The Making Of.

And so, the end of my journey into zombiehood.  But at least a semi-successful one, given that I was awarded the Best Costume prize at my workplace.  Because I've received a lot of positive comments, combined with a little scepticism about how I proceeded with the makeup, I thought that I should document the process along with the materials involved:  white glue and toilet paper, and a bit of cardboard.  (As usual, just click on the photos for the full-sized picture.)

Friday dawned - actually, it was considerably before dawn when the alarm went off.  I indulged in a peaceful cup of tea, then started on the makeup at 4:00 AM.  (The down side of using white glue is slow drying time.)

Step one:  beard removal.  Not really procedurally interesting, but a very important step, and as always a bit of a shock - it's probably been a decade since I last shaved off my beard.  Fortunately, I was spared the minor irony of cutting myself while shaving, so no real blood was involved in the final effect.  (By the way, a couple of comments about the photography: first, the pictures were all taken in my bathroom mirror - I've flipped them over to match the photos taken at work.  Second, they're not great - it was very early in the morning, and the final post-makeup shots were evaluated without the benefit of glasses, or else I would have kept shooting until I got something that was in focus.)

I started the actual makeup process by creating the piece of visible skull on the left side of my head.  I had a lot of surgery after a childhood accident, and one of the results was a minor dent in my forehead, which I took advantage of to inset the piece of file folder that I used for bone.  Even so, the edges are quite visible in the photo, but it doesn't matter, since I'll be adding torn skin to mask the join.  As part of my testing during the week, I had produced some pieces of white glue "skin" for exactly this purpose.  (By the way, this was a common practise when I was in public school - boys would use white glue to make wrinkly skin on the back of their hands, and then gross out the girls by sticking pins through it and so on.  I very strongly remember a fellow named Carey Cain who was really good at it.  And afterward, the white glue pieces could be peeled off like loose real skin, once again grossing out the girls.)

Next, paint face with glue.  (It's not rocket science, is it.)  The first photo above about half way through the rough coat, with various runs and bubbles and so on.  The bubbles aren't a bad thing, though, because those provide the spots where there can be sores or other areas of damage.  The drips get smoothed out and the edge get blended - the great advantage of white glue is water solubility, so a wet brush evens things up quite easily.

The last two pictures show the dried ready-for-makeup results.  I've added in some toilet paper and glue to create what will be the gaping wound on my nose, and you can see how the area around the skull fragment has been built up.  On the other profile, there are two spots on my cheek which will also end up being open wounds - one of them was the open wound test from earlier in the week, moistened and glued into place.

Sadly, I don't have any in-progress photos of the makeup process, but for a very good reason:  I panicked.  I started to do the white undercoat for the makeup, and it looked horrible.  I blended in some green, filled in the eye sockets, and it still didn't look much better, and I was convinced that I'd screwed up the whole thing, and it wasn't exactly something that I could start over. But, as I kept working away at it, and as I added in more green, edged the wounds with black then added the fake blood, it started to come together.

I finished off with a liberal dusting of waste toner powder from the copiers at work, added a dental appliance that I bought for ten bucks with the rest of the makeup, dressed in my torn and bloodied suit and shirt, and I was done - just in time to head off to work, where fluorescent lighting added the finishing touch for the look of the undead.

Oh, as a sidebar, I also did a disgusting wound on my hand.  There was originally an open slice in my throat as well, but it started to come apart at the edges and I sacrificed it in the interests of getting the job done. 

Over the course of the day at work, the white glue around the mouth area began to break up as I stretched it to remove and replace the dental piece so that I could alternately talk to and horrify people.  This actually added to the effect, making it look like the skin was peeling off, so I just touched up the gaps with more fake blood.  In some cases, it was necessary to glue pieces back into place to to rescue the integrity of the whole thing, but again, this added to the impact:  the fresh glue giving the impression of pus under cracked skin.

Sadly, all good things come to an end, and when I tried to partake of a burger at the annual company Hallowe'en barbecue, the parts around the mouth broke up completely and I surrendered to the inevitable - peeled off the remaining bits, washed off the makeup and powder, and, as one wit suggested, returned to being Clark Kent.  Fortunately the judges had all seen me in full rig, so I wasn't disqualified from the costume contest.

I put the picture at the top of this posting on Facebook, and in addition to a number of compliments on the whole look, I was asked where I had learned how to do the makeup.  I wasn't sure if this was a compliment or an insult - after all, it's just glue, toilet paper and a little imagination.   However, the question that no one has asked is "why a zombie?"  Once again I have to give credit and thanks to my niece Jody, without whose positive influence I would never have thought to become a member of the risen dead.

The biggest surprise in the whole process?  I shaved off my beard, created gaping, necrotic, blood-soaked wounds and the illusion of rotting flesh on my face, added a blackened dental appliance - it would have been nice if someone at work had failed to recognize me...

- Sid

P.S.  Monday morning at the office and the prize for best follow-up comment goes to Joseph Shewfelt:  "Back from the dead, I see."

"Step 7: Add some blood and you're done!"

Just a quick in-progress photo of some zombie makeup testing - I wanted to try making an oozing sore (yes, I know, there must be absolutely nothing worth watching on TV tonight).  I did an initial layer of white glue on my cheek - white glue is the poor man's alternative to latex makeup* - and after it had dried down a bit, tore open a hole.  Then I curled back the edges of the hole, and added on some more glue to build up the depth.  I think I'll try for some more depth when this is dry, but it's not a bad proof-of-concept:  just add some red to the interior to create the effect of an open wound, maybe judiciously drip in some some pus as per yesterday's posting, and voilà.

And what is everyone else doing with their evenings?

- Sid

* The down side of white glue versus liquid latex is slower drying time, so I'll be getting up quite early on Friday morning to go into makeup, as they say in Hollywood.

Celebrity Skin.

Just finished the first phase of distressing my zombie costume (if a suit and shirt really qualifies as a "costume".)  I chopped one arm of the jacket off short, split the shoulder seam, ripped a pocket, tore up one of the pant legs, and judiciously smeared various areas with alizarin crimson, which I hope will dry down to a sufficiently russet blood-red.  I also did a diluted red which I poured down one leg from a tear in the pants, and soaked the right jacket cuff in the same diluted mix for the sake of variety.  We'll see how it looks tomorrow in what I expect to be muted daylight.

There's still some work to do. I need to tear the shirt sleeve off at the same approximate level as the jacket sleeve, but that will be fairly straightforward.  At least now the better part of the blood is finished, and that will be nice and dry for Friday.  The down side is that since I was doing all of this in the bathroom, my tub ended up looking like a serial killer had been at work.  (Perhaps a positive sign, under the circumstances.)

I've also been doing research into zombie skin.  To my surprise, people seem to feel that zombie skin is a lot lighter than I expected, at least in the case of Caucasian zombies.  (Zombies of other ethnic derivations tend to slope off toward a sort of dark slate colour, with a bluish tint.)  So I've done some minor tests with a white cream makeup base that I then colour with green, it doesn't look too bad, and I like the idea of contrasting the green hue with blood-red.  During my homeward commute, I also gave some thought to using hand lotion as pus - probably a good thing that I don't discuss these little brainstorms with the other people on the bus.

And the smiling blonde woman?  Ah.  Allow me to introduce Sheri Moon Zombie, Rob Zombie's wife - Mrs. Zombie, if you will.  Trust me, if you do a Google™ search for "zombie", eventually you say to yourself, "Okay, why does this woman keep showing up?  Milla Jovovich, I get that, no problem, but who is this Californian blonde type?"  Still, it's good to see that some women still adopt their husband's last name when they get married, I appreciate that sort of adherence to traditional values.

- Sid

Postscript: back from the gym, and the places where I used the diluted red looks too much like paint when they dry down.  Fortunately, I've got some time before Friday to fine-tune things.  I may either break into my actual fake blood, or perhaps see if baby oil darkens it down sufficiently to look gory again.  The good news is that the undiluted crimson looks not too bad, although different lighting may change my opinion.

P.S.  December 12. 2010:  I have no idea why - the title, perhaps? - but as with one or two previous entries this one has turned into an absolute spam magnet, and comments are now disabled for this posting.

Zombies R Us.

We have met the enemy and he is us.

- Walt Kelley, Pogo

You are now one of the living dead! Enjoy!

- Zombieplace.com zombie makeup tutorial.

It has literally been decades since I last participated in Hallowe'en, but due to the gentle but threatening pressure being exerted by Suki, our company's "employee engagement" manager, I've decided that a wise man would show up next Friday wearing something other than the usual casual garb allowed at the end of the week.

But wearing what, exactly?  After a bit of careful consideration, I decided that going as a zombie was probably the simplest option.  After all, zombies are just people, albeit dead ones, and as such are unhampered by silliness like fairy wings, clown shoes or ungainly mascot heads.  When you think about it, a zombie costume is basically comprised of torn clothing, bloodstains, and decaying flesh - seems simple enough.

The Internet is thick with helpful suggestions on how to look like a zombie, to the point that a neutral observer might be concerned about our society as whole, this can't be healthy.  One of those helpful suggestions is that as creatures that have risen from the grave, many zombies are actually quite well dressed.  After all, no one ever get buried in t-shirt and jeans.  (Although now that it's come to my awareness, I may put something in my will about that...)  This doesn't rule out casual zombie-wear, due to the "tell two friends" aspect of zombie creation-by-consumption, but it provides a good starting point.

In preparation, I did some simple prosthetic testing during the week, and frankly I was astonished at the ease with which white glue and toilet paper can be converted into a fairly ghastly head wound.  I also have ambitious plans to take advantage of an existing surgical depression in my skull to inset a piece of visible bone (white cardboard or plastic) with torn skin flaps around it.  I'm even planning to shave off my beard and mustache for the event - much easier to do makeup that way.
 
So out I went this afternoon to do shopping for my costume.  I purchased some green, black and white makeup, so I can dull down and brighten up the green for decaying flesh with shadows and highlights as necessary, I’ve got some fake blood for the wounds, and for around the mouth and on the clothes, and I managed to walk into the Salvation Army and randomly pick a $20 tan suit* off the rack that actually fits me just about perfectly.  In fact, if there weren’t a couple of stains on it, I’d be able to wear it to work on Thursday instead of Friday.  However, since there are some existing marks on the fabric, I can sacrifice it to the holiday with a clear conscience – tear one sleeve off short, that sort of thing.  I also purchased a dental appliance for that snaggly zombie look.

And there we are - wish me luck.  I need to do some prep work over the next five days, make some fake skin for the head wounds, distress my suit and so on, and I'll certainly be posting some photos of the results next weekend.  Now if I can just find those glasses with the one shattered lens that I've been hanging onto for years to use as a prop...

- Sid

* It had to be a tan suit because blood and grave dirt and so on wouldn’t show up as well on black, you see. Planning, it's all planning.

I don't think that Mars would make bail, either.

Regarding the missile shutdown incidents, my opinion, their opinion, is that whoever are aboard these craft are sending a signal, to both Washington and Moscow among others, that we are playing with fire - that the possession and use of nuclear weapons potentially threatens the human race and the integrity of the planetary environment.

Robert Hastings, UFO Researcher - press conference, Sept. 27, 2010

How do you know that we are not already living amongst monsters or aliens disguised as "normal" people? Whom would you call: Ghostbusters or Men In Black?

The Smith Machine, blog comment.

 Sigh...and here we go again.

In case you should decide to skip the video link above, it features retired US armed forces personnel reporting incidents involving UFOs that caused shutdowns and equipment failures at atomic/nuclear testing and missile storage sites.  Sadly, as per my previous comments regarding this sort of thing, there seems to be a dearth of hard evidence - in fact, at least a couple of the officers featured in the press conference seem to be relying on the reports of their subordinates rather than first hand experience.

Okay, fine.  Let's say, for the sake of argument, that aliens are visiting Earth on a regular basis.  And, again, sake of argument, let's say that in a display of intergalactic brotherhood, or sentient-being-hood or whatever, they decide that they should send a signal to Washington and whomever else that nuclear weapons are bad.  They do this by causing sporadic problems at US military bases - perhaps Russian military bases too, but we only have the American reports to work from in this case.

If alien visitors have both the desire and the ability to cause shutdowns of nuclear weapons, why bother restricting themselves to intermittent difficulties?  Perhaps I should be more grateful to Mr. Hastings for his role as Daniel in the interpretation of this extraterrestrial mene mene tekel upharsin, but why would the aliens not shut down all the nuclear weapons everywhere?  If they've become sufficiently interested in our world that they feel that a message should be sent to the various nuclear-capable powers, they should realize that sporadic interventions at random sites is not the most reliable way to send that message if they really want to get a serious response.

Expatriot Canadian S. M. Stirling is writing a series of books set in a world that has somehow been pushed back to a medieval equivalent by a sudden, mysterious Change that has altered the fundamental nature of physics:  gasoline won't burn, electricity can't be generated, even steam engines fail to operate.  So far in the series, the reason for the Change hasn't been explained, but it's certainly a complete solution to the potential of destroying "the integrity of the planetary environment" with nuclear weapons.  A similar approach by the aliens who have been haphazardly shutting down missiles in silos would make World War Three much less of a concern for us than making sure we didn't freeze or starve during the winter months.

The funny thing is that the Men In Black scenario almost makes sense.  It's a lot easier for me to believe that aliens who had integrated themselves into our society as individuals might take independent action in regards to the possibility of a thermonuclear holocaust.  It would be the alien version of, I don't know, impulsively turning the hose on those loudly inebriated neighbours who are trying to light the barbecue at 3:00 AM, instead of calling the fire department.  As such, it would have the same sort of spur-of-the-moment feel as a response to the problem - and it might well be just the thing to keep the neighbourhood from going up in flames.

And on that basis, things could have been a lot worse.  After all, these theoretical aliens-in-residence could have decided to just call the cops on us and let them sort it out - do we really want to find out what the planetary equivalent of a night in the drunk tank might be?

- Sid

P.S. Should you be interested in a more complete explanation of Mr. Hasting's position, you are welcome to visit his web site: http://www.ufohastings.com.

Monsters.

There have been times in recent years when I've felt that I've somehow slipped across the line into some kind of shadow world*, a world that crosses the border into the sort of fantasy existence that's dominated my reading habits for the last 40 years.

The result?  Zombies block the downtown streets, my niece is apparently a part-time vampire, a good friend tells me in apparent earnest that she's a space alien, coffee shops complain about extra-terrestrial influences,  the Internet attempts to communicate with me via broken English, and then there's things like this:

Yes, monsters.  A little research reveals that it's guerilla promo for a movie coming out in October that echoes District 9's concept of an unexpected alien incursion - and, in the same fashion that District 9 resonates off its South African location, the extraterrestrial presence of Monsters is in Mexico. However, in the case of the sign above, there's another layer of (perhaps) unplanned irony. 

I took that picture near my workplace in Vancouver, about a block from the center of the infamous East Hastings slums, where it's not uncommon to see people unconscious on the sidewalks or wandering in the middle of the street in a state of drug-induced dementia, screaming psychotically at the sky or weeping uncontrollably in the park.

Am I saying that these people are monsters?  Although it sounds lacking in compassion, in some ways perhaps they are - there's certainly a strong resemblance to the traditional portrayal of zombies, at least. The woman I saw last week with her pants around her knees and her rear end out in traffic as she urinated into the gutter is an unfortunate but ideal example - someone who has so abandoned any remnant of self-respect that they would no longer even find it necessary to seek out an alley or a corner out of sight to perform the more fundamental bodily functions.

Imagine a situation involving a drug that twisted and warped people's bodies to the same extent that crack seems to have destroyed the minds of some of these people. In that case, there would indeed be a necessity for warning signs for monsters.

Hmmm - perhaps the basis for a fantasy novel...

- Sid

* "Twilight zone" might be more apt, but obviously there are copyright issues.

"My name is Newt - nobody calls me Rebecca."

"They mostly come at night...mostly."

Newt, Aliens

"Acting just wasn't me."

Carrie Henn

To my mild disappointment, we do not have a winner in the Guess who this is! contest, but I'd like to thank everyone for playing.

The identity of the lady in question?  It's Carrie Henn, who played the part of Rebecca "Newt" Jorden in Aliens.  Apparently Ms. Henn's brush with fame left her unmoved, and she went on to become a schoolteacher in California.  (Remember, I said that she was an "amphibian" actress?  Newt, amphibian...boy, tough crowd tonight.)

- Sid

The Gernsback Continuum.

The winners of the Hugo Awards for 2010 were announced last weekend at WorldCon, science fiction's largest annual convention, held in Australia this year.  Unlike my usual experience with their movie equivalent the Oscars, I'm actually familiar with most of the Hugo winners and have read the winners of the Best Novel and Best Novelette awards - well, one of the winners of Best Novel, it was a tie between China Miéville's The City and The City (which I have read) and The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi (which I have not read but may well).

I've obliquely mentioned Hugo Gernsback a few times, most often in reference to the award which is named after him, and perhaps this is an appropriate moment to go into more detail about Mr. Gernsback and how it is that science fiction's premier prize bears his name.

It must be remembered that we live in an entirely new world.

Hugo Gernsback, Editorial - Issue One of Amazing Stories, 1926

As the 20th Century got under way, it would have seemed that the future was being created every single day, and Hugo Gernsback was determined to be part of that future. Born Hugo Gernsbacher on August 16, 1884 in Luxembourg, he emigrated to the United States in 1904, planning a career as an inventor.

Once in America, Gernsback established the Electric Importing Company in order to market an improved battery which he had developed, but unfortunately he did not experience much success with his new invention. As a result, he decided to expand the company into a more general supply house for radio parts and equipment.

In order to help create a market for that equipment, he began to include plans and articles in the company's catalogue. Eventually it developed into the first electronics and radio magazine: Modern Electrics, first published in 1908.

In 1911, the first portion of a twelve-part science fiction serial written by Gernsback appeared in the magazine - Ralph 124C 41+: A Romance Of the Year 2660.*   Ralph, the titular character, is an inventor and one of the top ten scientists of his time. The story deals with his meeting with Alice 212B 423, with whom he falls in love but has to rescue from a rejected Martian suitor, and even revives her from death at his rival's hands.

The tale takes place against Gernsback's view of the future, which in retrospect contains a combination of surprisingly accurate predictions of technology that we have now, and complete misses (to be fair, there's still a few hundred years left to make up the shortfall.) Ralph 124C 41+ was revised and published into book form in 1925.

In 1926, Gernsback launched Amazing Stories, the first magazine to be dedicated solely to "scientifiction", as he called it. Initially Amazing Stories only reprinted material by H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, but importantly it offered for the first time a potential venue for new authors. Over time it presented stories by now legendary science fiction authors such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, A. A. Merrit, Jack Williamson, E. E. "Doc" Smith, Edmond Hamilton, and Philip Francis Nowlan, whose classic character Buck Rogers first appeared in the August 1928 edition of Amazing.

In 1929, Gernsback was forced to declare bankruptcy, and although Amazing continued to be published it was no longer under his control.

He quickly recovered, and began publication of three new magazines: Air Wonder Stories, Science Wonder Stories, and Science Wonder Quarterly. The first two were merged into Wonder Stories in 1930, and Science Wonder Quarterly became Wonder Quarterly. It was Science Wonder Stories which was credited by future science fiction author Isaac Asimov for introducing him to science fiction in 1929.

Unfortunately, Gernsback experienced financial difficulty with the Wonder Stories line as well, and sold the titles in 1936.  Although he continued in the publishing business until his death in 1967, he never returned to the science fiction market.

(The odd thing is that although Gernsback certainly is a dedicated visionary, he's a failed one when it comes to practical terms.  None of his magazines were financial successes, and his chosen name for the genre - scientifiction - was never accepted.)

Gernsback is often referred to as "the father of science fiction", but in my opinion, that's really not a fair description of Gernsback's role.  I would be far more inclined toward H. G. Wells as the parental figure for the genre. Instead, I think that Gernsback occupies a far more important role in the development of science fiction than simply being its father.

In many ways, Gernsback had the same relationship with science fiction that Henry Ford had with the automobile.  Ford didn't invent the automobile, but what he did do was create a factory assembly line system that allowed for the relatively cheap construction of cars, and as such made them a commodity that almost anyone could afford.  You could say that Ford popularized the car, made it into something that anyone and everyone knew about.

Gernsback performed the same sort of service for science fiction. Not only did his various magazines put a monthly dose of SF on every newstand in North America (and some in England), they also offered a venue for the readers of those magazines to offer their own speculations about the future to come.  An entire generation of classic science fiction authors such as Isaac Asimov, Frederik Pohl, Donald Wollheim, and Arthur C. Clarke acknowledged their early experience with Gernsback's publications as the primary influence in the direction of their future careers.

It's on that basis that Hugo Gernsback fully earned the privilege of having his name given to science fiction's top honour: the Hugo Award, a prize which he himself received in 1960 as a special recipient.

I bet no one ever handed that Oscar guy a golden statue of himself...

- Sid

*  It's a pun - "Ralph, one to foresee for one." -  just in case not everyone sounded that out.

Yes yes, I'm sure there will be some kind of a prize.

Hey, trivia fans, guess who this is!  This "amphibian" actress co-starred in a major science fiction film, and it was the first and only movie that she ever did.

- Sid

Tidbits.

Hi ho, Saturday afternoon on the Labour Day long weekend, and time for some quick updates and comments.

A recent New York Times article discusses the issues I expressed in my posting on gaming in regards to real-world overlap.  It would seem that people are up in arms (sorry, bad pun) over the most recent addition to the first-person shooter lineup.  Medal of Honor is set in Afghanistan, and in the online multi-player version, players have the option of playing as American soldiers or as the Taliban. It would seem that various political figures find the inclusion of terrorists as playable characters to be "tasteless", in the words of British defense secretary Liam Fox.And, further to my opening comments in that gaming post regarding Starcraft II, I was surprised to discover that the voice actors for the game include such science fiction big guns as Armin Shimmerman (Quark from Deep Space Nine), Michael Dorn (Worf from Star Trek: The Next Generation) and the part of Sarah Kerrigan is voiced by none other than Tricia Helfer from Battlestar Galactica.  Are things perhaps a bit quiet in the TV marketplace?My friend Chris informs me that a 3-D movie version of the Smurfs is in development.  Gosh, there's a clever idea...let's make a 3-D movie featuring blue people.  Boy, I wish James Cameron had thought of that.

I've just finished re-reading Peter Hamilton's Judas Unchained, the epic conclusion to the Commonwealth Saga.  The first book, Pandora's Star, is one and three-eights inches thick.  The second book is two inches thick and features visibly smaller type than its predecessor.

DAMN IT, PETER, THIS SHOULD BE A TRILOGY!!  IF IT'S GOOD ENOUGH FOR TOLKIEN, IT'S GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU!!Local comic book store The Comic Shop has relocated to an address further along 4th Avenue.  In the process of moving, they culled some of their "previously owned" stock and left it in front of the store with a crooked cardboard sign saying FREE.  As a result, when I was coming back from the gym on Tuesday, there were stacks of 70's and 80's Analog and Galaxy SF magazines and a variety of fantasy and science fiction novels just sitting there, looking for a good home.  Sigh...as I scooped up handfuls of books and jammed them into my gym bag, I probably looked like a member of the legion of back-alley scavengers who are constantly trolling for recyclable containers.  ("Oh look, poor fellow, he's probably going to sell those books to get money for booze or crack.")  I was terribly self-conscious about it - thank god it was late enough that the streets were almost empty.

Not so self-conscious that I didn't make two trips, though.  Hope you all have a pleasant weekend!

- Sid

Two thumbs up from Lorena Bobbit, I assume.

"Wet...t-shirt...wet...t-shirt..."

Jerry O'Connell's last words as porn producer Derrick Jones, Piranha 3D

Let me start with a bit of background, setting the scene as it were.  As previously mentioned, I have a very good friend named Laurie: she has a BSc and an MA, speaks four languages, is a knowledgeable fitness professional, an afficionado of Shakespearean theatre, an expert ballroom dancer, and a member of Mensa.  Regardless, she cheerfully decided that Piranha 3D was the must-see movie to start the Labour Day weekend.

For the most part I don't agree with the concept that something can be so bad that it's good, but to my astonishment Piranha 3D manages to go through some kind of black hole/looking glass/time warp and come out the other side as a horrific, disgusting, but entertaining film.  I don't know if I'd go so far as to call it "good", but it more than delivers on everything that it promises.

And what does it promise?

Blood and boobs in 3D.

P3D is only marginally acceptable as a topic for this blog, although there is a vast precedent of 50's and 60's semi-science fiction films based on the same basic premise.  A seismic disturbance opens a chasm between a lake in Arizona and a hidden subterranean lake located immediately below it.  This pocket of water has apparently been sealed since the Pleistocene Epoch, creating an Darwinian pressure cooker for the development of unspeakably savage prehistoric piranha - old school piranha, if you will - that are now free to seek fresh meat.

Nice boat shoes!

Meanwhile, up on the surface, Spring Break has started, and the lake is filling with hordes of drunken bikini-clad babes as a porn producer arrives to shoot his latest magnum opus...do I really need to explain any further?

I really have to give full credit to all the creative parties involved in this production. Piranha 3D is utterly without presumption or ego - they set out to make an over-the-top horror film with less fabric holding the plot together than in most of the bikinis used, a film whose only reason for existence is to show half-naked bodies and hungry aquatic horrors gnawing away at them, and they succeeded beyond any possible dream of success. 

No opportunity for three-dimensional excess is ignored in this film.  3D breasts, full monty 3D softcore lesbian underwater nudity*, 3D vomit - and then the killing starts.  Detached 3D eyeballs drift through the water, flesh is graphically stripped from 3D bones, faces are chewed off (and in one exceptional instance pulled off when a young woman's hair gets caught in a propellor) and endless gallons of blood cloud the waters of the lake**. 

And of course the capper, the top, the capo di tutti capi - the severed penis scene, wherein Jerry O'Connell's character is savaged by the fish and then dragged out of the water, horribly maimed, nothing but bones and sinew from the waist down.

"My penis..." he gasps.  "They took...my penis."

Cut to an underwater view as a severed - I hesitate to say dismembered - 3D penis drifts by on the current, only to be snapped up by a hungry piranha.

And then...burped out again.  What more could you ask of a movie-going experience?

- Sid

* A phrase I never thought I'd be able to use in my entire life, let alone in this blog.

** Let's hear it for the Internet - apparently it's actually about 400 gallons of blood.

Collected.

This week I was introduced to a serious science fiction and fantasy collector by a well-meaning mutual acquaintance.  Like me, he was initially introduced to the genre by his mother, but in his case he inherited a substantial library of classic material from the 30's and 40's in magazine and book form.  And like me, he has several thousand in his collection, but he peaks out at about twice the size of my library.

And how does he store his beloved collection, you ask?  Big plastic tubs.  He fills them up, "squirts in a little bug spray", and there they are.

Sigh...

In many ways, I love my little library.  It's been a source of entertainment and even education over the decades and it's expanded both my imagination and my horizons.  As books have worn out I've done my best to replace them with the same vintage, but in some cases I've ended up with reprints or different editions.

And that's never bothered me.  Books last pretty well, but they're still ephemera in a lot of ways.  Pages tear and yellow, covers fray at the edges, bindings fail, and I accept that as an unfortunate fact of life.  But at least my little collection has been read and enjoyed, rather than hidden away in some sort of miserly fashion.  It's the content which has always been important to me - the fantastic ideas, the startling concepts, the amazing fantasies - rather than the bits of paper that held the ink.

If through some fluke of fate I somehow ended up with the same collection as the one owned by the gentleman I met on Thursday, I think that my first impulse would be to start opening bins and reading - carefully, yes, but still turning pages and touching covers.  Why would anyone want a library that looked like this?

- Sid

Conception.

"You mind telling your subconscious to take it easy?"

- Ariadne, Inception

Although I didn't eat any dinners alone during my trip to Toronto, my afternoons were pretty much my own time. As such, I overcame my long-term aversion to Leonardo DiCaprio and trotted down to the Scotiabank Theatre on Richmond Street to see Inception.

The concept behind the film is simple enough - a professional thief is hired to insert something rather than steal it. The difference in this case is that rather than diamonds or money, the thief in question steals information from people's minds while they're asleep, and he and his team are attempting to place a foreign idea into someone's head, against the active and deadly resistance of the subject's subconscious mind.

It's difficult to avoid comparisons to the Matrix films, there's a similar combination of layered realities and surrealistic environments.  Inception also raises echoes of Memento, writer/director Christopher Nolan's staccato masterpiece from 2000.  But in many ways, Inception is more of a strange science fiction equivalent of Ocean's Eleven or The Italian Job, a sort of fast-talking hit-and-run heist flick set in REM space rather than Las Vegas.

As such, the actors faces some odd acting challenges, such as pretending to be fast asleep in the back of a speeding van while it dodges gunfire, flips over, and crashes through a guardrail backwards.  Regardless, everyone in the ensemble cast does a good job of dealing with the film's odd combination of shootouts and slumber.

His ability to feign sleep aside, Leonardo DiCaprio has matured well and is well en route to overcoming the legacy of his early pretty-boy days.  He gives the role of dreamthief Dom Cobb a sort of brooding, almost depressed desperation which is completely appropriate to the character.  Ellen Page is also growing nicely into her talent, although I have to think that in the long term she may face some issues.* 

Inception isn't perfect, and it doesn't hold up to stringent analysis in some areas, but overall I found it to be an entertaining and clever piece with some interesting concepts.  I was intensely impressed by the carefully ambiguous and beautifully timed final seconds of the movie. It's rare that a five second difference in an ending would completely alter if not ruin a film, but in this case the conclusion is timed to a razor fine line.

The unfortunate part is that since seeing the movie I've heard several people explaining - or trying to explain - the ending to someone. Sigh...it must be disappointing to Mr. Nolan that he took a break from Batman movies to make a smart little science fiction flick, and people don't get it.

My only real objection to the basic concept is that I doubt the ability of even the subconscious mind to populate a world with varied and unique projections of people and places. I think that we're very much creatures of repetition, pattern and cliché, and as such it's difficult for me to accept that anyone would be able to create a world of such detail and complexity that it would be accepted as real. Frankly, I suspect that most of us would end up with something more like those endlessly repeating backgrounds from Fred Flintstone's living room.

- Sid

* With the best will in the world regarding her abilities as an actress, Ellen Page is well below the height limit for success in Hollywood. Good luck with that, Ellen - if Tom Cruise can make it, so can you.

достаточно!

(Contributed by Laurie Smith)

Enough picking on the Russians already!

Sid invited me to do a guest posting on his blog and after expressing initial concern about not being up to the task from the standpoint of eloquence and style, I decided to give it a shot.

I had the pleasure of recently seeing three movies, and they all fit Sid’s criteria for moviegoing: they contained aliens or explosions. In this case, explosions in all three and a sci-fi theme in two of them. On the airplane to/from Toronto I watched Hot Tub Time Machine and Iron Man 2. In Toronto, Sid and I went to see Salt.

The Russians have long been cast as the bad guys when it comes to international political intrigue and espionage, and it seems that this stereotype persists even today. In Hot Tub Time Machine the three friends travel back to 1986 (great for 80’s music lovers!) because a can of Russian “Chernobyl” cola spills on the hot tub controls and causes a meltdown and a black hole. The time travelers are accused at one point of being Commies, with radioactive secret Russian soft drinks. In Iron Man 2 the musclehead techno-scientist villain is Russian and Mickey Rourke even does an acceptable job of speaking the language. In Salt the conflict between Russia and the U.S. results in a gang of highly trained hardcore Russian assassins and a plan to destroy America.

Seriously folks, enough picking on the Russians already! Half my family heritage is Russian so I’m always interested in seeing how Hollywood portrays the nation. One of my favourite movies, The Sum of All Fears, is unfortunately all about a threat of imminent war between Russia and the U.S.  Isn’t it time to pick a new villain? How about vilifying Luxembourg for a change?

- Laurie

"Time keeps on slipping...into the future."

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

- Groucho Marx

Posting from Ontario today - I'm currently sitting on the patio of the Delta Chelsea hotel, located near Yonge and College in downtown Toronto.  It's a beautiful sunny day, and although the hotel wants to charge the ridiculous daily fee of $13.95 for hardwired internet access in the rooms, they have free wireless downstairs.  Unlike the various dullards who are crammed onto every available flat surface in the lobby, I noticed that there was this outdoor section near the food court area....hmmm....so here I sit typing away outdoors in a shady spot with a nice little breeze, pleasantly isolated from the hustle and bustle of Yonge Street, sipping a frigid iced tea between sentences.

It's interesting to visit a familiar city on a semi-regular basis of about twice a year.  It's a bit like slow time travel - changes can be large and noticeable, or small and subtle.  In fact, this is probably the only feasible method of time travel, although it's not exactly what most people have in mind when they discuss the concept.

When you think about it, all you really need for successful time travel is a reliable method of suspended animation* and a great deal of faith in either automatic timing systems or your fellow man.  Want to move to the year 3010?  Climb in, close the lid, slowly drift off to sleep....when you wake up, presto, 1,000 years in the future.

As with most of the basic science fiction concepts, this one is first introduced by H. G. Wells. In his 1910 novel The Sleeper Awakes**, his character falls into a mysterious trance rather than being put on ice, but the results are the same.  Most of the novel is the sort of thinly veiled socio-political criticism that too often dominates Wells' writing, but it does offer the interesting idea that after sufficient time, a person in suspended animation whose financial life continues to be active would eventually possess all the money in the world. (In the "A Fishful of Dollars" episode of Futurama, Philip J. Fry proves the benefits of compound interest by unintentionally leaving 93 cents in his bank account for 1,000 years at 2.25% and ending up with over four billion dollars.)

The idea was continued by Robert A. Heinlein in his 1956 work The Door Into Summer, which amplifies on the problems faced by Wells' protagonist in terms of adapting to a completely different society in the future.  Obviously all of the scientific knowledge possessed by Heinlein's inventor/hero is obsolete, but the deeper problem is that all of his knowledge is obsolete, in every aspect of life.

They brought me modern clothes right after breakfast the next morning...and I had to have help in dressing. They were not so odd in themselves (although I had never worn cerise trousers with bell bottoms before) but I could not manage the fastenings without coaching. I suppose my grandfather might have had the same trouble with zippers if he had not been led into them gradually. It was the Sticktite closure seams, of course-I thought I was going to have to hire a little boy to help me go to the bathroom before I got it through my head that the pressure-sensitive adhesion was axially polarized. Then I almost lost my pants when I tried to ease the waistband. No one laughed at me.

By the way, the hidden joke is that this particular Sleeper has ended up in the distant future of the year 2000.

When I mentioned that faith in one's fellow man was required for Sleeper time travel, it's not only in the area of having someone wake you up.  Larry Niven's story The Defenseless Dead combines a growing need for transplant donors with a large pool of "corpsicles" - people in cryogenic suspension.  The result?  The Freezer Laws, which decree that anyone without sufficient funds to support them upon awakening is officially dead and as such can be used as a source of spare organs.  In other words, you still wake up, but "one piece at a time", as one of the characters comments.

In my opinion, the best use of the idea of stasis time travel has to be Vernor Vinge's clever Marooned in Realtime, a murder mystery disguised as a science fiction novel, or vice versa.  Vinge's novel is based on the idea of bubbles of suspended time - "bobbles", in the parlance of the novel.  Bobbles are indestructible and with sufficient power can be created to be of almost any size or duration.

The novel takes place after the Singularity, a point in human development where humanity has made a quantum leap to another state of evolution, leaving behind a silent, empty planet.  However, people who are in bobbles suffer the fate of the lame boy in the Pied Piper legend, left behind when the doors to paradise close.  The more technologically advanced survivors decide to use their bobbling technology to travel through however many millenia are necessary to collect all of the remaining humans as they emerge from their bobbles, in hopes of rebooting humanity as a species.

Problems arise when one of the originators of this plan is murdered.  The weapon?  Old age - they're trapped outside the bobbles and left to die while everyone else travels a thousand years.  Needless to say, the clues are not in the best of condition after the crime is discovered.

Of course, interesting though all of these ideas are, there's one problem with this particular approach to time travel.  After all, once I've finished my little faux time travel visits to Toronto, I can go home again...

- Sid

*  Just for the record: regarding my own personal time travel visits to Toronto, I do not consider living in Vancouver to be the equivalent of suspended animation.

** Originally published in 1899 under the title When the Sleeper Wakes, but Wells did some rewriting and re-published it - which may mean that Wells also originated the concept of the director's cut.