Army memos

US Army memoranda pad

While rummaging through old boxes last week, I came across one of several dozen memoranda pads from my Army days. During my time in uniform, I made extensive use of them, recording everything from after-action reports and command briefings to the serial number of my barracks refrigerator (040201084, for future historians). If one were to take the time (and decipher my handwriting), they could piece together a fairly accurate timeline of my service.

This is not going to be a reminiscence.

Somewhere along the line, I started recording not only useful notes (the symptoms of leishmaniasis, for example) and important memos, but also funny quotes and sayings. Names have been withheld. This particular memoranda pad spans from JRTC to a few weeks into Afghanistan. Most quotes were jotted in margins and on the backs of random pages, so I’ve done my best to reconstruct missing details. Strong language follows. Enjoy:

(At a command briefing): “We expect total victory. We just don’t know who’s going to win.”

(At a evening briefing in Afghanistan): “Gentlemen, we’re hearing rumors that Patton will be in Paris by Christmas.”

(During an NCO meeting; a sergeant major to an unprepared senior NCO): “That guard tower is screaming your fucking name.”

(A support group commander, after receiving word that a firebase is running low on drinking water, again.): “I want water sent there every day. We’re going to make [redacted] the new fucking ocean.”

(Discussing a questionable situation and the rules of engagement): “You’d rather be judged by twelve than carried by six.”

(An NCO’s lament): “The fastest way to put on E-5 is to put on E-6.”

(During a meeting): “You’re going to need to sneak out there like a cat and chew up some ass like a dog.”

(During a meeting): “You’ll get briefed tomorrow at 1905 — at home, that’s 7:05 on the VCR.”

(A sergeant major to a soldier sent to liaison with 1st Cav [a tank division]): “We wish you the best. If you need anything, or have any problems with 1st Cav… ask someone over there for help.”

(The same sergeant major regarding 1st Cav): “Ask them about their horses. Tell them you thought it was going to smell like stalls, but it just smells like shit.”

(A squad leader, having just detailed a list of grueling tasks ahead): “I’m just fucking with you; we’re not doing any of that.”

(This one’s from JRTC. NOT THE WAR!)
Captain: “Who was the KIA?”
Sergeant: “Jones.”
Captain: “Argh! Well… I never liked that fucker anyway.”

(During a staff meeting — I’m ashamed to even type this one):
Sergeant: “The chow’s getting better.”
Captain: “Were’d you get that info? The comments written on toilet paper paint a different picture.”

(A captain at JRTC, sending a lieutenant on a convoy certain to be attacked): “The Army’s been around since 1775, and it will survive your loss. The Army will go on.”

(The same captain, after the lieutenant makes a case to stay behind): “If I were you, instead of talking I’d be brushing up on the lyrics to ‘East Bound and Down’.”

Em-dashtardly

The Chicago Manual of Style [spits on ground] puts no spaces around explanatory dashes.

(”The influence of three impressionists–Monet, Sisley, and Degas–is obvious in her work.”)

The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage states that the dash should be surrounded by spaces.

(”The costs — taxes and lawyers’ fees — were higher than expected.”)

The Strunk and White puts no spaces around dashes.

(”His first thought on getting out of bed–if he had any thought at all–was to get back in bed again.”)

This is why people don’t bother learning English. If we can’t get it straight, why should they?

80s Toys As Action/Horror Movies

more about “80s Toys As Action/Horror Movies“, posted with vodpod

Films I am excited about

It’s of little reassurance to observers of civilizational decline that Transformers will make hundreds of millions of dollars with weekend. But there are good films on the way, and here are a few that have me moderately excited.

The first is based off one of the finest musicals ever written (which was, in fact, based off of a play, which was inspired by a movie). Nine stars Daniel Day-Lewis (what a coup!) as Guido Contini, a film director suffering a midlife crisis. Maury Yeston penned the music and lyrics — breathtaking from overture to final curtain — and filling the roles of the women in Guido’s life include everyone from Penelope Cruz to Dame Judi Dench (in the role of Lillian La Fleur, natch. If she pulls off the showstopping Folies Bergeres — as she no doubt will — she will need to make room on her mantle for yet another Academy Award).

My favorite recording of the show features theater legend (and part-time Bond villain) Jonathan Pryce and Elaine Paige, and can be found here. The original Tony-snagging cast (featuring the late Raul Julia) is here. And a 2003 revival starring Antonio Banderas, here.

The trailer for Nine is below: (note embedding has been disabled, and this will launch YouTube in a separate window)

The Time Traveler’s Wife is one of the best books I’ve read in quite some time, and it will finally see the big screen in August. The trailer leaves me frightfully cold. The book was both tender and gripping, a fine science fiction romance (as I described in detail here), and much deeper than the fairly insipid preview would lead us to believe. Still, if the movie is only half as good as the book, good things are in store.

And then there’s The Road.  This one has me nervous.  In my opinion (as well as the 2007 Pulitzer committee), this is Cormac McCarthy’s finest work; a relentlessly bleak and honest post-apocalyptic novel. The story of a father and son in search of hope “along the coast.” Like all McCarthy novels, the real magic is in the prose, so it remains to be seen whether the patient tale will work in multiplexes.  The movie trailer is mortifyingly bad.  As one commenter on a movie site wrote, “If Day After Tomorrow and I Am Legend fucked and had a kid, they would give birth to this trailer.” Still, I cannot imagine that the filmmakers read the book and took away from it… this…

(note: again, embedding was disabled by YouTube. The image below will open a new window.)

Finally, Roland Emmerich is once again bringing us the end of the world with 2012.  Since we’re not talking high culture, here is the preview in all its vulgar glory. I have high hopes for this one.

I can say with complete honesty that but for Watchmen, 2009 has left me cold. With six months to go, here’s hoping things end on a good note. As this is Hollywood we’re talking about, though, I am not optimistic.

Why New Novelists Are Kinda Old

In a lengthy post, John Scalzi answers a reader who wonders why so many new novelists are so old. A snippet:

Because you know what? Writing sixty to one hundred thousand words of fiction is not something most people cannonball through, even if they assure you, with the appropriate amount of false modesty, that they’re really better at long-form fiction. Maybe they are, but they still had a long walk to get there.  I’m better at long-form and it took me until I was 28 before I could do it. Meanwhile I’d been writing short for years up to that point, in the form of reviews and columns and humor pieces and (yes) occasional attempts at short fiction that I mostly abandoned after a page or two. Lots of people in their teens and early 20s start novels; rather fewer finish them.

Times Technology Column Up

My column for the Times of Southwest Louisiana is up, wherein I reiterate my love for the Kindle.

A Literary Legend Fights for a Local Library

Ray Bradbury in The New York Times:

…Among Mr. Bradbury’s passions, none burn quite as hot as his lifelong enthusiasm for halls of books. His most famous novel, “Fahrenheit 451,” which concerns book burning, was written on a pay typewriter in the basement of the University of California, Los Angeles, library; his novel “Something Wicked This Way Comes” contains a seminal library scene.

Mr. Bradbury frequently speaks at libraries across the state, and on Saturday he will make his way here for a benefit for the H. P. Wright Library, which like many others in the state’s public system is in danger of shutting its doors because of budget cuts.

“Libraries raised me,” Mr. Bradbury said. “I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.”

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said

My column for Pop Syndicate is out, wherein I discuss Philip K. Dick’s Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said.

Published in 1974, Dick completed Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said shortly after writing the first draft of A Scanner Darkly. (The latter would simmer for another three years before seeing print.) Accordingly, the theme of identity carries heavily in both works. In A Scanner Darkly, the protagonist struggles to determine whether he is an undercover narcotics agent monitoring a group of addicts, or an addict who happens to work for the police. The dualism results in a slow uncoupling of the character’s mind, until both identity and self-identity are decayed by drugs and washed away by the state.

In Flow My Tears, Jason Taverner knows exactly who he is. He is a crooner in the Frank Sinatra mold, host to a variety show every Tuesday night with thirty million viewers. There is no club where he has no table, no one he encounters who is not fan. He is a man’s man and a ladies’ man. He adorns the cover of every tabloid and tops the sales on every record chart. He is adored and followed and fawned over, and he relishes it.

And then he wakes up one morning in a dirty hotel room, and no one has ever heard of him.

Joss Whedon, Grrr. Argh.

Joss Whedon

Your name is Joss Whedon.

You are a third-generation television writer. Your words have been nominated for an Emmy and an Oscar. You conceived, wrote, directed and produced one of the definitive television series of our generation. (With an intimate involvement on every level, the likes of which not seen since Orson Welles walked the earth.) You did the same for its spinoff. You did the same for such a brilliant, though unsuccessful, series that fans would not rest until a feature film was produced. The film won a Nebula and a Hugo, and if you run in those circles, you know those are the only such awards that matter. You wrote a revitalizing line of comics for an intellectually moribund property that influenced the feature film. You wrote two groundbreaking musicals, one of which, at the very least, elevated the very concept of the video blog beyond that of some guy talking into his MacBook.

In other words: there is no medium in which you have not only contributed, but extended in some way.

You are a master of dialogue. You are to the screen what Roddy Doyle is to the novel.

You are an admired and accomplished feminist and Humanist.

You are Joss Whedon. You are somebody. You are not a hack. You have made a lot of people a lot of money. You build not only interesting worlds, but flourishing franchises.

Nobody ever said the words, “Things were great until Joss Whedon came onto the project.”

So…

Why, it seems, are you treated like some kid waiting tables in West Hollywood, shoving screenplays in Christian Slater’s face?

I confess to knowing nothing about the inner-workings of Hollywood. I’m a novelist, and can barely navigate my own industry. So I wouldn’t presume to judge you. But something is not right here.

Angel was axed unceremoniously at the height of its ratings and creative output. (Some might call it the best season of the Buffyverse. Others would disagree only because there were so many great seasons from which to choose.)

Malcolm Reynolds

Firefly was condemned to a throwaway time slot, meddled with, and aired out-of-order. It would be fair to say it died a quick death, but fairer still to say it was smothered in its crib.

Serenity was marketed as though by throwing darts at a bulletin board. The result was advertising that was, to be kind, schizophrenic.

You were dumped from Wonder Woman. Oh, I’m sure there’s an inside-the-industry way of putting it, but from out here, it looked pretty bad. That was a property you were put on this earth make right.

Dollhouse was relegated to a network programming wasteland that might make Cormac McCarthy shudder, and marketed — well, I’m not even sure “marketed” is the right word — haplessly when it was marketed at all.

And now we’ve come full circle, with a Joss-less Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot.

Now, you’re a comics man. You understand what a reboot is. It’s what happens when the back story becomes so twisted and contrived that it’s no longer possible to write through.

But that’s not the state of Buffy. One of the greatest aspects of every series you’ve helmed is the ever-simple-to-grasp back story. (My first exposure to Buffy the Vamire Slayer was Hush, in season 4. I saw Serenity before Firefly. I only caught Angel in season 5. In every case, I was up to speed and hooked within one hour. Ask me if I went back and bought every season of every series that you have written. Yes, and gladly. I’ve paid for at least one or two minor appliances in your house.) Your work is clean. There is no myriad of unresolved plot threads that  hamper unweildy franchises like Star Trek. There are no intellectually indefensible story lines that impinge you or any member of your writing team. There’ve been no deus ex machina resolutions, no reasons to cowardly backpeddle on any decision you’ve made since Buffy Season 1, Episode 1.

Xander, Buffy, Willow and Giles

No reboot is necessary, because — and you must surely know this — the series is in a good place.

But you, it seems, are not. Someone does not believe in you. It almost seems that an entire industry is out to stiff you. Not to belabor the Orson Welles comparison, but he may be the only man in Hollywood history to whom you could relate. And dammit, Joss, we don’t need another genius to suffer the fate of Orson Welles. As a culture, it’s unfair — criminal, even — to deny us art at it finest in a medium starving for talent.

But from this guy’s chair, it’s happening, and I fear that it’s becoming a real problem.

There’s a reason “Save Dollhouse” campaigns flourished before the first episode even aired.

We’re worried. For you. For your career. You don’t owe us anything. Frankly, you’ve already given us more than we deserve. But as long as you’re up for it, we want Joss at his unfettered best.

I wonder if the last couple of years have discouraged you. If they haven’t, then you know something that we don’t.

I’m not asking you to tip your hand. I’m just asking you not to fold.

As long as you’re willing to scribble on a cocktail napkin, we’ll be here to read it, and over-analyze it, and discuss it at length in a sometimes full-throated roar.

After all, you’re Joss Whedon.

You’re Numfar. And we’re past due for another dance of joy.

Nathan Fillion as Green Lantern?

A comic book fan has made this movie trailer for a (fictional) Green Lantern movie starring Nathan Fillion. If someone at DC isn’t taking notes and making urgent phone calls, someone should be fired. (A special request: no “angsty” Hal Jordan, please.)

Also, Marvel: we want Adam Baldwin as Captain America.

In other Green Lantern news, Comics Should Be Good! has posted a study of franchise reboots — old hat in comics, but now a major force in mainstream cinema. (See: James Bond, Star Trek). A sample:

It occurred to me that there is a character out there who has, at one time or another, served as an example of almost every different kind of relaunch you can do in comics. The poster child for corporate comics desperation, for longer than I’ve been reading comics, is Green Lantern.

The weird thing is, Green Lantern has been a consistently successful property. The title has had several periods in the last few decades where it’s been so successful it’s been used as a launching pad for other new titles and crossovers and what-have-you– currently, the book is the linchpin of this year’s big Blackest Night hoo-ha at DC — but for whatever reason, editors can’t stop screwing around with it.