Drink Tank 287

8/6/2019 Drink Tank 287

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/drink-tank-287 1/13

8/6/2019 Drink Tank 287


Welcome to another Drink Tank and thereturn to the 52 Weeks to Science Fiction FilmLiteracy program! I’m always happy to be back at my work and I really loved the movie that I’llbe talking about. I was working on the Hugo forBest Novel issue (which I really liked!) and thenon Westercon and other stuff.

Oh Yeah, Westercon. Let me start by say-ing AWESOME! It was a really good time, eventhough I wasn’t staying at the hotel and had totrek in and out most nights. It was still a greattime, especially running the fanzine lounge. Ibrought a ton of the zine collections and MoStarkey (who did this issue’s cover) brought abunch of her art and I was so happy to get toshow it off. We had a lot of great conversation(including one with Leigh Ann, Espana and Un-woman that was endlessly awesome) and I hadhad the aforementioned Unwoman playing inthe Lounge on Saturday. She was so good, evenplaying in front of about 20 people, she puts ona helluva show. I’ve seen her playing in front of hundreds of people and in front of a dozen andshe always puts out the big effort.

You might remember that I had a lovelymoment at the last Westercon I made it to, the

one in Vegas, where Bill Mills played Rocket Manfor me in a rotunda with only Roxanne Mills alongfor the ride. This time, it was Unwoman playingpiano and singing for me and two or three oth-ers. She played a song from V For Vendetta that just blew me away. She was great and an absolutehighlight for me for Westercon 64.

The big news for many was what I calledthe SMoFpocalypse!!!!! It all started with Kevinand Andy starting a hoax bid to bring Westercon

66 in 2013 to a roadside place called Granzella’s.

I’ve been there and I posted a lot of comedystuff, but after a bit, they started taking the bidas a more serious protest bid, which got a lotof traction, especially from folks who would notnormally vote. The Portland bid, which had beenthe only pre-announced bid and the only onetheoretically eligible to win, had done very little,

had been hit with life and couldn’t cope with it.That led to a vote that saw it end up with Gran-zella’s with 42 votes and Portland 41. A Hoaxbid had won, possibly for the first time (Thelegendary ‘Both’ vote may have got the mostvotes, but we’ll never know) and that sent it tothe Business Meeting, which went on for threehours and was an amazing amount of work. Kev-in Standlee did an amazing job keeping it goingand in the end, it turned up with Kevin and Andygetting Westercon 66. They’re looking at a placein the Sacramento Valley. I hope I’ll get a chance

which I enjoyed, and a ton of Filk and other con-certs. Westercon brought us Milt Stevens and John Hertz and the three of us had a wonderfulconversation in the bar about Heinlein and sci-ence fiction and art in general. It was great to geta chance to finally hear a story that featured Di-ana Vick about which I had heard spoken of only

as a shared-joke punchline from my peeps in theNorthwest. I even got a chance to sit down withBen Yalow and get some great SMoFish history.Y’all know how much I love that!

SO, it was a good con, I had a lot of funand I’m running the Lounge for Seattle nextyear, when Frank Wu, my dear friend and fellowMinicon GoH next year, will be the Artist GoH!Can’t wait for it!

WorldCon is looming and I’ve got somuch more to do! And with that in mind, awaywe go!

to be on their commit-tee, and I am certainlygoing to be going!

Glenn Glazeris a stud. He put on agreat Westercon, onethat was slightly rat-

tling around in theFairmont, which was agreat hotel, and he puttogether a team thatput on a good con forthe fans to make themost of. We had MatchGame SF, which was funas always, and we hadthe Foglios doing Girl

Genius Radio Theatre,

8/6/2019 Drink Tank 287


For immediate release:Announcing the creation of Bullshit! The Speculatively Fictitious Fanzine.All and sundry are invited to take part in the inaugural issue of Bullshit! Fan

writing of all types is welcome and encouraged, with the single requirement thatthe main thrust of the piece may not be true. It may be a bold-faced lie, a fabri-cation, a tall tale, a flight of fancy, an article of spurious logic, or a fib.

Anything but the truth.The Editor, however, shall reserve the right to reject material of a slanderous

nature.Fan art, too, is welcome and encouraged, with the caveat that it may not be

in the creator’s own distinctive style. It may be of some material outside of theartist’s milieu, an imitation of a well-known artist, or a parodic work. This shouldbe taken as an invitation to explore new territory, free from the confines of rep-

utation.The Editor shall be known by the name of William Housel, and will receive

submissions at the electronic address of [email protected]. The dead-line for submissions to the initial issue of Bullshit! shall be Wednesday, the 14thof September, 2011.

8/6/2019 Drink Tank 287


The Man Himself: Warren Buff!!!!

Hey, Chris and James!Looks like another great special issue

from Chris & James! That cover’s brilliant – wasit one of the proposed logo designs for the Hu-gos, or is it brand-new for this issue?It was created for the Hugo Logo contest.

Every once in a while, I’ll find one that had

been submitted and didn’t win. This one re-ally struck me.

The pictures of book covers lining thetops of several of your pages are a nice touch,too – I enjoyed seeing what you included (thoughI detect a paucity of 80s titles – any particularreason for that?). There’s also some weird black space on the table of contents page – are thoseitems you left off the listing? I notice the firstthing it lists is on page 10.

Yeah, I didn’t find as many 1980s covers as I’d have liked. I was struck with just how awe-

some some of the covers were!

On the editorial, something occurred tome about Chris’s well-known dislikes in novel-ists – there’s a common thread to the fiction of Heinlein and Bujold, and it seems to be the fast-paced adventure story featuring a hero who is insome way elite (Heinlein in particular seems tohave felt that only the elite would make it intospace). I have to wonder, Chris, if this is general

Letter Graded Mailsent to [email protected]

by Our Gentle Readers

enough to extend to other, similar adventurestories – are there other writers in this milieuwho similar bring the bile to the back of yourthroat?You may have a point, though I do enjoy some of the Phillip Jose Farmer novels that would qual-ify as adventure, and there’s the adventure stuff from Hubbard which I’ve enjoyed, but it’s partly

that elite hero that annoys me.Also, I wonder who this mysteriousreader with the metallic blue fingernails is – Irecognize the background from Chris’s Drink Tank Review of Books videos, but the person isclearly someone else.That’s Evelyn sitting in the heart of Drink Tank Studios.

James and Niall point out some really in-teresting sounding stuff in their articles about

novels that didn’t make the short-list, some of it just too obscure or peculiar to make the cut,some of it likely to be contained in the nextfew didn’t-make-its. I confess to really not hav-ing kept up with what’s in the running for theSidewise Award this year, so while several of thebooks in that section of the article sound prettycool, I just don’t have context to judge.There are a few things that James brought upthat I really wanna get a hold of. I have very nar-row reading habits, it seems. I’ve gotta work on

that, I think.Chris then takes a more methodical ap-

proach to possible nominees, looking at whatcould have been replaced (my answer? Feed)with what. The titles seem to be missing in thissection, as well, but they’re pretty self-evidentwhen you start reading. Since only one of thenovels felt to me like it just didn’t belong, I’ll fo-

cus on Chris’s suggestions for replacing it. I’dhave been rather satisfied to see Abraham Lin-coln: Vampire Hunter on the ballot, though Idon’t think it would be a high-caliber winner, norwould it stand a reasonable chance. The otherzombie novels you bring up are interesting, too,though I’ve not read them. The other choicesthat jump out to me as potentially interest-ing nominees among your list are How to LiveSafely in a Science Fictional Universe, Shades of

Milk and Honey, Ark, and Terminal World. WhileI definitely enjoyed Kraken, I don’t really think itwas as good as what did wind up on the ballot(with the one already-stated exception).I really wanna finish Shades of Milk & Honey be-cause I love MRK’s writing and think that thebit I’ve managed to finish was spectacular. Thecard game she’s developed around it is awesometoo!

One thing I notice in the section on cov-ers is more about me than about the other folks

8/6/2019 Drink Tank 287


who wrote in for that. For those who don’tknow, I live in the same county as Baen Books’home office, and thus see a whole ton of theircovers. I’ve grown pretty much immune to theircharacteristic abuse of typefaces that some of the other respondents pointed out. So when Ilooked at the cover to Cryoburn, I really didn’t

notice the Impact text flying at me. Weird blindspot, that. I was also amused that I was from“The South”, while most other folks were listedwith a city and larger body containing it (thoughI think Flick was given a whole country). Just read the latest issue of Dark Mat-

ter and they did an interview with a Book

Designer. That was a nice touch as everyone

focuses on the Cover Artists and as Cryo-

burn obviously shows, it’s the Designer who

has such an important role. And Warren

Buff, to me, IS the South!

At this point, it became apparent whatwas going on with those missing items I com-mented on earlier – my copy of Acrobat

Reader was crapping out. Given that this isthe case, and the remaining text of the issuehas become an illegible mess, I’m going to cutthis letter short, with apologies, but say thatI deeply enjoyed reading this issue (yesterday,when Acrobat Reader was working). If foundit highly informative, and it gave me chances toreconsider some of the works I’d read. One

disappointment is that no one picked up onthe coolest thing in The Dervish House – thebeautiful layering of microcosm-macrocosmthroughout the story, and the use of the sci-ence fictional elements to bring it even furtherout. Ah, well – that’s what I get for not writingit myself.

Warren Buff I caught that a bit in my article about The

Dervish House and architecture, but I held

on to that for the McDonald issue that’s

coming up in the Fall. I think that’s an im-

pressive part of the story.

8/6/2019 Drink Tank 287


�

The Windsors and I Go Way Back

When I was only a little older than a yolk,the Royal Family was a Presence in Canada. If you took the change from your pocket, the tinyheads of George VI and Elizabeth II looked up atyou, minted in copper, nickel and real silver. Oc-

casionally, even George V or Edward VII lookedback. It was the same with postage stamps. Inthose days, we licked plain, simple portraits of the royal profiles – none of the fancy four-co-lour, photographic, holographic, embossed andfoil-accented objets d’art that today’s philatelistdelights in. In post offices, courtrooms, trainstations, schools and churches across the land,faces of monarchy stared blindly as we passed by.We stood up to sing (or mime) “God Saves theQueen” before a movie show or football game.Morning in school was begun with the samewarbling strains of “God save our graaashusQueen, God save our noooo-bul Queen... “ If there were ever more fatuous lyrics, they couldonly have been sung by a very simple-mindeddownstairs maid. My mother couldn’t stand itin her day, and rebelled by singing “God Save myAlley Cat, Feed It on Bread and Fat.” Yet, the

Royal Arms of Canada were stamped, painted orimpressed on everything from cigarette pack-ages to park benches. Before I was old enoughto eat from an adult plate, I was fed from a RoyalDoulton Bunnykins dish. By such subtle remind-ers we were made members of the Empire.

Like it or not, everything was “Royal” – the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the RoyalYork Hotel, the Royal Canadian Navy, the Roy-al Mail, the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair, the

Royal Ontario College of Art, the Royal Ontario

Museum, the Royal Alexandra Theatre, the RoyalBank, Royal Crown Cola, Royal Insurance, Royalcigarettes, Royal Pudding and (most of all) RoyalBirths and Weddings.

It’s hard to recall just how many of themedia orgasms we call a Royal Wedding that Ihave suffered through. Elizabeth’s nuptials to

Prince Philip were, thankfully, well before mytime. I have dim memories of the Queen’s cor-onation in 1952, though. Then there was heryounger sister, Princess Margaret, who was mar-ried in 1960. I don’t recall the first thing aboutit, for which I am grateful. But, then, why should Iremember anything at all about such in inconse-quential event? Margaret was a spare part in theRoyal Family. After the birth of Prince Charles,she was no longer in line for the crown if Eliza-beth II passed away – and the Family never didfind any good use for her.

But Elizabeth produced heirs of her own,who were in line for the Throne.

Charles was born in 1948. This was threeyears before my own birth, so I was happily ableto ignore his. Princess Anne is a year youngerthan her brother, sparing me her birth as well.Prince Andrew was born in 1960, though, and

Prince Edward in 1964. I was quite old enoughto be bored on both occasions. Worse was instore... all four would be married. In fact, allwere married more than once, except for theone who was commonly suspected to be gay. Soof course there were Royal divorces as well. Allwere treated as public spectacles, of course.

Some people ate up the Royal SoapOpera. The same sort of person who knows

Oprah’s weight that week and follows the crimi-

8/6/2019 Drink Tank 287


nal proceedings against Michael Jackson’s per-sonal physician are susceptible to relationshipsmanufactured for them by the media, I presume.These are people with a desparate need to feelclose to celebrities they’ve never met – andnever will. The media is only too happy to pro-vide such people with the illusion that they are

intimates of the Royal Family, by covering Roy-al Marriages more thoroughly than most wars – and with more enthusiasm than any scientificadvances less important than the first mannedlanding on the Moon.

To me, though, the never-ending flow of gossip and obsessive eavesdropping was far lesscompelling than watching a race between tworain puddles drying on the pavement. (Should Iroot for the one with the cigarette butt in it, orthe one without?)

One of my two sisters seemed particu-larly affected by the Royal mania, however, andbought all the Diana memorabilia from collectorsplates to greeting cards. Inevitably, her obsessionled to fights over the family TV. I took the posi-tion that there must be something more vital onanother channel that we should be watching...even if only a curling match, figure skating finals

or the Canadian Tour of the Antique Road Show.Unfortunately, it was risky to suggest alterna-tives. Her tastes were so-out-of-sync with minethat she was apt to take me up on suggestionsthat I had only meant sarcastically.

In all good time, Charles produced heirsof his own – William and Harry.

Let’s put that into perspective – if andwhen the Queen ever dies, Chuck becomesCharles III. You have to wonder whether the old

lady is mortal, though. She’s phenomenally old

– could the Royal Consort, Philip, actually be avampire? Has anyone checked the Queen’s neck for puncture marks or looked for her reflectionrecently?

Born in 1926, Elizabeth II is 85 years old.There have been no older English monarchs.Neither George III nor Victoria lived to be 82.

On the 12th of May this year, our Lizzie will havesat on the throne a day longer than George III,but, at 59 years and 97 days, she will still be anumber of years short of Queen Victoria’s reignof 63 years and 213 days. However, it is notall that long until September 11th, 2015, whenElizabeth pushes the old dowager aside. Eventhen, she’ll be a mere 89. Don’t forget that theQueen’s mother lived to be 101!

It’s always possible that history will nevermake note of a King Charles III. Windsor men,so far, have not been remarkably long-lived, andChuck is already in his sixties. Whether or notCharles ever wears the crown, however, hisson will someday succeed as William V. In thesomewhat event the elder brother forgets thathe isn’t behind the wheel of his Land Rover orBentley, and drives an RAF helicopter into a pub

by accident, the younger brother would be kinginstead. Harry would presumably become Hen-ry IX rather than Harry I.

Henries have had a checkered career inBritish history. The first was a nobody – the4th son of William the Conqueror. The secondHenry was the compromise resolution to a longcivil war in the 1040s between the daughter andson of the first Henry. The son, Stephen, keptthe crown, but the daughter’s son, Henry, be-

came the second king of that name. He was a

forceful ruler, and his feud with Becket has givenEnglish literature much to elaborate on. HenryIII, on the other hand, was a weak, wavering anddeceitful king, who much preferred to spend histime dancing in France rather than ruling hisdrizzly, down-at-heels realm in England. Worse,he gave all the best positions at court, and best

crown lands, to his cronies across the channel.Another civil war broke out in which Simon deMontfort – a mere baron – emerged as virtu-al ruler of England for a number of years. Thereign of Henry IV was only distinguished by thebirth to the fifth of that name. Henry V had arelatively short reign, but a glorious one. He waswell liked and victorious over the French at Ag-incourt. Being victorious over the French alwaysplayed well in England. He was also the first Eng-lish monarch to introduce a standardized formof English to court – previously, either Frenchor Latin was used in all state affairs. Henry VIwas king of England twice – the first time fornearly 40 years and the second time for only sixmonths. He was naïve at best, and, by the timehe was murdered, possibly insane as well.

Henry VII was a Welshman with ambi-tions he brought to Bosworth Field. Killing

Richard III in the famous Shakespearian play of the same name, he spent most of his reign pinch-ing pennies. He was so successfully frugal that ittook nearly half of Henry VIII’s long, extravagentreign to spend his patrimony. That Henry, as weall know, was mainly famous for being marriedmore often than Mickey Rooney. He also dis-solved the monasteries in Britain after he hadspent all his father’s money. He separated theAnglican Church from Vatican control, to meet

his needs for ready cash and a handy pad of di-

8/6/2019 Drink Tank 287


vorce decrees. Yet, he also sent his ministers tothe block for being too Protestant!

He was the last Henry, and a good thing,as it would be hard to beat an act like that! Butperhaps he is best known for inspiring a vapidsong, 450 years later, about a widow who hadmarried “seven times before, and every one was

an ‘Enery.” “Oi’m ‘Enery the Ninth, Oi am” justdoesn’t sound right.

The Williams have done little better,even though there haven’t been as many of them.The first was a trumped-up herring-eater whosefamily had squatted on the north coast of Francelong enough to become accepted as Frenchmenof a sort. His brother became William Rufus, orWilliam II, and is notable only for being mistakenfor a stag and shot by one of his own courtiers.William III was, frankly, a Dutchman. He marriedinto the Stuart line, however, and when James IImade clear his intentions to draw the realm back into Catholicism by increments, the English de-cided that another invasion from the continentand a 6th (and so far last) civil war might not bea bad thing. William IV might as well not evenhave reigned. He is a forgettable interlude be-tween his father, Henry VIII, and his sister, Bloody

Mary, and is the second-least memorable king of England, after Edward V.

But we’re not here to talk about Ed-wards.

Charleses come as both good and bad.But there have only been two of them to date,so that’s only one of each. It’s hard to spot atrend so early. Charles I was a putz who meantwell, but could not help but incriminate him-self with the hysterical element in the Protes-

tant Parliament, and paid for it with his head.Charles II was probably not the brightest bulb

in the marquee, but by God he had style – andthe good luck to be invited back to the Englishthrone after people had grown well and trulysick of Puritan rule.

Which is pretty much the way I feel aboutRoyal weddings, now that I’ve lived through somany of them. First, there was the wedding of

Princess Anne, the Queen’s only daughter. Themarriage lasted almost 20 years – no mean featfor the House of Windsor – but it meant weall had to endure a Royal divorce and then asecond Royal wedding. Charles was next towed, and to treat us to a tacky, drawn-out Royaldivorce, ending in a drunken traffic fatality thatdrew conspiracy theories as naturally as a presi-dential birth certificate. Prince Andrew marriedin 1986, and was a divorcée a mere ten years lat-er. Next was the wedding of Prince Edward, ap-parently motivated as much to prove he wasn’tgay as anything else. Rather surprisingly, he’s theonly Royal who hasn’t divorced. Despite his in-volvement in British Theatre, perhaps he reallywasn’t gay after all. Finally, we had to witnessCharles being married all over again. It was toomuch like an evening of Burlesque in which allthe acts are melodrama followed by a pratfall.

And now this. Charles’s own sons arecome of age and have started marrying! Just afew days ago, one of my friends mentioned thatthe media had been obsessed with the weddingpageantry all day long. There are advantages tonot having cable access – although aware a RoyalWedding was imminent, I had been lucky enoughto miss the entire thing.

It’s not that I’m altogether against RoyalWeddings. Royals are an endangered species,

like the Bald Assed Eagle, and should be encour-

aged to procreate. But, like rare species of arcticcrocodile or aquatic giraffes, they are best left todo so in privacy. Has anyone considered wheth-er the intense media scrutiny might not the rea-son for so many failed Royal Liaisons? It is wellknown that many species will not reproduce incaptivity.

For the sake of science, I can understandthe public’s interest in the future King’s sex life.He will be King, after all... assuming he can out-live his mother. But what do the other membersof the Royal Family amount to? Most of themare virtual nobodies, with little better chance of occupying a throne than you or I have. The re-cently wedded William will also be King some-day, but that day appears to be a long way off.It might be twenty or even thirty years beforeWilliam V sits to have his portrait taken for thepenny.

Roses by Any Other Names

Not all will be lost should the currentHouse of Windsor become extinct. When youthink about it, Her Majesty has a tenuous grip onher throne. In theory, Elizabeth II is a descen-

dent of William I – but how real is this descent?The Normans quickly married into a higher-class French family from Anjou, the Plantagenets.The direct line from William I lasted only fourgenerations, then passed to their in-laws. ThePlantagenets, however, were blessed with lon-gevity. They are associated with a small flower-ing perennial known as the common broom, andruled England from 1154 to 1485 – over 330years. In time, the clan fractured in Yorkists and

Lancastrians, one side wearing the White Rose

8/6/2019 Drink Tank 287


and the other side the Red Rose. During the 4thEnglish civil war, both sides managed to lose toan upstart branch of Welsh Tudors – wearing a“Tudor” Rose that combined both the white andthe red – thus bringing an end to quasi-Frenchrule in England.

The Tudors didn’t do too shabbily, either,

managing to survive until the death of QueenElizabeth I in 1603. Since Elizabeth was “the Vir-gin Queen,” the crown was reluctantly handedover to the Scots to have a go at it. The unrulyStewarts made such a botch of it, though, thatthe second of the line, Charles I, ended up go-ing to the block, touching off yet another civilwar. (The one the English call “The” Civil War,as though there had only been one of them.)

The Puritan-dominated Commonwealthdidn’t work out either, so the Stewarts weregiven a second chance. The result was muchthe same. James II was just a little too friendlywith the Papists and French. At least the 4th of the line was merely chased out of the country,not beheaded. That was beginning to fall out of fashion by the late 17th century. Yes, there wasanother civil war. Whipping the Stewarts wastoo easy, in fact. Just to make it more sporting,

the English went to war with and beat the Irishas well. Although they had given the boot tothe Scots, though, there was nowhere to turnto for legitimate issue but back to the Scots.Third time was luckier, no doubt of it, but thehouse of Stewart fizzled out after a single reign,when Mary II died in 1694. The trouble thenwas that her husband, the King, was a Dutchman.They had no children, though, and to find evena distant female relative with a shred of a claim

to the ancient crown of William the Conquer-

or, the English had to search the Black Forestsand Hartz Mountains of Darkest Mitteleuropa.The heir, such as she was, had married a minorprinceling of a few hundred acres of fairy-taleencrusted back-country inhabited by wood-cut-ters and sausage makers. That was how the Kingof England got to be German.

Technically, he was a Hanoverian, as Ger-many wouldn’t be assembled from the crumbsof the Holy Roman Empire for another 157years. As English kings went, the Hanoverianswere fairly successful, doing little, but in theirplacidity they survived the gradual transitionto Parliamentary rule and toward a rudimen-tary form of democracy quite well. The thirdGeorge, of course, dropped the ball over theThirteen Colonies. He was a bit of a traditional-

ist as well, labouring under the delusion that he

ran government. Incidentally, he was insane forhalf his reign as well... Otherwise, the Germansreigned with little cause for excitement or com-plaint. Too many hangings, one might argue, butthe propertied classes seemed undisturbed by it.Perhaps that was why, when the Royal line randry yet again, Parliament didn’t look far for a re-

placement. They simply married Queen Victoria,the last Hanoverian, to another German, PrinceAlbert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

This explains one of my favourite linesfrom Blackadder III. Blackadder is reminded thatthe British Royal Family is a English as crumpetsand tea, but he mumbles under his breath, “nothey aren’t, they’ll all Germans.” He was deadon. So much to the heart of the matter was theHeir Apparent’s butler that, at the outbreak of World War I, King George V changed the familyname to Windsor. To keep the war effort aimedat the right bunch of Krauts, you understand?

So there you have it. The British RoyalFamily is a lot of Germans. Before that, theywere mainly Scottish or French. Do we evenhave to bring DNA into this? Since family de-scent is only followed through the male line, andvirtually every monarch in recorded history has

had mistresses or lovers, and left the bar sinis-ter strewn across the arms of half of Europeanchivalry, who can say how much of William I’sor Henry V’s or Charles II’s blood runs throughanyone’s veins? We are only how many genera-tions distant from common ancestors? As faras Dawrin is concerned, I dare say you or I areevery bit as royal as the current bearer of crownand sceptre.

Then again, by the time the face of Prince

William is struck on a penny, there probably

8/6/2019 Drink Tank 287


won’t be a penny anymore. What would it beworth? And the Pound might possibly have gonethe way of the Franc and Mark. There is evensome chance there won’t be a King, let alone1/100 part of a Pound.

Whose Royals are They, Anyway?

Many Canadians see no reason for aRoyal Family. They cost a lot, and demand a lotof attention. Moreover, the connection betweenthis country and the United Kingdom has grownhair-thin. The English atmosphere that pervadedeverything outside of French Canada began toevaporate in the years after World War II. Bythe 1970s, we had stopped standing for “GodSave the Queen” in theaters, and hockey gameswere quite properly begun with the CanadianNational Anthem instead. The Queen’s portraitprobably still hangs in various clerkish offices inthe remoter parts of Alberta and the NorthwestTerritories, and her face – updated to resemblethe old lady she is and with her crown put awayin a cardboard box, somewhere out of sight andout of mind – continues to scowl at us fromour nickels and quarters. But 50% of the peo-

ple in Toronto were born in a foreign country,and most of the rest have lived in this countryfor two or more generations. What connec-tion has a Jamaican, Korean, Punjabi, Cantonese,Vietnamese, Portuguese, Italian, Polish, Lebanese,Iranian or Tibetan-born Canadian to the crownof Great Britain? As a Canadian of at least fourgenerations, I may feel even less British than ourimmigrants.

Even the English have questioned wheth-

er they have outgrown the need of a monarchy.

Polls, conducted in the aftermath of Charles’ di-vorce with Diana, indicated that many Brits be-lieved the Prince of Wales should be bypassedentirely, and the crown descend from the reign-ing Queen to William. For Charles it would be,“Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200.” Thereis no constitutional basis for this, thankfully. It

would only lead to electing the king someday,and a poplar soccer player or Hip-Hop artistmoving into Buckingham Palace.

I will give Charles this. He is a crank.I love cranks. He’s been outspoken about or-ganic farming, the scourge of modern architec-ture, traditional village life, the environment, thearts, and has even voiced a wish to change from“Protector of the Faith” when he is King – i.e.,the head of the established Anglican Churchof England – to “Protector of the Faiths.” Thismight be difficult. It isn’t just a matter of chang-ing some words on the £5 silver presentationcoin that you can only buy from the Royal Mintfor £49.95. Charles would likely have to per-suade the Dali Lama, the Pope in Rome, and anynumber of Imams and Ayatollahs that the King of England is in some sense the head of their reli-gions as well. I don’t think this would be an easy

sell. But you have to love a future Head of Statewho has such wonderfully eccentric ideas, espe-cially as he will only reign and not rule. Thereisn’t a hope in hell of his introducing a single oneof his crackpot notions to the floor of Parlia-ment, thank Gawd.

But William, the first son? Who can re-member anything about William? He is blandand seamless, like those puddings the Englishlove. Even his younger brother, Harry appears

to be ever-so-slightly more interesting.

Whether or not the English ever beginto question the existence of the monarchy inany form, one only has to think of William tolose interest in the question. Europe never of-ficially abolished the office of Roman Emperor,either.

I recall a discussion from a public affairs

program of few years ago. The talk was aboutthe British monarchy, and one of the guests de-scribed the procedures it would take to abol-ish the crown. I can’t remember the specifics,but they would certainly include long debates inthe House of Commons, assent by the House of Lords and acceptance by the Armed Forces, theDouble-O section of MI5, Lloyds and the Minis-try of Wizardry. Should one of the Royal Familybe married into the line of Hirohito, as depictedin Sue Townsend’s provocative little novel, “TheQueen and I,” it might even be necessary to seek the permission of the Japanese. Summing it up,it would likely be easier to abolish Capitalism. Ithink we must accept that, dull as he is, Williamwill someday be King of England.

By then, perhaps monarchy will at leasthave diminished to what it is in most Europeannations. William may still wear the crown of pre-

decessors who believed in The Divine Right, buthe may be reduced to a handful of properties atBuckingham Palace, Windsor and Balmoral. Hissecond-cousins and grand-uncles may techni-cally remain Dukes and Lords, but will no longerbe entitled to handouts from the taxpayer tokeep up the lifestyle their ancestors had beenaccustomed to. The main job of the King may beto open shopping malls, and serve drinks at im-portant diplomatic affairs. Like those kings and

queens of Denmark, Sweden, and The Nether-

8/6/2019 Drink Tank 287


lands, whose names so few of us can remember,the rest of the world may have a hard time re-membering William.

It will be very different from the world Iwas born in. All those documentaries on Can-ada’s role in World War I will make no sense atall. “For King and Country?” Not our country,

and whose King was it, precisely? Why is oneof the busiest highways in the Greater Toron-to Area named the Queen Elizabeth Way, andwhy does every town and city in the countryhave a King Street? What obscurity is Albertanamed for? Why is the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce “imperial?” Did I sleep through“The Canadian Empire?” The reasons for all of these relics of monarchy, and more, are almostgone. Soon they may be all gone, and an aware-ness of much of our history with it. It does al-most make one sad.

It might have been so different.

Imagine a monarch with the dignity of Franklin Roosevelt, the foresight of Lincoln, thepresence of Churchill, the glamour of JFK, thecompassion of Gandhi, the statesmanship of Dis-

raeli, the panache of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, theauthority of Bismarck, the insatiable sexual ap-petite of Catherine the Great. Of course, it’stoo much to expect all of this from any one hu-man being, however great their stature. But wecould do worse – and almost always do – than aleader lacking this or that among so many desir-able attributes. Frankly, we most often have tosettle for leadership with none of them.

It isn’t just the image of the King (or

Queen) that needs refurbishment. The very no-

ton of monarchy is outdated and stale. It existsnot even as a symbol of something familiar, butas an idea of a symbol for something we longago forgot... We may be even less willing to losea thing when we are no longer altogether surewhat it is anymore.

In all seriousness, when I was very young

they still said, “The Sun Never Sets on the Brit-ish Empire.” I was older before I realized thatthe expression was not about the empire lastingforever, but something far more profound andactually less vainglorious. Somewhere on theEarth, the sun always shone over some part of the British Imperium. In places, the sun shoneon little more than a booby-hatchery with ananchorage where the Royal Navy might drop an-chor. It might shine over a South African veldtthat extended to the four compass points. Orrise over the formidable Rock of Gibraltar. Orappear as the Midnight Sun on the horizon of the frozen tundra of Northern Canada. TheBritish flag waved over them all, uniting black,white, red, yellow, ochre, and olive skins; unifyingChristian, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh and Muslim;bringing together warriors, hunters, trappers,farmers, merchants, sailors, fishermen, factory

hands, managers, bureaucrats and even wannabecartoonists for Mad Magazine, all under onecrown.

Okay, the empire had been mostly a lot of bagpipes and pipeclay. Once the red coats wereexchanged for khaki, once the pith helmets werereplaced by steel, the spell began to lift. With-out the imperial razzle-dazzle, the empire wasseen for the sham it was. The worldwide net of culture and trade fell apart. Local populations

discovered that bwanas and sahibs and effendis

were annoying to have around. The Royal Navywas no longer welcome in ports. The hotels andclubs that had once held the empire togetherwere renamed to honour local deities or Marx-ist guerillas-turned-statesmen. Cricket gave wayto soccer. The empire might have been largelya matter of maintaining an illusion, but such as it

was, it had been believed in for the better part of a century, It’s easy to dream that had there beenno Kaiser Wilhelm and no Führer, perhaps thesun might still never set on the British Empire.

At the head of it all, a clever, forceful,dynamic, charismatic and devilishly handsomeKing.

All that is needed for that to be true isa fake time machine built by Baldrick to carryout a petty swindle. It only needs to fail in itspurpose, and inadvertently cast inventor andschemer into the past. It only has to rewrite his-tory and bring a truly, in fact only, really EnglishRoyal Family to the throne.

Three cheers, gentlemen, for the Houseof Blackadder. Huzzah for King Edmund III!

�

8/6/2019 Drink Tank 287


8/6/2019 Drink Tank 287


himself.Well, he tries to write it, but the platens

are melting and he ends up having to dictate itover the phone.

It was the coming of doom that clarifieshim, and it makes him much better. He is whatwe hope we are. He manages to come back fro

the brink because the world is falling apart. He’sthe one who has managed to get better, anddon’t we all hope that when we’re faced withthe end that we’ll be able to rise to meet it bet-ter than we were when things easy?

The filmmaking was tip-top. The editingperfect, the timing great, and the direction flaw-less. English genre filmmaking was at its peak around 1961. It was out of the pack of direc-tors and producers like Val Guest that led tothings like Quatermass and Dr. Who. Guest wasa great writer and director and that generationof filmmakers were all massively important tothe development of English science fiction me-dia. I think one of the reasons that Sci-Fi got bet-ter ingrained in the English mainstream was thatthey had a generation of films and television thatwere all powerful and well-done... well, for vary-ing values of well-done.

The ending is the thing that most folkstalk about. We see two different front pages of the paper: World Doomed and World Saved. Wethen hear bells. We are never told if the world hasbeen saved or if the bells are tolling for we. It’sa simple and effective ending to a story that waspowerful in a Casablanca way. The troubles of anewspaperman, his son, his editor and a beauti-ful young woman don’t amount to a hill of beanswhen the Earth is hurdling towards the sun, but

it’s really where the interest is. You could remake

The Day The Earth Caught Fire andfocus on the scientists trying to saveus and what you’d have could turn outwell, but what I want to know is howdoes it all change the lives of thoseinvolved. Can a relationship survivea time when these things happen? If

the Earth was still on the way to so-lar incineration, what would peopledo with their remaining time? Howlong could you hold out without thebarrel of a gun looking mighty tasty?What if the counterblast sent us inthe other direction, flying out for-ever into space, the sun becominga distant speck among all the otherstars? There are so many questionsand they are all made possible by anending that does not reveal all the se-crets.

One of my favorite short filmsof the last decade was a science fic-tion short called Sunday Afternoon.This Canadian film shows a groupof people in a convenience store inQuebec as the quickly heating Earth

is being consumed by fire. The United States hasbeen consumed and now it moves north. Thething is the relationships of the people in thestore are what the short focuses on. There is ayoung man, a weed dealer of some clout, and ayoung Ablack woman who wants nothing to dowith him or the one last joint he’s been holdingon to. There’s the angry shop owner and vari-ous other characters. Everyone is sweating. Ev-eryone is tense. Watching it, you know that the

world is ending, but you also know that to the

people, it doesn’t matter. What matters is thatthese people have to deal with their endings.

And in the end, they smoke that joint to-gether.

That is the direct child of The Day TheEarth Caught Fire. The film is marvelous, and if you’re looking for a good tense thriller, this is it.The Day The Earth Caught Fire is one of thosefilms that defines the power that science fictioncan impart to storytelling.

Drink Tank 287

Documents

Transcript of Drink Tank 287