Category Archives: Cool Things

Cool enough to be a category and a tag.

Cool Things: It Happened One Night

Posted by natechen on

Classic film time once again. It Happened One Night doesn’t contain that many names recognizable to casual black and white fans but it does hold one claim to fame that only two other movies can make – it won all five of the “big” Academy Awards – best film, director, actor, actress and screenplay. It’s also had a subtle effect on popular culture, not to the extent of say, Casablanca, but still a marked one. Ever seen a woman stop a vehicle just by showing some leg? That’s a homage to It Happened One Night.

This story is essentially about a rich young woman, Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) who marries someone her father does not approve of. When Mr. Andrews (Walter Connolly) tries to annul the marriage she runs away, catching a bus and running into the down-on-his-luck reporter Peter Warne (Clark Gable). Unfortunately, the sheltered Ellie doesn’t have the resources or know how to meet up with her husband so she agrees to take Peter’s help in avoiding her father, who has offered a hefty reward for her discovery.  What ensues is a strange cross between a caper film, a romantic comedy and out and out screwball humor. By the time the story is over Peter and Ellie will have fallen in love, had a falling out and learned a little more about themselves. All in all, not bad for a love story from Hollyweird, right?

So what sets It Happened One Night above the rest? Was it really worth all those Awards?

For starters, Colbert and Gable really do provide a great performance. The chemistry between the two is great and serves to drive the story when the laughs aren’t coming. But there’s not that many points where the laughs don’t come. The script is incredibly tightly written, keeping the audience moving from bus to motel to roadside like a drill sergeant, alternating between showing us how well Ellie and Peter work together and how little they appreciate one another. This is undoubtedly for the best, if scrutinized too closely the whole story would most likely fall apart and yet, once it’s finished, we can’t help but admire the finished product for what it is.

But the greatest strength of the script is in it’s careful use of characterization. It’s very easy for a writer to give into the temptation of spelling out too much. But when Peter finally comes to confront Ellie’s father, when he’s offered a reward for all he’s done and all Peter can do is rant about a woman who he thinks has played with him and left him in the cold, we see far more about how much Peter loves Ellie than any poem or soliloquy could tell us.

Watch It Happened One Night and it’s easy to see how it could have won all five of the Big Academy Awards. The piece itself may be fluff, but it’s such well written, well acted and well directed fluff that you can’t help but loving it for what it is. Whether you love movies, storytelling in general or just a good romantic comedy, I assure you that you won’t be disappointed with what you find.

Cool Things: Wearing the Cape

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Superheroes are a uniquely American thing, one of the few cultural phenomenon that definitely started here. It should come as no surprise to us that they’ve slowly leaked out of comic books and into TV and movies, and the national consciousness. And now they’re starting to stake a claim in the realm of written fiction.

While few superhero novels can claim the august status of literary works they do offer the superhero archetypes an opportunity to be explored with more time and depth than any other medium. Austin Grossman took an early stab at this when he wrote Soon I Will Be Invincible and others have since followed in his footsteps.

Marion G. Harmon’s Wearing the Cape is an interesting addition to this small but growing genre of fiction.

It focuses on Hope Corrigan, who becomes the superhero Astra after nearly getting crushed by a falling bridge. Like all origin stories, Wearing the Cape shares a few of the problems Astra has with her identity, secrecy and changed living arrangements. But for the most part the story is focused on Hope’s sense of responsibility, her problematic relationship with her new powers and identity as Astra and her odd relationship with a person who calls himself the Teatime Anarchist and can somehow travel through time.

It’s that last bit that makes things really interesting, if you were wondering.

Wearing the Cape does more than just tackle the basic issues of identity and responsibility that most superhero stories focus on. It also pokes a little into the structure of superheroes and society and how people might react to having superpowered individuals around for over a decade. Also interesting is Harmon’s decision to give all superheroes the same basic source for their abilities – a strange, unexplained occurrence a decade ago that left the world without power for a few seconds and the latent potential for superpowers in its wake. Since “The Event” people exposed to life threatening situations have a chance of awakening superpowers.

Life in the world of the Cape is interesting. Capes (which is to say, superheroes) have to deal with supervillain gangs, drunk and disorderly supers, legal woes and more. One of the most interesting ideas are origin chasers, people who willingly undergo life threatening circumstances such as stepping off a building or in front of a truck in order to awaken superpowers. This does not always end well.

But at the core of Wearing the Cape is a story about actions and consequences. As soon as Hope puts on Astra’s cape she’s in a different world, and how she deals with the heroes and villains she meets is as important as what powers she uses in dealing with them. Harmon does an excellent job weaving Hope’s actions and their consequences into a story that is fun and exciting.

While superhero stories are not everyone’s cup of tea, Wearing the Cape is definitely an accessible and enjoyable one. I recommend it, particularly if you’re interested in writing in the genre yourself.

Cool Things: Help Desk

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Webcomics are a mixed lot, and that’s actually one way they resemble traditional comics. Some, like Girl Genius, are works of fantastic storytelling and art. Others, like Help Desk, use only the most basic of illustrations to convey a much more pointed theme – in this case, satire.

Help Desk follows the labors of Alex and his fellow tech support workers as they struggle to deal with the problems of the customers of Ubersoft, a software giant peddling the Nifty Doorways operating system that has a nearly unchecked stranglehold on the existing computer market. If this sounds unsubtle, that’s because it is. Help Desk never aspires to subtlety, not when the owner and operator of the company is identified as the Dark Lord of Ubersoft, a being dedicated to bringing despair and agony to mankind. Neither is story a major concern, many of the comics themes are ripped straight from current events in the technology world.

So why read it at all? Well, I’m glad you asked.

First off, if you’re not a geek or IT worker, it’s a great way to get a quick and highly enjoyable overview of some of the things that are happening in that field. Sure, it’s been running for a while now and not all the stuff in the archives is up-to-date or relevant anymore, but a surprising amount of it has held up well. Technology companies still rely as much on legalese to make money as actual product, at least in America, and IT workers still try and place as much of the blame as possible on the user and not the company, although to be fair a lot of mishaps are our fault.

Second, Help Desk is funny in a dry, self depreciating sort of a way. The author is getting by only because life is full of little absurdities for him to poke at, and he knows it. So he’s careful to make sure the comic itself is just absurd enough to let readers know he doesn’t take it seriously, without weakening it’s ability to satirize.

Warning: While most of the time Help Desk is about poking fun at Microsoft, other technology companies are by no means exempt. If seeing Saint Jobs get a little good-natured ribbing offends you in some way, perhaps you should steer clear…

So the next time you catch yourself setting your coffee in your DVD-ROM tray or trying to boot a desktop that hasn’t been plugged in, go ahead and take a few minutes to laugh at yourself. Then take a moment’s satisfaction in knowing you aren’t as bad as those jokers on Help Desk and get on with your day. It’ll be a little brighter for it, I’m sure.

Cool Things: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Posted by natechen on

Time for another black and white classic film! Be warned, this contains spoilers.

One thing Hollywood loves is a good, stirring speech. You find them everywhere, from military movies to sci-fi films to political suspense thrillers to courtroom dramas, sometime around the climax of the film someone will step forward and remind us all what it’s all about. But interestingly enough, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is a film where the speech is the climax.

The recap, in case you’ve never seen this film: Jefferson Smith (Jimmy Stewart) is the leader of a small boy’s group called “The Boy Rangers” and something of a state hero, at least among young boys. When the state governor has to replace a recently deceased Senator he faces pressure from two lobbies – the state reformer committees and the political machine that got him elected. Each wants their man in the Senate. The governor’s children suggest a third alternative – their hero, Mr. Smith. When the governor tosses a coin to determine the outcome, heads for the machine’s candidate, tails for the reformer, the coin lands on it’s edge, balanced against a newspaper. Smith’s picture is on the front.

So Mr. Smith goes to Washington, D.C. He sees the sights and generally geeks out over being in the nation’s capitol. Then he meets the other senator from his state, Joseph Paine (Claude Rains). Senator Paine knew Jeff’s father and gladly takes Jeff under his wing. Unfortunately, Paine is also corrupt, beholden to the same machine that the state governor is.

When Jeff drafts a bill that threatens a major piece of graft, intended  to give the members of the state machine thousands of dollars of profit, Paine is forced to spearhead an effort to run Jeff out of the Senate. Jeff retaliates with one of the greatest weapons of American politics – the filibuster. Since he’s a newcomer to D.C., without political allies, Jeff will have to hold the floor of the US Senate alone and hopefully convince the jaded, politically minded men there that he’s not the crook he’s been painted as.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is a great film. Not because of it’s themes per se, or even because Jeff Smith is a fantastic orator. He does have some nice speeches, and he earns our respect and the respect of the men of the Senate because of his good character and integrity. But one man standing against the machine has been done before, and there are other speeches more relevant to today in other movies out there. So why does this film deserve your consideration?

Because it acknowledges a simple fact: The truth is not enough to win.

Spoilers Start Here!

Even with all the facts on his side, Jeff cannot seem to make any headway against the forces of the political machine that are arrayed against him. In the end, his filibuster will drag to a close with the situation basically unchanged. It’s not until Jeff makes a direct appeal to Senator Paine that things change – Paine’s will breaks, and he gives away the game.

Jeff doesn’t win because he makes a speech, he doesn’t beat the machine because he has the right on his side. The right wins out because Jeff knew and reached out to a person who should have been his enemy. It’s not something that happens often, not a part of what we think of as taking a stand. 

And it’s not a normal part of the classic movie speech. Paine was Jeff’s role model, a hero, someone he looked up to. Jeff calls him out, reminds him of what he was without bitterness or animosity, and gently asks him to be so again. It’s a kind of compassion that’s rare in film in general, and it makes Mr. Smith Goes to Washington unique and worth the watching.

National Adoption Month

Posted by natechen on

For those of you who don’t know, November is National Adoption Month. I’m not a real expert on the subject, but I know it’s an important topic, definitely worth a whole month’s worth of highlighting. This isn’t just because I’m in a show about adoption – the director swears up and down that this was a total coincidence, and we didn’t know about it beforehand. No, adoption is a worthwhile cause in and of itself. If you’ve read Heat Wave, you know that one of the Project Sumter characters is adopted. It will continue to be a subtheme in Water Fall.

I wish I could say more about it, but it’s not an issue I’m very knowledgeable about. I’ve known several adopted children – in fact, one of my cousins is adopted – and I’m in a show about it as well, but I’m hardly an expert. I do know that there are countless children out there who need the love and attention of parents, and those who are led to take up a role in the lives of those children are very special and worth your support.

There’s plenty of more information on the National Adoption Month homepage. Also, every so often there’s a post from the point of view of an adopted son on the blog of Diamond Mike Watson, posts that are both powerful and insightful. If you want to know what adoptive parents do in the lives of the children they adopt it’s well worth checking them out. Know of any other good adoption resource? Please share them in the comments!

Cool Things: Five Iron Frenzy

Posted by natechen on

Ah, the music of my youth. The very first album I owned was Quantity is Job One by Five Iron Frenzy – a fantastic and fantastically short collection of pure nonsense that represented the last of the great third wave ska bands at their finest.

Never heard of ska? If you don’t want to take the time to read the Wikipedia article I just linked, the short version is, ska is punk rock meets swing. Ska bands tend to be large, and Five Iron Frenzy was no exception, sporting eight members, and typically include drums, electric guitar, bass, trumpet and one other brass instrument at a minimum. More guitar, brass and possibly a lead vocalist can be added for flavor. I think the sheer number of people needed to make a ska band work is one of the things that’s kept them from ever catching on in a meaningful way…

So, other than representing a kind of sound that you don’t hear every day, what makes Five Iron cool? Now that I’m a seasoned man of almost thirty, do they still hold up to my initial love from middle school? Why should you even care about a band that retired in 2003?

To handle each question one at a time. Five Iron Frenzy didn’t just write ska – they wrote ska with a purpose. Now if you’ve read this blog for any amount of time you know I love things done with a purpose, and Five Iron was always 110% devoted to whatever purpose they were pursuing, even when that purpose was just silliness.

To illustrate what I’m talking about, here’s a few of their songs from that great resource of the modern age, YouTube! First, a ditty of pure silliness extolling the greatness of our near neighbors:

Now a song with a bit of a more serious bent to it:

The contrast between these two songs does an excellent job of encapsulating what made Five Iron Frenzy a band worth listening to. They didn’t just write music or do a great job turning a phrase. They did an excellent job of making you care about what you were hearing about.

Sure, when I first encountered Five Iron I was mostly enamored of their silliness. What other band offers you greatness like “These Are Not My Pants, The Rock Opera”? None! But their sense of fun was accompanied by a sense of place and purpose, even when you’re not sure exactly what those places and purposes are. As I’ve gotten older I’ve come to realize just how meaningful their songs about those ideas are. Certainly they’ve aged well. I suspect I’ll continue to find their music meaningful as I get older.

So why should you care? Simple! While Five Iron may have retired in 2003 they reunited in 2011 and kickstarted a new album which is slated for release on November 26th! I can’t even begin to say how excited I am for Engine of a Million Plots. After a ten year absence, I can’t wait to hear what they sound like. And if you’ve never heard of them, it’s a great place to start. Check it out and let me know what you think!

Local Theater: The Family Nobody Wanted

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Once upon a time, there was a Reverend named Doss. He and his wife wanted children, but weren’t able to have any of their own. So they turned to adoption and took in a child. They found a calling, and sought to adopt more children. But the agencies informed them that there would be a lengthy waiting period before they could adopt another child. Surely there were plenty of other children around?

Well, there were. But they were of mixed ethnicity, and in the dark old days of the 1940s and 1950s no one really believed you could adopt transracially and have a successful family. Carl and Helen Doss proved them wrong.

The Family Nobody Wanted is based on their story, a blend of romantic comedy and comedy of errors, that tells of the oldest Doss child, who, like his parents, was white, falls in love with the rich girl next door only to find that her parents Do Not Approve of the rest of his family. While the story itself is fictional, at least some of the events portrayed, such as the visits of more than a few reporters for national magazines such as Life, are real.

The script offers a great deal of laughter, some worthwhile thoughts and a message about the importance of family and it’s reality regardless of superficial differences like skin color or genetics. It’s good fun for the whole family, and if you’re in the Fort Wayne area you could do worse with your Friday nights than coming to check it out. (Disclamer: The author of this post is, in fact, appearing in this show. If that’s a down side for you, you have been warned.)

Performances will be at the main branch of the Allen County Public Library on the weekends of November 1st-3rd and 8th-10th. Information about tickets and show times can be found here.

Cool Things: The Piano Guys

Posted by natechen on

I don’t talk about music much here, mainly because I rarely go out and find new stuff to listen to. I’m a classically trained musician, but I have eclectic tastes. While there are songs on the radio that I like, it’s usually on a case by case basis. There aren’t any groups I’m really fond of, at least not playing on the radio.

While The Piano Guys don’t get much radio time, they do have a very popular YouTube channel and make some of the most interesting classical music you’ve heard in a long time (assuming you’ve heard any at all.) Some might hesitate to call it “classical” but I’m not one of them. Certainly the instruments and the core of the music they draw from is classical, but like all the best artists they give the material a twist all their own.

The Piano Guys specialize in mashups, which means that they take two different (usually wildly different) pieces of music and blend them into a seamless whole. While this is a trademark of rap and techno music, where taking “samples” has long been a way of life, it’s not something that happens much with classical music, unless classical pieces are being sampled for one of the two music styles I mentioned before.

However, by taking famous classical pieces and infusing them with the rhythms of modern music, and blending the melodies, The Piano Guys prove that, even with all the cultural buzz that we’ve attached to our musical superstars these days, at it’s core music is still music, and capable of speaking to people regardless of their age or the instrument it’s played on. Michael Jackson and Mozart may not sound like a natural combination, but when Michael Meets Mozart plays you start to wonder if they were actually meant to be.

The Piano Guys isn’t just for people who love classical music. The pop music they blend in still retains all the great sound and soul that made them great songs on the radio (you can even get versions that are done with spoken lyrics.) The videos that get made to go along with the music are also well worth the checking out. Cello Wars and Rockabelle’s Cannon are two I particularly like, although I may be biased as a cellist myself.

All in all, with plenty of music available for free on YouTube and a couple of very cheap albums available through most online music retailers, The Piano Guys are at least worth checking out if you’re looking for a new take on classical music, pop music, or just mashups in general. But don’t blame me if you loose an afternoon browsing their channel. I’ll warn you now – they are addictive. If you’re not careful you may find yourself with a new favorite on you playlist.

The Great Moving Update!

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Hi! Just posting a reminder that there aren’t going to be any more regular updates this week, since I’m moving across town. Hope that’s not a disappointment.

If it is, then rejoice! We are on schedule to have the usual Monday update next week. The moving process will not disrupt Water Fall’s progression any. I look forward to seeing you on Monday. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must return to what the Aeslin Mice would refer to as The Sacred Ritual of Packing All the Crap.

Cool Things: Esther Diamond

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So let’s say you’re an actress living and (occasionally) working in New York City. It can be lonely, it can be demanding, it can be the time of your life. Until the woman you’re an understudy for disappears in the middle of her act! But no worries, it’s a magic act. She’s supposed to go into that box and disappear, then come back on stage a few minutes later.

Yeah, one small issue with that. Seems like this time she’s gone for good!

All that happens to Esther Diamond in Disappearing Nightly, the first book in a series that chronicles her misadventures in the Big Apple. It turns out women have been disappearing rather permanently all over the city, and the police, including the handsome Conner Lopez, are starting to get worried.

But they’re not the only ones. Doctor Maximilian Zadok is a master wizard, and he’s worried that the women aren’t just disappearing they’re actually being abducted by an evil wizard. He convinces Esther not to fill in for the missing leading lady and takes her on as a sort of girl Friday. Once you pass your third century keeping up with the times can get difficult, after all, and having a spunky young lass who’s familiar with the more technological aspects of society is nice.

In addition to the disappearances, Esther will wind up getting dragged into, or dragging Max and Conner into, incidents with Dopplegangsters, zombies, polterheists and Lithuanians. In a reversal of the usual urban fantasy set up, Esther is the only person in the primary cast with no paranormal abilities at all. Oh sure, she’s been close enough to weird goings on to spot them when things get started but she’s not in the big leagues, at least not yet.

Laura Resnick’s Esther Diamond series offers a nice blend of adventure and mystery. Each one of Esther’s stories focuses on a crime of some sort that’s been accomplished with the help of magic. Each flavor of crime is different, abduction, murder, theft, more murder, you get the picture. And each one is solved with a combination of Esther’s snooping, Max’s background information and Lopez’s meddling. (Lopez most decidedly does not believe in magic.)

While they’re not mysteries in the form of detective stories of police procedurals, they are a good time and are worth checking out if you enjoy mystery cozies with a paranormal twist.