monday-mashup

Today, being a holiday, did not feel much like a Monday. Ooops. Anyhow, I’m going to steal a mashup from Jere today. He says he’s seen a lot of campaigns that draw from T.S. Eliot’s " The Waste Land." I’ve never been lucky enough for that, although I did once play a paladin who drew religious inspiration from an old battered copy of Selected Poems. (Eric Hargan’s Catholicworld campaign. Eric is now writing policy studies for the Federalist Society, among other lawyerly pursuits.) But I risk digressing into the treacherous political waters so evident in my previous post. Ladies and gentlemen, it is not yet April; it is not yet the cruellest month. Still, we may still breed lilacs before their time is come.

I promised the Lensman series, and thus the Lensman series will be mashed. Onwards, stalwart companions! If you haven’t read the Lensman books, you should. They are a fundamental part of science fiction history; get past the sexism and you’ll find a surprisingly liberal — even radical — set of ideals. Particularly in Children of the Lens. You’ll also find big explosions, and everyone likes big explosions.

Since Godzilla (Quicktime trailer) is being re-released in the United States in the original version, I figure it’s a good time to mashup that very movie. The scoop on all things Godzilla (original) is long and intricate; feel free to draw from any element of the mythos.

One tough cop. One tough killer. Ten thousand mashups. Hard Boiled. Gotta be one of the best action movies of all time. Tequila is the cop who accidentally killed an undercover cop and is wracked with guilt. Tony is another undercover cop who is torn between honor and duty. They team up to take down a gunrunner. Action sequences of rare and surpassing excitement, many of them set in a hospital, ensue. Before I get into my concoction, a free offer (sounds better than a request): if you have subjects you’d like to see mashed up, by all means email me or post ‘em here. My choices are always shaped by my preferences and prejudices, which hardly seems fair. Confound and delight me.

Time for mashup number twenty-six. Hey, that’s half a year! Not too bad. Our subject today is the classic Jules Verne novel Around the World in 80 Days (original). It’s your basic travelogue in fictional form, with the added excitement of (unjust) pursuit by the law. Phileas Fogg, accompanied by his faithful servant Passepartout, must transnavigate the globe in 80 days to win a fairly sizable bet. That provides the essential aspect of time pressure. Everything else is just trouble along the way, with Detective Fix as a secondary plot backbone. Mr. Phileas Fogg lived, in 1872, at No. 7, Saville Row, Burlington Gardens, the house in which Sheridan died in 1814. He was one of the most noticeable members of the Reform Club, though he seemed always to avoid attracting attention; an enigmatical personage, about whom little was known, except that he was a polished man of the world. People said that he resembled Byron—at least that his head was Byronic; but he was a bearded, tranquil Byron, who might live on a thousand years without growing old.

Monday Mashup number 25 is late; I just noticed that I hadn’t posted it from last night. Ooops. Well, here you go anyhow. Today’s ingredient is the musical Chicago. I’m assuming the Catherine-Zeta Jones version, but any version is good. It’s glitz, it’s glamour, it’s crime, it’s the desirability of fame. In particular that last. The musical aspect is certainly optional, and when I say “optional” I mean “I’ll be really impressed if anyone manages to work it in.” Kitchen Stadium is open. Start your mashups.

In honor of the kickoff of the 2004 political season, today’s mashup will be based on the Iowa caucuses, which are exceedingly rich soil in which to plant a campaign seed. You’ve got the obvious basic storyline of selecting a leader in the middle of political intrigue. You’ve got the way the caucuses work; they’re not actually an election. You’ve got the current sitaution, in which the political outsider (Dean) surged against the consummate veteran (Gephardt) until at the very last minute the other veteran (Kerry) takes the unexpected lead — and the other young guy (Edwards) is surging as well. You’ve got Iowa, a state most people ignore except every four years. Fun stuff. Mashers, start your ethanol-fuelled engines!

Today we’re gonna mashup Robin Hood. Yeah, there’s a thematic link to last week’s mashup there; it must be the long winter nights getting to me. The core of it all is the old steal from the rich, give to the poor thing — and from there on in it’s all about the variations. Merry Men, Maid Marian, kings away at the wars: what’s not to like? A tip of the hat to GURPS Robin Hood seems in order as well. Oh, and a reminder: there’s a mailing list for the weekly announcement of this writing meme and Game WISH. It’s free, and who doesn’t like free? Now, on to the mashup.

For our pleasantly palindromic mashup number 22, we’ll keep on plumbing the depths (or heights) of the 80s with The Lost Boys, the second best vampire movie of 1987. (The best one will no doubt turn up in this meme at a later date.) The setup is nice and simple; a normal family moves someplace and finds an evil both ancient and tempting. There’s not a lot of vampiric angst, although there’s a smidgen of romantic angst, but really it’s an action flick with fangs. Trivia du jour: that railway trestle is something like six feet or so above the earth. Camera angles can work marvels. On with the mashup.

“Why is there a Mashup there?” “I’ll tell you later.” This entry, by the by, will probably not become a googlewhack (original), but only cause all of you are gonna use “Buckaroo” and “mashup” on your pages. C’est la vie. Where was I… ah, yes. Mashup #21 is Buckaroo Banzai, goofy flagbearer of 80s sci-fi pulp. All the men want to be Buckaroo Banzai, and all the women want to look at him misty-eyed across the floor of Artie’s Artery. The movie is really a revamp of Doc Savage; you’ve got the mysterious ultra-competent leader and his henchmen, each of whom has a different specialty. If you dial down and focus on the movie’s plot, you’ve got a fairly standard alien invasion plot mixed with a kind of a pod people riff and some multiple dimension stuff which doesn’t entirely matter. More important, though, is the deranged hipness which permeates the entire thing. You could say that Buckaroo Banzai is a mashup itself: Doc Savage plus 80s style. You wouldn’t be far wrong.