Platypus of Truth

We have been watching some of Jim Henson's quintessential productions this past month: The Storyteller, Labyrinth, and The Dark Crystal . Looking back, there are things these films share in common. There is a sense of gentleness, wonder, and wisdom about them that speaks to the best creative impulses in late 20th century pop-art. These films strike a blow for the world of the imagination without being anti-intellectual, despairing, angry, or escapist. There is instead a true sense of "escape" in the way in which J.R.R. Tolkien envisioned it: they are dreams of a better world. When each is finished, we return to the primary world refreshed and enlightened; ready to carry on the battle. I don't know if these films will last -many younger people I've met don't like them- but for a generation of us, they have done good yoeman's labor. For that, I am thankful.

September September is The Legend of Zelda Link running through the forest Shield in hand A spreading oak tree A cave Broken memories and the effort that goes into forgetting If I forget thee oh Jerusalem May my tongue be cut out May my right hand lose its skill The white girls sat in a row of Deracinated messy buns And drank the PSLs Which they purchased with their souls Paltry things Worn white in women's work Handed down by a post-war committee Oh you cannot buy a soul Not at Target or at Walmart Though you took a trip to Selma Or you stood at Standing Rock I stood upon the rock I stood upon the rock But the memories slipped Through my hands And shattered

This film, like so many of Jim Hanson's works, is a miniature gem finely cut. All the characters and the world they inhabit are perfectly designed for the medium in which they exist. If they were taken out of the medium, or even redone in the same medium with modern technology, it would dramatically alter the whole -it would become something else. I think that's why the comics have turned to the mythology and history of The Dark Crystal . They are at enough of a remove that the change in medium doesn't violate the original work. All that to say that there is something insistently Toronto School about telling an entire film story with puppets; a furious insistence that the medium is the message. The story of The Dark Crystal  reaches the level of myth. Its theme is the recovery of lost unity by the meeting of opposites: Uru and Skeksis, make and female, light and dark. The symbol of union is well chosen: a shattered crystal that turns light into darkness. It is an image of...

Another Labor Day Weekend is upon us and that means that another Summer Vacation has come to a close upon this middle earth. With that, it's time for 2017's annual Seven Heavens of Summer Reading Awards. As in summers past, I award the the most interesting books of the year's summer reading to the various medieval planets that most correspond to their virtues. Sun: The Sun is the heaven of scholars. A hundred years ago, J.R.R. Tolkien was penning the first words of what would become Middle Earth. It has taken two lifetimes to bring out all that was in that tweedy little don's head. Christopher Tolkien, at 93, has brought out what he considers the capstone of his father's work Beren and Luthien . Though there is no new material here, the arrangement allows the reader to see how the central tale of Tolkien's mythology evolved over the course of its creator's long life. The Solaric Award, then, goes to both Tolkiens for two life's-works well done. Mercu...