The Secret Society Of The Haggis

Robbie Burns Day is coming up. On the possibility that I should be strangled in my sleep, odds are it's for this. And chances are the suspect will be none other than the vengeful ghost of Burns himself.

Scots Of The World Prepare To Celebrate Robbie Burns Day; Novelist Complicates Things

Edinburgh (Reuters) Each January 25^th, the birthdate of Scottish poet and lyricist Robert Burns is celebrated as Robbie Burns Day by Scottish descended people across the world. Bagpipes and drums are brought out. Kilts are worn. Haggis and Scots whiskey are consumed. And many a glass is raised in memory of the immortal Scot also known by a number of nicknames- the Ploughman Poet, the Bard of Ayrshire, and more. Burns Night, as it is called, is a national holiday in Scotland, going back all the way to the early 19^th century.

Burns was born on the 25^th of January, 1759, in Ayrshire, Scotland, according to parish records. He would spend his life as a Romantic poet, composing some of what would become pivotal to Scottish culture. Poems like Auld Lang Syne have transcended Scotland to become a New Year’s tradition. Burns Night pays tribute to the favourite son of Scotland, who died young in 1797 but left behind a long line of descendants. Scottish tunes are played at Burns Night events around the world with the pipes and drums.  Tributes are made to the memory of the poet with readings. Whiskey accompanies the haggis- perhaps because that’s the only way one can eat haggis, by getting drunk.

Haggis, incidentally, is a savoury pudding consisting of a sheep’s heart, liver, and lungs, minced with oatmeal, onion, suet, and spices and cooked in the animal’s stomach. If it sounds unpalatable, it is, in the experience of this reporter, who once lost a bet and was obliged to eat it as a consequence. This reporter has often wondered if those who claim to enjoy haggis are only doing so to goad the unsuspecting into eating it and finding amusement in their grimaces of disgust upon learning what it actually is.

The haggis even has a bit of ceremony in its eating at these events- the recital of Burns’ famous poem Address To A Haggis to the guests before the haggis can be cut open. The event has changed little in two centuries, with toasts following the consumption of that awful concoction of innards and the evening ending with a drunken rendition of Auld Lang Syne by everyone. One might wonder what Burns himself might have thought of all of this national feasting and toasting in his honour.

This year things have taken on an unexpected complication. The novelist Dan Brown has been researching Burns for his next novel. Browns’ series of books following Harvard professor Robert Langdon in preposterous mysteries involving art, architecture, and dark secrets mostly in Europe, have gained a legion of readers throughout the world, but created controversies along the way. Angels & Demons featured a priest character secretly pulling strings to make it seem that an old enemy was out to destroy the Vatican. The Da Vinci Code raised concerns from the Catholic church over its central notion that Christ was a father. The Lost Symbol took liberties with Freemasons. Inferno presented a futurist with a mad agenda about population control. And Origin played around with the theme of artificial intelligence and the advancement of the human race.

Brown has often been criticized for plot holes, leaps of logic, his tendency to pair his academic protagonist with a fetching younger and smart woman on an evening of rushing madly from place to place, and bringing together lessons in art history along the way. And so when news started getting out that Brown has been sighted around places in Scotland associated with Burns, such as homes and his grave, concerns were raised in the Scottish community as to what he was up to. It didn’t help that he was seen meeting with a controversial academic in Edinburgh.

Angus MacGyver (no relation to the television action character played by two different actors), a sixty four year old tenured professor of Scottish history at the University of Edinburgh, has a record as divisive at times as Brown. He has routinely been condemned by Scots as a heretic and traitor for his book Italian Tartan. The book proposes that Burns was a falsification, that the real Robert Burns was in fact Roberto Bernini (no relation to the Italian actor of the current day Roberto Benigni). Born in Rome in 1758 according to the professor, Bernini’s family moved to Scotland two years later, where the boy picked up a Scottish accent and a name more fitting with that of his neighbours. But then why are there traces of Robert Burns in baptism records?

“It’s all a hoax,” MacGyver declared to this reporter. “Burns started writing, started developing a reputation and a following. And developing a secret society of his own. They call themselves The Society Of The Haggis. And they’re still around today. If you start looking at his poetry, there’s references to it everywhere. And the Society has spread their influence across the world. Burns knew that he had to hide his Italian roots for all time. First of all, this was the 18^th century, and there was a lot of bigotry where Italians were concerned. Second, in creating himself a place in Scottish society as part of their national story, he knew that people wouldn’t stand for it if they found out his personal tartan, the one he didn’t go out in public with, included stylized pizzas and spaghetti.”  

MacGyver paused to drink a wee dram of whiskey before carrying on with the tale. “So he had to hide his roots. And so he did. False baptism records, sworn secrecy among the Society, even a few people from Ayrshire who met bad ends when they questioned the story. As far as the Society is concerned, the people of Scotland can’t bear to know that a national hero, a man they hold in as high esteem as Robert the Bruce and William Wallace, a man who’s the very symbol of what it means to be a Scotsman… was an Italian. To this day, the Burns family and the Society still guard the secret. Their whole Burns Night suppers are filled with hidden symbology. And they’re not above trying to discredit those like myself who are onto them. Or taking more extreme measures when needed.”

With information like that, what might we expect out of Brown? Perhaps Robert Langdon running around Glasgow and Edinburgh through museums and art galleries in search of the truth about Robert Burns? And of course paired off with a younger female doctor or scientist, perhaps with a Scottish name? Perhaps dealing with an irritable authority figure who’s given to disregarding the facts, at least at first? And perhaps chased by a mad assassin in a tartan kilt playing the bagpipes in between killings? Brown himself is silent on the matter. Aside from a tweet showing the cover of Italian Tartan.

Should Brown go through with it and tell a preposterous tale of a Harvard professor rooting around in the personal business of Robert Burns, irritation from the Vatican will be the least of his troubles. An angry Catholic church is nothing compared to the whiskey fueled rage of countless Scots toting bagpipes and wearing kilts. With nothing beneath the kilts.

An Inferno Of Conspiracies

"Dante's Inferno isn't fiction. It's a prophecy." ~ Robert Langdon

“There is a switch. If you throw it, half the people on Earth will die, but if you don’t, in 100 years, the human race will be extinct. You are humanity’s final hope.” ~ Bertrand Zobrist

"Professor, you are having visions, aren't you?" ~ The Provost

"You won't be able to trust your own thoughts for awhile." ~ Sienna Brooks

“The greatest sins in human history were committed in the name of love.” ~ Robert Langdon

Conspiracies and chases through breathtaking Old World architecture abound as Tom Hanks and director Ron Howard return for Inferno, another adaptation of a Dan Brown novel. Following in the footsteps of The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, which featured troublesome authority figures, dark conspiracies, hidden truths contained in art, and an overly curious and knowledgeable American professional, the film returns to Europe for a country hopping exercise in preposterousness and high stakes poker. Well, not the poker, just the high stakes.

Having had taken a hand in deciphering Leonardo's great secrets and saving the Vatican in previous film outings, Robert Langdon (Hanks) finds himself waking up in an Italian hospital with no idea how he got there, and suffering of a head graze. The attending doctor, Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones) informs him he was shot, which has affected his short term memory. Before he has time to even adjust, a woman (Ana Ularu) turns up armed and ready to kill. The two flee, following a trail that starts with an oddity among Langdon’s personal belongings that points the way to the works of Dante, a conspiracy that has global implications, a villain who’s gone and killed himself even before the first act starts, and shadowy forces whose agenda seems murky at best.

This is the third Robert Langdon outing in film, though the character has appeared in four books now, each time as the proverbial Smartest Man In The Room, able to figure out cryptic mysteries long hidden away in art, books, or aged documents. Dan Brown has made a bloody fortune off the character, who’s proven to be exceedingly popular since the second book of the series, The Da Vinci Code, became a runaway bestseller. That book and Angels & Demons got film adaptations from Howard and Hanks, though the third book in the series, The Lost Symbol, got passed over in favour of this most recent book, which follows the characters from Florence and Venice in Italy to its finale in Istanbul, Turkey. It’s been seven years since we last saw Hanks in the leading role.

David Koepp, who has many screenwriting credits, as well as directing credits to his name, previously co-wrote Angels & Demons as an adaptation, so this is his second time around with Langdon. The adaptation makes some significant departures from the source novel, particularly in the second half, telling a tale of a biological weapon and a madman who thinks he’s doing the right thing for the world- even if there’s some sense to the root cause, what with overpopulation being a real issue. Unlike the previous books and films, which stressed old secrets hidden away by secret societies in various odd places, this story has a more contemporary thread in its conspiracy, even if it makes use of old creative outlets and artistic sensibilities.

The preposterousness that’s standard to a Dan Brown plot is there, of course, along with the plot holes. Also returning are some of the standard Brown operating procedures: shifting allegiances, authority figures who might be on the side of the right or wrong, the highly intelligent young female counterpart to Langdon, and the broad conspiracy theories. The formula might seem a bit well worn by now, what with having had seen it already play out before. The pacing of the film itself seems rather frantic, and deeply convoluted at times. Of the three films, this one doesn’t work as well as its predecessors (particularly Angels & Demons), perhaps because of that frantic, convoluted pace, and because it’s following already familiar territory. And I found myself a bit irritated by the villain’s entire plan- why not just release the damned virus instead of going through this whole elaborate, grandly staged scheme? The notion ends up coming across rather like a Bond villain- only there, you expect that sort of grandiosity out of the villains.

Howard filmed on location, some of that being in Florence and Venice, but also on sets in Hungary, substituting perhaps for Turkey, which, let’s face it, isn’t exactly friendly territory for filming these days. He’s already well familiar with the world of Robert Langdon, the incessantly curious academic with a tendency to find himself wrapped up in mysteries and hidden secrets; the films mark his only actual film franchise, since his directing work has usually been self contained stories. He films at times both in the frantic chase style that the story requires, but also like he’s doing a travelogue, looking at places you’d love to get a look at yourself- if not for the fact that his characters are being chased by one dangerous lunatic or another. He does what he can with what he’s got- Inferno as a source material isn’t quite up to the entertainment reading value of the first two Brown novels- and ends up bringing out a film that’s at least a capable, if not quite as satisfying, follow up.

The cast are well chosen. Ben Foster appears only briefly as the villain, playing Zobrist as a man who entirely believes in himself and his cause, and damn the consequences. There’s something inherently dangerous, charismatic, and unhinged in the man, but he believes he is absolutely right, and that his path is the only path to follow. It reminds one of a cult leader, without the cult. Omar Sy appears as Christoph Bouchard, an official who turns up as the story goes along, and ends up playing to the what's his real agenda aspect of most of the characters in the film.

Ana Ularu is a Romanian actress, and she finds herself following in the footsteps of Paul Bettany and Nikolaj Lie Kaas before her, playing the profoundly dangerous henchman, the immediate threat to the protagonist. She certainly impresses in that job, as the actress conveys a thoroughly ruthless, efficient energy to the performance, coming across as a credible threat on screen.

Irrfan Khan is best known to audiences in India as an actor, but he’s done some work in Hollywood, including last year’s Jurassic World. Here he plays a character nicknamed The Provost, the head of a private security concern whose allegiances shift as the story goes along, from working on behalf of a client to coming to grips with the fact that his client is a monster. It makes for a rather interesting take on the character, less clinical than the character was in the book.

Sidse Babett Knudsen is a Danish actress, playing a pivotal role for the film, Elizabeth Sinskey, head of the World Health Organization (though we must wonder why the WHO has officials who run around with weapons). The character is desperately racing against time to contain a crisis, and like others in the film, we are left to wonder for a time at her own agenda. The character is an interesting one, with some history with Langdon, and the actress gives the character a sense of gravity and resolve as she goes along.

This is only the third project I’ve seen Felicity Jones in. She had a blink and you’ll miss it appearance in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and appeared in Julie Taymor’s adaptation of The Tempest (which I absolutely hated- honestly, Shakespeare should come back from the grave and sue her for that). The actress appears next in the Star Wars one-off tale Rogue One next month. Here she plays the highly intelligent young partner by circumstance of Professor Langdon, but she too has her own secrets, which take her in different directions from the character’s place in the books. She certainly conveys the intelligence of the character in just the right way.

Tom Hanks returns once more as Professor Langdon. He brings to film the sense of curiosity and intelligence so integral to the character, which is a good thing. Langdon is a wellspring of information and arcane knowledge, and here he finds himself in a situation where his memory, one of his greatest gifts, isn’t quite reliable, which gives him a reason to be shaken up. He’s also shaken up by the stakes of the story, which go rather beyond what has come before. Langdon’s curiosity, even in the face of danger, does make him an interesting character, and Hanks plays to that. Being an already established character helps (as does being played by Hanks)- we’re generally already on his side and sympathetic to him. Hanks does have that history of playing characters we can at least empathize with; though personally I will never, ever, ever empathize with Forrest Gump, a character I would rather see wiped out of existence for all time.... did I mention I hate double infinity hate Forrest Gump? Fortunately this character is a world away from that loathsome irritant, and while he seems decidedly perplexed by the situation he’s in, it’s good to see him again.

Inferno doesn’t measure up to its predecessors in the series. For me, Angels & Demons with its high stakes and countdown to an awful thing happening tone works best as a film. This adaptation, with its plot holes, is treading ground we’ve already seen before, and does tend to be rather frantic and convoluted as things go along. Still, as long as you ignore the plot holes, the film works well enough, giving us another Langdon caper that also serves as something of a travelogue.

A travelogue, mind you, with bullets and deadly bio weapons.

Pet Peeves And Random Thoughts

Every once in awhile, a thought or a complaint runs through your head that you might like to blog about, but it really doesn't seem to be enough for a blog in and of itself. Hence it does seem to be a good idea to gather these ideas all together into... well, a pet peeves and random thoughts blog. And so without further ado, let us begin...

There's a certain shop in a certain downtown mall (oh, why bother being evasive? It's the BOSE electronics shop in the Rideau Centre) that I've passed many times. It sells electronics, home entertainment systems, you know the type. The largest screen in there is a big one, and every single time I pass that store, the Adele concert film is on. I've heard some of her music, and it's okay... but playing it over and over again must drive the store employees bonkers. And I feel like I've seen the whole concert already.

Erotica is an eyebrow raising genre, but what do you suppose would happen if a big name author who wasn't known for writing it gave it a go? Dan Brown, the fellow behind The Da Vinci Code, has written sex into his previous books, but would it end up having his main character describing the inner secrets of the Kama Sutra while in the middle of reaching their... happy place?

By the same token, military-techno nut Tom Clancy (back before the quality of his writing took a fast plunge off a cliff) is best known for his spy thrillers, not to mention stopping the narrative so that he can explain precisely where a piece of military hardware is built, how it's made, and so on and so on, frustrating the reader to no end. He's written sex into his books from time to time (and comes off as something of an adolescent when doing so).  Would he end up writing a solo erotica scene where the heroine decides to pleasure herself with a vibrator, and would he feel compelled to describe exactly where it's made, the amount of time it takes for one vibrator to be made, the shift worker putting it together, and what said shift worker thinks about their job and the moral implications of putting such devices together? By this point, of course, the readers would have tossed the book away out of frustration and disgust at how the author isn't getting anywhere...

And while we're at it... would Stephen King, writing erotica, be unable to get away from his horror influences? Would such a passage come across in this way?  She groaned as he plunged into her, thrusting deep. Clarisa dug her fingernails deep into his back, arching her own back in pleasure, driving her body against him. He cried out, but not in the way she expected. The scratches she cast on his back had drawn blood... and fire erupted out of the scratches. He screamed and howled as his body set ablaze...

See what I mean?

We need to round up all of the Elvis impersonators in the world and have them dropped onto a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific so that we won't have to come across a guy with bad sideburns singing Love Me Tender in a really cheesy jumpsuit on the street. Who's with me?

I want to go back in time, find the person who coined the phrase baby bump, and smack them. Then go further back in time and prevent them from being conceived, thus preventing that idiotic term from ever being coined.

Is the sole purpose of a high ranking officer in a Dirty Harry film merely to look like he's about to blow a gasket every time Harry gets to sending a crook on the fast track to hell?

Just what does Ryan Seacrest actually do? And how much blood did he have to shed to become famous? And to whom did he sacrifice said blood to?

The emotional depth of the Kardashian family reaches an astonishing one eighth of a millimetre total.

Is Kathie Lee Gifford secretly a Looney Tunes character (Lady Drinksalot)? Would calling her that be an insult to Bugs, Daffy, and the rest? Would they drop an anvil on me? Hit me with an Acme sledgehammer? Launch me out of an Acme cannon?

What is it about public libraries that draw in morons who like having conversations that others can hear over the music they're listening to on their headphones? Were these morons raised by Neanderthals? No... Neanderthals had better manners.

Memo to Hollywood: please stop adapting Nicholas Sparks novels. And just for good measure, don't let Michael Bay direct another movie ever again.

Since Stephanie Meyer has decided against continuing the infernal Twilight franchise, will she start up another series called The Noon Saga, about immortal succubi? And then would that be followed by  The Afternoon Tea Saga, which would, of course, be about immortal teenaged afficionados of Earl Grey tea?

Often we see videos for sale in a convenience store that we've never heard of, featuring actors who are long past their prime. One of these days I'm expecting to see a film starring Steven Seagal, Vanilla Ice, Pia Zadora, and Carrot Top called Dear God, Buy This Movie, The Loan Sharks Are Coming To Break Our Legs.

Someone needs to muzzle David Foster. Celine Dion wasn't nearly so obnoxious in her early years, then she met Foster, and all of a sudden, every song had to be over the top, over done, and breaking wine glasses. I swear, the man has never heard of being subtle and understated. In his world, a song must have a thousand voice choir and a thousand-violin orchestra accompanying the lead singer, and must outdo every song before it...

Speaking of Celine, I'd like to thank the city of Las Vegas for taking her off our hands. I'd also like to apologize on behalf of all Canadians for unleashing her on the world. Same goes for Justin Bieber. And Nickleback. And Drake. For the record, we do have good musicians.

 If Wizard of Oz were remade with members of the Bush administration, would it work out to the following casting? Dubya as the Scarecrow (no brain), Laura Bush as Dorothy, Dick Cheney as the Tin Man (no heart), Michael "Brownie" Brown as the Cowardly Lion (no spine), Karl Rove as the Wizard, and Hillary Clinton as the Wicked Witch of the West?

Why does Jason Statham insist on playing pretty much the same character over and over and over again?

Finally.... why is a raven like a writing desk?