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More Troubles?

I remember very vividly the week I spent in Belfast. It changed my head. I knew my family came from Ireland, knew of the Troubles, but not until a few weeks before I left, I didn't know my family came specifically from the north, and until I got there, I had no real idea of the reality there. The division of Belfast - material, spiritual - splits my head still. One thing that stood out to me most was a tour we took of the Catholic/Protestant neighborhoods - streets like Shankhill divided like some contested border - and the tour guide putting the difficulty down primarily to the relative poverty of the area. Up the road near Queens, the realtive prosperity of that part of town saw a healthier, less hostile environment. Indeed, the Celtic Tiger gave all Ireland a reason to look forward and not behind; the economy exploded, and with each year, it seemed the Troubles were finally over.

Maybe not.

Ireland's economy, like the world's, has collapsed and just like that, the IRA - or some semblence of it - is back to killing. This time, though, it seems that neither Protestants nor Catholics are willing to let the madness of a few pull every one under. The news here in America sadly reads the same way - a man just killed ten people in Alabama, a student walked into a school in Germany and killed nine. Maybe it's not the global economic crisis; maybe it's just coincidence. Does money salve political wounds? Religious? When the pot is empty, do we fill it with anger? Hate?

Darby Watches The Watchmen

SPOILERS follow

“Watchmen” is really two movies: one for people like me, who remember the earthquake it was for comic books in 1987, when it first appeared, and one for people just looking for a good movie. In a lot of ways, it succeeds on both levels; in a lot of other ways, it doesn’t.
“Watchmen” arrived in 1987 as comic book that for the first time in the history of comics looked on the idea of superheroes as a real thing; what if in the real world these people actually existed, and what would happen? I first read it at 13, finding it on the bottom shelf of the comic stand in the back of the Cigar Store down on Sycamore – this when comics were still sold outside comic shops – and I didn’t understand it, but knew a comic – a funny book – with blood and murder and various other adult things was not normal. I found a lot of books there that were an absolute awakening to me, and make me feel very lucky to have been that age, at that time: “Swamp Thing,” “Sandman,” even “Cinder & Ashe” which no one remembers but made its own impression. I couldn’t afford any of them, only the Marvel ones that were still 75 cents, so I stood at the rack and read them in the store. I read the complete novel in college, appreciating it fully for the first time. It made a lasting impression on me, like it has so many others; I found the idea of the meta-textual here first rather than in the novels of M. John Harrison or David Foster Wallace. The book within a book idea appears in some of my own work, especially “The Book of Elizabeth,” which is to do entirely with a book inside a book.
That is nothing new, but in 1987, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons set off an earthquake. “Watchmen” is to comics what “Ulysses” is to the novel; after that, everything changed. For the movies, though, “Watchmen” the film is just a good movie that could have been better. The basic plot revolves around this: someone is killing masked superheroes. Except superheroes are retired, by government mandate. And it’s 1985. And Nixon is still President. And the Cold War is getting hot, really fast. It seems someone is trying to make sure superheroes are not going to be around to stop Armageddon. And so at first it is a detective story – the Sherlock here an anti-hero called Rorschach, after the ink blot test (his mask features a ever changing menagerie of patterns) – and it leads him to the now retired members of the Watchmen, who he fears may be in danger. As it progresses from character to character – the Batman clone Nite Owl, the Punisher-esque Comedian and then to the Superman like Dr. Manhattan, it becomes alternately a love story, a war movie, and a 1950’s sci-fi movie where the good scientist gets transformed into something horrible. It’s a lot of different movies, none of them ever really congealing into something whole, other than the strange, pleasant shock of seeing Batman – I mean, Nite Owl – overweight and lonely. Of Superman distant and removed from humanity because they can’t ever understand what it is to be a god. I always thought the book would be better served by the time and detail of say a 12 part mini-series on HBO, and the film only confirms that. Zach Snyder does achieve what was once thought impossible, putting the book on screen; he manages to transplant the thread of the book in its – mostly – entirety to film, salvaging a myriad of the book’s most treasured scenes.
That so much of Dan and Laurie survived surprised and thrilled me, because it was my favorite part of the book. Except for the sex scene. That was laugh out loud bad. Showgirls bad. I also loved Manhattan’s trip through time and space, which with Bill Crudup’s spooky, detached narration, exists in a small, poetic way in the film. The performances are exceptional in some cases – Jackie Lee Haley is hypnotic as Rorschach – and in some cases not so much. As lovely as Malin Ackerman is, she never really gets to the bottom of Laurie, who in the book is a lot more of a live wire.
The film clings to the original 80’s setting, and the Cold War fear; as someone who grew up then and remembers “The Day After,” it strikes a chord. I wonder though if it would for anyone who grew up in a world without the constant thread of nuclear annihilation. After the film, Ben and my uncle PJ spent some time discussing this. I wonder if the film would have been better served by a more modern setting. “The Dark Knight” proved last year that ‘comic book’ movies can and do speak to the moral complexities of the present. The Watchmen, as it is, proves only a love letter to a book and a moment that seems squarely in the past. The World Trade Center still exists there, and its presence in the film – gratuitous at times – only speaks volumes to the schism between the film’s setting and now. The towers cannot ever exist in film or any art now as merely themselves; that they do in this film, and that they survive the devastation of the ending only reinforces my feeling that Snyder missed an opportunity to not just produce a slavish, religious adaptation to the source material but to advance it.
What if the Cold War was replaced by the War on Terror? What if Dr. Manhattan single handedly won the Iraq War instead of Vietnam? What if the Keene Act came out of a government seeking to quash superheroes whose independence and resources may be interpreted as non-state actors? What if Ozymandias plot to bring peace to a world on the brink of nuclear holocaust instead sought to bring peace to a world locked in the gravity of endless war? Of course the book still speaks to us, despite its setting; the film speaks to many different things, and never in one voice. It is a big film that in so many ways demands to be a small film; a tiny, subversive meditation on the lives of people who cannot live outside of their masks.

A New Day

Get On Your Boots

The first single from U2's new album (finally!!!) is live. My first impressions: they are back to experimenting.

To Jump In The River And Drown

An absolutely essential and remarkable conversation with Battlestar Galactica creator Ron Moore and the writers of last night's season premiere. That he gives this much in an interview is a gift, and so is the show. It astounds, as always, and the sadness over its passing is only countered by the joy in knowing that it is getting the chance to end on its own terms. So many shocks last night. Earth. Dee. Ellen. Kara. I have my own theory of it all - the Grand Unifying Theory of BSG I guess - that I'm still formulating, but Ben had a theory a while back about Earth and Cylons that seems to have been dead on. Go read the article, and if you haven't seen it, or have never seen the show, go rent, buy or steal it on DVD. Enrich your life.

From The No Life Dept.

Yes, Darby Harn is still alive.

I am snowed in for the moment so I decided to take a break from a West Wing marathon (how good was this show?) to update this increasingly pointless blog. I am thinking of wiping the slate clean in the new year and starting a new one. I will be wiping many slates in 2009. I will be that guy on the corner offering to clean your windows for some change except I will be cleaning your slates. Or maybe just mine. I tend to get stuck in the mud when it comes to other people's slates and by now I've said the word slate too much.

I work all day, and write all night, and I have no life. In college I studied all the time and worked my ass off to get through because I had to. At work I study all the time and work my ass off because I have to. It's not easy for me and it never has been. The trade off is I have nothing else and when it comes to everything else I missed the meeting. And it costs me, exponentially, the further I go.

So, yay. At least there are two new Kate Winslet movies this month.

Congrats to Matt and Lisa!!!

On the birth of their boy William. Congrats to two of the best people I know. All the best. I wonder how jealous Howie is...

You're A Shining Star

The first ever picture of a planet in a solar system that is not ours:



The skinny. This is just the beginning.

The Last Batman Story

Newsarama offers a really good op-ed on why the next Batman film could - should be - called The Dark Knight Returns, and also why the Joker should come back. And be recast. Check it out. I think it may have persuaded me from my position that recasting the character would be difficult in the least. I don't know, however, that a literal translation of Frank Miller's Batman into Nolan's is possible or even feasible; that said, the article is good food for thought.

I've always thought Batman's story has to end. His success prevents it of course. Even if Nolan completes his trilogy, which is what we seem to be in for, Warner Brothers will want and rightfully so as many films as they can get. And they should make Batman films to their hearts content. This article suggests a great idea: allowing myriad artists take their own whacks at the character, in various films. Batman has proven his elasticity. But since we're talking about the first true, complete - possibly - Batman cinema story, it must end and let there be an ending.

Interesting article on the true cultural impact of the film. Of course, the inevitable backlash against it has already begun; anything this big cannot go unchallenged. This article makes good points about the film's flaws. I think it misses the boat on a few things - the direction is all over the place? - but it also links to some other discussions which again are good food for your brain. There is a lot of trying to make the film fit somewhere - superhero genre, crime genre, etc. Seems it either transcends all of them or just lands outside one or more of them, depending on who you talk to.

The Batman's True Identity Revealed

He's George W. Bush. Apparently. Andrew Kalvaan departs from his rocker in the Wall St. Journal in a suprisingly deluded way and I just have to put my two cents in.

The Dark Knight does not have a pro-Bush or pro-neo conservative stance. If you think it concerns the war on terror, and that is a legitimate argument, and if you think Batman=Bush, which is not legit, then here's why you cannot walk away from this film thinking it somehow legitimizes the last 7 years:

Batman fails to take the Joker seriously until it is too late.

Batman fails to kill the Joker when given the opportunity, and the justification to do so.

Batman 'extradites' a non-national from a foreign country where he has no jurisdiction.

Batman abuses his power and technology to spy on his own people.

Batman's actions only embolden his enemy.

You can find a correlative for everyone of those items in the last 7 years, and none of them are positive, and none of them presented that way in the film. The film ends with a adacious message - good men do the wrong thing for the right reason. Only in W's most fluffy fantasy land does he think this is what has happened in real life.

Groovy Things

Tomorrow is Irish Fest in Waterloo.

Neil Gaiman is writing a 2 part Batman story for the comic series next year. Apparently it will bridge the gap between the current R.I.P. storyline, which I'm lost with, and the future of the character, which seems destined to be different than the status quo. The only thing cooler than this is if they found water on Mars.

Oh, yeah. Water exists on Mars. Also, liquid (not water) is flowing freely on Titan, Saturn's enigmatic moon.

Hell No, They Didn't Just Cut Emily

Season 5 of Project Runway just got WAY less interesting for me. Okay, so the dress didn't really work. But why must they always cut the cute ones? Sigh. I think I liked her so much because she reminds of two friends who have somehow been genetically spliced together in a seamless, beautiful fashion.

Auf wiedersehen Emily.

Who's Up Next?

So given the Dark Knight's insane run at the box office (the 'will it beat Titanic?' murmurs have begun) it's inevitable there will be a third. The big question is who the big bad will be. It seems from the film they intended for Heath Ledger to reprise the Joker in some capacity next time around, but as we all know, that will (probably) not be the case.

Geoff Boucher writes an open letter in the LA Times today to Chris Nolan offering some advice. Some of it is good. By process of elimination, he id's Catwoman as the only logical choice. I agree with this. Harley Quinn might make some sense if they attempt to follow the Joker thread (recasting just doesn't seem proper), but of all the Batman's rogues, she is the most sensible in Nolan's realistic concept of the character. However, Boucher's choice of actress (I'll let you click the link to see) doesn't do anything for me. Not that she's a bad actress, but what Catwoman needs, like the Joker, is someone who approaches it with a take no one ever considered. Give it a read, it's interesting, and so are the comments.

We're Going To Be Doing This For A Long Time

SPOILERS follow for 'The Dark Knight'


Right now there are a lot of hyperbolic reviews and commentary swirling around The Dark Knight, and specifically Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker, to the extent that you wonder how any film could possibly live up those kind of expectations. This movie does. You're never left wondering how, or why; it is grand cinema, from artists in their prime, and in one tragic case, the final furious statement of a gifted actor. TDK is not the Citizen Kane of comic book movies; to call it a comic book movie, or place it in that context is diminishing it. The film actually operates primarily in the crime movie genre, and has more in common with films like The Godfather, in its bredth and scope (a staggering cast of characters, multiple plot arcs, the city as a character - and Chicago - I mean, um, Gotham - has never been so interesting) and also Heat, which it actually has the most in common with.

TDK is also not the Empire Strikes Back of modern movies. That is primarily because its predecessor, Batman Begins, is not Star Wars. Begins was a great movie, hampered by certain comic book conceits that this movie does away with entirely. This movie, TDK, is Star Wars. It changes your head, and makes everything from here on out - its successors, both imitators and its own sure sequels - tethered to its accomplishments. One can't help but think that Christopher Nolan will find himself unable to top this; you won't fault him for it, because Heath Ledger sets such a high bar that all anyone else can do is stand there and look at it. I could go on about the intricacies of his performance - the manic tongue, the voice, electricity he generated anytime he's on screen - but it's simple enough to say he is the Joker, and his Joker is the strangest, scariest and funniest of all of them.

He overshadows many other fantastic performances, Christian Bale of course, but more importantly, Aaron Eckhart, who is actually the focal point of the movie as new Gotham DA Harvey Dent. We all know Harvey's future, but it's no less tragic to watch a good man brought so low. In TDK, good men do the wrong things for the right reasons. They spy. They kidnap. They take money from the mob to pay hospital bills. They lie. They fake their deaths, even to their own families. They take the fall for someone else. We live in a world where good men have been doing bad things for years now. You reap what you sow. In TDK, all that Batman has wrought, for good, and for bad, comes due and he reaps the whirlwind.

I haven't yet mentioned the action sequences. Normally in summer movies that's the first thing out, and that tells you what kind of movie this is. There is one stunning one, a chase between a semi and cop cars and eventually the Batmobile. The Batpod, the bike you see in the trailers, makes a stunning debut and does some gravity defying things that will please your geek soul. Also, enjoy the IMAX eye candy, which even in regular 35mm invites vistas you've rarely seen. Bravo.

Kansas City

In all the excitement of June, with the floods and other distractions, I never got around to sharing some photos of the trip my brother Aaron took to Kansas City early in the month, to see my aunt Charlene. We were there a very busy 3 days, the highlight of which had to be the World War I musuem downtown.



The dominant feature of the memorial is this 30 story monolithic statue that stands on a high hill overlooking downtown. You can go up in a very antiquated elevator (it dates from 1926) to the top and see an extraordinary view of KC. This image in particular inspired me to relocate my next novel from Iowa to Kansas. It also inspired me to research the memorial, which led me to the only-interesting-to-me bit of trivia that the nuclear holocaust film 1983, The Day After, featured the memorial in its coda. What was left of it anyway. That movie made a huge impression on me as it did most people who saw it, and I found myself remembering all sorts of 80's Cold War trivia - 'This is only a test. In the event of an actual attack...' - and I realized in some way this next novel is about those days, and those demons.

Anyways. The coolest thing about the memorial was not even the tower, but this:


Two of these sphinxes face each other, theirs faces covered by their wings, shielding them from the past and the future. I must have stood and stared at them for like ten minutes.



This is a view of downtown, looking down on Union Station, a gorgeous old train station that is now a musuem. We viewed a bizarre but fascinating human body exhibit there that showcased the preserved remains of people who donated their bodies to science. Hopefully I will get a chance to go back soon; my friend Sugu is coming back from Japan to KC for a few weeks in August. I'd love to go back and visit my aunt, as well as do some more research now I know I'm setting the book here.

162 Days

I had the strangest dream last night; it went on forever (no doubt a few seconds), the longest sustained I recall having recently. I was in Germany, on vacation or something, with my mother - or my father, I wasn't sure; they seemed to be in between parents and would change with the course of the dream. At the end they were old and unrecognizable. Germany, I can't explain. We were visiting some sort of musuem or gallery. We walked around and someone told us we had spent 162 days inside. A beautiful woman with green eyes said something to me on the way out. She may have been the one to mention the 162 days, but I'm not sure. She spoke with an accent and seemed intent on getting a lot of words in as we left. We went outside, into a cobblestone street draped with banners for some festival, and that was it. The dream has stayed with me all day, mostly because it makes no sense. I used to have very vivid dreams; there is one from when I was 15 that I remember to this day. Not so much anymore. In some ways you feel like you miss something; and in others, you don't. Some were nightmares that followed you around in the day.

Anyways. Gathering lots of bits for the next novel. Soon she will start to coalesce and take form. Maybe this weekend and I can get to the first chapter.

The Alchemy of Stone

Good friend Kat's novel The Alchemy of Stone is due soon, so you should go pick up a copy here at Amazon, where she also has a blog. The book is fantastic; it's strange, disconcerting and features weird robot sex. But don't take it from me. Publisher's Weekly gave it a starred review. Scroll down a bit to see it.

Congrats Kat!

Update: Justine Larbalestier has a fun post on her blog about the art of blurbing as it specifically relates to Kat's new book, which Justine really likes.

Mars Can Support Life. Like Right Now.

For reals.

Dig it. The universe will always amaze. I suppose I should say something about me. Not much to say. My mom is very sick. I'm working 10 and 12 hour days. Gathering material for my next novel. They form, these books, like planets almost; gathering lose dust from every corner of creation, accreting until something round and significant emerges. Sometimes something bigger runs into them and they go boom or become something better. Sometimes the process takes years. Decades.

I seriously do not have time to be building novels on a planetary scale. Message to Darby: think moons. Asteroids are also nice.

Iowapocalypse

My brother Aaron sent me this photo taken of the tornado that struck Osage this month - credit unknown, but good Lord, this person had ice for veins.

I'm sure most of you have seen the floods/tornadoes/general calamity on the news. Waterloo, Cedar Falls and of course Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, most of all, all led the national news for nearly a week now. Parts of CR looked like New Orleans after Katrina. It's been the worst anyone has ever seen it and while the water has receeded almost into its banks here, many west side businesses are damaged, totaled, still closed. Two bridges remain closed. Most importantly, many homes have been lost. All week I've been left with this fatigue, this residue of anxiety and if I ever thought I knew what it was to be in the center of impending disaster, I had no clue.

After

After work today I went around on the bike with my camera to get a sense of downtown after the flood; even though the water remains very very high, the river has fallen nearly 10 feet since yesterday, and the bridges reopened this morning. Some of them; Park and 6th street may be out of commission for a while, and the railroad bridge?


You can see what the force of the water did to the rail itself:


The river broke the bridge in two:


On Tuesday the rumor was that the broken half travelled down river and took out the 11th street bridge as well, but this didn't happen. The east side did nearly flood as a result of the breach the bridge made in the levee wall, which volunteers from all over the city secured with very hard work:


Sandbags also saved the Fairview cemetery, where the flood waters attempted to end run the dikes. That cast iron fence there in the bottom ? It's nearly ten feet off the ground in most places. The water just two days ago exposed only its very tips. If the river had sneaked through here, the east side would have been deluged:


The old boat house across the hill from the cemetery did not survive, though. On Tuesday, it was completely submerged and collapsed:


Tireless efforts by Waterloo citizens filling and deploying sandbags all over the city prevented even more damage than we suffered; no doubt these efforts spared us the difficult circumstances that the people of Cedar Rapids and Iowa City face. You can only pray for them, and wonder why some, and not others.

Tim Russert 1950-2008

For as long as I've been interested in politics and journalism, I've always been interested in Tim Russert. Meet The Press is always a big part of my Sunday, and during every Tuesday night this primary season and for every other I can remember, I was tuned to NBC. I was shocked to learn he had died today. Right now MSNBC is running a sustained eulogy delivered by friends and colleagues of his, all of them commenting on his importance as a public figure, and as a man. I will say of Tim Russert that he proves the American dream: we live in a country divided between high and low brow, red state and blue state, conservative and liberal, rich and poor and here was a working class kid from Buffalo that proved smarts, integrity, persistence and objectivity are all American things.

Flood + Other Calamities Day 2

Today I woke up to more rumors - the water had been turned off, the town evacuated - part of it was, anyway - and a few harsh truths. My mom had to see the doctor this morning because of severe pain and very high blood pressure. I'm in the waiting room running down info on the deterorating situation in town on one hand while at the same time gathering the same kind of sense of what was happening to my mom. There are few perfect storms in life, and this was one. Thank God my mom is out of the woods; unfortunately the woods are part of a much larger general foresty region that the docor says is dense and widespread and we'll know we're out of it when we're out of it. Same with the flood. The river level is receding some, but it rained today and will tonight and tomorrow; a tornado just destroyed a boy scout camp in Sioux City, killing four apparently, and now that same system is headed this way. It seems Biblical, the weather these past few weeks.

I helped for a few hours in the afternoon, sandbagging at the DOT where they turned a garage into the fastest sandbag production line in history. Hundreds of people, a thousand maybe, turned out, including members of the UNI football and basketball teams. I sholved and bagged and threw bags and as many as I did just in that short time, they're still doing it now and will continue to until we're out of those aforementioned dark and uncertain woods. There's a curfew in downtown Waterloo where I am so it's quiet and strange outside. Except for the wind. It's coming up. Naturally.

And Noah Chose Two Of Everything

So about noon at work today someone says they've closed all the bridges in town because of the flooding river, and if you live on the east side, like me, it's time to go now. And it certainly was, since one of those bridges, the 6th street railroad bridge, failed and collapsed around that same time. My brother left his work a little bit later and picked me up. We along with thousands of others made this long trek around the city to get over to the east side, eventually finding a way through across Conger. The houses on Sans Souci island, always in danger of flooding, were under water up to the second floor windows. So we made it back, stocked up on bottled water - getting the last cases at the Hy-Vee - and prepared for - what? We weren't sure. Rumors flew and fly pretty fast still; they were turning the water off. The lights. The 11th street bridge failed too (it didn't).

So far things are okay, for us, but the river is yet to crest and more rain is coming. We have maybe five feet to give on the dikes down at the river; if the river breaches them our neighborhood along with most of Waterloo will be victim to flood waters that are 26 feet over flood stage. These are the highest in my lifetime, and apparently getting close to the highest ever. It's strange to be packing a bag with a set of clothes, medicines and important things - documents, mementos - in anicipation the dikes will fail and you'll have five minutes - maybe - to get the hell out of Dodge. I hope it doesn't come to that. What frustrates me even more is that my mother is ill, shingles they think, and I've been worried over that for weeks and the entire time I'm thinking: what if she needs to go to the hospital? How do I get to the hospital? What if we have to leave town? Where do we go? Can we even get out? Black Hawk county is already a disaster area; it has been since the tornado that struck Parkersburg. This has already been a difficult spring. Hopefully it's a better summer.

Parkersburg

Sunday an F4 tornado destroyed most of Parkersburg, a small town about 10 miles north of Waterloo. It killed seven people, destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses, and made a war zone out of several towns. The same tornado persisted for nearly an hour, blazing a path across several counties into Waterloo along Dunkerton road, where it destroyed several homes a previous tornado did in 2000. My house is roughly 3 miles from the path the twister took through the city, and we didn't get a single drop of rain. There was never any thunder, only the sound of an avalanche, sustained, for nearly fifteen minutes; when I was a kid, my mom said tornadoes sounded like trains, and living less than a mile from the train yards, I can finally say, yes they do. They sound like trains from hell.

Several people at work were affected by the tornado as well. A lot of people say, that's life in Iowa. One minute, it's blue skies and sunshine, the next it's snow. Rain. Tornadoes. A lot of people say, nothing ever happens in Iowa. I think that's a good thing, in the end. A lot of people say, I'm glad that didn't happen to me. You get up, go to work, eat the same lunch you pack everyday and people sift through the wreckage for belongings, memories, bodies, and will tomorrow, until it's done. That's what Iowans do, too. We get up, and go on.

The Hawkeye Chapter of the Red Cross is assisting families and taking donations:

Please help.