D&D Film Festival

So,  here's a collection of some D&D music videos, just because the game is on my mind, what with a new campaign coming up and all.

First is Tonight by Allie Goertz:

I should listen to more of this young woman's stuff: she's pretty good.

In response, we have Best Game Ever by Mikey Mason:

Mason can be a little over-the-top, but I find this and some of his other stuff pretty funny.

Finally, my favorite pair of Geek Girls, The Doubleclicks, with This Fantasy World:

Angela and Aubrey played a coffeehouse near me on their last visit to Seattle. If the fire marshal had come by, they would have shut the place down, it was that crowded. If you need geekcore music, these are the girls to come to.

Man, I wonder if the new campaign will have a bard...

(Relation)ship of fools

So, I was looking at stuff on ScansDaily and I saw with my own eyes an excerpt from some recent Superman magazine that clearly shows that Superman/Clark is dating Wonder Woman/Diana and that Lois Lane is dating some guy. (I forget who, but he seemed nice.)

I guess I had heard that this was the direction DC was going with the New 52 business, but I must have either blocked it out or forgotten it. (I could easily have forgotten it - current superhero comics have pretty much fallen off my radar screen.) Actually reading an in-continuity sequence that showed this as the status quo was bit surprising. This is just such a stupid idea that seeing it actualized makes me feel a bit like I am peering into the Bizarro world.

I am sure that the comixweblogosphere (or what remains of it) is all abuzz with deconstructions and  interpretations and criticisms pro and con, so I will offer only two succinct arguments:

Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane published by National Periodical Publications 1958-1974.

Sixteen years, 137 issues, moving close to half-a-million copies per issue in its heyday.

Excerpt from "For the Man Who Has Everything" by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, 

published in Superman Annual #11 (1985) and, as far as I am concerned, 

the last, best word on the subject.

The Random Inn

So, I am going to a get-together tomorrow night that might result in my DMing a new D&D campaign.  We'll be meeting in a coffeeshop, not an inn, but it got me thinking about the different DM tools I have access to, including this one:

Not too long ago, Wizards of the Coast published an Inn Generator on their website. It takes the Inns in an Instant tables created by John Hasznosi in Dragon magazine #418 and hooks them up to a random-rolling, easy-readout engine. Now, to create a description of the setting where many tabletop adventures start (and just about all visit), you just click a few times and your background details are laid out for you: the innkeeper's name, the daily special, the makeup of the crowd, and more. Try it! 

I'm not sure how useful it would be in actual gameplay; most of the time, the DMs I know have a specific idea about what's going to happen to the party if they go into the inn. I suppose you could use it to create a school of red herrings to hide the real maguffin or plot hook, but these DMs are also awfully proprietary when it comes to barkeep names and specialty drinks, so maybe not. I guess it would be used mostly by the by-the-book DMs who randomize everything from town population to the weather.

I can see a use for the generator as a writing exercise: whip up a prompt out of a few random elements and make some flash fiction out of it. Some of the combinations would sure get the imagination working and give writing students a chance to stretch some muscles.

It's also just fun to fiddle with.

Hmmm... maybe if this game does get off the ground, the adventure will start in an inn...

Super-musings

So, here's a link to thing on Estoreal Adjunct, one of those tumblr places. It should be a little essay about Superman, with a link in it to a Cracked article on Superman. Other than the Cracked piece, I'm not really sure who wrote what on the tumblr page - tumblr is an idiom with which I have not yet become familiar - but I read both of them and then sent them to my friend Johnbai, who wrote me in response. You should read them, too, and then read what Johnbai said, reproduced below.

I've mostly been someone that agrees with the Cracked article.  And I think the other writer agrees as well.  Saying Superman is more like Sisyphus than Diomedes is hardly a disagreement.  He's just saying that Superman's task of protecting all of humanity is doomed to futility (which is what the Cracked writer was saying anyway.) 

While I haven't loved many superman stories, I liked the "For the man who has everything" because it gives you a glimpse of what Superman might crave for himself, beyond all the selfless work-ethic.  It humanized him in a very compelling way.  And it took a writer of fantastic ability to craft that story. 

I also liked where JLU went during the episodes where the Justice League were in conflict with the American government. Because it asked the difficult question, what do you do when the official standard bearers for the "American Way" aren't playing by the rules any more.  

I was also interested in Miller's portrayal of Superman in the Dark Knight as a thug working for Reagan.  It's a similar dilemma for every paladin or samurai... what happens when your master happens to be a dick? 

I always thought the interesting flaw in Superman was that he just wasn't that smart.  I wanted to see angles pursued that showed that he could be manipulated, or would struggle/fail at something because he just wasn't smart enough to figure it out.  That always seemed like an interesting reason for Clark and Bruce to have their relationship.  Clark needed Bruce because he could connect the dots that Supes just couldn't see.

I just happened to have a spare couple of pennies to toss in on this.

I think the problems with writing Superman that exist because the character is too powerful can be approached in a variety of ways.

The first is to make him less powerful. Look back at the roots of the character: he couldn't always juggle planets. Reducing his strength and limiting his array of abilities in-story wouldn't hurt his marketing value or his iconic status.

But maybe that's a cop-out. After all, I don't see articles written about how hard it is to write a Thor story, or how boring a character Silver Surfer is, or how no one can make Green Lantern interesting. No, it isn't the power level - it's having the character face challenges - internal as well as external - that their abilities cannot easily solve.

As I was reading through these critiques, I thought about a story - I don't know if it is remembered or I made it up - that Superman saves a community of people from some simmering natural disaster that finally discharges, only to see them evicted from the place by the legal owners, who now can make a profit from the location because it is no longer in a danger zone. What would Superman do? How would he feel? I'm sure he would be tempted to re-open the volcano (or whatever) but then he'd be putting other lives at risk. There's a story in there somewhere. Superman may be able to move mountains, but some problems are too complex, or too fragile, or too subtle to be solved by power, if at all. Those are the stories we want to read.

Of course, this can go down silly road as well, as in the old Uncle Mort days of "I promised not to set foot in Criminal City for twenty-fours - how can I possible stop Machine Gun Barker? I know - I'll walk on my hands!" Arbitrary rules, laws, wagers, and conditions do not often a compelling story make, but real limitations do.

In my mind, neither does making Superman a government stooge work, just to give him an ethical crisis when his bosses want something nasty done. I thought Miller's Dark Knight Superman was one of the least interesting versions of the character.  Superman may be a boy from the heartland, but he's no mindless follower. Nor does making him a dullard seem like the way to go - although I think that he might be manipulated because of his trusting nature or native ingenuousness rather than stupidity. That kind of arc, and its aftermath, could also make good story.

Let me end with the hero-of-myth trope this conversation is developing. The idea that Superman will ultimately never get what he wants - the safety of everyone, everywhere - is an element of what makes a good Superman story, but it does not make him Sisyphus, or any other character from Greek mythology. It makes him an Aesir. The Norse gods knew that ultimately Ragnarok would come and that they would fight and lose and die, but they made ready and fought nonetheless. Struggling on even knowing that defeat was pre-ordained - what could be more heroic than that?

It isn't truth or justice or even the American way - it is the neverending battle that can make Superman approachable and relatable.

Coincidental self-promotion, but at least it's short

So, I am currently teaching a research writing class (in fact, I am taking a break from grading lit reviews to compose this post) and as I was assembling instructional materials I was looking for an authentic example of an annotated bibliography. Lo and behold, look what washed up on my googly shore:

Click to link through to source

My natural modesty of course prevented me from using it in my class, but my esteem for my, um, esteemed editor insists that I post it here; it's not every day a fellow's work is called "beneficial" and I wanted to share that.

Oh, and you should check out the book - it's pretty good.

In the looking glass, clearly

So, I have mentioned already that Wonder Wife and I are working our way through Star Trek: Enterprise on Netflix streaming. We are in the fourth (and last) season and tonight watched both parts of "In a Mirror, Darkly," the prequel series' take on elements of the original series' episodes "The Tholian Web" and "Mirror, Mirror"; the episodes revisit the alternate universe populated by Evil® versions of all the Star Trek characters.

It was pure, unalloyed fanservice. The story opens with a reworking of a scene from First Contact (which I have not seen but recognized from James Cromwell's Zephram Cochran). Then we get the Enterprise credit sequence, but modified with more Evil combat and less noble exploring. When the episode proper begins, we have Evil Archer and Evil Phlox and Evil Reed and even Evil Admiral Forrest (demoted to captain), all acting just as cheesy and glorious as the Evil Original Crew. It's all dark and Evil and a grand hommage to the original  and I explain some bits to Wonder Wife, who has a vague awareness of what it's all about and is happy to play along.

Until we meet Evil T'Pol:

When the action shifts to the bridge and we see Jolene Blalock lounging on the command chair in her belly-shirt, hip-hugger Starfleet uniform, Wonder Wife loses it and cracks up laughing hysterically, as mean and nasty and Evil as the story has all been up until then.

"What is she wearing?" she blurts between gasps.

I try to explain something about the Evil Universe and its revealing clothes that, y'now, show that they're Evil and all.

She actually laughs harder. "She's barely wearing pants!"

I'm about to explain more when I realize: she's absolutely right. It's ridiculous.

I think that many men among us in the geek world can develop a calibration problem. There are so many egregious examples of the objectification and sexualization of women in comic book, science fiction, and other genre imagery, that our perception may get skewed. After being subjected to so many Escher-girls and boobs-bigger-than-heads, so many Leifeld waists and Miller's butt-shots, so many Star Sapphire costumes and Catwoman covers, when we see a presentation of a woman that is just merely sexy, our thoughts are "Well, that's not so bad."

But, actually it is. As Evil as it was, the Empire's Starfleet in the alternate universe had the same uniforms as the Federation's Starfleet in the "real" universe, just with jewelry and patches that were a little more badass. Except for Evil T'Pol and later Evil Hoshi, whose uniforms were the only ones to feature bare midriffs. I might be able to get behind the use of revealing costumes to signify cultural attitudes, but as arbitrary as this was, it was clearly just fanservice of a different kind. It was unnecessary and pointless, and if my responsometer wasn't out of alignment from the flood of similar images (and worse) that come with the territory today, I would have noticed.

Luckily, I had an external sensor to help me out, since every time one of these uniforms was shown, I heard more guffaws and an occasional "I'm sorry, but it's just so silly!" between laughs.

In the original, Evil Kirk covers less than Real Kirk, too.

Hot Air

Man, I do love me some airships. I mean I've only talked about them here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and a bunch of other places. From blimps to zeppelins, airships manage to be retro and futuristic at the same time - and when steampunkified, retro-futuristic. So when I heard about the World Sky Race - a flotilla of international airships competing in a series of races that would eventually circumnavigate the globe - of course I was intrigued. Finding out that the sponsoring organization was the World Air League - a retrofuturistic institution name if there ever was one - was just a cherry on the sundae. I was hooked. At least until I actually looked at it.

The World Air League, in the person of Texan Don Hartsell, has been promoting the World Sky Race since 2009, offering a $5 million Champions Purse Prize [sic]. The website has lots of videos of Harstell hobnobbing with international movers and shakers in places like Saudi Arabia, New York, Qatar, and Frankfurt, and there are press releases announcing the appointment of Advisory Directors and Organizing Committee Chairs and an Artistic Director for the Race. There are maps and photos and videos and computer simulations and coverage of publicity events hither and yon. There are hints that the race was almost set to go on 2011, or 2012, and now in 2014.

What I can't find anywhere on the site is a list of entrants. I can find a store to buy a cap or a T-shirt or a hoodie or a bomber jacket, but I can't find a list of airships, with their names, their captains' names, their specs, or anything like that. Or just a list of the world's airships, or even a list of countries that have airships based in them.

It makes one wonder.

A few years back, Seattle passed a voter initiative to build a monorail. Wikipedia sums up the misadventure thusly: From 1997 to 2005 the monorail project was a highly contentious political issue in the Seattle area. In November 2005, following the fifth voter initiative on the monorail in eight years, the monorail authority agreed to dissolve itself after having spent $124.7 million in taxpayer funds without beginning any monorail construction. The monorail project was a big boondoggle - the monorail authority had bought property all over the city, then sold it when it dissolved, and somehow managed not to have any money left.

And yet, for about eight or nine years, about eight or nine authority commissioners made about $80 or $90,000 a year, so for them, I guess the project wasn't so bad after all.

So, I'm just thinking, if I was an ambitious promoter-type -- and coincidentally, one of the early news items on the World Sky Race website is a Texas magazine article that compares Hartsell to P.T. Barnum -- what a plan it would be to envision something big, something grand, something monumental. Something so monumental that it would take years to gather the support, develop the infrastructure, and find all the partners to make it happen. Something so grand that enormous resources would have to be dedicated just to get it off the ground, so to speak. Something so big that even if it never happened - like the monorail - it could provide a nice living until it was given up on.

I think that would be pretty sweet.

Of course, I am just being cynical. I have absolutely no reason to believe that the World Sky League won't stage the World Sky Race in the next year or two or three. I mean, their advisory committee incudes the Former Minister of Home Affairs for Malaysia, the Honorary President of the Explorers Club, and the Former Secretary of State for Texas. And in 2010, Hartsell said at the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Awards that we would see "skyships from all around the world competing in the World Sky Race."

In the meantime, maybe I'll take another look at those T-shirts and hoodies.