packing my dress shoes, lunch and other stuff into a bag and slinging it over my shoulder doesn’t make for a lot of carrying capacity, as opposed to just tossing stuff into the back seat and then grabbing it again on arrival.
Second, there’s a bias to driving. There are certain things that are simply part of how I consider things when I’m driving. One example is my mask. Masks are required when entering the building I work in. I don’t think about it because my mask is always in my car and I just grab it and go… only I didn’t bring the car. Guess where my mask is? Yeah, still in the car. Had to pick up a temporary mask at the desk on the way in. I realized I forgot something else I needed today. When driving, I’d think very little of popping out at lunch time, doing what I needed and getting back. Today? Not so much. What I forgot is staying at home.
Third, and this is where it gets gross, is environmental concerns. I’m lumping stuff together here as it relates to being active and being outside. No, walking to work shouldn’t qualify as ‘active’ but it’s still a physical activity. It’s an outdoor activity, so the weather the time of day and other people (and their pets) all become part of the equation as well. Bluntly, even when I’m just strolling someplace – I tend to sweat like Conor McGregor at a spelling bee. When I got to the office, I was sweaty under the backpack I was using to carry stuff. I was also outside and it was a damp, foggy morning. I felt pretty damp by the time I got in the building here. It was dark out when I left. I took extra care in crossing any streets. Then there were all the pet owners out with their dogs. There were quite a few – and I had no desire to deal with them. There weren’t any who stayed on my side of the street while I was walking, but the… remains of one such walker were in clear evidence on the sidewalk. Sidestepping that was important. I don’t want to show up at the office smelling like poo.
Once I got up to my desk it actually took me a few minutes to adjust, change shoes, and generally pull myself together after my stroll. Some of the “adjustment” stuff might get easier with practice. Some of it might not. The only way to know, is to walk again… although probably not tomorrow. There’s someplace I need to get to right after work and walking there just isn’t going to cut it.
What I need to figure out next is how to record myself speaking while I take this time to walk. I have a friend who does a ‘cast of his morning walk every day. I’d love to use that time while walking to help push creative things ahead on this page. Hopefully this will continue to be a thing. I’ll keep you all posted!
We must haunt him.
Wake him. How can we haunt him if he will not awaken to see us? Touch him.
We cannot. There is a barrier.
Shake him. Move the barrier. Quickly, our time is short.
We cannot. The barrier defies us. He sleeps the sleep of the exhausted. He will not acknowledge us.
Perhaps he is shaken already. Perhaps his struggles outweigh us. We must move on.
We move on.
This was originally published in the Watch The Skies fanzine, September 2021 issue.
What If…
When I’ve worked on my recommendations for this little column each month I’ve tried to find things that are bent toward the (potential) interests of this group, but also slightly off the beaten path. These things might not be your preference, but should certainly be worthy of consideration. I’ve tried not to go for the obvious, splashy things out there.
This month is a break in that trend. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is pervasive in pop culture. The series of movies and shows that have the common, unifying thread of a group of comic book super heroes has been with us for a solid decade now. The story lines, the characters, the massive tent pole films that seep into all the nooks and crannies of the genre are familiar. Perhaps they are familiar to the point of apathy. The MCU could be running the very serious risk of over saturation with the sheer number of films and shows it’s dumping forth for mass consumption. The omnipresent super hero genre has kept me away, until now.
The house of mouse has an animated show based around the stories of these well known super heroes called “What If…” that gets directly to the heart of the science fiction and fantasy genre. The title of the show is the very essence of what makes SF/F great. The best stories always ask that question. What if? Can we go back and change things? How would that have worked out if one tiny thing changed (butterfly effect anyone)? It’s a terrific mental exercise. The MCU has now combined that concept with stunning artwork to make a series of short animations. These stories give us the characters we’ve come to know viewed in very different lights. Asking the simple question “What if…” and following through with things like having the Ravagers pick up T’Challa rather than Peter Quill or having a serial killer remove Avengers before they start their journey to being a hero.
Yes, viewing these episodes does actually work out better if you’ve seen and / or are familiar with the films that have been put out in the long series from Marvel. The stories are short (averaging about a half hour each) and only give us glimpses of what might have been. It’s those glimpses that make it work. The animation is at exactly the level you’d expect from a world leader. There’s a lot of great stuff in there. This series is definitely one you should be watching.
Check out the trailer here:
I’m wondering about the scale of my lack of focus. I don’t think it’s ADD or ADHD or whatever initials that particular diagnosis have been changed to lately. I am looking at the pattern of my postings here and seeing that they tend to cluster when I have certain things going on and thin way out when I have other things going on. There is nothing consistent about what I’m doing.
Having said that, I realize that there IS consistency, just at a larger scale. The general things I am interested in, and the things I work on are in certain channels, but those channels tend to cycle. There will be times when I am working on art pieces, times when I am crafting, times when I’m writing and struggling along with that and times when I’m reaching out with other creative endeavors.
Lately my energy is being spent on one of those ‘other’ creative endeavors. Gaming. I have posted before about being a player in a role playing game that was streaming on Twitch and YouTube. That game hit a snag ~ the snag of course being that we are adults with lives and responsibilities. Schedule has killed yet another game… OR has it?
I asked my friend if he minded that I step in and take over running a game. He was agreeable and so were the folks playing the game. Since then I’ve shifted gears and dropped back into my Dungeon Master ways. I’m producing art, but it’s generally for the game or the video channel. I’m writing, but it’s centered around the next adventure. I’ve dropped off the crafting and painting a bit simply because we’re running this game virtually across 2 time zones.
In the end, playing Dungeons & Dragons has resurfaced as my hobby of choice. I’m having a great time creating the world and working with the players as they move through various parts of their adventures. We’re still on the Ether Network channel, just under a different “show” title. IF you’re into the story, you should check it out over on Twitch or YouTube:
The Dungeons and Dragons movie has wrapped up filming. Now I suspect they’re moving on to the ‘zillions of special effects bits that need to be created in order to make a world of fantasy come to life. Got the news from this article:
https://gizmodo.com/the-dungeons-and-dragons-film-has-wrapped-production-1847535005
I’ve written about this before, but I think the author of this article sums up my fears in a single phrase,
“…but with the caliber of people involved, maybe this one will turn out to be watchable.”
Why is it so difficult to make a fantasy story on film that is both a good story and NOT some variation of King Arthur (there are at least 15 variations / versions I can come up with)? There’s so much good material out there. Let’s hope for a real fantasy boom. Think Avengers quality. I’d love to see so much more variety. Give me a wizard that is NOT Gandalf or Merlin. Please.
Big days are weird things.
It’s Tuesday morning as I write this. The 24th of August. To a vast majority of the people I know, that’s all it is. It’s Tuesday morning and there’s work and maybe a list of things that need to get done at the end of the day or a show to watch tonight. I know at least one person who has a birthday today, so that might be a little special moment with a dinner or a gift, but generally nothing very exciting.
For us… exciting might not be quite the right word, but it definitely IS a big deal for us. Today is flight day for my daughter. She is leaving the country to study for the next 10 months in France. I’ve written about parts of our journey here before. We’ve done tons of preparation to get to this point, but today is it. Today is the Big Day. Flight day.
Nobody slept well last night. I set an alarm, but was awake two hours before it was scheduled to go off (despite staying up extra late in an attempt to be more tired when heading off to bed). I got up and have been pacing the house for more than an hour. I’ve played all the vapid games on my phone. I listened to the news, checked the weather radar and reloaded the flight status page twice so far. There is this driving urge to do something, do anything and there’s simply nothing left to do. We finished the laundry yesterday for my daughter’s things. The bags are packed. The phone is charged. The friends have been visited. The family has been hugged. We’ve looked at the airports websites. We’ve done as much of a virtual walk as we could to get a feel for how the journey will go. My daughter has been in touch with her host family and they’ve told her who would be meeting her at the other end of her travels.
I’m still pacing.
This is anxiety.
Today is also an uneven day. As a parent I’m anxious and pacing, but ultimately my part in this will be over by lunch time today. We’ve got to get the kiddo TO the airport and in line for the security check. That’s it. Then we wander out of the terminal, pay for parking and wonder what the rest of the day brings. My daughter will be boarding a plane here, flying to Chicago and gathering with other kids from the program who will be on the same flight with her. Then after a short layover it’s off to Paris. Long flight, landing and meeting a rep from the exchange student program on the other end of the flight. That person will pack her onto the train and head her off to her host family. When all is said and done she will have been traveling for more than 20 continuous hours. She has snacks. She has a water bottle. She’s got money to grab a meal when she gets a chance ~ and we’re going to be sitting here at home unable to be with her, help her or join her in the experience. There is no doubt that I’ll sleep terribly again tonight. I’m going to be a distracted mess at work tomorrow morning until I get a notification from her that she has landed safely. I’ll only be truly relieved when she lets us know that she has arrived at the train station where her host family has met her and she’s safely headed to their home to start her adventure in France.
It’s also a sign that I have written more here out of anxiety than I’ve written in two weeks on any other subject. I’m not sure how other creative types deal with what feels like the opposite of the muse. Distraction. Inability to sit still.
This is it. As so many others know it… it’s Tuesday. It’s a Big Day.
This was originally published in Watch The Skies fanzine, August 2021 issue.
Nestflix
It’s the dog days of summer. The doldrums. Media is scattered far and wide but people aren’t focused on sitting down and watching whatever they can scrounge. Folks are squeezing in one more beach trip or working hard at getting ready for back to school time. Reruns and re-watching old movies is the kind of relaxing thing that can fill gaps between all this summer activity. But when you do the re-watching, do you notice the world inside the world? Do you catch the shows that are on the screens in the background?
This is not a true “what to watch” in the sense that these shows don’t actually exist, except in an alternate world. When you’re going back to an old Futurama episode, do you recall anything about “The Scary Door”? How could you miss a show with a description like this;
“You are entering the vicinity of an area adjacent to a location. The kind of place where there might be a monster, or some kind of weird mirror. These are just examples; it could also be something much better. Prepare to enter: The Scary Door.”
There is a fun site out there that lists more than four hundred of these magical shows inside shows. Have you noticed a show within a show? Do you have a favorite? When you get a few minutes head on over to the Nestflix site and check out this crazy collection.
It’s been a while since I’ve run a D&D game. The schedules of adults combined with a pandemic crushed that creative bit of things for a long time. I’ve posted on here about being invited to play. The game turned from fantasy to horror and that’s not exactly ‘my jam’ as a friend would say. Yes it was fun and there are memorable stories from the few sessions we’ve run. Once again, the schedule of adults looked to wreck that gaming chance. I volunteered to step in and attempt this long distance gaming thing as the game master.
I’m glad I volunteered. The rest of the players seemed to be on board with the idea. All I needed to do was figure out how 5e worked compared to what I knew, work with everyone on character creation, design the adventure, tailor it to the characters, figure out how the online tools were going to work and THEN actually run the game. Easy peasy, right?
Oy. I must have forgotten how much work it is to stay ahead of a handful of very sharp players. I was (and am) glad that I did this. We had a couple of bumpy patches in our first session. A couple of communication errors (mostly on me) and some adjustment to the online environment, but all in all I think it went as well as could be expected.
The best part was that we’ve already come up with a bit of story that’s going to stick with us. A gift that will keep on giving as this party of intrepid adventurers continues to move through the game world. Fear the grain shortage and buy your bread now! You should watch: