Twilight of Legends (Major Sasuke spoilers!)

I had long looked forward to seeing the 22nd Sasuke competition broadcast on G4TV, and the day finally came today. Sasuke is a Japanese contest called Ninja Warrior in America, in which "one hundred determined athletes have accepted the challenge to become ... Ninja Warrior!" It's an obstacle course that tests the body and the spirit, a true measure of skill and willpower.

As the show progressed, my eagerness changed slowly to disappointment, and then to despair. One by one, my heroes all failed on the first stage, and relative nobodies advanced to the second stage... and then on to the third, and one actually made it to the fourth stage.

My giddiness mounted as an introductory program introduced a new G4 Ninja Challenge winner, David Campbell, a likeable bald guy with a very photogenic way of channeling mystical energies. Then the show announced, to my thrill, that freerunner and promising Ninja Warrior Levi Meeuwenburg would be returning; not only that, he made a one-week tour of Japan before the contest, visiting contest favorites Yamamoto Shingo, Takeda Toshihiro, and the legendary Nagano Makoto. Each of them were glad to welcome him and give him tips, but they were also all humble and encouraging rather than proud. We got to see Takeda's fire station, Yamamoto's gas station, and Nagano's fishing boat as they chatted with Levi and encouraged him. I think it's the humility and team spirit that I welcome so much about the Ninja Warrior All Stars: they all genuinely want everyone to succeed in the challenge. As Levi himself said, to him it's not a contest, it's a team sport.

They also brought back Luci something, who competed in the last Sasuke as well, but, frankly, I don't know why. It's good to have a girl, but she couldn't even compete the mini-Sasuke challenge G4 built in America. If she couldn't beat the practice run, what chance did she have in the real thing?

When the tournament itself started, I was giddy. Then, things started to happen. In a pair of bad signs, Yamamoto Shingo, who competed in every single Sasuke challenge, rising from gas jockey to the manager of three local gas stations in the eleven years of Sasuke, fell when he stumbled unexpectedly dismounted from the mat following the Halfpipe Attack. Then, the heroic Akiyama Kazuhiko, who completed the Fourth Sasuke (one of two men to have completed the challenge), slipped while attempting to climb up the side of the Halfpipe Attack and slid off. Akiyama, a former crab fisherman, was once a top competitor, but a degenerative disease has left him nearly blind. Still, he made it farther than most.

One of the men I was most looking forward to seeing was Yamada Katsumi. A former favorite to win it all, his wife and family left him for his all-out dedication to the contest, which also cost him his job. I used to think he could make it, too, but for years, he has failed to even get past the first stage. This time around, he fell from the Jumping Spider. If there is one person who I wish would make it all the way, I'd choose Yamada, because he's such a tragic figure, a real life Ahab.

Returning American decathlete Paul Terek also failed the Slider Jump, who was the first American to do exceptionally well in Sasuke, having gone to the third stage a few years ago (he's apparently also big in Japan, having won several other athletic game shows). I'm thrilled he tried again, though, and I hope he keeps going.

Then, disaster was compounded by further disaster. Several other favorites fell out with barely a mention. Then, Levi Meeuwenberg himself failed a new obstacle, the Slider Jump. Although five competitors had made it through, they were all relative unknowns, particularly two who were fresh from the Sasuke trials in Japan.

It was time to change pace. It was time for a dragon to spread his wings. It was time for hardened, smiling, tanned fisherman Nagano Makoto. Like a wise sensei, his positive attitude and wisdom, his encouragement and acceptance of all, are inspirational. And he started well, powering through the early parts of the course with no problem.

A calamity shook the heavens and the earth. All sound ceased, and a dragon fell flaming to the ground in an inferno of scorched hopes. Nagano failed to dismount the Slider Jump and splashed into the muddy water below. The great legend himself was humbled, stunned at his own failure. Every one of my favorites was out. I was heartbroken. I lost my composure, yelling, "No!" in disbelief. I wasn't being dramatic; I was genuinely moved.

The rest of the show was fascinating, but for reasons other than what I had hoped. Five newcomers entered the second stage, and, amazingly, four passed. Of the four, one made it through the grueling third stage, beating even Nagano's performance in the previous tournament. Then, he came within seconds of total victory. It seemed for the first thirty seconds of his climb like the humble shoe salesman who failed to qualify for the last two Sasukes would do it, but then he ran out of strength. Although I was hoping he would do it because that's what Nagano would have wanted, I am ashamed to say I'm glad he didn't make it. It shouldn't be so easy.

The show asked an interesting question: does this Sasuke mark the end of the All Star era? We've watched Yamada, Yamamoto, Takeda, Akiyama, and Nagano compete since almost the first. No tournament seems complete without Yamamoto's gas station cap, Takeda's orange fireman trousers, or Nagano's frosted hair and affable smile. But it's been ten years since the tournament started, and it might just be time for the new generation to take over.

Then again, the 19th competition was also a total wash for our favorites, with two no-names slipping through the first stage to wipe out early in the second. In the 21st tournament, Takeda and Nagano put in a fantastic performance, getting the two best results.

Will our heroes learn from their mistakes and come back stronger for one last hurrah? Will the All Stars who haven't succeeded yet have a chance to taste the sweet cup of success that has eluded them for so long? Will Nagano add a second victory to his dragon's hoard? Or, like all things, has the time of these legends ended, and is it time for a new group to rise to glory? I can't imagine now that anyone could take the place of the All Stars in my heart, even if they do take their place on top of the final climb to immortality on Mount Midoriyama. The All Stars are too loveable, too diverse, each with their own legendary stories behind them.

But one day, perhaps a new dragon will take flight.

((PS: It's sad to say, but I was almost as moved by this event as I was by the funeral of a dear friend that I went to over the weekend. There's something epic in Sasuke that I can't explain even in a blog of this length.))

My Newest Fascination

So my good friend has gotten me involved with ficly.com, which is all about writing short stories--VERY short stories. Because they're limited to only 1024 characters (that's like letters, but includes any keystroke), it takes the old excuse of "I don't have time to write a story" and slaps it in the face with a dumptruck. Anyone has time to write 1024 characters. If you have ten minutes, you have time to write a story on ficly.com. It also teaches economy of language, because the writer has to create a character, setting, and plot all in a very limited space. Another interesting dimension of ficly is that anyone can write a 'prequel' or a 'sequel' to any story, so stories become chained together.

I recommend any of you who have an interest in creative writing to check it out. And don't tell me you don't have the time.

James Cameron to Remake Dances With Wolves

((I don't usually complain about things I have next to no idea about, but this really got under my skin. I sat there fuming for half a minute, blinking back tears of hate and dreaming of convoluted vengeance schemes against the whole universe, probably involving the Anti-Life Equation. But then I decided to write a blog instead.))

Not literally remake it, but he is making a video-game-and-movie both called Avatar, which is about a world on which the ignorant, invasive humans clash with the peaceful, nature-loving Na'vi, and a human goes from being part of the oppressive human force to joining up with the locals. If this doesn't sound like a certain Kevin Costner flick, you haven't been paying attention. (It's also the same as The Last Samurai, but Dances With Wolves is the better movie, and I'm standing by that statement.)

To make matters worse, a BBC News story on the movie-and-game quotes a producer: "'Our industry has not created a new universe in 32 years,' said Mr Landau. 'We have now.'"

You can't be serious. I've already played this game. It's called Starcraft, in which the wise and benevolant Protoss come into conflict with the expansionistic, greedy Terrans, and the hero Jim Raynor switches sides when he realizes what a bunch of toads his leaders really are. In fact, when I first saw a vaunted screenshot from Avatar, I had a reaction very similar to that.

"Oh, look. It's a Terran Marine standing next to a Goliath. I guess they're shooting at Zerg."

Now, I'm no scholar, but this is a common storyline--and recognized trope--in science fiction. It appears in Ender's Game and that whole nonsense. It's pretty much the whole film Princess Mononoke. It's even in the first Final Fantasy movie, and you don't want to be associated with that, do you?

And, of course, this goes back at least as far as Gulliver's Travels, in which Gulliver figures out how greedy, corrupt, and cruel humans are and ends up siding with a bunch of super-intelligent horses. And when you'd rather hang out with horses than humans, that's pretty bad.

Dr. Jonathan Swift wants his cut of the profits, Mr. Cameron.

Simple Gifts

I remember learning that song in perhaps third grade and thinking it was remarkably dull. "To turn, turn will be our delight?" Sounds like a bunch of hippies. And hippies are just a step above Wiccans.

Setting aside my burning torch for a while, let's talk shop. People say it's the little things in life that matter. That's not true. It's just that the 'little' things many people overlook are the things that are really the big things. Ever since I was a wee lad, I've had a fanatical devotion to creative writing. Some novels are dearer to me than most people are.

I value reading things written by my friends. Like a child who is given a blank piece of paper by a psychiatrist and some crayons, the blank page shows the soul of the creative writer with clarity not found in anything else. In a piece of creative writing, be it nonfiction, poetry, or fiction, we reveal our inner selves, our longings and our doubts and our terrors. When we create from the heart, our veils are penetrated, and readers nestle into a private nook of our soul. Even more so than in a painting or a sculpture, which is only a snapshot, a piece of creative writing is a world in itself, with its own rules and values. It reveals if the writer is calloused or romantic, cruel or kind, petty or generous.

Flannery O'Connor believed in a just world, one where truly good people are rewarded and the sinful are punished. She then went on to demonstrate how all of her characters were flawed.

Charles Dickens wanted to believe in a happy world that is safe and good, but they always came out flawed.

Courage and loyalty were paramount to Rudyard Kipling.

Of course, you can argue any of those sweeping generalizations, but my point remains: creative writers don't write about the absolute real world, but rather the world as filtered through their hearts. It's the world as they see it, as they hope it is, as they fear it is, as they wish it was, as they are terrified of it becoming.

This is why I value the writing of my friends above almost anything else. In it, I feel like I really get to know the person. It's not just when you hold a person over a volcano (what, you haven't seen Firefly?) that you meet him, but when you read his poetry.

Perhaps a year ago, a good friend of mine gave me a chapbook of his poetry to read and critique. I never did get to critique it, but I read it every now and then, and I am amazed by both the depth of the writing and I feel like I truly meet again a person I only glimpse in 'real life.' Frankly, I feel a little guilty to hold onto this poetry and read it, but that's a part of someone's soul. It's not the kind of thing I can throw away.

Moments like those, like a sunrise over a treasured landscape I'll never see again, are as unforgettable as they are sacred.

(PS Probably fortunately for my digestive system, the bacon did stay green after it sat on the frying pan for a minute, which dissuaded me from chancing it.)

Not an Ideal Circumstance

Just a few minutes ago, I set about making myself something to eat. Not having finished off the bacon I bought maybe a week and a half ago, I took it out of my fridge to find that it had gone green. It didn't smell awful (it didn't really smell at all), so I asked myself just what could have happened to it. Is a week and some in a fridge too much for some slices of dead pig to handle? Even more perplexing, was it still edible despite the color change? I decided to throw some strips on the frying pan to see if they returned to their natural color with a little heat.

You're probably thinking that I'm crazy, and green food is bad for you, but I learned early on that green food isn't so bad. A very sage man named Seuss (he's a Doctor, people!) informed me that eating green eggs and ham isn't injurious to my health; if it was, the little boy could just have said "I will not eat it, Sam-I-Am. I will not eat green eggs and ham, because it could probably kill me, and I don't want to risk it." Instead, the boy provides the much weaker argument that he simply does not like green eggs and ham, suggesting that, apart from taste preferences, green eggs are perfectly safe to eat.

Of course, I came to my senses soon enough and threw out my green bacon, but it did give me pause.

Completely unrelated:

Whenever I write a blog post, I'm filled with blog fever all day and am full of ideas for more blogs. I pass them up, however, not wanting to post more than one a day and make my loyal readers feel overwhelmed. However, after that day has gone by, my ideas and my desire to write about them both seem to go away.

It's like my old rule for writing: if I want to finish writing something, I make sure to write a sentence a day, no matter what. It's a way of tricking myself into writing. If I aim to write a long time, I feel overwhelmed, or I think I don't have the time for it. But if I only set out to write a sentence, I can accomplish that easily and with very little time, but then I'm already writing, so I keep going.

Let that be my advice to you today, writers out there: write a sentence a day.

Perspective

I've been watching a lot of pirated television recently, mostly because I have a lot of time that's not regimented by outside sources that I should be using to write rather than enjoy television that I don't technically have a legal right to be watching--or is it legal to watch but illegal to upload? In any case, it's on YouTube, and if the world's most up-and-coming software giant lets it go (or, in any case, hasn't found it yet), I see it as my Google-given right to enjoy it.

If you're curious about what I'm watching, it's mostly the British car show Top Gear, because I know nothing about cars and can't even drive, but find something hilarious about watching middle-aged English men complaining about cars and each other. Also, the book series I was reading at the time of my last blog entry is The Dresden Files. It's not the greatest writing, but it's a solid Summer page-turner, the chief draw of which, for me, is that the narrator is so sarcastic.

At any rate, as I was watching unhealthy amounts of Top Gear, I came across an episode in which the gang race against a team from a German car show I've never heard of. I watched the episode in English, naturally, but then I decided to watch the German version for a lark. The difference in the focus was obvious: the shows focus on their respective teams. What struck me was that I bought the perspective offered by each show. In the British version, the Top Gear team seemed the way they usually do on their show: fun, enthusiastic, and a little acerbic in their sense of humor. They laugh, they smile, they make fun. The German team seemed like a bunch of Germans complaining, which is something they do with German efficiency. On the German show, however, the German team seemed much more likeable (although they still spent most of their time complaining), and the British team looked arrogant and obnoxious. The point is that I actually found myself rooting for the British team on the Top Gear version and for the German team on their version.

Side-note: on the British show, they made lots of jokes about World War II and its aftermath, even playing up the team showing up to the challenge in Spitfire fighter planes. On the German show, although they showed the Spitfire entrance, neither the team nor the narrator said a thing about it. On the other hand, even the polite Germans couldn't help making cracks about Dunkirk and Arnhem when they were given miniature tanks to play with.

This naturally got me thinking about my own life and opinions. I must admit that most of my opinions were formed not by my independent thinking but by the persuasive charisma of people I have run across, the people I respected and treated as teacher. Now I can't help but wonder if I would believe things completely differently if I had other teachers, not to mention other parents. Would I be riding around in a pickup truck with my hound dog's ears flapping as he puts his head out the window, listening to Country and Western and flying an American flag above the porch of my house? Would I go to church if I had genuinely connected with one of my priests? Would I have majored in something actually useful instead of English, and therefore be working at a solid career instead of sitting in my apartment on a Monday afternoon writing a blog?

Perhaps. But the revelation I've had, or think I've had, is that it's vital for me to examine myself, to weigh for myself what I believe and what I hold most dear, and to determine for myself, not by the influence of others, who I am. Ever since I was in high school, I have defined myself by the reading and (attempted) writing of fiction. Perhaps it's time I had a good long look at that as well. It's not too late to become a theoretical physicist.