Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On

Oftentimes, when someone wants to express extreme gratitude or well-wishing, they say "May all your dreams come true." I find this very strange and counter-intuitive, as I can hardly think of a more unpleasant thing to wish on someone.

Think about it. What kind of dreams do you have, if you can remember them? Do they tend to be idyllic romps through tropical paradises? Probably not. Most people have dreams about what they encounter in everyday life: friends, family, school, and work. Visions of your old house or school are far more common than a nighttime visit to the Big Rock Candy Mountains.

Researchers from the University of California, Santa Cruz, divide dream-emotions into five broad categories: Anger, Apprehension Sadness, Confusion, and Happiness. Notice that positive emotions take up only one-fifth of the spaces on the list. Seems to me that joy and contentment are less common in dreams than many people believe, despite extensive experience to the contrary in their own dream-lives.

However, just because "Happiness" is the only positive emotion on the list doesn't mean it's the least-commonly experienced. If it weren't a common emotion, it wouldn't be on the list at all. I'm just saying that other emotions are important, too, and we need dreams in order to explore them. If your brain just replayed positive memories and fantasies all night long, what good would that do? If you wanted placid, inoffensive nightly entertainment, you could just as well watch Lifetime. Dreams dealing with the other emotions are more important than the happy ones, because they allow us tho confront our dilemmas (even ones we're not consciously aware of) in new and creative ways.

If you go to an online dream database and read a few dream summaries, it quickly becomes clear that very few of them are about "happy" subjects. They often include bizarre and frightening imagery, the significance of which is sometimes only known the the dreamers themselves.

Admittedly, positive dreams may be reported less often because they are less memorable, seen as less important, or may express desires the dreamer does not feel comfortable sharing with the rest of the world.

But even so, whatever kind of dreams a person may experience, a wish that they all may come true is clearly a disastrous wish for one simple reason: nightmares.


As anyone who has had a nightmare can tell you, they're not fun. And almost everyone has had one at some point in their lives. So why would anyone wish for all of someone's dreams to come true, if they know that they've probably had at least one nightmare in the past? The only thing about nightmares that makes them bearable is the fact that they end! And when you wake up, they (hopefully) will have no bearing on the rest of your life.

So, with all this in mind, why on Earth would anyone ever wish for ALL of someone's dreams to come true?!

"Republicans For Voldemort," and Other Unhelpful Slogans

Way back in about 2007 or so, I first started noticing a certain slogan, prominently displayed on numerous cars and T-shirts in the Ann Arbor area:


At first, I thought they were funny. Republicans are evil, and so is Voldemort, so it makes sense that they would support him! Har har har! Good one, guys!

But after a while, a niggling little doubt began to gnaw at the back of my mind. Perhaps Repiblicans were not, after all, the Nosferatu-esque monsters I had always assumed they were. Perhaps, just perhaps, they were people. Not real flesh-and-blood humans like you and I, but they do have children (I've seen the pictures!), and so maybe they're not as universally reviled as I imagined.

I began to doubt in the unassailable rightness of my cause. How could I groan at news of Republicans refusing to "cross the aisle" and get stuff done, if I spent my free time accusing them of being Death Eaters.

Even if done in jest, such barbs are often harmful. In a way, the dismissiveness of the slogan made it even worse. As Dumbledore himself pointed out, "[i]ndifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike" (Order of the Phoenix, pg. 834).

Recently, the meme has mutated, producing the virulent "Sarah Palin is actually a vampire" strain. Let me state, for the record, that I disagree with Sarah Palin's views on virtually every subject, from rape survivors' rights to the proper handling of the Gulf Oil Spill.

But I do not hate her. I strongly disagree with her, just as she has a right strongly disagree with me. That's how democracy works. I will not support her bid for any public office, but I know she's not the delusional half-wit that many liberals make her out to be. She can't have made it to the Governorship of Alaska without knowing how to do something right!

Besides, we don't disagree on everything. Recently, she joined a growing list of petitioners calling for Florida-based Rev. Terry Jones to quit being a dumbass and not turn the entire Islamic world against us forever by burning a big pile of Korans on Sept. 11. At least she and I can agree on something. Right?

And so, you liberals out there who still enjoy ridiculing people whose views differ from yours by accusing them of being in league with the villain of a Young Adult fantasy series, I have a request for you:

Stop it. You're hurting America.

Book Review: "American Born Chinese," by Gene Luen Yang

This is actually the second time I've read this book, which should tell you something about how much I like it.

Honestly, this is one of the finest graphic novels I've read. The story is funny and engaging, the art is simple and clean, and the blending of Chinese folklore, modern-day high school drama, and racial politics is deft and precise. Nothing feel arbitrary or out of place. In fact, since it's my second reading, I'm able to look at little details in a new light, and realize that the author was dropping little clues throughout the book. Nothing that could possibly give away the ending; just little things that take on new meaning on the second read-through.

The narrative consists of three seemingly-separate threads:

1) the story of the Monkey King, one of the most-beloved heroes of Chinese folklore;
2) the story of Jin Wang, an American-born Chinese boy who moves to a new, largely Asian-free school; and
3) a purposely-painful sitcom about a boy named Danny, tormented by the annual visits of his unbearably Fresh-Off the Boat cousin, Chin-Kee.



Being a white, upper-middle class American male, it's sometimes difficult for me to really understand what it's like to be seen as an outsider. That said, Mr. Yang's book does an excellent job of conveying that sense of other-ness. Mostly this comes in the form of the seemingly random and arbitrary taunts which Jin Wang and his other Asian classmates receive from white students.

Jock #1: "Hey, I chink it's getting a little nippy out here."
Jock #2: "You're right! I'm gettin' gook bumps!"

It's moments like these, when Jin Wang's classmates gang up on him without any provocation, which make him so powerfully appealing to the reader. It makes you truly understand how the dual pressures of assimilation and rejection combine forces to tear apart the young man's psyche. He wants to be accepted, but he wants to be left alone. he tries his best to act white, but no matter what he does, his otherness is always in the spotlight. He's embarrassed by who he is.

If you're looking for a book that can powerfully and concisely explain to you the difficulties involved in growing up Asian-American, then I strongly recommend this book.

POSSIBLE MINOR SPOILER WARNING!

I hadn't realized this the first time (I'm embarrassed to say), but this is a very Christian book. It wasn't until I read on the back flap that the author "teaches computer science at a Roman Catholic high school" that everything fell into place.

I'd noticed a few hints of Christian imagery here and there (Wong Lai-Tsao and the Monkey King following a star on their journey; the adoration of the infant Buddha, etc.), but I figured it was just part of the original myth. And it may well be. But that doesn't stop it from resonating with Christin themes.

The name of the principal deity of Chinese folklore, Tze-Yo-Tzuh, is here translated as "He Who Is", an obvious allusion to Yahweh, whose name means roughly the same in Hebrew.

The Monkey King eventually gains the title of "Heavenly Emissary". In the later chapters, his abilities and puposes are similar to those of a guardian angel, which is highly appropriate, since our word "angel" comes from the Latin angelus, which means "messenger" or "emissary". (Coincidence? I think not.)

You can find plenty more examples of Christian influence in this book, if you look for it, but Yang never beats us over the head with it. Yang allows the reader to draw their own parallels between the story of the Monkey King and the biographies of any number of Christian saints.

In Defense of LARPers

The other day, Brianna's friend Nicky was asking me about "Vampire," and how the game works. One of the questions she asked was whether or not we dress up and act out the parts. I told her no, we don't do LARPing (Live-Action Role-Playing).

"That's one bridge we don't want to cross," I said.


Suddenly (and quite unexpectedly), Brianna told me that I was being unfair to LARPers, and should stop making fun of them. She told me that I'm constantly ridiculing LARPers for their passion, and that since I spend my Wednesday nights pretending to be a vampire (who spends his time in the library, no less), I didn't have a rhetorical leg to stand on. I confessed that I hadn't realized how often I denigrated LARPers, but that they were just "weird", and "way too into it."



Brianna's first contact with the phenomenon of LARPing came from the movie Role Models, so she approached LARPing from a more positive angle than most people do. To her, LARPing and traditional tabletop RPGs are just different points on a continuum of nerdyness. In fact, she said, LARPers always look like they're having a blast, doing what they love, and getting sunlight, fresh air, and exercise. Who am I to ridicule them for doing what they love?

The intensity of the verbal drubbing I received forced me to open my eyes. I realized that I was not only being unfair to LARPers, but to all nerds, and even to my personal philosophy of nerdyness.

Brianna was right. I am being unfair to LARPers. They've never done anything to harm or hurt me, and they don't bother anyone. All they do is have fun with their friends, in the way they most enjoy. And there's nothing wrong with that.



So from now on, I will do my level best never to make fun of LARPers again. They've done nothing wrong, and all nerds must stand together if we're going to gain any kind of widespread acceptance of our passions and hobbies.

Saga of the Swamp Thing

I just finished reading the first volume of Alan Moore's legendary 1980's run on the horror comic Swamp Thing.

God dammit. How can one man be good at everything? It's just not fair. Some authors get so married to their genre that they have to use a pseudonym to publish anything outside their area of expertise. But Alan Moore is equally at home writing superheroes, steampunk crossover orgies, post-apocalyptic political science thrillers, bizarre multidimensional examinations of culture and dreaming, existential nihilism, and pirate-comics-within-larger-comics. Hell, he's even a pretty good songwriter!

But I'm not complaining. Not really. I mean, it's a bit intimidating to know that there's someone as talented as him out there, but it's also comforting to know that it's possible to branch out after establishing oneself in publishing, and not be tied to one story for the rest of one's career.

And if it wasn't for Alan Moore, we wouldn't have so many awesome comics. I feel that he is part of a small group of comic-book writers (along with Neil Gaiman, Scott McCloud, Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman, et al.) who are recognized by mainstream critics as having real literary talent. The quality of their writing is so great that not even lit snobs can look down their noses at them without seeming openly hypocritical. They force the mainstream to evaluate their work on its merits as stories, not as "kiddie fare."




But anyway, getting back to Swamp Thing:

It's amazing. Simply surreal, yet simultaneously human. It feels as if Moore actually journeyed into the DCU and took case studies of humans mutated into plant-based life-forms before he set out to write this. I've never seen retconning done so well, so seamlessly. It doesn't just change the stories of the future; it turn the whole tale, from beginning to end, into an entirely different beast. It's like the big reveal at the end of The Usual Suspects: it forces you to go back and watch it again. (It feels a bit weird to talk about the shock-value of something published more than twenty years ago, but hey, it's news to me.)

And damn if he isn't a good horror writer too. Just let me say that I'm glad I read "A Time of Running", the last chapter of the book, in a well-lit room, on a night I was sleeping at my girlfriend's house. I don't know if i could've fallen asleep without someone in the bed next to me. That shit be creepy, son! It's amazing to me how, no matter how otherworldly the agents of fear may be in Moore's work, they always point us back to the fact that human beings are capable of much worse than even the vilest demon or most degenerate beast.

And that, is true horror.

Don't read it alone.

The End of the World

Yesterday morning, at about 8:00 AM, the series finale of The Masks of the Damned came to its long-awaited conclusion. The final episode clocked in at just under 12 hours. That's way too long for any TV show, even a long-running soap-opera, but it's not an unheard-of length for a tabletop role-playing game. Which is what it was.

For almost exactly one year, The Masks of the Damned has been a collaborative effort in group improvisational storytelling, and the brainchild of my good friend and former roommate Ian Murray. Ian will shortly be leaving for grad school in Buffalo, New York, which is why the series had to come to an end.

But what an end it was! Nothing else can come close to the nail-biting intensity of a long-running RPG's final session, partly because the viewer can't just sit back and watch how things will unfold. If you make the wrong move, it could spell doom for not just your beloved character, but all other viewers as well (and by extension, their characters, too). Audience-involvement is a must.

For those of you who don't know, The Masks of the Damned utilizes White Wolf's Dark Ages: Vampire setting, and takes place in medieval Krakow, in (roughly) the Year of Our Lord 1230. Not many people know this, but at that time, Krakow was something unheard-of in medieval Europe: a democracy. Granted, it was democratic only for a small group of powerful noblemen and landowners, but it was a step in the right direction.

Anyway, at the opening of the final night's chapter, the city had been under siege by Hungarians for about a week, taking heavy losses by night when the invaders' vampiric masters awoke, and laid their own siege with Tzimisce [chim-EET-see] war-ghouls. In the midst of a major battle, Nicodemus, the former ruler of vampiric Krakow, reappeared and announced that he had come to reclaim what was rightfully his. Instantly, the city began to tremble, and a titanic dragon erupted from beneath the royal palace: a dragon formed of thousands upon thousands of human corpses, bound together and given an unholy life by blasphemous magics. The beast raced with shocking speed to the Eastern Gate, preparing to smash the city walls and allow the Hungarians access to the defenseless, sleeping city.

I don't think I've ever heard of a more epic final battle, which took place on the dragon's freaking back as it raced through the city. Imagine the final battle in Army of Darkness, but instead of taking place in a castle, it takes place ON GODZILLA'S BACK, WHILE HE'S IN THE PROCESS OF DESTROYING TOKYO!!!

During said battle, the fighters held their own against a powerful Tzimisce named Lazarus, who wore a suit of armor made from his own skeleton, and dealt unhealable damage! Oh yeah, and he could fly. Meanwhile, the weak-armed mages (i.e., just me) attacked the beast's weak points with burning barrels of tar, trying to cripple its' legs before it could crush the rest of the city.

Oh, and did I mention that, for all intents and purposes, the dragon had INFINITE HIT POINTS!?!?!?! And that it was almost ONE-HUNDRED FEET TALL at the shoulder?!?!?! And that as you climbed us its body, the uncountable hands and mouths of all those corpses would bite and rake and claw at you?!?!?!?!

It was an epic battle to end all epic battles.

But then came the True Final Boss!

I believe I mentioned earlier that Nicodemus, Krakow's former ruler, had returned? Well, we had to fight him. Immediately. He made a brutally difficult boss: he was older than dirt, he could fly, cast tons of magic, turn himself into a gravity-defying puddle of blood, use telekinesis, fill entire rooms with nigh-impenetrable darkness, hold hundreds of gallons of blood in his body, and knew a spell that could collapse people's skeletons at will!!! For a mortal, having your ribcage collapsed would be instantly fatal. For us, it just made us loose half the blood in our bod-- Oh, wait. When you're fighting someone tougher than the fucking Antichrist, loosing half your ammo is pretty much fatal, too.

Normally, a boss like that would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible. But do you remember how, mere minutes previous, Lazarus dealt most of us a ton of unhealable damage? Things were not looking good for the heroes of Krakow.

It was only in the last minutes, hemmed in, badly wounded, low on blood, and still unable to deal a single point of damage, that we came across a possible solution: Wolfgang (my character) still had a dagger on his person. A dagger with a spring-loaded poison chamber. A poison that had proved devastating to vampires in the past. I drew it from my pocket, and checked how much ammo it had.

It had one. dose. left.

Using my own limited flight powers, I took to the air and made a final desperate stab at the seemingly-invulnerable Elder Vampire. I rolled a seven. If that result had been one point lower, we all (probably) would have died then and there. (Which is not to say that I was the only one pulling my weight in the life-saving department; every character had more than a few brilliant ideas and close brushes with Final Death. This particular one just happened to be mine.)

With the successful application of the poison, Nicodemus was badly hurt, and we were eventually able to subdue him. The Page (an extremely powerful child-vampire of indeterminate gender) who had been sitting in his/her/its throne and watching the battle, congratulated us on our unlikely success, but reminded us that, in becoming the rulers, heroes, and villains of Krakow, we had nothing left to do but train our replacements, and know that one day, we too would be overthrown.

'Twas a very bittersweet ending, but what else can one expect from the chronicles of the Living Damned?

Heere endeth ye tale of Ye Masques of ye Damned.

P.S. IAN, WE WILL MISS YOU!

Becoming the Buffalo

For three days during the Ann Arbor Art Fair, I did something that few adults will consent to do, even in pleasant weather: I willingly put on a full-body buffalo costume and paraded myself through crowds of onlookers.

My feelings about the experience are mixed. While the wearing of the suit was incredibly difficult, the actual experience of becoming "Blazin' the Buffalo©" was... well, it was fun. I liked it.

Putting on the buffalo suit (or any mascot outfit) equals instant popularity. Everyone loves a mascot. They're funny, instantly likable, and always up for a good joke. Total strangers will wave to you like an old friend. Children will run up to you and hug you without prompting. Strangers will ask if they can take their pictures with you. In assuming the identity of a mascot, you're essentially given carte blanche by the normally all-powerful Social Contract.


You can do any damn fool thing you want, when you're in a buffalo suit. You can dance in public, try on hats, check yourself out in a mirror, mock authority figures, try on hats (or even more flamboyant articles of clothing), and people eat it up. They love it! They want to take pictures of Blazin' the Buffalo wearing their merchandise, perusing their art, or playing with their children

Sometimes, the smaller kids were afraid of me, but all I had to do was "cry" for a moment, and they would usually get over their fears, in order to comfort the "sad buffalo". As for older kids (i.e., seven- to thirteen-year-olds) could go wither way; some thought I was really cool, others seemed embarrassed by my attentions, as if I were implying that they were younger than they really were. Teens, I noticed, were generally keen on having their pictures taken with me. Adults were generally indulgent, but didn't seem eager to get too close to me.

But please, for the love of God, PLEASE STOP ASKING MASCOTS IF THEY'RE FEELING HOT!!! Just knock it off! It's incredibly hot work, but we work hard to stay in character and have a good time, and be friendly and silly. We do it for the kids. When you ask us if we're hot, or say how you pity us, or commend our bravery for coming outside in "this awful heat", you're forcing us to break character, to acknowledge that we are not a mascot, but just a man in a costume. It's no different (and no less rude) than walking up to an actor in the midst of a performance and asking them how they stay in character when they're surrounded by such crappy sets. It takes the magic out, if deflates the fun. When I'm trying to be the Buffalo, I don;'t need people reminding me every few seconds that I'm really just a cook in a faux-fur suit, sweating my balls off and wishing desperately for a cup of ice-cold water. So for the love of God, STOP ASKING US IF WE'RE HOT!!!!

Whew! Glad I got that of my chest.


Anyway, the process of becoming a mascot was fascinating. It reminded me of those Vodouisants who "become" the god whose mask they wear.

It might be a slightly creepy way to describe the experience, but at times, it felt less like I was inhabiting the role, and more like the persona of "Blazin' the Buffalo©" was carrying me along of its own volition. I always knew what to say and do, what gestures to make, without ever having to think about it. I guess I knew how to be a mascot without having to be trained, just from watching them in action. It was an experiment in acting, subconscious learning, and... dare I say it?... spirituality.

It was almost as if "Blazin'" himself were acting through me. All I had to do was let go of my ego, the part of me that would have been embarrassed to be seen in public wearing a fur suit, and just... let the Buffalo do the talking.