the world well lost

More of this is true than you would believe

2009-11-16T15:22:00.000-08:00

The Men Who Stare at Goats is non-stop entertainment. It's funny as hell, though not particularly heavy on the plot. The movie is the story of a frustrated reporter, Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) trying to find meaning in his life. In Kuwait, Bob meets Lynn Cassady (George Clooney), a man who was once a part of something called Project Jedi. Lynn is a psychic spy, a Jedi warrior. The narrative zips back in time to the 70's, where Lynn was part of a special program, the New Earth Army. The group was formed by Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), who found spirituality after returning from Vietnam. The New Earth Army was all about New Age philosophy. They danced, discovered psychic powers, and learned to use weakness as a strength. But the regiment was disgraced after Larry Hooper's (Kevin Spacey) Machiavellian experiments with LSD, which leading to a chillingly Fort Hood-like shooting. Django is discharged in disgrace and Lynn brings a curse on the regiment by killing a goat just by staring at it.

The movie follows Lynn and Bob's adventures in the desert. Bob discovers his burgeoning potential, eventually discovering the true Jedi within. (It should be noted that it is ironic that Ewan McGregor, who played Obi-Wan Kenobi, becomes a Jedi. I hadn't thought of this until someone brought it up, which is a sign of how hard I have worked to scrub the Star Wars prequels from my mind.) Lynn struggles with his own mortality and his guilt over the downfall of the regiment, the first place he found a sense of belonging. In a prison camp in al'Qaim, where Barney songs play all day, Lynn and Bob meet the villainous Hooper, who has government backing. They must confront and overcome the dark side, redeem Lynn and Django, and most importantly, save some goats.

This movie has the potential to be a cutting dark comedy that calls attention to the army's craziness. However, it plays on the lighter side, ignoring political satire for narrative. Characterization belongs solely to the growing Jedi yearnings of Bob, only touching lightly on the dark alcoholic fate of Bill Django, or Lynn's journey, or the motivations of the villain Hooper. The movie only barely acknowledges Vietnam, the event that gave birth to most of the beliefs that fuel the story. The New Age movement was accepted by the army because of the horrible wounds scored into the souls of Vietnam vets. If you're looking for deep meaningful characterization, or an in-depth look at the reactions of soldiers to war, you are in the wrong theater. If you are looking for a funny, well-acted, screwball comedy, this is the movie for you.

As the movie itself says, "More of this is true than you would believe." Jim Channon, the founder of the actual First Earth Battalion, did in fact postulate the technique of "sparkly eyes" and using kindness as a pacifying weapon. The army did have a battalion of "psychics" spying on enemies and trying to acquire superpowers. General did try to run through walls, men did try to kill goats by staring at them, LSD was misused and hamsters were harmed in the making of this story. But much more experiments, most darker than those mentioned in the movie, were conducted by the army--including an LSD-related murder plot, the ties between the army's psychic experiments and both Waco and the Heaven's Gate debacles. Psychological warfare fueled the torture at abu Ghraib. Psychic espionage wasn't all fun and games.

Even now, the army continues to experiment with "non-lethals" that are nothing short of science fiction. Foam to pacify crowds, music to control the minds of Gitmo detainees, beam weapons called "pain rays". I find the thought of the American government/military having any kind of means of controlling our minds to be pretty damn scary. Luckily, though the army tried to be all that it could be, it never had the kind of results that you see in this movie. When General Stubblebine tried to phase through a wall, all he did was run into a wall. When Guy Savelli stared at a goat, it was the one standing next to it that fell down. Though he did seem to have some effect on his hamster.

If there are Jedi, the army certainly didn't find them. And maybe that's a good thing.

NaNo

2009-10-28T17:49:00.000-07:00

November's almost here and that means the insanity is about to begin. For the past three years, I've participated in NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month. Crazy people across the globe sit down and write 50,000 words in 31 days.

It's crazy, crazy fun. It's a great way to practice writing, and participate in a community of writers who are just as crazy as you are.

This year I'm writing a queer scifi mystery, because that isn't enough genres. I'm feeling daunted, as it's always hard to juggle school, life and writing. But it's fun even if you don't win. Check me out!

Le Drugstore!

2009-10-05T15:06:00.000-07:00

Do you feel like Concord dies after 9 o'clock at night? Yeah, so does everyone else. But no longer! Le Drugstore is taking over the old Pitchfork Records building, right on Main St. One floor bar, one floor danceclub: all night long. Opening October 31, doors open at seven for drinks and chow, nine for dancing. Nightlife finally comes to Concord.

Sun Ship

2009-09-28T14:47:00.000-07:00

Mind Less 2 by Lisa Rae Winant

I was having a lot of trouble thinking of microfiction to go with one of these paintings. I mean a really hard time: I have difficulty writing straight fiction. And I was looking at this one picture and wondering who this woman might be. The idea of this woman, Anja, meshed with an old idea I had a while back for a short story. And it took off from there. A major tangent, so far out it's in outer space. Literally.

Sun Ship

Ponderously, elegantly, the ship spread her sails in the black of space. The sun caught the sails, burnishing the metal deep gold. The sails, jointed and translucent, the immense wings of the ship's much-patched hull. The solar winds changed, blowing the ship about like a bird in a storm.

Anja sat in the bridge, fingering the string of pearls around her neck and staring out at through specially tempered crystal. The beauty of it all never failed to amaze her, even after five long, lonely years on solar energy detail. She was beginning to feel isolated, seeing no one but the taciturn receivers at the energy depot orbiting Mercury. Even being antisocial by inclination, she was beginning to doubt her already questionable humanity.

But the glory more than made up for it.

The sun hung in the black before her, a ball of living fire, arcs of flame dancing across its surface. Reds and oranges and yellows muddled together, shot through with white and brightest blue. The ship creaked and lurched under the force of a particularly strong solar wind. Anja's fingers danced over her board, checking the joints of the sails, the levels of the ship's energy collection. Absorbed in her work, Anja almost missed the flash of brilliant light.

She looked up to see terrible fire gathered below her, churning and shifting: a solar flare. Anja swore—there'd been no predictions of flare activity. She worked desperately to winch in the sails and maneuver away as the pillar of flame billowed upwards. Not fast enough. She slammed her fists down on the board. Then her world exploded.

The bow wave of the solar flare caught her, devouring the ship in a maw of heat and light. Anja felt herself scream, but heard only the roar of fire. The ship was tossed helplessly in the wake of the enormous firestorm. Anja was flung against walls and ceiling, feeling bones crack like kindling. Her world spun, filled with burning light and pain.

Then everything stopped.

The light disappeared, turning everything black in its absence. The sound vanished, leaving a roaring silence to be filled with the plink-plink of cooling metal. Anja slumped against the floor, pain clawing at her nerves and breathing heavily. She was lucky to be alive, at least for now. Radiation or damage to the ship may yet take her.

She looked out the viewscreen and her breath caught in her throat. The flare had flung the ship recklessly into space. In her new orbit, she could see the Earth. Hanging like a blue-green jewel in black velvet: vibrant, lush, and home.

For the first time in her term, Anja felt like her conviction was a punishment. Her hand flew to the pearl necklace built with tracers and electrodes, finally understanding it for the chain it was. She wanted to go home. Tears started to gather in the corners in her eyes; she'd stared so long at the sun that looking back was almost like going blind.

We're here, we're queer, we're...strangely invisible?

2009-09-07T16:55:00.001-07:00

Since this first assignment is kinda politically charged, I'd like to establish a few facts. One, I'm gay; two, I'm liberal. At first, I was going to blog about gay marriage--which, god knows, I am passionate about--but honestly, I'm bored with all that kerfuffle.

Instead, I'm going to talk about gays in the media. Or more precisely, the lack thereof.

Nowadays, there's really nowhere to look for positive portrayals of gay characters. Will and Grace was never that positive and it's long dead. Grey's Anatomy kicks off its one lesbian character after she makes the best speech I've ever heard about coming out. There's some gay guys on Brothers & Sisters, but I don't know a single person who watches that. And that pretty much ends the list of gays in primetime. You can watch reality shows; Project Runway is chalk-a-block full of gay men, Top Chef has lesbians, and big gay Ruben just won Dance Your Ass Off.

Is this a problem, that 10% of the population isn't represented? Well, for me it is. Increasingly, I'm finding myself not identifying with straight people. Or at least the straight experience. I'm never going to meet a charming man with whom I share combative chemistry; we're never going to dance around, will they or won't they. It's so removed from my experience that I just can't connect.

And there's no one on TV I can connect with. Which, you know, sucks. I seriously believe that there need to be more queer characters on primetime TV. Have more characters experiment with their sexualities (like Angela on Bones), or introduce some gay people who are, ya know, people. LOGO should produce something other than soft-core soap operas. Maybe then I wouldn't feel like an outsider everytime I sit down to watch the boob tube.

For more on queers in the media visit AfterElton.com and AfterEllen.com

2009-09-02T16:38:00.000-07:00

This is a photo I took last August. My new house has a lot less garden going on.

2009-09-01T08:07:00.001-07:00

We all must love where the lightning strikes, and not where we would choose.

-Theodore Sturgeon, The World Well Lost