Camera Obscura – "Fifth In Line To The Throne"

This is a track from Camera Obscura's new album, and it seems appropriate to keep with the Scottish theme this week.

Iain Banks (updated)

Prolific and talented Scottish author of sci-fi and "straight" fiction Iain Banks, 59, is dying of terminal gallbladder cancer. The news has been out since April, but with the rash of recent deaths, I've commented elsewhere on this development yet haven't posted on it. Plus, it's rather depressing. Along with Gene Wolfe, Iain Banks is probably my favorite author of speculative fiction currently working. (Actually, both rank among my all-time favorites.) When I first heard the news, I had recently finished Banks' latest sci-fi novel, The Hydrogen Sonata (a Christmas gift), and had just started rereading Excession, because I hadn't liked it much the first time and wanted to give it another chance. His publisher is moving up the release of his final novel (non sci-fi), The Quarry.

You can read Iain Banks' original announcement here. A tidbit:

I have cancer. It started in my gall bladder, has infected both lobes of my liver and probably also my pancreas and some lymph nodes, plus one tumour is massed around a group of major blood vessels in the same volume, effectively ruling out any chance of surgery to remove the tumours either in the short or long term.

The bottom line, now, I'm afraid, is that as a late stage gall bladder cancer patient, I'm expected to live for "several months" and it's extremely unlikely I'll live beyond a year. So it looks like my latest novel, The Quarry, will be my last.

As a result, I've withdrawn from all planned public engagements and I've asked my partner Adele if she will do me the honour of becoming my widow (sorry – but we find ghoulish humour helps). By the time this goes out we'll be married and on a short honeymoon. We intend to spend however much quality time I have left seeing friends and relations and visiting places that have meant a lot to us. Meanwhile my heroic publishers are doing all they can to bring the publication date of my new novel forward by as much as four months, to give me a better chance of being around when it hits the shelves.

He's also posted an update. Here is his official site and the website set up by friends. The only good thing about all this is that you can write a note to Iain Banks so he can receive some extra appreciation directly from fans before he "sublimes."

His author pal (and fellow Scot) Val McDermid has written an appreciation. The Guardian has a number of pieces by or on Banks. Meanwhile, the BBC has a radio interview with Banks about The Hydrogen Sonata and other material. (Crooked Timber and LGM hosted threads on Banks.)

[Update: Sadly, it was announced on June 9th that Iain Banks passed away.

From The Guardian: The initial news, an obituary, tributes, Neil Gaiman's remembrance and Ken MacLeod's.

From the BBC: The initial news, an obituary, tributes, Banks in his own words and a fun five minutes with Iain Banks from 2012.

Blog remembrance threads: LGM 1, LGM 2, Balloon Juice, Crooked Timber, Tor and io9. Annalee Newtiz of io9 also offers her take on "11 Rules of Good Writing That Iain M. Banks Left as His Legacy": (1) There are no good guys, (2) Utopia is not perfect, (3) Never give your protagonist a simple motivation, (4) History will fuck you up, (5) Political values can transform the fabric of time, (6) A planet is a terrible waste of matter, (7) Your intentions are only as good as your weapons, (8) Immortality and hard AI don't cause the apocalypse, but they don't really solve our problems either, (9) Astropolitics, not space opera, (10) The consequences of your adventurous episode will alter somebody else's entire world, and (11) There is a definition for evil, after all.

Additionally, here's "A Few Notes on the Culture" by Banks and a 45-minute interview with Banks by Open University.]

Banks' Wikipedia entry lists all his books. (I consider Transition sci-fi, as it was treated in the U.S. but not Britain.) Fans know that Banks uses his middle initial, M, for sci-fi and omits it for his other fiction. (One of many aspects I enjoy about Banks' work is that he refuses to be limited to a single genre; he jumps about between genres and also mixes them, quite successfully.)

io9 has a good overview of Banks' nine Culture novels, although make sure to read the opening warning blurbs; the review of Surface Detail quickly moves into spoilers.

I've read all of Banks' Culture novels, all most of his other sci-fi, and a few of his non-sci-fi novels. My favorites are The Player of Games, Use of Weapons and Surface Detail. (I've read the first two books three times apiece; I tend to return to my favorite sci-fi from time to time, in some cases because I find elements problematic.) If you haven't read any of the Culture novels, the Culture is a galactic civilization in a post-scarcity era, large and powerful but peaceful by inclination, communitarian and fairly utopian. When roused to force, though, it can be formidable. You can read more about the Culture here or in the io9 post; I'll avoid describing it much more since some of its nature and abilities might be more fun to discover in the course of reading, but it bears mentioning that the Culture has non-biological citizens, most notably drones (advanced AIs, normally smaller than a suitcase) and Minds (highly-advanced AIs that control the Culture's ships as well as artificial worlds shaped liked rings called Orbitals).

Banks' work does feature recurring themes, motifs, and similar characters. Several of his novels feature a maverick warrior (often a mercenary), usually male. His female characters tend to be well-drawn. Almost all of his novels focus on outsiders, people on-the-fringe or otherwise fiercely (sometimes quietly) individualistic. Because the Culture is effectively a utopia, plots naturally focus on individuals who are restless in "paradise" and want to explore the universe or experience something new (often through the Culture groups Contact or Special Circumstances). Cruelty and creative sadism also recur in many Banks novels, although it's not celebrated, apart perhaps from Mikado-like justice. (His novels aren't suitable for kids..)

Several of Banks' books weave between multiple characters and points-of-view, and his narrative structures can be quite intricate. He can succumb to sprawl and digressions, but these mostly tend to be fun, and in the best cases, everything flows and builds well. Additionally, the "twists" in Banks' novels tend to be excellent. My definition of a bad twist is one where the writer(s) go for a quick shock that subsides and winds up making the story less interesting than before (see for example, the Final Five in the rebooted Battlestar Galactica, Matchstick Men and most Shyamalan movies). In contrast, Banks creates plot developments with depth; his shocks aren't just cheap gimmicks and the effects last. (For example, I anticipated one of Banks' biggest twists, and it made me appreciate the book more, not less.) Banks' "twists" make us rethink a character or major preceding events – but with more complexity and depth. The proof is that his material stands up so well (and can even improve) upon rereading. His best works will stick with you, whether it be haunting. charming or dazzling.

Here are some cursory comments on the Banks books I've read, arranged by genre and publication order:

Sci-Fi (Culture)

Consider Phlebas: The first Culture novel, it focuses on the Idiran-Culture war, which is sometimes referenced in later novels. Taking its title from a line from T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, the novel is often called a space opera and/or a send-up of them; the Idirans are a fairly standard rapacious galactic empire, while the Culture is, as described above, communitarian, slightly anarchist, and peaceful in general disposition. The protagonist is Horza, a shapechanger and mercenary, member of a dwindling race. He's working for the Idirans because he feels the Culture is bloodless, soulless, and that its machines (the Minds) are its true rulers; one of the key relationships is between Horza and a Culture agent as they vie for an important military asset. It's interesting that Banks chooses to introduce the Culture through its critics and foes, and the book's a quick and easy read, with plenty of action. This one has its devotees, and I liked reading it, but didn't love it. I'm going to give it another chance – it suffered in my estimation because I'd read (what I consider to be) stronger, more inventive and deeper novels by Banks first.

The Player of Games: This is the first Banks novel I read, and still my favorite (by a slim margin). Gurgeh, the title character, is the greatest general player of games in the Culture. He's courted by Special Circumstances to represent the Culture in a periodic competition held by the Empire of Azad, which determines its emperor for a cycle by playing an extraordinarily complex game thought to represent sound rulership and the complexities of life itself. The game itself, like the empire, is called Azad; the playing of it is that central to this culture. (The Azad have three sexes and other peculiarities that the novel explores.) Banks gets a bit vague describing some details of the game (no doubt intentionally so; it's hard to conceptualize, let alone spell out in detail), but he does a fantastic job of capturing the mentality of a game-player or anyone else engaged in focused (and somewhat competitive) mental pursuits. Banks' talents for character and memorable scenes as well as his powers of sheer imagination are on ample display here. This novel is an excellent introduction to the Culture.

Use of Weapons: Special Circumstances agent Diziet Sma and her occasionally murderous companion, the drone Skaffen-Amtiskaw, approach a past hire, the mercenary Cheradenine Zakalwe, for an important mission. Half of the novel is told in forward time (the new mission), interlaced with flashbacks moving backward of Cheradenine's past adventures, plus a preface and a coda. This is justifiably one of Banks' most celebrated novels, because Cheradenine is (I would argue) the most memorable and fascinating manifestation of Banks' maverick warrior archetype, and each of his past adventures works excellently as a self-contained short story. The book also builds toward one hell of a conclusion, which you will not forget. The problem with the novel for me is that the new mission is so much less interesting than the flashbacks, and this storyline has a few setups that don't pay off. I view the novel as flawed but dazzling nonetheless, and I love it. (It topped a poll of British readers about the sci-fi novels most deserving of a film adaptation.)

The State of the Art (short stories and an essay, some of which deal with the Culture): The highlights of this collection are a novella with Diziet Sma (from Use of Weapons) visiting Earth and an essay by Banks about the Culture.

Excession: A Big Dumb Object (BDO) appears (the "excession" of the title, meaning something possessing properties completely outside of normal experience) in the shape of black sphere in space. The Culture and two other civilizations (one cooperating, one competing) investigate. Several conspiracies and long-simmering plots also feature in this one. More than any previous novel, this book focuses on the mighty and sometimes eccentric ships (or rather, the Minds that control them), the true powers of the Culture. (The ships typically sport creative, witty, and sometimes lengthy names.) Consequently, the novel gives a better view of the semi-anarchistic layout of the Culture, and the loose consensus-building, decision-making process it employs before major decisions. Many fans liked it for this reason. (As Isaac Asimov observed, science fiction is often about the background as much [sometimes more] than the plot and characters per se, an aspect that non-fans often don't understand or enjoy.) I liked this book better on a second read, but all the human characters are slightly unlikable, the many ships and their competing factions can be a bit hard to keep track of, and I still don't think the story completely pays off (but then, that's typical of BDO stories). That said, it has its moments (a cutting-edge Culture warship cuts loose), and if you've become a Culture fan, you might as well check this out.

Inversions: Featuring a Medieval setting of sorts, this isn't immediately recognizable as a Culture novel and does not need to be read as one. The main storyteller is Oelph, a young man who serves as the assistant to the accomplished and unconventional doctor Vosill (Oelph admires her skill and is also smitten). She is the personal physician to King Quience (it's a patriarchal society). There's something rotten in the state of Haspidus (the kingdom), with a conspiracy brewing, murders occurring, and both Quience and Vosill potentially in danger. Can Vosill and Oelph figure out the truth in time? A second storyline weaves throughout, focusing on the mavericky warrior of this tome, but it's not clear at first how it connects to the first story, or even if it's fiction, the truth or disguised reality. The book plays throughout with the idea of the "official" story versus the truth, the idea of truth versus appearances, and the question of which story you (the reader) prefer (similar to Life of Pi in this respect although the theme is not as central; Inversions was published three years earlier). Oelph makes for an interesting narrator, in that he reports events faithfully to the best of his ability but can be naïve about their true significance and doesn't always understand what he describes. This is an enjoyable, satisfying read.

Look to Windward: Taking its title from another line in The Waste Land, this novel works well as a standalone piece, but is an epilogue of sorts to Consider Phlebas and the Idiran-Culture War. Due to the speed of light being slower than hyperspace travel, a massive explosion (an induced supernova) in the Idirian-Culture War will be only now be visible at a Culture Orbital (an artificial world). The occasion leads citizens of various civilizations to make a pilgrimage to the Orbital to witness the event. While the pyrotechnics promise to be impressive, the mood is somber and funeral, an occasion for reflection. The key characters all have some connection to the war – one is haunted by it, one is still seeking vengeance, and one is a musician commissioned to compose a work for the event. This is one of Banks' more elegiac works, and it's memorable and affecting. (It was dedicated to Gulf War veterans.) My one complaint, without giving too much away, is that the Culture can seem way too powerful compared to some of its foes, and this power disparity can make things less interesting. I've seen some Banks readers cite this as their favorite.

Matter: Most of the action takes place inside a giant artificial world built as a series of concentric spheres. Such locations are called "Shellworlds," and were built for unknown purposes by a vanished race. (A mysterious and phlegmatic alien being semi-hibernates at the core of the world and is worshipped by many inhabitants as a "World God.") Periodic wars erupt between factions in the Shellworld, especially across levels, and a war and attempted coup provide much of the initial action. The prince of one faction has a sister who has been recruited by the Culture, and contacts her when he gets in trouble. Meanwhile, an archeological project on a lost cliff city exposed by a shifting river may uncover an artifact that could tip the tide. Perhaps I read through this one too quickly, but I felt that Banks was stalling until the last fifty pages or so, which take off like a rocket. I wasn't that interested in the political maneuverings inside the Shellworld, nor in its geography and peculiarities (and again, the background can be key in sci-fi, and certainly is here). To me, there was far too much setup and repetition, and then the novel became a suddenly gripping and very different (and not fully set up) story. Your mileage may vary, though, since apparently some readers rank this as one of his best.

Surface Detail: Several chapters, including the first few, make killer self-contained short stories. Banks' prose is electric here, and if there's one drawback to the crackling dialogue, it's that perhaps too many characters are verbally sharp, straining plausibility. But hey, it's great fun to read (also harrowing). As some reviewers have noted, this isn't a good Culture novel to start with, but if you get into Banks, you don't want to miss this one. It won't give much away to say that this is (among other things) Banks examining the concept of Hell in a sci-fi setting. Consequently, the sadism factor is higher than usual, but it's not celebrated. It's a thrilling adventure yarn (serially), with some of Dante's Inferno and the philosophical depth of The Myth of Sisyphus. It also stars one of the most memorable of Banks' Culture ships, the fiendishly clever and wryly menacing Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints. This is one of those works, as with Alfred Bester's classics or Memento, where I found myself marvelling at the sheer depth and breadth of Banks' imagination and how much extraordinary material he was able to pack into a single work. There's more in some individual chapters than exists in entire novels. (I feel the same way about certain sequences in The Lord of the Rings compared to other films. I'll have to revisit this novel at some point.)

The Hydrogen Sonata: Banks' latest and (alas) final Culture novel is an apt successor to Surface Detail – if that was about a sci-fi Hell, this is about a sci-fi Heaven. In the universe of the Culture, some highly-advanced civilizations choose to achieve "Elder" status and retire from mundane matters, while others choose to "sublime," which means leaving this plane of existence and entering some rarefied new dimension. (Few return from subliming, and they cannot satisfactorily describe it.) Civilizations really need to do this en masse with individuals subliming at roughly the same time, though, for it to be successful. The Gzilt civilization, which almost joined the Culture, is considered an ally, and has roughly equivalent tech, has decided to sublime. However, lower-tech civilizations are vying for scavenging rites, and new details of long-ago perfidy (possibly focused on the Gzilt's holy tome, the Book of Truth) may derail the subliming. The main character is Vyr Cossont, a Gzilt woman ambivalent about subliming and attempting to master the notoriously difficult "Hydrogen Sonata" of the title, which involves playing a ridiculously complicated harp-organ-type instrument (she's actually had two extra arms surgically added to accomplish this, which appalls her mother). Vyr once knew QiRia, an ancient and eccentric (even by Culture standards) humanoid who may know the truth about what happened ages ago, and she winds teaming up with the Culture ship, Mistake Not… to find QiRia again. But other, dangerous forces oppose them. This is a solid entry in the Culture series, significantly featuring the ships, and Vyr, QiRia and the Mistake Not… are memorable characters. (The book also features some striking settings and scenes, including a mobile, years-spanning, end-of-civilization orgy.) The "mystery" isn't much of one, since characters theorize about it early on, but the precise details and motives are more elusive. Also, one character become key for a few chapters, then drops from the action (of her own volition, but still). I wouldn't rank it with Banks' best, but it's good, and ends with a memorable image.

Sci-Fi (Non-Culture)

[Update—Against a Dark Background: This one features strong characters and striking images in a memorable, imaginative world where much technology has been lost (and some outlawed) and almost anything can be bought, for a price. Lady Sharrow is of a noble house fallen on hard times, and the cult the Huhsz have bought the rights to hunt her to the death for the period of one year. They hold a grudge against her family for a theft pulled off by one of Sharrow's ancestors, and believe her death is necessary to pave the way for their messiah (as they explain in a talk show interview). Sharrow must flee, and gathers together her old pilot combat team for help (they have a semi-empathetic bond). To rescue her imprisoned half-sister (with whom she has a tempestuous relationship) and possibly save her own life, she must find an ancient lost book and the last of the Lazy Guns, the only weapons that seem to have a sense of humor. This is an extremely engaging, entertaining read, and as with many Banks novels, I didn't want it to end. (The female friend who recommended Banks to me cited Sharrow and her sister as examples of extremely convincing female characters by a male author; she thought he really got them psychologically.) I'm more torn about the end, and like other readers, feel the last 30 to 50 pages are a bit of a letdown. For those who have read the book, Banks did pen an epilogue posted online that wraps up a few loose ends and makes for a somewhat more satisfying finale.]

Feersum Endjinn: Set on a future Earth facing catastrophe, this novel cuts between several main characters: Count Sessine, a military man who's been assassinated several times and is reaching the end of his chain of lives (you can be reborn only so many times); the chief scientist of the kingdom; a mysterious and odd woman who may have been sent by the "Crypt" (both a virtual reality and repository of knowledge); and a young "Teller" (skilled at plumbing the Crypt) named Bascule who's bright but can’t spell well. (He's probably dyslexic. In any case, his sections are written phonetically, as is the book's title. These sections might turn off some readers, but they get easier to read over time.) None of the main characters converge until the final stretch, and this is very much a puzzle novel, as the reader (like many of the characters) tries to figure out what's going on and piece everything together. It's not my favorite, but it's a solid piece of work.

The Algebraist: The main plot involves a humanoid anthropologist of sorts (Fassin Taak) who goes to study the Dwellers, a reclusive, secretive race of intelligent, long-lived, squid-like beings who live on gas giants. Meanwhile, an aggressive galactic empire is advancing. Much of the book is Banks explaining and Fassin exploring the world, mores, and history of the Dwellers. It's a good book, although I felt one storyline was built up and then dispensed with abruptly (that may have been an intentional gag on Banks' part; I'd have to reread it to be sure).

Transition: A mysterious organization called "The Concern" jumps through time and parallel dimensions, flitting from possessed body to possessed body, altering events for what they believe (or claim) is the greater good. Temudjin Oh (Tem) is one of their most skilled operatives, but he has wound up on the wrong side of the powerful Madame d'Ortolan in the organization, in part because of his past dealings with the renegade Mrs. Mulverhill. Tem winds up in peril and must use all his wits to extricate himself and take on his foes. Banks (as he often does) sets up multiple characters with interweaving storylines that converge near the end. The book also delves into some contemporary issues such as terrorism and torture. It's a well-structured piece and an entertaining read (with a few haunting scenes).

"Straight" Fiction

The Wasp Factory: Banks' first novel is a short, tight little tale about Frank Cauldhame, a teenager with dark instincts living near a small, isolated town in Scotland with his eccentric father. It's told in first person in the present with plenty of flashbacks; young Frank has experienced (and dealt out) more than his fair share of trauma. The wit is mordant and the humor dark, and Banks does a splendid job of depicting Frank's highly personal and idiosyncratic worldview. There's much more to be said about The Wasp Factory, but it would involve spoilers. Suffice to say that this debut proved that Banks was clever and a fine craftsman, but also possessed significant depth.

The Bridge: A stream-of-consciousness, dream state novel, seemingly with three protagonists, and an uncertain reality. It's been a while since I've read this one; I remember it as all right, but some people adore it (and it was at one point Banks' own favorite of his books).

The Crow Road: This novel is part coming-of-age story, part multigenerational, eccentric Scottish family yarn, and part mystery. This one's great fun, and while it's got Banks' usual dark humor plus a fair amount of tragedy, this is leavened by many lighter moments. The chief protagonist, floundering university student Prentice McHoan, is too headstrong and self-destructive for his own good, but he's also smart and a good soul. He struggles to pursue the object of his affection (his cool and lovely second cousin Verity), deal with his estranged father, and solve the mystery of his missing uncle Rory. The eccentricities of the extended McHoan family never feel forced or artificial; these are real, believable people, and it's hard not to like them (most of them, anyway). I was introduced to Banks' work by a friend who specifically recommended this one to me, and I'd rate it as my favorite of his "straight" fiction works.

Complicity: Banks cuts between two characters, the tale of an assassin told in second person and the tale of a reporter told in first person. Our erstwhile hero Cameron Colley, the reporter, is a mess; well-intentioned on some level, but addicted to drugs (and gaming) and carrying on an affair with a married woman. Meanwhile, the assassin delivers harsh if Mikado-like justice to "respectable" scoundrels such as arms dealers. Cameron winds up on the trail of the assassin, and there are twists and developments galore. This is a quick read, and it's well-constructed. As you may guess, the second person storytelling and the plot delve into the theme of the title.

Films

Two of Banks' works have been adapted for film to date, The Crow Road and Complicity (known in the U.S. as Retribution). Both were directed by Gavin Millar. (A few other works have been adapted for theater or radio; see Banks' Wikipedia page for more.)

The Crow Road (1996) is an excellent TV miniseries adaptation and was nominated for (and won) several awards. It stars Joseph McFadden as a likeable Prentice and also features Bill Patterson as his eccentric father, Peter Capaldi as his wandering uncle, Dougray Scott as his comedian brother and Valerie Edmond as the wry Ashley. David Robb and Simone Bendix also give memorable performances.

Complicity (2000), a feature film, doesn't fare as well. It stars Jonny Lee Miller, and also features Brian Cox, plus Keeley Hawes of Spooks/MI-5 in one of her earlier roles. There are good moments, but this is an instance where adapting the telling of the tale and not just the tale itself is important. It would need a stronger Hitchcock approach to fully work, and would be a challenge regardless. Some of the violence in the book is brutal, but it occurs mostly in the imagination, while here director Gavin Millar must butt against ratings boards. He coaxes decent performances out of the actors, but I don't think he cracked the cinematic aesthetic; a more visual director might have fared better, but likely still would have struggled. Basically, the film winds up being much more conventional than the book, although some of the more original elements from the source material do survive.

I'm currently working my way through some other Banks books, and may update this post later. If you're a Banks fan, feel free to weigh in in the comments (but please try to avoid or label spoilers), and if you enjoy speculative fiction and you haven't checked out Banks' work yet, it's well worth the effort.

Memorial Day 2013

The Bad: It's been 10 years since the (Second) Iraq War started, leading to many a retrospective. I find it depressing but not surprising that so many hawks have learned so little, and so many still insist that they were wrong for the right reasons, while those damn hippies were right for the wrong reasons. It's all bullshit, of course. Worse than the merely unrepentant hawks are the rabid ones, who are typically but not exclusively right-wing. (As I wrote elsewhere, I guess it wouldn't be Memorial Day or 11/11 without idiots angrily proving once again that they are obstinately insensate to any deeper reflection or profounder meaning to the holidays.) Although 11/11 means more to me, both it and Memorial Day are meant to give one pause, to remember the truth of the saying that war is hell, and consider that it should not be entered lightly. Wars shouldn't be started, for instance, to prove one's manhood by proxy, sending others to die on one's behalf, or to enrich private corporations. The times character and wisdom really matter are for weighty issues such as war and human rights (torture, but also basic treatment and due process). "Hippie-punching" is childish and obnoxious, but the incivility aspect is a minor concern compared to the real problem – encouraging gleeful bullying in the democratic process and making bad policy decisions based on spite, greed and vanity.

The Good: People do exist that get it. If you want to read a great mea culpa on Iraq, check out John Cole's, originally written in 2008 and reran this year. The unrepentant hawks don't demonstrate a sliver of the integrity and courage that he does. Similarly, I see friends and acquaintances on blogs and social networks who write or link good pieces on Memorial Day. Some are military veterans, some have buried loved ones fallen in the line of duty, but most are just human beings with a general sense of decency. It's not a difficult puzzle to solve. But as long as such basic wisdom (reluctance to go to war, especially without good reasons) is denied by pundits, politicians and paid shills, more people need to speak up.

Lastly, I usually catch the National Memorial Day and Independence Day concerts on PBS. They can be awfully schmaltzy, but I was impressed this year by two segments in the National Memorial Day Concert. One was a brief, harrowing account of D-Day, in a rerun segment featuring the late Charles Durning (a WWII vet who was a long-time participant in the concert, and got Joe Mantegna involved). The second was a lengthy dialogue between Joe Mantegna and Gary Sinise recreating the experiences of twin brothers in the military. One lost a leg in Iraq, while the other committed suicide stateside. The surviving brother, National Guardsman Staff Sergeant Earl Granville, attended the concert and understandably teared up during the segment; he's become a spokesman on military suicides and PTSD. I appreciated that the organizers used the concert not just to sing a few patriotic songs, but actually addressed the costs of war and reached out to military personnel and their families who might be suffering.

The Doors – "Riders on the Storm"

There are many great Doors songs to choose from, but I have to agree with Digby that this is one of the best for featuring Ray Manzarek. RIP.

Ray Harryhausen (1920–2013)

It was inevitable; after a wonderful run, the great Ray Harryhausen has died, at the ripe old age of 92. His influence on visual effects cannot be overstated. (As one of my brothers observed, without Ray Harryhausen, there'd be no "full-motion" dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. Yep.) Harryhausen's stop-action animation technique, which he called "Dynamation," required meticulous planning, discipline and patience. For his most complex scenes, such as the wide shots in the skeleton fight in Jason and the Argonauts, even working all day might yield only a second of footage, because he had to move seven independent models a frame at a time. That dedication is part of what made him a master, but the key element was that he was a great storyteller. Watch his films, and if you focus on just the effects, they may look dated, even a bit cheesy at times. But get sucked into them as movies, and the scenes still work. They're well-constructed. Harryhausen sets up the physical space and makes sure to get plenty of reaction shots. The creature sequences serve as spectacle scenes, but in the hands of a lesser artist, that's all they'd remain. Harryhausen makes them dramatic. He makes them part of a story. As I wrote for the mediocre remake of Clash of the Titans (the 16th film reviewed here):

I was a fan of the original film as a kid, despite some misgivings. I didn't like all of the liberties it took with the mythology, but Harryhausen was pretty cool. In later years, when it happened to be on TV (the Turner stations loved it), I'd sometimes switch over just to catch the Medusa sequence, which is masterful and still holds up.

Here's Ray Harryhausen's official site. There are obituaries from The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the AP and the BBC.

There are also appreciations from Rob Vaux, Pixar's Pete Docter and Krishna Bala Shenoi. The Los Angeles Times also rounds up Hollywood reactions, examines the complexities of Harryhausen's process, and looks at some of the people he's influenced. (If you have a Harryhausen appreciation I missed, feel free to link it in the comments.)

Still, the best tribute to Harryhausen is his own work. Here's the famous skeleton fight from Jason and the Argonauts:

Many viewers have remarked on this scene from the same film featuring Talos, the bronze giant. Although he's ostensibly a foe, Harryhausen gives him a touch of pathos here and makes him slightly sympathetic:

Here's Harryhausen on Medusa:

And here's the Medusa sequence itself. (Unfortunately, there are some cuts added, and the transfer is dark, but you can still get a decent sense of Harryhausen's excellent shot selection to build tension.)

Finally, here's the Harryhausen monster compilation:

Thanks for all the magic. There's no doubt that his influence lives on.

(The leads in Monsters, Inc. dine at the restaurant Harryhausen's.)

The MAD World of Film

(MAD's on-target parody, "Star Blecch, the (Gaack!) Motion Picture." Click for a larger view. Note the Sergio Aragones margin cartoon as well.)

At Film Comment earlier this year, Grady Hendrix delivered a wonderful piece, "CAHIERS DU CINÉMAD":

For many of us, the first exposure to classic films wasn’t on film at all, it was in print. It was in black and white even if the films were in color, it was printed on cheap paper, and it was full of some of the worst puns known to man. We thrilled to Francis Ford Coppola’s The Oddfather, Arthur Penn’s revisionist Western Little Dull Man, the sophisticated sex comedy Shampooped, and Stanley Kubrick’s ground-breaking 201 Minutes of a Space Idiocy. For us, Casablanca was cast with professional wrestlers, My Fair Lady featured women’s libbers trying to reform a male chauvinist Burt Reynolds, and The Exorcist ended with Satan demanding a six-film deal.

Rude, irreverent, and with 58 years of history now behind them, MAD magazine’s movie satires gave some of us our first encounters with the modern cinematic canon. Always happy to aim over the heads of its target audience of teenaged boys (issue 28 featured a guide to IRS form 1040), MAD was parodying movies like Barry Lyndon (Borey Lyndon) and Blow-Up (Throw Up) to a readership with little awareness of these movies beyond their newspaper ads. Long before most kids were old enough to see R- and X-rated movies like Dressed to Kill, Altered States, and Midnight Cowboy, they were familiar with Undressed to Kill, Assaulted State, and Midnight Wowboy. While film studies majors gasp over the deconstruction of genre in the works of David Lynch and the meta-movies of Charlie Kaufman, “the usual gang of idiots” over at MAD have been deconstructing, meta-narrativing, and postmodernizing motion pictures since the very first movie parody (Hah! Noon!) appeared in 1954. …

Prior to the Seventies and the advent of Monty Python, Mel Brooks’s film send-ups, and the team of Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker, MAD were the only people parodying Hollywood sanctimony on a regular basis.

Some of those specific parodies were before my time, but I caught several in the MAD blockbuster issues, which would recap many of their greatest hits. At my house, we kids were introduced to MAD by our dad, who had saved from his own childhood some of the original comic books (before it switched to magazine format) and early paperback compilations. Some of the stories had a meaner edge than the later, more zany, pieces, but they were still great fun to read. (Who could forget Harvey Kurtzman and Wally Wood's fantastic "Superduperman"?)

The film parodies appeared later, and with few exceptions, they were the best part of the magazine. Unfortunately, they also grew shorter and some issues didn't have any (it's why I stopped following MAD). Hendrix writes:

But when MAD switched from black and white to color and began running ads in 2001, it coincided with the decline of the movie-satire golden age. In the 18 years between 1984 and 2002 they published 180 of them, but between 2002 and 2012 there were only 40. The spoofs used to average seven pages each, now they average five, and sometimes even four. But this decline has more to do with movie industry practices than the quality of the satires themselves, and the parodies are too much a part of the magazine’s DNA to disappear completely. They’ve also shown a remarkable continuity. Over the past 50 years, four editors (Harvey Kurtzman, Al Feldstein, Nick Meglin, and John Ficarra), and the same five writers (Dick DeBartolo, Stan Hart, Arnie Kogen, Larry Siegel, and Desmond Devlin) and five artists (Mort Drucker, Angelo Torres, Jack Davis, Tom Richmond, and Hermann Mejia) have been responsible for 87 percent of them, and the format has remained remarkably consistent.

The other writers and artists had their moments, but the magic pair for me was always Dick DeBartolo and Mort Drucker. Their parodies of the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises were among their best, featuring some hilarious (and quotable) exchanges. (MAD even did a musical parodies of both!)

The number of film parodies MAD delivered is impressive. And it's hard to overestimate the influence of MAD on several generations when it came to their general comic sensibility (and sure, their attitudes toward film, too). So thanks to MAD – most of all that wonderful big kid William Gaines – and parents wise enough to heed MAD's mission of 'corrupting the minds of children.'

Looking at Democracy via Zencomix

Blogger Zencomix/Dave Dugan writes:

I've entered a contest sponsored by the Illinois Humanities Council and The MacArthur Foundation called Looking At Democracy. There's $100,000 worth of prize money, and $5000 of that money is a "People's Choice" Award. Voting is open to the public, and you can help me win the $5000 by voting for my submission.

You can vote for his entry (pictured above), "Truth or Consequences," here and peruse the other entries here. (Hey, I'm biased, but I think his piece is one of the better ones I've seen over there – and it's a great piece for the Blog Against Theocracy.)

May Day 2013

Happy May Day! A couple of links:

Democracy Now covers the Bangladesh factory collapse that killed over 400 people. A demonstration was held today.

Erik Loomis weighs in on Bangladesh and the Texas factory explosion, and also passes on some useful links.

National Poetry Month 2013: Gods and Marble

April is National Poetry Month. As usual, I'm posting late and wanted to recommend the wonderful Favorite Poem Project.

This year, I thought I'd look at two poems involving the Greek god Apollo. The first one is better known:

Archaic Torso of Apollo
By Rainer Maria Rilke

(Translated by Stephen Mitchell)

We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

That last line is unexpected and startling, and really makes the poem for me. It puts all that's come before in a new light, and suddenly, the poem captures the deep introspection that gazing at great art can provoke. Mark Doty discusses the poem more here.

Compare it to this one. (Coincidentally, I was introduced to it in a lecture by Mark Doty.)

Old Joke
By Alan Shapiro

Radiant child of Leto, farworking Lord Apollo,
with lyre in hand and golden plectrum, you sang to the gods
on Mount Olympus almost as soon as you were born.

You sang, and the Muses sang in answer, and together
your voices so delighted all your deathless elders
that their perfect happiness was made more perfect still.

What was it, though, that overwhelmed them, that suffused,
astonished, even the endless ether? Was it the freshest,
most wonderful stops of breath, the flawless intervals

and scales whose harmonies were mimicking in sound
the beauty of the gods themselves, or what you joined
to that, what you were singing of, our balked desires,

the miseries we suffer at your indifferent hands,
devastation and bereavement, old age and death?
Farworking, radiant child, what do you know about us?

Here is my father, half blind, and palsied, at the toilet,
he’s shouting at his penis, Piss, you! Piss! Piss!
but the penis (like the heavenly host to mortal prayers)

is deaf and dumb; here, too, my mother with her bad knee,
on the eve of surgery, hobbling by the bathroom,
pausing, saying, who are you talking to in there?

and he replies, no one you would know, sweetheart.
Supernal one, in your untested mastery,
your easy excellence, with nothing to overcome,

and needing nothing but the most calamitous
and abject stories to prove how powerful you are,
how truly free, watch them as they laugh so briefly,

godlike, better than gods, if only for a moment
in which what goes wrong is converted to a rightness,
if only because now she’s hobbling back to bed

where she won’t sleep, if only because he pees at last,
missing the bowl, and has to get down on his knees
to wipe it up. You don’t know anything about us.

(Poem from The Dead Alive and Busy.)

The opening evokes the themes of the Homeric Hymns and their many later imitators. Apollo is presented as perfect, exemplary, transcendent – an object of admiration. The poem takes a sharp descent to the mortal world of indignities and vulnerability. After reading the whole poem and looking again at the portrayal of Apollo, I'm reminded of a line from Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus, when Mozart complains about depictions of gods and heroes who "shit marble." It ties into an old dichotomy I've kicked around about the depiction of heroes, nicely illustrated by the two major film versions of Shakespeare's play Henry V, Laurence Olivier's in 1944 and Kenneth Branagh's in 1989. Olivier's Henry transcends suffering, is more than a mere mortal, and shot in glowing Technicolor, he gleams in his armor and surcoat, proud and unflappable in the face of overwhelming adversity. Sometimes, this depiction is countertextual, but it's an understandable choice given the film's main purpose: boosting morale for the British during WWII. In contrast, Branagh's Henry is muddy and exhausted, and a hero because he struggles through his suffering to succeed, never transcending it outright. He'll give a fire-and-brimstone speech in public at Harfleur, and then collapse in private. Something similar is going on in this poem.

When I first heard/read "no one you would know, sweetheart," it got a laugh from the audience, but it sounded a bit harsh and bitter to me, as if this wasn't the happiest of marriages. But after reading the poem to the end, and reading it again, it's clear this is a marriage of warmth, intimacy and compassion. The couple doesn't even necessary "succeed" in the face of suffering; the point is, they're sharing it, and that alleviates it a little. This is the state of their lives, a far cry from the grandeur of Mt. Olympus. (Shapiro does a marvellous job of contrasting images.)

None of this is to exclude other readings of these poems. They make an intriguing pair, and I like and admire them both. Shapiro's poem isn't a direct retort to Rilke's, which in any case is about contemplating a work of art more than the idea of a god per se. Rilke's piece uses beauty as a launching point and captures a moment of solitary (and profound) reflection, while the core of Shapiro's piece is about indignity that becomes a shared moment.

(Feel free to share or link a favorite poem in the comments.)

Richie Havens – "Freedom"

RIP. This Woodstock performance is the obvious choice, but it's iconic and kicks ass. In some folk-rock documentary, one of the other musicians (I forget which) said that back in their Greenwich Village days, no one wanted to go on stage after Richie Havens, because he was so fantastic the audience would give all their spare money to him and there'd be nothing left over for the following acts. The man had longevity, passion and soul.