A conversation doomed to happen

"What is that?"

"What is what?"

"The giant laser!"

"Oh, that, that's just a giant laser."

"Why?"

"You know, that question never really came up."

"Laser! Giant!"

"Look how else am I going to-"

"No, don't what to hear about it! Don't want to be an accessory."

"Well, you should have thought about that before I took $100,000 out of your bank account to build this laser."

"What!"

"Look we could debate who stole, who's identity till the dogs come home-"

"Hey, where's my dog?"

"Oh, he's in the engine."

"My dog's in the-"

"Well if you know a better way to create a dog-powered engine, tell me."

"Get my dog out of the engine!"

"But-but-but-"

"My dog!"

"Fine, fine, fine... I'll get your dog out of that engine. But I hope you know that you denied the world a world-threatening super-villian threat."

"I'll be okay."

"I understand, it's okay, it's okay... we all have disappointments."

-DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Donut Hole

For those of you who don't know, and seeing as many of the phrases that I use commonly seem to not be known by other people (my brother didn't know what it mean to "dot your i's and cross your t's"! Zuh!), the donut hole is simply a general term for a missing center, since all donuts have a hole in the center (although I think they're supposed to be that way due to the baking process).

So on this vacation, one of my goals has been to up my writingness to at least 2 pg.s daily, and maybe up to 3 (this is actually a pretty hard goal and will require a lot of time scrounging). Most importantly, one of my goals has been to write at least 1 pg. of creative fiction a day. Because of this goal I find I have been forcing myself to be rather creative, and I must say my mind is abuzz with story ideas except...

Well, there are a couple excepts here, but writing is always difficult. Yet let me underline one except that is particularly bugging me right now. During my time in India I was playing with a concept of a certain type of magical creature and its interaction with humans. It wasn't fully a setting per-say but rather it was an idea, what about a conflict between two completely separate species of intelligent creatures, and the two types could only barely understand each other superficially, but perhaps in deeper terms understood each other in ways that all those having intelligence and emotions (although I could have made them creatures without emotions, but I decided not to) tend to. Moreover, I decided to play a game with the idea that the other species felt closer to nature than humans. It was a pretty neat idea, certainly not revolutionary, but it helped prompt a story.

Oddly enough, although I had several other story ideas, I found this one was perhaps the easiest to write, despite being fairly new to my mind. And so I find myself with several pages of it already written with only the final climax and then the resolution left and it all seems to be coming together and yet... and yet there's a donut hole.

The story feels like its missing something. This might be because the story is sad and I'm a guy who likes happy endings, but I also feel it's missing some essential quality that all stories, even sad stories should have. I feel like its missing a need to be read. As it stands if I completed the story chances are it would be pretty good. And if this same story was in a short story book I would probably read it. Yet chances are I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. It's unlikely the story would stick with me in a heavy sort of way, maybe just in the back of my mind. The story seems good, yet it's not that the story simply isn't great, it doesn't even really have a spark of greatness. I suppose all good things and all things that have within them concentrated effort have some primordial spark of greatness, but let's put all that aside and admit that some works are great and some works are not. But even some works that aren't great have flashes of greatness in their plot, in their setting, in their characters, or maybe just in some odd detail or other. But I see none of that in here really, and I'm not sure why.

Perhaps though that's okay. Maybe it's alright to write a good story that's fun (even if it is sad, there's a certain fun to reading that's inevitable, usually, well then again there's books like Night) and interesting to read. Moreover, perhaps because this story does not have that spark of greatness or at least an obvious spark of greatness, it might be easier to write and easier to edit and complete. And while I'm working hard on my masterworks, maybe this story and other stories like it can be sent off to see if they can be published. Maybe. But while I'm okay writing stories like this (at least rationally I'm okay with it, emotionally, well, okay, let me say overall I'm still ambivalent), I wouldn't want to write stories without any sparks of greatness for all of my life (even if the stories were overall bad but had sparks of real genius in them, as the works of Ed Wood are said to).

But the whole matter still leaves me uneasy. Now I'm not just working on that story. Obviously I'm also working on my webpost, I have several other stories in the pipeline, I have several stories I'm editing, I'm preparing a number of new strips of my comic (I might even be able to make it a truly regular affair), and there's a bunch of other stuff that is still in the planning stages, and a lot of all that has those sparks of greatness, but... but still this whole donut hole thing is making me uneasy. I very well could be making a big deal out of nothing or misinterpreting my own feelings (the idea that you can truly and fully know yourself is, in my view at least, wrong), but still it makes me uneasy, and that's actually delayed my finishing of the story. But I've been uneasy before and I've pushed through and I suppose that's what I'll have to do.

I just need to walk on into the uncertain future, not knowing whether triumph or defeat awaits me, even not knowing what triumph and defeat really are in this world of mystery. But still heck, I'm Rand, so I know no matter what happens:

I'M STILL GOING TO BE ROCKING IN THE FREE WORLD (although at some point I might move into an unfree country, no government can take away the freedom granted to me by God and so in God's world I'll be free)!!!!

So take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

The inevitable gravity of Destiny or my review of Escaflowne

That's a beautiful phrase. The Gravity of Destiny. Escaflowne isn't your typical anime, oh wait it is, or well, the truth is somewhere in between. In a way it picks and chooses between anime conventions from all genres of the field, and throws in some European mythology and then it... Well, it ends up beautiful. Just like that phrase. It's a beautiful anime, exquisitely crafted from odds and ends scattered throughout the world. European-style kingdoms, steam-punk elements, mecha, dragons, and the strange techno-mysticism that draws everything together. It is an immensely complex beast.

The story starts with girl lifted from her own world planted in another. She has some pretty impressive odd-ball powers, and she gets involved in war and love pentangles that boggle the mind. Giant robots fight, and one in particular has special powers, and she and the prince that controls it end up fleeing from the evil forces searching for a means to end the war. This show has often been cited as a blurring of the lines between shojo and shonen, that is girl's manga/anime and guy's manga/anime (I think the technical terms shojo and shonen are only supposed to be used for manga but they are commonly used for anime as well), and to some degree it carries the faults of both. It has the gushing emotionals and pointless romantic trysts of a shojo and the convoluted plot of a shonen. But then again it has the strengths of both as well. It has the emotional depth and character development of a shojo, and the ambition and action of a shonen. It's two defining characteristics are probably its emotion and ambition and both come together to something at times confusing, at times frustrating, but still beautiful.

It's plot twists often seem pointless. It takes you from one end of it's amazingly in-depth imaginary world only to throw you to the other end with nothing really accomplished. But every episode, even those that don't get anywhere draws your emotions, engages the eyes, and thrills the mind. There's always action, always something happening, always emotional growth even if it doesn't actually go anywhere, it still gives enough to the episode to make it a treat to watch. The quality of the episodes excuses the scattered plot.

Often the emotions presented seem trivial or repetitive or childish, but blown completely out of proportion. Sometimes I just wanted to slap the characters upside the head to try to get some sense into them. But then there were the moments where the emotions presented were so genuine, so universal, but so personal, that they just took my breath away. At times the show travels through an emotional landscape which includes the terrors of war and their drain on the soul, the desire to end conflict and the means it takes to do so, the sorrow of loss, the depth of love, and all these emotions and ideas are presented maturely but with enough excitement and action accompanying them to prevent them from being dry. But what makes the show frustrating is that both over-blown emotions, and perfectly genuine emotions are both stuffed into every episode, but the latter exceeds the former enough that the experience grips your heart. In the end, the execution excuses the melodrama.

Overall, Escaflowne is a monument to execution. That is not to say it is simply a formula executed, rather it is the execution of a story crammed full of ideas and emotions almost to the breaking point, but one which does not fit any precise formula or genre. Because of that it carries with it flaws from every avenue of storytelling but also virtues from every corner of the universe of imaginative fiction. That alone would not a good show make, but it then shows execution that pushes the ability of anime to the limit, which makes all the flaws excusable, and the final product a legend.

And that is the Vision of Escaflowne, and it receives an 9/10.

So that's my review of Escaflowne, so anyways, take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

The song remains the same, until it changes

So I've been a bit late in posting of late, so sue me. Well, I'm not going to give a whole post today either so sue me some more. Actually don't sue me, sue Joe, he deserves to be sued, sue him now!!! Anyways, I thought maybe though I'd give you a story I've heard, it's recounted in the Sandman book called the Wake, but I've heard it before then, and I think originally it was attributed to Calvin Coolidge.

Party representatives gather around an ex-president.

"Why won't you run again? You still can have another term! And you'll be in the highest seat of power in the world!" they say.

The ex-president is quiet for a moment and then calmly replies "There is an old tiger skin rug in the Oval Office. Theodore Roosevelt, I believe shot it on one of his hunting expeditions and made it a part of the office decor. That rug has seen every major diplomatic deal, it has seen the greatest backdoor deals and the most humiliating arm-twistings, it has seen great men rise and fall. It is certainly at the center of world politics. Yet do you think that tiger would rather be back in the jungle, far away from world affairs or if it had a choice do you think it would remain on the office floor?"

They said, "In the jungle of course, it would rather be alive than dead even dead in the Oval Office."

And he, without a smile, without an inflection in his voice simply said, "So would I."


Nice story.

Applicable to me? Well not directly so. Maybe it just reminds me that if I groan under the strain of the desire for power, is real power something I would want to take on. Maybe it means nothing to me. But maybe when looking at public officials, you temper your feelings of respect or contempt with a little bit of pity. For their own reasons, noble or ignoble they have left the jungle.

So anyways, take it to your head, take it to your heart, and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!