If you’re braining yourself on a wall, should you continue? No.
Let’s say you’re me and you’re trying to stay on top of this whole writing thing while about a bazillion other things are going on. Dayjob, domicile maintenance, restocking pantries, getting fresh booze. If writing isn’t your primary vocation, you’ll have even less of this elusive thing called ‘free time’ from which to carve out the precious moments in which you make words appear from nothingness. You should spend it writing, not agonizing over whether or not you want to cause yourself pain through writing.
You see, you’re not always going to love what you write. In fact, there are times when you’re going to hate it. Maybe you’re just sick of a work in general, or perhaps you’re kicking yourself in the gonads for a particular aspect of it. The opening may slog, the characters may feel uninteresting, there’s no tension, the action has no bite to it, so on and so forth. Whatever the reason, opening that file or notebook now fills you with a profound sense of dread and/or nausea.
Yes, writing is work and work means not always doing what you want but rather what you must. But be honest with yourself. It may be time to put your project aside and strike up another. There may be a fundamental flaw that, given your proximity to the work, you’re simply not seeing.
The important thing is that you don’t stop writing. And while scribbling on cocktail napkins or rambling in a blog is all well & good, you need to keep up with your primary area of focus, be it speculative fiction or mouth-watering recipes. Write what you want when you can, and just like you shouldn’t be afraid to try something new, you also shouldn’t be afraid to put something aside that just isn’t working. You can always come back to it later. And who knows? Maybe those old ideas can be pulled into something new, provided they don’t turn into a lead weight that drags the whole thing down into the depths of the Stygian pit.
He’d first caught a glimpse of her true form after two years in the lock-up.
They couldn’t fool him. Words like ‘hospital’ and ‘mental ward’ were kindly terms for ‘prison’. He was a prisoner. He couldn’t remember why they kept him here, feeding him chunks of dog food in sewage gravy, denying him his shoelaces and talking to him like he was five years old. But he hated it. He hated every second of it.
Every once in a while, there had been peace; moments that blended together into a meaningless lump of dulled senses, vague lukewarm sentiment and pithy reinforcement from the Beamer-drivers in charge. He remembered week or month-long stretches of time in which he felt calm but not himself, like he was always wearing earmuffs and a thick, gauzy veil. They would call it ‘happy’ but he considered that too strong a word; no strong emotion applied at all when he felt that way. ‘Normal’ was an even more bogus term they tossed around. It never lasted. They kept trying to put him back there, though, with upped dosages and increased voltage and longer group therapy sessions.
And then he saw her.
It had just been out of the corner of his eye, at first. A glimmer, a phantasm, a touch of whispered laughter. As time went on he’d see another wisp, get a longer view of what may have been smoke, hear her voice over his shoulder more clearly. At first he told himself he was hallucinating, that it was the drugs or something. But she became harder and harder to ignore. She’d touch his shoulders in group, brush past him in the hall, even visit him in bed at night only to leave him alone in the morning with sweat and sticky sheets. By that point nobody could convince him that she was fake. How could the only good thing left in his life be imaginary?
Her presence brought things into focus. The drugs stopped working. The shock therapy became a distant thing, pushed aside by her presence. He’d burst out laughing in group because she whispered something funny in his ear. He wanted to be with her so much it hurt, but it was something they’d never allow. So even before she told him how to do it, he was thinking of escaping.
When he threw a chair at the small, old-fashioned television, people were surprised. The tube tossed sparks in a really impressive fashion, and once they died out he saw what he needed on the floor. Orderlies came running in, a couple with syringes and one with a taser. He wasn’t going to let them stop him. He scooped up the biggest shard of glass from the floor, and when the stun-gun guy came at him, he opened up a long bloody hole in the orderly’s scrubs. There were screams and more blood and before he knew it he had one of the nurses by the throat, screaming for the door to open as he held the glass to her pulse. The weak men obeyed and he was free.
He ran through the corridors to find the stairs. He wasn’t sure where to go at first, then he saw her beckoning him upwards. He took the stairs two at a time and when the door opened, sunlight washed over him. Blinded for a moment, he held up his bloody hand as his eyes adjusted. Apparently they had lied to him. He wasn’t in a hospital downtown.
He was on the mountain trail where he’d met his wife.
The memory flooded back with razor-sharp clarity. The view was gorgeous, spreading out below him like a green and brown carpet. He’d been hiking the trail and found her sitting off to the side with a sprained ankle and a busted bike. He’d let her lean on him as he carried them both down the mountain. They visited the mountain many times before and after they were married.
Things were good for a while. Before the miscarriage, the booze, the fights and the tears. Before she’d get angry at him for so much as looking at another woman. Before he started having trouble holding a job. Before he’d come home to find her in the tub with a glass of wine, a bottle of pills and wrists slashed open.
He’d never understood why she’d left him alone like that. Didn’t everybody have trouble with relationships? Weren’t all marriages rocky at times? He’d told her they could work it out. Why didn’t she believe him? He’d wept for her, wrapped her in their wedding-gift bedsheets, carried her outside and set the house on fire. The judge had ruled ‘not guilty due to mental defect’ and that was how he’d been in that hospital.
Only she hadn’t left him alone. She had been there, smiling at him, laying with him, reminding him of the good times they’d lost but could have again. And now she toyed with him, laughing a little, beckoning him closer. He took uncertain steps, the gravel beneath his feet not the familiar gravel of the mountain trail. Not anymore. The trees were replaced by air conditioning units and TV arials. The valley was no longer full of forests but now full of cars and, directly beneath him, started gawking people. Cars with flashing lights would arrive.
And there she was, somehow floating off the edge of the hospital. Her smile was radiant. He could see her clearly, now, when before it had been just a glimmer. She held out her arms. Her wrists were whole. He wanted to badly to lose himself in her embrace, forget all the darkness, be her husband again. He stepped towards her.
“Be with me,” she whispered.
His feet touched air. His body tilted forward. He was still reaching for her. Maybe she was really still waiting for him. He smiled on the way down.
Bunraku is a preposterous title for a film, and also slightly pretentious. It refers not to a character or a location, but rather a type of Japanese shadow play, a theatrical production using puppets that tells broad stories based on archetype and fable. It’d be like naming Flash Gordon “Raygun Gothic Adventure with Queen.” Or Taken “Liam Neeson Driven Suspense Action”. Or GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra “Giant Letdown.” On the other hand, nobody can accuse Bunraku of being less than what it promises in the title, and if someone is disappointed by the film, it should not be on the basis of said promise. And if you’re an ignorant Westerner who doesn’t know what bunraku is, the opening sequence gives you a demonstration while the narrator sets the scene.
In the not too distant future, mankind has waged war to the point that people have finally taken notice of how atrocious, unnecessary and dehumanizing modern warfare actually is (the actual warfare, that is, not the first-person shooter). Guns are universally outlawed in the wake of some sort of war-driven cataclysm and folks now have to get by settling their disputes with edged weapons and bare fists. The most powerful man east of the Atlantic with these methods is Nicholai the Woodcutter and his nine numbered assassins. Into Nicholai’s favorite casino comes a nameless Drifter who’s quick and deadly with his hands, while his favorite restaurant’s owner has a nephew who’s a driven but compassionate and well-spoken samurai. Can you guess how these two strangers are going to get along? If you guessed “they team up to take down Nicholai and the colorful array of supporting trained killers”, try not to break your arm patting yourself on the back.
Bunraku is a film that seems to have no time whatsoever for things like character or plot development. What it plays on is themes, mood and metaphor. That said, the character work that does happen isn’t all that bad. Josh Hartnett continues to demonstrate the sort of chops that earned Clint Eastwood his immortal spurs, while his samurai friend is played with surprising conviction (if a bit of melodrama) by Gackt. If you can tear your eyes away from these fine specimens of driven and handsome young men, you’ll find Woody Harrelson in an understated mentor role while Kevin McKidd give us a villain arguably more memorable than his imposing boss, played by none other than Ron Perlman. The other actors, including Demi Moore, don’t have much more than bit roles but we’re honestly not here for introspection as much as we are for spectacle of seeing Slevin & an extremely attractive musician take on Hellboy & Poseidon.
Lucius Vorenus got himself an excellent tailor.
Unlike your typical Hollywood big-budget explosionfest, Bunraku‘s style comes from its unique setting, composition and pacing. The best thing about it is how stylistically striking the whole production is. Some of the longer shots are truly impressive in their construction, while transitions and even entire scenes are works of art in and of themselves. It’s the sort of film where ‘eye candy’ extends past the attractive cast and bright orange explosive special effects. It’s also something of a low-key musical, with a pervasive but atmospheric score adding tension and pace to the many fights, which have the energy and passion of large production dance numbers without everybody breaking into song. With this sort of energy and drive coupled with a unique aesthetic somewhere between a Western and an Akira Kurosawa film, here’s always something cool to look at, which means Bunraku will not leave you bored.
It may, however, leave you somewhat empty. As I said, there’s very little depth to the characters or plot. Playing as it does on broad themes and the sort of metaphorical storytelling reserved for fairy tales and the like, Bunraku isn’t going to set the world on fire with its story. And as impressive as the sets, shots and fights are, many viewers may draw parallels between Sin City or Kill Bill. For better or worse, Bunraku does have a much more diverse color palate than Frank Miller’s work and not as much verbosity or as many oblique references as Tarantino’s. It’s a kissing cousin to these other works at most, and it goes about its simple but stylish little tale with admirable gusto, unfettered by Miller’s monochromatic cynicism or Tarantino’s obsession with grindhouse flicks and Uma Thurman’s toes.
You wish your bartender was this cool.
If anything, it reminds me most of indie darling and Game of the Year, Bastion. The bright colors, vibrant combat, initially simple characters and even the smooth tones of the world-wise narrator immediately bring that experience to mind, in a very positive way. While Bunraku lacks the ultimate emotional depth of that game, it does keep your eyes occupied and imagination delighted for its running time, and on its visual panache and enthusiastic presentation alone I’m going to give it a recommendation. It’s not groundbreaking or anything but it’s at least trying to go about storytelling in a slightly different way, even if the archetypes and themes are older than dirt, but I’d rather have an older fable told well than a pandering remake or sequel of a recent work take up my time. Although, in the latter case, you can replace the words “take up” with the more accurate and expedient “waste”. I’m glad I spent some time with Bunraku, and if you’re looking in your Netflix Instant queue for a production with a great deal of panache, a bit of whimsy, some grown-up themes and unapologetic devotion to unique framing devices, I think you will be too.
Josh Loomis can’t always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it’s unclear if this week’s film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain… IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.
I am not a pundit. I don’t get a lot of hits here. I’m not a celebrity or a pro gamer or even all that well-known. I’m just a guy who loves the Internet.
I know that the society can get pretty disparate and broken at times, with dark little corners full of all kinds of depravity. It’s like any large city, only the Internet has hundreds of millions of inhabitants and instead of crowding into buses and subways, we use various kinds of data transmission to work, to play, to communicate and live. Disparate though we may be, there are times when we work together in a common goal.
Yesterday was one of those times.
Yesterday I saw the Internet come together because the rights of free speech are threatened. Sites went dark. People lodged protests. They posted videos, sang songs, called Congressmen. And one by one, politicians who were likely well-paid by a bloated and antiquated entertainment industry walked away from the bill in question because they realised it was badly written and poorly thought out.
Today I suspect a lot of people will go back to business as usual, to their LoLcats and Let’s Plays and cooking videos and midget porn.
There’s something really sad about that.
What’s sad is that this community bent towards freedom and individuality can come together in this way over the rights of its predominantly white male user base, but when it comes to the rights of disenfranchised minorities being held without trial or due process, or the rights of young children who weren’t born white to have a decent education guided by teachers paid well for what they do, or the rights of women to choose how, when and why their bodies are used and regarded, the voice isn’t anywhere near as strong or united.
I know mine isn’t the biggest voice on the Internet. Mine is not the uniting force. Were I to run for King of the Web or participate in any similar competition I’d get absolutely flattened. My corner of the Internet is tiny.
But I’m going to stand up and shout in it anyway.
SOPA is not the only injustice. PIPA is but one of many miscarriages of liberty. Yes, yesterday can be counted as a victory, and we need to keep the pressure on until these idiotic bills die the incendiary deaths they deserve, but they’re not the only problem with which we can help. Many more egregious problems are extant in the world, problems we have just as much access to as we do YouTube and Reddit; where are the funky songs about them? Why aren’t more people speaking out against them? Where is the Internet that shouted back at the laws they disagreed with because it affected them directly? Does the Internet just not care?
I’d like to think we do. I’ll be the first to admit I lean more towards naive, starry-eyed optimism than anything else, but in my heart I believe that common sense and goodwill can and does prevail over selfishness, maliciousness and greed. And I can’t even point to most people I know & respect on the Internet and accuse them of any of that. Short-sightedness and more than a little anger, maybe, but not maliciousness and certainly not greed. The people I aspire to stand with don’t do what they do for the ad revenue.
After yesterday’s activities I was fully prepared to admonish my fellow Internet denizens to remain watchful of government bodies and fat entertainment moguls. The Internet is a free and open forum, after all, and the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. But to that request I feel I must add another.
Don’t stop caring. We’ve proven that when we work together, have a clear goal in mind and remain motivated by speaking to, for and about each other, we can accomplish great things. The only way we can be stopped when it comes to standing up for our rights and the rights of those who have none or can’t speak for themselves is when we, ourselves, stop giving a shit.
