Into the Archives: Matthew Looney and the Invasion of Earth

 

Matthew Looney and the Invasion of Earth, by Jerome Beatty Jr. Illustrations by Gahan Wilson. (Avon/Camelot 1965; this 4^th Printing 1972)

“The Moon People realize there is life on Earth because the Earth has bombed the Moon! The expeditionary force sent to invade Earth is successful this time in finding living creatures. Terrified by what they interpret as water bullets hurled at them from the sky, the spacemen flee in such haste that they leave Matthew behind. So, to Matthew alone belongs the glory of finally meeting the EARTH people and bringing a dangerous specimen back to the Moon.” – from the back of the book. ‘Matthew Looney combines the ingenuity of Buck Rogers with the charm of Charlie Brown.’ – The New York Times.

          A piece of space junk (a probe?) crashes on the Moon just as Matthew Looney, now a Spaceman First Class, is prepared for a second journey to Earth with his space-hero Uncle Lucky. They are to be joined by Hector Hornblower, Matthew’s frenemy and rival, who will be Cabin Boy this time. Not exactly evil, but he's proud and envious, sort of the Eddie Haskell of outer space.  The sudden ‘attack’ on the Moon indicates that there is far more advanced life on Earth than they knew.

This changes their mission: it becomes first, to make contact and secure a peace treaty and second, failing that, to use powerful ‘Lava-Four’ bombs to destroy the Earth. The ship is refitted for the new mission.

They have traced the trajectory of the ‘bomb’ to Florida, so they head there accordingly. This place is unfortunately surrounded and soaked with the theoretically deadly substance ‘water’. They land, and when Matthew and his Uncle separate to do some scouting, they encounter flamingos and alligators, which are taken to be possible Earthlings. A sudden rain is interpreted as an attack, and in the commotion to return to the ship and escape, Matthew (partly through the malice of Hector) is left behind. There is not enough fuel to land and take off again, so Uncle Lucky and crew are reluctantly forced to return to the Moon and leave Matthew stranded.

Things look pretty bad when Matthew is captured by Wiley Kalmuck, a grumpy security official at Cape Canaveral, who locks him up as a childish prankster on government property. But Dr. Leonard O. Davinchy is soon convinced of his story when Matthew demonstrates some of his high tech, melting his prison door with a ray gun and using his anti-gravity device to float up to the ceiling.

It is decided that, with the help of this device, they will secretly speed up their own proposed launch to the Moon and return Matthew home. Matthew only agrees after the government has signed a non-aggression pact with the Moon. He, Kalmuck, and Davinchy blast off.

Once there, however, Kalmuck reveals that the treaty has been secretly altered and is not worth the paper it is written on. The Earth ship is equipped with a nuclear warhead which he threatens to use if the Moon does not surrender. But, not being used to the lighter gravity, he accidentally launches himself upward, and is soon subdued.

Davinchy, being a much more peaceable man (how old is this trope of the gung-ho war hawk as opposed to the reasonable scientist?) agrees to return to the Earth to procure a proper treaty with all the nations of the Earth, as opposed to being Lava-Four bombed into oblivion.  

To Matthew’s delight, as it is a three-man rocket, Hector is shanghaied into being the third ‘man’ and is soon winging his way unwillingly back to Earth. And here the book ends.

Well, that settles that point: I have no memory of this volume, so Journey is the only Matthew Looney book I ever read. This copy of Invasion is much smaller than the reprint of Journey and is in pretty good shape for a 52-year-old paperback kid’s book. I am enjoying this trip to an Alternate Childhood, and can hardly wait to get the next in the series, Matthew Looney in the Outback (put a shrimp on the barbie!); after that I can finally read Matthew Looney and the Space Pirates (‘you know, pirates … but in space!’) which I’ve had for years.  

The World Through A Window

 

"Why do you call my attire fantastic?" asked Herne [who is still wearing the costume he wore in a play about King Richard]. "It's very much simpler than yours. It just goes over your head and there you are. Besides, it has all sorts of sensible elements you don't discover till you've worn it for a day or so. For instance," he looked up at the sky with a sort of frown, "it may be going to rain or something; it may turn very cold or the wind be very strong. What will you all do then? You will make a bolt for the house and come back with a paraphernalia of things for the lady; perhaps a huge horrible umbrella that will force you to walk about like a Chinese Emperor under a canopy; perhaps a lot of wraps and waterproofs and things. But nine times out of ten a man only wants something to pull over his head in this climate; he simply does this," and he plucked forward the hood that hung between his shoulders, "and for the rest of the time he can belong to the Hatless Brigade...Do you know," he added abruptly and in a lowered voice, "there's something very satisfying about wearing a hood...something symbolical; I don't wonder they corrupted the name of the great medieval hero into Robin Hood."

"What do you mean," [Olive] said, "by saying a hood is symbolical?"

"Have you never looked through an archway?" asked Herne, "and seen the landscape beyond as bright as a lost paradise? That is because there is a frame to the picture...You are cut off from something and allowed to look at something. When will people understand that the world is a window and not a blank infinity; a window in a wall of infinite nothing? When I wear this hood I carry my window with me. I say to myself—this is the world that Francis of Assisi saw and loved because it was limited. The hood has the very shape of a Gothic window."

-The Return of Don Quixote, G. K. Chesterton

 

The Uses of Fantasy: Essay? Meditation? Short Story Concept?

 

“Give me a few minutes, I’ll come up with something.”

Two friends have entered a MMORPG (or whatever they’re called) in search of adventure. There are crowds milling around the starting point, trying to form companies. In their efforts they find characters (people) who are jaded with the limited ‘quests’ available; they have become dissatisfied but cannot quit. It’s what they have to do with their time.

There are others who shun the friends because they are low-level characters; they are proud of their own imaginary power, imaginary riches, imaginary accomplishments. Others are only there for imaginary hook-ups with people whose real faces they will never see and who will never be seen themselves. Everyone looks more or less alike, despite their player character individuation choice.

The friends decide they will go out into the wild and try to level up a bit. Even the ‘wild’ between quest locations is much the same after a while, despite random location generators. After slaying about a hundred identical wild boars the journey begins to pall. There is no thrill, only grind.

One friend observes that’s part of why people play the fantasy game: to have an adventure that is more or less in their control, but in which there is no real … well, adventure. No real danger, nothing to lose but time. Some sort of score-keeping payback for their efforts, but no tangible reward, but also no real spiritual reward, either. They enjoy the control and the ‘glory’ they do not have in their real lives.

That is not what the other friend really wants; it is not the kind of thing he finds in Tolkien or LeGuin or Gaiman, despite some surface similarities. He wants wonder and wisdom and seeing the world out of different eyes. It’s not simply killing orcs or getting treasure; that kind of fantasy is just a type of sauce some less demanding people prefer on their adventure. Ladle out a different sauce and it’s just Grand Theft Auto with wizards. The kind of Fantasy he wants can’t be found in a computer-generated RPG. You’ll never find ‘a new road or a secret gate.’

[It might be added that the game can only give the same kind of payback to the millions who play it, while, though millions have read, say, LOTR since it was published, it can be argued that no two readers have read the same book in the same way. This can be proved by the multitudinous artwork produced and the strong reaction various readers have had to it. It was only after the Jackson films that it became tied down in many minds to a single common representation.]

The other counters that that is not what the game is designed for, and even goes so far as to say that is not what most ‘fantasy’ novels based on such games produce. They are the equivalent of eating a bag of peanuts while your stomach is yearning for a meal; perhaps not satisfying, but better than nothing. The motions give one the illusion of nutrition.

Exactly. But this is the equivalent of choosing peanuts when there are real meals available all around you. Peanuts are fine in idle moments, but you can’t live on them. This kind of ‘fantasy’ is not for him. The other agrees, and suggests they not voyage to a save-point but try a visit to the bookstore instead. The next moment the ‘wild’ is empty.   

What I Did This Time of Year in 1997

Well, for one thing I didn't actually have this calendar; it was one of those years where I had a rare miss in my collection (hard times). But by sheer chance that February I began one of my perfunctory efforts to keep a diary (so much easier now with a computer) and so preserved a snapshot of how things were shortly before the cascade of so many big changes. It begins well but kind of peters out, like most of my endeavors at the time. I regret the bit of turbulence between me and Mom, but there it is. The record slows down and ends shortly after the last entry here. New notes in [square brackets].

1997 FEBRUARY 18

 

The relevant data of my existence is already contained in some small yellow sheets on a pad; dates, names, and places. What follows is, I hope, a combination of journal, memoir, anecdote and essay that will reveal the essence of what I am to my contemporaries, to posterity, and most importantly, to myself. As I fast approach my thirty-fourth year I feel the need to take stock; to think about where I am and how I got here and where I should go; to find out what I really think, believe, and feel.

I'll begin with an anecdote. When John and I were in high school we worked on an epic fantasy in the Tolkien tradition. It was called Goldfire. We plotted an outline and discussed what would happen, and then John would write the chapter. We got about a third of the way through before it petered out. At places in the story outline, we were good enough plotters to know some incident was needed for the timing of the story, but weren't sure what to use. So to give ourselves some latitude and allow for organic growth in the tale, we simply wrote "Something happens here."

It struck me the other day that in the telling of my own story there are many spots where, dramatically speaking, something should have happened. At graduation, first love, leaving college, leaving home, even learning to drive, something should have happened, as it happens in most normal American lives at this period. Instead there are spots--"Nothing happens here."

Mine, of course, is not "a normal American life"--if there is such a thing. The dramatic accents are displaced, developments are delayed. I might go so far as to say it is naturally unnatural; that the unusual thing is the usual thing that happens to me or is what I do. For me to act, to quote, to use large or dramatic words or style is neither pretentious or unnatural, it's how I am.

Today, the day I start this autobiography, is February 18, 1997. It is a pleasantly warm day with fresh winds and racing clouds, clear light and emerald green winter grass. Trees are bare and drifts of dead leaves are still piled in corners, but there seems a tang of promised spring in the air. Plowing, mowing, and the song of innumerable birds in the trees. The clanking of Jimbo's windmill, the rustling of Sam's greenhouse plastic, the tinkling of distant chimes and the rude banging of dog-shed doors are all part of the vigorous wind's orchestra, along with hissing grass and roaring trees.

Pop went for his two-year anniversary checkup on his heart. Mom frazzled herself trying to cope with Kelsey and Kaitlyn. Mike recorded a special on[Thomas]Jefferson. John worked from 1 PM to 8 PM at Blockbuster. Meals were scrambled eggs and toast; ham and cheese sandwiches; ribs, cheese noodles, and spinach. I helped take care of the babies from 7:15 AM to about 10 Pm, while Pop was at the doctor's. Kelsey is big, smart, and strong for her age; she could identify two dimensional pictures at eighteen months. She's very curious and can already work buttons, switches, and doorknobs. She wants to be outside, or "shide" as she calls it, all the time now. Mike typed an inventory list for Nanny [still alive at the time!].

 

1997 FEBRUARY 19

A warm, wet day, with tornado and flash flood warnings at night. Meals: Tuna sandwiches; chili rice, dips, cream style corn. When John got home from work he and I went to town and got lottery tickets; I blew $7. John bought some gold-flecked drink and two six packs of Killian's Brown Ale to celebrate finishing a two week stint at work with no days off. I drank two ales. We watched a concluding episode of Deep Space 9, that joins the Cardassians and the Dominion and re-unites the Klingons and the Federation. Right now it is almost 3 AM and I am tired from sweeping and washing. I saw a program on the pyramids that had animation voiced by most of the cast of I, Claudius! I wonder what brought that about? Babelese recorded for the day: What is the difference between a drop and a wee drop? A wee drop is much larger.

 

1997 FEBRUARY 22

Big skip here. I've been very depressed, thanks to Mom.

On the 20th Mike and I went to the library. I got Burr by Gore Vidal; A History of the Devil by Gerald Messadie; Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut; and Zanies, a book about eccentrics. That night Mom was asleep; I was watching TV. When she woke up and went potty, she demanded the clicker. I said I was watching and in control. She said in a flat matter-of-fact voice "You don't control anything around here." Just to put me in my place. I simply left, and for the last few days have practiced 'erasing' her. This entails not looking at her, not speaking to her, and not being around her. I still do whatever job she asks me, and answer yes or no to direct questions, but little more. She knows I'm mad at her and becomes more conciliatory. It works better than all the arguing and fighting in the world.

The best thing that happened today was Mike and I worked on supper together: chicken fried patties, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans.

 

On the 21st, about 1 AM at night, Nippy and Rocky got in a fight. Apparently Rocky was still hanging out in the back of the yard when Mike thought he was [penned] in the garage as usual. It's so dark you can't always tell. I was washing dishes, heard the fight, and went to tell Mike, meeting Pop on the way out; he had heard it from his bedroom. He and Mike went out; Rocky had Nippy by the throat. Each grabbed a dog, trying to get them apart. I ran around uselessly trying to find something to hit them apart. At Mike's suggestion Pop hit Rocky in the balls: this made him let go. As it turned out Rocky didn't break the skin on Nippy's throat, where he could have easily killed him if he wanted. Instead he had bitten Nippy's penis. Not too badly apparently; he seems alright.

On the 21st John and I went to Wal-Mart and got a Luke in Stormtrooper disguise, Scout on Speederbike, and Vader Lightsaber. When we went to HEB to get a Zombie Spawn, of which there had been two, scant hours before, but now there were none, which depressed me a little. But we went to Hastings and looked at the action figures magazine at all the new Star Trek, Spawn, and Star Wars figures coming out.

 

I have now (22nd) finished Zanies (not bad) and Bluebeard (okay) and am on The History of the Devil (dry). I save Vidal for last as he's the most meaty.

Pop, perhaps, deserves a citation for bravery and ridiculousness: rushing out on a frosty night in only his baggy old underwear with the backyard light lit up for anyone to see, to save the dogs.

Mike doctored and stayed up with Nippy for hours till the bleeding stopped; the next day Nippy seemed able to urinate alright. We'll see how it goes.

 

1997 FEBRUARY 23, Sunday

Mom finally formally apologized to me. We had fajitas today; I had trouble making guacamole out of the rock-hard avacados Pop had bought. We, or rather I, set the crib back up in the living room. Are You Being Served? had Christmas episodes. I finished History and began Burr. Art Bell had the author of 5/5/2000 on to talk about upcoming world catastrophes, and Mike and I listened and commented as I washed dishes. I have out-lived so many end-of-the-world scares (and, let's face it, they're tittivating and interesting) that I'd actually have to see actual fire falling from the sky before I take another one seriously. We both agreed the most sensible attitude you could have about them is "Whudya gonna do?"

 

1997 FEBRUARY 24

A pretty ordinary day. Kids, nurse [Mom had a nurse come in to check on her every week], meals, TV. John had a lot of fun playing with Kelsey, giving her rides on a chair. Read Burr. It's just what I've been looking for in a Revolutionary War novel.

 

1997 FEBRUARY 25

Rainy, cold, and nasty. Tenor of the home good. Mom and Pop went poker playing and we cared for the kids till Andy picked them up. John had off today. A catch-as-catch-can meal plan all day. I haven't been able to write as many reflections yet as I had hoped; right now at 2:30 AM I am too tired.

Vanished Things

 

Not Maurice and Everard, But Close Enough

I am still in the early chapters of Maurice Baring Restored but “Already I have learned from this book one thing which is wholly true,” as Kerin of Nointel would say in The Silver Stallion. This is contained in the following anecdote of his childhood:

“There was another book which I read to myself and liked, if anything, still better. I found it in Everard’s [his brother's] bedroom. It was a yellow-backed novel, and it had on the cover the picture of a dwarf letting off a pistol. It was called the Siege of Castle Something and it was by—that is the question, who was it by? … The book was in Everard’s cupboard for years, and then, “suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished.” I never have been able to find it again, although I have never stopped looking for it. Once I thought I had run it to earth. I once met at the Vice-Provost’s house at Eton a man who was an expert lion-hunter and who seemed to have read every English novel that had ever been published. I described him the book. He had read it. He remembered the picture on the cover and the story, but, alas! he could recall neither its name nor that of the author.” – The Puppet Show of Memory, Maurice Baring (1874-1945).

The words that most impressed me were the words in quotations, which indicate that they were someone else’s. But whose? I found out they were Robert Browning’s, from his poem One Word More. Of course Baring knew Browning’s poetry, and expected everyone else to know it, too. I also found out that 'Maurice' in English is pronounced 'Morris'.

The Lord of the Rings: The Window on the West (Part Four)

The Tale

Frodo, Sam, Faramir and his men move on through the woods of Ithilien in silence for a while. Sam has kept his mouth shut but has listened to all of Frodo and Faramir’s words intently, but also to all the noises around him. He knows that there are other companies of men all around him, all heading for the same place. The name of Gollum has not been mentioned in the debate, but he feels ‘it was too much to hope that he would never hear it again.’ Looking back once, skin prickling, he thinks he sees a small figure slipping into the shadows. He decides not to mention it.

The woods grow thin and the land climbs. At one point, Faramir apologizes, but the Hobbits must be blindfolded, to preserve the secrecy of their destination. Frodo understands; even in Lothlorien they did it at need. Mablung and Damrod bind the hobbits’ eyes with scarves and draw their hoods over their heads and lead them by hand. They are taken down a steep narrow path, the sound of water to their right growing ever louder, and then carried down steps until they pass through what seems a fine light rain. They are set down in silence and Faramir orders their blindfolds removed.

‘They stood on a wet floor of polished stone, the doorstep, as it were, of a rough-hewn gate of rock opening dark behind them. But in front a thin veil of water was hung … It faced westward. The level shafts of the setting sun behind beat upon it, and the red light was broken into many flickering beams of ever-changing colour. It was if they stood at the window of some elven-tower, curtained with threaded jewels of silver and gold, and ruby, sapphire and amethyst, all kindled with an unconsuming fire.’

This is the Window of the Sunset, says Faramir. Henneth Annun, which few strangers have seen. It was made by cunning to be a camouflaged refuge; there are only two ways out: the path they have taken and a plunge out through the Window curtain below ‘into a deep bowl filled with knives of stone.’

They pass into the chamber behind, and the hobbits find themselves in a surprisingly large rough rock chamber. The few dim torches reveal a great store of arms and provisions. Men by twos and threes are still entering behind them. Faramir says the Hobbits can rest here in peace through the night; it is dry, but no big fires are lit. He bids them rest a while until the evening meal. They are taken to a quiet corner and given a low bed to lie on, if they want.

The hobbits watch as the men go about, ‘quietly but with ordered quickness,’ setting things up in the cave. All their gear is plain but well-made, and an unadorned silver cup is put at the captain’s seat at the table. Faramir goes among his men, questioning them as they enter, enquiring about what they have seen as they returned through the woods. Some have pursued the Southrons, others were scouting things near the road. All their foes are accounted for, except the great mumak, lost as he fled. ‘Of the enemy no movement could be seen; not even an orc-spy was abroad.’

Notes:  

Henneth is ‘window, and Annun is ‘sunset, West’ (there really should be a circumfles (^) over that ‘u’, but I can’t quite figure out how to add it). This little section goes far to make an example of how the Men of Gondor do things, even in this far-flung outpost. They are quiet and orderly, and their gear, even if only a plate, is ‘all well and fairly made.’ There are even grace notes: a silver cup, though plain, for the captain’s use. Beauty and utility are combined, just as Henneth Annun is both a refuge and a place of wonder. I can’t help but speculate if this is perhaps Tolkien’s backhanded criticism of the huggermugger nature of army life during his time in WWI. It was harsh and necessary, but did it have to be made even more unbearable by waste, ugly design, and confusion? We are reminded that Gollum, though not spoken of, is still skulking about.

The Title Itself Is the Ninth Haiku

                                     Nine Cryptic Haiku

For a Coming Occasion

In My Birthday Month

 

 

I.

 

A strange circumstance,

That such important matters

Are forever dark!

 

 

II.

 

Starting a journey

On a steed that never strides

Yet always moves on.

 

 

III.

 

The poor trusting soul

Lets serpents in the child’s room

To keep rats away.

 

 

IV. 

 

Two grandfathers gone!

What unknown ingredients

They might have supplied.

 

 

V.

 

Crude bright foolish things,

The first tiny crumbs that lead

To beauty’s full feast.

 

 

VI.

 

Does this loneliness

Indicate a special fate

Or only sadness?

 

 

VII.

 

A green seed dropped in

The fertile pool of a young mind.

How it has sprouted!

 

 

VIII.

 

Rise up and strike them.

Remove the chains, eyes open,

And let storms inside.