by Sir Walter Ralegh

Go, Soul, the body's guest,
Upon a thankless errand;
Fear not to touch the best;
The truth shall be thy warrant:
Go, since I needs must die,
And give the world the lie.
Say to the court, it glows
And shines like rotten wood;
Say to the church, it shows
What's good, and doth no good:
If church and court reply,
Then give them both the lie.

Tell potentates, they live
Acting by others' action;
Not loved unless they give,
Not strong but by a faction.
If potentates reply,
Give potentates the lie.

Tell men of high condition,
That manage the estate,
Their purpose is ambition,
Their practice only hate:
And if they once reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell them that brave it most,
They beg for more by spending,
Who, in their greatest cost,
Seek nothing but commending.
And if they make reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell zeal it wants devotion;
Tell love it is but lust;
Tell time it is but motion;
Tell flesh it is but dust:
And wish them not reply,
For thou must give the lie.

Tell age it daily wasteth;
Tell honour how it alters;
Tell beauty how she blasteth;
Tell favour how it falters:
And as they shall reply,
Give every one the lie.

Tell wit how much it wrangles
In tickle points of niceness;
Tell wisdom she entangles
Herself in overwiseness:
And when they do reply,
Straight give them both the lie.

Tell physic of her boldness;
Tell skill it is pretension;
Tell charity of coldness;
Tell law it is contention:
And as they do reply,
So give them still the lie.

Tell fortune of her blindness;
Tell nature of decay;
Tell friendship of unkindness;
Tell justice of delay:
And if they will reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell arts they have no soundness,
But vary by esteeming;
Tell schools they want profoundness,
And stand too much on seeming:
If arts and schools reply,
Give arts and schools the lie.

Tell faith it's fled the city;
Tell how the country erreth;
Tell manhood shakes off pity
And virtue least preferreth:
And if they do reply,
Spare not to give the lie.

So when thou hast, as I
Commanded thee, done blabbing--
Although to give the lie
Deserves no less than stabbing--
Stab at thee he that will,
No stab the soul can kill.
 

William Shakespeare, Hamlet Act 3, Scene 1

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.


Resume, by Dorothy Parker

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

------

I am not suicidal, just introspective.  These poems are good ones to read when you have major choices laid before you so you can look at the same questions from different viewpoints.  

LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP.

J

The 2001 San Diego Comic Con is the seminal moment in my life, it seems.

As an aspiring illustrator/concept designer who had spent about a year getting his freelance career off the ground by doing Star Wars Spaceship illustrations for the Star Wars role-playing game and the Star Wars Gamer magazine, the first trip to ComicCon was kind of like a trip to Mecca. It was (and still is) the cultural hub for all geekdom.

I had one of those trips that people just are not supposed to have. I made new friends who changed my life, met cultural heroes who inspired my world and actually got a job out of the trip, and ended up moving from Ohio to California because of it. And there, amid the rabid fans and new movies being promoted was Stan Winston, hidden Predator-like among the throng of people staring at the Time Machine display for the Guy Pierce film.

Either no one noticed him, or they were too stunned to go up to talk to him. I was too dumb not to, so I went up to the man I had seen in so many Cinefex magazines and making-of specials, put out my hand and just thanked him for his work. He was a little surprised, but genuinely warm and personable. He asked my name and asked what I do, and we talked for about five minutes about how fantastic REAL light hitting REAL objects are in film. And the advantage to thinking in three dimensions, even if you are drawing. It was just a small thing, a little conversation--one of many I am sure that he has had with many fans throughout his amazing career . I wish I had brought a camera with me that trip--or had not been so tentative to show him my sketches--but I didn't...and then the moment was over.

He was gone, off to the next panel, or meeting or next fan. I told myself many times that I would have to talk to him again someday. 
And now that is an impossibility.   

Stan died of cancer...on Father's Day, of all days.  And it got me thinking.

We are losing our inspirational parents, one by one.

And it totally sucks--because that means that our generation will have to do all the heavy lifting. Which we can do, but the safety net of their experience and wisdom are fading. But with Stan now gone, the list of people I wanted to have great conversations with (but can't) grows longer.   The list of tributes to him is long.  

Here is a good one with many industry tributes, on Aint-it-Cool News:
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/37109

and here is a great video tribute from JoBlo:
http://www.joblo.com/video/player.php?video=winstrontribute2

A tribute from Spielberg and Schwarzenegger:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i8d91a7147083886b8d78377d8626568d?imw=Y

and a nice tribute in Winston's own words here:
http://www.thedeadbolt.com/news/104686/stanwinston_interview.php

Goodbye Mr. Winston. Thanks for all the amazing dreams and nightmares. 

You will be missed.

Jeff Carlisle

www.jeffcarlisle.com

And by "Beowulf", I mean the motion-capture/animated film that was released in 3-D in November.  Not the horrible sci-fi version with Christopher Lambert or "Beowulf and Grendel" with Gerard Butler (which I have not yet seen) or "The 13th Warrior" with Antonio Banderas.

This is a really great film. 

Technically, it is NOT Beowulf the epic poem--many changes are made to adapt it to film.  A great direct adaptation was a half hour animated version read by Joseph Fiennes that was shown on HBO as part of their Animated Tales of the World series.  It was simplified, but maintained the beauty of the poem, the directness of its narrative and the unique, broken nature of it's Anglo-Saxon structure.

My mother first introduced me to Beowulf when I was very young, with an adaptation of the fight between Grendel and Beowulf in an old Childcraft children's encyclopedia Annual from 1975, THE MAGIC OF WORDS.  It was illustrated by a young Brian Froud, most famous for his Pressed Fairies books and designing Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal.  I got hooked early and over the years read a lot of Beowulf.

Over the years, many takes on the legend have been made, most notably John Gardner's fantastic novel Grendel from the mid seventies (which was itself adapted into an Australian animated film Grendel Grendel Grendel starring the voice of Peter Ustinov  as Grendel).  Michael Crichton's Eaters of the Dead, also from the mid seventies adapted the story as told from the point of view of an Arabian emissary traveling with a group of Vikings to face a marauding group of surviving Neanderthals (the Wendol).  In that story, later adapted on film as The 13th Warrior, Crichton tells a possible tale behind the legend, inverting the order of events, compressing it into one narrative (there is precedence in this as many memory studies show that stories often invert and change the order of events as they are retold in the oral tradition).

The less said about the Christopher Lambert version, the better - but there was a plot point in the film that is echoed in the new Beowulf, and has been suggested before by some interpretations of the classic story.

But this film version is actually great, and my only complaint is that they should have made it like last year's 300, with live actors in virtual worlds.  The background characters are all flat, lifeless puppets as are many of the secondary characters--like something out of Shrek.  Motion-Capture does a lot of work, but key-frame animation should still be used to smooth out the rough spots and breath life into the dull areas.  When the film was projected in 3-d, the reason for the digital people becomes clear--it was perfect, since the computers can create the exact images needed for both eyes--and I was concerned that the film would be lacking now that it is flattened into 2-D.

No worry there, the compositions of the frames are gorgeous, suggesting the fantasy art that inspired them.  What the DVD does do, is make you focus on the story--and here is where the film (in my opinion) truly excels.  Roger Avery and Neil Gaiman have crafted a revisionist Beowulf that satirizes and deepens the tale.  It is not a story of a perfect, noble hero who goes from one epic adventure to the next, but the story of a man in love with his own legend in a time when the greatest thing a man can have is a story.  It, like Eaters of the Dead is about the story behind the story.  By having Beowulf be an unreliable narrator who only learns humility after long years of living with the fame he desired, the writers create a film about a man who we can all understand.  It is the Liberty Valance effect, as Robert Whul calls it "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

The changes in the story are a bold and interesting choice. If Grendel is the spawn of his mother and King Hrothgar, it explains why he never attacks the Danish king.  If Grendel's mother could make herself look like Angelina Jolie, a large percentage of the population both male and female would yield to her Siren's call.  And if Beowulf made a pact with a demon, securing his Kingship, it explains where the Dragon at the end comes from.  This, like Dragonslayer is the story of the failing of the mythic age in the advent of Christianity. It is the story of the last of the epic heroes and the last of the epic demons.  AND it also manages to tell the story of the poem in it's roundabout way...maybe even the way it existed before being censored and rewritten by monks a thousand years ago.

And the action is fantastic, The images are pretty, Digital Angelina Jolie is smoking hot and the music is great.

So, Yeah.  I am a fan and will be buying this soon.

So, I just found out that I am going to Skywalker Ranch next month.

Originally, the trip I am taking was just to hang out with a good friend and family in San Francisco, maybe stop by Lucasfilm's downtown Presidio offices and see the folks I know involved with Lucas Licensing -- and maybe talk a little shop.  
But, my good friend Daniel is very connected on the movie side of things, and asked if we could see a few of the people who HE knows....who all work at The Ranch.  And now, I find myself a little nervous.  Not in a bad way...just kind of excited.

The only thing that could make this cooler was if it had happened ten or twelve years ago when I was in my fever pitch of Star Wars obsession.

But you take these things when you can get them.