I watched Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog and The Dark Knight on the weekend. Both were excellent, though I felt the ending of TDK was a bit more satisfying. TDK has been reviewed on many other blogs, so I probably won’t be posting a full review here. I will say that I liked the movie a lot and feel it’s a good companion piece to Batman Begins. I liked that although TDK is a Batman movie, and Batman is in it, he is but one of many players. I was surprised, in a good way, by how much screentime the supporting cast received. With its view of the inner workings of organized crime, the mayor’s and district attorney’s offices, it really gave the film a feeling of an epic crime story. Like Heat if it took place in Gotham City.

Here are some other things I liked (possible spoilers):

1. Using the same director/actors/crew/etc. gave the film a definitely feeling of And now the second chapter of Batman…. Even the way they saved the title and credits until the end of the film.

2. I liked that even though they explained Batman’s origins in Batman Begins, they didn’t immediately jump ahead to the current, more established version in this movie. I’m guessing TDK takes place between six months to a year after the events in BB, and it shows in the fact that Scarecrow is still running around (a nice little cameo by Cillian Murphy), and Batman is still wearing his Version 1.0 armor, driving the Tumbler, etc.

3. The Bat-Pod. Our theatre was packed with people who had some serious Batman fever. The moment the Bat-Pod came shooting out of the wreck of the Tumbler, people were applauding! They applauded again later when Gordon turned out to be alive, and then saved Batman’s life. (Great line from the Joker, too, holding a knife over an unconscious Batman: “Can you give me just one minute?”)

4. Heath Ledger as The Joker. What else needs to be said? Everything about his performance was great. Great intro (that opening laugh, the disappearing pencil, “I’m not crazy. I’m *not* crazy”), great make-up, great upside down conversation with Batman at the end. “You won’t kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness, and I won’t kill you because… you’re just too much fun.”

5. The ending. Even though Batman has a working relationship with Commissioner Gordon and the Gotham police, I’ve never really thought of him as a superhero in the strictest sense. I liked Gordon explaining to his son at the end of the film why Batman is running away: “Because we’ll have to chase him.” Then going on to explain the difference between a “hero” and a “dark knight.” I wasn’t expecting it, and it was nice touch, showing that after all the hell the Joker raised things will not be going back to normal any time soon in Gotham City.

Sure, it’s a dark ending, but then it is The Dark Knight.

This may not seem writing-related, but it actually does have some bearing on my novel, which I’m really due to talk about sometime on this website.

Until then, Happy Nuke Day!

COUSIN VICKI: I’m going steady. And I french kiss.

AUDREY: So? Everybody does that.

COUSIN VICKI: Yeah, but Daddy says I’m the best at it.

Snap!

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a new John Hughes movie, and while I don’t know what he’s been doing with all of his time, I can tell you he has a short story called “Vacation ‘58″ in the latest issue of Zoetrope: All-Story. It’s not a new story, but rather a reprint that originally appeared in National Lampoon, and was purchased on publication by Warner Bros. and turned into the first of the Vacation movies. Hughes wrote the screenplay, although he had never even seen one before, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The story has a pretty funny opening line: “If Dad hadn’t shot Walt Disney in the leg, it would have been our best vacation ever!”

This issue of Zoetrope has a couple of other excellent stories — “The Invisibles,” by Marissa Perry, and “A Small Haunting,” by Shaena Lambert. Check it out.

Over the years Ash-Tree has put out a number of excellent anthologies, like Acquainted With The Night and At Ease With The Dead, and I’m very excited to have one of my stories in their next collection.

I haven’t received my contributors’ copies yet, but the site has the table of contents listed. My entry says: Tad ja valepeikko Ian Rogers, suom. Hanna Sund.

I’m guessing “suom.” means “translated,” and that Hanna Sund is the one who did the work. As for the title, Tad is the name of the boy in the story, and “ja valepeikko” means “and” something. The Finnish-English dictionary I found online couldn’t translated “valepeikko,” but I’m guessing it’s Finnish for “demon” or some variation on “tattletail,” which of course was my own take on “tattletale.”

Either way it’s pretty cool to see one of my stories published in another language.

Update: My friend Steve contacted me on Facebook and told me the following:

Hey Ian, “Suomi” is “Finnish” (the language), so suom probably means (as you guessed) “made finnish by.”

So valepeikko means lying troll or pseudotroll (and I’m sure may have other intricate understandings in Finnish that an online dictionary can’t answer).

“Tad and the Lying Troll.” I like it! Thanks, Steve!

We had to watch the movie early, and eat dinner early, because the family is swooping in for the big baby fest that is taking place this weekend. It’s a short visit, because Kat’s brother and his wife are actually here for a wedding, or something. I really dig being an uncle, but a baby is a baby and I’ll get my fill after about twenty minutes. Give the kid four or five years to start talking and developing a personality and then I’ll actually be interested. Until then, she’s a conversation piece, a goad for the rest of the sibs to start gestating, and a reminder to Kat and me that even if we don’t have kids, we’ll more than get our fill from the rest of the brood. Still, she’s a cute kid and I’m looking forward to seeing her.

I mentioned once that friends of Kathryn’s parents made me a bbq apron, since they know that I don’t wander far from the grill during the summer months. Since we bought a new one recently, and since the strike and the sick cat have pretty much squashed any plans we had to go away this summer, it’s getting a lot of use these days. Anyway, I know you’re all dying to see the apron, so here’s a pic:

Not much to report on the writing front, but I do have a couple of interesting links to share.

Why Sarah Langan Writes Horror

Tom English talks about editing the mammoth Books Gone Bad anthology

This weekend I’m planning to upload a bunch of new photos to my photography website. If you haven’t checked it out yet, you might want to swing by onemoreshadow.com and check it out.

The day continued quietly until I made the mistake of checking my e-mail, something I’ve been able to do less frequently now that I’m working on my novel. I got one from Google saying they were going to remove my website from their listings if I didn’t do something about all the spam on my website. Bah? I said. I went and checked the link they specified, looked deep into the not-at-all-interesting source code, and found that I was indeed host to some sort of spam infection.

I’m not sure if it’s because I hadn’t upgraded to a newer version of Wordpress in awhile or if it was something on my webhosting end, but after some slightly panicked running around, I was able to confirm that it was indeed my blog infected and nothing else, and that the bot or the worm or whatever wasn’t in my database files. So I upgraded my Wordpress, uploaded my backup copy of the “Blackwood” skin that makes the site look all dark and Blair Witchy, and now everything seems to be clean and Viagra-ad free. No, it doesn’t exactly make me Batman, but then again, I don’t know a lot of other authors with websites who could fix something like this themselves. Usually they have to go to…. well, someone like me. Batman.

I spent the rest of the day watching movies, Glengarry Glen Ross and Casino, and starting a new book, one I’ve been meaning to read for awhile. It’s called Pontypool Changes Everything, and I can think of three good reasons why you should all read it.

1. It’s one of those truly rare creatures: a Canadian genre novel that looks like a literary novel that looks like a genre novel. Confused? Wait till you read the book.

2. It’s being made into a movie, Pontypool, by Bruce McDonald.

3. It takes place in Pontypool, Ontario, which is about thirty minutes from where I live, and it’s about a zombie-virus spread through the English language. Come on! Now that’s a twist on all the zombie crap that actually sounds interesting!

Speaking of groovy books, my wife finished reading The Ruins yesterday, and means we can now watch the movie, which just came out on DVD. I remember it got pretty good reviews when it was in the theatre, so I’m looking forward to seeing it. I’ve also got Jumper, Vantage Point, and Batman: Gotham Knight to watch.

In other news, I received an e-mail from an editor telling me that one of my stories has made it to the final reading pool or level or whatever. I mention this only because it’s the third or fourth such notice I’ve received in the last month or two. I’m a bit torn as to whether or not I like knowing this much about the selection process. I can understand why the editors want to tell you, especially if you’ve been wanting a long time for a response. It’s nice to know you made it far even if you didn’t make a sale. But on the other hand it’s a bit of a tease, a dangling of the steak only to pull it away. Of course, I know the editors aren’t doing it deliberately, and all things considered I’d probably rather know that I came close than be left in the dark as to whether or not they like my stuff. I guess I can take some satisfaction in knowing that the mags that have sent these notices are ones that have rejected me without fanfare in the past. So I guess that means I’m doing something right.

I also forgot to mention that I uploaded the new issue of ChiZine last week. Once again, the writers deserve all the credit for the stories and poems, but let’s face it, without webslingers like me, their work would be fragmenting on their hard drives! Fragmenting, I tell you! Fraggggmenting! Cue that evil laughter, would you, Thor?

On the subject of websites, I redesigned my splash page on the weekend, sticking with my monochrome woods theme which I dig quite a bit.

In family news, my parents are off to Nova Scotia, Dave and Ronna and my niece Lauryn are in town, and my brother-in-law Stephen severed his Achilles tendon playing baseball. Not stretched, not torn — severed. Apparently he was in quite a bit of pain, and was already whisked into surgery by the time we heard about it. He’s doing much better now, thanks in large part to the drugs having not yet worn off. He’ll be in a cast for some time, can’t put weight on the foot for the first two weeks, and all kinds of other gruelling and no doubt annoying limitations for the next year or so. It really sucks for them because within the next couple of months they are moving to a new farm and having a baby. I’m not sure if that’s just bad luck or the Bermuda Triangle of country living. I’ll be sure to let you know, and take some pictures.

MD is a attractive spec fic magazine with a strong emphasis on artwork. Take a look at their website for a preview of their latest issue and you’ll see what I mean.

I can’t wait to see what they come up with for my story, which will be out sometime in early 2009.

Some of you already know part of this story, either because you’ve asked me straight-up if I’m related to those Rogerses, but the majority of the visitors to this site probably don’t know that the Rogers have a bit of a legacy in Canada.

My family history starts most prominently in 1635 when James Rogers and his wife Elizabeth arrived in New England as one of the passengers of the ship Increase. Settling in the Connecticut town of New London, the couple raised a bunch of kids, among them two sons, John and James, Jr., who would go on to develop their own religion, an off-shoot of the one practised by Seventh Day (Sabbatarian) Baptists in the 660’s. Among their beliefs they rejected infant baptism and Sunday worship (opting to hold their own services on Saturday). This brought them into conflict with civil and church authorities, and in 1677 John, Jr. (son of John Rogers and his religious successor) added some Quaker beliefs to their new religion and renounced medicine in favour of faith healing. He and his followers called themselves Rogerenes. Apparently the wealth and social status of the Rogerses, along with the aggressive manner in which they promoted Rogerene teachings, earned them many long years of persecution in the form of fines, public flogging, jail terms, and confiscation of property by the state. The religion never caught on, but I still like to think of John and James, Jr. as the first truly creative member of the Rogers clan. (It’s also worth noting that history records James, Jr. and the Rogerenes as one of the earliest activists for the separation of church and state in America.)

The war between the Colonies and England drove the Rogerses north to Canada. Like a lot of settlers, they didn’t want to fight against their motherland, but they didn’t want to go back to England, either. The settlers who migrated from New England to Nova Scotia were called Planters, because they were made up mostly of farmers, fishermen, and traders.

Although not technically a Rogers, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my great-great Grandfather, Sir Charles Tupper, who was not only Prime Minster of Canada but also a father of Confederation. He is also the subject of a piece of trivia that I read in today’s Canada Day Quiz in the Peterborough Examiner:

7. This prime minster held office for the shortest term in Canadian history.

a) Sir Charles Tupper
b) John Turner
c) Kim Campbell
d) Joe Clark

Yes, folks, it’s true. Sir Charles was the prime minster with the shortest term of office; and in at least one history text book, he is referred to as “Canada’s Bill Clinton,” due to his well-publicized extramarital peccadilloes. Ahh, genealogy.

My father’s parents, Sheldon and Margaret Rogers, served in the Royal Canada Air Force during World War II. My grandfather and his brother Dougie were at Juno on D-Day. After the war, my grandparents ended up settling in Oxford, Nova Scotia (wild blueberry capital of Canada!) with their three sons, Ian (the oldest and my father), Lorne, and Bradley. They lived in a house next to the Trans-Canada Highway where my uncle Lorne lives today with his wife and two sons. Bradley, a talented artist, lives on the other side of town.

The family also spent some time at the Ramstein military base in Germany. My father, who was seventeen or eighteen at the time, didn’t like being an army brat and decided to join the Coast Guard (lying about his age in order to do so). He stayed in the Coast Guard for two years, long enough to visit the North Pole (I’ve seen the certificate — which you apparently receive for going to the North Pole — and the photos of a very young Ian Rogers, Sr. being initiated by his crewmates, which involved shaving his head and getting tarred and feather), before going back to Nova Scotia. He spent a couple of years working at Tip Top Tailors in Halifax until receiving his acceptance into the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and he spent the next thirty years as a constable in Ontario, where he married my mother and had two kids, yours truly and my sister Jennifer.

Which brings us to the present-day Rogerses, the most popular one of note is my father’s cousin, Stan Rogers, a popular folk musician who died at the height of his career in 1983. To this day there is an annual Stan Rogers music festival in Nova Scotia, which my wife and I missed by about a week when we went to the East Coast for our honeymoon. It would have been nice to have been there and connect with a portion of my family that I never got to know very well.

The Rogers family over the years has included some fairly interesting characters: religious upstarts, historic political figures, famous musicians. The way I see it, we’re due for a successful author.

Most of the information listed here can be found at Wikipedia or in the book Windham Hill is Home: A Rogers Genealogy, by Alice Rogers Nieman. And for the record, some Rogers I’m not related to: Ted Rogers, Mr. Rogers (he of the neighbourhood and sweater-vest), the sugar baron Rogerses of the West Coast, or Buck Rogers. Sorry, guys.

I’d also be a lousy husband if I didn’t mention that it was on this day three years ago at Cape Spear in Newfoundland that I asked Kathryn to marry me. Then, after asking a few more times, and after some crying on my part, and after a couple of cheques cleared, she said yes!