Twin Things

Every time I think I've seen the most unabashed Twin Peaks homage, another one comes along. Last night I watched the first episode of Dark, a German series that began in December 2017, the same year Twin Peaks: The Return aired. Dark also has a healthy dose of Stranger Things, too, itself a series influenced by Twin Peaks. Sadly, so far Dark doesn't have much to add to the sum of its influences.

It came highly recommended. I watched it because yesterday I saw on Paul Schrader's Facebook he'd posted to say someone had recommended a new European show to him with a title that began with "D" and he couldn't remember what it was. The comments on the post recommended a variety of shows that began with D, and many that began with B for some reason, but it seemed Dark came up more than any other title. I would guess that most of the commenters have never seen Twin Peaks.

Set in a small German town deep in the woods, the first episode of Dark introduces us to many people in the community while everyone's searching for a missing teenage boy. There's the ornery owner of a hotel, there's the 30-something couple hiding their affair (though neither one is married so I don't know why), and there are the teenage kids of them all, and all the kids are doing drugs.

A girl spots a boy smoking a joint in a dark alley. She stops to scold him--for smoking poor quality pot. And I sensed the joke was supposed to function in this way--you're meant to think she's going scold him for doing drugs, but then you're supposed to be surprised and amused that it's actually the quality she wants to chastise him about. Maybe 2017 in Germany was like 1997 in the U.S.

The end of the episode features a kid apparently being experimented on in a scene pretty clearly derived from Stranger Things. Unfortunately, Dark didn't learn from Stranger Things and Twin Peaks that tragedy alone does not interesting characters make. One kid's in therapy because his father killed himself. One kid has a younger brother he argues with. But no-one has any texture. All the kids look like catalogue models.

There is a spooky cave I kind of liked and the guy who committed suicide left a note not to be opened until a specific day and time. I was really curious to see what it said when his trembling mother finally opened the thing at the appointed time. But the show wouldn't let me see. Hopefully that means they're saving it for the next episode. I wonder if that's enough to compel me to watch it.

Dark is available on Netflix.

X Sonnet #1732

The steady sparks displace the jelly night.
But liquid sun salutes the proffered sweet.
A Danish breakfast fuels the easy sight.
But soon the broken cars demand their meat.
A worser thirst decides the victor's rum.
A hunting party packs the steel and glass.
Above the blood, a shark was serving chum.
If not for pie the girl'd be eating bass.
The proper way to think of flame is fast.
Returning time was lost in brittle woods.
Again, the dreamer's mind conducts the past.
Some missing words delayed the crucial goods.
Between the rows of desks or trees they lurk.
The trav'llers, orcs, and oil woodsmen work.

Back to the Dungeons

Twenty-six years after I last played it, I played Dungeons and Dragons again, two days ago.

At the Japanese junior high school I work at, a couple second year students (14 years old) are native English speakers--one has a parent from Australia and the other has a parent from Canada. The half Canadian student is a big fan of Stranger Things, a show that, oddly, is mostly unknown in the Japanese schools I've worked at. When I asked if she'd be interested in trying out Dungeons and Dragons like the characters on the show, she jumped at the idea. I could tell she wanted the experience of a group of friends like the one on the show and I sure wanted to make it happen.

I told her to ask around for students who might be interested in joining. The other native English speaker wasn't interested but the half-Canadian's best friend, a Japanese student, was interested. I announced the game in a couple of classes and got one more interested student, another girl. I recruited two boys from the English club so we ended up with three girls and two boys, all second year students except one of the boys, who's a first year student.

I ordered dice and the latest editions of the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide off Amazon, English editions both. Japanese versions are being released only later this month, though the older, "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons", was released in Japan years ago. I discovered the tabletop RPG Call of Cthulhu, based on the HP Lovecraft mythos, is widely available in Japan and is displayed prominently at the bookstore in my nearby mall. Which explains why the students recognised the big octopus headed monster I was doodling on the chalkboard one day. One of them was surprised when I told her it was created by an American writer. Whatever the quality of the tabletop RPG, it is nice to know Lovecraft's monsters and mythos are well known while his status as a political football in the US is meaningless.

Anyway, since Dragonlance is what I know, and my copy of The Art of Dragonlance managed to migrate to Japan with me, I decided to use the classic Dragonlance campaign. This meant I also had some ready-made characters if making characters proved to be too difficult or time-consuming for the students, assuming I could convert them to the new rules without any trouble. And generally speaking, I found the new rules to be simpler. I remember how long it took me to understand THAC0. Now THAC0 has been replaced by an attack roll modified by a relevant ability score (strength for melee weapons, etc.) and a proficiency score. I'm not sure if it's functionally simpler but it's easier to understand.

The artwork in the new Dungeons and Dragons books is pretty sad compared to the beautiful stuff in the old Dragonlance material.

Everything looks like it was hastily coloured with a graphics programme algorithm. Gone are the meticulous oil and acrylic paintings by the likes of Larry Elmore and Clyde Caldwell.

Which made me glad I was using old Dragonlance material.

I managed to get a classroom with a big TV I could hook my laptop to, which was helpful for visual aids, and I also used a playlist of fantasy movie soundtrack selections (from Conan the Barbarian, Willow, and The Thief of Bagdad, among others).

We ended up meeting for a total of two sessions. The students all have club activities and, in the wintertime, they all have to leave school at 4:45pm (whenever I tell students I went home at 2pm in junior high school, I'm met with astonished incredulity). So we could only meet on Thursdays, the only day none of the five students had club activities, and only for about an hour. I spent the whole first session explaining what Dungeons and Dragons is and how to make characters. We were still doing ability rolls when we ran out of time.

So before the second session, I made sure to have all the Dragonlance characters converted and distributed print-outs. Even so, most of the students seemed to be overwhelmed and opted not to come back. So for the second session, I had only the half-Canadian and the first year student boy. He's a real champ, that one. In the English club, I have them all practising sections of "A Visit from St. Nicholas" and he has the section when Santa says, "On Dancer, on Dasher" etc. Every time he does it he tries to shout it louder and louder. He records himself on his Chromebook which he takes out into the hall to practice. Even so, everyone can hear him from across the school.

I gave him Caramon Majere because he wanted to use a human Fighter. Among the changes he wanted to make was to have him be 10,000 meters tall (converting everything to metric was another headache). When I had the two of them fighting a group of goblins and I asked what he wanted to do, he said he wanted to beat them all. It took some time to bring him down to earth but, once I did, he really got into it, running at the lead goblin with a spear. The half-Canadian student, meanwhile, managed to create a character I helped her with by rolling most of her stats. She wanted to use a spellcaster but chose mostly non-offensive spells. Even so, she managed to kill a goblin with her dagger (I had them both starting at Level 8). At the end of the second session, I was pretty happy, and now the first year student is asking for more. It's a shame next week is taken up by testing and my last day at this school is the 19th. Hopefully, the two of them will find a good way to feed this RP beast I helped them create.

That Darned Lich

I stayed up late watching the final two episodes of Stranger Things 4 last night, parts of which I liked very much. I still think it's affected by a philosophical shift and beyond that it has some just good old fashioned bad writing. But the performances were very good as were some of the ideas.

There were a lot of scenes between pairs of characters and my favourite was right at the end, when Hopper is finally reunited with Eleven. David Harbour shows why he's become so beloved and he really sells the line about how he stole Eleven's look. It felt like we finally got Hopper back at that point because the whole Soviet subplot never really gained traction. Trying to tie so many plot threads together, the Duffers established some vague idea of the Demigorgons in the Soviet prison being tied to Vecna but it never really became a solid visceral idea.

Spoilers after the screenshot

Eleven's story may have been the most interesting subplot this season and the Duffers seemed to realise at the end they couldn't make Papa a straightforward heroic character. Still, there's a definite shift from the beginning of the series. Stranger Things' first three seasons were about how monsters are necessary to save the day sometimes. This was a theme that manifested not only in Eleven but in how bully characters like Steve and Billy end up being necessary for the fight against the forces of the Upside Down. Stranger Things 4 retcons Eleven to being just an innocent girl with superpowers and also shifts Billy back into a more purely villainous role. That's the difference made by changes in political influence on American media, I suspect, as narratives moved out of the exciting Walter White/Game of Thrones cutthroat era to the mad scramble for certified moral purity.

Instead of a bully, it's Eddie Munson who sacrifices himself this time--very awkwardly. Eddie's fate was a pretty big blunder on the part of the Duffers as this character, whose charm worked fast and brilliant when he was introduced at the beginning of the season, was let down at the end in every way. It didn't make sense plotwise and it didn't make sense thematically. It wasn't clear why Eddie needed to draw off those bat creatures and the belated attempt to make it look like Eddie was trying to overcome cowardice never caught hold because he never seemed especially cowardly. In fact, as the leader of a group of misfits in high school, he seems downright courageous, which seems like the point the show obviously should have made after he's become a pariah. If he really were a coward, he'd have been trying to distance himself from the Hellfire Club.

I liked Max's storyline but I feel like the Duffers could have pushed it further. I love "Running Up That Hill" but it seems like Max would've been into the whole Hounds of Love album. People used to listen to albums in the '80s, it would've been hard for her to repeat the same song over and over on a cassette tape. Maybe they didn't want to pay more royalties to Kate Bush but, considering how things turned out, I bet she or the label would've let the other songs go cheap, if not totally free.

I thought Will's struggle with his attraction to Mike was handled a little too broadly, especially the moment where he was bawling his eyes out right next to Mike. Did Mike think he was dry heaving or what?

The final battle with Vecna was good but overstuffed with monologues. I liked Eddie playing guitar on the roof and Nancy would've been cool with the shotgun if she'd actually used it at the natural moment instead of waiting for a huge dramatic pause. Also, a headshot was obviously in order.

I kept hoping a romance would start between Nancy and Robin. Maybe next season?

Stranger Things is available on Netflix.

Twitter Sonnet #1597

Disputed hues were left between the greens.
The maiden's name was never really blue.
Deceptive calls were played by many means.
The urgent pins denoted which were true.
The dog was running bills to shame the duck.
Beneath the orphan storm we charged a key.
We made a god with pepper, thyme, and luck.
But lemons lost condemned the liquid tree.
Some pointless bats replaced a swinging club.
Beneath the cherry storm some chickens flew.
A hunting bird resides above the hub.
But feathers fell upon the '80s crew.
Confusing spiders belched a cloud of coal.
The action scenes endorsed the nervous foal.

More Normal Things

I finished watching the first seven episodes of Stranger Things 4 last night. The season started strong but gradually some strange philosophical changes started to take root. This season of Stranger Things is much more moral than previous seasons, more about a sharp contrast between good people and bad people. I guess it's more like a traditional horror movie this way.

There was also a lot of business about people being insecure and lying to their loved ones. Eleven has a whole subplot in the first few episodes in which she lies to Mike about kids bullying her. I kept expecting a callback to the "friends don't lie" line but it never came.

I really liked the new character Eddie Munson in the first few episodes, played by British actor Joseph Quinn but coming off eerily like a young Robert Downey Jr. He's endearingly wise and realistically goofy in the first few episodes then is sadly absent for most of the season. He kind of reminded me of Albert Brooks in Taxi Driver, acting like a normal funny guy instead of like a comedian. His antics aren't especially clever but fit in the context of a normal high school group of friends.

I appreciated the use of Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill". But the Big Bad's habit of targeting "haunted" people would've been more effective if at least some of them were really guilty of something instead of just torturing themselves over matters in which they have less guilt than they imagine. In this same vein, Eleven's plot ends up being about how she feels guiltier than she ought to. I suppose the show's creators may have been wary of looking too sympathetic with school shooters but I think a more useful story might have been about how prepubescent kids don't have the maturity to be culpable for even really terrible things. There's a reason kids are treated differently by the law to adults.

I wasn't especially interested in the subplot taking place in the Soviet Union except it had a few hints of counterbalance to the anti-Christian stuff in the plots taking place in the U.S. While a mob is forming to hunt down Eddie for worshiping Satan, the writers might have made a point that banning religion didn't seem to help the Soviet Union a whole lot. Since an abandoned church figures into the Soviet storyline, there was a golden opportunity for it. As it is, we just get a moment where Hopper mentions wanting to believe in a miracle.

I enjoyed the Maniac Mansion vibe to a lot of the season and Vekna is a pretty menacing villain.

Stranger Things is available on Netflix.

Violent Worlds

I watched the first episode of the new Stranger Things season last night but I want to avoid making a full review until I've watched through all the new episodes that were put on Netflix. But it was a very strong season premiere and I found myself comparing it to Obi-Wan Kenobi, which it easily outshines. It's funny how a show that deliberately uses stock characters from the 1980s manages to make more complex and interesting characters than most shows.

I couldn't help being struck by two aspects of the show, though, that echo current issues--violence in high schools and a threat posed by Russia. I think the season was more or less in the can before Russia invaded Ukraine though, of course, violence in American schools has become an all too common occurrence. On Friday, a fellow teacher at the Japanese junior high school where I work asked me about the recent mass shooting in Texas. She told me a lot of people in Japan are talking about it. I was a little surprised and admitted that, since it has become so sadly common in the U.S., I hadn't actually paid much attention to the story.

Generally, feelings about the U.S. seem to be positive among the people I meet in Japan but quite a few regard Americans with horror and disgust. Sometimes I overhear things from people who assume my Japanese isn't as good as it is. I remember once overhearing someone at one school trying to mollify a teacher regarding my presence by reminding her that the U.S. is also responsible for Microsoft and Google, companies with a ubiquitous presence in Japan. Then, of course, there's Disney, Apple, Nike, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, and various other companies and brands. I wonder if it's really reassuring. Is it a reminder that America is responsible for good things or just awareness that Japan has irrevocably bitten of the same fruit so they better hope American culture isn't inherently corrosive?

I have talked to students with parents who are fearful about their children being exposed to too much negativity. I was reminded of this in the scenes featuring Dungeons & Dragons on Stranger Things and references to the 1980s' "Satanic Panic". Yet I can't remember the last time I saw the level of ultraviolence I saw on the latest season of Kimetsu no Yaiba, which seems to be popular with people of all ages.

I'm long past having any qualms about making or viewing art with dark themes or a willingness to explore the worst impulses of the human heart. But I'm constantly confronted by the debate, both from the U.S. and Japan. I can only hope that people aren't diverted from the contemplation of human nature I think is truly necessary in art for all sorts of reasons, the understanding of real violence being one of them.

Strangest Things

I finished the third season of Stranger Things on Sunday. In general, I liked it better than season two and I liked season two. But three's climax is much better, visually and storywise. Though I love how the outcry regarding the kiss between Eleven and Mike at the end of season two seems to have led the Duffer Brothers to having them make out constantly at the beginning of season three. It's so satisfying whenever a creator rebels against the peanut gallery moralising now.

Speaking of the political lens, I was sort of fascinated how Stranger Things 3 at turns reflected or rebuffed this year's morality model. I remember during the Bush era, depictions of torture as an effective means of interrogation were the domain of relatively right wing productions like 24. Now here's Hopper (David Hopper) beating the crap out of Alexei (Alex Utgoff) and Mayor Kline (Cary Elwes) and it proves to be a perfectly sound strategy.

This is part of how Hopper has emerged as an even more solid reproduction of the 80s action hero than he was in the previous two seasons. In his climactic fight against the Soviet assassin (Andrey Ivchenko), it's hard not to think of Harrison Ford when Harbour says, "I'll see you in Hell!"

There's another political shift--it was boring when the Soviets were the villains in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, now they seem relevant again because of Putin's sinister machinations and exploits. Nevermind Putin's mobster regime has no fondness for the Soviet era or ideology, it still works. That one assassin guy is a pretty effective heavy, wherever he's from.

Spoilers ahead, after the next screenshot

I've already said how much I love shopping malls and therefore loved that setting in the new season. It also made for a terrific finale, much better than the anonymous office corridors of season two. Instead we have environments bathed in contrasting neon light and showers of firecracker sparks in the background.

And, like season two, one of the most satisfying pieces of the climax was a conclusion of a bully redeemed or seen sympathetically, in this case Billy, played by Rob Lowe lookalike Dacre Montgomery. He doesn't quite get the complete turnaround Steve (Joe Keery) did in season two, but the fact that he's allowed only the tiniest opportunity to show a shift or another aspect of his personality makes it all the more effective. Even Darth Vader had time to talk after turning on the Emperor. But it's probably for the best that Billy's return to a primal sense of protectiveness isn't disappointed by some articulated explanation.

More than anything, the season left me feeling very satisfied at having gotten a good, well developed story. A lot of people have been talking about all the movie references this past season so I thought I'd conclude with my own ranking of ten of them, in case you wanted some advice on which to watch first:

10. Day of the Dead
9. The Thing from Another World
8. Fast Times at Ridgemont High
7. The Neverending Story
6. Return of the Jedi
5. The Thing
4. Back to the Future
3. The Apartment
2. Children of Paradise (available on The Criterion Channel)
1. The Hidden Fortress (available on The Criterion Channel)

Yes, the top three are all Robin's (Maya Hawke) picks. She really does have great taste. Ironically, none of these movies are on Netflix, at least in the U.S.

Twitter Sonnet #1256

The pieces changed to putty worms at once.
A time for section grids removed the fear.
A signal hat explodes the cornered dunce.
A number bucket claims our ev'ry tear.
Receding sod could fill the kitchen yet.
A spinning Slinky sliced the ragged stairs.
A burglar makes a safe and metal bet.
The healthy milk was filled with breakfast bears.
The care behind a picture puts it back.
As ice'll melt the cubes contain the spheres.
A thousand monkeys race inside the sack.
For ev'ry nose a hundred thousand beers.
A standard takes the shape of smithy feats.
Reminders take the form of standard streets.

The Mall of Strange

I've been watching the new season of Stranger Things for two days and so I'm two episodes in. So far I like it, particularly since the story partly revolves around a shopping mall. I always loved malls when I was a kid, especially indoor malls, like the one depicted on the show. I loved the feeling of a world created and contained in this space with its own lighting and atmosphere. It's been kind of depressing hearing about malls dying off due to online shopping so it'd be nice if Stranger Things helps make them trendy again.

Two episodes in, the season's not bad. I like the music though I feel like there's a bit much of it and the Fast Times at Ridgemont High gag at the pool with the gender reversal feels a bit much like a recycled joke from Family Guy. There are few recycled formulae that I think may have been intentional, like the "will they or won't they" romantic subplot between David Harbour and Winona Ryder--the story makes a direct nod to it with a clip from Cheers. This may also be some indirect influence from The Orville and its retro romantic plot between Ed and Kelly. So far, though, there's more that works in the two episodes than doesn't.

I'm still trying to decide if Suzie, Dustin's (Gaten Matarazzo) girlfriend, is real or not. He claims she's hotter than Phoebe Cates which just doesn't seem possible. But the other characters are saying she's made up so much that I figure she might have to be real.

I don't feel much enthusiasm for the Nancy (Natalia Dyer) and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) subplot. I doubt I'm alone with my attention being completely transferred from Jonathan to Steve (Joe Keery) and Nancy's need to prove herself as a reporter seems nowhere near as exciting as when she was dealing with weird sexual issues. But maybe things will go somewhere I don't expect.

I liked the shopping montage in the second episode with Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and Max (Sadie Sink), especially for using Madonna on the soundtrack. I generally like all the music on the show but too often they seem to be songs I don't think were particularly popular in small town 80s America.

The subplot about local businesses protesting the mall makes me wonder if the Duffer Brothers drew inspiration from this old, 1982 special report:

You can see the bit about small businesses struggling at 11:55.

I'm so torn. I love malls but I hate seeing the small businesses hurting. Sometimes issues aren't black and white, I guess, which is a good thing to keep in mind with a story like Stranger Things.