Culture – Page 121

So Now We Know

This year Star Trek: Enterprise this year gave us an explanation of why Klingons look different in different series and thus cleared up a minor mystery.

It’s also cleared up something else: What a Tholian looks like.

In The Original Series, the Tholians appeared in just one episode ("The Tholian Web") and we never saw more than a weird-lookin’ face (?) on a viewscreen.

Folks naturally wonderd what the whole critter looked like, but until now we’ve never got to see.

Some even wondered whether the crystalline-lookin’ Tholian "face" we saw might be a helmet of some kind or if the critters were really crystalline.

The Tholians were almost totally ignored by later Star Trek series, though they were mentioned a number of times on Deep Space 9. A Tholian ambassador visited the station, though we never saw him. Capt. Sisko also had a conversation about (rare and much prized) Tholian "silk." And the Tholians signed a non-aggression pact with the Dominion before the war broke out. But for all the talk, we never got to see.

Now we have. In the two-part Mirror Universe episode "In A Mirror, Darkly," we finally get to see a Tholian.

Since both parts have now aired in all markets (and since this isn’t a matter of the plot and thus not a plot spoiler), I’ll go a head and show you a pic. Here ’tis:

As you can see, the ugly bugs are indeed crystalline. They also have six legs and two arms, which makes them arachnids.

There’s also a suggestion of motion under their crystalline carapace, which I s’ppose accounts for the weird color variations we saw on The Original Series’ viewscreen.

They live in a super-hot Venus-like environment.

So they’re blazingly hot crystal spiders.

Cool!

Only don’t say that to a Tholian. Probably won’t have the same resonance.

If you cool ’em off too much they start to crack. Need heat to live.

Tholian silk must be woven with asbestos or somethin.’

LEARN MORE ABOUT THOLIANS FROM MEMORY ALPHA (SPOILERS).

The Kingdom Of Not

There’s this Ridley Scott movie coming out called Kingdom of Heaven that’s about the Crusades. Word I’m getting is that it is problematic, though not an all-out Christian bashfest.

For some of the problems, here’s films critic Peter Chattaway semi-fisking the NYT-noids at the New York Times and their comments about the movie.

EXCERPT:

The article continues: "Mr. Scott and his screenwriter, William Monahan, have tried to be balanced. Muslims are portrayed as bent on coexistence until Christian extremists ruin everything. And even when the Christians are defeated, the Muslims give them safe conduct to return to Europe."

Um, this is balanced? All the extremists are Christian and all the Muslims are nice and peaceful? I think the film, to say nothing of history, is more complicated than that, though I don’t think the New York Times is.

GET THE STORY.

Off The Road Again

Okay, I had already thought of my post title for this story before I read it in the article, so I’m going to use it anyway.

"Singer Willie Nelson’s name is off the road again.

"A state legislator had proposed naming a 49-mile stretch of Texas Highway 130 being built around Austin in Nelson’s honor.

"But two Republican senators, Steve Odgen of Bryan and Jeff Wentworth of San Antonio, said they didn’t want Nelson’s name on the road that crosses their districts, citing the musician’s fondness for drinking and smoking, and active campaigning for Democratic candidates."

GET THE STORY.

Call me cynical, but I doubt Willie Nelson’s personal habits would have mattered enough to State Senators Ogden and Wentworth to go to the trouble of blocking the proposal if Nelson had had a record of "active campaigning" for Republican candidates. Of course, it’s also true that State Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos (D-Austin) might not have introduced the bill in the first place if it weren’t for that "active campaigning" for Democratic candidates.

Like I said, call me cynical.

New Star Wars TV

For some time there has been talk that George Lucas was thinking about a live-action Star Wars program.

He is.

The series is still a ways off, but Lucas has confirmed that it’s being planned. The series would be set between episodes III and IV and, he says, be similar in tone to the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. Like the latter series, the scripts for the first season would all be written in advance. It also would focus on previously minor characters in the Star Wars universe, leaving the actions of the big dogs to the big screen. (Though we might get an occasional Darth Vader or emperor cameo, I s’ppose.)

Lucas is also planning an animated series, this time using computer-generated animation. It also would be set between Eps III and IV.

GET THE STORY.

(CHT to the reader who e-mailed!)

Performance Art

More and more, these days, the question of whether art-imitates-life or life-imitates-art is becoming another chicken-and-egg question. Take, for example, this case of, uh, performance art:

"A Berlin couple plan to have their first baby at an art gallery, the gallery owner said on Saturday, confirming a newspaper report.

"’It’s a gift to humanity, a once in a lifetime thing,’ Bild newspaper quoted Winfried Witt, partner of mother-to-be Ramune Gele, as saying.

[…]

"About 30 people are expected to attend the birth, scheduled for April 24. They would be told to come to the gallery as soon as the 27-year-old Gele’s contractions became regular, Witt was quoted as saying."

Although the "performance" will be taking place in an art gallery, apparently this will not be an open exhibit:

"[Gallery manager Johann] Novak said the gallery, which usually shows installations and video art, would be closed during the birth. ‘The private aspect will be maintained,’ he said."

Uh huh. That’s why all the details are being released to the media. So we can maintain privacy. At least the article reports that not everyone is finding the proposed masterpiece fitting for a gallery exhibition:

"Another gallery owner in the street said: ‘I find it mad.’"

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Happy Birthday, Daffy!

Daffy_duck Daffy Duck made his first appearance April 17, 1937 in the short "Porky’s Duck Hunt" and was an instant success.

Audiences couldn’t stop talking about the screwball duck and he quickly supplanted Porky Pig in popularity.

Porky gracefully recovered, eventually accepting the role of straightman for the daffy duck.

As a prima donna, though, Daffy never recovered when he himself was supplanted by Bugs Bunny and has become obsessed with reclaiming the spotlight he lost to Bugs.

That’s no reason not to pay tribute to a true comic genius, though.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAFFY!

30th Century Dating

Mark Waid is such a great comic book writer.

A number of years ago they had him re-envision (i.e., "reboot") the Legion of Super-Heroes, which happens to be my sentimental favorite comic book as it was my boyhood favorite. It’s about a group of young superheroes in the 30th century, a thousand years from now.

Waid did a great job, and recently DC asked him to reboot (i.e., "re-envision") it again and he’s doing a great job again so far.

To the left is the cover of the third issue, which focuses, appropriately, on Triplicate Girl.

Triplicate Girl is a character who has the power to split into three. None of her three forms have any other superpowers, so many have viewed Triplicate Girl as a poorly-thought-out heroine.

Not Waid.

In his first re-envisioning of the Legion, he made Triplicate Girl a vital, exciting character who was able to hold her own against much more powerful individuals and make a real contribution to the team. Now Waid’s out once again to show us that Three is a magic number.

In this issue he has a priceless scene between three heroes: Phantom Girl, Element Land, and Triplicate Girl. None of these heroes are from Earth, and none seems familiar with the ancient Earth custom of dating. Nevertheless Element Lad and Triplicate Girl are about to go on a date, and as the scene begins Phantom Girl is coaching Element Lad on how the dating custom works, using a 20th century comic book (Batman) for help.

Problem is: Element Lad is from this really detached, spiritual planet, and he has a hard time grasping how things in ordinary humanlike cultures work.

The scene is so innocent and priceless that I thought that (strictly within the limits of the fair use provisions of U.S. copyright law and to encourage you to go out and buy the comic and thus increase its sales) I’d share it with you.

Continue reading “30th Century Dating”

New Enterprise Tonight

Archer_1 The final batch of episodes for Star Trek Enterprise start tonight!

While the series has been much better this season, I don’t know how good tonight’s episode is going to be.

From what I’ve read about it, it sounds like it features green Orion slave girls prominently and might ought to be titled "Capt. Archer’s 3-D House Of Slave Chicks."

CHECK YOUR LOCAL LISTINGS.

Greenorigongirl

Enterprise To Get Spiked?

Archer I know what you’re thinking: "It already has been!"

Yes, it’s true.

Star Trek Enterprise has been spiked in the sense that it’s been cancelled after its fourth season (when it finally got really worth watching).

As Larry Niven would say: "TANJ!" (There Ain’t No Justice.)

There’s only a few new episodes left before the series goes where four Star Trek series have gone before.

Well, Enterprise may get spiked in another sense.

TURNS OUT THAT SPIKE TV IS INTERESTED IN POSSIBLY PICKING UP THE SERIES FOR A FIFTH SEASON.

Fans may want to contact Spike.

I’ve never watched Spike TV before, but if they pick up Enterprise, I’d tune in to check out their version of the show.

He Gave Us Dragons

H. P. Lovecraft writes:

THE OLDEST and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. These facts few psychologists will dispute, and their admitted truth must establish for all time the genuineness and dignity of the weirdly horrible tale as a literary form. Against it are discharged all the shafts of a materialistic sophistication which clings to frequently felt emotions and external events, and of a naïvely insipid idealism which deprecates the æsthetic motive and calls for a didactic literature to "uplift" the reader toward a suitable degree of smirking optimism. But in spite of all this opposition the weird tale has survived, developed, and attained remarkable heights of perfection; founded as it is on a profound and elementary principle whose appeal, if not always universal, must necessarily be poignant and permanent to minds of the requisite sensitiveness.

This is from Lovecraft’s monograph Supernatural Horror In Literature, which is considered the seminal 20th century treatment on the subject. In it, he surveys many masters of the macabre in the centuries and decades up to his time.

I don’t agree with him that fear is the oldest or strongest emotion or that fear of the unknown in particular is. I think mankind came into this word (whether you buy evolutionary accounts or not) with a robust set of emotions, no one of which predominates the others.

That being said, fear is a powerful, primal emotion, and fear of the unknown is one of its major expressions.

That is a sufficient reason for horror stories being popular despite the efforts of those who would cramp literature down into just those forms of naive realism that would seek to uplift all readers into "smirking optimism." (Gotta love that phrase.)

God gave the human imagination dragons, whether as symbols of actual or fanciful evils, and as Lovecraft points out in his monograph, the weirdly horrible has haunted human literature since its dim beginnings in primitive folklore. It’s part of the human psyche, and nothing is going to change that.

One of my own theories is that we like such literature for the same reason that kittens and puppies wrestle with each other and that boys play mock combat games: It’s a way of preparing ourselves psychologically when we may have to face horrible dangers, a way of experiencing such situations in a safe way (think: holodeck with the safeties on) so that we will be psychologically prepared for them when we face terrible real-life situations with the safeties off. To prep us for these, we have an inbuilt drive that makes us want to "play" dangerous situations so that we have something to fall back on when we encounter them for real.

When we’re young, we physicalize this through play. When we’re older, we internalize it through literature. But it’s the same phenomenon.

We may never encounter in real life the specific dangers we read about in horror stories or thrillers. Cthulhu is, after all, fiction. But there are things in the world just as evil and–to us as individuals–just as deadly as Cthulhu.

Better to have some experience of such evils in a simulator than to face them cold.

GET THE STORIES.