Dreams & Nightmares

Like everyone else, I have dreams – by which I mean, the weird movies in my mind when I sleep.  Some are more interesting and fun than others (though far too few wet dreams for my liking – no more than 3 in my whole life), but very few are truly terrifying: nightmares.  As an adult, I rarely have nightmares, even when under stress or difficult times.  Most of my dreams are dull and forgettable, with a few truly memorable ones which I sometimes write down if they are really good. [It’s too bad we’ve yet to figure out how to RECORD dreams.]

 When I was a kid, however, the nightmares were more frequent and terrifying.  I suppose our imaginations are 10x more powerful, and our reason and intellect are a fraction of what they are now, so our fears take a more prominent role in our daily and nightly lives.

 My particular “concern” was ghosts and the supernatural.  A TV that continues broadcasting even when the plug is pulled; mysterious footsteps upstairs in the house when everyone is downstairs.   Faceless strangers, robots, etc. – and the paranoia that EVERYONE is secretly a robot assassin.  Ruthless but mortal killers with axes and chainsaws were never scary to me.  To this date I find Jason or Freddy Krueger more annoying than fearsome.

 Walk-through.  Naturally when you’re a kid, you’re scared of the dark.  Your overactive imagination sees the darkness as a tabla rasa, a blank slate upon which to project all sorts of imaginary terrors which evaporate in any meaningful amount of light, even a nightlight.  For some reason parents consistently seem to forget this.  Also, I had this belief – I don’t know why – that if I ran through the house I would have nightmares, so if I was to walk to my parents’ bedroom for solace, I’d have to do so VERY slowly.  And this meant walking past the stairway leading down to the ground floor, a huge void of darkness: yet another blank slate for fertile imagination to fill with all sorts of weird and terrifying images. 

            To make matters worse, our stairway to the basement creaked.  Not such an issue when you’re walking down, but when you’re walking up, and the lights are off beneath and behind you, it really gives you the strong impression that the newly restored darkness has instantly summoned forth its legion of demons who are now walking up the stairs immediately behind you.  RUN UP! NOW! 

 Exams.  In college, I would frequently wake up in my room in Paris, after a dream that I was back in College Park oversleeping through, or failing, exams.  That was a frequent “nightmare”, though more accurately described as stressful than terrifying.  Plus as soon as I realized I was in Paris, I also knew I had successfully navigated the end of semester exams and had not flown overseas completely forgetting an entire exam.

 People who know me well will laugh at this: I’ve had a few “nightmares” about my car (1992 Pontiac Firebird Formula, black on black): either it catches fire and is completely ruined (without me inside), a massive accident which totals it (again, I’m unharmed), or Tim the body shop guy has “painted” it dull black primer and pronounces it “done”.  WHAT??  Yeah, nowadays that’s what generally passes for a nightmare for me.

 A few more recent, legitimate “nightmares”:  I caused my brother to fall off scaffolding, landing on his head, which disintegrated, killing him instantly.  THAT one caused me to wake up immediately.  Or I was magically deformed into a misshapen monkey in an old-fashioned suit (“YOU HAVE CHOSEN YOUR FORM!”), emerging onto a busy street circa 1910, in grainy black & white – as if REAL LIFE back then was in fact the same black & white as we see in the movies of that era; that in itself was disturbing enough.

 Delirium.  This is even worse than nightmares, as nightmares end when you wake up.  But a high fever combined with delirium is the worst.  Nightmares which don’t turn off when you wake up or open your eyes!  Plus you’re sick and hot and sweaty, and you don’t know what’s going on.  I saw entire cities of faceless robots or ghosts.  Truly horrifying, and there is NO escape until the fever breaks and finally passes.  It would be disturbing enough for an adult, but for a child it’s indescribable. 

 My Dad.  We like to believe that the dearly departed communicate with us through dreams, but I’ve yet to see any evidence of that.  Since my father died in December 2004, I’ve had two dreams about him. 

            In July 2010, I dreamed that he told me I would joining him in a month – which kind of freaked me out, even though he was referring to a cloudy place with harps and pearly gates.  That month passed by with no summons.  I’m still here, so that must have been a false alarm. 

            Another dream illustrates the idea that these posthumous appearances are more likely due to our imagination and not true messages from the afterlife: someone was horribly injured (arm or leg cut off), and my father took him in a car to find a hospital.  After about 30 minutes of fruitless searching around town (looked like South Central L.A. to me) my dad simply GAVE UP and dumped the poor guy by the side of the road and told him, “you’re on your own.  Good luck.”  1000% out of character for my dad.  He either would have found the local E.R. immediately or called 911 and got the ambulance to come.  He would NOT have simply dumped the guy off like that.  I’m not the hero my dad was, but even I can dial 911.

 Ex’s.  I have to admit I have had a few dreams including former GFs.  Not very often (not often enough?) and they are remarkably tame considering the nature of the relationships.  Even odds for the woman to act in character in the dream or an outcome which bears any resemblance – better or worse – than the actual situation.  What’s even weirder, is in the rare occasion that a dream does involve intimacy, probably 80% of the time the partner is a woman I don’t recognize: not personally and not Angelina Jolie or Scarlett Johannson. 

 Prophecy.  None of my dreams have come true: but they have been so odd and inconsistent that I don’t think that’s likely anyway.  We talk about “Dreams” as if we go to bed and dream of the things we really want in life, in a coherent fashion, and then wake up thinking, “I really wish my elementary school would turn into an aquarium stocked with fish looking like Ewan McGregor speaking Yiddish backwards.  Why don’t my dreams come true??”  Our real dreams are too weird and fantastic to become reality.  The easiest way to make your “dreams come true” is simply to be continually dosed on LSD.  Somehow I don’t think that’s practical, or even desirable.  Get real.

 Childhood.  Looking back, despite having had nightmares so often as a kid, the happy truth is that those nightmares were the sole source of fear and anxiety in my childhood.  So many kids around the world have real lives which we would think of as nightmares: child soldiers in Africa; child prostitutes in Bangkok; blind beggars in India; Jerry Springer offspring in the US (e.g. poor kid in “Breaking Bad” – Jesse went to get his money back from “Spoog” and his wife, she ended up killing Spoog with an ATM machine because he called her a skank); and so on.  I survived my nightmares, but these children can scarcely escape the horrible realities of their lives, except by the most heroic of efforts or interventions.  I’m glad my nightmares were no more than that.

America's Got....Too Many of These Shows

Lately I’ve been catching a bit more of “America’s Got Talent”, mainly because Howard Stern is now a judge, along with Howie Mandel and Sharon Osbourne.  A few months ago I was a captive audience for “X Factor”, and under similar conditions watched “Q’Viva” (Jennifer Lopez & Marc Anthony’s Latin-themed talent show) and to a lesser extent, the current season of “American Idol”.  Here’s my impressions of these.

 By now we know the format:  various contestants vie for a super prize of fame and stardom (maybe even a clever Pepsi Super Bowl commercial), chosen by a combination of celebrity judges and audience text-in voting.  The judges offer “advice”, “praise”, and in Simon Cowell’s case, deliciously malicious criticism. 

 “Idol” and “X Factor” attempt to select America’s next pop idol.  All the contestants are stuffed into a narrow range of musical styles, with the women almost invariably attempting to mimic Whitney Houston.  There are no rock bands or rock vocalists: no one attempting to become the next Ian Gillan, Bruce Dickinson, Rob Halford, or even Freddie Mercury, although I noticed there was a “Queen” night on “Dancing With the Stars”.  I was never in danger of seeking the CDs of Scott McCreary, Clay Aiken (now on “Celebrity Apprentice” or some similar show), or Taylor Hicks – at least, not on my own behalf. 

 One of Idol’s current judges, Steven Tyler, is better known as the singer for the rock band Aerosmith.  He signed onto Idol when the band was on “hiatus”, though that break seemed to be as much caused by his eccentric personality as anything to do with the other members of the band; Axl Rose, however, still remains the most dysfunctional rock singer to date, as Tyler hasn’t insisted that Aerosmith is his and his alone and will be rejoining the band’s standard, classic lineup (Joe Perry, Brad Whitford, etc.).  Although I doubt this was his express intention, his publicity from Idol has probably made an impressive impact on Aerosmith’s ability to sell its new album and back catalog and sell tickets for an upcoming tour.  Maybe not.

 “America’s Got Talent” is actually a bit more interesting, as it seeks talent of all kinds, not merely pop singers.  This leads me to recall that old 70s show...The Gong Show.  Remember that one?  Maybe some of the AGT contestants are a bit “out there”, but that’s definitely the entertainment value.  And now we have a Simon Cowell for the show, although Stern has his own style of attempting the same type of role:  “someone has to tell you, ‘you suck’, but do it well enough that you can enjoy the contempt, even take it home and frame it.”   The tanning woman in NJ has shown us, as if we had any doubt (“Let’s Make a Deal”?) how people will allow themselves to be completely humiliated in front of the entire country simply for their “15 minutes” of fame.

 Probably the TOP “oddball talent” has to be “Le Petomane”, an eccentric Frenchman, Joseph Pujols, who performed from 1892 to just before WWI.  This man had remarkable control over his anal sphincter – he was able to “fart” (with air, though, not intestinal gases) into various wind instruments, or simply by himself, to the tune of music.  

 Q’Viva focuses, of course, on “Latin” talent – from Mexico, Brazil, all over Latin America.  I suppose “Dancing With the Stars” also falls into this “live reality” contest business, even if the contestants are actual celebrities. 

 What I really didn’t like about X Factor was the “gimmick” deal.   “Dexter” was homeless.  Leroy Bell claimed to be 59 but looked 39.  Stacy “lost her father” (so did I...where’s my $5 million recording contract?).  Tiger needed to win to avoid foreclosure (can you imagine his banker glued to the TV every night rooting for him?).  Please.  And I knew, as soon as Simon flew down to Florida to apologize to Melanie Amaro in her own home, in front of her family, on camera, and return her to the fold, that SHE would be the winner.  No way they pull that stunt and let her lose at any point.   So this business of audience choosing is actually quite bogus:  how hard is it to imagine smug and arrogant Simon, asked in confidence if the show is rigged, to smirk and laugh, “did you really think I’d leave $5 million up to the whim of an audience of idiots texting in their choices? Get real.” 

 By all means, enjoy these shows.  From time to time, I do myself - if only to laugh.  

Frederick vs. Fredericksburg

[Revised on 10/26/21]

I’ve actually had a fair amount of experience in both cities, which are not too far away from each other in distance as well as spelling (I can’t comment on Harrisburg, PA vs. Harrisonburg, VA).  They both have Civil War angles.

 Frederick, Maryland.  By modern, contemporary internal combustion engine motor car traveling northwest from DC by 270, this town is approximately 1 hour, with Gaithersburg as an approximate halfway point.  It is the second largest city in Maryland, after Baltimore, which tells you how small Annapolis is.  270 comes up from the southeast, then splits to 70 west to Hagerstown (and eventually to California) and east to Baltimore, 15 north to Gettysburg, PA, and south to Leesburg, VA, and 340, which goes down to Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia – so it’s very much a centerpoint.

            I recall when we were children, still living in Montgomery County, MD, before our big move to France in January 1979, our parents would take us to Frederick occasionally, mainly Frederick Mall, which had a “Time Out” (video arcade).  I’ve been back to that mall, which is pretty small, not particularly upscale (they have a NASCAR store and a beauty supply store) and set up on a cross format.  As of 2021 the mall seems to be closed, but Francis Scott Key Mall is still there. 

            The Civil War angle is two battlefields: Monocacy and Antietam, of which the latter is a crucial battle in 1862:  McClellan’s rare victory against Lee’s early incursion into Maryland persuaded Britain & France not to recognize the Confederacy, sealing its eventual doom.  In Turtledove’s timeline, Lee manages to smash McClellan at Camp Hill, PA, and the Confederacy wins the Civil War.  Monocacy is a battle dating from 1864, in which Lee attempted to draw off Union forces from their attack on Richmond by a CSA excursion up into Maryland which could threaten either Baltimore or Washington.  But Union commander Lew "Ben Hur" Wallace managed to delay the Confederate advance by a day, giving the Union enough time to reinforce Washington, which made the excursion pointless - and thus Monocacy was a Union victory.  What passes for what remains of the battlefield straddles 355 as it runs up to Frederick, a series of markers and a Second Empire House.  My brother and I visited the battlefield recently with our high school comrade John, another excellent meeting with him.  

            Frederick has a large supply of old houses and buildings dating from the Civil War and earlier, but not nearly as run down as Winchester.  The downtown district is very nice, including Evil Tower Park, a pedestrian river zone, and even Cafe 611, a club where I've seen a few stoner rock shows including, but not limited to, Corrosion of Conformity.  back in 2007 I saw Blue Cheer at Krug's Place, getting my picture taken with Dickie Peterson (Facebook profile picture of me and him, RIP).  

            In 2003 or so, my parents sold the three-level single-family house we grew up in, in Montgomery Village, and moved to a similar sized apartment in Frederick.  This forced us to drive another half hour northwest to visit them and more to the point, instead of being in Montgomery Village, where we grew up, we’d be in Frederick, of which we had the merest memories (as noted above).  However, Frederick is not a bad place, and we’ve yet to exhaust its potential.

 Fredericksburg, Virginia.  Many confuse the Maryland town I just mentioned with this city, more or less due south of Washington and half way between Washington and Richmond, right off 95.  Unlike Frederick, which has no river (judging by all the water towers, it must be sitting on an impressive network of natural springs) Fredericksburg sits on the Rappahannock.  The rivers in Virginia all seem to run from the mountains in the northwest (West Virginia) southeast to the Atlantic Ocean, and the Rappahannock is no exception. 

            The Civil War angle:  various battles at the city itself and around it, as Union forces attempted to batter their way down to Richmond. 

            Ages ago, probably the early 90s, my best friend’s sister Kathy briefly went to Mary Washington College (now University), which is located in Fredericksburg.  However, our treks here were solely to either move her in, or move her out, and we didn’t venture forth into the old town itself.

            Later on, back in 1997-98, my car was being repainted – color change from blue-green to black – at a body shop in Falmouth, which is south Stafford, on the north bank of the Rappahannock across from Fredericksburg.  Tim, the painter dude, and I would sometimes go into Fredericksburg and have a beer at some of the taverns in the old town.  However, as with Frederick, this is a town whose antique charm and sights have yet to be fully explored by yours truly, another task to accomplish when surplus time allows.

             I had my 76 Firebird in an outdoor lot at Falmouth for some time before bringing it back up here.  

 Finally, I have driven from Frederick to Fredericksburg (or rather, Richmond); the trip from Frederick to Richmond is 3 hours.  

Ians

Now for something more abstract.  A name.  Ian.  I like it.  It’s the Scottish/Gaelic equivalent of “John”. 

Most of the Ians I know of are musicians who I don’t know personally; and oddly, of all the Ians listed on Wikipedia as famous ones, the only ones I recognized were these musicians.

Ian Gillan.  Best known as the singer for Deep Purple Mark II, but he was also in Black Sabbath for one album and tour, Born Again.  Nowadays his hair is cut short, but back then it was extremely long.  Between Ozzy, Robert Plant, and Gillan, I like Gillan’s voice the most, and it’s held up the best among the three.  He has a better sense of humor than Plant yet is more intelligible than Ozzy.  He’s one of my favorite singers, period.

Ian Paice.  Deep Purple had not one but TWO Ians.  With Jon Lord’s recent retirement, replaced by Don Airey, drummer Ian Paice is now the only member of the band in literally every line-up.  His long hair is long gone, but he still wears his trademark purple shaded glasses.

Ian Anderson.  The man IS Jethro Tull; they are inseparable.  Nowadays his hair is cut short and beard trimmed; no longer the wild, unkempt savage flutist, but he is still very spry on stage and very witty between songs.  Look for a sequel to Thick As A Brick.  My favorite remains Aqualung, with Crest of a Knave being my favorite late model 'Tull.  

Ian Astbury.  The singer for The Cult.  For awhile there he did have long, straight black hair.  He also has an impressive voice.  In fact, for awhile he was singing with Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger in a Doors revival.  Now he’s back with the Cult again, with a new album: Choice of Weapon.  I like how he describes one song as being “like Hawkwind with Jim Morrison singing.”

Ian Hill.  With first guitarist K.K. Downing out of the band - he quit - and second guitarist Glenn Tipton - sidelined by Parkinson's Disease - also gone, albeit involuntarily, this makes bassist Ian Hill the only member of Judas Priest from start to finish.  As vocalist Rob Halford describes in Confess, Halford's sister was dating a bassist in a band, and suggested he audition for that band - and the rest is history.  Hill keeps it down and has been cool from day one.  

We knew an Ian in the US, son of one of my father’s co-workers.  We may have met him once or twice at most, so I can’t say more than that.  There was an Ian at our high school; I don’t know much more about him than that he was left handed.

Ian (nephew).  Of all the Ians, this is the one I know best personally, my brother’s only son.  He’s 9 years old and very bright.  I’m very proud of him.  However, he has an impressive name to live up to…we’ll see how he does.  Sadly, he has no brothers, and since I have no children and my sister's two kids are both girls, that makes Ian the only male child of his generation from my parents' branch of the family.  

Little Barber Shop of Horrors

Recently I checked out not one, but two gruesome but dramatic movies in a slightly cavalier vein.  They have some familiar elements in common:  poking light at unusual murders, even musically.

 Little Shop of Horrors.  The first incarnation I witnessed was the 1960 black & white movie by Roger Corman.  The most famous actor in here was Jack Nicholson, playing the masochistic dental patient, Wilbur Force.

            A modest flower shop, hard on luck and deficient in business, experiences a dramatic turn for the better – at least in income – when its meek and lowly assistant, Seymour, puts his man-eating plant, Audrey II, on display in the window.  The plant feeds on blood and meat, and gradually grows larger: it demands to be fed.  After initially feeding the plant his own blood, Seymour eventually winds up feeding people to the plant, who he has accidentally killed, including a sadistic dentist.  Its appetite only whetted, not sated, the plant compels Seymour to do its bidding.  He begins actually killing people to feed the plant, before finally being eaten in turn himself.  The plant, before dying, displays buds with the faces of its victims.  Gruesome indeed.

            Much later, in 1982, the story resurfaced as a musical stage show, followed by a musical movie version in 1986, which appears to be the “standard” variant most of us know of today.  Rick Moranis plays Seymour; Steve Martin plays the dentist; and Bill Murray takes Nicholson’s role as the dental patient.  Much of the plot was changed around, including the ending:  Seymour manages to defeat Audrey II and survives to marry Audrey.  Of course, the major change is the addition of various musical numbers.  Flowers, plants, love, life, and death are all the ideas which swirl around in music and song in this cynical but entertaining story.

 Sweeney Todd.  The version I’m referring to here is the recent Tim Burton film with Johnny Depp in the title role (“Edward Razorhands”?), Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett, and Alan Rickman as Judge Turpin.  The story has been around since the early 19^th century, immensely popular among jaded London audiences hungry for lurid tales of crime and debauchery in their midst.  Yet again, Burton – whom I might describe as the Syd Barrett of contemporary film-making – provides a fantastic, whimsical, yet comically dark and cynical world and story.  He manages to make late 19^th century London look just as strange and alien as Wonka’s Chocolate Factory or Alice’s Wonderland.  It’s his style, whether you like it or not.

            Todd is a barber in late 19^th century London, with a beautiful wife and pretty daughter.  A nasty, corrupt judge (Turpin), who wants Todd’s wife for himself, has Todd unjustly convicted of a bogus offense and sent off for 15 years (the appellate system seems to be flawed).  His wife refused to marry the judge and took poison – but Mrs. Lovett is vague about her true fate.  His daughter (Johanna) has been adopted by Turpin, who then sets about to marry her.  A young androgynous sailor, Anthony, wins the heart of Johanna. 

            Todd returns from exile and finds a pastry shop on Fleet Street, run by a malicious widow, Mrs. Lovett.  Up until now, her pies haven’t been selling too well.  Moreover, she’s very lonely and has eyes for Todd.  She tells him what happened since he left, though in a somewhat misleading fashion.  Todd sets up his barber operation upstairs, rigging the barber chair to combine with a trap door leading to the basement of the pastry shop.  Luring unwitting customers to their doom (“the closest shave they’ll ever know”), Todd slits their throats with his silver razors and dispatches them into the cellar, where Mrs. Lovett feeds the corpses into a huge meat grinder to make filling for her meat pies.  The recipe is a winner; no one realizes the true ingredients of the pies.  His first victim was a competing barber, Pirelli (yet another Boratesque role from Sascha Baron Cohen), and despite a false start at defeating the judge, Todd does manage to finally overcome his nemesis.  In this film version, at least, several other deaths occur which twist the plot substantially into grave tragedy.  But still very worthwhile.  Did I mention – it’s a musical…and Depp, Carter, and Rickman all sing in their own voices!  Remarkable.

            Extra features to the DVD include an intriguing documentary on the character:  a semi-mythical figure who appears to be fictional after all.  Of course, leave it to Burton & Depp to bring the character to life extravagantly.  Be afraid, but also be very entertained.

The Avengers

No, NOT the British TV series from the 60s (Emma Peel – Diana Rigg – schwing!). 

 I recently saw the new Marvel movie, “The Avengers” – IMAX, 3D, etc.  Very impressive, very intense, a rocket ride.  Well done.  Remarkably, the 3D didn’t give me a headache, nor was it an overload, but it was certainly entertaining.  I have to admit, yet again: I’m not into comic books and have scarce knowledge or experience with any of the original source material for these superheroes, aside from actually being aware of most of them as comic book characters and having seen all the recent movies.

 The Avengers are a superhero team, centered around the nucleus of 4 superheroes: Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, and the Hulk.  Each character has had movies done before (two for Hulk and Iron Man) relatively recently; now they are all wrapped up together, very much a sequel to “Thor” as the villain is Loki.

 Captain America (Chris Evans).  Steve Rogers, previously a draft-exempt weakling, became the guinea pig for an advanced “super serum” which turned him into a bulked up fighting machine in World War II.  He defeated the Nazi villain Red Skull (played by Hugo Weaving, also known as Elrond from Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy and Agent Smith in the Matrix trilogy) only to be trapped in a block of ice after the captured Nazi wing-plane (precursor of our own B2 bomber) crashed in the Arctic – a plot device to explain how he can wind up in contemporary time with the rest of them.  (Who knows what effect, if any, the super serum has on longevity.)

            Aside from super strength and agility, CA’s “superpower” is an incredibly strong round shield with the patriotic colors and star of America.  However, I’ve always thought the shield without an accompanying weapon was a bit lopsided.   He defends, but can’t attack – except to throw the shield at people.  He’s also the least imaginative member of the team – very “old school.”  To be honest, I’m not sure what “job” Rogers had as a young man before his scrawniness qualified him to be the test subject.  Then he was simply a super soldier in WWII; then thrust into the early 21^st century to be a superhero in a Nazi-less future society he doesn’t quite understand.  He’s very agile and bright within a limited framework, more of a generic combat guy, though not nearly as brutally aggressive as The Hulk, as medievally articulate as Thor, or as annoyingly witty as Stark.  I suppose Captain America simply serves as a baseline for the group.

 Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.).  Tony Stark returns, wearing a vintage 1978 Never Say Die tour shirt from Black Sabbath.  He’s just as impetuous and “think-outside-the-box” as ever, but fortunately his armored suit is just as implausibly powerful as his arrogant personality.   I understand that Stark is a defense contractor, but his snazzy, high-tech, sophisticated, presentations of the Iron Man outfit in the prior films didn’t exactly clarify this minor point: was he expecting to mass-produce it, or simply have ONE guy replace the entire US Army, Air Force, and Navy?  Or have a team of guys wearing this thing?   At least with the super serum, if Dr. Erskine hadn’t been killed, they could possibly have mass-produced it and injected a whole army of US men with it; or at least as many as could pass the same psychological tests they gave Rogers.  Anyhow.   

            Iron Man flies; shoots “repulsor rays”; and can push stuff around (like huge propeller blades on a flying aircraft carrier – that’s a concept, a flying container for other flying objects).  Like Spider-Man, part of IM’s charm is his wit, but unlike Peter Parker, who seems rather dull in his normal alter ego form, Stark seems to display most of his wit and arrogance outside the suit.  Inside, he’s more or less just a flying red and yellow robot.   

 Thor (Chris Hemsworth).  I don’t get it.  Is he really a Norse deity?  My guess is that the Asgardians are merely aliens from another dimension we would call “Asgard”; the Vikings worshipped them as gods because they didn’t know any better.  He’s buff and strong, but talks in an affected manner.  His “super power” is Mjolnir, his special hammer which only he can wield, and which comes back to him like a boomerang when summoned.  He also seems to be virtually indestructible.  For a god, he’s kind of boring.

 The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo + CGI).  Mild-mannered gamma tech scientist Bruce Banner becomes “THE HULK” when he gets angry (Banner: “the secret is….I’m always angry”).   In the prior two films Banner was portrayed by Eric Bana and Edward Norton (“the first rule of Fight Club is…never mention Fight Club”).  I’ve never liked the Hulk – all he does is get big and green and smash things; he’s a bit like Mr. T from the A-Team, not nearly as useful as his bulk and strength would imply.  Here his first target is Black Widow (!).  Fortunately they eventually manage to channel his aggression to the enemy aliens.  Ruffalo has a fairly easy job acting: just behave like a nerdy scientist.  It’s close to a rip-off of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, with Hulk being somewhat less articulate than Hyde.

 Black Widow (Scarlett Johannson).  She was a secret agent for the KGB, before defecting to the US.  She has a Russian name and speaks fluent Russian, though oddly has NO Russian accent when speaking English.  She can fight pretty well, shoot well too, and she’s damn pretty.  With the leather catsuit and spy angle she does have an Emma Peel thing going there…so there’s the OTHER Avengers giving an influence to this after all.

 Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner).  His schtick is explosive arrows…and of course, he never misses.  From his accent (American) and comment to BW (“we both remember Budapest differently”) the movie suggests that he was a CIA counterpart to BW, but according to Wikipedia the character’s background was as a trick shot circus performer (though he did have a connection to BW).

 Nick Fury (Samuel L. M-f**kin Jackson).  I seem to recall Nick Fury was around during WWII and looked like J. Jonah Jameson, Peter Parker’s editor at the newspaper (“Nick Fury and His Howling Commandos”) though with an eye patch.  Of all these comic book characters, this is about the only one I had actually read - as well as “Sgt Rock” - back…eons ago, purchased from the Stars & Stripes bookstore at SHAPE and read on the 3 hour drive back to Paris. 

            As recently as 1998 he was played by David Hasselhoff.  Now he’s Jules from “Pulp Fiction” minus the jerri curls and plus the eye patch (harrr!).   Fury is the de facto head of S.H.I.E.L.D., a shadowy intelligence agency originally formed during WWII to oppose HYDRA (the Nazi-type group set up by Red Skull).   It’s not quite clear what relationship S.H.I.E.L.D. has to the Pentagon, the CIA or the NSA, or if it has multinational jurisdiction and thus some UN angle.  While Captain America’s “longevity” is explained by his freezing, Fury received a longevity serum.  The mysterious cabal which actually runs S.H.I.E.L.D. (Howard Stern, Simon Cowell, Blake Shelton, etc. – JK) gives Fury his orders but he seems to do as he pleases anyway, especially if they give him nonsensical orders like “nuke NYC”. 

 Movie plot.  Loki (evil god from Asgard) comes down to Earth and captures the Tesseract, a glowing cube of immense power, previously seen in the Captain America movie.  With the power of his magic wand, he converts Professor Selvig and Hawkeye to his side.  Fury escapes and summons the other heroes, one by one, to the cause of retrieving the Tesseract and defending Earth from an alien army Loki summons from another dimension using Tony Stark’s own NYC tower (itself very similar to the newly rebuilt single-tower World Trade Center Building, except this one is uptown next door to the Chrysler Building).  Hawkeye is reprogrammed; even Robin Scherbatsky from “How I Met Your Mother” (Cobie Smulders) gets a role in here among the crew on the flying ship.  The Avengers eventually wind up together and fight off the alien monsters until the grand finale.  (Sorry to spoil the surprise, people, but the good guys win.)

 Naturally, getting these headstrong guys together isn’t easy.  Everyone argues with everyone else.  In particular, Tony “Think Outside the Box” Stark and Captain “Old School” America don’t see eye to eye, Stark also bumps ugly with Thor, and everyone seems to argue with Nick Fury, who they suspect is hiding relevant information which they might actually need to know (e.g. is S.H.I.E.L.D. trying to use the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction?).  As you can imagine, after some macho bullshit the heroes put their differences aside and get the job done.   Naturally, they set up the movie for a sequel with a new villain, so we couldn’t bolt out of the theater quite yet.

The Dreyfus Affair

This was a dramatic scandal in turn-of-the-century France from 1894 to 1906.  An Alsatian officer, Afred Dreyfus, who happened to be a Jew, was accused of offering to sell sensitive French military secrets (whatever they might possibly have been) to the German military attaché in Paris.  He was tried, convicted, and sent to Devil’s Island, a particularly harsh French penal colony in South America (famously depicted in the movie “Papillon” starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman). 

 A French intelligence (contradiction in terms?) officer, Picquart, discovered that the alleged “smoking gun”, not only did not implicate Dreyfus – who had heretofore been a loyal and obedient officer since 1880 – but instead pointed to another officer, Esterhazy, whose handwriting matched exactly and fit the profile of the spy: lots of gambling debts, not particularly loyal, and overlooked for promotion.

 By then the Top Brass had committed itself to Dreyfus’ guilt; to back down would be admit an error and look stupid.  Too proud to admit its mistake, it tried Dreyfus again and convicted him again.  Dreyfus accepted a pardon, which got him out of Devil’s Island (none too soon – the conditions there often equated to death sentence) but did not exonerate him or restore his rank or honor.  The original document was finally brought to light and exposed as not only a forgery, but a particularly blatant and incompetent one.  In 1906 Dreyfus was reinstated in the French Army, with honors, and served with distinction in World War I against the Germans to whom he supposedly tried to sell secrets.  He died in 1935, shortly before World War II, apparently managing to avoid being accused of being a disloyal Jew offering to sell French military secrets to the Nazis (but he had been long retired by that point anyway).

 In addition to the inconvenience of Devil’s Island (his most serious and immediate concern) Dreyfus had to contend with two court martials and a pardon; and Emile Zola, the famous author, was sued for libel by Esterhazy for publicly accusing him (“J’Accuse”) of being the actual culprit, and actually LOST the case.  The politics and legal subtleties of the drama are considerably less important in the whole picture than several essential points:

1.         No actual military secrets changed hands:  the German attaché did not take Esterhazy’s bait.

2.         Dreyfus’ Jew-ness was considered evidence enough of his guilt.  French anti-semites believed that Jews could not have any loyalty to France.  The anti-Dreyfusards considered the matter “France vs. Jews”.  The “Dreyfusards” (those who supported him and believed he should be released and restored to honor) believed – understandably – that an innocent man should not be punished and that France’s “honor” was not served by doing so.   The scandal divided France into those two camps, with some intense disagreement and discord.

3.         The top brass considered its own honor critical to France’s security.  “We can’t expect our troops to fight and die against Germans if they believe their own generals are idiots.”  But they compounded the original error of convicting Dreyfus with the subsequent error of refusing to release him when the true culprit (Esterhazy) became obvious.  How THIS would inspire loyalty of French poilus is bizarre.  French troops did in fact mutiny in 1917, but this had nothing to do with Dreyfus and everything to do with idiotic offensives which killed off soldiers but achieved nothing. 

 The affair was turned into several movies; the one I saw was “Prisoner of Honor”, from 1991, which starred Richard Dreyfuss (!) as Picquart (pronounced “Picard” – Patrick Stewart?  Where?) and someone else (Kenneth Colley) as Dreyfus himself.  Oliver Reed has a substantial role, but dials back the panache he displayed in "Tommy" and "Gladiator".  As for Dreyfus himself, Julia Louis-Dreyfus (of “Seinfeld”) is claimed to be a distant relative (absent in this movie) but how…is unclear.