Concrete Nativity

It was our church's children's pageant last Sunday, but instead of staging yet another play, they elected to do something different. 

Everyone was seated at tables instead of in rows, and each table had a different nativity set on it. As the children read the various scriptures of the Christmas narrative, we were all encouraged to pick up a different nativity figurine from our table and provide dialogue when prompted. For example, when the person at the front read, "soon after the baby was born, Joseph said...",  since I was holding the Joseph figure, I responded to my tablemates, "Actually he kind of does look like me, doesn't he?"

It was a fun and engaging service, and in addition to being highly interactive, it prompted us all to look at the oh-so-familiar Christ story from a different perspective, and I think some of that is due to the outrageous variety of nativity sets in play. There were realistic ones and cartoon ones, modern ones and classic ones, some from other cultures, an abstract one, and even a Peanuts nativity with Charlie Brown as Joseph and Lucy as Mary.

Like Shakespeare, people have transposed Biblical stories into other settings since forever, and looking at the panoply of creches and characters around the tables, I started to daydream about a modern North American setting for a story about the birth of Christ (and I know, I am hardly the first to do so!).

It doesn't translate too well in terms of a nativity set, but I can't shake the image of a concrete parking garage in a medium-sized hotel with a "No Vacancy" sign visible outside. The interior is bleak and grimy but not filthy, barren and desolate but heated.

When picturing Mary, I don't necessarily see a frightened girl in her early teens, as being with child at 14 or 15 was hardly out of place in first-century Palestine. I imagine someone young nonetheless, presumably questioning their own mental health having no father present, and only visions and dreams giving any indication as to his true identity. Maybe they've left university or college to deliver a baby under exceptionally trying circumstances. 

Which brings us to Joseph - does a modern retelling require a husband? I have had two friends conceive children without a partner because the pull of motherhood was that strong to them. Original Mary would have died without Joseph's willingness to take her in, and modern-day Mary can certainly use the support. Maybe our Joseph is her father or step-father, someone who thought he was done with raising children, but whose love for his daughter prompts him to step in and help once more.

And amidst all this, I picture three unhoused people with animals (a one-eyed dog, a mangy cat carried in a pocket, a tame rate perched on a shoulder) to replace the shepherds, who would not have looked like cute children with tea towel headdresses. Shepherds were perennial outsiders who spent most of the year sleeping oustide with their flock, keeping them from straying and protecting them from wolves. They would not have spent any time at all worrying about their clothes or hair, and would have appeared and smelled distressing to 'civilized' folk even then. How reassuring would it even be to have such rough folk assure Mary that 'sky people' or extraterrestrials had told them about her special baby, and thus paying their respects?

But there would also be renowned scientists staying at a convention at the same hotel. Drawn to the garage by an inexplicable phenomenon, they could assure Mary that the previous visitors were correct; her newborn child is both special and expected. What gifts might they bring - a warm jacket, an expensive watch, a synthetic diamond used in a demonstration?

The nativity is a difficult story to reimagine with modern sensibilities, when God no longer guides us with pillars of fire in the desert or burning bushes, nor corrects us with floods or plagues. A woman claiming to be impregnated by God was nearly stoned then, and would almost certainly be institutionalized now. The interactions and conversations are hard to reinterpret in a time where everyone must maintain some degree of both skepticism and cynicism.

But when I close my eyes, it is stunningly easy to picture the tableau; a gritty and dim cement enclosure, a rough shelter containing a radiant mother, a concerned father figure, wanderers, wise men, and of course, a miraculous baby, as all babies are.

Merry Christmas!

(Yet another interpretation)

Little Man Writ Large - Napoleon, Reviewed

Sir Ridley Scott's Napoleon was a movie I had really hoped to see in IMAX, but with the whole household suffering from colds at the time it was released, it was just not to be. Today, a month later, Audrey and I finally got to see it, and since our anniversary is on Tuesday, we splurged on VIP seats.

I highly suggest VIP for this film but really all movies over two-and-a-half hours. That's not to say Napoleon feels long; Napoleon Bonaparte's life was eventful enough that you are never left dangling for an excessive amount of time before there is some more political intrigue, or another battle or another development in his relationship with Josephine.

And this relationship is really the hinge of the movie almost every time it is away from the battlefield. Now, I like history, but know very little about post-revolutionary France and everything I know about the Napoleonic wars comes from the books and shows about Richard Sharpe. Which, to be fair, has tremendous content about the period, but very little about Napoleon himself.

Joaquin Phoenix does an excellent job portraying a man at once confident of his abilities yet insecure about his place in the world. His infatuation and dedication to Josephine (Vanessa Kirby) is both understandable and inexplicable, sometimes within the same scene.

Kirby's performance is mercurial, and takes Josephine from a widowed aristocrat to the Empress of France, but the story is forced to focus on her marital indiscretions and inability to produce an heir. 

It is all handled very well, and the sets and costumes are sumptuous, but the scale of the battle scenes are what made the movie a standout for me, particularly Austerlitz and Waterloo. I am certain CGI must have been used, not once could I point out any poorly rendered bits or uncanny valleys. There are no impossible establishing shots, or cameras following cannonballs or mortar shells into the shocked faces of their targets. 

Whether watching from above as shells shatter the ice around fleeing infantry, or circling a British square with hapless French cavalry, the exquisite balance between order and chaos that Sir Ridley is known for keeps you transfixed. It is nothing short of amazing that he filmed this entire epic in 61 days, but with him using 11 cameras simultaneously for each battle, maybe more credit should be given to his lead editor, Claire Simpson.

Sadly, as much as I want Scott to win a Best Director Oscar one of these days, I don't think Napoleon is the film to give it to him. Maybe it is the lack of surprises, maybe Joaquin channeling "Old Boney's" egocentrism makes him too difficult to relate to, but there was just not enough of an emotional connection to the story to engage me the way, say, Black Hawk Down did. Maybe he will have better luck with Gladiator 2 next year?

At any rate, there is still a lot to like for history and movie buffs alike - the sets, costumes, hair, and such are amazing, and the battle sequences even more so. But at 2:38, make sure to choose a comfortable seat.

The Cup of Cheer

Years ago, decades actually, I stumbled across a collection of slow cooker recipes in a Cerlox-bound book at Costco (or maybe even Price Club from when we lived in Etobicoke). It was curated by Good Housekeeping and because I am an intrinsically lazy person who loves hot meals, it seemed like a good investment. 20+ years later, it still gets regular looks in, particularly for the Hot Buttered Apple Rum on page 23.

Now, I am not a particularly ambitious person in the kitchen, especially if you go back a decade or two, but this warm punch recipe had very few ingredients in it and all of them were easy to find. Honestly, the toughest part was the cheesecloth, which I think I found at either Safeway or possibly The Bay, so, yeah - not too difficult.

We have a coffee butler kind of thing that holds an entire batch (nearly 2 L) and keeps it hot for hours and have kept this recipe on hand for potlucks, sledding parties, winter open houses and sometimes just 'cause.

You can make it with or without adding rum, and most times we do, although either way I recommend maybe using a bit less brown sugar than they suggest, and most people who have had it really, really express a lot of appreciation for it.

My favourite way to serve it is in the Irish coffee glasses Audrey got me as an anniversary present many years ago, with a wee pat of butter floated on top (seriously, it adds tremendous taste and texture to the whole thing). I put some in the crock pot this morning before leaving for church and shared a glass with my sister when she came for supper. And for me, sharing that drink with her? That is when it really, really started to feel like Christmas is coming.

I don't know what it is about hot boozy beverages that put me in mind of the holidays, and family gatherings and suchlike. Dad always loved finishing up meals out with a cup of coffee and a wee glass of Drambuie or something similar. and both Tara and I inherited our mother's love of Irish coffees and the infinite copycats and similar drinks. But I remember serving a glass to someone who was a little unsure what to expect, and having taken a big sip once it had cooled, beamed at me while bringing their shoulders closer to their ears and proclaiming, "it's like drinking a hug."

There are more of you reading this that I would like to hug than I am reasonably going to encounter in the next little while, so, if you are so inclined, I invite you to make a batch of Hot Buttered Apple Rum, and think warmly of our household when you drink, preferably on a frosty day.

Gone to the Dogs: Skye's Arrival

 For almost a month and a half now we have been a two-dog household. 

Skye's owner had a situation that made keeping her untenable, and she had heard how well Canéla had done with us since adopting her in 2021 and hoped we would be able to re-house her. 

Truth be told, we are okay being a one-dog home, but with Fenya and Bobby recently moving to a pet-friendly building in Toronto, there was an opportunity here to get this 16 lb allegedly Havanese mutt into a nice situation in another province.

After some false starts and an apparently heartbreaking departure from her other home, Skye (yes, same as the one in Paw Patrol) joined us on October 24. 

She is a sweetie, but knowing she was an impulse purchase from the pet store in West Edmonton Mall that closed down suddenly years ago may go some way to explaining not only the cryptic nature of her breed (as she looks almost nothing like a Havanese and probably has as much Cuban blood as I do) but also some of her various neuroses.

Oh yes, she is a cute one, but not without issues.

For openers, she has a distaste for being alone that borders on psychosis, snuffing under closed doors until becoming borderline hypoxic, and scratching relentlessly at the kitchen door when we were trying to limit her travels to linoleum while we assessed her housetraining.

She also did not let the fact that she is less than 15 pounds stop her from tearing down a metal baby gate we had set up for the same purpose.

Her parkour skills make containment difficult as well - she is fully capable of jumping onto Glory's bed which is actually an inch higher than the kitchen table. But while we have never seen her go directly from the floor to the table, she has traversed the living room floor to the love seat to the recliner back and over the room divider onto the kitchen table several times now.

Housetraining-wise, while we were told she was pee-pad trained, the two times she has used the ones set out here in the past 40-odd days can probably be dismissed as random chance, and she has been known to drop onto them for a nap as well, so...

But the worst experience came the day after her arrival; perhaps an hour after Glory suggested putting a pool noodle or something under the wooden gate in the back yard, Skye got out, presumably under said gate, which I had suggested was physically impossible.

This prompted a frantic, hour-long search for her by Audrey and I, first on foot, then in two separate vehicles, catching and then losing sight of her in the neighbourhood and being told by a lovely lady who drove over from Griesbach to help catch her that she saw Skye on Castledowns Road.

The feeling of helplessness and anguish, coupled with the thought of telling Fenya and Bobby that we had lost their new pet before they even met her threw my guts into turmoil. By chance, I saw others chasing her in a residential area nearly 2 km from our home and roared down the street to cut her off. 

Blue icon in upper right is our place, red pin is where I found her

It still took another ten minutes to actually catch her, with her dodging and outrunning four of us. Once I picked her up though, she snuggled closely into my neck, which prompted an "aww" from one of the pursuers and a comment of, "guess we know who the dad is" from another.

This prompted an hour of securing the yard with a wooden board on the gate and krazy karpets threaded between the iron fence railings before I collapsed in an exhausted but relieved heap.

It is tough not to feel some sense of rejection when this happens, but it really is natural; Skye had not been with us even 24 hours when this happened, and naturally there would be a compulsion to return to the former home. But since then things have adjusted pretty well around here for the most part.

We have abandoned attempts to have her sleep in the kennel as she would scratch at the gate and bark for up to two hours before finally falling asleep. Since none of us seem to be allergic, it has just been easier to let her sleep in our bed, which is only really a challenge when Canéla jostles with her for space or is surprised by Skye in the night. This dog has a deep-seated need to be as close to humans as possible (preferably Audrey, who now routinely leads a parade of dogs around the house like a Disney princess).

Canéla, meanwhile, has done a very decent job adjusting to having another dog in the house, although she clearly wants Skye to engage in more play with her (but maybe she doesn't know how? many of her behaviours are more cat-like, frankly). There are some small traces of jealousy and maybe even pouting on Canéla's part, but on the whole, she has been gentle and accommodating with her new roommate. Skye has only recently begun playing with the various dog toys we have around, but that may have been a physical issue as well.  

It turns out that Skye's diet was almost exclusively boiled chicken, and this meant her teeth were neither getting scraped by kibble or biscuits nor cleaned at the vet. As a result, we recently discovered the poor thing has an abscessed molar that is infected and needs to be removed, along with 7-9 other teeth. The vet we took her to says she may not have chewed on the infected side of her mouth for 6 months to a year but is now gamely eating kibble mixed with soft food (to make sure she gets enough eaten with her antibiotics). 

Despite all her neuroses, Skye is not a complainer, so who knows how much this discomfort might be impacting her behaviour? I never saw her pick up a toy until after starting on antibiotics. Maybe we haven't even met the real dog yet, who is already established as being a bit of a character.

The original plan was for Fenya and Bobby to take Skye back with them in November, as they came to Edmonton for his Master's convocation (congrats again Bobby!), but they have had no luck finding anyone who could keep her over the Christmas holidays while we are all in Texas together. Currently, it looks like Skye will stay with us before and after Christmas, and hopefully, Bobby's family can take her in while we are away.

But even if that doesn't work out, I am confident we can find someone to house her for ten days or so; she is pretty undeniably cute, after all. Who wouldn't want to assist a helpless dog with a smile like this?

Not Bond, But Not Bad - 007: Road To A Million, Reviewed

Honestly, the premise sounds pretty cringey: take 9 pairs of ordinary people, and put them in contrived but legitimately challenging situations, hunting for questions in a variety of exotic locales akin to a James Bond movie, all while an unseen antagonist leads them and taunts them by phone and taped messages from (presumably) some sort of lair, all in pursuit of one million pounds. There is very little reason for this to work, but for our money, it really did.

We are all home sick with dreadful colds this weekend, so last night the three of us powered through the last three episodes of 007: Road To a Million on Amazon Prime. I am not really a fan of reality TV, but I am a fan of the Bond films, and since this show was actually co-produced by EON Productions, I hoped it would be a worthwhile view.

Smartly, they removed the competitive aspect right away, and none of the nine teams ever meet (although I might have liked to see them comparing notes once all was said and done). And all nine pairs of Brits seemed like decent and likable folks - no strong overbearing personalities, no manufactured drama, no smack talk. 

No doubt there will be folks who find the tremendous support and encouragement offered by these teams to be dull or saccharine. But one of the best moments for me was when one pair finds out they have to traverse between a group of restrained but ferocious-sounding dogs in a darkened warehouse to reach their objective, and you discover one of them is dog-phobic. The matter-of-fact way the other tells his best friend, "Right, hand on my shoulder, you follow me, yeah? If I turn and run, you follow," and they carry-on was a stand-out moment for me.

The general knowledge-type questions they have to answer (in a high-tech briefcase with a video-display and labeled smoke grenades to reveal the correct answer) are not the most challenging, because the challenge is often in finding the case to begin with. In the first episode, it involves marching for hours across the Scottish highlands before entering waist-deep water to retrieve it. In almost every case, the contestants talk about the role fatigue plays in their deduction, half the suspense comes from watching people talk themselves out of what may well be the correct answer.

So yes, the challenge is there, but what makes it Bond?  Three things, in my estimation:

THE LOCALES - From the Scottish Highlands to Chile's Atacama Desert to St. Mark's Square in Venice, the settings are always amazing. There are no car chases and few explosions but the backdrops (like an enormous solar farm, a Formula 1 raceway and a pass through the Swiss Alps) look like they would be right at home for Bond set-piece. Much of the filming of the contestants is hand-held of course, but the amazing aerial shots and panoramic views mark this every bit an EON Production.

THE MUSIC - The showrunners make full use of the Bond soundtracks here, from the remixed 007 theme in the titles to Hans Zimmer's "Square Escape" that closes out each episode. Every new locale is treated to an appropriate bit of score and they make great use of some familiar Bond songs too, playing "We Have All The Time In The World" to console one couple who failed to complete a challenge in time.

THE VOICE - Brian Cox as the mysterious "Controller" is really in his element here, doling out clues, clucking his tongue as he strikes a line through a team's name, and welcoming the players over a hidden P.A. system in later episodes. Apparently, he thought he was signing on for an actual Bond film, but he is either having the time of his life playing a villain to the hilt ("That's a lot of money...are you sure that's the right answer?") or treating this as his audition for the real thing. Either way, we viewers are the winners.

Best of all, the Bond references are by and large subtle ones - no garish voice-over or subtitles telling you which move was shot where, just an appearance of a classic setting or the occasional classic vehicle. The whole presentation is much more about the style than direct callbacks.

And my compliments to the casters; I would have liked to see any of these teams go the distance, but some flame out tragically early while others go quite a bit further on. Watching them overcome their challenges is a real treat, and a welcome bit of positivity for a TV genre that doesn't seem to appreciate that a lot.

I won't say it scratches the Bond itch per se, but with a new movie still years away, it salves it a bit, and has a few genuine surprises along the way.

Official Trailer

Boon Companions

Five of the six of us playing in my Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign got together last night for the first time in a long time; work demands kept the other away, tragically.

It turns out that a few of us had very rough weeks leading up to Saturday. I found out that a co-worker and friend from Games Workshop had passed away suddenly at 49. Another friend discovered he has a six-week window to move his aging mother to a different facility due to nursing changes where she is. And a third discovered a long-time friend had been diagnosed with prostate cancer which had metastasized into their lymph nodes, and did not have long to live.

Now, we are not the kind of group that ever worries about ticking enough boxes on the societal manliness checklist, but some of those stereotypes exist for a reason. One of them is "men are reluctant to talk about how they feel," and sometimes, maybe even a lot of times, that applies to us. We do not typically indulge in a lot of gnashing of teeth and rending of garments and the like, but last night, we all felt compelled to unburden ourselves a little.

We talked about how ill-equipped we feel in dealing with peer mortality. About the guilt and shame of finding an unsent email wishing a departed friend a happy birthday. Looking at the challenges our aging parents face (or that we face on their behalf) and wondering what it will be like for us. As one of us opined, "the time of gathering on the regular for weddings is largely past us now; gathering for funerals is probably more likely."

One of us had brought a luxurious bottle of whiskey (thank you!), saying that it, like us, was Very Rare, and improving with age, as we hope to. And the three of us who partake of liquor did so, several times, toasting the importance of friends, present, absent, and departed. 

The term boon companion refers to a close friend one enjoys spending time with. Boon derives from the French "bon" which in turn comes to us from the Latin "bonus," all of which means "good", but originally refers to drinking companions. I have long supported the wisdom of "in vino veritas" so this makes all the sense in the world to me, and if it is offputting at all to our teetotalling brethren, they give no indication of it.

So we drank, and we remembered and we lamented and we encouraged each other that we are all doing the best that we can. Eventually, our group of real friends got back to the business of using dice and imagination and fake newspaper articles from the mid-1920s to tell a collective story about a group of imaginary friends trying to avenge a dead colleague by combatting the death cults who had assassinated him. And it was good. Maybe even great.

Yes, I suppose it is kind of silly thing for a group of grown-ass men to do, but we don't care. It scratches a lot of itches like our need for creativity, imagination, deductive reasoning, and tactical thinking. But most importantly, it puts us in the same space, with an opportunity to share food and drink as well as fun, and to simply relate to one another as humans who care for each other, but who may not always find that easy to articulate. 

Earlier this same, terrible week, I had read on CNN about "why most men don't have enough close friends." The challenges of finding people you can relate to in a fast-paced and ever-changing world, and how this turns out to be critical for our long-term survival.

“What (men) are at risk of losing is this sense of not being alone in the world or not being alone in their experience,” Sileo said. Research has shown “disclosure of emotional distress improved (men’s) emotional well-being, increased feelings of being understood and resulted in less reported loneliness,” he added.

Some of those Saturday night conversations were not easy, but in the end, I can't help but feel we fought off something even more dangerous than the Cult of the Bloody Tongue, and perhaps more insidious than the Brotherhood of the Black Pharoah.

If you are reading this, there is a very good chance that I already or at least would likely call you a friend. And if we have not been in contact for longer than you might like, I am sorry for that, and hope that we reconnect before too long.

But for the friends in my most immediate circles, the ones I see around the gaming table or at church or on my monitor as we explore the jungles of Chult from three different time zones, I hope I have made it clear how much I appreciate our relationship, and how grateful I am for our friendship.

May none of our friends ever have to speculate as to whether or not they are valued- please know that you are.

Trio and Error? - The Marvels, Reviewed

As the weekend winds up, it has become clear that the MCU's latest venture, The Marvels, has not been a commercial success. I guess an ad hoc team featuring an underappreciated and possibly underutilized film character as well as two who made their debuts on Disney+ streaming shows just didn't have the draw that people were looking for?

Everywhere you look, people are ringing alarm bells on behalf of Marvel Studios. A recent Variety article entitled "Crisis At Marvel" outlined a number of concerns including lackluster responses to many of the recent Disney+ shows, visual FX challenges, and the possibility of recasting or pivoting away from their current Big Bad, Kang the Conqueror due to possible criminal charges against actor Jonathon Majors. And Stephen King, despite not being a fan of the MCU, called out the gloating of many at The Marvels' box office collapse.

But you know what? Fans of comic book movies are pretty likely to have a good time at this film.

That is not to say I don't have problems with this movie; to be honest, I didn't really start enjoying it until maybe a third of the way into it, and both the plot and the villain left me pretty cold. 

Thankfully Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel was there to carry me through until I realized that the villain and plot were secondary to the actual story, which was about three female characters coming to grips with their powers, roles and legacy (all while the 'quantum entanglement' of their powers have them swapping places from across the universe.

Vellani is just straight-up adorable, and her precociousness, combined with her character's fangirly exuberance, is a perfect antidote to cynicism. When Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) asks Khan how many chapters of Captain Marvel fanfic she is getting from one memorable interaction on an alien planet, the look of pure rapture on Vellani's face is not even acting, as far as I can determine. 

Rambeau is still getting used to the powers she gained in WandaVision (and I loved how they glazed over her origin story as "you got your powers walking through a witch hex?") and is not really interested in heroics or even having a code name - but has unsettled business with her Auntie Carol from Captain Marvel.

Carol Danvers (Brie Larson), on the other hand, has added another nickname to her repertoire as the alien Kree now call her "the Annihilator." This eventually makes sense in context, but the fallout from the Kree civil war might have had more significance to us if a) we had heard about it before this movie and b) Captain Marvel's significant actions in precipitating this event weren't revealed to us solely through an underwhelming flashback. 

Once the three principals get together though, the film really started to click for me. Khan's apprehension and excitement about meeting her namesake, Rambeau's resentment at reuniting with Danvers, combined with Captain Marvel's own compulsion to clean up the mess she feels responsible for as the Annihilator makes for a decent game of rock, paper, scissors, hero, artifact.

Zawe Ashton as Kree Accuser Dar-Benn is not given a whole lot to do. She is primarily there as a plot focus - a talking MacGuffin and resolute heavy - which feels like a real missed opportunity. And I don't think they even use her cool title even once in the film or do any sort of callback to Lee Pace's Ronan from Guardians of the Galaxy.

On the plus side, for me at least, they lean into the comic book weirdness, bringing Khan's delightful family (along with Carol's not-cat, Goose) up to Nick Fury's S.A.B.R.E. space station from Secret Invasion. And this is before introducing an alien culture who communicate through song and who may have inadvertently cemented Captain Marvel as the newest Disney princess...

In the end, despite its imperfections, you have a perfectly reasonable and moderately entertaining little film that not only carries the MCU flag forward a little bit (or more? stay for the mid-credits scene!) but also gives us our first superhero flick with three female leads, two of which are persons of colour and one of whom represents Hollywood's first Muslim superhero. And it isn't like you need to be a feminist or woke or whatever to have a good time at this movie, but maybe being open-minded helps?`

So in some ways, the barely concealed glee manifested by many of the same trolls who review-bombed Captain Marvel and are bellyaching about the lack of white male representation in these films (give me strength...) because this film is underperforming is not so much surprising as it is disappointing.

The sad truth is though, as the Variety article suggests, on top of needing to use less-recognizable heroes than the lunchbox stalwarts of The Avengers, Marvel has also put quantity over quality since the end of Phase Three, and people are beginning to notice. Some of this was a pivot to online entertainment during the pandemic lockdowns, but as a result, the MCU is building on a less sturdy foundation now, and the moviegoing public can be fickle.

Superhero fatigue is not a concept that resonates with me personally - as long as Marvel keeps faithfully adapting or even homaging the source material that I am a fan of, I am likely to keep showing up. Which I suppose kind of undermines the credibility of my MCU reviews a bit...but whatever. Reasonable people can agree to disagree.

The MCU can't really be all things to all people, and the bigoted mouth-breathers trying to chalk up an 'I told you so' can go pound sand as far as I am concerned. 

I saw The Marvels with seven other people ranging in age from eight to 50+, and we all had a wonderful time. Most of us agreed that the movie was at its best when it pushed the plot and villain to the back burner and focused on our trio of heroines, and for the first time in a while, I am also excited about what Marvel Studios are trying to build to, despite the challenges they face.

Neon Style and Surprising Substance - Unicorn by Gunship, Reviewed

It’s funny - when I was a teen in the 1980s, watching people evoke the ‘50s and ‘60s in their clothes and music, I remember wondering aloud if people in the future would do the same for the decade we were in at the time.

“I doubt it,” my friend Dave gamely assured me. “It’s just too conservative a period; there’s not much to latch onto.”

Maybe he was right about the quantity, but the 80s resonance did indeed persist. My daughters in their twenties are fully conversant in bands of the period, it showed up a surprising amount in last year's TV hit “The Last of Us”, and there is a whole musical subgenre dedicated solely to the electronica of the time which is still going strong.

One of the seminal bands of this synthwave movement, Gunship, recently released their third full-length album, Unicorn, and since their excellent previous release Dark All Day was one of the few releases I have bought on CD in the past few years, I was anxious to give it a listen.

A half-dozen or so videos were released before the album came out, and although all were catchy, none of them grabbed me the way that “Art3mis & Parzival”, “When You Grow Up, Your Heart Dies”, and the title track did from Dark All Day. Even the first couple listens of the album left me thinking, “well, it’s no DAD, but new Gunship is always good.”

Repeated listens, however, have given this collection time to really grow on me, and if you are a fan of synthwave or any danceable keyboard music at all, I can wholeheartedly recommend Unicorn. And Gunship even pushes the envelope a little bit on this record, venturing out into broader EDM territory, as well as some metal-sounding and even pop-like tracks. Rest assured, your 808 tones and drums full of gated reverb are all still here though.

This variety is very credibly supported by a solid stable of collaborators, including Gavin Rossdale of Bush, Carpenter Brut, Lights, Health and the inimitable Tim Capello, the jacked sax man from The Lost Boys who plays "I Still Believe." In fact, Tim gets to wail on four different tracks (!) so if you are not a saxophone fan, proceed with caution, I guess?

Unicorn, an album whose tagline is "Imagination is a weapon," scratches a lot of itches for me. A lot of it is upbeat, high-tempo stuff like "Blood for the Blood God" (40K fans, represent!) that makes a great soundtrack for getting stuff done. Other tracks are more dramatic and powerful, like "Ghost" or my current favourite, "Tech Noir 2", which features legendary director and synth afficionado John Carpenter (!!) reprising his role as intro narrator from the original "Tech Noir," but updated now with some post-apocalyptic optimism.

I'm recording this because the survivors no longer envy the dead
The final war is over
Its architects forever entombed in melted glass and steel
I watched the efforts of our species dance away on the radioactive wind
Civilisation retreated by millennia
All of human history wrought to dust
Our cities, now scorched black mausoleums serve as a reminder
There can be no victory in war
Birth is the answer to the question of our mortality
With resolute defiance we choose to grasp at the delicate thread of life
My son, the gift of survival is yours
Please, may you never submit
There will be more...

Cinematic and TV references abound in Gunship tracks, another treat for yours truly. "All roads paved with crushed-up skulls" should bring anyone who's seen it back to the opening of 1984's Terminator. I know "It is better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven," is a quote from Paradise Lost, but I also know most of us nerds first heard it on Star Trek. And cueing in Tim Capello's first sax solo on the album right after the lyrics "surrounded now but no surrender/ the odds against the betting man/ beyond the odds but I still believe" on "Monster in Paradise" is cheeky and perfect and I will never not love it. Even their logo looks inspired by the old Golan Globus logo from so many VHS viewings.

Cyberpunk overtones abound as well, as the '80s vision of the future lives on as depicted in "Taste Like Venom" as well as in the Edgerunners Netflix series and video games. Speaking of video games, "DooM Dance" (with its significant capitalization) talks about "raising hell" while "Empress of the Damned" includes a reference to "the cake is a lie" in a song where the chorus testifies "I can't be killed with conventional weaponry."

And just to make sure my enjoyment is not solely nostalgia-driven, I calibrated with Glory, after she came through the kitchen while I had the album blaring and said, sadly, "I wish clubs played music like this." She thinks it is a great album, particularly for this time of year, with multiple candidates for various Halloween or spooky season playlists. The darkness and adventurous violence are offset by brilliantly positive nuggets like "don't cry because it's over/ smile because it was" ("Run Like Hell").

Just like cyberpunk depicts a sci-fi future through an extremely 80s lens (presumably both mirrored and louvered), Gunship's strength is club music that probably hasn't been played in too many clubs, tragically. (If I am wrong, I am begging you to let Glory and I know!). And while there probably aren't too many raves in my future, I hope the band follows through on their plans to start touring and playing their music live. 

In the meantime, anyone interested in a semi-nostalgic look at a future that never came from an '80s that never was should give Unicorn a listen - there is a lot to like.

Maximum Miniatures?

In many ways, it is the greatest of ironies; when I began playing Dungeons & Dragons in junior high, very few of us had miniatures that looked anything like our characters, and we often used nickels and pennies or green army men to depict the various enemies. 

Having collected miniatures for RPGs and wargaming for four decades, I now have a tremendous assortment to draw on. Despite being a player or GM in four different campaigns, however, almost all of the playing I do is online, and the one I play in person (Call of Cthulhu) works far better as a 'theater of the mind' experience.

But when a newer player on one of my online D&D campaigns talked about seeing a friend play with a tacklebox full of miniatures and jokingly suggested we needed to "step up our game", I couldn't resist having a little fun and saying, "oh, hey, yeah - a tackle box with trays are a neat idea - i have been using these little transparent boxes from Amazon so it is easier to find stuff..."

"But of course that doesn't hold the large (and mostly prepainted stuff), so I just keep that in this ugly printer paper box:"

"And my metal figs, some of which I have had since I was thirteen, aren't much to look at but I can't bear to part with them either! So I still keep them in this figure case with foam trays:"

"Then I had a few extra foam trays I keep in this old Warhammer Fortress box:"

"...except for this one tray that doesn't fit and mostly holds unpainted stuff (oh, and 4 figs printed in colour from a Kickstarter adventure based on a  metal album called The Red Opera!)"

"Oh yeah, and this box that holds all the ninja and samurai figures I used to work into nearly every campaign I played in high school..."

"But that's about it, really...- oh, wait, the figure cabinet has two shelves of D&D stuff in it..."

"And this Lord of the Rings and Warhammer stuff would probably work in a pinch too, actually..."

At this point, another player mentioned a Kickstarter that is (allegedly) coming in at some point, and is actually a followup to this assortment of miniatures:

And as far as miniatures for D&D or other fantasy games go, that is really about it.

But let's not get started about all the wargaming armies, spaceships and Old West models lying around here!

And let's not talk about the biggest model either, because despite my experience with building Tiamat, she is not even in the running after Pete set Great Cthulhu on his tabletop a couple weeks back...