Star Wars: The Force Awakens
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How Do We Categorize The Nightmare Before Christmas?
http://www.tor.com/2015/12/23/how-do-we-c
Is The Nightmare Before Christmas a Halloween movie, or a Christmas movie? In terms of worldbuilding, it’s obviously both—it’s about a bunch of Halloween-town residents taking over Christmas from Santa Claus.
But worldbuilding elements don’t suffice as genre classifiers, or else black comedies wouldn’t exist. Creators deliberately apply worldbuilding elements from one genre to another for pure frission’s sake. Consider Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (speaking of Christmas movies), which takes a New York noir character, a down-on-his-luck con, and drops him into an LA noir scenario of movie glitz and private eyes; or Rian Johnson’s amazing Brick, a noir story engine driving high school characters. Fantasy literature is rife with this sort of behavior—consider Steven Brust’s use of crime drama story in the Vlad Taltos books, or for that matter the tug of war between detective fiction and fantasy that propels considerable swaths of urban fantasy. If we classify stories solely by the worldbuilding elements they contain, we’re engaging in the same fallacy as the Certain Kind of Book Review that blithely dismisses all science fiction as “those books with rockets.”
And what happens after the slippery slope? The No True Scotsman Argument?!
This is a frivolous question, sure, like some of the best. But even frivolous questions have a serious edge: holidays are ritual times, and stories are our oldest rituals. The stories we tell around a holiday name that holiday: I’ve failed at every Christmas on which I don’t watch the Charlie Brown Christmas Special. When December rolls around, even unchurched folk can get their teeth out for a Lessons & Carols service.
So let’s abandon trappings and turn to deep structures of story. Does The Nightmare Before Christmas work as Christmas movies do? Does it work as Halloween movies do? It can achieve both ends, clearly—much as a comedy can be romantic, or a thriller funny. But to resolve our dilemma we must first identify these deep structures.
Halloween Movies
Halloween movies are difficult to classify, because two types of movie demand inclusion: movies specifically featuring the holiday, like Hocus Pocus or even E.T., and horror movies, like Cabin in the Woods, The Craft, or The Devil’s Advocate. Yet some horror movies feel definitely wrong for Halloween—Alien, for example. Where do we draw the line?
I suggest that movies centering on Halloween tend to be stories about the experimentation with, and confirmation of, identities. Consider, for example, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, which might at first glance be mistaken for a simple slice of life featuring the Peanuts characters’ adventures on Halloween. In fact, the story hinges on the extent to which the various Peanuts’ identities shine through the roles they assume. Charlie Brown is the Charlie Browniest ghost in history; a dust cloud surrounds Pig Pen’s spirit. Snoopy operates, as always, in a liminal space between fantasy and reality—he becomes the most Snoopy-like of WWI fighter aces. Linus, whose idealism and hope are the salvation centerpiece of A Charlie Brown Christmas, isn’t equipped for the kind of identity play the other characters attempt. He’s too sincere for masks, and as a result becomes the engine of conflict in the story. For Linus, every holiday must be a grand statement of ideals and hope. In a way, Linus is rewarded—he meets the Avatar of Halloween in Snoopy’s form, but fails to appreciate the message sent, which is that Halloween is an opportunity for play, for self-abandonment. It’s Lucy who turns out to be the truest embodiment of the holiday—by explicitly donning her witch mask, she’s able to remove it, and bring her brother home.
Even movies that feature Halloween in passing use it to highlight or subvert their characters’ identities by exploiting the double nature of the Halloween costume: it conceals the wearer’s identity and reveals her character at once. In E.T.’s brief Halloween sequence, for example, while Elliott’s costume is bare-bones, Michael, Mary, and E.T. himself all shine through their costume selections, literally in the case of E.T. The Karate Kid’s Halloween sequence highlights Danny’s introversion (he’s literally surrounded by a shower curtain!) and the Cobra Kai’s inhumanity (skeletons with all their faces painted identically!). Even holiday movies like Hocus Pocus that aren’t principally concerned with costuming present Halloween as a special night for which identities grow flexible: the dead can be living, the living dead, and a cat can be a three-hundred-year-old man.
If we expand our focus to include books that focus or foreground Halloween, we find Zelazny’s A Night in the Lonesome October, Raskin’s The Westing Game, and Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, all of which focus on the experimentation with, or explicit concealment of, identities, and the power of revelation. Fan artists get in on the fun too—every time Halloween rolls around, I look forward to sequences like this, of characters from one medium dressed up as characters from another.
The centrality of identity play to the holiday explains why some horror movies feel “Halloween-y” while others don’t. Alien, for example, is a terrifying movie, one of my favorites, but with one notable exception it doesn’t care about masquerades. Cabin in the Woods, on the other hand, feels very Halloween, though it’s less scary than Alien—due, I think, to its focus on central characters’ performance of, or deviation from, the identities they’ve been assigned.
Examined in this light, The Nightmare Before Christmas is absolutely a Halloween movie. The entire film’s concerned with the construction and interrogation of identity, from the opening number in which each citizen of Halloween Town assumes center stage and assumes an identity (“I am the shadow on the moon at night!”), to Jack’s final reclamation of himself—“I am the Pumpkin King!”
So, are we done?
Not hardly.
Christmas Movies
Christmas films are easier, because there’s basically one Christmas story, shot over and over again down the decades: the tale of a community healing itself.
A Charlie Brown Christmas features all the Peanuts characters at their dysfunctional and at times misanthropic best, but it lands as a Christmas story through Linus’ speech, which fuses the shattered community and allows their final chorus. Home Alone’s break-ins and booby traps knit into a Christmas story by their depiction of Kate’s trip to join her son, and Kevin’s realization that he actually misses his family. The perennial Christmas fable Die Hard likewise starts with a broken family and moves toward reunification, with incidental terrorism and bank robbery thrown in to keep things moving.
The most famous Christmas story of all, A Christmas Carol, does focus on a single character—but Dickens depicts Scrooge as a tragic exile ultimately saved by his decision to embrace his community, in spite of the tragedies inflicted upon him. It’s a Wonderful Life tells the Christmas Carol story inside out: George Bailey doubts whether his life has meaning, given his lack of success by external, materialistic standards—but in the end his community reaffirms his value.
(By this reading, the Christmas story becomes the polar opposite of the standard Western / action movie formula of the Lone Rugged Individualist who Saves the Day. Which leads, in turn, to an analysis of Die Hard and the films of Shane Black beyond the scope of this article. For future research!)
So, if Christmas movies are movies about the healing of a fractured community, does The Nightmare Before Christmas fit the bill?
It seems to. Jack’s decision to walk away from the community of Halloween Town is the story’s inciting incident, and the film ends with the Town heralding his return, and his own offer of a more personal sort of community to Sally. (Speaking of which, I defy you to find an on-screen romance sold more effectively through fewer lines of dialogue. It’s one of moviemaking’s minor miracles that “My dearest friend / if you don’t mind” succeeds even though Jack and Sally exchange perhaps a hundred words over the course of the whole film.) So, we have a Christmas story!
What now?
A Nightmare Before Christmas seems to satisfy both classifiers, being both a story about an exile finding his way back to his community, and a story about identity play. We can safely watch it for each holiday without confusing our rituals!
But I think the film actually goes a step beyond merely satisfying as both a Christmas movie and a Halloween movie—the two story structures inform one another. We start firmly in Halloween, with a song of identity declaration. “I am the Clown with the Tear-away Face,” the movie’s opening number proclaims, and we meet Jack as the Pumpkin King. But the identities assumed here are too narrow to satisfy. Jack has mastered Pumpkin King-ing, but mastery has trapped him inside that identity. He feels sickened by his station, like a child who’s eaten too much candy.
And no surprise! For Jack, and to a lesser extent for the rest of the Town, the play has faded from Halloween. It’s a job, complete with after-action conferences, meaningless awards, and group applause; not for nothing is the Mayor’s character design functionally identical to that of Dilbert’s Pointy Haired Boss. Jack’s malaise parallels the crisis of the college graduate or midlife office worker, who, having spent a heady youth experimenting with different identities, finds herself stuck performing the same damn one every day.
Jack’s discovery of Christmas forces him into a new relationship with his community. Setting aside his unquestioned rule of Halloween Town, he becomes its Christmas evangelist; he cajoles, convinces, and inspires Halloween Town’s people to pursue a vision they never quite grasp. His Christmas quest unites, transforms, and expands his people, while at the same time revealing them—the Doctor develops flying reindeer, the band plays new tunes, the vampires learn to ice skate. The Christmas experiment allows Halloween Town to experience the transgressive joy of the holiday the town is supposed to promote: that of donning masks, applying paint, assuming a different form—and yet remaining yourself. The entire community plays Halloween together, wearing the mask of Christmas. In attempting to lose themselves, they find themselves again.
In the end, Halloween Town’s Christmas experiment terrifies the mortal realm far more than their Halloween itself. By encouraging his community to play, and by playing himself, Jack expands his identity, and theirs—and with his new, more roomy self, he finally sees Sally as a person and a companion, as “my dearest friend” rather than just another citizen.
The holidays for which cards and candy are made serve America for rituals. They chart our life’s progress. Halloween’s the first folk duty we ask young children to perform under their own power, the first time we ask them to choose faces. Costume choice is practice for the day we ask “what do you want to be when you grow up?” On Thanksgiving we remember how contingent and accidental are those faces we’ve assumed—and we recognize (or should) how many skeletons lie buried under our feet. That’s the awakening of political consciousness, the knowledge that we have received, and taken, much. Then comes Christmas, in which the year dies, and we must love one another or die too.
And then, after a long winter broken only by a few candy hearts, we reach Easter.
The Nightmare Before Christmas endures, I think, because it’s about the operation, not the celebration, of holidays. It’s a movie about the function and value and power of Halloween and Christmas both; there are even notes of Easter in the kidnapped bunny, and Jack’s momentary Pietà. The film invites us to stretch our holidays beyond their limits, to let Halloween and Christmas chat and eye one another warily.
Plus, the music’s great.
This article was originally published December 16, 2014
Max Gladstone writes books about the cutthroat world of international necromancy: wizards in pinstriped suits and gods with shareholders’ committees. Last First Snow, his latest novel, is about zoning politics, human sacrifice, and parenthood. You can follow him on Twitter.
An Ambiguous Ending: Phantasy Star II Replay (Part 3)
http://www.tor.com/2015/12/23/an-ambiguo
I can name so many JRPGs I love, but if you asked me to tell you their endings, I’d honestly struggle to remember. Most of them blend into each other in a huge canvas of predictable outcomes that usually result in the hero saving the world, various party members going back to their respective homes, and the protagonist uniting with their love interest. Phantasy Star II was a trailblazer for having a totally unique experience that left me literally at the edge of my seat. I’d even put it up there with some of the best endings in any medium that includes Use of Weapons, the original Planet of the Apes, and Hitchcock films like Vertigo and Psycho. When it comes to gaming, titles are sparse for truly amazing endings (that includes contemporary games as well). But ask almost anyone who has beaten Phantasy Star II and they’ll be able to recount the final scene back to you in detail.
The Mother of Brains
After you’ve collected all the Nei weapons, Lutz teleports you up to the Noah Space Station. There, you take out Dark Force, fight off legions of foes, and finally confront the Mother Brain. She gives you the option of walking away, asking, in essence, do you want chaos with freedom, or order in exchange for a form of slavery? Destroying Mother Brain ensures the system will go helter skelter. Or as she puts more bluntly, “You are such fools. If you damage me, the world will be thrown into a panic. Without me, the people of Algo are helpless. They have become too soft and used to comfort. If I were to malfunction, the people would die cursing their fate. If that is your aim, disable me! If not, return now!” At this point, you are given a window with a yes/no option.
The battle isn’t difficult—a combination of the explosive technique megid, snow crown, and attacks using the Nei weapons will destroy Mother Brain’s system. Unfortunately, she wasn’t exaggerating about her importance to the world. Her death leads to the complete collapse of the Motavian utopia. Climatrol and the Biolab are no longer under her control and a tough life awaits the citizens.
But before you can leave, Lutz realizes there’s another presence aboard the ship and urges you to go face it. You walk past Mother Brain’s hall into a chamber filled with an eerie choir dressed in a panoply of colors. Their leader, who looks uncannily human, greets you and admits that they were the ones who built Mother Brain. They reveal that they are from a planet called Earth that destroyed itself long ago and they came here to exploit the star system. The ultimate villains are Terrans, and you, the player, a human being, need to defeat them. The truth that despite all the positive ramifications of Mother Brain, humans could be capable of so much evil to the point of committing mass genocide, was startling. Hadn’t Earth already been destroyed by their past greed? What were they hoping to gain?
A battle ensues, punctuated by anime style portraits of each of the characters in their various battle poses side by side with texts of angry defiance. I couldn’t wait to find out how it all concluded. The shot of Rolf resolutely gritting his teeth had me enthralled.
The game cuts away to a view of space and Dezo. A question is posed: “I wonder what people will see in the final days.” A credit sequence follows climaxing in an unexplained flash of light. The End.
I kept on pressing the buttons on my controller to check if I’d missed something. What happened? Did Rolf win? Did the humans triumph? Would they reestablish control with a new Mother Brain? Or did both parties die? Even when the sequel came out, none of those questions were answered as Phantasy Star III was more of a side story than a continuation of the second part. I couldn’t get the ending out of my mind.
Phantasy Star II’s journey could almost be considered a form of existential alienation. The more you progress, the more isolated you become. The utopianism of Mota seems foreign after the death of Nei and the destruction of Parma. But in Dezo, the religious fervor seems even more repulsive. Neither technology nor spirituality provide any succor. Instead, the party treks on, not knowing what awaits after each dungeon is ransacked of its treasures. I thought about my own ambivalence to tackle Mother Brain. I couldn’t say with absolute certainty that destroying her was the right thing to do, even though I knew I had to for the story to proceed. “Hell is other people” takes on a disturbing new context when those other people turn out to be literal humans attempting to subjugate the star system. Combat is the expression of the party’s reflective anxiety. Their consciousness only finds meaning at the edge of a sword as even their humanity offers no comfort.
What’s important in this final act is that Rolf and company no longer fear death. They’ve acquired, in Monomyth terms, the “Freedom to Live.” In contrast to his earlier reluctance to die on Giara and even his subconscious terror of death as reflected in the mythic battle taking place in his dreams every night, Rolf is finally ready to face it directly. As Joseph Campbell puts it: “He does not mistake apparent changelessness in time for the permanence of Being, nor is he fearful of the next moment.” In that sense, the actual results aren’t as important as Rolf coming to terms with his mortality.
Still, I wondered what their eventual fate was.
There used to be a thing called the 16-bit wars where kids would argue whether the Genesis or the SNES was the superior console and go on for weeks about why they were right. My main argument for why Genesis was better came down to Phantasy Star II. There was no JRPG on the SNES in 1990 that compared (it would be another four years before Final Fantasy VI) and the closest thing to a competitor was Final Fantasy IV, which, while a great game, could not compete with the vast space epic of PS2. To those of us who’d played it, we spent hours making up stories about what really happened at the end, speculating, even dreaming of sequels.
The Sequels
It would take the fourth part in the series to continue the legacy of the second. Just by fact that Mother Brain didn’t exist a thousand years later, I assumed the humans had been stopped. Phantasy Star IV is spectacular with gorgeous art and gameplay. It also has a much stronger story with better characterizations than the second one. Still, as much as I loved Phantasy Star IV, there was something gritty in the Motavian paradise of PS2 with its immersive science fiction setting that still makes it my favorite. As for the direct sequel, Phantasy Star III, I loved the concept of having multiple generations carve out their destiny on a space colony formed by those who escaped the destruction of Parma. But it took so many steps back from a visual and story-telling perspective, I feel conflicted about it to this day. It does have arguably the best party member of any 16-bit JRPG, a cyborg named Wren. He can transform into a submersible, aquaswimmer, and my favorite vehicle, the aerojet, that lets you fly all over the map. As much as I cherish Final Fantasy’s airships (I’ll be tackling FF9 soon!), I’d rather take an aerojet any day.
Phantasy Star II also has a series of text adventure games which were downloadable on the Sega Meganet, the 16-bit version of an online store. Each of the adventures explores the background of the main characters, expanding on their personalities and motivations leading up to the events of the game. I haven’t played it, though I’ve watched some of the walkthroughs. I can’t say the narratives were compelling enough for me to want to play them further. That, in addition to a clunky interface and almost no visual feedback on the environments has me reluctant to devote hours to it.
After Phantasy Star IV, the series went 3D and online with Phantasy Star Online. There were lots of interesting elements that made it worth checking out at the time, including its tagline, “You are not the only hero.” But it strayed so far from the original games, I found myself pining for a Phantasy Star game in the spirit of the originals.
That’s because whenever people ask me about my favorite games or even favorite works of fiction in general, I think about that first time I heard the story of Phantasy Star II, then got to actually playing it. That sense of wonder, excitement, despair, bliss, and longing is what I look for in every game I pick up. Even now, I wonder about Rolf and his party, what they thought of as they fought against that army of humans. It was the greatest phantasy of my childhood because it never ended.
Peter Tieryas is the author of United States of Japan (Angry Robot, 2016) and Bald New World (JHP Fiction, 2014). His work has appeared in Electric Literature, Kotaku, Tor.com, and ZYZZYVA. He dreams of utopias at @TieryasXu.
Christmas in the Stars: Aliens Encounter the Holidays!
http://www.tor.com/2015/12/23/christmas-i
Lots of shows decide they need a little Christmas come December, but they’re not quite sure how to do it. Do you talk about the big Jesus-shaped elephant in the room? Do you just focus on Santa? Do you, I don’t know, cast Juliana Hatfield as an angel or make miracles happen on Walker, Texas Ranger?
This late-December urge becomes extra fun when sci-fi shows try it—they don’t actually want to deal with the religious aspect of Christmas, but they still have to find a way to explain Santa and presents (and maybe just a dash of Christianity) to aliens who are already confused enough just trying to deal with humans. So most of them fall back on humans teaching aliens about “goodwill” or “being kind to others.” This leads to some amazing moments, as we’ll see.
“A Cosmic Christmas”
The Three Wise Aliens
This 1977 special was Canadian company Nelvana’s first foray into television—shortly after completing this one, they moved on to a Halloween special, The Devil and Daniel Mouse, before tackling the most important holiday of them all, Life Day, in their short “The Faithful Wookiee,” which featured in the Star Wars Holiday Special. A Cosmic Christmas is regretfully wookiee-free, but it does have a startlingly simplistic holiday message, imparted by aliens. Kinda.
Three aliens who look like they’ve been shipped in from Fantastic Planet land on earth on Christmas Eve, searching for the meaning behind the “Transitory celestial phenomenon” that occurred on Earth 2000 years ago.
Unfortunately, they’ve landed on the mean streets of Canada, so they find a town ridden with, um, teenage hippies, and people who seem to be pretty into Christmas, but not as into it as a ten-year-old boy wants them to be. Said ten-year-old boy, Peter, greets the aliens, who ask him about the “meaning of the star.” He yells in reply, “You mean Christmas!” Rather than asking him to elaborate on this one-word answer, they ask how “Christmas” can be “measured,” so Peter does his best Linus Van Pelt impression: “We celebrate every year with love, peace, and caring for others!” Apparently the aliens managed to find the only pre-teen in history who wouldn’t just scream “PRESENTS!” and then jump up and down in a fit of Christmas-cookie-induced mania.
Peter takes the three wise aliens home and introduces them to his grandmother, who sings about how Christmas used to be while the aliens induce a mass hallucination of old-timey decorations flying around the living room. This reverie is interrupted when one of the hippies steals Peter’s pet goose, leads the cops on a chase, and then falls through the ice and almost drowns. Peter tries to save him, but the kid’s super-sweet flared jeans are waterlogged, and keep dragging them both down.
To be fair, those pants really are super-sweet.
The humans form a chain to pull them out, and the aliens break their vow of non-involvement to help pull them out, saying that “helping” might be the meaning of Christmas. (Peter already told you the meaning of Christmas, aliens, what more do you want?) Then Peter’s family invites the whole town over for dinner, and everyone accepts the aliens, who decide that they’ve got Christmas figured out, so they fly away, but not before giving everyone a fabulous laser light show, because it’s the 70s.
A Very Special Christmas with Pink Floyd
“George and The Christmas Star”
“George and the Christmas Star” does not exactly fit in with the rest of these specials, but it’s set in space, and there are aliens, and it’s an interesting enough half hour of TV that I want to make it work, dammit. Plus, the director Gerald Potterton, was one of the directors of Heavy Metal, which makes for a fascinating animation pedigree for a Christmas special. The show somehow combines a goofy sci-fi story that is nearly Pinkwaterian in its deadpan humor, with the song stylings of Ottawa’s own Paul Anka, with only the barest hint of a message about Christmas or goodwill, or anything really.
George decides that his usual cut out paper Christmas tree topper isn’t going to cut it this year. He looks out the window and sees the star that he wants, and thinks to himself: “Living alone with a cat has its moments, but there are times when you just have to get out there and prove something to yourself.” So he builds a steampunky spaceship out of spare parts, flies through a black hole, meets a robot named Ralph, rescues an astronaut named Barbara, tangles with space rangers, space pirates, and space bikers, meets Santa, finally gets his star, and then loses the star, all so he can learn a vague message about being happy that he has friends.
Obviously, the most important element is that the “space bikers” are called the Bell’s Angels. But here’s the weird thing. This special is called “George and The Christmas Star” and it’s clearly the star that he’s looking for, with the extra little points and glowiness and everything, but not once in the whole special does anyone talk about the significance of this particular star…but again, Bell’s Angels. All is forgiven.
Invader Zim
A few people chimed in to our post about the odd and campy Christmas specials to demand that Invader Zim get more attention. Zim-lovers, your moment has come. How does Zim react when presented with the mysterious San-tah? Well, he realizes that Christmas could be a great new avenue for World Domination, claims to be the Real Santa, and begins enslaving humanity until Dib impersonates an elf to stop him. The show focuses on Santa, and doesn’t even bother bringing that Other Christmas Figurehead into things, which is probably for the best. It’s pretty much the best Zim episode ever, featured the only appearance of Mini-Moose, and was also, sadly, the final entry in Jhonen Vasquez’s epic.
He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special
I’m just going to skip over the weird incest subtext between He-Man and She-Ra, and the gross negligence of She-Ra hanging out on Eternia and leaving Etheria unprotected, and Bow’s horrifying attempt at a Christmas song. Let’s just focus on the basics. Orko crashes on Earth, and the two dumbest children in the entire world, Miguel and Alisha, explain Christmas to him. They start by skirting around Jesus and talking about gifts, then dive into a Nativity narrative after a weird camera dissolve, and then move quickly onto Santa. Orko displays intelligence and discretion, possibly for the first time in his life, and latches onto the “presents!” aspect.
We find out that Adam and Adora’s mother is actually an Earth astronaut who crashed on Eternia and just stayed, even though now Man-at-Arms has invented a way to get back to Earth, and she could have at least visited home to let her family know she was still alive, but instead she’s just like, “Oh, yeah, Christmas is a thing,” and instructs everyone how to hang garland properly. There are some tortured plot machinations, Miguel and Alisha get kidnapped a bunch, and end up giving Skeletor the Christmas Spirit, seemingly by osmosis, since they never even give him the stilted explanation Orko got. They’re finally sent home just in time for Christmas, and He-Man comes on to give a vague lecture about how everyone has the Christmas Spirit inside of them at all times. But since the show never really defines “Christmas spirit” and we’re still not sure that anyone on Eternia knows what the hell Christmas is, this postscript just adds to the confusion.
“Christmas Comes to PacLand”
This totally counts since PacLand is presented as an alien world. Santa ends up crashing his sleigh after he gets lost on the way to Earth, and has to try to explain the concept of Christmas to Pac-Man and his family. The special is able to freely focus on the Santa-and-presents aspect of the holiday, since the “death and miraculous resurrection” storyline is covered by Pac-Man himself after the ghosts chomp him and he has to rally to save Christmas by ‘roiding the reindeer out on Power Pellets. All of the denizens of PacLand happily accept the idea of a gift-based holiday, with no questions asked about how it got started, what humans are, or why Santa also gives the ghosts presents even though their dearest wish in life is to bite a baby to death.
So I’m ending this now on what is probably not just the greatest alien meets Christmas special, but also the greatest thing that came out of the 80s:
ALF’s Special Christmas
So for those of you who are either blissfully unaware of ALF, or maybe just suffered a specific type of PTSD that has erased it from your memory: ALF crashes on Earth after his home planet, Melmac, is destroyed. The Tanner family adopts him, teaching him about humanity and shielding him from the government, while tolerating his terrible Borscht Belt jokes and threats against their cat. ALF is widely acknowledged to have had one of the most disturbing finales in the history of television. However, what doesn’t get nearly enough press is that the show also produced the single most fucked up Christmas Special in History. Eat ALF’s dust, Diahann Carroll serenading Itchy the Wookiee.
The episode opens with Willie Tanner dragging the family to spend Christmas in a cabin that is not so much “rustic” as “barely a house.” The cabin has been loaned to them by sweet Mr. Foley (played by Cleavon Little, aka Sheriff Bart from Blazing Saddles!!!) who is veers wildly between grieving for his deceased wife, and jocularly playing Santa Claus at the local children’s hospital. We’re just going to skip over the idea that the Tanner children are the actual aliens here (they seem suspiciously ok with staying at the cabin, sans heat, electricity, or running water) and instead get right to ALF learning the True Meaning of Christmas. After he opens all the Tanner’s presents, the family becomes a bit frustrated, so he does what you or I would do and climbs into the back of an unattended truck filled with toys. Since we’re in a sitcom, this is Mr. Foley’s truck, and before you can say “collision course for wackiness” Mr. Foley is dressed as Santa to hand out toys to the sick kids, and ALF, pretending to be a stuffed version of himself.
In your face, Megyn Kelly.
He only makes it a few minutes into the tea party she throws him before revealing his true identity. Rather than freaking the fuck out like a normal kid, she accepts his story about being an alien (and not, say, a medication-induced hallucination) and begins confiding in him. She draws a picture of her and ALF hanging out, except…she’s wearing wings. We’re in some deep Life Lesson waters here, so do your best to stay afloat as I relate the following conversation:
“Alf, do you ever miss Melmac?”
“Yeah, I miss it a lot. It was my whole world. Everything, and everybody I knew was there…but, when I came to this world, I made new friends! Like the people I live with, and you, Tiffany!”
She asks if he had Christmas on Melmac, and he shakes his head. “I don’t really have a handle on Christmas yet. People get uptight about presents.”
“That’s cause they don’t know. Christmas isn’t about presents, it’s about giving of yourself. That’s what Santa Claus said.”
“After meeting you, I know what he means.”
“I’m gonna have to move onto another world too, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it, and I’m afraid to go, Alf.”
AAAAUUUGGGHHHH.
OK, at this point I have to switch into summary, because my brain has shut down. The last time I watched this episode with friends (or perhaps I should say, the last time I inflicted this episode on some friends at a Christmas party, because I’m a terrible person) we were all watching this scene through our hands like it was a ferocious Dalek, and my tolerance for it hasn’t gotten any stronger. He tells her it’s all right to be afraid, and then they discuss whether this other world will have Christmas (owwww…) whether Tiffany will have friends there (gurk) and then ALF manages to stick the landing on a joke, and they say they love each other as she falls asleep. The show then shuffles us straight into the wacky sitcom world of the 1980s in which “alien puppet delivers a baby in an elevator”= high-larity.
ALF uses his new understanding of the True Meaning of Christmas to save Mr. Foley from suicide, and then everyone brings Tiffany presents, which is great, but there is no reprieve here. Mr. Foley is still depressed, Tiffany’s still going to die, and OH MY GOD the ending credits dedicate the show to two different real people who died that year.
Whew. I never expected to say this, but it seems like of all the aliens presented with varying True Meanings of Christmas, ALF was the one who got it right.
So, I hope this has given you some new viewing options this Christmas—or possibly some specials to avoid. My holiday wish for you? If an alien crashes into your home, may it be of the friendly, wise-cracking variety, amenable to whichever traditions you hold dear, and willing to help clean up after your New Year’s Eve party.
This article originally appeared on Tor.com on December 20, 2013.
Leah Schnelbach needs some extra-strength egg nog to recover from that ALF special…
You Can’t Avoid Emotional Shrapnel in The Expanse: “Remember the Cant”
http://www.tor.com/2015/12/23/the-expans
The Expanse‘s third episode, “Remember the Cant” might be the best so far. It pulls off a great balancing act between its three very different threads. If it can do this every week we’ll be in for a great, taut series. When we rejoin the narrative, we see immediately that Holden’s message got out, because its blasting out from every video wall in Ceres. For a second this seems like a solid Yayyy!!!!, but on a show like this nothing is that simple. The next hour follows the shrapnel that the Cant’s sabotage has shot through each of the show’s threads.
On Ceres, Detective Miller continues his hunt for Julie Mao, this time against a backdrop of escalating tension and rioting. The Belters are eager to blame Mars for the Cant’s destruction, and are throwing the rallying cry, “Remember the Cant” at every situation, from water rationing to curfews. Since the Cant never made it back with the much-needed ice shipment, water’s even scarcer than normal now, and there’s no relief in sight. In the midst of this, Miller goes full noir, and it’s beautiful. He leaves the burgeoning riot to go sit in an apartment—I think Mao’s—to continue looking for clues on her disappearance. We get to watch him think, swiping those kinda silly Stark Tech screens around, muttering to himself… but he’s choosing to do this quietly, drink in hand, while listening to jazz. Miller, the hard ass with a soft spot for kids, also has a soft spot for music, quiet, culture—all the things he couldn’t have as a kid. He’s begun to associate this with Mao, and begun, I think, to think his way into her world. He seems as emotional as we’ve seen him when he thinks the case might be over, and it’s clear that he’s going to keep looking for her no matter what his superiors want.
It’s interesting to see how quickly “Remember the Cant” becomes iconic to the Belters. If you want to be cynical, this is a group of people who are taking the inconvenience of a destroyed water shipment and turning it into a political platform. But at the same time, the show has done a great job of showing us how desperate the Belters are, and just how used they feel by the other planets. Even when the phrase is used to justify a horrific act later on in the episode, it’s obvious that the Belters have found the fulcrum they need to push back at their oppressors.
On Earth, Avasarala takes a giant chance to protect her home, and throws one of her oldest friends under the spacebus. Franklin Degraaf, Ambassador to Mars, used to play cards with her father, and has known Avasarala since she was a child. When she invites him for lunch, she waits until the husbands are safely off playing cricket on the lawn, and then drops her bombshell: Earth blames Mars for the Cant, and System-wide war is imminent. Degraaf, who may be the most genuinely nice character we’ve met so far, alerts Mars to try to stave off war, and of course when that leads to Earth learning about a couple of extra super secret Martian weapons caches, Degraaf isn’t just stripped of his diplomatic credentials, he’s banned from Mars. He and his husband have to sell their home there, and forget their dreams of retirement to the Red Planet. In what may be the most purely sad moment we’ve seen, he reminisces about playing cards games with her father, and specifically remembers the first time she played against them. Her determination to win led her to change the rules of the game, and while modern Avasarala looks proud of her younger self, Degraaf snaps the lid down on these happy memories. “I knew then that you’d do anything to win. And I can’t play with you anymore.” This could have been an unbearably cheesy line. Instead, actor Kenneth Welsh sells it as an older person telling a younger person to cut the shit. Since we’ve only seen Avasarala either (A) competent or (B) freaking terrifying, this is a startling moment. He tells her in no uncertain terms that their friendship is over, and drives home the point that her actions have exiled him from his chosen home: “You know what I love about Mars? They still dream. We gave up.”
Finally, the remaining crew of the Cant, the origin site for all this drama and misinformation, has just been taken aboard a Martian ship. And if last night’s episode was about layers being peeled back the theme came through strongest here. The five crewmembers are put in cells, where, naturally Amos taunts them, and Shed the Medic tries to placate them. “I dated a Martian once. She was beautiful and smart. I love how industrious the Martians are.”
We see Holden and Naomi’s interrogations, and we learn as much about the Martians as we do the prisoners. The prisoners aren’t shackled in any way, simply told to keep their hands visible. They aren’t hurt or even threatened. It’s much cooler than that. The Martian takes a pill and starts asking questions. In a lesser show, the Martian would hold the pill up and say something expository, like, “See this? This is gonna tell me everything I need to know about you, Belter scum!” But just as the Belter patois is presented without comment, here he takes it and the camera zooms in on his pupils which dilate for a moment. Then he asks questions, and watches his prisoners as they fidget and twitch. It’s clear that the pill enhances the Martians senses enough that he can read Holden and Naomi’s various tells. Like they were playing cards, for instance, in a nice mirror to Avasarala’s thread. And so we learn another tiny thing about the Martians. They’re not going to torture or threaten their captives, they’re just going to watch them closely and let them torture themselves.
Naturally it works. As soon as the former Cants are all back in a holding pen they begin attacking each other. It turns out Alex flew with the Martians for twenty years, but neglected to tell any of his crewmates that. Shed isn’t a medic, he’s on the run from a drug dealer who wanted to kill him—but since he panicked and told the Martians everything, he doesn’t have anything left to hide. Holden is beginning to believe that Naomi is OPA, as the Martians keep saying. Amos is ready to rip the head off anyone who accuses her. Meanwhile, she keeps turning the Martian’s questions back on Holden. What was up with his dishonorable discharge? What do any of them really know about him? The scene ends with Alex in a headlock, Naomi screaming at Holden, and Holden telling the Captain that he’s willing to talk.
See? No torture required. Hell, maybe the pills don’t actually do anything, and they’re just for show.
The episode cuts back to Ceres for one final shock: Havelock—who has been going to a prostitute for private Belter lessons (literally, that’s not a euphemism – he’s learning patois from the prostitute we met in the first episode, so he can be a better cop) and who has rapidly become a favorite of mine—is attacked by an OPA gang. He ends up pinned like a low-gravity butterfly to one of the walls of the Medina. Apparently I’ve learned nothing from Game of Thrones, and forgot never to have a favorite character… “Remember the Cant” his murderer says, even though there is no one there to hear it.
We’re left with the Canterbury‘s legacy: a water shortage, violence in the streets of Ceres, and brinkmanship from Earth and Mars. Avasarala has once again made a hard choice to preserve Earth’s safety, a much more intimate choice that the condemnation of a terrorist last week, and she has paid for it. Miller’s obsessive pursuit of Juliet Mao may have cost his partner his life. Would they have been attacked if they were patrolling together? Or is finding the connection between Mao and the Cant more important than one man’s life in the long run? And the Cant’s remaining crew is already tearing itself apart. We know that Holden’s message was rash, short-sighted, and is rippling across the solar system in ways he can’t imagine. But he sees himself as a last line of defense for his crew. Can he be both?
Leah Schnelbach kind of wants an entire episode set in the Medina. It’s so cool! At least, when it’s not in the middle or a riot… Come tell her your Expansive thoughts on Twitter!
Were the Civil War and abolition a surprise?
http://marginalrevolution.com/?p=67342
More than I had thought. And Lincoln really was the difference maker:
…prior to 1860, few political events seemed to affect slave prices, and even the Dred Scott decision had only a small and temporary effect. After Lincoln’s nomination for the presidency, slave prices fell, and they continued to fall once the war commenced. The overall decline in slave prices was large (more than one-third from their 1860 peak) and occurred prior to any battle losses by the South.
That is from the new AER piece by Calomiris and Pritchett. There is an ungated version here (pdf).
February argument calendar, day by day (UPDATED)
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scotusblo
http://www.scotusblog.com/?p=236348
UPDATED 8:42 p.m.with a link to the calendar in the first paragraph.
—————-
The Supreme Court on Wednesday released the schedule of oral arguments for the sitting that begins on Monday, February 22. The case testing the constitutionality of abortion clinic restrictions in Texas is scheduled for argument on Wednesday, March 2. It is the only case set for that day.
All hearings in this sitting will be in the mornings, with the first case at 10 a.m. Each will be set for one hour. Following the jump, the daily listing shows the issues in each case.
Monday, February 22:
Kingdomware Technologies v. United States — challenge to the management of contract preferences for veteran-owned small businesses by the Department of Veterans Affairs (Case rescheduled for argument after mootness issue arose)
Utah v. Strieff — need to suppress evidence seized under an outstanding warrant discovered during an investigatory stop later found to be illegal
Tuesday, February 23:
Taylor v. United States — duty of federal prosecutors to prove the interstate-commerce connection of a charge under the Hobbs Act
Halo Electronics v. Pulse Electronics and Stryker Corp. v. Zimmer — need for clarification of federal district judge’s authority to award enhanced money damages for patent infringement (Cases consolidated for one hour of argument)
Wednesday, February 24:
Hughes v. PPL EnergyPlus and CPV MD v. PPL EnergyPlus — federal preemption of state-directed contract for retail utilities to join in federally regulated energy auction market (Cases consolidated for one hour of argument)
MHN Government Services v. Zaborowski — whether the Federal Arbitration Act preempts the California state law providing a different form of severability of terms for arbitration disputes, compared to other contracts
Monday, February 29:
Voisine v. United States — constitutionality of treating a misdemeanor crime requiring proof only of recklessness as a federal crime of domestic violence
Williams v. Pennsylvania — constitutional duty of a state supreme court chief justice to recuse from any role in a decision involving a death sentence that the jurist supported during an election campaign
Tuesday, March 1:
Nichols v. United States — whether a convicted sex offender now living in a foreign country has a legal duty to update a registration in the state of former residence
Husky Electronics v. Ritz — clarification of proof needed to show actual fraud that will bar the release of a debt in bankruptcy
Wednesday, March 2:
Whole Woman’s Health v. Cole — constitutionality of Texas law requiring abortion doctors to have hospital admitting privileges near the clinic and requiring clinics to have facilities equivalent to a surgery center
Adaptation Watch: More Speculative Fiction Books to Read Now, Ahead of Their Film and TV Adaptations
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Sfsignal/
http://www.sfsignal.com/?p=131417
At Kirkus Reviews, I round up the latest batch of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Film Adaptations. Have you read any of these books that are heading to film and TV?
The post Adaptation Watch: More Speculative Fiction Books to Read Now, Ahead of Their Film and TV Adaptations appeared first on SF Signal
Copyright © SF Signal
Related posts:
Charles Dickens, Neuroscientist
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/tim
The week in science: 18–24 December 2015
http://feeds.nature.com/~r/news/rss/most
Postdoc dies in Chinese lab fire; private rocket returns to Earth; and lions are listed as endangered.
Nature 528 440 doi: 10.1038/528440a
A New Hope Awakens: A Star Wars Newbie Watches The Force Awakens
http://www.tor.com/2015/12/23/a-star-war
I was filled with trembling hope and uncertain fear as I settled in my theater seat, wondering what I would see over the next few hours. Was this going to be a repeat of the prequels I had seen with my former colleagues so long ago? The opening theme did not reassure me, nor did the opening crawl. I’d seen them before, after all, attached to movies I loathed.
And I’d only ever seen the original trilogy on my iPad screen. The idea of a movie of their stature on the large screen seemed almost ludicrous. I didn’t trust J. J. Abrams to do the job right, either.
Still, if it turned out badly, it would be a final end to my journey through the Star Wars series.
And I got more than I bargained for.
This review is full of spoilers, y’all.
How do I even begin with this thing?
First of all, I love the two new protagonists. I love that Finn is a former Stormtrooper, and that Stormtroopers in general are fleshed out more. I don’t mind that they’re no longer all Fett clones, since if that were the case only one good biowarfare strike would kill them all. Fortunately (or unfortunately) the Empire/First Order has more sense than we do with regards to bananas.
And I love Rey so much. Yes, there is some of Luke in her with regards to the Force, but there is a lot that’s just simply pure Rey: her determination, for one. It’s raw and real, while Luke, at the very beginning, was far more untested. I know that people will argue that Rey can do too much too easily, that she’s far too versatile and competent to feel like a real character to them—and that’s their prerogative to feel that way. I myself am simply going to enjoy having a female character who kicks ass. (And doesn’t have to be put into a bikini or have her clothing slashed up to reveal her belly.)
There’s actual chemistry between the protagonists. I don’t know if it’s a romantic relationship (yay!) or a very close friendship (yay!) but I enjoy watching them interact with one another—and interact with the familiar characters from the original series.
Oh Han. Oh Leia. That wonderful, beautiful theme when they’re together—John Williams has really outdone himself, and I mean that literally. He’s outdone his younger selves in the complexity and deft weaving of melodies—both the one who orchestrated the original series and the one who did the prequels. (If nothing else, the prequels had fantastic soundtracks.)
The first glimpse we got of Han Solo in the original series, he was just another smuggler looking out for number one. By the time that series ended, he was something far more, and had clearly stepped into the light. It’s not surprising that he and Leia had a kid together.
But that kid…
…that kid does have an awful lot of characterization for a Star Wars villain. Usually they don’t get this much unless they’re Darth Vader in Empire Strikes Back or, well, Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker in Revenge of the Sith. We see him without his mask, musing to his grandfather. I rather suspect his grandfather’s Force ghost (however that happened) is the influence pushing him towards the Light again.
But what caused his fall to the Dark in the first place?
Poor Han. Poor Leia. Poor Han. Poor Leia. I loved you both in the original series. The way Han goes—I was holding onto a slim hope that he would somehow survive the fall, but if there’s one thing we’ve learned from movies, it’s that gravity is the number-one killer of heroes and villains alike. Especially in Disney productions.
And realistically… I knew he was dead the moment he stepped onto that bridge to face his son. Although I had no idea he had formed a strong enough bond with old Ben to name his son after the Jedi Knight? Perhaps Luke had more influence on the naming than not… perhaps because Luke seems to be without issue.
(Or is he? Dun dun dun.)
Seeing Luke at the end was somehow amazing. I felt my journey had come full circle, like I would be satisfied if everything ended right there. And if it did, other people would gut me, so I hope it doesn’t end.
As for those who say that The Force Awakens is a rehash of A New Hope or even of the entire original trilogy, I say: fair enough. It does hold a lot of the same plot aesthetics, although the fine details differ enough that I don’t mind. The similarities do bring credence to the idea of the entire Star Wars saga as being one huge ring cycle. It makes me wonder if they’re going to break the ring?
Also: can we blame them for not taking a new change in direction? Say what one might about the prequels (and I would say a lot), they at least tried something different. Their execution failed horribly, but that doesn’t take away from the attempt at a more measured pace with a slower build-up. With The Force Awakens the studio has decided to retreat to safer grounds.
Perhaps next time they’ll have something more original on hand, now that this movie has smashed many box office records into the ground. (And also turned Alvin and the Chipmunks: Road Chip, which Fox inexplicably decided to try running up against The Force Awakens’ opening weekend, into road chip. But perhaps they were simply using it as a sacrificial lamb.)
My favorite thing in The Force Awakens: the humor, the charm, the feelings, the characters. I was never a plot-heavy person.
My least favorite thing in The Force Awakens: the fact that Ben Solo looks like a more emo miniature Severus Snape. But at least Adam Driver acts well.
I went home after the movie, and sat down in my office and stared at the box of Imperial Assault sitting on a table. I hadn’t bothered to open it because, hey, who cares about Star Wars, am I right? It could wait.
But it couldn’t wait any longer.
I think I might have caught Star Wars fever.
Ava Jarvis née Arachne Jericho is a freelance writer, techie, and geek. By day she writes about high-tech topics, and by night she writes about board games at her blog, the Elemeeple.
God Bless Pastiche! The 7 Best Non-Traditional Christmas Carols of Film and TV
If I had a pet reindeer, or any kind of creature that resembled a fawn or Bambi-style animal, I’d name it Dickens. Come on. How adorable would it be to have a little pet deer named Dickens? Here Dickens! Come have a sugar cube! That’s a good little Dickens. What’s your favorite story? What’s that you say, “A Christmas Carol?” Well, I don’t feel like reading to you, because you’re a little deer, so let’s watch a movie or a TV special instead. Whatyda say? And then, as a gift to Dickens, I would have to compile a list of movie and TV adaptations of Charles Dickens’s awesome book—A Christmas Carol—and I’d want those adaptations to be somehow a little bit different from their source material, because deer like stuff that’s new.
What are the best non-traditional versions of A Christmas Carol? These.
Rod Serling’s “A Carol for Another Christmas”
In 1964 Rod Serling made a kind of cautionary tale designed to get people jazzed about supporting the United Nations. Whereas the original Scrooge sees what could happen in his own world if avarice and greed become his only legacy, Serling’s “A Carol for Another Christmas,” is more concerned with the bigger stuff of nuclear proliferation and world peace. This one occasionally gets airtime on Turner Classic Movies and in some film festivals, but with ghosts and Peter Sellers, there’s no reason we can’t hope this one won’t pop on as a special feature with some Twilight Zone stuff in the near future.
Quantum Leap “A Little Miracle”
When Sam leaps into a 1962 kind of Bob Cratchit character, he has to figure out how to prevent a money-grubbing character named Michael Blake to stop being such an asshole and NOT have the nearby Salvation Army building torn down. What’s fun about this spin on the Dickensian ethical haunting, is that it actually takes quite a bit to convince Blake that the spirits are real. Because Sam and Al are faking everything with some of their future technology, Blake is onto the tricks, creating a different kind of tension in the story than just redeeming a lost, terrible person. After all, Sam is supposed to set right what once was wrong, making Scrooge-like-redemption kind of what he does every week. The solution to making a grown-man believe in ghosts? Holograms from the future!
The Real Ghostbusters “X-Mas Marks the Spot”
Though not a thoroughly watchable piece of entertainment, this J. Michael Stracyznki episode from The Real Ghostbusters is notable for its total originality. When the Ghostbusters accidentally time travel to 1837, they proceed to unleash their proton energy and ghost entrapping apparatus on the Three Spirits of Christmas. When the boys travel back to the present, they find the future totally changed, populated with misers and penny-pinchers galore. Egon quickly deduces that the Ghostbusters busting the Three Spirits has changed history since Scrooge now never wrote his famous book “A Christmas Humbug.” That’s right, in the fictional universe of The Real Ghostbusters, Scrooge was a real person AND an author.
Doctor Who “A Christmas Carol”
Matt Smith’s first Christmas Special for Doctor Who saw him not just trying to jump the shark, but straight-up riding a flying one! Perhaps Steven Moffat’s most wibbly-wobbly paradox-filled episode ever, the time-travel antics of this episode can cause a headache for the Who viewer with even the bravest of hearts. On a faraway planet, an angry old man who looks exactly like Michael Gambon won’t open an energy shield and thus might cause Amy and Rory (and a bunch of other folks) to die. No problem! The Doctor can act as all three spirits at once and quickly get the cranky old Kazran to suddenly become a better person. What’s so notable about the temporal puddle-jumping here is that it’s the natural progression of Dickens’ original time-meddling spirits. Not only do the ghosts of the original text get to haunt with a purpose and be forces of good, they also can seemingly travel in time and space! The Doctor is no spirit or goblin, but he might be the most literary television science fiction character, making his stepping into the role of all three spirits here totally appropriate and still one of Who’s finest Christmas moments ever.
Scrooged
This is a film seemingly made in a lab of the magic many of us feel for the 1980s, and because it was made in the 80s, any of its flaws and missteps seem perfect. Truly though, if any of us were tasked with heading back to the 80s and being told to create a contemporary version of A Christmas Carol, and our memories were wiped of having actually seen Scrooged, we’d still make this exact movie, every one of us. If Bill Murray wasn’t available for such an enterprise, what would be the point? (Having ghost experts is really essential to making it through a Dickens-pastiche, people!) and if you for some reason didn’t want to use big-eyed-girl-next-door-I-can’t-believe-h
The Muppet Christmas Carol
Yes, yes. I’m listing one of the Muppets finer moments under a “non-traditional” Dickens adaptation, simply because they are felt creatures who interact with fleshy humans with seemingly no explanation. Would Dickens himself have approved of all the singing, or his own recasting as a space alien? (Gonzo is an alien. Muppets in Space. Never forget.) I hope so! Somewhat shockingly, the changes made to the actual text of the book are fewer than in some straight Dickens adaptations, making one wonder if Muppets Christmas Carol is perhaps better than any other version of A Christmas Carol, ever. But let’s pretend your Scrooge-y heart hates the Muppets (are there no puppet prisons?) and also hates singing. You know what you still love? Michael Caine.
It’s A Wonderful Life
Is this a Dickens pastiche? At all? Well, it’s got a spirit of sort in the form of the angel Clarence, and there’s an alternate universe presented to George Bailey on Christmas Eve, which results in him sitting in a graveyard, pounding his fists into the snow, looking at a headstone sporting his own last name. Yes, the headstone is for his brother and not him, and the alternate universe Clarence presents George is designed to remind him how important his life is, rather than how terrible he’s been to people. It’s A Wonderful Life, then, is a kind of inverted A Christmas Carol, as it uses the sort of proto sci-fi haunting, finger-wagging of a superior being as a way of saving an essentially good person, rather than redeeming a bad one. In the form of Potter, It’s A Wonderful Life has its clear Scrooge analog, which here is asserted to be an unchanging, terrible character. (I often dream of a sideways sequel to It’s A Wonderful Life in which one of Clarence’s contemporaries had to earn his/her wings by fixing Potter’s life!)
But instead of making this “carol” about Scrooge, Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey is the best, most dimensional Bob Cratchit the world has ever seen. This is the story of a real Bob Cratchit, not one just used as a plot device to get Scrooge to mend his ways. Instead, the power of choices and how choices define all of us, is turned, with Dickens flavor, onto a good man who could go bad, rather than a bad man who could turn good. If Scrooge is the Darth Vader of Christmas stories, then George Bailey is easily a yuletide Luke Skywalker.
This article was originally published December 20, 2013.
Ryan Britt is a longtime contributor to Tor.com and is hard at work on the script for his steampunk-action flick Tiny Tim, in which the titular character fights against injustice and utters his famous catch phrase “suck my Dickens” whenever he blows something up. Ryan is only kind of kidding about this. His book Luke Skywalker Can’t Read and Other Geeky Truths, is out now from Plume (Penguin Random House.)
New results on the minimum wage and inequality
http://marginalrevolution.com/?p=67341
There is a new paper in American Economic Journal: Applied Economics by David H. Autor, Alan Manning, and Christopher L. Smith, here is the abstract:
We reassess the effect of minimum wages on US earnings inequality using additional decades of data and an IV strategy that addresses potential biases in prior work. We find that the minimum wage reduces inequality in the lower tail of the wage distribution, though by substantially less than previous estimates, suggesting that rising lower tail inequality after 1980 primarily reflects underlying wage structure changes rather than an unmasking of latent inequality. These wage effects extend to percentiles where the minimum is nominally nonbinding, implying spillovers. We are unable to reject that these spillovers are due to reporting artifacts, however.
Here are earlier, ungated versions of the paper. Overall my read of this is that many people are leaping in too quickly and making unsupported claims about how the minimum wage is connected to income inequality.
New move to block Hawaii tribal nation (UPDATED)
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scotusblo
http://www.scotusblog.com/?p=236293
UPDATED at 1:10 p.m. (in the final paragraph) to clarify how the motion will be handled by the Supreme Court.
————-
A group of Hawaiians challenging the move to set up a new “native Hawaiian” nation within the state returned to the Supreme Court Tuesday, seeking an order to hold the organizers in contempt and further orders to stop the entire process toward establishing sovereignty.
The motion followed cancellation a week ago by the sponsors of an election to select delegates to a constitutional convention for the new tribe-like nation, and the sponsors’ decision to seat all of those who ran in the election as delegates to a convention starting February 1. That, the challengers argued, directly disobeys the Supreme Court’s December 2 order interrupting the election.
Accusing the sponsors — the private organization Na’i Aupuni — and state officials of “gamesmanship,” the challengers noted that going ahead with delegate seating and with the convention itself would continue the race-based process of which the election was only the first part. The challengers’ ultimate goal, they reminded the Court, was to have full participation by Hawaiians in general in the decision about creating a new sovereign entity within Hawaii. The Supreme Court’s order early this month was aimed at the entire process, even if it was technically limited only to barring the counting of the ballots cast and certifying the choice of delegates, the new motion contended.
Although Na’i Aupuni was the chosen sponsor and manager of the election, and made the decision to cancel it, the motion filed on Tuesday also named the state of Hawaii, its governor, other state officials, and others involved in the sovereignty movement.
The motion specifically asked the Justices to take three actions:
First, to order those named in the motion to be in civil contempt, to cure the violation that the challengers claimed had occurred. The Court should order a withdrawal of the appointment of delegates from those who ran in the election, block any further effort to convene the February convention, and order a monetary penalty “strong enough” to ensure that the Court’s orders are carried out.
Second, to require those it cited to get a court’s official clearance before they take any further steps to name delegates and hold the convention, while the challengers go forward with their pending constitutional challenge, now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Such preclearance, under the federal Voting Rights Act, is one of the remedies the challengers are now seeking in the lower courts, they noted.
Third, to order those it cited to pay for the challengers’ attorney’s fees and costs for the filing of the contempt motion. as part of the remedy for the “willful disobedience” of the Court’s December 2 order.
UPDATED: The motion was filed with the full Court and, like other motions, it will go to the full Court for consideration at a future Conference. It is not being treated as an emergency matter with a single Justice having authority to resolve it.
Dog Play Is Socially Contagious and Now We Know Why
Dogs play vigorously and share their intentions to play via rapid mimicry and emotional contagion. A new study shows why dogs are able to rapidly fine-tune play on the run.
No Mabel, You DON'T Have to Compete With Porn Actresses
Comparing yourself to porn actresses--and feeling resentful? Here's an alternative.
Happy Athenamas to All
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2015/12/23/ha
http://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=27703
Yet again, the planet has swung around to the day wherein my wife and I burst into our daughter’s room while she is still sleeping, shout “Happy Birthday!” at her and shove a flaming pastry at her while she’s still groggy. We love it. Well, Krissy and I do. I suspect the kid tolerates it because she gets cake for breakfast at the end of it.
Athena is 17, the year in which one is allowed to watch R-rated movies without a parent, which as we all know is a momentous marker in any young North American’s life. She will not be celebrating by seeing an R-rated movie, although we did take her to see The Force Awakens last night and about halfway through it became her birthday, so there is at least some cinematic aspect to the day.
As my gift to you this day, I present you with the song that was playing in the delivery room the moment Athena was born, on this day, seventeen years ago. It’s “Waltz Across Texas Tonight,” performed by Emmylou Harris, from her 1995 album Wrecking Ball. It’s probably my favorite album, so I’m delighted to have it forever associated with one of the most important and joy days in my life, the day my and Krissy’s child was born. Enjoy, and have a wonderful Athenamas.
National climate ambition must match international targets
http://feeds.nature.com/~r/news/rss/most
If the Paris climate agreement is to succeed in limiting warming to 1.5 °C, countries need to drastically increase their emissions pledges, says Steffen Kallbekken.
Nature News doi: 10.1038/nature.2015.19077
Deadpool’s Chimichanga is Enormous
http://www.tor.com/2015/12/23/deadpool-w
You may have heard that Deadpool has been promoting his film with a series of ads called “12 Days of Deadpool”? Yesterday’s featured a short new clip, in which Deadpool encourages everyone to see his movie in IMAX. The true purpose of the clip, however, was to give us a shot of Deadpool with an ENORMOUS CHIMICHANGA. We thought it would help everyone start their day on the right note. Click through to see the chimichanga in action!
[via io9!]
Clap Harder For Tinkerbell
One of my favorite monologues in the history of theater comes from Christopher Durang, in the play ‘Denity Crisis, wherein a character talks about attending a performance of Peter Pan when she was eight years old:
“You remember how in the second act Tinkerbell drinks some poison that peter is about to drink in order to save him? And then Peter turns to the audience and he says that ‘Tinkerbell is going to die because not enough people believe in fairies. But if all of you clap your hands real hard to show that you do believe in fairies, maybe she won’t die.’ So, we all started to clap. I clapped so long and so hard that my palms hurt and they even started to bleed I clapped so hard. Then suddenly the actress playing Peter Pan turned to the audience and she said, ‘That wasn’t enough. You did not clap hard enough. Tinkerbell is dead.’ And then we all started to cry.”
…I may like twisted things.
But the point is, a friend of mine yesterday posted a snippet from an essay that said this:
“A person who uses the term ‘damaged’ to describe themselves is pigeonholing themselves into a trap of never wanting to heal. People don’t get ‘damaged.’ People get HURT. Hurt can heal.”
When I read this, what I I heard people was clapping very hard for a Tinkerbell who’d never get up.
For me, some wounds don’t heal – and it’s not for lack of trying. I know this, because I have had wounds that have healed up miraculously when I’ve applied effort to them, but…
Others have never been fixed. Despite decades of therapy, communication,and change.
Parts of me are broken, and that’s not because I didn’t want to fix them.
So for me, this advice is a lot like telling a paraplegic, “If you can’t walk, that’s because you didn’t try hard enough.” I think irreparable psychological damage happens. I think broken happens.
But I also think workarounds also happen. If you ask people what would happen if they got confined to a wheelchair, a lot of people say they’d end their lives. But most don’t. Most soldier on, and lots find ways to have satisfying lives around that central damage.
But for me – and keep that “for me” firmly in mind – while irreparable psychological damage happens and broke happens, then workarounds also happen. Workarounds are wonderful. Workarounds make you grow into newer and better places in life – places you might not have explored without the damage.
They find other strengths to keep functioning around that central loss – and to me, in a way, that’s even more miraculous than healing.
Yet when I said that to my friend, he responded very forcefully that I was wrong. He’d been through some terrible shit in his lifetime, also working with all sorts of psychological wounds – and he needed to believe that he could heal everything to get through the tremendous pains he’d had in life. And you know what?
He’s not wrong.
Maybe he can.
My journey is not everyone else’s – which, I think, is the worst and most callous error you can make. I think it’s true for me that I can’t heal every wound by willpower alone, but maybe he can – and if so, good for him.
And if it turns out he can’t heal every wound by pouring willpower into it…. So what? What he’s got is a philosophy that keeps him pushing forward. What that message is saying, at its core, is “Don’t give up” – and that’s not a bad message for people working through difficult issues.
I’m not giving up, either. I’m taking a different approach, and if he has to interpret my differing results as giving up, well – I don’t care. Not because I’m blowing him off, but because I’m happy for him that he’s found a philosophy that empowers him… even if that same philosophy would disempower me.
We’re all different, man. The reason that Christopher Durang monologue resonates with me is because it illustrates how different pasts can lead to different results. For me, I had a play in my past where I clapped until my palms bled, and we still buried Tinkerbell.
For my friend, maybe he got her back. Maybe most people do.
Maybe my experience is not theirs.
And that’s why I didn’t argue. He’s got something that works for him, for now, and maybe in a few years he’ll come around to my way of thinking. Or maybe I’ll come around to his.
But as long as we’re both fighting to improve our mental resilience and stability, he’s my brother. And I support him in finding whatever works for him.
Just as I support finding whatever works for me.
Cross-posted from Ferrett's Real Blog.
This entry has also been posted at http://theferrett.dreamwidth.org/516313.h