The Best (Movie) Sequel

Newsweek, from where it seems that I get all my news but from which I actually get very little -- because I only subscribe to Newsweek anymore out of habit, "habit" in this case meaning "way back when, I paid for enough subscriptions that I will continue to get issues of Newsweek long after they have stopped publishing it" --

... and don't ask yourself how that can happen. It's quantum mechanics, and you don't have to understand it, you just have to make up something silly sounding and eventually scientists will claim to have actually witnessed that in a laboratory, only to then be unable to reproduce the results of the experiment until they get $1,000,000,000 in grants, a hot lab assistant, and a margarita...

... Newsweek recently ran an article by Roger Ebert, because apparently the print version of Newsweek has opted to try to stay relevant by printing only articles written by famous people, whose opinions count for more than those of regular people. (The "written by famous people" angle is Newsweek editor Tina Brown's one trick pony, the same thing she did when she was at Vanity Fair. When Newsweek fires her, and she winds up at Life + Style, expect "Stars: They're Just Like Us" written by Jack Nicholson and Michelle Obama.)

Where was I? Oh, yeah: The famous opinions of the famous Roger Ebert, who in the latest issue of Tina Brown's Personal Blog opines that sequels are ruining the movie industry, noting that according to some website or other -- there's a website for every statistic, now -- this summer will feature more sequels than any summer before it, a travesty of sequelization that to Roger Ebert (who previously opined that 3D was what was killing the movies, and, had he been around for The Wizard Of Oz would likely have railed against this color that was destroying the integrity of movies) is worth taking up a few pages moaning about.

I've got a contrarian streak a mile wide, and when someone in a position of famousosity takes a stance, I am 99% likely to immediately decide just the opposite, and that is almost as many percents as you can have without resorting to quantum mechanics (using quantum mechanics, you can do all sorts of crazy things, like have "Yellow Percent" or "velociraptors").

So I was immediately taken with the idea of complaining that there are not enough sequels, simply because Roger Ebert said there are too many.

Then, too, there's the fact that complaining about something is far easier than celebrating something, and the whole point of this blog, before it admittedly became rather mean-spirited in recent times, was to celebrate The Best Of Everything (or didn't you get that from the title?), and so I decided that unlike Roger Ebert, and others, I wouldn't bemoan sequels, but would celebrate them by determining what was The Best Sequel.

And then I turned the page on that Newsweek article -- yes, I thought that all between finishin Ebert's article and turning the page, because I'm very smart -- and saw that Newsweek had in fact stolen my idea before I'd even had it -- I told you, almost anything is possible with quantum mechanics, including but not limited to quantum mechanics itself -- and had run down what it figured was the best sequel (they don't get capitalization. Only I do.)

Newsweek came up with, as their best sequel, The Godfather Part II, which is about what you'd expect from a bunch of navel-gazing baby boomers who figure they are the most significant thing that ever happened to the planet; a blip in birth rates caused by a generation that was far greater than the Baby Boomers coming home from a war has raised 50 million people whose sense of self-importance is inflated far beyond any rational basis. So you popularized rock 'n' roll and cocaine; get over it.

As I pondered the chart that Newsweek had created, and the article that Ebert had emitted, I began to consider just how loosely people were using the word sequel. Included in the list of sequels Ebert complains about are, for example, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part Two, and the new Winnie The Pooh movie -- with Ebert complaining that the former is "itself a sequel," which I thought was the point of his article.

(As an aside, Ebert tries to broaden his attack on Hollywood's supposed lack of creativity by somehow equating reliance on sequels with the "upbeat" feeling instilled by the trailer for The Beaver. No, I didn't get it, either.)

Other "sequels" Ebert includes in his list are X-Men: First Class, and Madea's Big Happy Family. Which I suppose are sequels, depending on how you define the word -- except that First Class is actually a prequel, which means that it converts the earlier X-men movies into sequels themselves, only sequels that were made before the movie they sequelled, which is the kind of time-bending thing that results in people being their own grandfather, so I don't like to think about it.

Which Ebert, and Newsweek, and everyone else, don't seem to be doing very strictly. I've always been bothered by people who insist that Kill Bill Vol. 2 was a "sequel" -- it was simply the second half of the movie, which was originally too long to be released, and so was cut into two parts. Really, there was just a long intermission there.

And are the Lord Of the Rings movies made up of The Fellowship of the Ring, and two sequels? Or are all three sequels, of a sort, to the as-yet-unmade The Hobbit, which was a sequel, too -- in a way. Tolkien wrote various stories about the mythology of Middle Earth, but was unable to get them published initially; it wasn't until 1936, when the book The Hobbit was published (a book he'd written for his kids) that anyone paid any attention to them -- and Tolkien then wrote The Lord Of The Rings when people wanted a sequel. The story itself was one book, but publishing costs in the 1950s forced Tolkien to break it into 3 separate volumes. ("Publishing costs", and "We want to make people pay 3 times for one book." So people who criticize Harry Potter for stretching out the final film: Tolkien did it first.)

It was only decades later, that Tolkien's original stories were published as The Silmarillion.

Which makes the three movies -- one of which won an Oscar -- all sequels to a book nobody's ever read.

At least Tolkien did it right: his first story didn't dispose of all the major plot lines and create the ultimate weapon, the way George Lucas*

*Mandatory Star Wars Reference

did in Star Wars. What was left to tell at the end of that movie? The rebellion had been growing, the Empire had the greatest weapon ever made, Luke got off of Tatooine, blew up the Death Star, and that was it. Sure, there might be some mopping up to do yet, but the main story was over.

That's what makes The Empire Strikes Back a "sequel", a real sequel: To me, a sequel is a story that shouldn't have existed, a story that was never contemplated when the original story was written.

That's an easy definition to come by. If you look at The Hobbit, it's pretty clear that Tolkien didn't give any thought to any stories to come after. Bilbo found that ring in a mountain, owned by a frog-thing, and the ring made him invisible: pretty standard stuff for fantasy. When people began demanding a sequel, Tolkien had to come up with more story for characters who were at the end of the line. (The Silmarillion, after all, takes place way before the events that Bilbo and Frodo took part in.) So he crammed some details into the backstory: that ring that Bilbo found? Actually a tremendous ring of power. But it just seems to turn people invisible. That's because you don't know how to use it. It was created in Mordor. Funny we didn't hear much about Mordor in the first book. Hey, look, here's "rangers." Funny, we didn't hear much about them, either.




And what was the deal with Tom Bombadil? I mentioned in a tweet a while back that I'm pretty sure he was Tolkien's Jar Jar Binks and I stand by that.

The Lord of the Rings, I bet, was never contemplated, and don't tell me otherwise: Tolkien had written The Hobbit as a kid's book, and initially started writing LOTR as a kids' series, too.

The Empire Strikes Back, also, was not a movie that George Lucas ever contemplated making when he filmed Star Wars. He can say whatever he wants, now, but nobody releases part four of a series first, and there's no way that part four of a planned six-part series has the ultimate battle and showdown. As I've said before and will go on saying, the very fact that Lucas threw a second Death Star into the series is proof that the first movie was never intended to have a sequel. Frodo didn't get to Mordor in the first 1/3 of Lord Of The Rings.

Sequels -- continuations of a story -- are not a problem when there's more to tell about characters, after all. That's why Ebert doesn't have any problem with James Bond movies, which are all sequels: James Bond's whole life is a movie, making each movie not so much a "sequel" as I define it but simply a continuation of one single story: James Bond's life as a secret agent.

That's how it works on TV. If Lost had been a series of movies, Roger Ebert (and everyone else) would presumably be complaining, saying "Here we are again, another summer, another of those Lost movies" and suggesting that it showed that Hollywood has lost its creativity.

But because Lost was on TV -- where each week we are treated to a sequel of the entertainment we liked the week before -- nobody thought anything of it.

Consider another movie. Let's pick one at random... say, um... hmmm... Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

There's a movie that doesn't need or deserve a sequel, right? (Even though I've actually written one for it.) It doesn't deserve one because the whole entire point of the movie was to look at one day in Ferris Bueller's life.

There were probably other things that could be examined in Ferris' life -- the movie could have been focused on how he and Cameron became friends, or how he met Sloane, or what he did to become so big a hit in school, or anything. But it chose to focus on one single day in his life, and therefore never really contemplated or needed a sequel -- so a sequel to the movie would have been ridiculous (unless, of course, it was my sequel, which clearly should be optioned and make me rich.)



There is, in fact, a move towards more sequels -- as people gravitate towards long-form storytelling on cable TV. Breaking Bad, with Hal From Malcolm In The Middle, was nothing but a series of sequels, but sequels that were necessary because the idea was to tell his whole story. (I assume; I only watched the first two or three episodes ever. But I hear it's great, and I don't hear people complaining that each week there's another Breaking Bad sequel.) Then there's that one historical-era TV series where Kate Winslet decided to get naked a lot in order to compensate for the fact that Lucy Lawless was getting a lot of attention for getting naked in her historical-era series, and there's the new HBO series based on that Thrones book that I'll never read because Michael Offutt confirmed for me that I shouldn't.

Really, it's only movies where people complain about sequels. Books have sequels all the time. Nobody's complaining that Patricia Cornwell slathers together another Kay Scarpetta book every thirty minutes or so. (Except me.) Everyone was thrilled to death that J.K. Rowling was writing 7 Harry Potter novels (although part of the "thrill" might have been faked to keep her from suing them) -- only to then complain that there are sequels to the movie versions of her (sequel) books.

In music, too, people want sequels: they want reunion tours and new albums by artists all the time. When was the last time you heard a music fan say "Oh, God, REM is releasing a new album?! I wish they'd just retire and let someone new come along." (Or Beyonce, or fill-in-your-artist of choice.) People are still mad that The Beatles aren't making new music -- sequels to their earlier albums.

Comic books are monthly sequels, sometimes running for nearly a century, in Superman's case.

And people love babies, too, and isn't a baby a sequel to the parents?

You get the point. So why do people hate sequels in movies? The answer is simple:

They don't.

People don't really hate sequels to movies. They just like to pretend they do. They pretend they hate sequels because it's the "in" thing to do -- but if everyone really hated sequels, we wouldn't go see them and they wouldn't be made.

No, we like sequels just fine, but we pretend we don't, the way we pretend we don't really watch much TV and the way we pretend we don't let our kids eat pizza for breakfast: we do these things because society -- in the form of Roger Ebert, writing in Tina Brown's Vanity Project -- tells us we're not supposed to like them.

And we're not supposed to like them even though the snobs like Ebert like them, too -- if the sequel is one they happen to approve of.

Ebert liked the Star Wars sequels, and The Dark Knight, among others. So he's fine with sequels that he happens to approve of, which makes his opinion snobbery of a pernicious kind: sequels are bad if they're the kind that appeal to people who aren't me, Ebert (and others) are saying.

I don't happen to like Fast Five, but I'll defend the people who do, because there's nothing that makes that sequel any worse (or better) than the Thin Man sequels (whatever those are) Ebert approves of; people like 'em, and that's why they're made. Nobody says you have to like them -- although you probably do, even Roger Ebert -- and they're not the reason Hollywood is churning out so little of what you think passes for entertainment.

No, the reason Hollywood isn't making more movies you approve of is simple: most people don't like what you like.

(Partly because what movie snobs like Ebert like stinks.)

That's a fact of life that I've come to terms with: my own tastes, in music, books, TV, movies, and most other entertainment, are unpopular -- so my shows are always getting cancelled. I preferred Web Soup to Tosh.0, but have to watch the latter. I loved all of Andy Richter's shows and they all were cancelled. Better Off Ted? Better off the air, according to the rest of you.

My bands don't get played on the radio. My author's books go out of print before they go in print. Movies I want to see barely register at the theaters. And so on.

I'm resigned to this. I think the rest of you are all bohemians who wouldn't know entertainment from a hole in the ground, and I'm right because you all go see Beverly Hills Chihuahua and I didn't (all right, I bought it for the Babies!, but I still haven't watched it.)

But I don't curse and moan and wail and gnash my teeth and rend my garments about how uncreative Hollywood is simply because they won't make more movies that I like -- which is what Ebert are really doing. By not complaining about all sequels, they've revealed their bias, without admitting it to themselves.

I don't mind sequels: sometimes, there really is more of the story to tell. Sometimes there's just another place to take the characters. Did anyone really mind that Indiana Jones got to spend some time with his dad and find the Holy Grail? (I also didn't mind the fourth Indy movie, which I found to be very entertaining and I'm including the refrigerator scene. It boggles my mind that the same "fans" who had no trouble believing in the Ark of the Covenant, whatever those Indian stones were, and the Holy Grail had difficulty accepting Indy getting exploded out of a town by a nuclear bomb. Really? That is where you could no longer suspend disbelief?)

If you like characters, or a story, or simply an idea enough, you want to keep going back there. I'm a little disappointed that I don't get to find out what Harry Potter's kid will be like. There are probably other stories to tell about Hogwarts, and about the X-Men's academy, and Spider-Man, and the rest.

And if that's true of them, it's probably also true of those guys from The Hangover (although I hear H2 is a drag and not very good) and Ferris Bueller and pretty much anyone else that you liked.

Growing up, I read all the Dune books -- one after the other, which is really an accomplishment, now that I think of it. They were all sequels, but I never wanted to leave Frank Herbert's universe, and was sad when they were over. I read all of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker books, too -- sadly, in the case of the rather disappointing last one. And I loved his Dirk Gently series, which had only one sequel but which would have supported 30 or 40, at least, had he lived long enough to write them.

The point is, anything can be a sequel if enough people like the idea and want to see it. It's only a problem if nobody wanted or needed it (all those Shrek movies) or if it's done badly -- but that goes without saying, as entertainment people don't want or which is done badly is a problem. (Goes without saying, that is, unless you are Roger Ebert and Tina Brown needs you to fill some space.)

A sequel doesn't show a lack of creativity; L. Frank Baum wrote magically creative novels about Oz, more than I can count. A lack of creativity shows a lack of creativity.

So that's the ground rules: A sequel is, as I've defined it (and of course I'm right), a movie that should not have existed because the original was written without ever contemplating that a sequel would be created -- wrapping up all the important points of the characters' lives in the first one.

With that said, there have been good sequels, movies that came about simply because the first movie was so popular that a second one had to be made because studios, after all, are in the business of making money, and if McDonald's can sell you a second hamburger just like the first and make you happy, a studio can try to do that with a movie.

So what's The Best (Movie) Sequel, using those rules -- a movie that shouldn't have been made, by all rights, but which was, anyway, and somehow turned out to be great?

You can rule out superhero movies, right off the bat -- and that includes people like Indiana Jones and the like. Superheroes, like James Bond and other interesting people, have lives that are meant to be serialized. Superman's entire life is one story, so his movies aren't really sequels so much as simply chapters, like Kill Bill.

That leaves one-off movies, and the ultimate one-off movie is a horror movie. What other type of movies so obviously are not meant to be continued beyond what happened in the part we just saw? Whose life is so bad that they have to battle ghosts, or giant spiders, or the Devil, more than one time? Why would we ever want to see that -- having seen our heroes, the characters we love, get out of that house, or through the graveyard, or whatever, why would we want them to go back and do it all again?

We wouldn't. Horror movies are made to be one-shot movies: Freddy Krueger fights some sexy teens and loses and it's over (even though the original of that movie left a set-up for an obvious sequel, making it a horrible example that I'm too lazy to go back and change.)

And that's how I decided on The Best (Movie) Sequel, which is:

Aliens.

I know that many people were expecting some kind of twist or unique look at things here, but that's it: Aliens.

It was just a great movie, and yet, one that was never intended to exist and had no right to be as good as it was, but somehow overcame all of that (and the fact that it was made 7 years after the first) to be one of the greatest movies of all time.

There's a rule for sequels: everything has to be bigger, faster, louder. Call it the Sequel Expansion Rule: everything must be more. Superhero sequels have to have two, or more, villains when the original only needs one bad guy. Teen sex romps have to have more boobs. Cop movies need more car chases over ever more exotic terrain.

I can't prove it for sure, but I suspect that the Sequel Expansion Rule came about because of Aliens. Aliens, after all, promised more right in its title, with that s. There was only one alien in the first movie, after all, and it was killed by Sigourney Weaver, who then went to sleep for a while.

In the second movie, that one alien was still there-- but it was bigger and faster and stronger and meaner and Mom-er, and it was joined by hundreds of other aliens, and the single woman battling the single alien was now a team of marines and a robot and a little girl, and it wasn't just on one ship but instead was on a planet... bigger, better, faster, more-er.

Aliens packed in great performances: Anyone who's seen it has Game Over, man, ringing in their ears, a career-maker for Bill Paxton. And great ideas: The robot suit Ripley uses to battle the alien has been ripped off by movie after movie (including the Matrix trilogy). It even inspired our actual technology. When I saw Aliens, years ago, I thought how great it would be if people could actually sit in a ship and watch Marines battling over cameras installed in their helmets. Twenty-five years later, President Obama watched live as Seal Team 6 (TM, Disney) shot Osama Bin Laden.

I've gone on long enough -- this post should have been chopped into two parts, a la Kill Bill, so that years from now people could debate whether they liked my post about sequels, or the sequel to my post about sequels. Suffice to say that Aliens set the bar for all sequels that came before it and after it, proving that just because something didn't need to exist doesn't mean it can't be good.

Play me out, Bill Paxton:





P.S.: For a while, I seriously considered choosing Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo. Can you blame me?





Click here for The Best Of... Movies.

The future has arrived, and it has a stupid name. (The Best Underated Instruments, 7)

It's a Minibest!

What a week for science this was! Window lasers, the declaration by scientists that they've actually FOUND alien lifeforms... if ever there was a week that we should celebrate science, this was it. And I'm going to celebrate science in the most obvious way -- by selecting a musical instrument created not by the aimless wanderings of art but by the goal-driven demands of pure, hard, science: the eigenharp.

But first those lasers and aliens: The news was abuzz this week with the revelation by scientists that they'd found a "Goldilocks" planet. Settle down, fans of fairy tales and cosplay: they're talking about a planet that exists the right distance from its sun ("not too hot, not too cold") to have water, and therefore life, because, as scientists always tell us, where there's water, there's life. (People who fish Lake Erie can testify otherwise, maybe, but let's ignore them.)

The "Goldilocks" planet orbits around a star scientists call "Gliese 581," because scientists suck -- when they aren't simply claiming that hobbits exist, they're determined to bore the rest of us to death by doing things like calling stars "Gliese 581," instead of calling them cool things like "Aldebaran." The Goldilocks planet itself is called either "Gliese 581g" or "Zarmina's World," (after the scientist's wife)(and that actually is an okay name, so good job, Zarmina's husband), and it's a mere 14 million miles away from its sun -- about 1/6 as far away as we are, so the year there only lasts 37 days. Which means it's never too long until summer arrives again -- and you'll love summer on Zarmina's World, with its 160-degree temperatures.

You may not be so crazy about the fact that because the planet barely rotates, then depending on where you are it's almost always dark, or almost always light... except for the part where it's almost always sunrise. There's a part of the planet where the sun is perpetually rising, something that might be cool until you get sick of it, around the time you're seeing your 3,164,473rd consecutive sunrise.

The other thing you might not be so crazy about is the fact that you're very definitely certainly going to be sharing your planet with alien life forms. This is the part of the story that for some reason -- probably to avoid panic over the inevitable alien invasion -- is being played down: The fact that scientists have said that there is, for sure, 100% sure, alien life. Says Zarmina's husband:

"[the] chances for life on this planet are 100 percent."

100%. Not almost 100%. Not 99%, or very certain. 100%. That's all the percents there are -- so Mr. (Dr?) Zarmina's Husband announced to the world that there very definitely certainly 100%edly is alien life.

And the AP led with "Goldilocks?"

Luckily, in a related story that nobody except me realized was related, scientists also have discovered a source of protection against the Zarminans who are probably on their way here right now: window lasers.

Previously, death rays powered by pure light were so expensive and complicated that they could only really be owned by the Grand Moff Tarkin and Bill Gates' buddies. But thanks to "environmentalists" who wanted to "save" the "environment," we now all have the power to destroy our friends, neighbors, tourists at the pool, or the odd Zarminian who wanders by asking to be taken to our leader: window-based death rays, as were recently discovered at a Las Vegas resort.

That resort, the "Vdara," is in Las Vegas and it doesn't just lead the world in stupid names -- it also brings a new level of commitment to the service industry, promising to pamper you in luxury with its fancy rooms, high-level room service, quality buffets, and scorching heat rays that will burn you to a crisp.

That's right: It seems that once again saving the environment is going to require a sacrifice, and this time the sacrifice is you. Or at least, your lawyer

Bill Pintas, a Chicago lawyer and businessman, recently was sunning himself by the pool when he became so uncomfortably hot that he had to move. "I actually thought that, Oh my God, we've destroyed the ozone layer because I am being burned," Pintas told NBC's TODAY show. "My head was steaming hot. In fact, my hair felt like it was burning ... I could actually smell my hair burning." Pintas sought refuge away from the sun's rays, where he described what happened to hotel employees. "I said to the staff, 'I don't know if you know what's going on out here, but I was being burned,' and they're like, 'Yeah, we know. We call it the "death ray." ' "

As an aside, what kind of lawyer talks to hotel busboys about the ozone layer? Did he think they could help? "I don't know if you know what's going on out there, but if you could get me another pina colada and help pass a worldwide treaty cutting carbon emissions by 33% in the next five years, I'd probably leave you at least five bucks for a tip." Did the hotel staff maybe include the head of the UN? Or Al Gore?

When contacted, a spokesman for the hotel said that the hotel actually preferred that employees refer to the phenomenon not as a "death ray" but as a "solar convergence," and added: "We're just trying to create a pleasant, relaxing pool experience for our guests." They have a funny notion of what "pleasant" and "relaxing" mean; perhaps they're Zarminian? After all, a solar death ray might seem pleasant to someone who constantly basks in the glow of a 160-degree sunrise.

The death rays are apparently caused by the heat-resistant, reflective windows installed in the hotel, which reflect the sun to such a degree that it becomes concentrated and lethal (at least to lawyer's hairlines.)

But, lest you think that death rays are still only for those rich enough, foolish enough, or mobster-connected enough to go to Vegas, take note that even common folks can now afford to melt their neighbors. The energy-efficient and highly reflective windows Vdara uses to create its solar-converging-death-ray come standard on many a house now. Building inspectors in Massachusetts blamed energy efficient windows for the blowtorch-like melting of neighbors' siding. Noting that temperatures from the window reflections reached as high as 248 degrees, the experts added that "Any double-pane window can cause this effect."

Even yours.

So how does this all tie into the eigenharp? Consider what the eigenharp is. Here's a picture of it:



That's right: It's a musical instrument that looks like a gun. So now you have a Second Amendment right to rock out, one that even Scalia can't take away from you. Open carry for musical instruments? You betcha.

But more importantly, the eigenharp is, as I began this post so long ago by noting, a musical instrument created by science. Science doesn't just find alien life forms and name them after science's wife. Science doesn't just accidentally vaporize humanity in order to save $50 on heating bills each year. No, science also contributes in other ways, like creating musical instruments such as the Eigenharp. Forget the 16th century. Forget craftsmanship. Forget strings and wood and varnish and brass and all that old-school musical stuff. The eigenharp is a thing of modernity, a thing of technology and, possibly, a thing that has a breath-alyzer attached, judging from that picture.

For a more accurate description, let's hear from the creators themselves. According to Eigenlab, the Eigenharp is...

A professional level instrument which allows the musician to play and improvise using a limitless range of sounds with virtuoso skill. The unique design of the keys makes this the most expressive electronic musical instrument ever made. The Alpha can play and record loops, change scale and key, transpose, alter tempo, program beats, create arrangements, switch and layer multiple sounds, all while the musician is performing live on stage.

It also, they note, requires a computer to play. Or these guys:



The Eigenharp, in the truest spirit of science, manages to outmusic every other instrument. Your piano has 88 kesy? The eigenharp has 132. Plus two "strip controllers." Are you a fan of wind instruments? The eigenharp has a breath pipe. Like pipe organs? There are "numerous" pedal inputs. The only thing it's missing is a miniature Davey Jones playing a tambourine. (That option is extra.)

Plus, it's the first musical instrument ever based on the Star Wars movies. Aside from the "Jar Jars." But the less said about those, the better.

Sure, you say, that all seems neat, but the real question is, can it make music? Of course it can. Has science ever let you down? (Other than this? And this? And this?) Just listen to it:



And listen to this, too, in case you're not into techno and maybe want something more classical and a little oriental sounding:



By now, you may be asking yourself, how did the Eigenharp come into existence? And then you may be adding to yourself I bet it was a bar bet, wasn't it? All the greatest inventions, like the space shuttle and that gum with candy in the center and the gum is shaped like the fruit that the candy is the flavor of, all that stuff came from bar bets. Especially because it really does look like that thing from the cantina scene. So what's the truth? Did these guys get drunk in a pub one night and make a bet that one could make an instrument identical to the cantina scene?

Well, you'd be wrong if you thought that. Not about the space shuttle and the gum; those were actually the result of bar bets. But the eigenharp, as much as it seems to simply be a guy living out his Live Action Star Wars Fantasy, actually comes from a much purer place: The dream of a guy named "John Lambert."

John, according to the Eigenlab website, had a vision of making "the world's most expressive electronic instrument," and, more importantly, a musical instrument that could best play the Cylon theme from Battlestar Galactica:



Instantly, that video is the single best remnant of Battlestar Galactica. If they'd ended the show with that, instead of this, it would be remembered fondly.

That's all the history that Eigenlab gives about the Eigenharp, so maybe I'm wrong; maybe it really was a bar bet. Maybe next, Eigenlab will come up with an actual Boba Fett life sized flying suit that people can use to get to work (and shoot missiles at cars on the way, to pass the time.)

There are actually three kinds of Eigenharps, including the Pico, which Eigenlabs boasts can be played by anyone. I'd like to put that boast to the test, and to be honest, I'd like very much to own an Eigenharp of any kind, because the more I listen to it, the cooler it sounds, and I also believe it to be the newest instrument in the world -- it's only been around since 2009, after all, while all our other instruments were invented in the 16th century.

But I'm kind of intimidated about buying one; the website has FAQs about the various instruments, and my question was going to be How easy is it, really, to play? so I checked the FAQs to see if that question was there. It wasn't, but this question was:

Does the Eigenharp Pico have the drum sequencer featured?

The answer to that was no, not yet, and then something about downloading. Since I don't even know what a drum sequencer is, I figured it best not to go find Sweetie's purse and steal a credit card and order an Eigenharp Pico yet.

In fact, the only thing I don't like about the Eigenharp is the name; keeping in the tradition spawned by the Internet, Lambert and crew named their instrument in the silliest way possible, combining familiar old words in stupid new ways. (See also "blog", "vlog" and "Tweet.") Why invest billions (I assume/made up just now) in creating the instrument of the future and not at least give some thought to a better name?

And there's no doubt that it is the instrument of the future. Check this out:



That's what they're watching on Zarmina's World's version of MTV, right now. Get used to it.



Previous Instruments:

1. Tuba

2. Harp.

3. Triangle

4. Glockenspiel.

5. Bassoon

6. Jaw harp.

Guest Post: The Top Ten Best Facts about Space Aliens & “Human”Abductees

Did you listen to me on the radio on August 1? I was the featured guest for Straight Talk, the radio show hosted by the great Jim Strait. You can listen live every Sunday at 6:30 (ET)(The link'll take you to his site.) Jim was a great host, and made it tough on me as a guest to keep up with his smarts and humor. He did, though, confess that he's never eaten a slice of pizza -- but let's don't hold that against him.

Jim also contributed a guest post for today, giving me the chance to (a) take the day off and (b) take credit for posting something anyway. Here's Jim's contribution:

The Top Ten Best Facts about Space Aliens & “Human”Abductees

If you were abducted by aliens from another planet, have seen a yeti, are emotionally involved with the idea of Oprah, Al Gore, Paris Hilton, or Sarah Palin, read no farther unless you have a sense of humor…for all others, enjoy!


10) Oprah Winfrey became an alien abductee because flying saucers are powered by cellulite and narcissism.

9)Abductee spelled backwards is eet-cud-ba, which is alien for gotcha!

8)Paris Hilton was taken as an abductee because aliens think emaciated is hot.

7) Al Gore was not abducted, he was recovered.

6) Even space aliens think that Big Foot is a hoax.

5) Abductees are taken at night and in remote places because Aliens are embarrassed to be seen with them.

4)Aliens will not abduct people smarter in IQ points than tall in inches.

3) Sarah Palin will never be abducted.

2) Shooting stars are actually how aliens execute problematic abductees.

1)Crop circles are produced by the alien version of the Three Stooges Curly when it drops to the ground and spins around while mouthing the alien words, whoop-whooop-whooop-whooop.

Nicely done, Jim -- and thanks for paying attention to Paris Hilton, a bit, because, as longtime readers know, failing to at least look at Paris once in a while will result in the ultimate destruction of the universe. (Read why in this book.)

The Best Aliens In Books That I'm Hoping Are Real Because It Would Be Cool If They Actually Existed.

Apollo 14 Astronaut Edgar D. Mitchell last week restated something that's been obvious to anyone who, you know, reads. Speaking at a press conference called by the "Paradigm Research Group," Edgar D. Mitchell -- the sixth man to walk on the moon, and so someone who's in the know -- said this: "We are being visited... It is now time to put away this embargo of truth about the alien presence."

A spokesman for the Paradigm Research Group (PRG) then didn't threaten the United States government. He made it very clear he was not threatening the government (he said "this is not a threat or anything, you don't threaten the United States government, they're heavily armed ...") but he did say that if the U.S. Government doesn't make public, by the end of May, what it knows about aliens, the PRG will make it "as difficult on them as possible."

Well, I for one am not afraid of even the heavily armed U.S. government, and this is a crusade I've decided to join because I, too, want the government to reveal what it knows about aliens and the fact...

... yes, fact -- go back and see what Astronaut Edgar D. Mitchell said...

... that we've been visited by aliens, and I hope that when President Obama (who obviously has not much else to do) does declassify the documents, these aliens will turn out not to be merely figments of the imaginations of some science-fiction writers... So here are

The Best Aliens In Books That I'm Hoping Are Real Because It Would Be Cool If They Actually Existed.

1. Tralfamadorians. (As seen in Slaughter-House 5) The Tralfamadorians are little plunger-shaped aliens with hands where their heads should be and eyes in their hands; when embarrassed, they close their hands over their eyes. They kidnapped Billy Pilgrim and put him in a zoo with a porn star.

Why It'd Be Cool If They Actually Exist: Aliens are always kidnapping people and doing things like dissecting them or raping them and dropping them back outside their trailer in Alabama, or bringing them back to be greeted by Richard Dreyfuss and that one woman. The Tralfamadorians aren't having any of that. They'll just kidnap you and plunk you into your own little life-long porn movie. If you're going to spend the rest of your life on an alien world, do you want it to be with a short guy who hasn't showered in three weeks? Or with Montana Wildhack?

Then Again, Why It Might Not Be So Cool: The Tralfamadorians do put people into a zoo, where they're always on display, and there's large crowds. Suppose they get bored watching you just live your life with your porn-star mate and television with pasted-on picture, and decide to make you fight instead? Or suppose they get confused and bring you Richard Dreyfuss?

Why The Government Probably Won't Reveal That They Exist: President Obama's plans to make the United States a communist paradise require that its citizens stay around and pay up to 150% of their income in taxes. (He's hoping you won't pay attention to the math!) If people start applying to be abducted to Tralfamadorian zoos, the whole deal's shot.


2. Moties: (As seen in The Mote In God's Eye and The Gripping Hand.) These three-armed aliens that live inside a red giant star (or something like that; it's been a while since I read the book) have a distinct class system that is strictly enforced: warriors, workers, and tiny "watchmakers" who can build anything. Their civilization rises and falls repeatedly, as they need to breed to survive, and they refuse (mostly) to consider solutions, dubbing anyone who proposes an answer to the constant collapse of Motie civilization a "Crazy Eddie."

Why It'd Be Cool If They Actually Exist: Those "Watchmakers," tiny Moties that can build and rebuild and improve anything. Give me a few of those any my garage door opener would not only work, but it would probably come down off the ceiling and clean up the bowl of snacks I spilled out there a few weeks ago. Not to mention how helpful they'd be in programming my cell phone.

Then Again, Why It Might Not Be So Cool: Two reasons: Warriors and "Fyunch(click)'s." The Warriors are self-explanatory: They can outfight anything and have learned how to hurl asteroids as weapons of mass destruction. We've got Marines and Navy Seals, and don't need anything to outtough those and make the U.S. a second-tier country. But more worrisome than Warriors are the idea of a "Fyunch(click)." A "Fyunch(click)" is a Motie assigned to exactly parrot a human being: mannerisms, speech, even, probably, the way I sort of rub my neck when I'm thinking.

As someone who is surprised every single time I look in the mirror -- where'd those bags under my eyes come from? Is that really my chin? All of it?-- I have no desire to see myself parroted back at me. I know, deep down inside, that I'm not cool. I'd rather not see a three-armed, furry not-cool version of me sitting around scratching its butt.

Why The Government Probably Won't Reveal That They Exist: What, the government is going to let people know that there's a society that strictly enforces class and caste divisions, a society in which moving from one occupation to another is impossible, a society which is built on a boom-and-bust mentality, constantly throwing itself into crisis in order to take the steps it needs to fix a problem because forcing a solution through desperation is the only way the public will ever act? No way, man.


3. Martians: (As seen in Stranger in A Strange Land.) These "Martians" are more ghosts of Martians past than little red men fighting Santa Claus. Armed with physical and mental abilities beyond anything man has ever known, the Martians are, even as we speak, contemplating humanity's fate -- a fate they will determine.

Why It'd Be Cool If They Actually Exist: Look what they taught Valentine Michael Smith to do: heal his body, levitate things, seduce women with ease... that's what it all comes down to, right? Every advance that science makes, it all boils down to Will It Help Men Get Chicks? (Answer: Probably not.)

Then Again, Why It Might Not Be So Cool: Well, there is the fact that the Martians are contemplating whether or not to destroy our planet, contemplation that if I recall correctly might go on for eons (they're slow moving ghosts of Martians and not quick to rush into anything) but which might, ultimately, end up on Let's just destroy their planet. That, and they're humorless: the one thing that Mike never was taught by the Martians was how to laugh. Humorless and possibly destructive: they're like giant versions of Matthew McConaughey.

Why The Government Probably Won't Reveal That They Exist: When Mike the Martian-trained human came to Earth, he pretty much destroyed all of society just as soon as he learned to walk in our gravity. With the help of a crotchety author and three hot chicks, Mike brought the world-government to its knees, made most inventions obsolete, proved all religions false, and generally threw humanity into turmoil. Since that's pretty much President Obama's agenda (as I understand it from glimpses of Fox News), why would he let someone steal his thunder?

4. Hyper-intelligent Pan-dimensional Beings (as seen in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy and its sequels.) These creatures, whose forms in our dimension look a lot like tiny mice riding around in highball glasses, are the ones responsible for building the two most powerful computers in the history of all the dimensions: Deep Thought, whose job it was to come up with the Answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything... and then Earth, whose job it was to come up with the question that Deep Thought had answered.

Why It'd Be Cool If They Actually Exist: For one thing, they invented the sport of "Brockian Ultra-Cricket," a game so massively complicated that the rulebook was so heavy that it collapsed into a black hole. Any sport that features people growing extra legs to amuse the crowds, and has as its goal the whacking of other players and then retreating to apologize, is a sport that we could use on TV to fill in the gaps that are otherwise, now, filled in with the NFL draft and the neverending and endlessly boring "NBA Playoffs." For another, mice driving motorized highball glasses are cute.

Then Again, Why It Might Not Be So Cool: On the other hand, if they do exist, that means that we're all just part of a giant computer program, and also it means that Vogons probably exist, which means Vogon poetry exists, and if there's one thing that's worse than Shel Silverstein's poems, it's Vogon poetry. Well, maybe not worse, but the two are tied.

There is, it turns out, a "Vogon Poetry Generator" you can go to. I went there, and got this poem generated for me, personally:

See, see the Smart sky Marvel at its big puce depths. Tell me, Ben do you Wonder why the platypus ignores you? Why its foobly stare makes you feel bleary. I can tell you, it is Worried by your thuyrfrgable facial growth That looks like A cottage cheese. What's more, it knows Your hypotenuse potting shed Smells of frog. Everything under the big Smart sky Asks why, why do you even bother? You only charm old cheeses.

Which I kind of like, actually. And it's also true: My hypotenuse potting shed does smell of frog.

Why The Government Probably Won't Reveal That They Exist: They're already busy covering up the disappearance of the dolphins. They don't need another scandal breaking.

5. Quozl: These rabbit-like aliens that took up residence on Earth in underground burrows started out just wanting a planet to live on, and then conquered Earth the best way possible: through the media.

Why It'd Be Cool If They Actually Exist: They're giant rabbits, with advanced technology. What's not cool about that?

Then Again, Why It Might Not Be So Cool: Well, they do breed like rabbits -- that's why they needed a new planet to live on. And the way they fight is highly stylized -- they have fights in which the goal is to make it appear as though you're going to beat the other guy up, but never actually touch him. After the wrestling, karate, tae kwon do, tae bo, aikido, kung fu, judo, kendo, capoeira, ninjitsu, ju jitsu, "ultimate fighting," "mixed martial arts" and other similar crazes, do we really need another fake form of fighting designed to make middle-aged guys feel good about themselves while spending two nights per week at a strip-mall storefront wearing a bathrobe?

Why The Government Probably Won't Reveal That They Exist: Actually, they probably will, eventually. Whenever things start to look bleak, President Obama hauls out something cute for the media. Need another $150 bazillion dollars for the bailout? Let's see his daughters head off to school with Hello Kitty Backpacks. About to send mixed messages on whether the US will torture or not? Hello, Bo, the Portuguese Water Puppy. So when those jobless numbers come out at the end of May, expect to see a couple of Quozl showing up on the view.

Click here to see all the Whodathunkits?!!

Click here to see all the other SemiDaily Lists!

Click here to see all the MiniBests!

Click here to see all the other topics I’ve ever discussed!






Children tormented by demons. An old man accidentally killing people. Witches who live hundreds of years and escape from Hell repeatedly. An astronaut drifting through space... these and other great stories can be found only on AfterDark: The scariest things, you CAN'T imagine.

The 3 Best Cartoons To Forecast The Future (And How They Did)

It's a SemiDaily List!

I'm still celebrating the Month of New, and what could be newer than... The Future?

Unless, of course, the future that is being set up is "the future" in Star Trek: Over And Over Again, that new movie that's coming out that promises to tell, or re-tell, or something, the origins of the Enterprise crew.

Did anyone actually wonder about that? Is there anyone that watched all those Star Trek episodes and movies and thought "I wonder how Kirk and Spock ever met up?" Because I've never wondered that. I just assumed they happened to be assigned to the same military unit, as happens over and over and over again in the military. It happens nowadays, it probably happened in Spartan times, and I'm sure, in the future, guys will enlist in Starfleet and will be assigned to a unit and will then be partnered up with the guys in that unit and... that's it. That's their "origin" story.

So Star Trek: Redux Reduxed is exactly the opposite of what I'm trying to do here in the Month of New. It's a remake that tells the most boring part of the story imaginable, the "origin" of the story, and somehow, even the commercials reduce the fantastic, wondrous world of the future to a great, gaping Space Yawn.

To combat that, and continue presenting the New, I've searched my memory for other, better, more original, more creative looks at the future, as expressed in humanity's highest art form, the cartoon. And that's today's nominations:

The Three Best Cartoons To Forecast The Future (And How They Did.)

1. The Jetsons.



Any look at future-forecasting cartoons has to start with the Jetsons, because they were the first cartoon to take a peek at the future and tell us how we'd be living. Or they may not have been the first, but they are at least the first cartoon I can remember, which, to existentialists, is the same thing. The Jetsons took a freewheeling look at family life, business, and entertainment in the far-flung future of humanity. How'd they do? Let's see:

Year It Forecast: There's a bit of an argument about that, and 50% of that argument takes place on Wikidiotpedia, which in one entry on the less-than-reliable site says 2962 and 2162. (Wikipedia is a sterling example of how democracy does not work for everything, like facts.) The upcoming movie version of the cartoon (you knew there had to be one, right?) is going to be set in 2307. The ultra-reliable website "Chacha.com" says, with no references or source material whatsoever, that the show is set in 2262. Apparently, in the future calendars will not work so well.

Vision of the Future: Upbeat, but a lot like life is today: People still work, the family unit has remained essentially unchanged, and we're all still driving cars -- we're just driving them through the air, but somehow still staying in traffic lanes.

The Jetsons forecast a time of people living in ultra-high-rise apartment complexes, flying to work at their jobs, which for some reason were still mostly drudgery. There was interplanetary travel, but we still had rock stars on TV. We will have videophones and personal little bubbles that drop down from cars-- but people still used cash, as the opening credits showed over and over. We would, in the Jetsons' future, walk our dogs on treadmills hovering precariously miles off the ground, and we get our food from the Food-A-Rac-A-Cycle by the push of a button.


How Right Did They Get It? On a scale of Scotty-to-Spock (Spock being most correct), let's give the Jetsons a Uhura -- not very. We do get our food quickly, but we do it from a drive-through window in a car that remains frustratingly glued to the ground, and we pay for it with a credit card that costs us 17% annual interest on that double whopper. People are leaving the high rises and buying up prime farmland to build 4300-square-foot houses with four-car garages. And while we've got videophones, they're used almost exclusively for "tweeting."

2. Futurama:



How about a cartoon show that doesn't simpy send the Flintstones into the future, instead? Futurama took the bizarre social commentary spawned by The Simpsons and sent it a thousand years into the future -- as you'd know if anyone had ever been able to watch it. Fox, for some reason, thought Futurama would be better appreciated by people if it was continuously pre-empted by football. Then again, who can blame them? They were busy getting ready to pour money down the rathole that Family Critic and its related shows have become.

Year It Forecast: Futurama is set in the year 3000, or, as it will come to be known, "The Reign of Bristol Palin XIV, Queen of All Western Lands."

Vision of the Future: The year 3000 is a mind-bogglingly complex to former Delivery Boy Philip Fry, who accidentally cryogenically freezes himself and then wakes up in that year to gaze in wonder at a world where he can ride a Tyrannosaurus Rex at the children's zoo, where he can visit an amusement park on the moon in an afternoon, where Blernsball is a major sport and Hypnotoad threatens to rule the world... and where his job chip says he's going to be a delivery boy. We will travel by spaceship and by personal transporter tube. We will... drink cola advertised by a slug. We will constantly re-elect the head of Richard Nixon as president of Earth, and the Harlem Globetrotters will help us save the planet a few times. Also, there are Robot Devils co-existing with space paperboys.

How Right Did They Get It? McCoy (Fair-to-middlin'). To begin with, we don't have paperboys at all anymore -- we barely have papers, and those that still exist are delivered by surly old men and recently-laid-off banking executives. Nobody's going to the moon, and the only thing we send to other planets are radio-controlled cars. But package delivery is, as accurately forecast by Futurama, one of the primary industries of planet Earth now -- by my estimate, 98% of all commercials are for a package delivery service already, and that's not counting the by-now-tired "Whiteboard" UPS commercials that have blown through their original premise (clever drawings that morph into something else) and are just dumb. We're still more than 900 years away from the world of Futurama, but it's not hard to envision our entire economy being based on package delivery by then.

As for electing the head of Richard Nixon, is that so far-fetched? We've turned Bill Clinton into an "elder statesman" in just 8 years, we gave a Nobel Prize to Former Worst President Ever Jimmy Carter, we named an airport after Ronald Reagan. With our culture repackaging old disgraces as new triumphs faster than ever, if we could elect Nixon's head, I'm sure we would. And you say you wouldn't, but you haven't yet seen the People magazine special issue with the headline "Nixon's Head: Shame Over Childhood Made Me Do It." That, plus a special interview with Dr. Phil's head, would be all it took to vault him into the presidency.

And the commercial success of Slurms Mackenzie, the spokes-slug for "Slurm," the drink of the future? Have you seen those little boogers that advertise "Mucinex?" We're already using slugs as spokespeople.

3. G-Force:


How much more popular would "G-Force" have been if it ran with its original Japanese title, "Science Ninja Team Gatchaman?" About a billion times more popular, I bet. As it was, G-Force was, I think, pretty unknown to everyone but me. Strange. You'd think a show about a bunch of teenagers who protect the Earth from an alien planet by donning bird-suits and fighting in space would have broad appeal. G-Force was actually the second of two shows featuring those teens; the first was called "Battle of the Planets," and had the same general theme, with the added allure of "Keyops," a childlike artificial life form that stutters, chirps, beeps and talks.

The old G-Force classic cartoon is not to be confused with the big-budget 3d blockbuster about the government training hamsters to spy. (A movie which, apparently, and for some reason, is destined to exist.)

Year It Forecast: Unclear, although one episode was said to be set in 2001.

Vision of the Future: In "G-Force/Battle of the Planets" future, the Earth is threatened by Spectra, and the sole guardians who can help us are Mark, Jason, Princess, Keyop, and Tiny -- teenagers (who look 35 or so) who can fly a spaceship, don flight suits, perform acrobatic, vaguely-karate-ish stunts, and otherwise wreak mayhem. Their adventures are, in the American version, guided by a humorous robot, 7-Zark-7, that has a robotic dog named 1-Rover-1, and also has a robotic crush on the sexy early warning computer... Susan. When not fighting, the teens eat "Space Burgers," work as test pilots, attend "Space Academy," drive in inteplanetary car races, mess around with space yo-yos, and drive Galacticycles.

The spaceship they fly can transform itself entirely into fire. They fight against aliens led by a hermaphroditic leader who goes by both male and female names, the latter being an anagram of the former. There is a galactic federation of some sort, and planets can "hide behind" other planets.

How right did they get it? Spock -- dead solid perfect. I wish. What's life without a Space Burger? If we need to be constantly at war with alien hermaphrodites hiding behind other planets to get that kind of cushy futuristic lifestyle, then so be it. And what could possibly be wrong with trusting the fate of the human race, not to mention weapons of interstellar mass destruction, to teenagers?





Click here to see all the Whodathunkits?!!

Click here to see all the other SemiDaily Lists!

Click here to see all the MiniBests!

Click here to see all the other topics I’ve ever discussed!





Take A Book For Charity? I recently published my first novella, Eclipse. To celebrate, I'm sponsoring Take A Book For Charity: I'm offering my book to various public and private people and asking that they do something neat with it -- like take it into space. The book will then be auctioned with the proceeds going to benefit Mateo and McHale Shaw.

If you've got a charity, or an idea, email me at "thetroublewithroy[at]yahoo.com." If I like your idea, I'll send you the book to carry it out and then will auction your book off.

If you're a library, public school, or other group that makes books available to people for free and want a free copy of my book, email me, too, and I'll send you one. Make sure the subject line includes the phrase "Take A Book For Charity."