The Priest and the Pitchfork Zombie

Priest
Torch
Pitchfork
Zombie moans
A clash of two species
Faith at a fever pitch, forks up
A scent of ascension dissipates forever
Blood, fire, and steel clash in dissonance; a shower of sparks, a spray of ichor; ARGH!

Christian Altar

 

Turnip Tuesday in Hell

 

At Hell's lunch counter Beelzebub and Mammon 
Serve everything you hate
Week after week like this: 

Liver and tripe Monday
Turnip Tuesday
Kidneys in cod liver oil Wednesday
Parsnip Thursday
Boiled cabbage and haggis Friday
Beetroot Saturday
Blood pudding and Jell-O Salad Sunday

But the worst part is
It's all you can eat
Mandatory all you can eat
Unto eternity and after

No One Expects a 28mm Inquisitor

Here's another miniature I painted using the same mix of techniques as yesterday's knight. In this case, I think it's fair to say the skin textures turned out better, perhaps simply thanks to practice. 
 

Mythic Treasures

Today I painted some very tiny representations of the Ark of the Covenant, A Cthulhu idol, the Holy Grail, and the Maltese Falcon. These efforts represent a combination of basecoating, dry brushing, and ink washing. 
 

John the Baptist as an Action Figure

I asked Stable Diffusion to imagine John the Baptist with ten points of articulation and accessories, but I did NOT ask for a half-naked version. Definitely not what I was expecting. He does have godly abs, though. 
 

The Gospel According To Barabbas

Barabbas (Richard Fleischer, 1961) might be one of the most interesting takes I've seen on the Christ story; this time, we follow the journey of Barabbas, the thief who the mob pardoned at Passover instead of Jesus. Turns out this makes Barabbas immortal, or at least he's lucky enough for his circumstances to make it seem that way. He's a subject of both awe and scorn, a sinner who nonetheless was in the presence of Christ near the end of his life and so, perhaps, divinely touched by that experience. But can the cynical non-believer come to terms with his role in the story of Christ, or is he forever damned to walk the earth?

Anthony Quinn is predictably excellent as Barabbas, capturing the thief's bitterness and anger while projecting just enough doubt and vulnerability for us to believe that he really was touched by his experience, despite his protestations.

The costuming and production design create a believable first-century ambiance, and there's a gladiatorial combat sequence almost as grand as the chariot race seen in Ben-Hur (1959). The many years Barabbas spends mining sulphur are appropriately claustrophobic and desperate.

Still, I can't say that this film will stay with me. Barabbas' eventual redemption seems predictably inevitable, without any truly gripping moments of revelation; it's as if time simply wore him down and he got tired of resisting his conversion. In the end, like Christ, Barabbas is crucified, and this final scene is one of the film's most powerful moments, not simply because of the weight of its allusions, but because of the composition, the lighting, and Quinn's convincing death agonies. 

Star Trek V: The Flimsy Frontier

Just before the climax of William Shatner's Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Captain James T. Kirk (Shatner again) asks a powerful noncorporeal being "What does god need with a starship?" When I attended the sneak preview in Edmonton back in 1989, the line got a good laugh; a deserved laugh, I think, thanks to Shatner's delivery and the point the line arrives in the story. It's a line that captures Kirk's justified skepticism, a line in keeping with the man's characterization through nearly 25 years of history to that point. On the other hand, the line is also a bit campy, appearing as it does in the rather ridiculous circumstances of this widely-panned Trek; maybe that's the true reason my audience laughed. Still, the original television series often veered into camp, and that never stopped it from asking insightful questions about the human condition. "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield," a painfully on-the-nose allegory about the tragedy of racism from Star Trek's third season, had its own share of camp--and yet, even today, the episode's message resonates despite the limitations of the production. Can the same be said for Star Trek V, over thirty years since its premiere? 

A Reach That Exceeded Its Grasp

Prior to the production of Star Trek V, Shatner's longtime costar Leonard Nimoy (who plays Kirk's old friend and first officer Spock), directed Star Trek III and IV; both were successful, and IV in particular was a true critical and box office hit. Shatner's contract included a clause guaranteeing him the chance to direct should that privilege be granted to Nimoy, so the fifth Star Trek film was destined to be directed by its primary star. Shatner must have felt intense pressure to craft a film even more successful than IV, and the story he conceived was ambitious enough to to the trick: Captain Kirk would take his ship, the Enterprise, to the centre of the galaxy in a search for the Divine itself. 

With the right screenplay and direction, such a story could have been quite interesting. Unfortunately, the screenplay is uneven; there are a couple of bright spots and a few moments of cringe, while the rest is simply bland. Shatner's direction is workmanlike and nowhere near the level of skill and creativity needed to match the scope of his intended story. Worse yet, for the first time in the Trek film series, the production design and special effects are seriously below par, enough to seriously distract from a story that absolutely demanded striking visuals. Even the normally excellent main cast perform below their true capabilities here; only guest player Laurence Luckinbill, playing Spock's half-brother Sybok, seems to be having any fun in this picture. In fact, the only aspect of this production that could reasonably be called "good" is the superb score by Jerry Goldsmith, a score that surely deserves a far better film. 

Star Trek V begins with a reasonably effective cold opening. A cloaked man on horseback gallops across a barren world and encounters an ancient farmer toiling at the unforgiving land. The rider promises the farmer an end to pain, and indeed he seems to lift the farmer's cares away with a telepathic touch. The rider laughs in delight at the farmer's tears of joy, and his hood falls back, revealing pointed Vulcan ears. "A laughing Vulcan?" gasps the farmer in wonder, for in the world of Star Trek, Vulcans are renowned for their suppression of emotion. Here we cut to the opening credit sequence, and after that we transition to Captain Kirk climbing the face of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. It turns out that several members of the Enterprise crew are on Earth for shore leave; Kirk, Spock, and Doctor McCoy are camping in the park. In more capable hands, it might have been refreshing to see our heroes relaxing, but instead we're subjected to the kind of "light comedy" that produces groans instead of guffaws; there are fart jokes, misunderstandings of pop culture references, and a badly-executed moment of peril that's impossible to take seriously for two reasons: truly terrible special effects and the fact that Spock is wearing rocket boots, which he uses to effect a rescue. 

Thankfully an emergency recalls the crew back to the Enterprise, but we then discover that our proud ship is experiencing a torrent of wacky malfunctions, again played for comedic effect. But instead of being funny, the problems just make Starfleet, the Federation, and the Enterprise crew look incompetent, a perception cemented by Starfleet Command's decision to send the ship out on a dangerous mission despite Kirk's protests over the state of the ship. 

The mission? It seems that Sybok, the cloaked fellow from the cold open, has taken possession of the only city on Nimbus III, the "so-called 'Planet of Galactic Peace'" jointly governed by the Federation and its Cold-ish-War enemies, the Klingon Empire and the Romulan Empire. Spock reveals that Sybok is his (never before mentioned) half-brother, and that unlike other Vulcans, Sybok embraces emotions, making him a heretic in Vulcan society. 

The Enterprise arrives at Nimbus III. Keep in mind that the Enterprise, with a crew of over 500 that includes a large, well-armed, and very capable security team, is up against Sybok and a crew of ragtag, poorly-armed bandits. While it's true that Sybok has three important hostages (the diplomats from each government assigned to Nimbus III), which could perhaps hamper rescue operations, you'd think that this mission would still be pretty straightforward for Kirk and company. Except that they can't use the transporters because, of course, they're part of the malfunctions we saw earlier in the picture. So Kirk, Spock, Sulu, McCoy, Uhura, and a few security officers fly a shuttle down to Nimbus III to effect rescue. Poor Uhura gets to perform a striptease to distract the guards, an insulting character beat that I'm sure Nichelle Nichols couldn't have enjoyed much. (Though if she did, more power to her, but it's telling that none of the guys were asked for striptease duty.) 

Alas, despite all logic and reason, Sybok emerges victorious, capturing the landing party and commandeering their shuttle. He reveals his insidious plan: he took hostages on Nimbus III only to lure a starship to the planet so that he could hijack said starship and take it in search of Sha Ka Ree, which he believes is the centre of creation of the universe and the home of God. 

There's a brief moment of excitement when a Klingon Bird-of-Prey shows up in response to the crisis on Nimbus III, but rather than rescuing hostages, Captain Klaa is focused on blowing up Kirk's shuttle thanks to his previous crimes against the Klingon Empire. Sulu's ingenuity and skill get the shuttle safely back aboard the Enterprise, and there's a moment where it looks like Spock can take control of the situation from Sybok and end the crisis. Alas, doing so would mean killing Sybok, and Spock can't do it. Sybok uses his powers to take away the pain of Uhura, Sulu, and Chekov, putting them under his thrall, a moment of triple character assassination that's still hard to forgive. He tries the same thing on McCoy, Spock, and Kirk, but the three of them manage to resist, of course, because they're the headliners in this story. 

Sybok sticks the three of them in a jail cell while he takes the Enterprise to the centre of the galaxy. The trip seems to take about fifteen minutes. Yes, the ships in Star Trek are fast, but they're not supposed to be fast enough to cross thousands of light years in mere minutes. There's a lot of hullabaloo about "no ship has ever survived crossing the Great Barrier!" that apparently surrounds the centre of the galaxy, but of course the Enterprise crosses it without any fanfare. Furthermore, the vengeful Captain Klaa is right on their tail. 

Allow me a moment to digress. When I first saw the first trailer for Star Trek V, I was pretty excited, because that "great barrier" line, taken out of context, makes it sound like a reference to the Great Barrier around the edge of the galaxy shown in Star Trek's second pilot episode, "Where No Man Has Gone Before." I thought we might be getting a sequel to that tremendous episode, akin to the way in which Star Trek II followed up on "Space Seed." 

Alas, I think what happened is simply that Shatner forgot the location of the Great Barrier, sticking it at the galaxy's centre instead of surrounding its perimeter. 

At some point during all this nonsense, Mr. Scott breaks Kirk, Spock, and McCoy out of their cell. He knocks himself out on a bulkhead, to not only the actor's embarrassment bu to that of the entire audience. There's a chase with rocket boots that ends in recapture, but that's fine, Kirk convinces Sybok that since we're all here at the centre of the galaxy, let's go meet God together. 

Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Sybok take a shuttle down to the planet (the transporters are still broken) and they meet God, who turns out to be a floating head with the stern countenance of an old, white-bearded white guy. Sybok is elated and asks God for the secrets of the universe, but "God" remains suspiciously focused on bringing the Enterprise closer to the planet. It's at this point that Kirk asks why God needs a starship, and then the whole thing goes south; turns out the Great Barrier isn't to keep people out, it's to keep "God" imprisoned. Mortified, Sybok sacrifices himself to get into a sort of psychic wrestling match with the God entity, the transporter works just long enough to get McCoy and Spock back to the ship, then breaks down again so that Kirk has to run away. Just as God is about to smite Kirk, Captain Klaa's Bird of Prey shows up and blasts God to oblivion. The Klingons beam Kirk aboard and discover that Spock served as the ship's gunner; turns out the Klingon hostage was grateful for the initial rescue and demanded Klaa return the favour. In a better film, this turn of events might have raised thoughtful questions about the subtext of Spock killing God, but...this is not that better film. 

The Klingons and the humans have a nice cocktail hour on the Enterprise where they discuss the nature of God, who, as it turns out, is right here in the human heart. They resume their shore leave on Earth and sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" over the closing credits. 

In short, Star Trek V is a mess, undermining beloved characters, filled with lacklustre action beats, laughs that don't land, story beats that make no sense given established Star Trek canon, and production values that simply don't stand up for their era, let alone today. 

Hey, It's Better than Into Darkness

That being said, there are a few moments I like. Chekov has a decent moment in command of the Enterprise before he gets brainwashed. Sulu shines as the pilot of the shuttle. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy have some decent character beats together during their camping trip and their stay in the Enterprise brig. There are even a couple of camera moves that would have been impressive and really cinematic if William Shatner had had the resources to execute them properly. (I'm thinking in particular of the shot that ends with the antique ship's wheel in what appears to be the ship's lounge.) The score is lovely. Luckinbill is good. And at least there's some ambition here, something that got lost in some of the later Trek movies--Star Trek Into Darkness, Insurrection, I'm looking at you. 

The Reformation

My robes are royal purple with gold trim, sharp at the shoulders, sleek of cut, almost unadorned save for three gold buttons on the high black collar. I’m walking briskly down a cobblestone street, and I’m not alone; the faithful are gathering, heading, like me, for church. Many nod and smile at me; they know I’m facing a significant transition just a few minutes from now.

It's a gorgeous day. The sun caresses the city, warming the lush parks, the meandering river, the spotless streets, the colourful adobe houses. The church rises from a hilltop overlooking an expansive green pasture; it’s a cherrywood edifice of soft curves and oval entryways and window frames, warm and welcoming.

I step through the side entrance, directly into our administrator’s office, a good-humoured, lovely, raven-haired woman of late middle age. And yet she is typical, for although our people are diverse in many ways, we all share certain traits: a need to poke fun at ourselves, a certain agelessness, and, frankly, good looks. My own frame is lithe and strong, even closing in on 50; my hair remains thick, my skin unlined. The only mark of age is a distinguished touch of grey in my sideburns.

The administrator and the bishop are sharing some acerbic but good-natured banter about paperwork. The administrator waves me through as they hurl balls of wadded-up documents at each other.

I enter the great hall of the church. Hundreds of congregants are sliding into the wooden pews, sharing smiles and quiet gossip. The retiring Cardinal is already behind the pulpit, jotting down notes, peering over the top of his glasses, which are perched on the tip of his nose.

I take my place at the secondary pulpit, and the congregational murmur dies down. According to the order of service, I should now welcome the congregation and invite the retiring Cardinal to speak.

Instead, on my left, the Bishop starts to speak. He apologizes for hijacking the proceedings, but warns of a great evil on the horizon, one that could break the church community. Indeed, he reaches out, pointing at the skylights to direct our attention to the dark clouds forming outside. Behind those clouds coalesces a sharp-edged obsidian shadow, shaped something like the head of a hawk, but at the same time unutterably alien.

The Bishop claims that I must take my place as the new Cardinal, as was planned, but that by doing so I could create a schism in the church. Horrified by the thought, I leave the pulpit and circulate among the congregants, including crucial influencers like the black members, the LGBTQ2+ members, the women, merchants, artisans, veterans, seniors and children. Even among this even-tempered population voices begin to rise, not in anger, but concern and fear. My words feel inadequate in the face of the monstrous evil forming in the skies above, but somehow they’re enough to restore calm, and even resolution.

I return to the podium and am ordained in short order. The sudden appearance of tangible evil in the real world has, indeed, cast the spectre of doubt upon church teachings that reach back more than 10,000 years. But in a short speech of some five or six minutes, I rally the people, reminding them of the many millennia of peace and prosperity our culture built together, urging us all to continue in that spirit. And though I fully intend to literally lead the charge against evil the second I finish my speech, the congregation takes that leadership out of my hands, heading for the exits with a roar, armed with nothing but their faith, compassion, and goodwill. I follow them into the street, and together we face the darkness.

Lilies of the Field

Last night I screened Lilies of the Field, a 1963 Best Picture nominee, featuring the performance that earned Sidney Poitier the Best Actor Oscar for that year. While I enjoyed Poitier's performance, Jerry Goldsmith's music, the lean direction, handsome black and white cinematography, and the simple but affecting story, the film nonetheless left me unsettled and questioning.

In the film, Homer Smith (Poitier), stops at a ramshackle nunnery to borrow some water for his car. Mother Maria (Lilia Sakala, nominated for Best Supporting Actress) believes God has sent Homer to help the sisters build a chapel. Homer demurs, as he's happier to live as a man of the road, taking odd handyman jobs to support his easygoing, itinerant lifestyle. But the nun's ineptitude compels Homer to stay and help, and over the course of the film he reveals himself as not only an able handyman, but a leader, marshalling the volunteers who show up to help into a formidable workforce.

The chief source of drama in the film is Homer's easygoing attitude and desire to leave set against Mother Maria's devotion to a relatively ascetic lifestyle and her unspoken fondness for Homer. She even comes up with a number of excuses and odd jobs in an attempt to extend Homer's stay, but in the end, his task complete, Homer leaves the chapel and the nuns behind, proud of a job well done but true to his own needs.

Lilies of the Field is a simple film, but it's funny and warm and important because it features a well-rounded black character in a time when such characters were even rarer in mainstream film than they are today.

What hit me hardest, however, was the way that Poitier's performance clearly showed the deep but understated pride Smith takes in his work and his finished creation. And a fine chapel it is, once the work is complete. While I recognize that screening films always leaves the viewer vulnerable to emotional manipulation, I couldn't help but question the value of my own work when presented with a vision of something concrete (almost literally) and lasting. The fruits of Homer's labour are obvious and long-lasting. Even though I personally am not religious, I can see the value in a place of meditation and meeting for the community, and I envy Smith and others like him who build things that exist in the real world, with tangible benefits.

My labour, on the other hand, hasn't been physical since my early 20s. Of course I agree that communicating is important, and that the right message can have wide-ranging benefits, but I'm still not sure that anything I've written has had anything more than a brief, infinitesimal impact on the wider world. Aside from a few ghostwritten gardening books, I don't have anything I can hold up and say, "This is what I contributed to the world."

Again, I don't wish to downplay my own contributions to the world, most of which, I hope, are unrelated to whatever jobs I've held over the years. But sometimes I feel like I've missed something important by choosing the career I have. 

Divinity at the Dump

On Saturday, Sylvia and I paid a visit to Edmonton's state-of-the-art waste reclamation facility, AKA "the dump." I know it's not really a dump, but I suppose I've been conditioned to think of it that way; it's the place where you dump things.

After our journey, Sylvia remarked how satisfying she found the trip. We both felt that way; dropping off a carload of cardboard, old electronics, our malfunctioning sump pump, and assorted household waste too awkward for the curb gave us a strange secular-spiritual lift, a materialist cleansing. Out with the old, the vanquished, the spent; give us room to breathe again.

Obviously it was just a trip to the dump. But I find it reassuring that both Sylvia and I take so much simple pleasure in it. 

All There in Black and White

In 2009, I shot this photo of a bible in the Breadalbane church near Virden, Manitoba. 

Full Fathom Fish Fry

Full Fathom Fish Fry
Cries the crier on the pier
Flipping fillets for five friars
Serving up his bitter beer

Drink your ale and eat your cod
Cries the fryer with his tongs
Handing out the fresh white meat
To the kings but not the throngs

Salutations from the grill
Cries the liar through his horn
Tossing condiments like hand grenades
To those who are not noble-born

This is not a protest poem
Cries the typist to his keys
This is just another artifact
Of art that's dying by degrees

Enter the Nunja

In a fit of boredom I babbled on Facebook for a while about a new series of films based on a nun who is also a ninja - or a Nunja. Recreated for posterity and for those readers who aren't my Facebook friends...

There should be a movie in which a nun becomes a ninja. It would be called Enter the Nunja, and she would say "Get thee to a nunnery" after smiting her foes.

In my imaginary movie Enter the Nunja, the nunja's identity will be hidden from the audience until the film's coda. Kindly Irish priest Father O'Flannery suspects one of his three top nuns, but in the end it turns out to be the newest convert, a wholesome young woman who seems mild and meek in manner, but possesses a powerfully righteous fury.

In Nunja vs. Ninjas, the first sequel to Enter the Nunja, Sister Beatrice must once more don the garb of the Nunja when the orphanage is threatened by soulless robber barons who have hired evil ninjas to intimidate the church's fundraising efforts. Meanwhile Father O'Flannery is completely baffled by his inability to discover the Nunja's secret identity.

In the third Nunja movie, Nunja III: Deadly Communion, Sister Beatrice once again goes into action as the Nunja when evil condo developers plan a devilish attack on Father O'Flannery's church, hoping to buy the land for luxury condominiums once the father and his flock are out of the way. Naturally the Nunja smites the bad guys with a divinely inspired smackdown. 

In the fourth Nunja movie, Nunja Revelations, Father O'Flannery finally discovers that Sister Beatrice is the Nunja! However, he doesn't tell Sister Beatrice that he knows, and becomes a silent but supportive ally in the Nunja's cause. This film also introduces the Antagagnostic, the Nunja's most fearsome foe!

 In the Facebook comments Sean noted that the Nunja should use - naturally - NUNchuks. I was very annoyed that I didn't think of that myself. 

Dick's Final Revelation

Over the course of the last month I've read 13 novels by Philip K. Dick. It's been a revelation, and I choose that word carefully; Dick's later work is chiefly concerned with divine revelation, and nowhere does that theme resonate more poignantly than in his last novel, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer.

Written from the perspective of the title character's daughter-in-law, Angel Archer, and set against the backdrop of the assassination of John Lennon, Dick explores the nature of religion (and, ultimately, the universe) via the later life of one Timothy Archer, Bishop of California, a man struggling with the implications of an archaeological find that threatens his faith. Angel inadvertently contributes to Archer's eventual fall from grace by introducing him to her friend Kirsten; she and the bishop have an affair, and to make matters worse her own husband, Timothy's son, falls in love with Kirsten and eventually commits suicide, torn between his infatuation and his father.

In Angel, Dick has created a rich, sympathetic protagonist; she's smart, compassionate, quick witted and skeptical, and she bears the burden of her losses with great strength. Angel presents her self as non-Christian (or non-whatever, given the context of the religious discussion), and her doubt is essential to understanding Timothy's path. The bishop has doubts of his own, but true to his convictions (and faults), he searches for revelation and dies, appropriately, in the desert that gave birth to the Abrahamic religions.

As in Dick's other best works, the author displays a keen sense of empathy and compassion for all of his characters; there are no villains here, just flawed individuals, each following his or her own truth to its logical conclusion.

While I myself am an atheist, I'm very glad to have read this moving and insightful novel about faith and the search for meaning. It seems clear to me that Dick was a very deep thinker with serious questions about the nature of reality, and in his later works (for example, VALIS and The Divine Invasion before Archer), he's clearly trying to come to grips with his own beliefs. I wonder what he wound up believing in the end, and I hope he found the answers he was clearly looking for. 

A Picture Worth at Least Several Hundred Words

My friend Jeff has dramatized our recent basement near-flood over at Jeff Shyluk's Visual Blog. I'm afraid I didn't look nearly as calm and heroic as portrayed, but I think it's still a very cool piece of art. Be sure to tune in to JSVB tomorrow for Jeff's 900th post! 

Zounds, Autocorrect!

Today I attempted to tell Sylvia that I had arranged a trip to IKEA with Sean. The text above is supposed to read "I need two small bookcases so Sean and I are going to go Sunday morning." Somehow my iPhone decided I should attend church with Brother Aeam.

This garbled text message is mild compared to some of those seen on one of my favourite websites, Damn You Autocorrect! Hours of fun.