Christmas is Over, Back to Work

Hey, all. Hope everyone had a great day off yesterday and got to spend time with the ones they love.

I'm almost ready to post Chapter Seven - Love Will Chew Us Apart. It's been a while since Chapter Six, and I'm sorry to leave you guys with that cliffhanger for so long, but I was busy being in Star Wars, and I don't want to screw this chapter up. It contains some of the very first ideas I had for this project, and it's been interesting for me to see how they've changed over the year since I came up with them. Hopefully you'll find it just as interesting finally reading the dramatic moments that the past couple chapters have been building up to.

Will Lisa really shoot Kaveh this time? Will she figure out that he's not just another zombie? Will the zombies Kaveh led to the house sweep through and eat the humans? What happens to the nice carpet in the foyer? Find out the answers to all these questions and more in the next exciting chapter of Be Still My Formerly Beating Heart!

I Love Mankind, It's People I Can't Stand

Zombies aren't really that scary by themselves. There's the natural fear of death that they evoke, and it can be horrifying to see someone you know in that condition, but the actual slow moving, awkward corpse with no intelligence isn't much of a threat. That's why it takes entire swarms of them to become a menace. In fact, I'd say most zombie related deaths (in fiction) are humanity's fault.

I'm not blaming the victim here. Reanimated corpses that feed on the living usually do the actual killing, but well-protected humans tend to stay that way until they forget to close a door, or they lead the zombies to their hideout or, as all too often happens, they turn on each other.

George Romero's Day of the Dead is a prime example. When the zombies are walled out and held at bay, the humans are no longer united by the fight to survive. They start to argue about what to do with their time and resources. They get antsy, and they get scared. All the feelings evoked by their situation have time to grow.

Zombies get to eat people like that because those aren't the kinds of problems they have. They don't argue. They don't get scared. They don't have any feelings to get out of control. The only problems they have left come from being zombies, problems like decomposition, feeling hungry no matter how much they eat and no longer having any feelings to get them out of control. It's a double edged sword. Some of the greatest feelings in life are so wonderful precisely because you can't control them, feelings like love. At least they don't need to worry about zombie attacks anymore, just human ones. Now if the humans would only take a hint and be more careful of each other, the zombies might have a little more reason to be as hungry as they are.

Most Non-Triumphant

This isn't specifically zombie related, but the reviews are in. The new The Day the Earth Stood Still comes out today, and it stinks. The original film was a landmark. It was one of the first serious science fiction films, like a Twilight Zone episode eight years before that show even existed. It examined our world from a new perspective and found us lacking. It debated whether humanity should even be allowed to exist, and then it made a decision, sure, until we screw up.

What really made me think was an article that points out the fact that it's been five years to the day since Keanu Reeves has had a number one film, the last Matrix movie. It's also been one year since I Am Legend nearly gave us an interesting (semi-zombie) film, then ruined it in the last ten minutes, but that's another issue.

I grew up on Star Wars, but I came of age in the era of the Matrix. when the first film came out, I remember how we were all blown away, not just by the visual ingenuity but by the ideas underneath the film. The whole world around us was a trick. That oppressive feeling in the back of our minds wasn't our paranoia but the reality behind the illusion. The systems of society that were designed to keep us docile had a logic and a purpose at last.

In the four years between the first and second films, I imagined what the sequels would hold, how the mystery would deepen. Then they made The Matrix Reloaded, an irrationally, almost intentionally bad film.

This was right around the time when I was getting serious about writing, and I had been jotting down my own ideas about what could happen next. I was frustrated, I was disappointed, and I thought I could do better. I never finished my Matrix 2. Frustration only carried me through the first twenty pages, but I wrote a trailer that incorporates some of the ideas I had, and I've dusted some of those off recently, pecking out bits of a new version (though you need a zhura account to read it). What the hell, right? Good ideas never die, they just get rewritten.

The frustrating thing is that the new Day the Earth Stood Still will probably do well at the box office. It has explosions, and explosions are timeless in a way insight can never be.


Michael Rennie was ill the day the earth stood still
But he told us where we stand
And Flash Gordon was there in silver underwear...

I'm in Star Wars

A little more for the nonfiction files today. I went to see an old co-worker in his stage debut last month. He was really good, and when we were out for drinks afterwards, he said he's already rehearsing this other play, and they need another actor, and oh, it's a staging of the original Star Wars film.

Honestly, when's a chance like that gonna come around again? I showed up at rehearsal, and they started putting me in scenes. I kept showing up, and somehow I kept getting into more of the show. Now it's opening night, and I'm playing six different parts. I'm running around, swapping out masks, jumping into new clothes. It's great. If you're in the San Francisco area this month, you should come see Star Wars Live! at the Dark Room.

It's been officially authorized by Lucasfilm on the condition that no recordings are made of the performance, so you have only eight chances to see me make a fool of myself in front of literally dozens of people. See you there.