May 2006 – Nicolas Demers

Comic Book Review: WitchCraft

A savage murder in ancient Britain brings on the vengeance of the Hecateae, Goddess of Witches, She who is Maiden, Mother and Crone. From the Middle Ages to the Victorian Era to the 1990’s, the wheel of death and rebirth brings the victim and her killer ever closer to a final confrontation.

This 3-part miniseries (published April–June 1994) is one of the first titles I read when I started exploring Vertigo. I loved it right away, because it spoke directly to my politics and spirituality. As a queer, I was (and still am) aware of the connections between homophobia and misogyny, and have identified as feminist from the beginning. And, at the time, I was flirting with Neo-Paganism and Wicca, and the image of the Triple Goddess was a powerful one I was already familiar with. WitchCraft is about women first and foremost; it is intended as a tribute to women’s spirits in the face of oppression, and a grim reminder that being a woman isn’t necessarily easy, no matter what century you live in. In every era the killer is an arrogant bastard who despises and tries to dominate women. In every era but one the victim is a woman who was terribly wronged by the killer in some way, but triumphs over her adversities with some help from the Goddess. The only thing that slightly bothered me was that such a female-centered story was written by a man (name of James Robinson). That didn’t seem appropriate, somehow.

So how does WitchCraft hold up after a decade? Surprisingly well. The message still speaks to me though, yes, I do find the moralizing somewhat heavy-handed and tiresome. When the comic first came out I remember some people complained it was “male-bashing,” and I see how it could look like that. There aren’t many grey areas here: Women = good/wise/oppressed. Men = evil/reckless/rapists. On the other hand, though a lot of the characters are stereotypes, they’re sadly not that far-fetched; there are men even today who are as bad as the story’s villain in all his reincarnations. I’ve known at least one guy like Martyn (the 1990’s killer), calmly spouting the most revolting misogynistic crap, that women are evil and have too much freedom as it is… So the message (if not the mysticism) is still something I can relate to. I’m not sure if I’d buy the comic today, but I still give it high marks.

Tofino and Back

Last week I had friends visit from Ottawa (not just to see me, tho: they’ve gone on an Alaskan cruise) and we spent a few days in Tofino. I picked them up at the airport Monday evening, and we headed down to Tsawwassen to take the Victoria ferry. We spent most of Tuesday traveling across the island; we could have done it in a few hours, but why rush? There was so much to see on the way.

In Duncan, we stopped at the Quw’utsun’ Cultural Centre, where we looked at some totem poles and watched an interesting short film on the Cowichan people’s history and culture. Petroglyph Park was a bit of a disappointment, though—maybe I didn’t look in the right places, but the glyphs just weren’t that visible. it’s possible I was expecting big showy art like Cro-Magnon cave paintings. Oh, well; maybe I’ll give it (or other petroglyph sites on Vancouver Island) another go if I’m ever in the area again. Everything else about our trip across the island was stunning, though, from the big mountains to the serene lakes to the little creeks bubbling merrily by the highway.

We stayed at the Pacific Sands resort, right by Cox Bay Beach. I took a walk on the beach that night, away from the resort, and was struck by the dizzying and awesome sight of the night sky crowded with stars. Equally awesome: the roaring blackness that was the Pacific, broken only by the foam on top of the waves, faintly reflecting the light from the resort. Having lived in cities all my life, I found such complete darkness disorienting and more than a little scary.

On Wednesday morning we took a walk on the beach at low tide and goggled at the stunning critters we found. There were big gorgeous starfish, several kinds of sea anemones, mussels, barnacles and more. I’d only thought about tides in the abstract, caused by the motion of the sun and the moon, but here it was real: there was the intertidal zone, covered in barnacles and mussels. This was nature, not in a zoo; powerful, untamed, dangerous and fascinating.

Then, whale watching! We’d heard that gray whales had been sighted feeding in the area, so decided it was worth the risk of seasickness. I took lots of pictures of the nearby islands as we went past them, for reference. I think in the back of my mind I wanted to piece together a map of the area, and match island names with their actual appearance. But when I sorted through the pictures later, they pretty much all looked like nondescript rocks rising from the sea. Oh well. I did get a couple of pretty good shots of a gray whale. I was lucky to even get those, because as big as those creatures are (up to 15m), they’re very small compared to the very big Pacific Ocean. Most of the time all I could see was their spout in the distance.

The best part was, I didn’t get seasick (though I got pretty worried the first time we cut engines to watch for whales). The credit goes to the two Gravols I took, and also to my always being on my feet and adjusting for the motion of the boat. In fact, I deliberately tried to imagine I was the one controlling the rocking, which I think helped even more. On the way back, the wind picked up and the waves got even worse. But I stayed abovedecks, even though I wore only a t-shirt and light jacket, because I knew if I went below I’d have a much better chance of being sick. I preferred to freeze, endure the wind and the spray (like needles on my face, it was!), than share my lunch with the fishes.

Before docking we passed by a bald eagle’s nest on one of the little islands between Tofino and Meares Island, but it was too far for me to get a clear picture. That’s okay, though: I saw lots of bald eagles (another first for me) soaring majestically around the area.

We started back on Thursday, stopping to explore a couple of trails south of Long Beach, ending up in a little sheltered cove. My inner scientist perked right up, because it made an interesting contrast with Cox Bay Beach. Now, Cox Bay is a sandy beach, very exposed, with no (or very few) off-shore rocks. It has life, but only the kind of life that can hang on to bare rock and endure the strong tides: barnacles, mussels, anemones, starfish. This little cove, on the other hand, was a gravelly beach, and turned out to have much richer life in its tide pools: everything we saw on Cox Bay, plus little fishies, tiny little crabs, more kinds of seaweed and shellfish. They don’t have to fight the ebb and flow so much. I picked up a few seashell fragments, polished by the waves and bleached by the sun, and that was another difference: would shells survive on Cox Beach long enough to be bleached white before being swept out to sea or smashed against the rocks?

And that was it. I regret that this is only the second time I’ve been out to Tofino in almost ten years of living in Vancouver. It’s a different place, more relaxed, closer to nature. I’m not sure I could live there long-term, but I treasure the brief times I stayed. And I like to think I’ve brough something back besides souvenirs: in addition to some extra knowledge about the creatures I’ve encountered, I have a greater respect for the vast, uncaring (yet complex and endlessly fascinating) web of relationships that connect them, and me, together.

Comic Book Review: Ghostdancing

I really enjoyed this six-part Vertigo miniseries when it came out in 1995. The art was very good, and though the plot wasn’t terribly deep it was engagingly written, with themes that spoke to me. Ten years later I’m less forgiving of the comic’s flaws, though I still find it an entertaining read.

Ghostdancing is the story of an ex-hippie rock star named “Snake” who discovers a drug called “Ghostdancing” which opens his mind to deeper realities. A generation ago he tried and failed to usher in the “Fifth World,” a new era where the humans would live in harmony with nature and the gods, all the filth and corruption of the Fourth World (our reality) having been washed away. Now, with help from some Native American Power-Beings, this dream can become a reality.

Back in ’95 I was starting my spiritual phase, happily exploring Wicca and Neo-Paganism, and had a couple books on Native American myth and history. At the same time, I was getting some practice as an angry queer activist. All this made me the perfect audience to Ghostdancing’s themes of cultural respect, environmental awareness, spiritual awakening, and the the idea that a better, saner world must be possible, though it might take an apocalypse to get it.

Over ten years later—a bit mellower, a lot more cynical—I’m painfully aware of the story’s simplistic black-and-white views and cliché-ridden plot. Snake and the other good guys are generally clueless, innocent and powerless until Coyote-Old-Man blows into town and opens their minds and souls (yet even then they don’t actually get to do much of anything except serve as martyrs or prophets. It’s the gods that take up the real job of reshaping the world), while the main bad guys are called “the Mammonites”: a centuries-old super-secret organization of coldly vicious control freaks, directly responsible for the physical and spiritual colonization of the Americas. Snake’s nemesis, one of the Mammonites’ henchmen, is nothing but a brutal, cocaine-sniffing thug. Basically, it’s the wise and spiritual “Noble Savage” (and Noble Savage gods, and the Flower Children who learn from the Noble Savage) vs. evil materialistic white men.

The spiritual/religious themes that I didn’t mind then, but now just grate, include: the belief in a primordial golden age, and in a golden age that will come again after a spiritual apocalypse if you believe hard enough (see, for example, the Ghost Dance cult, from which this comic got its title and borrowed a few details of the apocalypse). The use of drugs to open your perceptions to a “deeper reality” is an old standby (but not just any drug. Nasty, artificial cocaine numbs your brain. Clean, natural Ghostdancing frees it.) Most annoying of all is the typical New-Agey habit of mixing and matching cultures: the Fifth World is a Hopi belief, but the Power-Beings in this comic are very “Tribe Hollywood,” a generic mix of different mythologies—the famous trickster Coyote-Old-Man, Thunderbird , White-Buffalo-Woman, and various other unnamed human/animal beings.

It does help that writer Jamie Delano knew exactly what he was doing: he admits Ghostdancing is pure wish fulfillment, a wildly over-the-top tale of destruction and renewal coming from a place of outrage at the plight of Native people. And though outrage and passion by themselves don’t make for a very engaging story, I have to say Delano and artist Richard Case have pulled off something pretty special. If you can keep from rolling your eyes at the preachiness, Ghostdancing is a hell of a ride.

Evolution vs. Creation: War of the World Views

I confess, I’d never been to a creation/evolution debate before. Oh, I read up on a few big ones, and of course I’ve done my share of arguing on the Net. And I did attend a talk, way back when, at Ottawa U, on scientific evidence of design in nature pointing to the Biblical God. I was probably still going to church at the time, and had never read any creationist literature before, but I could already tell this twisting of science, logic and Scripture, was pure crap. A few years later at SFU, I went to a couple of events organized by Out on Campus, attended by a mixed group of queers and fundy Christians: “Beyond Homophobia” (a panel discussion on gay-positive Christianity), and a talk by Marc Adams on growing up gay in a fundamentalist environment. I remember it was always so easy to tell the queers from the Xians in the audience, and not just because I knew most of the former group personally. The Xian boys were just a bit too butch, and the girls just a bit too girly. Good times, good times.

So, last night was a first for me: a real formal debate (entitled “War of the World Views”), organized by the BC Skeptics with invited speaker Richard Peachy of the Creation Science Association of BC. This organisation seems to be composed of Young-Earth creationists who believe the Bible is literally true, that the Earth was created in six days just a few thousand years ago, that there was a worldwide flood, and of course that all creatures were made in their present form and can’t change. You know, I didn’t like to believe there were any full-blown creationists in Canada. I mean, that’s a US phenomenon, and aren’t we supposed to be better than the USA? Oh, sure, we’ve got some scary-ass churches out in the boonies, and our own (imported) versions of the Christian Coalition, and Campus Crusade for Christ, and… Damn. Okay, maybe we’re not so much better.

I got there about 15 minutes early, and already the auditorium (seating maybe 400) was three-quarters full. By the time the debate started it was more than full, with a bunch of people sitting in the aisles. I had fun trying to tell the skeptics from the creationists. One guy’s t-shirt a few rows in front of me caused me a bit of confusion. It read, “And God said…” followed by Maxwell’s equations, followed by “And there was light.” Ironically nerdy, or a fundy pretending to scientific literacy? The front of the t-shirt had a wireframe representation of a Black Hole with the formula for the Schwartzchild radius, which… didn’t answer the question. Oh, well.

As expected, all the creationist side had to offer was a round of pathetic attacks on evolution: some vague soundbites about mutation and natural selection being random and destructive, plus out-of-context quotes from various evolutionary scientists (Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, Niles Eldredge, Francis Crick, Martin Gardner) but no creation scientists. No positive evidence for creationism was presented, except lots of Bible verses. And it was pretty clear Peachy’s never had to debate with skeptics or scientists. All of his language, his use of the words “they” and “Evolutionists” and “Darwinists,” indicated he was only used to preaching to the choir. Later questions (mixed with some pretty heavy preaching) from creationist audience members weren’t any better, beating dead horses like polonium haloes, Darwin’s alleged racism and the perfectly fine-tuned universe… Bah. This isn’t science. It’s not even good religion. It’s nothing more than willful ignorance, and using their holy book as a security blanket against the big bad confusing world.

Scott Goodman (representing BC Skeptics) also gave an iffy presentation, though in different ways. He spoke very fast, and his tone felt a little… off-putting. I think he tried for “comedic” in a few places, but landed on “flippant, bordering on obnoxious.” Not that I’d have done much better in his place, but I had expected him to be a bit more polished since he’s dealt with creationists before. His presentation mostly discussed some general kinds of arguments used against evolutionary theory—Argument from Ignorance, Argument from Belittlement, and so on—which may not have been the best approach: skeptics would already be familiar with them, and fundies might find the whole thing condescending and tune out. He was more aware of the mixed nature of the audience, though, and made the excellent point that for most Christians, there is no conflict between their faith and science. This is something creationists need to hear, I think. Peachy said at one point, “The Bible supports ethical science for the glory of God,” or words to that effect. It’s creationists for whom this is a religious issue, it’s creationists who are on the offensive, because evolution—in their eyes—denies the glory of God.

Honestly, part of me was hoping for some crazy Xian freakshow, with brimstone and hellfire and ranting, but none of that happened. All I got was very smooth, very polite fanaticism (which actually made it even more disturbing) along with the same old arguments I’ve heard a thousand times before, from one side and the other. It was interesting to see the opposition face-to-face again after so many years, but also a bit depressing because they haven’t changed. They’re still repeating the same dogma, the same clichés, the same lies (there, I said it) and there’s no sign that’ll end anytime soon.

Did this debate accomplish anything? Well, I don’t expect any minds will be changed. Maybe it was the creationists in the audience who got the most out of it, though. I imagine it was good for them to hear some real scientific information and skeptical arguments, unfiltered by their church. Hopefully a few seeds of doubt have been planted, though it’ll probably be years (if ever) before they bear fruit. But on the bright side, if the creationists don’t listen, if they continue their crusade, at least we’ll have people like Scott Goodman and the BC Skeptics to hold the line.

Movie Review: Mission: Impossible III

Say, that wasn’t bad. Lots of action, chase scenes and things getting blowed up real good, which was pretty much what I signed up for. Pity about the plot, though: it felt hugely derivative, patched together from half a dozen other movies (the bit with the wife getting caught up in her husband’s spy world, for example, could have come from True Lies; Ethan’s guilty flashbacks about Lindsey’s death and his eventual redemption as a teacher when his wife kicks ass; Musgrave’s ultimate plan of American domination; the mysterious “Rabbit’s Foot” as doomsday biological weapon; other plot points that just feel so damn familiar). I’m not sure I buy the reveal that Musgrave and not Brassel is the bad guy, but maybe the clues did add up so I’ll suspend judgment for now. And I did appreciate that, unlike the previous movies, the IMF field team worked as a team, instead of being All Tom Cruise, All The Time. Other good points? A surprising amount of eye candy for all preferences. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers is very pretty, and looked good with his shirt off. Maggie Q is very pretty and looked good in that slinky red dress.

Cruise, sad to say, was not eye candy. Oh, he doesn’t look bad, and he’s toned up some since that shirtless scene in Minority Report, but… he’s just not as young as he used to be. (Which is not a bad thing in itself; Scott Bakula and Richard Dean Anderson, to name just two, are both over fifty and still scorching.) I used to think Cruise was hot, back in his Top Gun days, but that ship has sailed, baby. The funny thing is that I’m guessing Cruise knows this but, instead of aging gracefully, he overcompensates with the manly motorcycle and leather jacket. And the endless running scenes. And the four or five separate shirtless scenes. And the girls at his party swooning over him. All to show through Ethan Hunt that Tom Cruise has Still Got It. Or am I reading too much into this? Should I not be creeped out that his movie fiancée looks so much like his real-life beard womb-for-hire fiancée, that they (the movie characters) have this perfect storybook romance, and that his (fictional) in-law family totally adores him?

Okay, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe this is just part of the derivative plot and not Cruise acting out the life he wishes he had (or wishes people believed he had). The fact remains that Tom Cruise, himself, is creepy and scary as hell. Maybe I’m more aware of it since he started behaving like the insane little cultist freak he is, but Cruise was always… on. No matter what his lines were, no matter what emotion he was supposed to convey, he always had that feral glint in his eye, that intensity, that frozen grin, indicating (1) this was Tom Cruise acting, and (2) he was just a heartbeat away from going for your jugular or ranting off about Scientology.

But let’s end on a positive note: do you know what the Shanghai scenes reminded me of? The Hong Kong scenes in Deus Ex, with the homey little apartment set against the brightly lit, ultramodern skyscrapers, Hunt following obscure clues just like you would in an RPG computer game. Didn’t see that one coming, but it made me smile. I half-expected Hunt to wear shades at night and look for Tracer Tong or the Dragon’s Tooth instead of the Rabbit’s Foot (which I thought sorta looked like a nanotech augmentation canister. Or maybe an Ambrosia container). And when he called the techie guy for help, wasn’t that kind of like the scene where Alex Jacobson gives JC Denton pass keys and other vital info so he can escape and destroy UNATCO’s evil bosses? Man, what a great game. Style for days, and more plot in each level than M:I:III has in its entire production. And I know this is a horribly cheap shot, but JC Denton could kick Ethan Hunt’s ass any day of the week.