Month: October 2023

We’re All Part of a Neverending Story…

My friends and I from Exposition Street were discussing the tonal shift between The Neverending Story and its sequel, released some six years later with a completely different cast and crew. While I am typically very much a champion of most films, much to the amusement of my fellow podcasters, I know that this particular switch up was one that I responded to very poorly.

The movie was released in the US in summer of 1984. I was eight years old, and it was one of the singularly most influential events of my childhood. I was absolutely absorbed by the world presented in the film and the concept that it connected to me in my seat at the theater just as potently as it connected young Bastian to the realm he was reading about.

I read the book a few years later. It was originally published by German author Michael Ende in 1979, and I never saw a copy until a middle school librarian pointed it out to me. The hardback was cleverly printed in different colors to differentiate the reader’s narrative from Bastian’s narrative and the narrative of the novel he was experiencing in the story. It was trippy, to say the least.

I remember being drawn in but unable to wrap my ahead around key differences between book and movie. I was already old enough to understand that, in the way of these things, conventional wisdom provided that “the book was better.” I mean, that’s the way it’s supposed to work, right? But there were definitely things they did in the movie that worked better for the story, including changes like the English translation “Fantastica” to “Fantasia”, for example, or the original visualization of the Ivory Tower as a sort of swirly ice cream looking structure.

There were also a lot of things that they left out when they made the film. That happens. And most notably, the movie ended about half way through the book. So when they announced a sequel in 1990 called “The Next Chapter”, I definitely had expectations.

It wasn’t what I wanted. The new vision combined with a thinner budget and weird conglomeration of elements from the book and the first movie made me dizzy, and I didn’t want a new Bastian and a new Atreyu and a different Mr. Bux and all that. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. We have a whole movie podcast where we get into the weeds on that kinda stuff.

The central message of the The Neverending Story was that allowing banality and despair to take root in the world around us diminished the power of our collective hopes and dreams. Sure there’s a powerful allegory about childhood and growing up in that, and Bastian was struggling with grief and loss, but after absorbing that message as a child I became a writer, a game master, a musician and an entertainer. I became someone intent on using my power to bring joy and share the experience of life with my fellow persons. I became someone who saw the potential in everything, loved things created by people on their own merit.

I am a terrible critic. I try, but sometimes I am just so overtaken by the magic of creativity and human ingenuity in sharing a vision with others… I love books. And movies. And music. And art. And poetry. And dance. And. And. And. It makes me kinda the object of friendly ridicule by my friends and fellow podcasters, but I have a hard time trashing much of anything. I am constantly trying to convince them of the awesomeness of damn near everything.

Sure, there are exceptions… art is subjective, after all.

So who knows… maybe I should give The Next Chapter another chance.

“I Need to Do More of That”

My friend Jason calls this “a dark incantation that guarantees that I will 100% not do more of that.” Cynical, perhaps, but not inaccurate. It’s like a doomseeker circuit that’s always present in our psyche. We clearly have the power to recognize values that lie outside of our everyday behavior, but change is freakin’ hard. Even with little things.

Lately I’ve been buried. TsunamiCon is looming like it’s namesake against the horizon, an inescapable storm that requires a shit-ton of preparation. It’s a storm I know well; the preparations are rote, carved into the soft tissue of my brain and fueled with caffeine and determination. It’s worth it, of course, but it’s a solitary pursuit. Particularly since I moved 8 hours away from my support system. I navigate those currents with a deft hand, but the hand still grows weary.

I have other pursuits, of course, but many of them grow stale during this part of the year. At least once a week, I open my manuscript for the sequel to Shadow of the Spire and stare at the page. I pick up my guitar for a few minutes nearly every day, but I’m not writing anything new. About the only creative outlet I navigate successfully every week is prepping and running tabletop RPGs for me friends. Admittedly, that’s something I’ve done nearly every week for almost 40 years, so it’s kinda like breathing. I couldn’t shut that part of my brain off if I wanted to.

Creative endeavors can be heavily affected by exhaustion or depression. It is remarkably difficult to find the energy and inspiration to conjure new ideas and expressions from the ether when your brain just wants to curl up in a corner and ignore the world, and if you are a creative by nature then this failure perpetuates a cycle of failures that makes it even harder the next time. It’s a death spiral that can’t be easily abandoned, and even small bursts of creative expression have little effect on the overall conundrum.

So what we have is little things. Tiny behavioral efforts that may not feel like much but break away from your S.O.P. And they don’t have to be the same things… you have to avoid pressuring yourself to meet an impossible standard. It’s like cleaning out your closet or wiping down the kitchen counter suddenly becoming a New Years resolution. Do it once and be happy, then look for other opportunities to break the cycle. And if you can find a way to hook into something that inspires you, ride the high and see if you can create a new pattern of behavior. But keep it small. Don’t punish yourself if its falls flat… it’s a little thing, not an impingement on your character.

I had said to my friends: “Actually find blogging very therapeutic. I need to do more of that.” So here I am. Keeping it small.

Here’s a picture of my cat.

Dystopia

My friend Vanessa just shared this with our friend group, with the caption “I feel like this is the dystopia genre as a whole.” I laughed. It’s kinda true.

Then I realized something that tasted weird about that statement: the idea of “dystopia” as a genre.

Dystopian fiction has its roots in the very underpinnings of utopian science fiction. In the early era of sci-fi literature, authors imagined the future as an idealized state managed by political and social structures that reflected the author’s ethos. Dystopian evocations naturally portrayed the opposite, often with very cynical or subversive undertones. While utopian concepts celebrated mankind’s ability to transcend petty differences and transform their world into a realm of enlightenment, dystopian tales revealed the soft white underbelly of utopias built on corrupt and dangerous supports.

Needless to say, the latter evaluation is an outgrowth of the former and has become far more commonplace today. Which takes me back to the very foundation of the concept. Expressions of dystopia – corrupt power centers, inherent moral decay, the illusion of equality, and warnings about the trajectory of our social order – now pervade so many levels of modern entertainment. While initially developed as a means to provoke deep thought regarding the potential future of mankind, dystopias have now become an acceptable standard by which we measure the present. Even those of us who expound on a frightening look at the future we may very well be hurtling toward at terrifying speeds generally accept that our priority is to adapt and survive, that systemic change is a complete fantasy.

Eloi Yvette Mimieux off to be the Morlock‘s supper.
From The Time Machine (1960).

If you think about it, that is the polar opposite of the point of dystopian fiction.

I would propose that relegating dystopian fiction to “genre” status – which it certainly is! – marginalizes the art form. When it becomes passe and overwrought, we don’t actually see ourselves in the narrative. Sure, we see the extension of our society by proxy, but less as a thought experiment and more as a pickling kettle. We soak up science fiction and judge the story more than the premise. After all, we’ve seen nearly every plot structure and character evolution mulched over and again; the premise is either too far removed from the currency of everyday life or a foregone conclusion.

I grew up loving Star Trek. Roddenberry’s vision of the future of humanity was purely utopian. We lived in a world of peace and plenty. We had fought our wars and come out the other side stronger and ready to expand our personal horizons. We made giant space vessels for purposes of science and exploration. When we fought it was with violent cultures that had yet to achieve a similar state of enlightenment. As the franchise advanced the clock further, however, into the era of grunge music and the Gulf War, we saw increasing stories of subversion and human failing. The levers of power would fall into the wrong hands, and well-written episodes would often raise ethical questions with no clean answer.

Cpt. Benjamin Sisko investigates a coup attempt involving several Star Fleet officers.
From Deep Space Nine ssn4 episode “Paradise Lost”.

While Star Trek routinely held us to a higher standard from the very start – a position that has admittedly wobbled quite a bit from one entrant to the next – the lessons are now less visible to younger fans who no longer see the franchise’s alien warmongers, social stressors, profiteering, terrorism and intrigue reflected in today’s society. At best it starts to feel like an informed plot point we’ve seen a million times before, at worst it’s virtually satire.

And to my previous point… we are so inundated with dystopian story beats today that we no longer find as much value in entertainments that don’t have them. Corruption, manipulation, and inequality are part of our world, and stories that don’t reflect that are just unrealistic. I host a podcast where we talk about our favorite movies, and while sometimes we range into discussion about the implications of a filmmaker’s vision, our conversation typically rounds the maypole on performance, visual effects, and story choices that are made to move it along. I mean… why focus on the dystopia. That’s just normative.

We understand the inherent risk of the surveillance state recommended by George Orwell’s writings and the elements of social control we’re rebelling against in A Clockwork Orange and Hunger Games. We get the threat of totalitarian governments a la Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale or even Lois Lowry’s The Giver. We get it. And we rate it for it’s entertainment value.

Because crying ourselves to sleep at night f’ing sucks.

So, yeah. Dystopia is a genre.

The Citadel

I get a strange sort of exuberance upon first entering a shopping mall. I’m not entirely sure why. They somehow seem like a relic of a bygone age, indicative of a childhood spent living in small town America where the mall was a symbol of the big city and all the shopping opportunities that we didn’t have; an idiom made honestly more confusing because malls offer very little specific shopping interests for me, which I’m sure was just as true when I was a kid. But what they did offer – bookstores, music stores, arcades, and so forth – felt like a trip to f’ing Disneyland.

Admittedly, it’s a fleeting sensation.

Today I am visiting the Citadel Mall in Colorado Springs. I’m alone on my excursion; my lady wife doesn’t particularly care for buildings with people in them, and my kids demonstrated markedly little interest in shopping in meatspace. And to be fair, the exterior of this shopping complex promises little innovation for the excursion to follow.

One place that does still retain some of the magic for me, however, is the almighty food court. And this one is quite simply gorgeous. And immediately accessible to the outside! Like somehow the mall knows that the food court is what’s going to bring people in the door. And frankly, on a Sunday afternoon, it’s the only area of the parking lot with much in the way of business.

A walk around the most accessible section of the mall from this location reveals numerous staples like Hot Topic, Spencer’s, Claire’s, Bath & Body Works, a bulk candy store, and a Game Stop. Happily, I also found an arcade tucked behind the stair! It wasn’t a particularly fabulous selection of games, but it still conjured pleasant memories of a youth spent plunking quarters into machines and wasting hours with my friends.

I picked up some candy – they had a small variety of sugar free offerings, but nothing to write home about – and grabbed a couple of pretzel dogs on my way out, my curiosity largely sated. I kept my visit short so that there would be plenty of new things to see if I swing by again sometime.

Ultimately, that initial enthusiasm dims very quickly without willing it to stay alive. Shopping malls are fairly banal, and while I long to see the shine beneath the surface, I know very well that I’m looking at the possibility of it all from the perspective of a boy who had very little to compare it to in life. During the course of my adult life, malls have held little more than nostalgia for me, and while living in the city I very rarely partook. We had a small town mall where I spent my early adult life in Dodge City, and it was home to our town’s biggest movie theater and only arcade. But it wasn’t big enough to support a food court, so it didn’t count.

Although there was a steak house there for a while where my band would rock the proverbial house, set up on a stage in the mall corridor facing the restaurant. That was pretty dope.

I’ll talk a little bit about some of the other, more interesting shopping experiences offered by the Springs when I have some time.