Heroes

How is it that I, as a writer, build the heroes in my stories? Do I snatch them whole from the ether? Invent them new from my own imagination? Choose a favorite from writers past and change the name to protect me, the guilty? The answer is ‘yes’ and more.

And the ‘more’ is people watching.

I recently flew into Denver. Those of you familiar with our area know that the airport is out-of-town. My way home includes I-70 which during rush hour resembles a parking lot. To avoid driving in that mess I ride a city bus into downtown and transfer to the light rail. Public transport is a treasure trove for people watchers.

At the airport the bus driver stowed my suitcase along with that of a young woman, probably not more than early twenties and possibly younger than that. I was prepared with correct money for my fare. She was not. The bus driver does not give change. He waited patiently while we passengers got together the right change for the young woman. 

I carried my laptop bag and the tiny young woman carried a guitar case. She was well and truly tattooed and had found-art materials woven into her multi-colored hair. She asked the driver if there were hotels near downtown where she could stay the night. The bus driver suggested that she probably would be better off staying in a hotel away from the center of town because those downtown tend to be pricey. (I’m not the only one who makes up stories about people I don’t know.) I watched and listened as the driver and my fellow riders gave her advice about where to stay .

And my mind was off and racing with stories for this potential heroine who would survive great difficulties.

Then we parted ways, I to my train into the ‘burbs and she to another bus to become a rock star or a super spy.

But, like one of my favorite songs, ‘That’s not what I come here to talk about.’

The train was not very full when I got on. In my car there was a forty-ish woman dressed for office, a middle-aged couple with their bicycles, and me. At various stops more people got on and the bicyclists got off. A man also dressed for office work carried his briefcase. Some young people probably not old enough to drive—the boys in baggy shorts and the girls dressed for the sun. A college-age young man, dressed nicely, stood near the door too cool to hold the pole for balance.

Then a group of men fresh from a day of physical labor boarded and one of them sat across from me. He carried a back pack with a plastic tyrannosaurus rex sticking out its front pocket. He was missing some teeth (the man not the dinosaur,) his hair was unkempt, and he smelled..

The college-aged young man derisively commented about the man being ‘pungent.’ The man acknowledged his odoriferous state but credited his day at hard labor and took no offense. He talked about working in building demolition and how dangerous it was. He said his brother died doing the same work.

At the next stop a young father got on with his toddler, leaving her to stand in the aisle while he parked the stroller. The train started and the child fell. The office lady, the snaggle-toothed man, and I all tried to catch her. Our efforts served only to frighten the little girl who cried to break your heart.

She sat sobbing in her daddy’s lap until the man across from me asked if she liked dinosaurs. She quieted, tears pooling in her big blue eyes. He offered her his T-Rex. And she smiled. She accepted the toy and listened while he explained what kind of dinosaur it was and gave her a short natural history lesson.

When the clean, well-dressed, college-aged man left the train, the little girl paid no attention. She had eyes only for the ‘pungent’ man. When he left the train, she waved to him and watched out the window as he walked away.

And I had material for a hero.

Star Trek into Darkness

Star Trek into Darkness, the latest iteration of Gene Roddenberry’s creation, hit the screens last Wednesday. Finally a rollicking good movie in 3D, albeit a post-production conversion.  Ah, well. Maybe next time. And IMAX which I have not yet seen.

It opens with a chase scene—Kirk and another member of the Enterprise crew being chased by spear-chucking aboriginals intent on doing our boys harm, while Spock is busy trying to save these self-same natives from the destructive forces of nature on their undeveloped world.

Chris Pine does an excellent job of Kirk. Gung-ho flyboy, arrogant with a touch of innocence that comes across as vulnerability and caring.

Zachary Quinto is a commendable Spock, much better looking than the real Spock (Leonard Nimoy.) But I miss the voice.

Zoe Saldana as Uhura speaks volumes with those flashing eyes when her significant other, Mr. Spock, behaves irrationally. What kind of Vulcan behaves irrationally?

The rest of the cast is fine. They interact with each other in spot-on Trek fashion. Argumentively independent, yet always loyal and supportive in the end.

And Benedict Cumberbatch. I’ve saved the best for last. He has the looks, the voice, the bad guy role. Or is he the bad guy?

I liked the movie. I will see it again. So visually stunning, in fact, that I am seriously toying with paying the extra money to see the IMAX version.

IF YOU HAVE NOT YET SEEN THE MOVIE, STOP READING HERE AND GO SEE THE MOVIE THEN READ THE REST OF THIS POST.

Oh, yes, I know. Unoriginal, predictable, completely lacking in any hint of the next big thing. I don’t care. I enjoyed it. Star Trek is my generation’s fairy tale. Fairy tales retold, must always be recognizable, therefore, originality and surprising turns of event are not only unnecessary, done to excess they can be disturbing.

Oh, dear. But wasn’t that the point of the original Star Trek? That it be original and disturbing? In a time when sixteen of these United States still enforced anti-miscegenation laws and women weren’t allowed to wear pants in most schools and work places, didn’t the Enterprise crew include members without regard to race, gender, or specie? Of course the women didn’t wear pants. Perhaps that would have been too disturbing.

That original Star Trek dealt with two opposing super powers, The Federation and the Klingons. Not unlike Earth during the late sixties. In later TV series, the Federation and the Klingons found ways to work together. It seems America’s relationship with the former Soviet Union has not yet reached that level. Although this production is set prior to that kinder gentler time in Federation/Klingon relations, these Klingons seem more like pests on the periphery than real threats. Harrison/Kahn is the true ‘other’ super power.

I’ve read statements from cast members and PR flekkers who say what they think the overarching themes of Into the Dark are. Terrorism. The danger from within. Kirk’s crisis of faith in the hallowed concept of leadership.

Perhaps, had they spent time developing any one of these themes it would have been more than a fun afternoon at the movies. But the overarching themes were chase scenes, battles, noise, flashing lights, and ACTION. Certainly fills the time and probably less expensively than the additional writing necessary to give this excellent cast more story to work with.

I want another Star Trek. I want new communicators, not the old flip phones. I want tomorrow’s music in the night clubs and bedrooms. 3D from the get-go. If some fool mentions the loss of gravity on the ship, I don’t want to see folks falling all over the place. I want to come home thinking about the universe and humanity’s place in it in a new way.

Children's Book Week

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"Books erase bias, they make the uncommon everyday, and the mundane exotic. A book makes all cultures universal."  Grace Lin is the author and illustrator 2010 Newbery Honor book Where the Mountain Meets the Moon.

May 13 – 16 is Children’s Book Week. If it is not one of the most important weeks to celebrate at your house, it should be. For those of us who read and for those of us who write and for those of us who think we do neither, Children’s Books open the world to us.

Some of us were lucky enough to listen to our elders tell stories of our families’ histories. About the old country, or when they first came to this country, or this city.

But somehow, if the story or one very like it was in a book, it seemed more real. We got better acquainted with the family down the block and across town and over the ocean because their stories were written in books.

How old were you when you first read, or had read to you, or saw an adaptation on television or in the movies Goodnight Moon, The Tale of Peter Rabbit? Where the Wild Things Are? Charlotte’s Web? Black Beauty? The Diary of Anne Frank? Harry Potter?

Most of the children’s books on today’s Best Of lists, I didn’t read until I was an adult. Of course most of them weren’t written when I was a child. But the significant thing about these newer children’s books is that I enjoyed them as an adult. Not in the same way my children and grandchildren enjoyed and do enjoy them as children. But a good book is good no matter the recommended age of the reader.

When I was a child reading was a part of our bedtime ritual. Bath, pajamas, and a book. We started with books that my brother and I could not yet read. Books my mother had loved as a child. As our reading skills improved we became participants. Mother would read a bit, then I would, then my younger brother. Heidi and Black Beauty are the ones I best remember from those bedtime readings.

It was a time to talk about the story. How it related to us, to our family. We learned to pronounce the words we saw and what exactly they meant. We explored ideas back and forth each on our own level and challenged to understand as the older ones did.

Gradually, the time came when each of us read too well to share a book like that. Reading to ourselves got us through the stories so much more quickly. We could read more than one chapter a night. We didn’t have to wait to find out what happened.

And we could read a book that neither of the others was interested in. Then instead of discovering things with family, we were discovering stories and ideas with our friends at school. And then we were grown and comparing our discoveries with other grown-ups and critics and their reviews in the paper.

Then, like magic, we had children. Sons and daughters, or nieces and nephews, or children of friends. And we were reading to them and with them. Books we’d loved when we were children. New books. Old ideas and new ideas.

We journeyed from sharing our parents’ past into sharing what was our present into our imagined future. And now we have the opportunity to share our past and the many pasts before us into our children’s and grandchildren’s present into their imagined future.

Read to your children and talk about what you are reading. And when they are too old for that, read something your children are reading and talk to them about that. And when we are too old to read for ourselves, if we are lucky and they have time, our children will read to us and talk to us about everything.

March Madness for Readers

We who are basketball illiterate need no longer be left out of March Madness. Full Circle Bookstore in Oklahoma City is providing an NCAA tournament-type bracket for us readers. The titles are ranked and seeded for our own Big Dance.

Share your choices with friends and family and see how brilliant and well-read they are. Of course, the truly smart and literate members of your circle will chose the same books you do.

The first set of competing books are now available for voting. Click on http://a.pgtb.me/zRGbVZ to vote for your favorite books and follow the voting to see if your picks are winners.

Life of Pi

“Life of Pi” in 3D

When I was a little girl, more than half a century ago, I saw my first 3D movie. At the opening flaming arrows came out into the audience. I snatched off my special paper-framed glasses, went down behind the seats, and didn’t come up again until my parents were ready to go home.

Things have changed. I have changed. I love the concept of 3D movies. Disney World awakened me to the glories of 3D cinema. Misbegotten rereleases of movies like “Jaws” in 3D reburied my enthusiasm under what I believed to be impenetrable volcanic mud and ash.

Then came “Avatar” stoking an ember into flame. I could overlook the rehash of every old Tarzan movie I’d ever seen complete with restless, dancing natives and the search for…you name it… In “Avatar” it was unobtainium, which my daughter pointed out was scientifically abbreviated as BS.

But the special effects were stunning. And immediately the ‘it’ I was searching for was a good movie in 3D. So when I heard Life of Pi was being made into a movie and a 3D movie at that, I knew I had to see it.

I had a serious problem. Despite recommendations from my well-read son, and an equally well-read friend, and good intentions on my part, I had not yet read the book. My son suggested that I would probably like the movie, but it would be best to read the book. And I had only three days before the movie opened in my hometown.

Luckily, Life of Pi is a slender volume and was immediately available through the internet wonder of Barnes and Noble’s Nook. (Don’t get me started on the financial dangers of books being so easily purchased day or night, rain or shine.)

With passages like “A white splinter came crashing down from the sky, puncturing the water. The water was shot through with what looked like white roots; briefly, a great celestial tree stood in the ocean.” And “The sea lay quietly, bathed in a shy, light-footed light, a dancing play of black and silver that extended without limits all about me. The volume of things was confounding—the volume of air above me, the volume of water around and beneath me.” This book was intended to be 3D.

The story, told in poetic simplicity, twists and turns through cultures and philosophies and geographies. It’s hero balances precariously on the edge between life and death, sanity and insanity, reality and fantasy throughout the book. Here is a story worthy of the special effects of a 3D movie.

For those of you not familiar with the story, it follows a teen-aged Indian boy through his survival alone on a life boat with a Bengal tiger adrift in the Pacific Ocean for 227 days.

Then there was the question of whether or not, Hollywood would be up to the task.

The film won 2013 Academy Awards for Best Direction, Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, and Best Visual Effects. I can’t speak to the music, because quite honestly I don’t remember it. I think it must have fit the movie though, or I would remember it.

The visual effects were outstanding, especially the tiger. I particularly remember the computer generated tiger’s paws as he went from well-fed to emaciated during the ordeal. His paws became angular bone and sinew covered with a pelt, dulled by starvation.

The 3D effects were overshadowed by the CG work. And truly, the film will lose very little if you see it without 3D.

The book gives you the ultimate 3D experience. Pi describes the sea at night:

“At multiple depths, as far as I could see, there were evanescent trails of phosphorescent green bubbles…. As soon as one trail faded another appeared. … from all directions and disappeared in all directions. … like time-exposure photographs of cities at night, with the long red streaks made by the tail lights of cars. … driving above and under each other as if they were on interchanges stacked ten storeys high. And here the cars were of the craziest colours. The dorados…showed off their bright gold, blue and green as they whisked by. Other fish that I could not identify were yellow, brown, silver, blue, red, pink, green, white, in all kinds of combinations…. Only the sharks stubbornly refused to be colourful…. …one thing was constant: the furious driving. There were many collisions—all involving fatalities—and a number of cars spun wildly out of control…bursting above the surface of the water and splashing down in showers of luminescence.”

Don’t Open with a Weather Report

“It was a dark and stormy night…”

How many of you out there have writing teachers, coaches, mentors, whatever, who admonish you against starting your Great American Novel with a weather report? Yeah, me, too. And I think they’re probably right.

But weather certainly has a place in our world and in our work.

I grew up in Oklahoma and learned early-on that watching the weather can be a matter of life and death.

For a while, I lived on the edge of a vast wheat field and was privileged to watch combat between man and weather. Combines clanked and roared their way back and forth across ripe wheat trying to get the crop in before the weather hit. In this case, the weather was rain and hail bearing down on the men and their machines. And threatening their livelihood.

Storms on the prairie (and, for that matter, on the Gulf of Mexico) may not always be big enough to have a name, but they have a face, a front edge that you can see for miles.  

Here on Colorado’s Front Range, the weather is seldom intense. From my chair at the computer, I cannot see the glorious Rocky Mountains because of The Foot Hills. They block my view. But far from resenting their intrusion, I love them.

They teach me about the weather here. When the morning light shows them clear and bold, I’ll have yet another of the many sunny days. A wave cloud can mean a dreary day, because it usually spreads toward Denver out on the prairie to our east and blocks the sunshine until that short, amazing time when the sun blazes from below the cloud before sinking behind the hills.

And on days like today, when the foot hills are shrouded in roiling blue-gray, I know the weather is very close. There is no face, no edge to see, just the knowledge that it, whatever it is, is very near and very soon.

Like the dark moors of the Brontë sisters and Arthur Conan Doyle’s London fog. And that saddest of rains in A Farewell to Arms. It is coming.

So, unless you have a damn good reason to, don’t open your story with a weather report. But, if it helps you tell your story, use it.

See You at the Movies

Tonight, finally, is the Academy Awards. The night when all the speculation ends. We had the elections, the Super Bowl, and now the Academy Awards. What will the so-called television news shows talk about after they’ve rehashed tonight’s red carpet and who’s wearing whom? Oh, yes, there is sequestration.

The Movies. I do enjoy going to the movies. The screen is big enough to completely fill my field of vision. The sounds surround me. The scent of popcorn saturates everything, including my clothes and hair. The lights go down and I am ready to be transported.

Well, after all the trailers and television show adverts, not to mention the local dry cleaners and pharmacies. Then there are the admonitions to silence our cell phones and prohibitions against texting. The requests that we properly dispose of our trash and the entreaties to not talk. But even public television indulges in ads and requests for donations. I guess it’s the sign of the times and a reminder that somebody has to pay for all this. (No, I didn’t forget about the price we just paid for tickets and refreshments. But, never mind, never mind.)

I have seen three of the nine Academy Award nominees: Lincoln, Life of Pi, and Les Miserables. All were done very well. Need I add that the books were better? But then books, by their very nature, have more time to do it better and bigger and in more dimensions than 3.

“But that’s not what I come here to talk about. I come to talk about the draft.” Oh, dear. That’s another song and another time.

What I did come here to talk about is the last time I went to the movies. A couple of weeks ago.

We went to see the re-release of Top Gun in 3D. I love this movie. It’s the nearest I’ll ever come to taking off and landing on an aircraft carrier. Next to lift off from Cape Canaveral, that has got to be the greatest rush possible.

The lights in the theater dimmed and I was ready to be transported along with a small crowd of perfect strangers.

The word perfect  turns out to be an imperfect adjective as applied to that particular audience.

Some man entered with his four-year-old in tow. A vocal, unhappy, four-year-old, easily frightened by 3D special effects. Then a group of noisy 20-somethings, male and female, took seats in the back.

I don’t know which was worse. The frightened child and his insensitive father. Or the young adults who thought they were sitting in their own living room and could spout intellectually limited witticisms during the love scenes.

Someday, when I’m rich and famous, I’ll buy out the theater and invite the public free-of-charge. I will set guards at the entrance to allow only people who are old enough to enjoy the movie—without regard to actual age—to enter.

I’ll have a nice cappuccino and sit in the middle, right up front. And I’ll be transported along with an audience of perfect strangers.