The Desert Mermaid

The last few times Dad and I have been on our own, we've spent the evenings watching the All-Westerns Channel. This time around, we changed things up a bit.

DAD: I think I have run out of westerns. Let's watch something else! Here, I've got the AppleTV all set up. Let's watch a preview and decide on a movie.

2 hours later

ME: You know, it says something about us that we can spend two hours being entertained by nothing but previews.

Finally we picked an actual movie. Unfortunately, it was The Europa Report.

ME: Maybe we should have stuck with the previews.

While he and I share many preferences for movies--we both like science fiction movies, and blockbusters, and Coen Brothers productions, and previews--in other ways we have wildly diverging tastes. I like horror movies, while Dad feels that, complex academic and psychological theories about subconscious fears and hindbrains be damned, anyone who watches horror movies is unequivocally a bad person.* For his part, he likes stupid rom-coms and pretentious French movies.

DAD: I think I'll watch some French cinema tonight. Want to join me?

ME: Are there explosions?

DAD: No, but there are other great things! They love slapstick, but then right in the middle they'll all pause and comment on the unbearable loneliness of living, and the ever-present specter of ennui that looms over even the most lighthearted of moments. Then somebody gets his head stuck in a paint bucket. It's like the Three Existentialist Stooges!

ME: ... Yeah, you have fun with that.

So for movies, we mostly went our own ways. Fortunately, we got to spend Quality Time on other projects--such as supervising thunderstorms. The Thunder Switch was on the whole time Mom was gone, and every time another shower started up, Dad would have to go outside to observe.

DAD: I think it's going to rain some more!

ME: So it is.

5 minutes later

DAD: Now it's raining!

ME: Why, yes.

DAD: I'm going out to see!

Then he would walk outside and stand under the eaves, listening to the rain.

DAD: It's still raining!

ME: Keep me updated!

When it wasn't raining, I also continued my attempts to skate.

ME: I really enjoy the feeling of getting better at this.

DAD: That cerebellum is a wonderful thing.

ME: Although we are an entertaining species, considering that we have decided to take that as a challenge. "So, you think you've learned to balance on two feet, do you? Well, what about if I PUT WHEELS ON THEM? WHAT NOW, MOTHERFUCKER?"

Other activities included making and then canceling surgeries (total flake patient in one instance, and in another a patient who called in sick), cooking, and gnawing on vague anxieties caused by the alienation of modern life or half-remembered traumatic experiences or most likely fucked-up brain chemistry (there is a reason he likes the French movies).

ME: Are you having another existential crisis?

DAD: No, it's the same one. It's pretty much perpetual.

ME: Well, all right then. Want to go watch some previews?

My only regret was that he'd already seen John Carter; that would've been a fun one to watch with him. I guess I'll have to figure out a similar movie for the next time we hang out, just me and my dad.


*Okay, I laughed it off when he said it, but later it occurred to me that it kind of hurt my feelings. You don't hear me telling him that the Doris Day movies he loves, which as far as I am concerned are grosser than Slither and infinitely less funny, make him a bad person. And anyway, fuckin' Mister Rogers liked Night of the Living Dead, so YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID.

... Come to think of it, my sister and I inherited our love of bad horror from our paternal grandmother, which may or may not explain a lot about Dad's attitude toward horror.

Rewatching Aliens always makes me feel happy. Weird, I know,* but I get all happy about the fistfight at the end, in which Ripley tries to kill the Queen with a forklift (¡olé!). Plus I have a Weird Crush on Bishop. He just wants to be loved. I WILL BE YOUR FRIEND, BISHOP.**

I just found out there’s a full treatment of at least one of the thirty or so much more awesome screenplays people came up with before shitting out the actual Alien3. None of them is quite as good as my own headcanon, in which the four survivors of Aliens go off to battle the aliens at their source—Ripley and Hicks because fuck aliens, Newt because she sneaks along to be with Ripley, and Bishop because the aliens present an imminent threat to life in the universe and he takes the first law of robotics very seriously. So we wind up Ripley, Hicks, and Bishop running missions and teaming up with new mercenaries (maybe the goofs from Serenity vs. Alien Resurrection***) and Newt out in ops with a wall o’ computers and they all have crazy space adventures forever. Also, there are ponies.

By the way, you may be amused by the art of my awesome buddy Lychee, who has really taken off with some crazy suggestion my subconscious made years ago of Wolverine vs. Xenomorph. We both still agree that this would be excellent, since Wolverine could potentially survive incubating one. Maybe if we all ask her nicely she’ll still draw that bit of the comic we were making where Wolverine’s chestburster makes its appearance, which was HILARIOUS, but for now you can enjoy her stuff!

PS: Lychee also did my default icon, visible up there, which is a portrait of me. You can view the full thing here, where you will shit bricks when you realize that the things flying around me are my swarm of xenofairies. I am still super pleased that she made this drawing of me.


*Not as weird by my buddy Liz, whose Happy Movie is Schindler’s List. Liz is a little odd.

**On the other hand, watching Alien makes me regard Bilbo Baggins with a certain amount of suspicion. The Lord of the Rings has become a weird experience with me, what with my fear that Bilbo will start stuffing magazines into people and my inability to avoid inserting “DAMMIT, JIM” before every line Éomer utters.

***Resurrection was not really a bad movie; it was just not a very good movie. I liked the Betty crew, though—I’ll give Joss Whedon credit for damn fine characters.

Have finally gotten around to watching Farscape, which I was waiting on simply because I knew it would suck me in. It is far too obviously my kind of shit—which as we have previously discussed, include crazy space adventures, blue people, and aliens. The Jim Henson Creature Shop aesthetic is gravy.

Due to a tangle of synapses in my head, this show has acquired the nickname Jim Henson’s Star Trek Babies. Aside from the more obvious reasons, partly this is because I am starting to suspect that Chris Pine got confused and watched this instead of Star Trek for his inspiration. Seriously, toss in a few stupid 90’s pop culture references and Baby Kirk turns into Baby Crichton.

Also, in the continuing saga of My Crushes Are Not The Same Your Crushes, I am totally in love with Pilot. I always wind up zooming in on the Mild-Mannered Nerd Character, even if he also happens to be the Giant Goat-Faced Cockroach Character. Plus, I want to introduce him to Gypsy. I think those two would get along very well. ("Do you have a big dumb squarehead spouting pop culture references all over your ship, too?" "Oh, let me TELL you.")

My point is, BRB CRAZY SPACE ADVENTURE TIME. See you on the other side of this series.

Today at the Liberry I found a new Dragonlance book—I lose track of them fairly quickly, but this one had a cover that caught my attention right away, what with the familiar figure on it.

Dragons of the Hourglass Mage. So they finally went back and told us what the hell Raistlin was up to when he disappeared from the Chronicles for a while.

… I was sore tempted, let me tell you internet.

Eventually, I put it back on the shelf. I kinda mostly hate Dragonlance. It’s not so much that it’s fluff as that it’s badly-written fluff. But the weird thing is, I think that’s because of the characters—they were almost universally uninteresting cookie-cutter people, and I really couldn’t give a shit about any of them,* and don't get me started on the female characters, if you could call them that.

And then, in the middle of all these boring characters who can’t even make friggin’ DRAGONS interesting, there’s this flash of brilliance that is Raistlin.** The character himself fascinates me, to the point that Dragonlance books tend to read: "Blah blah blah RAISTLIN blah blah OMGRAISTLIN blah blah blah LOOK RAISTLIN AGAIN." However, that doesn’t mean that dangling Raistlin in front of me will automatically get me to read a Dragonlance book. My Dragonlance Critical Mass Index is very low. The only reason I was tempted for this one is because it explains some stuff about a story I’ve already decided Counts.

See, I have this Fanon Critical Mass Index for stories. Each story/fandom seems to have a finite amount of canon that, as far as I’m concerned, Counts. If I like one book on a terrific character, that book Counts—but it’s anyone’s guess as to whether the other 237 books detailing that character’s life story will also Count. And I will religiously follow the things that Count. As for things that Don’t Count, I may dismiss or even actively dislike them—hell, I may even like things that Don’t Count, but I’ll have already hit Critical Mass for that story and therefore this new stuff can be taken as an optional extra.

I know I’m not alone on the basic issue of whether or not something Counts, but I’d like to hear some of the details of other people’s systems. Do you have a Fanon Critical Mass Index, or some other strange relationship with stories and characters and The Way It Really Went?


*Well, okay, I did find it hilarious how much they troweled on Sturm Whatsisass’s foreshadowed death. I don’t think they could have made it any clearer if they’d named him Sturm Going-To-Die-In-Book-2’s-Climax.

**No, I really do honestly think he’s a brilliant character, as well as a god damn asshole. Maybe it helped that I read it as a teenager. He’s basically what would happen if you amplified the Napoleonic resentful misunderstood megalomania of adolescence and gave it magical powers and a smoker’s cough. What teenager hasn’t felt that the universe would be a much better place if they were running it? And what teenager hasn't wanted to DESTROY the universe sometimes? (Also, what teenager doesn't feel like they are the only interesting and worthwhile person in a world full of dull-witted one-dimensional idiots?)

Okay, so recently my siblings got me forcibly into Avatar: The Last Airbender, and I watched the whole thing.

Holy shit, now I understand what y’all were talking about. This was an amazing fantasy world, beautifully animated, great story, great characters,* and it was intelligent. It’s also not set in Standard Fantasyland, for which I am eternally grateful. It’s definitely up there as a favorite series.**

Also, I kind of generally want to be Toph. She’s a badass muthafucka and I think she wears a snood. How many blind snood-wearing rock-hurlers have you met?

However, I have one rather unnerving question open for discussion about this show, and it pretty much sums everything up for me:

Which is creepier: that I have a powerful crush on Uncle General Iroh, or that when I confess that to other people their only response is, “Well, of course!”?

But come on, dude can crush prison walls with his face (SHUT UP YOU WEREN’T THERE AND NEITHER WAS THE CAMERA) but if you try to kill him he’ll serve you a cup of tea and tell you some nonsense before resorting to BREATHING FIRE. That is the correct approach to any situation. So I suppose I can see where they’re coming from.


*Somehow, the adolescent rage and confusion and flailing that drove me absolutely crazy with Harry Potter does nothing but endear Zuko to me, even though he’s such a little snot. Maybe I figure he deserves a little more angst. At least Harry’s scar didn’t boil his eyeball.

** I’m also even more confused as to why they even want to make a movie from it.*** My plan is to deny it exists—partly because it’s already a perfectly good TV series, and partly, of course, because of the unforgiveably boneheaded whitewashing.

***Answer: money.

I AM SURE ALL MY GEEK BUDDIES ARE WAITING BREATHLESSLY FOR IMPRESSIONS OF THE NEW STAR TREK FILM. WELL, I HAVE BEEN TO THE MIDNIGHT SHOWING, MY FRIENDS, AND I CAN ASSURE YOU THAT THIS MOVIE IS VERY, VERY LOUD.

I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO HEREBY INAUGURATE BABY SPOCK* INTO MY COLLECTION OF PEOPLE FOR WHOM I HAVE DECLARED UNDYING LOVE.

AND WITH THE SPECTACULAR SCENE INVOLVING KIRK, SULU, AND SOME GUY IN A RED SPACESUIT, I AM FORCED TO CONCLUDE THAT THIS FRANCHISE HAS VERY WEIRD IDEAS OF FANSERVICE.

IN CONCLUSION: DUUUUDE.


*JUST TO BE CLEAR, BABY SPOCK IS THE ZACHARY QUINTO ONE. I HAVE DUBBED THE BRIEFLY-APPEARING CHILD VERSION THE SPOCKLET.

Okay, so I never found the Joker hot. Motherfucking cool, sure, fascinating from the meta perspective, definitely, but not hot. And actually, I never found Heath Ledger particularly compelling, either—he was just another Hollywood face. And I did not understand the urge people get to slash everybody's favorite psycho clown with Batman.

UNTIL bri_chan POSTED THIS SHOT.

Holy shit. You could lose your virginity just by looking at it.

…

I think I have a new desktop wallpaper.  


This has been your daily dose of WRONG! Enjoy!