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Tik Tok, Star Trek Version
Aug. 15th, 2020 06:37 pmThis has been making the rounds over at Tumblr. I thought El Jay could use a giggle as well, and this is definitely LOL-worthy.
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Take Me Out to the Holosuite
Jan. 27th, 2020 07:49 pmKobe Bryant's death is in all the news today. Since I'm not a big sports fan I'm really not feeling it beyond sadness at such a young, unexpected death, but it does have me thinking about other celebrity deaths that affected me deeply. I think we really can mourn celebrities without knowing them personally, because we still relate to them and they still mean something in our lives even if it's only in one direction.
It has me thinking about Rene Auberjonois, the actor who played Odo on DS9 and who died last month. He was a huge role-model for me as a teenager. Something about him being so thoroughly an outsider but accepted for all that, and also the way he had this exploitable genius but was still allowed to mess up and have that be recognized. I connected with him the way a lot of fans did with Carrie Fisher or Leonard Nimoy. So yeah, I felt gut-punched for several days and still think a lot about that particular death. I'm not sure I grieve him but it certainly impacted me.
Anywho. I've been rewatching DS9 off and on over the last several months, and I'm finally to "Take Me Out to the Holosuite," where Benjamin leads the gang from DS9 in a baseball game against some visiting Vulcans. It's just so funny because most of the characters don't know the first thing about baseball. So really, this is just a long way of my saying if you haven't seen Odo as an umpire, you're missing out on some of the best bits of life.
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And because I also learned Auberjonois played the chef in Little Mermaid (just tonight when I was searching how to spell his name), I am now contractually obligated to share that song as well. Bonappetit ecoute!
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It has me thinking about Rene Auberjonois, the actor who played Odo on DS9 and who died last month. He was a huge role-model for me as a teenager. Something about him being so thoroughly an outsider but accepted for all that, and also the way he had this exploitable genius but was still allowed to mess up and have that be recognized. I connected with him the way a lot of fans did with Carrie Fisher or Leonard Nimoy. So yeah, I felt gut-punched for several days and still think a lot about that particular death. I'm not sure I grieve him but it certainly impacted me.
Anywho. I've been rewatching DS9 off and on over the last several months, and I'm finally to "Take Me Out to the Holosuite," where Benjamin leads the gang from DS9 in a baseball game against some visiting Vulcans. It's just so funny because most of the characters don't know the first thing about baseball. So really, this is just a long way of my saying if you haven't seen Odo as an umpire, you're missing out on some of the best bits of life.
( Read more... )
And because I also learned Auberjonois played the chef in Little Mermaid (just tonight when I was searching how to spell his name), I am now contractually obligated to share that song as well. Bon
( Read more... )
(no subject)
Sep. 23rd, 2016 12:57 amI watched “The Menagerie” for the first time ever last night (the two-parter where Captain Pike returns to Talos IV after being horribly maimed), and it struck me how interesting it would be to use it to teach Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Plato’s idea is that humans in their natural state are like prisoners in a dank, dark cave seeing shadows cast against a wall, the palest reflection of things-as-they-are. It’s all we can know in that condition so it seems “real” to us but if we’re ever freed from our captivity and make our way out of the cave (Plato describes us as being dragged out by others, against our will), once our eyes adjust we’ll see reality (or at least something closer) we would never choose to go back - except to liberate other folks still trapped in the cave.
The basic idea is that reality or truth is better than illusion. Which seems to close to what "Menagerie” is about at the end of the day - no human would choose the illusion, or should, no matter how pleasant. But that’s where it gets mucky, because in “Menagerie,” they put it explicitly in terms of pleasure. Delusion is tied to captivity pretty closely, and humans are hard-wired to dislike that so intensely, even a very comfortable captivity would be so unpleasant for them, they’d rather die. We choose reality not because it’s better but because we’re somehow hardwired to find it more pleasant.
Which isn’t Plato’s point at all, I don’t think. Maybe the people in the cave are happier than the people out of it, even after they’ve adjusted; they’re still worse off. But how the heck do you make that point - what possible way do we have to compare experiences beyond what’s pleasant to us, what we’d choose? And how do you get a fair comparison? The only people capable of comparing are the ones who know they’ve been deceived, which has to sour how pleasant they find life in the menagerie. The fact we can’t imagine a story that breaks this goodness == pleasantness barrier is a pretty damning criticism to my mind.
*****
Also loved the female first officer in the flashbacks. Didn’t I hear somewhere that Roddenberry wanted to go that route for the main series but the studios nixed hr being a woman and we got Spock instead? There's something ironic there: take away that progressive route, and we get (1) a two-parter starring her anyway, and (2) a biracial character who (3) gave us so much queer subtext the fandom and society at large is still wrestling with it in some fashion or another. The moral arc of the universe is slow, etc.
Though I must say, the way they dealt with ugliness and disability? Kind of turned my stomach. Suppose you can't have it all at once..
The basic idea is that reality or truth is better than illusion. Which seems to close to what "Menagerie” is about at the end of the day - no human would choose the illusion, or should, no matter how pleasant. But that’s where it gets mucky, because in “Menagerie,” they put it explicitly in terms of pleasure. Delusion is tied to captivity pretty closely, and humans are hard-wired to dislike that so intensely, even a very comfortable captivity would be so unpleasant for them, they’d rather die. We choose reality not because it’s better but because we’re somehow hardwired to find it more pleasant.
Which isn’t Plato’s point at all, I don’t think. Maybe the people in the cave are happier than the people out of it, even after they’ve adjusted; they’re still worse off. But how the heck do you make that point - what possible way do we have to compare experiences beyond what’s pleasant to us, what we’d choose? And how do you get a fair comparison? The only people capable of comparing are the ones who know they’ve been deceived, which has to sour how pleasant they find life in the menagerie. The fact we can’t imagine a story that breaks this goodness == pleasantness barrier is a pretty damning criticism to my mind.
*****
Also loved the female first officer in the flashbacks. Didn’t I hear somewhere that Roddenberry wanted to go that route for the main series but the studios nixed hr being a woman and we got Spock instead? There's something ironic there: take away that progressive route, and we get (1) a two-parter starring her anyway, and (2) a biracial character who (3) gave us so much queer subtext the fandom and society at large is still wrestling with it in some fashion or another. The moral arc of the universe is slow, etc.
Though I must say, the way they dealt with ugliness and disability? Kind of turned my stomach. Suppose you can't have it all at once..
(no subject)
Aug. 27th, 2014 09:40 pmFor some reason I decided to start watching the original Star Trek series tonight. I've never seen it, at least not to my knowledge. As far as opening episodes go "The Man Trap" is quite good, but goodness, some of the scenes are overdone. There was this one near the end where McCoy is being attacked by an alien, Spock is trying to fight her off, and McCoy (for reasons I can't go into for spoilers) was just standing there not reacting, and it was the worst fake-fighting I've ever seen. Followed by the worst overdrawn angst.
It was awful, but gloriously so. Clicking next episode in 3, 2....
It was awful, but gloriously so. Clicking next episode in 3, 2....
Today I went looking for something to share for First Contact day and came across this gem. Leonard Nimoy discussing the Jewish roots of the V hand gesture.
a day in the life
Jul. 6th, 2011 05:25 pmVarious snippets from my life these days...
- I'm turning twenty-nine on Tuesday. I keep thinking I should feel old, only I don't. I was all excited about the Harry Potter movie, and then I realized it's the same weekend as a Winnie the Pooh movie, and I was seriously torn between where to spend my movie dollars. It's a good thing we're only as old as we feel, I guess!
- I can has new shoes! The FB crowd already saw this, but I have been complaining about my feet lately. I just started teaching summer school which means three hours on my feet at a go. The new shoes - Dr. Scholls men's dress shoes - felt like a dream on the walk home. Even up the stairs, which is usually a trial and a half.
- Being on your feet physically is one thing. Being on your feet mentally - as in, having to do the energy-intensive work of directing class discussion at the same time as motivating also-exhausted students for three hours on a stretch - is another thing entirely. I can't remember being so drained in a long, long time. At least since I started teaching - and, really, that's what I'm growing through. The pangs of adjusting to a different teaching mechanism. I'm really enjoying the experience, but boy is it tiring!
- Some texts are not made for the summer-school format. Or maybe they just aren't made to be taught by me. I'm thinking of a specific Plato excerpt that is usually on your standard Philosophy 101 syllabus - but whenever I try to teach it I get the feeling that I am begging my students to indulge me on this because this is one of those things they Just Need to Know to be a well-educated person, like how to calculate a derivative or the meaning of hamlet's "What a work of man" speech. Only it's not. When I read it, it is meaningful but also beautiful - Socrates's thoughts on light and truth often literally reduce me to tears. When I teach it, though? Not so much.
- Dropbox is cool, but I'm beginning to think that Google Documents with its new Cloud Connect feature is even cooler. Essentially you can upload a file to Google Docs from within Word or Excel, which can then be shared with anyone, or anyone with a google account. It even saves the file rather than converting it to a Google format. Much better version control than an online file-sharing tool like DropBox, too.
- I recently saw the TNG episode "Data's Day" for the first time. It has a wonderful mix of the earth-shattering and the personal that all felt very, very real. I loved it - up until the end. Because, Keiko's wedding dress? Blech and double blech.
There are other things going on, but at the moment that's all that's really shareable.
