Tag: workshop talk

Film Review: Sucker … PUNCH!

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

I’d almost like to say that Sucker Punch actually sucker punched me, but you can’t claim to be sucker punched when you can pretty much see it coming.

So I watched this film the other day and I almost feel like just giving you my rating right now. What I can I tell you? It could have worked. It could have. All the components were there. You had this girl who was wrongfully put into an insane asylum by her stepfather who wanted her family’s money: and had her unofficially scheduled to be lobotomized to keep her silent about his dealings.

You had different realities going on after this in which you have the protagonist retreating into the fantasy that she was sold to a brothel where she’d learn to dance for the patrons there. You also had a few realities where this same protagonist is a bad-ass warrior who has to fight things that symbolize her inner demons and even has something of a guide: a man who is respectively a sage and a military commander. He is known as the Wise Man and has some pretty crisp, elegant, and pragmatic things to say with a proviso at the end that always comes after him stating, “Oh and one more thing …”

You also had other female protagonists who were also in the asylum, in the brothel and were in her teammates in the combat worlds she found herself in under the guidance of the Wise Man. One of the worlds the girls found themselves in was apparently a steampunk (though I would say dieselpunk) WWI.

Here is essentially a movie where you can play with realities and have some nice transitions between worlds. Here is a romp through the collective unconsciousness: through the subconscious of a girl who is probably being drugged and trying to save herself from a lobotomy in five days’ time. This could have been a movie of character development along with some fitting musical tracks,  flashy special effects and fantasy sequences.

Instead, it was just the good soundtracks and the fantasy sequences. A few other critics have actually stated something to the effect of being amazed at how bored they were during the fight scenes and such and I have to agree with them. They could have been cool. If the girls had been developed a lot more, it would have been.

You know, I can almost see how it could have been: like a warped dieselpunk psychological-Alice and Wonderland fairytale. I could see there being very clear, if somewhat distorted, plays between the different realities: even the point where you as the viewer might not be sure where one begins and one ends. Keeping in mind that the initial setting was in an exaggerated 1960s asylum would have been–and I suppose even is–a good start. I also think it would be fascinating to consider that a lot of the music that the protagonist is forced to dance to in the brothel reality does not even exist yet in her actual time line: which makes you wonder if what is construed as madness is something that goes beyond space and time.

Instead, what we have here is a video game with a very flimsy premise and attempt at depicting female empowerment: which did not work and I feel did the exact opposite. But the sad thing is: it could have worked. It could have been done if it had been done a little differently. For instance, in the beginning of the film itself instead of trying to depict a bunch of silent black and white sequences ala Sin City style, the film-makers–in my opinion–should have basically developed some character even then with a few verbal exchanges or what-not. I mean, even the “silent treatment” they were attempting to give us–a “show and don’t tell us” situation, could have worked for me if the body language and facial expressions of the characters weren’t so … over-exaggerated and melodramatic. It seriously made me wince to see that and I hoped it would improve as time went on.

The thing is, in creating this film, they followed a formula and a cycle. They had a quest, they had antagonists, heroines, items that needed to be found, and even a moral: which is that you have all the tools to take care of yourself you just need the will to use them and do what must be done. But it didn’t work. It just didn’t work.

And seriously? Naming the girls Blondie, Rocket, Sweet Pea, Amber and the protagonist Baby Girl made me wince. A lot.  You could argue that they are just monikers given in the brothel reality to these girls by patriarchal chauvinist forces, or that they were plays on Charlie’s Angels, but it still makes me wince. Their overly-fetishized little girl costumes did not help matters either. In fact, the way they were depicted in general wasn’t something I could really relate to or sympathize with. That, again, could have been done but it wasn’t. Also, Blue–their “owner”–for all he is a misogynist piece of garbage, and despite his moments of intelligence, really wasn’t that intelligent at all or consistent in how I would think he’d operate: especially when he doles out punishments. He might be a sadistic criminal, but I imagine he is also a pragmatic businessman and would have dealt with things a little more differently.

I do like the idea that he knew that in the brothel reality or fantasy that they were trying to escape and he figured it out, but that twist was never followed through because I’d assume the girls would adapt to it as well somehow. I don’t know how to phrase it beyond that. It just felt like a whole lot of flatness with special effects with a very forced “meaning” or “moral” stapled on at the very end and music sequence in the credits that has nothing to do with anything.

It just felt like a video game and honestly–if I wanted to see Alice with a machine gun with a similar psychological element–I’d probably play a game like American McGee’s Alice or its sequel Alice: Madness Returns. If you want to make a dark and gritty Alice story, make a dark and gritty Alice story or play one of the above games. But I’ll be fair: as a video game this film might have actually been better. If Snyder had created Suck Punch as a video game script and worked with other developers to make the game and then made a film from it, it might have been a lot better.

I guess since I am trying to be fair, it was his first original movie script and you can see these different elements coming together: but they just don’t make it in the spectacle that follows. I could also have seen this as a comic book first: with more development and time. I don’t know if that would have improved a lot about it, but with writing and time stories could have been made and maybe some essence might have been established along with form. Perhaps something along the spirit of David Mack’s excellent and insanely innovative Kabuki comics series might have been something interesting to see.

You might ask why I bothered to review this film at all given what I’ve said about it. I guess if I had to summarize it all under two words, it would be: could have. Although not exactly the same, after mentioning Kabuki I remembered a Noboru Iguchi film I saw at the Toronto After Dark film festival called RoboGeisha: the story of two sisters abducted and termed into geisha-assassin cyborgs. What I find really ironic is how even though it somewhat parodied Bandai’s Power Rangers, a lot of gore, and was in a lot of ways incredibly ridiculous, it laughed at itself and made you laugh with it. But not only did it do that, it got me invested in the characters. And while it didn’t have all of Sucker Punch‘s special effects or mien of grandeur, it was a lot more fun.

Oh, and one more thing: while I do think that Sucker Punch‘s heart might have tried to be in the right place (I appreciated that Baby Girl actually went into a fighting world when she danced to the music: something that I’ve visualized doing when I used to go to dance clubs myself), there was something about that just didn’t sit well with me. I’m glad I didn’t see it in theatres, though it has its entertainment value at times and I’ll give it a two out of five.

In the Superheroes’ Playground: ItsJustSomeRandomGuy’s “I’m a Marvel, I’m a DC”

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 1 Comment

I don’t remember how exactly it was I found ItsJustSomeRandomGuy. It must have been me looking for material on YouTube with regards to Watchmen or some comics related thing. You know: when I was either researching for my paper or indulging in one of my favourite past-times.

You all probably know and remember the old “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” commercials. Well, RandomGuy did a spoof of that: with superheroes. He created “I’m a Marvel, I’m a DC”: where he animated action figures of heroes from different franchises comparing and contrasting themselves as well as bantering and even sometimes finding common ground.

The sample below is the very first skit that I came across:

What I like the most about these skits–which are highly satirical pieces that often break the fourth wall–is how JustSomeRandomGuy captures the personalities, and the voices of the superheroes that he represents through his collection of action figures. ItsJustSomeRandomGuy himself is a voice actor and teacher and it shows. Yet it is more than that. The fact of the matter is that he is also extremely well-versed in DC and Marvel story-lines, the comics franchises, and the medium itself. He also brings an incredible wit and creativity all of his own to what he has made.

As he goes on, ItsJustSomeRandomGuy actually begins to build story-lines of his own from the simple skits he began with. The arc begins with After-Hours, followed by Happy Hour and then the Zero Hour that’s still in progress. It is really fascinating to watch this evolution happen: from the usual two figure-skits–partially stop-motioned or edited–to full on interactions between figures from the Marvel and DC Universes.

It’s what a lot of us geeks did when we were children. I mean, let’s face it, a lot of us played with our doll–action figures, making voices and then new story lines for them. But JustSomeRandomGuy takes this–this same love for the superhero and villain toy-box–and does something really wonderful with it that I’d not seen too much of. He essentially, like I said earlier, creates a satire of superheroes with these figures. Yet at the same time, he keeps them in character–with a few humourous exceptions that somehow mesh well anyway–and captures their essences.

Watching these characters interact reminds me of all the Saturday morning cartoons and comic books and actually makes me feel good about myself just by watching them. They are my old friends from childhood–on my cards, in my cartoons, movies, and comics–but at the same time they have kept up with the times and have their own changes. Yet they are for the most part still fundamentally the same: while being very aware that they are actually comic book characters. I like this kind of meta-fiction and the fact that, yeah, if anyone would be intelligent and experienced enough to know that they are characters it would be these guys. Just how many universes and realities have they already been in themselves within their own stories?

ItsJustSomeRandomGuy gives back the Saturday morning and afternoon wonder, but also it also let the heroes and villains grow up with us: the slapstick accompanied by a certain degree of seriousness and the meta-fiction and fourth-wall breaking always placed under Marvel’s much lauded sense of, “Continuity! Issue #Etc.”

ItsJustSomeRandom Guy recreates and creates a golden magic that I am glad I came across. It’s nostalgia without the bitter part of the sweet. It continues to evolve with more hilarious parodies and touching messages.

The fact is, in my opinion, ItsJustSomeRandomGuy is a genius. Through the posing of these toys, he manages to cover issues from inter-character relations, different universes, the nature of and the issues surrounding comics, the effectiveness of the films around the comics, and a whole lot of popular cultural references while never making these self-reflexive heroes anything other than what they are in a series that knows exactly what it is.

If I had, say, two requests of ItsJustSomeRandomGuy–if it is in his power at all–and if you are reading this ItsJustSomeRandomGuy I’d say this. I would love to see an episode with the figurine of Animal Man in the Grant Morrison understanding of the character.

And I would love to see an exchange between Miracle/Marvelman and the rest of the Family–or even Shazam, Captain Marvel, and Superman–talking about the series that has not been published in forever. I would love to see your take on that if you have the figurines (of which I know the Miracle/Marvel Family are rare now and expensive and I do not know the legal elements involved, so I hesitate in asking this). But as a fan of yours, I simply can’t resist asking.

(And there is a custom-made action figure of Miracleman. I think only the Todd McFarlane statues were made, which is a pity)

For those of you who have never watched any of these YouTube videos and just want to surf through them, here is ItsJustSomeRandomGuy’s channel. They are worth every moment.

So to properly conclude this, I would just like to thank ItsJustSomeRandomGuy for his work, and leave you with this message.

So remember kids: the moral of today’s story is that continuity is important. Thank you, and Excelsior!

Making a Receipe for a Creepy-Pasta: With Uncanny Filling

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 1 Comment

Now, I haven’t tried to make any of these yet–not seriously anyway–but I have been thinking about how to make one a lot. Consider this a follow-up to my “Horror as a Universal Power: The Function of a Creepypasta” only with more emphasis on how to potentially write an effective creepypasta.

Since I wrote my last post on that matter, I’ve been reading a lot more of these stories and coming to a few of my own conclusions. Honestly, some of them are … just not that good. I mean, some of the writing is just awkward and some of it really contrived. At worst, I’ve been confused by a lot of the stuff: with their events and details. In this case, writing something as if it is an urban legend or word of mouth situation–as though it’s the product of a distorted broken telephone–takes away from the story’s readability or worse: eliminates even some of a fun suspension of disbelief.

Then you have the other hand. If you write the story too well, then that suspension of disbelief is all but gone. What I mean by that is if you have precise sentence and even images that you can just tell a writer created, and everything is nice and orderly than you have an excellent story but not always a believable one.

Even as I write this, I’m trying to wrap my head around the entire issue: which is a hilarious image given that these stories are being called “creepypastas.” But like some pastas, there is a certain hollowness inside them as well: a darkness and mystery that can’t always be revealed or it will become something else. Of course, you can say that about the horror genre in general.

So I have been thinking of how I can make one of these. I have a few options actually. One of them is that I bastardize something from my childhood, or use enough elements from to make something reminiscent of Candle Cove. Another option is to do something with a video game: to make a game where actions in it actually have consequences like a few of the stories I’ve already read. I can actually play with a place I actually know–a restaurant in the dark–for another one and make something new from it. Then there is just that perception of something watching you from the side of your vision, or behind you, or hidden in the back of your laptop and one night having the ill-fortune to see the actual thing looking right at you all misshapen and horrible. I could do something with that.

I could even be a total smart-ass and write a story where Jeff the Killer and the Slender Man are playing haunted Pokemon games or talking to Ben online (I can imagine him saying, “You’ve met with a terrible fate, haven’t you?” when one of them loses a game) while Candle Cove and the Dead Bart Simpson episode are playing in the background on the television and computer respectively. And one of them, maybe Jeff, eats a My Little Pony Cupcake. If you type some of these on Creepypasta Wiki, you will know what I’m talking about: including the cupcake. But beware: they will be disturbing … especially the cupcake.

I am not responsible for what you might find. Remember the age-old at least Lovecraftian saying: “Do not call up that which you cannot put down.” You have been warned.

As such the thing is, in my mind, there are two kinds of creepypastas. The first is one that is clearly a story and simply there for one’s enjoyment. The second is a meme that goes around and places doubt as to whether or not this happened or someone thinks it did. Of course there is a third type where an idea just keeps getting passed around and changed by several people.

But I would definitely love to make at least some of the first two types: send them out and see if they would catch on somehow. It will be a project to put in the far corner of the dark back-burner.

So remember, if you take nothing else from these musings, “the uncanny” is the centre of a creepypasta … or a My Little Pony confection: though really that would actually be just a whole lot of “disturbing” filling.

Book Review: Stephen Andrew Lee’s Tales from Sanctuary: The Vampire Sex Bar

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 17 Comments

I’m trying to figure out how to begin this. Originally, I was going to talk about this book on Amazon but–back in the day–it had no entry to make a review about. This book is out-of-print. Its publisher Spitfire Books doesn’t seem to exist anymore and the author didn’t seem to have written any other books after this one.

For a book I didn’t even know existed up until four summers ago, it impacted me a lot and carries more resonance than I think most people in Toronto realize. First, before I go on let me give you some background. Sanctuary The Vampire Sex Bar is, as the name of an old Goth nightclub, a misnomer. From what I could tell, no sex happened in the club at all: though it was one of the first Goth nightclubs in Toronto. It was opened by Lance Goth in 1992 and it closed in 2000. The Club itself divided into the Bar above and the Catacombs, fittingly and sensibly enough, in the basement where it was apparently an all-ages space.

This was a time when Goth Nights and indeed the whole subculture was at its peak in Toronto: specifically in the Queen Street West area. There was a very interesting Goth fashion store in that area called Siren and a whole other series of clubs, but Sanctuary lasted for a very long time until its last location became a Starbucks. Sanctuary’s time was also a time of Buffy, the Toronto-based Forever Night series and the old World of Darkness’ Vampire the Masquerade: which I mention to create a little more ambiance before I go on.

Now, as for Tales From Sanctuary: The Vampire Sex Bar the book, it was created in 1997 by Lance Goth: also known as Stephen Andrew Lee. Like I said, I had no idea who he even was or what this book was up until four years ago. I only periodically went downtown in my teen years–to places like the Vatikan or Velvet Underground, even the Bovine Sex Club (another aptly named place, I wonder if anyone will or has written a book on that)–and when I moved out to live on York residence I went to the Neutral Lounge about once a week every Friday for their Goth Night.

So I came into all of this at the remnants of the tail-end of this whole time. Then one day a friend let me read her copy of this book. Apparently, during the late 90s when it came out it was easy to get copies of the thing but now it has become very difficult to do so. So here is my challenge: I want to talk about this book and not give away spoilers on the off-chance that someone can access a copy, yet I also want to give people enough information as to what I’m actually talking about and I feel kind of foolish reviewing a book that people most likely haven’t–or will never–read. But I will do my best.

Tales from Sanctuary is a collection of stories. Each story starts off with a quote of some kind that fits its tone. There is no Table of Contents so you just have to read through them really. I read most of the first story, “The Wind-Walkers” at my friend’s place before I actually ordered my own copy of the book from Alibris.

“Wind-Walkers” is the story of two last remaining members of a long-lived winged humanoid race that fed off of human blood and flesh. They once ruled a kingdom of human worshipers which was betrayed to the Roman Empire by someone they trusted. After being violated, and one of them also mutilated, the two hide for millennia until one day they find Sanctuary and learn to trust again. This story dominates a good seventy-eight pages of the book and it is not without its flaws. The grammar is atrocious. I recall there even being a few spelling mistakes as well. In addition–in the long scene where you see a flashback into the Wind Walkers’ past–they speak far too anachronistically. At the very least, some attempt to make the speech sound more formal or archaic could have gone a long way to suspend that portion of the necessary disbelief I needed to think I was looking at ancient vampiric rulers of Nabatea.

Yet we begin to see here an interesting concept: that beings with monstrous appetites can be sympathetic, even pitied, or emphasized with. Lee actually makes thinking and feeling characters of these Wind-Walkers and I know I wanted to be happy for them. It made me think that they weren’t human and it was not completely fair to hold them to human standards, but at the same time it showed that there was some pain and some compassion and understanding that transcended all of that. It was a bit awkward even there, but through them you begin to experience the club of Sanctuary: that strange dark place of mysteries and humanity where you feel with them as they actually feel like they fit in somewhere in human society after millennia on the run.

At the very back of the book, Lee explains all of his inspirations and some of his methods in crafting these stories. What is fascinating for me is how he crafts a mythological Sanctuary. It is obviously based off of his Club–under his persona of Lance Goth–and perhaps even people he knew or knew of. He plays with the idea of someone from the Goth subculture not feeling like they belong and that Sanctuary is not only a place for them, but also a place for supernatural beings–sometimes understated ones–that feel the exact same way. Lee mentions that when crafting the scenes that lead up to each character going to Sanctuary in each story, he actually amalgamates places from other cities into the background: adding to Toronto’s geography in that way. I don’t know how I feel about that because I hadn’t lived in Toronto city that long and I was–and am–still discovering a lot about it. But he does begin to capture a certain kind of spirit, if you will in that first story and in how he writes this.

So then I got my own copy of the book and proceeded to read through the rest at a relentless pace. In “The Cold Ones,” we see a story about another vampiric group: specifically three sisters that seem to frequent a dark corner of the club and come from a mysterious place with a cab fare of $14.95. Now, this story is from the point of a view of an ordinary person and apparent-staff member of the Bar who gets drawn into the world of these sisters’ and actually is called upon to help them. Again, there was something awkward about this story and while I know that revealing all of “the monster’s” background might be considered “info-dumping,” there were references made such as “the Weir” that in retrospect I kind of get (a thing that traps something) but I wasn’t sure at the time. Also, I’m not a geographical expert but I would assume that Mount Pleasant Cemetery is much farther from Queen Street West than the book portrayed. Still, there was something very compelling in this story in how something can be horrifying, and beautiful, and relatable while still very much a mystery.

I really liked the story “Lillith” which actually has references and a list to various kinds of plants … some of them potentially poisonous. It is about a young woman living downtown who feels awkward in her skin and is terrified of physical and emotional danger. Then something really bad happens to her and she eventually finds she has a problem: a very real and human problem. It’s only at Sanctuary: at a place of seemingly strange people and monsters that she finds a place where she actually feels like she actually belongs and feels safe. There is a bit of a crossover here with characters from an earlier story too and I was glad she got to meet them under those circumstances: and that it let me know what happened to those characters in the meantime.

I related to “The Elixir of Love” in a somewhat different way. It actually comes after “Pins and Needles,” but I wanted to mention it because it was a nice contrast to “Lillith.” It was a story about a young man who thinks he finds love and gets introduced to an eerie and then rather heart-breaking reality: where even if you support the idea that there are different rules for different beings, it isn’t just humans that can be shallow “douchey” people. The last is rather banal, but makes it no less painful for it. In this story, Sanctuary is less of a place where he belongs, and more the site of a humiliation and that sense of cognitive dissonance where you think you have found happiness but it is really the loneliness of a gritty past 4 am downtown night. It was somewhat unsettling, but captured what a friend of mine calls “moments of painful clarity” rather well. Both Lillith and Jayson are very self-conscious characters full of real fear and desire–that do not feel like they fit in–and when they find Sanctuary they meet two entirely different ends.

“Pins and Needles” was a disturbing story, but the build-up of the main character’s development into a self-proclaimed “doctor of bad blood,” is well done and is a nice study into morbidity and “a certain point of view.” Finally, there is “Ricky Las Vegas”: a story about a talented musician that only vaguely wonders why his bands keep disbanding, his friends disappearing, and why Lance won’t let him sing at his Club. It is only towards the end of this really short story that Ricky realizes what he is and what he will do from there. I really liked this story in particular because it deals with psychic vampirism and creativity and how they can be related.

Throughout all of these stories is the presence of a fictional Lance Goth who seems to have some mysteries abilities to sense people in his Club and even come on them without being detected. He is usually the catalyst for the characters wanting to tell their stories or find some information that is integral to us for the plot in some of the stories. He usually takes some small mementos from each person he tells things to, or has told to him. It took me a while to realize that Lance actually existed, and that he was actually Stephen Andrew Lee because I can be dim like that.

All and all, Tales from Sanctuary was not the best-written book or series of stories I’ve ever read. I had immense trouble suspending disbelief for “Wind-Walkers,” no matter how fascinating an idea it was. However, this book did something to me. It is hard to explain, but if I had to put it in writing I would say that it showed me the spirit of the Toronto Goth Nights that once existed or wanted to exist: a night that once flourished until morning came yet still existing somewhere in the city’s cracks. It showed me magic in an urban place that I lived in and in that way it did change me.

For one thing, it made me begin to write about Toronto. I confess I actually wrote three stories based on Tales from Sanctuary–The Wrong Club, To the New Millennium, and Another Time–and I wish I could locate Lee to thank him for making these. I bought a copy of the book for a friend that lost her own years before and it was worth it too to share even some of that understanding. If you are keen on reading a copy and you don’t have a friend with access to it, there are some that were being sold as Used on Alibris and Abebooks. Amazon itself is even advertising a seller that will sell a copy for $998.00, but personally I would check those other Used Book Places first or wait.

For all of its idiosyncrasies, I think that Tales from Sanctuary is an important part of Toronto’s subcultural history that now lost place where as the back cover tells you, “You can hunt, but you cannot feed.”

I give this strange book a three out of five.

The Galvanizing of Creative Cuttings, Writing Perfectionism, Amazon, and Art Coming Soon

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

It seems I’ve been writing more reviews than creative insights lately: which is fine. The fact of the matter is that everything I review on here inspires me–or informs me–in some way to become a better writer. I keep building from that.

But when all that’s all said and done, it’s always good to sit back and look at exactly what it is I’m trying to do.

There have been two or three things on my mind lately to that regard. The first is that I finished writing another Miracleman/Marvelman fanfic tribute, but I don’t quite like how it came out. There were a lot of things I wanted to say in it–as well as display with a very neat and clean narrative perspective–but it didn’t quite get there. I got all my ideas down and some really good lines but I feel like the overall story is a little blurred.

It is frustrating to have a story stuck in your head for a while and then–when you finally get it out to free up your mind for other works–it isn’t quite as clear or “as good” as you wanted it to be. Of course, the natural solution to this would be for me to type it out and rewrite it. They say that a large part of writing is rewriting and that is true even when you write it out right the first time around.

I also wrote out an original story that I had in my head almost as long as the other one: one I wrote a great many notes for. Of course, one of the pieces of paper where I wrote out this really beautiful quote–in my own opinion anyway–got lost. Yet the story still wanted to be written down. You see, unlike that TED Lecture where Elizabeth Gilbert talks about a genius-spirit flowing through you, I think that I create my works not unlike Victor Frankenstein in a hopefully more intelligent way: I get the genius in me, but it comes in pieces sometimes and then I have to grow these “organic pieces” into something whole. Sometimes they do it almost on their own and it can be a wonderful, smooth ride, but other times I have to guide and manipulate them.

Sometimes the spark or the current is easy to translate into words on paper, or on a screen, while other times I have to do my research and add and take things away as I go. So yes, I guess in a way I fulfilled my childhood dream of being a mad scientist.

I guess that’s a nice analogy because this Blog was started as–and is still–one great experiment for me. I can see the cuttings of the things that I say and write continuing to coalesce into an overarching creature. Aside from the different energies and perspectives I put into creative works, or journal entries I make them more or less the same way.

In other news, I am still continuing this Blog experiment. I have smartened up a bit and I am now scheduling some posts in advance: just so that if I run out of things to say or think about I will have something on here for everyone to read while I figure things out or do something else in the meantime. I was told that I should pace myself out and that it is good advice and that is exactly what I am going to do.

Also, I did end up–as the title above suggests–affiliating myself with Amazon Associates. I haven’t put up any banners as of yet, but I have been linking to products being sold by Amazon. The fact is, and I will be honest, I could use the money (don’t we all): so if you want to buy one of the books or things I talk about in some of those reviews, or even want to get something else I would appreciate you getting something through one of these links. Perhaps at some point, I can even change this Blog into matthewkirshenblatt.com this way or even one day sell a book I create through Amazon. So whatever help you can give me I would greatly appreciate.

Lastly, I believe I will be part of a new creative collaboration soon. Do not be surprised if you see samples of said collaboration at some point in the future or–as I said elsewhere–I might be making Art again: sooner than you think.

Take care everyone.

The Source and Its Creative Feelings

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ 2 Comments

A little while ago–most likely in my article “The Onus of Creativity,” I made reference to the age-old question of where writers get their inspiration from. Or what specifically is the nature of the energy that powers a creator to make a work of any kind, and can you actually sense that energy?

I believe you can sense that energy behind someone’s act of creation. As to where I get my inspiration from and what the nature of that energy is for me, the answer is really one and the same. In X-Men: First Class, Professor Xavier is attempting to guide Magneto into–not only to using but–mastering his powers. He tells Magneto to envision moments of greatest joy and the most horrendous pain. By combining these feelings, by drawing from the well of passion and clarity that they both come from, Magneto is able–for the first time in his life–to consciously and concisely access the full range of his powers.

The point is: the place that Magneto draws from is love and hate; joy and sadness; serenity and power. One of my Creative Writing teachers once said to us that when we write, we should always write from a place of calm and detachment but–while I agree with a lot of that in principle–that is just not how humanity nature, or its art works: at least not in their entirety.

One way you can look at it if you’d like is that emotion and sentiment–even interest–begins the impetus for, and the creation of structure and clarity. Viewing emotions in a calmer retrospect has its advantages. Yet art is also about expressing yourself: even with violent splashes of paint across a canvass. I believe that there is that “knife’s edge,” that X-Men: First Class, among other creative places makes reference to: that tenuous ground between elements and emotions that is a whole other mindset in itself.

It is also not a precise science. Sometimes you feel more than you think, or you are more sad than angry, or more angry than happy. There are different mixtures of all emotions, impulses and thoughts: known more kindly, again, as human nature. People always tell you when you feel conflicted to “express it” or to even “write it down.” Sometimes the process is calming, other times cathartic, removed, continuous and nagging, and whole other kinds of varieties thereof. And that knife’s edge can slip from one direction to another: or even become a sundial whose shadow is determined by the outer world and the place you choose to find yourself situated on.

But whatever it is, it is unique and not the ultimate thing. Those energies will always be there by virtue of what you are as a person, but it is the vessel that matters more. It is the thing to maintain and focus so that you can use those energies to make whatever you want or need. That vessel, of course, is you and it is a task that is easier said than done.

It is easier said, but it is necessary.

The State of My Blog

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

At one point in Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, Mr. Wednesday states that America is the only country that worries about what it is. I do have some disagreements with that statement. You will notice it is not so much that America supposedly doesn’t know what it is, but it seems like it is concerned with what it is, where it came from, and what it might be becoming.

It isn’t uncommon for me to start off a piece of writing, or conversation, with a tangent and slowly try to lead into some kind of relevance. I know there have been many times when I’ve annoyed friends and loved ones with this roundabout way of getting to the point. But I’ll tell you.

I have forty-three Blog entries so far talking about a variety of different, but somewhat related things and it’s only after I deleted a forty-fourth one that I have actually started to get really self-conscious about what I’m writing on here. I’m concerned about what this Blog is and what I want it for. The question is not whether or not I want to continue it, because I obviously do.

The best way to explain it is that I thought I found my voice and–in fact–I sometimes still think I do. My tone and voice is a tenuous mixture of the formal and the profane: heightened diction, like my professors liked to call it, and slang. I focus on writing and the creative process while sometimes I do write a little about my feelings on those matters. It’s a strange alchemical mixture: and a lens through I feel I’m making to engage in information and issues beyond myself.

A little while ago on Facebook, I put as my status that I felt like I was playing Hermann Hesse’s Glass-Bead Game and utterly enjoying it. The Glass-Bead Game was something that was never really described except as something of a creative outline but–from what I understand–it was a game which people would take lore from different sciences and arts to create some kind of very intricate and beautiful interactive pattern. One example that Hesse’s novel likes to use is how some players combine certain kinds of music and historical lore together: to show how they relate to each other even if they are in different forms.

I wish I could explain it more, but basically this is how I feel when I write an entry here. I feel like I am engaging the massive amount of human knowledge that the Internet has, while knowing it comes in different forms of experience, and somehow trying to express their relations and differences in an entry. I obviously choose things that interest me or make me feel passionate. At the same time, I feel sometimes that each entry builds on a theme or an overall structure that I can’t really explain beyond that.

This Blog is important to me. The issue I had with the Blog entry that I deleted–the first entry I deleted–is that I tried to combine two general and personal ideas like I usually do and it didn’t … fit into this Blog. It just stood out in a jarring sort of way. In my review of Craig Thompson’s graphic novel Habibi, I mention how the rhythm was just off and this was a similar situation. I tried editing it, but I realized that it just didn’t fit and–worse–to me it just sounded asinine. I saved it for myself–because I do think there is some personal value in it that might come back here again in some way or form–but it was the wrong way of trying to communicate something. Really, it was a result of me trying to be too damned clever: something that you certainly need to watch out for when you are a writer of any kind because the temptation is definitely there.

Of course, I also realized that–for me–deleting a post would set a precedent for myself here and I began to wonder where to draw the line. Should I delete every post that has an emotion in it? Would anyone read something is simply information? Where do you draw that line?

Of course there are other considerations like thinking about how many times I repeat myself without thinking about it. I think what really bothered me about the post I deleted–which my attempt to combine an examination of money as an extension of the human ritual of exchange, and my decision to eventually affiliate this Blog with Amazon Associates–is that it did sound asinine and I tried to make the fact that I need money more grandiose than it is.

The fact is, I am going to get personal to a degree here. That is a fact. The title of this Blog says as much. The question is: what is the purpose of this Blog? And I will say this right now. It is to get me out there. It is for people to notice what I can do as a writer of fiction and articles. I also want it to supplement my ultimate goal: which is to get paid for my work and to do something that I frankly love. I also want this Blog to point people out to books, films, comics, video games and other things that I like and maybe even encourage them to get them as well.

One thing I was concerned with is that by affiliating myself with Amazon–even though I’ve written reviews for them many times and love their services–is that somehow I’d be selling out: even for a very small amount of income. But the thing is I want to get to the point where I can support myself with what I do and I feel that this is the beginning of that process. So I will make my affiliation with Amazon. Getting money or the potential of that is a bonus to what I want to do here for me and that is exactly what I am going to do in the way that best suits me.

In fact, one of the major reasons I started this Blog was because I know now–and I’ve always known–is that I have to do things in my own way. This obviously not the “be all, end all” for what I want to do, but I really look forward to seeing what I can do with this Blog, with what I write in it, with the connections I can make with it, and beyond all of that. So right now, that is what this Blog is: a companion and aide in discovering what it is I can do after years of studying and writing things here and there.

I’m also going to try to pace myself in what I write here, but just keep writing because I enjoy it and I am so glad that there are people out there that are interested in what I have to say. Sometimes it does feel like the Glass-Bead Game the way I see it in my head: like writing here is one great interactive game of information-shifting, manipulation, and combination.

I said that this Blog and the premise behind it was a promise to myself to keep going and that is exactly what I am going to do. So I hope that you will continue to Follow me, that more of you will Follow me, that maybe sometimes you will click on a highlighted link on a book, film, or video game title here to see if you might want to read or play them, and that you can watch what I do to the best of my ability. Take care everyone.

Magic in Progress: A Review of Andrew Eckhart’s The Last Mage

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

I also posted this on Muse’s Success: a Wiki of serialized Web Fiction and reviews. I couldn’t recommend it highly enough. Check out Andrew Eckhart’s Web Novel at Last Mage or just look at my collection of Links on the right lower hand side of Mythic Bios. 

“Magic in Progress”

I’ve always been interested in Mages. Warriors can get very stereotypical in the Fantasy genre, and even the stereotypes of mages are a fascinating basis to start from. So one day, just on a lark, I typed in the phrase “last mage” into google to see what I would get: if it would be some kind of game or RPG stats for a variant class of spell-caster: because god knows there are a great many of those.

Instead, I found a story: the story that I am reviewing right now. In some ways perhaps it might not be fair for me to review Last Mage at this time. Even now that this story’s time as a Web Serial Novel is over–that Andrew Eckhart continuously worked on for twenty chapters and many more parts later–it has and it is a work in progress.

The fact of the matter is that Andrew wrote this novel as a work in progress. From the very beginning, he made no secret of the fact. So yes. There were spelling and grammatical errors, but nothing that couldn’t and can’t be easily fixed. Some names changed. Some character motivations were expanded upon. He made this a very interactive process. He asked for feedback and he got it. Even now, he has even stated that he is still in the process of editing this work but we–and some people even more so with email subscriptions–got to see it evolve before our very eyes. It is a rare and good thing to see the creation and creative process of a novel and it is even more doubly so with regards to Last Mage.

So what is Last Mage? Last Mage is a story about a man named Elijah Valentine who gives a writer an interview with regards to how he saved the entire Earth and all of reality. It is nothing more and definitely nothing less than that. But I still feel as though I’m not doing it Justice or–should I say–I’m leaving Law out of it and only Justice. 😉 Sorry I couldn’t resist, if you read the story you will get my reference.

As for the feel of Last Mage: imagine Dr. Who, mixed with a little Sandman, StarGate, X-Files, and some superhero elements for good measure. Imagine following a team of very human–if not completely human–characters and beings and realizing that one person’s story is only one focal point for an entire constructed world. This world can be unwieldy at times, but it is a work in progress and Andrew spends a lot of time, effort, and detail–particularly on the short stories he’s included on his website–to create a really varied and complex world. I would even venture for you to consider that his world is–in some cases quite literally–multi-dimensional and events function in it on many different levels with the echoes of personal consequences resonating through each and every facet.

In some ways, this is a very straightforward story, but it is also very complex with enough moral ambiguity, unstated stories and philosophical quandary to be considered quite human. Overall, I see Last Mage becoming something great: if it isn’t already and I just as I looked forward to reading each new part to the tale, I especially look forward to its sequel.

Andrew Eckhart is doing an excellent job because you know that a magical ritual–especially in fiction–is never ever quite finished.

Rating: 9/10

Steampunk, Cyberpunk, Dieselpunk, Mediums, Genres, and Making Choices

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

Going to the Steam on Queen Fair on Saturday made me think about some things. And despite the adage that if there aren’t photos it didn’t happen, I was there. There were booths with various things: including a squid-headed cane (which I still insist was Cthulhu without his batwings), a decoration of a spider made out of metal parts, some vintage-looking ray guns, and so on.

What really got me–though–were the costumes. Some people really got into the spirit of the thing in an insane way: with women in elaborate bodice-dresses, hats and coiffed hair, men in suits, and people even wearing turn of the twentieth century summer dresses, bowler hats and suits that looked more at home in the Prince Edward Island of Anne of Green Gables and Road to Avonlea than twenty-first century Toronto. Add some clock-work props and Steampunk aesthetics and you pretty much see what you get. It was like going into a time-warp.

The event took place at the Campbell House off Osgoode Station and it was like being in a shady verdant bubble of alternate Steam Age reality while being surrounded by a busy and summery contemporary world. The inside of the house had various Steampunk exhibits: one drawing room looking like a makeshift Victorian workshop and laboratory while outside were singers and even a bawdy dance or two. But one group of people that really caught my interest were two women sitting on a blanket in the grass dressed as though they came from Avonlea: The Lost Ladies of Zion Schoolhouse.

These lovely and adorable ladies–having found themselves lost from 1910–are on a quest to find their way back to it again. They also represent the Gibson House Museum and Zion Schoolhouse which hosts birthdays, historic dinners and special theatre events using said “costumed” interpreters to immerse people into a Victorian-Edwardian frame of mind.

But after going to this Fair, I started thinking about Steampunk: as well as more pesky considerations of how to view a medium’s growing complexity. Steampunk is a science-fictional genre–with consequent costume aesthetics–that generally operates from an alternate nineteenth to early twentieth century that utilizes the power of Steam in its day-to-day technology. Yet I have always felt it was more than that. I always believed that Steampunk hearkens back to that old Victorian utopian mindset of Science being a power of benevolence and constant progress. You can see it in a lot of Victorian literature and media of that time. Yes, in the genre there are people who use Science and Steam Age technology for evil, but they are always countered by “the good guys.” There is swashbuckling, an ideal of honour, and a lot of anachronistic versions of modern technology powered by steam and sometimes–if it is very special–there is still magic and the supernatural coexisting alongside all of this as well.

It seems a sunnier world, doesn’t it, or at least the conception I’m talking about. I have a friend who thinks Steampunk is all about the costumes now and a certain kind of elitism: which I think is hilarious seeing where it derives itself from historically and culturally. But on Saturday, all I saw was people having fun and one can never get tired of seeing that. I also think that Steampunk is our time’s way of creating a genre–a sort of retroactive genre–of an alternate form of progress where Science and Adventure are still seen as these great forces with good intentions.

Because of course you have Steampunk’s alternate: Cyberpunk. If Steampunk is an attempt at utopian fiction, Cyberpunk is dystopian. It is a world where generally technology and science have invaded the lives of its people to an insane degree. These worlds are generally polluted and corruption is everywhere and no one of authority can be trusted. There generally aren’t “good guys” in the traditional sense, but there are definitely survivors. I think that for a time we leaned more towards Cyberpunk because it was exemplifying just what our world was turning into. I also think Steampunk was a reaction to that dark mindset: because while Cyberpunk seems to talk about where we are heading, Steampunk seems to be a deceptively nostalgic genre that talks about what could have been … and yet by doing so, it encourages what could be too.

These are both obviously generalizations. It is tempting to get caught up in them. For instance, there are some historians that say that the Western world’s general optimism about Science and progress was ultimately destroyed at the advent of World War I: when that same knowledge that should have helped people was used to destroy and degrade them instead. It is tempting–at least for me–to wonder if there would have been a World War in an alternate Steam Age. Of course, there could have been: just with different tools because human beings do not change that much with different technology.

But I sometimes wonder what our world would have been like without World War I. What would have happened if those generations of young soldiers hadn’t died? Or what would have happened if the Holocaust had never occurred? Who would they have become? What would our world have been like?

You see how tempting those lines of thought are. I guess you could say: “Okay Matthew, maybe you should write a book or story about that or something instead making these suppositions,” and I’d say sure: when I am more qualified or there is an angle that catches my mind and I can build on with the knowledge that I have.

I’m also tempted to talk about Dieselpunk: about a genre (some say a sub-genre of Cyberpunk) that has 1950s technology and a 1920s or 30s culture. You can definitely find influences from Steampunk and Cyberpunk: save that it is a genre that centres around the internal combustion engine, diesel fuel, and the discovery of nuclear power while computers and the Internet are not quite there yet. I believe it is still a contested or developing genre and subgenre and I find it amazing just what can actually be classified under it. It is a genre I am really interested in and I think I can relate to a lot more because it is closer to our world and time-line in a less nostalgic way. Of course, there are a lot of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon moments in this genre as well: as exemplified by Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Hell, you can even say that Captain America and the Hulk are some examples of Dieselpunk superheroes if you’d like: with the retro-50s aesthetics, science-fiction serial feel, mentality as well.

And here I go on a tangent again. As I was thinking about all of this, I started thinking back to what I said about video games–about how mediums can turn into genres–and I began to ask myself this question: what does it mean when a medium can turn into a genre? What does that mean? And I think that if I had to give a one-word answer, it would be choice.

I think that when you can choose to go beyond the technical and ideological aspects of a medium–of what you can materially and creatively do–then you can create a genre or something that defies genre entirely. When you have the options, or make the options to do something different with a familiar convention, when can choose to do so, that is the moment when everything changes and variances can be made. It’s about there being an option and therefore being able to make a creative choice.

Because, in the end, that is what being creative is about. It’s about making choices and knowing that we can always do so: whether you want to dress like a grease-monkey, wear a soldier’s uniform with a clock-work eye, look like a hacker, draw it, or write about all of it.

I think I’m going to let the “Lost Ladies” end this entry off. Though I imagine it to be somewhat frightfully inconvenient to become lost from your own time period, there is just something encouraging to see them making do with their picnic basket and afternoon tea. If only getting lost in time were that convenient and pleasant. Say your hellos, ladies and gentlemen.

Naming the Unnameable and a Tangent about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

So despite what it looks like, this story was not inspired by my “The Tragedy of Kishuna” entry: or at least not directly. I will admit it is convenient that way though and I do think that there is some kind of theme forming and uniting this entire Writing Blog as I keep going at it.

A night or so before I wrote “Unnameable,” I had an idea about Frankenstein’s creature and how–because he had his creator’s Journal–he had the potential to make more of his own kind. To be honest, aside from that thought I didn’t give the matter much more thought beyond that and went on to other things. Then the next morning I found myself compelled for the first time in a while to write the story down in my actual Mythic Bios notebook and as I was writing it more chains of ideas continued to form. It’s funny how a half-awake, tired state can influence the creative process. Then I realized that my story was not completely about Frankenstein’s creature at all and went even further.

So there were two twists of the plot-knife as it were followed by a moment of attempted profoundity at the very end of the piece. I could almost make that into a formula in its own right and I have to say that I’ve also always been good at creating parodies of my own work. I parody myself well: though I’m always still learning more.

That said, I’m not sure if the ending works well. I did want to make something of a transcendent moment or even a catchy statement. I always thought that Victor Frankenstein was an irresponsible, dysfunctional, and stupid parent for making something and then abandoning it when it quite inevitably did not fulfill his unrealistic aesthetic expectations. Seriously, man, don’t expect something made out of dead body-parts to smell like roses after just a bit of galvanization!

And he’s an idiot too for not looking at the details, but I digress. I think in some ways this story and its end was also my response to something I read once which said that there was “no way” Mary Shelley could have written Frankenstein: that it was really her husband the poet Percy Shelley that did so. Well, I think I would be understating my response if I said I think that is total bullshit.

Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. The end. Did she have critical and editorial help from her husband? I’m sure. Did she have access to her father’s library growing up, his tutelage, and then her own even without a university or college education? I’m also sure of that. Did she participate in intimate Victorian writing circles of friends and develop her craft? What do you think? And whose mother was Mary Wollenstonecraft: feminist writer and creator of A Vindication of the Rights of Women? Whose writing Percy Shelley even said he admired? Yes, that’s right and even if Mary Shelley hadn’t read her mother’s work, her influence was there.

So I guess in some creative way some of my opinions got in there, though that’s obviously not what my story is about. It’s really just a story about something that interests me. I also always wondered what the creature’s bride would have looked like if she had been completed: aside from the Hollywood image of the hysterical woman with the frizzy dark hair with the white streak that we all have of her now.

I’m also really fascinated with stories about how people try–and sometimes succeed–in creating life in an artificial way, and what that means. I know that I have and I will return to this theme in various ways. In any case, I notice I got somewhat ranty this time around, so I will just go back to rambling in my next post if that’s all the same to you. I make no promises though. 😉 I never do.