The Mighty Bush

Times dictate that I must post this today, for today is the day that Kate Bush has her birthday. Happy Birthday, your majestic Weirdness.

Flap-flap-flap! It's a bat.

Kooky, spooky, and very very talented, Kate Bush landed on Earth on this day in 1958, and announced her presence to humankind twenty years later (more on that in another post). By this time she'd pretty much written out her career, and for the next two decades at least, she'd continue to be a significant presence in the UK pop world. She was young, gifted and weird. Arty, intellectual, sexy, exotic and cooly distant, she'd write, compose, choreogrph and direct her impressive body of work almost from day one, all the while maintaining the same destatchment that would mark her persona and probably frustrate her fans. There aren't many artists like her around these days, and there weren't then, either.

Bush Goes Full Achilleos

My first encounter with la Bush will be the feature of my next entry, but like Bowie before and after, her career and public presence (the two being virtually one and the same due to the artist's strict control over her private life) was something that I drfited through. I remember select videos and song from her early years - Wuthering Heights, Babooshka, Running Up That Hill, and the rest was pretty much catch-up.

Catch-up took place for me in 1990, and my second year at Uni. Having joined a band I was a young man very much in pursuit of new musical ideas and influences. My friends and I were all into easily-accessible student fare - local alternative bands, Flying Nun rostermates, Pixies, Smiths, REMs, Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and so on. The result was that in all of this common ground there wasn't much I could call 'my' taste - it was simply shared with too many others. And then my brother's then-girlfriend played Kate Bush's The Whole Story to me one holidays while we were both hanging out at my parent's new home. I don't remember much more, except that I was immediately taken by it, and that Marg also recommended Hounds of Love as Bush's best album. I bought Hounds two years later, having got almost everything else on vinyl - this was one of my first CD purchases, and of course she was bloody spot on. Hounds of Love is a classic.  Perhaps I'll blog that one separately.

Ms Bush and I parted company shortly after The Sensual World and her pursuing the (to me) less accessible musical stylings of Trio Bulgarka. Clearly, a Hill too high for Running Up, but by then I'd consumed enough of her creative output to have satisfied my curiosity without entering the dark world of total fandom. Kate Bush fans - or those I'd be comfortable counting myself as one among them - were a bit thin on the ground in early Nineties Dunedin, but brief encounters led me to interesting places. A long conversation I had with a keen fan answering our ad for a new keyboardist revealed that he had recenty bought her retrospectve box set This Woman's Work. I was interested, my bandmates weren't, and we never got that follow-up meeting. But the next person I had an in-depth conversation about Kate Bush to was a lot more fruitful. Just over a year from that phone call I was looking to join a flat with a friend and the two of us met with a girl from his Anbthropology class who was also on the hunt for digs. She was a fan, apparently, and now she's Mrs Simian. So there's that.

We still play The Whole Story occasionally. Mrs Simian is a big fan of Jig of Life, and I would be remiss not to admit that This Woman's Work has got me through a couple of challenging life episodes. And we were both shattered to discover a fortnight ago that we'd blown our Saturday morning roster and not had the time to turn up to Waitangi Park for Wellington's own Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever. But eh. Maybe next year.

So, many happy returns once again Catherine Carder Bush, and thanks for playing a not insignificant part in the life I enjoy today.

"Don't Bury Me!" etc.

Hey, Mr Pullman - wanna help me with my blog?

Nope, I'm not dead. Dead busy. Bringing work home. Neglecting the podcast. Being an antisocial slacker. Keeping weird hours. Oh, it's terrible.

Normal business will resume shortly. And then - woo boy, buckle up your pants because I'll be posting backwards for a while!

I did stuff in June, and that stuff needs documenting!

The Grognard Files - the right of reply

Readers with long memories may recall the last time I brought up an RPG podcast it was the North Texas based Save or Die podcast, dedicated to Basic Dungeons and Dragons, still my favourite version of Ye Auld Gayme - and still a great podcast, although its frequency has lessened somewhat of late (ahem). In the meantime I've had time to seek out another more recent podcast, this time from across the Atlantic pond: the Bolton-based The Grognard Files. Unlike SoD the Files cover a variety of early 80s RPGs; and D&D isn't even their favourite by a long chalk!

The net result is a boon to me.

Firstly, having binged somewhat on North Texan fare, I've become a little too accustomed to the pecadillos of its regular hosts and their various likes and dislikes. Former 'Armchair Adventurers' Dirk the Dice and his cohorts judge Blythie, @dailydwarf (through whose Twitter feed I discover the Files), and the lesser-heard collector Ed (he of the Bargain Shed) are fresh voices and opinions; and because the Files are still young and their focus shifts every month or so, from Stormbringer to Traveller to Call of Cthulhu to AD&D ("TM") to their particular favourite Runequest, there's a lot that's new to me. I never played those particular games outside AD&D, and everything else I schooled up on through whatever magazine or book I could, usually White Dwarf, which is rightly revered and fondly remembered by the Armchair Adventurers for not only introducing them to the various games and their communities, but adding to the same worlds and adventures in a way that resonates with me. The Files do an admirable job of explaining and deconstructing each system, with Blythie - a self-confessed rules lawyer, using his own set of powers for good in his analysis. I've learned a lot as a consequence - not just about those games, but about my own favourites.

And The Grognard Files is a lot of fun. It's very much informal, witty, intimate, self-effacing and utterly British in aspect. My RPG world has two hemispheres, the American and the British. Both are equally valid and fascinating, but I've made no secret that it's the British I gravitate towards more. The added and rarely-heard regionality of a small group of Northern players not hailing from "that London" just adds to the interest factor. And who can resist a bit of Hawkwind as a closing theme?

A recent half-week in Hawkes Bay for work meant that I had a lot of driving to do, so I took Dirk and Blythie on the road with me on a USB stick to play in the car on the way up, and the four-hour trip sped by very nicely indeed.

Coming soon is a look back at Tunnels & Trolls, another heard-of-but-not-played for me. I can't wait.

Very much recommended.

My Zombie Weekend

Eleven fifty-five - almost midnight. Enough time for one more story. One more story before twelve- just to keep us warm. 

In five minutes it will be the twelfth of June. Ten years ago on the twelfth of June, down in the South Island a polar blast brought the heaviest snowstorm in seventy years. In the high country of Canterbury some homesteads were without power for two weeks. Trees and power poles snapped from the weight of the snow, North Otago was cut off from the outside world, and Mrs Simian was stuck in Timaru with her parents. This isn't her story. This is instead the story of what I got up to whilst she was snowed in.

It was just me and the cat. We had the whole house to ourselves for two nights (so we thought), including the stereo and the DVD player. A quick fish and chip tea for one (two) gave me more hours for the evening, and I embarked upon a then-distressingly predictable activity: too much screen-time and an early morning retirement. No internet, though - for some reason I was hell-bent on modelling and movies.

The models were Games Workshop Easterlings. Nice sculpts, but colour-wise a bit one-note, really, and they're still unfinished. The movies were an ambitious triple-feature: early ScoJo and mid-career Thora Birch in an adaptation of Daniel Clowes' Ghost World; the then-recent adaptation of Dawn of the Dead by newcomer Zack Snyder - and the original Romero Dawn of the Dead for good measure. 

Ghost World ended the viewing that evening - for the better. I can't recall which version of Dawn started, though I'd say the purist in me would have picked the Romero. It's deservedly a classic and even while familiar in its plot and story beats, I wasn't ready for its length. And in terms of building up a sense of fatalistic dread, Romero was a master. Two hours of gnawing death - on several levels. I should have known, having been properly disturbed by Romero's Night of the Living Dead and depressed by Day of the Dead.

By contrast Snyder's (and screenwriter James Gunn's) remake is sprightly, high-velocity and despite fears to the contrary packs a punch. The title sequence sets the scene - and it's pretty faithful in its nihilism from those first few scenes: 

Back to the cold outside. It was freezing in Wellington, too. The wind was blowing in the wrong direction for the fire to put out any heat, and the cat bagsied what little did come out long before it made it to the couch. The wind also blew a side gate against the house during the movies - bang, bang, bang... I ventured outside to fix it shut and noticed a light on in the basement. Seriously freaked out I crept to the door, drew the bolt... and found I'd just left it on getting the model stuff in the afternoon. 

By 1:30 when Ghost World had finished, I went to bed. And realised I'd not put the electric blanket on. I shivered for an hour before I decided to warm up in the shower, and even then I couldn't warm up. Plus, my over-active brain was embarking on a second session of the zombie double-feature instead of getting me to sleep. The cat had long gone for somewhere warmer. In defeat, I took the car out of the garage and drove around empty streets to try and settle down.

By day things cleared up. The sun came out, and a friend came around for a cuppa and a jam (hi, Tim!) And still somewhat sleep-deprived, I wandered around the house like a... well, you know.

In the mean-time I was still listening to a couple of recent purchases. The Shaun of the Dead soundtrack, and the first two Gorillaz albums. Shaun has a fun selection of movie soundbites and incidental music with the odd remix among them. As you might expect, there's a Romero movie mashup in there, with 'The Gonk', the theme to Dawn of the Dead's overlong slapstick sequence, mixed in with Keith Chegwin's voiceover for It's a Knock-Out. Gorillaz of course have form with the undead, Jamie Hewlett's animation company being Zombie Flesh Eaters of course, but there are also at least three Gorillaz songs ('Overture', 'Hip Albatross' and 'M1-A1') which contain samples from Romero movies (Dawn and Day of the Dead respectively) And 'Starshine' off the untitled debut always struck me as lonely and bleak.

I listened to those songs a lot over that weekend, either on the buzz or to exorcise the spooks, and I did sleep a little better the next night, being somewhat knackered. Mrs Simian eventually bused out of Timaru and arrived back in town a couple of days late, and not a moment too soon. I go to bed at more sensible hours, now.

Speaking of which, it's high time I went off myself, now. Pleasant dreams, everyone.

Space! (Walt's)

Happy Star Force Day everybody! Look - I'm your Father!

So here's something I made earlier. Nope, it's not a kit, and I just used our own bits and pieces and a photo reference. As far as I can tell there are bits of Batmobile here, some Millennillimum Falcon Microfighter bits and a Lego Friends windscreen and no small number of hours. Probably at least three evenings' worth in front of the TV right there. 

So in making my own I saved myself, let's see... Oh. "Retired Product". Heh. Not in this house, George.

Not in this house.

The Sinister Lord of the Warps

 Happy Star Warps Day, to every man and child everywhere! 

Who doesn't love the magic of Star Warps? I'll tell you who - the hissing, wheezing groan gives him away: it's the Lord of the Shift himself... Dark Vapor!

"Search for your heart - it's the only way to be sure..."

Until the Warps Awaken again!

 

Out of the Blue and into the Black

Batman v Superman : Dawn of Justice

Thanks to Al I recently got to see Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Thanks, Al!

Wow. Complicated movie.

I'll try to be brief, as lots of words have already been expended on this film. It seems that even for a perceived failure, BvS has generated a LOT of discussion, and of course to call an $870M grossing movie a failure is to overlook a lot of first week interest in DC Warner's expanding Justice League franchise. As I say, it's complicated.

The movie itself to me immediately comes across in one word: existential. Even in its dream-fed Bruce Wayne-centric opening the film employs real world referencing, to sometimes uncomfortable levels - a climactic re-enactment from immediate predecessor Man of Steel recalls instead a plane cannoning into a skyscraper. The terrorists are cleaved from real world examples like Boko Haram; no criminal comes unarmed, most carry an automatic weapon, and they don't politely line up to be taken down in turn in hand-to-hnd combat by an outnumbered hero.
 Not even in Christopher Nolan's trilogy was the Dark Knight this dark, this brutal, and at times in this very unheroic superhero world you wonder if there's a point to it all.

The answer is yes, and it's not initially from Batman himself, but it is about him and his alter ego. Ben Affleck's Batman is as far from the Caped Crusader as you could have, and yet the Bruce Wayne-to-Batman story here, reiterated once more, is core to the movie. Wayne narrates the film's opening, and the first line of dialogue is (crucially) his mother's name, the very word that will towards the film's end become the lynchpin of Bruce's understanding of his believed enemy, a man he is unable to categorise as anything but an alien until the realisation that they both had a mother, a family, and are capable of calling this planet their home.

Superman meanwhile struggles under his burden, and his doubt and ability to be led is open to exploitation by madmen and cruel geniuses with father complexes. Were I a Superman fan (as my good friend Al is), this would upset me the most - and yet this is a movie where even in death Superman triumphs. He never loses his imperative, the trailers (which tell many lies about the movie) do not show that he approaches Batman addressing him by his real name, appealing for understanding.

To me, Batman v Superman is about the plotting of Bruce Wayne's recovery from his lowest state as an angry, hard-drinking loner with deadly vigilantism as his escape - a monster glowering under the disapproval of a cynical Alfred, to being the hero he once was, needing the help of others to achieve this. The film's message in one line could be: Superman saves Batman's soul, echoed in Bruce's last lines: "I failed him in life; I won't fail him in death", and crucially his resolve that "Men are still good ... we can do better. We will. We have to."


I didn't enjoy this movie. I saw it under a strict timeframe and was itching to leave the theatre before it ended. It was noisy, depressing in places and often without mercy. And yet, given space and time, and on a second viewing even the theatrical version (I've not yet seen the Ultimate Edition) falls more into place. There's a lot of work in this picture from direction and cinematography (Zack Snyder is  one of the best visual directors working in superhero cinema today) to score and casting. The criticisms of storytelling and pacing are fair, but the film is sumptuous.

Many of the themes from Man of Steel are continued here, and developed. One of the curious dichotomies of the Superman story is his Semitic origins (an intestellar Moses, the creation of two Jewish boys from New York) with a Christian iconography, and even in death and repose Krypton's last son is depicted with the same visual language of Michelangelo's Pieta among crooked crosses of twisted reinforcing steel. This is specifically Superman as God/god, while the earthly Luthor and Wayne are the John Gaults from a director whose next movie outside of Justice League set may well be The Fountainhead.

Ultimately Batman versus Superman has to be seen as a building block in the DC cinematic world. Contrary to expectations, it's not a Superman movie - although Superman will undoubtedly return, and one of the consequences of BvS' reception will surely point to a revision of this version of the Man of Steel. It has to happen. In the mean-time we have another Batman for our age, also reinvented and repurposed, and like it or not, another step in the road to DC's heroic vision.