Miles Watson's Blog: ANTAGONY: BECAUSE EVERYONE IS ENTITLED TO MY OPINION , page 20

THIS IS YOUR WAR

Some nights I think things are going to hell, and other nights I know it's just me. Maybe I've reached a time in my life when I have to think what the hell I'm going to do: hide under the blanket or get up and join the war again. – Dominic Da Vinci

As I write this, I am struggling with an urge to go to sleep.

Oh, I know what you're thinking: "Reading this, I'm fighting that urge, too."

But all kidding aside...at least I hope you're kidding...I'm really damned tired, and it's only 6:52 pm. It's a bitterly cold monday at the end of March, and the clocks in my head are striking thirteen. It's a thirteen of mental, moral, and physical exhaustion, and I'm fairly certain you're familiar with it. The furious pace of modern life, and the increasingly depressing outlook for the future of humanity generally, have a tendency to take the starch out of a fella. Sometimes I'm struck by a sense of futility, a sort of "Why bother writing, or going to the gym, or doing anything really constructive, when there are so many distractions I can amuse myself with until bedtime?" This the age of content, after all: an endless stream of memes, gifs, TikToks, reels, stories, television shows, videos and movies designed to occupy our attention and neutralize our brains. All I have to do is give in, take that shot of spiritual dope, and I can put another day into the books. Unfortunately, my conscience, if you want to call it that, won't let me do so: at least not past a certain point, that is. I'm driven, or perhaps more accurately galvanized like a lump of pudding by electricity, into making productive use of the rest of my evening, even if all I really want is to sit on the couch in my pajamas and watch re-runs of Forever Knight.

Like most writers, I have a day job. Unlike most writers, my day job actually matters. I am an advocate for victims of crime. I'm not granted the luxury of placing myself on cruise control, though God knows there are days that I try. What I do is too important, and -- lest you think I'm trying to paint myself in heroic colors -- too demanding to allow me to slack off even when I want to. It requires concentration, organization, passion, toughness, resiliency, empathy, assertiveness, knowlege of the law and of human psychology. Some of these qualities I actually possess. The rest I fake convincingly or not so convincingly depending on what day it is how much coffee I've consumed, and how much Irish whiskey I drank the night before. What's more, and what's most, it requires that for nine hours a day I put myself and my ambitions, hopes, dreams, plans, lusts and wishes secondary to everything and anything I encounter at work. It is an extended, ritualized, act of self-effacement: a sort of vow of selflessness that comes with a suit and tie instead of a monk's robes, and a decent benefits package instead of a ticket to heaven. The rest of the time I may be a self-absorbed jerk, but from 8 to 430 (and sometimes a lot later), from Monday to Friday, I put everyone else's needs before my own. It's good for the soul, but it's hard on just about everything else.

Sometimes I'm asked why I don't spend more time doing the things I frequently state, and complain, that I want to do in my so-called free time: boxing, studying martial arts, visiting Civil War battlefields, taking road trips, writing a history book, penning a memoir of my college years. It might do people some good to understand why my energy levels are not always up to this task. In my story is the story of many others in this nation who want to be more "productive" in their off-hours but oftimes cannot summon the necessary wattage. Today is an excellent example of why this struggle exists, and how it plays out, at least in my own example.

Last night I returned late from a day-trip to Maryland. I fed the cat, drank a double whiskey, wrote in my journal, read a few pages of Ernst Jünger's Fire and Blood and went to bed. This morning, around seven o'clock, I awoke with the cat stomping directly on my bladder, a cruel but effective technique for getting me out of bed to feed him once more.

After the usual struggle to drag the razor over my face, I was at work by eight o'clock, coffee in hand. I did paperwork and returned phone calls until ten, and then spent an hour prepping a witness for a case involving a fatal drug overdose. I then had my ten o'clock snack an hour late. An attorney dropped off a massive list of victims I must contact for upcoming trials; a detective came by and gave me contact information on an elusive witness; a colleague pointed out that I'd neglected to mail out some letters. I spoke with a family whose lives had been altered by a sudden tragedy, and who want to take an active part in the legal proceedings which follow.

Sometime after noon I slipped home and ate lunch. I live close to where I work, which makes this easy. The cat was glad to see me, mainly because I could supply him with yet more food. The little bastard eats enough for a wolf, yet remains slim. What's his secret?

At one I attended a sit-down conference with a future trial witness. At two I sent out some text messages to those who prefer that form of communication. At three I screened more files on incoming cases, made notes, did paperwork, and sent out letters, until quarter-til, when I had my third and final witness prep of the day. I left at the stroke of five. Came home. Doffed coat, blazer, tie, vest, shirt, undershirt, belt, holster, gun, khakis, and shoes, and settled on my "Top Gun" t-shirt, worn-out flannels, and Rite Aid slippers. Made dinner. Watched exactly an hour of a television program. Struggled with the desire, almost the need, to sleep on the couch, and staggered into my bedroom to write this. Strange as it may seem, the very act of writing forces some energy into my muscles, some spark into my brains. I'm not quite as invertibrate with exhaustion as I was a half an hour ago, when I watched a 90s-era Canadian TV program about a vampire trying to win back his soul by working as a night-shift detective in Toronto.

I'll be truthful. Sometimes I wonder if I'm not in the same boat. Having a job like this pays a lot of karmic debts. At least I hope it does. I certainly feel that way, most days. God knows it can take a toll. Right now, I don't want to change into gym clothes and slog down to the Y to work out in front of TV screens silently blaring bad news. I don't want to spend the last hour or two before bed torturing my creative nerve into producing something readable for my small but (slowly) growing audience. What I want is to watch Season 4 of Cobra Kai, or see if CSI:Vegas is any good or just a cash grab, or play mindless videogames while serving myself another double whiskey. What I want is to piss away the hours before bed noodling on social media. I don't want to show up for my life: I want to hide from it.

But that's really the struggle we all face, isn't it? The war within? We all grow up wanting to "be" something. Then we actually get there -- upville, adulthood -- and we find we aren't what we wanted to "be." Those simple, clear-cut goals and dreams have either blurred out of recognition or receded out of reach. We have rents and mortgages and student loans and bills for the kids' braces. We spent forty to sixty hours a week at work and another five to ten in commuting there. We don't get enough sleep, we eat crap, and a great deal of our so-called free time is squandered worrying about our jobs or our bills, or both. Nearly everyone I know is struggling with their mental health. That special verve, that sense of excitement and hope and passion, which we need to do the things we really want to do, is often burning very low in those hours we do have to ourselves; elsewise it is simply absent. And then comes the choice: do we give in to defeatism, hide behind that pitiful but useful excuse that we have "grown up" and no longer need to pursue our dreams, our hobbies, the things that make us truly fulfilled and happy...or do we force ourselves into action even though we'd rather hide under the blanket? Even though we'd like to spend the next 40 years with "Netflix and chill?"

I'd like to paint myself as a smug success story, or more cheerily, an inspiration: a guy who knows how to walk the line between the obligations I have to the needs of reality and those I have to my own soul, someone who can hold down a full-time job and still chase his dreams. And I confess I like to think of myself that way. Indeed, I'll also confess that my ego purrs when people ask me how I keep myself inspired in the face of endless discouragements. It makes me seem tough and manly, someone who never quit, someone cut from harder stone than the common. But it isn't true. I just happen to live by a philosophy that never lets me down. I thought long and hard about how to explain it before I realized others had explained it better than I ever could, before I had even known of its existence. So here it is, in a single conversation between antagonists, written by Tim Minnear in 2001:

ANGEL: You're not gonna win.

HOLLAND MANNERS: Well... no. Of course we aren't. We have no intention of doing anything so prosaic as "winning."

ANGEL: Then why?

HOLLAND MANNERS: I'm sorry. Why what?

ANGEL: Why fight?

HOLLAND MANNERS: That's really the question you should be asking yourself, isn't it? See, for us, there is no fight. Which is why winning doesn't enter into it.

That's it. Right there. The coward in us hides under the blanket. The hero gets up and joins the war. But the realist, the guy we have to live with every day who is neither coward nor hero but both simultaneously, asks, "How do I win the war?" And the existential void replies: "You don't. You fight because the fight needs fighting. You fight because."

One could say that it is all about finding joy in the process, in the act of reaching for that ever-elusive dream; thrusting one's chest out to break the tape that means we've "made it" -- even though the definition of "making it" is curiously vague and becomes moreso the closer we seem to get. The cliche says, "life is a journey, not a destination." Actually, death is the destination, and that is precisely what gives zest to life. The journey. The fight.

Ernest Hemingway conceived an epigram for his collection Winner Take Nothing which goes like this:

Unlike all other forms of lutte or combat the
conditions are that the winner shall take nothing; neither his ease, nor his pleasure, nor any notion of glory; nor, if he win far enough,
shall there be any reward within himself.

Read literally, this is terribly grim stuff. It seems almost dirge-like in its existential woe. But like a lot of Hemingway's better work, it is very deep water if you care to go sounding. I have often struggled to define in words what this epigram means, though I have no trouble understanding it emotionally, so once again I resort to quotation, this time from an anonymous internet essay published in 2009. It is badly written but the brilliance of it shines through the clumsy wording:

"Important is how man fights not what he wins. The prize is that man is alive and has the ability to fight and to show what he is capable for. The winning is in that he suffers and not gives up, showing he is stronger than the pain. People are in this world to fight. The only true sense of life is this fight - all other is transient and futile. And Hemingway’s characters are fighters. Though rags and common people, they are fighters and heroes. They are small heroes having their big victories...

"And if man wins in that fight he doesn’t get anything...He goes without award, because there is no prize and the victory is - to fight knowing he will get nothing in the end. The winners are those who fight for the fight and fight fair and self-deniably. The winners are fighting even knowing they will lose, lose everything. The winner overcomes himself, thus free of everything, having only his courage and faith, he is ready to do the impossible, to sacrifice himself, even to receive greater pains but in that way he is winning, in that way he is victorious, in that way he can not be defeated."

The fact of the matter is that the war, the one we face internally, daily, is not a war we can win. Hemingway was right about that, and the quotation of the fictional cop-turned-coroner, Domenic Da Vinci, with which I began this essay, does not even imply that it is winnable. It does state that there is a choice: participate, or hide under the blanket.

I choose to participate. Usually. Mostly. Today. I participate.

I fight.

And sometimes keep the blanket handy.

A HAPPY ANNOUNCEMENT AMIDST ALL THIS BAD NEWS

As I write this, the Russian army is shelling the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine. Only minutes ago I had the sorry pleasure of watching tracer fire slam into burning buildings on the plant grounds. I'm glad I saw this at the end of my workout, or it would have killed my motivation to burn calories. Who needs to worry about their weight or muscle tone when Mr. Putin is working so hard to turn all of their potential energy into the kinetic version by incinerating them?

George Orwell once made a remark, "No doubt time will do to me what it does to most prophets." Yesterday I posted a blog on this very site which pointed out that, history being cyclical, we perhaps did not need to worry about the present conflict going nuclear. It took less than a day for Vladimir Vladimirovich to begin the process of making a fool out of me, but any man who can order his army to shell a nuclear power plant in the same goddamn region which plays host to Chernobyl is unlikey to lose sleep over my discomfiture.

Thinking that you as well as I might need some distraction, I am therefore happy to announce that I will be the featured guest on THE HOLLYWOOD GODFATHER PODCAST on March 9. THE HOLLYWOOD GODFATHER is hosted by Gianni Russo, the real-life Mafioso, actor, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and co-star of the all-time classic "The Godfather" -- a true gentleman, whose autiobiography is still a bestseller. You will no doubt remember him not only as Carlo Rizzi, the nasty and unfortunate hood who marries into the Corleone Family, but such films as STRIPTEASE, ANY GIVEN SUNDAY and RED DRAGON, and an incredible variety of TV shows including PERRY MASON, WISEGUY, HUNTER, SILK STALKINGS, RENEGADE and PRISON BREAK. As if all this isn't enough, a "rapology" album of his life story has just been released.

THGP is co-hosted by Patrick Piccarelli, Vietnam vet, Purple Heart recipient, NYPD Detective Lieutenant (Ret.), Private Investigator, PhD of Criminal Justice at Cal U, and the author of BLOOD SHOT EYES, THE POP LINE, MALA FEMINA, HOLLYWOOD GODFATHER and many others. The show is produced by the lovely Megan Horan: actress, associate producer and writer since the podcast's inception four years ago. I'm especially appreciative of her because she laughs at my jokes.

On the podcast, I'll be discussing my books, my family's origins in Capone-controlled Chicago, my dad's encounters with notorious mobster Anthony "The Ant" Spilotro, and my own run-ins with Maggadino and Luppino Crime Family associates, the Russian mob, and CIA operative Felix Rodriguez.

In celebration of this triumph, I've price-dumped my first two (mob-themed) novels, CAGE LIFE and KNUCKLE DOWN to 99c on Amazon Kindle for the next 10 days. I hope everyone tunes in and enjoys themselves -- assuming, of course, that Mr. Putin hasn't blown us all to hell by then.

UKRAINE AND DEJA VU

This morning, as I walked to McDonald's on George Street to get my Sunday coffee, I reflected on the curiously cyclical nature of life. Twenty years previously, I'd wake up in my rundown apartment on Sunday morning, go to this very same McDonald's, order coffee and breakfast, and then consume it in front of my television while watching The Lost World, starring the lovely Jen O'Dell. This ridiculous ritual, not really befitting a supervising investigator in the District Attorney's Office, was the highlight of an otherwise bleak and barren day. It was bleak and barren because as a recently-single 28 year-old man, I was still living mentally in a collegiate atmosphere, where one possessed a surfeit of friends and romantic partners and never lacked for anything to do in one's spare time. Adult life, in comparison, struck me as profoundly boring and empty. I went to work, I went to the gym, I occasionally went to a bar with colleagues...and that was about it. Hence the morphine-like pleasure I took in sinking into the child-like ritual of eating fast food while ogling a good-looking blonde in a skimpy costume as she fought dinosaurs and aliens.

Now, two decades longer in the tooth and on the hunt for Sunday coffee, I found myself glimpsing Jen's face on social media. I met her by chance when I was living in Los Angeles and we became friendly enough to hit the red carpet together when I was invited to the Writers of the Future Awards a few years ago. The experience was for me surreal: I had gone from watching her on television to drinking champagne with her in Hollywood. It was doubly surreal because I had the strongest desire to find a way to communicate with my unfulfilled, depressed 28 year-old self and say, "Things won't always seem so boring and hopeless and routine and empty. You will have experiences you wouldn't believe, go places you never imagined, accomplish things you never dreamed. Just hang in there and you will see daydreams become reality, even if it takes years, and tears." And it was triply surreal because, well, here I am again, all these years later, and so much has changed...and yet so much remains the same.

By now you may be wondering what this rambling has to do with the war in Ukraine. Well, when I entrered the McDonald's this morning to get my coffee, I glimpsed on the television the headline PUTIN PUTS NUCLEAR FORCES ON HIGH ALERT. Up to that moment I had been thinking of my life now vs. my life twenty years ago and how curious the similarities were; seeing those words made my thoughts skip like a needle back to my own Cold War childhood, when it always seemed we were staring down the launch-tube of global annihilation, always waiting for the series of blunders which would lead to mushroom clouds rising in the distance.

I have already written a blog about my memories of the Cold War, and I know I have a tendendy to touch upon certain subjects over and over again in these entries, so I will stick to the over-arching theme here, which is the cyclical nature of life, and how Putin's invasion of Ukraine, the largest-scale military conflict in Europe since 1945, is really just another example of how nobody learns from history; how nothing ever really changes; and how, if you life long enough, the wheel will come back 'round again and you will find yourself taking a bath, welcome or otherwise, in a feeling of deja vu.

The area roughly encompassing Poland, Belarus and the Ukraine has been dubbed "The Bloodlands" for how often and how ferociously it has been fought over by warring powers over the centuries. In the last hundred-odd years alone, the First World War, the Polish -Soviet War, the Russian Civil War, and the Second World War all played out in that territory. The levels of violence and destruction which passed over the Bloodlands are unimaginable to Americans: even the South during our own Civil War suffered only a fraction of the depravations involved in these conflicts. Throw in the Ukrainian famine (known as the Holmodor), engineered by Stalin to break the back of resistance to his forcible collectivization of farms, a famine which killed millions of people, and you begin to get a sense of just how much suffering has been concentrated there in such a small period of time.

What attracts dictators and armies to these lands? The answer is twofold. The natural defensive barriers which protect countries from one-another in Europe, such as the Alps, the Pyrennes, the Rhine River, the English Channel, and so on, do not exist in this portion of Eastern Europe. Poland is as flat as a soccer field, making it an ideal gateway to march armies in either direction. Second, the Ukraine, known as "the Breadbasket of Europe," is an incredibly fertile area both in terms of agriculture, mineral wealth, coal and oil. It is arguably the most valuable land in all of Europe: it fed and powered the Soviet Union, and since the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991, Russian leaders have regarded its loss as akin to the removal of a limb. Putin has never accepted the loss, and tried with to make sure its government, in the style of Belarus, worked as a vassal of his own. His long-term failure to achieve this is the reason for the present invasion: he cannot tolerate a Ukraine which sees itself as a Western rather than an Eastern nation, and which wants to integrate itself with the Euro, the E.U., and NATO. In his mind, he is in a dilemma no less severe than the one presented to the United States when Castro imported Soviet nuclear weapons into Cuba. To lose Ukraine, as he has already "lost" the Baltic states and most of the former Warsaw Pact powers (like Poland) to the Western sphere of influence, represents to him an existential threat to the security of Russia. But like all the previous warlords who brought misery to this region, his justifications and pretexts are really just noise. The hard reality is destruction, death, panic and chaos. And the theme is merely one of familiarity, of a cycle repeating itself. The place-names I'm hearing on the news this week are the same place-names you will read about in any biography of Nicholas II, Lenin, or Stalin; any biography of Hitler; or any book on the above-mentioned wars. Even Chernobyl, which was the focus of so much anxious attention in 1986 when the reactor blew and nearly killed 100 million people, is once again in the news: the Russians, after heavy fighting, captured the nuclear complex there yesterday. It reminded me so much of this exchange from the HBO mini-series of that name:

SHCHERBINA
Do you know anything about this town? Chernobyl?

LEGASOV
Not really. No.

SHCHERBINA
It was mostly Jews and Poles. The Jews were killed in pogroms, Stalin forced out the Poles, then the Nazis came and murdered whoever was left. But after the war, people came here to live anyway. They knew the ground beneath their feet was soaked in blood, but they didn't care. Dead Jews, dead Poles, but not them. No one ever thinks it will happen to them. But here we are.

Yes, here we are. The great wheel has turned slowly and bloodily once more, and all the old fears have been released, along with all the old animosities, and all the old dog-eared plans for conquest and occupation. Even the belated but heartening response of what we call The Free World to Russia's aggression is reminiscent of the laggard way the Allies stood up to fascism in World War Two. It's as if we're all new actors performing a very old play. And as Cassius asked, rhetorically, in JULIUS CAESAR: "How many ages hence shall this our lofty scene be acted over in states unborn and accents yet unknown?" The answer is, I suppose, all of them. All the ages of man which are yet to come, however many or few. Human beings are like ants making a track around a circle so large they cannot discern its curve, and thus think they are moving forward, when in fact they are merely describing a zero.

Discouraging news? Yes. But there is one potential upside. Vladimir Putin controls a hefty stock of nuclear bombs, well sufficient to destroy this planet and everything on it, and he did indeed put his nuclear forces on a higher state of alert as a bullying tactic. This is frightening, but it's worth remembering that the Cold War lasted 45 years, and during those years the Soviets had all their nuclear missiles pointed at us and ready to fire...yet they never left their tubes. Nor did any of ours. No matter how tense the diplomatic situation got, no matter how fiercely the proxy wars raged, nobody on either side ever pushed that button. So if I'm right, and history really is a slow-turning wheel, this latest demonstration of human stupidity will, at least, come to its end without the accompanying imagery of mushroom clouds. And that's something, isn't it?

DIALOG

Probably the greatest challenge an author faces when introducing characters to a reader is bringing them to life in the smallest possible amount of time. We want the audience to know who they are dealing with, and we want to do it subtly, showing rather than telling.

This week we will discuss the technique of utilizing dialog to establish different aspects of characterization in a story. For my own convenience and sanity, and also because screen-and-teleplays require brevity by their very nature, I have decided to example dialog from the big and small screen rather than from novels and short stories. I have also chosen not to draw on radio scripts from the Golden Age of Radio, even though they were often masterclasses in dialog, because that is a subject for an essay in its own right. Speaking specifically, the purpose of this exercise is to demonstrate that dialog is at least as effective as any other form of action or description in letting the audience know what sort of character they are dealing with, and in the shortest possible amount of time. In that spirit...

MINIMALIST CHARACTER REVEALS

In this brief and very simple exchange from the 1945 horror movie "The Red House," a character reveals much about her personality:

PETE: Hens doing all right?
MEG: We always have more eggs than we can use.

This communicates the woman's point of view in a single sentence. Pete, seeing Meg's basket is full of eggs, inquires about the hens and their yield, probably in a rhetorical way; but Meg, who is unhappy, puts a negative spin on a positive outcome.

Likewise this gem from the Canadian TV series DA VINCI'S INQUEST, which shows exactly what kind of person Mayor Russ Hathaway is, while allowing his lawyer, Richard Norton, to show both his wit, intelligence and political cynicism:

HATHAWAY: As far as I'm concerned, I was ready to come clean right from the start, but on the advice of my lawyer, which is you, I didn't – but only to protect my girlfriend and my wife.

NORTON: Wife first, girlfriend second.

CHARACTER REVEAL THROUGH PATHOS

M*A*S*H (1972 – 1983) was probably the best example of high-level repartee and banter in the history of television. If the dialog was sometimes heavily stylized, it rarely if ever failed to communicate its point in the most consise possible way. In this sequence, the hospital's resident innocent, Corporal Walther “Radar” O'Reilly, is ashamed of weeping over the death of a soldier who hails from his home state of Iowa. Army surgeon B.J. Hunnicutt shows his mettle as a human being when he replies to the boy's question with an answer which throws out all differences of rank, societial position and social class and levels them as human beings:

RADAR: When was the last time you wanted to cry?
B.J.: What time is it?

In another scene from the same show, the classic “frenemies” Hawkeye Pierce and Charles Emerson Winchester III are forced by potential tragedy to lower their guards and communicate as human beings about their respective relationships with their fathers:

HAWKEYE: Dad and I are too close to let this all suddenly end with...silence, 12,000 miles apart.
WINCHESTER: Pierce, you should be grateful that... only distance is separating you. My father and I have been 12,000 miles apart in the same room.
HAWKEYE: Yeah?
WINCHESTER: The most intimate and personal communication at the Winchester household took place at the evening meal. Every night, promptly at 7.15, we would gather at the dinner table. The soup would be served, and my father would begin with... "Tell us what you did today, Charles." As the elder of the two children, I was given the privilege of speaking first. I would then have until the salad to report the highlights of my day. Even now, the sight of lettuce makes me talk faster. I always assumed that that's how it was in every family. But when I see the...warmth...closeness, the fun of your relationship....My father's a good man. He always wanted the best for me. But...where I have a father...you have a dad.
HAWKEYE: You never told me this before.
WINCHESTER: Actually...Hawkeye...I've never told you anything before.

The last two lines of dialog cement a deeply emotional sequence by having Winchester use, for the first and perhaps only time, Hawkeye's nickname, instead of the contemptuously uttered “Pierce.”

CHARACTER REVEAL THROUGH HUMOR AND WORDPLAY

A character's sense of humor, or lack of same, is central to their identity. There are however many types of humor, from observational to sarcastic to flat-out cruel, and the sort of humor a character displays will tell us much about them.

The following examples are drawn from many difference sources:

(BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER)

The stuffy and pedantic librarian Giles, gets spiked by Jenny, his far more hip and culturally connected love interest:

Rupert Giles: I'm-I'm just gonna stay and clean up a little. I'll-I'll, uh, I'll be back in the Middle Ages.
Jenny Calendar: Did you ever leave?

(PLANET OF THE APES)

Dr. Zaius: I see you've brought the female of your species. I didn't realize that man could be monogamous.
Taylor: On this planet, it's easy.

SIMON & SIMON:

RICK: It's a messy case.
A.J.: This from a man who eats burritos in the shower!

CHARACTER REVEAL THROUGH ACTION

A writer does not always have all the time he wants to establish his characters; or he may simply wish for a less traditional way of showing what his character is made of without tiresome exposition or over the top action. In this sequence from THE KARATE KID, we learn everything we need to know about the villainous John Kreese by seeing how he trains his students:

Kreese: What do we study here?
Karate Class : THE WAY OF THE FIST SIR.
Kreese : And what is that way?
Karate Class : STRIKE FIRST, STRIKE HARD, NO MERCY SIR.

Kreese's entire philosophy, which "rests in his fist," is revealed here without him even interacting with the film's protagonist: this is the sort of man who imbues teenage boys with dangerous fighting skills and imputes them with an aggressive, merciless attitude, which mirrors his own philosophy of life. His character is established irrevocably in this brief glimpse.

CHARACTER REVEAL COMBINING DRAMA AND HUMOR

Long before Joss Whedon popularized the school of "undercutting drama with humor," the writers of M*A*S*H were hard at work doing the same thing. In this sequence, the cross-dressing misfit Klinger drops his veil of clownishness for the probing shrink, Dr. Freedman, to reveal the true source of his hatred for the army. It begins with Freedman assuming that Klinger, who is trying to get out of the military on a fake psychological discharge, has arrived to enlist psychiatrist for this purpose. Freedman isn't having any.

FREEDMAN: I can't help you with your Section Eight, Klinger.
KLINGER: I'm talking about a Section Eight. I'm talking about being crazy.

With this sentence, Klinger is saying a great deal. First, he is admitting that his transvestite persona is just that. Second, he is showing his trust in the doctor. Third, he is expressing sincere fears in the hope that the doctor will understand. Now Freedman shows his mettle by realizing that Klinger is in need of his genuine psychiatric counsel. After listening to the corporal explain that he feels his transvestite act has actually become part of his identity, the psychiatrist probes deeper:

FREEDMAN: Klinger, let me ask you something. Why do you want to get out of here?
KLINGER: Why? Well, there's, there's lots of reasons. I guess death tops the list. I don't want to die. And I don't want to look at other people while they do it. And I don't want to be told where to stand while it happens to me. And I don't want to be told how to do it to somebody else. And I ain't gonna, period, that's it, I'm gettin' out!
FREEDMAN: You don't like death.
KLINGER: Overall, I'd rather lay in a hammock with a couple of girls than be dead. Yes.

Here the writers do a great deal with not very many words. Freedman's intelligence is established by virtue of the way he asks the initial question -- he clearly suspects Klinger's motives, but isn't sure. Klinger, on the other hand, becomes increasingly agitated as he comes toward his central motivation for obtaining the Section Eight discharcge: he does not want to kill. The exchange demonstrates both the sincerity of Klinger as well as his moral compass, and shows just how shrewd a psychiatrist Freedman really is. The last interchange releases the tension of the scene by allowing Klinger to go from angry confession to his more familiar sarcasm.

Another example of this technique, taken from SCHINDLER'S LIST, couples seriousness and humor to show the protagonist, Schindler, begins his story not only as an absolutely unregenerate opportunist, but as a man completely unwilling to take responsibility for past failures. Schindler's tone is serious, but he is setting up his wife Emilie for a punch-line: and this, too, is in keeping with his character, which takes nothing very seriously.

SCHINDLER: There's no way I could have known this before, but there was always something missing. In every business
I tried, I see now it wasn't me that was failing, i was this thing, this missing thing. Even if I'd known what it was, there's nothing I could have done about it, because you can't create this sort of thing. And it makes all the difference in the world between success and failure.
EMILIE: Luck?
SCHINDLER: War.

DIALOG AS COMMENTARY

Great dialog does not always have to possess an immediately obvious purpose. One of the best conversations on M*A*S*H seems to point to Hawkeye's cleverness and sense of humor, but in reality simply highlights the universiality of the American experience circa the 1950s. It is not a question of “what are we fighting for” but rather “what do we want to go back to when the fighting is over.”

HAWKEYE: Where are you from?
HARKNESS: Idaville, Indiana.
HAWKEYE: No kidding? Idaville!
HARKNESS: Yeah.
HAWKEYE: Ever go to the dances at the American Legion Hall there?
HARKNESS: Yeah, sure.
HAWKEYE: And, um...on the edge of town, there's this little place where you can get the world's greasiest French fries.
HARKNESS: Right, Mona's!
HAWKEYE: Yeah, yeah. And, uh, uh, what else? The Studebaker dealership. Always has those search lights when they bring in the new models.
HARKNESS: Hey, when were you in Idaville?
HAWKEYE: Never. I grew up in the same small town in Maine.

DIALOG AS A MEANS OF LETTING THE AUDIENCE KNOW THEY'RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE

In this very terse exchange from ESCAPE FROM SOBIBOR, one inmate of the Nazi death camp Sobibor cautions the other, whose reply reminds him -- and the audience -- that caution is no longer part of their vocabulary:

SASHA: Shlomo, do not take any unnecessary risks.
SHLOMO: It's Sobibor.

An entire world of meaning lies in those two words.

SARCASM IN DIALOG AS A MEANS OF ESTABLISHING RELATIONSHIPS OR CHARACTERS

In this banter from the British series THE MIDSOMER MURDERS, we discover the nature of the relationship between Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby and his young protoge, Detective Inspector Troy. Barnaby is clearly fond of the Socratic method:

TROY: I've had a thought.
BARNABY: Well treat it gently. It's in a strange place.

Likewise, in LAST OF THE MOHICANS, this back-and-forth tells us much about both the sort of relationship Ducan and Hawkeye are going to have, as well as everything we need to know about their respective world-views:

Duncan: There is a war on. How is it you are headed west?
Hawkeye: Well, we kinda face to the north and real subtle-like turn left.

In M*A*S*H, the intense snobbery of Winchester was generally conveyed with jabs like this:

MULCAHY: What time is it in Iowa?
WINCHESTER: 1882.

DIALOG AS A MEANS OF ESTABLISHING CULTURAL NORMS

It is often possible to establish regional, ethnic, or national characteristics in the simplest exchanges. In the otherwise lackluster script for THE WHISTLE BLOWER, the writer manages here to communicate the “Englishness” of his father and son characters in a way which will seem amusingly familiar to English audiences and amusingly different to American ones:

BOB: Are we going to have an argument?
FRANK: I shouldn't be surprised.
BOB: Tea?
FRANK: All right.

DIALOG AS A MEANS OF REVEALING THE MORAL COMPASS SPECIFICALLY

This scene, taken from BLUE THUNDER, demonstrates the different directions of the two characters' moral compasses in just two sentences:

FLETCHER: One civilian dead for every ten terrorists. That's an acceptable ratio.
MURPHY: Unless you're one of the civilians.

DIALOG AS MASS CHARACTER REVEAL

While we must always remember that it is better to show than to tell, dialog does more than simply exist as a way of filling in gaps in exposition. Properly crafted and employed at the right psychological moment in a story, it can do what no amount of “showing” can – fill out a character sketch. This short scene in THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN manages to tell us crucial facts about no less than four of the main characters. It begins when Chico, the young hothead of the group, expresses dismay over the bitterness and cynicism of the older, more experienced gunmen toward their own professions and lives:

CHICO: Hey. How can you talk like this? Your gun has got you everything you have. Isn't that true? Hmm? Well, isn't that true?
VIN: Yeah, sure. Everything. After awhile you can call bartenders and faro dealers by their first name - maybe two hundred of 'em! Rented rooms you live in - five hundred! Meals you eat in hash houses - a thousand. Home – none. Wife – none. Kids... none. Prospects - zero. Suppose I left anything out?
CHRIS: Yeah. Places you're tied down to - none. People with a hold on you - none. Men you step aside for - none.
LEE: Insults swallowed - none. Enemies - none.
CHRIS: No enemies?
LEE:Alive.
CHICO: Now you're talking.

If we had only this sequence to go on, we would know that a) Chico is still eager and naive about his profession and the consequences it will bring to his life, b) Vin is bitter and remorseful about his life choices, c) Chris takes a somewhat more balanced view, d) Lee, alone among the veterans, still retains (or pretends to retain) some Chico-type enthusiasm.

DIALOG AS FORESHADOWING

REVENGE OF THE SITH is not necessarily known for brilliant repartee, but this tete-a-tete between Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker and Chancellor Sheev Palpatine is a model for “sowing evil seeds” in conversation. Palpatine is seducing Skywalker to the dark side of the force without Anakin even suspecting it is taking place, by playing on Anakin's greatest weakness – his love of Padme Amidala, who he has foreseen will die in childbirth. Palpatine does this without even referencing her name or hinting that he knows of Anakin's secret affair with the senator. In so doing he also weakens Anakin's connection to the Jedi Order.

Palpatine: Have you ever heard the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?
Anakin: No.
Palpatine: I thought not. It's not a story the Jedi would tell you. It's a Sith legend. Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith so powerful and so wise, he could use the Force to influence the midi-chlorians to create... life. He had such a knowledge of the dark side, he could even keep the ones he cared about... from dying.
Anakin: He could actually... save people from death?
Palpatine: The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.
Anakin: What happened to him?
Palpatine: He became so powerful, the only thing he was afraid of was losing his power...which, eventually of course, he did. Unfortunately, he taught his apprentice everything he knew, then his apprentice killed him in his sleep. Ironic. He could save others from death... but not himself.
Anakin: Is it possible to learn this power?
Palpatine: Not from a Jedi.

CONSISTENT TONE AS A MEANS OF USING DIALOG TO CONVEY RELATIONSHIPS

The show SIMON & SIMON excelled in this category – defining the consistent, realistic and humorous relationship between brothers Rick and A.J. Simon. Rick, the older brother, was scruffy, irresponsible, and immature, always looking for the shortcut and the easy payday; A.J. was a snobbish, preppie intellectual who dotted every i and crossed every t. From the very first episode, the brothers' banter continously reminded us of this.

A.J.: We're not going to lose, are we?
RICK: No. Remember, the eagle may soar, but the weasel never gets sucked up into a jet engine.

A.J.: Are you aware that the instructions are all in Spanish?
RICK: Well, that's not a problem, I speak Spanish.
A.J.: Yeah, Rick, but this is technical stuff. I think it's a little tougher than saying 'What time does happy hour start?'

DIALOG AS A MEANS OF ESTABLISHING THE CONTOURS OF RELATIONSHIPS

Since we don't always have eight years, or eight novels, to establish how two characters get along in a story, it's nice to know it can be done considerably faster, sometimes in a single exchange. This one lets us know just how Mr. Ken Holliday feels about his now-superstar ex-wife:

PERRY MASON: And you attended her wedding?
KEN HOLLIDAY: Why not? She performed in front of 30,000 screaming fans: I play “Feelings” in some dive bar full of stiffs. Forgive and forget. I forgave...and she forgot.

This example from the original BATTLESTAR GALACTICA is also telling, when the character of Starbuck introduces his best friend to a third party:

STARBUCK: I'm Starbuck. This is my conscience, Apollo.

DIALOG AS A MEANS OF SHOWING CONFIDENCE

PERRY MASON often found the mastermind lawyer leaning frequently on his private eye, Paul Drake, to perform seemingly impossible tasks. In this sequence, Drake manages to fully convey his self-confidence without quite stepping over the line into arrogance by the insertion of a single word: “pretty.” What's more, the exchange is a play on Drake's self-styled reputation as a ladies' man:

PERRY MASON: Paul, how good are you at finding a needle in a haystack?
PAUL DRAKE: I've got a pretty good magnet.

DIALOG AS A MEANS OF ENIGMA

The purpose of dialog can be to reveal, but it can also be to confuse, lend mystery, and obfuscate the reader/audience. Words can mean exactly what they say, or precisely and entirely the opposite. In this scene from the pilot of “Buffy,” the heroine is introduced to Angel, a handsome young man who seems to come in the guise of an ally, but is deliberately enigmatic and mysterious in his behavior, even going so far as to taunt Buffy even as he vaguely offers her assistance:

ANGEL: I'm a friend.
BUFFY: Yeah, well, maybe I don't want a friend.
ANGEL: I didn't say I was yours.

DIALOG AS AN INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER REVEAL

The fascinating thing about dialog is that it can be about one thing on the surface, and another thing entirely underneath. All sexual banter and repartee hinges on the double entendré, but it is less understood that this form of speaking can be used for a multiplicity of other purposes. The Danish film DANCER IN THE DARK uses back-and-forth dialog about a specific subject to establish the mindset of the character Selma about life itself:

Selma: You like the movies, don’t you?
Bill: I love the movies. I just love the musicals.
Selma: But isn’t it annoying when they do the last song in the films?
Bill: Why?
Selma: Because you just know when it goes really big… and the camera goes like out of the roof… and you just know it’s going to end. I hate that. I would leave just after the next to last song… and the film would just go on forever.

DIALOG AS CHARACTER'S THROUGH LINE

A through line is defined as “a connecting theme, plot, or characteristic in a film, television series, book, etc.” Sometimes one does not require back and forth exchanges, but rather individual statements of dialog uttered by characters, to establish their entirely raison d'etre. Take this utterance from the character Amy Hastings in PERRY MASON, which defines her entire relationship with Ken Milansky, the man she desires as a husband.

“I intend to pursue you until you catch me.”

In the classic movie HEAT, several characters utter these sort of through-lines, including the film's protagonist, Vincent Hanna:

“All I am is what I'm after.”

Ditto the antagonist, Neil McCaulley:

“Don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.”

Even Homer Simpson can get in on the act:

“Just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand.”

DIALOG AS A MEANS OF ENDING A SCENE ON A NOTE OF TENSION

In NIGHT SINS, Tami Hoag works very hard to establish a sense of paranoia and menace in the little town of Deer Lake. Throughout the story, it is made clear that the antagonist is several steps ahead of the police, which adds to this menace. When one suspect is caught, rather than bringing relief to our protagonist, this exchange simply highlights the fact that the real culprit is still on the loose:

HANNAH GARRISON: Ollie Swain had something to do with my son's disappearance, and I hope he's roasting in hell.
MEGAN O'MALLEY: Oh, I believe he's roasting in hell. But he's saving a seat for someone.

DIALOG AS THIRD-PARTY CHARACTER REVEAL

One seldom-if-ever-discussed possibility for dialog is the third-party character reveal. We have often observed how dialog works to reveal the traits and personalities of those involved in the exchange, but it can also be used to flesh out characters not in scene. A fine example from TOMBSTONE:

WYATT EARP: What makes a man like Ringo, Doc? What makes him do the things he does?
DOC HOLIDAY: A man like Ringo is born with a great big hole at the center of him. He can't kill enough or steal enough or inflict enough pain to ever fill it.
WYATT EARP: What is he after?
DOC HOLIDAY: Revenge.
WYATT EARP: For what?
DOC HOLIDAY: Being born.

DIALOG AS CONFESSIONAL

Confession is good for the soul: it is also good, actually great and quite necessary, for our protagonists and our heroes. Confession of past sins and present weaknesses makes them relatable even if they are not necessarily likeable. In this exchange from THE UNTOUCHABLES, Elliot Ness, a proud and righteous man, confesses that he cannot take down Al Capone by his own resources; Jimmy Malone confesses a much more shameful motive in his reply:

ELLIOT NESS: You want to stay on the beat? You do that. If you'd like to come with me, I need your help. I'm askin' you for help.
JIMMY MALONE: Well...that's the thing you fear, isn't it? Mr Ness, l wish I'd met you ten years and...twenty pounds ago. But...I just think it got...more important to me...to stay alive. And that's why l'm walkin' the beat. Thank you, no.

DIALOG AS PSYCHOTHERAPY

Sometimes a character is, willingly or unwillingly, coming to a realization of some kind or another. This truth lies within themselves, but is not exposed by their own words but rather by those of a second, perhaps hostile party, who cuts into their defenses as if with a scalpel to exorcise the painful reality. No finer example of this can be found than in this “therapy session” between Buffy Summers and her perennial nemesis, the vampire Spike. Buffy, coming off a near-death experience, wants Spike to explain how he was able to kill two of her predecessors. His reply forces her worst fears to the surface:

Spike: The first [Slayer I killed] was all business, but the second -- she had a touch of your style. She was cunning, resourceful... oh, did I mention? Hot. I could have danced all night with that one.
Buffy: You think we're dancing?
Spike: That's all we've ever done. And the thing about the dance is, you never get to stop. Every day you wake up, it's the same bloody question that haunts you: "Is today the day I die?" Death is your art. You make it with your hands, day after day. That final gasp. That look of peace. Part of you is desperate to know: "What's it like? Where does it lead you?" And now, you see, that's the secret. Not the punch you didn't throw, or the kicks you didn't land. She merely wanted it. Every Slayer... has a death wish. Even you. The only reason you've lasted as long as you have is you've got ties to the world...your mum, your brat kid sister, the Scoobies. They all tie you here, but you're just putting off the inevitable. Sooner or later, you're gonna want it. And the second- the second - that happens... you know I'll be there. I'll slip in... have myself a real good day. Here endeth the lesson. I just wonder if you'll like it as much as she did.

This is a fine piece of writing that allows us deep character analysis of our heroine without restorting to painful expositon. Even better, it provides insight which comes through the heroine's worst enemy, which makes it at once all the more honest and all the more possibly innacurate. There is no doubt Spike believes it: but is it true?

DIALOG TO ESTABLISH MENACE

We have already observed how dialog can end a scene on a note of tension, but tension -- and a sense of menace -- can be injected anywhere in a sequence with the right words. One underused technique is that of the rhetorical question. Take this, from THE HOBBIT:

Gandalf the Gray: The Ringwraiths have been summoned to Dol Guldur.
Radagast the Brown: But it cannot be the Necromancer. A human sorcerer could not summon such evil.
Gandalf the Gray: Who said it was human?

In this tete-a-tete from THE KEEP, two opposing worldviews clash in the form of Woermann, a humane German officer who hates the Nazis, and Kaempfer, an SS officer with absolute faith in the power of violence and terror. Kaempfer has arrived at the Keep not knowing what Woermann has come to suspect: that the guerillas killing the German soldiers is not a person at all, but a bloodthirsty supernatural entity. Kaempfer executes three innocent villagers as a show of force, and the proceeds to lecture Woermann on how to handle a restive populace:

KAEMPFER: Your security doesn't work because your methods are wrong. The answer's fear, Woermann. From now on, these partisans will be afraid to kill, because they will fear the price their actions cause these villagers to pay.
WOERMANN: Now listen, something else is killing us. And if it doesn't care about the lives of three villagers...if it is like you...then does your fear work? Take that brilliant thought back to Dachau when you go. If you go. Because here in this keep, Major Kaempfer, you may learn something new.

Likewise, in THE OMEN PART II, the putative young antichrist, Damien Thorn, does not yet understand that he is a supernatural being, so one of his Satanic protectors guides him toward a dark epiphany:

Sergeant Neff: The day will come when everyone will know who you are, but that day is not yet here.
Damien Thorn: What do you mean?
Sergeant Neff: There are things you don't understand. Read your Bible. In the New Testament, there is a Book of Revelation. For you, it is just that - a book of revelation. For you. About you. Read it. 13th chapter. Read. Learn. Understand.
Damien Thorn: What am I supposed to understand?
Sergeant Neff: Who you are.

DIALOG AS WORLDVIEW

The following are examples which show how humor, cruelty, sarcasm, etc. can reveal the essence of how a character looks at the world:

(From PERRY MASON:)

ADRIAN LYE: Champagne?
DAVID KINGSMAN: Alcohol dulls the senses.
ADRIAN LYE: That is the entire point.

(From DA VINCI'S INQUEST:)

Chick Savoy: The things people throw away!
Angela Cosmo: People, too.

(From ARACHNOPHOBIA:)

JENNINGS: Be careful with this. Chateau Margeaux, $127 a bottle.
MOVER: Tasty, huh?
JENNINGS: At that price, who can afford to drink it?

(From ANGEL:)

CORDELIA: I will not give up this apartment!
ANGEL: It's haunted.
CORDELIA: It's rent controlled!

DIALOG AS A DUEL BETWEEN CHARACTERS

Drama is conflict, and it follows that to have drama, characters must be in tension with each other: but tension can exist between characters who are lovers, friends and allies just as it can exist between enemies: the crucial difference is that "friendly" tension generally has a more constructive purpose within the story. From the writer's standpoint, it can be used to build a relationship between fellow protagonists. This "duel" of personalities is creation through friction. In the film CITIZEN X, much of the story rides on the tension between Burkov, an obsessed detective with zero diplomatic instincts or tact, and Fetisov, a smooth-talking bureacrat. Here, Fetisov decides to gently put Burkov in his place while also revealing to the audience his own position in society, his sense of self-grandeur, and his wit:

BURKOV: The killer finds them on Electrichka. I know it. Electrichka, the trains that criss cross rural Russia.
FETISOV: I know what they are, Comrade. I don't ride them, but they do sometimes get in the way of my limousine.

But it is also possible for both characters to win a pointed exchange and reveal their world-views in the bargain:

BURKOV: You think a man is what he says, don't you, Colonel?
FETISOV: He is, if he talks for a living.

Here the writer establishes, in just 19 words, a) Burkov's contempt for Fetisov, b) Burkov's grasp of human nature, c) Fetisov's cleverness, d) Fetsiov's understanding of the Soviet system, in which words often have to substitute for deeds -- or goods.

Fellow protagonists can, of course, have more destructive relationships with each other than the above-exampled. In this scene from WHEN TRUMPETS FADE, the salient characteristic of the movie's unhappy antihero, Sgt. David Manning, is his overwhelming desire to survive. This clashes with the necessity of soldiers in battle to be selfless, a fact his platoon leader, Lt. Lukas, understands all too well:

MANNING: What do you want?
LUKAS: I want your help!
MANNING: Look, if I can help you in any way, without endangering my own life, I won't hesitate. If you want my opinion, I'll give it to ya. But I'm not takin' a bullet for anybody.
LUKAS: That's not good enough.
MANNING: That's as good as it gets.

This conversation is overheard by Manning's sole remaining friend, the medic Chamberlain, who then confronts Manning:

CHAMBERLAIN: When you're out there with your guts hanging out, screaming for help -- if there's any way I can save you without endangering my own life, I won't hesitate.

The difference here is important. When Manning tells Lukas he will not risk his own life to help anyone else, he is telling the truth. When Chamberlain throws Manning's words back in his face and implies he will leave Manning to die if Manning is injured, the audience knows that Chamberlain is probably lying: unlike Manning, whose survival instincts have obliterated his sense of decency, Chamberlain probably could not leave a wounded man on the field.

You will see, looking back on this dithyramb, that my selections are wide-ranging yet hardly comprehensive. or even systematic. It would take an entire book, and a lengthy one at that, covering not only film, television and radio but novels, plays and short stories, to explore to the fullest degree to which dialog can be exploited to develop characterization in a swift, efficient and arresting manner. My point here is simply to remind the reader that it is possible to establish the personalities, quirks, eccentricities, failings, grievances and so forth of their characters without resorting to blunt exposition or worn-out stylistic tricks. The guiding principle of the writer, beginning any scene, ought to be, "How can I make this character seem real, distinct, and interesting, in the shortest possible time?" Dialog is not the only tool in the arsenal to accomplish this, but it is a formiddable one whose powers have long been underappreciated.

THE GREAT RESIGNATION

“Sometimes I thought about what Margaret said. About how a person can just drift through life like they're not connected to anyone or anything. You look around - all those characters trying to kill time. Going around in circles. Even if a person wanted to break free, they could find out they've got nowhere else to go.” -- Iris Chapman, Clockwatchers

"The future had lost its rosy glow and become something real and menacing." -- George Orwell, Burmese Days


Twenty years ago left my desk in the courthouse and went home for lunch. Today I finally came back.

I mean this figuratively. I actually didn't quit my job for another four or five months. But the decision to walk away was made then and there, as I sat on my couch and gazing at my television screen. By chance, or perhaps by design, I'd happened on Clockwatchers, a low-budget indie movie directed by Jill Sprecher. Clockwatchers is the story of four young women temping at a huge, faceless credit agency. The stupidity and boredom of their jobs pressure them into a mutual friendship which slowly unravels as the work climate grows nastier and more humiliating. Instead of coming together in support, they begin to quarrel. What begins as a thoughtful, gently comedic poke at the modern workplace devolves into a dark commentary about the emptiness, the senselessness of modern life, and the fragile and fleeting nature of human relationships. I had begun the movie thinking it was an all-female take on Office Space, and finished it in a completely different place, intellectually and emotionally.

Clockwatchers devastated me. I felt as if I were watching an allegory about my own life. There was nothing which happened to the film's chief protagonist, Iris, which hadn't happened to me: the petty indignities, the lonely, solitary lunches, the paralyzing boredom, the futile office crushes, the petty feuds and squabbles, the broken friendships, the drunken nights out full of forced cameraderie and secret despair. With the supreme egotism of all miserable people, I had assumed that I alone felt the existential woe. That I alone knew what it meant to be in my late 20s, financially sound with a respectable job, and yet achingly, tormentingly empty within. Stupid as it seems, I thought the condition localized to myself. WItnessingClockwatchers made me realize that it was generalized, spread over our society as generously as butter on diner toast.

So I decided to quit. Right then and there, in my shabby apartment on the corner of Market and Duke Streets, I decided I would quit my job, and more than that, abandon my entire career in the criminal justice system. I had gone to college to work in that system, and for four and a half years had worked within it, rising to a supervisory position in the district attorney's office before I was thirty. Had I stayed the course, I would have risen still further -- if not there, then in the office of the attorney general or inspector general. From there I could have gone into federal service. Yet because of an obscure movie I'd never heard of until I saw most of it on an extended lunch break, I decided to chuck it. To walk. To get the hell out while I still had some youth and some hope for a more satisfying and fulfiilling future. The film had simply hit too close to home to be ignored. It was like the scene in Miracle on 23rd Street when the hero is stabbed, and while in the hospital is discovered to have a tumor requiring immediate removal: to his amusement he realizes that if someone hadn't tried to kill him, he'd have died of cancer. Watching Specher's movie had hurt like hell, but only because, by some species of curiously cruel logic, the truth often hurts.

I went back to the office and typed up my resignation. I didn't hand it in for some months, but I carried it in my suit pocket every day like a talisman. Sometimes, when I was angry or depressed about the nature of my job, I'd remove it and stroke the corners like a James Bond villain stroking his cat. Eventually I gave it to my boss. I didn't have another job lined up, I simply quit. I had to. If I had waited for the stars to align properly, I'd never have left. As a friend of mine once remarked, "There will never be a perfect time, but there will never be a better time."

If you read this blog even occasionally, you know the rest of my story. I spent six glorious months in fertile unemployment, writing up a storm, traveling periodically, and generally decompressing from the last five years of my life. I then spent two horribly unhappy years back in the system in a different state, when economic circumstances forced me to resume working. But these two years did not in my mind constitute an abandonment of my decision to leave: they were driven by the simple need to keep a roof over my head. At the very first opportunity, I left again, and for the next sixteen years did very little that I did not want to do. I went back to school and then to graduate school, I moved to Los Angeles, I worked in video games, television and film, and I wrote, wrote, and wrote some more. If I was not always happy, I was generally content, and even at my worst, when I was struggling to make a living in Hollywood, I had the comfort of knowing I was where I wanted to be, doing, at least superficially, the things I wanted to do.

Then, one day -- so to speak -- I got off the couch, turned off the television, and went back to work in the courthouse. I traded the big city and the entertainment industry for that same old smallish town and and its courthouse. I even moved back into the same apartment building.

Why do I mention all of this? Because America is currently in the grips of what is being called The Great Resignation or The Big Quit. I ran a search on these terms and got 2.4 billion results in .64 seconds. Some of the definitions:

"The Great Resignation (as economists have coined the employee exodus) reflects a deep dissatisfaction with previous employment situations. The ongoing global pandemic has enabled workers to rethink their careers, work/life balance, long-term goals, and working conditions." -- Google

"The Great Resignation, also known as the Big Quit, is an economic trend in which employees voluntarily resign from their jobs en masse, beginning in early 2021, primarily in the United States." -- Wikipedia

"The Great Resignation is a phenomenon that describes record numbers of people leaving their jobs after the COVID-19 pandemic ends." -- Weforum

At my present place of employment, I am seeing The Big Quit up close. The casualty rate among the staff is like something out of a WW2 movie. I have been back "at my desk" for 17 months, and am already high on the seniority list in my office. It's difficult to keep anyone, regardless of age: the new hires, some as young as 19, are just as likely to shrug and walk out as disgruntled, embittered veterans in their 40s. The willingness of people to endure what we generally refer to as "the grind" ("the ratrace" was a good description of it as well, though it has fallen out of favor for some reason) seems to be plummetting like a 1929 stockbroker off a skyscraper. Having worked from home, or not at all, for a lengthy period of time due to the pandemic, many people are reconnecting with the basic ideas driven home to me by Clockwatchers, to wit: life is short, and we owe it to ourselves to find meaning in the time we have, rather than squander it in soulless drudgery.

Obviously people can't quit their jobs cold without having some resources, and most of the "Quitters" will return to the workforce in some capacity almost immediately, hence the third name for the phenomenon: The Great Reshuffle. But it's important to grasp that what is going on here is more than a migration of workers from one grind to another. It is a fundamental rejection of the old way of doing things, driven by the epiphany that happiness is more important than job security or money. In a Puritan-based, capitalist-driven society like ours, which has programmed people to view life and self-worth solely through the lens of economic success and societial status, and to regard existence itself as a punishing grind (the more punishing the better), this is a massive development: a sea change, a tectonic shift. And contrary to what some people maintain,
it has more to do with a refusal to accept a series of bad choices than with weakness, selfishness or entitlement.

In his lesser-known novels like KEEP THE ASPIDISTRA FLYING, COMING UP FOR AIR, BURMESE DAYS, and A CLERGYMAN'S DAUGHTER, and in his brutal expose of British poverty, THE ROAD TO WIGAN PIER, George Orwell often explored the misery, both spiritual-emotional and financial, which 20th century life inflicted upon human beings. A great deal of the suffering he documented stemmed not just from an unjust and exploitative economic system but from a mentality which he summed up in a single sentence: "I was getting acquainted with 'real life' -- meaning unpleasantness." Not only the British school system of his day but the whole of society was designed to inculcate children of the lower and middle classes with the idea that adulthood was a series of unpleasant tasks and grim responsibilities, and that one of the worst crimes a person could commit was to have unrealistic expectations about the possibilities of life. The reasoning behind this was obvious:
curb expectation and you curb ambition and prevent, or at least retard, social change.

In America, thanks to Puritanism and an even more aggressive strain of capitalist thought, these ideas were bred into our people in an more exaggerated way, with the caveat that "through hard work you can get rich." In other words, we doubled down on the idea that life was "unpleasantness" and real virtue lay in "working hard" while dangling a gold-plated carrot which for the vast majoriity remained permanently out of reach.

My father certainly believed in the Puritan work ethic, and I'm sure my laziness exasperated him to the point of dementia; but my laziness was not entirely laziness for its own sake. Even as a child I understood that to some extent the modern outlook on life was a swindle, designed to turn the great masses of the people into faceless, hopeless worker ants toiling ceaselessly for the benefit of others. I was observant enough to see how tired, how unhappy and anxiety-ridden, most adults were, and how much time they spent bickering over money and complaining about the petty politics of their respective jobs. To me they seemed joyless and miserable figures, almost cartoonish in the way they seemed to work frantically without reaping any benefits. But I was a member of Generation X, and while it's perhaps as foolish to ascribe millions of people with specific characteristics because of the timeframe into which they were born as it is to believe an astrological sign has the faintest effect on one's personality, it can be said with some assurance that every generation does share certain generalized traits born out of shared experience: and the outstanding quality of Generation X was our bizarre combination of being able to clearly see, and to ridicule, every fault-line, crack, absurdity and injustice in modern life, without necessarily being willing to change any of them. In a broad sense, Generation X was comprised of tens of millions of anarchs -- not anarchists, but anarchs (the Anarch is a metaphysical ideal figure of a sovereign individual, conceived by the German writer Ernst Jünger in his novel Eumeswil.). That is to say, we were "sovereign individuals," who were "in" society without being "of" it, and who did not really share its values or respect its beliefs. We understood, we even accepted and resigned ourselves, but only to the degree necessary to exist. We were, in retrospect, a necessary intervening stage between the generation of our parents and the generations which followed us -- the Millennials and Gen Z. In order for them to abruptly quit their shitty jobs by the millions, we had to lay the groundwork of recognizing the absurdity of suffering in a shitty job for decades in the vague belief that "you can enjoy life when you retire."

In walking away from my original career without a safety net or even a plan, simply because I was unhappy, I was perhaps a few years ahead of my time, and like most people in that position, I faced a good deal of ridicule and some well-meaning dismay. I will never forget a woman I worked for in Maryland saying, in a plaintive voice after I put in my notice, "But we get cost of living increases, and you can retire in eighteen years!" It was simply no use pointing out that I was not about to burn eighteen years of my life in a job I detested for periodic 7% raises. She had accepted a certain way of looking at the world which I had explicity rejected, and in any event, she did not hate her job. More power to you, I thought, but your path is not mine. The "sovereign individual" must find their own, and this is at the core of so much of the anger directed at The Quitters today. When I was a child, few insults carried more impact that being called a quitter: it implied not only weakness but a lack of character. Virtue, on the other hand, rested in seeing a thing through to the end, even if the end brought no benefit to anyone. I imagine if the people who had kept us in Vietnam and later, Afghanistan, year after bloody futile year, were polled, a great many of them would have put "perseverence" and "sticktoitiveness" at the top of the scale of virtues. And of course, there are times when one must see a thing through despite all hazards: but the times for such fanaticism are relatively rare. To mindlessly apply that metric to everything in life, including soul-murdering jobs, is simply stupid.

All of this brings me back to Clockwatchers, and the curiously imitative nature of my own life in respect to the film. In the movie, the shy, retiring main character, Iris, ultimately decides that in order to connect with life, she must quit her temp job, but at the end of the film it is also implied that she has become a much more aggressive and ambitious person, ready to succeed in the job market by exploiting what she has learned about office culture. Some critics drew from this that the film misses some of its own point, but I would argue that in one sense anyway, the ending is the entire point: Iris is miserable for much of the movie precisely because she contents herself with a mindless and intolerable dead-end job. She grasps, quite against her will, that modern life is all about learning how the system really works and then operating ruthlessly upon that knowledge for your own advantage. It is a very much Generation X moral; had the movie been set today, she would have "rescued" the other temps and started her own business which was the antilogy of Global Credit: a fun, happy place to work that filled its employees with a sense of fulfillment. The point I'm trying to make is that in order for a film like that to even exist, however, Iris had to exist first, just as the passive but knowing attitude of Gen X had to precede the active, knowing attitude of the two generations which have followed it into the workforce. Everything in life that is not mutation is progression, and every progression comes by degrees, sometimes too small to discern as they occur. When I decided to leave Hollywood and "go back to my desk," I had a whole host of motivations, but foremost among them was the need to occupy a more selfless space in the universe. For sixteen years I had followed only my own desires: first, the desire to have an easy and comfortable life, and later, the desire to satisfy my creative side, and my vanity, by working in the entertainment industry. For a long time I found this deeply satisfying, but the last three years rang increasingly hollow, and the idea of a return to public service, despite all of its frustrations and silliness, increasingly appealing. My main concern was that I would feel as if I had betrayed myself by returning, that I would be selling out the epiphany of 2002 for good benefits, a short commute and a lower cost of living. So far this has not been the case. I realize that what I am doing is temporary, serving a temporary need, and that I am not destined to run out my own personal clock "behind the desk": so the existential horror I felt in that position as a young man does not obtain as a middle-aged one. I also realize that it is necessary to re-evaluate the course of one's life every few years, and to quit, if necessary, any situation which has outlived its usefulness, no matter how glamorous it might seem to others.

There is a great deal to be anxious about nowadays. The great event of my lifetime, the end of the Cold War, has actually proven to be a terribly destabilizing influence on the world, one whose effects are only just now being realized. The climate catastrophe seems to worsen every season with no end in sight. America is openly flirting with fascism, and the pandemic has been a psychological disaster as well as a plague. Yet in the end, I think the Great Resignation is proof that no matter how bleak a situation may be, there are always movements toward the light. Millions of people have realized by force of circumstance that much of their anxiety and suffering were unecessary, and are demanding more and more of a say in how they live their own lives. They are not anarchs. They are activisits for their own good, and whatever discomfort this may cause the job market and businesses generally, if it helps drive a few more nails in the coffin of the great cult of mindless suffering into which I was born, I say full speed ahead.

As I Please VII: Snowbound Edition

OK, so I'm not really snowbound. We only got 5" last night, and it's the loose, powdery snow that's incredibly easy to sweep off one's stoop, sidewalk or vehicle. But my second winter since I moved back East still finds me with a certain level of child-like delight in watching the stuff come down through the glare of the streetlamps at night. I experience the same when I awaken and look out the window into the unnatural morning brightness -- sunlight on all that still-unbroken white powder. And this got me to thinking, as I sit here at 8:51 on Friday, January 7, 2022, that seasons are curious creatures.

In Southern California, there are no seasons as such. By that I mean there are only 1.5 seasons. One of them is called summer and one of them is called not-summer. Summer needs no explanation. Not-summer is essentially all the leftover weather summer didn't want, but it doesn't rise to the level of a full season of any type. It isn't cold enough to be called winter, it isn't pretty enough to be called spring, and it lacks nearly all the aesthetic charm of autumn. It's simply a cool, gray, occasionally rainy set of months between November and May. Then one day it ends and it's summer again.

In the other states I've lived as an adult, Maryland and Pennsylvania, seasons generally tend to have identities so strong one could call them personalities, even characters. I say this notwithstanding climate change, which has certainly screwed around with how those characters behave. Nevertheless, the Easterner understands that each newly-minted year comes with four distinct eras, each of which requires different clothing and behaviors, and inspires different attitudes. When I was a Californian, I missed this rhythm, and even after twelve years still felt its absence. Now that I'm a Pennsylvanian, I'm grateful to have it back. And this gets me thinking about a lot of weather-related topics:

* Seasonal depression is a real thing, but there is another type of seasonal depression nobody talks about: "la cafard." This is a French expression which translates roughly to "spirit sickness." In Vietnam, French troops began to experience depression due to the monotony of the (green) landscape and the (hot) weather, so different from mercurial France, where gray, drab, bitterly cold winters content with poetry-inducing springs and gently colorful summers. In California, when I was living in the Godawfully hot Valley, where sunshine is like a boiling liquid pouring over you for 16 hours a day, I often found myself almost clinically depressed. I longed for hard rain, chill temperatures, copper and gold leaves, and even snow. The things you grow up with are what you expect out of life, which explains why so much of middle age is spent in a state of dismay, wondering why you feel so out of step with the world, so "in" but not "of." Which is why having seasons again makes me unreasonably happy. Once again I feel as if the world makes sense.

* Now, I say, "unreasonably" because this morning I had to take 5" of snow off my hulking Volvo SUV, and do it with my hands. Thus I soon experienced that sensation unique to real winter, which is the stinging pain you get when fresh snow and ice work their way into the tiny gap between sleeve and glove and make sweet love to your wrists. I confess that when I was growing up I hated this feeling like poison. Now I find it charming in a maschostic type of way, sort of like when a woman slaps me on the ass in the hallway. Possibly this pleasure will fade with time -- I mean snow on the wrists, not getting smacked on the backside in an office setting.

* Another curious thing I'd forgotten about Pennsylvania, which differs it from Maryland, is the ferocious, even violent territoriality people of all ages and races feel toward "their" parking spaces. I mean the ones that they had to dig out after a really big snowstorm. In Maryland, at least the part where I grew up in, merely digging out a space, no matter how long it takes or how much sweat or cursing is involved, does not entitle you to its exclusive use thereafter. It may be bad manners to scoop up some just-vacated spot, knowing the poor slob who cleared it out just about had a heart attack doing so, but you aren't going to get any grief for it beyond -- perhaps -- a digusted glare. Not so in PA. In Pennsylvania, any spot on the curb you dig out is yours entirely, by right of conquest. You tackled that mound of snow, so you own the street beneath it until the snow melts. It's true you have to mark it when you leave -- the most common object used is a chair of some type, placed dead in the middle of the now scraped-clean space -- but it still belongs to you, and if anyone else parks there, well, in the immortal words of Robert Mori, "It's on." The least that will happen to a space-thief is an immediate cursing out. The most...well, a fancy-Dan lawyer I worked with once parked his Saab in someone else's space and came back the next morning to find all four tires slashed and his radio antenna hacked off. And what's more, no one sympathized with him. Some things just aren't done, and in Pennsylvania, that includes stealing someone's space.

* I am also reminded, as I sit here melting, that living in this climate requires an enormous wardrobe as well as specialized equipment. The stuff I need just for the period January - March, or at most April, includes all manner of heavy coats, boots, gloves, wool hats, wool socks, ice scrapers, etc. My closets bulge with stuff I don't need about 220 days a year. And inevitably, when nature finally requires me to wear it, I find moths have had a go at some of it during the dormant months. My only double breasted suit coat, and my cashmere topcoat, are now slightly moth-eaten. I suppose this is my fault, because on the rare occasions I have seen a moth in this apartment I can't bring myself to kill it.

* Since I work for the district attorney, I dress up five days a week, but it is damnably difficult to look dapper and be practical when it is 22 degrees and snowing -- or worse, 38 degrees and sleeting. Formal attire is absolutely useless in every possible respect when it comes to battling the elements. None of the fabric keeps out the cold or deflects the rain, and the footwear is worse than useless, it is actually hazardous, since it has basically no tread. The statistics on stupid winter-related injuries caused by falling must be very grim indeed.

* Speaking of winter-related injuries, it is known that heavy, wet snow is referred to by cardiologists as "heart attack snow" because of all the people who have heart attacks trying to get it out of the damned driveway. America is a country of fat and lazy people, and winter gives them an excuse to eat even more and be even lazier: so when called upon to finally do something vigorous, many folks just keel over. However, I shan't judge, because I'm not a homeowner, and my landlord is stuck with that task. And he uses a snowblower.

* A fascinating factor of snow-psychology is how it makes everyone, regardless of age, revert emotionally to their schoolboy/schoolgirl years. Nearly everyone I know resents having to work on snow days, and while scraping ice off windshields and the lovely sound of snow-shovels striking asphalt is part of this resentment, the real bitterness lies in the idea that snow means that one gets to stay home from school. It's really just that simple. When you're a kid, the white stuff means a day spent at home, sledding, drinking hot chocolate, getting into snowball fights and generally reveling in life and the fact you are not in school. I'm now a grown man, a public servant filling a vital communal task, responsible enough to carry a gun on my hip...yet if it snows 3"...well, by God, I have to choke down a gallon of bile if I'm expected to be in court.

* This thought brings me to sledding. Do kids go sledding anymore nowadays? If I had to guess I'd say it is a dying activity. When I was a youngling, we had both high and low dives at our pool; by the time I was in college the high dive had been dismantled "for liability purposes" and later the low diving board was removed as well. In the late 70s and early 80s the hill upon which I lived was a mob scene of kids sledding and parents standing by, drinking what I believed at the time was coffee, but now suspect was mostly coffe-flavored Scotch, as they prevented traffic from coming through. These sledding expeditions were savage, right out of the chariot sequence in BEN-HUR or the grisly climax of ROLLERBALL: I vividly remember riding on my brother's back downhill, jumping from our sled to another boy's, grabbing his steering aparatus, and forcing him head-first into a pack of garbage cans at about 20 mph as I rolled clear at the last moment. And somehow I was never called out for this behavior, much less punished. Our parents watched, yet looked the other way. The entire exercise seemed to be regarded as a rite of passage in which some head trauma and extremity-damage was inevitable. Yet when I think about it, I can't remember seeing or hearing about anyone sledding down that hill since the late 1980s or so. It simply isn't done nowadays. Too much risk, too little community. I never wanted to be one of those middle-aged bastards that croaked, "In MY day...." but I suppose that's just what I am. Still, I don't feel superior for having this experience: I feel sad that so many others lack it. When did we, as a people, stop letting children be children?

On that down-note I bring this latest installment of As I Please to its conclusion. I hope it finds you at home, a good fire going on the grate, and your beverage of choice close to hand. But as you sip it, just remember: snow may come but one season a year, but it's never too late to go sledding.

COMING ATTRACTIONS

As some of you may have noticed, it has been more than a minute since I have released any new fiction, and considerably longer than that since I've published a novel. This is not due to any lack of industry on my part, but three factors: the accursed global pandemic, the equally accursed horror novel I've been working on for something like five years now, and my change of location from West to East Coasts. There was a bonus factor as well: the so-called legitimate publishing world was calling me with its strangely alluring siren song.

When the pandemic struck in early 2020, I was on a tremendous roll, raking in awards left and right and getting, for the first time, serious critical praise as well. I really thought I was on the cusp of a massive professional breakthrough, but the pesky virus had other plans, and accelerated my decision to swap the left side of the country for the right, and the entertainment industry for the business of criminal justice. This put me out of serious writing action for at least six months. It also prevented me from doing much in the way of book promotion. However, when the dust settled, and I could finally write again, I realized I still had many, many months of work ahead of me on my epic horror novel if I even wanted to finish the first draft. From a creative standpoint I felt as if I was in a tunnel whose only light was probably the headlamp of an oncoming train.

Now, it is my policy never to work on more than one creative project at a time. Like most of my policies I don't follow it strictly, but I do try to pay it as much respect as I can muster, and for very practical reasons. When I was an aspiring young writer, I was endlessly starting short stories, novels, screenplays, and poems without finishing any of them. I would start project "A," lose interest, and begin project "B," meaning to return to "A," when "B" was complete. The problem was, I never finished "B" either: "B" was thrown over for "C," who was abandoned for "D," who in turn got the push for "E" -- and so on and so forth and such. This eventually led me to adopt as a principle the idea that unless and until "A" was finished -- at least as a draft -- "B" could exist only in my head. As a working philosophy, it was better than most. It not only forced me to actually finish writing projects, it allowed ideas to mature more fully within my mind as they waited for their turn on the written page.

Like most maxims, however, it has a downside. When I began my epic horror novel, I assumed the first draft would not take much longer than any of my previous novels: roughly one year. But somehow, the more I wrote, the further away the finish line seemed: I was reminded of that episode of the original Doctor Who where they trap the villain, Sutekh the Destroyer, in a time tunnel whose exit recedes infinitely before him. Years passed and still the goddamned thing wasn't complete, not even as a first draft. Then, early this year, I was tapped to help a former gangster write his memoirs of life in the New York mob. Having been paid quite a sum to go about this task, it had to take prioiorty. Still, a gentleman is occasionally permitted to break his own rules. Most recently I did this with release of "The Brute," a horror short, but prior to that I also published the novelettes "The Numbers Game" and "Seelenmord." And I continue to cheat here and there, which belatedly brings me to the point of this blog. There are, or will be, quite a few more releases under my name coming over the next few months.

For starters, a paperback version of my previously electronic-format-only novelette "Shadows and Glory" is now available on Amazon. This tale about a son and his father was included in my short story collection DEVILS YOU KNOW (2016), but was long enough to merit, I felt, stand-alone publication as a very small e-book. As you know by now, I am a big fan of the long short story, which was once one of the most popular mediums of fiction in the world but is now almost extinct: I am also a fan of physical media, especially as it pertains to reading. So: "Shadows" can now be read the old-fashioned way.

In the next few weeks, a completely new novelette of 20,000 words called "Deus Ex" will be debuting on Amazon in both e-book and paperback formats. "Deus Ex" is an alternative history thriller about a ruthless dictator determined to escape the consequences of his own downfall. It is part of my ongoing campaign to escape the confines of my own literary wheelhouse, and I'd be willing to bet cash money (assuming I had any) that you've never read anything quite like it.

The really big news is that the sequel to my most decorated novel, SINNER'S CROSS, is only a few months from bookshelves real and electronic. I have never written anything with more determination not to let myself or the reader down, and subjected it to an excruciating drafting process that has lasted five years or better. All the survivors of the first book are returning: whether they make it 'til the final page is another matter entirely. One of my many goals with this series, which I envision will cover a total of seven novels or so, is to highlight forgotten battles and emphasize the participation of ordinary men in history's greatest conflict, the Second World War. These books are not paens, they are elegies. If you want panting tributes to heroes in the style of Spielberg and Ambrose, look elsewhere. This is the real shit, fiction inspired by decades of reading firsthand accounts and primary sources.

2022 will also see the release of my dark novelette "Wolf Weather," which plays whorehouse contortionist and straddles the lines between horror, fantasy and allegory.

Beyond that? Well, I hope to finish that goddamned horror novel early next year, but whether I do or not, I have yet another historical novel in the bullpen. It's finished, polished, ready to go: the only question is whether I will release it through the independent imprint, One Nine Books, or try to go mainstream with a traditional publishing house. Time will tell. I really have no beef with traditional publishing, but when I'm told my books require a "sensitivity read" I tend to lose interest quickly. Contrary to urban legend, I'm
just not that sensitive.

I could say a little more, but I don't want to jinx myself by setting release deadlines I may not be able to meet. I'm Miles Watson, not George R.R. Martin. You can tell by the size of my bank account.

STAR WARS: PONDERING THE PREQUELS

The dreadful STAR WARS sequel trilogy, shat out by Disney via Jar Jar Abrams and Rian "I Can Do No Wrong" Johnson, has got me thinking that the time has come for me to re-assess, or perhaps more accurately re-observe, another much-reviled trilogy in that franchise: the prequels.

These three films, helmed by series creator George Lucas between 1999 - 2005, were set a generation before the original trilogy, and told the story of the downfall of the Galactic Republic and the Jedi Order, and more specifically, how do-gooding Anakin Skywalker fell to the Dark Side and became the dreaded Darth Vader. Reaction to these movies was, to say the least, passionate. Critics were cruel, and the fan base divided between older ones, who tended to hate them, and the younger, who embraced the prequels to the point of preferring them to the originals. When Lucas, who was somewhat embittered by the criticisms he recieved, sold the Star Wars franchise to Disney some years later, many believed it had been "saved" from its creator and that a renaissance era was dawning.

Well, we all know how that turned out, don't we?

So much ink has been spilled about the sequel trilogy that I will spare you from a lengthy diatribe on the subject -- at least for now. Suffice to say that these films, aside from their intolerable insistence on pushing political ideology, their relentless box-checking, their boring Mary Sue protagonist, their complete absence of internal logic, their jarring inconsistency with each other, and their flagrant and deliberate disrespect for the classic characters, are also bankrupt of any good or even sensible ideas. The first film is a noisy, unimaginative remake of the original STAR WARS. The second is an excruciating vandalism of everything that made the original trilogy special, slathered with self-righteous political messaging from first to final frame. The last is a lively but incoherent and ultimately farsical attempt to fill plot holes not with substance, but explosions. Try as I might, and I did try, I could find no virtue in any of these movies. There is nothing to be learned from them in terms of characterization, dialog, or storytelling. They are are glib, shiny and hollow and ultimately without weight or substance as Christmas tree ornaments. It would have been better if they had never been made. And this circles me back to the prequels.

Looking back on them after an interval of twenty-odd years, what stands out immediately is jarring differences between them and both the sequels and the original trilogy. They are decidedly their own selves, the direct execution of one man's vision, and possessing a very clear objective in terms of the type of story they wish to convey and the methodology by which they mean to convey it. Taking a longer and more thoughtful look (I re-watched all three prior to writing this), I was struck by how clearly the merits of the prequels shone in my eyes, relative to their many, many faults. When I originally saw THE PHANTOM MENACE in 1999, and to a lesser extent ATTACK OF THE CLONES in 2002, I could a tale unfold about their cons, but the pros were, in my mind, hard to come by. Time has allowed me a clearer perspective.

Firstly, it's important to understand that the first film in the series, THE PHANTOM MENACE, was not intended by its creator to service the fans of the original trilogy, but to appeal to their children. With MENACE, Lucas made a kids' movie replete with physical comedy, sight gags, fart jokes, and a child protagonist who got to go on what amounted to a series of lengthy theme-park rides. The childish nature of many of the sequences belied the complex, some might say turgid plot of the movie, which was full of Byzantine intrigue. Indeed, one of the curious features of MENACE is the way it alternates in tone between DUNE and a Saturday morning cartoon. The effect is almost schizophrenic, but it could be said that at least the film has something for every age group. Now, before I advance, this is not meant as an apologia for what my friend Matt once described as "an objectively bad film," but merely a partial explanation of why its charms, such as they are, were lost on a Generation X who had anticipated a movie made for them, not their 10 year-old kids. The subsequent movies in the trilogy shed the bulk of the juvenile and sophomoric elements, most notably by reducing the role of Jar Jar Binks from a central player (MENACE) to a small part (CLONES) and finally to an unspeaking extra (SITH), which is one of several reasons why the first film feels so much like a stand-alone in comparison with the two films that followed. I do maintain, however, that MENACE is much easier to enjoy if one looks at it through the eyes of a tween, just as the first two Harry Potter books go down more smoothly for a grownup if one remembers that they become increasingly more adult in execution as the series wears on.

Having said that, it's worth noting that MENACE, while justly attacked for its wooden dialog, petrified performances, sluggish pacing, muddled storyline, and cavalier dismissal of its most interesting characters, does a number of things fairly well, even brilliantly, if one can sift through the litter of Jar Jar's antics or George Lucas' taste for cringe-inducing dialog and pointless cut scenes. And this brings me to my second observation:

The "creative surround" we witnessed in the original trilogy was quite simple and easy to understand, as was the nature of the storyline. On the one hand was the evil, autocratic Galactic Empire; on the other was the do-gooding, democratic Rebellion determined to bring it down. Details were scanty at best, because the plot, drawing on classic themes known to everyone, did not require backstory, any more than the characters, all of whom were equally classic archetypes familiar to every culture on earth. In the prequels, however, Lucas traded the broad brush for a much finer one: the Galactic Republic we are introduced to in MENACE is a huge, fractious and complicated entity, essentially well-meaning but ponderous and rotten with corruption. Even the Jedi, supposedly the moral guardians of the galaxy, are presented as being pedantic, dogmatic, narrow-minded, and prone to blunder. In short, the "good side" is neither overly sympathetic nor particularly admirable. It is simply a representation of the long-term effects of success: arrogance, apathy, tolerance for corruption, and that particular form of cynicism which allows strongly-held beliefs to deteriorate into empty, meaningless rituals. (When Padme goes to the Senate for help, she quickly discovers that the policy-making body of the galaxy is so choked by bribe-money and red tape it may as well be one of her enemies.) In short, by the end of MENACE, we understand that while the Sith are evil, and their plans nefarious and self-serving, the soil they till is fertile precisely because the "good" have let their muscles go soft and their guard fall dangerously low. This more nebulous, shady-gray atmosphere of morality off-puts many fans, but to me the richness and complexity of the universe we see is beguiling, because it is different. What's more, the canvas we see in the prequels presents a universe which seems real and adheres to a unifying plot architecture. Unlike the sequel trilogy, in which the universe we are presented feels improvised and underdeveloped to the point of nullity, the prequels make us intimately familiar with how both the Republic and the Jedi functioned.
George Lucas clearly did not want to repeat the thematic simplicity of the earlier films, choosing instead a storyline which is so tangled that at times it seems to make no sense at all. Indeed, there are plot elements in MENACE and CLONES that simply do not compute. But not wanting to repeat oneself is one of the hallmarks of real artistry, and this fact should at least be acknowledged before criticisms about the story are made.

This takes me to observation three, which is that the series is a tragedy: even MENACE, which is the most upbeat of the trio, ends with the death of Qui-Gon and a sense of unease about the return of the Sith and the future of Anakin Skywalker. Unlike the original trilogy, which despite its grim middle chapter was the story of good underdogs defeating evil overdogs of the very worst sort, the prequels are the story of downfall -- the downfall of people, of relationships, of a social order, of individual worlds and an entire galaxy. Most of the characters we meet are either killed off, driven into exile, or survive only as twisted wreckage of their former selves. Viewed as a piece entire, the prequels are not less drenched in blood and anguish than Macbeth or Richard III. Those looking for emotional uplift are looking in the wrong place, but many still attack the films for their depressing tone, which is quite as stupid as feeling betrayed by the downbeat conclusion of Romeo and Juliet. These cards were always on the table.

My fourth observation is that the prequels are in a very real sense not about Anakin Skywalker, Padme Amidala or Obi-Wan Kenobi; not about the Republic or the Jedi or even the Sith, but rather Darth Sidious, a.k.a. Chancellor Palpatine. It is really his story, just as it could be argued that the original films are actually Darth Vader's story. Sidious' machinations are the axis upon which every event in the series, from the huge space battles to the fates of individual characters, turn and turn again. Sidious/Palpatine is certainly one of the greatest villains ever created in cinema, a man with no redeeming qualities at all, driven by an insatiable desire for power and domination, whose Force abilities, mighty as they are, pale in comparison with his his Machiavellian cunning. To Sidious, if I may double paraphrase Matthew Stover, other beings are either threats or assets, to be destroyed or used according to the categorization. He has no sentiment, no pity, no mercy, no remorse, no loyalty, no shame, no better angels within his nature. Even his fellow Sith regard him as a shadow on the Force, an event horizon, a black hole, and little wonder: he regards them as disposable, and does dispose of them when the need arises. Any positive emotion he projects -- charm, warmth, affection -- is a fraudulent, a sort of stage trick calculated to achieve an exploitative end. He is fathomless, an expression of evil in a human body, who did not fall or get pushed or seduced into the shadows but began there, ended there,
He engineers a galactic civil war which claims billions of lives solely for his own personal benefit, and manages to be the supreme commander of both factions under different aliases, surely the greatest feat of villainy imaginable: in the game Sidious plays with the universe, whichever side wins, he seemingly cannot lose. And yet, at the same time, he possesses a singular weakness which serves as a substitute for psychological depth, and which lays the seeds, in REVENGE OF THE SITH, for his own eventual destruction in RETURN OF THE JEDI: not capable of comprehending the emotion of love, he dismisses its power. This crack in his armor prevents him from becoming boring, a villainous version of the "Mary Sue" born-perfect hero.

One more observation: like the original trilogy, the prequels do not push a divisive political message, but rather -- and like the best science-fiction and fantasy stories -- an extremely inclusive philosophy. The difference betwixt politics and philosophy is not really very subtle, but it is seldom recognized or discussed. Here are two definitions lifted from the interwebs:

1. "Ideology refers to a set of beliefs, doctrines that back a certain social institution or a particular organization. Philosophy refers to looking at life in a pragmatic manner and attempting to understand why life is as it is and the principles governing behind it."

2. "Political philosophy embodies value assumptions about the nature of the ultimate good. Political ideology is emotional, programmatic, and mass in character."

Pay special attention to these words. The original STAR WARS, like STAR TREK, LORD OF THE RINGS and HARRY POTTER, are united in the inclusivity of their basic message, as well as the universiality and eternal nature of the ethical questions they posed. Only a truly wicked or deficient person could be put off by the themes of curiosity, love, friendship, sincere conviction, devotion to duty, respect for differences, etc., etc. which each of these franchises brings to bear. Well, unlike the sequel trilogy, the prequels manage to delve deep into the politics of their universe without becoming an unveiled, hammer-over-the-head, 1:1 allegory for the platform of a certain political party. The ultimate story is kept on a level of "democracy vs. fascism" or even more broadly, "good vs. evil," and not the obvious "left vs. right," with its resulting implication that one side is correct and the other misguided and villainous. Put more simply, whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, Labour or Tory, Green or Conservative, the prequels do not set out to alienate you, or tell you that your own personal politics are wrong-headed. They serve as a warning to everyone who cares to listen: evil is seductive and relentless, and good must not only be ever vigilant, but open-minded, if it is to survive.

A final observation. Like "V" -- the double mini-series and short-lived sci-fi TV series of the early-mid 1980s -- the prequels are a story about how democracy dies and the means by which it is slain. The Republic, corrupt and hapless as it is, is still far better than the alternative, just as the virtuous if dogmatic Jedi are far more appealing than the treacherous and violent Sith: but this moral superiority does not save them. In both cases, which are really the same case, the good falls to the bad, just as Anakin Skywalker falls to the Dark Side. It is not Lucas' contention that evil is stronger -- he specifically refutes this in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK -- but it is his assertion that evil "quicker, easier, more seductive," and that it takes character and hard work to resist its pomps. Indeed, seduction is central to the plot of nearly all STAR WARS movies, with special emphasis on the idea that it is a form of voluntary victimization. Though Sidious attacks the Republic from within, it is not he but the Senate that ultimately issues the killing blow when they ringingly endorse his bid for supreme power at the climax of REVENGE OF THE SITH. When Padme remarks to Bail Organa, apropros of Palpatine dissolving the Republic and declaring himself emperor, "So this is how democracy dies: to thunderous applause," she is unintentionally foreshadowing the self-congratulatory tone her husband Anakin will assume when he becomes a Sith Lord. Having made the leap from light to dark, Anakin -- now Darth Vader -- blithely justifies the massacre of his former Jedi bretheren and the destruction of the Republic he was sworn to defend, and in so doing cheers his own self-chosen downfall. And Vader pays the steepest possible price for the abandonment of his Jedi ideals.

There are other positive observations I could make in defense and support of the prequels. Aside from some of the best fight sequences you are likely to see, and an ever-growing sense of menace and impending doom as the films succeed one another, these would include the excellent chemistry between Hayden Christiansen and Ewan McGregor, who come off as a bickering married couple; a form-fitting performance from Liam Neeson as the worlds-weary Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn; and a wonderful star turn by Ian McDiarmid as Palpatine/Sidious, who doesn't chew the scenery...until we really want him to.

Of course, none of what I have written here obviates my obligation to point out that the prequels are, at best, deeply flawed and somewhat frustrating films. THE PHANTOM MENACE, pared down to what is necessary, would not clock in at greater than an hour, and pared down to what is purely enjoyable, probably not much longer than 20 minutes. ATTACK OF THE CLONES meanders for well over an hour through dialog of often painful stupidity before partially redeeming itself in an extended orgy of cathartic mass violence. And REVENGE OF THE SITH, far and away the best of the three, is still lumbered with the flaws of the previous two, and is further hobbled by the fact that nearly all its deleted scenes would have dramatically improved the movie. No amount of rose-colored tint can make Jar Jar Binks less annoying, or fill in the crater-sized plot holes of the first two flicks, or improve the dialog or the clunky, awkward performances which sprang from it; no rationalizing can make up for the misuse of characters like Maul, Dooku, Amidala and Grievous, who are either underused, introduced too late in the series to be fully effective, or, in Padme's case, have their roles gutted at the climactic moment by poor editing choices. However, all of this being true, it does not change the fact, either, that the prequels, for all their warts and brown spots, were an original idea placed within a rich and realized universe where internal logic largely held together, and that they told a very complex and adult story in a sweeping, overflowing manner which is not less appealing for the clumsiness of its execution. Ultimately, the prequels are not great or even particularly good films taken as a single mass, but they have a sincerity, a charisma, a passion for their own existence which reminds me of an imaginative, hyperactive, somewhat inarticulate man spluttering out a fairy tale of his own composition. There is nothing cynical about them, and unlike Sidious -- or Disney -- they have no political "message" or taint of self-righteousness. They expound, but they do not lecture. Time has been surprisingly kind to them, and I firmly believe that in another twenty years, they will still be enjoyed on some level or other by the masses of fandom, while the sequel trilogy will be mercifully and justly forgotten.

ELEGY FOR A (NAZI) CHILD STAR

A man dies twice. Once when he takes his last breath, and once when someone says his name for the last time. -- Egyptian axiom

I think we would all agree that the words "child star" carry with them a taint, an element of tragedy, which does not apply to the adult version of stardom. Notwithstanding the qualification of "child," which implies a reduced value of the stardom in question, the history of Hollywood is also a history of child exploitation and the brief and often destructive quality of fame as a whole. But "Hollywood" is a curious word in itself, is it not? It simultaneously describes a town, an area of a great city, a mentality, and an entire industry; and it follows that this industry is alive and well in many places outside of the physical location of Hollywood, and indeed, of the United States. Put another way, Americans neither have a cornered market on making movies nor on the dubious morals and practices of the movie industry. Every nation has its own characteristics and quirks, its own peculiarities which govern the way its popular culture is conceived and manufactured, but when one takes a good step back and looks at the movie industry, not only in other lands but in other times, one discovers there is much more that is familiar than that which is strange. A tragic end to those who have been called "child stars" is, sadly, not only a common story anywhere cameras roll, but anywhen. And this takes us to the brief and somwhat incandescent life of Klaus-Detlef Sierck, a boy who came to stardom in Hitler's Germany.

Sierck was born in Berlin-Charlottenburg, in the Weimar Republic, on March 30, 1925, the son of the theatrical and movie director Hans-Detlef Sierck and the actress Lydia Brinken. Klaus-Detlef was what we in America would call "Second Generation Hollywood" -- born into the business, and therefore, perhaps anyway, fated to become part of it. In 1928, when Klaus-Detlef was just three years old, his parents divorced, and his father soon married the Jewish actress Hilde Jary. Whether this encouraged Lydia to join the Nazi Party I do not know, but she did in fact join it, and after Hitler's ascension to power in 1932, was able to legally bar Hans-Detlef from seeing his only son, by virtue of his having disgraced himself by marrying a Jewess.

Despite this social stigma, Papa Sierck enjoyed a prosperous career in Germany for a few years, first as a theatrical director and later as a contracted film director for UFA, a leading German movie studio. At that point, life was not easy for Jews in Germany nor for gentile Germans who were married to them, but what we now describe as "The Holocaust" was still some years away. Eventually, however, he saw the handwriting on the wall, and he and Hilde emigrated to the United States, where he took the name “Douglas Sirk” and became a leading director in Hollywood for many years: indeed, his first feature was a violently anti-Nazi movie called "Hitler's Madman," which debuted in 1943.

Meanwhile, in Germany, and no doubt encouraged by his mother (and his genes), Klaus-Detlef entered the world of acting in 1935, when he was just ten years old, in the short film "The Seeds Are Growing." This was the first of thirteen movies in which he would appear in gradually ever-larger roles. They included "Serenade" (1937), "A Prussian Love Story" (1938), and "The Immortal Heart" (1939). It was after this that Klaus really came unto his own, with a breakout performance in the mega-hit "Cadets." This film, directed by the ardent and very technically adept Nazi Karl Ritter, is a superb example of how political messages are best served to the masses as entertainment rather than overt propaganda. Set during the 7 Years War, it is the story of a group of German military school cadets, mostly very young children, who take up arms against a Russian invasion and make a heroic defense of an abandoned fort. German boys went crazy over the film, driving huge box office numbers and most definitely romanticizing the idea of war as a right of passage, and dying for the Fatherland as the ultimate act of patriotism, concepts very dear to Hitler's heart.

A much more overt appeal to Nazi ideology came in 1941's "Chin Up, Johannes!" in which Klaus-Detlef starred as Johannes von Riedel, a sullen German kid who grew up in South America with his expatriate father and must now adjust to life in the Third Reich. The film depicts Ridel as a prissy, intolerable brat who is eventually sent to a special Nazi school to learn "German values" -- meaning, in this case, the ethic of the Nazi Party, which prized physical toughness, obedience to authority, and loyalty to the group. Johannes at first rejects and is rejected by his schoolmates, but eventually begins to "get the message," whereupon his life, and his relationship with his father and aunt, improve and he becomes a happy and enthusiastic member of Hitler's youth. This movie is as bad as it sounds, lacking all of the subtlety of "Cadets," and is also boiling over with unintentional, but comical, homo-eroticism: only its depictions of life at the school have any interest to the viewer. Sierck's performance, however, is effective: he's meant to come off as a little shit, and he does, quite credibly. Perhaps unfortunately for him, Joseph Goebbels, the German minister for propaganda, detested the film, considering it too obvious and saccharine to make effective propaganda and this may have contributed to Klaus' eventual fate. (Goebbels was notorious for his vindictiveness toward artists of any kind who he felt had crossed, vexed, disappointed or otherwise angered him: merely appearing in a movie he hated could spell ruin for an actor's career).

Despite this, Klaus-Detlef had one more moment of cinematic glory to come. In 1942, he appeared as Young Prince Heinrich in the big-budget smash, "The Great King." This film, a biopic of Frederick the Great, was meant as a morale-builder for Germans anxious about the overwhelming odds they were facing during WW2. Both Hitler and the Nazis idolized Frederick, who had managed to save Prussia from a vastly superior alliance of nations very similar to the one Germans themselves faced during the 7 Years War of 1756 - 1763. Reminding the German people of Frederick's success in the face of overwhelming odds was a much-used propganda device during the Nazi era. In any event, "The Great King" proved to be Klaus-Detlef's final cinematic appearance, for though we know he was part of a theater company in Kattowtz for some or all of 1942, he was soon to recieve his draft notice.

Whether Goebbels accelerated this process out of spite, as he had with some others, is unknown; as a member of the class of 1925, Klaus-Detlef would have been eligible for conscription in May of 1943 anyway, and Germany did not exempt actors from military service (though it did permit them furlough to make pictures when possible). His opinions on the Nazis, on the war, and on the role he was about to play in it are unknown, but he did end up in uniform, specifically as a fusilier in the Panzer-Grenadier-Division "Großdeutschland," which is in itself a fact of some interest. The GD, as it was known, was widely regarded as “the” elite unit of the regular German Army, with special emphasis on spit and polish, Prussian-style drill, and comradeship ritial, and for a long time was volunteer-only, though as it grew larger in size and the war situation more dire, it eventually found less noble ways of filling its ranks. Members were entitled to wear special insignia, and were expected to show courage far above that expected of an ordinary German soldier. By all accounts, they did.

The GD spent most of its service on the Eastern Front as a “fire brigade,” rushing from one crisis point to another, inflicting and suffering enormous casualties and participating in most of the great battles of that part of the war. It was by no means uncommon for its units to return from action having suffered 90% losses, with sergeants in command of rifle companies and lieutenants in command of battalions. The odds were overwhelmingly against survival for any length of time, and like millions of others, Klaus-Detlef's number came up double zero.
He was killed in action at Novoaleksandrovka in the Ukraine, possibly on March 6, 1944, though the German magazine Film-Kurier (Issue No. 45) lists his demise as occurring on May 22, 1944. His grave is located in the Ivaniwka military cemetery. He was either eighteen or a newly-minted nineteen years of age at the time of his death.

Klaus-Detlef's father went on to become a prolific and very successful, if not very critically appreciated, director in America, operating under the name "Douglas Sirk" and directing a very impressive 30 films between 1943 and 1959, when he abruptly retired. His work, known for its melodramatic themes and lush visual style, eventually went through a successful critical re-appraisal: Quentin Tarantino, Guillermo del Toro and Pedro Almodóvar have all cited him as an influence. One critic noted that while his films were generally dismissed at the time as melodramas catering toward women, they contained deeper subtexts; the themes were not always what they appeared to be.

Sirk seems to have spent the rest of his life searching for a way to fill the void his son's death left within him. He had not seen much if anything of Klaus-Detlef since 1928, and nothing at all since 1937. It is doubtful there was any communication between them, especially once the Second World War began in 1939. But we do know that Klaus-Detlef was not only Sirk's only son, he was his only child, and the pain of losing him thrice over -- first through divorce, then through Hitler's anti-Jewish laws, and finally through death -- must have been excruciating, and, in the nature of emotional pain, perhaps grown more unbearable over time. The American movie star Rock Hudson, who was born the same year as Klaus-Detlef, and who made 9 films with Sirk, described the director as "like ol' dad to me, and I was like a son to him." It is quite possible this relationship offered Sirk a balm for his pain, never having been allowed to either be a father to Klaus nor oversee his professional development as an actor. An online article I found talks about Sirk's direction of the controversial "A Time to Love and a Time to Die" (1958), one of his last movies:

'A Time to Love and a Time to Die,' a sympathetic story of a young Nazi soldier on the eastern front, was greeted with head-scratching bewilderment when it first appeared. It was only thirteen years after the war had ended. The world was still recovering from the revelations of the Nazi atrocities, and here was Sirk making what seemed like an apologia for the Nazis and sympathetically portraying the hardships and devastation ordinary Germans had had to bear during a war that they unleashed on the world. But today it can be seen for what it was: a devastating picture of the destruction that war visits on everyone, victims and perpetrators alike—and one of his most heartfelt films. It was also an unvarnished attempt to reconcile with his estranged and long-lost son.'

I noted at the beginning of this elegy that "child star" has a tragic connotation and that fame itself is inherently tragic in many ways, not least of which in its tendency to go much faster than it arrives, and to leave no traces behind. Klaus-Detlef Sierck would seem to embody this sense of tragedy to a Shakespearian degree. While fame itself did not necessarily destroy him -- we simply don't know if Goebbels had a hand in his going into the GD or not -- it did not save him, and like Klaus himself, was quickly forgotten. I am unsure what the moral of his story is, only that it makes me want to live a little more fully while I myself am here, and to whisper the name of all the Klaus-Detlef Siercks of the world once in a while...and thus keep them living.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Just a brief note to bid you season's greetings on this, my favorite of holidays. It's true that I don't have much to do on Halloween since I moved back East, but like Scrooge with Christmas, I try to keep the spirit of Halloween with me all year 'round and regardless of location. Why, this very night, I took my $3.95 "Pumpkin Master" drill and bored some holes in an albino pumpkin, the first belated step to turning it into a hockey mask jack o'lantern. At the rate I'm going, I'll have a first rate lantern by, oh, Thanksgiving.

Now, every year at this time I watch as many horror movies as time allows. This season was no different, but I thought I'd share a quick list of what I watched, as it will prove useful in later discussions about the genre of horror, why we humans created it, and why we go to such lengths to maintain it. It is, after all, a curious facet of humanity, that we seek out at this time of year the very thing we avoid the rest of it -- the experience of being frightened. Hell, we actually pay for the privilege!

What I've seen so far:

The Thing (John Carpenter)
The Fog (John Carpenter)
Halloween (John Carpenter)
Halloween (David Gordon Green)
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (Dwight H. Little)
Frankenstien Must Be Destroyed (1969)
The Prowler (1981)
The Walking Dead (Seasons 4 - 6)
The Raincoat Killer (documentary series)

Not a very extensive or very diverse list, to be sure, but then again, I don't have as much free time on my hands as I used to in the days of Hollywood gig work. I'll tuck in a few more during the post-Halloween "grace period" I always give myself, say to the end of the first week of November, and we'll have ourselves a good fireside chat about what scares us. T'il then, don't take any candy from strangers.