2009 – Nicolas Demers

Purple Mountain Majesties

Sometimes things have a way of working out. Not for the “best” (this isn’t Candide, after all) but for the pretty good.

My flight home from Ottawa was supposed to take place Sunday night, connecting in Calgary. Nothing too special, I’d done it before. Except, what with the Christmas Day terrorist attempt, all airlines were in complete and utter chaos. I was warned that my flight to Calgary would be 2 hours late, so I could (a) stay in Ottawa and fly in the morning, or (b) … hey, there’s another flight going through Toronto, leaving right now.

That’s when the fun began. Long story short, my original flight was canceled, I was put on another flight (also to Toronto) which left a little later. Not a problem, I should still make it in plenty of time. Except I ended up leaving Ottawa over three hours late. Everybody on board missed their connecting flight, and had to be put up in a hotel.

I reached the Westin Bristol Place at about 11:30PM, one of over a hundred cranky fliers. Over two hours later, I was checked into my really quite awesome room. Too bad I had to get up in three hours to catch my rescheduled flight.

And that’s where you could say things worked out. Because my flight from Toronto was pretty smooth. Checkin was easy, security seemed a little more alert but not that paranoid. It even left on time! How about that! Even better: apparently to avoid the jet stream, our plane took a southerly route, heading straight across the Great Lakes as far as South Dakota, then angling up more or less in a straight line to Vancouver. That meant I got to see some scenery I’d never seen before, except in photos and that gay cowboy movie. Too bad there was too much cloud cover for most of the flight except over Montana and part of South Dakota.

Enjoy the rest!

What I Used To Write

Talk about a blast from the past. A few months ago my folks found a few binders full of notes and writings from long ago, and asked me to take a look at it before throwing it out. What a find!

Talk about a blast from the past. A few months ago my folks found a few binders full of notes and writings from long ago, and asked me to take a look at it before throwing it out. What a find! The treasure trove includes:

Some printouts of my finished short stories, written around 1994, plus 2/3 of the final version of my first novel (finished 1992). Plus the maps that went with the novel. Can’t have a cool fantasy novel without maps, dontchaknow.
Notes and drafts for two more short stories, which I finished but don’t have the final versions of anymore; reams of notes on poems and various half-finished projects; all written 1994–1995
A dream journal I kept up for a few months in ’94. A self-hypnosis journal around the same time
Drafts of my Web site (first online in September 1995). Including notes of me learning HTML, and printouts of some of the pages.
Notes about my evolving spirituality—not beliefs, because at that time I was sliding into agnosticism, but playing around with symbols, rituals and made-up mythology.
Various odds and ends: a couple pages of quotes I really liked; episode guides to Star Trek: TNG and Space: 1999 for some reason; notes on an unsent letter to Phil Farrand, with feedback on nits he missed and criticism of his occasional heterosexist attitude; a map for an AD&D campaign I briefly DM’d sometime in the mid-80’s. The overall plotline, IIRC, was “inspired” (by which I mean, “ripped off”) from Moorcock’s Elric of Melniboné and Donaldson’s Chronicles of Thomas Covenant; maps and world-building notes for another AD&D campaign, a couple of years later, that I never got to play in.

I’m throwing most of it away. The story notes, the poetry? Gone. The dream and self-hypnosis journals? Outta here. The novel? Recycled (no, I don’t have a soft copy). The Web site drafts? Like you really need to ask.

Let’s be honest here, aside from the very temporary nostalgia value, I’ve got no reason to reread any of this stuff. It’s coming at me from long ago and far away, and is pretty well irrelevant. There’s nothing useful this motley assortment of words can give me. I haven’t written fiction or poetry in over ten years, and have no particular desire to pick it up again. I haven’t played D&D since the early ’90’s, and likewise don’t miss it. And if the journal isn’t helping me remember any of these dreams from 15 years ago, what good is it?

And, with all due respect to my younger self: my prose and poetry was mostly crap. I mean, there’s a reason why I never tried to publish any of it, with one exception. The novel was mediocre clichéd sword-and-sorcery fantasy, the shorts were a little better but mostly written for myself as creativity exercises, and the poems… okay, some of them weren’t bad. I put a few up on my site for a while, back in the day. But still, nothing to write home about, and I took them down when I began blogging more regularly.

The self-hypnosis stuff… yeah. I was trying so hard to deal with my many issues, and figure out where my life was going, but I didn’t really know how to go about it. I was so used to living inside my own head anyway, so this seemed like a good idea. In hindsight, it proved mostly just a lot of mental masturbation. I say “mostly” because I did get a couple of useful insights and actions out of it. I guess it was a bit like cognitive therapy, except without a trained professional.

The spirituality stuff was more interesting, but even then (late ’95–early ’96) pretty much on the decline. I’d gone through my my kinda-Pagan phase and was sliding into agnosticism, then atheism. None of these made-up rituals and things were ever that useful—see “mental masturbation” above—and I eventually dropped them by late ’97 (after I started identifying as atheist, but that’s a whole ‘nother story).

Still…

Still, in a more or less direct way, it’s all got me to where I am now. That first site evolved over many iterations, leading to this here blog, plus giving me the skills and confidence to branch out in the last year. Those fantasy stories got me used to putting words on paper or computer screen, which led to articles in student papers, and eventually this blog.

Doesn’t mean I need to spend much time navel-gazing, fun though it could be. It’s a brand new day, a brand new year, and I need to look forward, not backward. I’ll just take a few select pieces that have real sentimental value, and move on.

Game Review: Batman: Arkham Asylum

I’d heard the hype about this game, and eventually got to play the first few chapters at a friend’s place. I was so hooked that I decided to rent a disc and console so I could play it for myself. Everything about it is excellent, from the graphics to the gameplay to the story. Everything.

That was absolutely awesome.

For one, the voice acting is first-rate: Batman, Joker and Harley Quinn are played by the same excellent actors as in the 90’s Batman animated series (oh, how I missed Mark Hamill’s demented giggles, and Arleen Sorkin cooing “Pudd’n”!). The other voices—Bane, Scarecrow, Riddler, Poison Ivy, Killer Croc, Commissioner Gordon, Oracle—are also all great. Hell, even the generic batarang-fodder henchmen sell their lines pretty well.

The visuals are beautifully done, from the brooding asylum grounds, to the oppressive Victorian architecture, to the crumbling sewers, and every environment is full of little details that add to the gloomy Gothic atmosphere. Batman’s hi-tech armor and toys looked very nice too.

The game controls are quite complex, and there’s no tutorial as such. That’s okay, though: the game introduces elements gradually enough—moving, looking around, fighting, etc…—that before you know it you’ll be tossing out Twin Batarangs with the best of them. All you have to do is remember which button does what. As for the upgrade system, it’s pretty cool, but I didn’t find that it gave you a lot of room to customise: in the end you’ll have pretty much all available skills, it’s just a question of which to get first. (hint: “Inverted Takedown” is the shiznit.)

Replay value? I’ve only gone through the game one and a half times so I can’t say for sure, but I could probably play it a couple more times, if only to see what the “Hard” difficulty level is all about. Also, I could try out some of the more advanced fighting techniques, and see how much of the bonus material I could get my hands on. On my one complete playthrough I only discovered about half the trophies and unlockable extras, including just under half of Arkham’s Chronicles.

Which brings me to the story. On the surface, it’s pretty simple: Joker and Harley Quinn have taken control of the asylum, and Batman must save staff and other innocents, all the while figuring out the Clown Prince of Crime’s true intentions. It’s an engaging story, bringing together many characters from the Batman universe. The writers’ love for the mythos is evident in the little details, like the iconic clatter of pearls when Batman, hallucinating on Scarecrow’s fear gas, is forced to relive his parents’ murder. And Harley Quinn telling a captive Jim Gordon, “Mama spank!”. Plus, nods to sillier villains like Scarface and Calendar Man.

But there’s more. A lot of the extra world building was clearly inspired by the graphic novel Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, written by Grant Morrison and illustrated by Dave McKean in 1989. It’s the kind of deliciously trippy mind-fuck only Morrison can deliver, delving deep into Lewis Carroll, Jung, Crowleyian magic and other esoteric themes, yet (at least to me) never crossing the line into random pseudo-profound mystical babble. In this story, Batman is presented as hardly more sane than the Joker and other inmates, and Arkham as a cursed house, fed and made strong by the constant flow of violently insane souls.

The “chronicles” hidden throughout the game are each short chapters in the journal of Amadeus Arkham, founder of the Asylum. From what I’ve seen (ie: the first half) it’s not too different from the original Morrison story—toned down, because this is an action-adventure game, and players don’t want to spend too much time hearing about Crowley and the Tarot and whatnot—but still pretty darn creepy and disturbing. And though they only show up in Scarecrow-induced hallucinations, the game does drop a few nice hints that Batman has, shall we say, issues.

I wish I’d found all of Arkham’s chronicles, though, because I want to see how this version of the story ends. Forget defeating the Joker, I want to know about the Asylum’s history!

So, to recap: fantastic game. It’s fun, challenging, full of atmosphere and details that show deep love for the Batman mythos. Definitely a keeper. And hey, they’re making a sequel!

We are the champions!

Well, when I say “we,” I don’t include me personally. My team ended up second-to-last place in the seeding, and then were eliminated right away on the second day.

Still, I had a great time at the Queen Vicki tournament this weekend. I hadn’t participated in a NAGVA tournament in ages! In fact, before Spring Bling earlier this year, I don’t think I’d been in any volleyball tournament in five years. Well, gotta make up for lost time.

And in my last entry, I mentioned that was intimidated about reffing. Fortunately, that turned out pretty well in the end. I reffed two matches and was going to ref a third, but the teams requested a more experienced ref. I didn’t take it personally, and in fact was quite relieved. It’s a lot of pressure, especially with the couple of really competitive bitches I had to deal with. I’m pretty familiar with the rules, but I was visibly nervous, and they could smell blood.

That’s okay, though. Confidence will come with experience. And the Head Official gave me a passing grade, which means I’m now certified to up-ref in any NAGVA tournament for the next two years.

That Last Step’s a Doozy

“Do one thing that scares you every day,” the bumper sticker says. In that case, I think I’ve saved up enough terror for the next couple of months. Because this weekend, some friends and I went to Whistler for zip-lining. Sound familiar? Yes. But this was a brand new tour, way more intense, with longer and steeper lines. Plus a really hot guide, though that wasn’t advertised.

The ziplining was hella fun, though my fear of heights really kicked up. I mean, yes, I kind of expected it, being a hundred feet up and all, but I’ve already been through this! Shouldn’t I have become desensitized to gliding through the air, just a little? Hmph. Well, the first line wasn’t bad. I went through it with nary a flutter in my stomach. The second and third, though? Flying over Fitzsimmons Creek? Not so easy.

The fourth was hardest, because I could see exactly how long it was, and how far down to the ground. Hell, the station was above the tops of some of the trees, and the next one was waay down in the valley (about 2000 feet away and 20 storeys down, so the guides said)! So, just like four years ago, I had to force myself forward until gravity took over.

The stations on this trek had four or five steps, down which you walked until your harness picked you up. On the fourth station I inched down those steps, taking advantage of every distraction, using my camera as a shield against the terrifying heights. Hey, that’s some lovely scenery! (it really was, too) *click* Oh, look, lichen! How interesting, I must take a picture this second!

I made it down—and across—eventually, but it was a hell of a chore. The last line wasn’t so hard, though I chickened out of trying to zip upside down.

Well, that’s okay. There’s always next time. I shouldn’t be too hard on myself, because after all it’s been four years since I did anything like this. And I wonder if maybe my fear of heights has gotten worse since my little ATV accident. I think I was a little twitchier than normal on my flight back East—not the parts where I took awesome pictures of the Prairies and lakes and whatnot, but the parts where we landed in Toronto and Ottawa amidst bad weather and a little turbulence. And I was very twitchy on the flight to Victoria a couple weeks ago, though that could have just been a healthy survival instinct. It’s hard to be objective about your own phobias, am I right?

But here’s the thing about fears: you have to face them. So what I’m doing now is studying for the NAGVA referee certification exam. Queen Vicki is coming up soon. Though I’m the most experienced ref on my team, I haven’t reffed in a major tournament in ages, and frankly I’m pretty intimidated. But hey, it’ll be an experience. As far as experiences go, maybe as much of a rush as zooming over the treetops above Whistler at a hundred kph.

The rest of the photos are right here!

Flying to Victoria

So this weekend, a few friends and I decided to take a day trip to Victoria. The twist was that we’d fly there. It’d be quick and pretty cheap, and (to me) a new experience. Plus, I hadn’t been to Victoria in a while. The upside: it really was quick, just around half an hour from downtown Vancouver to downtown Victoria, and I got to take some killer photos on the way. The downside: those little planes felt really rickety, and we hit a bit of turbulence over the Gulf Islands. Not a lot—I didn’t get sick, though I made sure an air sickness bag was available—but enough to make me nervous. Did I mention I’m afraid of heights? Because I am.

We spent the afternoon wandering around downtown Victoria, and then we took the ferry back like normal people. Oh, and on the way back I used the Canada Line SkyTrain for the first time (from 49^th Ave Station to downtown).

Apology to Alan Turing

The UK government apologises for its treatment of Alan Turing.

The UK government apologises for its treatment of Alan Turing:

Earlier this year I stood with Presidents Sarkozy and Obama to honour the service and the sacrifice of the heroes who stormed the beaches of Normandy 65 years ago. And just last week, we marked the 70 years which have passed since the British government declared its willingness to take up arms against Fascism and declared the outbreak of World War Two. So I am both pleased and proud that, thanks to a coalition of computer scientists, historians and LGBT activists, we have this year a chance to mark and celebrate another contribution to Britain’s fight against the darkness of dictatorship; that of code-breaker Alan Turing.

Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War Two could well have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely. In 1952, he was convicted of ‘gross indecency’ – in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence – and he was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison – was chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own life just two years later.

A pointless feel-good exercise? Too little too late? A fitting tribute to a national hero? I don’t know. Maybe all of the above, but on the whole I’m happy with it. Turing damn well deserves some recognition for being one of the founding fathers of computer science, not to mention his cracking of the Enigma ciphers. And who knows what other contributions he may have made, if he’d lived? In his last years Turing researched neural nets and artificial intelligence, amongst other topics. He might have helped drive not one but two information revolutions.

I read Andrew Hodges’ excellent biography Alan Turing: The Enigma not too long after coming out. Borrowed it from the library, which is a shame because I’d really like to reread it now. An abridged version (also maintained by Andrew Hodges) is available online which, shameless plug, was the basis of an article I co-wrote in my first semester at SFU.

And in all the discussion surrounding this apology, I found a link to an excellent short story that sort of answers my previous question. What might have Turing done, if he’d lived (and was helped by a time traveller)? Check it out

PNE

Hey, who wants to see shots of the PNE dog show, the ferris wheel, and a spider flashing its privates at me? You came to the right place.

It’s a bit sad, in a way, because going to the PNE means the end of summer. Yes, it’s still (mostly) warm but the rain is coming and going, the days are getting shorter, and—horror!—the leaves are turning red.

But hey, that’ll be fodder for more photos, right?

Queer Film Festival 2009: a few reviews

A good crop of movies this year! I didn’t see as many as I wanted, due to previous commitments (or in one case getting the show times mixed up), but I had a great time at this festival. Here are some of my thoughts on the movies I saw, in chronological order.

Ciao

Oh my God, was that painful. Awkward dialog, clunky directing, plodding pacing, and acting that could only be more wooden if Ents played the parts. I could see where the writers were going with the story—a weird kinda-romance between one guy and his dead best friend’s long-distance boyfriend had a lot of dramatic potential—but the execution was totally off. A friend of mine very accurately described it as “the most boring date ever.” And yes, this setup does justify the awkward “how-was-your-flight” and “so-tell-me-about-yourself-what-do-you-do-for-a-living” small talk, but the audience shouldn’t be bored to tears!

Things livened up a little when the two finally bonded over their memories of Mark, as well as Mark’s hilariously cheesy song, but I could never manage to suspend my disbelief and accept that these were real people doing real, natural things. And the story didn’t get any resolution. Sure, I could accept that Jeff and Andrea just shared one kiss and would never see each other again, but what about Jeff’s sleeping problems, mentioned several times near the beginning? Were they due to unresolved grief over Mark? Did that one crying jag (followed by that brief makeout) fix everything?

Ready? OK!

Sweet, fluffy, totally hilarious. An 11-year-old boy who dreams of becoming a cheerleader in his conservative Catholic school must deal with his hardass nun teacher, and his overworked single mother who’s afraid that her doll-playing, Maria-von-Trapp-dressing son might be… you know… that way. But nobody’s really bad in this movie, just misguided, and even the serious moments are eventually resolved through the power of love and pom-poms. Gimme a W! Gimme an I! Gimme an N! Gimme an N! Gimme an E! Gimme an R!

The Coast is Queer

I always look forward to this annual showcase of local queer filmmakers. There was some very good stuff this year—Coffee being my favourite, along with Asylum (hey, I drove by that mental hospital every day for a couple of years!), the catchily tragic Caught, the hilariously naughty Galactic Docking—but nothing as memorable as last year’s offerings, I’m sorry to say. And mixed in with that were some bizarre numbers that just left me scratching my head (Cindy Doll and Swans, I’m looking at you). So, a bit of a disappointment, but hey. They can’t all be winners.

I have to give props to the folks at the anti-homophobia youth filmmaking bootcamp. See, I don’t mind shelling out for a pass I won’t fully use, if it goes to fund things like this. And those anti-homophobia shorts showing before every film, made by fifth-graders! Fifth. Graders. The mind is blown.

Otto; or, Up With Dead People

Is it a spoof of pretentious indie films? Is it an homage to gory zombie flicks? Is it gay porn? The answer, of course, is “all of the above.” Otto, a young man who may or may not be a zombie, must deal with an egotistical movie director and her silent-film girlfriend, bashers, an ex-boyfriend from when he was alive, and the sad knowledge that he does not fit in the world of the living. But is he in fact alive, though insane? Was it all just part of Medea’s pompous gay zombie blockbuster? No. Or was it? Maybe.

Boycrazy

These four shorts are full of delicious eye candy, from the adorable Zak in Dinks, to hot FBI agents and hotter alien ass probers in Q-Case, to Corey and his parade of musical friends in Boycrazy. Okay, King County didn’t have so much eye candy, what with the dancing bears and the Top Gun stage musical with all-butch-lesbian cast, but I was too busy laughing my ass off to care.

Half-Life

I love a good mind-fuck on a Saturday night! This movie has gorgeous cinematography, bizarre dream sequences, a little boy with magical powers and a seriously messed-up family living in an increasingly messed-up world. There was no real plot, just a tapestry of interweaving stories that the characters and their issues brought to disturbing life: the overworked mother is dating a controlling asshole, the older sister bonds with her gay friend who just lost his virginity and dreams of flying planes, the boy yearns to reconnect with his long-lost father (who’s not dead, maybe, just… gone), and much more.

Global warming, geeky fundamentalists, teleportation, and everything ends (or begins?) with Timothy making the sun rise in the West. A perfectly weird end to a weird movie.

A couple of belated book reviews

Hey, didn’t I resolve in January to read fiction and then to blog about it? Why yes I did.

Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City

I’d started Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City in April, shortly after finishing The Five Books of Moses Lapinsky, and eventually finished it on my vacation in June. And just like Five Books, as with the previous book, I had a hard time getting into it. The problem, I think, was that there wasn’t any plot, just a bunch of characters living their lives and interacting.

But it grew on me. The lack of an overall plot stopped bothering me, and I just let Maupin lead me by the hand into the lives of these oddballs—not as sideshow freaks, but as interesting people who made San Francisco the city he loved. And hey, I can definitely relate to Mary Ann, the innocent newcomer.

Mary Ann Singleton was twenty-five years old when she saw San Francisco for the first time.

She came to the city alone for an eight-day vacation. On the fifth night she drank three Irish coffees at the Buena Vista, realized that her Mood Ring was blue, and decided to phone her mother in Cleveland.

Hee. “Mood Ring.”

And another sign of the times: all the scenes of cruising (both hetero and otherwise) at Safeways and laundromats. I mean, granted, they didn’t have the internet back then, but did people really do that? Oh my god, maybe they still do that! Have I been blind to all the hooking up going on at the Safeway on Davie? Damn, I’ll have to pay more attention in the future.

William Hope Hodgson’s The Night Land

I totally forgot about this book, until I dug it up again in Ottawa, and decided to bring it back with me.

A bit of history: way back when, I borrowed from a friend a complete compilation of HP Lovecraft’s stories, in three large volumes. The second (IIRC) contained a review by Lovecraft of about a dozen horror/fantasy novels of the era. One of them, The Night Land, sounded intriguing—a story of the far future, where the last remnants of humankind are huddled in a massive fortress and the rest of the Earth is filled with horrible monsters. Lovecraft appreciated the weird and creepy settings, but objected to the silly pseudo-Olde-Fashioned Writing style, and the schmaltzy love story that drove the plot.

Don’t ask me how I got my hands on an obscure horror novel published in 1912, but I did. And say what you will about Lovecraft (like, that he was a creepy misogynistic bigot), but when it came to fiction the guy knew his shit. Everything he said in his review was absolutely on the nose. In fact, rereading The Night Land the second time around was even more painful than I remembered:

And I stood me up, and did peer about for any dread matter; but all seemed proper, and I began to stamp my feet against the earth, as that I would drive it from me, and this I do say as a whimsy, and I swung mine arms, as often you shall do in the cold days; and so I was presently something warmed. And I dismantled my cloak, and wrapped it around me, and did feel that the Diskos [his weapon, like a circular vibro-blade] was safe to my hip.

Then did I sit me down, and did glow a little with relish, in that I should now eat four of the tablets; for, indeed, these were my proper due, by reason of my shiftless fasting ere I came so wotless to my slumbering.

Now imagine 500+ pages of that. And I’ve spared you the really nauseating parts after he rescues his lady-love and takes her back to the Pyramid. They alternate between being all lovey-dovey, and her being an arbitrarily silly bitch so the big strong protector male has to hit her a few times so she’ll behave. Yeah, I’d forgotten how stunningly sexist the book was, and “Well, it was written in 1912” isn’t much of an excuse. Hodgson deliberately went for old-fashioned, not just in the language but the story dynamics, creating something I’d describe as “medieval”. As much as I hate doing it on principle, I had to skim a lot of passages until I got to the next plot point or action scene.

Some bits were interesting, though. The description of the Evil Forces was indeed pretty cool, as was the narrator’s musing that most of this future Earth wasn’t so much evil as just alien; dangerous to humans, sure, but not actively hostile to them, and still not without beauty.

At one point the protagonist was wondering if Naani (the love interest) had had other lovers between the present day and this future (because they’ve both been reincarnated many times) and actually got jealous over the possibility. That was just so silly to me that I felt sure the whole novel was a subtle deconstruction of the reincarnation romance trope. However, everything else seemed to be played completely straight, so I don’t know.

Bottom line: meh. It was kind of interesting as a specimen of old-time literature, but it fails as a love story, and only somewhat succeeds as horror and adventure. Only hardcore fans would enjoy this.