Sunday, March 13, 2005

The coat makes the man

Way back when I was a member of The Muse (and I occasionally like to depress myself by thinking just how long ago that was. It's now more than 10 years since I left) there was a small group of us who went by the monkier "The Trenchcoat Brigade." It wasn't an original name - writer Neil Gaiman first used it in his excellent comic mini-series "The Books of Magic." Since several of us were enamoured with trenchcoats and wore them everywhere, it only seemed to make sense to adopt it.

Furthermore, I think they were all different colours. One was black, another beige, a grey one and mine was deep green. There was an occasion when the four of us (Chris Myrick, Jaap Tuinman, Dups and myself) heard about a story breaking somewhere on campus. The four of us dashed to the coat rack, grabbed our trenchcoats, swirled them on with a big dramatic gesture and then rushed out of the office, coats flapping behind us. Which we thought was ever so cool.

Some might call us geeks. Actually, with the exception of Dups, I suspect its our respective girlfriend/fiance/wife that would call us that. Dups has no one, but is just mocked by society as a whole.

Anyway, for my brothers in the Trenchcoast Brigade, I give you this story. Since it's the New York Times, you need a password, but just go to bugmenot and get the necessary passwords. We're not actually geeks. We're just misunderstood noir characters out to save a world that doesn't understand us. Yes.

Oh, and to see just how cool the Sin City movie is going to be, go here.

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