Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Discussion of Gojira's "Dawn"

With the birds singing at the beginning of it i just imagine an empty field sided by men stringing their bows, and a bunch of dumb sparrows blissfully unaware of the carnage about to unfold.

Rather than dumb sparrows, I interpret them to be the lesser brothers of the massive and improbable bird that hurtles downward from far above them. This creature, or construct, or abomination - this phenomenon of imagination - is composed of flesh made metal and metal made flesh, clockwork and feathers and bellows and lungs all heated to a sullen glow, a meteor shedding altitude for speed. 

The sparrows chirp lightly in recognition as the fallen satellite hits the ground just before unfurling it's wings - it is here that the listener realizes that this bird is meant to fly in thicker skies than those we know. The deepest troughs of our atmosphere are hard and featureless vacuum to this thing. It flies instead under the surface of the Earth, skipping and gliding along the thermals of the mantle, spinning and diving through magma and diamond alike, then climbing from time to time to broach the enamel-thin surface of our world.  It erupts from below in gouts of pulverized granite and feldspar, basking in near-silence before plunging back into the crust. 

But then, around 3:45 in the playback, something goes dreadfully wrong. Whether the earthbird is damaged or ill is unknown. But the rhythm of its wings is altered, and not for the better. Was it shot by some wary guardsman as it toyed with the surface world?  Are there predators lurking in the stony fathoms below? Or was this no more than the aging of a plaything put to use more rigorous than it could sustain?  No matter, for now there is a battle afoot. 

The battle is fought heartbeat by stuttering heartbeat, the bird swooping core-ward and back, perhaps seeking to fuse its broken parts in the heat of Earth's molten womb. But the mending is imperfect. And now the crippled beast must fight more furiously through the crushing strata.

Fight it does. And though the song ends, the listener knows that this combat will continue until the core grinds to a halt, solidifying in the final inevitable chill. 

Chirpity-chirp.




--Benny Snaxxx

--Steve Kilian

Monday, August 27, 2012

Steve Helps Me With My Script

Editor's note: I'm currently co-writing the script for a musical about campaign financing. Ran what we've got by some friends and Steve suggested the following musical number.

Senator Strombach's chest explodes as an interdimensional rift opens and allows a giant claw to erupt from his sternum.


SENATOR STROMBACH

A claw!

A claw!

From my chest has burst a clapping snapping claw!

It rips and tears and makes of meat a fleshy slaw!

A claw!

A CLAAAAAW!


IMPERIAL MARINE

Bring to me my gun

Not the small but the larger one

Make sure it's full of ammuniti-on

I must defend this plane – the only human one


SCIENTIST

What's that you say?  Perhaps you're right!

My focus on this item has blinded larger sight

Humans only exist in this single universe

To think anything else would simply be perverse!

And if we are truly utterly alone

Then it's OK to do the thing I thought should never be done

So fire it up! Release the beast!

I'll get the Medal of Honor or a Nobel Prize at least

The time has come!

Engaaaaaage

Engaaaaaaaaaage

Engaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaage

The Vorticolion Deviiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice!


CHOIR

Vorticolion Deviiiiiiiice!

Zzzzcrkkkaaaaakkle

Zzzzcrkkkaaaaakkle

Zzzzcrkkkaaaaakkle

Zzzzcrkkkaaaaakkle

KABOOM!


I am so fucking good at this!  Really, this is so easy I don't see why you need any help.  But if need be I'm here.

--Steve Kilian
Escalation

The Equation

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Fireball


He wrapped the bandages tightly around the fingertips of his left hand.  Burnt blood flaked away and and the thumbnail had come clean off.  Pus was building up under scorched nailbed.  His entire forearm throbbed with each heartbeat.

He'd never had much luck with incendiary work.  Yes, he had spoken the words of invocation correctly.  Yes, sheets of flame had leapt from his outstretched hand.  And yes, enough of the band of Gorlians had been incinerated so that the others could mop up the rest with hatchet and sword.  But he'd lost his second-favorite thumbnail in the process and would have to put on his robe one-handed for a week.

This is what he got for not sticking to his sphere of specialization.  Wind and water, clouds and rain – he was a weatherworker at heart.  But calling down lightning is a tricky proposition at best, more so when half of your comrades are armored from tip to toe.  Underground it was out of the question.  The thought of it reminded him of the booth at the harvest fair where men tried to drop a penny into a thimble at the bottom of a bucket of water.  There was no way of knowing how lightning would fork through the earth, no matter how much effort you put into it.

So it was pyrotechnics.  Fireballs, walls of fire, disembodied fists of flame, etc., etc.  Each one with its nasty aftereffects.  He'd barely grown back his eyelashes after he'd cast Searing Gaze of Forlank the Lesser.  But that's what you get when you pledge your staff to a bunch of graverobbers.
--Steve Kilian
Screenplay For William Shatner and Christopher Walken Consisting Only of Pauses

+2 Arrow

Monday, August 20, 2012

Long Lay We


Long lay we under silt and sediment


Waiting out the tides'


Scraping of the shoreline cliffs


Which split and revealed


Our monumental bones,


Sitting up under the new sun,


Shaking off eons of dust


Rising to greet a world


Ripe again for conquest.



--Steve Kilian
Letter To Liam Neeson

Screenplay For William Shatner and Christopher Walken Consisting Only of Pauses

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

The Clock, The End of Dying

The hour hand of the clock was a scarred battle-axe, the cutting blade chipped and pitted, the butt cracked through to the haft. It was topped with a bent spike that scraped the clockface as it made its tortured way around the wheel of the day. The minute hand was the remains of a sword, rust and long-dead barnacles all but completely obscuring what it had once been, pommel and guard nothing more than a gesture of girth at one end. It gave the impression of something that had been recovered from a shipwreck only to be promptly forgotten, buried for a few decades, and then pulled from the earth and put to makeshift use in the timepiece. It marked the minutes, nothing more. The second hand, however, was a masterwork: a keen-edged scythe honed to a shine along the blade, the haft made from peeled oak that looked to have been grown for its purpose. Through some hidden reservoir or more arcane method, the blade was slick with black fluid, scattering droplets as it whirled its way through the minutes. The death-blade was the quickest and smoothest in its relentless motion.


The alchemist reached down and grabbed the second-hand just below its dripping blade. The mechanism of the clock groaned and creaked, water spilling from buckets held too long in one place. "This must stop," he said. And began his great work.

--Steve Kilian
Zombie Octopus Island II

Obama Jokes