5 out of 5 Pitchforks

Rated: PG-13

Released: May 4

After much anticipation and speculation, “The Avengers” opens nationwide Friday. Picking up, more or less, from where “Thor” and “Captain America: The First Avenger” left off – both released last year – “The Avengers” proves that an ensemble cast of super heroes can do more than merely just attract a crowd of comic book fanatics in costume.

Unlike the wasted “X-Men” series or the abysmal “Fantastic Four,” Director Joss Whedon delivers an epic film from start to finish. Whether you’ve seen all (even any) of the previous Marvel movies (or have read any of the comics) that are directly related to “The Avengers” or not, the film easily puts everything into context: the Avengers are assembled to save the world.

Without wasting any time, Whedon presents the crux of it all, the Tesseract. Introduced in “Captain America: The First Avenger,” the Tesseract holds the key to potentially endless renewable and sustainable energy – a hot commodity on Earth for sure, certainly beyond.

Other uses yet discovered are bound to exist within this beautiful blue-cube, as it is triggered to open a wormhole of sorts, allowing none-other than Loki (Hiddleston), Thor’s (Hemsworth) adopted brother to emerge before Nick Fury (Jackson) and company in the heart of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s underground base of operations. In no time flat, Loki has the Tesseract, and the call is out for the Avengers to assemble for the first (hopefully not last) time.

One by one each of the seven key members of the Avengers are called upon to join in on the capturing and stopping of Loki before it’s too late. As is the case with any group facing world annihilation, these “super” personalities, attitudes and tempers flare as they try to make sense of it all. Naturally, as both the preverbal and figurative muck hits both the preverbal and figurative fan, the Avengers look to one another to get the job done as a team.

While standard action movies seem to be losing ground to comic-book, science-fiction – even fantasy-action movies – “The Avengers” puts them all to shame. Each character, be them good or bad, is given their fair share of time on screen. Picking a favorite is hard to do, though the third-time seemed to be the charm for the Hulk (Ruffalo). Unlike the “Transformers” series that Michael Bay ruined, watching the none-stop action (in 3D or not) isn’t lost in sloppy CGI.

There is already talk of several future Marvel productions, and like many of the previous films to “The Avengers,” there is a little extra at the end of the film – both before and after the credits roll – not to mention the official release of the new “The Dark Knight Rises” trailer at the beginning. All of this lines up perfectly with Free Comic Book Day which is May 5th.

Clearly audiences are embracing these films for a variety of reasons: the rugged good looks of the performers, what they stand for and how the stories are being told – and shown. In spite of these trying times, and the seemingly vapid absence of actual heroes today, “The Avengers” message of collective partnership for the greater good rings loud and clear.

With great power does come great responsibility, and if you truly wish to be the change in this world for the better, don your cape and mask and assemble.

Reach the reporter at jbfortne@asu.edu

The undrafted free agent said he will sign a deal with the Bengals.

“I didn’t get drafted like I wanted to, but I’m blessed to be on an NFL team,” Burfict said.

Bengals’ coach Marvin Lewis has kept an eye on Burfict since ASU’s Pro Day, the linebacker said. The Bengals were in need of a running back in the sixth round and drafted Ohio State running back Dan Herron with their last pick. Lewis told Burfict he’d give him a call if Burfict wasn’t drafted in the seventh round because the team in thin at linebacker.

And that’s exactly what happened.

“I feel comfortable being coached by him,” Burfict said. “I know that I’m a first, second round pick and the Bengals got a steal in the draft because nobody drafted me.”

The last year has been a hectic one for Burfict. Projected as a first-round pick last year, his stock fell as the season progressed. In what he described as a bad junior season, he collected just 69 tackles compared to 90 as a sophomore. Burfict underperformed at the NFL Combine and just days before the draft, Fox Sports insider Jay Glazer reported Burfict failed a drug test.

“It’s been a hard, long year and now that it’s over, I can look forward into the future, better myself and learn from my mistakes,” Burfict said.

Burfict said Bengals linebacker Rey Maualuga stood out to him. During his third season, the former USC Trojan registered 88 tackles in 13 games.

“I’m going to go in the first week and take notes of what he’s doing,”  the Corona, Calif., product said. “I’m going to perfect my style of football. Hopefully, I’m either playing beside him, backing up or I’m starting. Either way, I’m happy to be on the team.”

Performed at the ASU Gammage, the story itself is a simplification of frustrated, yet far from naïve young men who take out their vexations by committing themselves to deeds that transcend what people would expect.

Johnny (Van Hughes) leaves suburbia, succumbs to the lure of heroin and becomes infatuated with a girl referred to as “Whats-her-name” (Gabrielle McClinton)- creatively portrayed as both a character and the closing number of the show.

Tunny (Scott J. Campbell) enlists in the army after the rough realization that not even the urban life is enthralling enough to pacify him. He is wounded leading him to the hospital where he meets an “Extraordinary Girl” (Nicci Claspell) with whom he floats around in the air hanging by wire, one of the more memorable and artistic scenes.

Lastly, there’s Will (Jake Epstein) who transitions from adolescence to manhood when he gives up the urban ideal to stay with his pregnant girlfriend, Heather (Leslie McDonel). This character follows a seemingly dry plot line until he sings Green Day’s famous ballad, “Wake Me Up When September Ends.” The song was both an emotional shock and testament that the simplest musical numbers leave a lasting tune.

“American Idiot” director Michael Mayer brought the musical to Broadway and continues along the journey with the show’s national tour. The storyline was worth watching, the lights were dazzling (and also won a Tony Award for Best Lighting Design), but it’s the music transformed into a musical that is the captivating feature.

Green Day vocalist and guitarist, Billie Joe Armstrong, composed both the book and lyrics for “American Idiot”- the person most worthy of the job. Bassist Mike Dirnt and drummer Tré Cool complete the punk rock scene of the band.

The show brings to life the genius idea to take a popular Grammy award-winning record and craft it into a melodic production that combines and shares both the beauties of recorded music and live theatre.

Students who are looking to save money can participate in the lottery drawing held each day two and a half hours prior to show time.  Arrive at the ASU Gammage Box Office for a chance to win orchestra seats for a discounted price of $25, cash only. “American Idiot” runs from April 24-29.

Reach the reporter at mkthomp5@asu.edu

Seth Foley joined the Marine Corps in 2002 following graduation from high school. Photo courtesy Seth Foley.

Cpl. Seth Foley was on his way back to base from a day of operations in Hit, a city in the Al-Anbar province of northwestern Iraq, right along the Euphrates River – the cradle of civilization. He and three other Marines were riding in a security detachment with a convoy around 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 14, 2006, and were about a mile and a half from the base’s gate. The road was flanked by a field on the left and a grove of palm trees on the right. Foley was the only one in the Humvee trained to use an automatic grenade launcher, so he was tasked with keeping watch and manning the tank’s weapon.

As the wheels plodded and crunched over the desert soil, Foley’s helmeted, goggled and olive bandana-covered face poked out of the turret of the tank, followed by his camouflage-draped shoulders and chest, weighed down by his equipment and pack. From chest up he was exposed to the shivery twilight air, his lower body was warm in the vehicle. Just a little bit farther and he and his buddies could crash for the night before getting up before sunrise the next day to do it all again.

Foley and his compatriots had headphones on so they could communicate with each other and with the base, in addition to a main radio supplied for each vehicle. They weren’t supposed to do it, but they often taped an MP3 player to the fourth headset to listen to music and keep themselves alert during long shifts. The Jimi Hendrix Experience was playing during their return journey, and Foley nodded along to the wah-wah guitar and Hendrix’s psychedelic vocals in “Voodoo Child (Slight Return).”

“Well, I stand up next to a mountain
And I chop it down with the edge of my hand 

Yeah

Well, I stand up next to a mountain
And I chop it down with the edge of my hand
Well, I pick up all the pieces and make an island
Might even raise a little sand

Yeah”

Photo courtesy Seth Foley.

A new, unfamiliar voice rose in the air around the vehicle – a man’s voice, singing what sounded to Foley like a Muslim prayer. He looked around for the source of the sound, which was creating an eerie mash-up with Hendrix. Then things started happening quickly.

“Oh, shit!” the Humvee’s driver yelled, before jerking it hard to the left.

The pothole he veered around exploded and blew the back of the tank off.

Foley blacked out and came to a few centuries-long seconds later. He was shaking and dizzy from the spinning feeling and the ringing in his ears. The Marines all grabbed their weapons, jumped out of the tank and inspected the area around it in widening circumferences – 50 meters, 100 meters, 250 meters. Suddenly, they heard screaming in Farsi followed by Arabic chanting erupting from the palm grove.

“Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar,” the voices said – “God is great, God is great, God is great.”

Foley, reeling from the attack and protective of his Marine brothers, emptied every round he had into the palm grove. The voices stopped.

—

Seth Foley was born in Columbus, Ohio, on Nov. 22, 1983 – “the 20th anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination,” he points out.

He was born into a family of history buffs – his father, a professional musician, collects Civil War regalia and has participated in battle reenactments, while his mother, who works in the medical field, is an expert on medieval history. Foley and his older brother Ben, born 18 months before him, were steeped in American history from an early age. He became obsessed with World War I and World War II and can rattle off arcane factoids and dates with computer-like command.

The Foleys encouraged their sons to pursue their passions and to get involved in groups, activities and organizations and to give back to their community.

“Seth joins everything coming and going,” his mother, Deborah Cohen, says in a phone interview from Ohio. “Our family has always been involved in fraternal organizations, so he grew up with that and volunteerism. I had to limit him to five activities at a time, God love him.”

Foley played football and was active in theater, volunteering and Masonic youth organizations like DeMolay. His favorite game to play as a child was “army men,” and he and Ben wore different colors to set them apart during their epic battles.

Both boys were civic-minded at very young ages, and their first physical fight was over the 1988 presidential election, which their school simulated in their first- and second-grade classrooms.

“Seth was a staunch Republican then, and his brother was a Democrat,” Cohen says. “Seth wanted Bush to win because he had ‘bush’ in his name and Ben wanted Dukakis to win because he had a shiny face … When they went to cast their ‘votes,’ Seth was standing in line screaming at Ben, saying, ‘You’re wasting your vote!’”

So when Foley graduated high school in 2002 and decided to join the Marine Corps – “at the time it was that kind of G.I. Joe boyhood fantasy, but I thought, ‘This is what’s right to me,’” Foley says – Cohen was not altogether surprised.

“Seth is probably, without question, one of the most impulsive people I’ve ever met in my life,” Cohen says. “He hears it and he acts. He just does it … One day I came home from work and he said, ‘Mom, guess what I did? I joined the Marine Corps.’”

She remembers one night before he left, when he and a bunch of friends who were also joining various branches of the military camped out in his room and bragged about their future glory the way that only impassioned and inexperienced young men can.

Photo courtesy Seth Foley.

“I was in my room and I could hear them talking about how they were going to go over (to the Middle East) and turn everything into a Walmart parking lot and show them (the enemy) the true meaning of democracy and capitalism,” Cohen says. “That’s been the biggest change. As he’s seen more of the world, he doesn’t necessarily see everything so black-and-white anymore. I gotta say – I really like that, even though I am kind of sad to see some of the naiveté gone.”

—

“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.” – Maj. Gen. Smedley D. Butler in his famed speech “War is a Racket”

Foley sits at a table eating chips, salsa and queso dip with his best friend and roommate Alyse Cho, 23, at a Mexican restaurant in Tempe. He’s about 5 feet 8 inches tall and slim, almost to the point of being bony. His white baseball tee with navy sleeves and faded jeans are relaxed and comfortable. Sandy waves poke out from the bottom of his brown beanie and a scraggly goatee makes him look older than his clean-shaven, baby-faced military days, back when his hair was disciplined into the Marines’ signature “high and tight” cropped bowl cut. He looks more like a slouchy musician or artist than a former Marine.

There’s no hint of militaristic seriousness or bravado in his demeanor, either – his voice is gentle and friendly, and he nods and smiles as he listens to people speak, beaming encouragement and affirmation. His blue eyes are like sparkly aquamarines embedded into his pale face and framed by little crinkles of laugh lines between his cheeks and brow bones.

He opens doors, pulls out chairs, offers to buy drinks and carries around a pack of American Spirits and a lighter to offer to friends, though he doesn’t smoke. He’s just that kind, that polite and that eager to help out and be of service.

He’s the kind of nice that makes people suspicious.

“When I first met Seth I was like, ‘How could anybody be this nice?’” Cho says. “I thought he was a cyborg.”

Foley lives in Tempe with Cho and a menagerie of cats (with colorful names that pay homage to pop culture, like Beatrix Kiddo and Pink Floyd Sound) and ferrets. Friends pass through town and crash for a few days or a few months, rent-free – Foley pays rent for the gypsy house with the disability money he receives from his war injuries (shrapnel in his legs and thumb, a fractured and hyper-extended right ankle, tinnitus and post-traumatic stress disorder, which contributed to his being awarded a Purple Heart upon his return to the U.S.). He refuses to accept money for “something I didn’t have to pay for anyway.”

He took a semester off from studying political science at Arizona State University but plans to return in the fall to graduate in December 2012. For the past few years he’s worked as a manager at the Hippie Gypsy, a Mill Avenue institution and haven for neo-hippies and herbal enthusiasts – not exactly the place you’d expect to find a Marine.

“A lot of folks come into the Hippie Gypsy and assume, since we’re behind the counter, that we’re all hippies,” Foley says.

He loves it when conservative, straight-laced types, especially current or former military, come in and he gets to bust their preconceived notions by telling them about his former life. Foley himself walks an interesting line between hippy-dippy “anything goes” freedom and the regimented, badass aggression of Marine Corps life.

“I would love to call myself a hippie because in my heart what it means to be a hippie, I agree with,” he says. “But I’m not, because I’m a productive member of society. As a student of history, I think that movement was totally destroyed and made less potent because of all the drugs and non-productivity.”

This is not to say he’s anti-drugs – it’s more like he’s anti-laziness.

“Do all your drugs and have fun, but be a productive member of society,” Foley says. “Then your opinion and argument actually means something.”

Foley says he got caught up in the post-9/11 patriotic propaganda machine and feels like he was “duped” by the United Stated government, which he says preys on the passionate and nationalist impulses of young men and women to serve its political agenda.

“I hate it because I disagree with the country’s motivations for why I was doing what I was doing,” Foley says. “If I’d been born in Syria with my mentality, I’d be wearing a face wrap and shooting at the guys in uniform. I’d be just as impassioned and just as against the occupation we (the U.S.) were perpetuating.”

His patriotism is ardent and unwavering but no longer ignorant, he says.

“It’s OK not to be that Toby Keith and flag-waving kind of patriot,” Foley says. “I’m still a patriot. I still love this place and everything it’s given me, but I’m no longer jaded.”

Foley says he came to identify more and more with his enemies as the war progressed.

“If you are human, you have more in common with me than every other living thing on the planet, regardless of what language you speak,” he says. “We’re all fellow people.”

He wrestles constantly with guilt – at surviving a war that many of his comrades did not survive, and for his part in the death of those on the other side of the conflict, especially those in the palm grove.

Foley looks back on that evening in Iraq and his eyes widen yet become more dull and glassy, as if he’s trying to take it all in and look at everything that happened but not let it swallow him back in. A slight haze is necessary to stay present in this life, to keep him from being stuck in that one.

“I killed him,” Foley says. “That’s final, it’s over, he’s not coming back.”

He lifts his shoulders up in a pose that could be defensive or self-comforting, like a protective recoil or an inward hug – or perhaps it’s both. Foley rubs his heart with big, firm circles of pressure from his fist and forearm and squirms in his seat.

“I have a lot of guilt, but I don’t,” he says. “I have a lot of guilt, but I don’t.”

“Boys with a normal viewpoint were taken out of the fields and offices and factories and classrooms and put into the ranks. There they were remodeled; they were made over; they were made to ‘about face’; to regard murder as the order of the day. They were put shoulder to shoulder and, through mass psychology, they were entirely changed. We used them for a couple of years and trained them to think nothing of killing or being killed.” – from “War is a Racket”

“I don’t know anyone who could go through the meat machine of the military and come out a real person,” Cho says. “Seth is an old soul, a learning soul, always truly growing and learning. He lives an intentionally purposeful life…(but) there’s also a sense of being an addict, to go back and save the people who were like you once.”

After he graduates, Foley wants to reenlist in the Marine Corps if they’ll take him. He has unfinished business – not in a revenge fantasy way, but because he feels compelled to be there for his brothers and to keep defending his country, something that was interrupted when his Humvee was hit by that roadside bomb.

“He’s really, really into the fraternity aspect of the military,” Cohen says. “He likes having his band of brothers, his groups – fighting for what’s right.”

Foley doesn’t like war, he wishes it didn’t exist, but if there has to be one, he says he’d rather be there – sort of a “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself” situation.

“I love history,” Foley says. “In the history of people this is the best kind of lifestyle that anyone’s had, ever. I feel proud of having done my part to protect that … If more people had been aware of what was really going on I feel like it would have been different. There’s always going to be a war to fight.”

Reach the reporter at llemoine@asu.edu

Trinity Cathedral in Downtown Phoenix. Photo by Noemi Gonzalez.

The lingering smell of incense greeted us as we walked into Trinity Episcopal Cathedral on a moderately warm and sunny Sunday afternoon. I was accompanied by Leah LeMoine, a spunky, quirky and inquisitive partner who has an equal if not greater thirst for all things spiritual.

Sitting in the back pew with a view of the circular, blue stained glass window behind the altar, we began our spiritual journey in a denomination known for its progressivism and mystical tendencies. Also, this is the denomination I grew up in. I remember singing hymnals that reached the church ceiling and carefully carrying the candle as an altar boy at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Bremerton, Wash. These events anchored my frenzied life as a kid, and it was my grandma that I tagged along with enthusiastically to service.

The organ cranks up and swirls through the cathedral as the liturgy begins. Everything about the service is strictly coordinated – from the selected readings, to the common prayers, which I mostly have memorized. This dimension of familiarity is especially endearing to me and I’m already mentally disorganized, so order and routine are comforting for me in a church service.

The friendly, Mr.Rogers-looking priest preached his sermon on a Jesus that reveals truth in ways that we can barely understand, and it’s this type of mystical representation of faith that I especially move towards.

Up until the Episcopal service, I hadn’t been attending a church full-time for a while, and I felt somewhat of a longing to belong to something bigger than myself. Even though the congregation was made up of people a lot older than me, I could definitely see myself attending an Episcopalian church again.

However, not all churches we visited celebrated mystery.

On a cloudy and cool Sunday morning we visited the strict, rectangular, brick and mortar Scientology building in central Phoenix, which off-the-bat should have warned us of its strict and sanitized spirituality. After walking in we were lead into the polished visitor’s room by a man in a clean, collared shirt, tie and an intense, soul-gazing stare.

We watched 45 minutes of video that celebrated the truly illustrious life of L. Ron Hubbard and broke down the science of the faith, which seemed molded in the pattern of infomercials – with testimonials and advertisements for Hubbard’s books at the end of every individual video.

The spirituality — or better yet, the science of scientology as presented by the video — revealed a faith that preached the superiority of the soul over the body and the idea that the spirit could be healed through a system called Dianetics.

Dianetics is a program of recovery facilitated by auditing that uncovers previous painful experiences as a means of healing the soul. The program itself was advertised in boxes mirroring board games in a neat display to the right of us. I could easily picture Hubbard sitting comfortably, with a grandfatherly grin in a leather chair in front of these, with a phone number along the bottom of the screen.

All the while, I felt like I was being pitched a product, and the merchandising didn’t help my feelings whatsoever.

After the video we were lead up the floor above us, by an elderly lady who was behind us for the latter part of our video, conspicuously watching us watching videos about Hubbard.

The service had about five other members in attendance beside us even though there were several cars parked outside. The room itself had an altar of sorts with a wooden podium, a humming fan and an energetic elderly man who read and interpreted the writings of Hubbard to us in sermon form.

Flanking the podium was a brown bust of Hubbard, old and weathered but with slick hair and an open mouth, which did not succeed to arouse reverence in me.

Due to curiosity (mixed with a need to go to the restroom) I left the room during the service and saw a couple rooms where people were doing what looked like homework in study rooms. I remember that the man who worked in the visitor’s room had told me that he graded the coursework of the members in an esteemed way, and I was seeing firsthand the faithful performing their religious duties. There is something about coursework and spirituality that puts me on edge a bit and diminishes the element of mystery that I look for in spiritual pursuits.

Overall, I got the impression that Scientology was an extended form of psychoanalysis; I have always looked at the mind in a more Buddhist way in the sense that it’s something that can be healed through transcendence mixed with confrontation, but not one exclusively.

Also, the degree to which they downplayed the significance of the body was troubling. In a lot of ways, I believe that we experience God through our bodies, at least that’s how I do, and Scientology’s emphasis on the spirit in a hierarchy above the body seemed to discredit sources of ecstatic experiences I’ve had in spirituality. Maybe the spirit and body can be seen as one?

One of the churches that emphasized the body as a means to experience the spirit, or God, was Church of the Nations – a Pentecostal church in downtown Phoenix. Walking into the huge amphitheater armed with fog machines, blaring melodies, and ecstatic praise, I wouldn’t have been prepared if I didn’t have a past with this type of spirituality.

By the time I was nine I’d memorized most of the major stories in the bible, and not just to get graham crackers in Sunday school, but because I was genuinely fascinated by the stories. That being said, I’ve always had an innate curiosity about religion.

My curiosity was piqued when as a young, uncouth 14-year-old and I was told at a Pentecostal summer camp that Jesus came to take my sins and he wanted a personal relationship with me. I performed the rite of passage in the evangelical world by going up to the altar, drenching the floor with tears, and repenting for all the garbage in my life – perceived and unperceived.

From then on, everything I did was branded by mainstream evangelical Christianity. I wore sly marketing schemes for conversion on my shirts in the spirit of “Jesus: Sweet Savior King of Kings;” went to all the prayers around the flagpole; lead all the bible studies and avoided all the wrong music.

But, after a while, all these approaches to faith were becoming dryly ritualistic and left me starving for God in a ravenous way. Reading the Bible, which was communicated as the portal into the divine, no longer inspired anything in me, and prayer seemed like a chore.

Everything in my heart agreed with the essential teachings of Jesus to love radically as a means to experience the kingdom of God, but after being exposed to other ideas through my own reading I started having doubts about the fundamentals of fundamentalism.

Since then, I’ve gradually disintegrated my attachments to fundamentalist Christianity and have tethered towards faith movements within the Christian circle that respect Christ’s teachings in a way that celebrates the mystery and beauty of all walks of faith.

But, I had experienced God in the experience of love, and saw my theology as revolving around the axis of sharing that with people.

That said, the familiar style of worship service was about an hour long, and it was nothing short of a rock concert in its scale and intensity. After being away from this type of religious experience for so long, it was a bit overwhelming and off-putting. Yet, I can understand and remember the feelings of exuberance that entails standing and singing in solidarity with hundreds of people at the top of my lungs and feeling the subsequent shivers crawl down my spine.

In those moments, I had felt God. However, that morning I did not feel God – I just felt upset.

Upset when, after the church had been worked up to a fever pitch, the pastor, with silver hair, a slick leather jacket and an even slicker tongue, declared that the drought was over and collected the offering plates. This, in my mind, automatically insinuated that the drought was over on the condition of the faithful’s ability to give in tithes and offerings.

Upset when the pastor said that it is a sin to not want to be great. I almost wanted to walk out at that point. I thought to myself, didn’t Jesus say, “The first shall be last and the last shall be first?”

But obviously this wasn’t an issue, and the pastor went on talking about being champions for Christ to intermittent cheers and applause throughout all in front of a 200-foot projector mirroring his movements.

Leaving the church, I realized just how far I had deviated from this type of expression.

The Islamic Community Center of Tempe. Photo by Haylee Schiavo.

Yet, there were more simplified forms of religious expression that we experienced on our journey. At both the Islamic Cultural Center of Tempe and the Beth Joseph Congregation of Greater Phoenix, we witnessed the ritualized prayers from the faithful and heard the sweet and lyrical music of the Hebrew and Arabic languages that danced around us during their prayers.

Though we didn’t join in the prayers ourselves, I felt connected to the sense of reverence and tradition embraced in them.

In talking to a youth teacher at the Islamic Cultural Center I was struck by the notion that he didn’t believe that only Muslims go to heaven, but that we only go to heaven by the mercy of God.

This sense of unknowing and humility left an impression on me, along with the sense of respect that Islam shows to their mothers, as I grew up with a single mother myself.

About halfway through our religious journey, Leah and I decided to take the path less traveled and attend a faux cult that sold merchandise at a bookstore downtown that I work at.

The cult is called the cult of the yellow sign and is loosely based off of the writings of Robert W. Chambers and H.P. Lovecraft, fiction writers from the early part of the 20^th century who wrote in a similar vein as Edgar Allan Poe. The cult is more of a parody of other cults and we had to remember this when they told us that we had to be blindfolded upon entering the abandoned house for the interview.

I remember before going to the cult, Leah told me that no matter what we couldn’t be separated, and the first thing they told us before going into the house was that we would have to go in one at a time – so much for first impressions.

We were lead through the house by different people in a checkpoint-type system and sat down in front of a semi-circle of cult members whose faces were covered by black shawls of sorts. There were also cult members sitting behind us, but because there were so many bright lights, we couldn’t fully see them.

The interview consisted of the two main members answering with outrageous responses about their cult, such as the fact that they will die first when the world ends; there are rituals where people get eaten; and that they are both pro-choice and pro-abortion.

It was more of a stand-up improvisational — stand-up about religion which offered a good break from the experiences we had so far.

Our spiritual quest culminated in a visit to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Phoenix, a large brick church with an equally large net of spirituality as proof by a song selection that included Swahili and Latin along with a reading from the poet E.E. Cummings. The congregation was just as diverse and mirrored, a sort of urban hippie chic.

Instead of religious material throughout the sanctuary there was art plastered all over the walls.

Though Unitarian Universalist, the church has its historical roots in Christianity and it showed as the female pastor preached her Easter sermon about a Jesus who lived a life to prove that the divine spirit lives within all of us and died to prove that love lives beyond death.

This message, and not the typical message of Jesus coming to die for your sins, sat comfortably in my heart. I feel connected to a God that doesn’t need you to believe in anything but the power of love and the truth of the divine in us all.

Knowing that the Unitarian Universalist faith has roots in Judeo-Christianity only confirms my sense of connection with this branch of faith, and out of all the churches, I feel like this harmonizes with the mysticism and collectivism that I am drawn to.

Love is the doctrine of their congregation, and in a similar way, I feel like love is the doctrine and call of my spirit in its multi-faceted incantations.

Love is the answer for me.

Max Payne 3 (May 15) Third Person Shooter: The Max Payne franchise has not seen a game in the past nine years. That in combination with the awful “Max Payne” film starring Mark Wahlberg has kept our favorite NYPD cop out of the limelight for some time. The original developer of Max Payne, Remedy Entertainment, moved on to the Alan Wake franchise on the Xbox 360 so it was very unlikely we would see a third entry into the series. Max Payne 3, developed by Rockstar, who made the Grand Theft Auto franchise and Red Dead: Redemption, will evolve the Max Payne franchise ten-fold. Max goes from being an NYPD cop in Noir York City to the sunny street of Sao Paulo, Brazil, employed as security for a rich entrepreneur. When his wife is kidnapped, it’s up to Max to get her back. From the videos I’ve seen, Rockstar is taking the physics and detail of the people and guns to a whole new level. Remedy even made a statement about Max Payne 3 and they said it looks brilliant.

Darksiders II (August) Action Role-Playing Game – I have recently delved into all of the Darksiders II media and am currently playing Darksiders 1 and I am colored interested. In the first game, you play as War and are accused of starting the apocalypse early. In the second game, you play as Death and you try to prove your brother’s innocence and the game’s plot runs concurrently with the first game and gives a behind-the-scenes look at what was happening elsewhere. Vigil Games, the developer for the Darksiders franchise, have described that Darksiders 1 was the moon and Darksiders II is the Earth in terms of scope and length of the two games. The game no longer takes place on Earth, like it did in the first game, and you really tell that the art designers went above and beyond with imaginative and creative environments and enemies. The game also stresses RPG mechanics and loot drops from enemies and the developers are stressing that my Death character and your Death character will be completely different from each other.

Bioshock: Infinite (October 16) First Person Shooter – I am a huge fan of the original Bioshock and have consistently praised it as one of my favorite games of all time, despite the ending. I was less a fan of Bioshock 2’s story but I couldn’t deny the improvements to the combat in the game. The stark difference between the two was that Ken Levine, who worked on Bioshock 1, did not work on Bioshock 2. He returns for the third iteration in the franchise, Bioshock: Infinite. Set as a prequel to Bioshock 1, it tasks the player to retrieve a woman trapped in a tower in a city suspended by balloons and interconnected by a rollercoaster system. I like to think of the game as a steampunk retelling of Rapunzel. The game also discusses American Exceptionalism in the setting and even the enemies reinforce this ideology. Bioshock 1 showed me that games can mean something and be interpreted as an art form that speaks to the player and I don’t doubt that Bioshock: Infinite will do the same thing.

Honorable Mentions: Halo 4 and Assassin’s Creed III

It’s been a fun ride and I hope you enjoy your summer and stay tuned for my return in the fall for the hectic holiday gaming season.