Omaha, Neb. - Whit Merrifield singled home Scott Wingo in the bottom of the 11th inning, lifting South Carolina to a 2-1 win over UCLA, clinching the National Championship for the Gamecocks.
Wingo led off the final frame with a walk, moved to second on a passed ball, advanced to third on a bunt by Evan Marzilli and scored on Merrifield single to right.
The two starting pitchers, South Carolina's Michael Roth and UCLA's Rob Rasmussen locked up in a tight duel, but neither was around to figure in the decision. Roth allowed one run on six hits over 5.0 innings, while Rasmussen scattered six hits and four walks over 6.0 scoreless frames.
UCLA broke the scoreless tie with a run in the top of the fifth. Trevor Brown led off with an infield single, moved to second on a sacrifice bunt and scored on Niko Gallego's RBI single to left.
The Gamecocks finally tied the score in the bottom of eighth. Pinch-hitter Brady Thomas led off the frame with a solid single to center. Pinch-runner Robert Beary went to second on a ground out and scored when Bobby Haney's grounder ended up in right field after being misplayed by UCLA first baseman Dean Espy and eluding second baseman Cody Regis.
Matt Price (5-1) worked three scoreless innings of relief for the win.
Jackie Bradley Jr. was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. He was joined on the All-Tournament team by Christian Walker, Evan Marzilli and Brady Thomas.
The Gamecocks finish the season with a 54-16 record, while UCLA ends its campaign with a 51-17 mark.
Congratulations to the 2010 NCAA Baseball CHAMPIONS!
As readers of this blog may be aware, I've had a lot of technical problems with my computer setup lately. However, I think I've found the perfect addition to my system that will solve all my problems: The Rockwell Automation Retro-Encabulator. All it took was this promotional video and I was sold! Take a look:
I'm glad to see they solved the bi-directional endothermic convection problem caused by the duofrabulating Jason rod adapter assembly on the earlier models, but how in the world are you going to circumvent the Wangenfurter effect created by the inverse stimulation of the cross-circulating univalves? I mean, any idiot knows that you've got to decouple the Mollenswanger's invection-reducing biphasal rotator grid before you can even begin to address the tintinnabulation produced by the open-ended polyhexic velocitator! Wake up, people. On second thought, maybe this isn't such a good idea.
As readers of this blog may be aware, from time to time I dabble in the craft of fiction writing. I owe my blogging colleague KT Cat a hat tip for pointing me to this short article by science fiction author Jerry Pournelle on what it takes to become a writer. Because the original article was written in 1996, Dr. Pournelle spends a good bit of it discussing software tools to help beginning writers that are now obsolete and unavailable, or that have been incorporated into other more recent products. His general advice on the craft of writing still holds, however. For me, these are the money paragraphs:
The secret of becoming a writer is that you have to write. You have to write a lot. You also have to finish what you write, even though no one wants it yet. If you don't learn to finish your work, no one will ever want to see it. The biggest mistake new writers make is carrying around copies of unfinished work to inflict on their friends.
I am sure it has been done with less, but you should be prepared to write and throw away a million words of finished material. By finished, I mean completed, done, ready to submit, and written as well as you know how at the time you wrote it. You may be ashamed of it later, but that's another story.
I usually begin a project in a great transport of enthusiasm but become bored or disenchanted with it once I see that it will take more work and more words than I anticipated to tell the story properly and bring it to a conclusion. As a result, I have a large number of unfinished fiction projects lounging around my hard drive in various states of completion. I'm great at conceiving ideas for stories and not so great at executing and following through on them. I must finish, finish, finish!
A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus:
What am I trying to say?
What words will express it?
What image or idiom will make it clearer?
Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?
And he will probably ask himself two more:
Could I put it more shortly?
Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?
One can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:
Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
Never use a long word where a short one will do.
If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
Never use the passive where you can use the active.
Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
Finally, a reader commenting on Pournelle's original article includes this link to a speech by science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein at the U. S. Naval Academy in 1973. In his address, Heinlein, a Naval Academy graduate, offers his thoughts on writing in general, science fiction writing in particular, and, appropriate to his audience, reflections on the values of courage, honor, devotion to duty, and patriotism. His remarks were later published as a guest editorial in Analog magazine. I found Heinlein's remarks on the patriotic virtues particularly appropriate, given that we have just finished celebrating Memorial Day.
Like Pournelle and Orwell, Heinlein offers a few simple rules for effective and profitable writing:
First: You must write.
Second: You must finish what you write.
Third: You must refrain from rewriting except to editorial order.
Fourth: You must place it on the market.
Fifth: You must keep it on the market until sold.
In explaining his third point, Heinlein makes a crucial distinction between ordinary, common sense editing and a wholesale, top-to-bottom rewriting that fundamentally changes the story:
The efficient way to write, as with any other work, is to do it right the first time!
I don't mean that a manuscript should not be corrected and cut. Few writers are perfect in typing, spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Most of us have to go back and correct such things, and — above all — strike out surplusage and fancy talk. The manuscript then needs to be retyped—for neatness; retyping is not rewriting. Rewriting means a new approach, a basic change in form.
Don't do it!
Two other interesting points from Heinlein's remarks jumped out at me. First was his estimate that at any given time, approximately half the literate adult population thinks about writing something for publication. A much smaller percentage, however, actually takes the time and trouble to write. A still smaller fraction dares to actually submit work for publication, and an even tinier minority tries to make a living by writing. In other words, writing is something that many of us dream of doing, but few of us have the courage and gumption to actively pursue.
Second (and this was interesting to me as a person with a disability) was Heinlein's frank admission that he became a writer only because a chronic illness (pulmonary tuberculosis) ended his naval career in 1934, the depths of the Great Depression, when few jobs were available. He pointed out that he was only one of a long string of authors who had become writers only because illness or disability prevented them from pursuing more strenuous and physically demanding occupations. There has always been room for those with disabilities in the world of writing.
I didn't intend for this site to become a movie review blog, honest. However, just a few days after seeing James Cameron's visually dazzling but emotionally empty opus, Avatar, I saw another film that was everything Avatar wasn't: Disney/Pixar's Up. I didn't get a chance to see Up during its theatrical run, but I heard good things about it, so I put it on my Netflix queue. When I saw the film was available in streaming format, I jumped at the chance to see it. I wasn't disappointed.
Like Avatar, Up uses state of the art visual effects and digital animation to take movie audiences to a world they've never seen before. Unlike Avatar, however, Up takes viewers along for the ride with characters they can actually care about on a journey that's fun and unpredictable, and after which, both characters and audience have actually learned something about themselves. For all their mind-blowing technical skill with animation, the Pixar gang appears to have learned a lesson that James Cameron seems to have missed: the real essentials of any movie are character and plot, just like they've always been. Without these, all the razzmatazz in the world won't make a good film. The Pixar crew nearly always manages to create good stories, and they never tell the same story twice. The story of Up is no exception.
As kids in the 1930s, shy hesitant Carl (Jeremy Leary) and brash, fearless Ellie (Elie Docter) are captivated by the newsreel exploits of adventurer Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer) who roams the globe in his custom-built dirigible making astonishing discoveries and bringing back rare artifacts. When Muntz is accused of fabricating the skeleton of a rare bird from Paradise Falls, a beautiful and isolated region of South America, he's drummed out of the explorers' society in disgrace. He sets off in his dirigible, vowing never to return unless he can bring back a live specimen of the bird.
In the meantime, Carl and Ellie grow up and marry, dreaming of their own shared life of adventure. Unfortunately, these dreams are never quite realized as they face life's more mundane challenges, but their years together are long and mostly happy until Ellie's passing leaves the elderly Carl (now voiced by Edward Asner) lonely and sad. A city of high rises and shopping malls grows up around his little house, and life seems to be passing him by. Rather than go to a retirement community involuntarily, however, Carl unleashes one last surprise. He's equipped his house with a steering mechanism and thousands of balloons, making the house in effect a gondola for a hot air balloon rig. He too sets off for Paradise Falls, where he and Ellie promised each other they would live one day.
Little does Carl know, however, that he has an accidental stowaway on his voyage: Russell (Jordan Nagai), a hapless but goodhearted eight-year-old, a member of a Cub Scout-like organization called the Wilderness Explorers, in search of his Assisting the Elderly badge. In spite of the curmudgeonly Carl's best efforts to get rid of him earlier, Russell happened to be on the porch when the house took off and has unwittingly set out on the adventure of a lifetime. For all his reliance on the Wilderness Explorer's handbook and GPS (which he accidentally tosses out a window), Russell has precious little real knowledge of the outdoors and must rely on Carl for help.
When the unlikely pair reaches their destination they find not only a jungle paradise but also, strangely enough, a lovably goofy dog named Dug with a collar that enables him to talk and a giant multicolored bird that Russell immediately (but erroneously) dubs Kevin. Turns out Kevin is a she, not a he, with a brood of nestlings to protect, and that she and her nestlings are specimens of the very bird Muntz had sworn to find at any cost. Dug is one of a pack of talking dogs belonging to Muntz, who has sat for decades in his dirigible, waiting, brooding, and searching feverishly for a way into Kevin's inaccessible hiding place. Over Carl's protestations that it isn't his concern, Carl and Russell become involved in a mad scramble to defeat Muntz, keep Kevin and her brood out of his clutches, and return to civilization.
In the process, Carl and Russell bond, grow, and change. Russell learns that there's more to a life of adventure than reading about it in a handbook and earning merit badges. Carl, for his part learns that however much he treasures his memories of the past, he can't live in it forever. At one point he decides he's through with adventuring and will sit quietly in the house with his memories and mementos. As he's leafing through the photo album Ellie called her "adventure book," he comes upon the last photo of the couple together and a note from Ellie: "Thanks for all the adventures," it reads, "now go have a new one." Shortly thereafter, in order to get the house airborne again, Carl has to jettison the furniture, mementos, and odds and ends he's cluttered the house with for years. Ultimately, he has to part with the house itself. He may love the past but in order to survive in the present, he can't allow it to weigh him down.
While letting go of his past, however, Carl also learns that he doesn't have to face an empty future. In Carl, Russell finds the father and grandfather figure he wants so desperately, and in Russell Carl finds the son and grandson he was never able to have with Ellie.
One of the many things that impressed me about this movie was its understated approach to storytelling. For all the outstanding visual work in this movie, and in contrast to Cameron's ham-handed style in Avatar, the approach to narrative in Up is relatively and refreshingly subtle. Much is revealed in a brief, well-staged scene or a few well chosen lines of dialogue. The silent montage, accompanied only by background music, showing Carl and Ellie's life together, perfectly encapsulates the mixture of joy and sorrow that any married couple might experience. The brief but sensitively handled scenes revealing that Carl and Ellie cannot have children of their own and revealing Ellie's final illness will leave a genuine lump in the viewer's throat.
Later in the movie, Russell reveals that he doesn't have the relationship with his father he once did. "I call him, but Phyllis says I shouldn't bug him so much," Russell says.
"You call your mother by her first name?" Carl asks incredulously.
"Phyllis isn't my Mom," Russell says, embarrassed.
"Oh," Carl says, equally embarrassed.
What is obvious has been left unsaid. Russell's parents are divorced, his dad has remarried, and now he can't make time for his own son. Up is a movie that doesn't pander to viewers, respecting our minds while it tugs at our heartstrings. If there were more movies around like it,I might go to the movies more often; I might be up for more movies.
The new statue of Our Lady of Fatima, centerpiece of my parish's new Rosary and Meditation Garden, funded through the generosity of an anonymous donor. Thank you!
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.
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:
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.
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.
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!
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.
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).
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.
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.
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."
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!
"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.'"
"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."
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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!”
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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!
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.
