All posts by philwade

Fiction, Reviews

Reasons to Watch ‘Star Wars: Skeleton Crew’

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Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, the latest TV series from a once-beloved franchise, ended this week. It is a space pirate adventure that many compared to Treasure Island, because of a mythical planet loaded with treasure and Jude Law’s character being named (among other things) Captain John Silvo. I watched the show with my oldest daughter, who noticed Silvo’s character arc resembles Long John Silver.

I said when I posted a review of the series’ first half that it wasn’t very Star-Warsy, because nothing essential to the story is essential to the core story of Star Wars; but the second half improved on that front. It would be a big spoiler (perhaps the biggest) to give the strongest bit of evidence on this point, but I could note the introduction of a light saber in episode 5 and an important part of Star Wars history comes into play by the end.

We enjoyed it. The children, who are each roughly 13 years old, mature during the adventure–not much, but noticeably. Silvo is the most interesting, because he’s a charismatic pirate of uncertain motivation. Is he a complete villain or is he just greedy or insecure? Will he do right by the kids at the end?

It’s a good show, not a deep one. It didn’t have syrupy morals found along the way and it had a few moments of … peril. But the final episode leaned hard on the logic of a show made for younger audiences. Again, I don’t want to give big spoilers, but I will note that Dr. Doofenshmirtz has repeatedly taught us the value of not building self-destruct switches into your villainous weapons and that applies to other mechanics as well.

Reports says Skeleton Crew hasn’t drawn many viewers, and the critics I listen to blame previous shows for wasting any hopes the fans may still have. A good show, they say, won’t draw anyone back. It needs to be blockbuster. And a TV show probably can’t get there. Maybe later viewing numbers will improve its reception, but the current outlook is that Disney doesn’t know how to tell great stories.

Fiction, Poetry, Reviews

Sir Gawain: What It Means to Be a Real Man

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I didn’t realize Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was set at Christmastime when I picked it up several days ago, so reading it during the Christmas break was seasonal as well as enriching. It could be the poem for modern men today. It’s focus on chastity in the face of strong seduction would make modern readers heads spin.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight begins with a striking man walking into King Arthur’s court.

“For all men marvelled what it might mean
That a horseman and his horse should have such a colour
As to grow green as grass . . .”

He says he’s looking for sport, which is the feeling of everyone in the court already. Arthur loved hearing the exploits of his men. The green knight offered a challenge: Any man could strike him with a fierce blow if he would agree to seek him out in one year’s time to receive a blow in kind from him. Even though everyone thought such a challenge was madness, they also couldn’t refuse it.

“‘By heaven,’ then said Arthur, ‘What you ask is foolish,
But as you firmly seek folly, find it you shall.'”

Sir Gawain, who is the greatest of Arthur’s knights (in the early tales) and his nephew, is the one to suggest to the king someone else accept the challenge in case it goes the way everyone suspects. No need to lose the king to a jolly green giant.

This is the part of the story you’ve likely heard. What follows is another regular year until All Saints Day when Gawain leaves to find the Green Chapel, because “Why falter I or fear? What should man do but dare?” He searched without any prospects until Christmastime. Then he prays and then comes across “the comeliest castle” that “shimmered and shone through the shining oaks.”

He stays there several nights enjoying great and chivalrous hospitality, and that’s when things get weird. The host and all of his men intend to spend the next day hunting, but he urges Gawain to continue resting at the castle, and he proposes this “bargain”: whatever gains they earn in the woods or in the castle will be exchanged. Gawain thinks it’s a great deal.

I found this bargain very strange. What could Gawain possibly achieve within the castle? Spoiler alert: It’s his good host’s wife!

Part three describes three temptations or seductions paired with the exploits of the hunting party. Readers and listeners are meant understand the hunting party illustrates the Gawain’s seduction. That’s the reason I say young men ought to read and talk about this poem. If a woman boldly invited you into adultery, how would you handle it? For Gawain, chivalric manners are high virtue, so he can’t just turn her away. In fact, he seems to agree with her proposal, “but Sir Gawain was on guard in a gracious manner.”

The text seems to say Gawain would not indulge this woman because he is his imminent death at the hand of the Green Knight (line 1285). Maybe that is one motivator, the other and primary one being Christian morality, and if it is factor, doesn’t that strike sparks against modern men who would likely argue the other way. Believing they were about to die, why not take the host’s wife?

One theme we can draw from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a common question that brings out bucket lists: If you knew you were going to die in a year, what would you do? The greatest knight in Camelot not only sought out the man he believed would kill him but also sought every virtue he could recognize.

Why would anyone choose to throw all morality in the bin because he believed he would die in a year? We’re all going to die–this winter or next, this decade or next. Does believing you can see your finish line approaching mean virtue no longer has value? Wouldn’t that argue that you believe virtue has no real value for you now, while your death is still hidden from you?

Music

Best Christmas Carols Ever

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You can find lists of great and favorite Christmas songs everywhere, and whose list is definitive will depend on who you trust. This morning, I looked up Parade’s list of 50 best and compared it to a list of 30 from ClassicFM. You might think Parade’s list leans toward pop songs, but I found a 46% overlap between the lists out of a possible 60%. I wish these songs were what you could expect on the radio or while shopping.

Parade’s first 10 (with ClassicFM’s number in parentheses), not intended ranking priority:

  1. Silent night (2) 
  1. O Come All Ye Faithful (6) 
  1. 12 Days of Christmas  
  1. Do You Hear What I Hear 
  1. The Little Drummer Boy 
  1. Joy to The World (13) 
  1. The First Noel (29) 
  1. Jingle Bells 
  1. Deck the Halls 
  1. O Christmas Tree (this one also made it on the list at #43 as “O Tannenbaum”)

That leans toward popular fare, and it’s a good, fun list. “O Come All Ye Faithful” is one of the best carols of all time. You could sing it year round in English or Latin. On “Silent Night,” ClassicFM notes, “During the Christmas truce of 1914 during World War I, the carol was sung simultaneously by English and German troops.”

Continue reading Best Christmas Carols Ever →
Fiction, Reviews

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew – A Long Way Home

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A skeleton crew (from 1778 military usage) is a term meaning the smallest team needed to do a job or keep the ship running. That and the pirate-vibe skeletons have may be the reason the new Disney+ series has its title. Maybe the four kids teamed with a pirate and pirate-themed droid will accomplish a big job for their civilization; hopefully, the final episode won’t have someone saying, “Look what they accomplished — and with a skeleton crew no less.” Or worse: “We’re a real team now. The galaxy will feel the power of …”

So far, four episodes have been released, and the show isn’t bad. The main actors, who are 13-14 years old, are stretching their skills and performing well. The fast-talking biker girl and the reckless boy who seems to forget their clear and present danger in seconds do get tiring, but unlike many other series, the show has only touched those tropes lightly.

Watch the trailer to see exactly the tone and direction of this show. There’s a moment I enjoyed from the second ep (not in the trailer, but close) where they ask their droid to take them home. The droid doesn’t know of their planet, so he points out the capsule window at thousands of stars and says, “Okay, which one is it?”

At the end of that episode, the kids have been locked up with none of their goods confiscated. They meet Jude Law, the pirate, and he helps them escape. They get through a crowded space port with people who probably would have recognized them from the scuffle that happened an hour or so ago, but hey, are you checking a list of details? Let this one slide. In episode three, they go to a new planet, learn something, and get into a slight scrape with professional space pilots. In episode four, they go to another planet, get into a much bigger scrape, and learn something else. It’s not a bad pattern, but thinking of the sci-fi TV shows of yesteryear, the pattern could be cleaner.

It’s a good show. So far, nothing has been wasted. I haven’t noticed any turn of events that negates or undermines everything that comes before it. The main question many people have asked it whether it’s a Star Wars story, and I wouldn’t say it is. It’s a fun, side story that doesn’t clash with the Star Wars saga as I know it, except maybe in its use of alien lifeforms. Whenever I see a Hammerhead type walking around like an average citizen, I think that kind of alien should probably be reserved as one of the bad guys. There are many like that. But if Star Wars is essentially about rebels fighting the Galactic Empire or Jedis resisting the Sith, Skeleton Crew isn’t one of those stories. It’s an adventure with kids in space.

Fiction

M. R. James Ghost Story Performed by Christopher Lee

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Author M. R. James (1862–1936) is known for his ghost stories. The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, where he was director for fifteen years, called him “the originator of the ‘antiquarian ghost story.'” In doing so, he updated such stories for a new generation. He told these stories to friends and students at King’s and Eton Colleges on Christmas Eve, and since we’ve told our own stories in like manner, allow me to share this wonderful video of Christopher Lee performing “A Warning to the Curious” in a setting akin to James’ Christmas Eve parties.

Creative Writing

Advent Ghost Stories: Her Husband’s Tree

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The tree had always been her husband’s thing. They had fewer ornaments now — glass orbs shattered, some shards still on the floor. But his lights still twinkled. 

“We haven’t seen Randall in so long. How’s he doing?” 

He died December 2020, before putting up the tree, and she couldn’t manage it herself. But as rigor mortis set in, she realized she could have both tree and man. She made her traditional cookies, set out pine-scented candles, and there was Randall with ornaments, lights, and Santa hat topping — her forever tree. 

She gave her standard reply. “He doesn’t get out much.”  

This 100-word short short story is a contribution to Loren Eaton’s Advent Ghost Storytelling Fest. Read a description and other entries on I Saw Lightning Fall.

Photo by Matthieu Comoy on Unsplash

Music

Advent Singing: What Sweeter Music

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Today’s hymn is another old one that’s has been revived by the great John Rutter into the piece performed in the video above. “What Sweeter Music” or Herrick’s Carol was originally written by Englishman Robert Herrick (1591-1674), who is better known for the poetic line “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.”

“When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.’” (Luke 2:15 ESV)

1. What sweeter music can we bring
Than a bright carol, for to sing
The birth of this, our heavenly King?
Awake the voice! Awake the string!

Refrain:
We see him come and know him ours,
Who with his sunshine and his showers
Turns all the patient ground to flowers.

2. Dark and dull night, fly hence away,
And give the honor to this day,
Which sees December turned to May;
If we may ask the reason, say: [Refrain]

3. The darling of the world is come,
And fit it is we find a room
To welcome him. The nobler part
Of all the house, here is the heart: [Refrain]

4. Thus we will give him and bequeath
This holly and this ivy wreath
To do him honor, who’s our King
And Lord of all this revelling: [Refrain]

Music

Advent Singing: Mighty God, While Angels Bless Thee

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This 1774 hymn was noted in the earliest record as a Christmas hymn by Robert Robinson (1735-1790) of Norfolk, England, and it shows how the first coming of the Lord is often blurred with his second coming. The original music for the hymn was lost, but what’s that to any hymn?

“I saw in the night visions,
and behold, with the clouds of heaven
there came one like a son of man,
and he came to the Ancient of Days
and was presented before him.

“And to him was given dominion
and glory and a kingdom,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him;
his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
which shall not pass away,
and his kingdom one
that shall not be destroyed.” (Daniel 7:13-14 ESV)

1 Mighty God, while angels bless thee,
May an infant lisp thy name?
Lord of men as well as angels,
Thou art every creature’s theme.

2 Lord of every land and nation,
Ancient of eternal days;
Sounded through the wide creation
Be thy just and lawful praise.

3 For the grandeur of thy nature,
Grand beyond a seraph’s thought,
For created works of power,
Works with skill and kindness wrought.

4 For thy providence that governs
Thro’ thine empire’s wide domain;
Wings an angel, guides a sparrow,
Blessed be thy gentle reign.

5 But thy rich, thy free redemption,
Dark thro’ brightness all along;
Thought is poor, and poor expression,
Who dare sing that awful song?

6 Brightness of the father’s glory,
Shall thy praise unutter’d lie?
Fly my tongue such guilty silence!
Sing the Lord who came to die.

7 Did Arch-angels sing thy coming?
Did the shepherds learn their lays?
Shame would cover me ungrateful,
Should my tongue refuse to praise.

8 From the highest throne in glory,
To the cross of deepest woe;
All to ransom guilty captives,
Flow my praise, for ever flow.

9 Go return immortal Saviour,
Leave thy footstool, take thy throne;
Thence return, and reign for ever,
Be the kingdom all thine own.
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Amen.

Authors, Fiction, Writing

What Christian Art Is All About

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A Christian professor of fiction published a piece “To the Christian Writer” in which he recommends good art as a thing separate from Christian faith.

He begins by saying, “there’s no such thing as Christian art.” If someone wants to be a Christian, he should pursue it wholeheartedly, but “bad art comes out when you compromise art-making with some other intent.” Some other intent like Christian morals.

“If your fiction feels like it’s veering toward a moral conclusion, stop.”

I want to understand this professor’s argument and view it charitably, and I agree moralistic fiction is often shallow and ugly. I’m sure if I ever gain the courage to pick up Sheldon’s In His Steps, the novel that gave us the question “What Would Jesus Do?” I’ll regret it. I couldn’t make it past chapter one of The Shack. But separating Christian devotion from art sounds post-modern to me in all the wrong ways. What is art if it cannot be pursued as an expression of Christian truth?

I’m not sure he’s actually saying that, because he also says, “As a Christian person, would you not say it’s a joy to follow God? So follow him through your work. Quit telling him where to stand and how to speak.” That’s good. It calls back to moralistic work which may sound Christian while being far from it. That’s not good art.

“Preconceived moralizing jacketed in fiction aims for the head and the heart. If you want to be a good writer, aim elsewhere.” What does that mean? Aim for the spleen? What is good art if it doesn’t move the heart or elevate the affections (thinking of Jonathan Edwards’s language)? What makes the work of Margaret Atwood, Jack Kerouac, Barbara Kingsolver, Haruki Murakami, Annie Proulx, or Salman Rushdie objectively good that he recommends them over Lewis, Chesterton, and O’Connor?

Could it be we’re actually wrestling over cultural respectability — that our work would find approval in the New York Times Review of Books or Harper’s Magazine?

I think art is its own virtue, like planting and tending a tree, and artistic choices are also moral choices. Some choices are going to be more accessible to the public than others. Some will require greater levels of skill to succeed. In all of these choices, the best ones (though maybe not the most popular) will be true, real, and good. Isn’t that what Christian art is all about?

Photo by Peter Ivey-Hansen on Unsplash

Music

Advent Singing: Break Forth, O Beauteous Heav’nly Light

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Advent starts today, and I think my hymn selections this month will lean into Christmas Day songs more than proper Advent songs. I may need to study the subject. The Trinity Hymnal has six hymns under Advent versus thirty-four under Christ’s birth. So, today’s hymn is a gorgeous carol the angel’s announcement and the awesome reality of what happens on Christmas, which is Christ’s first advent.

“Break Forth, O Beauteous Heav’nly Light” was written by Johann von Rist (1607-1667), a Lutheran pastor and prolific hymnist in the Hamburg area, in 1641. This translation comes from Englishman John Troutbeck (1832-1899).

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth (1 John 1:5–6 ESV).

1 Break forth, O beauteous heav’nly light,
and usher in the morning.
O shepherds, shrink not with affright,
but hear the angel’s warning:
this child, now weak in infancy,
our confidence and joy shall be,
the pow’r of Satan breaking,
our peace eternal making.

2 Break forth, O beauteous heav’nly light,
to herald our salvation.
He stoops to earth, the God of might,
our hope and expectation.
He comes in human flesh to dwell,
our God with us, Immanuel,
the night of darkness ending,
our fallen race befriending.