After three days of torture Christ Jesus Christopher Johnson flies up into the sky with a promise to return and save his people. Some on the right speculate he’ll return violently.

Saul Wikus starts as a member of The Sanhedrin MNU, persecuting the outsiders because messianic cults prawns aren’t kosher. Eventually he converts to the cause, becoming St. Paul an alien.

There’re no plots like the old plots, eh Blomkamp? It’s about time someone did more Alien Nation, anyway. Cat food? Milk? Get it? Anybody? Is this thing on?

District 9 has a couple of problems with characterization. First, Wikus (the protag.) is an annoying unintelligent coward — even after he’s had his catalytic I-have-the-Golden-Fleece hero-moment. He’s very hard to get on-side with as a protagonist. This, though, could well have been by design. I could see humanity being very difficult to get along with, very stupid and fickle, if a being wasn’t used to us.

Wikus is a complex character, fine, but you really need complex villains for difficult protagonists to shine. The villain in the story is humanity, but that’s far too big to make dramatic sense. We whittle it down to MNU, okay, a couple of bad old-guy corporate-cog suits but still too nebulous to really work. Our antagonist targeting systems settle on Venter, the terminal testosterone case merc death-squad leader.

Except just being a fascist jock with a gun really isn’t enough characterization to make Venter an effective foil for Wikus, and so the protagonist’s characterization crumbles. Without Vader, Luke is just a whining farm boy — our enemies bring out the best in us.

Setting is the third character, and it’s almost there. The mockumentary style has problems when you stray from it to do private scenes — suspension of disbelief gets a bit turbulent. The movie I would have liked to see would have shown Venter as a soldier guarding humanity from the violent prawns. Get us on his side, then show his fall: One day a prawn eats his wife and kid. Okay, now there’s a reason Venter hates the aliens, a reason he’s a mercenary for MNU, and as a special bonus we’re on his side because prawns are scary.

Then we segue to Mikus the slum administrator and build even more rapport with him — he’s kinda brave protecting us from those mean aliens. Finally my imaginary version of the film shows us that we were wrong to hate — we build sympathy with the visitors as normal — but Venter can’t forgive and forget so he’s destroyed.

Then Venter isn’t one dimensional, he’s tragic. Mikus gets a good foil which explains his vacillation somewhat more, and the setting is used to pull the audience in and really hammer the theme. Our point of view shifts from Venter’s to Mikus’, from Legion-backed-Sanhedrin to Disciples of the Living Christ. Oh well, missed opportunity.

On the whole I quite liked it. The graphics are very tight, helped by the shakeycam and use of authentic humans (bumping through the uncanny valley). The gun battles are pretty good — the alien weapons fun.

The exposition of the back story is masterful and the first contact scenario’s premise is satisfyingly unique: Aliens show up and we have to cut our way in to the derelict saucer and rescue them with our awful state-of-the-art social workers. The cognitive dissonance that idea created in me had the pleasantly discomforting quality that theory generates when it slams into reality. “Wait, these are aliens with an interstellar craft and we have to give them aid? Fucking reality never works out how you expect…”

See Inglorious Basterds in a theatre, at night, with a weekend crowd.

I’ll wait. I’m going to write and think and write. Please see it, I beg you. After the first reel I was thinking of recommending you save your cash and just pirate it, but then I got the point — and it’s a basterd of a good point.

Don’t just see it — watch it. Pay close attention. Close. Think! Think! Think! You will be well-rewarded.

I will say this: Inglorious Basterds is a relief. This is what the theatre-going experience should be: I’m exhausted, I’m disgusted, I’m elated, and I’m on the verge of tears. I’m angry and awed and ashamed.

I’ve just seen one of the best films of our generation. Tarantino is a genius and the film a performance piece.

See it in-theatre, at night, with a rowdy weekend crowd. Think!

There’s nothing glaringly wrong with this film, but half way through I realized that I’d rather be watching a different film. Rather than talk about the real 500 Days of Summer, I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you about my film. It starts the same way:

Tom believes in soul mates. Tom meets Summer and they start to date casually. Tom falls in love with Summer. Summer dumps Tom. Tom reflects on their time together.

My point of departure is catharsis:

Tom realizes that he didn’t actually know Summer, that she had no character. Rather, Tom is in love with a mental construct of his ideal mate. When Summer dumped Tom it shattered this construct, revealing her to be the Other. In addition to losing this particular construct, Tom recognizes the futility of new constructs.

Tom realizes that he is ultimately alone in the world. Tom will never truly know someone else and will never have the soul mate relationship he fantasizes about. Tom comes to accept the loneliness of the world and share the viewpoints of his two friends: McKenzie, who avoids suffering by lack of desire of the Other, and Paul, who recognizes that the Other is generic and continues to date the first girl who came along.

I’d probably have to give Camus a writing credit.

This cleverly-illustrated NY Magazine article makes a good case that shoes suck. I’m fascinated by Vibram FiveFingers:

From what I’ve read online their killer app is running; kayakers looking for something weirder than foam clogs also like them. I don’t run nor kayak, so I’ve been looking for other excuses to buy a pair:

I currently wear Vans to lift weights. Regular athletic shoes are not good for lifting because they’re spongy and don’t provide a stable base. Some people lift in bare feet, although the experts say weightlifting shoes are better. The exercise cult of CrossFit often requires a combination of running and weightlifting: Ryley tells me that some cultists wear FiveFingers as a crossover shoe.

I’m into lightweight backpacking and part of that philosophy is that supportive boots are more harm than help with a light backpack. I currently hike in Chaco sandals with socks to protect my toes and they still get plenty banged-up. If they ever wear out, I could replace them with Keen toe-protecting sandals or FiveFingers?

The US military figured if journalists were embedded in combat units, their reporting would be more pro-war than if they just sat in a Kuwaiti briefing room. The plan was that reporting would get biased by a combination of esprit de corps and internal psyops. But they didn’t embed journalists with commanders who can see the big picture; they embedded them in combat units: theirs is not to question why.

The HBO miniseries Generation Kill is a perfect product of embedding: the war is misguided and all high-ranking officers are either insane or incompetent. The journalist is embedded as a grunt and, sure enough, he idolizes his father and grandfather figures: the Sergeant in charge of his team and the Lieutenant in charge of his platoon. These characters can do no wrong: bad things always happen because higher-ups screwed up. The journalist’s peers can do kooky things like shoot Iraqi kids, but they get redeemed in the end.

Generation Kill‘s simplistic morality and character arcs make it fun to watch in the same way most action and fantasy movies are fun to watch. The tone of the first half of the series is closest to Jarhead: war is about waiting. The second half mixes in some Black Hawk Down battles against video-game towelheads. If you enjoyed both those films, you’ll enjoy Generation Kill, only less so.

Tom Peters is a popular post-industrial management theorist. Way back in 1997 he wrote an article about workers seeing themselves as a product with a brand. At the time it was fashionable to speculate that employees were old-meme and soon we’d all be consultants hired for project work. But the idea applies almost as well to employees working their way up a corporate ladder.

One book I’ve read on personal branding is Soaring on Your Strengths, which emphasizes that a brand must fill a market niche. The “best overall” niche is hard to fill, it’s better to focus on what you’re good at and, just as importantly, what you like. Rather than try to correct your weaknesses, get better at your strengths.

The key trick here is to go from a list of previous jobs on your resume to a brand. Since mission statements were the fashionable strategic planning tool at the time, Peters suggests:

Start by writing your own mission statement, to guide you as CEO of Me Inc. What turns you on?…What’s your personal definition of success?…However you answer these questions, search relentlessly for job or project opportunities that fit your mission statement.

Soaring on Your Strengths guides you through a list to get at your brand essence:

• equity (mostly education)
• talents & core competencies
• image & reputation
• passion
• values

Once you’ve got your brand, the idea is that it guides your resumes, cover letters, elevator pitches, professional associations, wardrobe, etc. Soaring on Your Strengths gives a bit of advice on that, but I think the basic idea is pretty obvious (and SoYS won’t help you master it).

Alcohol is a hell of a drug.

I’m running out my last few hours here in Alberta. I’ll be in Van or Vic in the near-ish future. Expect me like you expect Jesus.

I’ve been hanging out with Spacekat and Biobeeboo all week. They’re an “organizing” couple — let’s collectively call them BioSpace — they run their own soccer team, throw barbecues, schedule pub nights, etc. They’re domesticated, gettin’ down to the business of living until they die.

I spent Saturday getting far too drunk at Kat’s bachelor party. The waters of Lethe consumed in a highly social setting: People know me, but I don’t know them.

While I was drafting this two of Kat’s friends came over: Notoss and Pork.

Pork: “Hey dude! You feeling better?”
Jack: “I assume I met you at the bachelor party. Let’s start over — What’s your name?”

Earlier in the week BioSpace and I played the Battlestar board game with a Central Park figure skating instructor from New York and some other randoms.

This was Lee’s turf. Apparently we’d met and become quite friendly.

Lee: “Hey, Jack. How’s it going?”
Jack: “I’m sorry man: Jello shooters — Who are you?”
Lee: “… We talked for like an hour!”
Jack: “I was functionally unconscious the whole night.”

[Minireview: Battlestar Galactica (the board game)]

First, the important part: I won.

All those hours spent playing Diplomacy, Republic of Rome, Axis and Allies, and all the various and sundry ubergames out of Germany have given me skills most don’t posses. About halfway through the game Lee asked me if I’d played before.

Jack: “Nope, I’m just hot shit.”

I was Kara Thrace, Cylon sympathizer, and my talented robotic superiors, the President and the Fleet Admiral, finished off the humans one jump from Cobol. My big coup was framing The Chief, the NYNY figure skater, who fucking panicked: This is not a game for those unused to politics and paranoia — the more you say you’re not a Cylon, the worse you look >:)

NYNY: “No really: I’m not a Cylon! I swear!”

Rabble: “Throw her in the brig!”

NYNY: “What the fuck? I’m not a Cylon! Why don’t you guys believe me? This game sucks.”

Rabble: “That’s exactly what a Cylon would say. Go fuck a toaster, robobitch.”

[/Minireview: Battlestar]

BioSpace have a downstairs neighbor, Jane. She and I have become acquainted, and on Friday I went along on a girls’ night out. Spacekat and Notoss came too, but the sight of a table full of women scared them. Kat didn’t want to invade their space — he’s effectively married — and Notoss is a big nerd: Six women are six too many for him to be comfortable.

The guys wimped out and hid in a booth, so I ejected from them and entertained the girls. I made friends with a large masseuse, who rattled off all their names.

Jack: Just before touchdown I promised myself that I’d remember everyone’s name on this trip. I’m using that rhyming trick, so I have to make up little mental poems about all of you.

Like, I met this guy, Ferris, at Kat’s party. Tall, built, blond hair, blue eyes. Conversant in existentialism. So I thought to myself: “Ferris. Ferris the Nazi, marching through Paris.”

Maggie: “Wait, do you mean Ferris Bueller? He’s an Aryan-looking Marxist-Leninist?”

It came back slowly: I remembered discussing western media portrayals of Hugo Chavez with someone. Edmonton: Small as any million-person city, I guess.

Jack: “Yeah, sounds right. Story checks out.”

The six of us went to Cook County, sans masseuse. The girls were worried about the line, but didn’t understand the power a talkative gentleman accompanied by five beautiful ladies has over a rustic cowboy bouncer.

They photographed all of us and scanned our government identification cards. I’m assured that the information is destroyed within twenty-four hours so long as you don’t “cause trouble”. This tweaked my paranoia whiskers, but drinking on Fridays isn’t something the NeoCons are jailing us for yet. Hopefully there’ll be a grace period or a public revolt once prohibition gets that far.

Cook County is the true Edmonton experience. BC:California::Alberta:Texas, and we were in the thick of it — Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy; squaredanced-macarenas; a mechanical bull.

I was scared of the bull, and therefore had to ride it. I remembered afterward that I’ve jumped out of plane. A gyrating public rough sex simulator is comparatively non-terrifying. Besides, who cares? It’s just public performance.

As I sat on Kat’s couch writing this Notoss told me riding a mechanical bull makes you gay: Fuck that, bad joke, loser-talk. The thought passed through my mind, as did the danger of getting thrown around a room by a robot, as did the thought of blowing off the taco party for the sausage party at the pub earlier. It’s all just a big lame excuse: Confront and defeat your anxieties or they will control you.

Earlier, Kat ran into Michael Geist. Kat is a librarian, and Geist wanted to know why the library was blocking torrents. To paraphrase:

Geist: “You’re being unfree.”
Kat: “It’s not a freedom issue, it’s a bandwidth issue.”
Geist: “Then why don’t you limit bandwidth instead of banning the whole technology?”
Kat: “Look, we’re doing the best we can.”

I’m uncomfortable with Spacekat’s views on technology and intellectual freedom. Geist apparently came off as a strident prick (as I imagine copyfighters generally do), but Kat also told me he thinks of internet availability of information as “a bonus” instead of as a mission. I think this is grossly wrong-headed.

I am told there are three factions in the library sciences: The Intellectual Freedom Faction, and two that hate freedom. I didn’t pay attention to the unfree factional platforms, because without intellectual freedom nothing else matters. Kat is, unfortunately, one of the haters. He has other priorities, like expanding the library’s comic collection and related programs. The trick is: When the fascists come for our comix — again — maybe no one will be left to help him.

After the secret party I walked home through Edmonton’s river valley. If it was on our side of the Misty Mountains I’d call it Rivendell. It was not a thing to be missed in June, under the stars. Tra-la-la-lally, it was quite a pleasant valley.

Edmonton: The Final Score

The people are friendly, there’s fun on tap, the Summer weather is sunny and warm (if a bit muggy), but there’s no ocean. The culture warriors are very religious, but are also easy to dodge.

The valley is worth a bonus point.

Edmonton: A surprising 8 / 10.

On my after-lunch constitutional today I ran across a head shop, Shell Shock. The Edmontonians I’ve been chatting with are a pretty laid back bunch. Shock’s staff were more courteous than shop staff in Vancouver, particularly those at the BCMP and the Seed Bank.

We had a nice chat about vaporizers, politics, bongs, politics, the recent Toronto Cannabis Cup, and politics. Then they handed me a card, which was covered in perforations.

“Oh,” I said, “so you can break it into filters! Neat!”

I had passed their test, so they invited me to a Solstice party that requires a secret password to enter — it looks like I won’t be back until Monday (earliest). I turned to leave and saw something I’ve wanted ever since Tupac used one: A gas mask pipe.

Purchased! I’m fascinated (SFW) by gas masks (NSFW) — because they’re cute (SFW) — and this thing is gold.

Question for the aviating audience: Who thinks I can carry this on, and who thinks I should check it? Will it get through security, or is there a rule about masks? I don’t care about getting searched — that’s just blog fodder — but I don’t want my new toy confiscated like a tube of toothpaste.

On the other hand, if they search me they’ll almost certainly read my journal, and I’m not sure that my writing projects are appropriate for all audiences.

I’m dumbstruck at the ease with which I ingratiated myself into the Edmonton counterculture. Makes me think still more that I’m just not cut out for what I have hitherto considered ‘normal’ society.

This afternoon I rowed down the gorge to glo on Jutland (warning: the website makes awful noise).

The first thing that strikes me about a restaurant is the approach, the grounds, the exterior. glo is surrounded by great public walkways, great public sculpture, and overflowing public trash cans.

I anticipate the excuse, “picking up garbage is the city’s job!” Well, the government is ruining your restaurant: Stop making excuses and busk the cans into your dumpsters.

I love the space glo is in, and hate the hip hop blasting over the front door. I’m a giant hip hop fan, but when the music is so loud it’s fuzzing your speakers you are doing it wrong.

I’d add something in the long entrance hallway as well, video screens or similar. The corridor is perfectly designed for busy waiting — don’t bore the people lining up to give you money. That said, my party was immediately seated on the patio on a sunny, beautiful, busy day.

The interior was almost empty, except for delivered cases of kitchen supplies which hadn’t been properly received littering the tables.

We were seated outside under pleasant shade, which is a neat trick. I’ve been red for a few days, first from the beach, second from a patio with poor brolly shades. Worse, however, are those patios that are over-shaded and get no sun. glo achieved a nice balance.

Then we got our menus.

Laminated, dilapidated menus with no graphic design didn’t fit the quality the rest of the establishment was aiming for. This is basic stuff: Use heavy paper with a standard design, possibly a cover, and reprint and recycle as needed.

Edifice: 2 of 5.

Our server introduced herself and recorded our drinks. My new trick has been to ask for an Arnold Palmer, which seems beyond most Victoria bartenders. She repeated the order and I could tell she had no idea what I wanted.

The server returned with an iced tea, coffee, and a question for me: “Okay, we’ve had a discussion. Some of us think an Arnold Palmer is a light beer with a shot, some of us think it’s iced tea with a shot. Which is it?”

Fail.

I changed my order — they didn’t have lemonade — and ended up waiting an unreasonable amount of time. The tea eventually showed up with a round of waters, nicely sweetened. Lots of iced tea in Victoria is over-sweet, which is confusing because Americans, our main tourist demographic, drink the stuff sugar-free.

The drink service foreshadowed the food: slow, and not quite right. The medium-rare steak in my party came medium, and our eggs benny had clearly spent some time under a hot lamp. Not only that but the English muffin — which the server called an “English McMuffin” — was burnt.

I had a chorizo goat cheese omelet with spinach, mushrooms, diced tomatoes, and disgustingly overcooked eggs: scorched rubber. The flavors and textures would have worked had the dish been properly cooked — one side effect of the excessive heat was to string out the spinach.

These cooking problems were all a symptoms of an overly-busy kitchen. Obviously a steak order takes time, and when you’re busy it might go out a touch over-done (and should then be sent back). Omelets and poached eggs take minutes, or seconds, to cook and should be done last. Even a busy person has enough time to send omelets back until they’re right.

The egg dishes tasted like they’d been started with the steak and then kept warm — unacceptable. Here’s how to properly scramble eggs, imagine your way to a properly cooked omelet from here:

None of the tables around us got food in a timely fashion. glo’s kitchen is either under-staffed, under-experienced, under-motivated, or under-skilled. Or maybe some combination thereof.

The food was served without an eye to presentation, which is disappointing because most of the dishes I saw on other tables were presented with a pseduo-haute flair.

Service: 1 of 5.

glo feels more than informal — it feels too relaxed, like the difference between a sweater and a sweatshirt.

The patio’s bamboo shades had been trimmed into uselessness and then left in place. The planters blocked isles and bottlenecked traffic. They’d been useless long enough that waiters were stepping over the boxes — so why even have them?

Combined with the trash cans, the tatty menus, the entryway speaker-fuzz, and the unstowed cooking supplies, the unthinking arrangement of the bamboo planters gave the place the feel of a restaurant without a manager. Or maybe with a tasteless one. In either case, that lack of care was reflected in the food.

That said, the space is great and the “hard” aspects of the design — those that are more resistant to a lack of care, like the building and internal fixtures — work well. And being in Victoria on a sunny day is pleasurable by default.

Ambiance: 2 of 5.

Overall, glo is fine for a relaxed time out. I feel as though I’ve panned it more than it deserves, like a nice-but-stupid dog you keep having to choke. Let’s put this review in the context of the reviews I haven’t written yet: glo is above-average for its class in Victoria.

But with a little discipline it could be so much more. It just feels unmanaged — no consistent vision, no steady hand.

Final: 2 of 5.

When I heard that J. J. Abrams directed the new Star Trek movie I was worried. Between Lost, Cloverfield, and Fringe J. J. doesn’t seem to know how to end stories. He relies too heavily on cliff-hangers.

But J. J. does know how to do sound. Star Trek successfully mixes the suffocating silence of the vacuum transparently with the pew-pew of futuristic space weapons, and the scene with young Kirk blasting the 200-year old Sabotage by the Beasties reminded me of Alex’s Beethoven obsession in A Clockwork Orange. “Wow, this classical music is the perfect soundtrack for my crime spree.”

The CG is great. There are some nice space battles, as expected. The hulking sci-fi structures in the haze of Iowa’s horizon give a nice sense of a real place in another time. I just wish the camera stayed still long enough for us to enjoy the effects. The movie uses a lot of fast cuts, more Star Wars than Space Odyssey, more popcorn action flick than sci-fi film.

Actually, this Star Trek owes quite a bit to Star Wars: the farm boy gets into a bar fight at his backwater spaceport; warp drives boom suddenly as ships blast off; cute, Ewok-style aliens annoy the characters. The villain, Nero, even travels around in what is essentially a Death Star.

Nero stops the film from being truly great. Bad guys can’t be pure evil, they end up looking like cardboard cutouts. Even Darth Vader said he was sorry in the end. Nero’s redeeming qualities are glossed over too quickly for me to empathize with the guy. Fans of the prequel comic, Star Trek: Countdown, got his tragic backstory fully: Blue-collar guy loses family, wants revenge. In the film, apart from a brief mention of his wife, Nero is a caricature of evil.

Good heroes need great villains. Nero’s weaknesses as a character reflect poorly on Kirk.

That aside, I thought the story was decent, and J. J. didn’t disappoint me: the plot comes to a satisfying conclusion — no cliff-hangers! If you’re looking for a Transformers-style sci-fi romp, you won’t be disappointed. 8 of 10.

Written for Edge News Vancouver. Cross-posted to MPF.