Kingo is real

Eternals, Chloé Zhao’s entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was not the best reviewed movie of the 27-feature film set. It is not the worst. And ranking them at all is pointless. Movies are not horses in a race. I can love or hate many films simultaneously. Or, as in the case of Eternals, land somewhere in the middle, and curious as to why.

I love all Marvel movies without shame or irony. Zhao’s take on the superhero world is lovable and laudable, though it didn’t fill me with glee as did almost every other movie and TV show set in this world. It gave me a fair amount of glee - perhaps 80% the norm – but it didn’t top me off. I just watched it again to figure out why. And one of the reasons is Kingo.

If you have not seen this movie, you should stop here and go read other things I’ve written. Most are better than this post anyway.

As you may or may not remember, Kingo is part of a band of superbeings sent to protect humanity from Deviants. Sort of like angels sent by God to keep demons at bay. Kingo can shoot blasts of energy from his hands. He is played by Kumail Nanjiani, who is absolutely not my problem with the character. Nope. Nanjiani’s performance is delightful – funny, touching, heroic from a place of reluctance (which is hard to pull off in a movie dealing eleven other major characters) and most of all, real.

That last adjective is the problem. In the lead up the climax, Zhao has Kingo exit. He leaves before the big fight. I fully expected him to return at a critical moment. Yes, a plot device we’ve seen done to death, but hey, it’s common because it generally works. Zhao never takes that tool out of the drawer and it’s brave, artistic, original and so un-superhero like that it bothered me.

At the end of the second act, Kingo is given a choice: He can side with the Eternals that want the Earth to crack like a big egg releasing a being that will help save the universe, or he can side the Eternals that want to stave off the cracking and save humanity. Tough choice, really. The people you see versus the multitude you do not. The tangible versus the hypothetical. Now v. future.

Kingo doesn’t choose. He picks door number three. He walks away, leaving this philosophical mess to the others. It’s a crazy choice for a Marvel superhero. It’s also crazy realistic. Most of us don’t know what to do in an emergency. We like to think we do but faced with completely new and unpredicted situations most of us – most, I stress – hesitate and contemplate. It’s why first-responders train. It’s why pilots, Navy SEALS and surgeons train. Practice mitigates chaos. We find people who can handle chaos heroic because they react like we all want to react.

Regardless of his training – or programming or whatever Eternals go through – Kingo acts like a common human. It’s a bold move in a world of Captain Americas, Iron people and Asgardians. I respect about as much as it disturbed me. I read comic books and watch superhero movies to break these human boundaries. Sure, there’s plenty of other characters in this movie who serve as heroic ideals. One dissenter should not have marred the effect. And yet it did.

The movie is about order’s never-ending fight with chaos. The Eternals exist to dispel the Deviants because they deviated from their orders. The Eternals were created by Celestials, who’s purpose in the universe is to reduce entropy. They will destroy Earth and all of us who live here to hold off disorder. Kingo found this fight unwinnable and unnecessary and went home to chillax and accept the inevitable. Even though some of his family brought forth a stay of execution for humanity, they did not change the second law of thermodynamics. Entropy always increases with time.

Kingo will be right, eventually. A real hero.

In the dark

So I’m walking around in the dark, flailing my arms like a chicken. I’m at the gym on a Saturday night. It’s only 5:30, but this time of year that means dead of night and there are no lights. I got in with one those fobs, no problem. Now I’m trying not to stumble over kettle balls and dumb bells and negate my modest attempt to stay healthy. I figured the lights would go on with a motion sensor. Makes sense, right?

Wrong. I’m just getting some weak, blue ambience down from distant street lights and through the tinted windows. After a few minutes of this, I decide to workout anyway. I’m here, this is the time, and light shouldn’t matter much to the bone density I want to protect. I change into my shorts. I use the light on my iPhone to find the settings on the machine and put my ear buds in.

Here’s the weird part. I have to take the ear buds out. I can’t sit in the dark AND tune out the world. I can’t listen to a pod cast about grammar. I can’t listen to music. I have to keep the ear buds out because I’m so freaked out working out in the dark. I think now losing one sense does not make the others stronger – it makes you cherish them more. It makes you want to wring more out of them. As we should with just about everything. I listen to my huffing and puffing. It's not pleasant, nor informative.

I did not injure myself attempting to stay healthy. Yeah me.

Dumpster Diving

So I stop at the Dollar Store because I want a new luffa. Being the Dollar Store I buy all kinds of other crap - candy bars, tissues, Band-Aids – you know how it goes. I bring my own nylon bag, but in my checkout haze the cashier puts everything in an unmarked, brown paper bag. This unsettles me, but fine. It’s not worth dumping stuff from container one to another, even though this is not my system. I’m trying to be more flexible in my life and not make a huge deal out of such things. It is in trying to be better that I am wrong. I drop the bag somewhere in the house, I don’t care where, and go about doing things. 

The next day is Sunday, I decide to take all my paper recycling up to the church. As a family, we put out a lot of paper. Junk mail, schoolwork, old manuscripts, new manuscripts – I put them in brown paper bags and when there seems like too many, I load up the trucklet and head for St. Stephen’s. I think they make like twenty bucks a month from everyone tossing their paper in the shed-sized bin. Part of me wants to believe it also makes me a better citizen. It is in this belief that I am also wrong.

Later that day I remember my bag from the Dollar Store. I can’t find it. I in the familyroom, kitchen, bathroom . . . the bag has vanished. It’s not small. We’re not hoarders. We should be able to find a brown paper bag . . .

No, I tell myself. I am not that out-of-it. There’s no way I chucked a bag of candy and bathroom supplies thinking it was scrap paper. No way. I’m not that daffy. And I would’ve had to be that daffy twice. Once to load the SUV, then again to snatch it up and hurl it into the bin. No. I’m not that . . . touched. After another search, I decided there’s no other course of action. I announce that I’m returning to St. Stephen’s to see if my Dollar Store bag is in the dumpster. Max, for reasons that escape me, says he’s in. We drive up to the church and look inside. Someone else has been there and deposited several hundred pounds of shredded documents. Light, wormy snow. Oodles of it. There’s a light rain, and the temperature has dropped, and Max climbs in anyway. We dig around finding a couple of the bags I chucked. They are easy to spot. Most of the stuff says “Martineck” in the upper right corners.

We do not find the bag of Band-Aids, tissues, luffas and candy.

I return home not know if I’m going crazy, already crazy or if rolling around in wet shreddings proves I am simply nuts, no other modifier necessary. It is a depressing internal conversation. Do the mad know they’re mad? Is there a moment, like this one, that tips you from kooky to insane?

Two days go by and I go down to the basement to get the Firestick off the old TV. Between the old TV and the couch facing it sits a brown paper bag. Inside are Band-Aids, a box of tissues, two luffas and a mess of candy wrappers. There are more of those on the couch. My first thought is mice. But they don’t unwrap. And they don’t lug bags down a flight of stairs so they can relax. Mice never relax. I realize I’m wrong one more time . . . in my choice of mammal of interest.

I take the bag up to Max and show him. Max – after watching me search the house, drive up to the church, and rummage through a soggy dumpster for thirty minutes says, “Oh that bag?”

First Ever?

For the life of me I don’t understand the trend over the past few years to advertise something – usually a car – as The First Ever. Ad agencies continue to repeat the technique, so it must have shown some value early on. Personally, I’m hoping it dies soon, as I do with every trite, over-used, dead-horse phrase. 

Auto companies should be especially concerned with hackneyed headlines. Hackneyed is an old term that refers use of a horse used for ordinary rides. Not to show off, race or impress others. None of things one might want out of their Lexus or BMW.

The First Ever also strikes me as a dubious feature. It’s good because it’s first? That’s how you want me to spend my $50 large? Yeah, it’s nice to own the newest and all, but how many of us like to have some of the bugs worked out?

Usually just under 30-percent of any population will consider themselves early adopters. Maybe that trends higher in the luxury car world, where you are paying not to see your car passing you every couple of miles. Still, is that the salient feature? Speed, mileage, safety, comfort – none of these things matter more than being first? Regardless, the headlines alienate two-thirds of your market.

In the case of Lexus and BMW, I get it. The cars are, in fact, bum-spanking new; you’re not going to get patient adopters anyway. At least in theory. I think trust in the brand goes a long way. Lexus and BMW customers are less hesitant to buy in the first model year because the makers make good cars, so maybe being first has appeal that's not countered by being unseasoned. Still, we're talking cars. Not this year's spring line. Not even a new iPhone. A car is the second biggest purchase most people ever make in one shot. Being the new kid on the block is a weak raison d'acheter. 

And the phrase is tired. Another word that should never be associated with your very new, very expensive automobile. Or your horse.

I missed the whole month of September. I hate doing that. I don’t want to abandon this blog all together. But, I started writing another novel and I own a home. Or, more accurately perhaps. I live in a home to which I share a deed. It never occurred to me until lately that the house is also on the deed and I’m starting to think the whole deal is a bit of a con. 

 Do I own the house or does the house own me?

The painting, cleaning, tweaking, duct-taping – just trying to figure what to do with the damn thing (what IS that chirping sound?) takes up so much time. Money, yes. But time is the real cost. I can’t get this back. Even hiring people to help takes time. Like I’m feeding my hours to a great, insatiable beast.

And so a month goes by without the silliest of posts. A whole month of shoveling minutes into a gaping maw. Sigh.

Ninety minutes of smiles

I attended poetry reading Sunday hosted by the Just Buffalo Literary Center. They held it at a glen, in Buffalo's Silo City, under at Cottonwood tree that is probably older than all of poet's ages combined. Times four. The readers and writers ranged in age from 13 to 18 and in every case - each one - surpassed my expectations. I am not an easy audience. Writing is serious business for me. And yet every participant left me moved, touched, grinning or thinking. 

Sometimes, when I'm writing advertising copy I purposely flip over my notes. I let time pass and see what sits in my memory. What holds the value of recall. These were the grains of gold that stayed in my pan:

"My voice is a grain of sand on a beach" Keira Lorelei Van Der Beck. 
"Every 10 days a country celebrates their freedom from British rule." Theo Bellavia-Frank. 
"It's easy to feel tall in a shallow pool" Nzingha.
"You are a tower of book spines" Zanaya Hussain.

I looked the author names up later, after deciding what resonated. I had access to a online collection and I am really thankful for it. There were even more pieces in the album to provoke me, make me want to read. 

The event was called Hope Blooms from Shattered Roots. It's a strong title except these young people showed strong, sturdy roots drinking in all the literary nutrients they could find. If they ever were shattered, they healed quick . . . like the young can.

Swinging my machete

 

I want to walk around swinging my machete. I like doing it and it is my right. I like exercising that right. Grocery stores, movie theater, concerts at the Town Ball Room – I want to walk in swinging and swing whenever I feel like it. My intention is not to hurt anyone.  Still, I will swing wildly and at random from my truck, through the parking lot, into the dollar store and out again, swiping back and forth and back and forth. I’m not worried about swinging near children. I tend to swing high and they tend to be short. I’m not worried about swinging my machete near old people because they are old. Why do I like swishing my machete in wide arcs as I move through life? That’s personal. What if I nick, cut or slice someone along the way? That is a matter of their personal responsibility. This is the land of freedom.  Express that freedom. Revel in the freedom. Swing your machete. Or bat or axe or even just your firsts. Don’t let anyone tell you no. They are trying to control you and that’s a slippery slope. If you let them stop you from swinging a machete, soon you will find yourself on a collective farm raising quinoa for the elites. Fight it now. Swing, batta batta batta, swing.