Monthly Archives: May 2005

May162005

The Last Voyage of the Starship Enterprise

As I’ve said before, I was never a fan of Enterprise, the fifth and most-likely final televised incarnation of the venerable Star Trek media franchise. I didn’t hate it. It just wasn’t my cup of “tea, earl grey, hot.” I watched three or four episodes when it premiered, saw that it looked like more of the tired old same, and decided to spend my valuable TV-viewing time on other things. A couple of friends who stuck with it say I really missed out on something good, that the show picked up in subsequent years and that, as an old-school Trekkie, I would’ve liked the homage-heavy final season. Maybe they’re right. But I’ll never know, because I couldn’t break through my indifference long enough to give the show a second chance.

Nevertheless, I was somewhat curious about the series finale that aired last Friday. Not curious enough to watch it, apparently, because I forgot it was on, but I have wanted to know how the Trek franchise was going to end after so many years. (Yes, I do believe it’s over, regardless of what the misguided optimists say about a new Star Trek series debuting after a “rest period.” It’s a beautiful dream, you crazy kids, god love ya. If it happens, I owe all of you a Coke.) Luckily, there’s plenty of commentary about the finale floating around the blogosphere today, so I’ve been able to get a pretty good sense of how it all went down, both pro and con.

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May162005

What Kind of Key Am I? What Kind of Question Is That?

It’s been a wild day here at the Bennion Compound — there’s a storm approaching, and high winds have been causing havoc with the electricity all afternoon. The power lines across the street keep brushing together, which results in a cool sound-and-light show but also leaves me sitting in front of a dead monitor and feeling frustrated because I’ve just lost another half-finished blog entry. (I’ve had three attempts at an entry vanish into the ether today, thanks to that damned wind! Must… buy… a UPS!) Things seem to be quieting down now — which means the rain should begin anytime — so hopefully I can reconstruct my work from earlier without any further problems.

While I work on that little task, though, I thought I’d leave you with something to look at. I see that my LiveJournalling friend Jen has recently taken one of those weird on-line quizzes that purport to tell you which animal/character/intangible concept/inanimate object you would be if only you were an animal/character/intangible concept/inanimate object. I don’t entirely see the point of these quizzes — under what circumstances would I ever become an intangible concept or an inanimate object? — but they’re fun timekillers, and it’s a fast way to come up with something to post. So, without further ado, here are my results to the question “What sort of key are you?”:

stone key
You are a stone key, and you unlock old and magical
secrets. What you have to offer is powerful and
difficult for many to understand, but
invaluable to the few who can truly grasp it.
Give the things you have carefully and
wisely, because not everyone will use them for
good.

What sort of key are you and what do you unlock?
brought to you by Quizilla

Hope that provided you with some kind of insight into my character. If it did, would you mind explaining how? Not to mention, what that insight may have been? Thanks.

I’ll be back with at least one more post later this evening, assuming the lights stay on…

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May152005

Another Voice in the Dark

After a year and an odd number of months spent watching me spew my thoughts into the void and argue with total strangers about nothing, my friend Mike Chenoweth — a name you may recognize from his frequent comments here on Simple Tricks — has decided he wants his own little piece of the blogging action.

Mike’s got a very different perspective from my own; we’ve occasionally had some real knock-down-drag-outs over various issues. But he’s been a good friend for a long time, and he’s got a good head on his shoulders. I look forward to seeing what’s on his mind…

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May142005

It’s Like We’re Living in the Future!

I’m sure it won’t surprise anyone to know that I’ve already got my tickets for Revenge of the Sith:

Tickets from the future? But how?

I would like you to note that even though I’ll be seeing the movie on opening day, I’m not attending the very first midnight screening, or a wee-hours-of-the-morning screening, or even a matinee. I’m going to an evening show like a civilized human being. It’s not that I’ve gotten too old to do the midnight shows; I just choose not to in this instance. Because I’m not that much of a fanboy. I can be patient, just like any other grown-up who has a real life and who doesn’t think that a most-likely inferior prequel to a movie he saw almost thirty years ago is some kind of highlight of the whole frakkin’ year.

Besides, all the midnight shows were already sold out.

Incidentally, I would like to briefly note how amazing it is to me that you can order movie tickets a week in advance over the Internet, then walk into the lobby of your local Megaplex, stick a credit card into a machine, and watch the machine automatically print out your tickets for you without you having to do another thing. I remember when I was working at a theater a little over a decade ago and we thought same-day, in-person advance ticket sales were pretty cutting edge. This, however… this is real “twenty minutes into the future” kind of stuff, kids.

Now, if only somebody would get to work on those flying cars. Or even just levitating cars, like Luke Skywalker’s landspeeder. I could really get into driving a landspeeder. Or better yet, one of those snazzy speeder bikes from Return of the Jedi. Yeah, there we go…

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May132005

Junger on Adventure

I’m not one to go rock-climbing or bungee-jumping, but I have nevertheless longed, from time to time, for a taste of adventure in my largely unexciting suburban life. I therefore found the following comments on the subject most interesting:

Modern society, of course, has perfected the art of having nothing happen at all. There is nothing particularly wrong with this except that for vast numbers of Americans, as life has become staggeringly easy, it has also become vaguely unfulfilling. Life in modern society is designed to eliminate as many unforseen events as possible, and as inviting as that seems, it leaves us hopelessly underutilized. And that is where the idea of “adventure” comes in. The word comes from the Latin adventura, meaning “what must happen.” An adventure is a situation where the outcome is not entirely within your control. It’s up to fate, in other words. It should be pointed out that people whose lives are inherently dangerous, like coal miners or steelworkers, rarely seek “adventure.” Like most things, danger ceases to be interesting as soon as you have no choice in the matter. For the rest of us, threats to our safety and comfort have been so completely wiped out that we have to go out of our way to create them.

–Sebastian Junger, “Colter’s Way” in the collection Fire

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May122005

A Wallet Full of Bread Cards

I was seven years old in the summer of 1977, the prime age of susceptibility to a story featuring young, swashbuckling heroes, strange-looking creatures, and scary — but not too scary — villains. (See also Potter, Harry, modern kids and.) I’m sure I must’ve seen a few movies on the big screen before then — I vaguely recall a couple of early-70s live-action Disney films about people in really bad polyester knits — but the first truly memorable film I saw in a theater…
Wait. Stop.

I’m not going to continue with that thought. My experience of seeing Star Wars for the first time couldn’t have been much different than a lot of other people’s. We were all kids, we’d never seen anything like it, we stood in lines that went around the block (literally, in my case — I saw the film at the long-lost Centre Theatre in Salt Lake; there was no lobby to speak of, and the only place to queue up was outside, on the street), big spectacle, big excitement, tiny little brains melting, lifelong obsessions forming, blah blah blah.

We were all there, weren’t we? And those of you who weren’t have probably heard about it from someone who was. It was the defining communal experience of our generation, at least until the towers fell.

But here’s the thing that was unique about my personal experience: I didn’t actually want to see Star Wars. I had no interest in it whatsoever, and, in fact, I remember being frightened of it. I don’t recall why, but something in the TV ads gave me a major case of the willies.

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May102005

Gaiman on Punk

I’m not a big fan of punk music, which was always too unrelentingly angry and anti-everything for my tastes. But I did find Sandman writer Neil Gaiman’s recent comments on the subject interesting, and even inspirational:

I think that the punk ethos of you don’t need anything, you just need to do it and figure out what you’re doing as you go, has probably informed everything I’ve done since [the punk movement]. It seemed a pretty sensible and refreshing idea at the time. Likewise the idea that you ought to be enjoying what you’re doing and be doing it because you think it’s cool and fun. The idea that mistakes are part of what make things interesting, and it’s probably wisest to get it right and move on and not spend the rest of your life polishing it.

 

(It also left me with the idea that a black leather jacket was an appropriate sartorial item in any possible context.)

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May102005

The Myth, The Man, John Pecorelli

I’ve received another e-mail from someone who is acquainted with John Pecorelli, the journalist I recently compared to the late Hunter S. Thompson. Her message paints a colorful picture of what the U of U’s resident gonzo, a guy I knew only by reputation and my own assumptions, has been up to in recent years. I’m going to reprint this message in full below the fold for anyone who may be interested. Sensitive readers be warned, though; there is some naughty language toward the end.

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May102005

Yeah, But Will I Like It?

The Sith reviews, both professional and otherwise, are starting to trickle in, and, so far, they’re generally positive. Just about every one I’ve read takes the obligatory potshot at Uncle George’s less-than-stellar dialogue-writing abilities, but the emerging consensus is that ROTS is the best of the prequel trilogy — a dubious distinction, I’ll concede, but hey, you take what you can get. A few reviewers are even enthusiastic enough to rank it alongside the original Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back as the best of the entire saga.

That’s good to hear. Because of those reviews, I am finally beginning to relax a little. There’s never been any question that I would see this movie regardless of the reviews, nor have I worried about whether everyone else in the theater hates it except me. I figure I’ve been in the position of defending the indefensible plenty of times before, so what’s one more battle? But I have worried that maybe I wouldn’t like Revenge of the Sith. And I really, really want to like this one.

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May082005

Happy Mother’s Day

My mom is out of town this weekend, so no fancy brunches or breakfast in bed for her today. I’d still like to do something special for her, though, so I thought maybe I’d give her a little taste of immortality, in blog form, by relating a few anecdotes that may illustrate her innate coolness.

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