Horror Movies for October 2020: #1 Pontypool

While I continue to balancing my time between watching TV and looking for a job, I realized I hadn’t written anything for a while. Like, a long while. And, what with it being the spooky season, I figured why not write about some horror movie recommendations? Let’s see how many of these I can write up before the 31st.

First up is the cult classic Canadian zombie film, Pontypool. Here’s the quick tl;dr:

• You should watch this:
  • If you like zombie movies, single room “bottle” movies, Canadian content, or radio stations
  • If you have 90 minutes to spend
• You should skip this:
  • If you don’t want your movies to have a lot of talking,
  • If you want a fast paced action movie

~~/~~

Pontypool, adapted from a novel by Tony Burgess and named after the unincorporated Ontario village where it takes place, is a Canadian zombie movie from a bit over ten years ago. Screened at TIFF in 2008 before a theatrical release in 2009, the film is about the staff inside a radio station as murderous zombies seemingly descend on the town and which complements its minimal cast with excellent writing and tone.

But primarily, it’s a movie about communication and isolation.

I’ll pause here and mention that there’s a twist with the zombies in this movie that I think is quite interesting and don’t want to accidentally spoil for you, if that’s something you care about. And it’s hard to say anything else about the movie without talking about the twist. But, learning the twist was a big part of why I wanted to watch it in the first place, so I’ll leave it up to you.

The basic beats are that recently disgraced-and-relocated radio shock jock Grant Mazzy (Stephen McHattie), his station manager Sydney (Lisa Houle), and technical assistant and former soldier Laurel-Ann (Georgina Reilly), all work together in their station which operated out of the basement of the local church. One February morning they begin getting calls about “attacks” and “mobs” and then of horrors occurring throughout the town so unbelievable that they at first assume it might be some kind of hoax. As the day goes on, trapped in their station by a Valentine’s Day snowstorm, they learn that (1) it’s not a hoax, and (2) the virus that is turning people into mindless cannibals is spread through spoken language.
Which, y’know, is tough because they’re in a radio station.

Now, communication is sort of a common issue that comes up in horror movies and zombie movies especially. Apocalyptic graffiti, audio logs by regretful scientists, and cellphones losing their signal are all familiar pieces in these kinds of film. But this movie puts communication front and center. The characters work at a radio station, for one thing. Plus, like, the whole first minute or so is spent on a monologue by Grant about a missing cat and even played over one of those wiggly audio waveform visualizations. That’s it. Takes up the whole screen for a little bit over a minute, forcing you to focus and hear the words being said. If that doesn’t scream “communication is important in this movie” then I don’t know what would. And this wrestling with communication is something the movie carries from start to finish; from this opening audio wave, through the middle as they try and piece together what they can from government reports and their eye-in-the-sky “helicopter” weatherman, all the way through to the final scene.

Less prominent but still important is the film’s focus on isolation. The full isolation is several layers deep: Grant is alone and inside a sound booth, largely separated from Sydney and Laurel-Ann. This sound booth is inside a basement, which is inside a small town, which is in the middle of rural Ontario, in the middle of a snow storm. Grant starts the movie alone. First alone in his car then, for most of the movie, alone in the booth as he communicates electronically with Sydney and Laurel-Ann. He, a relative outsider new to the town, is physically separated from them, two longtime residents of the community with Laurel-Ann in particular being mentioned as the previous year’s Homecoming Hero. Sydney, who repeatedly butts heads with Grant, enters the booth as herself an outsider to the space to first try and reign in Grant’s big city shock jock take-no-prisoners approach and later, after they have grown closer, to hide from the zombies. Laurel-Ann, who Grant is shown getting along with pretty well, does not spend any extended period in the booth and is also the only member of the staff to openly succumb to the virus. Conversely, the zombies (or “conversationalists” as the director calls them) are almost universally in groups and mobs. There’s the “protest” outside the doctor’s office which results spectacularly in a waterfall of bodies once the walls give out, there’s the description of the horde that swarms the car such that the authorities lose sight of the vehicle for several hours, and of course the mob that surround the building when Grant steps outside to get some air. So, I guess, the two options the characters face are to either stay alone inside and live, or go outside and almost certainly die.

I can’t help but see similarities with the current global situation. I know that that can be said for a lot of zombie movies, but it rings true with this one even more so. And, I don’t know, something about the characters doing the best they can to share accurate information that might save lives, and trying to keep doing that for as long as they can just feels more impactful these days.

There’s a part close-ish to the end. They’ve now realized that the virus is spread through the English language and so Sydney and Grant load up some muzak to broadcast over the system because it doesn’t have any lyrics. Later on, after seemingly discovering the cure, instead of continuing to hide or deciding to flee the station, Grant insists as the military begins bombing the town that they stay for one last broadcast asking “do we really want to provide a genocide with elevator music”? I think it says a lot about the movie that the climax is someone in a sound booth shouting into a microphone. One of the things said during this final scene stuck with me more than it did the previous times I’ve watched this movie.

In his speech Grant reassuringly says:

“It’s just another day. […] The sun came up, you did what you did yesterday, and it’s exactly what you’ll do tomorrow.”

I’m pretty confident that this is something a lot of us in the back half of 2020 can identify with. As the pandemics and the politics and everything else that has made our lives this year much more different and difficult than we expected, I think this can be a comforting thought.

When Grant and Sydney are hiding in the supply room, there’s a brief time skip that jumps us from when they first get there to them having been there for quite a while. Within that gap the two of them have covered every inch of the supply room walls with written messages from one to the other, trying to figure out what the next step is. Despite the difficulty of the situation preventing them from communicating, they found a way around it because they knew they had to communicate in order to keep themselves alive, and this is underscored when they decide to stay and make their final broadcast. The movie tells us to find ways to keep communicating and to keep doing what you can to help. After all, to quote the move one last time:

“It’s not the end of the world. It’s just the end of the day.”

 

Wherever you’re going, get there safe.

Essay – And We Kind Of Won: Victory, Competence, and Patriarchy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer

03 August 2017

And We Kind Of Won: Victory, Competence, and

Patriarchy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer

The eponymous hero of Buffy the Vampire Slayer has fought a wide range of bad guys despite the rather narrow scope her title might suggest. She has fought werewolves, vengeance demons, mantis women, hellhounds, and town mayors, just to name a few. Each of them posed a slightly different challenge for Buffy to overcome, while representing the wide range of conflicts and issues one may face while growing up. But overcome she did, and there was much celebration on both sides of the screen. In the world of the show, the characters are happy the world didn’t end, while outside the show the satisfaction comes from seeing someone triumph over adversity by using friendship, teamwork, sarcasm, and so on. It is said that a hero is only as good as their villains, and Buffy on the whole has had some great villains who posed a dramatically appropriate level of challenge until they were defeated by an equal level of cleverness by the Scooby Gang. However, a number of the season spanning Big Bads who were meant to be menacing had their menace undercut by surprising incompetence which, in turn undercut the satisfaction when they are defeated by Buffy. As a result, this deflation of the villains also had the effect of minimizing the key issue the villain was meant to represent. The biggest perpetrators of this are the militaristic Initiative in season four and the stereotypical basement dwelling nerd Trio of season six. The poor handling of these villains is made more apparent when considering villains with more successful and intentional depictions such as Mayor Wilkins and The Master.

The most dramatic example of this deflation and poor handling is the clandestine Initiative featured in the fourth season. This is largely because of how capable the organization was presented to be and how much of that capability was immediately dismantled upon actual exploration. What is revealed about the Initiative during their gradual introduction is that the organization is funded by the government, it has been around for some time, and it has the resources to staff scores of researchers and military/security officers as well as a vast underground facility to secretly house them beneath Sunnydale’s university. This all suggests a certain level of competence and ability. The government connection, secret base, and amount of staff suggests they’re far reaching, as well as being indicative of a level of teamwork or professionalism to set everything up and for all the moving pieces to mesh together properly. However, in nearly any scene that shows the Initiative doing anything, it becomes rather evident that none of their resources were apparently spent on any proper training or preventative oversight. For example, when Spike first escapes the facility in “The Initiative” (S04E07), he does so with only minor additional effort. The scientists who arrive to collect him from his cell appear to be without combat training and the armed guards only arrive after he has broken containment. A similar incident happens in a later episode when a monster being escorted through the Initiative overpowers the single scientist holding him and is only saved because Riley happened to be nearby. These examples pale in comparison, however, to their monster in the basement. The patchwork monstrosity of Adam is arguably their greatest achievement as well as being emblematic of the carelessness they seem to exhibit while performing the dangerous endeavour of running a secret monster research facility. In Adam, the Initiative is shown to be capable and competent enough to assemble a chimerical abomination out of human, robot, and monster parts and have him become a living thing. At the same time, however, he manages to easily escape from the secure heart of the facility and wander into the woods without being noticed, despite his large and largely distinct appearance, all while he is effectively still a new born. As another oversight, his creators also neglect to install a kill switch or a tracking device during his assembly. Furthermore, had they installed an anti-violence chip as they did with Spike during his brief stay, or perhaps one that could be tuned to only target enemy combatants, many lives would have likely been saved. It is also later revealed that Adam partially operated from an additional secret laboratory in which he hid the reanimated corpses of Professor Walsh and the other doctor. This raises questions of why a secret government laboratory has within itself another secret government laboratory that is unlisted within its own construction plans (S04E21, “Primeval”). If the Initiative is meant to represent patriarchy in how it is connected to the idea of traditional gender roles and how the military is thought to be primarily a male endeavour, and if Buffy’s victory over them is done with the goal of having a woman overcome the beliefs and tactics of the patriarchal military industrial complex with help from her physically weak but emotionally strong friends, then hobbling the Initiative with plot conveniences that manifest as incompetence equally hobbles the value of Buffy’s success, and reduces the sense of empowerment it might have created. That is to say, if the symbol for the patriarchal war machine is shown to be so ready to collapse on its own, then having Buffy bring it down becomes much less of an accomplishment.

An equally deflating treatment is done with the members of the Trio. In this case, however, the show seems to be fully aware of the villains being incompetent, yet makes no action towards increasing their ability. Whereas the Initiative was undercut unintentionally by plot holes and the like, the Trio is intentionally undercut multiple times at almost every opportunity. For example, they are repeatedly infantilized due to how preciously they care for their action figures (S06E09, “Smashed”) and how particular they are about the lore of a given science fiction franchise. These examples frequently come at the tail end of a dramatic scene of villainy, so any gravity they may have held in that scene is immediately deflated and destroyed. In fact, the two crimes they commit that actually impact the Scooby Gang, the murders of Katrina and Tara, were both accidental. Overall, the Trio is presented as being capable enough to be annoying but not capable enough to be dangerous on purpose. The show even explicitly acknowledges this in “Normal Again” (S06E17) when the asylum doctor of the other reality describes the Trio as a notable step down from what Buffy had faced in the past due to them being “Not gods or monsters. Just three pathetic little men who like to play with toys,” contrasting the Trio to villains of the past who were more capable, menacing, and mature. While the Initiative was meant to represent fascism, the Trio instead represents the harmful misogyny that appears in a lot of male oriented media, as well as in the real world with the so-called “Meninist” movement. With the Trio, everything from their ultimate goal of “chicks, chicks, chicks” to the creepy mind-control-rape plot that results in Katrina’s death is dripping with a sense of self superiority and imposing control on others. That is, they believe they are so above everyone else that they can and will reshape the world to their desires. And they are successful to some degree. But while the fact that they can build a freeze ray, or summon demons on command, or successfully cast a time-loop spell should cause a deal of actual concern, every time they do, they are again deflated by jokes about magic bones and the like. Considering what they are able to do with the resources they have, the Trio could be a legitimate threat at nearly the same scale as previous Big Bads if they had the been given the opportunity by the writers to live up to that role. They repeatedly refer to themselves in comparison to Bond Villains, but are never able to tonally reach that bar. By having one of the show’s purest and most direct depictions of misogyny be so uncoordinated, ineffectual, and repeatedly deflated, the show does the same to the issue of misogyny itself and sends a mixed message about how harmful the issue is.

One villain whose defeat was a notable accomplishment for Buffy and created a great deal satisfaction for the audience was her victory over Mayor Wilkins. The Mayor was both competent and prepared, and Buffy was the only one in any position to oppose him. He did oscillate between sinister demon worshiper and affably folksy backyard barbecue dad, but unlike the Trio’s repeated shifts between Bond Villain and basement dweller, the jarring contrast between the two normally unconnected personality types within the Mayor added to the his depth of character. This juxtaposition made him a deeper and more unique presence during his time on the show. Furthermore, it is made very clear that Buffy (with the help of her friends and classmates) was the only who could defeat him, and if she was not successful during their rather brief window of opportunity, that he would have succeeded in his evil plan and many lives would have been lost. That is to say, The Mayor was a worthy opponent and his defeat created a satisfying conclusion. If Mayor Wilkins is to represent The Man, and how even men who put forward a kind and affable exterior can hold sinister motives within, then Buffy’s victory is a satisfying toppling of that. He is a threat, therefore what he represents is a threat, and therefore Buffy’s victory is meaningful and empowering.

A similar case is seen with the Master. It is shown in the alternate reality that appears in “The Wish” (S03E09) that the Master would have succeeded in ruling Sunnydale, and reduced its citizens to living in fear, if Buffy and the Scoobies were not there to prevent it. In the primary reality of the show, the Master is shown to have on his side an ancient prophecy that dictates that he and Buffy will fight, that he will win, and that she will die. What the Master did not account for, and what allows Buffy the opportunity to defeat him, is that the prophecy was less complete than he thought, and did not include Buffy being revived through CPR. The Master, in this way, represents whatever destiny one may find imposed upon them, and Buffy’s victory argues that destinies can be expanded and changed.

While it is a given that all characters (villains included) ought to have flaws, and characters without flaws would result in a boring story, there must be some reasoning behind the flaws for them to maintain the suspension of disbelief in the eyes of the viewer. The flaws in the plans of the Mayor and the Master make sense within the laws and logic of the world. The Mayor briefly losing his invulnerability shortly after his transformation makes sense as a kind of side effect of the magical process. Admittedly it does not make sense in the strict, absolute sense of the phrase, but it is no more or less arbitrary than any of the other weird magical aspects depicted on the show. So it gets a pass. Similarly, it is believable that the Master, being old and supernatural and therefore more traditional compared to the modern sensibilities of the Scooby Gang, is not self aware enough to consider the possibility that the prophecy could be wrong or incomplete. Conversely, the flaws displayed by the Initiative run in stark contrast to the success they are implied to have had before they first show up on screen, and gives them the appearance of being destined for collapse. Finally, while the Trio has the potential to be a threat, they are arbitrarily deflated and undercut by nearly every character on the show. From a Doylist or non-diegetic perspective, if the show underscores the Trio as a joke, then the audience will similarly view them as a joke. While it is understandable that the writers may want to show their disapproval of topics like fascism and misogyny by having the villains who represent these concepts be shown in a bad light and therefore less deserving of victory, an excess of this reduces not only the villains themselves, but also what issues or problems they represent, causing any victory over them to ring a bit more hollow. For a show that is so often rather empowering, having these seasons end on such a hollow victory is considerably disappointing.

Essay – Modern Mellow Yellow: Unfortunate Implications in Buffy the Vampire Slayer

15 June 2017

Modern Mellow Yellow: Unfortunate Implications in Buffy the Vampire Slayer

One aspect of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that has perhaps become more clear in the passing of time is the rather monochromatic depth of its racial diversity. While there have been a handful of appearances of non-white actors in the first few seasons, these were primarily minor characters and often stereotyped. Absolom, Mr Trick, and Kendra, to name a few, are each depicted in a way that underscores their otherness, with the latter being given an infamous accent that Buffy herself mocks (S02E10 “What’s My Line Part 2”, 27:19). While the depiction of black characters is arguably evened out with the non-stereotypical – though brief – appearances of Mr Platt the guidance counselor (S03E04 “Beauty and the Beasts”), Olivia Williams (S04E01 “The Freshman”), and Forrest Gates (S04E07 “The Initiative”), the same cannot be said for the depiction of Asian characters. This essay will talk about each of the Asian characters who appear in the first half of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and their problematic representation. All are stereotypical, or otherwise disposable, in ways that reinforce a number of expected and assumed traits in Asian characters. As there are apparently only four Asian characters in all of Sunnydale so far, it is a short list.

The first character and the character who is technically the closest to being fully developed is Holly Charleston, the Asian homecoming candidate competing against Cordelia and Buffy in their senior year (S03E05 “Homecoming”). A significant amount of Holly’s character is gleaned from the whiteboard assembled by Buffy when measuring her competition. Buffy, on her whiteboard, lists Holly’s strengths as “Debate skills, straight A’s, drill team, good in sports, always studies, nice, sweet” and her weaknesses as “Few friends, new student, no boyfriend, introvert, always studying” (18:11). A number of the listed attributes fall into the stereotypical Overachieving Asian and Shy Asian clichés, and Holly with her brief screen time is not shown in any way to disprove these traits. However, Holly is particularly interesting as there is just enough doubt in her characterization that the blame could be shifted to be “in-universe” rather than existing in the production of the show. This is because, contrary to Buffy’s interpretation of Holly as being an overachiever, Cordelia dismissively describes her as braindead (8:49). Furthermore, while Holly does not do anything to disprove the traits attributed to her on the whiteboard, she does not do anything to confirm them either. If the viewer is to follow this line of thought, by believing Cordelia over the character whose name is in the title, then rather than the show being vaguely racist, it is Buffy herself. That is to say, this allows the possibility that Holly is a much more diverse, independent, and dynamic character than Buffy assumes her to be, and not a rather shallow Asian stereotype like the show initially suggests. However, I don’t imagine having the show’s eponymous character and literal saviour be sort of understatedly racist, rather than the show itself, is much of an improvement.

The next example is the unnamed Asian member of Cordelia’s former clique who appears in “The Wish” (S03E09). While she, unlike Holly, is not given a name nor a distinct personality, she does receive a small number of speaking lines. This is, arguably, good; the show is not othering her or playing into any particular stereotypes. However, the problem arises in the alternate Wish Universe, where she is singled out to be the first and only, with regard to the confines of the episode, person to have her blood gruesomely harvested from her still-living body by The Master’s “killing machine.” The implications of this are many and unfortunate. While the script lists the victim in the scene generically as “Screaming Girl,” a character implicitly separate from the girl in the clique, the choice to have the roles combined into one results in the victimization of one of the few non-stereotypical minority characters of the show. Perhaps this was done with an eye toward the budget. Or perhaps this was done because the girl, being one of the few Asian characters on the show, would stand out to audiences because of her exoticism and allow them to recognize her as the same Asian girl from the clique and therefore illicit a stronger emotional connection to the scene. If the latter is the case, then the show would at best be using her race as a distinguishing feature, making it equivalent to giving someone an eye patch or funny hat, or at worst replicating the trope of the Disposable Token Minority so commonly seen in the horror media Buffy so often tries to subvert. While she is implied to be still alive in the primary reality, she is never seen again after the scene of her death, leaving her character on a rather sour note. Therefore, she is a character of colour who is implied to have existed in the somewhere in the background before as a member of Cordelia’s friends (and the actor previously appeared as effectively the same character in the unaired pilot episode), but in her first actual appearance is summarily executed in an abattoir. While the death does take place in an undone reality, and the character is likely alive again off screen, having a minority character suddenly materialize for a single episode as part of a group before being executed is extremely problematic.

The final two examples are the two unnamed Asian students who separately appear in “Earshot” (S03E18) and “The Harsh Light of Day” (S04E03). In “Earshot,” the student in question is the one who briefly passes Buffy in the halls, identified as a Nerd in the script, who aspires to be a “software jillionaire” and that those who bully him will be less successful in adulthood (12:27). While the episode does deal with the idea that everyone is burdened by their own troubles, and while Nerd himself is not necessarily problematic in isolation, the choice of casting an Asian performer for the role is problematic in that it underscores the cliché of the Studious Asian and that Asians are associated with computers, due to Nerd specifying that his interest is in software.

Similarly, in “The Harsh Light of Day” an Asian character appears on screen barely conscious and chained to a wall in Spike and Harmony’s excavation cave as their shared meal (11:50). He differs from many other nameless victims in Buffy in that he is inexplicably given some characterization. The audience is given three pieces of information about him by Harmony, each equally problematic: he was in Harmony’s math class, she remembers not liking him, and he “tastes funny.” By having Harmony associate him with a math class (or alternatively, casting an Asian performer as someone who would believably be in a math class) again reinforces the Asians Are Good at Math stereotype previously suggested with the “always studying” Holly Charleston. This association could have been avoided by declaring nearly any course other than Math. Similarly, having Harmony presenting her negative opinion of him as one of his three character traits is a bad foot on which to introduce a helpless character who is likely to be dead soon. By characterizing him negatively, rather than something more substantial like him having a family or even eating the same sandwich every lunch hour, Harmony and the show dismiss him as disposable. That is to say that since Harmony did not like him, he is therefore unlikeable, and therefore it is more okay that he is chained up instead of someone more sympathetic. The third piece of characterization, and in fact the first comment Harmony makes about the character, is that he tastes funny. As he is their meal it is hard to not see this as a joke about Chinese take-out and on Chinese food in general. This is underscored by Spike and Harmony arguing over him like a couple would argue about dinner plans. This is, perhaps, one of the more dehumanizing instances of stereotypes on Buffy in part because of how casually it is done. Furthermore, the victim is implied to taste so poorly that Harmony refuses to feed on him. Connecting this to other mentions and depictions in Buffy where a vampire finds a given human to be not worthy of feeding further lowers the victim character and helps categorize him as other. Whereas regular humans are Happy Meals with legs, this Asian victim is apparently a weird box of spoiled Chinese mystery meat.

For someone who would be watching the show during its original broadcast, the show as it stands in what would end up being the middle of its run does not have a very encouraging trajectory in its depiction of Asian characters, and this is not even considering the character Chao-Ahn who appears in the final season (and is therefore not covered in this essay) and in many ways comes from the Long Duk Dong school of comedic minorities. It’s not that the show needs more Asian characters per se, it is that there are so few of them that the ones who do show up inevitably become representations of the whole, and the representation so far seems to be that of a very narrow and stereotypical casting. The British characters, who are also othered to a degree, are depicted fully enough and diversely enough to show various levels of goodness, competency, and attitude so as to present a range of possibilities. For a show that is so often about empowerment it is disappointing that this first half of the Buffy seemingly does not extend that to its Asian characters. While this may be a relic of the time it was made, the other avenues of representation the show does choose to depict, like those characterized by Buffy and Willow, were very heartening to those who identified with them. Buffy showed that a blonde high school girl can not only be something other than a victim, but can be someone who fights back. Willow, too, showed that even a quiet and nerdy wallflower can become a powerful and relatively more assertive witch. Willow pushed representation even further in the fourth season when she begins a relationship with Tara. So with all this empowerment and representation, it is unfortunate the same could not be said of the apparently few Asian residents of Sunnydale. In the same way that Willow and Tara’s relationship was a beacon of representation for their LGBTQ+ viewers, every Asian character seemed to only remind Asian viewers that they’re good at math and and not much else; caricatures in a world of monsters.

Mission Statement

3 March 2014

Mission Statement

 

I could write much about the mountains

Of snow capped peaks where roots fear to tread

and clouds leap out your lungs to float to the heavens

But my home is closer to the sea

 

I could write much about the sea as sailors do

Sailing across a boiling pot in wooden cups with not a drop to drink

Or of the skyscrapers of flesh below that sing their slow song

But I never learned how to swim

 

I could write about the valleys

Where fruits and flowers sway

While the rivers etch soft alleys

But I’d probably mess up the rhyme

 

I could write of love

Of shy kisses and first blushes

Or curled toes or backseat fumblings

But there’s a lot of that on the internet already

 

I could write of fear

and grief and war and blood

and the sweet salt of tears

Forgotten mine fields and rats gnawing on lips

fingers for teeth

napalm and mustard gas

a child devoured by the sow

the smiler with the knife

But those words are ceaseless and I like my sleep

 

I could write to sell pipe dreams to the unwashed masses

Where each pipe is filled with snake oil

A suit and tie and slicked back hair

But I

 

I could write about Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote

left Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

so now My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun

But I’m just a little bit caught in the middle

 

I could write of the man on the corner

cupping for coins from sippers of art

isanal lattes

But the words belong to those who can do more for him than write

 

I could write in haiku

or lowku or couplets or doublets

or spooners or greens

But I won’t

 

A commercial

for Studio Notebooks by Dell

once said that

“We are the music makers

And we are the dreamers of dreams”

And if you dream in classic rock

and I dream in Top 40s

then we’re just different stations of the same radio

The trombones and saxophones of the same philharmonic

 

But what presses my keys

and makes my fingers go all allegro

was a quote

about how poems

are like children

Sometimes saying things you didn’t intend

 

I want to push them out of the nest

To get their own jobs

building bridges

between Kierkegaard and Kardashian

and Mr Freeze and Robert Frost

the poet Poe and the rest of his Teletubbies

To make people do a double take

And to say things

far

greater than I ever could

all work and no play makes jack a dull boy

7 April 2014

all work and no play makes jack a dull boy

all work and no play makes jack a dull boy
all work and no play makes jack a productive member of society
all work and no play makes ends meet
all work and no play makes jack a tidy sum of savings
all work and no play puts jack third in line for a promotion
all work and no play distracts jack from his novel
all work and low pay makes juan a threat to the working man
all wok and no soy makes jack a terrible fried rice
all work and no play makes jack known as “that guy” among the office
all chicken and no pork makes jack the other white meat
all work and no play makes jack lose weekend visitation rights
all work and no play makes jack buy the same brand of coffee even though it is expensive and he doesn’t like the way it tastes with his sourdough bagel and cream cheese
all work and no play gives jack a reason to move on
all work and no play makes jack a stunted poppy
all work and no play fulfills jack on a spiritual level
all work and no play makes jack check the oven nine times before he leaves his apartment
all work and no play transfers jack to the oshawa branch
all old country buffet makes jack buy a new belt
all work and no play makes jack afraid of change
all work and no play makes jack deal only in bills
all cirque and no soleil makes jack vitamin d deficient
all work and no play makes jack old before his time

all work and no play assures jack that his children and grandchildren are safe and that they all send their love

speaker of the mouse

7 April 2014

speaker of the mouse

The sky smells of indigo and the air is cotton candy
for limes vomit sunshine of the people
the most pure distilling of alarm
is a trout in the
path of an astronauts boot
a dog in the wine
morose
no friend of bob barker
wedding bells giggle the
lambs to slaughter
it aint over till the fat lady sings
the treat’s on me

ever upward

6 April 2014

ever upward

deep beats the heart of new amsterdam
citizens walk streets with heads

bowed

and hands clasped together
as tri-tones ring among the buzz of bees

on every corner star bucking broncos
pulling carriages painted gold in honour
of crowned Queen Victoria and Henry Ford

huddled masses yearn to break free
as they WALL from trinity to the bay and more
while geckos bail a risky business

the jaws of life, being the opposite of a vice, must be a virtue

27 January 2014

the jaws of life, being the opposite of a vice, must be a virtue

If I were to knit a story which

say

more than

a little bit

resembled

the Roman myth about Romulus and Remus

where one of the Star Trek aliens is furious at his brother for being super racist

would I have to make it rhyme?

 

Because

as they say

the only true authority lies with the author

by which I mean

the only true truth lies in the eyes of a liar

and that

words are lies with wind

 

but letters, like diamonds, are forever

especially shitty ones

because the shelf life of a book

is a literal literary lateral eight

until someone pulls it off

marking it up with dog ears and cat flaps

and margarine in the margins

so the good ones aren’t the ones we’re left with

I’m sure high school students would agree.

 

But

as we learned from Don Quixote

the story of Viggo Mortensen tilting his mustang at dutch windmills

the point isn’t whether they are windmills or not

but that they might be.

 

So when faced with someone who might have authority

ask if they’re an author

and if you’re faced with a cop

ask what their favourite movie is

because

as a cop

they have to tell you

otherwise it’s entrapment

starring Catherine Zeta-Jones

.

Discretion is Not More Important Than Success

16 December 2013

Discretion is Not More Important Than Success

“Was… the heist really necessary?” Agent Pendergast sits behind his desk, glasses in his right hand, his left rubbing the space between his bushy eyebrows. A fifteen page report sits on his desk. Albert sits across from him. They are in Agent Pendergast’s office. The walls are painted in subtle variations of grey so as to hide or exaggerate shadows and lighting. The vertical blinds behind him are drawn and the radiator case below rattles as it breathes. Paintings of shapes and landscapes hang on the walls next to impressive looking certificates. A vase of flowers stands on a bookshelf to the side and pictures of strangers sit framed on his desk. He puts his glasses back on.

“Yes, sir,” Albert says, “I believe it was.” He is sitting on the other side of the desk. Unlike Pendergast, the chair Albert is sitting in does not swivel or bend. It is stiff. Rigid. A classic wooden chair with four legs, a seat, and a back. The kind of chair a child pictures when learning what words start with C.

Pendergast looks at the man across from him. At the wrinkles around his eyes and the thinning white hair, a far cry from the long redacted photos buried behind black bars and cobwebs. Pendergast sighs and leans back in his chair, the springs and gears cradling his girthy frame. His I-don’t-do-field-work physique has reached the point where his wife insists he switch over to vegetarian bacon, which he hates. “Let’s come back to that.” He taps his fingers on the report in front of him. “Let’s talk about the report itself and how you don’t seem to follow the suggested tone that your reports are supposed to have.”

“How do you mean, sir?”

“It sounds like a fucking story, is what I mean. You- you talk about what kind of watches you’re wearing, you write down every time someone laughs, you go on this weird monologue about death at the end even though you’re perfectly fine. The point of these reports is to convey information, not withhold it. And this,” he flips to a page in the middle of the report. “‘I get very stabby when people get blood on my things‘? You know I’m going to have to put that in my psych eval later this month, right? And what about those office workers? They all saw your face. A fact which you very pointedly emphasize. You gave it its own line and everything. ‘I took off my ski mask.'”

Albert sits with his hands folded, composing his response in his head as the clock ticks loudly on the wall behind him. “I believe,” he begins, “that discretion is not more important than success. I have ever since Yucca Valley. I completed my missions. I do not see the issue.”

Pendergast pulls his mouth back into a grimace. He looks down at the report and picks up a pen and twirls it twice before looking back up. “Albert, there’s always bigger fish. And my bigger fish disagree with you.” He begins flipping through the report, aimlessly, to seem more official rather than to look for particular line or passage. “Your mission was to recruit a potential asset and eliminate a priority target. It was not to do both at the same time while terrorizing a dozen pencil pushers!”

Albert maintains his composure. A shouting match with a superior officer will not help his case. “The target was neutralized and the asset proved to be unfit for the position.”

“We have tests for that. Written tests! We don’t have them gallivanting through cubicles pointing guns at secretaries and stealing diamonds!”

Albert clears his throat and tilts his head towards the flower arrangement on the shelf. The flowers conceal a camera and a microphone, of which Pendergast and Albert are both aware.

Pendergast sighs deeply. “Sorry.” He removes his glasses and starts wiping them with a cloth. “You’re good at what you do, Albert. One of the best. But your… antics have escalated since Yucca Valley; don’t think They haven’t noticed.” Albert begins to speak but Pendergast raises a hand to stop him. “Your missions have grown increasingly complex and convoluted, all at your own hand. They were okay with it, seeing as how things were still getting done, but now They feel that the level of convolution is beginning to reach that of, if you’ll pardon the expression, a Bond villain. Do you understand the reference?”

“I do, sir. Roger Moore?”

Pendergast blinks and puts his glasses back on. Who was Roger Moore? “Sure, yeah. Look, it’s not just the heist. It’s that you’ve done six other things of that scale in the last month. They’re getting worried. And when The Chairmen get worried nations rise and fall.” Pendergast pushes his glasses higher up his nose. “You’ve been working here a long time, Albert. Hell, you’ve been here longer than I have! Do you know the trainees tell stories about you? Oh yeah. It’s always Albert this and Albert that. They change your last name every time, you know, but it’s always you.”

“Sir?”

“I wanted you to know that so you’ll know where I’m coming from when I tell you what I’m about to tell you.” Pendergast lifts his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose. “The Chairmen feel that you should take some time off. Recharge, recalibrate, whatever you want to call it. A… a long overdue sabbatical. Whatever. The world will still be here when you get back. The Chairmen believe that whatever it was you saw at Yucca Valley has had an affect on you and They want you to take it easy until you’re back at peak condition. Your partner too.”

Albert sits serenely in his chair.

“Well, say something. Do you understand? You’re not being fired or anything.”

Albert smiles. “Loud and clear.”

Pendergast smiles in return. “Fantastic. Have you ever tried whittling? I know it’s sort of cliché but I hear it’s incredibly relaxing. There’s a little hobby shop off Main and 12th that should have everything you’ll need. Hope to see you back soon.”

The men shake hands and Albert leaves the office. As he walks through the halls coworkers in suits periodically smile and nod at him as he passes. He smiles and nods at them in return. He leaves the building, not saying a word, and walks through the parking lot of identical grey sedans until he reaches his own. Allan is inside sitting on the passenger seat shooting aliens on his phone.

“So what was that about?” he asks, not looking up, when Albert opens the door.

Albert sits behind the wheel and shuts the door. “Glasses code. We’re going after The Chairmen.”

Allan is taken aback. He turns towards Albert; the soldier on the phone is eviscerated by a pair of mandibles shortly after. “What? The Chairmen? Are you sure?”

Albert looks back at the tall grey building. Maybe some time off would be good. Maybe Yucca Valley did affect him more than he thought. “Positive,” he says. He starts the car.

Sir Mix-A-Lot

27 January 2014

Sir Mix-A-Lot

“Sir Mix-A-Lot likes big butts and cannot lie. His identical brother hates big butts and cannot tell the truth. You are allowed one question.”

-Socrates

 

When Kanye and Kim were having a baby,

we storyboarded names they would call it.

One of us said Lily and the other said,

that if they hyphenated the last name,

that Lily West-Kardashian

sounds like a character from a Gaiman novel

and that they could totally see, in the inevitable film adaptation,

Warwick Davis playing some sort of guardian to the child,

Lily West-Kardashian: the chosen one,

running through the forest with her in a basket.

Did you say that or did I?

 

Which of us drank AKs like water and didn’t afraid of anything?

Alexander Keith, Toby Keith, Keith Richard, Richard Branson, Branson- I’m blanking here,

Missouri? Is Missouri a thing?

Which of us nodded?

 

If one of us was country

and the other liked Sufjan Stevens,

which one of us didn’t like Love Actually?

Who doesn’t like Love Actually?

Like, actually?

 

Did you get engaged or did I?

How much was the ring?

The reception?

The food?

 

Which of us mused about infinity

while staring up at the last drop

in the bottom of the brown beer bottle?

 

Which of us woke up one morning

with an oxygen mask in their room?

 

Which one of us

went on and on

and on and on

and on and on

and on and on

and on and on

about how people have more than five senses?

And how that whole idea

came from Aristotle

who also thought there were only four elements,

that was you, right?

 

Did one of us get

into a fistfight with a birthday clown?

Or was that just an episode

of Malcolm in the Middle?

 

Which of us flipped out when Harrison Ford

mispronounced ‘nuclear’ in the newest Indiana Jones?

(Which of us noticed he also said ‘libary’?)

 

Which of us chased after a guy

who stole a laptop out of a parked car?

 

Will you be remembered or will I?