I've Finally Seen Avatar. Big Whoop.

In case I wanted to watch a movie while recuperating from my aforementioned colonoscopy, my sister and brother-in-law, who brought me home from the hospital on Friday, let me borrow their DVD copy of Avatar. Their daughter, my niece, absolutely loved the movie and bought a copy as soon as it became available. Neither of her parents, however, were particularly impressed with the film but thought I might enjoy some nice brainless entertainment during my recovery. Avatar is about as brainless as it gets. The film succeeds brilliantly at using visual effects to create a gorgeous piece of eye candy and an alien world that looks and feels truly alien. It fails miserably at pretty much everything else that makes a movie worth watching: creating interesting, multidimensional characters, exploring complex ideas, or constructing a plot that has an ounce of suspense or any real surprises.

Left paralyzed from the waist down by an injury, Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) ships out to the planet Pandora, where a greedy, soulless, nameless corporation (represented by a smarmy corporate executive played by Giovanni Ribisi) is busily plundering the jungle paradise for a rare mineral called "unobtainium." (Get it? Ah, you're a subtle one, James Cameron). We're never told what unobtainium is used for or what makes it so valuable, only that it fetches $20 million dollars a kilogram. The corporation needs Marines to provide security because the natives, the blue-skinned, catlike humanoids called the Na'vi, are fighting back to protect their planet.

Pandora's atmosphere, however, is toxic to humans, so Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) and her colleagues have created the Avatar program, in which humans can link their minds to genetically engineered Na'vi bodies in order to interact with the locals. Jake is recruited into the Avatar program and given the task of winning the trust of a clan of Na'vi and persuading them to relocate their village, which just happens to be atop the largest deposit of unobtainium on the planet. If the Na'vi won't move voluntarily, a detachment of Marines with gunships and heavy weapons under the command of the brutish Col. Quaritch (Stephen Lang), is willing and all too eager to remove them by force.

On his first day in the field with his new Na'vi body, however, Jake becomes separated from Dr. Augustine and her companions and loses most of his survival gear. He's rescued by the beautiful princess Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), daughter of the chieftain of the Na'vi clan Jake is supposed to approach. On her father's orders and against her own wishes, Neytiri begins teaching Jake the ways of the Na'vi.

The Na'vi are a Flower Child's dream come true. They wear minimal clothing, hunt only with bows and arrows, and thank the animals they hunt for surrendering their life force before killing them. They have a tendril-like object on the back of their heads that allows them to connect with a similar tendril on other animals and communicate with them telepathically. They prattle on about "the energy fields that connect all living things." Their deity, Eywa, is the planet itself, the sum total of every living thing on Pandora, and their most sacred site is a giant tree that enables them to hear the voices of their ancestors.

After several months of almost total immersion in Na'vi culture, Jake predictably "goes native" and falls in love with Neytiri, a development the audience can see coming from only about 50 miles away. The corporation, however, moves forcibly against Neytiri's village before Jake can negotiate its voluntary relocation. Horrified by this betrayal and the brutality of the attack, Jake organizes an army of Na'vi to mount a last-ditch stand against the human invaders.

Guess how the rebellion turns out. Of Of course the Na'vi defeat the humans thanks to Jake's courageous and inspired leadership, of course the villainous Quaritch is finally defeated in pitched battle, and of course Jake and Neytiri live happily ever after on Pandora, with Jake finally having the opportunity through a mystical ritual to become a Na'vi—not just a human mind controlling a Na'vi body, but a real live, honest-to-Eywa Na'vi.

Obviously, the complete predictability of the plot was one of the many things about this movie that really annoyed me. Except for the mind-blowing visuals, we've all seen every bit of this movie before. The soulless, rapacious corporations, and their soulless, rapacious corporate executives come straight out of previous leftist diatribes such as Wall Street. The trigger-happy, testosterone-fueled Marines, totally uninterested in the world around them and concerned only with what they can kill, are stolen from films such as Platoon and Apocalypse Now. The alien separated from his comrades and lost in an alien world meme goes at least as far back as Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land and at least as far forward as E. T. The white guy going native and adopting a bogus eco-spirituality motif comes almost directly from films such as A Man Called Horse and Dances with Wolves. And of course, the "energy fields connecting all living things," and plucky but ill-equipped band of rebels standing up to a corrupt empire motifs are lifted straight from the Star Wars movies. Ho-hum.

Not only is there a complete lack of originality regarding the story, but there's also a painful lack of any subtlety, ambiguity, nuance, or complexity among any of the characters. Black is black, white is white. The corporate executives, for example, are always and everywhere evil and without compassion. They cremate Jake's dead twin brother in a cardboard box and then recruit Jake for the Avatar program because Jake is a genetic duplicate of his brother and ideally suited for the program. When corporate executive Parker Selfridge (a play on "selfish?") watches the brutal destruction of a Na'vi village via live video, he experiences no shock and revulsion as his colleagues do, but calmly goes on as if nothing had happened. Quaritch watches the ruthless destruction of a Na'vi village while calmly sipping coffee. Quaritch's Marines, to a man, are not portrayed as ordinary young men suddenly thrust into a strange and hostile environment and forced to survive; instead they are almost literally transformed into mindless killing machines by their oversized, mechanized body armor. The only exception is "a wise Latina woman" helicopter pilot who switches sides and fights for the Na'vi.

If the corporate executives and Marines are all darkness, the Na'vi are all light. They are peaceful and wise and spiritual and playful, in harmony with their ancestors and with every living thing on the planet. They are matriarchal where the nasty humans are patriarchal; veritable exemplars of fashionable, leftist, suitably vague New Age spirituality.

My brother-in-law remarked that he had heard or read something to the effect that James Cameron had conceived the original idea for Avatar while still in high school but only now had the resources and technology to bring his vision to the screen. If that's true, I can believe it; the story is certainly sophomoric. It reflects an adolescent disdain for established authority and a childishly absolute refusal to even consider the possibility that complex issues might require complex solutions. No reasonable person would argue that the natural environment shouldn't be protected or that humans shouldn't think very carefully about how to develop natural resources with as little damage to the environment as possible; the present BP oil rig disaster taking place in the Gulf of Mexico right now is proof of that. To argue, however, as Cameron seems to do here, that humans should reject technology, industrialization, and even their humanity and go back to some nonexistent pastoral golden age, seems to be just plain silly.

Similarly, no reasonable person would argue that the United States military doesn't have some black stains on its reputation to live down: the treatment of Native Americans during the 19th century, the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, and the outrages at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, for example. To suggest, however, as Cameron seems to do, that nearly everyone who serves in the military is a thug, a sadist, and a killer is an insult to the thousands of men and women who serve honorably in the military and put themselves at considerable personal risk to protect our country and continue to ensure that goofballs like James Cameron have the freedom to make expensive but trashy movies.

No, for all its eye-popping razzmatazz, this movie seems like nothing more than a laundry list of leftist gripes against capitalism, the United States in general, and the U.S. military in particular. Just think of what this movie could have been if James Cameron had bothered to craft a story and characters worthy of the amazing technology used to make the film's special effects.

Where in the World Is Carmen San Diego, Waldo Niall Mor?

You may have noticed, dear readers, (all three of you) that I have been away from this blog for several weeks. There are good reasons for this, namely:

1. Technical reasons. As you may remember from previous posts, recently I've been beset with technical problems: a logic board failure, a failure of my wireless keyboard and mouse, and an infestation of viruses and spyware, despite having what I thought was good anti-virus and security software. It took several days to find satisfactory replacement software, get it installed correctly, and get the computer more or less debugged and working properly.
2. Church-related reasons. As you may also recall, I'm president of my parish's praesidium (local chapter) of The Legion of Mary. Now is the time of year when our praesidium had to make its annual report to the Curia (the next level up in the Legion's organization) about everything we've been up to during the past year. Organization and record keeping, however, aren't my strong suits, so what should have been a fairly simple task turned into a mad scramble for information. Imagine doing all this whilst and at the same time trying to participate in a novena to Our Lady of Fatima called for by the pastor who really wanted—you guessed it—The Legion of Mary to be present each night of the novena. The climax of the celebration was the dedication of the parish's new Rosary and Meditation Garden and statue of Our Lady of Fatima, with a special Mass celebrated by His Excellency, The Most Rev. Robert E. Guglielmone, Bishop of The Diocese of Charleston, SC. It was a BIG DEAL. 
3. Medical reasons.  About a week ago, I began bleeding from my backside, a part of the anatomy from which no one should ever bleed. Because this wasn't the first time this had happened, my doctor became concerned and ordered me into the hospital for a colonoscopy. After two days on a clear liquid diet, several rounds of laxatives, two enemas, and much poking and prodding in places humans were not meant to be poked and prodded, it was determined that the problem was a simple case of hemorrhoids. Even though all of this was unexpected and immensely inconvenient, I don't regret it for a minute. Finding out you don't have colon cancer brightens your day immeasurably.  Deo gratias!

So. How are you?

. . . And We're Back . . . Again

I think.

Ah, technology. It's grand when it works, but a witch when it doesn't. My computer rig consists of a laptop, a docking station, and a wireless keyboard and mouse. Just a few days after getting my laptop back from tech support, my wireless keyboard and mouse mysteriously stopped working. I checked for viruses and spyware, which I found in plenty (Gee thanks, ZoneAlarm!), and I consulted my brother the techno-geek, but nothing I did seemed to help the problem. I called tech support, and the ever-so-helpful tech support person swore on a stack that the best solution was to purchase a shiny new wireless keyboard and mouse combo. Fifty bucks and several days later, I now have one. It seems to be working. For the moment. Grrr. Yes, HP. I'm looking in your direction.

"Put Not Your Trust in Princes"

Gordon Brown has a problem.

In an effort to show that he's just a regular bloke and a man of the people, the British Prime Minister, who just happens to be up for re-election this year, went to a carefully staged photo-op with an average British voter, a woman who proudly proclaimed that she, her father, and her grandfather had voted for Brown's Labor Party all their lives. When the woman had the temerity to make a comment about Eastern European immigrants to Britain, Brown was all smiles and gave her a carefully neutral politician's answer in public, but in private, unaware that his TV mic was still on, gave a completely different opinion of her and her views:



Brown was immediately called out on his remarks and issued a personal apology with lots of backing and filling, but you have to wonder what the long term consequences for his political career will be. You also have to wonder, if this is what he thinks of his supporters and the people who are likely to vote for him, what does he think of his political opponents?

Unfortunately, this kind of contempt for the people one claims to represent is not an exclusively British phenomenon. Remember candidate Obama's famous remark about bitter voters clinging to guns and religion?



Or this, from Indiana congressman Baron Hill during a "Town Hall Meeting" on the health care reform bill:



The arrogance of this guy is breathtaking:

"This is my town hall meeting, and I set the rules."

In other words, O measly and pathetic voter who elected me and might vote for me again if I don't act like a jerk, I have graciously deigned to descend from my Olympian heights and speak with you, but only on my terms.

"Usually, the films that are done end up on YouTube in a compromising position."

In other words, if I allow people to film this, they might see what a jackass I really am.

Are you beginning to sense a pattern here? Are you beginning to suspect that maybe, just maybe, the people who run things don't care about you as much as they say they do? Gosh darn it, it's enough to make one skeptical about politics, politicians, and "change we can believe in," isn't it?

"Praise the Lord, O my soul, in my life I will praise the Lord: I will sing to my God as long as I shall be. Put not your trust in princes: In the children of men, in whom there is no salvation." (Ps.145:2-3, Douay-Rheims Version; Ps. 146, other versions).

Now That My Computer's Fixed . . .

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. . . And We're Back

Let a Te Deum be offered, let bells be rung, let psalms be sung, let incense be lit, let solemn masses of thanksgiving be celebrated.

After several uncomfortable, computerless days, It's All Straw is back in business, baby—ahead of schedule, too.

The ominous, potentially catastrophic computer problems I mentioned in my last post reappeared after a couple of days absence, dashing my hopes that the snowy screen problem was a minor glitch. I decided the prudent thing to do was to send the computer off for maintenance and repair. The FedEx guy came about noon last Friday, and from that moment until earlier this afternoon, I was without a computer. No word processing, no e-mail, no web surfing, no podcasts, no nothing.

I listened to music, I watched TV, I prayed, and I stared longingly at the place where the computer usually sits. When I called, the manufacturer's tech support people told me they had received the computer and diagnosed the problem but hadn't received an essential replacement part due to a parts shortage. They estimated they would receive the part, and that I would receive the computer by April 27. Clearly, heroic virtue was called for. I steeled myself for a long wait and possible withdrawal symptoms.

Yet after griping to all and sundry about my ordeal, I heard a fateful knock at my door just after lunchtime this afternoon. On the other side of the door was a FedEx man with a very large package. My baby is home. My files appear to be intact. All is right with the world. God is good—all the time.

Technical Difficulties . . .

Please Stand By 

 

It looks, dear readers, as if I might have to go offline for about the next two weeks. Last night the monitor on my laptop started flickering as if it were caught in a snowstorm or were a TV getting bad reception with a rabbit ears antenna. I called the manufacturer's tech support number, and they said it sounds like a problem with either the computer's LCD or the motherboard. I'm using an old desktop monitor as a workaround until a box from FedEx arrives for me to ship the laptop back to the manufacturer for repairs. Prayers to the patron saints of computers and high technology would be appreciated.

UPDATE: As I was typing this. the laptop screen suddenly cleared, just as suddenly as it started snowing up last night. It's a miracle! :) Should I still send the unit back to the manufacturer for maintenance? If I could avoid it, that would save me a heck of a lot of money. Just to be on the safe side, I'm backing up critical files. Stay tuned.

Two Cool New Comics Sites

As you may have noticed, dear readers, I'm a fan of comics. I try to keep my eyes peeled for really cool comics related sites. Here are two of my recent discoveries.

First up is Digital Comic Museum, an online repository of downloadable, scanned versions of comic books from the Golden Age of Comics, the 1940s and '50s. The site is a successor to the "Golden Age Comics" site that was down more often than not and plagued with technical problems. The new site has been significantly redesigned and appears to be working smoothly. Simply create a user name and password, log in, and start downloading issues from the days when comic books were really comic books. Check the site's FAQ list and message boards for links to free reader software for viewing the comics you've downloaded. You can also chat with other fans and collectors on the forums and upload your own vintage comics. You won't find Action Comics #1 (Superman's first appearance), but you will find comics from many lesser known and defunct publishers in every conceivable genre: superhero, adventure, Western, detective, horror, romance, juvenile, and more. The Ace Comics titles "Atomic War" and "World War III," for example, play on Cold War era fears of a nuclear sneak attack on America by the Soviet Union. In today's cynical, ironic, detached pop culture, the deadly earnest, gee whiz writing style of these comics may come across as campy and unintentionally hilarious, but it's all part of the fun. Many issues come complete with ads for impossible products (for only 25 cents and three boxtops! Get yours today!) and pulp short stories as filler. Whatever your taste in comics, you should find something entertaining here.

My other recent find is Project: Rooftop, a blog run by a team of comics writers, illustrators, and fans who are constantly re-imagining and redesigning the costumes of famous (and not so famous) superheroes from yesterday and today. The blog accepts submissions from both professional artists and fans, and the artwork, in a wide variety of styles and approaches, is sometimes stunning and always entertaining. Each week of posts at Project: Rooftop has a theme, and this week it's Kate Kane, aka Batwoman, from DC Comics. In the immortal words of Mark Shea, "Check thou it out."

It's Time To Play . . .

Spot the Star Trek Reference!


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He Is Risen!

Better late than never! I want to wish a most joyous and blessed Easter Season to all my readers. The joy of the Resurrection of Christ is too huge to be confined to just one day.

Unfortunately, I could not attend the Easter Vigil Mass on Holy Saturday this year as I usually do. I really missed hearing the Exsultet, the ancient, traditional chanted hymn of praise and thanksgiving to God for the gift of the Resurrection. While searching YouTube for an appropriate Easter post, I came across this beautiful version of the Exsultet which is slightly different from the version most Americans are likely to hear at the Vigil Mass. It's sung by a community of English Dominicans. Enjoy, and happy Easter!

Good Friday

"And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying: 'Eloi, Eloi, lamma sabacthani?' Which is, being interpreted, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' And some of the standers by hearing, said: 'Behold he calleth Elias.'

And one running and filling a sponge with vinegar, and putting it upon a reed, gave him to drink, saying: 'Stay, let us see if Elias come to take him down.' And Jesus having cried out with a loud voice, gave up the ghost.  And the veil of the temple was rent in two, from the top to the bottom. And the centurion who stood over against him, seeing that crying out in this manner he had given up the ghost, said: 'Indeed this man was the son of God.'"

(Mark 15 :34-39, Douay-Rheims Bible.)

While It's Still St. Patrick's Day . . .

Here's a little something for your enjoyment — a video for the song "Patrick Was A Gentleman" as performed by the Wolfe Tones. Enjoy!

St. Patrick's Day

"And many gifts were offered to me with weeping and tears, and I offended them [the donors], and also went against the wishes of a good number of my elders; but guided by God, I neither agreed with them nor deferred to them, not by my own grace but by God who is victorious in me and withstands them all, so that I might come to the Irish people to preach the Gospel and endure insults from unbelievers; that I might hear scandal of my travels, and endure many persecutions to the extent of prison; and so that I might give up my free birthright for the advantage of others, and if I should be worthy, I am ready [to give] even my life without hesitation; and most willingly for His name. And I choose to devote it to him even unto death, if God grant it to me."

from The Confession of St. Patrick

Comment Moderation Enabled

I've received some rather unpleasant comment spam lately, so I've enabled comment moderation. This means I have to approve comments before they appear on the blog. If your comment does not immediately appear, fear not. It does not necessarily mean I don't like you. Most likely it means that I, your blog administrator, have not yet checked the comments waiting to be published. I regret this step, but it seems to be necessary. There are some real jerks out there.

Because I've Been Feeling Very Scottish Lately . . .

I created this version of a Highland Dancer with HeroMachine v. 3.0.

Here also is a poem about a Scottish lass by William Wordsworth. (Not a bad poem, even if he was a stuffy English git).

The Solitary Reaper

BEHOLD her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?—
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;—
I listen'd, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.

Hat tip for the text of "The Solitary Reaper" to Bartleby.com

Celts, Pagans, and Superheroes, Oh My!

A few entries ago, I told you about my idea for the Celtic League of Superheroes, a team of costumed crime-fighters originating in the Celtic countries and saving the world from various nasties found in Celtic mythology and folklore. It seems I'm not the only one to think of such a thing, because now Pendant Audio. is producing its own original Celtic-themed superhero show, “Genesis Avalon” that has a good many similarities to my Celtic League concept. What's more, in the director's commentary for the first episode, the show's creator, Kathryn Pryde, says she has the first three seasons of the show, 36 episodes, plotted and scripted. After two years, I'm still floundering around with the first draft of my main character's origin story.

I didn't listen to the first few episodes of "Genesis Avalon," first of all, because I didn't want them to influence my development of the Celtic League of Superheroes concept. I reconsidered my decision because I decided I needed to see how others are developing similar material. After all, if you're developing a product, you have to know what the competition is up to. The second reason I chose not to listen to the show, however, was that I feared it would devolve into what was essentially a commercial for neo-paganism and its contemporary incarnations such as Wicca—something that, as an author, a practicing Catholic, and a person of Celtic ancestry, I did not want to happen with my Celtic League concept.

Let me make two things perfectly clear. First, I love Pendant Audio. I listen regularly to many of their shows, especially the "fanfic" type shows based on DC Comics characters, and wouldn't have known about Genesis Avalon at all if I didn't. They are an extremely talented group of people who do a lot of hard work of very high quality solely because they love it.

Second, I realize that there have been elements of mythology, mysticism, magic, and mumbo-jumbo in superhero comics probably ever since Billy Batson learned to say "Shazam!" and become Captain Marvel. That, in and of itself, does not bother me. What bothers me, both as a Celt and a Catholic, is that certain modern neo-pagan occultists have appropriated names and terms from Celtic mythology and folklore (including the word "Celt" itself) to fabricate a modern religion for themselves and to promote that religion and its ideology—a religion and ideology that are directly and deliberately opposed to my Catholic faith.

My original nickname or handle when I first ventured out onto the internet via AOL was MrCelt ("Mr. Celt"). My user profile listed Catholicism as one of my interests. I was told by some grossly misinformed person in a chatroom, "You can't be a Celt and be a Christian." I am wearing a Celtic cross around my neck that says otherwise. Irish, Scottish, and Welsh converts to Christianity brought the gospel to much of the rest of Europe, thank you very much, founding churches, monasteries, and schools that are in existence to this day. I daresay that millions of Celtic Christians in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales today, both Catholic and Protestant, would also disagree with that statement. I resent the fact that the mythology and culture of my ancestral countries is being used to promote an agenda contrary to my faith, which once brought there, took deep root in those ancestral countries.

It's not hard for me to wonder if there's an agenda behind "Genesis Avalon." The pilot episode begins with a prayer to “The Goddess” (to which goddess I’m not sure) and, six episodes in, there have already been numerous direct references to Wicca, and rituals of “The Craft.” The story begins when a young woman finds a mysterious amulet that enables her to become the superhero Avalon, endowed with the powers of the ancient Celtic gods. She invokes these powers by speaking the names of the gods aloud. That in itself wouldn't bother me so much if the protagonist and other characters didn't toss the name of Jesus around as if it were a garden variety interjection, a curse, or an insult. I realize that in real life and in fiction, people can and do say the name of Jesus in vain. Regrettably I've done it myself on more than a few occasions. However, in a work of fiction, when characters speak the names of pagan gods and receive or invoke great power, and then utter the name of Christ with little or no result, you can't help wondering if this betrays the author's bias.

I realize much of what I've just said may sound like so much sour grapes because an author has successfully developed a concept similar to mine, while so far I've failed miserably to develop my own work. The folks behind "Genesis Avalon" may not have any agenda beyond the desire to tell a good story. Judged purely as an action adventure or a work of audio drama, the show isn't bad, and it may be possible to take all the New Age, neo-pagan woo-woo with several grains of salt.

Looking critically at my own work, I worried that it too could be construed as promoting a particular theological agenda, which would be the opposite of what I intended and believed, and that's perhaps one reason that the writing has gone so slowly. I wanted to borrow bits, pieces, and motifs from Celtic mythology and tell cool stories of costumed superheroes slugging it out with evil druids on the streets of Dublin (and other places), not to advocate for a false or fabricated religion. I fretted over this problem with my blog buddy D. G. D. Davidson at Sci-Fi Catholic, and he told me not to worry because, as he astutely pointed out, Christians have been borrowing from pagan mythology to tell stories for centuries.

Will the Celtic League of Superheroes ever be anything more than a vague idea in my head? Should I listen to "Genesis Avalon" or avoid it? I don't know the answers to either one of those questions. But I'll let you know when I find the answers.

This Is What Happens When You Can't Get a Song Out of Your Head . . .

You post a video version from YouTube and start studying Scottish and Irish history.

OK, so I've been listening to an audio podcast version of Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson's tale of high adventure, political intrigue, and skullduggery in the Scottish Highlands during the 18th century. It gets my pride in my Scottish ancestry all stirred up, which means that my pride in my Irish ancestry can't be far behind (I think I have Scottish, Irish, and Welsh family connections). I go scrambling for Irish and Scottish music videos on YouTube, start listening to lots of music in Gaelic, and start singing the song "Oro sé do bheatha bhaille" almost compulsively. The song was originally sung by Irish Jacobites, or supporters of Bonny Prince Charlie" Stuart during the 1745 uprising ("The Bold '45"), an attempt to restore the House of Stuart to the English throne. It didn't work out. The events of the Bold '45 take place just a few years before Kidnapped begins.

Later, the Irish nationalist poet Padraig Pearse rewrote the words to the song to refer to Grace O' Malley, (also known in Irish as Granuaile) an Irish noblewoman who took up a life of seafaring and piracy to protest the English domination of Ireland. When her relatives were captured by the English, Granuaile went to London to meet with Queen Elizabeth I to negotiate for their release. According to legend, during the meeting, Granuaile sneezed, and the queen offered her a handkerchief. Granuaile took the handkerchief, used it, and threw it into the fireplace, explaining that a used handkerchief was dirty and should be thrown away. According to the social customs of the time, disposing of the handkerchief would have been a calculated insult to the queen, a symbol of defiance. The queen must have been impressed with Granuaile's pluck, however, because she granted her request, and Grace O' Malley became a national hero, a symbol of Irish pride and refusal to knuckle under to the English. The song was used as a rallying cry by the IRA during Ireland's war of independence and has been recorded by many Irish singers and musicians, ranging from The Clancy Brothers to Sinead O'Connor. This version is sung by Paul Brady, and the accompanying animation tells the life and legend of Granuaile. You'll notice the melody is very similar to "What Shall We Do With a Drunken Sailor?" and I defy you to get it out of your head once you've heard it. This video was broadcast on Irish television's all-Gaelic channel, TG4.

"Beware My Power . . ."

In brightest day
Or darkest night
No evil shall escape my sight
Let those who worship evil's might
Beware my power . . . GREEN LANTERN'S LIGHT!

Hey everybody! Happy Mardi Gras! Because nothing says "Mardi Gras" and "Last chance to blow it out before Lent begins" like costumed superheroes, I give you my latest super team: Green Lantern Corps, The New Recruits. Except for John Stewart, I made them up on the spur of the moment last night (Please don't sue me, DC!) As usual, click on the image to see a larger version. Also as usual, I used HeroMachine v. 2.5, HeroMachine v. 3.0, and Paint.NET 3.5.3 to create the images. I like the idea of a band of costumed interplanetary do-gooders, and I like the way the GLC uses just three colors (green, black, and white) to produce nearly endless variations in the Green Lantern costume. Anyway, enjoy, and leave feedback.

Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps, ©DC Comics.

The All-American Family

Once upon a time, in an alternate reality, the superheroine Lady Liberty, the leader of the Liberty Legion, married Freedom Fighter, commander of the Freedom Force. They produced a plethora of patriotic, powered progeny, a sensational series of super siblings. Here's a candid shot of the happy family at home: Mom, Dad, and the kids! Click on the image to see a larger version of it. Please enjoy and feel free to submit feedback.

Images created with HeroMachine v. 3.0, Shakti Warriors, and Paint.NET v. 3.5.3.

Itz Sooper Kitteh!

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More Superheroes

Click here to see a larger version of the image.

I had thousands of requests (well, OK, one) from loyal readers to post more of my superhero creations. I actually created the Celtic League of Superheroes nearly two years ago using Heromachine v. 2.5. (Also available for download here). Version 3 of Heromachine is now in development, but after a weekend's worth of experimentation and fiddling, I decided I didn't like the Version 3 remakes as well as the originals. Don't get me wrong. I think HM 3 will be 31 flavors of awesome when it gets finished, but for these characters and this portrait, I thought the original versions would be better. I used Paint.NET v. 3.5.2 to create the group shot.

As for the characters themselves, they are avatars or champions of the Celtic countries, charged with defending these lands, and indeed the whole world, from the machinations of a sinister, evil wizard, druid, mage type guy and his band of assorted nasties. The concept crosses the standard superhero motifs with bits freely filched and adapted from Celtic mythology, in much the same way that Thor or Wonder Woman comics borrow from Norse or classical Greek myths. My ultimate goal is to create a series of stories about these characters which could be published alone, included as part of a novel, or converted into comic book scripts. A silly pipe dream? Perhaps, but I thought it would be fun to try. Right now, I'd settle for one complete, coherent story instead of the jumble of vague ideas in my head.

Superheroes

Just a little something to show you what I've been up to these days. Here's a quartet of patriotic superheroes, The Liberty Legion: Red Rocket, Whitewater, Blue Eagle, and Lady Liberty (Red, White, and Blue, get it?) I'm also working on writing their origin stories. At any rate, enjoy!

Click on the image to see a larger version. Images created with HeroMachine v. 3.0 and Paint.NET v. 3.5.2.

Join the Virtual March for Life

Whedon Wimps Out

Matthew Archbold over at the excellent Creative Minority Report blog posts this item about his dismay with famous writer and director Joss Whedon, creator of the hit TV shows "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer," "Angel," "Firefly," and "Dollhouse." Matthew really loves Whedon's work but really took exception to remarks Whedon made when he accepted an Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism from the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard. Here's a clip:



I find myself in the same boat with Matthew. I've never been a big fan of vampires, so I was never a regular Buffy watcher. When I did watch the show, I noticed the frequent snarky swipes at religion, but it was hard not to like "Buffy" because it was so well written. I loved "Firefly," in part, precisely because of the continuing dialogue between the skeptical, embittered Mal Reynolds and the minister, "Shepherd" Book. I want to like Whedon too, but in this instance, he clearly doesn't know what he's talking about. I find it ironic that he says he had to have his value as a person confirmed by a "shout out" from Obama. If Whedon would check the first few chapters of Genesis, he'd find the fundamental statement that all human beings, male and female, are created in the image and likeness of God, and therefore have inestimable value. If he were to check the New Testament, he would find the revolutionary idea that the Son of God gave his own life and rose from the dead in order to redeem human beings from the power of sin and death. This strongly suggests that the God Whedon doesn't believe in thinks that human beings must have some value.

I find it ironic that he insists that "education" is the answer to the world's ills, but he either forgets or doesn't know that the founder of all the great European universities was the Catholic Church. Harvard, the school at which he is speaking, was founded as a a religious institution. Whedon accepts his award from atheists and addresses his audience of atheists in a church on the university campus. No irony there.

Finally, his assertion that "faith in God means believing in something with absolutely no evidence," while faith in humanism means "believing in something with a huge amount of evidence to the contrary," has the argument exactly backward. G. K. Chesterton once said that original sin was the only part of Christianity that could readily be proven. Human history is replete with evil, barbarism, and cruelty, and yes, much of it has been done by those who claimed to believe in God. But where is the evidence that human beings can be truly good without God? The two most evil and barbaric regimes of the twentieth century, Nazism and Communism, were either officially or de facto atheistic, with the power of the Church legally subservient to that of the state. The central premise of Christianity, as Flannery O' Connor put it, was that God looked upon the world in all its horror and decided that it was worth dying for. In other words, God looked upon human beings in all their cruelty, ignorance, and malice but knew human beings and their world could be changed, transformed, and redeemed--but only by Christ's own sacrifice of himself on the cross.

Sorry, Joss. Even though you're at Harvard, for that weak attack on Christianity and paltry defense of humanism, I'd have to give you a failing grade.

A Meditation on Gratitude

moar funny pictures

An Old Christmas Carol

For all my readers who may be facing tough times and may be tempted to despair this Christmas, I present the following. When you're caught up in the debate between Scrooge and Fred, choose Fred:

"What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in ’em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? . . . keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.”

“Keep it!” repeated Scrooge’s nephew. “But you don’t keep it.”

“Let me leave it alone, then,” said Scrooge. “Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!”

“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,” returned the nephew. “Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”

—Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol.

A New Christmas Carol

Just when you thought all the great Christmas songs and carols had been written, along comes this new item from composer Gerald McClain:





This Christmas Joy
by Gerald McClain

In swaddling clothes to us arrive,
This Jesus Christ, our hopes revive!
In Marys arms, her little boy:
This tiny babe, death to destroy.

Was not in clouds, come down to reign
But from a girl in labor pain; (Revelation 12: 2)
Not in a throne was he to lay
But in a manger full of hay.

Welcome to Him from us today,
This Christmas joy, in us to stay.

From foreign lands their homage paid:
To Bethlehem, the star did say.
Fall prostrate where did shepherds come;
Laid out their gifts a costly sum.

Then in a dream: from Herods gaze,
Another path to home was made.
A furious king proclaimed forthright
That innocents shall loose their life.

Though in a world with evil known,
This Christmas joy, Love has outshone.

Give glory to the Fathers Son:
Begotten of the Holy One.
Though evry part is from the same,
The Word to us in flesh he came.

A preview of the coming years,
A final act to wipe all tears:
From nursling small to mature man,
Fulfillment of the Godheads plan.

All praise and laud and glorious powr,
This Christmas joy, tis Jesses flowr.

Gerald McClain
© 2005 Musique de McClain

I think this piece has a lovely "neo-medieval" or "neo-Renaissance" feel that appeals to my antiquarian sensibilities. I like older, more out of the way hymns and carols that haven't yet been turned into Muzak, and that you don't hear every time you go to that most godless of places, the mall.

Mr. McClain has also written a French language composition "Une voix dans Rama" (A Voice in Ramah) commemorating the Slaughter of the Innocents described in Matthew 2: 18 (Douay-Rheims version):

A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and great mourning; Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.

Hat tip to Patrick Archbold of Creative Minority Report for posting some Christmas clips from YouTube, which in turn prompted Mr. McClain to post links to his compositions.

Life Imitates Art?

I once had plans for a fiction project that I ultimately dismissed as too silly. Something involving the discovery of priceless artifacts with mystical powers, evil druids on the loose in Ireland and America, and, oh yeah . . . costumed crime fighters. Sort of a superhero/urban fantasy mashup. Justice League with a Celtic accent. Ridiculous, right? Then along came this item from Irish blogger Deiseach that sounds like something straight out of the story I was planning to write:

It seems that in April of this year, the Irish police were investigating a burglary at a drugstore in County Roscommon and recovered not only the loot from the robbery but also priceless Irish artifacts dating from approximately 2000 B. C. that the original owner of the shop kept in his safe. His daughter, who took over the business after he died, had seen the artifacts but had no idea how old or how valuable they were. The artifacts, a gold necklace and two gold discs, will be turned over to Ireland's national history museum for study and safekeeping. Here's a link to the story in the Irish Independent newspaper and a link to the story as reported by RTÉ, Ireland's national TV network.

Something about this story just strikes me as so weird. Did the guy know what he had? Did he have the artifacts appraised, or did he at least take them on "Irish Antiques Roadshow" or something? Did the thieves know what they were stealing, or were they just looking for cash and drugs? Why did the guy just keep the stuff in his safe and not tell anybody, least of all his family? We'll probably never know. Weird. Just weird.

I'm Dreaming of a White Trash Christmas

It's Christmas party season, and I've been singing this song pretty much compulsively for the last several days now, so I guess it's OK to share it with you guys. It's Robert Earl Keene's "Merry Christmas From the Family." The song and the video are priceless. Enjoy.



A tip of my Texas ten-gallon to Dale Price of Dyspeptic Mutterings for alerting me to this great song. BTW, I swear that Christmas at my house isn't (much) like this. Really.

Insert Japanese Monster Movie Joke Here

Our colleague KT Cat reports that giant jellyfish are threatening Japan's fishing industry. No lie. Here's the story as reported by the Australian affiliate of Fox News:



The official story is that Global Warming, um excuse me, Global Climate Change and pollution are partially to blame, but has anybody investigated the link between these events and all the nuclear tests in the 1950s? After all, those tests led to a rash of appearances by men in rubber monster suits, and the destruction of uncounted numbers of plywood cities and toy tanks and airplanes, as this documentary footage reveals:



This looks like a job for UltraMan and the Science Patrol:



Can they save the day? Gosh, I hope so!

We Come in Peace . . . Y'all!

I first saw this on Mike Flynn's blog and then on Mark Shea's, and I thought it was too good not to share:

Close Encounters of the Redneck Kind from Marc Bullard on Vimeo.

Techno Tip

I don't consider myself a real computer savvy, techno-geeky kinda guy. I know the basics: how to double-click, how to send e-mail, how to use an installer to install software, how to design simple web pages, that kind of thing. So when I got an alert message from ZoneAlarm, the makers of my anti-virus and anti-spyware software, informing me that an update was available, I clicked where I was supposed to click and installed the update. "What could it hurt?" I thought.

Well, the answer turned out to be, "Plenty." This update from ZoneAlarm installs a "safe browsing toolbar" that's designed to protect your computer from viruses, harmful scripts, and other junk as you surf from website to website. So far, so good, right?

Wrong, at least for me. Apparently, this safe browsing toolbar conflicts with my browser of choice, Firefox, and prevents it from launching or re-launching properly. With the toolbar installed, I could launch Firefox once, but if I closed it, went to another application and then tried to come back to Firefox, I couldn't relaunch it without shutting down and re-booting the entire computer.

Needless to say, that wasn't a very practical option for the long term, so until I could figure out a solution, I used another browser. I alternated between Google Chrome and Safari for Windows, finally deciding that Chrome was the better of the two. I barely bothered with Internet Explorer.

Finally, today, I figured out how to disable the ZoneAlarm toolbar: Go to the Tools Menu, select Add-Ons, click Extensions, and select the ZoneAlarm Toolbar, and click the Disable button. That appears to have solved the problem. It was so breathtakingly simple once I figured it out, that I really felt like a dope for taking so long to figure out a solution.

Moral of the story? If you're using Firefox, and ZoneAlarm, DON'T install the ZoneAlarm toolbar. I offer this message as a public service to all the other clueless non-techies out there. I figured it out so you don't have to.

Cash, checks, credit card numbers, and PayPal donations will gratefully accepted.

You're welcome :).

For Veterans' Day

So, Ya Think It'll Sell?

So, I've been thinking about doing some writing lately, and I got this great idea! It can't miss! Check it out:

Your challenge is to write crossover fanfiction combining Night of the Living Dead and Oregon Trail.
The story should use brainwashing as a plot device!

Generated by the Terrible Crossover Fanfiction Idea Generator

Hat tip to Dale Price of Dyspeptic Mutterings.

Eifelheim

Eifelheim / Michael Flynn. New York: Tor Books, ©2006; Blackstone Audio, ©2007, via Audible.com.

From time to time here at It's All Straw I've posted audiobook reviews, but today I've added something new: the first ever review of both an audiobook and its print equivalent. I recently finished reading and listening to Michael Flynn's extraordinary science fiction novel Eifelheim. I say reading and listening because after downloading the audio version from Audible.com and listening to about half of it, I found it so remarkable that I decided I wanted to read it for myself and have a physical copy to keep—or perhaps share and give away to friends. For those who prefer their books on paper and not just as a collection of disembodied electrons inside an MP3 player, it's also available in paperback from Amazon.com.

I first heard of it at least a couple of years ago, shortly after its initial publication, when it got highly favorable reviews from Mark Shea, Darwin of Darwin Catholic and some other big guns in the Catholic blogosphere. It won their kudos (and mine) because of its highly original premise, finely drawn characters, skill in dealing with moral and philosophical issues, and perhaps most of all for its sympathetic treatment of the Catholic faith and the Catholic Church. In this absorbing, moving novel, Flynn shatters stereotypes about the church and grapples with deep questions about the meaning of sin, redemption, and suffering.

The story begins in the year 1348, as residents of the tiny German village of Oberhochwald awaken in the predawn hours of a summer morning with the inexplicable feeling that something momentous, and perhaps dreadful, is about to happen. Just as some of them gather at the parish church, a tremendous crash and explosion take place, causing fires in the woods beyond the village. When a small party of villagers, led by Father Dietrich, the parish priest, goes into the woods to survey the damage, they find something beyond their wildest dreams: Oberhochwald has been visited by beings from another world.

The visitors, large, grasshopper-like creatures who call themselves Krenken, however bizarre and fearsome their appearance, are not truly malevolent, merely choleric or quickly prone to anger. They have crashed on Earth by accident and are just as bewildered and frightened of humans as humans are of them. The Krenken surreptitiously station listening devices throughout the village in order to learn the rudiments of German and fashion translation and communication devices in order to interact with the locals. Father Dietrich makes a special effort to befriend the Krenken, and in order to understand their culture and explain human society to them, draws on his extensive knowledge of medieval philosophy, logic, metaphysics, and theology. Here Flynn explodes the myth, popular in certain circles nowadays, that the Catholic Church, and especially the medieval Catholic Church, was ignorant, superstitious, hostile, and afraid of scientific knowledge. On the contrary, Flynn argues, the process of systematic logical reasoning, observation, and experimentation that today we call the scientific method, had its beginnings in the Catholic universities of medieval Europe.

The Krenken, for their part, try to explain the complexities of interstellar travel to Dietrich as much as his knowledge, vocabulary, and comprehension will allow, and ask for his help in finding or fabricating materials they need to repair their ship. Some locals agree to help with the repairs, and one man, while trying to assist the visitors, sacrifices his life in order to prevent a Krenk from being killed accidentally. The Krenken have no concept of charity, or the voluntary surrender of self for the good of another. Their society is based on duty and responsibility, and a Krenk's social status is genetically predetermined. The man's selfless act makes a powerful impression on the newcomers, and several of them begin to inquire about human religious beliefs and ultimately ask to be baptized. This causes tension both among the Krenken and the villagers. Both species believe the natural order of things is being upset by this action. Some Krenken even agree to become vassals of the local nobleman, Herr Manfred, once the existence of the Krenken becomes more widely known.

Manfred, Dietrich, and the other villagers attempt to keep the existence of the Krenken a secret in order to prevent a panic, but of course, the greater the number of people who know a secret, the harder it is to keep. Rumors of strange flying beasts with yellow eyes and demons with occult powers and strange weapons are beginning to escape to the outside world when news of something even more terrible arrives. The Black Death, the outbreak of bubonic plague that decimated medieval Europe, has reached the surrounding towns. Order collapses and panic descends as the villagers begin to sicken and die, unable to understand or prevent the spread of the plague. The Krenken seem immune to human plague, but soon have to confront their own medical crisis. Earth's foods lack a certain protein the Krenken need to survive, causing the aliens to also sicken and die. The only source of the vital protein is the bodies of the dead Krenken that the survivors are forced to consume. The words of Christ at the Last Supper, "Take this all of you and eat it. This is my body, which will be given up for you," take on a terrible literalism among the baptized Krenken. Humans and Krenken alike seem to be moving inexorably to their doom.

The story of the terrible tragedy that gradually unfolds in the medieval village of Oberhochwald is interspersed with a contemporary story of two present day researchers. Tom, a historian, wants to know why the German village of Eifelheim was suddenly abandoned in the Middle Ages, acquired a mysterious and eerie reputation, and alone of all the villages near it, was never resettled. Sharon, Tom's lover, and a theoretical physicist, is absorbed in a complex theoretical problem that Tom only dimly understands. Unwittingly, however, their two areas of research come together. Using tantalizingly incomplete, vague references from historical documents, Tom deduces the incredible truth: Eifelheim was Oberhochwald. After being abandoned because of the plague, Oberhochwald became known first as Teufelheim ("Devil's Home") and then Eifelheim. The solution to Sharon's theoretical physics problem explains how the Krenken were able to travel through space—and how humans might one day do the same. An obscure document that Tom thinks at first is only a treatise on mystical theology is actually an effort to explain the physics of interstellar travel in medieval terms. An oddly illuminated medieval manuscript is actually a diagram of a crucial part of the alien ship. When Tom and his colleagues discover the remains of a Krenk buried in the old cemetery at Oberhochwald, however, they decide not to desecrate the holy ground and let the dead rest in peace. The book ends as one of the gravediggers in the party looks up at the stars with an expression of hope and wonder on his face.

This is not a perfect book, but it is a very good one. Flynn includes a great deal of information on the mundane details of village life and the bewilderingly complex worlds of medieval religion and politics. These may seem as if they are irrelevant digressions at first, but they give this imaginative recreation of 14th-century Germany real heft and weight. This was a real world, populated by real people who lived, worked, thought, prayed, loved, and died, the author seems to say. They deserve to be treated with respect.

The characters themselves are well-drawn and well-realized. Manfred, Dietrich, and Dietrich's adopted daughter Theresia, all have secrets and troubled pasts they would like to forget, but they are all trying to do good as best they understand it. In time, many of the villagers come to accept the Krenken, addressing them as "friend grasshopper," or "brother monster." Fra Joachim, a young Franciscan friar who assists Dietrich, is prone to outbursts of intemperate zeal and heterodox theology, but he is also capable of extraordinary acts of kindness toward the Krenken. Even the mysterious alien Krenken themselves gradually take on distinct individual personalities. Several of them remain behind after the Krenken ship is repaired, unwilling to leave their human brethren. Others tend those villagers sick and dying of plague. Tom and Sharon, the contemporary characters, by contrast, seem shallow, brittle, and far less interesting than their medieval counterparts.

My one real criticism of the book has to do with the ending. Flynn actually introduces the Tom and Sharon subplot fairly early, alerting the reader that something eventually went terribly wrong in the village of Oberhochwald/Eifelheim. This creates a sense of mystery, impending doom, and inevitable tragedy almost from the beginning of the book, and the reader is almost compelled to continue with the story in order to answer the burning questions, "What happened?" "What went wrong in Eifelheim?" When the answer is finally revealed, it seems somehow oddly flat and anticlimactic—heartbreaking, poignant, and completely plausible given the previous events of the book—but nevertheless, somewhat small and diminished compared to the buildup of tension that preceded it. Perhaps I've been spoiled by too many "Hollywood Blockbuster" endings, but I could think of a couple of alternate means to get to the same ending that might have packed more of a dramatic punch than the one Flynn chose.

Overall, however, Eifelheim is an excellent book that will leave readers or listeners with much to think about long after they have closed the book or switched off the MP3 player. It belongs in the same category with Walter M. Miller's Canticle for Leibowitz or Mary Doria Russell's pair of novels, The Sparrow, and its sequel, The Children of God. These are all outstanding novels that deal intelligently with Catholic themes and take The Catholic faith seriously.

On Reading "On Fairy-Stories"

My long-awaited copy of J. R. R. Tolkien's collection of essays, The Monsters and the Critics, arrived today (I didn't realize my copy had come all the way from Merrie Olde England), but it was worth the wait. I ordered the book because it contains one essay I particularly wanted to read, "On Fairy-Stories," that provides a particularly illuminating glimpse into Tolkien's thought and a rousing defense of speculative and fantastic fiction, especially from a Christian perspective.

Originally delivered as a lecture at St. Andrews University in Scotland in 1939, "On Fairy-Stories" is a long and somewhat rambling essay that covers a lot of intellectual territory. Tolkien displays a near-encyclopedic grasp of ancient and medieval European literature to support his points. What I used to say about one of my own graduate school professors applies even more so to Tolkien: "He probably forgot more about medieval literature than I'll ever know."

Tolkien begins by trying to define fairy stories, freely admitting that he knows more about what fairy stories are not than about what they are. They are not mere juvenile stories about tiny beings with wings [e. g., Tinkerbell]; they are not merely stories about travels to exotic lands and faraway places on earth; and they are not simple falsehoods. What they are, Tolkien spends the rest of the essay elaborating. After briefly discussing the possible origins of fairy stories, Tolkien begins to warm to his topic when he describes how the mind works to create fairy stories in the first place:

 The human mind endowed with the powers of generalization and abstraction, sees not only green-grass, discriminating it from other things (and finding it fair to look upon), but sees that it is green as well as being grass. But how powerful, how stimulating to the very faculty that produced it, was the invention of the adjective: no spell or incantation in Faërie is more potent. . . .

 The mind that thought of light, heavy, grey, yellow, still, swift also conceived of magic that would make heavy things light and able to fly, turn grey lead into yellow gold, and the still rock into swift water. If it could do one, it could do the other; it inevitably did both. When we can take green from grass, blue from heaven, and red from blood, we have already an enchanter's power—upon one plane; and the desire to wield that power in the world external to our mind awakes. . . . But in such 'fantasy,' as it is called, new form is made; Faërie begins; Man becomes a sub-creator.

  Tolkien takes particular exception to the belief that fairy stories are fit only for children, as if children are somehow more simple-minded than adults, more eager to believe the fantastic, and more willing to suspend disbelief than adults are:

Is there any essential connection between children and fairy-stories? Is there any call for comment, if an adult reads them for himself? Reads them as tales, that is, not studies them as curios. Adults are allowed to collect and study anything, even old theater-programs or paper bags. . . . Fairy-stories in the modern lettered world have been relegated to the 'nursery,' as shabby or old-fashioned furniture is relegated to the playroom, primarily because the adults do not want it and do not mind if it is misused.

(As an aside, I would say that thanks in large part to the phenomenal popularity of Tolkien's own works, including The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion, their many imitations and derivatives published since, and contemporary works of fantasy such as the Harry Potter books, "fairy stories" are more widely accepted among adults than ever before. Tolkien's next major point about the "willing suspension of disbelief" still holds):

Children are capable, of course, of literary belief, when the story-maker's art is good enough to produce it. That state of mind has been called 'willing suspension of disbelief.' But this does not seem to me a good description of what happens. What really happens is that the story-maker proves a successful 'sub-creator.' He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is 'true' : it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside. The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed.

Having considered what fairy stories are (or are not) and how they are constructed, Tolkien next considers the purpose and value of fairy stories. "Fairy stories were plainly not concerned with possibility, but with desirability. If they awakened desire, satisfying it while often whetting it unbearably, they succeeded," he writes. Based on memories of his own boyhood, Tolkien argues the most fundamental desire a successful fairy story can arouse is the desire to see those places, creatures, and things that are totally strange, totally Other, totally alien to one's everyday experience, even if that Other is somehow dangerous:

The dragon had the trade-mark Of Faërie written plain upon him. In whatever world he had his being, it was an Other-world. Fantasy, the making or glimpsing of Other-worlds, was the heart of the desire of Faërie. I desired dragons with a profound desire. Of course I in my timid body did not wish to have them in my neighborhood . . . But the world that contained even the imagination of Fáfnir [a dragon from Germanic mythology] was richer and more beautiful at whatever cost of peril.

The dark and perilous aspects of some fairy stories, far from being harmful to children, can actually be beneficial to them, Tolkien argues:

Children are meant to grow up and not to become Peter Pans. Not to lose innocence and wonder; but to proceed on the appointed journey: that journey upon which it is certainly not better to travel hopefully than to arrive, though we must travel hopefully if we are to arrive. But it is one of the lessons of fairy stories . . . that on callow, lumpish, and selfish youth peril, sorrow, and the shadow of death can bestow dignity, and even sometimes wisdom.

One of the greatest purposes of a fairy-story, Tolkien seems to imply here, is to impart a great truth about life in our "Primary World," even as it moves and delights us by relating the adventures of characters in a totally imaginary "Secondary World." Far from being a waste of the human being's creative or imaginative abilities, the making of a genuine fairy story is the highest achievement of narrative art:

Anyone inheriting the fantastic device of human language can say the green sun. . . . [but to] make a Secondary World inside which the green sun will be credible, commanding Secondary Belief, will probably require labor and thought, and will certainly demand a special skill, a kind of elvish craft. Few will attempt such difficult tasks. But when they are attempted and in any degree accomplished then we have a rare achievement of Art: indeed, narrative art, story-making in its primary and most potent mode.

 Indeed, Tolkien insists, the human ability to create Secondary Worlds in fiction and to create tales of the beings who populate those worlds is not just an idle amusement, but a fundamental defining characteristic of human beings, a right given to them by God, who is Himself a creator of worlds and beings:

Fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker.

The ability to create secondary fictional worlds in which strange and fantastical things happen should give us the ability to look at our Primary World with fresh and appreciative eyes:

We should look at green again and be startled anew (but not blinded) by blue and yellow and red. We should meet the centaur and the dragon, and then suddenly behold, like the ancient shepherds, sheep, and dogs, and horses—and wolves. This recovery, fairy-stories help us to make. In that sense only a taste for them may make us, or keep us, childish.

Tolkien concludes his essay by discussing what he believes to be the most important characteristic of fairy-stories: what is sometimes called the happy ending, but more than that, the dramatic unexpected turn of events that heals and restores the characters and brings about real profound joy that was also totally unexpected. Tolkien calls this moment the complete opposite of tragedy or catastrophe and coins the term eucatastrophe to describe it:

In its fairy-tale—or otherworld—setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatatrophe , of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will), universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.

 Evangelium, of course, is the Latin word for the gospel, the "good news" of the Birth, Death, and Resurrection of Christ. By the Birth, Death, and Resurrection of Christ, "God redeemed the corrupt making-creatures, men, in a way fitting to this [story-making] aspect, as to others, of their strange nature." Tolkien suggests here that just as human nature may be redeemed by the death and resurrection of Christ, human fairy-stories and the human ability to make them, may be redeemed as well. The gospel, Tolkien suggests, is the ultimate fairy-story—not in the sense that it is false or imaginary—but in the sense that it contains marvels worthy of the best fairy stories and the greatest eucatastrophe imaginable. The Death and Resurrection of Christ, which looked at first like the greatest defeat in all of history achieved the salvation of the world. The most mind-boggling reality about the gospel, however, is that it is true:

But this story has entered History  and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation. The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man's history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation.

Does this mean, then, that once the greatest fairy-story has been told, there are no other fairy stories to tell? No, says Tolkien. On the contrary, if human nature has been redeemed by the Death and Resurrection of Christ, human fairy-stories and the human ability to make them may be redeemed as well. A well-made fairy story, with its evangelium and eucatastrophe, a message of incredible good news about a totally unexpected turn of events that brings incredible, unexpected joy, may awaken readers' imagination to the greatest and truest evangelium and eucatastrophe of all: the Death and Resurrection of Christ:

. . . in God's kingdom, the presence of the greatest does not depress the small. Redeemed Man is still man. Story, fantasy, still go on and should go on. The Evangelium has not abrogated legends; it has hallowed them, especially the 'happy ending.' The Christian has still to work, with mind as well as body, to suffer, hope, and die; but he may now perceive that all his bents and faculties have a purpose, which can be redeemed. So great is the bounty with which he has been treated that he may now, perhaps, fairly dare to guess that in Fantasy he may now assist in the effoliation and multiple enrichment of creation. All tales may yet come true; and yet, at the last, redeemed, they may be as like and as unlike the forms that we give them as Man, fully redeemed, will be like and unlike the fallen that we know.

Readin' and 'Ritin' (But No 'Rithmetic)

Hello There! Yes, I know there's been some serious blog fade around here lately, but I am still alive and kicking, Thanks Be To God! I believe I'm finally over the consarned, goshdarned, !@#$%^&* medical problems that (sometimes literally) cramped my style for much of the summer. Now that I'm feeling more or less normal (whatever that is), I'm beginning to think again about serious questions, such as what I can do to support myself. I'm receiving disability payments and have some savings, but I'd like to be generating income as well as spending it.

Before I got sick, I was thinking about doing some fiction writing, resuming work on a project I had laid aside awhile back. I am slowly getting back into that. I'm a great one for thinking about writing, but not so hot on actually doing it. I have a pretty fierce inner critic who tells me that writing fiction is a waste of time and a way of avoiding reality (I think he's related to my Scottish Calvinist ancestors). However, when I can get him to shut up, I read and listen to other people's fiction. I've listened to two podcast versions of Treasure Island in honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day, and am currently reading Michael Flynn's excellent medieval Catholic science fiction novel Eifelheim and Phil and Kaja Foglio's "gaslamp fantasy comic" Girl Genius.

As if that weren't enough, I'm also listening to a  series of podcasts on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. In his introductory episode, the host of these podcasts, a professor of medieval literature, cites an essay of Tolkien's, "On Fairy Stories," that I just can't wait to read for myself. In it Tolkien argues that the urge to create imaginary worlds in fiction is a natural human desire since humans are made in the image and likeness of a God who is Himself a creator of worlds. Furthermore, the desire to create magical or fantastic worlds in which extraordinary things happen is not an escape from reality or a denial of reality but a reminder to humans that our world contains spiritual realities that go beyond what we can see or prove in ordinary day to day sense experience.

A Christian justification for writing speculative or fantastic fiction could be hugely liberating and could open up a whole new world of creativity for me. I have to ask myself, "Why shouldn't I try to create my own fictional worlds, worlds that could be every bit as exciting as the worlds I am currently visiting as a reader? Why shouldn't I find out if readers will enjoy visiting these worlds as much as I enjoyed creating them?

I am not suggesting that I will drop everything and try to become the next J. R. R. Tolkien, or the next J. K. Rowling, or even the next Stan Lee. I know that trying to make a living writing fiction is a long shot even under the best of circumstances. Most manuscripts are never published, most published books are never reviewed, and most reviewed books never sell millions of copies. Every author I've ever read who has written about the craft of writing, however, explains that real authors never write solely for the money. They write because there are stories that authors would like to tell, want to tell, and need to tell.

What I am suggesting is that I am going to see what stories I can tell, and see who else might like to read them. I'll probably never make a dime, but I might possibly make a few bucks and might even make millions, although I consider this last possibility highly unlikely. I just hope the journey will be fun. When I think about the situation in this light, the question becomes not so much, "What am I going to do to support myself?" as, "What can I do to keep the lights on and groceries in the fridge while I write?" The second is a far more interesting question than the first.

Huh?

Have I wandered into some strange alternate universe? Bizarre, unexplained things are happening.

First, the Carolina Panthers have finally won their first game of the season after a string of three rather embarrassing losses. A victory. How refreshing!

 Carolina Panthers defenders wrap up a Washington Redskins running back as part of Sunday's 20-17 win.

Second, as the Fox Sports guys were signing off after the game,they advised the viewing audience to stay tuned and see the poker playing priest on the Pokerstars.net Million Dollar Challenge. The words "poker," "playing," and "priest" are not normally used in the same sentence, so that raised my eyebrows and provoked my curiosity. In the next few minutes, however, I got an extra large helping of raised eyebrows with a side order of "WHAAAAAT?" when I learned that the priest in question is the pastor of a parish I used to belong to in my home diocese! It's one thing when a priest is doing weird things somewhere else, but when it's a priest in your own backyard, it's especially surreal. What's more, Father Andrew Trapp, with the help of a professional poker player, defeated two other professional poker players and then defeated the same player who had coached him in a round of Texas Hold 'em, thereby winning $100,000. One hundred grand! He'll probably have to render at least a third of that unto Caesar, but that's still a nice chunk of change. He said he learned to play poker while in seminary. Where did this guy go to school? Our Lady of La Roulette?

 Father Andrew Trapp, the "poker playing priest."

To be fair, the good padre said he will donate all his winnings to the church building fund and will auction off his other prize, a trip to somewhere in the Caribbean (The Bahamas, I think), in hopes of raising more funds.

Third, the gang at Blogger, WITHOUT TELLING ME, re-jiggered the template for new posts, leading me to believe for several days that I couldn't post pictures to my blog. Fortunately, I found out about the changes and a correction to the problem via the Blogger Help forums (Thanks, guys).

Wait, I can't be in an alternate universe. No previously good, clean shaven person of my acquaintance has suddenly sprouted a beard and become evil. (Whew, that's a relief).