Wythnos yn yr Gogledd, Tachwedd 2023

We had another week in North Cymru as a result of a combo of a few days leave, two days off in lieu of a worked weekend, Cathy's birthday, the opportunity to go to a football match in Caernarfon, and the holiday flat we stayed in back in the summer being available (and very reasonable). Unlike my rather frenetic week off in October when we went to DisneyLand Paris which I followed up with an epic quest to Hartlepool, this was a proper relaxing, low voltage week away.

The weather was mixed but pretty good overall. We had a superb, crisp winter sunny day on Anglesey, when we got to visit one of our favourite beaches, Traeth Llanddwyn near Newborough. 

We also got ice cream and sorbet from Red Boat in Beaumaris. I had bara brith ice cream for the first time. It was delicious.

We had a day in Porthmadog, where I got to unexpectedly see a steam train in action. The railway has virtually closed down for the winter, but they had fired up the Double Fairlie to film an advert promoting Wales as a tourist destination. 

I saw Barry Town win with a late goal screamer at Caernarfon Town - and made my debut as a radio commentator for Bro Radio.

We had two trips to the cinema - one to see The Nightmare Before Christmas on its 30th anniversary re-release into cinemas. Cathy and I went to watch it together 28 years ago when it was on it's first UK release (18 months after it hit the screens in America). We also went to see The Marvels at the Galeri Arts Centre in Caernarfon - where the film started at the time advertised without having to sit through the gaudy tedium of multiple adverts. If I get a chance I will blog some thoughts about The Marvels, but to summarise, I'd suggest not bothering unless you have a good grasp of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, although if you like cats you might find it very amusing in its own right. 

We didn't visit any castles this time, although we drove under the watchful gaze of the battlements in both Caernarfon and Conwy. We did find time for a museum though - the Storiel in Bangor. It had several small, contained permanent exhibits and an interesting small temporary exhibition of sleep through the ages. I liked the local angle, including Bangor City FC memorabilia and the chair that Thomas Telford used to sit in when he stayed in a local hotel overseeing construction of the Menai Bridge. 

We even got to drive home via Shrewsbury to see the folks, and chose to drive over the Llanberis Pass. As we topped the pass near the youth hostel, we drove into sunlight. The mountain sides fell away, with the steep valley snaking away to Beddgelert enlivened by sunlight and for a moment it made me catch my breath at how beautiful it looked. It was an emotionally uplifting way to end a lovely week. 

Reflecting on 2021 - films and TV

I saw three films in the cinema this year. They were, in order, In the Heights (which was fantastic - I blogged about it shortly after we saw it), Scoob! and Dune. I was going to write an extended review of the latter, but didn't get round to it in the recent busy weeks. 

Broadly speaking, I thought Dune was an excellent capture of the essence of the book. I realise if someone hadn't read the book then it might be hard to follow. But, you know what, the book was published over 50 years ago so people have had plenty of time to read it. For once it was nice to watch an adaptation that didn't dumb it down for the non-reading masses. My only criticism was that it had a score by Hans Zimmer, whose one trick is big, blaring atonal noises to signify vastness. It could have done with more subtlety, because everything is vast in the Duneiverse so there were lots of atonal blarts throughout the film.

Similarly, Scoob! played to the fans. I especially liked the cameo appearance by Captain Caveman. The little kids who were with us watching the film seemed to like it too. So, all in all, that was a decent film as well. 

We have also seen some new films via the streaming services as well. We watched the new Disney animations Raya and the Last Dragon, Luca, and, on Christmas Eve, Encanto. All of them felt like tick the box Disney stories. None really had anything particularly that stood out. I did laugh at Luca's creepy uncle who lived in the ocean deep and therefore was see-through. 

I think the best new release I saw on a streaming service was Free Guy. There was one scene in particular that really moved me. I blogged about it back in October. 

We also watched the two new Marvel releases, Black Widow and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. They were OK. I don't feel they added much to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), and in the case of Shang-Chi, I was mainly left wondering how many other mythologies being real and hidden worlds within worlds there can be in the Marvel canon.

Turning to TV, though, and there have been four series set in the MCU. I would rank them in order of quality as Loki, WandaVision, Hawkeye, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. All the series are trying to move characters on into the story arc that is taking over from the Avengers story arc of the last 10 years. WandaVision was a tease for the first few episodes, which Cathy found annoying. In a later episode it included a memorable comment about the nature of grief, which prompted me to blog.

Loki was similarly focused and introduced the idea of parallel universes and divergences in timelines. It was quite clever and I enjoyed the other versions of Loki that cropped up. (Aligator Loki being my favourite.) Hawkeye was released in the run up to Christmas and was suitably seasonal. It introduced some new characters, including a villain who may become relevant in the rest of the MCU.

The Falcon series couldn't decide what it wanted to be. Was it a series addressing race issues, or addressing fascist responses to displaced peoples? Were the terrorists the bad guys, or the good guys? Unfortunately I found the terrorist leader to be completely unbelievable as a character and the show itself veered between the peril that the Falcon's family might lose the family fishing boat and shadowy figures manipulating events on a global scale. 

Two series on Netflix that we really liked, Kim's Convenience and Atypical, came to an end this year. Both opted for sweet endings with unresolved storylines left hanging. In Atypical almost all the characters got a happy ending that meant they would be embarking on an adventure somewhere. It was both satisfying but sad that in a way the characters were going off and doing something else and we wouldn't see what would happen to them. That is how life works though, with people moving on and living a life invisible to us. 

We also rewatched a lot of TV. We watched the entire run of Frasier, most of which was still very good, years after it first aired. We watched most of Cheers, which hasn't aged as well. We watched all 8 seasons of Castle, which got a bit wrapped up in its story arcs and then bodged the ending of the final season with a tacked on scene that didn't work. 

Towards the end of the year we started rewatching Futurama. One or two episodes have been uncomfortable to watch, showing how much things have changed in the last 20 years. However, most of the jokes have made me laugh.. for the umpteenth time. And the episode with Fry's dog, well, I knew it was coming, but dammit, I still choked up at the end! 

That's the mark of good telly - that it can still hit you in the feels even though you know it's gonna hit you in the feels. 

I may have jumped the gun on this review as the first episode of The Book of Boba Fett is about to drop on Disney Plus. But I will save that for a future review post.

Mining the myths - modern takes on the Norse pantheon

I've recently finished reading The Gospel of Loki by Joanne Harris, which is one of several books I've read over the past decade that have expanded on Norse mythology. It was a bit strange reading the book concurrently with watching the Marvel series called Loki on Disney Plus. It's a credit to Tom Hiddleston, the eponymous antihero, that I picture him when I'm reading a completely different book about Loki, the Norse god not the Marvel character. 

The other books I've read are Ragnarok by A.S.Byatt, which I blogged about back in 2012, and Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman, which I thought I had blogged about previously, but obviously I didn't get around to it. I'll also chuck in American Gods by Neil Gaiman, which takes members of the Norse pantheon and relocates them to the USA where they struggle to get by on the new continent because of a lack of believers. (I can't locate my copy, which is why it isn't in the picture.)

And then there is the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), which includes the three Thor movies and the six-part Loki series, plus Thor and Loki have key roles in the various Avengers movies. Loki is central to Avengers Assemble as Thanos's agent to steal one of the Infinity Stones while Thor's character development, as he struggles to adjust to life after Asgard and failing to defeat Thanos, is one of the most memorable elements in Avengers Endgame, which capped off the first multi-movie arc of the MCU.

So, a brief synopsis of the source material

Marvel

Thor, Odin, Loki and the other characters from the Norse myths are actually superpowered beings with various magical powers and abilities from a different world or plane of existence (I'm not exactly sure which it is meant to be). In this universe Thor and Loki are brothers, the sons of Odin, except Loki is actually adopted. Although the Thor films are meant to be about Thor, he's a bit of a dull character initially and Loki steals the show. Which is fitting as he is the trickster god. Loki's story continued this year with the release of a six part TV series on Disney Plus, which introduced a range of 'variant' versions of Loki from different timelines, leading into a multiverse scenario that will be the centrepiece of the next phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Myth-mining - borrows names, character traits and some of the mythic storylines, such as the end of the gods at Ragnarok for one of the films, and recasts them within a science fiction comic book universe. If there was anyone who took the mythos seriously, Marvel would be getting complaints about cultural appropriation.

The Gospel of Loki

This retells the various Norse myths from the perspective of Loki who is, as expected, an unreliable, dishonest narrator who blatantly positions himself as the wronged victim. The various gods are portrayed as clueless and vain, obsessed with power and prestige and unwilling to share their wealth with anyone else. There is some depth to the world that Joanne Harris creates, with runes carrying magic and therefore being the tools by which the gods can create and some other contemporary touches to how the characters interact. 

Myth-mining - this stays relatively true to the source material, injecting humour into the stories as Loki tries to explain his mischief was actually quite funny, if only the other gods were intelligent enough to get the jokes. 

Neil Gaiman's books

Norse Mythology is a fairly straight retelling of the Norse myths in contemporary English. It does exactly what it says on the cover. I found it a dull read, which surprised me because Gaiman's work is usually anything but dull. American Gods meanwhile, has versions of the Norse gods seeking to establish themselves in America, against the tidal wave of new gods being created in American culture. Within this framework, Odin is a wily conman, Loki is a similarly shifty lowlife, Thor has committed suicide and Baldur has forgotten who he is. Other gods from other old world mythologies are also surviving in the shadows of the new American cities, imported to the new world with their believers who emigrated there (or were taken against their will). The Norse gods are the old world gods who have been there the longest, arriving with the Viking adventurers that discovered Vinland and then clinging on in a liminal existence ever since. The book concludes with an epic battle between the old world gods and the American gods.

Myth-mining - As a straight retelling, Norse Mythology is as close to pure Norse myth as could be imagined. American Gods, however, develops the characters in unusual ways but with a solid basis in the original myths - Norse, African, Egyptian, Eastern European and others. 

Ragnarok

The premise of this book is someone writing about how they discovered the Norse myths and how those myths got them through tough times as a child, when they thought the world was ending. It was a very clever vehicle for retelling the myths and exploring their psychological impact and appeal. There is also an essay in the book that tries to draw some life lessons from the stories and make them relevant to current issues, particularly drawing a parallel between the impending doom of Ragnarok, that the gods knew was imminent yet were powerless to prevent, and the damage being caused to the world's climate that similarly seems to have powerful people acting obliviously and ignoring the predictions of catastrophe. That really stuck with me as an illustration. 

Myth-mining - The stories are retold faithfully, while intertwined with original material, which helps make them more real and important. 

The conclusion

I don't think it's coincidental that these writers and creatives are drawn to using these myths in their own work. The stories of the Norse gods are stories about how wielding power contains within it self-destruction, how trying too hard to preserve something hastens its loss, and how actions that seemed like a good idea at the time often have unintended consequences. The gods respond to the threat of Fenrir, the wolf destined to swallow the moon, and seek to neutralise the threat, which only drives Fenrir further down a path of madness and destruction. Odin hoards knowledge, worried what will happen if it gets into the wrong hands, only to find that the other gods embark on courses of action that are damaging anyway. 

These are all powerful, seminal themes. Love, hate, pride, ignorance, valour, courage, selfishness, heroism, nihilism, betrayal, honesty, and many more very human traits. The "gods" in this fiction are just humans writ large, which is why we can learn from them. That's probably why these story-tellers feel it is worth retelling these tales. 

February 2021 End of Month Review

February seemed to go by quickly. We are now one sixth the way through 2021. Even in lockdown stuff happens, so I thought I would do another monthly round up.

I joined up with some friends via Zoom to watch the Superbowl. It was especially important this year because the team my friend Bryan supports, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, were in the Superbowl. He was a lot more nervous about the game than the rest of us. But the Bucs won comfortably. 

We had some extremely cold weather and even a bit of snow. That made staying indoors to observe the lockdown rules a bit easier - nobody wanted to be out in the bitter cold. 

At the beginning of the month, I had a surprise. A cuddly bat arrived in the post. 

Cathy had arranged an animal sponsorship with the Cuan Wildlife Rescue Centre in Shropshire. Several years ago we took a poorly hedgehog that we found in my brother's back garden to their centre and I have followed them on social media ever since. They do fantastic work caring for injured wild animals and successfully release most of them after nursing them back to health. 

This year for Valentines Day we decided to buy ourselves a big Lego set and build it together. We both wanted to build the Medieval Blacksmith set, so spent most of the day doing that. It was great fun. The finished article now has pride of place in our dining room. 

The build is full of quirky little details. One of my favourite bits was the brick-built bearskin rug.

I had a week off work, which was every inch the staycation. I had a steroid injection in my frozen shoulder so I had to stay indoors for three days. I used the time productively and caught up on several movies from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). I watched the three Thor movies in quick succession. One thing I like about the MCU are the little cameos between the films. There is a funny Captain America cameo in the second Thor film, and a great scene with Doctor Strange in the third one. 

Now that the Mandalorian has finished, Disney Plus have been releasing a replacement marquee television series in WandaVision, which is set in the MCU. We have been tuning in every week. Having the time to watch all the films again has been really useful for me to understand the TV series a bit better. I blogged about how it offered a surprisngly mature viewpoint on grief in one of the later episodes.

In terms of other achievements, I read a book for the first time in months.

It was more like a pamphlet really, but it made me think, so that was good. I blogged about it here.

On my baseball card blog, I reached the milestone of my 600th card featuring Tony Gwynn and also received my first Tony Gwynn card released in 2021. My collection was also featured in a guest post on the blog Baseball Fans Only. In another milestone, Twitter reminded me that it was my tenth Twitterversary this month.

And in exciting consumer news, we finally found the newly-launched McVities cherry Jaffa Cakes on sale. They have been sampled!

WandaVision provides a beautiful perspective on grief

Warning: Mild Spoilers below the picture of Vision

We have been watching WandaVision, the new Marvel series extending the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) that is exclusive to Disney Plus. The series is trying to unravel a mystery concerning Wanda Maximoff who was introduced to the MCU in the film Avengers: Age of Ultron and the sentient humanoid machine Vision, who was also introduced in Age of Ultron and was killed by Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War. 

Wanda and Vision had developed a relationship in those movies. In this TV series, Wanda and Vision are back together, recreating family life in various sitcom scenarios set in classic templates from sitcoms in various decades. The mystery is how this could have happened as Vision was dead, and Wanda had been absent for five years after the events of Avengers: Infinity War.

It's a very well-made series and I've been able to follow it despite not really knowing anything about the characters from their long-established histories in comics. However, I have been catching up on the MCU since starting to watch WandaVision. I had a week off work in February and watched Age of Ultron and the 3 Thor movies. Since then I have also watched Captain America:Civil War, Black Panther and Avengers:Infinity War.

Watching those films together really helps with the wider picture. I didn't remember how much Wanda and Vision featured in Captain America:Civil War, or how that film also operated as a prequel for Black Panther. Seeing the Wanda and Vision story arc across Age of Ultron - Civil War - Infinity War has really added to my enjoyment of the show. 

But the reason I'm writing about it is because of a line in the most recent episode, which was released on Friday - Episode 8.

In Episode 8 there is a flashback scene where Vision talks to Wanda about the loss of her brother. He is trying to understand the emotions she is feeling. 

Wanda explains that is feels like wave after wave comes crashing over her and she doesn't know if she can keep standing while they hit. Vision says that she will and then explained why with one of the most lovely descriptions of grief I've ever heard. He says

"But what is grief, if not love, persevering?"

That was one of those pieces of dialogue that really struck home with me. The Marvel writers have form for this. Eric Killmonger's defiant dying words in Black Panther is another such moment, and I have blogged before about the underlying theological implications of the depiction of deicide in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. 

This line took me unawares because in the last few weeks I have really been missing my Dad. I have been sorting out my stamp collection ahead of a presentation I am doing in a few weeks time and as I went through a small box of material that needs sorting I found a little trove of stuff that Dad gave me, complete with a data-packed note of where he had acquired the items 

There are no hard and fast rules about what triggers a little wave of grief and a renewed sense of loss. But it is comforting to think that those feelings are rooted in love more than anything else. Dad wrote those notes to accompany the things he gave me because he loved me. And I feel the way I do when I read them because I still love him. That is one of the hallmarks of love - that it perseveres. It is "stronger than death" as Song of Songs puts it. 

And my grief is love, persevering.