fruit of the vine

Nothing beats a nice glass of vino at the end of the day. Tonight's glass comes courtesy not of the liquor store, but of my own work.

I got the idea a few years ago from Spike Your Juice, a company that sells a wine-making kit that allows you to turn a bottle of juice into alcohol, relying on a scaled-down version of the process that vinters have used for centuries. Their kit costs about $10; I made my own for about $2 using parts from a local homebrewers supply store.

Here's how it works.

Buy a bottle of actual juice. I like to use Northland or Welch's, because their sugar count is reliably high; but the truth is you just need a minimum 20 grams of sugar per serving. The higher the sugar content, the more alcohol you'll get. I selected Welch's black cherry concord grape juice, which has 36 grams of sugar per serving.

Next, buy a rubber stopper and an airlock. You can get these at a homebrewers supply store, like I did; or you can buy them online. (Note: If you buy them through that link I get a small referral payment, which keeps me in business as a blogger.)

The most important ingredient, of course, is yeast. You can spend $2 a packet on vinters yeast, which is all thing considered the best course of action. I say this because vinters yeast has been cultivated for decades expressly for the purpose of making wine, and it has been cultivated from the strains of yeast that naturally are found on grapes in the first place, It therefore may be said that vinters yeast both has evolved for the purpose of fermenting grape juice, and has been fine-tuned by vinters concerned with getting rid of the bad strains that are more likely to ruin your wine.

That being said, all sorts of yeasts make alcohol if you turn them loose in a liquid medium with sugars mixed in. It's what they do. You can use brewers yeast if that's what you have, and you also can use bakers yeast if that's what is available. The wine snobs will howl, but who cares about the wine snobs? We're trying to make alcohol on the cheap, not to win a wine-sniffing contest. Full disclosure: I used a small amount of yeast from my sourdough culture, which is sure to make the wine snobs howl, scream and gnash their teeth.

Open the bottle, pour in the yeast, close the bottle up with the stopper, and jam the airlock into the stopper. You will need to pour a small amount of water into the airlock first, so that its U-bend is completely filled with water and no air can pass through.

If you do use a packet of vinters yeast, keep in mind that you will not need the entire packet for one two-quart bottle of juice. You can use a much smaller amount, and thus use the packet for several bottles simultaneously or spread out over a period of time.

Over the next couple days, it won't look like much is happening, but don't fool yourself. The finest alchemy in the history of the world is about to begin. Whatever kind of yeast you used, it is busy consuming both the sugar and the oxygen in the juice. And as soon as the oxygen is gone, magic beguns.

Yeast is anaerobic facultative, a nicely biologic way of saying that while it thrives best in an oxygen-rich habitat, it also survives in media with no oxygen at all. While there is stll oxygen dissolved in the juice, the yeast will break down the sugar in such a way that it releases carbon dioxide as a waste. If you drink the juice during this period, it will taste more or less like a fizzy grape juice. Not bad, but not what we're after. As the oxygen dissolved in the juice runs out, the yeast will need to get it from a new source. This new source is the sugar, and as the yeast mines the sugar for oxygen, it will shift the way it metabolizes it, and it will begin to produce alcohol.

You'll notice a few things happening over the first two weeks of fermentation. If you have children, this process actually can be a fascinating lesson in applied science. In addition to the biology of yeast reproduction, they can learn the chemistry of how yeast breaks down sugar, and they also can see the physics of air pressure as the yeast produces more and more carbon dioxide that races to the airlock and forces its way out. There also are other chemical changes at work, as the juice will change color.

After about two weeks, the bubbling process will slow and appear to stop. You might have the urge to get a drink, but fight it off. Give the yeast more time to do its job. This is perhaps the sixth time I've made wine this way, and I've found that the alcoholic content is much stronger from waiting four weeks

Last night, my wife and I opened the bottle and I poured us each a glass. It had that heady aroma that wine has, and after only two glasses, I was starting to feel it. A friend of mine asked me to bring some to our next Bible study, and I had to laugh at his little joke. I wouldn't drink it all in one sitting, but there's no way it's going to last until next week.

But I'll be happy to start a few new bottles, and maybe bring one of them.

Russell Moore doesn't like me

Russell Moore doesn't like me.

It's not that big a deal, to be honest. I've never had the privilege to meet the esteemed Dr. Moore. If I hadn't encountered his declaration “The word 'evangelical' no longer has any meaning,” embedded in a tweet by Rachel Held Evans, our paths would still have yet to cross, even online. But cross our paths did, at least online. And in that interactive noninteraction, something about me rubbed him the wrong way, and he decided he disliked me enough to take the time to block me from reading anything else that he tweets.

I don't meant to make a big deal out of this, to be honest. I'm more amused than I am bothered, and even more puzzled than I am amused.

Moore, if you've never heard of him, is president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. Judging by his Wikipedia page, we have a few doctrinal differences. He believes in the inerrancy of Scripture, subscribes to the doctrines that one must be a Christian to enter heaven and that everyone else descends into a literal hell of eternal torment, and favors complementarian gender roles. I'm sure we could have some rather lively discussions if we wanted.

On the other hand, Moore also is the adoptive father of two children. Anyone who looks at orphans and says “They are my family” is someone who lives in the very heart of God. All his other work — be it as pastor, professor, theologian or ethicist — is straw compared to that bold act of love. That makes him good people in my book.

I encountered Moore's tweet embedded in one of Evans', and Twitter being what it is, I followed Moore's tweet back to Moore's stream. I found this particular gem, which amused me and reminded me of the old joke: Why do Baptists oppose premarital sex? Because it may lead to dancing!

Further down his feed came two tweets that I responded to. One had to do with Planned Parenthood and federal funding, and the other with the ongoing debate over whether it's discriminatory for Christian business owners to refuse to provide cakes or floral arrangements for same-sex weddings, or discriminatory not to allow them to do so.

Here are the two tweets and my responses, in their entirety. First is a retweet he had made on the subject of abortion and Planned Parenthood funding. It's not evident from the tweet or the rewteet, but I assume Moore is opposed to both.

@amandacarpenter @drmoore It's true. Federal funding supports the vast majority of PP's work. Not a cent goes toward abortions.

— Wicker Gate (@WickerGate) February 27, 2016

The second, a tweet of his own, on the issue of catering for same-sex weddings:

@drmoore @Andy_Taggart They consider baking cakes to be wrong? Probably shouldn't be running a bakery, then.

— Wicker Gate (@WickerGate) February 27, 2016

Now, I don't want to be too hard on Moore. I'm sure he has no idea who I am. It's possible he missed the John Bunyan reference, and assumed that "Wicker Gate" is a reference to something horrid. Importantly, @WickerGate isn't my main Twitter account. I created it a little more than two weeks ago as a platform for voicing my religio-political views separately from my more personal tweets. In that time the account has acquired zero followers of its own.

It's quite possible Moore felt that I was trolling him, even though my comments were polite and conversational in tone. I really can't blame him. The Internet is full of trolls, and he probably deals with them on a regular basis. It's not like I'm a well-known blogger like Rachel Held Evans or Samantha Field.

But then, that's kind of the point, isn't it? Moore doesn't know who I am. He doesn't know if I'm looking for answers, if I'm hoping to initiate a discussion from his tweets, or if I'm just weighing in with a different opinion. He can't tell any of those things about me, and yet he still blocked me. In itself, that's not a big deal.

But I keep having these encounters with evangelicals once they begin to suspect that I don't belong in the camp, which is odd when one considers that evangelicals proclaim themselves the possessors of the eternal truth of salvation in Jesus Christ, and want everyone to come into the fold with them. It's hard to come into the fold when the fold keeps turning you away. And yet it does.

An editor at a Christian magazine wants to buy something I wrote about surviving cancer -- until he discovers that I support same-sex marriage, and then suddenly he wants nothing to do with me. A woman at the church we've been attending for 18 months is friendly and welcoming – until she discovers that I plan to vote Democratic, not Republican, in the upcoming presidential election. Then, suddenly, I shouldn't even bother coming to church.

I'm a voice worth listening to, until it becomes apparent that I'm not a six-day creationist and don't believe in the Rapture. The negative reaction gets even stronger when I profess my belief in the humanity of Jesus. God only knows how the church would respond if I were openly gay, transgender, polyamorous or otherwise declaring an alternate sexual or gender identity.

Actually, I don't need divine revelation to know how that would work out. I have plenty of friends whose experiences illustrate quite clearly the dangers of being out in a conservative evangelical setting. In the end, this is nothing like any of those. In terms of offense, being blocked on Twitter by a complete stranger ranks far closer to 1 or 0 than it does to 10.

I leave it to the reader to determine what lesson, if any, is to be drawn from my recent experience on Twitter with Russell Moore. I don't know Moore's heart, or what sort of evening he was having. In the final analysis, here is all that happened: On a Friday night in February, I logged onto Twitter and tried to engage with Russell Moore.

And he closed the door in my face.


Copyright © 2016 by David Learn. Used with permission.

making history

Perhaps there should be a curriculum of study required for would-be insurrectionists.

That would have been a help to Ammon Bundy and the other members of the "Citizens for National Wildlife," the radicalized militia that made the news this weekend for taking over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. According to reports in the press, the militia believe that by seizing control of a birding outpost nobody has heard of, they can force the U.S. government to accede to vague demands about restoring freedom to ranchers in the Northwest.

You see, that's the problem with radicalized militias these days. They know how they want history to turn out; but they don't know how to articulate it, and they have no idea how to get there.

Changing the world takes more than a lofty ambition. You also need specific goals, and you need to take bold steps to reach them. If you want to become princeps of Rome, then you have to cross the Rubicon. Want to overthrow the monarchy, then you have to storm the Bastille. If no one fires at Fort Sumter, then there's no Civil War; and World War I can't happen if no one shoots the archduke of Sarajevo.

This is what it takes to make history and change the world. But while the Caesars and the Generals Beauregard are dropping mighty boulders that shift history from its river banks, Bundy and his fellow militants are setting up camp illegally at an unoccupied visitor's center at a bird refuge, and asking for friends to send them snacks in the mail.

Like many other Americans, when I heard Saturday that a coterie of militants was planning sedition in the Northwest and asking other right-wingers to join them, my initial reaction was disbelief at how gently they were being handled. An Ohio grand jury had just decided not to indict a police officer for killing a 12-year-old boy, and the past year has been full of reports of the National Guard deployment and heavy-handed police tactics against protesters upset by the oppression of black people. These yahoos plot insurrection, and nothing happens.

These are the same yahoos who 18 months ago, as FOX News cheered, expressed contempt for the law of the land and attempted with other militants to provoke federal officers into an armed firefight. These are the same nutjobs who threatened armed insurrection over Clive Bundy's supposed right not to pay fees to graze his cattle on land he did not own.

Walter Scott gets shot in the back by police for running away during a traffic stop, Eric Garner gets choked to death by a cop for selling loose cigarettes, and George Zimmerman gets off scott-free after hounding and murdering Trayvon Martin; and there is zero response to a radicalized militia that seizes a federal building and promises bloodshed if federal troops approach?

A few days later, though, and I have to concede the wisdom in the federal nonresponse. I'm old enough to remember what happened a year after the siege at Waco, Texas, ended. That's when American terrorist Timothy McVeigh – like the Bundys, also a radicalized rightwing militant – blew up a federal building in Oklahoma in what remains the worst incident of domestic terror in U.S. history.

I remain critical of news outlets like the Washington Post, however. The Post has insisted on calling the Bundys and their band of radicalized militants "activists," as though the militia has been going door to door and asking people to sign a petition.

There have been reports that officials plan to cut power to the Malheur building where the militants are holed up, to let them feel the "flat ass cold" of the winter in Oregon. That sounds like a good approach. Cut the power, and cut off their cell phones. Set up a fence a safe perimeter around the building so that no one can get in or out, and wait them out. From all reports, the militants brought enough food for a couple weeks at best, and while they might be able to hunt a little, that's going to take time, energy and patience.

When they surrender, I'm tempted to say that they should have the book thrown at them for sedition. But I also like the idea of charging them with as simple a crime as breaking and entering, destroying government property and any other low-level offenses that may apply. Something that will net them fines, community service and enough jail time that they lose the right to own firearms.

Because in the end, these men aren't the epic heroes they imagined themselves to be, and they don't deserve to be remembered as villains either.

They're little nobody thugs, and that's how history will remember them.



Copyright © 2016 by David Learn. Used with permission. Hat tip to Jeff Holton for the inspiration.

Tale of the Town Crier

I heard the story once of a small city that employed the services of a town crier. It was this fellow's duty to walk around the city, calling out important news and announcements of interest both general and particular.

​"Quarantine lifted in Ditko Village!"

"Fire in Kirby Square!"

"Traders from Romita Valley arrive tomorrow at the South Gate!"

People didn't always stop what they were doing; but they heard, and they listened, and so important news spread, and everyone praised the wisdom of the king in appointing the crier, so that everyone knew what was going on at all times.

Now the city had enemies to the north, in the Steranko Mountains. Every winter, when the snows fell and the crops died, and food grew scarce, bandits would sweep down from the mountains and roam the plains, attacking settlements and raiding the people's stores. Sometimes, when the bandit hordes were large enough and daring enough, the wealth of the city would call to them, and they would attack it under the cover of darkness.

The city was protected on all sides by stone walls nine feet high and so wide that guards could walk two abreast on them. When the guards spotted bandits on the approach, they would alert the crier and he would raise the alarm. The men of the city would rise from their beds, seize whatever weapon they could, and they would drive the enemy away.

One year this did not happen. Perhaps the town crier was asleep himself, or perhaps he did not hear the guards call him to alert the townfolk, or perhaps the guards themselves failed to tell him. No one really knew, but no one blamed him either. What they did know is that the bandits scaled the walls of the city, slew the soldiers who stood watch. and for three terrible days the brigands ran wild through the streets of the city, looting and killing at will until they finally returned to the Steranko Mountains, their horses laden with all the plunder they had seized.

The survivors left the old crier to his task, because the king had appointed him to that task, and what had happened was not his fault. But he had gone mad. Often he did his job as well as ever, and the city was kept safe by his warnings; but other times, he threw it into needless panic. He would shout that the library was on fire, and men would rush to the scene, buckets in tow, only to find scribes quietly reading and copying the scrolls in peace and safety. Other times he would say nothing, and so a dozen people would die by drinking from a poisoned well for want of a warning that it was no longer safe.

He's still mad to this day, and it's still the devil's game to understand when to trust him and when he should be ignored.

The crier's name was Conscience.

Copyright © 2016 by David Learn. Used with permission.

Apples come from apple trees

One of the biggest gifts that parents can give to their children are their own loves and passions.

My children are their own people, and always will be. That's as it should be. But it's always a great thing to see the ways that they pick up on our interests, our hobbies and our enthusiasms. Middle Daughter has taken my amateur's love of theater and interest in acting, and has turned it into a full-fledged passion of her own. I started listening to Broadway cast albums in high school and college; she has surpassed me by far, in only middle school.

Oldest Daughter dabbles in theater the way I do. It's a hobby, something she enjoys doing; and while it's nice to get bigger and better parts, she has no serious aspirations as an actor. But she shares my love for folk music.

Peter, Paul and Mary are a folksinging trio I discovered some time after college. I had heard of them before, obviously; primarily for their cover of Bob Dylan's "Blowing in the Wind," which I had first heard in college and then for a few other songs I heard on Oldies 99.9 while I was living in the Lehigh Valley. I'm a bigger fan now of Pete Seeger and early Joan Baez, but Peter, Paul and Mary are still a good listen.

For the past few months, I've heard Oldest Daughter singing this song all the time. She created a station on Pandora for folk music, and has been listening to Peter, Paul and Mary, and others on it.

It's a great song. I'm glad she turned me onto it.

Land of the Lost: 'Pylon Express'

Land of the Lost: 'Album'

There is trouble brewing in the Land of the Lost. For starters, an unknown animal is coming into the Marshalls' cave at night and eating their stores; and then there is a strange buzzing noise that only Will can hear, that draws him to the Lost City.

In the Lost City, Will finds something that looks like a matrix table of the sort Enik used to open the time portal, but made with colored stones instead of the stones. On the floor is a pulsing blue crystal. When Will picks it up, a nearby doorway fills with mist -- as when Enik showed each of the Marshalls their deepest fears -- and in it he sees a woman beckoning him to come closer, whom he recognizes as his deceased mother.

Holly, who has been working on a trap to catch the animal eating their stores, eventually hears the buzzing; and she and Will go to the Lost City together. Holly sees their mother too, after she picks up the blue crystal. Will speculates that they've found a time portal has opened to a point where their mother is still alive, and that they see her through a mist because they don't remember her well. Their mother fades from view, and they return to their cave.

Rick Marshall notices how despondent his children have become, and when they wander off to the Lost City together the next morning, he fellows them. There he discovers that the whole thing is a trap. The Sleestak are using the blue crystal to show the Marshalls what they most love, as a way to draw them in, so they can feed them to the Sleestak god at the bottom of the pit. Rick frees his children, tackles two Sleestak and pushes them into the pit, and leads his family to safety.

Back at their cave, he explains to the children how the Sleestak trap worked; and Holly abandons her own efforts to trap the animal coming for their food.

What I loved about this episode:

It's tightly written. The subplot about trapping the animal synchs nicely with the larger plot about trapping the Marshalls. Rick explains to Holly that a good trap relies on offering the animal something it wants but doesn't already have easy access to. The Sleestak offer the Marshall children not just a loving parent, but a loving parent whom they have lost.

Family ties. There has been no mention the entire series that I can recall to the children's mother. Why wasn't she on the "routine expedition?" We're never told, until this episode, when we find out that she died, years ago. I can think of few things more upsetting to young children than the thought of losing a parent, particularly a mother. But that's what happened here. A 1974 children's Saturday morning show actually gave us a widowed father raising his children. Even more daringly, while the mirage of their mother is alluring enough to draw the Marshall children close, the trap doesn't work until the children believe they're seeing Rick.

The Sleestak. They don't move particularly fast, they hiss a lot, their aim with crossbows is terrible, and frankly they walk like they're grown men trying to move around in rubber suits. But they are cold-blooded, vicious, and evil to the core. When the Marshall children believe that they are walking through the Lost City with their father, the camera keeps showing us brief snatches of what is happening: A Sleestak is leading two trusting children to their intended deaths. I'm 45, and it still creeped me out.

I keep saying it, but it bears repeating. "The Land of the Lost" was an intelligently written TV series for children. Forty years after its initial broadcast, this remains a show that children and adults can watch and enjoy together in a way they can with few others.


Forget the Will Ferrell attempt to make a comedy about this show. It deserves a serious and respectful treatment, either as a new kids show revisiting the concept as respectfully as its original incarnation did, or as a serious show for the adults who grew up watching Spencer Milligan and his castmates.

land of the lost: 'the stranger'

Self-control, and what that means, is at the heart of "The Stranger," the sixth episode of the classic "Land of the Lost" TV show.

Written by Star Trek alumnus Walter Koenig, "The Stranger" is where we start to see just how complex a sci-fi world David Gerrold created for this children's show. The episode begins with Holly and Will bickering as siblings will, while their father tries to keep the peace. They carry their fight as they go looking for food, and find a glowing crystal that converts the children's mutual hostility into actual physical pushing.

The crystal, it turns out, is called the Mageti. It is a stone that can operate the time portals in the Land of the Lost. The Marshalls are attacked by six Sleestak, and then rescued by Enik, a brown-skinned creature that looks like a Sleestak and claims to be an Altrusian from the future, descended from the Sleestak. The Mageti responds to emotions, but as a safeguard against violence, it self-destructs in the presence of too much hostility.

Enik acknowledges he theoretically could send the Marshalls home, but claims it would be too complex a calculation and refuses; besides, he needs the Mageti to return to his own time period. Will, predictably, becomes outraged; and in the ensuing fight for control of the Mageti, it explodes.

As it turns out, Enik possesses a stone that is a second Mageti, but it lacks a power source. The Marshalls lead Enik to the Lost City, where they soon find a gemstone to power Enik's Mageti; and Enik discovers that the Sleestak are not his ancestors, but the descendants of his people. He speculates that his people lost control of their emotions and descended into ignorance and savagery.

Another fight breaks out over the new Mageti, and this time Enik summons a psychoactive mist that subjects the Marshalls to their worst fears. Rick resists, and tells Enik that perhaps his people fell into the Sleestak not because they failed to control their anger and hate, but because they failed to display compassion and mercy. Persuaded, Enik releases the Marshalls and they let him return to his own time to warn his people of the danger facing them.

What I like about this episode:

Real sci-fi: OK, the matrix tables were pretty poor special effects; but this is some complex stuff. Interdimensional portals. Time travel. Evolution, and de-evolution. There's even an acknowledgment that this isn't magic; Enik could send the Marshalls home, yes; but as he points out time and again, with increasing irritation, it's not as simple as dusting crops. There are complex mathematical equations involved, and while he can do them, it could take years.

Complex world: Per the show's theme song, the Marshalls entered the Land of the Lost after an earthquake shook their raft while they were white-water rafting and plunged them down a waterfall. In the episodes, Rick has suggested that they fell through some sort of space warp, which he described as "a nightmare inside a nightmare." The world is obviously artificial, given that you can travel downstream from the swamp and end up back at the swamp without ever turning around. But now we're starting to see some of the machinery behind the world, which suggests that the Marshalls may be able to work that machinery themselves some day. (Albeit with risk. These controls are in the Lost City, which swarms with Sleestak.)

Unexpected twist. Enik is convinced the Sleestak are his ancestors, and why shouldn't they be? They're stupider, slower, and less advanced in every way. I can't imagine any viewer expects the Altrusians to predate the Sleestak, any more than Enik does.

Real fears. While a lot of kids shows have struggles like "How can I be popular?" or "How can I rescue him without revealing that I'm a mermaid?" the Marshalls just want to go home. Wesley Eure overacted a bit in this episode, and so did Spencer Milligan, but there has never been a child alive who hasn't been lost or separated from home and worried about never getting back.

Decent message. It's a kids show, so of course there's a moral. Rick Marshall puts it best: It's not enough just to control your emotions and not give into them; you also have to show empathy for others.

land of the lost: 'tag team'

I keep writing about "Land of the Lost" as though it were a sci-fi adventure show, and it is; but for all the sophistication underlying the show, it's also a children's show, with all that goes along with that.

Fifth episode "Tag Team" is a lesson about cooperation. When the Marshalls go hunting for vegetables, their neighbors the Pakuni keep raiding their cart and stealing the gigantic carrots and turnips as soon as their backs are turned. (Food plants grow to enormous size in the Land of the Lost. Carrots are 3 feet long, strawberries are the size of basketballs, and a turnip is the size of an Ottoman.)

While the six of them threaten one another and yell about the vegetables, Grumpy returns and chases them away, breaking off pursuit only when they break into two groups; but since Cha-Ka has remained with the Marshalls, the conflict continues. Before long, they're being pursued not only by Grumpy but also by an allosaurus the Marshalls have named Alice -- and then the children all get trapped by themselves.

Eventually things work out, as they always do in these situations, but the episode is made ironically amusing as Rick Marshall explains his rescue plan to Ta and Sa, the other two Pakuni, through the time-tested means of speaking English very loudly and gesturing a lot with his hands in hopes that he'll be understood.

The Pakuni distract Grumpy and Alice while Rick rescues the children, and afterward the Marshalls show the Pakuni how to work together to harvest their own vegetables. Cooperation. It's such a nice lesson to pass on, especially when it involves running for your life from dinosaurs.

land of the lost: 'downstream'

The mystery of the Land of the Lost deepens in "Downstream," as Rick Marshall leads his children on a rafting expedition downstream to see if they can find a way out of the land.

Along the way the episode sets up a number of mysteries about its setting. First is Jefferson Davis Collie, a Civil War artilleryman. Second is the cave where he lives and excavates jewels that store and direct large amounts of energy, enough that Rick speculates that they may be the power source for the time portal that brought theme there. Third, the show establishes that the land is finite and self-contained; heading downstream ultimately just leads back to the same point. Lastly, this is the first episode to mention Pylons.

As episodes go, this one was lackluster and not particularly exciting. But it does reveal just how intricate a world David Gerrold had created as a setting for the show. It's no surprise that 40 years after the show aired, my daughter right now is creating her own pretend Land of the Lost.

land of the lost: 'dopey'

If "Land of the Lost" was an edgy show for children, with monsters like the Sleestak; it was still very much a Saturday morning show that competed with cartoon fare.

That's shown in Episode 3, "Dopey," where Holly Marshall becomes enamored of the latest dinosaur the family has encountered. Out foraging giant strawberries for food, she and Will discover a giant egg, hatched, and wonder what could have come from it. They don't have long to wonder, because they soon encounter a baby brontosaurus whom Holly names Dopey.

The episode becomes a classic stray dog episode, as Holly begs her father to let him keep her new pet. When it becomes evident that they can't make a 4,400-pound brontosaur leave if it doesn't want to, Rick reluctantly agrees; and Holly sets about showing how useful he can be. In short order she is training him how to fetch, riding on his back, and hitching him up to the cart.

The downside is that Dopey makes a lot of noise when he's hungry, and his cries keep attracting Grumpy, the T-Rex, and putting the Marshalls in danger. Thus it is not long until Rick Marshall is telling his daughter the sad news that she has to give up her new pet and let him be with other brontosauri.

"Dopey" isn't an adventure episode like "Cha-Ka," or a suspense episode like "The Sleestak God." Instead, it's very much rooted in family, with children wanting to adopt wild animals as pets, whining about chores; and a parent setting boundaries and enforcing good behavior. We also see signs that Rick Marshall is a handyman: Like the good folks on "Gilligan's Island," he has managed to make a wooden cart with wheels, and a dinner table, using only the natural resources available.

We also get a little more speculation about the nature of the Land of the Lost. In the first episode, Rick Marshall told his children that they weren't on earth, judging by the three moons he had observed, and said that when they fell down the waterfall it seems like they were traveling through some sort of "space warp." Now Will tells Holly that their father things they are in an entirely different universe, one that connects to all space and time, which is how there can be dinosaurs there the same time as humans.

land of the lost: 'the sleestak god'

If you want an example of how intense "Land of the Lost" could be for young children, check out its second episode, "The Sleestak God."

A similar concept to the Silurians on Doctor Who, but with slightly better productions values, the Sleestak are a race of reptile people who soon became the main villains of the series and its most iconic characters. They're tall, skinny and long-limbed. They don't move particularly fast, and they hiss instead of talking.

During "The Sleestak God," Will and Holly are sent to fetch water -- even in the Land of the Lost, this is still a family, with chores and whining over having to do them -- and decide to go exploring as they go. One of their discoveries is a mysterious and midlly foreboding building. Before long the two of them are caught by the Sleestak, put into a net and hung over a pit to be fed to a monster in the pit, the presumed Sleestak god.

The children are saved by their father (of course) after their friend Cha-Ka is able to alert him to the danger they're in, but if you think about it, this is a pretty intense concept for a young child. It's probably one of the chief reasons that the Sleestak gave me nightmares when I was younger.

'To Catch a Killer': Brian Dennehy as John Wayne Gacy

 

I've spent about three hours the past two nights watching Brian Dennehy play John Wayne Gacy in "To Catch a Killer."

Gacy, for those unfamiliar with him, was a Chicago-area serial killer convicted of sexually torturing and murdering some 30 teenage boys and burying their bodies in his basement, under his garage, under the floorboards of his rec room, and elsewhere. To all outward appearances, he was an upstanding member of the community who regularly donated to civic organizations, and who performed for children as Pogo the Clown. The movie was made for TV, and aired in 1992.

Dennehy gives a great, just-the-right-side-of-creepy performance of Gacy, a man with cocksure grin who engages police in cat-and-mouse maneuvers as the pressure slowly builds; opposite an equally strong Michael Riley as Detective Joe Kozencza, who becomes convinced early on that Gacy is behind the recent disappearance of a local teen and then gradually realizes the monstrosity of Gacy's crimes.

The movie's got some good drama. In addition to the performances of its leads and supporting actors, it depicts Kozencza as a man under pressure as he overcomes colleagues' professional skepticism to bring Gacy in. He's got to convince not only his chief to provide the manpower, but his detectives that he's not wasting their time; and he's got to complete the case before Gacy's attorney can file a harassment lawsuit that will shut the case down.

It's got a few weak points too. I could have done with fewer car chases, myself; and the decision to include a psychic (Margot Kidder) seems silly in a story that focuses on more serious detective work in a true crime story. It also felt too often like the movie focused on Gacy's orientation, as if that were a sign of his depravity instead of incidental to it; but that at least may be a product of when the movie was made.

Still, what a movie. Dennehy was nominated for an Emmy for his portrayal of Gacy; and Riley and director Eric Till each were nominated for a Gemini Award. I generally don't think much of TV movies, and there's no doubt that the movie glossed over the more horrifying elements of Gacy's crimes; but this was a good movie.

Part two:


 

land of the lost: 'cha-ka'

Today I began a task that every man must undertake when he is a father. Today I began watching "The Land of the Lost" with my youngest daughter.

"Land of the Lost" was created by David Gerrold for Sid and Marty Krofft, and originally ran on Saturday mornings on NBC beginning in 1974. For a show that ran opposite cartoons like Bugs Bunny, "Land of the Lost" had a pretty intense setup. It was about a father and his two children trapped in a mysterious land with dinosaurs and other menaces.

The episode Alex and I watched tonight was "Cha-Ka," on YouTube. It's the pilot episode, but the theme song that plays over the open credits is really all the introduction you need: Rick Marshall and his two children, Will and Holly, are whitewater rafting when a terrible earthquake drops them 1,000 feet. They miraculously survive the terrible fall, only to find themselves running from a Tyrannosaurus rex they call Grumpy.

The episode picks up not long after the Marshalls' arrival in the Land of the Lost, and for a young child especially, offers a fantastic mix of adventure and risk. There is Grumpy, a regular dramatic threat who chases the Marshall children or who corners them in their cave. And there is Cha-Ka, a missing-link ape boy whose friendship the Marshalls cultivate by rescuing him from Grumpy and by treating his broken leg.

The writing is a little corny some times, and the banjo soundtrack adds a touch of feelgood sensibility to what could be an otherwise scary show for a young child. But all that aside, it's as engaging to Alex as I remember finding it myself. Two hours after watching it, she was walking around the catching saying "Cha-Ka! Cha-Ka!"

She's already asking to watch Episode 2 tomorrow.

'daredevil'

Just watched the first episode of Daredevil, and it was good.

"Daredevil" is a Netflix show based on the comic book published by Marvel Comics. Matt Murdock is a criminal defense attorney blinded in an accident as a boy when he saved a pedestrian from being hit by a truck carrying toxic waste. Normally when this happens, the person hit with the waste becomes very sick and may even die. But because this was a comic book, Murdock found himself with heightened senses that more than compensate for the lost sight.

And, like any other Irish Catholic criminal defense attorney would do, now that he's an adult, he goes out at night and beats up criminals.

I've only seen one episode, but the show looks promising so far. It draws heavily on the writing of Frank Miller and Brian Michael Bendis, the two writers who left the strongest marks on the comic. Miller set Daredevil in the Hells Kitchen neighborhood and played up his Catholic faith; and Bendis gave the comic a gritty film noir feel. They both also set Daredevil as the superhero who tangles more with organized crime than with flashy supervillains in outlandish costumes.

The show has a few subdued references to the first Avengers movie and the Chitauri invasion. They're there to remind you that it's part of the same shared universe, but made obliquely enough that that the story doesn't suffer if you haven't seen the movie.

Very nicely, the comic book elements are understated. Daredevil's outfit so far isn't the red leather worn throughout most of the comic's history; nor is it the black-and-yellow outfit that the series started with in the 1960s. So far he hasn't even got the Daredevil name yet. When Murdock goes out as a vigilante, he's dressed in the simple black cloth outfit of Frank Miller's "Man Without Fear" miniseries, and he's called by those who meet him "the man in black."

The bad guys are understated too. No outlandish costumes or melodramatic plots to rule the world. Daredevil in this series appears to be poised to fight organized crime. The show starts out with him interrupting a mob human trafficking action, fighting ordinary thugs with guns.

The first episode also introduced us to Karen Paige, Foggy Nelson, Turk and Wesley. (Wesley is the kingpin's right hand man, at least in Miller's "Born Again" story.)

So, good series. Definitely not for the young kids, though.

Remembering Arizona

If you are looking for a nice place to vacation this summer, may I recommend the Grand Canyon?

Located in the general area of Phoenix, Ariz., the Grand Canyon is an inspiration to behold. For thousands and thousands of years, the waters of the Colorado River steadily have carved the canyon through the living rock. The Grand Canyon is 277 miles long. In places it is as much as 18 miles across, and at points the canyon walls are 6,000 feet high.

It is a place of surpassing beauty. Its walls are a stunning array of reds, and the river is a living blend of colors. Wildlife thrives there in the desert, with fish that race upstream to spawn, or simply pass their lives navigating the twists of the river's bends. Coyotes and mountain lions hunt their prey along the river's twists and turns, and during the winter months bald eagles join other raptors and the newly reintroduced California condor in the skies overhead.

How can you describe sunset at the Grand Canyon? Words cannot express its beauty. Each night God makes the sky his canvas and with broad strokes he paints a work of timelessly fleeting beauty. And then, as the evening fades, he whispers the names of the stars and calls them forth one by one. It is impossible to see night come to the Grand Canyon and not be filled with wonder.

I would go on, but I've never been to the Grand Canyon.

Instead, when I visited the state 15 years ago, my mother-in-law took us to another location people the world over know Arizona for: Tombstone. This small city is the site of the O.K. Corral, not to be confused with that famously mediocre church hymn, "The O.K. Chorale"; nor with that unremarkable reef off the East Coast, the O.K. Coral.

The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral is the best-known and best-loved shoot-out of all history. Aside from movies like “Tombstone” and the imaginatively titled "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral," it has appeared on television in series as unlikely as "Star Trek" and "Doctor Who," and even on "Peabody's Improbable History." It's easy to see why it's such a crowd-pleaser. It's got guns. It's got action. It's got dead bodies piled up sky-high. It's got good guys and bad guys. It's even true! (But not really.)

Not surprisingly, the Wyatt Earp and his associates define Tombstone. When we visited, a clothing store there boasted that it used to be the saloon where Wyatt Earp was the dealer at a faro table. Other places identified themselves as the office Doc Holliday used for his dental practice; the home of his girlfriend, Big Nose Kate; the burial place of the Clanton brothers; and the spot where Morgan Earp was killed.

The references went on and on, and before long I found myself not only spotting references to Wyatt Earp and the others, but actively looking for them. By lunchtime, when I used the bathroom at Big Nose Kate's Saloon, it had reached the point that I half-expected to see a sign identifying the urinal where Wyatt Earp used to pee.

It's hard to blame civic and business leaders for making the gunfight so central to the town's identity. Located 70 miles southeast of Tuscon, there's not much else to support the town's economy. There are fewer than 2,000 people in Tombstone these days, but tourism revenue has given them a high school that would make any community proud.

I'd say their tourism strategy is working out all right for them, but all the same, the next time I visit Arizona, I think I'd prefer to see the Grand Canyon.

I'm told it's really nice there.


Copyright © 2010, 2015 by David Learn. Used with permission.

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The haunting of Highland Park

Ghost hunters report seeing a shadowy figure 

like this one in front of the Highland Park 

Post Office.

If there’s one thing I like about Halloween, it’s a good ghost story.

Told well, a ghost story does more than just make the hair stand on the back of your neck. It captures a slice of history and leaves it for the ages. These stories recall great battles, where the valiant perished so terribly that their souls relive their final torment year after year. They remind us of horrible crimes, of unsolved murders whose victims cannot rest until justice is done, the wicked brought to judgment and the innocent vindicated once and for all.

I’d had great success with this sort of thing before. Once I spoke with a woman who claimed the basement of her house was haunted by a malevolent spirit that stared at people when they weren’t looking. Another time I heard tell of the wozzlebug, a monster from Union County that killed chickens and savagely clawed dogs.

So, in a fit of journalistic fervor, I resolved to track down some of Highland Park’s ghost stories. After all, how hard could it be?

Municipal historians usually are a great source for this sort of story. So I wrote to Borough Clerk Joan Hullings and asked where I could find the borough historian.

She wrote back at once: “There is no borough historian at this time.”

Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I had learned about that evil spirit in the basement 15 years earlier. At the time I was managing editor of The Manville News and was looking for story ideas by typing that borough’s name into the Yahoo search engine to see what came up. I tried that approach again now, only this time I used Google.

A number of results I found were about haunted places in the Highlands, but I did hit paydirt on one paranormal site. Investigators with South Jersey Ghost Research once had visited a house in Highland Park, from 8:30-11:50 p.m. April 28, 2007.

Their case file revealed the following: “During the course of the investigation, investigators felt the presences of both male and female spirits, some of which are believed to be residual in nature. It was felt at least one female spirit is protective of the family, the children in particular.”

Now this was a ghost story worth writing about. Unfortunately, there is no identifying information on the web site, although it does include two pictures of a finished basement with orbs of light – telltale signs of otherworldly activity, according to paranormal investigators.

Even worse for my journalistic ambitions, the site states point-blank that they protect the privacy of their clients without exception.

My next break in the case came from Ghosts of America, a web site that allows readers to share their own paranormal encounters and experiences. An anonymous visitor reported seeing something strange going on at the Highland Park Post Office, something that had nothing to do with Forever stamps.

“In front of the post office on Raritan Avenue you can sometimes see a strange shadow that is cast by something that is not there,” the visitor wrote. “You can see the shadow moving at the speed of a person walking but there is no person there casting the shadow.”

I visited the post office myself on Mischief Night to verify the phenomenon personally. I did see a shadow there, and more significantly there was a tremendous cold spot where I was standing.

Alas, the shadow moved when I did, and the cold spot seemed to be wherever I walked. I suspect it had more to do with the weather than with anything supernatural.

It was becoming obvious that if I wanted to discover the local ghost stories, I would have to consult with the experts. My daughter’s friends informed me that not only is there a bona fide haunted house in Highland Park, it sits on the corner of Felton Avenue and Harper Street.

“People live in it now, so they kind of fixed it up,” said Isabella, 12. “But before, it was really creepy-looking.”

Sometimes creepy is all it takes. The house in question fell into disrepair during its vacancy. Old pictures of mirthless, unsmiling people filled the windows, and both Isabella and Eleanor, an eighth-grader at Highland Park Middle School, recalled disturbing evidence of haunting.

“If you were walking down Felton you could see a light in the attic,” said Eleanor. More sinisterly: “Someone said that she had seen a six-fingered handprint on the window.”

How the house came to be haunted, neither girl could say, though Eleanor recalled an older sister telling her once that the previous owners had died there. Perhaps their spirits had lingered until new owners fixed up the old house, or perhaps some unclean spirit saw the desolate old house and decided to move in.

It didn’t matter. It had taken me considerably longer than I had expected, but I had done it. I had found a local ghost story. Just to be doubly safe, I talked with Eleanor’s mother about it, to see what she knew.

“Her sister just made the story up to scare her,” she said.

Oh well. Maybe next Halloween.

booksnobbery? don't bet on it

Alexis Kleiman wants you to feel bookshamed for naming literary works http://t.co/jBLKnstrGy via @HuffPostTech
— David Learn (@marauder34) September 8, 2014

Go read this article on Huffington Post by Alexis Kleiman.

It's about the trending subject on Facebook right now, about books that readers have found significant in their lives. Kleinman contends that the bulk of Facebook users are lying through their teeth, and sharing impressive titles that buttress their literary credentials, instead of listing the books they actually read. Don't take my word for it, though. Read what she has to say and then draw your own conclusions.

Here's mine: Feeling morally superior, isn't she?

A few things bother me about this article. The first is that she's being disingenuous about what the list is about. She presents the trend as listing 10 books that have changed your thinking, and gives us a list of impressive titles that, yes, I can see how they could change or influence a person's thinking. Then she turns around and says, "No, those aren't your favorite books." Well, no; it's a list of influential books, not favorites. There's a big difference in those two concepts.

For myself, the only instructions I've seen were "List 10 books that have stuck with you." That's kind of vague. "The Foot Book" has stuck with me, but so has "Night." When I made my own list, I decided to focus on books that have affected me in a specific way, namely my understanding of race relations in America. I'm not going to pretend that they're my favorite books by any means. There was at least one book on the list that I found unspeakably tedious, but I listed it because it is relevant to the theme I selected.

Articles like this get me down, because the intent here seems to be to shame people who have enjoyed books that are literary in nature, and who are willing to share it openly. A few people have thrown the "humblebrag" charge around, and I don't really get it. There's no reason not to name the books we've read and appreciated when we're asked, and I won't allow some HuffPo blogger to shame me for it.

If you want my list of favorite books, it will be markedly different from my current list, and won't even reach 10, because I have a hard time doing favorites with anything. (The Bible doesn't even make that list.)

By all means, list your favorites if you like. My favorites would include:

1. The Hobbit
2. The Fellowship of the Ring<
3. The Two Towers
4. The Return of the King

After that, I'm not sure. If we go by the number of times I've re-read them the past few years, I'd list

5. Good Omens
6. Small Gods
7. Inferno (by Niven and Pournelle)

And then I really don't know. Possibly

8. The Kindly Ones

And then I have absolutely no clue what to list next. But at least I can tell the difference between "favorite" and "influential."

10 books

They say that everything goes around in cycles. Who can say, "Behold, something new!" It was here long ago, it the time of your ancestors it was here.

And so we find that once again the trendy thing on the Internet is talk about the books we have read. Five years ago, it was 15 books we had read that will stick with us forever. Now it's down to just 10 books. I could reprint the list from the last time around, but I figure, let's try to have a different take on it. After all, every book I've ever read will stick with me in some way, even if it's just to make me shudder every time the author is mentioned.

So, without further ado, here are 10 books that I have read that have fueled my understanding of race relations in modern America:

1. The Bible. This might not seem like a particularly obvious one, all things considered, but the Christian Scriptures have an amazingly progressive view of race growing from a thread that had emerged in Judaism during the time of the Babylonian captivity. Jesus confronted the racial discord of his day head-on, by healing Gentiles; by deliberately entering pagan territory to free people from unclean spirits; and in one famous example, by rejecting the racial superiority of his day to heal the daughter of a Canaanite woman. For his part, the Apostle Paul on a regular basis had to deal with the interracial conflict in the new Christian communities he was seeding throughout the ancient world. Like Jesus, he was progressive, telling people to respect their cultural and ethnic differences, and reminding them that love means welcoming one another. And ultimately, in the book of Revelation, John of Patmos describes a setting where people of every tribe, nation and language are united in worship.

2. "Black Like Me." "Black Like Me" is the true account of journalist John Howard Griffin and his journey through the South as a black man during the days of jim crow justice and segregation. Through a combination of melatonin pills, ultraviolet light treatments and a dye, Griffin made himself appear to be black, in order to better understand racism and how it affected society. The idea alone is incredible. That someone actually did this and then wrote about it, is nothing short of mind-boggling.

3. "Parting the Waters: America in the King Years." Taylor Branch's Pulitzer-winning work, first of three, chronicling the growth of the Civil Rights movement. The cast of characters is considerable, the detail mind-boggling, and the story timeless. I gained a much better understanding of what happened during the Freedom Rides, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and the passage of the Voting Rights Act. The book shines remarkable light on a dark period a lot of us would rather not talk about, because we want to believe we've moved on.

4. "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass." When I read this book, it made me angry. Not at what happened to Douglass, but at what had happened to me. Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, I was given no real sense in public school of what slavery entailed, or about the tremendous people, like Douglass, who rose much higher than society wanted them to. This was a man who taught himself how to read and write, who broke a slave-breaker, and whose story should be required reading for middle-schoolers throughout the nation.

5. "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano." Equiano's autobiography was an important contribution to the abolitionist movement in Britain in the late 18th century, because it it conveys not only the humanity of Africans but the essential barbarity of the English slave owners, who prided themselves on their culture and their piety. The book's got tremendous value historically, and also includes a first-person account of the Middle Passage. Unlike other slave biographies, Equiano's book in many ways reads the adventures of Sinbad, with its fatalistic declarations about the hand and will of God. Still, despite its perceived deficiencies, it's worth reading, particularly for people who have never read a slave narrative, or who think African Americans somehow benefit from the enslavement and debasement of their ancestors.

6. "Go Tell It on the Mountain," by James Baldwin. Told through a series of interconnected flashbacks at an overnight prayer service in post-WWI Harlem, “Go Tell it on the Mountain” peels back the veneer of righteousness of a deacon in a black holiness church, and reveals instead of a life of godliness a life of anger, hatred, adultery, and sin that has poisoned the lives of everyone around him. It's an angry book, and it deals with race in a despairing voice, as black characters revile one another – the character John admires his mother, but considers her powerless against his father’s brutality, and that appears to be the warmest he feels toward anyone – and hope for the future is cut off by these destructive dynamics, curtailed by white society, or severely limited by a God whose love is talked about but never seen.

7. "Letters from Birmingham Jail." I read this book for a religion course back in college, and wish I still had a copy. It's a collection of letters by Dr. King while he was in prison in Alabama, during the early days of the Civil Rights movement.

8. "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." I read Maya Angelou's autobiography in college, and again last year when Oldest Daughter had to read it for high school.

9. "Their Eyes Were Watching God." Zora Neale Hurston was an amazing writer, and there is a lot to say about this book, but what lingers with me is one image she returns to again and again: the image of the black woman as the mule of the world. The white man doesn't want to carry a load, so he gives it to the black man; and he doesn't want to bear it, so he makes the black woman carry it instead.

10. "Invisible Man." I think of this book constantly these days, with Ellison's imagery of black invisibility.

'the killing joke'

First published 25 years ago, "The Killing Joke" may be one of the three finest Batman stories ever told. It's certainly the finest ever written about the Joker.

Written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Brian Bolland, "The Killing Joker" has the Batman starting to boil over in his frustration with his green-haired foe. He knows how Harvey Dent became Two-Face, and that all his decisions come down to the flip of a coin. He knows that the Edward Nigma is the Riddler, and he understands the Riddler's compulsion to lead people on a chase.

Ra's al Ghul, the Royal Flush Gang, Poison Ivy, the Penguin -- Batman gets the entire Gotham City rogues gallery, and knows how they work and why. But the Joker remains a mystery to him, and Batman wants to change that before it becomes too late and one of them kills the other.

The Joker, of course, has other plans.

In one of the most iconic scenes from the comic, the Joker shoots Barbara Gordon at point-blank range and paralyzes her. This event, which sidelined Barbara Gordon from being Batgirl for the next 25 years of comics, wasn't even the main attraction as far as the Joker was concerned. His goal is simply to drive her father, the police commissioner, insane.

"The Killing Joke" is the comic that cemented the Joker in readers' minds as a nihilistic madman, and one of the central themes of the comic is how far one bad day can take a person past the edge. Without knowing the details, the Joker alludes to the events that drove Bruce Wayne to become Batman, and assumes that Commissioner Gordon also has been pushed over the edge by what the Joker has done.

But what makes the story worth reading is that Moore depicts the bad day that pushed the Joker himself over the edge, when all his hopes and dreams came crashing down, when the bottom fell out of his world, and he plunged into the void.

Around the same time that DC Comics published "The Killing Joke," it also published Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns" and "Batman: Year One," which showcased the endpoint and genesis of Bruce Wayne's career as the Caped Crusader, and that established him as an antihero with mental health issues of his own.

Add "The Killing Joke" to the mix, and there's nothing else DC has published that comes even close to their level.




Copyright © 2016 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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'a new kind of christianity'

Brian McLaren is a pastor and well-known voice in what has been called the emerging church, a movement among post-evangelical Christians away from the popular stereotypes of moral scolds, right wing politics, and generally unpleasant behaviors and ideologies.

"A New Kind of Christianity" is one of McLaren's attempts not only to deconstruct some of the more difficult aspects of evangelical Christianity, such as its belief in the eternal torment of those outside the camp, but also to understand better what Jesus and his disciples meant in their original first-century context. From there, he projects forward, to how this different understanding could affect the relationship churches and Christians have with the larger society, with members of other religions, with gays and lesbians, and so on.

McLaren begins his book by tracing the influence of Greek philosophy on a collection of writings that came from a Hebrew culture with radically different views of evil, God and human nature. From there, he makes the argument that some doctrines held firmly by many evangelicals reflect a perspective that would have seemed alien and baffling to biblical authors and their audience, such as the belief in the eternal, conscious torment of sinners at the hands of a loving God.

After this and related arguments -- for example, that Jesus should be the lens Christians understand other biblical writers through, rather than viewing Jesus through the lens of Paul or later philisophers -- McLaren lays out a sweeping ethos for how he believes the church should address social issues such as same-sex marriage, war and the military-industrial complex, religious pluralism, environmental responsibility, and so on.

The book is challenging, and thought-provoking; and even among those not inclined to agree with McLaren and his conclusions, the questions he raises should lead to deep and meaningful discussions.

'afterlife with archie'

I expect that just about everyone in the United States knows about Archie Andrews and the rest of its gang. Even if you didn't grow up watching "The Archies" in syndication, it's impossible to avoid the Archie digests at the supermarket. Archie Comics aren't as big as Spider-man, but they're every bit as much a part of America
.
And that's what makes "Afterlife with Archie" such a treat. In a nutshell, Sabrina the Teenage Witch does something with good intentions, and inadvertently brings the zombie Apocalypse to Riverdale. Before long the zombies are chowing down at Pop's Diner; they're coming to the high school dance; and Archie and his gang are running for their lives, while hell comes nipping at their heels.

There's an undeniable comic appeal to a story that blends two pictures as contradictory as the horrorific Walking Dead and the idyllic Riverdale, and "Afterlife with Archie" definitely enjoys that appeal. But aside from the goofy charm that comes from such a juxtaposition, the story itself is well told. Betty and Veronica are still rivals for Archie's affections, but with a sharper edge than usually shows in traditional Archie tales; Reggie is still selfish and self-absorbed, but with graver consequences than before; and other, minor characters from the Archie universe emerge with new and sometimes more disturbing wrinkles than they otherwise ever might have shown.

Throughout the entire volume, writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa manages to create a zombie story that is both unnerving and thoroughly human, as Archie and members of his supporting cast come face to face with soulless monsters who used to be loved ones, and must make the horrible choices they need in order to live.

If you're a teen or older, and you have only vague recollections (or better) of Archie and his ilk, do yourself a favor and read this collection when you can. It's scary fun.

Facing the blue monster

Like the rest of the country last night, I was shocked to hear the news that Robin Williams had died.

Williams, whom I grew up watching on "Mork & Mindy" and followed through movies such as "Good Morning, Vietnam," "Dead Poets Society" and "Good Will Hunting," died in his California home on Aug. 11. Reports indicate that his death was an apparent suicide by hanging. News articles relate that he had been struggling with depression. Not surprisingly, I've heard a few people chime in with opinions on how selfish he was for killing himself, or other similar comments. I want to ask, do you even know what depression is, or what it feels like?

Depression is not being sad, or blue, or grieving for a period. Depression is a void. It's a void that starts out small and slowly, but as things fall into that void and disappear, the void grows larger.

The first thing to go is your happiness, so that things that once brought you pleasure now do nothing for you. Have a job you love? Soon it becomes rote drudgery. A hobby? It's pointless. The tiny little things that made you laugh suddenly don't seem funny any more, and you become a little grumpier when there's not as much left to lift you out of the slough.

The next thing to go is your joy. Happiness is fleeting and on the surface, but joy has deep roots that go all the way to your core. People like your wife and your kids bring you joy; your faith in God may be a source of joy to you. As your depression grows and your joy falls into the void, life itself begins to hurt.

It hurts so bad that you can't see anything worth living for. Every difference of opinion with a friend or a loved one blows up into something too large for words, and then you're left with a handful of shame for overreacting, made only worse when people you love start to demand, "What's the matter with you?"

Once the present has fallen into the void, the future goes next, because there is no longer any hope that things will get better. The past follows soon after, because you can't believe that it could ever have been that good in the first place. By this point, the void has swallowed everything, and all that's left for it to swallow is you.

Depression is patient. It can wait, and it does. It follows you minute after painful minute, day after exhausting day, week after wearying week, until time becomes a ravenous crocodile with years like teeth that will tear into your soul. And as the crocodile follows you, the void beneath you begins to speak.

"It doesn't have to be like this," it says. "You can stop the pain now."

There are always people who say that you can ask for help, and that's true. You can ask for help, if you think it'll be there; but depression robs you of the ability to see help. You can't ask for help if you don't believe that help exists. You can't ask for help if your life is so miserable that you can't convince yourself that anybody cares about you, or ever has. You can't ask for help if you have no reason to believe that anything can ever get better.

There are other people who say that depression is an act of supreme selfishness, and disregard for how others feel. Of course, when you are wrapped in depression and it smothers you like a blanket, you can't see the others. You don't know that they're there, that they care, or that your death will be anything but a tremendous relief. People in the throes of depression aren't trying to make other people hurt; they're trying to stop their own pain.

Some people are saying that Robin Williams was a coward for killing himself. I don't believe that. I believe he was exhausted from dealing with something that he had no idea how to deal with further. I believe he made the wrong choice, and I wish to God he could have found the help he needed, but I don't hate him. My heart goes out to his family and his friends, who now must contend with the empty questions of why, and whether they could have done anything to save him.

Robin Williams is gone now; and I pray that he'll never feel depressed again.


Copyright © 2014 by David Learn. Used with permission.

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spider-man: the other

When J. Michael Straczynski began writing for Marvel Comics in 2001, he asked one simple but fascinating question: What if it was the spider, and not the radiation that gave Spider-man his powers?

That question, which made Spider-man fresh and new in a way he hadn't been for years, bears mixed fruit in "The Other: Evolve or Die." On the one hand, the entire concept of Spider-man as a totemistic hero, one chosen to serve as an avatar of the spider, is a fascinating idea. On the other hand, this is something Straczynski already has explored at length in the pages of "Spider-man," and it takes about two-thirds of the collection before the storyline actually presents us with anything new along those lines.

Written across four concurrently published Spider-man titles, "The Other" has Spider-man come face to face with his own mortality as a mystery ailment leaves him addled and weakened, and ultimately unable to defend himself against a murderous foe.

The story suffers from too many writers, but it shines its brightest when it focuses on the relationship between Peter Parker and his wife. There's a heart-wrenching moment when she confronts him with the survivor's guilt and subconscious death wish that drive him to be hero, for one. In another scene, written by Peter David, Mary Jane Watson-Parker watches a newscast helplessly as Spider-man fights Iron Man, and of course Spider-man's death scene, his fifth and easily best-written.

Like many other stories in a long-running title, the events of "The Other" no longer count in Spider-man's continuity and in this case at least, that's unfortunate. While it's not as strong as the earlier stories from Straczynski's tenure on "The Amazing Spider-man," "The Other" remains an engaging read.

swamp thing, volume 6

The final collection of Alan Moore's award-winning work on "Swamp Thing" finds everyone's favorite plant elemental trying to make it back home.

Volume 6 is less memorable than the previous volumes collected under writer Alan Moore's name. The first four volumes in particular focused pronouncedly were horror, environmental horror in particular. This anthology instead explores the genre of episodic science fiction as the Swamp Thing's spirit jumps from one planet to the next. As he goes Moore explores and offers up commentary on science fiction characters such as Adam Strange, Metron and a member of the Green Lantern corps.

Unlike the issues collected "American Gothic" storyline, these are essentially standalone stories and fairly straightforward fare. Loosely connected by his desire to return to the earth, the individual issues are not building up to any great conclusion, and in fact contain stories by other writers as well. Among these is Rick Veitch's issue with Metron and Darkseid, which in a few throwaway panel serves to foreshadow one of the storylines Veitch had planned for his own run on the comic.

This is not to say that the stories aren't good; Moore has always been one of the brightest lights in comic books, and in the 1980s, he was at the top of his game. It's clear from these stories that he was having fun, imagining unusual settings to place the Swamp Thing in, and along the way experimenting with the storytelling medium he was using. (There is one story told from the perspective of a sentient planet-size ship that encounters the Swamp Thing and traps him in her core for a brief time.)

But it's only after the Swamp Thing gets back to Earth that things begin engaging again, as Moore returns to his familiar environmental themes, and winds up his defining run on the series. And like every good writer does, he leaves the reader with something to consider on those themes.

While in space, the Swamp Thing discovered he could save a world from complete environmental collapse and ruin, and now on earth he is considering the possibility of doing the same here, until he realizes that humanity would simply squander the new Eden he gives them, and continue to blight it over and over again. It's better, he decides, to sit it out, and hope that humanity will wake up to its responsibilities on its own.

And on that, despite the horror we have seen over the last six volumes, Moore leaves us with the hope that we are willing to contribute, and the effort we are willing to make that hope real.


Copyright © 2014 by David Learn. Used with permission.

swamp thing, volume 5

I had never read much Swamp Thing until recently, when I finally got around to reading Alan Moore's classic take on the character.

As superheroes go, Swamp Thing really doesn't bring much new to the table. A brilliant scientist named Alec Holland, he was turned into a monster by a horrible accident in his lab in the Louisiana bayou that turned him into an intelligent mass of swamp life. It was a fairly ho-hum origin story until Alan Moore took over the title and started to explore the horror story potential around a being so literally plugged into the environment.

This, the fifth volume of Moore's seminal run on "Swamp Thing," marks a shift in the storytelling from the four previous volumes. Until now, "Swamp Thing" has been a comic showcasing environmental and social horror, covering topics like deforestation and overconsumption, nuclear and toxic waste, misogyny and domestic violence, and America's gun culture. Volume 5 is where it becomes a love story.

Comic books almost always have contained their romantic subplots, as the hero has a love interest that can't be fully realized for one reason or another. Superman loves Lois Lane, but she has a low opinion of Clark Kent. Ben Grimm loves Alicia Masters, but can't see her being with someone as misshapen and as monstrous as him. And not only is Abigail Cable married, the Swamp Thing is a superorganism of plants.

Here Moore offers a subtextual commentary on superhero relations as the authorities charge Abby with crimes against nature, prompting her to jump bail and flee to Gotham City. When the Swamp Thing discovers, he follows her to Gotham and ultimately brings the city to a halt and (naturally) comes into conflict with Batman until his lover is released.

This collection continues many of the environmental themes of Moore's earlier "Swamp Thing" stories, but it also delves into the psyche of an urban jungle and its powerlessness before the might of nature. Even as he tells the story of the love between the Swamp Thing and Abby, Moore shines his light into the emptiness of America's cities and the longing at the heart of humanity for a return to the Green and walking in step with nature once more.

As Batman later remarks, "I think all of us were awed by a love that could stop a city."

If you're looking for a superhero comic for your children, "Swamp Thing" isn't it. But if you want an intelligent story that gives you something to think about after you finish, you should read this, and the previous four volumes.



Copyright © 2014 by David Learn. Used with permission.

Terry Pratchett's 'Small Gods'

"Small Gods" is Terry Pratchett's rather humorous and insightful take on the relationship among gods, religion, and their worshipers.

Pratchett is a humanist, as becomes obvious to anyone reading his critique of gods and religion; but he's also a gifted humorist, as anyone familiar with any of his Discworld novels will know. Set on his fantastical Discworld, "Small Gods" tells the story of the Great God Om, now incarnated as a turtle with only one worshiper. It is a far cry from the days when he appeared as a raging ox trampling the infidels.

Problematically for Om, is that as he has diminished, the Church of Om has grown. People flock from all over the region, from among his own people and from among those whom they have conquered, to pay their respects.

The puzzle of how a god can be so well-known and have such a mighty church but have so few actual worshipers is one that will challenge both Om and his simple-minded worshiper, and change the way things work in Omnia.

Like his other Discworld novels, "Small Gods" is a book that satisfies at many levels, and always leaves the thoughtful reader with something to consider, even after multiple readings.


Copyright © 2014 by David Learn. Used with permission.

Art Spiegelman: 'Maus'

It moght sound odd to say that a graphic novel about the Holocaust is inspiring, but in the case of "Maus" that seems an apt descriptor.

"Maus" is a Pulitzer-winning account of Vladek Spiegelman in the years leading up to World War II and the Holocaust. Interwoven with the story is the tale of the hero's twilight years, where he has become a bitter and difficult old man, and his son, the comic book writer and artist Art Spiegelman, tries to bridge the gap between the two of them by trying to understand his father's experiences.

Vladek Spiegelman makes no claims that he and his wife survived the Holocaust because of any special merit on their part, but his story shows a man who seized opportunity when he could. He used those opportunities not only to keep himself alive, but also to give hope and assistance to other Jews during the darkest period of the 20th century.

And while Vladek's story conveys much misery and loss, it ends on the happy note of reunification, as he finds his wife after the war has ended, and the two are able to start a new family.

The younger Spiegelman at times uses the narrative to offer commentary on the medium he's telling it in, and even expresses doubts as to whether the book adds anything of value to Holocaust literature. To that, I'd have to add my own unequivocal "yes." Although "Maus" chronicles the same horror found in books like "Night" and movies like "Night and Holocaust," it also expresses something about the resilience of the human spirit.

For all the horror and nightmare of the Holocaust and other periods where we give way to hatred and fear, and the other woes released from Pandora's box, "Maus" reminds us that hope also is at loose in the world, and cannot be extinguised even by the likes of Hitler and those who support them.



Copyright © 2014 by David Learn. Used with permission.

A Tale of Two Teds and their Tigers

Take a look at this picture for a moment, will you? It's a screenshot of the official Twitter account of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), where he shares that he recently bought the tiger skin rug, with U.S. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah).

Tiger-skin rugs convey a rugged masculinity about the men who have them, which undoubtedly is why Cruz decided he wanted to have one, as part of that good old hardboiled gun-totin', boot-wearin' Texas cowboy image he's been cultivating for years. (That, and to own the liberals sure to be offended by the suggestion of an endangered species being killed to make a rug, but that represents a different, petulant sort of masculinity.)

Now that Cruz has the rug of a dangerous predator in his office, it's as if he's putting everyone on notice about what a powerful man he is. It rather puts me in mind of another famous politician who had a tiger skin rug.

Teddy Roosevelt was a tremendous big-game hunter, one who went to Africa on safari and hunted dangerous animals, including lions and tigers. One rather imagines Roosevelt welcoming visitors and, once they had marveled at the magnificent rug, regaling them with a story of the hunt.

One can picture him now, sitting back in his chair with a pipe, looking over his spectacles at his overawed guest, and telling a tale of the dangerous beast that had menaced the village. He would spin an engaging yarn, sharing how he had tracked the tiger for days or weeks, before finally meeting it. There, face to face, man and beast met in a match of resolve, steely sinew, and wits in a contest of two predators until at last Roosevelt had emerged victorious.

The tale would be exaggerated, but there would be no doubt of it: Roosevelt had enjoyed the thrill of the hunt, had no small measure of respect for the tiger, and continued to feel pride in accomplishing something relatively few other men had done.

Ted Cruz, meanwhile, bought a rug. And it isn't even real.


Copyright © 2014 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Tragedy strikes in choice of font for school bake sale

Yesterday Middle Daughter made fliers for a Student Council-run bake sale. Using ComicSans.

I can't help but wonder where I went wrong. If I were a better father, this never would have happened.