Chilling for Christmas

It's Chriiistmaaaaas!

I hope you, dear Reader, are having a whale of a time, perhaps with friends and family, feasting, carousing, and drinking winters wolves from the harsh, bitter Northen Hemisphere midwinter. Brrr! I say. Brrr!!

Of course not Brrr. It's been a lovely balmy summer's weekend here at the Monkeyhouse with a blessing of rain on the Friday, a good sunny day's gardening on Saturday in anticipation of a family BBQ for Boxing Day. And as for Christmas Day, well!

Long-time readers of course will know that I have something of a bee in my bonnet about the Christmas musical fare. There are three kinds, ranging from the almost-too-appropriate (your actual Christmas carol about Jesus and whatnot), on-point songs about Christmas (Deck Those Halls, We Wish You A Messy Kwazmuss, and why does nobody sing Good King Wenceslas anymore? It's historical fact, people!) and then, hopefully somewhere in Hell where they belong, those seasonal pretenders which don't even attempt to reference Christmas at all but sneak in the door by virtue of being about ... snow (Winter Wonderland, Jingle Bell Rock and its accursed bob-sledding namesake.)

But look, I do like some well-chosen Christmas music, and the Simian household this year were left wandering the streets confused and bewildered when our friend Al wasn't able to produce an annual dedication to the Church of Snoopy this year. 

But amidst all the lazy Christmas covers album cash-ins, some  people do try, bless them. And even here in Aotearoa in 2016 there were attempts to create a localised Christmas song. Noble failures to hit number one, both TV3's Denis Marsh thingy and Air NZ's rather fun Julian Dennison/Ronan Keating Summer Wonderland gag. Summer Christmas is a hard chestnut to crack, and for me there were three contenders for this year's yuletide singalong:

So, in descending order of choice the songs were:

3. White Wine in the Sun - Tim Minchin

A modern Australian miracle, which featured on Al's Xmas Album from last year. It gets me nearly every time, but I'd not known about it before Al let me know about it (and I seemt o be the last person in the world to know it at all), so moving ever closer to home:

2. Michael Fay - Able Tasmans

Which isn't really a Christmas song, but does feature the chorus "It was Christmas Day, when Michael Fay gave his money away/And Jesus dont have a lot to say - we'd all forgotten his birthday"
It makes the list because it and its parent album hit the big 25 this year, and Lord knows, Hey Spinner is still a great listen, but not quite Christmassy enough (though very singable), so the number one is this:

1. Christmas Chimes - The Chills

Very local, very much on point, and maybe MAYBE a contender for this year's Al-bum, here's a fitting celebration of Christmas comforts for everyone, whatever your particular hemisphere, from Martin Phillipps' Dunedin ensemble.

This is a remastered version from the band's 1989 BBC sessions and was intended for an unrealised seasonal EP reputedly titled Silver Bells. There's still time, Marty! Do the album for next December and a NZ first!

In the mean-time, a very Merry Christmas to all of you at home.

The Fourth Awakens

Rogue One, a Star Wars Story (d. Gareth Edwards, 2016) 

Well, I went and saw a new Star War tonight with my brother in law, as yet another installment in our 'due diligence' series of paternal gazumphing our boys' keenness to be part of the new Disney soft reboot shuffle. It was pretty good. Fantastic in places, a bit slow in others, a little wobbly in the plot department. Needed editing - particularly in the first half, where the movie was mainly concerned wth introducing its large cast and getting them to where they need to be in order that the main story begin.

The Star Wars universe was always classic Space Opera thanks to geography-busting hyperspace, but Rogue One's storytelling expediency has our heroes reach just where they need to be within five minutes of landing anywhere. Maybe, perhaps for the choppy first half, this is just as well, because it seems there are a lot of ducks to be set in a row in this movie before the action-packed second half gets into gear.

 That's a curious thing for this movie and its place in the Star Wars movieverse. I remember when Star Wars Insider magazine used to run a semi-regular column dedicated to readers who had found a friend who (gasp!) Had Never Seen Star Wars. That was... maybe fifteen years ago? In 2016 I think we should be able to decare that quest run to its logical conclusion. Nobody has not seen Star Wars now, surely. And yet despite its existence as a crowd-pleasing filler, Rogue One does go out of its way to explain, point out, and generally colour in the gaps for anyone who isn't already aware of the film's general story and maybe why there's no Wookie in this film.

Given that, this is (to me) the second attempt by filmmakers old enough to have at least lived through A New Hope's arrival in cinemas to pretty much tell the story from a different angle.
I suspect, in fact, that Rogue One is kin to The Force Awakens in both being irresistible attempts to re-tell A New Hope while 'improving' on the latter's limitations. A broader scope, greater diversity of races and species, more spectacle, a less lumbering baddie.

But once the story kicks in it does crack along, and though it's a well-worn observation, new droid K2SO is a fun addition - a sardonic and blackly comic foil with an intriguing hang-up. 

K2SO. Magnificent bastard.

K2SO is in places a practical effect, that approach so championed in SFX these days. There are of course two characters almost entirely reconstructed through CGI ... but as for finding our way out of Uncanny Valley, I think we're still not there, yet. But we've made good inroads, and maybe within five years we might actually be there. Suffice it to say, I think they really cracked it in A New Hope.

Should you see Rogue One? Yes, go and see it, and enjoy it. I was relieved that between the first trailer and the final cut some changes had been made. Not all reshoots need be a disaster, and it appears a different edit has done wonders to Felicity Jones' Jyn Erso, a character who really didn't appeal at all to me in those first teasers. The supporting cast are pretty good, and Ben Mendelsohn's Imperial foil a nice addition.

Still not sure whether I'm on board for Han Solo, though.

'Evil' Lies Below

Waihinahina Park is a serene spot, located behind Woodridge and skimming the Horokiwi skyline. It commands gorgeous views of Wellington harbour, and is a lovely (if frequently windy) spot to exercise your dog, take in the scenery or just park and rest.

There's still a good standing of juvenile native bush about the spot, and a good amount of birdlife has taken to the area for its wetland look (there's even a hidden waterfall visible from the Hutt Road) The great thing is, there's little chance of it being developed in the near future, thankfully, because in its former life it was a landfill.

Yes, readers. And what's more, quite possibly under this spot likely lie the mouldering remains of a good number of  vintage TV, local and international, Doctor Who included. New Zealand often being the end of the line for 'bicycled' BBC programmes around the colonies. No longer required back home and with storage space also in limited supply at the old Broadcasting House, many now-lost episodes including, notoriously, Evil of the Daleks were bandsawed and thrown in the tip. It was a different time.

The hunt for lost and missing-thought-destroyed episodes of Doctor Who continues to this day, although it's ben  quiet activity of one man and a small army of helpers at this stage. This year there was even serious talk of diggers being used to unearth known locations for dumps containing cans and film. The old Johnsonvile tip is, apparently, a known location - though one assumes it's way down the list and, if the tip in question did become Waihinahina Park, then maybe it might be best for those concerned to leave the keys to the JCB at the depot and just enjoy the drive to this damp, green spot and its abundance of fresh air.

Into Darkness

Pretty cool news to round out a month of wobbles, shakes, tumbles and quakes: Push Push are reforming! No, hang on, that's not it. And it's certainly not the way to announce an article that otherwise ought to get my attention, because courtesy of Twitter I discovered The Darkness are coming to NZ next April. Yah-roo!

And then courtesy of chum Tim I discovered they're coming to Wellington. Get in.

Opportunities are now open for all and sundry to apply for the unofficial position of Jet's Plus One on 21st April 2017. No application will be refused.

And now, to mark this momentous news here's a celebration of calligraphy, geography, Cadbury Flake, casual/alarming cross-dressing and the institution of marriage:

Brought (back) to Book

Ma, I fixed a book!

This book I have enjoyed since I first found it in a bookshop in Roslyn, Dunedin some time in 1984.

It's not the actual book, actually. Who knows where that went? Loaned to a RPG-curious nephew, lost to the ages. Probably sent to a school fair or assisting in filling land. It happens, and because it happens, I looked for a replacement nearly ten years ago, and in that time (mainly sitting in my bedside cabinet), the secondhand copy I bought in a Newtown shop turned into this:

Now, the thing about having been a librarian for nearly 25 years is, I've never ever mended a book. At all. So when faced with detatched covers, dangling spines, and dried up glue like this:

...I had to resort to the librarian's friend, Google!

Long story short, during a week at home after Wellington's last office-closing earthquake, I discovered the book lying in pieces at the bottom of a box and decided then was the time to take action.

Covers were trimmed, glue was scraped off, and while the inner pages were separated into two or three 'blocks', luckily the interior was in pretty good shape despite some slight foxing. Hey, it's a paperback book - it's hardly top quality material from the get-go.

But hey, it worked! Mod Podge was the glue, a nondescript laminate (Coverseal, basically) stiffened up and waterproofed the cover, and I was even fussy enough to paint out the white creases and tears which couldn't be glued back together.

I fluffed the front cover, it turning out skew and the patched card replacement won't fool anyone; but my beloved old book is back in one piece and readable again. Hooray!

So proud I was in showing it off to Mrs Simian. Of course, it was only then that I realised I'd re-glued the insides upside down.

1966 And All That

The true strength of a pop cultural icon lies in their resilience. Heroes and villains come and go, but the greatest of them endure through generations and interpretations. Yes, there may be periods when they are considered out of vogue, but being strong figures they are bound to return - perhaps as a farce, or a revisionist retelling, or as a mirror to contemporary society's travails.

I speak of the big ones: Robin Hood. King Arthur. Sherlock Holmes. Batman. The Sixties version.

No, come back, I'm not mad. I wasn't even mad in 1989 when I sniffed at this rare product of high camp and sixties psychedelia and walked away. Tim Burton's reinvention of the character was just around the corner and the big bad Nineties introduced a less colourful, more serious take on the character. The Dark Knight was the order of the day, and the Caped Crusader had quickly become For Selected Audiences Only. I eschewed the series' self-knowing silliness and cheap later episodes, and those misspent afternoons screwing my youthful freckled schoolboy nose at the hyper kinetic hi-jinks our neighbours' colour TV provided every same Bat-time same Bat-channel.

So what changed for me to rediscover the West and Ward Batman? Well it wasn't the TV show, though I do want to 'reconnect' with it in some form - the Blu Rays look mighty tempting. Of course the car I rediscovered to my surprise in the Dark Knight Rises extras. It was also the Bat-history, dutifully documented, directed and delivered by that doyen of the Detective Comics dynamo, Mr Jim Moon that got my attention. And it was the comic strip.

Yes, again, the Wellington City Library has done itself proud and has a pretty decent collection of the recent Batman '66 anthology series, being a set of new Batman tales told with the energy, the enthusiasm and the tongue-in-cheek aesthetic of the 1966 series. When they're good they're very very good- not since Lego's Batman '66 set have I been so relieved to see Caesar Romero's painted moustache so faithfully rendered beneath his Joker makeup. And Burgess Meredith's Penguin, Frank Gorshin's Riddler (who owes his reputation purely to the TV series and Gorshin's talents), the triumvirate of Catwomen in Kitt, Merriwether and Newmar plus other TV-only villains, like Egghead, Bookworm, Louie the Lilac, Ma Parker, Shame, King Tut and Marsha Queen of Diamonds. The captions recall the exclamations of the show's cliffhanger closers, the title fonts are perfect, and over all there's a spirit of fun in the series, even in recent years with its canon-bending introduction of anachronistic characters like Harley Quin and Bane.

For the most part the series sticks close to its roots, even with occasional crossovers to contemporary TV series (Green Hornet, Man From Uncle, The Avengers) and shout outs to the future (including a seemingly irresistable nod to a certain Seal song during a Poison Ivy outing). In case you're wondering, Batgirl gets as good as she gave, and there are some intriguing stylistic ventures also - notably a meta trip to Japan for the Bat trio where an encounter with Sixties comic villain Lord Death man. Trippy.

And trippy is as it should be. The '66 series is something to be celebrated, particularly amidst the sturm und drang of the Snyder films and Arkham video games. There was a time when Batman was fun, and was in on the joke, and those days did more for the survival of the Bat brand than anything in its comics. At The Warehouse in Whanganui recently I picked up a copy of the West and Ward Batman movie - until recently all you could get of the original series. Jet Jr and I watched it when it came home with me and we had a blast.

All of this presumably comes from a relaxing by Fox on its grip on the old TV series, leading to a minor snowstorm of retro products. The final release of the full series is the obvious jewel in the crown (those extras!), and the comic follows  of course. Batman 66 Lego is utterly adorable:

But no Batgirl minifigure? For shame!

And after the success of West, Ward and Newmar's animated reunion in Return of the Caped Crusaders there's now a follow-up in the works, featuring Two-Face voiced by - who else? William Shatner. Holy Dream Casting!

Daddy's Little Heartbreaker

RPG Dreamer

Over the years as a roleplayer when I've not been dreaming about actually playing RPGs, I've dreamed about creating one. I had a few on the go as a teen; there was Exorcist and Nosferatu! The Game of the Undead, both pretty much the same game, aimed at emphasising specialty character classes like the titular ghost-botherer as well as Grave Robber (this was years before Tomb Raider arrived as a media-friendly title). After that came Mystic Woods, which was literally a dream RPG, being the product of an early-morning waking idea in my head of Eighties-type slashers in remote locations combined with magical artefacts and portals to other worlds. memories of playing the rather gruesome Splatterhouse arcade game may have infiltrated my subconscious, there.  Finally, there was Gloriana, set in an alternative Elizabethan Age inspired by the works of Spencer, Pope, Marlowe and Shakespeare, where the Virgin Queen's reign was both aided and beset by powers foreign and supernatural, and the players were adventurers in this world of fairies, witches, demons, ghosts, alchemists, warlocks, astrologers and Spaniards. I still think that one has legs, but the trouble with all of these game ideas was the same one that beset a lot of early D&D adaptations: they never strove too far from the source mechanics of Gygax and Arneson's Dungeons and Dragons. In my defence, this was understandable, as I don't have the head for game design. I don't feel bad that all of these ideas faltered before I seriously put pen to paper - why reinvent the wheel?

Heartbreakers

I'm told that I'm hardly alone, and that there's a long tradition of what's been termed the 'heartbreaker' game, where a devotee of RPGs goes out to create their own system, investing time, passion and probably funds only to see it plummet to the remainder bins or merely wither on the vine. Kickstarters can be a useful filter for those keen to take the plunge, but for myself I would say that at least half of the ideas above, any game system I could devise could just as well have been reshaped as a D&D campaign and left it as that. Even Gloriana wouldn't need a lot of changing, the idea itself being based around character types, creatures, politics and skill sets - all surface detail rather than mechanics.

The House Wins

So, then, to the present day, where I've recently found loose pages of ideas from playing over the years. There's a mix of material here - ideas for character templates, variant races, honing character classes and creatures to 'fit' literary archetypes from Chaucer to Tolkien, and module ideas in which to plonk them. Plus of course there's Gnomes - of course there are Gnomes. One of my bigger self-made modules Barbigazl had Gnomes and not Dwarves as its  central race, so they've never been far away. I've decided then to attempt to put these ideas together with traits and playing styles discovered and adopted by me and my fellow players since we began, under a set of House Rules (for want of a better term.) I might call it Redcastle, after the home we first played D&D in, and see where it goes.

This may end up as yet another occasional series on Jetsam and go no further - common sense suggests that it does, but if you're interested at all, I'd love to hear what you think!