Tag: Awesome

“This is my timey-wimey detector. Goes ‘ding’ when there’s stuff.”

So this weekend I saw Blink, an episode from the new Doctor Who series.

And wow, was that the creepiest hour of my life. “Don’t blink. Don’t even blink. Blink and you’re dead.”

So this weekend I saw Blink, an episode from the new Doctor Who series.

And wow, was that the creepiest hour of my life. “Don’t blink. Don’t even blink. Blink and you’re dead.” Now I’m starting to see what the town council had against that living statue in Hot Fuzz, because yes, there’s something fundamentally wrong with creatures that only move when you’re not looking at them. And horribly scary, because your only defense is to keep looking at them. Could you focus on a Weeping Angel continually, not looking away, not even blinking, even if your life depended on it? Because I’m pretty sure I couldn’t. I tried just blinking one eye at a time, but that didn’t work for long.

Add a spookily gorgeous abandoned house to really punch up the horror feel, just a dash of whimsy here and there, an ending montage especially designed to ramp the paranoia up to 11, and you’ve got yourself a show that’ll send delicious chills up your spine again and again.

(Even some of the more lighthearted moments were intensely disturbing, like the Doctor’s “conversation” with Sally through a DVD, reading from a script which hadn’t been written yet from Sally’s point of view. Hah. I guess time is a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff. Although it’s interesting to note there were no actual time paradoxes in this storyline. All the events fit together nicely, if not… linearly. Except I’m not sure how the message under the wallpaper fit in.)

I saw the lunar eclipse

… and it wasn’t what I expected. Then again, I didn’t really know what to expect, since I’d never seen a lunar eclipse and wasn’t too clear on the actual mechanics. So the dark red moon, covered by a fuzzy circular shadow, took me a bit by surprise.

… and it wasn’t what I expected. Then again, I didn’t really know what to expect, since I’d never seen a lunar eclipse before and wasn’t too clear on the actual mechanics. So the dark red moon, covered by a fuzzy circular shadow, took me a bit by surprise. I was like, “Whoah! Did the Apocalypse start already?… oh, right, the eclipse. Cool!”

I was lucky. The sky was clear (a miracle for Vancouver at this time of year!) and I had to work late, which means I saw the bloody eclipse on the way home. Otherwise, I hate to say it probably would have slipped my mind. I got home a little late (around 8PM, the moon was just coming out of totality), but that didn’t stop me from grabbing my tripod and looking for a relatively dark spot. You can see Saturn to the left, and Regulus above.

Lunar Eclipse

We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions

I recently bought Bruce Springsteen’s We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, a collection of American folk and gospel songs. Frankly, I’d never paid much attention to Springsteen; but one day on the train, I was listening to Dancing in the Dark and a coworker asked me if I had any other Springsteen songs on my iPod. I didn’t, so I went online, and found this album. What actually caught my eye was the title of one of the tracks: the famous gospel hymn O Mary Don’t You Weep.

I recently bought Bruce Springsteen’s We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, a collection of American folk and gospel songs. Frankly, I’d never paid much attention to Springsteen; but one day on the train, I was listening to Dancing in the Dark and a coworker asked me if I had any other Springsteen songs on my iPod. I didn’t, so I went online, and found this album. What actually caught my eye was the title of one of the tracks: the famous gospel hymn O Mary Don’t You Weep.

Well if I could I surely would
Stand on the rock where Moses stood
Pharaoh’s army got drownded
O Mary don’t you weep

I’d never heard the song before… but it was familiar. They sung the two lines of the chorus in episode #6 of Dykes To Watch Out For (that’s the Seder episode, collected in More Dykes To Watch Out For). I didn’t know then what kind of song it was, only that the lyrics did seem appropriate for Passover, what with the Red Sea crossing and all. And while I originally thought the “Mary” was Miriam, Aaron’s sister who sang when Pharaoh’s army got drownded (c.f.: Exodus 15:20–21), it’s really Mary Madgalene grieving for Jesus—which I thought was interesting since most of the images are from the Old Testament. More on that later.

God gave Noah the rainbow sign
No more water, but fire next time
Pharaoh’s army got drownded
O Mary don’t you weep

The song is fantastically catchy, with a boisterous jazzy sound that maybe isn’t historically correct, but I won’t complain. I’m not that much of a purist, and I trust The Boss to respect his sources.

I’d heard previous versions of two of the songs on this album: How Can I Keep From Singing? was recorded by Enya on Shepherd Moons. I’m not sure which I prefer; Enya’s style is perfectly suited to this quiet, low-key hymn, but Springsteen’s version has many people singing together, which gives it a very different feel—that of a community united in song. The second familiar song is Jesse James, already covered by The Pogues on Rum, Sodomy & The Lash. Springsteen’s version is far better, without the annoying pistol-shot sound effects and that banjo bit at the very end. I don’t know, it feels like The Pogues were to make it self-consciously “American,” which is just irritating for those of us from this side of the pond. Plus, Bruce’s voice was better, and so was his music.

Speaking of folk heroes, I adored his rendition of John Henry, the steel-driving man. A man who probably didn’t exist but whose story has been raised to the status of myth over the last century and a half. They sure don’t make ’em like that anymore.

I totally misunderstood My Oklahoma Home the first few times I listened to it. It sounded like one man’s love for his homeland (“Well I’m a roam’n Oklahoman/But I’m always close to home/I’ll never get homesick until I die”); with the farm and wife being “blown away” as sort of humorous episodes to explain his freedom of movement. But the song is not about freedom, it’s about loss, about the Dust Bowl: the man’s farm is destroyed by the drought and wind, leaving him poor (“Everything except my mortgage blown away”), alone, homeless and drifting.

So I took off down the road
Yeah when the South wind blowed
I traveled with the wind upon my back

Yet wherever he roams his farm is always near, and he keeps hearing his animals and wife on the wind, so… it’s not all negative? Maybe I’m still not getting the song. As a city boy born and raised, I’ve never felt the pull of the “American Dream,” the need to settle down and own a piece of land.

Fun little factoid: the song mentions a race to stake out land. This probably refers to one of the several Oklahoma land runs, the first of which took place on April 22nd, 1889. I learned about that one in particular from reading Lucky Luke (issue #12, La Ruée sur l’Oklahoma). Ah, memories.

Buffalo Gals is a bouncy little song about prostitutes. The gals in question were in Buffalo, NY, the western end of the Erie Canal. Shippers who’d traveled 300 miles from the Hudson River to Lake Erie could dance with the dollies by the light of the moon—for a price.

Froggie Went A-Courtin’ is a cute little song about a frog marrying a mouse. It reminds me a lot of Pinci-Pincette, a traditional French-Canadian song covered by La Bottine Souriante. In both songs there’s a wedding, lots of animal guests bringing food and entertainment, and hilarious mayhem when those guests are attacked by a nasty predator (a big black snake in Froggie, the house cat in Pinci-Pincette). The liner notes say earlier versions of the song date back to 16th century Scotland. I guess funny animal antics are a common denominator in many cultures.

Eyes on the Prize is another soft and quiet gospel hymn. At first I just listened to the melody without paying much attention to the words. The chorus (“Keep your eyes on the prize/Hold on”) seemed just another exhortation to focus on your Heavenly reward at the expense of your life on Earth. As an atheist, of course, that sort of thing rubs me the wrong way. But then I read the lyrics and the liner notes, and my perspective changed.

Only chain that a man can stand
Is that chain of hand on hand
Keep your eyes on the prize
Hold on

I’m gonna board that big Greyhound
Carry the love from town to town
Keep your eyes on the prize
Hold on

The line about the big Greyhound has to refer to the Freedom Rides and so can’t be older than 1961. (That’s perfectly fine; folk songs are not set in stone, but evolve over time, according to the needs of the singer and their audience. In fact, the liner notes say Eyes on the Prize was rewritten in 1956 by Alice Wine, a civil rights activist.) Once I made that connection, I listened to the other gospel songs on the album with fresh ears, over and over… and over and over. I’d known, intellectually, that Christian abolitionist and civil rights activists were inspired by their religion but I hadn’t really understood how. Scriptures and hymns never inspired my activism; I saw them at best as quaint distractions and at worst as tools of oppression when thrown out by bigoted Christians. But here were all these Biblical images of hope and renewal and liberation: the rainbow after the Flood, Jacob’s Ladder, the Israelites leaving Egypt, Jesus returning from the dead, prison doors opening before Paul and Silas (c.f.: Acts 16:16–25). No preaching or dogma, just inspiration for love, brotherhood, and changing things for the better. And for the first time in a long while, I felt Christian hymns spoke to me. Wow. Maybe all I needed was the right singer?

Maybe all I needed was the right message in those hymns. It’s a tricky thing, religion, because what you get out of it is exactly what you bring in. You could read the Flood story and focus on the rainbow sign and renewal of the Earth… or take the story literally and spend your whole life searching for Noah’s Ark. You could read Exodus and be inspired by the Israelites’ march from slavery and bondage into a better Promised Land… or start dreaming of conquest and Manifest Destiny when reading what they did to said Promised Land when they got there. I guess it’s natural that images that inspire activists would also touch me.

You could say O Mary Don’t You Weep, Jacob’s Ladder and Eyes on the Prize are the counterpoint to those old-time missionary tracts I blogged about a while ago. They are part of the same religion, nominally, but otherwise are complete opposites, inspiring action instead of empty prayers, hope instead of fatalism, human dignity instead of servility, a loving God instead of a wrathful God.

The Seeger Sessions is an amazing album, full of songs that made me giggle, made me bounce, made me reflect… sometimes all three at the same time. That’s the thing I love about folk music: it’s a glimpse into different cultures, perhaps different languages or different times. And even for the slower songs, there’s an energy, a vitality that I don’t hear in most modern music. During the recording sessions included on the DVD side (all live, with no rehearsals) you can see the musicians not only having a blast, but also showing off their skills: improvising, jamming, playing with the melodies. It was totally awesome.

In Praise of Stargate SG-1‘s 200th Episode

Oh my Lord, that was just about the funniest hour of sci-fi I’ve ever seen. I may get the Season 10 set just for this one episode. The in-jokes were flying, the actors seemed to have a great time, it was all meta and silly and over-the-top and I just couldn’t stop laughing.

Oh my Lord, that was just about the funniest hour of sci-fi I’ve ever seen. I may get the Season 10 set just for this one episode. The in-jokes were flying, the actors seemed to have a great time, it was all meta and silly and over-the-top and I just couldn’t stop laughing.

The plot is that Wormhole X-Treme!, a campy sci-fi show inspired by the real Stargate program, is inexplicably being picked up for a movie. (What studio does that, when only 3 episodes were ever made? asks Jackson. “It allegedly performed well on DVD,” replies Teal’c. Tee hee. Are Joss Whedon’s ears burning?) So SG-1 has to sit through a brainstorming session, shoot down Martin Lloyd’s goofy lowest-common-denominator ideas (Teal’c: “I do not understand why everything in this script must inevitably explode.”) while pitching their own.

Mitchell fighting zombies! Lloyd in love with Carter’s technobabble! A younger, “edgier” SG-1! (“Dude, that hot chick was so totally a Goa’uld.”) O’Neill and Carter getting married! By Thor! (Uh, I think. All Asgard kind of look alike, don’t they?) Cheyenne Mountain exploding! Teal’c P.I.! Completely ridiculous cliffhangers!

SCENE:

SG-1 is on an alien planet, running from about a zillion Replicators. “We’ve got ten seconds before the time dilation field is activated. If we don’t make it through the Gate we’ll be stuck here forever!” yells Carter, just as they come upon the Stargate surrounded by Jaffa, with loads of bombers and gliders. “Okay, this could be a problem,” says Mitchell.

CUT TO:

Stargate Command. SG-1 is emerging from the Gate, safe and sound. “That was close, huh?” asks Mitchell.

I laughed so freaking hard at that. It’s right up there with Princess Bunhead’s “I escaped somehow!” from Thumb Wars for sheer unapologetic silliness.

And the homages: The Wizard of Oz, with Vala as Dorothy, and Gen. Landry as the big floating head of the Wizard Ascended Being. Her wish was first to go home, “But now I’ve decided I’d quite like to be a part of something. A regular part, if you catch my drift.” Farscape, with the characters rattling off that show’s made-up swear words (and props to Amanda Tapping for doing a kickass Chiana, complete with the weird posture and head twitches). Star Trek, with Mitchell as the intrepid commander of the Daedalus battlecruiser, facing an exploding singularity with weapons at maximum. And marionation… although that bit dragged a little, and most of the good jokes were already done in Team America. But really, everything else was gold.

Props to the SG-1 people for poking fun at themselves, and letting us laugh along.

Comic Book Review: The Sandman

The year was 1994. Up until that time the only comics I read were mainstream superheroics (mostly Marvel, with just a little bit of DC), and pretty infrequently at that. I never committed to any series (with a few exceptions), just reading a few issues here and there as the mood took me. In hindsight I wonder if it’s because the mostly tedious and formulaic stories these comics contained paled in comparison with the sci-fi and fantasy I had been avidly reading for years and years. But that summer, something very special happened:

The year was 1994. Up until that time the only comics I read were mainstream superheroics (mostly Marvel, with just a little bit of DC), and pretty infrequently at that. I never committed to any series (with a few exceptions), just reading a few issues here and there as the mood took me. In hindsight I wonder if it’s because the mostly tedious and formulaic stories these comics contained paled in comparison with the sci-fi and fantasy I had been avidly reading for years and years. But that summer, something very special happened: I watched an episode of Prisoners of Gravity discussing a strange comic I’d never heard of, written by some British guy I’d never heard of either. It was dark fantasy, with mature and intelligent writing, seemed nicely illustrated, and unlike any comic I’d ever seen.

Hey, I thought, this needs checking out.

The series had by then been running for five years, but most of the old issues were collected in trade paperbacks, so I had no trouble completing my collection. The Sandman‘s run ended in early 1996 with a total of 75 issues, plus a few one-shot specials; it was a wonderful series, with smart, powerful storytelling and art that varied between good and breathtaking. I will always remember it as the first (but certainly not the last) alternative comic book I ever picked up, and I will be eternally grateful to the now-defunct Prisoners of Gravity for showing me there was something out there in comics besides standard cape-and-tights superheroics.

The title character is the mythical Sandman, the Lord of Dreams. More than a god, he is one of the Endless, seven beings that incarnate different principles of the universe. This one is the personification of dreams and nightmares, as well as imagination, stories and myth. Usually addressed as “Dream” or “Morpheus”—rarely as “Sandman”—he generally appears as a tall, thin man with dark clothes, black hair and pure white skin, and starry voids where his eyes should be. Though he is the title character, he doesn’t always take centre stage: as often as not, the tales focus on the interesting web of friends, associates, acquaintances or enemies he has gathered around himself, with Dream only acting as a witness or catalyst to their stories.

The Beginning

The first issue begins in 1916, when a powerful wizard named Roderick Burgess hatches a plan to summon and bind Death. He fails, but quite by accident manages to capture Death’s younger brother, Dream. Morpheus remains trapped for over seventy years in Burgess’ house, cut off from his realm and power, during which time the Dreaming suffered various disruptions: some people slept nonstop for decades, others couldn’t sleep or dream at all. Upon escaping in 1988, Dream takes revenge on his captor’s son Alex—Roderick having already passed away- -by trapping him in “eternal waking,” an extremely nasty curse that has the victim jumping from nightmare from nightmare, appearing to wake up but then realizing they’re still asleep.

This is only the beginning. Morpheus is weak, hungry, missing his tools of office: a pouch of sand, a ruby, and a helm (a bizarre contraption shaped like a cross between a skull and a gas mask). His realm is in shambles, some of its population of dreams having either died, mutated in unexpected ways, or escaped into the waking world. Morpheus first has to retrieve his tools, a quest which takes up the next 6 issues. For the pouch he must team up with John Constantine to go through an army of rebel dreams powered by a madwoman. For the helm he must face down Lucifer and the hordes of Hell. For the ruby he must battle an insane villain who managed to tap the power of the jewel.

The first seven issues were overall pretty enjoyable and showed serious potential. Dream’s character, in particular, was already well defined: his cold formality, his meticulous attention to his duties, his harsh and vengeful pride. But in other respects the series was still feeling its way. The art was a bit uneven, and the story itself (the second half, especially) is somewhat… questionable: Dream has to actually fight, to act like a hero against a villain, which I don’t feel is appropriate for a being of his nature. Although I have to say his mystical duel with the demon Choronzon in issue #3 was nothing short of brilliant.

These first issues contained appearances by many established DC Comics characters; most fit the dark and mystical theme of the series very well. For instance, our first look at the Dreaming in issue #2 includes Cain and Abel, former hosts of two horror comics series (The House of Mystery and The House of Secrets, respectively) back in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. In this universe they are very special dreams, charged with the safekeeping of old stories. The pair of them became recurring characters, reenacting their mythical roles of murderer and victim—for you see, they also happen to be the Biblical characters. In that same issue we get to see the Three Witches, former hosts of The Witching Hour, yet another old-time DC horror series. There they were just, well, witches, in the traditional trinity of Maiden, Mother and Crone. In the Sandman universe the Witches are an aspect of the Triple Goddess, an entity equal to—perhaps greater than—the Endless. (All these homages went right over my head ten years ago, but since then I’ve gathered a little collection of old-time horror titles.)

Also fitting the theme: John Constantine, who had been roaming the DC occult world for a while, as had the demon Etrigan, whom Dream encounters in Hell in issue #4. And, briefly seen in issue #1 is the Golden Age Sandman, Wesley Dodds. In an intriguing bit of retconning, we learn that Wesley Dodds was driven to go out crime-fighting by recurring dreams of Morpheus (then in captivity). The gas mask he wore, besides its purely functional value, was reminiscent of Dream’s own helm.

What didn’t fit so well were appearances by characters from DC’s mainstream superhero world: John Dee, a.k.a. Doctor Destiny, the villain who had taken control of Dream’s ruby, is a recurring enemy of the Justice League; the Scarecrow is from Batman’s rogue gallery; the Martian Manhunter is one of the League’s founding members; Scott Free, a.k.a. Mister Miracle is another hero with ties to the League. To be fair, the Manhunter and Miracle only made brief appearances, and Scarecrow was portrayed as a silly professor absentmindedly cataloguing all the different types of fears, but I still wish we could have done without the references to costumed superheroes, and without Dream having to be a hero himself.

But all is forgiven thanks to issue #8, entitled “The Sound of her Wings.” Depressed and tired after his ordeals, Dream is visited by his sweet, upbeat and beautiful older sister Death. By taking him with her on her rounds, she shows Dream how to find happiness in the simple routines of everyday life. “The Sound of her Wings” is a beautiful and touching story, refreshingly quiet and low-key after the excitement of the last few issues. It remains one of my favourites of the entire series, partly because the Death it introduces is so… untraditional. I mean, you never saw Bergman’s Grim Reaper quoting from Mary Poppins, did you? (Although this Reaper just might do it.)

The Doll’s House

Issue #9 kicked off a new storyline, “The Doll’s House.” As would become a regular occurrence, this issue contains a story told by the characters—so, a story within a story. Many thousands of years ago, it is said, Dream fell in love with a mortal queen named Nada; and she fell in love with him. But she knew mortals and Endless were not meant to be together, so she refused to come to his realm and be his wife. His pride hurt, Dream sentenced Nada to Hell. This is in fact a true story: we do see Nada briefly in issue #4, when Dream visits Hell to recover his helm. She still loves him, and he loves her. But he hasn’t forgiven her.

“The Doll’s House” introduces two more Endless: Despair—a short, dumpy, ugly woman with fangs and a hooked ring with which she gouges her own flesh from time to time, and Desire—a scheming, self-centered creature of no gender (or all genders), who seems to spend a lot of time meddling in Dream’s life out of malice. The two siblings seem to have a close relationship though they apparently have very little in common. From some of Desire’s comments at the beginning of issue #10 it seems s/he was partly responsible for the affair between Dream and Nada. As we learn later, the Endless can manipulate one another so it is possible that Desire could have made Dream fall in love.

The main plot concerns a girl named Rose Walker, granddaughter of Unity Kincaid, one of the people who went to sleep when Dream was captured and woke up only when he escaped. Rose is a “vortex,” a mortal who—involuntarily, by her very nature—can cause great damage to the Dreaming. It is part of Dream’s duties to identify and destroy such people before the damage becomes irreparable. In the end Dream finds he doesn’t have to kill her. It turns out Unity was impregnated by Desire and gave birth to Rose’s mother, as part of a plan to make Dream spill family blood. It was Unity who should have been the vortex, but she had been locked in a dreamless sleep for decades and her power (whatever it was) passed down her bloodline to Rose. Rose was able to pass her power back to Unity who then died, thus sparing the Dreaming. This matter of “vortices” was never referenced again, and I suspect it was mostly a way to introduce the taboo against a Endless spilling family blood; as we later learn, such an act would bring the Furies down on the murderer’s head.

A parallel plotline involves Rose’s search for her brother Jed, separated from her and placed in a foster home some years ago. The boy is not only being abused by his foster parents, but also taken over by two powerful dreams by the name of Brute and Glob who had escaped while Morpheus was imprisoned. Their plan is to create a new Dream King out of a delusional ghost named Hector Hall. They brought Hall and his pregnant wife Hippolyta into a pocket Dreaming inside Jed’s head, put him into a gaudy superhero costume and made him continually fight silly monsters. This is an homage (or parody, since the original is almost as loopy) to the 1970’s Sandman.

When Morpheus defeats Brute and Glob he sends Hector into the beyond, and lays claim to Hippolyta’s child, still unborn after two years in the Dreaming.

The storyline has an interesting interlude in issue #13, entitled “Men of Good Fortune,” which introduces one of the most fascinating of Sandman‘s recurring characters: Hob Gadling. In the year 1389, Death and Dream went for a walk in the mortal world, and ended up in a tavern in Britain where they listened to Hob pontificating about death being “a mug’s game;” in his (drunken) opinion, it was something that people did just because they believed they had to, and he wanted no part in it. Death smiled a quirky, enigmatic smile and Dream addressed Hob, proposing to meet him for a drink a century later in the same tavern. Hob, not really believing he was immortal but trying to save face in front of his friends, agreed. And so Dream and Hob kept meeting for drinks, once every hundred years. Dream explained that Hob (who by 1589 changed his name to the more refined “Robert”) really was immortal: Death would not take him unless he truly desired to end his life. In 1889, Hob opined that Dream kept meeting him not because he was mildly curious about human nature, but because he was lonely and considered Hob a friend. Dream angrily protested that a being like him didn’t need any lowly friends, and left in a huff. Nevertheless he was on time for their 1989 meeting, and this time actually called Hob a friend. What happened? Well, Dream did spend most of the intervening century trapped in Burgess’ crystal box. That changes a guy, even an Endless.

Dream Country

Four more-or-less standalone stories followed “The Doll’s House.” In issue #17, the muse Calliope is enslaved by a writer whose well has run dry, and subsequently freed by Dream. Here we learn the startling fact that Calliope and Dream were in a relationship some thousands of years ago, and had a son together. And again, we see evidence that Dream has been somewhat changed by his long imprisonment. He can now empathize with Calliope’s situation, whereas before—she claims—he would have left her to rot. In issue #18, “A Dream Of A Thousand Cats,” a community of cats discover they can change their reality through dreaming. It also gives readers their first sight of a non-human Dream (because of course, he rules the dreams of all creatures, not just humans). This was a creepy little tale, which will ensure you’ll never look at a sleeping cat the same way again. In issue #19, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” William Shakespeare’s troupe gives a once-in-a-lifetime performance to the Court of Faerie. This is a sequel of sorts to issue #13, in which we saw Morpheus meeting Shakespeare (who happened to be in the same tavern as Hob and him in 1589). In exchange for a lifetime of inspiration, Dream commissioned two special plays. A Midsummer Night’s Dream was the first, intended as a gift to the King and Queen of Faerie so that they would never be forgotten by humans. In issue #20, “Façade,” Death shows she is always perky and sympathetic as she gives an indestructible, but miserable, superheroine (Element Girl, a relatively minor DC character) a way to end her existence. This is also the first of a handful of issues in which Dream does not appear.

Season of Mists

The next major storyline, “Season of Mists,” (issues #21–28) begins with an Endless family reunion! In addition to Dream, Death, Desire and Despair, readers get to meet Destiny (the oldest, glimpsed once in issue #7), and Delirium (the youngest, only mentioned). Still missing is the unnamed “prodigal,” vaguely mentioned once in issue #10; this Endless apparently left the family of his own free will some time ago and wishes no contact with the remaining Endless. He is missed by at least Death and Despair, and emphatically not missed by Desire. This family meeting kicks off the plot: following Desire’s mean-spirited (but very accurate) jabs at his poor romantic history, Dream decides to visit Hell to finally forgive Nada. But since he humiliated Lucifer in front of all demonkind on his last visit, he doesn’t quite know what kind of welcome to expect. He certainly doesn’t expect Lucifer to step down and give him the key to Hell…

As a result of owning what Death calls “the most desirable plot of psychic real estate in the whole order of created things,” Dream becomes extremely popular. A number of gods and powers petition him to give them the key, with a wide variety of bribes or threats. In the end Dream gives the key to a couple of angels who (acting in the Name of their Lord) will keep Hell active as a place of redemptive torment. And Dream does formally apologize to Nada for being such a dick ten thousand years ago (though he starts in such an insensitive, self-absorbed way! I mean, really. “I think I might have acted wrongly”? “I think perhaps I should apologize”?).

“Seasons of Mists” was a hell of a lot of fun. It was a big story, dealing with conflict between powers far beyond mortal ken. It does raise a few questions about how the Judeo-Christian God fits into this whole mythology, though. It seems there are some entities more powerful than the Endless: possibly the Three Ladies; definitely Lucifer (by Dream’s admission). If so, then Jehovah must be as well. But it’s still not clear who created who, and I suppose it never will be. Oh well.

I have to admit the Endless family reunion—incomplete though it was—made me squeal like a little geek. But who is this missing Endless? What is his domain? why did he leave the family? Where is he now? The Egyptian goddess Bast apparently knows something of his present whereabouts—she was prepared to give this information to Morpheus in exchange for her pantheon getting control of Hell. And we get a few more interesting hints about Endless nature: when Morpheus discussed his upcoming visit to Hell with his staff, he said, “If I am destroyed, another aspect of Dream will fill my shoes. I trust you all will make my re-assumption of the role an easy one.” So it seems the Endless can die… sort of, and only temporarily. And what we see of Morpheus is only a small fraction of the totality that is Dream of the Endless.

Distant Mirrors

There follow a few more standalone issues, collectively known as “Distant Mirrors” since they show Dream in historical settings. My favourite is “Three Septembers and a January” (issue #31), which tells the story of Joshua Norton, the man who declared himself Emperor of the United States in 1859. It is a fascinating story of the power of dreams over despair, madness, and base desires, as Norton’s Morpheus-inspired reign showed the King of Dreams to be stronger than the three youngest Endless.

A one-shot special entitled “The Song of Orpheus” was published between issues #31 and #32. It is a retelling of the Greek legend of Orpheus, the mythical bard who travelled to Hades in a failed attempt to retrieve his dead bride Eurydice and was later killed by the Maenads. In this version of the story (as in some others) Orpheus did not die then, and his head floated down to the sea, ending up on the isle of Lesbos. Here, Orpheus is the son of the Muse Calliope and Dream himself. And for the first time we see the seventh Endless: a big robust man with flaming red hair wearing ornate plate armor. Orpheus introduces him as “my uncle Olethros” (which is Greek for “Destruction”). After Eurydice’s death, Dream opposed Orpheus’ trip to Hades’ underworld, counseling him instead to accept his wife’s death, grieve, and move on; but Orpheus, romantic fool that he was, spat out “I am no longer your son” and stormed off. Afterwards Dream refused to grant Orpheus a final death—in fact, refused to ever speak to him again. Orpheus—still quite alive, having lost none of his singing talent in spite of having no body—stayed on Lesbos, cared for by the local priests. His head was stolen once in the mid-18th century, ending up in Paris in 1794, to finally be recovered by Joanna Constantine (an ancestor of John Constantine) as told in issue #29, “Thermidor.” It looks like Dream still cared for his son, but as usual his stubborn pride got in the way of an easy resolution, and he had to use a human agent to keep his word of never seeing Orpheus again.

A Game of You

“A Game of You,” a six-part storyline running in issues #32–37, brought the series down to a more human scale. Barbie (one of Rose Walker’s housemates in Florida, last seen in “The Doll’s House”) used to regularly dream of a wonderful fantasy world in which she was “Princess Barbara,” fighting to save her land from an evil known as “The Cuckoo.” After being caught in Rose’s brief manifestation of vortex power she moved to New York and hooked up with some quite interesting housemates: Hazel and Foxglove, a lesbian couple (one of whom is the ex of Judy, one of the people killed by Dee in issue #6 when he experimented with Dream’s ruby); Wanda, a pre-op MTF transsexual; and Thessaly, a plain-looking but extremely powerful and virtually immortal witch. But now Barbie’s dreams become a terrifying reality as she is drawn back into the dreamworld and her friends must protect her in both the waking and dreaming realms.

I guess there has to be one: “A Game of You” was the least enjoyable storyline for me. There were parts of it I liked: the “small world” feeling of the Sandman universe, and the attention to continuity within the series. What used to be a minor character was given depth and a personality, and supporting characters of her own. The themes of fantasies and identities were interesting ones, and explored in different ways through Barbie and Wanda: Barbie’s dreams of being a heroic princess were just an escape from her dreary, ordinary life, whereas Wanda moved to a new place, changed her name, was even changing her body to become who she wanted to be. Thessaly was another fascinating character: always perfectly cool and composed, but completely self-centered and breathtakingly arrogant and reckless—her spell to draw down the moon without regard to how it would fuck up the local weather was bad enough, but her actually making demands of Morpheus after she, Hazel, Foxglove and Barbie witnessed the Land’s end and insisting she could get them all home safely even when she clearly had no power left? Well, that really takes brass ones.

Which leads me to the main reason I was unhappy with “A Game of You.” The resolution was horribly depressing. The Cuckoo won, after all. I realize she wasn’t evil as such, but she was a nasty little piece of work who destroyed the Land, and still got to fly free. And poor Wanda died—not heroically, though she lived her life with courage and distinction. To add insult to injury her whole identity, her name, everything that made her her was erased by her small-minded hick family. All they knew (or wanted to know) was their son Alvin and that’s the name that went on her tombstone; Wanda lived on only in her friends’ memories—and the tacky pink lipstick with which Barbie wrote her real name on her grave. I guess it was the family’s redneck homophobia/transphobia that yanked me out of the fantasy. I already know people like that exist. I’ve met them, and I don’t need to see them in my fantasy comics. But maybe that’s the moral of the story: Outside of Barbie’s pretty dreams, there are no pure-hearted heroes battling irredeemable villains. And who we think of as the good guys don’t always win.

Convergence

A few more standalone stories followed, collectively called “Convergence” because they blur the line between storyteller and story. The highlight is issue #40, “A Parliament of Rooks.” It stars Daniel Hall, Lyta’s son, now a toddler. The boy gestated in dreams for a couple of years and was named by Morpheus himself, and here we see he has a special connection to the Dreaming, enabling him to interact with the entities there on their own level. The issue shows him visiting Abel’s House of Secrets and attending a little storytelling party with Cain, Abel and Eve. After Cain’s chilling mystery of rooks (which gives the issue its title), we’re treated to Abel and Eve’s retelling of their respective mythologies. We learn of Adam’s two wives before Eve, and how Cain and Abel were “recruited” by Dream after their death. The two brothers definitely predate not just the Bible, but humanity as a whole. They were mortal, though, and one killed the other pretty much as is told in Genesis. But instead of letting Death take Abel, Dream offered him the chance to live on in dreams, as a keeper of secret stories. Later when Cain died Dream made him a similar offer and the two brothers were reunited, both storytellers and archetypes, part of an eternal double act: secrets and mysteries, victim and victor.

Brief Lives

Then came what was in my opinion the high point of the series: the “Brief Lives” storyline, running in issues #41–49. Delirium, youngest of the Endless, decides to look for their missing brother Destruction and persuades Dream to join her. Dream however, is more interested in taking his mind off a relationship that went south; he neither expects nor wants to find Destruction. But when people around them keep mysteriously dying or disappearing, Morpheus realizes there is more here than meets the eye, and becomes committed to Delirium’s quest. The siblings finally find their lost brother, who is quite happy on his own and does not intend to rejoin the family. And Dream finds destruction in another sense: to learn of his brother’s whereabouts, Dream had to consult his son Orpheus and in return give him the death he craved for millennia. Thus Dream has spilled family blood, opening himself to retaliation by the Furies.

Destruction. Now there’s an interesting guy. Readers saw a little bit of him in “The Song of Orpheus.” They see a little bit more in a flashback in issue #41 as he and Despair supervise the London Plague in 1665. He was so friendly and cheerful, with a laugh as big as the world, not at all who you’d expect to rule over Destruction. But then Death isn’t your traditional Grim Reaper either. And what’s Destruction doing when we see him for the first time in the present? A bit of painting. Not very good painting, but it looks like he’s doing it just for fun. Later on, we see him composing a little poem. Again, surprisingly amateurish for a being who’s had billions of years to perfect his craft… but maybe he only started after leaving the Family. Anyway, the message is clear:

Basilisk and Cockatrice: A Moral Poem

I dreamed I saw a basilisk
That basked upon a rocky shore
I looked upon the basilisk…
With eyes of stone I looked no more.
I dreamed I saw a cockatrice
A-chewing on a piece of bone
I gazed upon the cockatrice…
One cannot gaze with eyes of stone.

To look upon a basilisk
Is really never worth the risk
To gaze upon a cockatrice
Is permanent and never nice
For it can never be denied
Life isn’t pleasant, petrified.

And there you have it, the theme of this storyline: Life is change. Nothing lasts forever. Humans grow old and die; stars go nova; gods lose worshippers and must move on or find other ways to survive. Even the Endless are not nearly as endless as they’d like to believe. The seven of them (except possibly Death) will only last as long as the universe. Delirium used to be known as Delight long ago. Despair has died once—how we don’t know. And Dream himself has changed somewhat, as readers have seen many times over the course of the series, and as he has repeatedly denied. All this is Destruction’s domain: change, whether for good or ill, constructive or destructive. You can’t have one without the other. Nothing new can come into being without displacing something else.

But none of these messages ever come across as pretentious or boring. I found it fascinating to see how the Endless actually live out their functions. Destiny seems to have no free will: he knows what will happen to everyone and everything, including himself, and even his walks through his garden are predetermined. Dream is a self-absorbed romantic fool, surrounding himself with stories and servants he created himself, and who—though he won’t admit it—sometimes doesn’t think much about the real-world consequences of his actions. Delirium is as nutty as a dozen fruitcakes, though occasionally prone to bouts of frightening lucidity. Despair is sad and full of self-doubt, constantly mutilating herself with her hooked ring. Desire is a selfish and cruel bitch who doesn’t know the meaning of self-control. Destruction is good at shaking up the status quo and painting mediocre landscapes. Death is… well, Death is herself. We know that she’s there for us when we’re born as well as when we die, which makes her the only Endless apart from Destruction to embody opposite principles. Which may be why those two are so hard to pin down.

Ramadan

The fiftieth issue, entitled “Ramadan” takes us to medieval Baghdad, under the reign of the legendary Caliph Haroun al-Raschid. It is an age of magic and miracles, witches and djinni and flying glass horses, where heroes and adventurers abound and everyone has an exciting story to tell. But the Caliph, knows that this golden age will not last forever. He summons the King of Dreams and asks him to take the city into the Dreaming, thus ensuring that it would at least live on in myth. Gorgeously illustrated and exquisitely written, it’s easily one of the best Sandman issues ever.

World’s End

The “Worlds’ End” storyline follows—actually, less a storyline than six loosely related issues. Trapped by a reality storm, a motley collection of travelers find refuge in the Inn at Worlds’ End, a free house between realms. There they pass the time by telling stories: of a man trapped in the dreams of a sleeping city (“A Tale Of Two Cities,” issue #51); rousing swashbuckling adventure with a dash of political intrigue (“Cluracan’s Tale,” issue #52); a voyage at sea with Hob Gadling the immortal, a cross-dressing girl and a sea serpent (“Hob’s Leviathan,” issue #53); a retelling of the legend of Prez (“The Golden Boy,” issue #54); simple slices-of-life in a city of morticians (“Cerements,” issue #55). In several cases, these stories have many layers, of stories-within-stories. For example, “Cerements” features Petrefax (in the Inn) relating the story of an air burial, where Scroyle tells of Destruction wandering through the Necropolis, who tells him of the burial of the first Despair.

The arc concludes with the refugees’ vision of a funeral procession, in which many of the series’ main characters (most of the Endless, several major gods and dreams) participate. We don’t know who it’s for… But reality storms are caused by momentous, cosmos-changing events such as, perhaps, the death of an Endless. And we know Dream spilled family blood…

The Kindly Ones

“The Kindly Ones,” the last and longest major storyline, began in issue #57 and lasted until issue #69. Believing Dream to have kidnapped and killed her son Daniel, Hippolyta Hall undertakes a vision quest to find the Furies, that aspect of the Triple Goddess that avenges blood crimes. The Furies attack the Dreaming, ruthlessly killing its inhabitants one by one. Still grieving over his son Orpheus and frustrated by the constraints of his duties but unwilling to abandon them, Dream decides to stop the Furies’ rampage… by ending his own existence. Death takes Morpheus away. The Furies stop their attacks. And Daniel Hall becomes the new Dream of the Endless.

In retrospect, this was Dream’s only way out of his dilemma. He was too attentive to his duties to simply take off as Destruction did, especially since he’d already seen what would happen to his realm in his absence. But he couldn’t stay who he was, where he was. The solution was to become someone else, someone who had not killed his son. It’s not clear exactly when Dream decided to end his existence: Orpheus’ final death had a lot to do with it, certainly. But did Destruction get through Morpheus’ thick skull and get him to accept he had a choice, to stay or go or change? Maybe. Maybe it started when Destruction left the family in the late 17th century. Or maybe it really started with Orpheus’ first death at the hands of the Maenads—Death does say that he’s been preparing for this time subconsciously “for ages.”

To be honest, I thought the storyline dragged a lot. There were a number of subplots that didn’t really go anywhere (Nuala’s love for Morpheus, Delirium looking for her dog), though it was nice to see some familiar faces. Especially Lucifer, who’s been happily managing an upscale nightclub in LA and doesn’t miss Hell one little bit. So, I’m not complaining too much. The Three Ladies said it best at the end: there are always a few loose ends to the tapestry.

The Wake

A three-part storyline entitled “The Wake” follows. As the new aspect of Dream settles into his new role, the rest of the Family gathers to mourn their fallen brother. This beautifully illustrated arc, full of quiet and reflective dialogue, serves as a veritable who’s who of the Sandman universe, allowing readers to say goodbye to them all.

Ending

The final three issues are each more or less self-contained. In issue #73, entitled “Sunday Mourning,” Hob Gadling goes to a Renaissance Festival. What’s funny, of course, is that Hob actually lived through the Renaissance, and he knows for a fact that these events have nothing to do with history.

“You know what’s wrong with this place?”

“Uh…”

“Well, the first thing that’s wrong is there’s no shit. I mean, that’s the thing about the past people forget. All the shit. Animal shit. People shit. Cow shit. Horse shit. You waded through this stuff… You should spray ‘em all with shit as they come through the gates. No lice. No nits. No rotting face cancers. When was the last time you saw someone with a bloody great tumor hanging off their face?”

“Uh…”

“Exactly.”

Later on, he runs into Death, who’d dropped by to chat a bit and find out if he was ready to call it a day. They talk about Dream’s funeral and Hob’s theories on death (small “d”).

“I don’t know… Death’s a funny thing. I used to think it was a big, sudden thing, like a huge owl that would swoop down out of the night and carry you off.

“I don’t anymore.

“I think it’s a slow thing. Like a thief who comes to your house day after day, taking a little thing here and a little thing there, and one day you walk round your house and there’s nothing there to keep you, nothing to make you want to stay.

“And then you lie down and shut up forever. Lots of little deaths until the last big one.”

Death, of course, doesn’t give him any information about what’s on the other side. She just… smiles. A quirky, enigmatic smile I’d seen before, but never made the connection until I reread the whole series in one shot. The last time I saw Death smile like that was in issue #13, as she listened to 14th-century Hob ramble on about death. I’d always thought she was just amused, and decided to give this silly human immortality on a whim. But now I’m not so sure. The key is something Destruction said to Dream and Delirium in issue #48, after they finally tracked him down. He related a conversation he once had with Death:

“It was a long time ago, a long way from here. There were rather more stars in the sky. And we met, under the jewelled waterfalls. And we walked. And I told her how small I felt, how I wished I… knew more, I suppose.

“We were looking up at the constellations—the Diamond Girl, the Wreath of Bright Stars, the Crucible… It didn’t matter that, in some sense, I was everywhere; nor that I was more powerful than… well, practically anything. I still felt tiny. I felt insignificant. And she looked at me. You know her look. And she sighed.

“Then she told me everyone can know everything Destiny knows. And more than that. She said we all not only could know everything. We do. We just tell ourselves we don’t to make it all bearable.”

Delirium agreed (“She is. Um. Right. Kind of. Not knowing everything is all that makes it okay, sometimes.”) So here’s my theory: Death didn’t give Hob immortality back in 1389. He gave it to himself. Death and Delirium are right: there are paths not in Destiny’s garden, and secrets not in Destiny’s book. The reason Death smiled back then is because Hob was finally starting to accept one of the big secrets that we all tell ourselves we don’t know. And here at the Ren Faire, she’s smiling again because he’s figuring yet more stuff out.

Hob isn’t ready to go with Death yet, though I personally wonder how long he’ll last. He’s outlived too many lovers, friends, acquaintances, buildings and places. Most of his thoughts are about the past and everyone he’s lost. His once-a-century meeting with Morpheus was one of the few real constants in his life, and now that that’s been taken away… what does he have to live for?

Issue #74, “Exiles,” tells the story of an old Chinese prefect sent into exile in a far province, many hundreds of years ago. His caravan must travel through one of the “Soft Places” that exist at the edge of the Dreaming, where past and future, reality and fantasy, meet. He gets lost and meets first with Morpheus, then the new Dream. This is a quiet, poetic issue, beautifully illustrated by Jon J Muth with elegant brushwork and minimal colour. Interesting bit of trivia: when it first came out, the publisher gathered all ads in the middle six pages, making them easy to remove. This allowed readers to keep the flow of the story unbroken without losing any content.

The final issue is entitled “The Tempest.” Back in issue #18 we learned that Morpheus had commissioned two plays from William Shakespeare. A Midsummer Night’s Dream was the first, as a present to the Court of Faerie. The Tempest is the second, written for Morpheus himself, and the last major play written by Shakespeare. Morpheus wanted a story of endings, of a magician who lays down his tools and leaves his island. It was something which, he believed then, he could never do. Was he already planning his exit? Or maybe Prospero is supposed to represent Neil Gaiman, leaving the Sandman universe and moving on to other projects?

After the End

But Sandman didn’t end there. Gaiman has written a few one-shot graphic novels since: The Dream Hunters (1999) is a saga of dreams, animal spirits, evil wizards, love and loss in medieval Japan. Endless Nights (2003) is a collection of seven stories, each focusing on one of the Endless. Other writers have tackled the Sandman universe in two spinoff series (The Dreaming, published between 1996 and 2001, and Lucifer, beginning in 1999 and ending earlier this year), at least one graphic novel (The Little Endless Storybook, in 2001), a few miniseries (such as Destiny: A Chronicle of Deaths Foretold) and one short story collection (Sandman: Book of Dreams), not to mention Sandman characters guest starring in other titles (such as Dream’s appearance in JLA).

The Sandman‘s run has ended, but Gaiman’s legacy will live on forever, in our dreams.

Comic Book Review: Shadows Fall

Seventeen years ago when he was a teenager, Warren Gale made a choice that cost him his soul. Never noticing its absence, Gale went on to have a perfectly safe, dull and predictable life, while his soul—a lonely, hungry shadow—drove hundreds of people to suicide. But now his soul wants to rejoin with him… and for the first time in a long while Warren’s life is about to become very interesting.

Seventeen years ago when he was a teenager, Warren Gale made a choice that cost him his soul. Never noticing its absence, Gale went on to have a perfectly safe, dull and predictable life, while his soul—a lonely, hungry shadow—drove hundreds of people to suicide. But now his soul wants to rejoin with him… and for the first time in a long while Warren’s life is about to become very interesting.

Shadows Fall is one comic that’s lost none of its awesome magic. In my original review I called it “one of the best comic books I’ve ever read,” and I feel it’s only gotten better in the intervening years. This 6-part Vertigo miniseries (published September ’94–February ’95) doesn’t try to deliver any Big Message, or get bogged down in pseudo-profound mysticism: only sweet, distilled horror that gives me chills to this day. Contributing to the unsettling atmosphere are John Ney Rieber’s writing, alternating between perfectly mundane, beautifully lyrical, and unspeakably creepy—especially the dialog for Gale’s soul, semi-structured jumbles of words that feel like blank verse—and John Van Fleet‘s harsh, grainy art, perfect for the run-down and depressing cityscapes.

The first character we meet is the soul’s latest victim: Renee, a homeless schizophrenic woman who believes she is a beloved queen, adored by all her subjects but also beset by unknown enemies, waiting for her “Prince Randy” to come and rescue her. A sort of humanoid shadow touches her… and without a word, she walks blankly onto the freeway to get killed. Cut to Warren Gale, a pretty nondescript man, in colourless nondescript clothes, neither ugly nor especially attractive, holding down a boring job, with a staggeringly dull routine, no strong emotions, no friends, no life… and no shadow. As we see that night, his soul occasionally visits him in his dreams to share the more interesting lives it has taken. He never remembers these dreams in the morning, and is in fact completely unaware of his serial killer shadow.

Here we learn the true horror of how the shadow kills. It doesn’t slash or bite or hurt its victims physically. All it does is tell them the truth: to rip apart the illusions and the lies, to make them see how small and pathetic their lives are, so they have no choice but to kill themselves. In Warren’s dream we see the world through Renee’s eyes, and it really was a beautiful world. The colours were richer, the people were prettier—Renee herself looking a bit like a younger Elizabeth II. She was happy, full of hope for the future and love for her subjects. But the truth was, few people in her “kingdom” even noticed her, and fewer cared. There was no Prince to come and make the world right; Randy was just some guy who knocked her up thirty years ago, then married another girl (who he’d also gotten pregnant, and with whom he’s still married) after Renee had an abortion. He moved on but it seems Renee never did; in the end she had nothing but her dreams and lies to sustain her—sweet, harmless lies that Gale’s shadow gleefully ripped away.

The shadow seems to mostly prey on people whose sense of self is weak, or are repressing a core of darkness. Yet the beauty of it is, they aren’t faceless victims. We get to know and empathize with them even as the shadow is dissecting their lives. As pitiful or evil as the victims are, they’re still human. And nobody deserves to die like that.

As morning comes the shadow leaves, with a promise.

So sweet brother
I wonder as I go
As you go about your day Gale
Do you ever miss your soul?
One day Gale
We will be one again

And as the shadow leaves, readers get their first look at Shen, a magician who knows more than he reveals (but less than he’d like to believe), and is dedicated to bringing down Gale’s soul by whatever means necessary. He abducts Gale and forcibly reveals the truth and cause of his fractured existence: a stupid choice that cost an innocent her life. As a teenager Gale held up a convenience store just as a cop happened to be outside. As he ran from the scene of the crime, the cop shot at him and hit Alice, a neighbourhood child. At that exact moment, Warren’s shadow was covering her hand. He kept running, but Alice held on to the shadow somehow. (The exact mechanics of this soulectomy are never explained, and that’s fine. It’s magic; I don’t need any more explanation than that. Alice was just some kid; she didn’t have any special powers, except for being Warren’s only real friend. So: guilt on one side, innocent friendship on the other, a violent death and a wild stroke of luck, all add up to a severed shadow? Works for me.)

Confused, disoriented and, for the first time, feeling guilt over Alice’s death, Warren goes to visit his old neighbourhood. Surprised at this unprecedented break in his routine, the shadow follows him and they separately reminisce about their childhood. Him, vaguely nostalgic, the memories distant and dusty: a toy store long gone, its window filled with all kinds of wonderful stuff; music playing the night of his holdup. The shadow, deeply bitter, remembering the bullying and parental beatings and fear that made the teenage Warren into what he was: a cocky, violent little punk who got off on hurting and dominating others, hating his family and neighbourhood and dreaming only of leaving them. All this was what the shadow became, and still is. Separate, both halves of Warren became unable to grow and change: the body is little more than an automaton going through the motions of having a life, while the soul runs only on hunger and cruelty, powerless to know anything else no matter how much it hates its existence.

You’d shed a tear if you could wouldn’t you Gale?
How maudlin of you to whimper sighs when all I’ve done is all you wished you could have
Your wish was my command and my command was Die
You’ve forgotten how you cursed the scum when we were someone they could spit on
Yesterday when we had no choice but to bear the brunt of their spite
Hollis isn’t about to call the cops because he smelled your reefer smoke
Or caught you on the fire escape watching his wife undress
Hollis is toast now
Sarah Lang will never laugh at you because you’ve asked her out
That bitch had her last laugh where nobody could hear
Danny Kirk won’t be threatening to grind you into the street
When Graden Chemical gave him the sack I gave him a hand with his resume
They’ve vacated the premises yes
But not much else has changed this is still home
I remember for both of us
There was no place like home

The shadow takes this opportunity to speak to Warren in the waking world, asking him to take it back, to let them both be real again. But Warren can’t hear it, and is still not ready to accept what’s happening to him, so he runs. The shadow wanders off to kill again and runs into Shen, who attacks but only manages to wound it. Terrified, it flees and goes on a brief killing spree, then catches up to Warren again. This time it’s much bolder and actually touches its “brother,” allowing him to hear its voice. But Warren, experiencing another new emotion—anger—categorically refuses to join with it. Desperate, the shadow possesses a nearby homeless man and makes him cut his own throat, threatening to keep killing like this until Warren takes it back. But the plan backfires as Warren, trying to help the dying man, gets accidentally stabbed in the gut, and passes out.

Unconscious in the hospital, Warren encounters his old friend Alice (a ghost? a memory? who knows?) and together they get to the truth about his childhood. It wasn’t all that great, but neither was it as bad as he remembered. Yes, his father did beat him—until his grandfather made him stop. Yes, things were hard for his family—partly through Warren’s own regular sabotaging of his father’s business. And there was beauty, and joy, and possibilities, which as a teenager he made himself forget.

Warren wakes up able to feel the full range of human emotions. The truth did not kill him; it gave him life, made him real again even without his soul. Intuitively sensing that the shadow needs to stay close, Warren decides to leave the city, hole up somewhere out of the way, and let the shadow starve. He knows there’s no coming back for him, either; but on the bright side, his rebirth gave him the ability to make choices and take control of his life, and face death with dignity. Settling in at an abandoned amusement park, Warren turns the tables on his shadow and somehow brings it inside himself, sharing his newly-recovered memories, making it remember the good things about their childhood and see how much of its hate was based on lies. And so the shadow also begins to experience positive emotions, and taste its old dreams again.

I won’t try to recap the final confrontation between Warren and his shadow, because there’s no way I could do it justice. Suffice to say they merge… and become something greater than the sum of its parts. Something which could only exist after they began to truly live apart from each other. Something totally new, just starting out in life, as full of dreams and possibilities as Warren used to be. And so this grim, dark story, full of death and destruction, ends on a note of hope.

We’re Gonna Bring You The Power

Last Sunday’s Family Guy had a cutaway about the classic 70’s children’s show The Electric Company, and I’ve spent the last couple days looking up clips on YouTube.

Last Sunday’s Family Guy had a cutaway about the classic 70’s children’s show The Electric Company, and I’ve spent the last couple days looking up clips on YouTube.

We actually didn’t watch that show much back when it was on (we watched Sesame Street, plus a few French shows); what I remember is mostly the extremely catchy theme song and the Spider-Man skits. And it starred Morgan Freeman, too! Damn, I guess he’s always had that smooth and sexy voice—equally suitable to teaching kids to read, and the heartstrings-tugging story of penguin life and death in Antarctica. All that and some funky animation, too!

Not that Sesame Street was any slouch in that area. I remember this beautifully bizarre song and a mournful ballad that captivated me as a youngling. And some useful advice, animated in the same trippy style as Yellow Submarine.

What do kids watch today, to broaden their minds? Are there any good educational shows, or is it all cartoons based on computer or card games? Not having any kids myself, I really wouldn’t know. Zoboomafoo is quite neat from what I’ve seen, not least of all thanks to the hunky hosts. (yes, I’m shallow. Sue me.) Speaking of hunky: Steve Burns was quite cute in Blue’s Clues, but he’s mega-hot now, with the stubble and the shaved head and the geeky rock music.

DNA Songs

I’d put the Journey of Man DVD on my Xmas list, but it seems Santa didn’t think I was good enough last year. So I ordered it for myself and finally got around to watching it this cold, rainy Easter weekend.

In brief, this documentary describes an attempt to reconstruct the human family tree and trace the migrations of human populations as they left Africa fifty thousand years ago, using cutting-edge genetics—specifically, analyzing markers on the Y chromosome, taken from many thousands of men all over the planet, hence the title.

I’d put the Journey of Man DVD on my Xmas list, but it seems Santa didn’t think I was good enough last year. So I ordered it for myself and finally got around to watching it this cold, rainy Easter weekend.

In brief, this documentary describes an attempt to reconstruct the human family tree and trace the migrations of human populations as they left Africa fifty thousand years ago, using cutting-edge genetics—specifically, analyzing markers on the Y chromosome, taken from many thousands of men all over the planet, hence the title. This is ambitious. I mean, I’ve got a couple of relatives who studied the family tree, but their research only went back about three and a half centuries. But geneticist Dr. Spencer Wells (whose research this partly is, and who wrote and hosted the documentary) did more than relate a lot of facts and theories. He actually followed the paths of these migrations, enabling him, and us, to connect with these long-ago humans and understand how they were able to make this journey.

His first stop was with the San Bushmen, the oldest human branch his research has found. They’re hunter-gatherers and have been for thousands of years, using tools and skills probably not too different from their ancestors’ (though now with some metal knives and pots). Wells mentioned a quantum leap in culture between fifty and sixty thousand years ago, a relatively sudden flowering of technology, art and possibly language, that may have been one factor in some people choosing to leave Africa. But I’m guessing the droughts caused by the then-current ice age, leading to population crashes and migrations in our ancestors’ prey (and our ancestors themselves), were probably a bigger factor. Then again, what do I know? Either way, it’s almost certain that humankind’s hunting and communication skills, curiosity and adaptability, was a big factor in their survival once they left their homeland.

The first wave of migrants eventually ended up in Australia. This is where Journey of Man took us next, and we pondered the question of why they left no archeological evidence of their journey. Dr. Wells tried, and failed, to find any mention of the journey from Africa in Australian Aboriginal oral history or art (more on this later). The next stage in the journey was Central Asia. Wells and his team visited a man living in Kazakhstan, whose blood they’d sampled some years before, to tell him he’s the direct male-line descendant of the first people to move into the region 40,000 years ago. And that the genetic markers he carries in his DNA are shared with people in Europe, most of Asia, and the Americas. He looked a bit… overwhelmed. Or maybe it all went over his head. Hard to tell, really. I mean, how are you supposed to react to news like that?

After a brief trip to Pech Merle with accompanying discussion on Cro-Magnons, we were off to visit the Chukchi, nomadic reindeer herders living in northeastern Siberia. It’s a harshly beautiful land of bare snow and ice and pitiless blue sky; hard to believe people have been living there for maybe 20,000 years. But they have; the Chukchi’s survival is due not just to their amazing survival skills but also to their physical adaptations. In a cold environment, there’s evolutionary pressure to have a stouter body, with shorter limbs and extremities, to reduce surface area and limit heat loss—just as the Bushmen’s Kalahari Desert home led to tall and slim body proportions, with bare skin for efficient sweating. Evolution also explains why my European ancestors lost most of the melanin in their skin. In the higher latitudes, with Europe’s then very cold climate, having large amounts of this natural sunblock wasn’t the survival trait it used to be in Africa: with early Europeans bundled up against the cold for most of the year and the sun lower in the sky, there was less risk of skin damage but also less vitamin D being produced in their bodies. Lighter skin meant more UV rays being absorbed by the skin, which meant more vitamin D. How fascinating is that?

But beyond the science, I found Journey of Man deeply moving, because it is a story of survival against terrible odds. And humankind did more than survive: it triumphed and prospered, creating a stunning diversity of cultures and technologies with skill, courage, and probably a lot of luck. I found my perspective broadened: for example, Wells and his team had trouble crossing the border into Kazakhstan because of the war in nearby Afghanistan (the documentary was filmed in 2002). But don’t wars and borders seem terribly arbitrary and pointless when placed against a history measured in tens of thousands of years? Sounds a bit trite, maybe, but there it is. The same could be said for racial categories. I was moved almost to tears by the ending montages of smiling faces of all the people we saw in the documentary. All of them different, all of them beautifully human. All of them, you, me, and every human currently living, cousins separated by only a couple of thousand generations.

Not everybody agrees, though. As I mentioned earlier, while in Australia, Dr. Wells tried to find out if the Aborigines had any oral history mentioning the journey from Africa. One Aboriginal artist he talked to said no, that Aborigines believe they were created right here in Australia. He was quite firm in his convictions, too, saying (in so many words) that he would always believe this. Wells was diplomatic and respectful—a lot more than I would have been, in his place.

In a way, what I’d like you to think about the DNA stories we’re telling is that they are that, DNA stories. That’s our version as Europeans of how the world was populated, and where we all trace back to. That’s our songline. We use science to tell us about that because we don’t have this sense of direct continuity. Our ancestors didn’t pass down those stories. We’ve lost them, and we have to go out and find them. And we use science, which is a European way of looking at the world, to do that. You guys don’t need that.

Kudos, Spencer. I doubt I could have said that with a straight face. As much as I respect people’s rights to their faiths and traditions, I won’t play along and pretend that any culture’s mythology is as valid and useful as science in making sense of the world. Also, I’m doing pretty well without my ancestors’ songlines, thanks very much.

Near the end of the documentary Dr. Wells visited a Navajo community in Arizona, to share his research as he’d done many times before, and ran into a similar stubborn faith. What’s interesting here is that these people were clearly educated enough to understand the science—one of them said he’d already heard of Wells, which puts him one up on me… but they had their stories and were sticking to them. Even though they noticed the faces of the Central Asian people Wells visited were a mix of almost every race on the planet—a bit of African, a bit of Caucasian, a bit of East Asian—they still wouldn’t even consider that Dr. Wells’ research was correct, that maybe the Navajo’s ancestors were originally from Africa. Their only compromise (and it was a pretty smug one) was to suggest that the journey uncovered by Wells’ research and the journey described in the Navajo creation story are in fact the same event. That science was finally discovering what the Navajo people had known all along.

Which… is a bit sad. I’ve seen this kind of thing before: when faced with science, it’s tradition that has to adapt, claim common ground, back off from literalism, perform all sorts of intellectual gymnastics. But that’s a pointless struggle, because science and faith are not equivalent. They don’t speak the same language, they don’t work the same way. As the very diplomatic Dr. Wells said, “My bias as a scientist is that I like to see evidence for things.” But I don’t have to be diplomatic, so let me say that the scientific method is not a bias, it’s a tool to prevent bias. Without it, you end up with a lot of conflicting, baseless tales that stroke the listener’s ego and make one culture the centre of the universe.

With it, you get the “DNA stories.” They don’t necessarily give you comfort, a sense of purpose, or a connection with your ancestors. They don’t come with simple narratives, clear beginnings and endings; no satisfying morals or commandments from on high. But these stories describe worlds and histories far richer and more complex than any cultural myth has ever done, and can fire the imagination like nothing else. Best of all, being based on ongoing scientific research and evidence-gathering—which beats faith (no matter how sincere) and tradition (no matter how ancient)—they constantly strive towards truth. Ideally, they’ll also cause us to strive towards truth ourselves, by questioning our own biases and convictions. To quote Dr. Wells again:

Old-fashioned concepts of race are not only socially divisive, but scientifically wrong. It’s only when we’ve fully taken this on board that we can say with any conviction that the journey our ancestors launched all those years ago is complete.