Against the Dying of the Light… (with apologies to Dylan Thomas)

Well, let’s see if we can’t brighten things up a bit shall we

First an apology to all my friends who read my “emo” post and checked in to see if I was OK … I really hadn’t intended it to come across so dark and dangerous, I was merely expressing my present state of mind rather than keeping it bottled up. Thank you for checking in, for asking if I was OK and for being my friends.

The last post was really a bit of a downer and I’m not really about that – there are times where I tend to over analyze or pick at something too long – but I’m better at expressing it now than I used to be – and that’s a good thing. I’d rather have a few maudlin posts than to be secreted away in my room bemoaning all that I cannot influence or affect.

I guess that’s my nature, to think deeply and analyze… sometimes over analyze. Because I am seeking something, something I can’t quite define… it’s spiritual in nature, but also visceral, real…

But as they say — it’s not the destination, but the journey.

I ran across this interesting blog/post not too long ago: All That Is: The Old Soul

Now, I don’t claim that this something I believe in – but a lot of what is described in this post seems to fit me and my present point in my journey.

The Gestalt Prayer seems very Dao to me…

I do my thing and you do your thing.
I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,
And you are not in this world to live up to mine.
You are you, and I am I,
and if by chance we find each other, it’s beautiful.
If not, it can’t be helped.

I do not know much about Gestalt therapy or psychoanalysis — I’ve never taken a class in either or read much on them, other than what was discussed in relationship to my theater work. On some level an actor has to have an innate ability to psychoanalyze - you have to imagine what it is like to “be another person, to step into their shoes, to walk, talk and live as they do”.

In order to do that you read about or talk to people who are like your character — to learn what they are like, what it is the character does – coal miner, baker, king – whoever they might be – there is something out there you can digest that gives you insight into playing the part – hence you are analyzing the character/person… understanding how they think and behave. You learn to read people, to make leaps in logic and to empathize with what others experience — because it fills your actor’s toolbox and allows you to bring more truth to your roles when you perform on stage.

And the post got me thinking. I’ve let it marinate in my head for while and these are the points I’ve been most curious about:

I have been described as an Old Soul.

Now, why that at first may seem flattering in a sense – words like Old and Soul are equated with wisdom and sagacity… it can also imply that they are done, on the way out, waiting to die (at least according to the blog post).

I’d like to think I’m perceptive and intuitive (wise and sage-like) and it certainly seemed to help me in my acting classes – picking up on a character’s nuances and giving line readings just the right inflection or emotional weight seemed to come effortlessly to me. Also with all the improv work I did – it just seemed so easy to hop onstage and pull stuff out of the air that made sense, made people laugh, made people think…

But a lot of what is presented in the post concerning Old Souls I want to contest — though there is quite a lot in there that is me spot on.

Much that can be said about an Old Soul is what would be said about an old person.

I’m not old! Middle Age is the New Youth baby!

My last few years in Massachusetts I was given a nickname — one that I think affected me on a level I wasn’t aware of until I left — I was called Oldie. At first it was a bit funny because yes, a lot of my co-workers and people I was hanging around with were a decade or more younger than myself. And I had all my grey hair then… I did, in many ways… look old. But I didn’t feel old and still don’t.

But because of my nature to be introspective, to seek a measure of solitude to recharge; to think about my experiences of the day, to digest and to be still… I probably acted or seemed old (in the negative sense) to those around me.

Having been away from that environment, I feel better than I have in years… invigorated and much happier. What’s truly amazing to me is that I really thought I was happy at the time… I had a lot of the things I thought I was supposed to have… but underneath, I was miserable.

Because I wasn’t doing what I was made to do… act, write, perform…

I wasn’t giving back in the way I had been when I was in school.

It’s funny… in my MFA program I wrote and performed a one-person play entitled “The Amazing Adventures of Major Bradley through Space and Time and into the Hyper-Gamma Dimensions of Ultra Reality!” (I know – long-winded title for a long winded guy ) The basis for the show was a young boy dealing with the passing of his best friend. To deal with his loss, he acts out this elaborate fantasy world filled with superheroes, space pirates, and fantasy elves and monsters. I got a chance to play a dozen different characters and voices and through it all enacted the catharsis of Bradley being able to let go and be whole once again.

In the printed copy of the script (which I had to turn in as part of the requirements for the one-person show) I included  a bit of text from Carol S. Pearson’s Awakening the Heroes Within: 12 Archetypes To Help Us Find Ourselves and Transform Our World . The piece I included deals with the myth of The Fisher King, which is part of the Arthurian Grail cycle.

When I first entered the MFA program at Pitt we were told what to expect during the three year program, which would culminate with our third year being focused on three things (essentially): a Thesis show, the Shakespeare-in-the-Schools tour and a one-person show.

I knew almost immediately what my one-person show was going to be about – I knew it was going to be kind of auto-biographical and would be about superheroes… I remember sitting in classes and sketching images that would later show up as projected slides during the actual staging of the show… I knew it would be about a 10-year old boy acting out these fantasies as a way to cope with the “real world”. And over the next two years and thought and wrote about it… and cranked out the first draft by the end of my second year.

What I’m getting at here is that the show was about what I’ve been dealing with – and what I totally forgot about. The show was about a fundamental truth I knew, that i had researched and studied and made into a freaking play in order to pass that onto to the audience — and yet just eleven or twelve years later I had totally forgotten it and what it was all about!

Old Soul my butt! Wise…? uh, maybe not

But then again, how many of us really recognize what we are going through at the time- how many of us are that cognizant and objective? Not me that’s for sure…

The Fisher King is a myth about healing – deep, emotional, spiritual, psychological healing. Its about change, growth and returning to a whole and healthy sense of self.

Talk about a face-palm.

I’m seriously thinking about revamping the show and submitting it to The New Works Festival, just to see if it would be something they’d be interested in producing – although it may not qualify since it has been staged before.

What I really like about the show (aside from all the goofy, silly voices) was getting to be 10 years old again. To be able to be free enough to be all those things that I was when I was 10 – when I could be a superhero, when I could pilot a space ship, when I could gallop across a fantasy kingdom and fight against dark monsters in the woods… and not in some table-top rpg game… but really get to do it, just like I did way back when in my backyard.

According to the Soul Ages teachings… we humans achieve or manifest our true soul age around the age of 35. I was 28 when I performed Major Bradley. Sometime between then and 35 I guess I … grew older? Forgot? Got caught up in life?

Somewhere along the way I lost Major Bradley. But I think that little sucker’s been creeping around lately…

I keep waking up with a kid-like grin on my face

…to be continued

Since I cannot play music, it is magical to me… something that we human beings have been able to create that seems to come out of the ether… those individuals who can write, hear and play music are to me, truly gifted.

I don’t know if it’s my age or my generation (no pun intended) but I’ve always found myself drawn to a number of groups that were founded in the mid-60′s, most notably, The Doors. There are quite a few others as well – Crosby Stills, Nash & Young; Jefferson Airplane; The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and The Who.

In the last year or so I’ve been listening a lot to the music created by the foursome of Daltrey, Entwistle, Moon and Townsend. Specifically the Who’s Next and Quadrophenia album’s.

I can’t really point to specific reason why, perhaps it’s the scream from Won’t Get Fooled Again or the entire through-line of Quadrophenia… but there’s something in there that has had me exploring a lot about the band, their history and the music they have created together over the last 48 years – which not un-coincidentally is about as long as I have been alive.

The Real Me… Entwistle’s bass playing… Townsend’s words;  Love, Reign O’er Me… The way the beach – is kissed by the sea. Such a great lyric.

They have been called the best band to see live.

Here’s the funny thing… when I was in high school, as a junior and senior (so 1980-81) we basically had one form of entertainment on Friday and Saturday nights and that was to cruise up and down the main street in Paris, Texas. A pretty typical American Graffiti-type of high school experience. My best friend at the time, Larry Carrington would pick me up and we would drive up and down convincing ourselves we were cool and that we were gonna get lucky that night… but larry insisted on playing this awful collection of songs… Dylan and Neil Young and The Who. While all the rest of the cars were blasting out the new wave and dance/pop… there I was stuck in a car with the “old generation” of music… I remember pleading with Larry to play something else, something that would get the girls… and Larry would just grin and say, “This is the stuff, Dave!”

And it is… really good stuff. But I say that after twenty-five years experience, of listening to music that moved me, music that lifted me and inspired me… music that consoles and music that makes you drunk. Music that ranges from new wave, radio-friendly pop, classic, cinematic, goth, dance, punk, alternative, tribal, Celtic…

I guess what really has intrigued me about The Who the last year or so… is the craftsmanship.

Because I know nothing, or next to nothing about how to create music (aside from the most primitive tapping out of a rhythm on a desk or empty can)… the process about hearing what’s in your head and turning it into sound mystifies and enthralls me… and so, when I hear not only the bass and the drums and the guitar but also the piano and synthesizer of Love, Reign O’er Me, I am simply stunned.

I’m sure I can talk to those who are musically inclined and they can point out to me the mathematical precision or ordered progression of how Pete Townsend wrote and composed these songs… but I prefer to remain ignorant, to be awed by the power of the sounds flowing into my ears…

“Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play …”

It worries me because I do not want to feel this way any longer. I do not want to be overwhelmed by this loneliness, this constant soul-crushing despair.

I’ve written some on this blog about my love of cinematic movie scores – which also applies to the music written for the smaller screen, TV score music.

I don’t want much TV, I prefer my visual entertainment in larger chunks – and would much rather watch a film than episodic television. But there have been a number of shows on TV that have captured my attention and which I watched in their entirety.

Buffy, Firefly… and Lost.

LOST hooked me with the first ten minutes — which I believe (up to this point) to be the best opening to a series I have ever seen.

The other aspect which hooked me was the score by Michael Giacchino. Like any good score, it revisits themes throughout the series, emotional cues to cue those watching to key moments of the story. Lost made great use of this during significant moents – usually highlighted by Mr. Giacchino’s music and scenes shown in slo-motion.

The theme that is made use of a lot in the series is generally given the title of “Life and Death” and was used predominately to close out an episode… and most clearly in Season 1, episode 20 “Do No Harm”.

Do me a favor, and please, listen to this beautiful piece of music.

Throughout the Lost series this is the thrust I believe the writers and creators were trying to communicate with the story… forget the mystery of the island, the mystical “is it real or not real”, the cliffhangers and smoke monsters and numbers and Dharma Initiative … what they were saying is that its the connections we make, the lives we touch… that is the true meaning of our time here on earth.

I cannot think of a piece of music that captures this more succinctly for me, than this.

In my moments of despair, when I think I cannot take another minute of this pain, this sadness, this constant unendurable ache… I am reminded by this music that life continues. That while there is death and sorrow and pain… there is also life and joy and light.

During my brief time of living, I have met and loved some very very dear friends.

Some I still see, others have grown distant and still others I know I will never see or speak with again.

As much as I was disappointed with the way the series Lost ended – I did like the idea and the image of reconnecting with those who have meant the most to us in our final moments. To be able to touch them, hug them, to look them in the eye and to “see” and to know them… to tell them – you were important. You mattered. I love you.

I hope I am granted that before I go.

I hope we all are.

We are all undergoing transformation, everyday, though we may not be aware of it. Each day that passes presents us with oppotunites to recognize and embrace the changes in our lives, or to resist them and created obstacles and hardships for ourselves.

Its really all about accepting the choices you make or that you are forced to make based on circumstance. Because of the way my creative mindset works, I tend to think in images and pictures rather than words… I’m pretty sure we are made up of many other ways of seeing or viewing or comprehending the world…

That being the case, I really identify with the above quote, especially since my rabbit nature is to retreat or to burrow when hardship arrives. But the image of hares frolicking over a dead lion lets me know that every adversity can be overcome and that happiness and lightness returns in time.

That’s a pretty long-winded introduction to me telling you about my latest bit of transformation.

I finally got my tattoo!

I’ve spoken at length in other posts about one of my favorite novels, Richard Adam’s Watership Down. My tattoo (may not be the last one either!) is an image taken from the animated film version of the book. While the film lacked the punch of the book, the opening sequence which tells of the creation of the world from the rabbits’ perspective also details one of the first exploits of their trickster hero El-ahrairah. While the art style of the film is pretty much realistic is approach, the opening sequence is very stylized… almost cave-painting style, the the images being rendered in a simple, symbolic style… and each of the images is adorned with markings or tattoos if you will… spirals, stars, etc.

When I started serious contemplating get a tattoo I thought a lot about what I wanted. I had originally settled on a Celtic tree of life image – and one I hope to get at some point. But this year has been about a embracing of my new self and accepting of my nature and acknowledging that I am ok just as I am… not what others expect me to be.

And as this is the year of the Rabbit/Cat – the same solar cycle under which I was born – this year has been about gathering and grasping the power of that symbol. And that is the main reason for settling on the image of as my first tattoo… I wanted a physical representation of what this year has meant to me… one that will last in the years to come.

I’ve already made one physical change this year and this makes my second. And as the number three has always been important to me, the third part of my transformation needs to be put into place and that involves what will most likely be the most difficult for me to achieve – losing weight. I don’t want to drop a drastic amount of weight, but I need to get more active, more physical. It will be tough considering by the time the end of the day rolls around I am pretty worn out, but I cannot allow that to became an excuse.

I also want to talk about the following video: Feminism and the Disposable Male

I feel a lot of what she is talking about is valid. And the more I thought about it as I was watching it and for many hours afterward, I began to see how this concept has informed a lot of my relationships… especially my late marriage and how I handled the end of it.

I felt at the time very saddened by the death of the relationship and beat myself up a lot over missteps and mistakes and … well I blamed myself for everything. It was my fault. It had to be… it couldn’t be her fault and she had to be the one who came out on top. So I gave up my seat in the lifeboat – I didn’t stand in the way of her survival.

I’m speaking in broad brush strokes here… of course it wasn’t that simple or that exactly… there were many many factors that brought about the end of the marriage … but what the video really spoke to me about was how my attitude had been informed by our society’s expectation for me to bow out gracefully and to take the blame onto myself because… well that was the male thing to do, the chivalrous thing to do… I was the disposable one.

I also realize how it informed my attitude and behavior in a lot of my relationships… how I always defer to what she wants to do, go here she wants to go, etc. Not because I don’t have my own opinion or wants or needs, but because there is this out-dated expectation that their needs were more important than my own.

I know if my ex’s were to read this they will stridently disagree, that I will be described as steadfastly unwilling to do anything other than what I wanted to do, that I selfishly sought out activities and past times that were solitary activities, that I shut them out and made them feel isolated and alone. I can’t say that they are wrong either, but I also realize and am aware of my introvert nature, which draws energy and recuperation from solitary “me” time.

And I’m not defending my actions… merely trying to learn from them. I deferred to their wishes because – honestly – I thought it would make them happy. My ex-wife for example liked to plan, liked to make decisions and to be in charge. And so, I thought by deferring I was making her happy – unsuspecting that it also isolated her and made her feel alone in the decision making.

I really hope to avoid that behavior in the future. That I do not make myself disposable.

That is the lion this hare wants to gambol over, to dance on the dead form of bad old habits and celebrate the new.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,800 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 30 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Perhaps that’s a bit too self-deprecating, too bleak. I do wonder if I will ever be involved with another woman ever again… some days it just seems as though there are no more chances left. There are times where I feel that I will remain alone for the rest of my life… and that depresses the hell out of me. I’d like to think I’m a good guy, a good catch, … someone worth being with. Despite what my ex has said to me – I do think of others and am not completely self-involved.

Of course reading over what I wrote it seems contradictory – but how can I write about this depression and not talk about myself? It is a an oroboros of confusion … or is it ball of confusion?

I believe I have missed out on some chances here and there when I was younger – intimate encounters and sexual situations – either out of fear or a complete unrealistic view of what “romance” is supposed to be – or what love is supposed to be. For example, there have been a number of times when things were getting to that point where the clothes come off… and I stopped out a sense of courtesy or chivalry or some other nonsense…

OK, let me explain — when I was in high school, or very near the end of high school, a film came out… Somewhere in Time starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymor.

It is based on Richard Matheson’s novel Bid Time Return and also was influenced by Jack Finney’s Time and Again. The Finney novel I prefer, because it has a lot more intrigue and tension… while the Matheson novel is grand in its own right, my jaded self now couldn’t see myself reading it.

In the film version of the story, Reeve is a playwright who is drawn into a love-affair that breaches the bonds of time… I won’t go into detail about it – if you’ve seen the film you know the plot and what happens. Suffice to say, he loses the girl and then dies from utter sadness, wasting away and pining for the woman he loves and in a complete fantasy coda they are reunited in the afterlife.

Now, at the time and for many years afterward and continuing well into my adult life – this film and the idea of romance it holds forth – either consciously or unconsciously influenced how I would enter into or view romantic partners and lovers.

The first of its charms is that it starts in the world of theater, which at the time I had come to realize was where my passion was – I was going to be an actor and a damn good one at that. I will grant myself the title of good… not great, but good.

And the object of the main character’s affection was an actress – and so many of my love interests would be as well.

And third, the was the soundtrack… it didn’t help that the girl who broke my heart about a year later would give me this soundtrack on cassette tape… if you are feeling down, depressed or missing someone, trust me… do not listen to this magnificent score by John Barry.

Looking back on this film, the story and the music… I kinda get really angry. Now that may sound silly or what have you… I mean I know the film isn’t responsible for my choices or misteps I might have made along this bumpy road of life… but it set the bar, in a way…

If I had my way, if I could’ve actually been given a choice about which film would influence my love life I think I would’ve chosen something different… Henry & June maybe, or Belle Epoque; The Unbearable Lightness of Being… something a little more unrestrained and not so lofty or puritan…

On one hand its unfair of me to blame a film for my own too deep feelings… I feel deeply for a number of reasons  - my genetics and my profession for starters… I learned early on that if I wanted to be good on stage then i could hold nothing back, I had to surrender utterly to the emotion in order for it to be expressed as truth… I’ve always been a deep thinker and a deeper feel-er… depth of emotion matters to me more than it should and has brought a lot of pain into my life, but it has also made the experiences that much sweeter as well…

I haven’t given up completely on finding love again or someone who finds me attractive enough to be with… but some days, it just seems too far away…

And if you ever catch me watching Somewhere in Time again… please, smack me upside the head

My father, John Robert Fielding, married my mother Rosemary Ann Elizabeth Bryenton on December 2nd 1961.

When I was younger I was very much interested in the family history, etc. but as I’ve gotten older that interest has waned but I still remember that we came from rural/agricultural roots on both sides of the family. I remember thinking at the age of twelve that I would go back to the farm my father left and pick up where he left off… there seemed something romantic about working in the fields, tending the soil, making something grow.

I felt quite overwhelmed and proud to see my parents honored by family and friends that had gathered to share this occasion with them.

I love you Mom & Dad.

What I don’t think I got across or articulated really well was this thought I have that the emotive quality or beauty of the music somehow  is wasted on the scenes or sequences in the film that it plays under … now I am in no way belittling the films or film sequences I’m talking about… what I’m trying to do is reconcile my reactions to hearing this wonderful music and wondering what was going through the composer’s mind when they where writing and recording the score that would end up accompanying the film. Did they try to match the notes to what has happening on the screen or did they just try to match the music with the one or two emotions present in the sequence (I’m over simplifying this I know).

Let me explain…

At the end of the last post I provided a link to Craig Armstrong’s Kiss of the Dragon. The track is a really beautiful and evocative piece of music, piano and strings.

I had not watched the film when I got the score, which I tend to do quite frequently… there are a number of composers whose soundtrack/scores I will purchase regardless of the film… simply because they provide a soundscape that is just really great to listen to… and since I don’t have the images of the film to go along with the listening experience I hear the music as a separate and stand alone experience.

This was the case for Kiss of the Dragon. Before seeing the film, but reading about it online from reviews and the wikipedia entry, I learned that the main character (Jet Li as a Chinese cop in Paris) finds his investigation intertwined with the life of an American woman forced into prostitution; this woman has a little girl that needs to be rescued and this plot device drives the last half of the film. So, learning this and seeing that the score for the film is divided into 19 tracks all labeled Symphony for Isabella (1-19), my mind naturally associated Track 11 (this piece I linked above and in the previous post) with the tender moment between the mother and her reunion with her daughter.

Turns out, it isn’t used for that story line at all. The track plays under a discussion between Jet Li and his contact in Paris – an old man whose restaurant serves as a safehouse  for other undercover cops from China… which kind of blows my mind because the music is really poignant — and to me at least  - too good for that particular scene.

Another example is from the film, The Replacements, starring Keanu Reeves and Gene Hackman.  The music score was composed by John Debney.

Keanu plays a “could’ve been great” quarterback who gets a second shot at the pro leagues when the regular players go on strike… There’s a track on the score named for Keanu’s character, Falco.

Obviously the music was composed to give us an audio insight into the character- that he’s a good guy who has doubts and deserves something better. Maybe its not that exactly, but that’s my interpretation. But again, the music seems too good for this scene, this film…

Now, I understand that I’m biased. I truly adore this type of music and appreciate it for its ability to paint a picture or provide my mind with a story beyond that for which it was created.

Which is exactly what happened with the music John Debney composed about a quarterback played by Keanu Reeves.

A lot of this music plays on my ipod and I listened to it a lot at home and when a particular track catches my imagination, I tend to listen to it a lot… and I start to make up my own story to accompany the music. So, this particular piece snagged my imagination and I began to see images and eventually a short story evolved, all from this short two minutes and fifty-two seconds of music.

Back in college I was privileged enough to be part of a gaming group that met on a regular basis and we explored a number of worlds and stories in several types of rpg games… most notably, AD&D and Shadowrun.

The Shadowrun game we were all a part of was run by a good friend named Shawn Williams and his partner in crime, Fred Wheaton. One of Shawn’s npc character’s was a troll who served as a bodyguard and gofer for a fixer by the name of Gargoyle. This troll was a very big, muscled and imposing character. But he was not a thug, he wasn’t mean and in fact he was one of the sweetest characters I’ve had the pleasure to have known.

It was a great character/plot device Shawn had created because they way the character was played – the things he did, how he would speak, etc. captured the hearts of all of us players. I think we all loved Bambi and would have done anything to protect him from harm — though on a number of occasions I think he was the one protecting us from harm.

Anyhow, Bambi was your big troll with a heart of gold and that was the character that kept popping into my head as I was listening to this piece of music… it became the soundtrack that played in the background for a short story about Bambi.

I’m not sure if this is a moment that actually happened in those game sessions we had or if it was something I made up, inspired by my remembrance of the character. I knew almost immediately that the music track was going to be renamed for my story which also became it’s title — “Gargoyle sez I got a big heart.”

Bambi wasn’t the smartest character, but what he lacked in brains he made up in heart. He was a good guy. He didn’t try to play the hero (like I did) or the tough guy (like Wayne did) or the ‘chosen one’ (like Lee did). He was just this not-so-bright, kind, lovable teddy bear.

So this story formed in my head and I eventually wrote it down. I think it’s pretty good — though again, I’m biased because it is so closely tied to this particular piece of music and also to a character and memories of a really good time many years ago. The basis of the story was Bambi’s misinterpretation of something Gargoyle tells him.

One of Bambi’s closest friends in the game was a female decker named Checkmate. I don’t think its too far off the mark to say that Bambi loved Checkmate — even though she was human. So we have this nice star-crossed love affair dynamic between the two and a really bittersweet friendship. Because both of them viewed the other a someone who needed to be protected.

And its Checkmate who learns what’s got Bambi so upset by what Gargoyle has said to him.

Here… I’ll let you read it and then we can talk a bit more…

Big Heart

“This wasn’t part of our arrangement.”

There was a brief pause. She watched as he filtered through the holos of his dailies; which had come in, which were late and those yet to be processed. You had to give Gargoyle credit; he was one of the most organized fixers in the ‘Burgh. If any of his four hundred or so contacts had approached him with a situation, you could damn well be sure he’d researched it, cataloged it, cross-referenced other opportunities and calculated risks and payouts before he even considered whether or not to take the job.

“Yeah, well, it’s either you or someone else. Your choice.”

“And by someone else you mean that thug Chaucer.”

He might’ve given an almost imperceptible shrug. Then again, maybe he didn’t, she wasn’t sure. He obviously had no opinion about it.

“Dammit, I don’t have time for this…”

“Like I said,” he gave her the briefest of glances, “up to you.”

Checkmate mentally flip-flopped the trouble this was going to cost her several dozen times in half as many seconds, trying to decide.

She cursed silently, hating herself for even questioning what she knew she would do anyway. She owed the big troll that much. More, if she was honest.

“Where is he?”

The third most powerful man in the ‘Burgh sighed and turned away from the flickering glow of the business data; glancing at the opposite wall, scanning each of the fourteen security screens quickly.

“Roof.”

—–

She opened the door to the roof and the warm wet smell of the night flooded her nostrils, the sulfurous stench from the mills pervading even this high up on the Hill.

She stepped out into the wafts of steam and smoke from half a hundred smokestacks from the tightly pack houses, homes and shops that made up the Eyrie. The inhabitants of this part of the city weren’t exactly what you’d call accepted. Most if not all were refugees of one type or another… on the run from the law, from debt collectors or from their pasts. She hated it here.

Hated it because she was running too.

She moved across the tar and asphalt surface, picking her way around the puddles and pools of collected moisture.

The huge hulking form sat on the roof looking out over the city lights.

Far below, in the streets, points of light raced back and forth across bridges and roadways, dozens of cars and trucks and vehicles crisscrossing the city going about their business or pleasure.

She paused, looking at him. She hated how he sat when he got like this.

She hated that he tried to make himself look small.

She dug in her pocket for her pack of smokes and her lighter. She sparked up as she stepped up beside him, taking a long drag and blowing out a plume of blue smoke that was quickly swallowed by the ever-present tendrils of steam.

The big troll wrinkled his nose but didn’t look at her.

“I know, I know,” she sighed, smoke leaking from her nostrils. “Bad for my health, right?”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Bambi’s bass rolled towards her. “It’s just that… well…”

“Well what?”

He glanced at her, embarrassed and she could feel her anger flaring. She hated when he acted this way. But she loved him for it too. The troll was a massive creature, twice as tall as any many and five times as strong. He was Gargoyle’s biggest weapon and she loathed the fixer for that. Bambi wasn’t a thug.

Bambi was better than that. Better than this.

“Well,” he said. “The girl’s that work the Temple District and some I seen down near the Beehive, well they smoke. They wear them collars and they work for the pimps and they smoke.”

“Yeah, so?”

Bambi glanced at her again, his eyes welling with tears.

“You ain’t no working girl, Checkmate… you ain’t gotta go with no one to earn creds.”

It actually took her a beat before she could formulate a response. The big lug actually thought… She took another long drag and then flicked the cigarillo out off the roof.

She held the smoke in her lungs for a span of heartbeats and then released it, taking care not to blow it toward her big dumb friend.

“Better?”

Bambi nodded yes and wiped his nose with a huge forearm.

She looked at him, wondering what had brought on this latest crisis. The troll shared a lot in common with the rest of his brethren. He had their look, their strength, their toughness… but somehow he missed out on all the things that made them hard inside. The Bambi on the inside was soft and sensitive; he was a gentle soul, a poet.

She sat down next to him, dangling her boots over the side, both of them watching the ever changing web of traffic and lights of the city below.

“Gargoyle tells me you’re thinking about making a run.”

The big troll stiffened and then relaxed.

“Yeah. Yeah I gots to.”

“How come?”

He was silent for a minute. And then he shifted, half turning towards her.

“You remember when Lobster needed that special medicine for that cousin of hers? And we went into Yak territory to get it from the sperimental lab?”

She felt her stomach tighten at what she feared he might be leading up to; that run had been dangerous, too dangerous. The Yak were not to be crossed, ever.

“Yeah, I remember.”

“Well, it’s kinda like that. I got’s to find me a sperimental lab. To help me… I mean, help a friend with his problem. He’s…. he’s real sick.”

What the heck was he talking about?

“Well, if you let me know what your friend’s problem is, maybe I can help.”

She held her breath. There had been a bad strain of trogscourge reported hitting the troll and mutie communities as of late. There was no cure for the scourge.

The big troll let out a long sigh.

“It… it ain’t for a friend, Checkmate. It’s for me.”

The words stuck in her throat but she got them out anyway.

“I know that, Bam,” she said softly.

His shoulders shook a little and his voice was filled with fear.

“Gargoyle sez I got a bug heart.”

She didn’t understand.

“What?”

He was crying now, the tears moving slowly down his wide face. The story came out among sobs.

“Gargoyle sez I got a big heart. He wasn’t happy when he said it to me cause he was pretty upset about the Buzzboys who had roughed up some of the squatters who he was using as lookouts down at the wharf… you know, like Squirrely Frank and Sally-in-the-Alley. Well anyway, he was upset cause the robodocs were expensive and he said it’d be cheaper to just let the Buzzboys finish the job and he could hire a couple of surveillance jockeys for cheaper. And I said that he just couldn’t not pay for helpin those who was helpin’ him. That wasn’t fair. And He got this look on his face, you know? Kinda mad and kinda sad and then he sighed and said heart was too big. And I didn’t get it and so I had Twitch look it up on the matrix. She looked through a lot of them medtech journals and all sorts of off-the-grid health forums and she said that they said it meant I had something called car-dee-oh-meg-alley which she said was a fancy way of saying I had an enlarged heart. And the stuff she found sez I gots to find a new one, or it’ll explode soon.”

Checkmate gaped at him.

Then she started laughing.

The big troll looked at her, hurt and confused.

“It ain’t funny, Checkmate! I gots a big heart!”

When she could compose herself she was going to go back downstairs and give the fixer an earful. She tried to control herself but the laughter bubbled up again.

Oh, how she loved the big dummy. That she feared for him told her that much. She really didn’t know what she would do if something really were to happen to him.

“It ain’t funny, Checkmate!”

“I know… I know,” she giggled.

“We gots to find one of them labs… I really don’t want my heart to splode. I think I need it.”

She scooted over to him and tried and failed to put her arms around him.

“Oh you big stupid troll,” she breathed into his chest. “You do have a big heart, but it’s not going to splode.”

“It’s not?”

“No. No its not.”

They sat for a bit, watching the city below them.

“Are you sure?” he whispered into her hair. “You sure it’s not going to splode?”

She put her hand on his chest and felt the strong, steady beat of his huge heart under her hand.

“No.”

He sighed with relief.

“Your heart’s just fine, Bambi. It’s perfect.”

So… that’s what happens when I listen to this type of music… and that’s what I really love about it… that fact that it can provide you with something other than what it was created.

I like it because it elevates the story or the film it was created for… it makes it better.

Life isn’t like the movies and life doesn’t have a soundtrack… though I really wish it did.

So, here’s two things I’ve been rolling around in my head of late…

1. The prevalence  of passages about food in the novels I read.

2. Soundtrack/Score music that is too beautiful for the scenes it accompanies.

So, I just finished reading the Hunger Games and am settling in with A Dance of Dragons, and while the first books emphasize the conditions that make the passages about the food pertinent and important… I have to wonder about the second (the fifth novel in George R. R. Martin’s epic A Game of Thrones series).

Now, this isn’t a unique story-telling device to these two books, and as a matter of fact it crops up in a lot of literature. But I’m not talking about books such as Like Water for Chocolate or Eat, Pray, Love, etc.  Books where food is what holds the book together… And while food isn’t the center of Hunger Games, it is an important element. I’m not sure if I’m getting my point across… here, I’ll try to re-state it.

Why do we have passages about food in books, predominantly fiction? I guess because its such  central part of our waking lives? I mean, we spend a lot of time and energy procuring, preparing and consuming food… it’s one of the great pleasures of being a human being… the variety of tastes and textures and flavors… and maybe I’m answering my own question — I mean we write about food because it is a central or key part of our lives — but is it necessary to feature it in literature?

Part of me thinks its laziness on an author’s part… it adds to the word count and pads out passages, yes… but how often does it move the plot forward? Its great set dressing and atmposphere, but is it necessary — or perhaps the real question is, should I be adding this type of device to my own work? Will it make it seem more real? Will it draw the reader in?

I’m not sure what to think, to be honest. In A Dance of Dragons, Martin introduces characters by describing what they are eating… and in almost every chapter (at least so far and as best as I can recall) there is some mention of food or eating of some kind… the presence of sustenance is paramount it seems and maybe that’s what Martin is hinting at under all the political and personal machinations that men have — that at our core we are no better than beasts… ever on the hunt for our next meal.

Its just something I’m curious about and would like to to know what others think about it…

The second puzzle that’s been rolling around my cerebral cortex concerns my hobby – which is collecting movie scores. Cinematic music has always been a passion of mine, I find it thrilling, evocative, moving, and inspiring. I’ve talked about before how music is a mystery to me and one that I hope will remain so – I don’t ever want it to lose its mystical/magical aura. If I ever learn to play an instrument I hope that it does not diminish my appreciation for what composers can do …. to be able to hear in one’s mind the series of notes and instruments that will play them in order to create a passage of music that accompanies a series of images is mind boggling.

That we as human beings have the capability to put these two mediums tgether to creeate art and entertainment is … well, just awesome

I’ve got in my library something in the neighborhood of (if iTunes is correct) 900 albums of film scores.

I know. I’m a nerd.

But back to the point I was making… Some of these albums are OK, some of them are great, some are fantastic and some of them are just… well… perfect. And a lot of this music — at least for me – is no longer associated with the films it was written for. I’ve listened to them so much or so often that they become associated with other meanings or events, rather than the specific group of images they were composed for. Some of them will forever be the music that accompanies “that scene” – Randy Newman’s The Natural for instance… when ever the them plays I can’t help but see Roy Hobbs rounding third in slo-motion while the fireworks-like sparks of the field lights explode above and around him; or Russell Crowe’s hand floating over the field of ghost wheat at the opening of Hans Zimmer’s and Lisa Gerrard’s Gladiator. There are a thousand others but I’m not going to list them all here…

Still, there is a lot of beautiful music that is composed for scenes that don’t measure up … for a recent example, take Daft Punk’s Tron: Legacy score. What I love about this is this is a very orchestral score from a duo that is known primarily for their kick-ass techno-house music. It tells me that these guys aren’t just about rockin’ your body, but about rockin’ your soul too.. they know how music works in other words. Its not just about beats and sounds, but about measures and tone and taking you on a journey. The film itself was ok, nothing great – a standard good guy – bad guy, world hangs in the balance sort of flick. But the music is so much better than the film… granted some scenes marry the music perfectly (the sunrise sequence at the end for example or the fight in Castor’s Club) … but listen to the last part of the fight in the club sequence again… sure it times out well with the elevator sequence, easy enough to do I guess, music and math have a lot in common so it’s just a matter of matching up the music to the minutes and seconds of the final cut… but listen to the build, the synth-wind sound and the driving rhythm to the end – or the sweet build of the sunrise piece. Maybe it’s just me and maybe it’s just my tendency (after listening to the music over and over without the film images to accompany it) to assign more significance to pieces of music from movie scores.

Here’s an example of a piece I think outshines the source material — Mission Impossible 2. Hans Zimmer again.

Ethan Hunt is in Spain looking to make contact with a thief. Turns out the thief is the beautiful Thandie Newton. The music that accompanies his first glimpse of her is probably one of the most beautiful pieces of music I’ve heard. I’m not sure if this is the exact piece that plays during that sequence – again, my mind may have misplaced the sequence and perhaps it happens later in the film… but the piece I’m talking about is entitled Nyah (the name of Thandie Newton’s character). To me, to my ears, this gorgeous piece of music seems out of place in a Mission Impossible film. But perhaps that is the point of including it. And why the scene has stuck with me over the years.

I guess what I’m really getting at is that there is this odd dichotomy sometimes between what is being shown to us and what we are hearing — and what is being shown is made better because of the music… not necessarily better, but perhaps more elevated?

For example – we have a great many films about “every day people”, right? Not your heroes destined to save the world (as in Tron or Lord of the Rings) or figures of power or influence (like William Wallace or Queen Elizabeth) but just every day folks… such as Frank and April Wheeler from Revolutionary Road or Michael Clayton from Michael Clayton - fairly ordinary people whose experience is distilled for us into a two hour block of time… we move with them through events that transform them… and while we may leave the theater virtually the same as when we entered, if the film has done its job we will discuss and debate the meaning and significance of what we just watched… I wonder, would we do so if there was no music behind the images?

Would tears spring to our eyes as readily if Annie Lennox’s voice and Howard Shore’s music was not there as Frodo boards the White Ship to sail out of Samwise’s life forever at the end of The Return of the King?

Would we cheer as readily if Jerry Goldsmith’s music were not there as Rudy finally gets to play for Notre Dame? Or feel the chill run up our spine when Kevin Costner looks out his farmhouse window to see Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe Jackson standing in the baseball field he built in Field of Dreams?

Part of the reason I’m asking this question is because I wonder if I have inadvertently deluded myself into thinking that my life is worthy of a soundtrack…. now I don’t mean that its an action adventure film or even a drama of significance… and though some parts are funny, I don’t think its a comedy. What I’m getting at is I wonder if my listening to this type of music has warped my view of life in a way…

For example… I want that Nyah moment.

I want that moment when I look across the room and bam … flamenco and Spanish guitars kick in and I know that – beyond a doubt – that woman and I will be together.

See what I mean? Warped… because moments like that only happen in hindsight. Very rarely do we realize we are in that moment.

I’m not really sure where I’m going with this… it’s just something that’s been rolling around in my head and will continue to do so for a while to come.

Perhaps I’ll revisit it in a week or so.

Until then… here is a piece from the Jet Li film Kiss of the Dragon, music by Craig Armstrong… it’s an action/adventure/martial arts film… but in it you get this piece which sounds like it should be in something much more poignant.

Symphony for Isabella – Part 11

p.s. I really shouldn’t include this because it will become very important for a story I’m telling with friends on our regular Thursday night gamine sessions

World-building is the term used in the rpg community though I’m sure it was used in that sense by any number of authors who created characters and stories that occurred in the same setting and which were told of a series of stories or books or novels – some are shared world novels such as the Wild Cards series or Thieves World, others are sweeping epics either in a fantasy or sci-fi or post-apocalyptic setting.

And then of course there are comics books… with a revolving cast of writers rather than characters and so world-building is super (no pun intended) important as far as those settings goes…

So why all the hubbub about world-building?

I just got through reading the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins.

Now, I’m not going to go into too much detail about the story told in the books, I will however recommend the first book, it’s entertaining and a “page-turner”. The second and third books left me… contemplating the necessity of good world building.

What makes certain works of fiction so gripping is a particular author’s grasp of making the setting live and breathe for the reader. Now, I don’t have many complaints about the Hunger Games trilogy, it was a decent story with a message. Good stuff for the young adult crowd it was pitched/written for…

I worked in the video game industry for a time as a writer and designer – I won’t say I was particularly good at those jobs — decent perhaps but by no means “great”. What struck me about the Hunger Games was the Arenas that Katniss and her fellow tributes were thrown into were mediocre video game levels… now the author does set things up by saying that the tech of the Capitol which runs the games allows them to create these “elaborate” deathtrap-filled battlegrounds for the tributes to hunt and murder each other in — all for the amusement of the Capitol citizenry – in the past these areas have been ice-fields, deserts, jungles, etc. – all designed to challenge and kill those who are thrown into them.

Ok… no big deal right… its as plausible a scenario as an episode of Star Trek or any other sci-fi TV show…

But what threw me out of the story, what ruined the illusion for me was the dues ex-machina aspect of the arenas – 24/7 surveillance cameras (which Katniss plays to and manipulates) parachutes of supplies just at the right moment and orchestrated attacks or booby-traps to keep the tributes moving towards the final confrontation  - there can be only one!

As I said, no more unheard of than a Star Trek episode… but for some reason, it just seemed… I don’t know… too convenient? Too structured?

It didn’t seem organic enough and since this story was told from Katniss’s POV, it was a foregone conclusion she would survive… but that didn’t bother me as much as the “everyone accepts this reality” premise of the “world population” — I don’t know, maybe if I grew up in a world where these games had been held over the last 75 years I might ‘accept’ them too… but as I said they seemed too video game-y… and perhaps that’s more a comment on my world rather than on Katniss’s.

So, though I have issues with the Hunger Games, at least it does what all good stories do … they get you thinking, talking, dissecting …

Later in the books (spoilers so you may want to stop here…) the premise of the arena stops being in just an isolated spot created for the Games, but rather the entire Capitol is an arena to prevent rebels from striking against it… the arenas are deathtraps and designed specifically to drive the tributes toward the final confrontation so only one survivor will emerge… but why on earth would you bring that kind of death and horror right to your doorstep? Would you live in a city if you knew that every block was equipped with a pod of radiation or white phosphorous that would be triggered if a hostile presence were detected?

Again, it was too game-like … too convenient that it would echo the events of the previous books… the setting screamed “this is a plot device!” … and maybe that was the author’s point… or maybe it was structured that way because the audience for the books has been weaned on jumping puzzles, shoot the trap to trigger the event and take out an enemy, negotiate the level video game play anyone with a Nintendo or Playstation or Xbox would understand…

If you think about it, negotiating relationships and day-to-day interactions with your fellow humans is often categorized in game terms …”its a contest of wills”, ‘battle of the sexes”, etc. And a lot of games are structured as a contest or struggle… whether its a physical or mental one – brute strength vs, tactical decision making. Even something as innocuous as Bejeweled is a really just a cleverly disguised battle against the clock…

We are creatures that must evolve or perish, it’s in our DNA… fight, strive, compete, battle… we cannot escape the constant necessity of conflict.

And I guess that’s what really sticks in my craw about the world-building of The Hunger Games. It was too artificial. Certain passages about the booby-traps and “creatures” that sprang out at just the right moment to push the story forward rang false… perhaps because — at least too me — they seemed too planned. Now of course you could argue that yes they were planned because the arena was under the ever-present watchful eyes of the Gamemakers who created the arenas and so these booby-traps were supposed to occur when and how they did…

But to me that seems… staged? It makes me think of my own writing and makes me take a good hard look at other writings to see if some of my favorite passages from other books were also structured in this artificial it-just-so-happens-there’s-a-twist-here — SWISH-PAN-REVEAL-OH-HOLY-SHIT moments. Granted, this kind of story-pacing and structure has infiltrated fantasy and sci-fi books over the last thirty years or so… this “oh I can see that happening in a movie” style of writing — and I am GUILTY of that in my own writing, I admit that… I’m not saying its a bad thing, I love reading stuff I can picture that well, that readily… what I’m saying is that it isn’t always presented well in these books… at least for me. For others I’m sure it was awesome, just right, nothing wrong with it.

Maybe I’m too old for this type of book. Parts of it did not read like the books I read in Junior High. Parts of it did. And maybe its my taste runs to something a bit more pithy. I wanted some of the passages in the book to go into more depth… none of the tech that goes into creating the arenas or traps or weapons is ever explained… it just works. The arenas have “pods” that a triggered by a timer, proximity or just on a whim and what’s in the pods can be… anything! And that anything is fitting of whatever situation is happening at that exact moment … there isn’t one case where a pod’s threat is rendered meaningless because of planning or circumstance… they are just like pinball bumpers, devices used to bounce the reader onto the next scene. And there’s no explaining how these things work, how they were built or who built them.

And that’s the fantasy/sci-fi authors loophole… if it’s far enough in the future or a long, long time ago … then stuff just works, be it science or magic.

Stephen King criticized the book by point out that there were moments of “authorial laziness” … and I guess I’m wondering if that was all the author’s intention/fault or if that was an editorial choice… dumb it down to make it easier to grasp, keep the action moving, etc.

When you build a world it needs to be cohesive, believable… unlike Dorothy, you cannot let your audience see behind the curtain… they need to be fooled completely and if they start pausing and going “hey, wait a minute” then you are in trouble… it’s a tricky thing.

And here we get into the author/reader contract, right? Because the reader wants to go on this journey with you, they paid their money and have settled into their favorite chair, cracked open your book and are now saying – ok… thrill me!

And its your job as a storyteller to make that journey thrill me, chill me, fulfill me for them…

I’ve stopped reading books because the cracks were just too evident, to unbelievable.

Writing is hard work — I have great respect for anyone who finishes any work of writing – be it a short story, novel, screenplay or play – because its hard and lonely and you the author are vulnerable to diatribes like the one I’ve just set down…

And so what it comes down to is – I liked the Hunger Games… I just wanted it to be better.