Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

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A Crisis on Crushing Krisis (or, Welcome to NaBloPoMo)

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You go to Wikipedia to look up one thing and it turns into your entire night. Not a night about that one thing, but a night about all sorts of things you never knew about before.

For example, I never knew that there is a shrimp capable of producing shockwaves with its claws that can kill small fish or break glass. And I didn’t know that DC Comics’ hero Animal Man could manifest that power, or the power of any other animal, proportional to the size of his body.

I do know a bit about DC Comics in general, which came part and parcel with being a young boy in the eighties. I can rattle off the origins of all the major heroes as if reading straight from the origin cards that came with their Super Powers toys: Superman the sole survivor from Krypton, Batman an orphan, Wonder Woman an Amazon, et cetera.

The problem that DC Comics was having in the 1980s was that the origins weren’t really that simple, and neither was anything else. As a new influx of readers emerged from the simplified realm of cartoons and toys they discovered that Superman wasn’t exactly a sole survivor… Supergirl was his cousin, and Krypto the Superdog was his long lost pet. So much for being Krypton’s last son.

Other heroes had similarly puzzling paradoxes. The problems weren’t the fault of any single writer or editor so much as they was the fault of almost fifty years of accumulated comics continuity. Eventually the continuity became so splintered that some of the odder stories were explained away as occurring on alternate versions of Earth, but even this couldn’t solve all of the confusion.

The result was Crisis on Infinite Earths – a DC Comics event whose stage was the entire multiverse (and every comic title), and whose stakes were the very existence of life as we know it. Various Supermen and Wonder Women from other realities were knocked off over the course of the event, along with their confusing accomplices (like the aforementioned Supergirl).

When the dust settled the DC Universe was “rebooted” with a single Earth, containing heroes with discernable backstories that could be easily portrayed by cartoons and toys. Ever since, any continuity-impacting event is a “Crisis.” Last year had an Identity Crisis, this year an Infinite Crisis.

I swear, there was a point to all of that. Hang in there.

Crushing Krisis has been around for an extraordinary six years without interruption; it’s the longest running blog in Philadelphia.

Longrunning blogs are just as confusing as those pre-Crisis comic book stories. Blogs easily mix the present with the past, and the longer a blog exists the more and more of the present becomes the past in the form of archives. Past personal dramas continue to be referenced and – aside from the occasional backlink – a new reader is expected to keep up with the narrative without the benefit of comics standards like toys, or trading cards. Or stories set on alternate Earths.

In honor of National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo), here at Crushing Krisis we are having a DC Comics style Crisis. A Crushing Krisis Crisis. Krisis’s Crushing Crisis. Krisis of Infinite Crises. I don’t know, choose whatever you think is catchy.

The point is that – for the entirety of November – I’m rebooting.

Because of my participation in NaBloPoMo I’ll be posting at least once every day, and my posts will contain everything you need to know about my life. Every character and plot strand will be introduced anew. No assumptions, no backstory, no backlinks – not even to reference things that were really funny the first time around. And, to up the ante, if I want to link to one of my original songs in order to refer to it, I will need to provide a brand-new recording of the song, commissioned especially for NaBloPoMo.

I hope this novel idea piques your interest enough to stay tuned through NaBloPoMo and Beyond, whether you are a regular reader or a random surfer. Welcome to the all new Crushing Krisis!

Richard

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My headache began a few days ago as a pair of too-wide yawns. The first flexed the right side of my jaw a little too far, and with the second there was a slightly audible crackle of bones being uncooperative. “Stop trying to unhinge your Jaw,” Elise said, “you don’t have to eat those rabbits all in one piece.”

Yes, my girlfriend is amusing.

The ache persisted for a few days, and by last night it was on the move – the pain slithered in to my mouth, up to my temple, and down the side of my neck. The ache became the headache, which in turn became one of the top three worst headaches of my life. (Another is here).

The headache is so persistent and distinct that I feel as though it is some separate entity – a symbiote – inflicting its will on me. It is like Spidey’s black suit, attached to me at the jaw, trying to envelop my entire head so that it can control my brain.

For sanity’s sake, I have named it. Meet my headache, Richard. You can call it Rick for short.

This is an important distinction for me: I am not my pain, and visa versa. I refuse to walk into work defined by a headache, or anything else, for that matter. On the outside I am committed to being my same vivid self, no matter the interior conditions.

(I would compare this to stepping onto the stage, but that analogy has the negative connotation attached to it from the time I tried to sublimate my 103 fever for a dress rehearsal but wound up with Bronchitis and Pneumonia. Because, you see, a fever is not just a symptom, it’s a condition, and you are your conditions.)

I’ve been surrounded by lots of headache sufferers in my life – a certain ex convinced it could be a brain tumor, and two former bosses whose headaches increased sensitivity to light and destroyed appetites.

My thinking on the matter is that pain is just a perception – just another sense. And, in the same way you can tune out a droning noise or adapt to a familiar smell, you can work your perception around pain. Certainly, some pain is of a source and magnitude much too high to ignore; after all, you can’t exactly tune out a jackhammer.

Richard will not be reaching jackhammer significance in my life. Because, unless some part of my is cracked or broken or abcessed, Rick is just an illusion of my perception. I can tune out Richard just like screening a call. He could just be an itch, or a tickle, or a gnat.

Richard has no magnitude because, there is no Richard. He’s just a yawn that got too wide. As easily as he interrupted my sleep and made me late for work he is banished back into the ether from whence he came.

The Prestige

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To the magic of the The Prestige i merely say “eh.” It was thouroughly enjoyable to watch, and i’ll definitely see it again, but it ultimately was not very satisfying. At least, not in the way i wanted it to be.

Unlike Nolan’s Momento, which by its nature was mostly unfigureoutable the first time through, Prestige lays it all on the line at various early points and spends the rest of the movie just telling an engaging story while waiting for you to catch up. The ending might some tricky to some, but for those who caught up five minutes previous (or fifty (or a hundred) as the case might have been (or was)) the ending is an ultimate anti-climax – all confirmation, and no surprise.

I can think of three ways that the film could have gone that extra-interesting step; i’ll tuck each behind javascript so as not to spoil anything: 1, 2, 3

Go to this movie for the riveting story of intense jealousy and rivalry. Go for the tale of how no revenge is revenge enough. Go for outstanding performances by Caine, Jackman, and Bale, Scarlett doing what she can with a hobbled role, and marvellous turns from Serkis and Bowie.

If you go for the Nolan riddle wrapped in an enigma you’ll leave feeling as if you had been told a knock-knock joke.

The Long Tail of Things I Enjoy Doing

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I’ve recently been reading The Long Tail, which I was originally turned on to completely separately by the original Wired article and via author Chris Anderson’s brainstorming blog (still ongoing).

I haven’t formed a complete opinion on the book yet (I should probably finish it before doing that, eh?), but something I have enjoyed so far is that certain passages have made me put the book down to do my own research, or to start my own discussion. A good book should do that!

It isn’t really necessary to understand what “The Long Tail” means to appreciate the rest of my post, but if you’re interested Wikipedia can tell you, or you can just trust me to summarize it as follows:

The Long Tail is essentially a model (not necessarily of business) where end users have an tremendously huge number of choices – a number typically impossible to amass in any kind of bricks and mortar establishment (think of Amazon’s book and CD selection vs that of Borders or the currently liquidating Tower).

Given this huge number of choices, it turns out that significant user demand for choices continues far past the initial popular choices – ranging even beyond the choices typically offered in a more limited format such as a bricks and mortar store. For an eBusiness such as Amazon or Netflix that incurs relatively low cost to keep these seemingly infinite choices in stock, a significant portion of their profit will be generated by those more obscure choices that a physical storefront would never offer – in effect, the “long tail” of the choices being offered.

Anyhow, back onto my topic.

One passage that had an extremely visceral impact on me as a read was this one: Labor – forced, unspontaneous and waged work – would be superseded by self-activity. [Eventually] nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes … to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.

It isn’t author Anderson’s writing – it’s a quote from The Pro-Am[ateur] Revolution: how enthusiasts are changing our economy and society by Charles Leadbeater and Paul Miller (DL it here), who are in turn quoting Karl Marx’s writing from between 1845 and 1847. And, though Marx’s meaning is diluted when taken out of context, the quote resonated with me.

(Marx’s point is that Communism will ultimately find success in the many crafts of its people, as society will “regulate the general production” through the varied skills of its members. For more on the idea of crafting, visit Craft Research)

The quote resonated with me because of a certain conversation I had towards the end of high school. I was talking about potential college majors to my good friend Robert (who I owe a call), and he said something akin to, “Peter, I want to be a jack of all trades, and a master of none.”

Now, I was familiar with the phrase, but I had never thought of its practical application to a person. Why would anyone want to be halfway good at everything and perfect at nothing? It seemed unfullfilling to me at the time.

Robert’s words reverberate in my head from time to time as I take up yet another new hobby – piano-playing and MYSQL, as of late. I don’t know that I have a hope of mastering either skill, but it hasn’t stopped me from pouring time and energy into either. So, am I a jack of all trades, and in the process have I mastered nothing?

Marx’s quote resonates because it gives Robert’s some perspective. According to him – and I agree – none of us are meant to function solely in a single dimension of production. Yes, most of us have a proverbial “day job,” but our passion carries us to work just as feverishly at acting, or mountaineering, or homebrewing, or any of the other interests of my many friends, and we shouldn’t necessarily despoil that passion by attempting to thrust that work into focus in our lives by majoring in it or making it our business.

I love communications as much as everything, and it’s a perfect thing to take up my 9-to-5 because I would never contrive quite so much communications to work on in my free time. What if I do spend my weekends struggling to debug my own code or master a new instrument? It doesn’t mean I have to get my degree in IT or Performance – if I did I might not like either as much.

That’s just one instance of the trains of thought departing from The Long Tail station; even if it’s not a superior book, it’s a superior catalyst.

The Descent Offers Awesome Thrills (maybe makes you think)

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The Descent is half a languorously-paced introduction and half a compilation of sheer, unadulterated thrill, proving that that horror is in the eye of the beholder as it terrorizes its heroes with the twin threats of nature and something slightly more unnatural. As to which is more horrific, it’s entirely up to you.

(This review is detailed, but spoiler-free!)

The plot is relatively bare, but sketches more personality onto each of our six protagonists than typical genre fare. We don’t learn too much about who is claustrophobic, but we learn a bit about each woman – alternatingly fearless and tentative, experienced and unsure. First-introduced pair of Sarah and the strong-willed Juno are the most fully-realized – both cut from the same adventuresome cloth, but then sewn up in different ways. Their background and ensuing conflicts are the most developed, but the remaining quartet of women are well-enough defined in a few quickly paced bouts of perhaps too-easily-missable dialog.

Stacking the deck with a seemingly cliched extreme thrill-seeker (Holly) and a tentative young med student (Sam) is a blessing in disguise, as each has failings just as distinct as their strengths. The remaining pair – Sarah’s sensible best friend Beth and Sam’s sure older-sister Rebecca – are sketchier archetypes, but come packed with some of the most tangible emotion as the film progresses.

The six women are pulled together by Juno’s resolution that an adventurous distraction could set things straight between her and Sarah, who experienced a terrible and unfortunate tragedy a year before – just minutes after completing the last group adventure. Juno’s choice of challenge is spelunking in a cave that’s slightly more challenging than she lets on. In fact, the cave is terrifying – it’s rocky mass often takes up the majority the screen while a single character scratches and claws her way through a thin crevasse.

As if the spelunking wasn’t hard enough, the adventure is complicated by Juno and Holly’s over-aggressive nature, a single badly chosen path, and the creatures.

The creatures are half Gollum, half X-Files Fluke Man, and all creepy. Their creepiness is not only established by their look, but also their movement and methods of attack, which means that even in relatively bright conditions they still come off as completely terrifying. They are wisely reserved by Writer/Director Neil Marshall, for half the film, only vaguely hinted and once-glimpsed before they finally introduce themselves to the group of adventurers.

Several factors work strongly in Descent‘s favor, not the least of which being that it presents two eminently defeatable horrors: caves which can be surmounting with careful skill, and creatures which can be outsmarted or outfought given the right amount of pluck and timing. Each woman has the chance to do both, with mixed success. In light of this, the tension comes increasingly from personalities while the scares are shifted mostly the creatures (leaving you unprepared for a few final parting shots from the cave itself).

If you have a firm will and a strong stomach you might not avert your eyes from the screen due to the (intense) gore, but the film keeps you wincing with a gruesome bone break and a few terrifically jarring falls. On the human side of things, Juno and Sarah have separate interactions with Beth that left me in full-on tears, while Rebecca’s early feat of athleticism left me gasping for breath after holding it for so long.

Each woman holds their own against the creatures at least a little, with Sam’s quick non-combative reactions almost as satisfying as Natalie Mendoza’s starmaking ass-kickery as Juno. However, it is Shauna MacDonald as Sarah who truly steals the show, combining a little of each woman’s strengths along with a few shocking decisions and one classic Alien-by-way-of-Carrie sequence that could be the film’s trademark.

Ultimately the movie sends the message that thrillers are better off served straight-up thrilling, without the tired cliches that so often define them. The lack of speculation on the creatures’ origins keeps the suspension of disbelief refreshingly afloat. The lack of extended exposition lets the viewer experience everything for themselves. And, the all-female cast collectively reacts just as people under duress should react, making their sex hardly an issue (except for removing the tired angle of romance, and making the “virgin/slut” distinction negligible).

The flick could almost be cast with a blind eye to gender. Yet, it would be a lie to say that the lack of men has no impact – the movie is hardly feminist in conception, but it says some things about women and friendship along the way.

The finale was truncated in the US because the worldwide version was deemed too grim for American audiences. The US version is shocking, though it will leave you uneasy and possibly confused, while the original UK ending turns the film into more of a psychological mindbender than it might have otherwise seemed. It’s hard to say which is superior, but either way this is a movie that absolutely must be experienced on the big screen while you have the chance. A DVD screening won’t pack the same punch, unless you plan to screen in a particularly dank basement with killer surround.

The Descent may fail un-creepable critics, jaded horror junkies, especially well-versed rock-climbers, and creature-obsessees, all of whom will find some chinks to complain over. Anyone who can appreciate the agile-but-sparse character development who enjoys a good, stomach-churning scare would never turn The Descent down.